The warp pipe was much more complicated than any Luigi had traversed before. It took several twists and turns and it was several minutes before the journey ended. Toadette and Bowyer didn’t seem to mind the wait. Bowyer sharpened his arrows, dreaming of past victories, which, creepily, he described in great detail. Toadette didn’t say much, but examined her gun with a secretive smirk. It made Luigi very uncomfortable.
It was hardly more comforting when the warp pipe made a sharp drop and spat the three of them out in an extremely dark zone with a blood-red moon, in front of a creaking old bell tower that was filled with bats. Bowyer, interrupted in the midst of his gory tale of a man who was resistant to his arrows but didn’t expect to be stabbed through the chest with one, scanned the skies and grounds with a puzzled expression. “Huh?” He turned to Toadette, glaring with an expression only villains can give when they’re thinking about killing you. “Close to Bowser’s Castle this is not, close to Bowser’s Castle we must go!”
Luigi put his hands on his hips. “Toadette, what gives?!”
Toadette threw back her head and gave a wicked laugh reserved only for the most cheesy, perverted horror films. “Slicks,” she cackled, drawing back from them, more to get out of Bowyer’s firing range than anything, “Toadette may have been with you before, but the being with you now is none other than the maniacal maniac...” She said ‘maniacal maniac’ with the most vigor she could muster. Toadette began spinning like a top, faster and faster, faster than was possible for a normal human... Toad... being. Abruptly, she stopped, and a great change had taken place. The being that stood before them was covered in a sheet, wore a party hat and bowtie, and had a gaping mouth and nose that seemed to come directly from the sheet. For those less observant readers, it was the creature that, unseen by all, appeared in the Shadow Queen’s dungeon when all were dead or unconscious.
“DOOPLISS!” she... it... he... finished.
“Doopliss!” Bowyer face-palmed himself. “Should have known we should!” he moaned, pretending he had heard the name before.
Luigi nodded, also having no idea who the freak was. “And what’s with the ‘maniacal maniac’? You should be known as the ‘maniacal moron’!” He began laughing hysterically, and rather randomly.
“Insult me while you can!” Doopliss hissed. (Luigi made a mental note to do just that.) “Soon the Boos of this place will destroy you!”
Bowyer scoffed and readied an arrow. “See Boos I do not.”
Luigi whacked Bowyer on the head. “Less Boos, more answers! Where’s Toadette?!”
“Someplace special,” Doopliss mocked, smiling at his own wickedness.
Bowyer, who had been about to shoot, dropped his arrow (which protested violently and screamed until it fainted) and shook Luigi violently (more violently than was necessary, possibly as payback for being whacked). “Boos I see!” He gestured violently at the area behind Luigi.
Luigi kept his eyes on Doopliss, but took the time to chuckle. “All right, do you think I’m gonna fall for the whole ‘Boos I see’ trick?”
Bowyer stared at him for a second, debating in his head whether or not to massacre him violently, but then gestured again. “Yoshi I see.”
Luigi spun around (twice). “A Yoshi?! Where?!”
Behind him was a Yoshi, black in hue and large in nose. It stood, arms folded, smirk plastered across its face, in front of an army of small, cackling ghosts, Boos. Millions of them.
Bowyer sighed. “Great.”
The Yoshi began speaking in a deep, rhythmic voice that Luigi had never heard from any Yoshi. “So you are Luigi...” (This was something Luigi had also never heard from Yoshis, who just thought of him as “the other guy”.) “My queen was most displeased to find you missing from her jail cell... No matter.” It rubbed its hands together, giving a short, deep laugh. “I will put you there again, thanks to Freak-In-A-Silly-Sheet!”
Doopliss frowned. “My name’s Doopliss, Slick boss.”
Bowyer cackled (which, from him, sounded like “Nyah nyah nyah nyah!”). “Hmmmm... Like Freak-In-A-Silly-Sheet better I do.”
Luigi chuckled and put on his best confident face (he may have confused the word with constipated, as it sure looked that way). “And... how do you plan to put me back in that stuffy dungeon?!”
“Like thisssss...” The Yoshi’s laugh became deeper as he disappeared behind the crowd of Boos, which, grinning wickedly, all came together into a massive Boo, which, inexplicably, wore a crown and carried a scepter. It towered above Luigi (and the steeple, for that matter).
