“Dock the ship,” Professor Toad collapsed his telescope and placed it in his inside pocket, “that's the island.”
“Right away,” said Assistant Toad.
The ship aligned itself with the island's coast and Assistant Toad lowered the anchor. The two toads then went to the lower deck, found the boarding plank, hauled it to the top deck, and laid its edge on the rim of the ship while the other edge sank into the coastline.
After that, Assistant Toad unlocked the storage unit on the top deck and hopped into the kart inside. The kart was a small two-seated buggy with a mushroom decal adorning its steeply-sloped blue hood, which was protected by a bummer as thick as the tires.
Professor Toad stepped away from the plank and Assistant Toad slowly drove the kart to it. “Careful now,” Professor Toad said, “We don't want our kart in the water.”
“I know,” Assistant Toad replied as the front wheels gently climbed over the edge of the plank. Once the back wheels were on the plank, Assistant Toad gently stepped on the brake to prevent gravity from slamming the front bumper into the ground. The kart rolled off the plank and onto the sand with Professor Toad following it. Professor Toad then entered the kart and pulled out a map.
“Which direction do I go, Professor?”
“Give me a moment, I'm trying to decide.”
Assistant Toad had to fight to not fall asleep from boredom while waiting for Professor Toad to finish scrutinizing the map. On the map, a copy of the same one all of the association's explorers had been using for their expeditions of Yoshi Island, the area that has already been explored was shaded in pink highlighter and had a combination of poorly-drawn symbols and bad handwriting to show what was there. And, unfortunately for the two toads, most of that highlighter and embarrassing scribbling was on or near the very coast they were starting on with the rest being the coast on the other end of the island.
“There is certainly much to choose from. Why, with the time the association has given us before we must return, I will be impressed if we can cover even a tenth of the island before our departure; it is technically an island, but it could very well be considered its own continent.”
“You can say that again,” Assistant Toad yawned, “Odds are, there's enough here to make multiple videogames about it.”
“It seems trying to narrow it down will take too long, so for now, just go straight until we see something interesting.”
“Okay”.
Assistant Toad stepped off the brakes and the kart rolled forward at a leisurely pace. They drove along the trail for a couple hours until they found… something.
“What… what is that?”
“It appears to be a footprint.”
And it was a ginormous one, its size over a square yard with an ovular shape and a horizontal line two thirds down, similar to the sole of a shoe.
“Is there even an animal that can make a footprint that big?” Assistant Toad asked.
“Unless we're both fools or lunatics, there clearly must be,” Professor Toad replied and stepped out of the kart. He then bent down next to the footprint and examined it. While it was certainly round, almost like a large enough disk could fit inside if it had the right dimensions, the edges were crisp like cuts from a newly forged blade. And while the trail outside it had small flowers and weeds scattered about it, the footprint's interior was entirely smoothed, flattened, caved-in dirt.
“It's fresh,” Professor Toad got back into the kart. “If we're quick, we will likely end up having discovered a new species.”
“That would earn us a Nobel Peach prize!”
“It will indeed, and the fact you earned one this early in your career will make it even more impressive.”
“‘Will'?” Assistant Toad said. “Don't you mean ‘would’?”
“Why would I say ‘would’ when I fully intend on pulling it off? Now then, the tracks seem to be going straight. And keep an eye out for anything destroyed; judging from its tracks, a creature of its size is bound to unknowingly wreck something when it walks.”
They drove along the footprints and saw little. There were of course the palm trees and the island’s titular yoshi grabbing fruits from the tallest branches with their tongues, but nothing notable. Until, however, a bellowing roar sounded and the herd of yoshi the toads just found scurried away.
The ground trembled.
Small rocks jumped and shook.
Something could be seen from beyond the trees.
From behind the top of the tallest tree in view, the tip of a large snout with a green upper part and a white under part stuck out. “YOOO~SHIIIIIII!” it shrieked, the jaw splitting open to reveal sharp yellow fangs.
Two more trembles.
Two ginormous brown, leathery dinosaur feet came out from behind the trees and the rest of the body came with them. The monstrosity stood over a dozen- and- a- half feet tall and past its snout, the eyes glared at the kart as red spikes lined the spine like barbed wire.
“By the princess…” Professor Toad said, “...it's a yoshisaurus-rex!”
Assistant Toad stomped on the gas pedal and the kart sped off.
The yoshisaurus-rex ran after it and brought rumbling noises as it did so. TWACK! The y-rex's tongue shot out from afar and shot itself into the ground next to the kart. TWACK! It shot out again, this time hitting the ground on the side of the kart.
The kart sped up.
“What do you think you're doing?!” Professor Toad yelled as the y-rex's tongue continued to rapidly twack against the ground.
“I'm trying to get out of that tongue's range,” Assistant Toad replied.
“Just accelerating won't work.”
“What do you mean?”
“A regular yoshi can already extend its tongue just past its own body length, so just imagine how far a yoshisaurus-rex can extend its own tongue.”
“But this kart is fast as-” Assistant Toad swerved around the tongue, which landed directly in front of the kart. “We're doomed!”
