Luigi and Yoshi tensed themselves, sure that Lakithunder would conjure another string of lightning any moment now.
"Give it your best shot," Luigi seethed.
In response to Luigi's words, Lakithunder directed a more lethal string of lightning toward the thin Mario Brother, which, somehow more agilely than from his previous quests, Luigi managed to dodge. He practically back-flipped out of the way.
"I can a-dodge with class," Luigi bragged.
Yoshi widened his eyes. "Whoa, who knew Luigi had the skills?" he whispered under his breath.
"Who's talking to you?" Lakithunder roared at Yoshi; it was easy to tell that the grumpiness in his voice was from the fact that Luigi managed to dodge his "best shot."
"That's easy to answer—you are," Yoshi said with a taunting voice, thinking that somehow pricking at Lakithunder would make him lose his cool and care about nothing but hitting.
Lakithunder gave out an angry roar. His hands surged with twice as much electricity from his so-called "best shot."
"He's a-losing it," Luigi muttered to Yoshi with obvious glee.
Lakithunder shot the string of lightning toward the green dinosaur. "I'm gonna make you dinosaur fry, you numbskull!"
Yoshi was able to dodge, albeit only barely, and he did something next that Lakithunder wasn't expecting—he grabbed an unsuspecting Spiny egg and used its spikes like a lightning rod to absorb it, and shot it toward Lakithunder!
"What the—? Hey!" Lakithunder raised his storm cloud and barely dodged the lightning-surged Spiny egg thrown at him, with less class than Luigi and Yoshi ever had.
Luigi saw that, despite being able to discharge lightning, Lakithunder wasn't as quick at recovering from dodges and blows, and he immediately took advantage of it.
"Hey, Lakithunder," Luigi called toward the slightly sagging flying Koopa. He picked up a nearby Spiny egg—and immediately dropped it with a cry because he took a wrong grip and ended up getting pricked by the spikes, then got it again—and aimed at Lakithunder's face.
"Score that old pasta," Luigi said with a snicker as he saw the pained and flustered look at Lakithunder's face.
"Argh—that's it," Lakithunder growled, clearly losing his cool. "That's how you'll play the game, huh? Well, let's see just how long you two dopes will keep it up." And with that, he raised both his hands (both of which surged with mean lightning) and, much to Luigi and Yoshi's surprise, he shot them just about everywhere around the entire World Seven.
"Dafuq?!" Luigi cussed. Yoshi looked at him with wide eyes.
"You sure can swear, pal," the green dinosaur said.
"A-what was he doing that for?"
"I have no idea—" Yoshi's reply was cut short the moment he noticed what was happening; Lakithunder was spreading the lightning throughout and among the clouds so that eventually they would build up the entire time the traveled among the clouds, charge up, and, much worse, speed up so just even a hit from the lighting would be like winning a ticket to the fiery pits of World Eight.
"I hope you brought out some food for your picnic, sickos!" Lakithunder practically howled with laughter. "'Cause there'll be something roasting around here!"
"Oh no, this is a-bad," Luigi gulped. "We a-may deflect the lightning with Spinies, but I doubt we can predict just when and where will the lightning rise up and a-strike at us!"
Luigi and Yoshi turned and retreated a few paces until their backs touched each other. They both had a hand clutched onto a Spiny egg.
"Eyes open, pal," Luigi said.
"That won't be a problem," Yoshi said as nodded.
They tensed their eyes on the clouds, fully aware that, though they saw nothing, lightning was traveling within them, through them, building up, speeding up, and eventually finding a good—or bad—time to strike.
That was when Luigi realized something. Whenever there would be a storm, then...
He closed his eyes and gave his full attention to his sense of hearing. Other than the breathing, his and Yoshi's, there was another sound underlying among and within the clouds. He counted the beats that followed after the sound, and before the next one.
The sound was closing in, getting closer, so much so that Luigi could've sworn he had a hunch as to where the sound would come next.
Luigi started in a panicked state and quickly forced his words to fly out of his mouth.
"Yoshi, jump out of the way, quick!"
Jolted slightly with the sudden hastiness of Luigi's words, Yoshi sprang into action, but he was a second too late. Where Yoshi had been standing, the lightning appeared from beneath the exact same spot he was standing, and the very edges of it slashed across the green dinosaur's arm. In automatic, silent response, he dropped the Spiny egg he was clutching so tightly on, which somehow rolled until it fell off from the sky like it came from the heavens.
"Yoshi!" Luigi screamed.
Yoshi couldn't respond, he was momentarily paralyzed from the static incident. He curled, but the movements were stiff; his mouth was open, but no words came out.
Lakithunder laughed maliciously, like the kind of laugh that came with witches and ruthless psychopaths. "Dino," he sneered, "you sure don't look so good!"
"A-that's it!" Luigi roared. "You'll a-pay for that!"
