Chapter 72: Revenge of the Extendable 7.5-Foot Hammer
…Which teleported me the short distance back across the planet to the wreckage of Starship Mario. The helm creaked precariously as I touched down atop it, and I feared it would give way beneath me at any moment.
Waiting for me on the helm was Baby Luma, who floated over to the Power Star. "Alright," he squeaked, "here goes nothing." He extended an appendage towards the Power Star, and filaments of golden energy emanated from the Power Star towards him. He closed his eyes and soaked up the energy until the Power Star was drained, resembling a slightly more translucent version of a Silver Star.
Baby Luma opened his eyes, and they glowed gold. "Woah," he gasped in an echoing voice. "I see it. Lumas transforming into new stars, stars dying in supernovas, stardust scattering across the cosmos and forming new life. The ancient past, the distant future, the final digit of pi. I can see…everything."
"Well, what is it?" I asked.
"What's what?"
"The final digit of pi."
"Seven."
…Huh. I mean, logically I knew it could only be something between zero and nine, but that just seemed anticlimactic somehow. The answer to one of the biggest questions to ever puzzle the cosmos was just…seven.
"Alright, Power Star power," Baby Luma said, "fix Starship Mario!" He clapped his appendages together, and a blinding white light exploded from him.
When I could see again, Starship Mario was floating above the planet. The hole in the helm had been fixed, the thrusters were spewing out their weird rainbow dust again, and-.
What the fudge?!
Somehow Baby Luma's magic had partially misfired, and ended up fusing a palm tree that had been growing nearby onto the front of the Starship right below its nose. Great, now it looked like the Starship was smoking a gigantic cigar or something.
But, at the very least, the Starship was operational again. Pick your battles, I guess.
The Berry Planetoid, on the other hand, was still wrecked halfway across the planet, so I guess that hadn't been caught in the effects of Baby Luma's magic. But by then it was too late to ask him to amend the spell, as the golden glow was fading from his eyes. Not that I would've asked him to alter the spell over something as stupid as the Berry Planetoid anyway; the last thing I wanted was for my alterations to the spell to monumentally screw it up like happened with Doctor Strangetoad's spell in Spider-Mushroom: No Way Home and end up with, I don't know, half the planet vaporized and Lubba, his cronies, and that thing that had killed Yoshi all running amok.
Several minutes later, Percy and the Toad Brigade had been loaded onto the Starship, and the Co-Star Luma (still stuck as a Launch Star) had been unloaded, with me requesting that the Piantas find some secure place to hold him. Not that I was as concerned about him orchestrating a jailbreak as I was about the other Lumas, but still, I had no way of knowing if the transformation into a Launch Star was permanent or not. After that had been taken care of, I decided not to ask Piancho about the Pianta Congress and instead to just hightail it away from this place as soon as possible. So without further ado, I stepped onto the helm and flew Starship Mario away from the The Village Galaxy.
Which left the question of where to go for my next Power Star. Apparently completing the latest mission (whose name I never even learned) had unlocked a path to the Star Barrier blocking the final galaxy in World 4, but said Star Barrier was demanding 40 Power Stars. Yeah, well, I only had 32, so it was gonna have to bear with me here.
Doot-dah-doo, where else to go? Not the Chompworks Galaxy. Not the Honeyhop Galaxy. The Supermassive Galaxy supposedly had that Secret Star I'd missed, but I was in no mood to go back there. No doubt the World 4 Hungry Luma was gonna be whining for more than the 586 Star Bits I currently had. And since I still didn't want to risk heading back past Bowser Jr.'s Fearsome Fleet (despite yesterday's events proving that staying away from that place wasn't enough to spare me from multiversal stupidity), that left the second mission from the Flipsville Galaxy as my only remaining option.
But before I headed there, there was one thing in particular I wanted to check about the Starship.
I headed belowdecks to the laundry room and saw that…YES! For once, luck was on my side, and Baby Luma's wish to fix Starship Mario had apparently fixed the washer too. Gone was that abomination with the mismatched-colored hoses, replaced by one that was already hooked up to the Starship and seemingly ready to wash some laundry. Thank goodness.
