So, I've been doing a lot of mulling and I've decided to update on what I have written thus far. Surprisingly, it reads like a very complete chapter, albeit short(er than what I usually produce). What'll make you particularly mad is that I've had this much written since November. Yes, November of last year. Approximately six months ago. Not even a week after my last update. How happy would you all have been if I came through with a less-than-a-month turnaround on updates? This is not the first time I've done this.
As you can all gather, I'm quite serious about not putting out anything I'm not happy with. It's obvious where I wanna go with this, but the problem is how to go about doing it. Writer's block wins again. Gimme a while (and maybe a suggestion) and the story will continue. For now, you can enjoy this impromptu chapter I "completed".
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Act 10: Only the Beginning (Part 11)
The three found themselves back on the beaten trail towards their final destination and goal of their arduous journey. It all led to this: the trials and tribulations they faced... the insurmountable odds they overcame... all leading to this final showdown. The end was literally in sight, and although they knew it would prove to be the defining moment of their entire adventure, they wouldn't hesitate to admit that they were happy that they saw each other through the quest until the end. Mario, Luigi, and Link couldn't think of anyone else they'd rather be traveling with.
At the moment, though, Luigi fretted this was not the general sentiment he walked with his companions, afraid to speak up as their adamant muteness had him on edge, especially after what just happened moments beforehand.
"...this isn't how the rest of the trip will be, will it?" Luigi timidly spoke up.
"What do you mean?" Mario wondered.
"You know exactly what I mean!" Luigi insisted. "We can't ignore what just happened back there. I can't believe we were so quiet all this time!"
"...we just left the fortress. Not even five minutes went by." Link pointed out as the three stepped off the Gerudo Valley bridge.
"That's nearly three hundred seconds! Some people can't even count that high." Luigi countered. "I know you, Link. If you're not talking about it now, you never will unless someone drags it out of you. And I know you, Mario." Luigi turned to his brother. "If no one brings it up, you won't share your feelings. You'll keep it to yourself and develop an ulcer."
"Okay... you apparently overdosed on estrogen." Mario determined. "That's what we get for spending so much time in a woman-dominated society."
"Seriously, Luigi. Where's all this comin' from?" Link wondered.
"Hold on. Are you two serious?" Luigi stopped in front of his comrades and held his arms out in an attempt to keep them from passing by. "You're really going to act like we didn't get kicked out of Gerudo Valley? You're really going to act like you didn't break Raznia's heart, Link? You're really going to act like you're not severely disappointed in him, Mario?" He alternated his glare between them.
"Link's a grown man. He knows what he did. Why should I scold him like he was a kid?" Mario shrugged.
"That's not what I mean." Luigi groaned.
"Fine, Luigi, this seems to really be botherin' you. Go ahead and ask me what I was thinkin'." Link granted.
"I have a better question." Luigi said, clearing his throat soon after and breathing in deeply as some sort of preparation. "What the hell?" He stated more than asked as he held his hands out in a perplexed fashion and assumed a slightly hunched stance.
"...what the hell?" Link asked more than answered as he rose a confounded eyebrow.
"You can't answer a question with a question. I'm serious, Link, what the hell?" Luigi repeated.
"I'm askin' because that whole dramatic preparation thing you did was pretty unnecessary." Link said.
"Either way, it's still a good question." Mario admitted.
"We asked the same thing..." Link pointed out.
"Fine, you want to get contextual; I'm talking about Luigi's 'what the hell'." Mario clarified. "I told you to be careful with Raznia and you ignored me. Fine. You made it clear that you hated Mida. That's fine, too. You trifled with Raznia's feelings by kissing Mida. ...what the hell?"
Both Mario brothers stared at Link, awaiting his explanation.
"You guys wouldn't understand. ****, I don't understand." Link shook his head, refusing to answer.
"How could you not understand?" Mario rose his voice, frustrated. "You don't understand that you're turning out to be a **** horndog?"
"You can think that if you want." Link said.
"Link! Don't you see where I'm coming from?" Mario was nearly shouting. "I tried to help you get with Samus after you told me about Zelda. Can I even believe that anymore? Were you just tired of Zelda? Were you just looking for another pretty face? Did the same thing happen with Raznia? Did you just get tired of her?"
