Chapter 14 - Up a Notch

I couldn't believe my eyes. I just couldn't... I didn't want to. Both Peach and
Daisy were in the room, wearing next to nothing. In the room was practically any male enemy me or Mario had, besides Wario and Waluigi. But the evidence that pointed to the fact that they seemingly were having an affair with us, (though there were no male characters in there,) didn't bother me at all compared to what really did; the fact that the two of them were lying on the floor with huge stab wounds. Daisy's eyes were open and blank. (Peach was face-down, I couldn't see her face,) and it seemed as there was no blood left in their bodies at all.
It looked like it was all over the floor and in Daisy's long, brown hair.
Peach's short, blond hair was stained as crimson as Julie's.

Cackletta was sitting on a couch nearby, sipping wine as if there was nothing
wrong. One thing I noticed briefly about her was that she wasn't a ghost at all
anymore. She had seemingly gotten her body back...?

I screamed and slammed the door shut. Mario was looking at me with an expression that I don't often see on anyone. It wasn't a sad expression, nor was it shocked... I couldn't really explain.

My back was pressed firmly to the door. The bottom of my stomach was surely dropped, and my heart was racing painfully in my neck. My brain was very numb.

"What's in there?" Lauren asked, getting a little nervous.

I shook my head, mouth agape. I was in too much shock to talk.

"I'm getting a look," Julie said, and brushed past me. I stumbled to the stair
that Mario was standing on. Julie opened the door wide, and everyone in our
party, (except Mario and I,) screamed in unison. Cackletta looked up.

"Told you I had something for you to die for," she laughed.

I saw in the dim light that Mario's eyes had returned to their normal cerulean.
He was clenching his teeth and fists, and his face was very white. He shoved me, Lauren and Waluigi out of his way, and bounded up to Cackletta. I realized what he wanted to do, and followed him, rage pounding in my head.

He grabbed Cackletta by the neck.

"What are you doing-" she choked.

"You killed my fiance," Mario said in a falsely calm voice. "I'm going to kill
you."

I formed an electric bolt sword, and pointed it at Cackletta's face. Mario let
go of her neck. Cackletta smirked.

"Okay," she said. "You win. But one thing first..." She grabbed my sword by the tip, but wasn't electrocuted... I was still holding onto the sword tightly, and
so her grab of it jerked me forward. She locked her arm around my shoulder and held the sword at my chest. I realized in horror that her gloves were lined with rubber. Brilliant...

"One false move..." she laughed. "One, and he gets it..."

I tried to move, but she was pinning me so strongly in her grip that I could
only move my feet. My bow tie was pressing uncomfortably into my neck. Cackletta couldn't make Mario finish me off, however; she was quite capable of doing it herself.

"No..." I gasped, but then remembered what Mario had said... we are immune to our own powers.

Mario stared at me, pale-faced for a second, but I winked at him. He got the
hint and nodded quickly.

"Oh, dear," Mario said, slowly backing up towards the rest of our group. "She's going to kill my brother!" I laughed on the inside at the shocked expressions that the rest of our group had, all of them obviously thinking, "What's wrong with you?"

"Good hint," Cackletta snarled, and jabbed my sword into my lower neck. I closed my eyes and smiled; other than slight pressure in the beginning, this was actually pleasant. Warmth was slowly spreading from the spot where my Cackletta mark was. I felt like I was sinking into a hot bath.

Julie screamed loudly, but I opened my eyes and smiled at her. (Cackletta
couldn't see me doing this.) Julie's lips parted, but then she, like everyone
else, got the hint.

"Oh, no!" she said, unable to keep a straight face. Cackletta let go of me and
the sword protruding from the base of my neck. I planted my feet firmly on the ground and turned around quickly.

Cackletta gasped. I pulled the sword out of my neck and pointed it at her.

"Oh, dear..." I said. "I completely forgot that I'm immune to my own powers."
Cackletta made a funny rasping noise, and then disappeared with a flash. How she was able to do that, I'll never know.

Mario was leaning over the crumpled forms of Peach and Daisy, looking at them in interest rather than sadness. Gee, Mario... they may be in thong bikinis, but shouldn't you be sad rather than interested?

I slowly approached the door, and turned around, facing Mario. I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Lauren.

Mario laughed loudly.

"What's wrong with you!" I exclaimed. "They're..." but I stopped. I didn't want
to go on.

Mario was shaking his head as he approached me and grabbed me by the arm. "Come here..." he said, snickering.

"Cackletta's really gone off the deep end," Mario said. "Look."

I bent down over my dead fiance and gasped in astonishment. Peach and Daisy were both robots, just like Rose had been. I guess I was just so horrified at the thought, that I just didn't stop to notice that Daisy's hair was too long and Peach's too short.

"Robots," I gasped in relief.

"WHAT?" I heard Ricky and Wario exclaim.

"How dare she!" I said. "Cackletta is really trying to freak us out."

"Well, it almost worked," Mario said. He sighed. "Guess we're just too smart for her."

"Sure right we are!" Julie said loudly. Waluigi laughed.

"Well, I suppose we ought to find her again, then," Mario said. "Maybe she won't be a coward and try to run away."

But another Gameboy Advance dropped into the middle of the floor. Julie picked it up.

"Ooh, I hope this one's got Yoshi's Island," she said. Mario and I exchanged
looks.

But like the first one we saw, all this one did was flash and glow. Cackletta
appeared above the screen, Julie still holding the gameboy.

"Are you calling me a coward?" she asked Mario.

"Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore," he said, quoting Julie. He and her smirked.

"Well, let's see how you do like this!" she snarled. With a wave of her hand,
everything went white...

