"OH NO! LEMMY'S DYING? WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?!" Iggy jumped up and ran around the room, pulling his hair and hyperventilating, trying to hold himself back from screaming.
"Iggy." Ludwig stuck his foot out and tripped Iggy. "Lemmy is NOT dying. You know how used to cold weather he is, and also how powerful his lungs are. His odds of contracting pneumonia are almost nil, and even if he does get it, he will recover swiftly."
Iggy quickly pushed himself off the floor. "But-but..."
"But I DID leave the question as to Lemmy's survival open in Larry's mind, for that is all part of the plan. Remember, our mission is to put Larry on the guilt trip of a lifetime, and where guilt doesn't work, SHEER TERROR will."
"Ooooohhhh, I seeee..." Iggy nodded slowly, wringing his hands. He swallowed and clenched his teeth. Ludwig could tell that Iggy was scared to see what kind of a nightmare Ludwig would come up with.
"I must warn you now, Iggy, that you may find the last stage of Larry's dream to be rather upsetting to watch. Just keep in mind, Iggy, that the events I place in his dream are not real, they are not going to happen in real life-"
"B-b-b-but aren't you supposed to be showing Larry his... his FUTURE?! Wait, we can't show him his future, I-I-I-I didn't put a time machine on this doohickey..."
"There is no need for one, Iggy. We will not be showing him his actual future, but rather a most horrifying turn of events of my own design. That is why I must ask you to keep calm and remember that these events are not real, as horrifying as they may seem. Can I ask you to do that, or shall I keep you calm via other means?"
"Uuuuuuuhhh... I-I'm-I'm good." Iggy nodded jerkily. "It's not real, it's not real, it's just a horror movie, it's not real, just another one of Ludwig's lame horror movies..."
Ludwig snickered. "You might not be scared of my horror movies, but when Larry was a toddler he would cry all night after seeing these and have nightmares and even-"
"Wet the bed?" asked Iggy, grinning with sly malice.
Ludwig nodded, his face tight with smirking. "He still even sucks his thumb. Scaring him straight will be too easy."
"Hmmm... um, Ludwig, could you tell me more about what Larry was like when he was younger? I-I-I don't exactly remember all that much, come to think of it. Did you know that he would grow up to be such an all-around meanie?"
"Well, I know that this is hard to believe, but there was a time that he was innocent, docile, even adorable. Actually, at first he was a frail and sickly child. He failed to thrive, and didn't walk or talk until he was two years old. That was after I had stepped in and given him some much-needed medical attention. After that, he quickly caught up and became normal, even slightly ahead, in terms of development for his age. He became quite attached to me for a while... followed me everywhere, always in my hair... even LITERALLY. This I tolerated, for I had planned on making him my apprentice when he got older. He had such a clever and curious mind, he almost could have been another you..."
Iggy made one of his bizarre expressions that nobody could read. Nobody except Ludwig, who knew that this face was Iggy seething under the surface with jealousy at the thought that anyone, least of all Larry might ever have taken his place. "Go on..."
"However, King Father ruined him. He babied the child half to death, let him get away with tantrums and cowardice... it's understandable, given that Larry had up until then been suffering from a life-threatening illness, but by coddling him, he had done Larry a huge disservice. And he had also charged me with the responsibility of looking after you and Lemmy, being quite the special cases that you were, and since I had my hands full with that, Larry instead spent more time with Roy and Morton, trying to emulate them. Iggy, what's so funny?"
Iggy had started laughing at the moment that Ludwig mentioned Larry's tantrums. "I remember one time when King Dad took you, me, Lemmy and Larry to some scary old-fashioned barber shop called The Hair Saloon and they were playing some creepy old-fashioned country song about a burning fire on the radio and Larry was crying... he was all, 'I don't want a cowboy haircut!' AAAAHAHAHAHAhahahaha..."
Ludwig had to repress a shudder. His father's attempts to tame his mop top when he was a kooky youngster made for some traumatic childhood memories, and had even spurred the creation of Dr K's line of experimental hair care products to help him avoid the torture that was a hair brushing.
