FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

KOOPALINGS: THE TEENAGE YEARS

by Eightane / Foxy Boy

CHAPTER XX: THE ATTAINED, AT BLOOD'S HOUR

****************************************************

Thundering crunches were down each meter of carpet, Bowser's progress to the entry of the medical wing. Tailored brown boots carried a plumber just behind him, trusting. Mario saw the king nod to each moving body, receptionist, PA, nurse, on his unmerry way. No cackles of casual talk lit up this place today; they all knew what lay outside, in embers, destroyed. Bowser's head cluttered with worries. His heart could not climb from deep within, after untold grief. But he showed nothing, stoic living vessel for hope that may yet live, as they passed dying bodies. The gurneys kept rolling. There was a left turn at a hallway's end, then another left, then a right... The royals who suffered now were made to be furthest from reach. Mario noticed the patience, not something he'd been accustomed to from this scaled king. Heat was strong, though, downwind of the monarch... His body gave it off from inner tension. The Italian clenched his fists, readied for anything, even the chance that this became another trap.

It would not be thus. Flinging open a door, Bowser came inside to a wheel of emotions from a shift doctor. Not the surgeon who had treated Ludwig, but he who stood responsible for the outcome 'til the very instant this oldest prince should walk unassisted out the hospital. Nobles weren't wheeled out like commoners. Ludwig sat up on his papered bed, lucid and sober as justice. The painkillers had ran their course, and he refused more. He made a worthy next-in-line, as he hid the wince of soreness more than his own father hid troubles. Bowser stopped short, so fast his arms swayed a touch and came still. "... You're awake. Have they been forthright with you?"

"About my arm?... It took moving heaven and Earth, but I had zem level vith me." Ludwig half-joked, any more would be less than appropo.

"Not exactly my intent, but..." He meant also to continue, fill Ludwig in on the city's loss, but a deeper pain in the prince's eye told him it would come redundant. He switched topic. "You can't see him past my old gut, here, but we have the unlikely visitor."

Ludwig leaned from the hips, to his right. At first there was panic, seeing Toadstool's finest commoner, but he did the math. If Bowser didn't fight nor spit, he too would capitulate. His king and sire put bafflement to rest. "I called up to the keep, they're bringing down a miracle that he'll need. It aids all of us. I have no time to say more, except that I had promised my men where I would show myself. And there I am indeed, presently." He walked up. Scowl on his face, but soft enough that lines of age were thinned. He reached behind Ludwig's head, his rat's-nest hair. Closer still, he bent his eldest son's forehead close, and planted a kiss. No one in the room knew quite what to do or say.

The king took up the mantle here, ending the quiet. "Why are you so lonesome, guardwise?" He said this to judge, and not toward Ludwig... Soon as he did, however, the sterile closets popped open, and three elite Troopas showed rank-and-file with salute. Bowser sighed, his sweating lessened. "I was mistaken. A fine direction, fellows. If I thought to make it so, I've forgotten."

"King Dad..." Ludwig piped up, reminding his father of another, one with daintier head. "... She's evacuated. Esmerelda took an escape copter. Forgive me, as ve have few to spare, but... I vill not see my vife here."

Bowser took a deep breath, drawing what felt like a third of the room's oxygen. "I will not punish it. I'd do no different, had I that situation."

Ludwig calmed down, but riled back up, mind whirling. "I'm in a tizzy, zere's no-how else to qualify it. I don't vorry for me, it's for vat ve can't regain. I dreamed ven zey put me under. Zere vere five of us left. And after... Four."

Bowser began talking, but aborted this. He waited for Ludwig to go on, and this occurred alright.

"He's in the opposite suite, A2. Zey have him hooked to tubing, it's not looking so grim vile zat functions. I'm told he'll pull through. Ze second one... I didn't know his name..."

Bowser's jaw creaked open; he was too beside himself to let it simply drop. One look to the doctor, who'd been wordless throughout, told that he would be taken to that room, pronto. Before he went fleet and steady out of Ludwig's sights, he put other frights to rest. "He'll find me at my best. And with those sentries of yours, crisp as they were to hide, no one wicked finds you. Leave with them when you do. Pride of mine."

Mario never quit his look of disbelief, the whole time. Listening at the king's talk with the man of next-most-import, finding vulnerability where he'd always missed it... Running down the hall, as the green monarch's feet busted up tiles below, fast as he could carry himself. Mario tripped over shattered tile, but uttered no gripe; he held out hands so the swinging doors wouldn't club him backward, when Bowser pushed through with the force of ten bulldozers.

... There, unconscious. In artificial coma. Skin peeled, body swollen all over. Contusioned, mangled even after all procedures to save and un-scar. The shape of a star over one eye, the few scalpside hairs... Cherubic cheeks, as Morton ever-owned from the age of zero to now. Bowser's chest tightened. He looked down and trembled. His lips could not be still, but speech was not their calling now. Tears welled, and he felt only weak. His knees would not continue. They surrendered him to the floor. Arms were laid low and strengthless. His chin he bowed; his stomach he drew in and held, as if letting go would mean he had to accept this. He could smell the scorched areas, all over the son who'd run away. He had a wheel of images, straight memories like a needle pumped them into his brain. He wanted none of them right now, and still, all of them. They hurt like only one thing ever had; and that last time prior, he'd lost her, the irreplaceable.

Now he focused on the picture-by-picture, warbles, diapers, toddler fights and arguments. Wee lunches. Measuring in thresholds. Explaining the world. Pressure on his knee when he played the part of chairs. He couldn't let it go, lest it never come back. But the pain could not go on withstood. He forced his right arm high, to his mouth, and covered; the harsh scream shook every tool in the room, whether muffled or not. Mario's hat blew back and off him. The nurse in the corner they'd not seen, but she lost composure, first yelping, then in sobs. She saw her king shattered, his soul pummeled. Mario walked backwards, picked up his cap, and showed aching himself in empathy. This was too much to bear. Everything he thought of Bowser, reconstituted. In bad times, and secret, both ways there had never been mercy. But here...

Bowser stood again, and lay his hand next to Morton's ruined arm. He wouldn't dare touch, and cause more agony. He looked once to the life support machines, ensured his first sonic boom of a reaction didn't damage them. Then a phrase escaped him, only one. "I failed you." He looked up, to the nurse who hid half herself above the neck in tissue, blowing snot.

She managed to give him the lowdown. "He'll *sniff* pull through, but it's going to be weeks. He may never be the same. They... Just don't know."

The king put crackly words into her and Mario's ears, no regalness apparent. "Who is the other. Take me to see him."

"I..." She hesitated, unsure of how to go about this even now. "... Can't, the surgeons gave strict orders. He's in a room hermetically-sealed. Germs can't enter, it's looking that dire. If he survives at all, he'll be the first in his condition." Only her career's path got her the strength to speak these truths; everything about this was horrid.

Just then, two Shyguys walked slowly in behind Mario. He saw them, but put attention on what they held; in a glass, smelling of the dankest fungus, bright herbs, a pureè that positively glowed. No fear lived in Mario anymore, among these species, these denizens of darkness. They handed him the glass. Bowser turned around, dropping smoking-hot tears behind the rear of plumber's blue overalls. He forced words through the obstructing throat lump. "I have descendants on the front lines. They were sent ahead of others, for reasons personal. But I fill with doubts and emerging regret. I can only count on what wisdom I felt it to be, when I first blessed them and put them in the thick of it. If they succeed, they fell Kamek. They end the murders, the siege that keeps renewing." He turned, confidently wiping the face he poorly hid. Then back to Mario's silent watch. "I don't have the answers for what happens if my deed was folly. Only what befalls the two, and their sacrifice... Not us..." He started breaking up once more. With brow arching, in trauma by the rush of thoughts making certain the gloom, he whipped around slow to put the tail toward Mario. Seeing Morton, the sheer damage, he was traumatized a thusandfold more. He spoke to the plumber. "Take your infusion. It will not wear off, as all science given to me promises. I ask for five minutes, now. We meet at the front gate exactly then." He gave all the justification Mario needed, huddling himself over the barely-breathing body of the boy he rejected. His last word to the plumber for now was groaned. "Please."

"A-absolutely." The Italian accent brought airs of compliance. Sympathized in full. Mario lay his gloved hand around the glass that ShyGuys held high. They tiptoed back as he did so... They feared him. He accepted the risks, the unknown, with duty. A dense warmth crept through his gloves, though he chose to carry it and leave the room before it was downed. The ShyGuys followed timidly, passive as could be. No more understanding what Bowser had prepared than the human himself.

Bowser's leaning form put Morton in darkness... Indeed, it was still how the king felt most comforted. He found a spot less-touched by scarring, and could not keep from placing a palm on it. Feeling flesh cold and low in blood pressure... Familiar elsewise. He prayed what came next found functioning eardrums and a mind that's whole. He'd never spoken low and serene as now. "My boy. Fruit of my green and red. I had so many things I made up and spun into truth, from mere assumptions... It is a ruler's way. I believed I knew everything of what you were. And when I found an inconsistency, there was no control. Not of myself, which should have been, and not of you or your reality, what I shouldn't have tried. No one made your inner self different. And your... Outer, this burned...*sniff*... Tragedy, so much of you... I alone bear why, I drove you to live apart. I compelled it under only threats, all tough, no love. I know... If I hadn't, so many domines wouldn't fall, to place you here." He wiped another tear, before its natural heat could hit and hurt the man this king remembered in small-sized OshKosh, or in a childhood castle in a land now ruined by sorcery. "I ask not to be forgiven. I have placed this burden on you. I have rashly whipped up your brothers into killing angels, so possible now to join the ranks of actual winged deceased. Gods forbid... And in all actions, lack of using my ears, a vision narrow as the pauper's... It's I who brought Kamek to the perch he claims." Bowser wished to collapse, in heaps of tearful solace. But there was no room; not with his pained son below. Nor with his kingdom in crumbs.

He faced up, to where his moist trails would run down the snout's root by his fanged frown. A look to the high wall, which gave no faith to him but reminded if only in posture that there was a chance it lived on. Odds were stacked so high against he, and the plumber, and what few soldiers left alive would carry spirit to fight on or aid those doing so... But odds existed.

His face went one final time to Morton. "I love you so, so dearly. When you sit up, healed, you are more than restored. You will rise Sir Morton. Prince of Koopa, Duke of Pirhana, Viceroy of Grass Land. We will rebuild, and in your favoured place, where they rumoured you holed up, the finest mansion waits for you. And your beloved... He, is made Earl of Subcon.. For he dreams on, yet." Bowser held back the flow of sorrow, counting on the deep sleep of his son's mate to foster life. Recovery of one he knew not. "I have no sword in my hand... But it is done. And now I go to protect."

He squeezed, so gentle and care-filled, on the patch of skin intact. Morton's face changed into one of easing. Brows shaped to show accepting of it, this turn of a father's heart, in the dullest consciousness. Bowser left swift, tracing where Mario had led. Not strong enough to take another moment at triage, so laden with guilts.

