By Pteryx
6
Too Late!
Lakitu and Tineeko hopped out of a pipe in the shadow of Kappa Mountain, the huge, steep mountain on Yoshi's Island, asthe sun slipped away over the distant ocean. As the light waned, they followed a path for about fifteen minutes until they found Yoshi's "house", which was really a grass roof supported by four tree trunks and the chimney. The man-sized, bipedal dinosaur had just eaten supper and washed his dishes, and was putting them away when he noticed the two turtles.
"Oh no, more Koopas!" he whined. Turning to them, he said, "You want be dessert? So be it!" His long, froglike tongue then shot out, grabbed Tineeko, and pulled him into his mouth with a scream. Because of his hard shell, though, Yoshi couldn'tswallow him.
"You spit my friend out, you brute!" Lakitu shouted, furious. "We came to bring you to Mario and help him stop the invasdion, not to help Koopa! We're on your side!"
Spitting Tineeko out in surprise, Yoshi exclaimed with a gasp, "Yoshi sorry! Yoshi make up to turtles. Turtles can sleep here tonight." Lakitu thanked him for his kindness, but all Tineeko could say was "Yuck! Dinosaur drool!" After going to nearby Koopa Beack to clean up (no plumbing in his backwater place!), he joined Lakitu in the guest bed.
That night, Lakitu had a very strange dream. He was in his cloud on a pitch-black, starless night next to the rim of one of the turrets of the Mushroom Castle. Princess Toadstool was on the turret, and when she saw Lakitu, he tossed a large coin bearing Yoshi'sface up towards the sky, which vanished in a green spark. She then rushed over to the closest point on the tower to him and cried, "Lakitu! Help me!" For some reason, Lakitu couldn't move the cloud, but he was just within reach of her, so he tried to grab her outstretched hands. But just inches before he could reach her, he found he was held back by a shadowy restraint. He tried harder and harder to reach for her, stretching the restraint like a thick rubber band that had already been stretched almost to the limit. He could hear Tineeko's voice calling from below, "Come on, Lakitu! I have faith in you!" The thing was, his voice faded as the words were spoken, as if he was being pulled away at high speed while talking. Lakitu didn'tlook down, and just kept trying to get still closer to helping Princess Toadstool. But then, when he was just an eighth of an inch away from touching the Princess's delicate fingers, a huge, dark, translucent shape swallowed her up. She then screamed so loud that Lakitu suddenly woke up, panting.
Awakened by Lakitu suddenly sitting up, Tineeko inquired tiredly, "Lakitu, what's the matter?"
"The Princess! The darkness... Tineeko?" Lakitu mumbled.
"You had a nightmare. Come on," Tineeko yawned, "let's get back to sleep." Tineeko was asleep again within seconds, but Lakitu was restless for the remainder of the night.
The next morning, Lakitu had to be dragged out of bed. After breakfast, though, he was awake, since Yoshi had fixed a tasty, but unusual dish. What really woke him up was when Yoshi announced what they had just eaten.
"So, did turtles like Yoshi giant caterpillar omlettes?" Fortunately, both of the turtles had strong stomachs, so no accidental insults rushed up to answer. They then went to Koopa Beach to freshen up. After they had taken a swim, Lakitu went over to the pipe they had used to get to the Mushroom Kingdom only days before. He noticed immediately that a lid had been bolted on.
"Hey, everybody, come over here and see this."
"How do we get it off?" asked Tineeko.
"Yoshi have idea!" Yoshi suddenly exclaimed. He ran off and came back with a red shell.
"What in the world is he trying to do?" asked Tineeko.
"I think I remember seeing him eat a red shell once and then spit out some fireballs a second later," said Lakitu.
"Exactly! Yoshi going to melt cover off!" With that, he ate the shell, got on top of a high pipe, and opened his mouth with a burp, sending a fireball towards the warp. When it hit, it melted a hole in the lid that was almost as wide as the original opening. The three people then jumped into the pipe.
When they got out of the other end, they were shocked at what they saw. There were many mushroom people who were hurt, the houses and trees were wrecked, and there was a thin, strange, somehow disturbing fog smothering the area. Lakitu, Tineeko, and Yoshi rushed to Toad's house to make sure that the Mario Brothers and Toad were all right.
