Chapter 5
Neon Land had been pretty well-hidden from the outside, but once they got past the trees, and the long stretch of dirt road that began between them, Mario and his friends found a land that was neon-colored by nature. So this was where the whole concept of neon color, a concept that seemed to apply only to paint and ink and electronic signs, really came from.
Light neon green trees, whose trunks were sky-blue. A neon purple ground. Neon pink birds flying through the air. Everything in Neon Land appeared both intensely light and vibrant at once. This was certainly a different terrain than the Rice Fields, although there was some small stretch of land of neon green rice on the grounds here. Water was light neon blue in this land.
The time of day was still early evening, so they weren't navigating through the place in total darkness, yet. They were also well past the hottest hour of the day. It was a pleasant walk, through Neon Land. Mario looked around again. All around him was the wilderness of nature, with some dirt roads. In the far distance, neon green mountains could be seen from miles away.
"This is a cool-looking place," Mario said. "But we have no business in this town. It's Tatanga's ship that we want to get to."
"So, it's a matter of finding someone who works for Tatanga," Luigi said. "Once we beat him up, and defeat him in battle, he'll be transported to Tatanga's ship, and we can follow him there. But when's that ever gonna happen again?"
"It's simple, Luigi," Mario said. "He has his eyes and ears on us - surveillance. He'll send his minions after us. If we walk through this land, we'll certainly find something he beams at us."
Looking again, Luigi could have sworn he saw two black shadows, somewhere, but they pulled themselves out of sight. Looking on, it was clear that there was nothing around here, but the light neon green trees. Still, Luigi was pretty certain he had seen something before. So he walked forward, slowly, one foot at a time, to approach the tree that he had thought he'd seen the shadows hide behind.
Black silhouettes flipped quickly from tree to tree, from branch to branch. In a short time, Mario and Luigi were surrounded by them. They began to drop down from the tree branches, to make themselves seen on the ground. 8 ninjas, wearing all black, rose up to their feet and surrounded Mario and Luigi in a circle.
Both plumbers stood back-to-back as they punched and kicked an oncoming horde of Ninjis, all dressed in the same black attire. The enemies leaped up into the air, attempting to kick Mario and Luigi in the head area. Mario and Luigi got ready to fight, knocking them back with the sides of their hands, one at a time. Finally, when there were only two left standing, they both threw small grenades to the ground, which let out enormous amounts of fog, creating a cover for the Ninjis to hide behind, before they flipped out of sight.
It took a while for the cloud of fog to spread out to the point where the area could be seen again. The four heroes were coughing, waving the fog away with their arms.
"What was all THAT about?" Peach asked.
"I have no idea!" Luigi said. "Apparently, every land has its own thing going on. Whether or not these ninjas actually work for Tatanga, we can't prove."
"What were those guys's PROBLEM?" Mario yelled.
Clap . . . clap . . . clap. An old mushroom-person man, with the palest skin of any mushroom-person Mario had ever yet seen, was wearing a tall red and blue hat, reaching up over 20 inches tall, while having a long gray beard and wearing a long red and blue robe.
"Who are you?" Mario asked.
"I am Mu Chi Room," the man said. "Leader of the Deadly Fungus clan. Otherwise known as: Mushroom Ninja."
"And those men . . . they were with you?" Mario asked.
"No! Heavens, no! Those were the Ninjis you encountered. They are from an island far from here. They are the enemies of us Deadly Fungus clan . . . forever!"
". . . You hate them, and they hate you," Mario said.
"CORRECT! They are traitors!"
"Are you able to defend yourselves from them?" Mario asked.
"Please!" Mu Chi Room had interpreted that as an insult. "The Ninjis learned what they knew from us. They trained with us! They trained under me! They promised never to misuse their knowledge of the Mushroom Ninja. Then they went off, and . . . and ran back to their island, and taught them our martial arts. Those Ninjis may appear skillful, but they learned what they know from me!"
"Then why are they here?" Mario asked. "If they live on an island . . ."
"If the Ninjis are here, it can only mean one thing. There is someone they are looking for. Someone they were paid to go after. Who this person is, I do not know," Mu Chi Room said while pacing around anxiously in circles. "For now I will assume that it is me they are after."
"Sounds awful," Mario said. "Do you need our help?"
"No," MCR said. "We do not. Do you need ours?"
Mario was confused.
.
A minute later, Mario and Mu Chi Room were training together, higher up in the hills of Neon Land. Mu Chi Room assumed the square-horse-stance position. "Square horse stance!" he yelled. He assumed another pose. "Cat stance!" He assumed another pose. "Bo stance!" He demonstrated this to Mario, then went back to the first pose. "Square horse stance!"
A minute later, he had Mario imitating him. "Square horse stance!" MCR said, and the two plumbers assumed the square-horse stance. Mario was lagging behind MCR, and Luigi was lagging behind Mario. "Cat stance! Bo stance! Square horse stance!"
