Chapter 2

Eggs for Lunch

"So… how bad is it?" Maria asked, trying not to let worry creep into her voice. It hadn't been that hard to board the wrecked ship, considering how it had run aground. And up close in the engine room she could see just how bad the damage was. Pipes were twisted and torn, boilers had ruptured, and wires lay exposed and dead.

"I think you can tell." The Captain said. He sighed.

"Can it be fixed?"

"The damaged parts… eventually." He said. "But..."

He gestured towards a crystalline tank, which was completely shattered.

"The Power Moons." Maria said.

"Yeah. Without a power source like that, we're not going anywhere."

Maria sank to her knees, the reality of the situation starting to come crashing down on her. She was shipwrecked. She had been shipwrecked, and stranded on some island she had never even heard of.

"C-can we call for help?"

"Well..." The Captain said.

"That's a no, I guess."

"Ordinarily we would… but all the lightning strikes took out our comms."

"And I can't find my DS Comm." She said. And even if she could, it most likely would be busted too. She knew she should have sprung for the DSiPhone.

"On the bright side, we have plenty of food and supplies, and that's not counting what some of the cargo was. We won't go hungry for a long time."

"Yeah." Maria forced herself to her feet. Things were bad. Shipwrecked, and possibly stranded in a strange land. Even worse, there was no means of calling for help or worse, letting her family and Pauline know that she was alive. But she wasn't going to let herself be consumed by despair. And for that, she had to be doing something.

"What do you know about this island?" Maria asked.

"Well, archipelago." The Captain corrected. "Not much, truth be told. Never made port here."

"So, it's possible that there might be people here who can help us?"

"Entirely possible."

"Well then..."

And that was why Maria was currently trudging her way through the jungle, on the lookout for any signs of civilization. She had been walking for a little under an hour and so far, she hadn't encountered much of anything more than a couple Fuzzies that had dropped out of a nearby tree in an attempt to ambush her.

Maria was more than capable of defending herself by her estimate, and she had sent the bloodsucking creeps flying with a few well placed punches and kicks. Only after the brief fight did it occur to her that she might have been able to question them, but try as she might she couldn't find the creatures again.

As a mixed blessing, beyond that there was merely the omnipresent sounds of wildlife. Birds, monkeys, and bugs. There were abundant fruit trees, and with her leaping skills, it was a trivial matter to retrieve them, adding the (very delicious, Maria had noted) produce to the food supplies she had taken with her from the ship.

And so it was that eventually, after further walking, she emerged from the treeline, to notice what appeared to be an actual dirt road. At this, her mood soared. Something like that definitely meant people of some sort. Meaning she only had to follow it.

Picking a direction at random, she headed east, following the dirt road, as the sun began to reach midday. Thankfully, the jungle wasn't too hot, and even out of the treeline, there was still plenty of shade, meaning her journey was a pleasant one. She was grateful for the thick boots she favored wearing, drying out quickly and comfortable to boot.

After a little longer walking, she noticed something.

Buildings.

"Bingo!" Maria stated. She quickened her pace to a run, only to slow down once the structures came into view.

The town looked to be abandoned, or more accurately, ransacked.

"What the hell?" Maria looked about. The place was a ghost town, with broken windows and damaged buildings. No smoke drifted from any of the chimneys. Fences had been knocked down as well.

"Hello?" Maria called out, to no answer. She approached a house, seeing the mailbox knocked over and smashed. On the bent metal she could make out an the word 'Yoshi'.

"A Yoshi village huh. Guess that's why it's called Dinosaur Land." Really, that should have been obvious.

Maria had had some history with the Yoshi's. At least according to her parents as she had apparently been a baby at the time and thus remembered nothing.

Regardless, something had happened to the Yoshi's here. Shouldering her pack, she again quickened her pace. There were footprints, a lot of them, that looked kinda recent, heading off back into the jungle. What exactly had happened here. She continued her eastward journey, following the road. As she traveled, she began to hear the sound of voices.

