Chapter 55: I Go to Hell

Star Bunny continued punching me in the face as we approached the Starting Planet. As soon as we landed, I swung Star Bunny around and threw him into a broken stone wall nearby. The planet itself was made a long, thin, strip of stone, with a red carpet on it most of it. And…oh, those weren't Boos! There were lots of ghosts further down the planet, but they sure as hell weren't Boos. In fact, they looked a bit like Octoombas.

Oh my gosh, these were the ghosts of all the Octoombas I've ever killed. It's official, I'd ended up in Hell. Where else would Octoombas go when they die?

Suddenly, Star Bunny yelled, "BOI…YOIIIING!" and kicked me in the face. OW! I stumbled backwards, and before I could regain my balance, the rabbit kicked me again and knocked me right off the planet.

TOO BAD!

I respawned on the Starting Planet. Star Bunny was waiting for me. "Boiyoing! Back for more, huh?" he said. Before I could dodge him, he kicked me again, and I fell off the planet again.

TOO BAD!

I respawned on the Starting Planet, and Star Bunny immediately kicked me off AGAIN!

TOO BAD!

What in the flip?! What had I ever done to deserve this Star Bunny's wrath? Punch him in the mouth? Yeah, everyone punches people in the mouth; it's not something that should be taken personally! I'm starting to think Bowser isn't even actually my nemesis anymore; the collective Star Bunny race is my nemesis. Between this one and (indirectly) the one I had to catch in the Cosmic Cavern…wait, no, Comic Cave…argh, whatever its name was, the water galaxy in World 2, I've died more times than I have at Bowser's hands in the past three decades.

I landed back on the planet again. "Boiyoing!" Star Bunny said, kicking me again. "Back for more again, huh?"

But this time his kick was too low, and I just staggered backwards a few feet. I teetered on the edge of the planet for a precarious second, but didn't fall.

And now we were in business.

Instead of getting into another slug-fest with the rabbit that would potentially just end in me getting knocked off the planet once again, I hightailed it away from him. I ran down the red carpet…only to find that it was moving backwards, so I was making progress at basically half the rate I usually would. And thanks to Star Bunny's practice of moving by hopping instead of running, he was still progressing at his normal rate, which was like three times as fast as I was currently going. So I switched tactics and decided I'd be long-jumping down the planet instead of running.

I jumped past the first group of…Octoghosts, I guess I'll call them, with Star Bunny hot on my heels. "Boiyoing, boiyoing!" he chirruped. "Get back here, boiyoing!"

Man, did he ever get tired of cursing? This was reminding me of that time I was watching the news and saw a Koopa getting arrested for one of those stupid, made-up crimes like growing dandelions, or singing "Happy Birthday" in public, or offensive pass interference – wait, no, that last one's football, never mind – and cursing up a storm as he was getting hauled into the police car. But basically every other word he said was being bleeped out on TV, so I didn't even have a clue what the hell he was rambling on about.

I leapt inside another circling group of Octoghosts, then timed a careful jump over them. Ahead of me were a Launch Star and a teleporter. Yeah, that's not even a decision.

I leapt in the Launch Star and rolled around like I did in the Co-Star Luma's Launch Star back on Starship Mario until it finally registered that I had Star-Spun and shot me to the next planet. But that cost me precious time that the Star Bunny used to just about catch up to me. Don't even tell me this was gonna end up like the Great Honeybloom Bee Chase, where some psychopath is pursuing me through a whole mission.

I landed on a dirt planet with fragments of more red carpet-covered stone scattered across it. And at the end of the planet was some path of green-carpeted stone moving from left to right down a narrow "corridor" flanked by walls of purple flames on both sides. And soon after the path vanished into the right set of flames, it reappeared out the left set of flames. Oh boy. This did NOT look like an area I wanted to be chased through. And I had a feeling that if I vanished into those purple flames, something horrible would happen to me.

After I'd completed my first galactic adventure (well, as much of it as was absolutely necessary to rescue Peach), the Toad Brigade decided to travel the universe filming a paranormal "reality" TV show called Cosmic Monsters. Among the "haunted" places they supposedly investigated were an abandoned rocket in the Ghostly Galaxy that was inhabited by murderous creatures called Amoguses, a "hole to Hell" inside the giant pits on the main planet in the Dusty Dune Galaxy, and another "hole to Hell" inside a ring of purple flames hidden somewhere among the auroras in the Freezeflame Galaxy.

