Sorry for the wait once again… I simply am not as motivated as I used to be when it comes to typing stories… Still, it's better than taking months or so to update or not updating at all, right? Still, I'll try my best to update within ten days.
As promised last time, this chapter would more exciting to make up for the previous lackluster one.
Chapter 10
Uneasiness Due to the Fire
With the exception of Luigi, Pikachu, and Parry, the other Smashers came into the hallway Fox and Falco first entered, and they stopped at the doorway to make sure that there was no one. After being sure of this, they fully stepped out into the hallway, and Snake said, "Okay, we'll split up and head for the places we're supposed to go. Rely on the map you took a picture of for navigation, and try to keep in contact with each other as much as possible. Once you're done with what you're doing, meet back in the truck. We'll contact you when we should be leaving too."
"Yes sir!" Pichu said.
"Don't get caught, okay? If you do get seen by someone, make sure to knock him out, or else your presence will be known by everyone here," Snake added.
"Yes sir!" Pichu said again.
"Okay, if there is nothing else, let's move out! Make sure to do things properly, understand?"
"Yes sir!" Pichu said for the third time while saluting like a soldier.
With that, the Smashers split into two groups and headed in opposite directions. Snake, Donkey, Diddy, Link, and Pichu went together, while Mario, Olimar and his Pikmin, and Jigglypuff went together.
Snake's group carefully sneaked down the hallway in order to not catch the awareness of the people here, but luckily for them, there was nobody at all. "This place sure is the total opposite of crowded…" Diddy commented. "Not saying it's a bad thing, mind you."
"Well, it's on top of a volcano and cannot be accessed so easily," Link explained. "Plus, I think people with the right mind would probably never want to go into a building built right on top of a volcano anyway…"
Snake was looking at the map he had in his smartphone. "The quality isn't all that good, so it's a bit hard to tell what the pointers on the map are. However, I'm sure the yukkuri storage is in this direction."
Suddenly, Pichu said, "I hear sound coming in this direction! It's coming from around the corner up front!" So the Smashers immediately stopped moving and pressed themselves close to the wall. Donkey, while not hearing what Pichu said, did the same when he saw the others did this.
Still pressed against the wall, they slowly inched closer and closer to the corner, and then a marisa came jumping from around it in panic while crying for help. "After it! Don't let it get away!" shouted a voice from around the corner. Knowing what kind of person was going to show up next, Snake stuck out his leg and immediately caused one guy to fall forward when he hit it, and the second person behind to him fell on top of him when he hit him. "Ow! What the?!"
Before they could fully get back up, Donkey quickly grabbed both their heads and slammed them together to knock them out cold. Diddy gave him a thumb up afterwards. "Good going, Donkey!"
Link turned to the marisa, who was trembling while looking at the Smashers. He slowly crouched down in front of it and said, "Take it easy! We just saved you!"
The marisa, still looking afraid, slowly replied, "Take… Take it easy…"
"Don't worry; we are nice misters who are here to rescue you and your friends! You don't have to worry with us around here! You can trust us to get you all out of here and take it easy!" Link told it.
"Yeah! We're telling the truth!" Pichu, who ran up next to the marisa to pet her on the side, said.
"Really? Then marisa will believe in misters!" the yukkuri said, not looking scared anymore.
"Where did you run out from?" Snake asked the yukkuri. "Are there any other yukkuris in the room you were in? Can you take us there?"
"Marisa was taken out of a room with several other yukkuris to be abused by mean misters," marisa replied, "but marisa managed to escape by herself. Marisa still remembers which room she came out from! Marisa will take you there if misters want to!"
"Do so, then," Snake told it.
The marisa nodded and then took the lead, and the Smashers followed it.
Mario and Olimar peeked into the window of a door that had a sign writing "Target Practice Room" above it. They saw two people turning towards the door, so they quickly ran around a corner to hide. The two guys came out from the room, happily chatting with each about much fun they had just now, the kind of fun that involved shooting arrows at yukkuris.
