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Author Topic: Super Paper Mario 2: The Tribe of Darkness (Complete + Art Project)  (Read 81769 times)

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« Reply #60 on: May 17, 2008, 02:01:34 PM »
Our heroes' first search was under way. In order to find the first orb, they'd need to discover a tablet hidden somewhere in the town. "We should head for the Town Hall," mulled Peach. "Then we can ask the mayor where the tablet is. I hope it'll be easy to find." If it was, our heroes could jump-start their search right away...but if it wasn't?








The small town had an outpost vibe; not as strong as the town our heroes had visited on their last quest for the third Pure Heart, but more like the Yold Town our heroes had visited on their first adventure. The townsfolk were of similar polygonal shapes as well. "That's probably the town hall," pointed Luigi, looking at a large white building.
Our heroes crossed more brownish dirt, arriving at the front steps of the hall. Enterting the building, they came face-to-face with an old, orange-skinned polygonal man. He wore a white suit and black pants. "Welcome to Dustburg, travelers. The guards have informed me you four intend us no harm, so you can call me Dusty. Dusty, get it? HAR HAR HAR! So, travelers...what brings you to our humble town?"
"You're the mayor, correct?" asked Tippi after a moment of silence. "We're looking for a tablet that will show us how to find an orb. The guards told us you know where we can find it."
"So you're looking for that tablet, eh? Har HAR! Yep, we knew it would happen someday. Those Ancients came here and told us to keep it safe for these 'heroes' or somethin'-or-other. And we've had it hidden for a thousand years or something big like that. Big numbers, they just tend to escape your mind, you know? Har har HAR! Why, I was talkin' to this feller the other day, and he said a hundred somethin'-or-other, and I was just out of it. What was that feller talking about again? Something sand? Or was it lamb chops? HD TV? I can't tell all those newfangled hoo-has apart, you know? It seems like they're comin' out with something new every time I get up off my couch! I could've settled for those good old motion pictures, but they had to keep on going. They never slow down for old folk like me, eh? Har HAR! But ah well. Those kids nowadays are probably havin' fun with all these gizmos and gadgets. They're playing with that new electric toy or whatever-ya-call-'em, the one where you hold that remote somethin'-or-other and swing it around and stuff like that. What was it called? Somethin' about having to go to the bathroom, I think it was called. They sure come up with the weirdest names nowadays, eh? HAR HAR! At least those kids are gettin' their proper exercise. I like to see healthy young ones, don't you? Playing with that bathroom thing and eating their veggies, that's how kids grow. Har HAR! We want kids to grow, right? Grow and become big and strong so they can get jobs and help their good old community. There's gotta be someone to run this town when I bite the dust, eh? Dust, get it? HAR HAR HAR HAR!"
Dusty's mention of dust brought our heroes' task back to mind. "Excuse me, mayor Dusty..." began Mario. "Do you know where we can find the tablet?"
Dusty squinted, looking at Mario. "A tablet, you say? Oh, right! THAT tablet! Har har HAR! Oh, I'm sorry if I've been borin' you folks to tears. I just have to talk about somethin', you know? The townsfolk here are used to it. Don't mind me. If I start goin' off again, just give me a good hollar. Why, I was going on one of my spiels the other day, and Missy, she was just..."
"Mayor..." began Luigi. "...I believe you're going off again."
"Oh, right, right, right. Har HAR! Now where was I? Oh, right! The tablet!" Dusty cleared his throat for several seconds, then looked at our heroes with a mischevious twinkle in his eye. "The tablet you're lookin' for is right below this building. Yep! There's a pipe behind the plant stand over there." He pointed to a large potted plant situated in the northwest corner of the hall. "Gotta keep it hidden, you know? 'Cause evil folks might come at any moment. Like that Bowser feller. Or somethin' like that, eh? HAR! Anyway, you just need to go in that pipe, and there's an underground chamber. Pretty neat, eh? Har HAR! The tablet's somewhere down there, so good luck lookin' for it. I gotta warn you, though, there's some pretty nasty creatures down there. Yep. We need to keep the tablet safe from those evil folk, you know? I'm glad we got Bowser away from this place. We don't need a villain here in Dustburg. Villains are for the movies and video games, eh? HAR HAR HAR!"
"Thank you, mayor." Tippi led the heroes toward the potted plant while Dusty continued his tangent. Our heroes found the pipe hidden behind the plant and entered it one at a time.
The group found themselves in a dimly lit underground cavern. The floor was damp, and drops of moisture continually dripped from the ceiling, illuminated by the torches mounted on the walls. Spike Tops, Swoopers, and other generic cave enemies resided in the chamber. "I guess we go this way," observed Peach, looking down the tunnel. The passage faded to black a few dozen yards ahead of them, but our heroes knew the tunnel didn't end there.
Stomping on the enemies and defeating the Spike Tops with Mario's hammer, our heroes proceeded into the darkness. The torches abruptly ended at the blackness our heroes had seen earlier, forcing our heroes to continue in absolute darkness. Fortunately, no enemies existed in this black area. Mario thought so for a moment, though, when he suddenly fell forward and crashed into the floor, the others landing near him. "What was that?" wondered Luigi.
"A step..." observed Tippi. "There's stairs going down. The tablet's probably near." She felt into the darkness, trying to detect anything she could. "I feel something right here..."
"Where?" asked Luigi. "I can't see a thing."
"Feel around...it's here somewhere. I think it's the tablet."
Our heroes spread their arms out and felt around the narrow chamber until Mario's hand brushed against something hard that wasn't the wall. "I think I found it!" He felt the object. It was about a foot in height, and seemed to be made of a flat, rough stone.
"Let's go back into the light," advised Tippi. "We can take a look at it there."
Our heroes returned to the lit area of the passage, climbing the stairs in darkness. "That's the tablet, all right," noted Peach. "I can't read it in this light, though. Let's get out of here."
Mario led the others back through the pipe, emerging in the town hall again. He jumped out from behind the potted plant, Dusty watching him. "So you heroes found the tablet, eh? HAR HAR HAR! Just like those Ancients said! So now you're going to save the world or somethin'-or-other, eh? Why, when I..."
"Thanks, mayor." Mario and the others rushed out the door, emerging back on the streets of Dustburg.
"So what's the tablet say?" asked Luigi.
Mario examined the artifact. "It says...'Place this tablet in the stone pillar outside of town'."
"Wow, very descriptive."
"I didn't see a stone pillar when we entered this town," noted Tippi. "It's probably on the other side. Let's check it out."
Our heroes walked down the street, eventually coming to the other side of town. They indeed saw a stone pillar several yards past the exit. "There it is," announced Peach.
The group exited the town and walked toward the pillar. Mario placed the tablet in an appropriately-shaped indent in the pillar's front side. Nothing happened for a few seconds, but after that time, the ground began shaking. Near the horizon, a gray stone temple emerged from below the sands, smaller stone structures appearing along with it closer to our heroes. "Whoa," exclaimed Luigi. "So we go to that temple?"
"I can feel that's where the orb is," announced Tippi. "Yes. We've got to go there..."



-END OF CHAPTER-
We went to see them for the first time in 5 years because they were going away for 3 years.

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« Reply #61 on: June 11, 2008, 12:41:03 PM »
After a break with another project of mine, I'm returning to SPM3. I'm a bit self-disappointed in Chapters 1-1 and 1-2 (that might just be me though), but I think 1-3 turned out better. Here you are.



A large temple, accompanied by smaller gray stone structures closer to our heroes, had appeared in the arid plain. What were these strange structures? Would they lead our heroes closer to the mystery-surrounded "orb" they were looking for? Our heroes moved to examine the nearest structure, unsure of what to expect.








"Underneath the true mirage," read Mario slowly, "lies the first shard."
There was a short pause before Luigi spoke. "Why can't they just say 'go here, here's the orb, have fun saving the universe'?"
"The true mirage..." repeated Tippi, examining the words written on the front of the large cubical stone. "Underneath the true mirage...lies the first shard..." She thought the words over carefully, giving each word a moment of thought. "The first shard...that might be some sort of puzzle piece we need to enter the temple."
"What's the 'true mirage'?" inquired Peach. "If it's a mirage, it...isn't true, right?"
"The true mirage..." mulled Luigi. "In desert areas like these, hot air can create the illusion of water off in the distance. That's a mirage. But if it's a true mirage..."
"There is water around here," finished Mario. "And this shard object is apparently underwater."
"Where are we going to find water?" asked Luigi. "It could be anywhere."
"It probably isn't very far from where we're standing," began Tippi, "given the odds. Let's see if we can find some nearby."
Mario led Luigi, Peach, and Tippi to the left of the puzzle area. "Can you sense water, Tippi?" asked Peach.
"I'm sorry, I can't...I can only sense different kinds of energy. Finding water shouldn't be too hard, though..."
"Water ho!" Luigi suddenly exclaimed. He dashed toward a small area where the ground gave way to a ripply reflection of the sky, a few feet around and irregular in shape.
"There it is!" noted Mario. He followed Luigi toward the puddle, and the two brothers began scooping out the water body's bottom with their hands. As soon as they removed the watery soil, new soil flowed in to fill the gap, but Mario and Luigi slowly reduced the total amount of soil at the puddle's bed. Eventually, Mario's hand hit something hard and triangular. "I think I found something!" He gripped the stone object, groaning slightly as he forced it free from the mucky sediment. Removing the slimy dirt took several seconds, but the object was soon revealed to be a large, triangular block made of the same material as the stone structures outside the temple.
"That's the 'first shard'," gathered Luigi. "Now...what are we supposed to do with it?"
"I don't know," began Mario, "but we should take it back to the puzzle area. Knowing these puzzles, we'll probably have to place it somewhere."
Back at the large stone cube, our heroes examined the block for anything they could use the shard for. They soon discovered a triangular indent at the very top of the back face. Mario carefully set the shard into the indent. No rumbling or loud noises occured, but the top-right corner of the triangle, from our heroes' perspective, glowed a pure white. "OK, what's going on?" asked Luigi.
"The glowing edge is probably pointing us in a certain direction." Tippi looked to the right, observing the left (from the front) of the three identical stone blocks. "It's pointing directly to that other stone. Let's check it out."
Our heroes walked to the left stone. This stone, too, had a cryptic message inscribed on its front face which Mario read. "How ironic, that the shard you're looking for is hidden where you want to reach."
"Um..." Luigi thought. "That makes even less sense than the last clue. Of course we want to reach it! How is that 'ironic'?"
"Hmm..." mulled Peach, giving this message deep thought. "Where do we want to reach? Any place that would make it ironic?"
"Well, we want to reach the temple," recalled Mario. "But...the shard can't be hidden inside the temple. We need it to get into the temple."
"Maybe it's near the temple," offered Tippi. "Maybe..."
"There's no harm in trying," agreed Mario. "Let's take a look."
The gray temple was smaller than our heroes had thought at first. Two pairs of three thick columns seemed to guard the large, sealed double-door entrance. Luigi pounded on the door. "Nope. We can't bust in."
Peach absently kicked a dust clump near the wall of the temple. "Where could-" The princess abruptly stopped as her foot slammed into something that seemed too soft to be the stony temple wall.
"It's an opening!" exclaimed Tippi. "The shard really is hidden inside the temple, in a secret entrance."
Mario sat down in front of the narrow opening and slid his feet into it, sliding feet-first into whatever lie below. The others soon followed, landing in a small, dark room littered with broken pieces of artifacts and stones. "Now which one of these is the 'shard'?" questioned Mario.
"Is it this one?" asked Luigi, holding up a triangular stone for his brother to see.
Mario examined the stone. "No, I don't think that's it. Its shape is a little rough around the edges." Mario moved his index finger along the perimeter of the triangle, noting several spots where his finger bumped into slight imperfections in the triangular shape. "There must be more than one of these triangular shapes in this room."
Peach began carefully digging through a large pile of debris. After discovering several similarly imperfect triangles, she finally found one that seemed to be perfectly shaped. "I think this is it!"
Mario turned to face Peach, observing the side of the triangle opposite Peach. He saw something that was crescent shaped, black and small. "No, I don't think..." He touched the black object, not feeling anything. "That's a shadow. There's a bump on the back of that piece. Gee, this is getting really..."
"Easy?" asked Luigi, holding another stone in front of Mario's face.
Mario examined the stone once again. "It looks like this one's a perfect triangle..." announced Tippi. "This is the shard."
"All right," finished Mario. "Two down, one to go."
Our heroes crawled back out of the hidden temple room, scraping themselves slightly on the narrow tunnel walls. Returning to the left stone cube, Mario placed the triangular stone in the identical indent. The left corner of the stone glowed, indicating the rightmost stone cube. Mario again read the inscription. "The last shard will reveal itself to you in a rather unpleasant way."
The others stood in silence for a longer time than before, until Luigi spoke up again. "Oh, great. Is there anything in that message we could use to find out where it is?"
"You don't have to, not as long as I'm around."
That hadn't been any of our heroes. They turned to face the sound, gasping once they discovered its source. Bowser had leaped from behind the stone cube, holding the final triangular shard in his clawed hand. "Bwa ha ha! Thought you'd just come up and find that orb? I could've just attacked that stupid town once I found out I had a fake tablet, but waiting for you guys to come and solve all those puzzles was brilliant! I must've had a stroke of genius or something!"
"Bowser!" accused Tippi. "You found the last shard and waited for us this whole time?"
"Yep! This baby was underground right near that pedestal thing. If I say so myself, I'm not the best at solving puzzles, but you guys seem to be pros at it, so I just let you do all the work for me. Thanks for finding the other two shards, heroes!"
"I can't believe this!" exclaimed Mario.
"Believe it. Well, now that you guys are here, I might as well open the temple. For myself, that is." Bowser inserted the final stone into the cube, and the large double stone doors opened with a loud crash. "See you, heroes. I'll be confiscating that orb you're looking for!" The Koopa king dashed away from our heroes into the temple.
"Oh, no you don't!" Peach shouted. She chased Bowser toward the building, closely followed by the others.
"Get off my tail, jerks!" Bowser grabbed the left side of the double door and slammed it into Peach, striking her face and causing her to land on her side on the ground next to the temple.
"Peach!" exclaimed Mario. "Luigi, get Bowser!"
Luigi didn't quite know what Mario meant, but he had to do something before Bowser closed the other door as well. He dive-tackled Bowser just before the villain moved to close the door, and they both tumbled down a steep staircase just inside the temple.
"Peach!" repeated Mario. "Are you OK?"
"Yes...I think so." Peach stood up, ignoring the slight pain and the dirt scrapes on her dress. "We can't waste time. We have to get the orb before Bowser does."
"And we have to make sure Luigi is fine," added Tippi. "Let's go in."



-END OF CHAPTER-
We went to see them for the first time in 5 years because they were going away for 3 years.

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« Reply #62 on: June 13, 2008, 11:59:54 AM »
"Luigi, we're coming!" Mario led the others quickly but carefully down the sharply descending staircase. At the bottom lie Luigi and Bowser, punching, kicking, and biting at each other like there was no tomorrow.
"Come on, wimp!" dared Bowser. "You can't beat Dimentio's #1 minion!"
He angled his foot in a sharp kick to Luigi's stomach, sending the man in green crashing against the opposite wall. Bowser then charged, but Luigi deftly flipped over Bowser and delivered a punch to the stomach. "Who's the man now, huh?"
"Oh, shut up. You haven't forgotten about my uber-skills, have you?"








