No Such Thing

Chapter 18 - This Is My Home

Okay, so after so many chapters, we finally get to see Dinosaur Land, the first new location in this fic since the Mushroom Kingdom back in chapter whatever (too lazy to look back at the moment). I think there will be at least a couple chapters in Dinosaur Land so that we can see how chaotic it really is. I hope Yoshi doesn't have a mental breakdown at the sight of his homeland...

Speaking of the dinosaur, as you all are noticing, I've finally decided to have him speak in parentheses. I normally don't do this, but obviously it makes sense to do so. The only reason that I haven't done this before was because of the fact that I was so used to writing him in Smash, most of the fans decided to have him speak normally, as well as other characters such as Pikachu, Jigglypuff, etc. But since Smash is not Mario, things have to be different.

~KF

Dinosaur Land had disaster striking at almost every corner. There were people racing around everywhere, while others were either injured, or crying out desperately to get assistance from someone, even though help was not guaranteed to be of an immediate resource since there were only so many people with so much time on their hands. Nonetheless, it was obvious that this was already known to be the biggest disaster in Dinosaur Land of all time.

To make things even more uneasy for everyone involved, it was unknown if Dry Bowsesr Koopa was still in Dinosaur Land in search for the Koopalings, due to the fact that no one had seen the ship for quite some time. Was he hiding? Nonetheless, there were minions that were scattered around in attempt to attack some of the villagers in the city.

But, the absolute worst part of the whole catastrophe was that there were even forest fires spreading thanks to some of Bowser's ammunition. Sure, one would know that his only ammunition was canon fire, but since Bowser was now Dry Bowser, of course things just had to be different.

In one situation, a family of three were running as fast as possible to escape of the fire, knowing that time was not planning to be on their side for much longer.

The mother was pulling her two children along as she constantly shifted her head around in attempt to find a safe path so that it would be easier to escape the forest.

"Mommy, where's daddy?" Her six year old son explained as he glanced everywhere to see any sign of his father. "What if he's still out here?"

"I don't know, sweetie." She answered looking at him briefly. "We haven't seen him since we got here, but we don't have time to look for him. We need to have enough time to get out of here before the fire gets to us."

"But what if we get out of here and he's still in this forest?" Her seven year old daughter asked, tears already streaming down her face. "What are we gonna do?"

"...I don't know, sweetie..."

No more words were spoken as the three cave people carried on.

-/-

By the time Mario and Yoshi finally arrived at the scene, they wasted no time glancing at their surroundings. Judging by the multiple fires, people everywhere running for their lives, and cries for help and assistance, it was the perfect way to spell calamity. Mario himself did not pay a visit to Dinosaur Land for quite some time, yet he knew he did not have any desire to see it in its current state.

Yoshi on the other hand was extremely hurt on what his homeland had become. The dinosaur was used to it being peaceful for everyone. Now, it has become the dangerous place to visit due to one individual. He did not look sad on the outside, but obviously it was a completely different story on the inside. His heart shattered at the site of everything.

As he and the other hero stood together side-by-side. Mario placed a hand on his shoulder, to which the dinosaur shifted his head to the right to glance at him.

"Don't worry." He assured him. "Things may not get better overnight here, but that doesn't mean that it'll never will. I will make sure everyone does everything in their power to make things right here, the Mushroom Kingdom, and the Dark Lands."

"(I know)." Yoshi stared. "(It's just... This is my home... This is where I live... I've been here all my life and this is what it comes to... It just kills me inside... I'm not used to my home being like... I don't know...)"

"We will make it right." Mario nodded in understanding. "But we need to get to work. ...There are only two of us, but we've been through stuff before. ...I guess we should start with... Hey, why are some of Bowser's minions here?"

Yoshi nimbly swung his head around as well in all directions to see what the plumber was referring to. His eyes widened when he saw Goombas and Koopas heading in his direction. "(I hope this doesn't mean that Bowser is here himself...)"

"Yeah, just because his henchmen are here, doesn't mean their leader is." Mario shook his head. "He could have just dropped them off or something. But we don't have the time to fight right now, because we need to help as much people as possible. Let's get to it."

Back at the hospital in the Dark Lands, Gervase and Ludwig explained everything to Ignatius and Lawrence. It took them a while to process everything for obvious reasons, but in the end, they finally understood and got themselves together

"...Seriously..." Larry thought out loud. "...All I can say is that dad hasn't been this smart in years... He's almost never like this."

"He really hasn't..." Iggy shrugged. "First he tries to outsmart us, then causes so much harm to Dinosaur Land, and now he brainwashes his own henchmen just to get his way? What's next? Making sure the whole universe literally revolves around him?"

"Well, he tried something like that before..." Gervase noted. "A countless number of times as a matter of fact."

"...Okay, lemme put it like this: it's like he's trying to take over the entire dimension." Iggy glared at Bowser's employee. "Happy now?"

"The point is that there's going to be so much on our plate, we don't even know where to work at first." Ludwig explained. "We tried many times to come up with a good plan, but they're either pointless, or we end up having a bigger problem. It's very clear that we can't resolve this over night. I have no idea how long this is going to last."

