Chapter 12 - Cackletta's First Trick

I was dumbfounded. I don't have any kids, Daisy and I aren't even married yet. Yet, as I looked at Rose, I realized that she looked exactly like me... well, except being a girl. But Rose had the same eyes, mouth, ears, frame...
everything I did. She was my mirror image, only female...

But it just didn't make sense. It was too coincidental. What other man on earth named Mario has a twin brother with a black moustache and brown hair who can use the Thunderbrand? Technically, Mario and I were both heroes, we've both saved tons of lives...

I turned around to talk to Rose again, but found that she had fallen asleep. I
went through the double doors into the other room in our suite, where Daisy was reading a book.

"Get her to go to sleep?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Listen. I think this girl really is ours."

Daisy knitted her eyebrows. "What?"

"Look at her, Daisy! She's got my face and your hair!" I sat down on the bed.
"Either we've both been genetically re-created, or we've both got an evil twin." Daisy snickered, to my surprise.

"I think your evil twin is two stories above us," she joked. I smiled.

"See... I don't know what to think," I said. "She just said that she's got an
Uncle Mario..."

"Mario is a common name," Daisy said.

"Not just that, she said her dad can use Thunderbrand, and that he's a twin to her Uncle Mario."

"Listen," Daisy said. "You must have mentioned your ability during dinner and she got the idea to make up a story. Kids have vivid imaginations. Know how she likes to call herself a princess? She probably knows about superheroes and likes to think of her dad as one. And perhaps she has a twin sister, so she knows about twins. It's all in your head, Luigi."

I sighed. "I guess you're right," I said, pulling off my shirt. "I just can't
get over how much she looks like me."

"Well, she said her dad looks like you, enough for her to mistake you for him.
She takes after him, perhaps."

I snickered. "Then she's right," I said. "He must look just like me."

"I'm sure that by tomorrow the police will have found her parents." Daisy said. She stood up and went through the double doors. I followed her. Rose was snoring lightly.

"She's kind of cute when she's asleep, you know." Daisy said, with a quick
glance at me.

"True." I said.

I woke with a start the next morning to see Daisy glancing out the window. The sky was as dark as if it were midnight, but the clock said 8:00 A.M.

"What's going on?" I asked, and stood next to her.

"Get a load of that sky," she said. "It looks horrible."

"This is probably the setup to a really strange climax in this story," Daisy
said. I had to agree with her. I went through the double doors to see Rose
sitting on the couch, eating ice cream out of a tub.

"Hi, Daddy," she said when I entered. "I'm watching the green people on TV!"

I sat down next to her. She set the ice cream tub down and grabbed the remote.

"What are the bean people saying?" I asked.

"Oooo.... I don't really know." Rose said. "They're talking about ghosts. My
daddy likes to battle ghosts."

I glanced sideways at her, and then turned my attention to the TV. I realized
that I had walked in at the precise time. The reporter on the news channel was trying his hardest to explain what was going on.

"News of a terrible storm brewing above Stardust Valley has hit, making the sky pure black..."

Stardust valley? Oh, dear... Cackletta.

"I need to go find Mario," I called to Daisy. "I'll be right back."

"I wanna go see Uncle Mario too," Rose complained.

"Fine, okay." I said. I was only going to go and see if Mario knew what was
going on. Rose yelled with delight and threw off my shirt and pants that she was wearing, and she hurriedly pulled on her flowery sundress. I quickly put on my shirt and walked out the door.

"Daddy," Rose said. "Can I have a puppy?"

"Not now," I said. "Do you want to push the elevator button?"

"Yeah!" Rose squealed. She hit the buttons 5, 2, 8, 1, 9,1,2,3,5,6.

"Just.... the 7." I said. She punched the button 7 about a hundred thousand
times

"Oh, okay. Will that work?"

The elevator doors opened quickly.

"Yes," I said as she beamed, "That works."

It only took a few seconds to reach the seventh floor. Mario was leaning back in his recliner, watching the same TV program that I had been earlier.

"Hiluigi," he said quickly, without looking at me. He was wringing his hands in
what I thought could be nervousness.

"Have you been watching this?" I asked and sat down in the chair next to him. Rose clung to my leg, sitting on the floor. Mario glanced down at her for a second, then his eyes returned to the TV.

"I just turned it on," he said. "I've only been awake for a little while."

"That sky is drastic," Peach said. "We're checking the weather channel."

The Bean reporter on TV was showing a forecast of the weather. Now, black clouds were above an orange sky.

