Read the last chapter for why we are so, SO incredibly late. If there are any mistakes, please tell us! I wrote this AGES ago, so there's bound to be some stuff I'm not very proud of in here...
This chapter is written by yours truly, Catapily! Happy reading!
Chapter 3: Paint Pandemonium
As I watched Kirby dance around, happy with his returned powers, I thought for a bit. We should take a break. One day, two shadows. And this time a bomb almost blew up. I cleared my throat. "Maybe we should call it a night for today. First we fought Shadow Kirby, then we had to look for a bomb around the castle. I think we should continue tomorrow. If we keep continuing, the enemy might get a chance at spreading their legion." These Shadows are very... Creative, and troublesome.
I will, too, the voice nonchalantly replied. I flinched a bit. My chosen few are quite stupendous, aren't they?
"Good idea," Meta Knight agrees. "We cannot let the Shadows defeat us, or all will be lost."
"...You and Kirby can stay in my room," I continue. I loathe the idea of having my privacy taken away, but I cannot risk having inter-dimensional aliens being found out by my other siblings. Even if I hate some of my siblings, to a degree, I wouldn't like to find them hurt by a force that wasn't supposed to be here. "Wendy, do not, and I repeat, do not let anyone know of this. Understand?"
"Yeah..," she mumbles, and walked back to her room. Kirby just stood innocently. He almost looked like he was staring into my soul... I took the two to my room, luckily not running into any of my siblings, and then found two extra cots in my lab. I lay them out next to the wall, behind the area the door swings, just in case if my siblings decided to barge in. Kirby was bouncing on his cot happily. Meta Knight was apparently already getting ready for bed. Kirby opened his mouth, and I imagine he was gonna say, "poyo," but...
"Wait," I whisper, silencing Kirby, then lean against the door. I hear footsteps and... Splotching sound of liquid?
"What?" I open the door, to be met by multicoloured goop by my doorstep. I turn back into the room, and tell them, "wait here, I'll be back. Don't make very big noises, don't go beyond that door, and do not touch the piano."
I levitate over the goop, recognizing it as the paint that Bowser Jr. used at Isle Delfino, one vacation that our father did not take us to... You never know what Junior could've put in the goop. Now this is what annoys me right now. Me and Bowser Junior get the two rooms off to the side, so we're on opposite sides, which really bugs me, because this paint trail is leading directly to his room. I knock- I still have to retain some sense of formality.
"Bowser Junior, it's Ludwig," I say. It sounds weird saying my own name...
"Whaddya want?" Junior grumbles, opening the door a crack. "And why are you flying?"
"I'll answer that when you tell me why you sprayed the entire hallway full of goop?!" I angrily say, and swing the door open. I do not like it when everything is a mess. I also don't like Bowser Junior very much.
"...I didn't do that!" Junior exclaims. Oh, the little liar... But maybe it's one of the Shadows...
It could be my legion, or your siblings getting in your way, the voice replied. Your second-youngest sibling with the blue Mohawk knows about my Book of Malevolence, and soon enough, you will know the author, which is, yours truly.
I sigh. "...Just stay in your room and don't mess around, okay?"
"Why?" he asks.
"...I think Lemmy may have taken Iggy's poisonous paintball machine and then he made it gone haywire, either that or you," I lie. I would've believed that's what happened if the Shadows haven't arrived in this world.
"Mmkay," he says, then closed the door. I guess the third Shadow is Shadow Mario... But the first two also had the word "shadow" in their name... That was too easy to guess. I flew over to Wendy's room and knocked.
"Whaddya want?!" I hear her angrily yell from across her room behind the door. She never likes it when someone interrupts her when she's doing her... Stuff.
"It's me," I said. "Ludwig."
"Okay, so, I said, what do you want?!" Wendy yells- again. "I really wanna talk to my friends so get away from my door!"
"Get your Clown car and meet me by my room," I ordered. "Do not step out of your door."
"Why?! I wanted to-"
"Come take a look when your coming out," I order, then fly over to my room and open the door. I look over at Kirby, who is snoozing and somehow I has acquired a hat, and then I find Meta Knight perched by the window. I was about to ask him what he saw.
