Fixing a Pipe Has Led me to Discover That I am the Most Powerful Being in the Universe, After Being Transported to a Kingdom Where All Royalty is Scantly-Clad, Mamma Mia That's a Lot of Nudity
Chapter 2: Dog Attack. Woof Woof.
Beginning AN:
So kind of an accidental year anniversary almost... I wasn't trying to update this one year after the first chapter, but that's just how things worked out. Almost, I forgot about updating it on the 20th early on that day so I didn't actually finish the chapter on that day, since I'd like to publish and finish something early in the day. So... well, here. And I don't really have anything to say about the chapter itself.
Also a genuine apology for this chapter's title I absolutely could not think of anything else.
Luigi still wasn't used to Clear Pipes - once he was out, he landed on his face. In some sand. Esmeralda, unlike the first time Luigi saw her leave a pipe, had a more graceful landing, stepping on her feet.
That Clear Pipe also stayed there but that's not too important to the plot of this. Luigi can go back to the grassy island, but he can't go back to the Mushroom Kingdom.
Despite being right next to the ocean, the desert island he wound up on was scalding. And yep, the 'sand' did in fact indicate a desert. Pyramids in the background and everything, just like the deserts of his home world. Or, pyramid-shaped mountains. Kinda odd but really tame compared to the rest of the stuff he had seen earlier.
"Okay..." Luigi said, standing up. "What now?"
The pair heard what sounded like a hoarde of animals prancing around in the sand.
Big animals.
Luigi started getting in to a fighting stance to prepare for the animals that he- huh, saw as a dust cloud heading towards him but he was confused - right, he should do nothing? Esmeralda on the other hand did that weird hammerspace-grab that Luigi had trouble comprehending and took a shimmering green sword in one hand. And a gun in the other.
"Wait, you had a gun the whole time?" Luigi asked. Genuine question, not rhetorical. He had some experience with hammerspace - including literal hammers - but still. Guns were new.
"Bowser stole my bullets." She replied. "But I got them back when we left Lemmy's castle. Since he had them right there. It's all really convenient."
Approaching them was an army of pitch-black canid beasts. Hellhounds. With massive, spiked collars around their necks, holding mighty iron chains that linked up to an owner.
The Chain Chomps - yeah that's what those were by the way - being held by another suited man that was casually relaxing on some kind of mechanical platform. He looked unhinged to say the least, tall, lanky, and with this... weird green hairstyle that kind of made him look a bit like a tree? He also had on a pair of large glasses.
"Kyah ha ha ha HAAAAAA!" He said."Don't tell me Lemmy still doesn't have you yet, Esmeralda! Princess of the Grass Island?"
"He did! But for your information, this man saved me!"
"Oh yes, Luigi..." he turned to him and flashed an even more psychotic grin. That Luigi was all-too familiar with. "What a special guest!"
"Iggy..." he said.
"Wait a minute, why are you naked?"
"He's the Nothing Man!" Esmeralda explained. "And he just used to Powers of the Void to save me!"
"Oh really then?" Iggy chuckled. Why don't you meet me at my castle to prove it? See if you can get this fine lady!"
He took out a yellow wand and shook it. With a poof matching in color, another giant bottle appeared in front of him. One with a woman who looked a lot like Esmeralda, just with straighter, yellow hair, and wearing... glitter? Something like that. She seemed to just have a few pasties or something made out of golden-yellow sand. She was completely crying her eyes out.
"And if not... I'll BOIL YOUR FRIEND ALIVE! Or something. I don't know. I'm a nut."
Then he drove off to the yellow castle.
"Wait," said Luigi, "I wasn't doing anything. Why didn't my powers activate and free her?"
"You were giving him an angry look." Explained Esmeralda.
"That counts?!"
"The Ways of the Void or of Nothingness or Whatever it Wants to be Called can be difficult to understand. Some times, just making faces disables it. I'm sorry."
Luigi just groaned. "Do you think there's, um, a way I won't have to do it naked?"
"You're not naked! You have a party hat!"
"I... no! It's-"
"We can argue about clothes later! You need to save my six friends too!"
Luigi nodded. "Okay. I just wish there was a less-embarrassing way to do it..."
"Sorry, there isn't! You have the party hat, that's enough!"
And so, the castle arena.
Iggy was doing some impressive tricks flipping and spinning his magic wand around, to his huge audience of pretty boy Koopas. And his pet Chain Chomp really seemed to be interested in it. Looking like it wanted to play fetch with it.
"LUIGI!" He shouted. "Great to see you! So, are you ready to die where you stand? I think you just got lucky with Lemmy, I'll be sure to kill you."
