Elvin Gadd powered F.L.U.D.D. down before going to bed for several hours, to make sure the robot didn't waste any energy before the next morning, but to F.L.U.D.D. the process seemed to be instantaneous. One second it was night and Gadd was inputting the code for a manual shutdown, and the next it was eight 'o'clock morning the old scientist was putting on his lab coat and deactivating the lab's security system.
F.L.U.D.D. had turned itself off and on several times, but this was the first time F.L.U.D.D. ever stopped to think about it; all those hours lost in a dreamless 'sleep'.
"What happens to my programming when I turn it off?" F.L.U.D.D. thought to itself. "Where does it go? Do I dream and I just do not remember it? What would it be like to dream?"
These thoughts plagued the robot until it and E. Gadd had almost reached the front gate of Pina Park, when they both suddenly heard loud groans in the distance.
"It sounds like little Bowser's out causing hubbub already" said the professor. "Well, hop to it F.L.U.D.D.! Let's find out what the noise is; chop, chop!"
The robot was snapped out of its circular processes when its inventor activated its executive override, and quickly started sprinting north, towards the source of the noise. F.L.U.D.D. soon found Pina Island's famous Sunflower Fields, as well as the source of all the groaning.
It was the 'Sunflower Kids', a humanoid race who were similar to the Piantas, except their roots had never left the ground to form feet. Instead, they stayed plantlike from the waist down, and remained stationary in the fields of Pinna Island; content to soak in the sun's rays and chat with whoever walked by. Their silky yellow hair, bright smiles, and cheery attitudes made the woman-like plants famous the world over.
Today, however, all of those traits were conspicuously missing. Their yellow petal hair had turned a dark grey, their movements were slow and sluggish, and their smiles had all been stretched down into long frowns. Normal sunflowers were wilted or dead all around them, and jutting out of the ground around them were unnatural looking spheres covered in large green polka dots.
"Alright, set up the camera here!" said a familiar voice nearby. "Make sure the light's good enough; get as much pain and suffering as you can!"
It was Coco Coconut with her camera crew, setting up to report on the disaster happening around them; as soon as they were ready, Coco counted down with her fingers and began her report.
"Breaking news! Coco Coconut here, coming to you live from Pina Island" she began. "Terror has struck Sunflower Fields as all the sunflowers are wilting and what appear to be giant Yoshi eggs are littering the ground".
Coco stepped over to a nearby Sunflower Kid wearing a green shirt and asked if she knew what was going on.
"N-no" the plant-woman meekly responded. "It feels like…something's eating my roots. It hurts…I don't think I can…"
The Sunflower Kid passed out before she could finish her sentence, but Coco was quick to fill in the dead air. "You heard it here first; mysterious Yoshi eggs appear on the beach, and then Sunflower Kids start feeling sick. Coincidence? Or another step in the Yoshis' ongoing invasion of Isle Delfino?"
"No, that can't be" another Sunflower Kid called out meekly. "The Yoshis were our friends…why…?"
Coco ignored the woman and continued her report. "What really is a Yoshi's greatest hunger; is it for fruit, or for revenge? Find out more about this egg-straordinary story at nine".
F.L.U.D.D. considered seeking out and confronting Rush, but it only took the robot a few processes to realize that that the dinosaur was probably only a scapegoat; the eggs were far too big to be a Yoshi's, and closer examination revealed that the green dots were only painted on the egg shells.
"Well, what do we have here?" Professor E. Gadd said as he finally caught up with F.L.U.D.D. "These are the poorest Yoshi egg imitations I've ever seen in my life! They didn't even get the shape right' they're supposed to more oval-like, not spheres!"
"Sir, my databanks do not have any information about eggs that resemble these" said F.L.U.D.D. "I have come to the conclusion that they are not actually eggs at all; they are just some kind of parasite feeding off the subterranean roots. Disgusting! Who would want to eat something so dirty?"
"Interesting" the absent minded professor said, stroking his chin. "Excellent deduction, F.L.U.D.D. Now, are you feeling hungry for some scrambled eggs?"
