Chapter 4: Catch that plumber!
I could still see Mario up ahead in the road on his kart, but he was steadily pulling away from us, no matter how fast we drove. I could also just glimpse Toad on the back of Mario's kart waving his arms at us wildly, shrieking in his high-pitched voice that he didn't want to die.
"Can't we go any faster?" I asked Luigi, worriedly.
Behind us, even the shopkeeper was gaining on us bit by bit, and now I could hear his ranting words faintly: "...stealing from a poor, defenseless Toad, I have kids to feed, you know! And my poor wife is at home trying to cook dinner, and crying because her husband is late, while my neighbor, the bastard, will probably try and comfort her-"
I tried to ignore the frantic toad, as Luigi half turned in his seat and glared at me.
"I could go faster if I didn't have so much weight dragging me down!" He said meaningfully.
"Hey!" I protested. "I can't help it if I'm heavier than a toad!"
Suddenly, I glimpsed something ahead of us; a fiery, bouncing object coming down the road that could only be a-
"Fireball!" Luigi screamed, and swerved wildly to avoid it. It missed us by inches, and I turned around to see it traveling down the read towards the shopkeeper-toad's kart.
"Goodness!" The toad screamed, screeching his kart sideways-apparently he was one of those people who just didn't swear, no matter what the situation.
Thankfully, he avoided the fireball, but then he faced forward once more with a determined glare, and continued throwing insults at us.
"Now he's throwing fireballs back at us!" Luigi pointed out unnecessarily.
"No shit, Sherlock!" I snarled, getting more upset by the minute. I could see that capturing Mario was going to be a hard task.
"Who's Sherlock?" Luigi asked, confused.
"Oh, sorry about that. Um, no shit, Professor Goomba?" I suggested alternatively.
Luigi nodded in understanding.
"Oh yes. Well, screw you too, then." He said.
Up ahead, I suddenly noticed that buildings had began to spring up along the sides of the road, and soon enough we had entered what looked to be a small city, with traffic lights and large crowds appearing.
"Um...this is bad." I said.
"No shit, Sherlock," Luigi snarled nastily, trying out the new saying. "It looks like Mario's heading into the busy part of the city, too!"
Behind us, the shopkeeper suddenly roared around a corner and was soon driving only a few meters away.
"...my grandpappy built that shop with his bare hands, too! You're robbing from my entire family!" The shopkeeper squealed, and I groaned.
"Just...don't stop for any traffic lights, okay?" I told Luigi.
Mario was almost out of range now, and I could barely make him out up ahead speeding madly through the traffic lights and somehow managing not to hit anyone.
"We need to go faster, or we might as well just give up now!" I told Luigi.
"Yeah, but we can't-a! Not unless we find-aha!" He exclaimed, and to my horror he suddenly drove the kart up to the sidewalk and headed straight for an old mushroom lady slowly wheeling a shopping cart along the pavement.
"Noooo!" I cried, at the same time thinking why is it always old ladies?
"Run for your life, grandma!" I screamed as we hurtled towards her. "He's gone mad, just like his older brother!"
The old mushroom lady turned slowly, finally noticing the danger, and her eyes boggled at the sight of the incoming kart, driven by a mad Italian.
"I say!" Screamed the shopkeeper-toad, who had driven up the pavement behind us. "Look out!"
"Mercy me!" Cried the old woman, because apparently all old ladies speak the same, even if they're walking mushrooms. In slow motion, she let go of her trolley and leapt sideways through the air impressively, twisting and spinning.
With a cry of triumph Luigi rammed the kart right through the trolley, ripping it apart and sending the groceries flying in all directions. A can of pet food hit me square in the forehead.
Through my concussion I also saw that there had been a couple of giant mushrooms in the trolley, and as one hit the side of the kart, it was absorbed and vanished, and with a rumble and a sudden tremendous boost the kart shot forward like a rocket on a superhero.
"Yeeeeee-ha!" Luigi cried, and I could only hold on for dear life, as buildings, traffic and cars whooshed past my vision.
I managed to turn my head around, against the wind suction, and saw to my dismay that the shopkeeper-toad's kart had also hit a mushroom, and was also zooming along behind us in a burst of speed, the poor toad gripping desperately to the steering wheel and screaming "Hoo-daddy! Help! Heeelp! Fiddlestiiiicks!"
Apparently "fiddlesticks" was the worst naughty word he was allowed to yell, I figured.
