The rain poured off of Mario and Luigi’s roof.  Inside, Mario and Luigi sat on the floor in their living room, working together on a puzzle.

Luigi held the box lid in his hands, studying the picture on the cover.  The picture showed that the completed puzzle was supposed to be a photo of a bunch of kittens in a basket, but right now, all they had finished was some of the border of the puzzle.

Mario was getting frustrated.  "I could probably make most of these pieces fit if I cut them with scissors."

"No," scolded Luigi, knocking the scissors out of Mario's hands, "that's cheating.  Don't cut up my puzzle!"

"But this way is taking too long!"

"No it isn't.  Look." Luigi completed the face of a tiny orange kitten on the floor in front of him.

"That's a stupid kitten," said Mario.

"No it isn't," argued Luigi.  "It's cute.  Look at its eyes."

"That cat's eyes look like barf," said Mario, crossing his arms.

"Come on," said Luigi.  "Just help me work on this puzzle.  I helped you sort your socks the other night; won't you help with the puzzle?"

"I hate these kittens," complained Mario.

"We'll be done in a few hours if we keep at it," said Luigi as he matched two more pieces together, forming the small paw of the gray kitten.

Mario turned his head to the side, closing his eyes defiantly.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

"I'll get it!" said Mario, taking this opportunity to get away from the puzzle.  He jumped up from the floor, ran over to the door, and looked through the peephole.  "It's Peach!" Mario eagerly opened the door.

"Mario, guess what!" asked Peach, elegantly.

"What?" asked Mario.

"I think we should go to a bed and breakfast!" She pointed at the front of a brochure.  "This brochure says there's one over in Twilight Town! A weekend of love-filled nights under the twilight sky...  Doesn't that sound romantic?"

"What?" groaned Mario.  "Why?"

"I think we need to spend a little more time together!  We haven't had a decent conversation in a while."

Mario looked over at Luigi, who was dutifully putting more puzzle pieces together.  Mario would do anything to get away from the stupid puzzle.  "Okay, fine."

Peach was thrilled.  "All right! Let's go!"

"When?" asked Mario, looking down at his watch.

"Now! Come on!" Peach pulled Mario out of the house, through the rain, and into her carriage.

"Bye, Mario," Luigi waved from the floor, not taking his eyes from the puzzle.

As she and Mario stepped out of the carriage, Peach realized that Twilight Town was nothing like she had had in mind.   "The sky...gross!"  The sky was a sick brownish-grayish-red color... as if the sky were burning.  The huge moon rested high overhead.  The ground was parched and dusty.  "This isn't what I had in mind at all..."  Peach looked very disappointed and wished that the carriage wasn't already pulling away.

"Oh, it's all right.  At least I'm here!" said Mario as he showed her his biggest smile.  Peach smiled back.

Few dark, leafless trees stood in the middle of the small village.  Crows sat on the bare branches.  The houses were shrouded in shadow.  Except for a few prickly bushes, there was nothing but dirt on the ground.

A dark, sad-looking figure dressed in rags with a large hood that shaded his face approached Mario and Peach.  "Go away!"

Peach was shocked.  "I beg your pardon!"

"No!" said the shadowy local.  "Go now!  Or you'll be cursed, just like the rest of us!"

"Cursed?" asked Mario, startled.

"What do you mean, cursed?" Peach asked inquisitively.  Suddenly, DONG!, a bell tolled, and POP! the villager turned into a pig.

"Oh my goodness!" blurted Mario.  He looked around, and noticed several other little pigs roaming around the town.

A ruffled, sad old man walked up to greet Peach and Mario.  "Hello," he said, "my name is Dour.  I'm the mayor of Twilight Town."

"Hello, Mayor Dour," Peach politely acknowledged.  Then she grabbed the mayor by the collar, and shaking him, asked, "Tell me what the heck is going on!"

"Not here," he said.  "Let us go to my house."

They walked into his small little house.  It had only one room.

"What's going on?" Mario asked the mayor.

"Ahhh..." droned Mayor Dour, "this town has had a terrible curse put on it."

"Mamma-mia!" cried Mario.

"A monster inside of Creepy Steeple has laid a curse on this town.  Whenever the bell there is rung, one of us turns into a pig!"

"That's awful!" said Peach.  "Mario, we've got to get out of here!"

"I wish we could, but our carriage left already!"

"That's awful!"  Peach turned to the mayor.  "What can we do?  I'll do anything to avoid being turned into a pig!"

"Well," droned the mayor, "the only thing that there is to do is to go to Creepy Steeple and destroy the monster!  Creepy Steeple is east of town, on the other side of Twilight Trail."

