Chapter 8 - Unwanted Surprises

Mario finished the last bit of his spaghetti and pushed the plate toward the middle of the table. Lauren started talking.

“You know,” she said to Julie. “Who delivers the mailman’s mail?”

Julie looked down thoughtfully. “Gee,” she said. “There must be a never-ending chain of mailmen.”

“Did you get that idea from Spongebob Squarepants?” Rick asked with a smile, though hardly looking up at them.

“Yes,” Lauren said quickly. She and Julie snickered.

I glanced sideways at Daisy. The clock on the wall read eleven o’clock. Many of the other diners were leaving. After the waiter came to take our check, I stood up.

“We should check into our room,” I said. “Daisy, do you have our card?”

“Yeah,” she said. She opened her purse and fumbled through it a little. “Here.” she handed me a small card that read “534.”

“Allright,” I said. Everyone else at the table stood up. Wario and Waluigi went to the front desk to get rooms, and Julie, Rick and Lauren turned to leave the hotel.

“Thanks for the dinner,” I told Rick as he opened the door.

“No problem,” he said, smiling widely. “It was funny.” The three kids left the room.

Daisy was punching buttons on the elevator door and laughing.

“What’s funny?” I asked her, as Yoshi, Mario and Peach turned up behind us.

“I can play the tune to Funkytown!” she said, pushing more buttons. She was right; it was the little Funkytown song. I chuckled.

“Very nice,” I said. The elevator doors opened about an hour later. It had to stop at practically every floor in the hotel at least three times. Daisy was embarrassed about that, and quickly pressed the button to floor five, while Mario pressed the button to floor seven. Apparently, they wanted a room that was higher up.

The elevator doors opened on floor five and Daisy stepped out. “Our stuff’s already up there,” she told me. After a quick wave to Mario, Yoshi and Peach, the elevator door closed and they were whisked to floor 7.

Daisy turned one hall and stuck the key into the door of room 534. She opened the door.

“Wow,” was all I could say. The room was very elegant. It was a large room with some expensive-looking lamps stuck here and there.

“Nice, isn’t it?” She asked.

“Very,” I said, pulling off my wristband and setting it on the counter. Daisy threw herself onto the couch and grabbed the remote.

“Let’s see if there’s any good movies on,” she said, clicking on the TV. It was a wide screen.

Daisy started flipping through the channels. I wasn’t in the mood to watch TV.

“I’m going to go take a look at the balcony,” I said.

“’Kay,” Daisy replied, lazily. I opened the sliding door to the small balcony. This was the only part of the room that was really ordinary.

“Hey,” came a voice from two floors up. I looked up. Mario was leaning over the railing of his balcony.

“Oh, hi,” I said back to him.

“Peaceful for a change…” he said slowly. I looked out over the mountains where Little Fungitown was. He was right. You could see the lights of the castle town, and it was actually relaxing.

“For a change,” I said. “’Night.” I turned around and went back into my room. After what all happened today, I was exhausted.

“I think I’m going to turn in,” I said sleepily.

“Oh, allright.” Daisy said and got up. “I’ll come to bed later. I think I’m going to watch a horror movie. I hear “The Ring” is pretty good.” I laughed.

“Well,” I said, “You’re not going to want to sleep for seven days.” She smiled and planted a kiss on my forehead.

“Good night,” she said, as I went through the double doors into the bedroom.

Even the bed was elegant. The covers were made of silk and everything. I threw myself onto it and sighed. I didn’t bother to change into sleeping clothes. I was content sleeping in jeans.

A few hours later, I was jolted awake by a crashing noise coming from the other part of the hotel suite. I glanced at the clock, it read 2:56. I yawned and put my feet on the floor. After a quick glance behind me, I noticed that Daisy wasn’t in bed.

“Daisy, what’s going on in he-“ I said, but was cut off by Daisy’s light snoring on the couch. She looked okay, apparently nothing was wrong until I heard rustling coming in from the bathroom.

“What the… Who’s in here?” I pressed my ear to the door and heard what I identified as paper rustling. I grabbed the doorknob.

