Prologue
The world was quiet in Ice Land, short of the howling winds that distributed snow across the ground, 24/7/365. In Fahr Outpost, everything was quiet and dark, short of one glimmering light in their inn.
“Doctor, are you sure there’s nothing that can be done for him?” a worried female Koopa said, her light green hair ruffled and untamed, and her shell a similar coloration. Clearly, she had recently woken up, and was incredibly worried.
”Ma’am, I’m very sorry. Your son has diphtheria, and I have no serum for him,” the Magikoopa responded, slipping a stethoscope in the sleeve of his robe. Ever since Mario had passed through, a lot of attention had been drawn to Fahr Outpost, and many Koopas, tired of the sheer crowding at Shiver City, had moved. However, this isolation made many pay a price, as they were closed off from almost everywhere by the mighty blizzards that ravaged the area, making aircraft entry impossible, and no rail stations came near this area.
”Then where can the serum be found?” the female Koopa responded, her concerned look only becoming more and more noticeable.
The Magikoopa was silent for several
seconds, before saying slowly, uncertainly, “I believe that the closest
provider of the serum is… Shiver City. The Diphtheria has likely spread
already, I must send a call to Lord Lemmy for help!” Brushing past the
lady, he grabbed his Mailbox SP, and managed to get a faint, but usable,
signal to create an Email, likely from one of the rest stops between Shiver
City and Fahr Outpost, about 40 miles away. Hurrying to keep from losing
the signal, the Magikoopa rapidly typed an Email to the region’s leader...
Main Story
Meanwhile, in Lemmy’s palace, Lemmy was practicing running around on his ball while shooting moving targets with his Freeze Gun. He heard a slight beeping sound, and sighed, carefully moving to his desk and plucking his own Mailbox DS off the tabletop. Looking into his Email, he moved through all the junk Email before noticing one with the subject line of “HELP!!!” Opening the Email easily while maintaining his balance, Lemmy read the contents of it.
“Help! Emergency at Fahr Outpost! Diphtheria outbreak! No serum. Please send some from Shiver City.”
Lemmy thought about this Email for a moment, looking outside the window at the snow. “King Dad would probably just let the Koopas die,” he said thoughtfully to himself. Finally, he turned, and rolled rapidly to a nearby web cam. “But I’m not King Dad.”
In Shiver City, the words were heard loud and clear. “Citizens of Shiver City. I am Lemmy Koopa, ruler of Ice Land, and I have an important message, so I advise you listen. All doctors are now required to donate as much serum to cure Diphtheria as possible to Fahr Outpost!” Lemmy thought for a moment, then continued. “The inaccessibility of the outpost will make delivery by air or train impossible, so there will be a relay race organized out of the Yoshi-sled teams to transport the serum! The best teams are required. All that assist in the efforts of saving the Koopa population at the Outpost will be handsomely rewarded by me.” At that, he turned the webcam off, and turned, rolling away towards a spiral staircase-looking structure, but instead of stairs, it was just a smooth spiral drop. Lemmy grinned as he saw it, and rolled towards it, allowing gravity to speed him on the way down. For any others in the castle, the word “Wheeee-ha!” was clear.
On the outskirts of Shiver City, a young baby blue Yoshi was jumping up and down excitedly. “All right, this is going to be fun! We’re going to save the Outpost!!!”
At this, a larger red Yoshi looked down at him as he walked by, saying, “Sorry kid, you’re too young to be in this race.” Nearby was a large sled, and a visitor to Shiver City, Jojora, was gradually attaching harnesses to different colored Yoshi, in pairs. At the front, he placed the red Yoshi. Being at the front was a major honor, because the lead Yoshi got to see the trail in front, and the fate of the entire team tended to depend on the leader.
The young Yoshi grumbled, and said, “You guys’ll see! I’m gonna be a hero! Hey, what’s this?” He looked towards a large crate, and jumped inside. The clanking of glass together was heard, and the young Yoshi froze, not wanting his antics to be noticed.
He wouldn’t be, unfortunately, as Jojora placed the lid on the box and covered it with a parka, placing a thick coat on himself too. The young Yoshi felt the crate be picked up and placed in the sled, as Jojora stood on it. “Mush!” he yelled to his team, as the red began moving, out into the snow. The race was on!
