SUPER MARIO - Book I - The Princess of the Galaxies

by goldenwhackabump

The Star Festival is a miraculous, once in a lifetime event where the power of the Goddess rains down from the skies in the form of Goddess Stars, which grant special powers. But Mario and his friends discover that it's not just stars that are falling down that night. Unbeknownst to them, this event serves as a catalyst for the destruction of all worlds. [Cover art by sakimichan]

17. Chapter 17: The Third Trial

Chapter 17: The Third Trial: Escape From The Collapsing Spirit Realm!

Now through the other side of the Temple of Fire and Ice, Mario, Rosalina, and Link find themselves riding down a steep, snowy landscape on their respective Spirit Vessels. They were in fact riding down the opposite face of the mountain they had scaled earlier. The steep mountainside featured a myriad of bumpy hills and tall trees.

The formation of their brigade was structured such that Mario was in the middle, with the Treasure secured on his person. Rosalina followed in the rear, while Link was at the front. They were practically lined up in single file. They were able to communicate, since their Spirit Vessels were equipped with a communications system.

MARIO: "I hope you guys are prepared... they're gonna be after me."

ROSALINA: "Is there some sort of communication system with these bikes? I can hear you perfectly."

LINK: "That appears to be the case... It would also seem that while we are on these Spirit Vessels, we are immune to any temperature effects."

ROSALINA: "Oh yeah! I don't feel cold at all, even in this outfit!"

LINK: "There also appears to be a whole bunch of other features with these Spirit Vessels. Check and see what you guys are able to do!"

ROSALINA: "Mario, you're breathing too loud."

MARIO: "Really? Ho ho, sorry. Guess I'm a little nervous holding the Treasure."

Then, the snowy sky above them transitioned into a deep, deathly, purple colour. The clouds slowly began to crumble in on themselves, as if they were about to implode. The sky itself cracked like a windshield, a large red line growing across the heavens.

"H-Holy crap!" Mario gasped, amazed by what he was seeing unfold right before his eyes. He gulped as he saw the surrounding trees start to bend to their left and right, as if something was pushing down on them from the top.

Directly ahead was a Guardian, its lights bright red as it marched towards the heroes coming down the hill from above.

MARIO: "H-Heads up!"

LINK: "Leave it to me."

A holographic display then appeared before Link between the handle bars of his Spirit Vessel. Four square icons appeared, each of which occupying one of the main compass directions. A fifth, circular icon, was located in the middle and essentially magnified which ever of the four square icons was selected. Link rotated his hand such that the east square icon was selected.

Magically, a bow made from guardian technology, the Ancient Bow, spawned in his hands. The Guardian was approaching, and its sights were focusing on the nervous Mario, who had his teeth clenched in angst. As Link zoomed over a hill, he hopped off of his bike and readied an arrow.

Time appeared to be in slow motion as Link, while in midair, pulled back a large arrow made from guardian technology, an Ancient Arrow. Fully cocked back, the ancient arrow pulsated and glowed with a spherical orb of blue energy at the arrowhead. Link released the arrow, and time resumed normal speed.

With deadly accuracy, Link had managed to strike the eye of the Guardian with the ancient arrow. He landed back on the Master Cycle Zero, and the three of them zoomed past the now stationary, malfunctioning Guardian. It jerked in odd motions and sputtered with electricity dancing over its failing body before finally exploding into smithereens.

Rosalina looked behind her in awe at the explosion, which gave her already blowing hair some extra kick. She faced forward again and followed behind Mario and Link as they navigated downhill through this distorted, dying world.

LINK: "Heads up! There's a pretty dense forest up ahead!"

Not only was the forest dense, but the trees wiggled in distortion, almost like the area above of distant body of water on a hot day. As they entered the wooded area, their focus was sharp as they navigated around the trees. Rising from the depths of the snow from up ahead and to the right were skeletal creatures known as Stalfos. They were boney, undead soldiers with mangled, disorderly teeth. They wielded large and sharp weapons, and their glowing, red eyes only made them all the more macabre.

