StarlitDuck

Sorry if I took it a bit too far. I just felt that since Bowser was going all out for this plan, he had to be especially cruel.

nintendoscript15

I figured since Mario's dealt with fourth wall breaks on game controls two times before, he'd just accept it and stop complaining. As for Alex, he had to go through a haunted castle built by Bowser himself, so being able to stand up to Bowser shouldn't be a challenge for him.

Amethyst Goldenwind

Yeah, Bowser's got some serious issues towards kids that are not his, and are associated with Mario.

breath20k

True. Luma is this story's FLUDD.

Nataly Guardado

Yeah, I know.

FairyTalePrincess16

Definitely awful when the ultimate villain of gaming itself practically mocks him and eats his entire cake without sharing.

LiamTheYoshi

Not exactly. He didn't run in pace and charge up before taking off at the speed of sound. He just ran out with Peach and Leah. And don't worry. Unless they're ASKING for spoilers, people would read the chapter before looking at the reviews.

RareDomains

Spongebob is a funny show! (Well the early seasons at least.) I recommend the earlier seasons. You can watch the first five seasons for free on Prime.

But when did you see a Kung Fu Panda reference? I don't recall making a reference to that one.

I mean, how would you feel if you were blasted away from your planet with your friends all kidnapped, and you're stranded on an unknown planet with creatures that don't seem to be helping you, but rather being annoying? That's what I was trying to make Mario feel.

Mario bros fan4ever

Don't blame him, dude. Bowser did something unexpected. It's a no brainer that Mario would be overwhelmed. Besides, we all know Mario will pull through in the end.

Chapter 6: Grand Star Rescue

After having explored a few planets and freeing some lumas, Mario and Luma went down a pipe which led them into the inside of the metallic planet where the Gravity pointed upward instead of down. At first, Mario didn't see much in here besides a few Goombas and electric orange platforms orbiting inwards. But then he came across a strange looking machine. It consisted of a glass case holding a brownish star hostage. Some sort of pink swirlish mess was forming out of it. Luma came out of Mario's cap, and was horrified by what he was seeing.

"No! No! NO!" Luma panicked. "Mario, that's one of my mama's Grand Stars! It's being drained of its power!"

"That's a Grand Star? It doesn't look too good," Mario commented.

"They're using it to power that awful machine! It looks like it's making… something," Luma described to the best of his ability. "Please, Mario! You gotta help me shut this thing down before it's too late! You think there's an off switch around here somewhere?"

Mario looked around. He could just tell that Bowser was behind this. Who else would it be? As he was looking around, he felt something sharp and painful gritting at his legs. Looking down, a Goomba was chewing at his feet.

"Get off of me, you little shrimp!" Mario yelled as he kicked the Goomba off his foot. It landed on one of the yellow tiles on the floor, which turned blue. This gave Mario an idea.

"Hmm… Ah ha!"

Mario proceeded to turn every yellow flipswitch into a blue one. Once every last flipswitch was blue, they all turned green and the machine had shut down. The pink swirl along with the glass case disappeared, and the Grand Star was restored of its energy, turning yellow again.

[BGM: Star Chance - Super Mario Galaxy]

"It worked!" Mario exclaimed.

"Haha! You did it, Mario! I knew mama chose the right person for this job!" Luma praised.

The two high fived in triumph.

"Now, let's take this Grand Star back to mama. You'll learn more when we get to her," said Luma.

[BGM end]

Mario nodded and touched the Star.

[BGM: Grand Star Get! - Super Mario Galaxy]

Mario felt satisfied and smiled as he revolved around the star, rotating as fast as it like ballerina dancers. The plumber flipped over and hit the star to send it into the air spinning faster.

"Yah!"

The star came back down and Mario hit it again, but just a little lighter.

"Wah!"

Mario grabbed ahold of the massive star using his two hands and did a victory pose with it in his hands, feeling accomplished.

YOU GOT A GRAND STAR!

"WAHOO!"

[BGM end]

Mario held on to the Grand Star as it blasted them out of the metal planet.

Meanwhile at Peach's Castle…

[BGM: Speedy Comet - Super Mario Galaxy]

"Alex, Peach, you can run, but you CAN'T HIDE!"

This voice was what Peach heard as she dragged Alex and Leah out running from Bowser. She looked for a place to hide, and went into the room where Bowser once imprisoned Mario, Luigi, and Wario. It also had the window portal leading to The Princess's Secret Slide. Leah was terrified out of her mind while Peach was still crying from losing Mario. Alex took out a suitcase which had a smaller replica of Mario's trademark outfit, with the only difference being that "M" was replaced by "A".

"Is that Mario's outfit?" Leah asked.

