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"...Is that it?"
Mario glanced over at his brother, nervous frame illuminated eerily in the cold light and voice echoing around the stone chamber, despite how quietly he'd voiced his question, only adding to the overall sense of isolation within the depths of the inverted pyramid.
He tensed, hands tightening around an old, tiny chest that looked like it hadn't been disturbed in years, and hesitantly leaned in closer to blow away several layers of sand that had settled over what was probably decades, if not centuries of preservation. Truly, he felt as though they were messing with something with which they had absolutely no business, but what other choice did they have? Luigi had already been making shaky comments for the last hour or so about feeling like they were breaking into a museum and touching the artifacts, his loyalty to his brother and their new home just barely keeping his shifting feet from bolting out of there, so Mario knew he had to be the one to provide some stability, for both their sakes.
"Well, it's not like he was too clear about what it was or how it was supposed to help us, but I don't see what else it would be," he responded, hating how his voice bounced through so many iterations of the same admission of guilt for theft and trying to keep his tone low to minimize the echo. "But in my experience, if it's in the center of the room, sitting on a pedestal, and you have to make it through an entire maze just to reach something you can already see from the entrance, it's probably what we're looking for. Just be glad there's no one here guarding it."
"Probably because they thought no one would be stupid enough to try to take it."
"Yeah, well," Mario turned back around, focusing now on the rusty padlock and wondering vaguely if today he'd be adding lock-picking to his growing list of skills, "it's not the first time we've been underestimated, is it?"
'So, tell us all about what you two have been doing. I can never wait to gossip to my church group about what my boys have been up to!'
'Well, Ma, just last week, Lu and I perfected the art of sneaking into ancient temples, tricking the locals into spilling info about their most sacred artifacts so we knew exactly what we needed to steal to help us launch ourselves into space, and now, not to brag, but I've gotta say I've made some real progress when it comes to breaking open locks. Luigi's getting pretty good at keeping watch, too; you'd be proud of him.'
Yeah, Sunday dinner would be interesting. He supposed he could just stick to the classics—"I fixed our leaking bathtub and Luigi decided to add carrots to our garden this year."
That would work...unless Luigi didn't knock it off with that distracting pacing and muttering about how they shouldn't be there, in which case the monthly report would change drastically—"Luigi drove his bike across a desert at top speed without a helmet and tried to make friends with some kid threatening us with a mace."
Also true.
"Weeg, we're fine! Would you cut that out? I'm trying to concentrate-"
His twin's broken-off yelp of alarm had him whipping his head around so fast his neck popped, eyes enlarging and entire body growing stiff with fear and rage at the sight of Luigi being pinned to the ground by some figure in a hood and poncho, staring over at him from the shadows, so calmly, like it didn't have the glint of something sharp reflecting dangerously close to his baby brother's neck.
"Get off of him!"
Mario charged forward a step, just to freeze at the proof now provided that whoever this was had a knife to his brother's throat, a small bead of blood running down the metal, while Luigi tried in vain to turn his eyes 180 degrees in place of the ability to twist his head.
"Please," the older twin's tone plunged down with dizzying speed to the opposite corner of desperation, "please, don't!"
"Drop it."
The chest fell from his now-raised hands and hit the ground before he could even register that the voice throwing frosty orders his way was distinctly female.
"Back away."
He obeyed with slightly more hesitation, feeling every step of distance he was putting between himself and his brother like a shooting pain through his chest.
"Turn around. Get on the ground and put your hands behind your head."
'What else have you two been doing?'
'Well, we spent a lot of time discussing whether it counted as getting robbed or getting arrested if someone forcibly takes back the thing you just stole. Thoughts?'
He wondered if the woman could tell how much it was physically torturing him to have to turn his back on the scene of his brother being threatened, just to comply with her demands, or maybe that's why she was making him do it. He'd never had the best poker face when it came to where Luigi's wellbeing ranked on his list of priorities.
