AN: I'm not usually one to write an author's note, but it's been so long that I think it's obliged. Scourge of the Island is still going strong, I promise! Just that life and love and art and work and school got in the way. And distraction.. yeah. I've been having the unpolished version around for a long time now, and am finally motivated enough to finish it.

I fixed the formatting as noted before by one anon (it's the way this place formats stuff) and I'm excited to post the next chapter. More will follow, as well as an updated cover image.

Enjoy!

And happy birthday, Bry! Thanks for being my boyfriend, my Conker, and my biggest inspiration.

- Renée

9. Mists, missing, missed

Pipsy was befuddled. She thought that maybe she had been a little too hard on Conker, and now she felt guilty for leaving him behind. What nonsense. She was angry at herself and sad at the same time, all the while feeling some very confusing butterflies in her stomach.

Babysitting Junior was bothersome – the young turtle was the polar opposite of his old man in his young years and would run everywhere, given the chance. He was surprisingly fast on those short little feet of his. Pipsy had to keep her eyes on him at all times. Luckily, Krunch was there too, but he was lost in a world of his own, and he trundled along rigidly. The cold didn't do him well, and he seemed mentally absent.

"I wanna go to the sea!" Tiptup Junior cried while flailing about. "I wanna splash around!"

Pipsy held the eager young reptile at bay to prevent him from rocketing off to play into the endless sea, grabbing him by his arm quickly as soon as he tried darting off. "It's way too cold to swim," she said sternly, in a mothering tone that seemed very out of place for her. "You better stay here and keep a look out with us. Why don't you go and collect sea shells?"

"Sea shells are lame."

"Lame? I don't think so. When I was a li'l girl, I used to collect sea shells, and I...-"

Somehow, she got lost in thought. Why did she think of Conker all of a sudden?

"And what?" Junior interrupted in a snippy tone. Sea shells, the very idea. He'd much rather run around in the shallow waves of the sea, splashing the salty water up into the air.

She looked at him with a slightly confused expression.

"You were sayin' somethin' 'bout sea shells." The turtle looked at her with a scornful, judging stare, crossing his stubby arms. "I don't need shells. I have one already… on my back. And so does my papa. And my sisters – all…" he started counting on his stubby fingers, mouthing the numbers as he did. "…nineteen of 'em."

Sea shells. There was something about sea shells that reminded her of Conker. Or was it sea urchins? She looked up to notice a thin veil of mist circling the lighthouse. It gave the building a mystical, yet haunting atmosphere. Are urchins anything like squirrels?

What nonsense, again. It's not like this one childhood friend makes any difference to what sea shells are... this one very cute childhood friend...

The gruff voice of Krunch suddenly spoke up, derailing her train of thought and making her blush, feeling caught.

He looked down at her with a sideways glance. His usually so threatening facial features had softened into a sympathetic, worried frown. "You feelin' alright, Pips'?"

Averting her gaze, Pipsy gave a small smile and an awkward giggle. "I'm fine, buddy. All okay."

Truth is, she remembered a precious little memory of hers, but felt it wasn't apt to tell anyone. She felt more for Conker than she'd felt for anyone in a long time.

And just when he finally had the confidence to get closer to her, she pushed him aside.

A yelp from Krunch brought her back to earth.

"Oh, for the love of…! Pips'! I thought you were watching him!"

When she looked over the sea, she saw the little turtle splashing around in the shallow parts of the cold, salty water, kicking into the sand with his stubby feet. Despite the fact that he was explicitly told not to, he was having the time of his life. As if this was the best moment in his entire day. Unconsciously, Pipsy smiled as well, forgetting about Conker altogether. Ah, the carefree simplicity of childhood…

An inexplicable urge to join in on the splashing came over her and she ran into the surf. Junior uttered a screech of excitement and started splashing water at her. They both laughed.

Krunch was left behind, scratching the back of his head with a raised eyebrow.