"No." answered Alex. "That's right, I never showed you. Mom made me this outfit for my last adventure. It gives me Mario's powers. Also, I know it's my birthday, not yours, but…"

Alex took out another outfit for Leah. This one looked like Luigi's outfit, except the overalls part was extended out to look like a skirt, the "L" was still on the cap since the girl's name began with the same letter.

Leah gasped in astonishment at first, but then frowned when she realized something.

"Um… this is great, but green isn't really my color," complained Leah. "I like blue better."

"There's blue on the overalls," Alex pointed out. "Please, Leah? Mom spent a lot of time making this."

Leah hesitated for a second, but could hear Bowser stomping around outside. With no other option, Leah gave in.

"Fine…"

Alex and Leah walked into the "M" and "L" rooms respectively. Once they stepped out, Peach adored their looks. Making her feel a little bit better.

"You two look so cute!" the princess complimented.

"Thanks princess." Alex blushed a bit, but then remembered something. "Oh, I almost forgot! Princess Peach, this is my big sister, Leah."

"N-Nice to m-meet you. Your highness." Leah bowed down to her, thinking this was how to act around royalty.

"You two, Leah. You both really do look like brother and sister with those outfits."

Suddenly, the three heard Bowser yelling outside.

"Troops, I order you to search the castle for Princess Peach, Alex, and his sister! Don't rest until they are brought to me!"

[BGM end]

Hearing this, they ran into the Rec room and shut the door, hoping Bowser wouldn't find them.

"Peach?" a familiar voice said.

The trio looked to see Luigi and Toad playing cards on the floor, looking confused.

"LUIGI!"

Both Alex and Leah cried as they hugged Luigi, being so happy to see him.

"Oh, thank goodness you're here, Luigi!" Peach sighed in relief.

"Hehe! Hey guys! Oh, that's right! Happy Birthday, Alex!" Luigi just remembered. Then he saw Leah who was shivering and whimpering as she held onto his leg.

"Leah, are you ok? You look scared." Luigi asked

Leah got up from Luigi's leg.

"SCARED?! OF COURSE I'M SCARED! I'M TERRIFIED, IN FACT!" Leah screamed, not taking into account her manners because she was too scared to do so. "And sad… and angry… Don't you feel the same way?"

"About what?" Luigi and Toad questioned as if she had gone crazy.

"The… castle…" Alex started. "Didn't you feel the whole place shaking just now?"

Luigi and Toad just looked even more confused as if these three were speaking a foreign language. Peach just facepalmed.

"Look out the window…"

Luigi and Toad and so, and both were shocked to see that they were all the way in outer space.

"Woah…" Toad gasped.

"Peach, you never told me your castle could FLY!" said Luigi

Back with Mario…

Mario had expected to go back to the planet where he first landed, but was instead flying towards some sort of dark looking place, with a very dim red core in the center. Mario couldn't tell what it was, but thought it might be some sort of castle.

"Where are we going?" Mario asked.

"You'll see." Luma responded.

Mario and Luma landed on the dark ship. The Grand Star spun around faster and faster, and without warning, thrusted itself into the ship's core. The core became a bit bigger and bright orange. The lights on the left side of the first floor of this mysterious place were lit up, revealing an area with a green field with patches of flowers, a gray pathway with blue and yellow patterns leading up to a dead end with seemingly no way of getting up to the floating platform with waterfalls, and a hexagonal metal platform. What really stood out to Mario was the two dome shaped structures in the lit up area, and wondered if there were more on this place, but he couldn't see for sure, because the rest of the place was still dark. An orange pipe lit up, which led straight to the green dome and opened up a door on it.

"Mamma Mia…" was all that would come out of his mouth as he was impressed by this strange and mysterious place. It actually looked really cool, at least what he could see of it, but was curious of what the rest of it looked like underneath all that darkness that swallowed it up. A question that came to the plumber's mind, however, was why it was dark here in the first place until he came and lit up part of it. However, he paused his thoughts when he saw the same woman, Rosalina, from earlier along with a brown luma staring at the newly lit core.

"The beacon is lit again," Rosalina said with relief.

"Oh thank goodness! I never thought I'd feel it's warmth again!" the brown luma added. "It still shines weakly, maybe only as bright as a Class 6 star, but it's better than nothing. We'll at least be able to survive now."

"You again?"

Rosalina and the brown luma turned around and saw Mario approach them. Luma came out of his cap as well.

"Hi, Mama! Hi, Polari! We're back!" Luma exclaimed.

"Oh, hello Mario. Thank you for bringing back one of our Grand Stars! Without it, we would've been stuck in the darkness for a REALLY long time. Thank you." Rosalina praised Mario.

"You're welcome," Mario replied as he continued to look around. "So… what is this place?"

"Welcome to the Comet Observatory," Rosalina began. "It is my home, and also home to the lumas. They… They're my family… if you couldn't already tell."

