(A/N: All right, now it's time for our friends to get down to business! Will Mario and Luigi find the bad guy in time? Can they apprehend him and clear their names? Only one way to find out! It's time to start Chapter 5!)
The following morning, after getting ready and eating a well-balanced breakfast in the hotel, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Toadsworth, and the Toads got on the boat to Delfino Plaza. During the ride, Mario and Luigi quietly talked amongst themselves. The brothers were thinking that maybe cleaning up the mess would be enough to draw the bad guy out of hiding. Perhaps cleaning up would also restore the sunlight.
"If the island started getting dark when the pollution problem began, maybe the pollution is what caused the sun to disappear." Luigi said to Mario.
"That sounds plausible." said Mario with a nod.
However, F.L.U.D.D. was overhearing their conversation, and it said, "Data analysis verifies that the island's inhabitants are indeed troubled by pollution, but the pollution itself is not the main problem."
"It isn't?" Toadsworth asked.
"Mario, Luigi, you witnessed this object at the Airstrip, correct? It is a Shine Sprite. Shine Sprites are the source of power on Isle Delfino. They used to gather in great numbers at the Shine Gate, but the graffiti incident has polluted the island and most of the Shine Sprites have fled. There is no longer any power to support the peaceful lifestyle of the islanders. It is most pitiable." F.L.U.D.D. continued.
"Oh my... that's pretty sad when you think about it." Peach said.
"I'll say." said Daisy.
The Toads looked sympathetic, too, but only for a few seconds. They suddenly remembered the way the Piantas upset Mario and Luigi by giving them the stink-eye, and it made them frown in anger. So today, they made up their minds that they were going to be glaring daggers at any Pianta who tried to be mean to Mario and Luigi. It would serve them right for hurting their friends!
"The only way to ensure the return of the Shine Sprites is to keep the island from becoming any dirtier. The perpetrator is likely at work even as we speak." F.L.U.D.D. added.
"And you know what? I'm almost hoping he is at work in the plaza right now." Red Toad said.
"What? Why do you want that?" asked Green Toad.
"I think I know why you want that. If he's busy messing up Delfino Plaza some more, someone will see him, and then they'll realize the truth when they see Mario and Luigi arrive!" Blue Toad said.
"Yes! That's it!" said Red Toad.
"That sounds like a good thing, but sadly, that is not how it's gonna work. They've obviously seen him around plenty of times before, and guess what? They still couldn't tell that he can't be the Mario or Luigi we know and love!" said Purple Toad.
"Actually, if they see two Marios doing stuff, it won't take long for them to figure out that one of them is a villain, and the other must be the good guy. Then they'll feel stupid, or stupido, as Mario and Luigi like to say it." Daisy said.
Mario and Luigi were really glad that Daisy had picked up on that particular word so quickly, but then again, it was one of the easier words. She still had a lot more to learn.
"Yes! And if we're really lucky, we'll find him at work, and then we can apprehend him and show everyone the real truth." said Yellow Toad.
"Apprehending that villain may not be as easy as you want to think. If he's got any weapons on him, someone is going to have to frisk him first, so you can apprehend him with no troubles." Toadsworth pointed out.
"Leave the frisking to me, Toadsworth." Daisy said with a grin.
A minute later, the boat arrived at Delfino Plaza. The place didn't look like what they had seen in the promotional video, or from the pictures on the island's website.
"Why is the sky so dark? It's not sun-drenched!" Peach complained.
"And here I was, thinking of soaking up the sun during this vacation. Well, I can't do that when the sky looks like steel wool." Daisy said.
"There's not much we can do about that right now. But Daisy, please promise me that if we do make things right and the sun returns, you'll use your parasol so you don't soak up too much sun and end up getting burned." Peach told her cousin.
"Don't you worry, Peach. I have a bottle of suntan lotion in my bag, and I also made sure to bring my parasol with me, see?" Daisy said, showing Peach her parasol, which was mainly yellow and orange. She opened up the parasol, and it had the design of a big flower at the top that matched her earrings and brooch.
