Chapter II
Seven of Bowser's kids are exploring the bottom floor of the mysterious manor, passing several rooms as they go. After stumbling upon a sparkling-clean kitchen, luxurious dining room and an oversized laundry room, the seven find what appears to be the living room of the mansion.
The living room is in the same style as the other rooms: untextured black walls, soft gray carpet and two magnificent obsidian chandeliers. The only things setting this room apart from the others are three cream love seats, a high definition television and a strange brown cabinet. Seeing the cabinet, the Koopa 'Twins' start to explore through the shelves.
"Hey! This place has a ton of games!" Lemmy called out to the other five, who made themselves at home on the three couches. On the other side of the cabinet, Iggy is shifting through numerous cassette tapes.
"Look at all these music tapes! And VHS! These are ancient!" Iggy stated in a loud voice to the others.
"Whatever," Wendy moaned. Hearing their sister's complaint, the Koopa twins look at each other and shrug.
"Yeah," Larry continued, giving a hinting stare at Lemmy, "Let's play a game or something. We can find a way out of this forest tomorrow. It's too dark out."
"Games? Pfft, only game I'll participate in is watchin' a football game!" mumbled Roy as he picks up the TV remote. However, when he turns on the TV, nothing but static pops up on the screen, "Drat. Let's play Poker or something."
"Poker? We have nothing to gamble with..." Lemmy objected to his younger brother's idea.
However, Ludwig decides to speak up, offering his knowledge to his clownish sibling, "Ve don't need anyzing to gamble vith in Poker."
"Can you guys quiet the heck down?!" Wendy complained, "Y'all are too loud!"
"Umm, speaking of," Bowser Junior shyly piped up, "Where's Morton...?"
"Wow! This place is huge!" Morton marveled out loud to himself after reaching the second floor. He is greeted by a long, narrow hallway that seems to go on for kilometers.
The koopaling continues to stroll down the mysterious hallway on the second floor, passing numerous closed doors and several unlit torches. Morton tries to open one of the doors, but, to his dismay, finds it to be locked.
Undaunted, the stubborn koopaling continues down the hall, locked door after locked door passing on both walls. Finally, he sees the end of the lengthy corridor; the wall is decked with a large, white-gold door; a door that is suspiciously different from the other gray-and-black smaller doors found in the hallway.
"This door must be different! It's like a different design! And a different size! That means it should be unlocked! It's different!"
After exercising his version of logic, Morton opens the door, thankfully finding it to be unlocked. Inside is a room full of valuable treasures, exquisite gems and near-rotting Yoshi bones. The koopaling cringes when he sees the disgusting pile of decaying bones scattered throughout the room, but at the same time, he's amazed at the amount of treasure in this room.
"Wow! All this-"
All the sudden, a gray boo pops up, right in front of Morton!
"Okay! Okay! I fold!" Ludwig complained, smacking down a pair of sevens, a three, an ace and a queen.
"A pair!" Wendy called out, "I beat you Ludwig!"
Wendy slams down her cards, revealing two queens, two eights and a king.
"A double pair, Wendy. Not bad!" Iggy replied as he, Junior and Lemmy put down a pair.
"Stupid game..." murmured Lemmy. Junior also joins him with his bawling.
"I'm suing the makers of these cards!"
The others look at Roy and Larry, both of them trying hard—and succeeding—to not show any kind of emotion.
"Aha!" Roy finally smiled as he puts down four nines and a two. The other koopalings, except for Larry, gasp.
"A full house!" Wendy screamed.
"No vay!"
"I beat all of you so far!" Roy exclaimed coolly, "Let's see what you got Larry."
Larry cracks a smile as he gently lays down his cards on the table. His cards are an ace, king, queen, jack and a ten; all of them Spades, "Royal flush baby!"
"... I'm done playing," Roy surrendered.
"Is Roy a scaredy cat? He don't vant Larry beating him?"
Roy looks at Ludwig, unimpressed, "No, Ludwig! Do you freaking know what's going on here?! We are sitting here playing POKER while one of our siblings is missing!"
"Roy," Ludwig calmly butted in, "He's in the house. I saw him valk in! He's in ze house! If ve look for him zen ve vill get lost!"
"You don't get it! We walked into some strange person's house! Without knocking! Morty's probably trapped by the owners!"
"Roy, you're overreacting. He'll come back. He vill get lonely. Zere's novun here."
"I can't believe you Ludwig! I am not overreacting! Morton's our brother! You're gonna let him get lost in this house! A strange, old, rottin' house that we don't know anything on! You're treating this like the LOST finds the FOUND, when it's just the opposite! And you're just sitting here playing Poker without a worry!" Roy shouted as he picks up the deck of cards and scatters them all over the room, "You're a terrible oldest brother you worthless, trashy cacafuego! Now have a GREAT time playing 52-card pickup you indecent, screable moron!"
After his rant, Roy exits out of the living room.
"Geez. Vhat a louse," Ludwig rolled his eyes, then starts to pick up some of the scattered cards, "Only big vords Roy knows are insults. So... Who's up for another game?"
"Not me," the other Koopalings declined. The five of them follow Roy out of the room; Ludwig expresses a look of fear as the rest of them leave.
