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Chapter 11: Stuck Between a Frog
and a Hard Place
-Masamune-
By this time, Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and the elected
shyguy's had launched their attack on Wart's fortress and
have already been caught...
"Hehehe... You fell into my trap and now I can
extract my revenge... then I can get rid of that pest
Koopa..." Wart chuckled at the unfortunate plumber
brothers and their friends, "Now, how should I get
rid of you..."
After awhile Wart decided to ponder this in quiet and
leave the group guarded by the complimentary minions
provided by Kamek.
"So Bro, what are we going to do?" Luigi
asked after Wart had left and the minions had fell into a
drowsy slumber.
"Well, Yoshi can get rid of the minions... but
none of them have the keys" Mario answered.
"Leave that to me" One of the Shyguy
chirped, producing a lockpick kit.
-Ace Rimmer-
"Yoshi, you up to 'disposing' of our guards?"
Mario asked.
"Of course! I've haven't eaten in a few hours
now!" Yoshi said, licking his lips. In a few shots
with his tongue, their cell now left unmonitored.
"Okay, it's time for you to do your stuff little
guy!" Luigi said.
"Okay, just wait a sec, we'll be free in no time!"
the Shyguy responded. He went busily working on the lock,
while the rest waited patiently.
"Hey Mario, how much time do we have before
Bowser said he'd take over the Mushroom Kingdom?"
Luigi pondered out loud. Mario turned to Luigi shaked his
head.
"I don't know, we have three days, four at most.
Hey, we'll make it in time, besides there are other
heroes in the Mushroom Kingdom..."
"There! The doors open guys!" the Shyguy
said. He opened the door, and Mario bounded out into the
corridor, only to be spotted by another contingent of
guards meant to replace the sleepy (and now eaten) guards
in the next shift.
"Hey!", one of the guards shouted, "Who're...
THEY'RE ESCAPING! SOUND THE ALARM!"
"Great. C'mon! We gotta get outta here, and
quick! Luigi and I will hold off the guards while
Yoshi'll lead you somewhere. Let's go!" Mario said
quickly.
"But, what about you?" Yoshi asked.
"We'll be fine, right Luigi?" Mario said.
"Piece of cake. At least we won't die of boredom..."
Luigi mused. Mario and Luigi rushed outside and braced
for the oncoming minions, while the rest fled into the
darkness of the corridors.
-lzn64-
Yoshi and the shyguys took off past Mario and Luigi
and into a doorway that was located not far off. The
shyguys had some knowledge of the general layout of the
palace, and so they took the lead. Yoshi followed,
looking back with a concerned expression toward his
friends, who he could no longer see. (good luck, guys...)
He thought, and then he assumed a determined countenance
and quickened his pace.
"Where are you taking me?" Yoshi asked, as
the party raced along various passages.
"Out of here, of course!" One snifit, who
had apparently taken the leadership position among his
teammates, shouted back.
At this, Yoshi stopped dead in his tracks.
"No, way! You're kidding, right?" He said
incredulously, staring at the snifit. "We have to
find the heating system!"
"You're not a plumber, I'm afraid, and there's
no telling when and if Mario and Luigi will be able to
shut it down."
"What do you mean, if? Besides, how hard can it
be to break down a stupid heating system?"
"Er... well..."
"Exactly!" Yoshi cried. "Now, take me
to it!"
"I don't know where it is, though... I've never
been there..."
"Then let's start toward a corrider you've never
been through."
The snifit sighed, not liking this plan at all, and
turned into another doorway. Yoshi followed suspiciously,
and vowed that if they ended up outside the palace he'd
eat the snifit, friend or not.
The snifit must have sensed that, because after a
while they stood at the entrance to a dark hall. He
sighed heavily, and turned to face Yoshi.
"Okay. I've never been through this hall before.
It's heavily guarded."
"No problem," Yoshi replied, licking his
lips.
"That might get you through the first line, but
I'm warning you, there's only two places in here I've
never been. One is Wart's chambers. The other is the
heating system, and both would be armed with more guards
than you could possible hope to eat, modified digestive
system or no."
"Well, I'm not leaving without trying!"
Yoshi said defiantly, crossing his arms.
"Okay...." The snifit said, shaking his
head. He led them through the dark corridor and placed
his hands on the door. He took a deep breath and turned
the knob, not sure whether the door would open on Wart's
personal chambers, or the central heating system...
-Masamune-
"So.. I tells 'im, if ya think yer gonna squish
me, ya got 'nother thing coming. I'll wh..." The
goomba suddenly stopped and looked at the door and saw
Yoshi and the Shyguy gang "INTRUDERS!"
A Magikoopa suddenly stepped out in front, "I'll
take care of these, go warn Master Wart that the
prisoners escaped"
The goomba ran off as the Magikoopa narrowed its eyes
at the Shyguys. "Ara Kali MAZA!" The Magikoopa
mumbled, then pointed at one of the Shyguys causing it to
burst into flames.
