Moya's Space Log - now with at least 3.4% less cringe!!
Haven't you always wondered what a certain bizarre unfinished Super Mario Galaxy 2 / Enya / Moya Brennan crossover I wrote when I was 17 would've been like if I hadn't been 17 when I wrote it, but it was still just as unfinished?
Probably not, because most of you hadn't even met me yet when I wrote Moya's Space Log.
If you weren't friends with me in November 2010 and have not read the FAQ in my profile, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about, so I'll link to an entry that'll hopefully explain it... basically, a series of inside jokes and my thoughts while writing an entry about what I got for my birthday somehow led to me attempting to write a silly fanfiction for NaNoWriMo that year where Mario, Luigi, and Enya and Moya Brennan all adventure together in Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Moya's always questioning the logic of Mario games while Enya simply accepts it.
But then I didn't finish writing it past the first mission of SMG2. And I never get around to finishing it for at least seven years despite occasionally promising to. I don't think that'll change anytime soon since there's still so many other things on my to-do list (that is probably even longer by now than Moya's Space Log would be if I had completed it).
BUT! As I said in a friends-only entry recently, I finally got around to something else I've been meaning to do for years - I combined all I've written so far of Moya's Space Log into one entry and revised it all again to change the things I really wish I'd written differently!
Now after seven years, you can FINALLY read what I've written so far of Moya's Space Log while only sometimes cringing at my 17-year-old self's poor choices of wording, sense of humor, or sense of... anything else!
I think I edited the very beginning more than anything else - I always felt that was one of the worst parts of MSL, on account of my knowing significantly less about how Enya and Moya typically spend their lives than I know about Super Mario Galaxy 2. Which is still the case, but I feel the beginning in this version is almost guaranteed to be an improvement at least. :)
And you can now read it all in one go without:
- Having to keep clicking to see the next entry
- Getting confused by MSL being divided into "parts" with VERY different lengths that begin and end whenever I began/finished writing for the day (or two) and not necessarily at appropriately climactic places for chapters to begin/end
- Getting confused by many "parts" of MSL being immediately followed by slightly revised versions of the same parts
- Cringing quite as much... oh wait, I said that already
- Getting confused by random other things I wrote about in the same entries as MSL in 2010 without always even putting a "----" or something to divide these from MSL rather than, y'know, making separate entries for other things I wanted to post to LJ about in November 2010
Though if you're feeling brave or you lost a bet or something, you can also still go to November 2010 in my calendar and read Moya's Space Log the old way - those entries are still there, unaltered except to fix links, tags, and repost buttons on DW, sort of fix status bars on both LJ and DW, and (if I managed to get this done by the time you read this) add links FROM the first and last parts of the old version TO this new revision. And maybe I'll eventually fix the "other things I posted about in November 2010 not separated from MSL very clearly" thing in those entries too.
Here we go!
----
Moya's Space Log
By: matt1993 a.k.a.
matt1993
Super Mario Galaxy 2 / Enya / Moya Brennan crossover fanfiction
Rated: PG
Completed?: Yeah, right
Moya Brennan is quite certain that having her birthday celebration interrupted by having to go into space in another dimension to help two plumbers save a princess from a giant turtle was NOT supposed to be one of the surprises her sister had planned...
Author's Notes:
This story is an extremely silly alternate universe crossover that takes place during the events of Super Mario Galaxy 2 in the Mario world and on Moya Brennan's birthday in 2010 in the real world. As such, it contains certain differences:
- Enya and Moya (or, as I like to call them sometimes, the "Brennan Sstrs.") join the adventure alongside Mario and Luigi (and they all adventure together even though, in SMG2 itself, not even Mario and Luigi are both playable at the same time)
- Because of this, there are other changes that reflect what Super Mario Galaxy 2 would have been like if it had a 4-player mode like New Super Mario Bros. Wii; some of the multiplayer game mechanics are included, sometimes four of an the same item appear when there was originally one, etc.
- Enya and Moya are "part Yoshi" (i.e. have Yoshi tongues) when they are in the Mario world (inspired by playing Enya's "Afer Ventus" backwards, which made one verse sound like "I ate the Goomba" to me)
- Bowser kidnaps Nicky and Roma Ryan in addition to Princess Peach
- I had to completely guess what was done for (the beginning of) the real Moya's birthday celebration that year
- etc.
Dedicated to my sister Jenn a.k.a. pathvain_aelien. This means that there are some inside jokes that make a lot more sense to her (e.g. calling Goombas chipmunks, calling Lubba "Purple Diaper Man", Moya wanting to eat Lumas) or a select few including her (e.g. the "part Yoshi" thing), but I hope the rest of you find these amusing too. :)
LEGAL DISCLAIMERS (all of which should be obvious, but you never know):
I definitely do not own the Mario franchise or any characters in it and am not affiliated with Nintendo.
Enya, Moya Brennan, and the people they know (Nicky Ryan, Roma Ryan, Ross Cullum, Fionán deBarra, etc.) are real people (that I am also not affiliated with, nor are any of them affiliated with Nintendo either), but this story features fictional depictions of these real people - whose points of view are probably very different from those of their real-world counterparts; who knows if the real Moya has ever overanalyzed, or would overanalyze, any video game in this manner, for example?
The events of this story are fictitious. (Yes, this means even the events that DON'T involve these people traveling with video-game plumbers in space.)
This story is not authorized, sponsored, or endorsed by Nintendo, Enya, Moya, etc. etc.
Some of the dialogue in this story is directly quoted from Super Mario Galaxy 2, while other dialogue (even dialogue spoken by Mario characters, in many cases) is either slightly modified from in-game dialogue (e.g. any time a character addresses Mario in the original game, it usually has to be reworded because they're talking to four people in this story) or made up entirely.
OTHER DISCLAIMERS:
Whatever you do, do NOT let the fact that I'm writing a story in which the narrator often overanalyzes and pokes fun at the logic of Mario games confuse you. I've always loved the Mario franchise, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 is one of my favorites in particular. So, please, do not assume that all of Moya's opinions in this story are the same as mine. Don't even assume that any of them are.
----
Today sure has been a strange day. It started out well, but then... what happened?
I was at Manderley, where Enya had organized a celebration for my birthday that certainly began promisingly. Our entire family was there, plus Ross Cullum, Fionán and Éamonn deBarra, and Feargal Murray! Enya even invited Nicky and Roma Ryan!
"Here's what we're going to do," explained Enya. "First we're going to have cake, then we'll eat dinner, and then--"
"Shouldn't we have dinner first?" I asked.
"That's no fun! Anyway," she continued, "after dinner... well, I don't want to spoil any of the surprises just yet!"
Just then, we were rudely interrupted by a noise that sounded kind of like prlrlRLRL!
I quickly turned around - a large, bright green pipe (large enough that one of us could fit inside it) that I don't recall seeing when I came in was now sticking out of the floor, just next to the birthday cake.
"Er, what is that?" I asked. "Is that one of the surprises?"
Then mysterious pipe made another noise that sounded kind of like unh-unh-unh, and then some sort of monster leaped out of the pipe (despite certainly NOT looking like he could fit inside it in the first place)! The monster landed with such force that the floor started to shake, causing us all (not to mention the cake) to fall over! I'm not sure what sort of creature that is... my first guess was a giant turtle (or more like, giant giant giant turtle) because of the green shell on his back, though I've never seen a turtle with SPIKES on its shell or tail before!... or with a collar and wristbands that are also covered in spikes!... or with horns, tufts of reddish hair, or claws!
Everyone except Enya and I started running around screaming once they managed to get to their feet. Enya and I watched in shock as the monster grabbed both Roma and Nicky with one hand - those claws must have been painful...
"Surely THAT isn't one of--"
"BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!" interjected the monster in a growling voice. "Aren't they the cutest couple?... aside from me and Princess Peach, that is? Once I'm finished conquering the Mushroom Universe, I'm gonna force these two to write my empire's national anthem! No... UNIVERSAL anthem! And it will be so great, that with it, I shall be able to conquer THIS universe too! HAHAHAHAHA!!"
At least that's what I thought I heard. It's hard to tell what he's saying on account of his gravelly voice... oh, and because I don't think anything about that plan makes any sense at all.
"ENYA!!!" yelled Roma and Nicky.
The monster, jumping back into the pipe (which made the unh-unh-unh noise again), and turning to Enya and I, added, "Have fun with your stupid sailing away!" So now he's kidnapped Enya's friends AND insulted our music (and yet still expects his hostages to write some for him?)... I don't feel quite so bad about describing him as a monster now.
The mysterious green pipe started to recede back into the floor, but fortunately, the two of us still managed to leap in - unh-unh-unh, unh-unh-unh - right before it presumably disappeared entirely.
Travelling through that pipe sure made me dizzy... the next two things I knew were:
1. My mouth had started feeling a bit strange somehow, but I was not sure why.
2. Enya and I were now at a field just outside a white castle with a red roof and several towers - I wondered for a moment which was bigger: this castle, or Manderley. Above the doors was a stained-glass window depicting a woman with long blonde hair in a gold crown and a pink dress. Around the castle, many small people with colorful spotted mushroom-like heads were running around frightened the same way our family and friends had been. In front of the castle was the monster, who now had not only Nicky and Roma in his hand, but also a woman who looked much like the one depicted in that window - she must be Princess . Surely the monster wasn't serious about him and Peach being a couple, was he?
Two chubby mustachioed men in plumber-like attire were looking up at the monster, much as Enya and I had done back at Manderley. One of these men was wearing a red hat with an M on it, a red shirt, and blue overalls. The other was a bit taller and thinner (but still a bit chubby) and wore a similar outfit, but with green instead of red, an L instead of an M, and darker blue overalls, and his mustache was slightly different. They both wore white gloves and brown shoes and had brown hair (but black mustaches). Strangely, these two men only seemed mildly surprised to see this monster - it was like something about these events was familiar to them, somehow...
"You're too late, Mario!" shouted the monster to the red-capped plumber - then, glancing at the green-capped plumber, the monster added, "...uh, and Luigi!". Apparently this scenario is quite familiar to the monster as well if he knows their names already.
"...and, uh..." the monster continued, now staring at Enya and me, "...whoever you two are. Since you're ALSO annoying enough, persistent enough, and annoyingly persistent enough to follow me all the way here, I'm guessing you're some sort of... alternate universe... female... singer... Mario Brothers?" (I sure hope not, I thought.)
"I'm Enya Brennan, and--" - Enya pointed to me - "my sister is Moya!"
"Shh!" I told her. "He'll ask us to do concerts!"
"Fine, Enyay and Moria," the monster continued. "Anyway, the power of the stars is already MINE! And look what I got..."
Enya, the Mario Brothers (...Mario Brothers? So, Mario's first AND last name is Mario? That seems a bit uncreative...), and I looked at the monster's clawed hand (though, of course, I already knew he had Roma, Nicky, and Peach).
"GWAHAHAAH!" yelled the monster. At the same time, his three hostages all screamed, "HELP US!"
"I'm HUUUUGE!" shouted the monster, as if he somehow thought this statement was not obvious from the fact that he was effortlessly holding three humans in one hand. (Wait a minute - this place has a human ruler even though the residents are all mushroom people? ...Mario Bros. notwithstanding? Exactly who is from this land and who isn't?)
"Even scarier up close, huh?" continued the huge monster who is huge and tall and huge and large and evidently quite narcissistic and huge. (Perhaps what he meant before is that Huge is his name! Seems like an odd name, but then, does anything make sense in this dimension?)
"MARIO! LUIGI!" screamed Peach, as Roma and Nicky screamed, "ENYA! MOYA!"
"Maybe I'll have Peach bake ME something for once... I could sure go for a galaxy-sized slice of cake right now!" continued Huge. I sure hope he literally means cake and not something else... "I'm way too huge for this puny planet!" How? He's still a lot smaller than it. "I deserve an empire that's more ME size! And I'll put it in the center of the universe! And I'll have..." - he looked in his full hand - "...uh...my non-Peach prisoners write the--"
"I'm Roma Ryan, and he is Nicky Ryan!" interrupted Roma.
"Well, excuuuse me! Okay, I'll have Romeo and Nickel here write my universal anthem! Like I told Kenya and Mayo, it'll be so great, I'll be able to conquer THEIR universe too!"
(If Huge doesn't know our names, how did he know that we are musicians?)
"Have fun with your stupid mushrooms!" he finished, turning around and somehow flying into the sky (which I finally noticed was dark - it was hard to tell while Huge was in the way). He disappeared in a flash of light that somehow made the sky turn (back to?) a clear, bright blue. The mushroom people were no longer running around, but they still looked extremely worried.