"I see a man traversing the courtyard with a paintbrush," Meta Knight said, as if he read my mind. How?! "I believe it may be a Shadow."
"It must be Shadow Mario," I reply. Then we hear a high-pitched scream.
"HELP ME!" We hear someone yell. Then I recognize it.
"It's Wendy!" I tell the two, then we come out of the room. Kirby almost steps into the paint, but Meta Knight pulls him back. Kirby puffs up and flies, and Meta Knight flies with his wings. We see Shadow Mario trap Wendy in a paintball net-like object, then he runs off into the corridor.
"After him!" Meta Knight commands, and we follow him. Since Kirby couldn't fly too fast, he grabbed onto Meta Knight's hand and held on. The paint trail then stopped near Kamek's room.
"He must be hiding somewhere..," Meta Knight mutters. "We must proceed quietly."
Something was off. Something felt very off in this area. I could feel it. The painting of one of my ancestors seems to stare at Kamek's door, rather than beyond it, as if something had altered its appearance. The magic felt corrupted beyond recognition, it almost didn't feel like magic. Meta Knight was about to take off into another hallway until I stopped him.
"Wait," I say, as he stopped in his tracks and walked back. This part of the hallway, beyond Kamek's room, was paint free, which is good. If there was no clues here, we could search on foot. My magic would run out if I kept on hovering for a long amount of time.
"What is it?" Meta Knight asks.
"This..," I mumble, looking above Kamek's door, "is not supposed to be here." I shot a blast of magic towards the silver plate, with words engraved, "Kamek's room." Then, a shot of magic came out of where the plate was, and embedded itself in the painting. It looked like a portal, the other side a mess of colours, the edges continuously swirling.
"Poyo!" Kirby says something- I have no idea what. "Poyotal!" Great job, captain poyobvious.
"Let's continue," Meta Knight urges us. "We must save Wendy and stop Shadow Mario!"
Kirby jumps through the portal first; then I look through the portal and see the pink puffball land face-first on the ground. Meta Knight follows, and helps him up, and I jump through last.
"I think we're in the main hall right now," I mumble. I point to the left. "If we keep going that way, we will reach the throne room." Meta Knight nods, then takes off. This time, we are aided by Wendy's constant screams for help, along with some paint splatters, which I am quite surprised that no one woke up yet...
Her screams leads us to the Throne Room, where guards stand, puzzled. There's also-
King Bowser Koopa, my father. The last person I want to see right now.
"BOWSER JUNIOR!" He yells. "Stop making the throne room dirty! Stop painting my picture! GET AWAY FROM THE THRONE!!"
Shadow Mario simply turns around and blows a raspberry towards him.
"HELP!" Wendy yells. "LUDWIG! META KNIGHT! KIRBY! SOMEONE!"
"Stop screaming," Iggy walked in. "I want to work on my new invention." Great, now they might know that Meta Knight and Kirby are here. I see Shadow Mario jump into the painting.
"See ya, suckers!" Shadow Mario sneered. The exact personality as my youngest brother. The voice doesn't really fit, though... It doesn't sound like Mario or Bowser Jr... It sounds more like a distorted cackle...
"Poyo!!" Kirby yells, then runs into the portal, me and Meta Knight following.
"Where is he?" I ask, looking around as we jumped out of a portal leading to the greenhouse. We followed the paint trail downstairs, back towards the throne room.
"He's trying to throw us off his trail!" Meta Knight shouted to us. "Conserve your energy!" Instead of heading straight towards the throne room, he took a detour, running in a circle towards the library, then jumping through a painting. This time, we ended up in me and Iggy's shared lab. Well, we have our separate ones, but sometimes we experiment together. This time, Shadow Mario shoved Wendy into a teleporter prototype that we were working on and teleported her somewhere, while he stayed behind, shooting globs of paint at us, before diving into the portal.
"Poyo!" Kirby, thinking fast, swallowed the paint globs and turned into a new form.
"That's Paint Kirby!" Meta Knight announces. We follow into the portal and end up in the hall of fame. Shadow Mario pulls down the painting of the first king, then paints all over it and hops in.
