21st Century Yoshi presents
THE LIBERATED PASTPart 2: Black Fire
By Sk8er Grl
DISCLAIMER: The only character I own is my dragon. I don't own the places or things or whatever.
I did promise that this chapter wouldn't be long in coming. It may take me longer than I expected though, because my parents aren't home and my sister is trying to make lunch, using her home economics book. She already set the paper towel in the microwave on fire. Luckily the potato fell on the flames and smothered them. -_-'
Anyway: chapter two. What is King Bowser going to do with the egg?
Started: 25/09/02
*
A single flickering torch provided the only light in the dank abandoned dungeon.
Abandoned, that is, until now.
One of Bowser's koopas unlocked the bars and backed away, radiating servility. The two goombas who had discovered the egg stood at the edge of the torchlight, in awed and slightly frightened silence.
Two glowing yellow eyes became apparent in the gloom, followed by the rest of their body. King Bowser stepped into the dim circle of torchlight, wearing a grim smile.
"Give it to me."
The two para-koopas with the egg stepped forward and passed it up cautiously. Bowser took it and placed it in the cell. The draft created by his passing stirred the torch flame, sending eerily flickering shadows across the dripping stone walls.
Bowser stepped back, but did not close the bars. He turned to an indistinct figure in the shadows.
"You know what this is." It was a statement, not a question.
"Yes sire," it replied hurriedly. The two goombas recognised its voice as the one they had heard in the clearing. The figure opened a large book, and blew a cloud of dust off one of the pages. "It's most definitely a—"
"Herman," Bowser interrupted sharply. "I know what it is."
Herman snapped the book shut hastily. "What are you going to do with it, sire?"
King Bowser turned back to the egg. "Keep it."
Herman seemed about to object, but thought the better of it. Bowser sighed. Cruel and heartless he may be, but it just seemed wrong to leave an egg to get cold. It was probably the fact that he himself had hatched from one.
"Hrrrr!" Bowser huffed a gentle blast of fire onto the egg. It glowed with the heat for a second, and then cooled.
The goombas, the para-koopas and the koopa exchanged nervous glances. They didn't like what was going on. As far as they could make out, there was trouble. Before they could do anything else, Bowser rounded on them.
"Don't you have something else you should be doing?" he snarled. They all jumped, and scurried out.
King Bowser turned back to Herman. "What are you going to do when it hatches…?" asked Herman.
A calculating look passed across Bowser's face. Slowly, he smiled a little, enough to show his frighteningly sharp teeth. "Did you know that these things are my ancient ancestors?"
"Well, no…" Herman wondered where this was leading.
Bowser nodded. "Of course, they're extinct now. The closest living relatives they have are Yoshies. There are no others like me… I'm the result of the cross between koopas and dragons."
At the word "dragons" Herman glanced around the cell; he couldn't shake the feeling of a presence, of someone listening to their conversation. But the only other occupant of the dungeon was the egg.
The egg…
King Bowser was watching it too. Silent cracks were spreading across the leathery shell. The egg began to make cracking sounds, and through a large slit scaly red skin was visible for a moment. Without warning the split lengthened and the entire egg broke open.
Crawling out from among the shards was what looked like a red lizard, covered in egg slime. It stretched, and two wings unfurled from its back. They were delicate green skin ribbed by red spines. On its back were a few faint purple stripes.
The baby dragon turned to look at Bowser. It had comically large ears and tiny horn stubs. Its eyes were large, intelligent and orange.
Bowser took a small bag from Herman. He opened it; Herman felt it to be rather an anticlimax when it turned out to contain some harmless mushrooms, although he didn't really know what he had expected.
Bowser took some of the mushrooms and threw them to the baby. It sniffed them momentarily then ate them. Bowser took a few more and ate them himself as the baby dragon curled up and went to sleep.
"Uh, sire…" Herman said quietly. "You were about to say what you would do now…?"
"Oh, yeah. Well, it must say somewhere in that book about how powerful dragons are."
"Yes…"
"When this one is full grown, he will have strength greater even than mine. I'd like to see that little runt Mario against that kind of power!" Bowser laughed.
