Through the Looking Glass: Chapter 3-A
Banjo: Chapter 3
Kazooie was in a rather good mood during the customary 100 laps that they took around the mountain, thanks mostly to the fact that Banjo had somehow woken up before she did to prepare her favorite birdseed grits. It was great that when Banjo was walking back, she declined to say anything snarky about the files on the way home. Now that Banjo was laying the files all over their blue-painted table inside their modest home, she was beginning to become very impatient. She found it easy to suppress, though, mostly because the excitement was overpowering the feeling of impatience in her.
"So, Kaz, what do you think is going to be here?" asked Banjo as he pulled the last file from the cart onto the table.
"Oh, I dunno," replied the breegull excitedly. "I just can't wait to dig into all this stuff!"
"Same here," said the bear as he pulled a chair over to the table and sat down. "So, where do we start?"
Kazooie rubbed her beak in her seat next to Banjo as she thought of the one thing she wanted to see. "I was wondering what Pong face was referring to when he talked about blue and pink hedgehogs..."
"Hm..." said Banjo, skimming through to the file that was on the top of the pile and shrugged.
"Well, since we're not sure where to begin, let's just start with the top of his pile and work our way to the top," he said as he held the file in his hands. "Sound good?"
The breegull nodded as she stood on her chair. "Let's open it!"
It so happened that when Banjo opened the first file of the day there was an image of a blue-tinted hedgehog smiling right back at them. The hedgehog gave the two viewers a thumbs up sign with a smirk that seemed to say a lot about his personality. The bear held the image in front of them, and silently he acknowledge that this person had to be the blue hedgehog Rouge referred to as Sonic.
"I think I know what computer head meant now..." said Kazooie as Banjo turned the page to find a bunch of text. "What does it say?"
"Well..." said Banjo, running through the fine print very quickly. "It says here that he's the series' main... uh... hero... And his name is Sonic."
Kazooie snickered briefly. "So that means blue boy has our function in his games?" asked Kazooie. "I'll bet he's stopping a plot to save the world right now if those emeralds are here!"
A pang of uncertainty instantly hit Banjo, and his eyes glossed over as he thought about what Rouge had told him. If this Sonic person really had been kidnapped and he was just finding out that the Chaos Emeralds were real, then Banjo knew he had to be ready. Thankfully, Kazooie had gotten all of their skills back, so he would be ready for it, but there was still good reason for him to worry. The honey bear shook it off, though, shaking his head as his breegull companion read the fine print.
"And he also apparently has a super transformation that happens when he gets all seven of the emeralds..." said the breegull. "That is kinda creepy, yes?"
"I'd imagine," said Banjo as he read on. "And apparently he also gets sucked into classic stories from time to time..."
The breegull chuckled at this, a wing covering her mouth as she did this. "That's actually kinda funny," she laughed out softly. "I wonder what his specialty is..."
Banjo squinted so he could read some of the fine print, and then pointed a finger when he noticed something. "It says here that he can run at the speed of sound," he said, the wonder eminent in his voice. "I'll bet that's how he takes... uh... whoever his enemy is... down..."
"We'll find that out soon enough," replied Kazooie as she picked up another folder from the top of the stack. "Now, let's move on to another folder, yeah?"
"Sure," said Banjo, closing the manila folder and depositing it in the nearby cart. "What's this one say?"
The breegull opened the manila folder, and then an image of a fat doctor in a red tailcoat was seen. The bear noticed how fat the doctor was, and connected in his head that this had to be the man referred to as Eggman by Rouge. The doctor certainly did not seem too evil, though, as his girth was something admirable, and his goggles that he wore on his head looked absolutely ridiculous.
"Wow, this guy's worse than goggle boy!" the breegull was quick to point out. "Not only does he have bad eyes, but he's fat! Looks like our next onion breath is actually a lard tub."
Banjo shrugged at this, letting the artwork leave an impression on his mind before turning the page. He read through the text and was quite surprised.
