Chapter 7 – The Gold Mines
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The night seemed to come and go in a matter of minutes for most of the group as they all slept soundly at another location of Birdo's Bed and Breakfast. Everyone was relatively a quiet sleeper, except for Waluigi - who snored loudly. 

However, now that the day had come to leave, there was a tiny little problem...

"There is NO way I am going into those caves!" Shortcake said as she crossed her stubby arms as she stood her ground. The others all looked at each other with confusion. This wasn't a problem yesterday, or when they made their route plans. It was just now, all of a sudden, that their toad companion was unwilling to traverse the mines.

"But why?" Daisy asked, one brow raised drastically higher than the other, giving a quizzical look.

"There are so many swoopers in there! I hate swoopers."

Daisy groaned at this response, and Pauline headed to the cars to get ready to go. Birdo would try to be the voice of reason to Shortcake by explaining that everything was going to be okay, but even she failed at that. Rose would do her best to think things through, walking with Daisy to put her luggage in the kart that the fly guys had to retrieve when her group lost their hummer. The bad wagon was a lot smaller, but thankfully had room to fit three plus Shortcake. Rose decided that it would be she who drives this time, as Riba had proven time and time again that he couldn't take direction, and it was very important they get to Paris in time for the next tournament in case Metal Mario strook once more.
Once she and Daisy loaded the things into the trunk, they returned to Shortcake, who finally came up with what she considered a fair trade off.

"I'll only go into the mines if Riba holds me. That way I'll feel safe."

Riba, who had not been listening until this moment, widened his eyes - looking at the toad, he asked her, "why me?"

"Because, you make me feel safe." Shortcake said in a dreamy tone of voice. Everyone else kinda looked around and shuffled awkwardly. Even Riba. Daisy couldn't see how any of this could get any worse.

"ah ... I'm flattered Shortcake, but I don't think—"

"WAH HAHAH. Waluigi will hold you, little toad," Waluigi cackled as he picked up the light pink toad, "Waluigi BEST at holding people and keeping them safe. Waluigi do this all the time with shrooms and wigglers!"

Shortcake almost gagged. Daisy saw that it could, in fact, get worse. But everyone else seemed to be fine with this. Waluigi went to their shared bad wagon and sat in the middle seat, while Rose got into the driver's seat. Riba waved goodbye to the others and got into the passenger's seat, but looked at Rose, asking, "why are you driving again? As princess, you should not have to do such hard labor."

"BAH. You always get us lost, Riba!" Waluigi shouted before putting his legs up on the dash. Shortcake tried to wiggle off of Waluigi's lap, but he buckled her in with him as well as held her tight, trying to keep her safe. He was oblivious as to why she wanted Riba to hold her, of all people. The group then began to drive onward into the Gold mines, Birdo, Daisy, and Pauline all following close behind.

Wario's Gold Mine was not too far away from the motel. The group was there within the hour and was already making way inside. Shortcake ducked her head and screamed as the swoopers came at them, but no one else seemed particularly phased by the bats. Waluigi was once again looking around, like he had done when in Donut Plains.

"Waluigi remember this place being much smaller," he commented. Normally the mines were relatively small, with not many people mining for the gold that was supposed to be here. It looks like Wario expanded things, and even fixed up one of the tracks that the cars drove on. There were tons of Shy Guys and Koopas mining for gold and jewels because of it. Maybe he wasn't so lazy after all ...?

Soon though, one of the ladies began to have car troubles and came to a bumpy stop. The others slowed down to take a look or avoid getting hit.

"Oh dear ..." Birdo sighed, "my car's stopped working, and we have no cellphone service."

Waluigi unbuckled his seatbelt and Shortcake was put down on the seat as he crawled over all parts of his group's car and went over to inspect the damage. He wasn't really sure what was wrong, just knew that there was smoke coming from the hood. Did the engine stop working or something? He looked at everyone else and gave an exaggerated shrug. Daisy spoke up and suggested everyone start looking around for something to help Pauline, and Riba agreed there.

"I know a bit about cars," he said, "so I can take a look at what happened while you guys look around?"

Daisy was not okay with that, but in the end Birdo was the one who makes the call on her kart, and she said it was fine. So with that, they all disbanded. Shortcake and Rose went north, Pauline and Birdo went west, and that left Daisy and Waluigi to go east, as they had all come from the south.

--{ ? }--

After about ten minutes of silence, the two came across a lever. There was a sticky note on it that said:

WALUIGI.
DO NOT TOUCH THIS
OR YOU WILL DIE !
DO NOT BE STUPID.

