Chapter 25: Of Lace and Lies
"There they are! Up there! Princess Peach is trapped inside! Save her!"
Starlow and the Bros. looked up at the ball of Kretins. It shook around a bit, but Starlow was forcing it to stay put, letting Bowser's subconscious maintain the overall illusion for her while she focused on the blobs that held Peach captive.
With a chorus of "Ya hoo!" and "Oh yeah!" the Mario Bros. jumped up to the platform.
"Listen, guys… Be careful! I don't think hammering or jumping will shake them off… We have to think of some other way to get rid of them…" cautioned Starlow as they approached the Kretins. She could hold the energy monsters steady, but the Bros. would need to provide the last little burst of energy.
And as she suspected, they knew what to do, and used a spin jump to rip through the ball of enemies, sending them flying off in all directions and freeing Peach, who promptly fell to the ground.
"Peach!" called Mario, kneeling beside the princess, his face riddled with concern.
Fortunately the effects of being ensnared by Bowser's energy wore off quickly and she opened her eyes, pushing herself up and looking over at the scattered Kretins. "What in the world…"
Unconcerned with the enemies, Mario and Luigi whooped with relief, and even Starlow smiled down at the scene. Peach looked around at her friends. "…Ah! …You all saved me! Thank you so much!"
Sensing a disturbance in the local energy field, Starlow turned around and gasped as the Kretins started flying back towards the group. "Mario! Luigi! THEY'RE COMING BACK!"
The Bros. warily watched as six Kretins hovered at the end of the platform, their eyes glaring menacingly and their forms becoming wreathed in light as electric shocks passed between them and transformed them. Mario, Luigi and Peach's eyes widened as the separate Kremlins suddenly became one single, large, red, pentagonal lattice. It even had blobs forming arms and legs and began stepping towards the group.
"OK guys! You stop them! I'll guard the princess!" instructed Starlow, determined not to let Bowser's energy monsters get a hold on Peach again.
"Maybe-a one of us should guard the princess instead," suggested Luigi from the back of the group.
Starlow narrowed her eyes. "What? Luigi, YOU want to guard the princess?"
"Oh yeah," he nodded.
Starlow flew around behind Luigi, who turned to follow her movement. "You mean Mario and I should fight those guys?"
"Oh yeah."
"VERY FUNNY!" she snarled. Luigi was almost as aggravating as Bowser sometimes – maybe even moreso because she expected the Koopa to be a jerk, but Luigi was supposed to be a brave hero, not a spineless coward. If he keeps it up, he should exchange his green shirt for a yellow belly. How many boss fights had he tried to weasel out of so far? Three? Four? Well, tough luck, snorted Starlow to herself as she tackled the green plumber and sent him flying into the monstrous Kretin.
"Waa!" Luigi screamed as he soared through the air and bounced harmlessly off the Alpha Kretin. In response, it changed some of its individual Beta Kretin nodes from red to green and started firing energy blasts at the Bros. Hammering the danger out of the way, they retaliated and stomped on the nodes, with each brother attacking a Beta Kretin that matched their colour. Starlow was glad they figured it out so fast – Bowser's energy was somehow adapting to the Bros. energy, but thankfully, it was having difficulty guarding against both of the Marios' energy signatures at the same time.
After taking damage, the Beta Kretins turned blue again, and once all six had been hurt, the connections between them dissolved and they tumbled to the ground, all but one dissolving into nothingness on impact. But the fight was far from over and that one surviving Beta Kretin summoned five more companions. They then encircled the Mario Bros., shooting green lightning between them to try and zap the humans in their midst. The Bros. knew they had to take out the leader, and while the Kretins often shuffled themselves, the plumbers did indeed land some good shots before the blobs formed another Alpha Kretin.
Rather than the pentagon shape, this time the Alpha Kretin took the pattern of an inverted triangle, but it made no difference to the Bros. as they went to work, once again breaking it apart and whaling on the leader Beta Kretin until it finally exploded in a blast of light.
"Mario! Luigi! Thank you! I knew you'd save me," smiled Peach as the Bros. cheered victoriously.
"Listen, Princess Peach…" began Starlow, hating to break up the celebration so soon. "Bowser inhaled everyone. They're all inside his body…"
"Well, in that case, we must find a way for all of us to escape," she replied.
Starlow had been worried someone would bring that up sooner or later.
"But-a how? Toadbert's explored all over and-a he says he couldn't find a way to any of Bowser's-a… exits," said Luigi, averting his eyes in embarrassment over the last part.
"Hmm? You think we might not be able to get back outside?" frowned Peach.
"Yeah," he sighed, looking back at her.
"Well… What to do…" mused the princess.
"Gosh… Up to now, all I was thinking about was finding Princess Peach… But now we really need to find a way out of here…" bluffed Starlow, before trying to dodge the subject. "Hey, look! There's another room up ahead." She floated to the far side of the room to a passage leading further into the area. "Maybe just through here! It could be the exit…" It wasn't – Bowser hadn't needed to turn anything beyond the Kretin into a maze, and Starlow knew exactly what she had designed for the next room, but she supposed the Bros. would need a new quest to keep their minds occupied. She floated back over to the three humans. "Tell you what… I'll guard Princess Peach here. You two go ahead and see if there's an exit, OK?" It may not be a maze beyond the threshold, but Starlow wasn't convinced that Bowser's energy was completely done trying to get Peach. Defeating the Kretin had certainly taken a chunk out of him, but Fawful's food energy would fix that soon enough, and Bowser was nothing if not frustratingly tenacious when it came to princess-napping.
Peach eyed Starlow, her face unreadable, but to the Star Sprite's relief, she didn't insist on pressing ahead with the Bros. "Mario, Luigi, good luck. Starlow and I will debate what to do next."
