Role Play Pool Party!

He looked to Skittles and then to Clive. Leaning over to Clive, he whispered "I think this koopa is a few fruit loops short in the mental department." Then turning on a fake smile, he extended a hand to Skittles. "Name is Xiuhcoatl", he stated in a cheerful voice. "If the island has become what you said it is, we'll need all the help we can get."

He began to cross the bridge and turned around to both of them just before he stepped onto the Island. "We're in need of building materials, primarily wood.. could you lead us to it, Skittles?"

Toying around with his whip, he began to walk onto the island. Turning towards Xiuhcoatl, he flashed a smile to him and nodded in response to his question. "Oh I know a perfect place with building materials", he said with a rasp in his voice as his left eye twitched. "Watch your step, them yoshi can pop out of the vegetation."

Making his way into overgrown weeds and plants, he used his whip to slash through it and create an opening for the two travelers behind him.

~~~

Orinda looked to Chugami and thought for a moment. "I'm not sure how you'd run power through stone walls," he responded. "But I imagine unless Clive was here, it'd be tough to map out the entire layout of Koopa Castle without getting lost again."

He noticed another koopa troopa enter the room and walk up to the counter. Clearing his throat, he addressed her from the table. "I'm the newly crowned king of the empire, Orinda Tarsa", he stated in a bold voice. "And the goombas that worked there are all dead, it's basically self serve." He got up from his seat at the table, walked over to the newcomer and extended a claw in friendship. "Who might you be? I've never seen you before."

"So have you lived here long Skittles?" Clive asked. He ignored what Xiuchoatl had whispered to him as he wasn't the type to make instant judgements.

"Just out of interest, have you seen any other koopas in this area?"

~~~~~~

The koopa troopa took one look at Orinda and then said,

"A dragon can't be king. Last time I checked, this was the Koopa Kingdom, not the Dragon Kingdom." She paused for a moment and then said, "My name is Elaine by the way and if this is self-service then I won't mind helping myself."

Elaine then walked behind the counter and took a plate full of food and walked over to a table.

"How long have you been king? I imagine not long because this castle is as dead as it was two years ago. Since when do dragons get to become king?"

"If there's a giant sign on the castle", Crystal thought aloud. "Then that means that this place could have all the hookups still." Sliding the plate to the end of the table, she looked to the female koopa troopa who just sat down at another table. "Perhaps, there's a circuit breaker somewhere that could turn it all back on again.", she said thoughtfully as she then looked to the doorway.

"We do have a lot of work to do.. Your Koopaness, Chugami." Getting up from her seat at the table, she began to head towards the doorway. "I wonder if the breaker isn't up past the residental section of the castle", she said quietly. "It is quite the trip up, however."

He continued to slash through the tall weeds for what semed like forever. Without turning around to them, he continued to speak. "Oh, for 15 years or so I reckon", he said in a voice that sounded like he had just been awaken from a daydream. "And in terms of the last koopas I saw, it was at least six months ago.. a red and a green troopa came through here, patrolling the area I suppose."

He heard a rustling in the bushes.. it could be a Yoshi, he was almost certain. Turning to Clive and Xiuhcoatl, he put a hand out towards them in gesture to stop. "My castle is close, but the Yoshis are closer.. they could shoot a tongue out onto your ankle and drag you into a very painful death."

~~~

Orinda turned around and showed the newly formed red koopa shell on his back to her. "If this doesn't make me part koopa, I don't know what does Lady Elaine.", he said with a toothy grin. "I just became king yesterday, I have some residents out at Donut Plains now beginning the restoration of Dinosaur Land."

Looking to Crystal as she walked to the doorway, he knew he had to go too. There was a lot of work to be done before the castle was finished. He began to walk over to the doorway, but turned around to Elaine just as he was about to exit the room. "We'll be in the lobby starting to clean things up if you'd like to join us there.", he said warmly. With those words and a nod to Crystal, he exited into the hallway and began the walk to the lobby area.

Xiuhcoatl observed the back of Skittles' shell as they made their way through the jungle. It was an unique rainbow colored shell with white spikes along the sides of it. He couldn't believe it, this was a koopaling.. not a koopa troopa! He thought to himself, how could of Bowser left one of them behind like he had with Skittles. There had to be a reason.

Also hearing the rustling noises, he stopped right behind Skittles and looked around him cautiously. "You're a heir to the former King Bowser.. yet you are out here alone in a deserted island filled with yoshi.", he said quietly. "How and why are you here?"

"I wonder if its the same troopas me and Xiuchoatl met,"Clive said quietly. To Skittles, he said, "You have your own castle in the woods? Amazing."
~~~~~~~~


Elaine almost choked on her food at the sight of Orinda's shell. After recovering from that, she said,

"Where did you get that shell from? You obviously stole it. You are no Koopa. You look nothing like one. Dragons don't have shells. Now who are you really?"

