Chapter 2, The Lovely Observatory
The next thing I could feel was something enveloping me. It was a feeling that I could not adequately describe if I tried, but… Everything was… warm. Inexplicably so. Thoughts twirled in the back of my mind like gears, but each of them were oddly blank, like blank letters arriving in a mailbox. What was going on?
Slowly, I began to regain feeling in each of my limbs. An odd pain began shooting up from my left knee, which was quite small since we toads have stubby legs, and I could hear a faint noise… It sounded like the way sparkling does in cartoons. Sensation flowed back into my head, and I finally began to be able to feel my body parts. Everything seemed fine, save for that sore knee. My eyes flitted open, and revealed unto me…
A purple bed. I'd just spent the last few minutes contemplating a bed.
I managed to pull myself from the mattress and sit up, my eyes scanning back and forth as quickly as they could and my legs slipped carefully under the blankets. (My eyes weren't very fast, given that I had just woken up.) What sort of place was this? There was no trace of anything familiar: my crew, the Starshroom… Not even my own backpack and headlamp! It was just a simple room, with a red rug and a blue star-like object near the ceiling. Yet, I felt oddly tired, despite the fact that I'd probably been out cold. "Now I know how it feels to be Sunshine…" I joked quietly to myself.
"At last, you've woken up! We feared you never would!"
As soon as the subsequent near-heart attack of mine was over, I turned to my right and saw a Luma. Oddly enough, the bright colors typical of Lumas had been replaced with a dark, chocolate-like brown, and the shiny eyes were now bright blue… I realized that this was a Luma familiar to me rather quickly. "Oh, hi, Polari! Wow, it's been forever since I've seen you! …Do you have any idea where we are?"
"Why, the same structure your friends reported trying to chase!" A surprisingly hearty laugh came from the tiny star.
It took a few seconds in the haze I was in after waking up, but I finally managed to put all the pieces together. "Right! The Comet Observatory! …Wait, that means you guys– "
Polari hastily finished my sentence. "Rescued you? Yes, you gave us a scare. Young Master Luma – the one who was always with you and Mario – wanted to help you as much as he could, and you were the first one to pass out, so he let you have this bed. …Also, we do apologize, but we accidentally bumped your knee against the entrance."
So that's why it hurts so much… I rubbed my knee, feeling a slight bump on it. "Where's the rest of the Brigade?"
Another laugh resounded through the room, almost for no reason at all. "They're out near the front of the observatory, waiting for you!"
"Well, I guess I'd better let them know that their captain is down, but not out!" I slipped out of the bed, the cold air of the room overtaking my lower half as it reluctantly left the comfort of the blankets, and left the room with Polari close behind. As I stepped out, I was simply awestruck, and it occurred to me that I had never set foot on the Observatory while it was in motion before. Hues of a billion different colors seemingly streaked across space, and everything was painfully bright. Rainbow Star items had nothing on this sight. I had to pull myself together and shield my eyes as I walked barefoot up a small set of cold stairs and across a soft red carpet. Lumas of all sorts floated around, taking books off the walls surrounding the nearby library and reading with their friends. (Or perhaps siblings? I'm not sure how their family works.)
I finally reached the center of everything: the place where the power of the Grand Stars distributed itself to each part of the observatory. These Grand Stars were recovered by Mario years ago after he had been stranded on the ship. Though I was still shielding my eyes from the light show going on outside, I could hear several sets of footsteps in front of me, and heard the typical greeting I always hear when I return from a dangerous situation…
"Hi, Captain! You had pretty weak lungs back there, huh? Well, at least you didn't run away somehow the way you always do!" I knew for sure that was Blues.
Way to kick me while I'm down, I thought. "What are we going to do now? Sure, our ship is probably good for travel now, but where are we going to go? It's not like there are any nearby galaxies to explore!"
Mailtoad waved his finger. "Well, actually… We're about to pass Gold Leaf Galaxy."
Sunshine stepped in. "It turns out the Comet Observatory was just obscuring it from view, and slowed down a bit since it reached it. Blues's plan turned out to be the answer!"
"Gold Leaf… I don't think we've been there, but that's okay! We'll make sure the entire populace learns of our adventurous exploits as the Toad Brigade! …Assuming they don't want to hurt us." I shied away a little at the thought of a group of roughhousing bad guys. In fact, I imagined them so vividly that I could practically feel their hot breaths brushing against my mushroom cap and their sharp teeth piercing through my arm.
"Oh, c'mon! A couple of that kind of resident could be handled with ease if we had a cannon!" Banktoad patted my back, a smug look materializing across his face. Didn't he realize that there exist creatures that can completely wipe the floor with us?
Polari interrupted us with a spin and motioned us all to the front of the Observatory. "You should speak to our adoptive mother, Rosalina, before you leave for Gold Leaf. Both of us are curious about a number of circumstances surrounding your arrival. Just answer whatever question we might propose."
We all smiled in agreement as we made our way to the front of the Grand Star panel. I had started to get used to the light surrounding the starship, but… That shimmering blue beacon at the center! It felt as though my corneas were being forcibly gouged out with a rusty nail! I immediately swung my hand forward and covered it. Sure, walking with my hand held out in front of me probably made me look like a dork, but at least I kept my eyesight intact.
