Sorry I took so long. I've been busy with college stuff and I kinda just forgot about this. This chapter will (mostly) be from Goombarry's perspective. Time to invade the bandit hideout and stop these crooks!

Goombarry was pumped.

In this hour alone, he had decimated hordes of bandits, fought Mario himself, and was now riding a hat ship with him to stop the bandits once and for all. It hardly even felt real. He was so used to being confined to Aridian all his life that he could barely believe he could explore the world with such an esteemed figure. He hadn't even flown before at all before this. He still didn't know why Mario was there in the first place, but he figured he'd find out after the bandits were taken care of.

"Oh man I'm so excited for this!" he yelled. "No, that's not a good enough word." Goombarry began going through words in his head, looking for one that could express his happiness. Mario looked at him quizzically.

"I know Vocabulator had some advanced words." a Bonneter said from his piloting perch.

"Vocabulator?"

"Yes," the hat said excitedly. "It's one of my favorite shows. It's a popular children's program about the great kid superhero Barry Bronsford. He has the superpower of perfect vocabulary, and he's so awesome." Goombarry could tell the hat had watched this show when he was young.

"So now vocabulary is a superpower?" Goombarry responded sarcastically. "What is he gonna do, correct criminals' grammar while they beat the stuffing out of him?"

"He also has super strength and can fly."

"Oh." Goombarry paused for a few seconds. "Well why didn't you just lead with that? Who would watch a superhero show where the main gimmick was vocabulary powers?"

"Alright Goombarry, that's enough." Mario said disapprovingly. "I need you to watch and see if we're at their hideout yet."

"Vocabulary powers" Goombarry muttered.

Goombarry turned toward the window. He wanted to yell at Mario, like he did with most people cramping his style, but for once in his life he figured he should show restraint. Mario took him in as a partner even after he attacked him. He was willing to help show him the way to become the strongest in the world. He couldn't risk ruining an opportunity like that.

After a few more minutes of flying, he saw it. A large rocky mountain with a metallic balcony about midway up. The mountain was dotted with what would look like simple ridges to most people, but Goombarry knew better. They were disguised Bill Blasters, painted on with the brown hues of the mountain and ready to unleash fury on any invaders. A cavernous entrance was behind the balcony, as well as another one right near the bottom. A few guards were up on it, looking around for intruders, until they started pointing at the ship, having noticed its arrival.

"Hat guy, get to the ground!" Goombarry yelled. "This place is rigged with weapons. They'll shoot this craft right down!"

"His name is Hatro." Mario said disapprovingly as the vessel lowered.

"…Sorry Hatro," Goombarry said while gritting his teeth.

The cap ship dropped down to ground level as they approached the mountain, parking behind a rock face the bandits could not see. Just like that, Goombarry's first flight was over, but now he had something even more exciting, and scary, up next.

"This is Bandit's Keep." Goombarry said. "This is where all those guys who attacked Aridian came from."

"You nervous?" Mario asked upon getting out.

"Ha! No." Goombarry said attempting to hide his fear, though he figured Mario didn't fully buy it.

"Look, there's probably a lot of bad guys in there. It's ok to be nervous." Mario said. "Even I get nervous for some battles." Goombarry was surprised by this. He had heard so much about the insane evils Mario had beaten, he didn't think Mario could show any signs of weakness.

"Y-yeah, several thousand." he answered, trying to avoid mentioning his nervousness. Mario's expression became curious, but not fearful. Mario said he could feel fear, but it clearly took a lot to make him do it.

"Well don't worry then." Mario said. "It'll barely be an inconvenience for me, but…" his expression hardened. "I won't hold back to avoid killing them anymore. Prepare to see power like you have never seen before." Goombarry felt even more pumped now, though his nervousness wasn't fully gone.

As Goombarry and Mario began to approach the bottom entrance, a few humans in stolen museum security gear (One of them even forgot to take off their "Museum Security" sticker) approached.

"Hey, you're not allowed to be here, this is a restricted area, can't you read the sign?" a rather burly one said. He pointed to a large "RESTRICTED AREA" sign next to the entrance hanging by a single screw on its upper right corner, dangling in such a way Goombarry could see the painted white letters underneath, "BANDIT'S KEEP". Goombarry sighed.

"Wait, who was supposed to fix that again?" a blond guard asked.

"Not me. I didn't even know it was damaged until I pointed to it." the big guard said.