After they were gone, Mario, Olimar and his Pikmin, and Jigglypuff went into the room. In there, they saw bows and arrows kept on one side of the room. On the other side were targets, most of them with yukkuris stuck onto them. Some were either still burning from getting hit by fire arrows, while some were already charred. The ones that were still being burned were most definitely dead, as they were no longer struggling or crying about getting burned. Underneath the targets was also a long pool of molten iron.
"Mamamia… I can't-a believe eet…" Mario commented when he saw the sights of the dead yukkuris.
"I can't believe that they take pleasure in this sort of thing…" Olimar said in a tone that hinted both sadness and anger. "I don't think any of the yukkuris here are still alive for us to rescue …"
"Over there!" Jigglypuff said, pointing to one of the targets. On it was a reimu, still alive and in one piece, impaled to it by a normal arrow through the part just underneath its mouth.
The Smashers ran over to the front of it, but the pool of molten iron kept them from going near it. "We have to do something to save it!" Olimar said. "As long as it is still breathing and not in a really bad condition, there is still hope in saving it with orange juice!"
"How are we going to help-a eet with theez pool of molten iron separating us?" Mario asked.
"I have an idea!" Olimar said, and then he whistled loudly to make his Pikmin arrange themselves into a line. They then fell forward and held each others legs to form a chain of sorts, and then Olimar picked it up by the last Pikmin's legs. "Behold the Pikmin Chain!" And he swung the makeshift chain at the yukkuri, and the Pikmin up front grabbed the arrow.
"Wait-a minute!" Mario quickly told him. "Eef you pull out da arrow, da yukkuri will instantly fall into da molten iron!"
"Oh yeah, how come I haven't thought of that…?" Olimar said, realizing that what he was going to do would most definitely cause the death of the yukkuri.
"Don't worry; Jigglypuff will save yukkuri! Olimar pull out the arrow! Jigglypuff will fly over to catch yukkuri!" Jigglypuff said.
"Are you sure you can do it?" Olimar asked her. "I fear that the momentum from catching it will cause you to fall into the molten iron."
"Don't worry; Jigglypuff will be all right!" the balloon Pokemon assured him. Seeing that the Pokemon was confident of herself, Olimar nodded, and so she puffed herself up and floated underneath the yukkuri. Olimar then yanked the Pikmin "chain" to pull out the arrow, and the yukkuri immediately fell onto Jigglypuff, who managed to catch it. The momentum did cause her to drop down a bit, but luckily, she floated back up without going near the molten iron. She quickly floated back to solid floor with the yukkuri before she ran out of breath. "Jiggly… Jigglypuff did it!"
Olimar looked at the yukkuri, who was looking at them with half-closed eyes, and said, "Simply feeding it orange juice or painting its wound with it won't do. This kind of wound requires a more proper way of treating using flour and water."
"But-a we don't-a have flour," Mario said.
"Yeah, that's the problem… I'm sure they have a kitchen here where they contain flour. They need a place here for making food, right?"
"That's-a true, but you can't guarantee that-a they have flour here…"
"It wouldn't hurt to take a look." Olimar then looked at the map on his smartphone. "According to this map, there is indeed a kitchen here. Looks like we'll have to run in, like, a circle to get to it, though…"
"Well, then let's-a go," Mario said. The Smashers stood up and headed for the exit, but suddenly, a person came in and spotted them.
"Hey! Who are you?!" he asked.
Acting fast, Jigglypuff started singing. Mario and the Pikmin closed their ears, while Olimar pressed a button on his suit to stop sound from going through his helmet. The person curiously watched the creature he had never seen before sing, and eventually, he felt himself becoming drowsy. Finally, he dropped to the floor and fell asleep. "Good-a job, Jigglypuff!" Mario said to the Pokemon.
"Jigglypuff did it again!" the Pokemon happily said.
Mario then dragged the person to the far side of the room and seated him against the corner before running out of the room with his comrades.