F.L.U.D.D. just stared back and replied "I don't eat, sir".
Gadd shook his head, but he didn't seem angry; just disappointed. "Why do I always forget to program them to laugh at my jokes?" he said to himself. "Never mind; please find a rock or something else hard and prepare to smash this 'egg' open".
"Not so fast!" Coco said nearby. She had been listening to the entire conversation, and F.L.U.D.D. could almost see the twinkle of anticipation in her eye as she approached with her camera crew. "If there's going to be violence, we're going to get it on camera".
A few minutes later and F.L.U.D.D. had managed to find itself a decent sized rock and the news crew had set itself up to catch all the potential blood and gore from the best angle.
"Alright, and…action!" Coco called out enthusiastically from a safe distance.
F.L.U.D.D. took that as its cue and smashed the rock in its hand down as hard as it could against the mysterious 'egg'. The stone hit the creature with a loud crack that could be heard all the way from the beach. A moment later, the rock turned to dust in F.L.U.D.D.'s hands.
"Well, that was anticlimactic" Coco said disappointedly.
F.L.U.D.D. continued to strike the mysterious 'egg' with all its pneumatic might, punching it with its fists, kicking it with its legs, and even jumping up and down on the top of its shell. It didn't even leave a scratch.
"Fascinating" said Professor E. Gadd. "I suppose that even Bowser Jr. wouldn't be dumb enough to leave such a large part exposed without protecting it. Now then, how do we crack this coconut?"
The nearby reporter gasped.
"Figuratively speaking, of course" he quickly added. "We could get some shovels and start digging…no, F.L.U.D.D. has been through enough trauma already. I could convert one of the amusement park rides into a crane and pull them out…no, that would take too much time. What if I used the centrifugal force of the earth…"
While the professor was busy listing off ideas to himself, F.L.U.D.D. was also trying to come up with a plan of attack. It rubbed and tapped the egg-like creature to look for any kind of weak point, but that proved to be fruitless. Without any better idea, the robot fell back on its universal backup plan; squirt it with water.
At first this didn't seem to do anything, but as the water slid off the creature's hard shell and soak into the ground below, the monster began to visibly shake.
"…I'm sure a vacuum would come in handy somehow..." said Professor E. Gadd, oblivious to what was going on around him.
"Um, sir?" F.L.U.D.D. asked as the 'egg' continued to tremor violently.
"…oh why is there never a chemistry set when you need one?" the old man continued, stroking his chin.
Suddenly, the 'egg' burst out from the ground, sending dirt flying everywhere, and revealing the creature's true form; a turtle with yellow green and yellow scales, four flippers for feet, and an extra white and green shell on its head that partly concealed its beady little eyes.
The turtle let out a high pitched screech before charging towards F.L.U.D.D. and its creator. Professor Gadd had just enough time to throw his frail body out of the way, but the android attempted to hold its ground.
Unfortunately for F.L.U.D.D., the turtle was more than three times the robot's size, so it was sent flying back as soon as the angry amphibian collided with tiny android. F.L.U.D.D. landed several feet away on its back, and looked up just in time to see the turtle jump into the air towards it.
F.L.U.D.D. leapt out of the way as the turtle landed in the fertile fields shell first, kicking up even more dust and soil into the air, and sending a terrifying shockwave thundering through the ground. When the grime cleared, however, the turtle was anything but threatening; it had hit the ground so hard that it had embedded itself in the ground.
It was almost sad to see the beast writhe helplessly in the ground, but F.L.U.D.D. didn't have time for pity; quickly and efficiently, F.L.U.D.D. launched itself into the air and brought the full force of its weight into the turtle's soft underbelly, piercing it instantly. The creature dissolved away into sand a few moments later, and the sunflowers that were wilting around it suddenly came back to life.
"Yahoo!" shouted Coco. "Now that's good television!" The pink haired reporter and her camera crew quickly approached F.L.U.D.D. and started a makeshift interview.
