Chapter 3: The Split
Emerging from the painting, Wario fell from the sky onto the Bob-omb Battlefield. After a short fall, he painfully slammed the ground with all the grace of a bowling ball. His head felt like scrambled eggs, and his stomach certainly would've liked scrambled eggs at that moment. But Wario was a superhuman. Things that hurt normal people simply didn't leave a mark on the fat man. As such, The pain subsided quickly.
His hunger, however, remained. As did the fact that Waluigi was nowhere in sight. Sitting on the grassy terrain by the foot of the bob-omb mountain. Wario wondered how his life had gotten to this point.
Then his concentration was interrupted, as two spherical pink bob-omb creatures noticed him.
"Hello there sir," Said one of the Pink Bob-ombs, "Are you alright?"
"Wah! It's nothing," Wario jumped and flexed his muscular abs, "Hey. Any of you seen a tall lanky man? Wears purple overalls…got a hat and mustache…"
The Bob-ombs looked to each other, before shaking their heads, "Can't say we've seen anyone like that,"
Wario frowned.
"Well, If it makes you feel better, I can tell you where the eight red coins of this place are,"
Upon hearing them mention the very concept of money, Wario instantly forgot about his previous woes. Dollar signs entered his eyes. He could use the coins to buy himself a breakfast.
"Say no more!" the man laughed loudly. He ran off without bothering to wait a second longer.
"Wait!" the Bob-ombs shouted, before sighing. It seemed no one ever wanted to hear directions from them.
Crawling through cramped air vents would be an arduous task for anyone, but Waluigi's skinny stature meant he was able to squeeze into tight spaces with ease. He had heard Wario enter the room shortly after he entered the vents. But the fat man must've left at some point. Waluigi had no idea where he went, which meant he was entirely alone. While he was scared by this fact, Waluigi did have something to take solace in.
It was the fact that he had some of the funniest memes in his phone's photo album. Presently, Waluigi was chuckling over a particularly hilarious video featuring Luigi tripping down a flight of stairs.
Most sane people would've focused on escaping the bank…or, if they were really sane, they would've avoided the robbery to begin with. However, it could be said that the extent of Waluigi's mental state (or lack thereof) was still up for debate. Regardless, Waluigi was unaware of Wario's disappearance into the painting, as well as the Sledge Bro's loud entrance into the closet (as unrealistic as that seemed)
However, the Sledge Bro could hear Waluigi cackling above him. The turtle cocked his rifle up at the ceiling.
"You little shit!" He cursed, firing at one of the tiles.
The bullet exploded through the tile, fortunately missing Waluigi's face by inches. From there, it pierced into a pipe in the ceiling, which burst. Water sprayed down on the ground and on Waluigi…
…And on Waluigi's phone, which died instantly.
"Wah! My phone!" the lanky man cried.
Then he saw the giant Koopa monster glaring daggers up at him through his thick sunglasses.
"You've got two seconds to get down here and surrender before I fire again," The sledge Bro said cooly.
The man tensed, and began to inch his way further down the vents. Two seconds later, the ceiling tiles Waluigi was just crawling on burst into bits. Destroyed by another shot.
"I wasn't joking,"
Waluigi screamed, and scuttled away. Further into the darkness.
The Sledge Bro could was too big to fit into ceiling crawlspaces, but he had an intricate understanding on where the vents lead in the bank. The truth was that the ventilation system was a one track unit. Starting at the AC unit, and ending at a grate leading outside. Along the way, the air filtered out of exit grates into various rooms, which was how Waluigi was able to get inside in the first place.
Currently, Waluigi was heading towards the air conditioning unit. Effectively a dead end. The only method of escape he could possibly use was to go back the way he came. But thanks to the Sledge Bro creating holes in the ceiling, this lone exit was currently blocked off.
Said holes were still spewing water from the broken pipes. This would become a problem for the bank later. and the Sledge Bro would be fired for incompetence over this issue. But for now, he could take solace in a job well done.
The turtle, feeling satisfied, if a little wet from the water, decided to grab a soda and towel. He would wait until the lanky man re-emerged from the vents in defeat.
What the Sledge Bro didn't consider was that Waluigi would use the exit grate of another room to leave the vents, which was exactly what the man did. Kicking open the grate, The lanky man found himself inside the men's restroom that the Security Hammer Bro was once inside.
Said Hammer Bro was now alert, and giving medical attention to the fatally wounded Koopernicus, who was still unconscious. The helmet wearing turtle was kneeling just outside the door when Waluigi walked into his sights. He screamed and reached for a hammer on his belt that wasn't there.
