Aaand I've reached the tenth chapter of this story!

Enjoy! ;)

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Chapter 10: The Fiery Stronghold

Mario and Sonic were getting ready to take out the main boss in order to rescue another Grand Star and Chaos Emerald. The Launch Star shot them at Bowser's Star Reactor.

They first landed on a pipe-like entrance, where they met up with a Luma.

"I can feel and Grand Star and an Emerald nearby!" the Luma said. "But this place is filled with all kinds of traps and tricks! Be careful!"

"Yeah, I can already see lots of dangerous traps up ahead." Mario pointed out.

"Danger is my middle name! We've got this!" Sonic said in his confident tone. The heroes moved forward.

They first walked to a road made of green, blue, yellow and orange steel platforms with spinning fire bars in the way. At the end of the path was a green platform which leads them to the next portion of the area, where they met another Luma.

"The gravity here is all out of whack! Check out the arrows!" the Luma warned.

The heroes noticed the blue arrows pointing downwards and the pink arrows pointing upwards up ahead. They had to deal with gravity precisely without getting into trouble, because there were rotating fire bars and black holes all over the place.

They took a yellow platform at the end of the crazy gravity-switching area, taking them to a road with a red carpet and metal fences to make it look like a fortress. They encountered a Thwomp and more rotating fire bars.

The terrain changed to a green and white chess pattern. As soon as they stepped towards it, Bowser suddenly appeared at the tower up above and begins to shoot meteor fireballs from his mouth. The meteors hit the floor from behind the heroes and it cracks, and falls down slowly.

"Uh oh! We have to hurry to the top, Sonic! That big guy up there is my enemy, Bowser! He wants us out of his domain!" Mario said in a desperate tone.

"Hey, I have an idea! Hold on to my back!" Sonic gestured to his back.

"Huh?" Mario was confused. Then, more meteors came, hitting the part of the floor that they were standing on.

"Just do it!" Sonic shouted. Mario quickly grabs hold of Sonic's back. Eventually, Sonic sped up at the stairs, with Mario holding on his back as tightly as possible.

From the tower, Bowser only saw a sudden trace of blue blur from down there. He was shocked and angered at the same time.

"Grrrrr! Where are these pesky rats now?!" Bowser roared in anger.

"Didn't you meant, hedgehog?" a voice suddenly came from behind him; he turns around and saw none other than Mario and Sonic standing at the tower.

"That doctor wasn't kidding about that hedgehog being fast…" Bowser said in his thoughts.

The top of the tower had blue flags depicting Bowser's face and the center of the floor had Bowser's symbol. A sinister huge ball of flame from behind Bowser was at the background to make this place even more frightening. The two heroes and the Great Koopa King were face to face with each other. A tense moment occurred.

"BWAHAHAHA!" Bowser laughed. "You finally made it!"

"Made it for what, Turtle Breath?" Sonic hissed. Mario stares at Bowser angrily.

"Just in time for me to stomp you into space bits!" Bowser complimented.

He then led out a roar. Suddenly, Mario and Sonic's feet were lifted off the ground, as gravity pulled the three to a glass planet, with green platforms and breakable blue domes.

Bowser starts to attack the two heroes by doing a leap, creating a shockwave. Mario and Sonic jumped on one of the green platforms to avoid the shockwave. Bowser then tries to do a homing stomp over them. They quickly moved out of the way. But Bowser didn't stop doing that.

"We have to find a way to attack him-a!" Mario shouted.

Sonic notices the blue domes at the sphere's ground; Bowser's stomping should be strong enough to break one of these.

"Oh! I got an idea! Follow me!" Sonic directed Mario to one of the blue domes.

"Hey! Over here!" Sonic called for Bowser. Bowser didn't hesitate and does his homing stomp to where the heroes were. Eventually, the heroes moved out of the way at the last second, and when Bowser accidentally stomps the blue dome, his tail catches on fire and he begins to run around the planet in pain, trying to fan the fire out.

"Ha! Gotcha!" Sonic taunted.

Bowser, not paying attention to where he was running, ended up reaching the spot where Mario and Sonic were. As soon as he notices them, he skids to a stop to turn around, but this gave Mario an opportunity to strike his tail with his Spin Attack. Bowser flipped over his shell and was spinning around stunned on his shell. Mario and Sonic delivers a blow on him, the first strike of the match was done.

Bowser stands up, and roars in anger. He then pulled off his second trick; shooting three fireballs from his mouth. Instead of leaping once, he leaps twice, creating two shockwaves followed by one another. After executing these same attacks for the second time, Bowser start to home stomp again.

