Aw yeah, this is happenin'! Last chapter of 2020, and just in time for Christmas!
"Okay, something that huge has no right to be this fast!"
That little lament came from none other than Sonic, continuing to sprint after the resurrected and zombified Petey Piranha, who hovered just yards ahead of him by flapping his leafy arms, sending out gusts of wind that prevented him from getting too close. Tails remained close behind, flying along the forest floor at an only slightly slower speed; neither of them paid much attention to their surroundings as they sped by, sticking to the mossy dirt path.
"I'm guessing that ghost might've given him a power boost," Tails chimed in.
"Not a bad guess… but if not, then I guess our worlds might not be so different as far as speedy lifestyles go," Sonic shrugged, before picking up the pace.
The pair of lifelong pals eventually found themselves at another dead end, located in a clearing about a fourth the size of the last one they'd passed through. Unlike the last one, though, this one had another portal resting right in the center, with no sign of Petey anywhere. In an instant, the two Mobians knew exactly what to do, not hesitating to leap into the purple vortex.
After a few minutes of tumbling through nothing, they were eventually met with the sensation of their sneakered feet touching solid ground again, albeit softer ground that what they were expecting. Upon recollecting their bearings, Sonic and Tails looked around to see that they were standing on what seemed to be a giant cake that stretched out beyond what the eye could see. Above them, the largely cloudless sky was a sherbet orange, while towers of cake, donuts, and hamburgers could be seen in the distance, some of them connected by ropes of peppermint and licorice that looked like they'd make good grind rails. After scanning the area, Sonic ran a finger along the top of his shoe and licked off the baby blue frosting, shutting his eyes and smacking his lips a bit as he savored the taste.
"Yep, it's the Sweet Mountain. I'd never forget a recipe like this one," he said.
"It seems these portals haven't just spawned all over our world, but our whole universe as well," Tails noted, once again checking his Miles Electric. "Gotta say, it feels weird to see this place after it got reconverted from a theme park attraction."
"And it looks like we're not the only ones who're enjoying this," Sonic pointed to a series of tiny tracks in the icing before him. Off in the distance, a small silhouette of Petey Piranha could be seen rampaging around, destroying the very environment around him and even eating large chunks of it. "Heh, seeing that plant eat a burger looks like something you'd see in one of those vegan advocacy commercials. Saying something like, 'Just imagine if it was you in that burger'!"
"Yeah, well those commercials are usually aimed at saving the planet… and that thing's gonna destroy the whole planet if he keeps gorging on it."
"Say no more, then!"
Without having to worry about waiting for Mario to catch up, Sonic and Tails sped off through some old but refurbished territory. The surprisingly earth-like ground was entirely made up of cake, which appeared to be vanilla, but decked out with pastel colored frosting and layers of fruit. Occasionally, there'd be a raised platform made of hamburgers, or a pile of popcorn or jellybeans that would scatter everywhere when boosted through, but could also be climbed in order to reach higher places. Higher areas were often accompanied by the aforementioned grind rails in order to ensure Sonic could stay above ground for as long as he wished.
The most notable set piece this time around were the chocolate rivers that neither Sonic nor Tails remembered the last time they were here. These rivers were too thick to swim in, but Sonic could trudge through them and would not sink so long as he kept moving. Thankfully, there were also platforms he could use to skip over the surface, made of things like cookies, pretzels, slides of bacon, or marshmallows that could be bounced on.
Eventually, the trek finally ended when Sonic caught up to Petey Piranha, using a homing attack to knock over a partially-eaten hamburger tower and send the overgrown Venus fly trap toppling onto the ground.
"Heh, didn't even need the weed-whacker for that one," Sonic whistled, dusting off his hands. He wasn't surprised to see Petey gobble up the chunks of food pinning him down, slowly rising back to a stand. "Alrighty then, freak! You've had enough junk food for now! Why not eat something in a bright, healthy color for once?"
"Uh, Sonic? I don't think he can see anything, let alone color," Tails flatly responded.
"Ooh, so he relies on smell and echolocation? Well this should be fun! I'm not normally one to eat my vegetables after dessert, but I'll make an exception here…"
Petey just responded with an animalistic roar, once again taking flight. In response, Sonic dropped into a fighting stance, while Tails reattached his arm cannon.
And just like that, another fight was on. Petey Piranha mostly remained in the air, using his leafy arms to send small tornadoes down at the two Mobians and spitting globs of brown and white goop in hopes of making them slip on the ground. Sometimes, due to the electricity that had resurrected him, the goop he puked up would also be electrified. During this phase, Tails mostly took the lead, as he was the only one capable of reaching Petey. Finding him too large and dangerous to attack head on, the fox instead stuck to dodging his slime balls and firing back with energy blasts. These seemed to do mediocre amounts of damage to most parts of his body, but when one was fired into his gaping mouth, it was enough to stun him, sending him falling to the ground as he burped flames and smoke. Tails then sped over and stomped onto his now exposed navel, eliciting a loud scream.
