Chapter 3 - Hands, Monsters, and Boos
Author's note: Hi, readers! I got some exciting news, although future chapters may be delayed as a result. While I didn't land a job just yet, I am starting to volunteer at the employment agency I'm with, to get in-person experience with assisting members of the general public. (I worked in a call center earlier, so everything was done via phone, not in-person.) It doesn't look like anyone's reviewed Chapter 2, so there will be no replies today. Now, on with the story!
After defeating the Guardian of the Kelp Caves as well as all sorts of weird creatures before it, I could only wonder just what kind of craziness would lie ahead. I was about to find out when I opened a door that was cleverly camouflaged by seaweed, and I entered a small room with yet another floating key.
"This is the Hand Key," a voice said as I grabbed it. "The door has been unlocked."
"Will I hear that sentence every single time I grab a key from now on?" I asked aloud. "This is getting to be kind of annoying."
"You want annoying?" the voice replied in a higher-pitched tone. "I'll give you annoying! LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALAAAAAAAAA!"
"Shut up!" I screamed, my voice echoing all around the small room. Frustrated, I jammed the Hand Key into the keyhole and pushed the door open, revealing a rather strange sight.
An enormous hand, without any arm or body attached to it, immediately flew towards me at lightning speed! It grabbed me in its fist and threw me across the room. Thankfully, the entire room was lined with cushions so I didn't get hurt too badly. Before I could pick myself up off the ground, the hand grabbed me again, but this time its fingers straightened out so I was standing on top of its massive palm. The hand rose upwards until it nearly touched the ceiling, then it turned over, causing me to plummet straight down to the ground! Again, my landing was soft due to the cushions on the floor. I looked around and noticed a shelf with giant thumbtacks on it. I grabbed one in my fist, waited for the hand to come down, and when it did, I jammed the thumbtack into its index finger as hard as I could! Much to my surprise, laughter immediately filled the room.
"I'm invincible, you know," a voice said, presumably spoken by the giant hand. "I am the Master Hand. There's no way that I can be defeated, except if you go through that door over there...but my buddy, the Crazy Hand, will ensure you don't get away as easily."
I wanted to do anything to defeat the Master Hand, so I ran towards the door that it was talking about, and once I opened it, a slightly smaller hand grabbed me in its fist and slammed me to the floor like a kid who's angry with his toys. The door closed, locking me inside the room with this hand.
"Hehehe," the hand cackled. "I am the Crazy Hand, and the Master Hand is invincible until you beat me! But look at you. Your hands are small and weak. There's no way you'll win."
"We'll see about that!" I said with determination. A green, glowing shard from what appeared to be a giant emerald materialized in front of me without any explanation or warning. "In dreams, anything is possible. What if this is part of the Master Emerald from Sonic the Hedgehog? Lemme try…"
The Crazy Hand slapped me hard, and I was sent flying into the wall. I groaned in pain, massaging every spot that hurt. Just before the Crazy Hand swung back down towards me, I rolled across the floor, grabbed the emerald shard, and yelled, "Chaos Control!" Instantly, time froze and the Crazy Hand was suspended in the air, completely immobilized. I managed to jump up and latch myself onto one of its gigantic fingers, and ran across the hand itself to see what was in the spot where the wrist would normally be. In that spot was a massive network of steel cables that controlled the fingers, and a large red button labeled "Self-Destruct".
Of course, I pushed the red button, and immediately the Crazy Hand began to spasm uncontrollably, and it quickly erupted in flames. The fire consumed every inch of it until all that was left was a smoldering computer circuit board.
A click was heard and the door leading back to the previous room unlocked automatically. The next thing I knew, I was sent flying through the air before landing on the floor, once again thankful that this room was padded. The troubling thing was, padded rooms were meant to contain people who were mentally unstable, suicidal, or simply out of touch with reality. Was that me, or was that the Master Hand? Or both of us?
Before I could think any further, the Master Hand floated towards me with its fingers curved inwards...and razor-sharp claws took the place of nails. It lunged forward and tried to grab me, but I quickly bolted away in the nick of time. It then swiped at me like a giant bear's paw, and the force of the impact sent me sailing once again into a padded wall. I got back up, and I noticed that the shelf with the giant thumbtacks was still there. I grabbed one, and just like before, I waited for the hand to lunge at me once again. The result was even better, since I drove the thumbtack straight into the Master Hand's palm. With a loud cry, the Master Hand flipped onto its back, the thumbtack's enormous handle sticking out like a stake in the ground. Its fingers twitched before curling inwards slightly, and it froze in place.
"Man, that was one crazy boss fight," I said in a very breathy voice. Treading carefully around the motionless Master Hand, I found the exit door, which was now unlocked. Upon opening it, I found another key.
"This is the Monster Key. The door has been unlocked."
Not wanting to waste any further time, because who knows how much longer this maze could be, I took the key and unlocked the next door.
Once I set foot inside this new area, the sounds of machinery huffing and puffing, the smell of oil, and the sight of white-hot steam shooting out of narrow copper pipes overwhelmed my senses. A metal sign in front of me read "Welcome to the Monster Factory!"
"A factory that produces monsters?" I wondered aloud. "Maybe if I could break into whatever machinery is creating the monsters, then I can neutralize any further threats in the maze, and I can make it out of here alive!"
Suddenly, a cold mist enveloped me, and the near-transparent image of a random person literally came out of a nearby wall, lazily floated across the room, and vanished right through the next wall.
I stroked my chin with a finger. "Did I seriously just see a ghost? I thought ghosts were fake!"
