Here's to another chapter! This one is just a intermission before the next Pure Heart, and we all know who'll appear in the next world. ;)
Chapter 19: Hero or Villain?
After his defeat, Dimentio teleported back to Castle Bleck and gave his report to his superior. Everyone was present in this meeting, even Mr. L since he missed the last one.
"...And that is how the ruffians managed to best me," Dimentio finished reporting to Count Bleck. "Ah ha ha. They are strong, to be sure... Very strong. Dare I say... They might be strong enough to defy the prophecy!"
Count Bleck held his own chin, taking in his minion's words. "Spare Count Bleck your theatrics. The Light Prognosticus is false. The Dark Prognosticus holds the answer to eliminating heroes that rise to stop us."
Dimentio was surprised by this new info. "Oh my. That's the first time that morsel of information has touched my ears. Do tell!"
"Bleh heh heh heh heh... In due time, Dimentio. In due time," he replied. He looked at Mr. L and said "Mr. L, I feel it's time we sent you to deal with these pests."
L was shocked by his boss's decision. "W-wait, really!?"
Nastasia adjusted her glasses and confirmed the Count's command. "Yeah, um, I can assure you that you'll take care of them next, K?" L nodded at that.
Count Bleck was pleased. "Lovely, exclaimed Count Bleck. Return to your posts, my dear minions."
All the minions shouted "As you command, Count! HAIL BLECK!", then left the room, leaving only Count Bleck and a concerned Nastasia.
"Um...," the secretary muttered.
Count Bleck looked at her and asked "Does something trouble you, Nastasia?"
She replied "Yeah, Count... You know, there's still time... You can change your mind..."
The Count had heard enough. "That is enough, Nastasia. We've already come this far, so we shall forge on! But you needn't stay by Count Bleck's side. You can depart with my blessing."
Nastasia refused, however, and told him "Um, no, my count. I won't be doing that. My life is already sworn to you. Yeah, it's belonged to you since the day you saved me... I'll be sticking it out with you until my game ends, 'K?"
"If that pleases you...," he said, before leaving with the Dark Prognosticus, Nastasia leaving right after him.
Though the meeting room appeared to be empty, a disembodied voice came and echoed in the room. "My my my! How interesting! Nastasia and the count have such DEEP conversations!" That voice belonged to Dimentio as he revealed himself, speaking his thoughts out loud. "Mm... Just what is our dear count playing at? Ah, well. I'll let him worry about that. I must attend to my own...projects." He teleported out of the room, back to his own scheming.
"Timpani, why? Why do you avoid me?"
"Ow... OW! Unhand me!"
"Huh? You're crying! Why? Timpani, you must tell me what has happened!"
"It's nothing... Don't worry about it... Just forget it..."
"Oh no... Timpani, is my father behind this?"
"I'm... I'm just an ordinary girl. No matter how much I love you, we must part."
"Timpani... I..."
"This is good-bye, Blumiere. There's no other choice. This is our fate..."
fter retrieving the Pure Heart, the heroes came back to Flipside to see Merlin. On their way, Peach sighed with relief. "That was...a little weird for a while, but we seem to have gotten through it OK..."
Tippi flew in front of everyone and said "I'm so sorry... It was all my fault... And... Then... You all... Thank you so much..."
"Tippi, you're our friend, we'd never leave you behind," Daisy told her butterfly friend.
Mario and Peach nodded in agreement while Bowser grinned at the pixl, his arms crossed and said "Pbbtth! Wanna know how to thank me, bugface? Just stay outta my way, OK?"
The pink princess just had a realization and asked the koopa "Say, come to think of it... Bowser... Could you be our final hero?"
"Ho there!"
Everyone looked to see Merlon walking towards them. "I have been waiting for you, young heroes! Did you succeed in your search for the next Pure Heart?"
"I guess we did...," Tippi said, quietly.
After a brief explanation of what happened at the fortress, Merlon was intrigued by the revelation and said "Intriguing... So then... When you saved Tippi, the next Pure Heart just appeared?" Everyone nodded. "Mmm... How very interesting... I think that castle was once a dwelling of the Ancients I told you of earlier. It seems that my ancestors have roamed far and wide in their dimensional travels. 'In the castle beyond the great sea, we hid a Pure Heart and sealed it safely...' Yes, I remember reading such a passage in the Light Prognosticus. The seal could only have been broken by a powerful pulse of love and trust..."
