Sorry for disappearing off the face of the earth like that. Life really has been crazy. The first weekend I didn't update, I was discovering the horrid experience that is writers' block for the first time, so you can't get mad at me for that. The second weekend I didn't update was the weekend of my school's musical, so all my brainpower was focused on that. Therefore, you can't get mad at me for the second weekend, either (I rocked my part, in case anybody is wondering). The third weekend... I was just lazy. Now you can hurl Spiny Eggs at me.

Disclaimer: No matter how many chapters I post, I still don't own the Mario series.

Chapter 7: Collision Curse

*Night of the attack*

"…and we'll never see each other again and King Dad'll never see us grow up and we're never gonna see Luddy go off to Dark Land Academy or hear another one of his symphonies or test out — and probably break — his latest invention cuz there won't be one and Roy will never win the wrestling world championship or be able to yell at me and Wendy isn't gonna dance or throw a tantrum or win a beauty pageant and Larry won't win the cup for the next tennis tournament and Bowsy will never paint another masterpiece ever, ever again or… I don't wanna lose any of them!"

As the sewers of Dark Land immediately echoed with sobs, the trek of three young Dragon-Koopas came to a halt. The Koopa in front, Lemmy, looked back to see Morton Koopa Jr. mournfully sink to the ground. Lemmy frowned when one eye drifted to the wall instead of his younger brother. He shook his head to try to realign his obsidian eyes and clear his vision, but the result was the same as it had been for the rest of the small Koopaling's life: useless.

Mentally cursing his disability, Lemmy walked back towards Morton (his favorite ball was left back at the castle during their evacuation). He rubbed his large brother's arm soothingly.

"I'm sure they're all right, Morton," Lemmy murmured, "just look at us; we're perfectly fine. The only injury around here is from when Iggy tripped on that can back there."

"B-but what they're not?" Morton blubbered.

"They'll be fine," Lemmy reassured him. "Roy, King Dad, and Ludwig aren't gonna let anything happen to them. Remember, they're the strongest Koopas ever!"

"But what if they get separated more? What if Larry and Bowser and Wendy are off on their own somewhere and grievously injured? What if they're lost? What if one of them is permanently crippled? What if one of us—?"

"You are safe," Lemmy cut Morton off abruptly. "Nothing is happening to you. End of story. If anyone or anything tries to so much as touch a scale on your bodies, they'll have to get through me, and I promise I am not going to make it easy." Lemmy narrowed his eyes as he said this.

Morton grunted and shrugged, obviously unsure of his brother's promise. Unfortunately, Lemmy still had his hand on Morton's arm, which was as big around as Lemmy's shell, and the smallest Koopaling was knocked over, landing hard on his tail. Lemmy squeaked as the appendage started throbbing.

Morton hurriedly got into a kneeling position. "Sorry Lemmy I didn't mean—"

"Relax, Morton, it's nothing," Lemmy said quickly. He did a backward somersault and got to his feet, smiling. "See?" Underneath his façade, however, Lemmy cursed his small stature. He was, however, happy that he managed to take his talkative brother's attention away from worrisome thoughts.

Lemmy's smile faded as spontaneously as it had appeared when his misaligned eye caught a glimpse of his other brother, whom up until that point had gone silently unnoticed. Ignatius Koopa's blue eyes were especially wide and clearly watering, and his jaw was clenched in a tight grimace.

"Iggy?" Lemmy asked, "What's wrong?"

Ask a stupid question, he thought.

Iggy was silent for a moment, before shaking his head and letting a few tears loose. "I just have this really bad headache. Let's just get going." He walked over and draped Morton's huge arm around his shoulders.

Lemmy swallowed hard to keep from crying himself. I have to stay strong. For them, He told himself. I have to be a big brother. Not that it'll help. He looked at Iggy and Morton. "Iggy's right. We better get a move-on out of Dark Land while the going is good. We need to regroup somewhere that isn't under attack. Then, we find the others." He clapped his hands. "Who's with me?"

"Us!" the younger two chorused, leaping to their feet.

"All right, let's go!" Lemmy ordered as they all turned and continued down their initial path.

"Wait!" Morton interjected, causing the other two to trip.

Lemmy and Iggy turned towards the youngest of the group.

"Where are we going anyway? You said we're going somewhere that wasn't attacked and there are a gazillion places that aren't being attacked, at least as far we know, do you think other places are under attack? What if they are under attack? What if there's nowhere for us to run?" Morton started to panic again, "What if the others tried to run away but couldn't and ended up getting captured and tortured and threatened and then k—?"

"Morton," Lemmy said sharply, "thinking like that won't help anyone. If our family is already dead to you, then there's no point in trying to find them. We need to stay positive. For their sake. Promise you'll keep searching?"

The chatterbox was visibly taken aback at Lemmy's profound speech. Lemmy once again cursed his diminutiveness. Figures nobody expects a lecture from me. So caught up was he in his thoughts, that Lemmy didn't notice Morton approach him until he found himself caught up in a crushing hug from the grey-toned Koopaling.

After a full minute, Morton heaved a sigh and whispered, "Thanks, Lem," before setting his tiny brother down. If Lemmy hadn't believed the spoken gratitude, all he had to do was look in the larger Koopa's eyes for his sincerity.

After another minute of pleasant silence, Iggy voiced his thoughts, "Morton has a point. Where are we going?"