The marisa led Snake's group to the room where the rest of the yukkuris were being stored for future use. They walked up to the large door that had a pad of sorts next to it. While the others were looking at the door and wondering how to get it to open, Snake looked at the pad and said, "I believe this door will only open when it senses a handprint. Obviously, only the handprints of the people here will work."
"What will happen if we put our hands onto it?" Diddy asked.
"Set off the security, perhaps? It's best not to touch it, if that is really what will happen. What we can do is to knock out someone here and use his or her…" Before Snake could finish speaking, they heard the sound of the door opening. Acting fast, the Smashers ran to the side and pressed themselves against the wall as much as they could in hope of avoiding being seen.
A person pushing a cart that had several sounds coming from inside it came out, and shortly after he came out, Snake used a gun to fire a dart at his neck. The person cried and placed his hand at the part that got shot, and then almost immediately afterwards, he leaned forward onto the cart. The Smashers approached him, and Link asked Snaked, "Put him to sleep with a tranquilizer, didn't you?"
"What else do you think I did?" Snake replied.
When the Smashers opened the top of the cart and looked inside it, they saw yukkuris looking up at them. They had the marisa who led them here explain to the yukkuris that they were here to help them, and hearing this made them excited, but Snake told them to be quiet and stay inside so that they could be transported around easily.
Under Snake's command, Donkey carried the man who fell asleep to the pad next to the door and press his hand against it, and just like what Snake said, the door slid open. They all went inside and found themselves face to face with cages containing various kinds of yukkuris. "Looks like we really came to the right place!" Pichu said, stating the obvious.
"Looks like there really isn't as much yukkuris as we think there would be," Link said.
"Right," Snake with a nod, "and it's a good thing too. We won't have too much trouble trying to get them out of here."
The Smashers immediately went to unlock the cages. At first, the yukkuris were afraid, thinking that they were going to take them away to be tortured or killed, but when the marisa told them the truth, they believed. Luckily for the Smashers, there were other carts in the room, so they loaded the yukkuris into each of them until all the cages were empty. It only took four carts to empty all the cages.
"Good, things went smoothly and easily," Snake said. "C'mon, let's get out of here before someone comes in!"
The Smashers headed for the exit, leaving the person that was put to sleep in the room. However, another person showed up at the door when they were about to leave through it. "Hey! Who are you people?" he asked. Snake immediately took out his tranquilizer and shot him in the shoulder, putting him to sleep. With that person out of the way, the Smashers ran out of the room, but they were immediately spotted by three other people from behind.
"Hey! Who are you?!" one of them shouted, but all them were immediately silenced by Snake's tranquilizer.
"You sure act fast!" Link commented.
"Acting fast is a vital part of stealth," Snake explained. "I only have one shot left, however…"
"Guess we have no choice but knock them out cold using the violent way after that, eh?" Link said.
Meanwhile, Mario's side was at the kitchen, which they managed to get to without running into anyone. Luckily for them, there was nobody in the kitchen as well, so Olimar immediately got busy looking for flour, which wasn't too hard for him to find.
By combining it with water, he was able to seal up the reimu's wound. After being fed orange juice, the yukkuri returned to good health and said to him in a cheerful voice, "Thank you very much, kind mister! Reimu can now take it easy!"
"That's good to know!" Olimar said.
"Okay, now that-a we managed to heal eet, we betta get-a outta here before someone comes in," Mario suggested. Olimar nodded, but when they turned to the exit, they saw Pyronicus standing at the doorway. "Uh oh…"
"So the inhabitants from another dimension, or so you claim, came here, eh?" Pyronicus said. "And I see that you have just treated a yukkuri you found somewhere here. Very bold of you to come all the way here to rescue the yukkuris, eh?"
"Isn't he same guy from the Yukkuri Fun Fair?" Olimar pointed out. "The same guy who was in charge of the bet involving yukkuris being thrown onto a hot plate!"
"Eet really eez him!" Mario said. "So you're Pyronicus?"
