"Mario... Mario? MARIO!"
Mario awoke with a start, upon hearing Luigi calling his name. But when he looked up, Luigi wasn't standing over him. Instead, Luigi was standing over Mario's body (which Luigi had probably brought outside so everyone wasn't in separate rooms), which of course was the body housing Bowser at the moment, though neither Mario nor Luigi knew that.
"What," Mario in Bowser's bruised body groaned, a little weary from fainting and all.
Luigi turned around, and let out a little "Yipe!" upon seeing Bowser again, which was really Mario.
Mario scowled at Luigi, uncomprehending, and then remembered all that had just happened. "Luigi! It's me, Mario!" Mario said. "I'm not Bowser!"
"Huh?" Bowser in Mario's body muttered, hearing his name as he came to.
Right then, Mario in Bowser's slightly damaged body and Bowser in Mario's body saw each other, narrowed their eyes and screamed with anger at each other, "YOU!"
They started yelling at each other knowing what must have happened and thinking it was the other's fault, while Luigi stood there, baffled. He then decided to start by stopping the yelling. "Guys!"
"WHAT?" they both yelled, frightening Luigi a little more.
"Uhh... Mario?"
"What?" said Mario, whom Luigi thought was Bowser.
"Uhh... Bowser?" Luigi stuttered.
"What?" said Bowser, whom Luigi thought was Mario.
Luigi started realizing what was happening, and started to stumble around, pretty close to fainting. "Oh no you don't!" Mario said, reaching a massive arm over to keep Luigi from falling backwards. Of course, Luigi still wasn't sure what was going on, and seeing Bowser put his huge hand behind him sort of encouraged him to faint.
"Don't faint on us now, Greenie!" Bowser said.
Luigi suddenly believed that Bowser was "in" Mario because of the "Greenie" reference, which of course told Luigi that Mario was "in" Bowser. Luigi sat on the ground, holding his head, feeling sick.
Breaking the silence, Bowser yelled, "How exactly did this happen?!"
"I think I know," Luigi said silently.
Mario and Bowser both looked at Luigi, surprised. Luigi then said, "Uh, last night, I sorta... wished on a shooting star that you both would switch bodies with each other so you would see the other's side and so you would stop fighting!" He covered his mouth when he realized what he just said.
"You WHAT!?" Bowser and Mario yelled in unison.
Luigi cowered in fear for a second, but then suddenly got up enough nerve to say, "C'mon, guys! A long time ago, Bowser temporarily triumphantly obtaining the princess until we saved her was kinda FUN! Now it's just you two hating each other, and accusing each other of things you sometimes didn't do, and thinking that the other person's reasons for being the way he is were lies! I figured, like most people would, that you two would give each other a break if you saw their side of the story. And in my defense, how was I supposed to know the wish would come true?!"
There was an awkward silence, until Bowser said, "See each other's side of the story? How could what Mario goes through be as bad as what I go through?"
Mario roared, "Well, for one, when we face each other, you don't have to deal with THIS!"
Mario imitated Bowser's usual action and crouched slightly as if poised to attack, and growled down at Bowser as menacingly as he could. For once, Bowser was afraid as he looked up at the towering beast that he had been before. He glanced up and down at what was previously his body. It appeared as if great anger was in his old eyes. He looked at his hands, which could have easily squished Mario's body, the body he was IN, to a pulp. He looked down at his body's feet, and realized how he could have smashed it down on anybody. He thought of these things, but he knew he would never do those things to ANYone. He didn't realize how intimidating he could be, how intimidating he WAS, when he was only the slightest bit angry. Bowser's children were about the same size as Mario, and Bowser looked straight foward and realized that Mario, and his children, were only as high as Bowser's knees, at the MOST. 'My children go through this everyday' he thought. 'They think that I WOULD crush them!'
Suddenly, Bowser snapped back into reality and remembered the argument he was in the middle of. "Well, at least you don't have to go through THIS!" Bowser grabbed a fire flower out of the garden next to him, and became Fire Mario, and quickly positioned himself as if he was going to fire a stream of fireballs from his hands, and yelled at the top of his lungs, "I KNOW YOU TOOK THE PRINCESS, YOU LIER!!"
For a second, Mario didn't think Bowser was accurately imitating him, when he suddenly had a flashback of a few months ago, when Princess Peach had been kidnapped, and he thought it WAS Bowser, and he had SAID THE EXACT SAME WORDS! It turned out Bowser hadn't stolen Peach, and it was really some other archenemy of Mario's. 'Am I really that quick to accusing Bowser?' Mario thought. He thought about this for a moment longer, and then turned to Luigi and lied, "OK, so we fight each other, big deal!"
"Yeah," Bowser lied, "We're used to fighting!"
Luigi changed the subject and said, "Wait. Let's look over this dilemma from the beginning. Bowser when did you realize you were 'Mario'?"
Bowser answered, "The moment I woke up! And you saw the rest. The panicking... the fainting..."
Luigi interrupted, "OK, OK, I know all that. What about you, Mario, what happened to you this morning?"
Mario rumbled, "I realized it when I got to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, but I think I was like that before I got there, because I remember struggling to get up from the bed, because I was heavier than usual, being Bowser."
"Wait, how did you get bruised? I know myself well enough to know I don't get bruised easily." said Bowser.
Mario stammered, "Well, I decided to head here, because I live here, and I had a little trouble... walking."
"My kingdom is THAT far away, you could get here easily!"
"No, I mean... it was hard to walk as 'you'. I lost my balance a few times and fell down a lot. How do you walk with your shell pulling you backwards, do you lean foward all the time?"
Bowser said, "No! If I'm strong enough to support a shell on my back while standing straight, you should be able to too!"
Luigi then interrupted, "See? Mario didn't know you had to support a shell as big as YOU while doing... well, anything! You guys don't realize what the other has to go through each day-- UH-OH."
"What?" Bowser and Mario asked.
Luigi answered, "Guys, how are you both going to get through the day as the other?"
Edited by - Markio on 2/15/2004 10:52:10 PM