"...like I said, Mario..." Link fought himself to stay reluctant. "Think whatever you want."
Mario clenched his fist angrily as he gritted his teeth. Several violent thoughts circled his brain, and with Link's lack of remorse for what he did, they all seemed like excellent ideas.
"Mario, calm down." Luigi put a calming hand on Mario's shoulder, which actually seemed to succeed in its purpose. "Link, all we want is to understand what's going on." He pleaded, looking to his hooded friend. "Even you have to admit that what you did was pretty messed up. I'd like to think that I've known you long enough to confidently say you wouldn't do something like that without a reason. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt: there is a reason for what you did. But you have to tell us what it was. Otherwise... I don't know if Mario or I will be able to trust you anymore."
"****, he gave you the ultimatum."
You're amazingly brave to even speak up after the **** you pulled back there. You did that knowin' about their relationship. I don't think you get how grim what you did was.
"Correction: I understand the full level of grimness I achieved. I may've quite possibly ruined any chance Mida had at making amends with her sister. Not only that, I might've strained her friendship with Nabooru, as well. And I don't even want to talk about what that did for your reputation. At the very least, we might've even gained a new enemy in the form of Ganondorf's daughter, let alone the entire Gerudo fortress."
And understandin' all that, you did it anyway. You ****in' kissed her.
"It's kind of amazing how catastrophic one small act can be, huh?"
That's all it is to you? "One small act"? You really don't get it.
"I already told you I get it perfectly. I don't think you get it, Link. And here's the punchline: none of this would've happened if you kept your distance from Raznia in the first place."
**** you, Dark Link. Like you didn't have a hand in my decision?
"Don't try to throw this back on me. You were thinking about taking her WAY before I showed up. All I did was play the **** devil's advocate to see how far you would take it. And ****, did you surprised the hell out of me! It's like Samus didn't even matter at all."
Samus--
"No. Stop right there. I don't need to hear your weak arguments trying to prove otherwise. Samus means **** to you. You wanna know how I know? Dreams --especially those as lucid as the last one you had-- usually lead to some type of epiphany. Remember what happened? Right when you realized Samus was the love of your life, she somehow found out about Raznia, and everything went straight to Hell. Anyone would've taken that as a sign. But you know what you did? You woke up and decided that was the worst dream you ever had, completely ignoring the moral of the go**** story. You were never gonna let Raznia know about Samus. You were gonna keep leading her on like she was the only one. And if you were to see Samus again, you'd do the same ****ing thing to her. You said so in your dream yourself: both of them deserve better than that."
But--
"And I must reiterate: DO NOT try to prove me wrong. You simply can't."
... ...then what am I supposed to say against all that?
"Nothing. Unless it's 'I'm sorry', you can't say anything."
... ...so that... that's why you did it?
"I knew you'd never break up with her. Yes, it was really ****ed up, but I had to make the decision for you. What you were doing to them was wrong. You're really, REALLY lucky that Samus will never find out about this, but unfortunately, Raznia and Mida had to be sacrifices."
So what do I do?
"What can you do? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And we scorned Gerudo women. If we ever step foot on their territory again, we might not make it out alive."
I don't care. I need to at least tell them I'm sorry. We need to tell them we're sorry. They're supposed to be my friends. I owe them the truth, at least.
"Well, it can't be now. If we about-face now, we'll definitely be killed."
I might still lose my life. Mario and Luigi want an answer. What do I tell 'em?
"Like you said... you owe your friends the truth."
The whole truth?
"Nothing but."
Are you sure?
"Mida and Raznia already know about me. I commend them for not saying anything yet, but it's going to come out sooner or later. And you know how gossip spreads. Pretty soon, the news will be all over Hyrule. I'd hate for the Mario brothers, the people you've spent the most time with, to be the last to know."
"So, Link, what'll it be?" Luigi asked as he and his brother waited for Link's answer with bated breath.
He hesitated. Link knew what he had to say was heavy. With a deep breath, he found the courage to speak.
"I did what I did... I kissed Mida... because there was no other way." Link said.
"What does that mean?" Mario demanded, not satisfied with the answered.