"Good." Peach said. She had her own parasol, too, to protect her delicate skin from the sun. Unlike Daisy, who wanted a tan, Peach rather liked having a fair complexion. But she had also tied her hair back in a ponytail, for it was probably going to be too hot for her to wear it loose.
Mario and Luigi hesitantly got off the boat, and the cops came running over to them. Upon seeing the police, Daisy quickly leaped in front of brothers, saying, "Don't even think about arresting them right now! They just arrived here in the plaza! They didn't do anything wrong!"
"We're not going to arrest them, miss." said the Chief.
"You're not?" Peach asked.
"No. We were going to tell them that there's a huge mess of pollution over in Bianco Square. And it needs to be cleaned up right now!" said the rookie.
Mario and Luigi inconspicuously sighed in relief. They didn't want to be arrested.
"Oh, okay." Daisy said, moving aside.
"Now both of you get to work." said the Chief to the boys.
"Si signore! Yes, sir!" the Mario Bros. replied, saluting the cops. Since the plumbers hadn't been able to use their new water-squirting devices after they had been refilled, they were able to head on over to where the gigantic mess was.
"Mama-mia! They weren't kidding when they said it was huge!" Mario exclaimed.
"That villain did this?! What in the world was he thinking?!" Luigi asked.
"Non lo so! I don't know! But in the meantime, we're going to get rid of this." Mario said.
"Good thing. If I have to look at a mess like that any longer, I think my eyes are gonna bleed!" Luigi said.
Mario and Luigi were able to get the mess cleaned up faster than they would have alone.
"I'm really glad you're here to help me, Luigi. If you weren't, I think I would've spent last night in una cella di prigione, a prison cell, and it would take me a lot longer to get this mess cleaned up." Mario said to his brother as they cleaned up the mess.
"You don't belong in prison, bro. You didn't make this mess. The Piantas are big idiotas if they want to blame you, an innocent man, for something like this." Luigi replied.
As they worked, Piantas were popping out of the goop, covered in that disgusting muck.
"You clean them off, Mario. I'll keep working on the mess." Luigi said.
"But-" Mario started to protest, but Luigi said, "They want to blame you for the mess, don't they? They'll thank you for helping clean them off."
"Okie-dokie." Mario said, and he used F.L.U.D.D. to quickly clean off the messy Piantas, and they looked a lot happier when they were clean again. And Luigi was right. They thanked Mario for saving them. But then they blamed him for the mess that they fell into. (A/N: But whose fault was that? Not Mario's!)
"Lo odio. I hate this. You do a nice thing, and the people still consider you a villain and hate your guts. These people are so stupido!" Mario grumbled to himself as he went back to help his brother.
However, this mess also proved to be a pretty dangerous thing in another way. Enemies were coming out of it, and when they saw Mario and Luigi, they tried to attack them, and ended up leaving goop behind when they hit the ground. The brothers knew they were going to have to work faster to rid this place of evil.
Not surprisingly, there was still a good portion of the goop left when a big, goopy-looking Piranha Plant emerged from it, surprising everybody.
"You know what to do now, right, Luigi?" Mario asked his brother. Both of them had just refilled their cleaning devices with water.
"Oh yeah!" said Luigi. He wasn't going to be scared this time, since he already dealt with a creature like this out on the airstrip the other day. And he wanted to help prove that he and his brother were innocent men. Together, the brothers defeated the disgusting monster.
When the monster was defeated, the goop finally disappeared from the area, and a HUGE statue began to rise out of the mess.
"Quella statua era in quel pasticcio?! Was that statue in that mess?!" Luigi asked his older brother in surprise as they watched what was going on.
"I guess so..." Mario said. It had to have been buried in there, if it was rising out of the area where the goop had been.
Just then, Toadsworth noticed something odd about the statue, and he exclaimed, "Girls, look! On the statue's head!"
