The Castle's Most Dangerous Job

I have heard about snow crab fishing in Alaska, and I know the dangers. I know about constructions sites, too. I know about nuclear power plants, I know mines, and I know perhaps most other dangerous jobs out there. Today, I am working – and it's probably the utmost dangerous job next to fighting wars. I am just glad that I'm not fighting in any wars, so I should be fortunate that I am working here than on the battlefield.

But I am not too fond of this job, either. Giant pieces of metal elements in stones the size and weight of five elephants rolling over your toes is not fun. And I can't imagine what it must feel like to have that colossal hunk of rock roll over my entire body. Oh yeah – I would be squished dead like a bug on the windshield.

Now you're probably thinking, "Now hold on a minute, Pikachu – giant rocks? What's with the giant rocks? Are you like Indiana Jones or something?". Yes, there are giant rocks in this job, but it's the rocks and not the treasure that makes it up. I know it may seem weird, but these are the ingredients that are needed to make the most spectacular display of fireworks all across the universe: Mario bros.'s New Year Night Lights. It is much more than just a bang of cheap fireworks that one could find in the superstore. It surpasses the professional ones lighted in national and international ceremonies by light years. The brothers make fireworks much more than bursts of colors – they make them dazzle and sparkle, dancing literally in thousands of brilliant colors. They burst into breath-taking displays of actual figures – not just simple circles and other geometric shapes. The fireworks rocket sky high above the Castle, exploding into 3-D flora and fauna, scenes and landscapes in concentrated bursts of light, all with suiting color. These fireworks move across the wide, dark sky with startling reality. It is beyond anyone could believe down on Earth that lay below the Castle (apart from movies and computer graphics), but this is the Super Mario Bros we are talking about! Nothing is beyond them.

But back to what I was saying earlier – this beauty is created from the deadliest work task. I have mentioned the danger of ginormous rocks rolling you over already, but that's not even half of the danger. To grind these massive boulders into powders so that they could be used for explosive chemical reactions – and to crush something so huge into the finest powder means Mill-time. If you could recall, you would know that the Mill is the rolling table built to the bottom of the Castle in the Air. And if you get rolled, you are guaranteed to become nice sheets of gum wrapper. If that's not enough for you, all of the crushing operations are done outside of the Castle – from the top of the Castle where Mario and Luigi smooths jagged chunks of pure metallic elements into spheres. Then, we have to roll them down to the Mill where they could be ground to tiny bits.

And how exactly do we roll those tons of raw elements down?At this time of year, there is a rickety ramp made of splintering wood that wraps around the great Castle like a thin snake shedding, supported by creaking beams that groans as the wind ravaged around it. And guess what? We have to roll those darned rocks right on it, hanging over thousands of feet of air, slowly so they won't fly right off of the ramp. So, with strenuous effort and labor, the KPY slowly rolled tons of spheres, fighting against gravity. But we've been doing this for years now, so I developed some muscles for the job.

Out of all three of us, Yoshi had the easiest time. With his impossibly strong strength (perhaps from hyperactivity), he would lift a sphere over his head and run down the ramp with it, higgling like a maniac. If not that, he would lick it up, swallow it whole so that the rock sat snug in his tummy, and Yoshi would just roll himself down. If not that, Yoshi sat on the sidelines munching on a berry tart grinning happily as he watched Kirby and I press our backs against the great boulder, inching down the ramp.

At a certain point, I asked Kirby if he could suck up all the boulders and walk down the ramp. Unfortunately for us, he said he could if he had a sufficient tongue. Kirby's tongue is tiny beyond belief, unlike Yoshi's. When it comes time to unload the boulders down onto the Mill table, the green dinosaur would bring it forth with his dexterous, super-strong pink tongue and carefully place the slobbered sphere in place. Since Kirby lacks such tongue, all he could to is canon-shoot the sphere with terrible accuracy. With the danger of loosing a great ball of elements that would wreck havoc upon the forest below, or squish a poor and innocent rodent (like me), we didn't DARE try it.

Whoever worked on the Mill Table brushing off the fine powders into burlap sacks had to be fast and agile with reactions of lightning.

That person would be Sheik – also known as the tomboy version of Zelda. At home, Zelda would transform from her oh-so-gorgeous (flicks hand in mock, preppy manner) princess self into the super cool assassin of DOOM. She has a really cool assassin suit when she feels like wearing one, but on casual occasions, she puts on a sweater and some torn up jeans – most likely worn out from climbing trees – and a random cap. Sometimes it's the cap that Mario had given her for Christmas, or the one Luigi gave to her for her birthday.

