Curse of the Crown Part 1

“Curse of the Crown Part 1” (Volume 3, Story 6)

Early one morning, Toad, Toadette, and Yoshi woke up to see the sun rising early. Since no one else was awake and there were no places to get a donut (Yoshi was hungry for some donuts) open yet, so the three friends decided to go for a walk. They walked in the woods outside the Mushroom Kingdom.

“Sure is a nice day out,” said Toad happily.

“Yeah. Now I see why Sonic loves to go for runs, and why Kate likes to go on walks with her dog,” said Toadette.

“Hey guys, check that out!” said Yoshi.

He pointed to a cave nearby.

“I haven’t seen that cave before. Wonder what’s in there…” said Yoshi.

“Uh Yoshi, I think we should stay out of there,” said Toadette.

“My sister’s right. Besides, I think the donut place is open now,” said Toad.

“Oh… I just wanna see what’s inside real quick. You can wait out here if you want,” said Yoshi.

Yoshi walked inside the cave, leaving Toad and Toadette alone in the woods.

“Hope he doesn’t run into any bats, or bears,” said Toadette.

“That cave’s most likely empty. Not many animals live in these woods, especially after Bowser sent his minions to attack us the first time,” said Toad.

Inside the cave, Yoshi walked around for a little bit. It wasn’t a very large cave, but it was bright enough from the sunlight for him to see inside. No animals were inside, so Yoshi felt calm ad he explored the cave and looked around. At the end of the cave, he noticed something glittering in the dirt.

“What’s this?” he asked.

He dug up the dirt to get a better look at what was in the dirt. After about five minutes of digging, Yoshi was able to pull it out. It was some sort of crown. It was made of gold, had three red gems in the frame, and had the letter “D” engraved on it.

“A crown? Wow! I gotta show the others! Oh, I wonder how it looks on my head,” Yoshi said.

He started to put the crown on, but he suddenly remembered a flashback of when he was playing with something in the tree house. One time, he and Mario were looking around and found two brooms. They put on some hockey gear and wanted to have a fencing duel with them, but one of the brooms was actually charmed by Katelyn, so that it would clean the floor on its own, while the other was charmed to be a flying broom stick, as a birthday gift for Cream.

“Oh… maybe I should take this to Kate and Rosalina first. I don’t know much about magical stuff as much as they seem to know,” said Yoshi, lowering the crown away from his head.

He walked out of the cave to go back to Toad and Toadette.

Yoshi made it back to the castle with Toad and Toadette. They found Peach in the library and asked her where Katelyn and Rosalina were.

“I’m sorry Yoshi, but Katelyn’s still at home. Besides, Rosalina’s not here right now, because she asked Mario, Sonic, and Tails to help her out with an issue with something at her observatory that occurred when she landed here on our planet last night,” said Peach.

“Wonder what could be their issue…” said Toad.

*With Mario, Sonic, Tails, and Rosalina*

“Watch out!” shouted Sonic.

He quickly pulled Rosalina away from harm. Since early this morning, he and the other guys have tried to help Rosalina get rid of a Bullet Bill that broke into the observatory.

“WAAHHHH!” cried Tails.

He quickly took cover as the Bullet Bill chased him, hiding in a room that protected him but also trapped him inside. The Bullet Bill crashed into the door, but couldn’t break it down. He backed up, and tried a few more times to get the door open.

“Can’t let that jerk explode…” muttered Mario.

“TAILS!” shouted Sonic.

He ran over to the Bullet Bill and did a homing attack to get its attention.

“Come get me rock brain!” he shouted.

 The Bullet Bill chased after him.

*Back with Yoshi, Toad, Toadette, and Peach*

“Eh, Tails is probably helping fix the telescope,” Toadette said with a shrug.

“Well, why don’t you look after it before Katelyn gets here?” Peach suggested to Yoshi.

“Sure! I can do that!” said Yoshi happily.

“I guess we’ll wait at the tree house for Katelyn then,” said Toad.

“Oh, I’ll just wait here in the Mushroom Kingdom until then. Besides, I want to sign up for the pie eating contest when it opens up today!” said Yoshi happily.

Yoshi ran off to the town on his own, holding the crown. Toad and Toadette only shrugged their shoulders and walked to the tree house.

Early afternoon arrived, and Yoshi was sitting in the park. He had won the pie eating contest and was wearing the first place ribbon around his neck, but he needed to rest after eating so many pies. He had the crown with him, but he still kept it off his head, and he placed it next to him.

While Yoshi was at the park, over at the Comet Observatory, Sonic, Mario, and Tails finally got the Bullet Bill out of Rosalina’s home.

