A/N: Welcome back to the latest chapters! I added another A/N at the end of this post updating you on my fanfic plans for the next few months, but until then, please read, review, and enjoy!

I do not own Super Mario.

Chapter 82: The Pickax in the Planet

Upon selecting the Boulder Bowl Galaxy, I saw that the only mission was titled "Rock and Rollodillo."

Rock and excuse me, what now? What the flip was that supposed to mean? Clearly it was a pun on "rock and roll," but a pun to what end?

Or maybe it was a pun crossed with a portmanteau. Maybe…"roll" combined with "peccadillo"? That was the only word I could think of off the top of my head that ended in "-dillo." So the "rock" part, judging by the galaxy's name, probably meant there'd be lots of rocky environments and such for me to traverse, and "peccadillo" because…I don't know, the enemies in the level would do lots of minor things to offend or annoy me? Well, yay, that did very little to help me figure out what I'd be up against here, since that could describe basically any level I'd ever been to.

So, while approaching the galaxy, I saw that there were five planets there. Three were large and mostly made of dirt and stone (please, for the love of God, don't tell me this was gonna be another Spin Drill-centric level), one looked like a large chunk of amber, and the one with Power Star light emanating from it that looked like a giant red, metal birdfeeder. Oh great: a barren, spherical planet with Power Star light coming from it. This reeked of another boss fight. And judging by the appearance of the planet, I made the educated guess that said fight would be against a giant bird.

And if said bird turned out to be a huge Spiky Spikepecker, I would be rage-quitting this galaxy and adding it to the long list of places I refuse to set foot in ever again.

As I landed on the Starting Planet, I saw that it was inhabited by three of those…oh great, what did I call them? The green Octoombas, the ones that shoot two rocks. I know Bowser's name for them is Elite Octoombas, but what was the much better name I made up before I knew – Puketoombas, that's it. Because they're green, like they're about to puke. Anyway, yes, there were three Puketoombas there, surrounding a cage with-

Oh you've gotta be flipping kidding me.

With a ROCK MUSHROOM in it!

This stupid power-up again? Argh, why-y-y?

Seriously, unless I can get away with just rolling everywhere in a straight line, I would say this power-up is even worse than the Spring Mushroom, and that's saying something. Because, sure, the Spring Mushroom makes it near-impossible to move in a controlled manner, but at least I can see where I'm going (or, rather, trying to go – succeeding at it is another matter entirely). With the Rock Mushroom, I can't even do that much unless I'm rolling in a straight line. Which leaves me absolutely baffled as to how Bowser managed to follow me around when he was in his rock form at the end of my first galactic adventure.

And what's worse, it looked like in this galaxy I wouldn't even be so fortunate as to have a cushioned surface to be rolling on like I had most of the time in the Freezy Flake Galaxy. No indeed, it appeared that here I'd be perpetually smashing my unprotected nose against the oh-so-pleasant lineup of packed dirt, stone, and/or metal.

Then again, Baby Luma had just chowed down on that Power Star back on Starship Mario. Maybe he would be able to help me out and laser-blast any obstacles or enemies we ran into that I was expected to use the Rock Mushroom to overcome.

One could hope.

Baby Luma yanked on my hair and started pulling me towards the cage (seriously, what was with him and my hair lately?!). "Come on, let's go. Do you want this Power Star or not?"

I swatted at him. "Alright, fine, I'm going, just calm down."

I ran towards the cage and, judging by my previous experiences with such cages, figured the key to open it was probably hidden inside one of the three Puketoombas. So I Star-Spun them after the other to try to find it. Not in the first one. Not in the second one. Technically not in the third one either, but the cage still opened after I defeated the third one. Well, as long as it was open. That was all I really cared about.

I grabbed the Rock Mushroom inside the cage…not really sure why I cared about getting it since, like I said, I was planning to have Baby Luma take care of any Rock Mushroom-related obstacles, but I did, so whatever.

