The shark's out of the bag… Finally, everyone has gathered at or near Johnny's tank.
-o-
The Achilles' Heel
Location: Room next to Johnny's tank
Time left: 1 hour, 55 minutes
…
Vice Warden Tanuki looks at the area of the second explosion in disbelief, as the warden, Daisy, and the Fire Bro Hitatsu join him at the tank room. The stench of stagnant water coupled with the pungent fishy smell sting and burn the inside both doogan's nostrils, and both wardens cover their noses as they see Geno, in his ninja suit, drags the shark pirate to the top of submarine Yoshi with his right arm.
"A tar Yoshi, the Scourge, and now a green submarine manned by a ninja… I've seen it all," says the vice warden, still in awe with the turn of events.
"At this rate, we may as well drop straight into the Underwhere," adds Warden Leroy, angrily staring at the submarine.
Geno looks down at the wardens, and crouches on top of submarine Yoshi, whispering, "Yosh, not a word. Just follow my lead and we'll make it."
The doll looks around and spots Daisy and a shirtless fire brother with Boshi-style shades, a silver spiked shell pendant and black shorts, instantly assuming that it wasn't Draco. He also notices that Morton Jr. is not there.
Hitatsu, boiling over the fact that a ninja on a sub was going to foil his plans, forms two blue, fire balls, and chucks them at Geno and Johnny. Geno dodges the fire ball flying at him, and in the nick of time, tackles the unconscious shark pirate away from the other one. However, it hits submarine Yoshi, who grunts as quietly as possible, crossing his eyes in pain. Geno places Johnny in a safe spot on top of submarine Yoshi, and goes back into view, grabbing his left forearm as he charges for a Geno Beam.
As Hitatsu prepares more blue, fire balls, Warden Leroy falls on his knee, since the sensitivity to pungent smells made him nauseous, grabbing onto Tanuki's pant leg with his right hand as he continues cover his nose with his left. The blaring sirens ring inside his head and worsen his condition.
"Tanuki, get reinforcements to the jail! This is unprecedented, and we can't let the shark pirate escape! GO NOW!"
The vice warden complies immediately, and runs toward his office across the blown up tank. As soon as he opens his door, Hitatsu rains a barrage of blue fire balls on Geno, at about the same rate as a normal Fire Flower. Geno masterfully dodges them all, though, a few times, he was almost shot in his legs and face; of those few times he was almost grazed by fire, his ninja outfit singed a bit.
'Great! I can't focus on charging my beam if I keep moving!' Geno thinks as he dodges the fire. He looks at submarine Yoshi taking the hits. 'This isn't good. Yoshi is getting beat.'
Suddenly, the fire stops. Geno looks down at Hitatsu, who is panting lightly. Geno aims his left forearm at the Fire bro, the beam almost at its full power. He yells, "Princess, out of the way!", but just as sudden, an attack from behind lands on his legs.
He looks backward and finds a soldier in his underwear and a paper bag with two eye-holes over his face, pointing an Ice Flower-powered gun emitting icy smoke at him. He is the real Boris. The doll looks down and finds his legs frozen to submarine Yoshi.
"Take that, intruder!" yells Boris, "This is for what you did to us at the wall."
He looks around Boris, and finds more soldiers around him pointing more Ice Flower guns at him. Another soldier, a tan doogan with the name Todd sewn onto his uniform, aims a flamethrower at Geno.
"You though it was funny to tie me up like a scarecrow to fool everyone I was awake on my watch duties?"
'Great! They were found!' lamented Geno. 'And now I'm surrounded. Well, this is a fine mess.'
"Watch out!" yells Daisy right before covering her mouth. Geno faces forward and is hit in the face by a fire bendy kick from Hitatsu, burning off his ninja mask and revealing his wooden face. A loud gasp rivaled the sound of the continuous blaring sirens.
The stench from the tank lessened as dust and smoke fill the air. Warden Leroy, now upright and well, grunts loudly, gaining everyone's attention.
"I see, so you're in this as well, a sentient wooden puppet. Did you wish to be a real boy as well?" He raises his hand to prevent Geno answering his rhetorical question.
"Not that it matters. Not only did you break into this fortress, but you attempted to break out a prisoner and on top of that, you stole a uniform and pretended to be Boris too. The shark was buying the farm anyway, so it's just a matter of killing two Birdos with one stone. Get ready to fall into the Underwhere!"