Mario's feet stamped the carpet on the long vestibule; he didn't even mean to. The glass was empty. It wobbled in his hand as he walked, close now to the main exit. He breathed deeper. Saw sharper. The world was vivid around him, like a colourblind man who came out of it by miracle. there were no guards, servants, anything of the type around, save for the ShyGuys behind. They staggered as he stepped; the ground shook like Bowser had never done. It flowed into him more, he had confidence and feelings in measure that language can't grasp. Like a million points of light poured their link to the cosmos inside of him. No threat would compromise this man made godly. His skin glowed. Moustache became spines. The glass which had brought him this, now was faint fog in the air; it vaporized. The carpet started smoking, in prints from every boot's drop and contact. By the time he reached fiberless stairs, back into the ground-level atrium, the masked ShyGuys were waving their little arms, blowing out sparked mini-fires.

He found the vestibule crowded, quiet, somber. He assumed them to be frightened - the koopas, goomba servants, many other classes mixed, were in fact dismayed by their enemy AND how his godly state appeared to them - but it hadn't started when he walked in and came to be known. They were all there for the end. Whichever bomb hit the castle, or deathly spell, whatsoever Kamek appointed to make them no more. It was beyond them that this took so long; none had any theorem concerning what he waited for. Only that they wanted it... Dear families, together, or the single and most fright-filled occupants clinging only to themselves, alike. They prayed for death, with city gone, futures erased, the past knocked down in every effigy and village for miles and miles circling them. Nothing would be there to greet survivors.

Mario tipped his hat. His glory was so bright, older denizens shielded themselves. The few children leapt with a glee, assuming what the soldiers were too calloused to. This man would fight for them. In mere moments, Bowser's shadow crept inside the same room, and joined the unreal, this beacon who looked like Power Stars had carved him from fine diamond.

The monarch spoke, his face swole from crying. "What stands before you now, is the last of last windows. I have brought our past jumping scourge to his potential. That's the extent of credit I claim... If we make it, it's his hands, his storied feet. And my Larry and Lemmy... Gone to what, I know not. But this man... See him. Thank his covenant with us. Before he faces off, with black magic. While opportunity's here."

Mario looked on the self-effacing king... Even Bowser squinted now in his presence.

But from around them, the shouts arose.

"Thank you... Mario."

"Go get 'em, boy. Err... Man."

"Avenge us all. Please."

"Pay him death, for my sisters..."

"Thank you."

"Thanks. We're so sorry."

"Mario, thank you."

"Thank you..." Bowser's was the last voice to carry these forth. It came from right at Mario's ear; the king had knelt. Their land's namesake and head, prostrate, now rattled off the means to war. Never standing. "To the southwest, he's built his hold. Or unbuilt, as the Earth fell by splitting. Doubtless that he wants himself closer to the ancestors; his kind was only attached to here, and I ignored when it pleased and served me. I slipped a map into your clothing as I found you in the catacombs. There are scribbles on the back; his tactics, my warnings. What he's taken from us, besides this city which I just yesterday looked over as a realm. Please, Mario... The boys in combat clothes, bring them back alive. Those two of my seven. They are part of me." He paused, and bowed so low his crown tipped forward.

Red sweeping hair between two horns faced Mario. Subordinate. Disbarred from ego. He spoke what encapsulated this new farewell. "... Please." Slow, with ponder, he reached up and set his crown back on his head.

Mario, still compelled by such new status of his body renewal - improved to the extreme - nodded. "I will make every kingdom-a proud. Of-a them." Still defying an ego, though untouchable now. The man was never different in soul. A crunch of paper moved with Mario's garb... Bowser left him all it took to explain the soldier princes, how they marched to slay or be slayed.

Nothing more got into Mario's head. He left through the closed gate; it melted around him, though wooden. Bowser grabbed a pail and doused this; he watched intensely the run. The sprinting Brooklynite. Space neatly bent around Mario.

Kamek would find himself sorry.

******************************************************************************

Through the inlet they'd slipped; the 6th street school was tattered but unfelled, a "hat" over what was dressed as a storm cellar but had been there long-preceding. The learning center stood as one of maybe 10% of buildings that weren't brought to the ground. Kurt sighed, mainitaining through his claustrophobia. He sent out words to the partners behind. "I used to hate this place. Bullies talked me into walkin' down here, then shut the latch behind me. They didn't know it was open to a shitload of tunnels."

Xavier tittered, and returned sass. "That made it cool, wimpo! You could stick here for hours and explore with a flashlight." As he spoke, his shined through the cobwebs, frightened bugs away from walls. It waved a peculiar arc when he elbowed the big 'n' tall raven.

Kurt scowled, nervous at every step. "I didn't have that, just the lights on those old glowy sneakers. You can see more lookin' through your own pisshole."

"Jesus, shut up." Brooke sniped. She was less nervous, but for the men outside, wheresoever they be. Nothing in the plans called this grounded tube soundproof, and though it would make sense, she ruled nothing out. Roy scratched his scalp as dust fell from the grunged ceiling; Kurt's feet brought it down on every forward step.

There were bricks in X's hands; he walked the strangest in this place, lightweight and having more in one hand than the other. He fixed it partly by finding a good wall - where minimal dust had collected - and ripping off a layer on one brick's side. It was now adhesive and stuck fast. Automatically a light started flashing on it, very regular, a beacon. One light on his vest also showed up, near to the same rhythm. Roy spoke up and it echoed for what seemed to them like hours. "That's what that Star-Trek trippy coat's for. A'ight."

Kurt shushed the prince like he was a kid in the school they'd just ducked in here under. Brooke shook her head, but didn't reach up to free her hair of dirt that clung like static. Too much to listen for. Xavier paid heed, too, for the second type of signal his bricked bombs could send out: motion sensors, made to go active ten seconds after applied to a surface. Nothing so far, the best news there could be. "FYI," he whispered, "I got these on a detonator, but in case we're followed, the poor fuck winds up blown to hell. We're not coming back this way anyway."

Roy's eyebrows went higher above where his shades would sit, if above-ground. "Nice. But, shit, how you gettin' back home then?"

Kurt replied swifter than would comfort. "You don't think about that now, in our shoes. Look at the 'hood."

Suddenly Roy felt a swallow down his throat, it was instinctive. They were out to save his stomping grounds, no regard for theirs. True that there was higher meaning - his father, the nation - but all this flooded into him. He glanced to Brooke, and could nary see a thing beyond her gun and silhouette. Not a shadow; truth be told, there were only shadows in here, like picking out sand on a beach. They reached a point where the flashlight beams didn't light a wall; they fast put them down on the ground, and Brooke took the lead, edging up to that very space. She reached onto it carefully, and found it as they'd thought it to be: a branch off to another system. Her light she aimed up to her face from under it, to show the rest her finger on her lips. They were quiet as mice while she peeked around, saw nothing and no one in the far-off void of where this second tunnel led to. It was not their way out, so with extra care and tiptoes she put herself across the branchoff. Gone first, she attracted no yells, gun- or wand-fire, so they were free to follow. "Coast is clear," she muttered. "This one goes off to the Terrapin Hotel building. They sealed it off before we were born."

Xavier nodded. "Heard there were wild parties there. Too bad it wasn't local to us. We could make it a business pad." They couldn't see his one-liner face, but Kurt laughed and laboured to stifle it. There were more Y-pattrns to navigate, down the length of the journey. But first they'd have to get there.

The mind of Roy knew their bearing and their plan. It was honestly better than how his had been, to rush out and blindside foes. The ranks of Kamek had everything, whether killable or non. But they were touchable. He started babbling in hushed tone. "I dunno if you wanna hear this, but I'm... Not used to feelin' it like I do. I mean the defense we're on. Strike first and you avoid the same, King dad used to say. I was just gonna gather you guys and see how many we could take down, before the lights go out."

Kurt interrupted. "We know. And don't talk about lights goin' out."

"... *grunt*... I mean when you gotta do it for yourself, it's nature to you. I woulda fought for any o' you guys, all the time we fucked around these years." He looked down, at the dust cloud forced up by his shoes. "Hell, I woulda fouled it up anyway. You got it downpat, this is gonna keep us alive. And I... I'm real happy you want my pop and fam' safe." He didn't give in to a lump in that throat, too stalwart. But it lived within him.

Brooke, in kindness, walked closer to him. No hand on his shoulder but supportive. "We get that it's new for you. But we do this so there's something to fight for. You come from the one thing that plenty of soldiers in the here and now call the country's root. They'd take a bullet for him, the ones who haven't. Hell some of those that have too, parts other than the head." She carried herself like any general. And now, she pushed into him, staggering the noble, while smiling. "It's just fate you were squeezed out his big, round balls. Shot right out those clackers."

He heaved. It was somethin' else alright, when a girl resorted to locker-room talk. He was raised right enough to not make shit out of it. And either way Kurt yelped, high but brief as green flash at sunset. There were foreign tongues above them. They assumed it yelling, as it must be from the cadence and the fact it boomed through concrete. Kurt's caution earlier had been smart, maybe life-saving. There were murmurs from X', far lower, again in an extinct Old Fier dialect... They were prayers of his. He found space to lay two bricks above, but had to motion towards Kurt. "C'mere, guy. It's gargantuan time."

Kurt shuffled over, his short legs an anti-assist. Soon he was close enough that Xavier could mount his haunch, leap up to his flatter head, and be held high. Onto the ceiling he stuck two bombs. They were the largest; he then slid down, and seventy pounds made for a light landing. Alert as ever, he didn't drop or toss one away, the five bricked explosives still along his arms. Roy remarked. "You been liftin' duder? I would have the weak-needles after carrying shit for that kinda time."

X' blew it off and flexed on him. "You can do it all when you have to. Death's the best motivator."

Roy didn't get irked, and this too was the first time in forever he'd let it go. "Fair's fair." It was more pertinent the facts in his head, coming together. If he had a better chance to make it, due to them, it all traced back to connection. He didn't ask to be this type of a part of it. Yet here they were, leading him to either safety, or... Grand oblivion, as a martyr whose name wouldn't die. It was a castle. The only one, over all the world of dark. His surname wasn't absent from therein. Overhead, voices still nagged away. If he listened closely, it sounded like they were at each other's throats. No matter that the language was alien to him... Unsettling, as it channeled power from deep in the bowels of where Kamek entrenched. These were not words spoken warm. He tripped, and Kurt shot him a look like he'd beat his face in, trembling as the big bird still was.

A profuse apology from Roy. "My bad, man, I'm stupid, it's all on me. I just got caught up in hearin' the murder mob. Can't tell much, I'm sorry."

Kurt gathered himself well, back to mild. "It's fine, we're not made yet. And I can hear enough to know some shit."

"... Like?"