Bowser held his hand up, blasting a ray of concentrated red energy that slammed Luigi against the wall again. Luigi struggled to move, taking forceful breaths with every twitch of his arm. "Stop, Bowser!" pleaded Tippi.
Bowser laughed. "Why should I? You guys are no use to me now. Plus, I'll probably get a promotion once I've ended all of your games, not to mention free, on-demand fried eggs. Say goobye, heroes!"
"Wait!" Tippi continued. "We are of use to you. I think..."
"What? How could you wimps possibly be of use to me? I'm just going to walk in there and take the orb. Nothing else to it!"
Mario helped Tippi out. "What if there are more puzzles and such inside the temple? There probably are. You might need our help to figure them out."
"True, but if I end your games now, there won't be anyone to look for the orbs. Dimentio made it clear that hero-elimination comes first, then orb-finding."
"But how do you know we won't just defeat you again? We beat you practically a few minutes ago."
"You're down to half of what you had then. You think you can beat me with only three?"
"Considering what we did in the past," continued Peach, "I think it would be best for us to not fight each other. Let's agree to be peaceful, at least until we find the orb."
"And then I fry the heck out of all of you," agreed Bowser. "Fine. Sounds like an OK plan. Lead the way, Mario."
Mario walked to the front of the group and led the other heroes, plus Bowser, down the dark, grayish stone hallway. The first door our heroes entered took them to a room flooded with enemies and Firebars. "More of this, huh?" reflected Luigi as he stomped a Buzzy Beetle and sent its shell careening into a line of enemies. "They should know we're pros by now." Luigi tried to hide the obvious pain these actions caused him.
"I'll get these weaklings." Bowser unleashed his hot breath on a crowd of an enemy type our heroes hadn't seen before. Tippi and the original four heroes were again traveling through a dangerous dungeon, and if not for the clear memories of Bowser's loyalty to Dimentio, Mario might have thought he was just another hero, adventuring with them like old times. Well, "old times" wasn't exactly the most accurate description. It had been barely two weeks since Count Bleck had carried out his surprise attack on the princess's Mushroom Castle, subsequently forcing Peach to marry Bowser and unleashing the Chaos Heart, although it felt like several months. Now, the Chaos Heart had been activated again. Blumiere was dead, but that was about the only difference. The interior of the temple even resembled the Yold Ruins Mario had ventured through in the first part of his quest, and for a short moment, Mario wished their quest could just have ended after the heroes had defeated Dimentio for the first time. He was walking along a path he knew nothing about, looking for orbs and following directions he knew nothing more about. He didn't have much experience with this kind of adventure; 'go here, get artifact, save princess' was pretty much his usual schedule. Only a few times before had he felt truly clueless about what was going on. Still, what choice did he have? It was either find the orbs or watch all worlds slowly disintegrate at the hands of Dimentio. Mario knew he'd look back upon this adventure with fondness. Struggles only served to strengthen. He knew he had to push forward, and sooner or later...
"Hey, Mario, you're going to open that door, right?" Luigi interrupted Mario's train of thought.
"What?" Mario looked in front of him, seeing another door. "Oh, right. I was just thinking." He opened the door, allowing our heroes to explore further into the underground temple.
The next room the group entered was unlike anything they'd seen in a temple before. The room was a tall vertical chamber, with moderately large square holes placed at various locations. Most of these were far too high for our heroes to investigate, and at the very top of the chamber lie a small outcropping that gave access to a door. "How are we supposed to get up there?" rhetorically asked Tippi.
Mario looked around. "Maybe these holes will give us some clue?" He walked to the nearest hole to investigate, and discovered that it opened into another room. "There's another room in here, guys." The others followed him into a very narrow hallway. As they traveled through it, they discovered that it was laid out in a polygonal upside-down "U" shape, surrounding the vertical chamber. The square holes in the stone opened into this narrow hallway.
"We probably have to solve some crazed puzzle again," noted Luigi.
"There's no place like here to start," pointed Peach. The others looked toward the area she was pointing at, another hole in the side of the hallway.
Our heroes entered the new room and found themselves in another enemy hallway. Our heroes had experienced quite enough enemy-dodging in Castle Dimentio, not to mention the enemy room they'd just conquered, but there was only one way to proceed. Stomping the enemies and dodging the spikes and Firebars, our heroes came to a switch on a small pedestal. Mario jumped on the switch, expecting the temple to shake. Shake it did, but he wasn't anticipating a torrent of water cascading down from the ceiling as well. It completely flooded the hallway, and the water spilled past the entrance as well. "I think we need this water for something," reflected Bowser.
"When don't we?" Mario led the others out of this hallway and to the inside of the vertical chamber again. The water had leaked into the chamber through the lowest square passage.
"I think I figured it out," began Peach. "We have to find another room in that hallway and hit another switch. If we keep doing that, the water level will keep rising and we'll be able to reach the door at the top."
"So we should be looking on the other side now." Mario ducked through another opening, emerging in the left side of the thin surrounding hallway. There was indeed another opening here, placed just above the water level. Our heroes entered it.
"I'll take this," volunteered Mario. The obstacle course of spikes, moving platforms, and flying enemies was Mario's definite area of expertise. He jumped onto the first platform, avoided the Spiky Parabuzzy, and continued on his way. The switch at the end of this room unleashed another stream of water. Mario returned to the others. "Let's see if the water's high enough now."
The water was certainly higher, but not quite high enough to reach the upper door. It seemed like our heroes only needed one more switch to reach the top level. Exploring the narrow corridor again, they discovered yet another opening on the side they hadn't used before. This room took them into what seemed like a straight path to the switch. "Am I hallucinating?" questioned Luigi. "Or did they actually not make it seemingly-impossible-yet-really-easy to hit the switch?"
"Careful, Luigi," cautioned his brother. "You never know what might happen. Spikes could suddenly appear, enemies could drop..."
"Oh, what're you worrying about?" griped Bowser. "There's nothing in this room. I'm gonna hit that switch and call it a day." Bowser walked further into the corridor. The others worried about what might happen, but none of them really wanted to stop Bowser. "See? There's-" Bowser was suddenly cut off by a jet of fire that erupted from the left wall. "AAGH! What is-" Moving forward, Bowser was assaulted by a series of activating floor spikes. Running as fast as he could to keep ahead of them, he soon almost smacked into an entire wall of spikes that rose up before him. Thinking fast, he jumped over the spike wall and landed next to the switch. "See? I told you guys there was nothing! For me, I mean." Bowser hit the switch, again dropping a torrent of water. Bowser rejoined the others, and they followed Mario back to the vertical chamber. The water level was now high enough for our heroes to jump out of it and onto the platform that contained the door they were aiming for. They entered this door, emerging in a long, narrow staircase that led further underground.
"I feel something quite near," announced Tippi. "I think the orb is close. It might be at the bottom of these stairs..."
"Good," uttered Bowser. "Now I can swipe it and take it to Dimentio."
The long staircase was lit by wall torches, but as these things usually turned out, the torches became dimmer as the group descended. By the time they reached the bottom, our heroes could barely make out the large door. Mario grabbed the handle and gently opened the door, revealing a somewhat brighter room decorated by purple curtains. The walls and floor in this room were a more bluish color than the rest of the temple interior. At the center of the room lie a tall, purple decorated pedestal, and on this pedestal rested a small, red glass sphere that seemed to radiate a strange light.
"That's the orb!" Peach almost screamed. She began to walk up to it, but was quickly blocked by Bowser.
"What do you think you're doing?" Bowser knocked Peach back again, this time with a fist. "You guys led me straight to the orb, just as we agreed. I could wipe you all out, but I won't have to waste my breath if I just take it. See ya, heroes! Have fun watching The Void devour all worlds." Bowser reached for the orb.
"NOOO!!!" Mario dove for Bowser, knocking his arm away.
"You aren't taking that orb, Bowser!" assured Tippi. "Not as long as we're here!"
"Oh, you want to play?" the Koopa king taunted. "Fine then. I'll have more fun this way anyway. You're going down, heroes!"

BOSS
Bowser

"Mario, get the orb!" shouted Peach.
Mario took the orb and placed it in his pocket just as Bowser came his way, smashing the orb's pedestal into pieces with his spinning shell. The hero leaped out of the way as Bowser smashed into the wall behind him. "How'd you like some deluxe spike balls?" Bowser generated large spiky balls that he aimed at Mario.
"How'd you like some payback for what you did to me?" Bowser turned around to see Luigi for a brief moment before being struck in the face with one of the pieces the pedestal had broken into.
"OW! You'll pay for that!" Bowser attempted to fry Luigi with a fire blast, but Peach swiftly shoved the green plumber away. The fire managed to singe part of her dress, but Peach was relatively unharmed.
"Look behind you, Bowser!" Bowser felt his stomach become the target of Mario's hammer.
"Grr! You guys haven't seen my true power yet!" Bowser gathered energy with his hand and tried to deliver a slash to Mario, but the hero was too fast for Bowser by this point. He jumped over the villain, landing on the other side of Bowser. Bowser, however, saw this as an opportunity and struck Mario just as he landed.
"Aaah!" Mario was thrown backwards, dropping the hammer he had been using.
"I'll take this, thank you!" Bowser took Mario's hammer and turned to face Luigi. "Hey, green guy, thought you could sneak up on me?" He threw Mario's hammer at Luigi. The hero easily dodged the weapon, but the hammer continued through the air and smashed into one of the purple decorative curtains. The curtain snapped loose and plummeted onto Luigi's head. Mario got up as fast as he could and headed toward Luigi.
"No! Stay away from him!" Peach tossed another pedestal shard at Bowser, but the Koopa king regarded this as little more than a minor distraction. He charged for the man in green, having him pinned against the wall.
"Luigi, don't protest!" Luigi's left arm was relatively uninjured. Mario grasped his hammer and knocked Luigi away from Bowser, leaving the villain to crash into the wall. Bowser staggered backwards somewhat.
"Hi-YAH!" Luigi pulled the curtain piece backward and swiftly snapped it toward Bowser, delivering a whiplike effect to the front part of his body.
Bowser groaned, wincing. "I'll get you, Luigi!" He began chanelling energy into his right hand. Luigi quickly thought of a way to use Bowser's power against him. He jumped over Bowser, angling himself to swerve directly above the enemy. Bowser aimed an energy beam upwards, missing Luigi and blasting a hole in the ceiling. Large pieces of stone fell onto Bowser.
"Great idea, Luigi!" congratulated Tippi.
"Take that stupid weapon elsewhere!" Bowser set Luigi's still-intact curtain weapon aflame. The fire almost reached Luigi's hand before he threw it toward the other side of the room. It connected with another curtain, creating a new series of flames that began spreading through the row of decorations.
"The walls are on fire!" remarked Peach. "We have to stay away!"
"On the contrary, why not touch them? It would make things a lot easier for me." Bowser withdrew into his shell and careened toward Peach.
"Eek!" Before the princess could respond, she was pulled aside by Mario. Bowser's shell crashed into one of the flaming curtains, breaking it and sending it downward toward Mario and Peach. Mario carefully smacked it away with his hammer, unintentionally hitting Bowser.
"AAGH!" Bowser pulled the fiery curtain away from his body and charged Mario and Peach.
Luigi, away from the action for a while, thought of a way to defeat Bowser. That hole in the ceiling probably loosened a ton of rock. If I can get Bowser to attack it again, he'll probably be buried! How to make him do it, though...? Luigi looked to his right, toward one of the flaming decorations. A small portion of the curtain had avoided the fire. Luigi tore the curtain down and threw it at Bowser just before he reached the other two heroes.
"You're trying to attack me with that again? Oh, I'll..." Bowser readied another energy strike against Luigi. Luigi jumped the attack, and Bowser's energy ray again hit the ceiling. Luigi's hopes were more than fulfilled. A large portion of the ceiling smashed open, sending several large stones directly onto Bowser's head. The villain was almost completely covered with the rocks. "Grah! Noooo!" Bowser slowly pushed the rubble away from his body, panting. "You guys...you guys beat me AGAIN! I just CAN'T believe this! How do you guys manage?"
"Well, this time we did have the room to help us," offered Luigi.
"Oh, shut it with your bragging," Bowser spoke with half-closed eyes. He stood up, groaning. "Well, you have that stupid orb, but it doesn't matter anyway. You need all five to even do anything, and with your precious Prognosticus, there's no way you can find more. It's a win-lose situation either way, heroes. And we're the winners. See you if the world hasn't ended by then." Bowser flipped out and returned to Castle Dimentio.

"This orb..." Mario withdrew the glowing red orb from his pocket. "There's something about it. Something strange."
"Something powerful," added Tippi. "The orb's power isn't quite as strong as that of a Pure Heart, but I sense something else. Some other kind of energy, or magic."
Luigi and Peach joined in looking at the mysterious orb. "So the Light Prognosticus was right again," offered Luigi. "But now we don't have it. How are we going to find the other orbs?"
Mario sighed. "Yes, without them, we can't save every world. But...there must be a way. Just a little while ago, we thought all worlds were doomed for good, and now we've taken our first step toward saving them. That's an improvement, isn't it?"
Peach nodded. "There's still some way we can save all existence. I can feel it."
"Well, looks like we'd better be getting back to Flipside." Luigi exhaled. "That's our next step, isn't it? We want to keep moving forward."
"Yes, that's correct," agreed Tippi. "Come on. Let's take this orb back to Flipside and get ready to save the worlds once again."



ORB GET!
-END OF CHAPTER-

The first orb our heroes had been strangely guided to is now in their hands. They can sense something deep within the red glass sphere, but what is it? What powers does this orb truly possess? Whatever the case, it seems it won't be of much help to our heroes unless they can find the other four. Our heroes return to Flipside having faith that there will, in fact, be a way to find the four remaining orbs. But now that they've defeated Bowser again, what will Dimentio do now? And just what does that jester know about the Light Prognosticus and our heroes' quest for the orbs? Our heroes have their confidence down, but some answers would be a nice consolation in their new, strange adventure...



"...and that's how they beat me. AGAIN."
Dimentio sighed. "Bowser, Bowser. You can't just rush headfirst into things. That's why you've been defeated. You need to think like the heroes. Their determination and love is what drives them."
"Are you saying I have to love? What kind of sick twist is that?"
"No, I am saying you must learn what can defeat those qualities. They've already demonstrated their incredible desire to stick together, so it's clear that trying to break them up isn't going to work. We must stop doing what we've already done. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
"So what should we try?" asked B-A Omega. "Those guys are pretty dang coordinated. They can dodge our lasers, and those things are state-of-the-art!"
"Well, minions, for starters, we shouldn't get worked up about the heroes in the first place. Regardless that they have an orb, they can't find the other four. But, as I told you all earlier, there could be some way for them to find them after all. It isn't likely, but our hero-destroying operative will continue, just in case. My idea is to catch them off-guard. The heroes are used to traveling, solving puzzles...all of that stuff, always moving forward. If we can use that initiative for our own purposes..."
Morris finished for Dimentio. "One of us can hide or something while they're solving a puzzle. While they're thinking about what to do, we'll ambush them. They'll never know what hit them!"
"Excellent suggestion, Morris. Since Bowser is out for the next while, who would be willing to take on the task of destroying the heroes this time?"
"Ooh! Ooh! Memememememe!!!" begged H-X Alpha. "I'll cook those meanies up like homestyle bacon in the microwave on high heat for 5:25!"
"I like the enthusiasm there. H-X Alpha and B-A Omega, travel between the different locations we've determined for the orbs and watch for the heroes. There's no way to know which one they'll go after, or even if they will, but we must catch them somehow."
"Yes, Master Dimentio!" The two robot minions flipped out.
Morris was silent for a few moments before remembering something he had wanted to ask Dimentio earlier. "Hey, Dimentio? Mind if I ask you a question?"
"Certainly, Morris. What interests you?"
"That symbol you use in the castle...that one with the circle and the three points and the heart...that's the symbol of the Tribe of Darkness, right? You said it represented the Tribe of Darkness's true leader, and you said it had something to do with the Chaos Heart. Do these orbs have anything to do with that?"
Dimentio thought this over for a few moments before laughing gently. "Ah ha ha...yes, the symbol I once used does represent the leader we lost to the orbs long ago. But you don't need to concern yourself with the dealings of the ancient Tribe of Darkness at the moment. Focus on your missions first, then worry about the details."
"Sounds OK, Master Dimentio. That's all I wanted to know." Morris flipped out.
"I suppose I'd better be heading out as well. I must make sure the heroes can't find the remaining orbs, or we might be in trouble." Dimentio disappeared.
This left Bowser. "Ugh. I guess I'd better get back to that training..." Bowser flipped out, leaving the castle's meeting room empty.



"It's just too great! Too great and powerful for anyone to handle! The worlds are doomed!"
"Not so fast. Don't let that fear of yours shake you down.
We can make something that can defeat it."
"How? How would that be possible?
We've already sent our three most powerful magicians, and it killed them before they could even make their first move!"
"That's the problem. We use people.
If we can use something like a powerful object, we just might have a chance."
"..."
"You're liking my idea, aren't you?"
"...Yes. It just might work. We'll gather the remaining magicians and wise men.
This monster must be put to its end."



Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Tippi walked out of the Flipside Tower red door, the red orb in hand. "I guess we should see Merlon," began Tippi. "If anyone will know what to do, it'll be him."
Our heroes descended using the elevator and emerged on the second story of Flipside. As usual, Merlon was waiting for them. "Oh ho! The heroes return, and I presume with an orb?"
Mario displayed the red orb while Tippi described their latest adventure. "We still need four more orbs, but since we don't have the Light Prognosticus anymore, I don't know how we're going to find them."
Merlon closed his eyes. "I'm afraid, since the Prognosticus isn't with us, neither do I. Without the book, I cannot recieve any instructions or read any verses about what you should do next. This is a real predicament. What shall we do..."
The ground under our heroes' feet began shaking. Knowing what was happening, Merlon and the heroes turned to look at the sky. The Void had grown in size.
"And there goes The Void again." Luigi sighed. "How are we going to do this? We don't know what to do or how to do it. Or anything."
"Well...there must be some way," offered Mario. "All worlds can't just-" At that moment, Mario felt as if his consciousness had been pierced by an outside force. He staggered a bit, trying to figure out what this strange mental sensation was.
"Mario? You OK?" asked Luigi.
"I...uh...um..."
Come on, Mario. Get a hold of yourself. It's not that bad, is it?
"What was that, Luigi?"
"What?" inquired Luigi. "I didn't say anything."
"Then what was-"
I'm not trying to make you dizzy, Mario, but stand up straight. You'll have to get used to this.
Mario slowly aligned himself. "Who's saying that? Luigi? Peach?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Mario," replied Luigi again. "None of us said anything."
Mario, take a rest at the inn. You need that. After that, go back to Flipside Tower and have Merlon modify the orange door the same way he did the red one. I'll give you further instructions afterward if you need them.
Gathering that the voice was within his own head, Mario thought his response. Who are you? How are you talking to me like this? Are you the person who's using the Light Prognosticus to guide us?
The voice returned. I can't tell you much right now. For starters, I'm not God or anything, so try to avoid thinking about any big personal secrets if you don't want me to know about them. I don't have much time, but you can call me Maia for now. That fit, Mario realized, since the strange voice did seem somehow female. I've got to break contact now. Remember what I told you. Inn, orange door. I'll talk to you later, Mario. Mario's mind seemed to uncloud, and his senses returned to normal.
"What was that, Mario?" asked Tippi.
"That was...strange." Mario told the others about his mysterious mental intruder, Maia, and the instructions she had given him.
"So...we really can save the worlds," bluntly stated Tippi. "That's good. But who's this...Maia? Is she the person who helped us with the Light Prognosticus?"
"I guess now that we don't have it," began Merlon, "she's mentally communicating with Mario instead. Well, this is good news, for one, but we still know almost nothing about the situation...who is this person? Why..."
"Well, if this person can communicate mentally," interrupted Peach, "it would probably be a good idea to follow her advice. Let's not dwell on what we don't know. Let's make use of what we do."
"Yes, I suppose we should keep doing that." Merlon paused. "Well, heroes, take your rest at the inn. I'll be waiting on Flipside Tower."
After a quick stay at the inn, our heroes took the elevator to the top of Flipside Tower. The orange door had appeared, but the other five doors on this tower were still nonexistent. Merlon raised his hands, repeating the process he had used to modify the red door. After a white flash, he wished our heroes luck. "Good luck in whatever dimension this door takes you to, heroes. I'll await your return with the second orb."
"We'll be back, Merlon," assured Tippi. "We promise."
We went to see them for the first time in 5 years because they were going away for 3 years.

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« Reply #63 on: June 17, 2008, 09:09:01 PM »
There was hope, and it was abundant. Mario and the other heroes of prophecy could save every world after all, thanks to the mysterious messenger Maia. Our heroes entered the orange door with confidence that they'd find the next orb, whatever it might be. But with four orbs still remaining to be found, who knows what twist our heroes could run into next? Has Dimentio set another trap for our heroes in this new dimension? Will Maia help the heroes again? If there was a such thing as anxious confidence, our heroes were experiencing it right now...








A line was drawn.