"He's the enemy of Sonic, it seems," said Banjo. "And... his name's kind of complicated. Ivo Robotnik?"
"Eh, I like Eggman better," replied Kazooie with a shrug as Banjo took the folder in his own hands. "It's got that insulting ring to it, you know?"
"Yeah," replied the honey bear. "He also apparently builds robots..."
Kazooie looked at the text around where Banjo had pointed out. Her head then darted to another spot of text before going back to where Banjo had indicated movement. After this movement, the breegull burst out laughing, an action that caused Banjo to look at her strangely.
"He's got a huge IQ, and he still manages to get trounced by speed feet?" asked Kazooie, snorting in between her bouts of laughter. "Oh, man, this guy's worse at being a villain than onion breath!"
"I dunno..." muttered Banjo under his breath, figuring Kazooie couldn't hear him under her laughter. When the breegull's laughing finally died down, she shook her head.
"Oh, man, I'm gonna have a ball when I meet this guy!" exclaimed the bird as she huffed and puffed after her laughter. "I wonder what's next..."
Banjo closed the manila folder they had just looked at and picked up another file. She opened this up, and he was greated with an artwork of the bat he had been seeing in his dreams. His normally calm sapphire eyes widened greatly in surprise, although Kazooie didn't notice this and instead leaned closer to the artwork.
"Wow, hut girl's got some competition for earning the title of 'slut face'," said the breegull, an infinite amount of curiosity dripping in her voice. "I wonder who--"
But before she could comment further, Banjo had flipped the page, barely grazing Kazooie's beak with the leaf of paper as she retreated her head.
"Hey, watch it, Banjo!" cried Kazooie, holding onto her beak. "What's the rush anyway?"
And when the bear kept silent on the question the bird had posed to him, Kazooie instantly knew something was up. Banjo finished reading before turning straight back to the artwork and looking at Rouge with a sense of awe in his eyes.
"Banjo?" asked Kazooie.
The bear shook his head. "Her name is Rouge..." said the bear simply, surprising Kazooie greatly. "She's a treasure hunter, and she's... There's more to her than this thing is telling me..."
Kazooie raised an eyebrow, green eyes gazing at the bear in confusion. "Why do you say that?"
Banjo sighed softly before turning to put the still-open folder down. As he did this, he turned to his friend, looking at Kazooie straight into her confused jade eyes with somewhat apprehensive blue eyes.
"I... I dunno..." he began. "Ever since we got our hands on that Chaos Emerald, things have been pretty wierd. But you haven't seen the half of it." Here, Banjo paused, looking down at the ground and then at Kazooie. The breegull took her friend's hand in her wings, encouraging him to go on with only a head gesture.
"Kazooie... I've been seeing her in my dreams... And I don't think that they're just dreams..." said Banjo finally.
The breegull was suddenly very confused by this revelation, and she leaned back.
"What are you talking about, Banjo?" asked Kazooie. "That's just silly! Why do you say that?"
Banjo sighed and stood up, facing away from his breegull companion and putting his hands behind his head as he thought.
"Ever since I've gotten that emerald, I've been seeing that lady in my dreams..." he said as he began to pace around the living room. "And the wierd thing is, I can remember everything that was in that dream. I remember it right down to where I was inside a room during my dream. Kazooie, these aren't any normal dreams I'm having."
The breegull's green eyes were concentrated on Banjo the whole time, nodding slowly as she heard Banjo.
"And why didn't you say anything about this yesterday?" asked Kazooie.
Banjo turned around then, his arms falling to his sides as Kazooie noticed a strange look in his blue eyes. "Because last night was when she told me that she remembered everything too."
The bird was greatly confused by this. "And how're you supposed to know if that's true?" asked Kazooie. "For all we know, eyeshadow abuser over there could be just an illusion."
"But I swear, I saw her, and she was real!" replied the bear passionately, throwing his arms in the air as he knelt in front of Kazooie for emphasis. "I touched her once, and... It didn't feel like those ghosts at Mad Monster Mansion or whatever. It felt completely real! There's no way I'm making this up, she was real! Do you really think I'd make up a person from this universe without even having seen her in the real world until now?"