And for that matter, where the heck was I even supposed to go? There was no Launch Star around, just five monoliths, a strange metal wall, and a giant purple crystal around the perimeter of the planet. And…oh joy, who was right next to the crystal but Not-Jacques and Not-Daniel. Seriously? Those two idiots were back already? It had only been, like, two days since I last kicked their butts in the Flipsville Galaxy!

Actually, no, wait, I'd only fought Not-Bartholomew on my second trip to the galaxy; the rest of the Not-Toad Brigade had been strangely AWOL that time. Yeah, no doubt because they were lying in wait here.

And what's more, Not-Jacques was chipping away at the giant purple crystal with a pickax. Great, so that probably meant that Bowser had sent them here not only to kill me, but also to uncover whatever was inside that crystal. No doubt something evil that Bowser wanted for Evil Reasons.

So, before figuring out where the Launch Star was, I decided to go give the two Not-Toads a beat-down. Who knows, maybe defeating them would make the Launch Star appear, like how defeating the Puketoombas made the cage disappear.

I walked over to Not-Jacques but kept my distance for the time being, what with the pickax a.k.a. possible murder weapon he was holding. Not-Daniel, meanwhile, was asleep on the ground, or at least giving the appearance of being asleep.

"I'm NEVER going to be able to break this thing…," Not-Jacques whined as I approached. "I can't believe the captain is making me do this! Grumble grumble…."

"Funny you should mention the captain," I said, getting ready to play my new favorite game. "What's his name?"

Not-Jacques stopped chipping away at the crystal, and I could've sworn I heard him mutter, "Oh crap." He turned to face me. "What…what do you mean? His name's Captain Toad."

"No, that's his title. I mean his name. His real name?"

"Uh…uh…it starts with a 'b,' right?"

I folded my arms, not indicating whether he was right or not, waiting to see what obscure B-name that hasn't been uttered by anyone in, like, fifty years he would cough up today.

"Um…Bigdummywho'sabouttogetpickaxedsayswhat Toad," he said.

I spread my arms. "Wha-?"

"YAAH!" Not-Jacques suddenly lunged at me, swinging his pickax. I ducked under it and then instinctively went to Star-Spin him, forgetting that I had grabbed that stupid Rock Mushroom and become stupid Rock Mario, and thus couldn't utilize my stupid Star-Spin because attempting to do so would just make me stupid roll.

And yes, I know that last use of "stupid" made no stupid sense whatso-stupid-ever. Bite me.

So instead of knocking Not-Jacques flat on his ass, I rolled up into a boulder and didn't even know what direction I was facing in.

But almost immediately after I started rolling, I crashed into something (thankfully not nose-first) and exploded out of my rock form. I flopped on the ground and looked up to see…oh great. I'd crashed into the Purple Crystal of Evil that Not-Jacques had been trying to break. And judging by the giant cracks splintering throughout the crystal, I'd been a hell of a lot more successful than his pickax.

Not-Jacques, meanwhile, stalked towards me again. "See, that was funny," he said. "I said the captain's name was 'Big Dummy Who's About to Get Pickaxed Says What,' and you said 'What?' So that means you're a big dummy who's about to get pickaxed!" He swung the pickax towards me again. I scooted backwards, and it lodged in the ground about two inches shy of my crotch.

And I'm sorry, but really? The old "blah blah blah says what?" routine? Come on, that was lame even for a Goomba disguised as a Toad. I haven't done that since I was, like, four, at which point I discovered I could get my message across a lot faster by just F-bombing whoever had aggravated me.

As Not-Jacques tried to free his pickax from the ground, I kicked him in the head. He tumbled backwards across the ground. While he had been temporarily dealt with, I grabbed the pickax's handle and tried to pull it free myself.

Pull it free I did not. In fact, all I accomplished was coming about a hair's width shy of throwing out my back.

But more importantly, what the flip? How hard has Not-Jacques swung this thing that it was lodged in the ground this firmly? Which also begged the disturbing question of what this would've done to my crotch had I not scrambled backwards in time. I didn't know, I didn't want to know, but I had an unshakable hunch that it would've made demon-possessed Sonic castrating Bowser with that ice skate last year look like a legitimate medical procedure.

