Hi everyone... (*nervously waves*).

I am SO sorry for how long this chapter took. I do see that it has been well over a month since I last updated this, and I am very sorry about that. But, hey, I'm here again, and with Christmas break coming up, hopefully things will start going better.

Starlit Duck: Hello again! Thank you for your feedback, and I'll work to check my grammar more carefully next time. And yeah, I really took a lot of enjoyment in drawing references from all over the series. I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying the story so far!

Thank you to lokeefemedford for favouriting this story!

Now, on with the chapter! (finally).

Spoiler Warning: The following chapter, as well as the rest of the story, really, contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. Proceed at your own risk.


Chapter 8: The Comet

For the prisoners, although the day had passed by painfully slowly, it somehow seemed to be over in the blink of an eye. Mario, Luigi, and Peach had tried various tactics they knew of to try to escape from their prisons, but even after hours of relentless attempts, nothing had worked. So, after a while of sitting in silence, they had resorted to playing games to pass the time, until their captors returned.

They had played 20-questions several times over that evening, until it must have been very late. It was then, that finally, the heavy iron door to the room they were trapped in swung open.

"Hey, who's there?!" Mario shouted out, almost immediately forgetting that he was supposed to be figuring out what kind of Vibe Island(1) creature Luigi was.

Ten Chargin' Chucks marched into the room, carrying with them a large cage with a tarp over its top. Even with the ten of them, they were clearly struggling to support the heavy iron cage. Almost as if they were too exhausted to carry it any further, the enemies unceremoniously dropped it on the ground. It landed with a resounding bang. The tarp fluttered, but nothing else moved from within the cage.

One of the Chargin' Chucks pointed at the ceiling, as if to ask if they were supposed to suspend the cage up there with the others. One of the other Chucks shrugged. The heroes looked over at each other in the dim lighting, curious as to what was inside the cage. Nodding amongst themselves, the enemies had apparently decided that the placement of their load was good enough, and turned to leave. One of the Chargin' Chucks turned back around, and pulled the tarp off of the cage. Then, he and the others filed out the door.

"Hey, what's going on, who are you working for?!" Mario shouted.

The Chucks continued on their way, not even acknowledging the angry red hero who was yelling after them.

"Excuse me, could you hold on a moment" Princess Peach sweetly called after them.

This time, the Chucks did stop. Apparently even they had the respect to listen to the Princess. Beside her, Mario frowned in annoyance.

"Thank you. Now, could you tell us who is holding us here?" The Princess asked, still in the same sweet and polite tone.

The Chargin' Chucks shifted around nervously.

"I- I don't think we're aloud to say, miss" One the Chucks said in a low, gravely voice. "He wouldn't like it if-"

"Man, shut up!" One of the other Chucks cut in. "You can't tell them anything about our leader."

"Right." The first Chuck looked even more uneasy now. "You'll have to excuse us, miss."

The Chucks fully exited the room. The door was closed behind them. A few seconds later, the heroes could hear the sound of a deadbolt being locked.

"Well, I guess it isn't like we could break down that" Luigi sighed, staring at the door to the room, practically invisible in the dim lighting. "Even if we did get out of these cages, I think that door is a little too tight for us."

Mario squatted down on his hands and knees to try to get a look in the cage.

"Hello" he called down. "Is somebody is there?"

A few moments of silence passed, and then a response came in a soft, glowing voice.

"Hello, Mario, Luigi, Princess."

The three heroes gasped in surprise. They would recognize that voice anywhere.

"Rosalina!" Mario gasped. "What are you doing here?! How did you even end up down here?!"

"Shouldn't you still be in space with the lumas" Peach asked, feeling a wave of concern for the young star creatures.

Rosalina floated to the edge of her cage, where the others could just make out her form in the shadowy room. She stood calmly there in the shadows, seemingly having no trouble whatsoever in seeing in the dark. A faint light seemed to be reflecting off of her herself, shining off of her long platinum blonde hair, her cyan dress, and her bejewelled silver crown that sat perched on her head.

She looked towards Princess Peach, sensing the other woman's concern.

"The lumas are safe" she said calmly. "Polari(2) is watching over them. Their ship is far away from danger."

"But how, and why, are they up there if you're down here" Mario asked again.

Rosalina was silent for a moment. "There is much that you have not yet realized" she spoke. "We have some time. Sit and listen well, for what I am about to tell you, what it is that we are facing here, may be one of the most dangerous threats this world has ever known."


And so, Rosalina began her story.

