I'm updating! :D Yay me! I plan on also getting the next chapter of Chills of Autumn up soon. Why? Because I can't just leave a bunch of unfinished stories crowding up my profile page-ness. It will be pleasant enough to be able to say: I finished one! I don't know how much longer Chills will last, but I do know Tapping will probably outlive it, lots of plans etc for this story. Enough chatter, enjoy this chapter! I think you all will like it.

They drove on the dark muddy road for what felt like an hour, though everyone knew it had only been minutes. Ada was sitting in the back, Mia still leaning against her shoulder; head drooped over onto her, having yet to awaken. Everyone was nervous, and every turn in the road brought an extra beat into their chests until they were on straight road again. Rain poured down hard, the storm picking up again, even more furious than before. With each clash of thunder, the world seemed to tremble all around them.

"Is she awake yet?" Luigi peered back at them.

Ada shook her head, "No, but I felt her mumble something minutes back. She may wake up soon enough."

"Good. If for some reason we need to abandon this vehicle, she can run on her own." Luigi didn't think he could handle carrying the toad; he was more than a little exhausted. He hoped the night would end soon, and that everyone was home, safe from the monsters and the storm.

"I hope she's okay." Ada brushed some hair out of the sleeping toad's face, wiping some of the dampness off her cheek with a dry part of her shirt.

"She'll be fine." Benny turned the van around a deep hole in the road, the vehicle shaking slightly as they went over some rough spots, "We are all still alive, right?"

Luigi closed his eyes and rested his head against the window, thinking immediately of Mario. Was he still alive? Or was he lying in a hole somewhere dead? Or in pieces…Luigi shivered at the thought. He didn't know what he would do if something happened to his brother.

Suddenly a huge streak of lighting cut through the trees and the van screamed to a halt; Benny crying out in surprise as a branch hit the window.

After removing the branch quickly they started down the road again, Ada feeling an unpleasant tingling in her spine. The suspense was back up after that little surprise, she didn't think she could handle another. A spell of fate disagreed.

Everyone screamed as a figure suddenly dashed in front of them, on the road. Luigi got a glance of Mario's face, just as the brakes slammed down and Mario went flying backwards as the vehicle hit him.

"Mario!" Luigi yelled, and jumped out of the car. The others got out after him, Ada hiding behind Benny, afraid of what she might see.

Luigi crouched down next to his fallen brother. He checked for a pulse, and let out a whoosh of his breath in relief. Mario was breathing, but he was unconscious. As Benny moved to help Luigi grab up Mario by the arms, Ada noticed something hanging from Mario's fingers, "What is that?"

Benny grabbed it from Mario's hand and held it up to the light of the van, "It's some sort of necklace? A metal tag looks like."

"Never mind that." Luigi gasped, "Help me get him in the car."

When everyone was safely buckled in, Mario on the other side of Ada in the car, the vehicle started up again. Benny accelerated and they were on there way again, hopefully out of the forest soon.

"We should head to the castle." Luigi said, "We have to tell the Princess what has been going on, and what we have seen."

"What do we do afterwards?" Ada asked.

"You are going home, with Mia." Luigi turned to glance at her, "Mario and I will figure out how to deal with these creatures. You two will help us by staying out of the way."

"Luigi." Ada said with a frown, "I can't let you do this alone, I can help. There has to be something I can do."

"Stay out of the way." Luigi turned to face the road up ahead, "You will be doing us a favor. I won't allow anymore innocents to die."

Ada sighed but didn't speak. Instead she stared out the window as they drove down the forest road. After awhile she began scanning every shadow for a sight of some sort of terror. A minute passed and Ada looked away. She was only scaring herself. They were safe now…on their way home.

"I wonder what-" Benny started to say something but was silenced as something hit the side of the van…hard.

Ada screamed as she was thrown to the left, onto Mario, Mia on top of her. Benny hit his head hard on the window, holding his head where it hit, blood staining his hands, "What happened!"

Then whatever it was, hit again, and the whole van slid to the left, hard. The window near Ada exploded and she covered her head as glass rained down onto her.

Benny slammed his foot down on the accelerator and the van pushed forward, more glass falling from the window as it raced down the road, Ada getting drenched in rain as it poured in from the open window.

"It was that thing again!" Luigi shouted.

Benny glanced at him in horror, "You saw it? Wait, which one!"

"The big one." Ada said, "Most likely."

"How fast is it?" Benny cried.

