The chaos in the munitions room was intense. Sirens blared, flickering lights illuminated warning signs, and disorienting smoke billowed from the floor. The average man in the middle of all this havoc would’ve been devastated. But our heroes, the Mario Bros, stood tall, calmly discussing how to deal with the situation.
“Nuh-uh, it’s your fault, Bro!” said Luigi. “You’re the one who touched the laser traps!”
“Oh yeah? Well who yelled ‘OH MY GOODNESS THEY’RE GONNA GET US’ while I was trying to get through them?” asked Mario.
“Well... uh... you were the one who made me the look-out! You know I get so edgy when I’m the look-out.”
“All you had to do was warn me if someone was coming. Is that too much to ask?”
“Look, I’m more flexible than you; I coulda made it through those traps no problem. Remember back in high school when I did that pommel-horse routine?”
“Yeah, I remember that. I remember the three months of rehab for your back spasms later.” Mario paused, and then added, “You know, that cost Mama and Papa a whole lot of money. They couldn’t get the car I wanted for my birthday. On prom night, I didn’t get Pauline back home until 2:00 AM! Her dad and brothers are probably still looking for me.”
“Wait a minute, are you sure that’s why you couldn’t get Pauline home in time? I remember that Mr. Stradlater told me he caught you two in the janitor’s closet…“
Bowser’s voice over the speaker put an end to their strategizing. “I cannot believe you morons tried to pry into my weapons room! It’s been in my family for generations and no one has ever broken in! I’ve been stockpiling artillery since I was just a little tyke. I played in that room for hours every day... ” Mario and Luigi swore they could hear sobbing.
“But now that it’s been violated, I’m going to do the humane thing, and put it out of its misery.”
Mario swallowed hard; Luigi clenched his teeth.
Bowser sighed. “How do you say goodbye to an old friend? Well, maybe you two clowns can show me. Because after what you’ve just done, neither of you are long for this world. I suggest you get the crying out of the way.”
“Th-this wasn’t really our idea,” Luigi explained. “In fact, we didn’t even know this was your artillery. We were just going for a stroll, and-“
“Save it.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve rigged a good, old-fashioned time bomb in my munitions room. By talking to me you’ve wasted about two minutes, which means... um... carry the eight... six... you’ve got about five minutes to live. Sayonara, chumps!”
The speaker died. Mario and Luigi watched as the only exit snapped shut.
“Now come on, this is just Tuesday for you and me.” Mario chuckled. “I bet we can tunnel our way outta this.”
Luigi tapped his foot. “The floor’s too solid, Bro.”
“Okay, a window.”
“None in here.”
“Mamamia... Okay, you have any ideas?”
“We could always-“
“Nothing involving the fetal position.”
“Hmm... This is gonna be tougher than I thought.”
And so, they put their heads together. Years of worldly and scholarly knowledge went into their considerable brainstorming. They debated. They postulated. They speculated. Some would even say that they thought really, really hard about the whole thing. Eventually, Luigi came to a stunning conclusion:
“Mario, this is a weapons room.”
“... ... ..”
“No, what I meant is, this is a WEAPONS room.”
“Big Little Brother, I love you, but can you tell me something I don’t know?”
“Okay, how can I put this... What did Papa always say about using guns?”
“That they were evil.”
“What did he say about guns when Mama wasn’t around?”
The look on Mario’s face slowly shifted to one of understanding... and mischief. “Wrecking Crew?”
“Which wall is comin’ down?”
******
Bowser couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. He had sat down in an easy chair with last month’s issue of Time (he renewed his subscription as much as he did his annual vow to destroy them when he found that he wasn’t the Person of the Year) and kicked back, but he couldn’t get comfortable.
Surely the plumbers are done for this time, he thought. And even if they manage to escape somehow, they’ll finally understand the consequences of getting on the my bad side. When they overcome their shock, they’ll be begging to bow down.
Just for kicks, he decided to check the security monitor one more time, to see if they were a gibbering wreck yet.
******
By the time they were done setting up, it looked like a regular orchestra of destruction, with two sweaty handymen as the conductors. Bill Blasters and Big Berthas; wind-up Bob-ombs and Autobombers; even mobile Ball ‘N Chains. The entire armory was pointed at one wall, all set to turn it to rubble.
“Easy as pie, isn’t it, Luigi?” asked Mario.
“I never really got what that meant.”
“That isn’t new for you, eh?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
“I’ll tell you what it means. It means that you’re sooooo dumb, you could-”
Bowser’s voice once again ended the conversation. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“We’ll do it, and we will love every minute of it,” sneered Mario. “You wanna stop us? Come and get us!”
“Well, that’s exactly what I’m gonna do! Try to hurt my baby, will ya? We’ll see about-” The speaker died before he could finish.
“Better hurry, Bowser, our trigger finger’s getting itchy,” said Luigi.
******
The Koopa King ran like the dickens. He hadn’t been this exhausted in so long, but he had to keep up the pace to save his baby. Yes, he was going to blow it up eventually, but on HIS terms, dang it, his terms.
Those Marios couldn’t be shown mercy at this point. Breaking into his munitions room? Turning his weapons against him? Giving him a stitch? Unforgivable, but highly punishable. He would skin them. Tear them into confetti. Feed them to a school of Big Berthas with freakin’ laser beams on their heads. Set them up on a double date with Wendy and one of her air-headed friends. He’d even-
Bowser’s thoughts came to a halt as he barreled through the door and into the munitions room. All he saw was blackness. All he felt was the cold, metallic chamber of an oversized Bill Launcher. All he heard was a high-pitched, Italian-accented voice yelling “Fire!”
******
“And that’s how I did it,” said Luigi. Daisy looked at him, puzzled. “No, really, that was all that happened. You can ask Mario.
Daisy looked off into space for a second, then asked innocently, “So how did you survive the explosion if you were all in the same room?”
“By the skin of our teeth, that’s how! I still get nightmares from that, you know…“
“And... how’d you manage to get inside Bowser’s weapons room? Isn’t it, like, really lock and key?”
“Well, we couldn’t just-“
“Why were you going for Bowser’s weapons room, anyway?”
“What are you, the Paparazzi? Gimme a break here.”
Mario tapped his brother on the shoulder. “Any luck?” he asked.
“Nope. They never go for the story. I’ll never get a date this way.”
“Well, you should just do what I do.”
“Which is?”
“Email them a copy of Bowser’s medical bills!”
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