The princesses looked up at the statue's head and saw something, or was it someone, standing there. The figure turned to look at the women with piercing red eyes.
"Mario?" Peach asked, loud enough for Daisy and Toadsworth to hear.
"No, that is not Mario. It's HIM! He's not going to get away from us! Not this time!" Daisy declared. She quickly closed her parasol and held it like a baseball bat, determination in her blue eyes.
Then the figure leaped down from the statue and started running over to where Peach was standing. But before he could get too close to the blonde princess, Daisy leaped out in front of Peach and swung her parasol with all her might, hitting the villain in the face. The next sound heard was a loud WHAM!
That sound was followed by the villain screaming in pain and bringing his hands up to cover his face. And he dropped his paintbrush as he stepped back from the princesses, reeling in agony.
Now Mario and Luigi could clearly see that this guy looked like a translucent blue version of one of them. He was the one they were looking for! They'd found him at last! And thanks to Daisy, this would be a piece of cake!
Green Toad immediately donned a glove, rushed over to where the paintbrush lay, picked it up, and ran to the police station with it. He needed to show the cops so they could analyze it for DNA. They had to find out who the villain really was.
"You hit me!" the bad guy yelled at Daisy. He sounded angry, but he also sounded like he was just about to start crying from the pain. Then he yelled, "I'm bleeding!"
(A/N: I got the villain's reaction to the hit from an episode of "The Big Bang Theory". It was just too perfect to use here!)
But before the bad guy could run off to take care of his problem, Mario and Luigi quickly raced over to him and grabbed him by the arms. Mario asked, "And just where do you think you're going?"
"Let me go! I'm bleeding!" the bad guy yelled, struggling in the hold of the brothers he tried to frame.
"Sorry, but I don't see any blood on you, and we can't let you go. You wanted us thrown in prison. But we can tell you right now that's not gonna happen!" Luigi said, and his voice sounded angry.
"I wanted Mario to be thrown in prison, you big green booger! Now let me go, or I'll tell the cops to lock you up, too!" the villain said.
Luigi looked pretty upset when the villain called him a booger and threatened to have him locked up as well. Seeing the plumber upset was something Daisy could not bear. She was so angry, she knew that she was going to do something about that.
The villain looked triumphant when he realized that he upset Luigi, but then Daisy clunked the villain on the head with her parasol for insulting Luigi. She then got right up close to the enemy's face and said to him in a threatening voice, "If you call that man any more rotten names in front of me, I will make you wish you had never existed! Ya got that?!"
"Oh, why do you care about him so much? He's not anyone important!" the villain said.
"That's what you think! You see, he just happens to be the boyfriend of this princess, and because of that, he is to be treated with the same respect as royalty!" Daisy demanded.
Luigi felt a lot better, knowing that Daisy cared about him so much to demand that he be treated with respect. He smiled at the princess and mouthed the word, "Thanks." to her.
"No problem." Daisy mouthed back with a smile and a wink. Then she handed her parasol to Peach so she could start frisking the villain. Peach inspected the parasol and was surprised to see that it looked to be okay, even though her cousin had used it as a weapon.
"Leave me alone!" the villain said as he felt Daisy checking him for any weapons he might have on him.
"Not a chance!" Daisy said as she frisked him. She didn't find any concealed weapons on him, so she said, "All right. It looks like he only had the one weapon on him, so let's-a go!"
"Let's-a go!" Luigi and Mario repeated happily as they wrenched the villain's arms behind his back and began dragging his sorry butt to the police station. Peach, Toadsworth, and the Toads followed them. Daisy walked next to the brothers in order to keep a sharp eye on the criminal. She wanted to make sure he didn't try to say or do anything to hurt Mario or Luigi.
Meanwhile, Green Toad was telling the police, "Officers! Look at what I found! The real villain is in the plaza, and he dropped this while my friends were apprehending him!"
The cops took the object and looked at it very carefully. It looked like a giant paintbrush, and the bristles appeared to be covered with...