"Don't worry." Ada told him, wiping wet hair out of her face, "I don't think it's the fast one."

"Hopefully the other one doesn't come after us." Luigi said dryly, "It flies."

"She." Ada said.

"How do you know?" Luigi frowned at the rear view mirror, "I couldn't see a face."

"I just do." Ada said, "The voice was a girls, I know it was."

"Right now I don't care what gender it is." Benny moaned, "I just want it to leave us alone."

"Why is it, they, attacking us? Killing people?" Ada frowned. Were they on some sort of mission of self-satisfaction? Did they kill for the thrill? Did they…eat their victims? Ada was almost afraid to know, it might be too horrible to discover the truth, especially what exactly these monsters were.

00oo00oo00oo00

Finally, a miraculous thing happened. They had left the forest. Everyone had held in their breaths as Benny made the final turn on a main road, and as the forest thinned around them. There were cries of relief as they were surrounded by open meadows, the forest disappearing behind them.

"We did it." Ada felt tears drop down her face. Tears of not sadness, nor despair, but tears of joy. Against the odds, they had made it out of the woods alive, and with Mario.

"Yeah." Luigi said softly, "But this is far from over."

Benny said nothing, and stared at the road in front of him. He wasn't sure how he felt. They had escaped the forest, and the terrors within yes…but as long as the monsters were still alive and killing, it was like Luigi had said: far from over. I can go home, Benny thought to himself, but can I just leave? If Marcy…if she was here she would be pushing me to fight, to take a stand.

"I'm going to try." Benny said suddenly, earning a curious look from Luigi, "I'll try to do this…for Marcy. I will help you stop these things." Luigi said nothing, but placed a hand on the koopa's shoulder, who nodded at him in return.

00oo00oo00oo00

The toad started down the hallway, his flashlight in hand, doing his usual patrol. It was his job to make sure no one, especially kids, accessed the power plant. So far he was having a good week, there had been no 'near vandalized incidents' such as the time three weeks back when a teen got through and graffiti'ed an office. The man in charge had docked his pay for that.

Maybe they are giving me a break, the toad thought, amused slightly by the thought.

He whistled cheerfully as he went down another dim hall, flashlight swinging from his waistband. Suddenly he heard a clattering noise and stopped at a sort of cross road in the hall. He frowned and undid his flashlight and the light lit up the hall, "Hello?"

The guard took a step forward, a bit to the left strip of hall that disappeared into the shadows. He was prepared to call in, a finger on his walkie-talkie at his belt, but was stopped by a strange whistling noise to his right, down a different hall. He started down it, a light flickering up above.

"Seriously! Don't you all have a better way of spending your time? That doesn't involve messing with my work?"

No one answered of course, and the toad sighed as he continued down the hallway.

He stopped when a panel light up above suddenly went out with out a sound. The toad felt a slight chill run up his spine and turned quickly as a dark form slid away into the shadows, "Who's there?"

This is stupid. Just another silly prank. Damn kids can't spend their time tormenting some other poor fool.

"You can't hide from the law kiddies." The toad put on a brave front. He wasn't about to be spooked by some immature punks, "When you're older your parents won't be there to hide you. Everyone grows up, and once you do, you won't be able to get away with a clean slate."

There was a slight whistling noise and another small metal sound up above. The guard quickly flashed his light up above for a look, but saw nothing but a loose swinging bulb from one of the panel lights.

I see a light.

The toad turned quickly at the sound of the voice, but saw nothing.

It fell from the sky.

"Come out." The toad's voice was shaky; he was starting to feel afraid. There was something chilling about this voice. It seemed to echo all around him, a presence in the ceiling and coming up from the floor.

My little darling caught in the clouds.

"I'm warning you!" Sweat beaded his forehead, he wiped it away as he spun to look around him.

Rainfall, and she's in my arms.

The toad backed up as he heard a whistling noise somewhere in front of him, further down the hall. He hastily reached for the walkie-talkie at his belt.

My bundle of light.

He brought the receiver up to his lips.

To hold in the night.

The toad felt a brush of air at his back, and turned around…. and screamed.

00oo00oo00oo00

Soon the city was in front of them and Ada smiled as she stared out the window. The sounds of traffic and the lights of the city comforted her. Usually she was annoyed by the noise, especially after a long day at work, but now she felt overjoyed to hear it. She was home.

This feeling was short lived however and suddenly the tall buildings around them flickered, and the lights went out.

