Chapter Black 2: The Dark Crater

Navigating through the passages possibly leading to the Dark Crater was much worse than anything before. The darkness was much denser so Team Luigi could barely see a few feet away from them even with a flashlight. No light could pierce through such darkness so the group had to put their flashlights away and carry on blindly. As they ventured through the darkness, the members of Team Luigi discussed of their lost friend.

"Why would Gami hide this from us? Could he really be the Black Guardian?" Daisy asked.

"The way he reacted to it implied he may have theorized something about it but he did not want to believe it was true. Even if he told us, I doubt we would've been able to predict when he'd turn against us." Tatanga said.

Luigi stopped in his track and looked at his friends. The others stopped too. Luigi's friends were unsure of the oncoming. He could tell by their face being mixtures of fear and worry.

"What's wrong, honey? Why did you stop?" Daisy asked to her lover.

Luigi brought up about how such thing would never be told directly to Gami, that his father would never allow him to know about that. This infuriated Daisy, giving up on any fear and doubt she could have at the moment.

"OH! YOU BET I'M GONNA PUNCH THIS IGAMI TO THE SUN ONCE WE GET THERE! TO HIDE SUCH THINGS FROM YOUR CHILDREN IS UNACCEPTABLE!" She shouted.

"Sheesh! I've never seen you angry during that damsel-in-distress phase years ago." The alien pointed out.

"Yeah, I took some self-defence classes after that and they paid off very well. Have you heard of that time I punched Bowser to the moon?"

"You did? You're sure you weren't playing Super Smash Bros against him?"

Daisy pulled out her phone and scrolled through her photos until it showed a picture of an old journal article. The title read as follow.

"TO INFINITY AND BEYOND: BOWSER FOUND ON MOON WITH HUGE PUNCH MARK ON HIS CHEEK!"

It reminded Luigi of the good times of years ago and chuckled. The bat boy laughed out loud.

"I wish I was there when it happened instead of…" He began.

He then remembered of what he had been doing for years before it failed once again and backfired in his face. Daisy kneeled down and comforted him.

"Don't worry. You'll find someone. I'm sure of it." She told.

"But I wanted you." Tatanga cried.

"Shhhh. You can hop in my arms. I'll carry you on the way until the story ends."

Daisy took the alien in her arms and stood back up. She looked back at Luigi but forgot what they were doing right now.

"Wait! Where were we heading right now?" She asked.

Luigi showed a determined look and pointed at the unknown.

"Right! We need to find Gami. I don't care if he may be the Black Guardian but he's our friend and I won't leave anyone behind." Daisy said.

Team Luigi continued deep in the darkness. The corridors around opened up but the darkness did not allow anyone to determine if they were still in more but bigger corridors or in the Dark Crater. Luigi took one step but got scared when his feet went lower as usual. The path was going down. He warned the others about the slope. The others followed Luigi down the slope. The path became less and less steep until it went linear once again. It did take around an hour before it went back to the usual. The place they found themselves in was gigantic. They fended their way through the darkness until they came across a podium. It had a spherical socket in it. Luigi tried the orb in the podium. It fit perfectly and claws came out the podium to grab the orb. It fired a light beam upward and the darkness was slowing fading away. Once all gone, Team Luigi could finally see they indeed reached the Dark Crater. It was perfectly spherical with a few openings here and there and it gave an impressive view at the starry sky and the full moon.

"Hold up! What time is it? I don't recall it took us that long go get here." Tatanga pointed out.

Luigi and Daisy checked their wrist but realized they were not wearing watches. It was an old habit they forget to get rid of when they stopped wearing watches as they now had their phone to tell the time and do more. Luigi took his phone from his pocket and opened it. He showed his phone to his friend. It displayed it was one in the afternoon despite the sky being dark blue and filled with stars. No one could explain why it was nighttime here. Nonetheless, they looked at the sky and were amazed by the many stars up there. They sat down and looked at them. They thought perhaps the stars would lead them to the Black Origami Star. It proved to be true as white lines began connecting the stars to make a giant arrow pointing in a direction. Team Luigi stood up and headed forward to where the arrow was pointing but they stopped a few minutes later when they heard a roar. They looked around but did not find the source on ground level. They looked above at the border of the crater and spotted a shadowy silhouette far away. It jumped high in the air and landed right in front of the group. It was a giant black origami of what appeared to be a battle mech. It had a polygonal shaped dinosaur head with a long cannon on its right side and what looked like a barrel on its left side. The dinosaur head was standing on two tall legs. By its size, it was no doubt the Black Guardian. It roared once again and Team Luigi prepared for a fight against it. Tatanga did not have problem to damage the guardian at all with a photon launcher since most of his attack and equip cards dealt energy damage, a type of damage the Black Guardian was weak to. As for the other members of Team Luigi, they either dealt little damage with cards such as hammers or no damage with anything else. By anything else, Daisy only used a tennis racket but it was to plan a Tag Attack on the next turn. The Black Guardian proved to be a much tougher opponent than any other guardian. It would be obvious the White Guardian would be as strong as the Black Guardian which worried Team Luigi. They hoped that Ori was not the White Guardian like they suspected Gami to be the Black Guardian. It was the guardian's turn who aimed its long cannon at Tatanga. Luckily, the alien had something to counter the attack. He pulled out a Reflector card. The guardian fired a faster-than-light beam at him but the reflector caused the projectile to bounce and hit the guardian. It did damage the cannon and it seemed to be much more than anyone in the group could do but the cannon still looked intact. On the next turn, Tatanga equipped another photon launcher and was about to aim at the guardian until.

