Through the Looking Glass: Chapter 9-A
Banjo: Chapter 9
"Okay, so if we go to the control room first, then that means that we can take the emeralds out and do whatever."
"But what if the prisoners aren't there?"
"I don't know. I'll need to wait to hear from Rouge about what happened today over there..."
A few heads nodded. "In the meantime, we need to be prepared for both."
More heads nodded. Knuckles was standing by the Master Emerald, Shade sitting down next to him as everybody else sat in a circle around the drawing of the base that was on the ground. They had determined that first they had to release the prisoners, but when they realized that they could be anywhere, they decided to wait until Banjo got some more details out of Rouge to make a decision.
"Okay," said Bottles. "Now, when do we actually Chaos Control into the base?"
"I was thinking something like the crack of dawn," replied Knuckles, looking at the drawing. "That way we can get ourselves well fed, and once we do that we can move the island to where the base is."
Kazooie shrugged. "What I wanna know is, how do we know we're at the right place?" she asked.
"There will be plenty of trial and error involved, no doubt," replied Shade. "Tooty must have seen the base when she entered, though, so we'll let her tell us when we're at the right place.
The younger honey bear gave the female echidna a confused look. "But how can I see where we are?" she asked.
"You'll see, Tooty," replied Knuckles with a nod. "You'll see. For now, plan on getting up very early so we don't waste more time than we should trying to find the base."
"Right," said Trophy Thomas, brushing his arms lightly with his fingers. "Which leaves us with the Chaos Emeralds. Tooty?"
"Okay," said the young honey bear, pointing at the room where she said Tails was. "This room is right next to a control room." Here, she indicated the room above where she had drawn the control room. "That's where the emeralds should be. I saw them very briefly, and from what I remember they were on this wierd little thing. They fit into the slots, too..."
"That's useful to know," replied Knuckles. "So once we free the prisoners, we run in there and steal the emeralds?"
"That sounds sensible, yes," replied Shade. "Which leaves one more thing. How do we get in?"
The bear scratched her head, trying to remember. "All I remember was a rather long corridor," she said. "The robots took me there when Eggman had gotten me. There are guard bots all over the place!"
"Hm..." said Silver, scratching his chest fur. "I think we might need to fight."
"Eh, we kicked their butts when they tried to take the emerald, we can take 'em on there," replied the red-furred echidna, clenching his fists and going into a fighter's stance.
"Okay," said Shade. "So we go through the corridor, fight the robots, free the prisoners, and take the emeralds. That sounds like a simpleton's strategy, I'll be honest. Isn't there any way we can sneak around?"
"Not that I know of," replied Tooty with a shrug. "I'm sorry."
The two echidnas shrugged. "Eh, that's okay," replied Knuckles. "So that leaves one more thing to think about; who do we take with us?"
"Mumbo think mole and cat must stay behind," replied the shaman. "Mole and cat no know way of fighting."
Upon hearing this, Bottles shrugged. "Eh, I wasn't going to go on anyway," he replied. "But don't we need someone watching over the Master Emerald in case Eggman tries to steal it?"
"That's true," said Banjo. "What should we do then?"
The peach-furred echidna shrugged as she shifted so she leaned against the Master Emerald. "I say we leave Mumbo and Humba here," she said. As the shamaness glared at the echidna, she continued. "Let's face it; without the Master Emerald for them to draw power from, they're going to be pretty useless inside. So they should be left where they can actually be of use."
The shamaness' glare had died down as she heard Shade's reasoning, and so she nodded. "Humba still want go see big heap rescue," she said bitterly.
"Which leaves us with the rest of us," replied Banjo. "Now, I want to go, if only because Rouge is involved in this."
"And I gotta go with him because we work like a team," added Kazooie from behind the honey bear. "That, and I won't have it any other way, fire boy!"
"So the force will be you two, myself, Shade, and Silver for sure," said Knuckles, nodding as he said this. "Shade, will we need Tooty?"
The female echidna shook her head. "I have fairly good location memory," she said. "Besides, you forget that I was in the Nocturnus clan; I've got greater technology than he ever will."
The older honey bear nodded as he turned to his sister. "Well, then, in that case Tooty, I want you to stay here with the rest of them," he said solemnly. "I don't want you to get hurt at all, okay?"
Banjo's younger sister nodded as she looked at Banjo intently.
"Okay, is that all?" asked Trophy Thomas impatiently. "Cause I really need to go fix my hair sometime within the next hour or so."
"Yes, that is all," replied Knuckles, slightly irritated at this display of selfishness. "We'll rest for the rest of the day. I mean, you guys did go through a lot to get to the island, and we did have that battle today, so just do whatever so long as you don't try to steal the emerald."
Everybody else nodded, and went off to do their own thing. As Banjo had stood up, however, he felt Tooty tug on his shorts. Looking at his younger sister, he suddenly found some resolve that he had not seen in the days since Tooty had returned.
"Banjo?" she said. "I... I want to tell you about what happened in the past ten years..."
"Oh!" said the bear, grabbing her hand gently. "I was wondering when you would tell!"
"Banjo, we spent the day she got here in Showdown Town with friends, and then the last two days we were getting our butts over here!" exclaimed Kazooie. "I don't think she had time to even think about talking, let alone actually talk about it!"
The bear shrugged. "Anyways, we'll go somewhere private and talk about it, okay?"
"All right," said the she-bear.
And Banjo led his younger sister by the hand to some trees at the base of the temple so they could talk more. Once they got there, Banjo and Tooty both sat down, Kazooie facing the she-bear.
"So, what happened?" he asked.
"Well, I had been going over to Bottles' house when... when I bumped into someone..." she began. "He... I don't remember what he looked like. But he didn't seem to accept my apology... He actually looked really angry, he did."
