It was a cool September. In the Mushroom Kingdom, autumn was already setting in. Crispy reddish leaves were covering the soil as little Toads' feet were throwing them all around. A fresh breeze rebounded on the walls and wrapped into miniature tornadoes. The weird eyed mountains were in red, orange and brown tones too, watching the sky above them getting icier. Wind, cotton clouds, grass or stone that smell whenever it had rained, like today.

Mario had enjoyed those days. It had been two weeks since his last adventure. Maybe it had meant to him Bowser would soon come to kidnap the Princess again, him who never accepted her refusal.

Mario understood him. Still, it was her choice. Neither of them could force her. Kidnapping or rescuing was no excuse.

Yet, at the top of a windswept mountain, closing his eyes a little to avoid leaves pieces, and peering far away over the white castle, it was his little brother who had occupied his head. Mario had sighed; nothing particular had happened. Well... mostly. It was just...

He remembered.

Luigi had leaved to spend holidays in one of the Sarasaland Kingdom's regions, no doubt trying to visit dearie Princess Daisy. Shy flirting, he guessed.

However, Mario reminded slightly, he had had a horrible nightmare. A feeling of doom had washed his sweaty skin, and helplessness had rattled around and around inside his chest, revealing the urge to find his little brother. A panic attack? Mario had been dumbfounded.

Those things happened for both of the twins because their bounds were that strong. They could sense where to run at the other's help. So did Mario. He didn't find Luigi though. He came home by himself instead. Well, normal, wasn't it? But not for the weird atmosphere surrounding his green-clad brother. Mario didn't have trouble mind-reconstructing the usual thick-moustached face, thinner and rougher than normal, but still a Luigi face, adorned with a faint smile. Just...remove the sparkling in his glass-blue eyes. Just a bad feeling.

At that time, Mario should have taken this seriously.

But could he have known how things had turned? Could he have changed anything back then? Or did he have to go back further in time, so things wouldn't have become this way for Luigi?

Maybe elsewhere, life was cheerful, life was nothing more than a childish game. Nothing was deep...

Mario believed theirs belonged to fucked-up plots.

Now, Toadic and Toadails, Princess Peach, Princess Daisy, Yoshi were at Mario's sides. All staring at Luigi, who wore a black outfit, silver boots reaching just under his knees, a big dark green scarf protecting his neck from the storm. Of course, the iconic Mr.L cap completed by a mask on blank eyes.

No smiling.

Except from a hysterical crack on a long forgotten purple villain's face. He too wore a black outfit because apparently he was a meanie. However it had two dark-red stripes on the belly, at the sides of the arms and legs, even his boots and gloves were matching them. His face looked like a bat.

Both of the men who would cause chaos had wrong expressions. Between the still empty smile or the wide psychopath one, between Luigi or Tatanga, the Heroes wondered which one would be the most dangerous.

But that wouldn't matter, because they were now allies.

Mario still felt innocent anger at this sight. "You freak, what have you done to Luigi?!" Daisy shouted at his left. "If you think you can get away from this, you're wrong! Because we will stop you and save this good world, as we always did!"

Mario closed his eyes at the words he had let out at that time. If only they were still able to save the world, these were good times. Regret and hopelessness crunched his insides.

Why had they failed? How? That's what he was trying to remember for the countless time. Everything he'd done felt foolish. He could only regret, waiting for something to get him out of this tight darkness.

Mr.L approached. A dumb look hovering right over Mario. And then he chuckled. He kept walking towards Mario who backsteped. Not only tension was building up around the man, but somehow, he managed to frighten the Heroes. Mario stopped. His eyes had to look up the blinding shadow surrounded by white clouds, towering him. Mario just felt it.

"Guys! Just keep away from him!"

They protested: "We can help! You don't have to do it on your own! Don't you trust us? Do you think we're weak?!"

"I just don't want you to be hurt. He's...dangerous. You go take Tatanga. I don't want Luigi to be hurt anyway."

What was that? Was he scared? Why did he feel like something might be very wrong? Once again he built up his composure, locking proudly his determined eyes to the holes of the mask, which didn't flinch any. "Surrender now or I'll fight."

Mr.L parted his lips for the first time, and cooed: "Oh, but what have we done wrong? We just came by. Do you dare, Super Mario, menacing innocents?"

"You are not innocent!" And with that, Mario charged his hammer straight at the sky above his head, and flung powerfully against the villain. But he did not get crushed. The hammer didn't hit him at all. He had stepwalked the time he saw Mario's hammer attack coming. He leaned over the little man's ear, and just chuckled again at what he saw: a blooper.

And so, enraged, Mario's hammer side-struck at once. It met a hard plastic shaft covered with rubber where the hands should hold the silver coloured hammer. Mario forced. He grunted at Mr.L's face. As a reward for his audacity, he lifted their hammers, Mario stumbled, and he swung his hammer right to the chest.

Mario screeched as his ribs cracked and broke in pieces. The group flung their head and saw him flying away, rolling on the paved alley and laying there. That's all Mario saw then, while hugging his torso, which had lost shape, if not for a slight *crevasse* just where the hard object had struck. He was agonizing breathlessly; he choked up blood; he felt horrible. He felt cold, tired, more and more light-headed by lack of light air and pain, he cried a bit. And finally, he passed out and died.

The Heroes over there didn't believe it. Mr.L - that monster! - had KILLED MARIO in ONE SHOT. He focused his eyes on them. The body down the street had disappeared. He smiled.

Death was not the real problem in this world. Running shoes were heard somewhere. It was the fact that you couldn't defeat an enemy. Mario panted. He put himself in a fighting pose. Determination, yes. Many had died to save the world; he'd died the most over the years. From a last epic fight to some silly mistake. Yet he always reached his goal. And in this case...

He didn't.

Mario and Yoshi teamed up against the Luigi body while Tatanga flew away on one of his airships, so the others were unable to pursue them. And on the other side, they had to admit they couldn't do much to help. Because Mr.L kept jumping, avoiding, wavedashing, dancing, between Mario and Yoshi. One cut with the edge of his hand calmed Mario, who stumbled away, holding his sore jaw. And when Yoshi attempted to take him by surprise, his tongue latched itself around his friend; then Mr.L sent them against a wall that cracked under the sudden pressure. The bodies got up again, ridiculously weak now to fight the green man who didn't catch a sweat.

He was quite enjoying this. But the best part?

He was going to kill them again and again until they gave up. They would die until their limit, and he'd have taken barely one hit, let alone he'd die once.

Mario thought that's what Peach has recognized in Luigi's eyes, for her to plead mercy. Daisy didn't believe she backed away. But the princess explained something, and she understood they had to surrender.

And so they all followed.

Really. The little drops falling from the storm right above their heads weren't a bad thing. It was refreshing. He was wounded, so it felt nice to have his quiet tears melt with the rain. The dirt flowed under his neck, it stuck with his cold sweat, but that was okay. He just breathed the plant smell the fast wind carried on, before the disinfected one, as he was imprisoned in another airship with his friends. What would happen to the Kingdom? Did Bowser send them? How the hell did Mr.L learn those moves? He had felt useless fighting him. He hadn't shown any of his fighting skills. Clever. It even earned a shiver of fright from the red chubby little man.

He slowly walked in, weakly but supported by his friends as was Yoshi. What now?