ACT 13: FINDERS KEEPERS
The forest was dark, especially under the night sky; so dark you could barely see your hand in front of your face. Spooky dark; so dark you’d hate to be alone.
However, there were three lights visible in this dark, spooky forest. One, hanging high overhead, was the full moon, bright and white, lighting the sky like a humongous lamp, with millions and millions of smaller lights surrounding it; some twinkling, some simply shining plainly, and occasionally, some shooting across the sky as if shot out of a cannon.
Another light, much unlike the first, was on the ground, shining in a bright orange and yellow color, eating up the pile of wood on which it rested and heating up everything within its range.
Next to the fire slept a Yoshi, a young Yoshi, red in color. On his feet he wore dark purple shoes, with light blue soles on their undersides. Unlike most Yoshis, this one had a feature that most Yoshis don’t… hair; dark blue hair, curling up in two long, thick strands: one curled all the way forward, hanging slightly in front of his eyes, while the other curled in the direction opposite the first. The Yoshi lay on the ground, snoring loudly; no covers, only the fire to provide warmth to him and his friend.
Speaking of his friend, he lay against the Yoshi, facing the fire, his hands behind his head as if sunbathing. This was a Koopa Troopa. A yellow shell he had, with matching-colored shoes. Like his snoring friend, he too had hair, something most Koopa Troopas don’t have. His was green, dark green, and curling forward, with one thick strand pointed backward.
This Koopa and his Yoshi companion had been with each other for a long time. Both had a very similar past. Though born in completely different locations, to them, it seemed they were meant to find each other. Both loved adventure and roaming, although the Koopa was noticeably more worrisome, while the Yoshi was somewhat reckless.
The Koopa suddenly opened a sleepy eye. He had been having a very funny dream, yet it was interrupted by the Yoshi’s snoring. Once he was awake, he found it impossible to fall back asleep. The Koopa groaned. Sheesh… he thought. Does he HAVE to snore so loud…? He crossed his arms and sighed, as he stared up at the night sky, gazing at the full moon. … Beautiful night, I must say…
He was about to discover something just as beautiful. In the tree behind him, a bright, glowing blue object- the third light- sat perched in the tangled twigs. The breeze began to pick up, making the tree rock slightly, However, it was enough to bounce the branches around. The glowing object fell from the branches and into surrounding brush.
The Koopa suddenly shot up. He looked all around for the source of the noise with a startled and uneasy visage. Wha…wha…what was that? He stood up, still looking around. He then spotted the glowing object. With a bit a curiosity, he stepped over the Yoshi and slowly advanced toward the object. He stared down at it. It was a blue-colored jewel, glowing brightly amongst the darkness of the forest. … Oooh…pretty… He picked up the jewel and carried it back to the sleeping Yoshi. He bent down to the Yoshi and began shoving him. “… Woshi?” The Yoshi still slept. The Koopa shoved him again. “Uh… Woshi?” The answer came… in a very loud snore. The Koopa lost patience.
“WOSHI”
The Yoshi suddenly jumped up and yelled. He sat up, breathing heavily, then turned to the Koopa. “K.K! Don’t do that!” the Yoshi cried. “You scared the eggs of out me!”
“Sorry, Wosh…” K.K. sat down next to Woshi. “But look what I found.” He held the jewel up.
Woshi stared wide-eyed. “… Where did you find that?”
“Next to that tree.” He pointed to the tree just behind them. “What is it?”
“I don’t know… Sure is pretty though…”
“I wonder where this came from…”
***
“Come on!” the skinny one said to his excessively fat brother. “We’ve-a been walking for hours! Can’t-a we rest?!”
“Ah quit complaining!’ the fat one snapped. “We are-a not going-a to stop until we get out of this forest. Besides, I thought the great Waluigi never needs rest!”
“He doesn’t! Uh… I don’t!”
“Then come on!”
“But…” Waluigi was sick of his brother’s reverse psychology. “Ugh… Can’t-a we just camp out?”
His brother groaned. Suddenly he stopped, when he noticed a light in the distance. “… Eh… It looks-a like we won’t have-a to. Camp is already set for us! Look!” The two looked ahead at the bright light, which they could see was a flame.
“Well, Bro,” said the fat one, “you wanted a campout? You got one! And if anybody’s already there, we’ll-a just kick ‘em out like soccer balls!”
The two approached the light. As they were about to walk through the brush surrounding the fire, the fat one (obviously Wario) stopped when he saw the Yoshi and Koopa Troopa.
“… Well…” whispered Waluigi. “Like you said, we’ll just kick ‘em out like soccer balls…”
“No…” said Wario. “Look at what the Koopa’s holding!” He pointed to the Koopa, who held a glowing gem in his hands. “I gotta have it! I gotta have it!”
