In this chapter, our heroes will invade the Vim Factory.
Our other heroes will explore the tower.
And yes, it really is a tower level this time.
Do you remember the 1337 Hammer Brothers by any chance?
I sure do!
Chapter 49: Freaky Factory
Screwtop Tower
The tower in question was full of fire bars.
So our heroes needed to watch their step if they didn't want to get burned.
There were also Goobonces and Bloodbonnets.
These monsters looked like aliens…which was a bit ironic considering the other heroes were facing aliens to save the Beanbean Kingdom from them.
Both monsters were in possession of sharp claws.
And they could summon members of both species for support in a fight.
Some Growlbears were roaming the tower as well.
Were they bears or were they owls?
Perhaps our heroes could ponder that when they weren't fighting them.
And there were Terracotta Warriors.
These enemies were nice pieces of art.
But it was easier to admire something when it wasn't attacking you.
Queen Ferz was waiting for them in yet another throne room.
"Oh look, this one has a chandelier." noted Jade.
That was a change of pace. Though it was not a big change of pace.
"Atlas will be so happy once I beat you!" exclaimed Queen Ferz.
Perhaps she would grt the opportunity to become a general as well. Though she did note one of the two remaining generals was already a cyclops.
Queen Ferz was capable of striking the ground so hard it produced a shockwave.
Some cyclopses showed up to assist her in battle.
Queen Ferz stomped Jessica with her foot.
"Ouch!" exclaimed the redhead.
The pink cyclops' strength was nothing short of impressive.
Though perhaps she wasn't quite as strong as Atlas was, given that he had been chosen as general instead of her.
Jade kicked Queen Ferz in the waist.
She was knocked back a few feet.
Queen Ferz summoned a boulder and shattered it into pieces.
The pieces were sent flying in all directions.
"Ow!" exclaimed Jade.
That was a strong attack. One that could hit the entire party.
Queen Ferz then charged towards our heroes.
"Your quest ends here!" exclaimed the queen.
But Bianca froze her legs, stopping her in her tracks.
It seemed being a primarily melee fighter came with some disadvantages.
Jessica then struck her with her whip.
She then followed by blowing her a kiss…which launched a magical heart at her.
However, Ferz broke free from the ice. She was that strong.
"You're not turning me into a snowwoman!" exclaimed Ferz.
She then slammed Bianca with her club.
Bianca quickly healed herself.
She knew how strong the queen was, so that seemed like a good idea.
Jessica hit Queen Ferz with a fireball.
This was enough to take down the queen.
Queen Ferz collapsed to the ground. It looked like she had met the same fate as so many minions before her.
"It looks like your reign of terror is over." spoke Jessica.
"I hope the king avenges me." noted Queen Ferz.
"Atlas?" asked Jade.
"Well, I wasn't referring to him. But I wouldn't mind if he avenged me, either." spoke the queen.
Our heroes wondered who this king could be.
Anyways, the castle was in sight.
Just one more level and they would be able to access it.
At the Vim Factory…
"1NTRUD3RS D3T3CT3D! PR3PAR1NG S3CUR1TY M3SA$UR3S!" exclaimed one of the Hammer Brothers.
"These Hammer Brothers speak funny." noted Ruff.
"I'll say." nodded Ashlynn. Why exactly were they speaking that way?
It seemed to be a side effect of the mind control helmets that they were wearing.
"I can't really make out what they're saying." spoke Captain Toad.
What language were they speaking? Were they speaking in a Shroob accent?
The Hammer Bro that spoke to them pressed a button.
An alarm went off.
"PR3PAR3 4 T0TAL PWNAGE! WOOT WOOT WOOT!" exclaimed the other Hammer Brother.
"That's not good." noted Meena.
It looked like they were about to have company. And not the pleasant kind.
Some Shroids appeared. It seemed appropriate that the Shroobs had robots on their side. Their technology prowess was nothing short of astounding.
If only they hadn't decided to use their engineering talents for evil. Captain Toad had seen the marvels of science that Professor E. Gadd had made.
The Hammer Brothers left the room and left the robotic Shroobs to deal with the intruders.
The Shroids in question were armed with lasers.
So our heroes had to be careful. Though there wasn't a moment where our heroes were careless.
Sometimes, they would play a game of flags.
If the Shroid pulled out a flag with a hero's face on it, they needed to jump.
As to why they wanted to play a game with the heroes, they had no idea. Was it in their programming?
Anyways, they could be short-circuited by electric attacks.
So that seemed like the way to go.
After defeating the Shroids, our heroes began to explore the factory.
They saw some Beans in tubes.
But there was no sign of Lady Lima.
They decided to break the tubes. They were on a rescue mission, were they not?
The Beans were happy to be rescued.
"Thank you! The Shroobs were draining us of our vim!" exclaimed a Bean.
That was not a pleasant experience.
"They were?" answered Peasley.
He wondered why they were doing such a thing.
Well, he wasn't going to let them be drained if he could help it.
"Maybe we should rescue those Hammer Brothers." noted Captain Toad. They too had fallen victim to the Shroobs.