"So what happened then?" asked Kazooie.
"Well, that was the first time he took me and... well... you know..." she said uncertainly, gesturing wildly.
Banjo seemed to fill in the blank. "Raped you?" he asked, sadly.
"Yeah," she said. "And then he just took me away into someplace far, far away when I wasn't able to apologize..."
Banjo nodded, noticing that his sister was shivering slightly. Gingerly, he took her hand and leaned in a little closer. "So what happened then?"
"..." Tooty whimpered slightly, tears threatening to come.
Seeing this, the bear collected Tooty into his arms as Kazooie stepped out of the bag and joined them in a small group hug. "It's okay," said Banjo soothingly. "You don't have to spill everything now."
"No..." replied the younger bear. "You... you need to know... it's been ten years, and it's not fair for you..." Sniffling slightly, she continued. "He... he kept me locked in a house for one year. And... And... Oh, Banjo... He raped me over and over and over for one year! He kept on calling me horrible names, he kept on raping me... And... and..."
The younger honey bear was unable to continue after this, and so she settled for crying into the chest of her older brother.
Banjo nodded softly, hugging Tooty closer to him as he patted her back comfortingly. "What happened then?"
"Then..." she said. "Then he started putting me on the streets..."
"Oh, no, don't tell me he made you a prostitute!" exclaimed Kazooie.
In reply, Tooty choked out a sob. "It was horrible!" she said as the tears came without abandon. "There were so many men... they did so many things to me... and on top of that, the guy who originally found me wouldn't let me change my shirt! It wasn't until I had been doing it for four years that they finally made me take my shirt off! Those men all did horrible things to me! Banjo..." The female bear again took to sobbing into Banjo's chest, the bear only shaking his head and patting her back to calm her down.
"You don't have to tell us twice," replied the breegull softly. "The L.O.G. found your old shirt in a dumpster."
Surprised at this, the bear flinched slightly. "He did?" she asked softly.
"Yeah," replied the bear. "He also found a lot of... uh... stains... He told us you were probably raped, Tooty. And now that we hear that that man forced you to prostitute yourself..."
The bear only shook her head into his older brother's chest, sobbing softly into him. There was a silence lasting around a minute where Banjo allowed the bear to cry away. Nothing truly needed to be said right at that moment; the silence seemed to speak for itself.
"Where did he take you, anyway?" asked Kazooie, her face scrunching up in curiosity.
"I don't know," she said. "He took me to some strange land where nobody looked like they do here. I don't know... his name was some Chinese thing... I think it was something like Tan Tao..."
Banjo shrugged. "That doesn't really matter," he said. "So, what happened after that?"
"After that..." she said. "I started getting ugly after about seven years of that. And then he had no use for me. So he cast me out onto the streets to fend for myself..." She sniffled again, her tears stopping temporarily. "That was when things got a little better. I had to fight for my food and nobody liked me, but at least nobody was touching me... I'm just thankful I was able to spend around a year like that..."
Banjo nodded, patting Tooty's head. "So what happened then?"
"Some doctor found me..." she said, breaking up again. "And... And he did these horrible, horrible experiments on me, Banjo! I don't know why he did it!"
"Well, what did he do?" asked Kazooie.
"I... I don't know..." said Tooty. "But it hurt so much. There were so many needles, and liquids... Half the time I woke up not remembering what had happened the day before. I actually forgot my own name after a certain point... But everything he did was so painful... And I... It... It was worse than the rape... It was worse than when I had to sell myself on the streets."
Kazooie shook her head simply as her wings tightened around Tooty.
Frowning, the older honey bear looked down. "And the doctor who did this... It wasn't Eggman, was it?" he asked, waiting for an answer.
"No," replied Tooty. Banjo let out a soft sigh of relief before Tooty continued. "The doctor I'm talking about gave me to Eggman just before all this. And then, Miss Rouge saved my life, and, well, here we are... And... I don't think I should be with you! You're too pure, even though I'm dirty! I don't know why you still cared for me through all those years. I don't deserve it..."
Banjo shook his head. "That's not true, Tooty," he said softly as he tightened the hug slightly. "You're my sister. I'd always love you even if you killed everybody in the entire world. You're that important to me. Don't ever say you don't deserve my love, because that's just not true."
"Yeah, besides, it's not your fault that some bigshot kidnapped you and did all that," added Kazooie wryly. "Just remember; we're your family Tooty. You'll always have Banjo and I to fall back on if you feel sad."
"Banjo... Kazooie..." replied the she-bear softly as she sobbed.
"Yes, Tooty?" asked the elder bear softly.
"Thanks... For everything..." she replied softly.
And the two bears and the breegull remained in this group hug under the trees, letting Tooty cry as much as she needed to.
Some time later, the sun had set.
Tooty and Kazooie had layed down somewhere close to Banjo. The breegull would have wanted to sleep in the rucksack, but unfortunately with Tooty having given her side of what happened during the ten years she had gone missing she did not want to be alone that night. So Kazooie volunteered to sleep next to her, partly to keep everybody else from touching her and partly because she knew Banjo would take her into his dream if he had held her.
Everybody else was sleeping around the shrine, Knuckles and Shade being the only ones to interrupt their sleep patterns to keep watch over the Master Emerald. Banjo merely lay at the base of the pedestal, feeling the slight hum of energy emanating from the emerald as he looked at it. It was hard to believe the guardian of the emerald actually let the honey bear sleep right next to the large jewel, but in the end, Banjo was at least thankful that the echidna had let him sleep there so he could talk to Rouge again.
Slowly, the bear drifted off to sleep, gazing up at the emerald as he closed his eyes.