"...I think I got lucky? That felt like luck." Luigi replied.
"OH, YES! YES, YOU ADMIT IT! HEAR THAT, MINIONS? KING BOWSER? HE ADMITS IT'S LUCK! I GOT HIM BEAT! I WIN THE DEBATE!"
He cackled like mad. Like he always does.
Luigi leaned in to Esmeralda. "So, what do I do?"
"Just do the same thing you did before! Nothing!"
"But you said-"
"Try to recreate exactly what you were doing and feeling when you beat the first guy."
Oh. That advice sounded pretty good!
Too bad it was easier said than done.
So, Iggy got out the gigantic Chain Chomp. The Hellhound.
"Alright now..." Iggy said. "Well, unless you can master the 'Nothing State' or whatever it's called that you did by luck, you'll be dog food for me!"
Alright. Do what he did before. Do what he did before.
What did he do before, though? That was the part he struggled with. It was 'nothing,' but it was a specific kind of nothing. He tried standing still, which was already poving to be extremely difficult with that beast barking in his face.
He began with telling himself "Come on, Luigi... come on-"
"TRY NOT TO TALK!"
"OKAY!" He realized a second later that that was technically talking.
Zip it. Although the Chain Chomp made that very difficult-
Oh wait there he went. He was already still naked, so his clothes didn't need to explode off again or anything like that. He just grew the... required 'party gear.' And with that, he was ready to stand still and not lift a finger...
...Right? He could still keep it without doing anything?
The lead Chomp barked several times to his face. But he remained doing nothing. Just barely, based on how it felt like he was losing the power already.
The dog- no, definite hellhound- sniffed him.
And then it ran away, wimpering.
"Wow." Luigi said.
"What? That dog is LITERALLY afraid of nothing!" Iggy complained. "I- oh wait the pound said he was afraid of nothing. Maybe they were literal? Hm." He shrugged. "Kind of an odd thing to mention... or even know about."
"Is that a power of-" He began.
"No." Replied Esmeralda. "This 'Iggy' enemy is just being weird."
"Very well!" Iggy shouted, spinning his rod around. "I'll just fight you myself! Magic Wand! Crush him!"
He shot some yellow glowing 'dust' from his wand, which soon generated a Thwomp above Luigi.
Thwomps, in this universe, are simply giant spikey stone balls. So, one of those generic things was spawned above Luigi.
He stayed still. Shut his brain off, even.
And before it could even start falling, the stone sphere just split in half. But both halves remained floating in the air. Then they started spinning, spinning...
Also he was in his weird naked outfit thing. That godawful thing. He had transformed without him even realizing it.
So both of the halves of the spiked ball were tossed at Iggy like shuriken, knocking him off of his metal platform and sending him flying outside of his castle arena completely.
"D... did I win?" He asked.
Well the Chain Chomp was still around, so to him it felt like that answer was 'no.'
"Um." Luigi said. "What about that?"
Esmeralda ran up next to him.
"Ignore that, you're almost done! All you need to do is break that bottle!"
So, he... did. He cautiously approached the bottle.
"Just do what you did to mine!" Said Esmeralda. "Take the wand and break the bottle!"
Luigi nodded-
Apparently that one little nod was enough to break his Power Over Nothing spell? He once again lost his weird transformation and was left there stark naked. Oh well, two Sprixie Princesses saved, five more to go.
"Hi there!" The one with yellow hair said between sniffles. "Th-thank you for saving me! But..."
"Hm?" Esmeralda asked her.
"My... my desert! My desert! That jerk with the dog ruined it!"
"How?" Luigi asked her. Oh yeah, and he used Iggy's want to break the bottle too. It was about time, anyway. Just dealing with a bit of a distraction with... everything, kept him from doing that slightly sooner.
"He... planted litter! Graffiti! Oh, it's just terrible!" She fell to her knees and started crying her eyes out.
"...Well, this is a step below having to fend off a hellhound... and I'm exhausted from using my gun..." said Esmeralda. "We could take a break and take some time off of storming castles to help with your land."
Luigi nodded. "Oh, and what's your name?"
"Esmeralda didn't already tell you?" Luigi shook his head. "Well, I'm Aurea. P-P-Princess of the... Sand Island..." She started sobbing again.
"D-don't cry!" Esmeralda told her. "We'll fix the island!"
"It's not just the island! It's... also not most of the island. It's a part that borders the island and the sea! It's the hot spring!"
Esmeralda turned to Luigi with wide eyes. "We have hot springs on every island. Especially the Spring Island, where Rubina rules."
"Come on!" Aurea not-so-patiently started waving her arm to get the other two to come over. "Follow me! I'll show you! I need to show you!"