I tugged on the pickax again, to no avail. What the flip sort of garbage was this? Instead of The Sword in the Stone, The…The Pickax in the Planet?

But while I was distracted with that nonsense, Not-Jacques lunged at me and knocked me to the ground. I fell right in front of the crystal. Not-Jacques landed on me and swatted at my face. "Take that! And that! And some of that!"

"Baby Luma, care to help me out here?" I shouted.

"Mmm, looks like you've got it all under control for now," Baby Luma replied.

The nerve of that guy! Look, if you're gonna get on my case about me taking too long to get going and collect Power Stars, then at least have the decency to help me out!

I kicked Not-Jacques in the butt, launching him over my head and into the crystal. Then I scrambled back towards the pickax and desperately tried to pry it loose again.

This time I guess you could make the argument I was half-successful, because half of the pickax came loose. Only the half that came loose was the useless wooden handle, not the sharpened metal blade that was, against all odds, still firmly lodged in the dirt.

"YAAH!" Not-Jacques shouted again, running towards me. I reared back the pickax's handle and swung it at his head. But at the last second, he dropped under it and did a sliding kick right into my kneecaps. OW!

I fell over and clutched my legs. I hadn't heard anything break, so I took that as a good sign, but still, that flippin' hurt!

Not-Jacques snorted. "Really? You're the guy who's been defeating Bowser on an almost yearly basis for thirty years? Ha. I expected more."

That did it.

That flippin' did it.

To slightly paraphrase the words of Sabrina Carpentoad: kneecap-bashing is one thing, my EGO is another.

I got up and swung my piece of wood towards Not-Jacques again. He leapt to the side, but I turned after him and, once again forgetting about my Rock Mushroom, went to Star-Spin him.

I don't need to tell you what happened next, and once again it ended in me crashing into the giant purple crystal (thankfully, again, not nose-first).

Only this time, the crystal shattered, revealing….

…a Comet Medal?

What? Why the flip was Bowser having the Not-Toad Brigade chip away at this crystal just to get a stupid Comet Medal? If he wanted one so bad, why didn't he just take it from literally any other galaxy? Because I'm pretty sure all the other ones I've come across have just been sitting out in the open, waiting to be grabbed by anyone.

Meanwhile, Not-Jacques's jaw dropped and he fell to his…whatever a Goomba dressed as a Toad has that passes for knees. "That's…that's it? A Comet Medal? That's it?!"

Oh, okay, so Bowser probably thought it was gonna be something more than a Comet Medal, but it wasn't. Although that begged the question of how Bowser didn't already know what was in the crystal, since it was my understanding that he personally created all these galaxies with his powers.

I prepared to swing the piece of wood into Not-Jacques again when he reached up, twisted off his fake head, and punted it off the edge of the planet. "I quit!" he shouted, now in his true, un-modulated Goomba voice. "You can kiss my ass, Bowser!"

…

Um….

I mean, I know I've run into a bunch of fake defectors from the Koopa Troop before, but none of them have ever been this, erm, emphatic about it before. Granted, Bowser could've told his minions to be more emphatic about their fake defecting since I never bought it before, but then again, Bowser's practically the definition of "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome." Changing a strategy that isn't working isn't really a Bowser thing to do.

So, against my better judgment, I hesitated in mid-swing and asked Not-Jacques, "What did you say?"

"You heard me," he said, looking rather ridiculous since all I could see of him was the top of his body sticking out of the Toad costume's neck hole. "Bowser can kiss my ass. I'm tired of being the low Goomba on the totem pole, the one who always gets the most repugnant jobs just because I accidentally bought him movie theater butter popcorn instead of extra butter popcorn one time over ten years ago. Ever since then, I'm his go-to Goomba when he needs the toilet plunged, or he needs someone to search through the dumpster because he accidentally threw away his car keys, or he needs someone to sneak into Peach's Castle through the sewers to spy on her security measures."