Elaine got quite angry. She wasn't used to seeing dragons, let alone dragons wearing shells. As far as she was concerned, only someone born in the koopa family or of the koopa species could become king of the koopa kingdom.

Before exiting the hallway, she looked towards Elaine with her crystal blue eyes and smiled. "We were all at the ceremony last night", she said softly. "Trust me, I couldn't believe it when I saw it either but he's really our new king."

She tugged at a knot in her hair for a moment and then slipped out the door and into the hallway to catch up with Orinda.

His eyes darted to the bushes on the left of him, he saw a green head with red spikes poke up. With his hand still firmly on the whip handle, he lashed the whip out quickly towards the creature and snapped against the head of it hard. The creature sank back into the bushes, growling loudly. Those yoshi knew better than to attack this koopa, he thought to himself.

He continued to walk down through the weeds and brush until he approached a tall castle with silver stone walls. The castle was at least twenty feet high and was in a circular shape, only about twenty feet in diameter. The top of the castle was lined with golden spikes that shone brightly in the sunlight. He approached the wooden door of the castle and turned to Clive and Xiuhcoatl. "Quickly, inside.. we'll be safe here, I'll explain to you my story and show you where to go from here to find the building supplies."

He pulled on a rope on the left side of the door and the doorway was now open. He stood there waiting for them.

~~~

He had just entered the main lobby of the castle. Looking around him, he debated on where to start. The floors were filthy, the carpet that led from the door of the castle was in major need of replacing and the stairs were covered in years of dust. Orinda still was adjusting to the new role he had been given, and to the shell on his back. He had to tug at it several times this morning just to know it was real.. he could feel the nerves in his back as he pulled, so he knew this wasn't a dream anymore. He was now part koopa and the leader of the Koopa Empire.

Taking out a cloth from inside his shell, which he felt was awkward as he hadn't gotten adjusted to that sort of thing yet, he walked over to the staircase and began to polish away the dust with it.

Clive walked inside Skittles' castle and waited for Xiuchoatl to follow. He said, "Well you have a nice place and it is well hidden also so you can guarantee that few enemies will pass thorugh here."

~~~~~~~

Elaine continued to eat her food but remained high in thought. She didn't understand how a pure dragon could end up growing a shell.

"It doesn't make any sense. Dragons can't grow shells, that's impossible. There's nothing on him to herself and she didn't care who heard her.

"There's no way that shell came out of nowhere. He must have stole it. I'm going to investigate. You don't get a spiked shell just like that."

Elaine got up out of her seat and made her way to the exit. She was going to spy on Orinda and get some answers.

Watching Skittles in total surprise as he took care of the Yoshi in the bushes, he walked behind him as they approached the castle. Xiuhcoatl was at a loss for words, this place was quite beautiful for being in the middle of jungle like it was.

He quickly moved inside the doorway and waited for Skittles.

Seeing that both Clive and Xiuhcoatl both made it inside, he quickly moved inside and pulled the door down shut behind him. Turning around facing the inside of the castle, it was a large room with polished marble floors surrounded by silver stone walls. There were maps hanging on the walls and tables siting underneath them. On the tables, there was a glass case resting on each one, every case had either a koopa related artifact or a map in it. There were six tables in the circular room with a set of four chairs in the middle of the room. The table was made of solid gold. A staircase led up into the ceiling of the room, assuming sleeping chambers or a study. Lamps were attached to the walls, paced out between every table. They were all lit, giving the room a warm glow.

"Welcome to my home, gentlemen.", he said with a bow. Gesturing towards the chairs in the middle of the room, he continued to speak. "Please sit down and I'll explain to you on how to get to the building supplies."

~~~

Having finished one side of the stair rail, he looked into the reflection and saw himself in it. Solid gold railings, Bowser had it God he had to admit. Smiling, he got to work on the other rail, polishing the dust and filth away from it with a rag.

Clive walked over to one of the chairs and sat down. He waited patiently for Xiuchoatl to sit down and for Skittles to talk.

~~~~~~

Ellaine walked out of McDonalds as she went to look for Orinda. She was very interested in seeing how he got his shell.

"Does he expect me to believe he is now a koopa just because he has a shell?" Elaine ranted as she walked down the corridor.

"Of course not, everyone knows you have to be born with at least part-koopa blood in order to become king of the koopas. Dragons can't wear shells anyway. That's like me taking my shell of and then saying I'm now human, that's stupid. It doesn't work that way."

Elaine kept rambling on when she finally reached the main lobby. He noticed Orinda cleaning the stairs. She hid behind the door.

"That shell looks very similar to the one Bowser had," she whipsered to herself. "Now unless Bowser had a spare shell somewhere, I don't see any other reason how he could have acquired it. But it doesn't make any difference, he is a dragon, not a koopa. Only koopas get to be become king unless they changed the rules, which I doubt."

