Morning Furls the Mushroom Woes
Location: Mario's Pad, the morning after the ball…
A Paratroopa, sporting an orange shell with three right-to-left diagonal blue stripes, and clothed in a mailman's outfit similar to Parakarry's sans the goggles, arrives at Mario's Pad with their mail in hand. This mailman is Paraklutz, a new recruit, who quickly won his reputation of clumsiness, dropping packages, and delivering damaged items. He accidentally drops the Mario Brothers' packet as he goes to ring their door bell; the resulting loud clunk is amplified by the hollow porch. Realizing his mistake, he goes to pick up the wrinkled brown box, but ends up dropping their correspondence on the porch as well. Luckily, his ruffled mail bag is still on his shoulder.
"Oh dear, not again," complains the clumsy Paratroopa. "I hope the new Postmaster doesn't find out again."
The orange-shelled Paratroopa begins picking up the letters and tries to straighten out the wrinkles the box. His thumb claw accidentally gets caught in one of the creases, opening a sizable gash on the top of the box, making him gasp silently and cause his eyes to bulge. He resorts to just dusting it off, and soon after picking up the box, he accidentally empties his mail satchel, and when he tries to stop the letters from spilling out, he drops the box again. He begins to sweat profusely and trips on his tied shoelace, and is too embarrassed to continue at the door.
As quickly as he could, he dumps a mess of correspondence back inside the satchel, luckily not mixing any mail belonging to the Mario Brothers. He places his quivering hand next to his mouth, as he nervously mutters, "Um, uh… Ma-ma-mail call." With that, he flies to the next house, not before tripping in the air and crashing into a nearby tree.
This time, unlike other times, Mario goes out to pick up the mail and box, not noticing the heavily damaged state of the package due to being fully immersed with flipping though the mail while walking back towards the kitchen table. Luigi sits before their computer, busy with a chat. Mario sits at the kitchen table and slowly checks their correspondence, while enjoying a some milk and donuts.
Mario ponders while flipping though the mail, 'A thank you note from the a-Princess, a postcard… no, two! From a-Kooper and a-Goombario, letters from a-Luigi's fan girls…" He starts eyeing the packet, finally seeing its grody state; he chuckles.
"That-a clumsy a-Parakarry 2! Let's a-see that a-packet."
He opens the packet just as Luigi turns around with the computer swivel chair. The computer screen displays a log-in window.
"Hey Mario, I got about 300 spam messages. Don't you hate it when you get spam in your mail?"
"Oh, yeah," replies Mario as he sips some milk, but immediately spits it out when he sees the content of the box, slowly lifting out a plastic yoke with six cans of Spam, some damaged and oozing grease. He face palms afterwards. "Who keeps-a sending this to us?"
Luigi shakes his head and chuckles. "That's the third time this week." He clears his throat. "Anyway, I just talked to Yoshi, bro. He is coming back next week after the games in Dinosaur Land are over. I wish we could have gone; Isle Delfino plays against Vanilla Dome tomorrow, and…"
"Eh, Luigi," interrupts Mario, pulling out a wooden box (that was under under the Spam cans) covered in grease. He grabs it by only the clean areas of the box, and since Paraklutz dropped the brown box quite a bit beforehand, the box had almost fallen apart. Surprisingly, the content, and very old leather-bound book and a tiny, folded note, were unscathed. Mario reads the little note, handing the book over to his brother.
"Hmm...The old, a-musty book came from some 'Octetos'..."
Luigi immediately takes it. He stands and yawns while stretching his body. "I am still pooped from yesterday's party, so I'll just go to my bed and give it a looksie."
"So long, eh Weegee," says Mario as Luigi leaves the kitchen with the relic and a couple of donuts.
Mario slouches comfortably at the kitchen table, sorting through the rest of the mail as he rests his legs on the table next to an empty cup and plate.
'News about my pirate pal Johnny; I a-wonder what's he up to… Huh?'
Before he could see more about his pirate acquaintance, he sees another letter from Peach. The envelope lacks the usual pink colored hue and golden letters, but the handwriting is extremely neat and akin to artistic calligraphy. He opens it, finding an ordinary white sheet of paper instead of the refined paper Peach usually used for personal letters to Mario, though having the same beautiful handwriting. It reads:
Hey Mario,
Come to the castle quickly, by the bridge going to Shooting Star Summit. I'll be waiting. Oh, and don't tell anyone. Bye!
