A/N: For my inspiration, I credit the aforementioned Memphis Belle, and both the book and movie versions of The Hunt for Red October, as well as Top Gun and even The Incredibles (though I came up with the idea to do an airplane scene long before the latter was released). This chapter relies heavily on the "location section breaks" to jump between different Koopas' perspectives, but sometimes a section that starts out in one area expands to describe what's going on elsewhere, more like how I "normally" write (continuous, flowing paragraphs). Rather than shoehorn the text into the template, I decided to write the chapter in the way that felt most natural: sometimes, letting the events spill into each other is easier to read than if its broken into little chunks – or at least, that's what I found. Any feedback on this experimental writing style would be much appreciated, so please read, review and enjoy!
Chapter 9: Sixteen minus Seven
The 7-Koopa-7 had passed back into volcanic Dark Land by noon. They were almost at the same latitude as the Northern Fortress, but they stayed far away from it, having learned of its capture shortly after leaving Westpole over the radio. Instead, they cut through the very center of Dark Land, where the cliffs were too steep for people to live on, and where the valleys were filled with lava as it oozed between the mountains, carving out an endless network of tunnels in their roots. Their goal was to get as deep into the Koopa Kingdom as possible, hide the plane in one of the tunnels, and then recruit people by foot from the various villages dotting the gentler slopes to the West. Having spent her entire adolescence secretly slipping between those villages, Bowselta had no doubt that she could lead the Dragon-Koopas through Dark Land undetected for months if need be.
With the Koopa family were Emerald and Crystal, the elder Lakipa having forced Bowselta to let them tag along. She and Crystal knew it would be dangerous, but they couldn't stand the thought of hiding in Westpole while their friends faced the humans. Besides, there was no guarantee that Westpole would remain safe anyway, and in a way, Emeald figured she and her daughter stood a better chance with the Koopas – and this way, they'd also have a chance to make a difference and help fight the invaders. In fact, after decades of living in the sleepy little arctic town, Emerald was downright excited about the journey ahead, though the majority of the Seven's passengers did not share her enthusiasm.
Crystal sighed and leaned back in her chair, having grown tired of the view from her window: blue skies above, grey clouds below, and nothing else. Across from her, Junior was secretly wishing something interesting would happen, and behind him, Lemmy and Roy were playing a game of cards. Emerald and Bowser watched them, too busy thinking about the future to strike up a conversation. Bowselta was of the same mind: she piloted the plane mutely, deaf to Morton's chattering and Ludwig's occasional responses before her. In the back, Iggy and Wendy were the only ones holding a real conversation, as Wendy's seat faced the front door to the engine room where Iggy was stationed.
Across from her, Larry sat beside the hatch, thinking about Crystal. He knew that the group would have to split before long, once everyone had learned enough survival skills to make it without Bowselta, and he hoped he and Crystal would be in the same group. Once Dark Land was fully canvassed, he wondered if the Dragon-Koopas would go further and start recruiting in Sarasaland. He could just imagine what it would be like to hike through the mountains of Chai with Crystal, far away from everyone and everything: alone, and in love.
-Bridge-
"…And then, the bug's head explodes and the worms swim into the water."
"Lovely," said Ludwig absentmindedly.
"I know, isn't it? It's a great mental image – really visceral and scary and gross. It'd make a great horror film, but the scary part is that it's true! It's happening right now – in every Moo Moo water trough in the world! I can just picture the title: 'The Milk Worms of Doom' or maybe 'Brain Worms: The Eruption' – which'll leave room for more films later on. Like maybe 'Brain Worms: Death by Worm'. Yeah, yeah, and every movie can be about a different kind of worm, each fighting for world domination! That'd be so cool."
"I still don't see how any of zis relates to Pysagorean's Seorem," sighed Ludwig, staring out the window. Unlike Junior, however, he wasn't foolish enough to hope for something to happen.
"I told you," moaned Morton. "Triangles-"
"BEEP BEEP BEEP"
Every Dragon-Koopa on the bridge jumped as the radar alarm in Ludwig's display board went off.
"What is it?" demanded Bowselta, all thoughts of the future banished from her mind.
"Zee radar's picked somesing up at eleven o'clock. Size indeterminate, distance from our position: seventy-five kilometers and closing. It looks like vatever it is, it's moving at around a szousand kilometers per hour."
"Humans," hissed Bowselta.
"You sure?" asked Emerald from the back of the bridge.
"Dis plane's da only ting dat can go dat fast from dis world," said Roy.
"They'll be on top of us in less than five minutes," said Bowselta, hitting a switch on her pilot's chair. Instantly, more lights flared to life on her, Ludwig and Morton's control panels, as the 7-Koopa-7's tactical systems came online. "Battle stations," announced Bowselta over the intercom for Iggy, Wendy and Larry's benefit. Lemmy's station was in the tail, so Bowselta would let him fill Iggy and the waist gunners in on the details on his way by. As he raced off the bridge, Bowser and Roy pulled their retractable firing controls down from the ceiling and out from the walls behind them. They remotely controlled the Seven's turrets; Bowser's guns were positioned directly above the hatch leading out of the bridge, while Roy's turret was behind the back wheel, right where the plane began tapering off towards the tail.
Wendy and Larry's waist gunner stations were directly between the two turrets, located right behind the wings. Unlike Roy and Bowser, whose stations looked like advanced gaming consoles, Wendy and Larry controlled their guns directly, swiveling them through special holes in the window, where magical barriers maintained a seal necessary to maintain cabin pressure within the plane. Just to be safe, however, Bowselta started flying the Seven down towards the clouds; in case the power failed, she didn't want everyone sucked out of the plane. As long as they remained inside the magically re-enforced Seven, there was still a chance they could survive a crash, though it was very slim indeed.
