Chapter Four:
One of those Anti-Heroes
(In Which the Co-star and Major Antagonist are Simultaneously Introduced)
Creepy Deep Catacombs
(Prison Compound)
During Tooty's incarceration, she had only been confined to the outer areas of the Rubbish Videogame Characters Police prison compound. She could tell she'd never been in this part of the prison as she ran after her brother's trail. The air smelt staler and ranker to Tooty, and she noticed the lighting was quite a bit harsher.
What was Banjo and Kazooie's possessor even trying to do with the two of them by making them destroy a prison? Was he or she simply trying to soil their good name? Or did he or she have a more sinister purpose?
Tooty sighed. She had no idea how she was going to save the two of them. She couldn't stop possession, let alone magic. But at the same time she couldn't just run away and leave Banjo to his fate as a walking weapon.
Her train of thought was abruptly ended with a collision. She stumbled backwards while the creature in front of her collapsed in a blue pile of feathers with a squawk.
"Yaaaah!" The pile shouted. "Don't hurt me!"
Tooty raised her palms to him to show she meant no harm. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Bird-"
"What?" The pile of feathers stuck his beaked head out and looked over Tooty with distain. "Oh, jeez. You should be sorry for scaring me like that! For a second there I thought you were a…never mind."
He got to his talons and Tooty saw he was indeed a breegull like her friend Kazooie. However, like many fanfics that give Tooty a breegull companion, this breegull was male and blue. It would be an unexpected twist when he would reveal his name to be "Zithero" and become Tooty's partner for the course of the story.
He wore a button-down collared short-sleeved shirt with a badge and had the crest on his head combed down over one of his nervous eyes. He quickly scanned around his feet and scooped up his police helmet with a wing and fastened it on his head. Tooty gulped. Not only had she been caught escaping by this prison guard, she also knocked into him. She would be taken back to her cell and would lose all hope of trying to rescue her brother.
However, as soon as the blue-crested breegull could get back to his feet he started trotting in the direction Tooty came from without paying her a second thought.
"Wait," Tooty shouted after him. "Aren't you a guard here?"
"That's right!" The bird called behind him.
"That means you're gonna take me back, aren't you?
"What?" He screeched to a halt. "No, of course not. Get out of here. That's what all us guards are doing. Just don't try to escape that way." He motioned to the way he came with a feathery finger. "That psycho bear and bird are down there."
"Banjo!" Tooty said. "Oh, thank you, sir!"
Tooty started running in the direction he pointed, when the blue bird quickly scampered in front of her in a flash of blue.
"Whoa whoa whoa!" He said, blocking her path. "Blondie, did you not just hear me? You do not wanna head that way. Those guys are armed with explosives!"
"I don't care!" Tooty said. "Banjo's my brother!"
"Well, your brother caused one hell of a mess."
Tooty shook her head. "I don't believe it. You're a guard here!
"So? What's it to ya?"
She gritted her teeth in frustration. "You should be protecting this prison!"
"Well, sometimes you have to know when to cut your loses and run." The breegull motioned down the dark hallway that he said Banjo had headed. "Your brother is headed towards top-secret part of the prison reserved for the worst of the rubbish videogame characters. The bosses."
"The bosses?" Tooty asked.
"That's right. It took practically an army to seal them in here. If that brother of yours ends up causing enough destruction to let just one of them escape, we're all done for." He shot a nervous glance all around him. "Best to just get as far away as possible! I know a chick on Krocktosquid Rock who has a boat. Maybe if I plead and beg I can get her to take me further north. In fact, maybe if a cutie like you came along, she'll be more willing to transport us. What do you say, Blondie?" He noticed Tooty was no longer beside him. "Kid?"
Tooty had stopped listening. She was far too horrified by the mental connection she just made. This wasn't some random act. Someone was using her brother to free those bosses.
She started running hard down the corridor her brother went, leaving the blue breegull behind shouting after her back.
Creepy Deep Catacombs
(Really High Security Cells)
Despite the fact that resisting the possession was becoming easier, Banjo was still unable to completely prevent his body from destructively marching its way through the prison.
"I think I'm getting the hang of this," Banjo said cheerfully while his body was slowly manipulated like a marionette by the green aura. "It's kinda like moving with an N64 controller with a broken joystick."
"I'm…sooo glad you're…enjoying yourself," Kazooie grunted while struggling against the purple aura that kept her in the bag. "For a second I thought…you might actually be…worried!"