"Maybe, but I think they might be working for Bowser." spoke Alena.
"That could be the case…but they could also know how to shut down the factory." said Prince Peasley.
The sooner they shut down the factory, the better.
There was also the possibility that they knew where Lady Lima was, as well.
The heroes decided to search for the Hammer Brothers for the time being.
What they found were Dr. Shroobs.
It seemed the hippocratic oath did not apply to them.
These Shroobs were in possession of mushrooms.
They could use the regular Mushrooms to grow big and strong.
When that happened, they became more dangerous.
They also had poison mushrooms that they could toss at our heroes. It seemed they weren't going to eat them and shrink in size. They had learned tossing them was more effective.
They were also armed with the traditional Shroob blaster.
There were Spiny Shroopas guarding the factory as well.
They seemed to be the equivalent of Spinies from their world.
But aside from the spikes, they looked somewhat different.
For one thing, their shells were blue in color. And they also had droopy arms.
Aside from the Shroopas, there were Lakitufos as well.
It was surprising how similar they were to the Lakitus from their world, antennas aside.
Though to be fair, Lakipeas were similar to Lakitus as well despite being from a different kingdom.
However, as their name implied, these Lakitus rode on UFOs instead of clouds.
These UFOs were much smaller than the ones the Shroobs used.
But they still came with tractor beams, which they used to send in Spiny Shroopas.
Ruff jumped and knocked a Lakitufo off his UFO.
He then began to ride on it.
"This is fun!" exclaimed Ruff.
"It does look like fun, but don't forget our mission." reminded Ashlynn. They had people they need to save.
"Of course I won't!" shouted the boy. The Shroobs had to be stopped or they would continue abducting innocents.
For a while, our heroes did not find the Hammer Brothers.
The factory was not small, after all.
But eventually, they did find the Hammer Bros.
They were surprised to see them.
"Y R NOOBS NOT PWNED?" questioned one of the brothers. He figured that they would be captured and having their vim drained by now.
It seemed that the factory's security wasn't doing its job.
Perhaps they had to deal with the heroes themselves.
Some Speedy Shrooboids came in.
And yes, these were original Shroobs created by the author.
This time he decided to make up his own Mario enemy. He figured why not use more than just three kinds of Shrooboids?
He was deviating from the formula a bit, but he figured that the readers wouldn't mind that. It was fun to subvert the readers' expectations.
These Shrooboids resembled the Junior Shrooboids, but were yellow in color.
They also had mohawks.
They were more dangerous than the Junior Shrooboids, because they spun faster. Hence the term speedy.
But they could still tire themselves out if they spun for too long. This took longer than with regular Junior Shrooboids, however.
The Hammer Brothers tossed hammers at them.
Ruff threw a rock at a Hammer Brother's antenna.
It shattered.
"My head…" remarked the Hammer Brother. He felt woozy.
Alena shattered the other one.
The other Hammer Brother came to his senses as well.
"Thank you for saving us." spoke one of the brothers.
"Are you planning to save the other prisoners too?" asked another brother.
"Yes, we are." nodded Ashlynn.
"I saw one in the next room." answered the first Hammer Brother.
"I guess we made the right choice saving them." noted Nera.
That prisoner turned out to be none other than Lady Lima.
"Thank you!" exclaimed Lady Lima.
"Should we leave now?" asked Ruff. It seemed like they had managed to save everyone. And they had succeeded in saving Lady Lima.
"I think we should go a step further and shut down the factory." answered Nera.
Otherwise, there would be nothing stopping people from being abducted by the saucers again.
Captain Toad noted that Dr. Mario had once told him that prevention was better than cure.
"Is there a way to shut down the factory?" asked Prince Peasley to the Hammer Brothers.
"As a matter of fact, there is. The UFOs are being powered by a Wiggler. If you defeat that Wiggler, you should be able to shut down the factory." explained one of the Hammer Brothers.
"That's a great help." answered Captain Toad.
"We'll be seeing you at Beanbean Town." spoke another Hammer Brother.
He decided that since the heroes had saved them they would not oppose them as members of the Koopa Troop. So perhaps they could settle for neutrality.
At the end of the factory was a Wiggler, as the Hammer Bros had said. For some reason, the room she was in was blue, unlike the rest of the factory.
Perhaps the Shroobs had run out of red paint for the factory. It was very big, after all.
Our heroes decided to take a look at the Wiggler.
They could tell that it was no ordinary Wiggler.
This Wiggler was from Planet Shroobia. She was known as Swiggler. She was green and had yellow spots.
She was drinking the vim that the Shroobs had harvested from the Beans.
It seemed that was their reason for abducting them.
There was a lot of caffeine in that drink, which wasn't too surprising. So Swiggler wouldn't need a break for a while.
Perhaps the Shroobs had made a good choice abducting Beans instead of Toads. Though it seemed possible that they might invade Little Fungitown in the future.
As it turned out, the Shroobs were using Swiggler to fuel their spaceships.