ROSALINA: "W-W-What are those?"

LINK: "I'm on it!"

Link branched rightward from the centre line the three of them had formed, curving his path such that he intercepted the Stalfos mindlessly marching towards the incoming Treasure. Link quickly rotated his hand on the holographic display to a new icon as he zoomed through the snowy forest. After selecting the west square icon, an Ancient Lance, which was a three pronged lance made of guardian technology, spawned in his hands. The three spearheads were glowing blue blades of light.

"Hup! Ha! Hyah!" Link cried, repeatedly stabbing at the Stalfos, and causing them to lose their heads.

The heads flew in random directions, causing the Stalfos to become disoriented as they attempted to reclaim them. One unlucky head found itself being crushed beneath the wheels of the Master Cycle Zero as it zoomed back towards front and centre.

Link did happen to miss a Stalfos, which readied an arrow and attempted to strike the passing Mario.

"A-wa-wa-wa!" Mario gasped, ducking his head just in time to avoid it. A top down view of the distorting forest was present as the three of them navigated through it.

MARIO: "Whoa! Can you give me a heads up the next time you miss one? I nearly got hit there!"

LINK: "S-Sorry... It's hard to get them all in one passing."

ROSALINA: "They're not going after me for some reason. Maybe I should hold the Treasure?"

Red hash lines of anger blinked over Mario's head, his rambling face popping out of a sharp lined speech bubble, like a comic book.

MARIO: "THEY'RE GOING AFTER ME *BECAUSE* I HAVE THE TREASURE!"

LINK: "I see the clearing. We're almost through the forest!"

A few moments later, Link zoomed out of the forest with the Master Cycle Zero. Mario followed shortly after on Hellraiser, still holding onto the glowing, golden Treasure. Finally, Rosalina emerged from the forest on the cosmic Spirit Vessel, Starman. Sharp blue light emit from her engine, tracing her path before fading completely.

Although the three of them had successfully navigated through the distorted forest, their troubles were far from over. Quite the contrary, as they were truly just beginning.

A loud, deafening roar of deep tone pierced throughout the entire Spirit Realm. The power of the roar was of such magnitude, that the entire world vibrated vigorously throughout the duration of the roar. The glowing red line in the sky split in a variety of ways, like a cracking egg shell. Mario, Link, and Rosalina watched the phenomenon in nervous awe as they continued down the mountain on their Spirit Vessels.

ROSALINA: "This doesn't look good..."

With a booming shatter, the sky burst into multiple fragments, like a frozen window pane under pressure. Time appeared to be in slow motion, and the shattered pieces had some sort of blurry, illusory effect. They were like windows of the universe, twirling slowly at varying depths. It almost looked like 3D movie technology as pieces of the sky flew towards them at different distances.

MARIO: "THE SKY IS FALLING?!"

Emerging from the broken sky was a large, black dragon with two different eyes, the left glowing purple and the right glowing blue. It had two large horns on its head, and a purple aura was burning like fire all over its massive scaly body and its large, black wings. It faced skyward and emit another deafening roar of deep tone.

MARIO: "MAMMA MIA, A DRAGON!"

ROSALINA: "It looks so cool!"

LINK: "Is now truly the time to admire such things?"

ROSALINA: "You'd be laughing if you had your booze with you."

LINK: "Oh, sweet, sweet, sake... How I miss you so."

This time, however, the roar had caused an avalanche. From the top of the mountain, rolling snow that flashed in and out of existence in some glitch-like manner was storming their way.

MARIO: "W-We've got problems!"

LINK: "An avalanche?"

ROSALINA: "What a pain…"

"Guys! Be careful! That's the Dragon of Chaos!"

The three of them gasped in surprise as the mysterious voice had returned to them. This was the first time it had ever done so partway through a trial.

ROSALINA: "Hey, she's back."

MARIO: "I thought he was a he?"

LINK: "Nevermind that right now. What about this Dragon of Chaos?"

