Yeah, this one's shorter than the last few have been. I'm trying to pace things a bit, I feel like I'm beginning to blaze through this story. I say one more chapter of running about, and then we can fight Bowser Jr. and Mr. L. I've been putting it off for you all, haven't I?
Chapter 34: Om nom CHOMP!
"So you're both sure that you're able to continue on with us?" Shelly was checking to make sure that William and Graves were okay to go. Truthfully, she didn't want them to come in their present condition, especially with what may come in the castle.
William lazily puttered over to his belongings and put everything back on, adjusting his hat and monocle to make sure they were just right. "Yeah, WE'RE absolutely positive. No use staying behind like this, do you know what MIGHT happen? We'd be actually killed." Graves nodded his agreement.
Shelly smacked herself in the forehead. "You do realize the even greater likelihood of being killed inside that castle, right?"
"Eh…yeah, of COURSE we do. But we've decided ALREADY. No turning BACK now."
Shelly sighed and looked to Mario in a desperate plea. "You've got to talk some sense into them. In their conditions, there's just no way that they'd be able to survive there," Mario looked at the sorry state the Bullet Bill and Goonie were in before a grin came to his face. "What're you planning?" Shelly asked him.
Duplissa was ahead of the group of five as they approached the bridge. On the other side, there were still the many robotic sentries roaming around in their constant watch for invaders.
"So those two actually went along with it?" Boone asked incredulously. Mario smiled and gave him a thumbs up. "That's fantastic!"
Graves and William were cautiously looking around at their plain white surroundings. They were both stuck in the Partner Place, and it didn't look like they would be getting out any time soon.
"So wait…if this place can bring us just about anything…" Graves began to think. "Then, where's my rum?!" Instantly, a bottle of the beverage appeared in front of him. "Cheers, William, my friend!" He said as he picked the bottle up and uncorked it.
Everyone stopped in front of the bridge, making sure the sentries didn't see them. Duplissa looked worriedly back at Mario, who gave her an encouraging nod.
"Okay." She exhaled deeply before concentrating on the form of the sentries. In a few seconds, she and the other began to be encircled by bits of sparkling light. A few seconds more and the light intensified, completely engulfing them and casting illusionary new forms over each of them. When it was done, all five of them looked no different from each other or the other sentries.
"Let's go and get into the castle as quickly as possible," said the robot that was apparently Shelly. She turned to the one that was where Duplissa had been standing. "How long can you hold this illusion?"
"Maybe…a few minutes…no more than ten." She grunted.
"So that means we do have to move fast. Let's get to it then." Shelly said finally before walking across the bridge. The heat rising up was uncomfortable for each of them, but none of them showed it in fear that the true sentries would detect something wrong and attack.
After crossing over, they each looked around; making sure that none of the sentries had suspected them of being the enemy. None did. Nodding to one another, they moved across the grounds toward the castle gate. The structure rose high above their heads, its stone walls menacing and ominous in their own way. They saw the main gate was open, and ran in as fast as possible. Rounding a corner, Mario looked back to see if any of the robots had followed. Once more, none of them did.
"Thank goodness whoever created those things wasn't smart enough to make those things smart enough to catch us." Shelly commented. The illusions dispelled with a gasp from Duplissa as she tried to catch her breath.
Mario looked around the castle as he checked to see if any enemies were around. One Gloomba was moseying around the place as if he were looking for something to do.
"'Work here' they said. 'You'll never be bored' they said. Ha! I've never been told a bigger lie in my life." The Gloomba continued to mutter his complaints as he walked along the hallway above where Mario and the others were. Soon enough, he disappeared down another hall.
"So where to now, Mario?" Boone asked. Mario looked a little more around and shrugged. He pointed down the hallway in front of them, which seemed to stretch on for a ways.
Walking on, they discovered the entire castle to be strangely deserted. For what reasons, they could only guess. Several doors were located on each side for a while, but when any of them tried to open the doors, they found them to be locked.