"Mario! Luigi! Enya! Moya!" exclaimed a voice near the castle. The Mario Bros. headed towards the voice, doing rather silly-looking flying leaps while shouting, "WOOHOO!" and "WHEE!" and "YEAH-HA!" They sure sound happy to have to rescue three people from a giant half-turtle/half-who-knows. Enya and I followed - Enya had the dignity to not do those silly leaps, but apparently not enough dignity to not jump over a bench while holding one arm in the air. I, of course, went around the bench without jumping at all.
On the way, there was a crystal in the ground with a few smaller, multicolored pointy crystals inside it. Luigi broke open the large crystal by punching it while doing a spin (leaving little starry trails behind his hands somehow) - while he did that, I just barely noticed a small, adorable, delicious-looking white star-shaped creature briefly come out of his hat and go back in. How does it fit in there? Then he took all of the small crystals (or at least that's what I'm assuming because they disappeared, making pling sounds, when he touched them). Thief!
In front of the castle bridge were two more star creatures like the one I saw come out of that hat, except that these were yellow. But they still looked delicious! Seriously, they look so much like candy! Maybe the first one is vanilla and these two are lemon?
"Mario? Do you know where that monster came from? Any of you?" asked one of the lemon stars. "He took your princess and those other two to the center of the universe!" ("Your" princess? Right, like a princess would be in love with a guy that looks like a plumber.) "You all must hurry and save them!"
The vanilla star suddenly came out of Mario's hat, holding it. "OH! Master Luma!" exclaimed one of the lemon stars.
"Wait a minute. Weren't you in Luigi's hat a minute ago when he stole those crystal things?" I asked Master Luma.
"Stole?" Luigi sounded offended. "Today is the Star Festival! Every one hundred years, thousands of Star Bits fall from the sky and we collect them!"
"Okay, but how was, er, Master Luma in Luigi's hat when he 'collected' the 'Star Bits' and suddenly in Mario's hat now?"
Master Luma went back under Mario's plumber cap, and then Enya twitched a little as Master Luma somehow came out of her very different round blue hat (I've seen that hat before - I believe she wore it on the cover of The Memory of Trees), holding it the same way he did with Mario's. Then he went back under her hat and came out of my hair since I had no hat of any kind.
...Okay? That little magic trick was essentially the exact opposite of an answer to my question.
"Anyway, young Master Luma," the lemon star continued, "Did you get thrown overboard too? Good thing you're safe!" The vanilla star didn't seem to say anything, but the lemon one continued, "I see... So you're going to stay in all of their hats... and Moya's hair... at once?" (How are they communicating? Are they telepathic or something?) "That should be safe for now..."
Er, that doesn't sound very safe. Especially if he's going to hide in my hair. I hope he doesn't remove anything other than hats from our heads...
"But, the rest of you," the lemon star continued, "you have other things to worry about, like saving the princess! And those other two! ...But how?" He/she/it/yum paused. "I know! With young Master Luma's help, you can use the power of the stars! And we Lumas can help a little too!"
Wait, so their race is known as Lumas, but one of them is named Luma? If it weren't for the "Master" title, that wouldn't be a very good name. If I were a Luma named Luma, I'd be quite sad about it. And then I would try to eat myself.
The lemon Luma spun for a couple of seconds and turned into a larger, flat, less delicious-looking star with a smaller star like it inside and a ray of light through the center of both stars. Apparently Lumas turn into inanimate objects, I pondered. Kind of sad if you think about it.
"As thanks for saving our friends, we'll send you into space to get that monster!" said the lemon Luma. No, not the other lemon Luma - the one that just turned into an inedible whatever-it-is could still speak somehow. Then again, Lumas don't seem to have mouths in the first place, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.
"Now! Let's go after them!" continued the Luma/whatever-this-Luma-turned-into. "Come here! Shake your Wii Remote!" Wii Remote? What?
Without bothering to put on a space suit or anything, Mario walked straight through to the center of the floating double star, which glowed when he was in it, and spun like Luigi had done at the crystal with the Star Bits. The double star spun with him and then launched him into the sky.
"WAIT! Don't we--"
Before I could finish my sentence, Luigi had already done the exact same thing. Enya was about to, but--
"Are the three of you out of your minds?!" I demanded. "Don't we need space suits to go into space?"
"If Mario and Luigi don't need space suits, then I don't," she replied, sounding slightly annoyed - then she blasted off as well.
I waited for a moment. Even if they weren't concerned about dying from the lack of oxygen or atmospheric pressure, I certainly was.
"Shake your Wii Remote!" repeated the star-shaped slingshot formerly known as... one of the two lemon Lumas.
"Excuse me - do either of you two happen to have a space suit I could borrow?"
"What's a space suit?" asked the other, non-transformed Luma.
"Never mind..."
I reluctantly went into the double star that was a Luma at one point (this still felt strange to me...), held my breath - Maybe if I hold my breath, I thought, there'll at least be a tiny chance I'll still live long enough to tell them "I told you so" before we died in the vacuum of space?, and blasted off. I don't know what that whole "Wii Remote" thing was about, because I spun just fine just by... spinning.
It's not every day that singers and plumbers go into space without space suits to save three people, including a princess, from a giant turtle.
"Moya, quit being paranoid," I heard Enya say.
I looked up. The four of us were all still flying through space, and evidently all of us were still alive and sound carries through space in this universe - either that, or we are dead and this is what the afterlife is like in this place, I thought. Either way, that meant I could stop holding my breath now, so I did.
"YI-YI-YI-YI-YI-YI-YI!" exclaimed Mario, waving his arms and starting to fall (Okay, that must mean we're still alive after all, I thought - I doubt any afterlife would involve flying through space for only a minute or so). The rest of us also plummeted one by one shortly thereafter; we all landed on a small, flat, grass-and-dirt-covered planetoid that had a white, cylindrical house on one side and a fence between the two sides.
Mario had landed on a grey rock, above which was another lemon Luma. The rest of us landed behind him.
"Our Power Stars... They're gone! Some gigantic monster stole them!" cried the Luma. "If you're going after that monster, you might see our Power Stars out there too!"
Thanks for stating the obvious, I thought.
"Please bring our Power Stars back. We Lumas will help you along your way!"
If they can help us (and especially since they can float in midair a little and we can't), can't they get their Power Stars back themselves? I thought. Besides, Lumas sure look like stars to me, so if we found any of these so-called "Power Stars", would we know that they aren't Lumas? Maybe I'll have to do a taste test...
We went down the dirt path around the house. Along the way were three gold coins spinning on-- no, spinning just above the ground, as well as three Star Bits bouncing up and down. The Mario Bros. "collected" the Star Bits and coins (and I swear I saw one of the Star Bits just fly straight to Mario before he could even touch it). Those two had better not try to tell me that today is ALSO the "Gold Coin Festival" or something, I thought.
About halfway down the trail was the door to the house, which had a picture of a cute dinosaur on it. A greyish-brown creature (it looked like a mushroom with a face and small feet, but no arms; it had prominent eyebrows, tiny fangs, and cheeks that kind of reminded me of a chipmunk somehow - I suppose I'll call it a "mushroom chipmunk") waddled over to us, and Enya...
STOMPED on the mushroom chipmunk, flattening it! The poor thing disappeared into thin air as another of those gold coins appeared, which Enya grabbed!!
"Er... Mario? Luigi? Did either of you just see that?!" I questioned.
They seemed confused - especially Luigi. "See what - that Goomba?" "Huh?"
"Enya stomping on that mushroom chipmunk and stealing-- oh, sorry, I mean 'collecting' his coin!... or, her coin? Its coin? In any case, that's shocking!"
"That was a Goomba!" explained Mario (since "Goomba" sounds a bit like a certain racial slur, I'll continue to call them mushroom chipmunks), "And oh yes, it was shocking how they-a betrayed the Mushroom Kingdom twenty-five years ago, when Bowser kidnapped Peach for-a the first time. They've-a been in his army ever since!"
So "Huge"'s real name is Bowser? That's a way better name than Huge. And he's kidnapped Princess Peach more than once? She sure seems useless.
"That's not what I meant... And come on. It's not like they could actually hurt you or..." I started. "Oh, forget it."
This universe may not make a whole lot of sense, but I knew that if I kept arguing about every little thing, we'll never save Nicky or Roma. Or Princess Useless.
Enya wasn't listening, because she was looking at the sign next to the door. The rest of us joined her. It read:
Hello, friend! Please go around back!
Yoshi
"Gee, Moya," said Luigi, "next you'll be saying that there's no dinosaurs living in space in your world!"
It seems a bit redundant for Yoshi to include a drawing of himself on the sign if he's already depicted on the door. Also, "Please go around back"? Is he basically telling potential burglars how to break into his house? I will certainly give him credit for being a dinosaur and yet existing in 2010 and being able to write, draw, and have a house built in space, though.
At the end of the short trail were two pipes like the one that Bowser had used to somehow break into Manderley, except only one of them was green - the other was orange. How many universes will we have to visit before this is all said and done?! I thought.
"Let's split up," suggested Enya. "Mario, Luigi, you take the orange one. Moya and I will take the green one."
"Okey-dokey!" agreed Mario.
It turned out that both pipes led not to two more universes entirely, but merely the other side of this planetoid (this side was dirt-covered; on the opposite side of Yoshi's house was a hill of darker-colored dirt with a crystal at the top, similar to the one Luigi broke open earlier, but bigger). The orange pipe had led the Mario Bros. into a cage, whereas the green pipe had led Enya and myself just outside of it.
"OH! So sorry!" exclaimed Enya.
"It's alright - there's a 1-Up Mushroom in here!" Luigi moved so we could see the white-spotted green mushroom with eyes behind him. It looked suspiciously similar to the heads of the mushroom people who had been panicking just outside Peach's castle (granted, their heads were white mushrooms with colored spots instead of vice versa)...
"1-Up Mushroom?" I asked.
"You-a know, 1-Up!" Mario explained. I still didn't understand. "If you eat it, you-a get an extra life," he continued.
"Extra life? You're trying to tell me that eating a green mushroom you found sitting there staring at you grants you one reincarnation?" (Seriously, why does it have eyes? At least it didn't also have a mouth, I suppose...)
"Of course! Haven't you ever played video games? If you-a lose a life, but you have at least one more left, you start-a back at the last-a checkpoint you reached!"
Great. Not only are we stuck in space with plumbers, we're stuck in space with plumbers who think this universe is a video game. Or maybe he's right and this universe actually is one. I'm not sure which explanation I find more unsettling...
Mario proceeded to "eat" the 1-Up Mushroom - by that, I mean it disappeared as soon as he touched it, much like with the Star Bits and gold coins. Is there any distinguishing between collecting and eating things in this universe? And am I going insane, or did I hear a short melody play when he "ate" the mushroom?
He didn't even bother to share it with Luigi (or me or Enya, for that matter - though, I still wasn't entirely sure I wanted to eat anything that has EYES... except Lumas, of course). Then again, it's not like he could cut it in halves or quarters without touching it. On second thought, if we could split the 1-Up Mushroom that way, wouldn't only a fraction of each of us reappear after we "lost a life"? That would be strange.
The Mario Bros. went back into the orange pipe and out of the green pipe Enya and I had chosen. On the side of the green pipe opposite the cage was a television screen depicting something red, something green, something dark blue, and something golden-tan--
Wait. Is that... US?! I thought. I looked behind us expecting to see the camera that was presumably filming us if it was able to show us on that screen, but nothing was there.
As we approached it, the screen zoomed in on itself, showing an infinity of mes, Enyas, and Mario Bros.
"Here's a tip!" exclaimed the TV. "You can spin to defeat enemies! Want to see how?"
"No," replied Mario. A bit rude of him, if you ask me, though I guess TVs don't expect perfect manners.
"Good luck out there!" said the TV.
Ahead were three more of those mushroom chipmunk things (although these were a bit larger and a brighter shade of brown) and a floating yellow cube with a question mark on it. And Mario spin-attacked the first mushroom chipmunk and kicked it (again, seeing this made me wince a little...) Three Star Bits popped out, which, of course, he took.
I don't see why that television screen wanted to teach us something that Mario seemed to already know.
Up ahead, I saw Luigi and Enya kick the next two mushroom chipmunks (making me wince some more...) and take their Star Bits. Mario hit the block with the question mark and it turned into some more Star Bits. I somehow collected some of them just by reaching for them. I saw another crystal behind where the mushroom chipmunks were (this one was the same size as the one Luigi broke outside Peach's castle), so I broke it with a spin, and, as I expected, more Star Bits. Star Bits are everywhere!
Luigi went to the top of the hill and, amazingly, broke open the crystal with only one spin, revealing another line of coins and a hole. He, Mario, and Enya jumped in, which I thought was kind of foolish, but there didn't seem to be anywhere else to go, so I followed.
It led us through the planetoid and to the top of Yoshi's house, where there were two lemon Lumas. Around the hole were three pink fruits and a sign that I was about to read, but...