Chugami watched the conversation unfold before him with rapt attention. This newcomer was about as skeptical as Clive was when he first heard, if not moreso. And also, judging from the sounds after she left the McDonald's, she was apparently quite fond of talking to herself. And with that negative attitude, she seemed almost opposite that of the motherly Crystal. He briefly toyed with the idea of an evil twin, but knew that was most likely not the case.

Figuring that Orinda was powerful enough to defend himself against anything this Elaine might try, he turned to Crystal. "Hm... That breaker sounds like a good lead... Though to journey that far up without Clive, I'd best go to prepare. You go on ahead and make sure Elaine doesn't try anything, as I suspect she will; I may take awhile."

And with that, he left and headed back to Orinda's room. For an expedition into the darkness, quite a bit of preparation was required...

Entering the lobby from the hallway, Crystal looked to the stairs and saw Orinda cleaning. The gold handrails were very nice looking, especially in a room that was so dirty from years of abandonment. She looked at the door and noticed it looked different than it had last night.

"Your Koopaness", she said softly. "I'll be right with you on cleaning the lobby, I need to check something out."

Opening the door, she found the koopa troopa that was just in the McDonalds a few moments before hiding behind it. Crystal crossed her arms across her chest and looked down at her.

"Excuse me, can I help you with something?", she asked the koopa troopa.

Xiuhcoatl walked into the room, his eyes widened in surprise as he looked around. This place was absolutely stunning, it looked nearly fit for a king. He snapped himself out of his state of wonder and nodded to Skittles. "Yes, let's sit down and talk all this out", he sputtered out. "This place is absolutely amazing, I give you props for that one."

Making it over to one of the empty chairs in the middle of the great room, he sat down and waited.

Elaine looked at the koopa troopa for a second before asking in a somewhat snobbish tone,

"Who are you?"

Elaine looked back at Orinda for a second then back to the other koopa troopa.

"I came here to see where everyone was but it looks deserted anyway. Who is that?"

She asked pointing at Orinda.

"And don't say he's the king because I'm not buying it. He's obviously an imposter. I was expecting Bowser to be back. There's no way he would let anyone else, let along someone who isn't even a koopa, take his throne," she added.

Walking towards the middle of the room where Clive and Xiuhcoatl were sitting, he sat in an empty chair on the other side of the table. Laying on the table that seperated him from the two visitors was a map. It was crudely done, most likely mapped out by Skittles himself. Clasping his hands together, he leaned closer to Xiuhcoatl and Clive and began to speak.

"So, you came this way looking for lumber", he said in a low voice. "Where are you taking it to? And why?" Pointing at a large grey circle near the top of the map, it had the word "Castle" scribbled in over the top of it. "You folks are here, it was once a castle of another koopaling but it became abandoned when Bowser left the kingdom.. I saw it was available and I did a lot of work to clean the poor place up." Then moving his finger down to the bottom of the island, dead center it showed a little building that resembled a shack. "That building, can be tore down and used as your building supplies.. but let me warn you, it once was a cave that had been home to a group of Yoshi. There may still be wild yoshi there, tons of them.. so it is a very dangerous trip, but rewarding if you can get the building tore apart and off the island." He then leaned back a bit from the table and let out a sigh. "But how do you get the lumber back up to where you have to go, you wonder.. I have a machine outside the castle walls that runs off of the oxygen in the world." He looked both of them square in the face as his eye twitched and leaned in close. "But, I require some sort of payment for the labor", he said in a raspy voice. "Getting all that lumber through the patches of vegetation and past all the wild yoshi is no easy task that can come off for free. You two think of a payment option, while I tell you my story about how I got here."

"I was once a koopaling of King Bowser's.. I lived in Koopa Castle for my first five years of life. I studied everything koopalings did in ethics and ruling classes and could perform magic with the wands that was provided to us. Like most koopalings, we were given castles to call home as we pleased and to get in the way of those pesky plumbers. I had a small little castle, well gone off of this island now.. I shared the island under Iggy Koopa. Things were good, family was tight together and then Mario came around a little over 10 years ago.. maybe 11 years. He stormed through our troops here on the island and took out Iggy in his castle. He threatened to seriously injure Iggy if he didn't spill the beans about my location. He had no choice but to say where my castle was. Mario came over, broke through my doors and challenged me to a fight. I was a lot smaller and weaker than my brothers and sisters, so it was a real brief fight on a bridge over a pool of hot lava. He stuffed me into my shell and drop kicked me into the lava pool. He did not see me resurface and considered me dead." Kicking his feet back, he sighed and showed the burn marks all over his arms, legs and the bottom of his shell. "I had to wade out of the lava, surprised I was even alive through all of it. I was covered from head to shell in the lava. I hid myself from the outside world because of that night, the lava permanently disfigured my appearance. For years, I stayed out of the picture until about a year ago.. I saw that the land seemed abandoned and I decided to overrule the Yoshi on the island and claim myself as king of this little piece of land. With my former life covered in severe scars, I dismissed my time as a koopaling and claimed myself as a koopa troopa."

