Chapter 40: I Am Once Again Disgraced by a Paragoomba

So I stepped on the helm and headed to the Tall Trunk Galaxy. The first mission there was entitled "The Flotacious Blimp Fruit." First of all, Mr. Idiot Who Named This Level, "flotacious" is not a word, and what the heck is a Blimp Fruit? Was I going to have to turn into a blimp, because if so, then I would have to seriously reconsider the Cloudy Court Galaxy. Everyone knows blimps have a horrible safety record; one spark and they go KABOOM!, and we all know there's fire in basically every level I encounter.

But, in the spirit of fairness I always try my best to embrace, I decided to give the Tall Trunk a chance before coming to a verdict on it.

So, upon approaching the galaxy, the only planet I saw was a gigantic tree rising from a tiny planetoid. I mean, the thing's upper boughs were, like, twenty times the size of the planet it was growing from. Not sure exactly why this surprised me after all the other nonsensical things I've seen in my time, but it did. And if looked like there were several platforms leading up the tree trunk towards a Launch Star. But the platforms looked to be too far apart for me to jump between them.

Turning into a blimp was looking more and more likely.

I landed on the tiny planet, and waiting for me on it was a welcoming party of two Scuttlebugs. Oh come on! Why did there have to be those annoying creeps here? I Star-Spun into one of them, and then saw that on the underside of the planet was Yoshi's egg. Well, at least if he was here, then if I suffered death by blimp, there would be someone present to confirm that Bowser was indeed (indirectly) responsible for my murder. Come to think of it, is it even possible for me to die like that? Like, as in "Bam, you're dead! No resurrections, no 'TOO BAD!,' no 'GAME OVER!,' just DEAD!"?

Hmm, I've never really pondered that before?

And did I want an answer?

NNNOOOOOOOOPPPEEE!

I hatched Yoshi, ignoring a nearby Goomba trapped in another crystal. Man, how many Goombas were failing Bowser nowadays? First the one in the Flip-Swap Galaxy, now here. The Koopa Troop is seriously getting more incompetent with each passing adventure. I swear, if it continues at this rate, in my next adventure they're actually going to end up helping me. Not like the Bob-Omb Buddy from Super Mario 64 where he was a lone defector or whatever his story was; the entire gosh dang Koopa Troop is gonna end up on my side. Not complaining or anything, but that would still be pretty stupid.

I rode Yoshi back to the topside of the planet (collecting a 1-Up Mushroom trapped in a crystal on the way there). Directly ahead of us was then took out another gosh dang Scuttlebug hanging from a tree branch. And directly ahead of us was another one of those insufferable wooden bobbleheads, along with another teleporter. Nope, not bothering with either of those. Granted, that didn't stop the bobblehead from speaking to me as I rode away: "Treetop. Good."

Did he somehow think he was on top of the tree? Or did he just mean that he wanted to get up to the treetop because the treetop is good? Man, it is so HARD to understand someone when the only parts of speech they use are NOUNS, with no verbs or prepositions or anything to connect them!

Around the backside of the tree was another bobblehead, and a glowing blue fruit. Well, that was obviously the Blimp Fruit, but the only question now was who would have to use it: me or Yoshi. Was it another Yoshi power-up like the Dash/Ghost Pepper? And if so, where the heck was this trend of "Yoshi power-ups" coming from? Does this mean Baby Yoshis are out of the picture now? If so, you're not gonna hear me complaining; I always hated carrying around those ungrateful little bastards.

Bobblehead #2 said, "This taste delicious, yes?"

How should I know?! I clearly haven't eaten it, you fool! And way to make a liar of me, universe, by having this bobblehead know verbs exist!

So I decided to try having Yoshi eat the fruit that I guessed was a Blimp Fruit first. He grabbed it with his tongue and swallowed it, and then something completely ridiculous happened.

His body turned BLUE and swelled up until he was like a much larger Blimp Fruit himself. Was this normal or was he having an allergic reaction or something? Wouldn't be the first time a power-up has done that; I'm horribly allergic to the Gold Flowers from New Super Mario Bros. 2.

I know you're laughing at me. Stop that. It's not funny. I looked like a living homunculus for two weeks.

I ended up sprawled on Yoshi's rear end, while he burped a stream of air out his mouth that carried us into the air. "Uh, is this normal?!" I yelled.

"Not sure; I've never eaten that type of fruit before," Yoshi said. "But nothing hurts or anything, so I guess it's normal."

Well…I mean, no one was turning into a literal blimp, so that was good. We weren't being carried aloft by a gas like hydrogen or helium, but, it seemed, by…flatulence.

"I'm almost out of air," Yoshi said a few seconds later.

Already? Man, this had to take the award for Shortest-Lived Power-Up of All Time. But next to us was a platform with a regular fruit on it, so I steered Yoshi towards that for us to take a breather. Also waiting there for us was Bill Board, who I ignored because I can count on zero hands how many times he has dispensed useful advice.

