Note: From here on, the regular text will be from Parakarry's POV unless I say it's someone else who primarily takes over a chapter.
"Man! I thought we're walking," Kooper complained as he grabbed on tightly to my hand.
"Shut up, Kooper. It's no picnic having to carry two people, including you," I replied.
"Just what do you mean by that?"
"Nothing. Anyway, Twilight Town is an eleven-hour trip on foot, and I wanted to get there sooner. Mainly so you can get that package from Kolorado."
After about nine hours of flying and stopping at following towns, we finally reached Twilight Town, a place always lit up with the light of dusk, lined with shanty wooden houses and leafless trees with crows roosting on the branches. As we landed on the dark, dry soil of the town, we saw the residents—hooded yellow-eyed humanoids in rags with shadows on their faces—hustling and bustling in panic.
One resident in particular, a plump woman in blue and pink rags and with brown curly hair, ran up to me and shouted rapidly, "This is from Kolorado; he told me to give it to you so you could give it to someone named Kooper. I don't know who he is, but I have to find my children before the bell--"
A "Ding-dong" sound that sounded like it came from a large church bell cut off the woman's words. And in the instant that the bell finished ringing, the woman disappeared in a puff of fiery smoke. The only thing that remained was the package, slightly covered in ash, sitting there in front of us.
"Oh, no! Not Eve," one of the other residents said, panicking. This made three kids, each wearing a different-colored hood, crying and mourning for their lost mother.
As Kooper picked up the package, Tutankoopa scurried over to one of the residents, a young adult in light brown rags, and asked, "What's going on? Why are people running around, and what happened to that lady over there?"
"Where she is we don't know. But the bell tower in Creepy Steeple is cursed… Again! But this time, instead of turning us to pigs, we disappear in a puff of smoke."
"Let's say this: if we reverse the curse—or at least, prevent it from going further—will you…?"
"You? Break the curse? Impossible! You're just a bunch of Koopas. And you, in particular, a kid. Best you escape before you disappear like so."
"I don't care! Whether or not we make it, it's as long as we tried," Kooper cut into the conversation. He then grabbed Tutankoopa's hand and ran towards the dark brown wooden gate that limited the city.
"Kooper, wait!" I ran to catch up to them, but they already jumped over the gate and dashed for the woods. I figured I had no choice but to follow, so I spread my wings out and took off.
I searched for them in a bird's eye view above the forest, and saw them head towards an old church made of gray stone. This must be the Creepy Steeple, I thought as I made a perfect landing in front of the rusty steel gate that blocked out unwanted visitors. Still running, Kooper and Tutankoopa saw me and skidded to a stop.
"Kooper, you don't know what you're getting into! You could get hurt or dead, or worse," I cautioned him while giving him a stern look. "Besides, the gate's locked."
"Parakarry, quit acting like a mother and let's go," Kooper replied, annoyed by my warning, and kicked the gate, which broke the lock into pieces. "We got nothing to worry about. We just go in, give the curse-maker a can of whoop-ass, break the spell, and leave!"
I shook my head and said, "Kooper, you tend to be a bit too overconfident--" I stopped in account of the fact that the two already made a run for the front door. I gave an exasperated sigh and walked through the broken gate to the church.
When I entered the church, I took a look at my surroundings, looking for Kooper and Tutankoopa. Four pillars, lined up in two rows several feet away from each other, held up the place, and a thin, red carpet trailed from the front door to a large seven-foot statue of a star on a stone platform. Despite its simplicity, I embraced myself to the star monument, and I started to read the words stamped onto the gilded plate on the front of the platform.
It read, "In honor of the fourth Child of Hope, whom helped to save the world from another chaotic experience: the Great Chaos. Year of Birth: 'Heart-Star-X-Circle'."
Heart, Star, X, and Circle… All were symbols used to determine days and years in our time. The Squeeks and Koopas worked together three thousand years ago to create this system. From what I remembered learning from an old friend of mine, Heart is equivalent to the number two, Star for one, X for three, and circle for zero. The year this "fourth Child of Hope" was born was in the year 2130, about one hundred years ago.