Joining this line were a few others, drawing vertical shapes with large, spiralling growths on their tops. These shapes resembled fiddleheads, while smaller plants were drawn around them and colored a dark yet bright green. As the fiddleheads shaded themselves in a brownish-green, moderate-sized mountains were drawn in the background and filled with the same green color that adorned the valley our heroes were entering. The sky was a particular shade of orange that faded from darker to lighter as it drew closer to the horizon, broken only by the dark circle of The Void. No clouds were visible as the orange door was drawn into existence and our heroes stepped into the new dimension, looking at their surroundings.

"Very peculiar," noted Luigi. "Have you ever seen a fiddlehead this big?" He poked its stem, not producing any moment whatsoever.
"Um," began Peach, scanning the area in front of them. "There's a sharp uprise. How do we cross it?"
Before she had finished speaking, Mario had jumped directly onto the head of one of the giant fiddleheads. His weight pushed the plant downwards, bending its stem. "What are you doing, Mario?" asked Tippi.
"Crossing that uprise." Mario suddenly released his weight from the fiddlehead. The newly freed plant sent Mario flying through the air to land safely on the top of the cliff-like uprise.
"Well, that's a new one." Luigi grabbed onto the plant as well.
"New and unconvential, but it works!" Once Luigi had joined Mario, Peach repeated the maneuver. She landed delicately in front of the Mario brothers.
"Pretty fun, isn't it?" asked Luigi. "I like this gimmick."
"So, Tippi..." Peach was still involuntarily smiling as she began her question. "Do you feel the orb here?"
"Yes, I can sense it, but..." Tippi's voice trailed off. "But...it seems less strong than normal. Like it's been muted. I'm not sure what it means..."
"Is it just very far away?" offered Luigi.
"No, it's about average distance, that I can tell...but there's something between us and the orb that's muting its energy. Something pretty powerful from what I can feel."
"Is this Dimentio again?" asked Mario. "He's never done something like this."
"Something tells me it isn't Dimentio," replied Peach. "But we'll have to be on the lookout for him and his minions. He's probably sent Morris or those robots to stop us by now."
"But if he's done that..." Mario had a sudden thought. "How would he know where to send them? Does he know where the orbs are? He must, if he sent Bowser to the last dimension we visited."
"Does Dimentio know about Maia?" Luigi's question seemed to startle the others. "I mean, Maia knows where these orbs are, and everything, and so does Dimentio."
"Can you ask her, Mario?" suggested Tippi. "I know she's not in your mind anymore, but..."
"Well, I'll try." Mario concentrated on sending his thought as best he could. Maia? No strange sensation or voice entered his mind, so he decided to try again after a few seconds. Maia? Could you tell me if you're connected to Dimentio or the orbs somehow? Still no answer. "I don't think it's working, guys. She's not answering. I think we have to actually be in contact for this to work."
"And only she can bring your minds together," finished Tippi. "Well, I guess you could try if she contacts you again..."
"I suppose. I'm still sort of uncomfortable knowing that someone could break into my mind at any moment."
"Well, I guess you have no choice. You'd rather have that than the destruction of all worlds."
"Yes. Every cloud has its silver lining, I suppose."
Our heroes' conversation met a sort of pseudo-end as Mario began leading the others in the direction of the second orb. Our heroes jumped on enemies, flipped and hit ? Blocks, and all of the usual stuff as they drew closer to the orb one step at a time, with some fiddlehead-flinging along the way. Eventually, they arrived at another steep uprise, and this time there weren't any giant fiddleheads to help them out. There was, however, a small entrance to a cave that led into the depths of the mountain. "Is there any other way through?" asked Luigi. "Entrances into the inside of mountains usually mean bad things on this adventure."
"I don't think there is," answered Mario. "We're walled in on all sides."
"OK, but if we see anything suspicious, let's get out of here."
"Luigi, there's no other way. This is the way forward."
"Well, OK, but...uh...never mind."
Shortly beyond the entrance of the tunnel, Mario noticed a large collection of roundish stones that seemed to be filling up a rectangular hole in the floor of the cave. As our heroes stepped over this area, the rocks suddenly gave way and sent our heroes tumbling downward deeper into the mountain. "Whaaa!!" screamed Mario. "What is this?"
"Not again!" uttered Luigi. "I knew we shouldn't have entered this-"
Luigi was interrupted by the sound of our heroes smacking into the cave floor. Seeing that they were still alive, our heroes tried to stand up-and were pulled back to the ground. Mario extended his right arm as far as he could, finally breaking it free of something that seemed to function like green slime. "What is this stuff?" He pulled his left arm out as well, slowly bringing himself to a standing and brushing the remaining slime bits off his body.
"It's really sticky." Luigi tore a glob of the sticky green substance from his overalls and stood up.
"Are you guys OK?" Tippi floated down from above, noting our heroes' condition.
"Yes, we're fine," answered Peach. "Unhurt, that is."
"Is there anywhere we can go from here?" Tippi looked in the direction our heroes had been traveling, seeing a continuing passage with a floor covered in the same sticky green slime. "I guess we go that way."
"What is this place?" wondered Mario. Any answers, Maia? Nothing came as a result of Mario's futile effort. He sighed, going along with the others. Walking in this passage was difficult with the sticky floor. Our heroes had to carefully pick up one foot, set it down, and then repeat the process without tripping and sending themselves falling into the slime face-first. Relief washed over the party when they discovered an end to the slime floor. Beyond that point, the ground reverted to a standard stone cave.
"Whew," exhaled Peach. "That wasn't-" Peach was cut off by the sensation of breaking through the floor and falling through the air yet again. Our heroes again landed in a green slime substance.
"This again!?" Luigi carefully removed his body parts from the sticky slime. "What kind of cave is this?"
"This can't be natural," gathered Mario. "Someone had to have built this cave and put this slime stuff here."
"So how do we get out?" asked Peach.
"I don't know, but...there might be a way to get back up to where we need to be. Let's just follow this path and see where it takes us."
This path was identical to the one above it, even featuring an end to the slime floor after the same distance. Luigi was about to step out of the sticky green slime when Mario pulled his brother's leg back. "Wait a second. There might be another falling floor here. Let's jump over this area and see if we can land somewhere safe."
"How do we jump? We're stuck in this slime."
That hadn't occured to Mario. "I'll go ahead and try to walk lightly on this ground." Mario carefully stepped out of the slime glue. Once he was situated on the ground, he jumped as far as he could, touching down on what seemed to be safe ground.
"Looks safe." Luigi and Peach repeated Mario's example. "Are you sure this ground is another one of those falling floors?" asked Luigi.
"Well, let's try it out." Mario jumped onto the patch of ground he suspected to be unstable, quickly jumping back as the ground crumbled away. "Yep. It's a falling floor all right."
"That is strange..." mused Tippi. "How many of these tunnels are there? That's three of them already."
Observing a light at the end of this tunnel, our heroes continued through the cave passage, emerging outside on the other side of the mountain they had been traveling through. "We're outside?" asked Peach rhetorically. "Then..." She looked back at the mountain. No other exits were visible. "If we fell twice, we should be much lower, but...this seems like the same altitude. And that was the only exit."



-END OF CHAPTER-
We went to see them for the first time in 5 years because they were going away for 3 years.

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« Reply #64 on: June 18, 2008, 03:51:23 PM »
A seemingly impossible network of tunnels beneath the surface of a large mountain...Was this a puzzle set up by the person who hid the orbs? What were our heroes going to experience next in this dimension? "Maybe it's another puzzle," offered Tippi. "Like a never-ending maze. Whoever hid these orbs must have hid them so that only we could find them."








"Didn't Dusty say the Ancients came to that town and brought the tablet?" recalled Luigi. "The Ancients must have had something to do with these orbs."
"Then, is Maia connected to the Ancients somehow?" guessed Mario. After a few more seconds of thought, he shook his head. "Nah. We're thinking about what we don't know again."
"But it's fine to speculate, isn't it?" questioned Luigi.
"Well, I don't know, Luigi. I'm just not going to think about it for now."
"I'm going to speculate, if that's fine with you."
"Luigi, I don't think...well..."
"You guys are making this way more complicated than it needs to be." Peach jumped into Mario and Luigi's debate. "Maia...if that's her...told us not to trouble ourselves with what we don't know. It's perfectly fine to think about them, as long as we don't let them take control."
"I suppose that's right," agreed Tippi. "We don't need to overcomplicate things."
"Well, OK." Mario paused, trying to regain his train of thought. "Dimentio said we might have a chance at defeating Amtakan if we found these orbs. We don't know what happened to him, but from what Dimentio said, it's possible he was the founder of the Tribe of Darkness or at least one of its leaders. I'll speculate that the orbs are connected to the Tribe of Darkness somehow."
"So then Maia has some connection to...Amtakan?" continued Tippi. "I guess that's about all we know. If that is true."
"All right. Very nice speculation." Mario still felt slightly confused about the subject of whether or not they should discuss what they didn't know, but he knew he should loosen up at least somewhat. He was probably just getting too uptight about the whole deal.
More enemies, blocks, and puzzles confronted our heroes in their travel, accompanied by those springy fiddleheads. The sky seemed to be weirdly stable; our heroes had been walking in this mountainous meadow for quite some time, and not once during that time had anything other than the same shade of orange graced the sky, bar The Void. The lack of a sun made the environment seem even more surreal.
"What's this?" inquired Peach, stepping over a small hill. The area in front of them seemed to be a square patch of land, boxed in by the surrounding mountains. Large plants and vines almost completely covered this area, and several fiddleheads and other plants rose above the vegetation on the ground.
"Pretty neat place," remarked Luigi as our heroes walked through the shrubbery.
Careful, Mario. You're walking into a trap.
Mario's limbs tensed as the odd sensation of Maia entering his mind left just as suddenly as it came. What trap? Can you... It was too late, though. Maia had left Mario's consciousness right after she had spoken again.
"Is everything fine, Mario?" asked Tippi.
"Maia entered my mind again. She said we're walking into a trap."
"A trap?" asked Luigi. "How could this possibly be a trap? Did you ask her anything?"
"I didn't get the chance. She left as soon as she finished speaking."
"Odd..." Tippi floated. "So what's this trap? Did-"
"Heeeeeeello, weary travelurs!" Our heroes turned toward the voice, only half-believing what they were seeing. A clump of multicolored blankets floated out from behind one of the thick vines, displaying a plate of food. "Would you like some...TACOS?" It exaggerated "tacos" to the max.
Our heroes were silent for several seconds. Mario soon guessed at what this blanket clump was, however. "How are you carrying that plate?"
"What?" The blanket clump dropped the taco plate. A few instants later, it shook all of the colored blankets off of its body and put on a large sombrero, revealing a small robotic head underneath. "HaHA! Now I am more Spaneesh than I was five seconds agow!"
"H-X Alpha!" accused Peach.
"What is 'Aych-ecks-alfa' you speak uf? I am a SPANEESH man who has excellent TACOS!"
"Oh, I TOLD you that wasn't going to work!" Alpha's counterpart B-A Omega appeared from behind the same vine and ripped Alpha's sombrero off. "We could have ambushed them, but you just HAD to do that dumb taco thing!"
"Amboosh? Who would do such a thing? I am a TACO salesmen!"
"I'll let Dimentio know about this." Omega then turned to the three heroes. "So, heroes, now that Alpha ruined our surprise entrance, I guess I'll do the honors the old-fashioned way. Dimentio sent us to destroy you, and that's what we're going to do!"
"How'd you know to come here?" demanded Tippi. "How does Dimentio know where the orbs are, anyway?"
"Why's that any of your business? It doesn't have to do with the fact that we're going to pummel you into next week."
"What does that have do with anything?" Tippi was mildly frustrated at B-A Omega's heavily-twisted logical arguing.
"A lot. You damaged some of our weapons last time, but that doesn't matter, because the nature of this battlefield allows us to utilize our skills to their full potential."

MINIBOSS
H-X Alpha and B-A Omega

The robot B-A Omega extended his arm and fired a bright laser in our heroes' direction. The group jumped the blast, angling to the side as the beam of concentrated energy blasted a hole in the ground, revealing a dark space underneath. "What's that underground?" inquired Luigi.
"No time to observe," reminded Mario. "Dodge that shuriken!" Luigi turned toward Omega, gasped, and then jumped onto the nearest fiddlehead, dodging the large shuriken the minion had aimed at him.
"Think that fiddlehead will protect you?" taunted the smaller robot. "Think again, Popcorn Dude, YEAH!" H-X Alpha blasted the fiddlehead's base apart, causing the large plant to topple over. Luigi hung on to the plant's head for as long as he could, aiming toward Alpha. He finally jumped free of the plant, stomping the robot while the large fiddlehead crashed into the ground behind him.
"You haven't seen anything yet!" warned B-A Omega as he produced a row of knives that he again set on fire. Luigi dashed toward Mario and Peach while they prepared to dodge the flaming weapons, but Omega didn't throw the knives at the heroes. Rather, he threw them at the ground in front of our heroes' feet, breaking open a large patch of the ground. Our heroes fell through the hole the robot had created, landing in what seemed to be an exact duplicate of the field above them. It had vines, plants, fiddleheads, and even the one fiddlehead H-X Alpha had destroyed...except it was all underground.
"What is this place?" wondered Tippi. She didn't have time to wonder for long, though. The two robot minions quickly descended on our heroes, firing lasers and shurikens.
"I'll go for Omega." Mario jumped to the right, hiding behind a large vine to avoid the laser Omega fired at him. It destroyed the vine, giving Mario a distraction which he used to pound B-A Omega with his hammer.
"You think you're clever? I'll show you how we're much more clever than you!" Omega again produced flaming knives and demolished the floor under our heroes. They tumbled into another exact duplicate of the above field...and this one, in addition to the destroyed fiddlehead, contained the broken vine that had helped Mario damage B-A Omega. Before any of our heroes could move or speak, they were suddenly assaulted by a barrage of lasers from the hole above.
"Agh!" Luigi jumped to the side, clearly in pain.
"You like that?" B-A Omega, closely followed by H-X Alpha, descended from the hole above our heroes. "There's only one room here. If you fall through the floor, you'll just reemerge at the ceiling. Nothing except the floor repairs itself when you do this. It's a never-ending series of rooms, and yet it's only one. Take a look above you." Our heroes looked through the hole they had dropped through, seeing not the previous underground room but the pure orange sky.
"How did you know this?" Mario looked about ready to tear B-A Omega apart if he didn't give them the answers.
"Why's that any of your business?" H-X Alpha did an almost perfect impression of his fellow robot.
"That doesn't matter!" Mario jumped through the air. "Do something, Luigi!"
Luigi ran in Omega's direction and was quickly blocked by the smaller robot. Alpha fired laser shots at Luigi while Mario stomped Omega. After Luigi damaged Alpha, the minion rose up toward the ceiling, charging for a large laser blast. Luigi attempted to Super Jump Alpha, but the robot's laser blocked his movement, and Luigi quickly fell through the hole in the ground the powerful laser had created. He realized he was falling directly onto H-X Alpha, so he swerved out of the way and delivered a smash kick to the unsuspecting robot.
"He's using the environment against us!" Meanwhile, B-A Omega had fired a series of homing lasers at every tall plant he could find, sending them crashing down on Mario and Peach. "Duck, Peach!"
Peach promptly ducked, then grabbed one of the large fiddleheads. She pulled it back, aiming to hit Omega with it, but the robot quickly produced another homing laser that struck her squarely and knocked her back several feet. Mario expertly caught the fiddlehead and successfully smacked Omega.
"Peach!" exclaimed Luigi. "I could use some backup here." Luigi and Peach watched as Alpha surrounded himself in a protective electrical capsule and sent himself bouncing around the room.
"Watch out, Mario!" exclaimed Tippi.
"What?" Mario turned to face the oncoming Alpha. Before he could react, B-A Omega suddenly unleashed a series of homing lasers that hit Mario, sending him backwards and through the ground, falling down towards H-X Alpha, who had retreated from his capsule. Mario got one good attack on the small robot.
"Why is everyone picking on me today?" whined Alpha. "You guys are bullies! I'm telling the assistant principal!"
"More like heroes." Luigi jumped and punched the robot for all he was worth while Mario went at it with his hammer. The small robot crashed to the ground, defeated yet again.
Look out, Mario! Gathering he wouldn't be fast enough to turn and see what was coming, Mario instinctively jumped over the incoming row of shurikens.
Are you saying I'll have to get used to you entering my mind when I'm fighting? Mario knew Maia couldn't hear him, but complaining to himself somehow felt better.
"What? How'd you know to jump over my shurikens? They're soundless!"
Mario turned to face B-A Omega. "Lucky guess."
"Are you sure? I'll pound the truth out of you." Omega extended his cannon arm, and it shifted into a giant hammer. Mario knew he couldn't handle much more, so he ducked and rolled out of the way before the hammer could strike and came out of his crouched position to perform a sudden kick to Omega's chest plate.
"I'll help, Mario!" Peach joined the fray, only to be smacked against the wall by another laser. Luigi used the distraction as an opportunity to perform a ground pound and hit B-A Omega again. The robot was now severely weakened.
"Gah! How can this be happening? We have awesome weapons!" Omega gave it one final shot. He set his left hand on fire using heat from the red jewel and punched the ground, ripping a large hole that he and the heroes fell through. He continued holding his fist in this position, causing the four to continue falling several more times. While our heroes were tumbling through the air, the robot minion targeted them with homing lasers. Our heroes swerved through the air to dodge them for a time, but Luigi and Peach were soon hit. Mario tumbled to end up behind B-A Omega, and right as the larger robot turned to face him, the hero attacked his enemy with the hammer, putting him out for good.
"Gah...ugh..." B-A Omega landed next to his smaller friend. "I don't get it! How do we keep losing? We have super-awesome weapons, they don't! What more is there to it!? And how'd Mario dodge my soundless shurikens, anyway?"
"The fact that we're heroes of prophecy?" offered Luigi. "I mean, if we were mentioned in a prophetic book, that makes us sort of special, I guess..."
Omega stood up while Alpha returned to hovering. "We're going to have to re-evaluate our performance. I suppose we lost because the heroes damaged some of our weapons the last time we fought. Next time, we'll have even more uber-weapons and a cool battle arena. I'll make sure of it!" H-X Alpha and B-A Omega flipped out again, displaying their crackling electricity show.

