Hocus pocus. Magic, schmagic.
More than Nancy did, Luigi held faith in the powers of the unseen and arcane forces that ran parallel with the logical universe. He had known magic to be real in a metaphorical way when Mama Mario got the bike he'd been eyeing in Toys "R" Us since September for Christmas, when he never made such desires known to her and had only ever gone there with Papa Mario. He had known magic to be real and provable when he grabbed hold of his first Fire Flower. He still had one in his possession now. He only hoped it too made the trip across space-time.
Having experienced interdimensional travel once before today (or was that yesterday? This, how much time had passed, Luigi opted not to think about) Luigi felt a lot calmer going through the process. Meanwhile, Nancy worried about her atoms being split apart across the space-time continuum.
When Luigi looked in front of him and the walls were made of sandstone, the floor doused in sand, Luigi couldn't have been more relieved.
As for Nancy, well…
"Luigi?"
"Yeah?"
"That was awful. I mean, I really, really don't want to do that again."
"It helps if you don't think about it."
Luigi meant this as a helpful tip. From the scowl on Nancy's face he inferred that it would have been better not to talk at all.
"If memory serves," Luigi said, his worker boots crunching the sand, "we ain't got too far to go."
Nancy followed, a little less wary, but still going along at the same pace.
From his perspective nothing appeared out of the ordinary, and Luigi liked to think he, somewhat regrettably, had gotten to know the temples of Subcon well.
Nancy whispered something too quietly for him or anyone but a mouse to hear.
"Come again?" Luigi asked, and after peering down it, much like one might look down the scope of a sniper, turned into another ancient corridor.
"I said, don't you think this might be a trap?"
Luigi opened his mouth to offer up a rebuttal, then thought for a second and thought better of it. An emptiness whistled through the space; time, drifting.
Nothing looked like a trap. And even the ones he'd seen in Indiana Jones, explored for himself in Desert Land, had arrow-shooting decals in the wall or pressure pads. If there were in fact traps, they were hiding in plain sight, and the innocuous nature of the surroundings was the entire point.
Realising that, Luigi took a lot more care in where he stepped.
"Right. Good thinkin'. He could already be here."
"Or one of his friends," Nancy said, and Luigi nodded in agreement.
It turned out that Luigi and Nancy's apprehension was for nought. Five or so minutes passed. No traps activated. No friends of Freddy showed up.
And they were there, exactly where they wanted, outside of the excavation site.
They were also surrounded.
About five spears were pointed so close to Luigi's chin that they forced him to look to the ceiling, with the same amount aimed as Nancy's. Before now, Luigi had never considered Shy Guys capable of such violence. He supposed he should have been impressed.
"Hiya, guys." Luigi smiled so hard his jaw ached. "Long time no see."
The Shy Guys prodded with their spears. He raised his arms. Nancy did the same.
"We don't want any trouble," Nancy said shakily, stepping back as the Shy Guys prodded with their spears.
"If- if you would just let us talk," Luigi stuttered, "then-"
One of the Shy Guy's attention had drifted to his pocket. Specifically the Fire Flower loosely tucked inside. He reached for it and this, the violation of privacy, the potential loss of something important for reasons she couldn't place, caused Nancy to react.
"HE SAID JUST LET US TALK!"
The Shy Guy removed his hand from Luigi's personal space. He thought Nancy had jumped at her own shouting, too.
Not only was Luigi relieved, but it also had a ripple effect on the other guards, who retreated slightly with their spears lowered
"So Wart hasn't- he never told you about him? About Freddy?"
The collective of Shy Guys all shook their heads at him.
"Of course. Gather all your friends. We need every one of you in here. It's storytime."
…
In reality it was more a relaying of information than some dark fairytale. Nancy occasionally filled in with knowledge and insight only she had, displacing her fear of Freddy to do so, but for the most part she gave Luigi the floor and the podium on it. Sometimes he looked away to see her in the corner, smiling, and then he was a little more sure that he was doing the right thing, and this wasn't such a bad reversal of roles after all.
After a moment of pause and processing, Luigi said:
"Well that about sums it up. Questions, anybody?"
One Shy Guy raised his toothpick-length arm.
Nancy patted Luigi on the shoulder. He looked her way.
"You actually understand what these guys are saying?"
"Uh-huh." And, not finding that nearly as interesting as Nancy did, he addressed the crowd, pointing at the Shy Guy who had asked the question.
What do you want us to do about it, was more or less Shy Guy's question, albeit leaving a good bit of detail out that did not exactly paint him in a positive light. Anger had no language, so Nancy had no trouble sensing that much.
For one, there was the fact he was only now just extending the olive branch. In the ballpark of at least a hundred, one Shy Guy wagered, was the amount of Subconians who already had died. Yes, some of them had heard of Freddy. News didn't exactly travel fast across kingdoms, but there had been others spreading the news, before and after Nancy.
