A/N: I do not own Super Mario.

Chapter 41: Death by Playground Equipment

I arrived back on Starship Mario – again, without Yoshi – having now collected eighteen Power Stars and no more Star Coins because those things are stupid and pointless. And having completed that mission opened up a path to the Boo-in-a-Rib-Cage Galaxy. Well, I would definitely be staying away from that place, and thus never paying a visit to the Hungry Luma that lay beyond the galaxy.

Which didn't really diversify my portfolio of options for where to go next.

I've always wanted to say 'diversify my portfolio,' but until now a logical opportunity to do so has never presented itself.

Then again, there was the second mission in the Tall Trunk I could potentially check out. Unfortunately, anywhere I went, I would be subjecting my tux to even more probable torture, since my Super Mario costume still hadn't come yet. I mean, I'd only ordered it a couple hours before, but still.

First I took off my tux and examined how bad the damage was. The whole back of it had been ruined beyond repair by that stupid Thorny Flower; the front didn't look quite as bad, but still had holes in it from the shards of the Yoshi egg I fell on. The pants were mostly intact, at least, except for one waistline tear that stretched across almost the entire back of the pants.

See, this right here is why I hate spiky obstacles. This always happens on these adventures; I always lose at least one perfectly good article of clothing to Bowser's twisted sense of humor.

"Um, Mario, I'm right here," Banktoad chimed in for no apparent reason.

"What, did I say you weren't?"

"No, it's just that you're in your skivvies right now and…I really don't want to see that."

"Well then turn around! Nobody's putting a Bill Blaster to your head and telling you to watch!"

He sighed and turned around.

I put my tux back on and decided I would at least see what the second mission of the Tall Trunk had in store. Maybe it would just be more Blimp Fruit shenanigans, but I was a bit worried a poison swamp would be involved, since in my recent adventures they've always cropped up at some point in forest/jungle levels. Although, upon taking another look at the Tall Trunk's galaxy icon, I saw that there was still that strange structure winding around the tree, which I hadn't encountered yet. No doubt that would have some role to play then. Well, it didn't look relevant to poison swamps, so maybe that was a good sign then.

"Oh, hey, Mario," Mailtoad interrupted. "I've got some mail here. There's a letter to you from the Princess, a postcard to you from Lubba, and…oh, a package for Lubba. Wanna snoop around and see what it is?"

I never knew the word "snoop" was even in Toads' vocabulary.

First I tore open the postcard from Lubba, which showed him at some sort of zen retreat in what looked to be the Wild Glide Galaxy. Oh gimme a break; he trashes my room and then wants me to believe he's taking zen philosophy to heart? I threw that one into one of the Starship's thrusters.

I stuffed the letter supposedly from Peach into my pants pocket, planning to dispose of it somewhere in my travels. You see, there is no way in flippin' heck that Peach actually managed to smuggle a letter to me past all Bowser's guards, at least not without them tampering with it somehow. More likely, it was actually a letter bomb sent by Bowser himself, with Kamek using a signature forgery spell or some other hoodoo like that to write out the envelope in Peach's handwriting. These letters came quite often in my first galactic adventure too, and I didn't open any of them there either.

The package for Lubba, which I have no idea how Mailtoad pulled out of his pouch, was about two feet wide and long, and a foot tall. Attached to the top was a message telling him he had won the Galactic Star Bit Lottery's grand prize of 1,000 Star Bits. I opened the package; sure enough, there was the grand prize. Well, I'd be leaving these here to feed to a Hungry Luma at some point.

Anyway, back to business.

The title of the second mission made it pretty clear what the thing was: a slide. More specifically, a big slide. More specifically….

"Tall Trunk's Big Slide."

Lovely.

There is only one type of level in all the adventures I've gone on that I despise more than castle levels. And those are slide levels.

"The Princess's Secret Slide" and "Big Penguin Race" in Super Mario 64.

"Super Slide" in Super Mario Sunshine.

The slide in "Beep Block Skyway" from Super Mario 3D World.

Hell, even the entirety of Skipskate Slopes from Bowser's Fury.

So yeah. Slides and me, compatible we are not.

Against my better judgment, I selected the mission and started it anyway.

Once again, I landed on the galaxy's titular planet, which looked to be devoid of Scuttlebugs, at the cost of its wooden bobblehead population skyrocketing. They were everywhere! What, had they gone to war with the Scuttlebugs and kicked them off the planet? Maybe. If so, that gave them a point or two in my book. Granted, they're already at, like, negative 500 points for the rampant illiteracy among them, but whatever.