"That was an interesting fight." Mario climbed out of the arena and back to the ground level, followed by Luigi, Peach, and Tippi. Mario continued once they were all safely on ground. "Maia contacted me again. That's how I knew to jump over the shuriken assault. I'll have to get used to that mental feeling thing while I'm fighting."
"Did she leave again right after she told you to watch out?" asked Peach.
"Yes. Again."
"Well, I guess if we run into anything really dangerous again," began Luigi, "she'll be there to help you."
"Hopefully," agreed Mario. "As long as that feeling doesn't interfere with my fighting."
The sky was still very orange as our heroes continued toward the unknown orb. "I feel the orb's presence stronger here," announced Tippi. "Not just because it's closer, but...that thing that was blocking the orb's power...I think it's behind us now...but the orb's power still feels weaker..."



-END OF CHAPTER-
We went to see them for the first time in 5 years because they were going away for 3 years.

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  • is FUNdamental
« Reply #65 on: July 23, 2008, 03:24:36 PM »
After a game revision and a vacation, I'm back with Chapter 2-3! I'd appreciate any comments you guys have.



What were these strange sources of power Tippi was feeling? The one behind them might have been the never-ending underground rooms, but were there more strange illusions still waiting for our heroes to discover them? Our heroes were still quite some distance from the orb. They had no way of guessing what they might run into next...








The road ahead was much of the same deal as the previous two sections; enemies, jumps, the occasional RPG-style puzzle, etc. After a relatively steep uprise, our heroes came upon a straight vertical uprise, forming a wall they couldn't get past with the mountains boxing them in again. "OK, Mario," began Luigi, "figure out some way to get past, we continue, yadda yadda."
Mario gave his brother a glare. "Sorry."
"This rock looks suspicious." Tippi moved toward a large stone that seemed to be blocking the entrance to a tunnel. "Try moving it over, Mario."
Mario did just that. Sliding the rock over indeed revealed a narrow tunnel that burrowed through the mountain. As our heroes entered it, they were suddenly confronted with the literal light at the end of the tunnel. The entire passage only spanned a few yards, and where the tunnel ended, our heroes saw nothing but a dull golden-yellow haze. "What is that?" wondered Peach, moving her head to get her eyes closer to the strange sight.
"There's a lot of energy in the air," announced Tippi. "I think this is another one of those things that's muting the orb's energy. I can detect it very strongly now that we're right next to it..."
Mario slowly pushed his body forward toward the yellow cloud. Soon enough, without really knowing, he discovered he'd walked directly into it. He was standing in some sort of empty desert, resting on soft sandy ground almost the same color as the cloudy haze that hung in the sky, but slightly lighter. "What? Where am I?" He looked back at the others, who had exited the tunnel and joined him, and beyond, where he faintly perceived the green mountains and orange sky of the field through the veil of gold.
"I don't know where we are either," stated Tippi. "It's...well...just some other kind of illusion, I guess."
Luigi looked around, trying to find anything he could use as a landmark, but the terrain seemed absolutely vacant. "Is the orb closer here? What direction is it in?"
"Yes, it's closer here, and it feels stronger, too..." Tippi moved slightly in the direction the orb's energy was coming from. "It's over here."
Our heroes followed Tippi, leaving the rock wall they had emerged from in the distance. Our heroes' feet and the slight variations in the color of the sand below them were the only indications that they were even moving.
After a long walk, something finally began to materialize several yards away from our heroes. They only saw it as a dim, darker blur in the distance at first, but drawing closer to it, they could see that it was some sort of building. "What's this?" Mario quickened his pace and walked up to the structure. It was made of neatly placed stone blocks, much the same color as the ground and sky our heroes were walking in. Four pillars graced the front of the structure, and smaller decorations were placed around the area. "It looks like some sort of ancient temple."
"You think we should go inside?" asked Luigi. "I mean, that always works."
"I can feel the orb's power strongly here," assured Tippi. "It might be inside this temple."
Mario, have you ever flown a plane?
Of all the possible things Mario might have expected Maia to say in this situation, asking if he'd flown a plane was pretty much the last. "Hold on a second, guys." Yes, I have. Why do you want to know?
Just making sure you'll be ready. When you think you have the orb, watch out. There's someone here who might pose a threat to you.
Who is it? While he was thinking that last sentence, though, he felt the presence of Maia's mind withdraw from his own.
"Did Maia give you more instructions?" asked Tippi.
"Yes." Mario told the other about Maia's question and her warning about someone else in this place.
"There's someone else here?" asked Peach. "We'd better be careful, whatever that plane thing was about. It might be another one of Dimentio's minions."
"I'm gonna assume Maia left your mind before you could say anything else?" asked Luigi.
"Yes. What else is new, huh?"
"Did she say you should go into the temple?" asked Tippi.
"No, she didn't say that specifically, but it doesn't look like there's anything else here. We might as well go in." Our heroes slowly paced up the short steps that led into the large, empty entrance.
The interior of the temple was a moderately small room that contained a few rock-like enemies our heroes had never seen before, in addition to some standard Clefts. There were also two raised platforms. Blocking access to the left one was a gray stone block, and on the platform behind it was a block of the same type, but yellow. The right platform was identical, but the blocks were switched color-wise. There was a door at the far end of the room.
"I can break these blocks with the Hammer." After our heroes made quick work of the enemies, Mario destroyed the yellow block on the right platform. He couldn't break the gray one, however. "I can't do anything to these gray blocks."
"You can't?" asked Luigi. "What do we do here, then? Maybe we should check out the other room."
"Sounds good enough." Mario led the others into the other room. It was exactly the same as the room they'd come from, but the colors of the blocks were swapped; the left platform had a gray block and a yellow one below it, and the right had a yellow block on top but nothing below that. "I can break this yellow block, I guess." Mario jumped to the nearest platform and slammed his hammer into the block, revealing a switch. He hit the switch, and it glowed for a few seconds, but otherwise did nothing.
"Oh, I think I know what we have to do here!" Mario moved to the left platform, broke the yellow block, and retreated to the other room. The yellow block on the left platform was the only one standing. "If I remove a yellow block in one room, it also removes the corresponding stone block in the other room. I came across a puzzle like this before." Mario broke the yellow block, revealing a switch. There were now presumably four switches open in the two rooms.
"I guess we have to hit all four switches at the same time?" guessed Tippi.
"It must be so, but...only three of us can hit the switch. How do we do it?"
"I can hit the switch," corrected Tippi. She returned to her human form Timpani.
"Oh, that's right. OK, Luigi, stand on that platform." Mario pointed to the right platform in this room, and Luigi jumped onto it while Peach and Timpani moved to stand by the two switches in the other room. "Ready?" asked Mario, shouting so the other two could hear him. "Hit it!" Our heroes all jumped simultaneously onto the switches. The wall dividing the two rooms crumbled and disappeared. All that remained was a small, irregularly shaped piece of rock.
"What's that?" Timpani changed back into Tippi and floated toward the stone.
Luigi observed it carefully. "Oh! I think we have to take that outside. I remember seeing an indent in one of those pillars kind of shaped like that." He grabbed the stone piece. "More of this."
Our heroes exited the temple. Luigi put the stone piece in the indent of the pillar directly to the right of the entrance. As our heroes somehow expected, the entire temple began shaking. A pillar slowly rose from the sand a few feet away from the temple. Resting atop this pillar was a small yellow glass sphere.
"That's the orb!" Tippi exclaimed.
"No duh it is, Captain Obvious!"
"What?!"
Someone suddenly leaped from behind the temple and landed in front of our heroes. This creature looked very similar to the inhabitants of the third dimension they had visited in the second part of their adventure, as well as Larneg and Tavirp from the fifth. Its body was a dark shade of red, its hat was black, and it carried a remote wristgear. "Boy, was she mistaken when she thought she could just lead you dim-wits straight to the orbs. She must've known we'd come after you guys. We're going to make sure you don't get the orbs, no sir, no way, no how."
"What?!" repeated Tippi. "Who are you?"
"You can call me Reidlos X. I've been a leader in the army for practically my whole life, and I know how to get rid of bumbling idiots like yourselves. Say hello to my little friend!" Reidlos X pressed a button on his wristgear, and after a short earthquake, a giant, metallic-white airship emerged from the ground. "I'll just be taking this, thank you." The enemy grabbed the yellow orb and made off for the airship.
"Get back here!" Peach jumped into action and gave chase, the others following close behind. Reidlos X jumped through a small door, our heroes jumping in as well.
"You really are heroes, aren't you? Well, then. If you can make it to the bridge of this airship, I'll give you a taste of my latest weapon. Or should I say, our latest weapon. Betcha can't make it!" He warped away by pressing another wristgear button.
"Who is that guy?" inquired Luigi.
"We don't have time to find out," announced Mario. "We have to get to the bridge as soon as possible. Whatever this guy is planning, we have to stop it."
And be careful, Mario. Reidlos X has much more advanced technology than the X Faction.



-END OF CHAPTER-
We went to see them for the first time in 5 years because they were going away for 3 years.

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  • is FUNdamental
« Reply #66 on: July 28, 2008, 04:18:39 PM »
EDIT: Whoa, exactly 2,222 views. O_o



Reidlos X's appearance was sudden, and his presence only added more questions to the already-existing questions our heroes thought about. But Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Tippi had an orb to reclaim, and they weren't about to let an evil maniac trap them in the deepest recesses of their own thoughts. Congratulations, Mario. You're focused on your task and you're not letting your thoughts trouble you. But you might want to cut the mental narration a bit. Overdo it and you could miss your chance.
"Let's hurry up, guys. Maia just told me to cut the mental narration a bit because it could slow us down."
"You have mental narrations?" remarked Luigi.
"No. Now let's get to the bridge."








The airship's interior was steel-plated, just like the exterior, and seemed to boast a complete lack of any decoration whatsoever. The only interruptions to the constant steel designs were small round lights placed along the walls about halfway between the floor and the ceiling. Mario quickly walked to the nearby door, featureless except for the small handle, and thrust it open. Our heroes walked into the next room, which was a long hallway teeming with enemies. There was something else at the far end of the room, but our heroes couldn't tell what it was.
"Don't they know enough by now not to throw a bunch of generic enemies at us?" mused Peach. "We've been stomping on enemies and getting past obstacles since...Lineland Road."
When our heroes finished the enemy cycle, however, they discovered something was indeed different. A large pool of sick green, corrosive acid covered the floor before them, all the way up to the next door. There was no apparent way to cross it. "Tippi, is there something here that's invisible?" asked Mario.
Tippi felt for anything in the surrounding area, but her senses couldn't detect anything around the acid pool. "No, there's nothing there..." She moved toward the wall on the right. "But something about this wall seems weak. I might sound crazy, but maybe you could break this wall and use a piece of metal as a raft..."
Mario examined the wall, running his fingers across the plateless metal. He slowly extended a large chunk of metal from the wall, almost perfectly cube-shaped. "This is strange. Why is the wall weakened at the exact point we...might need it to cross acid?"
"Why were Ultra Shrooms conveniently placed in Castle Dimentio whenever we needed them?" asked Tippi. "It's probably the same mystery..." A sudden thought hit Tippi. "Wait. Do you think it's possible someone is doing this, like sort of...helping us?"
"But who could do that?" wondered Luigi.
"Maia?" asked Mario.
"That's exactly what I was thinking," agreed Tippi. "If Maia is helping us by telling us what to do, is it also possible she's helping us along our way in ways we don't even know?"
"It's certainly possible," continued Peach. "She added pages to the Light Prognosticus, why couldn't she section off part of the wall for us to use?"
"Well, regardless," began Mario, "we've got to start crossing this acid pool." He gently lowered the metal cube into the liquid acid and climbed on top of it. Balancing things across a dangerous liquid was something Mario didn't exactly do every day, but he had enough experience to slowly begin making his way across the field of acid. Once he reached the other side, he jumped away from the cube and pushed it across the pool. Luigi was standing at the end of the cube's path. Mario's push didn't go quite all the way, so Luigi carefully leaped over the corrosive liquid and onto the metal scrap. He steered himself across the acid in the same way Mario did and returned the cube for Peach to use. It was slightly more difficult for Peach, but she made it far enough to open her parasol and float the rest of the way. Tippi simply hovered across.
There was another door beyond the pool. Our heroes opened it and stepped onto an outside balcony. The airship was in full motion now, creating a powerful wind that stung our heroes' faces. "We're sure lucky we have hand railings to support us," stated Luigi, establishing a firm grip on the handrail.
Our heroes used the handrail to slowly push themselves forward. The wind was so strong that our heroes' eyes were beginning to water, but they had no choice but to proceed until they came upon another door. "We've got to be careful here," announced Mario. While still maintaining his grip on the rail, Mario extended his left arm and opened the door by its handle. The door was swung open by the wind and slammed against the nearby wall, even though it opened into the interior of the ship. Our heroes cautiously entered the airship's inside and slammed the door shut.
After another short hallway, our heroes entered what seemed to be a tall cylinder-shaped chamber. Thin platforms were arranged around the perimeter of the cylinder, and spikes were present as well. "It looks like we have to climb this chamber," noted Mario. Climbing the cylinder was a difficult task because of the numerous moving platforms and spikes that extended and retracted into the floor, walls, and ceiling. Our heroes needed to precisely jump onto a tiny moving block and let it carry them to the next platform. At one point, large spikes were positioned directly above their heads, requiring them to simply run onto a moving platform when it touched the region of land they were on. The top of this chamber sported a door that lead to another outside area on the top of the airship. The wind wasn't quite as strong here, due to an uprise in the airship's metal structure, but it was still enough to push our heroes back as they attempted to move in the other direction.
"Looks like cannonballs and more cannonballs," observed Luigi. The area in front of them was littered with cannons and blasters that continually fired cannonballs and Bullet Bills.
"No problem," assured Mario. "I've been through these airships before." He didn't get very far before being hit by a sudden cannonball attack. "Aaagh!" He was knocked back to where the others were standing and hit the wall behind them. He groaned, then slowly stood up. "They've got more of these than I've ever seen before, all right. We need to plan our moves carefully." He waited for an opportune time to jump between the weapon volleys, and then squeezed himself between a four-way cannon and a Bill Blaster. The others followed him, with some difficulty.
"Oh, gosh!" A Bullet Bill hit Luigi squarely, exploding and sending the man in green flying in the direction of the wind. In his panic, he thrust his foot upwards. It caught on one of the cannons, and Luigi dropped to the ground from there.
"Are you hurt, Luigi?" Mario called.
"Uh...I think, sort of." Luigi made his way back to where Mario, Peach, and Tippi were waiting. "Do we...we still have an Ultra Shroom Shake or two, don't we?"
"Yes, but I picked up a regular Shroom Shake along the way, so that'll be more appropriate." Mario gave Luigi the item to restore his brother to full health.
"They're sure throwing it at us this time," remarked Peach as the heroes continued their struggle. "You know, we've survived everything those guys have thrown at us so far. We're great at getting through enemies and obstacles." Peach paused for a moment, apparently gathering her thoughts. "I wonder...do you...do you guys think they're going to wise up to us sometime soon? I have a feeling...they're going to try something different after this."
"Something different?" asked Tippi. "I would think so, too, since obstacles tend to not work, and all of their other plans failed..."
"I just get the feeling they're going to wise up and throw something else at us. Enemies and obstacles get old after a few rounds."
They just might. Be careful once you step into the yellow door.
"Maia thinks so, too."
Our heroes could see the bridge just ahead of them. Reidlos X was waiting patiently for them to arrive, a smirk gracing his round face. To the left of the villain were several small planes in a line, and behind and to the right of him was what looked like a strange metal contraption. It was reddish-brown in color. "You took your sweet time, huh?"
"Actually," began Luigi, "that seemed kind of fast to me."
"I just like to say that when people arrive. It's fun to say and clearly establishes the fact that I've been waiting for them."
"Who in the world are you?!" demanded Tippi. "And give us that orb while you're at it!"
"Oh, you want this orb, do you now?" Reidlos X taunted. He extended his arm toward the heroes, waving the yellow glass sphere back and forth as if to hypnotize them. "Well, we'll see about that, heroes. My new, over-cliched vehicle of death will ensure the deaths of you all!" He jumped, flipping backwards and landing on the metal device. "This is the Headquarter Sandwich II. After you guys destroyed the first one, I did some research and found out how Radnamok X created it. I set out to replicate his achievement, a death machine with weapons that could blast any hero to ashes. But I didn't stop there. Oh no. I improved upon his design. I added all kinds of lasers and cool power-ups to it. And, I added something that'll guarantee you won't be able to defeat it."
"Headquarter Sandwich II!?" exclaimed Tippi. "You're acquainted with that insane maniac Radnamok X, aren't you? Were you part of the X Faction?"
"Technically, I suppose you could say I am part of the X Faction, but that depends upon what you consider the X Faction to be. If you consider it to be those melodramatic soldiers that were hypnotized by Dimentio to follow Radnamok X, than I'm not part of the X Faction. There's a lot more to that war between the Bluecaps and the X Faction than you saw when you were there, heroes."
"What...? What are you talking about?"
"Nothing of your concern. Nothing that your tiny minds can understand, anyway. And I'm sure your minds will be even smaller once I bash your skulls in with my uber-awesome weapons. Check this out!" Reidlos X pulled a lever in the machine's cockpit. It began a transformation similar to the activation sequence of the original Headquarter Sandwich, except for the two giant wings that extended from the sides. It resembled an extremely compact airplane with oversized wings. "I'll fly through the air, dropping bombs and stuff on you heroes, and you won't be able to hit me! Mweheheheh!!!"
"Umm...what about those planes?" Mario pointed to the line of slivery airplanes stored on the bridge.
Reidlos X looked both dumbstruck and horrified. "What?! How'd those planes get there? I thought they were down in the hold!"
Our heroes looked at Mario. Yes, that's right, Mario.
"Maia."
"Maia? Who the heck is Maia?" demanded Reidlos X.
Mario hadn't intended for Reidlos X to hear that. "No one. Come on, guys, we've got to get in these planes. We just might be able to attack him." Our heroes scrambled for the planes while Reidlos X contemplated. "Hmm. Is Maia that girl Amtakan keeps talking about? What does that have to do with these planes, though?"
"Amtakan? Now you're acquanted with him too?" accused Luigi. Reidlos X didn't seem like he knew that Maia was helping the heroes, but there was no telling what Amtakan knew, if that was indeed Amtakan our heroes had released in the underground palace of ice.
"Maybe I am. You guys don't know enough about Amtakan to make any connections, anyhow, so I'll just blow up your planes and call it a day." He warmed up the Headquarter Sandwich II, and the weapon began rising into the air, creating a large cloud of smoke.
"You ready, guys?" Mario turned to face the others in their cockpits. The planes' cockpits were open air with a frontal glass screen, allowing our heroes to communicate.
"We're ready!" Our heroes began warming up their planes.
"No you aren't!" interjected Reidlos X. The Sandwich and our heroes' small airplanes lifted into the air, ready for takeoff in a few seconds. "If you were ready, you'd actually have a chance of defeating me and my wonder machine, which you don't."
What a jerk. Tell him I said that, OK?
"Reidlos X, Maia says you're a jerk."