“… I?” Waluigi asked, raising a brow.
Wario turned to look at him. “… Err… WE gotta have it…”
“Did you hear something?” Woshi said, looking around.
“… Yeah… I heard it…” K.K. said, shivering. “… Woshi? We’re… not alone…”
“I… know…” Woshi replied, also shivering.
The Warios could see that the Yoshi and Koopa were startled upon hearing Wario’s voice. Wario looked up at Waluigi, then got an idea. “… Hey Bro…” he whispered, “before we snatch that jewel, let’s-a have some fun!”
Waluigi stared down at his brother. He then understood what he meant, and snickered.
Woshi and K.K. were still staring down at the glowing jewel. “It’s so pretty, yet mysterious at the same time…” Woshi remarked. “… What should we do with it?”
“… Uh… Keep it? Finders keepers after all…”
“OooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo!”
Woshi and K.K. heard the moan. They jumped and hugged each other in fear, developing anime sweatdrops and looking all around for the source of the moan. “W-W-Woshi!” K.K. stuttered. “W-w-who was that?”
“I d-d-d-don’t know…” Woshi answered. He decided to answer the call. “Who’s there?!” Woshi called nervously.
“…I am-a the ghost of-a the forest!” the voice called back. “BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” The Yoshi and Koopa whimpered. K.K. was so scared he was about to cry.
“What do you want from us?” Woshi called.
“… I-a want… YOUR SOULS!!!”
K.K. shrieked and retreated into his shell. Woshi raised a brow. … Wait… he thought. There’s something screwy here… “If you really want our souls…” Woshi yelled, “then why don’tcha come out and get us?!”
“Woshi! Are you crazy?!” K.K. cried from within the shell.
Woshi bent down and peered into the neck hole of the shell at a pair of eyes within the darkness of the shell. “It’s obviously not a real ghost…” he whispered to K.K. “This is the first ‘ghost’ I’ve ever heard with that sort of accent…”
K.K. hesitated, then slowly came back out.
“Okay then…” said the voice. “CHARGE!” Immediately the Wario Brothers charged out of the bushes. Woshi and K.K. gasped and jumped out of the way as Wario and Waluigi ran to the other side of the fire. “See? Told you he was fake…” Woshi said to K.K.
“Shut-a your trap!” Wario snapped.
“Oh… What?” Woshi retorted. “You want our souls?!”
“Actually…” said Waluigi, “we want that!” He pointed to the jewel K.K. was holding.
“What?!” K.K. cried. “No! We found it! Finders keepers, fatty!”
“Stealers are also keepers!” Wario retorted. He suddenly paused upon recollecting the last word K.K. had said. “… FATTY?! This is all muscle! How can-a you not notice that?!”
“You may have muscles…” Woshi said, “but they’re hidden under layers and layers of fat!”
“Yeah! Cut down on the carbs!” added K.K. The two high-fived.
“CARBS?!” Wario burst out. “That’s it! Give-a me that jewel, or you’re dead!”
Waluigi grinned and held up a Bob-omb! “If you’re smart, you’ll-a give us that shiny stone!” he taunted. “’Cause you don’t-a want to mess-a with us! We’re dangerous!”
Woshi and K.K. looked at each other. “Look’s like they want a fight…” Woshi whispered. “I’ll take the fat dude. You handle the skinny guy.”
K.K. nodded. The two turned to the Wario Brothers. “That’s okay!” Woshi said. “We’re all about danger!”
“… Woshi… That’s not exactly true…”
“Just look tough, okay?”
***
Dark Paratroopa had just arrived back at the castle. He entered the castle, a somewhat worried look on his face. How could he handle this undercover work without Dark Master finding out? He seemed to be sparking a few suspicions. Paratroopa could feel it.
“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!”
Speaking of Dark Master…
The Paratroopa froze. He refused to make eye contact with the huge Magikoopa. “I… I couldn’t sleep…” he squeaked. “I decided to take a soar around the valley…”
Paratroopa was still faced away, but heard Dark Master out. “… I’ll let it slide…” he heard. “But I’m watching you!”
He then heard the sound made when teleporting. Dark Paratroopa wiped the sweat off his head and continued down the red flame-lit halls to his private room. He thought to himself, how in the world could he stand up to Dark Master, one tiny Paratroopa against one monstrosity of a Magikoopa? Impossible…
Entering his room, his slammed the door shut and jumped onto his bed, groaning to himself. “… This is going to be tough before it gets easy…” he muttered to himself.
