Chapter 8: Same Story, Two Perspectives

"Somehow I don't think this was the path that Mario and Yoshi intended," Ian whispered as he stared at the huge chain chomp lying, sleeping in their path. After getting out of the desert, the group had made their way into some forested mountains. Their current path ran between two high rock walls. And, of course, wedged right in between the two walls, right in front of them, was chain chomp.

"At least he's asleep," Nicole whispered, "As long as we don't wake him, we can get by without any trouble."

"But how will we get by it?" Jessie asked. They stared at the rock walls in silence for a few minutes. Jessie saw that there was a ledge above them by about twenty feet. From the looks of it, they could walk on it above chomp, then a few yards past it they could climb down and continue walking.

"Guys!" she whispered, "Look at that ledge." She pointed it out to them.

"But how can we get up there?" Nicole asked.

"We have some rope, but we can't tie it to anything from down here," Ian whispered.

"I can jump up there and find a rock to tie it to. Then I'll drop the rope down and you two can climb up," Jessie suggested.

"Jess! That's at least twenty feet high! How could anyone possibly jump that high?" Nicole asked. Jessie took the rope from Ian.

"You haven't seen her jump yet," Ian whispered to Nicole as her jaw dropped as Jessie leapt up to the ledge.

Jessie quickly found a rock to tie the rope to and did so. Then she dropped the rope down to her friends. Nicole climbed up first, followed by Ian. Then they untied the rope and tiptoed across the ledge. When they got to the end, they jumped down one at a time. Jessie went first. Then Ian went. But when Nicole went to jump down, some rocks slid out from under her feet and she fell down. Taken by surprise, Jessie and Ian didn't get out of the way in time, and Nicole landed on top of them and they all fell into a pile on the ground with a fair amount of noise.

This woke the chain chomp. His eyelids drooped sleepily for a few seconds while the group was getting itself untangled. It growled at them as they turned to face it. They all screamed as they turned on their heel, running from the giant monster. Instinctively, the chain chomp followed them, barking loudly the whole time. It chased them for a good ten minutes before it finally stopped. It tried to move, but couldn't. When the group realized this they turned around to see it.

"What's going on?" Ian asked.

"It reached the end of its chain. We're safe now," Jessie answered.

"Let's get going quickly anyway," Nicole said. So they kept going on, walking quickly away from the chain chomp's loud barking. Or were they walking away from it?

They paused for a moment and Ian said, "Is it just me-"

Nicole interrupted, "Or is that chain chomp-"

Jessie finished, "Getting even louder?"

"Look out! Run!" shouted someone back near where the barking sound was.

They turned to see the chain chomp still chasing them!

"Run!" Jessie shouted.

And run they did. For such an immensely large creature, chain chomps are pretty fast. Finally, when they thought they could run no more, Nicole spotted a cave in the side of the path, cutting into the rock wall. "Get in there!" she instructed her comrades.

So the group ducked into the cave. Just as the last of the three got in the chain chomp caught up. Now it sat barking loudly outside the entrance.

"Well, at least it can't get to us now," Jessie said.

"Yeah, but we don't know if there's anything in here to worry about," Ian added.

"Well we have a chance in here. We know we couldn't do anything about that chain chomp except run," Nicole said.

They turned from the opening to face the back of the cave. After taking a few steps, Ian said, "Hey, what's that?" He was referring to a light coming from the other end of the cave. So they started toward it. Finally they got to another opening in the cave. And when they got out of the cave they found themselves at another trail at the edge of a snowfield. A sign nearby read, "Frappe Snow Land."

"Hey, Mario told me about this. This is a raceway that they used in a go- kart racing tournament," Jessie informed.

"Go-karts? You think maybe they still have them here?" Nicole asked.

"Maybe," Jessie answered, "Why, what are you aiming at?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Ian asked.

"Apparently not obvious enough," Jessie replied.

"Driving go-karts is going to be a lot faster and quite a bit less exhausting," Ian explained.

"That makes sense," Jessie seemed to mull that over, "But how are we going to find them here?" The group looked around. Nicole spun around to see behind them.

"Uh, guys?" drawing their attention to an open garage with several go-karts parked inside.

"Oh."

'

Mario, Peach, Yoshi, Wario, and Waluigi had been trekking through the forest for two days now. As far as Mario could tell, they were no closer to getting on the path east than they were when they landed in those misbegotten woods.

"Wario, are you sure you know where we're going?" he asked about noon one day.

"Of course I do," Wario answered.

"What's the next landmark, maybe we can help keep an eye out for it," Yoshi suggested.

"Uh, no, I think I can manage it myself," Wario responded. Mario and Yoshi shot each other worried glances.