It was easy to scoff at back then, but not now when I was staring down two rows of the aforementioned purple flames. Granted, I was already in Hell, so I wasn't exactly sure what worse place these flames could lead to. Or maybe this place was where that portal in the Freezeflame Galaxy led. Either way, I wasn't taking my chances. Some worse form of Hell, or the Freezeflame Galaxy – neither of them were exactly places I wanted to be sent.

As I was waiting for the beginning of the path to reappear again, Star Bunny kicked me in the back and sent me sprawling forward. I whirled around to see the rabbit leering over me. He got here faster than I thought he would. Either that or I spent more time lost in my thoughts than I thought I had.

"Boiyoing!" he said. "Get up and fight me, boiyoing!"

He always does this; he beats me down and then tells me to get up and fight him. The only reason I'm not already upright is because of you, you idiot!

He aimed another kick at me, but in my peripheral vision, I saw the path start to appear from the purple flames again. Just before Star Bunny could kick me, I rolled onto the platform. I got to my feet and took off running away from the Star Bunny.

"Hey!" he squeaked. "Get back here, boiyoing!"

Yeah, fat chance of that!

The path turned to the left, then right. Star Bunny hopped after me down the path, but I managed to stay ahead of him. After making it past a procession of Octoghosts crossing the path, I made a few more turns down short sections of the path. Then….

Hoo boy.

The path cut back to the right, to a section that was only a few seconds away from the right wall of flames, then continued straight for a short ways before turning back to the left. This would be precarious…but on the other hand, if I got past that section, I would hopefully be able to leave Star Bunny behind for good. I would be cutting it close getting through there as it was, and Star Bunny was still a few seconds behind me. Barring some sort of impossible super-long-jump on his part, there was no way he'd be able to follow me.

I long-jumped to the right as the very edge of the straight section of the path entered the purple flames. I edged right past the fire and leapt back to the left. Whew; crisis averted.

Star Bunny, meanwhile, leapt onto the few inches of path remaining outside the flames. But before he could execute another jump to follow me, the purple flames consumed him, and he vanished.

Adios, you mutinous rabbit.

Let's see…at this point I could either see the mission through to the end, or head back to Starship Mario. Well, I was already here, and didn't plan on coming back here ever again, so might as well get a Power Star out of this galaxy while I was at it.

After that were some more stone pathways that I managed to make it down without finding out where the purple flames led, more Octoghosts, and a Comet Medal that I went out of my way to get; not really sure why, though, given that this was the last place I wanted to be returning to for a Prankster Comet. I guess the best I could hope for was a Speedy Comet, since I had already made it this far in the galaxy under speed run-ish conditions. And that's assuming there'll even be Speedy Comets this time around; I just realized that, for all I know, this galactic adventure could have completely different types of Prankster Comets than Super Mario Galaxy did.

As I headed down the remaining stone pathways, now that my mind wasn't focused on outpacing Star Bunny anymore, I realized that the music in this galaxy sounded familiar…and not good familiar. Bad familiar, as in the music that played inside the ghost houses in Super Mario World. And there was that remixed version of it that played in the Ghost Valley Mario Kart courses.

Both of them creepy, derelict, abandoned, haunted areas I didn't particularly want to be reminded of. And now this music could add "soundtrack to Hell" to its resumé too.

At the end of the area – well, not technically the end, since the Comet Medal was actually located past it – was a Warp Pipe (thank goodness it wasn't another Launch Star; that would've just been a pain in the ass) being circled by three Octoghosts. I leapt over them and down the pipe.

I reappeared in some sort of stereotypical haunted library-like room. Of course, what's a haunted level without a library. Seriously, what is it with libraries and ghosts?

On one wall were several bookshelves and two strange, blank picture frames, and farther into the room were a checkpoint flag, a Yoshi egg, and a glowing yellow fruit that I assumed was the mission's titular Bulb Berry. But beyond that was nothing except another small area way off in the distance, with no clear way for me to access it. This looked like it was going to be one of those matter splatter areas from my first galactic adventure, so obviously there had to be some way to activate that function. And then I'd presumably need Yoshi to navigate the matter splatter area. Not sure what purpose the Bulb Berry was going to serve, because now seeing that Yoshi was here I figured it was going to be another Yoshi power-up, and that it would give Yoshi the abilities of the Glowing Baby Yoshis from New Super Mario Bros. U. But it's not like the area I was in now was too dark for me to see my surroundings, so…?