Okay, now it was time to head back to the Flipsville Galaxy, and just hope that the Not-Toad Brigade would not be returning along with it.
So, the second mission of the Flipsville Galaxy was titled "Flipsville's New Digs." "New digs"? What, like a new place to live? Did that mean the Not-Toad Brigade had abandoned the house-shaped planet they were infesting before for a new home? The Chomp-ridden condo complex, maybe?
I selected the mission, and found myself flying towards pretty much the same sight as last time. The Starting Planet, the Chomp condos, the massive arrows in the sky…along with some weird, tower-shaped planet in the background. I knew for a fact I hadn't gone there last time, so that no doubt meant it would be a stop on my grand tour this time around.
I once again landed in one of the rooms on the Starting Planet, and saw that – oh come on! The Not-Toad Brigade and those Hughkillers were nowhere to be seen, but in their place were two of those stupid, fire-breathing, outer-space variants of Mechakoopas! Oh, and on top of that, the grates that had been present in the planet last time I visited it were gone, replaced by sections of dirt. And in the corner, presumably my means of navigating the updated planet, was one of those gosh dang SPIN-DRILLS from the Spin-Dig Galaxy. Aha, so "new digs" had nothing to do with a new place to live after all, it meant I'd literally be digging.
…I mean, it was kind of a clever pun, I guess, in an infuriating sort of way.
I leapt off the platform I'd landed on and ground-pounded one of the Mechakoopas into oblivion. The other one noticed me and waddled towards me, and I Star-Spun it. But as soon as I did, I remembered that doesn't work, because for some reason, Star-Spinning a Mechakoopa only makes its head flip open temporarily. Ground-pounds are the only thing that take these pests out for good.
I quickly rectified my error by ground-pounding the second Mechakoopa as well, then grabbed the Spin-Drill. Let's see…which section of dirt to drill into? Assuming the house's layout was the same as it had been previously, both of them would lead down to the kitchen where I'd dueled with Not-Daniel and his ridiculously huge frying pan.
I drilled through to the other side of the planet and, sure enough, found myself in the kitchen. At least I think it was the kitchen. It had the same shape, size, and number of entrances and exits as the kitchen, but was missing all its kitchen-y elements, like the utensils and the aforementioned pan and the jar of Kamek's Homestyle Applesauce.
Granted, there were several crates scattered around the space that might've been filled with replacement kitchen supplies or something, but I didn't really care enough to bother ground-pounding them open.
If my memory served me correctly, the next area of dirt would take me to that tiny, useless area that had been inhabited by Not-Jacques and a Hughkiller last time. I felt comfortable assuming that there would be nothing more useful occupying that space this time around, so I continued past it towards the final area of dirt in the sad excuse for a kitchen. I drilled through it and found myself in another room, along with – oh great, three more Mechakoopas. But absent were the sun hat, pointless blue block, and whatever other decorations had been in this room last time.
…Yeah, I just wasn't feeling these "new digs." I mean, don't get me wrong, the Starting Planet wasn't exactly charming last time either, but at least it felt like an actual house to some extent. Now, between the lack of furnishings, pits of dirt everywhere, and mechanized denizens, it felt like a depressing construction site or something.
Evading the Mechakoopas, I ignored both the teleporter in the corner of the room and, of the room's two other exits, the one closer to me, since I seemed to recall that one also leading somewhere useless last time. So I headed for the farther exit, drilled through the dirt, and found myself in the same basement-like area with the shaft that I'd ended up last time. Only this time there was no Octoomba pathetically attempting to guard said shaft, so I just leapt down it.
Down it? Up it? I mean, I was upside-down to begin with, so technically I leapt up the shaft, but then again….
Argh, who the heck cares, this was making my head hurt.
At the top/bottom/whatever I'm too tired to care anymore of the shaft was another region of dirt that I promptly drilled my way through. I emerged, as expected, at the top of the planet, where Not-Bartholomew had been waiting last time with his stupid Extendable 7.5-Foot Hammer. Waiting there this time he was not, but there was no Launch Star to be seen either. What the fudge?
Suddenly, a screechy voice from down below called up, "Hey!"
Oh God, I knew who that was.