"Wait! Shoot at me! I can hit the projectile into the monster!" Daisy proposed.

"You're sure about this? We're talking about a projectile travelling at the speed of sound! You're crazy!" The alien pointed out.

"JUST DO IT!"

Without hesitation, the bat boy aimed at the princess. He was shaking intensively. He was afraid to either miss his shot thus wasting his turn or to harm the one he loved the most.

"Here goes nothing." He stuttered as he slowly pulled the trigger.

He was not ready to resist the recoil of his firearm so, when the projectile was fired, he was knocked back and fell on the ground. Fortunately, Daisy managed to hit the projectile with her tennis racket and sent it to the Black Guardian's body. It did more damage than normally firing at it but was still not enough. Since the guardian had so much armor, Luigi changed his strategy. He used a D-Down Pound card and hit the guardian with his hammer. Thanks to the card's property of ignoring defence, he did full damage to the monster but he only had very few of those cards since he did not predict he would face a heavily armored foe before. It was Daisy's turn and it just so happened she had her ultimate card in her hand, the Mega Punch card. This card was based on the punch she unleased on Bowser once to send him to the moon. She used it and went to punch the Black Guardian on a leg. It did not send him airborne but it made him slide a long way behind. The leg struggled to stay straight the Black Guardian took his turn to automatically repair damage to fully repair the leg. The fight against the Black Guardian continued. The guardian showed a new attack by opening the barrel-like component on the left side of its head. Inside, there were many holes and those holes fired a barrage of missiles at Team Luigi who either used defense cards to negate any effect those missiles could have on them or at least block them to only receive damage. But then, something that never happened before had to happen now. Team Luigi ran out of cards to play against the Black Guardian.

"I thought they said the cards were reusable!" Tatanga said.

"No, they are but I think we can't use them again in a battle!" Daisy said.

"Either way, we're lost!

Luigi put Tatanga on his back and took Daisy by the hand and tried to run away from the Black Guardian. The guardian did not even have to pursue his prey. It aimed its long cannon at the group and fired another beam. Though it was not a direct hit, it certainly stopped the group from running away as they got sent away and fallen down on the ground. Smoke from the impact of the beam with the ground prevented anyone to see far away. Just when they thought they were done for, they heard something that certainly did not come from the guardian.

"Hello? Anyone here?" A familiar voice spoke.

From the smoke emerged a familiar silhouette. It was Petey. The group was more than glad to see him here.

"What's happening around here?" Petey asked.

Luigi stood back up and pointed through the smoke fading away to reveal the Black Guardian once again. He looked back a Petey and asked his help to defeat their opponent but did not notice the guardian firing a barrage of missile at them. Petey used his leaves to cover his friends from the attack. All the missiles went at him. The others were worried but the plant giant plant was barely injured.

"Don't worry guys. It'll take much more than that to take me down." The plant reassured.

Since the group no longer had cards to play against the guardian, they had no choice but to let Petey fight it all alone. Though Petey was able to damage the guardian, it would not be enough to beat it before it beat him first. The guardian chose to attack with a leg but Petey deflected it with a Hammering Headbutt card. On the next turn, Tatanga pointed his raygun at Petey. It was his normal attack if he did not have any card to play. Luigi saw him and tried to stop him.

"Trust me! I know what I'm doing!" The alien shouted.

