Through The Looking Glass Chapter 1-A
Banjo: Chapter 1
It was a rather sunny morning in Spiral Mountain. Of course, Banjo never normally needed to know this fact at all, given that he owned the place and knew essentially every nook and cranny of the quiet mountain and the fields surrounding it, right down to the arrangement of the stones in Gruntilda Winkibunion's old lair.
He never normally needed to know that on an entirely different level as well; in his days after Gruntilda's humiliating defeat at Showdown Town, Banjo and Kazooie had been running around the mountain, hoping to keep their shape for whatever adventure they would go on next. And for Banjo and Kazooie, it would begin like any normal day...
"Move it, Banjo!" shouted Kazooie, sitting within the blue backpack that had served as her home for all of the adventures she and Banjo had been on. "My legs are itching to do something other than sit around here all day!"
"I'm working on it!" shouted Banjo in reply, moving as fast as he could.
The honey bear simply grabbed a hold of his yellow shorts, running faster around the mountain. One hundred laps around the mountain was was usually began their day, with the first fifty being run by the bear and the second fifty being done by the breegull on a Talon Trot. Banjo was busy running his final lap around the mountain, with Kazooie being more than eager to taunt her best friend to move faster.
Finally, however, Banjo's feet plodded over the now-repaired bridge that marked where each lap around the mountain would begin. As soon as this was done, Banjo stopped, panting a little as he came out of his run.
"Okay..." he said between pants, his hands on his knees as he looked down, tongue sticking out almost comically. "Your... turn..."
"All right!" shouted Kazooie as her legs popped out from the bottom of the blue backpack on Banjo's back. Her own feet touched down on the earth, and then Banjo was hoisted up, his legs hanging in the air as Kazooie's wings came out as well to help support the weight of the honey bear. "Here we go!"
And the red breegull was off, running the fifty laps around the mountain much faster than Banjo could ever hope to run. In this time, Banjo simply focused on the feel of the wind running through his brown fur as he cooled off, preparing for the second event of the day; running around, having walks in various locations around the Isle 'o Hags while searching for something interesting to do.
Bear and bird had pretty much nothing to do ever since their last adventure; Grunty had been put to labor at the factory of the Lord of Games, and ever since then life had been incredibly boring. This running around was their way of making up for all the eight years of time wasted on pizza and video games, as they were in no way willing to gain all that weight again. Therefor, they did nothing but run around all day for two years (of course with the occasional supply run to Showdown Town), hoping something would pull them into a new adventure somewhere along the way.
As he thought of all this, the fifty laps seemed to go faster, and before he knew it, Kazooie had stopped at the bridge again.
"Okay, fifty laps," said the breegull, panting lightly as she spoke. "Now we're free to do whatever."
At this, Banjo's feet hit the ground rather quickly, and then Kazooie pulled her legs into the backpack before turning around.
"Right," said Banjo as he looked to his companion. "You want to go to Cloud Cuckooland?"
At this, the breegull shuddered slightly in Banjo's backpack. "Well, I dunno about you, but I'm not one for heights today."
"Then what about Hailfire Peaks?" asked the bear, a little bummed that Kazooie wanted to pass the mysterious island in the sky for the day.
"Well, I guess I could do that," replied the breegull. "Fire or Ice?"
"Doesn't really matter," said Banjo with a shrug.
"Then we're going straight to the ice side of Hailfire Peaks!" shouted Kazooie ecstatically, pointing forward with her wing.
Banjo simply chuckled at this, and then he began the long trek through the hole left from the pair's second adventure (which nobody had really bothered covering up despite the fact that almost everybody in that region of the island had moved into Showdown Town).
Some time later, Banjo gripped his arms, shivering from the cold. He had truly forgotten how cold the other side of Hailfire Peaks was. Thankfully, there were no minions of Grunty's to deal with this time, but the fact that the place was cold changed nothing. Somewhere, he felt Kazooie was also regretting her decision to go over to Hailfire Peaks that day. They were at the very bottom of the peak right by the water, and they were very slowly working their way up the summit to get to the hotter side of the peaks.
"Uh, why did we come here again?" asked Kazooie, hugging herself in Banjo's backpack to keep warm.
