| |
Chapter 17:
Getting in is the First Problem...
-Sapphire-
The three snifits all glanced at each other, then at
Booster, who shrugged. "Sure there are secret
entrances. Unfortunately I can't tell you them."
Luigi arched one bushy eyebrow in surprise.
"Why not? I thought you were going to help us."
Booster smiled. "Sure I'll help you. But you
see, the thing about them secret entrances is that
they're no longer secrets."
Luigi's face fell. "Oh... I see." he said,
exchanging glances with Peach. "We'll have to figure
something else out."
The two of them turned and began to walk, but Booster
called after them.
"Now wait a minute! There may be something..."
Peach turned around quickly, but with disbelief
reflected in her eyes. "What is it?"
Luigi put a hand on her arm. "Careful, it could
be a trick. He only just thought of it, right this minute.
Who knows, you could still be in cahoots with Bowser."
"Well, it may not be safe o' anything... I only
just thought of it, because it stopped being used a while
back, and so I never thought to mention it to anyone. And
why would I be in cahoots with him, when he stole my
tower? I say, payback."
"What do you get out of it?" Luigi asked,
rubbing his mustache thoughtfully.
"All I want is my tower back. I'll leave you
folks alone, I promise!"
The three snifits all agreed. Peach pursed her lips.
"Hmmm," she said softly, "So now you're
willing to be our guide?"
"Guide?" Booster said in surprise. "I
can't be no guide. It's bad enough I remembered this old
secret. I can tell you where it is though. One o' my
snifits will help you out."
"Deal," Luigi said. "And this better
not be a trick, or else."
The expression on Booster's face was unreadible.
-Masamune-
The one chosen was known quite simply as 'Snifit 2',
Luigi insisted on calling him something else. But the
snifit would have it no other way. The snifit informed
him that he needed to find a path to the back of the
castle. He returned later to report his findings.
"Well?" Luigi asked.
"No way around it, the cloud's don't spread past
the palace..." Snifit 2 reported.
"How are we going to get in?" Luigi
questioned.
"I recall there being an invisible road near the
castle..." Peach though out loud,
"Perhaps we can use that to get around"
"We have to find it first..." Luigi mumbled.
The three started walking along the cloud's edge,
careful not to slip off and plummet to the ground below.
As much as they were unable to locate any entrance.
"Too bad, eh?" A voice whispered from
behind one of the building, "Almost every theif
knows that path..."
"Who's there?" Luigi demanded.
"Oh come now Peachy..." The voice whispered
ruefully, "You didn't forget this voice did you?"
Peach thought for a moment, "Raz?"
"No.." It mumbled.
"Wario?"
"No!"
"Tatanga?"
"No! Croco you imbecile!" The reptilian
bandit yelled out, "Just like you to forget such an
invaluable specimen such as myself... Anyhow, you want
the secret path? I know that path... I use it all the
time..."
"Will you show us?" Peach asked.
"Perhaps... but for a price..." Croco
answered, a greedy glint in his eye.
-lzn64-
"All right, Croco, what's this 'price' you're
talking about?" Luigi sighed irritably. Croco, one
of the most widely known theives in the Mushroom Kingdom,
(and most strange looking, as well) was infamous for
charging you ridiculously for a tiny amount of help- and
robbing you blind in the process.
"It's nothin' really, I wouldn't cheat an old
friend..." His beady eyes focused on Peach with
batantly false innocence in the them. She rolled her eyes
and shook her head at the thief, plainly discounting his
words.
"So what is it, Croco?" She asked, placing
her hands on her hips.
"I only want a piece o' land- right by that
magnificent palace you've got, of course." Croco
spoke as though his demand was the most reasonable thing
in the world, though Luigi and Peach knew that it was
anything but.
"You must be joking!" She cried, staring at
Croco in disbelief. "You'll steal everything if I
allowed that!"
"Now, princess, would I do such a thing?"
