Luigi III: The Respect of a Hero
The time? Late into the night. The location? Sarassaland. The combatants? Tatanga and Luigi, who has disguised himself as Mario to trick the alien conqueror and face the Mario-like robot he had created. The spectators? Lieutenant Gemini of the M.S.I. and all the soldiers that had joined him in trying to defuse the hostage situation resulted from Tatanga's efforts to use the now on looking Princess Daisy as a means of luring the famous Hero of the Mushroom Kingdom out. Tatanga's Motives? To end the plumber's life and regain his lost honor with the help of a mysterious benefactor. The stakes? If Luigi fails, his cover will most certainly be blown and all of Sarassaland will perish thanks to the dome the alien conqueror has set up around the castle.
Luigi knows all these details, the thoughts reverberating inside of his mind and causing an immeasurable amount of stress as he engages Tatanga's unholy mechanical beast in single combat. He knows he cannot use his Thunderhand or green fire, for either technique will give away his identity. All he had was his fists and his jumps on him to take down a robot that is half the height of Princess Daisy's gargantuan castle. Not only that, but Luigi had to be careful when fighting the robot seeing as there were still some citizens trapped within the dome. With the robot's fist set ablaze all it would take is one swing to cause an unstoppable forest fire to be created. With fists clenched tight and his eyebrows arched like Mario would have his in the face of such a dangerous situation, Luigi leaps high into the air, guiding his body backwards above the trees to get to a more open space as Tatanga uses air propulsion jets on the bottom of the robot's "boots" to lift himself into the air and pursue 'Mario'.
The air from the jets strikes the ground, creating a powerful gust that spreads through the trees and pushes most of the leaves and branches away from the center of the robot's underside as it flies slowly in pursuit of its target. The man in green makes it to the golf course, apologizing to Daisy in his head as he sees the robot land and instantly aim his left hand at him, the flames extending past the palm until Tatanga cuts off the supply to allow a perfect fireball to be created that is roughly five times the size of Luigi himself. The man in green is forced to leap to the right to avoid incineration, but he still feels most of the heat coming from the fireball's impact along with the crimson glow of the crackling flames themselves as they burn along one of the course's fairways.
From there the man in green looks towards Tatanga's mech and continues to leap away from more fireballs, performing backflips and sideflips in order to dodge the scalding heat of the attacks until one fireball crashes into a water hazard and creates a massive plume of smoke almost instantly as all liquid is dried out of the miniature pond that obscures most of Luigi's vision. All he can see from his current standing point is the head of Tatanga's mech. It takes a few seconds, but the man in green sees another reddish glow coming from the center of the smoke veil and promptly leaps to the left to dodge it. He tumbles across the ground as he lands, but rises up into a strong charge towards the feet of the robot. He had finally decided to go on the offensive now that it would take more than a couple of seconds for the mech to adjust its arms and launch a fireball at him.
Tatanga catches 'Mario's' nimble movement towards the feet of his robot and promptly activates the propulsion system to try and escape the plumber in the skies. But he was too slow, and with a mighty leap Luigi lands on top of the right steel-toe of this goliath and begins to run towards the leg itself. The alien conqueror, with his mighty mech suspended in mid-air, operates the legs to try and throw 'Mario' off with a swing of the foot. Luigi falls onto his belly after the first lift, but secretly uses his Thunderhand to magnetize himself to the foot without Tatanga catching a glimpse of this as he furiously swings the foot up and down to try and shake the plumber off. The man in green hangs on for his life, his heart pounding in the heat of battle as he lifts his head up and pays attention to the motions of the foot.
He is waiting for just the right moment when he can let go and let the momentum of being flung carry him towards the head of the robot. Luigi waits two more seconds and lets go at the perfect time, and his body is launched towards the robotic Mario's face. He lands on the edge of the chin just barely, the eyes lowering to pay attention to the hero's sudden appearance as Tatanga catches a faded glimpse of 'Mario' and his eyes widen in fury since he didn't want him to get this close already. Luigi moves out of sight quickly though, for if the alien gets a good long look at him his cover will be blown. After dashing to the side of the chin the man in green leaps for the left eye and swings his fist at it, hitting the center so hard that the glass instantly shatters apart and robs Tatanga sight through that socket thanks to the glass shards that fly from the broken lens.
