Luigi II: Tatanga's Revenge

Months back, in a lone bar on a far-off alien world, a weary Tatanga sits at a barstool with his head laid down onto the sleek, cold wood as a mug once filled with a strange beer-like liquid is barely grasped in his right hand on top of the bar itself. He appears to be somewhat drunk, though you almost wouldn't be able to tell that considering how depressed he looks at the moment. It isn't until he pokes his eyes up and speaks that you can hear the grogginess in his voice "Bartender…Get me another drink…" He can barely compose a sentence, something the six-armed eyeless alien bartender cares little about as he takes a clean mug and fills it with an acidic, bubbling liquid to serve to Tatanga. The alien conqueror places the previous mug next to a stack of twenty others, taking this new one with a single weak grasp and chugging it down in an instant.

At the rate Tatanga was going, he was likely going to poison his body and die, but the alien conqueror seemed to be unaware of this as he asked for yet another mug of alien beer. He slammed the previous one down beside the others, folding his arms in front of his head as he thinks to himself "…How can I ever return to my planet…First I failed to conquer Plit…Then I tried to conquer a planet called Corneria…And finally I went for a bunch of other small time planets only to fail…So much for the grand conqueror…I can never show my face to my people…And it all started because I was defeated by a fat plumber in a plane…I would do anything to return to that planet and clear my name by killing that plumber…"

"That can most certainly be arranged…" A mysterious voice calls out to Tatanga through his mind, causing him to flinch and nearly suffer a heart attack before he lifts his head up and looks around, in a drunken stupor pulling out his ray gun and pointing it towards the direction of the voice. Though his vision is blurred, he can see a lone figure standing ahead of him, the only thing he can see clearly being the skull-topped staff grasped in the being's right hand. With his gun barely aimed at the figure and his mind wondering why he is the only one reacting to this mysterious person's appearance, Tatanga woozily proclaims "Who are you?"

"An ally, a solution to your problems, or your enemy…You are welcome to label me however you wish, conqueror Tatanga." The mention of his name causes the alien to lower his weapon, staring into the supposed eyes of this mysterious, charismatic being and asking him "How do you know me?" The being chuckles, the movement of his body as he laughs causing his staff to slowly rattle as he responds to Tatanga with "I know many people both good and evil…I am, as they say, a very observant fellow. But you in particular interest me, Tatanga…And I wish to hire you for a certain job. But before I continue…"

With a wave of his staff, the mysterious being undoes Tatanga's drunken stupor, making his thoughts as clear as they used to be and allowing the alien to get a better look at the person. He looks surprised for a moment, a hint of disgust being present on his expression before he says to the being "I'm surprised you are walking around so casually with that appearance…" The being chuckles, saying to the oblivious Tatanga as the ray gun is holstered into his belt "Alas, I am not actually here. You see, I am a master of the dark arts, and with them I have projected an image of myself into your mind to keep my appearance scarce from the eyes of those around you. At the time of activation, a secondary spell was also put into effect that has frozen everyone within the entire galaxy save for you and me until our conversation has come to an end."

Tatanga scoffs, finding himself both impressed and surprised at the effort the being has gone through in order to reach him, though he has to wonder why he would go that far and proceeds to ask "But why all the secrecy? Nobody here besides me would know what planet you are from." "I'm glad you are asking…You see, I do not want anyone to know that I am responsible for your later actions…By using my magic to communicate with you instead of appearing directly, it prevents any certain individuals from probing your mind for connections on the off-chance you do happen to fail. But don't take my words as a sign of dissuasion…After all, I wouldn't have come to you if I didn't have confidence in your abilities."

Tatanga smirks, folding his arms behind his back as he listens intently to the mysterious person as they say to him "Now then…There is a particular person I want dealt with…Whether you incapacitate him or kill him, I don't care…Though considering your past encounters with him, I imagine you will be leaning more towards the later. I want you to return to Plit and deal with Mario…" The alien was confused by this request, though his absolutely ecstatic expression didn't alert the master of the dark arts to this feeling in Tatanga's mind until he said to him "And just why do you have a grudge against the plumber?" "Heh…" The being chuckles, in turn responding to the conqueror with an honest "Personally, I have nothing against the Hero of the Mushroom Kingdom…But for my end game to come to fruition, he needs to be away from that which he guards the most."

