Chapter 58: Prankster'd

I landed with a thump on the Silver Chomp's planet. It emerged from its pit in the center of the planet, gave a moronic-sounding bark, and rolled towards me. But before it could hit me, I leapt and came down on it from above. The Star Ball ricocheted backwards into one of the cylinders, but the Silver Chomp was also propelled backwards a considerable distance. It growled and rolled back towards me. Don't you growl at me! You started this fight; I didn't ask for one!

I rapidly rolled across the arena and hit the Chomp head-on, knocking it into the cylinder opposite the one I'd been ricocheted towards by my jump attack. It rolled back around, those creepy-ass eyes following me again.

I always feel like somebody's watching me….

The Chomp snarled as I bumped into it again, shoving it towards the edge of the planet. Come on, just a little farther, you chrome-plated bastard…. I pushed it backwards again, and it balanced precariously on the edge of the planet….

…before recovering and retreating behind the nearest cylinder.

Oh COME ON! I was hanging on by at least TWICE as much ground as that back on the Grinder planet on my last life, and the universe went and made me fall off!

See, this is why I think the universe is biased against me: BECAUSE IT CLEARLY IS!

So now the Chomp was clearly trying to use my own strategy against me and wait for me to roll around the cylinder, then knock me off the planet again so I'd have to go back and get that Comet Medal and then come fight this moron all over again.

But I had an advantage that the Silver Chomp obviously didn't count on.

I jumped the Star Ball atop the cylinder, then rolled it off the back of the cylinder and rammed it right into the Chomp's stupid, smug face. The Chomp rolled right to the edge of the planet, and before it could make another spontaneous, improbable recovery, I rolled into it again to deal the killing blow.

Adios, you jerk.

As soon as the Silver Chomp fell off the planet, as I had predicted, another ruler appeared at the end of the arena, transporting me to the next planet. I rolled down the ruler, and-

Oh, this was the final planet. Yay!

The Star Ball rolled into a pit, and for a few seconds nothing happened. Then it was smashed open, and the Power Star flew out and landed atop a pole before me. I leapt onto the pole and climbed up it, then grabbed the Power Star to complete the mission.

I arrived back on Starship Mario with my twenty-sixth Power Star and eleventh Comet Medal to find Yoshi sitting on the helm, leaning against the pine tree.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Taking a five-minute break to preserve my sanity."

"Is it really that bad?"

"It makes the sight of your room after Lubba upchucked all over it actually seem neat. Speaking of your room, that's wrecked again. All the furniture in it is broken, but Banktoad seems to think he can at least salvage your bed. In his words, 'My job is banking but my passion is carpentry.' Uh, your TV shattered into a million little pieces of LCD all over your room."

COME ON! I was gonna have to buy another TV?!

"Hugh and Banktoad's rooms are trashed too," Yoshi continued.

"Are they the only two members of the Brigade who have rooms on the ship?" I asked.

"I have no idea. I don't even know how they would have rooms, since they weren't on the Starship when you started your adventure, and even if they do have rooms, I don't know where the heck the rest of the Brigade sleeps."

I'm gonna bet their rooms are as communal as their clothing.

"Where was I?" Yoshi said. "Oh, yes. All the trash cans have spilled their contents everywhere. The washer and dryer are out of order. And thanks to that dumb 'if it's yellow, let it mellow' rule that I wish to God you would repeal, we've got urine water all over everything in the bathroom, and most of the Brigade is down there right now in our hazmat suits, cleaning it up. In short, the whole ship's a mess."

…Yeah, I definitely didn't think that plan through. At the very least we should've sealed up the toilet beforehand.

"Well, uh, good luck cleaning up," I said.

"Wait, where do you think you're going?"

"Uh, off to get more Power Stars."

"Like hell you are. You're helping us clean up, buster! You made this mess; you're gonna help fix it!"

"Oh, come on! Someone's gotta go get Power Stars."

"Yeah, and you just got one! Now that you're back from your main job, you're gonna help out with chores around the starship!"

Why do Yoshi and I always sound like an old married couple when we argue?

"If you don't get your butt belowdecks now of your own free will, I'm going to grab you and drag you down there myself!" Yoshi said.

"Fiiiine." I threw my hands in the air and headed into the bowels of the ship. After putting on a hazmat suit, I headed into the bathroom to help Bartholomew, Blue, and Hugh.

Which may have very well been worse torture than the prospect of being castrated.

