A/N: Sorry for the long delay since my last post! I've been busier than usual the past month, but I finally got the next three chapters written. Well, the next two chapters and, as promised, another Bowser Jr. interlude.
I do not own Super Mario.
Chapter 39: Shunned from the Shunpike
So upon heading through the portal to World 3, I took in my surroundings. And…wait a sec, what the heck was up with the music in that place? It was so sad; it actually made me want to cry! And I never cry; I didn't even cry when Gwen Stacyshroom died in The Amazing Spider-Mushroom 2.
The background for the world looked like I was in really deep space now, with comets and stuff flashing across the sky, and a large, teal nebula behind everything.
But seriously, WHAT was the deal with that music? Had someone died? Oh man, did Peach die?! Toadsworth has explicitly said that if she ever dies on my watch, he will, and I quote, "Shove [his] cane so far up [my] ass that [he'll] use it to beat up [my] uvula like a punching bag!" Granted, if we engaged in a bout of good old-fashioned fisticuffs, I'd have him in a headlock before he could get that cane anywhere near my rear end, but I don't trust him not to pull a dirty trick by ambushing me in my sleep.
Then again, why was I worried about that? I have a certified Lubba-free spaceship; if he came after he, I could escape as far across the universe as I wanted.
So, time to survey my options in World 3.
For starters, I could access two galaxies: one that looked like a giant tree with some…thing winding around it, and another that looked like a windmill. Strangely, right from the get-go, there was a Star Barrier also available that led to a Warp Pipe that in turn jumped me to the end of the map and the next Bowser Jr. galaxy. Straight away I made a beeline for the Star Barrier, only to be extremely dismayed and shout a laundry list of obscenities at the universe when I saw it was demanding 28 Power Stars.
Wait a minute…shunpikes!
"Banktoad, is there a shunpike around this Star Barrier?" I asked.
"I don't know," he replied. "The Brigade never made it past the one at the end of World 2, remember? But there are a couple telltale signs I could look for from here to try to locate a shunpike, if there is one."
"Which are?" That way, if Banktoad and Mailtoad ever got stranded somewhere, like the rest of the Brigade had gotten stuck in the Baby Blocks Galaxy, I'd know what to look for to find these shunpikes on my own.
"Well, the shunpikes create a quantum destabilization field around themselves, which is visible as distortions in the wavelengths of nearby light, creating what the Captain likes to call 'false redshift.' This effect becomes more apparent the closer you get to the shunpike, at which point matter itself begins to break down as the effects of the sustained Einstein-Rosen Bridge-"
Okay, so much for trying to learn from him. With each word he uttered, my faith that he even knew what the flip he was prattling on about waned more and more. So I surveyed the galaxies further on in World 3, in case I ended up having to explore the world the long way – a possibility that kept looking more and more likely.
Well, beyond the Tree Galaxy was one that looked like a pair of Boos lurking inside a rib cage. So that was obviously going to be a spooky galaxy, and I hoped and prayed to God I wouldn't have to deal with a rematch against the Spooky Speedster there. According to my Super Mario Galaxy Prima Guide, I would've had to race against him again after the Ghostly Galaxy if I got to the Boo's Boneyard Galaxy later on, but as I've said before, I rescue Peach and then call it quits. Either way, I'd be avoiding that galaxy if at all possible.
And past that galaxy was a Hungry Luma. No flippin' thank you; I haven't even amassed enough Star Bits to feed the one in World 2 yet.
Then past the Windmill Galaxy was one that looked to be made of either snow or sand; I couldn't tell since I hadn't unlocked the galaxy yet, so it was fairly dark. That didn't really have me too optimistic either, since in that case I foresaw either the Dusty Dune Galaxy or the snowy parts of the Freezeflame Galaxy coming back with a vengeance.
And then past that was a bizarre-looking galaxy I couldn't even begin to make predictions about. It looked like a spherical planet with a whole bunch of tall spikes sticking out of it – spikes or towers, I guess, depending on the scale of the planet.
And, of course, wrapping it all up was the Bowser Jr. galaxy. All I could do was hope Banktoad managed to find a shunpike around the Star Barrier.
"Aha! There we go!" he said. "See that swirling light to the right of the Star Barrier? Right below it?"
No.
"Well, that's the shunpike. Okay, I'll instruct you on guiding the Starship towards it. Let's hope this shunpike takes us to an opportune location and not right in the middle of a star as it's going supernova."
"Wait, has that actually happened?!"
"Once. We managed to head right back through the shunpike before any of us died, but that's the risk you live with every day when you're a member of the Toad Brigade."
…Would going through World 3 the long way really be all that bad?
Yes. Yes it would. Shunpike, here I come.
I steered the Starship to the right of the Star Barrier, and the same thing that happened when the Toad Brigade and I crashed in the Baby Blocks Galaxy happened. The teal background of World 3 swirled in with some sort of purple background – whatever the heck that signified, but it sure as heck wasn't a supernova.
