Young Writers Society

It literally just seemed like yesterday when Lumi was dueling for his life in a fog-filled spoopy forest filled with foxy fashion zombies.

And now, with over 40,000 members aboard a superplane, he was landing on an island inhabited only by creatures from the Mario universe. They were cute! Look at 'em!



In the center of the island was a massive castle with normally menacing horns and spikes and dinosaur architecture...which had all been dyed pink and blue and green--party colors, basically.

"Oh dear," said @AstralHunter, stepping off the plane. "These colors will not do at ALL. YWS is almost a teenager! We should embrace the rebellious stage!" He paused. "...within reason, that is."

@Mage hovered lightly about their heads, already sketching and photographing the local flora and fauna. "Look at all the fodder for my wall photography! Lookit! Lookit! There's practically a Safari Zone of things to explore here!"

Lumi and @Rydia exchanged proud glances. It was, after all why they CHOSE the location (not to mention the last year's party in the YWS House hadn't gone so swimmingly with the robots. . .)

"That IS why we chose it," Rydia bragged.

@Wolfical and @Steggy bounded off the plane and began chasing the turtle creatures towards the castle. At least fourteen dozen other YWSers looked around in awe as they wandered inside the atrium of the castle.

Lumi sighed in relief. The cake was put out, the presents were on display, and everything was in order. "It looks like, for the first time in twelve years, nothing's going wrong."

And, in perfect unison, all the 40,000 members slapped their foreheads and groaned, shouting: "WHY!?"

Immediately, @Casanova began tagging one of the far walls with graffiti. @Caesar began reciting ancient history memes to a small crowd. @Birkhoff...well, Birkhoff set up a small media center and fired up an episode of FRIENDS. People liked that.

@TheSilverFox jabbed Lumi in the ribs and growled. "You jinxed it. Jinxed it! Every bit of it! Every! Bit! It's the Barney Song all over again!"

"You were driving that bus without a license and under false pretenses--"

"I WAS ROPED AND GAGGED."

"At least the weather was nice!"

Then, with a rumble, there came a low roar from deep below the castle floors.

Rydia got her balance and stared in shock. "Lumi...adult adult adult Lumi, you did make sure to evacuate the super-ancient Dinosaur King, right?"

Already backing away, he held up his hands. "It...may have slipped my mind."



"OKAY IT REALLY SLIPPED MY MIND!"

When Steggy heard the dinosaur roar, she knew danger was near. Of course, the tiny turtles her and @Wolfical were herding didn't seem to care. They were running about, slamming into each other. Some fell to the sandy shore while others just nipped at the necks of their friends. It was hopeless. It seemed almost impossible, to actually hoard the turtles towards the huge pink and yellow castle (which in Steggy's opinion, was very bright and very girly).
@TheSilverFox and @Lumi were in an intense staring contest (Fox "volunteered" to drive the bus) while @Rydia was pacing around the shore, waving her hands and saying "No need to panic! Everything is fine!"

Of course, it wasn't but even in times of danger, Rydia was calm. Or so, Steggy like to think so.

They had almost reached the entrance of the castle when another loud roar shook the ground. Steggy had to stop an almost stampede of baby turtles, who were trying to head to safety. No matter how many times, you cannot stop a stampede; not with words nor with food. You just let it happen. So, soon after the thousand or so turtles were running away, mixing in with the panicked 40,000 members of YWS, Steggy and Wolfical were dotted with tiny turtle feet and sand in their ears.

"I really hate watching turtles," Steggy mumbled as she stood up, shaking herself off.

"Turtles are like dinosaurs so they are you siblings, right?"

"Distance siblings I rather not talk to thaaank you."

The roaring had slightly came to a whisper as Wolfical and Steggy headed towards Rydia, TheSilverFox, and Lumi. @Persistence, who was busy with dealing with a conga line of tropical birds, started to complain that when the Dinosaur King roared, they flew away.

"And they were suppose to be for the grand opening. Singing songs about over the rainbow and stuff. It was going to be magical!"

"Yes, yes. I'm aware of the problems-"

"You created."

Lumi shot TheSilverFox with a glare before continuing.

"-of the problems that I caused but have no fear. We have a secret weapon!"

The whole group said, "We do?"

Lumi nodded before pointing a finger at Steggy. "You! You speak dinosaur."