"I was in too far. Raznia let me know how deep her feelings for me were, and I knew I had Samus... but I couldn't tell her that. I don't know why, but I just couldn't. So I panicked. Mida was there and we were talkin', then I had a bright idea. The rest is history."
Luigi let out an unexpected laugh. "Bright idea? That'll go down in history as the most dim-witted idea you ever had. You know hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, right? You didn't scorn just any old girl. It wasn't even one girl! It had to be two Gerudo vixens!"
"I'm glad Luigi thinks he's so clever. I definitely said the scorned thing already."
"Nabooru did say Mida and Raznia had a bad relationship. You didn't think about that at all before you kissed her?" Mario bought up.
"I did say I panicked, right? You've seen me panic before. It's never pretty and it never makes sense." Link reminded him.
"You probably sent them past the point of no return." Mario said. "If their relationship is as bad as Nabooru says it is, I don't think anything can fix it, especially after this."
"I know..." Link sullenly agreed. "I messed up. I messed up big time. I don't know how or when and I don't know if it'll even matter, but I'm gonna apologize to them. After we finish with Ganondorf and Bowser, I have to come back. ...but you guys..." Link looked his allies in the eye. "I know I disappointed both of you with the crap I did. It was... not me. This is not me. I'm sorry. Truly sorry, and I hope both of you can forgive me. I want to say 'let's just forget this ever happened', but I know none of us will be able to. Instead, I'll say 'I hope this isn't what we'll remember the most when we look back at this trip'."
"You don't have to say it again." Luigi put up a halting hand as Link looked as if he was about to repeat himself.
Link managed to smile for the first time in a while. "See? This is what I want to remember. We're brothers on this journey. You wouldn't have been able to say that if we weren't as close as we are, right?"
"...right." Luigi nodded. He couldn't deny it. Link spoke the truth.
"Hell, if I were anyone else, Mario would've punched me in the face by now. I'm surprised he didn't do it earlier when I was bein' an *******." Link laughed.
"It was because Luigi stopped me." Mario played off, knowing the truth on the inside.
"Yeah, right." Link playfully batted Mario's arm. "All I'm sayin' is we keep it this way, even after this whole thing is over. The Mario brothers: featuring Link as the hidden third Mario brother."
Mario and Luigi could only laugh as the thought formed in their minds.
"Before you can even think about being a Mario brother, you'll need blue overalls, your favorite colored shirt and cap, and the letter of your first name on said cap." Luigi explained. "You're already in some trouble. I already have green and "L" covered. Unless you have a second name and another favorite color, you're doomed."
"We can make an exception. I honestly can't see Link without a tunic and a hood. It's like his signature, same way our hat and overalls are ours." Mario said.
"So I'm Link Mario?" Link's eyes grew bright upon the anticipation.
"I deem it so." Mario knighted his comrade with a meaningful hand to his shoulder.
"Congratulations, Link Mario. Now how does this lead into you telling them about me?"
It doesn't. I'm not tellin' them about you.
"...seriously?"
At least... not now. We're about to walk into the final battle. Morale needs to be high, and it won't be if everyone's thinkin' about how they can't trust me. You know better than anyone: without trust, we won't survive.
"Oh I see what you did there. You know I can't argue against that. You clever *******, you... This doesn't hide the fact that you just lied to them. For me. At one point, I was your second-worst enemy. And I did just ruin your relationship with all Gerudo women, and theirs by association. How'll they react to that?"
Let's just say what they don't know won't hurt 'em.
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"Oh snap, here they come!" Ganondorf exclaimed, almost giddily as he watched Mario, Link, and Luigi enter the former Hyrule Castle town from his "command" center at the top of his castle. "B-Boss, do you know how long I've waited for this?"
"About as long as I've waited for this." Bowser pointed out. "Sucks that we have to leave before we even get to do anything... I know it was my idea, but that was because you want to believe what Zelda's saying. Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, I was being euphemistic before but Ganondorf... seriously... ... ...that ***** is crazy."
"Bowser, I said it already: I can't leave **** up to chance. Zelda might be wrong, but she might be right too. If we can keep it from happenin' by gettin' the **** outta here, then we're gettin' the **** outta here." Ganondorf emphasized, punching in a few commands on the console.
"What are you doing?" Bowser questioned.
