Okay, I am terribly sorry for the lack of updates. It's been...almost a month? Jeez, this stinks. I've had little to no time for writing, and when I do, it's all a jumbled mess. School is messing with my head! I've seriously only had Sundays to write for the past month, and even then, only for something like 2 or 3 hours at night. That's near nothing for how I'm writing at the moment. I'm hoping that things should be smoother in the coming weeks since what has mainly prevented me from writing so much was: Cross Country.

Speaking of the subject, it is almost over. A week and a half left, then it's districts, then I'm done. And then I'm going to train like nuts during the winter so that come Track I can actually do well. And then get on varsity next year in cross country. By the way, I managed 18:54 in a three mile yesterday. I've been so happy!
Ahem, without further interuption, here's the next chapter. Enjoy!


Chapter 28: Fiends that Dig

"Run faster!" screamed Shelly to the other four people running behind her. William rocketed past her, speed clearly on his advantage. Boone, Duplissa, and Graves were at a disadvantage, even when Graves could fly. The Mega Moles behind them showed no signs of relenting their chase, but Shelly and the others showed no signs of quitting running either.

"We've got to stop sooner or later!" yelled Boone. He was actually quite thankful that he was as fast as he was at the moment, since he had still yet to replace his old oversized boomerang. Should he have had it with him, he would have surely perished already. "Or it could've taken these guys out." He added. "Wait," he yelled. "Why haven't we tried to attack these things yet?"

"Probably because if we were to stop, we'd be crushed!" answered Graves. "But I could try something!" he added, pulling a spare bomb out. "Hey! Catch, ya blind fools!" He threw the bomb square between the eyes of the front Mega Mole, catching it totally by surprise. The titanic mole stopped suddenly in order to rub the scorched spot where the bomb hit. The two moles behind it stopped as well, but Shelly and the others didn't. "Turn this corner here and maybe we can confuse them!" she suggested, taking the right in the cave to hide. The others followed her example and tried to hide down the hallway.

Running in, there seemed to be four extra directions to for them to go on down. "Let's take this ONE!" said William. "I wouldn't think that THOSE moles would see us in here if they came by." One by one they ran on into the huge corridor, hiding along the edge against the direction from which the moles would come from should they come down that way.

"I'm scared," whimpered Duplissa. "I don't want giant moles to eat me!"

"Er, they won't eat you!" Shelly whispered, trying to calm the frightened girl down. "Maybe they will just stomp on you first to make sure you're dead. Then perhaps sacrifice your remains to some mole god or something. If at least I can take a possibility from the books I've read-"

"N-not h-helping." She stuttered. She was about to burst into tears when the entire cave began to shake with dust beginning to fall all around them. "Ah! Quiet everyone; they're coming down this way!" Shelly commanded. Everyone stopped all noise and movement and tried to make themselves as small as possible to avoid detection from the Mega Moles. Sure enough, the three giants waddled down the hall, but without peeking into any of the rooms. Instead, they took one at random that was ahead of them and went on down.

Each of the five waited until the rumbling stopped before they would dare even breathe again. "Whew!" sighed Boone. "If that wasn't close, I don't know what is. Even with some crazy wild animals I encountered, never were they this nuts."

"Thanks for your life's adventures once again Boone," Shelly said dryly. "Now be quiet. We need to find a way around here. Mario is our top priority, and then we can go find the Star."

"Mario?" a new voice asked. "That's the bad man who hit me!"

"That…that wasn't you, was it Graves?" Shelly asked with a hint of fear in her voice. Graves shook his head. "Er, then…who was it? Boone?"

"Y-you might want to ask him!" Boone squeaked, backing up to the main hallway once more. The others looked back to where he had been staring. A Whacka was poking up from the ground, his left eye twitching erratically as he began to shudder.

Shelly's eyes grew wide in sudden realization upon seeing the Whacka. "Oh…oh jeez guys, we…we've got to go." She said as she too began to back up.

"HEH? WHY would we do that? It's a nice LITTLE Whacka!" argued William. He looked back to the Whacka once more, this time seeing two more Whackas only slightly protruding from the ground behind him. Two more massive Whackas. "Oh, I see what YOU mean," he said. "Heh, HEH…Run!" He yelled, blasting off down one of the other hallways. Boone took off with him, and Duplissa was not far behind. Shelly was about to follow when she saw that Graves was still standing there, actually preparing to fight the three Whackas.