"Over here!" shouted the second Luma. We approached it. "The other Lumas told me about you! Thank you for helping us!" it continued. "I'm going to transform into a Launch Star. Come over and fly!"
It turned into another of those double-star slingshots, and we blasted off as before.
The next planetoid we landed on was of an irregular shape with mainly square edges, and there was a black hole directly under it... Exactly how was this planetoid not being sucked into the black hole?
Anyway, we landed in an area with the cliffs fenced off. Ahead was a creature that looked a bit like those mushroom chipmunks, but different - this one was blue with yellow spots and had a snout and a yellow antenna. Another lemon Luma floated to the slightly higher ledge behind the blue creature. "This way!" called the Luma.
We followed it, ignoring the whatever-it-was (it did try to shoot a rock at us out of its snout, but it missed) and the coin, and came to two more creatures like it.
This was when I finally got tired of there seemingly being something in my mouth that felt weird. I tried to spit it out, but it turned out to be my tongue, which had somehow become very long and stuck to one of the blue creatures. It tasted better than I expected, so I went ahead and ate it - hopefully that was an enemy like those mushroom chipmunks... I thought. Somehow, three Star Bits shot out of my mouth. Strange, but I went ahead and collected them.
Enya, the Mario Bros., and the Luma stared, perplexed. Enya ate the other blue creature in the same way, as if to check to see if she suddenly had a tongue like that as well.
"You two are part Yoshi??" asked Luigi, still staring. (Wait, does that mean Yoshi is named after his species too? This universe is in dire need of some baby name books.)
"What? No!" I replied, somewhat embarrassed. "We had human tongues in our own universe... How did they change when we came here?!"
"Follow me!" exclaimed the Luma.
"Alright, alright, we're coming," I told it.
To me, though, the path seemed obvious (to the left of the Luma was an outline of a yellow platform, which apparently generated solid yellow platforms that rose to the ledge behind them and disappeared), so I tried eating the Luma, but my tongue wouldn't stick to it - all it did was make the Luma spin around a couple of times and let out an adorable squeak. It didn't seem to mind, oddly. And it did taste like lemon - yum!
On the ledge was another of those platform generators leading to another question-mark block, but the Luma sounded like it was in a hurry, so we ignored the block and went ahead to the ledge to the right. I'm surprised that any of us can jump that high.
Past two more platform generators (there was a 1-Up Mushroom hovering above one of them; Enya got it) was a black flag with a white symbol resembling Bowser's face on it. There was a blue aura around the flag for some reason.
I have no idea why I decided to do this, but I licked the flag (am I really that hungry?), but this also didn't work - touching it with that weird tongue instead made the flag change to a different one. (And did I hear a whistle sound effect when that happened?)
This new flag was exactly the same shade of tan as my dress, with the Bowser face replaced with a blue "M" in exactly the same style as the "Moya Brennan" logo.
"Oh yeah! We're at-a the checkpoint!" announced Mario.
"But I don't have any extra lives!" I replied. "Shouldn't we change it to you or Enya?... somehow? Why does it change like that just because I touched it, anyway?"
"No, whenever I begin a quest like-a this, I always have-a five lives at the start! Or sometimes it's-a three or four... Anyway, so does anyone who comes-a with me! So you-a and Luigi have five each right-a now and Enya and I-a have six."
"Even though Enya and I came from a different universe? And if that's my logo on the flag, what happens if one of you three di-- er, lose a life?"
"Blue Toad, Yellow Toad, and I all came with Mario on his last adventure," answered Luigi, "and no matter who touched the checkpoints, if we all lost lives at once we'd be brought back to them."
Blue Toad and Yellow Toad? Apparently, not only are the amphibians in this universe also named after their species, they're also named after their color. That sounds vaguely racist...
I have no idea how their explanation of the checkpoint flags makes sense, but I suppose I'll have to play along.
As we were talking, the Luma had moved a short distance to the right and stopped.
"Follow me! Careful! Octoombas!" it called, looking slightly impatient.
Enya, Luigi, and I started to, while Mario - who apparently has a short attention span - went to the left to get a large coin with a question mark on it. As soon as he grabbed it, a line of flashing rainbow eighth notes appeared out of nowhere, down part of the way the rest of us were headed, past some of the blue creatures (this is probably what the Luma meant by "Octoombas"; I'm going to call them Octhipmunks instead) and over a short abyss; I heard a mysterious ticking noise begin as well.
"Er... Do any of you hear that ticking noise??"
Enya and the Mario Bros. weren't listening because they were collecting all the eighth notes, which played an ascending scale as they did. (So, is today ALSO also the Ominously Ticking Musical Note Festival or something? And if so, does Enya know that or is she just doing whatever Mario and Luigi do?) When all the notes were collected, the ticking stopped and four 1-Up Mushrooms appeared out of nowhere - once they landed, though, they all slid away from each other at exactly right angles, making tapping noises somehow. Only Luigi and I managed to catch any, because the other two fell off the ledge (strangely falling straight downward instead of into the black hole).
After that, Enya went into the middle of a circle of stones and spun, which made the stones turn into Star Bits somehow (which, of course, we collected). Does ANYTHING make sense here?
To the left in the distance was a blue panel thing which Enya stepped onto and spun, causing her, the Mario Bros., and I to all teleport to a nearby hexagonal platform with seven Octhipmunks and four flashing rainbow stars.
"Are these Power Stars?" I asked.
"No, they're Rainbow Stars!" answered Mario. "These make us invincible for a while!"
But if these are stars that grant us a power, wouldn't that make them Power Stars? I wondered.
We each touched one of the stars - apparently here, "invincible" means "invincible and also looking kind of like giant gummy candy versions of ourselves... that leave colorful trails behind us when we run". Resisting the urge to eat ourselves or each other, we ran straight into the Octhipmunks, knocking them all out and collecting the resulting Star Bits (did I hear the 1-Up Mushroom melody when Luigi touched one of them?). Four 1-Up Mushrooms appeared out of nowhere. Why is it usually four? Was it prophecied that we'd be here or something? And was killing these Octhipmunks really necessary if they weren't really even in our way?
After eating/absorbing/collecting/whatever the 1-Up Mushrooms, we (now no longer invincible, and therefore no longer looking like colorful gummies) warped back to the first teleporter, which had now turned red. The Luma was waiting for us on a nearby ledge, so we followed it to the top of a narrow building with those platform generators around it.
"Let's fly!" exclaimed the Luma as it turned into a Launch Star, leading us to one of a cluster of tiny planetoids, each only a few times my height. Luigi backflipped off the bottom of it (well, the bottom relative to that last planetoid, anyway) and launched himself from a Launch Star "below" it into another question-mark coin, making some regular coins appear. Doesn't he get dizzy doing all of that?
After collecting the coins and launching from two more Launch Stars (which certainly made ME dizzy), we landed on a cylindrical planetoid with several black holes in it. Again, how is this planetoid not being sucked into any of those black holes?
This time, Enya licked the checkpoint flag, which turned the same shade of blue as her hat and dress, with the Bowser symbol changed to a gold circle with a blue "e" in the style of Enya's logo. Exactly how do these flags know what our logos look like?
Ahead was a patch of mud, which slowed down Mario and Luigi when they tried to walk through it, giving a... winged mushroom chipmunk?... a chance to fly into Luigi (I guess they can hurt us after all). Strangely, though, Enya and I were able to run right through the mud at normal speed. I'm guessing that that has something to do with us being part Yoshi in this dimension. As Enya took the coin up ahead (with so many coins and Star Bits laying around, shouldn't the mushroom chipmunks and Octhipmunks have managed to get them all first?), I took off my shoe for a moment to check if I had a Yoshi foot. It still looked normal, but since I've never seen a Yoshi's feet, I wouldn't know.
To the right was a slightly larger patch of mud and sand with stone platforms with wheels circling the planet past it. Why do those platforms need wheels if they can somehow roll on thin air (or possibly NO air, since we're in space after all) above several black holes without being sucked into any of them?
Anyway, the Mario Bros. and I went through the sand to the grass on the other side, while Enya went onto one of the stone platforms instead. There wasn't very much up ahead that we could get through without leaving the stone platforms - just two more crystals (one with some Star Bits in it), two more flying mushroom chipmunks, another patch of mud, an Octhipmunk (which managed to hit Luigi with a rock), and a Star Bit that came out of a patch of tall grass when Luigi went through it. It took about fifteen more seconds for Enya to come around the planet and join us.
"Just another 1-Up Mushroom," she said, hopping off the platform. You'd think anything that grants someone a reincarnation would be quite rare, but apparently they're rather common in this universe...
To our right was another rolling-in-midair-somehow platform, this one going over just sand. Luigi hopped onto it, but the rest of us went down its path in the other direction. Another platform came from just ahead and pushed Enya, Mario, and I back a little (almost pushing me off the edge!) until we jumped over it. The Luma went to a grassy area to the right. I almost made it there--
"Ow! That Oct[hipmunk] hit me with a rock!" exclaimed Enya, behind me.
"Follow me!" shouted the Luma, showing no concern. Although I suppose it just didn't have the time to, because soon after that, we started being pushed a little by the other platform - and soon after that, I saw Luigi get knocked off the edge of the planet on the opposite side and fall into the black hole!
"WAHHHHH-HO-HO-HO!!!" he screamed. Poor guy...
After jumping over the platform again, the rest of us finally made it to the Luma, who continued on down a narrow path with two more flying mushroom chipmunks above it. "Follow me!" it called again.
Just then, Luigi showed up ahead of us to the left, trapped in a bubble. "Help me!" he called, shaking the bubble over towards us. We moved over to give him some room to land, and Mario popped the bubble.
"Wait a minute. I thought you said we reappear at the checkpoint flag?" I asked, despite not being sure if Luigi reappearing at the flag would've made more or less sense than what just happened - he was sucked into a black hole, after all.
"That's if we all lose lives at once," answered Luigi. "If it's only some of us, we end up in bubbles like that and our friends have to pop them." (Apparently both of these scenarios have happened a lot in this world if he knows all this...)
"Strange, but at least I suppose this is better than having to go back to that flag," I replied.
"I even still have the Comet Medal I found!" Luigi held up an octagonal golden medal with a star-shaped comet with eyes on it - the star resembled a Luma somewhat, but not quite because the edges were more pointed than the Lumas' stubby arms and legs (at least I think those are arms and legs, but they don't seem to ever use them...)
Okay, is THAT what the Power Stars we're looking for look like, or is it something completely different like how Lumas and Rainbow Stars are? I thought.
"Collecting them makes comets appear!"
"How does a medal--"
"Then I got the coins here and defeated one of the Paragoombas," Luigi interrupted, (I take it "Paragoombas" are what the flying mushroom chipmunks are called? I still think "flying mushroom chipmunks" has more of a ring to it...) "but I missed the next one and it hit me into that black hole."
I wanted to ask what it was like inside that black hole, but I wasn't sure if that would be proper to ask, so I said nothing.
Mario stomped the first flying mushroom chipmunk to knock its wings off; Enya then stomped it and took the coin. The other flying mushroom chipmunk was hovering off the side of the platform when we passed it, so we left it alone... though personally I wish we'd left the first one alone too.
At the end of the path, the Luma turned into a Launch Star, which, as usual, the rest of us launched from. Whatever this "Wii Remote" thing is, we're probably going to be using it a lot.
The next planetoid was similar in shape and composition to the one Yoshi's house was on - flat with grass on one side and dirt and rocks on the other, except this time we landed on the dirt side. Ahead was an Octhipmunk and a line of four (again, it just happens to be four) mushrooms that I thought at first were more 1-Up Mushrooms, but no - these were red with yellow stars instead of green with white spots, but they looked like 1-Up Mushrooms in every other respect... including the eyes...
"Oh yeah! Life Mushrooms!" exclaimed Mario, as he went to "eat" the one on the middle-right and then run through the checkpoint flag ahead (making it red with a white circle with the red M from his cap on it).
"If you eat one, you get a maximum of six hit points instead of three!... until your hit points fall below four," explained Luigi as he and Enya went to the remaining Life Mushrooms. I don't think any of these so-called "enemies" look powerful enough to kill one of us in three or even six hits...
As the Octhipmunk unsuccessfully tried to shoot rocks at us, I went to get that last Life Mushroom - it did make me feel a little stronger.
I wonder why the Octhipmunk didn't eat any of those Life Mushrooms before we got here.
On the grassy side were three more Octhipmunks, a crystal with Star Bits, two coins, and a Launch Star. The first Octhipmunk was lucky enough to hit Mario, but Mario didn't take this lying down - he spin-attacked it, and then Enya kicked it (grabbing a coin on the way). But then I was also hit by one of those rocks (and so was Enya right afterward) - it certainly hurt, but not much. I still couldn't imagine three or six of these being enough to kill anybody.
