Chapter 51: The Mystery of the Veiled Princess

So I flew Starship Mario back to World 3, went down to the Cloudy Court Galaxy, and flew out the helm hole towards the galaxy. The first/possibly only mission was titled "Head in the Clouds." Oh yay, this sure boded well; I hadn't even started the level yet and was already being insulted. I will have you knowing that my head is not in the clouds!

I flew towards the starting planet, and…what in the flip? Floating in the background of the galaxy was a gigantic wall torn straight from Peach's Castle! Half-missing and overgrown with moss, yes, but still, without a doubt, the white-and-pink color scheme of Peach's Castle. How the heck did one of its walls end up here?! And…if part of Peach's Castle was here, was Peach here too? Maybe Bowser gave her more humane living conditions this time around to try to make her more willing to stay with him? Who knows? But maybe this whole stupid adventure would be over far sooner than I thought it would.

Then of course, there was the matter of the Starting Planet, which seemed to be pulling out all the stops to try to make me puke.

Fluffy clouds.

Grass-covered, gently sloping stone walls.

Shrubs with colorful blossoms on them.

A topiary shaped like…I'm gonna say a giraffe?

In other words, all the markings of a lame fairy tale setting.

Oh, and to top it all off, chirping birds. And the most annoying bird in the universe at that: Spiky Spikepecker. Oh great, and this time I didn't even have my Kevlar-lined cap to protect me if he did a spikedive onto my head!

Well, also on the Starting Planet was a Cloud Flower, and beyond the far end of the planet were a string of small islands I assumed I had to traverse with clouds. So I'd just dash past Spiky Spikepecker, grab the Cloud Flower, and go through that island area.

If only.

"Hey! You!" Spiky Spikepecker said as I ran across the planet. "You're Mario! You're the one Eli the Elite Octoomba told me flipped off and then killed my cousin Frank! You're DEAD!"

Why does this happen every time? Every time I have an encounter with an enemy, and said encounter lasts beyond simply jumping on/fireballing/freezing/some other method of defeating said enemy, at some point down the road, without fail, I always run into that enemy's vengeful best friend or aunt or half-brother or sister-in-law or third cousin twice removed or something, and they're out for blood.

"Dude, just leave me alone," I said. "I don't have a problem with you, you don't need to have a problem with me."

"Oh, but I do," Spiky Spikepecker said. "When you mess with one Flaptack, you mess with EVERY Flaptack. Get over here, you loser!"

Okay, I wasn't messing with this guy. Frank hadn't really seemed too vengeance-driven; he was probably, from his perspective, just trying to teach me a "lesson" for flipping him off. He was like Thanos in Toad-vengers: Infinity War: he's got a goal he's trying to accomplish, you can see how he sees himself as the hero when he's trying to accomplish that goal, but his goal is stupid nonetheless. And this new Spiky Spikepecker is like Thanos in Toad-vengers: Endgame: mad and out for revenge against the real hero for killing the guy with the stupid goal.

I ran in a zigzag pattern to confuse Spiky Spikepecker so he couldn't accurately fall on me, then came back around to grab the Cloud Flower and made a beeline for the far end of the planet. As soon as I was at the edge, I long-jumped into the ether and Star-Spun to make a cloud. As soon as I landed…my finger couldn't help itself. I turned back and flipped off Spiky Spikepecker.

...But he was gone.

Then I saw the shadow.

I hopped to the edge of my cloud just as Spiky Spikepecker fell through the center of it and VAPORIZED IT! What the flip? That wasn't fair! Since when the flip have enemies ever been able to vaporize platforms I'm standing on? And the cloud could support my weight, so why not Spiky Spikepecker's? I quickly Star-Spun to make another cloud as that stupid bird continued falling. So…what, do they just keep plummeting straight down until they hit a solid surface? They can't even flap their wings to adjust their trajectory or anything? That's pathetic.

And for that matter, why the heck was he able to follow me past the edge of the planet? I don't think any enemies in my galactic adventures have ever been able to do that before, and now this fool was? Well, now I'd certainly feel a lot less safe going forward. No longer did I have the safety net of knowing (or at least thinking I knew) that when I left a planet behind, I also left behind all that planet's Bowser-worshipping inhabitants.

