No Such Thing
Chapter 17 - Amnesia Part II
So in the last chapter of "No Such Thing", we found out that Bowser's minions have been brainwashed literally during the last sentence of the entire chapter (minus the Author's Note). That being said, those of you who were confounded, being brainwashed would be the answer to everything. Yes, the enemies of Mario are downright dumb in the games, but they were never this low in intelligence.
Let's see how things will go from here.
~KF
Flashback
"...Gervase... The kids... What are we gonna do? I want to help them!"
Gervase and the other worker of Bowsesr, Brinkley, were currently standing outside of the castle, watching it slowly going down in flames. About ten minutes ago, they were both inside the castle sleeping. The next thing they knew, they were suddenly forcing themselves out of bed and hurrying out the castle as the alarm went off.
The alarm typically sounded throughout the entire castle; it was used for drills for everyone so that they could practice escaping the castle quickly and carefully. They were supposed to do the drill every month, yet they stopped doing so a long time ago, mainly because that other than Mario showing up (and that itself had a different procedure), no major event occurred in the castle to give them a reason to leave.
Despite this, obviously the alarm had to be set off. No one knew who pulled the alarm, but everyone in the castle was aware that it was a major emergency. However, the problem was that almost none of the minions knew the cause of the catastrophe in the first place. The only thing that could come to mind was that somehow, someway, a fire got started, and people were spreading rumors that it started near King Koopa's room, which of course was the worst fear to everybody.
Yet, the absolute worst part about the situation was the fact that not many people knew about Kamek, Kammy, and the Koopalings' whereabouts, which did anything but make the big predicament any better.
As of now, Gervase and Brinkley were standing near the front of the castle after escaping through a couple of the emergency exits, yet they were somewhat of an even farther distance away from most of their fellow minions that were outside so it would not be as crowded. At that point, they were staring at the front doorway, looking for any sign of the Koopalings, but none of them appeared. The two even witnessed a few of Bowser's henchmen heading back inside the castle in search of them.
"Me too, Brinkley." Gervase finally responded. "The only thing we could do is be optimistic and hope that they are alright. I hope somebody called the fire department."
"I would sure punch someone in the face if no one thought about it." Brinkley said in a frustrated tone. "The only reason why I didn't do it is because of me not knowing where my phone is."
"Same here." Gervase nodded. "That can't be the same case for literally every other minion in the castle. ...I hope..."
"...Hey... hey..." He slapped his shoulder a few times to get his attention. "...A lot of them are heading back in the castle now... What?"
"...But why, though? Somebody has to stay out here... And they are more people going in then they are escaping the castle..." Gervase raised an invisible before looking at Brinkley. "We need to walk closer. We're not going in, though."
"Yeah, 'cause we're not stupid like they are..."
"...Also, I think there's only like... five percent of us out here... Where is everybody?"
By the time they got near the front doorway, only a few other minions besides them remained outside the castle, who were in all sorts of confusion. Suddenly, their eyes widened as a couple of the Goombas were running as fast as their 'legs' could tolerate as they were outside once again.
"Don't go in there!" One of them warned.
"What's going on?" A ParaTroopa asked.
"...I don't know! We need to do something! We gotta go somewhere!"
Right after that statement, a huge roar was sounded within the castle. Brinkley finally lost his patience and went to see what was going on himself, completely contradicting himself after commenting on the stupidity of Bowser's henchmen.
"BRINKLEY, WAIT!" Gervase held his hand out.
End Flashback
"I went back in the castle for like, ten seconds only to run right back outside." Gervase continued his explanation. "But during those couple seconds, I saw Brinkley lying on the floor unconscious. For some reason, there was purple smoke in the castle, and that somehow told me to cover my nose. In spite of that though, I knew I had to get back out before it could become any worse for me."
