Chapter 2: A Tale of Evil Stars... And Veggies!
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"Call the Star Spirits, of course! And Twink." Betrayar held up the Star Rod. I wish they would all be gathered here, he thought, Eldstar, Mamar, Skolar, Muskular, Misstar, Klevar, Kalmar, and Twink! Come here, now!!
A beam of energy proceeded from the Star Rod, and that wish was granted. The Star Spirits and Twink were dragged from wherever they were to Betrayar and Deceptar's side.
"What's going on?!" Kalmar was panicking. "Are we under attack?!"
"No, you moron," Betrayar answered. "We're taking over this place!"
"Betrayar," Eldstar sounded firm, "You cannot do this! You have no idea what kind of power the"
"YES I DO!" Betrayer snapped, "I'm a very intelligent star, you know!! I am much smarter than all you bums!"
"BUMS?!!" Misstar exclaimed, "Why you?! Don't call anyone that!"
"Shut up, sistah, or I'll steal that precious shawl o' yers," Deceptar threatened, and Misstar was quiet. "Better! We're kickin' you guys out, and heh heh, you have a nasty surprise waitin' for ya at the other end!" He turned to Betrayar "You told Wart, right?"
"I told you to," Betrayar answered.
"What?! Oh, um, oops"
"Well, I did a day ago. I doesn't matter, they're doomed anyway!" Betrayar held up the Star Rod, making his final wish in this scene: a wish he made out loud. "I wish that the Star Spirits and Twink will be banished from this place, never to return!"
There was a bolt of lighting from the rod, which hit Eldstar. Then another one at Mamar, then Muskular, etc. until all were gone.
"That was easy," Betrayar chuckled once he was done. "Well, Deceptar, the Mushroom World has new rulers! Which I can rightfully say because anything we wish will come true!"
"Yep. But," Deceptar asked, "What'll we tell the other stars?"
"Does it matter?" Betrayar asked. "We rule! We can do anything we want!!"
"CANDY!!!!" Deceptar exclaimed.
Betrayar rolled his eyes. "Don't you have any serious wishes?"
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Wart was busy trying to cram a pumpkin into his "Vegginator", as he called it. "What? I'm a little busy now," he grumbled. He pushed too hard on the pumpkin and it shattered. "DARN!!! I'd really like a pumpkin for this!"
The one calling him, an evil intelligent cucumber named Cucumbersome, was frantic. "We have reason to believe that Betrayar sent the Star Spirits," he reported.
Wart stopped cleaning up the pumpkin. "What?! Already?! Have they landed here yet?"
"No"
"Then you and Potatocide and Carroboscis should keep an eye out. Watch for anything suspicious and investigate it, OK?"
"Yes, Boss. POTATODICE! CARROBOSCIS!! We have a job to do!"
Wart turned back to the pumpkin thing. "This thing needs a bigger opening. Then I can cram these stupid pumpkins in! To solve the problem" he took out a hammer and began smashing the opening. "Get bigger darn you get bigger no matter what it takes Looks a little bigger, let's see." He took the biggest pumpkin from the stack, and though it was clearly about three inches too big, tried to cram it in anyway. However, the opening for the Vegginator broke off completely, letting you fit anything as big as the machine in.
"Ooh That makes it dangerous but THE PUMPKIN FITS!" He stuck the pumpkin in and turned it on
The machine exploded! ^.^
Wart stood there soot-covered for several seconds. "I still have some work to do"
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"Ready!"
"I'm ready!!!!"
"SHUT UP, Kaphooey!!! I told you not to talk!"
"Well soh-ry."
Wario and Waluigi, along with Hen and Kaphooey, were rigging the seemingly empty Boo Mansion with traps. "Heh heh, they won't know what hit them," Wario gloated as he set up a can of paint above the doorway, "Now to get to the third floor and"
"Um That's a problem Look! THERE'S NO STAIRCASE TO THE THIRD
FLOOR!!!!!!!"
"SHHHH! They'll hear you!" Wario corrected his brother. "And, oh, no, you're right"
"Difficult, eh?" a mysterious disembodied voice asked. "I doubt you cretins could figure out how to get to my room!"
"Who? What? Where? How?" They all looked around, but saw no one. "Who who are you?"
"Lookit you," the voice, a female-sounding one, scoffed at them. "You guys are pathetic! What makes you think that we Boos would fall for such lame traps?! If anyone's a master of mischief, it's us!"
"TAKE THAT BACK!!!!!!" Wario shouted. "If you're so good then why don't you show yourself, eh?"
"Part of my mischief," the voice answered. Suddenly, without warning, something invisible hit Wario from behind. Not hard, but enough to scare out what sense he had!
