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Chapter 7:
High Tide
-lzn64-
At about the time that our happy trio first heard the
beezos approaching, Peach and her mushrooms were facing
an equally life threatening problem. The castle was
rapidly filling with water, in fact, the entire party of
mushrooms and their princess were crowded into the top
floor of the castle.
Bowser, however, was formulating his own plan... He
stormed out of the top tower, and down the "endless"
stairs, where Peach and her people were watching with
dread as the waters rose up the stairway. The mushrooms
all shrank away from him in terror, but Bowser took no
notice of them. He went straight to the princess, knocked
Toad out of the way when he bravely tried to defend her,
and threw her carelessly over his shoulder. He ignored
her kicking and screaming, and started back up the stairs.
When he reached the top of the tower once again, he sent
an impressive blast of fire at the cone-shaped ceiling,
burning straight through it. Rain immediately began
pouring through the large opening, but Bowser ignored it.
He waited patiently for five minutes, began tapping his
foot until ten, and just when it looked like he was about
to throw a tantrum, a large, ominous shape temporarily
blocked the rain.
It was the infamous clown copter, Bowser's ultimate
trump card. His eldest son, and consequently his
brightest, steered the copter skillfully throught the
hole in the ceiling.
"Excellent work, Ludwig." Bowser commented,
stepping into the contraption, with the princess
protesting all the way. Ludwig nodded appreciatively, and
steered the copter back through the hole, taking his
father and his captive to safety.
However, the mushroom people were not quite as safe,
as water was now pouring in from above, as well as
flooding from below. Toad took a deep breath, and yelled,
as loud as his little voice could go, for the mushrooms
to listen to him.
"Come on!" He yelled, making his way toward
the stairs, "Bowser must have escaped, somehow, and
that means there's a way out of the castle!" After a
moment, the rest of the drenched, disheartened mushrooms
decided to follow him.
-Ace Rimmer-
Toad reached the top floor of the castle, carrying a
torch that was smoldering in the rain. It was dark, as
the clouds obsured most of the natural light from the sky.
Behind him were scores of stressed out, tired, angry
mushroom people who were desperately serching for a way
out. Toad threw a rope up in the hole in the ceiling
where Bowser's Clown Copter docked and it managed to hook
onto a stone bordering the edge of the tower. He checked
to see if it was secure and climbed up.
"Hey, you guys stay here for a while, I'll see
how Bowser got away." Toad suggested. He could tell
by the look in their eyes that they wouldn't obey him for
long, as the sounds of gushing and churning water echoed
below them. Toad climbed up and looked up, rain pouring
down on him, and heard a faint sound in the midst of the
din from the storm. Suddenly lightning flashed and he saw
the silhouette of Bowser's Copter, it's rotor spinning
madly, it's spikey-shelled occupant holding onto a small
figure beside him wearing a crown.
"The Princess! No... no... NO!!!" Toad
yelled. His protests were muffled by the clap of thunder
that followed. He looked around him, the minimal light
provided by the illuminated clouds showed a torrent of
water, waves crashing upon each other, and there was no
sign of land from where he could see.
"This time... Bowser's gone too far." Toad
said to himself. "Where are you Mario?"
Bowser smiled at himself. "Your reign of peace
and... heh heh... laws... is over little Princess!"
"Yeah!" Ludwig added, simply to agree with
him father.
"You... you are so... there aren't even words
for to describe what you are. When Mario gets here, and
teaches you a lesson on abducting the Princess ('again'
she said to herself,) I'm gonna issue scholars to make up
new words to describe what you are!" the Princess
protested.
"Ha! Ha ha ha... Once we get to my castle, we're
gonna negotiate our new... treaty. HA HA HA". The
Princess face turned to a shock of horror and she took
one more gaze back at her now water-logged kingdom.
"Where are you Mario..." the Princess
longingly asked. What the Princess didn't know was that
there was another powerful friend who she knew that was
also working to rescure her, and rid the Kingdom of
Bowser's rule.
Back in Sub-Con...
Mario squinted to see into the darkness.
"You see anything?" he said.
"Nope, not yet." Luigi responded.
"Wait, I see something!" Yoshi said with
alarm. The Mario Brothers leaned into the
blackness, hoping to see anything. However, Yoshi had
a keen sense of vision, evolved in their species to see
heat and the faintest glimmer of light. "It's
flashing... it has two eyes... and... it's, IT'S COMING
RIGHT FOR US!" The blackness soon subsided and was
filled with a glorious glow, supplied by a quartet of
Sparks heading their way.
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