"Let's do that!" approved Mario.

"All right.  Let's just not get my dress dirty."

Peach and Mario exited the mayor's house and were walking to the east gate of Twilight Town when a hooded, tired-looking woman slowly intercepted them.  "I'm so hungry.  My kids are starving.  Please...give me something to eat."  Mario handed her his corn dog.  "Oh, thank you very much."  She turned toward her house, but suddenly, DONG! the bell tolled again, and, that's right, POP! the woman turned into a pig.  The corn dog fell to the ground, and the pig hungrily scarfed it down.

"Oh my goodness!" Peach screamed.  "I hope we aren't next!"

"Yeah," said Mario.  "Better her than me."

The two reached the exit gate, but the gatekeeper wouldn't allow them to pass.  "I'm sorry, but it's really dangerous out there.  You have to get the mayor's permission to exit the town.  Get the mayor to come here."

"Well, fine!" huffed Peach.  They started to walk back, but halfway there, Mario and Peach heard the bell again.  DONG!

"Oh no!" said Mario.

Peach frowned.  "I wonder who it was this time.  Oh no, I hope it wasn't the mayor!"

But surely enough, Mario and Peach realized upon entering Dour's house that the mayor was now a pig.

"Oh no!" said Mario.  "Now we can't get permission to exit town!"

"Well," said Peach, picking the mayor up, "this will have to be enough proof that we seriously need out of this town."

Peach and Mario exited the mayor's house, and DONG! the bell tolled again.

"Holy cow!" said Mario.

They reached the gate to see that the gatekeeper too had been turned into a pig.

Peach set the mayor down next to the gatekeeper.  "Well, given the circumstances, this is horrible, but it's great news for us!"  She and Mario stepped over the pig and slipped right through the gate.

They both walked together through Twilight Trail.  Peach carried the brochure and read it as they traveled.  "Hmmm..." she said.  "According to the brochure, it is always twilight here.  That's creepy--perpetual twilight.  Isn't that creepy, Mario?"

"Yep."

"Imagine it never being sunny.  Never running through the sunlight.  That's sad."  Peach looked upset.  "Hmmm... perhaps I should have read this pamphlet more carefully...I just saw the words 'bed and breakfast', immediately thought of you, and got the carriage to take us both here.  What a terrible idea."

"Yep."

The farther they walked from Twilight Town, the darker the sky grew.  The trail eventually went into a forest.  Everything got even darker as the trees blocked the light, but it wasn't too dark for Mario and Peach to see.

Peach began to grow worried.  "Mario, I'm scared.  I don't want to become a pig!"

"Don't worry," shrugged Mario.  "You'd probably be a very attractive pig."

Finally, Peach and Mario reached Creepy Steeple.  It was made of old-looking gray bricks.  The gate was closed, and the fence was impossible to climb over.

"How do we get in?" asked Mario.  "Maybe there's a secret entrance at the bottom of that well over there," Mario pointed to the small well outside of the fence.

"Stop kidding, Mario," said Peach.  She walked up to the gate, pushed it open, and laughed.  "The gate wasn't locked, just closed!"

She walked through into the courtyard, and Mario followed.  The courtyard probably used to be a large garden, but there was nothing here but dirt, a few dried-out weeds, and a cracked cement path.  Peach walked up to the door, started to knock on it, but hesitated.  "Should I knock, Mario?"

Mario didn't know whether it was better to say yes or no, so he just shrugged a little and muttered, "I dunno."

"Well, thanks, Mario.  That's a big help."  Peach creaked the door open slowly.

"Watch out, Peach.  Let me go first."  Mario entered the steeple, and Peach followed him.

The inside of the steeple was surprisingly large.  Moonlight shined in through the stained glass windows.  A bunch of Boos floated around inside the steeple.  Some were big, some were small.  Mario and Peach walked past them, then slowly walked up the stone spiral staircase, anxious to see what monster awaited them at the top.

When Mario and Peach reached the top of the staircase, they were surprised to see that there was nothing at the top.

"What do we do?" asked Peach.

Mario looked all the way around him, then up at the ceiling.  "Oh, a trapdoor!" A trapdoor was built into the ceiling.  Mario tried to jump to reach it, but despite his incredible jumping abilities, he couldn’t reach.

"Mario, let me climb up on your shoulders," requested Peach.  Mario happily obliged.  Peach climbed up on Mario's shoulders, and could reach the trapdoor to pull it down.  She pulled herself up through the trapdoor into the ceiling, then reached back down to help pull Mario up.  "Gee, Mario, you need to lay off the pasta!" She struggled, but they were both finally up.