The reunion between Conker and his former arch-nemesis was a brief one. Honker had pointed off in the distance, saying "look! It's an eaten sandwich!" and made a run for it when Conker was distracted, disappearing into the forest. The squirrel resented his gullibility when he could barely notice that black-and-white tail disappearing from sight through the trees shortly after. He decided to just go back to Banjo to tell him about it. Provided the bear was still there, of course. It would be better if they stuck together. He hadn't been here in so long, he'd probably get lost otherwise.

Luckily, Conker noticed the bear and bird duo flying around high above the canyon, still as graceful as nothing he'd ever seen before.

Upon noticing the squirrel, Kazooie dropped from the sky, opening her wings just in time to not slam herself and her bear buddy to the ground. Banjo gained his footing sooner than Kazooie could fold in her wings, and as he wobbled on his feet a little to regain his balance, he wiped his forehead and raised his other hand to greet Conker.

"Didn't see nothin'. I think that's enough flyin' around for a day," he said. "What do ya say, Kazooie?"

The breegull shook her head and neatly went over the individual feathers with her beak to groom them. "Not like you do much, compared to me," she said in a snippy tone, "I do all the work and you just hang there like a sack of wheat."

Conker wasn't paying attention to their little spat. The thought that maybe he should tell the bickering bear and bird duo about the skunk he just ran into crossed his mind.

Meanwhile, Banjo and Kazooie's conversation had taken a turn into silly, personal annoyances.

"I'm not!" Banjo said. "You're always blaming me when things go awry!"

"Heh, yeah. Like that one time you became depressed over Stop 'n' Swop?"

"Yeah, hold on a gosh-darn minute – that narrator guy was setting us up, and you believed him too!"

"And you thought the tree just outside our garden looked like a–"

Conker was getting a bit annoyed at this little exchange. "Hey!" he interrupted. "Can you two quiet down a little? I've got something to say."

Kazooie glared at him. If looks could kill… "We're not interested in knowing the details about your potty break, nut-breath," she said rudely. "Now shove it."

As she did that, she crept out of the backpack. Banjo tried to stop her, but wasn't successful.

Only now did Conker notice just how big that bird was as she towered over him. She looked down at the squirrel with a glare akin to a raptor's.

But Conker wasn't just about to let himself be lectured by anyone. He returned that glare equally as fiercely, completely disregarding his small size.

"Will you pipe down a sec, you stubborn old bag of feathers!" snapped Conker. He never liked having anyone talk over him, let alone a bird. Didn't matter that she was twice his size. "It's only that there's a shifty-lookin' guy about and all you two do is squawk at each other."

Banjo meekly added; "Kazooie squawks. I'm a bear, I don't squawk."

"What I'm saying," Conker continued, a bit quieter now; "is that maybe we need to pay more attention to this guy."

He remembered being thrown in jail for being framed for a murder – Honker's doing. A lump formed in his throat and a trickle of sweat trickled down his fur.

"Are you sure it's not just a joke pertaining to your urine?" Kazooie made a noise that sounded like a birdy chuckle. "Next thing you tell me is you use your piss as a weapon, squirrel-butt."

"Kazooie," Banjo berated her, and lightly pulled her tailfeathers to get her attention. "Maybe we should listen to squirrel-butt instead of poking fun at him. Who knows, perhaps we can solve the case of the missing Taj. Or Tooty."

"Ah, right, the elephant genie," Kazooie shook her head and disappeared into the backpack once again. "You two have fun out there, I'm gonna play a game on my portable Nintendo 64." Snippily, she added; "Not yours, fluff-ball."

A bit blushy from the talk about his bodily functions, Conker tried to camouflage his blushing face by looking around and twitching his tail.

"Whatever, suit yourself," he said. "Say, Banjo? You saw anything up in the air?"

Banjo returned the shrug. He didn't. The trees were too dense for him to ever notice the sneaky form of Honker slipping through the shadows. Truthfully, he just liked feeling the wind through his hair. He decided not to tell anyone about this little pastime.

