Chapter 6-3: Lord of a dead empire
The bike and the ship reached the entrance of Iceland City. Larry and Starlow got off the bike while Tatanga and Rosalina got off the ship. They did not even have to enter the city to notice that something was wrong. Rosalina was indeed telling the truth: broken bones were scattered in the streets of the city and there was no sign of survivors. The bones in their state might imply that there was still someone there or perhaps there used to be. The group entered the city. Its many building made of wood still stood. Snow slowly fell from the sky. Some of the bones were covered in snow, implying they were there a long time ago. It was like the city was frozen in time. The scenery gave a disturbing "end of world" feeling.
"What do we do, Larry? There doesn't seem to be anyone around." Rosalina asked.
Larry felt the despair in her voice but he did not want to turn back and leave and presume Lemmy was gone. He would only believe such thing if he saw it from himself but he also had to get the green wand and Lemmy's power. The city in its current state was not a proof concrete enough to convince the punk to give up. He toggled the thermal vision on his sunglasses. His vision went red. He looked at his friends who appeared as white silhouettes through the shades. He looked around and saw a minuscule white silhouette in the distance in front of a huge building.
"Hold on! I see someone far away over there!" Larry declared.
The punk ran toward the silhouette while his friends followed him. When he got close enough, he disabled the thermal vision and the silhouette was now a small penguin. The penguin was scared and ran away inside the building.
"Who's there?" A voice spoke.
The building in question was the town hall. The group looked at the building and saw a giant penguin, pointing the green wand toward them, coming out of it. There was no sadness in her face, only emptiness and despair.
"What are you doing here?" The giant penguin asked in a monotone voice.
"What happened here? I haven't seen you before." Rosalina asked.
"I saw you walking down the streets, girl."
The penguin walked down the stairs and sat down on the last steps. The smaller penguin joined her.
"A blue gas wiped out everyone here. It does not matter if you are just scavengers looking for food. There is no one here but me." The giant penguin told to the group.
"Who are you?" Starlow asked.
"I am Mother Penguin. I used to be the queen of Iceland until this incident happened. The Space Federation tricked me and destroyed my land." The former queen replied.
"About that, the members were in fact space pirates posing as members of the Space Federation to trick people. They prevented the actual members of the organisation to attend the meeting." Larry explained.
"How do you know that?" The giant penguin asked.
"Here I have two actual members of the Space Federation." The punk presented.
Both Tatanga and Rosalina moved forward and presented themselves. They showed their badge to Mother Penguin.
"What business do you have here?" Mother Penguin asked.
"My name is Starlow. I've come on behalf of the stars to retrieve the green wand to restore the world." The star sprite greeted.
The giant penguin looked at Larry. She noticed the rings he was wearing.
"Are you the new Grassland king? What happened to the former one? Why does your wand ring have so many stones?" She asked.
"First, I'm indeed the new Grassland king. Second, the former king still lives and rules over Grassland in my absence because I need to look after my siblings and the wands. Finally, my wand rings has five wands. I'm merging them together to prepare for the world restoration." The koopaling explained.
"Since you are looking for your siblings, I suppose you are here for Lemmy." Mother Penguin guessed.
"That's correct. Have you seen him around?"
"Yes, he somehow survived the incident. He helped me destroy all the dry creatures here. It was hard for me to take down my own people. There were times where Lemmy had to do it himself because I could not stand myself. He tried many times to put a smile back on my face. My child was able to smile again but I could no longer smile. He resides with me in the town hall to keep an eye on me and my child. Today, however, he said he had to get something from his house then he would head to the Iceland Palace. He was gone shortly before you reached the town hall."
"How's it that we didn't stumble upon him?"
"He used an alternate path to not attract attention. If you're quick and lucky, you can meet him at his house. Or, you can either enter the palace or wait for his return."
