The group followed Vinny and Tony across the courtyard to a tiny shed on stilts. Vinny told them to wait outside while he and his partner went inside. Minutes later, they returned with a bulging bag of coins.
"Ten t'ousan' coins, as promised," Vinny told him, looking sour about it.
"Thanks," Matthew told him. Vinny seemed to find it surprising to receive a thank you from Matthew but quickly hid it behind a scowl. He growled, "Now scram. I've got t'ings to do, and keeping my eye on all youse hooligans is not one of dem."
They scrammed. On the way through the shop, Madame Flurrie gave a friendly nod to the Boo clerk, who waved back, looking relieved that they all had made it out in one piece. Once they were outside, Matthew turned to his crew and said, "Welp, we've got four tickets to Glitzville and we're ten thousand coins richer. What say you we take a vacation?"
The three of them gave him odd looks. Goombella exclaimed, "A vacation at a time like this? Have you forgotten about our mission?"
Matthew scowled. "It's called a segue, Goombella. I was trying to make a segue into going... nevermind, let's just find that Cheep Cheep Blimp."
"Perhaps the locals could tell us where we can find it," Madame Flurrie suggested.
In a place like Rogueport, it wasn't quite that easy. The first few locals that they stopped to ask for directions didn't bother to even answer them, the first two grumbling about spoiled, rich tourists going to fritter their money away on fights instead of on charity, and the third laughing so hard she nearly choked. But finally, they found a shoeshine Goomba boy who offered to lead them there... for some coins, of course. Matthew agreed to it and the boy led them north through the streets. Eventually, they left the shops and homes behind, segueing onto a well-tended pathway that crossed through a beautiful park. From here they could see the long line of sightseers attempting to get on the giant blimp painted to look like a Cheep Cheep.
"There ya are, gov'na; the Cheep Cheep Blimp," said the Goomba boy.
Madame Flurrie gave him a bow. "We appreciate your help."
In response, the Goomba boy cleared his throat and gave Matthew a meaningful look.
"Oh, right." Matthew pulled out a handful of coins and dropped it into the boy's patchwork bowler hat.
"Cheers!" crowed the boy, donning his hat gleefully. "Oh, and good luck getting on. That line looks like a real doozy."
Goombella gave him a sharp look. "What's that supposed to mean?"
But the boy was already gone with a laugh and a click of his heels. Goombella huffed irritably and grumbled about pickpockets and swindlers getting younger every day. Koops eyed the line and remarked, "Th-that line does look aw-awfully l-long."
"Well, it's not going to get shorter while we wait here," Matthew replied sagely.
"But what if it takes off before we can get on?" Goombella pointed out.
"Then we will have to wait for the next blimp," the young man answered her pragmatically.
He was no stranger to waiting in long lines. Ever since grade school, he had spent a sizable portion of his life standing behind people as they waited to be served: school lunch, prize booths, shopping trips with his mom - throughout his life, he had learned a few things about lines: mostly that they took forever to move. And this line was truly the lines to end all lines. If it had been straight instead of serpentine guided by stanchions, he was certain it would stretch all the way to the shop that hid Don Pianta's secret headquarters. And the rate at which they moved was so agonizingly slow: it took a full minute for the line to move two steps forward, which meant based on how many people were in front of him would take them roughly three hours, give or take thirty minutes, to reach the ticket booth. But he could handle it. He'd done it before.
The others weren't quite as practiced in the art of waiting in line, unfortunately. Goombella, of course, was the most impatient one and it showed in stages, first in the biting of her lip, then in the tapping of her foot, then in the restless tosses of her head and finally in the constant stream of grumbling that had ominous words in it like "stomp that guy flatter than tissue paper" and "pop that stupid cloud of his" and "shove that ridiculous top hat right down his throat." At some point, she burst out, "CAN'T THIS LINE GO ANY FASTER?" and the bedazzled lady toad in front of them turned around and replied in a soft, breathy voice, "You must learn patience, dear. Your behavior is unbecoming."
"Why you..." Goombella stepped forward and was immediately held back by Koops and Matthew before things could escalate. Bowing to the pressure himself, Koops remarked, "W-We're not g-g-getting anywhere at this r-rate. C-C-Can we... b-buy our way in line?"
"Buy it?" Matthew echoed and became thoughtful. There had been lines in which people had cut in them, of course, but as a champion of justice - or at least a firm believer in it - it was something he had vowed never to do, but if the people in line were generously compensated for it? Hmm...
Madame Flurrie fanned herself and commented, "It's been a long time since I've had to wait in a line like this, and I must say, it gives me a greater appreciation for the patrons who waited to buy a ticket to watch us perform... oh!" She closed her eyes and lifted a finger to one of them as if to catch a tear. "Forgive me. I can be so easily moved sometimes."
"Yeah," Matthew replied. Under his breath, he muttered, "I wish this line could be so easily moved..."
