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Chapter 13:
~Lzn64~
As it turns out, when Kolorado offhandly suggested that Tadpoule's
location was most likely "on some Muda beach," he hadn't been
terribly far off. Although he was not exactly on a beach, when the scholar
awoke, he found himself floating belly-up in some large body of water.
After mentally thanking the stars that he was a frog, he rolled himself
over and blinked his eyes a few times, wincing at the bright sun. He
rubbed at them vainly with his webbed feet, and after a short while
gained some measure of comfort. His amphibious skin did not take well
to the sweltering heat, however... he could feel the consequences of
his unconcious floating in the form of minor sunburns already. Even
the water was heated up to a nearly uncomfortable degree at the surface.
He flexed his limbs, at home in the water, hot or not, and began a
liesurely swim toward a barely discernable shore that lay in the distance.
Thankfully, it was fresh water he had landed in, and not the dreadfully
salty stuff that pooled in the oceans. Gliding gracefully through the
crystal clear water with perfectly executed frog strokes, it was not
long before he was pulling himself up on the sandy beach.
After searching the immediate area for signs of inhabitants, with
no luck, he decided to rest in the shade of a tall palm tree, one of
many that littered the beaches. As an accomplished scholar, he had taken
enough advanced geography courses to know his approximate location,
but specifics were out of the question until he could find some sort
of inhabitants.
Large mountains were visible from his viewpoint on the beach, framing
the lake he had recently been dropped in on the far side. Undoubtedly
the mountainous region of Easton was just beyond those craggy peaks,
and beyond that, his ultimate destination, Chai. The presence of such
a large quantity of water automatically placed him somewhere in the
Muda Kingdom, which was comprised of several larger lakes and rivers,
and a multitude of small streams that crisscrossed to leave the dry
land of Muda limited to nothing but a mass of scattered islands. The
largest of these islands, which he was apparently not lucky enough to
be on, lay in the very center of the Kingdom, and that was where the
majority of the population was located. The smaller, outer islands,
one of which he was now sitting on, were largely considered uninhabited,
but of course, vacation resorts had been erected on several of them.
The clear lakes and streams of Muda eventually dwindled along its
opposite border into swampland and miserable marshes, eventually drying
up completely to become the desert province of Birabuto. And beyond
that climate, which was especially unappealing to a frog such as himself,
there was his destination again; Chai.
The choice was obvious. He'd much rather brave the mountains of Easton
than the swamps and eventual desert land of Birabuto.
But for now, he would have to rest...
And so he did. Under the palm tree, the sighing waves and the monotony
of his own thoughts lulled Alexis de Tadpoule to a peaceful slumber.
***
From which, several hours later, he was rudely awakened by a prodding
foot in his side. He groaned and attempted to roll over, waving off
his would-be awakener, and then realized that SOMETHING was poking at
him on a supposedly uninhabited island.
At that disturbing thought he jolted awake, hopping back and nearly
stumbling into the water again. He rubbed the sleep-sand from his eyes
warily and peered forward, and in the orange light of the sunset, a
strange sight stood before him indeed.
"But your... your a..." He stuttered, his jaw dropping as
his mind buzzed for an explanation for THIS.
"Yoshi," The black dinosaur replied brightly, smiling at
him.
"Oh, great, and it just figures you'd be one of the lot that
doesn't know my language..."
"I can speak your language very well, thank you," She replied,
an offended note in her voice. "I was just finishing your sentence,
since you seemed to be having problems."
Tadpoule again allowed himself to be shocked.
"But... HOW? Yoshis don't live in Sarasaland..."
"Sarasaland? I'm visiting my cousins here on the island. Are
you lost, because you sure look confused," She added as almost
an afterthought, fixing him with a look of concern.
"You don't know what Sarasaland is?" Tadpoule asked fearfully,
ignoring her half-question. He had started to hope that he might get
some help when she had spoken his language, but if they didn't know
any world besides this...
