Chapter 9: City of Villains
"Here we are, finally," Kooper says as he, Bow, and Goombario walk out of the Neon City Airport and look around the large and famed city. Unlike the usual bright atmosphere of the area, with movies being shot and baseball being played, at night the city is practically a shelter to criminals. One person the three see, a Shaman who looks rather indifferent from any other besides a strangely shaped golden amulet around his neck, approaches them.
"Are you three locals? I need to find a police station to get some papers," the Shaman tells them.
"No, we've not been here before," Goombario answers. "We're here on business."
"Ah. Well, if you find it, find me and let me know. Name's Sharm."
"I'm Bow, these are Goombario and Kooper," the ghost of the trio introduces the group. Sharm nods his head before walking off in the other direction.
"He seemed a lot more friendly than I've heard most here are at night," Kooper mumbles as the group continues onward. On one street corner, they see a group of four robed figures, built as though they're male Koopas, and another, female, Koopa wearing a pinkish-purple helmet and an odd outfit. The woman pretty much ignores the trio, but the four cloaked Koopas all turn their heads toward them as they pass, though the trio fails to notice.
After the heroes have passed, Kaguya asks the others, "Who were they anyway?"
"Not important," one of the cloaked figures, one wearing red, answers. "We know them from a while back. Nothing major."
"Good. Now come on, Koopa Bros, I heard Dante's in town and all three of those he still needs to kill are also in town right now. We'll help him flush them out, then we'll take our prize."
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Sharm walks down the streets of Neon City, looking around at the destruction taking place around him, a nightly ritual in an urban wonderland that during the day appears to be the place where dreams come true, but by night is a living nightmare.
"Sad thing is, Anne-Onyx is worse," the magical being mumbles as he casts an invisibility spell upon himself before walking up the steps and into the police station. Inside, he immediately carefully rushes past the guards and up a flight of stairs in the back-left corner of the room.
"I never did get why a Dry, Dry Desert prison kept its records in Neon City," Sharm mutters as he sifts through a cabinet marked M in the room upstairs. Once he digs out Ms. Mowz's file, he teleports back to the streets below and dispels the invisibility spell. He chooses the wrong time to do this, however, as his sister and the Koopa Bros. happen to walk up coincidently immediately after he does so.
"Sharm!" his sister yells out. "We've been over this! I am not Cackletta, and so I won't let you disobey a direct order!"
"You know what, Baby Sister?" Sharm retorts, starting to get fed-up with his sister's orders. "You run far too strict a ship! I'm all for specific instructions when they're called for, but you seem to have a qualifier for everything, Shwerm."
"What are you going to do about it?" the Koopa replies to the Shaman. "You know that if you try to harm me, I'll see it coming."
"Err... very well. I'll cooperate."
"Good. Now then, come with us. You can help me and the Koopa Bros. with finding Dante and getting that stone out of him. We need it for the hat, after all, and I don't think you could trust Mack and Bowyer with such a thing."
"Dante? As in that Deathnify guy?" Sharm asks. "I've heard of him. He's the one who's semi-famous for that Duplighost thing, isn't he?"
"Exactly. We're going to let him finish the stone tonight, December 19th, and then we'll come in and finish him up. You coming along should quicken things by a few seconds."
Kaguya and the Koopa Bros. turn and walk off, and Sharm's eyes narrow angrily before he stomps after her.
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"200, 250, 300 coins," Deathnify says as he hands the money he's counting out to a Koopa girl standing in a dark alley. "So, Wart will have those Beezos delivered to my palace within the next three days, correct?"
"You bet. Dad will have Mouser deliver them before the 23rd. Probably sooner."
"Good," Deathnify
answers, turning around and walking back into the streets. The demon begins
running immediately after he sees the group of people coming into view.
Chapter 10: Origins
"So you don't remember it happening at all?" Koops asks one more time of Vivian as the group of four pulls out of Elephant Valley.
"Nope. Have no idea what you're talking about. I did have a weird dream though..."
This catches the attention of the other four members of the group.
"See, I had a dream of the origins of the De Carta Hat. Rather common knowledge in the MagiNet, which is a nickname for the magical community, but what happened in the dream after that is what shocked me. It is a rather new magic, around 60 years old to be exact. It was created by a leading Shaman in King Kaballon- King Morton's father‘s- military. His name was Lord De Carta the Third. No first name's on file for him, but the information is known to exist out there somewhere. I've heard it's part of the Kamek Code- a book Kamek wrote just before he died that was mentioned in his will but disappeared from his house before it was acquired for publishing.
"Anyway, he one day got the idea of combining five separate magical items, adding some ginger, and casting one of the more complicated transfiguration spells, consisting of 74 lines of 20 words each. The spell was mainly used for combining beasts to later summon, and that's where Tanoombas came from. Anyway, he combined these items and got a magical hat. He put it atop his head and he suddenly knew that the hat could fulfill wishes.
"He made one simple wish to test it out, for the fire in his fireplace to go out. It did so, and then he wished for he and his wife's attempts to have a child to succeed. They did, but just one day before the birth of the son, De Carta was killed while training some new Hammer Bros. when one of the hammers caused the bell that used to be in Dark Land to fall and mow down everyone in the field. That's part of what led people to believe in the De Carta Curse, but this dream I had... mentioned other things I did not know.