Ludwig, Mario, Peach, Brinkley, and the doctor from before were completely shook. His big explanation not only explained everything that was wrong with Bowser Koopa's minions, but also the fact that they finally learned the reason to why every last one of them seemingly vanished in the first place. It sounded absurd of course, but thinking it through, it all made sense.
"...How come you weren't brainwashed?" Peach asked.
"Like I said, I covered my nose, and like those two Goombas, I quickly retreated back outside." He repeated. "My question for you, Ludwig, is that at what point did you get out the castle and how did you all exit?"
"We decided to leave through one of the back doors. We thought it was easier to get too and figured that it was going to be crowded near the front." He explained. "I also think that we were the first to leave the castle."
"Then that would explain why you never saw us at least one time on your way out..." Gervase guessed.
"That was probably it." Ludwig nodded. "Morton of all people was the very first person to notice father acting rather strange. The only reason why I woke up was because of him. Speaking of Morton, since we had to get to my airship to leave immediately, he really wanted us to stay for some more time in case you guys would show up. But in the end, with only so much time on our hands, we just took off and flew away."
"Wait a minute..." Mario was trying his best to think everything through. It was obvious since he hung his head down several times during Gervase's story, and even now. "You told me that Bowser was chasing you all throughout the castle, but then after listening to Gervase, it sounded like Bowser was near the front doorway. That's the only way that they heard him roar, and that was the only reason on why some of the minions went back inside."
"Hmm..." Ludwig started to think as well. "...That's a good thought right there. ...My only guess is that he thought we were all going to exit through the front door, but we changed directions. We did lose track of him at one point after all."
"...And then he tried to poison you all with the gas..." Gervase thought out loud. "But since you guys escaped, it was when Bowser gave up and try to use us against you guys instead."
"Um... Hello!?" Brinkley suddenly shouted from the hospital bed with his hands in the air. "Did you all forget that I still exist!?"
Just then, another nurse, this time a female Goomba, walked into the open door, despite knocking it on it before she came in. Looking at the eldest son of Bowser, she knew she came to the right room. "Ludwig, two of your siblings are outside."
She looked at her with slight confusion. "Oh?"
"We should go." Peach said before looking at Gervase. "Are you going to come with us?"
"No." He shook his head with his arms folded. "I wish I could, but for now I'm gonna stay here with Brinkley for a little while and try to get more of his memory back. But when he gets cleared, I guess the best thing to do is to head for your castle."
She nodded in understanding. "I think that's the best idea. Quite a few of Bowser's henchmen are there after all."
He raised an invisible eyebrow. "Really?"
"They were trying to kidnap the Koopalings after they targeted Peach's castle." Mario explained. "Maybe with you coming there at some point would be a great help. Are there any more of you out there that haven't been brainwashed?"
"...That is what I've been asking myself ever since I came here after hearing is where Brinkley was." Gervase answered. "After I left out of the castle, I walked all the way to the fire department on foot and explained everything. No one called 555-Koopa after all."
"...?"
"It's the emergency number." Ludwig replied.
"Oh."
"Yes." Gervase nodded. "I've been all over the Dark Lands looking for the Koopalings, but after hearing of their whereabouts, that's when I decided to come here in case some of my co-workers showed up. And there's quite a few here, but all of them are completely unaware of what's going on right now."
"Well alright, then." Mario concluded, turning around to face the others. "We're leaving now, and when we get outside, we'll find out what's going on, and go from there."
By the time Ludwig, Mario, and Peach returned outside, they ended up finding some victims arguing with the employees of the hospital on why they were running out of room. However, what confused the three was the paparazzi being at the scene. Not that they were surprised, but Mario thought they had the worst timing ever.
"...Okay, if cameras and reporters are gonna be here, the least they can do is step back a bit..." Mario rolled his eyes. "I already have to deal with this at Peach's castle all the time. I have to deal with them here as well?"
As they carefully navigated through the crowd in search of Ludwig's siblings, they ignored every reporter that stood in their way, trying to get an answer from them. By the time they got to the two siblings, who were Iggy and Larry, they realized that they were also accompanied by Yoshi who was with them.