"Yes. No doubt about it," Peach replied,
turning toward Luigi. "What should I do?" She
implored him, spreading her hands in a gesture of
helplessness.
"Well," Luigi quietly suggested, taking his
eyes momentarily off the nearby Croco, "I think we
should give it to him."
"I don't know..."
"He undoubtedly knows of an entrance to the
tower, he's probably robbed it thousands of times, in
fact," Luigi pointed out, crossing his arms.
"And what if he doesn't come through for us?"
Peach worried, looking back over her shoulder at the
impatiently waiting Croco, who was tapping his foot and
staring at her with irritation. Peach resisted the urge
to stick her tongue out at him, and turned back to Luigi.
"You're the princess, Peach. You can revoke his
property rights if you want, no one's gonna stop you."
"Yes, but-"
"But nothing. Give him his property, on the
condition that we succeed in getting in the tower. If we
don't get in, he doesn't get his end of the deal, either."
After a great deal of arguing and grumbling on the
account of Croco, who "didn't negotiate his terms,"
the unlikely quartet marched of toward the imposing
tower, led by the muttering theif. They squished along
the clouds without any major catastrophe, and eventually
came to a stop at the edge of the puffy ground, facing
the relocated Booster's Tower.
"Here it is, folks! One entrance to the tower,
like I promised," Croco grinned, obviously pleased
with himself.
"There's no entrance here," Snifit 2
disagreed, looking at Croco quizically.
"And even if there was, how would we get there?
Fly?" Luigi fumed, glaring at Croco.
"Hey, hey, HEY!" Croco yelled, meeting
Luigi's glare with a face equally gruesome, "I'm not
finished yet. Watch this." Croco began to search in
his bag, which wasn't as full as normal- probably because
of the recent weather- and after a bit of clanging and
banging, popped out again with a small bag.
"Great, we're saved!" Luigi called
sarcastically, hands crossed over his chest.
"What's in the bag, Croco?" Peach, who was
considerably more open minded than Luigi, questioned
quietly.
"Watch," was the answer she received, and
all three of them did so as he walked over to what seemed
like open sky. His hands reached into the bag, and pulled
out a brown, sandy substance. He tossed some out in front
of him, but instead of falling back toward Bean Valley,
it seemed to fall on a solid bar of land, outlining what
looked like a bridge. Peach, Luigi, and even Snifit 2
stared at Croco with surprise- and mistrust.
"Is that, magic?" Peach gasped, her gaze
shifting toward the bag of sand.
"Nope, it's sawdust," Croco laughed,
tossing the bag toward the surprised three, obvously
basking in the moment. "It's a real bridge, use that
stuff so you can see it. It doesn't go straight across,
so I suggest you use it a lot."
Luigi tapped the visible part of the bridge
experimentally, and found it to be quite solid. "So,
what, does it zig zag or something?"
"There's no pattern, and the path changes daily,"
came the disdainful reply. "This is where I split.
Remember our deal," the purple skinned creature
warned, and then he took off toward the more inhabited
parts of Nimbus Land, rubbing his hands greedily.
That left the suspicious trio to decide whether or
not they should make the dangerous crossing, over an
invisible bridge. Luigi sighed heavily, and bent to pick
up the sack of sawdust.
"So, what now?" He gestured toward the
broad expanse in front of them, which led to a certain
death in the watterlogged Bean Valley if fallen through.
"Something tells me you can't trust that guy,"
Snifit 2 mentioned. The grey-clad minion placed a foot on
the saw dust, then drew it away, leaving a footprint in
the dust.
"Well, I guess I'll go first, then," Luigi
bravely volunteered. Peach gasped, and went to pull him
back, but before she could reach him he had jumped out
onto the "bridge."
"Wait!" She cried, but seeing that she was
too late she covered her eyes in fear. When she didn't
hear the sound of her friend falling to his doom, she
cautiously peeked between her hands, afraid of what she
might see.