“Mario?” I asked, thinking that he was going to play a practical joke on me. I opened the door and gasped loudly at what I saw in the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet was an alien. It was a little shorter than me, purple, and had very long fangs. It had no hair, but two pointy ears on the top of its head. Its piercing, red eyes were verrrrrrrry familiar. It was holding a newspaper.

“Do you mind?” It asked in a surprisingly deep, charming voice.

I slammed the door in horror and leaned against it. Panting heavily, I convinced myself that I didn’t see what I know I just saw.

The door opened. The alien stepped out, a piece of toilet paper trailing his shoe.

“Well, well,” he said. “I wondered when I’d be seeing you again.”

I was dumbfounded. “Ga…buh…unk… “ I stammered. I found my voice and was finally able to scream, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY ROOM!?”

“This?” the alien said casually. “This isn’t your room. You’re in a hotel.” he approached me. “You look different, you know,” he said, eyeing me suspiciously. “You’ve lost weight… boy, I wish I could say the same.” He poked slightly at his stomach, which by all means, was as bony as Waluigi’s. “You remember who I am, do you not?” he asked.

I shook my head. I was sure we’ve never met. I pointed at his shoe.

“What?” he said, looking down and spying the toilet paper. “Oh… right. Thanks. I’m Tatanga, of course,” he said, after clearing his throat and peeling the toilet paper off of his shoe. “We’ve battled before… you must remember.” I scanned my memory briefly. No, I had never fought any Tatanga. Still, I knew that he shouldn’t be here. I made a strange rasping noise. “Get away from Daisy!” I screamed and made a lightning-bolt ball. “I’ll destroy your ship!”

Tatanga frowned. “Why?!” he screamed, in a way that reminded me of a five-year-old. “You don’t even love her!”

Something happened to my mind at that time that I couldn’t explain. It felt like a circuit had popped in my brain.

“Excuse me?” I barked. I could feel my pulse pounding.

“You’re getting married to Peach!” he wailed like a baby. “You aren’t marrying Daisy, Mario!”

“Hold on a second,” I said, cooling down, “Did you call me Mario?”

“Yes,” he said coolly, and picked Daisy up. Her mouth was curved into a tiny smile. Apparently, she was having a good dream... hopefully one about me. I stopped thinking about that and sent a jolt of lightning to his spaceship, and it exploded.

“I said, get away from her!” I yelled, trying as desperately as I could to sound intimidating. Tatanga sighed and dropped her.

“Not like I can even make a getaway now,” he said, setting Daisy back on the couch. “You want to fight me or something?”

“If it will make you leave,” I said shortly.

“Fine, okay.” Tatanga said. “I think that’s fair.” Before I could react and create a lightning bolt to hurl at him, two large, purple orbs hit me squarely on the chest. With a small “ugh!” I was slammed into the wall.

“Gee, Mario,” he said to me. “You’re not as strong as you were so long ago.” Tatanga must be one of the villains Mario’s fought before. He stopped moving as I stood up.

“Hold on…” he said slowly. “If my memory serves me right…”

And instantly, a white-hot pain shot through my right side, just below my last rib. With a loud yell of pain, (that surprisingly didn’t wake Daisy up) I was slammed into the wall again. Sweat dripped down my forehead as I felt a warm sensation fall onto my hip. Blood, unmistaken.

I raised my trembling hand to cover the deep gash. It was throbbing viciously.

“What did you…” I said through clenched teeth, but then noticed a sparkling green gem on the floor. I picked it up with my vacant right hand and examined it. It was a little smaller than the palm of my hand. Etched into the top of it were three little drawings, one looked like a fireball, one looked like an ice cube, and one looked like a drop of water.

“Ha, ha,” Tatanga said playfully. “Now you can’t see Elemental Ghosts.”

“What?” I gasped. It was hard to breathe without pain.

“Please tell me you remember that,” he said, using the same tone of voice that was heard so often from Waluigi. “Remember, three years ago? The haunted mansion?”

Of course, that was the medal I had gotten in the mansion in order to see the elemental ghosts. Tatanga snatched the small gem out of my badly trembling hand. I was about to protest, but he backed off.

“Be seeing you,” he said, and disappeared with a puff of purple smoke.