I faced forward once more, as Luigi got the kart back in the centre of the road, and to my relief saw that we were zooming up behind Mario's kart. Next minute we had actually drawn up beside Mario, and, with the effect of the mushroom worn off, we slowed back down to our normal speed.
"What took you so long?" Toad screamed at us from the kart. "Make him stop! He's gone crazy!"
"Mario!" I yelled over, as Luigi was busy driving. "Stop the kart! We've caught up with you now...let's talk about this!"
I saw that the red-capped plumber had only one hand on the wheel, and with the other hand he was busy opening the packs of frozen pasta and shoving the mass into his mouth.
Is...is that even edible? I thought to myself, frozen in horror.
"You-a can kiss-a my ass!" Mario said. "I'm not going back so you can all-a treat me like a crazy person!"
"Well, this isn't doing much for your case that you're sane!" I yelled, and Mario glared at me.
"You-a can't stop me!" He declared.
"Ah shit," Toad swore.
I suddenly had an idea that would stop Mario. "Toad, use your mace on him!" I cried.
He gave me a look. "Are you insane? Would you want to spray mace into the eyes of the driver of your car?" He roared in his high-pitched voice.
"Oh. Good point."
Next to our kart, the shopkeeper-toad pulled up, a triumphant look on his face.
"Aha! I've got you now!" He declared. "Time to pay up, one way or another!"
"You don't understand!" Luigi begged, without taking his eyes off the road. "It's not our fault! We had to chase after Mario, who-a has gone crazy!"
"I don't care! I want my money!" The shopkeeper cried.
"Mario, pass the toad your money!" I told the plumber.
In response, Mario picked up a frozen pasta meal and threw it smack into the face of the shopkeeper. His kart swerved, but he managed to stay on the road.
"Right!" He roared. "Now I'm mad!"
"Can't we all stop and talk about this?" I pleaded, feeling like a judge in a court case gone wrong.
"Marioooooo!" Mario cried in response, and drove ahead. Toad waved his arms at us frantically.
"Help me! I want to live! Do your job!" He cried at me, as Mario barely avoided hitting a pole.
Mario turned a corner suddenly, and Luigi, not having time to turn, shot passed the intersection.
"Ah crap, now we've lost him." I groaned.
Unfortunately we had not lost the shopkeeper, who pursued us like a loan shark from hell.
"Oh, leave us alone!" I shouted back at him, and then to my surprise yet another kart pulled away from the traffic just behind the shopkeeper-toad's kart and started trailing us as well.
"Who is it now?" Luigi complained, as I squinted at the kart, which was pink, to try and see who the driver was.
"It's just a normal female toad," I revealed to Luigi. "But she looks really mad. I don't recognize her, though."
Apparently the shop-keeper toad recognized her, however, as he turned and took one look at the kart, and his expression turned to one of pure horror.
"Mortimer!" The toad shrieked at him. "What are you doing out here in the city? You're cheating on me, aren't you? Oh, wait until I get my hands on you!"
The shopkeeper-toad turned back to look at me with sweat pouring down the side of his head.
"It's the wife!" He wailed to me. "Oh, for the love of toadmanity, explain to her what's going on! She would not believe it, coming from me!"
But we were still flying along at breakneck speed, so I couldn't picture us slowing down so I could talk to a distressed wife.
"Sorry," I apologized. "We're kind of in a hurry."
"Then please SPEED UP so I can get away from the witch!" He cried, revving the engine desperately.
"Better do as he says," I said to Luigi.
The plumber nodded, and directed the kart over a mushroom that was just lying in the middle of the side-walk. The shop-keeper followed us, his kart so close to ours that they almost touched. His wife was still screaming insults and accusations at him, but then he too hit a mushroom and we both shot around the corner at an insane speed, traveling down the length of the side-street and into the next in the blink of an eye.
Once we had gone far enough and down a number of streets, Luigi parked the kart on the side of the road finally. I was almost shaking from the experience of too much speed and near-misses.
The shopkeeper-toad parked behind us as well, looking relieved and like he had just escaped from the devil himself.
"Oh thank goodness for that," he sighed, wiping at his mushroom-capped head. "I owe you guys one."
"Then stop following us so we can catch Mario," I told him.
He shook his head sadly. "I can't do that. If I return home with no proof of what I was up to, I'm a dead mushroom! I need to collect the coins from you guys...which means I'll have to help you catch Mario, doesn't it?"
