"Huh, where exactly are we?"
"I'm gonna be honest; I have no idea..."
On Alex's 27th day of vacation, he and Cappy went to visit the Mushroom Kingdom, as the latter was getting a bit tired of visiting dangerous places and wanted to spend a day in familiar territory. Fate, however, had other plans as, when Alex hopped into a cannon meant to help travel long distances across Mario's numerous worlds, the two friends were shot beyond the Super Nintendo part of the Epic Universe, flew over the ocean, and landed on some sort of island. They now attempted to find their way across this maze of an island.
The forest was dark and silent. Alex and Cappy advanced without making any noise by fear of attracting unwanted attention. From time to time, a ray of sunshine would pierce the dense canopy of leaves above to illuminate the path ahead. At one point, they stopped to sit down on a tree log.
"Do you think we could have landed in the Forest of Illusion?" the Koopa questioned his friend.
"Nah; the Forest of Illusion is supposed to be on Dinosaur Island. Before landing, I got the chance to see the place from above, and it doesn't have the same landmark at all," Cappy replied. He tapped his chin. "I think we may have landed somewhere on the Island of Adventure section of the Epic Universe. We must simply find where."
They heard a water sound and also loud cracking in the distance. Maybe there were some people nearby relaxing by a river? Alex and Cappy followed the sounds, eventually getting out of the dense forest and into a rocky section. When they reached the noise, the sight before them caused the duo to widen their eyes. Brontosauruses were standing in a wide valley, eating greens from the tall rocks.
"D-Dinosaurs?" Cappy mumbled in awe. "But then, does that mean we truly landed on Dinosaur Island? Unless it's the island from Jurassic World?"
Alex had a strange feeling as he looked all around. "No. I don't know why, but this place feels familiar. I can't quite put it back into place... Wait, what's going on?" The tall dinosaurs perked their heads and began looking around. Something clearly bothered them, but what?
"Huh... Alex?" Cappy nervously called. The Koopa turned around to see a group of hungry-looking beasts glaring down at them from one of the stones.
"...?! Hang on to my head, Cappy!" Alex immediately grabbed his friend, pulled him on top of his head, and ran off into a sprint. He ran as fast as his little legs could, not even daring to turn around and see if the Venatosauruses were close on their tail. Just their growls were enough of an answer. "We must escape before they devour us!"
"I think they mostly wanna devour you; dinosaurs usually don't consume hats," Cappy pointed out. "But I get your point!"
Alex ran for his life for what felt like an eternity. He could not fight those dinosaurs off as he dropped his backpack in a corner before jumping in the cannon, back in Super Nintendo World... And there was NO WAY he could defeat this whole pack with Tai Chi! The growling sounds eventually stopped coming, but Alex dared not to stop.
"Cappy, I think I realized something!"
"What is it?"
"We're not on Dinosaur Island OR the land from Jurassic World! I didn't realize it at first, but... I think we're on Skull Island!"
Cappy's eyes widened. "What?! You mean the island of King Kong?!"
"Yeah! It took me a moment, but I recognize the landscape and fauna from watching the film and playing the game, when I was a kid!" Alex explained. "I have no idea how that cannon managed to shoot us so far, but we need to get away before-AAAAAH!"
Too busy talking to his companion, Alex failed to notice the end of the path ahead. His reflexes kicking in, he took refuge inside his Koopa shell, bumping against many hard surfaces that did hurt, but still kept him safe from any potential deadly damage. He eventually smacked the ground with a 'OOF!' that marked the end of the fall.
"Maybe I should've been more careful there," Alex mumbled as he got out of his shell and back to his feet. "You okay, Cappy?"
"A bit shaken, but alive," the floating hat replied. He looked around and realized they had fallen into a pit of some sort - a crack that formed out of nowhere. Vines were falling from above, puddles of mud lying all around and holes in the stone walls. As if that wasn't creepy enough, the light barely entered the pit and giant bones were lying everywhere. "Strange place. At least, we should be safe from those dinos here. What should we do now, Alex?" He received no response. "Alex?"
The hat turned to see his companion looking quite pale, as if he had realized something important. "This place... It can't be...?!" They heard strange noises and turned their head to merely see little creatures crawling out of the holes. "... No... Oh, no!"