Xavier, jumping into this since he was even more on its wavelength, provided. "There's hate and spittle among 'em. They're arguing. Looking for someone, but it's not the King. Nor you, babycakes."

Roy's lips drew in as he firmed up at the jawline. More a joke than mad over the obnoxious.

"... I'm hearing the words for 'short'... 'Him'... 'Outsider'. If I put two and two together, my first guess would be..."

"Mario." Brooke said, gnashing teeth. She had no connection but knew her history.

Roy, knowing only what he had before finding them and setting out, balled his fists. A latent rage grew. His were actual memories... Right down to the fort demolished single-handedly, when he was still young enough for string cheese. "Don't say that again, you'll curse us all."

Brooke had a response for everything. "Like it's luck we're on our toes about." She had lost some attentiveness, fielding all the low talk. Reminded of finer times, or at least, those with more upsides and powder to scrub the mind of ghetto life. It was eerie down there, sure enough, but having Kurt and the boys near offered a flickering peace. With Roy, a comic foil, but one might say, even comfortable vibes... This lasted up to the moment a screech startled all, and at ten o' clock directionwise. Xavier dropped his flashlight; Kurt's hand stayed on his, but didn't move, gone-statue. It was Roy and Brooke that managed to illume the cause; a bat, a simple cave dweller, common resident here.

"Fuck, we found a nest!" Brooke yelled. "It's pissed!"

She wasn't so foolish as to hold up her gun and shoot at it, as even the princely help here might have done with nerves in tatters from his hardest years... But it was no advantage that she spoke it loud. From just behind them now, and above ground, the Toadie yells grew fierce. And from reverb, Xavier guessed aptly: they faced down. Their mouths posed to below, to this doom-feeling dry sewer of a corridor.

Chills ran down every quill of Kurt's. But X' was on his game; licking his finger, he put it smooth on one of the buttons lit up on cybervest. Two lights then stopped, as a tremendous boom shook them. One bomb set off the other, two Toadies with one attack. X' was ready and so didn't fall on his back, or worse, his chest and trip the others. Brooke, Roy and Kurt were not so prepped; in a heap they individually went, Roy's face scratched by the musty ground. Brooke saved her gun but lost all control of hair; it was a messed waterfall of red now. They climbed back to their feet, ears ringing worse than at any concert. In the distance, sand rushed at them, a dust storm artificial and heralding some good. Roy didn't have a question, after watching X' shake a partying fist. He knew before the dust cleared, those Toadies were dropped through the floor and buried. Sunlight made it through as air swept out the debris cloud; the foes were dripping blood at their final rest, half-buried in cement and girders.

Xavier still had quiet in his "WOOO, here come the reaper!", moonwalking and knocking Kurt's chest once to get props. They were given through grins; but he got their sanity back for them. "Make haste, guys, or be waste. I'll set another few here, but we lost some borrowed time to a gaping sinkhole. There'll be investigating."

"Don't I know it." Brooke shook out her hair, now that it was loosed and more able to shed all the age-gunk that dropped on it from tunnels formerly-intact. They were fastwalking now. She had her wits and piece at full-tilt, and spoke a comfort to them. "If we get ambushed, get behind me. Except you, Roy. You're a great shield." She had her pointed chin high as the top layer of mixed air, here. He fake-cackled, put his hands on 'suspenders' that weren't there, all hoity-toity.

Five minutes, max, and they'd be at the secret passway to wealthy grounds. Roy didn't know where it wound up, having not examined the plans in heat of sneak and storm, but if he had, he'd know the double doors. They were into the ass of the castle; its lowest reach, at a point not opened into for decades. Not from that last door, anyway, that hooked to the catacombs, sealed over with steel on this side, plaster on the other... Such a curious door-to-nowhere, the few times he graced the underbelly. That place for the unseen, and until this very day, stomping grounds for a madman. They would be safe from the dead, including him. So long as no one headed them off. And if all went well, that no force sent down through the hole, or the school's broke-open cellar, and rode broomsticks or hells' might itself to purge this sunless void of rebels.

Kurt spoke, discarding most of his jitters by now. It was valourous, the content. "Hey Roy, I didn't get to this, but, thanks. You did find us cuz you were lookin' to. Hal's had it tougher than any of us. Penny's brought him happiness, that li'l squirt you saw in the den, but... He cries in his sleep. I think he ain't solo there."

There was a crestfall from Roy. "You ain't gotta tell me. 'Bout the blues I mean. I want you guys to know somethin'..." He wrung his hands, cold in there but fighting it off. "... If we'd never had war again, and you saw me after a week ago, like, in Hal's digs? I still wouldn't be there for weighin' gram. There's been so much in the House of Koopa, all tabled 'n' out there now. Turnin' over new leaves. I've been preached to, I've been scared, and... And, I been loved. Like it ain't ever been Hallmark before, but it has, just now I see what I didn't. My wild oats, they got sown. Now they're cut. And all I want left is the stalks, with the hearts." He looked at every one of them, stopping chatter so it all fell into place. "They still send food to the soul. The rest is for the birds."

Kurt snickered. "Watch it, silverspoon."

"Hah!... Not a problem."

The outpouring mellowed their fidgets. They found another deep pocket of black where branching-off happened. Now it was X' who took point, crawling low. Not as slow and methodical, to which Brooke danced an angry moveset of spasms, about to haul off and lecture him on going stupidly ahead. There was nothing and no one to find him, across that gap; so he neared the other side, and looked back squinting into her bright bulb with a shrug and a shitass face... Until he realized the hard way that there was a lip where the crisscrossing tunnel lay inches lower. He knocked it with his toe, stumbled, went into whirling steps as his body tried to get back balance. It happened, barely, as he ignored the snickers they nearly choked on muffling. It was less funny to him not from shame, but more that if he'd dropped the payload, this might be last call.

Roy rubbed his snout, not from nose candy for the first time in ages. Dust was half-suffocating. But it was obvious now, there were no exits in the alternate paths. Construction in the now-extinct city buried them, a concrete jungle's overgrowth. They could make a village down here, untouched, if they enjoyed going blind over weeks and months. No minions, no problems, as it currently stood.

Xavier coughed. It was real, allergies, but it had the added bonus of getting their stares. He had planned to do this anyway; now it could buy him back some cred. "If there's a new chasm behind, why stop there? Let's give 'em the Shocker." All three knew not what he meant exactly, but Roy instantly dipped into laughs, holding his hand over them. X' pushed another light, and a weaker clap told that their first entrance exploded. It sealed one side, and if any enemies were out at the first bombsite, they had bigger fish to fry now. Distraction-central, and a great excuse that rode the back of how all good plans can still be amended. Or so he'd think.

But something was amiss. What thundered once, should have stopped there. The blueprints told that this was reinforced concrete, and yet the booms came again. These weren't concussive. They were louder, one or more at a time. Kurt's eyes shrank to beads. "N-no, please tell me that ain't how it sounds..."

Xavier shouted it, in a rapid stream disregarding all else. "Too late we gotta go, run run RUN!!" He hated himself for jumping the gun, as Kurt quickly hated him for knowing the same. They were fleeing from a cave-in. Chances of electric lines were where they'd focused danger-vetting, their start and end of mitigation... This escape tube was older than the hills, multi-century, more than they'd imagined. Roy was last to take off at full speed, still reeling from every last damn thing.

They had nothing to stumble on, smooth mortar below them. But they outran their own light. There was curve in the tunnel now, gentle enough for a sports car to navigate, if lamps were here. Without those, they nearly smashed into sides on foot. Kurt cursed as his wing scraped on the dirty grey, and Brooke bounced right off as she got disoriented. The sounds hurt all their chances; they weren't quitting. Either the structure collapsed, or it was totally possible the fuckers assaulted from on-high. Maybe the topside cap was partial, or more dire, its marble around this concrete might be nothing before those fuckers now. Wands could craft anything that shook the Earth, and they were in its very mouth.

X' couldn't say sorry, out of breath as he was. Kurt lumbered fastest, pumped full with stored-up fear of enclosure. Roy felt cold gaseous billows on his rear, the dust flying up to them, outpacing. He put words into his throat, his husky self alone bringing voice to the doomsounds. "If we live I bring change to the 'hood!! We make it an' I buy your fuckin' woes away!!" His heart was nothing false right now, nor ever again. They heard, and though it wouldn't be addressed while they ran like Satan pursued, it weighed.

He blacked out, on his feet.

**************************************************************

"Two lumps, please." The princess told him, a toadstool man with a tray of tea and cubed sugar. His ever-solid smile kept on as he reached for the tongs, and brought two cubes from the holder to her flowery porcelain cup. She looked through skies of blue; her pinky went straight as she sipped and eyelashes met, upper and lower. Nothing stained her ultraposh lip gloss, made professionally and to-order. "Thank you" she chirped. "You may return it." She reached in her purse at the same time he rotated his squat little body, cheeks red as they held up the tray with love and all his muscle. "Wait," she appealed, and he turned happily again, arduous as it was. Her white-gloved hand pulled out a twenty-spot and it was placed on the tray. His grin was genuine now, and no one could tell the difference, his manners so groomed. She giggled and he went on merry way with new lunch plans.

She had scrutiny back on the air; clear today, crisp fall weather. The columns on gazebos were sparkling. Birds chirped and chased at every patch of tulips. Butterflies added dance to the daisies. Soldier toads were happy in their formal ranks, armed with but spears and a contentment whose origins were which job exactly they had: royal guard for the most effervescent castle this side of Europe. The turrets were even in polished state, labourers having little else to do with such abundance. Peach held her high post with unparalleled beauty, and even while shapes came in from the distance she only tousled her hair and drew more worshipful stares. From the males, of course, but even that held an innocence in outward translation; one simply didn't catcall in this presence, the lady of flowing dress.

Her hands clasped together and she heaved in from delight; over the curve of their manicured lawn with clovers in bloom, a caravan approached! The men were of parcel delivery - she had seen this form of procession before - and there was something of a paylode in-tow. Five or six mushroom people, carrying boxes all sized equally, close to a foot by a foot by a foot, all six sides. They were quick on their feet so she assumed something easy to. "Gifts, for me?" No trace of selfishness lit her voice, it was practiced pleasant surprise. She swung 90 degrees to Toadsworth; the ol' boy was in a lounge chair, sitting up with a tumbler of nectarine juice, happy by this outside perfection. "Look! Do you think it's another set of goodwill trinkets from the Bean Kingdom?"

He grunted as his aged bones pulled him up, and he adjusted glasses to gaze. "Not entirely positive, my princess. They may be too small for such a repeat performance."

She allowed the Toads to come closer. Soon their faces had more clarity. Princess Peach, her creamy-white skin, moved into timid tumult.

There was no serene welcome in the moods they showed. Headcaps tilted to the ground ahead, just high enough to see the mouths, solemn. They marched with little bounce in the step. Each appeared exerted, overtired... But not expressly physical there. None of them tripped, as they went too careful to do so; it felt as if they were put up to something. By the time they crossed a garden block there was less sunshine to go around in each one. Peach looked in mystified stupor to Toadsworth, whose elder face ruddied up like a beet. He did this sometimes when faced with emotion. "Oh sweet fungus... We have tidings of no comfort."