"I see Star light over there!" called the... well, it was the Luma that we had been following, but as we dealt with the last two Octhipmunks, it had transformed into another Launch Star. It still seems strange to launch oneself from a talking slingshot...
We landed on the round dirt-and-rock-covered planetoid up ahead. Or, to be exact, we landed on what looked like a large dinosaur egg on said planetoid; the egg cracked and out hatched what looked like a part-flower, part-dinosaur creature. This creature definitely wasn't the same kind of dinosaur as Yoshi, and wasn't as adorable - it had a huge purple, white-spotted head with green petals around it (how is its head bigger than the hole it emerged from?), and sharp-looking teeth. It still looked kind of cute, though.
Still wearing its eggshell, the flower-dinosaur creature started chasing us, so we started running away in opposite directions (Luigi and I to its right, Mario and Enya to its left). It chose to go after Luigi and me, and in fact ran into Luigi, but as it laughed about it, Mario spun into its eggshell, which cracked it some more, knocked the creature about a few meters away (either Mario is surprisingly strong or that dinosaur creature is surprisingly weak...), and turned it to face him.
Luigi just barely got out from under it before it landed on him. Since its eggshell landed so close to me, I delivered a second hit... and I accidentally bumped into Luigi as I spun, which made him spin around shouting, "YAHOO!" For a guy who's on the run from some sort of plant-dinosaur that I have never seen before in my life, Luigi sure sounds cheerful.
However, the creature managed to run into me once it landed. (So if Luigi was right about the Life Mushroom thing, I now had only one more hit to go until my maximum health went back to 3... but I still thought his explanation sounded much too nerdy to be true.) Luckily, Luigi spun into the creature while it was cackling, completely breaking the eggshell.
This made it start to run away crying. (Or, at least, it sounded like it was crying, but it doesn't seem to have eyes...)
I felt sorry for it - I mean, it seemed like it was only chasing us because we cracked its eggshell by accident, so why were we breaking the rest of its shell on purpose? But Enya spin-attacked its posterior (which I thought was on fire at first because it was reddish-orange) again. That seemed kind of harsh... What's gotten into her?
After Enya's attack, four Star Bits appeared out of nowhere. Then, somehow, the creature's eggshell was rebuilt around it and looked good as new. That raises a lot of questions... like, could someone get stuck to the rest of the eggshell if they had eaten one of the egg pieces or something before the eggshell reformed?
The creature charged at us twice as fast as it had been before. I don't blame it. Though how does it know where we are if it doesn't seem to have eyes, a nose, or ears?
Somehow, even though the four of us were scattered around the planet before Enya's rather harsh attack, we'd somehow ended up in exactly the same line we landed in when we jumped off the egg (from left to right: me, Luigi, Mario, Enya). We scattered, but the creature still hit Luigi. Fortunately, it still hadn't learned that laughing to itself when it hits us gives us a chance to spin-attack its eggshell (and makes me feel slightly less guilty about doing so), so I did. The creature did almost land on Enya, but she backed away and then spin-attacked it again. Good thing it didn't land on her - I have enough reasons to feel guilty as it is...
As we went around the creature again while it was in the air, a Star Bit randomly fell onto a small yellow light on the ground, somehow turning the light into a coin. Once the creature landed, it went after Enya, but I spin-attacked it, completely breaking the eggshell again. As we chased it, it broke open some crystals of Star Bits, which, of course, we took along the way. It took a while, and we ended up having to do those silly flying leaps the Mario Bros. had done on the way to Peach's castle in order to catch up with it, but eventually Enya spin-attacked it once more.
This time, it didn't recreate its eggshell - it died and disappeared in a puff of smoke, revealing a golden star with eyes; it looked like the one depicted on the Comet Medal.
"Is THIS one of the Power Stars we're supposedly looking for?" I said, expecting to again be told that it was something different.
"It is!" answered Mario.
At least now we knew we were making progress. I'm still a bit saddened by the fact that we had to kill a newborn plant-dinosaur creature to get this first Power Star, but then again, it's not like there are any surgeons around here.
Mario touched the Power Star and somehow, all four of us started floating off of the planetoid a little. Mario then tossed the Power Star into the air, and he and Luigi caught it as Enya and I sat on two of its points.
"WAHOO!" exclaimed Mario.
The Power Star floated away from this planetoid, bringing the four of us with it and leading us to a planetoid with several Lumas on it - and then the star vanished. Mario let Master Luma out of his hat for a moment; Master Luma made an adorable squeaking noise.
We looked around the planetoid for a moment, then turned to find that a large purple (grape? Must taste test later) Luma wearing what looked like a blue diaper had suddenly appeared with the lemon Lumas, with the Power Star hovering next to him. Should I be concerned that Purple Diaper Man over here is the only Luma I've seen who wears clothes of any kind? I thought.
"So you're these Mario and Luigi guys and these Enya and Moya Brennan ladies my little Lumas won't stop blabbing about, am I right?" asked Purple Diaper Man. "Sorry to hear about the excitement you had with that monster down in the Mushroom Kingdom. I sure appreciate you all bringing us this Power Star, though! We need as many of these as we can get! The name's Lubba, by the way. I'm the head honcho of this Luma crew. See, believe it or not, we're on a spaceship right now."
We looked around again; it didn't look like much a spaceship, just a planetoid with a steering wheel on it and some meteors in it. Then again, ever since that pipe came out of the ground at Manderley, hardly anything has made sense, so why should this?
"Took some real elbow grease to convert this little planetoid into a ship," Purple Diaper Man continued (yes, I know his real name is Lubba and he's a purple Luma with a blue diaper that might not even be a diaper - I just really like the way "Purple Diaper Man" sounds for some reason), "but we Lumas pulled it off! May not look like much... but it's home."
I have to say, I've never heard of anyone having an entire planetoid, even a tiny one, for a home.
"Truth be told, the ship... she's not in such hot shape right now," Purple Diaper Man went on. "We ran into that monster too! He blasted us with meteors, and some of my crew were thrown overboard!"
"Oh no!" I gasped. "Those poor delicious Lumas!"
"What was that?"
Oops.
"Er, I said: Oh no, those poor Lumas!"
"Well, anyway," Purple Diaper Man began, as he turned to Mario. "So that monster kidnapped your princess, eh?" He turned to Enya. "And he also kidnapped your friends? That's cold... Deep-space cold, if ya ask me. Ya know what else is cold? That monster stealing every last one of our Power Stars! See, that's our fuel. Our spaceship runs on energy from Power Stars! Without that, we're stranded here!"
Just then, Master Luma came out of Mario's hat again, holding it. Purple Diaper Man jumped in delight. (I say "jumped", but was that really a jump since he floats in midair a little like all the other Lumas?)
"AY-O! Is-- Is that young Master Luma? It is...isn't it?! Wow... Wait-- if you have the trust of young Master Luma... hmm... Say, I just might have a little proposition for ya. Hear me out, now... Your special someone and Enya's friends got kidnapped and now you gotta save them, am I right?"
I half-expected Mario to say something like, "Duh! You-a just said it!" But instead he said, "That's right."
(...Wait a minute. Peach is Mario's "special someone"?? It seems rare for a princess to be in love with a plumber. Does Luigi ever get jealous, seeing as how he's a plumber too?)
"And we need fuel for our ship. Now," Purple Diaper Man continued, turning to all of us, "if you think you could get some of our Power Stars back for us, I'd be willing to make this ship your very own for a bit. That's a fair exchange! Am I right?"
"That's right," repeated Mario, apparently with no doubts whatsoever that two plumbers and two singers would be able to figure out how to work a spaceship.
"All right! It's a deal!" exclaimed Purple Diaper Man. "Okay, gang! Let's get cracking, yeah? I want everything space-shipshape!"
All of the Lumas (including him) started spinning. Purple Diaper Man and the Power Star went into the air, and then suddenly a light came from the spaceship as the lemon Lumas all squealed with delight. I thought the spaceship had exploded for a split second, but then it turned out to have transformed to resemble Mario's head. (Though the hat was green because it was made of grass. Until I saw the red M I thought it was supposed to look like Luigi's head).
"Well, whaddaya think? Nice spaceship, huh? More like a faceship! Har har! Well, at least you'll never lose it in a parking lot! Am I right? Har har!"
"That's not fair..." I griped. "Just because Master Luma decided to be in Mario's hat just now, even though he can somehow teleport to my hair and the rest of our hats, means this ship gets to have Mario's face on it and not ours? It gets to BE Mario's face, in fact? Look--" To prove it, I showed off that little spin attack we'd been using. I don't know why Master Luma always pops out of our hats/hair and goes back in when we use it, but this was no exception - Master Luma disappeared, popped out of my hair, and then went back to where he was.
"Didn't you see that?" I asked.
"Ignore-a Moya," interjected Mario. "She-a complains about everything."
"I'm only pointing out things that don't make much sense to me..."
"Whoa, now," interrupted Purple Diaper Man. "If you keep fighting like this, we'll never get anything done!"
We calmed down slightly.
"So what's next? Don't look at me--" he turned to Mario-- "this ship has your face on it, not mine!... Okay, pretend it has your friends' faces on it too. But still not mine."
I wasn't sure whether to be glad he implied that Mario isn't the only one who has a say in things or annoyed that he implied that Enya and I are Mario's "friends".
"The decision is yours! Feel free to explore Starship Mario, or take the helm if you're ready to ship out!"
"So you're not gonna tell us how--" I began--
"It's your call, 'Team Brennario'!" he finished, ignoring me. "Team Brennario" is a terrible name, I thought.
Master Luma went back into Mario's hat.
We looked around Starship Mario (I hope that's short for "Starship Mario-Luigi-Moya-Enya" or something...) for a little while. The Lumas had built a proper deck, one that wasn't just a rock with a steering wheel on it; the wheel itself was still there, but now it was mounted rather than just laying on a crate, and there was a large yellow button on the ground in front of it. There weren't just lemon Lumas and Purple Diaper Man now; some blue, red, and orange Lumas (blueberry, cherry, and orange?) had somehow appeared while the ship was redesigned.
One of the lemon Lumas had Star Bits surrounding him, but Mario stole them! I could understand collecting Star Bits for the Star Festival, but stealing someone else's Star Bits seemed like too much. Though, since this Luma did tell us how to grab Star Bits with the Wii Remote (whatever that is), I suppose it was letting us practice. I wished one of the Lumas would teach us what this "Wii Remote" thing is, exactly. Or better yet, how to fly a spaceship.
There were various signs around, but none of them explained how to operate Starship Mario. Although since they say things like "If you run and press Z right before a jump, you'll do a long jump! Try it! It feels pretty great!", I don't think I'd understand even if they did.
There were also various flowers and trees on Starship Mario, as well as a lovely stream. For a planetoid/spaceship shaped like a plumber's head, Starship Mario was kind of relaxing.
After "long-jumping" around a little (which does feel pretty great, if still a bit silly), we went back to the deck. Mario stood on the yellow button and reached for the steering wheel--
THUD!
The wheel started spinning by itself and Starship Mario's engine started. Purple Diaper Man somehow managed to fall over despite normally floating in midair. Then Starship Mario shot forward.
"YEAH-HOO-HOO-HOOOO!" exclaimed the Mario Bros.; Enya and I, on the other hand, screamed, and I almost threw up...
This is why the Lumas should've taught us how to operate the ship.
We arrived at this map-looking area. There was a yellow dot below Starship Mario with two lines coming from it, connecting it to two more dots. Above the dot behind us was the solar system we had just visited, and above the dot ahead of us was another solar system.
Why are there dots and lines like this in the middle of SPACE?
"So this is the World Map," explained PDM. "Just point the Star Cursor at your destination, and press A to jump into that galaxy!" he continued, apparently expecting us to know what that means.
Those "galaxies" looked more like solar systems to me. A group of planets is a solar system, and a group of solar systems is a galaxy, right?
"Like I said," he continued, "this spaceships runs on energy from Power Stars. Right now, it looks like we got enough power to go this far." He pointed to the next solar system galaxy. "We're gonna need more Power Stars!"
"I know," I told him, slightly annoyed. How many times is he going to explain that Starship Mario runs on Power Stars and is out of Power Stars and we need more Power Stars because we're out of Power Stars?
"So let's do it! For Mario's princess, Enya's friends, and my crew! Take it away, Team Brennario!"
I still don't think I like the sound of "Team Brennario".
We looked at the galaxy ahead of us. As if the dots and lines below us weren't strange enough, a caption appeared out of nowhere:
Yoshi Star Galaxy
★ ★ ●
"Let's-a go!" declared Mario.