It had been nearly two weeks ago when Rosalina had first taken a keen interest into the happenings of the Mushroom World. Of course, it wasn't as if she did not usually pay attention to the planet. It was her homeland after all, and long gone were here days of visiting it once every 100 years. She had now been there many times, for parties, kart races, sporting events, you name it. Yes, she was usually keeping an eye on the planet, if just to make sure that she did not miss any invitations to the wide variety of events that the Mushroom Kingdom loved to put on.

What had caught her attention this time had not even been what was happening on the planet itself. What had caught her attention was the large bright blue comet that was hurtling itself towards the planet. Now, Rosalina knew every comet that traveled the sky - a good portion of them had once been her children, after all(3) - and she knew that there was not any comet like this in the area. She immediately assumed that it must be a prankster comet(4), the family of comets that caused strange influences and affects onto the worlds they caused paths with. She made this assumption because prankster comets had been known to travel on erratic paths, not staying in one particular area for too much time. But that still did not explain this comet. Even if prankster comets strayed from their usual paths, Rosalina had never seen one ending up all the way out near the Mushroom World.

Confused, but not deterred, Rosalina had set the Comet Observatory's course for the planet of the Mushroom World. She was not at all concerned about the Prankster comet affecting the planet; the planet was so big that she highly doubted that the comet's influence would pierce the atmosphere.

It had taken them only a short few days of travel to make it to their destination. During that course of time, Rosalina and Polari observed as the comet got closer and closer to the Mushroom World.

"What do you suppose it's doing down there" Polari had asked one night, as they stood standing in one of the many observatories, staring out at the comet. "You don't suppose that's the comet is going to crash, do you?"

"Comets like that never crash" Rosalina had replied calmly. "It will be fine."

"Well, let's be glad that it can't get it's influence through the atmosphere" Polari said. "With a planet of that many people, we would have absolute chaos."

The comet, they had deduced, was indeed of the prankster comet family, a Clone Comet, to be exact. Clone Comets caused strange, Cosmic Clones of oneself to appear behind you, and they would give chase, mimicking every action you did. The main trouble was, if they touched you, it would hurt. Badly. Only the powers of stars really had any effect on them, and though the Mushroom world was more than well enough equipped with a variety of stars, Rosalina and Polari were still very thankful that the comet could not spread its influence on the planet.

After the few days of traveling were up, the Comet Observatory stopped itself close to the Mushroom World, hovering in space above where the comet was now circling. The younger lumas did not pay much attention, so wrapped up were they in their own games. Rosalina and Polari stood on the edge of the ship, staring down at the comet.

"It just looks… unnatural, somehow" Polari said.

Rosalina silently agreed. The comet, usually a vibrant blue, had taken on darker colours near its head. A strange, thin, black mist trailed out behind it.

As Rosalina thought to herself to go take a closer look, something strange happened. The front of the comet flickered black. Rosalina and Polari stared, not sure if they had really seen what they thought they had. Then the comet did it again. And again. And again. The entire head of the comet was rapidly flickering to a black light.

Then, quite suddenly, a pure, black ball of energy launched itself out of the comet and hurled itself towards the Comet Observatory. Rosalina calmly waved her wand, and the ball broke apart into tiny fragmented pieces. She had dispelled the attack easily enough, but she recognized what had been presented to her. It was a warning. And a demand.

She, unlike most other life forms in the universe, was capable of standing in open space. Well, not exactly, there needed to be some sort of limitation. Even she would not be able to survive the true empty vacuum of space. But she could propel herself through short distances of space with no harm, and she could survive in locations most others would not be able to last a second in. One of those places was comets, and she was willing to bet that whatever had shot that ball at them, whoever had sent her the warning, whoever was causing this weird behaviour, new that. They wanted to meet her inside the comet.

Resolving herself, she turned to Polari.

"Polari," she began. "I am going down there. If I do not return and something goes wrong, you are to fly the ship away from this area. Do you understand?"

"What? No, you can't seriously be saying that something like that could go wrong, right?"

"Polari" Rosalina said firmly. "If I don't return, fly the ship as far as you can from here. Do you understand?"

Normally, Rosalina would not have been so stern, but she could sense that something was seriously wrong with this situation. She needed to make sure that her children were safe.

Sighing, Polari nodded; he would do what she asked. Rosalina smiled at him, and then floated off of the Observatory deck. With the force of a sling star(5), she shot herself downwards to the comet, as her faithful lumas stared after her.

Rosalina landed on the comet's surface, the bright fiery glow engulfing her, the strange cosmic energy radiating all around. At first glance, she could see nothing unusual, but as her eyes adjusted to the bright glow of her new environment, she began to make out a shape sitting further back down the length of the comet. Glowing red eyes stared out at her from the things body, but that was the only distinguishable feature that she could make out. The rest of the things body was hidden beneath the glowing comet trail.

