Hi this is Frederic Marile! Here we are at part two of…you know what? I'm getting frickin tired of this! I honestly don't think I'll say it this time. Or anymore times. I just realized it must be frickin annoying to read what part it is since you guys hopefully have the brains to read a little tab thingy right above this and you can figure out which part it is and most of you don't even read the beginnings anymore!
So without further ado, I say with great honor, passion, and some other third thing…let's go!
Presently the gang followed Wishes into his house for tea and something else. Mario was excited for the festival, but eventually memory of their actual mission here brought his elation crashing to Earth. They'd have to start searching for the Cloud Fragment soon or Troy would get it.
Then he remembered what Maddie had said about the Fragment. She had told them to get it before tomorrow night. The Sun Festival was tomorrow…Could that have anything to do with it?
No, that was crazy-and partly wishful thinking. Either way, the Fragments came first, so they'd have to postpone staying too long at the festival and hunt for the next Fragment.
Once inside, Mario looked around. The house was quite small-a whopping two rooms made up the palatial estate, a restroom and a kitchen-dining-living-bedroom-and thus it was tightly packed. Every wall of the multipurpose room was lined with some kind of furniture or cookware, and some of it was around the middle, making it hard to get around. Mario stopped dead when he discovered six cups of tea were floating in mid-air. "Wha-"
"Stars have telekinesis, you know," Wishes told him, expecting the unasked question.
"I see," Mario said, asking to sit and thanking Wishes for saying yes.
"So…" Mario muttered awkwardly, taking a sip of the tea. It tasted like dried pine needles and cinnamon. "This is…uh…good," he choked. Wishes frowned.
"It's the only kind we can make," he told Mario. "So many pine needles fall every day we'd flood in them if we didn't keep them in check. And we find making tea with them is the most efficient way of doing that."
"And also the most vomit-inducing," Snow muttered, setting her tea on the floor and earning a reproachful glance from Mario.
"So Wishes," Mario said brightly, "we love your company and all, but we really have to ask something to whoever's in charge. It's very important to us and you, and well, pretty much everybody."
Wishes bit his lip. "Whoever's In Charge is gone on a trip for right now," he admitted, "but I'm Second to Whoever's In Charge. You might ask me."
"Okay," Mario agreed. "It concerns a thing called a Cloud Fragment?"
"A Cloud Fragment? You mean that thing that Freewire found in the forest a week ago? That old thing that we were planning on using tomorrow?"
Mario stared at him in confusion.
"You don't know what I'm talking about," Wishes guessed. He got a couple "Not a clue"s and a few "Huh?"s. Wishes explained.
"See, six or seven days ago, Freewire, a.k.a. Whoever's In Charge, found this shiny bowl thing and rushed it back to us. He said he'd never seen one of them up close before but that he was sure it was part of some Cloud of Dreams thing. He's really smart, so he would know that sort of thing. He said we could use it in the Sun Festival as a kind of statue treasure."
They had hit the jackpot. When it came time for the Sun Festival, they could just take the Cloud Fragment and be done with it. They'd have it in no time!
Mario explained this to Wishes, saying only that they really needed the Cloud Fragment and that it was in everyone's best interest if the party had it, and Wishes listened intently. "That's interesting…" he mused. "I said it was funny that you should come here right before the festival before, and it now it's even more interesting since you needed to be here anyway. It's like it was meant to be…Anyway, I'm sure Freewire will let you have the Fragment. He's very giving and kind. All you'll need to do is attend the festival.
"Uh, but not like that," he finished awkwardly.
"What do you mean?" Mario asked.
"You clothes!" Wishes answered. "They're very dirty and torn up…"
Mario raised his eyebrows. "Do you have something better?"
"Actually I do," Wishes answered, retreating to a closet and pulling out a tuxedo. "I bought this for some friend of mine, but it was too big…" he explained. "Maybe it will fit you."
