A/N: Thanks for waiting patiently for the next installment! This one will only be two chapters long since I think it leaves things at a better cliffhanger that in I posted Chapter 32 with these too. But I have the next several chapters roughly planned out, and the next batch of chapters I post will be back to three.

I do not own Super Mario.

Chapter 30: Holey Planets and Fake Curse Words

When I got back to Starship Mario, it was almost 4:00A.M. Are you kidding me? I spent almost an hour in the Hightail Falls Galaxy?! How flippin' long did I spend flying there?! I know the mission itself didn't take long at all, so that's really all I could think. Well, time was wasting away; I had to decide which mission to go on next. But first….

"Yoshi!" I called. "Is Lubba making any progress freeing himself?"

Yoshi ran up the back of the ship, "I don't think so. He's still just farting and screaming, but not really moving."

"Well, keep watching him. If he gets free, tie him up with your tongue."

"Will do," Yoshi said, heading back to the bridge Lubba was trapped under.

Maybe I'd investigate the Hungry Luma in the Cosmic Cove Galaxy. It's not like he could be demanding many coins, since there weren't many in that place to begin with. Besides, hopefully the Hungry Luma planet there would be surrounded by pink light, like the one in the Hightail Falls Galaxy was, even though it was still pretty early in the morning.

So, once again, I headed to the Cosmic Cove Galaxy. Apparently the second regular mission was titled "Exploring the Cosmic Cavern." Uh, wasn't that what I did the first time around? Wasn't the "Cosmic Cavern" the tunnel I used to get from the beach area to the lake? Or is the Cosmic Cavern something else, and that tunnel was the…Cosmic Cove Cave or something? Oh great, now just thinking that is gonna confuse me going forward about what the name of this dump is. I'm gonna be like, "Is it the Cosmic Cove…or the Cosmic Cave…or the Cove Cave?"

I selected the stupidly-named "Twin Falls Hideaway" again, and landed on the beach once more. There were the sleazy swimming coach and the intruding Koopa once again. I ignored the former, jumped on the latter, and then rode his shell into the lake.

The galaxy hardly looked any different at night, because it doesn't even seem to orbit a star during the day. Makes me wonder why the water hasn't frozen period (and just freezes when I ground-pound that switch on top of the tower), because I've always heard that were the Mushroom Planet's star to go out, the planet would freeze. Then again, maybe Toad astronomers are just full of Poochy turds, because what I've previously heard from them about black holes (and I quote, "All the known laws of physics go bonkers and you encounter a firewall paradox, then get stretched out like a piece of spaghetti and appear to be frozen in time for all of eternity") in no way matches up with what happens when I fall into a black hole. I get sucked into it, feel no pain, and then respawn at the start of the level.

Oh, scratch that, it did look different at night. All the creatures were apparently bioluminescent (even though during the day there was the exact same amount of light and no bioluminescence was to be seen), as was their GLOWING STOOL that was coating the seafloor. Well, makes sense. They all obviously prey on each other, so if you eat glowing food, your poop's goona glow.

They say "You are what you eat." I think a more accurate saying would be "Your poop is what you eat."

…No, forget it, that sounds all sorts of wrong. Then again, "You are what you eat" could be twisted to imply cannibalism, so whatever.

A while later, I had collected a total of 16 coins around the lake. Hopefully that would be enough, but all Hungry Lumas are greedy buttholes, so I doubted it would be.

Believe it or not, it was. The Hungry Luma was only whining for 15 coins! I couldn't believe my luck! Granted, he was still screaming his demands at me like an entitled millennial brat, but I didn't have the time to waste engaging in fisticuffs with him over his bad attitude.

I fed him his midnight snack and he declared that he was full and would transform (once more trying to rupture my eardrums with the latter exclamation), and then he flew into the sky. Suddenly, he transformed into a holy planet.

Sorry, scratch that, a holey planet. As in a planet covered in holes. That would be funny, a holy planet; it would probably be a giant church or something. Or maybe just a regular-sized church, since all the planets in my galactic adventures are abnormally small.

I got in the Hungry Luma's pink Launch Star and flew to the new planet. As I got closer to it, as expected, the sky turned pink. I could also make out that the planet was covered in a thin layer of water, and at the center of it was a black hole. Oh lovely. I have a long, despised history of holey planets with a central black hole. The planet with boulders and a Prickly Piranha Plant from the Good Egg Galaxy. The main planet from the Hurry-Scurry Galaxy. The starting planets from both Bowser Jr.'s Robot Reactor and Bowser Jr.'s Lava Reactor. In short, they hate me. I hate them. We leave it at that.

But upon landing on said planet, I saw a Star Bunny on it. Now hold the flying flipping flip up. Supposedly, Star Bunnies are an alternate form of Lumas (but, as I mentioned before, I have serious doubts about that theory), but assuming for a second that Star Bunnies are Lumas, how did a Hungry Luma create a Star Bunny (a.k.a. a Luma)? Maybe Bowser shoved the Star Bunny/Luma down the Hungry Luma's throat? I mean, the Goomba on the Hungry Luma planet in the Fluffy Bluff Galaxy said that Bowser imprisoned him in the Hungry Luma since the galaxy's two jail cells were occupied. Then again, I'm not sure how much I trust the word of a Goomba.

I walked over to the Star Bunny and asked, "How did you get here?"

"What do you mean, here?" the Star Bunny asked.

"I mean, on this planet. It was created by a Hungry Luma."

"Oh. That jerk Bowser hunted me down for throwing a Molotov cocktail through his throne room window, and stuffed me down that Hungry Luma's throat in revenge."

Man, what the heck is Bowser's problem? And prior to this adventure, I would've been surprised to hear of a Star Bunny wielding incendiaries, but after encountering Lubba, I'm no longer shocked to learn of supposedly pacifistic species being unexpectedly aggressive.

