Yes! I update once more! I probably would have done it sooner, but I've been SO loaded down with homework it's not even sad anymore: it's down right depressing. Plus I been studying for Envirothon competition this Tuesday (wish me luck- I am going to kick ASS!) and A.P. exams and stupid paper for English and Bio lab and newspaper... But, as long as it gets done . Okay, so on with the story. Quick disclaimer: I don't own anything Mario-ified. I only own Jessie, Ian, Nicole, and Mogjyn/Martin. I also do not own "My Private Nation," "Soak up the Sun," "Take it Easy," the ending theme to Legend of Mana, "The Last Resort," or any other Train, Sheryl Crow, Eagles, or Legend of Mana song. On with the fic!
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Chapter 9: Things Winding Down
"Hey! Look who's back!" Toad greeted them as he walked into the foyer. "Hey there, Jessie!"
"Hey, Toad," Jessie replied. "Sorry I gotta go so soon. Mario and Luigi are probably worrying now that it's raining."
"You sure you should go back out in it?" Ian asked.
"I think I'll be okay. I got my jacket. I got my umbrella. I got my telekinesis and other such stuff," she rattled off. Jessie turned around and opened the door. She stepped outside and closed the door. CRASH! Ian and Toad heard before Jessie was back on their side of the door again. She already looked kind of windblown and wet.
"Jessie, what the-?"
"I do not, however, have a lightning rod, dry jacket, or canoe," she said, leaning against the door. "Would a Lakitu be able to make it through this storm? Now I KNOW Mario and Luigi are worried about me."
"I think we have one of the express Lakitus," Toad said. "They can get through harsh weather." He turned and went off to fetch it. He was back a minute or two later with a Lakitu on a gold-colored cloud and returned to what he was doing before. Jessie dictated her message to the Lakitu- played soccer game, walked Ian home, got caught in storm, would wait it out at castle- and then sent him off. "I guess I better go see Nicole about some dry clothes," she said, looking down at her wet jacket and shorts.
"Good idea," Ian said as she turned to go to Nicole's room. Suddenly the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. "Uh, Jessie?"
"What?" she turned around again.
"Uh, what are we going to tell Daisy if she sees you?" he asked.
"What are you talking about?" Jessie queried.
"Daisy and everyone else think Nicole was with you all day too," Ian said. "What's she going to think if Nicole came back earlier and now you arrive?"
Jessie stiffened. "Oh, dear..." They both looked out the window at the surprise storm. "Maybe we could tell her that instead of going home after hanging with Nicole I went to play that soccer game and then everything that actually happened from there out?" she suggested.
"But what if Nicole only just got back?" Ian posed. They both thought about it some more. Unfortunately, who should walk into the foyer but Daisy and Peach.
"Hello, Jessie," Peach greeted. "What are you doing here?"
"I- well, uh," Jessie stuttered. Fortunately for her, Daisy did all the thinking.
"I see, you just left and got caught in the storm and of course the pipe house is too far to walk in a tempest like this, so you just backtracked here to the castle and plan to wait out the storm."
"Uh... right?" Jessie said.
"I see," said Peach. "I guess you better go change out of those wet clothes so you don't catch something."
"An excellent idea," Jessie said, and before another word was spoken she hurried off to Nicole's room. "Oh, what a tangled web you weave, my dear friend," she greeted Nicole by squeezing some water out of her hair onto Nicole.
"Jessie! What are you doing here?" Nicole exclaimed.
"Better question: what were you doing all day when you said you were with Daisy all day?" Jessie posed. She stood with her hands on her hips in mock seriousness.
"I, uh, well..." Nicole stammered.
Jessie cracked into a smile. "It's okay, I know where you were."
"You do!" Nicole blurted.
"Yup, and I'm going to ask you to just tell Ian and me when you and Mogjyn want to hang out," Jessie said, winking at her best friend. Nicole looked perplexed.
"Wait, what are you getting at?" Nicole asked.
"You know," Jessie said, opening Nicole's dresser and taking out a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. "You and Mogjyn both lied about where you were when you actually were together. I've seen it in at least twenty books and movies."
"Are you suggesting that Mogjyn and I were-!" Nicole exclaimed finally realizing what Jessie was getting at.
"Uh, well, weren't you?" Jessie asked exasperatedly.