After several more minutes, Yoshi and I made our way up the trunk of the tree via several other platforms. Along the way we had another run-in with Bill Board (who I ignored again), another Scuttlebug, and another wooden bobblehead (who, in what might be the most coherent sentence his species has ever uttered, asked, "That Life Mushroom. Tasty?"), and grabbed the Life Mushroom he was referring to.

For that matter, WHY does everyone think I eat the mushrooms, flowers, leaves, etc. that give me powers? All I have to do is touch them and I get powers. Seriously, everyone in the Mushroom Kingdom thinks it too, and I have no idea where that theory started. I've done everything in my power to debunk it, but it persists anyway.

Finally, we got in the Launch Star, which, in what was possibly the rudest thing a Launch Star has ever done to me, shot me right through the tree's boughs. Now, this wouldn't have been so bad, if there wasn't a very thick branch right above the Launch Star that almost broke my arm, along with a pair of squirrels that came within a hair's width of gouging out both my eyes. Anyone who says squirrels are cute and harmless has obviously never been at the mercy of one's claws!

The next planet was some sort of long, cylindrical log that I had to navigate my way down…and around. Yoshi and I snagged a checkpoint flag at the start of the planet, then proceeded up a set of stairs to a higher area. Well, higher for us, but also technically lower, given how the planet worked. In the wise words of Obi-Wan Kenobitoad, "Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."

Then, of course, there's my point of view, which is always right.

Waiting for us atop the platform was another Blimp Fruit. At least these things didn't appear dangerous, just uselessly short-lived. Well, then again, I have heard of Toads lighting their flatulence on fire, but I'm not sure I even buy that because that sounds like it would be impossible to do without burning off your ass.

Above us were several wooden platforms moving along a track and, above them, a Paragoomba. Oh great, here come more memories of the Paragoomba Incident. By no means was that, per se, the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me on one of these journeys (looking your way, pants-crapping-after-first-seeing-a-King-Bill-in-New-Super-Mario-Bros.-Wii), but the fact that a lowly Paragoomba did it to me….

Yoshi and I floated between two of the wooden platforms, and then off to our left, I saw a Warp Pipe. Where did that lead? Was it a shortcut or a pointless waste of time?

I steered Yoshi over to it, and as he deflated, we descended the pipe. Awaiting us was a room containing three giant dice, each of which had three faces showing a Star Bit and three showing a 1-Up Mushroom. Oh, this might be useful. I spun into all the dice, and they spun through the air before all landing Star Bit side-up.

I expected this to result in an explosion of Star Bits from each die, and then maybe an extra bonus for spinning three of a kind. After all, in the Lucky Houses from Super Mario 3D World, the more symbols that matched, the more coins I got.

Well, that was clearly too much to ask, because each die only turned into ONE MEASLY STAR BIT!

"Look, Mario, Star Bits," Yoshi said, as though he'd never seen Star Bits before. "Let's go get them."

"I'm not wasting my time on three pathetic Star Bits," I said. "Back down that Warp Pipe."

"You know, Mario, your eternal pessimism is starting to wear on me."

"Well, your eternal optimism is starting to wear on me!"

After getting back to the main planet, we rode the wooden platforms to the right (and Yoshi ate the Paragoomba). On the far end of the ride, we found another platform, this time with a Blimp Fruit on it. Let's see, where to go? I obviously had to go up, but there looked to be three possible paths I could take: one directly above me with a '?' Coin below it, one slightly to the left, and one very far to the left.

Well, might as well start floating up and get a better look at things.

Yoshi ate the Blimp Fruit and floated towards the '?' Coin. Once we hit it, it caused a trail of regular coins to appear, leading up the rightmost path. And directly ahead of us was a Blimp Fruit refill.

I tried looking up the other paths. The leftmost one I still couldn't see up, while the center one just led to a small nook with another Star Coin in it. Yeah, no way was I wasting my time on that. I'm done with those useless things. If no Prankster Comets have appeared yet, then clearly no Prankster Comets are going to appear. No skin off my back; I always hated those things.

We floated into the second Blimp Fruit, which Yoshi didn't even have to eat for it to take effect. Huh; here I was thinking Yoshi would have to eat all his power-ups. I guess not. Next we floated up a narrow shaft before landing on another platform. Up ahead it looked like we could either go up or down, but without immediate access to a Blimp Fruit, down it was.

Yoshi jumped off the platform, and fell right onto something that made me scream in frustration.

A Star Chip.

I mean, in theory, yes, grabbing a Star Chip is better than missing one, but what would be better than either of those is no Star Chips at all. I thought these things had been scrapped since I didn't encounter them anywhere in the first two worlds, but I guess not. But more often than not, these things were a pain in the butt to find, which was the cause of my aforementioned frustrated scream.