Two guys appeared next to Pyronicus, both of them glaring at the Smashers. "I can consider letting you go without telling the authorities if you are willing to hand over that yukkuri and leave behind any that you rescued, assuming that you did rescue them already," Pyronicus said to the Smashers. "Be careful if you refuse to comply, because I'm not the kind of person who thinks twice before doing something that is considered unacceptable or going too far."
"This guy… I can tell that he's serious…" Olimar said. "What do we…? Oh yeah, Jigglypuff! Put them to sleep with your song at once!"
"Jigglypuff will sing now!" the balloon Pokemon said, but right when she was about to sing, Pyronicus kicked her to the back of the room. "JIGG!"
"Jigglypuff!" Mario gasped as he watched the Pokemon fly away, and then he ran after her.
"Guess you slipped the tongue and failed to pull off your secret weapon effectively, eh?" Pyronicus said to Olimar. "That could've worked if you hadn't brought that up."
"Yeah, my bad…" Olimar said, regretting having said that just now.
"Again, hand over that yukkuri and then get out of my clubhouse at once! People who are not interested in abusing yukkuris are not welcome here, especially if they are not interested in using fire to abuse them!" Pyronicus angrily told them.
"No! We will not-a allow you to abuse theez yukkuris any longa!" Mario said as he came back with a knocked out Jigglypuff in his hands. "Do what-a-eva you want-a! We are willing to fight-a back if we have no choice! Plus, we are not-a da only ones here! Even as we are speaking, our friends are on their way to rescue da otha yukkuris!"
"So there are more of you here, eh? Too bad the security must've taken notice of them by now," Pyronicus said. "No way are they going to make it to where the yukkuri storeroom or get them out of there!"
"If you haven't noticed yet, two of our friends have already taken over the security control room," Olimar told him.
Pyronicus became surprised when he heard this, and he told one of the men next to him to go and check things out and also to warn the others. While he was saying this, Mario gave him a left hook to the face. The Smashers immediately ran out of the kitchen, pushing aside both the other guys before making a run down the hallway. "Get them!" Pyronicus shouted as he got up while rubbing his face. "Warn the others too! We must keep those people from getting out of here with any of the yukkuris!"
Snake's group was on their way back to the parking lot when Snake himself suddenly received a phone call. "Hello?" he answered through his smartphone. "That you, Mario? What?! Pyronicus himself saw you guys?! Great… Okay, I know. We'll be careful!" And he ended the call.
"What happened?" Link asked, and then everyone came to a stop when they saw several people armed with guns appearing in front of them and blocking their way forward. "Uh oh…"
"That's what happened," Snake replied.
"So they found out about us, right?" Diddy asked.
"You shall not take those yukkuris out of here!" one of the people said. "Leave them behind, or else we will burn you all!"
"What do we do?" Pichu desperately asked.
"This!" Snake shouted as he took threw a grenade. When those people saw it, they screamed and jumped to the sides, and then Snake told the others to move forward. After the Smashers were gone, those people looked at the grenade after seeing that it never exploded and realized that the pin wasn't pulled out.
"Darn it! We've been had!" one of them angrily said. "After them!" And they gave chase.
Mario's group ran into a large room where they saw yukkuris being abused in various ways, and the people there turned their heads to them. The Smashers saw crying yukkuris with burned feet being sent inside a large machine via a conveyor belt, and they came back out from the other side, charred and stripped of their hair and accessories. They were then packaged into boxes and then taken away on carts.
There was another conveyor belt that sent yukkuris into a large vat of molten iron, and at another side of the room, yukkuris were hanging from the ceiling via hooks, and fire was burning them from below.
"Oh my god…" Olimar commented, not believing the forms of abuses he saw.
Some people armed with guns appeared in the same room from behind the Smashers, and one of them said out loud, "Stop those people! They're trying to escape with the yukkuris!"
Mario and Olimar ran forward, but they quickly found themselves surrounded. "What do we do?!" Olimar asked.
"Can't-a your Pik-a-min do something?" Mario asked Olimar. "Make-a more of them!"