Toadstool
'Toadstool? Hmm… Peach has a-not referred herself as a-Toadstool in her letters to me in a while…' Mario shrugs off the idea of it being Bowser, since it wasn't of him to use Peach's surname as a moniker, but feel uneasy about the unusual request. He looks back discreetly at Luigi, who is closing the door to their room, and decides to silently go solo. He grabs a Fire Flower as a safety precaution, and dashes out the door to the pipe connecting his pad to Toad Town.
Meanwhile, Luigi kicks off his boots and slumps on Mario's bunk, under Luigi's bunk. He removes his hat and flings it over the dresser, and unbuttons his right overall buckle.
He opens the antiquated book and get comfortable on Mario's bed, mindlessly flipping over the pages as he is immersed in thought. 'Hopefully Mario doesn't find out that I'm on his…' but couldn't finish that thought, because a large shadow, seemingly released from its hardbound prison, towered the green-clad plumber, who is now paralyzed in fear and mute. This creature charges at Luigi with blinding speed and…
...
Location: Tayce T.s' backyard in Toad Town
Around the same time, Toad is helping Tayce T. gathering fresh produce for her scrumptious meals, from her garden. Being helpful by nature, and interested in seeing her culinary skills on his day off from the castle, he speedily pulls out carrots in hopes of enjoying a delicious and buttery carrot cake dressed with almonds bits and delicately sweet frosting.
She was inside her house fixing a blueberry pancake breakfast for him, and the smell the tantalizing aromas made their way outside. And… was she brewing fresh syrup to compliment? He falls in a trance, dreamily looking at the garden, but snaps back to reality soon after. Only two carrots are left.
"Yahoo! Almost done!" he cheerfully exclaims.
He grabs the basket holding all the carrots he'd collected so far. He plucks one out with his signature veggie-picking speed and chucks it inside the basket. He goes for the last carrot, but it doesn't budge at all. He tries again... It probably moved a millimeter.
Toad looks at the orange vegetable incredulously, pondering on its refusal to budge. He gets full of determination, and decides to pull as hard as he could, yanking at it until his face resembles the nearby tomatoes. As Toad nearly pulls out the entire carrot, the vegetable forcibly goes back underground and takes a confounded Toad with it.
A few minutes pass, and Tayce T. walks out to her backyard. "Toad, come inside and wash your hands. Breakfast is… Toad? Where'd he go?" She only sees an upturned basket and carrots littering the ground, but no Toad.
...
Location: A remote alley in Toad Town, behind the walls surrounding Peach's castle
A few moments after Toad inexplicably disappears, Mario turns the corner into a remote and lonely alley, stops running, and leans on the wall at the end of the alley, badly beaten and panting deeply, occasionally looking over his shoulder to see if he is still being followed. He slides down the wall and sighs in relief, seeing he is not being followed for now. He looks down at his right hand; the fire flower is a petal-less mess, so he chucks it aside.
As soon as the plant hits the floor, two figures approached and blocked his only exit. The sun shines from behind these two creatures, making Mario squint and see only two shadows. The angle of the light makes it difficult to distinguish their shapes clearly. However, one appears to be taller and seems thinner at the bottom, while its companion is shorter, but is wide and bulky.
Mario is too weak to try wall jumps, knowing it would also make him an easy target. He tries to get up and run again, but his legs stopped responding, leaving him without a chance to escape. He tries to yell for help, but no sound came out.
"Thanks to my newly learned Gunk Ball, you can't talk or even use your special moves for a while," says one of the creatures, "So, stop resisting, mate."
"Sssso, the jumping hero of the Mushroom Kingdom isss cornered between a wall and a hard placcce," states the other with an obvious serpentine accent, "We already got the Princessss, and oncccce we catch you, our plan to take over the Mushroom World will comenccce sssoon."
One of them emits a hazy smokescreen, covering all three. The sound of struggling is heard for a while, but stops abruptly. Mario's gloved hand falls out of the range of the smoke, and is swiftly pulled back in.
-o-
Peach, Luigi, Toad, and now Mario… abducted! And we already know the Koopa Troop isn't responsible. Who is? Stay tuned and find out!
Gunk Ball is a special move from Super Mario RPG that can mute a player, preventing use of special attacks.