Yoshi and I then fell past a couple Thorny Flowers, another ever-loving Paragoomba, and another Blimp Fruit, until we landed on another wooden platform attached to a track. So…below us was another Star Chip, while a third one above us was blocked below one of the Thorny Flowers. Where the other two were was anyone's guess.

I decided to tackle the one above us first, and had Yoshi flutter-jump to the nearby Blimp Fruit. But I timed the jump wrong; Yoshi missed the Blimp Fruit at first and we ended up falling between two of the platforms. We were already several feet below the track by the time Yoshi shot his tongue up and grabbed the Blimp Fruit. Yoshi ended up running out of air nowhere near the Star Chip. So, as he reverted back to his regular form, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision and backflipped off him towards the Star Chip.

Aaaand that was when everything went sideways.

You see, I collected the Star Chip, but my backflip carried me too high and I ended up hitting the Thorny Flower above the Star Chip (thankfully on its non-thorny bottom, but I still lost a wedge of health). This knocked me aside…right into that gosh dang flippin' PARAGOOMBA! Somehow, which I don't think has ever happened to me before, I somehow simultaneously landed atop and in front of him, which resulted in me losing another wedge of health and him losing his wings.

Down, down, down we plummeted, somehow both missing the moving wooden platforms and falling about two-thirds of the way around the planet onto another platform. Yoshi had already returned to his egg. But as I got up and went to hatch him again, that PARA – excuse me, GOOMBA – ran into me, knocking me off the platform. Unbelievable! Great, there go the three extra health wedges the Life Mushroom got me.

I ended up falling right onto the other Thorny Flower, tearing holes in the back of MY TUX! Pretty sure my back was badly lacerated too, but I could care less about that – why my tux?! That was the last shred of dignity I had in this universe!

I ricocheted off the Thorny Flower and somehow grabbed the third Star Chip in my fall. Great, now where the heck were the other two?

Once again I missed all the track-based wooden platforms, and completed a full loop of the planet, landing smack on Yoshi's egg, right next to that stupid Goomba again. And now the front of my tux had been torn open by Yoshi's egg shards.

I got up as quickly as I could in my banged-up state and Star-Spun into the Goomba, knocking him off the platform. Well, that was that. I hopped back on Yoshi, pondering where I hadn't looked yet for the other two Star Chips.

Aha! Right to the left of the platform was the fourth Star Chip!

But just as Yoshi and I grabbed it, I heard a messy splat right behind us; I whirled around to see that the Goomba had fallen all the way around the planet and splattered into a pile of…thank goodness I didn't really get a good look at what he splattered into a pile of.

"Oh man, I thought I was holding that in better," Yoshi said.

Wha-? "No! That was that Goomba I knocked off the platform falling back onto the platform in a very messy fashion!"

"Oh-oh my."

As we fell, I looked around for the fifth Star Chip. Then, as we descended past the nook beneath the platform where the Goomba's remains were, I saw the Star Chip just inside the nook. Bingo!

There was a Toad had a Poochy, and Bingo was his name-o….

Shut up, Mario!

Once Yoshi and I landed on the wooden platforms, he ate the Blimp Fruit above them again. Then I steered him to the right to get a Blimp Fruit refill. We maneuvered past the Thorny Flowers into the nook and quickly cut to the left to grab the final Star Chip. And right above us in the nook, the Launch Star appeared. Yoshi and I flew right into it, and launched to the next planet.

For some stupid reason, the Launch Star decided to shoot us through the upper branches of the Giant Tree Planet yet AGAIN, resulting in me narrowly avoiding eating a bird's nest and almost getting my eye pecked out my its resident robin.

Finally we landed on the next planet, which was some sort of giant cross-section of a tree trunk. And, as I saw while we were approaching the planet, RIGHT BELOW US was the Power Star, but we couldn't get to it. So no, clearly we'd have to go the LONG WAY, whatever the heck that would entail.

So we snagged a checkpoint flag and then leapt down a long slope to our right. Down we fell, eventually landing right in front of a Goomba. And before I could react, the flippin' menace ran right into us. Are you kidding me?! I was down to one wedge of health, courtesy of a Paragoomba, a Goomba, and two Thorny Flowers. Alright, this officially surpassed the King Bill pants-crapping for the most embarrassed I'd ever been.

I jumped on the Goomba, collected the resulting coin, and then leapt back on Yoshi. We climbed a set of stairs, eventually arriving on a higher platform with another Blimp Fruit on it. Oh, so we were going to have to use that to float back up to the Power Star.

Lovely.

Thankfully, the trip to the Power Star went without incident, despite the abnormally high number of Paragoombas and Thorny Flowers we encountered on the way there. Finally, Yoshi floated into the Power Star and we collected it, completing that accursed mission.