He felt something getting warm in his pocket and then heard a tinkling noise. He gasped aloud and cried, "No, wait! I didn't mean..." but the rest of his words were cut off by a sudden gust of wind that took the entire line by surprise. One hundred and thirty-seven tickets all went flying into the air, including the four Matthew had been holding.
"Oh no!" he cried. "Our tickets! Catch them!"
His voice was drowned out by the outcries of everyone else and the line collapsed into pandemonium as they all scrambled over each other in an attempt to catch their tickets. To Matthew's great fortune, he and Madame Flurrie had a height advantage over most of the patrons and were able to push them out of the way as they along with Goombella and Koops chased after the four tickets. Even so, the troublemaking wind managed to keep them just out of their reach, waggling them close enough to give Matthew the urge to reach just a little higher for them only to snatch them away again.
Then suddenly he had them. One second they were drifting within inches of his fingers and the next all four tickets just fell into his hand as neatly as a glove. He blinked in surprise at this strange stroke of luck and then stared when he realized he was standing in front of a Cheep Cheep in a square red cap sitting inside a booth. Just past the red bar that blocked the way was a set of rolling stairs leading up to the gondola of the airship.
"Zat wind, honh?" the Cheep Cheep chortled. "Out of ze blue, it comes and... whoosh! Teeckets everywhere! But you! You get lucky, no? Everyone still chasing teekets. You have teekets and first een line. Only four seats left! Lucky, no?"
Matthew was gaping like a fish. Lucky? Was it really luck that caused that wind to rise up and snatch everyone's tickets? And he just so happened to catch his tickets right in front of the gate to get on the blimp?
Just then he heard labored breathing as his three friends caught up to him. Koops gasped, "You... you got our... tick-tickets?"
Madame Flurrie sounded very much like a windstorm with all her huffing and puffing. "Goodness!" she exclaimed with her typical theatrics. "It's quite the brouhaha back there! Who could have expected something like that?"
"Ah! Zese are your companions, no?" the Cheep Cheep said to Matthew. "Four friends. Four teekets. Four seats left. Zis is fate, no? You get on now."
"W... wait..." Goombella puffed. "Did he say... four seats left? And we got here... just in time?"
"Correct, ma Cherie. Four seats. No time left. You get on now or wait four hours for next blimp."
"Four hours!" Goombella shrieked. Then she kicked Matthew's shin and said brusquely, "You heard the man. Everyone all aboard, no time to lose! Hup two! Hup two! Hup!"
Rather bemusedly, Matthew allowed himself to be shepherded by his friends past the gate and up the stairs into the gondola, still wondering about that stroke of good fortune. A part of him felt guilty that he ruined the other patrons' chance to get on board, for he was sure it was the wish he made on the Crystal Star that caused that wind to scatter everyone's tickets.
Too late now, I suppose, he thought as another Cheep Cheep pulled the gondola door shut behind him.
...
"Vivian, dear, what are you doing here?" Beldam exclaimed with exaggerated patience. She and Marylin were reclining beneath an outcropping of rock on the beach just a stone's throw away from Don Pianta's secret headquarters. "Didn't I tell you to keep an eye on our friends?"
Vivian, out of breath from running, gasped, "But they just got on!"
Beldam stood up and gave her younger sister a narrowed look. Marylin studiously avoided looking at the two of them. "Vivian, what did I tell you about telling fibs?"
"B-But I'm not fibbing!" Vivian protested. "They really did get on just now!"
She cried out when Beldam cuffed her up the head. "Do you take me for a fool? I saw that line and I know it would take at least two hours for that little ragtag group to get to the front."
"B-but," the youngest's voice was wavering like she was trying hard not to cry, "you don't understand! Something happened and everyone lost their tickets..."
Beldam's look grew sharp. "Something happened?"
Emboldened by her older sister's curiosity, Vivian nodded and said eagerly, "Yeah. There was this 'whoosh!' and everyone's tickets went flying into the air! Mario lost his tickets, too, and he chased them all the way to the front of the line. That's how he got on so fast! It was like, 'Whoosh!'" She waved her arms dramatically.
"'Whoosh,' eh?" said Beldam thoughtfully. "Tell me, my theatric little sister, did you hear Mario say anything before that whoosh?"
Vivian rubbed her arm self-consciously. "I uh... not really. You just told me to keep an eye on him and there were so many people around... b-but," she rushed in when Beldam raised herself as if to smack her, "I did hear a tinkling sound, and I saw Mario's pocket glow..."
"And then came the 'whoosh,'" Beldam finished. She frowned and muttered to herself, "This is concerning."
"What is?" the youngest Siren asked, unable to help herself.
She got a swift smack from her sister, who then snarled, "Mario used the Crystal Stars, you ninny. The stars are aiding him!"
