Chapter V

A yell from outside alerted them to the shot being registered by the other soldiers.

“They– they–” Ark stammered, only to be yanked by Lich’s arm.

“Yes, I know,” he snarled as he dragged his brother towards the window.

Heavy footsteps began to run up the stairs, accompanied by hurried Koopan shouting. The two Yoshies stopped beside it and Lich peered out of it from one side. He spotted more soldiers training their guns on the window in the square and on the flat roofs of the surrounding buildings.

“Get down!” he hissed, and they dropped to the floor, Lich bringing his arm back.

As he expected, the door slammed open with three guards rushing in. He threw the Boomerang, and the middle guard did not even realise his throat was cut until the soldiers outside fired, the bullets smashing the window to pieces and passing straight through the group.

“How di–“

“It’s always friendly fire that gets them,” Lich smirked as he whispered. “C’mon, let’s go!”

He grabbed Ark and crossed the room, pushing his back against the wall on his arrival. Another guard leapt into the room, only to find his face full of electrifying Boomerang.

“We’re going to have to fight our way out, Ark,” Lich hissed as he stepped to the other side of Ark. “There’s a window at the end of the corridor; narrow alley, flat roof on other side. On my count, we’re going to go out the door, you stand back to me towards the stairs on your left and cover me, and I get us out of here. Alright?”

Ark swallowed. “I – I’m scared, Dy.”

Lich rested a hand on his shoulder. “So am I. But I don’t and you don’t have time to be. Save your tears and your fears for later. Your body is giving you adrenaline for a reason, so use it.” He flashed a smile. “I have faith in you that you’ll cover me. You’ve got a magical Spear of Darkness, after all.”

Ark smiled weakly.

“Okay,” Lich nodded, reaching his left arm across Ark to the doorknob. “On three. One…two…THREE!”

Lich turned the handle and pushed the door open. Ark sped out and held ground as his brother followed a footstep behind, and turned around. The hallway was dark save for the city light coming through the windows at either end of it, made even darker by the presence of the chelonian soldiers.

Lich’s thumb rubbed a facet of the ornate ruby that sat at the bend of the Boomerang as he held it like a handgun and aimed at a spot near the window. A wind could be heard behind him, made up of Ark spinning the Spear madly, creating an X-shaped shield. The Boomerang fired a laser beam towards the spot as the sputtering of machine gun fire filled the corridor, answered by the tanktanktanktanktanktank of Ark’s barrier as the bullets fell to the floor. Down the end of it, there was a wisp of smoke as the laser beam caught hold of the wood that the top floor of the inn was made from, and began to punch its way through to form a hole. It was a simple matter for Ark: keep it up until the bullets ran out…if they ever did run out…

His brother, on the other hand, had the more complicated task of cutting a frame out of the wall for them to run through. Now that the laser had cut its hole, all he had to do was start moving it ever so carefully…

The bullets ricocheted with their usual poong-wing until there was a silence that lasted only half a second.

“G’ter-ARGH!” a Koopan voice was cut off.

Ark was tapping feverishly at the notch cut into the stem of the Spear that let him fire his daser beams, the spearhead trained at the leader. No sooner had a blast been emitted another came to follow. They were cutting through the Koopa shells like angel wire through jelly as he swept the group of six reloading their guns.

Lich heard their screams, but did not register them as one vertical of the frame was cut. His tongue protruded from the corner of his mouth as he began work on the bottom of the wall for the first horizontal. It was taking longer than he had hoped; he made the quick mental note that he would have to get the beam’s strength shot up a few notches.

All of this was creating the attention of more soldiers, and the footsteps tramping up the stairs could be heard over the sizzling of Lich’s laser as he started climbing up again. Ark was already at the ready, spinning the Spear once more. A machine gun poked its head around the corner of the wall and fired a burst. Now they weren’t dealing with the usual “aim-and-pull-the-trigger” soldier – this was a KBT agent.

Ark’s Spear took the brunt of the assault, but a few bullets made it past the edge of the barrier, zipping past Ark’s left and Lich’s right, burying themselves in the wall at the end. Ark took an instinctive action and moved to his left. The agent seemed to know this would happen and fired a volley a bit more to Ark’s right.

