Power Ups that Nintendo didn't put in the game...

“What is that?” The assistant asked looking over Lara’s shoulder.

Lara brushed the remaining soil off the stone carving as carefully as possible, the carving had shown an army of upright walking turtles attacking the tribe of this ancient rain forest, and this was the biggest one, by comparison to the important Tribesman that he held, the monster must have been the size of a Land rover sitting on it’s boot bumper.

“Well from the headdress and the figures surrounding it, I would say this is the high chieftain or emperor of these turtle demons…” Lara said, “And according to the story here, the locals just barely beat them back into this portal… and built this temple over it.”

One of the El Savador National University students muttered something. Lara caught the terms for sewage and river.

“You, Pedro was it? What did you say?” Lara turned and addressed the student.

The young man turned red and his friends all looked at him with ‘you got caught’ grins.

“Is nothing Doctor,” the young man said.

“Come on, any observations might provide insight,” Lara said, “The Story goes that one of Carters students pointed out that the last place to search in the Valley of the Kings was right where they had set up camp the previous years, and that resulted in them finding the Tomb of King Tut.”

“I said that that pipe resembles the toilet waste pipes dumping ahhh, poop into a river, Doctor Croft,” Pedro stammered.

Lara tapped her chin with the end of the brush’s handle and thought for a second before standing up.

“Well, you are not wrong…” Lara said, “That does look like the pipes sticking out into the River Themes in London…”

There was a round of chuckles.

“I suppose that we could read this with Jewish glasses,” Lara said looking around.

“Excuse me Doctor?” another student said.

“Someone bring me a piece of that bamboo, cut at the knuckle,” Lara started, “You folks know why the Jews consider it dirty to eat pork? Well in the old days, if you didn’t clean it completely, and cook it to perfect standards, you could get sick from what we call parasites and bacteria… but the Ancient Hebrews used terms that more closely translates to ‘deamons’ or ‘unclean spirits’. And if the people who built this found a tainted water source, these ‘turtle demons’ might represent the plague they piped into their village with bamboo pipes.”

Lara took the cut end of the pipe and held it next to the carvings to show how much the bamboo resembled the end of the pipe…

“Of course that pipe does look like old wells turned sideways too,” Lara added, “What have we learned for sure so far?”

“Don’t drink water with demon turtle bacteria in it?” one of the students said from the back.

Everyone chuckled.

“Well, I would say, that we need to do a more complete excavation before we come to any conclusions,” Lara said, “But yes, make sure to boil any water and use purification tablets.”

*

Floating in the air was what looked like two lilies kissing with their stems bowed out and wrapped around each other to form a heart in the middle…

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Peach said, “It must be a power up, but I have no idea what it does…”

“Where did it come from?” Daisy asked.

“I don’t know,” Peach said, “Could it be what took the Toads?”

“Maybe,” Daisy said, “I don’t see any other weird ones in this closet.”

“Let’s keep looking,” Peach said as she opened another closet, “Oh my!”

In it was stacks of glowing x shaped hourglasses. Sand was pouring from the two top bulbs into a single middle one and then into two more at the base.

“What?” Daisy said looking into the closet, “What do those do?”

“I don’t know, but there are five, nine… fifteen of them stacked up in here,” Peach said, “And no signs of the Toads…”

“Why fifteen of them? Might they be some of the traps that took the Toads?” Daisy asked.

“All the more reason to not touch them,” Peach said closing the closet, “This is the stair case…”

*

“What about you?” The detective snapped, “You got anything to say?”

Luigi leaned his head forward, stopping his gazing into the ceiling and looked right at the detective.

“I would like some water and to speak with the public defender, please,” Luigi said calmly.

“Yeah, sure, fine,” The detective said getting up, “You are going to want to have a long talk with them…”

Luigi sat still while the detective and three patrolmen left the room, then turned to his brother.

“Really Luigi?” Mario said.

“Remember our Civics classes?” Luigi said, “They have to let us talk to a public defender, they have to let us talk to any lawyer before they can question us any fu’ther…”

“Like that will help,” Mario said.