"Daddy," Rose said. "Is it going to rain?"

"I don't know," I said quickly. "Watch the TV."

"The storm seems to be artificial, coming from above Stardust Fields."

"Cackletta," Mario said, with a snicker. "'Suppose we oughta go get rid of her."

"Can I go?" Rose asked hopefully.

"Stay here with Daisy," I said sternly.

"You sounded like Daddy when you said that," Rose said in a pouty way.

"That's nice," I said. "Now, run along. Me and Mario need to take care of
something."

"My daddy doesn't like Cackletta either," Rose said.

Mario looked at her, eyes narrowed. "How does she know about Cackletta?" he asked me silently.

"She's just making it up about her dad not liking Cackletta," I said, taking
Daisy's advice. Mario pursed his lips but nodded.

"See you later, Peach," he said. "We're going to go sort out this Cackletta
business."

"Be careful," Peach said slowly.

"It's nothing," Mario said, with a warm smile. He rushed out the door, and I
followed him.

"Should we find Wario and Waluigi?" I asked.

"Sure," Mario said. He turned down a few halls and rapped on the door of room 712.

Waluigi agitatedly opened the door. "Do you know what time it is-?" he asked, yawning.

"Eight," Mario said. Waluigi's eyebrows lifted in defeat. Rose giggled.

"Oh," he said. "Well, what do you want?"

"Have you been watching the news?" I asked. Waluigi rolled his eyes.

"No," he said. "I just woke up."

"Well, the reporters are saying that an artificial storm is brewing around the
Stardust Fields," Mario said in a strangely professional tone. "We think it's
got something to do with Cackletta."

Waluigi inhaled loudly. "Fine," he said. "Go get Wario."

"I don't know which room he's in," I said.

"Fine. I'll buzz him." Waluigi picked up a remote that I didn't recognize and
pressed a large red button on it. Within a few seconds, Wario was standing at the door, rubbing his butt.

"I thought I told you to burn that," Wario said in a nasty tone.

"Wow," Mario whispered, impressed. "I may need one of those." He glanced evilly at me, and I raised an eyebrow. Rose laughed.

"You know," I said, "You may be immune to your own powers, but not to mine. Capiche?" I shot a spark out of my index finger. Mario smirked and looked back at Wario.

"So what did you want," he asked.

"Have you been watching the news?" Mario asked.

"Sure," he said. "I think I know what's going on well enough. Cackletta's doing something to the air?"

"Something," I said.

"Well, look what I've got," Wario said. He held out his hand, enclosed in his
palm was a bright yellow orb.

"The transporter!" Mario exclaimed. "You had it all along?"

"Sure," Wario said. "I was the last one to travel through it last time, and
managed to grab in on my way."

"Smart," Waluigi sneered. "Then let's go to Stardust Fields. How do we tell it
where we want to go?" Mario paused and thought for a moment.

"I think it may be some kind of mind-reader," he said. "I think all of us need
to somewhat...telepathically... tell it to go to Stardust fields."

"That seems really stupid," Wario said, eyes half closed.

"Well," Mario said, "It is really cheesy, but it's the only way we've got."
Mario closed his eyes and walked toward the orb. He was gone with a flash.

I tried Mario's plan. Stardust Fields, I told the orb, and walked into it.

I opened my eyes to see Mario standing in front of Cackletta's fortress. It
worked! I looked at my feet. Rose was clinging to my leg.

"Auuugh!" I screamed. "What are you doing here?"

"I want to help daddy look for Cackletta!" she chirped.

I frowned and looked at Mario. He looked interested.

"Oh, let her come," he said after a little while. Cackletta was dangerous. I got
a hint that Mario was going to grow up to be a daredevil father.

Waluigi and Wario appeared behind me.

"Cool," Waluigi said. "It worked."

The orb flashed once more, and Julie, Lauren and Ricky landed in the dust behind them.

"What are you doing here!" Wario exclaimed.

Lauren looked around quickly.

"Hey," she began. "This isn't the South Park Timmy store!"

"Where are we?" Ricky asked.

"Stardust fields..." I began. "...We're looking for Cackletta."

"OOOOO!" Julie said, her large eyes widening even more. "Mario and Luigi are going on another adventure!"

"Want to come along?" Mario asked. "It's like we're having a party!"

Julie stared at me, eyes the size of apples. Her face went a little blue.

"Julie?" I asked. "Are you okay?"

"Get..." she sputtered. "Adventure... you..."

