Chapter XII

Four o’clock had rolled around in the depths of Bowser’s Castle, though the only indication that this had happened was by the clocks, and the fact that I’gi was taking his usual progress rounds. Like always, it was the time for the agents to appear busy, to be producing some information or at least be well on the way to, lest the KBT chief ask you why he should not make you produce information via punitive measures. On this particular afternoon, it was almost as if I’gi was a brooding storm as he marched out of his office, a sign to be particularly fervent, and cautious.

I’gi had good reason to be cranky. He had to scale back an investigation of corruption within G’rekt ranks, taking agents from a section he had delighted in and putting them into work on apprehending the two Yoshi invaders. It was expected of him that he would deliver the two of them within the week. To I’gi, this meant the personal target of five days or less; he considered anywhere between the two figures to be a failure of efficiency, and his role in the Realm’s governance.

With this issue as his current top priority, he bore down upon the section dealing with the invaders like a dark towering cloud casting its shadow over a town, the agents sitting at computer desks gathered in a circle. “Alright,” he announced. “You. What have you done so far?”

The Koopa he pointed to gulped down his fear and reported, “I’ve been checking reports with our Yoshibane branch if any clues presented themselves there.”

“And they said?”

“Nothing really has presented itself, sir. We are still going through it.”

“Nothing?” I’gi asked, hinting the painful alternative.

“Nothing yet, sir,” the agent spoke, saving his shell.

“Keep working. You. What about you?”

The next Koopa spoke meekly, “Sir, as you have asked, I have been investigating that spear-like weapon the offworlder Yoshi has. Using what we already know, the weapon does definitely appear to be based on Fa’Diel; I have investigated its history and discovered the use of a similar weapon during its last cataclysmic event. I am currently dr–”

“Anything else?” I’gi growled.

“Little else, sir, unfortun–”

“Little else?!” the KBT chief exploded. “I have put about twenty of you onto this case and not one piece of useful information has yet passed through your collective lack of a mind? What are you? KBT Agents or floundering Cheep Cheeps?!”

“Sir, I’m just about to discover who he is for you,” a Koopa spoke up.

I’gi wheeled around to that terminal and stood behind him. “Well?!” he demanded.

“I’m just hacking into the Kingdom’s Immigration Department,” the agent reported, “and with this final bypass,” he pressed a key, “I’m in.”

I’gi sighed. “Thankfully, Ku’genk here has saved your hides. Now, the rest of you, get back to work and find me something useful before I skin you alive!” He drew a breath and calmed down. “What are you getting?” he asked.

“Well, sir,” Ku’genk talked as he busily typed away, “I gathered if they crossed the border from the Mushroom Kingdom, then they would have had to get in the Mushroom Kingdom first. Now, here are all the records of ‘Yoshi von Kippo’ from the Toad Town airport customs and, if I click here, the Fa’Diel Warp Pipe. As we know, Dyluck Yoshi von Kippo had his name changed to such when he ‘naturalised’, so going back, we get all the records of ‘Dyluck Thanatos Yoshi’; since he has quite unusual names, he’s relatively easy to track.”

“Yes, and?” I’gi asked.

“Most of the time he has crossed alone, but a few times, there have been other people in the same group as him, as you can see here, sir. Cut out all of the single ones…and there we have our possible suspects, all from a period dating from his childhood. Now, we know that this ‘Reuben’ is the father, so cross him out. That leaves us with this unlikely fellow: Ark Beruga.”

“Ark Beruga Yoshi…but I read that he had died,” I’gi spoke.

“So did I, but take a look at his written appearance, sir: Yoshi, magenta skin, fair hair, green eyes. This matches the description of the second Yoshi, especially from the security footage at Va’kotiku and witness reports. And, since the only way that this Yoshi could remain anonymous to us for so long is–”

“Is if we had crossed him off the list,” I’gi finished. “He seems to be our likely contender. Anything else?”

“Well, not at the mom– wait. Do we have this on file, sir?”

“Have what? Check, that’s what it’s there for.”

“As you say, sir, but this might be worth telling the Magikoopas,” Ku’genk suggested, pointing at a particularly interesting medical note against the Dyluck Yoshi von Kippo entries.