"So do you want me to kidnap Princess Peach or something?" Tatanga asks. The being shakes his head and looks at the alien, scowling as he bluntly says "No! The point is to not draw suspicion. If you return to Plit and go for Peach, then everything will be ruined. Instead, you should return to Sarassaland and use Princess Daisy as a hostage in order to lure Mario out and deal with him then." "…And how exactly am I supposed to pull off something that big? I'm incredibly low on funds, so I can't just make up a new-" "If you accept this task, I will provide you with sufficient funds to create whatever you need to accomplish the goal of ending Mario's life."

"And what will I get in turn besides the satisfaction of killing Mario?" Tatanga asks, a smirk crossing his face as he expects more of a reward to be given to him by the mysterious man. With a slight wave of his staff, the master of dark magic says to the alien "If you prove successful…I shall rewrite the memories of everyone who has witnessed your failures, thus allowing you to return home as though your record had never been sullied by a single man in a plane." It didn't take much convincing beyond that to get Tatanga's allegiance, and with a brimming smile the alien conqueror says "You have yourself a man." "Excellent…But before I go, I have something I wish to give you…" Reaching into his skull, the being pulls out a squishy orb of pulsating magic and moves it through the air to the front of Tatanga's face "This will be certain to help you in keeping the Princess hostage…For you see, with it…"

"This dome of mine surrounds your castle and most of the town below." Tatanga says, his memories of the past coming to an end as he stares down at the slightly angered Daisy and the worried Luigi, his right hand swung out beside his body as he details the properties of his new dome to his two onlookers "If you try to escape, you'll fail…If you try and stop me, you'll fail…All you can do is stand there and wait until my true prize appears." "And just what do you mean by 'my true prize'?" Daisy exclaims defiantly, earning a chuckle from the alien conqueror as he states "I missed that defiant spunk of yours Princess…But yes, you deserve to know what my true intentions are since you are the hostage. My plan is to lure Mario here and face him in single combat with my new creation, killing him to end the humility he brought upon me when he defeated me twice not too long ago!" Tatanga's emphasizes his scorn towards the red plumber with a scowl and a tight clenching of his right fingers.

Daisy looks at the madman, glaring at him much like one in her position would do and with a tug on the bottom of her right glove the Princess says angrily to Tatanga "And what's stopping me from kicking your butt back to space right now?" The alien nonchalantly responds with "I'm glad you asked." And with a snap of his fingers, the air starts to distort rapidly, the visions of all involved waving back and forth and then up and down as a strange noise begins to fill the air, wobbling in the eardrums of the two humans before Tatanga begins to explain "If you do not stand down and play the role of damsel in distress willingly, I will cause this dome to collapse upon everyone besides myself, killing all of you and leaving everything within a 100 mile radius outward as a smoldering patch of rock. If you value the lives of your people as a Princess rightfully should, you will heed my warning."

Daisy hates the idea of submitting to Tatanga, but he seems ready to live up to his own threats. With a light sigh, the Princess hesitantly says "Alright fine…I'll be your hostage…" Immediately after saying that, the distortions end, and Tatanga says with a haughty grin "Thank you for your cooperation Princess. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll need to go wait for the people that will certainly try and bargain with me before Mario comes to rescue you, Daisy…And who knows, perhaps he will bother to care about his second-rate brother…" Raising an eyebrow in mockery towards the man in green, Tatanga scoffs at Luigi's attempt to scowl at him and turns around, floating away on his cybernetic platform into the distance as Daisy lets out an angered breath and falls straight onto her butt, her face ripe with irritation as she pounds the floor with her fist and says with eyelids sealed tight "Can't believe this happened! All I wanted was to have a little fun with you Luigi and we get wrapped up in another villain's stinking plot!"

