Gruber began to feel like everything was running smoothly. At least, until the end of the fifth mini game. Just as the coins were dealt out, a strange moaning sound came from the watermelon. And it was definitely hard to ignore, because Peach, Mario, and Toadette were all standing on it.
"What in the world is that?!" Peach asked.
"I told you," Gruber said, as another moan was heard. "It's just fruit flies!"
"I've never heard fruit flies moan like that before," Peach said. "Matter of fact, I've never heard fruit flies moan, period!"
"They . . . . uhhh . . . . they probably just ate too much of this watermelon," Gruber said.
"This isn't even a real watermelon," Mario pointed out.
"Well, see?" Gruber said. "No wonder they've got a belly ache! Heh, heh, heh. Ehhhhh . . . ."
"I think there's something inside that watermelon," Daisy said. "I highly doubt it's fruit flies making moaning noises like that!"
"You may be right," Gruber said. "And out of the goodness of my heart, I'll go check out what it is! After all, we wouldn't want you pretty princesses to break your perfectly manicured little nails, now would we? Ah hah hah hah!"
With that, Gruber zoomed off the board, and ran around to the back of the island.
"What's the matter now?!" he demanded.
"I knew we shouldn't have given him that mushroom," Kamek said. "It only knocked him out for a little while, and now that he's awake, he's feeling the effects of it! He'll probably be moaning like that for the rest of the day."
"We gotta shut him up somehow . . . . . give him another Black Widow."
"What?!"
"You heard me! Give him another Black Widow!"
"You gotta be kidding me! One Black Widow is bad enough, but if you give him two . . . . that's likely to kill him!"
"I knooooowwwww . . . ."
Kamek began to get nervous at the sneaky, sinister smile on Gruber's face. He looked at the second Black Widow Mushroom in his hand, but he was a bit hesitant to do anything with it.
"I'm not so sure about this . . . ." he said. "Couldn't I just crack him over the head with my wand or something?"
"No! You give him that mushroom! It has to be the mushroom!"
"But why?"
"He deserves it! He tried to come between me and my little honey-wunny-bumpy-wumpy-pumpy-umpy-umpkins!"
"Seriously? I think you've just gone off the deep end, fella."
"Never mind! Just get in there, and give. Him. That. Mushroom!"
"Okay, it's your funeral."
Kamek shrugged, and opened the watermelon's door. Gruber followed him inside, to make sure he did the job. They found Luigi curled up on the floor, moaning and writhing in pain. His stomach was killing him, and he had one heck of a headache. His face was flushed with fever, and he was sweating profusely. Kamek approached him, and removed the gag from Luigi's mouth. Luigi looked up at Kamek, breathing heavily. His eyes were watering, and glassy looking. He was too weak to yell for help.
"P-please," he begged. "Please . . . . let me go . . . ."
"Shut up!" Gruber growled, kicking Luigi in the stomach. Luigi cringed, and moaned in pain. It was bad enough his stomach hurt from being force fed a deadly mushroom, now he had to put up with this.
"You'll pay for trying to steal my girl, Green Stache!" Gruber shouted.
"But I'm not trying to steal your girl!" Luigi protested. "We're just friends! Besides, Toadette isn't even your girl to begin with!"
"Shut up!" Gruber kicked Luigi in the stomach for a second time. Luigi couldn't stand much more of this.
"Toadette is mine, and mine alone!" Gruber shouted. "I will have her all to myself, even if I have to kidnap her to do it! I'm going to whisk her away to a place far from here . . . . far, far away, where nobody will ever find us, and we will live happily ever after! Kamek! Give him the mushroom!"
"N-n-no . . . . please . . . ." Luigi begged, almost in tears. "I'm begging you . . . . no . . . ."
Kamek bit his lower lip, trying to decide what he should do next. The Mario Bros. were not two of his favorite people in the world, but after seeing the state Luigi was in, he just couldn't bring himself to administer another deadly mushroom to the plumber.
"I can't do it," he sighed. "Why don't you do your own dirty work?"
"Because I don't have hands, stupid!" Gruber shouted. "I couldn't give him that mushroom if I wanted to! And I do want to! So give it to him, or else you won't get paid!"
"No! Not even Lord Bowser would go this far! If memory serves, he's banned Black Widow Mushrooms in his kingdom, too, and anyone caught using them . . . ."
"Do it, or I'll tell Lord Bowser about this! And I'll tell him it was your idea, too!"
Kamek gulped, and pulled Luigi into a sitting position. Then he took the Black Widow Mushroom, opened Luigi's mouth by applying pressure to his jaw, put the mushroom in, and closed the plumber's mouth. He also covered Luigi's mouth to make sure the Black Widow would stay in. He would have liked to let Luigi spit it back out, but Gruber was watching him like a hawk. Luigi tried to fight against it, but he was much too weak to do much, except chew and swallow the mushroom. Immediately, the room began spinning, and his stomach felt like it was going to explode. With a long, pitiful sounding moan, he passed out.