With Mario motioning the three, they all ended up heading back inside the hospital and walked for a bit until they ended up stopping in front of a gift shop as they asked security to control the paparazzi outside for their own sake, and the victims.
"Okay..." Ludwig sighed, finally getting a break from the chaos that occurred outside. "What are you two doing here?"
"We thought that you were all taking too long, so we decided to come here ourselves to see what's up." Larry explained.
"Is everything okay?" Iggy asked.
"Everything is fine." Peach assured him. "But we did find out some important information..."
"What do you mean?"
It took at least five minutes for Ludwig, Mario, and Peach to explain what they had discovered at Brinkley's hospital room. When the final words were explained, to no one's surprise, it was more than a lot to take in.
"...I can't believe this..." Larry burried his face in his hands. "If we would have waited like Morton said, we would've done something..."
Iggy formed a glare. "What can we do? Get Kamek? We still don't know where he is. He could be anywhere in the Dark Lands."
"Then, what about here?" Larry cocked his head to the side. "It would actually make sense. Some of the minions are here after all. I won't be surprised if Kammy is here, too."
"No, if that were the case, we would have found out a long time ago." Iggy shook his head. "Ludwig, Mario, and Peach would have found out the second they got here. They're not here."
Ludwig sighed thinking about them. "For all we know, they could be brainwashed, too. Nobody found them on father's ship. We don't even know of their status..."
"But," Mario raised a finger wanting to change the subject. "what I would like to know is the reason to why Yoshi's here."
"We brought him here because he wanted to see if he could help with the victims from Dinosaur Land." Iggy answered.
"(I asked around to see if I could do anything outside, but all they told me was that they were going to send some of them to another hospital here.)" Yoshi explained. "(Every time I turned around, there were so many people helping out each of the victims of Dinosaur Land)."
"Why didn't you just go back to Dinosaur Land?" Ludwig raised an eyebrow.
"(I wanted to check here first to see how things were going in case if it was too much for them to handle.)" He answered. "(But, I was just getting ready to leave because Dinosaur Land is obviously a bigger problem. Besides, I wanted to ask if Mario could come with me, anyway.)"
"I'll be glad to come." Mario quickly nodded. "You always helped me whenever I needed you to do something all the time. It's about time to return the favor."
Iggy and Larry simple blinked while Ludwig rolled his eyes. All three of them knew what he was referring to, but they shook it off since they knew it was irrelevant to the main situation.
The italian plumber turned to the Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom. "I guess we're all separating."
"I guess so." She nodded before shifting her head back to the Koopalings. "Now that you three are together, what are you all gonna do?"
"...Hmm..." Ludwig had to think. "I guess since these two are both here, I might as well take Iggy and Larry back to Brinkley's room so that they could see for themselves. They might need to talk to Gervase, too, since he might head for your castle."
"Okay, so that's that, I guess."
Alright, so next time it seems that this fic is gonna head to a new location (for now at least). It's about time it visits a new area other than the Dark Lands and the Mushroom Kingdom. And since we're already 17 chapters in, I figure that it's long overdue.
Now that we finally have the answer from the chaos of Bowser's minions, now it's time to think about the places Bowser/Dry Bowser is attacking again. Since it's going to be about Dinosaur Land, it's going to be the main topic for the following questions. But before I ask, I'm officially announcing an upcoming oneshot about the eldest Koopaling himself, Ludwig Von Koopa. It sort of relates to this fic, but in a way it doesn't.
More will be said about it soon.
Questions:
1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how chaotic do you think Dinosaur Land is gonna be? Clearly it's not gonna be a 1. lol
2. Do you think that Kamek and Kammy are still missing, or are they possibly brainwashed like most of Bowser's minions?
3. What will Yoshi's reaction be when he heads back to Dinosaur Land?
I encourage everyone to review.