Despite Daisy's current bout of rage, the man in green tries to calm her down by saying "Its not like Tatanga is going to get away with his plans." The Princess lets out another sigh, relaxing her muscles as she pulls her fist away from the cracked ground and turns her head to look at Luigi, pointing out to him "I know he isn't going to succeed…But this is still a gigantic nuisance." The man in green chuckles, waving his right arm beside his body as he responds with "Tell me about it. How do you think I feel? Mario is dealing with his own stuff this week, and now he's being dragged into my own affairs again and I can't do anything to help." "You sure about that Luigi?" Daisy says with hope and confidence towards the man in green, and as she stands up and smiles Luigi finds himself taken aback by the Princess' words as she asks "Couldn't you use the Star Spirits' power to take down Tatanga and the dome?"

"I could if I knew how to. But we shouldn't try anything while Tatanga holds ours and your people's lives in his hands." Luigi tries to speak in such a way that he doesn't show disapproval towards Daisy's idea, but that it would be for the best to try it out when they know more about the dome itself. The Princess pouts, appearing upset at the man in green's refusal to act until she realizes how foolish it would be to be too rash, at which point she relaxes her expression and says to Luigi "You're right…I'm sorry, I just don't want Mario to get involved myself. It goes against all that I've done to prevent having to be a damsel in distress like Peach always is. Not to mention it sucks having your people's lives at stake…Hopefully we can sort this out without anyone getting hurt besides Tatanga…"

"I assure you Princess…The only one getting hurt here today will be the precious Hero of the Mushroom Kingdom." Daisy turns back around upon hearing the voice of Tatanga behind her. The alien had returned quicker than she had imagined her would, though he now had a circular communication device grasped around his pronounced right claws. It was active, as evidenced by the crimson neon glow around the rim. "But for now, someone wishes to communicate with you…I will give him full authority to speak with you just to assure him that I will not harm a single hair on your heads unless my wishes are not met." With a flick of his hand, Tatanga tosses the communicator over to Daisy, turning around and flying off once more as the Princess holds the communicator close enough to her right ear so Luigi can hear the person speaking says into the microphone planted at the bottom of the device "Hello? Who is this?"

"Princess Daisy, this is Lieutenant Gemini of the M.S.I., are you currently unharmed?" The familiar voice of the Koopa Lieutenant surprises Luigi, but he doesn't say anything until Daisy nods her head and responds with "I'm fine, thanks for asking. Tatanga has just been acting like a haughty jerk, he hasn't done anything damaging yet." "Well I'm glad to hear that…" Gemini calmly responds, at which point the man in green interjects and exclaims "Gemini, what are you doing here?" The Lieutenant pauses momentarily, surprised himself by Luigi's voice before he stutters out in a more casual tone of voice "Luigi? You got to be kidding me, how did you get involved in this mess?" "I just came here to Sarassaland to hang out with Daisy and the next thing you know I'm pretty much a secondary hostage for Tatanga." The man in green doesn't try to hide the truth from his friend, but this reveal just makes Gemini more concerned as evidenced by his static-y murmur on the other line.

"Well, just hang in there right now Luigi…We got the battleship and a few other fighter jets parked outside the dome, so we'll do whatever we can to help with the tech on board our vehicles. Just don't go and do anything reckless and we'll try and keep you as up-to-date as physically possible. Lieutenant Gemini-" "Hey wait a second Gemini." The man in green interrupts, and after pausing mid-sentence the Koopa waits to hear Luigi out as he asks "Why are you leading this operation? Where is Alpha?" "Sigh…Didn't think you'd catch on to that so quickly. Yeah, Commander Alpha just up and vanished a few hours ago. He only left a note behind saying that I am welcome to try and contact him any time if things get too out of hand, but I have no idea where he is right now. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to cut the communication line for now."

With that, the device shuts down, leaving Luigi and Daisy alone in the castle with only a slight glimmer of hope in the form of Gemini and the rest of the M.S.I. at that very moment. Naturally, Daisy lets out a sigh of relief and begins to move towards the couch, planting herself down on the comfy seat as she says to Luigi "Its nice to know that one ally of yours is helping us out…Perhaps Mario won't have to get involved if things go right." "I'd like for that to happen." Luigi says with the utmost amount of honesty, even though deep down something about this whole mess has left him feeling quite disturbed, as if there was more to the ordeal than what he was seeing. But for now though, he kept his concerns hidden and decided to look out the nearby window, keeping a firm eye on Tatanga as the alien floated at the northern edge of the barrier and appeared to be communicating with Gemini on the other side.

