Super Mario Brothers: Epidemic
(A/N: Second up today, more losses, and again not a great action scene, but I did what I could to improve it.)
Casualty: 2
Meanwhile… Mario, Waluigi, Mona, Pauline, Tiny, Toadette, and DK walked through the forest searching for a sign of either Petey Piranha or King Boo. So far they'd had little luck. "At least we're out of the city," Waluigi wryly said.
"Right, there couldn't possibly be as many infected out in the woods," Toadette optimistically, albeit uncertainly, said.
"Don't bet on it," Tiny pessimistically replied. After all, this infection was working on animals as well. The last thing she wanted to run into was a pack of infected wolves or an infected tiger or something. Simians and predators did not mix.
"Don't worry, guys, we'll find Petey and King Boo soon. Look," Mona said, finishing the last touches on her tracking device and thanking the star spirits that Wario had given her a crash course on McGoomvering useful gadgets out of whatnot. Her smile fell. She was afraid. What had happened to her boss? Was he even still alive? Shaking off the sadness she revealed the device to the others.
"Those are them?" Pauline asked, pointing out a Red dot spotted with white and a second dot, White.
"You bet," Mona replied. She zoomed out, revealing more of the Mushroom Kingdom and beyond. Here are the dots of the others," she said, pointing them all out. She gasped, paling, "Oh no, Yoshi and Funky aren't showing up anymore!"
"What does that mean?" DK immediately demanded, worried for his friend.
"It-it means… it means they've been killed or infected," Mona hollowly answered, gravely looking at the others.
"Great, just what we need now!" Mario exclaimed, holding his head in his hands and pacing. This was bad. This was very, very bad. He wished he knew how the military was holding up. He didn't have high hopes. The last military truck he'd seen had been driving right towards a large hoard of infected. They'd tried to stop the soldiers, but the toads either hadn't noticed or just ignored. He believed fully that they were all gone by now.
"On the bright side, it looks like Petey and King Boo are somewhere in these woods," Waluigi remarked, focusing on Petey and King Boo's dots once more. Those were the ones pertinent to their situation at this point in time. "We can't be too far away. Maybe a couple of hours walking."
"You looking at the bright side?" Mario incredulously asked his little cousin. Waluigi never looked at the bright side of anything.
"Don't-a challenge me, cuz," Waluigi warned.
"It's interesting to finally see how you and your cousins interact, Mario," Pauline dryly said. Not that she was surprised by the sorry lack of affection between the four, but still.
SMB
"Hold on, do you hear something?" Toadette asked, shushing the others quickly. They fell silent.
After a moment Mario replied, "All I hear is wind."
"No, there's something out there, she's right," Tiny tightly said, her animalistic senses kicking into overdrive.
DK began growling and grunting. He rose onto his back legs and pounded his chest, bearing his teeth and making himself intimidating. It was the instinct, of a male gorilla, to do something like this when threatened; try to scare off the intruder. "Back off!" DK roared. Tiny ooked and eeked, clambering up a tree fearfully.
"Don't leave me!" Toadette begged. Tiny reached down and took the Toad girl's hands, pulling her up into the branch. She couldn't very well leave her there alone. Toadette was terrified. She'd held up, already, to a bunch of attacks, and fought back well, but this was taking its toll on her, all of it. Toadette was quickly losing her nerve and adrenaline now.
"I don't like this, not at all," Mona said, backing uncertainly away from the now rustling bushes, eyes wide and afraid. Pauline swallowed, following suit.
"We should keep moving," Pauline said. All at once there was a series of barks from behind and she and Mona turned, gasping.
"Mario!" Waluigi exclaimed in terror, pointing ahead. From the bushes leapt a pack of at least six wolves!
"Mama Mia!" Mario exclaimed.
Mona and Pauline screamed. "Pull us up, pull us up!" they shrieked at a terrified Tiny. Tiny gasped and immediately hung upside down, seizing their hands and pulling them up with great difficulty.