Conker gestured at the bear to follow him. "We should go and tell the others. Uh… what's the way to the treehouse again?"

Running into someone was majorly unhelpful for Honker. He was keeping a low profile on the island, and with good purpose.

He had nothing but ill intents for the once-so-beautiful place. Chasing away that elephant was easy enough – the guy was just hanging out in the valley, and all Honker had to do was puff up his tail and hiss. The elephant dissolved into a pink cloud before he could say "Alakazoo!"

Honker chuckled to himself as he remembered it. It allowed him to block the water passages without any hindrances, leaving the trees in the main valley to shrivel up and die. Nobody would ever want to even visit.

His plan was halfway through already and it was going perfectly. While plotting, he silently snuck through the forests, keeping under the shade of the trees.

Well… it was almost perfect. He almost screwed up when he took his time to spy on Conker. With so many brawny guys around, it would be better if he kept a low profile. But he hadn't seen Conker in about ten years. It was like a blur from his childhood.

Of course, he just wanted to have a better look. Did he even know that the squirrel was urinating against a tree at that moment? Yes. Yes he did. But he was gripped by morbid curiosity and the situation at hand mattered nothing to him.

Gritting his teeth, Honker tried to forget it.

He eventually reached an old, abandoned castle – a perfect hideout for a villain as him. Slipping away from the undergrowth that hid the drawbridge, into a now-empty moat, he went through a secret passage. He was confident that only he knew about it. He shivered a little, propping up the collar of his frayed purple cape. Spiderwebs clung to his furry tail and the few torches that were attached to the cobbled walls illuminated the area sparsely. It was a short distance to walk until he reached the dungeon.

The dungeon was the only place he went to. It was hidden, dark, and villainous. Damp, too. Water trickled down the walls in various places and moss grew in the corners. The floor consisted of neatly arranged rocks that had, over the years, gained a disgusting green hue and some of them were slippery. It was a weak reminder of the time when it was still filled with water.

Like the path he took earlier, the room was lit by a few torches that flickered in the dampness of the dark, consuming any spider or moth that was foolish enough to wander too close.

Much to the skunk's amusement, there were a couple of dingy old cells in this lovely, evil place as well. It was like an old torture chamber underneath this long-forgotten building.

He coughed a few times into the empty air, as if something was stuck in his lungs.

Out of one of the cells, a feminine voice came. "You really oughta get someone to check on that cold of yours."

"Oh, shut up," Honker snapped as he went closer to the cell, hanging around the bars as if he were tough stuff. The spikes on his weird little headpiece brushed against the bars, which framed his unsightly white snout. "Say, this cage isn't so bad. I can think of much worse things to sleep in. Like a cardboard box. Or a dead thing. Believe me, I've been there, lassie."

Figures, his damsel-in-distress was none other than Tooty, Banjo's younger sister. She was just there, and didn't prove much of a threat. He meant business.

So, just to spite everyone, he took off with Tooty when he got the chance. He had to kidnap someone to make his point, he thought, and she just so happened to be there at the right moment in time.

Sarcastically, the lady bear chuckled a bit.

"Ha, ha… touché. Can you just… like, let me go now? I miss my brother. He must be worried sick. I even miss Kazooie and her sarcasm. It wouldn't surprise me if she's worried too."

Honker let go of the bars. "You can just rot away in there, for all I care. Teach 'em a lesson up there. Neh heh heh…!"

With those words he slipped into his cape again and scurried off, off to do more evil deeds, and Tooty only sighed, slumping down in the small prison bench. She managed to keep herself alive by drinking from the icky water that was provided to her by her kidnapper, but the hunger was getting to her. Such a disgusting little corner in a haunted castle was no place to live. She missed good company, her own warm bed, even Kazooie's insults. She tried to keep her head high.

"Must be a way to get outta this dingy place...!"

But yet, she felt so very alone.