"Grrr...No!" gasped Mario. "I...won't...give in... AAAGH!!" The poison continued to weaken his body as he lay on the floor of the cavern.

"Yes, you will," corrected the Shadow King demon, a wicked smile on his face. "You may as well do it now, weakling!"

Suddenly, silently, a tiny winged figure darted out from behind the Shadow Queen, slipped through the ethereal spirit being up to the human vessel inside, and pulled the Turquoise Ring from her left fifth finger. Immediately the massive Ring on the demon's corresponding finger vanished.

"Wh-What?" exclaimed the Queen demon. "My Rainbow Ring—NOOOO!!"

The winged figure shot away from the Queen and flew straight to Mario. She hovered safely away from the poison coating his body and carefully placed the Turquoise Ring on the correct finger. Instantly the poison was negated and Mario was revitalized. He opened his eyes and stared at the little pink-clad fairy before him.

"Leika!"

"Come on, Mario, get up!" urged the blue-haired fairy. "You can still win!"

Mario leaped easily to his feet, and Leika perched on his right shoulder. "OK, Shadows Royal, time for round three! I'm waiting for you!"

"Curse you, Leika!" roared the Shadow King, clenching his demonic hands into great fists. "You and the rest of the Rainbow Fairies should have all been killed by Zaron those many years ago!"

"A lot of us survived, sorry," Leika answered in mock sadness. "Now it's your turn to get your just reward for your wickedness. I'm going to finish the job the Rainbow Guardians started last time we fought!" She rose into the air and pointed accusingly at the Royals. "You're going DOWN!!"

"We cannot fight her," the King said hastily to the Queen. "She embodies a part of the rainbow power. There is no way for us to destroy her!"

"Then another will have to eliminate her before we can finish Mario," replied the Queen readily. She fixed Mario with a hateful, demonic glare. "Consider this a stalemate, Mario. The Ring is yours." She and the King demon began to fade from view. "But mark my words, slave—you will learn to obey your masters someday!"

Both demon spirits faded away completely, leaving no trace of their presence. Mario heaved a sigh of relief. "Split-second timing, Leika. Another minute or so and I think I'd have been a goner. Thanks."

The fair-skinned fairy blushed. "Not a problem. I'm always ready to help. That's what we fairies do."

Luigi's voice echoed down from above. "Bro! You OK down there?"

"Just fine!" Mario yelled back up through the hole in the platform some forty feet over his head. "Gimme a minute and I'll be right up!"

Luigi hauled Mario over the edge of the pit. "Sounded like an earthquake down there!" he told Mario with a relieved grin.

"It almost was," Mario replied. "Man, I never want to face down two demons again. I wouldn't have gotten out alive if it weren't for Leika."

"Leika?" Luigi asked in surprise. "She's here?"

Leika darted up out of the hole in the platform. "I certainly am," she replied with a smile.

Luigi's face lit up. "Leika! Wait 'til Peach finds out you're here! She'll probably hug you to death!"

"Then let's go get Peach," Mario suggested, leading the way toward the exit.

As soon as Mario, Luigi, and Leika passed through the colosseum doors into the main hallway, Peach spotted Leika, and she too lit up in recognition. "Leika! It's you!"

"Hello, Princess," Leika greeted her gracefully.

Peach held out her hands, and Leika lighted on them. "It's so good to see you again!" Peach bubbled. "I thought you'd be back at the sky city by now!"

"The elders of Aotearoa commissioned me to return and bring the Rainbow Rings back to the temple where they belong," Leika explained. "I see Mario has five of them now, but where are the other three?"

"Cyanara has them," Peach said gravely.

"Cyanara?" Leika frowned. "Who's that?"

"The Great One, Leika. You know her."

Leika's expression instantly turned to one of fear. "She has them?!"

Peach nodded soberly. "And seven of the Discs and the Rainbow Pendant."

The little fairy paled. "This is unthinkable! For her to gather even most of the rainbow objects is absolutely unthinkable!! She's incredibly close to destroying us all!" Leika was nearly hysterical. "Do you realize what she could do if she managed to get all of them?!"