"Lowerin' the bridge. We get 'em in here, drop 'em off with DK, and we bounce." Ganondorf explained.
"There's another problem I have." Bowser said. "I know DK's gonna fail so miserably... I swear it's like I can see into the future. I mean, I know you're expecting DK to lose, but take into account their morale. After walking all over him, they'll be coming for us with their heads high, ready for anything. Heroes can't have high morales. That's how villains lose. We gotta step in and do something... like... taking one of them out before they even step foot on that bridge."
"I can tell you who we won't touch: Link." Ganondorf stated. "If anyone's gonna take him out, it'll be me."
"Well, Mario can't be the one either. I mean, I'd love to finish him from here, but I can't. We have such an old rivalry that I owe him an execution of legendary stature. It needs to be personal."
"So that only leaves one unfortunate mother-****er." Ganondorf determined.
"Yep. Poor Luigi." Bowser feigned a weep. "He's such a loser, anyway, he probably wishes he were dead everyday. We'd be doing him a favor."
"This ain't a charity, though." Ganondorf playfully disagreed with Bowser's decision.
"Well, I'm feeling pretty generous today. I can't help it." Bowser gave a modest shrug. "Tell me how this thing works."
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"Any bright ideas? This is where we were stopped before." Mario said, alternating his glance into the deep chasm and across to Ganondorf's castle.
"...Green Missile?" Luigi suggested.
"You didn't forget why that was such a bad idea last time, did you? There's a barrier around the castle. Nothing's getting through that." Mario reminded him.
Link very suddenly hurled his sword across the gap, straight at castle as if he could end it all with that single action. Of course, he couldn't. The sword crashed against the stone wall and landed harmlessly on the ground instead. Nonetheless, Link still smiled.
"...were you able to do that all along?" Mario wondered, almost in shock.
"I wish..." Link admitted. "It's the same way you found out there was a barrier, only in reverse. ...kinda. The wind was kickin' up dust around the castle-ground. If there was an impassable barrier, that wouldn't be happenin'."
"That's all I needed to hear." Luigi said as he charged up his patented Green Missile and zipped over the chasm before anyone had a chance to protest.
Barely even halfway over the pit, Luigi looked as his he crashed into an electric fence. It seemed his own electric powers couldn't protect him as he shook violently from the massive voltage invading his body.
"NO!!" Mario and Link cried, stepping forward to take action, only to realize there was nothing they could do but watch helplessly as Luigi was finally thrown away from the barrier, down into the fiery depths below.
"Man, sucks to be him, huh?" A new, blatantly obnoxious voice spoke.
The two looked up as the voice seemed to be coming from above them. None other than Bowser's smug mug floated above them, made possible by a mobile floating monitor that was no doubt another part of Ganondorf's advanced security arsenal. It didn't help that the screen was in high-definition. Bowser's satisfied and overly-detailed grin was nothing less than taunting.
"Bowser..." Mario growled as his fire powers sent a wave of flames to wash over his body.
"Hey, to be fair, we didn't play favorites here. We just set the trap and waited to see who'd bite." Bowser explained. "It's not our fault your ******* brother wanted to be gung-ho and not properly assess the situation, but if you're gonna blame anyone, it should be yourself! What took you so long to stop him?"
With an enraged roar, Mario sent a surge of power into his hands and fired ball after ball of flames right at the plasma screen. If only there wasn't a barrier protecting it as well...
"Touchy!" Bowser laughed as the fireballs exploded spectacularly against the shield. "You should save it for the final battle, buddy!"
"He's right, you know..."
Link and Mario looked towards the familiar voice below them. None other than Luigi stood, or more accurately, clung onto the edge desperately as he struggled to make it back to solid ground.
"What the hell?!" Bowser gasped, this time in genuine shock. "You should be drowning in fire, sorrow, and agony right now!"
"Seriously... you should be." Link agreed.
"Yeah, but everyone forgot I have thunder powers. Except Bowser. He just doesn't know. Yet..." Luigi gained a devious grin. "I tried to used the electricity from the barrier to jump back to the mainland. Didn't work the way I wanted it to, though... It only looked like I was being shocked to death."
