Once the wedding was officially over (and Larry was officially intent on letting himself get eaten by a rather large Piranha Plant), disaster struck. Massive shockwaves threw everyone out of their seats and into the wall next to the castle’s entrance in a cliché performance of villain appearances. A wall of playing cards showered in front of them so all they could do was leave the castle, or watch the show.
A crippled soul and a hideous gray heart both formed. The soul appeared as a monochrome jester with half his mask gone, leaving absolutely nothing behind itself. Shy Away kept trying to fly over the cards, but they started stacking into a rather well done card house. By then, the majority of the people had fled in terror. The only ones remaining were Shy Away, Wart, Susan, Bowser, and his kids- except for Iggy, who ran away after the first shockwave.
The crippled soul uttered a smile. It was only half of a smile, since half of the mask was gone. Maniacal laughter followed. “You’re such persistent pests. I understand the arm-spinning brute in the shell and his children won’t leave without their little play fort. Still, that ugly frog, the girl, and that… mistake have absolutely no reason to stay here,” he said. Shy Away thought the last part was about the brown Koopa in the corner with a star on his face, but wondered why he wasn’t mentioned.
Bowser wouldn’t take any more. He blasted the card house with his hottest flames but met obvious failure. When all else failed, he used magic leftover from his first adventure with Mario to summon a rather large bouncing Mechakoopa. It ended up breaking before it was halfway across. This only brought forth more maniacal laughter from the jester. “Oh Bowser, you silly goose! You really expect magic to undo magic? Fighting fire with fire only works if your fire is hotter, you see?”
All of the Koopalings did some of their magic to try and break the barrier. All of them failed miserably. The Jester just laughed. “You really think your magic is greater than that of I, Dimentio?” A dramatic pause was made for Dimentio to look at Bowser’s “priceless” expression. “You’re just as hilariously incompetent as usual, I see.” He raised his arms as if attempting magic, and several creatures, almost as battered and tortured as him came from thin air.
A zombified green sorceress in a purple
cloak…
A ghostly, gargantuan monster in princess
attire…
A simple Goomba with a lump on his
head.
A disembodied mechanical head…
A skeleton that was very familiar to
everyone in the room…
A set of green clothes with black overalls
and a black eye mask, all with no body…
And a rusted robot wielding a hammer.
Dimentio then lifted what seemed to be a storm of multicolored hearts. They flew out to the minions, which disappeared to who-knows where. Dimentio made off as well.
Bowser asked each of his kids individually who would help him. They all ran away upon being asked. Wart and Susan had probably run away during the disappearances of Dimentio‘s minions. Bowser grabbed Shy Away’s entire body with one hand. “You KNOW what I’m thinking, flower girl? I’m thinking YOU owe me for not showing up! That means you have to do one thing I say, and that’s BEAT THE SNOT OUT OF THOSE KEEP STEALERS.”
Shy Away knew he wasn’t the one for the job, but nodded anyways. Upon being thrown outside (rather forcefully I might add) he went to embark on his adventure. First, he checked the windows. Barricaded. He then decided to head off to the Mushroom Kingdom and trotted down Vista Hill, humming.
============================================================================
When Shy Away reached Mario’s Pad, he saw it surrounded by a bunch of beans with legs that seemed to be decades past their expiration dates. Mario was on top of the pipe doing a chicken dance, shouting the Banana Slamma Slushy jingle that you still haven’t gotten out of your head. The poor guy must’ve fallen asleep while a broken record said the jingle over and over. Shy Away heard the beans talking. “Do we even want to kill him?” said one.
Another chimed in, “He beat up our master though! He’s dangerous!”
Another one started shouting. “SHUT UP, AND LISTEN TO REASON. This oaf was with his younger, more intelligent brother when he took out our master-” All of a sudden ninety percent of the people reading this who didn’t already know who the first villain was found out who the first villain was. “-so he’s probably a waste of our time. ROTTEN BEANS. ASSEMBLE.”
They all got in a line and marched away, stepping on each other’s heels like elementary school students with their poor leg-eye coordination.
