super sisters

chapter 1.2

Where's the princess?

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“Ah! What a great day! This has gotta be the best start of summer vacation ever, Ma-chan!”
Luigina stretched a bit and blinked with her eyes in the bright sunlight, right before she kept on eating her cone of green, pistachio-flavored ice-cream, full of delight.
The two sisters continued their relaxed walk through the streets of Mushroom Kingdom’s capital, Mushroom City, which was also the most advanced of all the towns and cities in the kingdom.
“Yeah, it’s great to finally have some time off again! Two whole months without any work or obligations.”
“Exactly! It’s gonna be awesome!”
They continued to chat and swoon over their newfound spare time, while licking on their individual cones of ice-cream each. Marianna’s was strawberry flavor, her favorite. Luigina, on the other hand, was preferring pistachio.
“Well… however, there could still be a sudden plague of Piranha Plants in the kingdom’s sewer system and we’d have to…”
“No, Lu-chan! Don’t even think about something like that! Those next two months are ours and there’ll be nothing that’s gonna stop us from enjoying them!”
“Okay, okay!... But what if the Piranhas invade our toilets?”
Marianna shook her head, rolled her eyes and threw her sister an annoyed look.
“Listen. Nothing’s gonna happen! No Piranhas in the sewers, no Piranhas in our toilets! We are gonna relax and enjoy ourselves and spend this summer vacation as one of the best we ever had. I’ll not allow anyone to ruin our-“
Marianna stopped her speech when she was rammed and almost ran into the ground by a panicking hoard of Toads, the small, mushroom-like citizens of the town, while Luigina managed to jump off the street just in time.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no!! It’s terrible! So terrible!!” the scared mob shouted, as they ran in the direction of the main square. Luigina looked after them.
“I knew it! It’s the Piranha invasion!! I’m sure they’ve already entered everyone’s homes through the pipes! What are we gonna do now?!”“
She nervously looked around and finally clung onto her sister’s arm:
“AH! Help me, Ma-chan!! I don’t wanna die!!”
“Snap out of it, Luigina! I’m sure it’s not that tragic. The Toads aren’t exactly hard to impress, you know? Come on, we’re gonna take a look at what’s going on over there.”
Therefore, the two girls followed the toads. Attempt to get information from bystanders failed; the hysterical panic had already taken over the whole town.
Meanwhile, the main square was crowded with loads and loads of screaming Toads, Goombas (who, unlike the toads, lacked arms) and Koopas (turtle-like beings). They gathered around the fountain in the center of the square, while a single Toad, wearing the clothing of the royal family’s attendants, tried to explain to the masses what happened. The sisters fought through the people and finally reached the fountain.
“What the heck is going on here, Toad?!” Marianna finally asked this single Toad, whom she knew very well. And he seemed, indeed, very happy to see her and started bouncing up and down:
“Thank goodness, you’re here! Our heroine! YAY!” he shouted and the masses started cheering.
“And your…. uhm… cousin… came along! Now everything is going to be alright!”
Toad pointed at Luigina, who wasn’t very pleased by him neither remembering her name, nor her relation to Marianna.
“Sister! I am her sister!” she tried to explain, but her voice was swallowed by the noise of the cheering people. One of those people accidently pushed her while raising his arms, causing her to let go of her ice-cream cone. Shocked, Luigina looked at the melting remains of her beloved dessert on the dirty floor of the streets.
“My ice-cream…” she sobbed and kneeled down. She felt like crying.
Meanwhile, Marianna tried to calm the hoards of people down a bit, but her giant fan-club wouldn’t let her talk even a single word without breaking out into a seemingly endless chanting of “HOORAY!!”
Finally, she lost her patience and screamed so loud that everybody suddenly shut up and backed off in shock. Silence reigned.
The only heard sound was Luigina’s quiet mourning over the early demise of her ice-cream.
“Finally!” Marianna started pleased, turning to Toad, who was still standing on the edge of the fountain.
“And now, tell me Toad: What’s all this havoc about?!”
Suddenly, Toad burst out into tears. He needed a few seconds to focus on talking again:
“It’s so… horrible… Marianna…”
As Marianna threw him a questioning look, Toad continued.
“The princess… has been kidnapped!” he shouted and the masses immediately burst out into screaming and crying again.
“QUIET!!!” Marianna screamed from top of her lungs and everybody shut up again.
“And that’s the big problem?! Why didn’t you tell me right away? If you did, she’d already be back.”
Marianna shook her head in disbelieve, went over to Luigina, pulled her away from her, now liquid puddle of “former ice-cream” and told her:
“Come on, sis, we’re paying a visit to Bowser.”
“B-But… My ice-cream…!”
“I’ll buy you a new one, when we’re back, okay?”
“Pinky Swear?” Luigina sobbed, while whipping away her tears with the sleeves of her green pullovers. She held the little finger towards her sister’s hand. Marianna rolled her eyes a bit and crossed her finger with Luigina’s.
“Pinky Swear.”
A smile appeared in the green girl’s face again.
“Okay! Now, let’s go save Peach!” The red plumber-girl pointed into the direction of the Dark Land, the kingdom of Bowser Koopa.
Hand in hand, the two sisters left the Mushroom Kingdom and its nervous citizens behind them, focusing once again on their weekly mission to save Peach.

