Trouble in Dark Land

Mario and Luigi were enjoying another sunny day at Koopa Beach when Toad came running up to them, shouting, "Mario! Luigi! We've got trouble again!"

"What's wrong, Toad?" Mario asked, sitting up straight in his beach chair.

"King Koopa has captured Princess Toadstool and Yoshi!" he cried.

"Yoshi? What does he want with Yoshi?" Luigi questioned.

"I heard from the Hammer Brothers that King Koopa's going to hypnotize Yoshi into destroying Dinosaur Land and making a Koopa Army Base!"

"Where did you see Bowser take them?" Mario asked, now standing up.

"To his castle in Dark Land!" Toad replied. "We must go now!"

"Alright Mario! But we're going to need back up this time!" Luigi said. "Let's call in Wario and Waluigi!"

"Right!" Mario said and called them up on his trusty cell phone. After he got done talking to them, he said to Luigi and Toad, "Alright, they're going to meet us in front of the warp pipe in Dark Land. Let's go!"

Meanwhile, in Bowser's fortress in Dark Land, Ludwig von Koopa paced around, making sure that his security system was working. Bowser walked in and asked, "So Ludwig, I assume that those pesky plumbers will be taken care of when they get here?"

"You bet! With this rigged up all over the castle, there's no way that they can get past even the front door!" Ludwig exclaimed proudly.

"Good! I'm going to leave it to you to take care of all this while I go check on my beautiful princess and that annoying little green dinosaur of hers!" With that, he left the room.

Wendy O. Koopa sat up in her room, rocking out to Metallica, when Morton Koopa Jr. burst in. "Wendy, Wendy! Can you help me out with my homework? I can't figure this out!"

Wendy looked up from her magazine. "Oh, shut up, Morton! Go ask your genius brother Ludwig or something!"

"But he's busy down in the basement! Now please help me!"

Wendy turned off her stereo. "Down in the basement? What is he doing down there?"

"I don't know, working on another machine or something I guess, now will you listen to me?!" Morton screamed.

"Okay, okay, calm down!" Wendy yelled. "Now first you tell me what Ludwig has been doing, and then I'll help you."

"Well, I saw him carry down some video cameras and laser sensors this morning, but honestly, I have no idea what he's doing."

"Let's go ask King Dad!"

So the two Koopalings went to the living room of the castle and found King Bowser sitting there watching TV. "King Dad! King Dad!" they both exclaimed excitedly.

Bowser turned off the TV. "What?" he said impatiently.

"What is Ludwig doing in the basement?" Wendy asked.

"He's building a machine," Bowser answered.

"What kind of machine?" Morton questioned.

"I can't tell you."

"Aww, why not?" they both whined.

"You remember what happened last time! When I brought home that nuclear furnace you didn't know what it was until I told you. And you left it alone until I told you what it was. After you knew what it was you tampered with it and almost blew the whole castle up!"

"Yeah, but we promise not do it this time!" Morton said.

"Nope. Sorry. Just leave Ludwig alone. He has important business to take care of."

The two Koopalings sulked away.

Mario, Luigi, Toad, Wario, and Waluigi walked up the hill to the fortress at the top as it loomed over them. "Alright, Wario and Waluigi. You two stay here and try to get into the front while Luigi, Toad, and I go to the back. I remember there being a secret entrance back there," Mario explained.

So the two brothers and the Mushroom Retainer crawled around the back, staying as close to the castle walls as they could. Finally, Mario stopped and said, "Now there's some loose bricks here somewhere." He began pushing each brick lightly. "And they should be right about... here!" As he said that, one of the bricks that he pushed slid inward a bit.

"How did you know about this?" Luigi asked in astonishment.

"I found this out a few years ago. But never mind that. Help me push these in!" Mario said, and the three of them began pushing the four bricks inward until they could get into the little entrance. When they got inside, they gasped at the sight. Millions of gold coins were stacked in mounds all over the large room, illuminating the place with a golden glow.

"Mario, you never told me about this!" Luigi exclaimed.

"This wasn't here before! Last time I was here it was an empty, dark, and gloomy chamber!" Mario responded. He stared in awe at the wonder before him. "Luigi, we should have brought some bags!"

"Now Mario, what's gotten into you? We have a princess and dinosaur to save!" Luigi scolded.

Mario just stood there, his eyes sparkling as he glanced around the room. Luigi and Toad sighed. They both grabbed him by the arms and dragged him out of there.

Now they were in a dark hallway. At the very end was a door. The three of them walked up to the door and Luigi turned the knob. "Oh no, it's locked!" he said. He looked closer at the door. There was a security lock on it and the light was on. "It's one of those power locks, too!"

"Oh, great, now what?" Toad said.

Down in the basement, Ludwig was able to observe everything clearly. On one screen, he could see Wario and Waluigi trapped in the hole that was set up on the second floor, and on another, Mario, Luigi, and Toad looking utterly defeated by the locked door leading to the mezzanine. "I always thought you guys could do better than that!" Ludwig said out loud, laughing. "Too bad for you!" He suddenly got thirsty, so he put the viewer on standby and went to get a drink of water.

Wendy and Morton were getting fed up with their father's secrecy, so they both decided to check out Ludwig's project themselves. They made their way quietly down into the basement into his lab, and gasped in awe. A machine stood before them with all kinds of TV screens and lenses. On the screen, they could see Mario, Luigi, Toad, Wario, and Waluigi frozen on the screen.

