Chapter 4: Battle at Sasaban
Author's notes: Sorry for taking so long to post this chapter. I had business.
Gathett took Mario and Luigi to the next area. "Your first vehicle will be aerial combat. You will fight other jets while you try to shoot them down. You go at the same time."
Mario and Luigi hopped into their jets and shot down all other jets. Their next vehicles were land vehicles. They had to race other drivers and win. They both lost the races. Mario was 1 and 1 so he had to pass the next one to join the Freedom Shrooms. The next vehicles were still land vehicles but this time they were for combat. They had Shroom Blasters equipped. They had to shoot other vehicles and take them out. They both passed that one.
Gathett smiled. "You have both passed and are now official Freedom Shrooms."
"YES!" Mario and Luigi screamed simultaneously.
They all then heard something beep. Gathett told them "This is my Tele-Com. It can zoom in like a telescope and communicate like a communicator." Gathett answered it and frowned. "There is trouble." He said. "Bowser is sending his army into Sasaban Kingdom, the kingdom next to Mushroom Kingdom. As Freedom Shrooms, it is our job to protect all Kingdoms on Earth. I'm sending Zang to lead this mission. Stop the invasion of Sasaban Kingdom. The Koopa Troopa Army will be there tomorrow. We will be there today to evacuate all citizens of where the army will strike first and plan to stop the attack there. It will take a few hours to get there but go now. I will tell Zang of this information. Go to him now."
So Mario and Luigi went to Zang's tent but he was no where to be found.
"Where the heck is Zang?" Luigi asked his brother.
"Not here, that's for sure." Mario responded.
They went to General Grant's tent to see if he knew where Supreme Commander Zang was.
"So Grant, do you know where Zang is?" The Mario Bros. asked in unison.
"Edge of the Freedom Shroom base. The East end. I've received the message from Grandmaster but I won't be accompanying the other Shrooms on this mission. I've got to stay and create Shroom weapons and vehicles. So good luck on your mission."
"Thanks, General." Luigi thanked.
So the Mario bros. ran off to the East edge of the Shroom base and sure enough, Zang was there with a few squads of soldiers with him in different vehicles.
"You're finally here. Now we can depart for Sasaban. I'm letting you drive the Shroom Warthog 3000, New Recruit Luigi. Don't screw it up." Zang ordered.
"Yes sir!" Luigi shouted.
"What duty do I have, Commander?" Mario curious, but frightened, asked.
"You will take the turret. Don't mess it up like you did on that gun course. If you shoot like that on a turret we'll all be dead if we need you to survive."
"Gulp."
Luigi hopped in the warthog while Mario took up the turret. Luigi drove off following the command of Supreme Commander Zang. He drove for hours doing nothing but looking at the desert. He almost dozed off at points.
He was about to fall asleep until Zang shouted on his Tele-Com "Watch out! Koopa Paratroopas are in the air firing missiles down on us. And there are also Koopa Troopa Land vehicles by us. Luigi should dodge the missile while Mario fires at the enemy land vehicles."
"Nice plan, Commander." Luigi said wide awake and glad that there is finally some action.
Mario took the turret but couldn't hit the enemy. He was pathetic.
"Shoot better, bro. I can't do this all by myself!"
"I'm trying, I'm trying. Sheesh!"
Mario's aim got better, but just it still sucked. Luigi, on the other hand, was doing great. He managed to take out a few land vehicles by knocking them into rocks causing them to explode while dodging the missiles from the Koopa Paratroopas. He thought he would stay lucky, but he was wrong. He ran over a tiny sharp rock and it popped two of his tires.
"That's not good." Luigi told himself as he braces himself for incoming fire. He was hit missile after missile. Luckily, the armor on the warthog was powerful and the missiles were weak. If they were fired from rocket launchers Mario and Luigi would be dead. Mario thought fast and jumped off the turret and told Luigi to run. So the Mario Bros. ran towards Zang and the rest of the Freedom Shrooms. They managed to occupy a deserted enemy vehicle. It was fast!
"Alright! We're not gonna die, we're not gonna die." Mario chanted right before they were shot by a missile coming from one of the Shrooms. "Maybe I talked too soon. Why are they shooting at us!"
"They must mistake us for the enemy. Mario, use your Tele-Com to tell Zang that we're in this vehicle."
"Okie dokie." Mario told Zang that it was the Mario Bros. in the vehicle he fired at and he apologized.