Peach and Daisy were watching at the ground level. "We're more crane and mantis style," Daisy said.
10 minutes later, Mario and Luigi were getting the hang of it. Square horse stance. Cat stance. Bo stance. Next, they were taught to add punching attacks to the bo stance.
Time began to fly by, and in no time at all, Luigi learned that he and Mario had been training with Mu Chi Room for 2 hours already. At last, they had gotten to a level of decent martial arts capability.
"This was exhausting," Luigi said. "Still, I feel like I've learned a lot in a short period of time!" It was, of course, still his very first day, and he was no expert, yet. But he had already learned the starting basics.
Mu Chi Room was glad to teach the plumbers the ways of martial arts. But now it was gettng dark out. People used light neon green lanterns to see their way around in the dark. The sky overhead was dark blue. The neon colors all over town still looked like light shades of their colors, but they were surrounded by darkness. There was no way they were continuing their travel. Tomorrow, Day 3 of the travel, they could resume.
"Wait. Where are Peach and Daisy?" Mario asked.
The two women were just starting to walk back to the area, visible from a far distance. "Oh. There they are," Luigi said, pointing.
"Training is over for the day," MCR said. "Farewell, Mario and Luigi."
In a short while, when Peach and Daisy had gotten back to their boyfriends, the four went back to traveling. "You are not from here," MCR said. "Where are the four of you sleeping?"
"Uhhhh," Mario said. "Well . . . that's the thing. We're all . . . traveling right now. We don't really . . . have any place to sleep here."
Really?" MCR asked. "Well, why didn't you say so?"
.
Soon, MCR was taking the two to a mushroom-house, white in color on the outside, with a black roof with white circles. MCR opened the sliding door to the left, and showed the two plumbers inside. This was a house that was always empty of permanent occupants, but ready to be used as a guest house for anyone who truly needed it for the night. Two large beds were ready-made for the guests.
One of the pale-skinned mushroom-people was inside this house as well. "I'll get you some food and some drink," he said.
"Oh, you don't have to," Luigi replied.
"No, really. I insist."
The mushroom-person left the house, sliding the door shut behind him. Luigi looked at the man, waited until he was sure he had left, and then back at Mario. "He looks just like Toad, except Chinese," Luigi said. "Don't you think?" Mario nodded his head quickly.
Soon enough, the mushroom-person came back with food. Mario and Luigi tried not to laugh, knowing how similar he looked to their friend from the Mushroom Kingdom. "We're sorry," the man explained. "But the strawberries are out, in the castle. There is, however, a pretty good selection of Chinese food here."
"What kind of food?" Luigi asked.
"Nothing special. Just the same old stuff we eat every day." Luigi looked for himself. Crispy noodles. Egg rolls. Kung pao chicken, with baby corn. White rice. Chicken fried rice. Egg drop soup. Steamed dumplings. Fortune cookies.
"Mario, you go on without me," Luigi said. "I'll just stay here in Neon Land for a while."
Once the four were done eating, and drinking plenty of water, they went to the bathroom. After fixing up the minor leak in the bathroom faucet, which was causing it to drip two drops of water per second even when the faucet was completely shut, and after unclogging the drain in the bathtub that had been built up over time from cat hair, Mario took off his gloves for the night, washed his hands, and was ready for bed.
.
A blue wall of water was rippling with energy non-stop. It was mesmerizing to look at. But it was difficult to see beyond the black, shadowy silhouette that blocked its path. Slowly, that shadow came into focus . . . Wart.
"Hello, plumbers," he said. "I guess you survived those Poison Mushrooms I sent you. Gwaaah ha ha haaa!" Now, looking past Wart, Mario and Luigi could see a whole army of Poison Mushrooms coming at them. Dozens and dozens of Poison Mushrooms were sliding their way at once, moving across the ground with zero reaction to friction.
.
"Gaaaah!" Mario yelled, waking up. It was still dark out. 3 a.m. was his guess, assuming he'd fallen asleep around 10:30 p.m. He had needed to wake up fast enough, before that whole barrage of poison mushrooms reached him and his brother; his mind seemed to have jolted his body awake. Mario's heart was beating quickly. It was difficult to fall back asleep now.
"Whoaaaah," Luigi yelled as he woke up in the other of two twin blue beds. He breathed for a moment.
Peach and Daisy woke up. "Wart again," they both said at once.
"We'll deal with Wart," Luigi said. "He works for Tatanga, and we'll deal with Tatanga. That will be the end of that. Still . . . we do need our sleep." Trying not to be bothered by the nightmares, Mario and Luigi went on back to sleep.
.
Mu Chi Room opened the door and walked inside. He stood right before Mario's body, and all at once stopped moving, staring dead at Mario's head. Mario wondered what the man was about to say. But he said nothing.
Luigi looked. He could see Mu Chi Room from the back. His skin appeared red. That was a little eerie.
Mario looked at Mu Chi Room. "Yes?" Mario asked.
