| |
Chapter 22:
~Luigi of the Pipes~
His jaw moved slowly, each motion arching pain through his mouth and
directly into his brain. Never-the-less, he moved his mouth in hopes
of thanking the creature before him. Unfortunately for him, his vocal
cords were still rather sore, and all that emitted was a hoarse rasp.
"Thought so," Flik the Flurry moped. "Not a single
thank you."
Kooper grunted. It was amazing that the Flurry had managed to pull
him and Prof. Kolorado from the icy river and carry them to one of the
abandoned snow houses for some healing, comendable in the most. If Kooper
had a chance to thank the Flurry though, he'd probably deny it. Flik
seemed to thrive in his own self pity, why ruin that for him?
Kooper glanced over at the Professor, whose mouth was equally locked
from the frigid temperatures. It looked like Flik wouldn't be getting
a thank you anytime soon from him either.
"Well, if you want to reach those "friends" of yours
soon, we'd better get going. Come on then."
Kooper prepared a retort, but, realizing that it would be worthless
without the ability of speech, resignedly clambered onto Flik's back,
each motion shocking him with new and more interesting forms of pain.
Kolorado followed, his oily mustache practically frozen down on his
snout.
Flik poked his head out of the house, checked to make sure that no
one was around, then skated out.
---------
Meanwhile
---------
"There you go," Beezo said, pinning the official Shy Squad
pin on Lantern Ghost's cloak. The pin was simply a white circle with
two slanted eyes and an '0' shaped mouth on it.
"I'm... touched," Lantern Ghost sniffed.
"Ah, put a cork on it," Shy Guy muttered. "We're only
letting you in cause Croco needs a new Crook."
"Oh...
"So guys," Tweeter hopped, "now wha...?"
Tweeter was interrupted as Croco scratched his sharp, white claws
down the side of one of the houses, making a dull scrape. "Listen
up, yous clowns," the larcenous lizard sneered. Everyone (save
for Bandit) turned their attention to him. "I thought I told yous
all ta start draggin' the prisoners back ta Chai!"
Several grunts and moans came from the assembly of forty. "Shuddap!
If we do this, Smithy's promised us our own plot o' land when that dope
Mario gets knocked off. Near that pretty castle, I hope. So, we deliver
da prisoners, eat, raid another town, deliver prisoners, eat, so on
and so on. It may be kinda borin', but that's what it takes to get the
goods. Now get off yer lazy butts and go!"
"Zat answer your question Kid?" Snifit asked Tweeter.
"Yeah. Boy, our own plot of land!"
"Doubtful," Beezo moped. "Croco's probably gonna kick
us out or make us do his own hard labor. During which, we'll have to
find ourselves a new employer."
"Oh..."
"It happens," Shy Guy sighed.
"We're off then?" Lantern Ghost asked dumbly.
"No, we're not off," Beezo grunted. "We'll wait until
everyone -else- has picked up a prisoner. If we're lucky, no one else
will be left."
"Wait, wait, how does -that- tie in with the whole owning land
thing?"
"What are you talkin' about?!"
"Well, uh..."
"Morons," Bandit muttered to himself. "Why'd I even
join them?"
"Let's see. If we do Croco's bidding now, we'll end up doing
his bidding for the rest of our lives, but...."
"Huh? Run that by me again?"
"Wait wait..."
~lzn64~
Toad marched on along with the entire company of unfortunate Chibibos
who had been captured along with himself. After several furtive glances
at his surroundings, and his kidnappers, he quickly ruled out any real
chance of escape. He doubted he could utilize the Chibibos to any real
use, seeing as though they didn't have arms, although if he could think
of a plan they'd no doubt help him. His thoughts had at first been centered
on how he had arrived in this particular predicament, but after causing
himself considerable frustration he had soon moved on to more important
matters.
Unfortunately, it seemed as though that wasn't helping either. His head
still pounded, and the shouts of the his captors at all angles around
him wasn't helping that in the least. They were on their way somewhere,
he was certain, and he was even more certain that that somewhere was
going to be someplace that none of them were going to have much fun
at.
These fears were soon confirmed as several masked mousers dropped
from the sky, their descents slowing just before landing, leaving them
unharmed on the ground. Strange contraptions strapped on their backs
drew Toad's attention first.
"Hey guys, check it out!" He heard Shyguy call out near
him. "More Jetpacks!"
"You think we'll get one this time?" Snifit asked in reply,
looking rather eager.
"Smithy's factory must really be on a roll to turn out so many
so fast," Tweeter noted.
"Overrated," Beezo announced disdainfully, flitting about
in a condescending manner. This earned him several boos and insults
from his fellow Shy Squad members.
