Super Mario Brothers: Peach-hime Kyuushutsu Daisakusen Fan Fiction ❯ Betrayal Saga I: Yoshi's Darkside ❯ Redemption: Victory ( Chapter 7 )

Betrayal Saga I

Author’s Note: Yeah, I know. It’s been a while since I last wrote for Yoshi. But hey, I had writer’s block, okay? I just hope you’re enjoying the series right now.

  Redemption: Victory Just two more pipes for Yoshi to destroy now. Will Peach get wind of this? Or can he evade her, too? Seventh in the Saga. By Queen Breeza    

The ground shook with each Ground Pound Yoshi made. Another section of the pipe was destroyed. Now for the next part!! Yoshi was having more fun than he thought he would. The power emanating from him was causing the ceiling to shake, too. It wouldn’t be long before Yoshi was finished with this pipe.

~~~~~

“I’m telling you, there’s nothing wrong with me!” Mario spoke to the Chancellor in the throne room of Peach’s Castle as if he had just arrested him.

“And I’m telling you that there IS something wrong with you. You can’t deny it! You’ve gained weight rather than losing it ever since you started your “All-pizza Diet”!” the Chancellor said.

I can’t even believe the Chancellor thought it would work! Peach thought. She had her arms crossed and was standing at the Chancellor’s right side. Now and then Mario would glare at her as if this was all her fault...which is actually half-true. Luigi’s brother was accounted for the other half of that fault. He had agreed to speak against his own brother when Peach had asked him to go with her to see the Chancellor. However, Mario’s attitude and weight problem did not make her as concerned as Yoshi did...

“Your attitude stinks as well!” continued the Chancellor. “You’ve been acting like you own everything and have yet to pay the townspeople for the pizza that you didn’t pay for! Why, I haven’t seen Yoshi with you since...”

“Since you last defeated King Koopa!” finished Luigi. He remembered not seeing the dinosaur at all for the past two days. Something was up...

“Yes!” the Chancellor agreed. “As a matter of fact, where is Yoshi? He’s usually around here somewhere, but even I can’t find him...”

“He’s probably hiding from Mario!!” Peach said quickly. She was determined to keep the main focus on Mario and away from Yoshi until she could plan things out on how to get Yoshi to talk to her again. She knew that he was working for King Koopa, but she still didn’t know why...

“As if! He always goes off on his own! He’s around; you just haven’t looked hard enough!” Mario was thinking he needed a pizza right about now.

~~~~~

Yoshi had completed the destruction of the second pipe. He looked at where it used to be and admired the rubble. No one would be going in or out of it for a long time...maybe even forever.

Yoshi looked at his watch: 11:30! He had had too much fun down there.

“Finally, the first pipe will soon be in view.” As he started to walk away from the scene he felt the ground shake. He thought it might be an effect of his Ground Pound, but it wasn’t. He heard a small trickle of water and looked behind himself. His eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when he saw more water shooting out of the ground. Those idiots!! The pipe was built over a water table, and they didn’t even think about rerouting it?! Ugh!! Yoshi looked away quickly and started to make his way back through the sewer system. Behind him, more water came shooting up through the ground like a rocket and the room was beginning to quickly fill up.

~~~~~

“Mario, I hereby sentence you to work at every place you took pizza from, to community service Dry Dry Outpost, and to greet everyone and treat them with courtesy and respect! And don’t worry--I’ll have people watching you at all times!”

“Aww, man,” Mario grumbled as he walked away from the throne room. Stupid Luigi! Stupid Peach! I bet Peach persuaded him to get me in trouble! They just wanted me not to have anymore pizza!!

“Um, Chancellor?” Peach asked. “Are you sure Mario won’t be able to evade anyone sent to watch him? This is, after all, a very delicate matter. Mario’s health might as well be in danger!”

“Don’t worry, Peach. Everything will be taken care of! He won’t and can’t get far without me being informed. He’ll be under a very close watch!” the Chancellor finished and left his chair.

Peach was relieved. Not about Mario but about Yoshi. She had managed to keep the focus of the meeting on Mario only with her act of care and concern that she had rehearsed for years and years. She now debated on whether or not she should tell Luigi about Yoshi. How would he handle it? Would he go ballistic? Or would he go out of his way to find out for himself if Yoshi was on King Koopa’s side or not?

“Well, that went well,” Luigi said. He shook his head. “We can at least hope that Mario changes his ways.”

“Yeah,” Peach agreed. Yoshi was still on her mind. Perhaps she would go to the Keep and find out for herself about Yoshi...