Therefore, the name of the game was prevention, and the 7-Koopa-7 was built for just that. Morton and Ludwig were now playing double-duty up front, manning a final pair of forward-facing lasers situated on the plane's chin. They could be angled like the waist guns, but were automated like the turrets – albeit with a much simpler interface, since the Koopalings could see the targets with their own eyes through the windows. They were still keeping watch over the control boards, but this was now secondary to their offensive roles. In addition to all that were the gyra launchers and fixed forward-facing lasers, both under Bowselta's command, and the Bullet Bill launcher in the back of the plane. The array of lasers covered every angle of attack, and the projectiles handled long range fighting, but there was one final touch to Bowselta's flying fortress.
Iggy's voice crackled over the comm. "Ready to engage the shields."
"Engaging," replied Bowselta, flipping off a safety and activating the forcefields that would protect the Seven from most enemies. A green shell flickered briefly about the plane, but even after it had disappeared, Emerald and Crystal could see its effects as the clouds were parted by the invisible barrier long before they could come in contact with the airplane's nose.
"W- will that stop the humans from shooting us down?" asked Crystal.
"I had this shield developed to do just that," said Bowselta. "Human weaponry cancels out the magical energies of this world, and their bullets will slice through most forcefields like a hot knife through butter for that reason. There is no way around that, but by creating a shield that is so saturated with energy, I think we can overwhelm the dark forces at work."
"So, you think that the life-sucking evil of human weaponry is just another force? Like friction, or- or drag? And that it can just be overcome with another force?"
"Yep, with a forcefield," grinned Morton. "Sorry, I couldn't resist the pun."
Ignoring her son, Bowselta shrugged. "Physics, magic… it's all the same really: it's all energy. The problem is that humans come from a different universe, where the laws of nature aren't exactly the same: they have different energies, and they interact with the energies exclusive to our world in strange ways."
"I still don't get the whole 'other universe' thing," moaned Crystal.
"Vee can go over it again after zee battle," said Ludwig curtly. "Zee humans have increased speed and are on a final approach. Ven vee clear zee clouds, vee'll be in visual range."
"That's assuming we survive the battle," grumbled Junior.
"Which is assuming old Bow's right about the magic physics stuff," said Emerald, grinning sadistically at the back of the Queen of the Koopa's head.
"If I'm wrong, it'll be a very short battle indeed," said Bowselta as the plane burst out of the bottom layer of clouds. Directly ahead of them were four F-16 Fighting Falcon human jets in tight formation. "Everybody ready?" asked Bowselta over the intercom.
"Ready," droned Ludwig, Morton, Bowser and Roy on the bridge.
-Waist-
"Ready," reported Wendy over the com.
"Ready," murmured Larry, trying not puke on his transmitter.
-Engine Room-
"Ready!" Iggy nearly had to yell to make himself heard over the steaming engine: the one drawback to Bowselta's forcefields was that they put incredible amounts of strain on almost all of the Seven's systems, resulting in a very cranky engine. The amount of raw energy that was circulating through the wall of piping before Iggy was enormous, and he knew as soon as his siblings started firing their lasers, it would get worse. As soon as Bowselta kicked the jets into high gear, it would get worse. As soon as bullets started hitting the shields, it would get worse. As soon as the Gyra and Bullet Bills started being called out the Seven's artificial hammerspace, it would get worse. The plane had been tested at full power before, but Iggy knew all too well what would happen if anything went wrong, and not even the Near-Immortals would survive it.
-Tail-
"Ready," chirped Lemmy, trying his best to hide the fear in his voice as his knuckles turned white on the laser grips. Junior was too young to operate a weapons array unsupervised, and Wendy refused to work in such cramped conditions, so the tall yet skinny Lemmy had become tail gunner by default. The tail narrowed from all directions at the back of the Seven, and while he still had plenty of elbow room, he had to hunch over his gun, his butt planted firmly in the seat atop the bullet bill cannon, with his legs straddling it on both sides. It was a little awkward, and Lemmy didn't really like how his hair still brushed the ceiling, but what he really didn't like was being so far removed from the rest of the plane.
Before the battle, he had to wait, staring at the clouds and mountains behind them as the enemies closed in on them from in front; he had no way of knowing when the battle would begin, and the suspense was killing him. But as soon as the first shots were exchanged, the Seven would pass its enemies, and the game of chase would begin – and the enemies would by all that Lemmy would see. Roy's turret would help shoot any bogeys behind and below the plane, but the real onus would be on him, the tail gunner, to take them out before they could shoot the Koopas out of the sky. Lemmy looked down at the bullet bill canon between his legs and in spite of himself, thought about Emerald.
Koopa, he thought to himself, and I thought she was scary.
-Bridge-
"You guys all buckled up?" called Bowselta to the three passengers.
"Yep," said Emerald.
"Yeah," said Crystal, gripping the armrests of her chair.
Junior grunted, angry that there was nothing for him to do except sit and watch.
"Then let's show these bastards what we're made of," grinned Bowselta, flipping a switch on the control sticks and gunning the engines. The 7-Koopa-7 doubled its speed in a matter of seconds; the Koopas strained against the acceleration, but it was worth it: the F-16s were taken aback and had to scramble to avoid the larger plane as it barreled through their midst. Bowser, Larry, Wendy, Morton and Ludwig mercilessly opened fire on the Fighting Falcons, their angry red laser beams cutting harmlessly through the Seven's forcefield and slicing through the air after the humans.
-Tail-
Unfortunately, not a single enemy was hit in the first volley, and all four Falcons lined up behind the Seven, aiming to begin their execution. But Lemmy was ready for them and shot a volley of rapid bursts of burning laser light towards the line, which once again broke off their attack: they had not anticipated the presence of a tail gunner. While all of Lemmy's shots missed, two of the F-16s made a fatal error and chose to dive below the Seven to avoid them, allowing Roy to get a clean shot, slicing the lead plane in two.
