Cover Image: Star filling his car with gas at a station in the middle of a desert, shirtless and sweaty from the heat. There are strange rock formations in the background and five suns. Kid lies on the roof with sunglasses and a foil reflector with five panels.
"This is Captain Qwark, here with another session of Know Your Planets!" Star and Kid hadn't even finished their food by the time they got back in the W.A.R.P.S.T.A.R.. Star was eating the last of his fries, speckles of salt around his lip, while the crumbs of Kid's pancake and buttered syrup drizzled down his shirt. "Today's planet: Secco! Galaxia's favorite sandbox, all the fun of going to the beach without the ocean!" Qwark showed images of kids building sandcastles, one getting buried to his neck—with a quick transition of his head becoming a dehydrated mummy while the others were gone. "Secco is famous for podracing," a picture of pods exploding, "getting robbed by Sandpeople, exploring ancient tombs," an archaeologist getting eaten by snakes, "all that fun stuff! But did you know Secco used to be a more flourishing world full of flowers, ocean, and an advanced robotic race? Before disaster rained down from the sky." A storm of electric energy fields vaporizing the Ancient Robots. "'Course, when you think about it, most Galaxian planets look like the end result of an apocalypse. Flora's a massive weed problem, Aquaria's flooded, Glacia's an ice age, and Halcandra's just a burning wasteland! At least people make the most out of their apocalypses."
"I guess Secco will always be Secco'nd best." Star shrugged. He typed in a frequency, "This is Star to Tiffi. Do you read me?"
"Loud and clear! How'd it go in the Quintessa Galaxy?"
"Well, it… didn't go perfectly. Vilgax was there. And he took almost all the Hearts from its planets."
"That's terrible…"
"We fought a general named Sendak, and he mentioned something called the Omnitrix. Said it might have a clue to Vilgax's powers."
"Omnitrix? I'll try to do some research on it. But if it's something Vilgax invented, I can't promise anything."
"That'll help a lot, Tiffi. Any updates on the other operatives?"
"Well, if you have the time, could you check on Marty? He was following an SOS signal, but he hasn't radio'ed in ever since."
"Send me the coordinates, we'll go check it out."
The signal came from Sector X, a region with a nebulae shaped like a yellow and blue-rimmed "X." It became apparent as they closed in on the destination: a ship halfway lodged through a rift. The ship looked like a modified fishing trawler, brown-hulled and somewhat shabby. The hangar itself was through the portal, so Star parked the car on its roof. "Keep your guard up, Kid. There's no promise these are friendlies." His sidekick nodded as they crossed into the portal.
The dark vacuum of space was swiftly replaced by the scorching brightness of the desert. The front of the ship was completely smashed against a mountainside. "Is this Secco?"
"It's like Know Your Planets is prophetic!" Kid exclaimed.
"Huh?!" A woman looked up from her sunbathing. She had short blue hair, a yellow thin top, and shorts. "Jet, Spike, we got more trespassers!"
"Eh?" A lean man stepped out to the flight deck. He had bushy green hair of a pale hue, a yellow shirt under a blue leisure suit and matching pants, with Lupin III-like boots. "What is it, Faye? More kids…?" He murmured in a lazy manner, a cigarette in his mouth.
"Well, do they have more Duralloy bolts?" An older man stepped out, balding with black hair on the sides and a beard that jutted out on the sides. A scar crossed his right eye, a metal piece under it, a cigarette hung in his mouth, and he wore a flight suit. His left arm seemed to be robotic. "Otherwise, someone's gonna have to get their arse to town and buy more."
"You were right, Star!" Kid raised his Z.A.P.B.L.E.R.. "These men are bad! They're smoking! They probably crashed 'cause there was smoke in their face!"
"Settle down!" Star pushed his weapon down.
"Star! Is that you?!" They heard a voice yell up from the sand.
Star looked over the edge. "Marty!" He and Kid dropped into the sand—the former became half-buried from the impact, but Marty pulled him up. "Heh heh… Everything fine here?"