Apparently, him saying that was what PDM meant by "pressing A", because that somehow made the four of us launch from Starship Mario towards Yoshi Star Galaxy.
TO BE CONTINUED! Whenever Matt1993 gets around to it.
Probably not, because most of you hadn't even met me yet when I wrote Moya's Space Log.
If you weren't friends with me in November 2010 and have not read the FAQ in my profile, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about, so I'll link to an entry that'll hopefully explain it... basically, a series of inside jokes and my thoughts while writing an entry about what I got for my birthday somehow led to me attempting to write a silly fanfiction for NaNoWriMo that year where Mario, Luigi, and Enya and Moya Brennan all adventure together in Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Moya's always questioning the logic of Mario games while Enya simply accepts it.
But then I didn't finish writing it past the first mission of SMG2. And I never get around to finishing it for at least seven years despite occasionally promising to. I don't think that'll change anytime soon since there's still so many other things on my to-do list (that is probably even longer by now than Moya's Space Log would be if I had completed it).
BUT! As I said in a friends-only entry recently, I finally got around to something else I've been meaning to do for years - I combined all I've written so far of Moya's Space Log into one entry and revised it all again to change the things I really wish I'd written differently!
Now after seven years, you can FINALLY read what I've written so far of Moya's Space Log while only sometimes cringing at my 17-year-old self's poor choices of wording, sense of humor, or sense of... anything else!
I think I edited the very beginning more than anything else - I always felt that was one of the worst parts of MSL, on account of my knowing significantly less about how Enya and Moya typically spend their lives than I know about Super Mario Galaxy 2. Which is still the case, but I feel the beginning in this version is almost guaranteed to be an improvement at least. :)
And you can now read it all in one go without:
- Having to keep clicking to see the next entry
- Getting confused by MSL being divided into "parts" with VERY different lengths that begin and end whenever I began/finished writing for the day (or two) and not necessarily at appropriately climactic places for chapters to begin/end
- Getting confused by many "parts" of MSL being immediately followed by slightly revised versions of the same parts
- Cringing quite as much... oh wait, I said that already
- Getting confused by random other things I wrote about in the same entries as MSL in 2010 without always even putting a "----" or something to divide these from MSL rather than, y'know, making separate entries for other things I wanted to post to LJ about in November 2010
Though if you're feeling brave or you lost a bet or something, you can also still go to November 2010 in my calendar and read Moya's Space Log the old way - those entries are still there, unaltered except to fix links, tags, and repost buttons on DW, sort of fix status bars on both LJ and DW, and (if I managed to get this done by the time you read this) add links FROM the first and last parts of the old version TO this new revision. And maybe I'll eventually fix the "other things I posted about in November 2010 not separated from MSL very clearly" thing in those entries too.
Here we go!
----
Moya's Space Log
By: matt1993 a.k.a.
matt1993
Super Mario Galaxy 2 / Enya / Moya Brennan crossover fanfiction
Rated: PG
Completed?: Yeah, right
Moya Brennan is quite certain that having her birthday celebration interrupted by having to go into space in another dimension to help two plumbers save a princess from a giant turtle was NOT supposed to be one of the surprises her sister had planned...
Author's Notes:
This story is an extremely silly alternate universe crossover that takes place during the events of Super Mario Galaxy 2 in the Mario world and on Moya Brennan's birthday in 2010 in the real world. As such, it contains certain differences:
- Enya and Moya (or, as I like to call them sometimes, the "Brennan Sstrs.") join the adventure alongside Mario and Luigi (and they all adventure together even though, in SMG2 itself, not even Mario and Luigi are both playable at the same time)
- Because of this, there are other changes that reflect what Super Mario Galaxy 2 would have been like if it had a 4-player mode like New Super Mario Bros. Wii; some of the multiplayer game mechanics are included, sometimes four of an the same item appear when there was originally one, etc.
- Enya and Moya are "part Yoshi" (i.e. have Yoshi tongues) when they are in the Mario world (inspired by playing Enya's "Afer Ventus" backwards, which made one verse sound like "I ate the Goomba" to me)
- Bowser kidnaps Nicky and Roma Ryan in addition to Princess Peach
- I had to completely guess what was done for (the beginning of) the real Moya's birthday celebration that year
- etc.
Dedicated to my sister Jenn a.k.a. pathvain_aelien. This means that there are some inside jokes that make a lot more sense to her (e.g. calling Goombas chipmunks, calling Lubba "Purple Diaper Man", Moya wanting to eat Lumas) or a select few including her (e.g. the "part Yoshi" thing), but I hope the rest of you find these amusing too. :)
LEGAL DISCLAIMERS (all of which should be obvious, but you never know):
I definitely do not own the Mario franchise or any characters in it and am not affiliated with Nintendo.
Enya, Moya Brennan, and the people they know (Nicky Ryan, Roma Ryan, Ross Cullum, Fionán deBarra, etc.) are real people (that I am also not affiliated with, nor are any of them affiliated with Nintendo either), but this story features fictional depictions of these real people - whose points of view are probably very different from those of their real-world counterparts; who knows if the real Moya has ever overanalyzed, or would overanalyze, any video game in this manner, for example?
The events of this story are fictitious. (Yes, this means even the events that DON'T involve these people traveling with video-game plumbers in space.)
This story is not authorized, sponsored, or endorsed by Nintendo, Enya, Moya, etc. etc.
Some of the dialogue in this story is directly quoted from Super Mario Galaxy 2, while other dialogue (even dialogue spoken by Mario characters, in many cases) is either slightly modified from in-game dialogue (e.g. any time a character addresses Mario in the original game, it usually has to be reworded because they're talking to four people in this story) or made up entirely.
OTHER DISCLAIMERS:
Whatever you do, do NOT let the fact that I'm writing a story in which the narrator often overanalyzes and pokes fun at the logic of Mario games confuse you. I've always loved the Mario franchise, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 is one of my favorites in particular. So, please, do not assume that all of Moya's opinions in this story are the same as mine. Don't even assume that any of them are.
----
Today sure has been a strange day. It started out well, but then... what happened?
I was at Manderley, where Enya had organized a celebration for my birthday that certainly began promisingly. Our entire family was there, plus Ross Cullum, Fionán and Éamonn deBarra, and Feargal Murray! Enya even invited Nicky and Roma Ryan!
"Here's what we're going to do," explained Enya. "First we're going to have cake, then we'll eat dinner, and then--"
"Shouldn't we have dinner first?" I asked.
"That's no fun! Anyway," she continued, "after dinner... well, I don't want to spoil any of the surprises just yet!"
Just then, we were rudely interrupted by a noise that sounded kind of like prlrlRLRL!
I quickly turned around - a large, bright green pipe (large enough that one of us could fit inside it) that I don't recall seeing when I came in was now sticking out of the floor, just next to the birthday cake.
"Er, what is that?" I asked. "Is that one of the surprises?"
Then mysterious pipe made another noise that sounded kind of like unh-unh-unh, and then some sort of monster leaped out of the pipe (despite certainly NOT looking like he could fit inside it in the first place)! The monster landed with such force that the floor started to shake, causing us all (not to mention the cake) to fall over! I'm not sure what sort of creature that is... my first guess was a giant turtle (or more like, giant giant giant turtle) because of the green shell on his back, though I've never seen a turtle with SPIKES on its shell or tail before!... or with a collar and wristbands that are also covered in spikes!... or with horns, tufts of reddish hair, or claws!
Everyone except Enya and I started running around screaming once they managed to get to their feet. Enya and I watched in shock as the monster grabbed both Roma and Nicky with one hand - those claws must have been painful...
"Surely THAT isn't one of--"
"BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!" interjected the monster in a growling voice. "Aren't they the cutest couple?... aside from me and Princess Peach, that is? Once I'm finished conquering the Mushroom Universe, I'm gonna force these two to write my empire's national anthem! No... UNIVERSAL anthem! And it will be so great, that with it, I shall be able to conquer THIS universe too! HAHAHAHAHA!!"
At least that's what I thought I heard. It's hard to tell what he's saying on account of his gravelly voice... oh, and because I don't think anything about that plan makes any sense at all.
"ENYA!!!" yelled Roma and Nicky.
The monster, jumping back into the pipe (which made the unh-unh-unh noise again), and turning to Enya and I, added, "Have fun with your stupid sailing away!" So now he's kidnapped Enya's friends AND insulted our music (and yet still expects his hostages to write some for him?)... I don't feel quite so bad about describing him as a monster now.
The mysterious green pipe started to recede back into the floor, but fortunately, the two of us still managed to leap in - unh-unh-unh, unh-unh-unh - right before it presumably disappeared entirely.
Travelling through that pipe sure made me dizzy... the next two things I knew were:
1. My mouth had started feeling a bit strange somehow, but I was not sure why.
2. Enya and I were now at a field just outside a white castle with a red roof and several towers - I wondered for a moment which was bigger: this castle, or Manderley. Above the doors was a stained-glass window depicting a woman with long blonde hair in a gold crown and a pink dress. Around the castle, many small people with colorful spotted mushroom-like heads were running around frightened the same way our family and friends had been. In front of the castle was the monster, who now had not only Nicky and Roma in his hand, but also a woman who looked much like the one depicted in that window - she must be Princess . Surely the monster wasn't serious about him and Peach being a couple, was he?
Two chubby mustachioed men in plumber-like attire were looking up at the monster, much as Enya and I had done back at Manderley. One of these men was wearing a red hat with an M on it, a red shirt, and blue overalls. The other was a bit taller and thinner (but still a bit chubby) and wore a similar outfit, but with green instead of red, an L instead of an M, and darker blue overalls, and his mustache was slightly different. They both wore white gloves and brown shoes and had brown hair (but black mustaches). Strangely, these two men only seemed mildly surprised to see this monster - it was like something about these events was familiar to them, somehow...
"You're too late, Mario!" shouted the monster to the red-capped plumber - then, glancing at the green-capped plumber, the monster added, "...uh, and Luigi!". Apparently this scenario is quite familiar to the monster as well if he knows their names already.
"...and, uh..." the monster continued, now staring at Enya and me, "...whoever you two are. Since you're ALSO annoying enough, persistent enough, and annoyingly persistent enough to follow me all the way here, I'm guessing you're some sort of... alternate universe... female... singer... Mario Brothers?" (I sure hope not, I thought.)
"I'm Enya Brennan, and--" - Enya pointed to me - "my sister is Moya!"
"Shh!" I told her. "He'll ask us to do concerts!"
"Fine, Enyay and Moria," the monster continued. "Anyway, the power of the stars is already MINE! And look what I got..."
Enya, the Mario Brothers (...Mario Brothers? So, Mario's first AND last name is Mario? That seems a bit uncreative...), and I looked at the monster's clawed hand (though, of course, I already knew he had Roma, Nicky, and Peach).
"GWAHAHAAH!" yelled the monster. At the same time, his three hostages all screamed, "HELP US!"
"I'm HUUUUGE!" shouted the monster, as if he somehow thought this statement was not obvious from the fact that he was effortlessly holding three humans in one hand. (Wait a minute - this place has a human ruler even though the residents are all mushroom people? ...Mario Bros. notwithstanding? Exactly who is from this land and who isn't?)
"Even scarier up close, huh?" continued the huge monster who is huge and tall and huge and large and evidently quite narcissistic and huge. (Perhaps what he meant before is that Huge is his name! Seems like an odd name, but then, does anything make sense in this dimension?)
"MARIO! LUIGI!" screamed Peach, as Roma and Nicky screamed, "ENYA! MOYA!"
"Maybe I'll have Peach bake ME something for once... I could sure go for a galaxy-sized slice of cake right now!" continued Huge. I sure hope he literally means cake and not something else... "I'm way too huge for this puny planet!" How? He's still a lot smaller than it. "I deserve an empire that's more ME size! And I'll put it in the center of the universe! And I'll have..." - he looked in his full hand - "...uh...my non-Peach prisoners write the--"
"I'm Roma Ryan, and he is Nicky Ryan!" interrupted Roma.
"Well, excuuuse me! Okay, I'll have Romeo and Nickel here write my universal anthem! Like I told Kenya and Mayo, it'll be so great, I'll be able to conquer THEIR universe too!"
(If Huge doesn't know our names, how did he know that we are musicians?)
"Have fun with your stupid mushrooms!" he finished, turning around and somehow flying into the sky (which I finally noticed was dark - it was hard to tell while Huge was in the way). He disappeared in a flash of light that somehow made the sky turn (back to?) a clear, bright blue. The mushroom people were no longer running around, but they still looked extremely worried.
"Mario! Luigi! Enya! Moya!" exclaimed a voice near the castle. The Mario Bros. headed towards the voice, doing rather silly-looking flying leaps while shouting, "WOOHOO!" and "WHEE!" and "YEAH-HA!" They sure sound happy to have to rescue three people from a giant half-turtle/half-who-knows. Enya and I followed - Enya had the dignity to not do those silly leaps, but apparently not enough dignity to not jump over a bench while holding one arm in the air. I, of course, went around the bench without jumping at all.
