Work Text:
When Mario wakes up, the sun is rising, which means he slept the whole night? Okay. Bowser is asleep in his lap. Oh, and his phone is buzzing, indicating that he has a text.
Er, several, he realizes, when he digs out his phone and pokes it awake. All from Luigi.
Hey bro! Hope your end of things is going okay. Also, good morning.
Change of plans for me, I think lol. Before we even got to the red streamer Olivia mentioned something about the Toad that created her and her brother? She thinks if we can find him we might be able to convince Olly to, uh, chill.
Mario squeezes his eyes shut for a second—but, what, so long as they stop Olly, what does it matter how, anyway?
Back to reading.
And if not that then at least have a better idea of how to undo all of his magic, lol.
Hopefully it works out? I’ll keep you posted. Sorry that you have to do the rest of the work, bro! If, uh, you want me to pick up some slack, let me know, but I figured hunting down a missing Toad is more involved than punching bad guys and stuff. Love you! <3
Signed with a green heart, of course. Mario smiles, thumbs in sounds good to me, followed by a thumbs-up emoji and a red heart. And then he adds: besides, Bowser’s prbly got an airship I can borrow, just to hopefully ease some of Luigi’s worries.
Mario gets a read notification instantly, so he keeps the screen up to see Luigi’s reply.
Haha true! If he did that’d be a big help, wouldn’t it? Hope he does!
I’ll ask him when hes awake, Mario types, and as he does Luigi’s next message comes in.
How’s Bowser doing, bro? Everything okay on his end?
yeah hes fine, Mario texts, and then slides over to his camera to take the best selfie he can of Bowser in his lap without, like, moving. He sends that over to Luigi, no caption.
Oh he really is small!!!!!!!! Luigi sends back rapidly. You know I honestly thought Olivia was pulling my leg when she mentioned. Wow!!! And then: Guess this means I don’t have to bother you about whether or not you slept huh? :P
Mario texts back a few eyes-rolling emojis, which Luigi replies to with a string of hearts. Fair enough.
what else have u been up to? Mario texts, and then leans back to read as Luigi regales him with a tale of forests and singing trees and how exactly he got distracted from all that anyway. Mario shares his own update on events—Bowser’s Troopa’s being in debt is a fairly funny story to share, after all—and soon enough it’s actually close enough to a reasonable hour of morning that Mario doesn’t feel too bad about waking Bowser up.
“Huh? Wuzzat?” Bowser says, and Mario holds onto him a little tighter so he doesn’t do anything stupid like accidentally throw himself out the window.
“Morning,” Mario answers in sing-song.
Bowser grumbles. “Time is it?”
Mario shows him the clock on his phone’s lock screen. Bowser groans.
“Eugh. Got a reason you’re waking me up this early?”
To answer that, Mario scrolls back up to Luigi’s messages from earlier about the change of plans and lets Bowser read, carefully making sure to stop scrolling before the selfie he took just so Bowser doesn’t get distracted.
“…huh,” Bowser says. “What streamers is he talking about?”
“Peach’s castle,” Mario answers, which is not a full sentence, but clearly gets the point across based on the noise of understanding Bowser makes.
“Oh, yeah, those things. Dunno what I’m gonna be able to do to help.”
“Taxi driver,” Mario says. Bowser makes a note of disgust. “Emotional support,” Mario adds.
This clearly make Bowser feel better, because he breaks into a grin so wide it makes his eyes squeeze shut. “Oh, obviously! What’s the point of bein’ married to you if I ain’t any good emotional support? There’s no point!”
“Do you have an airship, though,” Mario interjects, even if it’d be nice to let Bowser keep going for a while.
“Oh—yeah, probably. As long as one survived the crash. Let’s go look.”
-
Bowser does, in fact, have an airship that survived the crash. There are also several more Troopas running around the remains of the castle than there were last night; cleaning, assessing damage, doing airship preparations, now that the place has been cleared out of Origami Soldiers and is safe to be in. Mario watches the bustle with fondness, sitting at a table on which Bowser stands (trying to get his height back) shouting orders and encouragement. Kamek stops by at some point with breakfast. Junior pulls up a chair on the other side of the table and sits on it, gleefully echoing his father’s orders and adding some of his own.
Within the hour, the airship is locked and loaded, they hit the skies.
Well, after Mario takes a picture of the airship to text to Luigi, anyway. Just so his brother’s a little less anxious about what he’s asking of Mario.
