CHAPTER 20: Ticking Time Bomb
The road to Bowser's castle was long and treacherous, filled with Bowser's koopa minions and huge bottomless chasms. Other notable sights included floating flashing blocks and giant pipes sticking out of the ground, not to mention visible faces on nearly every hill and cloud in the distance.
The minions themselves were quite varied as well - stout, waddling evil mushrooms, koopas with brightly-colored shells and optional wings, plants with huge jaws dwelling in the various pipes...
And that was just the first stretch of road.
Applejack bucked a koopa shell, tumbling a line of goombas like bowling pins before jumping over a pit out of the way of a piranha plant fireball. Luigi did his best to hang on tight. "Whew... This sure is a freaky place..." Applejack commented.
"I don't think it's so bad," said Hailstorm between rounds of teleporting (thanks to Sera) in between parakoopas and kicking them out of the sky. "This is kind of fun, actually."
Luigi and Applejack soon found themselves cornered at a wall and a pipe by many ground-based enemies. "Easy for you to say..." Luigi whined. "You can-a fly AND teleport..."
A Shadow Ball shot from the sky. The group of monsters was telekinetically crowded closer together, allowing the projectile to blast all of them at once. "Would you care to switch mounts with me, then?" Sera asked.
"Yes-a please... No offense, Apple-a-jack."
"None taken, pardner."
There was no sound but the hum of the Tornado's engines as Tails patiently piloted his airplane once again towards Angel Island. Sonic took his usual spot on the wing, and the second seat was instead filled by their newly acquired acquaintance, Astra.
"So..." Tails said after a while, breaking the silence. "Astra, was it? You say you've never seen Blah before yesterday?"
"Not at all..." Astra answered simply.
"It's kinda funny, 'cause you two look alike. Almost like he's your brother or something."
"Hmm..." she replied distantly, glancing at the passing ocean.
"...IS he?" Tails glanced back at her for a moment.
"I... don't remember having a brother," Astra stated.
Tails paused for a moment. "You don't remember, huh?" he repeated. He glanced at Sonic, who was shuffling impatiently on the wing, and noticed that he could not hear his and Astra's conversation over the noise of the plane and the wind. "Interesting way to put it. So what DO you remember, then?"
"I don't know who my real mother and father are..." Astra continued hesitantly. "I was told that my parents went their separate ways shortly after I was born, and that my mother went off into space... and unable to take care of me alone, my father put me in a foster home."
"And you were never visited by either of them?" Tails asked sympathetically.
"No..." Astra sighed. "I've been trying to figure out who my parents are for as long as I can remember. And when I met Blah, I felt a strange... connection to him. I might be a bit hasty, but he seems like the closest thing I have to family right now."
"Hey Tails!" Sonic shouted over the wind, interrupting Tails' thoughts on the matter. "Is it me or is this taking longer than usual?"
Tails squinted ahead. He had gone out a few miles from the shore of the mainland, and usually by then they would have at least seen Angel Island...
"Uh... that's odd..." Tails looked all over the place. He made the trip to the island so many times that he almost never got lost on the way, and now he was over the middle of the ocean without a landmark in sight.
"I figured this might happen..." Astra muttered.
"What?" Tails spoke, barely hearing her.
"When the Master Emerald... 'changed' a while ago, I knew it wouldn't be long before someone figured out how to tap into its hidden powers."
"What are you talking about? Hidden powers?" Even Sonic was listening closely now.
"The Emerald keeps the island from crashing into the ocean. And that's only the beginning of the control it has over that landmass..."
"You don't mean..."
"Yes. Blah is literally piloting the island."
"THIS is Bowser's castle? It seems a bit... anticlimactic."
Hailstorm stood in front of the entrance to the small miniature castle in front of the giant flagpole marking a checkpoint along the road. In front of them was a green pipe extending into the ground, accessible from ground level.
"No, this is just-a... actually, I never could figure out what-a these were for."
Sera blinked herself and Applejack safely down from the giant staircase leading up to the flagpole, joining Hail and Luigi.
"Whew!" sighed Applejack. "This ain't no hillside picnic, that's for sure..."
"And that was only the first-a level!" Luigi stated. "Next stop: the Underground! Let's-a go!" Luigi headed straight for the pipe.
"Um... do we really HAVE to go underground?" questioned Hail. "Can't we just keep going... in the air?"
"Well, er..." Luigi sheepishly looked at his feet. "I don't-a know how else to get there."
Silence.
"All I know is, go in-a the pipe, jump around underground for a while, then come up-a the other side."
Silence.
"I mean, when me and-a Mario first took this road, I kinda... fell down in-a the pipe and he had to go in after, and then later we just-a decided to stick with what we knew and all that."
