//------------------------------// // Chapter Twenty Two: A Buncha Familiar Faces pt 2 // Story: Mario & Luigi: Adventures Through Equestria // by NoGoodUsrNames99 //------------------------------// They found themselves back at the everfree forest, in the middle of the woods. "Ugh...is this the Everfree forest?" Mario asked, scratching the back of his head. They looked to the left and saw a small, old fire, a ripped up net, and some crushed trees where a giant worm could've been. "Yep...this is the forest all right." Mario sighed. "L-l-let's just find the segment...this place gives me the creeps..." Luigi said, grabbing Mario's arm. They made their way through the woods, before finding a shaking bush. Mario shushed the trio and snuck up to it, "GOT YA!" He exclaimed, pouncing on the bush. "OW!" The person inside the bush exclaimed. "Wait, Wiggler Segments can't talk..." Mario thought, before moving the bush and finding...Wario and Waluigi. "WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING HERE?" Mario cried. "Uh oh, he found us, bro!" Waluigi exclaimed, towards Wario. "Mamamia..." Wario replied. Mario jumped back from the bush, letting the brothers stand up and dust themselves off. "Who are these goons?" Twilight whispered to Luigi. Luigi then sighed, more annoyed than scared. "Wario and Waluigi...they've been are rivals since the GameBoy area..." He whispered back. "Explain yourselves! Why are you here?!" Mario asked, pointing at them. "Well...you see..." Wario said, scratching the back of his head. "We're here because...uh..." "Well..." Waluigi piped in, "We saw that warpy-portal thingy, so of coarse we're gonna want to check it out!" "Yeah! What he said!" Mario cocked an eyebrow. "And you're sure you're not here because you thought you'd find treasure?" Wario and Waluigi looked at each other, before nodding 'no'. "Alright fine..." Mario sighed, "But stay out of our way...and for the love of Peach, don't steal anything!" Mario exclaimed. "We don't need your permission!" Waluigi exclaimed. Mario just rolled his eyes, before leading the trio past Wario and Waluigi. As they walked, they looked into the distance of the forest, and saw the Wiggler Segment. "There it is!" Mario exclaimed. As him and the group snuck up on it, they noticed it split into two. Mario rubbed his eyes. As soon as the segments saw Mario, one of them fled, and the other was about to. "GET BACK HERE!" Twilight exclaimed, using her magic to grab one of them. The Segment squirmed around, until eventually submitting. She put it down, and it jumped up and down, turning red. "You're a quite little segment, yes you are, yes you are!" Twilight said, in a baby voive, scratching the Segment, and having it kick it's leg in approval. "Now, " Twilight mumbled, noticing a portal next to them. "Go into that portal, and go back to the Wiggler head and we'll be there to play soon!" Twilight exclaimed, pointing towards the portal. The Segment jumped up and down in excitement, before jumping into the portal. "Alright, lets go after the other one!" Twilight exclaimed. The group then nodded, as they went down the path that the Segment took. It wasn't long before they found a small trailer, sitting in the middle of the woods. "Who's is that?" Mario asked, putting his hand over his eyes. Twilight looked at it, and noticed a familiar logo plastered over the top of the caravan, it belonged to the Flim Flam brothers. "Oh great..." Twilight murmured. "What?" Starlow asked, appearing from Mario's pocket. "It belongs to the Flim Flam brothers..." Twilight replied, "They're the most famous con-artists in Equestria." She continued, rolling her eyes. "Oh...maybe we should just steer clear of it?" Mario asked. "Yeah...sounds good-" Twilight was interrupted by the sound of pure chaos coming from the caravan. Suddenly, the door swung opened, and the Segment came running out. Flam popped his head out, and used his magic to pull it in. "Get back in here..." He exclaimed in irritation, before going back in. "WAIT!" Twilight exclaimed. Flam popped his head back out. "What do you want? We're busy!" He exclaimed. "Um...let's see..." Twilight mumbled. She wasn't sure how to word this. "Look- wait a minute...what's with the...humans?" Flam asked, suddenly not sure how to react. "B-But humans don't exist...and what's that Star thing?" "Um...hel-l-o! I'm a Star sprite!" Starlow exclaimed, irritated as always. "Um..." Flam was confused at the sight. "Am I dreaming?" "Look, uh, Flam. We need that yellow segment you have!" Mario exclaimed. Flam's bottom eyelid twitched. He really wasn't sure how to process this. "Well...no. You can't have the...'segment' It's ours!" He exclaimed. "It was ours first!" Starlow exclaimed, shoving herself into Flam's face. "Get outta here!" Flam exclaimed, using his head to bounce Starlow out of the way. "Oh...you didn't!" Starlow said, menacingly. "Mario, Luigi, take care of him!" Starlow exclaimed, giving Mario a determined look. "What? No!" Mario exclaimed. "We're not just gonna attack him-" Mario was interrupted by a shot in the face, via magic beam shot from Flam's horn. "Ow..." "MARIO?!" Luigi, Twilight and Starlow exclaimed at once. "Flim! Help me out!" Flam exclaimed, Flim then jumped out of the caravan, and they locked the door behind them. "First, we'll take you out..." Flam exclaimed. "Then, we'll capture you!" Flim finished. "Why, brother, do you have any idea how much we could make off of a human?" Flam asked. "Why, I can't even imagine the riches!" "Shall we test out our new invention?" "That we should...brother!" Flim then used his magic to open the door of the caravan, and pull out a small box about a fool long on each side. He then put it on the ground and shot it with a magic beam. Suddenly, it started to unfold into a huge tank-type ship, with four wheels, and four arms coming out of the sides. One with a shovel, a drill, a bomb and a pickaxe on the last one. "Holy fuck..." Mario mumbled. "Now...let's do this!" Flim and Flam exclaimed at the same time. "No!" Twilight