"You said we should," replied Banjo with a shrug. "How did this place get colder?"
"Don't ask me," said the breegull, emerald eyes squeezed shut in the cold. "It was nowhere near this bad when we last came!"
Banjo simply shrugged this off, concentrating more on working his way up the peak in the freezing cold weather.
Weather. That word triggered something in Banjo's memory. It triggered a memory of something as far removed from a freezing cold mountain as it could, but it still triggered a few memories.
Memories of the day Tooty had dissapeared from his life.
The bear remembered the weather of that day horribly; he had sent Tooty off to do an errand a little before their second adventure against Gruntilda to run over to Bottles and give him something. It had been raining rather horribly that day, and when Tooty had not returned home the next day he brushed it off as staying with Bottles. Unfortunately, that turned out not to be the case as Bottles had no recollection of ever seeing the little she-bear, and ever since that night Banjo had never seen his little sister again. Sure, there was a brief period in the eight years between their adventures across the Isle 'o Hags and Showdown Town where he frantically searched for Tooty, but he had been greatly unsuccessful, even after asking outside sources.
"Hey, you thinking about Tooty again?" asked Kazooie.
Banjo was a little startled by this sudden jolt out of his thoughts, but when he realized that he hadn't moved for a little and that his shoulders were slumped so that the breegull could feel it from the backpack, the honey bear sighed.
"Yeah," he said, looking to Kazooie, his blue eyes a little dull from the thoughts. "I... I'm still not sure how to think of it anymore... Especially ten years after her dissapearance..."
"Well, the L.O.G.'s on it now," said the breegull encouragingly as she pulled her wing out to gesture and wincing at the cold contacting it. "Maybe we'll finally get some answers soon."
"I hope so..." said the honey bear softly. "Ten years of not knowing what happened to my little sister... How could that be possible?"
Kazooie's wing retreated into the bag from the cold before she looked at Banjo, sympathy filling her normally fiery emerald eyes.
"I don't know," said Kazooie. "We do know, though, that she's somewhere outside of the Isle 'o Hags. I mean, we would've found her if she was still here by now."
"Yeah, but where does that leave her to be at?" asked the bear a little more fervently.
"The rest of the world, silly!" replied Kazooie loudly, jumping out of the backpack and instantly regretting it as she felt the full blast of cold against her feathers. "We know from our adventures in Showdown Town that there's more to this silly place than just this island! Also, what about those wierd tremors we were feeling around a year ago?"
"What, where L.O.G. told us the world had broken apart?" asked Banjo, scratching his chin. "Well, when you put it that way, that might be the case."
"Exactly!" cried Kazooie, raising her hand up in the air but immediately wrapping it around herself to keep herself warm. "There's a whole world out there; we just need feedback from L.O.G. and some way to get off this island, and we're good to go!"
"Yeah," said Banjo, feeling a little better after the talk despite the lingering doubts in his mind. "Thanks, Kaz."
"No problem, Banjo!" replied Kazooie, jumping into the blue backpack before she froze. "You wanna go home and play some Call of Duty 4?"
"Wouldn't say no to that!" said Banjo, running up and past a wall of rock.
However, before he could go any further, a blinding flash of light suddenly came from just above the mountain. Thinking quickly, Banjo ducked behind the wall of rock that he had just passed, waiting for the light to subside before creeping slowly towards the edge of the wall. As he did this, Kazooie poked her head out of the backpack, craning her neck to get as good a view as Banjo would.
When they looked from behind the rock wall, they noticed a black-furred person standing in the snow, eyes closed as he faced his side, the creature's back turned to them. He then opened his eyes, bright scarlet providing a violent contrast against the white of the snow from where Banjo stood.
"Who the hell is that?" asked the breegull as quietly as she could.
Banjo would have reprimanded her for using the language she picked up from Xbox Live, but before he could the creature spoke.
"Hmph," he said. "Not exactly my idea of a good hiding spot, but it'll do. I just hope somebody else finds it before the doctor does..."
The bear retreated behind the rock wall and the bird looked down to her companion, the two of them giving each other baffled looks as to the meaning of this before returning to their post watching this strange figure.
