Here, have an update. You deserve it for being such good boys and girls. 8L
Chapter 28: The Voice of Fate
Another egg rocketed at Kammy Koopa, aimed low enough to force her to sidestep and increasing the distance between her and her dropped wand. Without it, she was helpless against Broshi's severe barrage. The egg shower continued; as one hit, this left the frightened witch open for more to follow and allowed Broshi to traverse the distance between them. Leaping over a muddle of broken eggshells, the orange avenger slammed his foot right into the koopa's large hooked nose, sending her careening into the nearest support pillar with enough force to nearly crack the structure in half. Without missing a beat, Broshi followed in her wake to stomp down on her again and clock her repeatedly.
As much as he wanted to help, Bowser could not take his eyes off of the violent train wreck of Broshi's bloodlust. And, neither could Astra.
Blah, on the other hand, took the opportunity to slip around and snatch up Kammy's wand unnoticed, making a beeline for the dungeon.
The halls were unsurprisingly barren; those among Bowser's minions who weren't knocked out by any of the heroes had already abandoned the premises, their fear for their lives managing to exceed their fear of Bowser. All that was left was a hall of barred cells, many of which were empty, save for a few containing skeletons of their former inhabitants. Blah shuddered at the thought of literally rotting away in a dungeon cell.
Several cells and dry bones later, as soon as Blah began to note that Bowser had seriously misjudged the amount of prisoners he would be holding in them at any given time, he finally found some signs of life within the cells. A shimmering magical barrier covered the doors of a handful of them, and amazingly, a half dozen koopa guards waited there for something to happen, blissfully unaware of the carnage occuring on the other end of the castle.
Blah was also met with the sight of 8 of his friends and allies behind those guards, barriers, and bars; namely, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Twilight, Applejack, Hailstorm, Seraphina, and for some reason, Don Patch. Most of them noticed him instantly (except Don, who was busy spraying graffiti on the walls of the cell), including the guards.
The guards begin charging him, denying him sufficient time to ready his lance. Blah instinctively pointed the wand down the hall, firing a light ray of various geometric shapes in their direction. One of the guards held his spear longways, somehow deflecting the attack. 'Ack, shoulda figured they'd know how to counter their own weaponry,' Blah thought as he narrowly avoided a stab to his torso. He countered with a kick, sending the nearest guard onto his shell and forcing those behind him to stop before they tripped over him.
This gave Blah enough time to produce his Phaselance. He counter-charged, kicking the downed koopa and sending his shell spiraling in the others' direction. The two that weren't bowled over were immediately run through by the lance. There were now four guards laying helplessly on their backs, not counting the two that were dead.
Blah shifted back to his wand and blasted each of the barriers in turn, shattering them and leaving only the bars. Within a few seconds, Twilight had already unlocked all of the doors using her own magic, and it didn't take long for Peach to be in Mario's arms, and a tear-soaked Luigi joining them shortly. Sera promptly blinked on top of Hailstorm, and Don practically rolled out of his cell. Applejack greeted Twilight with a high hoof, which she completed hastily as she had something else on her mind.
"Did you really have to kill those guards?!" Twilight questioned as everyone followed Blah down the hall.
"I can't help it if my lance is stronger than a turtle shell," Blah responded casually.
"Didn't you make that lance in the first place?" Hailstorm added.
"Oh come on, I didn't save you guys to have a debate about ethics," Blah griped. "Can't I at least get a 'thank you'?"
"There'll be plenty of time for that when we get out of this castle," Twilight dissented.
"I'm an airplane! Whoosh!" Don exclaimed, his arms sticking straight out as he ran.
The nine of them entered the throne room once again. Kammy was nowhere in sight, but a newly demolished window gave Blah a pretty good idea of where she was. Broshi, just as enraged as ever, had shifted his attention to Bowser, who was covered in numerous dark bruises where Yoshi limbs had been moments before. Astra simply sat against the wall, watching transfixedly.
As soon as Bowser caught sight of the freed prisoners, he squeaked out a barely audible "you've gotta be kidding me" as Broshi continued to knock him around like a bulky ragdoll.
"Hey," called Blah, "Broshi, calm down, we're done here." He held up Kammy's wand. "We can turn her back to normal."
Broshi turned his head mid-punch, noticing everyone for the first time and ceasing his merciless rampage, giving Bowser some time to catch his breath. The Koopa King was far too weak to move by this point.
"Goodness, what happened here?" asked Princess Peach, taken aback by the scene of a Yoshi single-handedly subduing Bowser inside a thoroughly trashed throne room.
"A good ol' fashioned beatdown, I reckon," answered Applejack with a slight chuckle.