I'm sorry, what?

The Goomba continued, "And now three days ago he sent us to this galaxy to see if the purple crystals here contain any of that same purple gas stuff that Star Bunny juiced himself up on to get superpowers during the battle in the Starshine Beach Galaxy last week. The captain tasked me and him," he pointed to Not-Daniel, "with breaking open this one, but he keeps falling asleep. Trying to keep him awake was becoming more trouble than it was worth, and any time I called in our supervisor to report him for sleeping on the job, he oh so conveniently woke up just before our supervisor got here and denied ever having been asleep. It was my word against his, and it didn't take long for our supervisor to stop believing me when I called him. So I resigned myself to the fact that I'd be chipping away at this crystal by myself, and I've barely made any progress. Three days of my life completely wasted."

I tapped my foot. I didn't buy it, but there's nothing I love more than tearing apart fake-defecting minions' pathetic lies before I defeat them. "Wouldn't Bowser know there was just a Comet Medal in here? He made this galaxy, after all."

"As a matter of fact, this is the one galaxy that he didn't personally make. At the time work on this galaxy was supposed to be going on, he was busy trying to resolve a Koopa strike. So to delegate this work without making it look like he was delegating this work, he conducted a sweepstakes where one lucky participant would get to head to his castle and design their own galaxy. The winner ended up designing this whole galaxy themselves, so Bowser had no idea what was in this crystal."

…Alright, that did seem like a pretty Bowser thing to do, not to mention too complex a lie for a lowly Goomba to either craft themselves or remember after having someone else feed it to them.

Not-Jacques paused. "Wait a minute, no, that wasn't during the Koopa strike. That was when he was meeting with the animal rights groups who were enraged at him for planning to include critically endangered Reznors in the Triceratower Galaxy. My bad."

Wait, are you kidding me? Assuming a word out of this guy's mouth could be believed, those gosh dang fire-breathing Triceratops were gonna be back somewhere? For the longest time I thought I was never gonna have to deal with them again after Super Mario World, and then four years ago they came back out of flippin' nowhere in New Super Mario Bros. 2. And now here too?

And for that matter….

"They're called Renzors," I said.

Not-Jacques folded his arms. "No, they're called Reznors."

"Pretty sure it's Renzors."

"And I'm positive it's Reznors. You know, like Trent Reznor? That's where Bowser got their name from, after all."

"Uh, no, his name is Trent Renzor. I should know, I sent him fan mail, like, every single day during the mid-'90s. Granted, he never replied to any of it, but that's beside the point."

"He probably never replied because he didn't get any of those letters because you addressed them all to the wrong person. Because Trent Reznor has responded to all the fan mail I've sent him over the years."

I said it before, I'm gonna say it again:

Kneecap-bashing is one thing, my EGO is another!

My opinion of this guy had slightly improved over the course of our conversation, by which I mean it went from "I hate this guy and I'm gonna stomp him into a coin" to "I still hate this guy but maybe just maybe I'll let him live." But that little jab about Trent Renzor responding to all his fan mail was the final nail he just hammered into his own coffin.

But as I was about to jump on him, Not-Daniel, who I had foolishly assumed was actually asleep, suddenly leapt from the edge of my vision towards Not-Jacques and swung his pickax right into his back.

"OW!" Not-Jacques shouted, flopping forward as Not-Daniel yanked the pickax out of him. "But…but why?"

"For the glory of King Bowser, you filthy defector!" Not-Daniel cried, before swinging the pickax into Not-Jacques again.

Welp, I guess Trent Renzor wouldn't be getting any more fan mail from this guy.

But while Not-Daniel was busy pickaxing the hell out of Not-Jacques's corpse, I reared back my piece of wood and swung it with all my might into Not-Daniel's head. His mushroom-head balloon burst with a BANG! and he tumbled into one of the wooden fences bordering the planet. Before he could recover, I ran over and whacked him again, sending him flipping over the fence and into the void below.

