Mario and Sonic: Heroes Unite!
Chapter 29: Tentacle Wrangle!
Big Blooper Ocean, Mysterious Blooper Ruins
The heroes were together in one of the large rooms of the ruins under the Big Blooper Ocean. They were planning on how to find the Power Star that got itself lost in the ruins. This would be no easy task, as they would have to swim through the most dangerous places in order to find it.
"Out of all the places, the Power Star itself had to be lost inside this large aquarium!" Luigi complained. He still wore the Frog Suit he had found, along with Mario.
Sonic agreed with him. "I'm not a fan of water myself, Luigi. But we need to find that Power Star. It's the only way that me, Tails and Amy are going to get back to our dimension."
Tails looked to his broken Gadd DS Horror. It broke when it got submerged into the whirlpool. It wouldn't even turn on anymore and was pretty useless. "If only my DS Horror hadn't broken. Then this search would be much easier for us."
Diddy Kong had been looking around the huge room while the heroes conversed. He suddenly caught something in the corner of his eye. "Hey! What's that shiny thing over there?" He pointed to the roof of the large room. Up there, wedged into a small crack in the roof, was the Power Star! The heroes couldn't believe it!
"Wow! What amazing luck that was!" Yoshi exclaimed. "Who would have thought that the Power Star was in the exact same room we were in!"
Luigi was slightly amused from Yoshi's comment. "Hehe...yeah."
Sonic gently nudged at Tails. "You think you can handle this one?" Tails quickly nodded. He soon rotated his two tails in a helicopter motion, allowing him to fly through the air. He flew himself up to the Power Star. With a grunt of effort, he pulled the Power Star out from the small crack. A few drops of water fell from the crack. Tails quickly flew back to the others, holding the Power Star with both hands.
"Whoa! That was cool!" Diddy Kong exclaimed. He was astonished from Tails' ability to fly with his tails.
The heroes were finally finished in the underwater ruins. They were reunited and found the next Power Star. Now all that was left was to get out of there. But how? They looked around, wondering where they should go. Suddenly...
RUMBLE! RUMBLE! RUMBLE!
A loud rumbling noise engulfed throughout the room. The floor began to shake under the heroes. What was going on? The water that filled half of the room because of the broken floor began to move. A large creature slowly came out of the water. It had huge, wiggling tentacles. It slammed them on the floor near the heroes. Mario and Sonic quickly recognized the creature.
It was Gooper Blooper!
"What is that thing?" Amy hollered out. But before her question was answered, Gooper Blooper gave out a piercing roar that shook the whole ruins. Once it was done roaring, Gooper Blooper raised one of it's tentacles towards them, preparing to squish them. The heroes dived out of the way, just as the tentacle slammed into the floor.
"That was close!" Tails said. He slowly got up, still holding the Power Star in his hands. Gooper Blooper saw the Power Star in the fox's hand and quickly swiped it from him with it's tentacle. "Hey! Give that back!" Tails chased after the tentacle with the Power Star when a dark, purple mist appeared in front of him. It slowly faded, revealing the shadow figure.
"Aahh...the brainy mechanic..." the shadow figure said in a tone of disgust. "It's been awhile since we've met." Suddenly, a shadow paint brush appeared in it's hand. The shadow figure swung it with tremendous force, knocking Tails backwards. The fox let out a scream, collapsing on the floor with a loud thud. The heroes were shocked.
"Tails!" Sonic shouted. He quickly ran up to his friend's side. Tails was badly hurt. His left arm sustained the most injury. Sonic looked up to the shadow figure, enraged. "You monster!"
The shadow figure gave him an evil smirk, amused at Sonic's rage at him. He pointed his shadow paintbrush at him. "What are you going to do, pitiful hedgehog? Attack me?" Sonic had the urge to spin attack him, but before he could the shadow figure disappeared in a puff of purple smoke. "I think you have better things to deal with right now," his voice boomed in the ruins. "like the destructive power of the tentacled monster before you!"