Lich felt the fabric of his shorts rip as the bullets tore streaks along his left hip, before hot streaks passed over his skin, followed by pain that started out only as a pinpoint, but exploded across the whole of the area. He faltered, leaning to the left and the laser slipped at an acute angle downwards to the left of the vertical he was working on. He cried out as the slightly comforting tanktanktank drowned his voice, Ark protecting this volley.

“Dy!” Ark called, before another volley was deflected. “Kill him!”

Lich turned on his heel to the right, the laser leaving its original target. It passed over the glass of the window, heating it up then smashing the single pane, then left a black score mark as the line shot along the right wall and up towards, beside, then past them. It began to take hold of the wood once more, and wormed its way through until the gun, still firing, suddenly pointed up at the ceiling and stopped as its owner keeled over backwards.

He swung back around, leaving another black line almost parallel to the other one, and returned to the task of cutting out the wall. His hip stung where the bullets had grazed him. Gritting his teeth, he started on the final horizontal, linking up the rectangle.

There was a definite “thud” behind him. Ark’s eyes grew in fear. “Grenade!” he yelled.

“I’m hurrying!” Lich cried as the gap started to close in on the other end of itself.

There were Koopan shouts downstairs and the hurried tramping of boots leaving the inn as the frame was finally complete. Lich turned off the laser and threw the Boomerang, a cyan curve of light from him back to himself via the wall. The newly-cut door gave way and fell into the street below.

“GO!” Lich screamed.

Ark turned around and the two of them sped along the corridor, running as fast as their legs would let them before the clatter of the wood filled the street below. Lich was the first to reach the edge as he sprung across the narrow alleyway, Ark not far behind him.

The top floor of the inn was consumed in a rapidly expanding fireball as they sailed through the air, and as they landed on the other side, it reached its extents, cremating the fallen Koopas within. Broken wood and masonry shot through the air in all directions. The two Yoshies crouched behind the parapet at the edge of the roof until the burning timber and stones had passed over them, littering the way before them.

There, in the light, the two Yoshies turned to view each other and received a nasty fright. Lich’s blue pupils had expanded to twice their usual size, while Ark was nothing more than a shadow of himself. Lich quickly shut his eyes and rubbed them with his forefinger and thumb as Ark let go of the Spear. Lich’s eyes returned to normal as Ark’s colouration returned.

“How’d you–“ they both started, before Ark let Lich speak first with a gesture.

“It’s called Eagle Eyes,” he explained. “Spell of Lumina’s. Lets me see much better in the dark and lets me see things far away quite clearly. I’ve been doing it since we were in the dark corner. You?”

“Veil,” Ark told him. “Twirl the Spear, I turn into a shadow, though if I’m in the light, I’m a black me-shaped blob. Did it since I dived into that corner of the room. It’s also why I kept hold of you – I can make you it too if I do that.”

“Grea–“ Lich began as a volley of gunfire pierced the air above them. “They know we’re not dead,” he hissed. “Do that thing again and stay down.”

Ark grabbed the Spear and twirled it, losing his colours and fading into blackness. Even the whites of his eyes disappeared. He grabbed onto Lich’s arm, and he too faded as they began to crawl alongside the parapet to their left, the bullets passing overhead. They passed between the masonry and wooden crates, the rooftop seeming to be used as an open-air storeroom for a shop below.

“We have to get out of the northern part of the city and head for Talk’gu, then go northwest from there to B’kirik,” Lich spoke hurriedly. “We’ll avoid Bauzur’kalku in the process…the place absolutely crawls with agents, considering that’s where Bowser is.”

Ark nodded. He turned his head. “Gulto,” he swore in a whisper, “get over here!”

He dragged his brother into a shadow behind a crate, the darkness swallowing them up.

Three Koopas, armed to the teeth with weapons, climbed up some stairs from within the building. With a gruff command, they turned and began to walk in separate directions.

Lich’s eyes tracked the Koopa who had given the command, heading slowly and menacingly for their crate. He could see his eyes darting from side to side, frowning as each pass produced no results. He quickly darted beside a stack, and waved his rifle around its corner. Satisfied that there was nothing coming out of it, he turned quickly and aimed down its small passageway.

A second pair of footsteps was approaching from behind them, around the corner. Both Yoshies held their breath as the Koopa emerged around it and pointed his gun down the corridor, right over their heads.