Man, what a bunch of flippin' nutcases the Not-Toad Brigade was.

I dropped the piece of wood. Well, now that this two wackadoodles were dealt with, I grabbed the Comet Medal and then focused my efforts on finding the way off the planet. I spotted Bill Board behind the spot where the crystal had been but ignored him, seeing as how Yoshi wasn't around to insist we pay him a visit.

But from near Bill Board, I could see past the strange metal wall sticking up across the planet from me. A short distance beyond it, there was a small planetoid with what looked like a ramp on its far end aiming towards one of the other planets. Well, seeing as how that planetoid was the Starting Planet's nearest neighbor, I figured that was where I had to go, which only left the question of how to get there.

For a split second I found myself wishing, as much as I never thought I would have this thought, that I had a Spring Mushroom at my disposal, because that would probably let me jump high enough to get over that wall. But then I realized that no, even that wouldn't help me, because then I'd have no way to cross the gap between the wall and the planetoid with the ramp.

Had…had Bowser finally made an impossible level?

Actually, no, assuming Not-Jacques was telling the truth, Bowser wasn't even the one to blame for this level, it was whoever won those stupid sweepstakes he put together. Which threw an interesting wrench into things. See, for whatever reason, despite his hatred for me, Bowser seems to be bound by some bizarre, unspoken rule stipulating that every level he creates has to be beatable (not complaining here, just making an observation). But Bowser didn't create this galaxy. So it was possible that whoever had made it wasn't subject to the same requirements as Bowser.

Maybe I had finally been met with an impossible level.

Welp, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.

"What are you doing just standing around?" Baby Luma demanded. "Come on, you're wasting time!"

"Uh…." I gestured to the planet. "Do you see anywhere for me to go? There's no way off this planet!"

"Well, at least try something. Look, there's five stones around the perimeter of the planet. Maybe there's a Star Chip inside each of them."

"Okay, and do you know for a fact that an attempt to break through these stones will actually be successful, and won't just end in me smashing my nose to smithereens?"

"No. But come on, you humans all love to take risks. Especially macho dudes like you. But if you're not willing to do this, I guess maybe you aren't that tough and cool after all."

…

Alright, I know I'm referencing her a lot for a singer whose music I don't even like all that much, but one last time, to slightly paraphrase the words of Sabrina Carpentoad:

Punching me in the face for waking you up is one thing, my EGO is another!

"Alright, fine," I said. "Watch and learn." I picked one of the monoliths, walked up to it, and spun into a ball. Once again, I got lucky and my nose was spared the brunt of the impact. But against all odds, the stone actually shattered, revealing…a bunch of Star Bits. No Star Chip.

Which meant that even if the other four stones each had a Star Chip in them, I would still only have four. Ergo, I would not be able to form a Launch Star. Ergo, there was no Launch Star to form. Ergo, there was either some other, ridiculously obscure way off this planet, or, as I've previously mentioned, no way off this planet.

"Come on, smash open the next one," Baby Luma said.

I scoffed. "Are…are you not doing the math here? There's four stones left. There's no such thing as a Launch Star made of four Star Chips."

"Says who?"

"Says every group of Star Chips I've ever come across."

"You heard that Goomba back there, though. Bowser didn't create this level; someone else did. Maybe they wanted to do something different – you know, mark this level as their own somehow – and they decided that having a Launch Star made of four Star Chips was the way to do it."

Sigh.

As much as I hated to admit it, that wasn't really any more unreasonable than whoever designed this level making a planet I couldn't progress past.

And then, as I was making my way over to the next monolith, I remembered that – logic be damned – back in my first galactic adventure, in the Ghostly Galaxy, there had been an entire Launch Star somehow trapped inside a stalagmite that was, I'm fairly certain, smaller than these boulders. Which meant that, (il)logically, a complete Launch Star could be hidden in any of these monoliths.

Yay. Looks like I would be smashing through all of them after all.