The heroes located another of those blue domes, and let Bowser break it once again, catching his tail on fire, again. Mario charges at Bowser head-on, and spin attacks his tail once again when Bowser skid to a stop. But this time, once he was flipped on his shell, not only he was spinning around on his shell, but he was also sliding around the planet on his back.

"Hey! Not cool at all!" Sonic growled and immediately chases after Bowser and home attacks him, delivering the second blow.

Bowser stands up again, and roars furiously. This time, he shoots five fireballs, and leaps three times, creating three shockwaves followed by one another.

But the same thing happened again; Bowser does his homing stomp, following the heroes as they were running to the blue dome, Bowser's tail catches on fire, Mario spin attacks the tail, and when Bowser was sliding on his shell, Sonic home attacks him two times.

Bowser and the heroes fell back at the top of the tower. As Bowser falls on his belly, a Chaos Emerald, the blue one, fell from inside of his shell.

"Aha! There's the Emerald!" Sonic smirked.

Bowser stands up slowly, placing his hand on his forehead and groaning, shaking his head.

"WHAT?! HOW… How didn't the Emerald's power give the strength that I wanted?!" Bowser growled in defeat.

"Heh! Did you actually think that one single Emerald would give high amount of power?" Sonic teased. "The Chaos Emeralds might be powerful, but not as powerful as you think!"

"Foolish Mario, foolish Sonic… My plan is too far along now! You really think you can stop me?! Bwahahaha!" Bowser laughs evilly before disappearing in a dark flash.

Then, one of the blue domes crack up, revealing the Grand Star. It floats gently downwards at the center of the tower, above the Blue Chaos Emerald.

Mario and Sonic nodded to each other. Sonic picked up the Blue Chaos Emerald while Mario grabbed the Grand Star. The two objects glow brightly.

They were transported back at the Observatory, and watched the Grand Star spin, evolved by white light, and plunge into the beacon, turning it bright green, while the Blue Chaos Emerald floats and hovers above the Fountain's entrance. More of the Observatory's lights get lit on the right side. A red pipe gets lit, and another door to another dome opens up.

"You rescued another Grand Star and Chaos Emerald, and power has returned to another dome in the back of the observatory!" Rosalina said happily. Polari, Charmy, Amy and Knuckles were standing beside her.

"You guys are doing a great job!" Charmy congratulated.

"If you keep this up, we'll reunite with everyone once again in no time!" Amy exclaimed.

"We're all counting on you!" Knuckles said.

"Hmmm, but I still don't think we have the Star Power we need to fly the observatory through the universe." Rosalina suspected. "The villains who kidnapped Mario's special one took her far from here, to the center of the universe. Once our Star Power is restored, the observatory will be able to go there. Then, Mario, you can reunite with your special one..."

Hearing the word 'special one' once again, a flashback came to Mario; he misses Princess Peach's lovely smile. He was wondering if she was okay, but he knew that already because of the letter she just sent to him.

"Um, hello! Are you there, Mario?" Sonic called, waving his hand in front of Mario. Mario blinked a few times before waking up.

"Huh? What-a? Oh, I was just thinking about my 'special one'." Mario replied.

"I wonder who could Mario's 'special one' be?" Sonic said in his thoughts.

"The new dome that was opened just now is the Kitchen!" Polari said. "And it looks like three more galaxies are now available to reach!"

"I have good news too." Rosalina said. "I've managed to detect three of Sonic's friends in all these three new galaxies." Upon hearing this, Sonic and his friends gasped astonished; 3 friends at once?! Now that's even better for them!

"Awesome! What are these galaxies' names?" Sonic quickly asked.

"Their names are: Beach Bowl Galaxy, Ghostly Galaxy and Buoy Base Galaxy. You can choose which one you want to go first."

"Okay, then! Come on, Mario! Let's not keep my friends waiting!" Sonic said excited and he and Mario sets off to these galaxies by heading to the new opened dome; the Kitchen.

To be continued…

I first planned to make the heroes fight with Eggman first, but since I wanted Sonic to meet Bowser early, I discarded this idea and chose the Bowser fight instead. Are you now noticing that the Chaos Emeralds' colors matches the color of the domes? So you probably know which Emerald color the heroes will find at the Kitchen.

Wow! 3 friends in all of the three main galaxies at the Kitchen! I wonder which ones are? Let's find out in the next chapter of Mario & Sonic: Galaxy Heroes!