"Well done, Ray," Cyanara congratulated her assistant. "The DNA is matchless in quality. You're even more skilled than I thought."
"Thank you, Master," replied Ray solemnly. "The DNA is now ready for injection into the test subjects." He looked up from his computer monitor. "The prisoners in the dungeon?"
"Someone even better," Cyanara remarked. "Guards! Bring in the casket!"
"Casket?" questioned Ray, startled. "Master, surely you don't intend to test this solution on a—"
"On a dead man?" finished Cyanara with a mysterious smile. "But I do, Ray." She turned to the guards who were entering the laboratory, bearing the casket in question between them. They placed it on one of the tables and left as silently as they had come.
The Empress wasted no time in unfastening the latch that held the lid down. "I chose this particular corpse because it happens to mean a lot to my little sister. Open it, Ray."
Ray hesitantly lifted the lid a little and wrinkled his nose. "Smells rather strong, Master. Are you sure about this?"
"Do it," ordered Cyanara.
Ray hefted the lid up and gasped. "M-Master?! You—we are running the test on—"
Cyanara smiled. "Yes, Ray. On Toadsworth himself. Now fill the syringe and give him the injection as planned."
Uncertainly Ray did as he was told, not at all certain about the result of this...bizarre experiment. He slowly drew the purple solution he'd prepared earlier into the hypodermic syringe. Then, the needle ready, he moved to the casket and looked down at Toadsworth's lifeless body.
"What are you waiting for?" asked Cyanara impatiently. "Do it!"
Ray forced the needle through Toadsworth's flabby, decaying flesh and injected him with the DNA solution. Withdrawing the needle, he stepped back to view the results. Several minutes passed and nothing happened.
"Perhaps that dose wasn't strong enough," Cyanara suggested at last.
"Or perhaps it does nothing to begin with," Ray countered. "He's dead, Master. How could it possibly affect him?"
Cyanara turned her eyes back to Toadsworth. A crafty smile slowly spread over her face. "It's happening, Ray. It's happening. Watch!"
Toadsworth's left arm, the arm into which the solution had been shot, was no longer normal flesh and bone. It had taken on the form of a purple appendage with a steel-clawed pincer in place of a hand. The purple discoloration was slowly spreading from his arm over his chest, across his face, down his legs. Within half an hour the corpse was totally alien in appearance.
"It works," Cyanara breathed. "Now, arise, Shroobsworth!"
The form in the casket opened its eyes, revealing ghastly red pupils. It flexed its pincers. Slowly it pushed itself upright and climbed out of the coffin to stand on its own two feet on the tile floor. It bowed low to Cyanara.
Ray caught his breath. "I-It's a miracle, Master!"
Cyanara smiled. "Keep working on the starter cells, Ray. I need an army of those purple parasites as soon as possible." She beckoned to Shroobsworth to follow her, and obediently he trailed close behind as she left the lab. A little chuckle escaped her lips.
Time to give little sister the scare of her life!
The Empress led her new Shroob steward through the halls of her fortress, stopping in front of Peach's holding room. "Little sister!" she called merrily.
Peach groaned inwardly as she heard her older sibling's cheery voice. What's she up to this time? she sighed to herself. "What is it, Cyanara?"
"I've brought Toadsworth to see you," came the reply.
"Don't play games with me, Cyanara," Peach groaned in frustration. "You know Toadsworth is dead! You were the one who had the Shadow Legion kill him!" She began to cry at the memory.
"Oh, but I've brought him back to life, Peach, and he so much wants to see you," replied Cyanara sweetly.
"I take it you're not giving me a choice, are you?" grumbled Peach. "Go ahead, send in the impostor. Probably it's Doopliss-turned-Toadsworth." Peach turned to the door as Cyanara unlocked and opened it. She gasped when she saw who was with Cyanara.
"No!" Her hands flew to her mouth in shock. "Y-You didn't...Toadsworth!!"
"Not Toadsworth," corrected Cyanara. "Shroobsworth."
