Chapter 1, A Brigade in the Stars

The amazing thing about the universe is just how, well, huge it is. No matter how long you can fly a Starshroom through it, it never ends. In that sense, it's almost like something out of a nightmare. Everything out there is either suffering through sweltering heat or frozen in a permanent state of extreme cold. Being just an ordinary Toad, it's an endless sea, seemingly without any purpose aside from deterring explorers. However, each little nook and cranny of the universe is actually teeming with life not much unlike that of my Mushroom Kingdom homeland. While so vastly mysterious and foreign, the nebulae and stars drew me in with their bursts of light and color. …It almost felt as though the universe itself were comforting me! Somehow, from the moment I was carelessly thrust into this nearly-empty world, I knew that uncovering whatever amazing secrets the hostile environment has carefully hidden from the Mushroom World would be the destiny I made for myself!

At least, I'd felt this way while with Mario and the Lumas. When my crew and I traveled for days on end just before the outset of our adventure, it was just a giant void filled with nothing of importance that left me with a horrid fear of whether we'd ever find another galaxy.

"Hey, Captain!" I heard a voice over my shoulder. "Are you just going to stare off into space all day, or are you going to play cards with us?"

"Come ooooon!" Another childish voice resounded in my ears. "Banktoad just took all the star bits I bet!"

I turned from the control deck I had been leaning on and saw that my crew was enjoying a game at the table in the center of the ship. My green-spotted associate, Banktoad, was spinning a Star Bit on his finger with a smile on his face. (No, Banktoad isn't his actual name. We were all just unfortunate enough to have our respective parents name us after what color we were, so we gave nicknames as we saw fit.) He motioned in the direction of the playing cards sprawled across the table, and he clearly had more in his possession than poor little Sunshine, the yellow member of our crew. "We just finished our game of Sarasaland Flip!"

A couple of tears started to form in Sunshine's eyes. "I… I… I saved up those star bits for days, and you just took them!" His tear ducts burst open, followed by the inevitable bawling characteristic of a sore loser.

Blues, who was clearly blue-spotted from his name, patted Sunshine on the back and heaved a sigh. "You know, you're the one who decided to bet all of them on one game!"

All of a sudden, Sunshine grabbed the purple Mailtoad's shoulder and wailed, "I thought for sure this would be the time! The way you praised how much I've improved, Maily… I wanted to finally beat Banktoad more than anything!" He then proceeded to run to one of the windows and bang his fists against the control panel, which we had programmed to only do anything after a password is plugged in. (This hadn't been Sunshine's first breakdown.)

Banktoad, Blues, Mailtoad, and I just looked to each other and shrugged. We all knew Sunny would probably be asleep before too long and forget all about it. After a couple seconds of sitting around the table and shuffling the deck of cards, Mailtoad finally brought up the big question. "So where are we going?"

My stomach contorted as I was painfully reminded of what I had been contemplating earlier. "Uh… Heh heh… Don't worry about it, guys." I had to fight the urge to panic as a warm sensation splashed across my cheeks.

"That's just another way of saying that we're lost, isn't it?" Blues checked the map we'd hastily drawn up of the small section of the universe closest to our home. …It was completely blank except for our home planet, the Mushroom World, and Gateway Galaxy, which we had passed more than a week ago. "Yep, it is, Captain."

"…Now, now! There's no cause for alarm! I just… didn't plan this far ahead!" I waved my hands in front of me, as if it would really prove my point further.

Blues slapped me in the back, and I instantly felt a dull ache that I had a feeling wouldn't go away too soon. "Yeah, right, being lost in the middle of a gigantic vacuum with no planets in sight should never be a cause for alarm!"

He was restrained from assaulting me again by Mailtoad. "Come on, that's no reason to hit him! We should be focusing on finding something!"

Finally, I felt a burden slipping off my shoulders. "No need for any more effort! I've been running our sonar system for hours now! It must have found something!"

However, as I went to check, Blues looked at me with one eyebrow raised beneath his large, round, black glasses. "Sonar…?"

Mailtoad nodded, although he was a bit dejected at the fact that the sonar hadn't picked anything up. "I had it installed back in Toad Town before we left! It uses sound waves to find stuff, and before we know it, there'll be a planet to explore shown right on the screen! Then we won't have to keep bickering! It's Space Sonar! …Pretty cool name, huh?"

