I've Got the Strangest Feeling This Isn't Our First Time Around

7

"Come to mama!" Spike says as he holds his hoagie up to his mouth.

But of course he couldn't be that lucky, because Luigi bursts in with some guy wearing red, demanding,

"I need your help."

"Help getting your shit out of my apartment? Absolutely." Spike says, not missing a beat. "Lucky for you, I didn't take it to the dumpster yet."

"We need your help stopping a terrorist." Luigi says flatly.

"Oh shit, is your condition flaring up again?" Spike clearly isn't taking this seriously.

"He's not delusional." The guy in red speaks up defensively.

"Hey, guy-I'm-not-talking-to." Spike turns to him for a second. "If you're affiliated with him, then I want nothing to do with either of you. Get out."

"We work for a secret agency in an alternate world full of pillow people that walks through people's dreams to wake them up." Luigi says flatly.

The guy in red lightly smacks the back of Luigi's head, demanding, "What part of 'falling into the wrong hands' do you not understand?"

"You know those purple statues they found on the news?" Luigi keeps going, not even stopping to rub the back of his neck. "One of them wasn't a person. It was a turtle-like monster called a Koopa, his name was Lemmy, and I walked through his dreams. He sent two other squadrons of sentient bombs, called Bob-Ombs, but the head doctor's stooges don't know what they're doing."

"Hey, I'm nobody's stooge." The guy in red protests.

"But I do, once you help me." Luigi is clearly a man on a mission, and he's not about to be distracted.

But now that that's all out in the open, Spike only says, "You don't actually walk through people's dreams and wake them up, do you?"

The guy in red laughs mockingly for a second, but it's gone a second later before he nods, "Uh huh."

"Look, I'm here because we're running out of time." Luigi speaks up again. "I need to get into the Cornell computer system. I need to run a search for fountains with a clear view of the stars."

"You know how many fountains that is?" Spike finally thinks to ask.

"Apparently most of them." Luigi admits almost sheepishly, before going right along. "But remember the login relay bug I dumped on there? If I alter the code, it will work on the pipe's network and relay all the information about where all the pipes go to, and by extension which places have fountains with stars."

Luigi snaps his head to the guy in red, "Still think Cornell's standards have slipped letting me in?"

But that, surprisingly, gets Spike's attention, asking the guy in red, "You said that. To him?"

"I've yet to see you two do anything to tell me otherwise." The guy in red crosses his arms. "I'm not sorry."

"Oh yeah?" Spike picks up his laptop and snaps a finger. "Sit."

"Oh come on!" Luigi protests when the search comes up empty.

"Sure you didn't mess up the code?" Spike says behind him.

"I wrote the code." Luigi corrects.

"Which you ran 4 times." Mario says from where he's apparently taken Spike's hoagie for himself, chewing away. "All fountains have a clear view of the stars at night, on a good day."

"Uh hello?" Spike protests.

Mario drops the hoagie on the plate. "What? I haven't had a Brooklyn hoagie in years!"

"I know it's real." Luigi puts his foot down. "I saw it in Lemmy's dreams."

"Have you considered the fountain is actually a smaller piece of the puzzle?" Spike asks, which gets a surprised look from Mario. "Don't underestimate Psychology minors."

"And don't underestimate Civil Engineering majors." Mario replies, asking, "Can I take a look at that?"

At Luigi's nod, Mario comes over to the computer and says, "Let's go with the easiest one. Fountains." He types a few keys, and the results pop up.

"Wait, what world is that?" Luigi points to one.

Mario enhances it, and Luigi sees the flash again.

" What did you do with her? "

"The Shadow Sniffits, a gang that sets their sights on individuals who might share their goals in making the world a better place." Mario reads. "And have ties to selling black market—"

"Power Stars." Luigi nods in understanding.

"Announcing their meeting to discuss their newest invention, the Entropy Erosion device, under the Toad Town fountain."

"If the Shadow Sniffits are the ones that ambushed Wendy and stole her device..."

"And with her brother petrified, there was no one left to stop them." Spike finishes.

"But they didn't account for Lemmy sending Bomb-Omb squadrons after them. Or that he'd already bombed it." Luigi says thoughtfully. "Where is Toad Town?"

"There they are." Luigi points from their hiding place, where they see some dark figures are approaching the fountain, which surprisingly looks good as new.

"I don't think we should do this." Mario says.

"I do." Luigi walks right over, and it's all Mario can do to scramble to chase after him, muttering, "Mamma mia..."

"Hey!" Luigi shouts, startling the dark figures. "Are you the Shadow Sniffits?"

"Who wantssss to know?" one of them hisses, right as an explosion knocks them all back.