"Anyway, instead of striving to be brilliant and cultured like yours truly, Larry strived to be, well, like Roy and Morton. He wanted to be as tough as them, as 'cool' as them, as 'grown-up' as them... Larry started dating the same year that Roy went on his first date. If you ask me, Roy was too young to be seeing girls at that age, let alone Larry. He never could compete with his brothers athletically though... no strength, no stamina. You might say his childhood frailty still lingers in that sense."
"Pfft, no wonder he's such a little cheat! I remember how he used to make Lemmy cry by cheating at that dull candy game he used to play..."
"And King Father should never have permitted that." Ludwig sighed. "I should have known... he had such a fascination with shiny things such as Coins and jewelry from an early age, but I figured it was purely sentimental..."
"Well what are you waiting for? Put that helmet on I wanna see some nightmares! WAIT wait... uuum, since I made the Ghost of Christmas Past speak like the way people spoke in the past, you should make the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come speak like the way people speak in the yet to come... er, in the future! Make him speak Xingon - er, broken English in a Xingon accent like the X-Nauts in Starship X-Naut!"
Ludwig facepalmed. "Iggy, contrary to what Francis may have told you, Xingon is not a real language..."
"Zax exla xa!" Iggy said, crossing his arms and turning his nose up. He tittered, pleased that he actually knew a language that Ludwig didn't.
"Iggy, you remember my great-uncle Wolfgang, don't you?"
"Hrmm? Oh yeah, him! You're going to make the spirit talk like him!" Iggy was smiling one moment, and the next he gasped in terror.
"OH NO NOT HIM! He's SCARY! HE CAN'T EVEN SPEAK ENGLISH!"
"Iggy, stop. You're not scared of him, besides I know you know German. I taught you. And he's actually just starting to learn English-"
"JUST STARTING? GAAAAH HE'S TOO OLD-"
"Rubbish, one is never too old. I'm afraid he's stuck with the accent though..."
Ludwig had learned English at a very early age, so he could speak perfectly without a hint of accent. He was, however, quite capable of feigning an accent, as he did whenever he felt like being pompous or trolling his siblings.
...
HashtagTheGhostofChristmasYetToCome brought Larry back into his own bed. The Ghost of Christmas Present was finally gone, and with that realization came a rushing sense of relief. Larry felt as if his mind was finally actually coming awake from this crazy nightmare. He was vaguely aware of a lightning and thunderstorm rolling outside, but it seemed distant, almost comforting after the zaniness he experienced that night. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to be lulled into a sense of security...
"RISE AND SHINE HERR KOOPA! ES IST ZEIT TO AUFWACHEN!"
"AAAHH! AAAH! AH! Aahhh...aaaaw man, is this nightmare ever gonna end?" Larry whined. He pushed himself up from the bed with exaggerated difficulty, took his sweet time to yawn, and slowly opened his eyes while rubbing them excessively.
"End? Why, the nightmare has only just begonnen..." The visitor laughed an all-too-familiar laugh; a manic, bubbly, cackling sort of giggle that Larry had only heard from his brother Ludwig after he had drunken an ungodly amount of coffee and gotten himself into his "Kooky" mad-scientist mode.
Larry at last stopped rubbing his eyes and saw, in the flickering light of distant lightning flashes, that this visitor not only sounded like Kooky-mode Ludwig but looked exactly like him. The messed-up hair that took either hours in the salon or a spritz of Dr K's Posh Hair-in-a-Can to fix; the bloodshot eyeballs that looked like they were on the verge of popping out of his cranium, which itself looked under pressure from a brain so huge and still growing on the inside it could barely contain it; the twitching, from having a bloodstream so caffeinated that if a vampire had bitten him, said vampire would get Red Bull wings from just one sip of it.
"LUDWIG? NO... don't go all psycho on me..." Larry was somewhat frightened by his brother's suddenly broken English. Was he having a stroke or something?
"Ludwig? I bin nicht Ludwig, my dear, you seem zu be very much mistaken... woohoohooWOOOoooh, you might take me for a Doppelganger of your older Bruder, but I'm actually the Geist of Weihnachten Yet-To-Come!"
Thunder clapped as though in applause, and lightning flashed like a spotlight, bright as day. Larry ducked back under the blanket, his whimpering only stopping after his thumb was in his mouth.
