Author Note: Why is the longest chapter the weird one?
Trivia time: This story was a scrapped concept for Centuries, including some things i cut from Centuries for length reasons.
The town was small but lively. Small orange creatures scurried around, Fawful nearly stepping on one.
"Are you sure he went here?" Olly asked. "Because, let's be honest, everyone here would be dead weather it was an accident or not if Dimentio came this way."
Olivia shook her head. "Nuh-uh! Dimentio can fly too, remember?"
Fawful exhaled sharply. "Fawful will do a wait outside. Fawful doesn't want to crush anything of importance." Fawful walked out of the town, accidentally stepping on a building. "Aah! Fawful is sorry!"
"Mmm...maybe you're right," Olivia said. "But I trust Queen Bean. If he's here then he's probably out of the town. We should check out the views to see if we can find him!"
The small orange people just squeaked when spoken to, so they were no help at all. Eventually, they came to a cave. Olivia suggested the calming atmosphere would be perfect for meditation.
"Does Dimentio even meditate?" Olly asked.
"I saw him doing it once," Olivia said. "If he's stressed about something then..."
"I guess meditation in a calm place is a good way to loosen the nerves and think clearly. Let's go in, then."
They entered. Fawful slipped on a puddle of water, then mumbled something about a helmet. They came to a giant pool of water.
"Oh, so he's not in here. Okay. Where should we check next?"
Olivia pointed at a small orange creature hopping into the cave after them. "What's he doing here? He's going to get crushed!"
The orange creature squeaked, then more appeared. They all began squeaking at the three, gathering into a group and moving closer to them. Olly backed up a bit, then froze when he realized the water was right behind them. If Olivia or him fell in, they would get soggy for sure.
"Um, Olivia? What are they doing? They do realize we're origami, right?"
Olivia backed up as well. "I think they know, Olly. But I don't like how close they're getting."
"Fawful is concerned!" Fawful nearly fell into the water, getting a bunch of excited squeaks from the creatures. "Fawful doesn't want to die!"
Olly pulled out his sword. "Hey, stay back! Leave us alone! I'm armed!"
One of the creatures jumped at his blade. The tip rusted and broke apart.
"Uhhhhh...Olivia? What do we do?!"
"How am I supposed to know?!" One creature destroyed her stick. "Hey, bad! Bad little thing!"
A bunch of them jumped at Fawful's face, and he fell backwards into the water. They jumped off when he fell. Except, the water was very shallow, and he hit the ground pretty hard. Olly winched.
"Ooh, that looked like it hurt."
"Wait..." Olivia scooped some water into her hands. "Do you want us to drink this? Is that why you're surrounding us?"
The creatures jumped up and down, squeaking excitedly. Olivia faced Olly.
"Well, we don't have any choice. They destroyed our weapons and surrounded us by the puddle so..."
Olly sighed. "That water's so blue, it looks either fake, or it's going to get us sick. Also, I think Fawful got knocked out."
Olivia looked down at the faintly glowing water. "I guess you're right, but do we want to get out of here so we can find Dimentio or..."
Olly sighed and scooped up some water as well. "If I get sick, I'm stomping on all of these things."
"Olly!"
"Sorry, I had to get it out of my system."
Olly drank it, and thought it was the most disgusting thing in the world. He choked on it, and coughed for about a minute before he finally felt well enough to talk.
"Oh Grambi, that's horrible! It tastes...so bad..."
Olivia just stared at him. "Olly, I think you're being a bit dramatic."
"Fine then, you taste it."
She drank it as well, and had a similar reaction that Olly laughed at. She agreed she deserved it for not believing him before.
The creatures began to cheer. "One of us! One of us! One of us!"
"Wh-what?! What do you mean?!"
"Hey, we can hear them now," Olivia said.
"Fight, fight, fight, fight!" The creatures demanded.
"What's going on? This feels like a fever dream," Olly said.
"Fight what," Olivia wondered.
"The purple one!" They jumped again.
"What? Olly?" She motioned towards Olly.
"No, no! The other purple one!"
"Wait, Dimentio?!" Olly gasped. "That's why Dimentio hasn't been back for a while! They forced him to fight stuff!"
"But aren't we too big?" Olivia asked.
"Olivia! Don't ask stuff like that!"
"Yes yes, for now!" The creatures hopped out of the cave.
