So, for whatever reason, this chapter was so frustrating for me to write. It will no doubt show as you read it, and I apologize for that.

Many thanks to StoryMaster64 and Gijinka Renamon for responding to the last chapter...over a year ago...man, I'm certainly taking you guys for a rollercoaster ride with this stupid story. I feel like George R. R. Martin, only without the talent and money. I'm really sorry that I haven't attempted to speed up the process, but [insert tried and true excuse here].

We get a fun little origin story in this spirited chapter, though, so...that's something!

"So I'm gonna ask ye one more time," Erph grumbled. "You're sure the lab is this way?"

They were making good progress, all things considering. It took Kamilia a while to remember where the Bycaster laboratory was, but after getting turned around six different times, she managed to get back on the right track. She thought this building was confusing when it was filled with noisy students. It was even more enormous and baffling with the halls completely bare. The ghastly emptiness sent a faint shiver down Kamilia's shell.

"I'm positive this time, Erph," Kamilia replied stubbornly. "Now keep your eyes open for it."

They continued in silence, observing every door they passed for any sign of the lab. They carefully stepped over debris and holes in the floor, no doubt caused by a battle that occurred here weeks before. Lining the walls, still, were the posters of the king. His repeated gaze made Kamilia uncomfortable and nervous, and she was relieved when Erph finally broke the silence.

"So this Koopley fella," he muttered. Kammy blinked.

"What about him?" she asked.

"Can we trust him?

Kammy hesitated before answering.

"Well, what choice do I have?" she responded. "We Koopas seem to be the only ones left on campus, and we need to stick together. Koopley seems like a strong soldier and tactician, and he's even more familiar with the layout of the school than I am." She paused before saying, "In retrospect, he should've gone to the lab instead of us…"

"But Missy," Erph interrupted. "Emmera was also a Koopa. So is Grendel."

Kamilia felt her heart skip beats as she took in this information. Erph was right. This is war. As much as she would love to rally an army of her own species and win the battle while simultaneously proving to the world how strong Koopas are, she also knew that the battlefield was filled with desperate men. Yes, Emmera was dead, but she was hardly a soldier. Even if she was Grendel's right-hand woman at Bycaster, she couldn't mean less to him once the Ashamed attacked. Apparently he's thrown his lot in with the "new king" now…

And that was another baffling question nagging at Kammy's mind. The "new king"? What happened to the old one? Did his mysterious new Human bride do something to him? And, most importantly, who took his place?

Kammy knew deep down that the past three years of her life were spent wisely, training for this exact war she was now deep in, but she couldn't help but think they were also wasted. If she wasn't so isolated from civilization, she might have known what had happened at Bycaster before the Ashamed attacked. If she were here, or even back in Rougeport…

Oh, wait. "Rogueport" now. And if she were there, she would've been killed, along with everyone else who lived there…

She swallowed the lump in her throat. Nothing could've prevented this. She certainly couldn't have. She wasn't prepared. Had she been anywhere else besides Flipside Isle, she would most certainly be dead by now.

But now she was prepared. She was prepared to throw herself into this battle that she was destined to fight. Not yet ready…but prepared.

"'ere it is," Erph grunted, nodding his head towards a door.

Shattered glass crunched beneath their feet as Kammy and Erph cautiously entered the ruined laboratory, black smoke almost immediately filling their lungs. Kammy's eyes burned as she squinted her eyes, blinking away tears caused by the fumes. The cackle of fire could be heard in the corner of the room. It was impossible to see…

Suddenly, she saw something move in the smoke. She gasped slightly, breathing in even more smoke and violently coughing it back up. She looked back for the figure.

Nothing.

Was her mind playing tricks on her? Was she exhausted to the point where she was starting to see things? This laboratory did house an array of different potions; maybe she was breathing in something hallucinogenic or mind-altering? She closed her eyes tightly, pressed her cape to her face, and took a couple of short, filtered breaths. Her mind wasn't swimming. Her brain wasn't seeing things. She was fine…

A sudden high-pitched cackle made her jump, an otherworldly giggle that would've send a shiver down the Devil's spine.

"Erph?" Kammy shouted into the dark clouds. There was a distant, muffled response from her Goomba friend, not enough to calm her pounding heart. They weren't alone in the laboratory.

Kammy got down to her hands and knees in an attempt to see better beneath the rising smoke. Tiny shards of glass pierced her palms and knees as she shuffled along the ground, coughing occasionally, keeping an eye out for Erph, and whatever else was in there with them. What she was forced to see, instead, were the fallen, mutilated bodies of science students.

A young Lakitu lady who has fallen from her Cloud and broken her neck. A Raven boy with a gaping, bloody hole in his chest the size of her head. The fiery remains of a Noki student. Perhaps the most gut-wrenching of them all, however, was the bloody remains of an empty Koopa shell.

Still crawling through the carnage, Kammy could no longer distinguish between the tears streaming down her cheeks caused by the smoke, and the ones squeezed out of her by sadness. Something happened in this place…what could've possibly caused such bloodshed? Then the horrible thought entered her mind: What if whoever had done this was looking for the Giga? What if they already had it?

What if they were still here, looking for it?

Another horrible cackle. Another movement in the smoke. And another.

"Missy!?"

'Dammit, Erph, shut up!' Kammy screamed in her head. If the culprit was still in this room, they couldn't risk getting caught. She turned around to look for Erph at ground level. After blinking away her tears and wiping away what little smoke she could, she spotted him behind some tables.