"Hey! Why didn't King Dad tell us that the Marios were coming to pay us a visit?" Morton complained. "We could've helped him a great deal in capturing them!"

"Morton, we can surprise him!" Wendy exclaimed.

"What do you mean?"

"We can monitor them right here, and if they cause trouble we'll just ambush them and surprise King Dad with them in the dungeon!"

"Great idea, Wendy! He'll be so proud of us that we'll become his favorite son and daughter in the whole wide kingdom!"

"But first we have to figure out how this machine works. It's put on standby right now. Help me unpause it!"

"I don't know, look for a button somewhere!"

"How about this one?" Morton pointed to a big red button.

Morton pushed the button, and all the screen suddenly went black.

Wendy's eyes opened wide. "Morton! What did you do?" she demanded wildly.

"I just pushed this button and everything shut down!"

"Oh, just perfect! Now we've lost sight of the plumbers!" Wendy was hysterical now. "What are we going to do? Morton, you're such an airhead!"

"I'm sorry! It was an accident! Let's try to find out how to turn it back on!" So the two fiddled with the control panel, pressing every button and pulling every lever in panic.

Mario, Luigi, and Toad stood in the hallway, contemplating what to do next when all of a sudden the lights in the hallway flickered and stopped. "What was that?" Mario questioned.

"I don't know, but it doesn't look too good. Bowser must be operating a giant machine somewhere in this castle that's using a lot of electricity. Whatever he's doing, it's up to no good for sure," Luigi said.

"But hey! Look!" Toad cried, and pointed to the door. The security light on the lock went dark.

"Could it be?" Mario asked and turned the knob. The door swung open with ease.

The three cheered and proceeded into the next room, which was the mezzanine. It was totally empty. "Be careful you guys, this could be a trap. There are surveillance cameras everywhere in this joint," Mario warned, and took a look around.

"But look, the lights are not blinking on the cameras," Toad pointed out. "Someone must have shut them off!"

"Wario and Waluigi!" Mario exclaimed happily. "They must have done it! That also means all the booby traps are inactive!"

"WHAT HAPPENED HERE?" Bowser bellowed when he entered the basement with Ludwig in tow.

Wendy and Morton stood there trembling, trying to look innocent. "It was Wendy! It was all her!" Morton shouted, pointing at Wendy.

"Liar! I told you not to tamper with it, but you wouldn't listen!" Wendy shot back.

"Don't either of you lie to me!" Bowser growled and glared at them. "Ludwig, hurry and get this back up and running again! The plumbers could be on the loose anywhere in this castle!"

Ludwig hurried over to the machine and flipped the switch. To his shock, the screen showed a Star Trek movie.

"Change the channels on this thing!" Bowser yelled.

Ludwig was frantically pushing buttons on the control panel. "I can't! A secret code must've been put in when it was messed with! I can't get it back to the Marios!"

Bowser growled loudly. "You imbeciles!" Then he picked up his Wand. "I'm going to look for them myself! No one gets past me!" Then he ran out of the basement full speed.

"We made it!" Mario and Luigi exclaimed when they reached the dungeon room. "Now we just have to find where Princess Toadstool and Yoshi are imprisoned.

"Mario! Luigi! Is that you?" a female voice cried from around the corner.

"Yoshi!" a squeaky voice called out.

"It's them!" Toad cried, and they went around the corridor. They found the Princess and Yoshi in one of the dungeon cells.

"Princess! Yoshi! Are you alright?" they exclaimed.

"Aha!" a low voice shouted from behind them.

Princess Toadstool and Yoshi blinked in horror. Mario, Luigi, and Toad turned around and were face to face with King Koopa himself!

"You thought you could escape so easily, didn't you?" Bowser said, grinning evilly. "Well, you're all my prisoners now! Bwa ha ha!"

"Not if we can help it!" another voice said from behind them.

They all looked up. Wario and Waluigi stood there, and Waluigi was holding a Magic Wand identical to Bowser's. "Wha-?" Bowser started, and then raised his Wand toward them. Nothing happened. "Hey! My Wand!"

"You've got the wrong Wand, Koopa! Here's the real one!" Waluigi proclaimed and pointed it towards him.

Bowser immediately lifted up his hands in surrender, dropping the fake wand from his hand. "Okay, okay! You win! You can have your princess and dinosaur!"

Wario walked towards him while Waluigi still stood in front of him, not lowering the Wand. "Give me the keys to the dungeon."

Bowser reluctantly handed over the keys to Wario. He unlocked the dungeon and Princess Toadstool and Yoshi stepped out.

Waluigi signaled to his friends, and everyone ran out of the dungeon except for him and Bowser. Not keeping his eyes off Bowser, he set the Wand down on the floor and said, "That'll teach you to mess with the Wario brothers!" And he was out there in a flash.

Bowser stood there in amazement. Then he finally shouted angrily, "I'll get those plumbers!"

The four heroes, Princess, and Yoshi relaxed on Koopa Beach once again, feeling victorious. "Thanks for the save, Waluigi! You're pretty clever!" Luigi said.

"Don't mention it," Waluigi said modestly.

"Hey, let's all go to my place and I'll bake a cake for everyone!" Princess Toadstool piped up.