"Look, Olivia. I know you're trying to be nice, and we finally know where Dimentio is, but I don't feel good after drinking that sewage, and I don't want to fight anyone or find out what they meant by 'for now' when you questioned our size. We can just forget about Dimentio and move on, okay?" He looked around. "Olivia?"
Olivia came over to him. "The water shrank us."
"It what?"
"Made us tiny. That's what they meant by 'for now.'"
"Of course it did. Let's just get this done and over with, okay?"
"What about Fawful?"
Olly looked at Fawful, who was still passed out in the water. He flew over to Fawful and slapped him awake.
"Fawful uppy! Huh? Fawful's not with Lady Cackletta anymore..." He looked at Olly and screamed. "Tiny thing! Fawful hate the tiny thing!"
"H-hey wait!"
Fawful stopped. "Olly?"
Olly nodded. "Don't drink the water, okay? Not only does it taste awful, but it makes you really tiny too. And we're already worried about them forcing us to fight Dimentio..."
"You found the insane funny man!"
"No, not yet! But...we're working on it. Just wait outside the town for us, okay?"
Fawful gave him a thumbs up with a goofy grin.
Olly and Olivia left and headed back for the town. The creatures looked like a variety of things, from Beanbeans to Toads, and others. One was even a Magikoopa. They were still all orange.
"Okay, this is officially turning into a nightmare."
Olivia came a little closer to Olly. "Yeah, this is officially creepy."
The people led them to an arena, where they were all chanting for them to fight. Olly remembered then, that the creatures had destroyed their weapons. Olivia and Olly had only the Vellumentals to protect them now, and even so that was limited.
"Oh boy, I don't like the looks of this." Olly grabbed Olivia's hand to help calm her down.
Dimentio stumbled out, looking a little lost. He was also orange, and different shades of it marked his mask, platoons, and pointed shoes. He couldn't even stand straight.
Olly flinched. "Dimentio?! What did these things do to y-you?!"
"One of us, one of us!" Dimentio refused to say anything else.
"Oh no, so that's what's going to happen to us!" Olivia cried. "That water makes them all a hivemind! It must be a way to defend the cave or something."
"Or the water's infected by a fungus. But we can't fight Dimentio, not like this. We need a weapon of sorts if we want to stand a chance without hurting him too badly."
"Why a fungus?"
"Everybody's orange, Olivia. The fungus must die the skin or something."
"But, how do we undo this?"
"Hang on, I checked out this book from the library about fungi and their affects. There's also how to undo them if you can. I need to find one that fits our situation, can you hold him off for me?"
"By myself?!"
"You're strong, you've got this. Here." He summoned his Magic Circle and moved off of it. "In case you need to use the Vellumentals."
"Thanks, that's super helpful." She rolled her eyes.
"I know you're being sarcastic. Just give me a minute, I'll go fast."
Dimentio was practically weak to nothing this way, and Olivia could only use two Vellumentals before she got tired. Olly handed her the hilt of his sword, and she used that as a weapon for the time being. She eventually weakened Dimentio enough that he stopped coming after her and instead just lied on the ground on his face, mumbling into the dirt.
"Aha! There we are! The way to undo it is...By actually eating the mushroom, Of course. But I didn't see any mushrooms when we were in that cave. Did you, Olivia?"
"Fawful did!" He peeked over the arena, getting terrified screamed from all of the infected except for Dimentio, who was still lying on the ground. "Fawful saw the shroomies!"
"Great! Where?"
Fawful thought for a minute. "Behind a rock, there were a bunching of them. And two of them had just done a sprout a little after you and Olivia left Fawful behind."
Olly sighed. "Great, now we need to go back there, but there is no way they're going to let us go alone. They're probably going to put up a fight."
Fawful grabbed the two of them.
"That works, I guess."
Fawful made a dash to the cave again, the infected group chasing after the Beanbean. Fawful slipped on the puddle of water again, accidentally tossing the twins. Olly landed on his face, and Olivia landed on a bunch of moss. Olivia crawled out of view, then poked her head over the rock.
"Found them!"
"Great!" Olly got off the ground. "I am so done with this place."
He flew over to her, and took a look at the mushrooms. They were a pretty large group, and all of them except for two had other colors but orange. A purple and yellow one was likely Dimentio's. Olly slid down the rock and tried to pull out one of the orange mushrooms with a purple tint.