"Thank you very much, Wishes," Mario said sincerely. "This means a lot."
"Don't mention it!" Wishes assured him. "I love helping people."
Mario was uncomfortably reminded of Mame. That horrible shrill scratchy laugh…
He didn't hear what Wishes said next. "I'm sorry?" he asked.
"I said I can tell Freewire to give it to you," the Star Child replied.
Just then, a deep-voiced call came from outside the house. Wishes perked up and flew outisde. "Hey, guys, come here!" he ordered.
The party followed him and saw him conversing just outside with another Star. Wishes heard them walking behind him and spun around. "This is Freewire, guys," he announced. "He's the boss-guy-person-guy."
Freewire said to Mario that it was nice to meet him and that he knew all about him saving the world and everything. "Wishes was explaining to me something about how you need my Cloud Fragment."
"Well, um-"
"Don't be embarrassed!" Freewire assured him. "I don't really need it. So you can have it if you want."
Mario thanked Freewire, who suggested they get some rest for tomorrow. Mario looked at the sky and figured he was right-the sun had almost set in the sky. That meant it would rise here for the first time in a long time tomorrow. Everyone said their good-nights and departed.
In the short time that it took for them to get to the bedroom, Mario was already tired. It probably wouldn't take much energy to go to the festival, but they'd need it anyway.
For the first time in a while, Mario didn't have horrible dreams that night.
Mario was awakened by Wishes that morning. He looked over and found that it was 10:35. The festival would probably start soon.
He got out of bed and dressed himself in the tux Wishes had set out for him; it fit perfectly. No sooner had he dressed than Freewire burst into the house. "Good morning, everybody!" he shouted with a spark in his voice, as though he was excited himself to be announcing the coming of morning.
The rest of the party that hadn't awakened yet woke up at his call-Freewire's voice was a strong and confident one.
"Already?" Snow complained. "It's like I never went to sleep!"
"You didn't," Koopetto muttered. "You tossed and turned all over me last night."
"Oh, yeah, I did, didn't I?" Snow chuckled. "Sorry about that. Anyway…Freewire, when does the festival start?"
Freewire was busy talking to Wishes and had to ask her repeat her question. Mario asked it for her. She looked confusedly at him, as if wondering why he had asked her quesiton.
"Oh, the festival is on in…twenty minutes," Freewire answered, looking at the clock that now read 10:40. "So it might do us good to assemble at the center of town early. If we go too late, many of them will already be there, it will be very difficult to set up, everything will be inconvenient, all that jazz."
Mario shrugged. "We could go now."
"Oh, not now!" Wishes protested. "You haven't had breakfast!"
"Does breakfast include tea?" Goomessa asked.
"Well…" Wishes hung his head.
"I think we'll pass," Mario told him.
"You look very professional in your tuxedo, Mario," Freewire remarked. "I'm sure everyone will be just fine with you having the Cloud Fragment."
"What do you mean? Why wouldn't they?" Mario asked.
"Oh…" Freewire said hollowly. "I told them that we'd keep the Fragment to ourselves because it was worth so much and we were worried someone might sell it or something if we gave it away. So they're going to be surprised that I'm giving it to you all of a sudden…but you're a very strong-willed and likable person, Mario, so they should be just fine."
"Thank you very much, sir," Mario said to him. Freewire mentally picked up a glove from Wishes's coffee table and held it in the air. Mario shook it.
The group then left the house and proceeded toward the center of the town, where the ground was made of cobblestone. On a parapet in the middle, there was a large, poorly crafted statue with a bowl on the top. Over the bowl was a glass dome.
"That," Freewire told them, pointing to the bowl, "is your Fragment."
The shapes of the Fragments never failed to impress Mario.