Kazooie rubbed her wing against her beak, crimson feathers a little dull in the mid-morning sun that seeped through the window. "Well, when you add in that it's in vivid detail... I guess not..." she said finally. "But what does that mean?"
"It means something like this..." began Banjo, his tone of voice much more serious than Kazooie was accustomed to from the usually easy-going bear. "That Eggman person? He's captured Sonic, and all but a few of his friends, too. And he's trying to take over the world, but he needs the emeralds to do it."
"Of course?" asked Kazooie wryly, hoping to lift her friend's spirits up.
Banjo of course missed the joke, and so he continued, turning his back to his friend. "Yeah. And that means we might be in his sights sometime. I mean, I know we'll be ready for that, but... well, Kazooie, I dunno why I feel so odd about all this... It's just so much stuff has come at me... And.. I dunno... I guess I'm just worried about you is all. I mean, you'r my best friend, and I don't know what could happen if--"
The bear was interrupted by Kazooie launching herself at her friend. Even more jarring for the bear was that he found her wings wrapped around his body (or attempting to, what with being a larger animal than Kazooie), which was something the breegull rarely ever did, even to Banjo.
"Oh, you silly old bear!" she cried with a laugh. "Remember when Grunty kidnapped me all those years ago? I was all right then! When this lard tub shows his face, I'll be ready to kick his ass right by you, so don't you worry about me, all right?"
Banjo's surprise quickly wore away as he heard Kazooie's reply, and he sighed gratefully while looking at his companion.
"Thanks, Kaz," he said, one of his arms going around the back of Kazooie's neck as he held her closer to him.
"Don't mention it," replied the bird, with what seemed to be a grin on her beak. "Besides, I'm not gonna lower myself to onion breath's level anytime soon. Especially since M. Bison wouldn't approve."
The bear was still for a second, scratching his head with his free arm in confusion as to what Kazooie had meant.
"Oh, come on, you can't have missed this author person's favorite Nostalgia Critic joke!" cried the bird.
Banjo was still for a second before he realized what she had meant, and then he laughed rather loudly, the reference to the joke bringing a smile to his face.
"There's the Banjo I know best!" exclaimed Kazooie, jumping down on the ground and returning to her seat. "Let's look over some more files now, shall we?"
"Of course," said Banjo, returning to his seat and closing the file about Rouge as Kazooie picked another folder from within the pile.
Surprisingly, bear and bird had managed to go through every single one of the L.O.G.'s files on Sonic and everything in his universe, and had still put every file back in its proper place a little after the sun had gone down. As Banjo carted the files into a space where they could easily remove the cart from the house, Kazooie walked by him, humming a small little tune. Curious, as soon as Kazooie stopped and as soon as Banjo had settled the cart into a good spot, the bear turned to the bird.
"What's that tune you're humming?" asked Banjo.
"Oh," shrugged Kazooie. "I dunno. I just remember that I heard somebody humming it when I was a kid..."
Banjo shrugged. "Was that... before I found you?"
Kazooie nodded. "I think that winter changed everything." she said, looking at the ground. "That blizzard was something else. If you hadn't come by and rescued me, I don't know what would've happened..."
"Who knows?" asked Banjo with a shrug as they walked over to the bedroom. "I'm just glad you're still with me..."
Kazooie nodded, knowing that the bear was thinking about Tooty when he said that. "I'm glad I still have a friend I can rely on..."
Banjo smiled as he moved to his bed. Kazooie promptly jumped into the blue backpack she called her bed as the bear moved under the covers of his bed.
"Well, I guess we're gonna take those folders to him tomorrow," said Banjo. "Good night, Kaz."
"Night, Banjo," said the breegull.
The bear smiled as he slowly fell asleep, thinking about the breegull resting in the coatrack at the foot of the bed.