Bowyer wasn’t watching. He was aiming an arrow at Doopliss, who was so fascinated with the massive Boo that he didn’t notice. All he captured was the terrified squeal (presumably from Luigi) “King Boolossus!”
“Yes,” the massive Boo cackled, “the former giant Boo that you taunted long ago! King Boo lost all his power when you defeated him...” It gestured at the crown, which, admittedly, was WAY too small for his head.
“So you bullied your way to the top!” Luigi folded his arms and shook his head disgustedly, trying to pretend that his lungs had [i]not shriveled, his heart had [i]not fallen out of place, his various other organs were [i]not exploding, and he had [i]not just wet himself.
King Boolossus cackled (again). “Bully THIS!” he screamed, throwing up his (stubby) arms. He moved in on Luigi, who put on his “hero” face (which currently involved trembling lips, twitching eyes, and hair turning white). There was a shriek, and Bowyer turned around to see the massive Boo rising into the air, Luigi barely visible inside him.
“Luigi!” Bowyer yelled after him, more annoyed than worried.
The Yoshi, which had been chuckling to itself, turned an amused eye to Bowyer. “I have no quarrel with you, bow creature! Begone!”
Bowyer considered the possibility of murdering the pair of them, decided against it, and, trying to keep his dignity, fled inside the steeple, cursing.
Doopliss cackled, a strange noise that involved a whole lot of phlegm. “Hey, Slick boss, lookit this!” He gestured at the spot where Luigi had been, where a small, intricately designed box was lying. Doopliss snatched it up and turned it over, wondering about the value.
“Let me see.” the Yoshi commanded. He tugged it out of Doopliss’ grasp and examined it. Value was not on his mind.
“So,” Doopliss giggled, a sound even worse than his cackle,, “Slick boss, what’s my pay?”
The Yoshi didn’t look up. He was absorbed with the box. “Pay?” he said absentmindedly. “You don’t get any pay, Freak-in-a-Silly-Sheet!” He smirked and raised his head, cradling the box like a baby.
Doopliss exploded. “My name’s Doop-”
Before he could
finish his explosion, the Yoshi exploded with even more vigor. “HERE IS
YOUR PAY, FREAK-IN-A-SILLY-SHEET!” He flipped open the box.
Inside the steeple, Bowyer wandered aimlessly, shooting arrows at nothing, mumbling to himself. Bowyer took pride in the stunning and murdering of innocents, but here there were none. Like Bowser, he hated to have his evil plans thwarted by someone even more evil.
The steeple was strangely empty of Boos, which annoyed Bowyer even more. His Flunkies were mumbling to themselves, but their words did not interest him.
Without warning, a statue moved aside and a warp pipe emerged from the wall. Bowyer readied his Flunkies, all of them ready for some bloodshed.
Out of the pipe came, all of them looking much the worse for wear, Birdo (whose bow was tattered and face was scarred), Boshi (whose glasses where shattered and whose teeth were missing), a whole troupe of Yoshis (every one of which was missing at least a few teeth), and, worst of all, Mario, whose nose was purple and swollen.
“Oh no.” Bowyer groaned, and immediately began shooting erratically. Yoshis froze in place, but Birdo, Boshi, and Mario managed to dodge.
“It’s-a me!” Mario whooped, prompting Bowyer to let loose another round.
“Explain!” Bowyer commanded Birdo once he had exhausted his arrow supply.
“Look,” Birdo poked her head out from behind a frozen Yoshi, “I’m SURE you’re not happy to see Mario and Boshi and me,” she shot a venomous glance at those two, “but you gotta understand! Mario and Boshi washed up on the shore of Yoshi’s Island.” Another venomous glance. “They put the Yoshis in bags and did the dog paddle to Keelhaul Key.” She demonstrated on the floor. “They then bagged me and did the dead man’s float to Poshley Heights!” Once again she demonstrated. Boshi snickered. Poshley Heights, Bowyer knew, was an extremely wealthy town where only the high-society muckety-mucks lived. “We got out of there,” she breathed a sigh of relief. “and picked up a certain someone!”