“That’s right! Now maybe you’ll think twice before you come back here!” Sonic shouted angrily, waving a baseball bat in the air.

“Calm down, Sonic…” Tails said with a sigh.

“Whatever. Let’s head back,” said Mario.

He, Sonic, and Tails headed back. Rosalina stayed back at the Comet Observatory.

As for Toad and Toadette, they were still waiting at the tree house for Katelyn to come through the portal to get into their world. She finally came a little bit later, and she was carrying a plate with a slice of pizza and a can of Sprite, with her laptop bag slung across her shoulder.

“Oh, hey Toad. Hey Toadette,” she said. “I was just going to work on scholarships here, but you can stay if you want. Hope you don’t mind listening to Linkin Park music while I work.”

“That’s nice, Katelyn. But Yoshi found some sort of crown, and while he keeps an eye on it, he wants to know if you can help us figure out if it’s charmed or not,” Toadette explained.

“Crown? Hmm… can you describe it for me?” asked Katelyn.

“It was bronze, had red gems, and had the letter ‘D’ on it,” said Toad.

Katelyn walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out a history book of some sort. She flipped through the pages until she found a page that had a picture of the crown on it.

“Is this it?” she asked them.

“Yep. That’s it,” said Toadette.

“Let’s see, the story behind this crown is that there was a devil who wore it. He could control anyone and make them do almost anything. However, an angel who had a crown that looked like a complete opposite version of his crown stepped forward, and used its powers to engage in a mind control battle with him. Unfortunately, neither could overpower the other, so they battled for years until they came to their senses to stop. They hid their crowns somewhere, one near the Mushroom Kingdom, and the other near Mobodoom. The power inside the crowns remains, but it’s said that it one puts on the demon’s crown, then they won’t control themselves and control others to do their bidding,” Katelyn said, looking through the book.

“Oh no, what if Yoshi puts on the crown!?” cried Toad.

Katelyn put the book down on the kitchen table next to her laptop bag.

“I’ll go and see if he’s okay, but if I’m not back in an hour, go to Rosalina and tell her what happened. She might help you guys figure out a solution if you can’t get my help,” said Katleyn.

She ran out the door and straight to the Mushroom Kingdom.

Over at the Mushroom Kingdom, Yoshi was still sitting on the bench. He felt much better now from all the pies he ate, but he stared at the crown for a bit after picking it up.

“I wanna wait for Kate, but I wanna try it on at the same time. Maybe I’ll put it on for just a second,” Yoshi said to himself.

He put the crown on his head, but after he let his grip on it lose, he could feel the world around him blacking out. Yoshi suddenly felt the urge to control everyone, and his eyes turned red.

“I feel… empowered…” he said with an evil grin.

*Fifteen minutes later…*

Katelyn finally made it to the Mushroom Kingdom. When she got there, everything seemed normal. The toads were working like they normally would, but something seemed odd when Peach was also doing work. And she wasn’t the only one who wasn’t a Toad working either. Daisy, Luigi, Rouge, and everyone else was doing work to.

Katelyn searched among the crowd and found Yoshi. He had the crown on his head, his eyes were red, and he was dressed in black.

“That’s right slaves! Keep working!” Yoshi laughed evilly at them, whipping some people with a whip.

The people who were working had grey eye colors, and they continued to do their work.

“Yes, Master Yoshi…” they all moaned.

Katelyn stepped forward toward Yoshi.

“Yoshi! Snap out of it! You’re not yourself! It’s the crown that made you this way!” Katelyn said to him, almost angrily.

“No one tells me what to do! Now Katelyn Staples, bow to me!” Yoshi shouted.

Katelyn tried to have control of her own body, but she could feel the spell get into her mind. She lost focus and was hypnotized.

“Yes, Master Yoshi…” she moaned.

She got down and bowed to him.

“Now, Katelyn Staples, march to my castle and lock yourself in the dungeon!” Yoshi shouted.

“Yes, Master Yoshi…” she moaned, as she started to walk to Peach’s castle.

While all this was going on, a familiar figure was hiding behind a tree and watching what was happening. Tails was watching with a worried look. When he, Mario, and Sonic returned, the trio heard some commotion. Mario and Sonic went to investigate, but they never came back. Tails, worried about what happened to his friends, snuck over to the scene and witnessed what was going on. He was lucky that Yoshi hadn’t found him yet, or else he could have ended up trapped under the strange spell that Yoshi was unleashing.

“Oh man… what am I going to do? Maybe I should go to Rosalina, and the two of us can get to the tree house and wait out for it to become night. Surely, Yoshi should send everyone to bed…” he whispered to himself.