Luigi nodded. "Well-a, we don't mind. It'll be easier now without you chasing after us and shouting stuff."
The shopkeeper-toad, Mortimer, looked sheepish. "Yeah, sorry about that. I guess I said some pretty nasty things back there."
What, "fiddlesticks"? I thought to myself sarcastically.
"Well, we've lost Mario now anyway," I mumbled. "I can't see how we'll be able to find him."
Luigi looked smug. "Well actually, I can always find him. You see, since we're brothers, and we're so close, I have this...psychic thing going on with Mario. I can sense wherever he is, at any time!"
I stared at him. "What? Really?"
"No," he admitted. "But I can track him with the homing device that's equipped to his kart through this screen here-a", he said, tapping a monitor in the front of the kart.
I smacked him on the back of his head. "Wise-guy! Well okay then, let's hurry."
We made our way through the city once more at a high-speed, with Mortimer driving alongside us and looking fretful that his wife might appear again at any moment.
We were still a long-ways off from catching up to Mario when suddenly there was a commotion in the traffic behind us, and a kart sped up the street and towards us.
I immediately saw that it was Donkey Kong's kart- I mean, it's mostly made out of wood and bongos, so who wouldn't? To my horror, Donkey Kong was also driving the thing, his big mouth stretched wide in a simian grin.
I tapped Luigi on the shoulder as D.K, recognizing Luigi's kart, pulled up alongside us.
Luigi's eyes widened at the sight of the ape and his kart.
"Donkey Kong! You are-a not supposed to be driving that thing! You're not supposed to be driving at all!" He yelled.
Mortimer yelped. "I know you! You're the one who drove that kart into...into the front of the old folk's home!" He said, from slightly behind D.K's kart.
D.K looked offended. "That was accident!" He huffed. "I was distracted by the smell of bananas!"
Mortimer had tears in his eyes. "Yes, all the old people were making banana bread that day! You re-broke most of their bones!"
"Whoops." D.K said, sheepishly. He turned to Luigi. "Anyway, what are you guys up to? Who's the kid on the back? Can I join you guys? I figure I have some time to kill before the authorities take away my kart again- I had to steal it back from under their noses."
I blinked- the ape was talking with such a speed that it didn't give Luigi time to answer any of his questions properly.
Apparently Luigi was used to it, though. "We're chasing Mario down, because he's gone crazy-don't worry, it probably has little to do with that prank you pulled. The kid is Todd, he's here to help Mario with his life, and yes, you can tag along, and stealing is wrong." He said, without taking his eyes off the road.
"Cool, maybe we can find some bananas on the way too!" The ape said jovially.
Luigi rolled his eyes. "Yes. Whatever."
The monitor had led us-now numbering three karts-right through the city and out the other side, and then down a dusty dirt road, through a pretty spooky forest path, and finally, up to a gigantic, eery looking castle that now loomed right in front of us as we parked our karts and took a look around.
To my shock and confusion, the sky had suddenly darkened drastically, and now I was looking up at the night sky, complete with stars and a large, full moon.
"Um...why's it night? I mean, it should be day still, unless you guys only get a couple of hours of daylight over here." I commented dryly.
"Oh, don't worry about that," Mortimer explained, staring up at the castle. "That just happens in certain areas around here. Adds to the mood."
"Right. Silly of me to ask, really..."
"Mario's in there?" D.K asked, scratching himself.
"That's what the monitor says." Luigi confirmed.
"Does that monitor also tell you the location of bananas?" D.K asked hopefully.
"I'm not even going to answer that," Luigi snapped. "Anyway, maybe we should just wait here until Mario comes out? Probably a lot safer, and that way we'll get him for sure." He suggested nervously.
"What if there's a back way out?" I said. "And what if he doesn't come out. You know, in his current mood..." I let my sentence hang in the air.
"Yes, let's go in," Mortimer said frantically. "I swear, I can hear the squeal of the tires on my wife's kart!"
"Fine then," Luigi ceded, gulping. At his words, lighting tore through the sky followed by the crack of thunder and the girlish shriek of Luigi.
The castle was massive, so huge, in fact, that we decided to drive right through the front entrance in our karts. We entered a large area with stain-glass windows looking down at us from the second floor, a set of massive staircases, and a spacious floor. Only several lanterns here and there were lit, and the place had a deserted, spooky feel to it.
