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Author's Note:

An family emergency had delayed this chapter. Fortunately, everything will be alright with some changes at home. This Chapter isn't as long as I wanted, but it'll do for now.

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Disclaimer: This following FanFiction story is a fan-based parody. "Mario" and all of its respectable characters are all owned by Nintendo and created by video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Please enjoy; favorite and review whenever you want.

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Chapter 74:
The Next Level

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Knocking on his door had stirred Luigi awake the next morning. Moaning slightly, he opened his eyes slowly. Blinking sleepy, he glanced around the room. His blues eyes laying on the clock on the night stand.

'Uh, it's 2:30…Who the hell would be at the door at this time?' said the obviously cranky Mr. L.

"I don't know," He yawned, stretching his tired limps.

'Ah, even the sun isn't up yet,'

There was another series of knocks. His bedmate groaned in annoyance and shifted on her side of the bed, "Get the door,"

With a small sigh, he started climbing out of bed. He sleepily put on his robe and headed for the door. When he opened it, he saw a dark pink Solo Toady, one of Kamek's followers. He knew this Toady personally.

"Akila? What are you doing here?" He asked.

"Master Kamek wishes to see you," She told them.

"What...Now? At this time of the day?"

"He said it was important."

The plumber sighed tiredly before responding. "Alright, I'm be there as soon as I can,"

She nodded and turned to leave. Luigi retreated back inside his room. He got dress a bit slower than usual but once he was done, he started his way towards Kamek's office.

At this early in the morning, barely anyone was up. The nighttime shift wasn't over for another four hours or so; same goes for the castle staff. As he walked, he noticed two goombas walking in the opposite direction. He recognized the two Goombas to be Gary and his friend, Greg.

"Ah man, I'm completely wiped out," yawned Gary. "I can't wait until this shift is over,"

"Yeah, me too," said Greg "I almost wish I didn't take part in the party yesterday…almost."

"You got to admit, for a koopa, that Kelly girl is kind of cute," Gary smirked.

"Oh morning Mustache,"

"Good morning," Luigi greeted them as they passed by each other.

"Well, he's up early," He heard one of them said.

"Yeah, you think after him and Wendy moved the party to the bedroom, he'll be sleeping in,"

Luigi's face heated up in embarrassment. Iggy and Lemmy's party turned more lively thanks to Kelly. The pink Parakoopa seem to have some experience for these sorts of things. During all the commotion, he had thought no one had noticed that he and Wendy had slip away.

'Well, they're not wrong,'

"Shut it, L,"

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~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~

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Pompey gasped heavy as she tries to regain some lost oxygen in her body. She was completely exhausted, but she didn't spent these last several months training under Kamella just to give up now. The female Magikoopa was expecting much from her and she planned on go beyond her expectation.

Footsteps got her attention. She glanced up to see fifteen strange shadow figures standing across from her. From their outline, they appeared to be Koopa Troopa but that was all she could make out from them, except from their glowing red eyes.

'Shadowlings'…That's what Kamella called them; shadow underling, which fits them perfectly.

Suddenly, three of lunged at her. She growled and quickly dodged the attack. She pulled out her boomerangs and tossed them. Upon contact, the Shadowlings burst into a shadowy mist and disappeared into the air.

Six others came in its place and started to attack her. Pompey retreated into her shell and started spinning. She hovered in her hard shell before smashing each of them. They disappeared like the first one and Pompey came out of her shell.

Looking over, she saw that she had six Shadowlings left to deal with. She growled and performed a hand gesture. She disappeared into a cloud of pink smoke.

The smoke split into three and surrounded the remaining Shadowlings. She reappears with a horde of clones. Pompey and her clones hurled multiple large shurikens, easily defeating the six Shadowlings.

Pompey fell down on one knee, breathing heavily. She knew didn't have much time before to recover before the next round of Shadowlings appears so every second counts.

"Water?"

Pompey jumped out of fright. She quickly got back up on her feet and took out her boomerang only to pause before she could throw it.

"Oops, my apologies; I didn't mean to frighten you,"

The Lady of the castle stood before her carrying a tray of water and snacks. Pompey calmed down and placed her boomerang away.