"HEY!! KOOPA ROYALTY UP HERE!!" Bowser shouted, wildly and annoyingly buzzing around the trio like a fly as he was obviously unappreciative of the attention no one was paying him. "When I want someone to die, it usually happens. Green losers like you are no exception."
"Then... let's try it again?" Luigi offered.
"What?" Bowser, Link, and Mario uttered in unison.
"You all heard me." Luigi refused to answer the question. "I'm handing out a challenge to the King of all Koopas. Taking out a 'green loser' like me shouldn't be a problem. If you manage to do it, then I'll be dead, and Mario and Link will be left so disheartened that they'll just fade away and never return. But if I make it over untouched, you'll be so stunned by my sheer awesomeness that you'll have no choice but to let us in uncontested so I can give you a chance to personally bask in my brilliance. Deal?"
All three of them were left speechless. Only Bowser would be the first to break the stunned silence.
"BWAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HAAAH!!" Bowser carried on, with the mobile monitor bouncing about as if it was uproariously laughing as well.
"Luigi..." Mario took his brother by the shoulder. "I don't know how many volts you took, but there's obviously been some brain-damage. You're going to try and make a deal with Bowser? Even if you win, you lose. You can't trust him! Whatever you're thinking about doing is crazy!"
Luigi just looked at his concerned sibling with a confident smile. "It's not crazy if I have no way of losing."
"You know, Mario..." Link took his recently "official" brother by the shoulder in a similar matter. "If you think hard, he said that before. With the same smile. And the results speak for themselves. Luigi's got some madness up his sleeves."
Mario looked to Luigi once again. The smile never lost confidence.
"If you end up in the lava down there... don't expect me to save you." Mario warned.
"I was about to tell you not to. That'd ruin Plan B." Luigi said.
"Plan B?!" Bowser continued his wild guffaws. "What the hell could you do if you fail again? Pretend to burn to death while were all laughing, then use the top-secret entrance underneath the lava?"
Luigi's smile momentarily disappeared upon Bowser's guess. His eyes glanced side-to-side to see if anyone noticed.
"Hey..." Link send a tap to his arm. "Didn't you say that before? I thought you were jokin'." He whispered.
"...don't let Bowser know." Luigi quickly muttered.
"Alright, green machine. I'll give you a fighting chance, since you'll fail otherwise." Bowser spoke. "I'm going to flick the shield on and off. You make it to the castle, and we'll beam you up."
"How long between flicks?" Link wondered.
"Hey, I'm already doing too much by making it this fair. You figure it out." Bowser stated.
"Not a problem." Luigi said, reassuringly. "I don't need to figure it out. It's all or nothing."
Bowser nodded almost approvingly of Luigi's demeanor. "Since when did your brother grow a pair, Mario? I like this new Luigi. I'll respect him enough to actually refer to him by name. And that's a hell of a privilege."
Luigi set his sights on the front doorway of Ganondorf's castle once again, assuming the position to charge his Green Missile. His body began to glow a neon green as he gathered the energy to fly across the chasm.
"Ready, Bowser?" Luigi called out.
"Whenever you are, Luigi." He replied.
With that, Luigi sent himself off, leaving a shower of sparks behind him. No sooner than flying off did Bowser begin his maniacal laughter.
"I may respect you enough to say your name, but to let you live? HA HA HAAA!!" Bowser roared on, facing Link and Mario to see the inevitable look of sorrow on their face.
One could only imagine his shock to see they joined him in his jubilance, laughing just as much as he was.
"Hey! I'M the only one who should be laughing now! My moment, my victory, MY happiness. I don't share." Bowser snarled.
"That's cool. This isn't really your victory anyway." Link said with an almost-apologetic shrug.
Bowser followed Link's eyes as they seemed to be looking behind him. As if he wasn't in enough shock, his face gained a look of pure awe when he saw Luigi standing totally unharmed in entry of the castle, holding up a peace sign and a victorious, tooth-bearing grin.
"That can't be possible! I never bought the shield down!" Bowser shouted.
"I figured you wouldn't, so I did, thanks to the clichéd, but always useful, Emergency-Off button." Luigi explained. "If I didn't almost die the first time I tried to get by, I would've never found it. But don't worry. Let Ganondorf know I won't tell anyone about it."