See, the Toad Brigade couldn't just work in silence, or bitch and moan to each other about their work like normal people do. No indeed, they insisted on SINGING while they worked!

"Ho-hum, ho-hum,

There's lots of work to be done.

Ho-hum, ho-hum,

So let's get our work done."

Over.

And over.

And OVER again!

And there were only three of them, but some trick of the hazmat suits or the bathroom or something was making their voices echo, so it sounded like there were at least ten times as many of them singing. Percy seemed to be angrily muttering, so I figure he wasn't all that fond of the song either, but Yoshi was obnoxiously humming along.

Eventually I'd had enough and I snapped, "Everyone, STOP SINGING!"

"Why?" Bartholomew asked. "That's our Toad Brigade Happy Work Song."

"Because the words 'happy' and 'work' do not belong in the same sentence! If you want to talk, gripe about work, or maybe even sing an actual song, anything other than that garbage!"

"It sounds like someone just hasn't found his true passion yet," Hugh said, borderline condescendingly.

"For your information, I have a passion, but my passion does not happen to be scrubbing your urine off every surface in the bathroom!"

"Mario, that's not fair," Blue said. "Some of this is your urine too."

"No it ISN'T, because I haven't used this bathroom since I last flushed the toilet!"

"How about we all just shut up and work in silence?" Percy quacked. He pointed to me, then the Toad Brigade. "No more complaining from you, no more singing from you! Does no one take any pride in a hard day's work anymore? You seriously don't derive any pleasure from looking at a job well done and saying to yourself, 'I did that. Me.'? Us Penguins actually enjoy doing work. We-"

"Alright, fine, we'll stop singing!" Bartholomew said.

After that cleaning the bathroom was significantly less torturous. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was still unpleasant, just not…as unpleasant. It didn't take quite as long as I'd feared it would, but after that we still had to clean up all the spilled trash throughout the Starship and help fix the bedrooms, even though most of the stuff in them was completely unsalvageable…except my bed, which Banktoad was still making steady progress on. Then I used Lubba's credit card to buy a new TV, washer, dryer, and furniture. And by the time we were done, the World 3 sun was well past its zenith, and close to setting.

I asked Blue and Percy to check on Baby Luma to see if he was ready to go adventuring again. Unfortunately he was not; they estimated he'd be ready to go tomorrow morning, but still needed a bit more rest. Well, so much for getting another Power Star today. I was about to just turn in for the night when what I assumed was Bartholomew's ringtone started going off, in the form of a recording of him singing, "Ho-hum, ho-hum / There's lots of work to be done…."

I gritted my teeth and turned to face him. "What? Is? That?"

"Oh, it's the Prankster Detector," Bartholomew said. He pulled some small device out of his pocket. "It tells us when a Prankster Comet appears. That's how we knew there was one at the Cloudy Court Galaxy the night before last." He looked at the screen on the Prankster Detector. "Apparently the Prankster Comet in the Cloudy Court Galaxy is gone, but now there's one in the Yoshi Star Galaxy."

"Where the heck did you get a Prankster Detector?" I asked.

"Oh, Daniel made it for you back during your first galactic adventure. Only he never got to show it to you, because you never headed over to the Comet Observatory's garage to visit the Brigade. After you rescued Peach, Daniel kept the Prankster Detector; he was proud of having created it, but figured you'd never need it again since your galactic adventure was over. But after this adventure started, Daniel gave it to me, saying that a device like that belonged with the Toad Brigade Captain. Good thing I didn't keep this in the ToadBag, since we lost that and all its contents back in the Rightside Down Galaxy."

Well, it looked like my wish had been granted: I could still will a Prankster Comet into vanishing by ignoring it long enough. But I doubted I'd be able to complete the Yoshi Star Galaxy's Prankster Comet mission without the ability to Star-Spin. Then again, both of the regular missions there didn't involve Star-Spinning much since I was riding Yoshi most of the time. Heck, at the end of the first mission, there was that Power Star in the crystal that I didn't even get to try Star-Spinning into before Yoshi smashed it open with his head.

Okay, fine, Yoshi Star Prankster Comet it was.

I flew Starship Mario back into World 1, and found the Yoshi Star Galaxy illuminated by the eerie glow of a pumpkin-orange comet. What the flip? There were no orange comets in my first galactic adventure! The only ones even remotely close to orange were the yellow Fast Foe Comets and the red Speedy Comets. Oh great, was this some sort of nightmarish amalgamation of those two? I have to make it through the level quickly while the enemies are sped up too?