"Good," Gruber said. "That should do it. But gag him anyway, just in case he wakes up again before the poison kicks in."
"Fine," Kamek said, tying the gag back over Luigi's mouth. "But from here on out, you're doing your own dirty work!"
"Fine with me. I don't need you anymore, anyway. Once the game is over, I'm taking my little tutti-frutti-cutie-patootie to Greenwood Forest. Nobody will ever find us there! Not even Mario!"
Kamek snatched the bag of coins Gruber had brought with him, checked it to make sure there weren't any Black Widow Mushrooms in it, then jumped on his broom, and flew off, heading back to Bowser's castle. Gruber didn't care one way or another. He just kicked the door shut with his foot, and went back to the game board.
"What took so long?" Daisy asked.
"I had to use the little Goomba's room," Gruber said, shrugging. "You know how it is when you have a couple of seven bean burritos for lunch!"
"Yeah, unfortunately we do," Toad said. "Especially if Wario's around."
"What turn are we on?" Gruber asked.
"Seventh," Toad said. "We're in the homestretch."
"I'm getting a bad feeling all of a sudden," Mario said, a bit nervously.
"I wouldn't worry," Daisy said. "Peach is still in the lead. What's the worst that could happen if that Goomba wins?"
"This isn't about the game, Daisy," Mario said. "I just got this icky feeling in the pit of my stomach . . . . Goomba, where is Luigi?"
"I told you already," Gruber said. "He's all tied up at the moment. Heh, heh, heh."
"I really don't like the way you said that, Goomba," Mario said.
"Come on, you guys!" Toadette shouted. "Let's just finish the game so we can get rid of this Goomba!"
Gruber just looked at Toadette, and smiled at her.
"You know you love me," he said. "Why fight it?Embrace it, and come give your li'l sugar-lumpy-lumpkins a great big ol' smoochy smooch!"
"Ew, gross!" Toadette grimaced.
"All right, that's enough," Peach said. "Let's continue this game."
"So who wants to go continue?" Gruber asked, inching closer to Toadette. "I don't have enough coins for a star, and I'm right where I wanna be."
Gruber growled a bit at Toadette, waving his eyebrows up and down, and giving her a sneaky look. He began nuzzling up to her, and no matter how hard Toadette tried to push him away, the Goomba kept cuddling up.
"Ooooohhhh . . . ." Toadette moaned. "I think I need an adult . . . ."
"I am an adult," Gruber said, sneakily.
"MARIOOOOOOO!" Toadette shrieked. Immediately, Mario ran over, jumping on top of Gruber, and flattening him.
"Knock it off, Goomba!" he shouted. "Or else I'm gonna do something worse than just stomp on you!"
"Right," Gruber said in a strained voice, immediately backing away from Toadette.
Gruber popped back into his original position, and the group continued the game. However, it wasn't going to last much longer. At the beginning of the final turn, Luigi began to regain consciousness again, but he wasn't sure how long he was going to be able to remain that way. He could barely move, but he knew he had to try to get Mario's attention one more time. He knew his brother was above him on the watermelon's surface. He could hear him yelling at the Goomba. With all the strength he had left, Luigi thrust his legs behind him, and kicked at the wall as hard as he could. Mario and the others heard it, and they were positive it wasn't fruit flies making that noise.
"Okay, that does it," Mario said. "There's something underneath this watermelon, and I'm gonna find out what it is! Peach, Daisy, help me move this fruit bowl out of the way. We're gonna take apart the platform and see what's underneath."
"Right," Daisy said. She, Peach, and Mario removed the bowl of fruit, and began taking apart the plateau of the watermelon.
"You're just wasting your time!" Gruber shouted. "There's nothing under there!"
"Why are you so adamant about this watermelon, anyway?" Daisy asked. "You've been trying to keep us from checking out these weird noises coming from this thing all day!"
"Maybe he knows what's in there and doesn't want us to know," Toad said.
"Come on," Mario said. "Let's keep going."
Mario, Peach, and Daisy pried the last part of the plateau off the board, and looked inside the hollow shell. There they found Luigi, bound and gagged, and looking like death warmed over. Peach gasped, and covered her mouth with her hands. Daisy's eyes nearly popped out of her head, and her jaw nearly hit the floor. Luigi looked up at his friends, and moaned pitifully.
"LUIGI!" Mario shrieked.
