Chapter 3 Fall to Escape
This had to be the most demoralizing defeat Mario had ever gone through. Part of that was due to the fact that… well, he didn't really HAVE a lot of defeats. Any defeats at the hand of Bowser were miniscule to say the least. This? This was as far from miniscule as anyone could get. Bowser had new powers and new minions, and thanks to those two new elements, he had managed to wipe the floor with Mario. On top of that, he got his two best friends, Princess Peach and Princess Aqua, captured. This… this hurt him. It hurt him more than he could possibly say. The only thing that brought him any form of comfort was the knowledge that, hey, at the very least Luigi hadn't been captured too. But that brought such a small iota of comfort that Mario may as well have not realized it at all.
"Mario?"
Mario looked toward Peach, staring at him. She had her hands on the wall of her bubble prison, and she looked ready to cry as she gazed upon the plumber. "Mario, are you okay?"
Mario sighed. "No, mi principessa." He lowered his gaze. "I just… I thought the Koopas were our friends now." He held back an angry grunt. "I took care of the Koopalings. We kept them safe after that demon turned them all into humans. This is… this is…"
"Confusing?" Aqua chimed in from her bubble.
A snort came out of Mario. "That's one way to put it."
Aqua nodded. "Honestly, I'm kind of confused too." She looked forward, and Mario followed her gaze. They both looked at Bowser and the Koopalings, standing near the steering wheel while talking to Bone Mage. Bowser's spirits were high as could be. It was eerie, especially considering the circumstances.
"Bone Mage… you were FANTASTIC!" Bowser laughed and looked down at his kids. "What do you guys, think? Is Bone Mage cool or what?"
Much to Mario's surprise, the Koopalings hesitated. "He… he is an interesting fellow," said Iggy. He looked up at Bowser. "But are you really willing to risk peace for HIM specifically? It just seems so… illogical!"
Mario couldn't even believe what he was hearing. The KOOPALINGS were questioning Bowser? They felt the same confusion he felt over this turn of events? Mario exchanged a look with Aqua, so shocked that he had trouble talking.
"Not even the Koopalings are on board with this!" He shook his head while gawking. "This… I don't understand. This is just so strange."
"It really is." Aqua put on a determined face. "Which is why I'm not just gonna sit back and let all this stuff happen."
Peach and Mario blinked as they looked at her. "But Aqua, what is there to do?" asked Peach.
Aqua didn't respond. Instead, she closed her eyes and did a deep breathing exercise. Mario, while skeptical, was willing to watch to see what was going to happen. Aqua took one more big breath before placing her hand on the wall of her bubble. She took a big breath in, and the bubble itself started to shrink. Mario and Peach watched, dumbfounded, as it got smaller and smaller. Upon closer inspection, Mario realized that Aqua was drinking up the liquid that the bubble was made of. Within no time, the bubble was gone, and she dropped to the floor. She let out a breath, all while Mario and Peach smiled.
"Bravo, mi amico!" Mario exclaimed. "That was amazing!"
If Aqua was flattered by that compliment, she didn't express it. Instead, with the same serious expression still on her face, she went up and popped Mario and Peach's bubbles. They fell to the ground with a plop (or at least, Mario did; Peach managed to fall in a much more graceful way). For a minute, Mario had trouble wrapping his head around the fact that he was free, that he was no longer being held prisoner and could easily escape the Koopas. It took a while to sink in, but when it finally did, Mario felt more joy and amazement than he had ever felt before.
"We're free! We're actually free!" He rose to his feet. "Thank you so much, Aqua!"
Aqua smiled and shrugged. "Hey, a princess's gotta do what a princess's gotta do."
"Indeed," Peach said with a proud grin of her own. Her face fell, and she cleared her throat as she smoothed out the folds of her dress. "Now, we need to think of a plan. Bowser has far more fire-power than we do right now, so if we want to defeat him…"
"HEY!"
Mario and the princesses jumped upon hearing the screechy, crackly voice of Bone Mage. He stared down at them, the heat in his undead eyes making Mario feel legitimately terrified for the first time in a while.
"THE PRISONERS ARE OUT!"
Bowser ran to the edge of the platform and gawked. "You're right, they are!" He looked down at Bone Mage. "Well, don't just stand there! Do something!"
