Author's Note: And here's the part where we reach the part where we foreshadow the part that's close to the part that's almost to the ending… part. Of this part. Yeah. SO, who wants to read a chapter, eh?


Chapter 52: Riverside Station


Enter some random guard:


Uh… hi. I really don't know where I am here. So, I just speak into this microphone and whatever I say is typed up on that screen there? Cool. So, uh… right. You want me to talk about that Doopliss person? Right, I remember that. We had pulled into Riverside Station, and me and my buddy Jeff pulled that Doopliss person out, holding onto his arms to keep him from escaping.

"Now then," Jeff said, "we'll just wait here for the authorities to arrive to take you away."

"Or, I have a better idea," Doopliss offered.

"Really?" I asked. "Please, do tell! I'm not looking forward to standing out here in the sun for so long."

"Hi-YEAH!" Doopliss exploded into purple smoke, and the next thing we knew, a bird was flying far away from us.

"…huh," I said. "Well… I didn't see that coming."

"Me neither," Jeff said. "…wanna go grab some lunch?"

"Nah," I said. "It's a little late for lunch. How about Linner?"

"Lunch and Dinner together? GENIUS!" Jeff said, fist-bumping me as we ran back into the train.


Enter Pax:


"Ah…" I closed my eyes and stretched my legs. The sunset was beautiful, and it was just warm enough for me to face directly and sigh at. "Well, we caught the bad guy, so nothing can stop us from relaxing for the rest of this nice train ride…"

"Mario!" the conductor said, walking up to me.

"Ten coins says it has to do with keeping us from going forward," Goombella said.

"The bridge won't open!" the conductor said. "We can't go forward!"

"Thank you, and goodnight," Goombella said, taking a little bow.

"What do you mean the bridge won't open?" I asked.

"The switch we have to open and close it, it's stuck and broken on open," the conductor explained.

"Don't you have a backup or something?" asked Leon. "There's a backup for everything, isn't there?"

"Well yes, but…" the conductor started.

"There's also always a but to everything," I informed Leon. Leon couldn't help but snicker at this.

"…the backup switch is at the bottom of the station," the conductor continued, jabbing his thumb at an old rundown train station.

"There's an elevator that leads down to the switch, right?" asked Vivian.

"Of course!" the Conductor said.

"But…" started Goombella, rolling her eyes.

"…but the power's been cut for years," the conductor continued. "Thankfully, there's a spot at the top of the station that can run the power again."

"Buuuuut," I added in, waving my fingers as if conducting an orchestra.

"…but there are monsters in the path ahead," the conductor finished.

"So let's recap," I said, holding out my fingers and counting them off. "We have to climb up the station, turn on the power, climb down the station, ride a rickety elevator down, flip the switch, ride the elevator back up, and ride the train to Poshly Heights?"

"That's about the size of it," nodded the conductor.

"Alright," I nodded. "It shouldn't take us long. Goombella-"

"If you're going to finish that sentence with 'stay here' then I will rip your tongue out and choke you with it," Goombella threatened.

"Goombella," I tried to reason, "you're still hurt."

"And I healed!" Goombella said.

"…you healed from a crossbow injury in only a few days?" I asked.

"Healed enough to fight," Goombella said. She demonstrated this by jumping in the air and feigning a Headbonk.

"See?" she asked, standing to face me and hiding a wince. "I'm totally fine."

"…well, alright," I sighed. "Not like I can stop you anyway."

"You're darn right," she smirked. "Now come on, we got a switch to flip!"

"That kind of lame line sounds like something I would say," I laughed, walking with her to the old rundown station.

"I realized that as I said it," Goombella replied as my friends walked behind us.

"…OH!" the conductor said. "They meant butt, as in the rear end! Now that's funny!"

He laughed and leaned against the train. "Comic genius!"

"…you don't spend much time with other people, do you?" Bobbery, who was at the tail end of the group, asked.

"No…" the conductor sniffed. With the shake of his head and a sigh, Bobbery ran back to follow us inside.