“Where first?” Bowser asks. “Looks like we’ve got a lot of choices.”
They took care of the green streamer wrapped around Bowser’s castle yesterday, so there’s really only four choices.
“Red,” Mario says, because he’s got a gimmick, he might as well stick to it.
Bowser laughs. “You know, I shouldn’t have even asked! You think we should just start there and work our way ‘round?”
Mario nods enthusiastically. Bowser grins.
“Alright, you heard the man!” he calls to his crew. “Floor it!”
The nice thing about an airship is there is no navigating confusing jungles and fighting miscellaneous enemies along the way. In an airship, you can drive right up to your destination, park, and hop off. Which is how maybe thirty minutes later the red streamer is destroyed and the origami monster that Olly set (…created? Mario doesn’t want to think about that too long) to guard it defeated. After all, against Mario, Bowser, Kamek, and Junior combined, even the scariest bosses don’t really stand a chance, even when Bowser is literally only capable of breathing fire on things and nothing else.
lol 2/5 down, Mario texts to Luigi, as they make their way to the next streamer.
It’s a bit before Luigi replies, but they’re still in the air when he does.
Wow you work fast!!!
airships are beautiful pieces of machinery, Mario texts, attaching the smiling emoji with the closed eyes to it, followed by: also I did one yesterday so, but before he gets that one out Luigi has texted:
Yeah yeah, congrats on marrying the guy who has a literal airship armada at his disposal to impress you with, bro.
Mario laughs and thumbs in another smiling emoji. And then: how are things on ur end?
Okay! No luck on finding that Toad yet, but we did fight this giant turtle elemental monster that unlocked some hidden origami power in Olivia? I didn’t really understand it but I figure that’s probably also important so I’m not going to question it.
And before you get worried, I was fine!!! I can handle fighting bosses on my own!!
lol I wasn’t worried, Mario says, even though he was, a little. I kno u got this
Thanks, bro, Luigi answers. I’m going to get back on the road, okay? Love you <3
lov u <3
Mario waits until he sees Luigi go offline before he puts his phone away. Then he notices Bowser’s been looking at him.
He makes an inquisitive sound, an invitation for Bowser to say whatever he’s thinking.
“Texting Luigi?” Bowser asks, which is honestly not the question Mario expected from him. He nods, though, accompanying it with a mm-hmm. Bowser continues: “How are things on the green dude’s end?”
Mario gives a thumbs up.
“Cool cool,” Bowser says, then hops down from the crate he’s been standing on to join Mario where he’s sitting on the bottom of one of the airship’s flight of stairs up to the bridge. “What about you? You okay?” he asks, in a lower volume, which is still pretty loud, considering: Bowser.
Mario thinks about it for a moment, wanting to be honest. He is doing better today than he was yesterday, knowing at least that Bowser is safe and it’s not only on him to deal with the Peach situation… But his good mood is lasting due to precisely how little he’s letting himself think about said Peach situation, so. He finally holds up his hand and makes a shaky gesture, a sort of okay, gesture, then shrugs to the tune of could be worse.
“Okay,” Bowser says, clearly worried but not finding any words to express it—or maybe just not any words he wants to say in front of a significant portion of his Troopas. Love him as they do, they are still prone to horrible gossip. “Just- if there’s anything you need, let me know, okay?”
Mario answers with a thumbs up, and it’s about then that a Paratroopa lands in front of them, saluting, and then, clearly flustered, frantically correcting to Bowser’s current height.
“Landing in about two minutes, sir!” the Paratroopa reports. “Er, sirs! I suggest you get ready!”
Mario does a lazy salute back, which makes the Paratroopa grin, before taking off to the skies again (still flustered, or maybe a little star-struck, based on the shaky liftoff).
“Stop dismissing my troops before I say anything, Mario—Didn’t even let me say thank you,” Bowser grumbles, but it’s half-hearted. Mario picks him up and gets to his feet. Bowser sighs. “Well, you ready to do this thing? Let’s knock boss number 2 out of the park! Make ‘em wish he never crossed us!”
“Yeah!” Mario agrees.
-
Boss 2/4 is equally easy. They’ve finished with boss 3/4 when Luigi texts saying he’s taken care of his second boss… and still hasn’t found the Toad. It’s a big Kingdom, though, and the airship does make things on Mario’s end move much faster, so he can’t really be surprised about Luigi’s pace.
They stop for lunch. If Mario dozes for nearly an hour after, that’s only because Junior fell asleep leaning against him first. Fighting bosses all day is tiring, after all!