Bone Mage didn't need to be told twice. He jumped down from the platform onto the main part of the deck. He wielded his wand, which made Mario sweat. After all, seeing all the chaos that Bone Mage was capable of…
"Blastem Markey Tendfolda!"
A barrage of arcane blasts shot out of Bone Mage's wand, completely covering the deck. Mario and the princesses ran out of the way, seeing some singe marks form on the wooden body of the ship when they got hit. Panting, Mario bolted out of the way, praying in his head that he could stop this from escalating any further. The only problem was, since he didn't have power-ups, instead having two princesses to protect, he didn't have any concrete plan to stop this!
"Mario! Aqua!"
Before Mario could respond, Peach grabbed hold of his hand. She then grabbed her sister's hand and dragged them to the edge of the airship. Mario, who by this point was all flustered and frazzled, gawked at the princess.
"Peach! What are you…?"
Before he could say anymore, Peach jumped off the deck while still keeping a firm grasp on Mario and Aqua. Both of them screamed as the wind rushed around them. They fell toward the ground with the speed of a bullet, and Mario's heart pounded extra hard the closer they got to the ground. With tears falling, he closed his eyes, bracing himself for the impact that would no doubt end his game…
When their fall slowed down. Mario blinked and opened his eyes, seeing that Peach's dress had billowed out and was now acting as a parachute. The three of them floated gently toward the ground, and when they safely touched down, Mario gave Peach an impressed look.
"Peach… that was amazing!" He chuckled as he wiped some sweat off his brow. "I honestly forgot you could do that!"
"Yeah!" Aqua agreed. She beamed at her sister. "That was quick thinking on your part."
"Thanks." Peach looked back up into the sky that they had fallen out of, with Mario and Aqua doing the same thing. The airship, so high in the sky that it looked significantly smaller than normal, continued flying in the direction of the Koopa Kingdom. No doubt Bowser and Bone Mage were having a nutty over the fact that their prisoners were gone.
"Oh Mama Mia," Mario uttered under his breath. He looked up at the airship before turning toward Peach. "We're in real trouble, aren't we?"
"Indeed we are." Peach frowned. "Since Bowser violated our Peace Treaty, that more or less means we're at war."
Mario's heart froze in its tracks when he heard that. "War?"
"Yes," Peach said with a nod. "We're gonna have to build up our army if we want to fight against the koopa troop. We'll enlist Toads, Toads who will be willing to fight against the enchanted baddies that Bone Mage created…"
"Woah woah Peach, slow down!" Mario said with wide eyes. "We don't have to start a war! Heck, the three of us probably don't WANT to start a war!" He gave the girls a serious face. "We don't have to get innocents involved and killed. What we need to do is approach this the old fashion way, the way that we've always approached this when Bowser started a conflict." He smiled. "We'll fight Bowser by ourselves. We'll kick his butt extra hard and make sure that he doesn't even think about doing something like this again."
Peach and Aqua blinked before exchanging a look. "That would be less disastrous." Aqua cringed as she curled her hair back. "But that Bone Mage guy that Bowser teamed up with is really powerful. He was able to enchant an entire army and send it flying toward us. Isn't an army of our own kinda necessary if we want to have a chance at defeating him?"
Mario's heart sank. "No. No! It's not!" He stepped forward. "We don't need an army! We just need to think! We need to come up with a plan by ourselves!" He gave Peach a pleading look. "Please, Peach. Don't send out an army! We can defeat Bowser and Bone Mage without that! You know me; I almost never lose fights against Bowser! Even when the odds are stacked so highly in Bowser's favor!" He took another step towards Peach. "Please?"
Peach hesitated, looking between Mario and Aqua. "I…" she sighed. "You're right, Mario. We shouldn't get an army involved." She looked guilty. "Especially since it would be my Toads who would be doing the fighting." She whimpered. "We shouldn't let the Toads get hurt."
"No. No, we shouldn't." Mario put on a determined face. "Come on, girls. If we're gonna come up with a viable alternative, we need to get back to Toad Town."
"Right," the sisters said in unison. Mario nodded at them, and together they started the journey back home.
…
It took a bit of walking, but the trio eventually managed to arrive back in Toad Town. Or, very least, the outskirts of Toad Town. They were currently approaching Mario's house, which honestly brought a lot of relief to the mustachioed plumber. He didn't know why; he supposed he would always feel more comfortable when he laid eyes on what was familiar and homey.
