"I am Apricot," the stranger boasted, standing confidently in the opening of the cavern on the Mushroom Gorge racetrack. "I am here to terminate you and your futile quest, Daisy."
Daisy narrowed her eyes at Apricot. "Just who the hell do you think you are?!" This Apricot certainly was a boisterous one. Sure she seemed to have command over some sort of fog, but that didn't mean she could take both Daisy and Waluigi out. Ninjetta probably wouldn't fight unless necessary.
Apricot shook her head at the question. "You do not listen well, do you?" She outstretched her right hand. The shadows cast in the cavern heeded her silent call, moving about and gathering at her hand. More and more the shadows gathered until they'd manifested into a black shadowy parasol. "You seem not to understand the gravity of your situation. You cannot win such an unbalanced battle, no matter what you may be."
Daisy frowned, even more irritated that Apricot was attempting to win a battle of linguistics. Yet eloquent speech aside, the arrogant air Apricot held was quickly getting under Daisy's skin. She quickly drew her sword. "You want a fight? You got it, but you'll lose, not me!"
Waluigi was quickly growing irritated as well, though mostly as the two bickering girls seemed to forget he was standing there. Perhaps that was an advantage, as he could end this battle quickly. Like the two girls, he had a big ego of his own, hating the idea of losing to anyone. Waluigi was number one, after all. While he still had his bow drawn, he reached into the bag with his free hand. He didn't pull out an arrow but instead a bomb.
A quick flick of his fingers and he lit the fuse with a lighter in the bag. While the girls continued to argue, he flung the bomb overhand at Apricot with surprising accuracy. The bomb exploded on impact, immediately cutting off the bickering. "Waluigi win!"
While Daisy could have easily hit him for stealing her thunder, she was more pleased to be rid of that meddling Apricot. "So much for invincible, right?" she laughed victoriously. "If the star eater's this weak, we'll have no problemo getting everyone back!"
As soon as the two celebrated a victory, their hopes were quickly crushed. The smoke from the explosion dissipated, revealing a barely scathed Apricot shielding herself with the shadow parasol. "You shan't be victorious so easily," she chided them. "If such were your most useful and effective tactic, you will never achieve victory. Instead you will fall by my hand alone."
Maybe Daisy really would shrivel up in a battle of linguistics after all. Neither on their side of the field was particularly well versed in vocabulary. Daisy was hardly a competitor in the field, as her manner of speech had the sound of pidgits and ravens attempting to sing, neither of which is known to be melodic by any standards. Waluigi barely formed proper sentences, and half of what he said was intelligible to everyone save Wario.
"You'll not... You'll be the one who... uh... You'll find yourself eating dirt soon enough!" Daisy spat out. Despite her symbol being a daisy, she certainly couldn't flower up her speech to match the elegance of it. Instead the words came out as if she'd spilled alphabet soup on the floor.
Waluigi barely understood what either of them said. Enough flowery speech was enough. "Waluigi time!"
Daisy knew well enough to know what he meant, as it was his way of spouting victory at soccer matches. Apricot, on the other hand, seemed thoroughly confused as she took a hand to her chin to sort out the phrase.
"She can't understand anything you're saying," Daisy thought aloud. "Quick, Waluigi, say something else!"
Waluigi paused, staring now at Daisy. In return, she stared back, nodding sideways at Apricot, wiggling her eyebrows a few times. She sure was a strange one, but he got the idea rather quickly. While he was hardly a linguist, he could understand body language surprisingly well. "Waluigi number one! Yeah yeah yeah!"
Daisy glanced over to see Apricot's face twist into an even more confused knot as she attempted to sort out the words poorly strung together. "Daisy chocolate milk!" she shouted. While Waluigi's sentences did make some sense, Daisy's didn't. She just spout out random words that sounded strange together. Sure, she did like chocolate milk, but it wasn't something she was particularly thinking about at the moment.
She glanced back at Waluigi, offering a nod. Their strange strategy seemed to be working, giving them the advantage. As long as they could distract her, they could turn this battle to their favor. A few more moronic sentences and Apricot's brain would probably explode.
"Waluigi kart!" he shouted randomly.
Apricot frowned. "Enough of this blather! Your words are most certainly random with no true significance. I shall end your pointless conversations in one swift maneuver."
Daisy frowned. So much for that strategy. Even if it did buy them some time, they didn't use that time to plan a new course of action. "Brute force it is," she shrugged. "COTTAGE CHEESE!" she shouted, lunging forward, her sword drawn over her right shoulder. She didn't expect it to have an effect anymore, but it sure was fun shouting random things in battle.
"Your attempts are futile!" Apricot shouted back, opening her shadow parasol to block the attack. The force and strength behind Daisy's attack had pushed her back half a foot. Apricot dug her heels into the dirt to keep from sliding backwards. No way she'd let some backwater princess overtake her.
