Did some more changes in my profile that includes chapter uploading schedule, a new future story and a new favorite character!
Enjoy! ;)
Chapter 19: The Green Key and the Miracle Cure
The group returned to the Pipe Yard, where they found Mario waiting for them. Melissa removes her disguise before she and the others told Mario everything that happened. After the explanation, Mario spoke:
"So we have all three Star Cures, and now we'll have to hunt for the other two pieces of the Green Key?"
"Yes. That way, we'll be able to access the room with the pedestal." Peach nodded.
"Hey! Don't forget that we discovered that I'm a Star Child!" Wario exclaimed. "Mario, you really should of have seen that! I knocked Chakron down with a powerful Butt Smash!"
"And knocked us too…" Luigi sweatdropped.
"Wario is a Star Child?! So that leaves two more left!" Mario's eyes widened.
"And these last two are just the ones that Fawful doesn't know, so he needs the Dark Star to guide him to these last two." Melissa explained.
"Hold on, are you saying that Fawful already knew that I, Peach, Bowser, Wario and DK were Star Children?" Yoshi guessed.
"Unfortunately, you're correct. But as long as the Dark Star's seal isn't broken, Fawful will never know who the remaining two are."
"Alright, we have all three Star Cures now. What do we do?" Starlow asked.
"Maybe we should hunt for the other pieces of the Green Key. I've heard from the star people that one of the pieces are with Kuzzle, and the other one is somewhere at Dimble Wood. I suggest that Peach, Yoshi, Wario, DK and Starlow head to Kuzzle, while Mario and Luigi head to Dimble Wood."
"Okay." Peach nodded.
"Kuzzle lives in a house next to the cliffs of Plack Beach. I'm pretty sure you'll have to solve his puzzles before he could give you the key piece. And Mario and Luigi, try searching for the swampy area of Dimble Wood, but be careful of the sock creatures! I'll wait for your arrival."
The group nodded before heading to the green pipe, since they haven't entered in it yet.
That pipe took them to Dimble Wood. Peach, DK, Wario, Yoshi and Starlow went south in order to reach Plack Beach while Mario and Luigi pressed on into the woods.
Once they found a short stone wall, Mario peeked into the small gap and noticed something green hiding in the grass.
"That has to be the other key piece!" Mario exclaimed.
"But how are we going to get through?" Luigi asked.
"Simple. Luigi, make me small."
"Oh! Okey-Dokey!"
Luigi takes out his hammer and whacks Mario to turn him small. Mini Mario jumps into the small gap and grabs the key piece, which was the Green Key's mushroom-shaped bow.
"I got it!" he cheered, unaware of four odd-shaped creatures coming to him.
On the other side, Luigi saw a nearby exclamation point mark block and was about to hit it, until…
"WOOAAHH!" he suddenly heard Mario's scream. He went back to the small gap and peeked into it, and gasped at what he saw:
"OH NO!"
He saw Mario, still in his mini form, surrounded by four sock creatures called Sockops. In an instant, the Sockop on the right snatched Mario before all of them took off.
"MAAARIOO!" Luigi cried out.
Meanwhile, with the group at Plack Beach…
They were in Kuzzle's house, solving a puzzle with the Puzzle Sack they had so that the old and deaf Koopa could give them the other key piece. But things are getting complicated for them:
"I'm…not good with puzzles." Starlow sweatdropped.
"Let's see…I think this piece goes here…" Donkey Kong guessed.
"No, I think you got it backwards…flip it the other way." Yoshi corrected.
"Like this!" Wario grabbed another piece, flipped it around and it stuck together.
"This is going to take a while…" Peach sighed. "I wonder how Mario and Luigi are doing?"
Back with Luigi…
"Man, I can't believe this is happening the second time…" Luigi sighed as he walks around, remembering back last year at the Beanbean Kingdom where he had to find a medicine to cure Mario's illness, even though he doesn't remember how he got the medicine since he was hypnotized.
However, he wasn't paying attention to where he was going and ended up falling down from the ledge…into a giant Sockop. Inside, he found Mario inside the Sockop's gastric chamber!
"Mario!" Luigi exclaimed.