"Wh-wha?" She mused with lip unstill, disappointed the day would be ruined. Toadsworth with his dearest glasses caught the gist in short order... He stood, slow and creaky, to lean on his cane. It would hold him down to this Earth, when it came to what he anticipated. She watched the frontmost courier Toads wretch... They thought already of what this would be. Soldiers stood stern, some with spears ready; they'd been surprised before by sneak attacks. Princess Peach even pondered this, biting her lip. "Bowser is a crafty one. If there's Fuzzies or Bob-Ombs in that set of boxes, I'll.. I'll never forgive him."

Toadsworth had a rare moment of candor. "That's certainly telling him." He caught his wits swiftly. "... Stand back. Just in case. ARCHTOADS, cover your places!" He bellowed to behind them, where two Toads of highest rank ran up to fulfill this. One had a van-dyke, the other a wrestler's build... What the deliverymen brought, if not friendly, would not get through them to reach her.

She stood tall behind the two, and placed hands on her lower dress, subliminally shielding herself. The six carrying Toads stopped. Five of them dropped their packages. There were no booms or hisses of fuse lit, so Bob-Ombs it wasn't. And other enemies would just pile right out, had it been so. But as the whole courtyard stood vigilant, no one attacked.

And still one toad stood holding. Peach, her face colder now, did well to command. "State your business, please." She still trilled. "I don't see your kind of glum very much."

His headcap he still tipped, no sign of his eyes. But a clear trail rolled down from one, and at the chin it was viewable. "It's nothing we thought of."

"P-pardon?" Her colour drained further; above all she felt pity for the lad, he was neither hypnotized nor foreign. But the question remained. "Be clear, and open those, thank you."

He lost composure, letting the box fall. It tumbled end-on-corner-on-side. Soldiers all around hiked their weapons, on instinct. The lid popped off.

An arm was inside, and it leaked blood from a severing.

Peach screamed. Toadsworth held his chest and the courtyard blew into panic, arms shaking on all castes from spearman to gardener. The pallid arm lay bent in ways unnatural; armed grunts went green and sick, even those with tenure. Peach held her breath in horror, while the other boxes were tipped and opened. One had a leg and spleen. Another, HALF a head, the 'shroom gills melded with brainmatter. There was a collection of innards in one and no more. Peach doubled over; her cotton glove caught her fall. But she didn't forget her place. Blocking it out to all ability, she stood up, and saw one box remained.

The oldest guards were now casing the grounds, searching out any threats, as though this hadn't been sent from afar. Better safe than sorry... The garden attendants ran from all of it, bawling. Peach held herself with arms crossed over her busom, hands dirtying her dress-arms from where she'd been aground, now gripping for some measure of secure. "N-no..." She whispered, looking past the two attendants who wrangled the last package. They didn't hear her, and with trembles they opened the box.

It was a pressure charge. They broke the ciruit, and a trip wire started a 2-second timer. Peach's heart stopped for half of that time. One of the deliverers knelt, and his back had a bulge, the bomb was wired to him. A faithful Archtoad didn't have the time to think over the trapped man's inevitable fate... He yelled a sound unparseable and leapt at where his gut told him to, straight on the wincing courier. There was no struggle nor time for one.

Splatter of red enveloped everyone; an earshattering bang. Peach was inked with bloodied gristle, her face, blouse and hair now same in colour. "AIIEEEEEEEEEE!!!" Her scream lasted and broke in her woozy turn. She fell, losing consciousness, and fainted.

Toadsworth foamed at the mouth, in cardiac arrest. Half as many army men aided him as went for Peach, whose uninjured self lay drenched in two men's remnants.

The box with the bomb's trigger contained a seal and parchment. If they had but gotten to it, they'd have read the push behind this terror:

"Our warmest greetings, fair Princess. We're certain when you reach the point of perusing this, all will be understood. But I also have trust issues, one might properly say. So I tell you from the bottom of my heart. Your spies were good men, I am certain, in their own ways... Inopportune casualties of a world out of balance.

They were easy to dispense, simpler to maim. The body cooperates when all force has been driven from it. Their tongues made fine decorations to my upcoming crown, though, do not worry. I expect the eyes from those stooges of Bowser that I deemed most ideal and gemlike will complement them well. Your sagely advice for today, is to lay down your arms at your borders. Try to cross that such line with them, and you find yourself obliterated. Attempt to contact me directly, it's no different. Send more spies, or I shudder to contemplate, attack me, and your name will be in no one's memory. Not even the bacteria which claim your guts and render you to soil, from whence you came.

Try to console thyself, o' priveleged lass. You will fare better than the lizard. For whatever consequence binds you, it is TEN further deep for the king of spines. He is marked for death with sting and pomp that no annal of history yet knew. I am bringing up your contempt, as I permit you one last smile before his turn goes first, your land's to follow.

You may save yourself, but not your kingdom. Only by directly heeding me, abandoning weapons, will I flatter you with how. Live long enough for the second scroll, if you don't mind.

They will feel the pinch. All. Impossible alternatives.

We send our affections."

It was signed in extinct symbols.

**************************************************************

Up the main stairs Bret and Todd marched, their steps together on purpose, tied in also with the man they tailed. Sans any words they'd agreed upon it as the best way to mask steps. Half a landing above and 45 degrees up the twist of a spiral, Morie sweat through his clothes. There was work to be done. He imparted courage on himself with a smack to the side of the face, and thought through the means to make this happen.

On the 4th floor, where Wendy had once showed him dormant items. He passed the landing and Bret heard every step despite mirroring his pace. Sharp as a tack right now, the skater twosome had feelings of grandeur, on the way to save the day. They caught Morie mid-hall and Todd catapulted voice. "HOLD up, big Duke!" The pun was unintended.

Morie laughed at it anyway, wearing an asshole grin when he turned around... Only to have it killed off when Todd came up and shoved his hand into the guy's chest. "Hey there, mind tellin' me where you're going?" Morie staggered rearward.

Todd kinda-sorta checked his helper verbally. "Alright now, let's just see what's up here."

Wendy's BF was having none of it, instantly stern and in-posture. "Mind saying why it's any of your damn business, cowboy?"

"Hey FUCK you!" Todd lost it and pushed the tall Koopa to the wall. Morie hit stone with a thud, and the bitter face he made told how ego faded to pain. "Cross me again! Cross this again you shitwad-"

"Todd, Todd, hold up!" Bret began having second thoughts of their approach. Morie barely defended himself. "He ain't tryin' to scrap. Maybe his discs are screwed right now." He referred to the man's back.

Morie squeaked out a reply. "I'm... A lover not a fighter." A tiny snicker put even more of their rage on hiatus. Tensions had been high everywhere. Todd backed off a bit, but kept a jutted jaw.

Bret put the purpose to speech. "We saw you slip through the crowds down there. We ain't used to seeing you come up here 'less she's on your arm." He put a hand in his pocket, where a knife lay. Never say never. "Not tryin' to tell you where to be."

The princess' boo stood up off the wall. He cracked his neck, and looked close to reigniting anger. "You suck at it, then." He was out of sorts for sure... But soon the fire seemed to die right before them. "... Sorry, guys. You wanna know why I'm here. That's fine."

Todd nodded strong. "That sounds more like you. Or the you we've seen before." Morie looked stumped by this; Bret put a hand up on Todd's arm, signifying to cool it.

But Morie wasn't dumb. He caught what the guy wafted. "The me that is. Look, I don't know what secondhand info you've heard but I'm friend to you. I'd have to be, I can't afford to feud with Lemmy's pals. Or anyone's right now. Look where we are."

Todd looked down, knowing the truth in this. But he put eyes back on Morie, remembering their current place. "Where ARE we right now? Your sitch for climbing to this, I mean."

There was hesitance from Morie but he set it aside. "Fuck, why not tell you, maybe you can help." He looked to Bret, more comfy with such after the blow he took. "Wendy babbles when she gets champagne in her. We've tied a few on, I won't act like it's not a thing between us. And she told me there's this storeroom of derelict shit, weapons and tools-"

"-I KNEW it!!" Todd exclaimed, immediately redfaced again. This was put down when Bret socked his ribs. Enough with the delays, would be the message that sent.

Morie went on, just because there was now a balance in place for the stress-tornado. "-You're involved here, guys. At least now you are and I'm happy. Takes all the help we can scrounge up." He pointed with his head to a door at the far end; it was missing a handle. "That way lies madness. Or so I'm told. And... I can use it."

The two had reservations, all the while. Bret voiced them. "FIll us in, dude."

"There's stuff in there that hasn't seen the light of day in years. Her Dad had a morbid fear for a while, that Peach would get some magic going and try to fight him. I guess she never mastered it, or thought of it, but it can be applied anyway." He flicked his thumb off his own chin, signifying their war. "Kinda surprised the king didn't think of it. Maybe it's been too long."

Bret bought into most of this, on the surface. "Or he's too pressed 'n' overcome." He looked in Morie's face, reading it all he could. There wasn't much there. Either it was all truth, or... Now Bret elaborated on the background for the alternate. "We were on about you, cuz... Well there's just some stuff that we learned, and we didn't know where you stood on it."

Morie went colder by a hair. "... About what?"

Todd decided for both of them to quit sidestepping. "If you're here for nothin' to do with being Duke of Jalience, or nuke shit, that's fine. All we care about."

The minor noble dropped his jaw, and wrinkled at the brow. "So that wasn't just a dumbshit coincidence, earlier. You fucking assholes, you studied me didn't you!?"

By this time Bret had put aside more concerns. He would've reacted the same. "... We're scared, bro. And the way you just swooped in, and we spent years knowing Lemmy where we weren't even welcome... Yeah it's shitty, I won't play it up."

Morie let the pulsing of his neck veins leave, slowly. "That's how dating tends to go. You weren't pluggin' the skater's butt so people treat you different. At least I think you weren't."

"Hell naw!" Bret found himself countering. "It ain't like that!"

Morie enjoyed his annoyance when it sank in he took a joke's bait. His next words were grinning. "Thought so. And I'm not the Duke. Yet. Until the day my shiteating sperm donor eats too much fat or falls off a ledge in a drunk stupor." He saw Bret's poker-face collapse in on itself; this amused him. "You... You think you live in a primetime soap, where everything's a power play? You can't have a heart and a title together?"

Todd added context. "It looks that way, from about any angle you slice it. I mean there's mysteries around this whole towering clubhouse, and we ain't lookin' for trouble, just answers. A few books showed some... As Iggy'd say, inconsistencies."

"Ooo-ooooh", Morie toyed with them, wiggling his fingers. "Spooky. Plus didn't your friends tell you? Reading rots your brain. It takes over the balance and ramp trick sectors."