Mother Penguin gave Larry the green wand which the latter put in his sidepack. Larry did not want to wait for Lemmy's return. He was rejoiced that another of his siblings survived the incident. Lemmy must be the other koopaling immune to the virus as Geno would have told. With Dry Bowser on the loose though, everyone was in danger. Larry realized that he forgot to ask Isabelle about the peace treaty renewal for Iceland but, after seeing the situation here, the papers would be of no use. He nodded at Mother Penguin and headed to Lemmy's house. The two Space Federation members stayed behind with the Iceland queen and her child to comfort her. Only Starlow followed the punk. They arrived at a specific house. The koopaling pulled out his keys and unlocked the front door. They entered the house, looking for Lemmy. Lemmy's house had an entire room dedicated to practicing his circus acts and his magic tricks. They searched every room but there was no sign of the little koopaling. Larry however found something strange in the house when he searched in the bedroom. Lemmy's ball was there but not Lemmy. His ball was yellow with orange stars on it. He would never go anywhere without his ball. Why would Lemmy leave it there? It was his favorite toy and he kept it since Bowser gave it to him as a welcome gift upon adoption. Larry picked up the ball and stared at it.
"What's so special about this ball?" Starlow asked.
"He always brings his ball with him. Why did he leave it here?" The punk replied.
He kept staring at the ball.
"I remember the time when he almost left the castle." He whispered.
A few days after Junior was born, some of the koopalings left the castle to start their own life. They felt that they would no longer be welcome at the castle because of the new kid. Ludwig left the very day Junior hatched. Today, Larry was in his bedroom preparing to go to a tennis tournament in Grassland. He now only had two fangs coming out of his mouth. Between Junior's birthday and the present day, he got into a bicycle accident and broke his two small fangs. Bowser had to bring him to a dentist to have them pulled and place synthetic teeth instead. He picked up his tennis racket and left his room. As he was heading to the door that led to the throne room, a ball rolled from one of his siblings' rooms.
"Stupid ball, I'll just get you back once I'm done with my luggage." Lemmy's voice said.
The punk picked up the ball and peeked inside Lemmy's room. His little big brother was preparing a suitcase that he filled with clothes and various objects. He was facing away from Larry. The latter entered the room with the ball.
"What are you doing, Lemmy?" He asked.
"I'm leaving. I can't take it anymore." Lemmy said, still facing away from him.
Though he could be referring to the new child, he was in fact talking about his fear of changes. Ironically, he was about to change his future. Lemmy was never known to think ahead. He believed that if the future did not happen there was no need to think about it
"I think you left something behind." The youngest koopaling said as he presented the ball.
His big brother turned around and…
"Aaaah! Larry, what happened to your mouth!?" Lemmy screamed.
"I accidentally broke my two small fangs while riding my bicycle. I crashed and the dentist had to pull them out."
"But you're different!" Lemmy stuttered.
"Do you have in mind that a change in look means the entire person changed?" Larry asked.
His big brother was trembling but he then realized something.
"I can't escape them. It's futile." He cried.
"Don't cry, Lemmy. I'm still the same person from the inside. How about we change your look a little bit and see the result?"
Lemmy gasped. He wanted to avoid changes but this time Larry was proposing him to make a change. He trembled at first and closed his eyes but decided to take the last group of hairs on his head, yellow hairs, and put them backward and downward as opposed to all his other hair groups that were upward and forward. He made a ponytail.
"How do you feel?" Larry asked.
"I… I… I don't feel different, Larry. In fact, I think I like it like that."
This one little change in his look made Lemmy craved for more. He stopped trembling and opened his eyes. He got excited.
"Can we change something else in my look!?" He happily asked.
"I'm not sure. As for me, I'm planning to get a star tattoo like Morton's birthmark but I'll put it on the back of my head instead of my face." Larry brought up.
"Wow, I wanna get tattooed too!"
Lemmy finally took his stuff out of his suitcase and ditched it into a corner of his room. He decided that he would stay at the castle to welcome the new family member and play with him when he would grow up. They both left Lemmy's room and went playing outside.