I long-jumped towards one of the islands and landed on it, grabbed a Cloud Flower too replenish my supply, and then headed towards the larger planet at the other end of the string of islands. In my path was a Paragoomba, but I evaded the menace and managed to not get distracted by memories of the Paragoomba Incident(s).

The next planet had another Cloud Flower and Paragoomba, as well as a Whittle. Oh joy. Let's hope he didn't somehow get word of what I did to Willy.

He either had not or was trying to hide the fact that he had for the sake of playing some long-form revenge game, because all he said was, "Cloud wind ride?"

What the-? Oh; behind him, just past the back end of the planet, was a giant windmill, blowing a stream of wind towards the next planet. Which was some sort of tall wooden tower, and past it was another tower, and then…a set of drums? Well, in the spirit of the Puzzle Plank/Shop Class Galaxy, this galaxy's new and improved designation shall henceforth be the Band Class Galaxy. I know, logically, its name should be something like the Dumb Fairy Tale Galaxy since that's still the predominant theme, but I like the Band Class Galaxy better.

I leapt in the path of the wind being blown by the windmill, spun to make a cloud, and drifted towards the closest tower. Now I had a better view of the castle wall since no other planets were blocking it, and…it definitely wasn't a wall of Peach's Castle, but it looked a heck of a lot like it. You see, Peach's Castle doesn't have the wooden shutters that this wall did because, even though Peach always says she'd love to have wooden shutters, Toadsworth claims to be allergic to shutters, and I guess he gets the final say on matters even though he doesn't even own the castle.

I leapt into the first tower, then the second, then onto the first drum. …Which was incredibly bouncy. Guess I should've expected that, but it still caught me off-guard for some reason. The only enemy on the three lower trampolines was a lone 1SBG, who I stomped on. Then I cloud-jumped up to a fourth trampoline (also inhabited by a 1SBG), and then again to reach a…giant cymbal. This galaxy was just all over the place, I'm serious. First dumb fairy tale theme, then abrupt transition to band class theme, then, from the look of things, back to fairy tale theme, and then that strange castle wall area. And it wasn't even a "these concepts being mashed into one level kinda make sense in a paradoxical sort of way" like the Freezeflame Galaxy from my first galactic adventure, this was just…fairy tales and drums have nothing in common, not even being polar opposites like fire and ice!

I activated a ground-pound cymbal on the symbol…sorry, a ground-pound symbol on the cymbal. Homophones are the bane of my existence. Anyway, ground-pounding made a bunch of Star Bits appear on the cymbal, so I collected them and got in the Launch Star above the sym – cymbal.

Next up were a few more of those wooden tower planets, the first one adorned with what looked to be a half-finished topiary. At least I hoped it was half-finished, because it was just some strange blob shape. Next to it was a Cloud Flower refill, and then a vent in the planet that I assumed I had to stand over to ride a cloud up the side of the next tower. And….

Oh fudge.

A Hungry Luma with coin batons.

I had a grand total of five coins; there was no flippin' way that was enough to feed this guy. The one back in the Cosmic Comet – Cosmic Cave, I mean – only wanted fifteen coins. No way was I getting any luckier than that. And what sort of planet was the Hungry Luma gonna make if I fed him? A giant guitar whose strings I'd have to wall-jump between to reach the top of the planet and the Power Star?

I got on the vent and spun to make a cloud, then floated up the side of the next tower. Suddenly, something crushed me and I lost all my health wedges.

TOO BAD!

I regenerated on the wooden tower planet I'd been on before. But…what the flip had crushed me? I looked up the side of the next tower. Oh; there were blocks of wood floating to the side of the tower, just waiting to crush me between their undersides and my cloud.

Wait, no, no, no, hold up. Why the heck did one of them squash me between itself and the cloud? Shouldn't it have just shoved me through the underside of the cloud and vaporized it, since just Spiky Spikepecker falling was enough to make my earlier cloud vaporize? So the clouds can hold up against the force of a giant block of wood pushing down on them, but they can't hold up against one little bird? Gimme a break.