And his relief only grew more pronounced when Luigi came running out the door right towards him and the princesses. "Mario! Peach! Aqua!"
"Luigi!" Mario said. Luigi ran up and hugged him before giving the two other members of the party hugs as well. Mario beamed at his brother. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you!"
"Oh, I feel the same way!" Luigi turned toward Mario with a furrowed brow. "I saw Bowser's airship approaching the castle! I was so worried that you got captured, so I was preparing myself to run after him in order to rescue you and… and…" he burst into tears.
Mario felt a pang and pulled Luigi into another hug. "Don't worry, fratellino, it's alright." He patted him on the back. "While we did get captured, we managed to escape." He cast a smile over to the girls. "And you have these two to thank for that."
Luigi stopped crying long enough to give the princesses an impressed look. "Is that true?"
"Well… it might be," Aqua said with a snicker and a smirk. "We just did what we thought was good in the moment."
"And it paid tremendous dividends," Mario said with a smile. He didn't smile for long though, as his face fell back down. "But as good as it is that we managed to escape, we're not out of the woods quite yet." Luigi turned to him, and he gave him a serious face. "Bowser has this new ally. His name is Bone Mage, and he is one of the most powerful baddies that I've seen in a while."
"And when he says a powerful baddie, he MEANS a powerful baddie!" Aqua said. "He used magic to combine members of Bowser's army with the powers of various power-ups!"
"WHAT?" Luigi exclaimed, looking ready to faint. "How is that possible? People in the Koopa Kingdom can't use power-ups!"
"Well, Bone Mage found a way," Peach said sadly. "And with that power, he has the opportunity to try and cause chaos."
"Try? He already caused chaos!" Aqua exclaimed. "He beat us all pretty good!" Her eyes grew wide. "And he probably will again if he manages to enchant more members of the Koopa Troop…"
"Precisely," said Mario. He looked at Luigi. "Which is why we can't just sit around. If we want to defeat Bowser this time, we need to think of a plan."
Luigi snorted. "You're telling me!" He frowned. "But in order to defeat an enchanted army, we're gonna need all the help we can get!"
"And we're more than willing to provide it!"
Mario and the other blinked, looking around. "Who said that?" He turned around, and instantly he was met with surprise. There were three kids coming around the bend behind Mario and Luigi's house. One of them, a boy, wore a green shirt and blue pants, and he looked extremely excited when he saw Luigi specifically. That made sense to Mario, as he noticed he wore a hat that looked eerily similar to Luigi's hat. Another boy stood on his right, wearing a blue shirt and brown pants. What was interesting about this boy was he had white hair. Mario was so busy trying to wrap his head around that fact that he almost didn't see the girl on the first boy's left. She wore a pink dress and had the most determined look Mario had ever seen. In fact, all three of the kids had determined looks, Mario just now noticed.
On top of which, the first boy's excitement seemed to climb higher and higher. "Hello there, Super Mario! Princess Peach! Princess Aqua! It is so nice to finally get a chance to meet you." He giggled when his eyes fell upon Luigi. "But of course, Luig is the REAL star of the show here!" He ran over, taking Luigi's hand and giving it a shake! "You're my hero, Luigi Mario! Do you know how cool it was when I heard you beat King Boo three times? Three times? When I was younger, I was too scared of the dark to sleep in my own bedroom! And ghosts? Forget it, ghosts were AWFUL! I could never face them! But YOU… oh, you're so cool! I want to start a quadrillion fan clubs about you!"
"Okay, okay, settled down AL," the second boy said. He came up and put his hand on his shoulder. "We're here for a reason, after all."
The first boy blushed and pulled away. "Right, right." He giggled. "Shouldn't put the cart before the lakitu."
Mario shook his head, trying to wrap his head around what was happening. "Uh… who are you?"
"Oh! Right! You don't know anything about us!" The first boy blushed even harder as the girl came up and put her hand on his shoulder. "Man, I didn't just put one cart before the lakitu; I put a billion carts before the lakitu!" He shook his head. "Stupid."
"Hey! You're not stupid," the girl said as she rubbed his shoulder. "You just made a mistake, that's all. And it's a very easy mistake to correct."
The boy flashed her a grateful smile. "Thanks, Savannah." He cleared his throat and looked back at the brothers and the princesses. "My name is Angry Luigi. Or… well, that's not really my name; I just like to call myself that so people associate me with Luigi." He chuckled. "I really like Luigi."
