Chapter 9: Not a Shindig in the Spin-Dig

My hopes for the Spin-Dig Galaxy's second mission were medium-to-high, given that, as I already laid out in the Sky Station Galaxy, if Mission #1 has a boss fight, Mission #2 should not. I call it the Law of the Consecutive Boss Fights, which states that the only time boss fights can come in consecutive missions is if it's in Mission #2 and Mission #3 for a galaxy.

And then I saw that the second mission was titled "Silver Stars Down Deep."

Okay, let's pro-con this.

Pro: the Law of Consecutive Boss Fights has once more been proven correct, because there are never bosses in Silver Star missions.

Con: the fact that it's a Silver Star mission, because those things have a track record of all too often taking forever to find. Take "The Silver Stars of Sea Slide" from my first galactic adventure. Those Silver Stars took forever to find, which was not helped by the fact that the only ways of getting around were swimming and flying, which take like ten times as long as walking. I don't get why being able to fly is so glorified, it's an absurdly slow mode of transportation.

And so as soon as I landed in the galaxy, I started on the same lousy Starting Planet as last time. Only now a sign near where I landed said, "Careful!"

"Careful!"? Is it telling me to be careful of something, and if so, what? I surveyed the planet and didn't see any sign of those obnoxious Drills that had infested the place last time. I saw several Piranha Plants, but seeing as how they clearly didn't resemble the Devil Piranha from "Storming the Sky Fleet" or any other ugly mutant Piranha Plant I've had to fight, I didn't see what the big deal was.

I leapt off the hill I had landed on and started wandering around in search of a Spin Drill, but as soon as I set foot on the ground outside the hill, a cloud of darkness formed behind me and – oh come on, not these stupid things again!

On a planet from "Storming the Sky Fleet" that I skipped over documenting here, I had to activate several Flipswitches while dodging some Banzai Bills. But then on the second half of the planet, I was chased over the Flipswitches by these strange clones of me that came from some sort of evil-looking cloud that formed once I set foot in the area. And once again, they were an unnamed nemesis I have never met before, and thus that the BOMKS hasn't named yet. They weren't Shadow Mario, nor were they exactly the Cosmic Mario I met in my first galactic adventure (who I still think was really Shadow Mario a.k.a. Bowser Jr.), and in the end I simply (yet fittingly) dubbed them Evil Marios.

And now more of them were here.

I ran around the planet, madly trying to find the Launch Star off it, but didn't find one. Instead, after running around for no less than a minute, I finally found a crystal-encased Sling Star that I have no idea how I missed before. As soon as I spun into it, the Evil Mario about to run into me vaporized into a trio of Star Bits, as did the (rough estimate here) 200 other Evil Marios following me around. That, in theory, would have resulted in 600 Star Bits, but I only collected 86 before they all vaporized, so either my estimate was way off or…some more monkeyshines are afoot, but I'm in no mood to even start speculating about what specifically. The exchange with that Hungry Luma filled up my daily Nonsense-Toleration-O-Meter.

Anyway, the Sling Star took me to the tallest spire on the planet, where I stomped on a Piranha Plant, causing a Sproutle Vine to spring from his grave. And – weird alert! – the vine led me to a nearby planet that looked like a purple cylinder. Since when the heck have Sproutle Vines taken me between planets? They've taken me between sections of abnormally large planets, but never between planets before. I see the universe is trying to push me to my breaking point with the absurdity it's subjecting me to today!

From the top of the Purple Cylinder Planet, I had two choices: A) get on a teleporter that led who-knows-where, or B) go down a Warp Pipe into the planet's interior. That wasn't even really a choice. These stupid teleporters are clearly nothing but a waste of my time; the one in the Yoshi Star Galaxy sent me to some enemy-infested planet that just gives me some coins and Star Bits, and this one would probably do the same. Speaking of which, what the heck are the point of coins in this game? In my first galactic adventure, I just collected them for no apparent reason, and then didn't even get to take them back to the Mushroom Kingdom, which seems to be the only place in the universe that recognizes coins as a legit currency, since the entirety of outer space apparently runs on Star Bits.

So I went down the Warp Pipe and, despite the fact that the Purple Cylinder's exterior was 3D, the interior was 2D. 2D is just flipping garbage, which has been my opinion ever since Super Mario 64 introduced me to the concept of a 3D adventure.