And then as we were about to enter the shunpike, something else became visible. Countless strips of super-wide tape were covering it, and several contraptions that looked like floating cranes were positioned to the sides of the shunpike.
What the flip was this?!
Why the heck did I care? I was getting through that shunpike, one way or a-flippin'-nother. I accelerated Starship Mario towards the shunpike.
"Mario, what are you doing?!" Banktoad yelled.
"Uh, getting us through the shunpike. What does it look like?"
"That looks like police tape! What if this is a crime scene?!"
"Dude, cops put up police tape knowing full well that people are going to enter the taped-off area anyway! It's just tape; for crying out loud, it's not that hard to rip your way through it! And also, why should we be inconvenienced just because some idiot chose to commit a crime here?"
Starship Mario hit the tape, but as soon as it did, it ricocheted back off it. What the fudge?! Since when the heck can measly tape survive the full-on force of an entire spaceship flying into it?!
Suddenly, a bunch of Lumas wearing hard hats emerged from the floating cranes. "What do you think you're doing?" one of them squealed. "Did you not see the tape here?"
Now time to throw Banktoad under the bus. I smacked him in his mushroom head. "Whaddid I tell you, Gramps? There was tape here, and you insisted on flying towards it anyway! When we get back home, I'm making sure your spaceship license gets revoked. I'm sorry, Lumas; he's got, like, 25 cataracts in each eye."
"Mariooo…," Banktoad whined.
"I don't care that you soiled your diaper again, Gramps!" I cut him off. "Don't interrupt me when I'm talking to someone!" I exhaled and turned back to the Luma. "Sorry about that."
The Luma initially narrowed his eyes at me, then waved his appendage. "Nah, man, it's cool. I've got an annoying grandpa too. He stays with me at my place, and every day when I come home he's made a mess of my entire room, and then has the balls to claim that 'the ghost of Mr. O'Harry did it,' whoever the heck that's supposed to be."
"I'm not his grandfather!" Banktoad yelled.
"Oh man, and you've got one who's senile? I feel for you, bro."
"Look, as validating as this conversation is, are you gonna let us through the shunpike or what?"
"Sorry, no; we're actually sealing up these shunpikes with super-strong intergalactic duct tape coated with adhesium, the stickiest thing in all of creation."
Man, someone wasn't feeling too creative with their naming.
The Luma continued, "But we have to seal up these shunpikes because they're a danger to the fabric of the spacetime continuum. You see, these shunpikes transport you around via what we call a 'tachyon slipstream,' repeated use of which causes a localized breakdown in the quantum thermodynamics that-"
And I thought Banktoad was bad! At least he wasn't making up stuff just to sound smart; I know for a fact that "tachyon" isn't even a flippin' word.
I grabbed Starship Mario's steering wheel and turned us around so we were back in front of the Star Barrier. Great; Tree Galaxy or Windmill Galaxy. Maybe I should see what their real names were and just choose the one with the (strictly comparatively!) better name.
The Tree Galaxy's real name was the Tall Trunk Galaxy, and the Windmill Galaxy's real name was the Cloudy Court Galaxy. It seemed pretty likely that the "Tall Trunk" in question was the tree in the galaxy's icon, but "Cloudy Court" could easily mean ten bajillion different things. It could mean I get taken to court, only all the judges and observers and stuff are Foos. It could mean a sports court that's filled with fog and clouds and stuff. Or it could mean I'm trying to court someone, and it's uncertain if my courtship attempts will succeed or not.
Well, I wasn't particularly happy about any of those possibilities.
If it ended up being the first scenario, then I was no doubt gonna get tried in some sort of kangaroo court Bowser set up, and sentenced to an unreasonably long prison stint. Pre-2002, I would've immediately ruled out that possibility, but after Bowser gave me that kick in the balls by framing be at Isle Delfino, I realized that no blow is too far below the belt for him. Granted, in a manner of speaking, that doesn't make much sense, seeing as how the closer a blow is to one's belt, the greater a chance it would hit one's junk and thus the more it would hurt, but still.
If it ended up being the second scenario, then it was no doubt going to be something like the Bonefin Galaxy from my first galactic adventure, where I enter it and BAM! boss fight right off the bat. Said boss fight would presumably take the form of a sports match, probably against one of the types of Koopa Bros., and seeing as how I have sucked in every single sports game I've played…no. In fact, sucking at a sport is the best I can hope for anymore, since it's certainly preferable to having half the bones in my body broken (looking your way, Mario Strikers…).
If it ended up being the third scenario, then I was no doubt going to have to succeed at wooing whoever I was wooing in order to obtain the level's Power Star. And I would almost certainly fail at that, seeing as how I didn't manage to win over Rosalina in the four months we were on the Comet Observatory together. Moreover, basically the entire Mushroom Kingdom is convinced I want to marry Peach, which I have never done or said anything to indicate, so I have no idea where the heck that came from. It probably started as some weirdo's idea of an entertaining fanfiction, and now it's evolved into full-blown slander and libel.