BOSS
Reidlos X and the Headquarter Sandwich II

The Headquarter Sandwich II took off, flying off the airship away from our heroes. The three heroes promptly gave chase, pursuing the flying vehicle through the dense mist that covered the area. At this distance, the Sandwich was partially hidden by the thick golden clouds, although it was still clearly visible as a dark red machine in the sky. "Take this, heroes!" Reidlos X catapulted a series of large explosive bombs at our heroes.
"You guys know how to-"
"Waaawwaaawaahhhh!!" Luigi's plane began spinning out of control after being hit by one of the explosives. "How do I steer this thing?"
"Up is down and down is up!" Mario hurriedly instructed.
"Oh, right." Luigi carefully righted his plane. "Take this, jerk!" He tested the plane's weapons, firing a small laser toward the Headquarter Sandwich II.
"Heh heh! Do you think that little laser is going to damage my awesome Sandwich?" Reidlos X extended two gigantic spiked maces on chains from the machine's main body. They were similar to the ones Radnamok X had used, but they were clearly much larger. "Say goodbye, losers!" He swung the weapons in opposite directions, forming arcs that converged directly where our heroes were positioned.
"Move down, everyone!" Mario swerved downward while the others followed. The spike balls crashed into each other with a loud bang.
"You really are dodge masters. Well, let's see how you stand up to this!" The enemy withdrew the two spike balls and repeatedly fired small missiles that homed in on the airplanes. "Heh! You're dead now!"
"Those things are going pretty fast!" remarked Mario. "Follow me. I think I've got a plan." Mario waited until one of the missiles had drawn close to him, then piloted his airplane closer to the Headquarter Sandwich. The missile followed his path, eventually being drawn toward the Sandwich and straight into the machine itself. It exploded, taking out part of the machinery.
"Agh! You destroyed my bomb triggers! Idiots! Ah well, though. Those aren't my only weapons! Get a load of this!" The various cannons and devices along the sides of the Sandwich all activated, positioning themselves in outward firing positions. Our heroes cautiously moved away from the weapon, anticipating a long-range weapon. Suddenly, compact lasers began firing in all directions away from the machine. One of them hit Peach's vehicle. "My plane's damaged!"
"Go for the corners!" advised Luigi. "I think that's a safe place. He can't fire diagonally because there's no laser cannons on the corners of the Sandwich."
Our heroes aimed their planes for the safe corners where Reidlos X's lasers couldn't hit them. While their planes were aimed at the Headquarter Sandwich II, though, they could do all the damaging they liked. Mario fired a volley of bombs at Reidlos X's machine while Peach and Luigi opted for lasers.
"Aiiaahh!" Reidlos X began fiddling with the controls of the Sandwich II. "You jerks! It's just a dogpile on the Headquarter Sandwich, isn't it? I'll show you all!"
Ugh! Now he's calling you guys jerks! I just can't stand it when people act like it's the exact opposite of the truth.
"That's true, Maia."
"What, is Maia your imaginary friend?" asked Reidlos X. "Or is there something here I'm not seeing?"
"Why should I tell you? Well, I'd say the second option, but still..."
"Incoming!" Luigi angled his plane downwards toward Mario and the Headquarter Sandwich II. Coming back up, he directed his plane in a circle around the weapon, firing all the weapons he could.
"Take this!" Without warning, Reidlos X extended a bright green force field-like object from the Sandwich. It didn't last for long, but it sent Luigi's weapons back at him and hit Mario's plane as well, knocking it back.
"Noo! My plane!" Luigi's plane was smoking.
"I think it's still got some time," reported Mario. "Just stay out of the action for a while."
"We've got to work together," Peach told Mario. "Let's attack from two different directions."
"Sounds good to me." Mario moved his plane behind the flying weapon while Peach steered in front.
"You'll never stand up to these missiles!" The Headquarter Sandwich II was heavily damaged, but most of the machine's weapons looked to still be intact. Reidlos X unleashed a volley of huge metallic missiles. These ones didn't aim for our heroes like the smaller ones did, but they were much larger and more difficult to avoid.
"Go for the middle!" Mario had to shout over Reidlos X for Peach to hear him; he planned for him and Peach to attack the center of the Sandwich's faceplates where weapons cannons were absent. Reidlos X turned to look at Peach as she and Mario dealt some damage. He fired a rear missile, hitting her plane, then turned his attention back to Mario.
"Peach! Are you OK?"
"I don't know!" Peach's airplane was even more damaged than Luigi's. It was anyone's guess as to how much longer the two planes could keep in the air. Mario's plane was damaged as well, but the Sandwich II was just short of being damaged beyond use. If Mario could get a few good shots in, the Headquarter Sandwich would be gone for good.
"That's two of you down. Now I just go for the leader!" The enemy activated two giant lasers that aimed for Mario's plane, similar to the dual lasers the original Headquarter Sandwich had featured. Mario knew what he had to do. He angled his plane sideways, slipping neatly through the two beams, and fired a missile at the vehicle. The Sandwich was sparking like mad.
Mario thought to himself, Just one more hit should do it! The hero pulled away from the machine as it fired more giant missiles. Mario didn't have time to pull away before he was hit twice.
"Your plane's going down too!" announced Reidlos X. "I'll destroy you now and keep this orb to myself!" He extended the two giant maces again.
OK...OK...I know what to do. I know what to do. Mario watched as the spike balls slowly branched off to the side of the Headquarter Sandwich II. Here it comes! Just as the maces began to close in on his plane, Mario fired the largest missile his plane had and jumped straight out of the airplane's cockpit. The maces slammed together, destroying his plane. At the same time, Mario's missile struck the Headquarter Sandwich, putting it out for good. Mario watched as the machine began to flame and spark as it broke apart. Pieces of the machine blew off as Mario braced for the explosion. It came, a defeaning blast that created a midair fireball and blasted the Headquarter Sandwich II and, presumably, Reidlos X to pieces. Mario hit the sandy ground a few seconds after that. His legs buckled with slight pain, but he was used to these landings by now. As Luigi and Peach descended toward Mario in their planes, the yellow orb fell out of the sky and landed next to Mario.

"That was...fun," breathed Luigi.
Mario gently picked up the yellow orb. It was very similar to the red one our heroes had found in the previous dimension, and the same strange light and energy seemed to radiate from it. "That's the next orb, all right," confirmed Tippi.
"So we have two of them now," recalled Peach. "That's good. We only have three left to find."
"And then what?" asked Luigi.
"Well..." Mario drifted off. "...I guess we don't know. Only Maia does."
That's right, Mario.
"Pardon me for a second." You seem more chatty than usual, Maia. What's happening?
I don't really know. I just got really mad at that guy. I guess it made me want to say something.
Can you tell me anything else, Maia?
There was a slight pause. No. Not now. I don't have enough time and it might just distract you from your task. But I want to say that I like that you call me Maia, instead of just something like 'the voice in my head'. I like how you consider me an individual, rather than something empty like a disembodied voice. You're very friendly. It's no wonder you're a great hero in pretty much every aspect.
Well, thanks, Maia. I've always considered you an individual.
You're welcome. I have to leave your mind now. Congratulations on getting the second orb.
Mario continued to feel Maia's presence for a few more seconds, and then all of his senses returned to normal. He nodded. "Orb number two, guys. Let's get back to Flipside and get ready for Maia to show us orb number three."



ORB GET!
-END OF CHAPTER-

Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Tippi ventured through the second dimension of their new adventure and claimed the second mysterious orb. Their path wasn't an easy one-H-X Alpha, B-A Omega, and Reidlos X all attempted to stop our heroes, but they prevailed in the end, with the help of each other and the rather talkative Maia. What was happening in this mysterious visitor's thoughts? Mario had no way of telling, but it was certain that Mario and Maia were drawing somehow closer together. What about the equally mysterious Reidlox X, however? It seems he came from the X Faction, but is that the whole story? No doubt, the full tale of the war-plagued dimension our heroes visited has yet to be told. What other secrets does our heroes' quest entail? And on the subject of thoughts, just what is going through Dimentio's head right now...?



"Headquarter Sandwich II, YEAH! I LOVE that baby! It's got the latest in robotics and-"
"Uh, news flash...the heroes beat it."
"WHAT!?"
"Oh gosh..."
"NOOOO!!! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING A-..." Alpha continued looking as if he was about to say something, but his voice output bluntly fell silent.
"Wha? Gee, thanks, Master Dimentio. Did you do that?"
"Yes, indeed, Omega. That robot's gotten a little too loud for his size, so I've implemented a simple system that'll shut him up whenever we need." Dimentio snapped his fingers. "Are you done shouting now, Alpha?"
"No." Alpha didn't continue shouting, however.
"Good. Now, minions, as Omega has so beautifully described, the Headquarter Sandwich II was defeated by the heroes."
"How is that even possible?" Morris was angry. "Amtakan himself helped design it! How could it have lost?"
"I believe the answer is the same as the reason the heroes were able to find that dimension in the first place. Think about it, minions."
Bowser thought this over. "Oh. Oh! I get it now. She's communicating with him mentally, just as we thought."
"That's how he was able to dodge my soundless shuriken," reminded B-A Omega.
"That is correct, minions. Our worst fear has come true."
"What are we supposed to do now?" asked Omega. "She's guiding them at every step. There's almost no way they can fail."
"Almost being the key word, Omega. There's no way we can defeat them by simply throwing obstacles and weapons at them. We've been trying that ever since that giant mechanical horse. They busted it quite easily, and it was downhill from there."
"So what do you propose we do?" asked Bowser.
"There's a number of possible strategies we could take, but there's one in particular I think we should try first. We won't try to kill the heroes with enemies and traps. We'll catch them in a situation not even she can help them escape from. And there's one very suitable place we could attempt this plan in."
Morris's eyes widened. "Are you talking about the place I think you're talking about? Yeah! Could you send me, please? The popcorn..." The minion's mouth began watering at the thought.
"Yes. Sereniburg houses one of the remaining three orbs, and forming a plan there involving you will be a child's task. So easy to conceive, and yet..." Dimentio's eyes narrowed, making the jester somehow seem to take on a darker personality. "...so difficult to escape."
"Let's go right away, Dimentio. I can have some of the popcorn while we're setting up the plan, right?"
"If you wish, Morris. Come, now. Other minions, continue your training. From this point forward, there's no such thing as overpreparation." Dimentio and Morris disappeared to Sereniburg, leaving the other three minions in the meeting room.
"I guess I'd better get going. Hey, Omega, did you finish that amplifying wristgear yet?" Bowser looked at the larger robot.
"I still need to put some finishing touches on it, Bowser. It's just about finished, though. I'm sure it'll add amazing amounts of power to your already-powerful abilities."
"Sounds awesome. Well, I guess I'd better get back to training. See ya." Bowser flipped out.
"We'd better get going too." The two robots flipped out with a sparkling electricity show, leaving the meeting room empty and silent.



"The book states that the marriage of a fair princess and a monster king will call the Chaos Heart back into existence."
"This is exactly as I feared! It was difficult enough to destroy it the first time. Now we have to deal with it all over again!"
"You are such a worrywart! It wasn't that hard to do it last time. And now that we hid the orbs, we can use them anytime we want. Amtakan isn't going to reactivate the Chaos Heart before he gets his hands on those orbs. He wants the orbs destroyed first."
"But Amtakan is searching for those orbs, you know. He might find them. Wouldn't it be a good measure to prepare? Just in case the Chaos Heart is somehow unleashed? And with the Dark Prognosticus..."
"Hmm. You know what? I just thought of something. Come here. We're going to reactivate the Chaos Heart ourselves...and then destroy it."



Our three heroes, plus Tippi, emerged from the orange door atop Flipside Tower. Taking the elevator down, they again found Merlon waiting for them. "You've found the next orb, heroes?"
Mario displayed the yellow orb. "Yes." He related what had happened in the dimension beyond the orange dimensional door.
"Interesting." Merlon thought. "I'm used to reading you a passage from the Light Prognosticus, but I guess Maia has taken that role now. I'm going to presume that we just need to repeat the task we did before, only with the yellow door?"
Yes.
"Yes. That's what Maia just told me."
"Oh ho, Mario, did Maia truly just enter your mind? It seems you've become very used to that happening. The first time it happened right here, you were almost buckling over."
"I was? I suppose..." Mario could clearly tell that Maia had left him, but the physical sensation had degraded. Earlier, he had felt as if he'd been consumed by a dizzying sickness that had suddenly cleared up, but now it just felt as if his mind was doing a little unclouding.
"Yeah, I guess I'm getting used to it. She's been doing it more lately."
"So," continued Merlon, "I suppose we might as well-" He was interrupted by a sudden earthquake.
"Here we go again," regretted Tippi. The Void had grown again.
"It's a lot bigger than it was when we were at this point in our first adventure," noted Peach. "I hope we'll have enough time to collect the orbs before...well...the end. The Void."
"We only have three more to find," reminded Tippi. "That's half as many as we had to get when we were at this point last. We'll be able to get them."
"Yes...I suppose you're right, Tippi."
After another rest at the inn, our heroes and Merlon climbed Flipside Tower. The yellow door had appeared, ready for Merlon to modify it. "Well, good luck, heroes," he wished when he was finished. "I can't tell what Dimentio will try to do in this dimension, but I think you'll all be okay."
"OK, Merlon," agreed Tippi. "Come on, heroes. Let's find another orb." Our heroes stepped through the yellow door into the dimension where the third orb resided.
We went to see them for the first time in 5 years because they were going away for 3 years.

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« Reply #67 on: July 31, 2008, 12:34:58 PM »
Yesterday, July 30 2008, marks the one-year anniversary of when I started this story! It's hard to believe I've been going for over a year. I've written so much. :P



The Void was growing, and it was growing quickly. Our heroes needed to find the three remaining orbs, and do it fast, or else all worlds were doomed once more. They didn't know exactly what finding the orbs would do, but Maia seemed to know what she was doing, and the fact that she could help the heroes at all definitely meant something. As our heroes stepped into the yellow dimensional door, they remained confident about their success, the way Maia had intstructed them. None of them could have guessed what Dimentio had planned in this dimension, though. Indeed, it seemed Dimentio was going to try his hand at something new...








A line was drawn.

Joining this line were several others, coming in pairs of two to form the bases of pine trees. The jagged green areas of the pine trees were then drawn and colored with green. The ground was filled with a gentle waving sandy tone, and the sky was splashed with the clearest ocean blue our heroes had ever seen. Some small rocks, grass, and assorted weeds were sprinkled around for direction. The yellow door was drawn into existence, and our heroes stepped out into the relaxing, natural beachside atmosphere.