So the next time I floated up the side of the tower, I was careful to avoid the wooden blocks. And somehow, if they hit just the edge of the cloud, they phased right through it. But no, if they hit me, they squash me against the cloud. Man, these physics are all over the place.

Anyway, that time I made it to the top of the tower and found a Goomba, a Puketoomba, and a teleporter waiting for me. Ugh, not another Puketoomba. Are those guys, Cloud Flowers, and Spiky Spikepeckers only found in galaxies alongside each other or something? Because so far I've only encountered them in this galaxy and the Fluffy Bluff Galaxy.

I got past the Goomba and spun into the Puketoomba, which created a cloud that was somehow half above and half in the ground, which (again) physically made no sense, but hey, what the heck else is new? After that it was a fairly uneventful "cloud wind ride" to the final wooden tower, where I got in a Launch Star and flew to the castle wall.

As it turned out, there were actually narrow sections of ground attached to the front of the wall in a 2D area. Ugh; yay. 2D. How modern.

I rode another vent up to a higher wooden platform and found a Whittle waiting for me. "Go down. Ride wind," he said.

I knew there wasn't really much point trying to have a logical conversation with these things, but there was no one else around. "What the heck is this place supposed to be?" I asked. "You've got some areas that reek of fairy tales, you've got another area that looks like musical instruments, and now this stupid ruined castle wall. Do…do you have any clue what the deal is with it?" Who was I kidding; Whittles don't have a clue about anything.

The Whittle shuddered. "Speak such not. She hear!"

Again, homophones. "H-E-R-E or H-E-A-R? And who is 'she'?"

"The Veiled Princess. Listens to all. Ears everywhere." He tapped the sides of his head, where maybe he thought he actually had ears.

"Who the heck is the Veiled Princess?"

He shrugged. "No one knows. Iron fist." He slammed one fist into his other hand.

Oh geez; did that mean that this Veiled Princess ruled with an iron fist or was the Iron Fist, as in the character from the Mushroom Cinematic Universe shows? As in, "I'm the Immortal Iron Fist, protector of K'un-Lun, and Destroyer of the Hand"?

I give up; I had more questions now than I did before I started talking to this guy. The galaxy still made absolutely no sense, but now apparently, in addition to that, it was ruled by a princess who was either a tyrant or the sworn enemy of a cult of immortal ninjas. Yeah, that sure helped.

I looked down to see what the Whittle had meant by "ride wind." Built into the platform I was on was another windmill or a fan or something blowing a stream of wind above a string of several Thorny Flowers. I long-jumped off the platform and Star-Spun to make a cloud, then rode it above the Thorny Flowers.

And everything likely would've been good and well if the galaxy's resident ditz Spiky Spikepecker hadn't swooped in out of nowhere to menace me yet again.

Where in all flip did he even come from?! I sure as heck didn't see him fluttering around when I was up on the platform with the Whittle, so, barring him coming rocketing down from high above me at, like, 150 miles an hour, there was literally no way he could've appeared so suddenly.

"Now to get revenge on you for killing my cousin Frank!" Spiky Spikepecker squawked.

Oh come on, not again! "How many flippin' cousins did Frank have?" I shouted as I drifted along.

"Just me," he replied.

"Uh, no, you birdbrain, because I ran into another one of you idiots earlier in this level who was claiming to be Frank's cousin too."

"That was me! Who's the idiot now?"

"How? You plummeted into the…below sky, and mow you come falling out of the…above sky?"

"It's not as simple as that. You see, Bowser has been watching you, Mario. He has been watching you closely. He deduced that, instead of facing up to the consequences for your heinous actions against my cousin, you would try to flee past me. He ordered me to give chase. And on the off chance I missed you, he installed a warp field below the section of islands after the Starting Planet. He calculated that it would take you exactly 18 minutes and 23 seconds to make it from there to this area of the galaxy. So from my perspective, I just fell past the islands and was warped 18 minutes and 23 seconds into the future. Now, time for round two!"

That was either the biggest load of B.S. I'd ever heard…or Bowser's IQ really was 289.