"Okay, this place is definitely haunted," Luigi said from the driver's seat, nodding his head. "I should know, from the time I inherited this mansion that turned out to be haunted!"
"WE KNOW!" I screamed, and my voice echoed around the room. I clamped a hand over my mouth, as an evil, booming laughter erupted from no-where.
Luigi yelped and dove under the steering-wheel, and D.K, being the brave monkey that he is, leapt like a baby into my arms, shrieking and ooking in his fright.
"Get off!" I cried, shoving the monkey back onto his kart. Behind me, Mortimer chuckled.
"What a couple of pansies!" He mocked.
Luigi emerged out from under the steering wheel, his face red. "I was just, um, looking for the road-map. Ah, here it is," he said lamely, pulling out what was clearly a magazine about collecting cereal pieces.
"This too scary," D.K moaned. "Let's go back!"
"No, we need to find Mario and Toad," I said firmly. Truth be told, I felt a little scared myself, but figured that since we were on our karts, we should be able to just about out-run anything that bumped into us.
"Yes, I need my money!" Mortimer agreed. "Also, I don't want anything to happen to my best customer, of course."
Luigi sighed and drove the kart passed the massive staircases, up some bumpy but small steps, and though another large door into a corridor that stretched ahead of us, ending in a T-section.
Doors lined the hallway, with several lanterns spilling out just enough light so that we could see. Outside, lightning struck once more.
"At least we know he couldn't have gone through those doors, in his kart," I mumbled.
We drove single-file down the hallway, and I was beginning to feel apprehensive. I would much rather be in the driver's seat of the kart, protected by some side buffers, then be hanging onto the back like I was, where I could fall or be plucked off easily, I thought.
We reached the end of the corridor, and Luigi, choosing a direction at random, turned left. We went through a door and into another expansive, Gothic-like room with stone walls and dusty furniture.
Four gaping corridors branched off of the room, and suddenly I realised I could hear a tiny voice in the distance. I strained my ears to hear, and could barely make out:
"...I don't like this, Mario. I smell ghosts. You know, those dead specter things that only want you to join them in their death? And you know as well as I do that my mace won't work on ghosts, because-OH MY GOD!" The voice, which I recognized as Toad's, rose to a clamber. "THERE'S ONE! OOH, HE HASN'T SEEN US YET! OH SHIT, I'M YELLING THOUGH, SO HE'LL HEAR ME! IT'S TURNING! MARIO, TURN US AROUND! MARIO! ARGH! IT'S COMING FOR US! EAT MACE!"
The voice became incomprehensible after that, turning into screams and yells and curses and then fading away to nothing.
Luigi turned slowly in his seat and looked at me with wide eyes and a quivering mustache. Beside us, D.K was gnawing on the wheel of his kart in fear.
"There are ghosts in here!" Luigi whispered, his voice shaking. "Oh help, they'll come for us, too!"
"Stop it! That kind of talk isn't helping!" I snapped, trying to calm my own fear. "Besides, you've dealt with ghosts before, in Luigi's Mansion." I nudged him in the ribs, trying to use the game to make him feel braver. "Remember? You showed those ghosts a thing or two!"
Luigi's lip shook, and he gulped. "There's one huge difference between that game and now."
"Oh? What's that?" I asked.
"I DON'T HAVE MY VACUUM-CLEANER!" He shouted wildly, and slammed his foot down on the accelerator, steering the kart randomly down a passageway. "Let me out of here!" He cried.
"Luigi!" I roared, clinging on to the kart. "You coward, slow down!"
Behind me, D.K and Mortimer gave chase, not wanting to be left behind and alone.
We flew down the passageway and into another room, where to my surprise we bumped into Mario and Toad, who were coming from another direction. We fell in behind his kart, still speeding along, as Toad, yelling wildly and with his eyes squeezed shut, squirted his bottle of mace frantically in every direction.
"Argh! My eyes!" Luigi screamed, as the mace hit him in the face.
"Stay away!" Toad screamed, unaware of what was going on.
"Keep driving forward!" I directed Luigi, and behind me a roar erupted from somewhere in the house. I spun around, looking past D.K and Mortimer's karts, and saw a bloated, huge Boo enter the room behind us, its eyes red and its teeth gnashing horribly.
"Faster!" I screamed, as the Boo cackled and gave chase. I didn't know what would happen if the Boo got hold of us, but I also knew I didn't want to stick around to find out.