*RUMBLE…*
"Huh? What the…"
The giant Sockop took a step forward back outside, which caused that rumble from before. Just then, the Sockop used a suction ability to suck in some Scutlets.
"WAAAH!" Luigi yelled in panic as he saw the Scutlets landing in front of him. He had no choice but to fight them alone in order to rescue his brother from being digested.
Once he defeats all of them, Luigi quickly rushes to Mario, who was starting to get digested in the gastric chamber.
"Luigi! Help me! I'm being digested!" Mario called out.
"Don't worry, bro! I'll get you out somehow!" Luigi assured as he hammers the gastric chamber's wall.
All of a sudden, the whole place started to shake. The giant Sockop had 'X' eyes and back inside, the place shook violently, causing both brothers to panic.
"WHOOOOA! WHAT'S GOING ON?!" Luigi panicked.
"L-LUIGI…" Mario couldn't finish when the gastric chamber flattened before stretching back and sending out a geyser of acid, launching Mario out of the Sockop.
"AAAAAHH!" he screamed as he flew off to another portion of the woods.
Then, the giant Sockop began to shrink into the size of a normal Sockop, with Luigi still inside of it. The Sockop still looked dead as Luigi's head pops out of it.
"Eh? What happened?" he wondered…until he looked down to realize that his body was inside the Sockop and let out a shriek of fright. He then tries to pull himself out of the Sockop, but after two attempts, he couldn't get out; he was stuck in the Sockop. "Great…" he muttered.
He begins to hop around the woods to look for Mario with the Sockop like a Kuribo's Shoe, also able to sneak into the enemies' territory, because for some reason, he was able to communicate with the other Sockops, even if the Sockop he was riding on was their boss looked…dead.
Once he reached the swamp area's limit, he saw three Sockops fighting over the Green Key piece, with Mario lying on the ground in front of them, unconscious.
"Mine!" one of the Sockops said.
"No! Mine!" the other one said. "I found it first! Not you! Me! So I get to chug it!"
"You're such a hog, Kuribo!" the previous Sockop replied.
Luigi then approaches them, and they all looked at him.
"Whatchoo got?!" the same Sockop from earlier asked. "You gonna chug that green thing?"
"Give it to me! I'll chug both the red and green!" Kuribo begged.
"You pig! You got a green object in your hole RIGHT NOW!" another Sockop growled.
Kuribo 'spits' out the Green Key piece and glares at the Sockop that growled at it: "I'm sick of icky objects!"
"No way!" the other Sockop hissed. "The red one is all mine!"
"NUH-UH!" the remaining Sockop replied angrily.
While the Sockops were occupied, Luigi went over to Mario and called out:
"Mario! Wake up!"
This caught the Sockops' attention. Mario woke up instantly and was shocked to see Luigi inside of a Sockop:
"Whoa! Luigi, what happened?! Why are you inside this Sockop?!"
"Long story…" Luigi rolled his eyes.
"What's this craziness?! That guy's not a Sockop?!" the Sockop on the middle said shocked.
"I'll help you out." Mario said as he removes the Sockop on Luigi.
"Whew…" Luigi sighed in relief.
Once the Sockop was removed from Luigi, both brothers shared their brotherly moment, sharing a hug together. Eventually, the Sockop that presumed dead came back to life.
"Whoa… What… That was weird." It spoke.
"You crawled into a KO'd Sockop and hopped around." Kuribo realized. "That's just sick!"
"Whatever. It worked out!" the Sockop on the right exclaimed. "Now we can chug both those guys at once!"
"Mine!"
The brothers pulled away from the hug just in time when the Sockops charged for them and managed to dodge them.
The brothers then wasted no time and killed all of the Sockops with their hammers since jumping wouldn't work.
"Well, that takes care of them." Mario said.
"Oh, man… If I'm ever going to have to save you again in another dark forest of some sorts, I'm going to scream." Luigi muttered.
"Some sorts? Like what?" Mario asked.
"I don't know. I just hope it's not a forest filled with Boos…"
"You don't have to worry, Luigi." Mario smiled. "Now, how about we get that key piece and head out?"
Luigi made a nod before the brothers walked over to the key's bow and picked it up.
Once they left the swampy area of the woods, they saw Yoshi, DK, Wario, Peach and Starlow coming to them.
