Welcome back!
i don't have anything new to add for this chapter other than to have fun!
With Peach in the party, Luigi's dynamic duo was now a triumphant trio bobbing along the waves of a great, pixelated ocean inside a tiny little raft. Luigi could only stare in awe when he awoke, as the Tile Pool stretched around them for miles upon miles.
"No need to dawdle." Bowser said, "We won't get anywhere soon unless we get our ears wet."
Nodding in agreement, Luigi, and then Peach, followed Bowser to the ocean floor, knowing that somewhere across the water was Fort Francis.
Chapter 3-2
Guppies Crossing
The team had surfaced for air about five times already and clearly weren't getting any closer to land.
"This sucks!" Peach proclaimed, "We can't get there on the raft because we have no paddles or sails, we can't efficiently swim from the surface because the waves keep beating us up, and our fastest method of ocean travel leaves us open to aggressive wildlife and possibly drowning! I'll say it again, this sucks!"
"Do you have a better idea on what to do?" Laddie asked, fluttering at the water's surface.
"No, I just like to complain about it..."
"I think I saw an actual cave this time, maybe it will lead us to a secret passage." Luigi suggested.
"What makes you so sure that'll be the case?" Peach asked.
"About 90% of underwater caves on adventures like this lead to underwater passages, so call it a bit of a hunch."
"Fair enough."
The Heroes swam back beneath the surface, their eyes, ears, and nostrils filling with saltwater. Luigi never liked to admit it, but he hated navigating through water: it was always slow, and he always had difficultly navigating where everything was. Also everything was faster than him, making it easy to get bullied by the wildlife.
So yeah, water was not, and never would be, fun to navigate through. At least he was right about the cave: it lead to a huge underwater cavern with space to surface for air. The walls of the cavern seemed to be marked, as if for measuring distances. Bowser thought that maybe the people who marked the place enjoyed swimming races, which seemed fair enough judging by how much of the junk on the ocean floor seemed to belong to an ancient society.
Question was though, what happened to everybody? Why was this place empty aside from many really angry cheep cheeps and some bloopers? And also, what was inside that large chest down there?
Luigi motioned for the others to follow so they could dig up a very submerged chest. It was large and resembled the same kind of chest most of his pixls came from, which could only mean one thing as he opened the box up.
"Freedom!" A new female voice cried out, accompanied by the voice's owner flying up to her new allies. She was perhaps the most complex-looking pixl of the group with the appearance of an unfolded box. Her face was a black square with white-dot eyes, outlined in different shades of green. The squares in the rest of her body were unfilled, with the squares left and right of her face sharing the same green colors while a square above her head and two squares, stacked one over the other from underneath, were different shades of blue. A pair of feathery wings around what could be considered her waist allowed her to bob around in the air with the grace of a jellyfish.
"Whew, I gotta tell you guys, I've been in there for-EVER. You won't catch me in there again! Name's Carrie, by the by, pleased to be of service to all three of you!"
"Hi Carrie!" The pixls all greeted her.
"Hey! Nice to see you guys again!" Carrie cheered, "Let's surface first, then we'll talk.
Carrie was like a motorboat, swimming in circles around the Heroes to spread her magic at crazy speeds before pushing one of them at a time to the room's air pocket in seconds.
"You're pretty fast Carrie, what's your power?" Luigi asked.
"It's not too complicated, my ability is simply to carry passengers from one end of danger to the other as safely as possible. Spike pits are no problem with my powers!" The new pixl explained, "And here's an added bonus, I may be a tiny bit faster than your normal walking speed on land, but I am a beast for traveling across bodies of water!"
Impressed, Peach butted in between her male companions to introduce herself first, and then the other two. This annoyed Luigi, but at least it proved Peach was willing to cooperate with the pixls; he'd had his fears since Peach never treated Bowser's people with respect when she ruled them, and the fact she was dealing with the little fairies in a non-manipulative way was promising, at least to him at least.
It was agreed amongst the group that Bowser was the best person to use Carrie's abilities since his shell could hold the other two heroes without issue, so the koopa took this fact with care and a pinch of pride. Luigi and Peach held on tightly to Bowser while he planted his feet on Carrie's folded-up form, which looked like a very flat box, and grasped her edges for extra security. The platform pixl was much less graceful carrying a host at top speed, but she was more than effective at her job.