Vivian nursed her cheek morosely. "B-but that's not too unusual, is it? I mean, of course, he's going to use them. A-and you want everyone to find those Stars."
"And once again, my youngest sister demonstrates her inability to think," Beldam sneered, causing Vivian to hang her head. "The fact that he's able to use them is concerning. I wasn't planning on the Stars actually responding to him. If he manages to gather all seven stars... with that much power at his disposal..." She stroked her chin as she pictured it... and she didn't like what she saw.
"VIVIAN!"
The youngest jumped with a small shriek. "Wha-huh?"
"Get after Mario! I want you to keep a close eye on him."
"B-but he just got on the Cheep Cheep blimp. And it's sure to have taken off by now."
Beldam told her with exaggerated patience, "Then you get on the next one and follow him."
"But that will take hours!"
The eldest siren's mouth twisted in rage and she loomed over her sister as she punctuated each word, "Well that's your problem, now isn't it, little sister? I want you to get on that blimp and find Mario when you get to Glitzville. And when you find him, you stick with him like his shadow. YOU are going to BE his shadow. Do I make myself clear?" She was near twice her usual size at this point - the silhouette of a crooked crone about to snatch up an innocent child in her pointed claws.
"Y-y-y-yes, Beldam," squeaked the youngest siren.
"Then GET!"
In the blink of an eye, she was gone. Beldam grumbled, "That accursed child will be the death of me. She never shuts up!" She turned back to her spot and plopped down next to Marylin, who stared fixedly in front of her, not making a peep.
"But if Mario really can control the Stars, it may be too dangerous to allow him to continue his quest," Beldam muttered to herself. She stroked her chin thoughtfully. Then she noticed Marylin watching her.
"Let's let Vivian keep an eye on him first," she said as though her sister had asked, "and if it turns out he does have that connection with the Stars, we'll just take him out of the picture." She grinned nastily.
"Uhh... guh!" Marylin bobbed her head, trying her best not to shudder.
...
It turned out that the tickets Matthew received from Don Pianta were tickets to first-class seats aboard the Cheep Cheep blimp. That meant they had a great view of the clouds outside, were hosted by Boos in tuxedos, who served them fizzy drinks, and best of all, had plenty of legroom, especially for Matthew whose legs were the longest. Pampered like this, they barely even noticed the two hours that passed before the blimp pulled into the Glitzville docking station, and while the ride there had been invigorating, their first view of the famed fighting town was something else.
Stands. Stands everywhere! There was a stand for drinks, a stand for hotdogs, a stand for balloons, a stand for cheap jewelry, a stand for belt buckles, a stand for hats, and all of its proprietors were hawking them as if their lives depended on it.
"Delicious hotdogs! Made from the freshest ingredients!"
"Hats for every occasion! Change your look, change your perspective!"
"Surprise your sweetheart with a unique gift! A balloon bouquet!"
Goombella shook her head, her mouth agape. "So... many... people..."
"And so loud," Matthew agreed, digging a finger into his ear.
Madame Flurrie fanned herself. "Goodness! This takes me back. I almost feel as if I'm on stage again."
Koops looked around slowly at all the stands, checking each one carefully. He finally reported, "Th-there's so many places to l-look. H-how are we g-going to find the Crystal Star i-in all this?"
Matthew took one glance around, only to shake his head when the sheer number of people moving around overwhelmed him. Then he brightened and said, "Maybe we can try..." He pulled out the Magical Map and spoke to it, "Any ideas?"
The Map glowed, flashing twice, and then shimmered before dimming again. Noticing what it had highlighted, he looked up and murmured, "Yeah, I guess it was obvious."
Following his gaze, Goombella groaned, "Seriously? There? Ugh, why am I not surprised?"
Past the multitude of gaudy stands, the main road climbed uphill to the biggest and flashiest venue of them all: a gigantic stadium with an enormous banner spanning across its facade, giant spotlights highlighting the bold lettering: THE GLITZ PIT.
"Yes, it does seem a rather odd spot for the Crystal Star to be hiding," Madame Flurrie remarked, reminding Matthew of Professor Frankly. "That's where they hold tournaments, is it not? And millions flock to watch the bouts here every year. Why would anyone think to hide a Star somewhere so public?"
Koops proffered, "M-Maybe it's one of th-those situations where it's h-hidden in plain s-sight."
Goombella shook her head. "Yeah, but like the floaty lady said, this is a public place and millions come here. How can you not expect that at least one of them would find the Star by accident?"
Matthew shrugged and then waved the Map in the air for attention. "I'd say the only way to find out is to go up there and see for ourselves." He waved them forward and started up the road. "You coming?"
They all knew he was right, so they followed his lead, squeezing their way through the crowd to slowly make their way up to the Glitz Pit and find out what it was an ancient artifact of power was doing hiding in a place teeming with such barbarians as those who thirsted for the brutality of combat sport.