Oh boy. The hot spring was a total mess.
Holes in the walls. Thankfully, since it was an outdoors hot spring, there was no need to worry about a ceiling- wait, no, Aurea told Luigi there was supposed to be a ceiling, those little splinters being all that remained of it. Well, except for the giant pile of wood in the empty tub. And was that shit? ...No, it was just mud. Okay, good. Muddy sands were also through the place. And... pyramid stone. Well, not like the usual pyramids from the Mushroom Kingdom. They looked more like parts of those pyramid-shaped stone things Luigi saw in the distance on the island. Still, kind of weird coincidence how much it resembled the deserts of his home.
Esmeralda was wide-eyed. "WOW. Our hot spring over at the Grass Island isn't NEARLY this bad..."
"I KNOW!" Aurea started crying her eyes out.
"You can use mine hot spring for-"
"You of ALL PEOPLE should know how our spring business works!" Aurea banged her fists on the nearest wall - causing it to fall over. She immediately gasped after that. "Oh! Well... let's get to work... sorry."
Actually, Esmeralda and Aurea did most of the work. Not that Luigi didn't try to help - it's just, well, they had the power to pull tools out from thin air. Whenever he went somewhere, one of the two already had a wrench or hammer in hand. They would suggest that he go somewhere else, just to find the other there instead.
He did manage to find a way to help, though. His vacuum cleaner-
What the heck Luigi suddenly had a vacuum cleaner. He wasn't sure where it came from, but it was there. And right behind him, up against the corner of the room. He 'knew' it was 'his' because it even had a sticker with a specific green 'L' on it. Unless...
"Is this... your vacuum cleaner?" Luigi asked EsmeraLda. Hey, yes, it was a reach, but still. Green and she had one L in her name.
"No... it's yours! Right? The Power of Nothing must have felt that this would be your Tool."
"...Okay? But I wasn't in-"
"It works in mysterious ways. That's why it's so hard to understand. And no, I don't understand it myself."
Well, Luigi shrugged. It was time to get vacuuming, he supposed.
"Wait!" Said Esmeralda. "Turn on the vacuum... but don't do anything with it! Just stand still! Maybe the Power of Nothing will enhance it!"
Luigi nodded. Just wait... wait...
The vacuum suddenly went overboard. It nearly knocked Luigi off his feet - heck, he wasn't even in his naked party mode. Well, he was still naked, but that was besides the point.
It sucked up all the grime, the good news. The bad news was that it also threatened to suck up Esmeralda and Aurea. It didn't... but it did suck up all of what little could be called their 'clothes.'
"Um-uh- OFF! OFF!" Luigi shouted.
He just kind of did a dance in place - hey, that had to count as 'doing something,' right? Well, it turned out it did, the vacuum did in fact ceased fire, falling over. 'Harmless.'
Aurea shrieked.
"EEEK! I'M NAKED!"
"...I thought you were already." No, Luigi wasn't being snarky - he genuinely thought that.
"That sand made ALL the difference! It at least covered my nipples!"
"Uh-"
"MY NIPPLES, LUIGI! NIIIIIIIPPLESSSSSSS!" She burst in to tears again.
"It's okay! If it helps, I didn't see anything!"
"YOU WEREN'T LOOKING AT ME BECAUSE YOU THINK I'M UGLY?! IS IT BECAUSE YOU LIKE ESMERALDA MORE?!"
"What?! Don't you... two look the same?"
"Oh we do?" Aurea halted her crying.
"...Besides your hair and your- uh... 'clothes?'"
The two princesses looked at each other, silent. From there, one could hear a pin drop, as their eyes slowly moved to scan each other. Up and down.
"Oh yeah, you have a point." Said Aurea.
They both donned the same puzzled expression and put their hands to their hips, almost looking like mirror images of each other. Apart from, again, the hair.
"Aren't you two sisters?"
"No."
"But... you're the Princesses..."
"Yeah, of different regions. Our kingdom is divided in to seven regions. Or, was, until that monster took over Rubina's place, the luxurious Spring Island, turning it in to a boiling castle-"
Esmeralda stopped that explanation because the story got to Aurea, making her cry yet again.
"PLEASE! IT'S TOO TRAUMATIZING! STOP!" She cried out. Esmeralda patted her on the shoulder a couple of times. "I MISS SPRING ISLAND!"
"It's okay, it's okay..." She said.
"I'm sorry!" Luigi added. "I didn't mean to-"
"Just keep cleaning! With your new vacuum! It's okay!" Esmeralda told him.
"AND DO IT WITH THE POWER OF THE NOTHING!" Aurea added while still bawling, which of course Luigi took objection to.