"Right. After stealing the Treasure, a Spirit Realm loses its "state of order" and starts to enter a "state of chaos". The seal that the Treasure kept on the Dragon of Chaos has been broken, so now, the freed Dragon of Chaos is determined to destroy the Spirit Realm by rendering it completely chaotic and uninhabitable. In other words, there's no turning back now. This Spirit Realm is doomed for destruction."

MARIO: "Oh! So... mission accomplished, right?"

ROSALINA: "Hey, that wasn't so bad…"

LINK: "But we still need to escape with our lives, correct?"

"That's right. You may have successfully destroyed the Spirit Realm, but in order to leave the Spirit Realm you still have to escape."

MARIO: "What happens if we don't escape?"

"I… don't know. I would imagine you would be stuck in a permanent state of chaos."

ROSALINA: "That sounds awful."

LINK: "Let's... not think of such things."

"Right! You guys will be just fine! You're almost there, so I'll see you on the other side, okay? Bye for now!"

With that, the mysterious voice had disappeared. Although this time, it felt as though it was for good. Mario, Link, and Rosalina continued to ride on down the mountain on their Spirit Vessels. They knew that one error would have caused them to slow down enough to get caught up in the incoming avalanche. The distorted, dense forest they had previously navigated through screamed and wailed with twisted wooden faces upon each tree as it was smothered by the glitchy avalanche.

Link barked in wonder as he noticed his now blinking display featured the symbol of a dragon, notifying him with an urgent sound cue. Mario and Rosalina had noticed the same thing.

LINK: "Everyone, look! Our Spirit Vessels appear to be reacting to the Dragon!"

MARIO: "Yeah, I see it too!"

ROSALINA: "Same here… I wonder what it's for?"

Then, from up above in the sky, the Dragon of Chaos proceeded to charge up a blue ball of energy in his mouth. Link noticed on his display that there was now a blinking red exclamation mark surrounded by a hazard symbol. Mario and Rosalina did not receive the same warning, however.

{Then, Link found himself in a 2D-world, appearing as an 8-bit sprite with a sword and shield. He was located in a black box with a solid white border, and and Dragon's head was floating around the box. The view of the box was top down, so Link was free to navigate within the entire square.

A white ball of magic charged up in the Dragons mouth, and it launched a white beam of magic through the box, which Link rolled to the right to dodge. Link danced in place as he watched the Dragon head circle around his imprisoned state, eventually charging another white beam and launching it at the bottom half of the box. Link had quickly migrated up in order to dodge it.

The Dragon proceeded to circle the box again, but this time one of its eyes glowed blue. It launched a blue ball towards Link, which migrated in his direction quite slowly. Instinctively, Link sliced the incoming blue ball, which sent the blue ball flying back at the Dragon. The Dragon sent the blue ball back even faster at Link with a chomp. Link returned the favour with another swipe of the sword, and the exchange continued. The ball was eventually flying between them so rapidly that the Dragon could no longer keep up with it.

The blue ball struck the Dragon, which caused it to emit a grunt as blue lightning danced all over its head. Its head came crashing down into the box, and Link took the opportunity to strike the Dragon head multiple times with his sword. The Dragon flashed and grunted with each sword strike. Finally, with a building white flash, the strange existence ceased to exist.}

"H-Huh?" Link barked, finding himself back on the Master Cycle Zero. "W-What?"

MARIO: "Hmm? Something happen, Link?"

LINK: "Y-Yeah… Where was I just now?"

MARIO: "What are you talking about? You've been here this whole time!"

ROSALINA: "Link, are you okay?"

Based on the location they were at, Link realized that no time had passed at all since he experienced that strange encounter with the Dragon. As far as time in this world was concerned, that event was instantaneous.

LINK: "Hmm… No time to explain right now, but… it looks like that Dragon isn't moving anymore."

Mario and Rosalina took a moment to look skyward. The Dragon looked as though it was resting with closed eyes, as if it had been temporarily immobilized.

MARIO: "Hey, look at that! What did you do, Link?"

