Sorry this chapter took a little while. Two words: Comic Con. ...I rest my case.
Thanks to lisahelene for following/favoriting!
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Mario. If I did, I would have made Super Mario Galaxy 3 already!
Chapter IV: First Encounter
"...and then we can take the Ukikis home and we can dress them up and give them luxury bedrooms in the castle and have them make strawberry shortcake and then we'll all eat the cake and we can play with them..." Toadette rambled on as the group ran toward the village.
"Toadette," gasped her brother in front of her, "please shut up. Besides, I think you're agitating the monkeys."
"Why d'you say that?" she inquired cheerfully. However, before her brother could formulate a response, she was abruptly pelted with seeds from all angles. ...Needless to say, she took Toad's advice and shut up.
When they reached the village, the first thing they noticed was the eerie silence. The only audible noises were the rustling in the jungle behind it and the waves lapping at the shore in front. "Where could everyone be?" Peach voiced.
"I have no idea," replied Yoshi, mystified.
"It must be connected to that rumbling noise we heard earlier," deduced Luigi.
"Wait... that's it!" exclaimed Yoshi. "That noise sounded just like a Yoshi stampede!"
"Yoshis stampede?" questioned Toad.
"Yes," replied Mario. "One of my partners in my adventure at Rogueport could summon a stampede at will."
"Oh."
"So," continued Yoshi, "something in the village must've caused everyone to run away."
"But what?" asked Luigi.
"I don't know, but we should probably follow the trail that the Yoshis left," said Peach, quick to get down to business.
It was then that they heard the voice. It sounded distorted, as if they were hearing it from a walkie-talkie with bad reception. "Well, well, well. Looks like some of you pesky little dinosaurs had the brains to not run in plain sight. I must say, I'm disappointed. It won't do any good for me to have slaves who try to run away, now would it? Tsk, tsk. I guess I'll just have to dispose of you."
The group looked at each other in fear. "Hide," hissed Mario, before climbing one of the palm trees. The rest of them immediately acknowledged this. Luigi and Toadsworth hid behind one of the Yoshi's huts. The Princess and Toad climbed up the tree next to Mario, while Yoshi and Toadette hid in one of the empty nests.
From his vantage point in the tree, Mario could clearly see the owner of the voice. It had a flickering, vaguely human form. It was almost completely a glowing shade of aquamarine, if not for the ruby red dots where the eyes should've been. There was also the fact that it was hovering two feet above the ground.
Even more horrible was the sight behind it. About twenty Yoshis – all residents of the island, Mario assumed – drifted in midair behind the being. Some struggled in a vain attempt to escape, but most just hung their heads down limply, as if they had simply given up.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," the entity mocked. "You can run but you can't hide... no wait, scratch that! You can't run, either!" It gestured towards the multicolored dinosaurs behind it.
The man in red shot a glance at Luigi below him. He gestured toward himself, then at him, then made an arc with his hand before pointing toward the being. The message was simple: both of them would jump on it at the same time. Unfortunately, Luigi didn't find it to be as simple. Equally unfortunately, that minor movement caught the entity's attention.
"Aha!" it shouted.
It extended its hand, and Mario found himself gravitating toward the being. Panicking, he wildly flailed his arms in an attempt to find a place to hold onto, but he could find no purchase on the palm tree. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the others faced with the same situation as him – the only one having any real luck was Toad, who had managed to grab the trunk of the tree he'd climbed, but soon he was pulled in as well.
"Eep!" Toadette screeched, clenching Yoshi's arm. "Get away from me, you turquoise freak!"
"What even are you!?" Luigi stammered. "Why are you here?"
"I could ask the same thing of you," it sneered coldly. "But very well... I suppose a proper intoduction is in order." It cleared its throat. "In my time, I was known as many things. But now, I am simply... a hologram; an apparition – a glitch." His words became increasingly bitter, and his grip on them tightened. "I have found, however, that this form has certain... advantages."
"Advantages? Yeah, no kidding..." Toad muttered.
"I am matter... I am antimatter... I can change your past... I can secure your future... I consume time-"
"Hey!" Peach interjected.
"What?" Glitch glared at her, annoyed.
"That's basically Culex's speech, but with minor variations!"
"Yeah!" Mario added.
"You would dare interrupt me for something as trivial as that? Humans, you have sealed your fates! Prepare to be vanquished!" it declared.