After a long search for that “certain someone”, Birdo carried the frozen Toadette out of the Yoshi crowd and tossed her rather violently to the ground, glaring.
“Toadette!” Bowyer backed away.
“Bowyer!” Toadette growled with as much of her mouth as she could use. If she could move, there was no doubt Bowyer would be dead at this point.
Birdo continued, ignoring Toadette. “Mario was going to the bathroom in the Poshley Heights fountain,” a venomous glance was shot at Mario. “but he fell into a secret warp pipe. We followed him, and we ended up here!” She kicked Toadette, who snapped out of petrification. Birdo glared at Bowyer, who was now backing away as far as possible. “ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?!” she screamed angrily, kicking Toadette again. Toadette jumped to her feet and grabbed Birdo. “HEY! HEY!!! STOP!”
Toadette threw Birdo at Mario, who flew into Boshi, resulting in a chain reaction that left all besides Bowyer and Toadette unconscious.
“Bowyer!” Toadette glared at him. Then she drew in a breath. “Where’s Luigi?”
“Kidnapped by a giant ghost and a black Yoshi Luigi was!”
Toadette’s eye twitched. “One word per sentence, remember?”
Bowyer sighed. “Luigi... got... kidnapped... by... a... giant... ghost... and... a... black ...Yoshi! Happy?!”
Toadette nodded happily, celebrating inwardly. Then her face contorted into horror. “A giant ghost?! That’s awful! What do we do?!”
“I think I may have a solution.” Mario lifted his head, frowning severely. Bowyer and Toadette both leapt into the air and didn’t come down for several seconds.
“Spirit!” Bowyer guessed.
Toadette shrieked. “It’s the Star-” Bowyer clamped a hand over her mouth before she could finish what would have been a most insulting and damaging sentence.
“Solution!” Bowyer snarled, waving an arrow in the air. “NOW!”
Mario nodded sagely. “You may get Luigi back by getting to Grodus’s Magic Cure Shop. There you may find a cure for the Shadow Sirens and a potion to make you fly. By flying, you may find King Boolossus’s secret palace in the sky, where Luigi surely is.” He demonstrated this with finger puppets.
“Sweet!” Toadette growled, shoving Bowyer’s hand away. She was about to say something very rude, but Mario interrupted her.
“The force is with you...” he moaned. Then he jumped up, a big smile on his face. “I’m-a hungry!”
Boshi was the second to regain consciousness. “DUDE!” He patted Mario on the back while peace-signing Toadette with the other hand.
“Uggh...” Birdo lifted her head slowly, deliberately avoiding looking at Toadette.
“Let’s find a place to sleep,” Toadette decided, walking away.
Mario called after her. “But I’ve-a got a tight-a schedule today!”
“What’s on that schedule?” one of the Yoshis asked.
Mario pulled a scroll of parchment from his overalls and unrolled it. “‘8:00 PM: Dance in the toilet-a...’”
Bowyer glared at the Yoshi. “Had to ask you did.” They began hurrying after Toadette, who, it soon became clear, was merely wandering around in circles.
“Grodus’s Magic Cure Shop is on Earth, I recall.” Toadette pondered. “And Bowser has a rocket ship. We definitely need some sleep before going off to Bowser’s Castle.”
Boshi scoffed at the very idea. “Castles are dudely easy to find! I can guide you dudes there!”
“Good, a guide!” Toadette said merrily. Then she yawned. “Well, I’m tired. Let’s go to bed.”
“Here?”
“Now?”
“Yup,” she answered,
and lay down right there on the dusty floor and began snoring immediately.
Bowyer followed suit. Birdo and the Yoshis shrugged and began cracking
open their eggs to make a soft (and sticky) bed of yolk for themselves.
Mario did a few things unprintable before also falling asleep.
Outside the steeple, the black Yoshi still stood, examining the box. He mumbled to himself, every word accompanied by a chuckle.
“With this box,
I can trap that pesky bow-creature along with that fiddlesome fungus girl
Toadette and that meddling Mario... I can also get rid of those obnoxious
Yoshis and that ugly Birdo. My queen will be most pleased...” He chuckled,
then went on to a full-fledged laugh, which, in turn, turned into the hugest
evil laugh you can imagine. This, in turn, caused a tree to crash down,
which in turn, led to an “Ow...”