“Kalk’baz’zko ukl’bik-grkh?!” the commanding Koopa yelled at the second, his tone accusatory.

“Glka’b zka zko glki, G’ra-grkh?” he replied.

“Ulkge’b! Baz’zko kilktu!” the commander reprimanded him.

“Baz’zka ll’kulk,” the soldier spoke, apologetically.

Lich’s heart was in his throat. The commander had asked why the other Koopa hadn’t checked someone was around the corner first before he stepped out. Fortunately, he turned and continued down the passageway he came from, giving both of them a moment’s relief. Lich looked to see the commanding Koopa continue to approach, but what was more worrying was seeing the darker shadow of Ark’s arm raise, Spear held out ready to kill. He reached out across Ark’s chest and clutched his forearm, lowering it.

“No, Ark,” he whispered, “we kill only if necessary.”

The Koopa paused and looked up the corridor towards them, wondering if he had really heard something. He pointed upwards with his right hand, and soon there was a wooden clunking noise beside him. Lich guessed the third Koopa was now on top of the crates.

Lich withdrew his hand and pressed himself against the crate. He looked across the passageway to see a crate emblazoned with Koopa writing:

Gr’tokoru Transportation

The Goodness of Ket’nal’kok delivered to you!

Lich frowned and cursed them mentally for all the trouble he was now in, then looked at the commander again, now almost upon them. He took a few cautious steps forwards.

Then, time seemed to slow down again. He stepped upon Ark’s hidden leg. Ark’s hand tightened around Lich’s forearm as he began to cry out, but the noise was cut out by the rifle firing its bullet. Lich raised his arm and rubbed his thumb against a facet of the jewel. The laser hit the Koopa squarely on the snout, and it stumbled backwards, holding one hand over it. It started to raise the rifle to shoot again with a yelp, but another laser through its neck had him toppling backwards voicelessly, the gun firing another lone bullet up into the sky as it fell over the parapet.

Lich blinked, and everything seemed back to normal, save Ark’s Spear clamped between his teeth and a restrained yell of pain. The Veil stopped working as Ark clutched the Spear and squeezed: the two of them began to regain colouration.

“Let’s go!” Lich yelped in a whisper.

“Ee go’ muh reg!!” Ark screamed through the Spear.

Lich winced. Surely the other two would be attracted now.

He was not wrong. Machine gun bullets punctured the cement in a line before them. The second Koopa’s footsteps could be heard racing towards them.

“Muh reg!! Muh ’egera-ho reg!! Gul’ho gul’ho gul’ho gul’ho!!” Ark swore.

“Take that out of your mouth and swallow this,” Lich spoke quickly, thrusting a small round candy wrapped in pink and white stripes into one of Ark’s hands.

No sooner had he done that, the second Koopa turned the corner. Lich instantly thrust the Boomerang out and whirled his extended arm around in incredibly rapid circles. The Boomerang reacted to the movement and formed a cyan-coloured round shield in front of them. The Koopa pulled the trigger on the machine gun, only to find the bullets ricocheting off the Boomerang with an electric sizzle and a tinkle as they hit the cement.

Ark unwrapped the candy and swallowed the caramel-like contents. The wound on his leg seemed to slowly reverse the action of the bullet, expelling it and restoring his usual magenta flesh. He removed the Spear from his mouth and fired a daser into the Koopa, before glancing up above him and instantly rolling to one side.

Finding the soldier collapse, Lich followed his brother’s action as bullets sent small clouds of cement dust up from where they had been sitting. The brothers simultaneously turned on the third Koopa, perched on the crate above them, and fired their respective beams.

There was silence for a second before shouting could be heard echoing up the stairwell.

“Their friends are coming, Dy,” Ark hissed.

“I know! I know! Just–” Lich started, drawing a sharp breath, his eyes closed in thought as he gained his orientation from his inner compass madly: We came west from the border, and we entered what’s the east gate because of the sun, inn’s on the south of the square, we went right and jumped over here, so we’re in the southwest corner of the square…we’re facing south, Talk’gu’s to the north, and the stairs are to the west! Damn it! ...But, the stairs face east…

“Follow me! Stuff the Veil!” Lich shouted, and broke into a sprint.