Enter Ms. Mowz:


Wake up, my Slave, Master's voice came in my head, waking me up from my nap.

"Master?" I asked, standing up. "Is that you? How do you talk to me out of nowhere like that?"

I'm speaking to you through the creature controlling you… Master replied. And that's MISTRESS, not Master! Get it right!

"I'm sorry Master, I'll get it right," I apologized.

Mistress!

"Right, Mistress. Understood Master."

STOP CALLING ME… you know what? Never mind! Master will do!

"Okay Mistress. I'll call you Master."

just listen to my instructions. The fools are already here, working to get power to the elevator down to the backup switch. I command you to go to that switch and spread out the creature controlling you, allow it to copy itself into a large mass.

"Understood Master," I nodded, jumping out of a window and sneaking into the building without anyone seeing me. "I shall get there as fast as possible."

Perfect, Master said. Now pay close attention… you should wait by the elevator for the group to turn it on, then-

"Hey," I interrupted. "I don't tell you how to tell me to do things, so don't tell me how to tell you to tell me how to break into a room. I'm the greatest thief in the world, I can get past a simple broken elevator."

By that point, I was already in front of the elevator. Using my tail, I picked the lock on the chains that kept the elevator door closed, making it collapse on the ground. I pried the doors open, and looked at the ceiling for an emergency exit. After locating it, I flipped through the air and kicked the door open, jumping up through it into the elevator shaft. Fortunately, there was space enough to fit my head through between the elevator and the shaft.

Fun fact: Mice can squeeze into any space their head fits. So you can gather that it was incredibly easy for me to squeeze past the elevator and at the bottom, the long shaft going down. I slid down on my hand and jumped wall to wall, going down and eventually landing on my feet in the room with the switch.

"And I did it ALL in heels," I bragged.

Just… just spread the creatures, Master said with a sigh.

"Alright!" I said, walking to the switch. "…how do I do that?"

Reach to the back of your head and pull the creature out, Master said.

"Okay!" I reached. "…wait, this is gonna hurt, won't it?"

JUST DO IT!

"Yes Master!" I pulled it out, and good STARS, it hurt! I blinked in pain and…

…wait. Where was I? Why was I holding a black creature in my hand? The last thing I remembered was being captured by those two witches, and…

"GAH!" I let go of the creature as it started to writhe in my hand. It screeched and ran to the switch, starting to split off and multiply.

"…alright, I'm getting OUT of here," I shook my head, looking around for an exit. Seeing the Elevator, I started to climb up the shaft.


Enter Pax:


"Hi-YEAH!" Goombella Headbonked a monster into oblivion.

"Nice shot!" I walked up to her, patting her on the back.

"I know…" Goombella smirked, doing her best to not wince in pain. I could tell, but if I pointed it out I knew it would just make her push herself even harder.

We were all in the highest point in the station, which was an old, broken down room with filing cabinets rusted into nothing, broken windows, a trash chute, and…

"Hey look, there are two switches," pointed Koops.

"Two?" Bobbery asked. "That can't be right, the conductor said there was only one switch…"

"Well technically he said there was a switch," I corrected. "He never said if that was the ONLY switch."

"Now that's the kind of double-word crap that I would expect from a riddle master, not a train conductor," said Goombella.

"I dunno… train conductors happen to be pretty tricky…" I shuddered, remembering the train from my last adventure.

"Is there anything that says which is which?" asked Vivian.

"Yeah, actually," Koops read a nearby sign. "According to this, one of them will turn on the power, and the other will cause the place to self-destruct."

"…you're kidding," I said.

"No, it says right here," Koops pointed. Leon jumped to read it.

"If I could read, I would completely agree!" he said.

"I don't believe this!" I flung my hands into the air. "It's like the whole dang universe is conspiring to make my life hard! I mean, if it's not one thing, it's another! You'd think monsters would be enough, but no! We have to have a 50/50 chance of BLOWING THE WHOLE PLACE UP! And another thing…"

As I said this, I leaned against something. This something turned out to be one of the switches, which I accidentally turned on.