"No! We were working on something for our science project!" Nicole protested.
"Well, you don't have to lie about that," Jessie said. "If it was just the science project then why'd you lie about where you would be?"
"Well, because," Nicole said slowly. "It's not really a matter of what we were doing as it was where we were doing it..." Jessie no longer looked sly. Instead she looked a little lost. "We were working at his house."
"His house?" Jessie asked. "He actually let you over there?"
"Yeah, he had the viscometer we needed," Nicole said, still slowly.
"Wow, what's his house like? And his parents?" Jessie asked, interested now.
"His house is nice..." Nicole said, though she knew that it was quite far from nice.
"And his parents?"
"They weren't there. I think they'd gone out."
"Oh..."
Nicole sighed inwardly for relief that Jessie's questions had seemed to cease. "So, what were you doing all day? And why the heck are you here now?" she asked, suddenly realizing she didn't know why Jessie had even shown up and asked her all these questions.
"Well, for the longest time I sat around doing nothing, but then I went over to the track in the park and ran a couple of laps. Then Ian showed up and we ended up starting a pick up game with a bunch of other kids on the soccer teams," Jessie summarized.
"Oh, who won?" Nicole asked.
"My team. And you remember that kick off where we kick it forward a little and then back and take off?"
"Yeah, that was pretty common back in the other world."
"Well, apparently not here, because the other guys hadn't ever seen it. It's how we got the winning point."
"Nice. So, why did you end up here again?"
"Oh, I was making sure the prince got home safely and then got caught by the storm."
"Oh, so that's why you were wet."
"Yes, Nicole, that's why I was wet."
They kept talking for about an hour while Jessie's clothes dried. Then Jessie said suddenly, "Hey, the rain stopped." They got up and walked over to Nicole's window. Sure enough, the clouds were getting patchy and the wind had died down considerably. "It's only quarter after eight. I should go ahead and go home tonight."
"Okay. D'you want me to get one of the guards to walk with you?" Nicole offered.
"Nah, that's okay. I can get home okay. You know," she caused a pillow to hit Nicole in the head and giggled.
"If I didn't know you'd make it backfire, I'd pick that up and hit you with it," Nicole said smiling.
"Here," Jessie said spreading her arms and legs. "I'll give you one free shot." Nicole picked up the pillow and hurled it at Jessie, but it slowed and reversed hitting Nicole instead.
"Hey!"
"You set yourself up for that, y'know," Jessie grinned.
Nicole rolled her eyes. "Get out of here," she shooed Jessie.
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A few days later Jessie, Ian, Nicole, and Mogjyn were in school doing their same routine. We find them in their seventh period class: advanced musical study. Today would be more fun than recently. After a month of reviewing the basic and weeks of composition, the friends would be allowed to play the final products of the songs they'd composed for that quarter- and for the moderate audience of the other music classes that period.
"Jeez, can you believe it's halfway through October?" Jessie asked as they were getting ready to present their work to their fellow musicians.
"End of October? I can hardly believe it's almost the end of the marking period!" Nicole said. "Why does first always seem so short?"
"Dunno, but at least the school year's moving," Ian said. "The faster it goes, the faster we get to vacation again."
"Or possibly an early graduation," Jessie reminded him.
"I'd settle for the vacation first," Nicole said.
"Speaking of," Mogjyn said. "Do you know if we'll have some kind of break at the end of November, like Thanksgiving or something-?"
Nicole dropped her music book. "Thanksgiving?" Jessie repeated.
"How do you know about Thanksgiving?" Ian asked. They looked at him funnily.
"I- Nicole told me about it!" Mogjyn covered quickly.
"Uh- yeah!" Nicole nodded her head convincingly. "I mean, not much about Mushroom Kingdom to talk about since we've only been here like half a year. So I tell him... about... the other world..." she kind of trailed off. Jessie and Ian looked at them with a sort of skeptic look and let the matter pass.
"All right, are we ready now?" Jessie asked when they'd set up their stands, instruments, and such a few minutes later.
"I hope you're ready because you're about to start in one minute," Mr. Sao, who was a Lakitu, said, as he made his way to open the doors to the other classes.
"Quick recap," Jessie said. "We start with Ian singing 'My Private Nation,' then go to Nicole with 'Soak up the Sun,' Ian doing 'Take it Easy,' me and 'Song of Mana,' and end with Mogjyn singing 'The Last Resort.'"
