Two Hearts In The City of Love

Summer Destination

"MAARRRIIOOOOOO HEEELLLLPPPP!!!"

Luigi burst through the door of his house to find his brother, casually eating spaghetti at the table. He looked up from his favorite food with an annoyed expression. "What do you want Luigi!? Can't you see Mario is busy right now!?" Luigi tackled Mario and began shaking him while yelling "I GOT FIRED FROM MY JOB! PLEASE HELP!"

Mario didn't see what the problem was. "Pfff, what does Luigi need a job for? Stay home and be a bum like Mario!" He struck a cool pose and put sunglasses on before Luigi nervously walked past him. "You don't understand Mario! That job was supposed to cover our life savings. If I can't find another one..."

He opened a closet that was supposed to hold coins and bags of money in it, but only cobwebs and dust was inside. "Then we might be EVICTED!" Mario squinted his eyes and raised a hand up to his chin as he peeked inside the closet. "Mario thought he saw some money in here yesterday..." Luigi sighed and told him "Don't you remember what happened yesterday?"

~Flashback~

Mario was taking a walk through Mushroom City, but looked incredibly exhausted. He panted and croaked out "Mario's so hungry..." He then spotted a spaghetti truck that was delivering to the Fresh Spaghetti Tubbie factory. His eyes lit up and was determined to give chase to that truck so he ran into the road and punched a driver out of his car. He then proceeded to run a red light, go over the speed limit, and when Frankie was crossing the street, the last thing he heard was the honking of a horn before Mario ran him over.

The truck driver was going on his merry way, until Mario drove out in front of him. "AHHH!" The driver slammed the breaks, but it was too late. Mario hopped out of the car at the last second and danced while the two flaming vehicles behind him were sizzling in smoke. He opened the storage compartment and...

"WHAT!? JUST TUBBIE CUSTARD! THIS IS BULLCRAP! WHERE'S MARIO'S SPAGHETTI!?"

Just then police sirens flared and several officers came out of the cars. "STAWP RIGHT THERE!" A few hours later, Luigi enters the police station and waves to the receptionist. "Hello Luigi! Here to bail out your brother again?" He sighed and nodded. "How much?"

"All of your life savings."

~Present Time~

"Ooooo right." Luigi took a deep breath and looked his brother straight in the eye. "I can't keep bailing you out all the time. We need to find me a job and find you a way to stay out of trouble." The two boys tried to think of a solution until Mario was about to say something. "Mario, if this has anything to do with Spaghetti or your deals with Bob, I don't think that's gonna work."

Just then the TV in their living room started playing static and then a weird ad started to play. It described that there was a lottery going on and the winners would be announced tomorrow. Mario seemed convinced, but Luigi had his suspicions. "This doesn't sound right Mario...are we sure that this isn't a scam or something?" Mario brushed it off and convinced him "Relax Luigi! You wanted money right?"

"Yes, but-"

"THEN LETS-A GO!"

He grabbed Luigi and sped off to a store where the commercial said the lottery was being held. The two boys went to the counter when a familiar ally waved to them. "Shroomy?" The two said in unison. "Well golly gee! Hello boys!"

"You run the lottery?" He nodded and handed them a ticket. "There you go! We'll announce the winner tomorrow afternoon!" Luigi took the ticket and saw that their number was lucky 21, one of the digits that was considered to be good luck by superstitions. "O-o-okay thanks." He gave Shroomy a few remaining dollars and the two them headed back home and awaited the drawing of the winning ticket.