The fox checked to see if the coast was clear. Once it was, he quickly flew out of sight and towards where Rosalina landed the Comet Observatory.

On his way back to Rosalina, Tails noticed Toad and Toadette. They appeared to be heading to Rosalina as well, so he flew down and gave them a ride on his back as he flew over to the Comet Observatory. As they flew over as a group, it took a conversation to help them all put two and two together.

“Oh no! As long as he has that crown on his head, Yoshi’s possessed!” cried Toad.  “He’s possessed by the demons!”

“Not the demons, but by the power of that crown. There’s gotta be a way to get that thing off his head,” said Toadette.

“First, we should get to Rosalina. She might want to help us out,” said Tails.

Tails planted his feet on the ground and stopped flying for a minute. Toad and Toadette got off his back and the three of them walked over to the Comet Observatory. Rosalina and her Lumas were finishing up cleaning up anything else that the Bullet Bill messed up.

“Oh Tails. I appreciate the extra help, but my Lumas and I can continue cleaning. Besides, we are about to finish up,” said Rosalina.

“We didn’t come back for that. There’s a situation going on back at the Mushroom Kingdom: Yoshi found a cursed crown and put it on his head, and now, he’s been controlling everyone to do whatever he says. He got even Mario, Sonic, and Katelyn! Everyone’s working for him, well, except Katelyn. He told her to go to the dungeon,” Tails explained.

“And just great, because Katelyn read about the crown in some book,” said Toad.

“We don’t remember which book, or what she said about the crown…” said Toadette.

“Let’s head back and rescue Katelyn then. But let’s wait until dark. Hopefully, Yoshi will be in bed and told everyone to be somewhere out of the way,” said Rosalina.

Nighttime finally arrived, so Tails, Rosalina, Toad, and Toadette made their way back to the Mushroom Kingdom. When they arrived, everyone who was still controlled was still working. As for Yoshi, he was sitting on a throne in the middle of the kingdom. Shadow, Espio, Manic, and Sonic were all close to the throne, maybe to help carry it to wherever Yoshi wanted them to take him.

“Oh no. What are we going to do?” whispered Toadette.

She, Toad, Tails, and Rosalina were hiding in some bushes, looking around the area.

“I think, if we can pretend that we’re under the spell like everyone else, then they won’t suspect that we aren’t controlled. But we better keep a distance from Yoshi, or else he might put the spell on us. Follow my lead,” whispered Tails.

He picked a good time to come out from the hiding spot, stood up, and started walking over to the castle. Toad, Rosalina, and Toadette followed him. They walked, similar to how everyone else was, but they suddenly came up to Peach.

“Where are you off to for Master Yoshi?” she moaned.

“We are going to check on the castle for Master Yoshi…” Tails moaned, pretending to be controlled.

“Yes. For Master Yoshi…” Rosalina moaned, pretending also.

“Carry on…” Peach moaned.

She walked away, which let Tails and his group continue to the castle. They made it inside, still pretending to be under control as they walked past Mario and Sonic. A few minutes later, they made it to the dungeon. Katelyn was standing in a cell, holding a cup with the same, blank expression she had when she was hit by the spell. Her eyes were also still grey, which indicated that she was still being controlled.

“Katelyn, can you hear us?” Toad whispered.

“Water… water…” Katelyn moaned.

“She must be thirsty! I’ll get her some water!” said Toadette.

She quickly ran out of the dungeon. Toadette made it to the back gardens and ran over to a well. She picked up a bucket and lowered it into the well to pick up some water.

“Toadette… what are you doing?” a voice moaned.

Toadette turned around to see Sticks, who was also controlled, coming over to her. Remembering to pretend that she was also controlled, Toadette moaned, “Getting water, for Master Yoshi…”

Sticks seemed to buy it, because she turned around and moaned, “Carry on…” and walked away.

Once Sticks was gone, Toadette made her way back to the dungeon and to her friends. She handed Rosalina the bucket. Rosalina took the water and poured some into Katelyn’s cup. However, instead of drinking the water, Katelyn poured it on her head.

“Oh dear, she forgot how to drink water…” Toad said sadly.

“Ha! It works!” said Katelyn happily.

The group stared at Katelyn in amazement. She wasn’t moaning while she was talking, and her eyes were back to their normal shade of brown!

“Katelyn! You’re not being controlled!” said Tails.

“Yeah. Water seems to be the weakness of the spell. But… it won’t snap Yoshi out of the trance from the crown. I have an idea on how to wake him and everyone up, but we need to get back to the tree house first,” said Katelyn.