Zang activated his Tele-Com and signaled the other Shrooms. "Stop firing at the enemy vehicle behind me. The Mario Bros. are inside."
Most of the Shrooms stopped firing but apparently one of them didn't get the message and continued to shoot at the vehicle.
"Are they crazy or what! I know for a fact that they heard Zang say to stop shoot at us!" Mario shouted angrily.
"Stop firing at the Mario Bros.! That's an order!" Zang commanded.
Regardless of Zang's commands, the vehicle kept firing at the Mario Bros. Luigi had no choice but to ram the vehicle. When they did, they saw a red shelled Koopa Troopa with a burnt eye fall out.
"So all along it was a weird Koopa who killed the people in there and drove it making us mistake it for an ally. Pretty smart." Mario explained.
Just then they heard the beep from the Tele-Com and Zang told them "Good work boys. Except you, Mario, you're shooting sucks. But anyway, we are just crossing the border to Sasaban. We weren't expecting a huge battle when we got this mission which is why we got two New Recruits to come along. But with all these readings of enemies we may be dead wrong. We hope it doesn't come to that. If it does and you two help out in this mission, you will be advanced to Soldiers instead of recruits.
"Wahoo!" The Mario Bros. shouted simultaneously.
They hopped out of their vehicles and equipped the Shroom Magnums.
"This city is Sorko City, capital of Sasaban. You can see the Sasaban Castle way down there in the center of the city. It has been captured by Bowser's damn army. I hate those pieces of crap." Zang told them in anger but that didn't affect the noise level of his voice.
"You seem to have had a bad past with these freaks. Care to explain?" Luigi tried to convince.
"I don't wanna talk about it." Zang said looking away. "Let's just get moving."
"What is our objective?" Mario asked.
"First, we clear out the way to the Sasaban Castle so that the repair crew can come. We storm the palace and protect the repair crew while we find the center and the repair crew can fix and restore Castle security. Then we take out the remaining enemy forces and hold the reinforcements off until the Sasaban Army can get here and then mission complete!" Zang explained.
"That's a lot to do. Sure we can manage?" Luigi asked cautiously.
"I sure hope so. Now on with the violence. Here comes the enemy. ATTACK!" Zang said as he and the other Shrooms charged firing at the enemy.
"Mario." Luigi called.
"What, Luigi?" Mario answered.
"Don't you think it's a little stupid to just charge out in front of the enemy and attack. Shouldn't we use strategy?"
"I guess you're right, brother. Let's sneak behind all these buildings and get behind the enemy."
So that's what the brothers did. They snuck behind the buildings and fired when they got behind the enemy. Unfortunately, they were Koop behind them and they shot the brothers. Luigi and Mario got hit by all the enemy shots and went down. Blood was everywhere right when a certain red shelled Koopa with a burnt eye about to finish them.
Fortunately, Jack kicked him in the face and shot at him but the burnt eyed Koopa ran away into the castle. "Son of a…" Jack started but was interrupted by Zang.
"Let's head on into the castle." Zang interrupted.
"But sir," a Shroom asked Zang," what about the Mario Bros.?"
"We knew there was going to be casualties even before we came here. Don't worry, they are in a good place." Zang answered.
"No they aren't. Lying on the ground in a desert city bleeding badly isn't good. They aren't dead!" The same Shroom exclaimed.
"They aren't? Well give them bandages to stop the bleeding!" Zang shouted as he rushed over to the bros. "The repair crew is on its way so their rest of you go on inside and start clearing the way. I'll be there shortly."
Zang ran over and covered up the wounds of the Mario Bros. while he waited for the repair crew to get over there. When they finally arrived, Zang said "Don't go in the castle yet. My men are still clearing the way. I'll let you know when to come in."
After Zang finished talking he succeeded in fixing up the Mario Bros. and hid them in a bush. He motioned for the repair crew to come in. They snuck in and what Zang saw when he entered was horrible. He had three men left because the rest were all dead with blood everywhere.
"We need your help, sir." The Shroom that told Zang that Mario and Luigi were still alive said.
"You seem like a pretty good warrior, soldier. What is your name?" Zang asked the Shroom.
"My name is Lee, sir." He responded.
"If you survive this battle, I'll see to it that you become commander, hopefully. I'll try to get the Grandmaster to allow it. Now let's fight! Repair crew, hide behind those columns. We will win this fight!"