Ark was quickly in tow, following his brother. He was beginning to see his brother’s plan as he weaved between the crates: they were heading around the stairs to give themselves more time. They crossed a passage that had a clear view to their right of the soldiers emerging from the top of the stairs. He could not see his brother just then, but could hear his rubber footwear slapping the cement around a corner ahead.

Unfortunately, so could the guards as they headed in their direction.

“Take them off!” Ark yelled as they went down a reasonably long passageway.

“Take what?” Lich replied.

“Your sandal things!”

“Never! These are my lucky thongs!”

“They can hear them!”

Lich leapt over the parapet. He fell to the ground and rolled. Darting into a nearby alleyway, safely around the corner of the next building, he looked back to see Ark pause at the edge of the building and take a step backwards.

“Come on!” Lich shouted.

Ark gulped and hesitated again.

“I…”

“Dammit…” Lich winced as he came out of his cover, beckoning hurriedly. “They’ll shoot you, Ark! Bang! Dead!”

“You know I’m scared of heights!”

“You’re more scared of being shot! Just hegerato jump!”

There was a Koopan shout behind him. It finalised Ark’s decision as he leapt onto the ground and somersaulted. He got up and ran to the alleyway, a trail of bullets right behind him.

“Elementals, oh Elementals…” Ark panted as he made cover.

There was a metallic clank and a ceramic thud behind the younger Yoshi as a Koopa followed their move, enclosed in its shell. Lich raised the Boomerang and fired a laser at the chelonian’s head as it emerged.

“Run!” he yelled, turning down the alleyway and sprinting.

He could hear a collection of the same sounds as more Koopas followed their fallen comrade, along with yelling and the harsh noise of walkie-talkies. Running boots were coming up behind them as they emerged onto another street. Lich turned to the right and Ark followed. He raised the Boomerang ready to throw in case a group of soldiers appeared around a corner from the square.

He was not disappointed. Coupled with the firing of dasers, a cyan flash lit the street in an ethereal light for a split second as the six were downed.

Above them, curious Koopas were drawn to their windows to watch the proceedings. Lich and Ark ran down a nearby alleyway. The footsteps stopped for a moment and he could just hear someone yell, “Where did the Yoshies go?”

He did not hear the reply, but the boots were approaching once more. A smaller passageway turned off to their left and they darted down it, hiding in what appeared to be a back doorway. They held their breath and Lich raised the Boomerang ready as the soldiers approached and continued down the other passageway. A few seconds after their passing, Lich beckoned to Ark for them to continue down their alley. They sprinted down it, turning another corner to their left and stopping just before re-entering the street.

“They’re gonna have snipers on the building tops by now,” Lich frowned.

“So, now what?” Ark asked.

“I don’t know…I just don’t know…” he groaned, closing his eyes and wincing. “Damn, it was a stupid idea…she came back anyway…”

“‘She’?”

Lich sighed. “Never mind…that’s something to tell later…the ground’s crawling with troops, the buildings have snipers…”

He tapped his foot.

Clunk.

He looked down and did it again.

Clunk.

“Of course…the sewer system…”

“No way, Dy,” Ark shook his head and folded his arms. “I don’t mind being shot at by snipers or having grenades lobbed at us, but wading through Koopa Krap…that’s a different story. Why not your Lucid Barrier, for crying out loud?”

“That just drains me like no tomorrow, especially for two people, and we’d only get a minute at most before it became weak enough for bullets to pass through. I’m tired from all the running as it is. Come on, help me lift this lid.”

“I am not going down there,” Ark growled.

“Would you rather be killed?!”

Ark sighed and gave up. “Alright.”

The two of them crouched over the manhole and tried to lift the cover with their fingers. They managed to lift it an inch, the stench slipping out the gap.

“Grrr…hea-vy…” Lich groaned, then quickly retracted his fingers and let his end drop with a loud clang.

“Down there!” came a distant Koopan shout.

“Gulto,” Lich winced.

Ark slid the butt of the Spear underneath what he had lifted, and levered his edge over to one side.

“After you,” he motioned to his brother.

There was a gunshot nearby. Without caring what was at the bottom, Lich jumped into the hole. Ark quickly turned around and made his way down the ladder.