MCR's face opened up into three claws, as he screamed: "RAAAAAAAAAAWWW!"
.
"GAH!" Mario yelled, waking up in bed. It was bright and sunny outside now. The house was still the same, but Mu Chi Room was not inside it.
Luigi woke up. "G'oh!" he yelled.
"More dreams from Wart," Mario said, climbing up out of bed. "No matter. We still won't pledge ourselves to Tatanga anyway. Right, Luigi?"
"Right, Mario. All we have to worry about is a few things. Neon Land. The Ninjis. Mu Chi Room, and his Mushroom Ninja clan. And Tatanga. Once we stop Tatanga, we're done."
The two plumbers were treated to complimentary breakfast and water. It was kind of funny, how it seemed as though they had just gotten done with eating, yet after waking up they had to go through it all over again. Once they finished another delicious meal of Chinese food, they went to the bathroom. They used a few of the many complimentary guest toothbrushes, kept in cases, in the bathroom to brush their teeth, after flossing, after rinsing their mouths out for 60 seconds with mouthwash. Then, finally, they were ready to resume with their travels.
There was only one door in this mushroom-house. Stepping outside, Mario headed the walk into the outdoors of Neon Land. It was the beginning of the day - before the hottest hours. This was Day 3, and he intended for it to be the final day.
"Let's remember our objectives," Mario said. "We want to find someone who works for Tatanga. We beat him up. We watch him get beamed back to Tatanga's ship. Then we grab the person and get beamed back up with him!"
The four people walked, single file, for a short time, when they found Mu Chi Room again. The real Mu Chi Room. "Did you enjoy your stay in the guest house?" he asked.
Mario nodded his head: yes.
"Excellent. Would you like to continue your training, under us Mushroom Ninja?"
"I'm sorry, but . . . I'm afraid I can't," he said. "I have business to take care of. The King of the Mushroom Kingdom was abducted by Tatanga, and I need to find him. So, we must all be traveling on."
"Really? Well, then. I wish you all good luck. But I warn you that there are Metroids in some areas out there. Be careful about what numbered areas you walk through."
Mario shivered for a second. "Metroids?"
"Yes. Well . . . have a good one." Mu Chi Room remained still, and after a while, Mario and his three friends walked on, without him.
.
They walked for a long time, but didn't seem to reach the end of the area of 5-1. It was awfully difficult without a go-kart, and without the Yoshis. Still, it wouldn't be that bad. This was the final land of the journey. Right?
Another 10 minutes of walkng later, they finally noticed the sign in the ground reading 5-2. They walked on, knowing the warning that this was where they might encounter dangerous Metroids. They would not be the same as the Ninjis encountered in 5-1.
Looking up, the group of four noticed about 17 of these Metroids, appearing like jellyfish with transluscent skin to leave the brain visible, floating through the air. Slowly, one meter at a time, the Metroids descended in a diagonal direction toward the ground in Neon Land.
"That's them!" Mu Chi Room screamed, running to Mario's side. "The Metroids! The Metroids! Nobody knows where they came from. Some speculate they came from the sea."
"No," Mario said. "I've read about them. Metroids are a species of aliens from space."
"Space?" Mu Chi Room asked. "Bare space?"
"Well . . . not necessarily. These Metroids come from the planet Zebes. It's not even in our galaxy. Unless, of course . . . unless Tatanga abducted some Metroids . . . and made them work for him, and fight for him. It was about the same offer he made me."
"I'm sorry, what are you saying? You make no sense."
"These Metroids you speak of, they most likely are working for Tatanga, a conqueror of planets and galaxies. How long have they been in town?"
"Not long. Two days ago, was when they first appeared."
"That confirms it," Mario said, nodding his head. "That would match Tatanga's patterns. His invasion of this world has only been in progress for two days, that I know of. These Metroids must work for him. If we can fight them, we can demand that they take us to their leader."
"Is that your strategy?" MCR asked, laughing.
"Yes. Yes, it is my strategy." Mario was serious, and he had finished his sentence without breaking his serious face. It was on, then.
Mario and Luigi quickly got ready in the bo stance, firing away with punch after punch, even before the Metroids had reached the ground. Six claws, on the lowest part of the Metroids' bodies, extended and retracted as they flew through the air. Soon enough, they were only 30 feet above the plumbers.
"What do we have to fight these Metroids with?" Mario asked.
"I've got something," Peach said. She squeezed the Fire-Flower in her hands. Immediately, magic energy overtook her body. Her blonde hair became red, the color of fire. Her pink dress became orange, because orange is the new pink. She nodded her head to Daisy.
Daisy nodded her head back. "Let's play with fire," she said, squeezing a Fire-Flower. Her hair became orange, but her dress remained yellow. The two women looked like a fiery pair.