An icy wind blew across the lonely scenery of Dark Land and pushed the black clouds along on their way over the charcoal-grey sky. The sun never shone in this place, which was covered in volcanoes, free-flowing lava streams and geysers in the ash-covered, yet fruitless ground. The only way to reach this depressing place was through a small, green Warp Pipe, the most important means of transportation in this weird world.
Marianna and Luigina jumped out of said pipe and found their grip on the grey, dusty ground. A lake of lava separated them from the island of the giant volcano, which housed a pitch-black castle. The only way over this deadly body of liquid stone seemed to be the luckily stabile looking bridge.
“Oh, Bowser built a new bridge! I’ve not been here for a long time, have I?” Luigina noted and inspected the stone bridge.
“And it looks a lot safer than this pesky old wooden one! Okay, let’s go, sis!”
She tried to sound as brave as possible. So, she took her sisters hand and tried to cross the bridge, but Marianna pulled her back.
“Lu-chan, wait a second!”
Marianna went before Luigina, still holding her hand, and her words got her a confused look by her little sister.
“What? Can’t I be first just once?” she whined.
“Listen… we two will run now. Very, very fast, okay? Whatever you do, don’t let go of my hand!”
Luigina threw her sister one more offended look when she was suddenly pulled along by her, who had started to run like the devil was chasing her.
“Run! I told you to run!” she repeated when they entered the stone bridge. This was when Luigina finally got what was going on:
As they crossed it, the bridge started to crumble under their feet and its remains fell into the fiery lake of molten rock beneath and became part of it. Luigina shut her eyes in horror and screamed from the top of her lungs. She absolutely didn’t see that coming. The bridge had looked so save and nice …
Marianna took one last step, then she jumped to the safe, solid ground on the other side of the falling bridge, pulling her sister (who held tightly to her hand) along with her.
Out of breath, the girls looked at each other, trying to cope with the stress they’ve just been through.
“Oh… my… goodness…” the long-haired one stuttered.
“And I… thought I could… just…. just… just cross it like that! God!”
Marianna just smiled mischievously, as Luigina looked at her in shock.
“Wasn’t that great fun?” she giggled, as Luigina gave her a “WTF?” kind of look.
“‘Fun’? Are you crazy or suicidal?!”
She crossed her arms in disbelieve at her sister’s comprehension of “entertainment”.
“You’re the one to talk, Mrs. ‘Let’s cross the obvious trap without any consideration at all’!”
They gave each other a quick, furious look, as if a cat-fight was about to start… but then, they embraced each other and sighed relieved.
After having calmed down again, they continued their way to the black castle, the residence of this realms ruler.
Bowser’s fortress was not only protected by trap bridges and seas of lava, but all kinds of weird traps and his loyal followers, the Koopa Troopas. But the latter did not apply today for some reason. The black castle was empty, empty as a haunted house.
Not a single guard or soldier ran into the sisters as they went along the wide hallways. Slowly, Luigina’s confusion over this turned into fear. She took her sister’s hand and clutched it tightly while walking behind her.
Marianna opened the great, old, steel door, which led to the royal chambers of Bowser, king of the Koopas.
But it was just as empty as the rest of the castle. And so, the sisters stood inside the great hall and threw each other confused looks.
“What… What’s going on here? No Koopas, no Goombas, no Bullet Bills, Piranhas and not even our dear Bowser?”
“Oh, Ma-chan… something’s wrong here, very, very wrong…”
Luigina shivered as she gave the answer and went a single step closer towards her sister.
It was so silent, not a single sound or voice was audible. Marianna looked around carefully, but she couldn’t spot anything odd, no matter how hard she tried.
Suddenly, a loud, crashing noise destroyed the perfect silence and, out of reflex, the girls threw themselves to the ground, just in time to get out of the way of the broken shards of the window behind them, which had just been shattered.
As they slowly got up again, having taken a few scratches by jumping down like that, they looked around once again. As Marianna examined the now broken window, Luigina bent down and picked up a small item, which obviously was the reason why the window just crashed.
“It’s… a golf ball?” she asked in disbelieve and confusion, as she took a look at the small, white orb in her hands.
“And this must be the golfer…”
Marianna pointed at the window:
Behind it, standing on an improvised, cheap and ugly golfing course, the giant turtle, who was the king of all Koopas, lord of the fiery doom and emperor of terror (or else he often claimed), stood and starred through the hole, which he just produced with his bad aim.
He roared in disbelief as he saw what - or more precisely - who was on the other side.
“YOU?! What are YOU doing here?!”