And if Bowser installed some spacetime warp in the galaxy, why the heck weren't those Lumas who were sealing up the shunpike at the start of World 3 all over this place? Nooo, they only shut down the tears in the spacetime continuum that would benefit me!

"Who's the Veiled Princess?" I asked, trying to throw Spiky Spikepecker off-guard long enough for me to wall-jump up a shaft that was coming up and leave him behind.

"You shouldn't know about the Veiled Princess," Spiky Spikepecker said. "She knows all, she sees all. She is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the top and the bottom, the black and the white, the wet and the dry, the appetizer and the dessert, the Citizen Kane and the Cats-"

"Stop listing random polar opposites!" I shouted.

"You don't order me around." Spiky Spikepecker flipped upside-down overhead. If I long-jumped now, I might just be able to make it to the cloud drifting back and forth at the bottom of the shaft. So just before Spiky Spikepecker hit me, I long-jumped and landed on the cloud, then looked back. The bird plunged through the cloud and fell straight onto a whirling Thorny Flower. One explosion of blue feathers and what looked like green blood later, Spiky Spikepecker was no more. Shudder.

Next I wall-jumped to the top of the shaft. Along the way I grabbed another Cloud Flower, then landed on a wooden platform at the top of the shaft. Now I was up by the castle's pink roofs. Ahead of me this time was yet another row of Thorny Flowers I'd have to cloud-jump over, only this time I didn't have any wind to push me along. So a few Spiky Spikepecker-less long jumps later, I ended up on another platform with a vent in it blowing air upward. Above the platform were two giant blocks that intermittently crashed together that I assumed I had to ride a cloud between.

Yikes.

Well, this would require some careful timing. So as soon as the blocks started to separate, I spun to make a cloud and floated between them. But I could tell there was no way I was going to make it to the top before they slammed shut again. Then I saw a hollow space between the blocks approaching. When I reached it, I leapt off my cloud and into it as the blocks closed.

And when they separated again, I groaned in frustration.

In the recess in the block opposite me was a Comet Medal that I could only grab while the blocks were separated, because apparently the Comet Medal permanently stayed where it was and could somehow phase into the blocks when they closed. Well, seeing as how these things now apparently serve a purpose…whatever. I long-jumped across the gap and grabbed the Comet Medal just as the blocks started to close again.

The next time the blocks separated, I rode another cloud the rest of the way up. I got off on the top of the right block and grabbed a Cloud Flower refill. Above me now was another windmill, blowing to the left, and above the stream of wind was the Power Star.

I spin-jumped to make a cloud and – OW!

Something fell onto my head, and I fell off the cloud back onto the right block. What the FLIP?! I looked up to see-

Oh you've gotta be mommy flipping kidding me.

SPIKY SPIKEPECKER AGAIN!

"You died!" I yelled.

"Did I, now?" he chirped. "Or were those Thorny Flowers beneath me back there made of rubber? Thin rubber so that when my spike pierced the rubber, it would explode, and the blue feathers and kale juice Bowser filled them with would go flying everywhere to make you think I'd been ground up? And then did Bowser install another warp field below the Thorny Flowers that would spawn me up here exactly 2 minutes and 49 seconds after I fell into it down there? I guess you'll never know."

COME ON! HOW THE HECK WAS THIS LEVEL OF FORESIGHT FROM BOWSER EVEN FLIPPIN' POSSIBLE?!

Spiky Spikepecker tried to fall on me again, but I grabbed the Cloud Flower atop the block and leapt into the air. Before the bird could free himself from the ground, I had created two more clouds and leapt up to the Power Star. I grabbed it and resolved to never return to this stupid galaxy ever again. Oh wait, there was that Hungry Luma….

Nope, he can suck it. Not putting up with this warp field stupidity again. Although there was the possibility that I'd encounter them in future galaxies too, but…I'd cross that bridge if and when I came to it.

A/N: In case you're wondering, this is not the last you'll hear of the "Veiled Princess;" she's going to come up again when Mario returns to the Cloudy Court Galaxy for the comet mission. But until then, her identity shall remain a secret.