"Now, I don't want to be bossy, but I should tell you how the festival is going to work," Wishes said to the party as the group stepped on the parapet. "See, what we do is we have a great big party until noon. Then once the sun has reached the middle of the sky, we-"
"Wait," Goomessa requested. "What do we do while-"
"I am talking!" Wishes squealed. Goomessa shut up immediately and shot a questioning look at Freewire. "He does that sometimes," the Star told her.
Wishes resumed speaking. "At noon, we're supposed to have this special ceremony to celebrate the coming of the sun. It's very exciting."
"I suppose after the ceremony will be the best time to present you with the Fragment," Freewire added.
It wasn't long before the other stars were coming out of their homes and assembling at the town square as well, and soon the entire center of town was a large group of Stars and Star Children. Some fifty of them were gathered there.
They all stared at Freewire, who was now mentally gripping a flag, in anticipation. A large bell tower far off in the distance rung eleven times, and Freewire lowered the flag. The party began.
Suddenly Wishes threw Mario off the ledge into the mass of partygoers. He tried to catch himself, but it couldn't be done. He was caught up in a whirl of stars so thick he couldn't tell which way was which anymore.
After an hour, Freewire called for attention. "Excuse me, everybody, but the party is over!" he shouted. Many groans sounded from the crowd, but Freewire silenced them all. "Now that it is noon, we are supposed to have the Ceremony of the Sun, but this year, we're going to do something a little different. Mario, get up here."
Mario squeezed through the crowd and, with a last glare at Wishes, stepped in front of Freewire. "Freewire, I thought we were going to have the ceremony and just fit the Fragment in somewhere," he whispered.
"Yes, but that bores me," Freewire answered. Then speaking to the crowd, he kept speaking. "I have an important announcement to make. I am going to give our Cloud Fragment to a good person who really needs it. This is Mario. He saves the world, and we need to give him the Fragment to allow him to do so."
The stars conversed, and eventually a collective agreement rose from them.
Freewire removed the glass dome from the Fragment and turned back to Mario. "In that case, Mario, I do now grant you-"
He never finished the sentence.
At that very moment, a house very near the center of town suddenly exploded. The crowd screamed and ran in all directions. Freewire tried to calm everyone down, but he couldn't be heard over the pandemonium of the fact that a house had just exploded.
Wishes decided to help. "HEY, PEOPLE! SHUT THE HOLY PALOOKEYS UP!"
They shut the palookeys up. But not another two seconds had passed before a house even closer to the crowd exploded as well. The crowd couldn't be calmed this time, even by Wishes.
Mario was trying to calm himself down so he could try to do something about the situation when he saw two figures over the horizon. They looked very much like small airships, and they were heading straight toward Sadiel at a frightening pace.
It wasn't very long before they reached the town. One of the pilots fired a stream of light toward Freewire, who ducked out of the way, leaving the statue behind him to burst into flames.
The ships very suddenly stopped and crashed to the ground. Mario ran toward them, his partners close behind him. Before he could reach them, a figure hopped out of each one. They wore orange masks and jumpsuits. With their heads lowered, they walked toward Mario. They pushed a few crowd members out of the way, and the rest of them jumped away to avoid being hit. Before long there was a clear path for the two pilots.
They raised their heads and Mario stepped back. They were young women. They looked like they were about the same age, but were by no means the same. The one on the left had red hair and blue eyes, and, while younger, looked much more mature than the other. The right one had brown hair. Her hazel eyes sparkled as she glared at Mario. The girls clenched their fists, and the jumpsuits they were wearing suddenly cracked and then fell away, revealing patterned dresses with the same pattern. The one on the left wore a white one, the one on the right a pink one.
"You're Mario?" The left one asked in a low serious voice. "I'm Violon."
"Kat," the one on the right announced in a girlish squeaky tone. "We're King Troy's daughters. And we're here to take your precious Cloud Fragment off your hands. Think of it as a favor."
So this was what Maddie meant.
So? What do you think? TELL MEH PLEASE!
TELL MEH EVERTING!
Seriously, though, tell me what you thought.
See ya!