At this moment, the horror started. Creatures that looked like ants the size of Alex's backpack emerged from the lower holes, while giant crabs started crawling down the walls. Not only that, but there were also monsters in the mud. Giant worm-like creatures with sharp fangs at the entrance of their circular mouth. All of them set their sight on the unexpected meal.
"... Okaaay, I think we've stranded to the wrong place!" Cappy said, feeling a chill down his spine from seeing so many monsters. "Come on, Alex, use my powers and let's get out of here!" When he turned around, Alex looked even worse than before.
His legs were trembling so hard that he might have been standing outside in winter's temperature, sweat drenched every millimeter of his yellow skin, his mouth opened and closed over and over again, and his face displayed an expression of pure terror. "No, no, no! I can't be here!" he mumbled loud enough for Cappy to hear him. The poor Koopa's heart was beating faster than a motorboat, an old trauma coming back to him. Before long, his legs flat out gave up, and he collapsed on the dirty ground, clutching himself up with tears in his eyes.
"A-Alex?"
"HELP!" the poor Koopa yelled at the top of his lungs. "SOMEBODY, PLEASE, HELP! HELP ME!"
Cappy didn't know how to react. Sure, Alex sometimes got scared when in dangerous situations, but never to THAT point. No way he could do anything in that state, and the monsters kept closing in on them. What were they supposed to do? As the floating hat desperately tried to calculate some plan to get them out of this situation, he failed to notice a pair of turquoise eyes watching the scene from above.
One of the giant crabs was about to grab the duo with its pincer, but stopped when noticing something. A figure jumped from the air, delivering a powerful downward kick on top of the crab's shell, pushing it back, and then landed gracefully between Cappy and the other monsters. This figure seemed to be some sort of anthropomorphic monkey with a head full of soft platinum white hair, and brown fur that seemed paper thin and also very soft. From its attire - a red tribal top and gray shorts - Cappy could tell this newcomer was a female. A weapon that seemed like the mix of a wooden club and a boomerang was peeking from her back by a backpack, and she was currently holding a wooden spear whose tip was on fire.
The monsters still tried to approach, only to step back when the female primate let out an aggressive, almost feline-like screech, and swung her burning spear forward. A few of the giant ants attempted to jump, only to be met by a fire smack courtesy of the primate lady. This last one then took out a bottle from her backpack whose content she spilled on the ground and then tossed her spear over to set it on fire. Not used to the presence of light, the creatures all backed away in fear, just as she had hoped. She took the chance to grab the paralyzed Alex and then used her primate agility to climb the stone walls, expertly dodging the crabs who tried to catch them.
Upon getting out of the pit, the primate woman set Alex on the ground and looked down the pit to make sure nothing followed them. "Phew, that was a close one, but we made it," she said, wiping some sweat from her forehead. She then turned to the two friends she saved. "You guys okay?"
"We're fine, thanks to you," Cappy gratefully said. "Well, mostly," he added upon seeing Alex still crying in his terrified state. "I don't know why, but seeing these monsters down there really scared him off. Calm down, Alex."
The primate stared at the Koopa with sympathy. He was trembling and crying uncontrollably, like someone who had just lived a traumatic experience. With a sigh, she kneeled down and carefully picked him in her arms for a hug. "Shh, it's okay, it's over now. You're not in danger anymore," she whispered, tenderly stroking the back of his head for extra comfort.
Slowly but surely, Alex ceased trembling. His cries turned into hiccups before completely disappearing. Now calm, he finally got to give a good look at his savior. She was some kind of monkey that barely stood taller than him, with platinum white hair that fell in a mess around her head, brown fur that seemed paper thin and was tan brown mostly all over, but darker brown around her face, ears, and striped tail. She had four fingers, including opposable thumbs, on both her hands and her feet, and a prehensile tail, much like spider monkeys. Even though she was very monkey-like in appearance, her head and especially her face were a lot more feline-like, kind of like a lioness cub. Her turquoise eyes were wide and full, and had a deep soulful radiance, showing nothing but courage and comfort. Combined with her adorable smile, it was enough to banish any fear Alex may have had left in his heart.
She also had tribal tattoos over her body. Arrows under her eyes that looked like tears, a tattoo on her forehead between her eyes that took the form of a point with a round pattern around it, spiral ones on her arms, another spiral tattoo with radial arrows on her belly, one on her back that looked like a wave, and lastly, less discernible tattoos on her tights that Alex couldn't exactly see because of her shorts.
