HEY EVERYBODY! Popple's on another adventure, but it's kind of a mysterious quest… could Princess Peach be in DANGER? *oh noes* It is a must in which we find out… Thanks for continuing on the Popple sagas! REMEMBER, if you haven't read Popple's Predicament OR Monty Monitoring, then this is absolutely not going to make sense on why Popple's in the Mushroom Kingdom. But by all means, read on, my friend. BY THE WAY, instead of taking quotes from either Fawful or Popple for the chapter titles, I'm now taking movie quotes (as related to my Plants vs Zombies stories :D ). Since Popple's deciding whether or not to take his mission, it reminded me of Mission Impossible… Should You Choose To Accept…

_..._

CHAPTER ONE: Should You Choose To Accept…

A day through Dimble Wood was a mix between danger and boredom. Dimble Wood was full of enemies and once when they were gone, well, you were just surrounded by trees, hence- dangerous and boring. Popple never exactly ventured into the forest for pleasure, which is why he refused to go with the Mario Bros AND Princess Peach for a picnic into the pointless piece of ecosystem.

According to the logs, Peach had only taken picnics within castle walls. As Popple continued his monotonous sweeping on his patio, and weeding his coffee garden, he asked himself why the heck she is doing THAT for. As the castle undercover secret agent guy, Popple was usually informed on his missions. Though instead of Toadbert giving him a mission sent directly from Peach, Toadsworth himself asked for Popple to go with them.

"But, I'm not even invited by them, see? None of my business!" Popple said, obviously having jealousy for the Mario Bros being asked instead of him.

"But see here, dear sir, I too find it odd for her highness' schedule… there is something odd going on. Nobody really knows exactly that you are here for our agent. You have been of great service to us, saving Mario's lives when the dreaded Fawful came, as well as that Monty incident. I ask you as a… friend to go with them, and… "snoop", is it?" Toadsworth replied with dignity. He was always so formal, as if some sort of robotic butler with no sense of humor.

"Hmm, criminey, isn't this a little private? I'll make up my mind."

And here Popple was the next day, the day of the scheduled picnic. Sweeping. Thinking to himself. "YEAH, this is WAY more important than some picnic. And much more exciting. Now I can think back on my life because I have time and come up with some sort of philosophy for a book." Popple slapped himself. "BOO I say, what the hey am I talkin' about? I'm not letting any stinking COFFEE garden get in the way of my line of work. The Shadow Thief makes up his own mind. No! Peach didn't invite me…"

After ten grueling minutes of arguing with himself and contradicting his thoughts and voice as if turning into Gollum, Popple set out with Toadsworth's instructions. Dimble Woods was quite near the castle, making it a short walk to the dank, dark, smelly Sock-op infested living Underwhere-ish place.

"You know, someone needs to invent something better than a map. Something, like a- a Global Positioning System… Yeah…!" Popple thought to himself. After a bit of wandering aimlessly (The map Toadsworth gave him was clearly out of date), he came across a mysterious voice… "Do you aspire to travel?"

"CRIMINEY! The Shadow Thief caught in full sight! … Who was that anyway, I don't see em'?" he turned around to find a swirly vortex spinning beside him. Convenient. And stalker-ish.

"Stranger. Offering a ride. Weird vocabulary. Take it or leave it? HECK yeah, buddy, I need to find Princess Peach and Mario and Louie (I think)."

"Select a destination from the map."

"WHAT? Are you kiddin' buddy? I gotta FIND these places first for me to travel! What kind of con game is this? Anyone should know that I'm too lazy for such a matter! WAY too much trouble to go through. Not to mention that there's only, like, one for each location! This is pointless, forget it!" Popple ranted, waving the vortex off, his eyebrows narrowed from extreme resentment.

"NOBODY WAVES ME OFF!" The vortex whirled faster in anger, because it was the only useless thing it could do.

"Yeah, I just DID. Gonna help me or NOT?" Popple questioned.

"I am INSULTED! Your LEVEL progress is nothing to boast about either. The pleasurable outcome for your ignorance shall not but last quite so rewarding next time. But don't come CRYING to me if you need to travel from Peach's Castle to Bowser's Castle! Turn right and you'll come to a French guy selling kittens. He will have known in which way they have gone… Because I lost track of them." The vortex said, embarrassed.

"Thanks. See ya later, Rookie." As Popple walked off to continue his… important(?) search for Peach, he could hear the vortex in the background shouting about being called a Rookie. Old habits never die for the Shadow Thief.