Yet there was an unpredictable factor in the mix. Waluigi was an enigma. The words he spat out didn't form cohesive sentences, and he stood in humanly impossible ways. Apricot knew nothing of his skills or weaponry, save the bomb he'd thrown earlier. He wielded a bow, but even idiots could handle one. It took someone with precise skill to actually use one effectively and accurately. His posture wasn't right for such skills anyway.
All Apricot's intell marked Daisy as a threat, listing out her known skills and abilities. She was marked as the secondary khenet, the color of eternal persistence. Her presence was marring the master's progress, and Apricot couldn't have that. Daisy needed to be eliminated.
Yet Daisy was proving to be a more formidable force than previously understood. While the information gathered from the shadow ninji swarm had been quite informative, Daisy simply wasn't as weak as she seemed. She lived up to her khenet status.
And while Apricot could fend for herself, there was still that extra factor, the unknown purple who stood by her side.
An arrow sailed through the air, grazing Apricot's shoulder as she attempted to force back Daisy's assault with her shadow parasol. The arrow launched with extreme precision and speed, only missing its mark when Apricot had shifted at the last moment to counter Daisy's movements. The arrow had even sailed through her hair, not even getting tangled once. She glanced over to see Waluigi holding the bow with his left hand, his right hand drawn backwards, arm bent at the elbow, with his fingers bent slightly. The bow string still vibrated slightly. He'd shifted his stance, standing up straight with a slight arch in his back.
For a moment, Apricot couldn't believe that hunched purple had shot the arrow, but he was the only one who could have done so. The ninji certainly hadn't.
Daisy took advantage of the moment of surprise, delivering a swift kick to the chest followed by another. Apricot attempted to recover by swinging the shadow parasol, but Daisy avoided the counterattack and countered with her own kick. The force was enough to knock Apricot off balance and she teetered backwards towards the ravine. Losing her footing, she tipped over backwards. Daisy quickly grabbed for her, as she never intended to throw Apricot off the cliff, but she missed and Apricot fell to the darkness below.
"Victory!" Waluigi cheered, pumping his fist into the air. He'd returned to slouching, rolling his shoulders forward and bending his neck oddly. "Waaaaaa."
Daisy glanced at him, strangely silent. It was a victory, but there was something more on her mind, something she just couldn't figure out.
...
Following Apricot's defeat, the trail of shadows fell cold, causing Waluigi and Daisy to return back to Peach's Castle. While it was their first victory over the star eater, Apricot's demise still weighed heavily on Daisy's heart. She'd never killed anyone before, nor had she ever intended on doing so. And when she watched Apricot fall, Daisy felt as if she'd suddenly lost a friend.
Daisy sighed, staring out into the morning light as she leaned against the balcony railing. Her hair was still a mess, uncombed and unkept. She'd stolen Peach's pajamas but she'd barely slept that night, still thinking about Apricot. Why was that linguistic nightmare on her mind so much?
Pulling on her makeshift yellow dress, she sauntered downstairs. She still hadn't quite brushed her hair but that didn't particularly matter. She didn't need to put on a proper face for anyone right now.
"Ohoho, good you're up!" Professor E. Gadd clapped excitedly as she entered the dining room. He'd shifted from the usual board room to the dining room for a small breakfast of toast and eggs.
Waluigi had joined him, choosing to play his handheld once again, furiously mashing the buttons and attempting to beat a level. "Waluigi gonna win..." he mumbled to himself.
"Need breakfast," she interjected, heading towards the kitchen. Breakfast was a necessity, and whatever the professor was eating smelled incredibly enticing. She had to have some for herself. And given that the castle wasn't under attack, everything else could wait. She paused suddenly when she felt the ninji pull on the back of her dress. "What?"
"Princess, the professor has some troubling news," the ninji tugged on her dress some more. "I think you need to hear this." She was persistent, gripping on to Daisy's dress as tightly as possible. She didn't have the weight to stop Daisy by any means, but her expression of worry did.
"Okay, what?" Daisy tugged on her skirt to get Ninjetta to let go, then flopped down at the table across from the professor. Ninjetta hopped up and sat in the seat next to her.
"That's right, young feller! I've analyzed all the data you've collected at the Gorge," the professor started. "While I couldn't find any useful information on this Apricot youngun you encountered, her trail resurfaced."
Daisy stood up suddenly. "Wait, she's alive?!" This was good news for her, at least. She truly didn't want to push Apricot off the cliff, just push her down so she wasn't as much of a threat. She'd felt guilty about it since they'd returned yesterday from the Gorge, and it was eating away at her mind.
"I can't say quite yet," the professor countered, "but what I can tell you is it disappeared again in Dinosaur Island. That's when I got a strange call! Parts of the Island had disappeared and reappeared overnight, but they didn't come back the same."