In terms of clothing, her attire consisted of an apple-red tribal top with black arrow heads markings (similar to her eyes tattoos) near the hem, which ended at her ribs, leaving her stomach exposed. Gray shorts that were torn at their hems with a hole for her tail, and fingerless gloves for her hands and feet. She was carrying a backpack, from which Alex could see some sort of wooden boomerang peeking out.
"Are you feeling better?" she asked with stroking Alex's head and wiping away his tears, almost like a mother.
"*sniff* Yes... Thank you, Miss...?" Alex said, waiting to know her name.
"Kameilo. Just call me Kameilo," she replied and helped him back to his feet. She then crossed her arms and gave him a curious look. "You guys look quite lost and underprepared to make an expedition on Skull Island. What exactly happened?"
"We didn't get here on purpose; we accidentally got shot by a cannon all the way from the Mushroom Kingdom," Cappy explained. "First, we almost got devoured by a bunch of dinosaurs near that valley with the long necks, then we fell in this pit, and faced those...things."
"I see," Kameilo said with a nod. "The dinosaurs you encountered must have been Venatosauruses; they like to ambush their prey in packs. Besides the V-rexes, I'd say they're the most dangerous predators here, but if you know how to run and how to fight, you should be able to deal with them. But you should NEVER, under any circumstance, go down pits like this one. The creatures in here are too numerous and too dangerous; it's not worth the trip. Good thing for you that I'm more familiar with this island than most people."
"I'm also familiar with Skull Island, you know," Alex pointed out. "I played the video game and watched the Peter Jackson film, when I was a kid. That's the reason I panicked down there; the part of the movie with the giant bugs traumatized me when I saw it for the first time." He looked down with little tears in the corners of his eyes. "I wasn't ready to face this trauma again... When they started coming out, I just became paralyzed, unable to do anything... We could've died down there..."
Kameilo got down on her knees and placed a hand on Alex's shoulder, a look of compassion on her face. "Listen... Alex, was it?" She waited for the Koopa to nod before continuing. "Don't give in to despair. Some battles we can choose, others we can't. Whatever you're forced to face in life, do your best, make your best with whatever little you got. But most importantly, don't be ashamed of being scared; fear is something we all experience at some point in life. The antidote to fear is courage, and courage is something that everybody can learn. Trust me; I'm talking from experience."
Alex stared into the simian's reassuring eyes, before smiling and giving her a hug. A hug she more than gladly returned. "Thank you, Kameilo. I truly needed to hear that."
"Any day!" Kameilo patted him on the head. "Now, let's get out of here before another group of monsters arrives! Lucky for you, I have a camp not too far from here; we can go there and use fire signals to alert passing boats of our presence."
Kameilo pulled Alex and Cappy on her back as she used her strong legs and primate agility to hop from one branch to the other, making her two passengers laugh and cheer as she did so.
Author's note: That was a close one, wouldn't you say? Alex and Cappy were almost goners in this chapter; good thing they were saved in extremis by our new guest for this story, Kameilo. Special thanks to Ferroth for providing this amazing OC, who also serve as the Epic Universe counterpart to... Well, Ferroth. This adventurous primate creature has a well-defined personality and a deep backstory, most of which I learned from the author's publications on DeviantArt. If you go on this site, Ferroth publishes amazing art all the time; I strongly suggest you go see. That way, you may learn more about Kameilo and the world she lives in. Hopefully I'll do justice to my friend's character.
The trauma Alex experienced in this chapter is a reflection of my own RL experience. See, when I was a kid, my brother and I loved to play the King Kong game on our PS2 all the time. So, inevitably, we had to see the movie it was based on - plus, it was made by the same director who made the Lord of the Rings movies. You know, the best movie trilogy of all time? While I greatly enjoyed the film and consider it a classic, my little kid's mind wasn't ready for the scene in the pit of giant bugs. Seriously, seeing Lumpy getting eaten alive by giant worms would already be scary for an adult, so imagine for a 8-years old! I decided to give this fear to Alex here, as a reminder that he isn't a magical powerhouse who can just beat anything in the Epic Universe without breaking a sweat; he's a cheerful but flawed young man who needs people to help him when he falls.
Next time: Alex reflects on his time in the Epic Universe as his vacation comes to an end...