"But sire, it says here that dragons are peaceful…"
Bowser sighed heavily. "Really Herman, I thought you remembered your old cell…"
Bowser couldn't see him, but he knew from the silence that his words had had the desired effect on Herman. In the darkness, his eyes widened. Memories played across his mind.
King Bowser's flying island landing in the peaceful village… The townspeople's screams of terror… and him, foolishly sneaking into the castle… Bowser's guards had caught him…
And then, the single most terrifying moment of his life; he heard breathing, could feel a presence behind him, and he had turned, and looked straight into the cold, unforgiving eyes of King Bowser himself…
He'd been thrown into the cell known as the Dark Dungeon… he could remember sitting in the blackness, as the days passed unheeded and time became meaningless, all the while he could feel himself slowly weakening, succumbing to the dark energy, until the evil had finally taken him over…
Herman shook himself and tuned back into the present.
"You're going to… to turn it…?"
Bowser grinned. "The Dark Dungeon will put him on our side, and then… we'll give Mario a nice surprise."
They both turned to look at the sleeping dragon, Bowser's eyes shining with anticipation, Herman's with stunned apprehension.
~
Months later…~
Mario lay in his back yard, asleep in the bright sunshine. It was late afternoon; a fairly routine one—bees buzzing, birds singing, Luigi watering the flowers. He didn't even notice the shadow that passed over his face.
He didn't hear Luigi yelling for him to wake up either; but he woke up when Luigi emptied the watering can over him.
"What? What is it?" he said, trying to shake the water off.
"Look over there," Luigi said, pointing.
Mario turned his gaze in the general direction Luigi was pointing, and saw a spire of smoke rising from a spot in Toad Town.
"It's a fire—" he squinted "—Toad's house is on fire!"
"Let's go down there," said Luigi, but Mario barred his way.
"Wait, look over there." He pointed at the firehouse. Smoke had begun to spiral up from it.
"The firehouse is burning? It looks like somebody doesn't want us to be able to put out the fire," Luigi said, as calmly as he could.
"And that they know what they're doing," added Mario. "We'd better go down there."
The brothers began to run down the gentle slope of the hillock they lived on. Luigi overtook Mario easily, being a faster runner, but they both slowed down to watch as two distant shapes rose into the sky over the town.
"They're sending the mail-carrier para-koopas out," Mario remarked.
"They'll be going to the nearest town to get help," Luigi replied. But even as they watched, another shape appeared overhead and flew towards the para-koopas.
It was a fair bit larger than the koopas, and a completely different shape.
"What is that?!" cried Luigi.
"Whatever it is, I don't like the look of it," panted Mario. As they reached Toad Town, the para-koopas turned and noticed their pursuer. They panicked, flapping erratically in fruitless attempts to gain more speed. The great flying shape dove at them and scattered them, then in one graceful movement, it turned as if swimming in the air and WHOOMPH. It spurted a neat column of flame that was wide enough to hit both of the koopas at once. With shrill cries the two para-koopas retracted their heads into their blackened shells. Their wings had been seared off and they plummeted to the ground. The flying monster was nowhere to be seen.
By this time, Mario and Luigi had stopped dead in horror. They were jerked from their mortified stupor by the sound of a familiar voice.
"Mario! Maaaaario! Luigiiiii!"
They turned to see a sweating, soot-blackened Toad running towards them. He was carrying something.
"Toad! What happened? How did the fires start?" asked Mario, already knowing the answer.
"Oh, Mario," he sobbed, tears making tracks through the ash on his face. "The flying reptile set fire to my house. I got out, but Reggie is still in there! And the firehouse is on fire, and the para-koopas—"
Luigi grabbed his desperately waving arms. "Calm down Toad, we can help. Are you sure Reggie is still in the house?" Reggie was one of Toad's best friends, and one of the many Toad's in the Mushroom Kingdom. His mushroom hat was green and he wore a yellow jacket (which complemented the colour of the mushroom nicely).
"Yes," Toad wailed. Mario and Luigi exchanged a knowing glance. Time to do what they did best: save lives.
"Luigi, you take the fire station. I'll get Reggie," said Mario briskly. Luigi nodded.
As they turned to leave, Toad stopped them. "Wait! I brought something you might need."
In his hands he held two caps, not dissimilar to the ones the Mario brothers wore, except that one was made of metal and the other was blue and barely visible.