The one closest to me abruptly declared, "Our people. Brave."

Okay, so they did go to war with the Scuttlebugs.

"This place. Sacred," another said.

And said war probably happened because the Scuttlebugs were invading a location sacred to the bobbleheads, and the bobbleheads wanted them out. Wait, am I starting to speak Wooden Bobblehead? Ugh; you know you're going crazy when that sort of gibberish starts making sense.

I started looking around for another Yoshi egg. Meanwhile, another bobblehead said, "You came here?"

Don't smack him, don't smack him; they've obviously got weapons hidden around here somewhere, seeing as how they managed to drive out the Scuttlebugs. Besides, you're not wearing gloves; you might get splinters.

I just ignored him and headed to the topside of the planet to continue looking for Yoshi. And more bobbleheads accosted me with an endless train of stupidity.

"Slide. Treetop."

Do I access the slide from the treetop or does the slide lead to the treetop?

"Launch Star. Up tree."

Do I take a Launch Star up the tree or is there a Launch Star further up the tree?!

"Slide. Show courage."

What, as in I need to slide down the slide to show my courage? Or he slides down the slide to show his courage? Is sliding down the slide some sort of bobblehead ritual of induction to adulthood? Or is the slide what's courageous, and it shows its courage to the bobbleheads somehow? And for that matter, where the heck was the slide, because it sure as heck wasn't winding around the tree trunk like the galaxy icon indicated.

"We protect tree."

What, by confusing intruders to death? Hell, maybe that was how they rid themselves of the Scuttlebug infestation.

"Swing. Hard."

Oh, believe me, I will swing hard when I come back to this galaxy with a baseball bat and play a game of tee ball with your head.

Oh…wait a sec. There was a swing right above me; he must have been talking about that. So I had to swing up the tree this time instead of Blimp Fruiting up it. Well, that explained the planet's lack of a Yoshi egg.

Three swings later, I found that Bobblehead #5 had in fact been telling me the Launch Star was at the top of the tree, and swung right into it. Once again I was sent flying straight through the upper branches of the tree, because I guess Launch Stars are just sadistic that way. And once I was beyond the tree, I saw that I was flying towards….

Oh come on, this was the slide?! It was as long as a freaking Mario Kart track! And not one of the short ones like N64 Rainbow Road on 200cc in Mario Kart 8, one of the looooong ones like…like the original N64 Rainbow Road, the one with three laps instead of three segments. And I couldn't even drive down this slide; I'd have to slide down it.

And for that matter, it most certainly did not wind around the Starting Planet!

I landed on the planet at the top of the slide, which looked like it was made from yet another tall trunk. And so did the slide; the whole thing looked to be made of wood. What the heck made all the trees in this place so abnormally huge? Were they on tree steroids or something?

Waiting for me on the planet were more bobbleheads. Oh joy.

"Slide! Never quit!"

Does the slide never quit at doing something or was he telling me to never quit at going down the slide?

I snagged a checkpoint flag and headed to a higher section of the planet.

"Sharp red things. No touch!"

Yeah, no kidding! If something's sharp, I don't touch it…unless it's on a dare. But that unnerved me, because it seemed pretty likely that he was talking about those gosh dang misnomers Thorny Flowers. And since I hadn't encountered any yet…that probably meant they were waiting for me somewhere on the slide.

"We watch slide."

What, you just watch the slide all day long? And I thought being a plumber was boring.

And finally, one next to the slide told me, "Be brave. Jump in."

I peered over the lip of the slide. It headed straight down for a little bit, then curved, not allowing me to see what came next.

Yeaaaaaah, maybe I made a mistake coming here. I went to turn around and then exit the mission, but the bobblehead right next to the slide said, "Be brave. Jump. In."

"Are you threatening me?" I asked.

Yeah, I know, the words he said don't really sound threatening, but…there were threatening undertones there.

"Jump. In." Then the bobblehead PUSHED ME DOWN THE SLIDE! Backwards, at that, so I couldn't tell where in the ever-loving heck I was going!

Almost immediately I hit one of the slide's borders and bounced off it in the opposite direction. Come on, flip over, gosh dang it! At least sliding down on my stomach I'd be able to see where I was going!

