#just that kamek's got a heart and he hates it lmao

[mrs-luigi-vargas]

Tiny Adventure

Chapter 2 (of 2)

Fic Summary:“Either that spell I’d cast was more powerful than I’d realized,” Kamek slowly said, “Or I somehow managed to shrink myself, instead.” “…” “I’d shrunken myself, didn't I.” Fic Tags: Humor, Shrunken Character, Nonverbal Mario

Word Count: 2,975 words

[AO3 Link] [Link to beginning]

~~~

Kamek woke up just after sunrise.

He sat up, wincing at the noises his back made in protest, blinking blearily at what was left of the campfire. Still not a dream. Damn. And the pain of being one of the greatest wizards of the modern age is that none of the spells you cast tended to wear off on a whim, including this one.

Mario was snoring away, a sound amplified due to his size though still not as loud as the worst of Lord Bowser’s snoring. Kamek quietly left his makeshift bed, wandering away to stretch and privately bemoan the lack of coffee in his vicinity. In the absence of caffeine, Kamek stared vacantly at some beads of dew on a leaf until a loud noise from behind surprised him into spinning around to face it. It was the same bird from yesterday, pecking at the ground as if it hadn't been the one to terrorize him back then.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kamek muttered. The words caught the bird’s attention, of course. The two stared at each other for a long moment.

“So...” Kamek took a step back. “I’ll...be going now, if you don’t mind —”

The bird squawked, flapping its wings to charge. With a shout, Kamek bolted, scrambling to get out of the way of its dive. He clambered up a still-sleeping Mario’s leg — almost getting flung off when Mario sprang awake and kicked it in confusion — and Mario scooped him up the rest of the way. Kamek resisted the urge to stick his tongue out as the bird drew up short and flew away.

“Put me down,” Kamek commanded Mario, heedless of the drowsy glare aimed at him. With a huff, Mario did just that. He then stood, tidying up their campsite. “Leaving so soon?” Kamek called.

Mario raised an eyebrow. He had an evil plan to stop, after all. Still, he extended a hand for Kamek to use to get back into his pocket, and while Kamek didn't really want to take it on account of the humiliation inherent in doing so, it was better if he could make Mario do all the walking for him, instead.

Their trek started off quiet, the both of them busy with some berries Mario had foraged for them to eat. In a few hours they were out of the forest, following the winding curves of the river up to its source. Kamek had spent most of that time napping, due to the lack of caffeine and the desire to try and recover a bit more of his magic. But now he had some extra energy, with which to complain about things such as Mario’s general presence, the loss of his wand and how it prevented Kamek from doing anything about said presence, how being small did almost nothing to alleviate his allergies, somehow, the abysmal texture of Mario’s overalls, the excessive jostling to Mario’s stride —

Mario opened the pocket to glare at Kamek.

Kamek smiled innocently. “I’ll shut up if you go home.”

Mario scoffed.

Kamek’s smirk widened. He stood and peered out at their surroundings; currently they were crossing a small bridge, what was left of the river flowing beneath them. So Kamek made sure not to pull himself out too far, lest he fell and had a terrible time navigating the currents at his size.

On the other side of the bridge, Kamek and Mario heard voices. Mario’s eyes narrowed. He reached for Kamek.

“Wha — Hey!” Kamek kicked at Mario’s hand. “What are you doing?”

Mario ignored Kamek’s protests, dropping moreso than placing him in a nearby bush. Pushing aside the leaves revealed a group of scouts from the base that were approaching Mario. And instead of leaving to warn the others about Mario’s location like they were trained to do, they got it in their heads to try and take him down themselves to gain favor with Lord Bowser. Ughhhhhh. Kamek smacked his forehead. These recruits...!

Obviously, Mario dispatched them quickly. And upon being beaten, those idiot scouts finally decided to do their damn jobs like they were meant to in the first place. Kamek scowled after their retreating forms, and as if they knew he was there and angry with them they ran even faster.

By contrast, Mario was completely unaffected by said scowl when it shifted to him, grinning brightly; unfortunately, he was too used to Kamek’s ire in other contexts to treat it with the seriousness it deserved.

They continued on. The scouts' warning had evidently been passed along, by the way they were next accosted by a group of Koopa guards. Mario stowed Kamek away in another bush without a word and rushed into battle. In this fight, though, the Koopas’ shells getting knocked around made the sphere of collateral damage much larger. So much so that by the time Mario finally defeated his foes, the bush Kamek had been in had been flattened.

Kamek, meanwhile, crawled out from under the rock he relocated to when he’d realized he’d needed a better hiding spot to find Mario frantically searching the area around his first hiding spot. He could leave now, Kamek realized. Slip away, make his way back to the base, grab his spare wand, unshrink himself, fix his broom, and come back to defeat Mario for good. The initial traveling would be a bit difficult, but he didn't get this far in life without being resourceful. But the edge of distress he could see creeping onto Mario’s face from here felt a bit much to leave Mario with, even for him. Especially after...