He wakes up to his phone buzzing with news from Luigi.
Found the Toad! the lengthy message opens with. There’s… well, a lot of explanation, and you probably don’t want to hear all of it, but it sounds like a lot of mix ups and misguided reasons for revenge? (Like that’s new, Mario thinks.) Either way Tor-- er, that’s the Toad’s name-- is happy to try talking to Olly and seeing what’s up, and if that doesn’t work once me and Olivia take down this last Vellumental-- those are the origami monsters that keep unlocking hidden powers in Olivia-- should be well prepared to help you fight Olly. Maybe even do the fight ourselves! Who knows! I guess we’ll find out when we team back up.
Yeah, guess so, Mario thinks.
so no going to rush the final boss right now? he texts.
No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Luigi texts back, delayed likely due to how many exclamation points he attached.
im kidding, Mario answers.
Luigi spends a while typing his response, but this is normal, so Mario doesn’t mind waiting. He looks around to see if anything’s changed… but though the crew has swapped shifts, nothing else has. They’re still floating idly in the same portion of the sky they were when he fell asleep. And Junior is still laying with his head in Mario’s lap, snoring softly.
Mario wonders if he should take the boss guarding this last streamer alone.
He’s idly wondering if he should wake Junior and/or ask where Bowser is when he notices Luigi has sent his text.
Actually you know what, I got to thinking and maybe it’d be better if you went? Er, maybe not right away but soon. I definitely don’t want you fighting Olly before we get there but I think Olivia’d be really upset if she didn’t get to talk to him at all and it would kind of defeat the point of me finding Tor if you just went and beat Olly up BUT!!!! It’d also be way easier for me to escort Tor through the castle if, like, you beat up all the baddies first. Or at least kept them distracted. So… yeah. That’s my hot plan.
it’s a good plan, Mario says. He scrolls back up to check that Luigi and Olivia are on their last boss—they are—and then thinks for a minute. how close are you to fighting this vellumental thing?
He has to respell Vellumental like three times. His phone hates the word, apparently.
One climb up an ice mountain away, Luigi replies. So… I should probably get started on that.
probably, Mario agrees. And then, quickly before Luigi actually gets up: wait can you answer a question first
Uh, sure? What is it
what’s Tor’s full name? Not knowing is going to drive Mario crazy.
Tor E. Gami, Luigi replies, and then immediately follows that up with: oh my stars. I’m so STUPID.
Mario laughs to himself, both at the incredible pun of a name and Luigi. wouldn’t that have been way more obvious when he said it aloud??
Listen! I was distracted!! Luigi protests valiantly. I’ve got a mountain to climb now okay!!!! If I fall and have to start all over because I’m thinking about how mad I am I didn’t get that pun right away it’s going to be YOUR fault!!!
The amount of exclamation points he’s using indicates he’s not really that mad.
toad names ALWAYS have puns luigi!!! Mario texts back, like a good obnoxious brother who needs to get the last word, but he follows it up with: be safe, love you!!
Luigi thumbs in a heart and then goes offline. Mario puts his own phone away and flags someone down to fetch Bowser so he can relay the plans.
“Mm, whazzat?” Junior says, waking up. He sits up rapidly, but sits there blinking sleep out of his eyes for several moments. “We going? Is it time?” He looks to Mario. “I didn’t sleep through you getting rid of the last streamer, right?”
Mario shakes his head.
“Oh good. Is it time to fight that boss??”
Mario hums to the cadence of not yet, which hopefully Junior understands. He at least seems to understand the definite no, though.
And, you know what. Mario hums again for a second, getting his vocal chords working while he pins down the words he wants. He’s spent most of today with (part of) his family, so he’s feeling significantly better than yesterday. And Junior’s easy to talk to.
“Actually, maybe you should stay behind for this one?” he suggests. Junior sends him the most offended look. “Fighting four bosses in one day is tough work!”
“Not for you!!” Junior protests. He crosses his arms over his chest and pouts, which he definitely learned from his father. “And not for me either!! I just napped!”
“Hmmmm,” Mario says, and then hits a pretty perfect solution. After all, he extremely doesn’t want Junior to see how Peach is—don’t think about it, don’t think about it. “How about: you can help with this one, but you have to stay behind for the final boss. Deal?”
“Hmmmrg,” Junior says in return. He thinks about it very seriously. “I guess that’s a fair deal. But only if you promise to punch that guy really hard in the face for me.”
“Deal,” Mario says.