Chapter 3: Warrant

That first letter from Bowser was simple. It let Luigi know that Bowser was alive, and if Luigi was interested, the two of them could continue correspondence. The letter came by envelope, but was typed as from a computer.

The message was very plain, and did not discuss much of the past at all— besides the implication contained in the reference to still being alive. Despite this plainness, Luigi felt a stab of guilt when he first opened the unmarked letter (no return address of course) and discovered who the sender was. Even though he wanted to forget it, Luigi felt somewhat responsible for Bowser attempting to take his own life six years ago. It was a fact that Luigi had appeared to Bowser, during both their depressions, and had made the plan that they do something permanent about their situations.

Actually, it was really, really ghastly to think about. Luigi, looking back, saw someone entirely different in the past from himself now— a kind of walking corpse, a frightening creature looking for a victim to drag down with him into the earth. That dragging down was essentially what had happened, except both Luigi and Bowser had 'failed' in their aims.

What could Luigi even say to Bowser? What could he even write back? "I'm sorry for…"? He didn't even want to finish the sentence in his own head. He didn't even want to think about how he was back then, what kind of thoughts he thought, and what he had tried to do. And what he had pulled someone else into.

Now it was also true that Bowser had already been making attempts on his own life, before Luigi had talked with him. And Luigi did not cause Bowser's depression. Some part of Luigi whispered this, but most of him, standing still in his room, staring at the letter clutched in his hand, stood shocked with quiet personal horror.

Horror, horrible— I keep thinking this word recently, Luigi reflected.

He had been doing very well, obsessed with his new goal, and completely absorbing himself in his task. But the letter from Bowser, like something floating up from the bottom of a lake, was disrupting him. It was disrupting him more than expected.

Well, he wanted to answer the letter. In all honesty, he was extremely curious what had become of Bowser in the last six years. Unlike Luigi, the former Koopa King had had all that time to move about and try to start a new life in the world. Luigi knew that the Koopa Kingdom for the most part no longer existed, that much of the former territory had been absorbed into the Mushroom Kingdom. Bowser himself was a relatively unspoken name now. Meaning, he had not become a public figure again in the last six years. He was not a king anymore.

What the hell has he been doing? Luigi thought with more vigor, when he allowed himself to lighten a little for a moment. And how has he avoided being in the news? He's a big ass koopa.

Seriously. He must have found a cabin in the mountains to hide out in. Maybe nobody had seen Bowser in the last six years— except the mountain, if it was one of those hills with eyes.

Mario and Peach knew nothing about Bowser, as they explained to Luigi when they were comfortable enough to.

At first, after Luigi had woken up, the royal couple spoke and interacted with him very carefully. They were afraid. (Fair enough.) They didn't want to bring up anything from the past that might upset Luigi. It was wonderful that Mario's brother was happier now, more directed. They wanted to keep him there.

They themselves were also very busy, now that they were king and queen of the Mushroom Kingdom. Oh yes. They had gotten married shortly before Luigi's coma began. That made for King Mario and Queen Peach. Fucking weird. So fucking weird for Luigi, to know his brother was now a damn king.

Mario had really rubbed it in, jokingly, when he and Peach were first married. Shortly before Luigi made his attempt.

Mario had been generally blind to Luigi's depression at the time.

"I command you to smile more," He had actually said. King Mario. I command you to smile more. He said it probably seven times, to be accurate. He thought it was very funny. "Your king orders you to cheer up."

Luigi actually made the effort several times, before realizing how futile it was. If he continued to try, forcing, his inner hideous cynicism, the grin without eyes, would grow and grow. It was a familiar monster, one that Luigi was mature enough now to recognize the source of— attempting to behave in ways he didn't actually feel. Behave in ways he didn't actually agree with. Essentially, if he attempted to beat down his own soul, it came back with a skeletal smile. Fierce and biting.

Looking back also, that was a cause of a lot of the depression too, reaching back into early childhood. Trying to force himself to obey others, usually out of fear. Fear of violence, or fear that they were better than him, and he was a worthless creature if he didn't become more like them.

Father, Mother, Mario. Luigi was the black sheep of the family. What a tired old story— let's skip it.