"The Twilight Disc is missing, Leika," Mario informed her. "We don't even know where it is, let alone Cyanara."

"It was stolen from the castle," Luigi added.

Leika relaxed a little. "That's good. Perhaps she'll never find it." She darted up to Peach's shoulder and seated herself there. "My mission still stands. I am to retrieve the eight Rings at any cost and return them to their temple in Aotearoa, where the Rainbow Fairies can keep a watchful eye on them as before."

"Then on to the next dimension so we can start getting the last three Rings," Mario put in with a trace of eagerness.

Peach gave him the "oh brother" look. "Mario, in case you haven't noticed, it's three o'clock in the morning."

Mario looked crestfallen. "You're saying we should—"

"I'm saying that isn't it about time we got some sleep?" Peach reprimanded him. "I'm about to go to sleep on my feet here!"

"Well, uh..." Mario made a show of looking around the bare anteroom. Not a furnishing of any kind was to be seen. He shrugged helplessly. "...Pick your spot?"

"...Amber..."

Amber lay propped against the musty stone wall, sound asleep.

"...Amber...wake up..."

The second Guardian stirred. "Hm? Ruby?"

Ruby lay completely still, eyes closed in the darkness of early morning. "...Amber..."

"What?" Quietly Amber crawled over to Ruby's side. "What is it?"

"Amber...I...I'm...dying..." murmured the slowly-fading first Guardian.

"No, Ruby," replied Amber softly but firmly. "Fight it!"

"I...can't...fight..." mumbled Ruby almost inaudibly, "but..."

"No, no, you can!"

"I...can't...but...you... You...and...Sapphire...can..." Ruby managed.

Amber frowned. "What are you saying?"

Ruby forced open chapped lips and spoke two faint words. "...Rainbow...Mix..."

The import of the words struck Amber like a bolt of lightning. Slowly, determinedly, she rose to her feet in the dark cell.

"It's up to me to save Ruby," she said aloud. "She's told me the way—but I have to make it work. I have to get Sapphire in here with Ruby, or..." She trailed off. It seemed impossible.

"Amber."

Amber jumped at the voice and turned to see a Paroidian Guard standing in the doorway, face void of emotion.

"Amber. You are to come with me."

She paled. "No, please! Not back to that cell again—please, NO!"

The guard drew his sword. "Come with me now."

Tremblingly Amber obeyed, and the guard led her to the cell adjoining Ruby's and unlocked the door. A burst of frigid air washed over both guard and Guardian as the door opened, making Amber shudder. Without hesitating the guard shoved Amber roughly into the cell and locked the door behind her.

Amber was shivering in the supercooled cell within seconds. Huddling in the far corner, she drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs in a desperate attempt to conserve body heat. The freezing temperature inside her solitary confinement cell did not mix well with her heat-based nature and powers of solar fire.

"I h-have t-to get out-t of h-here," chattered Amber, her breath making clouds in the freezing air, "b-but h-how? R-Ruby needs h-help!"

"Did you say Ruby?" came a faint female voice from the right-hand wall.

"I-Is that y-you, C-Citrine?" shivered Amber.

"Yes."

"C-Can you b-break m-me out of-f h-here?"

"My cell is all wood," answered Citrine. "My electricity is useless against wood."

"T-Then overl-load the c-circuits and-d d-destroy th-the c-cooling m-mechanism in h-here!"

"I'll try." There was a long silence, and Amber huddled further into the corner, absolutely frozen. It was a wonder she didn't turn to ice, it was so cold.

Suddenly there was a popping, sparking noise over Amber's head, and all of the lights went out. The cooling mechanism in Amber's cell shut down but was not destroyed.

"Figures," spat Citrine in disgust. "Overloaded the main system. The whole fortress is offline."

Amber waited for her internal heat to build back up, then stood. "Thanks, Citrine."

"Whatever you're doing, do it fast. Cyanara will have the generator running again in no time."

"OK." Amber looked around her cell. "I need sunlight. With it I could easily melt my way out." She moved to the rear of the cell and ran her fingers over the still-icy steel wall.

