Chapter Thirty-Eight
The event had been built up like some kind of a concert, just as Wario had planned. He wanted his buyers excited, and he had purposely invited several unsavory groups into the auction just so that the overall energy of the room would be increased during the event. Higher energy meant more frantic bidding and besides that, Wario enjoyed the attention. He had reason to feel incredibly proud after all of his years of building the company up.
Sitting down off-stage was a dumpy, bruised bumpty and an average-sized human woman with long orange hair and stylized white and red attire. Her eyes were a sharp blue that hinted at her hidden sneakiness, and her lips curled slightly at the thought of money to be made. She was as crafty and conniving as they came, but outside of business she was a generally good person.
"Remember," the woman, named Mona, whispered to the bumpty, "if you stand or move from your chair at all I call Dribble and he'll beat your beak in." She waved a little walkie-talkie threateningly.
Furton had not been having a good time. Upon delivering the Starm to Warioware he had first suffered a mild beating for only bringing one bag and had then been held essentially as prisoner at Warioware Incorporated until the product could be confirmed to truly be Starm. This was only going to happen once Wario's plan was enacted: at the end of the auction the highest bidder would be hired by Warioware to attack Kamek's Tower of Magic using the newly purchased bioweapon.
Until that treacherous moment, Furton would be forced to sit and wait. This did not suit him, especially since he was losing his chance to transport Peach back to her castle and get paid his royal reward.
"I'm so glad to see everyone here this evening." Wario grinned like a shark. He could telepathically feel the money that bulged in his guests pockets. "I'm sure you've all heard of the very special, very rare product being sold here today."
"Ghrea? Ghrea?" Wes whined somewhat feebly as he swam through the small crowd. He had totally lost track of where she was in her chase for the strange yellow animal thing.
He really hoped he didn't run into that toad again.
Need a little help? The Book mocked.
Somewhere nearby, Blii's eyes had widened to maximum capacity at the sight of Wario.
"He really does wear yellow. He's like a celebrity… and he wears YELLOW!" Blii trembled. "Ha…ha ha…" He couldn't really think of that obese man as his mother, could he? No: it was impossible— he had the proof that she was dead right in his pocket. The teeth…
"Blii, are you alright?" Asked the only New Era Army member still following him. The rest had dispersed quietly among the crowd, aware that Blii's life was about to come to a quick and surprising end. One was left that had somehow not gotten the message, or at least was not aware that he should've gotten away from Blii by that point.
Wario gestured for Mona to come up to the stage. "It's best we get this over with before any of the Rogues find out what's happening here. Start the proceedings." She seemed surprised, like she had expected some kind of speech.
This could be my chance…Furton thought. It's dangerous but I can't let the money waiting back at the hotel get away from me. He watched Mona carefully; she still had the walkie-talkie. Ehh, I'll wait for a distracting moment in the bidding and then take my leave.
At the back of the room Dribble and Jimmy entered, now on the hunt for Blii.
Toadette followed slithely after, also keeping an eye out. The faster he was dead, the better. All she wanted to do was relax with her old friends for a while, without having to worry about Alago's irritating mission.
"We'll start at 100 Gold Coins." Mona called out from the stage. "Simply raise your hand and call out the name you are using in order to bid." She got her notebook out and ready.
A raggedy-looking fellow covered in a pile of blue scarves raised his hand first.
"200 gold coins!" He called out. "Mr. I!"
"300 gold coins!" Another called out. "Mr.E!"
"500 gold coins!" Yet another voice called out in a somewhat regretful tone. "Mr. L!"
All of the pseudonyms are based around singular letters now. That's new, Toadette thought absentmindedly. Naming styles were different at every one of Wario's auctions and were informed in the invitations to the auctions. And he forces his pseudonym systems to be used no matter how stupid… I'm guessing that after Z there are labels like…
"600 coins, Ms. O-2!" A squeaky voice called.