"Its fine, Lady Clawdia," She quickly remembered to bow, out of respect to the Lady.

Clawdia smiled softly. "You've been training so hard, why don't you take a break?"

"I appreciate it, Lady Clawdia, but I can't. Mistress Kamella..."

"I have already spoken with her," She interrupted gently. "She's allowing a fifteen minute break,"

She gestured the tray and kindly waited for Pompey to take it. The black-haired PomPom looked down at the tray before glancing up the large Koopa before her. Lady Clawdia's smile was warm and welcoming and her eyes… They weren't the cold, unreadable yellow like they were the other day. Instead, they were welcoming, loving, motherly blue like the night she first met her.

"Is something wrong?" Clawdia's worried filled voice snapped Pompey out of her thoughts. She didn't realize she had been staring.

"Uh, n-no, nothing's wrong," She took the glass of water. "Thank you, Lady Clawdia,"

As Pompey took her break, she was unaware that the two were being watched. Hidden within the shadows was Kamella. With her in hiding was none other than Lord Clawd himself.

"She's improving..."

"I see," said Clawd. "Does she show some promise?"

"She does," Kamella commented. "However, it will be some time before she could be useful to us,"

"Hmm,"

"But she is young; she'll have plenty of time to enhance her skills."

Clawd remained silent. His yellow eyes, which were unusually dull, were on his niece who was checking the PomPom over for any injuries. Kamella continues with her report.

"I also think she'll make a nice addition as one of the Lady's...private company. Once she's properly trained of course,"

"Your opinion is noted; however," Clawd said, turning to leave. "...it is her you should talk to about that."

"Of course..." The magenta Magikoopa smirked. "In that case, I should continue the progress as planned,"

"Very well then,"

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When he got to Kamek's office, he entered inside and started looking for the head Magikoopa. He spotted him in the workshop area. The sound of the main door opening didn't seem to alert the magikoopa of his presence. The green man walked in further, taking notice of the large sheet of blue paper Kamek was looking through.

'Uhm, what's he looking at?' Luigi thought.

'Looks like blue prints for an airship,' Mr. L said. 'Ooh, are those laser cannons?'

'Let's ask him,'

"Good morning, Master Kamek," he said as he announced his arrival.

"Good morning," The magikoopa greeted him without looking. "I hope you're not about the early morning messenger,"

'No, of course not; I love to wake up at two – thirty in the morning,'

Luigi shrugged. "I'll get over it." He stood next to him. "Are you working on something?"

"Yes; the King wanted a new airship to replace the one that was destroyed." He answered. "Now, I already made some new improvements based off the blue prints from last one but I feel it's still missing something."

"Missing something uh?" Luigi said as he looks through the blueprints.

The picture looked like the airship from before, only with some noticeable changes. Reading the measurements, it's going to be bigger than the last one with some additional cannons and more powerful engines. Mr. L looked through the whole thing with great interest; it reminded him of when he was building Brobot.

'Wow, Kamek really went all out,'

'Well, knowing Bowser, he probably has to,'

"Still…A ship this size is going to be a huge target in the sky, especially since it's the command ship. It's going to need something to protect itself from any attack."

"Like a force field," Luigi said, not realizing he had said it out loud.

"A force field," Kamek thought. "Yes, that would be beneficial. But force field require a lot of energy and with the size of the ship, it will need tons of it… too much to keep the ship functioning."

"True...But that won't happen if the force field has its own engine, right?"

'You see, now you're thinking with your head,'

"No, it won't," Kamek confirmed. "Separating them would work but instead of using engines, we'll need to use a different power source."

"Oh!" Mr. L jumped. "How about a power star? Luigi, say power star,"

The green man rolled his eyes but said it nevertheless. "Like a power star,"

"Hmm, that would work but power stars are limited,"

"Good point,"

"Well, a solution will come up eventually," Kamek said. "For now, let's focus on the task at hand."

"Right..." Luigi turned to him. "You wanted to see me?"