LINK: "I had a strange encounter with it, but again, there's no time to explain. This should help us out some. I hope."

ROSALINA: "Uh, guys?"

There was no need for an explanation. Mario and Link looked around them to see that they were being surrounded by five guardians, each of them targeting Mario.

Link was quick to rotate his hand such that the Ancient Bow spawned in his hand. He readied an Ancient Arrow, and with deadly accuracy he launched it into the eye of the incoming north-eastern Guardian. It stopped in place and proceeded to malfunction, before exploding into nothing.

The nervous Mario, who had four targeting sights focusing on him as he continued forward with the Treasure on his person, startled in surprise as he noticed the flames around him were no longer glowing a fiery red. Instead, they were now a sort of deep purple colour, with an increasingly violet colour towards the core.

"Huh?" Mario barked, in surprise. "Wait a minute, have I been charging up this whole time?"

LINK: "There's too many of them. We need a strategy, and fast!"

MARIO: "Hey guys, I think that Hellraiser has been charging me up this entire time!"

ROSALINA: "Charging?"

MARIO: "You know, with fire. Like back in the temple earlier."

LINK: "Really? Well now would be an excellent time to use it!"

MARIO: "Alright! Just you watch!"

There were four more guardians; two from the rear (approximately south and southwest) and two from the front (approximately west and north west). Mario, now ultra charged with purple flames, had closed eyes. He felt a powerful, deep connection to his Spirit Vessel, one which could not quite be explained. He opened his eyes with wild determination. He never felt more alive. Never before, did Mario ever feel this much that he was his true self.

"HELLRAISER!" Mario cried with the swipe of an arm, the sound of a sword being unsheathed ringing throughout the realm.

A mystical, paranormal spirit figure rose above Mario. It was a skeleton with a large cloak made from a torn Mushroom Kingdom flag. Its shoulders and head were alight with dancing white flames, and it featured a golden shackle on its right wrist from which a large golden chain dangled. From it's neck dangled a golden pendant with the Ouroboros, the cyclical dragon who eats its own tail, engraved on it in bronze. It wore Mario's clothes, only torn and far more aged. Curiously enough, it also wore Peachs crown instead of Marios hat. Hellraiser was the very essence of rebellion, materialized.

"Is this… the Spirit within his Spirit Vessel?" Link thought to himself, in awe from the massive Spirit hovering above Mario.

"Wow…" Rosalina calmly awed, her blue eyes full of wonder.

"VOICE OF REBELLION!" Mario cried, swiping an arm so that his open palm with spread fingers faced the two incoming Guardians in the front. Hellraiser perfectly mimed his motions as a massive Spirit from above.

With vicious velocity, a purple whirlwind of sharp edged fire raced towards the two Guardians. The air around the attack swirled into it and then shot outward to give a racing line effect. Rosalina and Link gasped and barked as they shielded their eyes, their hair whipping violently from the force of the attack.

Although Mario's earlier fire attack had previously been rendered ineffective towards Guardians, this attack was so powerful and contained so much heat that it literally melted the Guardians in their path to the point of terminal malfunction. They now looked more like wet stones sticking out of the ground than ancient technological killing machines.

Mario concluded the attack, lowering his palm and taking a breath. As the purple flames surrounding him died down completely, the Spirit Hellraiser disappeared as well, returning to the Spirit Vessel.

LINK: "Incredible... Great job, Mario! But there are still two of them behind us that are about to fire!"

To make matters worse, the Dragon of Chaos was awakening. He emit a deafening roar, which caused the three of them to cover their ears as they continued forward. The two guardians that were chasing them rocked a bit and lost sight of their target. Although some time had been bought, they were quick to continue to march forward and retarget Mario.

MARIO: "That Dragon is back!"

LINK: "Those guardians are right on our tail, too!"

Then, the Dragon of Chaos, from up above in the sky, proceeded to charge up a blue ball of energy in his mouth. Rosalina gulped with anxiety, realizing that they were in trouble and she had not been of any use so far. But what could she do?