"Poyo poy!" Kirby yells, then runs in. This time, we land in a secluded hallway area near Bowser Junior's room, right beside some paint splatters. I also see him walking around the area, trying not to get dirty.
"Didn't I tell you to stay in your room?" I ask him just as he rounds the corner. Meta Knight pulls Kirby into his cape and teleports somewhere.
"I saw Shadow Mario," he tells me. "He dropped Wendy in my room, then left. Did you make a clone and you're chasing him down?"
"...yes," I say. "Do you know how to beat him? Or rather, you?" I feel stupid for asking my youngest brother this. He's going to torment me for days.
"You don't know?!" He exclaims. "Wow, the one time Mr. Egotistical Musi- never mind..." I silenced him with a glare. "Well, since I don't wanna clone of me running around and ruining all my paintings, you gotta spray him with water. And you're getting him out of my skin."
I smirk. "Of course."
"Why are you smirking?"
"You still left the room. You also said he wasn't doing anything other than getting Wendy and leave. So, you aren't supposed to be out here," I smirk. It's fun when you're the older brother.
"Um... I'm gonna go tell dad!" Bowser Jr. started walking away. I immediately frown. Being the favourite out of all of my siblings, Junior's way out of most problems is telling father.
"He got one of his paintings and his throne trashed. I don't think you want to be there. And he thinks you did it."
"You suck," he mutters, and walks back into his room. Meta Knight rounds the corner with Kirby in tow. He somehow procured a few bottles of water in the short time that I was talking to Junior. He tossed one to me. There was a tiny hole in the cap. Kirby transformed into Water Kirby by swallowing one whole. I'm surprised he didn't turn into Plastic Kirby.
"These will have to do as makeshift water guns," he tells me. "Unless if you have any."
"I do have a high-pressure lava blaster," I reply. "I can change the canister to shoot water instead of lava."
"Let's hurry," Meta Knight says, and flies off into the direction of my room. I enter my laboratory and carefully replace the canister with the water bottle. I do the same for another one for Meta Knight, seeing he can't produce water in any way other than throwing water bottles from wherever he gets them. But that seems quite useless. Once I lock and secure my laboratory, I hand a blaster to Meta Knight wordlessly and head out.
"Do you have any extra bottles?" I ask him. He nods.
"We should clean up this mess as well," Meta Knight says while Kirby surfs over most of the goop. We spray any remaining goop on the wall. The paint trail suddenly ends.
"Poyo poy?" Kirby tilts his head, as if asking where we should go.
"I can feel his presence," I tell the two puffballs. "His magic is... Quite off, compared to any other kind of magic. It's horribly tainted."
My minions are fuelled by me, the voice spoke. I could unleash that same power right now and destroy you in one fell swoop, like an acorn mercilessly devoured by a hungry squirrel.
"Let's go," Meta Knight says. I lead the way. He seems to be in the north area, but very high up, even higher than other rooms. Which means he could only be in one place.
The north tower.
The north tower is a watchtower at the north of the castle, and was once used to house Princess Peach when she was kidnapped. The other towers are the west, east, south-west and south-east towers. The other two north towers were destroyed because father thought it look like "a palace with towers all over the place," which is apparently not on his good list.
Sure enough, there's a painted "M" on the wall of the tower. Kirby spits a glob of water at it, and it activates a portal to a vortex of colours.
"Poyoyi!" Kirby jumps into the portal. I follow, and I see Meta Knight at the end. I must save Wendy!
Do your best. Let's see what is your best.
At the other side of the portal, we seemed to have entered another dimension. All I can feel is the corrupted vortex of magic, all I could see was the endless horizon of colours, and all I could hear was the quiet echo of the voice in my head.
Let's see if you can save your precious little sister. I didn't know family mattered so much to you.
Of course they do, I counter. I am not some cruel monster. They are important.
Family? Important? The voice snickered. You must be out of your mind. I, for one, do not care about any blood relations at all! Oh? But you are cruel. You almost killed your younger brothers when your were younger. Perhaps the time when you went by the name Kooky?
Shut up, I say in my mind. At least I am not as heartless as you are.