He fired his raygun at Petey. Because Petey was too big, he did not take damage but the color on his head and his swimsuit changed from red to purple. Since Luigi and Daisy were not in the Mossy Swamp when the mutation happened, they were both surprised to see this. This gave Petey the idea to unleash a Whirlwind card against the Black Guardian. The combination of wind and electricity dealt massive damage on the guardian who had to drop off his arsenal for having been rendered out of use. Though it could have seemed the battle was over, the Black Guardian reshaped itself with what was left of his body and turned into another war machine. This new form boasted more sophisticated weaponry. It now had a force field surrounding its body protecting it against energy damage. Petey did not have many other cards he could use to fight the newly reincarnated guardian. He tried a Goop Shot card against the guardian but it did not do much aside spreading goop on its legs. The guardian had little to do with some mud on his legs and fired at him with two Vulcan cannons. Something the guardian was not aware of is that the goop got on the ground and it is known to be slippery. The recoil from the two Vulcan cannons pushed the guardian backward and, when there was no more goop to where it was being pushed, it fell on his back. The fall caused significant to the guardian but was still not enough. Petey put his leaves in front of his face because he was receiving some dust from the impacts of the projectiles on the ground. Little did he know he made the same exact move that caused him to turn into an origami. Much like last time, the white border around Petey's body grew into a sheet of paper and began folding. Luigi and Daisy were scared since they were not there when Petey first transformed but Tatanga was excited. When the transformation was over, Petey became an origami once again. The others hopped on his head. It was now a fight on equal foot between Petey and the Black Guardian but the guardian was severely injured from all the attacks it received recently. It did not take much now for Petey to finish it. He just used his head to smash the guardian into the ground. The Black guardian unfolded itself and shrank in size. Petey reverted to normal and the group went to see the guardian becoming Gami. The paper plane woke up and looked at his friends.

"… Why did you fight me? Why didn't you ignore me?" He whispered in a weak tone.

He was severely bruised so Luigi attended to his wounds as best as he could. The others helped him too but they would have to meet someone who actually knew how to treat an origami. Luigi then brought up he would never leave a friend behind, a statement everyone else in Team Luigi agreed. Gami was ashamed of his actions. He slowly left the ground, clumsily hovering around as he did not fully recover, and looked at his friends.

"I never wanted to believe I was the Black Guardian. The idea on its own disturbed me too much and I had nightmares of Ori being the White Guardian." He said.

The others had nothing to tell him. They understood such theory or truth would have been better off forgotten or hidden as they were too frightening to be real or believed.

"Never mind. I remember now where I put the Black Origami Star. Let's go get it. And, hey Petey. What brought you here?" Gami asked.

"Your sister got worried something happened to you so she sent me to check on you guys." Petey brought up.

"She did well to do so. Without you, I'd be afraid that…"

He stopped. The sole thought of harming his friends sickened him and brushed it away. He navigated into the Dark Crater with his friends until he came across an opening. Inside, it was like someone's bedroom. The star was lying on the bed. Luigi pointed out how it would have been easy for anyone to take it away.

"I do understand your point, Luigi, but the dense darkness that usually invades the crater makes it impossible to find this place. Plus, you'd have to be very strong to carry such artifact with ease if you didn't have magic." Gami explained.

He went to the star and shrank it to the size of the badge. He hoped Ori managed to get hers but feared she may have fought their friends in the White Region. Luigi also pointed out the unusual presence of a bedroom in a crater.

"This is my private room, a place where father would never find me. I always invited my sister here. It was like a backup plan if father ever thought of meeting me in the Black Region, a place where I could be whoever I wanted without his presence forcing me to be the exact opposite of my sister." Gami lamented.

Now that the group was done with the Black Region, Petey pulled out his walkie-talkie.

"Hello? Hello!" He first said in it.

"Petey? What's going on?" Ori's voice said with a weaker tone.

Team Luigi was shocked to hear Ori's voice. With what just happened to Gami, they expected the same thing to have happened to her.

"I found the others. Everyone's fine here." Petey declared.

You did? You really found back everyone? Can you pass them?" Ori's voice asked.

"Hey!" Daisy yelled.

"Can we just go?" Tatanga lamented.

"Hey…" Gami said in a weak tone.

"Did you find the Black Origami Star?" Ori's voice asked.

"We have it with us. Did you get the white one?" Gami replied.

"Yeah… Let's just get to the Iron Fortress. We now have everything to confront father."

And so, Team Luigi left the Dark Crater and headed to the Grey Region with one last goal in mind: to find out what was happening inside the Silver Palace. All that happened to them in their journey, the origamis becoming feral, the grey substance spreading, the guardians shifting into their strongest form against their will, they sought the answer to all these anomalies. The end was near but no one knew what to expect.