Suddenly, I heard a scream coming from above. That sounded like Tutankoopa, I thought as I ran through a door to the left of the second western pillar from the entrance. When I opened the door, I found out that this was one of the side exits to an outer area. I walked to my right until I found a red switch, which looked like a red box with a semi-transparent white "!" mark inside. I removed a steel sword-staff, the sword side quite long and the staff looking like a long pole with four small red rubies on one side, and bashed the switch. I heard a rumbling sound, as if an earthquake just hit, and when it stopped, I entered the nearby door.
The room I just entered had three doors and one set of stairs, except that the doors are up high against the wall, and the steps sat in front of one of them. I went up the stairs, and found myself on a small hallway above the ground floor, with a stained glass portrait of a close-up of a Duplighost with red eyes and wearing a party hat with red paper strands at the tip and a light blue bow. I embraced the way the portrait gleams in the moonlight, but pondered about its origin. It looks familiar to me, but I can't seem to remember where.
At the end of the hallway, I opened the door and found a set of spiraling steps that lead to the top. Wanting to end this nonsense soon enough, I simply flew to the top platform, which had a blue spring-like device and a hole above it, and flew through the hole. After entering the top floor, I realized that I was on the uppermost floor of the bell tower, whereas a large brass bell hung on the wooden railings above me.
In front of me was a Duplighost that looked like the one from the stained glass portrait: red eyes and wearing a blue party hat with red stars and had two red paper strands at the tip, and around his "neck" was a light blue bow hanging loosely. The Duplighost had Kooper in a headlock, and his foot on a tied and gagged Tutankoopa.
"So, we meet again," the Duplighost said to me as he smirked. "Unfortunately, your friends have disturbed my peace and, of course, they had to be punished somehow. So I'm gonna cut the string of the church bell, and as it crashes through the floor, it will crush your little friend as well." He walked over to the edge of the wide-open edge of the tower and slammed Kooper onto the ground. "As for this dumbbell, I was just thinking of simply throwing him off. His shell could protect his body from all kinds of danger, but I doubt it'll protect him from the impact of the fall."
With my sword-staff in hand, I prepared myself to defend against whatever attack he might throw at me. "I won't allow you to do that. If I defeat you, you'll let my friends go, and you'll reverse the curse you set!"
He chuckled maliciously and accepted my challenge. "But if you lose, then the bell tolls for everyone!" He smiled smugly and said, "Mario may have defeated me twice two years ago, but fortunately, now I have the upper hand. Not only is Mario not here…" He then took out two golden axes with long poles and four blades that rotate like a windmill's fans. "But I get to test these out. Say goodbye, Parakarry!"
He lunged at me with the axe on his left hand, but I leapt aside, dodging the attack. He attacked with the other, but to no avail. With a look of frustration, he rapidly hacked and slashed me with both weapons, and after blocking six of the hits, the seventh sliced my sword-staff in half. In order to arm myself and defend the flurry of rotating axe attacks, I picked up the sword half of my broken weapon and parried more of the Duplighost's enraged attacks.
Lowering the rotary axes, the Duplighost shouted, "You've pissed me off long enough! I'll show you my true power!" He then transformed himself into Kooper, but with blood red eyes instead of Kooper's usual blue-purple color. In Kooper's voice, he said, "Now I'm handing over your ass in a silver platter!"
Once again, he hacked and slashed at me using his axes, but unlike last time, with his newfound fury, he managed to land a few random hits onto me. But it also left him vulnerable to attack, so I spun and gave him a roundhouse kick in the stomach. As he fell back, he transformed back into his usual form. Swinging the axe horizontally, he accidentally cut the rope that supported the bell, and the bell came crashing down hard. Not wanting to become involved, the Duplighost transformed into a red-eyed duplicate of me and pushed me off the tower, continuing the battle in midair.
When the bell crashed onto the ground floor, I pushed the duplicate off of me and rushed to examine the crash site. Worried about Kooper and Tutankoopa, I grabbed the bell and lifted it high above my head, to find Tutankoopa safe and untied, but with an older Koopa, about twenty years, with gray eyes, a green shell, and wearing a tattered gray gym shirt and blue shorts, holding onto him.