"AAAAAAHHH WHAT THE?!" Wario panicked. "It's a ghost! AHHH! RUN!"
"Get back here," Waluigi grabbed him, "Show yourself! Are you a coward? Or
maybe you're just so ugly you don't want anyone to see you?!"
A pause from the voice. "I am not ugly," it growled. "And fine! Look! Look at the front of the room. You'll see me!"
Just as the voice said that, a small, young, and strangely pretty female Boo carrying a purple fan appeared at the front of the room. She was green, not white or beige like the other Boos, and had a red and yellow bow on either side of her head. "This is me!" she said, "The one you are pathetically trying to exploit"
Wario and Waluigi certainly hadn't been expecting some young and actually rather attractive female Boo to be the one spooking them! "Oh, well, you see, the thing about that is" Waluigi started.
"Shut up," the Boo growled, "I command you to disable all those traps! I will not stand to have them in here!"
"Command?" Wario laughed. "Oh, yeah right, who are you? The owner of the mansion?!" He and Waluigi were almost hysterical!
The Boo hit both of them with her fan, which sobered them instantly. "As a matter of fact, I am," she told them. "So do it!"
"Who are you?" Wario asked again.
"Lady Bow, the Mistress of the Mansion', and whatever other names I get called"
"You look kind of young to"
"I know! I am young! But this is my mansion and you certainly aren't welcome!!"
Waluigi suddenly remembered something. "Hey, you're not the one who is a friend of Mario's, are you?"
She blinked. "We all are"
"I mean, a good friend of Mario's. Good friend. Help him on an adventure kind of friend."
"I am" Bow faltered. "What is it to you?"
"Heh heh We're enemies of Mario!" Wario boasted. "We wanna try to get on people's nerves as much as possible!"
"That so?" Bow muttered, "You guys annoyed me all right Just finish up nulling those traps and get out!!!!!!!!!"
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"I'll make sure you're sorry!" She held up her fan. "I can do worse than this!"
"OK, OK, we'll be good"
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Kooper led the group into the last big room. "Well, that's all," he said. "Pretty much Beyond this room is one tiny corridor, and after that, it leads back outside, to where we fought the Crystal King."
"Amazing," Kolorado was impressed, "I never even knew this place existed, but now I feel quite sorry for anyone who hasn't been here"
"And none of those shape-changing ghosts Kooper was talking about," Mrs. Kolorado added. "This place is the most beautiful I've ever seen!"
"Will you take us to where you fought the Crystal King, old boy?" Kolorado asked Kooper.
"Sure, if you want," Kooper answered. "Hopefully he doesn't hang around here anymore!!"
Kooper led them through one more corridor, and out a door, and to their great surprise, there was the Crystal King, scolding one of the Duplighosts!
"Don't ever do that again," Pararera was saying, "I have told you ghosts time and time again to never do your shape-changing act on me! Next time you do that, Cloner, I will kick you out, I mean it this time!"
"All right, all right, sheesh, I'll stop," the Duplighost, Cloner, promised. "But, if we can't copy you, who can we copy?!"
"Anyone you find," Pararera answered. Pararera then proceeded to look toward the doorway, and was shocked to see Kolorado, his wife, the two assistants, and Kooper there! "What the?!" He narrowed his creepy green eyes. "Why are you here?!" he demanded. "How did you find your way all the way up here?!"
"I've been here before," Kooper coolly answered. "Great, so it looks like you and some of those shape-changing ghosts still live here, huh?"
"Yes," Pararera answered, "the Crystal Palace is ours, and we don't take kindly to visitors! Cloner, lead them out of here!"
"I know the way," Kooper informed him.
Cloner had used his cloning ability to turn into Prof. Kolorado. "What's that, old boy? Icy boy? Hee hee hee"
"Grr SHUT UP!" Pararera hit Cloner with one of his Crystal Bits. Cloner then turned into the Crystal Bit. "Pararera! I mean Boss! Which one's your real Crystal Bit, huh?!"
"Crystal Bits can't speak," Pararera dryly reminded him.
Cloner paused. "Oh, yeah" He turned into his normal self. "Dang, that was fun!"
"Remember, you're hanging on by a thread," Pararera growled. "Now lead them out of here before I put you in ice!"
"I already said I know the way," Kooper reminded him.
"Then SCRAM!"
Kooper, Kolorado, Mrs. Kolorado, and the two assistants ran out as fast as they could. "Sorry about that," Kooper apologized, "He's just a big bully or something"
"That was the first time I'd seen a Duplighost, though!" Kolorado was excited. "I have heard so much about them, but actually seeing one shape-change was something I could not have even imagined!"