Over the course of about ten days, the sled team traveled on, encountering other sled Yoshi teams and passing the serum box on, with the Yoshi trapped inside without food or water. Thankfully, Yoshis could live for a good while without having to eat anything.
Finally, on the 10th day, the current team, near collapse, stopped on the second to final stop between Shiver City and Fahr Outpost. There was a team waiting for them, but the rider on the moving sled nearly fell off immediately when he realized who the other team’s rider was. “Lemmy! Erm, I mean, Lord Lemmy! What are you doing here?” the first rider, an Icy Snifit, said, stuttering repetitively.
“What do you think? I couldn’t let you guys have all the fun!” Lemmy exclaimed as he rolled towards the crate on the sled, managing not to sink through the snow as he grabbed it and rolled back, placing it gently on his own sled. Like the riders before him, he gave the command, and the team rushed off through the negative 40-degree temperature. This last run was the most challenging of them all, because the team had to cross a large, frozen-over lake. When he got there, Lemmy glanced around, considering his odds. He could go AROUND the lake, and be safe, but he would lose time, time that he didn’t have. Finally, he decided to go ahead, and, despite the slippery terrain, the Yoshis' feet held true to the ice, only losing a small fraction of their speed. The ice didn’t show any signs of cracking on their way across, though Lemmy was immediately alert when the leader, a black female Yoshi that he fondly called Marion, stopped, and refused further orders from Lemmy to move.
“That’s strange…” Lemmy said, now curious, as he hopped off the sled and rolled across the ice to see why Marion wouldn’t move. He knew Marion fairly well, considering that, with the offer of food, she and the team she was with had consented to pulling sleds like this, and it didn’t make sense to him that Marion might refuse an order... Upon getting to where Marion was, he realized that the ice in front of her was shattered, and Marion’s feet were soaked in freezing water, though she had jumped out in time to prevent getting her whole body wet. “Ah, no wonder,” Lemmy said, grinning slightly as he pulled out his Freeze Gun, and froze over the broken ice. As the team began moving again, Lemmy reached out and grabbed the handle of the Yoshi sled, easily maneuvering himself onto it before the team could gain any speed.
A good ways out from the lake, the team floundered in deep snowdrifts, struggling against the deep, powdered snow. “Lemmy, I can’t keep this up much longer!” Marion said, glancing back at him. Lemmy nodded, and upon the advice of the team, chose to alter the harnesses that he had on the Yoshi, to team up an orange Yoshi, which he called Plasma, with her. The combination of the two Yoshis would lessen the strain on Marion, though it could, and did, cause balance problems later. Lemmy was familiar with such problems, however. He couldn’t prevent the accident, however, when a blizzard struck, the familiar sign that they were reasonably close to Fahr Outpost. The winds pushed on the sled, as well as its contents, and as Lemmy had chosen to bypass a deep snowdrift, the crate of serum went flying out of the sled as it tipped over, and landed in the snow! Lemmy was sure the impact would have broken all of the fragile bottles, but he had no choice but to check…
“Owwww… This guy needs to get a driving ticket...” the young Yoshi, from inside the crate, muttered to himself, not having any knowledge of where he was or who we was with. He felt liquid dripping down onto him, and the clattering of bottles was also heard.
Lemmy was blind from the snow, and, after Marion retrieved his ball as it blew past and had it passed back to him, moved over to the snowdrift where he thought he had seen it land, and began to search through it with his hands. He was just about to search in another area, when he felt his hands contact the hard surface of the crate. “YES!” he said to the empty air as he pulled out the crate, managing to haul it back to its position on the sled. He didn’t bother to check the contents, though; the idea that his fall might have broken the bottles wasn’t something he wanted to see until he got to the next rest stop.
The snow, however, was like little shards of glass, and Lemmy was forced to protect his eyes and face with one arm, leaving Marion and Plasma to determine the proper trail. Marion’s experience held true, and it wasn’t long before she began to say, “Ladies and gents, last stop before Fahr Outpost!” Lemmy nodded slightly, understanding that there was a checkpoint ahead, where he would be able to pass on the serum to another. He would have sighed in relief, if it weren’t for the fact a quick look inside the building showed that the lights were off. Perhaps the sled team was sleeping, or just not there. Lemmy shivered slightly, and considered. The team was running out of energy, but there was no time to stay here and check for anybody. Lemmy, in a daring move, pushed his team on, to continue on to Fahr Outpost.
