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The traffic was bad in Brooklyn again. The red van stood still amongst the other cars, vans and trucks. Super Mario Bros. Plumbing was printed on the side, along with a picture of two jumping cartoon men.
There was a catchy little tune playing on the radio. Mario sat behind the wheel with a bored look on his face. He was a fat Italian man in his thirties, with a large, dark moustache. He wore a red baseball cap and a pair of blue overalls over a red shirt.
Sitting beside him, in the passenger seat, was his brother Luigi. He was dressed much the same way, but with a green cap and green shirt. He was a little taller and thinner than his brother. He also had a large moustache on his face, which also wore a bored expression.
"This-a sucks!" said Luigi with a thick Italian accent.
"I think it's pretty catchy. Da da da da da da ...da." said Mario, imitating the tune.
"Not the music brother. I mean being a plumber sucks!"
"It's not so bad. There's plenty of worse things we could be doing'."
"Worse than being arm deep in other peoples' excrement?"
"Yeah, we could be neck deep."
"It's boring. How many movies do you see about plumbers?"
"I saw one the other day."
"Really?"
"Yeah, it was a good one. A porno."
"Oh yeah. A hot, busty housewife answers the door to two handsome Italian gentlemen. 'Were here to check your pipes!' Next thing, she's sucking down both their cocks and they're double teaming her. How come that never happens to us?"
"Maybe at the next job."
"Yeah right. I don't think I can handle another boring, mundane day of plumbing."
Mario turned to him, "So what are you gunna do?"
"Shrooms."
"Shrooms?"
Luigi got out a small plastic bag and held it up. Inside were a couple of small, flat mushrooms. They were white with green spots on them. "Where did you get them?" asked Mario.
"I bought them off Toad."
"That little Shit-head? Last time we bought some shit off him, we got in big trouble."
"Yeah well I'm bored out of my mind. I could use a little trouble. These are called One-up. They're supposed to send you on a wild adventure."
"Let's pop them after work then."
"No, I want to take them now."
"That might not be good for business. 'Super Mario Bros. Plumbing, we'll show up shit-faced, guaranteed'."
"Come on brother. Today can either be boring as bat shit, or lots of fun." He held the bag up to him. "I know you want to. You're just as bored as me."
"Yeah, okay then. But I hold you responsible for anything that happens."
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They showed up at the Apartment building where their first job of the day was. Both men entered the building carrying their tool boxes. Mario was wearing his tool belt.
"We gotta see management. They got a flooded basement." said Mario.
"Damn it! Soggy shoes for the rest of the day. Are those Shrooms kicking in yet?"
"No, what are they supposed to do anyway?"
"I told you, they're supposed to send you on a wild adventure."
"That's the line Toad used eh? He probably sold you some duds. We'll go and have some words with him if he did." Mario rang the doorbell.
Luigi crossed his fingers. "Please be a horny housewife! Please be a horny housewife!" A fat, slobbish, middle aged man opened the door. "God-dammit!"
"You the plumbers?"
"What the hell do you think?" said Luigi.
"I thought someone might have ordered a couple of clowns and you got the wrong address."
"Very funny Dickhead. You got a flooded basement?"
"Yeah, come this way."
Soon the two brothers were down in the large basement area, where there was ankle deep water. "Have a look around for the leak." said Mario.
"Yeah, yeah. Those shrooms aren't doing' anything. This day is gunna suck!"
The two men walked along, splashing through the water. The basement was fairly large and had old furniture and crap in it. Luigi could see a large gap in the far wall, about one meter wide and a meter and a half high. He walked up and peered into it, but it was very dark. Water seemed to be flowing out from it.
"Hey Mario. I think I found the source. You got your flashlight?"
"Yeah, hold on." Mario came over, getting his flashlight from his tool belt. He shone the light in. They saw sharp teeth and scary glowing eyes.
"Yeeeaaagh!" Both men cried out in surprise, and jumped back, as the animal came out from the darkness. It ran after Luigi, and he sprinted away, splashing through the water. Mario could make out a hard blue shell, covered in sharp spikes.