"Hey. Ain't that him?" Dribble asked in a surprisingly suave voice. The toad he pointed at was slowly making his way towards the stage, fidgeting all the while. "That Blii guy?"
Toadette squinted for only a moment. The shaking and jittering of the suspect was positively condemning. "Yeah, that's him!" She confirmed.
"650 gold coins!" A punk-ish character sneered out. He was a shy guy covered in chains of gold and silver. "Mr. K."
Wes, who was walking nearby at the time, couldn't tell if the chains were real or not.
C'mon. If you sacrifice just the tip of your finger, you can locate Ghrea instantly. The Book snapped gleefully.
"I'm not— I don't need to do that." Wes growled back.
Now, it's very simple. We need to cast another spell in order to get to the castle as soon as possible. I'm going to need your index finger, and your thumb.
"What…no…I don't want…" Wes pleaded.
SHUT UP YOU GODDAMN FAILURE! The Book screamed. Wes flinched and threw his hands up in front of his face. Once you're king we can fix your fingers…but for now…
"Guuahh…" Why couldn't he just lie down? With every minute he cared less and less about life. The unpleasant, painful, and instantly forgotten memories seemed to be driving him to the point of complete depression. …If that wasn't where he already was. Maybe, if he could just find Ghrea…
There she was! He'd recognize that crimson shell anywhere.
"800 gold coins!" A stereotypically rich and fat toad called out. His body was so fat and his legs so stubby that it was a wonder that he could even fit through a door. "Mr.G."
"850!" The shy guy shot back with a tone of taunting. "K!"
The rich gentleman was taking aback. "900! G!"
"930. L." A familiar voice called out.
"950! K!" The shy guy overrode. This was now a war between him and G.
Look at that fat prick, just standing there all formally, hee he ha! Blii's eyes were already devouring Wario. So big and fat and famous. He thinks that he can steal my mother's color, can he? Doesn't he know who he's messing with?
The only problem was that Wario would be too fat to kill without a weapon. Blii would have to formulate a slightly different plan.
"Hey there, bud," A gigantic paw of a hand landed on Blii's left shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. "Why don't you come with us? We need to ask you something."
Blii turned slowly to see one of the front door guards hulking over him. It was the one with the cap.
"Yeah, man, why don't you help us out a bit and step on over here," Another hand landed on his right shoulder. It was the guard with the blue hair.
"What? Hee, you must be looking for the wrong toad." Blii waited for some kind of support, but the last of the NEA that had continued to follow him had finally realized that it was time to abandon ship.
"980 gol…" Mr. G began.
"1000 gold coins!" Mr. K blasted over him.
"1200!" G returned in a new fit of rage.
"1300!" K crossed his arms, his chains clinking with a smug ringing.
"1350…" A new voice offered.
Furton tensed up for a moment and then scurried from his chair. This seemed like the perfect chance to escape back to the hotel.
Unfortunately for him, it wasn't. Mona was much more observant than Furton had taken her for and she managed to make some quick orders into her walkie-talkie even while she continued to record bids.
"Hey, you can handle this guy on your own, right?" Jimmy asked Dribble. "Mona just rang; I've got to stop some penguin dude from leaving."
"No problem at all." Dribble grabbed the back of Blii's shirt.
"What the hee…what the…ha ha ha…" Just getting touched tickled him, combining his upcoming fury with a mentally distorted laughter. "Let me go you goddamn…ha ha…fuck!"
"1600!" One of the previous bidders yelled out, hoping to scare the others.
"Hey! You!" Jimmy chased after the slow-moving bumpty who was running for the exit. "You can't leave!"
"1754!" A drunken voice called out.
"1756!" Another tilty voice added.
Wario rubbed his hands together happily. The inebriation was beginning to take its effect, and the money pool was rising.
"Calm down." Dribble had picked up Blii by both of his hands and was starting to carry him over to a closet on the side of the room. "I'll make this quick and painless."
"You…you…ba ha ha he!" Blii struggled and then found his opportunity. Held on the side like a pile of school books, he had perfect biting reach of Dribble's torso. He opened his jaw to the point of unhinging and chomped mightily into his captor's side with all of his might.