Well then, I'd just have to hope Yoshi's flutter-jumping would be faster than the enemies.

But apparently the universe had decided that one Prankster Comet rug-pull wasn't enough, because it had to go for two more.

First, the presence of the Prankster Comet didn't automatically "lock up" the galaxy's normal missions, which I was glad to see, because that happening was often a pain in the ass in my first galactic adventure.

And second, the Prankster Comet mission was titled "Spiny Rainbow Romp."

Okay, this name sounded nothing like the names of any of the Prankster Comet missions from my first galactic adventure. "Spiny Rainbow Romp"…what the heck type of comet was this? It didn't sound like a speed run or fast foe level, much less both of those combined, so what then?

Only one way to fine out, I suppose.

As I approached the galaxy, I saw that I was heading towards the usual Starting Planet/Dinosaur Graveyard, so yay, more dinosaur bones and volcanic eruptions that would improbably result in no lava were probably in my future.

But as soon as I landed, a timer started counting down from 60 seconds. WHAT?! I had to complete this whole level in 60 seconds?! So this WAS a speed run! Then why wasn't the name of the mission "Saddle up with Yoshi Speed Run" or "Spiny Control Speed Run"? And there was no flippin' way I could complete either of those levels in one minute!

Bill Board was nearby for some reason, proclaiming, "Get 'em all!"

Get all of what?

Then I saw that in front of me was a Rainbow Star, and there were several Spinies on the Starting Planet past that. A-ha! Did I have to use the Rainbow Star to defeat all the Spinies? Probably. That certainly made sense given that the mission title was "Spiny Rainbow Romp." So what were these orange comets called then: Spiny Comets, Rainbow Comets, or Romp Comets? Do they cause a spontaneous Spiny infestation I have to deal with, give me a task to complete with a Rainbow Star, or…I don't know, just present me with a bunch of random enemies to take down through various means? I guess I'd know next time an orange comet showed up somewhere.

I grabbed the Rainbow Star and plowed through the first two Spinies. Another countdown – rather, count-up – appeared, showing that there were thirty Spinies total to defeat. Alright, maybe this wouldn't be so hard after all. Unless the thirty Spinies were scattered all over the galaxy or hidden really well, in which case it would be near-impossible.

Three Spinies later, I leapt on the springboard that led to the main area of the planet. And there they were. What looked like the remaining twenty-five Spinies, all over the place. I thought I got rid of all of these pests in my last visit to the galaxy! Unless more Lakitus had come along and dumped them all here for whatever stupid reason. Or maybe a few survived my galaxy-wide Spiny massacre in "Spiny Control" and they just reproduce like rabbits.

And I also saw that around the planet were a few Rainbow Star Refills.

This level would be easy.

With 42 seconds left, I blew through two more Spinies, then did a somersault-jump to land on a third. This was so CATHARTIC! Consider this payback for all the times I've torn my feet open accidentally landing on your spiked backsides, you menaces! And this! And this! And-

Oh no.

My Rainbow Star wore off in mid-jump and I came down on the Spiny's back.

The Spiny's spiny back.

I tumbled to the ground, down to two wedges of health, with 36 seconds left and 19 Spinies left to take care of. I hobbled over to the nearest Rainbow Star as all the Spinies nearby converged on me. Actually, this was good. Let them follow me, so I could get them all in one area and then take all of them out at once.

I dove for the Rainbow Star and grabbed it, then turned on the Spinies. They froze and (it seemed) started to back away, but it was too late. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

And then the pests started playing dirty and running away from me.

Oh come on, that was so ridiculously unfair! Now I actually had to find them instead of relying on them automatically homing in on me whenever I was close to one! I grabbed another Rainbow Star and, having thoroughly de-Spinied the first half of the planet, headed to the back half.

With just under half a minute to go, I blasted three more of the vermin into Star Bits, then dropped onto a lower ledge to take out one that was trying to hide from me. Back on the main area of the planet, the rest of the Spinies seemed to be converging on the hill that had the Comet Medal atop it in "Saddle up with Yoshi." You can run but you can't hide, suckers!

I long-jumped over to them with 18 seconds to go and flew through one after another. Down to 6 left, then 5, then 4, 3, 2, 1…where the flip was the last one? I'd gotten all the Spinies around the hill, so where the-?

A Spiny-shaped shadow caught my attention. I looked up.

The pest was on TOP of the hill!