The second thing was that none of them wanted to Luigi as a leader. Nancy may not have spoken their language or known their ways but they trusted her a heck of a lot more than the guy who seemed to be doing little more than tagging along. Animosity built up and made to boil since his last visit to Subcon where he treated Shy Guys as little more than Wart's pawns, that probably factored in too.
Luigi stewed on how exactly to answer his question. After a few minutes of pondering, he came up with:
"It's bigger than you and me now. It might even be bigger than Subcon. You don't have to like me. Heaven knows I don't even like myself sometimes. But you have to remember what you're fighting for. Your homeland. Your mother's, father's, sister's homeland. The place where millions of people make their livin' and this dream-stealing demon wants to snuff it out. You don't wanna die, right?"
Luigi took the resounding silence as the Shy Guys awkwardly looking around at each other as agreement.
"Really? 'Cause I got the impression you were gonna let Krueger walk all over you."
The Shy Guys roared at this insult, perceiving it as one, just as Luigi intended.
"Okay then! So we're all on the same side." He turned to Nancy. "That's how it's done."
She rolled her eyes, smiling.
Long after Luigi had stopped talking, the Shy Guys were still roaring and yelling both as a gesture of camaraderie and a method of cathartic venting. He was thrilled at the effect he had created, looking on like a proud father.
"Why do they sound like that?" Nancy asked, less thrilled and unafraid to show that in her tone.
"Why do we sound like this?" Luigi retorted, and Nancy had no answer. Either because of enlightenment or the need to have more important conversations.
Such as, one with whoever was in charge of that robotic Birdo.
Luigi stepped off his podium and, smiling particularly hard, because he had earned the right, drifted into the crowd. They were mostly too busy riling each other up to give him much attention, but he appreciated the enthusiasm regardless.
Nancy grabbed his shoulder before he could fully mingle.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Tough not being the only one who can give speeches, right?"
"This isn't the time for jokes. So you brought them together. What are you planning on doing with that unification?"
Nancy sounded interrogative in her tone, but Luigi chalked this up to the general stress of the situation. He was surprised he was coping so well. He was surprised any of them were coping and not falling apart at the seams.
Before he could respond, a Shy Guy wearing the trademark mask and cloak, but also having said mask streaked with red and blue stripes, called for Luigi and Nancy. He followed him through the cave.
Purpose. Purpose is intention, meaning to and doing so. Purpose was palpable in the air as Luigi, Nancy, and hundreds of Shy Guys marched through the temple, the stamping of all their footsteps a war song.
He, the Shy Guy with the painted mask, stopped in front of an unassuming door. Luigi and Nancy flattened against a nearby wall. He knocked with a specific pattern, drumming a tune with his fists at just the right frequency. The door, a groaning slab of sandstone, slid open.
The other Shy Guys waited as he ushered in Luigi and Nancy. At what he saw, Luigi's eyes widened, while Nancy remained more on the apprehensive side.
Armed wasn't apt enough to describe the place. 'Filled to the teeth' wouldn't have been adequate either.
Filling rows of shelves to the brim were crossbows, catapults, bows and a quiver of arrows. There were Subconian turnips, potions, swords, and multiple daggers with different blade lengths and stylings on the handle.
"Jeez." Luigi walked a few steps to the left, then to the right, accidentally stepping on a slingshot. Smaller weapons had been placed intermittently on the floor. "When you said you had firepower covered, you weren't kiddin'."
"And you're sure there's enough for everyone?"
The Shy Guy was much shorter than Nancy, who was not especially tall herself, but in that moment his authority and the disconcerting look he gave provided him with much more of a presence.
Luigi had been ready to comment, but at that moment, perhaps not coincidentally but on purpose, the Shy Guy opened the door to his fellow men.
Immediately they flooded in, roaring and maowing. If Moses parted the Red Sea (if, because he'd never been particularly religious) then this was drowning in it. Nancy stuck close by him but in the sea of lookalikes she lost the Commander.
Commander. Seemed like an apt name. She was going to stick with that one.
She had been right. Some of those men would be going into the fight of their lives with nothing but their fists, and perhaps a rock they had picked up off the ground. Even those with weapons weren't guaranteed success, not at all.
Luigi had no need for a weapon. The strongest one in the room was right there in his pocket. But then, not all of his comrades had a Fire Flower or anything close to it. Uncomfortably he shifted back in time, back to Wart and the muscular Shy Guy appointed his guard.
Once the last crossbow had been snagged, leaving the shelves barren of everything but dust, the Shy Guys began to file out. This broke Luigi out of his thoughts, and it was the call from Commander Guy that summoned him into movement. He sifted through the crowd.