The other plane narrowly avoided the explosion and shot a vengeful missile towards the belly turret that killed the first F-16. But as Bowselta had predicted, the shield did its job and the missile exploded on impact. The Seven still shook violently from the blast, and the forcefield flickered ominously as power levels fluctuated in the engine room, but it was nothing Iggy couldn't handle by tweaking a couple valves.
-Bridge-
The Koopas grinned, but the victory was short-lived as the other pair of Falcons came around and showered the Seven with bullets as they streaked by, flying twice the speed of the larger plane. The forcefield looked like glowing green water in a rainstorm as the bullets pelted against it, each one sapping as much energy as it could in the instant it spent on the surface before being repelled by the barrier and falling down towards the bald mountains below.
"We'll get 'em on their next pass," growled Bowser, his face pressed against the screen as he tracked the enemy fighters, waiting for them to come back into range. Without warning, the third plane dived out of the clouds. Bowser swore loudly as he swiveled the turret skywards, angry at how he totally forgot about that Falcon. He had been so concentrated on shooting the one pair that he didn't even listen as Larry reported the third one's take to the heavens after it fired its missile and dodged both the resulting explosion and the second youngest's Koopalings lasers. The F-16 wasn't as lucky this time, and Bowser's laser cut straight through one of its wings before it could fire more than a couple missiles.
"Yes, I- oh, shit!" Bowser's face paled as he realized the burning wreckage was falling straight towards the Seven.
Bowselta saw it too, and swung the plane to the left to try and avoid the wreckage, but there was no time. It struck the forcefield protecting the upturned starboard wing, which buckled under the force of the exploding jet craft. Fire and debris pelted the wing, destroying the nearest engine and the aileron behind it. The rest of the F-16 was knocked into the plane's body, where it once again blasted through the shield. Wendy screamed and dived out of the way as her station was showered in sparks, the fuselage nearly breaking in half because of the impact.
Then, as soon as it had begun, it was over and the Fighting Falcon had fallen away from the Seven, which remained airborne and whole, save for its crippled wing and the damage done to the starboard fuselage. Both the bridge and the engine room were awash with alarms.
"Report!" barked Bowselta.
"I need help back here!" called Iggy over the com. "The engine-" Before he could finish, however, the Seven shook violently as the remaining two F-16s fired a volley of missiles at the undamaged wing. The forcefield managed to hold, but the explosion sent the wing reeling upwards, and Bowselta struggled to keep the Seven under control as a new barrage of short-range missiles and bullets pelted the broken bird.
Green sparks danced around the Seven as the shield threatened to give out entirely, and Ludwig leapt to his feet. "Junior, take it!" he commanded as he vaulted up the stairs and dashed towards the engine room. Usually the young Koopaling would have resented being ordered around, but he was too thrilled at the prospect of operating one of the lasers and bounded towards Ludwig's vacated seat with a grin that could barely be contained behind his scarf.
-Waist-
"It won't budge," said Wendy, watching as Ludwig hurled into view and threw himself at the hatch to the engine room. "It closed automatically when the wing got hit, and then the wall got crunched." Ludwig looked up; the fuselage was indeed crushed above the hatch – and over much of Wendy's abandoned station as well. The girl was sitting on the floor, next to Larry, her pupils unnaturally dilated. Her voice was strangely calm as well, and Ludwig realized she was in some sort of shock. Unfortunately, there was no time for that.
"You're gun still vorks, get back to it! Zere's no shield in zis section, and if zey shoot us here, zey vill destroy us!"
"But if there's no shield their bullets could kill me," whimpered Wendy, knowing that the barrier that was still maintaining cabin pressure could only hold back air, and not deadly ballistics.
Ludwig dived at her, seizing her roughly by the upper arms and looking her straight in the eyes. "If you stay here and zey shoot at your empty station, it vill kill us all."
Wendy's face was livid, but some of the colour started to return to her cheeks as Ludwig hauled her to her knees. However, as the plane shook with another shield-cracking explosion, he realized he didn't have time for that and simply threw his sister in the direction of her station.
"Shoot zem!" he bellowed as he turned and sprinted down the hallway towards the tail of the plane and the aft hatch to the engine room.
Wendy pushed herself up, tears welling in her eyes – whether it was out of indignity or plain fear, she wasn't entirely sure herself. Larry looked over at her furtively, wondering if there was something he could say, but Wendy spoke first.
"Trade you!" her shrieking voice cracked as she lunged at Larry, ripping him off his gun and pushing him towards her station. He staggered, but managed to stay on his feet, and silently assumed his new position as Wendy tried to take aim at the nearest F-16, angrily wiping away the tears so that her vision stopped swimming.
-Engine Room-
"What took you?" scolded Iggy. "That last blast totally fried the shields and destroyed engine two."
"Vendy vas having a meltdown," said Ludwig woodenly.
"The plane is having a meltdown," cried Iggy.
-Bridge-
"Heh heh heh, EAT THIS!" cackled Junior, firing a barrage of lasers as one of the F-16s came about, but it was useless: the enemy was out of range. The Fighting Falcons had taken to circling around their wounded prey, attempting to shoot its unprotected starboard midriff with their missiles while staying away from the Koopas' lasers. Despite all the damage to the starboard wing, and the fact that there was only one fully-functional jet engine left (the outside engine on the left wing; the outside engine on the right was working but threatened to cut out at any moment and the other two were useless), Bowselta could still manage some fancy maneuvering of her own and prevented the F-16s from getting clear shots at the Seven's weak points. She knew she couldn't keep it up forever, but Junior's bravado reminded her of one last trick she could attempt.