"If we take down the Wiggler, the Shroobs won't be able to use their spaceships." noted Alena.
Though it was plausible that they had other means to power up their saucers.
They had a lot of them.
"Yeah, but I don't think that's going to be a simple task." spoke Kiryl.
She was pretty big.
"Maybe, but nobody said stopping the aliens would be easy." noted Ashlynn.
Our heroes approached the alien Wiggler with their weapons drawn.
Swiggler let out a roar.
She didn't seem happy that there were intruders in the factory.
Swiggler turned red.
Two UFOs showed up and opened fire on our heroes.
Maya used magic to shoot them down.
They struck Swiggler in the forehead.
Unfortunately for our heroes, their attacks did not seem to be doing a lot of damage to Swiggler.
It seemed she had decent defense.
And to make matters worse, she retaliated whenever she was attacked.
She was capable of creating shockwaves, meaning she could attack the whole party at once.
Was there a way to decrease her defense?
Hopefully there was, or our heroes would be fighting an uphill battle.
Ruff noticed a Dr. Shroob carrying a Poison Mushroom.
He could smell the scent of poison.
It was not a pleasant smell.
The yellow Shroob intended to throw it at our heroes.
So he quickly headbutted the doctor to stop him.
The poison mushroom ended up in the drink Swiggler was having instead.
Swiggler drank from it…
…and ended up being poisoned.
It seemed that this was how they were supposed to win the fight.
Now that she had been poisoned, her defense was much lower.
They didn't know how long the poison would last, so they would do their best to make it count.
So our heroes all attacked her at once.
Eventually, the poison wore off and Swiggler was ready to attack again.
She fired clouds of poison.
It seemed she was intending to give them a taste of their own medicine.
Luckily, our heroes had Refreshing Herbs if they needed them.
"How did you poison the Swiggler, Ruff?" asked Alena.
"I dropped a poison mushroom in her beverage." explained Ruff.
Alena noticed another Dr. Shroob carrying a Poison Mushroom.
"So that's how you do it!" exclaimed Alena.
She attacked the Dr. Shroob and made him drop the Poison Mushroom.
Swiggler drank the poison, and was once again vulnerable. Perhaps she should be a bit more careful what she drank.
"Hmm, maybe we should get rid of our poison Mushrooms." thought one of the Dr. Shroobs. Otherwise this was going to keep happening.
Since they knew the poison would eventually wear off, our heroes gave it their all.
Luckily, this was enough.
Swiggler exploded.
The Dr. Shroobs decided to retreat. Without Swiggler they did not like their chances.
The princesses would want to know about this.
"We did it!" exclaimed Alena.
Afterwards, the lights in the factory went off.
It seemed the Shroobs had decided to abandon it.
"We sure did. You think the Shroobs will go back to their planet now that we shut down the factory?" asked Kiryl. He imagined this would be a setback to them at least.
"Something tells me they're not going to give up easily." noted Prince Peasley. They might have more plans than just abducting the citizens.
But at least they had rescued those that had been abducted by the Shroobs.
Queen Bean was nothing but happy to see Lady Lima safe and sound.
She had been worried that she would never see her again.
People were happy to be reunited with their loved ones as well.
Hopefully Lady Lima would not be abducted by the Shroobs again. Though there was a damsel that kept being abducted by the Koopa Troop.
Fortunately, it seemed that the abductions had stopped. At least for now. Though there did seem to be a small cluster of Shroobs still in the Beanbean Kingdom.
So now seemed like a good time to find the Beanstar piece.
Ironically, it turned out that there was in fact a Beanstar piece located in Chucklehuck Woods.
It was most convenient.
So our heroes would search for that one.
Perhaps the locals would be able to help them.
Unbeknownst to our heroes, Popple was there as well.
He had heard what had happened to the Beanstar.
Of course, it seemed like everyone had heard about it.
He also heard crazy stories about aliens coming to the Beanbean Kingdom and abducting its citizens.
He felt bad for them. But maybe he could steal one of the spaceships and make a fortune off of it.
But he decided that he would be better off finding the Beanstar pieces instead. There was less risk of being blasted by alien ray guns.
If he had the Beanstar, he could have all the money he wanted.
Though he did hear a rumor that you needed someone pure of soul to awaken it.
Well, he would cross that bridge when he came to it.
Meanwhile, Princess Shroob heard what had happened to the factory.
She was not happy.
She decided that she was going to send a Yoshi from her planet to take care of them.
One that had been enhanced in size.
They would regret crossing her and her army. She would make sure of that.
Our heroes shut down the Vim Factory! Hooray!
But they probably haven't seen the last of the Shroobs.
I'm welcome to ideas involving them.
Though I figured I could probably use Yoob if I want to feature the Shroobs again.
I could have had Bowser Junior show up and swipe the Beanstar pieces they took but our heroes already fought him recently.
I ended up coming up with a pragmatic reason as to why the Shroobs decided to invade the Beanbean Kingdom. Though I don't suppose I need a big reason. Mario is more gameplay than plot…except for the Paper Mario series.