Todd started to come up, knock this muncher down to size. But while he would've just a year ago if this happened then, maturing encouraged him to talk more. "Look, we didn't go looking for dirt on you, 'til you went funny. Dodgy. We know what it looks like when guys have shit to hide."

Their accused quit his blase demeanor, opting now for frankness. He clasped hands and hashed it out. "Sometimes those guys have bad days. Since none of you's presently tied to a girl you like, casually, hit-and-don't-quittily, whatever, I don't expect you think about future planning when the structure of society's fucked. I'm looking at the war we're in with brown-coloured glasses... Having someone you love tends to do that. And it sure isn't this Duke you just namedropped, since he's out living his life solo, since the last I heard. And that was when I had three permanent teeth to my - worthless - name."

From Bret, a cough to hide his red face. There was regret but slim humility.

Morie put more substance to himself, toward Todd but knowing both heard. "I don't hate him either. It's not like he's out ruining himself or others, which I know you thought since you're not the first, you're not even in the first hundred. Maybe that's how I know the bigger nobles aren't just trash with prefixes and land, so, thanks for reminding me of bastardry AND how they chased him off, like an oil and water cocktail. Blow smoke up my ass all day if it makes you feel useful, but you don't want this life. Complicated, huh? Take a cue."

Honest were the snickers from Todd; it was how he dealt with embarrassment, but also feeling bad for Bret, feeling the heat of the boy's blush from next to him. Meantime, Morie scratched his ear and sighed to rid his mind of the memories, now re-gearing to the act he came up there for in the first place. He seemed mellower when facing he who laughed, seeing some convenience here. "Hey Todd, you're a bloke who believes in muscle, you wanna help knock that knobless door for me?"

"S-sure." He had to quit his laughs, it was rich when Bret lost at skating, Dark Souls OR life. They followed Morie, and on the way there was humility. "Sorry I body-slammed you in the wall, man. And that we thought you're trouble on foot."

It was waved off; the engagement ring he wore sparkled in torchlight. "At most I'll wake up sore tomorrow. We've all had worse."

He led, and stood aside as Todd looked the door over. Pearl-white paint was flaked, but it looked awfully thick; and the grain was formidable, a hard cherrywood in best-case scenario. He clapped once, put his height low like a plotting gibbon. He looked at Bret, as if to say 'If I break my back, it's on all of us.' And then to Morie in show of trust. They stood back, and he huffed once. Twice. Thrice. And blazed forward, tackling the door.

He bounced back off it; half-tumbling, he was on his neck for a minute in perfect balance. His kicking heels brought him down, and Bret rushed up to see his condition. He jerked full-body with fury but it was calmed when they heard the *thud*... It was a tie and the door had slowly fell in. Morie made haste and hopped over the fallen latches, splitting wood into splinters below him. Bret smacked Todd backhand in a butch support, while the latter put arms out in impatience with a callous Duke's no-concern for him. There was purpose in the rush; they walked in behind Morie to see a treasure trove.

Dazzling wands and odd rifle-type guns with bulge and bump all over, designs undisclosed. There were such alien shapes to a great many. Some looked to be specialized; they could ascertain that some held energy storage. Others were concussive and slaughtermoded, multiple endpoints for fatal streams. Bret coughed on his own shock; Morie himself never let his mouth close. They were none of them prepared for this nor versed in how any of it worked, if it did after such a time unused and unmaintained, if it ever did beyond experimental stage. God knows they had never been a part of any skirmish, nor even a quarrel. The arms here, the... Mana cannons it would appear, cast a spell on three men; they'd worship this much firepower if a TV special held them, like a History retrospective. But Bret snapped out of this quickest. He tapped his buddy's shoulder, motioned to one and whispered about ending some Toadies with pure evisceration. Morie ran fingers over another; the dazzling wandmachines, gunbarrels, whatever one could call the devices, they were hot to the touch. Like they lay perpetually a moment from fire.

And Kamek had to know nothing about these.

"C-Christ, my dudes..." Todd sputtered. "Are you feelin' the mojo off these?"

Morie stuttered himself. "Like they want to be brought out and wielded, for sure." He took his hand off of one when it started to sizzle his skin. "Shit, I think we need gloves for these." He faced Todd. "You think we can rustle those up with the castle in this state?"

"Could be. Damnit I hope." The sincerity dripped.

Wendy's crush tapped on another wandweapon, testing the outer hulls. "Hell you could club a bastard with these and he's not getting up. I think... I think the city's got a new force on their side."

Bret talked like he was hypnotised, never pulling focus off these monstrous battletools. "That's where we're focusing, huh?"

There was a pause. And a deep breath. "I know if I leave here and go back to my place, I'll find nothing. Or I'll find it looted so bad it's like a shell with no guy inside. What I have to lose is nothing, next to what the few left might. And I'm... Sick at heart. About all of it. I have no clue where Wendy is, if I had to guess she's taken matters into her own hands. She's good like that."

"Don't we know it." They'd had run-ins with her often enough to speak in unison.

Morie was tickled by this, but settled back to solemn. "I can't not worry. But I'm not there for her right now, and neither she for me. So I'm gonna do my part that we have a town TO rebuild. And if they come back..." He knocked one's barrel, it vibrated the whole damn room. "... F-ff-fuck! If they do, we'll be cancelling them."

"Hell yeah." Todd had never agreed so hard with something. He passed slow by Morie's body on the way to examine more, like they all browsed museum pieces but were taking in the shapes for more than art. He rubbed the dude's shoulder one time, then took hand off, the most affection he'd show a fellow man. This was a lot of hope contained in one sealed-off chamber. He considered every gun, wand, whatever they could be assigned. How to hold one, what it likely did. They couldn't know until they brought them out. He took one up and placed it on his jacket. It was hot through the fabric, but in prescribed dose. He mimed it firing, felt out how it shifted on him. This was all speculative... But it was something to go on.

Across from both of them, Morie talked with his head down too. "You wanted the lowdown about me, here it is. I don't remember shit from my dad, except one time he came by and visited. Mom raised me. I locked in my head what he wore that time, how insecure he walked around. Ever see spokesmen for a company talk to shareholders, and you know they're walking a tightrope? Same kind of dramatism." He had disdain in his tones; Bret was fully pacified, but he listened on. "I don't get why he thought I'd be a miniature him. Maybe titles do that to some people, I don't know. I don't want one."

"Or the nukes either, I'm thinkin'." Todd blurted out. Bret looked over at him like he'd slap the shit out his own friend.

Morie didn't bat an eyelash. "Yeah he decommissioned those, it's the one thing I'm proud of him for. Far as I know the whole idea ended there and then... Funny, huh? The one time we might need that firepower, and it's not in our coffers anymore." He looked out a narrow window, a slat in the stone that wrapped into wallpaper inside of here. At least the room was ventilated. "Though I wouldn't want us responsible for that. Killing anyone and anything in the way there. That's Kamek's way. Hell, maybe even Mario's. I can't say it's ours." He picked up a smaller model, feeling its contours. Fingers were tight on the blue speckled handle. "I want it staying that way."

Bret picked up a larger weapon; it was almost like a rocket launcher, complete with reverse-saddle for the shoulder blade. He struggled with it, stumbled back, but while his legs wobbled he didn't topple. "Same... Here, brah."

There was dim synchronizing of minds. They all knew the score, and how to settle it with these forgotten playthings. Some improvising applied, time was needed to accustom and try out firing. They could take potshots out the window slat, at any rate... No guard lay on the grass, all of those huddled instead floors below. They would see the ammo launched, and think it was simply more volleys from the enemy to keep them hid and scared. That would be wonderfully wrong.

Men, women and children of the koopa, snifit, pidgey, goomba, the castle-filling survivors, they formed a makeshift society. Cooks continued to deal in the kitchen, serving soup and pared-down meals to the weakest first, then ascending order. Elites and hammer bros had stomachs growl but made the best of it, talking sports with each other, updates on the front when they came in, baring their woes when empathizing; all of them lost someone and were missing more. Some played with their kids, sat with their wives, husbands, partners, or if solo and troubled, passed time on mobile games. There were laughs here and there, the true therapy. In this ground-floor lobby they mulled and huddled, the hundreds of them. Soon there was a boom outside; much of these groups went deadly-silent. But they knew the sounds of the dastardly by now. These weren't loud reports from spells or the intolerant murderers... No, they were new.

The tallest and bravest looked out portholes toward the ruined city. Nothing. Then they heard another crackle, and other assorted's that no man woman or child recognized. Those courageous ones ran through the crowd, to the opposite side. On the grounds they were showed what made up these firings.

"Faster!!" Todd cheered, as a beam of yellow arc'ed out the window, steady in its curve carrying a shell to the grass. Half a thousand yards out, it transformed the lawn to a bubble of heat, setting fire to the air. Bret, holding it and ignoring the singe on his neck, tested out how fast that baby would go; five per second was the answer. He quickly stopped and lowered it, spit in his hand and rubbed his welt. Morie meanwhile took a long, narrow gun, its closest resemblance a super-soaker, and poured a lime-green stream from nozzle to the moat. It looked like it froze the water, yet in a matter of seconds the ice fractured, rose up... And floated high into space like helium.

Todd himself burst veins in his arm, so hard did he flex when making separate fists and getting off on the unparalleled weaponry. He looked over, saw a blunt-tipped cannonade, and pulled it right off its mount, doubling his normal strength. In the literal there - he felt instantly stronger with this apparatus in his mitts, like it changed his chemical makeup and lent him the speed of three bears. It was still a killer in its own right; he took the last free window in this room, now assassain's-holes as they came to function, and squeezed a lever on the side made to look as a trigger. He soon thanked the stars for added hardiness; the ball it sent out like a shooting star cleared half a mile of air, never bent to gravity like Todd's ammo had... And exploded, in a shower of blue. The bits and pieces stayed airborne, hovered, and spread lightning. They juggled billions of volts.

Even from floors above, they heard the vibrant applause. Hurrahs from Floor 1, and accordingly, less collpases and strikes in a burg obliterated. All of them - three new fighters, with gaggles of the stranded below - had known the Toadies didn't leave the city. They still hunted down the living, made crumbs of the towers. But those forces stood still. Frightened. And not even the sharpest eye in those evil ranks of Kamek's could see far to the castle, where the three men changed rooms. Carried with speed through the hallway to the other side's windows; facing now the carnage of Grand Koopa's ruin. It was a sad sight still, but not annhilated. They held the trinkets to hold up Kamek's progress, even the score. Bret lost the lump in his throat as his balls rose up to replace it.

While Roy's troupe headed to protect THEM, and Mario ran his way through a burn-scar in his wake to help Larry and Lemmy, these three had prime material to keep Koopa City from total razement. The fraction that stood may not fall.