After a few minutes, the Lieutenant re-opens the communication line with Princess Daisy, and the man in green walks over to her so he can hear what Gemini has to say. "We tried to negotiate with Tatanga about your release…But he refuses to budge. We are going to try and analyze the dome now, but we are also going to try and contact Mario…Is that ok with you, Luigi?" Gemini was specific when he said the man in green's name, mostly because he understood why Luigi would be hesitant in wanting his brother to get involved, but he is actually surprised when the man in green quickly respond with "Do what you need to Gemini. Just make sure no one gets harmed…Especially not my brother, if it comes down to that." "…Alright, hang in there you two."

Shutting off communication with a push of a button, the yellow-shelled Lieutenant leans back in the chair that his Commander usually sits down upon and folds his arms diagonally, tapping his pointed fingers together as he puts himself in a deep state of thought while issuing an order to the men down below to start scanning the dome for any familiar energy signatures. He waits patiently, his mind hard at work trying to come up with a plan to deal with Tatanga safely from the outside. He recalls how when he handed the communicator to the alien conqueror from the deck of the battleship, Tatanga had commented that "Don't go in too far, or you may never come out." At the time the Lieutenant had assumed that such words were meant to be taken as a threat, but perhaps there was another meaning behind them…It was something that Gemini wasn't given much time to think about, as one of the men in charge of analyzing the sphere turns around and says to the Lieutenant "Sir, you might want to take a look at this."

Parting his hands and laying them on the arms of the chair, Gemini looks on as a screen of text and data appears on the large window. Within seconds of reading all that the analysis had to offer, the Lieutenant's eyes widen in disbelief as he exclaims to the men below "Are you certain that this is accurate?" The center man nods, and after barely containing his concerns the Koopa pulls his head against his chair and nervously rubs his forehead while thinking to himself "Great…This just went from bad to worse…" The Lieutenant pulls his hand away, opening his eyelids slightly and continuing to think after letting out a sigh "I can't let the Commander know about this right now…" Before he can worry anymore about what he saw, a lone Shy Guy walks up beside the pedestal the chair rests atop and says "Lieutenant Gemini, we have another problem on our hands…" Disgruntled, Gemini responds bluntly with "Great, what type of bad news do you want to drop on me now?"

Back inside of the castle, the communicator turns back online, and Daisy quickly puts it up to her ear while Luigi moves over to her to hear what Gemini has to say. In a disappointed tone of voice, the Lieutenant states "Mario is nowhere to be found." The man in green flinches in shock. He wondered how his brother was unable to be found by the M.S.I., and this news only filled him with a foreboding sense of dread. "That's impossible." Daisy responds to Gemini. "How can Mario just disappear? Luigi even told me that he wasn't planning on going anywhere for the next few days." "Sigh…I don't know what to tell you two. I do find it suspicious that Mario has vanished not long after Alpha suddenly departed from the base…But we can't worry about their whereabouts right now, especially since we need to come up with a new plan to stop Tatanga."

"The problem is that dome he set up…Can't you use your powers to shut it down, Gemini?" Luigi asks. The Lieutenant grumbles on the other side of the communicator, as he argues in his mind on whether or not he should tell the two humans the truth about the dome. In a couple of seconds, the Koopa relents and decides to tell a half-truth in response to the man in green's question. "If the dome was electronic in origin, I would have shut it down before Tatanga would even know about my presence. You probably won't believe this, but Tatanga's barrier was created from magic." "Huh? Magic? When did Tatanga become a wizard?" Daisy asks in confusion. "I don't know. I never even heard much about the guy before this whole mess started…" Gemini honestly replies.

"But what I do know is this…The dome is constructed in such a way that once someone enters, they cannot escape. That's why if Mario were to show up, he would be stuck in a battle to the death with Tatanga." "I don't think that's true." Luigi quickly interjects, which causes Gemini to respond with "What do you mean by that?" "Well, when he threatened us with a collapsing dome, he said that he would survive the whole ordeal. I doubt he has anything technologically advance enough to protect himself, so that would mean that the dome was designed to allow Tatanga himself to escape. He did have that cybernetic platform that would make it easy for him to leave if he wanted to." "That's a good observation Luigi…So if we want to stop Tatanga, the best course of action would be to force him to be stuck in the dome with no way to escape. If you do that then he will have to shut the dome down or end his own life."

