Hey guys! I'm trying as hard as possible to get the first extra done, but I'm more focused on the main story and I need some motivation. Exams are coming up too so that will cause some delays. But I was really excited to do this chapter…why? Excluding Popple…you'll just have to find out!
Also, happy Halloween! I know I'm a bit late for this but the next chapter will have a small reference to Halloween, props to whoever guesses it in the next chapter!
Review Responses:
The Toad Soldier: I'm glad you're enjoying it, look forward to Popple!
Pika-Puppetmon: Serena did seem a bit of a Deus ex Machina, didn't she? But yeah…Beanstar, so original!
Guest: I'm sorry for leaving Popple out in the last chapter, but yes he is definitely here, see?
Mario, Toad, Toadette and Serena all exited the warp pipe in Little Fungitown, quickly stocked up on supplies, and then dashed into Teehee Valley, ignoring the stares of the villagers once more. The four met Peasley and Luigi at the exit/entrance to the town and the group continued onwards to search for the pieces of the Beanstar.
"So…I'm starting to think we should have just walked here from Bean-Bean Castletown…" Serena complained, trudging through the sand.
"Well that's what you get for rushing off like that." Luigi replied with a smirk.
"Hey, don't get all high and mighty with me." Serena snapped, before giving Luigi a smile. "Just because you get to fly everywhere…"
Peasley hopped off the board, landing in the dry sand. He flicked his hair back and smiled at the group. "Allow me to introduce myself properly." He said. "I am King Peasley, ruler of this kingdom."
"What happened to Queen Bean?" Mario asked gently.
Peasley's face darkened and Luigi glared at his brother. "That's a story for another time." Peasley replied, almost casually.
Serena approached Peasley and curtsied to him. "I'm Serena. I may look like a toadette, but I'm actually a human from another world."
"A troublesome one at that…" Toadette mumbled with a small smile.
"Troublesome? Are you kidding me?" Serena replied, turning to face Toadette and feeling slightly annoyed.
"Toadette isn't far off though. That stunt you pulled earlier really had us going there…" Mario said.
"Okay, maybe I didn't think that through, but we can still win this!" Serena protested.
"You even got Wendy to teleport us all outside. How did you know that she would do that?" Toad asked.
"I just hoped that she was easy to bait, turns out it worked!" Serena explained, grinning.
"You were guessing?" Everybody else asked, all sweat dropping.
"Yep." Everybody moved on, continuing their path through the desert. Serena watched as they all walked off. "Guys? It wasn't that bad, was it?" she asked, trying to catch up with them.
"It was!" The others chorused in return.
Serena sighed, finally catching up with the group. Luigi was telling Peasley everything that had happened so far. "The things I do for you guys…" Serena grumbled.
"What, cause trouble?" Toadette asked, giving Serena a grin.
"Oh haha, very funny." Serena said sarcastically.
Once Luigi finished filling Peasley in, he told the rest of the group what had happened since they separated. Everybody's eyes were wide with shock, except for Toadette who remained separate from the group, lost in thought.
"Morton did what?!" Mario yelled, surprising everybody.
"He just broke a few bones in my foot, no biggie." Luigi shrugged.
""No biggie"?! Luigi, he broke your foot!" Mario exclaimed angrily.
Peasley frowned. "I don't want to defend him, but he did seem pretty reluctant to do anything Wendy ordered him to do." He said, glancing at a fuming Mario.
"I don't care! The next time I see the bugger, I'm gunna-!"
"Hold it!" Serena shouted, startling Mario. "Peasley just said Morton was reluctant to do anything. At least take it into consideration, and didn't Luigi say it was all Wendy?"
"He did, but-!"
"Objection!" Serena pointed a finger at Mario. "The story Luigi just told us, tells us we should hate Wendy, not Morton." She stated.
"What are you doing? All that shouting and finger pointing is really weird…" Toad said.
Serena paused, looking at her outstretched finger before smiling. "Just something I got into back at home…Anyways, my point is that Morton was reluctant, we should find out why."