Terrified at her steward's reincarnation, Peach backed into the corner of the holding room and shrank back against the wall. "T-Toadsworth, please! Show your real self!" she pleaded in fright.
Shroobsworth stroked his gray mustache, clacked his cane, and suddenly sprang forward into the room at Peach. The Princess screamed in terror. "N-No! Cyanara, please! Call him back!"
The angry Shroobsworth bared his fangs and shouted something in guttural Shrooboid.
"He says he's going to kill you, Peach," Cyanara calmly interpreted from the doorway.
Peach cowered in the corner, too frightened to reply.
Cyanara allowed Shroobsworth to terrify Peach for a few moments more, then called him out of the room. Shakily Peach got to her feet.
"You might want to reconsider signing over that kingdom of yours, Peach," Cyanara informed her sister coldly. "If you don't, Toadsworth won't be the only one to become a Shroob." Abruptly she turned and left, locking the door behind her. Still somewhat shaky, the Princess sank onto her cot to recover from her ordeal.
"How could she do that to him?!" she finally burst out, releasing a flood of tears. "As if it weren't enough that he was dead!" She sobbed uncontrollably. "And now she's going to turn more of my precious people into those monstrous Shroobs!"
"Where is that Zaron?" Cyanara grumbled to herself as she paced the black marble floor of her throne room. "He should have returned with that pathetic plumber Mario by now." After a few more minutes of impatient waiting, she quickly left the throne room and climbed the stairs to the second floor of the fortress. She then negotiated a series of corridors until she came to a steel door. Opening the door, she stepped into what appeared to be a large, well-lit factory and shut the door behind her. The whir and buzz of electrical equipment filled her ears. Virtually the entire area was made of steel, and hundreds of X-Nauts were bustling about, tending the countless pieces of complex machinery. Cyanara lifted her voice above the din.
"Grodus!"
In a few moments the black-caped, staff-wielding X-Naut leader moved swiftly up to the Empress, his computerized helmet gleaming in the fluorescent lamps. He bowed. "I am at your service, O Great One."
"Where is your other DTD?" Cyanara asked peremptorily.
Grodus reached a gloved hand beneath his cloak and pulled out the white gadget. "Here."
"Open a portal to Red Dimension this instant!"
"I will need the master key, Great One," explained Grodus patiently. Quickly Cyanara removed the black eighth Rainbow Ring from her left index finger and fitted it into the DTD's central depression. Grodus entered a command into his specially-built DTD's keypad, and a glowing red energy portal opened before him and Cyanara.
"Zaron! I summon you!" barked the Empress angrily. Instantly the black-robed figure appeared in front of Cyanara with his characteristic puff of smoke. He was panting heavily. Grodus closed the portal.
"What is the meaning of this delay?" demanded the Empress.
"O Great One," Zaron wheezed, "those imbecilic plumbers stole my DTD and the Jasper Ring! I could not return without them!"
Cyanara struck Zaron to the floor with her fist. "You fool!" she exploded. "If they figure out how the DTD functions, they could easily travel from dimension to dimension and utterly disrupt my plans!" Her face blackened with rage, and she prepared to hit Zaron again.
Zaron cowered on the floor. "A-And Amethyst is with them!"
Cyanara's fist froze in mid-air. "...What...did you just say?" she asked harshly, eyeing him as if daring him to lie.
"S-She's there, Master!" Zaron cried. "I saw her! She's with Mario and Luigi!"
"Impossible..." Cyanara's face registered puzzlement. "How could she possibly have gotten out there?"
"I don't know," Zaron answered tremblingly, "but it is true!"
The rage vanished from Cyanara's face. "At least you've done something helpful, Zaron," she spat. "Begone."
Zaron disappeared in another puff of smoke.
"My plan will have to undergo a bit of alteration," Cyanara said at last. She removed the orange Rainbow Ring from her right middle finger and placed it on Grodus's corresponding finger. "I want you to pay a visit to Orange Dimension tomorrow. Perhaps they've found Mario and his two companions have arrived in their little dimension."
