You know I should be working on homework… sigh, oh well.
Oh, college. I am not your slave.
…
Chapter two: The chapter in which something is being plotted.
Fawful couldn't let Kamek get too far ahead of him, that was certain. If Kamek found the tracking device and took it off, or otherwise lost it, then Fawful would need to be close enough to catch up.
But Kamek was surely expecting to be followed. Kamek wasn't stupid, and Fawful knew that the old Magikoopa would be keeping an eye out for him. He had to keep a safe distance. He had to convince Kamek that he was not being tailed.
So Fawful waited a day. That was plenty enough time for Kamek to return to Bowser's castle and start working on whatever scheme he had planned. And Kamek would look behind his shoulder expecting to see a red-cloaked figure duck behind a tree as he looked, but there wouldn't be anything there. He'd expect to look out his window at night and see a pair of spiraled glasses peeking in, but that would not be the case.
So in the meantime, Fawful quickly put together a sound bug. Just knowing where Kamek was wasn't going to reveal his plot. No, Fawful needed to listen in on his conversations, he needed to find out who he was associating with and what treachery he was planning.
As he finished his working, Fawful glanced over at the readout on the tracker. He realized that Kamek wasn't going to Bowser's castle at all.
Fawful put aside his machinery and pulled a map from a nearby shelf. He laid it out on the table and searched for the coordinates that were on the readout; he found that Kamek was heading to the middle of nowhere.
More proof, Fawful figured. If Kamek had been telling the truth, he'd be home by now.
Fawful stood up and made his way to a closet. He threw open its door and looked over the contents. The closet was filled with various machines, gadgets and doo-dads, the product of him having little else to do but work by himself in the darkness of his shop. He looked longingly at his Headgear, atop the highest shelf. He couldn't use it. Here in the Mushroom Kingdom no one ever remembered his face, but they remembered the Headgear. Whenever he went out with it he found himself being chased by the police—but without it he was unnoticed, just a face in the crowd. It had become a burden to him; when once it had been the penultimate in villainous convenience, now it just got him into trouble.
Reluctantly, he reached instead for a small jetpack, one that could be hidden under his cloak so as not to attract attention. He also grabbed a few other things, shoved them into the pouch on his belt, and then holstered his FuryZAP 9000 on his belt. Grabbing the tracker and the map, he put up his hood and left his shop.
It was dark out, and the waning gibbous moon hung in the sky. Kamek had been flying on his broom all night. He was completely lost.
He touched down in the middle of a grassy field, sitting on the ground with a sigh. He materialized his crystal ball and glared at it as it floated above the damp grass. He looked for a clue, something to tell him which direction to go.
"Stupid piece of glass," he groaned, standing up again and stretching. He kicked the ball, which moved back from the force but then bobbed back into the place he had left it in. "Why can't you ever tell me anything useful?"
He looked around, squinting through thick spectacles at the darkness. His crystal ball had told him his destination was somewhere around here before it had gone silent again, but the exact location he didn't know. It was too dark out now, and he couldn't find it on his own. He was irritated. He had wanted to find the place before sunrise. These sorts of things are best done at night.
He sat back down at his crystal. He grabbed it and put his face close to it, hissing to it as though it were a living thing: "I need to know where this place is, and I need to know now. You will tell me, or I will melt you down and make you into a set of drinking glasses."
The light in the crystal shifted. Kamek frowned.
"There's no need for obscenities," he said. "Just a direction'll do."
The sun was rising by the time Fawful closed in on Kamek. He saw Kamek exiting a run-down house in the middle of nowhere, and he landed himself quietly on the building's roof. He hid behind a chimney as Kamek flew off and away, undetected by the tired-looking Magikoopa.
When Kamek was out of sight Fawful flew down to the ground and, looking around to make sure there wasn't anyone lying in ambush to attack him, he stepped into the building.
He looked around inside. It was a dilapidated wreck. He took a few tentative steps inside, the floorboards creaking under his feet as he proceeded. He walked from the foyer into some room whose apparent function was lost upon the removal of its furniture. He stopped. Something didn't feel right.
He was being watched.
He whirled around, pulling his FuryZAP 9000 from his belt and pointing it at his stalkers. He found, trailing him, a group of three Boos. They hid their faces and froze as he looked upon them.
Fawful grimaced. He hated ghosts. He swallowed a lump in his throat.
"I am seeing what is transpiring here," he said.
Still holding the laser tightly, he started to circle around the group, never taking his eyes off of them for a second. They didn't dare move while being looked upon. "This is being a house of haunting," Fawful observed, "Likely full of many powers of mysticalness, yes? Yes, I am seeing. Kamek had the casting of spells and curses against me here, did he not?"
The Boos floated there silently, not making a sound. Fawful gritted his teeth. Stupid unresponsive Boos. "I had the asking of you a question! Be answering—the one who is Kamek had casting spells, yes?"
"N-no," said the Boo in the back of the group.
"No?" repeated Fawful.
"He didn't cast anything," the Boo explained.
"They why did he have visiting this place of darkness and unpleasant?"
"Can't say," said a different Boo.
"I would say that you can," Fawful said, irked. "I am not seeing tape covering the mouths which you speak with. In facting I am thinking that ghosts such as yourselves lack the tangibility that would be allowing tape to adhere so I have certainty that you are indeed being able to say."
"We're not supposed to tell," said the third Boo.
"Why is this?"
"Can't say that either," the second Boo said.
Fawful groaned. "I have frustration."
"Then maybe you should leave," the second Boo said, a clear tone of malice present.
"I had coming here to get answers," argued Fawful.
"Well you aren't gonna get any," the third Boo said.
"Perhaps I should have forcing answers from you."
"And how are you gonna do that?" Asked the third Boo, confident that this little Bean was not capable of harming them.
Fawful faltered. How did one harm a ghost? Surely there had to be some way to do it. However, he was pretty certain that lasers were not the way to go, and therefore he had no means of coercing these specters into talking.
He started backing out of the room, still facing the Boos. He knew better than to turn his back. "I will be returning," he assured them shakily, "And you will have the regretting."
Once he had put enough distance between himself and the Boos and was confident that they wouldn't catch up with him, he turned around and dashed to the door, exiting and slamming the door behind.
The Boos watched him leave, smiling fanged grins. Once he was out, they looked to each other.
"So that's the one, then?" said the first Boo.
The second Boo bobbed as a sort of nod. "Seems like."
"He doesn't look nearly as dangerous as the Magikoopa said," the third said. "Old man must be losing his mind."
"Oh well," said the second, "None of our business, right?"
"Certainly hope not," said the first.
The three Boos all shrugged their spectral nub-arms and returned to the darkness of the house.