Glitch rose higher and higher into the air, until the heroes could see the whole of Yoshi's Island. Then, abruptly, it dropped them.
"Aaaahhhh!" screamed six of them. The other one just shrugged, grabbed the three Toads, and took out her parasol.
"Many thanks, Your Grace!" Toadsworth gasped.
Meanwhile, Yoshi had managed to get Luigi into his mouth and was in the process of trying to figure out how to get Mario onto his back. While this normally wouldn't have been an issue, Mario was much too far above Yoshi for him to be able to get on. Fortunately, the red plumber solved this problem by ground-pounding, then stopping once he was close enough to grab onto Yoshi.
Once they all safely reached the ground (Yoshi had flutter-jumped before impact), they decided that it would be in their best interest to ambush Glitch once it reached the surface.
Unluckily for them, it just so happened that Glitch did not take kindly to have its victims survive plummeting down 5,000 feet. In fact, it was so livid, that it happened to levitate all of the huts in the village – revealing their hiding places again. "You!" it snarled. It proceeded to once again draw them toward it, but this time, one of them was prepared.
That one being Toad, who had managed to grab the Mushroom Derby banner, and was swinging it like a whip at Glitch. That proved to be entirely unsuccessful, as the banner just phased right through it. Glitch flashed a malicious smile, before taking control of the banner and using it to swipe at Toad. This, in turn, caused him to knock into Toadsworth and Toadette, knocking all three unconscious. Glitch then relinquished its hold on them, dropping them onto a nearby bush.
"What!?" Luigi cried. "That's not fair! How are we supposed to hit you if you're not even there!?"
"Oh, but I am here... You just aren't supposed to hit me!" Glitch smirked. He then caused all four of the remaining heroes to pass right through him. Consequently, this caused them to bump into each other.
"Okay," whispered Mario, annoyed, "we have to find a way to make him solid. Otherwise he'll just keep doing stuff like that to us."
"That's it!" Peach exclaimed quietly. "Luigi, turn around." With some difficulty, the man in green eventually managed to rotate in midair so that his back was to Peach. Then, with equal difficulty, the aforementioned princess reached out to open the backpack she'd made him keep with him.
"Let's see here," she murmured to herself as she rummaged through the backpack, "no, no, no... ah! Here it is!" She triumphantly raised three Ice Flowers. "Now, let's use these before you-know-who notices."
"You-know-who" currently had its back turned to them, as it was pondering what jobs it would assign its captive Yoshi servants.
Mario, Luigi, and Peach all held an Ice Flower in their hands, willing its power to seep into their veins. Mario felt the familiar rush of cool air that came with the power-up, followed by the noise that came when it reached full power.
Rather unluckily, the noise, which was normally relatively quiet, had combined with the sound from the other power-ups to make it loud enough to be heard by Glitch. Instantaneously, it turned to the sight of three powered-up humans and one very fearful-looking dinosaur. "What!?" it gasped in surprise.
A split second later, Peach yelled, "Now!" She, Mario, and Luigi released two balls of ice each in rapid succession.
Another split second later, Glitch had came to its senses and absorbed the power of the ice. It then absorbed the rest of the frosty essence into itself, causing itself to power up. "Naughty humans," Glitch sneered. It then released a monumental gale of ice that froze everyone that didn't have the reflexes to duck – that is to say, everyone but Mario. With no need for them anymore, it dropped the ice sculptures of Luigi, Peach, and Yoshi into the village below, where they, amazingly, landed in a remarkably soft nest.
Metaphorically frozen with fear, Mario tried his best to look brave in front of Glitch. It wasn't working, perhaps because of the unnerving speech it was giving.
"Hmm... what should I do with you? I can't make you my slave; you'd probably run away. Maybe I could leave you in the jungle at the mercy of the Ukikis... nah, you might be able to fend them off. I could leave you to drown in the middle of the ocean... no, you look like a strong swimmer. Perhaps..." it eyed Mario with a devious look. "...I could just do this!" Glitch rose up swiftly, then, at its highest point, abruptly released its grip on him.
Well, this would be a stupid way to die, was the last thing that went through Mario's head before he crashed through a hut's roof.
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R.I.P. Satoru Iwata, CEO of Nintendo :(
~I Am A Toad