Her fingers caught against something. It felt like an overlapping plate of steel. She ran her fingers along the edge, then to the right, down again, back to the side, up again. It was an overlapping plate—a plate of steel added to the cell seemingly as an afterthought, after the rest had already been built.

"It's a long shot, but worth trying," Amber said with a shrug and proceeded to pry at the plate's edges. Soon she discovered that one of its corners was loose and concentrated her efforts there. She could feel the rivets coming loose as she pried at the unfastened corner. A mixture of fear and excitement gripped her—fear that she might be discovered, excitement that she was nearing her goal.

Suddenly the plate tore away from the wall and lay loose in her hands. A stream of light from the eastern horizon poured in through Amber's new window.

"Yes!" Amber nearly skipped for joy. "They must have covered the window before putting me in here to keep me from getting any sunlight. Now to get to Ruby!"

Amber stood in the path of the sunlight and faced the sun. She looked directly at it, not squinting or closing her eyes—instead she smiled as if welcoming the warming rays. As the sunlight fell on her face, she began to glow with the fiery orange radiance of the sun itself. A few seconds more and her entire body burst into flames, flames that neither harmed her nor scorched her clothing. She had become a living torch, encased in a pillar of fire.

"Ah, that feels so good," sighed Amber in delight. "Now, first things first." She looked up at the cooling mechanism on the ceiling. Raising her hand, she shot a wave of flames at the machine and instantly melted it into a worthless pile of scrap.

"There, no more turning me into a popsicle," she told it in satisfaction. Just then the lights flickered back on. "And not a moment too soon. Now to get Citrine out." She raised her voice. "Citrine, move to the rear of your cell!"

"Why?" came the indifferent response.

"I'm going to melt you out!"

"In that case..." Citrine was silent for a few moments. "Ready."

Without another word, the blazing Amber put out both hands and poured a torrent of fire at the steel wall. It melted the steel like butter and burned easily through the wood layered over the interior of Citrine's cell.

Stopping the fiery blast, Amber moved out of the sunlight, and her body ceased to flame. Citrine came through the still-smoking hole and entered Amber's cell.

"Thanks." Citrine's expression was flat and somewhat aloof, as usual. She turned to the door of Amber's cell, critiquing it silently.

"This door should be no problem to open from the inside." The third Guardian moved to the door, placed a hand on the confining steel, and shot her electricity through the conductive material into the door's locking mechanism. Instantly a shower of sparks flew out from the crack between door and wall, and the lock shorted out, unlocking the door.

"Simple," Citrine affirmed with a nod.

"Can you get the others out?" Amber requested. "They all need to be here. In this cell."

"Why here?" queried Citrine, raising an eyebrow.

Amber looked straight at Citrine. "Rainbow Mix."

Now Citrine's other eyebrow went up. "Amber..."

"It's for Ruby, Citrine," Amber said hastily. "There's no time to explain but it could save her life. Please!"

Citrine hesitated, then nodded briefly and went out the unlocked door, shutting it behind her.

"M-Master, please! Allow me to explain—"

"I'm not interested in feeble excuses." Cyanara turned her back to the pleading technician and coldly issued a single command to the guards holding him. "Execute him."

"N-No! NO! Please, NOOOOO!! MASTER! LISTEN TO ME! PLEASE!!" screamed the doomed man as the guards dragged him from the throne room. The silver doors shut behind them with an echoing boom, cutting off the sound of his hysteric cries.

Cyanara remained standing with her back to the doors, face smoldering with a silent anger. "Pathetic." Her black eyes narrowed to mere slits. "Athos and Amethyst cannot resist my mind-control devices forever. They are not that strong. And all that fool can come up with is excuses—equipment failure, lazy assistants, not enough time!" She smashed her fist into her palm. "I'll perform the mental overwrite myself. If that imbecile can't do the job, then I will!"

Minutes after Citrine's escape, six Guardians were assembled in Amber's cell. Ruby lay on the steel floor, barely conscious, struggling for every breath. The others were clustered on the floor around her. Amber explained Ruby's request.

"Ruby believes that if she and Sapphire perform Rainbow Mix, her mind will no longer be affected by the evil within this fortress." Amber looked at Sapphire. "Are you willing?"

