"Olimar, you a-have a bit of a temperature," Doctor Mario said aloud as he looked down at the thermometer he had fitted through the slot where Olimar's whistle normally was.
"I'm telling you, Mario, all I've got is a cold," Olimar groaned as he sucked in a hanging drip of mucus back into his nose. "Just write me a prescription for a blocked nose and a headache and I can be on my way."
"It's-a Doctor Mario," Doctor Mario huffed. "Mario is-a just a friend. And a-nonsense!" Doctor Mario turned away from Olimar, grabbing a stack of papers from his desk and giving the impression that he was leafing through some highly important medical information. "I have-a done the research on your condition, and the symptoms that you-a show are not that of a mere cold." He dropped the stack of papers into a waste bin, and turned, slowly, dramatically, impaling Olimar with a deadly serious glare. "Olimar… You have cancer!"
"Oh come on, what are you, WebMD?" Olimar whined. "Listen, just give me my medication and let me go, alright? I need to go and feed my Pikmin."
"What did you say?" Doctor Mario asked, the calm and collected formality with which he spoke giving way to a dangerous tone characterized instead by sharp incredulity. He marched forward and leaned forward on the table with two slaps of his palm against the wooden surface, his face bare inches from Olimar's helmet. "What did you say?" he repeated, and the sudden aggression caused Olimar to falter, "I – I said you're Web – look, Mario –"
"Doctor Mario!" Doctor Mario snarled.
"Yeah – listen, I appreciate your concern, but I don't have cancer, alright? So just –"
"I am the doctor here, and when I say you have-a cancer, you have-a cancer!" Doctor Mario shouted, the peach of his face blossoming into a deep ripe red while his moustache bristled with fury. "Say you have a-cancer!" He grabbed Olimar by the collar and shook him bodily, turning the spaceman into a blurred streak of colored curves. "Say you have-a cancer right now!"
"I have – I have cancer!" Olimar screamed in distress, voice slurred and shaking from the roller coaster ride that was Mario's violent hands.
"A-say it again!"
"I have cancer!"
And with that mutual consensus of terminal illness came the benign restoration of Doctor Mario's cheerful mood and professionalism. "That's-a good. Now, let us discuss what-a kind of treatment you would like. Most-a Smashers prefer the tried and true PSI Therapy or Miniature Metroid Invasion Surgery, although there-a has been rising demand for Ether Manipulation, as practiced by Shulk's good friend Sharla. What-a do you think, Olimar?"
"I think you're a delusional quack of a doctor, that's what I think," was Olimar's shaky reply, the headache he had hoped to remedy with a visit to the doctor now about a hundred times worse.
It was at this moment that Yoshi barged through the door, causing Doctor Mario to jump in surprise. Olimar took advantage of the situation to try and run away, but Doctor Mario reached out an arm and grabbed the fleeing spaceman by the antenna of his helmet at the last second.
"A-Yoshi! What are you doing here?!" Doctor Mario cried. "Can't-a you-a see I'm with a patient? Bad dinosaur, bad! Wait for your turn, like a-everybody else!"
The bad dinosaur, bad took out a sign and almost shoved it into the doctor's face: IT'S AN EMERGENCY, MARIO – MY TONGUE'S –
"I am not-a Mario," Doctor Mario metafictionally interrupted across the narration of what a sign read. "I am-a Doctor Mario. Ma – Mario's a friend! We may look alike, but we are-a two different people!"
If Yoshi had ears, he'd have some serious steam billowing out from them to relieve the emotional turbulence that severely undermined what little wits he had left. As it stood, he had to settle for exaggeratedly-enlarged eyes, stained red from an abundant network of veins that throbbed with whatever blood he had that wasn't currently being drained away by the holes on his tongue. Revealing gnashed teeth once again sectioned by deep crimson valleys, he held up his sign once more, this time reading: IT'S AN EMERGENCY, YOU STUCK-UP ASSHOLE OF A DOCTOR MARIO – MY TONGUE'S SLICED OFF AND I NEED SURGERY, NOW!
He used his other hand to point desperately to the charred sash adorning his waist, willing the doctor to make the relevant connection.