As he began to move the lid back into place, he could see the guards turn the corner of the alley and fire at them, the bullets sparking as they ricocheted off the lid. He dropped it into place and slid down the sides of the ladder in darkness.

“Dy?” he called as he hit the bottom.

He was answered by a burst of blue light. “Thank the Elementals I put this light onto here,” he said, “or we’d be up in a fireball if I lit a match.”

The ladder landed in a small alcove beside a narrow metal gantry just above the trench of putrid water. The Boomerang was cloaked in a glaring shade of sky blue, acting as the lantern as it sat in Lich’s belt, casting his shadow up the opposite wall. Ark gagged on the smell that seemed to sink into his pores.

Lich removed a thin cloth from his Storage and tied it around his nose, making sure it covered his nostrils. He gave another to Ark, who followed his actions.

“Right,” Lich nodded, looking up and down the tunnel. “It seems to follow the street above, so it should be no problem heading northwards. Let’s go.”

Lich pulled the Boomerang out of his belt and the shadows moved around the walls as they began to walk.

“We’re going to have to resort to spells and hand-to-hand combat if they come down here,” he said. “Whatever you do, don’t use your fire spells or Burst or anything explosive.”

He looked at the Boomerang and jumped as he saw a small moth flutter near it, attracted. Immediately he passed his thumb over a facet of the jewel and sighed in relief as the moth landed on it. “That was close…can’t even enable the electrical self-defence without going up in smoke…”

He stopped suddenly and listened for a moment, catching Ark off guard.

“What?” he asked hurriedly.

“Just keep walking,” he said out of the corner of his mouth as he moved again.

Ark fell in line next to him, knowing that something was happening.

“When I say ‘stop’,” Lich said in Pandoran, “do it and don’t move.”

They took a few more steps.

“Stop.”

They halted suddenly and listened. A split second afterwards, they could hear another metallic clunk on the gantry behind them, near the ladder.

Lich replaced the Boomerang. “Run!”

Their pursuers also broke into a run behind them. Lich didn’t dare to snatch a peek at them, lest he fall off into the muck, but could tell there were about four of them from their feet.

Ark spotted a red laser point briefly on a wall ahead of them, which was followed by a brief ptchh! and something whizzing past his cheek. He saw a warning crossbow bolt hit the concrete then fall into the murky sludge, thankful its tip did not spark.

“Plastic!” he cried.

Lich moved closer to the wall, offered a quick prayer along the lines of “Please work”, and shut his eyes.

He brought his hands up before his chest, as if he was resting a ball in his left hand and holding it in place with his right on top of it. His feet pounded the metal as he moved his hands around quickly, yet gracefully, so that his left hand was on top before his eyes and his right at the bottom mid-stomach, holding a ball four times as large. Another fast and graceful turn of his arms, and his right was out from above his head, and his left at waist-height. His invocation of the Water Elemental, Undine, was complete, obvious by the ringed flare of blue flames on the ground around him, staying around his feet as they ran.

Now Undine awaited Lich’s command. The Yoshi turned around, his eyes still closed.

He did not see the red dot on his chest.

The Koopa stopped and steadied his aim so that it sat squarely on his sternum.

Lich reached his right arm behind him, straightened it, then brought it over his head as if he were bowling overarm, taking a step in the process.

The crossbow fired.

It was another one of those moments: the sort you get in an immensely popular sci-fi movie (with a great soundtrack).

Beneath his hands, the water seemed to take a life of its own and began to rise up in a mound, spraying as it passed through the holes in the gantry.

The bolt’s tip pierced the growing shape. There was a lot of water inside it, and when a lot of water is forced into a condensed space, particularly through thaumic means, it becomes pressurised and grows jelly-like. The bolt began to take an upward swing as it was pushed towards the roof, and slowed down.

Lich could see it coming towards him now, and his body instinctively tensed up. The bolt head poked out of the other side of what was now definitely a wave and continued to travel towards him.

He could feel a prick on his nose as his eyes widened in fear.

With no way to expand higher any further, the wave found its momentum and began to move forward. The bolt stayed still for a shaving of a second, before the water drew it away from him.

The flow of time resumed its normality. The dark and foul water sped along the tunnel towards the soldiers. They only had the chance to begin to turn around as they were gathered up in it and dragged back up the tunnel.

Lich turned around and began to run again, Ark beside him.