"A forest right next to a beach," noted Luigi. "You know, I think they're running out of different dimension themes to send us to."
"Not so fast," cautioned Tippi. "The orb isn't near here, I can tell you that. Look in the distance."
Luigi focused his eyes on the rectangular shapes that graced the horizon. A mass of towering skyscrapers, office buildings, and apartment buildings was dimly visible along the shoreline. "Looks like a big city. You think the Pure H...orb is hidden there?"
"It seems about the right distance. I guess we'd better get going."
The Void wasn't visible in this dimension, giving our heroes the feeling of the second part of their adventure. There were a few enemies in this area, but on the whole it didn't present much of a challenge to Mario and his friends. A breather was, in fact, just what the heroes needed, after their action and obstacle-packed adventure through the orange door. The feeling of the sand beneath their feet and the forest to their left reminded them of previous dimensions they'd traveled through, as well. Our heroes took their time walking as the city drew closer, knowing that they needed to complete their task as soon as possible, yet wanting to just take a breath and relax before they tackled their next search.
As our heroes approached the city, the blaring sound of police sirens grew in intensity. As they entered the city limits, a multitude of city police cars became visible to their left, bearing a logo that read "Sereniburg Police". The vehicles were parked at a large brick building. "What's going on?" inquired Peach.
"The orb's in that direction," announced Tippi. "Maybe we should check things out."
As our heroes briskly paced toward the police cars, they noticed that relatively few people were out walking in the street, and those that were had somewhat worried expressions. "Uh oh," uttered Mario. "I think something's amiss here. And we know what it means when something's amiss."
"Dimentio," agreed Tippi.
"Hey, check this out," pointed Luigi, looking at a newspaper. The front-page headline read "MAYOR MURDERED!"
"Oh, gee," breathed Peach, her voice carrying a slightly duller tone than usual. "The Mayor of this city's been murdered? I don't like the sound of this. Whatever Dimentio had in mind, it can't be good."
"He's an evil villain," argued Luigi. "Of course it can't be good."
"I mean...it can't be any better for us than his previous schemes."
When our heroes approached the police vehicles, they found the cars to be empty. A single police guard was standing at the large oak door. "We should find out exactly what's going on," suggested Tippi. "If Dimentio truly is behind this, it might lead us to the orb..."
"Sounds good." Mario walked up to the officer, leading the others. "Excuse us, could you tell us what's happening here? We just entered the city and we're looking for...someone." Mario figured it was safer to say they were looking for "someone"; saying they were looking for "something" sounded somehow more suspicious.
"Well, earlier today Mayor Sereniburg was murdered right here. Only a few people were in the town hall in the early morning hours, so we only have a few suspects, but the building's been closed up. However, just now, someone walked into the building, so we've got everyone here."
Mario thought this over, looking for a place to put Dimentio into the scenario. "So the town's named after the mayor? Is he the founder?"
"Yes. He founded this town just a few years ago, and it's grown very fast. He wanted to build a city called Sereniburg that lived up to its name. A serene place by the ocean that people could live in and vacation in. It did until now."
"I see." Maybe that guy who walked in is one of the minions... "Did anyone see what the guy who went in the building looked like? If we see him, we can report."
"That won't be nessecary. We couldn't make out any real description."
"Oh. I see. Well, that's all I wanted to know." Mario turned to face the others. "Come on."
"Maybe the guy who went in there just now is one of Dimentio's minions," offered Luigi.
"That's what I was thinking, too. But they don't have any physical description, so..." Mario thought of something. "Maia? Do you know what's going on here?"
I'm afraid not. It's costing me enough energy to see what you're doing at all times, so I can't really look anywhere else.
I see. Well, can you tell us where the orb is?
It's underground. Tippi can help you find the location.
OK. Maia left his mind shortly after that. If communicating with him cost Maia energy, he guessed she was making rather blunt statements to comphensate for talking to him so much in the previous dimension. "Maia said that the orb's underground."
"It's in this direction..." Tippi led the heroes slightly back in the direction they had came and down a side street. After moving forward somewhat, she moved back. "I felt it most strongly...here..." She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, next to the side wall of a large casino. "I guess it's under here."
"How do we get to it if it's under here?" posed Luigi.
"Well...Maia?" questioned Mario, somewhat uncertain. Before Maia answered, though, Mario's eyes drifted to something else cornered in a small space between the casino and the next building to the left. A brown-haired human girl wearing purple clothing was sitting in the tight alleyway, her face buried in her lap. She looked about the height of a teenager, and appeared to be crying.
"Who's that girl?" asked Peach. "Do you think we should ask her what's wrong?"
"I guess it wouldn't hurt," stated Luigi. Before anyone else could say anything, Luigi walked up to the crying girl. "Excuse me? Is something wrong, miss?"
Luigi sure can be formal when he wants to, thought Mario.
The girl raised her head to look at Luigi. Our heroes all gasped once they saw her face, but Luigi was the only one who made it slightly visible. The girl's eyes narrowed somewhat. "What?"
Mario joined Luigi at the entrance to the alley. "You...your name's Paletta, isn't it?"
Now her eyes widened. "What? How do you know?" Her voice was weaker than she had sounded in the cave of the sixth Pure Heart, probably because she'd been crying, and carried a tone of curiosity.
Mario looked at Luigi. He was about to speak before Luigi said, "Well, if you can believe that you were used as a disguise for a shape-shifter that was trying to stop us from finding an ancient power source...then that's how we knew."
"A...shape-shifter?" Paletta looked down at the ground, then raised her head again. "Who are all of you?" She slowly stood up, bringing her blue eyes to level with Mario's of almost-identical color.
"It's a long story," explained Tippi. "Basically, we're heroes from another dimension. We were prophesized to collect the eight Pure Hearts to save the world from destruction. Now we're looking for some sort of magic orb that's supposed to be in this dimension. I'm Tippi, and that's Mario, Luigi, and Peach."
Paletta observed all of our heroes. Mario couldn't tell if she was suspicious or just curious.
Wow, thought Luigi, she's a lot prettier in person. That longer hair really does wonders.
"You believe us, don't you?" asked Tippi.
"Well, you knew my name and everything, so I guess that's enough reason to believe you guys. I'm Paletta Vibe. Can you tell me more of your story? We can rest in my apartment. There should be enough room now that...my brother's gone."
"Oh, you really do have a brother?" realized Peach. "That shape-shifter we mentioned made you look like a crazy maid who said she had a brother. He told us in another disguise you didn't really have one."
Paletta began walking down this street, with our heroes following. "He did?"
"Yes, but...what happened to your brother? Do you mind telling us?"
"He works in the town hall. He was there this morning when the mayor was killed...and...they took him to the police station with the other suspects..." Her voice seemed to trail off.
"Oh, is that why you were crying? I'm sorry. I wish there was something I could do to help."
"That's too bad, but..." Tippi began. "...I was thinking about something else. The fact that Morris used Paletta as a disguise means that he's seen her before and knows her name. That's the only way Mimi and him can transform into someone."
"That means he's been to this city," followed Mario. "And that means that he and Dimentio have probably known where these orbs are for quite a while."
"Morris?" exclaimed Paletta. "I met a guy with that name before. His body was sort of polygonal and he was sort of negative-colored. Like a black body with white outlines and some weird blue patches."
"Yes, that's him!" confirmed Tippi. "He must have been to this city before. Dimentio must have found him while looking in this dimension because it contained an orb. I wonder how long they've known it was here."
"Probably since the days of the Tribe of Darkness," answered Mario. "It seems likely, if those orbs have been around for that long."
They have, Mario.
"Yes, they have, according to Maia."
"Maia? What..." Paletta turned to Mario, laughing a little. "You should explain your story a bit more. I don't know anything about what you're talking about."
"Well, I guess we can start at the beginning," began Mario. "We're-"
"Hey, you!" Our heroes and Paletta turned around to see three policemen running toward them. "You're under arrest! Guy in the red shirt and the ridiculous blue overalls!"



-END OF CHAPTER-
We went to see them for the first time in 5 years because they were going away for 3 years.

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« Reply #68 on: August 06, 2008, 07:42:58 PM »
Here's Chapter 3-2. As I said on my website, just to give you a fair warning, General Stuff said this was his least favorite chapter yet, because it's essentially one giant block of character development. I say, so what? Chapter 6-2 in SPM2 was also a giant block of character development, and he liked that one. But yet he says 6-2 had more of a plot twist, and of course, it was longer. So whatever. If you like character development, you'll like this chapter. If not...just wait for 3-3.



Mario? Under arrest? But why? What had he done? Did they think he'd murdered the mayor? But why would they have reason to think that? "Wait just a second!" began Luigi. "Why is he being arrested? He didn't do anything!" It was too late, though. The hero had already been handcuffed, and he was on his way to the Sereniburg jail.








What? Why? What? Mario had been sitting in this tiny, windowless room for a few hours, and yet he was still repeating the same questions to himself. Why? What? Why? He just couldn't comprehend it. He'd been thrown in jail before for something that wasn't his fault, but at least then he'd had a vague idea of why he'd been arrested. Now he had just been tossed into a small room without any notice of why it was happening. He couldn't think.
Sheesh! How long are you going to repeat the same two one-word questions to yourself? For gosh sakes, Mario, you need to stop letting your thoughts take control of you.
...What? For a second Mario didn't know where those words had come from. Then he remembered. Maia? You've been in my mind this whole time?
Only a few seconds, but that was long enough. Listen. You're a great hero, Mario. I know that. Everyone knows that. But you can't let your stress take ahold of you. I know you aren't used to being on a time limit, having to deal with the...recent deaths of some of your companions, and everything, but you can't just give up like this. You have to convince your mind to move on.
Maia, you're...you're...
Am I mad at you? No, I'm not angry, Mario. I just want you to be in good mental condition for what you'll have to face in the future. Remember the "debate" you had about being able to discuss the mysteries and things you didn't know? Mario could somehow sense Maia putting quotes around "debate".
Yes.
You're being way too uptight and specific about these things. When things don't work out exactly as you expect them to, don't go into a mental trauma over it. Relax. Focus on IT, instead of what you feel.
Mario's thoughts were silent for a while. OK, Maia. I'll try to be more...mentally relaxed.
That's good. It'll help.
Now it was Maia's turn to be silent. Mario still felt her presence in his mind, however. ...Maia? Just...well...how do you know so much? Who ARE you?
...
It's fine, Maia. You don't have to tell me more.
No, that's OK, Mario. I was just thinking about if I could tell you a few things without distracting you from your task. Well, I was born in the time of the Ancients.
You were? So you're as old as Mimi, Blumiere, Amtakan...all of them?
I was born before Blumiere, actually. A while before.
Before Blumiere? That must have been a really long time ago, Mario thought.
Yes. Um, well, I think I should stop there. Remember when you were in Merlon's house, and Peach reflected on how answers just lead to more questions?
Yeah.
...Yeah. I don't want to create too many questions. Mario could sense Maia sighing. Well, I guess you can't look for that orb if you're stuck in this room. I'll get you out of here.
You can? You can get me out of this jail?
Yes. Hang on a second.
Well...why didn't you offer to do that before?
I didn't know if I could, Mario. I have to conserve my power.
A soft click in the direction of the door echoed across the room. Maia had apparently unlocked the door. Maia talks about power a lot. Is she some kind of magician?
I don't know if "magician" is really the right term, but I can use magic, yes.
Mario had forgotten Maia could still heard him. Oh, uh, I see.
OK, Mario. I'm going to hide you from view until you reach Paletta's apartment. The others are there now.
Mario stepped out into the hallway, undetectable. To the left, Mario. The exit was easy to find from there.
The hero exited the jail and walked back out onto the streets of Sereniburg. Night had almost fallen on the city, illuminating the surroundings with streetlights and neon advertisements. This would be a great vacation place, thought Mario. I never realized I liked seashore cities so much.
Maia directed Mario to Paletta's fifth-story apartment. I spent a long time in your mind, Mario, so I need to leave you for a while. Get a good night's sleep, and tomorrow, do some searching on your own. Behind the town hall would be a good place to start. I'll keep you hidden again, since they'll notice you're gone by then. Make it quick, because I don't have a ton of power to spend.
OK, Maia. See you tomorrow.
Good night, Mario. Maia spoke as if she were simply a friend of Mario's, wishing him a good night's sleep. Something about it was comforting to our hero.
Luigi answered Paletta's door. "Oh...hey! Brother! How'd you get out of jail?"
"Mario?" Peach came running. "Is it...yes! How did you get here, Mario?"
Mario entered the room. "Maia helped me out." Paletta's apartment space was divided into three major sections; a sitting room in the center, a kitchen area to the right, and presumably a bedroom area through the left door. The walls featured a refreshing tint of almost-white blue, and a large portion of the city was visible through the decent-sized window opposite the door. Mario thought Paletta was lucky to live here where she could walk in the city and visit the ocean every day.
"Oh, Mario." Paletta's voice came from the kitchen. "Hang on a second." She poured some sauce onto a pan on the stove and then rushed into the sitting room where our heroes were standing. "I'm making pasta for you all. I was told you and Luigi liked it."
"Peach helped too," continued Luigi. "I was going to, but Paletta said two was enough."
Paletta smiled. "Plus, you need some rest after all that stuff you've been through. Luigi, Peach and Tippi told me everything. You need that orb so you can stop Dimentio, don't you?"
She's cute when she smiles, thought Luigi.
"Exactly. Thanks for making the pasta, Paletta. I really appreciate it."
"You're welcome anytime." Paletta and Peach returned to the stove. "So Maia got you out of jail? How'd she do it?"
Mario explained what he'd been through in his small jail cell, leaving out a few details about his mental stress.
"So, you still don't know why those police guys arrested you," presumed Tippi.
"Nope. Did they think I was the murderer or something?" Mario contemplated this as Paletta and Peach set the steaming bowls of fresh pasta on the table. Once the pasta was in front of him, though, there was no thinking about anything else...except for what Maia had told him. "Oh," he exclaimed after a few minutes, "there's something else Maia told me." He grabbed and swallowed a quick spoonful of the delicious tomato sauce-drenched string pasta. "She said we should investigate behind the town hall where the mayor was murdered."
"That's oddly specific." Paletta set her glass of lemonade down on the wooden table.
"She probably knows something's there," offered Tippi, floating by the table. "She said she couldn't see everything that was happening at once, but if she looked around the town..."
"She might have had a lot of time to look around while I was in jail," offered Mario. "We need to get down to business first thing tomorrow. We can't let The Void get any larger."
"That's true." Paletta got up to refill her drink.
"I'll get it for you, Paletta," Luigi offered, rising from his seat. He tilted his head downward as he began to move the chair.
"That's OK, Luigi. I'll get it." She moved into the kitchen to get the lemonade from the refrigerator.
Luigi sat back down, watching Mario give him a strange look. "What?" Luigi inquired. His brother didn't answer, casually returning to his pasta.
Our heroes spent the rest of the evening conversing. Paletta made some interesting conversation, but when it came to stopping The Void, they figured the earlier the better, so at nine PM they were ready for bed. Peach and Paletta offered to sleep in the sitting room, allowing Mario and Luigi the beds that belonged to Paletta and her brother in the left bedroom. Mario and Luigi had been lying still for a few minutes when Luigi suddenly spoke, "My brother has a voice in his head."
Mario sat up in the darkness, facing toward Luigi's bed on the other side of the room. "What? Well, yes, of course I do. And her name's Maia."
"Remember when Count Bleck married Peach and Bowser?" Of course Mario did, but although it had been about two weeks since that event, it felt like even longer of an eternity than when Mario had contemplated it in the ancient temple where our heroes had found the first orb. "You never would've seen this coming when that happened, would you?"
"Nope." Mario paused. "Never would've seen it. I was thinking it would be all over once we'd gotten the Pure Hearts. And now Dimentio comes back and scatters them, we collect them again, we learn a few things, and now Maia's guiding us to orbs we know nothing about. What a plot twist."
"I just thought about how absurd that really is. Some girl who enters your mind and gives you instructions." Luigi turned around, exhaling.
Maia wasn't connected to Mario's mind at the moment, but if she was still watching him, Mario imagined she was laughing then.



-END OF CHAPTER-
We went to see them for the first time in 5 years because they were going away for 3 years.

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« Reply #69 on: August 11, 2008, 11:43:00 AM »
Say goodbye to filler! ;)



Mario, Luigi, Peach, Tippi, and Paletta spent the rest of the night in peace-as peaceful as they could get when there was a world-destroying Void on the rampage. They rose   at seven AM, ready to search for the mysterious orb they were looking for. It seemed that Maia was going to hide Mario again, but what had the Sereniburg police force already done? Maia clearly couldn't give Mario a free pass whenever he was in trouble. Had they noticed Mario's absence and set out to hunt him down? Our heroes would have to be careful nonetheless when they stepped outside of Paletta's apartment building...








