Screwball looked up and turned her head back to Coyote with a question about all this being really necessary, seriously she didn’t think having a ten ton boulder dropped on her would really help her one bit.
“Well of course it’s important you daft young female cartoon equine. Road is about to drop it and how you react to the situation will tell us what you need to focus on to pull on your potential.” The Coyote sighed; he did favors like this for Road why?
On a nearby hilltop and out of the way of the sporadic enemy emplacements, which were mostly scorpions and a few flying grenade bombs, there was a picnic brewing. Watching through a pair of binoculars Banjo sighed, school of hard knocks those cartoon video game crossed characters.
“I don’t know Miss B, cartoon characters usually don’t exactly know how much they can take until they die. They tend to follow more real world physics as much as they ignore them. They can actually realistically bleed for one; we video game characters really don’t do that unless we’re programmed for it.” Sitting across from Banjo was a giant shapely humanoid bee named Honey B. who smiled sweetly at the honey bear.
“Well I’m sure she’ll be fine… well as long as she is prepared for injury. I heard that even if a cartoon character can shunt a large amount of injury from their bodies they can still get hurt from stress of shunting what would amount to a mortal wound.” A sloshing occurred to the left of the humanoid bee and there was Chaos still in pony form and eating or more likely absorbing a pile of fruit slowly.
“He’s right; we should just enjoy the picnic. It’s so nice that you could join us Miss B, not often do you see NPC’s willing to travel.” Banjo dipped a biscuit into some honey and took a bite out of it.
“It’s nice to be here Banjo, unfortunately I find myself highly lacking in importance after Banjo-Tooie. Then I look to see you’re being dragged into another of your sister’s zany adventures. NPC’s like me aren’t exactly useful anymore.” Sighing slightly the giant female bee’s wings wilted.
“Who says you’re not important, you are to me even if you’re only an apprentice of the honey.” Banjo reached over with a paw and pulled her face up to look into his dopey soft eyes and the smile on his face. After a moment a blush crossed both their faces. “Besides your safer not following me or especially Kazooie around, she has more enemies then most hero characters.”
The sound of a boulder hitting the ground caught all of their attentions; the ten pound boulder had a ton of power rings spilling out from under it. After a moment Coyote approached it only to have the boulder split in perfectly in half and crushed him under five tons of weight. Standing where the boulder had split was a dizzy looking Screwball with a baseball and a screw slowly circling her head and she stumbled around a bit before falling to her butt. After a moment she shook her head and sighed, well there goes every power ring she ever had on her.
“Wow she’s definitely got the cartoon spirit. She’s even managed to do the little birdie or star thing… but it matches the symbol on her flank. I think she really likes being unique.” Honey was rather amused at the situation and Banjo nodded, Screwball had a bucket load of power rings. Chaos for his part had watched the shower of power rings with what amounts to childish joy, he always liked watching power rings fly all over the place even if they quickly disappeared.
A beeping sound was heard and banjo reached into his right pocket of his yellow short s and pulled out a plot device to hold it up his ears. He really should switch off the Metal Gear Codec ring tone.
“Kazooie, what do you need?” Banjo only had four real numbers connected to his plot device, one was notably named Honey Bosoms and the other two was his sisters Kazooie and Tooty. Goombella was a recent addition; making it well known Banjo doesn’t get out much except for groceries and his girlfriend.
“Hey Banjo remember what happened to me during Grunty’s Revenge? Well I’ve got good news, bad news and worse news… what would you like to hear first? Oh and put me on three dimensional viewing, I want to see what’s going on where you are.” Banjo was unsure he wanted to do this with his girlfriend nearby, his sister and girlfriend tended to take potshots at each other. After a moment he did as she asked and she popped up from the phone in a green holographic digital representation of herself sitting in the middle of the blanket.
“Hey wasp girl, nice to see you can still get out and about with my brother.” Banjo slapped a paw over his face as Honey and the not so present Breegull started a glaring match.
“Yes, nice…. until you somehow called to drag my sweet Banjo into some horrible mess, but you are his sister and I can understand his need to help you even if you are a really big jerk.” Honey knew that Kazooie was used to dealing with royalty types, that Breegull has been in enough game worlds to know what to say to piss anyone off.
“Hold on, they are about to give the boulder test to Ms. Hooves.” The four figures turned towards the grey pony standing where the ten ton boulder had previously fallen and now there was another ten ton boulder prepped to crush another pony.
“Crap, the problem must be worse than I thought if you are picking up other ponies. I really should up my schedule for when I return to Equestria, well so much for the extra time for fun and games then. It’ll all be taken up in the rescue anyways!” Banjo wasn’t about to ask his sister what she meant, he just stayed quiet and waited to see what would happen to Miss Hooves. Since she now had a ten ton boulder dropping towards her. Even Kazooie was quiet at the sight.