The cold stone blocks were just digging into his stomach when his twin decided now was a good time to tap into that latent teenage rebellion he'd somehow missed out on by about ten years.
"Hey, we worked hard for that!"
"Lu!" he barked over his shoulder, practically vibrating with anxiety over the fact that he could no longer see what was going on. "Shut up! She's got a knife on you! Just give her what she wants!"
"Worked hard, as in broke into a thousand-year-old temple to rob the place blind for your own gain?"
Despite everything, she sounded more amused, and possibly bewildered, by them, than annoyed.
"Yeah, that's right!"
Mario groaned, pressing his forehead into the rock and mentally begging his twin to find the sense to keep his mouth shut, or else be struck mute by divine intervention, until he was out of immediate danger.
"You have no idea how many platforms this place has- well, you probably do, but we got here first! We robbed it fair and square!"
"Ignore him, Lady! Take whatever you want, just don't you dare hurt him!"
"You two don't seem like the usual pocket-change looters we get around here."
"We're not," Luigi muffled out from where his face was presumably being pressed into the ground. "You don't wanna mess with us, Lady! We're way worse thieves than they are!"
"Look," Mario called out, trying his best to speak above his twin, "we're not trying to hurt anybody! We just needed it because our kingdom is in trouble and someone told us that the treasure here could help us reach our princess! That's it! We don't even know what's in it!"
And as soon as they were out of there, he was going to wring Toadsworth's neck for that, or else shake the "memory not being what it used to be" straight out of him.
"Please, just back away from my brother and let us go. We'll...figure something else out."
The words fizzled out into obvious dejection as he spoke them and he couldn't help but sigh, a puff of sand catching on his breath. They'd been so close.
'Sorry, Peach. She didn't give me a choice.'
"Well, now you're just making me feel bad."
Mario opened his eyes, hearing a note of hope subsequently enter his twin's tone.
"Does that mean you'll let us have it?"
"No, it just means I'm getting about as much satisfaction out of taking it back from you two as I would get robbing a flower from a bush."
Luigi mumbled something back in Italian and Mario spared a few seconds to hope this woman was monolingual, when he heard his brother grunt and couldn't help but twist his head around as far as it would go, catching within his peripheral just the barest hint that their negotiator was tying his twin's hands behind his back and muttering something just as insulting as Luigi's comments, only about men in general.
The only ray of light to be found was that she also seemed to have gagged him, preventing any further invitations to take care of her problem with them in a much more permanent way.
"Hey! Did I say you could turn around?"
Mario straightened out, stiffer than a board within a second and unwilling to take any risk now that this meeting finally seemed to be wrapping up. He could hear her behind him, picking up the chest and stepping towards the exit, though not before tossing out one last quip at their expense.
"Well, that's my lunch break over. Good effort, Boys. I might suggest you practice a little with the claw machine on the corner of town before you try this again; it has prizes more your speed."
"Mfcbhmrlnp!"
His brother's tone was clear, carrying the full weight of intention after Coherency renounced its claim on the sentence, but Mario just rolled his eyes, biting on his tongue hard enough to keep his temper in check until he heard the stone door slam behind her, at which point he scrambled to his feet and darted over to Luigi, freeing first his hands, then his ankles, thoroughly patting him down for any possible injuries and fussing over the shallow cut on his neck before his twin hummed at him pointedly.
"Oh, right...the gag," he flatly returned, sitting back on his heels and crossing his arms.
Luigi glared, struggling for about ten seconds to untie it, himself, as Mario got to his feet.
"Well, that was a massive waste of time. Any ideas for plan B?"
"Yeah, I left plan B on my bike! What are you waiting for?!"
By the time he turned around, his brother was nothing more than a cloud of dust and an echo.
"Luigi!"
Unable to do more than bolt after his twin before he could hurt himself, pushing his legs to their absolute limits and still falling short, Mario couldn't help but wonder if Luigi's pride had some sort of sibling relationship with his survival instinct—the latter to go beat up whatever had dared bruise the former, with reckless abandon of its sole responsibility.