~~~~~

Yoshi dashed left and right through the underground maze not daring to look behind him. When he got to the main path again, Yoshi looked back. There was a giant wave of water headed straight for him! Yoshi faced front again and sped on to the exit. The Dark Koopas and Shady Koopas watched as Yoshi passed them very quickly. Then they saw the flowing water and began to run with him.

The exit! Yoshi thought with excitement. There it is! Just a little more...

~~~~~

“Hey, what’s going on?!” a Toad quivered. The ground was rumbling, and it was anything but normal.

“OH MY GOSH!! King Koopa’s at it again! We’re all gonna die!!” another Toad went ballistic.

“Shut up! It’s probably just an earthquake,” a third Toad said.

“Around here? No way, man!!”

“Ahhhhhhh!!!!”

“What the--?” All three Toads looked up as Yoshi flew into the air some fifty feet from the power of the rushing water along with the Dark Koopas and others that had gotten trapped in the mighty wave. Yoshi didn’t stay up very long as he soon came plummeting down to the ground about twenty yards away from his original spot. Not a thought went by as Yoshi fell and slammed into the ground. He knew as soon as he crashed that he would need to move away from the scene as quickly as possible. Getting up proved to be difficult since a new wave of pain rushed into his body. He continued to struggle even as other Toads became intrigued by the new spout in their town. Soon though a lot of Toads started running as Dark Koopas began attacking randomly. Yoshi took this time to make a clean getaway and looked at his watch once more.

“...!”

Yoshi summoned up his strength and raced to the fountain. There it was in plain view--the “invisible” pipe that Mario never found. How was Yoshi going to pull this one off?

“Run for your lives!!”

Problem solved.

The residents knew when it was time to leave. In seconds, every Toad within 100 feet had been driven off by the monsters. Yoshi smirked and, once again, began his Ground Pound.

~~~~~

“Chancellor! Monsters are attacking Toad Town!!”

“What?!” the Chancellor couldn’t believe this. Peach, however, felt that Yoshi was behind the attack and was eager to do something about it.

“It’s true, sir! The underground sewer system has been flooded with water! We suspect King Koopa to be behind it all,” the frightened Toad continued.

“Barricade the doors! No one is to leave until the situation has been taken care of! Where’s Mario?”

“He left, Chancellor,” Peach sighed. She figured the monsters wouldn’t be around THAT long, but there was no persuading the Chancellor to understand that. He had been completely terrified when Mack, a sword-like creature from another world, had taken over his throne room and the town. Yep, she wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.

~~~~~

“Well, that didn’t take long...” Yoshi looked at the rubble of pipe and admired his work. It had only taken fifteen minutes. Yoshi rubbed his butt. This really was some hard work...

“Oh, well. Can’t stop now. Just one more to go.” Yoshi looked at his watch: 12:15. One more pipe to go and he could finally rest. Yoshi pressed the button on his watch and the tracker displayed. As he followed its directions, he became uncertain about whether or not it was trustworthy. The tracker kept leading him to Peach’s Castle.

Might as well...Yoshi knocked on the large front door and heard a noise. After a while, he knocked again.

“Go away!”

“What?”

“We don’t allow monsters in here!”

“I’m not a monster! Or else why would I be talking to you?”

“...you got a point there.”

“Okay, then! Let me in!”

“But, how do I know you’re not just fooling me, and that when I open the door you’ll eat me!?”

“Oh, please...you probably wouldn’t taste good anyway...”

“What was that?”

“I said ‘this probably isn’t a good idea anyway. You might have a monster in there with you!’”

“No, we don’t!!”
“How do I know that? How do I know that when you open the door, YOU won’t eat me?”

“Because I’m not a monster!”
“Yeah, right. You’re just trying to lure me into a false sense of security!!” Yoshi snickered. This was too easy...

“Just get in here!” The door swung open and Yoshi was dragged inside the castle. It was shut abruptly after that.

“See? I told you I wasn’t a monster!” the Toad guard said. You could still see the fear in his eyes even as the threat of monsters diminished.

“Well, that’s good to know,” Yoshi patted the Toad on the shoulder. Then he furthered his acting by suddenly appearing very serious. “But who knows what monsters could have sneaked in. Someone should check that out, don’t you think?”

“Y-you’re right! Someone should! But, I can’t do it; someone has to guard the door!”

“I’ll do it,” Yoshi suggested. He turned to leave the Toad in a melodramatic way, and, as soon as his back was to the Toad, he smiled.