Blah walked up to Bowser, waving the wand in his face. "All right, tubby, how do I use this thing to transform people?"
"Heck if I know," the villain grumbled, "I'm not a Magikoopa."
Broshi and Blah exchanged troubled glances before rushing over to the window and looking down. All that existed beneath it was a bubbling lava moat.
Blah looked back at the violet block, then at Twilight. "Well, Twilight, you're an expert of magic."
"You never told us what happened," she refuted. "I can't exactly help you if I don't know what's going on."
"Oh, right," Blah paused. "Well basically, there was this magikoopa that transformed one of our Yoshis into this block, which made Broshi here so angry that he beat her up and apparently sent her through the window and into the lava."
"...so from what I gather," Hailstorm spoke up, "you went and boiled the only one who could fix what got you so angry in the first place?"
Broshi looked down.
"You know, for such a 'cool' Yoshi, you seem to have trouble thinking straight through heavy emotion..." Blah scolded. "...but you can't really blame the guy. His girlfriend had just been saved from a mortal wound and they were having an intimate moment. Who would interrupt such a thing, honestly?"
"Er, h-how intimate are we talking-a here?" Luigi's voice poked through the crowd from the back, warranting stares from nearly every other person in the room.
"Enough to make an old, ugly, single hag jealous," Blah answered dully. "Anyway, we've talked about this enough. We defeated Bowser and Trank, you guys are free, let's just go so we can move on to more important things. And maybe we can figure this block thing out when we get back. One moment." Blah hopped down through the hole in the floor and quickly reclaimed his hammer from under a bookshelf, failing to notice that whatever was left of Trank had disappeared somewhere along the line.
As Blah returned to the upper floor, Astra stood up and stretched. "Well, alright then..."
"How are you guys for teleporting?" Blah asked Twilight and Seraphina.
"I'm not sure," Twilight said. "I've never transported this many bodies at once before."
"As long as everyone is making physical contact with me, numbers do not matter," Sera chimed in.
"Okay, good enough. Everyone, crowd around!" Blah called, as he approached Sera.
"This is going to be awkward..." muttered Hailstorm as he reluctantly placed a hoof on Sera's shoulder.
"Hay, y'all," Applejack asserted, "Why can't we just split into halves, let Twi handle one half and Sera the other?"
"Works for me!" Hailstorm flew over Sera and everyone else, landing next to Twilight. "I call shotgun!"
"How does he even know what shotgun means...?" Blah mumbled.
The large group was split arbitrarily down the middle, including the blocky Violet. Broshi remained by her side.
Don Patch headed for the exit. "Don't worry about me guys," he said with a wave, "I was just here for the free food anyway. Turtle soup is delicious!"
There were varying looks of disgust and shock amongst the crowd. "Haha, just messing with ya!" laughed Don as he left. "Later!"
"I will never fully understand him," commented Blah, shaking his head.
"Will you just get out of here already?" Bowser roared impatiently from the ground.
"Fine, whatever, jeez. Sera, Twilight, make with the teleporting." Blah seemed to be a bit more impatient than usual as well. Sera hesitantly complied, followed by Twilight, and the castle was pretty much empty once again.
"I need a vacation..." groaned Bowser.
As soon as the heroes poofed back into Ponyville, they were met with many relieved citizens happy to see that the plan went down smoothly. Pinkie had already planned out a congratulatory party, which everyone politely turned down. There was far too much to discuss. The gang decided to meet back at the library for a party of their own - a knowledge-exchanging and strategy-buliding party.
"Alright," began Blah, removing his damaged armor and putting it away. "By now, we've all had run-ins with Trank... too bad I was so busy trying to get the upper hand that I couldn't squeeze any information out of him. Anyone find out anything?"
Sera was quick to the draw. "The moment we met face-to-face with Trank, I noticed that one of the eight disturbances of chaos was coming directly from him."
"Hang on," Twilight interrupted, "are you implying that the Jewel of Universe was contained within Trank?"
"Oh, crap," Blah interjected, scratching his head. "I forgot all about those jewels... but I totally dominated Trank back there, surely that broke the jewel?"
"Excuse me..." Peach uttered, a look of total confusion on her face, "but what's a 'jewel of universe'?"
"Basically these gems that are patching the universes together and if we break them something good will probably happen," Blah quickly explained, garnering concerned looks from her and the Mario brothers.
"If I had to guess," Hailstorm added, "I'd say Trank and Bowser teamed up so that Trank could better protect himself, if he does have the jewel, and help Bowser snag Peach in return... but it didn't work out so well for either of them in the end, hehe!"