"This isn't worth the coins!" Mortimer wailed, who was bringing up the rear and was therefore in the most danger. D.K was jumping up and down in his kart in pure fear as some monkeys do, barely keeping his foot on the accelerator.
"Left!" I yelled at Luigi, as I saw Mario's kart enter another hallway. Luigi spun the wheel blindly, and thankfully we made the turn.
Up ahead, I could see that the hallway suddenly ended abruptly, as if it ran out of floor.
"Here we goooo!" Mario shouted, and suddenly our kart was air-born behind Mario's, and to my alarm I looked down and saw that we were out of the castle, but flying through the air towards a grassy patch of land.
"Momma mia!"
"SHIT!"
"Ook ook eek eek!"
"Oh poop."
We landed, all of the karts coming together in a heap, and then suddenly the ground dropped away, for the grassy area was actually a hill, and we were once again sliding out of control downwards.
"I hate you, Mario!" Luigi screamed, as we tore down the hill. The hill was too huge to be a proper hill, in my opinion, as thirty seconds later we finally hit the bottom, which was in the middle of a busy and congested free-way.
Mario, sensing yet another opportunity to escape, sped away almost at once, and Luigi and I, D.K and Mortimer gave chase.
We had gone down the freeway for only about a minute when I heard Mortimer yell, "Oh help! Drive! DRIVE, IF YOU VALUE YOUR SOULS!"
I spun around. "What, is the giant Boo still after us?" I yelled at him.
He shook his head and jabbed a thumb behind his shoulder, where a pink kart was in pursuit. "It's my wife!" He sobbed. "I knew I wouldn't be able to escape her for long!"
D.K took a look over his shoulder and yelped in surprise. "It's the Mushroom police!" He cried, and sure enough two red and white colored vehicles that were shaped like mushrooms were also in pursuit.
"I can't let them take my kart away again!" D.K sobbed.
"Oh, for crying out loud!" I exploded. "This car chase is getting ridiculous!"
The freeway ended, and we traveled down a main street and onto a plain path across some grass, still after Mario. Behind me, I could hear the insults coming from Mortimer's wife, his own sobbing, the alarm of the Mushroom police's cars and D.K's frenzied monkey-talk.
Suddenly, I saw that Mario had suddenly brought his kart to a halt in the middle of the grass, beside a tall tree. Luigi, however, who at that moment had turned around to see just who exactly was chasing us, did not.
"Look out!" I cried, pointing. Toad had turned around in the back of Mario's kart and just had enough time to look surprised and alarmed as Luigi crashed the kart into the back of Mario's.
I don't remember much of the accident. I was thrown out of the kart, and landed in a heap, and then D.K crashed his kart into the pile, followed by Mortimer's kart, followed by his wife's, and then summed up with the two Mushroom police cars.
After the crunch of metal and other materials faded away, I groggily tried to get up only to realize that I had toads, an ape, the Mario brothers, several karts and two cars lying on top of me and around me.
"So much...pain..." I gasped.
After a minute or two I struggled out of the wreckage, trying to ignore the groans and cursing coming from it, and blinked groggily at my surroundings. There was an oddly familiar castle right in front of us, one which I was sure I had seen somewhere before.
Oh no. No...NO! I cried in my mind, as I recognized Peach's castle. The whole shebang had happened right in front of it.
"Quick, everyone get up!" I yelled hopelessly. "Hurry, before she sees all this!"
But it was too late. The huge, double doors creaked open, and I looked up in dread to see Princess Peach standing there, her mouth a wide "O" of surprise and shock.
"You in so much trouble," I dimly heard Mario grunt from the wreckage.
Longest chapter yet. Also, the line "for the love of toadmanity" makes me chuckle. I know, I suck. :p
I enjoy writing this, for it gives me a nice break from writing my more serious stories. Even though it'srecieved hardly any reviews, I'm still going to keep writing this.
But"hint, hint" people. If you read this story, for the love of...erm, toadmanity, leave a review! It'll take you two seconds to write "That wazzz gud, lol" or some such thing. You could even write a review telling me it's not funny; at least that way I get more opinions about how the story's going!
I know that most people come to this site mostly for romance/action, and to read about their favourite pairings, but spare a thought for the other stories, too.
Okay, I'm out. Nagging aside, I hope this chapter can at least make some people chuckle:)
Oh, I also have to point out that when I'm writing dialogue for D.K, Luigi, or Mario, sometimes it will look like there's typos in there, but that's only how they speak.