Perfect Dark and the Thousand Year Door.
By HARTride 2012
A/N: I sincerely apologize for the very long delay in posting another chapter. I have been swamped with school and work that I have had no time or motivation to get my stories completed. In September, I vowed to myself to put out at least one more chapter around the new year, so here it is!
Before I go into the chapter, I want to point out a couple of things. First, some of you may ask why Mario isn't in this story. The story is set in the times of Perfect Dark (after the events of Perfect Dark on N64), thus the setting and characters are all from PD. Now, some of my favorite PMTYD characters do make it into this story, but mainly because they have fallen through a strange warp that sent them to Earth. These characters are living in desolate areas of Rogueport (or outside Rogueport) in order to stay away from the rest of society.
The second thing I want to point out is that the dragons of PMTYD will NOT appear in this crossover. They will be replaced by another character (whom I will not mention here because I don't want to spoil the story).
For those who have reviewed on my stories so far, THANK YOU! I really appreciate the constructive comments! Now, on with the story!
Disclaimer: This fictional story is a crossover between Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and the Perfect Dark series. I have no affiliation whatsoever with either series and any characters from either series that are mentioned, I do not own. Any references to any real-life events, past, present, and future are completely coincidental, and asterisked characters in the character list are copyrighted and cannot be used for any reason in any other story.
Chapter 3 – The briefing
Joanna Dark arrived ten minutes earlier than expected to Daniel Carrington's office. The star red-haired agent of the Carrington Institute hated being called into Carrington's office at such short notice. However, she fully understood the many reasons why she would be called into his office like this. As Joanna opened the door to Carrington's office, she was pushed to the floor. "Hey! What gives?" shouted Joanna, wondering who pushed her down. "Sorry sis" said Velvet, trying to pick herself back up, "I tripped over my shoe". Joanna let out a sigh of relief, knowing that it wasn't a Skedar that had bumped into her. As soon as she regained her balance, Velvet reached out to Joanna and pulled her back up. Carrington glared at the two with a stern look, "You two have to be careful. The floors just got cleaned this morning" said the old man, who sat at the head of a long glass top table. "Let's go in" whispered Velvet to her sister, motioning Joanna to go into Carrington's office. Once the two were seated, the two agents realized that this wasn't just any kind of meeting…it was a mission.
"We're currently waiting for the others to get here. You two are actually the first to arrive" said Carrington, reaching out his hand. "Oooooh! Hershey's Kisses!" said Velvet, snatching two pieces out of Carrington's hand, "Thanks Daniel! You're awesome!" Carrington nodded to the blonde agent and then reached out to Joanna. "No thank you" said Joanna, "I've actually eaten a bit ago". As Carrington put away the chocolates, he heard a thump at the door. "Come in" said the old man, standing up to greet the next guest. As the door opened, Joanna and Velvet turned to see who was about to enter. A few seconds later, a rather short, grey creature walked in. His arms were very thin but his head was as huge as four footballs combined (well, maybe not that big, but still pretty big).
As the creature strolled into the office, he shook his head, which were complimented by sunglasses shading his eyes. "ELVIS!" shouted Joanna and Velvet simultaneously. "AHHHHHHH!" shouted the grey creature as he was trampled by the two agents. Carrington shook his head in dismay as the Maian was being kissed all over his face. "Settle down you three. This isn't a circus you know" said Carrington sternly, as he glanced back at his computer screen. "Sorry Daniel" said Joanna, "we're just so overjoyed to see Elvis." As the three stood back up, Velvet continued and said, "Yeah Daniel! We haven't seen Elvis in months. But it seems like years!" Carrington shook his head again, "I know, I know, but this is serious business that we have to get into in just a few moments. I'm just waiting for Troy and Helena to arrive and then…" Before Carrington could continue, two figures stood at the doorway; one an elegant African American lady with short, curly brown hair, the other a tall, lean, fit, blond man with looks by which any woman would die for. Not wanting to wait a minute longer, Carrington shouted, "Come in please. Let's get this briefing started."
"Okay everyone" said Carrington, "The reason why you all are here this morning is because last night, at around 22:45 hours, we received a plea for help from Cassandra deVries". As Carrington turned on the projector, everyone looked at the old man with a confused look, wondering how in the world Cassandra is involved. "Cassandra deVries?" asked Joanna, "Why would she be calling us for help?" Carrington looked back towards his agents, "Because her villa, which is located about 30 km north of London was attacked yesterday afternoon. She noted of a strange Alien craft that she had never seen before. Then strange small creatures came out of the ship and began to attack she said. I am going to play the call that we received from her last night."