Toad blinked in surprise. Smithy? As the realization of who that was
came flooding back to him from his vault of memories he'd rather have
left forgotten, a rather sick look came over his face.
"Hey, 'shroom..." Pilf, who was marching along his left
side said nervously. "...Don't spew on me, or you're dead."
"Don't aim him at me, nitwit!" Glepe snapped, backing away
from Toad in a way that might have been comical if not for the horror
of the realization Toad had just had. As his mind frantically tried
to sort out this news, a familiar, yet unwelcome voice invaded his thoughts.
"All right, Mousers! Snap 'em up, and get 'em back to Chai!"
Croco ordered the new arrivals. "We gots a long way to fly, boys,
but after that we gots this entire Kingdom for our playground!"
All those who couldn't fly were provided with some form of mechanical
transportation courtesy of Smithy's rapidly developing Factory II. The
prisoners themselves were snapped up roughly by the Mousers and carried
off toward their fate.
----------
Meanwhile
----------
"Are you SURE you know how to work this thing?" Luigi asked
Frogfucious for the millionth time, as they hit a patch of turbulence.
The wise frog kept a tight grip on the controls as they were bounced
about, not bothering to reply until the instability passed.
"It's times like this I wish this thing had walls," Mario
noted, trying vainly to grip onto the cloudy bus floor.
"I'll make sure to bring it up with Mallow-- if we survive this
bus ride, that is--" Luigi muttered, opting to sit on the floor
as a sudden jolt nearly sent him tumbling off the bus.
"I didn't think I was doing such a horrible job, grasshoppers,"
Frogfucious commented. "Why, I've ridden with my boy Mallow on
this contraption plenty of times. Nothing to it."
"But then again, you have something to hold on to," Luigi
muttered under his breath. Mario snickered at that, but before their
makeshift driver could inquire as to what was so funny, an unmistakable
landmark was spotted not far ahead.
"We're almost to the desert," Luigi noted, although the
others had already figured that out.
"Birabuto, here we come!" Mario agreed enthusiastically.
"Hang in there Mallow, Sonny..."
"I wonder how we'll know when we've found the place?" Luigi
thought aloud.
--------------
Sometime Later
--------------
Croco's thieves hovered near the Sarasaland Academy, the refuse from
their jetpacks casting an eerie glow over the nighttime sky, and the
sounds of the many engines in unison spreading an eerie blanket of sound
across the area. They waited impatiently above the Academy for their
leader, who had gone inside to report to Smithy, to emerge.
"All right, now. Me 'n' my boys went and plundered the Chibibo
villiage, just like you said," Croco announced inside of Master
Smith's office.
"EXCELLENT. I'M ASSUMING THEY'RE SAFELY ARRIVED AT THE RUINS
TO PROVIDE THE LABOR NEEDED TO FINISH THE FACTORY II?"
"The Ru- but you said, I mean I-" Croco sputtered inchoherently.
Smithy narrowed his menacing eyes, and his face darkened into a fierce
warning mask.
"IS THERE A PROBLEM?"
"Bah, of course not. I-I'll just be on my way..." Croco
stammered. He then proceeded to zip from the room at the fast pace that
he was widely renowned for, and as he emerged from the Academy he gestured
angrily for his theives to join him on the floor.
"LISTEN UP, BOYS!" He bellowed, so as to be heard above
the noise of the jetpack engines. They shut off one by one, each of
the thieves looking confused as they dropped from the sky. The mousers
still holding on to the helpless Chibibos looked none to happy about
being further delayed, as many were having a time holding on to the
more determined villiagers.
"Change o' plans," Croco stated, a statement which was greeted
with several groans and several more complaints, and a general feeling
of hostility. "We're goin' to the RUINS, it seems."
"But we just passed there on the way here!" Lantern Ghost
complained from the back of the ranks, where he and the other Shy Squad
members stood.
"Leave it to Croco to double our work load. I bet he cuts our
fun time in half, too!" Bandit exclaimed in indignation.
"Well, at least we get to use these jetpacks s'more," Shy
Guy pointed out.
"Ho, hum," Beezo replied, to which he was greeted by several
glares from his comrades.
"Well, flying is a novelty for SOME of us here, at least,"
Snifit sighed.
"Umm... you think they'll take these away when the Blade II is
finished?" Tweeter asked timidly.
"We don't work for Smithy, so I don't think so..."
"Well, Smithy has Croco under his thumb, you know."
"I s'pose he does."
"Better not take 'em away!" Shyguy bellowed.
"What would you do about it, jump around and hope they laugh
themselves to death?" Snifit retorted. Shyguy favored him with
a particularly frightening glare, at which Beezo, Tweeter and Lantern
Ghost snickered.