However, behind the lens lies a laser array system, which Tatanga slams his fist down on the button to activate and send a barrage of seething red beams at the man in green. One singes Luigi across the left shoulder, causing him to take notice of the weapon system and forcing him to leap back after he lands on the chin of the robot to avoid dealing with anymore of the searing pain. The man in green falls for a full thirty seconds before he lands, a ripple of pain pulsating through his bones and nerves as the crackle of his feet bones rings in his eardrums. He didn't prepare himself enough to reduce the damage from such a fall, and this was a blow that he couldn't afford to have on his body.
Looking up at the massive mechanical monster, the man in green frowns upon noticing the flames re-igniting around the hands, which signified the return of the dwarfing fireballs that Luigi would waste much energy trying to avoid. For this next assault, Luigi would aim for the flamethrowers on the palms, a feat that would require much careful maneuvering around the legs, waist and arms of this robotic brute in order to get the job done. But he didn't believe that he would fail in this endeavor, not when Daisy and the people of Sarassaland held so much trust towards his victory. He turned his head to the right and saw a speck of Daisy poking out of the broken window. The man in green imagined her smile as a means of motivation and then looked back at the robot, jumping forward before Tatanga launches a fireball his way.
The searing flames approach him, the brightness and heat bringing a sensation of blindness to Luigi's eyes as he quickly thrusts his fist at the front of the fireball, releasing his Thunderhand for just a second at such an intensity that the lightning overwhelms the fire and shatters it, the ensuing flurry of flames hiding the sparks the fill the air around him as the man in green continues to fly towards his destination. He lands at the bottom of the left leg, maintaining a powerful sprint thanks to his momentum that allows him to scale the side of the leg itself and eventually reach the backside where the alien conqueror wouldn't dare take his flamethrowers to in order to stop him. However, there was a secondary defense system installed that activates the moment 'Mario's' presence is felt on the metallic surface.
A series of circular compartments open up, from them emerging a bombardment of giant boomerang shaped missiles that launch themselves at the man in green, homing in on his location and forcing him to swerve left and right to dodge them while keeping his momentum up to maximum. However, as their names and likeliness would suggest, these missiles curve their flight and head back towards the man in green, their paths not as focused as before seeing as the closest missile passes by Luigi and causes him to tilt his head back and become aware of the remaining weapons. Now halfway up the backside, the man in green kicks himself off the metallic surface and thrusts his hands downward, unleashing a swift lightning bolt that strikes the boomerangs and short-circuits them to the point that they explode right below him, propelling him high enough into the air that he lands on the right shoulder of the goliath.
Through the cameras on the back, Tatanga observes 'Mario's' moves, realizing not long afterwards that the electricity was not something that the plumber he fought before had shown himself capable of using. Though a more observant being would have noted the problem here and done something about it, the alien conqueror lacked the knowledge about the differences between Mario and Luigi and chalked up these moves as a new technique that the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom had learned, which brought nothing but fury to his expression as he tightly clenched the control sticks of this mech and prepared his left hand to swat the pesky man straight off. Luigi feels the robot moving, his eyes pointed towards the left arm as it creaks up into the air and heads his way.
With the right eye still functional, the man in green knows that Tatanga is able to keep enough vision on him to swat him off if he doesn't move correctly towards the flamethrowers. Luigi also notes in his head as he leaps off of the shoulder to dodge the initial swat that it was odd that Tatanga hadn't noticed anything odd about his admittedly reckless use of the Thunderhand. The man in green lands on the upper arms, sliding down the metal plate as the alien conqueror uses his left hand to summon forth a fireball to try and incinerate the man in green, only for the momentum from his slide to allow him to perfectly dodge it and make his way to the wrist, where he finds the flamethrowers close by and readies his Thunderhand to disable them and use them in a chain reaction that would decimate the right arm completely.
However, the left hand proves persistent, and Luigi forgets about it just long enough for Tatanga to smirk brightly and whack the man in green straight off of the backhand of the right arm with one thrust of his control stick. Luigi goes flying through the air, his face at the front as he tries to flip himself around by fighting against the force applied against him. Though he was a hundred so feet away from the hand and rapidly going farther with each second, the man in green points his right pointer finger at the right hand of the monstrous Mario machine and fires a lightning bolt that strikes right through two outlets of the flamethrowers, the bolt piercing through enough of the circuitry that it begins to crackle and destroy itself from within, taking the flamethrowers and the entire right arm with them in a chain explosion that brightens the sunlight deprived Sarassaland with a spectacular display of pyrotechnics that ends with only a few thick wires dangling from the shoulder of Tatanga's mech with sparks crackling out of the ends.