“That was close,” Ark puffed.

“I know,” Lich replied with a slight growl in his voice, disliking the statement of the obvious.

Ark took the hint and did not reply.

The tunnel began to curve towards the north-west, where it met another sewer heading in the same direction. This one was larger and had a walkway on both sides.

“Trunk route,” Lich observed. “Should take us out of th– oh no…”

Soldiers were descending onto the other walkway ahead of them. They seemed to be surprised to see their targets already as the leaders dropped onto a knee and aimed their crossbows.

The Yoshies found their second wind and began to run faster, as crossbow bolts smacked against the wall where they had been a split second ago.

“Kilktu’g!” their commanding officer yelled. “Kh’gulkh rg’zkikh!”

The bows were quickly reloaded and re-aimed.

Lich noted the sighting dots slightly ahead of him on the wall.

“Close your eyes!” he yelled to Ark, then thumbed a facet by his side.

Through his eyelids they could see the brief cyan flash as they passed the Koopas. They re-opened them and heard the groans from behind them as the Koopas regained their eyesight. There was a splash as one fell off the walkway.

Lich looked back and counted them – six. He turned his head a bit further and saw a wet gleam as the first four Koopas came to join them. Ten would be too much for his spells to have any real effect.

His running was beginning to slow, particularly as his air intake was hampered by the cloth and there wasn’t much in the way of oxygen in the methane-filled tunnels anyway. Ark also seemed to be having a hard time.

“We must be nearing the end now,” Lich panted.

He looked ahead and saw the tunnel turn sharply to the right. The whirr of motors emanated from around the corner, giving the location of the treatment plant. A ladder was visible ahead of them, encased in its own tube.

The clunk of boots behind them resumed as the Koopas began to catch up. They passed a bridge between the gantries, which Lich reckoned to be their second group’s crossing point.

“Nearly there,” he huffed.

A crossbow thudded into the wall behind them.

“They’re gonna shoot us…as we go up the ladder, Dy…” Ark panted.

“Then we fight fire with fire.”

“You mean?”

A small blue container was produced in his hand. In the Boomerang’s light, its contents could be seen: a small piece of metal.

“A piece of sodium in water-soluble casing,” Lich explained.

He flicked his hand to the side, and the capsule splashed into the stream.

“We’ve got about two minutes.”

“Two minutes?!” Ark yelled.

They increased their speed along the metal walkway as another crossbow struck the wall behind them. The commander berated the troops once more as a few of them crossed the bridge behind him.

The gantry descended towards the water. Strands of slime hung in the holes along it. They slowed down slightly, but it did not stop Ark from falling over with a yell.

Lich turned around and grabbed his brother’s hand, pulling him to his feet as a crossbow bolt pinged off the metal where he was.

Soon they were at the ladder, and they frantically climbed it, Lich in the lead. A bolt zipped past Ark’s leg as he disappeared from the troops’ sight.

Above him, Lich pushed against the metal lid with his hands, only to have it budge slightly and sand trickle down onto him. He spat it out of his mouth with a “pleh”, and tried again, harder.

His mental timer told him they were down to fifteen seconds.

He scrunched up, and then pushed with a groan.

The cover finally lifted itself. He heaved it to the side as seven seconds slipped through his mind, then frantically climbed.

“Six!”

He hauled himself over the edge of the hole onto the sand.

“Five!”

Ark missed a rung and slipped slightly.

“Four!”

He got to his feet and began to run.

“Three!”

Ark emerged from the hole.

“Two!”

Ark pushed himself out of it.

“One!”

Ark slipped again, back down to his waist before getting another firm foothold.

The capsule’s coating dissolved and let water in. Immediately, the sodium flared.

Ark tried again, this time getting his legs out.

A hissing roar filled the tunnel beneath him. He thought he could hear some screams.

He cowered beside the hole as a plume of flame shot up behind him for half a second.

Lich turned around and ran towards Ark. He helped him to his feet and looked around. They were now outside of Va’kotiku.

“We made it,” he smiled. “I knew you could do it.”

“Yeah,” Ark said, bitterly.

“No point hanging around here, then…on to Talk’gu and B’kirik!”

They ran across the silver sand, deeper into Bowser’s Realm, and deeper into the mire of the KBT.