This is the story of the morning after the night, Luigi thought to himself, reflecting on his past, and everything that had happened since he woke up. The coma was just the end of the night, really. A night that had gone on for a very long time. It was hard to remember when the afternoon was, or the morning before that.

But all this flight of thought was an avoidance of the Bowser issue.

Finally, as the storms of thinking and varied memories came to a rest, Luigi realized the next step was actually pretty simple. This was often the result that came about for problems that seemed difficult, that prompted storms of consideration and internal debate.

Finally, reality and pushing impulse answered with a simple next step.

Luigi wrote back that he was open to correspondence.

This was very early in the year, before Luigi started traveling again, and before he got wrapped up in the cult.

The travels were in the name of the writing. Luigi was determined to become published— as soon as he was published, he could start making money (at least theoretically) as a writer. The sooner he could support himself purely by writing, the sooner he would be free from the prison of his day job, and be able to prove to people his talent. His day job was not awful, but to his own mind, it was consistently a waste of time. He needed the paycheck to live. (He refused refused refused to take support from Mario and Peach, or god forbid Ma and Pa.) Beyond that, he had no interest in the day job. There was virtually no room for advancement (as he slowly discovered, after a year of investigation and efforts), and there was little possibility of serious raises. If Luigi was not pursuing the demented path of the artist, he would not have stayed at his current place of work.

He had tried to relate to his coworkers at first. However, his consuming—devouring—interest in his writing work and art made him a poor conversationalist, especially with the infinite, circuitous banalities (as it seemed to him half the time) of small talk.

"What a jerk!" A voice in his head imagined. "What an asshole! Antisocial!" He pressed it down. He had to work on his stories. Nothing else matters. Nothing else, in the endless expanse of the world, is reliable. He thought back on how much he used to worry about impressing others, about being "correct", constantly. Forcing himself to do what he hated, to be "right". Burned himself up inside.

And then, how it had all ended up anyway.

Now he had his one thing, his one focus. What he would never give up on. What would never give up on him. His Path.

But what exactly was this place of work? The day job? A bucket factory called Wanda's, headquartered in Yoshi City. They designed, produced, and shipped buckets internationally to the Mushroom Kingdom and further abroad. Luigi was in charge of keeping track of inventory— all the kinds of buckets that Wanda's produced. Red buckets, green buckets, yellow buckets. Big red buckets, medium red buckets, little red buckets. (Let your imagination run wild.)

But it did get a little more interesting! Buckets with rubber duckies painted on them. Big rubber duckie buckets, little rubber duckie buckets. Buckets with shell designs, to appeal to koopas. And even… buckets with letters on them. Specifically, most popularly, "M" and "W".

The "W", it seemed, stood for Wanda's. Luigi had a gross feeling from his first day at the company of what the "M" stood for, and it was quickly confirmed— Mario. The company sold Mario brand buckets, with his classic hat insignia implanted on a bucket. (Eldstar knows who wanted all these damn buckets, not to mention branded buckets.) But so it went. The marketing team had done a study.

What bothered Luigi—not quite annoyed him, for it was not irritating, but did stick out as odd, frankly—was that there were no "L" buckets. Was he really that unknown, that forgotten, that it wasn't worth the company any money at all to sell "L" buckets? For Eldstar's sake, they sold buckets with the decades old Geno Toy design on them. There were approximately ten Geno buckets in all of storage. Could a Luigi Bucket possibly be less profitable?

Then he realized the reason: What had happened to him— what he had done. If the name Luigi was still known, it carried a certain stigma.

Luigi actually went by the public nickname "Lou" more often-than-not, even within Wanda's. It was a little more of a disguise from his former life, and it worked stupidly well. It was unclear when or if people actually recognized him when he introduced himself as "Lou". It was possible being a human with a beard and mustache and going by "Lou" was enough of a disguise to be unrecognized as the old "hero" Luigi.

Or people just didn't care. Or he had never even been known in the first place, beyond "the green one".

Fine with him. If he was recognized again, before he had made a name for himself with a book, he would be again "Mario's brother" first and foremost. Not the reputation Luigi was looking to return to.

—And this, all this (Luigi's dizzy, constantly whirring mind at work, at least he knows how to turn it off when he wants to now) is all, all to add up to Luigi understanding and coming to peace with Wanda's not selling buckets with an "L" on them.

But then, it would turn out this reasoning was entirely wrong.