AN: Hey everyone! Today just so happens to be my birthday! And since today is my birthday, I'm going to do something special and update multiple stories today! I don't know exactly how many; could be two, could be three, could be four. However, I will do my best to update as much a possible in this time. I hope you guys look forward to that!

Chapter 8 Lazy All Day

Both Iggy and Sarcasm moved with the speed of rabbits. When they got to the Morton, Iggy studied his appearance. He looked exactly like the real Morton, save for the fact that both his shell as well as the star bite (in other words, the star shaped birthmark) on his face were orange. The trait was also lying on the ground, snoring in a way that Iggy would only really consider appropriate for the middle of the night. This didn't stop Iggy from giggling though. His heart felt as if it was going to burst with excitement, and the organ also beat so fast that not even a hummingbird heart could keep up with it.

"Oh my gosh." He giggled again, his entire body vibrating as the sound escaped from his mouth. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!" He jumped into the air like he was on a pogo stick. "We're actually making progress! Are we awesome or what, Sarcasm?"

Sarcasm snorted. "Well…"

"Don't answer that," Iggy said, all of his previous excitement and joy vanishing for a quick spell. He looked down at Morton's trait, realizing that it would be best to wake him up and take him back to the castle. They were, after all, not that far away from their starting point, so making the detour back home wouldn't be too much of an issue.

With this thought in mind, Iggy got on his knees and shook the Morton (softly though, as he didn't want to hurt him). "Morty?" The voice he used was soft too. "Come on, wake up Buddy! We have to get back home."

Much to Iggy's delight, the sleeping Morton stirred. He opened one eye, looking into Iggy's face with a familiarity that only a sibling could display.

"Iggy…" the trait yawned. "Whatcha want?"

Iggy chuckled and exchanged a look with Sarcasm. "We wish to take you back to the castle, dear younger brother." He took hold of his hand, trying his best to lift him to his feet. "It is far more safe for you to sleep there anyways." He pulled and pulled. He was just about to pull the Morton to his feet when, shockingly, the Morton pulled his hand out of Iggy's grasp, let out a yawn, and snuggled back down.

"It's nice that you want to take me home," he drolled. "But it's so much work! All that walking and sweating and stuff…" he shook his head as he closed his eyes. "It's not worth it. Really it's not; kind of like most things that I'm asked to do."

Iggy's jaw dropped. He looked over at Sarcasm, who simply smirked.

"I think it's safe to say that this is Morton's laziness."

"I feel your hypothesis is correct." Iggy looked back down at the trait with a scrunched up brow. He took hold of his hand again, pulling with so much effort that he probably popped a muscle. "Come on, Morty! Please, come with us!"

Laziness didn't move, and the only sound that escaped from his mouth was some sort of sleepy moan. He turned over on his belly, making it so that his head was situated right on top of his left arm. This sight only served to aggravate Iggy even more.

"Come on!" He exclaimed. He shook his head. "This is ridiculous! Morty, we need you to come back with us to the castle!"

Laziness just yawned. "That's nice…" he delved even deeper into the state of sleep he so desperately wanted to be in.

Sarcasm snickered at this display. "Makes you think that maybe splitting Morton into his five core traits maybe wasn't the best idea."

Iggy sharply exhaled and sent Sarcasm a glare, already feeling extremely fed up with him despite the fact that their journey had more or less just begun. Eventually, he shook his head for a second time and let go of Laziness's hand.

"Okay…" he took the time to consider their next course of action. "This trait clearly isn't interested in moving of his own accord. So, unfortunately, we need to take him back to the castle by force." He thought about this some more before perking up and turning toward Sarcasm. "Say, do you think you could use your telekinesis to move him?"

Sarcasm put on a grin that looked positively fake. "Why sure! I love feeling so much pain that I can't even move!" Iggy gave him a glare, which prompted Sarcasm to get rid of the grin. "Iggy, you do know my telekinesis doesn't work on sentient beings, right? If I use it, then my whole body will go through excruciating pain."