"Pay attention, you dolts," Bandit reprimanded them, gesturing
to the surrounding thieves, who had all started up their Jetpacks again
and were taking to the sky, this time headed for the ruins.
"Yeah, right. Shyguy has the attention span of a second."
"That's a second better than you, you bullet spitting bullet
spitter!"
And with that grave insult, the Shy Squad started up their own jetpacks,
except for Beezo, who made a great show of being able to take off without
any aid, and followed after the remaining company.
Toad, who had been listening to the entire conversation, mulled several
questions over in his mind. First of all, Blade II? That wasn't good.
Second of all, Factory II. It didn't take a mathematician to realize
that Smith + Factory = Bad things. And had that been Dodo he had seen
flapping along with the rest of this gang? He made a face at the Mouser
carrying him along, wondering how far along the Factory would be when
they arrived at the ruins... and if there would be anything he could
do to slow down its construction.
~Masamune~
Booster walked, and walked, and walked. Then, for a change of pace
he walked a little bit more. He hardly noticed he was going in a circle.
Which even more disturbing was it was an obvious circle because he was
wearing down a hole around the tree he was circling. The birds in the
tree watched him intently, thinking him to be a crazy madman. Little
did they realize, that nothing was ever so close to the truth.
However, the squirrels merely assumed he was building them a moat.
They were near to the truth, although it was not Booster's intention.
Despite that, the old mole under the tree didn't notice.
Thus Booster continued, until it came to his attention the ground
had steadily rose to his neck now. Thinking it to be a bad thing (which
it was), he promptly turned around and started the other way. After
an hour or two, he noticed once more that he had gotten deeper. Seeing
nothing better to do, he climbed out of the hole and scanned his surroundings.
He assumed the forest had some kind of enchantment that made people
get lost. Of course he was right by all means, but the enchantment had
not been able to affect him yet.
After walking for a long and boring time in a straight line from which
the enchantment could not force him off, he stopped abruptly. He suddenly
yelled out, "VALENTINA!!!!", in his loudest voice possible.
The forest was so suprised by this, that the forest trembled mightily
and anything in a tree fell out (including a bewildered Sparrow who
was still waiting for his servants to return). At this point, the forest
decided (by means of which are still unknown) that this fellow was so
messed up that it was better off to get rid of him.
However, the forest could still not persuade Booster to stray off
his painfully straight hike. No one had ever been so relentless to do
such, and the forest was extremely worried he would eventually arrive
in the center of the forest. However, one thing was able to do the job
it had been unable to do. For just beyond a tree was a gray mound of...
But it was no mound, as Booster realized after an hour or so of deep
thought. It was in fact a snifit, one of HIS snifit. And not merely
a snifit of those half rate 8 bits or some other random organization
Booster did not are to remember. And by the number '4' on the snifit's
belt, he came to the conclusion this was none other than Snifit #4.
Since his logic seemed sound, he found a nearby stick and poked the
unmoving snifit.
This prompted a very loud groan from the said snifit. It turned to
Booster and muttered something along the lines of funny little ninja
people and a really large umbrella. It stared long and hard at the bearded
man for some time, until something suddenly clicked. It then jumped
up and dusted itself off in a rush. "M - m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m-
m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m-
m- m- m- m- m- m- m- m-master!!!"
Booster frowned at that, he had never heard the 'm' sound used so
many times. But he was somewhat happy to see Snifit (of course, he was
happy walking in circles, but that is another matter). He patted the
snifit on the head and smiled, "Snifit #4!"
"S-s-sir! How did you know it was me?!" The snifit asked
in awe.
Booster shrugged, "I do not know! BUT... let's go find the other
snifits! Then we'll find those people the old man wanted!"
"Y-y-y-y-yes sir!"
The two went on for some time, heading right from the place that the
snifit was found. Fortunately for the forest, Booster was not heading
in one way as relentlessly as before. The path was slowly being shifted
so that the funny little man was slowly making his way out of the forest.
Eventually they came to the exit of the forest. The snifit was delighted,
so was his master, but Booster was also dissapointed in a very amusing
way. He soon got over it and turned to his follower, "We must now
find the princesses!"
Snifit 4 rubbed his mask thoughtfully, "Where will we go?"
"We will go to the Sarasaland Sewer System!" Booster stated,
as if the answer was plainly obvious.
However, his follower was not so easily convinced, "Why?"
Booster thought on that for awhile, "Got a better idea?"
The snifit shook his head miserably and agreed to go. But he was none
to happy to travel the sewers, no matter what his master's strange logic
be. Even then, his master was always strangely lucky in the oddest predicaments...
|
