Luigi POV

I made breakfast. Two slices of toast and some bacon. Mario walked in, yawning. "Good morning bro!" I said cheerfully. I always made sure to put on a happy face for him, after all, if I didn't, no one would. The people who lived around here didn't tend to like us. Probably because we were always going on dangerous adventures and whatnot.

"How have things been going with Varian?" I asked him. Varian was a scientist, and one of my brother's new friends. He was professor E. Gadd's great nephew, and a nice kid. I think he's about 16 or something, so quite a bit younger than us, but still nice. Mario had been working with him on creating something to help keep Bowser away from the castle or something. Mario has been working hard to make the Mushroom kingdom safer, trying to prove that he isn't a bad guy and that he was actually only trying to help everyone. Mario yawned again. "Was up all night working with him, but our project is almost done. Don't worry Luigi. Soon we'll make the Mushroom Kingdom safe, and everyone will love us." I smiled at this. "That's great news! Varian must be so excited!"

People tended to avoid Varian too. He was known for his inventions always blowing up, so he was working really hard on making something helpful in order to make people see that he wasn't dangerous.

Mario nodded. "Yep! Soon everything will get better! ....For all of us." He looked over at me. People especially didn't trust me. When word got around about the incident with the Ultimate Show, people begun to fear me even more. It was like they were afraid of me, but I usually ignored this. Once Mario helps make sure the Mushroom Kingdom is secure with this new weapon he and Varian are working on, everything will get better for us. I know it!

I got up and hugged him. "I can't wait!"

Mario POV

I finished breakfast and headed over to Varian's house. The kid and I had been working really hard on this weapon. This was it, our chance to gain the trust of everybody in this Kingdom. I would love to walk the streets, not feeling like everyone's judging me. I was going to make life here better. For me and Luigi both. I arrived at the kid's lab. Varian lived alone, since both his parents had died, and E. Gadd was always off researching something who knows where. I don't know if E. Gadd is even aware of the kid's existence. Varian greeted me at the door.

"Ah! Mario! H-hey!" The kid waved. I smiled and waved back. "Hey Varian! Ready to get back to work?" He smiled back at me. "Of course!"

I first met the kid about three months ago. He moved into town, saying that his parents were both killed in a chemical explosion, which destroyed his old home. He said he was looking for E. Gadd, who was his only living relative left, however I told him that E. Gadd never really stayed in one place. Varian decided to just settle here and try to survive. When he first arrived, he made his reputation as the dangerous scientist quickly, as within the first week of living here he accidentally caused a small chemical explosion, in attempt to make something helpful, injuring two toad children. I felt bad for the kid, since everyone seemed afraid of him. I helped him get back on his feet, loaning him some money and offering to help him out, and we eventually became friends. He really was a sweet kid. He was a little shorter than me, incredibly skinny, had messy black hair, and grey eyes. He tended to wear a red shirt with a black apron over it, brown pants, and black boots.

He walked me to the back of his house. He only really had two rooms in his house, since he couldn't afford a big place, so one room was used for living and the other was his lab. He walked me back to his lab and showed me what we had been working on. "The gun is all charged up. Now, we should be able to take an enemy's soul, causing them to freeze until the soul is returned." I nodded. We had been working on this gun for a few weeks now. I was hoping we could use it to stop Bowser from attacking our kingdom again. The gun freezes the target's body, and takes their soul, holding it inside the weapon. If you fire it back at the same target, it returns their soul and they are able to move and think again. This way, we'd be able to finally stop Bowser once and for all, without actually hurting him.

The kid tripped over something while leading me to his lab. He was always a little clumsy. I laughed a little and caught him. "Whoa, careful kid." He stumbled to regain his balance. "I'm fine. Heh." I laughed at his clumsiness. He walked over to the weapon and picked it up. "I left it charging all night, so it should be fully operational now," Varian said. I smiled. "Good! So how do we know if it works?" Varian gestured to a cage. Inside was a small rat. "We test it. Don't worry, the rat should feel no pain, and once I return it's soul to it, it will be completely unaffected." I smiled. "Okay, fire away."

Varian put his goggles on, and slowly aimed for the rat. "Okay, one....two...three!" He fired at it, a purple beam of light shooting from the gun to the rat. The rat froze, color draining from it's body and it's eyes turning dead cold. Varian smiled. "It worked! Now, to put it's soul back!" He zapped the rat with the gun again, and the rat returned to normal. I sighed a happy sigh of relief. "It worked!" I said, running to hug the kid!

Varian put the gun down, took his goggles off and hugged me back. "Everyone's going to finally trust us!" He said, smiling. "I know! Things are finally going to get better!"

Varian POV

We did it! We really did it! I hugged Mario back, almost crying happy tears. I don't think I've actually been this happy since my parents died. All I wanted in life was to use my skills for good, to show the world that science was powerful, and now I could! Mario went home for lunch, saying he would return in about an hour to help check our weapon to make sure everything was working exactly how it should. We wanted to make sure this weapon was 100% functional, because I swear, if I messed up one more invention, people would come after me. It didn't take long for me to realize that people here weren't exactly the most.... trusting.

Once Mario left, I went to my bed and took out the picture of my parents from under my pillow. "Hey Mom, Dad. Guess what," I asked them. They smiled back at me. 

I know talking to your dead parents' picture seems weird, but I'm not crazy, I promise.

I continued. "We got the weapon right! I still don't know what to call it, but that doesn't matter. Heh." I started getting a little teary. I always get this way when I talk to them. "I think you guys would be really proud. Mario says things are going to get better from here." They looked happy. "I think you guys would have really liked him. He's been really helpful to me. Even though he isn't very good at science, he's been a great lab assistant."

I started softly crying. I always do this when I talk to them. Memories of their death flooded my brain again, just like they do every. single. day. It had been exactly 97 days since it happened.

It was my fault, and I knew it.

97 Days Ago

I was sitting, experimenting with flammable chemicals. I loved mixing them, creating new solutions, seeing what would happen when different chemicals were mixed, just random experiments and stuff. My dad called out, "Varian! Son, time for dinner!" I smiled. "Hold on a second!" I had a project I had been perfecting just for him, it was something that would cook food at an incredibly fast rate. I know how much he likes to cook, but he always complains about how long it takes, so I thought this was a good solution! I think after days of testing, I finally created the perfect compound to help me do so. All I had to do was test it. I took my new chemical solution. "Now, all I have to do is add some of this." I grabbed for a vile of one of my more safe, unreactive compounds, but accidentally took a highly flammable solution which would not react well when mixed with the solution placed right in front of me. "Now let me just-" I poured the compound in, when it instantly went up in flames. I shot backwards, hitting my head on the wall. I saw as the flames made their way over to my table of elements. "Oh, NO NO NO NO!" The flames quickly spread towards all my other solutions. I quickly looked towards my window, and jumped out, knowing that when the flames reached that table, a large chemical explosion would go off. I took off running as fast as I could, forgetting my parents were inside. Suddenly, I heard a large booming noise, and everything went black.

It all happened to fast.

I woke up to my house in ruin. My ears ringing. "Mom?? Dad??" I called out.

But nobody came.

Present Day

"Nobody came" I started sobbing over the photo. "I'm sorry Mom. I'm sorry Dad. I didn't mean to. I didn't want to."

Third person POV

Mario knocked on Varian's door. Varian quickly got up, wiped his tears away, and welcomed Mario back in. "Hey, back already?" He asked. Mario nodded. "Yep! Now let's check this thing, then get it down to the castle so it can be put to use!" Varian nodded. "Alright! Right this way!"