With a grim smile, she pulled the Seven into as hard a turn as it could manage, ejecting a dozen Gyra as the plane came about to face the F-16 that had eluded Junior. "Shoot in front of it," advised Bowselta, but Junior didn't listen, merely shooting at random in the general direction of the Falcon. Fortunately, this had the same effect and the jet was forced to abruptly change course, turning nearly upside down to arc back away from the Seven. But as it circled around, aiming to make a pass at the Seven's damaged starboard, it flew right into Bowselta's trap. The Gyra must have appeared on the pilot's sensors, but as Bowselta hoped he would, the human ignored the tiny projectiles and died not knowing what had hit him.
But even before the initial fireball died down, the final Falcon made a last, desperate pass at the 7-Koopa-7. It dove down straight towards the cockpit, out of the range of Junior and Morton's lasers. Bowser's turret hadn't been working very well since the one F-16 smashed into the Seven, and he wasn't able to stop the last Falcon before his guns were destroyed as the jet strafed the Seven's fuselage. Fortunately, Ludwig and Iggy had managed to reroute the raw energy shield to the magical forcefields usually used to keep the plane air-tight, and the bullets were not able to penetrate the inner layer of the Seven's hull.
Bowselta dived and turned the plane in an attempt to put the Falcon in range of Wendy's gun, but the human was faster and fired a missile directly into the Seven's last fully functional engine. The master alarm went off as the plane slipped out of the air, unable to pull itself up as the shallow dive rapidly became steeper and steeper.
-Waist-
"NOOOO!" screamed Wendy, firing at the Falcon and forcing it to finally break off its attack. She couldn't believe it – she couldn't die. Not like this.
-Tail-
Wendy's howl echoed through the plane and sent shivers up Lemmy's spine. Suddenly, the F-16 appeared in his window, climbing away from the mountains as the Seven fell to its doom. A cold fury came over Lemmy, and without thinking, he reached down and fired the Bullet Bill cannon. He hadn't used it in battle because it became clear that the Falcons could outfly the projectiles, so their homing feature was useless. But the Falcon was fighting gravity, to which the Bullet Bill was impervious thanks to its Mushroom World magic, and besides, even if it was a slim chance, it's not like he could save the weapon for some other occasion.
As it turned out, one of Wendy's lasers had nicked the retreating F-16, and like the Seven, the Fighting Falcon was having major engine trouble, which, combined with the onus of gravity, was just enough to tip the physics in the Koopas' favor. The last thing Lemmy saw before the 7-Koopa-7 fell through a canopy of volcanic smoke was the explosion of final F-16.
-Bridge-
Morton, Emerald, Crystal, Bowser and Junior screamed as a mountainside reared out of the volcanic cloud, but Bowselta managed to steer the plane away from the rocks as it careened down into a valley.
"Just end it already we'll all gonna die anyway!" cried Junior melodramatically.
"ENGINE ROOM!" bellowed Bowselta over the com. "Iggy, Ludwig, whatever you're planning to do, do it NOW!" She was confident that her sons had something up their sleeves, and for that reason, she would keep the Seven in one piece as long as she could. But as they shot out of the bottom of the lowest layer of soot and saw the river of lava rapidly looming up to meet them, the other Koopas were confident that they were doomed.
-Engine Room-
The Koopalings in the engine room had not given up yet, however. A quick diagnostic told them that there was a good chance that the damage to the two inside jet engines did not extend to the reverse mechanisms, only the main vents, and so there was a chance the Seven could blast itself back into control. As soon as they felt the plane start to sink after the last explosion, they started redirecting the raw energy flow from the fuselage forcefields (they wouldn't be enough to keep them in one piece when they hit the ground, and so the jet engines were a better bet). Unfortunately, they had ruined much of the main engine's plumbing with their initial redirect of the energy from the shields to the fuselage. By the time Bowselta's voice screeched over the intercom, they had opened the right channels to let the energy flow to the engines, but they could not automatically force the unstable raw energy to divert.
"What do we do?" moaned Iggy.
"Vee do it manually," said Ludwig, holding up his hand with a grin and flashing a small bit of electricity between his outstretched fingers. Iggy's smile matched his brother's as the eldest Koopaling crawled around him to the front of the engine room (though because the plane was in vertical free-fall, it was more like the bottom of the gravity-less chamber). Grabbing the intercom, he gave Bowselta her instructions. "Vee sink vee can get engines two and sreee to reverse along vit four. Vee have to shut off zee flow and jump-start everysing manually first, however. Ven zee power returns, punch it."
As Ludwig spoke, Iggy hurriedly shut the engine down. If they tried to brute-force the raw energy from one path to another, the engine, and by extension the entire plane, would surely explode. The automated systems made the transition stable, but the sheer force of the raw energy had burnt them out, and so the only option left was to kill the flow entirely in order to keep the energy under control. As the Seven went dark (save for the red emergency lights), Iggy and Ludwig yanked open the maintenance hatches and stuck their hands almost completely inside the engine. There was a good chance that violently electrocuting the system would also result in a deadly explosion, but there was no time to let the engine turn on using normal channels – assuming it could turn itself back on at all after sustaining so much damage.
"On sree: vone. Two! SREE!" on Ludwig's count, both Koopalings blasted the engine with their lightning powers.
-Bridge-
As the control panels flashed back to life, Bowselta hit the "reverse" switch and gunned the engines. New vents snapped open on the bottom sides of the engines next to the bridge; the tops were too damaged and merely sparked evilly, unlike the far right engine, which had channels open on both surfaces. Glowing bluish-white energy immediately spewed out of the open vents, and the Koopas could feel the plane jerk in response, slowly decreasing in speed. Bowselta pulled back on the control sticks as hard as she could, slowly forcing the 7-Koopa-7's nose up and away from the lava.
