Super Mario: the Strike of Tatanga
Chapter 3
It was incredible to think of how far they had gotten in their adventure already. The four adventurers had started their travel in Peach's castle, and traveled through the Royal Raceway, Sunset Village, Sunrise Village, and now, the Rice Fields. Two more lands to move through, until they could achieve flight . . . then, before the end of the day, the first day of the adventure, they would be at Tatanga's spaceship. It was almost - almost - too easy. One land shorter, and it would be too easy.
The Rice Fields had a tan, natural dirt road, the kind that brought on clouds of smoke-like dirt debris as the go-karts drove on over them. Yet on both sides of the natural dirt road laid the endless miles of rice, only 12 inches of which was covered in dirt. One individual strand of rice, from these fields, was large enough to fit in a person's hand. Here, it went on for as far as the human eye could see.
"So . . . this place is real?" Daisy asked. "My word! I've heard of it. I've seen this place on the map, I just . . . never dreamed . . ."
"Never dreamed there really would be the Rice Fields?" Mario asked. "Well, there is."
Going back to their driving, Mario and Luigi drove for countless minutes down the dirt road, following curves, bends, turns, and all the while continuing to see the snow-like sight of the Rice Fields. At last, after having driven for 3 minutes, they found a sign planted in the road that read "RICE TOWN - 1 Mile Ahead".
In their one last mile of driving, Mario and Luigi both noticed that their gasoline tanks were running low. They had, after all, last filled up on gasoline at the same time, and seen to it that the tanks were filled to the top. Since then, all their driving had been back to the castle, little use yesterday, and then today's adventure; generally, two identical journeys since the last gas fill-up. Both were just now seeing the yellow gas light come on. This was one area of the adventure the two heroes of the Mushroom Kingdom had completely forgotten to take into account.
They would deal with it. Somehow.
They were driving through the part of the Rice Fields designated 3-1 on the map. Here, in Rice Town, the roads were yellow, and the rice that covered the ground instead of grass was smaller. Most of the rice in this town was brown rice, fried from the heat. There were shops, inns, and even a Watter Bottle store, with the same logo as the other place. It all looked about identical to the last town they had seen, except for the rice in the ground.
"Wow," Luigi said to Mario. "Look at the effects of globalization. They have the same Water Bottle store here as in Sunset Village!"
"And that's not all," Mario said, pointing his finger toward the pizzerias. "They have Pirhana Joe's Pizza, AND Big Blooper's Pizza, here!"
"Huh. You've seen one town, you've seen 'em all. Then, what's the point of traveling?"
Mario shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, but I'm not complaining about there being plenty of pizza around! . . . It's kind of nice! You know?"
The group walked around for a minute, single file, with Mario leading the walk through a shopping plaza, passing by glass display windows of many kinds of stores. A Goomba wore a pink Hawaiian necklace, modeling like a mannequin. It snapped its jaws at the sight of the passing plumbers, but went back to silence after they were gone.
POW STORE, was the name of one store. They sold nothing but POW blocks, in all sizes and colors.
All four people stepped inside the SHOP building for one minute.
"We're out of coins," Luigi remembered.
"So, find some on the ground somewhere," Daisy said.
Luigi used to find "lucky pennies" on the ground, back in Earth. The Mushroom Kingdom used to have plenty of coins laying around, each with some story of how they had fallen there. "I'm afraid it's not so simple," Luigi said. "There are no more coins left on the ground, due to the bad economy."
"Okay, well, either buy something or get on outta my store!" the jerk manager screamed.
The four heroes walked out of the store, sighing with defeat. Walking outside, they found that monsters had overtaken the village! Mice, some kind of enormous version of the animals Mario and Luigi remembered from Earth, were crawling across the ground, gray in color, quickly gnashing their jaws together. Dozens of these enormous mice were running around Rice Town, running rampant!
Mario ran back inside. "There's something going on outside you need to see!" he yelled.
"Shut up! Don't wanna hear it!" the manager yelled back. "You all think you're entitled!"
Mario shrugged his shoulders. Running back outside, he looked at the mice, whom he'd never seen before. He could not think of what to call them. "Hey, mice!" he yelled. "Take this!"
Six mice were looking at him, slowly turning his way. Mario jumped up into the air, landing on one mouse, as fast as it moved, and proceeding to jump onto more mice, rendering them immobile with each landing. Before long, Luigi helped him bring down all six mice.
Beyond those first six, there were still dozens of other mice in the area. "All right, Daisy," Luigi said. "I trust you to be capable. We don't have time to apprentice or watch anymore. I'm gonna need you to be in action with us. All right?"
"Yes," Daisy said. "I'm ready for this!"
Mario and Luigi raced into action to deal with the mice, while Peach, running 90 degrees away from them, leaped into the air and glided ahead, and Daisy, running 90 degrees away from Peach, sprung into action by kicking the mice with lethal low-kicks. At very close range, she was able to attack the 3 mice that surrounded her, jumping and landing on the third and final.
"Yes! Yes! I did it!" she screamed, but she was alone in her celebration of her victory.
More mice were approaching, a few of them busy with eating the rice from the ground, the rest advancing toward Mario and his friends. Now, he noticed, green slime was coming from their mouths. These animals were nothing he had seen before, yet there was still something familiar about them.