"You can't really say that about this mess." Marty looked exhaustedly at the wreckage.
"But nobody was hurt, right?" Kid asked, a small choke in his throat.
"No, they're alright. Right now, I'm just salvaging any working parts to get these guys up and running. I just wish I had better help."
"Heeeeeey!" A tall, thin teenager with short, but unkempt red hair and tan skin walked out in a swaying manner. They had a thin, short white T-shirt, green goggles, black compression shorts, and long bare legs. "Are these Marty's friends? Your hair looks like two flavors of icing!" They brushed Star's hair to separate halves. "Whoa! Ed likes your goggles and earphones!" Ed stroked fingers around Kid's gear.
"Thanks, dude!"
"'Chick,' actually." Marty corrected.
"What?! Why can't girls just wear dresses and have long hair?"
"You're a Gerudo, aren't you?" Star could tell by her hair, skin, and tall physique.
"Ed will introduce Ed. Ed is Gerudo! Full name Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivruski IV. Ed made up that name for Ed. Isn't it coooool?"
"And that's why we never should've went hunting on Hyrule." The green-haired man climbed down. "Be amazed how hard it is to find wanted pirates hiding on an Emperor's planet."
"You guys are bounty hunters?!" Kid exclaimed.
"Yeah." answered the older man. "We were just in the middle of a job before this mess. We're the Bebop Crew. I'm the captain, Jet Black. This lazy bastard is Spike."
"Yeah, yeah, I was just about to hunt those Casteans myself."
"Casteans?" Star inquired.
"Just some gold-hunting pirates." Spike withdrew a gun, a Jericho 941. "Three of them on small fighter crafts. We chased them through this portal and got tricked into crashing."
"Why don't we help you hunt them? Gold-hunters might even have some Gold Bolts on hand."
"No thanks. I hate kids."
"PBBBBLLLLTTTHHH!" Kid blew him a raspberry.
"Marty's antenna is so weird!" Edward was leaning closer on the boy's antenna, bending it and watching it vibrate back into place. "Ed thought Kateenians had small antennas?"
"No, I can see why." Marty reasoned.
"How 'bout Kid and I tag along, anyway?" Star asked. "We're in it for bolts, too, you know."
"I hope your parents are paying for babysitting."
"Nuh-uh, it's YOU who's gonna pay!" Kid pointed. "For us babysitting YOU!"
"Look, I'll buy ya ice cream if you shut it. Let's just get this over with." Their expressions golden against the sunrise, the three ventured into the canyon. (Play "Sweetpaper Valley Last Stand" from Origami King!)
Stage 6: Bebop Valley
Mission: Capture the Casteans!
Star, Kid, and Spike traversed a rickety wooden walkway, jumping the boards that were notably cracked and doomed to break. When a wall of barbed spikes impeded progress, Star noticed a Grav-Zone underneath the walkway, so he shifted gravity to walk along its bottom. As they did, short aliens hung from ropes and shot Western laser guns. "Teedos!" Star gasped. They wore tight brown suits and gas masks, their hands and sandaled feet gray-green skinned. Spike was quick on the draw as he shot them in the guts, while Kid used the Z.A.P.B.L.E.R. to shock them unconscious. They walked through a hole to return to the top of the boardwalk, just in time for them to cross onto a natural stone road.
They entered a run-down village built along a trench. The unfriendly locals flew out on jetpacks, shooting double blasters. Star sent Bomb Spores up to take them down while Kid shot the H.O.M.E.R. to bounce between them. "I see their impression on tourists hasn't changed." Star said.
"Huh? What'd tourists do to them?" Kid asked.
"Disney." Spike answered. "They featured the Teedo in their Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. Then a bunch of erratic fans started flocking here and picking the towns dry."
"The lead actress didn't do anything to stop it either." Star followed. "Said they should be thankful their 'droll old town's getting attention.' Good thing my mom's KND gave her what she deserved."
