Fawful made his way to one of the garage stations where he could check out his vehicle a bit more thoroughly. He didn't think that anyone would mind if he gave his vehicle a bit of a, well, extra tune-up. Just because it wasn't technically authorized didn't mean it was a completely illegal maneuver. As he opened up the engine compartment and prepared to take a look inside, he realized that he could feel someone's eyes on him. He turned, noticing Link there. "Can I be helping you?" Fawful asked, slightly annoyed. He hated being watched while he worked.
Link stepped back in embarrassment "Sorry, I just wanted to watch you...do whatever it is you were going to do," he said.
Fawful glared at Link through his thick lenses. "Please do not have the watching," he told him, "it gives distraction."
"Ah, right, of course," Link laughed nervously. He paused for a bit, then continued with more small talk. "...It's really amazing how these things work," he said. "When I first came onto these races, I couldn't believe they'd actually crammed so many horses into that small compartment!"
"That is being a metaphor of equivalency," Fawful said, rolling his eyes.
"Haha, yeah, I figured that out pretty quick," Link admitted. "Mine looks like a horse, though. It's a nice touch."
Fawful didn't reply, choosing to merely study the inner workings of his vehicle. He couldn't yet figure out which of the wires and gears connected onto the engine were connected to the antigravity generators he had been told about, and as Moonview Highway had no antigravity sections he didn't have a frame of reference for how the antigravity kicked in to begin with, much less where to start making his guesses. Obviously he wasn't going to make any changes until he knew exactly what did what.
"Soooo...what are you doing?" Link asked.
"I am not having sureness," Fawful replied. "It is being a salad of confusion at the moment that is now." He sighed. "I will have the inspection with more closeness when there is more understanding of this...this." He motioned toward the tires, trying to convey the idea of the antigravity properties without having to figure out the proper manner of explaining it to someone who only recently figured out the metaphorical meaning of the term "horsepower".
"Well, while you're mulling that over, I know of some people who want to introduce themselves to you," Link said. "You wanna come say hi?"
Fawful shrugged. "I am seeing no reason for argument."
Link and Fawful made their way over to a group of people in the middle of the courtyard. Fawful saw that Mimi and Peasley were there as well. Peasley gave him a glare, but due to the rule against overt displays of animosity that was as far as he went, even with Fawful making a rude face in response. "So, everyone, you remember we all wanted to meet the new racers," Link said happily. "I just got the last of them over, so now we can begin the introductions."
Peasley cleared his throat. "Well, I appreciate the sentiment, I really do, but I have some track time scheduled that I must attend to," he said quickly, as though he were trying to avoid a certain member of the group. "I'll be seeing you all later." And with that, he left.
"He just keeps getting ruder and ruder every time," Mimi scoffed.
"I am thinking it is just the presence of fury with me," Fawful admitted. Not that he didn't share the feeling, of course.
Link laughed nervously. "Anyway..." He glanced over at Mimi and Fawful, then turned his gaze to the other racers gathered. "So, who wants to go first?" he asked.
Two young people approach Fawful and Mimi, one a girl with pink hair tied in a ponytail and the other a boy with messy auburn hair. "Hello, my name's Annie Cross, mayor of New Leaf Village," the girl said, shaking both Fawful and Mimi's hand. "This is my brother Mel."
The boy, Mell, simply gave them a friendly wave. "Nice to meetcha," he said.
Mimi smiled. "Nice to meet you, too!"
"Yes, the meeting does have niceness," Fawful said, though his seemed more like he was just trying to get this whole thing over with.
"And this..." Annie pulled over an anthropomorphic dog with fluffy blonde fur, some of which was pulled into a ponytail on her head, who was dressed in mostly green business attire. "...is Isabelle! She's pretty much my vice mayor in all but official title." She turned to Isabelle and smiled. "Seriously, you've done too much for me and the town to just be my 'secretary'."
Isabelle blushed through the white fur on her muzzle. "Miss Mayor, stop it!" she exclaimed. "You're embarrassing me!"
"It's true and you know it," Annie insisted.
"It's great meeting you all!" Mimi said. She then noticed Fawful hadn't moved since Isabelle's introduction. "...you okay?"
Fawful had gone a bit pale upon seeing Isabelle. He started to shake a bit, and he let out a pathetic, barely audible whining. "What's wrong?" Isabelle asked. She tried to approach Fawful, but as soon as she stepped toward him he bolted behind the tallest person of the group. That person happened to be Link.
"Uh, why are you hiding behind me?" Link asked. He tried moving, but it was difficult with Fawful keeping himself behind him with every step he tried to take.
Fawful tried to speak, but his words were lost in an uncharacteristically unnerved stuttering. As if the issue weren't abundantly clear, a familiar Italian-accented voice in the distance then tauntingly called out, "Fawful's scared of dogs!"
Fawful, still very wary of Isabelle and now slightly embarrassed that his not-so-secret fear had been stated flat-out, backed away from the group. "I...I am needing to go!" He ran back to the garage in his best efforts to not look like he was panicking.
The only reasonable excuse Fawful could think of for leaving was trying out one of the other three tracks. He chose what would have been second in the upcoming lineup, a track that was a little closer to home.