"Nice work, buddy! Now it's my turn!" Sonic chirped, not hesitating to leap into Petey's mouth.
Inside the body of the mutated Piranha Plant, he found that he could easily run and jump his way around, much like in other parts of his world. Despite the relative darkness around him, Sonic could still make out several reddened spots, signifying that they had become inflamed and sore for some reason, but rather than mull over why that was the case, he instead put on a smirk and nailed each red spot with a homing attack. He could feel Petey screaming again from inside, rattling the whole core and opening his mouth again. Sonic quickly leapt back outside and homing attacked his bellybutton again, before letting Tails have his turn again.
The whole pattern repeated a second time, but at the end of his last bout within Petey Piranha's organs, Sonic chose instead to curl into a spin dash and ram right through his bulbous bellybutton from the inside, eliciting one last scream of agony as Petey finally collapsed onto his back, withering away for good.
Sonic and Tails both took a moment to shake the goo out of their fur, before fist bumping and continuing their trek through Sweet Mountain. It wasn't long before they spotted another portal on top of a towering cheeseburger and made a beeline towards it. Sonic picked up enough speed to run up along the side, while Tails flew alongside him with the aid of his unique appendages. Neither of them broke their stride as they dashed into the vortex; they could only hope they'd meet up with the Mario Bros. again… wherever they ended up.
Speaking of whom, the path they took led them to a very familiar haunted house, one that instantly made Luigi freak out upon seeing it. It was none other than the same one he had unintentionally won from a contest he never heard of, and had needed to rescue his brother from during his first and only visit. Just when he was looking to erase those traumatizing events from his memory, he had to be forced to revisit this place. Even the fact that Mario would be right beside him this time did little to ease his nerves.
"Luigi?" Mario turned to his trembling brother, putting a hand on his shoulder. "It's-a go time!"
"Here we go…" Luigi nodded, still not sounding like his heart was in it.
Knowing he had no way out of this one, he reluctantly followed his more confident twin up the dirt path that led into the house, which looked exactly the way it did last time, albeit with no signs of ghostly presence, and no Professor E. Gadd to help fend them off. Not wasting any more time, Luigi took one last deep breath and followed Mario throughout the creaky, dusty manor, primarily looking for King Boo, but when he accidentally tripped and broke a vase, he was shocked to find another Master Emerald shard hidden within it. This prompted the brothers to also look for those, managing to find quite a lot despite Tails and his Miles Electric not being present to help them out.
Eventually, the two plumbers found their way back to the foyer, having seemingly become disoriented after exploring the mansions's maze-like interior. But quickly, a glowing spot on the ground caught both of their eyes. Standing atop it, they looked up at the crystalline chandelier, which suddenly started to spin around before it blinded them with its multicolored lights. Before they knew it, Mario and Luigi had wound up inside a darker, more distorted version of the mansion, every crack and crevasse glowing with magic purple energy.
"Eee hee hee hee hee! Well, if it isn't Green 'Stache," King Boo suddenly appeared out of nowhere, greeting the plumbers with his usual sinister grin, and appearing much larger than usual. "Nice to see you haven't become such a bigshot since rescuing your bro that you don't have the time to see an old arch-nemesis!"
All Luigi could do was speak back in Italian gibberish, still a little stunned to see the menacing beast that he thought had been sealed away for good.
"How'd I get out, you ask? Well it was simple, really. A little while back, I suddenly found myself freed from that painting via some unknown magical force. I didn't really know what to make of it, but you can bet I'm not complaining now, since I'm free! Now without further ado, let's dance! …even though I don't have legs."
It was then that Mario leapt ahead of his brother, landing in a fighting stance as he mouthed off his adversary in Italian.
"Oh, what's what? You want your revenge for me kidnapping you? Forget it! This is just between me and that puny pest you call a brother! Seriously, part of me is embarrassed for you."
But Mario didn't budge, letting out an angered growl.
"Ugh, fine… I guess I could indulge you for a bit. En guarde!"
Once again, Mario and Luigi chose to tag in and out of the fight, but both of them fought King Boo in the same way. The latter fought against them by firing purple lightning bolts from his crown and occasionally trying to ram or bite them, or even bring out his long tongue to use as a whip, leaving slippery trails of saliva on the ground whenever an attack missed. There were times where he would get his teeth stuck in the floorboards during a whiffed bite attack, but there was not much that Mario or Luigi could do to hurt him. His crown protected him from overhead attacks, and punching him from behind would only stun him for a bit. Sometimes, a switch would appear in the floor, which could be jumped on in order to open the skylight, letting the moon's rays shine into the arena, and while this did stun King Boo, he shrugged it off momentarily.