"Um… I hate to say this… but… I didn't bring any Pikmin seeds with me…" Olimar nervously replied. "I left them in my luggage back in our world, so these five Pikmin are all I have now, and I doubt this amount can do anything to these people…"
"Mamamia…"
Pyronicus then showed up in the room and said to the Smashers, "This is the end of the line for you! You can't escape any longer!"
"What do we do now…?" Olimar asked.
"I can contact-a da othas, but I don't think-a I can do eet so easily with all theez people around-a uz…" Mario said.
Soon after he said this, Snake's group came running into the room, getting chased by the ones who spotted them previously. "Hey look! It's Mario, Olimar, and Jigglypuff!" Diddy pointed out.
"Looks like they're in a pinch as well," Link said, and then he looked all around the room. "Whoa… Looks like we've reached the mother of the abusing around here…"
Pyronicus's men surrounded Snake's group, and then they forced all the Smashers to move close to each other. "Other than the ones in the security control room, that's all of you here, right?" Pyronicus asked. "Your friends in that room are being taken care of at the moment, so they will join you here very soon!"
"I wouldn't count on them to be taken out so easily," Snake said.
"Why are you doing this?" Olimar asked Pyronicus. "You built this place and made all these just to abuse yukkuris?! This is taken things to the extreme! What profit is there in doing all this?"
"Yeah! And building your house on top of a volcano too!" Pichu asked. "This is asking for a death wish! You'll never know when this volcano will blow its top!"
"Rest assure that this volcano will not blow its top," Pyronicus told him. "I have hired experts to examine this volcano several times already, and they are one-hundred percent sure that it is completely dormant. And why would I build my house on top of a volcano? Because it's awesome, that's why!"
"You're crazy!" Link said. "You're nothing but a pyromaniac who likes to take things to the extreme! You might as well set an entire forest on fire just to kill yukkuris!"
"That is something I wish to do!" Pyronicus told him. "If it weren't for nature lovers keeping me from doing so, that is…"
"This guy seriously is a pyromaniac…" Snake commented.
"You people sure have the guts to break into my clubhouse!" Pyronicus said to them. "Not only are you interrupting my fun time, but you're also interrupting the fun time of the people here! As I said earlier, this is a clubhouse, one made for people who enjoy abusing yukkuris with fire! The people you see here are either hired to work for me and maintain this place or club members who came here to kill time and have fun with fire-related abusing. Don't you feel ashamed of yourselves for ruining the fun of so many people?"
"I would-a gladly ruin da fun of several people eef eetz for da sake-a of saving lives!" Mario angrily replied.
"Oh? You people have no moral, do you? Let me tell you what: I'm also making business with this place." Pyronicus told the Smashers, and then he looked at the yukkuris that were being sent into the machine and coming out of the other side charred. "See those yukkuris? We are making grilled yukkuris to be sold at the market. People love the taste of grilled yukkuris, and I earn lots of money a month from selling them! I'm sure you'll definitely understand why they help you earn a lot after you've tried them yourselves! Want to try one?"
"Biting off and chewing your finger would be more enjoyable!" Pichu angrily said.
"Then what's the point of those?" Olimar asked, pointing to the yukkuris that were being burned to death and the ones being dropped into the vat of molten iron.
"Those are purely abuse, nothing else," Pyronicus replied. "Isn't it fun hearing them screaming as they move closer and closer to the end of the conveyor belt and when their feet are getting burned constantly? Hahaha!"
Hearing this made Olimar really angrily, and he loudly said, "You're crazy! You're a madman! A spiteful madman who must be taught a lesson! I have enough of this madness already! I have never been so angry in my life! I will no longer tolerate this!"
"Whoa! This is the first time I've seen him so angry!" Donkey commented.
"Me too!" Link said.
"Even if I destroy this whole place and cause the deaths of you vermin, I WILL!" Olimar shouted as he picked up the purple Pikmin and flung it at Pyronicus, hitting him in the abdomen. Immediately after that, he flung the other colored Pikmin at him, and they grabbed onto him and pummeled him rapidly.