"Whoa! Look at this thing! It's covered with the stuff that's ruining Isle Delfino!" said the rookie.
"Yeah, it is!" said the Chief.
"And the guys you blamed for the mess wear gloves. They wouldn't be able to leave fingerprints on this item. The real villain, however, didn't seem to look natural. So you might want to analyze this object in case he left fingerprints on it." Green Toad said to them.
"We'll have to get forensics on it right away." said the rookie. So the Chief took the brush inside the station so he could call forensics and ask them to take a look at the item.
At that very moment, the rookie saw Mario and Luigi walking up with the real villain struggling in their grasp. His eyes widened at the sight, and he realized that everyone may have been wrong about Mario, as well as Luigi.
"We found him!" Mario smiled.
"Are we innocent now?" Luigi asked.
"NO! YOU'RE BOTH GONNA BE GUILTY!" the villain yelled.
"SHUT UP!" Daisy yelled at the villain.
"We'll see. I have to wait for the Chief to come back out here and see this. He's currently inside the station, calling up forensics to tell them about the evidence we have for them to take a look at." said the rookie.
"Evidence?" Mario, Luigi, and even the villain asked.
"Yeah! When Daisy attacked you, I saw that you dropped your giant paintbrush, so I took the liberty of snatching it up and bringing it right to the police." Green Toad said to the villain with a devious smirk on his face.
The villain started to scream, "How dare you-" But then he realized he was giving away that he was the real criminal, and he stopped himself before saying, "...suggest that it belongs to me! I would never use a paintbrush that size!"
"Oh, but you did! We all saw you doing it!" Peach said.
"No, you didn't. Get your eyes examined, Mama Peach." the villain said.
When they heard that, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Toadsworth, and the Toads all gasped. Did that villain really just say what they thought he said?
"What did you just call her?" Mario asked sounding angry.
"I called her 'Mama Peach'!" the villain replied, before adding, "In case you haven't noticed, she's my mama, you dodo!"
"You're off your crumpet! The princess isn't your mother! I don't ever recall her having any children!" Toadsworth said.
"Toadsworth's right! I'm still a virgin, and I never recalled signing any adoption papers. And for your information, I don't plan on having any children until I'm happily married! You can't really call me your mother when I've never seen you before in my life!" Peach said.
"Yes, you have seen me before! You're my mama!" the villain insisted.
"She is not your mother! You're lying!" Mario shouted.
"Says the one who polluted the island." the villain retorted.
Mario let out a frustrated sound. (A/N: It's the same sound he makes when Luigi bonks him on the head with his hammer or shocks him with the Thunder Hand in "Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga".)
"All right! That's it! We're not going to wait for the Chief anymore! We're going to go into the station, and we're gonna get this whole mess straightened out! Everybody follow me!" said the rookie. He allowed Mario and Luigi to continue holding the villain's arms as he led them all into the station.
The Chief just got off the phone with forensics when he saw the rookie walk in, followed by Mario and Luigi, who were holding the arms of a translucent blue character that looked a bit more like Mario in size and shape.
"Well, who do we have here?" the Chief asked in surprise.
"The real criminal." Blue Toad replied.
"What?" the Chief asked.
"This blue character the so-called 'criminals' have found may be the one we were really after." the rookie explained.
"I'd better go with you, then." said the Chief. He told some other cops to watch the paintbrush and wait for forensics to come and get it as he followed the group to the area of the building that housed the prison cells.
Before long, the rookie opened a cell and said, "Lead him in here."
Mario and Luigi walked into the cell, still holding the villain by his arms. Then the rookie and the Chief walked into the cell. They took hold of the villain from there, so Mario and Luigi could exit the cell.
"All right. Even though we've got him, we need you to help hold that door shut so he can't think of getting out." said the Chief.
Mario and Luigi quickly held the door shut with help from their friends and watched as the cops made the villain reveal his true identity with their tasers. When they saw who the villain really was, everyone gasped in shock!