"The Metal Cap and the Invisible Cap," he said, holding them out. Mario picked up the Metal Cap while Luigi preferred the almost insubstantial Invisible Cap. With a word of good luck to each other they split up and went their separate ways.
Mario's boots pounded on the hard ground, which even through them felt warmer already. He could smell the acrid smoke and as he rounded a corner the heat and sound hit him like a tidal wave.
Toad's house was blazing wickedly fast. The heat was already barely bearable, and the yells and cries of the townspeople trying to put out the fire with buckets of water were ear splittingly loud.
Without another thought Mario whipped off his red hat and put on the Metal Cap. Immediately his entire body turned into metal and before he could begin to feel afraid he dashed into the flames.
Mario could hear the cries of surprise from the Toad's outside, but the cracking and snapping sounds as the old timber of Toad's house burnt muffled them. He stopped to get his bearings and despite the intense heat he shivered. No matter how often he used the Metal Cap, Mario felt he would always find the idea of stepping into fire terrifying. The flames had no effect on the metal of course, but Mario could still feel the heat and it was uncomfortable. Being a hero, he mused bitterly, doesn't mean that you aren't afraid of things; it just means you do them despite the fear.
At that moment, he caught a sound on the edge of hearing. It came from upstairs. Mario turned and ran towards the staircase. The bottom half of it had caught fire. He leapt through the flames and clanked up the stairs.
At the top of the staircase he stopped, and reminded himself he didn't need to catch his breath: being metal means you don't have to breathe. He set off again, straining his ears against the sounds of tortured wood. This time he heard actual words.
"Hello? Anyone? Please help me!" There came a cough. "I can't get the window open…" The voice was polite and slightly apologetic; as if it's owner wished to convey that nobody need rush to his aid, whenever they had the time would be fine.
"Reggie," Mario muttered. His voice had a metallic edge to it and his lips clanged when they met. He kicked open a door that had not yet been ravaged by the inferno.
Inside, cowering on a shelf above a small bed was a Toad. His mushroom hat was slightly charred but still noticeably green and white. He wore a smoke-blackened yellow jacket.
"Reggie!" Mario repeated. He wished fervently his lips wouldn't clank.
Reggie's eyes widened, but then shut again as he coughed. "Muh-Mario?"
Mario strode over to the shelf and picked up Reggie. He was quite light.
"Metal Mario?" the little mushroom head breathed.
"That's right," replied Mario, in a voice that sounded like a tin can if it could talk (and had an Italian accent).
"I'm being rescued by Mario!" squeaked Reggie in awe, as he was carried back to the stairs. He coughed again.
Mario tore a piece of wallpaper from the wall and handed it to Reggie. "Wear it over your face so you don't breath the smoke." He then turned and ran down the stairs.
Halfway down, he leapt back a split second before a burning piece of timber broke away from the ceiling and smashed a hole in the steps. Mario could see that the rest of the stairs were ablaze. He hesitated. His options lay thus: either he could go back upstairs and break a window to get out, or he could risk jumping the flames and going through the door.
The moment he spent in contemplation cost him dearly, because suddenly a second burning beam parted company with the ceiling and landed on him. Mario fell forward and cried out as he lost hold of Reggie.
He rolled down the stairs, which could no longer take the weight and shattered. Mario landed on the floor. He lay there, stunned. Then he flickered, like a badly tuned TV.
The Metal Cap's power was running out…
TO BE CONTINUED…
Finished: 22/10/02
Ooh, already some suspense. Sorry about the wait, it was a bit longer than I anticipated. Well, for those of you who wondered about the figure in the shadows: ha ha! All I've said so far is that his name is Herman. You'll be guessing about that for a while.
Also, you may have noticed that Mario and Luigi don't speak with accents, the reason being I can't write them. So you'll need to use your imagination. Also, most of the topography in the story is taken from Paper Mario. And about Reggie: he's a character my sister and I came up with many years ago (this is a different sister, not the one who set the microwave on fire). I think there's a similar character has appeared as part of Nintendo's official cast but Reggie is mine. All mine.
Well, bye everyone, and please review. You're all such wonderful readers when you review. Oh hell, you're wonderful when you don't.