"S-s-sorry, sir," the Koopa whispered as he let go of the young pharaoh Koopa. "I-I was just… Trying to rescue him… To atone for my s-sin…" As he said the word "sin", the Koopa sank into the shadows, disappearing out of sight.
Huh? What sin? I wondered as the Duplighost, back in his original form, turned to face me.
"Parakarry, don't you remember me," the Duplighost asked me with a worried look on his face. "It's me, Doopliss. You know, from seven years ago? You introduced me to this place, you celebrated my birthday with your friends…" Doopliss then looked up at the stained glass portrait of himself and continued, "You made that portrait for me. You gave me what I never had before when my mom left me: love, affection, a good home…"
"Aw, quit the bullshit! You're making me want to gag," a familiar voice complained. We looked up to find Kooper sitting on the edge of the hallway in front of the portrait. He jumped to the floor and said, "But I'll let it go. Just as long as no one dares to do something like what I did." He dipped his head and looked up to me regretfully. "I hope you can forgive me. I just wanted to help the town. But I underestimated this. It was stupid and I promise I won't do it again."
After pausing for a second, I walked up to Kooper and patted him on the head. "You're forgiven. But you almost had me worried for a second there." I turned towards Doopliss. "I'm sorry if I've forgotten you. Will you forgive me?"
Doopliss thought it over, then he nodded and answered, "Yes. I'll forgive you." Then he ran over and hugged me, burying his face in my chest, and whispered, "Thank you… For everything."
"You're welcome, Doopliss," Parakarry replied softly. As he let me out of his grasp, I asked, "But what about the curse? Is it broken?"
"Unfortunately, it isn't. But the spell won't affect any more people. The true medium for the spell was this very place. The rope that held the bell acted like a link from the medium to the bell. But now that the rope is torn, the curse won't work anymore, even though it's rushing through this church from inside the walls and floors."
After brushing the soot off the package he received, he said carelessly, "Who cares about a few people who are probably gone forever? I wanna open this right now!" With a grin on his face, he tore the brown wrapping off the package as if he just received a Christmas present. "Hey. It's a… A… It's nothing!"
A piece of paper lay inside the box, past all the little squiggly Styrofoam thingies. The paper was a note saying (with several spelling mistakes, and a bunch of exclamation marks), "GOTCHA! u actually expet dat idjit Kolorado 2 give u somethin'! well, u r RONG!11111 Wee O U—The Koopa Bros. XD"
Crumpling the note with his right fist, he shook his left fist and shouted "No!" which echoed throughout the entire church. I patted Kooper's back in encouragingly and said, "Don't worry, Kooper. You'll have your little revenge someday."
Doopliss, who had his attention diverted to the star statue, slipped an old-looking note from behind the star. Doopliss read the note aloud, which read:
"Dear Doopliss,
I am unfortunate to have left from so long ago. But a fortuneteller predicted that you would soon live in this very building. So I slipped this note behind the star on the statue, where no one who enters will find it at first sight of it. And in case you've read the writing on the plate, you may be wondering about the fourth Child of Hope and who he is. But that is of no importance right now.
The real reason I've written this letter is to ask if you want to visit your old man. With this note is a map of the entire continent, from little, barely noticed Duplitown to large, best-known Toad Town, home to Princess Peach. Use it, and you might find yourself in a world of adventure.
Love, Your father
P.S.: If possible, visit your mother for a bit. I think she misses you.
P.S.S.: Can you please, with a cherry on top, ask your mother about the recipe to that wonderful Chocolate Cake she makes? ("Heart")
P.S.S.S.: Get a girlfriend."
"Well, he's right. I've got to visit my mother and him… And get a girlfriend."
Recovering from his trauma with the fake package, Kooper threw away the prank box and shouted confidently, "Well, what're you waitin' for? Let's go! With that map, we'll find your parents!" He then patted Doopliss in the head. "And don't worry. You'll find the perfect girl sooner or later."
With a sweat-drop, I said to Tutankoopa, "Let's just go."
"Yep. Let's just go," Tutankoopa replied as we left Kooper and Doopliss behind.
(And that was when they started to chase us.)
(XD) Yeah, I added some weird humor at the end, just for the heck of it. Stay tuned for Ch. 3!