Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“M-Mario…” Luigi whispers, hoping Mario is close by. He was trapped by Bowser again, stuck in a room with a single window in the front of Bowser’s horrifying castle.
“Hey, green stache, looks like your brother ain't coming to save you! Hahaha!” Bowser laughed as he entered the room.
Luigi sighed, looking out the bars on the window. It's true that Mario is taking longer than usual… Maybe Bowser is right? Maybe Mario forgot about him…?
“Oh my g- Luigi you're so dumb. Obviously your brother is coming to save you, he'll take any chance to be the hero.” L hissed inside their shared mind.
Gooigi made a noise of agreement.
Luigi nodded his head outside, “I guess so” he said out loud, not sure who he was even saying it to.
“Giving up so easily? You're taking the fun out of kidnapping you” Bowser noted, shaking his head.
“Okay, that's it. That fucking bitch can keep insulting us, but I'm going to fucking DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!” Gooigi spoke from inside. L and Luigi were wide-eyed with shock, they never knew Gooigi could talk.
Gooigi took over the body, pushing Luigi back to the innerworld.
“W-wait, Gooigi, no!” Luigi tried to get back into the front, but failed.
“Let's go, bitch.” Gooigi rolled up the sleeves of their clothes and jumped on Bowser.
“What the hell?!” Bowser wasn't prepared for a fight, he stumbled back a bit.
Gooigi swung his fist at Bowser's face, and hit with all he had.
“Gooigi, please! He's stronger! He'll hurt us! Please stop!” Luigi kept begging from inside the mind.
“I don't know, Lu, Goo seems to be doing pretty good. He might win this.” L smirked, looking at the fight from the innerworld.
—
“-And don't ever do it again!” Gooigi scolded Bowser, who was sitting down, badly hurt, in the corner of the room.
“Alright, alright, I'm sorry!” Bowser whimpered. He definitely didn't expect Luigi to be this strong. Of course, he didn't know this was Gooigi, who knew how to use the body's strength correctly, and didn't underestimate himself.
“Now, I'm leaving, and I expect you to not come after me.” Gooigi opened the door, which had been unlocked when Bowser came into the room.
“Okay, okay…” Bowser sighed, not happy with how his day had gone.
Gooigi walked out, slamming the door shut behind him. He ran through the castle, fighting off any enemy in his way. From magikoopas to goombas, he fought them all off. He then ran out of the dark lands and back to the Mushroom Kingdom.
“We are not in shape..” he mumbled as he reached their house, breathing sharply.
“Yeah, well, usually we don't need to be.” Luigi replied.
Gooigi opened the front door to see a worried Mario and Peach standing and staring at him, happy he's okay.
“Bro! You're okay!” Mario ran to hug him.
“Uh- yep.” Gooigi felt very awkward, he wasn't used to having people see him as a person and not a pile of goo.
“did he hurt you?” Peach asked softly.
“Nah, I kinda kicked his ass. Why didn't you come for u- for me?” he asked, making sure to stop himself from saying ‘us’.
Mario and Peach both raised an eyebrow at the swear word and general lack of anxiety, but continued the conversation normally.
“well, Bowser said that if we tried, he'd end your game, and that's not exactly something we want.” Mario explained.
“Wait for real? But he was like.. expecting you. He was sure you'd come!” Gooigi exclaimed.
“R-really?” Mario exchanged a confused look with Peach.
“Yeah” Gooigi sighed.
Gooigi could then feel himself slipping out of control, Luigi slowly climbing to take his place.
“A-anyways, I'm kinda tired, I'm gonna take a nap. Hehe..” he rushed to say before running to his bedroom to safely switch.
“Gooigi, I don't know how you did it, but thank you anyways..” Luigi whispered as he took control of the body, slowly moving his fingers to make sure he was actually fronting.
Gooigi made a noise of agreement, back to being his usual self.
“Seems like Goo’s back to his normal self. That was pretty out of character for him, though. He's like… our inner peace. How did Bowser manage to anger our inner peace??” L thought out loud in the innerworld.
Luigi chuckled weakly, “I honestly don't know… but I do know that I am tired, so I think it's a goodnight for me..” he laid down in his bed, not even bothering to switch to his pajamas, he was exhausted from Gooigi’s running around.
They felt it was unfair, that they all had to suffer the consequences of the others' actions just because they share a body. But they didn't have much choice.
Luigi ended up falling asleep and having a dream about rolling down a hill with L and Gooigi, and then having a picnic with Mario and the princesses. It was nice.