"It will be my pleasure to deal with them, Great One," Grodus replied.
"And now I have business to attend to with my Guardian 'guests,'" said Cyanara in farewell. "See to it that you bring Mario to me alive, and Amethyst as well." She left the X-Naut facility with a chuckle, heading for the solitary confinement cells that housed the prisoner Guardians.
As Cyanara traversed the hallways of her fortress, Diamond suddenly appeared at her side. The Empress smiled. "Sneaking up on your leader unnoticed again, Diamond?"
"Invisibility has its fine points," Diamond returned with a sly smile.
Cyanara laughed. "Quick of wit as usual, Diamond."
"I informed 'sister' Ruby of the consequences should she refuse to assist you, Great One," Diamond related to her superior as the two walked toward the confinement cells.
"Excellent," replied the Empress, her eyes alight with evil pleasure. "I can't wait to see the look on her face when I suck her sister dry of her rainbow power. If it doesn't kill her outright, it will weaken her so severely that she won't survive long anyway. You do have the energy-converter syringe with you?"
Diamond patted her robe's inner pocket. "But of course."
Abruptly the two stopped in front of a solid steel door set into the stone wall of the hallway. From behind it they could hear the tortured moans of Ruby, whose mind was slowly being destroyed by the evil presence in the fortress.
"This is Ruby's cell," Diamond said quietly.
"Open it," ordered Cyanara. Diamond complied, taking a key card from her robe pocket and sliding it through the card reader beside the door. Immediately the lock clicked open, and the door swung inward as Diamond and the Empress entered the tiny cell. Ruby lay still on her back, her face strained and beaded with sweat as she desperately tried to maintain consciousness against the incessant evil flooding her mind. She looked up in despair as her two enemies entered.
"Why...are you here?" Ruby forced out through chapped lips. "Please...just...leave me...alone... I'll...die soon...anyway...if I can't leave..." She breathed another ragged, tortured breath and shut her eyes in exhaustion.
"That's why I'm here, Ruby," spoke Cyanara earnestly. She bent closer to her captive. "If you agree to help me, I'll see to it that your condition is properly treated. But if you refuse..."
Ruby said nothing, still laboring for every breath she took.
"Time's up, Ruby. Make your choice." Diamond's tone was less than pleasant.
"I'm...sorry..." murmured Ruby, "but...I won't...do it..."
Silently Cyanara turned to Diamond. "Bring Amber to me."
In less than a minute Diamond was back, half-dragging a shivering Amber. The Empress smiled cunningly.
"Wh-What are you d-doing with m-me?" demanded Amber through chattering teeth.
Ruby opened her eyes wide when she heard Amber's voice. "N-No! Don't...hurt her!" she choked out.
Cyanara nodded to Diamond, who reached under her robe and pulled out a four-inch empty vial with a small electronic device sealing its open end. The black-haired eighth Guardian smiled gleefully as she flicked a switch on the apparatus, and a hum filled Amber's ears.
"Diamond?!" Amber's face went white. "What are you doing?!"
"Do it, Diamond," ordered the Empress.
"It will be my pleasure, Great One," replied Diamond. She pushed a button on the tiny machine, and a razor-sharp two-inch needle shot up from the device, giving it the appearance of an oversized syringe. Then, without warning, Diamond suddenly stabbed the needle deep into Amber's back. Amber screamed in pain, but Diamond's iron grip on her kept her from escaping.
Diamond held the needle in place for over a minute as her victim screamed hysterically. The vial attached to the needle slowly filled with a clear liquid. When it was full, Diamond ripped the needle out of Amber's back, and the pale-faced Guardian toppled onto her face, unconscious.
"It functioned perfectly, Master," Diamond remarked while studying the liquid in the vial. "Amber's energy was flawlessly converted into matter."
"Take that vial to Ray in the laboratory and have him analyze it," ordered the Empress. Diamond rushed off.