Not bothering to knock, they all burst into the house with Lakitu in the lead and the others right behind him. They saw Luigi sitting on his bed and crying, with Toad next to him, attempting to comfort him. Mario, however, was nowhere in sight.
"There, there, it's okay. We'll find them. We've always triumphed before," Toad was saying to Luigi.
"Yeah, but you remember what Lakitu said about killing them! If only we had listened to him instead of sending him on that foolish quest, we might have stopped Koopa."
"We might have been put in a worse position, too," Toad said, still skeptical. "He might have subdued us all and had Koopa take us, too."
"But he told the truth!" Wuth that, Luigi broke into a terrible wailing fit of tears. "For once and maybe forever, he was telling the truth! But he probably died on his way to get Yoshi!" The others then went over to him.
"Luigi?" said Yoshi.
"We're back," said Tineeko.
"We'll help rescue Mario, and the Princess too," said Lakitu. But Luigi didn't hear. He just kept on emptying his water reserves.
"I think he's too upset, Lakitu," said Tineeko. "Maybe we should stay with him until he can contain himself."
Meanwhile, in the Valley of Bowser, King Koopa and his soldiers forced Mario and the Princess into the worst cell he could find in his dungeon.
"I hope you enjoy your room," said King Koopa sarcastically. "It has all the comforts of home: moldy and diseased running water, heat courtesy of the lava moat outside, and I even found a way to get some electricity." He pulled on a switch outside the cell, and a lightning bolt arced from the ceiling to the floor through the center point of the cell. "Enjoy it while you can," he added. "You get toasted in three days. I'd do it sooner, but when it's all over, there'll be no remains to laugh at. That's the problem with lava. It sends every last bit of you completely and instantly into oblivion," He then left the dungeon, cackling. Mario and the Princess just started at each other with the same doomed expression.
Back at Toad's house, Luigi had calmed down enough to explain what had happened while Lakitu and Tineeko were gone in detail to them.
"After you guys left, Mario told the Princess about what you'd said, but she was almost as skeptical as Toad. We all decided to ignore your warnings, since we were afraid you were lying and that if we prepared for an air raid, Koopa would actually attack some other way and we'd be right where he wanted us. But three days later, in the middle of the night, Koopa attacked from the air, just like you said. Some weird fog came out of nowhere and they atacked, using it to their advantage. One of the Hammer Brothers took the Princess, and some Paratroopas took Mario while a few Paragoombas tied up Toad and me. This fog has been lingering here ever since. Oh, I wish I could have done something! There were too many of them for Mario to fight off himself..."
"Don't tie yourself in a knot over something you couldn't do anything about," Tineeko said. "All we can do now is to try to rescue him and the Princess." Lakitu then proceeded to tell them about nearly everything of consequence they had seen, heard, and done while they were gone, especially about the medallions. He also showed them the Evaporation and Flooding ones.
"That Fog medallion you said the Koopa twins had mentioned must be where the mist came from," deduced Luigi.
"If only we had that Inversion medallion you talked about, we could rest assured that Koopa only had one of them," Toad said.
"Excuse Yoshi," asked Yoshi, "but is this it?" He held out what appeared to be a third medallion!
"It was in woods in middle of Yoshi's Island. Yoshi took home and tried to figure out what it was, but Yoshi stumped." After finally figuring out which end was up, they saw that the picture on this one had a cloudy sky on the bottom with the water on top. The incantation read, "Open sky, rolling sea, take each other's place."
[A picture of the medallion belongs here, and will be placed when I am able to scan it.]
"So now what do we do?" asked Toad. All of the others seemed at a loss for answers to this question... except, that is, for Lakitu
"Well, I don't know what everybody else is going to do," he said, "but I'm going to go resolve this mess. Anyone who wants to come with me is welcome."
"I'm not leaving you, Lakitu," said Tineeko, running over tohim. He was no longer staying with Lakitu for his own security, but because he saw that he was needed for Lakitu's.
"I'm not gonna let King Koopa end my brother's life!" Luigi suddenly exclaimed, joining the turtles.
"Yoshi help too!" Yoshi said, joining the others. This left only Toad alone in the corner.
"Coming, Toad?" Luigi inquired.
"You go on. I still don't trust those Koopas." he replied. The others began to leave, but before he went on, Lakitu glanced back towards Toad somewhat sadly. Sighing, he finally went on.