Chapter 16 Cool and Sweet

Patty moved really fast, which surprised Lemmy since she appeared to be dragging herself across the carpet. Combing her speed with the fact that Lemmy was short and didn't have that long of a stride to begin with meant that he had to rush to catch up with her. He barreled down the halls, trailing behind Patty as she weaved in and through the corridors. Logically he should catch up, but for some reason, she was always out of reach.

"Patty!" Lemmy called out. The fact that he ran at top speed meant that he ran out of breath after calling her name. Begrudgingly realizing that he had no choice but to stop, Lemmy leaned against the closest wall and panted. His lungs felt like they had been deprived of air for way longer than they should be. The task of breathing was tedious, laborious, and painful. Lemmy tried to slow down the rate at which he panted, but that did him no good. It took a solid five minutes before he recovered enough to resume running.

"Hold up Patty!" He put on a burst of speed. When he got to a crossroads, he looked from left to right. Unfortunately, Patty was completely gone. There was no sign of her, no clues were given that could indicate which hallway she went down. Lemmy sighed and groaned, cursing in his head about his tiny little legs.

When he was done with that though, he began thinking. This was weird, right? Sure, not too much time had passed between when Patty forfeited and now, so her still being in the hotel wasn't too out of the question. One did need to pack up their things after all, especially when they were human and didn't have the benefit of a hammerspace. But with that said, why wasn't Patty in her room? Why was she just wandering around some random part of the hotel instead of packing? And for that matter, Lemmy couldn't get the way she carried herself out of his head. It was so strange; she hadn't walked the way a normal person would walk. She walked like a stereotypical zombie would.

Or maybe that was just Lemmy's overactive imagination; maybe she had just been carrying herself normally and Lemmy's mind interpreted it incorrectly because he was shocked to see her. For that matter, maybe there wasn't anything suspicious about her not packing. Maybe she just took a break. Maybe she just wanted to take in the sights of the hotel one final time before she officially had to leave. Anything was possible. Perhaps he was worrying about nothing.

Still, this whole thing rubbed him the wrong way. He felt ultra suspicious, especially in regards to one little detail that struck him as particularly odd. Lemmy had been extra loud when he called out to Patty, so… why hadn't she responded to him? Statistically, she should've heard him, and she didn't seem like the type of person that would just be rude and not even acknowledge someone addressing her.

But again, maybe he was scrutinizing this too much. He really didn't know whether he was being reasonable or paranoid; either possibility seemed just as likely in his mind. So… maybe he needed a second opinion?

…

"Huh," Luanne said after Lemmy finished explaining the situation to her, Benny, and Chester. "That is really strange."

"I thought so too." Lemmy looked down at his plate. While he normally liked chicken marsala, right now it didn't seem nearly as appetizing. Food was very rarely appetizing when a person was worried, after all. "Am I going insane, guys? Cause to me it feels like something isn't adding up."

Benny shook his head. "I don't think you're going insane Lemmy. Just based on what you said, I do think it is a little weird."

"But not totally unreasonable," Chester pointed out. "Like you said before, Lemmy, Patty could've just been walking through the hotel for reasons that aren't necessarily our business."

"Yeah, I know." Lemmy placed his elbows down on the table, sighed, and leaned against his hands. "I just… I don't know. Maybe I'm making a big deal about nothing. Just the fact that she wouldn't turn to me when I called out to her is… peculiar."

"Yeah." Luanne seemed to consider this. "Well, I don't think you should worry about that too much, Lemmy. After all, worrying will distract you from practicing for Round Two."

Lemmy bit his lip. "That is true, but…" he shook his head. "I don't know. I really don't."

Chester snickered. "A lot of people don't know a lot of things, Bud."

Lemmy managed to snicker by some miracle. "Yeah." He let out a breath. "You're right, I'm not gonna worry unless I actually have a reason to."

"Yeah, that's the spirit!" Luanne took a bite of her chicken marsala and laughed. "Anyway, you guys excited for Round Two? I know I am."

"I am too!" Benny said. "I'm thinking about doing a bit based on my trip to World 5. I had to go there to see my friend a few years ago, and long story short, we ended up enraging a wiggler." Benny laughed. "THAT was something; we almost lost the house!"

"Oh boy," said Luanne. "How did you get out of that? Wigglers are really aggressive when they're mad."

"You're telling me!" Benny giggled. "And how we took care of the wiggler…" he laughed, looking like he was about to fall out of his chair. "You guys are gonna laugh." He wiped a tear from his eye. "My friend had just had a baby, and she had a bunch of dirty diapers in a diaper disposal in the house. And we…" he laughed, the sound growing louder and stronger. "We threw them at the wiggler! They hit him right in the face!"

Lemmy's eyes grew wide. "Wait, what?" He chuckled. "You're joking!"

"I am not!" Benny had trouble breathing at this point. "We had old diapers and diapers that were literally just thrown away. I cannot for the life of me tell you which was worse for the wiggler!"

Chester chuckled. "If you were gonna do something that gross, Benny, you might as well have got a troop of monkeys to fling their feces at the wiggler."

Lemmy laughed. "Oh no, that would've been awful!" All at once, he blinked. "Wait, a troop?"

