The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2

Chapter 6: Desert Hill

Mario and Luigi petted their yoshis' heads as the dinosaur-like creatures drank from a nearby stream. The brothers soon followed their example and splashed themselves with water. Intense heat bore down on them from above and radiated across the sand dunes around them.

"Mamma mia, why did Peach and the toads want to colonize here?" Luigi fanned himself with his cap, but Mario remained more optimistic as he looked around.

"Aww, Luigi, Peach knows what she's doing. If she chose this place, it must be worth it." Mario assured Luigi, who smirked back at him.

"Right, and it has nothing to do with the fact that Peach herself picked it." Luigi chuckled, but his brother waved him off.

"Come on, Luigi."

"Yeah, I'm sorry if I, uh, well, interrupted anything at the festival." Luigi lowered his tone and tried to avoid Mario's gaze but soon felt his brother's arm around him.

"Luigi, you didn't do nothin. Peach and I, well. After we beat Bowser again, there'll be all the time in the world for, well." Mario's evasive response caught Luigi off-guard. However, his older brother soon went back on him.

"How about you and Daisy?"

"Huh!? I, I mean, I don't even know if you could even call us friends. I mean, I just met her in person the other night. I guess she's willing to help us, but after this, she'll probably head back to the human world. Go back to her career, and forget all about me." The air left Luigi, who stared at his reflection in the stream.

"Yoshi!" Blue Yoshi nudged and licked Luigi with a reassuring look while Mario likewise brought him back upright.

"Hey, listen to Yoshi here. I see the chemistry between you two. She may be a famous athlete, Luigi, but she's also just a person. You saved her back in the festival more than once."

"Yeah, just like Peach is just a person. But you, you're a hero. You never give up on anything. When Peach sees you, she sees a man. Me-"

"Luigi, look at me!" Mario now forced his younger brother to eye level by the shoulders.

"You're every bit the man I am. We're brothers! Two Italian plumbers from Brooklyn. Do you think I considered myself out of Peach's league cause of that!? Luigi, you need to stop thinking of yourself as just my little brother. Back in the Mushroom capital, I saw the way Daisy looked at you. She didn't see some guy's little brother or some plumber. She saw a hero, and she saw a man. That, Luigi, is who you are." Mario's speech lit a fire inside Luigi, who now stood at his full height.

"Yeah, it's no wonder Peach looks at you the way she does. You're right. What are we standing around for!?

"Yoshi!" Green Yoshi jumped up in an imitation of Mario before the brothers led them onward toward a yellow-roofed toad house. After an excited greeting from a dozen or so toads and toadettes outside, the heroes stood over two wooden chests within.

"Go on! It wasn't easy, but we saved them for your arrival! We knew our heroes wouldn't abandon us!" The toad elder clasped his hands together as the brothers each picked up a power-up and set it in their Yoshi's saddle bag.

"Where are the koopalings?" Mario and Luigi tightened their fists as the older brother asked. Both saw the toads and toadettes shiver or hold each other while the elder sighed.

"Still on their rampage, most of the colonists are turned into creatures. This way." He led the Mario Brothers back outside and to a hilltop. Once there, Mario and Luigi looked upon the desert colony. Despite the ocean of sand, dozens of rivers and oases provided plenty of water for farmland and hundreds of palm trees, which appeared to dance. The rest of the colony did not share this beauty. Dozens of buildings, houses, roads, and pyramids either lay in ruin or became ruins before swarms of rampaging koopas.