"Gah! Get them off me!" Pyronicus cried as he shook around. Suddenly, Olimar ran and hurled himself onto him, pinned him to the floor, and punched him in the face over and over.
One of Pyronicus's men went over to pull away Olimar, but Donkey ran at the former and punched him away. "Might as well!" the gorilla said.
"Stop at once! Or we'll shoot!" another one of Pyronicus's men said, but Link threw a boomerang at his head. "Ow!"
The Hylian caught the returning boomerang and said, "Now that Olimar and Donkey are on the loose, why should we hold back any longer? If this is the only way we can get out of here now, then we have no choice!"
Snake sighed and then said, "Guess you're right… Somehow, I knew we weren't going to get out of here without a fight…"
Electricity came out from Pichu's cheeks as the Pokemon showed an angry and smiling face. "I like this way better!"
And so, the Smashers started fighting people around them. The men used flamethrowers, but the Smashers were able to evade their attacks with little effort and then knock them out. While the fighting was going on, Fox and Falco came into the room. "What's happening here?!" Fox said, surprised at the sight of the chaos.
"They've started the party without us!" Falco said. "I'm not going to be left behind!" Then he ran into the scene of the fighting, despite Fox telling him not to make things worse.
During the midst of the chaos, Falco noticed oil drums placed at the side of the room, and a grin appeared on his face before he ran over to them and picked up one. "Hey, let this be a lesson to you guys!" he said out loud as he faced the scene of fighting. "Never put oil drums in places of heated battles!" Then he rolled the oil drum in that direction and pointed his gun at it, but he purposely didn't pull the trigger right away.
When everyone else saw him pointing the gun at the oil drum, they knew what he was going to do and so ran away in panic, and that was when Falco fired a beam at the oil to cause it to explode.
KABOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
"Falco! What on earth are you doing?! We're not trying to make things worse than it already is!" Snake shouted at him.
"I figured that this might end things faster," the bird replied, not feeling wrong about what he did.
Olimar saw the grilling machine and that there were no more yukkuris on its conveyor belt. An idea came to him, and then he ran to the oil drums and started moving one of them in its direction. Falco asked what he was doing, and he replied, "I'm going to destroy that machine! Such a thing must not exist! In fact, this place shouldn't exist at all! If possible, I'm going to wreck up this whole place to some extent and render it unlivable!"
"I like your way of thinking!" Falco said with a smile, and then he knocked down the remaining oil drums and pushed them with his foot to send them rolling in the direction of the machine. Olimar rolled the oil drum he was moving in its direction too. Falco then aimed his gun at the oil drums when some of them were close to the machine. "Stand back, everyone! We're going to have another huge explosion coming up!"
Pyronicus saw this and shouted, "No! Stop! DON'T!" But the bird fired at one of the oil drums and set off a chain explosion that eventually engulfed the machine.
KABOOOOOOOOOOM! BAAAAAAAAAAAANG! BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!
People ran away screaming as pieces of the machine and burning oil drums flew all over the place. When the burning oil drums hit the floor, they exploded. Because several oil drums hit the floor, the explosions caused parts of the floor to become unstable, and holes appeared as well. The force of the explosion also caused some of the people to go flying, and the carts containing the yukkuris fell over, causing the yukkuris inside to fall out.
"Darn it!" Snake angrily said as he and some of the other Smashers hurriedly put them back into the carts.
"I seriously don't know if they're trying to help or make things worse anymore!" Fox said while picking up the yukkuris.
"Let's just get out of here now! There's no more point in staying and fighting anymore!" Snake said. "This place may soon fall apart because of what happened just now!"
Pyronicus glared at Falco and Olimar and shouted, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?! YOU'VE RUINED THIS PLACE!"
"And that is exactly what this place deserves!" Olimar shouted back.
"Why you?!" Pyronicus angrily said as he aimed his gun at them and fired a large stream of fire, but they quickly got away.
"Falco! Olima!" Mario shouted at the two. "Theez eez enough! You've done enough damage here already! We have to get outta here now!"
"Not until we've taught this guy a lesson first!" Falco replied.