**************************************************************

To run was all that kept Larry and Lemmy in amongst the living. Snakes of plasma trailed their steps, magmatic intensity that would catch up and destroy with any stumble. Kamek's laugh had abated; he was riled up but the joy of the show had expiration date. It was all down to duty with him, no less after failing time and time again on this same endeavor's single hour passed. Their bodies held up to the strain of no rest, endurance had fullness. The magician taunted them. "Carry on, as if you accomplish great things by the wasting of time. Spending a force uncontrollable, what a parlour trick for those bound to cells and life!!" He knew as well as they, he rose above the needs of mitosis. But his wounds scabbed, the few they inflicted. Inside of his short shape and beneath the studied work of attack, he felt it; fear was not unknown to him.

They shan't be allowed to last and see this feeling multiply in him, he grew to decide. They ran circles around trees, the false plants exploded in flame when plasmatic cobras rounded the trunks. Leaves wilted and browned into black cinder. The snakes, as Kamek saw, had ran their course and wore out any likelihood of death nor capture. Into ribbons of spark they dispelled, and his wand set off a green line as a laser's acuity. It hit a stone instead of them, part of his dead golem's makings. The boulder faded into nothing far quicker than his silent disciples had, and air thundered to rush in. It set off a few of Larry's mussed hairs, but even they had grown to field this with impunity.

More green death rays put their sights on them, but Kamek's age proved a tether for his spellcrafts, a dog bound to a rope. He hissed, but Lemmy chided him back. "Try harder, maybe you'll learn speed-boost! Cast 'evolve', or roll a twenty-side die!" He was winded but every word sent strong. The nerd-jokes were mere folly to Kamek, but the mistakes heaping on each other weren't.

"I AM ETERNAL, I COULD LEAVE THIS PLANE AND WATCH DECADES PERISH YOU BY WEAR AND TEAR!!" He infused a laser with swirling blue voltage; it charged the ground for metres around, arcing sand with lightning. Had they not been jumping on a ground-mesa left by acid's eataway, it might have sufficed.

"Then GO, y' pocket pussy!! Fine by us!" The stature quip came by Larry, leaping to far ground. His cheeks shined red, sweat streamed down them in steady bath. He brushed hair from his eyes, pulled his gun up to rapid aim and let loose another round. Kamek caught and melted this one, but brought it to his own face, streaked up his forehead and chin, molten war paint.

Lemmy muttered something about Larry trusting him, and Kamek whooped too loud from the gutsy turn of metal on his face to catch. The skater prince worked to wrench Larry's gun, and with shocking power, accuracy, he helmed both guns and pushed into the triggers. The bullet storm found Kamek, and first that ammo was caught, liquified, but then one slugged the sorcerer's arm, he flinched, and another five followed fast, ripping into wrist, jawline, his legs, sending three-foot body to flinch profound. In three seconds he fell from graceful catch to mowed-down gun fodder. No vital hits, but sliding halfway down the pyramid. It seemed paler now, no more yellows vivid as Desert Land. Blood gushed down his neck, his elbow, the robe curtaining ankles.

Larry didn't celebrate. He had sense to see it could never be so easy. But Lemmy scored advantage, and with the two weapons, BAP-BAP-BAP-BAP-BAP-BAP, left and right together. The evil scum jerked at every ripping hit. Bits of skin flew off into lowland yonder. He was struggling, but his form went invisible. The shadow stayed, and moved too fast to follow; with less damage, he'd have hid even the shade beneath him. Lemmy screamed, anguished he couldn't close the deal, but also brash and fired-up he got this close.

Kamek revealed back at the peak once again, coward that he was in this high distance. Reformed, for the most part, but holes in him still gushed blood. Now a gruesome sight, he looked positively undead, but was closer to blank of pain. "Nasty little toys, the devices you brought. Here, let me assist you." He waved his hand in semicircle; Lemmy yelped, as steam rose off the guns. They were dropped barely in time, before a puddle of ooze followed, their new state. It wasn't hot, but cold. The two blobs on the ground now rose again, and black metal grew fur. A head, and face. Wings. Two paratroopas, all-steel-and-alloy. They dripped orange from their fanged mouths, and Lemmy reached and pushed them before turning to run. Kamek cursed, and the solid hunks of spiritless metal gave chase. Only they could dive-bomb, reach out with half-ton fists from above. Larry couldn't outrun what flew, and when they socked his left arm with a right cross, the wail was for a broken ulna bone.

He carried on but seethed; the shards he felt rattle and shift inside his ligaments. Lemmy ducked as one sliced the air with shell in reverse-rainbow; weight and mass would have turned his organs to mush if it succeeded. On their feet the princes were resisting, they lost count of the variants by now. Kamek breathed into the air; borrowing his own blood, he spoke ancient tongue and the crimson poured down to the steel paratroopas. They grew eyes of red, with green veins. The shells glowed and their speed doubled.

Larry shivered; going serpentine, he knew the cold was their pursuers, sponging heat away. Much more of this and their joints would go stiff, their own quickness suffer. The mock-troopas had agility like nothing else; one swooped on Lemmy and the lip of its shell where top joined bottom sliced his back, leaving a footlong gash, then did the same again, where an 'X' of split skin bore the fruit of leaking blood. Lemmy couldn't wield his like the sorcerer. Neither one could keep going much longer. And these abominations didn't die as the black-hole orb of hell, nor the plasma snakes, nor any of the first waves. Kamek had them on the ropes... Larry neared the point of faltering but kept his voice as strong as an ox giving birth. It screamed of what existed beyond them. "Kill us for opposing you, go right FUCKIN' ahead, fleabit bastard!! But we ain't the last to come and hose you down! And I gua-ran-TEE it's a LOOONG way to the end of our supplies and loyal peoples!"

Kamek kept cooler than ever before. His quieted speech came from winning, and from what knowledge he put into them now. "I am doubly aware, sons of misery. Which is why you make a fine example for them. Nothing more, something less." He wore a twisted smile at the play on words, meager though it was. He didn't need his wisdom in these, he would save it for the rest when they came. They would come, and fall, his perversity drew enemies like a moth to murderous flame.

The metal koopas tagged Lemmy's right elbow at 300 MPH. It circled over his head, in a route beyond all flexibility. His radial bones tore to shreds inside his flesh; he screamed, but kept his eyes open, sweat dripping, feet charging. His plods were falling apart, and it had only taken one correct tactic on the part of true evil... He who spoke and taunted on, inside his robes. "There is yet meaning to this turn of events... Brought to death at long-last by something oh so similar to you. They feel nothing, boys. And they hunger for you to do the same, not in realms of the reanimated. Hahahahaaahaahahhhahaha..." His low laugh went unnaturally lengthened. Nothing about him was of nature, and yet, everything was. His power, plans and predisposed glory all lived in the bowels of Earth. His wicked depths went above and beyond it. Lemmy and Larry held a hope, dimmed and vague, that power would reject him, as he surely didn't move in good faith with the might of the olden. A man like him was never meant to happen.

The troopas shrieked; the sounds like bubbles bursting in planet-core magma shook princely earlobes. They stopped their flight; both the literal of the metallized demons, and the running of the nobles. There was naught left in the way of strength nor energy... Larry staggered, the arm and back were paining him beyond anything before. Same and worse with Lemmy, who'd lost function and no less than thirty of his inner bones in his dominant arm. The guns were gone. The day's heat had never pierced them worse. They gushed more blood internally than the rivulets over top of green skin. Their lungs burned with overuse, their throats dry as Desert Land. Lemmy cried out to his brother, yet now the decibels were low as their chances. "Larr'... We're gonna rest here, for good..."

They traded looks, of simple pain and accepting together. There was little room to weep, apologize, thread the years they had of differing vibes and going their own way. Nothing lay misunderstood. They had only each other now. And the steel bringers of death, they hovered overhead as if their one kindness was to shield from oppressive rays that worsened all wounds.

Then they, too, fell. Knocked Larry on his ass, and barely missed Lemmy. The latter mouthed 'Wha...' but it was to no advantage. He and a dazed younger prince both assumed they had run their course, and just in time. But the metal deformed, desolidified, and moved back toward the pyramid of woes, unto Kamek's wiggling fingers, his outstretched short limbs. There was no wand in his hand anymore; Lemmy guessed the untouchable fucker came to realize he didn't need a casting toy to bend space at his will, and he guessed right. The wand that cult-leader stuck in a pocket on the margins of a sparkling robe. Kamek wrapped the metal on himself, doubling his arm girth. Caked in alloy and red veins, taking back the blood he had lent. He crushed his hands together, and the noise of minerals at 5,000 PSI hurt the worst of all punishment they took, from forty feet away and with no contact. Lemmy thought Kamek might jump down, sumo-fight them with a newfound brawn made of their weapons. This time he'd be incorrect.

Kamek lifted the metalline hand... Out from the sand and soil drew great square shapes. Stones of molybdenum, dull and hard as any mountainside's innards. They surrounded Kamek. Rather than toss them at the princes or enhance their deadliness, he opted to leap on one; the noise of doing so was chippy, digital. Slowly he came to look plumper; the robe became denim. Larry BOO-ed, being audience for the worst kind of sportsmanship; Kamek tried out the looks of Mario just to taunt them. The arms were still alloyed, caked with bullet makings. But he threw fireballs of purple; they screamed like 20 fastballs. L' and L' ducked or turned and let shells kill the middling heat. Costumed-Kamek leapt rock-to-rock as they floated immobile, no sway nor bounce when he'd land and jump again. He kissed his hand and blew it at them; yellow energy the shape of thin lips filled the air with sparks... Lemmy dodged it, but Larry wasn't quick enough. Instead he saw the narrow hole between the lips and dove straight-through, and the watts of false love "swallowed" him. He was unharmed and they hit the ground in fireworks. Larry dropped his hands and judged harshly. "Really, big man? You outta real threats, you're just gonna put it on cruise control and entertain yourself?"

Kamek laughed but it self-abbreviated. "Merely informing you that no man's substance is out of my scope. I can see, do and be all that ever was and never will be. Life as you know it is my batch of clay." He grew taller, then was Luigi, with voice and affectation to match. Then shrank and went bulbous at the head; it was Toad, the least-intimidating foe of theirs but fastest. Across hovering stones he sprinted, more than two jumps per second, quicker than their eyes. Lemmy felt queazy trying to keep up; he shook his head and leaned on Larry. The latter slapped his back and they were fine again, as Lemmy pulled fists and looked high at the false Toad. "Get off your cheat-perch and get down here like a real dude!" His arms were in brawl stance; he had little experience there but he'd seen enough Jason Statham films and had to start somewhere.

In Toad's dead eyes, Kamek's glow of life inflamed. He shifted again, his form was gooey now, writhing and in stark contortions. Larry was disgusted, Lemmy horrified. Toad's head seemed to shear off, but melted back into the spinal section of a taller, angrier magician. Kamek came to thrice his normal height, four times the girth. And he wouldn't shed the silver that encased his 'pythons', now bulging out with veins like he spent decades lifting weights. It all was created in a moment; bulkier now than any gym rat in the kingdom, he sneered down at them, teeth pearly-white, neck wider than his waist.