Toadette frowned. Should she tell them that Morton healed Luigi too? …Probably not, that would raise more questions.
"We'll figure that out later. But for now, next time we face them, Wendy is mine." Luigi growled, clenching a fist in anger.
"Calm down my dear friend, we can't have your emotions getting in the way." Peasley said.
Luigi turned on Peasley, glaring at him from the board. "Oh really? You almost got blown up because you were fixated on a piece of rock!" He yelled, startling the group. "I didn't want to see you go, and you put yourself in danger."
Peasley flinched, feeling guilty for Luigi's injuries. Then his guilt flared into anger and he stopped to glare at the green hero. "A "piece of rock"?! Are you calling my mother's tombstone a "piece of rock"?! H-How dare you disrespect her like that?" He shouted. Before Luigi could continue or fight back, Peasley kept going. "Since you and Mario left, I've been trying to contact you, all these years and you never said anything! I heard from Toadsworth of all people that Fawful had returned, and not only that, you never replied to any of my letters at all! Even when my mother was killed right before my eyes, you still didn't reply, you didn't even come here when I was being crowned either…" Peasley's voice cracked with sadness and pain. The king looked down at the sand and sighed, his anger slowly ebbing away. "I-I was so alone…" The king's voice was barely audible now.
Luigi smiled softly, swinging his legs over the side of the board. Mario tried to say something but Serena and Toad stopped him. Luigi carefully lowered himself down to the ground, wincing when his injured foot made contact with the sand. The green hero hobbled over to Peasley and wrapped his arms around him, being mindful of the king's injured arm. "I'm sorry." Luigi said after a brief moment of silence. "I don't know where those letters ended up but I'm sorry for not trying to visit anyways. I thought that you would have forgotten me like everyone else does…" Luigi murmured.
"I never forgot you, I thought about you every day…" Peasley whispered in reply.
Serena was getting excited about the way the two interacted. "Ooh, I can't take it anymore! Why do you two act like a couple all the time?" she asked.
Luigi and Peasley both blushed in embarrassment, moving away awkwardly from each other. Luigi pulled himself back onto the winged bean, and cleared his throat to break the awkward silence. "L-Let's go back to finding him…" Luigi murmured, avoiding the gaze of everybody.
"Who are we looking for?" Toad asked.
"A certain thief who was a bane to our adventure while we were here." Mario replied. "While he was rather annoying to come across, he was pretty harmless."
"Again, who?" Toad asked, growing annoyed from the obscurity of Mario's reply.
"The Shadow Thief." Peasley said. "I do hope he hasn't gotten into any trouble lately"
Toad grumbled something about avoiding the question and the group continued on, the uninjured members of the group fought off a few enemies such as gritty goombas, regular goombas and koopa troopas. Continuing to trudge through the sand, the group was beginning to get bored, especially Serena. She approached Toadette, who seemed to be lost in thought.
"Hey, what are you thinking about?" Serena asked, startling the genius.
"Haven't you annoyed enough people today?" Toadette snapped, annoyed that she was brought out of her thoughts.
"S-Sorry…" Serena said sheepishly, moving away from the genius.
The silence continued on, and the day stretched into the evening. And just before Mario could tell the group to stop for the day, a figure walking through the desert could be seen not far from the group. His green skin told the group he was Beanish, but it was mostly covered by a pink and white striped shirt with long sleeves, black trousers, a black hat and a purple mask that covers his eyes.
"Oh god it's this guy…" Serena mumbled.
"Popple…?" Mario and Luigi asked together
"Do I know you? Surely I, the great Shadow Thief would have remembered foes such as you!" Popple proclaimed, looking at the group before staring at something shiny in his hands.
"Oh great." Toadette said with sarcastic joy, "He conveniently has the first piece. How original."
"I don't care how unoriginal this part of the plot is!" Peasley said, brandishing his rapier with his uninjured arm. "Hand over that piece, now!" He demanded.
"Ooh, feisty blondie. Make good rookie he does." Popple muttered.
"I will not be your rookie!" Peasley yelled. "I am your King!"