“They already think we are nuts from what you told them about just finding the machine guns and then bam, right in front of a police station….” Luigi said, “You could probably tell them all about Bowser, the Koopas, the Mushroom kingdom and Peach and get us sent to a crazy house. At least if we talk to a lawyer before that, we might be able to get a hold of Momma and Pappa.”

“You think we would be able to see Momma and Pappa in Ryker’s Island?” Mario asked.

“It has to be easier to make a phone call from Rykers than from where we were,” Luigi said, “Who ever set us up, set us up good and solid.”

“Yeah, I hope Peach and Daisy don’t need us right away, because we are not going anywhere for a long time…”

*

“I really wish Mario and Luigi were here!” Daisy said.

“Ick, yes, on a side note, I need to have the toads clean out this basement more often, so many cobwebs,” Peach said.

“I don’t see any signs that the Koopas or others broke in throw here…” Daisy said knocking on the walls and stopping on the floors.

“I found another weird powerup,” Peach said, “And I have no idea what this one is for…”

It was shiny studded black heart spinning with pink and purple straps dividing it into triangles.

“That is weird, not as weird as those mannequin torsos with the straps we found in the other room,” Daisy said.

Peach thought of the female forms with only the torso, shoulders, upper arms hips and thighs that she had found a short time ago.

“Or those strange curved boxes with the plus markings,” Peach added.

“I hope the Toadettes are having better luck in the city, because if Bowser attacked right now, we are screwed,” Daisy said.

“Yeah…”

*

“Kamek! Where the in the Twisted Neither have you and Lord Bowser disappeared to!” Kammy Koopa shouted as she slowly made her way down the hall on her broom, “I swear those two keep ditching their responsibilities to leave me with Bowser Junior to play hooky all the damn time!”

Kammy, stopped and slowly backed up her broom with loud beeping noises to indicated it was in reverse…

“What in the fuck is all of this shit?” Kammy asked as she looked into the open door to her left before pulling into the room, “What did Bowser buy this time?”

Kammy pulled in the door and steered her broom towards the large portrait stands with veil covered portraits. Kammy snapped her fingers and her glasses became jewelers glasses and she rotated focal lens in place to read the engraved tags above each picture.

“MR as 93 LA BDMB? 93LA Lena as FLLLS? CA as 93LA Wendy FLLLS? What the fuck is this shit?” Kammy shouted, “Wendy get your ass in here right now! GA as LA Bowletta FLLS? What in the nine hell?”

*

“I have to hand it to the Toadettes,” Daisy mumbled with her mouth full, “That’s a good sandwich!”

“Yes,” Peach said as she lead the way up the stairs, “Luigi taught them how to make it, Mario calls them Phillies…”

“Like a horse?” Daisy said stopping for a moment.

“No, thankfully, he said they were named for a city called Philadelphia,” Peach said, “I had the same concern.”

Daisy finished the sandwich as Peach opened the door to the third floor.

“I must say, thank goodness the Toadettes are almost all accounted for,” Peach said, “I am still concerned about Mario and Luigi…”

“I am sure they are fine,” Daisy said to reassure herself as much as Peach, “They will be back shortly.”

*

“I am going to recommend we go with the insanity plea, just tell the Judge everything you told me,” the lady from the Public Defenders’ office said, “A year up state at a hospital and you be back in town at a halfway house…”

“Now are these Girlfriends in the room with us now?” the man from the Public Defenders’ office asked, “What about the turtles, the ‘Koopas’ as you called them?”

Mario raised his head from the table and looked around the room.

“Nope, no Peach, no Daisy, no Koopas… just me, Luigi and two so called lawyers,” Mario said glumly.

“Look can you at least help us get ahold of our parents?” Luigi said, “I know we got a cousin that went to Law School.”

“Vinny?” Mario asked, “That loud mouth? We are dead.”

*

“There are a lot of these Lily power ups,” Daisy noted, “and what is with all of the different colored leaves?”