Daisy paused, staring incredulously before flopping back into her chair in disbelief. "It can't be, could it? Is the Star Eater already reforming the world?"
"Oho, keen observation," the professor noted. "It is entirely possible. Perhaps a visit will give us more clues to-"
"Count me in," Daisy cut him off. "I want to stop this creeper before he reforms the world."
...
The travel to Dinosaur Island would have been quick if the pipe system was still operational. The sudden loss of Donut Plains had caused the local pipes to simply disappear. The nearby pipes had been interrupted as well, forcing Daisy and Waluigi to reroute to the nearby Forest of Illusion and find a path across Soda Lake.
Neither knew the landscape, and the name 'Forest of Illusion' didn't particularly set well with Daisy. Ninjetta had found a paper map folded up in Peach's library. Peach had acquired a large selection of maps, no doubt left there by Mario and Luigi on their grand adventures around the world. Fortunately, many of them were highly detailed, including the map of Dinosaur Island.
Ninjetta unfolded the map, tapping it a few times to push out the creases. After managing to unfold all of the corners, the ninji set the map on the ground.
Busy munching on an egg and cheese wrap, Daisy peered over her shoulder at the map. "So we're here, right?" Daisy pointed with her free hand at a small lake situated in the middle of the forest. It was a pretty distinct location, marked as the only lake within the forest boundaries. Several paths lead around the lake, exiting the area on all four sides. There were pipes marked on the map as well, though hardly a useful marking as the network was currently rendered useless.
"Mhm," the ninji nodded, then pointed at a section across the water. "This is Donut Plains." The place fit the name, shaped like a donut, wrapping around a small somewhat round lake. The donut looked as if it had been squished a bit before being dropped on the map. Happy looking mountains traced the western edge while craggy mountains sat to the south. To the north was a large dome mountain, labeled as Vanilla Dome.
"The shortest path is across here," Ninjetta pointed out, tapping a waterfall situated directly between the western border of the Forest and the eastern shore of the Plains.
"Can you even swim?" Daisy frowned at the suggestion. No bridges were marked in the area, nor were any docks or signs of boats. "What about this bridge up here?" she tapped the map, pointing out a bridge further up the mountains.
"Why don't we use that strange thing the professor gave us?" Ninjetta offered, pulling out a strange creation that looked like a soda can from her bag.
"Do you really trust something called a BubbleBoat9000?" Daisy pointed out. "That comes in a can?"
"The professor's inventions have always proven to be useful," Ninjetta countered. "Sure his inventions are strange, but they do work. Unless you would prefer to swim," she added snidely. The ninji, for one, would prefer to stay dry. Her kind wasn't known for swimming; they were known for jumping. Ninjetta didn't actually know how to swim and wasn't even sure she was capable of swimming. She'd probably sink, right along side her liege and that heavy set of armor.
"As if!" Daisy scoffed. "I just ate!" It wasn't the best excuse, but it was one valid within her mind. She also had no intention of swimming. The armor while protective was certainly not made for swimming, even across such a short distance. She wanted to actually make it to Donut Plains, not sink in the lake.
"Alright, it's settled then!" Daisy stood up, brushing the crumbs from breakfast off her dress. "We'll take this Bubble Boat whatever thing across the lake and be there in no time flat!"
Pleased by her sudden enthusiasm, Ninjetta folded the map back up and shoved it back into the bag along with the can containing the bubble boat. This was much easier than dragging Daisy unwillingly across a lake.
"Hey, Waluigi, what're you doing?" Daisy called out to him. "Let's go!"
Waluigi hadn't looked at the map at all. Instead he'd taken to staring southward down the path, frozen in a hunched over position. He hadn't really listened to their conversation, seemingly focused on something further into the forest. "Something's here."
Daisy's attention immediately snapped to where he was staring. "Is it Apricot again? Or more shadow things?"
The sound of footsteps bounced off the trees. They were loud and heavy. Daisy shifted to a more defensive stance, hand on the hilt of her sword. They had to be prepared for anything at this point. They'd been assaulted by various shadow creatures and a girl calling herself Apricot. Nothing was unexpected anymore.
The noise grew louder and louder. The trees felt as if they were bending over, covering all possible exits. Waluigi backed up, nearly bumping into Daisy as the trees felt like they were surrounding them, drawing closer and closer until there was no more room to even breathe.
….
Author's notes
Dinosaur Land (referred to by many names actually) is where Super Mario World takes place. It's one of the places where Yoshi and various other creatures are native. Ninjetta's map is really just a detailed overworld map, since in SMW you can see pretty much the entire land, unlike other games, save the Vanilla Dome and Forest of Illusion, as for those you zoom in to the area for the map.