Silence.
"It's actually kinda fun to sli-"
"You know what," Hail interrupted with a facehoof. "Fine. Let's just take the pipe."
"Yaaay!" Luigi jumped into the air, did a front-flip, and dropped into the pipe feet-first. Applejack shrugged and dove into the pipe herself, followed closely behind by Sera. Hailstorm sighed and followed suit.
The pipe clanked and quivered as the four slid down it, although none of them were colliding with the sides. Luigi raised an eyebrow, but before he could say anything, a wall came down and blocked the passage, revealing a detour which Luigi, and soon the others, were helplessly forced to take.
"I don't-a remember this pipe having a detour...!" cried Luigi.
"What?" shouted Hail in an outrage. "Then where are we going?"
"You nubs just don't know when to give up, do you?" The voice, reverberating throughout the pipe, was cold and monotone.
"Who said that?" panicked Hail.
"There's only one way to get a nub off your back for good... Kill them."
The pipe was starting to get warmer the further they slid. There was a sickening red glow at the end of the ride, and Luigi could barely make out a pool of molten lava approaching fast.
"Wah! L-l-lava!" Luigi exclaimed as he pressed himself against the sides of the pipe to try and slow down, but the metal was so hot that it burned him through his gloves, causing him to retract his arms. "Owowow! HELP!"
Hail tried to flap his wings, but there wasn't enough room in the enclosed space to fly. Applejack was struggling just to keep herself from getting burned.
Sera was surprisingly calm. "Grab onto Applejack. I can get us out of here."
Applejack heard Sera's thought and extended her hooves in both directions, gritting her teeth through the burning. Hailstorm managed to clamp onto her right rear leg with his two forelegs. Luigi frantically clawed backwards at the mare's front hooves, but he was too far ahead to reach.
"C'mon, Luigi... you can do it!" grunted Applejack.
"I... I c-can't...!" Luigi was on the brink of tears.
The end of the line was almost here. The four of them were moments away from plunging into the boiling liquid. The heat was intense, but Sera concentrated as hard as she could. Luigi began to fall ever-so-slightly slower... and just when his feet had left the pipe, he finally clasped his hand around Applejack's hoof.
In the following split second, Hailstorm caught a glimpse of a yellow shape on a small platform in the chamber, upon which two small emotionless dots glared at him with a longing hatred the likes of which he had never felt before. He had seen quite a few sinister sights in his adventures as of late, but this one took the cake. It was as if he was staring into the face of wrath itself.
Sera wasted no more time in utilizing her escape plan. All four of them disappeared from the chamber in a flash.
When they awakened, they were in a calm, hilly field. Everyone but Sera flopped over simultaneously, nursing their more serious burns.
"That was a close one..." uttered Luigi. "This-a never happened to me before..."
"Well, at least everypony's all right," Applejack breathed.
"...Say, uh... Where are we?" Luigi asked.
"It was the quickest teleport I could muster," Sera explained, "and so we're in the area with which I am the most familiar. The Sinnoh Region. Route 215, to be exact. My former home."
Luigi was caught up in the ambiance of the relatively peaceful area, but his enjoyment of the place was interrupted by the earth pony's voice. "...uh, Hailstorm?"
Applejack was regrettably ready to take back what she said earlier - the pegasus pony hadn't moved since the teleport. His eyes were wide open, and his entire body was numb.
"He's going to destroy everything..." Hail whispered, twitching.
"Wh-who is?" Luigi listened to Hail closely, mirroring his fear.
"There will be nothing left... and there's nothing we can do..."
"What are y'all talkin' about?" Applejack demanded, becoming a little nervous herself.
"I've seen it... The murderous look in his eyes... The raw power and will behind it..."
"Who or what are we dealing with?" Sera added. "Please, tell us."
Hail's voice grew so soft that he barely muttered his next word. "Trank."
Applejack and Luigi exchanged skeptical glances... but Sera felt a horrid chill slither down her spine. The name brought to the surface a vision that she had only faintly seen while probing through Blah's unconscious mind. It had always been there, a ticking time bomb planted within the wall, just out of sight. A bomb that brought with it huge balls of fire raining from the sky, the very earth splitting to its core, and the unavoidable death of every living thing in this Frankenstein of a universe.
This vision had persisted strongly in the back of Blah's, and now Sera's mind, and had only now become vivid.
An apocalypse was steadily approaching that would bring down not one, but eight worlds.
And thus marks the end of the first 20 chapters I had written before the upload, and I'm not even halfway done, ahaha. The rest of the chapters will come as they are completed. Once again, every review helps, whether short or long, good or bad. See you next time!