His left hand begins lighting up with lightning, and Hitatsu plays along by cupping his hands and creating a compressed blue fire ball within. Daisy is still covering her mouth, not knowing what to do.
"Well, fellas, take your best shot!" exclaims Geno, much to submarine Yoshi's shock. As much as he felt like yelling, he went along Geno's plan to not say a word, beginning to tremble, expecting the worst.
Almost out of nowhere, Morton Jr. drags his feet into the room while scratching his butt, having woken up from his scare; his sudden appearance ruins everyone's concentration. He's still a bit drowsy but conscious enough to respond. The chain from his cuff apparently got blasted off from his flatulent outburst. Morton begins blabbering just as soon as a creaking sound begins.
"Hey… Chumps. What's going on? Am I dead, or am I dreaming?" He sees submarine Yoshi. "Are we under the sea?"
A perplexed Hitatsu interjects with a hint of annoyance, "What the…?" but a loud crackling interrupts his near utterance of profanity. Everyone inside the room looks down and sees the floor around the submarine has cracked and they all realize that Morton's weight weakened the floor further as it slowly shifted downward by a couple of centimeters.
The floor to the room suddenly collapses, taking Yoshi, Morton, Geno, Daisy, Johnny, Warden Leroy, Hitatsu and a few soldiers with it. Their attacks, the warden's lightning, Hitatsu's blue flame, and the Geno beam all blast the ceiling, severely weakening the upper limit of the room. It doesn't crash down yet.
Vice Warden Tanuki bursts open the door to his office to see what had just happened and almost falls in the hole on the ground. Though shocked, he looks toward the hallway leading to the exit of the jail and finds Draco looking down at the hole in disbelief as well, and some soldiers at his side.
"See? If we had released you earlier, you would have fallen in too," says a Toad soldier.
"Who cares!" retorts the Fire brother, "I need to get down there."
The same Toad replies, "We are on high alert. Don't think we trust you just 'cause you're an ally."
"Follow the Fire Bro down there!" yells the vice warden, "The prisoners and the warden are there as well. Do not let any prisoner escape! Understood?"
"Yes, sir!" a chorus of soldiers replies.
"Fire Brother, you should know the way down there. Go now."
Draco looks back at the wall covering the passage to the caverns, and soon, finds a button leading inside, going in after it opens, some soldiers also going with him. As they all disappear from the vice warden's sight, he surveys the room, finding it devoid of anyone else. He goes back inside his office, and a click from locking a door is heard.
…
Location: Cavern under the Jail Complex
Time left: 1 hour, 20 minutes
The hollering of everyone falling down the hole echoes throughout the space. Without anyone noticing (because of the current predicament), Yoshi's transformation ends, reverting back into his dinosaur form, with his hand cuffs and concrete block still in place.
"Yay! Woo hoo!" exclaims Daisy as she throws her arms up into the air.
"Aaaaaah!" go both Geno and Yoshi as they hug onto Johnny.
"If it's the sea, it sure feels airy," ponders Morton out loud as he clasps his double Koopa chin.
"I guess we're all going to the Underwhere, after all," says the warden nonchalantly.
They all crash land on the gritty floor of the caverns under the jail. Dust cloud covers great part of the dark cave, coincidentally also the most well lit part.
Geno quickly gets up (the ice on his feet crumbled with the crash) and replaces his left arm. As the dust cloud slowly begins to settle, he spots Morton Jr. on top of Yoshi's legs; his heavy body pulverized the block. The wooden doll then pulls Yoshi from under the corpulent Koopaling and sits the lightheaded green dinosaur on the ground as he cuts the chairs of the hand cuffs.
"Yo, Yosh, can you still walk?" Geno whispers.
The louder moaning of everyone else recovering from the fall conceals Yoshi's quiet moan of pain. "A… little. But I can't feel my lower back; it feels cold."
"It's from the Ice Flower gun." He finishes cutting the chain. "There! You're free. I know it's a lot to ask, but we need to get to safety before we rescue the princess and the Koopaling. Help me carry Johnn'y first."
Yoshi moans in pain again. "Okay, let's go."
Geno lifts the shark from his right fin, while Yoshi, as best he could, does so from the left fin. The dizziness coupled with a weakened body and cold back made it seem like Yoshi was under the influence. Geno is appalled at the relatively light weight of the emaciated shark, surprised that dragging him away with no difficulty at all.