Chapter Text

Luigi finally felt good enough to treat himself to a new game. He booted up the Nintendo Switch and put the cartridge in. “Super Mario Odyssey” he whispered, that was the name of the game. His brother, Mario, was actually out for the day, hanging with princess Peach, so Luigi could talk to himself out loud without feeling awkward.
“Seriously? They make games about your brother's stupid adventures?” Mr. L asked from within Luigi's mind. Luigi scoffed.
“First of all, they're not stupid. Second of all, yeah they do, and they're pretty fun!” Luigi smiled, seeing Cappy on the screen in front of him.
“He has a TALKING HAT. In a kingdom of TALKING HATS. Do you understand how absolutely childish of a game concept that is?” L clearly didn't like Cappy, and any of the hat creatures.
“Come on, L! It's just a silly game, why do you have to be so negative all the time?” Luigi asked. His mood today was surprisingly good, and he wanted to make the most of it.
“Uh. Maybe because that's my job? I was kind of made to be a darker, angstier, better version of you, you know that, right?” L answered, rolling his eyes in the innerworld.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. You're so edgy and emo, I'm very aware!” Luigi giggled, feeling like a little kid talking to his best friend.
L scoffed in exaggeration, “how dare you call me emo!” He said, followed by a laugh.
Luigi joined in on the laugh, still playing his game.
Gooigi made an interested sound.
“Oh, Goo, you wanna play? I'm playing Odyssey.” Luigi said, mashing a few buttons.
Gooigi pushed himself to front, and fixed his grip on the controller.
“I'll take that as a yes.” Luigi chuckled, now inside the headspace.
“Didn't know Goo was into weird games that…” Mr. L trailed off as Gooigi started to speedrun the game.
Luigi and Mr. L stared dumbfounded, Gooigi was pressing buttons with incredible speed as he continued playing through the first world with quick succession.
“So… since when can you do that?” Luigi asked after a long silence.
“Mmrrrh!” Gooigi gurgled in response, as usual.
“I'm still concerned that the hat talks… and the eyes are creepy as hell.” Mr. L tried to change the subject.
“That's what you consider creepy? L, you nearly killed every single being to ever exist while being brainwashed by an insane, undead, half-god, and you find two cartoonish eyes on a hat creepy??” Luigi huffed.
“...yes.” Mr. L said with slight hesitation.
Luigi giggled, “alright, Mr. Edgy. I'll be sure to note that.”
“I'm not edgy.” Mr. L sighed.
Gooigi set down the controller on the coffee table.
“You done, Goo?” Luigi walked into front.
Gooigi nodded.
“Let's see… oh. What. How. Gooigi, when did you start speedrunning games like that? You barely play video games… I'm so confused…” Luigi grabbed the controller.
“Blllrrrp” Gooigi shrugged, his Goo body jiggling in the headspace.
“I think we need to teach him how to talk… because I'm actually a bit interested too…” Mr. L hummed.
“Good luck.” Luigi said as he grabbed a Moon in the game.
“Good luck?? You're not going to help?” Mr. L gasped dramatically.
“Last time I tried, he wrecked our room because he failed to say some words. He's an angry boy.” Luigi smiled.
“That's why our room was covered in glitter for three weeks? I still find glitter in our clothes. And drawers. And bed. And literally everywhere.” Mr. L asked.
“Oh, no, no, that was my fault, I tried to open glitter to put on my box of things, and it just burst open and exploded all over the place. Heh… it was that time you found your- I mean our- cat plushie under the table.” Luigi explained.
Mr. L hummed, “hmm, oh, yeah, I remember. Eh, I can get him to talk. What are we betting on?” Mr. L said with confidence.
“Castle McFrights? The whole floor, not just the boss fight.” Luigi said, entering the boss fight of the first level of the game.
“Deal.” Mr. L smugness was very noticeable in his tone.