Rather, I knew the five or six people of whom it was most definitely one, just not who it was in specific. Not that who it was in specific mattered much, since all the members of the Not-Toad Brigade were complete and utter vermin. And I said "five or six" given that, so far, I had yet to encounter Not-Banktoad, yet also had no evidence that he didn't exist.
Heck, for all I knew, maybe the being I thought was Banktoad was in fact Not-Banktoad, and Bowser had pulled off some elaborate switcheroo at some point. Banktoad had arrived independently of most of the rest of the Toad Brigade, after all, spinning that yarn about the Interim Princess sending him that, for all I knew, was a total load of it.
That settled it, when I got back to Starship Mario, I was yanking on Banktoad's head to make sure it didn't pop off to reveal a Goomba.
But anyway, I looked in the direction the shout had come from, to a corner of the planet I hadn't been able to reach with the Spin-Drill, and saw-.
Oh COME ON!
The Not-Toad Brigade's Extendable 7.5-Foot Hammer-wielding ringleader, right next to the Launch Star.
Let's see...did I think I could long-jump off the top of the planet, overshoot Not-Bartholomew, and land in the Launch Star without having to instigate a battle?
A battle that I was certain I would lose, given that I still had the Spin-Drill, which apparently forced my arms to be frozen in the "up" position to hold the Spin-Drill above my head. Which sucked, because I was pretty certain that, had I been able to move my arms, the Spin-Drill could have proven to be a useful offensive weapon.
"My brigade bailed on me when they got scared!" Not-Bartholomew called. "What happened to bravely exploring the unknown?!"
Aha, I saw what he was doing here. He was drawing a suspicious amount of attention to the fact that he was seemingly alone, which could only mean that he was not, in fact, alone, and was just trying to get my hopes up that he was to make me overconfident about my odds of beating him 1v1. Then, as soon as I leapt down there and started fighting him, I would bet a million bucks that the rest of the Not-Toad Brigade would burst out of the dirt that Not-Bartholomew was standing on like a bunch of zombies and hold me down while their leader knocked my noggin clean off with his oversized hammer.
That settled it. Long-jumping it was.
"I'm scared too...," Not-Bartholomew said in an over-dramatic, staged whimper.
Yeah, you're not fooling me into thinking that defeating you'll be a pushover, you idiot. Don't think I've forgotten what a nightmare you Goombas made my last trip to this galaxy.
I took a deep breath, got in a runner's crouch (as much as I could given that my arms couldn't move), and sprinted headlong towards the precipice. Just as I reached it, I long-jumped off the edge...
...rather, I thought I long-jumped off the edge, but in reality only regular-old-jumped off the edge. What the flip?!
You know what, I'm just gonna blame this on the Spin-Drill. It hamstrung so many of my other abilities, what was one more added to the list?
And as I plummeted towards Not-Bartholomew, he swung his Extendable 7.5-Foot Hammer towards me.
And unlike last time, the hammer didn't malfunction and contract at the last second; instead, it hit me dead-on in the back.
I flipped end-over-end through one of the walls bordering Bartholomew's domain, which led right back to the room I'd landed in when I first arrived on the planet. I groaned and reached for my back.
Wait a minute, I reached for my back. The Spin-Drill was gone. I could move my arms again!
Now Not-Bartholomew was going the flip down.
Said Goomba followed me through the hole in the wall. "Your time's almost up, Mario," he taunted. "Might as well just accept it." He raised his hammer above his head, but before he could smash my brains out with it, I kicked his legs out from under him. He faceplanted into the dirt and the hammer flipped from his grasp. I grabbed the extremely unwieldy weapon, spun it around, and raised it over Not-Bartholomew. He looked up just in time to see it falling towards him and screamed, "Oh, son of a-!"
The hammer burst Not-Bartholomew's mushroom-head balloon with a BANG! that the real Bartholomew probably could've heard all the way up on Starship Mario, such was the fury I channeled into my attack.