"AAARGHH! FUCK!" Dribble screamed, dropping Blii who jerked mightily and managed to take a chunk of Dribble's side with him. Blii chewed the raw meat quickly and then swallowed it.
"Tasty! Nya ha!" Blii spat. "But not yellow!"
"2300!" Shrieked a high-pitched koopa. "X!"
"Ghrea, Ghrea, oh thank god, okay…" Wes finally caught up with Ghrea. She was among the throng of bidders near the front, standing suspiciously in front of the stage. "Where have you, hahh, what have you…?
"Just in time!" Ghrea grabbed Wes' hand and started climbing onto the stage. A small flurry of screams arose from an unrelated incident nearby.
Wes paled and temporarily tried to pull back. "Wait, are we really—?!"
Ghrea sighed and yanked on Wes' arm harder. Both of them toppled onto the stage but Ghrea rolled and leapt up spectacularly.
"Spitz!" Dribble gasped. "Oh god, you little bugger toad…SPITZ! SPITZ! …When he shows up you're done for." He stumbled away from Blii, trying to keep pressure on his wounded side.
"I'm only done when mother's dead!" Blii cackled, blood running from the sides of his mouth.
"What the fuck?!" Dribble could only respond as he pushed back through a cloud of people nearby and tried to use his walkie-talkie. There were some short screams at the sight of his small but gaping wound, an avulsion that went right through his blue clothing. "Spitz, SPITZ!"
"Just keep it going." Wario encouraged Mona. Ghrea and Wes fell onto the stage.
Halfway to the door to freedom, Furton was snatched by Jimmy.
"Wario," Ghrea pointed an unrelenting finger straight at the accused's face, "you are under arrest for the attempted sale of Starm."
"Who are you? Get off the stage." Mona said angrily, immediately forgetting Wario's instructions. She made a move to force Ghrea down, but Ghrea countered by ducking to the side and then head-butting the well-dressed woman down to the floor.
"Excellent question!" Ghrea recovered from her attack quickly and and stopped near the table with the Question Block on it. "Talta Faybes: international Beanbean agent." She flashed a card around.
The red-shelled koopa flashed a small card in Wes' face. "Ghrea Pollux: international Beanbean agent. There've been rumors that a deal was going down here…and I'm here to investigate."
Wes walked slowly over to Ghrea, practically tiptoeing. She has another ID card…with another name on it?!
There was a stirring in the crowd. The auction was being hijacked, but no one was REALLY sure what was going on.
"ROWR!" A yellow furry thing in an engineer's outfit leapt onto the back of Blii's head, latching on with sharp claws. Yellow fur went flying everywhere. "What-o ees going onn?"
"Yellow!" Blii crowed, trying to swing around and face his attacker.
"Jimmy…" Dribble gagged, heading for the front. He needed medical attention fast.
"25…2500!?" Called a confused voice.
"Talta Faybes? That's interesting." Wario lumbered forward to meet Ghrea's fierce gaze. "I had heard that your name was Ghrea."
"That was a fake name," Ghrea…or Talta…said simply, "and beside the point. I am going to confiscate your Question Block of Starm here and now, and I expect you to come with me to face justice."
"Why should I believe that Talta is your real name?" Wario walked over to Mona and helped her up off the stage floor. The room had grown silent now except for some confused snarls and yowls coming from a fight occurring in the middle of the room.
"Actually," Ghrea ignored Wario, "I'll have my partner Wes here confiscate the Starm while I handcuff you in." She pulled some handcuffs out of her shell. "Your arms are fatter and a tighter fit than I'm used to, but I'm sure they'll also be greasier as well."
"It's in this box?" Wes asked stupidly, pointing at the lone table onstage.
"With your partner's outfit earlier," Wario said to Ghrea, "I thought you were both allies of Kamek. Now I know for sure that you're both just stupid outsiders." The large yellow-clothed man cracked his knuckles.
