Toad's Party

Chapter 4: Toadally Radical, Bro

Mario sat in front of his TV, an empty pizza box sitting on the ground and a nearly finished can of Shroom Soda in his hand. He was sprawled out half-asleep on his dirty maroon couch, watching a random poor-quality soap opera on a public access channel, when he heard it.

He didn't notice it at first. It was a dull rumbling that he almost thought was just his crappy fridge being weird. He almost fell asleep.

Until he saw the lights.

As the rumbling increased, Mario's eyes widened. Bright white spotlights swept along the houses and streets outside. People started running out of their houses to see what the heck was going on, only to run back inside, screaming their heads off.

He knew exactly what was going on. Bowser.

Mario leapt up from the couch and dressed himself in his typical shirt, hat, and overalls outfit. He burst through the door, not even bothering to lock it, and sprinted down the street as fast as his legs could carry him.

As he ran, Mario looked up at the sky in awe. This was more airships than Bowser usually brought with him. He must be planning something horrible for the princess.

Then he realized something very strange. The airships were going in the opposite direction of the castle. What exactly was Bowser even planning? Maybe he just wanted to go to Mona's Pizza and get pizza slices for his whole army. Terrorizing a kingdom with a whole airship fleet just to get pizza seemed like something Bowser would do.

But for now, Mario didn't care. He had to stop Bowser, whatever he was doing.

--

Stuffwell continued to fidget nervously as he scrolled through countless I'm Sixteen and I Married a Fifty-Year-Old Billionaire stories on Wattpad. The more he saw of these stories, the more he wanted to wipe his memory. But he just couldn't stop thinking about the person Luigi and Toad had prank called. The voice had sounded so familiar...almost like he had heard it before, on his convoluted time travel adventure with Mario and Luigi...and that growing roar outside, and the flashing lights...wait...

"Toad! That's not even how you play Uno!" Luigi cried.

"Listen, punk! It's my party, I'll play Uno how I wanna play Uno. Now, if you'd be so kind, just stop pretending you won and come to grips with your sad life! Like, you capture ghosts for a living. What kind of a nerd are you?!" Toad screamed, throwing his Uno deck in the air.

"I'M-A NOT A NERD!!! PARANORMAL RESEARCH IS AN IMPORTANT AND-A RESPECTABLE FIELD!!" Luigi squealed.

Everything happened at once.

Luigi began to cry. A sad, defeated cry. Tears streamed down his soft, pudgy cheeks as he beat the carpet with his gloved hands.

The Uno cards fluttered through the air. One landed in Toad's fish tank. Bowling Ball, Toad's fish, stared blankly at the soggy card as it drifted sadly to the bottom of the tank and lodged itself in the multicolored fake rocks at the bottom of tank. He looked at it for a few more moments before taking a bite of the card.

The fan, which had been going full blast all night because of the house's faulty AC unit, finally decided it had had enough of this tyranny and started making frightening grinding sounds before one of the fans broke off and fell at top speed towards Toad.

Stuffwell finally realized exactly why the voice on the other end of the prank call sounded so familiar to him. "It's Bowser!" He cried. "The voice was Bowser! WE NEED TO LEAVE!"