yelled. "You don't have to do this-" She was suddenly interrupted by the shovel trying to ram her, but getting smashed into the ground. "Why did you even build this?" She asked, landing after jumping out of the way. "Well, we built this to hopefully mine some rare ore here in equestria!" Flam exclaimed. "We could make a fortune selling that rare ore!" Flim continued. "and I'm sure you three would love to be our test dummies!" "Mario, take care of these IDIOTS!" Starlow exclaimed, gritting her teeth. Mario then nodded, and Starlow entered his pocket. "Look, did you really need to attack us like this?" Twilight asked, as they rammed the shovel at her again, and she jumped out of the way. "You could kill us!" "No no no...we're not planning on killing you!" Flim exclaimed. "We just want to...knock you out, I guess you could say." Flam continued, rolling his eyes. "We could make millions off of you!" "We're not objects!" Twilight replied. "We're living beings too! Yet again, you're being controlled by your selfish desires!" "Oh no..." Flim protested, "We're not being controlled at all!" "This is of out own free will!" "You jerks..." Mario mumbled, pulling out his hammer and charging at the machine. "YAAARG!" He screamed as he flew through the air, just as he was about to hit the machine the bomb arm knocked him out of the way, and Mario landed on the ground. The arm then flung a bomb at Mario, and he used his hammer to bounce it back at the machine. It then hit the machine and exploded. "Ow!" Flam exclaimed. He then leaned in to whisper to Flim's ear, "I though this thing was impenetrable." "I thought that too." Flam replied, whispering back, "But as long as they don't know, we should be fine...right?" Mario then jumped back up to his feet, and gave Luigi a determined look. "Luigi, ready for a bros. attack?" Mario asked. Luigi just stood there, and a couple seconds later, he replied, "Oh yeah!" They then locked hands, and Mario started spinning. Holding onto Luigi and gaining more altitude, and eventually threw Luigi at the machine, but he just bounced off. "OW!" He exclaimed as he smacked against the ground. He then pulled out his hammer, and tried to smack the machine again. "Uhh...let's do this!" Flam exclaimed. He then pressed a button and it tossed another bomb at Luigi. "Why did you do that?!" Flim exclaimed, grabbing Flam. "I-I hit the wrong button!" Flam replied. Luigi then bounced the bomb back at them, and it penetrated the machine again. "I think the bombs are what we need to destroy the machine!" Luigi exclaimed. "Ummm...no no no!" Flam exclaimed. "We gotta hit them with bombs!" Mario exclaimed. Twilight then approached the machine. She surrounded the bomb arm with a pink aura and tried to rip it off. "Oh no you don't!" Flam exclaimed. They then tried to pull the arm away from Twilight, but her magic was too strong. "Hrrg..." Twilight groaned, using all her strength to try and pull the arm off. "UH-UH oh!" Flim exclaimed. With a huge TEAR sound, Twilight ripped the arm off and their entire bomb supply came falling out onto the ground. "Y-YES!" Twilight exclaimed, panting. "M-Mario and Luigi, finish the machine off..." Twilight exclaimed. Luigi then jumped up and picked up a huge portion of the bombs, and had them all stacked in his hands. Mario pulled out his hammer, and Luigi started tossing Bombs from his pile, amd Mario launched them at the machine. "No...NO!" Flim exclaimed. "We're going down!" Flam shrieked as the machine exploded. (You can turn the music off now) The machine exploded, leaving the Flim Flam bros. lying on the ground. "Brother...do you know what this means?" Flim asked Flam. "That I do..." Mario stared at the twins "..." Twilight stared at the twins "..." Luigi stared at the twins "..." Starlow stared at the twins "..." "RETREAT!" Flim exclaimed, as they hooked onto the dual-saddles and carried the caravan away. "Give them what they want!" Flim exclaimed, as he used his magic to pull the Segment of the caravan and drop it in front of the team. "Phew...that was hairy..." Starlow exclaimed. "Well, looks like we got the next segment!" She then flew up to it, "Who's a good boy? Yes you!" She teased. The segment jumped up and down. "Well...there's plenty of fun back at the Wiggler head!" Mario exclaimed, patting the Segment. "Why don't you go back and play with the other segments?!" The Segment then jumped up and down and ran towards the portal. "Three down, one to go." Luigi said, locking his hands behind his head. "Well, let's not waste any time!" Mario exclaimed. They then made their way through more of the forest. They traveled for hours, and the sun started to dip below the tree line. "I'm exhausted..." Luigi groaned as they traveled. It was then that they saw the last Segment in the distance. "There it is!" Luigi exclaimed. They all ran up to it, and it ran as they tried to catch it. "Grr..." Mario gritted his teeth. They then chased it for a solid ten minutes. "This is so FRUSTRATING!" Mario screamed t the heavens. "Well uh, I don't think screaming will fix it." Luigi said, lifting a finger. "Here, let me try and grab it with my magic." Twilight exclaimed. She then walked approached it, and as soon as it saw her it bolted. She tried to chase it but it kept running away, until it eventually jumped through a portal. "NO!" Twilight screamed. The trio followed it through the portal, and found themselves back at wooded woods. Except this time it was even darker than usual. Suddenly, the Wiggler Segment ran by. "There it is!" Twilight exclaimed, as she was about to run after it, another one jumped up behind her. "W-Wait...I though there where only four Statements?" She said, lifting an eyebrow. Suddenly, they noticed there where 20+ Segment in the woods with them. "Wait...Luigi, do you know where we are?" Mario asked. "Uhh...Wooded Woods?" "Yes, but...do you know what's in Wooded Woods?" Luigi then thought on that for a minute, and gasped. "No...Boos woods?" Suddenly, all the Segments ran in opposite directions...