The quite, passive, dark blue-haired sixth Guardian nodded. "If it will save her, yes."

"Then why are all the rest of us here?" demanded green-haired Emerald in her childish voice.

Amber shot her a warning look. "Would you rather stay in your cell?"

Emerald was silent.

"The truth is," Amber continued, "if we all perform the Mix, our combined strength could get us out of the fortress entirely."

Aquamarine looked thoughtful, her head inclined to one side, light blue hair cascading down one shoulder. "You mean that not only should Ruby and Sapphire merge, but that Emerald and I should as well, and—"

"Can't." Citrine was short and to the point. "Amethyst is my merging companion. And she's not here."

"Then only Ruby and Sapphire will merge. Perhaps later we will be able to get Amethyst here with us." Amber stood, letting the sun fall on her back. Within seconds her entire body was ablaze. "Sapphire, do your thing!"

Sapphire concentrated on Amber, and suddenly the heat being thrown off from Amber's body was bent back toward Amber as Sapphire used her powers of energybending to concentrate the heat around her sister. Amber's temperature climbed rapidly. In just minutes it rose to over 900,000,000 degrees Celsius.

"Almost—there!" cried Amber as she strained her solar power to the limit, building up heat in the "greenhouse" created by Sapphire. Her face was stretched in a taut grimace, squeezing every available bit of heat out into the layer of flame blazing over her body.

Suddenly the inferno covering Amber burst into brilliant white radiance. Amber's temperature had peaked at the critical one billion degrees, triggering a nuclear fusion reaction that released the immense power of the atomic nucleus. Sapphire struggled to hold the torrent of power back.

The sixth Guardian seized the dying Ruby's hand. "Now!" she cried as she released her hold on the energy. Instantly it formed into a brilliant white beam and shot directly toward Sapphire and Ruby, striking the two at their joined hands. An intense light engulfed the two Guardians as the immensely powerful Rainbow Mix was triggered.

The blinding light surrounding Ruby and Sapphire lasted for only a few seconds; and when it died away, there were no longer two separate Guardians, but one, with hair shining red on one side and shimmering royal blue on the other. Her appearance was as if someone had put Ruby and Sapphire together to form a whole new being.

Amber cooled down and ceased to burn. "How do you feel, Ruby?" she asked anxiously.

The fused Guardian spoke in Ruby's voice. "...I am fine. My mind is regaining its strength. Thank you, Amber."

"Thank goodness," Amber sighed in relief. "I was afraid we'd lose you."

"Well," said the newly-formed Guardian, still in Ruby's voice, "we can leave any time. Citrine's made that possible."

"That's true, Corundum," answered Aquamarine, "but Cyanara—"

"My shielding powers can and will protect all of us," Corundum assured her.

"But Amethyst—"

"Yes, Amethyst." The Ruby/Sapphire fusion named Corundum pondered a moment, then spoke in Sapphire's voice. "We can't just abandon her to the Empress."

"I say we wait here," spoke up Citrine. "Cyanara is bound to bring Amethyst here to the confinement cells if she's caught. And if she doesn't show for a while, we'll go looking for her. We'll need all the power we can get in order to escape."

"I agree," Corundum responded. "Let's wait this one out. Perhaps we'll have an opportunity to strike at the Empress."

Mario yawned, stretched, and sat up, rubbing his eyes as he did so. He looked across the Koopaseum's green-and-gold anteroom and saw Luigi's sleeping form contorted into a seemingly painful position, one which made Mario wince just to look at it.

"He's gonna be awfully sore when he wakes up," Mario commented with an "oh, well" written across his face. Then he looked over to the sleeping Princess. She was lying on her side in flawless posture, as if she were in her bed at the castle and not on an entryway floor. Mario smiled as he gazed at Peach. But his smile was not elicited by her beauty. Instead, he nearly chuckled aloud as he noticed that Peach's head was resting on a very sleepless and uncomfortable Toadsworth!

"Enough sleeping, you guys," Mari announced, standing to his feet and stretching again. "Time to get up!"