"Right," everyone said (everyone being Ian, Nicole, Mogjyn, and red koopa troopa who was in their group- there were only like ten people in the class).
"All right, let's go." They went to their places on stage. The koopa troopa started on drums, Mogjyn on bass, and Jessie on guitar, then Ian started singing (Train's "My Private Nation")(again).
Mr. Sao was having trouble getting everyone to quiet down again after the last song, so he went backstage. A few seconds later, there was a weird noise coming out of the speakers overhead and all of the kids looked around in confusion and shut up. (a/n: that's supposed to make up for my inability to describe the way "Soak up the Sun" begins). Then Jessie started singing (Sheryl Crow's "Soak Up the Sun").
Then they moved on and Ian sang (The Eagles' "Take It Easy").
(a/n: This is where Jessie's song would be, but it is actually the theme to Legend of Mana, and that song is in Swedish ((A/N/N: Which I did not learn until about two years after this story was written, irony here being that I would have used the English lyrics here if I'd known them, but now that I do, I can't use them as per site policy. Teh suxzors)). It's a really good song. It starts slowly with piano, adds a little drum and violin for like a second, goes back to piano and vocals, add some violin again. Then all of a sudden it picks up by adding drums, guitar, and flute/ piccolo or something and, you know, has different combinations of the five instruments and vocals. Jessie would have had piano, koopa troopa on drums- like always-, Ian with violin, Martin with guitar, and Nicole with whatever woodwind instrument that is.)
Jessie then sang ("Song of Mana" from Squareenix's Legend of Mana).
Next was Mogjyn. He began with Jessie accompanying on piano, and he sang (The Eagles' "The Last Resort").
"They call it paradise; I don't know why; You call someplace paradise; kiss it goodbye-!"
The last note, the "goodbye" lasted about fifteen seconds. However, Mogjyn had begun to feel faint from heat again. The combination of stage lights, his robes, and playing the music added up made him unable to bear it. At the end he collapsed to his hands and knees, panting hard. "Mogjyn!" his friends exclaimed and dropped their instruments and rushed to him. "Mogjyn! What happened? Are you okay?"
"I- I-."
"He's overheated again," Nicole said. "Ian run and get him some water." Ian nodded, jumped to his feet, and took off out of the auditorium to the soda machines. "M-ogjyn?" She's almost said Martin. "Are you okay?"
"Back to class!" Mr. Sao shouted over the room to the other students. Their teachers rounded them up and herded them back to their classrooms. "Cody," he said to the koopa troopa. "Go get Mr. Jobes from the nurse's office." The koopa troopa also nodded and ran off. "Mogjyn-."
"Water!" Ian yelled as he ran into the room waving a water bottle over his head. He handed it to Mogjyn who quickly opened it and carefully poured some down his robes.
"Drink some," Mr. Sao told him, and Mogjyn nodded his head placing the bottle to his mouth. He took a few small sips, and suddenly lurched, dropping the water bottle. Jessie grabbed it before it could make a mess, but everyone jumped away as Mogjyn ripped off his mask and heaved all over the floor.
"Oh!" Jessie, Ian, and Mr. Sao all expressed obvious disgust. But Nicole stared horrorstruck at the mask on the floor.
Mogjyn finished vomiting and sat there shakily for a moment. Then he went to grab his mask again and saw the same thing Nicole saw.
The strap was broken. "Oh, God!" he exclaimed as he leapt to his feet and sprinted out, holding his hood as far forward as he could to keep from being seen.
"Mar- Mogjyn!" Nicole shouted, grabbing the mask and sprinting out after him. She skidded into the hallway and looked around. When she saw him running for the back door, leading to the fields she pivoted and ran after. She was halfway down the atrium when Mogjyn escaped out the door- with impeccable timing, one might add as the bell rang at just that moment, filling the foyer with kids in her way. "Darn it!" she retreated to the auditorium where she found they'd already gotten a janitor. "He went home for the day," she said to her friends, and they left to go to their respective eighth period classes.
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Yeah, it's winding down now folks- hence the title. There'll be maybe one or two more chapters. The next story will definitely have more of the original Nintendo characters, not my self-insertion people. Anyway, until the next chapter.