The team was weary within the day, and Lemmy was thinking against the choice of moving on, though Marion was still going fairly strong. The blizzards blinded them too, so they had to rely on memory alone to judge where the trail was to the outpost. Finally, after several long hours of bitter winds, the constant pummeling of snow, and struggling through snow piles, Marion began to speak again, though her voice was lost to the wind. Lemmy grinned when he heard her attempt at announcing their arrival, the first time he had truly done so ever since he had left to wait at the rest area for the other riders. They were in Fahr Outpost. As they got closer, a faint light was seen, the doctor’s office. The sled team finally stopped, Marion and Plasma immediately collapsing, followed shortly afterwards by the rest of their group. Lemmy groaned as he rolled off the sled, his legs weary as well. But there was one last thing that needed to be done.
He pulled the crate off the sled, carrying it to the front door of the inn, and, after setting it down, knocked on the door. The white-robed Magikoopa answered the door, his concern clearly showing that he was expecting another Diphtheria victim. “Lem- Lemmy Koopa?!” he asked, gaping slightly.
Motioning to the ground, Lemmy said with a smile, “I brought you something.”
The doctor, overjoyed, managed to pick up the serum crate despite its weight, and brought it inside. Lemmy followed him in, and felt the immediate comfort of warmth travel through him. He may have been the ruler of Ice Land, but warmth is appreciated by ANYBODY who has been out in the cold as long as he had. He looked at the many beds that were in the room, however, and saw the many young Koopas that had fallen ill. Adults tended to be somewhat immune, and it would have saddened the Ice Ruler to see them, if he didn’t know that he had brought the cure. At least, he hoped he had; the vision of the fall came back to him. As the doctor opened the crate, he said, “Well well, looks like we have a lot of heroes to thank today.”
“You shouldn’t be thanking me,” Lemmy said, balancing on one foot. “It’s Marion and Plasma that you need to thank.”
“It seems we also have one more besides you three,” the Magikoopa said as he pulled the baby Yoshi, soaking wet, out of the crate. “It looks like these bottles have been through a lot, but the Yoshi cushioned them and probably helped keep them warm.” Wiping a cotton swab on the Yoshi for a moment, he said calmly, "And it looks like he got some snow on him too."
It was all Lemmy could do to keep from
jumping for joy, but he rolled over to the doctor and took the shivering
Yoshi from his hands, holding on to it securely. “We’ll probably never
find the team that you were with...” he said thoughtfully, rolling outside
to move his team into some shelter as well, “so I think I’ll keep you.
I’ll call you Solo. Solo Flite.” The Yoshi gibbered something, likely too
cold to make his vocal cords work properly. Lemmy decided to bring the
Yoshi team in after unharnessing them, and took them to the recently built
second floor of the inn, where, to his considerable relief, it was also
warm. He left the baby Yoshi with his team, and moved downstairs, watching
the doctor administer the serum to the young Koopas. Just another day in
the life of a ruler…
Epilogue
Lemmy left after his team had recovered, and took to training the baby Yoshi in case the incident ever happened again. Marion became a hero, and was considered one of the best Yoshi sled leaders in the world. Stories were written about her, some making bizarre statements that Marion was actually half wild Yoshi. Few believed this, especially the children at Fahr Outpost that had seen Marion before she left with her team and Lemmy. An idea occurred to Lemmy not much later after getting back to his castle, the idea to host a race every year to prove whose Yoshi sled team was the strongest. A race from Shiver City to Fahr Outpost was held once a year, with prizes for the first team there. What did he decide to call this new race? The LK Yoshi Sled Run.
The End
No, really, you can stop reading now.
STOP READING ALREADY!!!
| If you would like to send some feedback
to the author of this submission, please complete this form.
What's your name?
What's your Email address?
How do you rate this submission?
Does this submission belong in Little
Lemmy's Land?
Would you like to see more from this author? Comments and suggestions:
|