"What the heck!" Benny stopped the car, gazing about at the other car lights, the only lights. Every light in the buildings and from the streetlights were dead.

"A black out?" Ada frowned, "I wonder if it's because of the storm."

"Probably." Benny frowned also, and started down another road, the cars on the road moving again.

Soon the castle was in sight, mainly because huge bolts of lighting lit up the sky behind it, giving the spires a purple glow as they appeared.

The doors shut and were opened again as Luigi and Benny moved to help Ada with Mia and Mario.

"He's heavy." Ada said as Benny moved for Mario, "But I should be able to manage Mia."

"I'll help." Luigi grabbed onto Mia's arms and together, Ada and he managed to get the toad to the gates where guards assisted them.

"Luigi!" Peach ran downstairs hugging a pink house coat to her body, eyes wide in distress, "Where's Mario? Are you okay?" She then noticed Ada and the unconscious toad in her and Luigi's arms, "Oh my! What happened?"

"We were attacked." Luigi said, "We will tell you all about it soon, but right now we will need to see to Mia and Mario."

"Mario." Peach quickly glanced behind them, "Is he okay? Where is he?"

"Here." Benny just entered the room, a grimace on his face as he walked/stumbled with Mario over his shell.

00oo00oo00oo00

When the unconscious members of their party were on Peach's bed, the Princess seemed to care very little that they were wet and dirty, staring down in concern at the two of them, "What happened in that forest Luigi?" She asked softly.

"These things." Luigi took a seat at a table near the fireplace, Daisy sitting next to him, frowning worriedly as she stared at Mia and Mario.

"Monsters." Ada said, "They attacked us. A huge hulking thing, and a smaller flying one." She was sitting at the table as well, Benny to her left next to Luigi, who was glancing at the window, where every second it lit up because of the constant lightning.

"Has anyone else been slain?" Peach sat down on the bed, her face pale.

"My boss, for my chronicle." Ada swallowed tightly when she recalled that time in the forest, "I'm pretty sure he is gone."

"My Marcy." Benny closed his eyes, leaning back in his seat, "My best friend."

Peach bit her lip, gazing down with wide eyes at Mario, "What should we do? Never before has our kingdom been up against something like this."

"Makes you miss Bowser." Daisy mumbled.

Ada walked over to the bed, resting a hand on Mia's cap, "I think we should all get our rest. We may very well need it for tomorrow."

"I don't think I can." Benny sighed wearily, "I feel exhausted, but I'm still…scared."

"Let's all stay in this room together." Peach suggested, "I have extra sheets in my closet."

"Are you sure Princess?" Luigi asked, "That seems improper."

"We can rest on the floor." Peach said with a small smile, "I trust you, so don't concern yourselves about anything. Toadsworth is busy in the city anyways, so there won't be any drama."

"Our luck is he will come in right after everyone is settled", Daisy rolled her eyes.

"I'll be right back." Peach opened the door, "I have to head downstairs and see if we can find our backup generator, it's dangerous to keep these candles lit, and more light will make everyone more comfortable."

"I couldn't agree more." Ada sighed as Peach left the room, resting her head on her arms, "I'm so tired of the dark."

"Me too." Benny played with something in his hand, a frown on his face.

"What is that?" Luigi noticed the shine of metal in the candlelight, in Benny's fingers.

"This is what I found earlier, it's what Mario was holding." The koopa handed it to Luigi who took it.

"It has writing on it." Luigi said, holding the round flat metal tag up to his face.

"What does it say?" Ada asked.

"I don't know, just a sec." Luigi got up from the table and picked up a candle off the fireplace, and held it next to the necklace.

"Well?" Benny stared.

"It's initials of some kind. E. G. L?"

"I wonder why Mario had this." Ada frowned. It had to hold some importance if he had it, but what? E.G.L…it sounded so familiar to her, but she couldn't place it.

I'll find out in the morning. Right now we need to rest up. It has been a long day and we need to prep ourselves for tomorrow. Because whether we like it or not…this is far from over.

The next chapter should hold more plot, I think you all will be surprised where this story goes! I have good ideas for this fic. I hope everyone enjoyed reading this. I wrote most of it during an actual storm, so it inspired me lol. Reviews are loved dearly! Oh and quick note, the lyrics in this story were created by moi, they will hold significance later in the story, how you interpret them now is up to you, until then…ciao. ;)