She then emit a bark of surprise as she noticed on her display that there was a blinking red exclamation mark surrounded by a hazard symbol. Mario and Link did not receive the same warning, however.

{Then, Rosalina found herself in a 2D world, looking like an 8-bit sprite with a magic Star Wand. She was located in a black box with a solid white border, and the Dragon's head was floating around the box. The view of the box was top down, so Rosalina was free to navigate the entire square.

The Dragon flew behind the box, and from the z-axis proceeded to fire balls of white energy that went through the x,y plane that made up the black box. Rosalina dodged the white balls of energy as they went from back to front, taking up about thirty percent of the box with each passing.

The Dragon proceeded to circle the box again, but this time one of its eyes glowed blue. It launched a blue ball towards Rosalina, which migrated in her direction quite slowly. Instinctively, Rosalina twirled in place, which caused a blue barrier to form around her. This barrier, when perfectly timed, sent the blue ball flying back at the Dragon. The Dragon sent the blue ball back even faster at Rosalina with a chomp. Rosalina returned the favour with another dazzling twirl, and the exchange continued. The ball eventually was flying between them so rapidly that the Dragon could no longer keep up with it.

The blue ball struck the Dragon, which caused it to emit a grunt as blue lightning danced all over its head. Its head came crashing down into the box, and Rosalina took this opportunity to strike the Dragon head multiple times with her Star Wand. The Dragon flashed and grunted with each strike, and with a building white flash, the strange existence ceased to exist.}

"O-Oh?" Rosalina barked, as she found herself back on her Spirit Vessel. "W-What just happened?"

MARIO: "We gotta act, fast!"

LINK: "Look! The Dragon of Chaos is dormant again!"

Mario and Rosalina took a moment to look skyward. The Dragon looked as though it was resting with closed eyes, as if it had been temporarily immobilized.

ROSALINA: "Link, I think I understand now what happened to you earlier."

LINK: "So it happened to you as well?"

Mario looked behind him with clenched teeth, the relentless Guardians aiming at him and about to fire. He faced forward again, glowing gold Treasure on his lap.

MARIO: "No time for that! The guardians are about to fire!"

"Hmm?" Rosalina barked, her eyes narrowing in calm determination.

Her engine revved and body rocked as she roughly jerked to adjust her position so that she was between the crossfire of the two Guardians sights and Mario. The beeping sounds of the Guardians target system increased as they were about to fire.

LINK: "Rosalina? What are you doing!"

"Hm?" Mario barked, turning his head to see Rosalina was indeed in the crossfire. "ROSALINA!"

"Don't worry." Rosalina gently assured, with a calm expression. Her eyes softly closed as blinding light emerged from the guardians behind her, which gave her figure a sort of heavenly glow from Mario's perspective.

The guardians each fired a beam, and Rosalina's eyes opened with determination.

"Ha!" She grunted with a twirl, her Spirit Vessel rotating in midair a full three hundred and sixty degrees.

As she spun, she was encompassed in a blue barrier of energy. With its formation executed at just the right time, it sent the guardians beams of light right back at their point of origin at twice the velocity. Each Guardian was struck by their own attack, and proceeded to malfunction with blue bolts of electricity dancing over their forms. Finally, they exploded to conclude their termination process.

Rosalina took a breath of relief, smiling a toothless smile as she felt a surge of confidence. Mario and Link praised her efforts over the communication system.

MARIO: "Wooooo Rosalina! Nice save!"

LINK: "That was amazing, Rosalina! Well done!"

ROSALINA: "Hehe, aren't I great?"

Up ahead, they saw a magical swirling portal awaiting them at what appeared to be the bottom of the mountain. It was blue and black, swirling and mesmerizing, with white starlight dancing all over it.

However, they weren't in the clear just yet. The Dragon of Chaos rose once again, emitting a powerful roar which caused the entire realm to vibrate vigorously. It proceeded launch a large amount of spiky circular attacks from his mouth, which almost looked like buzzsaws made out of purple electricity.

LINK: "Incoming!"