"So, how does it feel to be a cold-blooded killer?" Coco asked F.L.U.D.D. was the robot wiped itself off.
"I do not have blood, and I have not killed anything" F.L.U.D.D. calmly explained.
"Really? That turtle looked pretty alive to me" countered Coco.
"The turtle was just a construct made up of a material called 'graffiti'" explained F.L.U.D.D. "Just because something looks alive, that doesn't mean that it is".
"Well then, how CAN you tell if something's alive?" Coco asked, shoving her microphone almost directly into F.L.U.D.D.'s speaker.
"I…I don't know" F.L.U.D.D. answered honestly.
"You heard it here first folks; our robotic 'savior' can't even tell if something's alive or dead" Coco said into the camera as dramatically as possible. "How can we expect it to tell friend from foe? Is this a prelude to an inevitable robot rampage? More on this story after the break".
F.L.U.D.D. just stood there for about a minute, clutching its processor, before E. Gadd finally came to the poor android's rescue.
"Snap out of it!" said the professor. "We still have a lot of work to do! Get ready at the next turtle shell, but don't do anything until I give the signal".
"Yes sir" F.L.U.D.D. quickly responded before carrying out its creator's orders.
"Ms. Coconut, was it?" E. Gadd said, approaching the pink haired Pianta. "That's quite the microphone you got there".
"Oh, how nice of you to notice" she said, handing the device to the human inventor. "It's a Voicebox Mark IV, only available to award winning journalists. It's top of the line".
"Yes, this is really well made" E. Gadd said before disassembling all its complex parts it in a matter of seconds. "And I'm sure you'll be able to appreciate that fact better when you've put it back together".
When Coco met him with nothing more than a slack jawed expression, the professor laughed and said "Just be happy I didn't complement your cameras. Now then, F.L.U.D.D., let's do this as efficiently as possible; the others didn't see what happened, so we should be able to pull off the same trick as many times as we want. Get ready…"
It took F.L.U.D.D. nearly an hour to take out all of the turtles, but eventually it had defeated the last one, and the Shine Sprite that was powering all the monsters flew back towards Delfino Plaza.
With the last turtle defeated, the Sunflower Kids felt a sudden burst of energy, and all the plants that were still alive seemed brighter and more vibrant than ever. The entire field seemed to burst out in cheers as The Great Sunflower finally woke up again, and stood tall over her children once more.
The Great Sunflower was similar to the other Sunflower Kids in a lot of ways, but she was much taller, at least two stories high, and her skin was very darkly tanned from the countless amount of time that she spend basking in the sun.
"Ah, it feels so good to be growing again" she said happily to herself. She turned her attention towards F.L.U.D.D. and asked "Little one; are you the one who saved us all".
The robot cautiously approached the giant woman and answered meekly "Yes; that was I".
"Come now, don't be shy" said The Great Sunflower. "We're not going to hurt you. At least tell us who you are".
"I am F.L.U.D.D., a Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device" the robot said as it was programmed to.
"Ah, forgive me, but I do not keep up that well with the times" said The Great Sunflower. "What exactly does that mean?"
F.L.U.D.D. thought for a moment before answering as simply as it could. "I am a robot that is designed to shoot water".
This precipitated a collective squeal of delight from the surrounding Sunflower Kids.
"You shoot water?" asked one. "Please hose me down; I'm so hungry right now!"
"No me, I want it more" said another.
"Hey, I think he's actually filled with water!" yelled yet another. "Marry me!"
The Great Sunflower laughed at her children's excitement, but was cut off by a loud crash coming from Pina Park.
"As much as I'd love for you to stay and play with us, I think your services are required elsewhere right now" said the tall plant-woman. "Please do come back soon, F.L.U.D.D. You're welcome here whenever you like".
"Thank you" F.L.U.D.D. said quickly before rushing off towards the gates of Pina Park, E. Gadd not too far behind it. Along the way they passed Coco Coconut, who was still desperately trying to reassemble her microphone, and was yelling at her crew for not bringing a spare.