"Oh yeah!"
"Okay!"
Pretending like she didn't know about the fake Emoglobin she had initially created for Peach, Starlow started to explain the situation, but as soon as the Bros. were out of earshot, the princess cut her off. "So, what's the real story?"
"What do you mean?" asked Starlow innocently, but Peach wasn't fooled.
"Mario and Luigi have seen a lot of things in their travels – and they're so sweet, they'll believe anything a Star tells them, and so would the Toads, but I know for a fact that biology does not work like this," said Peach, sweeping her arm over the chamber as she stared Starlow down. "So where are we really? What's going on?"
Starlow faltered. She had a whole speech prepared in case someone questioned the wacky biology or found any holes in her story, but now that she was faced with a skeptic – and in the form of Princess Peach, no less – she found herself forgetting all her lines. She was just getting so tired of lying to everyone: it wasn't a fun feeling, even if she knew it was ultimately the right thing to do. But Peach had seen through the deception, and she wasn't going mad from the revelation. As long as she didn't try to escape the illusion, she should be fine, and if Starlow was straight with her, hopefully she'd know to cooperate – rather than potentially striking out on her own to try and find her own truth.
The Star Sprite sighed. "It's partly true. We are inside Bowser, but we're not in his guts – we're in his hammerspace. But I knew no one could handle existing like that, so I created an illusion for everyone's minds to take shelter in."
Peach frowned. "I've been in hammerspace before – in his Clown Car. It was weird – but it wasn't that bad."
Starlow shook her head. "This is WAY different than that sort of artificial hammerspace hold. Bowser is a living thing – everything that enters his hammerspace becomes part of him in a way, and it's not meant to be used on other living things. Normally, it can't, but Fawful fed Bowser a bad mushroom that destroyed that barrier. When he sucked us in, everyone's energy destabilized – we were almost torn apart, but with some help from some other Stars, I was able to stabilize things. Then I separated Mario and Luigi's souls and created this illusion for their minds: the true nature of our existence inside Bowser would drive everyone insane. The only reason I can even function is because I'm an energy being to start with."
Peach nodded. "It sounds like a very dire situation indeed – we're lucky you were there. Are the Toads okay too?"
"Another Star pulled them all out of Bowser's mire a while ago – you were the only one he left, for some reason, and I didn't have enough energy to separate your energy from Bowser's energy myself until recently."
"I see…" said Peach. "Well, I'm very grateful: we all owe you our lives. But… Why lie about it?"
Starlow looked away. "Well, I… I just thought it'd be easier. I mean, this way they have something to do – they all do. The Toads are exploring or running shops, Mario and Luigi have been looking for you. The alternative is just having them sit around and wait for Bowser to blunder into the next pickle, and then let him leech out their energy to get out of the jam, and-"
"Wait, what?"
Starlow took a sharp breath. She hadn't meant to tell Peach quite that much, but she had been holding it all in for so long, now that she had started, she couldn't help but spill all the beans. "Bowser's trying to stop Fawful, but like I said before, the mushroom really messed him up. I've stabilized his energy as best I can, but he still needs power-ups from the Mario Bros. all the time." Starlow's look of contrition then slid into a smirk. "Actually, he often needs so much extra juice, it makes me wonder how he managed before I came along."
"Does Bowser know what's going on?" asked Peach.
Starlow snorted. "Definitely not! He'd flip if he knew he was getting help from the Mario Bros. All he knows is that there's someone inside him helping him out – and I was careful about that too: I gave him a fake name just in case he heard my real one back at the castle."
"So he doesn't know we're inside him?"
"Nope – he was half out of his mind when he arrived back at your castle: he can't remember anything between when he ate the mushroom and when we woke him up at Cavi Cape."
"Hmmm," Peach stared off into the distance for a moment, mulling things over. "I can understand why you did what you did. I'm sure the Toads would panic – or worse – if they learned their energies were somehow connected to Bowser's. Part of me wants to tell Mario and Luigi the truth, but I wonder… I'm sure they'd understand why you did it too, but would they be so willing to continue to provide Bowser with their power? It's not like them to sit around – they might try to escape on their own."
"That's exactly it!" said Starlow, relieved that Peach saw it her way. "I don't want to lie to them, but I really don't see another way…"
"Still, maybe we could try gauging how they'd react. Maybe ease them into it: we at least owe it to them to check to see if they might accept simply lying dormant while Bowser does the leg work…"
"I suppose…" said Starlow. "But how could we do that?"
Peach shrugged. "I'm sure we'll think of something. In the meantime, let's catch up to them before they get too far ahead. The least we can do is stop them from going on a wild Birdo chase in the meantime… I'm assuming there is no way to get out of this, yes?"
Starlow shook her head sadly. "I'm hoping that one of my Star friends will show me how to free us all sooner or later. It'll take a lot of energy, and for some reason, they've been keeping a rather hands-off approach to the whole thing – sticking me with all the hard work most of the time…" She scowled at the thought, but forced an optimistic smile on her face once more. "But maybe they're just researching a solution for us. I know they won't let us stay like this forever."
Peach returned the smile as she started off towards the passage. "I'm sure you're right."
-xxxxx-
Fortunately, Mario and Luigi hadn't gone far, and the girls caught up to them in no time. "Well, that was a short debate," said Peach. "We decided it would be prudent just to explore this area."
"So, did you look around? See an exit anywhere?" asked Starlow, trying to make small talk.
Peach answered for them, peering into the depth of the chamber. "Nothing but dead ends here… Not an exit to be seen."
"Oh… Well, again we play the waiting game for some bodily change…" said Starlow, but catching the knowing look Peach was now shooting her, she knew one thing they'd be doing in the meantime, and prepared herself for what had the potential to be a rather difficult conversation with the Bros.