Derpy was panicking turning quick circles and trying to think of anything other than being hit by the ten ton boulder. She only had seconds before impact before a half lit light bulb appeared above her head; she put her hoof in her mouth and inhaled through her nose. She tried to exhale through her mouth and her body inflated into a giant grey bubble with yellow spots on it. The boulder impacted with Derpy Hooves, but it didn’t do any damaged as it squished her heavily inflated body slightly and then it shot back up into the air flipping end over end. Derpy promptly returned to normal and watched the boulder slowly position itself as if by magic over the one guy who’s used to being hit by things that size.
The Coyote knew what was going to happen and quickly pulled out a sign and opened a tiny umbrella, the sign read ‘why me?’ and it was an apt placement as the shadow of the ten ton boulder appeared above him and Screwball.
Screwball looked up and gawked at the boulder and suddenly stretched her two left legs three feet to her left and in one step narrowly avoided the boulder hitting her. Coyote wasn’t as lucky as his body was smashed flat.
“Ouch, that must sting… but it wouldn’t be classic Coyote if he wasn’t being struck with boulders or falling off a cliff. So who’s the new recruit? And is that Chaos Zero from Sonic Adventure Two?” All the game characters on the plateau turned to the digital Kazooie. A NPC, a Hero and a Boss character having a nice picnic with tea is something you don’t see often in a world of cartoon related video game violence.
“Her name is Derpy Hooves and yes that’s Chaos, for some reason Derpy woke him up when she appeared in Sonic the Hedgehogs video game realms and he won’t stop following Screwball around.” Surprisingly Banjo telling her the pony’s name didn’t cause Kazooie to immediately burst out laughing, instead she looked surprisingly thoughtful.
“... wow…. that… thought I’d never see that pony for a while... she always appeared in the oddest of places.” Kazooie didn’t say much else as she stood their staring at the grey pony with a strange look. “Not my type and she’s already been with someone… to bad for me since she’s cute and really friendly. She’s also well traveled… like as in me well traveled and has a medical condition that requires her to eat muffins constantly. Not often you see another dimension hopper even if it’s somewhat involuntary.”
“Wow you’re not even within ten feet of her and you’re already reading her.” Banjo said with a sad smile, he decided to draw the discussion back to Kazooie and what she was doing at the moment calling him. “So what were you on about Kazooie?”
“Well there really wasn’t much to read Banjo, I’ve met her before… gave her part of a muffin and I think she was around when I claimed my princess status and title in Equestria. There was another pony that looks almost like her sister. Anyway, enough about that crap, let’s move on to the reason why I called.” Banjo, Honey B. and Chaos all appeared within view of Kazooie’s eyes and sat down. “Okay worst news first, I’ve been captured. Dead to Rights I can’t escape from where I’m being held, magic the shaman version or otherwise doesn’t help, my abilities can’t puncture their way out of this room and the guys that captured me thought of everything and I mean absolutely everything when it came to designing a prison with me in mind. This includes not having guards posted nearby for me to heckle and they separated me from my beloved backpack. The bad news is I’m bored out of my mind and I’ve had a lot of time to discover where I exactly am and you know what happens when my mind gets idle Banjo… oh and the good news is I managed to get a Celestriad Relic. Of the four things I have on me is a plot device, my Spec-O-Spy goggles, the Celestriad Relic and don’t ask me why I have them… but a pair of magnetically driven in-line skates from the Jet Set Radio realms.”
“How did you manage to keep a hold onto those items exactly and how exactly were you captured?” It was a good question and Banjo seriously wanted to know.
“Hell… do you seriously think I was going to be separated from the Celestriad Relic so soon after I went through all that trouble to get it? I swallowed every item I have on me except my Spec-O-Spy goggles; they really are effective at staying invisible to everything, the skates weren’t exactly easy to swallow you know. I guess all that Jiggy swallowing paid off like I said it would, I’m also so glad you didn’t put me on Codec for this conversation. I was frozen solid by an ice elemental attack that blindsided me and I didn’t really have much time to stash away stuff while my body froze over.” Kazooie crossed her wings and turned to Banjo and raised a brow waiting for a response.
“Well where exactly are you and since you’re technically a princess wouldn’t this make it a…” Banjo started to say and Kazooie quickly cut him off.
“Oh don’t dare say it Banjo, if you say it I’m so killing you when you finally do end up rescuing me!” Kazooie was serious, she would actually murder her brother in cold blood if he even so much as hinted at saying it, so he held his tongue.
“Oh my goodness, Kazooie’s a damsel in distress.” Honey B. burst out tittering into her hand and buzzing joyously at the thought of Kazooie being a damsel and in distress.