Which left, by default, the Tall Trunk Galaxy. Or one of the galaxies from the first two worlds, but…no. I headed towards the Tall Trunk Galaxy.
"Mario, that was humiliating back there," Banktoad said. "And are we gonna go rescue the rest of the Brigade from World 1 soon? Who knows what'll become of them there?"
"Well, I formally give you permission to pass me off as your senile, incompetent grandfather at any point in the future," I said. "See? I'm not a hypocrite." Not that anyone would ever believe someone saying a middle-aged man was his grandfather. I was only able to get away with it because age is a bit harder to tell on Toads, since unless they have facial hair like Toadsworth, it's impossible to tell if they're greying yet or not.
But I decided to save the Tall Trunk Galaxy for tomorrow. It was getting late, and I had been up since the witching hour this morning thanks to that nonsense with Lubba. So I did some cleanup around Starship Mario with help from Yoshi and the Toads, replacing the fire hose and putting the glowing blue sign back on the helm. According to Banktoad, it was called the "Totals Sign," and it would tell me how many Power Stars and Comet Medals (you mean STAR COINS!) I've collected. Well, that was officially the first useful thing I'd been provided on this adventure; now I wouldn't have to keep track of all that in my head anymore. Then I welded shut the door to Lubba's room, seeing as how it now served no further purpose.
After that I investigated the engine room, and discovered that we do in fact get television reception on Starship Mario, contrary to Lubba's previous claims; he just had the switch for it on the circuit breaker shut off for whatever reason. So I turned that on (and, while I was at it, deactivated that stupid 150-foot forcefield around Starship Mario, because why not?) and then ordered a TV though UPS (Universal Postal Service) on the Starship's computer. Now I'd finally be able to get caught up on the latest season of Weirder Things (it's better than the title sounds), which I was only partway through watching when Bowser the Doofus attacked.
See? It was Lubba's presence that was ruining the Starship. Within a few hours of him being gone, I was happier than I'd been the entire rest of the time I was on Starship Mario.
Well, as usual, whenever I'm feeling good about myself, the universe has to go and crap all over it…quite literally, this time.
Once again, I was awoken in the middle of the night by Yoshi. "What the heck is going on?" I groan-yawned (grawned).
"Uh…we have a septic situation," he replied.
"What exactly do you mean by a 'septic situation'?" I demanded.
"Well, I really didn't want to have to say this, but I had to use the bathroom, and I…ended up clogging the toilet. And since we don't have a plunger now, I just kept on flushing it and flushing it and flushing it, and…it ended up overflowing. And now the bathroom is, um…do you have a mental picture yet or do I have to keep talking?"
Are you flipping kidding me?! In however long I've been on Starship Mario, I haven't needed the plunger ONCE, and then the minute we lose said plunger, then it's needed?
"Did you shut the door to the bathroom at least?" I asked Yoshi.
"Oh, of course. I'm not an idiot."
Really, because your repeated flushing of a clogged toilet would indicate otherwise.
And so I spent the next four hours cleaning up the bathroom and unclogging the toilet. Which got me wondering where exactly the contents of the toilet go once it's flushed. I mean, does the Starship have a septic tank in it or something? Or does everything get redirected into the thrusters and then it just burns up and is expelled out the ship's rear? That would be fitting, and also explain why the rainbow exhaust smells faintly like a public restroom.
By the time I finished with that, the World 3 sun was already up, so there was no point going back to sleep. Great; once again I'd be adventuring around the universe on a sleep-deprived brain. Before heading up to the helm, I ordered a new plunger through UPS too, as well as the last-minute inclusion of a Super Mario costume. Now my tux would finally get a break from being ruined.
Oh, and both these purchases and the one from last night went on Lubba's credit card.
Oh well. That's what you get for tucking your tail between your legs, flying away on the Starship's orchard, and leaving your wallet behind.
So then I headed abovedeck. As I headed towards the helm, something heavy fell and hit me on the head. OW! I crumpled to the helm, then got up to see that the box for the TV had been dropped on me, along with the day's newspaper. I looked up but the deliverer was already gone. And the box for the TV literally said "FRAGILE" on it, which, last I checked, does not mean "DROP ME FROM 50 FEET UP AND TRY TO CONCUSS SOMEONE WITH ME!"
I'd hook up the TV later, but I quickly flipped through the newspaper. The headline of the day was "BOWSER SEEN CRYING IN GALAXY GENERATOR; PEOPLE QUESTIONING HIS SANITY!" No doubt that was a by-product of our conversation about Lubba yesterday. Geez.
Nothing else interesting in the paper, except a gigantic, unfolding crossword puzzle with over 2,000 clues. No thank you, I have better things to do.