Four stone-smashings later, I had six more Star Bits and coins but no Launch Stars, whole or otherwise. On the bright side, I didn't hit my nose on said stones once, thanks to standing close enough to them when I rolled into a ball that I didn't even complete a single rotation before hitting my target.

And as I got up from the final collision, I cleared my throat and gestured to the now-empty planet. "Well, Baby Luma? Got any bright ideas now? Not a Launch Star to be found."

"Nope," Baby Luma said. "I've already helped you out enough. I'm sick of all this hand-holding."

"Come on, you ate that Power Star earlier. Can't you just use it to conjure a Launch Star into existence or something?"

"Hmm. I probably could…."

I hate it when people say "could" to me like that. It never means anything good.

"…but I don't feel like wasting precious Power Star energy on something as trivial as that."

"Oh come on, what else are you gonna do with it? You refuse to do party tricks for Hugh, you refuse to make a Launch Star for me-"

"So you mean to tell me you would use a Power Star to do party tricks? For Hugh?"

"No – well – I mean – that's not the point!" I spluttered. "Just help me out here!"

"I did help you out by suggesting you break open these stones, since apparently you were too dumb to think of it yourself."

"You didn't help me out because there was nothing in them!"

"That's not true, M-Cap. Now you have a bunch of Star Bits and coins-"

"Stop calling me M-Cap!"

"I'll stop calling you M-Cap when you stop calling me Baby Luma, hows about that?"

"Baby Luma isn't your name?"

Baby Luma smacked my head. "You seriously think Baby Luma is my real name? Like Rosalina filled out my birth certificate and wrote 'First Name: Baby; Last Name: Luma'?"

"Look, I don't know. Everyone calls that younger, time-displaced version of me Baby Mario and he never has a problem with it."

"How do you know that? From what I understand baby humans aren't all that articulate. Neither are adult humans, if you ask me, but I digress."

Alright, I was ready to press the "EJECT" button on this entire conversation. "Fine, if you don't want me calling you Baby Luma anymore, then what's your actual name?"

Baby Luma paused for a second. "On second thought, maybe that isn't the best idea. If you heard my true name you'd evaporate to dust with an expression of horror and ecstasy on your face. And then where would that leave me? But at the very least, drop the whole "Baby" thing. It makes me sound so pathetic and helpless. Just call me Luma."

…Okay, so that's how we were gonna play this, like he didn't just say that hearing his true name would literally kill me. Fine by me; I didn't even know what to make of Baby L – Luma's personality anymore at this point. No, you know what, screw it. He can't read my mind. I'm gonna keep calling him Baby Luma in my head.

"Fine," I said. "In exchange for me calling you Luma from now on, would you please help me figure out how to get off this flippin' planet?"

"Mmm, nope. See, our agreement was that if you call me Luma, I'll stop calling you M-Cap. If you want help getting off this planet, you'll have to scratch my back some other way first."

Oh you've gotta be kidding me.

"Fine, what do you want?" I asked. "Control over the TV every night?"

"No. I'm not sure right now." Baby Luma floated from under my cap. "How about an…indeterminate IOU, shall we say? A favor I can cash in at any time of my choosing in the future." He extended his appendage towards me, and it could've been a trick of the light from the nebula surrounding the galaxy, but I could've sworn said appendage was glowing pale blue. "C'mon, let's shake on it."

"Uh, okay, fine." I shook his appendage. "There, you happy now?"

"Very. Hold on, I'll be right back." Baby Luma turned to the metal wall, then floated towards the top of it. He leaned over it before floating around its backside. A few seconds later, he floated back around the side of it towards me. "There's hinges at the base of this thing, on the other side," he reported. "I think you have to knock it over and it'll form a path to that planetoid with the ramp on it."

Wait, what? How in all flip would I have been expected to figure that out without Baby Luma, who the creator of this galaxy could not have possibly known would be here to assist me? As far as I'm concerned, designing a level that's technically possible to complete yet created in such a way that no one can possibly figure out how to complete it is actually more sadistic than just making the level flat-out impossible by just, I don't know, instakilling you as soon as you arrive.

Sheesh.