Mario began to point his finger up and open his mouth to ask Rosalina more, but she stopped him.

"Before you ask any more questions, let me explain everything to you."

Mario nodded as Rosalina began to explain.

"You see, we travel the starry skies. We pass by this area once every hundred years on the night of the star festival."

Mario thought about it for a second, but came to a shocking realization.

"Then… that means… this ship I'm standing on…"

"That's right, Mario." Rosalina interrupted. "This is the very comet that your kingdom celebrates the arrival of. Or… at least it used to be…" Rosalina trailed off for a moment, cringing when she thought about the evil that attacked them earlier. "...until this horrible creature came along and attacked us, stealing Star Bits and our power source, Power Stars."

"Bowser…" Mario thought. "He will pay!"

"Our ship had lost power, so it entered a deep hibernation state in which it could not move. Those who took your special one picked up the Power Stars, and discovered the power to cross the universe."

"So that must be how Bowser got that giant UFO, and how he's trying to create a galaxy of his very own." Mario continued to think to himself "That's horrible. But how can I help you get those stars back?"

Rosalina gave him a nice smile. "That's where you come into play, Mario. This observatory uses star power to project images of the galaxies that are scattered across space," she explained. "And… there is a chance we can use our few remaining stars to look for other Power Stars."

Rosalina pointed Mario towards the nearest dome shaped structure that he's opened up with the Grand Star.

"These round rooms are called domes. We observe galaxies from domes such as these. But the only one that is working now, powered by the star power you restored, is this one… the Terrace. Please go to the Terrace and try to recover the Power Stars from the galaxies you can see from there."

"If we do that, we'll be able to restore the Comet Observatory's ability to fly like a starship," the brown luma named Polari added. "Then perhaps we can pursue the thieves who ran off with the Power Stars."

Mario looked over to the Terrace, feeling unsure about this, and then back to Rosalina.

"But… how many stars will I need to get in order to get this ship working again?"

"Hmm…" Rosalina thought for a second "About… 89."

Mario's eyes widened.

"E-E-E-E-E-E-Eighty… n-nine?! You… You can't be serious…"

Rosalina sweatdropped a bit, not expecting this to be Mario's reaction.

"I… I'm afraid I am. You already got one, so 88 more to go."

Mario paused for a brief moment. 89? She couldn't be serious. He never had to collect that many of a certain macguffin before. If this were an adventure back on his home planet, sure. He'd totally be up for it. But this isn't his home planet. This is the vast and empty vacuum of space. Mario never knew how big the universe was exactly, but given what he learned in earth science back in middle school, the amount of stars he had to collect was ridiculously tiny in comparison. Who knows where Bowser could've spread them with his newly found power to travel the cosmos?

"Mario? Are you…"

Mario sat down on the edge of the ship and sighed. "Don't get me wrong, Rosalina. I'd be more than happy to help you out, but..." He tensed up, not feeling prepared to hurt someone's feelings. "I don't know... It kinda... sounds like a tall order?"

"You're giving up already?" Luma asked.

"Mario…" Rosalina tried to cheer him up. "I've seen you do great things before on your own planet. You've collected stars before, and at one point Shine Sprites, and you managed to save your special one many times before."

Mario sniffed a bit. "Yeah… but like you said… 'on my own planet'. But this? We're in space. I'm not a huge expert in space and all that, but... Those stars... they could be anywhere. Just like wherever Bowser took Peach."

Rosalina put him back onto his feet with her magic wand. "Listen, I understand that this is a lot for you to take in, and that you're still mad at the one who took your special one. But let me remind you that I entrusted you with Luma, who gave you the power to travel through space and amplified your superhuman abilities. This journey won't be easy, but with the help of Luma, you'll be able to gather those stars sooner than you think."

"You can count on me, Mario! I'll guide you all the way through. I promise, you won't feel alone." Luma guaranteed. Mario did give a weak smile towards Luma, then faced Rosalina again.

"Please, Mario... If you do this for me, I'll be able to help you save your friends. Please… We're desperate… It's the only way you'll ever see your special one again."

"Peach…" Mario once again thought to himself. "Alex… Leah… Luigi…" his sadness transformed into determination "I'll do it."

The Lumas of the Observatory gathered around Mario and cheered for him.

"Yaaaay!"

"Our hero!"

"THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!"

"Woohoo! We're gonna live!"

Mario blushes a bit from the attention of these cute little guys.

"Hehe! You're welcome."

"My sincerest thanks to you, Mario. I wish you the best of luck," Rosalina blessed him.

"Thanks, Rosalina. I won't let you down!" Mario saluted. "Alright Luma, let's a go!"

"Woohoo! Time for adventure!" Luma went back under Mario hat.

Rosalina waved as Mario walked into the entrance of the terrace, beginning yet another epic adventure.