Three hours later when nothing significant had happened, Mario spoke up again, "Wario, have you ever actually used these landmarks to get there before?"

"... Why do you ask?" Wario asked.

"Well, I, just..." Mario stammered.

"You don't think I know where I'm going do you?" Wario accused.

"Actually yeah."

"Why do you say that?"

"Kind of something in my gut."

Peach interjected, "Well, I have my reasons for thinking Wario's lost us."

Wario had to ask, "And what would those be?"

"We passed this tree half an hour ago," Peach replied, pointing to a tree in which she had apparently been keeping tally marks on.

"What are those marks?" Waluigi asked.

"I used a key that Mario dropped to cut a line in the trunk of this tree every time we passed it, on average, every half hour," Peach explained.

"You've been keeping track of my being lost?" Wario asked indignantly.

"You knew we were lost and you didn't tell us?" Waluigi and Yoshi asked.

"... I dropped my key?" Mario asked.

"Yeah, I found it near your tent last night, when we camped right over there," Peach pointed to a small clearing with a circle of stones with ashes inside them.

After pocketing the key that Peach gave him Mario realized, "Wait a minute, I didn't keep any keys. Luigi had them."

After everyone stared at the key for a few minutes, Yoshi finally spoke up, "Then whose key is it?"

"I don't know, but I don't think they would have found it anyways," Wario answered.

"Let's hold onto it. It might come in handy, like if we find its lock," Peach suggested.

"Yeah, maybe we'll be lucky and it turns out to be a skeleton key," Waluigi added.

"Right, but, uh, we're still lost," Mario said.

After thinking for a minute, Yoshi spoke up again, "Why don't we use the sun to go north until we find the path and then follow it east?"

"Where are we trying to go anyway?" Waluigi asked.

"We're trying to go to Sarasaland," Peach answered.

"Oh, that's not hard to find. Why didn't you ask about it before?" Waluigi asked.

"Huh?"

"I was coming from somewhere over there before I got stuck in these woods. All we have to do is go that way until we get to Choco Mountain. Then we climb that to Frappe Snow Land. When we get to the end of that you can see the castle."

"I guess that's what we're doing then," Mario said.

'

A while later, Mario's group was walking through a tunnel in the mountain. Waluigi had led them to this shortcut through the mountain onto the main path. Now they had been walking for a while.

"Are we almost to the end of the tunnel?" Peach asked.

"Just a few more yards if I'm not mistaken," Waluigi answered. And indeed, just up ahead, there was a torch sitting on the wall next to a door.

Wario walked up to the door and tried to push it open, but it wouldn't budge, "What gives?"

"Is it locked?" Mario asked as he came and tried as well.

"Look, there's a keyhole right here," Peach said in reference to a keyhole in the rock beside the door.

"But we don't have the key," Yoshi put in.

"We might," Waluigi said, "Try that key you found before. Maybe we'll be lucky and it'll work."

Peach took out the key and put it into the keyhole. When she turned it a lock clicked. Mario and Wario pushed on the door again and it still didn't open all the way, only a little crack. Mario peered through the opening and saw a chain chomp. Wario was still pushing on the door.

"Wario, stop! There's a chain chomp in front of the door!" he exclaimed but it was too late. The chain chomp realized that they had unlocked him and took off.

The group rushed out the door. Over the beast's barking they could hear several voices farther down, "Is it just me-," "Or is that chain chomp-," "Getting even louder?"

Upon hearing this they all shouted, "Look out! Run!" Fortunately they could hear the people running again.

"That was close," Peach said.

"Sorry, I guess I forgot about him," Waluigi said.

They started walking down the path. Finally they made it to the end of the pass, where they found the chomp now sleeping.

"Great," Wario muttered.

"How are we going to get around him?" Peach asked quietly.

"Look, these walls are rough, we can climb up and over him," Mario suggested. This is what they did and managed not to wake the chomp up.

It was noticeably colder on the other side of the chomp. "The chomp was blocking the cold air currents from Frappe Snow Land while we were on the other side," Waluigi explained. Indeed, on the other side was a rock arch over the path, and on the other side was a snowfield. Looking across the field they could see an open garage.

"I remember this," Mario said.

"Yeah, we raced around here during the Mario Kart Tournament," Peach added.

Staring hard across the field at the garage, Wario asked, "Did another tournament start that I didn't hear about?"

"No, why do you ask?" Mario inquired.

"Cause there are a couple of people getting into some of the go-karts over there," Wario replied.

Everyone looked over to the garage and saw the people Wario was talking about starting to drive off. They took off across the field toward the garage, but the intruders were long gone. Sensing that they might be up to no good, they hopped into go-karts themselves and turned the item-blocks on. Driving off, they grabbed a few items and chased after the perpetrators.