'Anything else exciting happen lately?'
'Yeah, Ma. I've got a question for your church group, actually. Green beans grow way faster than tomatoes, so why does God bless all tall, green, skinny things with so much speed?'
"I see her."
Mario pinched his lips, taking the binoculars from his brother and honing in on the cloaked thief riding the dunes out of town.
"C'mon," Luigi urged, already skidding down the hot sand bank and scrambling to reach his bike. "She's not as fast as we are! We can still catch her!"
"Luigi, wait-"
"There's no time!"
The older twin could feel his heart thudding in his chest, a distinctly bad feeling taking hold as he watched the desert wind snag at the poncho and hood of his impatient brother.
"Now, Mario!"
"Lu-"
"This is our best bet to reach space—to find Peach," the younger panted, revving his engine and suddenly looking so much braver than he had ever given his reflection credit. "We don't have a better option."
Mario closed his eyes.
'She helped me save him. I owe it to her to try everything.'
"...Okay," he conceded at last, nodding sporadically and mounting his own bike.
Luigi nodded once and threw the gear into drive.
"Wait!"
The red twin caught the other by the arm, jerking himself forward a little before Luigi skidded to a halt.
"Be careful."
"...You, too."
Mario tugged a matching set of protective goggles down over his eyes, snagged his hood over his head, and with that, they were off, racing across the sand and weaving over the dunes.
Within five minutes, they spotted the woman traveling over a hill, though to Mario's disdain, she also seemed to realize the fact that she was being followed, darting her head over her shoulder briefly and letting them gain a bit of ground before taking a sharp right turn towards the rocks that left them both struggling to keep control.
Luigi skidded a little, Mario turning his head and sacrificing some visibility to avoid the wave of sand now blasting him in the side of the face, but as soon as he straightened out, he could see the thief full-throttling back towards the pyramid.
"She's trying to shake us off!"
His brother's voice was almost lost in the wind as he pulled off an impressive hairpin turn, Mario settling for a wider, safer arc that had him trailing a bit behind his speeding twin.
They almost lost her as she sailed over one of the dunes, Luigi veering off a bit to the right to try to catch a glimpse of her before Mario spotted the tail end of a cloak in the distance.
"There! Luigi, I think she's turning around!"
Meeting back up with his brother, they flew over one of the larger sand waves, catching an impressive sight of the pyramid and town as Luigi pumped his fist in the air, calling out their target's mistake—her closer-than-expected location as she obviously planned for them to have traveled further south in search of her.
Mario could almost see her unsettled posture from where he sat, he and his brother gaining quickly as she made another split-second decision to circle the pyramid and try to lose them around the obstacle.
To his surprise, Luigi slid to a stop, head whipping around with quick decisions as Mario pulled to a halt a little further ahead.
"Lu?"
"We gotta split up and cut her off!"
"What?!"
His brother was already revving into a sharp turn, his voice fading over his shoulder as he left no room, nor time, for debate.
"You keep on her tail! I'll catch her around the front!"
"Wait! Luigi-"
His sibling was gone, a trail of sand in his wake and leaving nothing behind but that bad, bad feeling.
Mario swallowed down his heart as it tried to rise into his throat, hands trembling slightly as he kicked his bike into full speed, determined to be the one to catch and take down the thief before his brother had the opportunity to put himself in danger, trying to do so, himself.
He skimmed around the crevice of the pyramid, practically brushing his shoulder along the ground with the angle in which he took the corner, all in a display of moves he hadn't dared show off to Luigi in fears of his attempts to replicate. With no time to worry about safety, he took his chances with risks, careening through sharper divots than those across which he had led his twin, and weaving around any boulders blurring past his sight, his foot pressed flat against the metal and speedometer having long-since given up its bid for any sort of accuracy.
