Luigi's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Luigi and Yoshi fell through the pipe and landed hard on cold stone. The flashlight rolled away, then stopped. Its beam showed a long room with green pipes lined along both walls. Dozens of them stood there, each dark and silent. Luigi grabbed the light and stood up. Somewhere down here, Mario was trapped inside one of these pipes. The dragging sound came again, closer now. Luigi ran to the first pipe and looked inside. Empty. He tried the next one. Empty too. "Mario!" he called. His voice bounced off the walls. No answer came back. Yoshi sniffed the floor and pulled toward the far end of the room. Luigi followed. "You smell him? Which one, boy?" A small green head popped out of a pipe. It was Koopa Troopa, a turtle in white sneakers, blinking at the flashlight. He was not one of Bowser's soldiers. He looked scared. His hands shook on the rim. "You're the one chasing the big man in red," Koopa said. "They put him deep. Down where the shell-boss keeps his prizes." Luigi crouched. "Which pipe? Show me." Koopa pointed a claw at a wide pipe at the room's end, bigger than the rest. Its rim glowed faint green. "That one drops the farthest. But you don't want to go. He's down there. The big spiked one." Koopa ducked back into his own pipe and vanished. The dragging sound turned into heavy steps. From behind the wide pipe stepped a shape Luigi already feared. Green scales. Red spikes on the shell. Bowser. He filled the far wall, blocking the pipe Koopa had shown. Boo floated at his shoulder, giggling. The ghost had led Luigi straight here, and here was the trap. "Little brother," Bowser said. His voice scraped like rock. "You came all this way to lose too." He slammed a fist. The floor shook. Yoshi crouched low and hissed. Luigi could not fight that. Not head-on. He looked at the wide pipe behind Bowser, then at the flashlight in his hand. He threw the light hard to the left. It clattered into an empty pipe and lit it bright. Bowser's head snapped toward the noise. "Now, Yoshi!" Luigi sprinted right. Yoshi shot his tongue out, wrapped a pipe rim, and pulled them both past Bowser's swinging arm. Claws raked the air behind Luigi's back. He dove headfirst into the wide glowing pipe. Yoshi tumbled in after him. Bowser's roar chased them down the shaft. They dropped and hit ground. Luigi rolled up onto his knees. In the dim glow he saw a cage of black iron. Inside it sat Mario, wrists tied, mouth taped. Their eyes met. Mario was alive. Luigi had found him at last. Then he heard Bowser drop into the pipe above, coming down fast.