SMB
"Waluigi, up the tree!" Mario ordered Waluigi. Waluigi didn't need to be asked twice. He cried out in terror and raced for the tree Tiny and the others sat on. He leapt up, scrambling to climb, but slipped down, unable to get a good grip. "Jump!" Mario ordered. Waluigi did so and Mario cupped his hands, catching his cousin's foot and throwing Waluigi into the air. Waluigi grabbed the branch.
"Mario, grab my leg!" he ordered. Mario did so. Waluigi oomphed but began to try and struggle to lift himself and his cousin nonetheless. Mona, Tiny, Toadette, and Pauline immediately hurried to help him.
"DK, get up here!" Tiny screamed. DK began ooking and eeking, leaping up and down and roaring. The wolves charged at him and viciously he began punching them away. He needed to protect the others!
"DK, don't!" Toadette screamed. She grabbed out a bunch of heavy objects they'd brought and began throwing them down at the wolves, trying to get them away from Donkey Kong! Donkey Kong cried out in pain as a wolf sank its teeth into his arm. He ripped it off of him and threw it high and far. The others leapt on him as well, though, forcing him down.
"Run, guys, run!" DK ordered as the wolves tore into their prey.
"No!" Tiny screamed. She and the others began attacking from the branches, Mario using his fireballs and Waluigi using a tennis racket and some spiky balls Wario had made up when this infection had first started spreading. Knowing Waluigi's talent for sports, Wario had ensured he'd created gadgets his little brother would actually find useful. The wolves were hardly daunted by the attacks, but all at once they stopped.
SMB
"Oh no," Waluigi said.
"What?" Pauline fearfully asked.
"I think he's become one of them," Waluigi answered.
"But he can climb," Toadette realized in horror, eyes widening.
"Which-a means we'd-a better run," Mario said, expression fearful. This was bad. They immediately screamed and hurried to leap to the next tree. Toadette took up the rear. She leapt, grabbing the branch, but all at once it snapped!
"No!" Mona screamed, leaping back to try and catch the falling Toad girl. Toadette screamed in terror as she fell to the ground. She shrieked for help over and over as the wolves leapt on top of her. She continued screaming until suddenly everything stopped. Lowly she moaned and began rising.
"Wha? Oh no!" Waluigi exclaimed. Toadette screamed loudly, pointing up into the branches. DK leapt ahead roaring and snarling and foaming. He jumped onto the tree.
"Run!" Tiny shrieked. Or in this case jump and climb. Immediately the rest of them began to leap through the branches, avoiding the ground. As soon as they lost sight of the wolves, though, they leapt down to the forest floor and began racing towards the two flashing dots that were Petey Piranha and King Boo. They ran and ran until finally everything became quiet. They could no longer hear DK or Toadette following them. They heard nothing. Only then did they stop to try and catch their breath.
SMB
They looked around at where they were blankly. Mona pulled out her tracker and looked at it. "Guys, they should be just through these bushes," she said.
"Seriously? We've just lost Toadette and DK and you're focused on Petey Piranha and King Boo?" Tiny incredulously asked.
"Hey, we can't do anything for them anymore. What we can do is try to figure this out and hopefully save King Boo and Petey Piranha," Pauline said. Tiny looked down. Pauline had a point, as hard as it was to admit.
"Let's get this over with," Waluigi grumbled.
"Careful, we don't know for sure if they'll be welcoming," Mario warned. Waluigi harrumphed, pushing through the bushes.
They were silent as they approached the large shape of a giant piranha plant standing out amongst all the others. "There's Petey," Waluigi remarked.
"Now where's…" Mona began.
"King Boo?" a voice asked from behind. They all cried out in alarm, spinning only to see the large Boo floating right behind them and laughing! They scrambled back in terror, mouths agape.
"King Boo!" Mario exclaimed.
"Hello, Mario. Where's Green Stache? I believe we have some unfinished business," King Boo said.
Mario cringed and looked down. "I don't know," he quietly admitted, worry filling him. Was Luigi okay? Was he still alive? Mario looked up at King Boo and said, "You and Petey are the ones we've been trying to find, though."