"But if we go to fight him then he'll just activate the dome on us." Daisy is quick to point out. "If you and Luigi try to fight him, yeah…Which is why instead we are going to give him exactly what he wants." Gemini's idea strikes the man in green as being rather odd, especially after what was said earlier about Mario's disappearance. Daisy however, believes that they can pull the idea off and says with a nod of agreement "Alright Gemini, I got a way to make this work. Just tell Tatanga that Mario will be coming to face him very soon, and make sure to keep him waiting at the edge of the dome." "Can do. Gemini out." As the communicator shuts down, Luigi says in a flabbergasted tone to Daisy "What do you mean Mario will be fighting Tatanga?! We can't fulfill that promise!"

The ever optimistic Princess turns towards the man in green, smiling as she pulls herself up from the couch and says "Yes we can. In fact, I'm looking right at 'Mario' at this very moment!" Daisy stares at Luigi with her smile ever-pleasant, and the man in green stutters while pointing at himself "M-Me? You want me to pretend to be my brother? B-But how can we pull that off?" "Simple, follow me." The Princess says in a casual tone as she waves her hand and turns towards her closet. Luigi reluctantly follows behind Daisy, watching as she opens the large closet doors and moves towards the back, reaching beyond the many dresses and sporting outfits she has to pull out a specific set of clothes attached to a silver hangar. After turning around to face the man in green she drapes the clothes in front of her body, revealing to Luigi the famous red-and-blue wardrobe of his brother, cap and gloves included.

"…I don't even want to know why you have that…" Luigi says with a blank look in his eyes. "But you can't be serious Daisy…I can't wear Mario's clothes, I'm not worthy of even pretending to be half the hero he is…" The man in green then says, putting himself down in such a way that it greatly upsets the Princess and has her stamp her foot to force Luigi's to look at her as she states with a firm glare "I don't want to hear any of that from you Luigi! You keep thinking that you are nothing compared to Mario, well you are wrong! You are courageous, strong-hearted, kind, and everything else that Mario is and more! You are just as worthy of wearing these clothes as he is every day, and you know just as well as I do that Mario would be proud to know that you are doing this for him…Come on Luigi, if you can do this for anyone…Do it for me, please?" After Daisy's heartfelt plea towards the man in green, Luigi firms his glare towards Mario's clothes, staring at it for seconds on end until he makes his decision…

Outside the castle, Tatanga stares at the bottom of the dome in anticipation for Mario's appearance. He is unaware of the person approaching him from behind, and it takes their declaration of his name to get him to turn his cybernetic platform around and look down at the man calling him out. It was Luigi, but from Tatanga's point of view he saw the familiar red-and-blue garb and was unable to see the different in weight and height due to how high up he is. The man in green did a great job of impersonating his brother's voice, since he couldn't let Tatanga have a single clue that he was not who he appeared to be. "Its about time you arrived Mario…I've been looking forward to our rematch for quite some time…Now its time for you to perish in the land that you defeated me so many years ago…"

With a tap of his foot against the cybernetic board, Tatanga causes the strange device to begin folding outward until it becomes a large square with two dimensional rifts, both of them slowly pouring out a massive array of mechanical parts such as coils and gears that fuse together in such a way that they resemble muscle fibers and a working system of organs. After seconds of construction metal plates emerge from the rifts, most of them either crimson or blue in color. They meld to the muscles, creating a type of metal armor that perfectly resemble Mario's clothes as best as a robotic suit can manage. Finally the remainder of parts forms a silver metallic head around Tatanga, the pulsing yellow glow of the robot's eyes finishing off the creation of this gigantic mechanized Mario with the alien conqueror using the cockpit's control in order to summon forth flamethrowers from the wrists of the metallic gloves in order to set them on fire and imitate Mario's Firebrand technique. Through the booming microphone of the robot, Tatanga declares to 'Mario' "I will assure you that this demise will be most ironic, Mario! The only one capable of besting you in battle is yourself! Prepare yourself, you will soon be dead!"

Next Time: A Hero Years in the Making