From what I could see, there appeared to be a floating person nearby, with a light teal dress that gently hovered above the ground and flowing sleeves. A voice reached my ears softly as we stood in front of her. "Thank you for your assistance, Polari. These poor toads must have been through so much."
The aforementioned Luma spoke up, "It was the least I could do." He turned to us and pointed to me. "What were you doing in the middle of space? Mario told us that you had been promoted to Royal Guards."
A strong blush swallowed my cheeks as the memories painfully flooded back into my head. "…Well…" With that, I flashed back to our return from our previous adventure.
It had been a lovely summer afternoon in the Mushroom Kingdom. The sun served as a beacon, leading the puffiest clouds of the purest white color into the stunning blue sky. A warm, thick atmosphere gripped the soil. Unfortunately, all that was on our collective mind that day was a billion different possibilities of how we could be punished whirling through our heads like bees.
We were Royal Guards at the time; it was perhaps the greatest honor a toad could ever hope to receive. Towering figures with inpenetrable shields and sharp, bloodstained spears were the thoughts most commonly associated with this position, but in reality toads of this status would never dream of harming anyone unless it was for the greater good. Becoming one of these was the dream that every toad in elementary school went to sleep with, sort of like that phase some human kids go through of wanting to be a firefighter or astronaut. On top of that, I even got to be a commander, of all things!
Naturally, we were pretty flustered when we completely bombed preventing the princess from being captured.
Sure, we couldn't have been expected to stand much of a chance against the attack of the fifty-foot Bowser, but we also failed to prevent a panic. Toads were scrambling all over the place, screaming and crying… Actually, with how much they ran into things, they might have caused more property damage than Bowser. Therefore, we treaded down the road to the castle, a horrible feeling rising in my gut as I prepared for the inevitable.
When we reached the bridge just in front of the castle, an elderly brown toad with a wispy white mustache walked carefully across. It was Toadsworth, the grandfather of Princess Peach herself. (Some of us had joked around about him probably being the actual king, since none of us had ever seen someone known as King Toadstool.) His bespectacled, coal-colored eyes had a solemn look, and as soon as he was within earshot of us, he murmured, "A thousand pardons…"
His eyes met ours with a dignified sort of regret. "All five of you are being sacked. Commander Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, and Purple… There just aren't enough coins left in the kingdom's funds after repairing the damaged buildings to continue to pay this many guards, and your group… To be blunt, it's rarely done anything showing the true qualities of our guard unit."
My heart plummeted about thirty feet below where it was before. Why us?I couldn't help but wonder. Everyone else looked despondent, with tears welling up in our eyes and brief, shallow breaths, except for Sunshine, who acted as though nothing was wrong. I leaned over to him and whispered, "Sacked is just another way of saying fired." Before I knew it, he was wailing and running away. For being so cheerful and sleepyheaded most of the time, his spirit sure was easy to break. In this situation, I couldn't really blame him.
The walk back home, amidst the highly inappropriate picturesque sky, felt like the longest I'd ever taken.
"We got fired." That was the way I decided to sum up our depressing experience. It took all of the effort I could exert not to wince at how much these memories opened up old wounds.
Rosalina stared intently at us with her only eye not buried by light hair, and then asked, "May we ask you to go to Gold Leaf Galaxy on our behalf? You see, something there has been detected as being horribly wrong, but I have to continue watching my family."
"Consider it done!" I saluted them both with the hand I had been using to block out the beacon, and somehow managed not to immediately put it back where it was despite how cripplingly bright it was.
"Your Starshroom is waiting in the garage. After you finish, may you please return here? Something has come up… We'll explain later." Polari pointed to the garage, and we walked across the soft, caressing grass until we reached the garage where our Starshroom had been built. My backpack, headlamp, and shoes were waiting right on top of one of the wooden crates stored there.
A Luma with a red hat flew eagerly to us, sparkles illuminating his path. "Hi, guys! Remember me?"
"How could I forget?" I chuckled. This Luma was a silvery-cream color that shone brightly in the comet's light, and the hat was undoubtedly Mario's. He was the one who had traveled with Mario and then stolen the hat after rushing to return home.
"We fixed everything up just fine, so you should have more than enough oxygen and rocket fuel!" While his face could not express much emotion, I could literally feel him grinning. "Just… Be careful out there, all right? Mama probably didn't tell you this, but there's a massive energy spike happening there right now."
Mailtoad petted the youngster. "Don't worry about us!"
"Um, we should probably get going now." Blues was already inside the Starshroom, having entered through the door at the top. We all followed him and waved goodbye as we bravely ventured toward Gold Leaf Galaxy.
However… The "energy spike" would turn out to be more than we anticipated.
((Author's Note: Things are going to get better next chapter. Also... could you review and tell me what you think? Nobody has reviewed this yet, so I don't know whether it's any good... Whoever does will get a letter with five 1-Up Shrooms from Mailtoad! Anyhow... Until next time, may the stars shine down on you!))