"So dramatic…" Toad grumbled.
Popple looked at the Bros, blinking a few times before staring down at the Beanstar piece in his hands. "I've seen you two before…and this shiny thing as well…see?" He said showing the group the piece. "We fought over something like this and even with rookies I still lost."
"Alright Popple, we want this to go smoothly…" Mario said slowly, casually walking closer to the thief. "Just give us the piece and no one will get hurt…"
Popple moved away from Mario, putting the Beanstar piece in a brown sack and lugging it over his shoulder. "This changes now cuz I have a new rookie who taught me to run fast! Now I can finally beat you, see?" Popple said, giving the group his trademark grin.
"Another rookie?" Luigi asked, bewildered. "It's not Birdo again is it?"
"No! No longer have ugly dinosaur. I have a wabbit." Popple replied.
"A "wabbit"?" Serena asked.
"Don't you mean rabbit?" Toad inquired.
"Why does that sound familiar…?" Mario said to himself.
"No more questions! I the great Shadow Thief hates being teamed up on when I am alone, so I will now make a great getaway, see?"
"The way you end your sentences is really annoying sometimes, see?" Serena said. "Argh! Now I'm doing it!"
"Don't let him get away!" Peasley cried.
Mario tried to jump on Popple but the slippery thief took off, dashing away much faster than he usually did. Mario groaned in annoyance and punched the sand before getting up. "Damnit! He's certainly faster than he used to be."
"After him!" Luigi shouted, trying to catch up to the thief using Peasley's winged bean.
The rest of the group, who were all considerably slower than Popple, who unlike them had experience running through sand for years, tried to run after the Shadow Thief. Not even Luigi was able to catch up. Still the group followed Popple as best as possible until he dashed into a wall, vanishing from sight. When everyone had caught up to Luigi, the rest of the members were panting heavily from the run.
"N-Never…again…" Serena heaved, falling backwards into the sand to rest.
"S-So…tired…" Toad and Toadette wheezed.
"Never…have I…run so far…in my life." Peasley gasped, trying to calm his rapidly beating heart.
Mario said nothing as he recovered faster than the others, him being used to chasing things down all the time. Luigi just laughed as he watched the other members try to recover. "I see why you like riding this now, Peasley. I don't have to worry about getting exhausted." Luigi said, grinning.
"Sh-Shut up…" Peasley muttered.
Luigi chuckled before growing serious. "So whoever Popple's rookie is this time knows how to run. And I can only remember Yoshi being able to run that fast…"
Mario shook his head. "No, he said something about a rabbit. It sounds familiar, but I don't know why…" he said, getting into a thinking position.
"We'll figure that part out later…" Toadette said, finally recovering. "We need to figure out where he went."
"Over there." Luigi replied, pointing to the section of the wall where Popple had disappeared to. "He vanished as I got here."
Toadette hummed in thought, walking over to the section of the wall Popple ran through and began inspecting it, allowing time for Serena, Toad and Peasley to recover properly. After a while, Toadette tried to punch the wall but her fist went right through it, startling the group.
"Woah! It went right through!" Toad exclaimed.
"That's it! Popple ran right through, so that must be his base." Luigi said, grinning.
"How did he get that to work?" Serena asked.
"Never mind that, let's get the first piece!" Peasley said, becoming impatient.
Toad, Luigi, Serena and Peasley went to join Toadette, leaving Mario on his own. "Guys, wait." Mario called, causing everyone to stop.
"Why? We need to hurry up and get that piece before Wendy and Morton beat us." Peasley responded, glaring at the red hero.
"We should rest up, who knows what's in there and we've had a long day. We need to recover before continuing on." Mario stated.
Toadette moved her fist out of the wall and glanced at Mario before sticking her head in. She then looked back to Mario with a shrug. "It's a straight corridor, what could happen?"
"He's a thief right?" Serena asked. "Then wouldn't we be walking straight into a trap? Thief hideouts are usually full of them."
"See? Now if we rested, then we'd be more aware." Mario said.