"You won't get the chance to even think about it!" Bowser roared as the floating monitor suddenly began to form an oblivion-black ball of darkness, seemingly with the properties of a black hole from the way Luigi struggled to keep his cap on his head. "Say good night, Luigi!"
"Whoa, Bowser, chill out." Ganondorf made his sudden appearance on the screen, reaching to the side of Bowser's head. The ball of darkness suddenly dissipated. "You made a deal with Luigi and you lost. We can't be goin' back on our word, so we gotta let 'em in, no bull**** attached."
"Ganondorf, we're ****ing bad guys! I can go wherever I want on my word: sideways, diagonal, up, up, down, down, back, forward, back, forward, B, A, wherever!" Bowser argued. "Besides, he cheated first! No one told me the shield was off!"
"B-boss, your own words are comin' back to bite you in the ***. You said Luigi shouldn'ta been so gung-ho 'bout tryin' to fly over here, right? Well, you shouldn't have been so quick to take his deal. You didn't hear the confidence? My boy definitely did have somethin' up his sleeve and you didn't check. The only thing you can do now is man up and take the L. You can make up for it later."
"Son of a *****..." Bowser made his way off the screen, grumbling random curses to himself all aimed at Luigi, of course.
"Good ****, Lui-G." Ganondorf commended. "Like y'all agreed on, you and your peeps will get up here wit' no bull**** attached. There's a teleporter right next to the entrance of the main hall. Step in and it'll take you to the throne room. We'll be there." Ganondorf directed as a bridge of dark energy formed, connecting the castle to the rest of Hyrule once again.
"...thanks." Luigi cautiously said as the monitor flew to the top of the castle.
Mario and Link finally joined Luigi on the castle grounds. Immediately, they noticed Luigi's confused expression.
"...you look like you can't believe this is how it went down. Wasn't this the plan the whole time?" Link wondered.
"Only up to the part where I make it here in the castle doorway." Luigi said. "I knew Bowser wasn't going to let that slide, so I was going to improvise. I just didn't expect Ganondorf to be so... compliant. There's a teleporter set up for us so we don't have to take any stairs. He even gave me a nickname. Lui-G. ...I sorta like it."
"It is a pretty freakin' long run up the stairs to get to where he'd be. That's... kinda nice..." Link said, though mulling over the significance of Ganondorf's offering.
"This is a set-up. The teleporter probably doesn't even lead to the throne room." Mario immediately determined.
"It probably is..." Link agreed. "I still remember the way up the stairs."
Link led the way past the teleporter and to the large iron door leading to the rest of the castle. He gave a strong push to open the way. The door pushed back with equal and opposite force.
"Aw ****... The door is locked." Link realized. "Without a small key, there's no gettin' in."
"You think there'd be one in this hallway?" Luigi wondered.
"Ganondorf isn't that generous." Mario didn't even acknowledge the thought.
"Yeah, Luigi. We have a better chance scalin' the castle walls than finding a key here." Link said. "And that's actually our only other choice if we're not takin' the teleporter."
"Well... at least we have choices." Luigi pointed out, trying to stay optimistic.
"Not really..." Mario interjected. "Those winds are strong and this castle is tall."
"Then I guess we actually have no choice." Luigi realized, turning to the teleporter once again. "Who's going first?"
"Wait a second." Link halted his crew, quickly darting up the entrance ramp and out of the castle.
The Mario brothers looked at each other with a look of slight befuddlement. No sooner did Link so suddenly exit did he return.
"Checked for a last-minute plan?" Luigi asked.
"Nah, I almost forgot my sword." Link said, patting the hilt.
"I thought you could summon your sword from anywhere." Mario remembered.
"I... decided... to chill with my powers for a minute." Link said. "I'm still recoupin'. Somethin' as little as summoning my sword and shield take energy. That's why I'm wearin' them on my back." He said as he sheathed his sword behind him. "When **** starts gettin' thick, I'll use what I got to the fullest extent. Don't worry."
"Makes sense." Luigi nodded in agreement.
Mario gave an approving nod as well.
"Alright, so let's roll." Link said.
He took the first brave step into the teleporter, followed by Mario and then Luigi. To their surprise, Ganondorf kept his word. They found themselves in the throne room standing before royalty: The king of Evil, Ganondorf, the king of all Koopas, Bowser, and...