Gooper Blooper gave out another loud roar. After that he spewed out a sloppy, green goop from his tube-like mouth, covering most of the floor. The heroes were disgusted.
"Eww! Gross!" Amy shrieked out. Her disgust from the goop was soon interrupted when Gooper Blooper slammed it's tentacle near the heroes. They all ran behind a pillar to avoid the incoming attacks. Sonic carried Tails in his arms and headed to the others.
"What do we do now!" Luigi said to them. He was freaking out again.
Mario calmed him down. "Listen, we need to get the Power Star back from Gooper Blooper." The heroes agreed. They had to fight the tentacle monster. Tails wanted to help, but Sonic told him he needed to rest his arm. They quickly came up with a plan. Mario and Sonic would try and take the Power Star from Gooper Blooper's tentacle while Luigi, Yoshi and Donkey Kong distracted it.
"Alright! Let's do this!" Donkey Kong pounded his chest. He ran from behind the pillar and began to wave at Gooper Blooper, trying to get it's attention. Yoshi and Luigi joined him.
"What about us?" Amy asked Sonic. He pointed to Tails and Diddy Kong, telling her that she needed to keep them and herself protected. Amy nodded. "Good luck Sonic. And don't do anything crazy."
Sonic gave her a quick grin and soon joined Mario. He was still donning his Frog Suit. "Are you sure you don't want to take that off?" Sonic asked him. Mario shook his head. He knew that this power-up should help them fight Gooper Blooper.
Luigi, Yoshi and Donkey Kong did their best to attract Gooper Blooper's attention. They shouted as loud as they could to Gooper Blooper, but it didn't seem to work. Gooper Blooper kept it's attention to the Power Star in it's tentacle, admiring it's shining glow. Yoshi became irritated. "Time to kick it up a notch!" Yoshi quickly turned Luigi and spit his tongue at him, swallowing the poor plumber. He immediately shot him out of his mouth and towards Gooper Blooper. Luigi shouted as he rocketed in the air. He slammed hard on Gooper Blooper's face and fell into the water.
"Haha! Nice shot!" Donkey Kong said to Yoshi. He gave him a quick high-five.
Gooper Blooper was now mad! He turned towards Yoshi and Donkey Kong and directed two of it's tentacles towards them. Luckily, they jumped out in time, causing the tentacles to slam into the floor. Donkey Kong took advantage of this and grabbed the tentacles with his mighty arms. He began to tie them up in a complicated knot, disarming them. Gooper Blooper was even madder! He began to spit shots of goop at them.
Meanwhile, Luigi was just climbing back onto the floor, exhausted. He couldn't believe that Yoshi shot him right into Gooper Blooper's face! "I swear, when I get my hands on Yoshi, I'm-a gonna-" but before he finished his sentence, he was bombarded with goop from Gooper Blooper. He became all covered with goop from head to toe. Mario and Sonc came running up to him, ready to take the Power Star.
"Hey, nice distracting, Luigi!" Sonic gave him a thumbs-up, then quickly turned back to Gooper Blooper. "Now how are we going to get the Power Star from this tentacled freak?" He quickly turned to Mario, who was slowly back up from where he was. The plumber paused for a moment, then began to hop forward. He jumped right at the edge of the floor. He flew across the air and grabbed onto Gooper Blooper's tentacle that held onto the Power Star. The tentacle began to wiggle ferociously, trying to throw Mario off. The plumber held on for his dear life. Sonic was impressed.
"Okay...now what can I do?" The hedgehog thought for a moment. He soon thought of something. He charged up a spin-dash and aimed himself directly at Gooper Blooper's face. He rolled across the floor at intense speed and jumped right at the edge. Still in spin-dash form, he flew in the air and landed directly onto Gooper Blooper's forehead. He drilled his spin-dash there, causing major damage on Gooper Blooper. It roared in pain, letting go of the Power Star. It fell into the water. Mario dived down for it, while Sonic jumped off of Gooper Blooper's forehead and back onto the floor.