“Dare not think like that, we may still have a chance… hopefully,” Professor Toad replied as he dug through all the random junk in the backseat. “Now let's see… coins… bricks… some sort of novel which seems to be titled ‘Legend of Zelda’... a-ha!” He pulled out a blue shell.
Professor Toad held up the shell, pulled back his arm, and propelled his arm forward. The shell flew out of his hand, slid along the ground at mach speed and…
Got crushed by the yoshisaurus-rex's foot.
Professor Toad's eyebrow twitched. “Well?” said Assistant Toad.
“Great Scott! I fear we may genuinely be doomed afterall!”
Professor Toad's eyes darted around the area, looking for anything– anything at all– that could be of use, but no matter what he did, no matter what he looked at, what he scrutinized, what he prayed for, all he found were palm trees, palm trees, and more palm trees.
And then it clicked that that was all they’d need.
“Assistant,” Professor Toad announced, “I have a plan, but we'd have to abandon the kart.”
“We'd have to what?!”
“And it may destroy us in an instant.”
“Professor, you're doing a terrible job selling this plan of yours!”
“That is because we'll need to crash the kart into a tree at full speed,” Professor Toad held onto his seat.
“I don't think our insurance covers that!”
“Insurance won't matter if we're y-rex food!”
“Hmm… oh, I hate that you're right!” Assistant Toad's foot slammed into the gas pedal and the kart blasted forward half a block. Assistant Toad then spun the steering wheel like a top and the kart turned in the direction of the trees. “WE SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT SOME HELMEEEEEETS!”
As the kart sped towards the tree, Professor Toad and Assistant Toad both swung their doors open and threw themselves out the vehicle and the kart exploded into the tree, bringing it crashing down right onto the trail.
The toads darted away from the trail. Meanwhile, the y-rex rammed its toes into the fallen tree. It then let out a loud screech of pain as its body pushed itself into the ground and made a crater with an eardrum-bursting crash that was heard all the way from Bowser's castle.
The toads ran through the forest like bullet-bills. “Are you sure this is going to work, Professor? That y-rex isn't going to stay down very long.”
“There's an old saying which goes ‘the bigger they are, the harder they fall’. Additionally, with where we are, there's plenty of those for us to make use of.”
“‘Those’?”
“Tell me, Assistant, what creatures exist on this island?”
“Uh…”
“Don't overthink it, it's literally in the name.”
“Oh, those!” Assistant Toad pointed at a pair of yoshi that were crossing their path and they were sprinting directly towards.
“Precisely! This island is filled with yoshi, and they are much better at maneuvering through this type of terrain than a kart is; afterall, it's what their species has evolved to traverse.”
Having said that, Professor Toad jumped onto one of the yoshi while Assistant Toad climbed onto the other. Due to the sudden onboarding and lack of time to show the yoshi they're trustworthy, the toads had to struggle to stay mounted. Professor Toad held on for his life as his yoshi ran faster than a koopa shell and Assistant Toad's yoshi bucked like a rodeo bull, swinging him in a myriad of directions at headache-inducing speeds.
It wasn’t until they heard the y-rex's rapid stomps that they had managed to obtain full control, but once they have, the yoshi ran at mind-boggling velocities. Leaves became green streaks, high tree branches became hooks to swing from with the yoshis’ long tongues, and the ground itself became a highway with a speed limit in the triple-digits. And eventually, through the trees, the toads could see the ship. “We're almost there!” Professor Toad yelled, “make sure you have a running head start!”
“Don't we already have one?!”
“Not a big enough one!”
Professor Toad's foot slapped the yoshi's side and the yoshi rocketed onto the beach like it was being sent to the moon while Assistant Toad's yoshi tailed it. Professor Toad pulled the yoshi’s reins upwards and the yoshi’s feet launched off the ground. Both yoshi soared two meters above the ground as they fell towards the ship with the yoshisaurus-rex unhinging its drooling jaw behind them. The palm of Professor Toad’s hand then pushed into the back of his yoshi’s head. The yoshi thus unleashed its tongue at the ship’s mast and wrapped around it, which pulled and crashed the yoshi and Professor Toad onto the deck. Assistant Toad’s yoshi then slammed right onto the ship, its slippery feet sliding it across.
“Quickly!” Professor Toad said as he took the wheel, “raise the anchor and open the sails!”
The yoshisaurus-rex stopped next to the ship and bowed down with a growl, examining it.
The anchor rose up as Assistant Toad rolled the pulley.
The yoshisaurus-rex’s mouth opened as saliva rolled out like blood out of a wound.
Assistant Toad yanked a long string connected to the sails, which fell open like a house of cards.
Professor Toad steered away from the coastline and the ship moved forward.
The yoshisaurus-rex’s tongue thwacked around the mast, splintered it like a cracked walnut, and stopped the ship.
“What can we do…” Assistant Toad whimpered, “what can we possibly do…”
“I… I don't know! This… this may be the end..”
The mast split more and the ship inched towards the y-rex.
“There's no other way,” Professor Toad said, “We need to swim.”
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