"So... you think it was because Tippi began to trust us that we found this Pure Heart? That's amazing...," Peach was astonished by this.
Merlon was content with everyone. "And now we have all four heroes! Ho ho! This is indeed pleasant news!"
Bowser didn't like the idea of being called a hero. "Oh, please! Come on, people! I ain't a hero. I'm only here cause there's only room for one bad guy and that's me. With me here, you don't need anybody else, seriously! Trust me, any problem comes up, I'll stomp it into next week! I'll Bowserize it!"
Merlon seemed pleased by Bowser's enthusiasm. "Oh ho! Well met, Mr. Bowser! May your strength protect this grou-." He was interrupted by a sudden rumbling in the area, and everyone looked up and saw the void expanding further, which frightned the wizard. "Oh ho... It seems The Void has expanded once more... Time is short!"
Tippi said "We have to keep going... We must start looking for the next Heart Pillar..."
"There are matters I must attend to as well... I must search for any item of significance in the Light Prognosticus..." Merlon left to his own duties, leaving the heroes to find the next Heart Pillar. Once the Pure Heart was placed, A green door appeared next to the yellow one. They went to the top floor and had entered to the next world.
The heroes ended up in some part of space, floating around as Tippi fluttered and observed their surroundings. Not noticing the others, she said "Mmm, stars everywhere... I believe we're in outer space, almost certainly..." She heard a lot of gasping and saw the heroes losing their breath and faces turning blue. "What troubles you all? Ah... Yes, of course... We seem to be lacking air... You guys need that, don't you? Oh... Oh, gracious me... What am I to do? Um... Well... Let me see...
Um...
Hrm...
Urm...
Hm...
Then...
Well...
Well...
But...
So...
NOOOOO!"
Using the return pipe, everyone quickly went back to Flipside.
"Hey... Please, wake up...," Tippi called out to Mario, who was slowly regaining consciousness.
Mario got up and saw that he was back at the top floor of Flipside. Peach, Daisy and Bowser slowly got up as well, confused as to what happened.
"Tippi, what just happened?" Mario asked the butterfly.
She responded "You're all right, aren't you? Oh, thank goodness... I don't really know how I got us all out of there... It just sort of happened... We won't last out there as we are... Perhaps we should ask Merlon's advice..."
He nodded in agreement, and as soon as he was sure everyone was okay, they all went to Merlon's house, where he greeted them in.
The wizard asked "Oh ho! That was certainly quick work... You've already found the next Pure Heart?"
"No, Merlon...," Tippi replied. "That door led us straight into outer space..."
Merlon was surprised. "Space?! Oh ho, I imagine THAT was an unwelcome surprise!"
"Your tellin' me," Bowser muttered under his breath.
Not hearing what he said, Tippi confirmed what Merlon said. "Yes... There was no air, so Mario and his friends couldn't breathe... What do we do?"
Merlon pondered for a moment, before having an idea. "Hmmm... Well, if you had a space helmet, you would be all right, I imagine..."
"And...you have one?" Tippi hoped.
"Of course, I don't have one! But I imagine that even something LIKE a space helmet would suffice...," he replied, earning groans from everyone. He looked around his house to see if he had anything that resembled a space helmet, but much to his disappointment, he couldn't find anything of the sort. He walked back to the group and said "Oh, blast it all! I cleaned out my shelves the other day... Yes, I HAD the perfect thing, but I was making space, and I gave it to someone in town!"
"To who?!" Tippi shouted.
"Oh, just some random boy...," he replied. "It seemed more convenient than recycling it... You must find that boy and explain the situation! Get it back from him!"
Mario volunteered to grab the helmet since the girls were tired from the battle with Francis, and Bowser didn't want to, as he quote on quote 'run a stupid errand'. After a couple of minutes, he found a boy that held a fishbowl. Mario negotiated with the boy, and came to an agreement that in exchange for the bowl, the plumber would set the fish inside it free. Mario took the bowl and went to the bottom of town and released the fish in a small pond. He came back up and Came back to Merlon's place with a empty fishbowl.
"Oh, I see you've found it," Merlon said, feeling pleased.
Daisy, however, was far from it. "Hold up, there's only one, though. What about the rest of us!?"