Lemmy started, as if realizing Morton's first question had indeed been sensible. "Oh yeah. Well, um…" he stammered, "Peak Land is really, really close to where we are right now. I figured we could rest once we make it there, and then go further to at least Jungle Land. Water Land at best."

Iggy brought a hand to his snout in a thinking position. Then he nodded and said, "Sounds good. Let's go."

Once again, the princes' journey continued, with Lemmy in the lead. As they walked with new purpose, Lemmy lost himself in thought again.

That wasn't half bad. I spoke. They listened. They're nerves are calmed. Kind of. I even stopped one of Morton's ramblings. And I got a hug. Maybe I'm not so bad at this big-brother thing after all. Maybe I can do this. Maybe I'm not just some puny Koopa. Maybe— "Oof!"

Lemmy thoughts and path came to a halt when he slammed into something. All three Koopas looked up and were surprised to see a solid stone wall blocking their path.

"Did I take a wrong turn?" Lemmy wondered aloud.

Morton stepped resolutely up to the obstacle. "No, you led us down the right path, Lemmy."

"Morton is right," Iggy confirmed, "Although I don't know how he would know that. I myself spent two months studying maps of these sewers."

Morton ran his hand along the stone wall as he walked to one of the tunnel's brick walls. He wiped away some grime on a particular group of bricks. The other two looked closely and saw crude letters carved into them. Two words on either side of a crude heart. It read:

MORTON (heart) MOM

Iggy and Lemmy were speechless as Morton explained, "Mom used to take me through here once a month to explore Peak Land. She was the reason it's one of my favorite places to visit. We carved this together on the one-year anniversary of our getaways. That was our last time." Morton finished in tears. "But I did start taking Bowser there for his birthday every year."

Iggy grunted and grimaced, his headache intensifying slightly.

Lemmy was about to comfort his brother when he was cut off by a low rumble that was slowly increasing in volume. The noise was coming from directly behind the Koopalings. They turned and looked down the tunnel. That's when they noticed…

"Hey! Where'd all the side tunnels go!?" Morton yelped, "Tunnels don't just disappear off the face of reality!"

Indeed, all the side tunnels had disappeared from the sewer channel the Koopas were in. The only direction to go was down the straight passageway they were now facing.

The ground started to vibrate as the rumbling noise grew still louder.

"Is the thing that's making that noise down there?" Lemmy asked no one in particular. However, Iggy Koopa was quick to retrieve a pair of high-powered binoculars from his shell. He peered down the tunnel before them and gasped.

"There's a giant Skewer crunching away at the tunnel and it's twisting right towards us!" he shrieked.

"What!?" the other two cried.

"We've gotta get out of here!" Morton screamed as he ran to the stone wall blocking their path. He brought back an arm and let loose an ultra-powerful punch. Lemmy flinched when he heard a loud snap and a cry of pain from Morton. He had broken his wrist on the wall.

We're all going to die down here, and it's all my fault! Lemmy realized, horrified. If I didn't lead them down into the sewers, this wouldn't be happening. I should have taken to the Burned Forest. But no. Instead of that, I've led my little brothers into a deathtrap! And I can't save them! I'm too weak, too useless…

And so, in the face of imminent doom, even as the ground shook harder than ever, Lemmy Koopa cursed his entire existence. He cursed his disability, his diminutive size, his pathetic excuse for physique, and his ineffective only spell that couldn't possibly help in their current situation.

He snorted at that last thought. Seriously, what can a ball do for us now? It will just get destroyed like us. Lemmy's eyes widened. No, wait. My spell is almost indestructible. Maybe I can use that to our advantage! Maybe—

Lemmy's thoughts were cut off by Iggy shrieking as the enormous Skewer came into view out of the dark. Its diameter was greater than the width of the sewer tunnel, so it ground away at the walls as it spun. The column was approaching at a very high speed.

But everything went in slow motion as Lemmy, without thinking, leapt toward the spiked killing machine and did a midair somersault. As he flipped, the small Dragon-Koopa took his wand from his shell and cast a spell never before attempted.

A giant solid ball started to come into existence. Starting between Morton and the stone wall, it formed around the younger two Koopas. They were getting trapped inside the nearly indestructible object. The ball would finish taking shape just behind Lemmy, and he would be trapped outside to face the destructive force of the Spike Pillar. Unfortunately, it collided with him before his spell had completed. The pillar pushed Lemmy back into the almost-formed ball and pressed his orange carapace into the edge of it. He started to get crushed to death in between two to three seemingly invincible materials. It would take a miracle for part of the trap to break before he did.

If this ball breaks, then Morton and Iggy will die! That can't happen!

Lemmy gasped in pain as his plastron cracked, and his dark eyes were forced open. White cracks lined his vision. At first the Koopaling thought death was making him hallucinate. Then he realized something horrible.

My spell — it's breaking! NO! They're not going to make it… Lemmy started crying. He thought of his family. I'm sorry you couldn't have a better brother.

Just as the giant rubber ball breaking, Lemmy heard an explosion of stone. He suddenly felt himself launched upward. Then, nothing.

So as you can see, I got bored with torturing Roy Koopa and decided to move on to the next oldest. Don't tell Bowser I said that. Now we've gone back to about the same time as when chapter 1 took place: the night of the attack.

I gave Lemmy a bit of an inferiority complex. It makes sense, though, right? He's the second oldest, but the smallest, and probably the weakest physically.

Now if you'll excuse me, I will now run away in case any readers want to pelt me with Bob-ombs. *runs*