"Take this!" Mario yelled, grabbing one by the tail from behind. Slowly, he swung the mouse around by the tail, clockwise, and after a while let it go, leaving it soaring through the air to knock into another mouse.
Only 4 mice seemed to remain in the area. Peach and Daisy got ready in their crane and mantis-style fighting poses. Mario and Luigi each made a series of jumps toward their lone targets, and Peach and Daisy slapped and low-kicked the monsters until all four were down.
"We did it! We did it!" Daisy exclaimed.
"Exactly," Luigi said, giving Daisy another kiss. "WE did it."
"The four of us saved Rice Town," Mario said. "We all deserve a little bit of stuff for free!"
"What's all this banging?" the jerk manager screamed. Now he began to look all around himself, now that he was outside again, and see what the commotion was all about. "What the? RATS? Now we've got an infestation problem?"
"Not anymore," Daisy yelled. "Thanks to US."
The manager looked at Daisy. He looked at one of the many fallen mice. Back to Mario. Back to the fallen mice. Back to Daisy. Back to Mario.
"You guys have saved my shop!" he yelled enthusiastically. "Nobody would go out and shop with this storm of monsters going on! Wow! I owe you guys so much! Here. You each may have ONE thing for free."
Inside, Mario and his three friends looked all around at what the store had to offer.
"Shyguy suit," the shopkeeper said. "You may each have one of these. I can't seem to sell any of these blasted things anyway. With one of these on, people will think you're a Shyguy. Perfect for the little one's birthday parties."
Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy each received a Shyguy Suit. Excellent!
"Snifit Suit. Now, this is no toy. This baby fires beads at pretty stinging speeds and forces. They are lethal. They never seemed that useful before today. Funny how this storm of monsters comes along and changes things."
Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy each received a Snifit Suit. Perfect!
"And you come back any time I have another infestation problem!" the manager said graciously. So he was not such a jerk after all.
It took a while for the four to find the go-karts, but then they remembered how low on fuel they had been. Gas stations were not as plentiful in the Mushroom Kingdom as they were on Earth. It was still quite a puzzling question, of what could be done with them.
"I know!" Luigi said. "We could sell the go-karts for gas money! Oh, wait, never mind."
Quite a problem. Ditching the karts where they were, for the moment - since a go-kart out of gasoline, stolen, would not be going anywhere, anyway - they continued their travel through the Rice Fields by walking.
3-2 was the section of the land that they were traveling through now, according to the map. Endless fields of rice again surrounded them on both sides of the road. Now the rice was turning yellow across the landscape. After a few minutes of walking past the yellow, sauteed rice, they began to find the first sight of monsters running at them, monsters working in the armies of Tatanga.
Cobrats. Big red snakes, capable of standing straight, vertically, with enough muscle power to crush a human. One venomous bite, and a human victim was done for.
Cobrats. 13 of them, running down the yellow Rice Fields at once.
"What are those . . . things on their heads?" Peach asked.
Mario looked closely. "I . . . can't tell," he said.
4 of the red Cobrats appeared to be wearing helmets, silver metal helmets that covered only half of their heads. One eye was covered in a crystal-blue lens. Wiring led from the helmet to the back of their natural head.
"I have a feeling Tatanga the Space-Lord . . . enhanced these red Cobrats," Mario said.
"What makes you think that?" Luigi asked.
Pew! One Cobrat fired a red laser from its mechanical eye-piece, to strike the ground one meter ahead of itself. "That," Mario said.
From the other side of the fields, 7 dark green Cobrats began to run their way. "Is he genetically engineering them now too?" Luigi asked. "They're green."
Pew! Pew! Countless laser beams were being fired, in diagonal positions, to hit the ground. There was no way for Mario and Luigi to go up against so many of them. No way at all.
"Time for the Snifit Suit," Mario said. He tossed the object up into the air, and let it fall back down and hit him in the face, sending its magical energy all through his body. In seconds, he was wearing the black and gray Snifit Suit.
"Too cool! Me too! Me too!" Luigi said, and he tossed his own Snifit Suit up into the air, to land on his face.
Snifit Mario. Snifit Luigi. They had never tried these powerful new forms before. The 13 red Cobrats, and 7 green ones, ran at the four heroes. But they were prepared. They fired away with the black beads that the Snifit Suit spit out from its mouthpiece. The black beads struck the Cobrats, and provoked a series of reactions. Those struck in the lower parts, their equivalent of legs, became unbalanced, stunned for a moment, but they regained themselves. Headshots immediately knocked them down. Catching them in their equivalent of the chest, three times, seemed to do the trick.
Mario and Luigi stood back-to-back, firing away in their Snifit forms for the first time ever. Just when they thought they knew it all, and that the world they knew felt stale, this came along. This was a new one, all right.
Peach and Daisy were wearing Snifit Suits and masks as well. They were spitting out beads, with the same level of force as Mario and Luigi. All four of them continued to walk around in circles, slowly, spitting out black beads to strike the Cobrats.
Before long, there were only 4 red Cobrats left, and 3 green ones. But the red Cobrats became pink, and the green ones became dark blue, and they both began to run twice as fast.
"What the? Why is this?" Mario questioned.
"Oh, who knows! Let's just fight them!" Luigi said.
Pink and dark blue were two new colors of Cobrat. They were running frantically now. But, over time, Peach and Daisy were able to assist Mario and Luigi in stunning them with beads, picking them up, and throwing them at each other, rendering them all immobile.