"Boys!" Peach called out as they approached Mario and Luigi. "We were getting worried about you, so we decided to search for you."
"It's okay, princess! We're fine." Mario replied.
"Did you find the key piece? We have ours right here." Peach asked as she showed the Green Key's stem.
"Yup!" Mario showed the key's bow.
"Great! Now we can assemble them together!" Starlow exclaimed.
They worked together to assemble the key. Once they were done, the key pieces were assembled into a single Green Key.
"Yippee! We did it!" Yoshi cheered.
"Now we have all three Star Cures and the key to Peach's Castle! Let's head back to Bowser's body and ask Melissa about how to assemble the Star Cures!" Starlow told.
The group nodded and went down the same green pipe to access the Pipe Yard again. There, they asked Melissa on how they are going to assemble the Star Cures.
"Hmm, I'm not sure how despite being a star person. I'm sure Dr. Toadley will know what to do."
"So we better head off to his office!" Starlow said.
"Starlow, could you do me a favor?"
"Hmm?"
"I'll be heading out of Bowser's body again since in order for us to access my castle from Peach's Castle, we'll need my rose brooch so that we could place it on the pedestal. So I decided to disguise as you."
"Oh, okay. So that means I'll have to stay in here?"
"Not necessarily. You could hide in Mario's pocket while I take your place."
"Sounds like a good idea!" Starlow then flies to Mario. "Mario, would you mind if I hide in your pocket?"
"Sure." Mario nodded and Starlow flew into his pocket.
With that, Melissa used her rose to disguise as Starlow. After that, the group went inside the orange pipe to take them to Toad Town.
They rushed to Dr. Toadley's clinic and showed the three Star Cures to him, making him jump in surprise:
"Incredible! Have all three Star Cures been found? They have! And did I ever doubt you guys would find them? Never!"
Toadley then raises his hands in the air, and the Star Cures gathered in a triangle formation releasing sparky trails. Toadley moves his hands as the Star Cures started to coalesce with each other slowly before merging into a single blue star with the red, yellow and green small stars jointed together into the star.
"Whoa…" everyone except *Melissa looked at it astonished.
"That's it! That's the Miracle Cure! A star that can cure any type of illness in the Mushroom World!" *Melissa exclaimed.
"Indeed." Toadley nodded.
"With this we can cure the blorbs and destroy the blockade at my castle!" Peach said.
"Hold it, princess. Let's ask one thing at a time of our Miracle Cure." Toadley spoke. "CUUURE!" he snapped his fingers to make the star fly out of his room and into the clinic, where all of the blorbed Toads were.
In an instant, the Miracle Cure released sparkles at the Toads, curing them from their terrible disease, including the ones scattered at the town.
"What? What was that?" Donkey Kong asked.
"Must I chuckle? I must. Go outside and you'll see." Toadley chuckled. "As expected, I have…trounced the blorbs!"
"The blorbs are cured?! Oh, thank goodness!" Peach sighed in relief.
"Ahem! Is it time to go? It is! To the final battle! The Miracle Cure will smash that blockade!"
"I'll hold on to the Miracle Cure for you." *Melissa takes the Miracle Cure with her.
"Thanks for everything, Dr. Toadley!" Peach thanked.
"Will the blockade fall to that cure's power? It certainly will. But will it defeat the Dark Star? That, we simply do not know. The power of the Dark Star's darkness is unfathomable…"
"Actually, it will." *Melissa nodded. Everyone looked at her. "Combined with the power of the star people and the Star Children, it can form into the ultimate weapon that can destroy the Dark Star."
"Really?" the heroes' eyes widened.
"Mmhm."
"Well, first we'll get to Peach's Castle, and then we'll use our power to do…something." Yoshi stated.
"YOU WILL!" Toadley announced. "Will you guys make it happen? You will! Do I need my crystal to tell me that? I do not!"
"Yeah!" the heroes fist pumped.
"Let's get a move on! To Peach's Castle!" Mario grinned.
Everyone nodded and exited the clinic, getting ready to storm the castle.
To be continued…
There's a hidden foreshadowing event in this chapter! Can you find it? Stay tuned for the next chapter! Please review.
