Everyone was in position. Down the road from WarioWare, in a white van, Luigi and Ivan were suited up in repairman's coveralls. Gear stuffed in their duffel bags. Mario was at home in front of the computer, monitoring the incoming camera feeds. The previous night, he saw the Princess being wheeled out of the shining area and down to the vault. Unfortunately for him, there were no cameras in the vault. But he could see everything that came and went.

"Mic test! Red reporting." Mario said over the headset.

"Green reporting"

"Yellow reporting"

"Blue reporting, signal clear."

"Green, are you ready to test the pixellator?"

"Affirmative Red"

"No need to be so dang official there, Green."

"Okey-dokey, testing in three, two, one." Luigi pointed the pixellator camera at their test, a small pillow, and pressed the button. Bit by bit the pillow was sucked into the camera until it was gone completely.

Next to Mario, the other camera let off a small beep, as small white blocks came out of the lens and assembled themselves into a pillow.

"How'd it go, Red?"

"Soft as ever. We're good to go. Happy hunting!" Mario sure hoped everything would go off without a hitch.

5 minutes later the van pulled into the parking lot. The two 'repairmen' hurried up to the roof of the building.

The princess couldn't sleep at all the night before. Instead of her usual spot, she was placed in the area marked 'Outgoing orders'. She remembered the day before Wario said he had a buyer for her. "Who am I being sold to?" At this point she was getting used to being a thing. It scared her a little, but at least she was a thing to be admired.

Then she had a lightbulb moment. Sitting on the desk was a shipping label with her number on it, and no address filled in. She was so excited she didn't hear the cargo elevator come down. Just as she was about to write, she froze. No! I was so close! She felt a harness being attached to her again, but this time she was lifted up and wrapped from head to toe in bubble wrap, taped tight around her. Then everything went dark as she was placed into a crate and it was sealed shut.

"Ok, I'm in position, tell me when." Luigi was in the vents above the vault, ready to be lowered down by Ivan.

"Hold on, there are still people down there. Wait for my signal." Mario watched the cameras diligently, looking for the workers that had gone down earlier. After a couple of minutes the workers came out of the cargo elevator, taking a crate to Wario's airstrip. "Go now!."

Slowly but carefully, Ivan lowered Luigi down to the floor. "He's down" Ivan said as he brought back the rope and exited the vents.

"Ok, Blue. Do your thing." On Mario's order, Barry clicked another icon on the flash drive 'Electro-Zapper'. A diagram of the building's wiring appeared. He selected the 'scissors' tool, and cut power to both elevators. Ensuring Luigi had as much time as he needed.

Luigi wandered the many aisles, looking for the Princess. He took note of almost every item in the vault, tempted to take the lot. No Luigi, that's not right. Some of it may be stolen, but most he earned on his own. You can't just take someone' s hard wor-. He spotted something that cut him off mid thought. Up on the shelf, the Emerald star. That's not good. If Wario actually knew what that was, who knows what he might do. "Red, no sign of Pink yet, but you have an item incoming." He whipped out his pixellator, and in an instant, the star was gone.

Behind Mario, the familiar stone materialized. "Mama-mia, how did he get a hold of that!" Don't distract yourself, you have a mission. "Thank you Green, Item received. Now get back to the search."

Minutes passed by, Luigi had searched the vault five times over, but no Peach. "I'm telling you Red, Pink isn't here."

"She has to be there, there's no way she could've left... unless." Mario rewound the camera footage, until. There! He paused at the workers who came out last, he hadn't noticed before, but the crate they had was about 7' tall and 2' wide. About the size that could fit a statue. "Barry!" Mario said hurriedly, forgetting the use of codenames. "What's shipping out today?"

He pulled up a list. "Quite a bit, 500 lbs of gold bars, 50,000 copies of 'Smooth Moves', a wood carving to go to a pizzeria... Oh crap."

"What! What!" Everyone begged Barry to finish his sentence.

"One life size Princess Peach statue, buyer anonymous."

Mario searched frantically through the cameras for the crate. "There it is! Shipping dept. About to be loaded onto a truck. GO GO GO!"

"Hey Blue, can you redirect my pixellator to the shipping cameras?" Luigi knew he had to get there fast.

"On it!" It took only a few clicks to get the route planned out. "You're good, go!"

Luigi set the pixellator to self-pixellate. And faster than you could say selfie, he was gone. He never liked the feeling of being split into pieces. He couldn't really help it with so much at stake. In the shipping department, to the surprise of the workers, Luigi rematerialized.

"Ok, Green you are looking for a crate 7'x2'x2'. Go get her bro!"

He looked around, bemused workers wondering where the heck he came from. There! He spotted it, on a conveyor heading to a semi trailer.

"Hey! You! Show me your Identification."

Luigi turned to see a small squad of security guards running at him. He took off for the box, shoving workers out of the way. He set the pixellator on the table next to the belt, set for five seconds. "See ya L-ater!" He taunted, as himself and the crate disappeared.

"Oh, thank spaghetti you made it back!" Mario was overjoyed to see Luigi and the crate sitting on the living room floor. Ivan and Barry were already there. Each having their own pixellator camera. "Alright, let's get her out of there." Mario said, handing Luigi a crowbar.

A plan in action! Come back on Saturday for the conclusion.