Chapter 57: Flip the Ship

The next morning, Blue and Percy determined that Baby Luma was still not fit to go adventuring again, despite my hoping against hope that maybe he would be. Which meant I could either stick around this place all day, or retry the Rolling Masterpiece Galaxy and hope Bill Board had somehow magically been repaired. If he hadn't, then I supposed I could ask the Toad Brigade members if any of them knew how to ride a Star Ball, but I sort of doubted that would be the case.

But of course, in order to do that, I first had to figure out how to get the Star Ball off Starship Mario, which would likely be difficult given how improbably heavy the thing was.

"Okay," I said after putting on my new Mario suit, which arrived overnight, and gathering everyone on the helm. "That Star Ball down in my old bedroom, we need to get it out of there and back to the Starting Planet of the Rolling Masterpiece Galaxy. And the thing weights, like, 100 tons. So…any thoughts?"

Bartholomew extended his spear. "Use my spear to break the thing open here and now."

"I tried smashing the thing with a rock more times than I care to remember yesterday and that did nothing. Well, nothing except break the rock. And I'd very much like it if your spear could be kept intact since it's basically out only weapon in the case of another battle with the mutineers."

"I have this." Jacques grabbed the nail gun from his pocket.

"And I have this." Yoshi held up a mace-like weapon he'd built, it looked like, by separating the two "jaws" of the alligator clip he grabbed yesterday, then gluing them to the end of a metal rod so the "teeth" faced out.

"Okay, but I still don't really want us losing any of the few arms we have," I said. "Does anyone have any other ideas?"

"Well, we could steer the Starship over the Starting Planet of the Rolling Masterpiece Galaxy and then just flip it upside-down so the Star Ball falls back out the hole in the helm and onto the Starting Planet," Bartholomew said.

"Which would work is not for the Starship's artificial gravity. The Star Ball isn't gonna fall if we flip the ship upside-down."

"It will if we turn off the artificial gravity," Hugh piped up.

What the-? "You can turn off the artificial gravity?"

"Of course you can. What do you think the switch on the circuit breaker labeled 'artificial gravity' is for?"

Didn't even know there was such a switch. "Okay, then let's do that. Yoshi, go down to the engine room and get ready to flip the switch. I'll get us over to the Rolling Masterpiece Galaxy."

Yoshi nodded and headed belowdecks, while I grabbed the steering wheel. "Wait a minute, didn't I get hit in the face with this when I got back to Starship Mario yesterday?" I asked.

"You did," Jacques said. "Lubba ripped it out during the battle and started attacking us with it, but we got it back into place."

I noticed that the Hungry Luma past the Boo-in-a-Rib Cage Galazy had been unlocked by me completing "A Glimmer of Bulb Berry," but was in no mood to see how many Star Bits he was demanding. Not to mention, even if I had enough Star Bits to feed him (which was a big if, since I only had 231 Star Bits and this Hungry Luma would likely be demanding no fewer than the 700 Star Bits the Hungry Luma in World 2 wanted), whatever galaxy he created would certainly involve Star-Spinning. Galaxies that don't require that are, in my experience, exceedingly rare.

So I flew the Starship away from the…Haunty Halls Galaxy? That's what it's called? Yeah, no, Boo-in-a-Rib-Cage Galaxy is a much better name. I swung a left at the Freezy Flake Galaxy, and arrived not long after at the Rolling Masterpiece Galaxy. I called, "Yoshi, you ready?"

"Yep!" he replied. "Flipping the switch in three…two…one…now!"

A powering-down sound came from within the Starship. "Toads, Percy, you might want to get belowdecks," I said. "Once I flip this thing upside-down, if you're still up here, you'll fall off the ship."

"Good idea," Bartholomew said. "Okay, Toad Brigade and Percy, belowdecks we go!"

As the Toads and Percy left the helm, I positioned the Starship over the Rolling Masterpiece's Starting Planet. Lo and behold, Bill Board had magically been repaired. Midnight. That's gotta be it. Every night at midnight, all the enemies and objects in a galaxy that I destroy in my travels get magically repaired.

I yanked back hard on the steering wheel, sending the Starship flying upwards. Up, up, uppity-up-up it went, first at a steep angle, then vertical, and then turning upside-down. I hung onto the steering wheel for dear life, and the sounds of objects crashing and shattering came from inside the Starship.