On the way, there was a crystal in the ground with a few smaller, multicolored pointy crystals inside it. Luigi broke open the large crystal by punching it while doing a spin (leaving little starry trails behind his hands somehow) - while he did that, I just barely noticed a small, adorable, delicious-looking white star-shaped creature briefly come out of his hat and go back in. How does it fit in there? Then he took all of the small crystals (or at least that's what I'm assuming because they disappeared, making pling sounds, when he touched them). Thief!
In front of the castle bridge were two more star creatures like the one I saw come out of that hat, except that these were yellow. But they still looked delicious! Seriously, they look so much like candy! Maybe the first one is vanilla and these two are lemon?
"Mario? Do you know where that monster came from? Any of you?" asked one of the lemon stars. "He took your princess and those other two to the center of the universe!" ("Your" princess? Right, like a princess would be in love with a guy that looks like a plumber.) "You all must hurry and save them!"
The vanilla star suddenly came out of Mario's hat, holding it. "OH! Master Luma!" exclaimed one of the lemon stars.
"Wait a minute. Weren't you in Luigi's hat a minute ago when he stole those crystal things?" I asked Master Luma.
"Stole?" Luigi sounded offended. "Today is the Star Festival! Every one hundred years, thousands of Star Bits fall from the sky and we collect them!"
"Okay, but how was, er, Master Luma in Luigi's hat when he 'collected' the 'Star Bits' and suddenly in Mario's hat now?"
Master Luma went back under Mario's plumber cap, and then Enya twitched a little as Master Luma somehow came out of her very different round blue hat (I've seen that hat before - I believe she wore it on the cover of The Memory of Trees), holding it the same way he did with Mario's. Then he went back under her hat and came out of my hair since I had no hat of any kind.
...Okay? That little magic trick was essentially the exact opposite of an answer to my question.
"Anyway, young Master Luma," the lemon star continued, "Did you get thrown overboard too? Good thing you're safe!" The vanilla star didn't seem to say anything, but the lemon one continued, "I see... So you're going to stay in all of their hats... and Moya's hair... at once?" (How are they communicating? Are they telepathic or something?) "That should be safe for now..."
Er, that doesn't sound very safe. Especially if he's going to hide in my hair. I hope he doesn't remove anything other than hats from our heads...
"But, the rest of you," the lemon star continued, "you have other things to worry about, like saving the princess! And those other two! ...But how?" He/she/it/yum paused. "I know! With young Master Luma's help, you can use the power of the stars! And we Lumas can help a little too!"
Wait, so their race is known as Lumas, but one of them is named Luma? If it weren't for the "Master" title, that wouldn't be a very good name. If I were a Luma named Luma, I'd be quite sad about it. And then I would try to eat myself.
The lemon Luma spun for a couple of seconds and turned into a larger, flat, less delicious-looking star with a smaller star like it inside and a ray of light through the center of both stars. Apparently Lumas turn into inanimate objects, I pondered. Kind of sad if you think about it.
"As thanks for saving our friends, we'll send you into space to get that monster!" said the lemon Luma. No, not the other lemon Luma - the one that just turned into an inedible whatever-it-is could still speak somehow. Then again, Lumas don't seem to have mouths in the first place, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.
"Now! Let's go after them!" continued the Luma/whatever-this-Luma-turned-into. "Come here! Shake your Wii Remote!" Wii Remote? What?
Without bothering to put on a space suit or anything, Mario walked straight through to the center of the floating double star, which glowed when he was in it, and spun like Luigi had done at the crystal with the Star Bits. The double star spun with him and then launched him into the sky.
"WAIT! Don't we--"
Before I could finish my sentence, Luigi had already done the exact same thing. Enya was about to, but--
"Are the three of you out of your minds?!" I demanded. "Don't we need space suits to go into space?"
"If Mario and Luigi don't need space suits, then I don't," she replied, sounding slightly annoyed - then she blasted off as well.
I waited for a moment. Even if they weren't concerned about dying from the lack of oxygen or atmospheric pressure, I certainly was.
"Shake your Wii Remote!" repeated the star-shaped slingshot formerly known as... one of the two lemon Lumas.
"Excuse me - do either of you two happen to have a space suit I could borrow?"
"What's a space suit?" asked the other, non-transformed Luma.
"Never mind..."
I reluctantly went into the double star that was a Luma at one point (this still felt strange to me...), held my breath - Maybe if I hold my breath, I thought, there'll at least be a tiny chance I'll still live long enough to tell them "I told you so" before we died in the vacuum of space?, and blasted off. I don't know what that whole "Wii Remote" thing was about, because I spun just fine just by... spinning.
It's not every day that singers and plumbers go into space without space suits to save three people, including a princess, from a giant turtle.
"Moya, quit being paranoid," I heard Enya say.
I looked up. The four of us were all still flying through space, and evidently all of us were still alive and sound carries through space in this universe - either that, or we are dead and this is what the afterlife is like in this place, I thought. Either way, that meant I could stop holding my breath now, so I did.
"YI-YI-YI-YI-YI-YI-YI!" exclaimed Mario, waving his arms and starting to fall (Okay, that must mean we're still alive after all, I thought - I doubt any afterlife would involve flying through space for only a minute or so). The rest of us also plummeted one by one shortly thereafter; we all landed on a small, flat, grass-and-dirt-covered planetoid that had a white, cylindrical house on one side and a fence between the two sides.
Mario had landed on a grey rock, above which was another lemon Luma. The rest of us landed behind him.
"Our Power Stars... They're gone! Some gigantic monster stole them!" cried the Luma. "If you're going after that monster, you might see our Power Stars out there too!"
Thanks for stating the obvious, I thought.
"Please bring our Power Stars back. We Lumas will help you along your way!"
If they can help us (and especially since they can float in midair a little and we can't), can't they get their Power Stars back themselves? I thought. Besides, Lumas sure look like stars to me, so if we found any of these so-called "Power Stars", would we know that they aren't Lumas? Maybe I'll have to do a taste test...
We went down the dirt path around the house. Along the way were three gold coins spinning on-- no, spinning just above the ground, as well as three Star Bits bouncing up and down. The Mario Bros. "collected" the Star Bits and coins (and I swear I saw one of the Star Bits just fly straight to Mario before he could even touch it). Those two had better not try to tell me that today is ALSO the "Gold Coin Festival" or something, I thought.
About halfway down the trail was the door to the house, which had a picture of a cute dinosaur on it. A greyish-brown creature (it looked like a mushroom with a face and small feet, but no arms; it had prominent eyebrows, tiny fangs, and cheeks that kind of reminded me of a chipmunk somehow - I suppose I'll call it a "mushroom chipmunk") waddled over to us, and Enya...
STOMPED on the mushroom chipmunk, flattening it! The poor thing disappeared into thin air as another of those gold coins appeared, which Enya grabbed!!
"Er... Mario? Luigi? Did either of you just see that?!" I questioned.
They seemed confused - especially Luigi. "See what - that Goomba?" "Huh?"
"Enya stomping on that mushroom chipmunk and stealing-- oh, sorry, I mean 'collecting' his coin!... or, her coin? Its coin? In any case, that's shocking!"
"That was a Goomba!" explained Mario (since "Goomba" sounds a bit like a certain racial slur, I'll continue to call them mushroom chipmunks), "And oh yes, it was shocking how they-a betrayed the Mushroom Kingdom twenty-five years ago, when Bowser kidnapped Peach for-a the first time. They've-a been in his army ever since!"
So "Huge"'s real name is Bowser? That's a way better name than Huge. And he's kidnapped Princess Peach more than once? She sure seems useless.
"That's not what I meant... And come on. It's not like they could actually hurt you or..." I started. "Oh, forget it."
This universe may not make a whole lot of sense, but I knew that if I kept arguing about every little thing, we'll never save Nicky or Roma. Or Princess Useless.
Enya wasn't listening, because she was looking at the sign next to the door. The rest of us joined her. It read:
Hello, friend! Please go around back!
Yoshi
"Gee, Moya," said Luigi, "next you'll be saying that there's no dinosaurs living in space in your world!"
It seems a bit redundant for Yoshi to include a drawing of himself on the sign if he's already depicted on the door. Also, "Please go around back"? Is he basically telling potential burglars how to break into his house? I will certainly give him credit for being a dinosaur and yet existing in 2010 and being able to write, draw, and have a house built in space, though.
At the end of the short trail were two pipes like the one that Bowser had used to somehow break into Manderley, except only one of them was green - the other was orange. How many universes will we have to visit before this is all said and done?! I thought.
"Let's split up," suggested Enya. "Mario, Luigi, you take the orange one. Moya and I will take the green one."
"Okey-dokey!" agreed Mario.
It turned out that both pipes led not to two more universes entirely, but merely the other side of this planetoid (this side was dirt-covered; on the opposite side of Yoshi's house was a hill of darker-colored dirt with a crystal at the top, similar to the one Luigi broke open earlier, but bigger). The orange pipe had led the Mario Bros. into a cage, whereas the green pipe had led Enya and myself just outside of it.
"OH! So sorry!" exclaimed Enya.
"It's alright - there's a 1-Up Mushroom in here!" Luigi moved so we could see the white-spotted green mushroom with eyes behind him. It looked suspiciously similar to the heads of the mushroom people who had been panicking just outside Peach's castle (granted, their heads were white mushrooms with colored spots instead of vice versa)...
"1-Up Mushroom?" I asked.
"You-a know, 1-Up!" Mario explained. I still didn't understand. "If you eat it, you-a get an extra life," he continued.
"Extra life? You're trying to tell me that eating a green mushroom you found sitting there staring at you grants you one reincarnation?" (Seriously, why does it have eyes? At least it didn't also have a mouth, I suppose...)
"Of course! Haven't you ever played video games? If you-a lose a life, but you have at least one more left, you start-a back at the last-a checkpoint you reached!"
Great. Not only are we stuck in space with plumbers, we're stuck in space with plumbers who think this universe is a video game. Or maybe he's right and this universe actually is one. I'm not sure which explanation I find more unsettling...
Mario proceeded to "eat" the 1-Up Mushroom - by that, I mean it disappeared as soon as he touched it, much like with the Star Bits and gold coins. Is there any distinguishing between collecting and eating things in this universe? And am I going insane, or did I hear a short melody play when he "ate" the mushroom?
He didn't even bother to share it with Luigi (or me or Enya, for that matter - though, I still wasn't entirely sure I wanted to eat anything that has EYES... except Lumas, of course). Then again, it's not like he could cut it in halves or quarters without touching it. On second thought, if we could split the 1-Up Mushroom that way, wouldn't only a fraction of each of us reappear after we "lost a life"? That would be strange.
The Mario Bros. went back into the orange pipe and out of the green pipe Enya and I had chosen. On the side of the green pipe opposite the cage was a television screen depicting something red, something green, something dark blue, and something golden-tan--
Wait. Is that... US?! I thought. I looked behind us expecting to see the camera that was presumably filming us if it was able to show us on that screen, but nothing was there.
As we approached it, the screen zoomed in on itself, showing an infinity of mes, Enyas, and Mario Bros.
"Here's a tip!" exclaimed the TV. "You can spin to defeat enemies! Want to see how?"
"No," replied Mario. A bit rude of him, if you ask me, though I guess TVs don't expect perfect manners.
"Good luck out there!" said the TV.
Ahead were three more of those mushroom chipmunk things (although these were a bit larger and a brighter shade of brown) and a floating yellow cube with a question mark on it. And Mario spin-attacked the first mushroom chipmunk and kicked it (again, seeing this made me wince a little...) Three Star Bits popped out, which, of course, he took.
I don't see why that television screen wanted to teach us something that Mario seemed to already know.
Up ahead, I saw Luigi and Enya kick the next two mushroom chipmunks (making me wince some more...) and take their Star Bits. Mario hit the block with the question mark and it turned into some more Star Bits. I somehow collected some of them just by reaching for them. I saw another crystal behind where the mushroom chipmunks were (this one was the same size as the one Luigi broke outside Peach's castle), so I broke it with a spin, and, as I expected, more Star Bits. Star Bits are everywhere!
Luigi went to the top of the hill and, amazingly, broke open the crystal with only one spin, revealing another line of coins and a hole. He, Mario, and Enya jumped in, which I thought was kind of foolish, but there didn't seem to be anywhere else to go, so I followed.
It led us through the planetoid and to the top of Yoshi's house, where there were two lemon Lumas. Around the hole were three pink fruits and a sign that I was about to read, but...