“Could ask you the same!” Marianna shouted back at him. She then turned at Luigina and showed her, that she should follow her.
They jumped through the small window and landed safely on the ground, to the feet of Bowser, who, quite obviously, had just been making some pathetic attempts to play golf.
“Hey! Turtle! Yes, you! Where’s Peach?!” Marianna shouted as she approached Bowser in a furious manner.
“Peach? The Princess? How should I know? I’m just playing golf.”
“Yeah, because you, you know, never lied to us before at all, huh? Okay, tell us right now where she is and what you’ve done to her, before we have to become unpleasant!”
Now, Bowser returned Marianna’s angry looks double.
“You pesky little plumber girl! Accusations, accusations, accusations, that’s all that ever comes out of your mouth! I didn’t lay a single claw on your precious princess!... This time, at least.”
“Oh, just cut it out! We know you kidnapped her again! There are not that much other people who could or would have done it!” Luigina shouted from the sidelines.
“Ah! Just shut up, you green string of spaghetti! I tell you just one more time: I. Did not. Kidnap. Peach! And now, go away, before I- …Wait a minute… so… Peach was… kidnapped… and…it was NOT… ME?!”
Bowser screamed in anger and fury upon this realization:
“B-BUT… HOW DARE THEY?! I AM SUPPOSED TO DO THIS! IT’S MY RIGHT! MY ORDER!”
The two girls looked at him in total confusion.
“He’s… being serious?”
“So… where is Peach then?”
Marianna once again turned at Bowser.
“And you’re sure you didn’t just, you know, misplace her somewhere? I mean your castle is big and stuff, so…”
“ONE LAST TIME: I DIDN’T DO IT! Trust me, if I DID do it, I’d know! You can’t just ‘misplace’ something as marvelous and flawless as my wonderful princess Peachy! You’d have to be a complete idiot to do that!!”
The sisters didn’t comment on that one.
In fury, Bowser raised his golf-racket and tried to hit Marianna with it, who quickly jumped out of the way.
“H-Hey! We get it, she’s not here! Calm down, big one!”
“And you! YOU! What kind of LOUSY bodyguards are you, letting the princess get kidnapped by someone who ISN’T ME?! You are a DISGRACE to your race!!”
“Says the Koopa, whose losing streak against my sister is probably longer than his grocery list…” Luigina mumbled quietly.
Marianna did a face-palm and tried to think their current situation through, which turned out to be almost impossible, since Bowser’s noises of anger were hard to ignore.
“Ah… Say… Bowser, were did all your people go? Did you give them their one day of in twenty years or something?” Luigina asked.
Bowser turned away from her, obviously upset by the question.
“Oh, how horrible! They are on strike, aren’t they? Well, quite understandable, actually…”
Luigina suddenly burst out in laughter, but was interrupted by a roar from Bowser, which made her cower in shock.
“They are neither on vacation, nor strike! They are gone! JUST gone! Over night! Or… over day? Don’t know, it’s always dark here… Ah, I don’t need those clowns anyway! I can entertain myself perfectly well, as you can see! Who needs troops?! Who? Not me! Mwahahaha… haha…”
“But… it must be sad to be left alone like this… uhm… and they just disappeared?” asked Luigina a bit worried.
“That’s none of your business, you nosy leaf of spinach!”
Marianna was still over thinking the whole situation, eager to find out who really kidnapped Princess Peach. That was when she noticed something. As she looked north, a strange light suddenly beamed into the sky. In disbelieve, the girl rubbed her eyes and blinked, but the beam of light didn’t disappear. It was real.
“Uhm, Lu-chan?” she called at her sister.
“Am I nuts or are you seeing what I am seeing?”
She pointed at the steady beam in the distance.
“No, sis, of course you’re not nuts! I’m seeing it too,” she nodded.
“No. You are both nuts! I’m not seeing a thing over there!” Bowser suddenly stated.
“But there’s a light!”
“Weird… how come we do see it, but Bowser not?”
“Because I, unlike you, haven’t completely lost it yet! I am NOT the one who just storms other peoples’ homes and accuses them of random kidnapping, even though they are just playing a calm and quiet game of golf!”
“All alone… left behind by his own troops… ” Luigina giggled. Bowser immediately growled and roared at her, causing her to cower in fear.
“Well, if it’s like this, let’s take a look, alright, Lu-chan?”
Luigina just jumped behind her older sister and hid nervously, still feeling Bowser’s angry eyes in her neck.
“E-Everything if it means getting away from this jerk!” she answered.
“Yes, scram!! Just leave me alone! You don’t know how GREAT it is to be all by myself!”

Finally, the sisters left the black castle, leaving behind its self-acclaimed king of Koopas alone once again. As they departed, they could still hear him shout:
“And bring Peach back save and sound! I want to find her without a single scratch the next time I’m coming to take her!”
They went off to the north of the Dark Lands, known for its forests of dead trees that never carried any leaves, to uncover the mystery of the light, which only they themselves could see.