"Fear not, your highness," Merlon reassured her. "I'll simply use my magic to duplicate the helmet for all of you." Just as he promised, he used his powers to make three more. It fit perfectly for the girls, but for Bowser it was too small for him, so to stop him from going on a full blown rage, Merlon used his magic and made his helmet just the right size.
Once everyone was set, Tippi said "Now we can go to space... So... Let's head back to that door..."
Everyone nodded and made their way back to the green doors, and onward towards space for the next Pure Heart.
Mr. L was currently adding the final touches on his greatest creation, getting ready for battle. After the meeting, he ran off straight towards his work room and getting ready to battle the heroes... and hopefully see the Sarasaland princess. He was so focused on finishing his machine that he didn't notice the two intruders in his room. One of them tapped his shoulder, causing him to shriek in fright and turn around to fight, only to see Dimentio and Mimi in front of him.
"Ugh, I really need to set up an alarm system in here...," he muttered before asking his fellow minions "Did you guys need something?"
"What? Am I not suppose to wish you luck?" Mimi asked rhetorically.
L raised a brow at her, confused. It wasn't unusual for her to be sarcastic or witty whenever she's around her peers, but he did sense a hint of worry in her voice, which was unusual to him.
"What, dear Mimi, means to say is we want you to succeed in your mission and make our Count very proud," Dimentio told him. "Take my advice, Mr. L, the heroes have the Koopa King now, and they were terribly hard to defeat." He flew closer to the mechanic until their faces barely touched. "Do be careful, won't you?" The Jester flew away from the two and bid farewell before teleporting away.
"By the way, where's O'Chunks?" The mechanic asked Mimi.
Mimi replied "Finishing his report."
"He's still not done!?"
"Nastasia is actually with him in his room, making him hurry up." Mimi had a single sweat fall down the side of he head, worrying for the former commander.
"Poor Chunky...," L said, also worried about his friend.
"...There's something wrong with him," Mimi commented, making Mr. L look at her funny.
"O'Chunks isn't brain damaged," He told her.
"I'm talking about Dimentio, L," Mimi looked at him with a serious, concerned look. "Look, I don't know if it's just me, but he's been a lot more secretive since he came back from his mission, creepy too. Plus, the way he talked just now bothered me."
"How so?" He asked.
"He didn't say a single simile the entire time."
"Ok, that is weird," L said, slowly starting to feel the same way as the spider fashionista. "But why are you so concerned with me all of a sudden? You haven't-a-done so before."
"It's cause outta every minion in this castle, I tolerate you the most. You were already in a near-death experience when you came here and was sure to heck gonna get a game over if Nastasia didn't fix you. Just don't go overboard when fighting your brother, all right?" L winced at the mere mention of his brother.
Mimi crossed her arms and looked at him with mixed emotions, mainly serious, slight anger, annoyance and concern as well. In Mr. L's mind, all the main minions as well as Count Bleck treated each other as family, each one of them having some kind of past but came together to fufill the same goal. L also had envisioned what his world would be like, but he knew it'd be impossible without the Pure Hearts, that's part of the reason he became a minion in the first place. He simply gave Mimi a nod before he turned around to finish his work. Mimi sighed and walked out the door, deciding to walk back to her room instead of teleporting. As soon as the door closed, Mr. L paused his actions, deep in thought.
"Hey Mario? Are we really doing this?"
"Of course, bro! Those toads rely on us to save the princess, so we should do it!"
"This is just like with-a-Pauline! You just wanna save the damsel in distress! We're plumbers not heroes."
Mario turned to look at him. "This is not like with Pauline, little bro. We'll save the princess, then we'll figure out a way home together."
"You sure?"
"You of all people know I don't lie."
"True. Phew, for a sec there I thought you wanna go and get yourself a girlfriend."
"C'mon bro, you know i'm better than that...maybe~"
"I KNEW IT! HA!"
"I'M-A-JUST JOKIN', HONEST!"
Mr. L chuckled at that last bit, remembering a good memory from his past. He realized he got distracted from his work, and got back to work, knowing why he needed to fufill his purpose.
'Yea, I don't lie, my ass. You always went for the damsels in distress.'
Honestly, I wasn't planning on adding that Mario memory in this chapter, but looking back at the previous chapters i've realized how little I put, so here ya go. Is Bowser really a hero? Is Mr. L the villain? Hope you liked this chapter, the next one will be a doozy.