"It did a fair impression of you," his wife told him.
"A Duplighost did that to me, too," Kooper muttered, remembering. "Let's just hope we don't see them again!"
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"No, no, not yet."
Carroboscis the carrot was studying some kind of tracking device he'd made. "Hmm, nothing on here, either," he said. "Cucumbersome, are you sure that star hick actually told you that the stars had been sent down here?"
"Yep, to this landing area, near Goomba Village!"
"Wha wha WHAT?!" Carroboscis exclaimed, "THE PLANNED AREA WAS NEAR THE KOOPA BROS. FORTRESS, YOU IDIOT!!!!"
Cucumbersome paused. "Oh, you're right"
"We'd better hurry, otherwise they'll get away," Potatocide the potato spoke up. "Hurry! We don't want to make Master Wart mad!"
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Of course, it was too late for the veggies. Actually, it was Betrayar who had made the biggest mistake. After he'd ousted out the Star Spirits and Twink, he realized something
"Oh, no!" he gasped, "I forgot to wish where they would land! Darn!! Well, I hope Wart finds them anyway"
Betrayar called Wart with the problem. "They're probably spread out over a rather wide area," he told him. "You've got to find them before Mario finds out about this!!"
"I understand," Wart assured him. "Don't worry, my three best evil veggies are out looking for them right now. I'll just tell them to split up and take an army of evil turnips each. Or, better, yet, I would have liked pumpkins, but" he glared at the Vegginator, "the Vegginator doesn't seem too fond of pumpkins."
"Hmm, I'm sure you're wishing it would process pumpkins correctly," Betrayar guessed. "I'll grant that wish then! Wish it again, please, very strong."
"OK! I wish that the Vegginator would work on pumpkins! I wish the opening was big enough!" Wart turned back to the Vegginator, happy to see that the opening had miraculously gotten much bigger. "YES!! Thanks a million, Betrayar! It worked!"
"One other thing Does that only work on vegetables?" Betrayar asked.
"Yep."
Betrayar frowned. "Then I'll make this wish: that it will work on anything at all! Turn anything evil! So, try it on something else, Wart."
"Um, OK" Wart looked around for something to throw in it, finally finding a loose brick in the corner. He took the brick, turned the machine on, and tossed it in. The brick came out a living, evil creature. The only thing missing was intelligence
"Ooh! Think I could use this on Mario and his friends if they come?" Wart asked.
"Of course. Just don't disappoint me. I won't stand for failure!"
"No problem, Master, there's no way we can fail!"
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There was something weird. Goombario couldn't quite tell what, but it was something weird
Goombaria felt it too. "I think something's about to happen!" she told her big brother. "What do you think?"
"I swear I saw some walking, talking veggie earlier today," he said. "It looked like a carrot."
"A carrot?" Goombaria eyed him. "Goombario? Are you OK??"
"Really, I saw a carrot! Come on, Goombaria, let's just take a quick look in the woods, shall we?" The two of them sneaked a little into the nearby woods, and found Three evil veggies!
"Way to go, Cucumbersome," the potato muttered, "Now we're hopelessly lost!"
"Can't be all bad," the cucumber, who appeared to be named Cucumbersome, protested. "Potatocide, I sure haven't heard you come up with any better ideas on how to get to the Koopa Bros. fortress."
"Shut up, both of you!" a carrot with some kind of device scolded. "I think I'm getting it planned out. We're right next to Goomba Village, we just have to go from there, into Toad Town, and then down Pleasant Path and right to the fort!"
"Makes sense," the potato, Potatocide, started to say, when suddenly the carrot's cell phone rang.
He quickly answered it. "Hello, Carroboscis speaking. Master Wart? Really, whoah ANYWHERE?! Anywhere No, not yet Works on more than just veggies, eh? That's cool! Did you remember to wish that it would make intelligent ones again? YOU FORGOT?!?! Oh, that's just great OK, we will. I'll tell the others. See ya." He hung up. "Guys, new quest! Sort of."
"What?!"
"It seems Betrayar made a mistake. None of the Star Spirits landed here. They landed in various places around here. No one knows where."
"No one?" Cucumbersome growled. "This is cumbersome, all right"
"We just have to find them and dispose of them and the Star Kid before Mario finds out about this," Carroboscis continued. "You're all up to it, right?"
"Oh, yeah," Potatocide agreed, "Let's go find some stars!"
Once they left, Goombaria gasped. "Goombario!!! Did you hear that?!?!?!"
"Star Haven's been taken over and the Star Spirits and a Star Kid are somewhere around here!" Goombario bolted toward home. "Come on!! We have to tell everyone! Especially Mario!!"