Doctor Mario frowned, scratched his head, and stared hard at the strange item that Yoshi so eagerly wanted him to see. Then he said, "But-a Olimar has cancer. Cancer, Yoshi. Surely you-a understand? Cancer is a very serious illness – very serious indeed –"
Olimar frantically shook his head and mouthed "HELP" to Yoshi, but the dinosaur ignored the pleas of the spaceman, himself struck motionless by the words he was hearing. To hear such shocking indifference from the selfish, inexperienced, impatient patients was one thing; to hear it from a distinguished expert in the medical field, supposedly well-learned in the art of such noble practices that were crucial to the structural stability of society, was another. Yoshi eyed the golden-framed certificate deliberately hung in the center of the wall behind Doctor Mario's desk – the illuminative nature of its fancy-pantsy papyrus paper, the gaudy glimmer of the gold and silver in the Mushroom Kingdom University emblem and the lines along the edges of the paper, the curvy, elaborate, pretentious font detailing the conference, honors, and signatures – and wondered whether such declaration of knowledge, such pronouncement of recognition and ability, was but merely a superficial façade that meant nothing beyond the ornament of its exterior. Yoshi felt a bitter tingle in his arms, almost inciting him to hold up a brand new sign that would challenge the status quo of such established cornerstones in education, debate the necessity with which the nation sends its wide-eyed hopefuls into an institution that turns all who enter into cold calculators, subsequently pervading the world with hive-minded insects, all of whom would sport meaningless scraps of papers and massive gaping blackholes in their wallets and bank accounts. But this was not the Event Match to be subverting the societal impositions that have since become immutable tradition, and Yoshi, after another second of indecisive silence, wheeled around and slammed the door.
Back outside, Yoshi saw that there was now an entire line of Smashers assembling to kiss Luigi's biceps.
"Yeah. Yeah. Kiss it, bitch. You know you want to," Luigi whispered, as Sonic knelt down on his knees and imparted upon the near-transparent scar a fair maiden's kiss.
It seemed as though accurate characterization loyal to the original premise in which the Smashers appeared was being forgone in service of humor. Yoshi tore his eyes away from the clear display of asinine antics, and in doing so his sights fell upon the singular Smasher who had not succumbed to the inane peer pressure such stupidity tend to wrought. Rosalina sat with two Lumas, one green, the other red. The two star children floated gaily, watching as their mother hummed a mellifluous tune of the Wind Garden theme. In her hands were a needle, a length of thread, and a tiny apricot beanie. Her fingers moved with nimble alacrity, skillfully piercing the fabric and weaving in and out through the air, in order to stitch up a diagonal rift that was shrinking by the second. Given its size, and the fact that the green Luma was wearing a lime beanie itself, it seemed as though she was fixing up the headwear for the other Luma to wear – but this was a detail that Yoshi was hardly interested in. What gravitated his eyes, instead, were the needle, barely visible in its dimension, the thread that looped through its eye, and the star-shaped sewing kit sitting by Rosalina's side. A crazy idea suddenly struck Yoshi and took ahold of his mind – hell, through the biased lens of pain and endured ridiculousness, it seemed almost perfectly sane and reasonable.
He who hesitates is lost, or else left to bleed dry from the gushing waterfall of his severed tongue. Yoshi dashed forward and swerved his body through the tight maze of waiting chairs. Before Rosalina knew it, she held in her hands, not the delicate act of needle and thread, but the obtuse, clumsy rectangle of a wooden, white board.
"Hey!" she cried, quickly turning to catch a glimpse of the culprit – but it was too late: the mad green dash was out of the door before her eyes could fully discern the more damning traits that would betray his identity. Much to her dismay, the sewing kit, too, had been nabbed, so that the only visage of her sewing that remained was the torn beanie, which had become even more torn in the haste of the theft. With nothing to do and the Lumas frantically squealing and dancing beside her, Rosalina settled to look down at the signboard she had been left.
It read: YARN YOSHI HERE. SORRY ROSIE BUT I'll BE NEEDLING THIS. I PROMISE IT'S NOT WHAT IT SEAMS. I'LL RETURN THIS AS SEWN AS I'M DONE, AND THAT'S NO FABRIC-ATION –
"Oh, my God," Rosalina cried in cringing disgust, refusing to read any further as she threw the sign behind her.