"Vait you guys! You'll lose me!"
"Kammy!"
Bowser walks into the Magikoopas' lab, where Kammy is sitting on an office chair, gazing at an article on tracking devices on the computer. Kamek is sitting in a rocking chair to the left, reading a sort of magical tome.
"Your highness!" Kammy greeted, turning her chair around from the computer screen as she does, "You might not forgive me on any other day, but you will love me now! You see... I put a tracker on all your kids."
Bowser does not express a fit of anger, nor one of excitement. He just stays silent, as if he is pondering over the words his right-hand woman spoke to him, "You tracked my kids? Why?" Bowser questioned, once again with no emotion.
"Your Questioningness, it's because Ludwig tries to kill me with his music, Lemmy tries to get me to ride on balls, Roy doesn't like me that much; I can tell. Iggy wants me to be a guinea pig for his 'latest, greatest invention', Wendy tells me to get plastic surgery, Morton talks me to death, Larry tries to feed me to his plants and Junior... Well, he's adventurous..."
"... So?" Bowser rebutted, "You're a great guinea pig, and you do need plastic surgery. How do you know the kids won't pull off the... Whatever?"
"So, your Rudeness," Kammy continued, "I will pull up a map. This map will display the area they are in. Oh, and they can't pull them off; I embedded the tracking devices inside of their shells. I took off a spike, hollowed it out, put the device in it then glued the spike back on to their shells."
Kammy types in a code on the computer's keyboard, and a command box pops up on the screen. The old Magikoopa then types in another code in the box and a map takes the command box's place.
"Okay, Your Watchfulness, look at this."
Kammy punches in yet another code on the computer's keyboard, but an error message pops up. Confused but undaunted, Kammy closes out of the error and tries again. The same error pops up.
"Umm sir..." Kammy explained in a shaky, hoarse voice, "They're in a place where the GPS capabilities of my trackers are disabled."
The purple-robed Magikoopa didn't need to turn around to see Bowser's wrath; she knows just by the eerie silence that it's currently happening. Just then...
"WHHHHHAAAAT?!" Bowser roared as he jumps, then lands hard on the floor, sending a shockwave large enough to measure on the Richter scale, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!"
After recovering from a near heart attack from Bowser's sudden rage, Kammy clarifies herself in a shaky voice, "S-s-sir... Their m-magic is b-blocking the GPS abilities of m-my trackers..."
"THEN RESEARCH PLACES WHERE IT'S BLOCKED! YOU TOO KAMEK!"
Kamek throws his book behind him in fear from Bowser's voice. Seeing the King of the Koopas glaring daggers at him, the scared blue-robed Magikoopa puts his accumulated wisdom to the test and did as his master commanded.
"Intruder..." the gray boo muttered with a ghastly voice typical to other boos.
"W-what? Is that a boo?" Morton stuttered in fear.
"Do not fear... You have much more... In this forest... To fear...Than me..."
Morton loses his look of fear, and instead expresses a look of confusion on his face, "What do you mean?"
The gray boo remains silent for a few moments, gazing at Morton through its ruby-red, glowing eyes. The boo flips its tongue out as if he's silently taunting the koopaling.
"This forest is cursed... Do not say anything negative... Or it just might happen..."
"Okay, look boo guy. What does that mean?" the third-youngest child of Bowser questioned the grey being. The boo seems to ignore his question.
"Next time... NEVER be negative... Or your words will... Come and... Bite you... On your tail... Just like... They have now... Enjoy your curses... If you want them..." the grey boo advised.
Morton is about to ask more questions about this whole ordeal, but a voice from the hallway is heard. Sensing the voice, the grey boo says its goodbyes.
"Now... I must go... Because... According to you... Nobody lives... In this forest... Because there's no shops... Bye bye! And don't you DARE... take my gems... and treasure... because if you do... ha ha ha! Your luck... will run dry! These bones... can prove that..." the boo stated, then disappears into the air.
"MORTON?! MORTY ARE YOU IN THAT ROOM?!"
The koopaling opens the decked-out door and is greeted by the sight of his seven siblings. Six of them let out sighs of relief, but the seventh koopaling displays a look of annoyance on his face.
"Morton! What were you doing up here?" Roy scolded in a whisper, "We'll lose you!"
"Roy! Siblings I'm fine okay," Morton alleged, "Just umm exploring you know..."
Roy sighed, shaking his head at the fact that his younger brother is taking this whole ordeal lightly. Instead of the pink Koopaling speaking up, his 'archenemy' older brother acts as his mouthpiece instead.
"Ve need to stick togetzer, Mort. Zat's vhy ve followed Roy to look for you," the oldest koopaling retorted.
Silence fills the group for a few moments before Wendy speaks up, "Let's go to bed now! We need the rest for tomorrow's adventure! I call one of the cream couches!"
"I get the second!" Larry called.
"I got the last!" Iggy reserved his place. Ludwig, Roy, Junior and Morton roll their eyes at the three, while Lemmy speaks up in a more depressed tone.
"Whatever," Lemmy yawned, "Let's get to sleep... In this depressing, possibly HAUNTED house..."
Almost immediately, shrieks and a few slammed doors are heard throughout the upper levels of the mansion.