Wait a second. I had never met Tatanga. How on earth did he know that out of all of the people in this whole kingdom, only I could see the elemental ghosts of fire, ice and water?

On the couch, Daisy sat up abruptly and caught sight of me.

“Luigi, what are you doing on the flo-“ she gasped loudly.

“Oh my-“ she abruptly cut herself off. “What happened!”

I was breathing sharply by now, half-surprised at how red my hand was. “Do you know any Tatanga?” I asked.

“Tatanga?” Daisy said, and her face went white. “Yes, I do. Let me look at that…” She walked over to me, and I slowly removed my hand from my side.

“Take that shirt off,” She said, her voice trembling almost as badly as my hand. “It’s getting soaked…”

I painfully pulled my shirt off.

“That has got to be an inch deep,” she said and ran her finger near the gash. I gasped in pain, and my hand quickly returned to cover it. I pulled myself up and onto the couch.

“Oh, I’m sorry…” she said soothingly. “That looks so awful.”

“It’s okay,” I winced. “It’s nothing really serious.”

Mario stuck his head in the hotel door.

“What on earth is going on in here,” he asked, as if annoyed. “I heard you yelling, and-“ he stopped and gasped when he saw my badly bleeding cut.

“How’d you get that?” he asked in alarm.

“Tatanga,” I gasped. “Tatanga stopped by. Do you know him?”

Mario and Daisy exchanged looks.

“Yes, I know him,” he said, and sat on the couch next to me. “Through him is how I met Daisy.”

“Really,” I said, not really caring about that right now. My gash was stinging horribly, and I was beginning to feel a little dizzy.

“Do you mind keeping it down?” Waluigi asked, standing in the doorway. I snickered to myself at the sight of him. He was wearing pajamas with feet, and a nightcap that made him look nearly seven feet tall. Wario was standing next to him, his head drooping forward onto his chest. He was mumbling something.

“It’s like… four in the morning,” Waluigi said agitatedly. “This is no time for parties…mama mia, what did you do to yourself?”

“Some alien attacked us,” Daisy said.

“So let me get this straight,” Waluigi said. He was in his night outfit, and looked quite funny. He had one of those sleeping caps on, and extremely baggy pants and shirt. “You guys saw some alien life in here?”

“This is getting ridiculous,” Wario said, eyes half open. He looked even funnier in his feet pajamas with bears on them. “Are we going to see every monster you guys have ever faced here? Sheesh.” He left the room. “I’m still tired,” he said, voice echoing through the hall. “I’m outta here.”

“Me too,” Waluigi said. He followed Wario out.

“We need to call a doctor about that gash,” Daisy said. Mario went pale.

“I don’t mean your Toad doctors,” Daisy said quickly, and I chuckled weakly. (This hurt.) “I mean the human doctors.”

“The only one they have is Julie,” I said. “She’s a complete idiot.”

“But she’s better than you or I would be,” Daisy said, getting up.

“Yeah, “I said, realizing that was the truth. “A lot.”

“Julie’s staying in this hotel, too. She’s next door, actually.” Daisy said, putting her finger to her mouth thoughtfully.

“Gee,” I said weakly, raising an eyebrow. “That was oddly convenient.”

“Yeah, well,” Daisy said, as I closed my eyes, starting to feel hazy from blood loss.

“Right,” Mario said quickly. Daisy smirked and walked out the door.

“What did Tatanga look like when you saw him?” I asked Mario, gritting my teeth in pain, not bothering to open my eyes.

“Hmm…” Mario said. “Well, he was about as tall as you, purple and didn’t have any hair. And he had two little ears and gray eyes… and bottom fangs.” he paused. “Why?”

“Just… wondering.” I said. Despite my dizzy feeling, my mind was racing. Mario said that Tatanga had gray eyes. When I saw him, he had eyes that were as vibrant red as Julie’s hair. And he had really long top fangs, but not bottom. Something was fishy… either that or he got some kind of facial since Mario saw him last.

“Daisy said you got hurt,” Julie said, rubbing her eyes sleepily and following Daisy into the room. She looked rather scary. Her hair was bigger than her head. She was wearing silk blue pajamas with Garfield all over them, and was clutching a doll that looked… just like Mario. He eyed it quickly in a confused manner.