The alien conqueror takes his left hand and tries to stuff the wires into the shoulder to avoid any further problems with this rather vulnerable point in his body, but he knows that he has lost most of his firepower with this one move of 'Mario's'. This enraged him immensely, making him believe that for all of his efforts and planning he still isn't capable of defeating the Hero of the Mushroom Kingdom. In this rage he forgets the one who had helped him even get this far, and further descent into madness causes his pupils to retract into his head as he laughs maniacally in such a way that it echoes through the mic he has placed in front of him and even reaches the ears of those outside the dome. It was a haunting laugh, and one that would not be so easily forgotten anytime soon by the frightened populace.
Luigi, who had just fallen back first against the ground near the eastern end of the dome, manages to hear Tatanga's insane laughter and gets a rather foreboding feeling in his gut as he widens his eyes in worry and tries to bring himself to his a feet, an effort that proves rather difficult considering the damage sustained to his leg bones earlier along with the shocking blow to his spine brought on by his recent impact with the ground. But still he rises, the trees of the forest surrounding him just enough that he can only peek through the canopy and see the head and left arm of Tatanga's mech, watching as the arm is swiftly pointed at the castle that Daisy is currently occupying herself inside of. With his weapon glowing brightly and flames growing with each passing second, Tatanga boldly declares in a tone of echoing madness "COME OUT MARIO! IF YOU DO NOT FACE ME NOW AND DIE AT MY HANDS, THEN I WILL INCINERATE PRINCESS DAISY WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE! DO NOT TEST ME HERO OF THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM, I HOLD ALL THE CARDS!"
It was far too clear that even with his madness, Tatanga believed that he could still claim victory over 'Mario', not even knowing that at the moment he was facing his brother, who in his mind was hearing the echoes of the alien conqueror rage-induced threats, his knuckles cracking tightly as he calmly begins to close his eyelids and think to himself "No Tatanga…There's one card you don't hold in your hand…" Luigi knew what he had to do in order to take down the alien conqueror and save Sarassaland, and he wasn't going to show reluctance or cowardice now. Little did Tatanga know, he awakened the heart of the bravest man all of Plit had known, even if the man in green himself didn't know that he was capable of such courage…And through his courage, was born the heart of a hero.
From the confines of his cockpit, Tatanga salivated like a mad dog, his palpitating laughter and rapidly beating heart distracting him to the point that he barely notices the events unfolding outside until a piercing, golden light sprung to existence to the left of him, at which point he merely turned towards the spectacle with eyes barely flinching in the face of such awe-inspiring light. From the golden pillar of holy light sparkling at the east edge of the dome emerged a series of rejuvenating electric sparks that heal the scarred landscape, even going as far as to slowly piece together the window Daisy was poking her head through, forcing her to step back in shock as she mutters to herself "L-Luigi?" As though she didn't expect the man in green to release this type of power.
Tatanga is utterly bewildered by this display of might, on the other hand, and he furiously turns the left hand of his mecha towards the golden pillar of light and exclaims without any concern for his life "YOU CANNOT ESCAPE ME MARIO!" With a gigantic slamming of the caution button in the center of the control sticks that breaks the button apart, Tatanga causes the klaxons buried within the chest of his robot to activate as the nuclear reactor he drew energy from for his flames begins to pour all of its power into the remaining flamethrower, turning the crimson fireball into a glowing, stabilized miniature sun that launches itself straight towards the pillar of light. Within seconds of emerging in clothes of pearly white and golden, Luigi widens his eyelids open and charges forward, covering half of the distance between himself and Tatanga in a blink of the eye and intercepting the miniature sun with his right hand.
With the nearly invisible visages of the Star Spirits floating around him in a ring, Luigi pours the holy energy granted to him into the sun, filling it immensely to the point that the sun disappears in a sparkling flurry of bright lights, which brightens the dismal atmosphere cast by Tatanga's dome and blinds the enraged alien to the point that he is unable to watch as Luigi gathers the lights into his right fist and holds it beside his body, a gigantic glowing effigy of his body forming around him as millions of volts of electricity surge through him. With one charge through the air that creates a streak of green lightning that scars the sky for three seconds, the effigy itself punches the face of the Mario robot so hard that the shockwave of power spreads through the dome, creating a powerful gale that nearly rips all of the trees from the ground.