But no matter what sort of, mix-matched jumble of modest clothes she wore, Sheik always wore her weathered bandages that covered her face in loose wrappings, and her lower arms with a tight bound. Taking a break from a recent delivery of minerals, I examined her. Today, she wore her Mario cap on top of her gleaming, blond hair, her bangs brushing across her hair in careless strands, veiling her dark, crimson eyes from view. The bluish-gray turtleneck sweater that she adorned on this particular day was bare on the front, save for a peculiar symbol of an eye with a teardrop hanging heavily beneath it knitted on the space over Sheik's heart. She liked wearing that sweater, and wore it often – she even wore it to school in her Zelda form.

And I've never asked why she favored it. Now, that lack of inquisition is bothering me tremendously.

"Why do you like that sweater so much, Sheik?" When Zelda was in Sheik form, she liked being called Sheik, for the namesake. Besides, she said it sounded cool, and I respect her liking for the name. The blond teen lifted her head, reminding me very much of a panther with feline grace.

"You mean the one I'm wearing right now?" she asked, her voice deeper than Zelda's gentle tone. I bobbed my head up and down.

"Uh huh," I confirmed, "Why do you like it so much?" Sheik, who had been piling up sacks of copper dust, stopped what she was doing, straightening her slim figure to look down at her beloved sweater. For a few more seconds, she stared at the garment, wondering what to say.

"It's soft and warm... I guess," she finally said, "and it's from a family friend." Family friend?

"You mean like Mario and Luigi?" Which was true, for they are indeed family friends to Zelda's family before her parent's died, and they still are. But to my surprise, Sheik shook her head, her straw-blond hair swaying in motion as she closed her cat-like eyes. So, it became apparent to me that she had another family friend somewhere out in the universe.

"Who, then?" I persisted, impatient. Sheik opened one of her crimson eyes, her expression calm without feeling, although I thought I saw the vague tilt of her eyebrow. She was hiding something beneath that darned mask again. She held a delicate, bandaged hand to her forehead, her fingers touching lightly on her skin as she thought.

"She lives by herself, and she is a person sort of like me at the moment," Sheik began, her low tone wavering a bit, "Impa... She's... Well, it's a little too complicated for me to explain who she is, how I know her, and such." Now, Sheik's fingers moved down to where her chin was supposed to be, playing with a loose piece of bandage absentmindedly. Impa? The name intrigued me – what kind of place was this person from? Then again, "Sheik" and, "Zelda" were funny names as well. And so was, "Pikachu" - so why should I worry about this silly nonsense? It was time to move on – with a new question.

"Why do you always wear bandages around your mouth, Sheik?" I piped up, skipping around her, waiting for Kirby's signal to hike back up the ramp again to take down another sphere, "Doesn't it get stuffy and hot?" Even though it was very hard to tell if she was smiling, due to the mask, you could tell right then Sheik was grinning.

"No," she replied, chuckling, "you'd be surprised how breathable this cloth is." I still didn't believe her for myself.

"You got to be joking me," I said flatly, looking at the bandages from the corner of my eye as I faced towards the open air. Sheik brushed hauled yet another sack into the pile, before saying,

"Nope – I am not," Raising an eyebrow, I eyed her mask for a while. And, with the time I had left before I dragged my sorry behind up the ramp, I ran back inside to fetch materials to make my own mask. I wanted to test this hypothesis for myself, and I did so.

However, it wasn't working out very well. As I thought, it soon got hot and stuffy underneath my little cover of suffocation – and to my dismay, smelly. I couldn't find any bandages, so I pinned up some old socks around my head (because, you know, Sheik's bandages look as though they were used more than once). That turned out to be a big mistake, and I was paying dearly for it. I gagged, stumbling out the door towards a bemused Sheik.

"How can you breathe?!" I cried, choking on the smelly fumes. Sheik eyed the old, gym socks. Now that I figured, these socks probably haven't been washed for quite some time. Ew...

"Hey Pikachu, let's ge – whoa, what the heck?!" Kirby exclaimed, reaching our presence. He stomped over and in a jerky motion, Kirby yanked off some of the socks from my face. Fresh, sweet air rushed into my nostrils and filled my lungs in joyful bliss. That's going to be the last time I try to imitate Sheik.

"What were you doing with these?" Kirby said, holding up the socks, his mouth pinched in obvious disgust. I took deep, cleansing breaths, some of the socks falling from its misshaped wrap. I let them fall.

