Chapter 25: I Reach My Breaking Point

"MARIO!" Lubba yelled, "Get down here!"

Yeah, fat chance! And even if I did come down there, what the flip was he gonna do? I'm captain! And I'm pretty sure that somewhere in the job description for "Captain," you are given the right to throw horrible birthday presents at your subordinates.

"Um, hey Toads…," I said, "mind if I commandeer the Starshroom for now?"

"Why?" Green Toad asked. "And why did you wreck Lubba's present?"

"BECAUSE IT WAS A DEAD SCAREDY RAT!" I shouted.

"Better a dead one than a live one," Blue Toad chuckled.

I marched over to him, ready to wallop him with the mother of all knuckle sandwiches, when Bartholomew said, "Yeah, I think Mario's right. Wow, that's the biggest Scaredy Rat I've ever laid eyes on. Except the one I had that quick-draw duel against back in '09."

Okay, I was done listening to Bartholomew's nonsense, because I'm pretty sure Scaredy Rats don't even have opposable thumbs with which to shoot a gun.

"How the heck do I even get in this Starshroom?!" I asked. "Is there even any way inside?"

"The window here's secretly a hatch," Yellow Toad said, pointing to one of the Starshroom's windows.

I yanked on a little handle at the bottom, and it flew open. "Everyone in!" I said. "We're getting out of here. I'm gonna save Peach without that obnoxious purple Luma."

I climbed in the hatch head-first, while the other Toads slowly followed me. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" one of them asked, but I couldn't tell for the life of me if it was Blue Toad, Green Toad, Yellow Toad, or Bartholomew.

"Wait a minute, Banktoad!" one of them said. "If we're gonna leave, we can't go without him!"

ARGH! Why do Toads have to be so annoying? "You seriously wanna go back for Banktoad?" I asked.

"He's one of us!" Bartholomew said as I stood up in the Starshroom. "We Toad Brigade members have a motto we like to call 'Semper fi.' It translates to…actually, I have no idea, but I think it's something about loyalty. We have to go back for Banktoad!"

"Then you do it!" I said. "Get on the warp pad to Starship Mario and come back with Banktoad. Meanwhile, whichever of you is comparatively the smartest, teach me how to fly this thing."

"I'm the smartest," Green Toad said, raising his hand.

Blue Toad smacked his hand down and whined, "No, I'm the smartest!"

"I've got a master's degree," Yellow Toad said.

"Yeah, in astrology, which everyone knows is fake!" Green Toad snapped.

"Oh please, you don't even have a high school diploma," Blue Toad snorted.

"Because I felt adventure calling me!"

Meanwhile, Bartholomew headed back to Starship Mario and snuck up the backside of the ship towards the helm. Lubba then headed down the back of the helm towards the warp pad, but ran into Bartholomew. Oh great; this was gonna go well.

Less than five seconds later, Bartholomew came running around the side of Starship Mario, screaming. Lubba chased him to the warp pad, which Bartholomew got on. Bartholomew landed on the underside of the Starshroom, and then I heard him smash the warp pad on the Starshroom. Lubba, who had just gotten on Starship Mario's end of the warp pad, only flew a few feet in the air before the connection between the two pads faltered, causing him to fall back to Starship Mario.

Bartholomew clambered through the Starshroom's window and yelled, "QUIIIIET!" over the three-way pissing contest that was still ensuing amongst the other Toads.

"Where's Banktoad?" Green Toad asked.

"Still on the Starship. Lubba accused me of treason and made some…unsavory threats against me, and I chickened out."

Now Lubba was playing dirty. Accusing me, who knows better than to buy his lies, of treason is one thing. Accusing the less-intelligent Toads of treason was low.

41. Plays dirty.

"Mario, what are you doing?" Bartholomew asked.

"Trying to fly this thing because the other Toads were less than helpful at instructing me!" I said. I pushed a few more buttons, and suddenly the Starshroom's engines – wherever the heck they were – hummed to life. I pushed the controls forward, and the spaceship flew forward….

…Until it hit something and bounced backward. What the heck had I flown into?

I tried going forward again, but just hit something once more.

"Mario, what are you doing?" Yellow Toad asked. "I'm starting to think you're a lousy pilot."

"I'm trying to get out of here, but I keep…hitting…something!" I said between more attempts to get the spaceship away from Starship Mario.

"Oh, you can't do it this way," Bartholomew said. "For some reason, fifty yards out from Starship Mario in every direction, there's a forcefield. And I think the only hole in it is the hole you fly out that's above the helm."

"Well then, Toads, out the helm hole we go." Helm hole. Sounds like hellhole. But no, the helm hole is apparently my only way out of a hellhole: Starship Mario.

I wheeled the Starshroom around and had it fly straight at Starship Mario's helm. Lubba had floated up to the helm and grabbed the steering wheel, but what the heck he was hoping to do was beyond me. I leveled the bottom of the Starshroom with the top of the helm and sped right for it. Lubba saw me coming and said, "Holy-" before the Starshroom hit him right in the face. He tumbled back into he pine tree. Ha! Again, he was coming into pine tree!

I then had the Starshroom rocket straight up, out the helm hole and into the world outside Starship Mario. Haha! Suck it, Lubba; time for me to cruise the cosmos with my new crew, the Toad Brigade! Granted, based on my impression of them, they're not a huge improvement (especially given that I now know Captain Toad's name is Bartholomew…), but oh well. Anything's better than Starship Mario, I guess.