"Kono!" The lead Snifit cried, "ou
killed Kono... You'll pay for this!"
"Will I?" THe Magikoopa asked
sarcastically, "Ari Kali MAZA!"
One of the Snifits burst into flames this time.
"Stop it!" The lead Snifit cried, firing a
bullet towards the magikoopa's forehead.
"Kata Farore!" The bullet suddenly turned
around, fortunately Yoshi and the shyguys jumped out of
the way in time.
Yoshi quickly leaped into action, ready to swallow
the Magikoopa.
"Tinicus shrankila!"
Yoshi's attack didn't connect as he suddenly shrunk
to about the size of one of the Shyguy's shoes.
"Anyone else?" The magikoopa asked devishly.
"All right guys..." The lead snifit said
slowly "We have to hold him off long enough for
Mario and Luigi to shut off the heating system and defeat
Wart... we might not make it alive. But we have to fight
for our dignity and the other shyguys at home"
"Right!" The shyguys said together, they
all got into battle poses and launched their attacks.
"Multipilicus illusitory!" The Magikoopa
suddenly split into twenty different illusion, "Can
you find the right one? You hit the wrong one and it
explodes... choose the right one and you don't die,
Ready?"
The shyguys were surrounded and desperate, one of the
less patient ones charged at what looked to be the right
one. His charge was met with an explosion instantly
killing him.
"Tsk, tsk" The magikoopa laughed, "You'll
have to try harder if you wish to succeed!"
One of the snifits fired at a magikoopa, but the
bullet was met with fire that followed the snifit and
consumed it as well.
"Oh dear, no cheating! Their are seven more of
me and only five of you" The magikoopa taunted,
"You can still surrender and tell me where the
plumbers are"
The lead snifit was furious and looked at the other
snifit with him, "Let's do the circular fire... it
might kill us but we'll find the right one"
The other snifit nodded, and jumped in the air and
began firing randomly, the lead snifit followed suit and
fired at all of them. Each one vanished until the main
one was hit, preventing the fire from killing the snifits.
"Argh, I won't forget this..." The
Magikoopa sneered, "We'll meet again!"
The magikoopa suddenly vanished and Yoshi returned to
normal size.
"Whew..." Yoshi sighed, "We'll have to
be more careful"
"What!?" We just lost four of our men!"
Yoshi paused, he hadn't even though of it like that.
Before a shyguy was a enemy, killing one made no
diference. But these Shyguys were good and had saved him,
and he hadn't cared that four lost their life helping him
and the Mario Brothers.
"I'm sorry..." Yoshi admitted, "But we
still can't give up..."
-lzn64-
"What are you talking about? You heard him,
Wart'll be sending his personal guard after us any second
now!"
"Well, I've been in worse situations."
"We lost five comrades to a single magikoopa! If
we're faced by Wart's entire army we're all toast! Surely
you see that!"
"In any case, I'm going on ahead. There's no use
just waiting here like sitting ducks."
"Well me and my men are leaving. And if you had
one single ounce of sanity, you'd follow suit."
"Just call me crazy!" Yoshi retorted,
practically skipping down the hall, while the gang of
snifits and shyguys looked on, with slack jaws. Their
self appointed leader turned to go, but stopped short as
he realized his men weren't following him like they
usually did.
"What are you doing? Let's go."
"We can't just abandon such a recklessly loyal
guy as him..." One shyguy replied, looking down the
hall, where Yoshi had dissapeared. "He's brave and
all, but he's way too careless. He's gonna walk right
into a trap or something."
"That's his problem."
"It became our problem as soon we were appointed
to help them through this," a snifit said wisely.
The entire group then proceeded to run full blown
down the hall after Yoshi, leaving the leader to stare
after them stupidly. He cursed under his breath, then
turned to go.
"I guess I'm the only one here who's not
suicidal..." He muttered, as he walked toward the
palace exit.
"You're still dead meat!" A harsh voice
replied. "Traitor!"
The forsaken leader raised his masked face to the
owner of these rash words, and his eyes widened as he saw
what faced him. A very large company of shyguys, snifits,
beezos, and tweeters crowded the hall. Without a second
thought, he turned and was racing down the hall after his
companions.
"Wait! Guys! Hey..." He yelled, his voice
trailing off as he sprinted back through the dark passage.
The harsh-voiced leader of the large company of Wart's
warriors grinned maliciously, and waved his troops to
follow.
And follow they did. Yoshi and the small group of Sub-Con
warriors heard them approaching even before the
overthrown leader returned to warn them of their approach.
Yoshi looked back behind them, a tendril of fear slipping
into the mask of determination on his face.
