Chapter 4: War Preparations
Doshi and Prelion walked through a hallway, going down from Doshi’s room towards an elevator with Bowser’s face on it. Prelion yawned. It was 5:00 in the morning.
“Sir,” asked Prelion with tiredness. “Where are we going?”
“We are going to see a demonstration,” replied Doshi with joviality.
“A demonstration of what?” asked Prelion, beginning to be interested.
“Of a weapon,” replied Doshi, as they reached the elevator.
The doors opened, and the two got into the roomy elevator. Prelion looked around. The walls and floor were made of a black, glassy stone.
“Obsidian,” said Doshi, pressing a red button. There where three buttons, red blue, and green. The elevator went down. Prelion looked up. There wasn’t any roof.
“Why bother with a roof?” asked Doshi. Prelion sighed. He would never understand Doshi.
“Yes you will,” replied Doshi, “to the point that I can just open my mouth and you’ll know what I’m going to say.” Prelion gawped.
“I’m merely listening on the same frequency as your brain waves,” said Doshi in a bored voice. Prelion swallowed.
“Yes, it does mean that I know everything you think,” said Doshi. Prelion gave up.
“Wise choice,” said Doshi with amusement. The elevator reached its destination. The doors opened.
“Welcome,” said Doshi, and he and his aid stepped out, “to EarthBound Labs. EBL for short,” he added. It was a hallway. There were doors in pairs every so often.
“Which door?” asked Prelion. Doshi took him to the third pair of doors. Prelion noticed such names on the doors as ‘Super Soldier’, ‘Superman’, ‘Genetic Sequencing’, ‘Prophet’, ‘Nuclear Fission’, and on the door they stopped at, ‘Super Weapons’. Prelion gulped.
I got the idea,” said Doshi, “from watching Star Wars. I wanted a Death Star, so I told some of these people to make one.”
“Is that what we are going to watch?” asked Prelion. “A demonstration of a Death Star?”
“No,” replied Doshi with a sigh. “The Death Star concept is not yet finished.” Prelion was glad. “But,” added Doshi, “Earth is still not safe.” He opened the door, and they went through.
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Mario and Luigi surveyed the troops of the Quimper Division of the Human Revolt Movement.
“Human?” asked Luigi. “Why Human?”
“There are other Movements,” replied the leader shortly. Luigi didn’t ask any further.
“How many weapons?” asked Luigi.
“Each person hase...” said the leader, counting on his fingers, “two automatics, and three grenades.” He paused. “Then there-e five rocket launchers, each-e with e, e, two rockeets, and we have about-e, e, a ton of, e, TNT.”
Mario whistled. “We could do-a a lot-a damage with that-a,” he said.
“But not enough,” said Luigi. “They have Europe covered, and that’s, like, a million guns, at least.”
“No,” said the leader sadly, shaking his head. “Bowser-e, he has-e, almost two billion warriors.”
“THAT’S A THIRD-A OF THE WHOLE WORLD-A POPULATION-A!!!” yelled Luigi, his accent coming out in his rage. “HOW-A DO YOU THINK-A WE’LL BEAT HIM-A?!”
“Take-e out the source-e,” said the leader calmly, “e the others shall follow.”
Luigi calmed down. “How do you propose we do that?” he asked in a surly voice. “Doshi is, well, Doshi.”
“Doshi?” asked the leader, wrinkling his nose. Mario and Luigi sighed.
“He-a is-a… um-a….” Mario hesitated.
“An insane, homicidal monster with god-like powers,” said Luigi shortly. Mario nodded.
“But-e, e,” the leader stopped as the small French girl who had spotted the Mario Bros. came in the room. She said something in French. The leader glared at her and spoke back shortly. The girl left, and as she did the leader smiled behind her back.
“What-a just-a happened?” asked Mario.
“My daughter, she has-e, e,” said the French leader, “friends-e in America. They know of-e, Doshi, there. He is a small-e, e child they say-e. What have-e we to fear-e from him?” he asked. “Is it not-e Bowser who, e, how do you say, runs the show?”
“Nope,” said Luigi.
“He-a is just a tool of Doshi-a,” said Mario.
“He may seem a child on the Internet,” warned Luigi.
“But he is-a a much worse-a person than that-a,” finished Mario.
“Possibly the most cruel and intelligent person there ever was,” said Luigi.
“I dunno-a,” said Mario thoughtfully. “Luddy is pretty-a smart.”
“Yes,” consented Luigi. “But nowhere near as mean,” he added darkly. Mario nodded.
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The room they were in was huge, no, beyond huge! Prelion could not see the sides or the other side of it, nor the floor or ceiling either. There was only the wall they had entered from, stretching farther than he could see, and the catwalk that ran the length of the wall, which he and his Yoshi-like companion found themselves on.
“You see,” said Doshi, “it’s called EarthBound Labs because the universes that separate the rooms we are in are not on Earth, but are bound to it.”
Prelion peered into the gloom. “Where are the Super Weapons?” he asked.
“We needed to keep them far away from both each other and the walls,” said Doshi. “If something went wrong, well, you can imagine,” he continued. Prelion could imagine indeed. Doshi pointed upwards. Prelion squinted. He could make out a circle descending towards them. The circle stopped, and Prelion saw that it was hollowed out in the middle, to form a round chair broken only by stairs leading from the edge of the circle to the bottom of the hollow. Prelion followed Doshi down. They sat, and the circle turned around and promptly took off.
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“Princess, the Northen Province’s army is two days away,” reported a Mushroomer with gold spots and a large, curly, black mustache. “Rogueport’s Navy is going to set sail as soon as their flagship gets back with supplies.” The Mushroomer remembered that haunted ship that sailed faster than wind.