Yoshi sincerely hoped that his attempts at humor would at least somewhat alleviate the gravity of his robbery, but began to have some doubts when it occurred to him that Rosalina might be the type of person to find puns weak and distasteful.
Perhaps, in his haste, he had been a little… Spoolish.
STOP IT, read a sign that Yoshi shoves into the plane of your computer screen before continuing on his run.
The idea that had suddenly seized him and sent him into a scurrying haste was, perhaps, completely beyond the realm of possibilities, but Yoshi, at this point, was willing to try anything that offered even a one in billion chance of success. Doctor Mario, clearly, was out of commission. Master Hand was nowhere to be found. The D-I-Y approach he had invested so much of his praise in when he was applying the most rudimentary forms of surgery would have to do, and at that thought Yoshi felt his stomach tie itself into a tighter knot.
To think that there would come a day when he would have to perform an emergency operation on his own tongue…
Yoshi shook his head, put the thought behind him. He would deal with it when the time came. At the current moment, the priority of his thoughts lied in snagging a bottle or two of some strong alcohol. It is fairly general knowledge that alcohol, in any situation, can be used as an effective substitute for anesthesia, and thus it is widely unnecessary to explain how Yoshi knew this particular piece of highly relevant information. It is like how one knows that the sky is blue, or that using a computer consumes electricity, or that Super Mario Galaxy 2 is the best game of all time and is the closest any game will ever come close to a masterpiece and anyone who claims otherwise is just wrong, wrong, wrong. All are irrefutable facts whose ubiquity in worldwide recognition renders any explanation to how the knowledge of such came to be attained redundant, and thus we will not discuss the details to which Yoshi knew that alcohol is an excellent surrogate for anesthesia here.
Alcohol… Alcohol… Well, there were some bars over at the upper floors, but he had always been booted out of the door whenever he and Ness had tried to sneak in one of them, due to their young age…
At that moment, Yoshi skidded to a halt. Something quite strange had snapped him out of his musings, and he looked behind him to make sure he had seen what he had seen. There it was, the cozy, inviting entrance to the Roost Café – except, firstly, it didn't seem to be called that anymore, and secondly, 'cozy' and 'inviting' didn't even come close to the words that jumped to Yoshi's mind in describing the hideous transformation it had undergone. The wooden sign that had hung over the entrance, visually pleasing in its rusticity and simplicity, was boarded over with a sleek, silver hunk of rectangular metal. Written in futuristic typeset were the words: THE FALCON BAR OF TOTAL AWESOME MANLY SEXINESS, and it didn't take Yoshi a modicum of brainpower to figure out who was responsible for the ghastly changes. Of course, given the alarming crisis of his situation, Yoshi would have flown right past the site of abject transmutation once he had ascertained it was truly such, but one word on the brand new sign kept his feet planted on the ground.
BAR.
Bar.
A bar…
Yoshi didn't need any more convincing. If he was going to get alcohol, this would be the place. Something told him that the liberty with which Falcon had completely redecorated the café would extend itself to his generosity with the drinks, and it was with this confidence Yoshi walked into The Falcon Bar of Total Awesome Manly Sexiness.
He rubbed his eyes and blinked repeatedly, at first. It wasn't just the entranceway that had been overhauled. The entire interior design of the place had been completely revamped, as though Brewster had hired a radically different interior designer to introduce some new, exciting changes to his café. Previously the textured wood of the floor and walls had effused a pleasant, rustic warmth to capture a sense of idyllic repose; now, the metallic sheen of chrome and stainless steel reflected nothing but cold sterility, save for the occasional beams of red, yellow, blue, and purple lights that burst through the walls in linear packets of jarring incandescence. The soft, soothing plinks of the piano, the caressing whispers of serenading strings – re-composed, re-recorded to the cacophony of a fickly-slapped bass and a discordant synthesizer. The upholstered chairs, the plush couches, the wooden tables – all were gone, replaced by obnoxious geometries that functioned as aloof, uncomfortable, barely serviceable furniture. The fresh, delectable aroma of rich, brewing coffee no longer wafted its presence into the yearning caves of his nostrils, purged from existence by the unpleasant combination of antiseptic, iron, and… Something fruity. In some far-off corner behind the now-metallic counter was a brand new widescreen television, the kind that curved slightly at the sides to entrap its viewers in the illusion of a fourth dimension. It was currently screening a gameplay video of the original F-Zero for the SNES, attempting to entice the non-existent patrons to sit down, grab the controller, and play what was undoubtedly what was one of Captain Falcon's finest hours in his video game career.