The wooden doll is constantly looking over his shoulder as they walk around for a few minutes, worried if they were being followed. Eventually they find a spot to rest, and lean the shark on a sandstone mound. Geno etches three stars on the wall.
Geno wants to go back for the rest of the group, yet, Yoshi plops onto the floor. Geno tries to get the dinosaur to stand back up, but he doesn't want to budge.
"I know we need to rescue everyone, but... I am pooped! I can't go on anymore. Besides, my back..."
"You're right," replies Geno, "I've already asked you to do too much. But we have something in the suitcase to help warm you up, right?"
"What? Suit... case?"
Both Geno and Yoshi's eyes widen; they cover each other's mouths before they call yell.
"Stuffwell!" Yoshi whispers, "It's still in the vents!"
"It's an even bigger mess than I thought. Without Stuffwell, we won't go far in the desert."
Geno was about to continue, but holds his peace for a bit, clasping his chin as he begins to pace. Yoshi tries to get up, but his legs are too shaky, so he sits back down.
"What do you have in mind?" asks the dinosaur.
"Hmm... Daisy and Morton Jr. are where the warden is at currently, who is accompanied by a powerful Fire Bro... The vent? Where is it?"
"Where Stuffwell's at? Next to Johnny's tank... Well, former tank..."
"Speaking of which, he's here with us, almost in critical condition, I assume. And you are low on energy."
"Oh, and you forgot that we're trapped in a cave, getting chased by an army, and the world is going to hell and back!" Yoshi didn't yell, but it was clearly intense.
"I'm sorry if I'm calm, Yosh, but we need a clear mind to sort this all out." He stops pacing and looks at Yoshi.
"We also have some advantages ourselves. A major one: we already succeeded in getting Jonathan from them, so their first priority is to retrieve him, to not tarnish their reputation. With them flustered, they are less likely to do anything to Morton, and Daisy is already safe with them. Let's just hope she doesn't do anything reckless."
The shark pirate suddenly wakes, gasping for air and convulsing. This scares Yoshi at first.
"Yosh, we have to grab him and get this show on the road. If he dies, they win. We have no choice but to return to the tank room for a bit. I'll go for the suitcase while you get Johnny here inside some water."
The sound of a shifting rock grinding on the floor and walls comes from an area afar from their location, along with the chatter of the desert throng Geno wastes no time in grabbing the shark by the right side, and darts towards the fleeting sound as stealthily as possible, leaving Yoshi behind, as the green dinosaur struggles to stand.
"Geno, wait…!"
"Yosh, this is our only shot to get Johnny to safety."
"Give me a sec. I can't walk that good yet."
The green dinosaur catches up to the doll (who'd stopped for a few seconds), and both continue to meander the cavernous labyrinth before them, hoping to elude the guards and whoever else might be in their vicinity.
...
Location: Jail Complex, unknown…
Time left: 57 minutes
Vice warden escapes his room though the vents, as the normal exit became unsafe to use. The smell of a lit cigar heavily masks the fishy aromas from the pirate's former tank, but can still make out the pungent smell, acting as his guide to the passageway leading to the tank room. He transverses the small maze of vents just as swiftly as a ninja, and shortly arrives at the vent junction splitting towards the tank room and the rest of the complex. A huge hole is in place where the junction vent box used to be.
'This must be it, where the Fire Brothers fought the Scourge and that Yoshi... tar thing.' He shudders, remembering the warden jabbing the Yoshi tar clone.
Before Tanuki gets off, he catches a silvery glimmer out of the corner of his eye. He turns his head to the left and finds the smiling suitcase waiting in the vents to be rescued. He clasps his hairy doogan chin.
'Hmm… So this is how they got close to the pirate the first time… And somehow, they forgot their little trinket here. I'm pretty sure they'll want it back, and with half this place incompetent and the warden's sense of smell out for a while, I'm certain they'll come back. Not on my watch!'
The vice warden plants his right leg on the vents opposite to the ones leading to the tank room, and plants his right hand into the metallic wall of the vent opposite of his right leg. In a swift maneuver, he reaches his left hand and grabs Stuffwell 2.0, and later lets himself fall, squat landing on the hallway floor. He patiently waits, expecting his foes to arrive at any time.
-o-
Once again, Stuffwell 2.0 has become the damsel in distress, and Vice Warden Tanuki is not wasting time! Next time: the grand meeting, aaand… a fruity reveal!