"Why?" Petey, who had been watching, asked in his regular roars and growls and snarls that, like Yoshi and Birdo, everyone somehow understood.
"You two were hit directly with that mushroom Bowser threw. What did it do?" Waluigi asked.
"Petey went feral and attacked me," King Boo answered.
"Then I recovered," Petey said. "King Boo wasn't affected at all."
"Do you have any idea what happened to you?" Pauline asked.
"I felt like devouring and killing," Petey answered. "There wasn't much more to it. That mushroom wasn't one of the course obstacles."
"No doubt Kammy, Kamek, or one of Bowser's children came up with the thing as a way to cheat, unaware of what it could do," King Boo said.
"I don't believe the mushroom was the cause of whatever's happening out here," Petey said.
"The Mushroom could have been dipped in a potion or something," Tiny offered.
"If that's so then maybe the mushrooms have nothing to do with it and we're dealing with an unknown poison," Mona remarked.
"There's an aqueduct beneath the track we were on when it happened. If Bowser's people are behind this, they could have emptied the poison, considering the existence of one, into the water supply," Waluigi offered.
"But you-a dunked Luigi's head under and he was fine," Mario said.
"He never drank it," Waluigi pointed out. "None of us did."
"At least we know neither King Boo nor Petey can be affected. They must be immune," Tiny said.
"Immune or not, I can still be ripped up," Petey remarked. After all, he was ultimately just a plant. "King Boo is the only one who is completely safe from this thing; unless he drank the water, of course, but Boos don't drink, do they?"
"We don't have to. As to whether we do or not, it depends on the Boo," King Boo replied, shrugging his stumpy little arms.
"There's only one place we can go, then. Bowser's Castle," Mario said.
"But where would Bowser be holed up?" Tiny asked.
King Boo immediately conjured up an image. The others started on seeing a Castle high up in Sky Land! "Ludwig's palace," Mona said. "That's genius."
"Come on King Boo, Petey, we can't stay here anymore. I hear something coming, probably the infected wolves, DK, and Toadette," Pauline insisted.
"I don't want to leave," Petey stubbornly said. "I have to stay with my subjects, the other piranha plants."
For a moment it looked like they would refuse, but soon Waluigi replied, "I watched you grow from a seed. I know better than most what you're capable of. Let him stay. It's probably best. Just… watch your back, Petey."
"Yes 'dad,'" Petey teased, grinning an evil Piranha Plant grin.
"I must return to my subjects as well. If this world is dying there's really nothing for the boos to do here anymore. They'll be getting… restless for a new home," King Boo said, eyes glittering mischievously.
"I suppose you and Petey are the ones safest in this whole mess," Mario said, though he was uncertain about this. He really didn't want to leave behind the only other two survivors they'd come across. King Boo smirked. Just then they heard moaning and gasped. King Boo turned invisible, Petey roared, and immediately all the piranha plats shrank into themselves, hiding in leaves, pipes, holes, and whatnot. It was silent with only the sounds of approaching infected now.
"Quick, let's get out of here before anyone else dies," Mona begged. Immediately the others nodded and began slinking off.
SMB
Bowser looked at the group who had just shown up in disbelief. "Mario!" he exclaimed in part rage and part surprise.
"It's a long story," Mario unenthusiastically said. He was no happier about being here than Bowser was seeing him.
"Mario!" a voice exclaimed. Mario looked passed Bowser.
"Daisy!" Mario said in disbelief and relief. At least someone else had made it. Waluigi quickly looked passed Bowser and spotted her.
"Who else is here?" Mario hopefully asked.
"Ashley, Parakarry, Dixie, Rosalina, and Luma," she replied.
"Rosalina," Waluigi said, body relaxing ever so slightly.
"Let us in and we'll tell you everything," Mona insisted.
"Who are you?" Bowser roughly asked the woman dressed in a red dress.
"Pauline, Mario's first love," Pauline replied.
"First love?" Bowser asked.
"Long lived it was not," Tiny remarked, rolling her eyes. She'd learned enough about it to realize that much at least. Bowser didn't even bother pressing for details. He simply let them enter.