The blue-suited racer himself could be seen behind the counter, smiling expectantly at Yoshi, and motioning with two quick waggles of his fingers: "COME ON!" This was, without a doubt, the biggest destruction that the Roost Café had suffered. There was something in the way in which Brewster loyally stood behind the counter, perhaps polishing a mug or else blending the beans – something in the silent demeanor with which he regarded his customers, the stoic, mysterious gaze that he affixed upon each mouth that sipped the potion of his craft – something in that deep, wistful look, which seemed to speak of yearning and loneliness and wisdom and aloofness all at once – something in all of those that extended a gentle, unspoken invitation for all and any to sit opposite the bird and strike, perhaps genially, perhaps out of necessity, a conversation – about the swallows, about the weather, about the seas, about the mysteries of the stars and the meaning of the heavens and the insignificance of it all. In this sense it was Brewster who had defined the Roost Café, and the material of the walls, the choice of the furniture, even the taste of coffee was all but secondary.
But Yoshi was not here to lament the calamity that had befallen the Roost Café, and so he ran up to the counter, slamming the sewing kit onto the tabletop and scanning the menu for some of that good ol' C2H6O.
"Morning, Yoshi!" Falcon chirped as Yoshi read:
Falcon Punch - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 80 S.C.
Falcon PUNCH! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 90 S.C.
Falcon, PAAWWNNNCCHH! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 115 S.C.
Super Sexy Manly Falcon PAAWWNNNCCHH! - - - - - - - - - - - - - 150 S.C.
Deluxe Super Sexy Manly Falcon PAAWWNNNCCHH! - - - - - - - 200 S.C.
IF YOU'RE SAMUS YOU GET A SUPER SEXY DISCOUNT OF 69 SMASH COINS AND A SUPER SEXY FUN TIME IN THE PIMPED-OUT BLUE FALCON!
"Boy, am I glad to see you," Captain Falcon jabbered excitedly as he admired the bulges of his biceps and triceps in a mirror that hung directly opposite the counter, while Yoshi scanned the list a second time, scarcely believing what he was reading. "I thought this'd be a wash-out, you know? I mean, who the hell doesn't want a taste of my super sexy delicious Falcon Punch, the drink of the gods, the most tasty beverage to grace the universe as we know it? But you're only the first Smasher to finally drop in," Captain Falcon continued with lugubrious sadness sagging the muscles of his face as he looked downcast at the menu Yoshi was perusing. "Maybe I'm not advertising myself enough. You think that's it, Yoshi? You think maybe I –"
Yoshi shut him up with another one his endless signs:
ARE ALL OF THESE JUST FALCON PUNCHES? DO ANY OF THEM CONTAIN ANY ALCOHOL?
"Well, no, not really," Captain Falcon said after a brief second of surprised silence. "I mean – you know, it's the best drink in the universe – you don't really need any alcohol to –"
THEN HOW THE HELL IS THIS A BAR?!
"Well, I do have one mix that I'm working on right now," Captain Falcon frowned as he brought an uncertain finger to his chin. "The Deluxe Super Duper Sexy Manly One-Night Stand Falcon Punch. But it's not quite at the right level that I envisioned it to be, yet. Something about it just tastes a little… Off."
I DON'T CARE, JUST GIVE IT TO ME!
"Well, someone's feeling a little feisty," Captain Falcon grinned; Yoshi rolled his eyes as the newbie bartender ducked underneath, emerging seconds later with a shaker and a fat rocks glass. "Tell me what you think, because I spent days coming up with the perfect super sexy manly-man drink that'll put hair on even the wimpiest of chests." Falcon uncapped the shaker and poured out a brilliant stream of bright crimson Falcon Punch. Yoshi could smell a smidge of something strong and acrid among the scent of cherries and peaches.