Shy Away followed them across Mushroom Way. It was a hideous site, I might add. Goombas were wedged between rocks, Paratroopas had shells with chips out of them after having been beaten with what appeared to be a spoon, and much to the joy of this story’s author, several Lakitus were currently being devoured by more of these “Rotten Beans”. Shy Away started thinking that the minions were only released about two minutes ago, and that it was almost physically impossible for them to have trampled all the monsters in Mushroom Way in that small amount of time. Then a brick flew at his head as if an author was trying to make a story interesting and didn’t want his characters to use rational thought like that.
The Mushroom Kingdom was in nasty shape as well. However, the Toads had barricaded their doors and windows to hide from the Rotten Bean infestation. Not to mention a Toad next to the other exit happened to have a bazooka that he as a matter of fact DIDN’T forget at home. Of course, because a guy with a bazooka would make Shy Away’s adventure too easy, which wouldn’t be very interesting, the guy ran out of ammo, and was immediately tackled by about ten rotten beans. Shy Away, however, was focused more on the lack of plant life around him, because grass just doesn’t cut it. He decided that if it was called the Mushroom Kingdom, it should have Mushrooms. He scattered spores from a bag and added fertilizer, which probably isn’t even supposed to work on Mushrooms. Nonetheless, they grew in an instant.
Some of the Rotten Beans suddenly had wide eyes, as Mushrooms grew on their heads. They started breaking down into the soil, squirming humorously. If our hero was anyone OTHER than Shy Away, who didn't even notice, this decomposition tactic probably would have been abused, and spores could have possibly been used as ammo for that one guy’s bazooka if the hero were extra brainy. Alas, our hero is Shy Away, who can be interested in destroying opponents one moment, and then planting flowers in the corner of a room the next. He ended up destroying rotten beans until the last of them fled anyways. Talk about dumb luck. Emphasis on the word dumb.
One Toad who was watching through the boards over his window realized Shy Away was the dumbest person since Mario, and took off the boards so he could open his window. He only needed four words to get Shy Away to save the kingdom. “THERE’S A CASTLE GARDEN,” he lied.
Needless to say, Shy Away went faster than Geno wearing Zoom Shoes on his way to the castle. The door was actually being held shut by two very unfortunate Cocoa Beans, who were knocked all the way into the walls next to the Chancellor’s room by Shy Away’s impact, resulting in all the guards rushing to their aid. If you don’t understand how someone Shy Away’s size had so much impact, look at E. Gadd’s second law of motion. Before I start rambling about needing to repeat the sixth grade, let’s go to the next paragraph.
Shy Away then realized he was probably supposed to go the throne room so that he could finish that errand Bowser told him to do. Because his only experience with going through castles was Nimbus Castle, which was designed almost as if it was a maze in a late videogame level, he didn’t know that the throne room is always either straight ahead of you, or over countless traps including boiling lava, Thwomp doors that are a bit obsessed with quiz shows and that don’t like to keep up their end of deals, and water puzzles, in which case there’s still only one way to go through in the first place. Err… long story short, Shy Away took a right. When he went into the next room, the path behind him and the two other exists were blocked by some random type of Bean that only natives of some far off continent know of
The only other thing in the room was a Chili Bean. It was wearing a cowboy hat to make itself look like a mascot for some Mexican restaurant. Shy Away waved hello to it, and got a fireball whizzing barely past his head. He realized this thing was probably an enemy due to its striking resemblance to all of the evil monsters outside, and started flying around while being fired at, pun not intended.
Shy Away thought of his past battles like a true hero, but then remembered he was only at the beginning of his quest. Needless to say, he still tried searching for a potted plant to drop, and found no luck. He then saw the Chili Bean moving backwards a bit every time it shot fire, and Shy Away started getting flashbacks to sixth grade. “What a great demonstration of E. Gadd’s third law! And on the subject of science, water puts out fire!” he shouted, showing how strangely his little brain works, considering he hadn’t found that out already.