The three of them swerved to the right and left in order to dodge the raining electric attacks, which struck the ground and then emit pulse of electricity within a small radius around the point of impact. Almost there. Mario looked back with a nervous sweat as he saw three swirling rings approaching him from behind. Mario was convinced that they were impossible to avoid.

MARIO: "I-I'm in trouble here!"

Link had safely entered the portal, and somehow Rosalina had passed Mario throughout the recent maneuvering. Before having a chance to respond, she had also safely entered the portal. Mario was left all alone in the chaotic Spirit Realm, and he was in trouble.

"C-Crap... What am I gonna do?" Mario barked, looking back with his teeth clenched and rings of purple lightning in the reflection of his eyes.

Then, something utterly miraculous happened. A pink deer with sparkling eyes appeared out of nowhere and dived forward with all of her might. The patches of white star-shaped fur on her coat, and that red bow on her head. There was no mistaking it, it was Dolly.

"Dolly?" Mario barked, his eyes widening in shock.

The gushing sound of flesh being sliced rang throughout the Spirit Realm. Mario's eyes were widened, his jaw dropped at what he witnessed. Time appeared to be in slow motion, the black silhouette of the deer limp and soaring slowly through midair, trails of blood flying from its form.

The pink deer landed on the snow with a thump, purple bolts of lightning dancing on its downed body. She had successfully intercepted the attack, but at what cost?

"DOLLY!" Mario screamed, tears in his eyes. He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, opening them again with a furious expression on his face.

He roughly braked on his bike, which was so vigorous that it had caused it to fall on his side. Mario jumped off and rolled forward, running back up the hill towards the downed animal as his Spirit Vessel slid into the portal Link and Rosalina had drove through. Hellraiser was gone, it had disappeared. The Treasure had landed in the snow just before the portal.

Mario was breathing heavily as he ran up the hill of the dying realm, the Dragon of Chaos facing skyward and roaring powerfully. Mario did not care, ignoring the chaos around him as he knelt before the heavily wounded deer.

Her pink fur was stained with blood, and her breathing had grown hoarse. Mario couldn't hold back letting a few tears run down his face.

"D-Dolly, no!" Mario sobbed, stopping himself from touching her. "Why did you do that? Why, Dolly?"

The deer continued to breath hoarsely. The spiralling portal down the hill was starting to shrink, and the Dragon of Chaos was charging up another set of electrical attacks.

"I was supposed to bring you home... You were supposed to be with him until the end..." Mario explained to her and himself, overcome with guilt. "I've failed you both."

The deer looked at Mario happily. Mario's trembling eyes widened in surprise. He had failed to understand. Then, a magical bright and golden arm forced its way through the portal from which Mario was meant to escape. It searched around the area as if it had an eye on it's palm.

The Dragon of Chaos launched another set of attacks, and purple rings of electricity were racing towards the kneeling Mario from above.

Dolly dropped her head back down into the snow, and closed her eyes while breathing hoarsely.

"No Dolly, no! You gotta get back up!" Mario encouraged, his expression full of sadness and determination. "You gotta get back up and return home to him! Do it for him!"

Then, the magical hand launched forward and grabbed Mario from behind like a doll.

"Awawa!" Mario cried, his arms stretched forward. The glowing hand held him in such a way that he had his arms and legs free.

The hand pulled back towards the portal, and Mario saw that the purple rings of electricity had nearly hit him. He snapped back to his senses, and looked around for the Treasure. He saw it on the ground near the portal, and as he passed over it he leaned and picked it up with both hands.

Holding the glowing orb, he was carried into the shrinking portal by the glowing hand. After he and the treasure had passed through, the purple rings of lightning didn't even get a chance to strike the ground where he had knelt. The Spirit Realm crumbled and distorted so vigorously that it was quickly no longer even comprehensible. With a blinding white flash, the escape had been concluded.

Mario and his friends had successfully passed the trials, and destroyed the Spirit Realm. And what lay await for them beyond this portal, would change their lives forever.