"I am not sure about that one," Sera continued. "I can still detect eight distinct points. The jewel still exists."
"No way," Blah voiced skeptically. "I poked a huge hole in him and shoved a bomb in it. There's no way he could've survived that."
"Seems like it'd take a lot more than that to break a jewel that binds an entire dimension," Twilight countered. "We may not have access to that kind of power yet."
"Well, I guess that's what Sburb is for, then," Blah concluded. "We'll acquire power through questing and fighting minions, then use the loot to create more powerful weaponry and such. Chances are, that's how we were meant to fix the universes anyway."
"Yoshi..." muttered the restless Broshi, leaning against his cubic girlfriend.
"Oh, right, before we get into anything too world-changing..." Blah glanced at the bookshelves lining the walls of the library. "Got anything on transformation magic?"
"Doubtful," Twilight answered, pulling out a few books with her telekinesis and flipping quickly through them. "Transformation is one of the more... equivocal branches of magic. Hardly anypony's practiced it, due to how dangerous it can be."
Blah cringed slightly at the mention of the word "anypony" but he decided not to say anything about it this time. "Well, let me know if you ever come up with anything," Blah sighed. "I should work on getting this session together. Oh, and Sera," he added, turning towards the Abra, "Give Peach and the plumbers a lift home, wouldja? They've got enough to worry about as it is."
"Affirmative." Sera, in one smooth motion, teleported on top of Mario's head, grabbing Peach and Luigi's shoulders, and the four of them disappeared before anything more could be said. Sera reappeared a few seconds later on Blah's piggyback.
"Shoot, y'all make it look so easy," Applejack complimented, still startled by Sera's skills.
"It is what we are born doing," dismissed the Pokemon.
"Alright, Hail, I want you to go back to your house, wherever it is," Blah commanded. "You'll need it - yes, your entire house - for the game. I'll send you a computer as soon as I can get a hold of one."
"Hang on," cut in Hailstorm, "I never agreed to-"
"Astra," Blah continued, "I take it you have a residence of some kind? Hopefully a computer as well?"
"Of course," she nodded.
"Sera, where did you take up residence before we met?"
"I had no permanent dwelling when I lived among the wild," she explained, "but I know of an abandoned shack in the woods. Will that suffice?"
"Well enough, I think," Blah confirmed. "So yeah, first order of business is to get accomodatedDragon into the medium - what is her real name, if I might ask?"
"Bellia," replied Astra.
"Hmm, that sounds kind of familiar..." muttered Blah. "But, they all do nowadays. Anyway, you'll be her server player. I'll let you recruit your other friend to be your server, then Hailstorm can serve them I guess, I'll serve Hail, and Sera can serve me."
"I still don't know what any of this means..." Hailstorm was becoming quite anxious at Blah's seemingly haphazard use of him in his plans.
"And then, we'll need an eighth player, cause Skaia doesn't do odd numbers to my knowledge, and also there are 8 jewels so it makes sense. But who..." Blah rubbed his chin.
"I'd offer to fill the position," Twilight spoke up, "but I get the feeling you'll be needing me elsewhere. Besides, I don't know the first thing about computers."
"Neither do I..." Hail reminded everyone.
"I think, since all of the other players that I know of are original characters created by or relating to me, the final player has to be one too," Blah deduced. "...which is really weird now that I think about it. Seriously, what's up with that? I can think of a hundred people in this dimension that would be better suited than HIM..." he thumbed at Hail behind his back.
"I'm right here, you know!" he shouted. "And I still haven't agreed to this!"
"Who else do you know of that fits that description?" asked Sera.
"...Yo." Everyone looked over at Broshi, whose volunteering arm was in the air. "Yoshi."
"Hah! Why didn't I think of that sooner?" Blah beamed. "Sweet, I'm going to play Sburb with a Yoshi... and a pony, and an Abra, and apparently a dragon, and my twin sister that I never had... I'm going to alchemize so much stuff... gonna go God Tier and totally wreck everything... I bet I'm a space player... a knight, even!" Blah seemed to be rambling to himself now, forgetting that anyone else was in the room.
"Is he always like this?" Twilight asked as Blah continued to babble in the background, telling his entire adventure as if it already happened.
"There is never any telling how he will act next," Sera admitted. "There is occasionally a cloud of darkness surrounding his conscious that I cannot read him through."
"Yeah, there's pretty much no way I'm sticking around," Hailstorm dismissed himself. "I don't care if he's the hero. I won't be his game slave. When he comes to, tell him he can find somepony - or someBODY else." He emphasized the second-to-last syllable out of spite and flew out of the window, leaving everyone but Blah to stare.