It was not just a dozen, or even 17 Metroids, making their diagonally-aimed flight toward the ground to come at the humans. It was an entire army. Dozens. Too many to count. Most likely, 50 Metroids were coming at them. In a short time, they reached the ground, floating not too high above it, coming at Mario and his three friends.
Mario jumped up into the air. Luigi jumped up as well. They were surrounded by the Metroids now, but they wouldn't stop. They continued to jump, no matter how hopeless it appeared for them.
"Hey Metroids!" Peach yelled. She opened fire with as many fireballs in a row as she could manage. Without walking, she knocked down 12 Metroids in a row. Then, when they were fallen, she began to walk ahead, slowly, using both hands to spit out the fireballs.
Peach and Daisy stood back-to-back, opening fire on everything that came their way. One by one, the army of flying Metroids fell to the ground, with most being lucky enough to have not caught fire, for the fireballs dissipated due to the fast speed of all the action.
Mario and Luigi could no longer jump up, once the Metroids established a living barrier just above their heads. If they did jump up, it would not be into the open air, to land on the head of a Metroid, but it would be right into their six claws, and that would be the end of them. No longer could they jump! They had become completely disarmed.
But they could still fight. Assuming the cat stance, and smoothly turning it into the bo stance, to become a lethal series of three attacks, was child's play to Luigi by now. He leaped up into the air and kicked his feet out into a Metroid's head. He grabbed one Metroid, and threw it upward, into the living barrier. Peach and Daisy attacked the living barrier from the bottom, setting everything on fire, and creating a barrier of flame for the Metroids.
It took little time now for Mario and his three friends to wrestle control of the situation. Peach and Daisy just would not stop firing away with fireballs. Mario and Luigi jumped up into the air and fought the aliens. Finally, in time, only a few remained, and they flew away, back toward Tatanga's ship. They were beamed away, to safety - without Mario and Luigi being able to grab them, from the ground.
It took a while for the four to breathe and see that the action was over. Peach and Daisy were still armed with fire power. "Want to travel with us?" Mario asked Mu Chi Room.
"Okay," Mu Chi Room said. Success! Mu Chi Room joined the group of four!
Walking with his walking stick, Mu Chi Room led the way through the terrain of Area 5-2, all neon jungle terrain with a natural dirt road. As they walked down the dirt road's curves and bends and turns, unable to see far ahead, they found more Ninjis leaping at them from the bushes. In no time at all, the five people were covered in Ninji attackers!
"Hiwa-ya-kaaaaah!" Luigi screamed, knocking one Ninji off him, followed by the other. They all took a moment to fight off their Ninji attackers. Then, on they traveled through the jungle.
Every now and then, a small group of Metroids came at them. They weren't difficult to deal with. A single jump and bop, like any other monster. The four heroes walked on, seeing how much easier this felt than it had yesterday, or the day before. But they could never afford to grow overconfident.
5-3 was more quiet neon grassland terrain. Ahead of them, a traveling group of four monsters, a Goomba, a Koopa, a Shyguy, and a Snifit, strolled along together, and the Snifit fired a bead at Princess Peach.
The bead missed. Peach was relieved. Now it was her turn. She fired a fireball at the Snifit, destroying it.
Daisy's turn. She spit a fireball out of her hands at the Koopa, the most physically powerful of the monsters standing. Only the Goomba and Shyguy still remained standing.
"Okay, our turn now," the Goomba said, and he ran at Mario, biting the plumber with his sharp jaws.
"Ahhh!" Mario yelled, knowing he could only endure one more such blow.
The Shyguy laughed. He ran at Luigi, ramming his mask into Luigi's chin, knocking the tall plumber back. "Ouuuuch!" Luigi yelled, though he knew that it was better for him to be knocked down to Mario's condition than to let Mario be struck again, and left dead.
"Okay, now it's my turn again," Peach yelled. She fired fireball after fireball after fireball after fireball at the Goomba, who had bit Mario.
"And now it's mine," Daisy said, having waited patiently enough. She fired the same number of fireballs at the Shyguy.
The four had won! It was hard to argue against it now. These four people were a team. Mario and Luigi were still in poor physical condition, but they would live.
"You all could have done better," Mu Chi Room said. "Luigi, you were slouching the whole time. Mario, you should have been leading by example. Peach and Daisy . . . without those Fire-Flowers, you would consider yourself defenseless. You must use your own self as your fire power. And will you all stand up straight for once?"
The four groaned, for this was one of those moments when they didn't want to have to deal with all this. But they did walk on.
After another quarter-mile, they found some action in the neon nature. Plants rustled about, more so than they normally would in the wind, shortly before Ninjis leaped out of the nature to attack Mario and his four friends. The four heroes quickly got to action, fighting the Ninjis. As they walked on, several more Metroids came at them from the fields of tall grass, flying up into the air and homing in quickly on the humans.
Mario and Luigi jumped on and destroyed all the Ninjis and Metroids that they encountered. Then, Mario decided to steal some black ninja attire from the Ninjis, transforming the appearance of the plumbers yet again. Now Mario and Luigi had invented a new form for themselves. "The Ninja Mario Bros.!" Mario yelled.