Lich sat on the crude bed in his cell, with his legs crossed, his cuffed hands in his lap, and his head resting on the off-white painted concrete brick wall behind him. One small fluorescent tube filled the space with its manufactured light, letting him see the other wall a mere ten feet away, along with the only other furnishings of a toilet, a basin, and a small shelf, had his eyes been open. Apart from pacing from the door to the shelf and back, a round trip of eight metres (he had counted), the only other activities available to him were sleeping, answering calls of nature, watching water flow out of the tap, or thinking. Deeming the others boring, he had resorted to the last of them.

He felt violated, and somewhat worried, concerned about the Boomerang since that had given him his list of troubles. Right now it was supposed to be in the safe they had him deposit into at gunpoint, since they could not take it off him any other way. Who knew if they were trying to reverse-engineer it? He tried to reassure himself with calm reasoning, mainly along the lines that they wouldn’t do that because they were the good guys, right?

He doubted this in its entirety. Firstly, no-one had paid attention to him as he was marched through the corridors. He was not special enough for the Mushrooms and Koopas to pay attention to him; therefore, he was not really a guest. He was just another piece of dirt, and that mood seemed to ring true after what came next. After being stripped of the Pokéballs around his belt, in case he needed the services his Pokémon provided, and after their knowing that he still had his spells, they would not remove his cuffs, even when he told them he would co-operate and asked politely for them to. Perhaps Cekyura’s distrust was behind this move, but it made things rather awkward. For a start, it meant that he had to have a blood test standing up. At least it was just as well they let him choose his left arm for it, but the nurse was a trainee and the four pock marks and aching in his arm testified to her inexperience.

Next, and this he was quite bitter about, they wanted a urine test. Did they uncuff him? No. A nurse had to hold a canister against his modesty slit, and that was really bad, but what made it worse was that there were guards behind him, chuckling! And then, they had the absolute cheek to have a Mushroom taker – a taker – probe his Mana Storage and remove anything that could assist his escape, including his handheld game console and his rubbery ball, both of which would have alleviated the boredom. He had even taken his packet of emergency preventatives, in case something was hidden in it! Even his arm did not ache as much as his head after the mental probing. Lich had told them he would co-operate, and he had been treated like dirt. He dared not think about what would have happened had he not co-operated, but after his experience, he thought that they would damn well deserve a kick in the teeth or two.

Taking a few deep breaths to calm himself back down, he once again tried to assure himself that everything was going to be fine, that the Mushrooms were doing this in his best interest, that the Boomerang would be untouched, and that Ark would be coping just fine…he hoped. Stuck away here after the series of tests to see if he had the privilege to have this pocket of space to himself for a while, no-one had told him what was going on, if Ark was alright, what he was telling Cekyura, and more importantly, whether it was sufficient enough so that either or both of them did not have to see blue cloaks and pointy hats.

Against a Koopa, or even against Bowser, Lich knew he had the upper hand thanks to Mana, but against a Magikoopa, the playing field shifted. While his sparring with other Yoshi powers in the halls of Olympus had given him good magical battle experience, the competitions were done in good spirit, even if he was prone to sledging his opponents more than he should. Magikoopas did not follow those rules. Trained in magic like them, they would be only after one thing, and that would be their capture, with no cruelty barred.

To make things worse, Magikoopas had quite a few advantages over them. Firstly, there was the teleportation ability, which meant they could move far quicker than he could, particularly to places he could not reach easily, thus making them hard to target without intense Mana Field concentration. Then there was the natural home advantage, which was slightly more worrisome, since local knowledge could afford them hiding places. But they were only the minor worries.

With their weapons, the two Yoshies would be creating quite a significant Presence on the Field, incredibly noticeable to anyone else who could sense in their manner. Their relative anonymity would be shattered in the instant a Magikoopa came by. No longer would the guise of some Yoshi travellers work: there would be two powerful Yoshies with powerful weapons, and powerful Yoshies with powerful weapons meant they were up to no good.

Another worry was their social position. Magikoopas had been exalted above the common Koopas, high enough that if a Magikoopa told one to jump, the Koopa would not even inquire about the height. They knew that if you crossed a Magikoopa the wrong way, then you were very lucky if you were alive afterwards. The KBT and the G’rekt seemed merciful in comparison. To Lich and Ark, this meant that Koopas would be going out of their way to obey them, even if it meant throwing themselves into the line of fire for the slim chance of survival.