"I can fly straight through, I could take Popple on by myself." Luigi suggested.
"NO!" Mario and Peasley yelled together, startling the green hero. The two exchanged looks of annoyance before facing Luigi again.
"What if you get hurt again?" Mario asked. "We won't be there to help you."
"I'll be fine." Luigi replied, much to Mario's annoyance. "It's only Popple and his rookie."
"I don't care who you're facing! You're not straying from my sight!" Peasley admonished, "I want you right where I can see you."
Luigi sighed before giving his friend a smile. "Alright, I'll stay." He relented.
"Thank you." Peasley sighed with relief.
Mario sighed, not liking how Luigi listened to Peasley instead of him. "How about we rest for a little bit and then we check the place out?"
"I could do with a break…I'm tired from all that running and walking through the sand." Toad said, immediately walking over to Mario and sitting down in the sand.
"As much as I want to go now, I'm with Mario on this one, we can't just charge in and get ourselves killed, and what if there are traps?" Toadette reasoned, looking into the hideout once more.
"Alright fine!" Peasley snapped. "But we're going as soon as everyone has rested." Huffed the King. He plopped down on the sand and began tracing a finger through it.
"Let's hope we can get the first piece quickly. I want to see some other places" Serena said wistfully.
"We're not here on a tour, Serena. We're here to clean up the mess you caused." Toadette grumbled.
"Right…but is it really that big of a problem?"
"For the last time; Yes!" The rest of the group replied, bored.
"You have no idea how many times we had to backtrack for these goddamn pieces…" Mario said, clearly agitated
"I have an idea. But I can't wait to see a certain crab here." Serena said.
"I'm bringing an umbrella for when we see him…" Luigi muttered.
"Oh yeah…" Mario agreed.
"Who?" Toad asked.
"Just a certain hermit." Peasley said, still tracing his finger through the sand.
"Urgh, can somebody give me a straight answer for once?!" Toad groaned in complaint.
Luigi laughed. "Just wait, we'll see him after this."
Toad huffed, laying down in the sand. He mumbled something about obscure answers.
"Can we rest now?" Serena moaned in complaint from her spot in the sand.
"I'm not stopping you just go to sleep…" Mario mumbled, tiredly laying down in the sand. It wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world. But it would have to do.
"I'll take first watch." Toadette said while everyone was getting comfortable.
"You are going to wake someone up, right?" Toad asked. "You aren't pulling an all-nighter"
"No one is pulling an all-nighter because we're raiding his base at midnight." Peasley said. "We can't waste any more time."
"I'm sure Wendy and Morton are behind us, they probably haven't even found the location of a single piece." Luigi said.
Wendy huffed, pointing her wand at the massive creature. "Hurry up and give us the piece you stupid Seafood!" demanded the pink koopaling.
"You're thtupid! Like I'd ever give thitht to you!" The creature replied, spitting in large amounts on the two koopalings.
Morton wiped a bit of saliva off his face and shuddered. "And you wonder why nobody listens to you Wendy…" he grumbled.
"Yeah, they're probably still trying to find a single piece." Luigi said, grinning.
"Alright. Let's get some rest already." Serena whined. "I can just imagine how tired and annoying I'm going to be tomorrow." She said with a hint of sarcasm.
"Okay, let's get to sleep." Mario said quickly.
No sooner did Mario say that, everybody sans Toadette was trying to get to sleep. Apparently Serena's complaint was enough to encourage everyone to get some rest.
"Geez, I didn't mean literally…" Serena muttered, closing her eyes.
While everyone was left with their time to rest, Toadette chose this moment to do some thinking. As a genius, she had to know everything before her friends did. But what frustrated her the most was Morton Junior. Toadette knew that the Koopalings were enemies to them but every time she thought of the very koopas they were facing, she couldn't help but look back to the moment Morton helped heal Luigi and expressed the worry he had for his siblings. Was there something happening to the koopalings? Was there someone pulling the strings behind Bowser's attacks? Toadette wasn't sure, and speculating was not going to help her. Next time they encountered Wendy and Morton, Toadette was going to get some answers.