"Well, what's the point of this place?" I asked the Star Bunny. "I don't see a Power Star anywhere."

"Oh, I've got it," he said. "Think you can catch me? I'd like to see you try it! Boiyoing!"

I've got several things to say about this. Bear with me here, folks.

First off, once again, why are A-minor creatures withholding Power Stars from me? This one even has a reason to hate Bowser, so why can't he just give me the Power Star since I oppose Bowser? This makes absolutely no sense.

Second, I forgot these stupid rabbit-catching minigames existed in my first galactic adventure, and I very much would've preferred to go to my grave still forgetful of their existence.

And third, "boiyoing!" I have no idea what the heck that word is supposed to mean, and all I've ever been able to think is that it's a substitute for an F-bomb. Which is part of the reason why I can't stand Star Bunnies. I mean, they always say "Boiyoing!" when I catch them, which I translate to, "Aw f-, you caught me!" And they always say it when inviting me to chase them, which I translate to, "Haha, f- you, you'll never catch me!" Seriously, what the boiyoing do these Star Bunnies have against me?!

The Star Bunny ran from me, but I saw something else on the planet that caught my attention: a Blue Switch. These things appeared a couple times in my first galactic adventure, and seemed to do something different in each encounter instead of just having one uniform purpose. Maybe here it would release a bunch of rodenticides into the water so I could catch the Star Bunny.

I ground-pounded on the switch. Release rodenticides it did not; instead, it just froze the water. What is it with freezing water in this galaxy? And while several giant insects floating on the surface of the water froze too, the Star Bunny did not. Why couldn't I be lucky enough for him to freeze too? So the ice got rid of the enemies, but didn't get rid of the true enemy (the Star Bunny), and now chasing him would be a pain in the ass.

I ran after the Star Bunny, but he hopped away from me, somehow not losing traction at the same rate as me. I Star-Spun so I could start skating after him, but I Star-Spun myself right into one of the planet's holes and fell into the central black hole.

TOO BAD!

I reappeared at the planet's Checkpoint Flag. Come on, I don't have time for this! Something I've never pondered until now is how long it takes me to regenerate when I die. What if that takes, like, half an hour? I don't have half and hour to waste; Lubba could escape in that half-hour!

"Think you can catch me? I'd like to see you try it! Boiyoing!" the Star Bunny taunted again before hopping away. I ran after him, not even bothering to freeze the planet's surface this time. Doing that last time led me to start skating, which in turn led me to fall into the black hole. Also, when I'm skating, it's impossible to stick landings, which I just know is gonna bite me in the ass if I try it on this planet, what with its narrow paths between the large holes in its surface.

The Star Bunny ran away again, but I saw a shortcut up ahead: if I long-jumped over one of the holes, I might bee able to intercept him, while also avoiding one of those giant insects.

So I got ready to long-jump at the edge of the hole, but instead of crouching and then jumping, I jumped and then crouched. This led to me not long-jumping , but ground-pounding straight into the black hole. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" I yelled.

TOO BAD!

Next time I tried jumping at the Star Bunny but undershot him and fell into a hole.

TOO BAD!

Then I overshot the Star Bunny and fell into another hole.

TOO BAD!

After that I temporarily gave up long-jumping and tried to T-bone the rabbit, but missed and was sent spiraling into the black hole by his slipstream(?!).

TOO BAD!

Then I got was hit by one of the giant insects, skated into a hole, almost caught the Star Bunny twice only to get kicked in the nuts and shurikened in the butt crack (where did the Star Bunny even hide a shuriken?!), and then the menace snuck up on me and sneezed on my arm. All of those ended in me falling into the black hole and getting a….

TOO BAD!

Finally, I was on my last life. My life counter read "M x 0," which I have never gotten: why the heck is my last life counted as my zeroth (is that even a word?) life? The last life should read "M x 1," as in I only have one life left. How can I still be here if I have zero lives left?!

But in my desperation to not get a Game Over, I came up with an unlikely – but still possible – plan. While the Star Bunny was cursing me out again, I took off one of my shoes and hurled it at the rabbit. I've been told I can use Star Bits to stun others, but that's never worked because I don't know how the heck to do that. Where do Star Bits even go after I collect them that I'm supposed to be able to summon them from? Yet somehow I have no problem magically summoning them to feed Hungry Lumas. Yeah, how the heck does that even work? Heck, how did the ones I deposited with Banktoad even get in my account? Maybe I shouldn't be worried about him after all; I mean, I don't even know where the Star Bits I supposedly have go.

My shoe hit the Star Bunny in the face, resulting in the strangest "Twang!" sound I've ever heard when it bounced off his nose. This clearly dazed him, and I ran across the planet to grab him. Thankfully, my shoe landed in the water and didn't fall into the black hole. In hindsight, that wasn't such a good move; if it had fallen into the black hole, one of my tux shoes would be gone.

I grabbed the Star Bunny, and he immediately started squirming in my grip. "OK, OK!" he said. "You caught me! Here – take this star! Boiyoing! Boiyoing!"

Or, in human speak:

"OK, OK! You caught me! Here – take this star! F-! F-!"

I can't 100% blame him because I use cursing as a crutch to make it through daily drudgeries too, but I've never done anything to him to warrant him cursing at me. But seriously, from what I've seen of them, these Star Bunnies curse more than Gordon Ramshroom.

The Star Bunny relinquished the Power Star and it landed several feet away. I went to collect it, but his potty mouth still wasn't finished. "I won't make it so easy for you next time! Boi…yoing…."

Translation:

"I won't make it so easy for you next time! Ah…f…."

I ignored him and grabbed the Power Star, finally completing the mission. Two Power Stars down, two to go.