"Avast ye scurvy dogs! Come at me, I'll take you all on!" Graves threatened as he waved his sword wildly at the Whacka family. This only caused them to become even angrier, as now the two massive Whackas began to rise up from the ground, shaking the cave all around them. "You fool; you'll get yourself killed if you don't kill everyone else first!" Shelly screamed at him. She ran up and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and ran. Graves was still swinging his sword, demanding the Shy Gal to let him go and find. "I'll let you fight. I'll definitely let you fight, when I'm not around! AND, when it's something that won't flat-out kill you! Now stop arguing, put your sword away, and fly so I can stop dragging you!"

Graves didn't have to be told twice to follow orders from the angry Shy Gal. He tucked his sword away and fly off just as the walls behind them collapsed, unleashing the gigantic, irate Whackas to chase them.

"Where's Mario? We just want to disembowel him! That's all!" cried out the little Whacka who stayed just barely ahead of his roaring parents. Shelly screamed, using the threat of death to motivate her to move even faster. Graves was already ahead of her and catching up with William, who was in front. Duplissa and Boone were barely ahead of her, the former allowing tears to flow freely in fear. Boone was just screaming like a girl.

"Hey, Duplissa!" Shelly yelled. "What?" the Duplighost sobbed out as she continued running. "Okay, first: get a grip! And second, I need you to prepare an illusion. I need you to create a steel wall or something that covers the enter width and height of a part of this cave here. It should stop these things in their tracks…at least for a bit. Can you do that?"

The Duplighost continued to sob a bit, but Shelly could see her begin to nod a bit. "O-okay. I can d-do it." She yelled back. Shelly nodded. "Good. Now I want you to do it after you round this corner up here," She instructed, pointing the path ahead as it veered sharply to the right. "You hear me? As soon as I go through, do it!"

William and Graves went on ahead, continuing to speed ahead of everyone else. Boone came after them, leaving just Duplissa and Shelly to pull up the rear. "Alright, Duplissa? Get ready to set the illusion…now!" She yelled as she took the turn. The Duplighost came to a screeching halt and flipped around. Her face showed nothing short of pure determination. "Come and get us!" she yelled as she put out both "hands" and created an illusory steel wall that could have been easily several feet thick.

"Nice job, Duplissa!" Shelly cheered. The Duplighost weakly turned to face her friend, smiling ever so slightly. "…Thanks…" she said feebly. "…I think that took a lot out of me. I've…never use my new ability that strongly before…"

"Yes, but you've shown that now you can do it," Shelly pointed out. Duplissa nodded in agreement. Boone and the others had come back to their teammates for the moment of peace that they had. "How long will that keep them until they figure things out?" Boone asked. Duplissa looked back to her handiwork. "I…I don't really know. Perhaps a few minutes. It is a solid illusion, so they can't just ram through it…I think."

"Well I would LIKE to say that we should probably get moving now," William said. "If we wait around too long, WE may be on a mad dash like we've been on twice today. I don't BELIEVE that that is what we really want to happen." A murmur of agreement sounded amongst them. "OKAY then, it's settled. I would think that we should PROBABLY still move quickly. We don't know that THEY won't catch up and take us by surprise."

"William's right," Shelly said. "We need to get going. Besides, the sooner we find Mario, the better. And then we can get the Star. After that, we can get out of this madhouse."

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The group of five moved quickly among the caves, searching every which way for their missing plumber. The torchlight helped greatly to improve their visibility, but they were still having little luck in finding Mario. "Wouldn't that Navigator have an idea on where Mario was? The little thing has already pulled two miracles on us, can't it pull another?" Boone asked. Shelly pulled the device out as she continued to run, inspecting it closely. She turned the map on, and all that showed up was the location of the Star. From where they were, it was still a ways away. "No. Nothing about Mario. Just the Star, that's it."

"Give me that! You have to try harder!" he argued, running up and snatching the thing out of Shelly's hands. "I don't believe that's a good idea…"

"Quiet, you know nothing about this!"

"And yet, neither do you. I would bet you know much less about technology than anyone else here."