Then I smacked into something else and tumbled through the air, eventually landing right back on my back. Not sure what the heck I hit, but in that brief tumble, I saw that a Spiny was marching up the slide towards me.

Oh no. Oh nonononono, not the Spiny-induced paralysis again!

I was headed right for the creep, but at least I shouldn't take any damage from hitting him. I never have in the past when I run into an enemy while I'm sliding down a slope.

Sure enough, I slid right into the Spiny, but lost another wedge of health to the collision. What the heck?! And worse, I tumbled through the air again and fell right off the edge of the slide.

TOO BAD!

I regenerated at the checkpoint flag. Great; that stupid bobblehead had gone and completely wasted one of my lives! And for what? Seriously, what termite crawled up his wooden ass and died that he felt the uncontrollable urge to shove me down the slide? I'm trying to save all you ungrateful A-minor creatures from Bowser, and then you go and murder me!

Fortunately, my tux had been spared any further damage, but the same could not be said for my now-aching head. Then there was the matter of Baby Luma, who was griping that he almost got torn to shreds by those Spinies I rammed into (so I guess the first one was a Spiny too).

Operative word, buster: ALMOST!

This time as I approached the slide, I made sure I was well out of the pushing range of the bobblehead I dubbed "Pushy." So, at least now I knew what awaited me for the first part of the slide: Spinies. And I also now knew that the old rule of "If you're sliding down a slope and run into an enemy, you defeat said enemy and take no damage" for some reason no longer applied.

Like this mission needed to be made any harder.

I stretched my left leg over the edge of the slide, but as soon as it made contact with the wood of the slide, I fell towards the slide like I was magnetically attracted to it. What the flip?!

My head banged on the lip of the slide as I flew over it. OW! Great, now I probably had a concussion or some other cranial injury. At least now I was sliding the right way, but now my vision was all blurry. All I could hope was that if I died, I'd regenerate concussion-free, just like I regenerated with my legs unbroken back in the Flip-Swap Galaxy.

So I rounded the first bend and…wait, there were three Spinies there? Oh gosh, this slide was gonna be even harder than I-

What the fudge?

I slid right through one of the Spinies, no damage taken, no oddly satisfying 'plunk!' sound as I slid into it, no nothing. Wait a sec…argh, now I was hallucinating too? There was probably only one Spiny, and the other two were just in my head.

Should I even try continuing or just leap off the slide now and end this botched attempt at the mission?

After rounding the next bend, I saw at least seven Spinies approaching me where I knew for a fact there had only been one before.

Yeah, jumping off it was. This was just stupid.

TOO BAD!

Fortunately, whatever injury I sustained obviously did go away when I regenerated at the start of the planet. So I'd wasted two lives, and had only made it – by my estimates – a fraction of the way down the slide. How the heck would I ever make it all the way? I should just leave now. I didn't need to complete this mission that badly; there were lots of alternatives.

Of course, there was the issue of my pride. The stupid slide had INSULTED ME by denying me passage down it, and before I could move on with my life, I had to exact my revenge on it. Revenge that I would have by sliding down the slide successfully.

So down the slide again it was.

This time I managed to at least start down the slide in the right position and made it past the first two Spinies with no issue. After that was a third one, and then the slide entered a tunnel covered in a thin layer of moss.

And inside it were – I kid you not – FOUR ROWS of Thorny Flowers!

Actually, the first row wasn't even of Thorny Flowers. Whatever the heck they were, they were lower-lying and darker red than Thorny Flowers. Some derivative species? Maybe. Or maybe this were baby Thorny Flowers and this was some sort of bizarre nursery for them.

I jumped over the Thorny Flowers, but jumped too soon. I came down on the back end of them…and the seat of my pants was ripped away, along with a sizable chunk of their legs.

NOOO! MY TUX PANTS!

That tux was the last shred of dignity I had on this crazy journey! I looked back, and sure enough, there was the other half of my pants, strewn across the tops of the Thorny Flowers.

But looking back led me to crash right into the second ring.

Several large tears were ripped in the front of my tux, and the Thorny Flower was straight-up uprooted and flung farther down the tunnel. And in a stroke of misfortune I didn't even think the universe would stoop so low as to cursing me with, it landed right in the middle of the only gap in the third ring of Thorny Flowers.

Are you flippin' kidding me?! There was no way through now, so I was just gonna die all over again!

TOO BAD!