Having four heroes in action was incomparably better than one or two. Daisy would get killed out there, Mario had thought to himself, at first. She had neither the experience nor the strategies needed to survive, let alone thwart, these monsters. But she was proving herself to be a valuable part of the team of fighters. Every last pink and dark blue Cobrat became taken down by others of their own kind.
That was it, for the monsters that occupied 3-2. They walked for a long time to reach 3-3. "Do you think the go-karts will be all right?" Daisy asked.
"Nobody can steal them and drive off anywhere," Luigi remarked.
"What if someone brings gasoline to the go-kart?"
"Well . . . any thief who gets away with our go-karts will be obvious-looking, anywhere they go," Luigi explained. "Anybody would know they stole the go-karts of Mario and Luigi. It would be like someone stealing a dress from Princess Peach and not expecting anyone to notice the unique details that identify it."
"How will we travel long-distance now?" Daisy asked him.
". . . No idea," he said. "Your idea of walking gasoline to the go-kart sounds the most feasible."
"We have no containers . . ."
"We have the bottled water. I refused to throw the bottles out onto the road, earlier. Now we can use those bottles for gasoline. Plus, even if I hadn't, there's always a Bottled Water store for every town, right?"
"Let's just focus on two things," Peach said. "Finding Tatanga, and finding my father."
"And along the way collecting coins," Mario added. He hated it when his girlfriend ended the sentence with an angry, demanding tone, and he thought it sounded less attacking when he injected a little humor into it.
"But mostly because we're being serious and NOT horsing around," Peach said sternly.
"Although we've still got our own senses of humor intact," Mario added.
"Stop doing this!" Peach yelled. Mario stopped.
Walking through 3-3, the rice was still yellow, with occasional brown strands here and there. The mice were back. Now they came in light-blue, as well as gray. Two colors of mice were running at the four heroes.
"It's plumbing time!" Luigi yelled, leaping onto the mice as they crawled quickly across the ground. All four heroes ran their way into the yellow fields of rice, attacking them. But the mice came in such high numbers. They felt more like exterminators than plumbers right now.
Green grass was seen growing out of the ground. "Got it!" Mario yelled. He ran at the grass. He grabbed it, and made sure to grip the plant at the lower part of its stem, so that he could, without ripping the leaves, pull the entire veggie out of the ground.
He pulled out a strawberry!
"A strawberry?" he yelled. This thing was larger in size than the medium-sized white veggies he loved to throw. But it would do. Mario threw the strawberry at one of the mice, and the weapon bounced off and struck a few others on its way to the ground, where it rolled across the rice and took a while to come to a stop.
"Everyone, start throwing strawberries!" Mario yelled, and it was on: Luigi, Peach, and Daisy raced to find more green grass. Quickly gripping the lowest parts of the grass that they could grip above the ground, they each pulled up a large strawberry, to be thrown at the mice.
Yet once they were down, twice as many mice came at them. It would take frantic work, throwing their strawberries with strength and speed, to take down the endless number of mice that ran at them. All four people continued to labor away tirelessly to be rid of the mice.
Within a couple minutes, the population of the mice in these fields had dwindled down from 25 to only 4. The heroes were able to fight these monsters quickly, though they still put up a solid resistance. Daisy jumped on one, and threw it into another. The remaining two mice looked at each other, then turned angry, raising their backs like cats, turning pink in color.
The two pink mice were now twice as fast in their movement. Mario found a small veggie and threw it at one of the mice. It was hurt, but not enough to be defeated. Luigi landed on that mouse, leaving it defeated in battle. Mario spun the last remaining mouse around by the tail, and let it go, but the mouse landed on the ground, and ran back at him.
Mario ran across the ground, and jumped up into the air and onto the mouse. The mouse dashed away, so that he just barely missed, and hit the ground.
Luigi ran across the ground, and jumped up into the air. He, too, landed on the ground, when the mouse tricked him, and moved away.
Daisy ran across the ground, and leaped up into the air. She almost landed on the mouse, but it dashed itself away from her. She tried to kick it, but it still would not be hit.
While Daisy bought some time fighting the monster endlessly with her feet, Peach ran up into the air, and floated through it. Her feet soared to the left, and then to the right, with no ground underneath. She landed roughly on the final mouse.
All the monsters were down now. Teamwork had been the key.
Yet the moment of victory gave way to a moment of terror. The very ground underneath them began to shake. Vibrations of hostility could be felt everywhere in the air. It was apparent that someone was coming. Someone enormous in size. Someone who was angry.
"The leader of the mice!" Luigi yelled.
"Mouser!" Mario yelled back.
Grinning, Mouser adjusted his black sunglasses, which twinkled with white light. "You've got it, baby!" Mouser said. No wonder the mice had appeared somewhat familiar. They were all working for him.
Mouser held up a bomb, with a fuse of rope that was quickly burning. "Here's a little song," Mouser yelled. "I like to call it: Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes! Cause it all goes ka-boom when the bomb explodes!" Quickly, he began to throw his supply of red bombs, which exploded once their rope fuses were burned to the end, in the direction of Mario and his 3 friends.
KA-BOOOOM! One red bomb went off, sending rice everywhere. Mario and his friends ran away, only to find another blast not far in the distance, as another red bomb fell to the ground just as it exploded. BA-BOOOOM! Now there was a loud ringing in their ears as dust and debris was sent everywhere.