Julie set the doll down on the counter and approached me.

“So tell me the whole story,” she said. Obviously, Julie was anything but a morning person.

“Well, I got up at about 2:45 or so, and I heard sound from the bathroom. When I realized it wasn’t Daisy in there, I opened the door and saw Tatanga.” I said slowly.

“Tatanga, huh?” Julie asked with a small smirk. Julie knew practically every detail of any adventure Mario or I have ever been on.

“…And so he thought I was Mario, and tried to take Daisy,” I continued. “And then after a brief fight, he struck me in the side and took the medal that lets me see Elemental ghosts.”

Mario pursed his lips. “How would he know that?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, closing my eyes again. “But I don’t know why he wanted it… I don’t need to see those Ghosts anymore.”

“Well, I’ll put some surgical tape on it. It’ll heal the best that way.” Julie pulled a plastic bag out of nowhere and dug through it a little.

“Move your hand,” she told me once she had a small roll of clear tape.

I did so. The bleeding had begun to stop, but it was still an angry cut that hurt viciously.

“We ought to wash it first,” Julie said, suddenly remembering. I frowned.

“I have my ways,” Julie said. She poured a bottle of pure alcohol on the tape.

“There,” she said. “It’ll be less painful with the purifier already on the tape.”

I cringed as Julie pressed the large block of tape to my side.

“All done,” she said. “That’s a nasty gash.”

I took a look at it. I hadn’t noticed it earlier, but the cut was nearly four inches long.

“Thanks,” I panted.

“That’s specially designed tape,” Julie said, almost proud. “It tests the activity of your skin cells. Once they are operating normally and no longer trying to repair themselves, the bandage should simply fall off.” she paused for a second. “Which shouldn’t be too long. The way you heal, I’d say that bandage will fall off in a matter of four days or so.”

“Good,” I said, relieved. Having to change the tape would be very painful.

“My work is done,” Julie said, handing me a medium-sized bottle. “You’ve lost quite a bit of blood, so drink that now to keep your circulation strong.” I uncorked the bottle and took a sip of the tonic inside. It tasted like water, but immediately my vision became a little more clear. “There you go,” Julie said, smiling warmly. “I saw a little bit of color return to your face- drink the whole thing, and you’re going to be fine. Good night.” She grabbed the doll off the counter and left.

“Okay,” Mario said. “Good night.” He followed Julie out of the room.

I was groggy the next morning. I stumbled out of the elevator and yawned. The hotel we were staying at offered a free complimentary breakfast, and both Yoshi and Wario were taking advantage of that. Both of them had their mouths stuffed with waffles, pancakes, and something that I didn’t recognize.

“I’m going to have some of those,” I said, and pointed at the bagels.

“’Kay,” Daisy said. She sat down at a table next to Peach, and they started talking excitedly.

I grabbed a plate from the buffet table and picked up a small tub of syrup.

“Luigi,” Lauren called from across the room.

“Yeah?” I asked, turning around.

“Want a watermelon?” Julie asked, mouth stuffed with the red, juicy fruit. A whole watermelon was carved out and sitting next to Julie. There was a half-eaten one in her lap. Clearly, she suffered from some kind of watermelon disease. “They’re addictive!”

“Okay,” I said. I started to approach them, but Lauren held out her hand.

“Let me throw you one,” she said.

“Uh… is that really a good idea?” I asked, but she didn’t give a response.

“Think fast!” she said, and hurled the huge fruit at me. I tried to catch it, but it hit me squarely in the side, fate has it, directly over the gash that Tatanga had given me last night. Hot pain surged through the area surrounding the wound.

“Ow,” I gasped quickly, my voice a barely audible squeak. Then everything went black.

“Luigi!” came Daisy’s voice from in front of me. I forced my eyes open, and realized that I was in a rather humiliating state. I hadn’t fallen to the floor; apparently I had only been knocked out for a minute or two. I was almost in a standing position. I was leaning on the buffet counter. My side was throbbing horribly; sweat was dripping down my face.

“I’m so sorry!!” Lauren screamed. “I can’t believe I didn’t see that coming!”