This room was very dark.  Mario fumbled around for a light switch.  Peach found a thin cord dangling from the ceiling, and pulled it.  The dim lights flickered on.

A small ghost-like monster, perhaps only two or three feet tall, stood in the corner.  He looked like a tiny man with a sheet dangled over him, kind of like how kids dress up as ghosts for Halloween.  Except this was no sheet.  This was real.  He had eyes and a mouth, he had on a blue party hat with red polka dots, and a blue bowtie.  This was one incredibly bizarre creature.  "Hey, go away! You’re interrupting my 'me' time!"

"You..." Mario asked the monster, "are you the monster?"

"Yes, I most certainly am! I am Doopliss, master of magic and spells and stuff!"

"Oh, I bet he's the one who's turned the kind people of Twilight Town into pigs!" accused Peach.

"Why are you turning the people into pigs?" asked Mario forcefully, pointing a finger at Doopliss.

"They're all so sad and stupid," explained Doopliss.  "And so, I thought that instead of wallowing in gloom, they may as well wallow in mud!" He started laughing.  "And now they're pigs.  Get it?"

Mario couldn't help but smirk, but Peach was upset.  "Doopliss, that's horrible!"

Doopliss was shocked.  "No, no, come on, it's fun!" He turned to Mario, and said, "Would you care to join me?"

Mario looked over at Peach, who was shaking her head.  "NO!" shouted Mario.

"Turn those pigs back into people, you freak!" demanded Peach.

"What's this?" asked Doopliss, taken aback, "are you turning against me?"

"Yeah, I guess so," said Mario.

"Nobody turns against Doopliss!" he sputtered.  "Fine! If you don't want me to have fun turning people into pigs, then... I'll just have to find another way to have fun.  Hmmm...  I know the perfect way to have fun."

A purple ray of light shot from Doopliss' eyes, scanning Mario.  Then, suddenly, Doopliss magically transformed into an exact duplicate of Mario.  You see, Doopliss is a very mischievous but special and powerful Duplighost.  Duplighosts are ghost creatures that can transform into anything they see at will.

Mario always hated copycats.

Doopliss pulled the light's cord, and the lights went out.

Peach fumbled through the dark for the cord.  Even though she couldn't see anyway, she closed her eyes so that the darkness didn’t feel so uninviting.  "Mario, are you there?" she shouted, but there was no answer.

When she found the cord and pulled it, the lights came on, but Doopliss had taken Mario and they were already out of the room.  Peach was all by herself.  "Mario, where are you?" She was starting to get worried.

She carefully lowered herself down through the trapdoor.  "Mario??" she hollered.  She cautiously went down the spiral staircase.  "Mario??"  She exited through the front door into the cold, dark air.  There, in the dimly-lit courtyard, she saw Mario and Doopliss, who both looked exactly the same.  Unfortunately, Peach couldn't tell them apart.  Mario and Doopliss stood exactly alike.  "Okay," she said.  "Which one of you is the real Mario?"

"I am!" said Mario and Doopliss at the same time, with the same voice.

"Don't listen to him, Peach!" shouted Mario.  "I'm the real Mario!"

"No, don't believe him!" said Doopliss, exactly as Mario would say it.  "I'm the real Mario.  He's an impostor!"

"Nuh-uh!"  Mario was shouting.  "Here, Peach, look at my ID!"  Mario whipped out his wallet from his back pocket and showed her his license.

"What?  No, that's mine!"  Doopliss pulled an identical wallet out of his back pocket, and showed Peach a copy of the same license.

"Ohhhhhhhhh," groaned Peach, "I don't know which one is the real Mario!"

"I am!" yelled both Mario and Doopliss.

Peach could resort to nothing else.  She pointed to Mario, who was on her left.  "Eenie..."  She then pointed to Doopliss.  "Meenie..."  And she switched back over to Mario.  "Miney..."  And she pointed back to Doopliss.  "Moe."  As she sang the song, she switched back and forth between Mario and Doopliss.  By the time she ended her song with "Moe", she was pointing at Doopliss.

Peach ran over to Doopliss.  "You must be the real Mario!"  She hugged him.

"Wrong-o!" laughed Doopliss as he dramatically transformed back into his true form.  He jumped back out of her reach.  Then, an eerie orange beam shot from Doopliss' eyes, surrounded Peach, and lifted her up in the air.  Then, when the orange beam disappeared, a huge bubble surrounded her, causing her to hover helplessly in the air.

"Help me, Mario!" screamed Peach.  "I can't get out!"