"We can't endure this!" Mario yelled, running quickly in a straight line, followed by a series of blasts from more red bombs. "How can we possibly stop Mouser?"
Luigi shrugged his shoulders.
Three red Cobrats emerged from behind Mouser, to give him some additional assistance. Mouser was throwing bombs at Mario and Luigi, one at a time, until six bombs from his supply were exhausted. Then, when he took a second to gather more, leaving him powerless for a brief minute, the Cobrats bounced into action to attack Mario and his friends.
Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy picked the Cobrats up and threw them at Mouser. Three of them missed. Daisy's Cobrat struck Mouser.
Mario and his friends raced back into action, but they were not able to attack Mouser again before he could get his hands on six more bombs. One by one, he threw them at the four heroes who had stopped all his mice. The name of the game right now was not offense. It was not attack. It was a small hope for survival.
Once all six bombs were depleted, with no fatalities suffered, more Cobrats emerged to guard Mouser while he re-gathered himself. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy were successful in throwing the Cobrats at Mouser, striking him repeatedly. After three more rounds of this pattern, Mouser went down.
"I . . . hate you aaaaaaall," he screamed, clutching his chest. "Nooooooo!"
Mouser's body was caught in a large beam of white and blue light. His body was broken apart, into thousands of pieces, and sent skyward. In mere seconds, nothing was left.
The mice were all done for, and Mouser was defeated. Their journey to stop Tatanga was actually making pretty good progress so far. They just had no way of knowing what lied ahead. The only real clues they had were Princess Peach's psychic visions of what lied ahead, what monsters they would find in the next mile. But that was really all they had.
The area of 3-3 had been conquered. They walked on, wondering what they would do without their go-karts.
.
It took a while for the landscape around them to become dark brown rice, a kind of terrain they had not yet encountered. Black beans could be found sporadically across the fields. Within several minutes of walking, they found the sign marking the start of the territory of 3-4.
Here, they walked for a short time and found floating bricks over the ground, with equally sized and shaped Question Blocks in between. "Wonder what we'll find here!" Mario said, and he bopped the first of three Question Blocks that he saw from underneath.
The Question Block spit an item out of its ceiling: a red-and-white mushroom. The item, spit up into the air to soon land on the ground, remained still until Mario grabbed for it. The Question Block thus became inactive, its lights dimmed, the ? mark gone from the exterior design. This block would remain inactive until someone reloaded it with some kind of item.
"Cool! Cool! Me too!" Luigi said, and he bopped the second of the three Question Blocks to find a blue and purple mushroom.
"No! Nooo!" Mario reminded him. "That strand causes instant death!"
"Yikes!" Luigi yelled, jumping up into the air as it slid across the ground past him, between his legs and feet.
"Well, what about this one?" Luigi asked. He bopped a Question Block, and out came a Starman. Gasping, he ran to catch the object as it bounced once, twice, and three times across the ground, and he grabbed it with both hands, screaming "GOTCHA! C'mere . . ."
All the energy within the Starman transferred itself to Luigi instead. His entire body became laced with white and yellow sparkles of light and energy, as the Starman shrank in size to nothing. Luigi's body, his very clothes, were flashing all colors of the spectrum, one or two at a time. He was overcome with unstoppable energy, but there wasn't much time to do much of anything with it. Over time, it slowed down to a stop. "Well, that kinda sucked," Luigi said.
What was in store for them in 3-4? Two Hammer Brothers, standing on two tiers of floating bricks, as soon as the Starman had worn off. The two foes quickly threw hammers - clearly, an invention from Earth that had long ago made its way into the Mushroom Kingdom, to be misused by King Koopa and his minions - through the air. Magic ensured that one hammer in their hand was duplicated into half a dozen, every time they threw a hammer up into the air.
Two Hammer Bros. occupied two long stretches of brick, each measuring one block tall, 8 blocks wide and deep, which the Hammer Bros. settled on and guarded by instinct. Mario knew the strategy. He ran underneath, and struck the brick above him, wherever a Hammer Brother was standing on. The force of that attack from underneath would finish him.
The trick worked, but a second Hammer Bro. leaped all the way down to the ground, and stood right in Mario's face, their faces both mere inches apart.
The one last remaining Hammer Bro. blew a whistle. He blew the whistle loudly, to everyone that could hear it. He was calling for help, the two plumbers grimly realized.
The Super Amazing Flying Hammer Bros., who rested on two winged blocks to fly around, showed up, assisted by the Boomerang Bros., who threw boomerangs instead, the Fire Bros., who threw fireballs, the Sledgehammer Bros., who were from Giant Land and threw sledgehammers instead of regular hammers, and some sort of new set of monsters, wearing red and black, that Mario could not identify.
The Laser Bros. leaped up into the air and landed on the ground. They were Hammer Bros. who had ditched the hammer in favor of Tatanga's laser equipment, which was embedded into the very suits the Laser Bros. wore.
Mario and Luigi ran away, and leaped up into the air to climb up onto the lower of two floating tiers of blocks. But the Laser Bros. leaped up and landed on the lower tier as well. A red laser beam was sent out into space: long, endless, reaching perfectly outward in a horizontal line. After a moment or two, the Laser Bro. swept the red laser to the left, then the right, and turned the laser off at last.