Iggy blinked. "Wait, really?"

"Yeah, really!" Sarcasm shook his head and crossed his arms. "I honestly thought you knew that," he scoffed. "Makes me wonder if your head is too full of science to actually care about your siblings."

Iggy's face grew warm, and steam actually shot out of his nose. "You… you…!" He groaned. "You know what? Getting into a fight with you isn't worth it." Doing such a childish thing would only slow down their progress, and it wouldn't be all that helpful when it came to getting Laziness to move. So, Iggy decided to just swallow his pride and turn the other cheek. "We still are back to square one."

"Yes, it would appear that way." Sarcasm looked down at Laziness before smirking. "Gee, maybe we should get an airlift or something. Could save us some trouble."

Iggy blinked before smiling at his brother's trait. "You know… I do not believe that is such a bad idea!"

Sarcasm gawked at him before smirking. "Uh, I was being sarcastic. You know, that's kind of my thing?"

"Even still," Iggy said, trying his best to push his annoyance to the side, "it is really the only method we can use in this scenario that will yield any sort of favorable results." He fished his phone out of his hammerspace. "We should take advantage of the opportunity."

Sarcasm still gawked at Iggy before shrugging. "Okay. Whatever floats your boat…"

With that, Iggy made the call to the paratroopas back at the castle. Within fifteen minutes, they arrived with a mat, which eight paratroopas carried by the edges. It took quite a bit for Laziness to be lifted onto the mat, as Morton was (unfortunately) the heaviest Koopaling. It appeared to Iggy that the paratroopas were going to give up throughout many intervals of this process, which did bring the effectiveness of the method into question. Iggy was just on the brink of giving up and telling the paratroopas to go back to the castle when, thankfully, they succeeded getting Laziness on the cot. Exerting all their strength, all eight paratroopas lifted the trait into the air. Iggy beamed as he watched them fly back to the castle.

"I believe we should follow them," Iggy said as he took hold of Sarcasm's hand.

"Wow, that's actually a good idea," Sarcasm said. "Makes me wonder where those were when you did what you did to Morton and me."

Iggy gave him yet another glare. "Just… just fly after the troopas."

Sarcasm let out a heavy sigh before lifting Iggy to the air. They followed after the troopas, all while Iggy kept an eye on all of them. His heart pounded a little while looking at them, as he was almost certain that they would drop the cot accidentally, thus making Laziness fall to his untimely death. Miraculously, that didn't happen. The troopas kept a good grasp on the cot, which made Iggy smile. His smile only grew bigger as they saw the castle coming up in the distance.

When they arrived at the castle, all of them made their way toward Morton's bedroom. With expert carefulness, the paratroopas set the trait down on Morton's bed. Iggy couldn't help but notice that they all looked relieved when they did this, like they just got rid of a humongous weight rest on their backs (which they kind of were). They all filtered out of the room, leaving Iggy and Sarcasm to observe the sleeping personality trait.

"Well," Sarcasm said. "One down, four to go."

"Indeed," Iggy said. His face lit up. "Oh! I should probably tell the others!"

With that, he got out his phone and texted Hey everyone! We found one of Morton's traits! To pretty much everyone. Within seconds, all the other Koopalings responded to this text.

That's awesome! said Larry.

Great job Iggy! Wendy responded.

Yeah. Good job! said Lemmy.

Iggy couldn't help but smile when he saw this. He put the phone back into his hammerspace before looking back at Laziness. The trait snoozed away, not really caring about anything that was occurring in the area immediately around him.

"He looks so… peaceful," Iggy said.

"Yeah." Sarcasm snorted. No thanks to you."

Iggy bit his tongue. Don't let him get to you. You don't have to take all of his insults personally. Iggy even massaged his temples when he had these thoughts, hoping that he could prevent a headache before one developed. He did thankfully succeed, but only because he refused to look Sarcasm in his snarky eyes.

"Now…" Iggy hesitated, trying his best to think through everything. "The only problem we have now is actually locating the other traits." His heart sank. "That will no doubt be a much more laborious task than locating this one, as I have my doubts that they would just be sleeping right in the middle of the road."