Maybe we should've nailed some stuff to the floor before doing this….

By that time the Starship was completely inverted, and suddenly the Star Ball blasted through the helm several yards wide of the initial hole it had made. It must have rolled around after I started flipping the Starship upside-down. The Star Ball them tore another hole through the forcefield around the Starship, and finally crashed to the Starting Planet a few inches wide of once again obliterating Bill Board. Yikes. That was close.

With the Star Ball back on the Starting Planet, I flipped Starship Mario back to its normal position, resulting in another wave of crashes and smashes. "Turn the gravity back on, Yoshi!" I called.

The Toads and Percy filed back onto the helm. "That was a dumb move in hindsight," Banktoad said. "Half the stuff in my room is wrecked now!"

"Well, uh, all of you sort this out while I'm gone," I said. "Hopefully I'll be returning with another Power Star." With that, I launched myself out the helm towards the galaxy, "Silver Chomp Grudge Match" yadda yadda yadda, and finally landed on the Starting Planet.

I walked over to the Star Ball, only to be interrupted again by Bill. "Hey, it's me, Bill Board!" he said. "If you want to ride on this Star Ball, listen up! OK – first thing you do is jump onto the Star Ball! Jump on the Star Ball!"

Will do, Bill.

"All right – you made it aboard," he continued once I was on the Star Ball. "Now take the Wii Remote and hold it straight up like this."

…Not sure what exactly "like this" meant, since he wasn't demonstrating how to hold the "Wii Remote" or anything. But if I remembered correctly from my first galactic adventure, "holding the Wii Remote straight up" was code for just standing upright. And yes, I know that back when I was gliding on Fluzzard, "holding the Wii Remote level" also meant standing upright.

Those are just the rules. I didn't make them up, nor did I ever say they made any sense.

"That's it! Think of that as your starting position," Bill said. "From that starting position, tilt the Wii Remote forward to start rolling forward."

Which, like with Fluzzard, meant I had to rock back and forth and clench my butt cheeks.

Bill continued, "Use A to jump. You can also smoosh things that get in your way!"

That's it! I forgot; to jump on the Star Ball, I just had to do a regular jump, because somehow once I get on the Star Ball, my boots get magnetically attracted to it or something.

Again, never said it made sense.

"Enough chatter, though!" Bill said.

Good; we finally agree on something.

"Go ahead and give it a try! You'll get the hang of it!"

I rolled the Star Ball forward and proceeded to crush Bill to smithereens. What? I temporarily needed his help, and now that he had served his purpose, he was back to being the annoying, know-it-all pain in the ass he's always been.

I jumped the Star Ball onto the raised area the pit to launch it to the next planet was on, then rolled it into said pit. For a second nothing happened, and then I was catapulted into the air towards the bizarre planet from the galaxy icon. It was part red, part yellow, and part green, and…wait a second, were those giant spike things lodged in the planet actually huge paintbrushes? Lo and behold, they were. Well, I guess it kinda made sense; it was the Rolling Masterpiece Galaxy, so it was gonna be arts-and-crafts-themed.

The Star Ball landed on the planet and immediately crashed into a row of red paintbrushes. And right near where I'd landed was a cage with another Star Ball-launching pit trapped in it. Oh yay. Time for another round of Bowser's favorite game, "Find the Key!" Well, his favorite game is actually probably "Punch the Plumber!" or something along those lines, but still.

I steered the Star Ball out of the ring of red paintbrushes and towards the yellow area of the planet. No key to be found there, just a plethora of Goombas that I proceeded to mow down with the Star Ball. I left the yellow area and headed towards the green region; I saw there was also a blue section, so I figured I'd try that last if the green area yielded no key.

Turned out there was no need to do that, as I found the key in the green area, so the blue section probably just had something dumb like a teleporter in it. And somehow, just rolling the Star Ball into the key counted as me grabbing it. Man, the rules with these keys just keep getting lazier and lazier. Was Bowser having budget problems or something?

Anyway, after that I rolled the Star Ball back to the pit and was shot to the next planet, which was shaped like a giant paint palette. And as soon as I landed on it, two blue squares of space junk appeared next to one side of the palette. Oh come on! Now I had to ride a Star Ball over space junk? And…what the flip?