~~~~~

Going upstairs as the tracker led him, Yoshi reminisced about the battles he had fought--the ones lost and the ones for triumph. He would miss fighting with Luigi...but not Mario.

Nearing his destination, Yoshi finally figured the last pipe had been in his old room the whole time. He was back where he had started--back to where his downfall had been ignited. Except this time there was no Peach, and he didn’t plan on seeing her.

Many things had to be moved to the side to uncover the pipe, wood mostly. But when the dust had settled, the pipe was in plain view as the moonlight acted as his guide victory. He wasted no time as he prepared to Ground Pound again. But the pain in his butt made him stop for a moment. Maybe he should rest...

Not an option.

Yoshi painfully began the destruction of the pipe. He was destroying a secret, a piece of history, and a link all in one, and he was one of the only beings who knew about it.

~~~~~

“Does anyone else hear that besides me?” Luigi asked looking up at the ceiling as a thump and another thump was heard.

“Oh, they’re probably working on that room. You know, from King Koopa’s last attack. It had to be totally reconstructed,” Peach answered him.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Luigi sighed. Wasn’t it past bedtime?

~~~~~

My freakin’ butt hurts!! Yoshi could only scream in his head as he made continuous Ground Pounds on the last pipe. Yoshi couldn’t wait to get back to King Koopa’s Keep. Maybe they had room ready for him now. Of course he could always sleep in the woods if he was too tired to make it back. This pipe was taking longer than usual.

Finally deciding to take a rest, Yoshi stopped what he was doing and flopped down on the unfinished floor. He would only rest a moment because he didn’t want to risk getting caught by anyone.

“Okay,” Yoshi gasped, “rest is over. Time to get back to work!”

~~~~~

“Peach, I got a question,” Luigi began, “Why are the construction workers working so late at night?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry Luigi, I wasn’t paying attention.” Peach yawned and looked at the clock that hung on the left wall. She should really be getting to bed.

“I asked you why the construction workers working so late at night.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe they don’t have anything better to do...!”

“Peach, what is it?”

“Oh my Go--!”

“What?”

“Hey! Where’d that Toad go? The monsters aren’t outside anymore, so I’ve heard,” said the Toad guard who had met the disguised Yoshi earlier.

“What Toad?” Peach was feeling more awake now, but she still didn’t know that Yoshi was the green Toad that had evaded the guard’s senses.

“There was a green guy I let in about twenty minutes ago. He went to go check for monsters that may have gotten in, but I haven’t seen him as of late...”

So maybe Yoshi didn’t have anything to do with those monsters! Peach was fully awake now as her head slowly tilted up at the ceiling again. The banging noise was had started again.

“Maybe he’s the one working on that room?” it was more of a question than a suggestion, but Peach didn’t even try to answer Luigi. She ran off out of the throne room and continued her pace up the stairs.

Yoshi could Peach getting closer. He didn’t know it was her, but he didn’t want to wait to find out. Exhausted, Yoshi Ground Pounded one more time with the rest of the strength he had left and destroyed the rest of the pipe. Now even more exhausted, Yoshi began a quick crawl to the window and jumped through it. He didn’t care about getting cuts; he just wanted out of there!

By the time Peach made it to the top of the stairs, Yoshi was already gone. She looked around the room and noticed the moonlight reflecting off something solid and a bit curved. Peach made her way over to the demolished pipe and picked up a piece of the rubble. She looked around again and noticed the broken window. Walking over, she looked out, but didn’t see anyone on the ground outside. If she had looked closer, she would have seen Yoshi in the bushes but probably wouldn’t be able to tell him apart from the foliage. Sighing, she walked back to the pipe.

~~~~~

Gasping for breath, Yoshi began untangling himself from the bushes. He crawled away from them and flung his mushroom head back, staring at the moon now.

“I.......I.....” Yoshi couldn’t make out the words as triumph and joy filled his heart, and he felt a little warmer. Still huffing and puffing, Yoshi finally got the strength to get up and ran in the direction of King Koopa’s Keep through the woods. Yoshi hadn’t felt this way in a long time. Finally, he was getting what he had wanted all to himself: victory.

And then he hit a tree.

“Ouch!” Yoshi dropped to the ground and decided he might as well stay there for the time being.

Maybe just for a moment...