LAS3: Retold Chapter 20

Chapter XX: Two Goals, Two Paths

Luigi woke up the next morning feeling much better than he did the previous night. He was done with the tournament, got the fourth yoshi egg and got a good night's rest. But what about his foot? Luigi turned and let his legs hang off the edge of the bed, then put his right foot on the floor. Luigi hesitated awhile and slowly put his left foot, the injured one, on the floor. He waited a bit longer before he finally stood up.
"Well, I'm not cursing and screaming in pain," Luigi smiled, clearly pleased with this. "I guess I'm in the clear."
Luigi took a few awkward steps forward and noticed that he was all alone. Purpley and Amy were nowhere to be seen.
"It's been fun wearing this, but I want my old duds back."
Luigi swapped out his strikers uniform for the classic green shirt and blue overalls, then he went to the kitchen to get something to eat.
"Hey, Waluigi," Luigi said as he entered. "What's cooking this mor- Waluigi?"
Much like Luigi's cabin, the kitchen was also empty. Luigi began to feel a bit uneasy and checked the helm is see if Wario was operating it. Luckily, he was.
"Mario, run that by me again," Wario asked. "Why do you want to go home?"
"There's something weird about this Wart guy," Mario said in a no-nonsense tone. "I can probably figure out what it is if I just had my Plumber's Log."
"What's nice and all, but is Luigi going to agree with that? I'm sure he still wants to look for eggs. Right, Luigi? Wah!" Wario was surprised by Luigi's sudden appearance.
Hi, Wario."
"How long have you been standing there?"
"Not long. So I guess we're going back to the Mushroom Kingdom for now, huh?"
"I haven't checked The World of Plit lately, so I don't have any ideas. What about you?"
"Well, the Beanbean Kingdom is right next door to the Mushroom Kingdom. I think we can do a little multi-tasking. I'll go to the Beanbean Kingdom and look for the next egg while Mario goes to the Mushroom Kingdom and get the Plumber's Log so we can sort out this mess."
"Are you sure you don't want me to lend you a hand over there?" Mario asked.
"Nah. I'm sure I can get Prince Peasley to help out. Besides, you might take awhile. I know that book is pretty thick and your handwriting can be pretty crappy. I'll probably get the fifth egg before you solve this little mystery."
Mario felt a bit offended by this. "What?!"
"Um...right..." Luigi backed away. "I'm gonna drop in on the others now."
Inside Wart's castle, the villain once again sat on his throne and thought of a plot. For some odd reason, the Birdo that was chained to the throne was gone.
"MOUSER!"
"You bellowed, your toadiness?" Mouser said meekly.
"I've confirmed the location of one of the eggs. As you may be able to guess, Luigi's party is already on their way there. I need you to stall him while I lay a trap."
"I see where this is going," Mouser huffed. "Oh, yes. Get ol' Mouser to pester 'em while Tryclyde sets up a trap. Didn't we already do this?"
"I will not be deploying Tryclyde this time," Wart said sternly. "I'll be using a new weapon that I just finished making instead. Now then, I'll allow you to use my flying carpet. Get out there and stall Luigi by any means possible. Mess with his ship's engine. Kidnap one of his friends. I don't care how you do it. Just go and stall him."
"I will not fail you, my master. Trickery is my specialty!"
On the S.S. Garlic, Luigi found the rest of his friends at the pool. It was a beautiful day and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Perfect weather for swimming. Waluigi and Amy relaxed on a couple of beach chairs while the yoshis splashed about in the pool. Today, Amy was wearing yet another tie-dye shirt, dark-blue capris and white sandals.
"Hey, guys," Luigi greeted. "How's it going?"
Waluigi lifted up the sunglasses he wore and looked at Luigi. "Heeey... You can stand again!"
"Yeah. I'm still a little wobbly, but I'm fine. It was about time, really. Getting around on all fours just isn't for me. I'll stick to being bipedal if you don't mind.
"So what's the next stop anyway? Any clue?"
"Well, Mario wants to go back home and grab something. I, on the other hand, want to continue the egg hunt in the Beanbean Kingdom."