What she saw, was Luigi standing on what looked like
empty air, obviously surprised himself.
"Hey, that lizard wasn't lying," He
cheered, jumping up and down happily. At every jump,
Peach winced involuntarily, imagining that the bridge
would crash down, bringing Luigi with it. "Come on,
Peach, it's perfectly safe."
"I wouldn't say perfect," the princess
doubted, stepping cautiously onto the bridge. Snifit 2
followed them out, looking around in interest. Luigi held
the bag in front of him, revealing the bridge in front of
them.
He hadn't gone far before the it failed to illuminate
a section of the bridge, and flitted forlornly toward the
ground. Luigi stopped abruptly, surprised.
"What's wrong?" Came the worried voice of
the princess, who was standing behind him.
"I think the bridge turns here..." he
replied, sprinkling a small amount of dust to the right
and left. the bridge continued to the right, and they
plodded on, careful not to look down.
"I just wish there was more of this stuff,"
Luigi worried, as the sack was unnervingly small- and
they had no way of knowing how long the winding bridge
would turn out to be.
-MumboJumboMan-
It was nearing midnight when the group was halfway
across the path.
"I still don't like this one bit," Peach
said. "This bridge could collapse at any second!"
"I would have to agree with the Princess.
Chances are that our combined weight is barely enough for
this path to hold," Snifit 2 admitted.
"Are you saying that I'm fat???"
"Um..."
"This is no time to argue, guys!" Luigi
interrupted. "Didn't Croco say that the path changes
everyday?"
"You're right! And it's...11:58!" Princess
gasped, looking at her gold-studded watch.
"Ack! Okay, okay, don't panic...Uh oh, we're out
of sawdust," Luigi groaned.
"But we're sooo close to solid land! Just a few
more steps!" Snifit 2 groaned back.
"But in which direction?" asked the
Princess.
"It's okay, just follow me..." testing the
air in front of him for a path.
"11:59."
"AUGH, just hurry up!" yelled Snifit 2.
"Okay, we don't have enough time to test the
pathway. Just jump! It's a really short distance! Luigi
proved this by leisurely hopping over. After years of
experience, this was like nothing.
"Okay, your turn!"
The Princess groaned, found her footing, and leaped
across as far as she could, landing several inches away
from the edge.
"Now you, Snifit!"
However, Snifit 2's short legs made it difficult for
him to jump. He took a few steps back...
"Ack! You have 5 seconds!" Princess gasped,
glancing at her highly accurate watch. 4...3...
Snifit ran forward.
2.
Snifit jumped!...and landed on the stretch of
invisible platform just ahead of him.
1.
Snifit ran as fast as he could, onto land.
0. A horrible grinding sound could be heard as the
platform changed position.
"...Okay, that was a bit too close," the
Snifit grumbled.
"What? You mean we could've just WALKED?"
grumbled Peach.
Meanwhile...
"Hah! Fool! Is that the best you can do?"
Lak laughed. The others were gasping for breath. They'd
been dodging Lak's thunderbolts for quite a while.
"...*gasp* Not yet, Lakitu," Mario growled.
"Well, that just won't do, will it? I'll just
have to get rid of you once and for all!"
"Oh really? And whaddaya plan to do?"
"I'm glad you asked!" Lak drifted out of
Mario's jumping range and concentrated deeply. Sparks
started to fly out from his cloud.
"Oh, I see..." Geno pondered.
"What is it?" Mallow asked.
"That cloud! I bet that that's what is
generating his energy! Don't you see those sparks?"
"Yeah, you're right! Well, I can take care of
that! Mallow stepped forward and casted the Snowy spell,
annoying and confusing Lak.
"Mario, NOW!"
"Alright! I see your point!..."
Mario abruptly jumped onto Yoshi's back.
"Jeez, what'd you eat yesterday, cement?"
Yoshi whined.
"Now's not the time, just jump!"
"But you know I can't reach him!"