"I told Johnson to fix it earlier." a short, bearded guard said. All the guards then glared at the one with the museum security sticker.

"Uuuh, oops." Johnson said awkwardly.

"Dang it Johnson!" the blond guard yelled. "How are you so useless?"

"What do I even pay you for?" the short one asked.

"You don't pay me at all."

As the other guards continued berating Johnson, Goombarry and Mario walked into the cavern unnoticed. It had multiple paths and was dark even with the lanterns lighting the rocks they called walls.

"Wait, where are the intruders?" a female voice interrupted as the pair turned a corner.

"I guess they left." Johnson responded.

"No you idiot!" the short one said. "They clearly snuck in while we were arguing."

"Soooo, we should get them?" another guard asked.

"No, then the higher-ups might realize we let them through in the first place." said the short one. "We'll just beat each other up so it looked like there was a struggle." Goombarry heard the guards hitting each other as they advanced through the cave.

Eventually, they came across a steel door at least twice as tall as Mario. Goombarry braced himself, as he knew once he passed that door, he would be in the largest battle he'd ever been. Then again, he had Mario by his side, whom these battles were just another Tuesday for. Surely Mario would not let him fall.

"Alright, most of the bandits are just past here."

"Great, then let's-a-go!" Mario gave his trademark jump.

The duo opened the large door and stepped into the room beyond. It was a huge, cavernous corridor filled with piles upon piles of stolen goods. Thieves of all sizes scuttled around the multi-leveled room, organizing inventories and constructing weapons. There didn't seem to be much advanced technology; Goombarry couldn't see any machines, computers, or phones, though a line of large bombs did decorate a higher level. At the very top was a glass door, presumably leading to the leader's office. There was another glass door on a lower level, but Goombarry figured that wasn't important.

For a few moments, the criminals just continued what they were doing, not even noticing the intruders walking into the facility. A few at a time, they began to take notice, and Goombarry got a little bit more spooked each time a hundred or so turned their heads. When all the criminals looked their way, there was a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"Intruders! Sound the alarm!" one of them finally yelled. That seemed to shake everyone else out of the awkwardness. Within ten seconds, the two were back-to-back and surrounded by guards, and the ringing of alarm bells echoed through the mountain.

A Goomba and a Koopa charged toward Goombarry, but he twirled his foot around and knocked them both back. He saw Mario punch a charging Bandit, causing it to explode into sparkles. Goombarry knew that meant the Bandit was dead. Dozens more Bandits charged toward him, but he knocked them back with a 180-degree wave of energy, making sure not to hit Mario behind him. The closer ones instantly exploded, but the further ones were simply knocked back. Several Bullet Bills streaked toward the Goomba, and he unleashed an energy blast to destroy most of them. Only two remained, but Goombarry sidestepped them both easily.

Goombarry advanced on the door, plowing through countless charging goons with his energy waves, but he felt the sting of a boomerang that breached his defenses. Turning to his left, he saw a group of Bandits with outfits from the Boomerang Flower, preparing to launch another volley of attacks, when they were incinerated by a fireball. Goombarry looked and saw Mario, flames trailing from his fists as he turned to him.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine." he said as he headbutted a Goomba criminal. He was insulted at the notion a simple boomerang could hurt him.

Goombarry leaped on top of a higher ledge to survey the situation. There seemed to be about two-thirds of the criminals remaining, though more were constantly pouring in through side doors, so he couldn't really be sure. He wasn't good at math anyway. Many guards threw their projectiles at Goombarry, but most missed his high perch, and the few that would have hit were stopped by his energy waves.

He saw Mario charging through the bandit waves, jumping over and weaving around countless projectiles, cutting through dozens of goons a second as if they were blades of grass. He threw out a spread shot of explosive fireballs, ending hundreds of Bandits with that one attack. Before the fireballs even properly exploded, he picked up and threw a Bandit into a pile of stolen goods, destroying the Bandit and toppling the pile onto dozens of its allies.

Alright, I better unleash something big too, Goombarry thought before surrounding himself with a thick red energy field. A spear was thrown at him with unusually good accuracy, but he knew that wouldn't work. The energy field easily repelled it. Goombarry jumped off the ledge with an attack well-known to Goombas, the Headbonk, but this time, it was energized for maximum power.

As he landed, the energy was pushed outward, annihilating over a hundred enemies that were clustered near the ledge. The Goomba looked around and saw a twenty-foot ring of soot, with no guards around, as they were all destroyed, save for a Whomp near the edge that seemed to just be in pain, grumbling and snarling. Goombarry prepared to unleash an attack to finish it off, but it suddenly crumbled to dust, and in its place stood Mario, hammer-in-hand.