"Oh yeah? We'll just watch as I figure out how to locate Mario right…now!" Boone said, slapping the side of the Star Navigator. The domed top began to shine brightly, causing everyone to stop and watch what would happen next. "I've done it, see!" Boone shouted triumphantly. A second later, the Navigator fired a laser from the dome straight into Boone's face, effectively scorching it.

"Yep, you definitely did it," Shelly sarcastically said. She walked over and took the Navigator back from Boone, pocketing it away before anything else could happen. "I-I almost had it," coughed Boone. A puff of smoke exhaled from his mouth as he spoke. "If you let me try one more time, maybe I could just-"

"Mommy! Daddy! There they are again!" Whacka shouted from the ceiling. Everyone looked up to see the blue mole-thing hanging upside-down from the rock above. His parents erupted from the floor behind them, both unleashing earsplitting roars that seemed to echo forever in the caverns.

"Oh crud! We have to get moving everyone!" Shelly panicked. They all began to run in the opposite direction of the Whackas. Ahead, the path had an extension that veered off to the left. "Don't take the left! It'll slow us all down!" Shelly shouted to everyone. "We have to keep going forward, that way we can buy some time to move ahead of them. If we turned, we'd probably be caught!"

"Or eaten by something else!" Graves yelled back. It didn't take long to figure out why he said that. Just as they were passing the left corridor, the three Mega Moles from earlier ran out to try and catch them. The nearly blind giants did not see the Whackas in time, and promptly collided. The adult Whackas were even more infuriated by this than any rage directed towards Mario, and thus turned their attention to the three Mega Moles.

"That's right, get 'em Mom and Dad!" the little Whacka cheered from a safe distance back. The Whackas proceeded to tear into the Mega Moles in a bloodthirsty rage, but the moles would not go down so easily. Using their greater numbers to assist them, they teamed up against the Whackas by flinging one of their own on top of the two Whackas to distract them. The other two moles ran up immediately after their comrade and began to pummel the Whackas.

As the scene unfolded, Shelly and the others watched in a mix of fear and anxiety. "I believe…that maybe, just maybe…we should be getting out of here." Shelly said as she turned and ran away. "H-hey, what are you doing?!" cried Boone. "You can't just ditch us here with these beasts killing each other! Can't you wait for all of us?" He yelled at the Shy Gal as he and the others ran off to catch up with her, and to avoid becoming the focus of attention of the Whackas and Mega Moles once again.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Deep within the recesses of the cave system, a lone Undergrunt Gunner mole sat in near-complete darkness. The only light was a soft glow from several television screens set in an array in front of him that lit up his blue spiked helmet. His eyes intently watched the screens as they brought him live feeds of what occurred in several areas throughout the caverns. On the centermost one, he watched with interest as Shelly, Boone, William, Duplissa, and Graves scampered along the corridors in their search for Mario. Two other screens held scenes of further interest to him, one being the fight between the Whackas and Mega Moles while the other was of Mario and Python.

"Ha, so this is how everything has ended up, has it? Python has enlisted the help of the famous Mario? What, was working alone too much for him? Pathetic. I'm glad I left him and the organization. They only held me back," he said to no one in particular. "And it seems that my agents were outsmarted once again. Er-unintentionally, that is. Sad that what the best money can buy is not even remotely close to being the best. Oh well, it should not be a matter. I didn't expect them to hold off either of these troops of fools. I could tell they would have taken those moles out sooner or later. Besides, even if they managed to somehow find me, they would never be able to take the prize that is mine. It shall remain mine…no matter what must happen." He said ominously, turning around in his chair and looking into the darkness. With what little light could be used, a slight outline of a massive frame was made visible.

"Yes…even if it means my own death…my prize shall remain mine."


Good? Bad? Yeah, I don't know. I kinda liked this chapter, even though to me it seemed annoying to write. I don't know, I don't think I'm really liking how this part in the story is turning out. I think we'll just speed it up and get to the boss fight in the next two chapters. Then we can get moving to a duo whom we have not heard from since Dimentio's death. And then...a nice change for the last Star. And after all is said and done, the final battle. I cannot wait to get to those parts, my mind is absolutely abuzz with ideas for them. But not here. Annoying how that works, isn't it?