"Yes!" Bowselta grinned triumphantly as one of the warnings finally cut out: the plane was level enough for the instruments to read things as being under control. She disengaged the engines so that the plane would not lose too much forward momentum, and it silently leveled-off just under a hundred feet above the river of lava. "We can land in that cave," said Bowselta, catching sight of an old lava tunnel burrowing into the cliff to the Seven's left. It was not too far ahead of the plane and about the same altitude above the active river, meaning it was a former lava flow itself, which had long since hardened.
The plane coasted into the cave without issue, and Bowselta even wondered if she would need to hit reverse again to slow their speed enough to land. The tunnel seemed to go on for a while, however, and the deeper she could get the plane under the mountain, the better. She had originally planned to hide the Seven in a cave like this one, and she felt some relief that her carefully laid plans had not been totally ruined by the F-16s.
-Engine Room-
As the plane leveled off and gravity returned to the engine room, Iggy whooped. "Yeah! It worked! I can't believe it!" he slammed his two maintenance hatches closed and beamed at Ludwig.
The other Koopaling looked back at him, immediately catching sight of the gauge beside his horn. It was deep in the red, but Iggy and Ludwig had tuned out that particular warning chime in the face of everything else that was borderline critical. This was beyond critical, however – this was terminal.
"Look Out!" bellowed Ludwig.
Following his gaze, Iggy's face snapped to the gauge and paled as he realized what was happening. Iggy didn't have time to react, but Ludwig had already sprang and knocked the younger Koopaling out of the way as the pipeline exploded. Iggy landed in a heap in the hallway, looking up to find that the door had once again automatically swung closed behind him. Ludwig was still in the engine room.
-Bridge-
The 7-Koopa-7 was jolted by the explosion and every single system went dead for the last time. The emergency lights flickered on after a second; they were separate from the main power grid, like the intercom. "Engine Room?" Met with silence, Bowselta paled. "Engine Room!"
"Help!" Iggy's frantic voice came onto the com from the station in the back hallway. "There was an explosion! Ludwig's trapped!"
Bowselta's eyes widened in horror and she looked over her shoulder at Bowser, catching his eye as he tore himself out of his battle station and headed for the hallway.
He did not get far, however, as the Seven's starboard wing crunched against a stalactite that Bowselta had not seen up ahead in the blackness of the cave. The impact twisted the plane around, smashing the other wing into the ceiling of the tunnel. Thanks to the missile damage, the wing was already compromised and snapped in two along the edge of the outer engine. The Seven was hurled back to the ground; the energy within the hull prevented the fuselage from complete destruction like the wing, so while the screaming Koopas were protected from harm, the magically lofty plane continued to ricochet down the tunnel.
Most of right wing was soon ripped off just beyond the outer engine, destabilizing its energy and causing it to explode. The Seven tumbled even more violently as a result, its nose and tail alternately smashing into the ground as it barreled end-over-end through the widening cave. Morton and Junior nearly wet themselves as the panels before them were crushed by the impacts, and Lemmy narrowly survived, having barely begun climbing out of his tail gunner position when the Seven first leveled off.
Suddenly, the bridge was bathed in the pale light of the Dark Land sky as the Seven flew out of the tunnel after bouncing upwards one last time, though it soon spiraled back down towards the ground below. There, it finally came to a rest, its nose crunching right into the ground and stabilizing the plane enough so that it didn't bounce or flip over, but merely had its tail could fall back to the earth as well. Luckily, the hulk landed right side up and relatively level to the ground.
The Dragon-Koopas slowly came to their senses. "Ha ha, we're alive!" crowed Morton, as Emerald chuckled weakly. Bowser picked himself up off of the ground in the hallway, where he had managed to grab hold of a handlebar to prevent himself from being knocked about the plane. Unlike Crystal, who swiftly unbuckled her seatbelt to wretch on the floor, or Larry and Wendy who lay in a daze in the hallway before him, Bowser didn't have time to recuperate at his own pace. His son needed him, and he contented his sprint to the tail and the only useable door to the engine room.
-Bridge-
"Ha ha, and you thought we were dead!" Morton gazed blearily at Junior, who merely stared at the cracked glass and twisted metal before him and tried to collect his wits. "Heh, that was some great flying Mom. Until the end, that is, but what can ya do? Eh, Mom? Do you think-"
"Get out of the plane," said Bowselta, who, unlike Junior, was not staring off into space, but surveying the land beyond the Seven's ruined windshield. The reason why the Seven had finally come to rest was that it did not hid solid ground off which it could continue to ricochet as in the tunnel: instead, it had crunched into the hardened surface of a lava pool. Breaking the solidified crust absorbed the plane's momentum, but it had also destabilized the shell, and large cracks had begun to radiate out from the Seven's position. Before the others could grasp the situation, the plane began to tilt sideways, sinking into the lava as the ground beneath it broke apart. "GET OUT OF THE PLANE!" screamed Bowselta, making sure she urgency of the situation was understood this time. She need not have worried: the red glow outside the window and the ominous creaking of the destabilized plane had finally snapped them to attention.
While Bowselta and Junior ripped at the seatbelts that held them in their seats, the others – who had already unbuckled themselves – sprung into action. Roy dashed into the hallway as Emerald pulled Crystal to her feet and followed him. Vaulting out of the lowered front section of the bridge Morton followed them, nearly slipping on the puddle of Crystal's motion-sickness puke and making a mental note that despite her vertical snowmobile track back home, the girl probably wasn't a roller-coaster person.