"Yeah," Sarcasm said, for once not saying something snarky or irritating. "That could be seen as difficult." He smiled, the expression surprisingly genuine for a trait such as him. "However, I don't think it will be."

Iggy blinked before snorting. "You're just being sarcastic again."

"Good guess, but I'm actually not." He took a step toward Iggy. "Now that we have one of Morton's traits, he can help us locate the others."

That caught Iggy's interest. "How so?"

"Because all of the traits are part of the same person," Sarcasm explained. "And even though they were separated, the traits are still connected in some way. If Laziness here decides to really concentrate, he could possibly get in touch with the other traits and lead us right to them."

Iggy gave him a confused look. "How do you know all this?"

Sarcasm gave him a sideways glance. "Gee, how would a fractured personality trait possibly know anything about other fractured personality traits?" He shook his head. "I've managed to get back in touch with Ludwig's other traits while we were out searching. It took some form of concentration, but I could actually see what they saw. I could hear their thoughts, and I could feel what they felt."

Iggy blinked. "That's… intriguing." It was so intriguing, in fact, that Iggy completely forgot about the snarky comment Sarcasm just gave him. He grinned as he thought about this more and more. "Oh man, there is so much knowledge to be acquired from this revelation!" He giggled as Laziness snored. "I have to perform some tests on you traits! I have to do some studying on this subject! Oh, I can only imagine how many metaphorical rocks there are to metaphorically turn over." His giggling grew more intense. "This is amazing! THIS IS…!"

"Iggy!" Sarcasm exclaimed. "You're losing sight of the mission. Again."

"Oh." Iggy cleared his throat and readjusted his glasses. "Right, sorry." He looked over at Laziness. "I… I suppose I should get to requesting information from Laziness." With a nod from Sarcasm, he approached Laziness on the bed and began softly shaking him. "Morty… Morty, wake up! We need your help!"

This caused Laziness to stir. He looked up at Iggy, his face full of disappointment. "Oh man. I actually have to do work?"

"Yes, but there is no need to fret," Iggy reassured him. "This isn't a hard task at all." He leaned closer, his expression serious. "We just need you to get in touch with Morton's other personality traits. That could be a really big help to us." He smiled. "Do you believe you are capable of doing that?"

Laziness blinked, at first looking unsure. "Uh…" eventually, he sat up in bed. "I… yeah, I think I can do that."

Iggy beamed, almost jumping up and down in excitement right then and there. He backed up, exchanging a hopeful look with Sarcasm before looking back at Laziness. Morton's trait closed his eyes, squeezing them so tightly as he tried his best to concentrate.

"I… I…" he put his hands to his temples and hummed. "I… I think I can see something…"

Iggy grinned as he took a step forward. "And what would that be exactly?"

Laziness concentrated even harder. "Well… there are people all around me. They are chatting, laughing, walking all over the… the…" he paused. "Man, this town is beautiful. It's really colorful, especially for a Koopa Kingdom town."

Iggy's spirits soared. "That must be Sparksville!"

Laziness nodded, although he still wasn't done. "And I… I can smell something." He sniffed the air. "It's… good. It's spicy and well seasoned. I… I'm going into a building to find out what the smell is. A… a restaurant, I believe. It… it…"

Iggy leaned forward, not wanting to miss a word of what Laziness said. Unfortunately, Laziness opened his eyes almost immediately.

"That's pretty much it." He yawned. "Well, I'm gonna hit the hay." He laid back down, pulling the covers of his bed up over his body as he began to snore.

"Hmm," Iggy said, putting his hand to his chin. "That was… that was helpful. At least he managed to tell us something." He looked over at Sarcasm. "We should probably text the others." He pulled out his phone. "And make our way down to Sparksville ourselves."

Sarcasm nodded. "Wouldn't hurt."

Iggy nodded right back. After typing out the message to his siblings, he took a deep breath and turned toward the door. "Okay. Let's go!"