Chapter 28: Fire and Fury

I emerged from the Warp Pipe not back on the Starshroom, not on Starship Mario, but on a semispherical planet I immediately recognized. It looked almost exactly like the garbage dump planets from the Battlerock and Dreadnought Galaxies in my first galactic adventure. Same metal surface, same Gearmo there raging about something; the only differences were that the planet was filled with crates instead of piles of nondescript trash, and that there were no Bob-Omb dispensers around.

The Gearmo turned to me and ranted, "This is the end of the road for all the trash in the universe!"

Really? All the trash in the whole entire universe? And it all ends up here? All the trash the universe has produced this past week can be crammed into 25 crates?

The Gearmo illogically continued, "So many boxes…. It's gettin' way outta control, if ya ask me!"

No, I didn't ask you! And what exactly is "so many boxes" supposed to mean? There's only 25 of them; learn to count, man! And also, how is it getting out of hand? I don't see more getting dumped here out of a giant spaceship or something, and in the time the Gearmo had been talking to me, he probably could've shoved these crates off the planet and been done with them. This is why I can't stand Gearmos; they're even dumber than Toads. Those people who predict that one day biological life will be enslaved by AIs don't know what the heck they're talking about.

The motormouth still wasn't done talking. "Do me a favor and burn all of these as fast as ya can. Whaddya say?" Two giant buttons saying "No thanks" and "Sure" appeared before me.

Well, if my first galactic adventure was anything to go by, I'd get a Power Star for destroying all the crates. Wasn't sure how the heck I was supposed to burn them, though, since I didn't see a Fire Flower at my disposal.

"How am I supposed to burn them?" I asked.

"Oh, I'll give you a Fire Flower," the Gearmo said. "You wouldn't believe how many of them I find getting thrown away."

Okay, while I thought that was completely absurd, at least I'd have a Fire Flower. I reluctantly selected "Sure."

"All right – I'll leave ya to it!" the Gearmo said.

A Fire Flower appeared before me, and a large "20" appeared in the sky. As I guessed, 20 seconds. Well, there were 25 crates…that would be on average 1.25 crates per second I'd have to burn. At least here I wouldn't be in the situation that wasted so much of my time in Super Mario Galaxy's garbage dump levels, where time would run out while I was waiting for a) a Bob-Omb that I'd already thrown to detonate already and take out the last two mounds of garbage; or b) the Bob-Omb dispensers to hurry up already and give me another batch of Bob-Ombs to throw!

A timer buzzed, and the timer in the sky started counting down. I slung a fireball down the center row of crates, destroying five of them, and then set about tackling the other ones. I was down to four seconds and had two crates across the arena from me left to burn. Did I need to walk over there to burn them? Nah, there was no need; from where I stood, they were one right behind the other. I could throw one fireball and burn through them both. So I slung a fireball at them and waited for them to be incinerated.

Only the fireball flew a few inches wide. By now there was only one second left. I frantically ran towards the crates, trying to get a fireball to them in time. I slung another one, and it was a few inches in front of them when the timer ran out.

NOOOOOOOO!

The Gearmo turned his body and his wrath towards me. "Oh, no no no! That won't do! Ya gotta put yer back into it, sweetie!"

WHY?! Why the flip did this moron care how long it took me to burn through the crates as long as he didn't do it. That's like those idiot Toads who whine about Roombas taking "way longer to vacuum than if I just do it myself;" who the heck cares how long it takes as long as you get to sit around and watch TV while it does the vacuuming for you? Either that, or this ingrate of a Gearmo could just go destroy that last crate himself. And I DID put my back into it, but excuse me if my back isn't what it used to be after three decades of crouching, jumping, somersaulting, and tossing, not to mention breaking my back less than a week ago. And yes, my back did heal, but I refuse to believe that no underlying, long-term damage occurred anyway. AND, what the heck was up with the Gearmo calling me "sweetie"? What, was he just impersonating River Toad from Doctor Boo? Or was there a more…unrequited meaning behind his words?

So I walked away from the Gearmo and then headed back a second later, knowing full well from the similar missions in my first galactic adventure that having a break from me for a second can do wonders to improve a Gearmo's mood, even if said Gearmo had no right to be mad at me in the first place.

Once again I got a Fire Flower and, in usual reality-bending fashion, all the trash I had already destroyed reappeared. I had expected no less after my previous experiences. The first time it happened I wasted three rounds pelting the seemingly indestructible Gearmo with Bob-Ombs; every time after that I just sucked it up and later beat up my punching bag on the Comet Observatory.

Two tries later, I burned through all the boxes, and then suddenly the Gearmo was happy. "Oh, thanks! That looks great! Here ya go – take this star! Boy, I wish more folks worked as hard as you!"

He whirled his magnet-staff-thingy around, and suddenly a Power Star appeared on it. But where – you know what, I don't even want to know where it came from. And here's another problem I have: as I might've previously mentioned, I find it veeeeeery hard to believe that these A-minor beings are true heroes when they're in possession of Power Stars that Bowser stole. If they were truly heroic or at least neutral in this conflict between me and Bowser, he would never give them Power Stars! Or maybe he's just that stupid, which is also a possibility. Or Bowser chucked this Power Star down a garbage disposal like Iron Toad wanted to do with one of the Infinity Rocks in Toad-vengers: Infinity War. And then this Gearmo found it since, apparently, this is where all the trash in the universe ends up.