“It’s okay,” I said quickly. “I’m fine, really.”

“I’m glad to see that you’re okay,” Daisy said, smirking, “But your hair…”

I lifted my hand to the top of my head and realized that I had tipped the tub of syrup when I fell, knocking it upside down. Syrup was coating my hair. I felt my face go red in embarrassment.

“I’m fine,” I repeated, and stood up. “I just…am going to go take a shower.” I left the floor hurriedly, and pressed the button on the elevator to the fifth floor. My hand was clamped tightly to my side in an attempt to stop it from throbbing.

After doing the messy job of getting maple syrup out of my hair, I got dressed and spread shaving cream on my chin. I had just started to get rid of my five o’clock shadow when someone knocked on the bathroom door.

“Ow!”

“You still in there?” Daisy asked.

“Yeah,” I said. Her voice had startled me so badly that my hand jerked and dug the razor into my cheek. I dabbed at the cut (that really didn’t hurt at all,) with a tissue, but not before a single drop of blood splattered onto the side of the sink. It disappeared with a puff of yellow smoke.

I stared at it in amazement. How did that happen? No liquid ever evaporated that fast, and how come my blood hadn’t done that last night?

I looked back up at my reflection, face half-covered in shaving cream. (I resembled Santa Claus.) The cut that I had just given myself was gone. Mario and I had been given amazing abilities that night on Yoshi’s Island, such as amazing jumping, speed and endurance, and one that just showed, incredibly fast healing. The side effects to these strengths were that we were both annoyingly easy to knock unconscious. I sighed and didn’t give that strange drop of blood another thought.

An hour or two later, Mario was raring to get started on the search for Cackletta. I wasn’t so enthusiastic. Neither was Wario.

“Some vacation,” he kept on saying.

Chompy stayed with Peach. I bid him and Daisy goodbye, and made the short walk to the warp pipe.

As soon as we got to the Stardust valley, (and Waluigi stopped coughing up purple dust,) we entered the all-too familiar fortress.

“Okay,” I said. “We know our way around half this place. Where do we go?”

“To the other half,” Mario said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“And how do we get there?” Wario asked, a tone of annoyance in his voice.

“Well, there’s a door over there,” Mario said.

“Gee,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “This story is really convenient for us.”

“Well, don’t argue with the author, “ Waluigi said. “Let’s go.”

“Hey, that’s my line,” Mario whispered to me. I laughed.

Waluigi pushed open the door. A funny tingling formed in the mark of Cackletta on my chest. It was strange… I had practically forgotten about that mark.

I pressed my finger to it, and the feeling returned to normal. Mario scratched his forehead.

“Allright, now what is this?” Waluigi said. He was leaning over a platform with a clock on it.

“I don’t know,” Wario said. “Step on it.”

Waluigi tapped the platform with his shoe. It flashed blue for a brief second.

“Cool,” he said. I wanted to try, so I set my foot in the middle of the clock, covering the hour hand. It flashed again. Some sort of code appeared in the air above the platform. The entire room was blue now; it was sort of funny to see all of us with blue faces.

Then the platform showed a picture of me and some of my information. It said “Name: Luigi Mario, Height: 5’6, Weight: 135 lbs, Eye color: cerulean, Hair color: D. Brown.” Then it had a long page consisting entirely of the letters A, G, C and T.

“Cool,” Mario said. “That’s your DNA code.”

But there was a problem, it said age: 76.

“You’re seventy-six years old?” Waluigi asked, with a laugh.

“No, you idiot. I’m twenty-three.” I said, keeping my eyes on the letters.

There was a huge flash of light, and a man was now standing on the platform. He rubbed his eyes sleepily and looked around.

With a large nose and thick, black moustache that took up a lot of his thin face, he was rather unusual looking. (But not ugly, mind you.) His large, vibrant blue eyes were looking around in a confused manner. They had a spot of violet, as well. He had medium-tint brown hair (With some gray in it,) that looked even more unusual going with his black eyebrows and moustache. He wasn’t very tall, standing at only around 5’5 or 5’6. Long sideburns reached down the side of his face.

I gasped. That was almost exactly how I described myself in chapter one!

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