Well, time to start looking for some way to activate the matter splatter feature. Let's see…maybe a trick book? Like those fake books that sit on bookshelves in spy movies, and when they're pulled, a secret passage opens up or something.

This would be faster with Yoshi's help.

I snagged the checkpoint flag, then leapt on Yoshi's egg and he popped out. "Oh, hey Mario," he said. "Oh man, where the heck are we?"

"Some haunted galaxy that I'm pretty sure is actually Hell," I said.

"So this is Hell," Yoshi said. "Not really as bad as I thought it would be. At least there's books to read. And, you know, not flames everywhere. Just some small blue ones in that candelabrum over there." He pointed to the far end of the room.

"Start pulling books off the shelves," I said. "There's gotta be a fake book around here somewhere that makes a path appear for us to get over there if we pull on it." I pointed to the distant section of land.

"Will do," Yoshi said.

I started randomly pulling books off the shelves. "So, how are things going on Starship Mario? Can you see both the Starship and what's going on here like a split screen like you said you could back in the Yoshi Star Galaxy?"

"Yeah, and it's not going well," Yoshi said. "The Lumas are winning."

"How? I got rid of Star Bunny for them!"

"Yeah, but you also got rid of you, and it seems like you're our best strategist. How Bartholomew came to be the Toad Brigade Captain is beyond me, because he is straight-up horrible at commanding people into battle."

"Supposedly all he did to get the position was find a headlamp that Peach shot out of her castle's cannon." Then again, that information came from the Blue Toad in the Fluffy Bluff Galaxy, who for all I know, might've been a member of Bowser's Not-Toad Brigade. I mean, he was right about the shunpikes around Star Barriers, but even the worst shot in the world is gonna hit his target through sheer luck every now and then, if you get my gist.

Yoshi continued, "The Toad Brigade's still fighting the Lumas, but it's a losing battle. The Lumas captured Percy and they're using pieces of furniture from your old room to scrap together some sort of torture device to stick Percy in. And I'm hiding in the pine tree, because somehow Lubba lost track of me in the battle."

Typical Yoshi cowardice.

"Hey Mario, what about this fruit?" Yoshi pointed to the Bulb Berry. "What does this do?"

"It's probably just going to make you glow," I said. "Which won't presently help us." I tore more books off the shelves. Ugh; a copy of Kamek's Guide to Villainy was here.

"Well, I'm kinda hungry, so I'm going to eat it anyway," Yoshi said.

I tossed Kamek's Guide to Villainy at him. "Feel free to eat this too, if you want."

"Death to your stupid book, Kamek my nemesis!" Yoshi said before scarfing down the sad excuse for literature. Then he walked over to the fruit and ate it. Suddenly, he gave off a brilliant yellow glow that…what? It illuminated the beginnings of a path extending from the mini library towards the distant chunk of land. And….

What in all flippin' garbage?

As Yoshi's light fell on the "empty" picture frames on the walls, it revealed pictures of Bulb Berries in them. First all the paintings of Star Bits on Starship Mario, now this? Man, there's some weird folks out there who seriously need to get a life.

"Look, Mario, a path," Yoshi said. "I guess there is no fake book after all."

Well, we still destroyed a copy of Kamek's Guide to Villainy, so I'll call that a win.

I hopped on Yoshi's back, and we headed down the path. But as we approached the next area, I noticed the radius of Yoshi's light was shrinking. So just like the Dash/Ghost Pepper and Blimp Fruit, the Bulb Berry's effects were only temporary.

We made it to the section of land, where there was another Bulb Berry, as well as a locked door blocking the path. Off to the side hovering over what I assumed was another Bulb Berry path was a key to unlock it. Only the key wasn't even necessary, because it was all too easy to just FLUTTER-JUMP around the side of the doorway. Sheesh, whatever Koopa was designing this level really dropped the ball there.