After the punch connects and the effigy starts to fade into oblivion, a hundred other streaks of green lightning pierce themselves into the Mario robot from all sorts of directions, causing a chain reaction of explosions throughout that engulf every single inch of the mechanical monstrosity as it falls backwards through the air from the force of Luigi's mighty series of punches. Speaking of the man in green, after the last punch he had flown into the cockpit of Tatanga's ship and ripped the alien straight out of his chair, carrying him to safety on stable ground far off from the scene of the mech's destruction. He had grabbed the alien conqueror by the collar, planting his body straight against the ground as he does nothing but laugh maniacally as Luigi looks back to confirm that the robot is completely destroyed.
After seeing the final explosion brightly glowing from afar, the man in green turns back towards a maddened Tatanga and reverts to the basic red and blue clothing of his brother, his eyes glaring towards the alien's blank gaze as he continues to laugh and proclaims between each breath "I am not afraid of you Mario! I can still destroy you and everything you love with this dome! YOU LOSE, YOU ARE NOTHING COMPARED TO ME MARIO!" Tatanga had gone completely suicidal at this point, and he was far too willing to take everything in Sarassaland out with him in his final act of desperation. Luigi, however, quickly looked at the foolish shell of a conqueror and used his left hand to pull Mario's cap right off, revealing to him his true face and hair to Tatanga while proclaiming in a bitter tone "Guess what though? I'm not Mario! You didn't lose to my brother, you lost to a simple 'second-rate sidekick'."
The man in green pounded in the truth behind Tatanga's defeat into the alien's head so hard that he quickly froze with eyes widened blankly in shock, his body going into a near-comatose state as he stares into the eyes of the one who defeated him and finds it all-too difficult to believe that he was bested by this filth. And in his moment of disbelieving stiffness, Tatanga's mind drops its focus on the dome, his broken connection causing the dome to slowly fade away from the bottom upward until the clear night sky is visible to all those who were once trapped underneath it. Luigi lifts himself up off the ground, removing his hand from the alien conqueror's collar as he stares up into the starry sky and smiles, his victory resting merrily on his heart now that everyone was safe from harm.
…A few minutes later, Gemini and a few M.S.I. troops descend from their aerial ships, walking over to the site of Tatanga's certain defeat to pick him up and carry his body away, with Princess Daisy standing by Luigi's side as the man in green lets out a relaxed sigh and says to her "I'm glad that's over with…" Wrapping her arms around the man in green's body so tightly that his cheeks become flushed with red in an embarrassed instant. Daisy sings her praises to the man in green, thanking him immensely for what he had done today as Gemini looks on with a sly, humored smirk on his face, which causes Luigi to angrily react to him with a stutter in his voice "W-What's the big idea Gemini?! You want to start something?" He was speaking with a little too much gusto, possibly caused by the courage he gained just a few minutes ago.
Meanwhile, as the heroes celebrate the defeat of Tatanga, the alien conqueror hangs limp above the ground, his body being carried along by the arms thanks to two Boo soldiers. His lips stutter, as rational thought begins to creep inside of his mind as he realizes the implications of his defeat at the hands of Luigi. "I…I lost to that two-bit brother…I didn't stand a chance of beating Mario if his weak little brother trashed my mech so easily…I'm…I'm a failure as a conqueror…But…But…But…But…" This mantra of insanity loops inside of his head ad infinitum as he starts to scowl angrily, regaining his strength in an instance and tearing himself out of the grasp of the Boos as he quickly turns towards Luigi and Daisy and pulls out his ray gun from his holster.
"PERISH LIKE THE SCUM YOU ARE!" He proclaims, as he pulls the trigger once before the Boos jumps on him to restrain him. The laser flies through the air, its current path meaning that it would strike through the chests of Luigi and Daisy and surely end their lives. Knowing this, the man in green quickly pushes the Princess onto her back in front of him, in the urgency of this moment failing to protect himself as the laser pierces through his chest and causes him to become stiff with pain. His vision instantly blurs, slowly fading away as he hears the panicked cries of Princess Daisy in his eardrums while Gemini furiously charges at Tatanga with trident drawn, a sharp, impaling noise being the last thing the man in green hears as he feels himself slipping into unconsciousness.