The two continued their march down a dank corridor of massive cages. Long shadows of monstrous creatures stretched across the floor, which ranged from deadly dessert disasters to mechanical-looking monsters to glowing orbs of light. Banjo counted six filled cells on either side of Kazooie and him, in addition to a glowing ball-shaped cell at the very end of the hallway.
As soon as Banjo noticed the ball-cell, a blinding light at the end of the corridor erased these shadows and left Banjo and Kazooie averting and shielding their eyes.
"Ooooh. And who might you two dudes be?" Cooed a high, male, pigeon-like voice in the direction of the light. Banjo attempted to find the source of the voice, but the light was too blinding. Regardless, Banjo's legs suddenly took off full bore towards the light as if he was a puppet manipulated by invisible strings. He was finding it hard to resist the possession again.
"Have you come to release me?" Continued the voice. "How thoughtful. Several of my righteous dudes have tried to find me, but none could locate the prison I was held in."
"We have…no idea who you are," Kazooie grunted, still struggling, "but you must be one…hell of a rubbish videogame character to be imprisoned all the way back here."
"Hoo hoo hoo!" The voice laughed obnoxiously. "Perhaps I am. I suppose I would be a rather 'rubbish' videogame character…" his voice took on a dark edge, "if your definition of 'rubbish' is very villainous, extremely evil and ultimately…uncouth."
Banjo sighed as his body continued forward. "Yeah, see, we might've freed you if you didn't outright tell us you were a videogame bad guy."
"Whaaaaat?" Said the voice. "You mean to say you're one of those videogame heroic dudes? Despite the fact that you just blew a prison to smithereens?" He paused. "Oh, I get it. You're one of those sandbox anti-heroes! Like the electric guy, the guy who impales civilians on blood or the ambiguously Russian one."
"Sure, whatever," Kazooie said, "let's…go with that."
Banjo, however, was thinking. "That voice," He said to himself softly. "Where have we heard it before?"
"Ahhh, but if you free me," the voice said, "you'll get to take the much more evil path and get all the cool power-ups and the cooler ending! That always happens when you do the evil path!"
"We don't have a karma meter and we don't need one!" Banjo said. "We're old-school 90's videogame good guys through-and-through who don't need any sorta fancy gimmicks!"
"I don't know about that…" Kazooie added, "but even if we wanted to head down some sort of 'evil path,' there's no way we're freeing you, pretty boy!"
"Oh please," the voice said, "you already were pretty evil breaking all the way in here. Why not go all the way evil by releasing me? Now, would you kindly break this Restrain-O-Ball I'm trapped in? I'd very much like to reward your assistance, but I can't do all that much imprisoned in here."
Still under the control of the possession puppetry, Banjo watched in horror as his legs came to a stop and his hand reached for Kazooie and primed her for a grenade egg.
"Kaz!" Banjo shouted. "Whatever I do, don't fire!"
"Like I've…got a choice." Kazooie said weakly.
The duo helplessly watched as Banjo fired Kazooie and sent a grenade egg flying from her mouth and towards the light. There was a loud explosion and following shattering noise, and the duo suddenly felt the air charge with evil energy and smoke. There, silhouetted against the floodlight was a tall shadow with glowing red eyes.
"That's better." The voice said, now coming from the tall shadow. "Now, dudes and dudettes, let's liven this place up!"
In a second the Really High Security Cells turned into a maelstrom of masonry and now-freed shadowy roaring bosses. High-speed winds nearly swept Banjo off his feet and electricity arced across uprooted bars, with the glowing-eyed shadow in the eye of the storm performing his annoying pidgeon-like laugh. The only thing keeping the duo from being lifted into the air was Banjo fighting off the possession long enough to grab a metal support rod.
As he gritted his teeth against the wind, Banjo saw his sister out of the corner of his eye. She was an arms length away, being held by the collar of her jumpsuit by a blue breegull's beak, who in turn was grabbing onto a set of bars with his talons.
They met eyes and Tooty shouted something Banjo couldn't hear over the roar of the destruction around them. Through the maelstrom of winds and whirling they reached their paws for one another, and at only inches apart, Banjo blacked out.
Wow, Kazooie sure does seem to be using a lot of grenade eggs in this fanfic. Just like in Banjo-Tooie, huh? I mean, I can't be the only one who found those poor, unloved fire and ice eggs near-useless!
Alright, while I do have the settings and plot progression planned out, there's still a lot left open in terms of the characters Tooty will meet and whatnot. So who or what would you like to see in your Banjo Kazooie game? Any moves or transformations you'd like to see? Any characters you'd like to get a larger role?
And thanks again to all who read! Hopefully we should be reaching the first world sooner or later. I was not expecting this pre-game prologue to take as long as it did to write.