In front of the space junk was a checkpoint flag. A checkpoint flag in a Star Ball level? This was a first. In the Rolling Green Galaxy and Rolling Gizmo Galaxy, if I screwed up, I had to start over from the very beginning. Which was, admittedly, the primary contributing factor for me never completing the latter galaxy.

I rolled the Star Ball down the path of space junk, which thankfully stayed two blocks wide for most of its duration. I was worried this level was going to go barbaric on me and make me ride the Star Ball down a single-wide path of blocks. No doubt the team of sadistic Toads who come up with those ridiculously hard "kaizo" redesigns of all the levels in my adventures will think of that. For years now I've been beseeching Peach to take some sort of executive action and outlaw them doing that because the last thing I need is Bowser ever getting his hands on their concept art, but apparently Peach can't do anything because of freedom of the press or some other stupid liberty like that.

At the other end of the space junk path was a platform with a trio of Goombas on it. As soon as I rolled onto the platform, it started rising and the Goombas waddled towards me. The Star Ball made quick work of them just like it did to their brethren back on the paintbrush planet. Once the platform stopped rising, in front of me was a rough triangle of six Flipswitches I assumed I had to roll over with the Star Ball to activate. My assumption was correct, and while doing so was exceedingly nerve-wracking, I managed to activate them all without rolling the Star Ball into the ether. Once the six Flipswitches were activated, a giant ruler appeared, linking the Flipswitches to a stack of circular…somethings. They were probably supposed to be some other sort of art supplies, but the Star Ball-launching pit right in the center of the top one made them look more like a stack of those pillows people sit on when they have a hemorrhoid.

The pit launched me to a curved wooden planet inhabited by several Bob-Ombs, Goombas, and Grinders. Actually, are Grinders even alive, because if not, then they can't exactly "inhabit" a place. I mean, they move on their own, but then again so do planets and asteroids and stuff. Or is that gravity that moves them? I can't remember; suffice to say, astronomy was never my strong suit in school.

Directly ahead of me was another checkpoint flag. Still strange, but I sure as hell wasn't gonna complain about it. Past the checkpoint flag was a Comet Medal I rolled towards, but two Grinders started cutting out a circular section of the planet around the Comet Medal. I hurried towards it, but didn't look where I was going and rolled over a Bob-Omb. The Bob-Omb detonated, flinging me and the Star Ball right onto one of the Grinders. A horrible screech of steel on whatever the flip Star Balls are made of resulted, and the Ball and I were flung to the side, almost off the planet entirely.

And still not a crack to be seen on the Star Ball.

I'm calling B.S. on this. I know I call B.S. on a lot of stuff and that saying probably has zero meaning coming out of my mouth anymore, but that's only because there's a lot of stuff on my adventures that deserves to have B.S. called on it.

Aaaand now the section of wood with the Comet Medal on it was falling into the endless sky surrounding the galaxy. Welp, there goes that Comet Medal. Not planning on ever coming back here to get it either, unless of course Baby Luma gets injured again and I'm left without the ability to Star-Spin for a few days.

Just to clarify, I do NOT want that to happen. That probably goes without saying, but I never know how the universe is going to interpret something I say.

I continued on, managing to slip past several more Grinders, and finally arrived at the end of the planet, from where another ruler led to the next planet. It was a square with a red border outlining nine smaller yellow and teal squares. And as I rolled down the ruler, I saw that a silver hemisphere was sticking out of the central yellow square. What the heck was that thing?

The Star Ball landed on the planet, and the hemisphere rose out of the planet, revealing that it was actually a whole sphere.

Oh. It was the mission's titular Silver Chomp. Honestly, I forgot all about the Silver Chomp, with all the other nonsense I've been dealing with in this level.

So, as its name implied, the Silver Chomp was silver. Its eyes were surrounded by golden rings and its pupils were red. Yeah, these eyes were definitely cameras.

But…the name of the mission was "Silver Chomp Grudge Match." Did that mean I had to somehow fight the Silver Chomp? And if so, how? I had no power-ups at my disposal, and even if I did, I was still stuck on top of the Star Ball. Unless the Silver Chomp was going to smash the Star Ball open for me? Maybe. Maybe I had to roll the Star Ball over to it and it would open its teeth and break open the Star Ball like a nutcracker.

I rolled towards the Chomp, but it rolled towards me too. We collided and both me and the Chomp were knocked backwards. I managed to stop rolling just before the Star Ball fell off the edge of the planet, while the Silver Chomp barked stupidly and rolled right back towards me. What, did this type of Chomp home in on me or something? Great, just what I needed; Chomps with an actual brain between their eyes.