"Don't worry about that. Just jump!
Yoshi jumped as high as he could toward the Lakitu,
but was a few feet out of reach. However, at the peak of
his jump, Mario leaped off of Yoshi's back higher than
he'd ever leaped before and grabbed Lak's cloud!
"Hah! Now I've got you!"
Mario snatched the cloud out from underneath him,
leaving Lak to plummet to the ground.
"Mmm! Yoshi hungry!" Yoshi said, opening
his mouth to catch the Lakitu.
"NOOOOOOOO"--*snarf*
"Mmm! Tastes like spaghetti!" Mario floated
to the floor on the cloud, to be greeted by the rest of
the group.
-Ace Rimmer-
"Good job Mario." Yoshi said as Mario
stepped off his newly earned ride.
"Is everyone okay?" Mario asked. Mallow
brushed some snow off his own shoulders.
"I'm fine." he said, "Just a bit
'snowed in'. You really finshed off that Lakitu Yoshi, I
don't think he'll be back to cause any more trouble."
"Well, the most he can do right now is
indigestion." Yoshi joked. The situation seemed to
have been resolved, so he took that liberty. "Oww...
that jump didn't really do wonders for my back..."
Yoshi sat down and stretched out his spine. "Where's
Geno?"
"I'm here." he said. He was refitting his
arm back on his body which was blown off by a lightning
volley. Being an animated doll, he could get away with
this without going into shock or experiencing any pain.
He rotated his shoulder a bit, then banged his arm a bit.
When he was satisfied with the temporary fix, he looked
up at all the astonished faces.
"I'm fine. Really."
Mallow filled in the lapse in the conversation.
"Now what?", he mused, "We've stopped the
weird weather. Is everything gonna go back to normal?"
"Yes... and no." Geno said. He was already
behind some of the stacks of books and reams of paper,
scanning through each with an amazing speed. He didn't
even look up to answer, his head just kept following the
pieces of raw data that leapt in front of it. "The
weather is still partially controlled by Bowser. He's
still channeling some latent power from the Dark World or
from somewhere else. But at least there won't be any more
massive floods or meteor showers by his hand anytime soon."
"Will the Kingdom go back to normal?" Mario
asked.
"Maybe. I just don't have the answers just yet."
"Is he... gone?" a reluctant voice said
behind a shelf of books, "That... 'Lakitu', you
said?, is it gone?" Mario looked aprehensively at
Geno. Mallow intercepted that look, and laughed.
"Guys! That's my dad. Yeah mom, dad, he's done
for. He's bought the farm."
"That's... that's good." Queen Nimbus said,
moving out from behind a potted plant toward the door,
"Did you get his assistant too?"
"What assistant?" Geno tried to say. Before
he could finish, the door which was against the wall
moved, and a meek Lakitu without a cloud jumped from
behind it and grabbed Queen Nimbus. He held a spikey to
her in one hand, and held the Queen in front of him with
another. Despite the Lakitu's rather unrobust figure, he
was still able to overpower her unsuccessful struggles to
free herself. The King, Mallow, Mario, Geno, and Yoshi
were powerless to stop him.
"No one move" the koopa said, "or else.
Now, hand over that cloud. Nice and easy. I'm not going
to the apprentice any more. I'm not going to abuse this
power like that fool did. I'm gonna rule this kingdom,
and Bowser's gonna make me the new favorite. I'm--"
Following that word, a flash of solid iron came down on
his head, producing a loud sharp tone that echoed through
the room. Time seemed to have stopped as the tone died
down and disappeared. Mallow held his breath. The
assistant finally dropped his spikey, released the Queen,
and promptly fell on the ground with a thud. Mario
dropped his shoulders in relief, and Mallow let out a
held in breath of air. Yoshi, caught off guard, was
stunned and stared at the doorway unable to say anything.
Geno then smiled.
"Aren't you guys glad I came." Peach said.
|