Now Mario and Luigi were walking through the town, dressed in the black ninja attire, leaving only their eyes and a third of their nose revealed. Dressed in black, they would be impossible to see at night time.
"Why is this necessary?" Luigi asked.
"This will help us get to Tatanga's ship," Mario explained to Luigi. "He will never beam up his servants if he knows we're going to try to grab them. He has his eyes and ears focused on us at all times. So, we must be like the ninja, and remain hidden, and leap forth to spring our attack, grabbing the men right as they start to get beamed up to Tatanga's ship."
"Aw, heck, everything else has failed. Why not?" Luigi asked himself.
Mario hid down behind a green bush. In seconds, he seemed invisible. Luigi ducked down behind a similar green bush, and, in seconds, he seemed invisible, too. Both of them appeared to be nowhere in the area at all. Two Shyguys passed by the area. As fast as he possibly could, Mario ran forth, grabbed one Shyguy, and threw him into the other.
"That's it! Dieee!" the Shyguy in pink yelled, charging at Mario.
POOF! A smoke grenade was set off, sending smoke everywhere. The Shyguy could no longer see Mario through all the smoke. Once it had wafted away to the point where the Shyguy could see his way around again, Mario was out of sight.
"!" the Shyguy yelled. "Baffling."
Meanwhile, Tatanga was sitting back in his chair, eying his holographic projector. While Mario was used to looking at a glass LCD screen, surrounded by a solid frame, to watch TV, the holographic projector was a projector of all colors of light, projecting the holographic images upward, with no glass screen or border, to make images that were 3-dimensional, rather than flat and 2-D, like regular TV. Tatanga was watching Peach and Daisy at the ground level, for his eyes and ears - cameras and audio surveillance - had all of Fungai covered to the point where nothing was hidden.
Tatanga used some Atari-style joysticks to zoom in with one camera, to see, from an aerial angle, the smoke grenade that Mario had thrown to the ground. Another holographic projection showed Tatanga a grounded camera angle.
"Cackletta!" Tatanga sceamed into a microphone. "Make sure Mario and his friends become very . . . sleepy!"
Cackletta, the green-skinned witch, cackled loudly, communicating with the radio equipment with her own body, mind, and sorcery. "Why do you want them to be sleepy?" she asked.
"So that they may fall victim to Wart. But I didn't pay you so much to ask questions. I paid you to help me deal with Mario and Luigi. I don't want them dead, necessarily. Just defeated, hurt, and abducted into my ship, so that I may discuss my offer of their servitude to me. Make sure Mario and his friends become exhausted!"
"Yes, Master!" she said. "I've got just the thing . . . sleepy powder!"
.
Cackletta flew through the air, using an ordinary broomstick, high above Mario and his four friends. Their location had been determined by Tatanga's cameras, and their coordinates. Now Cackletta flew quickly, dropping yellow sleepy powder upon the ground as she did so.
"Haaaa ha ha ha haaaaa!" she screamed. "Grow sleepy . . . sleepy . . . sleepy!"
Mario and his four friends were shocked to see the green witch flying around. "I wonder what is her deal?" Luigi asked. He yawned, sleepy already. Within less than 10 seconds, all five people in the traveling group had fallen to the ground, dead exhausted.
"Cackletta reporting," she said. "I have done my job."
"Indeed, you have," Tatanga said. Sitting in his floating chair, Tatanga looked at the holographic projector to find Mario and his friends collapsing, one by one, just 7 seconds after it had happened for real.
"Looks like I will win," Tatanga said with a laugh.
.
"Still you refuse to serve Tatanga!" Wart screamed. What? No! Wart was back! Now Wart was grabbing Mario by the overalls, pulling him tightly closer. "Now, remember. My nightmare tortures will end, once you pledge your loyalties to Tatanga!"
"Get off! Get OUT of my dream!" Mario yelled, and Wart dissipated into a cloud of dust, which became at least 60 small clouds of dust, each of which looked like a blue Goomba. Slowly, all the dust was gone from sight.
Mario looked around, to find that he, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, and Mu Chi Room were inside an empty room, an abandoned tiki bar. Gone were the ninja outfits. But as they looked around the empty room, they soon found themselves surrounded by 17 Dry Bones, who had appeared from nowhere as the humans kept turning their heads.
17 Dry Bones. These creatures were the zombie, undead, reanimated remains of Koopa turtles, killed personally by Mario and Luigi, with nothing left of their walking, reanimated bodies but bone. Mario jumped on the Dry Bones monsters repeatedly. But it was never enough. In seconds, they always reformed themselves, their bones putting themselves back into place, so that the monsters could come right back to life. The four continued to be surrounded by the undead Dry Bones, without end.
"You know how to make this end!" Wart yelled, his voice coming from all the corners of the room. "Now, who do you serve?"