Gooper Blooper began to slowly sink down into the water. It gave out one final cry before being fully submerged. It became eerily silent in the ruins.
Diddy Kong, along with Amy and Tails, walked from behind the pillar. They saw that Gooper Blooper was gone. Diddy Kong let out a cheer. "Wow! That was super amazing! I wish I could've helped!"
The heroes basked in their victory for awhile, until Luigi noticed something. "Wait a minute, where's Mario?" The group looked around, finding no sign of the plumber with them. They soon rushed to the edge of the floor and looked down into the water. They were expecting him to swim up to surface, but it didn't happen.
"Something bad must've happened." Tails commented. "I mean, Mario is a good swimmer and he should have surfaced by now. Someone has to check if he's alright." At first, they were all reluctant to dive down there. But suddenly, Sonic grew the courage to check for himself. He jumped off the floor and dived into the water.
"Sonic!" Amy shouted to him. She couldn't believe he had done something like that because he was a terrible swimmer.
Sonic was underwater. He began to look around, seeing no sign of Mario. He didn't know how to swim, he all he could do was flail his arms backwards to thrust himself forwards deeper into the water. For awhile, he couldn't find Mario, until he came across something. There, right in front of nhim, was Gooper Blooper! Sonic was about to panick when he found out that Gooper Blooper's eyes were closed. Sonic assumed he was unconscious. He looked around for a bit until he saw a bright yellow glow. Sonic "swam" towards it and was shocked.
In one of the tentacles, was Mario! He was unconscious, but in his hand was the Power Star! Sonic unwrapped Mario from the tentacle. The plumber's body began to float back up to surface, along with the Power Star. Sonic was about to swim back up when something grabbed his leg. He looked down and found the same tentacle was wrapped around his leg. Sonic tried to free himself, but to no avail. He looked back to Gooper Blooper's face and saw one of it's eyes open, staring right at him. Even though Gooper Blooper was defeated, he had enough strength to hold down Sonic with it's tentacle.
Sonic soon lost his breath from trying to free himself. Before he lost conscious, he saw a figure swimming towards him...
"...wake up..."
"...onic..."
"...up...Soni..."
Sonic soon woke up, feeling a little lightheaded. He found himself lying down on the floors of the ruins. Staring back at him was the others. They were relieved when Sonic came back to conscious.
"...what happened?" Sonic asked them. He slowly sat up, rubbing his forehead. "Where's Mario? How did I get back up here?"
Tails began to explain. "Well first off, Mario is okay." Beside him, was the plumber himself. He was out of his frog suit and back into his regular attire, including his hat. He winked at the hedgehog, as a sign of thank you.
"After we recovered him, we were expecting you to come back out of the water, but you didn't..." Tails continued. "We began to worry about you, so suddenly, out of surprise, Amy dove down into the water to find you. She was able to free you from the tentacle and swim you both up just in time before Gooper Blooper could grab a hold of you again."
Sonic was surprised. He couldn't believe that Amy had done something so courageous like that. And for him... "...where is she now?" The heroes turned to the edge of the floor. There, Amy was lying down on her back, apparently unconscious. Sonic quickly stood up and rushed to her side. He held her in his arms, worrying about her. "Amy! Wake up!" For a moment, she didn't respond. But then, she spoke a single word.
"...Sonic..." She began to open her eyes and saw him staring back at her. "You're okay!" She quickly hugged him, causing the hedgehog to fall backwards a bit.
Sonic nodded and smiled. "All because of you." The two began to stare at each other for a moment. Sonic broke the silence. "You know, I'm a bit impressed that you saved me. Just promise me, next time, don't do anything crazy." Amy gave out a small laugh and they both got up.
"Well, that was fun!" Yoshi exclaimed. "But we should probably get out of here. It's starting to smell fishy in these underwater ruins." He gave out a disgusted face.
The heroes wondered how they would get out of here. They couldn't go back, due to the strong current that lead them into the ruins itself. Suddenly, the shadow figure appeared in the air above them. He was furious.