"I'll just leave Amber in this cell with you, Ruby," Cyanara told her captive sweetly. "Perhaps she'll let you know just how much she appreciates your choice—and the pain it brought her." Abruptly Cyanara turned and left the cell, locking the door behind her.
"Amber..." murmured Ruby, and a tear rolled down her cheek.
"Hurry! Over here!" Mario whispered loudly as he crouched inside a gutted house with huge holes in its walls. Several dozen Toads quickly dashed across the cratered street and took refuge in the ruined building. A quick head count told Mario that all forty of his charges were safe. He turned to Luigi. "How much farther to the secret entrance to Subterra Caverns?"
Luigi did some quick mental math. "Uh...seven hundred feet, I think, give or take a few hundred."
Mario rolled his eyes.
"Mario, there's a squad of X-Nauts coming our way!" Amethyst whispered. "On your left!"
Peeping out from one of the holes in the walls, Mario spotted the small group of X-Nauts Amethyst had warned him about. "Everyone hide!" he said as loud as he dared. Immediately everyone in the building scrambled to find a hiding place—behind piles of rubble, under pieces of plaster from the destroyed ceiling and walls, anywhere there was enough room for a Toad to squeeze in. Mario prostrated himself in the ashes under his feet and held his breath as the enemy marched by. After a few seconds of silence, Mario cautiously lifted his head and looked out the gaping hole in the wall. No one was in sight. The air held the incredible silence of a war-destroyed city.
"Clear!" Mario whispered hoarsely. Forty Toads appeared instantaneously in the building. All were slightly dirtier than before, but still safe.
Suddenly a single X-Naut soldier walked right in front of the ruined, roofless building. Everyone froze as the lone X-Naut in his red uniform and plastic goggles stopped and stared right at them. Then he lifted his radio to his lips like lightning.
"Unit 573 to HQ! I've spotted a—OOMPH!" He crashed to the street as Mario tackled him, his radio flying to one side. With one punch to the head Mario sent the X-Naut into oblivion. Quickly he snatched up the soldier's radio and scrambled back into the burned-out building.
"Unit 573!" barked the radio. "Your transmission was interrupted. Please repeat your last call." Mario held the radio tensely as the refugees stared at it in hushed silence.
"Unit 573, please respond!"
Then came the bombshell. "All units in Sector 3! Unit 573 is not responding to radio contact. Use his homing signal to locate the unresponsive unit and converge on his location. Repeat, converge on location!"
"This is not good," Mario said tersely. "We need a plan. Luigi and Amethyst, get everyone into the cave and seal the entrance. Hurry—before those X-Nauts get here!" He leaped out of the building and onto the street.
"What on earth are you doing, bro?!" Luigi asked anxiously.
"I'm gonna lead those soldiers far away from here!" he replied before dashing off down the street, moving away from the secret entrance to Subterra Caverns. Luigi tried to protest, but Mario was already gone.
"Well, Amethyst," Luigi finally said, "let's get moving before we're caught!"
The sun was beginning to sink beneath the horizon as Mario raced away from the burned-out building, dodging the craters in the cobblestone streets as he attempted to get as far from the group of refugees as possible.
"HQ, Unit 573's homing signal is moving," squawked the radio as Mario ran.
"Copy that. We've verified that on our monitors," answered HQ. "Find that signal! Something's wrong out there!"
"So my hunch was right," Mario puffed as he kept charging down the empty street. "The radio's got a homing device that tells the X-Naut headquarters where each unit is. This is one time X-Naut technology backfires!" Having got a good distance from the refugees, Mario hurled the radio into a smoking, half-demolished warehouse and started back to rejoin the group. He didn't get far before a platoon of X-Nauts appeared in the road ahead.
"HQ!" shouted the platoon's radio operator. "This is Patrol Squadron Epsilon! We have a visual on Mario moving away from Unit 573's homing signal! What do you advise?"
Mario took one look at the hesitating troops and ran, taking advantage of his opportunity to gain some ground on them. He had to lose them before heading back to the secret entrance or he would give away their hiding place.
