Chapter 7: Mario Verses Maria
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The one thing that Maria had noticed about the Raccoon suit was that it was warm and traveling through the frigid climate she did not feel cold. It did not much for the traction on the slippery ground, but she was warm and she was able to disable some of Bowser’s odd traps in the creepy fortress when she turned into a statue.
“We don’t know what this kid is like,” Pauline was sitting on the edge of the air ship pipe. She was wearing the slick armored shell and helmet off the hammer throwing types. She was also able to summon hammers and throw them.
“They said he is very playful,” Maria recalled the descriptions the toads gave her. “He didn’t create any new rules or taxes, just declared that every day was going to be a fun day and went to play in the snow.”
“We don’t know his fighting style.”
“He sounds like he is the youngest one. He is just a kid who wants to play in a winter wonderland.”
“So what is the battle plan?” Pauline asked.
“We will just talk to him first, and after being transformed, being attacked by robots and fighting against their possibly toughest fighter we could use a break.”
“Lets just hope our limbs are not the ones that receive a break.” Pauline let go and went down the warp.
“Wait for me,” Maria jumped in. She landed next to Pauline. “Now to face this kid.”
“Hello,” the smallest of the Koopalings greeted her while standing on a large inflatable ball with a star on it. His Mohawk was rainbow striped, like Iggy’s. He had no protruding fangs and a couple of red stripes on his head. One eye was focused on them. The other was looking up.
“Hi,” Maria waved to him. “What is your name?”
“Lemmy,” the Koopaling said.
“Lemmy, did your big brothers and sister put you up to this?” Pauline asked.
“Except for Ludwig they are all younger than me.” He made the ball roll back.
“He’s the second oldest?”
“I had a lot of medical problems growing up.”
“We are sorry,” Maria apologized.
“Don’t be,” Lemmy smiled. “We are going to play.” He waved his wand and the ball he was on multiplied into several more balls. “Let’s play catch.” The balls flew towards them.
Pauline threw several hammers at the balls’ causing them to burst like soap bubbles.
Maria waited until the balls came close to her before she turned into a statue. The balls went by her without causing any harm. Maria returned to flesh and ran up to the Koopa kid and kicked the ball he was standing on from under him.
“Oof,” Lemmy landed on his feet. “That was kinda fun.” He held out the wand. “Here you go.”
“Wait,” Maria could not believe what had just happened. “What?”
“Fun is over,” Lemmy said.
“If you insist,” Maria took it. “Actually, thank you.”
“If my father asks tell him you defeated me,” Lemmy sat down on the floor. “I’m going to take a nap. It will look like I’m unconscious.”
“If we see your father we will tell him your were a brave and fierce fighter,” Pauline said.
“Thank you.” Lemmy stretched and yawned. “You have to watch out with Ludwig. He’s strong like Roy, and smart like Iggy, and General Mario is with him.”
“Thank you for the warning,” Maria said as she jumped to the warp. “Lets change the king back and see what the princess has written to us.”
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Mario paced in front of the rows of troops. “We cannot afford to take any risks or chances, these two minxes have made their way through out the other six lands. They have defeated five of the royal children, and my brother.” Mario clenched his fists. They have hurt his brother. Dream adventure or not he will not hold back against them. He will burn them, slash at them with his claws and sink his teeth into their flesh.
“General,” Captain Blitz flew towards him. The white feathers in his wings reflected off his red insect shell. “We have received some news from Dark Land.”
“Damn it,” Mario already knew what the news was. “It’s Lemmy, isn’t it?”
“They haven’t told me, sir.” Blitz said
“I’ll be right there, Captain Blitz. You are in charge until I return.
Ludwig was in the throne room, waiting for him. The young composer appeared cool and level headed. If he was worried about the situation, he clearly wasn’t showing it. Even his tail wasn’t moving. It was just resting against the ground.
Luigi was on the screen. “Mario, it’s Lemmy.”
“I know,” Mario snarled. “Those bitches.”
“Mario please,” Luigi frowned. “Lemmy came back unharmed, just like Wendy and I was.”
“They still tried to hurt you.”
“They didn’t want to,” Luigi pressed his hands against the screen. “They were trying to convince me they didn’t want to cause any harm. They mentioned the dream of Subcon.”
“Screw that dream,” Mario couldn’t believe how soft his brother was being towards the girls. “It was just a dream.”
“A dream that was shared by six people? A dream that was so vivid and all who dreamed it remembered the same exact details? Maybe it wasn’t a dream. It could have been one of those out of they body experiences and our souls did get transported to that place.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Mario turned to Ludwig. “Isn’t it?” The only response he received from the Koopa prince was a shrug. “So what if we had gone to that world? That still doesn’t change the fact they are trying to undo our hard work.”