"Nice work Goombarry. You really know your stuff."

"Yeah I do! Who says I can't be the best in the world?"

"Don't get cocky. You still have a long way to go."

Suddenly a gigantic Banzai Bill appeared right behind Mario, launched from an unseen blaster.

"Look out!"

At such a speed the Goomba could hardly see, Mario whipped out a Cape Feather and transformed, gaining an awesome golden cape, before waving it at the Banzai Bill, redirecting it right into a bomb, it hit the bomb and loosened it from the wall, causing it to roll into the lower glass door, which shattered.

"I wonder where that leads." Mario mused.

Waluigi knit his hands together as the Bandit looked over his resume.

"All this gives me is your tennis records. Do you have any criminal experience?"

"Well… no, but I'm partners with Wario in tennis. He's a master thief."

"And you think just partnering with him qualifies you for elite thief material?"

"Uuuh… am I supposed to say yes?" Waluigi said awkwardly.

"No."

"Oh." Waluigi hung his head low.

"I mean you could be a grunt, but…"

Suddenly he heard tumbling.

"Wait, what's that noise?" he said as the tumbling got louder. He stood up to look when suddenly a huge bomb shattered through a glass wall, rolling into the office.

"WAAAAAA!"

BOOM!

Goombarry heard the explosion from his location.

"Wow I wonder what we just blew up," Goombarry said.

"Probably nothing important." Mario said.

"I didn't know capes could deflect projectiles," Goombarry said.

"Learned it in a fighting tournament."

"Neat."

The waves of enemies had stopped coming. Either those dorks had run out of reserves or they all fled in terror. Things felt peaceful to Goombarry, even with structures coming around all around him from the force of his and Mario's blows.

"We still have to get to the boss," Mario said as he looked up at the top door.

"Alright." Goombarry unleashed a blast of energy to propel himself over to the top while Mario simply jumped. Mario then winded up and slammed through the door with his hammer. It looked effortless, just how strong was this man?

Past the door was a long hallway. It had actual walls, unlike the rest of the base which was just cave surface. It seemed very empty, no enemies or obstacles there, just a long straight hallway. The sterileness creeped Goombarry out, as there were no signs of natural material anywhere. At the end was a large door, gray and metallic with bright red markings. Maybe normally there would have been people here, but they had all been sent out to fight the pair.

"Long hallway, no enemies, creepy door," Mario said. "Yep, the boss is right past here."

"How do you know?" Goombarry asked as they walked, not knowing how Mario would know that just from those.

"When you've been adventuring as long as I have, you notice a lot more of these patterns." Wow not only was Mario a legendary combatant, he was observant and knowledgeable. Was there anything this guy couldn't do?

The door opened by itself as the duo got close, and they entered the room. As they walked on in, Mario to the left, Goombarry to the right, Mario started counting.

"3…2…1…" As he reached the point where he would have said 0, the door closed behind them. Goombarry could barely believe Mario was able to guess that. Really showed how much experience he had with this.

The room was as large as an auditorium and looked like an extension of the hallway, save for a wooden desk at the end, with a huge high-backed chair facing away from them.

"Alright, you can turn your chair now for your big dramatic reveal," Mario said sarcastically.

The chair swiveled around, and Goombarry got a chill when he saw who was in it. The leader was gigantic, at least twice Mario's height. He had a dark red overcoat and a blue collared shirt that could be seen underneath, with a couple of small spikes on his shoulders. The most noticeable, and creepy, feature about him was his face. It was scaly and abnormally small for such a massive body. It looked like no creature Goombarry had ever seen before. He looked at Mario, hoping his fear wouldn't show on his face, but even Mario looked a little spooked.

"So," the boss said with a voice way too normal for such an odd appearance. "You've made it all the way here. I'm impressed…"

"Alright I get the gist." Mario said. "We won't defeat you and you'll kill us in some horrible way. I've heard this a million times. Just tell us your name and we'll get to beating you." Goombarry was shocked Mario was treating this so casually.

"B-b-but, ugh." he stammered like a loser. "My name is Mr. Big, and now I will crush you!"