***
Wario charged swiftly at Woshi. The Yoshi jumped over him to avoid his hard head. Woshi jumped forward and launched his tongue at the fat man. Wario barely dodged, then charged at Woshi again, hitting him head-on. Woshi flew backwards ten feet, but recovered, then quickly jumped to the side to miss a piledrive attack from Wario. Woshi whipped around to face Wario and fluttered above him, somersaulting in midair and pounding down on his head. Wario fell, dazed. He recovered and executed a beautiful right hand punch straight into Woshi’s nose, following by a left-hander into Woshi’s right eye. Woshi staggered back, blood streaming from his left nostril. He flashed Wario a furious look with a black eye, then charged back at him. Wario jumped up and piledrived straight onto Woshi’s back. Woshi yelled loudly.
K.K. jumped to the side, with a Bob-omb explosion occurring in the spot he had been standing. K.K. held the blue jewel in his hand, determined not to let it fall into Waluigi’s hands. Waluigi laughed and pitched another Bob-omb at the Koopa, as if pitching a baseball. K.K, who of course had nothing to bat with, ducked, with the Bob-omb flying over his head and exploding behind him.
Waluigi growled. “Come on, you chicken! How do you expect-a me to hit you when you’re-a jumping around like a scared rabbit?!”
“That’s the point, you spider!” K.K. retorted. “You can’t hit me!”
Upon hearing this, Waluigi became enraged. “SPIDER?! Why you little brat!” He lobbed six Bob-ombs into the air. “Give up, you Terrapin! You can’t outbattle the Great-a Waluigi, master of the flying Bob-ombs!”
K.K. shrieked upon seeing the falling Bob-ombs. He began running around, keeping his eyes on the ground for the shadows of the Bob-ombs. He spotted one shadow and ran in the opposite direction, the Bob-omb exploding on the ground seconds later. He saw another shadow and ran right of it to avoid the explosion. Yet another shadow appeared ten feet in front of him. He ran backwards, catching full view of the explosion. The force of the explosion, however, knocked him backwards onto his shell. K.K. was hopelessly stuck on his shell, with a Bob-omb falling directly at him, getting bigger and bigger as it came closer and closer!
Woshi was holding back a charge from Wario when he suddenly heard his friend screaming. He whipped around and gasped at the sight of K.K. lying on his shell, about to be blown to bits by the falling Bob-omb. “NO!” he cried. He charged toward his friend and shoved him from under the Bob-omb, quickly jumping aside. The Bob-omb hit the ground and exploded, throwing Woshi clear into the trunk of a tree.
Wario and Waluigi laughed sinisterly as they menacingly walked towards the Yoshi and Koopa, who were both bruised badly. Blood still trickled from Woshi’s nostril. His right eye was red, surrounded by a black, swelling brow. He also had a slight pain in his back. K.K. had quite a few scratches on his arms and legs.
“Ready to-a give up yet?!” Waluigi taunted.
“Just hand over-a the shiny rock,” Wario bantered, “and we promise not to-a beat-you up!” As Wario spoke, the fire died down behind them, completely shadowing the Wario Brothers and making them look even more intimidating than the little Yoshi and Koopa Troopa, whose faces were shown in the moonlight.
Woshi looked down at K.K. “… You thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked. K.K. nodded.
“What’s-a going on here?!” Wario snapped.
“It’s our turn now!” K.K. snapped back. He retreated into his shell, still holding the gem. Woshi launched his tongue at K.K.’s shell and pulled it into his mouth.
Then, it happened. Just as Woshi was about to spit K.K. out at the Wario Brothers, he suddenly began to glow. He then felt a huge amount of energy and power flowing into him. Inside Woshi’s mouth, K.K. too could feel the power rushing into him. What is this?! What is this?! Woshi thought.
Wario and Waluigi looked at each other, both with puzzled looks. They turned back to Woshi only to see a yellow shell flying directly at them at full force. The shell slammed hard into Wario, knocking him clean into some underbrush. The shell ricocheted off a tree and slammed into Waluigi, knocking him hard to the ground, face first. Both Wario and Waluigi were unconscious.
K.K. popped back out and stared down on the unconscious Wario Brothers. Woshi walked up to him. “… K.K…” Woshi said slowly. “… What just happened…?”
“… I… I don’t know…” K.K. answered. “… But… I think it had something to do with… this thing…” He held up the blue gem. The two looked at each other, then back at the gem.
***
“… Wario? Bro? Wake up, already!”
Wario opened his eyes. He looked up at his brother, then quickly sat back up. He looked around, but Woshi and K.K. were nowhere to be seen. He turned to Waluigi. “Where’d those brats go?!”
“They’re long gone, I-a suppose…”
Wario growled. “Forget camping! I’m-a not gonna rest until I get my hands on-a that shiny rock! Come on-a, Waluigi! We’re going hunting!” He quickly stood up and stomped away, while Waluigi sluggishly followed, grumbling under his breath.