In this time, Mario had leaped downward, to the ground, while Luigi had instead leaped higher up to the higher of the two tiers, where he found the second Laser Bro. This new figure shot out a laser beam, which Luigi leaped away from, and for several seconds the red laser traveled on endlessly, before the monster swept it left, and right, before stopping.
"We can deal with the Laser Bros.," Mario said.
"But not with all that," Luigi pointed out.
132 of them were running at Mario and Luigi at once.
"We each have one Starman left in our possession," Luigi yelled. "Let's use them!"
The Starmen were interesting things. They appeared similar to Earth's water-breathing starfish, but it was a kind of creature filled with pure energy, which could be absorbed by the squeeze of two human hands. Mario grabbed one, squeezing it to harness its energy for himself. Luigi grabbed his own Starman. Peach and Daisy, without hesitation, looked for their Starmen. Part of being out there, in action, like they wanted to be, meant not being afraid when they were out here. As long as they had the Starmen by their side, they were invincible.
Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy were glowing with energy as they ran into the crowd of oncoming Hammer Bros., Boomerang Bros., Fire Bros., Sledgehammer Bros., and Laser Bros. Knocking into their enemies like a football player ramming into a man on the enemy team, Mario and Luigi caused the monsters' bodies to be quickly thrown away by mere contact with their gloved hands. The Starmen made them invincible, all right. Nothing but a long fall could kill them, while they held the Starman's power. The offensive power that the Starman gave them was more than an electric jolt to their enemies.
Hammers. Boomerangs. Fireballs. Enormous sledgehammers. Red laser light. The monsters threw all these kinds of weapons at Mario and his three friends, but nothing would work to hurt any of them. Not now, while they were using the Starmen.
The four heroes made sure that every second of their limited duration of Starman time was spent touching and knocking away as many of the monsters as they possibly could. One dozen monsters each meant four dozen, or 48, monsters were knocked down in a short period of time. They ran as fast as they could, running even faster once they noticed the slowdown of the Starman's energy. By the time Mario and Luigi's power had slowed down to nothing, Peach and Daisy still had a good 8 seconds left in their durations, so they ran around to knock out every last remaining monster in the crowd.
How many monsters were laying on the ground in defeat? Hundreds. It was way past the point of too many to count. How many people still stood? Four. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy, standing back-to-back in a circular arrangement, had to admire what they had done.
"We beat them up," Luigi said proudly.
There was one last Question Block left to strike. Its light was still bright, and the ? mark remained on its exterior design, so it had to have something inside it. Everyone got ready for the possibility that the only thing inside there was a Poison Mushroom.
A white and green egg came out! This egg, made of natural eggshell, reformed through dark magic and sorcery, was freed from the block, and it broke apart to reveal a Yoshi who had been trapped inside.
"Yoshi!" Mario yelled.
"Yoshi!" Yoshi yelled.
"I can't understand a word he says," Luigi whispered to Daisy, who nodded her head.
"That's why I created this translator device," E. Gadd said.
"Egadd!" Luigi screamed.
"Yes. I'm right here, no need to be so loud. Oh, Luigi! How you've grown!" Professor E. Gadd pinched Luigi's cheek. Luigi was still just a boy, to him. Handing him a metal helmet, E. Gadd said: "Here! This technology has still not gone public. But do check it out!"
This is the dorkiest-looking helmet ever, Luigi thought.
"Dorkiest-looking helmet ever?" E. Gadd asked him. "Well, say what you will, Luigi - but this 'dorky-looking helmet' allows me to read your mind! Ahhhh ha ha ha ha haaaaa!"
What the . . . this . . . guy is . . . a . . . genius!
"Exactly, my boy." E. Gadd removed the helmet from his own head. "I created this device - and converted it from a computer switchboard to a portable helmet - to translate the languages of Yoshi into English and Japanese. As a side effect, it also reads the minds of us humans, translating thought into spoken word. Here! Check it out! Speak to Yoshi!"
"Uhhh . . . h-hello, Yoshi," Luigi said.
"YOSHI!" came a screaming sound out of the speakers of the metal helmet.
Now Yoshi understood. Happily, he waved his arms about in the air.
"How have you been?" Luigi asked.
"YOSHI!" came the sound from the metal helmet.
"Yoshi," the green dinosaur replied. "Yoshi! Yoshi!"
"I've been all right," came the text-to-speech female voice from the helmet. "Just. You know. Trapped in an eggshell! Exclamation mark."
"Hmm. Well, we've got you out of there now!" Luigi said.
"YOSHI!" came the voice out the helmet's speakers.
"Boy, this is just too much," Luigi said.
"Yoshi!" the helmet continued to say.
"Yoshi!" said the green dinosaur happily.
The helmet translated: "I gladly will offer whatever help I can give you, on whatever task you seem to be in the middle of! Just hop on my saddle. But beware of Boshi. He is a dangerous dino, and will try to confuse you. Wait! I only have one saddle. I need to find my Yoshi friends!"
Within a minute, Yoshi had run about the area and found all three Question Blocks in which white and green eggshells were kept, the Yoshi eggshells that the others of his kind were stuck inside. They were freed from entrapment at last. Yoshi, Yoshi, and Yoshi were red, yellow, and pink in color, with Yoshi being the only one that appeared to be female. Yoshi and Yoshi were an ironic match for Mario and Luigi to ride.