But what worried him most was the power of numbers. His sparring had only ever been against one or two people at once; that was the rules. A kan’bar of Magikoopas was different entirely, and a game of eight authoritarian spell-casters against two Yoshies on their home ground was definitely favoured in their direction. The only way around them was avoidance, and sitting here in a little holding cell with nothing to do was only going to make his life harder.

He had to admit that Cekyura was right and he had been going about this the wrong way. But pretty much everything was in reaction to his otherwise easy plans: even storming the border post was in reaction to being unable to fly on his Dragonite straight to B’kirik.

Karkok – bless his soul – had the same job as his father, being an innkeeper and running a bar. It was a job that allowed him to be a funnel for gossip, and a phonecall to him was all he needed to know about the current situation. He had met Karkok the last time he had come through. He was still only a “mild interest” to the Koopas then, being a Yoshi, but his people were common enough. Not wanting to be seen, he had flown over the border at night and had landed outside the first set of lights he came across: Va’kotiku. It was near closing time when he came to Karkok’s inn, the nice quiet period when not many people were around, and when the only people who were still around were either too tired or too inebriated to care. He got to talking with him, carefully crafting his questions so that his true motives weren’t known; he was just a tourist going to see the Keep on his way up north, not really trying to find the best way into it. But Karkok knew what game Lich was playing and after reassuring him that he was on his side, he gave him the information he needed. He also told him that they were well ahead on their plans for an anti-aerial defence system at the borders and the seashores, with surface-to-air missiles, with heat-seeking capabilities during the cold desert nights. The next time he came, they would be up and running, he had said.

With a sigh, he realised that he had taken the better of the two entry options open to him given his criminality in the Realm. Everything afterwards should have been a cakewalk, but he had underestimated the KBT. He had tried his best to sidestep them, and when he thought he was successful, they would blindside him. Now, with his contact dead, he had to get to B’kirik as soon as possible, get the B’ralkus out to the border, and then…?

Well, he hadn’t really thought about the “and then”. He would have to change from being a warrior to being an assassin. He knew who his targets were, but not so much in how to kill them. Sure, he knew what weapon he would use – so long as the Mushrooms weren’t doing anything to it – but he did not really know the two important questions of where and when he would. Ket’nal’kok was a fairly large place to hunt down his targets.

Just as he began to run them over in his head, the lock turned in the door and the door swung open. Lich sighed and got to his feet.

“Mister Cekyura wishes to talk to you again,” Eg’lk commanded. “Come with me.”

“Any place is better than here,” Lich grumbled as he followed the Koopa guards.

As he was led through the tiled-floored off-white-walled agency, this time less forcefully and without blindfolds, he picked up Eg’lk’s mood, standing with one foot either side of the border between the military superpower “I wish you weren’t here” and the little utilitarian “I admire you, but I’m terribly sorry I have to do this”. This little pang of regret started to get Lich’s attention. “May I ask–”

“No,” Eg’lk snapped.

“Even if–”

“No.”

“Fine then.”

Soon Lich was led back into the chief’s office. Cekyura T. was looking busy, studying reports at his desk. His eyes, though, were drawn to the small lounge setting. Ark was seated there and had turned his head to see him enter. Relief shot across his face momentarily, but then his eyes were wide and his quivering lips pulled themselves towards one corner of his mouth. It was a look Lich had branded the “Popo-was-gonna-throw-my-robots-in-the-bin-if-I-didn’t-tell-her-what-you-did”.

Oh no…

“Mister von Kippo, how good to see you again,” Cekyura said as he raised his head, his voice oozing. “Eg’lk, do release our guest; we know he’s not stupid enough to do anything rash.” The handcuffs were finally removed. Lich flicked his hands, relief flowing back into them. “Please, do sit down.”

The Mushroom gestured towards the other chair in the lounge setting. Lich’s legs moved confidently towards it, but the bones within felt thick with guilty reluctance. He took a seat and drew a breath, catching Ark’s worried apologetic gaze once more.

“Your brother has been very co-operative,” Cekyura reported with pride as he approached and took his seat, speaking in Yoshian. “Very. The KBT would love to get their hands on him. Say the right words,” he looked towards Ark, who gulped, “and everything you need to know will come running out of his mouth. Admittedly, some of it stumbles, but with the right show of kindness to those words, it gets back up and continues.”