In a voice like a Mack truck's horn, he made it clear. "YOU WISHED FOR PULVERIZING. ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE."

When he left the boulder, his fall seemed faster than it ever should. The pair of princes fell on their ass when sand was shockwaved out around the muscular Kamek. He didn't hit with a fist down, didn't even bend knees. Landing from eighty feet above like he dropped down a stairstep. And those varicose webs of brawn spun around his cheeks, his forehead, close to bursting with vitriol. Running forward he went to elbow-slam Larry; The prince fell to leg splits and that went right over him... Had it not he would've been impaled on bone.

He still screamed out; Kamek's foot had pointed itself like a blade. Larry did trip him and he ate sand when he hit the dirt, but toes like scissors cut into the femur bone, sheared marrow. Larry turned his head and bit down on his fatigues, then pried his mind out of agony mode and stood wobbly. The bone was thankfully intact, just bleeding down his pants leg. Kamek's hands pushed himself off, and instead of merely a push-up they sent him ten feet skyward where he tumbled like a gymnast and came down facing them, meaty thighs wide and prepped to fight. "TODDLERS COULD PERFORM WHAT YOU DID. YOU'VE LEARNED NOTHING SINCE THE DAYS OF AIRSHIPS!!" He rushed the younger one again, now having score to settle for humiliation. "I'LL PULL YOUR HEAD FROM ITS STEM!!"

He reached for Larry's neck but again was denied by a dodge. This one was simpler, just the prince leaning back sufficed. Kamek swung around fast as thought, but Larry ran a ring around him, put a boot on his butt with force. Kamek's run stuttered, kicked in the ass. Lemmy couldn't help a snicker.

Larry launched a laugh too, but the defiler wouldn't have it. Screaming bloody murder, he shook by sound every leaf from the valley trees, left them bare poles when the reflex was done. And the flex started, turning back to the duo he fought with every limb bulging so much deeper, growing more and more mass, curves of 200% beef. But he did this for no one's pleasure; they went pale seeing his encumberance of power. One boulder floated down from the molybdenum collective above; He held a fist out, and flicked his finger and thumb on it. The sound of five Bob-Ombs scored the shower of mineral pieces, sent far and away at speeds supersonic. His grin was cruel as a crazed mother drowning a child.

"I admit this form feels finest, of the many I've tried in my infinite self. But YOU find it the LAST you'll EVER SEE!-" He skimmed forward, almost sliding or skating. They had sensed the worst, so only by reacting to nothing did they miss the something, his slice of space which would cut them in ribbons. They leapt to either side so all they took were grains on the boots, the jettrail he put off. But dazed all the same, and when they found their feet he had awareness advantage.

Larry put both hands out together; Kamek's middle finger hit their center and pushed the noble back a few metres. They locked in the stare of a million innocents' fate, the many subjects of Dark World caught in a balance.

Roy's former protégé tried to be cheeky. "Not using all your new bod? I guess you wanna be up in this face." He hid all the strain it was to hold off this demon of a man.

From Kamek's Herculean face, a smile. "You're astute." He formed an 'O' and blew a cloud on Larry's nose, a light blue. The prince hacked and coughed; he learned the smell of sulfuric acid.

Steadfast, he held against Kamek's one finger, in horrid pain as it jabbed his palm lines. He smarted off and the chords cracked from corrosion. "You could've... Stayed at the King's side... Built new worlds all your own, if you'd asked him. In his own way, he had love for you. Never learned you had ambitions." It was strange to Larry how he came to these thoughts; but he knew them to be his, and from somewhere real.

Sadly they fell on cold ears long-distanced. "HA!! If he loved any piece of me, it's what he could mould to himself." He spat, and it landed on the prince's snout, globbing and too thick to move. "I gathered cues from the best in those such regards." He had muffled himself, in a way hearkening back to the peace he'd kept for year after year... But it had all been biding time, and the princes didn't need it explained. He edged just close enough to tip back at the neck and headbutt the shit out of Larry, with newfound weight to the T-zone.

In this Kamek gained a moment's upper hand and put both hands on Larry's... Pushing once, Larry wound up driven thirty feet back, legs in the air and spine shoveling the sand by his own width. He rolled away, but Kamek wasn't charging him now. Instead the guffaw teased their very cores. "I will spend ZERO time feneagling a reason to care what could have been. It is enough that what MY destiny holds could not co-exist with his. No man of your father's lowly type shares power. And had he done so, what then, o' fruit of his rotten loins?" His slobber glowed orange, frothing generous, despising. "Cut the land in half with my powers, and leave a canyon to hell? Draw with magic PAINT to divide like these are just so much of a baseball diamond, another simple nothing your kind call sport?" He bit his own tongue, just to spray blood on the legs of Larry, keep he and his brother mortified. "Look me in my worthier face, and tell me he would make it as it should be. How the gods and their infinity ascribe. BOULDERDASH!!"

Larry rolled up his sleeves having quite no more he could listen. He shook off the brainblow, stood and went for the takedown. Straightaway he wobbled Kamek by shoving the elbow. That was mostly it. And the response was to be picked up by the chest; not the neck, the arm, the chest. He yelped as Kamek bruised every rib on one side, then flung him to the winds, two hundred yards out. Lemmy came and put a right cross to the back of Kamek's head, and recoiled in pain. Like punching a concrete bank. Kamek turned, and wrapped the skater-prince in a hug; tight, tighter, in a cough's breadth the koopa couldn't breathe. Larry cried out "Yo, BIG BABY!" to distract the sorcerer. It didn't work. The former limped on, trying desperately to reach his bro', thinking the life would be squeezed away.

Kamek let go, just to watch the clothes 'fluff' back out, and Lemmy's organs not do the same. He tossed and turned on the ground, unable to work through this much pain. Lemmy had dealt with 10,000 PSI and lived, but by what definition? Sitting up was agony. The steel-iron combo that still waterproofed and painproofed Kamek's arms, they'd dug into his bones at every bend they made binding him. Larry held his own torso, empathy-pains when Lemmy screamed through every move it took to stand. But stand he did; even Kamek glowered in surprise, never thinking they'd last like this. And he scratched his twenty-pack abs, causing crinkled noise, while voicing the impact. "So much I've thrown to you, and here you still are. I credit you as adversaries." He stepped back and bowed, oh-so-sarcastically. Larry put ONE foot forward, and wobbled when Kamek left the ground. One jump that cleared ninety feet, toward his ass, no spin or pinache put on it... Just slamming down on the pyramid, done with getting physical. "Go ahead, respected. Check upon your dear one's condition. I'll wait."

He brandished the arms, still smug about them, and Larry thought little more as he helped hold up a faltering Lemmy... The elder's face was white, his neck-to-hips looked 'off' as how smashed it had been, but Lemmy gave a thumbs-up. They heard together the shifting and flex of their foe's hyper form but Larry took his word and thanked all gods they had made it this far. Though with no ideas on how to win. Not even one to escape.

The metal on Kamek's left fist moved and writhed. The back of palm thinned, as a lump like a tumour crawled on the outer layer. He had all fingers balled up; but as the risen place reached his middle finger, it extended at light-speed... The stretchout did more than flip the bird, it shot the hunk of steel straight out. Faster than any bullet's course. Harder than the tech of any military anything. Aimed straight and true, to the core of Lemmy's chest.

Blood splashed out the other side; the metal fragment was gone so far and fast there lay no impact on dirt or tree or anything. Lemmy felt cold. He heard faintly the yell of Larry, the anguish of he who stood beside him in this moment. He hit knees on the hot sand. Before his back could find the same bed he was caught by a diving Larry, arm so careful on his spine through which their own former tool of war ripped.

Larry's hair lay around his eyes, cruel as this space allowed him to look down on the paled cheeks of his brother who lay with lung eviscerated, cut between the ribs, paralyzed in half of him. Blood pooled around Lemmy's stomach. The lips of a skater drained colour; he looked languid on Larry's panic, but in his mortal gaze shone the peace of something far, far away from here. He spoke, despite half his breathing power lost. No matter all fluids leaving him, the useless legs, fact of their failure, he spoke. "I... Didn't really think... This went any other way..."

"S-shut that, Lemmy, you're gonna be fine, I'm g-getting you outta here-" Larry stammered. The blood washing on his arm behind the brother below said otherwise; it put a pit in his heart that he fell into.

Lemmy lifted an arm, unaffected by the spine. Put a finger on his mouth. "Sshhhhh. Don't make a promise... I don't want you to keep..." The stillness in him grew. More of it was mental than the body which shut down bit by bit... His own serenity, more than any day he'd tricked a board off a fire hydrant, sat down to lunch with the fellas, teased Wendy and then ducked her ire on four wheels. A truth inside that approached him with love. A new kind of soulful release. He knew Larry would hear everything, and put his ebbing strength in what he wanted remembered. "It's all for the best, y' know... You get it, rrright? I'll... I'll... See mom again..."

He faded. His eyes lost a power that could never come back. The body went limp. No pulse, no thoughts. Larry watched and felt his brother find rest.

The surviving prince squawked torment, his heart broken. Larry's head dipped down and saltwater poured on the fallen brother. Shoulders heaved as he lost all composure, sorrow taking him.

... Three years ago, Larry'd shook hands with him when going out with Roy, on a promise to 'watch out'. The first night he tried freebasing. Now the concern he'd seen came back to mind's picture.

... Five-and-a-half years, he watched the first time Lemmy pulled a 540 Melon, hit the side of a pole, somehow landed back on the board. The clapping done still stung his hands some days.

... Seven years, and he helped Lemmy with Trig 201. The only school he ever found talent with. They went out for ice cream as reward, after lifting a 20 from a servant's purse.

... Twelve years in reverse. The spitting heckler who had displeasure with Bowser and accosted them, shoving kid-Lemmy down by the nose. The bite marks Larry left on him would get infected, and hospitalize. Never any more trouble from that wretch.

... Close to twenty years... The terrible night, when they all huddled as kids. Crying at the news of her death. All of them older than Larry. The one who held him tightest... He was... In eternity now.

Larry soaked his tears in the man whose life flashed before him. They'd be repaid a millionfold, his rage would cook Kamek where the devil gloated.

Not a sound from above them. The liar prayed to evil's might. Giddy within.

..........

... Mario spotted the edge of a plateau he'd swear had never been before.

**************************************************************

As if two wolverines scrambling from an overtall den, Wendy and a brother left the end of the train tunnel. Iggy rubbed his cheekbones; its off-and-on lighting through decayed grimy rays gave him migraines. The phone's flashlight he'd used only gave him a pure shine to stare on, didn't keep the rest from nagging and causing. He shook his head though, and by dedication zeroed out the focus on it. There were such important items on their backs, in figure of speech; he felt naked, no gun out here in what had become war's wilderness, and Wendy's thoughts wound through gun after gun she would know at any touch, but didn't have right now.