"…oops," I said, stepping back as the whole place started to shake. It looked like it was about to violently explode for a minute, then… all of the lights turned on, and some peppy music started playing from the intercom.

"…you are the LUCKIEST son of a gun I have ever met," Goombella said.

"I've been told," I blinked. "Well… guess we go back to the elevator, right?"

"No good, the door's locked!" Bobbery said, trying the door. "It must be an old fail-safe or something to keep someone from turning the power back on."

"You'd think the whole 'life or death' thing would work well enough," I muttered. Then louder: "So how do we get out of here?"

We all slowly turned our heads to the garbage chute.

"…is there really no other way?" sighed Goombella as I opened the chute and stepped in, ready to slide.

"…well I guess we COULD open a gate using my Nightmare Powers and-" I started, but I wound up slipping and falling down. The chute was like a winding slide that smelled REALLY bad, and the next thing I knew, I was on my face flat on the ground. Fortunately, I was right next to the elevator.

Unfortunately, my friends did the same as me and fell on my back, one after the other.

"Ow… is everyone alright?" asked Bobbery.

"Never better…" grunted Goombella.

"I'm fine," said Koops.

"That was fun! Smelly, but fun!" Leon said. "Let's do it again!"

"I'd rather not…" said Vivian.

"*MOAN*"

"Ah, Mario!"

My friends jumped off me and helped me back to my feet.

"Are you alright?" Goombella asked.

"I will be once I re-align my spine," I said. "But that's cool, we're right by the elevator now."

"…huh," Koops blinked. "Does anyone remember there being a lock just lying on the ground in front of the elevator?"

"Hey yeah," Goombella said as we stepped in. "And why is the emergency exit open?"

"Please, PLEASE don't let it be a setup to fight a monster," I begged, hitting the button to go down. The elevator moaned in protest, but it let us all down into the room…

…that had a whole bunch of black creatures in it.

"OH OF COURSE!" I threw my hands up in frustration. This caught the attention of the black creatures and they all jumped at us.

"MUTUCS!" shouted Vivian, holding out her hand. It morphed into a shield that covered us all, preventing the creatures from entering.

"Alright," I said, summoning my sword, "let's take care of this, once and for all! AND YOU GUYS BETTER BE THE LAST FLIPPING MONSTER WE SEE FOR A WHILE!"

A hole opened in the shield for me to run through, and I jumped into the air and slammed down with my sword, bathing some of the creatures in light and making them run away. I got up and spun a full circle, taking care of quite a few. I was about to do a sword toss, but when I pulled my hand back to do it, I noticed they all left.

"…huh," I said, making my sword vanish as Vivian dispelled the shield. "They must've ran away in fear or something."

"What were they, anyway?" Koops asked Goombella.

"I know a lot, but I don't know that," she shrugged. "Vivian, they looked like tiny Nightmares. Do YOU know what they were?"

"They looked… a little familiar, yes, but I can't put my finger on it…" Vivian said as I threw the switch. The sound of a bridge moving outside told us that it had worked.

"Yeah!" I fist-pumped. "C'mon guys, we have a lot of resting to do."

With that, we all entered the elevator and headed back up, returning to the train.


Enter Flurrie:


"…and that is how I came to be where I am today!" the guard finished. It was already late at night, around the same time he began his story.

"OH THANK YOU!" I hugged him. "THANK YOU FOR STOPPING!"

"Uh… you're welcome?" he said. "Now… if you'll excuse me, I have a post to return to."

"Oh, of course!" I agreed, turning around to return to my room. However, on the way, I saw a strange looking black creature.

"…huh?" I blinked, leaning in for a better look. "What are you?"

The creature screeched and jumped, attaching itself to my face.


Author's Note: Bum bum buuuuuuum! What will happen next? You'll find out soon! Until then, this is Pax the Dreamer, signing out!