"RoooooOWWWWLLL!" Something strange shrieked from nearby.
Blii and Spitz rolled over and over, and now Blii had taken hold of one of Spitz's triangular ears and was pulling it with all of his might. There was an unpleasant tearing sound that further shocked and widened the crowd surrounding the brawlers.
"These look delicate!" Blii laughed, grabbing next the long whiskers sprouting from Spitz's face.
"Jimmy! Where's Ashley?" Dribble staggered over to where Jimmy was escorting Furton back towards the stage. Ashley was a dark-haired human teenager. While being a fast and dependable accountant, she also had incredible medical skills.
Jimmy took a short look at Dribble's wounds and scowled. "Don't tell me that toad… ah, hell. I think Ashley just left." He saved his anger at Dribble's failure for later. "She was complainin' about some bad omen or something. You'd better hurry to catch up to her."
"Jimmy, I need help walking." Dribble begged.
"It looks like the boss needs some assistance," Jimmy nodded towards the stage. "And I have to take this blue bastard back up there," He shook Furton. "So you'll have to find Toadette."
"Just let me go!" Furton pleaded and complained.
"Damn…it…" Dribble continued on, still trying to apply pressure to his gaping wound. He staggered on, almost not seeing Toadette passing by his wounded side.
"HaaAAARGHH!" Wario charged at Ghrea?, flying with incredible force.
"I learned your moves well ahead of time, Wario." Talta? said smoothly, cartwheeling out of the way. Wario slammed his feet into the ground, barely stopping himself from colliding with Mona. "Just stop trying now." She grinned smugly.
"Jimmy should be here to help soon!" Mona asserted.
"Ummm…" Wes nervously took the Question Block on the table by grabbing with his mutilated right hand and then supporting the item against his chest.
Wario charged, thoughtlessly trying to assault Ghrea? again. The confused mutterings of his audience was a sign that he was on the verge of losing an incredible amount of money.
"Waht are you even doing in this city, you foreigner?" Wario roared, now losing his temper.
…Ghrea…side-stepped him easily and whipped out a walkie-talkie.
"I'm enforcing international law," She announced smugly, "and I ain't fighting you buddy. Y'see, I really can't bother." She shrugged and activated her radio. "Hey, it's go-time!"
Wario was taken aback at first, but he calmed himself quickly. "Wah ha! Do you honestly think I was completely unawahere when I let you in here with those obviously stolen identities? I've been prepared as well. Mona!" He shouted brutishly. "Call the Thang Family down here to deal with this."
People had started to head for the exit, rushing to escape as word of both the Beanbean Kingdom's interference and the incoming of the violent gang Thang Family spread through the crowd. Not even twenty people were able to make it through the door before ten Beanbean agents burst in and stopped the way.
"EVERYONE STOP! YOU'RE ALL UNDER ARREST!" A crimson-faced Bean person screamed. He waved a sword around like a demented child.
"They assigned Podley?!" Ghrea scowled as she grabbed Wes out of the way of Wario's latest attack. "Don't drop the Block!" She added hastily to her helpless companion.
"Fuck!" Toadette spat, still helping the injured Dribble around. The way out of the room was now blocked by Beanbean agents. She turned back— there was no way she was going to get arrested.
"RoooooooOOOOOWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!" The freakish shrieking of Spitz reached a splitting level as Blii continued to fight back. Despite the yellow demon's strange and frightening appearance, it was generally a weak and mangy thing, and so a good match for Blii who was almost as strong as a toad could get.
"Dribble!" Toadette thought of something. "Do you have a key to the door at the back of this room?" She remembered the short underground passage that led to the outside.
"Yeah…I was just there." The previously smug man moaned painfully. "I got…I got the key. Gotta whole ring of keys."
One of Spitz's soft ears had already been torn off, as well as a good chunk of his whiskers. Blii was bleeding from a large bite wound on his right shoulder and a claw slash along the side of his face. Spitz had also reopened the slash wound that dragged across Blii's forehead by striking at it with a razor of claws. Blood ran down the toad's face and dripped off of his chin as he danced back and forth, feeling a tremendous power rising up within him.