"That's not working. I would use my sword, but that's gone now. Unless..."
He folded into the Water Vellumental and ripped the mushroom out with his jaws. Olivia cheered, and Olly pulled out the other one.
"Wait, how's Fawful doing?"
Olivia checked on him. "They're trying to attack him and failing. Wait no, Fawful just got bitten by a Spiny."
"Ouch. Let's hurry this up so we can help him."
Olivia came back down and used Olly's Magic Circle to fold into the Water Vellumental as well, and grabbed the mushroom. Olly took a bite of it, regretting his decision immediately, as it tasted even worse than the infected water. He forced himself to finish the rest of it, and shuddered afterwards. Olivia gagged.
"How does this taste even worse?!"
"Just eat it, Olivia. We can't waste any more time. We've already lost enough."
Fawful kicked a Toad to Olly and Olivia. Olly flinched out of the way, and the Toad smacked right into the mushroom. Olly and Olivia shared a glance, then force-fed the Toad the mushroom.
"I suffered, and you suffer too!"
Olivia looked a little concerned. "Olly, don't say that please. That's concerning."
"Sorry."
They did get everybody back to normal, and left that place as soon as possible and decided to ask Dimentio questions later.
Olly shuddered during dinner. "I'm never eating a mushroom ever again. Now I understand why Mario hates those things."
"Dimentio, how'd you get mushroomed," Olivia asked.
"I went there because I heard Mimi went there and never came back." Dimentio looked at Mimi when he said that. "But when I got there, I could not find her. Those weird...things...forced me to do things that I am not proud of. And now I hate mushrooms and caves." He shivered. "The only question I have is how it took our color. That was...really freaky."
Mimi nodded. "So, what are you guys doing here anyways? I found myself down there because I heard that there was untold riches buried there, and I just couldn't wait to get my hands on them!"
Fawful sighed. "We were looking for the insane funny man."
"You see, we're going villain-hunting, remember?" Olly reminded Dimentio.
"Oh? So you decided to take the deal after all. Good for you!" Dimentio smiled. "and now we have Mimi as well. She is a great help, when she finds the need to fight."
"Just don't make me mad, and we're good," Mimi said, shoving a forkful of pasta into her mouth. "Mm! Normal food, at last! We were told to just 'eat the shade' or something. I guess it's since the mushroom grows in a cave?"
"I'm so glad Fawful held out for us," Olivia said. "And that we aren't going to turn into mushrooms too. But it's mostly because Fawful helped us that we didn't."
"You are very lucky you were still able to save everyone," Dimentio sighed. "Some of those trapped have been there for way longer than we have."
"What were you dong at the cave earlier anyways, Olly?"
Olly looked at Olivia. "Oh, me? I blocked off the entrance and put a warning about the mushrooms in front of the cave. I was very specific too, that way no teenagers would think about going in there like in the movies. If those signs were specific down to every detail, they would already know what'll happen if they went in there, get bored, and go home instead of breaking and entering."
"But let's all agree that we're never going to eat mushrooms again," Mimi said.
"Agreed," everybody moaned in unison.
"And never go into spooky caves again," Olly continued.
"Agreed," they repeated.
"And never leave Fawful behind again!" Fawful said.
"I think that is just you," Dimentio said, giving Fawful a weird glance.
"So tomorrow, we're heading out again." Olly pulled out a map he'd bought at the hotel in the Beanbean Kingdom. "Out east. There's something causing whirlpools over there, so we're going to see what's up." Olly marked it on the map.
"Where are we now?" Dimentio asked.
"About here," Olly pointed to a little ways out of the Beanbean Kingdom. "The weird cave was right about here." Olly circled it and wrote "avoid this cave" on the map. It was pretty far from their current position.
Mimi tapped the next town. "That's where I was born! It's on the way to the shore!"
"Oh?" Olivia smiled. "We can meet your family, then!"
"Ha! No. You don't want to meet my mother, trust me. I'm afraid of her as-is. I have no desire to talk to her about Dimentio, ever."
Olly looked down at the map. "Okay, we can take the long way around, which would make the journey a day longer than it should be. Hopefully, things won't be destroyed when we get there." Olly rolled up the map and pocketed it. "But we should get some rest, we have a long journey ahead of us."
"Right!"