"Hm. Come to think of it, I am rather skeptical as to why Blah wants him in particular to play." Sera blinked on top of one of the bookshelves, laying down in thought. "If it's a matter of repairing the universes, would he not want 8 of the most experienced heroes among them?"
"From what I gathered..." Astra began, "...it's not even for us to decide. The game chooses its own players, as if by fate... after all, my two friends just so happened to stumble across it after visiting a strange, ancient temple... and my first meeting with him couldn't have been a coincidence, I mean look at the two of us... maybe Blah's right to be adamant about his ideas?"
Twilight sighed. "Well... I didn't used to believe in things like fate. Not before coming to Ponyville and meeting 5 ponies with whom I became the best of friends, and we saved the world from eternal darkness using the Elements of Harmony..." Applejack wore a proud smile. "So perhaps you're right. Fate is in the process of bringing the 8 of you together so that you can unite and become something greater than the sum of its parts, and restore all of our universes back to their original states. And we may never know why you were the chosen ones until the deed has already been done. I know, I felt the same way too at first, but all you have to do is put a little faith in your friends. All will fall into place in due time."
"Couldn'ta said it any better mahself," Applejack supported.
"...so you really think it's fate, huh?" Hailstorm re-entered the library through the same window. "As crazy as this all sounded, I still had a feeling there was a reason behind it. Blah may be strange, but since we did defeat that Eater of Worlds together, and he sure didn't let us down at the castle, I guess he can be trusted... Ok, I'll play."
"-then we'll take down an invincible demon with our alternate universe selves!" Blah stopped, suddenly having run out of things to say. "Wow, it's quiet in here..." he mumbled, acting as if the past 5 minutes never happened. "You guys look like something deep just went down. What's up?"
"Of course, that still doesn't make putting up with him easy," Hail said with a roll of his eyes.
}"It appears that Trank was bested in combat."{
|"Heh, like it matters! He still managed to buy us enough time to carry out the next part of the plan... in other words, my part!"|
}"I trust you remember what to do."{
|"Duh! I've been waiting for this moment ever since HE got here!"|
_"Good, 'cause if she didn't, we might have to explain it again! Gee, wouldn't that be convenient?"_
~"Convenient? For whom, if I may ask?"~
_"I'm not breaking the fourth wall! Jeez, get off my back about it!"_
~"What the devil are you talking-"~
}"Silence. This is the most crucial phase of the mission. We cannot afford to fool around now."{
|"I'm on my way, boss!"|
- spacefaringPioneer [SP] began pestering discotasticJubilation [DJ] at 8:09 -
SP: I know that you are probably busy...
SP: But we have urgent need of your assistance...
DJ: yo space dawg, DJ is not too busy and can totally help you out!
DJ: wassup! 8P
SP: I'm sure you've heard of the game that Reed and Bellia are playing?...
DJ: yeah sis, DJ hears they be havin a real party over there!
DJ: DJ been pestered now and then with some wicked status
DJ: this game sounds trippy man! 8O
SP: According to a new friend of mine, it is indeed trippy...
SP: Regardless, the game turned out to be much deeper than we thought...
SP: We need another player, and my new friend says that you are an excellent candidate...
DJ: yo, DJ's the greatest candidate for just about anything!
DJ: this mixmaster will rock your socks up and down the docks, bro! 8D
DJ: just what is the degree of depth we talkin here?
SP: Deep enough to be apocalyptic...
DJ: whoa man, talk about intense!
DJ: the world's end is just about the only thing that can stop the sweet strawberry jams from happenin
DJ: and you know DJ won't have none of that, so count him in dawg! 8P
SP: Awesome... Add desultoryMonarch to your chumroll and message him for further instructions...
DJ: you got it sis!
DJ: just remember that DJ works at his own pace
DJ: can't go foolin with the tempo of the sickest beats!
SP: Of course...
DJ: man why you always gotta be such a downer
DJ: them dots got me tied up in knots over here 8C
SP: It's just how I type... We've been over this...
DJ: doesn't mean you can't show a little emotion once in a while!...
DJ: gonna play a fresh game, gonna have a chill time~ 8D
DJ: just like old times, huh sis?
SP: I hope so...
SP: I'll talk to you later... I have to set things up on my end...
DJ: peace out dawg!
DJ: don't worry, be happy!
- spacefaringPioneer [SP] ceased pestering discotasticJubilation [DJ] -
and now, time for bed.
By the way, don't be afraid to review! Love it or hate it, I can't tell if I'm doing it right unless I get a bit of feedback once in a while. I may even be inspired to work faster and harder! ;L
this isn't begging I promise
god I'm tired it's like 4 AM and why am I still typing