The spirit tugged at the blanket. "Was are you doing, stop saugen your thumb and get out from under there, wir haven't got any time to lose! Well, actually, come to think of it, wir haben all the time in die WELT to lose! WOOhoohoo, we can skip back and forth from Jahr zu Jahr all we like! Such is meine Begabung... woohoo, how about we pay a little besuchen, say, zu Christmas of next year?"
"N-next year?" Larry gulped.
"You're not frightened, are Sie?"
"F-frightened? Who's frightened? Not me! I... I-I'm just a little bit... overwhelmed at the prospect of seeing how g-g-GREAT my future is going to be, yeah, see I've got a couple of awesomely foolproof schemes going for a New Year's resolution, so by the end of next year I expect to be a rich Koopa, a VERY rich Koopa."
Meanwhile the spirit had yanked Larry's clock out of the wall. He took out some tools and opened it up, took things out, added things in, did some very noisy things with one tool and some very sparky things with another, and, with cackling that was as maniacal as it was manic, raised the contraption in triumph.
"WOO! HOO HOO! I BIN SOOOO SUPERKLUG! Here, here, let's take it for a spin, shall we?"
The spirit wrapped the cord of the thing he invented out of Larry's clock around his and Larry's body and closed the loop by plugging the end of the cord into the back of the clock. He set the alarm to go off exactly one year later and pressed the year button once to change the year up by one.
The alarm went off. "I'M SO FANCY..."
"ACH! Mein apologies, that was the wrong station..." The spirit grumbled to himself, "keep your claws off dem Gerät Ignatius..."
He twisted the radio dial until they were warped out of that time and place.
Larry blinked, dazed, half-expecting to have waken out of this dream at that point. But he was still tied to the machine with this spirit, only now he was not in his room or even the castle, but inside a flashy stadium with winding racetracks and glowing billboards and rave music blaring.
"WOOHOOHOO! I did it! We're here, Larry, in the Zukunft! Aren't I SUPERKLUG!"
"Yeah yeah you're Super Glue. Holy rollers, this seems like my kind of place!" The place was crowded with ravers and their electric hairdos and glowy sticks, and it smelled of E-cigarettes and menthol and clove oil. There was a DJ making squeaky sounds with the vinyl disks on the turntables, and it was none other future Larry.
Future Larry was dressed in a jacket studded with jewels and glittering gold dust, designer jeans, expensive shoes, and a T-shirt that he likely paid fifty or more coins for. He wore a gold bling necklace with dollar symbol, pound symbol and Euro symbol shapes dangling from it, a designer pair of futuristic-looking sunglasses, flashy light-up gloves, and he had a pair of extra, golden fangs to replace the ones that present Larry had recently lost. Like a lot of the ravers present, he was also sucking on a pacifier, but his was golden and studded with diamonds.
Future Larry removed the pacifier, waved his glowy hands in the air and shouted, "SO WHOSE LIGHTS ARE THESE?"
"LARRY'S!" shouted the crowd.
"WHO OWNS THIS ELECTRODROME?"
"LARRY!"
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!
"LARRY! LARRY! LARRY! LARRY!" the crowd chanted, clearing away as future Larry made his way to the dance floor. Future Larry jumped on the colorful light up tiles that made musical beats every time they were stepped on, dancing out a tune that was perfectly in rhythm with the trance fusion music in the background.
"NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL A SICK BEAT YO!" Future Larry leaped up and landed on the back of his shell and spun around.
"LARRY! LARRY!" the crowd continued to chant while he breakdanced and made more sick beats on the musical floor. He crawled on over to some girls who lifted him up and passed him to the ravers behind them.
"SWEEEEEET! I'm crowd surfing!" said Larry as he watched his future self riding the audience like a rock star. A helicopter with Larry's face on it was waiting at the back edge of the crowd, and future Larry hopped up onto the ladder dangling from it after they brought him all the way over there.
"This Koopa's gotta fly the koop now, but he'll be back tomorrow night, and again on New Year's Eve! Have a VERY LARRY CHRISTMAS!"
"Hot dog! I can't wait to see what kind of hilltop mansion I'm living in! I hope it's Corona Mountain on Isle Delfino."
"Woohoo let's see..." the spirit tuned the knob until it placed their surroundings in Delfino Plaza. Larry saw his future self's helicopter fly up to the cave at the top of Corona Mountain.