Popple placed the bag with the Beanstar piece on the ground. He then went over to his swivel chair and spun a full circle in it before stopping in front of multiple screens, each showing various parts of his hideout. The screen in the top-left showed Mario and the others asleep in the sand, with Toadette watching over them. Popple grinned as he examined the rest of his hideout. This was the last time that the red and green men would get the best of him. The door to the room opened and his Rookie stepped in. The room was dark apart from the soft glow of the screens so all Popple could see was the toothy grin drawn on the white scarf worn by his accomplice. Even to this day, the Shadow Thief knew nothing of the face behind the scarf.
"So they're finally coming." Said his rookie. "They won't be able to catch us this time."
"We want them to come," Popple said. "Cuz want them to try our traps for us. We spent a long time building them, see?"
"Right. And then we can run away?" Asked his rookie.
"No! I want to fight them one last time. That way I can see if I can continue thievin'" Popple replied.
"What?! Thievin' is our dream! Now that we two thieves have united we can steal greater things!" Rookie exclaimed.
"But we already got this." Popple said, holding up a small vial of sand. "And I got that today too, see?" he pointed to sack with the Beanstar piece in the corner.
His rookie walked over to examine the contents of the sack and smiled. "What if we gather all the pieces? We could wish for the greatest of fortunes!"
"I tried that once, but it didn't really go well, it did." Popple said, thinking back to his early days. "I took it cuz I knew it was important, see? I felt like I had to keep it from something…see?"
Rookie sighed, putting the sack back. "Alright. We'll let them in, and we'll use the sand to help them get here should they fail the traps."
Popple watched the screen as the group in the sand slowly got up one by one, stretching or rubbing their eyes. The pink one (Toadette), didn't look tired whatsoever, yet woke the rest of them up. She pointed to the door and said something that made the other members nod before they all filed into Popple's hideout. The Shadow Thief smiled cunningly as he pushed a button labelled 'activate traps' and the floor opened beneath the group, and they fell, with Luigi looking down, trying to reach for them. Popple could hear them scream and he held up his vial of sand, and it began to glow.
Luigi flew down on the winged bean and managed to grab hold of Mario's left hand and Peasley's right. But what he forgot was that Luigi had no balance and he fell off, falling with the group. He could hear everybody's screams and his own as they neared the bottom.
"Luigi!" Peasley cried. "I—" Whatever Peasley tried to say, never came out as the group paused in mid-air, mere seconds from hitting the ground. Everybody was glowing yellow as they slowly floated back up. But during their ascent, Luigi, Mario and Peasley went through their fall…but backwards. Luigi watched as Peasley and Mario flew back into his hands, then he let them go as he flew back up, his hand outstretched. Serena, Toad and Toadette were shocked as they too watched themselves going back up the way they fell. When the group reached the top, the floor closed and they were taken back outside and Toadette told them to head in.
"But…weren't we just in?" Serena asked, clearly confused.
Toadette looked at the entrance to the hideout, scratched her head, and then looked back at the group. "Umm…did we…die?"
"I…don't know…" Luigi said quietly, his focus on Peasley.
Peasley frowned, shifting awkwardly. "What kind of sorcery is this?"
"Just…what happened?" Toad asked nobody in particular.
"I believe we went back…in time…?" Mario said, looking at the entrance to the hideout.
"Cuz you almost died, see?" Popple's voice was heard.
"Where'd that come from?" Serena questioned, the group looking for the source.
"There!" Toadette pointed at a small camera with a small speaker below it.
"Ah, we're golden Rookie, GOLDEN! It worked after all!" Popple exclaimed, his voice booming from the speaker.
"…You mean he meant to kill us…?" Toad asked in a small voice.
"But I saved you palookas, see? I, the great Shadow Thief, has an amazing bottle that turns back time!" Popple proclaimed, laughing.
"Isn't it the sand…?" Asked a voice also coming from the speaker.
"Who's that?" Luigi wondered.