Oh, but I am heartless. Here you are, standing here in this endless paint dimension, waiting for any trace of Shadow Mario, who has your sister. I could just make him hide in the ends of this dimension forever, and make you and your posse die out of boredom. You are a puppet on my string, Koopa.
That's it. "Hey, do you think we should look for Shadow Mario now?" I ask Meta Knight and Kirby. The duo were probably experimenting with the water, as I see some blank spots, which held holes. Probably endless pits. Note to self; spray as less water on the ground as possible.
"Poyes!" Kirby dashes off in a random direction, and me and Meta Knight follow. Kirby seems to have a good sense of direction, as he leads us right to Shadow Mario's back. I immediately squirt him with water, and Kirby starts as well. When he starts running, Meta Knight flies up and douses him from above. Eventually, he sends globs of paint back at us. I create a shield, Meta Knight dodges the globs, and Kirby is protected by the front of his wave while he is surfing.
"Argh!" Shadow Mario yells, and summons Wendy's net cage thing and uses her as a meat shield.
"You..." I dash up to him, squirt him in the face with water, then use my sceptre and cast a spell on him. He falls down on the ground.
"No fair! It's three against one!" Shadow Mario shouts. "I'll just hafta make you dirty!"
Shadow Mario erratically splats paint everywhere covering me and Kirby's eyes. Meta Knight's mask didn't protect him either, and I saw a paint splat enter his visor when a paint splat flew at astronomically fast speeds towards him.
"Poyo! Poyo poy!" Kirby spat water at us, cleaning us from the paint but also drenching us at the same time.
"Thanks..." I mutter sarcastically. Apparently Kirby finds it sincere.
"Poy!"
Shadow Mario was too busy painting Meta Knight (who has fallen down on the ground ever since a paint glob had hit him in the wing) with paint that he didn't notice Kirby creep up to him, then ram him over while surfing and washing the paint away from Meta Knight at the same time.
"Dang it!" He shouts, and was about to strike Kirby until I sprayed him with the blaster. He started running. I chased him.
"GET BACK HERE!" I shout, as he held Wendy's sack behind his back, and I tried to not spray her, surely she'd slap me later. I'd rather not get into that situation when there are evil clones running around the area. Kirby surfs from the back and Meta Knight squirts from above. Then I find a problem.
"Kirby, don't surf! Meta Knight, try not to hit the ground! We're causing holes!" True to my word, there are now endless pits of death between the paint where we sprayed (or in Kirby's case, he surfed). This caused a drawback. Now, I'm the only one spraying Shadow Mario continuously, as Kirby couldn't spray water from his mouth and catch up at the same time, and Meta Knight's aim didn't prove very reliable once Shadow Mario resorted to jumping over the gaps we made.
"GAH!" Meta Knight shouts, as a stray paint blob hit him in the face and almost sent him tumbling down an endless pit.
This is dragging on for way too long... I pull out my wand with my left hand.
"TAKE THIS!" I shout, and send a blast of magic to Shadow Mario, catching him off guard, and sending him sprawling down a hole.
"NNNOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooo..." His scream faded away the further he fell.
"WENDY!" I shout, then I fly down the hole that Shadow Mario fell in and garbed the net, and pulled her back up. I then freed her in a stable place (meaning that there isn't ten million holes around the area).
"Thanks... But no thanks, I could've freed myself!" Wendy humphs.
"Poyo!" Kirby struck a pose.
"That's one way to kill Shadow Mario," I proclaim. "The other is to dunk him in a bathtub."
"How do we get out of here?" Meta Knight immediately asks, as the way we entered was nowhere in sight. Kirby came up with an idea.
"Poyo!" He sprays the wall (yes, there is walls of paint in the paint dimension, ask the Shadow Master how that works) and causes a hole. He tries to jump through, but almost ends up falling down an endless pit if he didn't puff up and fly back. He shook his head. "Poy..."
"Wait," I empty my canister by dumping the leftover water down a hole, the filled the canister with paint, and shot it at the hole. Sure enough, true to my logic, a portal opened.
"I NEED TO SHOWER!" Wendy exclaims, and jumps through the portal. We follow her. I hear the voice as I leave.
Let's see if you can play with my next toy...