-Back Hallway-
"Ludwig! Ludwig!" Bowser rounded the corner as Iggy sent another volley of electricity at the closed door to the Engine Room, adding the stream of fire Lemmy had aimed at its hinges.
"The explosion caused it to seal automatically and it won't open again," said Iggy desperately as Bowser pushed past him to face the door directly.
"I told her those Shy Guy 'safety features' were a mistake!" growled Bowser, before tackling the door.
"That won't work: it's magically reinforced – we have to weaken the connection points first," said Iggy, wringing his hands as Bowser staggered back from the door and began to help Lemmy blast at the edges. "I don't know why it's not working. It might have been fused by the explosion – it was an energy conduit that blew, or maybe it got crunched in the crash like the front door, or-"
"Stop yammering and help us!" bellowed Bowser.
-Front Hallway-
"Keep going," urged Emerald, shoving Crystal ahead of her as she herself paused at the doorway to the storage area. Crystal obediently disappeared down the hall as Emerald ripped open the hatch and jumped inside, the door nearly being knocked closed behind her as Morton barreled out of the bridge.
"There's no time to get your stuff!" admonished Bowselta as she and Junior rushed into the hallway.
"I'm not leaving my bag!" said Emerald, slinging an old schoolbus-yellow bag across her body. "It's got all my stuff," she said as she ran back to Bowselta, who continued down the hallway as soon as she saw that her friend was coming too.
-Waist-
Having heard Bowselta's scream, Larry and Wendy had pulled open the hatch, but quailed at the sight of the lava bubbling up beneath them.
"What're you guys waitin' for?" demanded Roy, skidding to a halt.
"But the lava-" began Larry.
"Is meltin' da plane! I ain't goin' down wid it, so if you're just gonna stand dere, get outta my way!" With that, he pushed his way past his siblings and leapt out of the Seven. The piece of rock he landed on bobbed deeper into the lava, but he didn't dwell on that, and instead, started his dash across the lava. There was another old tunnel directly ahead, sloping up and away from the pool, and Roy had a feeling the ground there would be solid. Though anything better than the area around the Seven would be an improvement, really.
Wendy and Larry were both lighter than their large, muscular brother and the fact that he made the jump gave them enough confidence to follow, one-by-one. Crystal faltered at first, but Morton's angry "hey!" forced her to jump out of the doorway – sure she was scared, but that was no excuse to prevent the others from escaping. She yelped in surprise at the warm rocks, which seemed boiling hot to her snow-dweller's feet. Biting her lip, she jumped over the first crack, eyeing the red-orange lava in wide-eyed fear. Suddenly, the rock she was standing on bobbed sharply as Morton plopped down behind her onto the first rock.
Screaming, Crystal lost her balance. "Sorry!" cried Morton behind her, lunging forwards and planting his hands into the back of her shell to keep her from falling backwards.
"Thanks," gasped Crystal, looking back at Morton who grinned toothily.
"We gotta go!" He jumped onto a rock beside Crystal's, trying to step as lightly as he could. "Just pretend it's hopscotch. You every played hopscotch? I suppose it would be hard since you guys don't really have clear pavement up in Westpole, but I guess you could always just carve the squares into the snow…" Morton didn't bother waiting for responses as he hopped over the cracks in the ground; he had a feeling Crystal was too freaked out to answer anyway – which she was. Her hair became plastered to her face by sweat as she followed Morton's progress, too busy staring at the fragmented ground beneath his feet to hear a word that came out of his mouth.
Junior was the next out of the Seven. Confident that his small size meant there was no risk of him breaking through the surface, he darted across the lava as fast as he could run, swiftly overtaking Morton and Crystal as he picked his own way to safety.
From the doorway, Bowselta could see that Roy, Larry and Wendy had already made it to the tunnel, where they stood waiting for the other three Dragon-Koopas running across the lava field. She heard Iggy and Lemmy taking turns calling Ludwig's name in the back of the Seven, and turned away from the hatch.
"What are you doing?" demanded Emerald.
"They need help," said Bowselta, but before she could take two steps, she felt Emerald's hand on her shoulder.
"Bowser's there-"
"They need me," snapped Bowselta, jerking out of Emerald's grasp, only to have her arm seized instead and pulled back.
"So do they." Emerald tossing her head in the direction of the hatch. "They're doing everything they can back there – you told me yourself that Bowser's the strongest and most powerful-"
"But the energy's unstable. The entire plane could explode-"
"Which is why you can't be on it," said Emerald, squeezing Bowselta's wrist as tight as she could to keep her friend from breaking free. "Think of the kids out there – won't it be bad enough if they lose their father and brothers, but their mother too? You can't do that to them!"
Bowselta and Emerald stared at each-other, neither giving an inch until finally the Queen of the Koopas relented. "You're right," she sighed, closing her eyes and turning back towards Emerald and the hatch.
"No trying anything funny, now – you're jumping first," Emerald smirked at Bowselta, hunching down into a fighting stance between her friend and the back hallway.
"Thanks," said Bowselta, smiling sadly before she abandoned ship.
What are friends for? thought Emerald to herself with a small smile, casting one last look down the hall before jumping through the door herself.
-Engine Room-
Ludwig opened his eyes to a darkened room and pain all over his body. He had been unconscious since the explosion, but gathered there must have been a spectacular crash by the amount of destruction around him, barely visible in the feeble glow of a single surviving emergency light. He ached all over, and there was blood trickling into his eyes and mouth from some sort of head wound; he probably had a concussion. His right side stung from the energy burns, but he had had worse, and compared to the stabbing pain in his right leg – which was pinned under something heavy – the welts seemed like nothing at all.
"Ludwig! Ludwig!"
It took the eldest Koopaling a minute to recover his senses enough to realize he was being called. "Iggy?" he coughed, craning his neck to look up at the hatch. "Iggy!"