In short, all three are possibilities. Which one is the truth would probably be obvious if Bowser's true IQ were ever released to the public. Last I heard, Kamek was claiming his IQ was 289, which anyone who knows a flippin' thing about how IQ works would know is impossible. His intelligence age would have to be almost 3 times his actual age – values that, again, have never been accurately revealed.

I grabbed the Power Star, mentally debating which place I'd rather return to: Starship Mario or the Starshroom.

Well, the universe decided for me: Starship Mario.

I landed on the helm, and waiting for me was Lubba.

"I can't believe you," he said. "You chuck your breakfast in Starship Mario's ear, snoop around in my room, get mad at me for no reason, throw dead rats at me, and then, on top of all that, steal my Starshroom and spray poop at me when I try to get it back from you!"

Okay, let's deal with this load of B.S. one item at a time, shall we?

First…okay, maybe that was an overreaction, but he was already annoying me and had no respect for me trying to eat breakfast. But he's not a saint or anything either, because later in the day he was a complete butthole to me when my meteor clothes struck.

Second, only because I was looking for gloves thanks to the lousy job he did washing my clothes!

Third, assuming he was referencing what it seemed he was referencing, would he like a reminder as to WHY I was mad at him?

Fourth, he gave me the aforementioned dead rat as a birthday present!

Fifth, what the hell did he mean "his" Starshroom?

And sixth, what was with him assuming I sprayed the poop at him? Jacques did it, on Bartholomew's orders!

43. ...Whatever you call what just happened.

"Boy, are you in need of a reality check." I folded my arms.

"No, I'm in need of retribution," Lubba said. "And now, thanks to me intercepting your path back to the Starshroom, you're gonna let me have it."

44. Intercepts my path (I'm not even bothering to ponder how the heck Lubba did that).

"What the flip do you mean, 'retribution'?"

"Beating you up, what else?"

About flippin' time! I was tired of this cold war between us; it should've come to blows days ago!

Lubba floated towards me and bumped me like a sumo wrestler, sending me flying off the back of the helm. I tumbled down the grass and saw Lubba bearing down on me again. Oh boy.

I ran to the underside of the ship, but Lubba floated after me surprisingly quickly. Um…where exactly was I gonna go? I couldn't get away from this guy!

"Get back here, Mario!" he yelled.

I ran back up the back of the ship and ducked behind a tree stump, hoping he'd fly past me. He did, and when he had flown just by me, I got an idea. I grabbed the back of his pants and yanked on the waistband, then snapped them back at his butt. The resulting sound was somewhere between a rubber band snapping and a pile of Jell-O falling on the floor.

"OWOO!" Lubba squealed. "My butt!" The impact of the waistband flying back into him sent him floating several feet into the air.

With him temporarily distracted, I ran back towards the helm, hoping to get out of here before Lubba recovered from my childish attack. Yes, I know it was childish, but all the best attacks are.

Unfortunately, Lubba recovered surprisingly quickly, and…I don't know what you'd call it, he sort of…swam through the air, trying to get back down to the ground. "I'M COMING FOR YOU!" he yelled.

I was caught off-guard by this and whirled around to see how close he was. But, as Luigi always (annoyingly) says, "Mario, don't look backward while you're running forward!"

And, in the stupidest horror movie cliché of all time, I tripped on a rock and went sprawling in the creek that ran down the ship's backside. NO! NOT MY TUX GETTING DRENCHED AGAIN! I looked up in horror to see the monster (Lubba) bearing down on me. I was backed up against one of the bridges crossing the creek, and I knew if I tried to haul myself over it, Lubba would get me and I'd be a dead man.

So instead I squeezed under the bridge. It was a tight fit, and I knew there was no way Lubba would be able to follow me. Granted, I'd probably be holed up there indefinitely; Lubba would probably be too dumb or too sadistic to just tear up the bridge. No, he's maintain a constant vigil outside it and try to starve me out or something. That would probably take several weeks, given that I'd have easy access to water under here, just not food.

But before my thought train could spiral any further, Lubba completely upended the one base assumption it was based on: that he wouldn't try to get under the bridge. Try, he did.

He started digging into the creekbank to try to hollow out a space large enough to allow him under the bridge. I scooted back to the far side of the bridge as Lubba followed me. His head and "arms" were under the bridge now. He was yelling something at me, but I couldn't make out what because his face was underwater, so all I heard was a string of bubbles. I backed out of the area under the bridge as Lubba wedged himself under there even farther in mad, borderline blind, pursuit of me.

And then he yelled two words that, even underwater, were unmistakable: "I'M STUCK!"

Unbelievable! I didn't dare to hope he'd get stuck under there, but lo and behold, stuck he was. Moreover, how flippin' sturdy was that bridge that it didn't shatter apart as soon as Lubba started burrowing under it? Geesh.

All I knew was that I couldn't waste this opportunity. I highly doubted Lubba would stay trapped under there forever, so I just had to make the most of the time he was stuck to figure out a way out of here (and maybe track down the Comet Observatory to use as my base instead of this dump…).