"I think this'll taste super sexily amazing, Yoshi," Captain Falcon continued with his onslaught of self-praise as the last of the ice cubes plonked into the cup. "It's about 60% alcohol, 30% Falcon Punch, 10% blood orange juice, 53% blended cranberries, 18% mashed promenades, 107% strawberry milk, and 6969% of pure manly sexy awesomeness." With a grand flourish of his arm he pushed the cup to Yoshi and then stood back, rested the shaker against the counter, and regarded Yoshi with a gaze of confidence that betrayed only the slightest hint of anxiousness.
Yoshi did a quick calculation with his fingers and determined that Falcon, unsurprisingly, was not quite good at math. More importantly, however, he knew from the smell alone that this was what he was looking for… But not in the dinky cup that Falcon was pouring into. Pushing the cup back to Falcon, Yoshi held up a new sign:
I NEED TWO BOTTLES OF THIS.
Falcon scratched his helmet. "Two?" he cried out in disbelief, before the expression of shock gave way to a splitting grin. "My God, Yoshi… Do you really have that much faith in my mixing ability? I mean, I knew I was good and all, but this was my first try, and I really wasn't sure if the strawberry milk –"
OH MY GOD, JUST GIVE ME THE DAMN BOTTLES!
"Yes!" Captain Falcon cried out, doing his trademark salute, and he immediately produced two soda bottles filled to the brim with the cherry red gunk. Yoshi grabbed the bottles by their necks and was right outta there before Falcon could even lift his hand up in farewell.
"Ah, dinosaurs these days," Falcon grinned to himself as he watched the dinosaur disappear around the bend – only to gasp immediately after, for walking, with deliberation so intense that time seemed to crawl specifically for this one bird, was Brewster. His wings were rolled into tight curls, the top of his head adorned with a huge X-shaped bandage, the right lens of his glasses fissured into multiple lightning-shaped cracks.
"You messed with the wrong bird, coo," Brewster said in his trademark monotone that, even in its flat delivery, somehow communicated the brutal fatality that he was dying to administer upon Douglas Jay Falcon.
"Ha!" An automatic sneer that arose in the face of all adversity rose to Falcon's lips, and the condescension was accompanied by a charismatic jump onto the counter. "Your words mean nothing, for I –" Falcon pointed to himself with a proud thumb "– am a falcon, and you –" he jabbed at the approaching Brewster with a wagging finger "– are but a mere pigeon." Then, seeing that his words did not faze him in the slightest, Captain Falcon lifted up the menu and smirked, "Well, as long as you're here, why not be the second ever to try out the items on my menu? I think you'll love some of them – particularly –"
He was off the counter in the blink of an eye, body splitting through the air in a supersonic burst of movement, arm pulled all the way back and fist ablaze with hot spurts of red as he aimed straight for the central zone of Brewster's face.
"FALCON –"
Samus thought she heard something akin to a muffled explosion from somewhere within the Smash Mansion, and she briefly turned around, prickling her ears for any more sounds of destruction – but heard nothing else out of the ordinary. She shrugged and continued onward, stepping through the snow in a furry overcoat and an extra insulation of long pants. Loud bangs and explosions, after all, were the norm in the Smash Mansion – there was no point in being hung up over every single little one.
In her hand she carried a water bottle branded with the Wii Fit logo, the kind that squirted its content in a jet stream. Samus figured that precise splashing of water would be more helpful in getting Yoshi's tongue unstuck from the pole, and thus had procured it from Wiiliam.
She had planned it all out. She would approach Yoshi, calmly, willing the inevitable throbs of her heart (out of guilt or some ineffable excitement, who knows) to slow down and remain loyal to the composure with which she would address the exhausted dinosaur. She would speak of her disappointment, explain to the dinosaur that this was the extent of the pure unadulterated anger she had felt when she first received the unjust punishment. She would speak of her forgiveness, then, as Yoshi would have carried out his own punishment, and with that extension of peace would come the warm splash of water that would set the dinosaur free at last.
A perfect plan, laid completely to waste by the sight of a black, indistinguishable stick of a pole left before her, with not a dinosaur in sight.
The water bottle dropped from Samus's grip.
"Oh, no," she groaned, feeling a drop in her stomach as she noted the red teeth of the saw that poked its blade from out of the snow.