While Fawful had never personally been to the Chucklehuck Woods until now, he had long known of its reputation within the Beanbean Kingdom. Specifically, he knew it as being home to Chateau de Chucklehuck, and the supposed legendarily superb beverages that were crafted within from the locally grown fruit. Even the air smelled like the famous fruit, although the scent of fruit was punctuated by the faint hint of something...else. What was it? Ozone? Chlorine? Either way, it wasn't something produced by the nature around him, and Fawful guessed the source of the smell once he caught sight of the antigravity generators that the race committee had installed throughout portions of the track.
Almost as soon as Fawful had gotten his car to the starting line near the chateau, a sleek car sped past him, and would have nearly hit him if he hadn't been careful. "Hey, fink-rat! Be watching where you are going!" he shouted at the other driver, shaking his fist in anger.
The other car stopped, and Fawful could see from the tell-tale sparkle off that infuriatingly familiar blonde hair that Peasley was indeed its driver. The Beanish prince turned to face him, and upon meeting his gaze he glared. "Oh, it's you," Peasley scoffed.
"Prince of peas and hair that looks stupid," Fawful said. Peasley looked offended at the statement about his hair, which suited Fawful just fine.
"Listen, you," Peasley said darkly. "The only reason I'm not putting you behind bars right now is because I don't particularly feel like being disqualified from the race for any reason other than the other racers' skill. Once the tournament is over, you can bet that my first act will be to make sure you are incarcerated as you should be. Do I make myself clear?"
"You are having the clearness of crystal," Fawful said. He had been thrown a bit off-guard by Peasley's statement, perhaps assuming he would at least pretend to tolerate him and not make outward threats like this, but at the same time it wasn't something he didn't expect at some point. Either way, he wasn't going to let the Beanish prince see the effect that had had on him. Peasley turned away and then drove off, presumably back to the teleporter.
Well, now that Peasley was gone, Fawful was confident to begin his own trial of the track. He rolled his vehicle right up to the starting line and set off. The early part of the track was a long, winding road through the woods. A few Pestnuts fell off of a tree as he passed, but he paid them no mind as they didn't seem to mind him either. He noticed the ozone smell growing stronger, and then he saw it: the first antigravity generator, right before the forest's guardian Chuckleroot. Thinking quickly, Fawful shoved one of his three mushrooms into the car's exhaust and shot forward in a considerable boost of speed through the generator, the wheels adjusting to compensate for the track now sending him up the wall of a cliff behind the old tree.
Fawful kept driving along the wall until the antigravity section ended near a sort of hedge maze. The track then bridged over the hedges and entered into a cavernous area with a waterfall in the distance, passing by an odd plant he was unfamiliar with that seemed to have a violet lump beginning to grow from it. Exiting the cavern, Fawful hit a second antigravity spot, which ended up turning him completely upside-down. The view of driving "under" the right-side-up chateau while technically sailing over it was disorienting, but it soon ended and returned to normal gravity as the finish line approached. Two more laps of this went by, with Fawful having access to his mushrooms the whole time until he had used his remaining two at different points to gauge the best strategic locations for speed boosts.
Upon finishing his final lap, Fawful checked his time. Two minutes and roughly 30 seconds. Definitely a bit better than the time he had clocked on Moonview Highway, though whether that was due to his driving skill improving or the track being a little easier than Moonview Highway he couldn't objectively tell. It also could've just been that he had manage to hold onto at least one mushroom this time. He then noticed that there was a tab to see everyone's times for each track. Curious, he checked the tab and looked for Peasley's. There it was, just under his own.
Two minutes and roughly thirty-five seconds.
Fawful's usual cheeky grin grew even wider than normal. He was beating out Peasley! On this track, at least. He hadn't checked what their comparative times were on the only other track he'd been on, but the one victory was enough to satisfy his pettiness for now. He made his way back to the teleporter, passing Waluigi (who had just recently arrived to track his own time) and singing to himself gleefully. "These are all things we let babies do, effing babies..." he sang. "Baby deeeaaath..."
Waluigi made an odd face as he watched Fawful leave. "Who thought it was a good idea to invite that weirdo?" he finally said to himself.
AN: Been busy with my upcoming original novels, so that's why I haven't updated in a while. Also got distracted by finally making some decent headway in Xenoblade Chronicles, that game is SO GOOD, you have no idea how real I'm feeling it. I know fanfic authors shouldn't feel the need to apologize for lack of proper update schedule, but honestly I'm more apologizing to myself because I don't want to leave this project unfinished. I did TOO much of that in my younger writing days and as I've proven to myself that I can not only finish a fanfiction but finish and publish an original book, I don't want to go down the road of "herp derp author can't finish anything" again.
Also, sorry if I'm characterizing Peasley in a bad way. I don't really spend a lot of time thinking about Peasley, not nearly as much as I do for Fawful, and going into this I felt that he was the kind of guy who was really nice to the people he likes and really nasty to the people he dislikes. And considering what Fawful and Cackletta had done to not only him and his mother, but also the kingdom his family is in charge of, he'd be bound to hold a grudge against this story's protagonist. Not to mention we're mostly following Fawful's perspective here, and I doubt he'd like Peasley that much either, if the aftermath of the last battle against him in Superstar Saga is any indicator.
By the way, the song that Fawful's singing part of at the end? That would be Brentalfloss's Mario Kart 8 With Lyrics. Remember when you're playing Mario Kart or just reading this story, these are all things that we let effing babies do.