I tried to roll to the side, but the Chomp still hit me and knocked me backwards. I rolled behind a short cylinder in the corner of the planet. So now I assumed I had to knock the Silver Chomp off the edge of the planet, and then another ruler or something would appear to take me to the next planet. In lots of big fantasy battles, the heroes try to find a position to hold down where the giant bad guy army has to fit through a narrow canyon or something to reach them. Well, the corner of the planet was my fortress, and the narrow gap between the cylinder and the edge of the planet was my pass. When the Chomp came through there, I would roll right into it and knock its sorry ass right off the planet.

The Chomp rolled around the cylinder, its red googly eyes constantly following me. I mean, I know I'm handsome, but come on, there was seriously nothing better around for this thing to be ogling?

I charged towards the Chomp, but the edge of the Star Ball rammed into the cylinder, stopping me about a foot shy of hitting the Chomp. Oh come on, I always forget how big these Star Balls really are! I frantically tried to course-correct, but the Chomp bowled into me again and I fell backwards off the planet.

TOO BAD!

Alright, Bowser. You wanted a grudge match; well, now you were gonna flippin' get one! Because now that I'd been wronged, a grudge was officially coming into play.

I respawned at the start of the Grinder planet, with the Star Ball in front of me and…oh yay, the Comet Medal was back too since I hadn't completed the mission. Now I really had no good reason to not try to get it again. Lucky me.

I mounted the Star Ball and rolled towards the Comet Medal. The Grinders started whirling once more, and this time I was keeping a wary eye on the Bob-Omb next to the Comet Medal. As soon as I got past the edge of the circle the Grinders were cutting out, the Bob-Omb saw me and waddled towards me. No, no! Get away, you creep! I don't want anything to do with you and your short temper!

I steered too wide a berth around the Bob-Omb and ended up missing the Comet Medal. I rolled backwards to try to grab it before the Grinders finished cutting, and a second later I heard the glistening noise a Comet Medal makes when I collect it, as the Star Ball rolled into it. I've never exactly gotten why rolling a Star Ball over coins or Star Bits counts as collecting them; all it should really do is smash them into a heap of metal or star dust on the ground, but whatever.

Unfortunately, since I was rolling backward, I couldn't see where I was going. And, as Yoshi always (annoyingly) says, "Mario, don't look forward while you're running backward." He claims it's just as solid advice as Luigi's insistence on not running backward while looking forward, but I don't think that it is, on account of how I've never seen someone running backward in my entire life.

And yet, here I was, rolling backward right onto a Bob-Omb.

The Bob-Omb detonated and catapulted me forward, right onto the edge of the circular piece of wood just as it started to drop below the planet. I hopped the Star Ball back onto the planet, and it landed right on the rim of the hole. But apparently that wasn't enough for me to technically be "on" the planet, because I rolled right back into the pit and lost another life.

TOO BAD!

Oh come on! This was ridiculous! But, at least I'd gotten the Comet Medal-

Nope, scrap that. I respawned and saw that the Comet Medal was still between the two Grinders, noticeably uncollected. Oh right, I forgot I learned that back at Junior's Fiery Flotilla: if you collect a Comet Medal, then die, you lose the Comet Medal.

Lovely.

So...should I even bother getting it again? Like I said, I wasn't planning on ever coming back to this place, much less for a Prankster Comet level, but for all I knew, Bowser could've finally gotten smart and hidden his final fortress behind a Star Barrier that requires every single Power Star up to that point to have been collected for it to unlock. And in that case, what would I rather do? Have to come back here once to collect the Comet Medal, and then again for the Prankster Comet…or just for the Prankster Comet?

I guess I was going for it again.

I leapt on the Star Ball, the Grinders started whirling, the Bob-Omb started smoking and beeping, you get the gist. This time I hung back from the Comet Medal, just inside the circular path of the Grinders, to lure the Bob-Omb away from the Comet Medal. Once it was far enough away, I rolled forward and took a leap of faith over the Bob-Omb. I landed right on the Comet Medal, then hurried off the circular area before the Grinders finished excising it from the rest of the planet.

After that it was a quick trip down the rest of the planet to the ruler. Alright, Silver Chomp, time for Round Two. Time for you to go dowwwwn!