Larry snapped out of it. Both he and Starlow stared at the ball for quite a long time. They wasted enough time. They turned around and got the surprise of their life when, behind them, Riley was standing there with his big crooked grin he could barely keep straight. How did they not hear the intruder? Perhaps they were too focused on the ball to notice Riley's presence let alone hear him sneaking up to them. Unlike Tatanga who was struck by love, Riley was about to make his foes pay. He had his arms behind his back. His piercing glare paralyzed the koopaling and the star sprite.
"I'm sorry. I could not wait anymore to see you again. It's been a long time for me, you know. Days become weeks and so on." He clumsily said.
He looked at the star sprite. It was the first time he saw her.
"Who's that lightbulb friend of yours? Is she your girlfriend?" He teasingly asked.
"I'm not his girlfriend! I'm his partner! Riley, you've gone too far this time! It's time for you to pay for your crimes!" Starlow furiously replied.
"Awww, so much for a first time meeting but it doesn't matter. At least, you go straight to business and in that case…" Riley started, still looking at the star sprite while his head pointed toward the koopaling.
Riley quickly grabbed Starlow with his right hand. The latter struggled to break free. She was only able to shake his kidnaper's hand a little. Larry, on the other hand, was paralyzed. He could not move. Seeing Riley here was much unexpected and now that he was here Larry had no idea what to do.
"Let me go, you fiend!" Starlow begged.
"Did you say CRUSH!?" Riley diabolically asked as he crushed the star sprite in his hand.
Larry heard the cracking. He got terrified and backed up into a wall. Riley released his prisoner. Starlow fell on the floor. Her eyes no longer brightened and her body was deformed and cracked. The pterodactyl looked back at Larry and approached him. The alien chuckled. Larry tried to prepare himself but his opponent grabbed him by the neck and violently slammed him into the wall.
"I warned you, Larry. I'm sure you still remember our little meeting back in Woodland when I presented you Bone-ser. You have to meddle into my business again and today I'm gonna make you regret your whole life!" Riley joyfully reminded to the punk.
He then pulled out his photon pistol from his armor and put the cannon on Larry's forehead.
"I hope you did everything you wanted to do before we met, Larry. I so wanted to get this little business of mine done before I carry on to more important matters." He laughed.
Larry closed his eyes. There was a brief moment where nothing happened until…
"What's wrong with you, Riley boy? Why can't you just pull the trigger and get this over with? You already dealt with many people before, for crying out loud! How is it that you're hesitating now?" Riley's voice whispered.
The punk opened his eyes back and saw that Riley was trembling. He could not keep his cannon straight on Larry's forehead. He was shaking too much for that. Even his face changed drastically. He no longer had the sadistic look on it. He was hesitant. His mouth, while still showing his teeth, was no longer a grin. In the end, Riley put the gun down, closed his eyes and lowered his head. What could have happened to him to change in a second? His meeting with MOM and Kraig surely could not have such impact on him since he would already be like that between his meeting and when he met Larry now. He released his prey and stood there, doing absolutely nothing. Larry did not know what to do or say. Even he was confused by what was going on.
"Just go, Larry. Your brother Lemmy's in danger." Riley quietly announced.
There was no more mischief in his tone, no more sadism in his voice, only remorse. The punk slowly stood up and picked up his wounded friend. Before leaving Lemmy's house, he took one last look at the pterodactyl. He did not move. He seemed broken. Larry left the house and ran back to the town hall. There was no time to lose. His partner was probably dying. He almost tripped a few time but he managed to recover and make it back to the town hall. The others were ready to leave the building, surely to go to the Mushroom Castle. Larry rushed toward them.
"Guys, you need to go back to the Mushroom Castle! Take Starlow with you and bring her to the lab in the basement!" He ordered while handing Rosalina the damaged star sprite.
"What happened to…" Tatanga started.
"THERE'S NO TIME FOR QUESTIONS! JUST GO!" The punk abruptly cut him.
The alien nervously nodded and the group immediately went to the ship. Larry, however, headed toward the Iceland Palace. This was the only other place he would be able to find Lemmy. If what Riley said is true, he had to hurry. Even if Lemmy would be immune to the blue gas, Dry Bowser would easily bypass the vaccine and still infect him.