"I wanted to see what it was like to wear a mask like Sheik," I answered innocently, pointing at the girl behind him. Kirby glanced back at her briefly, before shaking his head, dropping the socks.

"Stop wasting time, Pikachu," he scolded, "now, let's get up that ramp – the sooner we get this job done, the sooner we get to eat." I rolled my eyes, as we made our way towards the rickety, wooden ramp.

"You're always thinking about your stomach, aren't you?" I sighed, exasperated. Kirby paid no mind – instead he stopped short in front of the ramp, staring at something ahead of him with a wide-eyed expression. What's wrong with him? Concerned, I waved one of my hands in front of his face. Kirby blinked, his expression annoyed.

"What's the matter, Kirbs?" I asked, honestly not knowing what's wrong.

"Your mom gave you a pair of eyes," he huffed, gesturing towards the ramp with a stubby arm, "use them, for goodness sake!" When he soon returned his attention back to the ramp, I stuck out my tongue at him. Then I decided to look for myself.

Some ways up, a section of the ramp had been splintered and broken through, leaving a yawning whole wide enough for a sphere to pass through. The planks were shattered and torn badly, and the structure underneath was shaking badly.

From above, the sounds of the wood creaking were mixed with a WHOOSH as something large fell. Following the sound waves, I glanced up. In the ramps above, there were holes as well, all aligned with each other – and something round was rocketing down through them.

"Oh dear..." Kirby muttered, "There goes another sphere," Meanwhile, something in my blood buzzed in the presence of metal – the electricity in me does that. Quick as lightning, I instinctively concentrated my mind upon the great mass of metal as it zoomed down, and the static electricity in the air snapped into a connection between me and the conductor. My electricity flowed from my cheeks and hands, zipping towards the sphere. With my mind, I stopped the conductor from falling to earth, using my electricity to coax the heavy piece of metal to the landing above the Mill Table. When it was position just right, I lowered the sphere daintily, releasing my bonds of electricity carefully. Without a sound, the sphere made it down, safely. Staring at the sphere, just only making sense of what I just done, I realized I have quite a bit of power; I had easy control over ALL conductors of electricity. That means all forms of metal and water – the earth, the oceans, and even other people through the liquid that runs in their veins. Sure, anyone wished that they could have so much control and glory, but being a five year old... That was too much power – it frightened me. I turned around to see Kirby observing me with his keen, star-blue eyes. What could he be thinking?

My thoughts were halted when I heard another whooshing sound – my ears pricked up. It was not quite as large as a sphere, nor as round (judging by the sound of the air moving around the object). I had a hunch I knew who it was.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" The squeal confirmed my very thoughts, as we saw a green blur of a dinosaur rush down towards the Earth. Spending many years with Yoshi, I got to know him very well, well enough to know that situations like this were not as worrying as to say he jumped into lava. Sure, it's scary to fall from a castle that floats miles above the ground, but not for Yoshi – by golly, he lived here for all his life so far. This must have happened at least a dozen or so times before we ever met him.

As expected, Yoshi did come back up – but he had different ways of doing so (one time, he climbed a rope ladder from the ground). Today, as the dinosaur rose up to meet at our eye level again, his cheeks bulging with a round object. Before he rose any higher, we reeled in our friend, so that he could spit out the balloon in his mouth and be safe on the platform. And out did the balloon come (with a rather gigantic burp), looking very much more like a bubble than an inflatable. Watching the bubble float higher into the sky, its iridescent colors shining, it brought back an old feeling of curiosity and wonder. In my mind, someone laughed, as I try to catch my prey.

Who was he?

***

New Year's Eve began with a huge mess, as in food fight mess. This year's was probably the biggest yet, and most participated. Even Jigglypuff fought back (only to be creamed by yours truly), and Fox and Donkey Kong even dropped by for it! For a food fight, the battle was epic beyond compare – no planned food fight at school could ever stand tall. We have less people than a cafeteria filled with kids, no doubt, but we have a LOT of food. And we have the skills, too (no offense to those food-fighters out there). I mean, c'mon – all of the people gathered around the table had some kind of brawling technique (mine was launching pies off of my tail in lacrosse) that invigorated the ambiance of the room.

Mario and Luigi, with a wave of their gloved hands, was magically clean and in fresh clothes (with no trace of the cheese wraps that Peach chucked at them), they headed out to Gardens in the Sky. That's where we go outside to see the fireworks, sprawled out on Luigi's soft, green grass, surrounded by clipped bushes, ornamental trees, and blooming flowers of many different colors. He had quite the green thumb, and his part of the Gardens grew magnificently.