"Not you, and not Tatanga!" Mario yelled. Still, he fought the hopeless battle, of himself against the Dry Bones. They were increasing in number. There were twice as many of them now. The humans were surrounded by their skulls, their arms, their hands. Five times as many Dry Bones now. The four people were drowning in them.
.
"Gaaasp!" Mario yelled, waking up in bed.
He was alone now, inside a room at the inn. The wall was purple. No way could it be real. Mario looked away, at the opposite wall, to see himself and his friends laying unconscious on the ground, in an animating video image that served as the wallpaper for one entire wall. Mario looked back to the purple wall, to see an image of Wart against the purple.
"Hello," Wart said, as an animated design, 16 pixels wide and 32 pixels tall. "Your nightmares are not over, Mario. Not until you say it!"
"Never!" Mario yelled, and he threw veggies from the bed to hit the wall, striking Wart.
The veggies struck the wall, bouncing off and doing no damage to Wart. The veggies themselves had an angry, evil possessed smile on their faces. Mario shuddered. Wart laughed . . . and laughed . . . and laughed. The evil veggies threw themselves at Mario's face.
"Gah! Ahh!" Mario yelled, punching and kicking the evil veggies away. "Now you leave me and my brother alone! As well as leaving both princesses alone," he said clearly.
"Neverrrrr," Wart said while rippling out of existence. "You and your deadbeat brother . . . are miiiiine."
The walls all collapsed. Mario was outside again. The walls of the collapsed house remained in sight. "Where . . . am I?" he asked.
"The Lost Levels," Wart said. "You are stuck here!"
Mario screamed: "NOOOOOO!"
.
"Remember Luigi's Mansion? Well, it's back," Wart said to Luigi inside a pitch-dark house. "You're back in that house. It's 2 a.m. You are all alone. Completely alone, inside this dark, creepy mansion. Oh . . . and this time, you have no vaccuum or flashlght with you."
Wart's body was illuminated with light, inside the foyer of Luigi's Mansion.
"Stop it! Stop it! Stop!" Luigi yelled, running at Wart, using both hands to smear him away. Indeed, Wart was soon gone. But Luigi was still alone in the dark house.
.
Daisy woke up in a field of white and green. She was alone, it appeared, for miles.
"Where am I?" she asked.
Looking all around, the wind gently blew through the white and green plant life, making some sound. But she was all alone. She felt creeped out. A chill took over her body. "Luigi?" she asked.
Rustling to her north! Rustling to her southeast! She was not alone. Indeed, something was out here!
"Rabbits!" Daisy yelled with surprise.
The rabbits just kept on hopping. They weren't so dangerous. They were cute and cuddly. One by one, a crowd of scarecrows continued to emerge from the fields of plants. The scarecrows, walking with stiff legs that could not bend easily, walked slowly to surround Daisy and silently overpower her. "No! No, no, no! No! NOOO!" she yelled, but there were too many of them around her now. She was covered in them. She was a goner, and would just have to give up now. Overhead, the sky was dark, blue and purple, with many stars twinkling.
.
Mario and Luigi were running down a bridge made of flat yellow blocks, the kind with black eyes painted on them. The bridge of blocks was only one block thick. As they ran, evil red-and-black versions of Cheep-Cheep fish leaped up out of the water and flew around them in a ring, chanting "Oooone-two, Wart is coming for you . . ."
"Gahh!" Luigi yelled, waking up to find that he was lying on his back on a doctor's chair.
"Luigi. Relax," Daisy said.
"Oh. Whew. Daisy!" Luigi said.
Looking again, he realized that it was not Daisy. IT WAS A WEREWOLF.
"Gahh-gah roaaaar!" the werewolf screamed.
"No! No, no, no!" Luigi screamed.
The dream fell to blackness.
.
A pit of lava. Princess Peach was standing on one very small square of gray stone, floating over an enormous pit of lava.
"Can I move now?" Peach asked.
"Only if you want to fall into the lava," King Koopa, also known as Bowser, said to her.
She sighed. "Mario's going to come for me!" she yelled.
"Not this time. This time, you lose. This time, nobody saves you." A metal cage clamped shut all around Peach. CLANG!
Peach began to cry. "Please! Please, please don't do this!" she yelled, rattling the vertical bars with both hands.
"You will remain behind bars as long as you continue to refuse me," King Bowser Koopa said sternly.
.
Peach, fast asleep, was kicking and thrashing, screaming "No! No, please don't do this! Please don't do this! Let me go!"
Mario could see she was distressed. "PEACH!" he screamed, shaking her body to wake her up.
"Gah!" she yelled, waking up at last. Now Mario had to wake up his brother, Luigi, who, in turn, woke up Daisy.
Outside. They were outside, in the fields of grass, laying around. "We fell asleep?" Peach screamed. It was dark outside now! This was impossible!