Blues put his hand on his forehead and let out a groan. Before I could ask what was wrong, he filled me in. "Both of you do realize that sound waves can't travel through space, right?"

I nearly choked on my own gasp the moment I realized just how incompetent Mailtoad and I just sounded. "What? The merchant didn't tell us that! …We're never going to find anything!" Then, I slumped down next to Sunshine, who was still moping over his lost star bits, and suddenly became aware of just how little oxygen and fuel we had left on our Starshroom. I hoped to myself that Sunshine wouldn't see it. The poor guy would flip out…

"Captain?" I turned over to Sunshine as I heard my name. "Is that a comet out there?"

I decided to look and see what he was talking about, and I saw a rather large comet, with its tail facing the opposite direction of the nearest star and its unnatural blue glow. How exactly we hadn't seen it coming from several miles away was unknown to me, but it was probably because we'd been so busy checking our faulty sonar system. Gazing upon it for a couple seconds, I realized that it was a little too familiar, despite never having seen a comet pass by my planet. I pulled out the nearest telescope we had laying around and zoomed in. What I saw was enough to tell precisely what it was.

There was a Luma, a tiny star with beady eyes, barely visible through the burst of colors emanating from the so-called comet. It stared relentlessly, probably having caught a glimpse of our ship, and motioned a bit to the left. Another one floated beside it and joined it in looking out at the cosmos.

Helping myself to a bit of a chuckle, I corrected him in an attempt to make up for how stupid I'd been. "Nah, that's not a comet. It observes comets though. …Hence the fact that it's the Comet Observatory…" I put the telescope back and leaned forward for a moment. "Hey, wait a minute… That's the Comet Observatory! We could replenish our air and fuel there!"

The rest of the crew immediately took notice, and we all crowded around the window. From there we tried to plan ways to catch up with it; since it only passes by any given point in space every hundred years, this could've been our last chance if we hoped to survive.

Banktoad seemed a little impractical. "Maybe we could shine Captain's headlamp through the window! That'd be a good beacon!"

Mine… Eh, it completely would've worked had we used it. "How about we send out a radio signal?"

Sunshine and Mailtoad came up with the last one together, and, well… "What if we could build a giant Luma made out of our ship? Then, they'd be all like, 'Oh, poor Luma!' and accept us as one of their own!" I'm still fully convinced that Mailtoad was just humoring Sunny.

Just then, Blues spoke up, who had oddly not been speaking with us as we discussed plans. "Haven't any of you noticed that the Star Festival honoring its visit to our planet happens over more than one day? Maybe it slows down when it reaches other planets, so in that case we'll just have to follow it."

Sunny started doing one of his trademark happy-dances. "Thanks, Blues! You saved us!"

However, Blues lowered his eyelids and sighed. "Not quite, guys… We're running low on practically everything, and like we've established, there aren't any planets in sight right now. This would be a complete hit or miss, and missing would cost us our lives."

"We can't die! We're the Toad Brigade; the universe can't go on without us!" Banktoad insisted.

While they continued their discussion, I went to the other control panel and planned a course that would keep following the Observatory. It was at this point that I realized how lightheaded I was; the air I'd been breathing in was mostly carbon dioxide at this point since we didn't bother putting in a proper ventilation system. I turned to my crew, got their attention with a shout, and smiled. "Even if we don't make it, we've still done enough to change the universe! Let's just see how this turns out!"

They all nodded: Blues in solemn agreement, Sunshine in pure fear, Banktoad in pride, and Mailtoadin acceptance. I wasn't quite sure what to feel. All I knew was that I didn't want to go out like this, to not be remembered by anybody in the cosmos. The idea of quietly fading away sent a cold sensation up my spine. We continued our journey forward. The Comet Observatory got closer with every second, despite the fact that I couldn't help but feel we were going much slower.

"We just need to get a little closer…!" Blues pushed me out of his way as he took over the control panel and made the Starshroom accelerate, probably exhausting whatever fuel we had left.

As I fell, I could see that my reflection in the window had turned an unsettling blue color. Every cell in my body wanted to just scream and leave, but there was no way out. Our little Starshroom was stuck in a void that was slowly turning black.

And then…

…

…And then…

…

Nothing, coupled with complete darkness.

((Author's Note: This is my first fanfic, so please feel free to offer any advice for improvement you might have! Until next time, may the stars shine down on you!))