Chapter 73: Spikies, Spin-Drills, and Silver Stars

I leapt down the Warp Pipe, losing my Spin-Drill in the process, and ended up in…yep, sure enough! It was a square room with two walls made of dirt and two made of wood, a Spin-Drill in the corner, two blocks and a '?' Coin floating in the center of the room…and it was 2D! Just like the area "inside" the Purple Cylinder Planet. And while I guessed that this area might just barely have been able to fit inside the tower, the presence of the Spin-Drill and two dirt walls indicated mighty heavily that there were more areas off to the sides of this room.

And with all that going through my head, it took me several seconds to even register the fact that I'd landed on the room's ceiling. In fact, I only realized it when the gravity suddenly switched and flung me onto the right wall instead. Oh great, I could already tell that whatever the heck I had to do in this area, accomplishing it was gonna be a big ol' pain in the butt.

I ran down the wall (I guess?) towards the Spin-Drill, but just as I was about to reach it, the gravity switched back to upside-down mode and sent me falling back towards the ceiling. Oh come on, this was flippin' ridiculous! At least in other weird-gravity locales like the Baby Blocks Galaxy, the gravity stayed consistent, or only changed when I did something to change it. Now here it was like gravity just flat-out hated my guts.

Which, given everything else in the universe that hates my guts, it wouldn't really surprise me all that much if a natural law felt the same way about me.

Then I noticed something else: a series of three intermittent beeps playing in the background. And right after the third beep, the gravity switched back to right-wall-is-the-floor mode again. And after three more beeps, I was walking on the ceiling again.

So, this seemed to confirm two things:

One, the gravity in this room only switched back and forth between the upside-down red arrows and the right-wall green arrows. Good to know.

And two, the three beeps seemed to indicate when the gravity was about to change, just like the beeps that signaled when the Beep Blocks in Super Mario 3D World were about to appear and vanish. In fact, it seemed like it was pretty much the same tempo too. Okay, so I could probably adapt the strategy I used to outsmart the Beep Blocks to help me out here too. Now if only I could remember what my Beep Block strategy was….

Oh yeah, that's right, I didn't have one. I got five consecutive Game Overs on Beep Block Skyway before I finally gave up and beat Big Bounce Byway instead so I could move on. And then as soon as I saw that World Flower contained a variation on Beep Block Skyway called Blast Block Skyway, I was like "Nope" and went straight for Towering Sunshine Seaside instead. My guess was that Blast Block Skyway was filled to the brim with Cannons that would be shooting at me as I tried to time the already near-impossible jumps between the Beep Blocks. I never really cared enough to bother checking out the level to see if I was right or if the actual level was, in reality, worse than that (because knowing my luck, there was no way in hell it was better than what I'd imagined).

So...back to finding a strategy. Guess I'd just have to wing it and hope that worked out better for me here than it did back in Super Mario 3D World.

As soon as the gravity switched back to attracting me to the right wall, I grabbed the Spin-Drill and drilled through the dirt wall before the gravity could change again.

And as soon as I made it through the dirt wall, I was yanked towards the ceiling by an up-gravity current, right towards.

Oh come the flip on!

A FUZZY!

Wait, no, I forgot, back in the Honeybloom Galaxy, I resolved that I would no longer call them by that inaccurate name. Do-over time.

A SPIKY!

And that stupid backwards gravity sent me hurtling right towards the monstrosity, without any opportunity to course-correct and save myself. Granted I've never been under any delusions that Bowser played fair, but it's just that most of the time his traps are so asinine and easy to get out of that one could easily mistake it for him playing fair. But this...

This had been well thought out, and that infuriated me.

However, in my rebound-bounce off the Spiky, I flew into a Silver Star hovering in midair. Oh come on, are you flippin' kidding me? Two Silver Star missions in a row?! This was ridiculous! Granted, they were only "in a row" for me because of the order I chose to complete these levels, but still. Great, so now I'd probably have to be drilling through more of these rooms looking for the rest of the Silver Stars while completely defenseless thanks to the Spin-Drill.

I flopped onto the ceiling, but then the gravity switched and yanked me towards the right wall. I grabbed a Spin-Drill and pondered where to go next. Drill through the right wall now, or wait for the gravity to switch again and drill through the ceiling...

I wonder if Spikies are made of the same slime that turned Bowser into that kaiju demon back at Lake Lapcat last year. I mean, they look kinda similar, and the Spikies do have a sort of greasy texture to them...

Sorry, I've told you how my thoughts wander.

Drilling through the right wall it was, which took me into another room where-.

OH COME ON!

I fell right onto another Spiky as soon as I entered the room! This was so un-flippin'-fair! I had absolutely no way of knowing what the heck was on the other side of one of these walls when I started drilling through it!

I flopped onto the ceiling, down to one wedge of health and pretty certain that I was gonna die at least once in this stupid place. The gravity then switched again, pulling me back to the floor, which I couldn't drill through. And on the way down I collected a second Silver Star, so...yay, I guess. And since I couldn't drill through the floor or right wall, and had come through the left wall, that left the ceiling as the only way worth exiting the room through.

I waited for the gravity to switch again, then took a deep breath and drilled through the ceiling, preparing to die as soon as I burst through the floor on the other side.