Looking at them both as he took off his hat to reveal short purple hair, he pushed the map towards them. "Does that help you any, folks?"

~~~

Orinda looked up from the stair rail he was just about done polishing when Crystal found something behind the door. He looked closely and realized it was Elaine, the female he just spoke to back at the McDonalds. "Lady Elaine", he shouted with a smile. "I may not be a beautiful dragon, but there's no reason to hide from me in here!"

Walking over to Elaine and putting the rag back into his shell, he extended a hand to her. "Please, enlighten us on why you were behind that door. I am quite fascinated."

"Interesting story," Clive said. " I never did like that Mario and some of my friends have died by his hand. You're very lucky to still be alive, for a grown man to dump a child in the lava like that is plain wrong and to mistreat Iggy also. There's just one thing I don't understand. You say you are no longer a koopaling, correct? But if you were born to Bowser, then technically you still are one. You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family. Species don't just turn into another species, that's impossible. Sorry for talking like this but there is a lot of things I have been confused with lately. What with a dragon now being king and a koopaling supposedly magically turning into a koopa troopa."

~~~~~~~

"Oh, I'm sorry," Elaine said surprised at the mention of "Lady". "I was just wondering how can a full-breed dragon like yourself get a shell like that. It looks just like the one Bowser had only redder."

Crystal wasn't sure who this "Elaine" was, but she sure wasn't fond of her attitude at this point. "I'm Crystal", she shot back at the arrogant female. "You seriously think Bowser would leave for two years, let the whole land become a dump and then come back?"

Shaking her head and smiling, she took out a broom from under the staircase and started to sweep the dust off of the bare floor around the carpet. "Like it or not, honey.. Orinda here is our king, the few residents left in Dinosaur Land was here to see him last night be inducted."

She shrugged and had no more to say to the koopa troopa.

Xiuhcoatl studied the eyes of Skittles for a moment and then scratched his chin in thought. "I don't have any currency on me, I'm not sure if Clive does either.. but remember, the king sent us here to help clean up the wreck in Donut Plains."

Looking down at the map for a moment, then looking back to Skittles he spoke in a soft, sincere voice. "As a fellow koopa and child of Bowser, I hope you understand what we're trying to do here."

"No I don't have any money either I'm afraid. I've not long returned to Bowser's old castle and am completely skint," Clive said.


~~~~~

Elaine looked down on Crystal like there was something stuck to her shell and then snorted,

"Who do you think you are talking to me like that? You think you're so special, do you?"

Looking at her wings, she said,

"Hah, you call those wings, I've seen Rexes with bigger wings."

She then walked off with her nose stuck up in the hair.

Skittles started to drum on the table with his hands and closed his eyes, thinking. "Gentlemen", he said with a sigh. "This is a very high risk job, getting the lumber up to the Plains.. but because I see no clear cut way of arranging a payment and visiting the new king myself is out of the question I'll cut you all some slack just this one time."

Getting up from his seat, he began to walk towards the staircase. "I'll get the keys to the machine", he said, with his back turned to them. "But remember, you guys will owe me one as soon as you're able to pay me back."

He walked up the stairs and disappeared from the room. Coming back down a few moments later, he walked back to the table and jingled the keys in his right hand. Pointing to the door with his left hand, he whispered to both of them, "Hope you boys are ready for a wild ride.. lets go."

~~~

Orinda shrugged as Elaine walked away. "She's just jealous", he said to Crystal with a grin. "This shell makes me look beautiful and she knows it." He strutted around jokingly for a moment and then moved onto lifting the rug off the ground starting from the doorway. He beat it along the stone floor, kicking up a massive cloud of dust. "Assuming there is a floor cleaning device here, you best cover your mouth for a few moments."

Crystal shook her head and sighed. "She keeps walking with her nose up, she's bound to walk right into a wall or drown in a rainstorm."

She had most of the floor swept now and had began to move the pile just to the outside right of the main door. The floor looked better, but would definately need a polishing job. She walked up the stairs and went looking for something to get all the dust swept into.

Clive stood up and walked over to the door, "Well let's go then. The sooner we get this job finished, the sooner we can finish work on the castle," Clive said.

~~~~~

Elaine walked down the corridors of Bowser's castle.

"This entire castle is dead. Not even a single Boo either to be found. Now where is that Clive? I was sure I saw him pass by earlier. He's gonna wish he never crossed me by the time I've finished with him"