The green Yoshi gave the orders for the other three to run to Mario and his friends. Quickly, they did as told, ready to eat the four heroes. The green Yoshi ran in to stop them, explaining that he did not want his human friends eaten, but escorted safely to wherever it was they were going to.
"Tatanga, the conqueror of space, has abducted the King of the Mushroom Kingdom," Mario explained. "I just need transportation to one land west of here, where we will find our own way to achieve flight. We must reach Tatanga's ship - soon - if we are to save the lands."
The green Yoshi carried Mario, the red Yoshi carried Luigi, the pink one carried Peach, and the yellow one carried Daisy. All four Yoshis were now running quickly down the land of the Rice Fields, west of the area 3-4.
.
Now they were at 3-5! It had only taken about 8 minutes of riding the Yoshis. Luigi hopped off the red Yoshi and began to slide joyfully down a hill of rice. Mario joined in as well. Sliding down the hills of rice, individual strands were knocked around a bit. Purple transport pipes rose up out of the ground, and Pirhana Plants rose up out of them, snapping their jaws, so the plumbers steered around them as they slid downward. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy all slid down the hills of rice, while the four Yoshis stayed up at the top and awaited their return.
They were sliding down into an underground cavern, where the ceiling and floor was becoming rock and dirt instead of rice. At last, they reached a lowest point, which went on for at least a mile. Two Moblins came at Mario and Luigi, walking slowly toward them, ready to strike at close contact.
"I've still got Fire Power," Luigi said, and he finally used the one Fire-Flower in his possession. Squeezing the flower like he had the Starman, Luigi became charged with the Fire-Flower's energy, its fire power.
Luigi spit orange balls of fire from the palms of his hands, which struck the Moblins several times and left them flying backward through the air, striking the wall.
Luigi's attire had changed from black against green to white against green. One result of the fire power he now possessed. "Is it really just us that get put through all this?" he asked.
More Moblins, three blue Goombas, and more ElectriKoopas faced them throughout the underground cavern. Luigi's fire power, spitting countless fireballs from his gloved hands, stopped the Moblins, but in the time he spent on them, the Goombas and ElectriKoopa came closer. The ElectriKoopa threw its shell at Luigi, who ran away and fired a fireball quickly at the creature's exposed orange body. Once the orange creature was knocked back, defeated, the electric shell stopped moving.
The three blue Goombas had stepped up close to Luigi now. He spat fireballs from his palms constantly, until all three of them were defeated. All four friends were safe at last. The rest of the walk through the underground caverns remained peaceful, except for the 3 purple transport pipes, from which Pirhana Plants were emerging. A Venus Fire-Trap plant spit fireballs at the four. Luigi jumped up onto the purple transport pipe which it used for a home, to fire a fireball at very close range.
"Luigi! No!" Mario yelled, but it was too late. The Pirhana Plant had smacked one vine right into Luigi, knocking him back and costing him his fire power. Any attack that was enough to destroy regular Luigi, after all, was enough to revert Fire Luigi back to his regular form.
The four heroes simply walked on past, letting go of the pipe-dwelling plants, until they reached the end of the caverns, and an uphill climb to the surface. Above ground, they found the four Yoshis already there, having walked across the surface while the humans were down below. Mario, Fire Luigi, Peach, and Daisy climbed onto the Yoshis, who took off running.
The sign in the ground read 3-6.
.
A mile ahead, Shyguys, their faces concealed by masks and their hair and bodies concealed by full-body robes, walked around their own watch tower, keeping a tight grip on security. One Shyguy, wearing a robe in red, set down his binoculars and spoke into his radio. "Hostile enemies approaching," he said.
"Got him in my sights," a Shyguy in blue said into his radio. From the top of the watchtower, the Shyguy was looking through a Super Scope 6.
Chhk! The radio cackled every time it was used. "Do we waste the plumber and his friends now, while they're on the way here?" one asked.
"No!" the Shyguy in red yelled into his radio. "You wait until they get here. Wait until we can surround them. But you do not attack them until they arrive. Those are your orders. Over."
A Shyguy in pink set down his binoculars, but stayed focused.
One by one, the Shyguys, wearing robes in red, blue, and pink, began to emerge from the many crates, boxes, and metal trailers that surrounded their watchtower. As they ran to find the intruders, all they could find were four more Shyguys, two wearing red, two wearing pink.
"Be on the lookout for the Marios," a Shyguy in blue yelled.
The four newcomers seemed to shake for a second.
"Uhhh - y-y-yes, sir," the tall one said.
The shorter, more plump Shyguy smacked the taller one.
The Shyguy in blue frowned. "Very well," he said. "I want a complete lockdown of the ENTIRE area, and an immediate, thorough sweep. Check every square meter, no, every square CENTIMETER of the terrain for MARIO and his deadbeat brother."
A-whoooo! Bright white spotlights slowly circled the area, guided by Shyguys in white, positioned at the top of the watch towers. Bullhorns made loud noises to alert any intruders that they would not get through the area undetected.
The four new Shyguys ran quickly, for they were Mario and his friends wearing Shyguy Suits. There were at least two dozen authentic Shyguys in the area that they could count. Only the ones guarding the watch towers seemed to wear white.