Whatever was in the room was surely going to respond to Erph's cry. Kammy crawled as fast as she could through the chaos, her clothes getting torn and ripped in the glass, stained by the blood, her white hair slowly turning light tan in color due to the smoke.

"Heeheehee…!"

She felt goose bumps crawl all over her skin as she jumped. That laugh…it was right behind her. Right in her ear. There was a tug at her dress. A few strands of hair yanked. The laughing grew louder in her ears. Kammy's heart pounded as she struggled through the glass and the gore, just underneath the thick layer of smoke. Whatever was in the room with them was toying with her.

"…some people even claim to have seen ghosts in the school…"

Erph, growing fed up with whatever game Kamilia was playing, drew in his breath and prepared to shout her name once more, when a claw pressed firmly against his mouth, silencing him.

"Shhh!" Kammy hissed in his ear. "There's something in there."

Erph pushed himself away, hardly able to breathe as it was.

"That what caused ye to giggle like ye did?" he demanded. Kammy shook her head, scanning the smoke for any more movement.

"No, that wasn't me," she whispered. "I heard it, too. Whatever it was pulled at my hair, ripped my dress…it was playing with me. I don't know what it was, but I think it's still-"

"Here!"

The sudden voice made both Kammy and Erph jump a mile into the air, gasping violently as they turned to face the direction of the grave sound. The smoke twisted and turned, a calm, miniature tornado forming in the center of the room. Whatever was at the center acted as a sort of drain, forcing the smoke out of the room through the open door, revealing even more of the turmoil in the laboratory. Beakers bubbling over, mirrors and windows shattered, enormous holes in the brick walls, and, yes, a small, dying fire in the far corner of the room.

But the most obvious, and terrifying, revelation was that of a small, pale Noki floating in the middle of the room. She was white, practically transparent, and her face was fixed in permanent sadness.

"Egads…" Erph shivered, ever the superstitious one. "It is a ghost!"

Kammy once again covered the old Goomba's mouth.

"Miss?" she asked softly.

The ghostly Noki was carefully looking all around the room, as if keeping her eye on something dangerous.

"what you are seeking is in my pocket…" the ghost said in a voice soft from being torn between dimensions. "take it and go…quickly…i can't watch them all at once…"

Confused, Kammy tried to spot what the ghost was watching so intently, but saw nothing. Maybe a puff of remaining smoke, or a few tricks of the light, but nothing that seemed out of place. Nothing that seemed dangerous, and especially nothing alive. Sadly, everything in the room, save for her and Erph ("Do ghosts count as being alive in this circumstance?" she asked herself) was dead.

Suddenly, she saw it. For but a moment, but she saw it. A small, white orb, floating over the body of a crushed Goomba. Eyes as red as blood, a gaping mouth filled to the brim with the sharpest of teeth, a twisted tongue dripping with otherworldly slime. More ghosts? But these seemed more vicious. More…evil.

"their souls were ripped out of them…" the ghost explained, as if reading Kammy's thoughts. "they were slaughtered too quickly…they didn't have time to die in peace…like i did…"

Erph nudged Kammy and motioned toward the body of a fallen Noki. It was the ghost girl…her body, anyway. Kammy slowly stood up, careful to avoid any devilish white orbs as she creeped over to the corpse.

"So they're cursed?" she whispered to the ghost girl.

"they are…" the fallen Noki responded. "doomed to roam this plane of existence for eternity…thus is the fate of any fallen creature who dies too soon…"

Kammy looked back to Erph for a brief moment as she continued tiptoeing to the Noki's body. He was still cowering behind a desk, saying prayers.

"Why aren't they attacking us?" she asked? The ghost girl continued spinning in circles, keeping her eyes locked on as many of these spirits as she could. It almost made Kammy dizzy.

"they are ashamed…of what they have become…can't you see…?"

Kammy looked at one of the ghosts the ghost girl locked eyes with. It had sprouted tiny hands, and was using them to cover its face. Kammy cocked her head.

"Why? Aren't they ghosts? Cursed demon spirits?"

"no…they retain their memories…but a hunger for flesh and blood…it takes them over…"

Kammy felt shivers as she bent down to the Noki girl's corpse, still warm. There was a large shard of glass stabbed into her stomach. She certainly didn't die quickly…

"to die…but not be dead…"

Kammy felt around in the body's clothes. Quickly, and with much care. The disgust almost overwhelmed her.

"to remember…but unable to control…"

Finally, Kamilia felt a large vial in one of the Noki's inner pockets. Long, filled to the brim with green liquid. No label, but there was no disguising such a potion. The Giga.

"to become a monster…thus is their fate…"

Standing up very carefully, Kamilia gripped the vial tightly in her claws and slowly made her way back to the front of the laboratory. She grabbed Erph on her way out, shoving him outside, as to avoid the ghost causing him any more distress. Kammy was on her way out when she stopped and looked back at the floating Noki girl.

"Miss," she asked. "What is your name?"

The Noki stopped spinning for a moment, looking at Kamilia with unbearable sadness, until she heard the cackle of a white orb. She turned and looked him dead in its red eyes, causing it to cover its face and float away.

"brilette…" she responded.

"Brilette…what happened here?"

Brilette, the ghost girl, continued spinning, keeping the other ghosts in line, and muttered a single word that haunted Kammy more than any creature in that entire room.

"power…"

Chapter 22 should be up sometime this week. I promise!