The spirit tuned the knob again to transport them into the penthouse inside the volcano. While it still carried the cozy glow of magma that Larry had grown up with in Kastle Koopa, it had far more the multimillionaire club vibe than Kastle Koopa ever had. The living room was a humongous flat-screen plasma TV connected to every video game system known to Koopakind, and some shelves completely loaded with CDs, DVDs, and magazines. Humongous and excessively flattering portraits of Larry covered the igneous stone walls, with some of Larry's favorite Playkoopa centerfolds pinned up next to them. The bathroom had a gold-plated toilet seat and lid and, even more astoundingly, functional plumbing.
Future Larry sat down to watch the big television - not on a couch, but in an enormous jacuzzi, with bills sticking out of the frothy bubbles and piles of coins at the bottom for those that dare to go snorkeling in the heat. A couple of bronzed bathing beauties in bikinis, a brunette and a blonde, were waiting, having already warmed it up for him.
Future Larry grabbed the brunette's head and kissed her on the cheek. "Mary Jane, baby, were your parents bankers? Cause you look like a million Coins." He turned around and did likewise to the blonde. "Molly, babe, if you were money, you'd be a dime, cause you're a ten."
"So what would you like to drink, sir?" asked another blonde in a cute little maid outfit.
"A triple martini on the rocks. No olives. Oh and by the way, Coco," future Larry added before she could run off, "that outfit really flatters your figure." Future Larry winked and smiled that smile that some women found cute and others found creepy.
The women in the hot tub with him giggled and petted him.
"Ah, Addie, so good to see you" future Larry said to a redhead in a tight little business outfit who was coming up to the jacuzzi with a clipboard. "How's my movie deal coming along?"
"They still haven't gotten back to me about that, Mister Koopa, but I've got great news. I've managed to schedule you a meeting with a major modeling agency. This is a great opportunity to sell your brand, Mister Koopa. What type of image exactly are we trying to sell here?"
Coco had just gotten back with future Larry's martini. "HellOOO, Addie, get with the program! The image I'm trying to project here is your classic James Bean daydreamy type dude. Reckless, a daredevil, but dripping with charisma not to mention cash. Above all, a bad boy. That type of thing makes the ladies swoon. Make sure they hire a photographer that knows how to capture that. Oh, and a few shots of my hair billowing beside a fan are a MUST. Remember, babe, I'm an icon. And my hair is the reason why."
"Very well..." Addie scribbled some more stuff on the clipboard. "Oh and your hot oil massage has been scheduled for around ten thirty this morning, and the doctor should be getting back to you with the results of last week's physical later today. But right about now, you are scheduled to open presents."
"Sweet. Oh and by the way Addie, next time, please ditch the kitten heels and go with stilettos."
Future Larry reached outside of the jacuzzi for his keys and pressed the button on the electronic lock. The skylight at the end of the pipe on the ceiling opened up, letting in the sound of more helicopter noise. A crate wrapped up like a present box was lowered down the pipe, followed by a few others. All of them were labeled with a tag that said "To: Larry From: Larry".
Future Larry pulled the ribbon off the first crate and stood back as the paper and the sides of the crate fell off, spilling packing peanuts everywhere. It was a crystal statue of Larry, but more muscly and heroic-looking than in real life. He also received a tennis ball shooting machine, a Flame Rider racing bike, a crate carrying what seemed to be a store's entire inventory of high-end tennis racquets, and, which seemed to excite him most of all, a crate full of jewels and assorted golden coins. Future Larry yelped in delight and jumped into the pile of coins that spilled out, even still wet from the jacuzzi, and made a snow angel in the coin pile.
"Holy Batman, is my future bright or what? I think I'm gonna have to steal Roy's shades." Larry's tail was wagging, and the cash symbols were practically visible in his eyes, as were the hearts flying over his head.
"Aber it strikes me as rather peculiar that deine Familie is not at all present to celebrate. Are you not at all concerned about your Geschwister?"
"My... what? My sister?"
"And your Brüder."
"My... Oh yeah. Them. You know what was weird? I was having the rave of a lifetime, but Roy and Mort weren't there. Eh, not that I could see, anyway..."
"So let's pay them a Besuch now, warum nicht?" The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come cackled darkly and twisted the knob again.