Okay I'm actually excited for this one.
Siph: Because of the ideas you got in our last author's note?
Hoo yeah. Now let's get right into it.
Disclaimer: I did not have any longterm plans for this chapter. All the ideas you see are baby.
Chapter 51: Path in Ruin
The party all dropped down from the other end of the pipe.
"It's darker than it was last night," Iggy noted. "The skewer must have torn up the glow blocks."
"Ugh, it smells as bad as Shhwonk Fortress down here," Goombella immediately complained. "Please tell me Fuzzies don't live here, too."
Iggy looked around. "I don't think there's much of anything living here anymore."
The Darkland storm drain looked completely different from last night. Where there were once brown brick walls expertly masoned, there were now ugly, jagged gashes in the walls, ceiling, and floor. There wasn't even a smooth surface left to stand on. Glow blocks that once lined the walls lay strewn about what was left of the tunnel floor in pieces, luminance fading. Behind them, a large grey wall blocked the rest of the tunnel, but was heavily cracked.
Vivian summoned a fireball to her hand to provide light that the glow blocks were losing.
Lemmy looked up at the wall. "Big, dumb wall in our way, check." He looked around. "Big, scary skewer, no check. I wonder how he got them in here." He looked up at the warp pipe on the ceiling. "So that's why I felt like I went up — I did! Hey, Morton, you're awful quiet. I figured you'd be babbling about all the destruction here." He turned to his large brother, only to find him over by the far wall on his knees. "Oh no!" Lemmy gasped and bounced over on his ball.
The Crystal Star party looked at the two.
"What's the matter, dear children?" Flurrie asked.
Lemmy hugged Morton when he reached him, who was sobbing. "Oh, Morton! Your carving!" The littlest Koopaling looked at the wall.
Iggy gasped, too, and ran to his brothers. "Oh man, I didn't even think of that!" He estimated with his hands where the bricks used to be compared to the deep scrapes now and looked down at the gravel beneath him. He let out a soft sob himself. "There's no way there's anything salvageable left." He turned and launched himself at Morton, effectively joining the group hug.
Bobbery approached the princes. "Boys," he began softly, "I do not know what significance this carving was to you, but I can tell just calling it sentimental value would be an understatement and a crime, am I close?"
Morton sniffled and nodded wordlessly.
"I'd say even that's an understatement," Iggy mumbled."
Lemmy looked at the old sailor. "Morton and Mom carved their names into the wall here. It was the last memory they made together."
Shallow inhales could be heard from many in the party along with varying verbal reactions. "Oh my gosh." "Gee whiz." "Oh no." "Oh my word." "Whoa." "Oh dear." "Oh, poor boy."
Bobbery sighed, "Now that is a grief I very much understand, lads." He pulled out an old envelope and looked at it intently. "I'm sure you must miss her deeper than any sea."
The Dragon-Koopas turned and looked at the old letter the Bob-omb held. Their eyes widened slightly.
Morton wiped his eyes and nodded. "We can't stay here," he said. "We have new memories to save."
Bobbery nodded back. "Right you are, young one. You may grieve more when you return after we are finished. That I dare not deprive you of."
Lemmy hopped back on his ball. "Yeah! I spent way too much of my life feeling sorry for myself. We gotta get a move on!"
Iggy leapt to his feet. "And we can avenge Mom's memory by beating King Dad's Umbra and taking back his body!" He hissed suddenly and rubbed his temple. He pulled a Super Shroom out of his shell and chomped on it.
Lemmy gasped and looked at Iggy. "You don't think he broke the carving on purpose, do you?"
Iggy swallowed as his headache eased. "I'm positive he hated Mom. You all remember what I heard King Dad saying, right?"
"'I can't fight you without her,'" Lemmy repeated.
Goombella joined the conversation, writing in her Tattle Log. "Wait, so it sounds like your mom helped Bowser keep his Umbra at bay. But how the heck did she do that?"
Iggy shook his head. "I don't know. But I think we all know who does."
Everyone looked down at the Koopalings' shadows.
The Great Gonzales Jr. folded his arms. "Someone's gonna have a lot of explaining to do when we find him."
Koopie Koo butted in. "But before that, we have a mountain to find, and then Mario and the others have to find us. Let's get moving!"
"Uh, in case you haven't noticed," Morton began, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, "we have a big, dumb, indestructible stone wall in the way. I broke my wrist trying to punch my way through it. Didn't even make a dent in it." He rubbed his wrist.
Goombella approached the wall, looking up and around at it. "It can't be completely indestructible. Look at all these giant cracks in it."
Morton shrugged. "I guess the giant skewer did that to it. I'm no skewer, though."
"Maybe not, but I think we have everything we need to break it the rest of the way." She looked at her friends and smiled. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Cracks in a wall?" Gonzales Jr. repeated. "Only one guy for the job in this group."
Ms. Mowz took Lemmy's hand. "You boys should come with us."
The princes looked at each other, but followed the rest of the group farther back in the tunnel. But they noticed one of their members was missing. They looked back at the wall to see Admiral Bobbery sizing it up.
"Oh I get it!" Morton exclaimed. "A big crack in any wall is an obvious indicator for a Bob-omb to blast it away! I can't believe I didn't connect the dots there! Man, I'm off my game today. I really need to step it up or we'll never—"
"Be quiet and cover your ears!" Goombella interrupted, holding her book over herself.
Everyone did so as Bobbery ignited his fuse and let loose his explosive might on the wall. The whole tunnel shook. The party looked up after shaking subsided to see a gaping hole in the once imposing wall, revealing the expert brickwork of the tunnel on the other side. It was a stark contrast to the destroyed tunnel behind them.
Iggy looked down at his shadow as they walked through, smirking as it writhed. Though that might just be from Vivian's fire. "Looks like someone wasn't expecting us to get as far as we have."
"Yeah, between those Crystal Star things," Morton began yet again, "all your abilities, and you Mailbox SP, Koops, we're really getting the show on the road here! I bet we'll be done before dinner. Well maybe not, we better stop for dinner so we boost our energy up. And walking to Peak Land even from here takes time, and who knows how long it'll take the others? From Toad Town and we don't even know where Ludwig and Wendy are."
Morton's ramble was interrupted this time by a familiar tune from the very device he mentioned.
Koops retrieved his Mailbox SP from his shell and opened it. "It's from Mario this time!" He skimmed it. "It looks like our plan has some more parts to it. And Ludwig and Wendy are accounted for too now." He read aloud as they walked.
And the royal Koopas' shadows were as lively as ever as they went.
Siph: Okay, cool. Vivian got to use her fire, and then we have Bobbery making a joke out of that big dumb wall that broke poor Morton's wrist.
And his heart. I wish that carving he pointed out in chapter 7 (remember chapter 7? Man that was ages ago) that he and Clawdia made could have survived, but it just didn't seem possible due to the size of the skewer. If it was painted on, I considered having everyone find the pieces and make a puzzle out of it at Lemmy's suggestion. But since it was crudely carved letters, the skewer just carved the rest of it away.
Siph: Man that's sad. But at least it helped to motivate them even more to beat that stupid Umbra.
And how! I also revealed some more information about his motivations…
Siph: You mean the part where Clawdia could somehow keep him at bay? Or at least make it not as hard.
Yepper.
Siph: Was that idea baby?
Noper. But the idea to reveal it now was baby.
Siph: How did she do that, by the way?
Spoilers. *pats him on the head* Read and review, y'all!