It wasn't just recklessness. Within a minute, he had to acknowledge that he'd already lost sight of them both, even if he couldn't accept it.
Yelling out curses at anything and everything that led him here, Toadsworth, Bowser Jr., the sand, the thief, the pyramid, and most of all his brother, he had to make a choice between searching randomly, frantically, and hoping to spot at least one—hoping fervently to spot a certain one much more so than the other—or else pulling over onto higher ground and breaking out the binoculars.
Ten seconds to decide.
Five seconds to choose the latter with a shout of pure frustration as he travelled up the tallest dune in reach and threw himself off the bike before the engine even sputtered to a halt, yanking the binoculars out of his poncho's inner pocket and scanning the desert for clues.
'Do you have any fun stories you can tell us?'
'Sure, Ma. How about 'Cain and Abel—The Sequel?' That's one of my favorites.'
Ten more seconds before two dots caught his eye in the distance, much too close together for comfort. Too far to justify him hopping back onto his bike and attempting to catch up, he could only watch, breaths quickening and heart pounding as he followed his brother's attempts to reach for the other rider, unsure what his plan was that didn't involve a wreck, but helpless to do anything but try to will some telepathic sense into his wayward twin—enough to bypass his stubbornness.
"What are you doing, Lu?"
He whispered the words, hands wavering so hard he almost dropped the binoculars, tensing in alarm every time his sibling wobbled or sped up, as well as with every trick the woman pulled to try to throw him off balance.
"Just let her go! It's not worth it!"
Luigi caught up once more, gripping her handlebars and causing them both to steer dangerously close to the boulders.
"Let go!"
The thief had the same sentiment; he could almost hear her shouting the same words as she shoved his brother away, both of them veering close to the rocky cliffs.
"Luigi, please!"
His brother turned his bike, aiming for her again.
"Luigi!"
She was ready, catching his own handlebars, but obviously having not thought through much beyond that as they skidded towards the cliffs, both thrown completely off-balance.
"LUIGI!"
His twin and the thief disappeared over the edge, the crash inaudible...
"NO! WEEGIE!"
...but the explosion certainly visible.
Smoke curled into the sky, weaving around the rocks in taunting tendrils, and Mario collapsed to the ground, binoculars falling away into some crevice and breaking into two pieces as the older twin heaved and vomited into the sand, head spinning and trying to drown out his disbelieving screams with a deafening ringing.
Ringing.
Ringing.
Ringing.
He hadn't died, himself. He hadn't crumpled into nothingness or disintegrated into ash at the loss of his other half, which only meant one thing.
Luigi was still alive.
He was still alive. He had to be alive.
Only that small, desperate sliver of hope was able to push him back onto his feet, body doubled over in pain and crashing into his bike as he dragged himself into the seat, still dry heaving as he forced shaking, bloodless hands to catch the handlebars in a death grip and break through every known barrier mankind called self-preservation to reach that cliff within two minutes, tunnel vision focused on one target, even as his eyes burned and blurred.
He knew.
If what he saw over that cliff presented him any proof of a certain outcome Denial was currently keeping at bay, then there was only one message able to be written upon their headstones—Mario and Luigi, born together and buried together in the sands of a remote desert, never again to attend Sunday dinner.
Something broke on his bike as he pushed off and stumbled away from it. A mirror, maybe? The speed gauge?
Nothing mattered as he once more fell to the ground with a cry of pain, his heart throbbing in anticipated despair of what he would see over that edge, already begging to be put out of its misery. He choked on the wind and sand, barely able to force his frail limbs to move and dragging his reluctant body onward, one inch at a time.
"Please," he didn't even realize he'd been muttering the word the entire way. "Please...please, please...please."
'Do you have any regrets? Moving to another world, I mean?'
'I miss our old home, but I don't miss who I was when I was there. If I had anything to regret, it's that I couldn't show Luigi the person he would someday be, back when we were just two small kids from Brooklyn.'