“What did you tell him?” Lich demanded, his eyes narrowing.

“Yes, my hypothesis is correct. You two are very close. Oh, I just made a few promises, created a few scenarios, like, ‘If you don’t tell me, I’ll make your brother tell us with electric shock therapy’, you know, typical sort of thing.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t do that to me already,” Lich growled. “Do you know what it feels like t–”

“Can’t say I do, I’m not a Yoshi,” the Mushroom shrugged. “Be thankful I didn’t organise a strip-search, Mister Dyluck. The nurses can be particularly…fierce. But I digress. The results are in and, apart from an exaggerated level of caffeine, you appear to be free of drugs. Though, there do appear to be a few interesting chemicals in your blood, but we can’t really say much about that except that it probably comes out of your diet.”

Lich made sure his face was unchanged.

“Now, I do have to commend you for getting this far without any formal training. But, this fundamental lack shows. Telling your partner, ‘I’ll tell you about it later’ does tend to show this quite a lot, particularly as in whom your specific targets are and what you’re going to do about them. What are you going to do about them, anyway?”

“I…” he searched for official-like words, “I was going to let the situation determine the best course of action which would appear to me at the time.”

“I see. And how were you going to take the B’ralku family to the border? In your crop?”

“Once again, I was going to let the situation–”

“I see. Hmmm. This is a much larger problem than I thought. A rogue Yoshi travelling around the realm with no clue as to what he’s doing with an offsider who can’t speak Koopan without the assistance of a piece of paper is something quite…well, as I believe you say in Pandora, ‘Ton gaennaluros hegerato gete’?”

Lich squirmed in his chair as he had his intelligence insulted to the degree of fornication. “I thought this through!” he stormed. “I was going to get intelligence from my Realm insider in Va’kotiku, make my way to B’kirik, get the B’ralku on the other side of the border, and then hunt down my five targets so that the B’ralku can return to Ket’nal’kok!”

The Mushroom raised his hands, seeking calm. “Well, you got step one crossed off the list, well done,” he spoke, after Lich backed down. “But, as I have alluded to, this place is like quicksand. Rushing into the Realm, you take the first step into it alright, but what do you do then? Seeing your shin disappear, do you go back, or do you go forward? Wobbling precariously, withdrawing your foot is too hard, so you’re going to take that second step forward to stop falling in, and,” he clapped his hands together, “you’re in its grip, you’re trapped, and you’re sinking. You know if it gets over your head, you’re finished. You struggle to escape, but that just forces you deeper. All the while, you’re rippling the sand’s surface so that your presence gets noticed in other parts of it.”

“Rustling leaves,” Lich spoke, seeking an escape route from Cekyura’s own mire.

“If you want to use the KBT’s term, then yes. You’ve been that gust of wind on the tree. Some people are a mere breath. Others are a gale. Guess which category you fall into?”

“The gale,” Ark sighed.

“Thank you, Mister Ark,” Cekyura complimented him. “Now, Karkok Vat’kiuk is indeed a real loss, because he was one of our trusted contacts. In fact, I’m rather annoyed that you both are part of the reason he’s dead. So, I admittedly bear a grudge against you. I hope the little information he provided about the Gr’tokoru was useful at the time, because it’s not now.”

Lich blinked. “Why not?”

“Sadly, this is the end of the line, gentlemen. I got into contact with my superiors in Toad Town and they deemed that it was best, for your personal safety, and for the safety of the B’ralku, that you are extracted and put onto the next flight for Isle Delfino, where you can lie low until the storm you’ve caused has blown over.”

“No,” Lich spoke, shaking his head.

“No? We’re offering you sun-drenched beaches and great seafood dining, funded by the taxpayers of the Mushroom Kingdom, and you say no?”

“I’m not leaving the Realm until the B’ralku are across the border.”

Cekyura smiled and steepled his hands. “Oh, I see. You want us to do something in return. Then, let me inform you just who these people are, yes?”

“They’re the deposed governing family of Ket’nal’kok who are waiting to regain their right to govern their lands,” Lich answered.

“Ah, if only it were just that,” Cekyura sighed, shaking his head. “Telg showed you the nice, fancy, shiny tails of the coin. Let me show you the ugly heads, the bit that actually makes it tender.”