"Really, huh?" Lakithunder seemed pleased with the exasperation in Luigi's face. "Your dino sidekick did you a favor when he snapped you out of that filthy illusion, but now it looks like he ain't so lucky this time around." He raised an eyebrow at the thin Mario Brother, who was clearly fuming right now.
Luigi said nothing in response, his hand was still clutching onto the Spiny egg he held.
"Well, I guess it's time for you to go back to your fantasy land...permanently!" Lakithunder's hand surged with electricity and he pointed a charged finger directly at Luigi, ready to release.
Luigi just stood unmoving, his mouth a straight set and the hand that was holding the Spiny egg didn't raise nor did it move in response to Lakithunder's actions.
"Nothing?!" Lakithunder howled with startled and amazed laughter. "Absolutely nothing—you're just standing there?! You've really given up, huh, pal?"
Luigi didn't respond in any way.
"Fine, then—I bet you were wishing you'd gone back to your happy place, huh? With all your friends, Mr. Hero Wannabe? I can see that, you know. Don't worry," he snickered, "allow me to give you a one-way ticket back there!"
As if to give emphasis to his words, all the electricity from his hands focused their way to the finger that was pointing at Luigi, and all of it was released and rocketing straight at him.
Lakithunder could only guffaw when he saw the lightning strike the spot Luigi stood. The green plumber would've been no more.
But, as the smoke began to clear, he wasn't.
"You saw wrong!"
Lakithunder stopped his laughing fit cold when he heard the voice that made him want to retch—unharmed, smug and pleased.
"The hell—!" Lakithunder snarled.
The smoke had cleared enough for him to see that Luigi wasn't the recipient of the lightning, but the Spiny egg that he'd been holding so tightly on to. The Spiny egg absorbed the lightning on all sides, on all spikes.
"But—how—what?!"
"This is for Yoshi," Luigi said inaudibly, taking advantage of Lakithunder's bewildered state. He jumped and, with every effort his muscles could give, he gave the charged Spiny egg a massive kick—thanking his Mario Strikers appearances for the soccer practice—and the lightning-charged Spiny egg ricocheted straight onto Lakithunder's face, knocking him off his storm cloud.
"Ugh," he groaned, unable to get up easily since he was lying down with his shell to the cloudy floor.
"Hey, Lakithunder," Luigi called.
"What the heckuva do you want?!"
"Hope you brought some food for your picnic," Luigi quoted Lakithunder's words a while ago.
"What are you talking about...?" Before Lakithunder could even think much on Luigi's words, a massive force of lightning shot straight at him from below, very much like what happened to Yoshi; the only difference was while Yoshi barely dodged, Lakithunder wasn't able to dodge at all. He screamed as the lightning struck him, hundreds of times harder, hundreds of times more powerful, but the scream could do nothing. In fact, there was just so much of that lightning that Luigi could barely even see Lakithunder being fried alive.
When the huge lightning bolt was no more, all the green plumber could see now was a black shape, which broke down into ashes.
"Go off to fantasy land by yourself...slick," Luigi said to the ashes.
He then ran to Yoshi, who was injured and still paralyzed from the shock. The green dinosaur shuddered a few times.
Thinking of a way to help his friend, he searched into his overall pocket until he found something he got back in Yoshi's Island.
"Here, pal," Luigi said as he held out an herb and held Yoshi's mouth so that it was open. "I think you need this."
Luigi supported Yoshi's head so that the green dinosaur would be able to at least chew the herb.
Yoshi squinted through his closed eyes a few times (obviously struggling to open them) and exerted just about enough to be able to take in the herb Luigi gave to him. He chewed weakly and slowly.
Silence followed.
"Y...Yoshi...?" Luigi called his pal hesitantly.
Yoshi squeezed his closed eyelids and his mouth moved just a bit. Luigi could've sworn he saw the fingers twitch.
Then Yoshi opened his mouth (just a tiny open gap) and spoke one word.
"Luigi..."
"Yeah, it's a-me, Luigi."
Yoshi opened his eyes wide now, and jolted upward to a sitting position as if he were Tasered at the back.
"Oh...!"
"You're back, pal!" Luigi cheered.
"Of course I am!" Yoshi laughed.
The duo laughed along for a few minutes, just to savor the moment of another victory, then Luigi held his hand out.
Yoshi took it, and the green plumber helped him up.
"Where's Lakithunder?" Yoshi asked.
"Oh, that? He's gone." Luigi gestured to the ashes. Yoshi's eyes widened in surprise.
"You sure showed that Lakithunder who's boss," Yoshi said.
"Uh...," Luigi said nervously, blushing.
"By the way, pal..."
"Yes, Yoshi...?"
"How...did you do all that?!"
"Do...what?"
"How'd you know that one of the lightning bolts Lakithunder had let loose among the clouds was coming for me—that it was going to strike from where I stood?"
Luigi just stared at Yoshi, speechless.