“We almost caught them,” Luigi said. “Wendy and I, we almost had them. I used the wand on them and turned them into Koopas. There was something about Maria’s scent when she was in Koopa form. She smelled like you.”
“What?”
“Well not exactly like you. She smelled a little nicer, but her scent was similar, like she was family.”
“Curiouser and curioser,” Ludwig raised an eyebrow.
“Are you asking me to go easy on them?” Mario asked.
“No, just don’t hurt them too much, and if you do turn them into Koopas and Pauline has a panic attack, keep an eye on her.”
“I will,” Mario nodded.
“This is an odd turn of events,” Ludwig said when the screen went dark. “I am curious to how one of them was able to smell like a relative when she is in Koopa form, when it is apparent that she was always human and never seen you before.”
“I know,” Mario felt his ire at the girls dribble away. “She said that years before she was born her parents had twin boys who died in infancy and they had the same names as Luigi as me.”
“Very odd indeed,” Ludwig chewed his bottom lip.
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“Wahoo,” Maria shouted as she hopped onward to the castle while riding around in a large shoe. “This is great. I just realized we can really boot the Koopa kid out of the castle.”
“I should drop something on you,” Pauline was flying overhead via the power of her raccoon tail.
“Drop me some food if you got any,” Maria said. She spotted several more Troopas up ahead. “Excuse me while I squash these guys.” She used the power of the boot to stomp on the Troopas. “Squish.”
“Bad news, Girly.” Pauline said as she came in for a landing.
“Let me guess, we are out of food? Don’t we at least have some more of those cracker and cheese packs left?”
“Nope,” Pauline shook her head. “They are all gone.”
“Damn. Well maybe this King Wally will have some food for us.”
“Yep, we are completely without food,” Pauline pulled out one of her cameras. “I still have about eight pictures left on this last camera.”
“Okay take a picture,” Maria smiled. “This is probably the only time you will ever get a picture of me riding around in a giant shoe.”
“Exactly,” Pauline snapped the picture. “Now that we are almost finished you are getting into the spirit of this?”
“If you mean by the adventure, then no.” The doors opened and hundreds of soldiers, both of the toad and human variety were waiting for them along with the Koopa Troop. “Hi guys, we are here.”
“It’s Pauline and Maria. True soldiers of Pipe Land we are here to liberate your king.”
The toads and humans stared at her with weak expressions on their faces. They were probably uncertain of their abilities and knew they would be punished if Maria and Pauline had failed them. Maria could not blame the poor guys. Who knows what kind of cruel commands Ludwig has opposed on them.
“They don’t understand,” Pauline said as several Goombas ran up to her. She spun around, taking them out with her tail.
“Lets show them,” Maria stomped on several Troopas while avoiding the boomerangs from the helmet brothers. She angled the show to do a round out kick against them before she jumped in the air and kicked a few of the flying goons out of the sky.
“You see?” Pauline asked when they were done. “Now can one of you lead us to the throne room?”
“This way,” One of the toads said and ran down one of the halls.
Maria was glad she had the shoe, considering how many twists and turns they had to take through the castle she knew she would have been exhausted and not be able to fight against Ludwig. She admired the stamina of the toad guard. Pauline was able to save her strength by flying most of the way.
“The throne room is past these two doors.” The guard said. “The others are now rallying against the Koopa troop by now, and freeing the prisoners in the dungeon.”
“Thank you,” Pauline opened the doors.
Ludwig was waiting for them. He had a physic similar to Roy and was crowned by a thick cloud of blue hair, a green head and shell and a single buck tooth fang. He was not alone.
“Lord Ludwig get to your ship,” Mario commanded. “I will stop them.”
“Good luck,” Ludwig raced towards the window were an anchor and chain lead to the airship.
“I don’t think so red,” Maria stomped forward in her shoe. Mario growled and breathed fire at her direction. “Pauline, you go after Ludwig.” She jumped over the flames.
“I’m on it,” Pauline ran to the window and used her tail to fly towards the withdrawing anchor.
“Oh no you don’t,” Mario ran after her.
“Too bad she is,” Maria used the shoe to jump on Mario’s head. The Koopa general withdrew his limbs into the shell. The second the bottom of the shoe landed on the spikes it disappeared.
“Not so tough without your shoe?” Mario asked before he leapt in the air.
Maria waited until he was about to land before she jumped. “I learned from your brother.”
“You attacked him,” Mario tackled her.
Maria grunted when her back struck the floor. She had expected them to be heavy but the weight was nearly crushing her.
“You could have hurt him.”
“But we didn’t,” Maria opened her eyes and stared at the mouth filled with sharp white teeth. “Pauline had a star, she just tapped them. I don’t want to hurt you or Luigi and apologized to him and he apologized to me when hey caught us.
“Why are you doing this?” Mario asked.
“Because you are doing this. Brutal takeovers are never the answer.”
“Isn’t that we did. We took over Wart’s kingdom?”