I continued onward, and before long I entered a gigantic room filled with even more pipes and machinery. A tall, narrow machine at the back was constantly huffing and puffing, and monsters were shooting out the top before landing on the ground.
One was a Cyclops-like monster that used a Super Soaker to shoot me with strawberry juice. Another was a robot that constantly threw lemons in my direction at very fast speeds. And the third kind was a ball of what appeared to be spaghetti covered in moldy cheese, trying to grab me with several noodles at a time. I wasn't sure how I did it, but somehow through a combination of acrobatic moves and powerful kicks and punches, I was able to defeat all three monsters!
"YES!" I whooped, throwing my fists in the air and jumping up and down, but the machine huffed and puffed again, and the monsters reappeared!
As I fought them again, I realized that the machine would keep churning out new monsters each time a monster was defeated. The spaghetti monster was chasing after me, trying to trip me with several long strands of pasta, but I was still able to reach the machine. I gave it a big WHACK with my right leg, and sparks flew out of the machine as it began to malfunction, then it exploded with a loud BANG!
Fueled by excitement and adrenaline, I used all of my moves to defeat the monsters once again. Since the monster-creating machine had been destroyed, there were no more monsters remaining. I smiled with pride and walked through a door which led into a hallway. The floor was made out of hardwood, and the walls and ceiling, as well as the lone door at the far end, were all made to look like the inside of a Victorian-era mansion. I walked down the hallway, opened the door, and entered a small walk-in utility closet that contained a red vacuum cleaner and a container of ice.
I unrolled the hose so that the wand part with the nozzle and power switch was in my hand, then carried onward through the next door, leading me...outside? This "room" was actually an outdoor balcony, and looking upwards, I saw that it was black as night outside, with only a sliver of the moon visible high in the sky. On one side of the balcony, there was a statue of a unicorn, and I had no clue what purpose it might serve. That was the least of my worries, though, since I saw a group of fifteen ghosts nearby. These ghosts had spherical white heads, two appendages that jutted out from its sides (I couldn't tell whether they were arms or ears), beady black eyes, and mouths with pointy teeth. Suddenly, all the ghosts flew towards me, and I was completely surrounded within seconds.
"That scaredy-cat has made it this far," one of the ghosts said.
"Oh, we're so frightened!" another one said sarcastically.
"I guess it's our turn, then..." the first ghost continued. "All right, Boos, let's assume our real form!"
"But first..." another one said, "how about giving the kid a little scare?"
Without warning, all fifteen Boos rocketed straight up into the sky, so high that I couldn't see them anymore. I was alone on this dark balcony, with only a unicorn statue to keep me company, sort of.
Eerie laughter rattled the entire balcony and shook me to the core as a single, gigantic Boo came swooping down, only leveling off just inches above my head. It laughed at me with an eerie, high-pitched sound like that of a monkey, and then it lunged straight for me! I quickly turned on the vacuum cleaner and pointed the hose towards the massive ghost. At first I was confused because I couldn't suck the Boo into the vacuum, but the suction was still enough to trap him. But what on Earth was I supposed to do with this anyway? I looked around the area, and then realization hit me. I'll have to push him into that unicorn statue!
I walked backwards all the way across the balcony, the giant Boo still held in place by the vacuum's powerful suction, and guided the hose so that the Boo landed on top of the statue's single horn.
POP!
The massive Boo burst into fifteen smaller Boos, and I reached into the ice container to throw it at one of them, freezing it instantly before sucking it into the vacuum cleaner. I ran around with both the container and the hose, freezing and sucking more and more Boos into the vacuum until only six remained. But then, faster than I could blink, the six remaining Boos came together to form the larger Boo, but it was quite a bit smaller now. Again, I trapped him within the suction of my vacuum and walked backwards until I reached the unicorn, and speared him once again.
POP!
Once again, the larger ghost burst into smaller ones, although now there were only six. From here on it was a breeze. I just ran around once again, freezing the ghosts before sucking them into the vacuum. When all but one were gone, I had to go on a wild ghost chase to nab the last one, but I managed to suck that one up too.
"Yes! Mission accomplished!" I shouted with delight, pumping my fists into the air and jumping up and down. Grinning from ear to ear, I put the vacuum cleaner and the container of ice back into the utility closet, and re-entered the hallway, where a key shimmered into existence from thin air. Also, a group of doors suddenly appeared on both sides of the hallway, whereas there weren't any before.
"This key will take you to the second half of the Monster Factory," a voice said. "But now you have to guess which door to open. Open the correct door, and you'll be well on your way. Open any one of the wrong doors, and you'll have to do a little extra cleaning."
"A little extra cleaning?" I said aloud before running back to the closet, just in case. With the container of ice back in hand and the vacuum cleaner in tow once again, I used the key to open the first door on my left, and was only mildly surprised when a Boo appeared. I quickly froze it and sucked it up. I took a breath, and unlocked the second door, which revealed a hallway with shiny steel walls. A digital sign on the wall read, "Monster Factory, Part 2: This way!"
Without warning, the vacuum cleaner and ice container automatically wriggled from my grasp, and flew down the hallway back into the closet, the door slamming loudly afterwards.
"Well, here goes nothing," I mumbled as I walked through the doorway that led into the second part of the Monster Factory.
Author's note: I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Before you ask, YES, the battle on the outdoor balcony was the Boolossus boss fight from Luigi's Mansion. Remember that I initially wrote the story when I was a kid, and back then, one of my friends let me play Luigi's Mansion on his GameCube, and that was my favorite boss battle. Please feel free to review, and stay tuned for more!