"No! Just-a stop-a eet!" Mario said. "We've promised not to take lives and also to avoid-a conflicts as much-a as possible, but we've ended up causing a lot of da latta already! Theez eez as far as we go, so stop-a eet already! Olima, I know that-a you're very angry, but-a you cannot let-a rage get da best-a of you! By wanting to make theez people suffer for abusing da yukkuris, you are making yourself no betta than them! Do you want-a to become like-a those people?"
Hearing this, Olimar realized his mistake. "You're right… I really did let rage get the best of me… I… What have I done…?"
"Don't-a worry; I can undastand-a. Anyway, let's-a get outta here now!"
But Falco protested. "No way! I haven't had enough…" Before he could finish speaking, he was shot in the neck and then fell to the floor shortly afterwards.
Olimar and Mario turned to Snake, who had his tranquilizer pointed at the bird. "That's the only way I could think of," he replied.
"I couldn't agree any better," Fox, who was standing next to him, said with a nod.
"None of you are getting out of here!" Pyronicus angrily said. "Men! Surround them at once!" But he noticed that none of his men were in the room anymore. "Hey! Where did everybody go?!"
"All of them ran away after the machine blew up," Fox said as he picked up Falco by his shoulder. "If you know what's good for you, then you better get out of here too!"
"Never! This is my house, so I'm not getting out of here!" Pyronicus angrily said. "You people will pay with your lives for making a huge mess out of this place!"
"This guy doesn't know when to quit, does he?" Snake said.
"You guys go first-a!" Mario said to his friends. "I'll hold-a him off and then catch up with you lata!"
"What are you going to do to him?" Olimar asked the Italian plumber.
"Knock-a him outta and then drag-a him back to da truck," he replied. "Anyway, da safety of da yukkuris are very important, so go first-a!"
"If that's what Mario wants, then let's go," Snake said. "I'm sure this place won't fall apart that fast."
"Be careful, Mario!" Fox said before heading for the exit with the others.
With the other Smashers and the yukkuris they rescued gone, Mario turned to Pyronicus and said to him, "Give eet up-a! Your men has evacuated already! Theez place eez no longer suitable for people to stay in! Just-a come with uz quietly, okay?"
"In the very least, I'm going to make sure that this place is your grave first!" Pyronicus angrily said before firing at him. "Burn to ashes!"
Mario performed an amazing somersault jump into the air to avoid the fire, and he fell in Pyronicus's direction and stomped him in the head. He landed in front of him and then punched him a few times in the face, each hit making him take steps back. Mario then attacked with a palm thrust that created a burst of fire that caused him to fly back, but he was horrified when Pyronicus went flying in the direction of a hole. "Oh no!"
Pyronicus stopped just in front of the hole and flailed his arm as he tried to balance himself, but he failed to do so. Luckily, he managed to grab onto the edge with one hand, and when he looked down, he saw magma. He was looking into the volcano itself.
Mario ran up to him and caught his hand. "Grab-a hold of me!" With all his strength, he pulled Pyronicus back up. After pulling Pyronicus up, the part of the floor underneath Mario suddenly broke, and the plumber fell. He managed to grab onto the edge with both hands, however. "Whoa!"
Pyronicus backed away from him, pointed at him, and laughed. "Hahaha! Looks like the tables have been turned! Perhaps it was better that you just let me drop to my doom below! You could've saved your own life if you had let that happen!"
Mario managed to pull himself back up easily, but he didn't come back up entirely. "I helped you! Eez that-a how you should be repaying me?!"
"You think doing that can make up for all the troubles you brought me?" Pyronicus asked, and then they heard the sound of crying coming from nearby. They turned to the source of the sound and saw a koreimu.
"It's hot!" the koreimu cried. "Weimu wants mommy! Waaaaaaah!"
"One of da yukkuris must-a been left-a behind when they fell off da cart-a earlier!" Mario thought.
Pyronicus went over to the koreimu, picked it up, raised it into the air, and held it tightly, making it feel pain. "Can't… chake it eajy… like this…" it said.