Mario and Luigi tried not to spend too much time looking at the watch towers, scanning the area as though their eyes were binoculars. Shyguys in white outfits would have to be taken down from there, somehow, to eliminate the movement of the spotlights. But they quickly looked away. If they were seen staring at the watch towers, the other Shyguys, the real ones, might suspect their true identities. Peach and Daisy, as well-intentioned as they were, and as experienced in combat as they were, could not possibly have thought that far into it, to scan the watch towers for possible strategies, Luigi thought to himself.
"We'll get the watch towers," Peach said to Mario and Luigi. "Daisy and I will stay there and guard the lights."
It was a mission of stealth. Mario and Luigi walked through the fields, but they did not run, for that, too, would throw off their cover story, that they were four Shyguys. Indeed, although the Snifit Suit had been filled with offensive power, and the Shyguy Suit possessed literally zero attack power, zero offensive ability, it turned out to be useful in this other way. Mario and his friends had become like wolves in sheep's clothing.
A pink Shyguy was seen from the back, standing perfectly still, holding a radio. Mario snuck up behind him, grabbed him, twisted his neck to make him fall asleep, and quickly dragged him behind a long trailer, fast enough to remain undetected by the other Shyguys.
Luigi looked up. The watch towers were nearby. Two Shyguys in white were positioned here. Luigi climbed up the ladder, as fast as he could, feeling far from invisible.
At the top of the ladder, Luigi stopped for a moment to make sure that he was moving slow enough to be silent. "My butt itches," the white Shyguy said, scratching himself. He looked right at Luigi! Panicking, Luigi ducked his head down, out of sight. It took five seconds. But, at last, the white Shyguy looked right back ahead. "That's better."
Luigi poked his head up. Two minutes later, he felt ready to climb up to the top. The white Shyguy was on the other side of an open doorway. Luigi ran to the side, to remain unseen. But that was a poor strategy, for someone else might see him. So he ran inside the open door, grabbed the white Shyguy's head with his own red gloved hands, and twisted his head to the side to make him fall asleep. Several objects were knocked around in Luigi's panicked state.
Chhk! "What the mackerel is going on up there?" came a voice over the radio.
Chhk! "Nothing, boss!" Luigi said into the radio, lying amazingly well due to panic.
Chhk! "You sure about that?"
Luigi quickly grabbed the fallen white Shyguy, picked him up, and held him up in the air. If anybody saw Luigi, they would see the Shyguy.
Chhk! "All right . . . well . . . stop all that banging noise!"
Chhk! "Y . . . yes, sir, boss!" Luigi said into the radio.
Quickly, he climbed down the ladder. One white Shyguy out of two was incapacitated.
Mario, also wearing a red Shyguy suit, had climbed up the other ladder, to locate the second of the two white Shyguys. Once Mario disabled that Shyguy, leaving him unconscious for now, both watch towers had become unarmed.
Back at the ground level, Mario rejoined with his three friends, and, in their Shyguy Suits, they walked on to find the end of 3-6, with no more Shyguy guards to stop them.
"I like what you've done with your hair," Peach said to one female Shyguy.
"Oh, thank you!" she said back.
Mario growled. "Peach, this is not the time to make social time!" he said grumpily.
"Just trying to, y'know, get into it. Jeez. Lighten up, maybe you'll learn to enjoy yourself."
"Can you two not argue right now?" Luigi asked Mario and Peach.
Finally, the four approached the cement wall, guarded by two Shyguys in red, which marked the end of this zone. The Shyguys nodded their heads, allowing all four people inside.
Inside, they found a jazz club full of Shyguys and Snifits. Due to the interior lighting scheme, everything in here appeared black and blue. A pink Shyguy was up on stage, singing and dancing, bathed in the light of blue spotlights. Snifits were sitting in brown chairs, whistling and hooting and hollering.
"Guys!" Mario said. "This is our chance to stop all the Shyguys, all at once!"
"Why?" Luigi asked.
"We can interrogate them about Tatanga."
"Hey! Hey!" a Shyguy bouncer, wearing all black, said to Mario and Luigi. "You two are the ones that disarmed the watch tower guards outside! STICK EM UP!"
The Shyguy in black ripped off Mario's Shyguy Suit, as well as Luigi's.
"GET EM!" Luigi screamed, and the fear was replaced by action instead. On stage, the singer gasped. On the floor, all the Snifits sitting in chairs spun around to face Mario and Luigi. Black beads were firing wildly through the air.
Mario and Luigi were no strangers to jumping. They landed on Shyguys, picked them up, and threw them into other Shyguys. Luigi used a Shyguy as a living shield to defend himself from the Snifits' black beads. The entire crowd became frantic, and Peach and Daisy, still wearing their robes, finally pulled them off and jumped into action.
Daisy may not have been the jumper that Mario or Luigi were, but her kicks sure packed a punch. Stunning a Shyguy for a moment, she ran at it, grabbed it, picked it up, and ran around in circles for a moment to scan the area, finally throwing it at a Snifit that was attacking Luigi.
Red lights flashed on over the jazz club, for just a second at a time, before it became black and blue again. The jazz club sure had an advanced electronic lighting system, all right. The singer on stage leaped into the crowd, landing on Peach's back, but she spun around and knocked the Shyguy away, to land on a table.
Mario thwacked two Shyguys' heads into each other. Luigi kicked one into another. Peach walked around slapping them, and Daisy executed the Homing Jump-Kick on the Snifits. After one minute of intense action, they had knocked down all the Shyguys and Snifits in the club.