"So I've gathered," Luigi said with a smirk.
"Yeah." Angry Luigi cleared his throat. "Anyway, these are my friends, Savannah and Bill."
Savannah did a curtsey. "It's nice to meet you." She looked at Peach. "I really like your dress, Princess Peach; it's such a pretty shade of pink!"
"Oh. Thank you." Peach chuckled. "But please, just call me Peach."
Savannah beamed. "Can do, Peach!" She stepped forward. "Anyway, we're all really excited to meet you four. We've heard so much about you."
"Yeah," Bill said. "And we're really impressed with what we've seen." He smiled. "You put ninety-nine percent of other heroes to shame."
"Especially Luigi!" Angry Luigi chuckled and looked at Luigi. "I love you, Luigi. I love you so much."
Mario stepped forward. "That's… that's all well and good." He looked back at the trio. "But what are you guys doing here?"
"Oh! Right!" Angry Luigi cleared his throat. "We were all out playing with the miniature plane Bill built when we saw Bowser arrive at Peach's Castle. After that, we heard explosions! A LOT of explosions!"
"Yeah," said Savannah. "We knew that Bowser meant business this time around. You don't just cause all those explosions unless you want to do something REALLY bad. So, the three of us decided that we wanted to help out."
"And so," said Bill, "we ate lunch really quick, told our parents's our plan, and then came here to see if we could help fight against the Koopas."
Angry Luigi chuckled. "Well… that's not entirely true. We only really told my parents." He chuckled. "But Bill and Savannah's parents won't mind! If they here were helping the famous Mario Brothers… well, who could say no to something like that?"
"And, well, here we are," Bill said.
Mario gawked at these kids, as did everyone else. "So… wait. You want to help us fight against Bowser?"
"YES!" The three kids said in unison.
Mario did a double take. He exchanged a look with the others before putting on a concerned face. "Well… first off, I've gotta say, I really admire how brave you guys are." Angry Luigi, Bill, and Savannah all beamed when they heard that. "But you're just kids!"
"Yeah, but we're BIG kids!" Angry Luigi puffed out his chest to make himself look bigger. "I just turned eleven!"
"Err… yes." Mario took his hat off and scratched his head. "But you're still kids! And fighting Bowser's forces is a REALLY big job. Really big! I couldn't let you guys get involved; it's too dangerous."
The kids exchanged looks before, much to Mario's shock, they burst into laughter. "You don't have to worry about that!" said Angry Luigi. "We're a lot tougher than we look!" He pointed at Bill. "Besides, Bill right here just so happens to be a super genius!"
"A super genius?" asked Peach.
"Well… I don't know if I would say super…" Bill scratched the back of his head. "But I am certified, and I have the paperwork to prove it."
"Exactly! He can use his skills to come up with some AWESOME plans!" Angry Luigi smiled. "And… well, I will admit that I'm not as brave as Luigi is." Mario almost burst into laughter when he heard that, but stopped himself in order to not demean Luigi. "And… I do get scared pretty easily. But I'm not gonna let that stop me this time!" He puffed out his chest again. "We want to help! We want to help so bad! We can be useful members of the team!" He stepped towards Mario, taking his hand. "Can you please let us help? Please? You never know what could happen; you might end up needing us!"
Mario felt so bad. The spark in this kid's eyes was so… real, so visceral. He couldn't turn him down, and yet, he couldn't say yes either. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
"I, uh, I…" Remembering that he had his team with him, he turned to them for help. "What do you guys think?"
The others exchanged looks. "Uh… well, I mean, they are just kids," Luigi said.
"But… wasn't I just a kid when I joined you guys on your adventure to Isle Delfino?" Aqua asked. "I was able to make good contributions to the team, so… maybe we could use someone like these guys."
Mario blinked. "That is a good point…" he looked back down at the kids, into their hopeful and enthusiastic eyes. Ultimately, he sighed. "Okay. Okay. I'll let you join us."
"YES!" Savannah exclaimed as she jumped into the air.
Bill grinned. "Thank you, Mario! You will not regret this!"
"No, you won't!" Angry Luigi said. "NO ONE will regret this!"
Mario sighed. "That's the hope." He gestured toward the house. "Anyway, let's go inside so we can think of a plan."