I opened my eyes. It was very warm, and it took me a second to realize that I
was on my back, looking up at the crisp, Beanbean sky. The storm was gone. I lifted my hands and realized that they were coated with sand. I recognized where I was immediately. This was a small island, on which were two temples. One contained the Thunderbrand orb, the other the Firebrand orb. This is where Mario had gotten his fire powers updated, and I had lost my fire powers and obtained the Thunderbrand.

I looked around. I couldn't see any of the people with me. In fact, all I saw
were a few crabs and a few little Oho Jee people. One of them was standing on my chest and staring me in the face.

"Auugh!" I yelped and sat up. Oho Jee people were only about the size of a
balloon. It tumbled into my lap.

"Hey, you getting married or something?" it asked.

I looked down and found that I was still wearing my pearl-white tuxedo. My hair was still slicked back neatly, although now it had some sand in it. My face went red; Daisy wasn't dead, so yes, actually I was. I stood up.

"Not right now," I said.

"Well, you just appeared out of nowhere," the Jee said. "What are you doing
here?"

"It was an accident, why I'm here," I said. The Jee walked away. Now, there were no Oho Jees anywhere near me.

I leaned against a palm tree. I was a little freaked out. What had happened to
everyone else... what had happened to me?

"Excuse me, what do you think you're doing?" came a voice from behind me. I turned around and saw a mirror. Only... my reflection wasn't doing what I was. Neither was it wearing what I was.

"Well?" My reflection said. I stepped back, realizing that there was no mirror
there.

"Wh-what are you?" I gasped.

"Your conscience," it replied.

"My ...what?"

"Conscience," it said casually, as if we were long-lost friends. Perhaps we were, though... because I had a strange feeling that my mind wasn't in my head right now. "I've come to knock some sense into you."

I reached out my hand to try and touch the transparent figure in front of me,
but my hand went right through its shoulder.

"Woah," I said, briefly forgetting about being freaked out.

"Yeah, cool, cool," it said. "Now, what are you doing in here?"

"Thinking," I said truthfully.

"Doesn't look like that to me. Looks to me like you're being a coward."

"Well, who asked you?"

My conscience sighed, shaking its head slightly.

"Try not to be scared, at least," it said.

"Oh, how easy," I spat.

"It should be for you!" it said, in almost a plead-like voice. "Look at you!
You've braved ghosts, monsters... you name it, you’ve seen it! And are you
dead?"

"No," I said quietly.

"Are you missing any limbs?"

"No," I replied, finding this conversation a little funny.

"You're going to be a ruler soon, ruler of a kingdom and five subcons! Shouldn't that make you confident?"

"I suppose," I said, now smiling.

"You've got a heart of gold," it said wit a large grin. "See... I'll prove it to
you." it extended its hand and punched it through my chest, and quickly pulled my heart out.

I stared at my reflection, mouth open, in astonishment. More surprising,
however, was the fact that I was still alive and didn't have a large hole in my
chest. I raised my finger to my neck. No pulse... was I really alive?

My reflection held my palm-sized organ in its hand. How it was able to hold it, I'll never know.

"See?" it taunted. "It's... uh...red. Okay, you win."

"Uh..." I said, still slightly in shock, "You think I could have that back?"

"Huh? Oh, sure. Sorry," my reflection jabbed its hand back between my ribs, and
I had a pulse again.

"Now," it said, "You need to get back to the fortress."

"What happened to everyone else?" I asked.

"I don't know, I'm not a psychic." it disappeared.

I tapped myself on the head to see if I was really there, and when I realized
that I was, remembered the only way off this island is to swim underwater. Funny thing about the Beanbean kingdom's water is that you can breathe under it.

I entered the large yellow pipe on the east side of the small island and was
instantly dragged into an underwater cave. Everything was the same as I had seen it a year earlier... a couple of coral banks here and there, and tons of fish. This was a very well-kept kingdom.

It only took a minute to make my way through the water and get to the beach on the mainland. Julie was there, still in her long green dress. She was making her way toward the large green pipe that would take us back to the Stardust Fields.

"Julie!" I called out. She looked at me and grinned.

"There you are!" she said as I stood next to her. "I was worried that I wouldn't
find anyone I knew."

We both went through the pipe and landed in front of Cackletta's fortress. Mario was there.

"Mario," Julie said. He turned around.

"What happened to you guys?" Mario asked. "I found myself back at the hotel!"

"You were at the hotel?" I asked. "I was on the shrine island."

"I was at the Yoshi Theatre," Julie said. "It's hard to believe that so many
Yoshis exist!" she paused. "I have seriously never seen so much puke at one
time. Is hurling in front of each other a sort of respectful gesture to
Yoshies?"

I snorted with laughter. Mario nodded curtly. "'Fraid so. It's sort of like a
handshake to them."

"Is it really," Julie said calmly. "I thought they licked each others butts."

"No, they only do that on Lavalava island." Mario said. "Gee, we three are the only ones who know our way around this kingdom. I hope the others can make their way back..."

I hadn't thought of that. Wario, Lauren, Ricky and Waluigi had only been
following us. What if they got sent to a part of this kingdom that we hadn't
even visited?

"What should we do?" I asked nobody in particular. "We can't scour the whole kingdom for them."

"What is important now is getting rid of Cackletta." Mario said. "She's
obviously dangerous... especially though she's got her body back."

"I oughta put her in a painting," I laughed. Mario frowned.

"Could you do that?" Julie asked. "That's actually a good idea."

"It's a good way to get rid of them," Mario mumbled. "There's a lab in the
fortress... Wario said so. I think there is a Poltergust in there."

"I was kidding!" I shrieked.

"No, seriously," Julie said. "That really is a good idea."

I sighed. It stunk that I was the only one who professionally knew how to work a Poltergust.

"Allright..." I said. "Showtime."

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