“You are so lucky that most NPC’s can’t be killed by normal means you stupid yellow jacket. Doesn’t mean I can’t find a large enough flyswatter though, I know where the Mario Paint realm is!” Kazooie groused out angrily. “Just get around to rescuing me after your done here; cartoon training sessions are notoriously short. I’m stuck in an underground facility in Clancer Empire City in the Mischief Makers realm; expect heavy resistance of whatever upon approach. Get Marina away from her Rakugaki Showtime battles to help me out if you can. I’m sure if you do enough damage to the cities surroundings you might possibly destroy the generators. That will deactivate the shields and spawn plate holding me in place, hopefully whoever’s behind capturing me doesn’t game over me before you get here. Have fun and a great adventure on my behalf figuring out how you’re getting here. Oh and make sure that new pony gets checked out by Doctor Mario, Kazooie out bro.”
The hologram bird winked out of existence and Banjo sighed, this was going to be interesting as he seriously doubted any number of Clancer’s could catch Kazooie by surprise. So they were dealing with an unknown enemy and possible enemy Clancer involvement.
Now all Banjo had to do was tell Screwball that Kazooie was kind of held up, who was he kidding she was going to go berserk and try to rush to Kazooie’s rescue the minute she hears about it. There was no telling her she wasn’t going on the rescue as well, because even if he did tell her to stay behind she’d find some way to follow him. He’d rather keep Screwball in view where’s she was much safer, as such she was going with him and Ms. Hooves could just go back to Spiral Mountain with Ms. B.
“Sorry Honey, but I think we have to pack up our picnic early… well after I’m done with my slice of honey nut pie.” Banjo lifted up a pie slice and quickly ate it and hummed at the flavor of honey and macadamia nuts. “Anyway do you think you can safely house Ms. Hooves for a while?”
“I know you have to go save your sister, I’ll finish packing up if Mr. Zero will assist… me?” The humanoid bee turned to the all the completely empty containers and the fact that Chaos was filled with every single left over scrap of food slowly dissolving away into his mass. “Well, I’ll still need to put the stuff away and get back to our dimension then. It was nice seeing you again Banjo and yes I’ll wait around to take Ms. Hooves with me. ”
Banjo received a kiss on the cheek from Honey B. before also getting a pat on the butt, causing them both to blush. Honey’s wings started buzzing as she hovered to pack away her things and working her way around the little plateau, a thought occurred to her and she smiled maybe she could send some bugs she knew to help Banjo in the rescue.
“I’m guessing you’re going to continue to follow me, Screwball and Ms. Hooves around?” Chaos just looked at Banjo in question and just simply nodded his head with the barest of movements causing more sloshing noises.
Chaos was really interested in where all this was going, not like he had all that much else to do except go back to the master emerald. His mom did say he needed to get out more and what was further out then an adventure with several nice strangers? Hey wait, where was the one known as Banjo going and the giant bee thing named Honey? He stood up slowly and jumped off the plateau following Banjo and Honey as they made their way towards the three cartoon characters below the cliffs.
Standing at the bottom of the cliffs the ten ton boulders were dropped from was Screwball and next to her was Derpy who smiled at having successfully deflected the boulder… onto her own instructor who proclaimed it to have been a good thing.
“Ah yes, I think I know what you both need to focus on, Screwball you need to learn to be a little less… rigid and logical… you can think up great things and you have the ability you just need to stretch your horizons more. You Ms. Hooves on the other hand… believe this or not… you need a sterner hold on reality, you almost popped yourself out of existence by turning into a bubble. Okay your training is complete.” Both Screwball and Derpy’s jaws literally dropped to the ground at Wile E. Coyote’s sudden proclamation of their cartoon status. “And that’s exactly the reaction cartoon characters would have to information that causes massive amounts of disbelief. What do you say Road?”
“MEEP MEEP!” The ponies jumped and their heads squashed against the ridge just five feet above their heads before slamming back into the ground followed by the ridge squashing them. Road and Wile just stood by and waited. After a moment Derpy peeled herself out from the rock stuck in the shape of a little grey muffin with wonky eyes and Screwball waddled out flat as a pancake on her equally flattened legs, one audible popping sound later from both of them and they were back to normal shape.
“How do you do the teleportation thing though?” It was why Derpy let herself be hit with a ten ton boulder anyway, so why not ask the question. Sure doing cartoon things made her feel weird and funny, but she felt perkier than usual after instinctively performing the squash and stretch.
“Oh that? You’ll figure it out all, cartoon character are different in small ways other than appearance even when we can all feasibly do the same things… it’s a matter of context and how sensitive you are to it. Always be funny my associates, now if you’ll excuse me.” The so called super genius figured now was a good time as any to give chase to the Road.