"So what are we going to do?" Shelly asked after what was perhaps the twentieth door they tried. Everyone else shook their heads, causing Shelly to look to Python. "You haven't said squat for a bit. What do you think we should do?"
"Er…," Python searched himself for something to say. Shelly had caught him off guard with the question, to say the least. "Well, there was always that upper floor. I have a feeling that if we continue down this corridor for much longer, it'll end, and we'll have only wasted more time on trying to open locked doors. We should go back to where we entered and move upstairs. My only fear is that some buggers might be waiting in surprise for us up there. It might be the reason why we haven't encountered any enemies at all."
Shelly took a moment to think all of this through. "Hmm, you do make a good point. Mario, what should we do?"
Mario nodded and pointed off to where they came from. Shelly sighed reluctantly at this.
"Well, you are the boss here. I suppose we'll go and try Python's idea."
"Jr., you might want to check this out!" Mr. L called out to his partner from the surveillance room. As he heard the sound of Bowser Jr.'s claws on the ladder, he began to smile. "Five…four…three…two…"
"Yeow! What in the world was that about?" Mr. L heard Bowser Jr. as he hit his head on the trapdoor. With this, Mr. L burst out laughing, causing his partner below to start screaming him down. "What was that for? Open this right now or I'll have Papa take you down!"
With a few more chuckles, Mr. L walked over to the trapdoor and unlatched it. Stepping away, he watched in amusement as Bowser Jr. climbed through. "Ha, look at pathetic you. Always going to 'Papa' to fight you fights. You going to have him take care of them?" He pointed to the screen which currently showed Mario and the others making their way back down the hall.
"What? How'd they get in?"
"Beats me. What matters now is, we got to get ready for them! To the mech!"
"Right!"
Both of them ran to the other side of the room where Mr. L pressed a red button on the wall. The wall rose up, revealing an elevator. Walking in, Mr. L again pressed a button to send them down. The elevator began to whir for a moment before quieting suddenly. Mr. L and Bowser Jr. looked at each other and shrugged before Jr. kicked one of the internal walls of the elevator. The whirring began again, and Bowser Jr. grinned at his achievement.
"See that is how you repair stuff correctly and – what's that noise?" Bowser Jr. looked at Mr. L, who merely shrugged. "Eh, maybe it's just the – AHHHH!"
Apparently, the elevator cable had snapped, thus plunging them downwards at fatally high speeds. "Nice job, Jr.!" Mr. L screamed at the mini-Bowser. In a matter of seconds, their freefall ended with a crash, sending the both of them flying out of the elevator and to sprawl out across the ground.
"Leave…the maintenance work…to me…next time." Mr. L coughed out. He tried raising his head if but a little, but failed and nodded back. "We'll…get to…the mech…in a bit," he said. "Maybe when…we aren't…dying."
Mario whacked the Koopa aside with his hammer as he and the others continued on their way. So far, the upper floor hadn't given much else. There had been two locked doors, and nothing more. And it had been a good way down since then. Instead of finding any way through, they found plenty of enemies waiting for them, just as Python predicted.
"I suppose this is far superior to going to the end of that corridor and finding nothing but a wall to greet us!" Python shouted over the noise of the battling. He grunted as he disappeared underground, pulling the remaining Koopas halfway underground.
"Nice work, Python." Shelly commented as said Monty Mole popped back up. He pulled himself out and brushed the gravel from his tuxedo. "It looks like there's a door up ahead," the Shy Gal pointed out. "We should try that, maybe we'll actually get something this time."
Mario ran ahead of them, giving his partners a moment to collect themselves after the last battle. Grimacing, he grabbed the knob, expecting the same as every door before it. Amazingly, it turned with a small click, and the door opened up into an open room with a bunch of miscellaneous objects on the other side, including multiple Mushrooms and Shroom Shakes.