Before Kamek could make a final decision, Mario turned and spotted him. The open relief on his face had Kamek’s eyes rolling. “I can take care of myself, you know,” he said as Mario ran up to him. Mario smiled weakly.

The farther upriver they traveled, the more soldiers appeared to block their path. Mario had long since stopped bothering to find shelter for Kamek every time and had decided to just try and be careful about what hit him in the chest. It helped that Kamek had managed to scrounge up enough magic and focus for a wandless shield spell — “Of course I can cast spells without a wand, what am I, your average wizard?” — though it took more strain than he was willing to let on.

Unfortunately, none of the groups of minions sent to stop Mario hardly even managed to slow him down. Soon enough, he was staring up at a giant wall spanning from riverbank to riverbank; behind it on one side stretched a convoluted mess of pipes and dials and the occasional small building, and above it loomed the very tip of a waterwheel. On the opposite side of the pipes stretched a wide chute, water rushing out of it over the cliffside.

Mario looked down at Kamek. Kamek looked back up at Mario, because he had no intention of explaining any of this to him.

Around them, minions gasped. “It’s Mario!” they muttered amongst themselves. “What do we do?” If he’d gotten this far, they reasoned, then he’d wipe the floor with all of them for sure; but if they didn't fight back, then Lord Kamek would tear them all a new one for certain!

“What are you all standing around for?” Kamek shouted at them, actively tearing them a new one. “Stop him!”

The minions hesitated. But they could practically hear Kamek yelling at them right now, so it was probably a good idea to try and do something before he actually came to do so.

Kamek ground his teeth, because of course they didn't hear him, and thus didn't know he was here. He geared up to get their attention, and spin his predicament into something that didn't undermine his authority over them, but —

“Ho, there!”

Above them standing on the dam was a figure, a hulking humanoid mass of metal pipes and blocks of concrete. It bent its legs and jumped, hitting the ground hard enough to create a small crater in the grass and for Mario to almost lose his balance and fall over. “So you’re the enemy that Lord Kamek had taken care to warn me about!” it said, staring straight at Mario. It rose from its crouch, standing at its full height of almost thrice the size of said enemy. “Hardly the formidable foe he built you up to be, aren't you?” it remarked, looking Mario up and down.

Still in Mario’s pocket, Kamek scowled. “Hey!” he snapped. “I didn't create you to guard the base against Mario just so you can write him off when you see him —!”

“No matter!” The main guard of the base shifted its weight. “It simply makes it easier to dispose of you posthaste, so that what's being gathered here can be used for its glorious purpose! A purpose you won't live to see!”

“Oh, just give away our all plans, why don't you,” Kamek grumbled, and then the guard surged forward with a punch. Mario threw himself to the side to dodge it, and the fight was on. Kamek wished he could appreciate it, but as it stood he was too busy trying to keep his shield bubble up so he wouldn't be crushed by any of their attacks. What he could gather, though, left him quite impressed. By himself, that is. He really did a solid enchanting job on this particular magical construct, for it to keep up with Mario this well.

Case in point, it got a good right hook in on Mario. Mario went flying in one direction, and Kamek in his shield bubble was knocked away in the other. It was seemingly eons of rolling and bouncing before the bubble finally burst from the strain, sending Kamek tumbling the rest of the way inside a nearby building.

Luckily, the building was empty, so there was no one to witness Kamek groaning and clutching his back in pain as he got to his feet. He shuffled further into the room, the sounds of fighting echoing from outside. Near the back wall was a large computer console, connected to screens with readings and graphs that he couldn't read from his place on the ground. But he needed to read them, because this was the console linked to the main generator and thus could give him information about how much energy this operation had gathered up until now. Kamek sighed. He approached the console and started climbing.

At the top, he needed more than a few moments to catch his breath. A part of him thought that maybe it was time to admit he was too old for all this. The rest of him thought that he would be in this business until the day he died anyway, so what did it matter how old he was? Regardless, now that he was up here he could properly judge the progress made in his absence. And to his surprise, the meters showed that they had gathered just enough energy and resources for the next phase of Lord Bowser’s plan to work. So maybe the minions weren’t so incompetent after all.

Speaking of surprisingly competent, Kamek looked through the window and saw Mario and his construct-guard still locked in battle. Mario was very handily losing; it was almost as if it was toying with him at this point. The sight would normally fill Kamek with glee, but for some reason those feelings weren’t manifesting themselves. On one hand, Mario losing was ideal, because at best they could stamp him out for good and at worst they could delay him for long enough to get some extra power from this river before they were forced to abandon it. But on the other hand...