Steggy gulped. "Y-yes. But not for many yea-"

"Ababa. Shush. Speaking dinosaur may help us. We need your help."

Steggy sighed. The Dinosaur King, as she had heard countless times, spat fireballs at all those that entered. Of course, she thought these accusations were false unless proven otherwise. It wasn't until @Nate had sent some monkeys to deliver some food to the Dinosaur King and came back as fried monkey meat.

"Fine but on one condition."

"Sure, anything!" Lumi said.

Steggy pondered for a moment before she nodded. "I need hot sauce."

Everyone that was around her blinked in confusion.

"Hot sauce? Why do you need hot sauce?" Rydia asked. The commotion from the roar had slowly died. Half of the members were playing around in the water while the other half were playing an intense game of volleyball.

"The Dinosaur King breathes fire. Hot sauce is really hot. What I mean is if I get enough hot sauce, I could 'out flame' the Dinosaur King and make him be quiet for the time being!"

"I don't think that'll work," squeaked a voice in the crowd.

"And why's that, whoever you are?"

"Because you'll chug down thousand bottles of hot sauce before you can actually 'out flame' the Dinosaur King," @HazelGrace16 said as she stepped out from the crowd.

"So be it. I'm going to help. I want to repay for what I did last time. You all remember. The spider?" A few collected mumbles waved through the crowd. "This time, I promise, I won't mess up.

"Now, does anyone have hot sauce?"

It was soon collectively realized that out of the over 40,000 members who were partying in YWS' Bowser Castle, no one had thought to bring hot sauce to add spice to their cake frosting, let alone the thousands of sriracha bottles @Steggy would have needed to out-flame the Dinosaur King. Standing at the top of the flight of stairs and scanning the crowd hopefully, Steggy looked as if she was about to cry.

Suddenly, a valiant voice spoke from the crowd. "Who needs rooster sauce," it said, "when you can have my avatar?"

"@Omnom?" Steggy cried, squinting into the crowd. "Is that you?"

"Brilliant!" @Lumi cried. He dashed over to Omnom and ripped his avatar-sporting shirt straight off his chest. "Somebody make clones of this!"

@Gravity volunteered. "All it requires is simple copying and pasting," she said, and proceeded to make ten clones of Omnom's avvie.



"Make more, make more!" Lumi cried.

"Oh dear," @Rydia said. "We don't want to burn the place down."

@ChieRynn helped Steggy make a cross-body avatar holder of sorts, from which she could access the Omnom avatars easily and throw them like ninja stars.

Wolfie, meanwhile, became bored with the cloning of avatars and decided to peruse the thirty-six yard long dessert table. Seeing the collection of cakes reminded her of last year's disastrous party, which for her had commenced behind bars with Steggy and @racket. This party, she thought, was comparatively going along swimmingly.

"Howdyhow, @Persistence," Wolfie said. "Would you mind cutting me a slice of yonder strawberry cake? I can't manage that cake cutter in my jaws very well."

"I bet you're hungry like a wolf," @Allisonthewriter said, taking her own serving of red velvet cake. "Why not take the whole thing?"

Wolfie shook her head. "I did that last year, made a mess, and shortly thereafter felt bad about it. I'll be a good, lady-like wolf this year."

Persi handed Wolfie her plate. "Did you hear about the time a girl called me a fruitcake?" he asked.

"No," Wolfie mumbled through a mouthful of cake. "What happened?"

"I told her it was the last strawberry."

Suddenly, another tremendous roar sounded from below their feet. It sounded much louder, and much closer.

Mage was feeling grateful for bringing the smaller of her cameras. She was also, for more aesthetically pleasing purposes (in her opinion, anyways) referring to herself in third person. It was much more enjoyable that way. Especially when writing.

@JennyImStory elbowed her. "Mage, you're not supposed to break the fourth wall this early on!"

"Sorry...But since you're acknowledging that I'm breaking it, doesn't it mean that you are too-"

A loud roar interrupted their very important discussion. She was horrified to realize that it sounded much closer than the last of the roars, and that it would most likely only be minutes until her worst nightmare appeared. Given her history, it was a shock that she had actually agreed to come on the trip.