"No! Don't-a kill eet!" Mario shouted at Pyronicus.
"You want to rescue this piece of trash, don't you?" Pyronicus asked him. "You're just wasting your time rescuing lowlifes like them! They don't deserve you rescuing them! Yukkuris are lowlifes whose sole existence is to be tortured to death by everyone!"
"All life deserves respect-a! You have no right-a to abuse them!" Mario shouted back.
"Correction: all life except yukkuris has the right to live! Yukkuris have no right to live in peace! Like I said before, their only purpose in life is to get killed by everyone! Yukkuris do not show gratitude! They trash talk to us, think highly of themselves, and vandalize properties! People who think yukkuris deserve justice and peace are deluded and out of their minds, like you and your friends! By coming here and rescuing the yukkuris and wrecking this place, you have broken the law of not interfering with abusers!" Pyronicus said.
"Such-a law must not-a exist!" Mario said as he got back onto to the floor and on his feet. "Da president-a may be right-a that-a eet brings safety to da citizens, but there eez no worth in eet eef life eez still lost, even eef eet eez da life of yukkuris! Eetz people like-a you that-a PETY exists!"
"No! It's people like you that PETY exists! Had you yukkuri lovers left us alone in the first place, then this law would've never existed, and PETY would never exist as well! If you had just left us alone, everyone would be able to live in peace! Yukkuri lovers like you are the blame to the world's problems!"
"None of theez would-a happen in da first-a place eef you didn't abuse yukkuris!"
"Enough! There's no point in talking to you about this! You wrecked my house and stole my yukkuris! You want to rescue all the yukkuris, right? Well, then I might as well kill this one right here and right now! Hahaha!" Pyronicus began to squeeze the life out of the koyukkuri, and Mario was going to make a move when suddenly the part of the floor underneath the former shook.
That part suddenly fell, taking Pyronicus along with it, and the koreimu flew out of his hand and right into Mario's. Mario quickly ran over to the hole and looked down it, watching Pyronicus screaming with his arms raised into the air as he fell towards the magma below. "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"
"Mamamia…" Mario said in horror, keeping his eyes on him till the end. He closed his eyes and felt grief for the life that was just lost. As the place was slowly collapsing, he quickly stood back up and ran for the parking lot with the crying koreimu in hands.
When he got to the parking lot, he saw only two trucks, whereas there were a lot more when they first came. "What-a happened here?" he wondered.
Luigi stuck his head out from one of the trucks and said to him, "Good! You're here, Mario! We have to get out of here now! All or most of Pyronicus's men have escaped using the trucks already! Good thing we managed to save two trucks for ourselves!"
Snake stuck his head out from the second truck and asked, "Where's Pyronicus?" Then he saw Mario lowering his head and slowly shaking it. "Okay… I guess something unfortunate happened to him… Anyway, get onboard! You can share with us what happened after we're out of here!"
Mario nodded, and then he boarded the back of Luigi's truck, which was carrying some of the other Smashers. After that, the trucks approached the door, which automatically slid open, and flew outside.
As the truck was flying farther and farther from Pyronicus's clubhouse, Fox, who was sitting next to Snake, looked out the window and at the building. "Judging from Mario's response," he said, "guess we weren't able to resolve things in a more… satisfying way…"
"Some things are unavoidable, I guess," Snake said.
Fox sighed as he unrolled the window, and both the trucks flew towards a hill in the distance.
TO BE CONTINUED
Due to the death of an abuser, I'm can foresee this chapter being controversial among the yukkuri fandom…
The ending looks a bit abrupt in my opinion. I originally wanted to end it with Snake or Fox saying something, but what I wanted Snake to say may offend some people a bit, so I scratched that idea and ended this chapter this way instead.
Anyway, hope this chapter made up for the previous one!
God bless you all!
Trivia:
1. This chapter's title is named after Luna Child's theme, Sleepless Due to the Night. There are various ways to translate her theme, mind you, so there's no accurate translation for it…