Hours later Toadette found herself awakened by a bad dream. Sitting up, she found that Bowyer and Birdo were with her, but the others were nowhere to be found. She quickly shook them awake, as the blackness around them was such that she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face (and yet she could see them... strangely).
“Where are we?” she demanded, whacking Bowyer. He growled at her, but immediately was sobered by the blackness.
“Black this is...” he stated the obvious. “Creepy!” He accompanied this with a wicked laugh that freaked out Toadette.
“I suppose we’re still in Creepy Steeple,” Birdo said in a bored tone. “I heard it can get pretty dark at night here.”
“Let’s wake up the others.” Toadette looked around, quickly realizing there were no others to wake up.
“MARIO! BOSHI! YOSHIS!”
“WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?!”
“Perhaps they went outside...” Birdo suggested, yawning. “Boshi does like to see the sun.”
Toadette scoffed. “There is no sun around Creepy Steeple, silly!”
Bowyer pointed. “Box I see...”
In front of them, though they could barely see it through the blackness, was a large box big enough to hold ten people. It was gaping wide open. Though none of them had seen it before, Luigi had seen it, while he was inside the intricate box, where Mario had eaten chains.
“Hmmmm...” Toadette tapped her head. “I could’ve sworn Luigi said something about a box inside blackness...”
“Told me about this too he did.” Bowyer stroked one of his arrows, which snarled. “Said he did that this blackness was inside a box.”
“To put two-and-two together...” Birdo grabbed the two of them and bashed their heads together, to prove her point, “we’re inside the box with the box that contained the Shadow Queen!”
“Right!” the others chorused, neither of them questioning how Birdo had come to this conclusion. No one would ever know, in fact.
“Great...” Birdo groaned, looking around. The intricate designs of the Shadow Queen’s box (the Shadow Queen’s box is the one that sucks villains inside, not the one inside that box that she was actually directly contained inside; have I confused you?) were becoming clear.
Toadette hurried to the large, opened box and peered inside. “What’s-”
Without warning, from the box came a startling figure dressed in blood-red and icy-blue who took hold of Toadette by the throat. “I’m-a the Shadow Idiot!” Mario whooped.
He was followed by a devilish-looking monster with a dinosaur-like body, colored the blue you see in dead men’s lips. Over his eyes he had shades of the darkest black. “I’m the Shadow Dude!” Boshi gave them a thumbs-up.
“We’re the Shadow Dinosaurs!” cheered numerous Yoshis as they followed, all of them surrounding Mario and dancing.
“Morons.” Toadette growled, shrugging off Mario’s fist (and breaking several of his bones in the process- he didn’t blink an eye).
Birdo snapped at the Yoshis. “Quit fooling around, guys, we need to get out of here!”
“How?!” Bowyer snarled.
“I’m-a Mario!”
“Dudes,” Boshi silenced them all with a wave of his hand (which Mario bit), “I have a plan!”
“WHAT?!” chorused Birdo, Bowyer, and Toadette.
“Dudes, we just need to fall asleep again!” Boshi threw back his head and laughed, as if it was all so simple. “When we wake up, we’ll be out of the box!”
Birdo threw back her head and laughed, seeming just a tad insane by this point. “That is the dumbest idea I’ve-”
Her words were drowned out by a loud snore from Mario, which sent Yoshis diving into the opened box. Toadette was about to silence him (with her fist) when his mustache began to disappear. At first, it seemed like the miracle of youth, when his nose also began to deplete. This was seen as a medical miracle. When his hair began to disappear, they thought it was premature hair loss. When his legs disappeared entirely, all they thought about was how much they would have to spend on wheelchairs. When his arms disappeared, they decided it was one less thing he could hurt them with. When his mouth vanished, they only considered it the most fantastic miracle they could think of. But when he disappeared entirely, they began to pay attention.
Toadette looked at Boshi after a long, stunned pause. “How’d you figure that out?”
“Dudes,” Boshi waved a hand girlishly, “I read a lot of Science Fiction, and this is definitely dudely Science Fiction.”