"That was tiring," Mario said. "I say we retire for the night."
As Mario and his friends were starting to exit the jazz club, a blue Yoshi, Boshi, entered, wearing sunglasses over his dinosaur eyes.
"Why you cramping my style?" he yelled at Mario.
"Wha-wha-what do you mean?" Mario asked.
"I like jazz music. You just beat up my favorite players! Now you will die! Commence Battle Mode!" Boshi got ready to attack Mario.
A ramming attack was the first thing Boshi tried. Mario jumped to the side. Before long, Luigi was struck by Boshi's second attempt at the ramming attack. It took a relatively short time for Boshi to completely defeat both Mario and Luigi, who passed out on the ground, unconscious.
Peach and Daisy remained alive for battle. "I will not hit a woman," Boshi said.
Mario and Luigi, however, appeared dead.
"Luigi . . .!" Daisy said, with tears in her eyes. "It can't be! It can't!"
The green Yoshi ran to her side, and was followed, in seconds, by the red, pink, and yellow Yoshis, all entering from the same back door as Boshi. "Yoshi!" said the green Yoshi. (You coward! Now we will fight you, with the power of Yoshi!)
All four Yoshis leaped up into the air, flying. Boshi leaped up into the air, flying, as well. Quickly, he side-kicked the yellow Yoshi, sending it flying away. Then he flew at the pink Yoshi, only to find the green Yoshi flying diagonally through the air, kicking him. Soon, all five Yoshis landed on the ground again.
Green Yoshi and blue Boshi both leaped up into the air again, exchanging punches and blows and attacks. In this time, Peach and Daisy began to carry their boyfriends away, to safety. Indeed, Boshi had long since been Yoshi's nemesis in Yoshi's Island, the island home of the dinosaur species. Now, it seemed, they had crossed paths here as well.
Yoshi kicked Boshi in the side, knocking him back. Fighting and combat were not entirely unkown to Yoshi. Nor were they unknown to Boshi; he assumed the hapkido fighting pose, and came at Yoshi again. Yoshi was prepared. Once more, they went back to exchanging punches and blows, until, suddenly, a Bob-Omb exploded and sent them both flying through the air.
For a long while, both Yoshi and Boshi appeared dead. Yoshi slowly showed signs of life, rising from the dirt and rubble, still alive. His mortal enemy, Boshi, did not seem to rise up.
Now they would all travel on.
.
The Rice Fields had been exhausting. What nobody had mentioned, in all these stories of adventures that Daisy had heard so much about, was how exhausting it all really was to endure. Soda, in excess, caused stomach pain, and enough liters of it per day brought on many medical problems. Soda was out of the question during an important adventure like this. Their one gallon of water per person was already depleted, and they needed more. Nobody felt like walking through any more numbered areas for the day.
"How far is Windtown?" Daisy asked Mario, who was reading the map.
"That was the last section," Mario said. "Windtown is right up ahead. We go there. We find a way to fly. Then, this adventure will be over quickly."
Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy walked on, to the exit of the Rice Fields. Windtown lied just ahead. The gigantic orange flaming eye could be seen at the top of the hills, in the distance.
.
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New characters: Laser Bros. (Hammer Bros. wearing Tatanga-made technology). The mice. The Rice Fields are new, yet similar to Super Mario World's food theme. As you can tell, I've cooked all kinds of rice. The strawberries from the ground were also a new one - a slight touch of the Strawberry Fields that the Beatles sang about. New power-ups: the Shyguy Suit and Snifit Suit.
From Mario Bros. comes the concept that the last monster left changes color and rises back to life twice as fast as before. (I apply this concept to the Cobrats.)
From Super Mario Bros. comes: the Super Mushroom, Fire-Flower, Starman, Hammer Bros., and Pirhana Plants.
From Japanese Mario 2, or the Lost Levels: the Poison Mushroom.
From American Mario 2: the grass which leads to veggies, the Shyguys, Snifits, red Cobrats, Mouser, and the basic format of four heroes. (Only on the Super Nintendo, Super Mario All-Stars, do the Shyguys come in blue, and only there is the grass green rather than red.)
From Mario 3: the Boomerang Bros., Fire Bros., and Sledgehammer Bros.
From Super Mario Land: Daisy. Her kicking is a new one, but remember, everybody (except Daisy) was fighting in Super Smash Bros. and SSB: Melee (in which Peach had an alternate color outfit looking just like Daisy).
From Super Mario World: Yoshi, and the Super Amazin' Flying Hammer Bros.
Boshi is from Super Mario RPG, one of those fan favorites that people always wanted to see take on a larger role, as the villain of Yoshi. Also from Super Mario RPG is, of course, all this stuff about villages with shops and inns and buying and selling.
The ElectriKoopa was from 2002's Super Mario Sunshine.
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In general, the world of this particular Mario story is meant to expand where Super Mario 64 left off. It's like an alternate sequel to Super Mario 64. Starting the adventure at Peach's castle, as it was in that game, and traveling out into the world outside the castle, is the start of a new adventure, comprised of un-heard of lands. This Mario world also includes Mario's house from Paper Mario, and the Royal Raceway from Mario Kart 64, but otherwise this adventure is a bunch of new lands.
Yet many more surprises await Mario and his friends as they look for Tatanga and the King . . .