Everybody stood up. Their four bodies felt like garbage. They hadn't eaten enough. They lacked water. They were drenched in sweat. Their muscles were sore, aching, painful. Ligaments had grown uneven. Their eyes were covered in oils, sweats, yellow crust, and otherwise felt heavy. Luigi threw up onto the ground.
"We all saw Wart again," Mario yelled. "He's still there, in our dreams. We have not stopped him yet. But, remember. Wart works for Tatanga. If we stop Tatanga, we stop Wart."
"How are we supposed to stop Tatanga?" Luigi asked. "Even without Wart plaguing our dreams."
"We'll find some way," Mario said. He led the difficult walk across the ground, back to . . . "Wait, where am I going?"
Mu Chi Room was up and awake again. "Come," he said. "I will take you to an inn." So Mu Chi Room led the walk through the town, and to the best inn ever. Inside, at the front desk, Mu Chi Room paid the coins for three rooms, one for himself: non-smoking, no Yoshis. He also asked that all five people have their clothes washed and dried for them while they slept.
Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, and Mu Chi Room stayed in three separate rooms. They showered, finally removing the sweats, oils, and other bad things from their bodies. They dried themselves with the inn's white towels. Then, still wiped out, they passed out in the beds.
.
"Now what do we do?" Luigi asked. All four heroes were standing outside again, in the dream-world. All four were dressed in Luigi's outfit of green overalls against blue. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy were all wearing green and blue.
"Now that we're back in Slumberland, we go find Wart," Mario explained. "We find his lair, and we stop him."
All four hopped into action. They ran across the long ledges of mushroom heads, colored orange with red circles, over light biege stems reaching over 100 feet. From the red and orange mushroom heads, they jumped to a waterfall, with brown logs continuously rolling down over the water. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy jumped into the water and reached a secret tunnel beyond.
"This will take us to Wart for sure," Mario said.
Jumping down into a lower room, they found a brown ground of dirt, brown walls, and: Wart! "Gaaah!" he yelled. "You found me in this world! No matter. Now I will crush you in yours!"
.
Luigi and Daisy woke up, and found Wart, alive and breathing, inside their room at the Neon Land inn.
"Gaaah!" Luigi yelled.
Soon enough, Mario knocked on the door. "Come in!" Luigi yelled. Mario opened the door. Mario and Peach now ran inside, to join Luigi and Daisy in running at Wart.
"What have you got that will stop me?" Wart screamed.
"Here, Wart!" Mario yelled. "Eat your vegetables!" So he threw a medium-sized veggie into Wart's open mouth.
"No! Noooo!" Wart yelled. He began to run around the room in circles frantically. It took a few moments for the running to stop, and he took a second to catch his breath. Then, it was back to fighting Mario and his friends inside the inn!
Spiders descended from the ceiling. They dropped from their webs, to land on the heads of the people, who ran away before that could happen. Many spiders were now walking around in circles across the ground. Mario and his friends continued to feel the chills of fright.
"Eat spider, frog!" Mario yelled, and he threw a spider at Wart, a spider that landed on the frog's belly and stung it.
"Nooo!" Wart yelled. One spider bite was not quite enough to kill him. But now the four adventurers knew their strategy.
"Let's take this fight outside!" Wart yelled. He ran, and ran, and leaped out the open window of the inn, taking him immediately to the outdoors. One by one, Mario and his friends jumped out the open window, to follow Wart. They all landed on the ground, with Wart several meters ahead of them, the people and monster surrounded on all sides by roads and buildings.
Mario would not let go of Wart. "Come back here!" Mario yelled, grabbing Wart by the tail.
"NOO!" Wart yelled, smacking Mario backward with one hand. Next, he threw Luigi at the wall of the inn. Luigi hit the wall, hurt, but far from dead. Wart picked up some veggies from the ground, and threw them at Peach and Daisy, who were struck and knocked back, hurt.
In no time at all, Wart had appeared to beat all four of them.
"All four of you couldn't stop me," Wart said. "Very well. If you still refuse to serve Tatanga, then your brains will all be adjusted, until you will serve him."
"Never!" Mario screamed.
"Sorry, Mario," Wart said. "It looks like you lose."
Four newcomers ran into the scene, running single file, from an open doorway. Two men and two women comprised this group of four, who were total strangers to Mario.
"Come on, gang!" Papa said. "Wart has come to this place . . . and there's nowhere we can't follow him!"
"Slow down, Papa," Mama said. "This is unknown territory."
"Slow down?" Lina asked. "We need to be speeding it up if those two children are to be saved!"
"I sense . . . Wart is not far," Imajin told his three friends. "Yet I somehow sense there are . . . others."
Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy had no idea what was going on, as these four strangers approached Wart.
"Wart!" Papa screamed. "You have brought yourself into the world of the living . . . and here, we can fight you!"
Mario and his three friends did nothing but watch as this unfamiliar group of four heroes fought bravely against Wart. This was not a dream. Apparently, Wart had other enemies - four other heroes who would stop him.