"Over here!" shouted the second Luma. We approached it. "The other Lumas told me about you! Thank you for helping us!" it continued. "I'm going to transform into a Launch Star. Come over and fly!"
It turned into another of those double-star slingshots, and we blasted off as before.
The next planetoid we landed on was of an irregular shape with mainly square edges, and there was a black hole directly under it... Exactly how was this planetoid not being sucked into the black hole?
Anyway, we landed in an area with the cliffs fenced off. Ahead was a creature that looked a bit like those mushroom chipmunks, but different - this one was blue with yellow spots and had a snout and a yellow antenna. Another lemon Luma floated to the slightly higher ledge behind the blue creature. "This way!" called the Luma.
We followed it, ignoring the whatever-it-was (it did try to shoot a rock at us out of its snout, but it missed) and the coin, and came to two more creatures like it.
This was when I finally got tired of there seemingly being something in my mouth that felt weird. I tried to spit it out, but it turned out to be my tongue, which had somehow become very long and stuck to one of the blue creatures. It tasted better than I expected, so I went ahead and ate it - hopefully that was an enemy like those mushroom chipmunks... I thought. Somehow, three Star Bits shot out of my mouth. Strange, but I went ahead and collected them.
Enya, the Mario Bros., and the Luma stared, perplexed. Enya ate the other blue creature in the same way, as if to check to see if she suddenly had a tongue like that as well.
"You two are part Yoshi??" asked Luigi, still staring. (Wait, does that mean Yoshi is named after his species too? This universe is in dire need of some baby name books.)
"What? No!" I replied, somewhat embarrassed. "We had human tongues in our own universe... How did they change when we came here?!"
"Follow me!" exclaimed the Luma.
"Alright, alright, we're coming," I told it.
To me, though, the path seemed obvious (to the left of the Luma was an outline of a yellow platform, which apparently generated solid yellow platforms that rose to the ledge behind them and disappeared), so I tried eating the Luma, but my tongue wouldn't stick to it - all it did was make the Luma spin around a couple of times and let out an adorable squeak. It didn't seem to mind, oddly. And it did taste like lemon - yum!
On the ledge was another of those platform generators leading to another question-mark block, but the Luma sounded like it was in a hurry, so we ignored the block and went ahead to the ledge to the right. I'm surprised that any of us can jump that high.
Past two more platform generators (there was a 1-Up Mushroom hovering above one of them; Enya got it) was a black flag with a white symbol resembling Bowser's face on it. There was a blue aura around the flag for some reason.
I have no idea why I decided to do this, but I licked the flag (am I really that hungry?), but this also didn't work - touching it with that weird tongue instead made the flag change to a different one. (And did I hear a whistle sound effect when that happened?)
This new flag was exactly the same shade of tan as my dress, with the Bowser face replaced with a blue "M" in exactly the same style as the "Moya Brennan" logo.
"Oh yeah! We're at-a the checkpoint!" announced Mario.
"But I don't have any extra lives!" I replied. "Shouldn't we change it to you or Enya?... somehow? Why does it change like that just because I touched it, anyway?"
"No, whenever I begin a quest like-a this, I always have-a five lives at the start! Or sometimes it's-a three or four... Anyway, so does anyone who comes-a with me! So you-a and Luigi have five each right-a now and Enya and I-a have six."
"Even though Enya and I came from a different universe? And if that's my logo on the flag, what happens if one of you three di-- er, lose a life?"
"Blue Toad, Yellow Toad, and I all came with Mario on his last adventure," answered Luigi, "and no matter who touched the checkpoints, if we all lost lives at once we'd be brought back to them."
Blue Toad and Yellow Toad? Apparently, not only are the amphibians in this universe also named after their species, they're also named after their color. That sounds vaguely racist...
I have no idea how their explanation of the checkpoint flags makes sense, but I suppose I'll have to play along.
As we were talking, the Luma had moved a short distance to the right and stopped.
"Follow me! Careful! Octoombas!" it called, looking slightly impatient.
Enya, Luigi, and I started to, while Mario - who apparently has a short attention span - went to the left to get a large coin with a question mark on it. As soon as he grabbed it, a line of flashing rainbow eighth notes appeared out of nowhere, down part of the way the rest of us were headed, past some of the blue creatures (this is probably what the Luma meant by "Octoombas"; I'm going to call them Octhipmunks instead) and over a short abyss; I heard a mysterious ticking noise begin as well.
"Er... Do any of you hear that ticking noise??"
Enya and the Mario Bros. weren't listening because they were collecting all the eighth notes, which played an ascending scale as they did. (So, is today ALSO also the Ominously Ticking Musical Note Festival or something? And if so, does Enya know that or is she just doing whatever Mario and Luigi do?) When all the notes were collected, the ticking stopped and four 1-Up Mushrooms appeared out of nowhere - once they landed, though, they all slid away from each other at exactly right angles, making tapping noises somehow. Only Luigi and I managed to catch any, because the other two fell off the ledge (strangely falling straight downward instead of into the black hole).
After that, Enya went into the middle of a circle of stones and spun, which made the stones turn into Star Bits somehow (which, of course, we collected). Does ANYTHING make sense here?
To the left in the distance was a blue panel thing which Enya stepped onto and spun, causing her, the Mario Bros., and I to all teleport to a nearby hexagonal platform with seven Octhipmunks and four flashing rainbow stars.
"Are these Power Stars?" I asked.
"No, they're Rainbow Stars!" answered Mario. "These make us invincible for a while!"
But if these are stars that grant us a power, wouldn't that make them Power Stars? I wondered.
We each touched one of the stars - apparently here, "invincible" means "invincible and also looking kind of like giant gummy candy versions of ourselves... that leave colorful trails behind us when we run". Resisting the urge to eat ourselves or each other, we ran straight into the Octhipmunks, knocking them all out and collecting the resulting Star Bits (did I hear the 1-Up Mushroom melody when Luigi touched one of them?). Four 1-Up Mushrooms appeared out of nowhere. Why is it usually four? Was it prophecied that we'd be here or something? And was killing these Octhipmunks really necessary if they weren't really even in our way?
After eating/absorbing/collecting/whatever the 1-Up Mushrooms, we (now no longer invincible, and therefore no longer looking like colorful gummies) warped back to the first teleporter, which had now turned red. The Luma was waiting for us on a nearby ledge, so we followed it to the top of a narrow building with those platform generators around it.
"Let's fly!" exclaimed the Luma as it turned into a Launch Star, leading us to one of a cluster of tiny planetoids, each only a few times my height. Luigi backflipped off the bottom of it (well, the bottom relative to that last planetoid, anyway) and launched himself from a Launch Star "below" it into another question-mark coin, making some regular coins appear. Doesn't he get dizzy doing all of that?
After collecting the coins and launching from two more Launch Stars (which certainly made ME dizzy), we landed on a cylindrical planetoid with several black holes in it. Again, how is this planetoid not being sucked into any of those black holes?
This time, Enya licked the checkpoint flag, which turned the same shade of blue as her hat and dress, with the Bowser symbol changed to a gold circle with a blue "e" in the style of Enya's logo. Exactly how do these flags know what our logos look like?
Ahead was a patch of mud, which slowed down Mario and Luigi when they tried to walk through it, giving a... winged mushroom chipmunk?... a chance to fly into Luigi (I guess they can hurt us after all). Strangely, though, Enya and I were able to run right through the mud at normal speed. I'm guessing that that has something to do with us being part Yoshi in this dimension. As Enya took the coin up ahead (with so many coins and Star Bits laying around, shouldn't the mushroom chipmunks and Octhipmunks have managed to get them all first?), I took off my shoe for a moment to check if I had a Yoshi foot. It still looked normal, but since I've never seen a Yoshi's feet, I wouldn't know.
To the right was a slightly larger patch of mud and sand with stone platforms with wheels circling the planet past it. Why do those platforms need wheels if they can somehow roll on thin air (or possibly NO air, since we're in space after all) above several black holes without being sucked into any of them?
Anyway, the Mario Bros. and I went through the sand to the grass on the other side, while Enya went onto one of the stone platforms instead. There wasn't very much up ahead that we could get through without leaving the stone platforms - just two more crystals (one with some Star Bits in it), two more flying mushroom chipmunks, another patch of mud, an Octhipmunk (which managed to hit Luigi with a rock), and a Star Bit that came out of a patch of tall grass when Luigi went through it. It took about fifteen more seconds for Enya to come around the planet and join us.
"Just another 1-Up Mushroom," she said, hopping off the platform. You'd think anything that grants someone a reincarnation would be quite rare, but apparently they're rather common in this universe...
To our right was another rolling-in-midair-somehow platform, this one going over just sand. Luigi hopped onto it, but the rest of us went down its path in the other direction. Another platform came from just ahead and pushed Enya, Mario, and I back a little (almost pushing me off the edge!) until we jumped over it. The Luma went to a grassy area to the right. I almost made it there--
"Ow! That Oct[hipmunk] hit me with a rock!" exclaimed Enya, behind me.
"Follow me!" shouted the Luma, showing no concern. Although I suppose it just didn't have the time to, because soon after that, we started being pushed a little by the other platform - and soon after that, I saw Luigi get knocked off the edge of the planet on the opposite side and fall into the black hole!
"WAHHHHH-HO-HO-HO!!!" he screamed. Poor guy...
After jumping over the platform again, the rest of us finally made it to the Luma, who continued on down a narrow path with two more flying mushroom chipmunks above it. "Follow me!" it called again.
Just then, Luigi showed up ahead of us to the left, trapped in a bubble. "Help me!" he called, shaking the bubble over towards us. We moved over to give him some room to land, and Mario popped the bubble.
"Wait a minute. I thought you said we reappear at the checkpoint flag?" I asked, despite not being sure if Luigi reappearing at the flag would've made more or less sense than what just happened - he was sucked into a black hole, after all.
"That's if we all lose lives at once," answered Luigi. "If it's only some of us, we end up in bubbles like that and our friends have to pop them." (Apparently both of these scenarios have happened a lot in this world if he knows all this...)
"Strange, but at least I suppose this is better than having to go back to that flag," I replied.
"I even still have the Comet Medal I found!" Luigi held up an octagonal golden medal with a star-shaped comet with eyes on it - the star resembled a Luma somewhat, but not quite because the edges were more pointed than the Lumas' stubby arms and legs (at least I think those are arms and legs, but they don't seem to ever use them...)
Okay, is THAT what the Power Stars we're looking for look like, or is it something completely different like how Lumas and Rainbow Stars are? I thought.
"Collecting them makes comets appear!"
"How does a medal--"
"Then I got the coins here and defeated one of the Paragoombas," Luigi interrupted, (I take it "Paragoombas" are what the flying mushroom chipmunks are called? I still think "flying mushroom chipmunks" has more of a ring to it...) "but I missed the next one and it hit me into that black hole."
I wanted to ask what it was like inside that black hole, but I wasn't sure if that would be proper to ask, so I said nothing.
Mario stomped the first flying mushroom chipmunk to knock its wings off; Enya then stomped it and took the coin. The other flying mushroom chipmunk was hovering off the side of the platform when we passed it, so we left it alone... though personally I wish we'd left the first one alone too.
At the end of the path, the Luma turned into a Launch Star, which, as usual, the rest of us launched from. Whatever this "Wii Remote" thing is, we're probably going to be using it a lot.
The next planetoid was similar in shape and composition to the one Yoshi's house was on - flat with grass on one side and dirt and rocks on the other, except this time we landed on the dirt side. Ahead was an Octhipmunk and a line of four (again, it just happens to be four) mushrooms that I thought at first were more 1-Up Mushrooms, but no - these were red with yellow stars instead of green with white spots, but they looked like 1-Up Mushrooms in every other respect... including the eyes...
"Oh yeah! Life Mushrooms!" exclaimed Mario, as he went to "eat" the one on the middle-right and then run through the checkpoint flag ahead (making it red with a white circle with the red M from his cap on it).
"If you eat one, you get a maximum of six hit points instead of three!... until your hit points fall below four," explained Luigi as he and Enya went to the remaining Life Mushrooms. I don't think any of these so-called "enemies" look powerful enough to kill one of us in three or even six hits...
As the Octhipmunk unsuccessfully tried to shoot rocks at us, I went to get that last Life Mushroom - it did make me feel a little stronger.
I wonder why the Octhipmunk didn't eat any of those Life Mushrooms before we got here.
On the grassy side were three more Octhipmunks, a crystal with Star Bits, two coins, and a Launch Star. The first Octhipmunk was lucky enough to hit Mario, but Mario didn't take this lying down - he spin-attacked it, and then Enya kicked it (grabbing a coin on the way). But then I was also hit by one of those rocks (and so was Enya right afterward) - it certainly hurt, but not much. I still couldn't imagine three or six of these being enough to kill anybody.