           - Wario.

Waluigi looked at the note skeptically with his hand on his chin, before deciding to grab the lever.

"Waluigi, it says not to grab the lever," Daisy commented, expression unamused. The man looked at her and raised an eyebrow high up.

"So what? Wario always does this stuff when I leave notes, Waluigi do the same." Without a moment's hesitation, the purple man pulled the lever.

--{ ? }--

Rose and Shortcake wandered around the tracks before they came across a large lump in their way. Rose looked at it, squinting to study the appearance of it — perhaps trying to see what it was.

"It's probably nothing, Princess," Shortcake said with a content smile as she continued to walk in a different direction, only stopped upon the unexpected noise.

"Is someone there? I've been stuck here for a hot second!" The voice belonged to someone cool and collected, and ape-like.  Rose would hurry over to the lump and find that it was one of the Kongs - Funky Kong to be specific. Shortcake would quickly return to the aid of her princess.

"Funky Kong? How did you get tied up?" The Toad asked.

"Well you see, lil' dudette, I was just traversing through Mount Wario since it's on the way from my vacation spot on DK Mountain, and then..." Funky goes through essentially all the details of his day — the journey he went on through the snowy mountain owned by Wario, until finally ... "and then this metal man just punches me in the gut! I'm out cold, and when I wake up I'm stuck here in this rope! So please help a Kong out."

It was almost as if in unison, Funky was freed. Rose had been working on loosening the rope while he shared his long tale to Shortcake. The two of them stood up, just in time for a sudden rumble in the mines to roar, and the tracks began to quake.

--{ ? }--

Everyone ran back to  Birdo's kart, where Riba was still examining just as he was doing earlier. Parts of the mines began to collapse, and immediately Funky Kong began to assess the situation — taking out tools and objects in order to fix up the car. By the time he was done, the mines finished collapsing, but they were left with no way to escape. They would all have to turn back and find another route to Paris.

"Ugh .... Waluigi, this is all YOUR fault," Daisy groaned. Waluigi rolled his eyes and stuck a finger in the air at Daisy. Not paying mind to which one he showed her. Daisy took high offense to this though and did the same thing but with both hands. Pauline face palmed, leaning against her kart.

Funky would look around, finding one of the original tracks having dipped and making a ramp they could fly off of. He looked to everyone else and asked, "hey dudettes, got any gliders?"

"Uh ... yeah, I think," Daisy said, looking through the trunk of her kart, taking out some standard gliders and giving them to Funky. He immediately got to work on installing them to the karts. She then asked, "why?"

"We're gonna use 'em to glide to the exit of the mines. We just have to drive off that ramp."

Everyone aside from Riba began to protest against this immediately, but the Kong shushed them all.

"It's not as scary as you'd think," he explains, "Me n' the green princess will go first, then you all can decide who goes next." With that, he gets into the bad wagon with Rose, who is a little reluctant at first, and starts up the engine. Everyone watches as he begins to drive forward on the tracks, quickly gaining speed as he descends - zooming up and flying off the broken rail and activating the glider. He and the princess would fly to the exit of the mines, landing safely. Unfortunately Funky forgot one thing ... to teach the others how to use gliders. So it puzzled him that no one was following suit.

One by one, the group would start up their cars and drive off the ramp like Funky did, but each time they had major difficulties with the gliders — often times falling or getting stuck. Thankfully Funky was there to catch them all, and proved to be very — possibly unrealistically — strong.  Despite the failures, they all made it mostly safe, with their karts in tact ... mostly.

"I dunno how you peeps can't use gliders," Funky complained, before driving off. The others rolled their eyes and followed suit.

The drive to Paris from here wasn't long either; taking them all about an hour and a half thanks to a shortcut Funky showed them that let them cut out Yoshi Valley completely, before arriving at the Princess Toadstool Royal Luxury Hotels — about a mile away from where the Paris Tournament would be taking place. This hotel was filled with lots of people, including the upcoming racers. Daisy waved to Amy Rose, who she met at an olympic event some time ago, as she walked to the front desk to get her and her friends checked in. Waluigi was in complete and utter shock by the glamorous decor, finding himself seated on one of the lounge sofas in the main area. The others disbanded to check the place out, but before Rose could leave too, Funky stopped her to say one last thing.

"Hey, Thanks for saving me, royal dudette. I owe you for real. Just be careful with that metal dude hangin' 'round. I heard he was in town, and my bad run-in with him proves it true."

With that, Funky Kong made his way to the line that was growing at the check-in area, leaving Rose to wonder ... would this race's outcome be the same as the last one ?

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