The Goomba impersonating Bartholomew crawled out of the remains of the suit, but before he could escape, I Star-Spun his sorry ass right off the edge of the planet. Then I...hmm. What to do with the Extendable 7.5-Foot Hammer? I figured I should probably take it, if only to keep the Koopa Troop from recovering it and bestowing it on the next Goomba lined up to play the role of Not-Bartholomew. Granted, Kamek could probably just magic another one into existence with a flick of his scepter, but why leave this one here and make arming the next Not-Bartholomew easier for Bowser and co. than I had to? Besides, who knows, maybe the real Bartholomew would be interested in wielding the hammer since Sam disintegrated his spear, so gifting it to him might help to smooth over the growing tension I sensed in our relationship.
And until I got back to Starship Mario, I could use it to smash the living crap out of any other enemies I came across. Win-win-win.
I twirled the hammer around, climbed back through the hole in the wall, and hopped into the Launch Star. Sure enough, it rocketed me towards that tower-shaped planet I'd seen while approaching the galaxy. I landed partway up the planet in front of a checkpoint flag; past that was a square-shaped area, with the main body of the tower continuing through the center of it. And patrolling around the borders of the area, where I could walk, were two of those turnip things from the Spin-Dig Galaxy and the The Village Galaxy.
I seriously had to come up with a name for these things. How about…oh for crying out loud, how about just Turnips? Let the BOMKS come up with the stupid, catchy, action-figure-selling, most-likely-somewhat-inaccurate name.
But anyway, enough talking. It was time to turn these Turnips into turnip paste.
I waited for the two of them to twirl their way back towards me and revert to their stationary turnip form, then brought the hammer down on one of them. The Turnip splattered apart all over the ground. Ha; serves you right, you creep.
Meanwhile, the second Turnip changed to its twirling, flower-like form and fled towards the back side of the planet. Uh-uh, I didn't say you could go yet. "Hey!" I shouted, running after the Turnip. "Get your sorry, tuberous ass back here!"
The Turnip didn't make it far before reverting to its stationary form and subsequently getting pulverized by my hammer. This was fun. Maybe all my adventures would be more fun if I had a giant hammer to pulverize my enemies with.
Around the backside of the tower was another Spin-Drill. I instinctively went to grab it, but stopped myself just in time. No, I didn't want this Spin-Drill! Then I wouldn't be able to hold, much less wield, much less bring back to Starship Mario, my Extendable 7.5-Foot Hammer. Unless I could get it to collapse small enough that I could stick it in my pants pocket or something. Bartholomew's collapsed spear was no bigger than an arrow, after all; no reason the knockoff version should be any different.
Which left the question of how to get it to shrink if it, in fact, could. I tried banging it on the ground, shoving down on its head, looking for any knobs or buttons on the side that would have to be pushed in first, all to no avail. Gosh dang it, why the flip did this have to be so hard?
Then I saw that, written on the base of the hammer's handle, was an arrow pointing counterclockwise, with "TWIST TO COLLAPSE" written next to it. I grabbed the bottom of the hammer and twisted it in that direction. All of a sudden, the handle retracted so quickly that the tip of my glove (but thankfully, somehow, not my finger) got crushed against the head of the hammer, which then collapsed into itself. I tore my glove free of the condensed hammer, which was now less than a foot long and looked more or less like a frying pan. I picked it up and stuck it in my pants' butt pocket, then sighed and picked up the Spin-Drill.
I figured that, in order to progress, I had to drill through to the other side of the planet, so I did that. The far side looked…basically the same as the front side, only the central tower was replaced by two narrower towers. There were spaces between them that I estimated were underneath the body of the tower on the topside of the planet, so I deduced that I had to drill through one of those spaces to come out atop the tower on the topside.
Well, that worked-ish, as I didn't technically appear atop the tower, but on a ledge about halfway up it. Long story short, I had to drill back down to the bottom of the planet, then up to the top again (don't ask) to make it to the true top of the tower, right next to a Warp Pipe. So…wait, did I have to head into the planet, then? What the heck could be in there? Not much, if the width of the tower was any indication. Then again, this could be like the Purple Cylinder Planet from the Spin-Dig Galaxy, where I thought the Warp Pipe was going to take me inside the planet, but the area I ended up in was much too large to fit inside the planet's exterior. Which meant this was probably gonna be more of the same.