"DAISY?!!" Luigi gasped in bewilderment as he couldn't believe who was standing with the enemy.
Daisy, the princess of Sarasaland, long-time friend of Princess Peach, and Luigi's special interest, seemed to be in just as much bafflement as he was. She searched for words, but all that came out were barely-audible squeaks.
"What... what are you... you're here?" Luigi tried to make sense of the situation as Daisy was the last person he expected.
"Luigi..." Daisy was finally able to utter.
"Daisy-baby, we'll talk later. I got other business to handle." Ganondorf said to the dazed princess.
She didn't even acknowledge Ganondorf's words as her eyes were locked into Luigi's.
"Hey. Listen up." Ganondorf snapped his fingers a few times before Daisy finally looked in his direction. "Later. Get that *** outta here." He sent her off with an underhanded slap to her hind-quarters.
A surge of electricity flew to Luigi's hand on pure impulse. The only thing that stopped him was Link's subtle signal for him to not attack yet. With furrowed brows, he glared at Daisy as she left through the same teleporter he and his crew entered through.
The five of them finally stood in the same room. Ganondorf and Bowser versus Link, Mario, and Luigi. Emotions were strong. The tension was thick; thick enough to chew. Mario felt a tinge of rage every time Bowser smirked in his direction. He tried desperately not to explode in an overwhelming ball of flames. Luigi found himself in a similar position, though now he had a vendetta against both tyrants; Bowser for disrupting the peace of the Mushroom Kingdom and Ganondorf for putting his hands on Daisy.
It seemed as if Link didn't share the same enthusiasm. Though there was a laundry list of offenses Ganondorf committed against him, his demeanor was surprisingly calm. Ganondorf took notice and sent a nod toward Link's direction.
"You see, Link? I still got some good in me. I kept my word." Ganondorf broke the intense silence.
"You shoulda let us take the hard way, Ganondorf." Link said, surprising everyone in the room. "We didn't break a sweat gettin' up here, Luigi's got some choice words for you now, plus we're all stronger than anythin' you can handle. If we had to work a little, you wouldn't be takin' us all on at our full, unfair potential. Only two letters can describe how it'll be for us to **** up your entire day: E Z."
"Oh word? Well I got two letters to describe how this room will be when y'all get back up here: M T." Ganondorf countered.
"Get back up here?" Link repeated, confused by Ganondorf's words.
He took a quick survey of the area. Immediately, he noticed a blood-red carpet under his feet. He had been in the throne room before, and this carpet was not part of the furnishing. It may've seemed like unnecessary worrying, but Link knew Ganondorf too well.
"GET OFF THE CARPET!!" Link blurted out to his two companions.
Unfortunately, he realized it too late. No sooner did Link finish his exclamation did Ganondorf "yank" the carpet out from under them with the snap of his fingers. They fell into darkness as the floor materialized over where they fell, making sure they couldn't find a way back that way.
"...what type of slap-stick booby trap was that?" Bowser wondered, obviously disappointed in the manner Ganondorf handled the situation.
"We weren't gonna fight 'em here anyway. I needed a way to get 'em down to DK, and I got it. Now, we get the **** outta here." Ganondorf said.
"Someone better be home when we get there. I didn't bring my keys with me." Bowser suddenly remembered.
"...you're kiddin', right?" Ganondorf froze.
"It's a joke, G-dorf. Lighten up." Bowser patted his fellow villain on the back. "I'm King Koopa. I don't need keys to get into my castle."
"Don't **** around. **** is delicate right now." Ganondorf warned.
"Hey, the plan's working so far. All you have to do is punch in the teleport commands and take us back to Mushroom Kingdom. I'll handle it from there." Bowser reassured Ganondorf.
"I'm serious. Since **** is in your hands now, any ****-ups on your end will be handled with the utmost violence. Do not let me down." Ganondorf warned.
"Trust me, Ganondorf. You'll wish you left it in my hands sooner." Bowser guaranteed as they exited the throne room.
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So here we are. As always, gimme that feedback.
By the way if you start posting everything completed up until now in another site, a chapter per week you may manage to finish it for them withought going out of schedule