The villain looked kind of like Bowser when he was a baby, only this Koopa was cuter than Baby Bowser, and he also wore a dark blue bandana with Mario's nose and mustache crudely drawn on it.
"What in the world...?!" Mario asked, holding Peach's hand.
The villain was struggling to get out of the hold of the police, but he still glared at Mario as he said, "Leave my Mama alone, you bad man! I won't let you take Mama Peach away!"
"I already told you that I'm not your mama! I don't have any children!" Peach said.
"You are my Mama! You know you are! And Papa told me all about it! He told me my Mama was kidnapped by a bad man named Mario!" the villain said.
"He's Bowser's son..." Luigi realized in horror.
"So I came here to rescue her!" the child stated.
"Rescue? Give me a break!" Daisy said. She told the cops, "You guys really can't believe what that brat is saying to you, so I'll give it to you straight. Peach gets kidnapped by that kid's father day in and day out, and Mario is the one who rescues her! His dad's obviously jealous that Peach loves Mario and not him, so he twisted the whole thing around and filled his kid's head with a pack of lies!"
"I am not twisting it around! Papa doesn't lie to me!" Jr. said.
"I hate to tell you this, kiddo, but your papa is nothing more than a lying liar who lies. And he lies a lot. To everyone, including you and Peach. He even lies to himself!" Mario said.
"Papa does not lie! He told me everything! He said that you're a bully who never fights fair; that I gotta outsmart you! So I tried to get you sent to prison, but these stupid cops didn't lock you up!" Jr. said.
"I hate to say this, but he's actually right about you guys being stupid." Daisy said to the cops.
"I'm right?! Wow! One in a row! It's a new record!" Jr. cheered, looking happy for the first time since his true identity was revealed.
"Be quiet, you." the Chief said to him.
"Just how are we stupid?!" asked the rookie.
"Actually, it's more like everyone on this bloody island is stupid! You all blamed Master Mario for the mess, even though it was here before he even arrived, and none of you were able to tell him apart from a translucent blue copy that used a giant paintbrush to mess up the place!" Toadsworth said.
It was true. Yellow Toad had even snapped several photos of the villain for evidence when Daisy smacked him. He handed the photos to the rookie (the Chief had Jr. by the arms) and said, "Don't these look more like the sketch of the perpetrator we saw in court yesterday?"
The rookie had to agree with Yellow Toad. He showed the Chief, and he nodded in agreement. The real perpetrator's disguise did look different from the real Mario, now that he was able to compare and contrast them. They had the real criminal in their custody, and now they knew that Mario was framed.
The rookie handed the photos back to Yellow Toad and said, "Make sure you show these in court when we resume the trial this afternoon. We'll explain this guy to the judge and prosecutor, and then we're going to do things a lot more fairly for Mario."
"All right." said Yellow Toad.
"Okie-dokie." Mario said.
"Do you want us to continue the clean-up?" Luigi asked.
"Well, you can keep working only if you want to. This kid, on the other hand, will have to do a lot more cleaning up than you guys will." the Chief said.
"What?! But that's not fair!" Jr. complained. He tried to convince the cops to change their minds by playing sad, but the cops knew that those were crocodile tears, and they weren't going to do him any good.
"It's fair enough. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime." the rookie said to Jr.
"All right. Mario, you and the guy who looks like you are off the hook." the Chief said.
"The guy who looks like me is my twin brother. His name is Luigi." Mario told them.
"Okay. You and your brother are off the hook. You can continue cleaning up the island if you want to, but like we said, this brat is going to be taking over most of the clean-up duty." the rookie said.
So Mario and his friends walked out of the police station, and the cops continued to interrogate Bowser Jr. The more they heard, the more they wished they'd found this kid sooner. It would have spared Mario and Luigi a lot of trouble and heartache. They couldn't wait to introduce him to the judge and prosecutor.
Now the cops know that Mario didn't do the crime, so he won't be doing any time! And neither will Luigi! What's going to happen later? Stay tuned if you wish to know!