"I saw another Shaman, who one Koopa in the dream identified as Sir De Carta the 4th. He got together the same five magical items and the same old spellbook his father had used, and tried to recreate the De Carta Hat. It worked, and his two young children, a boy who was six and a girl who was three, witnessed it. De Carta wished for his daughter to be able to see all possibilities so as to protect her, and for his son to possess the ability to learn any magic just by witnessing its occurrence, a rare feat known as Blue Magic.
"That night, it rained. Hard. The family lived on the edge of a riverbank, and there was a horrible flood. I saw the waters rush in and only the two children escaped alive.
"Then I once more saw a different scene. This time, it was a mid-20's Sharm and an early-20s Koopa trying to create a De Carta hat of their own. The hat was created by Sharm, and the Koopa, who I'd assume was Kaguya, wished to age at 1/10 the normal speed of aging. Sharm then wished nothing would go wrong as a fault of the hat, thereby bypassing the curse."
"Wait a second," Eggo stops her. "You mean to tell me that Sharm and Kaguya are the grandchildren of some famous warlock?"
"It's not that far of a stretch," Ms. Mowz answers. "So, Vivian, are those the only three hats created?"
"No. There have been six documented attempts, not counting the last two I mentioned, and every one of those who have tried it have died in some way or another."
"So the only successful attempt was when Sharm did it?" Koops asks. "Why didn't anyone else try that then?"
"I'm not even sure if those second two actually happened. I've never heard anything about them. All I know is that the logic checks out," Vivian answers. "The dream could've been a telepathic message of some sort. Might have something to do with these weird things that have been going on lately. Or it could have just been a dream and nothing more."
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"Stupid mountain..." Insanee mumbles as she and Bowyer pull themselves up a steep incline on Mt. Rugged. Mack is already on top of this particular hill, having carefully jumped up by landing on larger, more sturdy rocks along the way.
"About it telling me you are..." Bowyer replies as he continues to climb as well.
"Question," Mack shouts down to Insanee, drawing a sigh from the flower as she continues to pull herself upward.
"What?"
"Why didn't we just, you know, take the warp pipe in Toad Town to Dry, Dry Outpost and save ourselves the trouble?"
The Dayzee pauses before sighing. "I hate my life."
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"Don't lose sight of him!" Goombario shouts as he, Bow, and Kooper chase Deathnify through the streets of Neon City toward Anne-Onyx.
"Wait, why am I running?" Deathnify shouts back sarcastically, before pulling into the Shadows, causing Kooper and Goombario to nearly fall over as they and Bow suddenly come to a stop.
"Now what?!" Kooper snaps, a rare occurrence. "We lost him!"
"Not quite!" Bow shouts before starting to disappear. "I'll meet you guys in Anne-Onyx. He'll be there to get that guy he's after, so I just need to find him." The ghost completely vanishes, then Kooper and Goombario pick up their running for Anne-Onyx. A group of six runs behind them, looking for the same man.
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"This is our town!" Toadles Toad, better known as The King due to his powerful status in Anne-Onyx, shouts out his nightly call as many Toads dressed in nothing but T-shirts and shorts, despite the chilly December cold, swarm throughout the small, slummy port town. At this time of night, normally the people of this gang are the only ones in the streets, but this night two others stand in the streets.
"You've reached the end of the line," Bow tells Deathnify as both stand underneath the arch that separates Neon City and Anne-Onyx.
"You have no significance to me for another ten minutes. Please come back at a later time, thank you," Deathnify responds before taking off throughout the city, heading for the docks where King stands by night, Bow flying behind.
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Ten minutes later, Kooper and Goombario run into Anne-Onyx, and therein see that many a Toad is running throughout the town, smashing property and generally causing chaos. Of the area they can see, only Kaguya, Sharm, and the Koopa Bros. are not creating disarray, and they are having a conversation.
"This whole minion shopping thing? I don't get the point. Why would you want to hire guys some other villain has fired? I mean, you know, Bowser fired the Koopa Bros. for a reason," Sharm asks his sister as Kooper and Goombario run by.
"And you think your idea of resurrecting dead villains and helping fallen ones is much better?" Kaguya asks in response. "Cackletta was a bust, and every other time you've tried it, you haven't actually succeeded at the resurrection."
"Whatever," Sharm answers. "Let's just hurry up and get this over with."
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Bow finally reaches the docks, having lost Deathnify around five minutes after he had transformed into a Ukiki so as to go faster. Once there, she sees the demon standing alone at the end of the docks, looking at her and smiling menacingly. His arms have been transformed to have sharp blades running along the backs of his hands, with another foot of a blade hanging off the end of each.
"Right on time!" Dante laughs. "I just disposed of the Toad. So how about we make this my last stand?"
"Fine!" Bow shouts back, causing Deathnify to shoot forward like a rocket in an attempt to stab the ghost, who disappears just in time. He spins around and looks, seeing nothing. The demon then looks up, getting slapped in the face for his troubles. The demon shoots his arm upward, but Bow disappears just in time, reappearing in front of him.
"Gotta run!" the ghost taunts before disappearing once more, causing Deathnify to snarl with anger before transforming his arms back to normal and diving into the Shadows.
To Be Continued...
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