"You have come." The voice emanated from the form in front of Rosalina, impossibly deep, like a low rumble of distant thunder, yet it gave her the sense of immediate danger that only comes when the storm is directly above you.

"Who are you?" Rosalina demanded.

Instead of receiving an answer, two shadowy figures leapt out at her from where they had been concealed in the comets fiery glow. As they reached out to grab at her, she lifted up her wand. The two forms turned to dust upon hitting the force field that now shielded her. Regretfully, though, she had failed to see the figures faces.

"A bold move" the low voice of the mysterious creature rumbled. "You can not keep that up for too long."

More of the shadowy figures leapt out at Rosalina, this time trying to punch through her force field. Even as the shadows turned to dust all around her, she could feel herself growing tired against the constant blows from the endless onslaught of attackers. She had deduced by now that the creatures were the cosmic clones; it would only make sense, after all; this was the comet that they were on. However, the forms, meant to take the shape of those that they were seeking, looked nothing like her. They looked more like…

She caught sight of the hate one of the clones was wearing, and felt a sudden shock of surprise. The clones were of Mario.

"Surrender, and you will not die. Not yet" the creature with the red eyes spoke again. "You will live, if you surrender."

Rosalina weighed her options. Whatever this thing was, it clearly needed to be stopped in whatever its plan was. She figured it must have been what had brought the comet to the Mushroom World, and it somehow had managed to make the comet produce only clones of Mario… Maybe, if she stayed, she could figure out the things plan, and what the thing even was. Plus, she knew that the clones would not stop coming when she was on their own comet, and she understood that if she tried to fly herself back to the Comet Observatory now, then this thing would surely follow her. She could not put her children in danger like that.

Polari will watch over them, Rosalina thought. He knows what to do, he'll keep them safe.

Resigning herself, Rosalina dropped her force field. The clones stood watching her, silently studying their prey.

"I surrender" she said simply to the form in front of her.

"Wise" the thing said. "You will stay with me. Let us go down."

A strange, black, force field rapped around Rosalina, and floated her off of the comet. She felt herself plummeting down, towards the planet of the great Mushroom World below. She looked out of one side of the dark force field, and saw with relief that the Comet Observatory was flying away. Her children were safe, and she could focus on the mission she now faced.

She turned to look upwards, and saw that the comet was still flying along in the sky. But directly above her, the creature with the glowing red eyes was now trailing after her. She gasped at what it was.


"After that, a group of their minions met us on when we landed. They then took me to here. I found out some of his plans, but in a short sighted error I failed to think of how I was going to escape this prison" Rosalina finished her story.

Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach stared at her in shock.

"This thing can fly through empty space freely!? Like, no launch star or anything?!" Luigi asked in disbelief.

"You said that you figured out part of its plan, right?" Mario asked, overcoming his shock at the story first. "What does the thing want?"

"More important than that" Peach began, cutting off Rosalina as she was about to reply. "What is this thing?"

"Something evil, no doubt" Luigi grumbled. "Seriously, I never got an answer to my question earlier: why is everyone evil here? It feels like we get a new bad guy every month or so."

"This, isn't exactly a 'new bad guy'" Rosalina said gently.

The Brothers and the Princess glanced at each other in confusion.

"Have we met this guy before" Mario asked.

Rosalina nodded. "Yes. This is the one you call The Dark Star(6)."

Mario felt a rush of fear course through him, and felt as if his blood had turned to ice.

Fighting Bowser never really scared him anymore. He did it near every week, so there was really no reason that anyone should still be scared of fighting Bowser (Well, Luigi still kind-of was, but Mario would not let anyone make fun of his little bro for that). However, even if he was not scared of Bowser, there were many other people he had met on his quests, many different adversaries or dangerous challenges he had faced, that had scared him. Things that scared him more than he would ever admit.

The only person who really knew in great detail of these fears was Luigi. Plagued by many fears himself, Luigi had comforted Mario when he was struggling with his fears, just as Mario had comforted him when he was struggling with his own. The brothers knew they could rely on each other to make it through anything; any conflict, any challenge, any moment when it felt like they had lost, and there was no hope, the bothers would help each other back up, and make it through.

It had been this way years ago, when they had fought Dark Fawful while inside of Bowser's body. It was one of the hardest conflicts that they had ever fought in, but for each other, for all of their other friends, and for all of the world itself, they faced it head on. The battle was fought hard, and it was only thanks to some of their friends and even foes, Starlow and Bowser, that they had won the fight. The Dark Star was one of the most dangerous entities that they had ever seen, and the thought of what he might have done had they failed the battle haunted all that were present. But, they had won, and after that they had moved on, the brothers and everyone else feeling a great sense of relief, believing the Dark Star to be dead to the world.