I grabbed a final Rainbow Star refill at the base of the hill and backflipped, but couldn't reach the top of the hill. Dang; if I could Star-Spin, I know I could've made it.

Well, I would just need some more momentum then.

I circled the base of the hill several times as my time remaining ticked below 5 seconds, then backflipped towards the hill again. I wall-jumped off the side and leapt towards the top of the hill, but the Spiny backed away from me. Oh no you don't!

As I slipped down the side of the hill, I reached out with one arm. My fingertips grazed the Spiny's leg….

…and it exploded into a trio of Star Bits.

Yes!

I landed at the base of the hill as my Rainbow Star wore off, and a Power Star appeared back at the start of the planet. Thankfully the timer stopped as soon as I vaporized the last Spiny, and didn't keep running until I grabbed the Power Star. I can't tell you how many times I got screwed over by "Dino Piranha Speed Run" in my first galactic adventure for beating Dino Piranha with, like, a second to spare, but then not getting the Power Star in that second. Anyway, after that I long-jumped back to the start of the planet and grabbed the Power Star, then returned to Starship Mario.

"Woah, you got back fast," Bartholomew said. "You weren't even gone, like, two minutes."

"It was a quick Power Star," I replied.

And on that positive note, I decided to end my adventuring for the day. I headed belowdecks as the orange comet slowly faded away, returning the Yoshi Star Galaxy to its normal appearance. I entered by cabin to see Banktoad packing up several carpentry tools lying on the floor. "How's my bed looking?" I asked.

"I did what I could, but I think you're gonna want to eventually replace it with a whole new bed," he replied. "It should hold up for now, but I would advise against subjecting it to any extreme duress including but not limited to flopping, jumping, or engaging in procreative activities on it."

…

"Okay, uh, thanks for your help," I said.

He nodded and left my room.

Welp, with no TV to watch, I didn't really have anything relaxing to do before going to bed after that long and absurd day. So instead I just got in bed and instead of counting sheep jumping a fence, I counted Spinies getting blown up by me with a Rainbow Star.

That put me to sleep mighty fast.

And if only my night could've just ended on that positive note. Because several hours later, something shook me awake. I jolted and swung my fist blindly through the air, hitting something gelatinous. "Ow," one of the Toad Brigade members groaned.

"What the flip are you doing here?" I asked. "And who the flip even are you? Your voices all sound the same to me."

"It's me, Blue. Uh…we've got a situation."

"If it has to do with Lubba-"

"No, no, no, nothing as bad as that. Well, at least I don't think so. See, remember a couple weeks ago when the Brigade headed to the Fluffy Bluff Galaxy to try to get a Power Star there to help you out?"

I rolled over. "What, you mean to tell me that actually was you there?"

"Uh, yeah. When I told you the story of how our new captain came to be Captain. You know, he found the headlamp Peach shot out of her castle's cannon, all that. Who did you think we were?"

"Well, at first I thought you were you, but then after running into that Not-Toad Brigade all throughout the universe, I thought they were the Toads I met in the Fluffy Bluff Galaxy too."

"Nope, that was us. But then we, uh, couldn't find the Power Star and we, ah…gave up. I'm not proud of it; the Toad Brigade is never supposed to give up, but we didn't think to pack any snacks with us, and then we started getting hungry and wanted to head back to the Starship, and then we went back to the Starship to get some snacks, but after that none of us really wanted to head after the Power Star again-"

"I don't care! Get to the part where there's a reason why you woke me up in the middle of the night!"

"Well, we decided to try getting the Power Star again…you know, to help you out. And this time we got a bit farther than we did last time, things were going well…."

"And what's the catch?"

"The catch is that the Captain was kidnapped by some monkey living in the galaxy. The rest of us barely managed to escape."

Kidnapped by – oh COME ON! I threw my sheets off me. "Was it flippin' Donkey Kong?"

"What? No, I said monkey, not gorilla."

What, you mean to tell me gorillas aren't monkeys?

Blue continued, "No, no, this guy was blue, and he wore sunglasses, and he had this weird hair that looked kinda like Iggy's hair."

This reeked of the Koopalings. This monkey was probably some robot they created to menace me and my allies, and Roy insisted on it wearing sunglasses and Iggy insisted on the pineapple haircut.

These Koopalings had been a pain in my butt for long enough.

I got out of bed. "Go back to bed, Blue. Tell the rest of the Brigade to do the same. I'll take care of this."