“We were freeing the people,” Maria was able to move her legs. “Like how we are with the people in the seven kingdoms after you took over like Wart.” She shoved her knee as far as she could up into Mario’s crotch.
“Ouch,” Mario grunted and rolled off.
“Sorry, I couldn’t breath.” She sat up. “But it is a good thing you had padding right?”
“Not as good as you would think,” Mario kept massaging his crotch. “We got bruised under here before.”
“You told us while we were in Subcon. I’m sorry the toads were racist towards you. I know how that can hurt.”
“No you don’t,” Mario shook his head.
“I never felt it physically, but I have heard the names.” She remembered some of the terms she had heard from both children and adults. “They called me names because I’m Italian. I have seen it done to other people because of the color of their skin, or the shape of their eyes, or what languages they can speak, or their religion.”
“But you are all the same species,” Mario blinked.
“And thinking about it makes it even more sad.” Maria closed her eyes. “People have been making changes though. We receive education from schools, even adds in television and magazines. Television shows and movies are based on teaching how wrong it is.”
“But humans still hate because of minor differences?”
“Yes, but our nation has gotten better. You read about things were different hundreds of years ago, and fifty years ago, and even twenty years ago. We are getting better, at least I hope and believe we are.”
“Twenty years from now your children will look back and think how awful things are now?”
“Yeah,” Maria nodded. “That’s called progress.”
“We are not fighting,” Mario said.
“I rather we just talked, like how we are doing now.”
“Lord Ludwig needs my help,” Mario turned to the window. The air-ship had returned
“And Pauline needs mine.” She watched as the anchor returned and a battered and bruised Pauline climbed down the chain. “Or maybe not.”
“One of the spells bounced off the wall.” Pauline said as she climbed through the window. “Struck him in the back and turned him into a duck. I turned him back and escaped.”
“Sorry you got hurt,” Maria smiled weakly.
“All in a day’s work.” Pauline aimed the wand at the plant on the throne. A beam of light struck it in the middle and turned him back into a mirror. “What are we going to do with him?” She nodded towards Mario.
“Let him go,” Maria said.
“I agree,” King Wally nodded. “We will show him our mercy and hoped he will learn from it.”
“Father,” the doors opened. “I have been freed by from the dark prison and came to overthrow the vicious monsters who have enslaved our land and reduced your form to a snarling plant beast.” The man was gorgeous. He had silky shoulder length hair, bright green eyes, a perfect nose, high cheekbones and teeth that were like pearls.
“Holy,” Pauline blushed.
“Yeah,” Maria felt her heartbeat increase.
“I have already been changed back,” King Wally stood back.
“By who?” the prince pointed at them. “These common girls?”
“C-c-common girls?” Maria choked.
“Arrogant little snot, aint he?” Mario choked.
“You will show these ladies the respect that they deserve.” King Wally said. “General Mario, you may leave.”
“Father you are just simply letting him go?” Prince Peter scratched his head. “This fowl creature who is part of the dark empire that has over thrown you, who has thrust me and several others into the dark depths with be are prison. Oh how can we allow this great atrocity go unnoticed, un punished? Nay, for we shall bind the beast shackles and allow swift justice to befall him.”
“What the hell” Pauline asked. “Is he auditioning for a Shakespeare play?”
“He always talks like that,” King Wally said. “Except when he is drunk. We are allowing the Koopa General to leave and offer accommodations for Maria and Pauline before they return to the Mushroom kingdom.”
“Where did Mario go?” Pauline asked. The Koopa was standing there a few minutes ago.
“There,” Maria pointed towards the window. The Air ship was departing and Mario was hanging from the anchor and chain. He must have left during the Prince’s long-winded speech.
“They weren’t as bad as my son made them out,” Wally accepted the wand from Pauline. “They have opened up my eyes. People do have the right to live unhealthy lives, or what I deem to be unhealthy.”
“Father,” The prince pointed to a glowing pink button next to a large screen on the wall. “It is a call from our neighbors in arms, the great and beautiful mushroom kingdom.”
“It’s probably a message from the Princess,” Maria said. “We usually speak to each other after we save another castle.”
“Ah the fairest princess of them all,” Peter swooned. “Just the sound of her enchanted voice be stills my heart.”
“Maria, Pauline.” Toad’s face appeared. “Something horrible has happened. The Princess has been kidnapped.”
“Again?” Pauline raised her eyebrows.
“Yes, by-“ The imaged faded.
“By me,” Bowser’s image appeared. “Ludwig just told me how you defeated him. I may not have the seven kingdoms under Koopa rule, but I will have her and her kingdom. You can try and stop me again if you wish.”
“Looks like we are on our way to Dark Land,” Maria sighed.
“I wonder if he still wants you,” Pauline said.
“I doubt it, and I don’t really care either.”
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