The other part – Peach's garden – was smoked black. As I saw Peach yelling at her older brother in absolute disgust, blaming him for exploding her flowers with a firecracker, Mario scratched his head, examining the mess. I sighed, shaking my head – there was always some accident of some kind.

I had sprawled myself onto the lawn, feeling tendrils of cool greens tickle my ears. Above us, away from light pollution from the cities, was the great yonder of space that yawned from horizon to horizon, splayed with billions and gazillions of stars that lit the Gardens with a pale, blue-silvery white glow. Excitement from the food fight was calming down, and lulled to contempt. Beside me, Yoshi curled up into a neat ball fast asleep, murmuring peacefully.

Kirby still has some ways to go before he could calm down – he has to do his grand opening for the New Year Night Lights.

As the minutes ticked down towards midnight, I observed my surroundings. Yoshi was still asleep in the grass, his dinosaur body still looking very sweet like the baby he was. Some ways off to the right of me was Mario's siblings and himself, arguing over Peach's Garden. Luigi was yelling at Mario to help light the fireworks. Peach was yelling at Mario as well, but to apologize for wrecking her precious flowers. Mario was retorting that it had been an accident. Even quiet and shy Samus was yelling at her older siblings to shut up, her blond ponytail swinging as she shook. It must have been interesting to see them grow up, I mused.

This year, Luigi had thought it would be a great idea to shoot up a New Year Ball-o'-Firecrackers, "Kinda like the one they-a have at New-a York," he had said. Except a crystalline ball did not descend down a lighted pillar as the seconds counted down to the new year. No – we had a cannon.

It was getting awfully close to midnight – we only had a few minutes left. Samus took out a laser gun-type thing from the back pocket of her jeans and shot Peach's swinging umbrella, lighting it on fire. As Peach turned her rage upon her younger sister, Mario dashed to the great cannon with several boxes of matches, tossing Luigi some as the green brother raced to align the other rockets. Kirby, holding a great, golden banner, waited patiently for his cue. Looking at my pink friend, I felt a little envious that he got to do something, and pouted. Oh well; life never comes out the way you want it to be, I thought, remembering a vague memory of a mother that never wanted me.

"TA-WENTY SECOND COUNT-A-DOWN STARTS-A NOW!" On cue to Mario's announcement, Luigi lit two fuses, which immediately rocketed up as the figure "20" is bold, bright, yellow letters. That died away in a shimmer of gold, replaced with 19, then 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11...

At 10, Mario had lit the fuse to the great cannon. Within a millisecond, a ginormous ball zoomed through the zero in the ten – up and away.

9: I was awed by how extreme the firepower was to build such thrust to shoot a heavy piece of explosive so high in the air.

8: I didn't see the ball.

7: I started to worry. Where was it?

6: What if it doesn't come back down, where we could see it.

5: I saw the ball again, and it was coming down fast.

4: Whew, at least I know we were going to see it now.

3: Wait a moment, is that ball coming down too fast?

2: Now I am a little concerned – we're going to be blown to bits!

1: Good by, cruel world!!!

Then, right on mark, as the clock struck the hour of the new minute, new hour, new day, new year, the great explosive burst into a brilliant super nova, close enough that we felt the heat of the blast in our faces. The burst shrank back slightly, so our eyes could adjust to see bright, white figures pouring out from all directions from the explosion. I squinted my eyes, amazed; thousands upon thousands of birds flew out, created by light, their wings spread and rushing out like an avian fountain. Feathers showered down, illuminated by their own chemical composition, dazzling everyone who saw. Floating down, they died out before they could light the grass on fire (or any other firecrackers).

The birds had gathered themselves, flapping together in a massive formation. On the ground, watching the birds pass by, Mario lit another rocket. Once airborne, the capsule fell away from a sheet of crystal, in which the birds passed through. What happened next took our breath away; the birds, once plumaged with with-light, melted into the biggest rainbow ever seen on earth, more dazzling than the aurora lights, before transforming into billions of tiny butterflies. These winged delicates flitted high, each tiny pair of wings a color from the rainbow, each glowing brightly.

Suddenly, the swarm parted itself into a donut like shape as a zooming object passed through, a long, golden banner streaming behind.

It was Kirby. As he flew out and about through the sky, the bright butterflies bore light to the banner, revealing the embroidered message upon it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

As if it wasn't flashy enough, the warpstar Kirby rode on had a streamer of tiny stars trailing after it. So out he flew, bearing the New Year banner. As the butterflies danced in the air, creating fantastic formations, Kirby wound around them, twisting and whirling the strip of gold.