“I am not sure,” Peach said as she closed the closet, “But we are almost done with this floor.”

“How many more floors?" Daisy asked.

"Just one and the towers,” Peach said, “Anything in that closet?”

Daisy opened the closet and found yet another strange power up.

“What do you suppose the black angle things are?” Daisy asked.

“I am not sure,” Peach said looking over, “But they come with those slanted boxes power ups.”

A sudden load bang got both ladies’ attention as they rushed out into the next room where the noise came from.

“What happened?” a Toadette was shouting.

“And you wanted to use that in me?” another snapped.

“What is going on?” Peach snapped as she burst in the room.

“What took out that mirror?” Daisy said looking around the room.

The two Toadette blushed red with embarrassment. One was holding what looked like one of the new power ups, except it was made with a metal center and pipes out one end with a wooden back and a wooden handle under one of the metal tubes sticking out of one end.

“Put that thing down, gently,” Peach ordered trying not to scare the Toadettes anymore than they already were, “Now step back and tell me what happened.”

The Toadettes did as Peach instructed and then stood against a wall.

“Now what happened?” Daisy asked as she went over to look at the broken mirror.

“We found these weird power ups and that thing appeared in her hands when she touched one,” one of the Toadettes said, “These appeared in my hand when I touched another with a green cross next to it.”

The Toadette held out brass and red objects. Peach came over and took one and examined it.

“Daisy, do you know what ‘Buckshot’ is?” Peach asked.

“No…” Daisy said turning back to face her friend.

“Mario might know,” Peach said.

“Why do you say that?” Daisy asked.

“Because it is written in the script that Mario uses on his world,” Peach said, “I had to learn it to write messages to him, Bowser and the Koopas still can’t read it. It is marked ‘0 0 Buckshot’ here and ‘Enfield 12, GA’ on the bottom.”

“12 Gah?” Daisy said walking over.

“No, just a capital G and A…” Peach said handing the thing to Daisy, “So these materialized in your hands, then what happened?”

“We talked for a bit, and tried to figure out what they were and how they worked…” the other Toadette continued to blush before taking a deep breath and fessing up, “I noticed the switches there by that grip in the middle and tried them… and then it went boom and took out the mirror.”

“Ok, go down to the kitchen and don’t touch any more power ups,” Peach said.

Peach waited for the two to leave before turning to Daisy.

“That thing launched a bunch of small balls at the mirror,” Daisy said.

“What?” Peach asked, “Why do you say that?”

“I saw a couple of holes in the wall behind the mirror and look, you can barely see the black balls inside when you hold it in the light like this,” Daisy noted.

Peach put one hand to her chin and the other on her waist as she looked at the thing on the floor.

“Ok, so we know we have seen a few of these around the castle already,” Peach said, “And we have seen power ups with the green crosses that look like those near these one… so they are more ammunition for those?”

“Sounds right,” Daisy said, “What about that? How does that work?”

“I am not sure,” Peach said, “But I am guessing that that end is the dangerous end where those balls flew out at the mirror.”

Peach pointed at the open end of the metal tube on top.

“And these have to be the controls here,” Peach said pointing at the ring with multiple buttons and switches sticking out from it.

“Do you think any of these showed up in the Darklands?” Daisy asked as concern washed over her face.

“I hope not,” Peach said, “I really wish Mario was here, he would know more about these things.”

*

“Well, what is it?” Kammy shouted.

“How am I suppose to know?” Wendy O Koopa snapped at the older Magikoopa.

“It has your name on it!” Kammy snapped back before pointing her wand at Wendy.

“Yeah, so?” Wendy said, “That one in back has your name on it!” Wendy said.

“Yours is right up front!” Kammy snapped, “We start with that one! Now remove that veil…”

Wendy turned to look behind her only to see the end of the wand pointing right at her face.

“Remove it child…” Kammy said.

“I’ll tell Daddy Koopa about this…” Wendy said as she reached her clawed hand out to pull off the shroud over the displayed portrait.