Blii had an incredible advantage in the fight that Spitz didn't have: an easily-activated passion. Just continuing to look at his opponent was making him stronger and stronger, making him quicker and quicker. This kind of thing would make him burn out sooner in a fight, and perhaps even bring death closer to him in an aging perspective, but in a short skirmish against someone who was just a little stronger than him, it'd made all the difference.
"KIIILIIIII!" Spitz howled raking both claws down at Blii's eyes.
"BWA HA HEEE!" Blii returned maniacally, rolling forward and swinging back around. In a burst of inspiration he aimed for the flimsy-looking nape of the back of Spitz's neck and grabbed tightly.
"IIIIEEEEIII—!" Spitz stopped. The simple act of grabbing the back of his neck had paralyzed him, his 'arms' and legs going limp.
This was utterly hilarious. "How pathetic! Ha…ha ha ha ha hahahahahahahahahaaaha!" Blii cackled as he began slamming Spitz's head down into the marble floor.
"SQUAD ALPHA! MOVE AHEAD TO ASSIST AGENT TALTA!" The Beanbean agent Podley screamed out. A faction of ten moved ahead into the crowd, swords at the ready. The other ten, (apparently Squad Beta), continued guarding the door against the bidders who were trying to escape. That was just when the Thang Family arrived from behind with fire flowers and began firing on the Beanbean agents. Predictably, the Beanbean agents were fast and were able to dodge some of the fireballs, most of which hit innocent bystanders.
Squad A has all of the fire flowers, Podley you idiot! Ghrea wanted to scream. Already half of Squad A was turning back around in order to fight the incoming Thang family.
As the crowd cleared Jimmy finally appeared, toting the spiritless Furton with him.
"Wes! Jump off the stage and run for the agents!" Ghrea shouted.
"Jimmy! Get the koopa with the Question Block!" Wario shouted.
"The money's GETTING AWAY!" Mona shrieked.
Give me two fingers and I'll make you too fast for any of them. The Book laughed.
Jimmy literally threw Furton away and started running for Wes. Ghrea tried to jump off the stage to grab the Question Block, but Wario blocked her way.
"Wes! Use magic or something'!" She called in a last ditch effort.
The spineless and indecisive wimp would have been tackled if a gleaming magic wall hadn't suddenly appeared in Jimmy's way. The afro'd human bounced off and his blue wig went flying.
Its purpose fulfilled, the wall shimmered and then slowly disappeared. Wes was left lying on the floor.
"Wes!" Ghrea said after a moment. "You can do magic! Yes! Yes! Use beams or something! Kill him!"
"Um…Ghrea…that wasn't me…" Wes said slowly, getting a bad feeling about what was happening.
A frantic Magikoopa materialized from out of the air. Her glasses were lopsided and her eyes tinged red with panic. She was breathing heavily and looked like she either had been crying or would be crying. Her wand trembled, her arm trembled, and her entire being was unpleasantly shaken up.
"You are Wes Sirius, age nineteen, 5'3, blood type A-, born in the Koopa Kingdom, correct?" Her Rogue's robe was dirtied and torn, completely different to her somewhat regal appearance from before.
"What?" He asked weakly.
Wes recognized her: she was Lorelai, the Magikoopa who had been talking to Kamek, the Magikoopa who was going to interrogate him, the Magikoopa who—!
"Are you Wes Sirius, born in the Koopa Kingdom, blood type A-, height 5'3, age nineteen?" Lorelai repeated, clearly trying to remain calm but shaking all the while and appearing like she was on the verge of either detonating or dissolving violently.
This was a development no one had been expecting. Both a portion of the Thang Family and the Beanbean squad attempted to hijack the situation, but were blocked by a magical wall apparently created by Lorelai. The situation now inspired a surreal silence.