"LUDWIG!" Iggy was overjoyed. "Thank Koopa you're alive! Are you hurt? – I mean – how bad is it?"
"I dunno! Everysing hurts but I'm not sure…" Ludwig was lucky: raw magical energy like the stuff used in the Seven did not damage living creatures nearly as much as it did inanimate objects because of their own energy auras. So while there had been enough buildup of unstable energy flow to blow up the conduit, the released energy only hurt Ludwig as much as a minor electrical shock or some low-power fireballs. As he had suspected, the majority of his injuries came from the crash, as his unconscious form had been tossed around the engine room with the debris like a rag doll. Dragon-Koopas were tough, however, and the only thing Ludwig really worried about was if his shell was cracked, so he tried puling out his wand from hammerspace.
While it took some effort (the raw energy had destabilized his magic to a small extent, but it was nothing that time couldn't fix), he soon held his wand in his hand. Sighing in relief, he called back to Iggy and the others. "I sink I'm okay!"
"Great!" called Lemmy.
"We're trying to get you out!" continued Iggy. "The door's stuck, though, can you see any reason why?"
With a grunt, Ludwig managed to force his wand tip to light up. He was lying on the floor with his head towards the door, so it wasn't the best angle, but he could still see the damage done by the energy. "It seems to have been velded shut by zee explosion." He looked around at the rest of the room: the energy had done a lot of damage; the intercom was melted and there was debris everywhere, including the large piece of twisted metal that lay across Ludwig's legs and tail. Scanning the wall of piping, Ludwig saw that quite a few of the smaller pipes had been broken open; some seemed melted away, some were smashed apart, and others looked as if they had been sliced open by hunks of shrapnel.
All the gauges had been destroyed, but Ludwig didn't need them to realize that something was wrong. Even though the engine was shut off, some of the pipes were shuddering, and he could even hear the nearly inaudible whine of increasingly unstable energy forcing its way through hairline fractures in the metal.
"Get out!" He screamed through the door. "Zee engine's about to explode, get out NOW!"
"NOT WITHOUT YOU!" roared Bowser, smashing against the door once more.
"Zee energy has been destabilized – it is flowing and building up pressure, and soon it vill reach zee tipping point! Zere vill be a catastrophic meltdown in zee pipes, allowing for zee energy to form a feedback loop, causing a chain reaction zat vill-"
"I DON'T CARE!" roared Bowser, pelting the door with lightning.
"But zee entire plane vill explode!"
Lemmy and Iggy blasted the door with the hottest flames they could in attempt to cut through the metal before Ludwig's prophesized apocalypse could occur. Impervious to the heat, Bowser surrounded himself with electricity and began tackling the door in earnest.
"You'll all die!" beseeched Ludwig.
Bowser's response was broken up between each hit: "I – DON'T – CARE!" The last word had barely left his lips when Bowser finally broke through the hatch in a blaze of lightning and fire.
Ludwig's face broke into a grin. "I don't believe it!"
"Let's get you outta here," said Bowser jumping to his son's side as Iggy rushed to tend to the engine.
"My leg – it's pinned," said Ludwig, indicating with his wand before looking towards Iggy and the engine.
Bowser immediately reached forward and lifted the metal away. From the doorway, Lemmy gasped. "Your leg – it's gone!"
Ludwig turned his attention back to his right leg to see that Lemmy was indeed correct: the limb had been severed just above the knee during the crash. As Ludwig raised the bloody stump into the air for a better look, a goofy smile split his face. "You're right – it is gone! Zat explains zee pain – and I sought it vas simply crushed! I vonder vere zee leg is amongst all zis debris, heh heh…"
"Er, you're obviously in no state to walk, so I'll just-" As Ludwig chuckled deliriously, Bowser reached forward and seized him under the arms, pulling him off the ground and swinging him over his shoulder. Ludwig's wand fell out of his slackened grip as Bowser carried him out of the engine room.
Lemmy stepped aside to let them by, but when Iggy didn't follow, he stuck his head back through the doorway. "Aren't you coming?"
"It's too late to prevent an explosion, but if I can vent some of the energy, I think I can buy them enough time to get a safe distance away before it blows," muttered Iggy, fiddling with every working valve within reach. Bowser had told them that the plane was sitting on a bed of lava as they attempted to blast through the door, and while neither Koopaling let this deter them from staying and saving their brother, it was now foremost in Iggy's mind. The explosion would surely destabilize the entire lava field, meaning anyone nearby could find the ground crumble beneath their feet: he couldn't let that happen to Bowser and Ludwig.
Unfortunately, most of the piping was unusable, and the connections that did work still needed to be jerry-rigged and forced by hand. Holding one such valve closed, Iggy strained to grab a piece of scrap metal to block off a leak he hadn't realized was present until he wrenched open the passageway, ruining the valve. It would not lock closed again, so Iggy had to hold it closed and prevent the energy from spilling out into the room, but he couldn't just stand there, and he knew fixing the hole would be easy if he could just reach the scrap metal.
Seeing he could use a hand, Lemmy rushed forward scooped up the metal. "Tell me what to do."
-Outside-
The Koopas on the shore gasped as a small geyser of energy appeared over the engine room. Bowselta knew it was just one of the emergency vents, but it still wasn't a good sign: purging the energy was a very dangerous and desperate move. "Look!" cried Morton as Bowser appeared in the Seven's hatchway with Ludwig. Bowselta breathed a sigh of relief, but the fact that Bowser was carrying the eldest Koopaling still put her at unease.
The King of the Koopas leapt from the doorway, but the combined weight of two adult Dragon-Koopas was too much for the rock he landed on, which tilted backwards, allowing lava to spill onto Bowser's heels.