"WHAT?!" exploded a different voice over the radio. "Mario's not supposed to be in this dimension! This is Commander Thompson. Pursue and destroy target! Repeat, pursue and destroy target!"
"Yessir!" The radio operator ended the transmission. "Don't let Mario get away, men! Chase him down and shoot him on sight!" The platoon burst into a run, charging down the street directly toward Mario.
As Mario ran from his pursuers, more X-Naut soldiers jumped out of the buildings along the street and began firing their laser weapons at him. Mario ducked and weaved to avoid the sizzling beams and kept running.
"He's escaping!" Quickly the X-Naut radio operator made an urgent call. "Sector 7! This is Patrol Squadron Epsilon, Sector 3. Mario's heading your way! Get every available man together and march south down Toad Parkway to head him off!"
Mario still kept running.
Peach started and spun around as the door to her holding room swung open. A look of fright broke over her face, and she backed against the kitchen sink.
"Cyanara!"
The Empress smiled as she entered the room. "I thought you might like some company at dinnertime." She seated herself at the small table, inviting Peach with a gesture to sit down.
"Anyone's company but yours," Peach retorted, keeping her back against the countertop edge.
"My, that's hospitable of you," remarked Cyanara dryly. "I'll come right to the point." She held up her hands. "See anything different?"
Peach stared at her sister's upraised hands. "The Rainbow Rings...they're...they're missing..."
Cyanara nodded and wiggled her left index finger, which still bore the black eighth Ring. "All but this one."
"What did you do with the other seven?" Peach asked, not letting on to the fact that she knew Zaron had been given one.
"Oh," Cyanara replied off-handedly, "I gave them to five of my most trusted servants."
"Only five?"
"Of course, five," answered the Empress impatiently. "Didn't you hear me the first time? When I say five, I mean five. One Ring to each. The fourth and seventh Rings still await their users, and, well, that's because their users have yet to be...reborn." A sly smile split her face.
"...Wait," Peach slowly interjected. "You're sending one person to each dimension to try to stop Mario, aren't you?"
"You catch on quickly," Cyanara replied, folding her hands and resting them on the table. "But you're only partially correct. I'm not trying to stop Mario at all. Every time he gets another Rainbow Ring, he can travel to the next dimension in color order—red, orange, yellow, and so on. And he knows you're here, Peach. I've made sure of that."
"So I'm the...bait?" gasped Peach in realization.
"Mm-hm," Cyanara answered with another smile. "The bait's on the hook, and the hook's in the pond. All Mario can do, whether he likes it or not...is bite." She relaxed in her chair. "Do you recall the incident in Penumbra's Tomb, Peach? The one where I tried to use Mario to awaken the ultimate evil force?"
Peach only stood there by the kitchen counter, paralyzed by fear.
"Mario is the only one who is capable of breaking the seal that imprisons that evil," Cyanara informed her captive. "Once he's in my grasp, I'll use him to unleash that evil and use it to conquer the entire planet. Yes, I know, sounds rather evil-villain cliché, but that's the plan. And once I've seized control of every city, nation, and empire, every one of the world's leaders will have no choice but to turn over their crowns, their titles, and their positions of authority over to me." She paused in her unfolding of her grand scheme and smiled at her younger sister. "I've got my eye on bigger game than just this one kingdom, Peach. The Mushroom Kingdom is only a starting point. And if I can't get my revenge now, all the conquest in the universe won't satisfy me." Her eyes stared hungrily at Peach. "There's no escape for either you or Mario this time, Peach. Once he's out of the way, there won't be anything to stop me from killing you."
Peach trembled in fright. Cyanara's ultimate plan was incredibly vast and well-planned indeed. And as for stopping it—well, a lot of good she would do locked up in her sister's fortress. She was powerless, utterly powerless to help. She knew it. But what was worse—Cyanara knew it too. And she liked it.