"Well... I guess it's here, but I haven't heard it called that
for a long, long time. I guess I should get out more, huh?" She
grinned.
"Sure..." Tadpoule agreed absently, his mind working a mile
a minute. "Do you know where Chai is?"
"The big city? Of course... it's over the mountains. I've never
been there, though..." She said apologetically.
"I see. But you do know how to get there, if you were so inclined?"
"Not really," She shrugged it off, as though it were of
no importance. "You can't sleep out her, frog man, and it's getting
dark. You can bunk with us for the night... we won't eat you,"
She winked at him. "Unless you smell like melons."
"Uh... no. No melons here," Tadpoule said nervously. "But
wait, tell me, do you know anyone who might know a way to The Big City?"
"My cousin's the only one that's ever been outside these islands.
You can talk to him if you want. So are you coming...? We can talk more
on the way, frog-man. By the way, my name's Kari."
"Oh, yeah. I'm Alexis de Tadpoule, most people call me-"
"I don't care what OTHER people call ya... for me, you're just
frog-man," She laughed. "Let's go, already. If we don't get
back before dark Andie's gonna have a fit."
"Andy? That's your cousin, right?" Tadpoule asked, hopping
after the quick-moving yoshi.
"Right, his name's Andrew, but I don't call him that."
"Do you call anyone by their names?" Tadpoule wondered aloud
as he hopped alongside her.
"Not really," She grinned. "Our place is only a little
ways inland, we'll be there in no time flat."
"Great," Tadpoule sighed, wondering how this
was going to turn out.
~Luigi of the Pipes~
Squid Guy shifted his gaze around to fix in on any particular landmarks
that looked like where he had been. All he could see was sand, sand,
sand, and, well, more sand.
"Guess I won't be finding a nice pool of water any time soon,"
he sobbed lightly.
And if that weren't hard enough on the little mutant, it was hot.
-Very- hot. Being composed of 66% aquatic life, his skin needed to have
at least some moisture if he expected to survive. But in this heat,
he would dehydrate and shrivel up, never to be seen again.
But then, perhaps that was a good thing. It was easily obvious that
Master Smith would not be pleased with his actions. Maybe it would be
better to just die here and not face his wrath.
"No! Pull yourself together Squid! You could maybe go live somewhere.
Maybe in that nice place with all the water he had seen from the window.
Oh, who am I kidding?! Who's gonna accept a walking, talking freak
like me?! It's hopeless... I don't even know what's so special about
me. Why would Smithy create me if I didn't have something special?"
Squid Guy looked around, then flopped miserably in one direction.
If he was gonna die, he could at least die trying...
The gloomy misfit stopped in his tracks. The sand directly in front
of him was... different. He squirmed a bit closer, and it exploded in
his face. Out leaped a Bandit, who landed flat on his feet with a smirk.
"Haha! I found ya!" the masked-miscreant snickered. "Master
Smith said he wanted you alive, but I'm sure he'd get over it if I...
say... killed you and gave him your mask on a platter."
Squid Guy turned to escape, but the Bandit overtook him in a heart-beat.
He picked up the helpless squid and pressed his own mask onto Squid
Guy's.
"Now, do you have any last requests?"
"Ummm... yeah! Well, this isn't really a request, but... do you
know why Master Smith made me?"
The Bandit stared at Squid Guy for what seemed to be eternity, then
burst into laughter, clutching his side with his free hand and resisting
the urge to fall onto the ground. "You pathetic fool," he
said between laughs. "The only reason Master Smith made you was
punishment for the Bandit who lost his shield. A pain in the rear, a
ball and chain, a..."
"I... I understand," Squid Guy said. The eyes behind his
mask were quickly welling with tears. He wasn't special at all, he was
nothing. A plain old nothing.
"Well, since I enjoyed answering that so much," the Bandit
mused, "I guess I can give you another request."
"No, no. I'm fine," the Squid Guy said monotonously.
The Bandit pulled his fist back, and looked at Squid Guy. "Um,
any time now," he muttered.
"Huh? Any time what?"