A quick breakfast of eggs and toast took place before our heroes walked outside to look behind the town hall. "So we have to look behind the place where the mayor was murdered," began Luigi.
"That's what Maia told me." Mario took a bite of the rye bread. "I don't know what we can find there, but if that's what Maia said, we should listen to her."
"Always trust some girl who enters your mind and gives you instructions. ...What's with those looks, Mario?"
Our heroes soon walked outside the room and treaded down the stairs. As soon as they exited the building, Mario disappeared. "You're invisible, Mario?" Paletta whispered. "Even we can't see you?"
I can't do this for very long, Mario, so I'm not going to specify who can see you and who can't. I'm just making you invisible. Hurry and go behind the town hall, but don't rush.
"We've got to go," explained Mario, his voice seeming to come from empty air. "Maia told us to hurry, but not rush. I guess a group of people running down the street will look suspicious."
Our heroes had memorized the nearby town layout, so they quickly and stealthily moved toward the rear of the hall, squeezing between buildings when nessecary in order to make the shortest route. "Here's that place where I feel the orb," announced Tippi. "It's right below here, I guess." Our heroes had arrived at the spot between the casino and another apartment building, where our heroes had first found the true Paletta.
"There's the town hall," pointed Peach. It was directly to our heroes' right. They carefully crossed the street and walked into the somewhat small space between the back wall of the hall and the neighboring bank.
"So what should we be looking for?" posed Paletta. "We have to make this quick, right?"
"There's a ton of trash and scraps here." Mario began eyeing each piece of shredded paper, plastic, glass, empty cans, and whatever else he could see.
Glass.
"Maia said we should be looking for glass. At least, I think she did. All she said was 'glass', and that's probably because she needs to save her power."
"That narrows it down a lot." Luigi picked up a nearby scrap of glass, then tossed it aside. "There's nothing special about that one."
The group began scanning the lot for anything that reflected light, indicating a small piece of glass. None of the glass pieces indicated anything special, however. They were all just pieces of ordinary glass. "You know what?" began Paletta. "I'm beginning to think we're looking in the wrong place."
"But this is where Maia told us to look, isn't it?" countered Tippi. "She's never been wrong."
Paletta folded her arms, giving off a hint of impatience. "I mean, we should try looking in more places than just on the ground. Looking around might give us a clue. Just staring at the ground isn't going to help us. That's so boring."
Tippi recalled the ongoing conversation the group had held the previous night. Paletta always seemed to crave something that interested her. They'd talked about computers, rainbows, supernovas, video games, school, and more. Maybe this was why they weren't finding anything? Because they were just trying the same boring thing over and over? "Well, OK. Let's try looking around some more."
"Hey, I found something."
"What?"
"Hey, I found something." Luigi pointed upward at one of the second-story windows. The glass had been almost completely shattered, leaving only a few small remnants of the original window around the edges.
"That's where all this glass came from," realized Peach. "We should look directly under that window. I wonder, was that window shattered by whoever murdered the mayor?"
"Maybe...the murderer broke that window?" repeated Tippi, thinking this over. "Hmm. Why would he need to do that, though?"
"Everything else aside," started Mario, "I think we should take a closer look at these pieces." He carefully picked up a sharp glass edge and held it close to his eyes.
"I don't see anything special about this piece," remarked Luigi, throwing it to the ground. "Hey, bro. You all right?"
Mario was staring at a particularly large piece of glass, his eyes narrowed. "There's a fingerprint on this piece of glass."
"There is?" exclaimed Peach. "Well...that doesn't really help us, does it? We don't know the fingerprint of whoever the murderer was."
"Well, it's a very peculiar fingerprint..." Mario paused for a few moments. "Maia, could you make me visible for a few moments?"
I needed to make you visible in a little bit anyway. My power's reaching a critical point. I'll make you visible now to conserve it, and I might be able to help you a little after that, but I probably won't be able to be of assistance until you return to Flipside. Mario became visible, and immediately afterward Maia left his mind, probably not to return for a while.
Mario explained what Maia had told him, then removed his right glove. "What are you doing, Mario?" asked Tippi.
The hero held the glass piece up to the light and moved his thumb directly to the right of it, with his palm facing toward him. After studying the two for a while, he put his glove back on and exclaimed to the others, "The fingerprint on this piece of glass...it's mine."
As soon as Mario stopped speaking, the group was thrown into absolute silence. The noises of cars, discussions, and walking in the city around them were the only things they heard, and they became more prominent in the absence of speech. No one said anything for a few moments, but Paletta soon inquired. "That's...your fingerprint on the glass?"
"Yes."
"H...how'd it get there? Why's..." Paletta trailed off, apparently still in shock.
"Well, at least now we know why those guys came after me. They found my fingerprint on some of the glass."
Tippi was also thinking about it. "So...wait. Your fingerprint was on the glass, which is why you were arrested. They assumed you were the one who killed the mayor. So...the question is...who put that fingerprint there? And how'd they get it? Could it have been one of Dimentio's minions?"
"How did Dimentio get Mario's fingerprint?" wondered Luigi. "This was his plan from the start. One of his minions probably killed the mayor and set up that evidence to make it look like Mario was the murderer so he'd be arrested."
"I don't remember them ever being in a situation where they could get the fingerprint," recalled Tippi. "How could they have-"
"Morris!" exclaimed Paletta, loud enough to startle the others.
"What? Morris?" asked Peach. "Oh-!"
"Morris. He turned into Mario and touched that glass with his glove off. And he probably broke that glass to pose an escape."
"Then why are the fingerprints on the glass?" began Mario. "Hmm...maybe he used the glass as the murder weapon. He might have cut out a piece of the glass and stabbed the mayor with it."
"And he probably was that guy who went into the town hall yesterday, to create more suspicion," finished Paletta. "It all fits into place now. We need to find Morris before he finds that orb!"
"How can we do that, though?" posed Luigi. "Mario's a wanted man. The moment anyone sees him, the police will be on top of him."
"We need to go fast," announced Mario. "Let's put our brains together again. Where would Morris be right now?" Our heroes thought.
"How would we know?" doubted Luigi.
"Oh," began Paletta, glancing at Luigi, "I know how we'd know."
I hope she's not mad at me or anything...
"When I saw him here before, he was always at the popcorn shop down the street. He really loved that stuff."
"Oh, he did?" confirmed Tippi. "He might be there right now, since he probably still thinks Mario's imprisoned. Where is the popcorn shop, Paletta?"
"I'll lead you to it. We should make this as fast as possible." She walked to the right of our heroes, in the opposite direction from which our heroes had first seen her, and stopped at the end of the wall, peeking around the corner. "No one's here right now. Come on. Let's run for it." Paletta took off without looking back at the heroes.
"Wait up!" uttered Luigi. Our heroes and Tippi quickly followed her, trying to keep their footsteps as silent as possible. When they were about halfway to their destination, though, blaring sirens slowly faded in from the distance.
"Oh, no!" lamented Peach. "Did someone see us?"
"I don't know," answered Paletta. "I wasn't looking anywhere, but I thought I saw a police guy on the other side of the street! Come on! No use trying to be stealthy now!"
As the police cars closed in, the group finally reached the building Paletta had led them to. "FREEZE!" The popcorn shop had suddenly been surrounded by the police vehicles.
Mario and the others didn't bother looking behind them as Paletta slammed open the double doors, almost hitting Mario. Our heroes thrust themselves into the building. "Morris!" accused Paletta.
The minion was sitting back in a metal chair behind a huge tub of cheese-covered popcorn. His eyes seemed to explode. "Whoa, dude! How'd you get out of prison?" He then turned to Paletta. "Oh, you. Long time no see, Paletta Vibe. Well, I guess if those guys told you everything, it really hasn't been so long since I was you!"
Paletta shot a quick glance behind her, then angrily pointed at Morris. "You set this whole thing up, didn't you? You used your shape-shifting power to put Mario's fingerprint on that piece of glass you killed the mayor with!"
"You're a regular Sherlock Holmes, aren't you? I suppose you had a certain someone's help, though. A certain someone who could break Mario out of jail."
"Yeah, you killed someone just to trap Mario. You're disgusting, you know that? And now you'll be getting the punishment you deserve, since," she gracefully extended her arm behind her, "you just confessed your crime in front of a dozen armed policemen!"
Morris was silent. "Oh. That. Huh."
"You're the criminal," realized one of the policemen. "You're hereby-"
"Arrested? Ha ha. If you think you can arrest me, you're in for a rude awakening." Morris stepped out of his chair and faced the crowd before him. He disappeared in a purple cloud, reemerging with the shape of a thin blond-haired boy wearing a sweatshirt and blue jeans, apparently another resident of the city he knew. "You punks are never gonna know who I am, not with my radical shape-shifting abilities. See ya!" Before anyone else could do anything, Morris spun around and broke through the nearby window as if in an Olympic dive, running out onto the street.
"Get him!" The police force returned outside and began chasing Morris both on foot and with the cars.
"We've got to follow him too," urged Mario. "We can't count on the police catching him. He'll probably have hid and changed shape by then. And we can't let him find that orb!" Mario dashed to the broken window and leaped through it, followed by the others. Spotting the retreating figure of the boy down the street, our heroes followed him as he turned a corner to the left. Our heroes turned that corner and began scanning the road for Morris. A different boy was running to the left, but the franticness of his stride made it obvious it was still Morris. He turned another corner to the right after a few instants, though, and when our heroes followed the minion again, they'd completely lost sight of him.
"Where is he?" demanded Paletta. "I'm going to make sure he gets what he deserves for making me look like a crazy maid! And for trying to get Mario imprisoned."
"That lot over there's pretty dark," pointed Peach. "It looks like an easy hiding place. Let's go." Our heroes followed Peach to the left, but Morris was nowhere to be found.
"Oh, great," uttered Luigi. "We've lost him."
The police cars didn't seem to indicate his location, either. They were just cruising around the city, vainly looking for Morris. "We can't give up now," encouraged Mario. "Come on. He's got to be around here somewhere."
Our heroes dashed around the town, looking for anyone who might be Morris, but no one seemed to be frantic enough to be escaping the police. "He's probably merged in with the crowd by now," lamented Tippi.
"You bet I have," Paletta's voice came from behind the group. They whirled around to look at the second Paletta as the real Paletta fumed in anger. "Listen. Those police guys have no way of knowing who I am unless you point me out." Morris assumed the form of a blond girl with brown eyes and a blue shirt. "And if you do, I'm just going to run off again. So I've got a little deal to make. How about this." Morris paused, jokingly pushing his long hair away from his face. "You guys go ahead and use Tippi to find that orb. I'll follow you. Then both you guys and I will know where it is, and we can settle things from there."
"Why should we do that?" demanded Tippi. "We can just look for it ourselves. We don't need you!"
"But I already know where you guys are. You can't hide yourselves from me. Finding you guys while you were running around looking for me wasn't hard at all. People tend to notice groups of four people plus a butterfly thing walking around, even though no one here knows what a Pixl is. So really, you have no other choice. You can't get yourselves out of my sight, the police can't get me, and if we hurry to wherever Tippi thinks the orb is, we'll be on our way to that treasure in no time. So tell me where you think that orb is, Tippi. From now until when I go back to my original form, my name's Cathy. Got it?"
Tippi sighed. "Well, I guess we have no choice. Come on." The Pixl quickly led the others toward the spot next to the casino she had felt the orb most strongly in. "Right here. The orb's around here somewhere."
Morris, or Cathy, looked toward the casino. "If this is where you feel it most strongly, I'd say it's inside the casino somewhere. Let's go in and make it fast."
"Inside the casino?" questioned Luigi. "Why would it be there? This city can't be more than a couple dozen years old, and that orb's been here for-"
"Shut up. Let's get in the casino." Morris quickly, but not abruptly opened the door. Paletta had an angry expression as if she wanted to say something, but she apparently thought better of it as she, our heroes, and Morris entered the casino in the hopes of finding the third orb.



-END OF CHAPTER-
We went to see them for the first time in 5 years because they were going away for 3 years.

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« Reply #70 on: August 18, 2008, 07:29:01 PM »
So the orb our heroes were looking for was inside the casino? It seemed improbable, since after all, the orb was placed here long before the casino was built, but Tippi's senses had to be trusted. If they did find the orb, though, who could tell what would happen? Morris had attached himself to the group, and there was no getting rid of him. Our heroes just had to trust that they'd be fine, but without Maia, they could feel their confidence slowly draining away...








"Do you think we'll stick out in here?" asked Luigi.
The casino's floor was decorated with a red-and-gold diamond pattern. Hundreds of different types of gambling outlets were placed around the giant room; slot and game machines, card tables, and tons of variations. Various citizens were seated at the many games of chance. Most of them appeared to be middle-aged, and a few were seated at a bar to the side, presumably drinking some form of alchohol. "Why?" asked Mario. "Do we look too civilized?"
"At least be glad they didn't find the orb and put it up as a slot machine prize or something," breathed Peach. "That would not be good."
"Right, Tippi," began Morris in his teenage-girl voice. "So where's that orb?"
"It's a bit to our left, and I think it's below where we were outside. How to get it, though..."
"Does the casino have a lower level?" asked Mario, turning in Paletta's direction. "We might be able to find it there."
"Well, I've never been in here," admitted Paletta. "I don't know. I guess we could look around and see." Her anger was thinly veiled.
"Let's go." Mario looked around for a sign that might tell him where a staircase was located. Not seeing one, he headed off along the right path, looking around. A sign near the center of the giant room indicated stairs to the far left. "It's to the left, guys."
Our heroes took a shortcut through the heart of the casino to reach the stairs. Something in their brains told them to simply walk ahead without investigating the surrounding gambling, except for Morris, who eyed nearly every betting machine around them. Hmm. Maybe Dimentio can get some ideas from all these complicated games.
At the left side of the casino, there existed two sets of stairs; one going up, the other going down. Our heroes descended the downward one, emerging in another room of the casino. This large room mostly contained tables for playing cards and placing bets. "Who would think the orb would be in a place like this?" wondered Luigi.
"I hope we don't look suspicious," stated Paletta as our heroes tentatively walked in the direction Tippi sensed the orb. "I mean, I'm too young to come in here by myself, and I hope people don't stare at two guys with identical-except-red-and-green clothing."
"The only suspicious person here is you. People stare at crazy maids, don't they?" Morris smirked.
Paletta exploded. "I am not a crazy maid! And for your information, I have a brother, and his name's Raymond!"
"But I sure did a nice job of fooling Mario and those heroes for a few hours, didn't I? You're just sour because I picked you out of all the people in this city to act as a weird maid. What if I'd picked Cathy?" Morris bent his right knee slightly and extended his arms to the side with the palms facing up, while Paletta turned around, doing her best to act disinterested. "Would you still be crazy-mad at me, or would you just let Cathy deal with it? I wonder what she's doing right now. Are you even interested in your acquaintance? Or are you just absorbed in entertaining yourself like always?"
Paletta whirled around. "Shut up, Mor...Cathy! You're just exaggerating things to make me look bad. That, and you're annoying me." Paletta definitively turned back around and resumed following the group.
"Wow. You took that a lot better than I expected. Maybe you're not so selfish and angry after all?" Morris gently stuck his foot out and tripped Paletta.
"Agh!" Paletta picked herself off the floor, her face red. "You want a fight, is that it?"
Morris shrugged, artifically smiling. "I don't know. Do you? We can fight right here if you want. We'll probably get kicked out of the casino, though."
"Paletta, ignore that jerk." Paletta turned around to look at Tippi. "Some people just aren't worth your time. Why bother?"
Tippi's statement reminded Paletta of an instance that had occured in the past. "Huh. I never really thought of it that way. A couple weeks ago I got into a debate with this guy at a restaurant, and I just didn't stop. That guy seemed like a real nutcase, too. Maybe I should just ignore people like that."
"Remember, you don't always have to prove your point. If it just isn't working, forget about it."
"OK. I'll see."
After a few moments, Cathy's voice again came from behind Paletta. "This is a really run-down casino, isn't it? I never would've thought it was like this when we were talking about it outside the other day."
"Would you...what? Are you trying to make...whatever! Shut up!" That didn't even make sense. Does he think he's getting entertainment out of this or something? What a weirdo. I think I'm on the right track.
"It's around here somewhere..." Tippi hovered near the wall in a corner. "It seems like it's behind this wall."
You know, thought Luigi, Cathy's sort of cute, too.
"That probably means there's a secret entrance or something." Mario reached out and touched the area with his hand, pulling it over the area to feel for a hidden panel or something of the like, but didn't detect anything. "I don't think there's anything here. How do we get there? Maybe...no, she's out of commission for now." Mario felt it was best to avoid mentioning Maia's name while Morris was around, even though he apparently already knew about her.
"Step aside. I'll do this." Morris shoved himself through the group to a spot in front of the wall and transformed into B-A Omega. He extended a knife-sharp blade from his left hand and moved it toward the wall.
"Just what do you think you're doing?" Our heroes, Paletta, and Morris swiftly turned to look in the voice's direction. A cigar-smoking man was seated at a slot machine near them, facing away from the slots. "You wouldn't happen to be one of those outlaws who're always trying to deface our casino, would you?"
"What? What are you talking about?" Morris turned to face this person.
"Whoa there. You're some sort of robot? You and the gang who sent you aren't gonna vandalize this place on my watch." He made a "beating up" gesture with his fist.
"Uh..." Morris pointed at the slot machine behind him. "Look! A Wild Card!"
"A Wild Card!?! Where?!?" The man, in a blur, glued himself to the chair while Morris quickly tore a large rectangular hole in the wall. Our heroes dashed inside the revealed passageway while Morris deftly replaced the wall. He changed back into Cathy.
"What was with that guy?" asked Peach. "He scares me."
"He had that casino-addict air," related Tippi. "He probably thinks anyone who's ever done anything bad in this casino is some kind of evil vandalizer. This place is like another world inside. The city's called Sereniburg...I guess that's everywhere except this casino."
Our heroes were now standing in a dim, murky passage. "I guess the orb's here," remarked Luigi. "It's down this passageway, isn't it, Tippi?"
"Yes, it's closer here. This is probably where it was hidden."
Our heroes carefully walked down the featureless passage, eventually turning a corner to the right and coming to a dead end made of solid rock. "There's...nothing here," uttered Peach.
"Yes there is," argued Morris. "Isn't there, Tippi? It can't just end like this."
"I do believe there's something here..." Tippi revealed the outline of a door. "That door was hidden. The orb's very near here..."
The group proceeded through the door into a small room. There was nothing in this room except for a small pedestal, on which rested a green glass sphere. "That's it!" exclaimed Peach. "Another orb!"
"That's it!" repeated Morris. "MY orb!" He bolted to the pedestal and swiped the glass orb. "Thanks for helping me find this orb, heroes." He tossed the orb upward, catching it in his hand. "I'll be seeing you."
"Wait just a moment!" Paletta dove toward Morris, tackling him and forcing him to drop the orb.
"Rraaa! Get off me!" While Morris and Paletta struggled, Mario moved toward the orb. "Oh no, you don't!" Morris extended his free leg and kicked the orb away from Mario's grasp. It richocheted off the wall and headed back toward Morris, who caught it. "Impressed by my mad skills? I trained for hours after you guys beat me." He wrestled himself free of Paletta's grip and stood up. "Including that pathetic Mimi. Now that she's kicked the bucket, I'm the only awesome shape-shifter around here," Morris changed back to his original form, "and I'm going to take this orb. See ya, losers."
"Not so fast." Mario simply took the orb out of Morris's hand.
"Oh, you want to do this the hard way?" Morris geared up for a fight. "I'll show you the hard way. You guys have half of your original ranks, and adding a crazy maid isn't gonna help. Nope. I'll make sure that orb goes in my hands, and MY hands only!"

MINIBOSS
Morris

Morris brought his leg upward in a sudden move and released the orb from Mario's hand. "That's our orb, and we're taking it!" Paletta dove toward Morris again, but the shape-shifter routinely produced a sharp blue stone and sent it flying at Paletta, knocking her across the room. "Oww! You never told me you could do that!"
"Why would I need to? I like surprises, don't you?" Morris rose into the air, producing a ring of the stones that surrounded his body. "Nyah! Try to get your precious orb, heroes."
"Maybe I will!" Luigi readied the Super Jump and aimed toward Morris, knocking him away. He wrestled the orb out of Morris's hand. "I've got it, M-" Before he could finish, Morris attacked him with another rock, sending him bowling over. He was still clutching the orb in his right hand, however. "Mario! Catch!" Luigi tossed the orb in Mario's direction. As Mario moved to retreive it, Morris expertly aimed one of the stone weapons directly at the orb, causing it to lurch off course. The minion dove and scooped up the orb. The nearby Peach went for a surprise attack, swiping at the orb with her parasol. The orb dropped in front of Morris.
"Grab it!" Mario and Peach both went for it, slamming into each other in the process.
"Ha ha. Idiots!" Morris picked up the orb again in time for Mario to whack him with the hammer. Paletta, recovered, dove into the mix and took the orb out of the distracted minion's hands. When Morris moved to take it again, Mario nailed a jump attack.
"Who has the orb now, Morris?" Paletta taunted, displaying the green sphere.
"You guys are still up to it, huh? I thought the lack of actual fighting would've gotten to you by now. I guess I just have to keep at it!" Morris produced a line of blue stones in midair and aimed them all for Paletta. She dove forward, missed by all the stones.
"Gee, Paletta, you're good," complimented Luigi.
Paletta smiled. "You guys are better. I just tried something I saw."
"Say goodbye to that orb." Morris swiftly kicked the stone out of Paletta's hands near the ground and again took the orb after it bounced off the wall. Paletta retaliated, grabbing Morris's arm in an attempt to make the minion drop the orb, and placing her other hand on the orb to wrench it from Morris's grasp in a sort of modified arm-wrestle. It lasted only a few seconds, though, as Morris kicked Paletta's feet from under her, causing her to lose balance, fall over and release her grip on the artifact. "Now who-" Morris turned back to the heroes, only to be body-slammed by Luigi. The orb flew up in the air.
"Mario! Catch it!" urged Paletta.
Mario ran for the orb, jumped onto the pedestal, and caught the orb in mid-drop. "We've got to secure this thing."
"And just how do you think you're going to do that?" Morris attacked Mario with another stone assault and claimed the orb. However, he was quickly assaulted by Mario's hammer. Mario swiftly grabbed the orb and placed it behind his back. Morris again rose into the air, surrounding himself with a ring of rotating blue stones. He flipped into 3D and sailed around the room, performing the same trick he had used several times before. This room was much more cramped, however, making avoiding the barrage much more difficult.
"I'll take this cheater." Mario too flipped into 3D.
"Wow, I never saw you do that," remarked Paletta.
In 3D, Morris sent several of the sharp rocks at Mario. He knocked several away with the hammer, sending them back at his attacker, but Morris did manage to get one good shot in that loosened Mario's grip on the orb. The shape-shifter quickly took the orb again. "You might as well just give up. I mean, there's no possible way we could settle this. Aside from you defeating me, of course. Which isn't going to happen."
"Or maybe it will? You never know. We defeated you every time before, as you remember." As Morris flipped back into 2D, Mario flipped as well and threw his hammer at Morris. The startled minion dropped the green orb, which Paletta dove and caught.
"I've got the orb, guys." Paletta threw the orb to Mario.
"Argh!" Morris descended to the ground, folding his paper-thin arms. "I just can't keep my hands on that orb. Of course, you can't either, but that's beside the point. Hmm. I think I know what to do." Morris suddenly aimed a stream of blue stones toward Mario, knocking him over. Paletta again reached for the orb, but Morris swiftly kicked her hand away and took the orb for himself. "Catch me if you can, heroes! And butterfly thing! And crazy maid!" Morris changed back into Cathy and bolted out of the room in the direction of the casino.
"Where's he going?" panicked Paletta. "We've got to get him!" Our heroes sped after Morris, running through the hatch Morris apparently hadn't bothered to replace.