“Good,” replied Princess Peach, sighing and sitting back in her chair. “Soon we’ll strike at Dark Land.”
“And Bowser’s Empire shall be no more,” answered the Mushroomer with hope, not knowing the full implications of his prophecy.
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Prelion broke the long silence. “Where are we going?” he asked.
“Everything has a Frequency,” said Doshi by way of answer. “Energy on a different wavelength,” he continued, “which is how,” he added, “I listened to your brainwaves. Prelion nodded. “So, if one was to send a certain energy wave, a certain Frequency, one could either change the basic nature of something or merely change the amount of energy it has.”
“So where are we going?” asked Prelion. Doshi laughed.
“To see a demonstration of a Frequency Machine, FM for short,” said Doshi. “If,” he added, pointing down, “you look below, you’ll see an exact copy of the Atlantic Ridge on Earth.”
Prelion looked down. There is was, a giant rock floating in the middle of nowhere, with peaks and drops.
“How’d you get that there?” asked Prelion in a hushed voice.
“I used my magic,” replied Doshi. “It wasn’t hard.”
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Are you sure?
Yes. You are going to be destroyed.
How can he destroy me?
It is out of my domain.
Then how can you be sure?
He is still connected to the other Mother.
Yes. Her.
You and her depend on each other for survival.
That doesn’t mean I must like her.
No. It doesn’t.
Stop it.
Very well.
Now. Stop the Dark One.
It will be hard.
How, for you, son of the Two Mothers?
He is son of a father whose power was greater than the Father’s.
But that father ended.
And was continued in him.
So I am doomed?
No. The humans, destroyers of you, they can help.
How?
They have built high. Was it not said that they will do anything they can?
It was. What have they done?
A Weapon of War, new, that the Dark One is not prepared for.
Always War! When will that be stopped?
You are War. When you change, or die, then War will stop.
I am Nature. Not War.
Is it not in their Nature to War? Is it not the case in the ants, the apes, the lions?
You have made your point.
Now. Go destroy the Dark One. Do what you must.
Yes Mother.
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“We’ll strike at the base as soon as the invasion begins,” said Luigi. The leader, Mario, and he were in the leader’s bed room, which he had donated to the Mario Bros. They declined, saying it would be rude. He insisted, saying they would merely pull in two more beds. They agreed. Not the end of the story.
“Are-a you-a sure of this-a invasion?” asked Mario.
“Yes,” replied the leader firmly. “Doshi-e, he is determined to win-e the world in-e a single blow.”
“It’s risky, yes,” said Luigi, “but so like Doshi. It will stretch the enemy reserves, and it will get him farther in his quest for world dDomination.”
“But-a it will be easy-a to fail-a,” refuted Mario.
“Talk to him about it, then,” replied Luigi, getting angry.
“How-a will we be sure-a that-a Doshi will be there-a?” asked Mario.
“We cannot-e,” said the leader, “but-e, I think he will-e. What smart-e general goes out-e to combat-e when he can-e stay home?”
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Prelion peered into the darkness. There, in front of him, coming ever closer, was a floating platform and a large, squash-shaped object. There were figures moving on the platform.
Doshi smiled and sung softly. “Bigbag, bigbag, bugabogabugabigbag…”
The hollowed out ‘hoverchair’, as Prelion thought of it, landed upon the platform. Doshi and Prelion stepped off, and Prelion immediately gasped.
“Humans?!” he yelled in fright.
“Yes,” replied Doshi, enjoying Prelion’s fright, “Humans.”
“But, but...” stammered Prelion, as the human scientists looked at him, “Do they know?”
“They should,” said Doshi. “Don’t ask any further,” he warned. Prelion shut up.
“The Frequency Machine is ready, Mr. Death,” said a scientist, holding a martini. Doshi nodded.
“Start it up,” he said.
The same scientist touched the squash-shaped object.
Prelion watched on with fascination and horror.
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“Mr. President?” asked the Secretary of State, in the Oval Office. The president sighed. His predecessors had left the U.S. in disarray, the War on Terrorism having gone horribly. And now this sudden invasion of Old Nintendo characters… it was nerveracking.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Our sources in France tell us that the enemy is mobilizing,” said the Secretary of State. “Our satellites show that they intend to invade Manhattan, Turkey, Russia, and Northern Africa.”
“Manhattan?” asked the president sharply, sitting straight in his chair. The Secretary of State sighed.
“Yes sir,” he responded. “There is also a chance of an attack on Panama. We are not sure on that point.” The president groaned.
“The way Bowser has defeated us in Europe,” said the President, “I think that the chances of him attacking everywhere possible is extremely likely.”
“Would he take such a risk?” asked the Secretary of State doubtfully. “It would seriously stretch his sources."
“Yes,” said the president, “I think he would. And he’ll probably win, too.”
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Prelion and Doshi stepped out of the elevator. It was 8:00 in the morning.
“Get the forces ready,” said Doshi shortly as they walked towards his room. “I want them moving in four hours.” Prelion nodded and started to run, ready to wage war on Earth.
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Bowser sighed. It was 9:10, for crying out loud! He wanted his rest. He grumbled as he got into his battle shell. War was War, he thought.
His phone started to ring. He groaned. Clawdia picked up the phone. “Yes?” she asked. Her eyes saddened, and then lit up with joy. “BOWSER!” she shrieked.
“WHAT IS IT?!” asked Bowser in fright.
“Larry and Wendy are coming home!” She laughed, throwing herself into his arms. As she wept, a tear came into Bowser’s eye.