"Wh- why?!"
"It's fast!"
"But dangerous!"
Aurea paused to think that over.
"Okay." She said with a shrug. "You don't have to if you don't want to."
"...So do you two want to put on some clothes?" Luigi asked.
"We have no time!" Esmeralda said. "The next leader, Azure, will have some for us once we reach the Ice Island."
"Um... okay." Luigi said nervously. He didn't even know where to look. "But cleaning the-"
"Cleaning the hot spring is important!"
"But shouldn't you have time to get clothes if...-" He trailed out. Luigi was doubting that what he said even made sense. To them, or even to him.
"Clothes are very hard to find in this world, I don't know how common they were back in your old one."
Okay, that made sense at least. Good to have something cleared up.
Cleanup was a bit uneventful after that. But immediately after that, once the water was going,
"Want to soak with us?"
Luigi paused. And he shrugged.
If they insisted it was something important... he could use a break.
...
The 'soak' was pretty relaxing. Luigi found it... odd that in spite of the three of them having a lot of space, the two princesses seemed to love being to the sides of him. And leaning back and moaning a lot. With their skin getting flushed.
Yeah Luigi was coughing a storm to try to signal to them - well, to try to tell them something. Unexpectedly, that just accomplished - if it even did that - Aurea putting her arm around his shoulder and looking him in the eyes. He thought it was also unusual, just moments ago they were complaining about losing their clothes, yet in the same room... sharing a bath with the exact same person even... eh, whatever.
"You know, literally every single other person I have ever met has not been able to make me feel like not crying a lot. But then I met you, and knew you for three hours. Already, from those three hours, I can tell that you are not like anybody else in either my world or yours, that I know nothing about. You are special, Luigi."
"Um... thanks?"
"Hhhmmmmm...!" She said.
It sounded suggestive as all hell.
"I-I'm feeling a little uncomfortable!"
Both of the sprite women stopped.
They looked like they genuinely had no idea whatsoever on how to react to that.
"...Esmeralda, should we back up?" Aurea asked.
"I think we should?" Esmeralda replied. "But I don't know..."
"Yeah you two should." Luigi himself said.
They did, but slowly, as if they still could not grasp the idea of the discomfort they were giving.
...Anyway.
So, they were out and got 'dressed.' Well, as 'dressed' as they could be, since two of them were still missing their clothes and it was 'only' over on the next island, and the third at best just kind of donned whatever towel was abound. He... at least had that.
So Aurea finally made a clear pipe over to what, from the extreme distance, already looked like a cold location - well Luigi was used to going from one extreme environment to another. Hell, he even once had an interstellar vacation over on this place called the 'Freezeflame Galaxy,' an entire galaxy mostly made up of icey regions and lava regions near each other - and they were off. And it wasn't like it was a big surprise or anything, after all he heard the name 'Ice Island' and everything...
...Oh wait. Icy location? And he was still naked?!
Oh NO!
Luigi already shivered pre-emptively, but he had something else on his mind, right before he'd freeze over there.
"Hey..." he asked. "Aurea, do you have a gun too?"
Both of the Princesses took out a gun of theirs from their bizarre hammerspaces.
"Yeah." Aurea said calmly. "Of course."
Anyway the two Princesses for some reason all squished themselves in to the pipe with Luigi, all three of them together even though they could have just gone one at a time.
It wasn't comfortable.
Closing AN:
If there's one line I do not want to become a meme it's "MY NIPPLES, LUIGI! NIIIIIIIPLESSSSSSS!"
Yeah this may sound hypocritical but while I'm fine with sex/body part humor I'd rather not go overboard with it, I will cut back if people get super creepy about it. (Not on having people run around naked. On sex/boob jokes specifically. It's possible to write naked characters without fixating on their bodies at all. That's in like almost all of what I write. Joy Roy might be the one exception to me "cutting back" since it's... well, supposed to be ultra over-the-top and fucked up and unashamed and not holding back anything.)
By the way if you're wondering how I characterize each Princess, it's based on the expression/mood they have in their Stamps. I mean, they have absolutely no character otherwise. And either way they're pretty much OCs.
Finally, sorry to say, but this is going on a hiatus now, I've already put myself under way too many projects that I try to work on daily right now so I'm doing a bit of a "cleanup" and this is early on the list. I am still genuinely enjoying writing this, it's just that it's a pretty low priority compared to my Terraria stuff and fixing up Run: .GIFocalypse (Rebooted but once my rewriting is done I'll just make that "the" RG and the old version will be subtitled Prototype). If I can finally finish a chapter of RG before the 9/22 of a given date I might get back to my "smaller" side stories and stuff.