She sped up again as she approached a clearing, only to immediately come to a halt at what she saw. A large squad of humanoid figures. The primary thing that set them apart form humans were their pointed ears, sharp claws, and reptilian tails. Many of them wore red shelled cuirasses, marking them as Koopas.

The Koopa's formed a ring around three figures. Two were Yoshis, one green, the other red, while the third was another Koopa, this one with green hair. Unlike the others, this one wore a fine green dress cut low to show off her (very ample, Maria noted) cleavage. Also, unlike her fellow Koopas, she wore a spiked shell affixed to her back and carried a scepter with a gemstone affixed to the top. Clearly she was proficient in magic.

She adjusted her glasses as she leaned in closer to the captive Yoshi's.

"I'll ask you again, one last time. Where is the Yellow Palace?" She asked.

The two little dinosaurs shook their heads, looking more confused than anything.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Mother will be disappointed, even though I've basically exhausted all leads." The green-haired Koopa then looked over the two Yoshis before focusing on the red one. A creepy grin settle along her face, while the light struck her glasses in a way to give them an unsettling glint. "Nonetheless, I may yet gain some worth. There are things I still want to know about you Yoshis."

The Koopaling raised her scepter and there was a flash of light and suddenly, the red Yoshi was encased in an egg. The Koopaling gestured, and the egg was levitated into the air.

"What of the other one, Lady Iggy?" One of the Koopa Troopa's asked.

"I'm more interested in the red Yoshis at the moment. Put the green one to work or whatever. I'm headed back to the fortress." There was another flash, and 'Iggy' was gone, along with the red egg. There was the sudden sound of rotor blades and Maria looked up to see that Iggy was now perched inside something that looked like a flying cup with a clown face. The flying clown car quickly took off heading north, it's pilot cackling as she flew.

Stunned by what the entire scene had just witnessed, Maria cursed herself for not acting sooner. Regardless, no sense in not making up for lost time.

As the Koopas closed in on the cowering Yoshi, Maria leaped into action. Bursting out from her hiding place, she slammed both her feet into one of the Koopas, sending him sprawling to the ground and ejecting him from his shell armor.

With a spin she kicked the now vacant shell square into the face of another Koopa before turning and punching a third Koopa, sending him flying before continuing towards the next Koopa, bringing both fists down on his head, squarely knocking him out.

By then, the remaining four Koopa's had registered that they were now under attack and were moving to engage, though it wouldn't help them.

When one charged, Maria leaped into the air over him, bringing both feet down, once again ejecting him from his shell. As she landed, she picked up the shell and hurled it, slamming into one Koopa and bowling him over. The shell then continued to smash into the Koopa behind him.

The last Koopa paused for a moment in confusion, which was all the time Maria needed to dash forwards and slam her fist directly into his face, sending him flying to slam into the trunk of a tree.

With all the enemies either unconscious or groaning on the ground, Maria leaned over to catch her breath, before moving to the soldier's former victim.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

The Yoshi said nothing, staring in shock.

"Don't worry, it's going to be-"

"Here! It came from over here!"

"Oh crap!" Maria heard the sound of multiple footsteps. More Troopas were converging on their location. Maria thought she had taken them all out but it looked like there were more waiting in the wings.

She dropped into a fighting stance once more, though her odds were starting to look daunting as she counted the number of Koopa Troopa silhouettes stumbling through the trees. She considered herself fairly decent fighter, having faced off a variety of monsters and threats, but even she didn't like her odds against what appeared to be an army.

As the enemies emerged from the surrounding forest, Maria prepared to fight, only to be caught off guard when a long tongue extended into her vision, attaching to a red Koopa shell.

Maria turned to see Yoshi swallow the shell, only to the puff out his cheeks before exhaling a barrage of fireballs.

The fireballs streaked towards the treeline, exploding into a blazing conflagration that formed a wall of fire between the advancing Koopas and their quarry. Maria recoiled from the wave of heat that washed over her.

"Whoa!" However, this time, her shock didn't last long. She turned to Yoshi. "We really should go. That probably won't hold them for long."

Yoshi nodded, and the two of them took off to the north, the Koopas in hot pursuit.

~Dragonexx