Leaning back to see his partners, Mario waved them over, giving them the all-clear. "Wow, it opened," Shelly said sarcastically. She shook her head in disbelief as she walked over with the others. They peeked their heads in to make sure nothing truly was waiting for them in there. Seeing that things were alright, they went in after Mario.
"It looks like we're going to be fine with getting William and the Cap'n back on their feet," Boone observed. He began to start over, but Python held him back.
"Wait just a minute. In all my years of being an agent, never have things like this come so easily. It must be a trap."
Boone thought this through, and then began to pull his boomerang from its place on his back. "If so, we'll find out in a moment." He carefully threw it across the room where it proceed to arc back around, grabbing a Mushroom as it did so.
Boone caught the metal object on its return, allowing the mushroom to fly off and over to Mario. The plumber caught it and immediately put it away for later. Boone shrugged indifferently and put his boomerang away. "Seems good enough to me. Let's just grab as much as we can and then we can move on."
Python and Shelly seemed less than convinced on the safety of the items, but they put aside those fears and went ahead to grab what they could with the others. Just as they all were about to grab for the items, a low rumbling noise stopped them in their tracks.
"Something tells me this isn't going to end well." Shelly noted. Python was about to say something to agree, but the floor gave way, opening up into a pitfall that lead to who knows where.
Without William or Graves to help them make a softer landing, each of them began to drop into the darkened abyss. "Darn it Boone! This is why we don't listen to your faulty logic!" Shelly complained as she fell like a rock alongside everyone else. "If this leads to a vat of acid or a pit full of Chain Chomps, however clichéd it may be, your head will be mine!"
It wasn't too much longer before a light could be seen below, illuminating the ground that was rapidly approaching their faces. "This is going to hurt unless…Duplissa, quick! Make something that'll soften the blow!"
Duplissa made a noise to tell let Shelly know that she heard her. Pulling out a crayon, she quickly drew up a giant mattress below everyone. "That'll do it! Nice work, Duplissa!"
They landed with a thud, although it was without injury. After taking a moment to shake off the impact, Mario hopped off and began to look around and figure out where they were. The light from the torches was located only around their general area, with the rest of the room consumed by darkness. Boone walked by Mario and a ways into the darkness.
"I don't see anything really. Maybe we should just grab one of those torches and –" Boone was cut off by a series of growls and barks that seemed to be far off on the other side of the room, however far away it was. A rustle of chains and some movement followed, and before long each of them could distinctly hear ragged breathing coming from everywhere in the darkness.
Boone squeaked like a mouse and scampered back to everyone, hiding behind Shelly for protection. "Oh come on you! You're like, 50, and you're going to hide behind a teenager?! Pathetic!"
"I don't believe that now is the time for arguments. I actually would advise us to seek refuge somewhere safe, and fast." Python nervously said as he began to back up against the wall. Shelly turned her head back to see him.
"And why's that?" Python gulped and pointed to several forms that were beginning to emerge.
"They're the reason." Shelly gave him a look of bewilderment and turned to face the darkness once more. Only, this time it wasn't empty. Instead, there were several Chain Chomps excitedly moving their way over to investigate the newcomers. They were all of different colors, some were black, some were blue, red, green, and yellow. One truly stood out as being pink with a giant bow on its head.
Duplissa was making a move to pet the pink one, but Mario ran and pulled her back. At the same time, Shelly reached behind herself and pulled the shaking Boone out to face her.
"Your head it is."
So I promised we would meet the new partner this chapter. I never said that they would join the team just yet. All I'll say about that matter is this: take a good guess. I believe I made it quite obvious.
I expect the next chapter will be done by next Sunday, and then I can probably start plowing through some for the winter break, which starts this coming weekend for me. Happy days! But the happiness won't last for me, since I've got a week left until it's time to rip out my wisdom teeth! Let's go and plug an IV into my arm, sounds great! /sarcasm
In spite of that, I think that I'll be able to spend the time writing several chapters and have them ready quickly. Or I may get distracted playing Ocarina of Time. My younger brother is hogging it, he's further than me...