"I did...I recently got your test scores from Kammy; you've done well"

"Well, I try,"

"Indeed you did. And because of that appraise, I have decided to teach you some more advance magic,"

"Advance?" The plumber questioned. "Isn't that too soon? I mean, I'm still just a beginner,"

"Perhaps...But I have faith you'll be able to handle it. You are the wielder of the Thunderhand, are you not?"

"Well, yeah… but what does that have to do with anything?"

Kamek explained. "As you already know, the Thunderhand is a unique technique taught by the Thunder God himself. Not many are able to learn his powerful technique. However, there are some electric magic spells that can enhance or become enhance by using say ability."

"Really? I had no idea," Luigi said with interest. "So, if Mario were to learn magic too, would his Firebrand be able to improve fire type spells?"

"It should; you two are more or less the similar so it's most likely he still has the Firebrand ability within him as well. Although..." Kamek paused for a second in thought. "...Now that he's King and the Mushroom Kingdom is in a relatively stable state of peace, he has no real purpose to relearn the ability and resume using it,"

"Yeah, I guess not," He said with slight disappointment.

"You, on the other hand, do have a motive continue learning and developing your own abilities to make it stronger...that is if you're willing?"

Luigi was silent for a moment. He glanced down at his glove hand; a small spark ran through it as he activated his Thunderhand. He clenched it into a tight fist and looked up at the Magikoopa with a determined look.

"I'll get my wand,"

"No need..." He turned and started walking towards the spell casting area. Luigi followed. "The spell I'm about to teach you needs no wand; just high levels of disciplined, practice and concentration. All of which you'll learn in due time"

He paused and turned back to his apprentice. "While it's not an electric type, it's still a powerful spell that could come in handy in the future."

"That's fine; I plan on mastering every spell you can teach me,"

Kamek smiled. "In that case, we'll begin today"

He turned around to the bookstand where a large book was stationed. It was Kamek's personal spell book – the old koopa himself started writing this manuscript during the beginning of his Magikoopa career. He gestured Luigi to come closer which he did.

"You don't necessary need to master this spell as of now; however, the text it holds is quite old."

He opened the book and turned towards the page he was talking about, having already labeling it with a bookmark. Luigi took a step closer to get a better look.

Strange...compared to the other pages, this one was old and wrinkled, yet it fits inside the book like it was always been there. Inscribed on it was a form of bizarre letters or symbols he had never seen before.

"If you can learn to read and speak this old language, than you already given yourself a major head start,"

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"Kamella sees promise in you,"

The PomPom glanced at the Koopa by her side and signed. "Good, I didn't endure months of her hellish training not to get anything in return."

"She means well." Lady Clawdia smiles softly. She was treating Pompey's injuries. From the angle she was sitting, Pompey can only see blond bangs shielding over the Lady's eyes.

"She only expects the best out of everyone. And when it comes to me, only the best of the best are allowed within my… private grouping,"

"Private grouping?" Pompey questioned in confusion. "What do you mean by that?"

Clawdia didn't respond right away. Pompey started to get an off feeling from her, like something was changing. When she was done, Clawdia turned her glance on her. Pompey tensed when she saw that the motherly blue eyes were indeed the harsh yellow.

"If you prove yourself worthy, then you might find out yourself," She told her.

Pompey kept silent as the Lady gathered her things and left without another word. Pompey sat there, completely confused on what she just saw. She wasn't imagining things…that she was sure of now.

"There is something not right about her," she mumbled a bit too loudly.

"Perhaps,"

She gasped at the voice behind. She quickly jumped to her feet and turned. Kamella was standing there now, waiting for her.

"Mistress Kamella..."

"I hope you enjoyed your break," The Magikoopa said. "It will be a while before the next one."

"O-Of course..." Pompey said, trying to hide the weary annoyance in her voice.

Kamella pretend not to notice. "We're resume where we left off,"

She snapped her fingers and over fifty Shadowlings appeared. Pompey stepped back, completely surprise by the large number of them. Kamella, however, was amused by her expression.

"Oh, and by the way," She smirked. "The hellish training...begins now,"

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No Ending Note:

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