And now, according to Rosalina, he was back. The creature that had nearly brought about an apocalypse, was back. One of the most dangerous, powerful, and evil adversaries they had ever met, a creature that scared even Mario, was back.

"Y-you can't be serious" Luigi finally stammered out. "He died, Bowser said."

Luigi's face had gone pale, and there was a stubborness in his tone, as if he was refusing to believe that what Rosalina said could be true.

"I'm afraid that it is true" Rosalina said gravely. "He has returned."

"But how is that even possible" Mario asked. "Luigi's right, Bowser killed it."

Rosalina shook her head. "Bowser did not kill him. The Dark Star is a being of pure star power, he cannot be killed. With his final punch, Bowser destroyed the Dark Star's body, neutralized his power, left him an empty, dormant particle of energy floating silently through the cosmos. But now, after more than a decade of silence, he has, truly, finally, returned."

The others stood in silence, processing what Rosalina had told them.

"Can we reseal him?" Peach spoke up. She herself was fearful of the Dark Star as well, remembering how Fawful had used her to awaken the creature all those years ago. "I had the power to free him last time. If we can't kill him, could we lock him back up?"

"Potentially" Rosalina smiled. "We do have an advantage over him right now. He is weak, far weaker than he was last time, and I have not yet found how he plans to regain his strength."

"Would that be part of the reason he was so eager to meet us?" Mario asked. "If the Princess can seal him back, would that be a part of the reason why he was eager to capture us?"

"Perhaps part of it" Rosalina said.

"Hold on though" Luigi cut in. "You said in your story that all of the cosmic clones were Marios. How does that tie into this?"

"I am unsure" Rosalina said. "But I know he intends to use them as an army, and that there is no limit to how many he can produce."

"So he's got an army of cosmic clones, what does he need all of the other minions for. The chargin' chucks and all of them" Mario asked, frowning.

Rosalina frowned. "They aren't exactly his. He is working with someone, and whether this partnership is out of free will, or something else, I have yet to determine. However, the minions are his, L-"

Rosalina was cut off by the door slamming open.

Harry, Gordon and Lucy, strutted in, all looking quite pleased with themselves.

"Alright you lot, the Boss wants to talk to you, so be on your best behaviour" Harry said in an extremely arrogant tone.

The trio of enemies parted, and their boss stepped out from behind them, tall blue hair swaying to and fro as he walked.

"Well, it is certainly nice to see you all. I have been wanting to talk to you all together for oh so long" said Larry Koopa.


(1): Vibe Island is the main location in Super Princess Peach. It is home to many unique creatures (and enemies).

(2): Polari is a luma who appears in Super Mario Galaxy, as Rosalina's most trusted advisor. He shows the player the map when they talk to him.

(3): Lumas, the star creatures in Super Mario Galaxy, transform into a variety of things when they grow up. One such thing that a Luma may become is a comet.

(4): Prankster Comets appear in Super Mario Galaxy. They change the behaviour of existing levels, putting strange conditions on them. The Clone Comet is one such of these, this one creating an army of Mario (or Luigi) clones to chase after Mario (or Luigi) as you play through the level.

(5): Sling Stars appear in Mario Galaxy. They are smaller versions of Launch Stars, and launch Mario short distances between planets and areas.

(6): Alright, Backstory time! If you didn't already know, the Dark Star is the final antagonist from Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. Long before the events of the game, the Dark Star was dug up by Toad Town Archeologists, and it proceeded to attack the Mushroom Kingdom. The Star Sprites then sealed it deep below Toad Town. Nobody could break this seal, except for the ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, who is, in this case, Princess Peach.

During the events of the game, Fawful, the game's other main antagonist, steals the Dark Star from underneath Toad Town (or at least, from one of the many Toad Towns). He then kidnaps Princess Peach to break the seal on the Dark Star, in an attempt to absorb the power for himself. This fails, and he is only able to absorb half of the power. A series of events then happen, which, long story short, results in the Dark Star absorbing Bowser's DNA and forming a shadowy version of Bowser, and Fawful, weakened but still barely holding on because of the dark power he absorbed, is turned into a bug, which Dark Bowser swallows to gain back his full power. The final battle commences, in which Bowser swallows Dark Fawful himself, so that Mario and Luigi can defeat him, weakening Dark Bowser enough, allowing Bowser to finally defeat him.

Obviously in this fanfiction, that defeat was a little less than permanent.

If you still don't fully know this story, I would highly recommend either playing the game, because it is REALLY good, or at least reading up on the Dark Star.


Alright, so that's the chapter. I'm hoping to get chapter 9 up by next week, but as you guys have probably realized, you can't rely on my schedules.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck it out with me thus far, and I will see you all next time.