Kamek looked back out the window, towards the fight. He thought about his journey to get here, back to the base. He sighed. He jumped behind the console, and with a flick of his wrist he floated down to the ground.

Though its helmet was misshapen and its stone armor chipped, exposing its metallic skeleton, Kamek’s magical construct-guard still loomed over a collapsed Mario, assured in its victory. With gritted teeth, Mario searched for an opening he could take advantage of, before he was finished off for good. But his opponent wasn't presenting an opening like Mario needed it to, even as it raised a hand for a final blow.

So the universe deigned to give him one itself, by way of loud cracking of stone from farther away. Over the guard’s shoulder, the dam keeping most of the river at bay bloomed with cracks and fissures, water seeping out and growing them larger to the tune of increasingly loud rumbling.

Mario’s eyes widened in alarm. He hurried to his feet to run. The construct-guard lunged after him, intent on seeing this fight to its end. It swung its arm up and clipped Mario’s shoulder blade, knocking him to the ground at practically the same time the dam crumpled and gave way.

The other minions’d had enough sense, speed, and distance to avoid the bulk of the water flow, but Mario and the construct-guard lacked most of those things. So down the river they were swept, the torrents of water sending them tumbling all the way back to that little bridge, where Mario managed to pull himself onto dry land. He crawled far enough from the shore that the water couldn't drag him back into its grasp, and then he sat there and coughed for a while. As he regained his breath, he wondered what happened to —

The construct-guard burst forth from the river in a shower of droplets that Mario scrambled back to avoid. If it could gasp for breath it probably would be doing so, hunched over as it was; it raised its head to glare at Mario, its glowing eye pinning him in the middle of resuming a fighting stance.

“You...!” it growled. Its voice sounded waterlogged. “I have to admit, that was a clever trick you pulled! But you will not” — it stood up straight, creaking the whole way — “get the best of me that easily...!”

The construct-guard raised its hand for another blow. Mario braced himself for the hit. But as its hand came down, its arm stuttered, catching on something unseen. And with a metallic groan, its arm stopped.

“Wha —?” It turned its head in confusion. Its neck got stuck halfway. It lifted its other arm to fix it, and the shoulder twitched and jerked with a shrieking screech that had Mario wincing. “What is — h-happening —?”

Mario didn't give it any time to sort itself out; as it was still trying to stop from seizing up completely, he rushed forward, pulling his hammer out of his pocket. He reared back and swung, knocking the still-malfunctioning construct-guard back into the rapidly rushing river behind it. Its voice warbled on a scream as it was carried away; the sound of it cut off long before it became too far away to hear. With any luck, the townspeople at the end of the river will have the sense to fish the metal out of the river before it rusted over.

Inhale, exhale. Mario put his hammer away. Now that the fight was over, Mario could go and find Kamek, who’d fallen out of his pocket during the fight and bounced off somewhere. And...had probably gotten caught up in the dam’s collapse. And with him being so small...!

Mario’s first harried sweep of the immediate area came up fruitless. As did the next, and the next. Should he go back to the start of the river, and retrace steps from there? Or should he start from the end of the river and try to work backwards? Mario wasted precious seconds trying to decide which to do and then realized he probably didn't have that time to waste.

He was considering diving back into the river to see if Kamek was trapped somewhere beneath the surface when he heard coughing and hacking and sputtering from the other side of the bridge. Mario ran towards the sound and it was Kamek, soaking wet and somehow fully-sized!

Mario’s sigh of relief was audible, and it caught Kamek’s attention. With one last cough, Kamek straightened up in a partially-successful attempt to look less like a drowned rat. Kamek frowned upon seeing Mario, and that frown deepened to a scowl as he looked past Mario upriver; though the damage the dam bursting had caused was barely visible from here, it was still easy to imagine all the wreckage it left behind.

“But I hope you don't think this little victory matters,” Kamek said, head held high. “We’ve already gotten all we needed from this backwater place. Something you’ll come to regret when the rest of Lord Bowser’s plan gets off the ground!”

Mario looked less sufficiently-wary than usual at Kamek’s proclamation, the little pleased smile still sitting on his face messing with the usual dynamic. Kamek’s stance faltered at the deviation from the norm.

“I-in any case.” Kamek took out his broom. The wood was soaked dark. “I’d say see you later, but I’d rather you save us both the trouble. But I suppose I’ll have to make you, next time.” He mock-sighed. “It should be fun crushing you into paste, at least!”

At this, Mario finally frowned. Cackling, Kamek got on his broom and flew away; his flight path was unsteady, and he stuttered and jolted his way to being a tiny speck in the blue sky. Mario watched him until he disappeared behind a passing cloud, and then he jumped off to go check on the town at the end of the river and see if he could help solve any problems the recent flash flooding had probably caused.