With a few zips this way and that way through the blue and briny water, they were back on the surface and speeding through the waves. It was an exhilarating, joyful experience to skid over the waves at such a great speed and feel one's hair blow back as a result, almost like the air was moving instead of the person...and then the Bittacudas showed up and ruined everything like the nasty fishies that they were.
These fish were big, about Bowser's size, with a red body and white underbelly, who stared with their black, cold, unfeeling eyes. Their green fan-like tails were razor sharp if they hit against you, and the blue pectoral fins allowed for seamless aquatic movement, making them significantly more dangerous than any cheep cheep or blooper that had previously crossed their paths. Anybody unfortunate enough to enter the boarders of their territory were lunged at by these beasts, doomed to never breath again as they were snapped up by a toothy, beaklike mouth.
Thankfully, the one thing that the bittacuda could never hope to expect is three inter-dimensional heroes who really want to save their pet bat, one of which that could breathe fire underwater despite the laws of the natural universe saying otherwise. Long story short, the group was thankful to have found something worth eating for when they reached dry land and continued along their merry way.
"That was easy." Luigi said as they surfaced. "I guess the red beasts were a bunch of pushovers."
This did not end up being the case, at all.
"Those weren't the red beasts." Piccolo whispered in terror.
"What?" Luigi turned around.
Within feet of land was a fish about a hundred times the size of the previous predators, sharing their bodily colors and nothing else. It's pectoral fins were long and pale, it's tail fin was short and red, and it's yellow dorsal fin moved with whatever current the creature flowed with. It had an unhinging jaw that could simply swallow anything it wanted and therefore did not need as many teeth the other fish.
"OH!" Luigi panicked, diving with the other to avoid a gross fate. He still had whale-based nightmares after the last time he was eaten alive and would rather not relive that experience. The beast seemed to be alone, but as it dove after the group it kept its mouth wide open, allowing hundreds of its tiny but hungry offspring to swim out and actively seek fresh meat. Everyone, pixls included, did what they could to bat away the fishies from nibbling at them while also avoiding the terrifyingly large parent.
Peach smirked when an idea came to her, she drew the bigger fish's attention towards herself and then waited.
If they could speak underwater, Luigi would be asking the princess what she was planning. Closer and closer the fish got, and the green-clad hero could do nothing to help her when he was surrounded by carnivores guppies.
Peach side-swam away from the adult fish just in time to stab it in the eye, blinding it on one side as it thrashed about in pain. It swam to Luigi, who had just enough time to grab onto the side of the fish with Thoreau's help. He climbed its side with much labor, as letting go would give it the opportunity to snap him up. He reached the fish's face and managed to give it a black eye with his hammer swing and the pull of the current on his side.
Finally, to add insult to injury, Bowser gripped onto a vital fin with his teeth, charging shots of fire on the very spot his teeth sank into, crippling the beast and forcing its retreat. The mighty fish fled elsewhere for a less feisty meal, and its children even hungrier than before as they followed behind it.
The Heroes motor-boated their way to the land they rightfully deserved to walk upon tired, wet, hungry, and cold. At least they had found what they were looking for: The Dotwood Tree.
Curled beneath the mighty branches, a pile of twigs was more than enough to act as tinder and fuel for a fire to cook the bittacuda meat that was miraculously not stolen by the giant fish or it's children. While they all agreed that they'd rather eat anything other than fish, they technically hadn't eaten all day and didn't want to continue starving throughout the night. It was a fowl meal since nobody knew how to properly cook fish, but at least it was filling enough for them to fall asleep by the fire.
Luigi felt a twinge of sadness when he woke up in the middle of the night. He curled up closer to the others for warmth as he contemplated the strange feeling, realizing that it was because he worried for his brother. He hadn't seen Mario since Bowser's Castle, and could only hope he was safe as he fell back to sleep once more with a heavy heart.
Next chapter is going to be 3-3, which was the last chapter I worked on before the massive hiatus. Not too confident that I'll get 3-4 done too soon, it'll release when it's done.