There.
The edge of the cliff.
Terror.
Torture.
His life.
Possibly the end of it in more ways than one.
...Voices?
Heart stopping, he wrenched his face over the side, wide eyes scanning past the two mangled, burning bikes to find Luigi and the thief...chatting?
Amicably?
Sure, he ruined the bonding moment by throwing up over the cliff, but while he certainly got their attention, Luigi only looked guilty, though the woman made sure to wrinkle her nose.
"Mario! I'm so sorry-"
"I hate you," the older twin groaned miserably, not quite sure which one he was talking to and rolling himself and his green face onto his back, trying to catch his breath, limbs draining limp of adrenaline, and finally letting the sobs of relief break free, not even caring what the woman thought.
"Wow," he vaguely heard her huff, "now I really feel bad."
"Don't mind him; he thought I died. Anyway, what were you saying?"
"Right. Here's how to get in contact with her; I wrote it down for you."
A rustle of paper.
"Thanks. And, uh..."
A jangle of gold.
"Here's a few coins for your bike. Sorry, again, about that."
"Aw, don't worry about it. All I wanted was a challenge and you delivered. You surprised me, Green Bean. But, um...you might wanna go check on your brother before he has a stroke."
"Right. Sorry for the misunderstanding, Princess."
Mario blinked up at the sky, the smoke providing a fine excuse for his watering eyes, when his twin's pale face appeared over him, guilty and concerned.
"I-I know how this must've looked. I'm sorry, Mario. I promise, I'm fine-"
"'M gonna kill you."
"Fair enough."
Luigi held out a hand, the older one finding he lacked the strength to even lift his own, but his brother didn't comment, changing tactics and simply lying down in the sand beside him, letting the hot breeze brush over their faces and clothes.
"The desert treasure wasn't in that chest, by the way."
"...What."
The green twin winced, like he always did when he was about to deliver anything Mario would consider bad news. The last five hours having been a complete and utter waste of time and emotions definitely counting as “bad news.”
"The, uh, chest? The only thing in it was a bundle of 'Moons,' she called them. I guess they're a power source or something. Really valuable around here, but not to us. The 'desert treasure' Toadsworth found that reference to in that book wasn't something...it was someone."
Mario closed his eyes, already knowing where this was going and pre-annoyed at the revelation.
"Her name's Daisy. She's this desert's princess and guardian, and I guess she has some past experience with aliens or something, but she knew who we needed to find to get...up there," his voice trailed off, both brothers staring at the dusky sky just as the first stars of the night began to appear, both feeling a rush of sadness—almost loss—but tempered by determination and the comfort of their current company.
Mario took a deep breath, finally gaining back enough strength to nudge his hand the few inches necessary to grip his brother's. Luigi squeezed back tightly.
"...Don't you ever do that to me again."
"But-"
"No. I don't care. I don't care if we lose everything."
'I was so sure I had lost everything.'
"Don't you ever put me through that again. Capisci?"
"...Okay."
"Good."
He closed his eyes, breathing out the rest of his terror as he simply held onto his lifeline—his world—his reason for being.
'So what else is new?'
'An AICD for me, if he ever pulls a stunt like this again. Anyway, thanks for dinner, Ma. It's been real, but we've gotta head out and find a way to get to outer space. We'll bring you back a moon rock.'
"Mario?"
"Hm?"
When his brother didn't respond, he glanced over, finding him staring up into the galaxy with a look of nervous contemplation.
"Do you ever feel so much smaller here than you ever did on earth?"
Following his twin's gaze, he traced his eyes across the stars, wondering upon which their home and friends had landed as the reality of their mission settled like a thick blanket over his mind—too heavy for anyone who called it a burden, just for its weight.
"Not in any way that matters."
Luigi smiled slightly, squeezing his hand and glancing down at the note tucked into his other fist.
"...Have you ever heard of a woman named Rosalina?"
~THE END~