Then again, she had been bound and gagged when she tried saying that she didn't want to come - she had a sneaking suspicion @Lumi was to blame - and forcibly brought along, but still. She should have tried hijacking the superplane and returned to safety. But she had been foolish and believed that she would be safe; if there was anything she had learned about YWS, you were never safe when you went on a trip.

Especially to something related to Super Mario Brothers.

"I want my bubble."

"Bubble?" @JuliasSneezer questioned.

Mage nodded. "Yeah. You know, when you die. At least in the Wii games. But you can also press a button - I forget which - and you can go into a bubble that only other players can burst you out of."

@Sheyren groaned from beside her. "You are not being used for emergency purposes only, Mage. I went through enough of that when we used to play Mario together."

"Please-"

"No."

The ground shook underneath their feet as another roar reached their ears.

IN WHICH SNEEZY IS TOO LAZY TO COME UP WITH A PROPER TITLE

Sneezy nodded her head. "Yeah, a bubble seems like a good idea now." She then had an idea. A desperate idea. She looked down at her feet, remembering that she was wearing bright red shoes. She clicked her heels together thrice. "THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME, THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME-"

@Mage pursed her lips. "'Lias, I think it's against Storybook protocol to use anything other than a TARDIS, broomtick, Impala, or YWS bus to get anywhere."

@JennyImStory pulled a scroll out of her sweatshirt pocket. Her eyes scanned the parchment for a moment before she turned it around to show the others. "She's right, section two, paragraph three."

How to Train Your Dinosaur

Borrowing the Dinosaur King's castle had certainly been her plan but evacuating him from the premises had just as certainly been on @Lumi's list of tasks so it certainly wasn't her fault that the YWS Birthday party had turned into a fight for their lives. Again.

Feeling a slight shiver over her left shoulder which told her somebody had broken their very important rules on how to travel, Rydia tried to shake it off and focus on the bigger problem on hand. The Dinosaur King. While @Steggy's plan to out-fire him sounded like a good one, Rydia was a big believer in always having a back-up plan to the back-up plan so she very cleverly placed @Craz in charge of creating that.

"Wait, why am I in charge of that?" Craz asked.

"It's simple, you're crazy and we need a crazy back-up back-up plan that might just be crazy enough to work!" @Lumi declared from his place on the relatively none crazy team which were duplicating explosive avatars and feeding them to their own friendly stegosaurus, while also attempting to shepherd turtles into the increasingly dangerous sounding castle.

"We could just not go inside?" someone suggested, but that was such a ridiculous suggestion that nobody even wanted to be credited with having suggested it.

"If I'm doing the back-up back-up plan," Craz mused, "Then you're working on the back-up plan?"

Rydia nodded and this seemed to cheer the other girl up. Because obviously Rydia's back-up plan or Steggy's full plan would succeed and the back-up back-up plan would not be needed. Obviously.

"@SirenCymbaline, I need you on my team! We're going soul collecting!" Rydia announced. "Obviously we need something which the dinosaur wants to use as a reward when training him and the dinosaur king definitely likes princess souls."

40,000 YWS'ers blinked and shuffled their feet awkwardly, but none of them seemed to be brave enough to contradict her statement.

"But uh- you're not going to give him my soul, right?" Mage asked as Rydia drew close to her group.

"Are you a princess?" Rydia asked. Mage shook her head. "Probably won't need it then," Rydia assured her.

So the C team set about gathering the souls of princesses and they made a pile of their very important cargo. Some were on pieces of paper, contracts which Rydia or Siren had previously made to obtain the ownership of said souls, while others were found in genie lamps or ships bottles and other strange objects which the members of YWS had just happened to bring to the party with them. Apparently these were considered valuable trade commodities and Rydia had to part with a lot of promises of fairy gold and kittens to entice them from their owners.

"There, that should just about do it, I think."

Just then a very cute but still decidedly large American house and a scary looking witch dropped out of the sky. For a moment, it looked like all would be well but at the last possible minute, the witch flew out from under the house on a broomstick and instead of dropping on her (alright so it would have been as well as dropping on her), the house fell on top of their entire supply of collected souls.

Rydia saw @JuliasSneezer standing nearest to the catastrophe and on her feet were a pair of very shiny red shoes.

"This is why we don't use improper means of transport," Rydia muttered.