"Oh, by the way," Cyanara added, rising to leave, "you'd better pray Mario doesn't make it to Green Dimension. I've got a little surprise waiting for him there that I don't think either of you will enjoy." With one more mysterious smile, the Empress swept out of the room and locked the door behind her, leaving Peach to wonder at her last statement. A fleeting thought crossed her mind. She pushed it aside, but it kept coming back to haunt her.
Is she planning to use...me? But...how could she possibly use me against Mario?
"Huff...huff..." Mario panted as he sealed the secret entrance to Subterra Caverns safely shut. "Man, Grodus has really had his troops on a training regimen. They're a lot faster than they used to be!" He removed his cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "And those laser pistols—wow! Talk about packing a punch!" He fingered the singed spot on his sleeve where a single laser had barely missed him. After resting a few moments more, he replaced his cap on his head and started down the treacherous slimy steps into the caverns, being careful of his footing.
Having reached the bottom safely, Mario quickly covered the few hundred feet separating him from the underground town. He retraced the route he, Luigi, and Amethyst had taken from Gloom Guy's house until he found himself back at the familiar doorway. He pushed the door open and entered.
"You're back," Luigi said with obvious relief, pushing his chair back from the table. "Man, I was getting worried about you, bro!"
"The same goes for me," Amethyst added. "Did the X-Nauts give you a lot of trouble?"
"That's the understatement of the year," Mario quipped dryly. "Was it my being gone for six hours that tipped you off?"
"Yeah, and you missed dinner, too," Luigi informed him.
Mario shrugged. "I'm not even hungry. Running on an empty stomach for so long killed my appetite. I'm just dog tired!"
"It is getting late," Gloom Guy spoke up. "You three are welcome to spend the night here."
"Proposal accepted," Mario replied with a yawn. "I'll take the floor." He dropped to the floor near the door and was sound asleep in seconds.
Cyanara opened the door of her prized laboratory to find it completely trashed. Shattered test tubes lay everywhere; glass covered the tables and floor; chemical spills stained the tile; the computer monitors and lab equipment were smashed to atoms; in short, the place looked like the aftermath of a tremendous earthquake. Ray was on his knees in the middle of the floor, trying to sweep up the glass with a handbrush.
"Ray! What is the meaning of this?!" exploded the Empress.
The muscular lab assistant looked up through his crooked glasses. "The experiment was a success, Master," he said simply.
"Success?! What kind of success is this?!" Cyanara stormed, indicating the ruined laboratory with a sweep of her arm. "And this late at night?!"
Ray stood to his feet and straightened his glasses. "I injected a tiny amount of the liquefied energy from Amber into one of the Shroobs from the cryogenic hibernation capsules. The creature began to spawn new life forms at an astronomical rate."
Cyanara's eyes began to gleam with excitement.
"I finally managed to seal the original subject and all the genetic copies inside the cryogenic storage room, but not before they wrecked the laboratory." Ray hung his head. "I am sorry, Master."
"Sorry?" The Empress walked up to her assistant. "Ray, you've done it! This is exactly what I've been trying to do for weeks!"
"You have been trying to destroy your own laboratory?" Ray questioned half-jokingly.
"No, you idiot!" blustered Cyanara. "The reproduction rate! It's perfect! I could have millions of Shroobs just for the taking! Once again the Mushroom Kingdom will be overrun by the alien hordes!" She smiled, her eyes glittering.
Ray smiled in disbelief, not having expected such a positive reaction. "I-I am glad to help, Master!"
"Keep working on the original Shroob DNA experiment," Cyanara instructed, black eyes aglow with possibilities. "I'll be needing an extra-strong dose of the DNA solution tomorrow." With that, she turned and left the lab, leaving Ray to do the clean-up.
A Paroidian Guard stepped up to her as she emerged from the laboratory. He bowed. "Great One, the men at the Princess's castle have searched everywhere but cannot find the eighth Rainbow Disc. Apparently it is not there."
"Hm. I see." Cyanara began walking away. "My power is incomplete without the eighth Disc. Keep looking. Tear the castle apart stone by stone if you must, but find that Disc!"