Something was about to happen, something that was more something than any something that had happened for the last seven days. Terrible? Awful? Horrible? Climactic? Tragic? Important? Destined? Fated? Random? Wondrous? Evil?
"…Yes. I am." Wes squeaked in reply.
Lorelai nodded with a powerful sense of inevitability that no one in the room had ever seen before or would ever see again. "Wes Sirius, you must die." She sighed with some relief. "I hereby execute you."
She raised a hand and fired a fatal bolt of electricity straight at Wes' heart.
In one sense, there are two prime ways to view the universe, the world, and everything that can be comprehended: by fate or by chance. Theories involving fate insist that certain things are meant to happen, and that no matter what we do, these things will happen whether the things that cause these events make sense to us or not. On the other hand, theories involving chance would say that everything is random, and that the movement and actions of subatomic particles are so completely random that sometimes things will just happen with even more mystery than by the hands of fate, all because a slight shifting of quarks or neutrinos caused someone to somehow slightly change their mind on some thought that would cause them to take some action, in contrast to taking the action.
But, as written, this is only one sense of viewing the compilation of theories, and so there are many other ways to look at things. One could consider that the world works on a system similar to fate but is not set by some kind of controlling and dominating entity, that instead the events that would appear so perfect and shocking to be fate are actually just the matter of a chain of events being set off from some distant time in the past, the origins and many different effects so obscure and abstract that when something happens, a non-philosophizing witness can hardly do anything but assume that something forced sudden events into play with ease. Really, though, if there is a god, they set everything off from the very beginning, and if they knew what was going to happen, they would've had to plan everything from before the beginning of time in a plot so ingeniously cruel, beautiful, evil, and good, that it would crush the mind of anyone who tried to take in even a quarter of the full span of it.
Still, we wonder, though.
As Wes shrieked like a little girl (as anyone about to be hit with a death spell probably would), Ghrea wondered momentarily how Wes ended up as such a pathetic and hopeless figure. Was his personality crafted entirely from the last few days that he could remember or did subconscious memory of his younger life still control how he behaved, and how he reacted to things. What combination of genetics and upbringing had created this koopa with no will for life? What led him more: physical psychology or hidden genes? And then, what did it matter? His life was about to end, and so would an entire set of data die with him.
As the figure of everyone's attention instinctively brought the box he was holding up to his chest, Wario wondered about all of the deals he had made in order to procure the box. How had the Starm came into being and where had it gone before it had finally arrived in Warioware's hands? Everything was a sordid mess in Sarasaland, and though many thought it was a distant place, Wario knew that there were sociological ties that held the history of the Mushroom Kingdom with the history of Sarasaland. Sometimes the Mushroom Kingdom felt like a closed box, a system where events neither left nor entered the place. But that wasn't true. Those people—and things—that crossed lands sometimes made the heavens tremble.
As the magic spell burst into the Question Block, Mona wondered about all of the people still trapped in the auction hall. So many connections made over so many years, how had Wario managed to make so many strong ties? Some of the other Warioware associates had helped to create some of the bonds, including Mona, but most were clearly attributed to Wario. He was truly a genius of business; how did he manage to keep all of it in his head?
And then, as Wes was blown backward and the Question Block began to open, Jimmy didn't wonder about what was going to happen, he knew more quickly than anyone what was about to happen, because he had secretly been fearing this moment happening since the very beginning: the chance that the auction would spin out of control and that—
As the Question Block flew back through the air, released from Wes' hands, the serial killer drug Starm exploded out onto the one who was bleeding and grinning and hardly even aware of any of what was going on, even more-so than anyone else in the room. As the yellow powder rained down, the one it coated upon wondered about destiny. As time slowed down, it was just as the old woman had said.
"Your destiny awaits you. Your destiny is coming. Your destiny is coming."
For Blii, destiny was a certainty. Fate was his feast, the world was his.
Wario's face struck pale. He started running for Blii, everyone else was frozen in cold shock.
"DON'T LET HIM EA