They looked over the wall just in time to see the black creature bend down and leave something on the ground. He nodded briefly, and Banjo could have sworn he saw the eyes of somebody leaving something behind with a few regrets.
"Chaos Control!"
When the hedgehog said this, he was enveloped all too briefly by a bright light. The light was not as bright as the one that signaled his entrance, so Banjo stayed put as both he and Kazooie observed this light.
When the light faded a split second later, there was nobody standing there. Confused, the honey bear walked out from behind the rock, suddenly realizing how cold he had gotten from touching the rock. Instantly, his arms were around his upper body again, and he advanced towards the spot where the strange black creature had stood.
"W-who was that?" asked Banjo as they moved towards the spot the figure had stood in.
Kazooie shook her head fervently. "Don't ask me!" she replied. "I couldn't even tell what that thing was! How am I supposed to know who he was?"
"Well, he did say something about somebody else finding something..." said Banjo.
At this point, they arrived at the exact spot that the stranger had stood on, and when Banjo looked down he noticed a strange grey jewel lying on the ground that was foreign to his eyes.
"What is that?" asked Kazooie, leaning over Banjo's shoulder to gaze down on the object.
"I don't know..." said Banjo, his arm moving down to pick the object up.
The instant it touched his hand, Banjo felt a strange sensation sweep through his being. The sensation was so strange he almost dropped the jewel, and he twitched so violently Kazooie's neck snapped back.
When the feeling subsided, however, the bear suddenly noticed that it was not so cold on the mountain anymore, and that was when he removed his other arm from where it was wrapped around his body.
"Banjo?" asked his friend from his backpack, a concerned expression on her face.
"I don't feel so cold anymore," said Banjo, holding the jewel up so Kazooie could see it without having to crane her neck over. "I'll bet it's this thing."
"Wait, let me touch that!"
Without waiting for Banjo's prior permission, Kazooie's wings made contact with the jewel, and then she felt the exact same sensation run through her body. After this moment, she took her wing off of the object, the sensation faded, and when she put it back on the jewel she found herself get warm as well. The breegull looked at the jewel with a perplexed expression on her face before looking back to Banjo.
"This isn't an ordinary jewel, that's for sure," she said loudly. "This thing must be really powerful if it's doing this right now."
"I wonder what this doctor that thing was talking about would want this thing for..." said Banjo.
"Something bad, I bet," said Kazooie, smiling at this. "I'll bet we're gonna meet our next onion breath soon!"
"We might..." said Banjo with a shrug and a smile, ignoring the bird's insult as he thought of the jewel. "You think we should take this to Humba or Mumbo tomorrow?"
"We should," replied the breegull in a serious tone. "We need to make a supply run anyways, so we might as well take that jewel with us while we're at it."
"Okay, then," said Banjo as Kazooie took her wing off of the strange object and Banjo stuffed it in one of hte pockets of his shorts. "Well, let's go home and play some Call of Duty, right Kazooie?"
"Oh!" shouted Kazooie, flapping her wings from Banjo's backpack as she shouted. "Let's!"
The bear then walked up the slope, his eyes a little more hopeful at the prospect of taking his mind off of things with a good multiplayer session on Xbox Live, coming complete with Kazooie's foul mouth that she had picked up from three years of online multiplayer around older people.
Later that night, Banjo had hung the backpack in which Kazooie rested on the hat rack that was next to his bed in his humble home in Spiral Mountain.
"So, Banjo, what do you want to do with that jewel?" asked the breegull from her position in the backpack.
"Me?" asked the honey bear, looking at the grey jewel they had picked up earlier. "I think I'll hold on to it; if somebody wants this thing so badly, they'll have to get it from us..."
"Well, okay Banjo," said Kazooie. "I'm trusting you on this one, so I hope you made a good choice."
So do I... thought Banjo, setting the jewel on the night-table right next to the bed before pulling the covers out and jumping into bed.
"Night, Kaz," said the bear softly as he pulled the covers over himself.
"Night, Banjo," replied the bird, shifting in the blue backpack she called home.
The both of them drifted off to sleep rather quickly, more as a matter of habit than anything.