"AHH! Rookie, why'd you talk?! You were supposed to wait for the big reveal!" Popple yelled, making the speaker screech. The group on the sand covered their ears until the screeching subsided.
"I really want to find out who his rookie is…" Serena said as the group listened to the rookie's protest of 'That's not my name!'
"Never mind that! Popple just turned back time and saved us!" Toadette exclaimed.
"Ehehe! Pinky's right! I have magic sand that turns back time!" Popple bragged.
""Pinky"?! That's not my name!" Toadette protested, angrily pointing at the camera in response.
"Hah! Popple doesn't care, just hurry up and get here!" And with that, Popple switched off the speaker, leaving the group to themselves.
"Well…" Mario began. "That was…" he trailed off, looking for a word to use.
"Terrifying?" Toad offered.
Mario nodded. "And different."
"You mean he wasn't that crazy the last time you faced him?" Peasley inquired.
"No…he was less…resourceful…than he is now." Mario replied slowly.
Luigi shuddered, "So there's definitely more traps in there…right? Please tell me I'm wrong…" Luigi looked at the group imploringly.
"Sorry Weegui, I'm pretty sure the whole 'dying' thing is going to be the main gimmick of Popple's hideout." Mario said calmly,
"So…there are plenty of traps in there ready to kill us? And Popple is just going to turn back time whenever we 'die'?" Toad asked, moving away from the entrance.
"Afraid so, we'll just have to make sure we don't 'die', and Popple won't be forced to 'revive' us." Toadette said. "We aren't actually dying. Just think of it as a life system."
"Won't the floor just give way again? We need to get across." Serena stated.
"I can fly one person over at a time." Luigi said.
"I'm sure we can shorten the time. Toad and I should be able to fit on while you're there." Toadette told Luigi, who nodded in agreement.
Luigi brought the winged bean closer to the ground, allowing Toad and Toadette to climb on. It was a tight fit but they managed to make it work. Luigi put his hands on Toad's shoulders to keep himself upright, just in case he lost his balance. He then slowly made the winged bean rise above the ground, flying steadily into Popple's hideout once more. The others watched as the three vanished, and a few minutes later Luigi returned.
A few trips later and Luigi and Mario nearly falling into the pit again (much to Peasley's displeasure), everybody finally made it across and they were safe to continue walking/hovering through Popple's hideout.
It was nothing but a straight corridor, hollowed purely out of the sandstone within the mountain, with occasional trickles of sand falling onto the heads of the party. While the group were now aware of the dangers that lurked behind the seemingly harmless layout of Popple's base, it didn't stop Toadette from marvelling at the prospect of more traps.
"I wonder what the next one will be like! I hope it'll be designed to crush our bones!" Toadette exclaimed, cackling as she tapped her fingers together.
"I think I'm going to be sick…" Toad mumbled in complaint.
Popple's voice boomed out from a nearby speaker with gusto. "Ooh, Pinky likes our traps Rookie! Never fear! Your many deaths here will be a perfect test to see if my traps work, see? Make it through and I'll give you the piece!"
"Giving us the piece over a battle would be a lot easier." Mario said.
"Too easy! You win always. That's why I do it like this." Popple grumbled in complaint.
"Fine, we'll play things your way." Mario replied.
"Excellent! You hear that Rookie? We're GOLDEN!" Popple cried.
"It's not Rookie! I have a name…" grumbled Popple's 'Rookie'
"This is going to be a long day." Peasley grumbled.
References:
"Objection!", "Hold it!"- Pretty obvious, Phoenix Wright stuff here.
"I am your King!" –Narnia: The Dawn Treader.
And I'm going to have to leave it there, as it stands now (author's notes at the top are in the past), I'm currently in the middle of exams so I'll have to end things here so I can focus on studying. I'm actually really nervous about Popple, did I do good? Please let me know so I can improve. Oh and who like the character cameo in the middle? And who can guess the identity of Popple's Rookie? It shouldn't be hard. The hints I've dropped are huge.
Hope you all enjoyed and I hope I can get part two of Popple out next week!
Magyk-Foal1, out!