I landed next to a Spin Drill and saw that…oh yay, there was a Drill here. Here I was hoping I could make it through this mission without running into these nutcases. Then again, when have my hopes ever been rewarded? Oh yeah, in Super Mario 64: I was hoping Yoshi would return there, and the universe put in the bare minimum required to make that happen by arbitrarily putting Yoshi on the roof of Peach's Castle and having him deliver a fourth wall-breaking message from "The Super Mario 64 Team" complete with a bunch of extra lives that I never even used because I'd already completed the game, so…WTF, "Super Mario 64 Team"?! And then Yoshi just left by jumping off the top of Peach's Castle and, against all odds, surviving the fall, seeing as how he popped up again in Super Mario Sunshine. Actually, come to think of it, Super Mario Sunshine was the first time Yoshi appeared in a game and acted like we'd never met before. Maybe it was because we hadn't. Maybe the Yoshi died jumping off the roof of Peach's Castle, and in every adventure since then I've just been paired up with some new, random Yoshi each time. Wow, that's a depressing thought.

After drilling through a lot of the dirt comprising most of the Purple Cylinder Planet's drab interior, I landed on what I hoped was finally the bottom of the planet, and saw a lone Amp there. What the heck? One Amp? This came out of left field. I tried long-jumping over the moron, but the stupid Spin Drill weighed me down and caused me to fall smack onto the Amp.

ZZZZZZAP!

I fell backwards while that stupid Amp continued grinning like always, floating back and forth. Why are Amps always smiling? I have a long-held theory that it's because, for some reason, electricity gets them high; thus, since they're constantly electrified, they're constantly giddy. But for everyone else, electricity is just painful. If that were true, it would be astronomically dumb; then again, so is Bowser, so….

On my second try, I leapt over the Amp and landed next to a Warp Pipe that I went down. Only I didn't emerge on the underside of the planet, I just emerged in another section of it. How big is this flippin' planet? From the outside it looked like it should only be half as big as what I've already traversed, but it's still going and going, seemingly without end. Unless the Warp Pipe on the Purple Cylinder Planet didn't lead inside it, it led to another planet entirely. Like how in the Good Egg Galaxy, the Warp Pipe on top of the house leads to that room surrounded by darkness that's supposedly in the house, but is really way out in the distance beyond the rest of the galaxy's planets. But if that's the case, why wasn't the Piranha Plant on the Starting Planet just sitting in a Warp Pipe that led to where I am now? Why was there that useless layover atop the Purple Cylinder Planet? Argh, none of this makes any sense!

After drilling down through a few more layers of the impossibly tall Purple Cylinder Planet, I emerged on the underside. You're not fooling me, whatever idiot Koopa made this galaxy – I know I wasn't inside the planet for the past couple minutes! I looked around but didn't see any sort of dirt tower out in the distance anywhere. Then again, this galaxy looks like it's surrounded in some sort of shell, so maybe the tower's out beyond that.

Anyway, I got in the Launch Star on the underside of the planet and flew first to a Starshroom (which, bizarrely, Blue Toad was on, even though he was supposed to be back on Starship Mario, so I didn't know what to think of that), and then to the final planet in the galaxy, which was a house of horrors infested with Drills, as well as five Silver Stars that were hidden underground, which might take the prize for the worst Silver Stars mission ever. But finally, after several Drill ambushes, inopportune gravity shifts, and more nonsense, I finally got the Power Star and left that garbage dump of a galaxy.

And when I arrived back on Starship Mario, the potty-mouthed Hungry Luma was waiting there for me. Lovely. Let's see what he had to say now.

"Hey you! Yeah you!" he started. "Got any tasty Star Bits I can snack on?" Who the heck does this guy think he is, bossing me around like this? Does he even want to get fed, because based on everything he's said so far, the only thing he's got coming is a good, hard spanking on his bath-salted butt. Eventually he finished, "...chow on 300. Then I'll TRANSFORM!" Why do these Hungry Lumas always feel the need to scream the word "transform" at me like I'm going deaf or something?

So he wants 300 Star Bits? Well, I have 305, so I'm gonna use the first five to teach him a lesson. I walked behind the Hungry Luma, took aim, and fired the first five Star Bits right at his butt.

"No, no, not back there, you dummy!" the Hungry Luma snapped. "Does that look like my face to you?!"

Okay, fine. Face it is.

I walked back around the Hungry Luma and...screw feeding this guy, he needs to learn a lesson. I shot my other 300 Star Bits right at that Luma's smug face. One or two accidentally went in his mouth, but I didn't care.

And when I ran out of Star Bits, the Hungry Luma screamed, "MOOOORE!" Come on! Demanding for stuff is what got you here in the first place and you still haven't learned your lesson?

And...wait, now I didn't have any Star Bits! Now for my next mission I'd have to go to the Dinosaur Graveyard or Fluffy Bluff or Rightside Down Galaxies!

And then I blacked out.