After that was a section with more Bulb Berries, Octoghosts, and bookshelves, and at the end of that area we headed down a set of stairs. And floating at the bottom was some bizarre-looking creature. It looked like a Cheep-Cheep with wings…oh my gosh, a flying Cheep-Cheep. Was this thing where Bowser got the idea to name his flagship the Flying Cheep-Cheep? Who the heck knows?

"Oh no," Yoshi said. "Not a Smeech!"

"What the flip is a Smeech?" I asked.

Yoshi pointed at the flying Cheep-Cheep. "That thing there. They're the bane of the Yoshis' existence. They're native to our island, and they fly around all day looking for Yoshis to…kiss."

Kiss? "Uh…okay."

"It's worse than it sounds. Their kisses, like, drain our energy or something. You know how there's those things, Slurples, from your first galactic adventure that would hurt you if they spent too long stuck to you?"

"Yesss…."

"Well, Smeeches are basically Slurples that go after Yoshis. Just in a more…intimate sort of way."

Oh. "Well, whatever you do, do it fast, because your light's shrinking, and the next Bulb Berry is being guarded by that Smeech."

Yoshi sighed. "Fine."

We headed down the stairs, and as soon as we reached the bottom, the Smeech noticed us. It started squealing and slobbering and floated over to Yoshi.

"Oh great, it's Jeanette!" Yoshi said.

"And…?" I said. "What does that mean?"

"She's one of the most persistent Smeeches out there. There was one time she chased my cousin all the way around the island for 69 hours before one of our archers finally took her out with an arrow. There's that scar from the arrow, right under her wing, that identifies her."

Who the heck would've ever thought Yoshi had a backstory like this?

Yoshi leapt over Jeanette and grabbed the Bulb Berry refill just as his light was about to vanish. We headed through an archway down a hall lined with tall windows on one side. What purpose the windows served I had no clue, when the other side of the hallway had no walls whatsoever and offered a basically identical view of the dark, cloudy sky.

Oh, and Jeanette was following us at an alarming rate.

"Get away from me, you creep!" Yoshi shouted behind us.

Jeanette squeaked something in Smeech-speak.

Try saying that five times fast.

At the end of the hall was another Bulb Berry, and then a set of bookshelves we had to climb up to head back the way we had come. Unfortunately, this U-turn allowed Jeanette to cut us off as soon as we started heading back the way we had come.

"Leave us alone!" Yoshi said. "Get lost, Jeanette!"

She smacked her gigantic lips and floated towards us, slobbering like crazy. Ugh. Disgusting. At the last second, Yoshi flutter-jumped over her and latched onto a floating flower ahead of us to swing us up to the Power Star. But as soon as he let go of the flower, while we were flipping around in midair, Jeanette came hurtling towards us again. She latched right onto Yoshi's mouth, and he dropped like a rock. Oh come on!

We just barely landed on the bookshelves the Power Star was atop. Jeanette was making sickening, wet slurping sounds, and Yoshi seemed to be giving some muffled screams of protest. I leaned over Yoshi's head and punched Jeanette in the face. Her grip on Yoshi faltered a bit, but not much. A Star-Spin probably would've taken her out like it takes out 99% of my other enemies, but again, I couldn't presently Star-Spin!

Screw this.

"Yoshi, just go for the Power Star!" I said. "We're so close!"

Yoshi nodded and clambered up to the Power Star. As soon as we were close enough, I reached out and grabbed it. And so Yoshi and I did our little victory-twirl thing, with that disgusting pus sac called Jeanette still stuck to Yoshi's mouth.

And as soon as I landed back on Starship Mario, before I could even get an updated count of how many Power Stars and Comet Medals I had, someone smacked me in the face with the Starship's steering wheel (?) and knocked me unconscious.

A/N: I was originally planning on posting the next chapter, where Mario is captured by Lubba again, with this batch, but these chapters ended up running longer than I thought they would, so I decided to cut it off here so I could get these chapters out before Christmas.

Spoiler alert: this is not the last you've seen of Star Bunny. When Mario sees him next, though, he'll be…different. I created some concept art in PowerPoint earlier, and included a link to the image of it on my profile page.

Next up: a hostage situation, Mario's first Prankster Comet of Super Mario Galaxy 2, and a second attempt at "Silver Chomp Grudge Match"!