Peach stirred and turned over, making Toadsworth groan painfully. Her eyes opened about halfway. "Hm? Morning already?"

Luigi snored on, completely oblivious to Mario's wake-up call.

"It was morning when we went to sleep, Peach," Mario chuckled. "Yes, it's time to get up. We've got to move on."

The Princess sat up and rubbed the sleep from her blue eyes. Toadsworth gasped in relief as she removed her weight from his stomach. "I dare say," he wheezed, feebly shaking a finger at Peach, "I shall never again volunteer as the Princess's pillow! OH, my aching back—OHHH!!"

"Oh—did I hurt you, Toadsworth?" asked Peach in concern.

"No, Your Highness," corrected the steward as he lay prone on the floor. "You've nearly killed these poor old bones! I shall never recover from last night!"

Peach helped Toadsworth to his feet. He tottered a bit as he attempted to walk. "Hmph, it appears I am still in working order," he grumbled, "but still—never again will I volunteer as the Princess's—"

"All right, Toadsworth, we get the point!" exclaimed an exasperated Peach. "I know you're not a morning person, but please stop your grumbling!"

"Luigi!" called Mario. "Wake up!"

Luigi's curled-up form instantly uncoiled like a twisted spring, going full length in less than a second. He screamed and scrambled over to the wall, huddling there and shaking in fright.

Mario rolled his eyes.

"A g-g-ghost w-was c-c-coming after m-m-me!" Luigi cried.

"Another nightmare about getting eaten by ghosts, huh?" Mario guessed in frustration. "Get over your fear, Luigi. We're gonna see plenty more ghosts in our lifetimes, so get used to them."

Shakily Luigi got to his feet. "O-OK."

"Good." Mario pulled DT from his pocket and activated the little machine with the Turquoise Ring. In moments a glimmering indigo portal opened in front of him.

"Amazing," Leika murmured. "But why are you using this method of travel? Don't you usually just...walk?"

"Walking's a bit overrated these days," Mario answered dryly.

Peach rolled her eyes. "What he means is that the Mushroom Kingdom has been split into eight dimensions. The Rainbow Rings activate this Dimensional Transport Device and allow us to get to other dimensions."

"And Cyanara did this, too?" questioned Leika. "Don't even answer—I just know she did! All the more reason for us to get rid of her! Let's go!"

"Now proceeding to Indigo Dimension," droned DT in his mechanized monotone.

"Yahoo!" yelled Mario as he took a great leap forward through the shimmering portal.

Cyanara's black eyes blazed at the two figures before her. She smashed her fist onto the arm of her throne. "Failed? You, who claim such power, whose sworn enemy is Mario—you have failed?!"

The Shadows Royal, back in their human forms by this time, both wore expressions of defeat. "It was not Mario who bested us, Great One," explained the Shadow King. "If only he had tried to overcome us, we would have crushed him. It was that pesky Rainbow Fairy Leika that interfered."

"Do you mean to tell me," interjected Cyanara, rising threateningly from her throne, "that that troublesome fairy Leika, whose rainbow power is pathetically weak, actually scared you off??"

"If another were to rid us of the Rainbow Fairy," stated the Queen, avoiding the question, "we and the third would have no trouble bringing Mario to you."

"Diamond is already in Indigo Dimension, preparing to take on Mario herself." The Empress resumed her seat. "She should be able to exterminate Leika easily." Her black eyes narrowed. "You speak of the third. Are you intending—"

"Yes," answered the King. "He will be most helpful."

"And what of the fourth?" questioned Cyanara. "Have you not found a suitable vessel?"

"The Queen has housed the fourth soul within her own vessel for the time being," replied the King. "No vessel has been found."

"Then I know just the one," Cyanara informed him with a crafty smile. "As a matter of fact, I brought her here for that very purpose. I've promised her a little 'present.'" She laughed softly to herself. "I believe you know what I'm talking about."

The Queen's red eyes lit up. "You have prepared a vessel?" She smiled in wicked anticipation. "When shall we have its use?"

"As soon as I take care of some unfinished business in the mind-control room," replied the Empress. She rose from her imperial throne. "It shouldn't take long."