"Come on, bro, wake up! We're in big trouble now!"
Mario sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "What's going on?" He checked his watch. Unbelievably he'd slept until ten o'clock in the morning.
"It's Grodus! He's here! In this dimension!" Luigi was almost frantic.
Immediately Mario was on his feet. "And?"
"He's ordered his troops to scour every inch of the city until they find you!" Luigi informed him. "Already they've made several near passes by the secret entrance, and it's only a matter of time before they find it. We've gotta stop those X-Nauts before they get down here!"
"Then let's go! No time to lose!" Mario bolted out the door of Gloom Guy's cubical dwelling into the torch-lit streets of the underground town, Luigi close behind him. Together they ran through the town and up the slippery steps that led to the surface and the secret trapdoor. Amethyst was there waiting for them.
"Mario, the Jasper Ring is behaving strangely," she told him with a puzzled expression. "It's been glowing off and on all morning, and as I was coming here, the glow kept getting brighter and brighter." The violet-haired Guardian held out her hand. On her right index finger was the Jasper Ring, glowing a dull red.
"There must be another Ring up there!" Mario guessed after a moment's thought. "They're reacting to one another! It's like playing hot and cold, see? The closer we get to the other Ring—" He thrust Amethyst's hand toward the secret entrance, and the glow brightened ever so slightly.
"—The brighter it glows!" Luigi finished. "Bro, you've got it! And once we get that other Ring, we can use DT to get to the next dimension!"
Amethyst removed the Jasper Ring and placed it on Mario's finger. "You two go. I'll guard the entrance."
Mario hesitated a moment, then nodded briefly and continued up the steps to the trapdoor. He and Luigi waited there silently, listening for any activity above them. Satisfied that all was quiet, Mario slowly lifted the trapdoor and climbed out into a ruined shop. Luigi was right behind him, closing the door after he himself had also come up to the surface. The brick and rubble fastened to the top of the trapdoor matched the wrecked interior of the shop perfectly, making the door practically invisible to any roving eyes.
"Looks like we're safe for now," Luigi whispered tersely after scanning the deserted building.
"Let's go." Mario led the way outside, watching the Jasper Ring closely. It seemed to glow more brightly than it had before. "Looks like we're headed in the right direction." After furtively looking up and down the cratered street to be sure no X-Nauts were in sight, the brothers dashed across the street and ducked into the relatively unharmed building in front of them. It had only its windows broken and the front door torn off its hinges, not to mention a few holes burnt in the roof. Still, it was in better shape than most of the other town structures.
After repeating the process of hide, wait, look, cross street, and hide dozens of times, always heading in the same general direction, Mario and Luigi found themselves in a large warehouse with holes rusted through its metal walls and broken wooden packing crates strewn about the floor. The Jasper Ring on Mario's index finger was glowing intensely.
"I'd say we're about as close as we're ever going to get, bro," whispered Mario in the stillness inside the dilapidated structure. "Let's have a close look around this place." The two split up and began to comb the warehouse, looking for any sign of another Rainbow Ring—a hidden door, a teleporter, anything unusual.
Every time Mario passed the center of the roofless building, he noticed that the Jasper Ring would suddenly flare up and glow more brightly than ever before. When he would leave the central area, the Ring would settle down to its former lustrous shine. The phenomenon puzzled him, but he kept on with his search amongst the crates and boxes and rusty old equipment littering the warehouse.
Finally Mario gave in to the nagging feeling he had about the warehouse's center and called Luigi over. "Watch the Ring," he instructed his sibling as he stepped into the relatively uncluttered floor of the central spot. Luigi's eyes widened as the Ring's brightness suddenly intensified.
"You think the second Ring's under our feet, here in the center?" he asked.
Both brothers got down on their knees and started prying up the rotten floorboards. Once they had removed the boards, Luigi started sifting through the loose dirt beneath. After five minutes he gave up. "There's nothing down here but dirt." He got to his feet in disgust.