On the way to them they marched. Both stumbled across rocks the size of tennis balls... The train station at the clearing had never come to be, stopped by funding, and though untouched by Kamek the build-debris lay no more hospitable. Iggy looked on bleached wood beams in piles, cinder blocks caked with mud from rain over months' time, as nature tried to absorb the supplies. It was close to beautiful yet simply for what the world tried turning it back to. Wendy's boots started squeaking; she'd run out their tensile newness in a week's time, now wear and tear rapidly aged them. Miles and miles travelled. Her shins hurt like hammered hell; Iggy's head recovered but his chest pained, the heavy breaths went to raw up lung tissue. Their hearts were young and sound but the journey here would test all koopas the same. Iggy coughed up a sentence to the girl he trusted more than his own science and theorems. "We're outside the danger zone, correct?"

"... Never, Iggy. But we're as close as we'll get." Emotionless, taking all question away so simply. She hopped over the base of a started house, and cussed herself out for it, feet throbbing with use-trauma. These chalets had billed themselves as 'accessible to the light rail AND great Prairie Land preserve', if they ever got off the ground. But useless ruins were no target for Kamek, and this bought them marginal freedom.

Iggy threw an F-bomb, and Wendy squinted. He explained. "There's tanukis in that foundation, 30-degrees to magnetic north. They've assembled nests."

"They won't harm us, Ig's."

"I know, I know. I've just never seen one up-close. Look, she's nursing!"

"Iggy do I gotta stuff your head in your socks to shut you up?"

His childlike awe grew up in an instant. He couldn't blame her for annoyance, he saw her pain. It was all she could muster to avoid walking crippled, and hers were all-terrain hike shoes, no pomp or ladylike circumstance. His boots were not where he suffered, but the pulmonary rawness, gasp after gasp. When he thought too hard therein, it could feel like tiny needles jabbing at his air sacs. He did, and whimpers began, before he pushed out such concentrating.

Wind was starting to pick up. It might be a low on the way, if the high clouds coming in were indicators. She had good news amid this. "We'll be there before there's a drop on us. It's the home stretch, buddy boy."

Iggy sighed, never-minding the discomfort of deep motion there. "Call me that again and I tie your hands together."

She balked by way of a raspberry through the cooling air. It would have been so easy to come back with 'And who's gonna lead you there then, Copernicus?' but her mind was on that exactly. She looked down past the last square of concrete, end of the undelivered cul-de-sac. An odd curving valley opened up before them. She wasted no time, shoesteps light down the incline. They'd be trouncing this cove underfoot, and Iggy respired like a decades-old Buick on its last leg. But he would keep strong and follow. His gait crushed clover and wildflowers; hers put pockmarks in soil that was deeper, softer than the highlands. Ungraded. She hummed for a moment; the wilds were a gorgeous place, if she had time and allowance to enjoy them. Overhead, a flying shape cut through the misty clouds. She gasped and flung herself onto a tree trunk, under canopy. Iggy saw and did no different. Her skin crawled. Unarmed, and far from anyone in this rural scape.

Peeking through twigs and leaves, she saw natural wings. It was merely an Albatoss, at one with its habitat. The Grizzly Adams of its kind. She put two fingers to her neck, checked her pulse. It slowed gradual as she stepped back out, and Iggy made a fist to punch his own chest, see if crud or allergies were causing the rasp. Some was there, though coughing it up only halved the misery.

They were off again, but getting on a good pace was harder now. After so long, to resume was a true chore like legs and toes squealed at the prospect of more travel. But do it they did; soon the flower stalks were crowded out by taller annuals, thriving in peat and dark loam. "Awww!" cooed Wendy, as sunflowers brushed her arms and Ig's tummy. He grunted, feeling more inconvenienced than touched. But her eyes darted, still on watch for any far-flung branch of magic's forces. Every flitting bug, movements of aspen or spruce in the temperate landsink, each swirl of puffy stratus up high that didn't go precisely how a cloud often twisted, they could all be their one and only clue to ambush. She was squashing the panic. Twitchy at the slightest hint of nothing, time after time, with no armed protection. Iggy's basement-bred personna was as much a use in battle as a salad fork. She saw a mesa in the distance; lone, steep-sided, topped with needle trees. Familiar.

Pressing on, yard after yard. Her boots started going in further, almost sticking while she yanked them free. If not for distance and no connections, this would be perfect farm country, room for a modest little ranch and rows of summer crops. No time to think on it now, Iggy barked ahead to her about his trachea, she responded with cutting truths that it was keep-going-or-rest-always-where-he-fell. In time they were eaten by the mesa's shadow, and felt a fraction of stress off of them... The slightest instinct that shade equaled concealment, though it didn't.

Iggy put his hands flat on the cliffside, this odd round tabletop of ground; his arms pushed him forward so the knees had less to do. "Sis... I meant to inquire this... Where do you suppose Dad is, through the bedlam?"

She shook her head. "I can't say. It's not like we've seen this level of crap before. But if I had to guess..." She looked halfway back, he saw the burn in her eyes, dry from wind chapping the face. "... He's where he can do the most good, and still hide his helplessness. Ask for Roy's version and I'd repeat that."

This said more to Iggy than other replies he'd expected. His lip came close to quakes, but the mesa's sides wound up moving more. Crumbly dirt fell from his palmprints. Wendy came up to the far side, stopped, and jutted knee out. They were killing her. But she sniffled, something Iggy heard from a meter away, then closer as he came to beside her.

He saw what she did: a dusty roof, in wavy iron. Mildew-wracked cedarwood still held it high and made it a lean-to, but the steps she'd carved were deteriorated, former dirt angles now a mossy ramp. Into subterranean chamber, protected by a door that was 5 years in a junkyard before she'd stole it as a kid and nailed it up. But papery layers hadn't fell. The frame bowed over it, an upside-down 'U' she'd have to kick in to open now. It was right there. And memories of all shapes and types washed through her tired mind behind sunken eyes. She weeped with joy. The fort survived.

Iggy's bewilderment took his mouth on a roller coaster. "It's transendant, sis. I'd stake the claim that no genocidal dictator of long-past lore has ever built such an encapsulation of battle's best. It holds a je ne sais quoi with plaintive utility."

She had frankness towards him. "You don't even see the inside yet."

"Is it pretentious to say I'd doubt requiring to?"

She tapped her fingernails on his palmback, and he took his hand away; he'd never liked that. She enlivened the unknown. "Once you're inside I want you to nab as much as you can hold safely. I don't know how much survives the time and water now, but I will when I inspect it. There's a lot to grab, so tell yourself right now that you're not gonna care how your arms feel. And tell me too."

He gaped his mouth a bit, but with slight sweat came slighter agreement. "I... will not pay heed to how my arms weigh with those weapons."

"Fantastic." She was genuine, but reached to nail-tap him again before he reached over and swatted her guilty hand. With a grunt, but not rubbing at it, she made way for the ramp down. Too many happy thoughts right now for anything to cut them down. "I brought a lot with me here, when I first piled up this place. I'd stack them and check the barrel conditions, but my Polly Pocket would be right on my hip. There could be pieces in the dirt, I lost a few when playing with them."

"R.I.P.", spoke Iggy, one of his shortest sentences.

Her lips smacked, and her shoes slowed her as the first step down that incline began. "It wasn't toys alone, either. Remember Jesse?"

"Umm... No, I can't say... Wait, is it 2nd-grade we're eponymizing?" He questioned while he went even slower behind her, brittle in walk down a 30-degree slant.

She nodded deep, and breathed deeper; mustiness had ripened like a strange wine. "He's the only guy who ever went this far with me. Hiking I meant." She placed a paw on the door; it shed a pound of caked dirt, dried mud from whenever's the last storm to roll through. It revealed a window the size of her eyes, a pane long-lost to the same silts. "He grew up to be a park ranger and I wasn't jarred to hear it. But back then we'd play with his army men. My dolls. He was really sweet." She spoke fondly, but now was not the time. She wouldn't leave Iggy hanging though. "We went separate ways since... Well you never know who you are when you're under ten. Ever. So it's all fair and fine." She grunted, pushing the door once. It was merely a test, and she found it wouldn't fall to that slightness. She motioned for Iggy to fall back; he obeyed, smart about this. She drew from a well inside of her, and with a fraction of its contents put her shoulderblade out and charged.

It fell with a clap like implosion. She put her inner elbow over her mouth, and a watchful Iggy did equivalent, knowing why. Dust poured out of the fortification, thick cloud. Two minutes it flowed from the chamber, old and reeking if they hadn't bundled noses with themselves. Finally it exhausted itself, and only the lowest foot or so lay swirling, unable to climb the ramp and be released to freedom. Wendy jumped in, impatient after such a wait, beside the feel and fact of the day they'd lived to see. The reason to be here at all.

Iggy squeezed past her, there being room for only this in the buried place. He saw mostly what he figured, though in frightening multitudes. The light from the crack above, under roof, streamed over five-deep rows of classic rifles, hunting shotguns. A modified blunderbuss of all things. Elephant guns and ostro guns made full-auto. Barrels with antique marks and monograms, on newer-but-dust-laden stock. Most of these weren't factory-default, only the finest looked to be. Hobbyists from leagues around would die for the chance to lay one finger on most of these examples; for many, museums with glass cases had been the only place to glimpse. All the rifles had etching from Dark Kingdom, not one was an import. Centuries of history in the bowels of a child-built shack. And there were boxes in the middle, ammo that could fuel a thousand triggers. Some were gold-plated; the package quality proved the price. Iggy knew not what explosive or hellacious qualities they bragged, only that they would, if the upper crust of bullets and shells. A few loaded into one of those armcannons and a lot more than heads might explode. What figuratively slayed him was just as much the uncertainty as what was sure in their deadliness.

The science prince gagged on dust, but let fly his respect. "If Cnoopa the Great were living corporeally these thousand years later, he'd nosedive to your feet and worship with fealty. This prodigious trove is a miracle of collection." He looked her straight in the side of her eye, as hers lay on the hoarde with precisely joy and no less. "Amassed as a pre-teen. You're unfuckingstoppable, Wendy."

She giggled and wiped her 'pushing hand' on her top, the dry mud took off her acryllics. "I was. Now I'm finding my way back." She meant this doubly; it was the utmost importance to blaze their way to the valley. If she'd been there before, when it made up a limitless plane of forest - before the grubby hands of discontent cast it down and to the press of magic - she could retrace. It was her one goal. With these in Iggy's and her hands, warlocks or other tools of his reach who doubtlessly patrolled, on-guard for the spawn of the koopa king, would fall from the sky, 360-no-scoped. Put down by her wiles that the deceiver hadn't counted on, if he even ever saw their extent when she wore a younger girl's clothes.

Kamek and aides would pay for endangering her love, her brothers, for engendering death in the homelands.

To be continued...