With a fluting of his tongue Road shot off towards a road leading to a tunnel followed closely by Coyote. Road Runner entered the tunnel just fine shortly after Wile E. Coyote was stopped like he had slammed into a solid wall at the tunnels entrance. When he fell down both ponies could see he was covered in paint and that the tunnel didn’t actually exist, it had been painted to look like it existed. Both ponies looked at the road leading up to the tunnel and how it ended abruptly... they looked at each other.
“I guess born be weird are cartoons huh?” Screwball finally said shocking Derpy as she had been speaking silent protagonist until this point. Derpy had never actually heard Screwball actively use her voice and was looking at her wide eyed.
“Pony apples, you can talk!” After a moment of silence to realize why Derpy was so shocked, Screwball burst out laughing. It was soon followed by Derpy chuckling merrily too, the background music shifted slightly to a more upbeat friendly tune.
Suddenly the background music shifted to a random amount of buzzing from a bee choir, this puzzled both the ponies until they turned around and just stared blankly at the humanoid bee that could be mistaken for a human version of a creature called a Zinger. Next to her was Banjo and in the background Chaos could be seen running slowly away from tiny airplanes with grenades in them and his legs were transforming into speed wheels.
“Well Kazooie was right cartoon training is ridiculously short… no fourth wall breakage here whatsoever even though we do it every game. Oh by the way Kazooie’s been captured by some unknowns Screwball and we’re going to rescue her. Don’t honestly know how we’re supposed to get to where Kazooie’s being held and she didn’t really help me on that front much because she’s really angry about needing a rescue.” Banjo was blunt to the point and not very hurtful of anyone’s feelings. By this point Kazooie would lament that the princess should be able to save herself, should probably have a better trained army then one super soldier that somehow wrecks all the enemies plans or at least cause some form of great trouble for her captors even while being held prisoner.
It barely took a few seconds for Screwball to comprehend the flat delivery or to get watery eyed from the fact that her new adoptive mom had somehow gotten captured.
In the cell where Kazooie is being held, the breegull sat down thinking of any form of escape plan.
“Getting my backpack back is a must, whoever caught me off guard will undoubtedly have to be given a game over… possibly full dimensional destruction like I did to Kingdom Hearts. Now all that’s left to do is waiting for Banjo… maybe I should have told him about the assassin from the information I managed to hack before the firewalls stopped me from opening my oh so gloriously gilded cage. It’s a good thing I can’t die of starvation, because the room service here is lousy.” Kazooie idly propped her wings behind her head and tried to recall all the beings with ice powers that she has pissed off in her many years of existence. The only clue she had so far was that it was somehow related to Megaman, which was only because of who the assassin happened to be. He was going to try and stall Banjo from mounting any form of rescue, it was a good thing she had no clue how he was going to do it because she knew she was now currently being watched.
Kazooie was in a room that only had one opening, it was in the ceiling and it was protected by a shield generator connected to both main and backup power of Clancer’s central base in Clancer Empire City. She had already tried everything from grenade eggs to her seldom used battery eggs, transformations couldn’t get her out of the room, falcon punching the walls only elicited a partially burnt right wing and there wasn’t enough room to do a speed booster combo and her screw attack didn’t work either. If she had her backpack she’d destroy the walls and the entire base in a matter of minutes. The indestructible spawn plate in the room prevented her from just killing herself and spawning somewhere else and outside of captivity. With that jamming signal that the base now had going on she wasn’t going to get any more messages out other than that last particular one to those ‘beat them up guys’ Kazooie knew Screwball would love to meet.
There were only two things of real concern to Kazooie at the moment, why was she captured and who was she being handed off too? She slowly closed her eyes and relaxed her body; they never had this sort of problem when they helped out the N-Gang. Video game characters really shouldn’t be given access to playing their own games, because it made the waiting game all the more tedious and horribly boring in comparison.
“It’s definitely not hag face. I’d know immediately if it was. I’d have my abilities disabled if that were the case, that and the horrible amounts of gloating at getting one over on me.” Slowly Kazooie could feel herself drifting off to sleep and wondering if she accidentally left Bottles oven on before she left Spiral Mountain with Screwball.
At Spiral Mountain at this very moment around a small unassuming dirt hill, something was stirring up involving a certain mole.
“Oh god what the…” A large thumping sound could be heard and slowly a ghostly mole rose up from the ground. “I swear I really hate that bird.”
An oven with slow roasting jar of witches magic set to go off at a particular time had managed to kill him.
Kazooie smiled from her lazing position in the boring cube shaped cell, she was happy to feel the euphoric sense of getting a mole further then just the average six feet under.