Mama picked up a veggie from the ground, a white veggie with black leaves at the top, which appeared to be black grass before she picked it up. Mario would have never even noticed that it was there. She threw the veggie at Wart, immediately knocking him to his side. Mario, at his best, had not gotten him to his side!
"Eat your vegetables, Wart!" Papa yelled, and the other three laughed.
"Oh, I love you. My boyfriend is so funny!" Mama said, kissing Papa.
Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy were still just sitting around, increasingly feeling useless.
"Here. I will help!" Lina said. She reached down to pick up some black grass, revealing a white veggie. She leaped up into the air, and glided ahead through it, for longer than Peach could, before throwing the veggie at Wart's mouth, hurting him again. Now Wart was sent backflipping, to land on his back, kicking and thrashing all limbs at once.
Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy were still just sitting around, Luigi picking his nose, the four of them feeling increasingly like losers.
"Well . . . that's . . . that, I guess," Mario said. "If we're not around, these guys would have ended up doing it for us. Except . . . better."
Mama, Papa, Lina, and Imajin continued to jump and flip into action, bravely, selflessly, attracting the attention of pretty girls and newspaper reporters along the way. "Wow!" one mushroom-girl said. "And to think, I stayed at the inn that these four were near!"
"I don't think I can watch this any longer," Mario said, leading the sad walk away.
"NOOOO!" Wart yelled. "Nobody's EVER gotten past my Power Blast! How . . .?!"
Ka-boom! While Mario and his friends were walking away, an enormous red and yellow explosion went off. Once Wart was completely defeated, the four heroes courageously carried him away with them, and into an open white doorway.
Standing outside, in front of the inn at Neon Land, they saw that the threat of Wart was indeed over. The Metroids had been battled, and so had Wart, yet none of them had provided Mario with a way to Tatanga's ship. They had wanted to grab Wart's body while he was being beamed back up. Outside the inn was the perfect place to do it, too. Those four other heroes had taken that chance away from them.
Now what?
.
.
.
Mu Chi Room: a new character, to my knowledge. "Mushroom" and "chi" turned into "muchiroom", or Mu Chi Room.
Metroids are from Metroid, of course. Earlier it was Zelda references, and now it's Metroid. Remember that Doki Doki Panic, originally a game completely unrelated to Mario, had the Starman from Super Mario Bros. in it. The Legend of Zelda had a Magic Whistle that later went into Super Mario Bros. 3. I sense there was a deliberate plan to give Nintendo games a slight touch of each other.
MCR's tall hat: a reference to Lo Pan, villain of "Big Trouble in Little China".
The Dry Bones, from Super Mario Bros. 3, I tried to put into that "Night of the Living Dead" light with the enormous crowds of them.
"The Wizard of Oz", with the wicked witch's army of flying monkeys, continues to come up as inspiration. Army of flying Metroids. The scarecrows. The witch, Cackletta, from 2003's Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga. Finally, the scene where Cackletta makes everyone sleepy, so that they will fight Wart, is similar to the Wizard of Oz, where they all are made to fall asleep. Wart's presence is kind of like "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and the comic strip "Little Nemo in Slumberland" both.
The "Rabbits!" thing is from 1994 Game Boy Donkey Kong. That game had rabbits, trash can monsters, wire lines from which Mario swings, electronic things traveling across the wires - two elements later inserted into 2002's Super Mario Sunshine. One dream of mine involved a comic book based on that game, with a close-up of Mario, at a diagonal angle, as he yelled "Rabbits!", with a much larger panel depicting the animals coming at him. Another dream of mine had retroactively inserted the Rabbit Suit into Super Mario Bros. 3 my whole life. The Rabbit Suit.
Ninja Mario and Ninja Luigi are new power-ups. Only at certain areas, like bushes, can they blend and camouflage against their surroundings.
Peach and Daisy having fire-power has never really been done in the games yet. Thus, Peach's hair goes red, like it was throughout the 80's, Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, and 3, 8-bit era. Her hair became blonde in the 16-bit era of the Super Nintendo, and her name became Peach in the 64-bit era.
From Doki Doki Panic comes: the Bob-Ombs, Ninjis, Shyguys, Snifits, Cobrats, Mouser, and Wart. Doki Doki Panic was a Japanese game for the Famicom Disk System - an add-on to the Famicom - which was known as Super Mario Bros. 2 in the USA. In that game, grass was black instead of red or green. Mama, Papa, Imajin, and Lina were the four heroes of that game.
I always found it funny how the entire canon of Doki Doki Panic became integrated into Mario, every single character except the four heroes. It's not like they replaced Wart with King Koopa or anything to make Super Mario Bros. 2. No, Wart remained with the label of a Mario villain, even in the American Mario 80's comic books by Valiant. So, a Mario/Doki Doki Panic crossover is long since coming. I briefly considered writing a whole crossover story, then decided to just have them make a guest appearance alongside Wart.