At that moment, Sneezy desperately wished that there was an air vent for her to escape through as she felt the eyes of forty thousand writers on her back. All that she could do was stare up at the house she summoned. Her jaw dropped open, and she looked over her shoulder. "Um... sorry? On the bright side, there's probably food in there. I'm just going to... yeah." She said as she thumped up the steps and opened the door, letting herself inside.

In Which The Plans Fails (Sort Of)

The castle was friendly. Like a burning care bear friendly. Steggy had a mouth inflamed with a dozen or so bottle of hot sauce (@Omnom was lucky enough to have some) and right now, heading towards the liar of the Dragon King. With a posse of only two members, who Steggy could only remember them as thing one and thing two, were closing in behind her. @Rydia, @Lumi, and @TheSilverFox, were far from Steggy.

"Just be careful, Stegs! The Dinosaur King isn't expecting an audience and we don't want to have fried dinosaur for dinner!" Rydia yelled. @Mage was inside a bubble, floating haphazardly towards one of the pointy spikes of the castle. @JuliasSneezer and @Sheyren were running under her with their arms open and yelling I told you so's. It was as chaotic as it probably would be below. Steggy gulped (the hot sauce had stung her throat and taste buds) and stared ahead at the castle. On the outside, the pinks and yellows clashed horribly but made itself look welcoming. A normal person would walk up to the castle and say, "oh, this is a wonderful castle!" then precede to write some princess story and it is happily ever after. However, a person that comes to the infamous YWS parties know, the happily ever after comes after dinner.
Steggy looked towards thing one and thing two then continued on.

The inside of the castle smelled like moldy hot dogs and wet gym socks. How the castle looked on the outside, the inside was completely wrecked. Water and mildew stains were on the ceiling. The tiles were slick with spit (something Steggy hoped) and washed papers. Colors faded as the trio went deeper into the castle. Echos happened around them, coming from either the feet or the sounds within. Steggy turned on a flashlight @Wolfical had been so kind to give her and pointed down the "gullet" of the castle. A deep growl rumbled deep and sent some stones to crash on the floor.

"We better hurry this up before the castle falls on us."

Thing one made a noise similar to a growl while thing two was looking at the east wall. They continued on for a few moments until they came to three different sections. One led to a sunlit road that, from what Steggy thought, led outside and to the left was a darken, cold path that led, maybe, into the deeper part of the castle. The middle led even deeper into the castle.

"Well, we have a problem," Steggy sighed. Thing one and two nodded. "We'll need to split up but they're only three of us." She pondered for a moment, stratching her head. Around her, the temperature seemed to drop. Around the walls were unlit torches.

"Ah. I got an idea." Steggy walked to the wall next to thing two and grabbed three torches. Opening her mouth, fire spewed out and lit the them individually.

"Not bad," Steggy mumbled and handed the torches out. Thing one seemed to panic for a moment before returning to their natural state and thing two seemed content with fire. Steggy turned around, firelight making her hair glow.

"Thing one, you go to the right tunnel. If you find anything worth leading us to the Dragon King," Steggy grabbed a bell from her pocket (god knows how she fit one in there) and gave it to thing one. "Ring this then thing two and I will come to the location." She then turned to thing two and gave it the same thing.

"If you both ring the bells, I'll run back here and that's where we'll meet up."

Thing one seemed to nod but frowned slightly. Thing two didn't make a sound but instead placed the bell on a hook on it's belt. Steggy nodded in her approval before looking towards the tunnel.

See you guys in an hour or whenever you ring those bells," Steggy said before marching ahead.

There was intercoms on the walls, dust covering their speakers. There were bricks faded in pink and red seemed haunting. How could Lumi not see the creepiness when he wanted to rent this? Steggy thought. There was a cold wind that echoed off the walls and rattled Steggy's bones. With the only warmth coming from the torch light, Steggy continued on with rattling bones.
The Dinosaur King's growls seem to decrease in sound as Steggy continued on. She checked for noises of the thing one or two's bell but heard nothing. Except for the stomping, of what sounds like, hooves on stones coming her way. Suddenly, it was replaced with a loud roar and the sound of a bell being rung coming from the far left of her. Great.

When things couldn't get worst, a voice rang over the intercom.

"Remember to @Tiptoe when walking through the entry ways and thank you for choosing @Snoink's Castle Service!"

Before Steggy could think of anything, the sound of pigs and hooves covered her in darkness.