"Ludwig's right." Larry sighed staring at the floor. "We might as well get used to it... Obviously we're not gonna get dad back anytime soon. We don't even know where he is exactly, first of all."

"I actually hope he's still in Dinosaur Land." Ludwig placed a thumb beneath his chin. "If he is anywhere else, and that includes here and the Mushroom Kingdom, we're in trouble. ...But even if he is still in Dinosaur Land, we're still in trouble..."

"...So we're losing no matter what?"

"That's right." Ludwig nodded. "Something tells me that we should head to Dinosaur Land ourselves. I don't know if it's the smartest thing to do, since I will not be surprised if it bites us in the butt later on, but Mario and Yoshi can't take care of the entire land themselves. Besides, we can't just sit up here all day. We have to do something."

Gervase looked at the nurse that was looking after Brinkley, who actually fell asleep during the explanation. "Are you almost done with him?"

"We just need to run a couple more tests and he'll be fine once we have the proper medication for him to take."

The eldest son of Bowser then turned to Gervase. "What's your plan?"

"I think once he's cleared, we should be heading for Peach's castle." He stated. "You three might as well come with us. Mario and Yoshi are in Dinosaur Land right now and if Bowser's still there and he finds out, then we're digging our own grave."

"I understand." Ludwig nodded in confirmation. "I was thinking of going to Yoshi's land, but now that I think about it, I don't want to risk father finding us and making everything worse for ourselves. We might as well just stay here until Brinkley is safe. I hope Lemmy, Roy, Wendy, Morton, and Jr. don't show up because it's really unnecessary."

"I'll contact Toadsworth and tell him to keep an eye on him." Peach said. "But, I don't think Mario and Yoshi can handle Dinosaur Land by just the two of them alone like you said. Do you guys think they need at least one more person? I can't go over there because I need to get back to my castle to watch over everyone. Besides, I need to keep my people updated on the situation, anyway."

"...Hmm... You have a valid point there, princess..." Ludwig stared below with a thumb beneath his chin to think. "I guess Luigi is the one who's looking over everything since you're not there. We might as well send him out."

"Why can't Gervase go?" Larry raised an invisible eyebrow.

"I can't go over there because if I end up... 'helping the enemy'," He used fingers to quote his words. "Bowser's going to find out and I'll be in deep trouble, since then he's gonna think that there's more of his minions that haven't been brainwashed. We don't need any more problems than we already have to face. Like Prince Ludwig said, if he follows him to Dinosaur Land, it could only mean disaster. If I was him going over to that place, it would be the absolute worst case scenario."

Meanwhile back in Dinosaur Land, Mario and Yoshi had successfully helped a number of victims of the great attack while making sure that they are all cared for before moving on to provide assistance to others that were affected. Although, it was the hardest part of their mission, since they could not help every last individual at once. Yet at the same time, the medical team, firefighters, and everyone else in between knew that they were a big help anyway for reasons that the people of Dinosaur Land were already aware of.

"Okay, this one has trouble breathing due to the smoke!" Mario shouted as he was with an old caveman who was trying his best to breathe properly. "I need the people who know CPR over here right now!"

With medics rushing to his side, Mario dashed over to another victim. Unlike the other caveman, his breathing was fine, yet he had his own problems. He had third degree burns on both of his arms and back. "This one has third degree burns over here!"

There were only so many people helping out so many victims at one time, they found it hard to manage even half of them, which was what made Mario decide to aid check on the ones that were not being taken care of by the emergency crew so that he could at least attempt to identify the problems each one of them had. Yoshi on the other hand was helping the firefighters control the fire with the best of their ability.

If one was interested enough to picture the level of chaos in his or head, one important to note was that Dinosaur Land had the population of around ten thousand, and almost no part of it was safe due to Bowser. To top it all off, literally every ambulance, every firetruck, and every police car played a role in the situation. Despite that, it was not even nearly enough to help the entirety of the land, even with Mario and Yoshi as stated previously.

All of a sudden, matters were even made worse for everyone involved. Mario, Yoshi, and everyone else who were assisting the victims happened to be near by a street of all places. Traffic was passing through a four-way intersection, with each person driving a motor vehicle going once he or she was given the chance. However, when a bus had the green light, when it attempted to go through an intersection, two more cars came by, with each of them being driven by a Sledge Bro, and a regular Koopa.

Both purposefully crashed their vehicles into the bus.

Okay, now it's the right time for me to apologize for not uploading on Tuesday. The reason on that being that I have written a Ludwig oneshot entitled "Second Father?", and I've wanted to post this at the same time. But since it took me a while to think of an idea for my first oneshot for the oldest son of Bowser, this chapter was delayed by a few days.

So now that said oneshot is out, feel free to check it out if you want! Byt anyway...

Questions:

1. Think about Yoshi for a moment. How would you feel if the ones place you were raised from is suddenly in a similar state of Dinosaur Land, knowing that it was all you have for... say your childhood for example.

2. Do you think Bowser is still in Dinosaur Land? Why or why not?

3. ...What just happened? Out of nowhere a bus is crashed into. What in the name of the Star Spirits is that deranged Koopa doing now?

I encourage all Yoshi fans to review!