(I hope Mario and Luigi are having more luck than me,)
He thought, then he was racing recklessly after his group.
-Masamune-
"Is that it?" Luigi asked as he set the
wrench down and faced his older brother. "That
should do it, now we just have to find Wart" Mario
answered.
The two made their way out of the ventilation shafts
and into the hallway. Before they could do much anything,
several shyguys flew past them followed by Yoshi. Behind
Yoshi was even more shyguy's, only meaner and obviously
were Wart's minions. The two plumbers quickly started
running after their friends in attempt to get away. The
two suddenly collided in the back of Yoshi.
"Hey, what's the hold up?" Luigi asked.
"Wart..." The snifit up firend said
fearfully.
"That's right!" A goomba chirped, "Now
your going to get it!"
"Ahh, you have done well... of course your plans
had been foreseen and I have prepared for them" Wart
said cruelly, "Your friends barely beat the
Magikoopa. But I am your first true challenge to reach
Bowser. I do not intend to let you leave here alive, now
we fight to the death!"
"Enough with the speech" Mario retorted
"We'll beat you like last time!"
"Really? I do beleive you are in lack of
vegetables this time" Wart chuckled, he waved his
arm and spat out eight bubbles, which levitated in the
air and surrounded hm.
"Go ahead, just try and attack!" Wart
cackled.
-Ace Rimmer-
The corridor opened up into a large cavernous rooms,
with lit torches attached to the wall at regular
intervals. All the passageways leading out of there were
filled with Wart's minions, leering and jeering at Mario
and his companions. They were surrounded with a wall of
opposition on all sides, made up of stone and flesh.
"Not so sure about winning this time Mario?"
Wart taunted.
"I don't need any vegetables, I'll just have to
knock you down the old-fasioned way... Ready Luigi?
Yoshi?"
"We're with you Mario."
"You can count on us!"
"How touching, our guests say some parting words
before being sent to the great beyond!" Wart said.
"But I want this to be a one-on-one fight..."
With those words, the bubbles head aloft above his head
were sent flying forward faster than the eye could follow.
Luigi, Yoshi, and the remaining snifits were incased in a
magical bubble.
"What? Huh... No! No!!!" Luigi said. He
pounded madly at the walls of the bubble, but it was all
in vain.
"Heh heh heh, you might want to save some of
that air in there for later, Luigi!" Wart said.
"You... you let them all out right now!"
Mario demanded.
"What? Ha! That's a good one, but you are in no
position to force me to do anything." Mario jumped
forward, vis-a-vis to Wart. All around him, assorted foul
creatures were in an uproar, and tossing their encapuled
prisoners around. Mario raised his fists in opposition,
and said: "It ends now Wart. This time there is no
sequel." Wart focused his thoughts and a great
rumbling from deep within the earth. A bottomless chasm
formed between the walls and the inside of the battle
arena. Wart tossed aside his cloak and withdrew a rather
plain looking staff, with a piece of jet-black onyx was
affixed to the top of it with a small diamond set within
it.
"You are right about one thing," Wart said,
"It ends now." A great blue aura surrounded
Mario and his companions. The great mob backed away from
it's piercing radience. Wart himself brought up his arms
to shield his eyes.
"What? What is happening?" Wart said "This
isn't my doing... It isn't supposed to be like this!..."
-lzn64-
As Mario and Luigi were walking out of the ventilator
shafts in Sub-Con, Geno, Jinx, and Mallow were following
the Princess out of the castle. They had been victorious
in their battle, although Mallow had suffered a nasty
bump on the head, and the blue hallway was now a tattered
mess. Peach giggled quietly to herself as she thought of
Bowser's face when he saw THAT.
Peach turned a corner, and proceeded to nearly run
right into Kamek. She stopped just in time, and
thankfully, the head magikoopa seemed too caught up in
his own thoughts to notice the surprised princess. Geno,
who was right behind her, grabbed her silently and
propelled her back out of the magikoopa's sight. They
both could hear Kamek mumbling, and Peach's fists
clenched in anger at what she heard.
"I know that stupid frog isn't heeding my
warnings..." Kamek muttered, as his hands waved
across the walls, searching for something. "He'll
take matters into his own slimy hands like he always does...and
you can bet that I'm not going to stand for it! Those
dirty plumbers should have already sprung the trap Wart
mentioned..."
"Wart!" Peach whispered frantically, "and
the plumbers he speaks of must be Mario and Luigi!"
She struggled against Geno's restraining arms, but he was
too strong for her, obviously. "Let me go!" She
said a bit too loudly, as Kamek looked in their direction.
He shrugged and continued his ramblings.
"There'll be no helping them if we get caught
too!" Geno said in reply to Peach's struggles.
Peach, seeing the wisdom in this, nodded her head. They
then turned their attentions back to Kamek. Mallow and
Jinx crowded in beside them, straining their ears to hear.