Thinking quickly, Waluigi kicked the turtle in the face with his pointy shoes. He then made a mad dash towards the bank entrance.
The Hammer Brother was knocked backwards onto his shell. He struggled to get back up on his feet, but eventually prevailed. Adjusting his helmet, he pressed a button on his walkie talkie.
"Johnson. The purple one's on the run! He kicked me and left!"
"Dude, you're telling me he left the air vents?" Johnson the sledge Bro replied, taking a noisy sip from his soda.
The Hammer Bro groaned back into the walkie talkie, "Did you not account for that?! You idiot!"
Wario had collected six of the eight red coins before he lost patience. Looking at his wrist watch, he saw it was 11:00 in the morning, and he still had not eaten one bite of food.
A lone Goomba was going on a stroll. Wario gazed hungrily into its eyes.
"You have any food?" He drooled.
The Goomba tried to run away.
Wario bounded over, and punched the Goomba. It dropped a small gold coin, which Wario picked up.
"Wah hah hah!" Wario laughed, "Have a rotten day!"
The random act of violence and theft helped distract him from his hunger long enough to remember that Waluigi was still missing.
"Huh. I wonder where that purple bastard is anyway…" Wario muttered to himself, before re-remembering that his stomach needed sustenance.
All Waluigi could think about as he ran out of the bank was that he had possibly left Wario for dead. He had no idea where his chubby partner was, and this was really beginning to concern him. Especially when it came to the gun toting turtle still inside the bank.
"Wario doesn't get scared easily, but that thing scared him like nothing else ever did," Waluigi shivered.
As he stepped into the Wario Car, and started the engine. He took one somber look back at the bank. Then the Sledge Bro opened the front door, and Waluigi sped off in an instant. Tires squealing wildly.
"Goodbye Wario," Waluigi muttered miserably. He fearfully looked back in his rear view mirror, but to his relief, the Sledge Bro did not give chase.
"Johnson! What are you doing?" The Hammer Brother yelled from behind his compatriot.
"Don't worry about it, my dude. The police will hound them in no time,"
And he was right.
Nobody else realized it yet. But Waluigi was heading directly towards a swarm of cop cars, which had been summoned earlier by Koopernicus.
"But, what of the yellow one...?"
Johnson shrugged, "Guy must've ran away while we were lookin for him. Heh. At least nothing got stolen,"
Meanwhile, Wario had begun interrogating the Bob-omb residents of the battlefield about where the nearest McGoomba's was.
"We don't have a McGoomba's!" One black Bob-omb exclaimed, before exploding right then and there. Wario left that conversation covered head to toe in soot, which he brushed off.
After the search for McGoomba's failed, Wario resorted to asking around for Wendy O's. And when that failed, he asked for Taco Cat Bell. It was a last resort, and he was feeling desperate.
But Bob-omb Battlefield was not a strip mall. Therefore, it would be correct to assume that no restaurants existed on the mountainous region to begin with. But Wario hadn't put two and two together on this yet. Being a bit too famished and a bit too stupid to see the errors in his ways.
Along the way, he had collected the last of the eight red coins, which he had gloated about for all of three minutes before remembering how hungry he was. His newfound money forgotten at once.
"I don't know what you guys do for food," Wario was now talking to a green colored Bob-omb.
The green fellow responded, "We Bob-ombs don't have mouths,"
Wario stared at him for a moment before nodding, "Eh, fair enough," and waddled away.
"Guess I'll look for grub elsewhere…" the man mumbled,
"Hey! Can I come?"
Wario stopped to see the same green Bob-omb staring eagerly at him.
"Eh? What's it to ya?"
"I wanna join you and see this grub you speak of!" He said, as if it were a mystical realm.
"…I don't got a ride, so unless you have one, we'll be footing it," the bulky man grumbled,
"Oh, that's ok! I can use the exercise! After all, I am like 20% legs,"
"And 80% air and explosives," Wario thought to himself.
But as he looked at the bob-omb, he realized that perhaps the green fellow could serve some sort of use. Besides, Wario was curious as to why a mouthless bomb creature would want to go to a EATING facility.
"I'm hungry," the bomb whined, "can I please come with you?"
"But, do you not have a mouth?"
"Just because I don't have a mouth doesn't mean I don't get hungry,"
There was a short silence.
Wario shrugged, "Well, whatever. I'm going to find a food joint. You can come or not if you like, but don't piss me off."
With that, he walked away. The little green Bob-omb followed afterwards. Its small wind up key twirling and spinning about.