But suddenly, he wakes back up, his eyes greeted by bright yet welcoming eyes in the ceiling that causes him to blink a few times before his vision adjusts to the light. He feels a soreness coming from his chest almost immediately, one so painful that he finds it hard to breath as a raspy cough emerges from his lips, signifying to him that he is at the very least alive if rather uncertain about his condition. He hears a surprised gasp to the left of him, and turns to find Princess Daisy sitting down in a chair beside him in her normal royal garb. On his body is his regular clothing, which was obviously put on him while he was unconscious. Standing up and running beside his bed, a teary-eyed Daisy pouts and tries to hard her sadness with an expression of anger, an act that fails spectacularly as she breaks down and says with her hands pressed against the side of Luigi's bed "YOU IDIOT!"
The man in green feels the weight of his bed swaying to the left for just a moment, which wakes him up a little more and causes him to focus more on Princess Daisy as she looks at him with tears dripping down her cheeks as she goes on to say "What makes you think you have the right to even attempt to sacrifice your life for my sake?! You should be thankful that we were able to get you to our hospitals right away or you may have never been allowed to breath ever again! …DON'T EVER PUT ME THROUGH THIS TYPE OF STRESS EVER AGAIN!" As Daisy berates Luigi for his brave if rather fool hearted sacrifice, the man in green turns his head towards the calendar and notes that it has been three days since Tatanga was defeated.
Turning back to the Princess as she clenches his bed sheet with both hands and grits her teeth while sobbing uncontrollably, Luigi asks her in a raspy voice "Y-You were…At my bedside the whole time…Weren't you?" Daisy widens her teary eyes, lifting her head up to look over at Luigi with a merry smile on her face at the fact that he is able to speak, even if it was in a weak tone. "T-Thank you…" The man in green states, cracking a smile as wide as his condition will allow him before Daisy kneels beside him and wraps her arms around his face, barely exerting any effort as she keeps him in a warm embrace.
From beside the door to Luigi's room, Gemini observes the behavior of the two humans, smiling happily at the fact that the man in green was alive and that he had someone beside him to care for him as he recovers. Seeing as he was no longer needed here, the Koopa Lieutenant turns around and starts to depart from the hospital, only to be interrupted by an abrupt ringing coming from within his shell. It was the communicator that Commander Alpha had given him before he suddenly departed, and with a swift draw of it from his shell as he secludes himself in a dark, vacant hallway he answers the device's call and holds it up beside the right side of his face. "Where have you been Commander?" The Lieutenant promptly and bluntly asks.
"Here, there and everywhere else in between Gemini…I did manage to catch wind of the hostage situation in Sarassaland though. Did everything turn out ok?" The Commander's voice was a little hard to hear, more than likely because of the reception in this building, but Gemini still caught enough to be able to answer him with "Luigi got harmed by Tatanga at the end of the scuffle but he's healing up in the hospital now…He'll be fine within a week or so. As far as Tatanga goes…I had no choice but to execute him." "…Gemini…" Alpha responds to the Koopa's reluctance in a firm, obviously disappointed tone of voice before the Lieutenant points out "I know you disapprove of my decision Commander…But Tatanga was far too dangerous to keep on-world, and we shouldn't have to follow the rules for otherworldly creatures, right?"
"…That type of thinking will eventually transform you into an extremist, Gemini. I will forgive you just once for killing Tatanga, but I do wish that you would consult me the next time such a matter occurs." "…If I must be fair Commander, there is a particular reason I chose to swiftly execute
Tatanga beside the fact that he harmed Luigi." "Yes?" Alpha responds with intrigue in his voice. The Lieutenant then says to Alpha with a bit of hesitation lying on his mind "…Tatanga summoned forth a dome around Sarassaland that trapped everyone inside. The news didn't record this since it was dispelled rather quickly, but my crew managed to scan the dome before it vanished and we found that it was created through the use of dark magic…And not just any dark magic. Its energy signature was perfectly identical to the type of magic Cackletta used in the past."
Next Story: Mallow and the Hidden Treasure (To be posted after the Metroid Story of Part 4...)