Die I did not, as the room was not inhabited by a Spiky or any other enemies. Instead, I fell upward onto a 1-Up Mushroom, then landed on a 2x4 set of blocks stacked in the upper righthand corner of the room. So...this time I'd come through the floor, and the right wall and ceiling were blocked off, which left the left wall as the only worthwhile path to take. And if the ceiling was blocked off, then maybe that meant this was only a 2x3 block of rooms I was trapped in. Although if that was the case, between the two remaining rooms, there would have to be three more Silver Stars, which seemed unlikely to say the least.

After the next round of three beeps, the gravity switched from red arrows to white arrows and pulled me towards the left wall. Oh, okay, that was convenient. It hadn't occurred to me before that left-wall gravity might not even be an option in this room, and I'd be forced to backtrack two rooms and drill through the ceiling in the second room I'd been in.

I drilled through the left wall, once again holding my breath, and found myself in an empty room. Empty except for a Spin-Drill in the corner, but I could care less about that. And as soon as I entered the room, the gravity pulled me to the ceiling...which could be drilled through. Great, so that confirmed this wasn't a 2x3 set of rooms after all. Lovely. Now I was back to having no idea how big this space was.

Well, since drilling through the floor would just take me blindly back to Spiky Probable Death Room #1, my only option was to drill through the ceiling and hope I wouldn't be taken blindly to Spiky Probable Death Room #3.

Once again, luck was on my side, and I ended up in another room that was empty except for a Spin-Drill. Okay, what the flip was the universe buttering me up for here? After getting hit by a Spiky two rooms in a row, now I'd managed to go three rooms with no Spikies. Something was up, I just didn't know what.

In other news, the ceiling in this room couldn't be drilled through, which meant I could go either left or right (even though, by my calculations, going right would take me to the other side of the impenetrable ceiling that led me to think these rooms were in a 2x3 arrangement). And I also had no way of directly backtracking to the room I'd just been in, because this room alternated between left-wall and right-wall gravity; there was no rightside-up gravity to be found here.

This was gonna be an absolute crapshoot, and after several gravity switches'-worth of deliberation, I decided to drill through the right wall.

I drilled through the right wall and emerged in the other room...

...just in time for a gravity switch to save my life.

As soon as I burst through the wall, the gravity switched from rightside-up to left-wall, which gravitated me right back towards the wall I'd just come through and spared me from falling smack dab onto another Spiky.

Okay, now not only had I had good luck three rooms in a row, but the universe had just gone out of its way to save my ass. I said it before and I'll say it again: something was up.

This room was actually occupied by two Spikies, orbiting in a tight square around the third Silver Star. I waited for the gravity to switch to blue arrows again, then quickly jumped between the Spikies and nabbed the third Silver Star. Then I drilled back through the left wall, for once confident that I wasn't about to run into imminent death on the other side.

From that room I again drilled through the left wall and found myself in another Spiky-less room inhabited by the fourth Silver Star, as well as several coins. Yay, now that my health was replenished, I could continue in peace without worrying I was about to die and have all my work in this stupid level be for naught. And since the ceiling and left wall of this room couldn't be drilled through, that left down as the only way to go. Okay, so by that logic, this was actually a 3x3 grid of rooms...unless the left wall of the room under me could be drilled through to, and that could lead to a tunnel that went on forever and ever and ever and ever...

Don't go there, Mario. Just don't.

Also present in the room was a cupboard against the left wall. And through the panes of glass in its doors, I could see that it was filled to the brim with jars of – you guessed it – Kamek's Homestyle Applesauce.

Hmm. Maybe my Spin-Drill could do something about that.

I waited for the gravity to suck me towards the left wall again, then jumped onto the cupboard and Star-Spun. The Spin-Drill went to work and smashed through the cupboard, applesauce and all. Ha HA! That's what I have to say to your stupid business venture, Kamek!

Then, when the rightside-up gravity returned, I drilled through the floor.

And fell right onto the fifth Silver Star.

Well, if nothing else, I had to admit the logic in this galaxy was at least consistent. Blindly drilling through the floor, walls, ceiling, etc. often ended in me falling onto a Spiky, but it also often ended in me falling onto a Silver Star. Granted, two of those Silver Stars I only fell onto because I rebounded off a Spiky, so I'm not sure how much credit I should really give the galaxy for that, but whatever.

The five Silver Stars then flew through the right wall of the room I ended up in (oh, and the left wall couldn't be drilled through, so I guess this was a closed grid after all), so I drilled through it after them. When I emerged back in the central room, the Power Star was hovering in its center. I stood underneath the Power Star and waited for the gravity to pull me towards the ceiling; when it did, I grabbed the Power Star and completed the mission, glad to be done with this godforsaken galaxy.

A/N: Quick update before I sign off - I'm currently starting another MGTU-adjacent fanfic in my Deadpool series of stories, titled "Deadpool: Guardians of the Multiverse vs. Purpleforce Council." The title's pretty self-explanatory: while on a mission, the Guardians of the Multiverse (the ones who showed up and helped stop the multiverse crisis at Bowser Jr.'s Fearsome Fleet) encounter and are pitted against the Purpleforce Council. Not planning on it having any direct implications on "MGT" itself (at least for the near future), but if you're interested, keep an eye out. I should have the first chapter up within a couple weeks.

Next up: "Where the Chomps Are Made of Gold" and the unexpected return of an old enemy!