Mario and the two princesses immediately jumped into the shell, and untied Luigi. They tried to get him to his feet, but he didn't have any strength left to stand. Peach and Daisy laid him flat on his back for the moment. Peach took her handkerchief and began wiping the sweat off his forehead.
"Mario!" she gasped. "He's burning up!"
"His breathing doesn't sound too good, either," Daisy said, nervously.
"What happened, bro?" Mario asked. "Who did this to you?"
"The . . . . the Goomba," Luigi said, with as much strength as he could muster, which wasn't much.
"I knew he couldn't be trusted!" Daisy shouted.
"What did he do to you?" Mario asked Luigi.
Luigi coughed, and moaned, trying to answer his brother, but he just couldn't. He didn't have any strength left, and he passed out before he could even attempt to answer. Mario began to panic a little, but that feeling was replaced with anger when he saw Gruber out of the corner of his eye, trying to sneak away. Immediately, he jumped out of the watermelon shell, and blocked his path.
"Just where do you think you're going?!" he demanded.
"I, uhh . . . . I think I hear my mother calling me," Gruber said, nervously. "Yep. Yep, she's calling me, all right. Coming, Mother!"
Gruber was about to take off, when Mario grabbed him, and picked him up. Even though he wasn't on the ground anymore, Gruber's feet were still spinning.
"Oh no you don't!" he shouted. "You're not going anywhere until you tell me what you did to my brother!"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Gruber said. "I didn't do anything to him! It must have been some other Goomba! We all look alike, you know!"
Mario gave Gruber a hard glare, and growled at him. If looks could kill, Gruber would be one dead Goomba.
"Seriously, Mario, I'm innocent!" he shouted. "I didn't do anything! I swear!"
Mario started glaring daggers at the Goomba, and growled again, fiercer than before. Gruber could tell Mario was ready to kill somebody at this point.
"I mean, I mean, I mean . . . . ." he said, nervously. "Uhhh . . . . ummm . . . . I . . . . uhhhh . . . ."
Mario growled once more, even louder than the first two times, and gave Gruber a look that could melt steel. Steam was practically coming out of his ears. Nervously, Gruber gulped. It was definitely time to come clean.
"Okay! Okay!" he shouted. "I gave him a couple of mushrooms!"
"Mushrooms?" Mario asked. "What kind of mushrooms?"
"Uhhh . . . . uhhh, I gotta go now!" Gruber shouted, and he started to run off. Before he could, Mario grabbed him by his neck.
"I said what kind of mushrooms!" he shouted.
"Let go!" Gruber shouted. "You're choking me!"
"Not until you tell me what kind of mushrooms you gave him!"
Gruber bit his lower lip, and looked away. He was determined to keep his mouth shut for as long as he could. Mario, however, would not take his silence for an answer.
"What kind of mushrooms?!" he repeated, as he started to shake the Goomba back and forth as hard as he could. "If you don't tell me what you gave my brother, so help me, I'm gonna . . . ."
"Okay! Okay!" Gruber shouted. "I gave him two Black Widows!"
"What?!" Daisy screamed.
"Oh no!" Peach gasped.
"Not Black Widows!" Toad shouted.
Mario gasped, and dropped Gruber to the ground. He practically felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. He stood there in shock for a moment. It was about all he could do.
"Well, he was asking for it, anyway!" Gruber shouted. "He was trying to steal my girl! He had the nerve to hold hands with her! He deserved it! He deserves to die!"
Mario recovered from the shock the minute he heard Gruber say that! He glared at Gruber even more harshly than before (if that was even possible), and growled loudly. His face was almost as red as his shirt, and steam came out of his ears. His teeth and fists were both clenched about as hard as they could possibly be clenched. This Goomba had just crossed a very fine line, as far as Mario was concerned.
"I'm outta here!" Gruber shouted, and he took off running immediately.
"Come back here, you rotten little fungus!" Mario shouted, chasing after him. "When I get my hands on you, there's gonna be nothing left but a pair of shoes!"
Gruber knew he wouldn't be able to out run Mario. And as mad as the plumber was, he knew he was going to be flattened into a Goomba pancake (and then some!) if he caught up to him. But then he remembered he was still carrying a star from the game. He took it out, and flung it at Mario. It hit the plumber directly in the face, causing him to fall backwards. He wasn't hurt, just slightly dazed.
"Whoo ha ha ha ha!" Gruber laughed, making a clean getaway.
Mario was about to get up and run after Gruber, but he changed his mind when he remembered Luigi's condition, and the fact he had been force fed one of the most deadliest types of mushrooms known in the Mushroom Kingdom. But he still had a couple of final words for the Goomba.
"Yeah, you better run!" he shouted, shaking his fist. "Because if I ever see you again, I'm gonna sauté you with onions and serve you as a steak dinner!"