Suddenly Mr. Big leaped out of his chair, jumping three times his own height, with his fist ready to strike Mario. Goombarry admitted, he would have probably buckled if such a scary foe went for him first, but Mario stood strong, and whammed the mob leader with his hammer. He flew into the left wall, the sound of the hit echoing through the metal.

Despite the enormous force of the blow, Mr. Big recovered quickly, and took a Fire Flower out of his coat. He quickly crushed it and its power seeped through him, turning his overcoat white and his undershirt red. Mr. Big waved his hand and launched two bouncing fireballs, one at Mario, one at Goombarry. Goombarry launched a blast of energy that easily repelled the ball, and Mario batted it away with his hammer.

Yelling out, Mr. Big launched several more fireballs at Mario while charging at him, seemingly ignoring Goombarry completely. Goombarry saw a good opportunity. He focused and charged up his energy while Mario deflected everything thrown at him. Feeling the power of his upcoming attack, Goombarry yelled out.

"Mario, launch him into me!" As the leader rammed into Mario, he was quickly batted toward Goombarry. Perfect, now it was time to show that freak he meant business. Using all the power he'd charged up, Goombarry unleashed a headbonk straight into his tiny face, launching him so strongly he broke the wall and was pelted with falling rocks from the cave. His clothes reverted to normal as his fire power was gone.

Mr. Big grunted as he began to get up again, this time taking out a simple mushroom and crushing it in his fist. The duo advanced on his position, ready to finish him off. The foe was clearly outmatched, he was battered and his clothes in disarray. Goombarry knew it wouldn't be long until his people were finally safe from this loser. There was nothing Mr. Big could do.

Then, at over twice the speed as before, Mr. Big raced directly toward Goombarry. In a split second, the Goomba realized he hadn't taken just an ordinary mushroom, but a Dash Mushroom. Goombarry had only ever seen them used in karts, but apparently they worked on living beings too. Goombarry froze, though he was definitely not afraid of the massive terror charging right toward him. Well, maybe this was the closest to fear he's felt before but he definitely wasn't afraid.

Just before the boss could hit him, Mario leaped in front, blocking the titan with his bare hands. They grappled with each other, Mario pushing the fiend back. Even with the effects of the Dash Mushroom, Mr. Big didn't seem to gain any ground.

"N-no! This is impossible." Mr. Big yelled out. "How could you be so powerful?"

Suddenly, Mario leaped up, delivering a powerful uppercut that knocked some of Mr. Big's pointed teeth off and sent him up to the ceiling, where he bounced off before crashing down again on the floor. As he lay there, sprawled on his stomach, Mario charged up another fireball, bigger and brighter than any Goombarry had seen before.

"Listen here, Mr. Big" Mario said, pronouncing "Big" sarcastically. "You may think you're the big head honcho. You may think you're unstoppable, but the truth is, your power means nothing to me!" The fireball grew so hot that even Goombarry was starting to feel uncomfortable. "I am Super Mario. I have saved whole kingdoms, averted doomsday multiple times, and destroyed foes you could hardly fathom. Your little gang is insignificant compared to what I've faced. You were doomed from the very moment you started hurting the people of this kingdom." Goombarry's mouth went agape at the Mario's epic boast. He definitely wouldn't want to be Mr. Big right now.

Then, Mario pushed his hand forward, releasing an explosion no Big Bob-omb could hope to match. Goombarry couldn't see with all the smoke, but he knew Mr. Big was dead. As the smoke cleared, Goombarry could see a much smaller form lying there; it was a Goomba!

"That… thing was a Goomba the whole time?" Goombarry spoke, offended by the very notion a Goomba could be that ugly. "Did you know about this?"

"I'm just as surprised as you are." Mario said.

"That tiny face, that huge body, that…" Goombarry shivered, "scaly skin looked nothing like a Goomba!"

"He must have been magically enhanced somehow," Mario said as the Goomba exploded into dust.

A few seconds of silence hung in the air, and Goombarry realized, they did it. He had actually taken down the bandits for good. He didn't have to stay constantly in his town, he could go out on adventures, and with Mario right here, Goombarry had the perfect partner.

"So," Goombarry asked, still a bit awestruck at Mario's greatness. "Weren't you going on a quest before this? If so, count me in!"

"Well, be warned, the quest I'm going on is very dangerous. It's…." Mario faltered. "I'll explain more on the way."

Maybe Goombarry should have been nervous, but he was too excited about joining Mario to care, plus seeing the world outside his little town for the first time. All the Goomba could think about was the limitless opportunities as he headed back to the cap ship.