Carrington struggled to turn the video on, but once he had everything in place, the video began to play. The lights in the office dimmed as projector screen turned to a dark background and a blond-haired woman staring into her camera. "Mr. Carrington, this is Cassandra deVries. Before you make any judgment or conclusion as to why I am calling you. Please listen to what I have to say. This is very important, so please listen. Earlier this afternoon, around 2pm, my villa was attacked by strange aliens. They crashed their ship in my courtyard, rocking the entire premises. The ship was like nothing I had seen before. It was shaped like a big X. Then the doors opened and little alien creatures came out and began to attack my bodyguards. They had to be about 3 feet tall, no taller than that. And their uniforms were red, with a big white X across their chests. And they carried laser guns and grenades. I only had seconds to escape, but my secretary….Veronica de la Cruz…I don't know what happened to her. I don't know if she was killed or if the aliens kidnapped her. I am too afraid to go back home because I don't want to be killed either. I really don't know why these aliens would want to attack my villa, but I suspect it has something to do with this map." Cassandra held up the glowing map to the screen. Everyone in the room was astonished, but confused at the same time. "Mr. Carrington, you and your team must take a look at this map. My secretary picked it up from some strange merchant in Rogueport about two or three weeks ago. This merchant said it holds powers. But I think it only holds misfortune. Perhaps your Maian friends can interpret what this map means. But please! Get it out of my hands so that these creatures don't track me down. Please Mr. Carrington! You must help! I need your help so badly that you would not even think of turning me down. Forget about what happened before for a moment and think about how much danger our world is in with these creatures! Who knows what they may be planning!" And then the video cut out.
When the projector turned off and the lights turned back on, all of the agents remained confused as ever. But Elvis seemed to recognize some of the details that Cassandra had given. Before Elvis could speak though, Carrington stood up and said, "I ask that you please not be intimidated by Cassandra. I did manage to speak to her this morning to confirm everything she said in the video. This is definitely something that we have to look into, as the fate of the world is at stake once more. Cassandra's team sent us the map and our researchers are looking into it as we speak. We also called in a Maian research team to help out and see if they can find anything from the map. Elvis, I see that you have something to say" Carrington's head turned to the Maian alien, who was jumping for attention. "Sorry about that Mr. Carrington, when Cassandra mentioned about the uniforms that the aliens were wearing, I realized that the description matched a specific alien race that we've been at battle with for many years. If I am indeed correct on this, the aliens that attacked Ms. deVries' villa were the X-Nauts, they come from the planet Xander, which is in our solar system. We were once in a battle with the X-Nauts for hundreds of years, just like the Skedar. However, when the Skedar began to attack Xander, the X-Nauts put everything aside and allowed us to help. The battle was very long, and excruciating, but we succeeded in the end. Unfortunately, the damage was done, and Xander was no longer inhabitable, so the X-Nauts needed to find a new home. We allowed them to stay in our planet for two years. Our king was very gracious to their then king, King Gluval. King Gluval was probably the best X-Naut king ever, because he unified the community during the Skedar attack and eventually came to terms with our relationship with them."
As Elvis continued his story, the expression on his face turned sour. The agents sensed that something bad had happened next. "Then" Elvis continued, "About 50 years ago, before you came into contact with us Mr. Carrington, King Gluval passed away from a terrible disease. His heir, Prince Baines was supposed to take over as King, and continue to gracious relationship that we had with him and the X-Nauts. However, King Gluval's top advisor, Sir Grodus, was very jealous and envious of the king and the prince. He wanted to lead the X-Naut nation back to their so called "Glory Days", and he would stop at nothing to achieve his ambitions. On the day the Prince Baines was supposed to have been officially crowned as King of the X-Nauts, Sir Grodus attempted to assassinate him, right there at the ceremony. Our teams did everything they could to kill off Sir Grodus, but he seemed to have everything planned out so strategically. He managed to disable many of our defenses and kidnap many of our guards. He and his team, as a result, managed to escape, without any trace of them at all. Prince Baines survived the attack, but the entire X-Naut community was on edge again. Nearly half of their population sided with Sir Grodus and began to find a new home, while the rest of the population remain on our planet. To this very day, Prince Baines, or I should say, King Baines, because he is the king, has been trying to track down Sir Grodus' location, with no success unfortunately. Now with this incident in play, we may just be able to finally find where Sir Grodus is located and what he is planning."
When Elvis finished, the other agents began to ask him questions about the X-Nauts. Joanna however, walked to the corner of Carrington's office and began to ponder to herself. Although Elvis' story about the X-Nauts was very intriguing to all of the agents, Joanna wondered about Sir Grodus' intentions. But more so, Jo wondered why Cassandra got the mysterious map in the first place. If the map was this mysterious, then why did Cassandra get it? How did she get it? There were so many questions running through Jo's mind that should could not focus on her next task. Then, Carrington walked up to her and asked, "What seems to be the problem Joanna?" Jo turned to the old man and replied, "If this map is so mysterious, and these X-Naut creatures want it so badly, then why did Cassandra get it?" Carrington shook his head, "I don't know Joanna. That is something that Cassandra did not tell me. Perhaps you should ask when you and the team see her later." "Later?" asked Joanna, in confusion, "Perhaps I should only say this once…" replied Carrington, wanting to get the attention of the other agents and Elvis. "May I have your attention please?" asked the old man, quieting any conversations that were going on at the moment, "Thank you. In about 40 minutes, you are to meet me in the hangar for departure. You all will be going to Cassandra's hideout, which is located just south of the London beltway, near Casanova Dr. There, you will gather any additional information and then travel with Cassandra to her villa in the north for further investigation. I will see you all in 40 minutes." Without another word, the agents began to leave Carrington's office in preparation for the mission. Joanna whispered to Velvet, "This is going to be a long one sis. Be ready." Velvet nodded, "I've been ready".
Let me know what you think about the story so far. I may have to revise a couple of the earlier chapters before I can add on to the story.
A/N: It may be a while before I get the next chapter (Chapter 4) going. It will describe Jo and her team's preparation for the mission and why Jon Steinberg will not be able to go with them.