And then came Kirby's big act – the part that changed my mind about wanting to have his role in the New Year Night Lights. In mid-transfiguration, the butterflies simply exploded. The Gardens were illuminated with the bright light the star burst gave off, causing some to shield their eyes. At first, the burst brought nothing but a thick, white cloud, uneventful in comparison to what had happened before.

Until a second later.

A giant jet of flame tore through the wisp, burning a hole in it. What remained of the cloud was wafted away by a powerful set of luminescent wings.

Dragon wings, to be exact – made of fireworks. A wyvern, as bright and as vividly colored as its fire. With its eyes of glowing ember swiveling around, the beast raised its dignified head, looking for prey.

And, as always, Kirby played matador – except instead of a bull, its a massive, blinding dragon. And all he had was his golden banner and warpstar.

Well, it wasn't exactly matador – you could call it a wild goose chase, instead. But it was the most beautiful goose chase I have ever seen. As Kirby maneuvered and dodged the columns of fire that burst forth from wide open jaws, Mario and Luigi sent many more bottle rockets that wound around the predator-and-prey's path, the light exploding in novas, taking shape of wispy, purple, green, and blue hued nebulae that twinkled with tiny, glowing specks of mimic newborn stars.

Through the spacial clouds the dragon chased the pink pilot in a magnificent show, for both elements of the chase made many intricate movements, both dazzling us with their agility and skill (dragon's movements had been programmed by Mario). Soon enough, the tiny, mimic newborn stars start to revolve, sucking away the wisps and expand in size. Now, they were full fledged stars, some standard yellow, some acid green, and some lightning blue. Solar flares lurched from them, twisting around Kirby and the dragon.

Over the time span of fifteen minutes, we watched the duo perform. Somehow, we never get tired of it, the dragon chasing Kirby. The settings always changed from year to year, and the shape and color of the dragon changes in the same respect. Even the movements change annually – Mario and Luigi certainly new how to keep their guests entertained, being festive folk.

The stars grew larger in size, and grew redder and redder, swelling up into red giants, so large that even the great, massive wyvern disappeared when it flew behind one. Scarlet glowed all over the Gardens, the shadows flickering furiously as the fire overhead casted light in many different directions.

At one point came the cataclysmic apocalypse to the reign of the stars. Within seconds of each other, the stars one by one collapsed, the implosions setting off a chain reaction, in which all of the stars collapsed violently to create great star bursts that shook the Castle, and nearly blinded us with the intensity of the light. As stars fell in upon themselves, one after the other, becoming super novas, Kirby raced skyward at an alarming speed, to escape. The dragon followed in pursuit, but perhaps a little too late. The super novas engulfed the great beast, slicing the air around them with vibrations that rattled my teeth.

The light was sucked into a tiny, condensed, ball of light. Then, it exploded, like a great flaming star before dissolving into embers. Raining down to the ground, the glowing specks simply died out, causing no harm to any flora or fauna. The audience simply stared, made dumbstruck by the splendor of the performance.

It was only when Kirby came flying in on his warpstar, shaken and exhausted, when we broke out into applause. Hopping off of his golden steed, Kirby merely nodded his thanks, and plopped down next to me. His tired, star-blue eyes caught mine, and I grinned at him. To perform that certain part of the show, you must very good at piloting and have the guts to do it. Kirby, obviously, had both. It must have been scary, to have something that looked so real and scary chasing you.

"You pooped out, chum?" I asked my pink fellow. Without a word, Kirby just fell over on his back. That's all I needed.

As lights danced all about me, I began to think about this year. There would be end-of-the-year exams to take at school, then summer break. There would be the iLuigi to investigate, and then Jigglypuff's face to vandalize. There were new and old events I could expect for this year; some good, some bad, and some are just ugly to think about. Ah well, there will always be the KPY, no matter. Smiling to myself, flanked by my two best buddies, I eased my mind through the gate of the New Year.

I am TERRIBLY sorry about the long wait, and even more sorry for the crap I give now. Right now, I am putting myself under a lot of pressure and work (I must get something done with this story, and then a comic on dA, and then the prizes for a contest)!

I hope you all are well, and I hope you guys don't come and nail my feet to the floor, or duct tape me to the ceiling fan.

And I thank you guys who have still hung on to my pathetic story with my pathetically slow updates. It's a light at the end of the tunnel, for me. So, thanks. ^^