"Vatch it!" cried Ludwig as Bowser wavered through the air, nearly falling backwards, just as Crystal had nearly done mere minutes beforehand.
"Stop squirming! That isn't helping!" growled Bowser, struggling to keep a good grip on his son as he flailed what was left of his lower limbs in an attempt to bring Bowser's center of gravity forwards – and away from the lava. Miraculously, the king managed to regain his balance, and ignoring the blistering pain in his feet, started running towards shore. But even sticking to the largest rocks, Bowser put his foot through a few more times. Why'd it have to be my adult son who lost his leg? He thought, gritting his teeth. Why not Junior? Or skinny little Larry? Even Iggy would have been easier going…
-Engine Room-
"Okay," said Iggy, closing another unlockable valve. "We've done as much as we can."
"Great, then let's get outta here," said Lemmy.
Iggy shook his head. "Someone's gotta stay and make sure this stays shut – if it reopens, we'll only have a couple seconds left before it blows. Ludwig and King Dad need more time, so I'll hold it as long as I can and-"
"I should hold it," said Lemmy, stepping forwards and grabbing hold of the wheel that controlled the valve.
"What? No! Hey, stop it!" Iggy struggled to keep a hold on the valve as Lemmy tried to squeeze him out of the way with his body.
"I can run faster than you, Iggs. No offense, but you couldn't make it out of here in a couple seconds."
"Sure I could," said Iggy.
Lemmy raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"Okay… Maybe you're right, but I can't just let you-"
"Tell you what. I'll count backwards from twenty, and then I'll wedge this thing in this position using this piece of scrap-" Using his foot, Lemmy managed to scoop a section of piping off the floor. He reached down and grabbed it, mashing it into the wheel at such an angle that if the wheel tried to spin it would knock the scrap into a perpendicular section of piping, locking itself almost entirely closed.
"That won't be good enough-"
"It'll still buy me an extra second or two, right? Not that I'll need it, mind, you – I'm just doing this to make you feel better. King Dad should be plenty of distance away by the time I've finished my countdown, and even you aren't slow enough to still be in the blast range by then," Lemmy winked mischievously at his brother, before hip-checking him away from the valve.
"Hey! Now wait just a minute-"
"Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen. – You better get going, cuz I'm not waiting. – Sixteen. Fifteen."
"Stop it! Let me hold the valve. I won't let you risk your neck for me too-"
"Don't be silly! I can make it out of here in time – you can't: staying here would be suicide for you, and then Ludwig would have risked his neck for nothing. Don't let his leg's sacrifice be in vain!" Lemmy wasn't being entirely serious with that last line, but the humour was lost on Iggy. "Now, where was I? Oh yeah: fourteen. Thirteen."
Growling in frustration, Iggy turned and ran for the door. Lemmy did have a point: it would be foolish of Iggy to die for his pride. It still didn't stop him from feeling like a useless worm, however, and Iggy knew that if Lemmy died that day, he'd never be able to live with himself.
"Twelve. Eleven. Ten…" Counting backwards brought back memories of playing hide-and-seek and tag with Iggy and the other Koopalings. Lemmy missed those days: their childhood was never truly carefree, but there was still a simple happiness to that time. Back when fighting for their lives against Mario was something to be enjoyed, back when girls had cooties and "drat" was the worst word in their vocabularies, back when they felt like they'd never grow up. He missed painting each other's shells fantastic colours with shell dye; he missed swinging from the chandeliers; he missed rolling around on his rubber ball.
"…Six. Five…"
Lemmy had been preparing for adulthood for years. He still had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, or whether or not he wanted to get formal education at the University of Koopa, or other such details, but he thought he would at least be able to handle the big stuff.
Big stuff like seeing his brother lose a leg.
Big stuff like killing someone.
"…Three. Tw-" Without warning, one of Iggy's patch-jobs came lose, allowing a stream of whistling energy to shoot out of the pipe in front of Lemmy. Jumping out of harm's way, Lemmy released the valve, watching as it slammed the scrap metal he stuck in the wheel's spokes into the perpendicular pipe, slicing it open with ease before flinging the scrap across the room as it continued spinning open. "Shit!" cried Lemmy, sprinting out of the room as the energy started to spark. He was still in the hallway when the first explosion rocked the plane, and the next one, and the next one.
The blast wall between him and the engine room kept him from being fried, but when he reached the waist, the front hatch to the engine room was blown clear off its hinges, filling the compartment with fire and light. Planting his feet on the metal, using his claws to bring him to a screeching halt, Lemmy twisted his body away from the danger and leapt through the outer hatch. He had barely cleared the 7-Koopa-7 when it finally exploded in its entirety, the shockwave blasting Lemmy through the air with the shrapnel.
Ludwig and Bowser had almost reached safety, but as pieces of airplane spun towards them, the King took his son's alarmed scream as a cue to duck. Ripping Ludwig off his shoulder, Bowser threw the two of them down onto the ground, doing his best to cover his son's body with his own and hoping his shell would be enough to deflect anything that hit them. They were lucky: only a couple pieces of metal ricocheted off Bowser's shell, though a few larger chunks slammed into the lava around them. The final blow to the head was too much for Ludwig, however, and he passed out cold where he lay. "Ludwig?" Bowser grabbed his son's arms in panic, fearing the worst. "Ludwig!"
Lemmy spiraled above the scene, even soaring over the heads of the onlooking Dragon-Koopas before coming back down. He hit the ground hard, tumbling head over tail a couple times before finally coming to a stop in the darkened tunnel, where he lay motionless and oblivious to the world. Out in the field, Iggy was screaming and writing in agony, having been knocked into a puddle of lava by the shockwave. Behind him, the flaming wreckage of the 7-Koopa-7 slowly sank beneath the molten rocks.