He started circling his way in something like a whirlpool. When he saw a good chance to dash in, he did, and forced the Bean to drink some water. After an awkward silence, it said, “Thanks, I needed that. Some salsa is JUST too hard to handle, and before ya know it, you’re breathin’ fire like a red Yoshi. Ya know what I’m sayin’?” Shy Away had absolutely no idea what the Chili Bean was saying or why it was being nice to him, but he nodded. The Chili Bean gave him a Jelly Bean and did a roundhouse kick to break through the Beans that appeared behind Shy Away earlier, and anything in his way, which happened to include the Rotten Beans who were on their ways back to their assigned posts.
Not sure what in the world had just happened, Shy Away made a turn for the worst after he left the room. Literally. He headed right to the throne room. Get it? Turn? Left? Right? Huh. Tough crowd.
Shy Away went in to see the zombified sorceress from before in the throne, and a shivering chancellor in the corner. The path was suddenly blocked behind him, and the chair sank into the ground as the weird zombie thing stood up. It managed to speak in a very strange tone of voice that is limited only to the reader’s imagination of zombie screeches. “I am Cackletta, and I will feast upon your corpse,” it said, clearly not wanting to speak much. Shy Away wanted to point out that if he was dead when she ate him it would technically be zombie cannibalism, but he thought it might get him eaten alive. Let us give him a moment of silence for his first rational thought throughout this entire piece of writing.
Cackletta leapt at him, but she was certainly a very slow zombie. He got out of the way and had about three seconds to spare. He took out his bag of spores and his fertilizer, then scattered them on Cackletta after she fell from the jump. The Mushrooms shriveled up and died right after growing. Shy Away frowned. While he was distracted he took a rather quick dark energy ball to the head and flew into the Chancellor, who ran into the other corner. Shy Away hid in a corner as well, and started pondering.
There were no potted plants in the room, and he should have forgotten about ever trying that tactic by now. The monster was also immune to fire, and didn’t breathe in Mushrooms. “Eureka!” he shouted. His brain mixed up thoughts at the right moment. He would breathe Mushrooms on her! Wait, that would be stupid. He needed fire.
The best way to make fire at the moment was most likely friction. Shy Away didn’t even notice that this section has a lot of science in it, but started pondering again. He couldn’t grow a tree right now for wood, and his plants that could grow anywhere, such as Nipper plants or Piranha Plants, wouldn’t make friction. Then he realized he had a better way than friction, he had a plant with him that could grow in any environment, even on a brick surface, instantly without any fertilizer, and it was just what he needed.
He had a Fire Flower.
Shy Away threw the seed at a wall to make sure nothing could get it, and it popped up in literally an instant. He snatched it. His mask, belt, and wings turned red, and his shirt and hood turned white. His watering can filled with magma, and fire ran through him. He flew up to Cackletta, put his hand in front of her face, and glared. “This is what you get for killing my Mushrooms.”
Needless to say, Cackletta burned all over. This is the part where you use your imagination again to imagine Cackletta’s dramatic death scream, as she sank into the ground. The Chancellor hears it, and turned around to see the monster dead. All of the Beans that still lived (including the Cocoa Beans that smashed into the walls of the room) melted away to nothing, including the ones that formed gates to trap Toads. A Heart floated up to Shy Away and circled around him, but to his great surprise it went to the Chancellor. Before Shy Away could say a thing, the Chancellor spoke up.
“I’m just as surprised as you are,” the Chancellor said. “I never knew I was a descendant of one of the pure sages. You see, the Pure Hearts were each made by someone those many years ago. These people moved here, to the dimension of the hero. As generations moved on, the story was forgotten even by the children of the sages. I’ve learned of these legends in old books. The most reliable one I’ve read stated that after the Pure Hearts’ first use, he who is defeated by them will return later with the Chaos Heart and the Pure Hearts in his possession, and will scatter them with foes defeated by the hero. Another savior will emerge and defeat the foes to collect the Hearts. Every time the second hero receives a Heart, a descendant will be with him. He is said to find the newest generation of pure sages in this order…”
He began listing them:
“The sage of wisdom in the castle.
The sage of imagination in the forest.
The sage of power in the chapel.
The sage of honor on the sea.
The sage of perseverance in the volcano.
The sage of courage atop the clouds.
The sage of forgiveness in the keep.
The sage of kindness in the heart of
darkness.”
Shy Away nodded to the Chancellor, and flew out of the castle.
To Be Continued...
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