Zang charged and fired at the enemy. He shot one man's head off and another in the heart. He blasted a Paratroopa's foot off and he bled to death. The rest of the battle went on for a few minutes and one of Zang's men died. Before getting to the center to fix castle security, Zang noticed that his only two men left in the fight, besides the repair crew and himself, were Jack and Lee.
"Nice shooting, soldiers." Zang commented.
"Yeah, whatever." Jack answered angrily.
"Jack," Zang began, "I promise you that we will free your brother sometime. As soon as we find out where he is. I promise you that."
"Shut up." Jack told him in his angry voice while reloading his Shroom Blaster. He then ran to the center blasting any enemies he saw and left a trail of blood behind. Zang, Lee, and the repair crew followed.
So the three left in battle attacked all the enemies and easily took them out. They reached the center in no time at all and the repair crew started fixing the security of the castle so the defense robots would be activated and the laser security could activate.
"So it looks like we've almost completed out job, sir." Lee told Supreme Commander Zang.
"Maybe. Maybe not. It all depends on how long it takes to repair the security system." Zang explained to Lee. "It also depends on how long it takes for the robot army to activate after the system is online."
"Oh. I get it now."
"No time for talk anymore, it looks like the enemy finally decided to send in reinforcements. This battle ain't over yet. Charge!"
Zang, Jack, and Lee all began to attack the enemy with thousands of bullets. Zang thought the enemy would never win the battle but he started to get his doubts when he got shot in the thigh. He fell down but was shooting with one hand and firing with the other.
Jack, on the other hand, had no doubts and was doing great. He kept strafing so to dodge enemy fire. He also took out many of the enemy while protecting the repair crew.
"TAKE THIS YOU KOOPA BASTARDS!" Jack screamed while blowing heads off and blasting limbs.
"Done! The security system is back online." A man in the crew shouted.
"Now all we have to do is hold off reinforcements until the power of the security bots come charges up." Zang smirked.
"How long is that gonna take?" Lee asked while doing one of those totally awesome dives.
"Three minutes." One of the repair crew men answered.
"So we hold them off for three minutes and the security bots can take it from there until the Sasaban army arrives? Where is the army anyway?"
"They were in Sarasaland making a deal with them but as soon as they heard that the Koopa Troopa army was invading their home, they began to rush back. They'll be here in about thirty minutes." Zang answered.
So Jack, Zang, and Lee held off the army for a few minutes until one of the men in the repair crew said "The robots are back online. They will attack now."
The robots got up and started firing at the Koopa Troopa but then all of a sudden they shut down and fell apart, literally.
"What wrong?" Zang asked the crew.
"I don't know. We'll try to find out the answer. Meanwhile, you hold them off until either the army or the robots get back together."
So there was a huge change of plans. The Freedom Shrooms had to hold them off for longer than expected.
"Are you sure we can mange, sir?" Lee asked the wounded Zang.
"I'm not sure. I don't think we can. I think we are all gonna die." Zang responded.
Just then they saw Luigi walk in with an angry look on his face. And wearing bandages all over.
"Lu… Luigi?" Zang said confused.
"Yep." Luigi answered and started blowing up the Koopa with grenades. "That's for… ugh… all the pain."
They successfully took out all the reinforcements but more were sure to arrive later. So Zang had the time to ask Luigi "Where did you get all the grenades?"
"I stole them from one of the enemy vehicles. Mario got shot up worse than I did so he's still unconscious." Luigi answered.
"No I'm not." Mario said limping into the room. Well, not anymore anyway."
"I brought a bandage, Zang, for your leg to stop the bleeding." Luigi said handing a bandage to Zang.
"Thanks, kid. I'll use it." Zang said happily. "I put it on and I athered the strength to walk, barely. I think we should go outside and intercept the enemy with an ambush."
So the remaining five walked outside as soon as they reloaded their guns. They walked outside and saw a huge Koopa Troopa ship approaching. Zang, thinking fast, pulled a rocket launcher from seemingly nowhere.
"I'm blowing that hunk of junk to pieces. Rest in pieces, bitches." Zang said as he loaded a missile into his weapon and fired. It hit the ship and it went kaboom! "Direct hit."
"That'll hold off the enemy forces for a while." Luigi realized. "That's good."
So they Shrooms sat there for thirty minutes, blasting any enemies who came up to the castle, waiting for the Sasaban Army.
"They're here." Mario said while pointing at the vehicles. "Now we can return to base."
"That's right, kid."
End of chapter 3.
I think this has been my longest chapter yet. So sorry for taking so long to update and please read and review.