"I can't believe that not enough a titanic squid could kill you!" the shadow figure roared viciously at them. "Do I have to do everything myself?" Suddenly, the shadow figure raised it's shadow paintbrush into the air. It gave out a dark sparkle. Suddenly, a loud rumbling noise was heard in the ruins. The shadow figure slowly gave them an evil wave, and disappeared. The heroes were confused to what was happening.
All of a sudden, a hole popped out of the roof in the room, causing water to come in. Then another hole popped out and another. Soon the roof was full of holes. This was not a good sign to the heroes. In a split second, the whole roof broke apart and a huge amount of water crashed into the room, submerging the heroes. A strong current caught them and they were soon tumbling across the ocean ruins yet again. Luckily, it lead them out of the ruins and out into the surface of the Big Blooper Ocean. They were all coughing and couldn't believe that they were out of the ruins.
"I can't believe it!" Luigi shouted. "We're out of that miserable underwater ruins! YEEAAAH!" He hugged the closest person near him, which was Yoshi.
"It looks like that shadow figure's plan backfired." Donkey Kong said. Diddy Kong was standing on his back, squeezing the water out of his hat.
"Well, atleast we're out of there." Sonic said. He turned to Mario, who was floating leisurely on his back. "Hey, what are ya doing? We need to find our way back to shore."
"I'm-a just taking a moment to relax. I really need it." Mario answered back to him. It was true. He had been through a lot in the past couple of hours. He had been thrown overboard off a cruise ship, stranded on a desert island, swam through the ruins at the bottom of the ocean and almost drowned. He really deserved the rest. Sonic swam up to him, looked at him for a moment and joined him. He floated on his back, resting for a moment. It was nice to relax, even though they were in the middle of the ocean.
"Hey! Look! A bird!" Yoshi pointed at something in the sky. It was far off in the distance, so it was hard to actually tell what it was. But was it got closer, it was easier to identify it.
Tails swam up to Yoshi and gave a closer look at the "bird". "Yoshi, that's no bird. That's a helicopter!" Sure enough, it was a helicopter. But just not any helicopter. It was the Chop Chop Helicopter! It belonged to Princess Peach. The heroes waved at the helicopter as it slowly hovered towards them. A rope ladder was thrown down to them. One by one, they each climbed up the ladder and into the helicopter. Mario was the last one to climb inside and was greeted by a hug from Princess Peach.
"Oh my goodness, I'm so glad you're all okay." Peach said to him. "I thought I'd never see you again. We sent out search parties everywhere, but we just couldn't find you. " The voice in her tone seemed like she was about to cry.
Mario gently comforted her. "It's okay, princess. We're all safe now." He gave her an assuring smile, which calmed her down a bit. "By the way, how were you guys able to find us just now?"
"Well, were able to get some help from a fine gentleman." Peach explained. Suddenly, Professor Gadd appeared out from the cockpit and greeted the heroes.
"Heeheehee! Well you all seemed to have enjoyed a fine swim out in the ocean, I presume." Gadd joked to them. "Honestly though, I'm quite glad you're all okay."
"Professor Gadd!" Sonic exclaimed to him. "You were able to find us? But how exactly?"
Gadd began to explain. "Well, you see I was keeping great attention to where you all were by looking at my tracker I had that tracked down the coordinates to where my Gadd DS Horror went." Tails took out the Gadd DS Horror from his pocket, which was still broken. "Once the signal had disappeared due a malfunction from the DS Horror, I thought something bad had happened to all of you, so I told the princess about this and well, here we are."
"That's really clever thinking, professor." Tails said. "But all at the cost of your DS Horror being destroyed.." The professor walked up to Tails and took the DS Horro out of his hand, carefully inspecting it.
"Do not worry, young fox! Nothing I can't do to fix it. You'll be having a brand new DS Horror once I've fixed and tinkered with this one." Tails was happy to hear this. Gadd reminded them of something. "By the way, the Power Star was close to where you heroes were. Did you happen to retrieve it?"