"Heh heh heh… HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" he gloated. "You really thought shedding a little light on me would work? In case you forgot, I'm not like other Boos."
Three phases of the fight went by, with Mario leading two and Luigi leading one. By the time it was the latter's turn for the second time, all he could do was cower in a fetal position on the ground as cold sweat soaked his overalls, wishing he had his Poltergust on him for this very occasion. At the same time, Sonic and Tails had arrived on the scene from their own brief excursion, through a portal located on the second floor overlooking the entryway. Both of them were quick to notice Mario standing off to the side, appearing terribly worried for his little brother, who looked beyond helpless and afraid.
"Tch, just as lame and hopeless as ever, I see… y'know, I'm still baffled as to how you were able to work up the courage to fight me last time, let alone defeat me!" King Boo taunted. "Now just lay still for me, and I'll make this quick and painless."
"No, Luigi! Don't give in!" Sonic shouted.
"He's right, Luigi! You can do it!" Tails chimed in. "Don't let your fear conquer you! Conquer your fear!"
Luigi continued to tremble on the spot, mumbling his laments all the while.
"No, don't say that! Who cares if there are some things you can't do as well as your brother? What's important is that you use your own strengths to become a hero in your own right! That's what I did! Think about what you're the best at!"
Luigi said nothing, but after mulling for a bit, his terrified expression morphed into a more determined one, putting on a glare as he quickly rolled back to his feet, barely dodging a slap from King Boo in the process as he stood back up in a fighting stance. Without a word, his adversary attempted to ram him again, but he took a deep breath and side-flipped over him, showing off his superb jumping ability that even surpassed his brother's. King Boo resorted to slamming himself into the wooden floor, somehow forming large rippling waves from his points of impact. But again, Luigi kept his cool, hopping over each one with ease, and when he was met with another charge attack, he quickly kicked off the nearby wall and gracefully landed by his brother behind him with a series of backflips.
"Hey look, there's the next emerald!" Sonic shrieked, pointing at the purple gem atop the ghost's crown.
"Whoa, you're right," Tails put on a shocked look, scanning the accessory up close with his tablet. "Gee, no wonder I wasn't able to detect it right away. His paranormal signals must've been interfering."
King Boo ended up crashing into the wall once again, the impact shaking the entire room and knocking over a bookshelf. Both of the Mario Bros. sidestepped out of the way, before a random TV monitor with a series of sparkles on the screen bounced up into Luigi's hands. Looking over it for a bit, he instantly knew what he needed to do. Setting the monitor on the floor, Luigi jumped onto it, shattering it and causing the sparkling energy to cover his body. As a sense of warmth coursed through his body, the whole room magically lit up, much brighter than the moon outside.
"Screeeee! Who turned on the lights?!" King Boo screamed in agony, feeling his entire being start to weaken by the second.
"Go weegee!" Luigi chirped, sprinting over to his stunned nemesis and leaping high into the air.
Displaying the ability to somehow crouch in midair, he appeared to be charging up something, soon revealed to be a powerful head-butt that launched him sideways, dislodging the purple Chaos Emerald from the king's crown in one fell swoop, which tumbled along the ground until Sonic zoomed over and snatched it up. Almost instantaneously, King Boo disappeared in a flash of light, getting replaced by a harmless but eerie-looking painting of himself, which unceremoniously dropped onto the floor.
"Ghosts… don't… DIE! Heh heh heh! Can you get out of here… alive?" King Boo's last words echoed throughout the manor, quickly followed by a series of tremors.
"Waugh!" Luigi freaked out again.
"Oh no!" Mario jumped, ushering everyone out of the crumbling mansion.
Once outside, the four heroes silently watched from a distance as Luigi's Mansion fell to ruin, all the while King Boo's painting was still trapped inside.
"Huh, so I guess the Chaos Emerald must've given that guy the power to escape his painting," Sonic scratched his head. Who knew these gems he thought he knew so well would have different effects in different dimensions? "Well I guess we can leave him be for now. Maybe that painting would make for some good yard sale fodder or something."
"And I guess taking the emerald away from him undid all of its effects," Tails shrugged, also seeming a little baffled.
"Regardless, you did great, Luigi!"
"That's my bro!" Mario chirped, slapping his brother on the back.
"Th-Thank you," Luigi replied in a shy manner.
"At any rate, we should keep moving," Tails insisted. "The longer we dawdle, the more time we give Bowser and Eggman to gather the last emerald."
"In general, I'd agree… but right now I feel like we could all use a break," Sonic replied with a stretch. "Besides, we already have six out of seven. I doubt there's much they could do with just the one."
"Would you really like a list of answers to that? …but alright, I guess it wouldn't hurt to take a little break."
"Woo-hoo!" Mario cheered.
"Okie-dokey," Luigi nodded.