As the three took turns playing Super Mario Odyssey, they laughed and joked. Gooigi helped them speerun the boss fights they struggled with, Mr. L noted all the lore and pointed out the inconsistencies and flaws, Luigi just enjoyed the gameplay and scenery, having a lot of fun with his headmates, his friends.

Chapter Text

Mr. L was fronting, enjoying a nice can of an energy drink. He was sitting carelessly by the kitchen table.
“Pretty chill day, huh?” Luigi sighed, “it's almost boring…”
“Shut up. Don't ruin it. We all know what happened last time you said something like that.” Mr. L sipped his drink.
“Okay, that's… not remotely related. It was just a coincidence.” You could hear the eye roll in Luigi's voice.
“I disagree.” A new, deep, feminine voice spoke from the depths of the headspace.
“Please tell me that's Gooigi.” Mr. L set down the can.
“Nope, but I'd love to be that little guy. He really steals the show.” The voice spoke again.
Gooigi made a small purr-like noise with a thumbs up.
“Do you have a name, new person?” Mr. L asked with a small sigh.
“Uh, not really. Actually… yeah, call me Chaos.”
Mr. L froze, unintentionally leaving their body dissociated. Luigi whimpered before going silent. Gooigi hummed in surprise.
“I feel like I said a slur.” Chaos slipped into front. She grabbed the can and took a long sip. “if ‘chaos’ is a slur, that's going to be an issue, y'all.”
“N-No… we just had… bad experiences with it in the past.” Luigi stuttered.
“You call that bad? Y'all’ve [you all have] seen nothing. You should've seen the old hosts!” she chuckled.
“So you *are* familiar with the Chaos Heart…?” Luigi hurried to ask.
“Bitch, I *am* the Chaos Heart.” she answered with unexpected enthusiasm.
The mindscape went dead silent.
“You… what?” Mr. L finally whispered.
“I am the chaos heart.” She repeated, with a hint of aggression.
It took all of his energy for Mr. L to not attack Chaos’ shadowy form in the headspace.
“Wha-” Luigi struggled to speak, “what… what are you doing in… in our mind?”
“A shard of chaos always stays with a host until a new host takes it.” She sipped from the energy drink again.
“So you can't do anything…?” Luigi asked for clarification.
“Can’t do much, but I can still do basic magic. Teleportation, floatation, telekinesis, and the ability to control whatever power this body's been assigned. Knowing the list of ideal hosts, it's probably electricity or ice” she gave a slight eye roll as she finished the explanation.
“Huh… w-wait, power assigned to our body? What do you mean?” Luigi's confusion grew as his concern faded.
“Each creature has a type of power they are connected to, it's assigned by my counterpart, the Purity Heart, and you can learn to control that power. It can be a lot of things. From fire to the weather to plants.” She took another long sip.
“So… Y-Yeah, I guess that would make us electricity… more specifically lightning and thunder…” Luigi muttered, thinking for a moment, “is there any reason the ideal hosts are all those two?”
Chaos shrugged, “not all of them, just most. And I don't think there's a reason, probably. Maybe lady purity doesn't like electricity and ice, who knows?”
“‘Lady purity’?” Luigi raised an eyebrow.
“I'd assume she is a lady, probably a very annoying one. All lovey dovey, ugh.” Chaos finished L’s drink and set it aside, “is there anything interesting to do around here?” She stood up, taken aback by the body's height for a moment.
“We have a few gaming consoles…” Luigi tried to direct Chaos to the least harmful option.
“Awesome, let's see if you have any good games.” She left the kitchen and walked to the living room, looking through the many games the Mario Bros. had on the shelf.