The heroes looked at each other. Mario had it last, but now he didn't. They thought the Power Star had been washed out into the ocean from the current the shadow figure had made. Suddenly, Diddy Kong spoke up. "I have it!" He took the Power Star out of his jet backpack. He handed it to professor Gadd.
"Good job, young monkey. Right when we get back to my garage, I'll pop this Power Star into the Gadd Teleportificationtron. Hopefully, this one will take Sonic and his friends back home. But right now, you all must dry off at the resort."
And so, the heroes took a well deserved break during the helicopter ride back to Daisy Resort. Surely, Daisy was there waiting to greet them for their return. It soon started to become sunset.
During the ride, Yoshi was sitting in the back seat, alone. He turned his back towards the others so they wouldn't see what he was doing. He went through his pocket and took out a green emerald. It shined in his hand. Yoshi was dazzled by the sparkle it gave off.
"Man, this gift that Catherine gave me is the best!"
Bowser's Castle, Junior's Bedroom
Junior was alone in his bedroom, yet again. He was lying on his bed, thinking. He had the Purple Chaos Emerald in his left hand. He wondered how he was going to tell him. How could he explain all this to his papa? Would he be proud of him? Even though he has been hiding this all along?
Suddenly, a shadowy, purple mist appeared in his bedroom. Junior stood up and stared at the mist. The mist disappeared, revealing the shadow figure. It stared back at Junior, noticing the troubled look on his face. "What seems to be the problem, young star child?"
"Oh...nothing." Junior answered. He put the Purple Chaos Emerald back into his pocket and jumped off his bed. He walked up to the shadow figure. "So, did you did it? Did you find the next star child?"
The shadow figure nodded to him. "Yes, indeed I did. It wasn't hard as I thought it would have been. With your help, of course." Suddenly, a brown cloak appeared in the shadow figure's hand. He handed it to Junior.
"So, who was the next Star child?" Junior began to ask. "And how were you able to give the Chaos Emerald to them?"
The shadow figure took a moment to explain what he had done. "Well first, the Star child was a young, green dinosaur I had encountered before. Unfortunately, he was with them. The shadow figure remembered his plan. What he had done on the cruise ship to give the next Chaos Emerald to the star child, without them finding out. "I had to think of something. So I borrowed your brown cloak and used it so I could disguise myself as a mysterious business man. I sold the Green Chaos Emerald to the star child's supposed 'lover' and she gave it to him. Luckily, they didn't notice."
Junior nodded. "That must've been tricky. Now that you've found three of the Star Children, how are you going to find the next one?" The shadow figure stared back at him, with a demented look in his eyes.
"I have..." Suddenly, another Chaos Emerald appeared in the shadow figure's hand. It was the Blue Chaos Emerald. "I intend to give this to him tonight." The shadow figure suddenly gave out an evil laugh. "This Star child is somewhat of a coward, but this makes it much easier. I have plans for that one Star Child..."
The shadow figure suddenly disappeared in a puff of purple smoke. Junior was a bit creeped out by the shadow figure's behavior, but soon shrugged it off. He knew that they were one step closer to ultimate power.
"This will all be worth it..."
.
..
...
To be continued!
Our heroes are finally safe from the dangers of the ocean! And they have found their next Power Star! Will this be able to send Sonic and his friends back into their dimension? And who seems to be the next Star Child the shadow figure is targeting? Tune in next time for the next chapter of Mario and Sonic: Heroes Unite!
Author Notes: This chapter was pretty action-packed! I have worked pretty hard on this chapter. Let me say this, something twisted is about to happen in the next couple of chapters, so I hope you guys will like that too!
Anyways, I'm tired right now, so I don't have much to say. I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. Every Saturday evening is a new chapter, so be sure to check it! See you guys next time and thanks for the support!
(Question of the Week) - Do you remember which Mario characters are already in possession of the Chaos Emeralds at this point?
-I do not own any Mario or Sonic related characters. They are property of Nintendo and Sega.