So, though that
didn’t explain the matter whatsoever, they let it drop and lulled themselves
to sleep. It was a complicated matter, not helped any by Toadette’s constant
recitation of “She sells seashells by the seashore”, Bowyer’s complaining
(“Sleep I cannot, nya!”), Boshi’s lullaby (“Duuuuuuuudes... Duuuuuuuuuuudes...
aaaaaaaaaare... aaaaaaaaaare...”), or Birdo’s loud snoring, which sounded
like a honking horn. Still, they all managed to, one by one, teleport from
the box.
They woke inside Creepy Steeple, one by one appearing there. Mario stood on his head, snoring, in the center of the room. A Yoshi, black as the blackest... black..., stood incredulously beside him.
“What the?!” He stared at the others, who glared at him defiantly. “I’m outta here!” He pivoted on one heel and raced out the door, failing to maintain dignity.
“Him that was!” Bowyer cried, nearly bouncing up and down, firing screaming arrows left and right. “Kidnapped Luigi him he and Big Boo did!”
“Easy, Bowyer...” Toadette put a forceful hand on his shoulder. “We’ll get him later... Meanwhile, we need to set off to Bowser’s Castle.”
“Me too, dudes!” Boshi spat at them, reminding them that he was to be their guide. This gave them a certain amount of disturbance.
“I-a wanna go too, Mommy!” Mario whined, clutching at Bowyer’s leg and drooling.
“FINE...” Bowyer growled, shaking his leg violently. Mario stayed firmly hooked.
“Oh,” Birdo raised a hand, “there’s one more that might want to come...” She turned to the Yoshis and made her way through the crowd, shoving them aside. After precisely thirty-seven seconds, she made her way back, clutching a small Yoshi that looked like a miniature version of the one who has helped the Mario Bros. on numerous adventures except that he had a curl of blonde hair. He smiled sweetly at them and Birdo beamed.
“He was born in Poshley Heights...” She fondled his hair.
“How cute!” Toadette moaned, taking the little Yoshi and squeezing the life out of him. “Who’s his mother and father?”
A green Yoshi, who could be recognized as the main Yoshi, squeezed his way to the front of the crowd. “Me and Birdo!” he announced.
“Married you two are now?” Bowyer harrumphed. He did not approve of love. “Sweet!” he added, lest they take offense. He had no way of knowing that, no, Yoshi and Birdo were not legally married, and neither of them bothered to correct him.
Birdo shoved the little Yoshi rather forcefully towards them. “We hope you can show him the way of the warrior!”
Yoshi pushed her aside and got down on his hands and knees. “Yoshi begs you to take...” he paused and cleared his throat, “care of him!”
“Of course we will!” Toadette squeezed the little Yoshi again, though Bowyer was beginning to eye him with apprehension. “What’s your name, little fella?”
The baby squeezed himself from her grasp, using both fists and both feet. (Toadette was somewhat less enthusiastic about the baby by this point.) “I don’t really have a name yet...” he admitted, turning away from her. “Hey, Mister Red Hat!” He waved cheerfully at Mario, who belched. “Can you name me?”
There was an interruption of furious screaming that lasted several minutes. Toadette and Bowyer, who had been heartbroken and killed by Mario, respectively, gave a screaming fit of “NOT MARIO!” Yoshi and Birdo, who had been denied the right to name their own child, gave a series of “OH GREAT!”s.
“I-a know a good name!” Mario said happily, oblivious to the unrest.
“What is it, dude?” Boshi asked, taking the matter with an astonishing degree of seriousness.
“Pork-a Chop!”
Their was another moment of unrest as most people suddenly passed out or at least tried to.
“Pork Chop...” the baby said slowly, “O...kay...” He looked around at the furious faces surrounding him. “Pork Chop it is!” he informed them.
Birdo honked. “Make us proud, little Pork Chop!”
“Hit Mario for me!” Yoshi commanded him.
And thus, after the newly christened Pork Chop had done exactly that, he set out for Bowser’s Castle, guided by Boshi. Toadette and Bowyer followed, bidding an awkward farewell to the others. Mario, of course, skipped after them. Birdo and Yoshi waved as they disappeared into the distance, then, followed by Yoshis, walked slowly away from the steeple, searching for shelter.