Mario started to turn away, but an idea suddenly struck him, and he returned his attention to Luigi. "Did you just say there's nothing down here?" he asked slowly.
The same thought occurred to Luigi almost at once. The brothers' eyes met and locked.
Slowly, uncertainly, both Mario and Luigi raised their heads and stared into the clear blue sky above. Well, the sky was mostly clear—clear except for the massive black flying saucer hovering hundreds of feet above them. Emblazoned on the saucer's underbelly was a huge red rectangle with a white X over it—the insignia of the X-Nauts.
"It's Grodus," Mario guessed. "Who else could it be?"
Luigi nodded, still awed by the monstrous flying machine.
"The second Rainbow Ring must be in that ship," Mario said with finality in his voice. "The problem is, just how are we going to get up there?"
No sooner had Mario spoken than a brilliant white beam more than five feet in diameter stretched rapidly down from the saucer to the very spot occupied by the brothers. The next thing they knew they were inside the X-Naut flagship.
"Fancy teleporter," Mario remarked quietly as he and Luigi stepped off the glowing white teleporter panel onto the smooth steel floor.
The interior of Grodus's flagship was a technological marvel. Before the two was a sliding metal airlock, cleverly designed to open and close in the shape of an X. Behind them, to the left of the teleporter, was a large semicircular control panel covered with a dizzying array of monitors, gauges, dials, switches, and levers—apparently the controlling mechanisms for the teleporter. The light in this room and throughout the ship was supplied by long fluorescent light fixtures embedded in the ceilings.
The steel floor clanked quietly under Mario's feet as he warily moved up to the airlock. He hugged the wall next to the door and cast a furtive eye around the teleporter room. No X-Nauts were in view. Satisfied that he and Luigi were alone for the moment, he stepped in front of the airlock. Immediately it opened as it sensed his presence, revealing the X shape as its four triangular pieces split apart to admit him into the main hall.
"Gaack ack ack ack ack!"
Immediately Mario and Luigi ducked out of sight around the corner of the door frame as Sir Grodus himself emerged from a door on the right side of the hallway before them, disappearing just as quickly through another door on the left. The near encounter left Luigi's knees shaking. Mario rapped him lightly on the arm, and he snapped out of his fearful stare and shook his head as if to straighten out his thinking.
"Get ahold of yourself, Luigi. We've got a Ring to find and some X-Nauts to get rid of."
Luigi nodded.
The brothers ventured into the hallway. Not one of the many doors lining its walls opened for them as they passed. All lights over the doors were red, indicating that all were locked for the time being.
"Well, at least no one's gonna come through a locked door," Luigi suggested hopefully.
The light over the door nearest them turned green.
"Scratch that thought," he yelped as he and Mario plastered themselves against the wall beside the door.
A single X-Naut Ph.D. walked distractedly from the door, poring over his clipboard and muttering to himself as he turned away from the brothers and moved off down the hall. He, too, vanished into another room.
Mario quickly yanked Luigi through the automatic door before it closed after the Ph.D. Here, in this room, they were alone once again. Scientific equipment such as test tubes and complex pieces of experimental setups lined the walls. A single table sat in the room's center, holding dozens of glass beakers filled with differently-colored chemicals.
"...ario...sten...me..."
Mario reached into his pocket and pulled out the DTD. "What is it, DT?"
"I know this place, Mario," droned the white metallic disk. "This is Research Lab C. There is usually an X-Naut Ph.D. present in this room at all times—"
The door opened again, and the Ph.D. walked back into the room, still mumbling distractedly to himself. He looked up at Mario and Luigi, and his eyes widened. His clipboard clattered to the floor.
"Hey! What are you two doing in here?!"
Without thinking Mario seized one of the potions on the table and hurled it at the X-Naut scientist. The beaker shattered on the Ph.D.'s white lab coat, drenching him with a green liquid. Suddenly the Ph.D. became huge, towering over Mario and Luigi's heads. Mario gulped.
"Oops. Wrong potion."