Locked Away

The Fate of the Heroes

Luigi was practically quaking in fear in Iggy's lab. He had never seen the place before, and he was glad of it. Pathetic looking Koopas and Shy Guys were chained up in glass cells, vials of blood and chemicals lined every shelf, half-built creations were littered across tables and the floor, saws and scalpels were strewn across every surface and and a bloodstained operating table took pride of place in the room, the shackles on it looking ever-menacing in the dim light.

He'd run out of tears long ago, and contented himself with half-heartedly watching the goings on in the lab. He watched servants walk in and out with assorted tools and chemicals. For the most part, Iggy worked alone, talking to himself as he worked on various creations. Luigi wasn't treated too badly; his glass cell was relatively clean and comfortable aside from a couple of dubious bloodstains, a few servants had bought him some food a little while ago, and Iggy had mentioned offhandedly that he would get around to fixing Luigi's injuries at some point, although Luigi didn't really understand why Iggy was treating him decently.

Speaking of Iggy, he hadn't been down in a while. Not that Luigi really wanted to see him, but his laughing seemed to be the only positive thing in the extremely depressing lab. He'd taken to looking over some of Iggy's inventions, but didn't really understand anything he was looking at. His attempts to distract himself didn't work very well, as he still found himself wondering what happened to Mario and Toadette. Where they somewhere in the castle as well? 

The familiar feeling of anxiety rose up in his stomach again, and he shifted uncomfortably from where was sitting against the wall, gasping at the sudden shots of pain that surged through him, eyes watering. "I hope the princess is okay..." He sighed after the pain had died down, resting his head against the wall of his cell, staring half-lidded and hopelessly up at the ceiling.

He was so tired...it was nigh on impossible to even get comfortable in his cell, but he didn't care. He just wanted to sleep, to forget about the pain and loss for a few hours and drift off into the dreamworld that he's so fond of. Every muscle of his ached and his eyes were barley staying open. He wasn't going to be leaving anytime soon, so he might as well go to sleep.

Trying to push aside the horrifying thoughts of what happened to Mario and Toadette, and what Iggy might do to him (he'd heard some horror stories about this place), Luigi let his eyelids droop shut, still leaning uncomfortably against the wall but not caring. After a few minutes of shifting and moving, he finally found a decent place to sleep in the corner. The lab was eerily quiet, and the silence made it easier to get to sleep. Less than 5 minutes later, the cell was full of Luigi's gentle snoring and muttering as the plumber fell into the first real sleep he'd had in days.

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Peach didn't like teleportation.

She felt dizzy and disoriented in the few seconds it had taken Kamek to teleport the two to the Mushroom Kingdom, almost falling over when her feet made contact with solid ground again. Bowser and Kamek were entirely unaffected by it, probably from having done it so often. Once her head stopped spinning and her eyes could see again, she saw the true devastation that has plagued her Kingdom for the first time.

Buildings were either partially destroyed or complete rubble, shops and houses alike barely standing. The street was covered in holes and huge chunks of sidewalk were simply not there anymore. Statues, fountains, trees and any other landmark that made the city beautiful was in pieces. There was nobody around, not even in the relatively undamaged buildings. It was completely silent except for the slight gusts of wind that blew the dust and dead leaves everywhere.

Peach thought back to how vibrant and colourful her city used to be, before this happened, back when her getting kidnapped was just an annoyance more than anything. When Bowser was a joke among the Royal Court and the kingdom was full of life. Now, it was just some silent ruins amongst the smoke and dust that seemed to hang around the streets, almost like an aura. She could tell where they were, though, they were only a few streets away from Mushroom Square, one of the main landmarks of the kingdom.