Chapter Thirty-Four:

More Trials of Great Adversity

Downtown in Mushroom City, several blocks away from the courthouse, Hal Monitor found himself facing his own challenge with his opponent being none other than Lawyer Kong. The challenge; See who could catch Waluigi during his robbery.

Hal Monitor, who'd been a cop for a long time, knew what he was doing. Catching illegal criminals was his element. Lawyer Kong may have been an attorney, but since he was supposedly on the side of "the law", why not have him go after the criminal. And he wasn't alone, a whole band of Nintendo Ninjas were on his side.

If Mr. Monitor had been a normal cop, he would have been in trouble. But due to his robotic nature, he had all sorts of abilities up his robotic sleeve. He had this!

An explosion went off and Waluigi came rushing by with a bag full of coins. Hal Monitor turned on his sirens, giving off his creepy-looking furious facial expression on his screen, and transformed into a police car before taking off after the lanky Italian. Lawyer Kong hooted and gave chase with his team on his own motorcycle.

Hal Monitor turned up the gas and raced down the streets as fast as he could while Lawyer Kong tried to outpace the cop, only to be left in the dust at every turn. The monkey shook his fist and howled; "I AIN'T LETTING SOME COMPUTER-HEADED POLICEMAN GET THE BETTER OF THIS KONG!"

Up ahead, Waluigi laughed maniacally, believing he could get away with the money. But just then, he heard the sound of sirens getting louder behind him. Hal Monitor then pulled up beside the purple-clad Luigi double, turned into his humanoid form, with his artificial car body becoming a standard cop car, and drew his pistol.

"Your illegal activity has gotten to a point where you are starting to tire!" Hal Monitor said and pulled the trigger, the wheel on Waluigi's bike exploded and the Wah-man screamed as he flew off the bike, landing on the ground as the bag of coins went flying.

Hal Monitor pulled up to the knocked out Waluigi, stepped out of his car, and handcuffed the Wario Brother without resistance from him just as Lawyer Kong arrived on the scene.

"NO! NO! NO!" The Kong shrieked.

Despite the monkey's wailing, victory was all Hal Monitor's, another victory against Team Nintendo for Team Glitchy. Hal Monitor smiled as he dragged Waluigi to the police car, feeling confident that his side would nail this case without trouble.

Meanwhile, SMG1 and SMG2 found themselves on a series of colorful platforms floating in the air over the Mushroom Kingdom countryside, going up against Mario and Luigi.

On the far end of the platforms was a flag pole, the two meme guardians figured out right away that the objective was to get to the end before the Mario Brothers did. Perhaps they could pull this off, especially after years of living in the Mushroom Kingdom, and after years of living in a world akin to a platformer game.

"Let's-a go!" Mario said in an upbeat manner.

"Best of luck to us." SMG1 told SMG2, "Remember who we're fighting for..."

"For number four and for Spudnick!" SMG2 cried excitedly.

A timer dinged, signaling that it was go time. SMG1 and SMG2 got a head start at the same time as the two Mario Bros, the two meme guardians managed to run as fast as they could, despite nearly getting run over by Mario at one point.

SMG1 jumped on his fellow SMG's round head to get a boost over a Warp Pipe in their path while SMG2 found a way around it before the Mario Brothers caught up. Goombas ran towards the meme guardians to intercept, but SMG1 and SMG2 jumped on them and squished the walking mushrooms just as Mario would.

The Goombas they avoided ended up getting squashed by Mario and Luigi, who took care of a few nearby Koopas. Both SMGs ran as fast as they could and jumped with precision, avoiding enemies and edges until they made it to the flag pole.

SMG2 jumped on SMG1's head and leaped up to the top of the pole, reaching out with his stubby arms and grabbed the top before sliding down just as the Mario Brothers caught up.

Victory! Another score for the SMG4 team. SMG1 and SMG2 waved to the defeated Marios and headed inside the nearby castle, their part of the challenges complete for the time being. Mario and Luigi shrugged and walked off towards a pair of nearby portals that would lead them to their next respective challenges.

In Thwomp Fortress, JubJub was facing what may have been the most terrifying challenge ever, having to dodge Thwomps while avoiding spike balls thrown at him by his brother Fishy Boopkins. He managed to evade the first Thwomp, but he narrowly dodged the first volley of spike balls sent his way.

His eyes were filled with tears as he made his way up towards the platform above, timing his movements whenever he encountered a Thwomp and a rolling ball of spikes came at him.

The infant Boopkins toddled his way around the obstacles and every imposing enemy, climbing platforms and ducking when a Piranha Plant chomped its jaws at him. JubJub climbed as swiftly and carefully as he could until he made it to the top, Fishy Boopkins was about to throw another spike ball when he heard a cooing noise and turned, eyes wide, as he saw his little brother in front of him.

And in the passing seconds, Boopkins broke through the spell he was under to look upon his little brother, eyes welling at the thought of how he could have hurt JubJub. Their papa would not have wanted this to happen, especially with a corporation like Nintendo heavily involved in this.

Boopkins dropped to his knees, the spike ball in his hands rolling away, and he hugged his little brother, admitting defeat and handing JubJub's team another well-earned victory, if they could call it that given the circumstances of the challenge's ending.

Team SMG4: 6

Team Nintendo: 0

And somewhere not so far off, as he licked his wounds, Lawyer Kong was probably screaming with fury, wondering how his bosses would be handling the travesty that his team was dealing with once it was all over...