Luigi jumped up onto an old desk. The animal growled and gnashed its sharp jaws. "FUCK!!" cried out Luigi. "What the fuck is that?"
Mario cautiously moved around to get a better look. It looked like some sort of turtle, with a large blue, spiky shell, and a large jaw full of sharp teeth. It was vicious, it looked like it wanted to tear Luigi to pieces.
Mario grabbed a wrench from his tool belt and threw it at the animal. The tool just bounced off its' hard shell, and it continued trying to lash out a Luigi. Mario grabbed more tools and threw them.
The little monster turned and started coming after Mario, splashing through the water. It could move fast for a turtle. Mario turned and fled. Mario reached the stairs and shot up them. The turtle had trouble getting up them and rolled back.
Luigi came up to it with a sledgehammer and slammed it down on top of the turtle. The hard shell crunched under the impact. Luigi raised the sledge-hammer and yelled out as he slammed it down again. He did it again and again, until the turtle was smashed up and its' head dropped. red blood spread out in the water around it.
Mario came down the stairs again. Both he and Luigi were panting as they looked down at the dead animal. "Have you ever seen anything like that before?" asked Luigi.
"Oh, every day!" said Mario sarcastically.
"It's like some sort of ill-tempered, mutated sea turtle. Do you think there's more of them? Maybe we should get out of here."
Mario walked over and grabbed his flashlight out of the water. He tapped it a few times and the light came on again. He walked over the dark gap in the wall. "What are you doing Mario?" said Luigi.
"Checking it out."
Mario went though the dark gap. On the other side appeared to be another small room. In the centre was a large, round, green pipe. It only came up about a foot off the ground, just above the water level. Mario stood there, shining the light on it. Luigi came in behind him.
The pipe was around two meters wide. Mario looked down into it, but could only see darkness. Water was flowing out of it, but strangely, it wasn't filled with water. Mario noticed that a stream of water seemed to be flowing up, out of the pipe.
"That water appears to be disobeying the laws of physics bro." said Luigi.
"I hate when it does that." said Mario. "I think this shit is a bit beyond my plumbing experience."
Suddenly there was a growl behind them. The smashed up turtle was dragging itself toward them, leaving a trail of blood. It was bearing its' sharp teeth.
"Yeeaaagh!!" cried out Luigi in fright. He jumped forward, slamming into Mario and the two of them tumbled over the edge of the pipe and fell down into the darkness, yelling loudly.
They tumbled around, falling through the darkness for what seemed like ages. The flashlight was falling with them, spinning around, making the light dance around them. The two brothers were yelling continuously. Then they stopped and got their breath back, and then they started yelling again.
They pressed up against the hard wall of the pipe as it slowly curved around, and soon found themselves sliding, instead of falling. The pipe curved around some more, and they soon found themselves sliding upwards. Then they were falling upwards.
The pipe made a strange noise as they popped up from it and into the light again. They seemed to be standing on a dark platform in the middle of the large green pipe. Both brothers looked around confused.
The countryside around them looked strange. There was bright green grass and smooth bushes around. They saw weird hills jutting up from the ground in the distance, they seemed to have vertical sides and perfectly symmetrical rounded tops. The elliptical clouds in the sky seemed perfectly symmetrical too. They could see floating objects, pipes and holes all around them. There was some boppy music playing, but they had no idea where it was coming from.
"This doesn't look like Brooklyn." observed Luigi.
"No, not how I remember it." said Mario.
The two brothers got down off the pipe and continued looking around, bewildered. "Shit! I lost my tool belt." said Mario looking down. "Where are we? and how the hell do we get back?"
They saw a little man coming toward them. He stood about four feet tall and seemed to have a bulging, red and white mushroom head. He was wearing a blue vest over his bare chest and a white daiper. His face seemed familiar. "Hooray! I knew you'd come, I knew you'd come." said the little mushroom man excitedly.
"We didn't." said Mario. "Where the fuck are we?"
"World 1-1."
"World 1-1? Could you be more general?"
"This is the Mushroom Kingdom. You've come to save the Princess haven't you?"
"Mushroom Kingdom? Princess? How far are we from Brooklyn?"