"Oh yeah, that's what a group of monkeys is called; a troop." Chester smirked. "That's something I've always found funny, you know? Like, it's always fun finding out the names for groups of specific animals. Ravens are an unkindness, Flamingos are a flamboyance, elephants are a parade." Chester chortled. "And those are just real world animals. Creatures in the Mushroom World have kooky group names too. Buzzy beetles are a crackerbox, dry-bones are a hunting party. And, my personal favorite…" Chester's laughter grew even stronger. "Goombas are an idiocy!"

Lemmy's jaw dropped before he, Chester, and Benny burst into laughter. "You're kidding!"

"I'm not! You can look it up if you don't believe me!" Chester chuckled, wiping a tear from his eye with his foot. "I've found that hysterical from the moment I discovered it!" He looked over a Luanne, noticing that she looked as far from amused as possible. "Uh, no offense Luanne."

Luanne sniffed. "I would say none taken but now I feel like everything I say to you guys will be seen as stupid."

"What? No! No no no!" Lemmy reached out and patted Luanne's head. "You're not stupid, Luanne! Just because a group of goombas is called an idiocy doesn't mean that goombas are stupid!"

Chester snorted. "Doesn't mean they aren't either."

Lemmy and Luanne rolled their eyes at him. "Well, you can do whatever you want with that information, Chester," Luanne said with a defeated tone. "Heck, you can put it in your performance for Round Two for all I care; I'm sure you'll make all the goombas in the audience VERY happy!"

Benny laughed. "They might throw rotten tomatoes at him and boo him off the stage." He grinned. "What's a group of angry people in a theater called; a death sentence?"

Lemmy chuckled. "Honestly, I think it'd be interesting if Chester does that for Round Two." He turned toward the bob-omb. "Would you be willing to do that, Chester?"

Chester's face fell as he let out a grumbly sigh. "Honestly, I don't think I'm willing to do anything for Round Two."

Luanne and Benny blinked. "Chester, you okay man?" Benny asked.

Lemmy felt all gurgly and gross on the inside. "Chester and I are competing against each other in Round Two."

Luanne did a double take. "Wait, seriously?" Her eyebrows scrunched up. "That's not fair!"

"Yeah! You and Chester are friends; you can't compete against each other!" Benny turned toward Lemmy. "You should go tell Rouge about this!"

"I already did! She said she can't do anything about it!" Lemmy whimpered and laid his chin down on the table. "One of us is going to get eliminated tonight whether we want to be or not."

Luanne's brow furrowed. "Oh man, that really sucks."

"You're telling me," Chester said. He stayed silent for a little bit before looking at Lemmy. "Well… if nothing else, I can at least wish you good luck, Lemmy. Even if you kick me out of the competition, that doesn't mean we can't still be friends."

Lemmy blinked. "Yeah, that is true." He lifted himself up. "Would you want to talk to me at all though? If anything, I think such a thing happening would sour our interactions."

"Possibly, but they don't have to," Chester said with a shrug. "We're both adults; we can push petty differences to the side."

"True." Lemmy chuckled. "We're mature enough to not hold grudges." He giggled as he looked at Luanne and Benny. "In fact, I think I'd want to keep in touch with all you guys! You all are REALLY cool."

"Aww!" Benny put his hand to his heart. "You really think so?" When Lemmy nodded, he let out a playful squee. "Oh man, one of the Koopalings actually thinks I'm cool!" He laughed. "Lemmy, you're gonna be my main in Mario Kart 8 from now on!"

"Aww, thanks Benny, that's really sweet!"

Benny let out another squee. "Sweet! I'm cool AND sweet; this is the best day of my life!"

Luanne chuckled before turning to Lemmy. "But yeah, that would be nice, Lemmy. Maybe the four of us can get together as soon as the Laugh-Off is over." Her face lit up. "Ooh! Maybe, if one of us wins, we can use the cash prize to take us all out to this really cool place! Like a concert or… ooh, how about a basketball game!"

"Ehh… I'm not really a fan of basketball," Benny said. He smiled. "Hockey though…"

"Oh yeah, I love hockey!" Chester exclaimed. "I've always wanted to go to a hockey game, and…" he gasped. "If one of us wins, we can get seats on center ice!"

"Yeah!" Lemmy bounced up and down in his seat. "That'd be perfect! We'd be living the high life!"

"It's settled then!" Luanne put on a contemplative look. "And who knows? Maybe we could invite other people who competed as well. I'm sure Patty would like to join us."

"Possibly," Lemmy said. His mind flashed back to what happened in the hallway. He was about to bring it up again, but… no, no, he shouldn't be worrying about it. The conversation he had with his three friends had convinced him he shouldn't worry about it, so he wasn't going to. He was just going to focus on the competition tonight. He was going to put his all into his performance, and if he moved on, hallelujah. If Chester moved on, then that deserved a hallelujah too. In fact… yeah, maybe he should view this from a positive point of view as opposed to a negative one. One of them, whether it be him or Chester, was going to move on tonight. It was a guarantee that people Lemmy liked would get into the next round. So… yeah, there was no reason to worry!

Right?