"You can start acting scared now."
"I'm not scared. Just go ahead and kill me now."
"Grr... it's no fun if you don't act scared! Just humor me!"
"I can't."
The Bandit prepared a retort, but was interrupted by a loud buzzing.
He looked up to the sky, and narrowly dodged a careening spear. "Bunbun!"
he screamed, pitching Squid Guy into the sand and desperately looking
for cover from the spear-weilding fly. Unbeknownst, Squid Guy ended
up rolling down a nearby dune.
As the Bunbun sparred off with the Bandit, Squid Guy sadly hopped
through the desert, to nowhere in particular.
~Vorpal~
Headmaster Smith sat alone in his office tinkering with the blasted
shield. He knew that those pictures had to still be in there somewhere,
it'd just be the recalling them that would be the hard work.
KNOCK KNOCK
"A KNOCK AT THE DOOR? I'M BUSY! COME AGAIN SOME OTHER TIME!"
Headmaster Smith yelled in the direction of the door.
The person on the other side either didn't hear him or didn't care,
which ever he burst into the room, followed by eight snifits. The rather
smelly man yelled, "Where's my wife?"
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"
"I know my wife's here, somewhere! My snifits said so. So where
is she?"
Smith paused before he answered, "I THINK I HAVE A PROPOSITION
FOR YOU, UH..."
"Booster."
"BOOSTER. YOU SEE, I JUST GOT THIS PICTURE TO COME OUT OF THIS
SHIELD. IT SHOWS THAT THERE ARE FOUR PRINCESSES IN THE ENDLESS FOREST.
IF YOU WOULD RETRIEVE THEM FOR ME, I WOULD HELP YOU FIND YOUR, UH..."
"Wife."
"WIFE! YES OF COURSE!"
Smith handed the picture to Booster, and Booster left with his snifits.
As Booster left, Headmaster Smith heard, "You know, I think I was
engaged to one of these gals before."
The door closed, and Smithy mutterred to himself, "YES, I DON'T
THINK THE PRINCESSES KNOW THEIR TRUE POWER, OR THEIR TRUE ORIGINS. I
WILL SOON HAVE THEIR POWER, AND I SHALL THEN RULE THE ENTIRE GLOBE!"
------------
"Are you boys all right?"
Mario and Luigi both sat up in the beds they were laying in.
"How'd we get here?" Mario asked, the strange old poinpi
who stood next to the beds the brothers were in.
The old pionpi replied, "I found you boys outside. You were both
passed out. I brought you to my house. Better sleeping on beds than
in the mud, am I right?"
"I guess," Luigi said quietly.
At almost the same time the brothers fell back into their bed, too
weak from the bug bites and miles of walking they had already completed.
--------
Snifits are great runners. They can travel up to sixty miles an hour
on a flat surface/ Booster relied on them to to speed his chariot to
the Endless Forest. As the snifiy-pulled carraige came closer, they
stopped for some food at a local cafe, where Goombario, Chibobuigi,
and Heidi had also stopped.
Booster and his top three snifits took up one table while our three
young heroes took one right next to them.
"What were we doing again?" a confused Booster asked his
number one snifit.
"We're retrieving those four princesses from the Endless Forest,
so you can find your wife, and take back all the money she stole from
you."
"Oh, yes!"
Goombario's eyes widened as he overheard the funny-smelling man and
snifit talk. He whispered to the other two members of his team. "I
bet those are the princesses that that Squid thing teleported away."
"What do you think we should do?" Chibobuigi asked.
"I've got a plan," Goombario said slyly, and he left the
table. The other two followed.
Around the back of the cafe, there stood a carraige with five other
snifits sitting around eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The
three children snuck around and jumped into the cargo trunk of the vehicle.
Soon, the carraige started moving and the three were off to their new
destination: The Endless Forest!
"I've heard of this Endless Forest," Heidi said, "We'll
never make it out alive."
"Nonsense," Goombario said, "You're just saying that
cause no one ever has."
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