"I'll go and make sure Wart has conceded to the
orders of the Koopa Kingdom myself!" Kamek was
saying. At that moment, his hands found what they had
been searching for, and a tiny click was heard. The wall
split and opened, and the magikoopa stepped through.
Geno led his companions through after him, before the
wall could shut behind him. They were nearly blinded by a
whitish blue light, which was pulsing from the wall in
front of them. Geno squinted into it, but Kamek was
nowhere to be seen.
"Where is he!?" Peach yelled in
exasperation, shielding her eyes.
"You guys..." Mallow said timidly, "The
door shut."
The other three turned around to face the prince, who
was pointing to where the door had been just a few
seconds earlier. Geno shrugged.
"We weren't planning on going back, anyway."
"You're darn right, we weren't!" Peach
hissed. "This must be a portal to Sub-Con! Unless
Wart has taken residence somewhere else..."
"Do you know who this Wart person is, princess?"
Jinx asked, a questioning look on his face.
"Do I ever! He seems to be obsessed with ruling
the world of dreams, and let me tell you, he's quite
insane. There's no telling what that bubble-belching
idiot will do if he catches Mario and Luigi in that trap
Kamek was talking about!"
"Then what are we waiting for?" Geno
yelled, standing next to the pulsing wall. "Let's go!"
And so saying, he jumped through. Peach nodded and
followed suit. Jinx shrugged, and hopped through the wall
after them. Mallow took one last look at the wall behind
him, where the door should've been, sighed loudly and
walked up to the blue wall. He stuck his hand in
experimentally, and was promptly sucked through.
After a period of terrified screaming, he was spat
violently out of the warp zone to a very tense situation.
He saw Kamek first, who was yelling something in a very
angry voice. Mallow gasped as he caught sight of the
object of Kamek's anger, a large, slimy frog creature. (That
must be Wart...) He thought, staring in fear. He tore his
gaze away then, and saw Mario, looking in confusion at
him, his companions, and Kamek. He also saw Luigi, Yoshi,
and a small company of shy guys, trapped within very
disagreeable-looking bubbles.
Before Mallow had even finished making these
observations, Geno had figured out the source of Wart's
power was the staff he was clutching. The wooden figure
sprinted toward it, as Wart raised and pointed it at
Kamek. He knocked the wand off course as the beam of
magic exited it, and instead of frying Kamek on his
broom, Wart only managed to put a long black scar on the
wall.
The frog prince howled in fury, and whirled on the
blue clad pest who had attacked him. Geno picked himself
off the ground, shaking his head dizzily, and so was
completely unprepared for the sudden pain of Wart's
acidic bubbles, which hit him dead on.
As Geno collapsed, Mario saw his chance. He had no
idea how everyone had gotten here, but he did know that
Wart had to be stopped to get to Bowser. He rushed at
Wart, who was turning around to face him even as he ran.
Time seemed to slow down for the plumber as he rushed
forward. Mario saw Wart turning, with his wand poised. He
saw Peach out of the corner of his eye, and it seemed
that a great weight was lifted off him just knowing that
she was safe. He saw his brother, encased in his prison,
and rage boiled inside him as he witnessed this insult,
this infraction on the team that was the Super Mario
Brothers. At the moment when his feet left the ground, as
he leaped toward his third self-proclaimed arch enemy
ever, he felt absolutely invincible.
He connected with his target, sending him sprawling
forward, and more importantly, dislodging the wand from
his grip. Mario and Wart rolled crazily across the marble
floor of Wart's chambers, until the self oppointed
dictator of dreams hit the far wall with a sickening thud.
Mario disloged himself from the tangle, just in time to
see Mallow grab Wart's wand and free the imprisoned
heroes.
He payed little attention to that however, as his
eyes were focused on the Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom.
He watched her as she worriedly turned Geno over, and
carefully placed her hands on his chest. He watched her
as she began to glow with a faint pink color,
transferring healing energy to the injured alien. And he
watched her as she helped him up, and as her eyes met
with his own.
Before either of them could say a thing, however,
Kamek flew his broom expertly to the center of the room,
and laughed cruelly.
"Congratulations, plumber! You have just saved
the Koopas the task of dethroning that imbecile, and
handed control of this world over to us!" He
chuckled as Mario's angry gaze locked to his. "Good
luck trying to do the same with King Bowser, who is, by
the way, nearly complete with his conquest of the
Mushroom Kingdom."
So saying, he dissapeared within the blue portal,
back to Bowser's Castle.
The princess and her six heroes looked at each other
for a split second, and followed without needing to say a
word.
And the remaining shyguys that had been instructed to
help them snuck quietly past the evil minions, who were
frantically attempting to revive their fallen leader,
their job complete.
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