Mario tried to jump and reach the bubble, but it was no good.  Peach was stuck a good ten feet up in the air.

"You let her down right now!" requested Mario.

"No.  I like this.  Now this is fun!" laughed Doopliss.

Mario picked up a small rock off of the ground, and threw it at the bubble.  It made a noise as as it bounced off.  It sounded as if the bubble were made of glass, but it wasn't.  Just magic.

Doopliss laughed.  "Ha ha ha, you'll have to throw harder than that!"

Mario picked up a slightly larger rock, and threw it as hard as he could at the floating bubble.  Again, it just bounced off.

Doopliss laughed even harder.  "You'll need a lot more force to break through that thing, you silly mustache-man!  Tons of force!"

"Mario!" said Peach, "Try it with a running start!"

Mario picked up yet another rock, stepped a few yards away, then ran full steam at the bubble and threw the rock.  The rock just bounced off.

Doopliss broke out in tears, he was laughing so hard.  "You're never gonna break that bubble!  HA HA HA!"

Mario picked up another rock, and threw it as hard as he could at Doopliss' face.

"OUCH!" complained Doopliss.  "Why you little--I'm gonna turn you into a pig next!"

"Nooooooooooooo!" yelled Peach from her bubble.

Mario kicked some dirt into Doopliss' face.  Doopliss wailed.

Mario threw more rocks at Doopliss until he was knocked out.  As soon as Doopliss was out, DONG! the bell tolled, and the bubble around Peach disappeared.  She fell butt-first onto the soft, dirty ground.  "Awww," Peach complained, "I was hoping I wouldn't get my dress dirty."

"What do we do with Doopliss?" Mario asked Peach.  "Do we throw him down the well?"

"Yeah, sure," said Peach.  They both picked Doopliss up, and threw him into the well.

"Mario, thank you so much for saving me back there!" Peach thanked Mario as they traveled back through Twilight Trail.

"Hmmph," grunted Mario.

"What was that?!" asked Peach, indignantly.

Mario sadly looked at Peach.  "You couldn't tell that I was the real Mario!"

"Oh," Peach looked at her feet.  "It was really hard to tell.  You both looked and sounded the same."

"I thought you loved me..." said Mario.

"I do love you!" said Peach.

"Then why did you choose Doopliss?"

"I swear I thought he was you!"

"But I'm me!" he shouted loudly.

"I know!  You're you!  I'm sorry!" apologized Peach.  "Sorry sorry sorry!"

Mario got an idea.  "I'll forgive you if you say 'I love you' a hundred times."

"Again?  Oh, Mario, don't make me go through all that again!"

"Hmmph."

"Oh, all right!" Peach gave in.  "I love you.  I love you.  I love you.  I love you.  I love you.  I love you.  I love you..."

When Peach and Mario returned to Twilight Town, everybody was thrilled to see them.  Nobody was a pig anymore! Now, instead of pigs, there was just a bunch of depressed villagers dressed in rags.

Mayor Dour was at the front of the crowd of poor, happy villagers.  "Thank you very much for saving our town! It’s now a much better place."

"Oh," Mario blushed bashfully.

"Please," said Dour, "we invite you to stay in our bed and breakfast for free! It's the least we can do to thank you for saving us all!"

"What do you mean, 'the least you can do'?" asked Mario, crossly.  "Do you imply that you could do more?"

"Mario, please don’t!" begged Peach.  She turned to Dour, "I’m really sorry about this…"

Mario continued his angry rant as the crowd of villagers gasped.  "So we risked our own lives to save your stupid lives, and you do the least you have to in order to pay us back? What are you, a bunch of cheap little Goombas?  I liked you better as pigs!"  Then he wordlessly took his cap off and, violently shaking it in the air high above his head, shouted incoherent words and stomped his feet angrily.

"Mario, stop!" Peach grabbed Mario’s arm, turning him away from Dour and the crowd.  She whispered, "Let’s just go to the bed and breakfast."

"No!" Mario huffed quietly.  "I hate these people.  Stupid cheap monster people." He shouted, "Stupid cheap monster people!"

"Mario!" Peach shouted at him, "how could you talk this way to these nice villagers? They may be poor, but they’re really nice! How could you talk this way to them?"

"Hmmph."

"Come on, Mario," pressured Peach.  "Let’s go to the bed and breakfast.  They've got pizza!"

Mario smiled.  "Okeydokey!"  He said, to Dour and the crowd, "Uh, sorry all of you!"

Dour only raised his eyebrows.

Mario dragged Peach, hand in hand, to the bed and breakfast.