The Bad Guys Save the World

Chapter 15

| Arriving at the Stadium |

"No!" Ghirahim screamed. He kicked. He bit and cursed and fought. But it was all futile; He could not resist the hands grabbing his arms, shackling his neck, pushing him down. Down towards the wooden block that sat at his knees. He resisted with all of his might, all of his strength.

But seconds later, Ghirahim's head was on the block.

The chopping block.

His cheeks were smashed against the wooden rectangle, forcing one eye shut. But within the gloom, he was able to make out the man — the executioner — coming towards him, bearing something long, sharp, and heavy in one hand: an axe.

"Stop it!" Ghirahim shrieked — damn dignity. He would not sit down and go out quietly, submissively, with his hands folded in his lap and his eyes down. He refused to let himself be put down like a dog.

But as the executioner raised his axe, he found that he didn't really have a choice in the matter.

--

A pothole woke Ghirahim up; he would've been surprised if it hadn't, seeing as his skull nearly collided with the ceiling when the bus's back end bounced skyward. The entire bus was filled with the sound of rattling handcuffs as the rest of the occupants — shackled inmates — plopped back down in their seats.

"I can't believe you people," Bowser groaned from somewhere farther up, rubbing his sore head from its collision with the ceiling — the brute was squashed in a seat with Team Aqua's Archie, and the mastermind didn't seem to be enjoying the ride very much. "You're sending us to our deaths, and you can't even give us a ride in a half-decent vehicle?"

"Yeah, would it've killed ya to shuttle us there in limos?" Cranky Kong called from a few seats in front of Ghirahim. "Could've made our last hours more enjoyable!"

"Shut up, convicts!" a supervising CO snapped from behind the bus driver.

Silence fell over the bus — stony, hopeless silence. Ghirahim stared out the window, watching as the Dungeon's line of prison buses finished crossing the overpass that bridged the mainland and the Dungeon's island isolation. The convoy of prison buses was currently making its way down a pot-marked, dirt country road that cut through SmashVille's coastal, grassy glades. If Ghirahim craned his neck around Bowser's spiky shell, he could just make out the ribbed dome of the Smash Stadium rising in the distance, where it was located in a wide field on the outskirts of the city.

Nabbit followed Ghirahim's gaze — the little pickpocket sat beside him in Ghirahim's seat, his set of handcuffs attached by a metal braid to Ghirahim's. All of the convicts were paired up similarly, most likely to decrease the temptation to get squirrelly or try to escape custody once they arrived. Nabbit was certainly looking ready to bolt at the slightest chance: he thumped his feet rapidly against the faux-leather of the bus seat, his hands shaking in his tiny manacles.

Ghirahim didn't feel squirrelly: he was still stunned. Still in shock, to the point where the bus, the grinding of the engine, the wheels, the low, anxious talk of his fellow inmates...it was all background noise. For the past several days, he'd repeated to himself, over and over and over, that this whole "execution" nonsense was just that — nonsense. Fake. A hoax. He'd thought that Mayor Mario had been joking about killing off all of the villains.

So when the alarms had sounded this morning...when the COs had come...when the handcuffs had been shackled around his wrists and ankles...when they'd been herded outside, stuffed into the buses...Ghirahim had felt that he'd been sucker punched. The wind had been struck out of him, and he still couldn't get it back. He'd tricked himself into a false sense of security, and now, discovering that the execution was anything but talk...it was too hard to accept.