"I see Star light over there!" called the... well, it was the Luma that we had been following, but as we dealt with the last two Octhipmunks, it had transformed into another Launch Star. It still seems strange to launch oneself from a talking slingshot...
We landed on the round dirt-and-rock-covered planetoid up ahead. Or, to be exact, we landed on what looked like a large dinosaur egg on said planetoid; the egg cracked and out hatched what looked like a part-flower, part-dinosaur creature. This creature definitely wasn't the same kind of dinosaur as Yoshi, and wasn't as adorable - it had a huge purple, white-spotted head with green petals around it (how is its head bigger than the hole it emerged from?), and sharp-looking teeth. It still looked kind of cute, though.
Still wearing its eggshell, the flower-dinosaur creature started chasing us, so we started running away in opposite directions (Luigi and I to its right, Mario and Enya to its left). It chose to go after Luigi and me, and in fact ran into Luigi, but as it laughed about it, Mario spun into its eggshell, which cracked it some more, knocked the creature about a few meters away (either Mario is surprisingly strong or that dinosaur creature is surprisingly weak...), and turned it to face him.
Luigi just barely got out from under it before it landed on him. Since its eggshell landed so close to me, I delivered a second hit... and I accidentally bumped into Luigi as I spun, which made him spin around shouting, "YAHOO!" For a guy who's on the run from some sort of plant-dinosaur that I have never seen before in my life, Luigi sure sounds cheerful.
However, the creature managed to run into me once it landed. (So if Luigi was right about the Life Mushroom thing, I now had only one more hit to go until my maximum health went back to 3... but I still thought his explanation sounded much too nerdy to be true.) Luckily, Luigi spun into the creature while it was cackling, completely breaking the eggshell.
This made it start to run away crying. (Or, at least, it sounded like it was crying, but it doesn't seem to have eyes...)
I felt sorry for it - I mean, it seemed like it was only chasing us because we cracked its eggshell by accident, so why were we breaking the rest of its shell on purpose? But Enya spin-attacked its posterior (which I thought was on fire at first because it was reddish-orange) again. That seemed kind of harsh... What's gotten into her?
After Enya's attack, four Star Bits appeared out of nowhere. Then, somehow, the creature's eggshell was rebuilt around it and looked good as new. That raises a lot of questions... like, could someone get stuck to the rest of the eggshell if they had eaten one of the egg pieces or something before the eggshell reformed?
The creature charged at us twice as fast as it had been before. I don't blame it. Though how does it know where we are if it doesn't seem to have eyes, a nose, or ears?
Somehow, even though the four of us were scattered around the planet before Enya's rather harsh attack, we'd somehow ended up in exactly the same line we landed in when we jumped off the egg (from left to right: me, Luigi, Mario, Enya). We scattered, but the creature still hit Luigi. Fortunately, it still hadn't learned that laughing to itself when it hits us gives us a chance to spin-attack its eggshell (and makes me feel slightly less guilty about doing so), so I did. The creature did almost land on Enya, but she backed away and then spin-attacked it again. Good thing it didn't land on her - I have enough reasons to feel guilty as it is...
As we went around the creature again while it was in the air, a Star Bit randomly fell onto a small yellow light on the ground, somehow turning the light into a coin. Once the creature landed, it went after Enya, but I spin-attacked it, completely breaking the eggshell again. As we chased it, it broke open some crystals of Star Bits, which, of course, we took along the way. It took a while, and we ended up having to do those silly flying leaps the Mario Bros. had done on the way to Peach's castle in order to catch up with it, but eventually Enya spin-attacked it once more.
This time, it didn't recreate its eggshell - it died and disappeared in a puff of smoke, revealing a golden star with eyes; it looked like the one depicted on the Comet Medal.
"Is THIS one of the Power Stars we're supposedly looking for?" I said, expecting to again be told that it was something different.
"It is!" answered Mario.
At least now we knew we were making progress. I'm still a bit saddened by the fact that we had to kill a newborn plant-dinosaur creature to get this first Power Star, but then again, it's not like there are any surgeons around here.
Mario touched the Power Star and somehow, all four of us started floating off of the planetoid a little. Mario then tossed the Power Star into the air, and he and Luigi caught it as Enya and I sat on two of its points.
"WAHOO!" exclaimed Mario.
The Power Star floated away from this planetoid, bringing the four of us with it and leading us to a planetoid with several Lumas on it - and then the star vanished. Mario let Master Luma out of his hat for a moment; Master Luma made an adorable squeaking noise.
We looked around the planetoid for a moment, then turned to find that a large purple (grape? Must taste test later) Luma wearing what looked like a blue diaper had suddenly appeared with the lemon Lumas, with the Power Star hovering next to him. Should I be concerned that Purple Diaper Man over here is the only Luma I've seen who wears clothes of any kind? I thought.
"So you're these Mario and Luigi guys and these Enya and Moya Brennan ladies my little Lumas won't stop blabbing about, am I right?" asked Purple Diaper Man. "Sorry to hear about the excitement you had with that monster down in the Mushroom Kingdom. I sure appreciate you all bringing us this Power Star, though! We need as many of these as we can get! The name's Lubba, by the way. I'm the head honcho of this Luma crew. See, believe it or not, we're on a spaceship right now."
We looked around again; it didn't look like much a spaceship, just a planetoid with a steering wheel on it and some meteors in it. Then again, ever since that pipe came out of the ground at Manderley, hardly anything has made sense, so why should this?
"Took some real elbow grease to convert this little planetoid into a ship," Purple Diaper Man continued (yes, I know his real name is Lubba and he's a purple Luma with a blue diaper that might not even be a diaper - I just really like the way "Purple Diaper Man" sounds for some reason), "but we Lumas pulled it off! May not look like much... but it's home."
I have to say, I've never heard of anyone having an entire planetoid, even a tiny one, for a home.
"Truth be told, the ship... she's not in such hot shape right now," Purple Diaper Man went on. "We ran into that monster too! He blasted us with meteors, and some of my crew were thrown overboard!"
"Oh no!" I gasped. "Those poor delicious Lumas!"
"What was that?"
Oops.
"Er, I said: Oh no, those poor Lumas!"
"Well, anyway," Purple Diaper Man began, as he turned to Mario. "So that monster kidnapped your princess, eh?" He turned to Enya. "And he also kidnapped your friends? That's cold... Deep-space cold, if ya ask me. Ya know what else is cold? That monster stealing every last one of our Power Stars! See, that's our fuel. Our spaceship runs on energy from Power Stars! Without that, we're stranded here!"
Just then, Master Luma came out of Mario's hat again, holding it. Purple Diaper Man jumped in delight. (I say "jumped", but was that really a jump since he floats in midair a little like all the other Lumas?)
"AY-O! Is-- Is that young Master Luma? It is...isn't it?! Wow... Wait-- if you have the trust of young Master Luma... hmm... Say, I just might have a little proposition for ya. Hear me out, now... Your special someone and Enya's friends got kidnapped and now you gotta save them, am I right?"
I half-expected Mario to say something like, "Duh! You-a just said it!" But instead he said, "That's right."
(...Wait a minute. Peach is Mario's "special someone"?? It seems rare for a princess to be in love with a plumber. Does Luigi ever get jealous, seeing as how he's a plumber too?)
"And we need fuel for our ship. Now," Purple Diaper Man continued, turning to all of us, "if you think you could get some of our Power Stars back for us, I'd be willing to make this ship your very own for a bit. That's a fair exchange! Am I right?"
"That's right," repeated Mario, apparently with no doubts whatsoever that two plumbers and two singers would be able to figure out how to work a spaceship.
"All right! It's a deal!" exclaimed Purple Diaper Man. "Okay, gang! Let's get cracking, yeah? I want everything space-shipshape!"
All of the Lumas (including him) started spinning. Purple Diaper Man and the Power Star went into the air, and then suddenly a light came from the spaceship as the lemon Lumas all squealed with delight. I thought the spaceship had exploded for a split second, but then it turned out to have transformed to resemble Mario's head. (Though the hat was green because it was made of grass. Until I saw the red M I thought it was supposed to look like Luigi's head).
"Well, whaddaya think? Nice spaceship, huh? More like a faceship! Har har! Well, at least you'll never lose it in a parking lot! Am I right? Har har!"
"That's not fair..." I griped. "Just because Master Luma decided to be in Mario's hat just now, even though he can somehow teleport to my hair and the rest of our hats, means this ship gets to have Mario's face on it and not ours? It gets to BE Mario's face, in fact? Look--" To prove it, I showed off that little spin attack we'd been using. I don't know why Master Luma always pops out of our hats/hair and goes back in when we use it, but this was no exception - Master Luma disappeared, popped out of my hair, and then went back to where he was.
"Didn't you see that?" I asked.
"Ignore-a Moya," interjected Mario. "She-a complains about everything."
"I'm only pointing out things that don't make much sense to me..."
"Whoa, now," interrupted Purple Diaper Man. "If you keep fighting like this, we'll never get anything done!"
We calmed down slightly.
"So what's next? Don't look at me--" he turned to Mario-- "this ship has your face on it, not mine!... Okay, pretend it has your friends' faces on it too. But still not mine."
I wasn't sure whether to be glad he implied that Mario isn't the only one who has a say in things or annoyed that he implied that Enya and I are Mario's "friends".
"The decision is yours! Feel free to explore Starship Mario, or take the helm if you're ready to ship out!"
"So you're not gonna tell us how--" I began--
"It's your call, 'Team Brennario'!" he finished, ignoring me. "Team Brennario" is a terrible name, I thought.
Master Luma went back into Mario's hat.
We looked around Starship Mario (I hope that's short for "Starship Mario-Luigi-Moya-Enya" or something...) for a little while. The Lumas had built a proper deck, one that wasn't just a rock with a steering wheel on it; the wheel itself was still there, but now it was mounted rather than just laying on a crate, and there was a large yellow button on the ground in front of it. There weren't just lemon Lumas and Purple Diaper Man now; some blue, red, and orange Lumas (blueberry, cherry, and orange?) had somehow appeared while the ship was redesigned.
One of the lemon Lumas had Star Bits surrounding him, but Mario stole them! I could understand collecting Star Bits for the Star Festival, but stealing someone else's Star Bits seemed like too much. Though, since this Luma did tell us how to grab Star Bits with the Wii Remote (whatever that is), I suppose it was letting us practice. I wished one of the Lumas would teach us what this "Wii Remote" thing is, exactly. Or better yet, how to fly a spaceship.
There were various signs around, but none of them explained how to operate Starship Mario. Although since they say things like "If you run and press Z right before a jump, you'll do a long jump! Try it! It feels pretty great!", I don't think I'd understand even if they did.
There were also various flowers and trees on Starship Mario, as well as a lovely stream. For a planetoid/spaceship shaped like a plumber's head, Starship Mario was kind of relaxing.
After "long-jumping" around a little (which does feel pretty great, if still a bit silly), we went back to the deck. Mario stood on the yellow button and reached for the steering wheel--
THUD!
The wheel started spinning by itself and Starship Mario's engine started. Purple Diaper Man somehow managed to fall over despite normally floating in midair. Then Starship Mario shot forward.
"YEAH-HOO-HOO-HOOOO!" exclaimed the Mario Bros.; Enya and I, on the other hand, screamed, and I almost threw up...
This is why the Lumas should've taught us how to operate the ship.
We arrived at this map-looking area. There was a yellow dot below Starship Mario with two lines coming from it, connecting it to two more dots. Above the dot behind us was the solar system we had just visited, and above the dot ahead of us was another solar system.
Why are there dots and lines like this in the middle of SPACE?
"So this is the World Map," explained PDM. "Just point the Star Cursor at your destination, and press A to jump into that galaxy!" he continued, apparently expecting us to know what that means.
Those "galaxies" looked more like solar systems to me. A group of planets is a solar system, and a group of solar systems is a galaxy, right?
"Like I said," he continued, "this spaceships runs on energy from Power Stars. Right now, it looks like we got enough power to go this far." He pointed to the next solar system galaxy. "We're gonna need more Power Stars!"
"I know," I told him, slightly annoyed. How many times is he going to explain that Starship Mario runs on Power Stars and is out of Power Stars and we need more Power Stars because we're out of Power Stars?
"So let's do it! For Mario's princess, Enya's friends, and my crew! Take it away, Team Brennario!"
I still don't think I like the sound of "Team Brennario".
We looked at the galaxy ahead of us. As if the dots and lines below us weren't strange enough, a caption appeared out of nowhere:
Yoshi Star Galaxy
★ ★ ●
"Let's-a go!" declared Mario.
Apparently, him saying that was what PDM meant by "pressing A", because that somehow made the four of us launch from Starship Mario towards Yoshi Star Galaxy.
TO BE CONTINUED! Whenever Matt1993 gets around to it.