“Yeah. Yoshi might notice something odd when he finds out that you’re not in here anymore,” Tails pointed out.

“Hope they haven’t noticed anything yet,” said Toad.

*Meanwhile, outside the castle…*

“Master Yoshi, has Toadette brought the water you’ve requested?” Sticks moaned to Yoshi.

“Water! Never! That is the end of my reign among my slaves! And Toadette! She, Toad, Rosalina, and Tails were not present at all today! Find them, and bring them to me!” Yoshi shouted angrily.

Tails and his group managed to open Katelyn’s cell door, so the group started to sneak out the back.

“Wait, do you guys hear something?” asked Rosalina.

“Find them!” they heard Yoshi shout.

“Shoot! He knows I escaped!” said Katelyn.

“Either that, or he figured out that those who he hasn’t controlled yet are here!” said Toadette.

“Forget what pulled his trigger! Run! We need to get out of here!” Tails cried.

The group started to run as fast as they could. Sonic and Shadow came up to them quickly though. The grey color in their eyes indicated that they were being controlled.

“Get out of our way!” Katelyn shouted at them.

Using her powers, she lifted them up and threw them back towards the Mushroom Kingdom with the wave of her hand.

However, the rest of their controlled friends were coming, and at the back of the pack was Yoshi.

“Quick! Grab onto me!” Katelyn shouted to Toad, Toadette, Tails, and Rosalina.

The four of them quickly grabbed onto Katelyn’s arms. Before Yoshi could shout anything, Katelyn quickly teleported the five of them away from their location and all the way back at the Comet Observatory.

“That was too close…” said Toad with a sigh of relief.

“What are we going to do? I know we can use water to wake up the controlled, but one command from possessed Yoshi, then they’ll be back to being controlled. And water can’t wake up Yoshi. Only getting that crown off his head can wake him up, as well as everyone else,” said Katelyn.

“How can we get the crown off his head without getting controlled ourselves? Did the book say anything that can stand up to that crown and whoever wields it?” asked Rosalina.

“The book only had a story about how the crown on Yoshi’s head was used by a demon, but an angel with a crown similar to the demon’s crown came in and stood up to him. The only difference was that the angel had his free will,” said Katelyn, scratching her chin as she told them what she remembered reading.

“Wait! A second crown! And if you put it on, then you can control your own free will? Maybe if we get that crown and stand up to Yoshi!” said Tails.

“I remember! It said one crown was by the Mushroom Kingdom, and the other is near Mobotropoils!” said Toad.

“We should get that crown and use it against Yoshi!” said Rosalina.

“But wait, who’s going to use it, and what if they get controlled like with the other crown?” asked Toadette.

“The angel’s crown shouldn’t corrupt whoever puts on the crown, but just to be sure, I’ll put it on. I don’t want to endanger you guys, since Yoshi chasing us with our friends under our control is already a hazard,” said Katelyn.

While the friends were working on how to handle the situation with Yoshi possessed, Bowser and Eggman were on their way to the Mushroom Kingdom. They had a few robots and Koopa Troopas with them, ready to attack and kidnap Peach again.

“I doubt we can kidnap Peach, but at least I can finally fight Staples…” Eggman muttered.

“Yeah! I really hate how she’s made Mario, Sonic, and their friends stronger…” said Bowser.

“I think I hear something, papa…” said Bowser Jr.

The group hid behind some trees to see Yoshi controlling everyone. He was telling everyone to find Katelyn and her group.

“What’s up with green nose?” Bowser laughed. He came out of his hiding spot and walked over to Yoshi.

“Hey big nose! What are you doing with your stupid friends?” he laughed at him.

Yoshi sneered at Bowser.

“Bowser! I command you to dance like a chicken!” Yoshi said with an evil laugh.

Now controlled, Bowser moaned,” Yes, Master Yoshi…”

Eggman and Bowser Jr. watched in amazement as they saw Yoshi control Bowser. But Yoshi spotted them and shouted, “Eggman and Bowser Jr.! I command the two of you to caw like crows, and fly off a cliff!”

“Yes, Master Yoshi…” they moaned.

The two of them cawed like crowns, flapped their arms like wings, and ran off. All their robots and Koopa Troopas quickly fled in panic, not wanting to be controlled by Yoshi.

“Bowser! I command you to run around like a scardy cat!” Yoshi shouted at Bowser.

“Yes, Master Yoshi…” Bowser moaned.

He started to run around and scream like a little girl, following after Eggman and Jr. in the process.

Once the controlled villains were gone, Yoshi laughed evilly and said, “Who can stop me? Who?”

To be continued…