Morris was heading in the direction of the staircase. When he reached it, he turned and rushed up the stairs. "What is he doing?" wondered Peach. Morris briefly turned his head, glancing at our heroes, then disappeared up the stairs. Our heroes followed him, ignoring the suspicious glances the nearby gamblers were riveting into them. As our heroes ascended the staircase, they couldn't see Morris on this floor.
"He must have gone upstairs!" Mario bolted up the stairs to the second floor, leading the others. They emerged in a large room, dimly lit by blue lights. Several people were gathered around a thick square pillar at the room's center.
"What was that glass thing, missy?" asked one of them. Then, scrutinizing "Cathy" more closely, he asked, "Aren't you too young to gamble here?"
"Young? You have no idea what you're dealing with, buster. I'm 20 times as old as you are!" As our heroes reached him, Morris changed into his normal form, provoking gasps from the surrounding audience. "Yeah, you like that, heroes? I just fed your orb to this gambling machine. If you want it that badly, I guess you could follow me, but this pillar is too cramped for you to fit inside. Looks like the countdown starts soon."
"Countdown? What?" questioned Paletta.
"This is the casino's main event every night. I saw its advertisement when I was looking around the casino. You put your wagers in these little devices, and they shoot up to the top of this pillar way above in a tower over the ceiling. Then they're scrambled, mixed, and matched, and whatever happens to your money is what you're stuck with. Double, triple, quadruple, none, whatever. And that orb is gonna be impossible to grab, except for me, because I have awesome shape-shifting powers. So, see ya, heroes. Countdown's almost started!" As the crowd watched, Morris cracked his neck, rotated his head and extended long spider legs from his head. He sheared a hole in the glass with one of the legs and crawled into the pillar's interior as a countdown was displayed on the glass, beginning at 120. The pillar began descending.
"I'll get the orb," assured Mario. "You all wait here. I'll take care of it."
"Mario, are you sure?" worried Peach, but she was powerless to stop Mario from jumping into the pillar and initiating a chase to the top of the gambling device.

BOSS
Morris

Mario leaped atop one of the internal decorations as Morris attached himself to the side of the pillar's interior. There were various tubes and rectangular prism-shaped decorations inside the pillar, so at least Mario had footing, but it wasn't easy footing. "Why even try?" dared Morris. "You'll fall anyway. See ya." He began climbing the pillar, not moving as quickly as usual due to its downward motion. Mario jumped from the pillar's bottom on top of Morris, landing on a stable decorative foothold. "Let's see how you like this!" Morris aimed a large, spear-like stone toward the hero, who jumped it and angled for a thin tube protruding from the side wall.
"You can't get me with those, Morris. I've been dodging those ever since I fought Mimi in Merlee's Mansion." Mario hopped to an adjacent platform.
"Trying to pull ahead of me, are you?" Morris continued climbing. "Have a taste of this!" Morris duplicated his head, bringing the new head into swift contact with Mario. The hero briefly swayed, almost losing his balance, but jumped at the last second, nailed Morris's duplicate head, and landed on a platform above. Morris tried a new tactic. He extended his legs directly to the other side of the pillar, bringing his body to the other side and smacking into Mario. Mario was knocked back, grabbing onto a nearby ledge with his fingertips. He carefully pulled himself back up while Morris continued climbing. They had now reached the point where the pillar met the ceiling. The countdown had fallen to 105.
I have to keep Morris from going up too high! Mario jumped across a few of the adjacent platforms, accidentally hitting the back of a panel on the wall. The button set off a miniature slot machine that displayed three types of tubes. When it had stopped, several of those tubes extended from nearby walls. "What's going on here?"
"Those slot machines can be activated by the viewers. They mix and match that money further. These tubes and things are supposed to represent the path the money takes. Just randomizes things a bit more, doesn't it? Including your potential to beat me." Mario realized the myriad added tubes only made it more difficult to climb the pillar. He was still several feet behind Morris, and the countdown had dropped to 98.
There's more than a minute and a half left. That's enough time, Mario hoped. He grabbed a nearby tube, swung his body around it, and landed on a higher-up platform from which he could reach Morris. He jumped on the giant spider's head, using it to bounce to another platform and pull ahead of the minion.
"Hey! Who said you could get ahead of me?" Morris produced a large wave of blue stones. Unlike the previous times he had done this, the wave ran vertically, making it ever more dangerous for Mario. He was hit by one of the stones and knocked onto a nearby platform, almost at the same level as Morris. "Have a taste of this!" Morris withdrew his legs, surrounded his head with stones, and spun around the pillar like a top, making him almost impossible to avoid due to the crowded arena. When Mario had been hit a few times, Morris again attached himself to the right side of the pillar and extended his legs. "Had enough?" The minion pulled ahead of Mario.
74. Still fine... While Mario continued jumping the platforms in an effort to catch up, Morris activated another slot. A ring of tubes encircled the pillar.
"How're you going to get through that, huh?"
Mario didn't feel like answering Morris, but he knew how to climb this. He jumped at one section of the tubes, grabbed onto it, and swung his body upwards, striking Morris directly. Morris had been damaged to the point where one of his legs fell off. Maybe I should just attack Morris. Mario planted his feet onto another nearby tube and struck Morris with the hammer, only to be met in the face by a large blue rock. Mario lost his balance and fell from the tube, catching it with his left hand. Scrambling back up took more time than he wanted, but he managed to jump ahead to the tube and onto another platform. They'd now broken the ceiling of the casino, able to view the nearby area of Sereniburg from above, but the pillar would soon fall back through the ceiling. Oh! That's right! He's probably going to get there when the counter's about...30 or so? Mario looked over at one of the neon orange counters, which now displayed 61. I've got to hurry it up! Mario desperately jumped to another nearby platform while Morris continued activating more roulettes. They created more obstacles for Mario, but since he was below Morris, there wasn't much else to get in the hero's way. Soon he'd almost reached Morris's level.
"You're persistent, aren't you?" Morris produced two heads and sent another rock wave Mario's way. He jumped to a tube on the opposite side of the pillar and slammed both heads with the hammer. He then went for Morris himself, knocking out another leg. "You can't do anything to me! I'm almost there!"
38...37...36...
Morris had just about reached the top of the pillar. Various tubes, gears, and techno-thingies were sorting the money around. One of these was the green orb. "There it is!" Mario jumped to a nearby platform, only to be blocked by Morris.
"I'm taking that orb now. Have fun." He reached upward to grab it.
"No!" Mario jumped onto Morris's leg, clinging onto it. His weight pushed it down and prevented Morris from extending it to the orb.
"Get off my leg, jerk!" Mario planted his feet onto a nearby tube, yanking the leg off after a few seconds.
Now for the orb! Mario jumped to the highest platform he could reach and attempted to grab the orb. Morris blocked his move with a frantic stone attack and moved another leg toward the orb.
25...24...23...
Mario and Morris had been lowered back into the ceiling. If the countdown ended, the orb would be placed in a random spot at the pillar's bottom, and there was no telling what Morris could do then. 20 seconds to go... Mario again grabbed onto Morris's leg and jumped from there to nail his head. He bounced off the ceiling and came back to repeatedly hit Morris. He was left with only one leg.
16...15...14...
"Ah-ha!" Morris extended his final leg, coming close to getting the orb each time. It was being tossed around the top of the pillar, making reaching it difficult.
Come on. Think. How can I loosen his grip?
The hammer, Mario.
10...9...8...
What? Maia? Is that you?
Yeah. I have a little more power now, but it's not much. Use your hammer now! She immediately left Mario's mind, and Mario didn't question. As they sank below the rim of the ceiling, Mario tossed his hammer in the direction of the orb.
5...4...3...
The flying projectile slammed through the machinery, knocked out Morris's final leg, and destroyed the mechanical arm which held the orb. The glass sphere fell directly into Mario's hand.
2...1...JACKPOT!
The pillar stopped as Morris fell to the ground, defeated. Various amounts of money were placed in the slots.
Morris groaned, returning to his original form. "I can't believe this. You just got the orb at the last second 'cause you had a hammer. I'll be back, heroes. You haven't seen the last of me!" The minion flipped out.

 "Whoa," exclaimed one of the waiting gamblers. "That sure spiced up this routine."
"I saw you, Mario," reported Paletta. "That was awesome! You put that jerk in his place!"
Mario stepped out of the pillar through the broken section of glass. "I had a little help from Maia. She was able to tell me to throw the hammer."
"Great work," congratulated Luigi. "We've got three of those orbs. Now we just need to go back to Flipside and-"
"What?" interrupted Paletta. "You're leaving?"
Tippi looked at Paletta. "Well, yes. I suppose we have to. You remember everything we told you, don't you?"
"Yes, but..." Paletta looked downward. "It was so great having you guys here. And seeing that minion being punished. It was...exciting! And I like exciting."
Mario rested his hand on the excited girl's shoulder. "It was nice meeting you, too. For real."
Paletta raised her head and smiled. "Yeah, I guess. It was fun while it lasted. I guess there's no other choice, is there? You have to save all worlds."
"That we do," agreed Tippi. "But we're not going to forget you. You made things...well...very interesting."
"Oh, me?" Paletta could barely contain her large smile. "Well...thanks. Thanks a lot. I'm glad I could help."
"You're welcome, Paletta," wished Luigi. "And maybe we'll see you again. The portal to this dimension will still be open as far as I know."
"Oh, yeah. That'll be good. I'll see you then."
"Goodbye, Paletta," finished Tippi. "Hopefully we can see each other again soon."



ORB GET!
-END OF CHAPTER-

Dimentio and Morris had concocted a plan to freeze Mario in his tracks once and for all, but in the dimension of the third orb, Mario and the others prevailed, with the help of their new true friend, Paletta Vibe, as well as the mysterious-as-ever Maia. With three orbs in hand, only two remain, three less than the number of Pure Hearts our heroes had needed to find at this stage. Yet the heroes were unable to uncover anything about the backstory of Tedac's dimension. With whatever vague connection to Amtakan that might be implied, it is evident our heroes have not seen the last of that dimension's impact. Perhaps one of the final two orbs will connect some of the pieces-but of course, "pieces" could mean one of several dozen things on this adventure...



"And then it must have been her or something. I mean, how else would that guy know to throw his hammer into all that stuff? We were, like, in a tussle or something. I didn't even know what was happening. She's letting him cheat, that's what."
Dimentio lowered his head and sighed. "Would this have anything to do with your popcorn addiction, Morris?"
"What? No. It's not like they got away or anything. They confronted me."
"Trying something new, huh?" questioned Bowser. "Those heroes gave us a taste of our own medicine."
"So now what do we do?" asked B-A Omega. "Those heroes already have three out of the five orbs. We didn't even think they could get two of them."
"Ah ha ha ha. Already, another plans awakens in the deepest recesses of my mind. Do you recall the plan Blumiere and I staged in the Dimension of Refuge?"
"Oh, yeah," agreed Alpha. "That one was a real whopper. A death trap, a mental weapon, a couple more death traps..." The robot emitted a sighing noise, despite lacking the vocal processes to truly sigh. "It just makes me want to PUT A BANANA IN MY EAR!"
"Yes, that plan. Now, in that plan we attacked the heroes with a mental weapon in an attempt to dissolve their group. We did manage to get Bowser," Dimentio formally twisted his hand toward Bowser, "but otherwise, the plan wasn't much of a success. However, if we modify the basic idea a bit, we could hit the heroes where they're weak and do a large amount of damage. Minions, have you noticed Mario when he's introverted? He isn't used to this demanding of a task, and it's gotten to him. If we assault him mentally, we may just put him out of commission."
"I like where you're going with this," offered B-A Omega. "Sort of what we did with the Refuge, but to the max or something! I love it."
"In fact, minions, here's a reminder that both of the remaining orbs are located in that very dimension. It's likely that the orbs were hidden in the more remote areas to the south. The area to the south of the desert and the Refuge itself contains no land, so I am not quite sure whether they're more easterly, located south of the mountains, or to the west, below the area the heroes visited a while before then. But, we just need to follow the heroes wherever they're guided. Bowser, how would you like a role in this plan?"
"I'm on it, baby! I've been itching to get into the action ever since those pesky heroes stomped me."
"Your enthusiasm is a plus, but let's not overestimate ourselves. The heroes have proven their strength again and again, and we can't underestimate them either. Come, Bowser." Dimentio and Bowser vanished.
"Hey, Morris," began Omega. "Come here. There's something I've been wanting to tell you for a while."
"What is it?"
"Well, there's a reason I didn't tell you about this before, but..." Omega tilted his mechanical head downward, contemplating how to place his words. "Nah...never mind. It doesn't matter now."
"What? What is it, Omega? You can tell me."
"No. Not yet. I'm not sure if I'm ready. See ya." Alpha and Omega flipped out.



"I gave him some of the greatest advice a human can give, and this is how he repays me?"
"Shut your trap, insolent traitor! We're going to show you what happens when you mess with Amtakan's plans."
"Traitor? You mean it wasn't his decision to go insane and everything?"
"That doesn't matter. It's him we're loyal to now, and that's the way it's going to remain."
"You're just deluding yourselves. He's a madman now!"
"Maybe he is. But if so, he's a brilliant madman. He knows how to make this world a better place."
"Do you really believe that drivel he spews out constantly? He knows how to make himself sound convincing. He's just trying to-"
"Whatever! Listen, either you're going to give in now, or we're going to destroy you. Your power is no match for the strength Amtakan gave us."
"There's no way you can stop us from going on with our plan. Even if you defeat me here, Amtakan's going to be stopped. That's an absolute."



Our heroes exited the yellow door atop Flipside Tower. "Funny," remarked Luigi. "The color of the orbs isn't matching up with the doors anymore like the Pure Hearts did."
"There's only five of them," pointed out Tippi. "The next two are probably blue and violet, if we follow the pattern..."
The group descended through the elevator down to the second story of Flipside. "I see you've returned once again," stated Merlon. "And with the next orb, may I presume?"
"Indeed." Mario displayed the green orb while Tippi related what had occured to our heroes in the dimension of the yellow door.
"Oh ho, is that so, heroes? It looks like Dimentio really pulled something new out of his sleeve this time."
"Yes, indeed. I wonder if he's going to try something even worse next time..."
"Well, there's no need to worry, heroes." As soon as Merlon finished speaking, an earthquake rattled Flipside, and The Void again ballooned.
"The Void..." uttered Tippi. "It's gigantic! It has to be at least the size it was the first time Mario and Luigi returned from The Underwhere..."
"In that case, heroes, there's no use in delaying even a moment. Let's get to the top of Flipside Tower and let Maia show us the way to the next orb."
Our heroes and Merlon again ascended Flipside Tower, and Merlon activated Maia's portal at the green door. "Does it seem like we're rushing too headstrong into things?" asked Luigi. "I mean...well...we might have to prepare for whatever we find in this dimension."
Once you enter that dimension, Mario, you won't be able to leave for a while. Make sure you're ready both physically and mentally.
Mario told the others what Maia had communicated. "It sounds like we'll be tried harder than ever before. We'd better be ready."
Merlon shifted. "Well, here's hoping you return in time to stop The Void. I honestly don't know how we're going to stop it, but...I suppose Maia has a solution. Remember everything you've learned so far, heroes. I know you'll be successful, even if you need to spend a long time in that dimension."
Those were the last words our heroes heard before they entered the dimension of the green door...possibly not to return until The Void had nearly swallowed Flipside.
We went to see them for the first time in 5 years because they were going away for 3 years.

Kimimaru

  • Max Stats
« Reply #71 on: August 19, 2008, 03:18:11 PM »
Excellent story! You're a great writer! You draw the reader into the story by adding detail, plot-twists, and making them ponder on what happens next! When I read this, I can form a clear image in my head!

Oh, and cool website too! 
The Mario series is the best! It has every genre in video games but RTS'! It also has a plumber who does different roles, a princess, and a lot of odd creatures who don't seem to poop!

Reading

  • is FUNdamental
« Reply #72 on: August 20, 2008, 07:51:50 PM »
Thank you for the feedback! That's pretty much exactly what I want with my writing. I want to make it clear, but not over-descriptive (like so many of the books they make us read in school), and also intriguing so the reader will want to keep at it. Thanks for taking the time to read the story.

Thanks for the comment on the website as well. I think I'll add part of your comment to the "quotes" area on the SPM2 page, if you don't mind. ;)
We went to see them for the first time in 5 years because they were going away for 3 years.

Wiiario

  • Has seen Kirby naked
« Reply #73 on: August 23, 2008, 03:48:06 PM »
I'll have to read this sometime! I was going through bits and I like what I'm seeing!
But, I still find it annoying to have Mario talk. It's just something I can't get used to. It's understandable, since this is only text, so it's harder to stay closer to Mario's silent personality if he used body language to communicate. But I guess were just two different people. It doesn't change the fact that this fan-fic is EXTREMELY well made. I swear, if I didn't know any better. You could be a writer at Intelligent Systems!
« Last Edit: August 24, 2008, 09:08:01 AM by Wiiario »
I really don't care much for logic.

Reading

  • is FUNdamental
« Reply #74 on: August 24, 2008, 05:06:00 PM »
I never liked Mario's silence in the first place. I had no experience with the RPG genre before Paper Mario (except for Pokemon, which I don't play anymore), and it puzzled me why Mario didn't actually speak. Having his party members or other characters speak "for" him still seems strange to me. Where did the whole concept of a silent protagonist come from anyway?

But it's fine if that's what you think. Thanks for the feedback as well. Heh...a writer at Intelligent Systems? I wonder what Nintendo would think if they found this story. ;)

Do you guys like the change I made to the topic title? It displays the last chapter I completed.
We went to see them for the first time in 5 years because they were going away for 3 years.

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