Wario laughed. "Dang, you really are an obsessed loser."

Julie snapped out of her little trance. "Of COURSE we'll go!"

Ricky and Lauren scoffed. "Fine," they said in unison.

Julie rushed next to me. "Sweet, sweet!" she kept whispering.

Mario opened the door to the fortress that I knew all too well by now. Only,
Cackletta was floating over the desk in the middle of the room. She had that
poisonous sword that I had seen her with last clutched tightly in her
transparent hand.

Waluigi's large jaw dropped. "Gee, that was easy," I heard him whisper to Wario.

"So... you came to check out my little storm?" she asked.

"Woah," Mario said sarcastically. "You're some kind of psychic."

"Hey, you're supposed to be dead," Cackletta said as if annoyed. Mario pursed his lips in trying not to laugh, but he let a few snickers out.

"Let's have some fun," Cackletta said playfully after a minute of silence.
"After all, being a ghost means I can do anything!" She raised her hands. Rose let go of my leg.

The floor shined with a hypnotic blue light. All eight of us stared at it.

"Sweet," Julie whispered.

Some kind of snake-looking coil wrapped around my leg. It was nothing but light, but I could feel it. It was surprisingly cold, and after a second I couldn't
feel my leg.

"What's going on?" Waluigi demanded of Cackletta. The same coils were now past his knees.

"You'll see," Cackletta said. "Have fun!" And she disappeared.

And then it was as if all hell broke loose. The light exploded. It was like a
thick fog, so thick that I could only see the silhouette of Julie, because she
had been standing right next to me. I could hardly see, but that wasn't what was bothering me now. I was staring at my hands. They were black and throbbing viciously.

I flexed my fingers in order to try and return them to normal, but now it hurt
to move. It felt like my bones had a temperature of negative thirty degrees. My head felt funny, I could feel my hair flying around. After a few seconds of
utter confusion, the light was gone.

I looked around in confusion. There were six people standing near me, but I
didn't recognize any of them. The one closest to me was a relatively young woman clutching her forehead. She was very pretty with her wavy, flaming mid-arm length red hair that stuck out in a thousand places. She had long nails that were glossed, and was of ideal weight. She looked up after a second. I could tell that her eyes were brown, and a couple of freckles dotted her nose and cheeks. She looked to be around age thirty or so.

"My word..." someone said. I recognized it to be from a man standing not too far from her. He was pretty short and sported a black goatee. He could also stand to lose some weight. He had a cleft chin and small, malicious eyes that had blue rings under them. His messy brown hair was long and reached down past his shoulders. He, too, looked to be around thirty.

"Oh my gosh... look at us! This is insane!" The man next to him looked a little
like my father. He had crisp cerulean/violet eyes and a very bushy moustache. He had thick eyebrows that looked strange with his very light brown hair. It was coifed neatly. He was shorter than I was, but not by too much, and looked like he could stand to lose a little weight.

The woman standing about seven feet to the left of him was looking around,
seemingly as confused as I was. She had very long black hair with the ends of her hair dipped as firey red as the woman next to me. She was of ideal weight, too, and sported a small tattoo on the top of her arm that looked like a couple of circles and triangles morphed together.

I put my hand to my cheek and couldn't believe it. Not only was my face thinner than usual, my sideburns were now down almost to my jaw. I put my hand on the top of my head and saw that my hair was slicked back. I also noticed that my hair was longer, it almost reached to my shoulders. I looked at my feet. With satisfaction, I realized that I was a little taller than usual.

"Uh... who are you guys?" I asked, and realized that my voice was incredibly
deep.

"Who are YOU?" snarled a man that I hadn't noticed. He was incredibly tall and incredibly thin. He had hair the same tint as mine, only it was much, much shorter. He had a few select wrinkles in his forehead, and a couple of snake tattoos coiled around his arm. A moustache that was long and thin stuck out from under his large, pink nose.

"Mario?" I gasped, recognizing the man I thought looked a lot like my father.

"Do I know you?"

"It's me, Luigi..."

"HOLY CRAP!" exclaimed the woman next to me. She reminded me strongly of Julie. She was examining the back of her legs. "Look at me! I'm like... fourty years old! And..." her eyes went to her chest. "Wo-ho-hoah," she said in astonishment. "Sweet."

Cackletta suddenly appeared in the middle of the floor, laughing hard.

"You guys look so funny! Yep, you've all aged to what you'll look like when
you're thirty-five," she said, with a sneer.

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