Or rather, that wasn't entirely true. The crowd fell to a thunderous silence and parted, one bunch becoming two, for him and Nancy. Luigi almost smiled, but remembered the situation, what was at stake here, and settled for solemnly nodding to his left and then his right. Nancy followed after, walking in line.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" She whispered, leaning slightly forward to be heard.
Luigi waited a second, as if he hadn't heard her right (he had, he knew that) before answering.
"What?" He whispered back, still following the Commander out of the armoury and back towards the miniature factory.
"The robot?"
Luigi felt an extreme headrush, like he'd just woken up, carrying a vital memory from night into daytime.
"The robot!"
Briefly stopping, Commander Guy turned and made a short, confused noise. Nancy imagined it was what raising your eyebrow might sound like, if it had a sound effect.
"You need to get that Birdo finished as fast as possible. Get all your best people on it. Then have all the best people you have left guarding them."
Commander Guy looked up at Luigi, desperately craning his non-existent neck, and said something along the lines of we don't have that much time. Nancy did not hear exactly this, but then, anger is a universal language.
"Which makes it all the more important that we start now! We have to use the time while we still have it, no matter how little's left!"
Commander Guy did not back down, per se – there was a tension behind the eyes perceptible even through the mask – but he did begIn to call out to the most trusted and technologically proficient among his cadre, and those with the muscle mass to protect them or
(they will)
die trying.
Luigi and Nancy came to find out, as hulking biceps strode past them, that the man who had guarded Wart was not the only one of his build among the Shy Guys. It was only a few, no more than he could count on both hands, but now especially Luigi believed in that tired expression: Anything is better than nothing.
Right about now, they needed everything.
Conversely to the Commander having to crane his neck up, Luigi and Nancy had to tilt their heads downwards for the best view of the conveyor belt.
It was less that now, however, and more of an operating table. Diagnosis: deatchment of head from body. Cure: The Shy Guys who had exchanged their normal masks for welder's ones and their armaments for blowtorches.
He hoped for a speedy recovery.
We're doing the best we can, the Commander said, right next to Luigi but seeming much further away. But no guarantees.
Luigi had no profound words of motivation or support. There was nothing but the whistle of sand, and men talking among themselves – perhaps because if they did not then the tragic reality of what they were about to do would become apparent.
The Commander tapped Luigi on the arm. Motioned as if he were tipping his cap.
Luigi, eyes feeling swollen at the back of his head, nodded in response, before the Commander went off to drum up support among the soldiers.
Soldiers.
"Jeez," Luigi said, rubbing stubble.
Meanwhile, Nancy sat slumped against a wall. In strictly logistical terms she was close to the action – she'd had to tuck in her legs and hug her knees so as not to give any Shy Guy walking past a nasty tumble. Luigi walked over, sat down with her. He expected her to look mildly angry, but Nancy…Nancy didn't look like much of anything, really.
"What a night, huh?"
Nancy did not humour him.
It's a lot," he said, with a lot more genuine warmth. "I know. I get it."
Nancy's mouth hung slightly open as she allowed herself to gather the right words, or some like approximation to them; strangely patient, in spite of everything. Because of everything?
"When I fell asleep, I put on my pyjamas and went to bed, I didn't think I'd be fighting a war for someone else's world." She chuckled. Luigi chuckled too, though it was mostly air.
"I'm scared," Nancy admitted, after a pause.
Luigi placed a hand on Nancy's shoulder, bringing her closer to him. The girl wasn't kidding either; even through the jumper the coldness seeped through, coldness down to the bone.
"I'm scared too, Nancy."
Luigi looked down at the sand on his feet, which helped because now he did not have to look at anything else.
"Terrified. But it's the best we got."
They shared a glance that said so much, while saying very little at all. The gladness at getting to go on the journey, the horror of everything that had happened throughout, the rediscovering of themselves and each other.
The hug lasted less than a minute before Luigi felt the prick of tears against his shoulder, Nancy weeping in near-silence.
They stayed like that a bit, but not long enough for Nancy, whose eyes were still sore and puffy when she pulled away.
"You're," Luigi sniffled, afraid Nancy's crying might be contagious, "you're not gonna ask if I know what I'm doin?"
"Dolt."
She punched him in the shoulder; only playfully, but it did sting a little.
"Don't you think I trust you enough to not do that?"
Luigi huffed jokingly as he rubbed the back of his head.
"News to me."
Nancy smiled through the tears streaking wet lines along her cheeks.
"You ready?"
"Not exactly," she replied. "With Freddy, you never know anything for sure."
Commander Guy called out to her, yelling something in a language she couldn't and would never understand, but the message was clear enough. She sanded off her knees and stood up. Luigi did the same.
And then they were off, ready to fight the most primal form of evil itself.
They were going to fight the devil.
And they were
(no, you can't, he never dies)
going to beat him.