"Beanbean...Beanbean...Beanbean..." Waluigi mused. "Oh, right. That place. Never been there. Seems like there's way too much green there for my liking. Sometimes seeing a lot of that color makes me want to barf."
"Really now? You mean you don't know that's wher-"
"Mmm... This sunlight feels good..." Amy sighed with delight. She had been sitting there the entire time with her eyes closed.
"You sure brought a lot of outfits," Luigi noted. "I haven't seen you wear the same thing twice yet."
"Actually, this is the last one I brought. I put everything else in the laundry though, so it'll be good to go."
"Okay. I was a little curious about that."
Amy suddenly sat up in her chair and gazed around.
"Is something wrong?"
"Did someone just walk by me?"
"Not me."
"Huh... I could've sworn something just passed by..."
Suddenly, the yoshis screamed in panic and violently splashed about in the pool.
"What's going on?" Waluigi asked.
"Something spooked the yoshis!" Luigi answered.
The cause of the problem swooped out of the sky. It was a familiar mouse on a magic carpet, of course. "Guess whooo!"
"Mouser!" Luigi shouted.
"That's right! It's me again! This time I'm going fishing...for yoshis!"
"Over my dead body!"
Mouser wielded an over-sized bug-catching net and dived toward the pool. All the yoshis managed to get out by now except Yosheta. She was a good swimmer, but not while in a state of panic.
"Luigi! Help me!" Yosheta screamed when she got snatched up.
Luigi began to charge up a Hyper Burn. "That does it! I'm in the mood for some roasted rat!"
"Luigi! Don't!" Waluigi warned. "You might fry Yosheta too!"
Luigi paused. He realized that Waluigi could be right and held his fire.
"That's right. Do as your friend says. Sayonara, sucker!" Mouser flew away with Yosheta in hand.
Luigi was furious now. He released his Hyper Burn in a random direction, then shouted many colorful phrases at the top of his lungs.
"Yikes. Not good," Waluigi frowned.
"That thing just took Yosheta away!" Oshi alerted Luigi.
"You think I don't know that?!"
Oshi got frightened by the sudden outburst and whimpered.
"This is no big deal." Amy said, having total faith in Luigi. "You can chase him down. Right?"
"What do you expect me to do? Grow a tail and fly after him? Sorry, but things don't work that way."
"One of you guys has to have a trick up their sleeve. You!" Amy pointed at Waluigi. "You're a sneaky and crafty guy, aren't you? You think of something!"
"Uh...well...you see..." Waluigi said nervously. "Since you mentioned it, I think I've got just the thing. Hang on!" Waluigi fled the scene.
Amy scratched her head. "What was that?"
"Luigi, dear," Pinky said as she pat Luigi's back. "Please calm down."
Luigi only got angrier instead. "Calm down? Calm down?! How can you tell me to calm down when your daughter just got kidnapped?! I'm so ticked off right now, I could burn something!"
Unable to control his rage, Luigi set fire to the beach chair that Waluigi sat on moments ago with his Pyro Kick.
"Ugh... What am I doing?" Luigi panted. "Randomly razing stuff won't bring Yosheta back. I gotta calm down..."
"Have you eaten anything today?" Purpley asked. "I always feel better when I have a full belly."
"Good idea," Luigi agreed. "I didn't even have breakfast yet. No wonder I'm in such a bad mood."
Luigi went into the kitchen to whip up some food. He had just put some bread in the toaster when Waluigi came in.
"Everything's all set!" Waluigi grinned and grabbed onto Luigi. "Let's go get that dirty rat!"
"But, Waluigi! I haven't eaten anything yet!"
Waluigi half-dragged Luigi to what appeared to be a landing strip. At the end of it was a machine that looked much like the Waluigi Racer. However, it was a bit bigger and had propellers on it. It was actually a gyrocopter. Waluigi must plan to use it to chase Mouser.
Luigi cheered up when he saw it. "This is the Waluigi Flyer, isn't it? Wow, you're one step ahead of me again!"
"You got that right!" Waluigi boasted.
"Great! Let's do this!"