They followed a slope up to the second layer of the left side of town. They could get on a roof on the first layer and form a Space Block over a light, jumping it to reach the opposite trench layer. After fending off a round of Teedos wearing weathered Mickey Mouse hats and Olaf costumes, they noticed a series of grapple points leading into an open cave. (Spike had his own grappling hook.) They had view of some desert to their left as they swung through the half-cave, landing on a foothold that led to a minecart track. "There's one of them." Spike noted the alien in a minecart: the Castean (from Cowboys & Aliens) was muscular with green, almost lizard-like skin and a scowling visage.
It was giggling as it fondled a golden R2-D2 toy. "Uhr?!" Seeing the trio, it pushed the minecart into rolling while shooting a laser gun at them. The boards of the track crumbled as it went, so Spike and Star, with Kid riding him, had to grind the rails. The Castean grabbed powder kegs on the way and rolled them up the track, the boys jumping; one of them spontaneously blew up part of the track, but they could cover the gap with a grapple point. The track led outside and onto stable ground, where the Castean quickly unloaded gunfire.
"Ow!" Spike was hit in the shoulder, but was undeterred as he closed the distance with the Castean. He shot the beefy aliens in multiple areas in the abdomen, and once up close with it, Spike caught its punch with his palm, kicked it in the knee, and after dodging the swing of its other hand, he kicked it clean off its feet. With a redraw of his gun, Spike shot it in the head. "Alright… that's one head to call in. I wonder if he has any clues to where the others are?"
"Maybe they'd be in there?" Star aimed in the direction of a rift. The curious three entered it and found their selves above a Western town. There were water fountains squirting from the road as children played in them.
"Hey, it's like a classic Wild West movie!" Kid beamed. "Except for the fountains?"
"Wait, this is Dirt!" Star recognized. "We're on Mobius! It's a pretty nice view from up in the air like this… wait."
Up in the air… with no ground beneath them. "AAAAAHH!" The three plummeted and smashed the front of a hotel.
Cleveland Brown was exposed in his bathtub. "What the hell?! No no no no NO NO!" The tub slid off the tilting floor and shattered. "Consarn it, I paid a lot to bathe in Dirt's famous freshwater! Get 'em, coppers!"
Minigun-wielding steers, wearing cowboy hats, along with dynamite-throwing jackalopes assaulted the out-of-towners. The jackalopes hopped around the tops of the fountains to throw their weapons, but Star could shoot his S.C.HO.O.L. into them, the piranhas riding the fountains to munch the rodents. Spike dodged most of the steers' bullets while others grazed him, returning shots to their abs. When all the cops were dealt with, the boys explored the town of Western humanoid animals. They checked the Bank of Dirt; it was a water bank, defined by its huge cannister.
"Water only flows through the underground channels once a month." Star explained. "Some of it comes up as sprinklers while it also gets pumped into this tank. …And there's a Gold Bolt in there!"
"Leave it to me!" Kid went back into town and searched for a sprinkler hold to squeeze into. Luckily, one of them was empty. Kid gooed down into it and wriggled through the pipe. He slipped through the pump grate and got inside the tank, smooshing the Gold Bolt into his gooey body. Afterwards, Star simply turned on the faucet to get him out!
"Now you have to do the dance with us!" Star said to Spike.
"Oh, geez."
The three put their backs to each other in a triangle shape, rotating and kicking as they twirled their guns. Kid tossed the bolt to Spike, who tossed it to Star, and they did a final twirl before shooting the ceiling!
They visited the saloon, where the jukebox was playing the song "Tank!" "Hey, this song is my jam!" Spike said. "Say, instead of ice cream, how 'bout I get you kids this?" With no consideration, he shot the jukebox and shorted it, reaching in to take its mixed tape. The saloon-goers bowed in sadness.
"I should object to this, but… I don't even know how a jukebox uses mixed tapes." Star took the tape. Now they could listen to "Tank!" in the car!
One of Dirt's landmarks was a mud statue of four mariachi owls; Los Búhos Musicales. The guitar owl was glowing pink from the inside: Star destroyed it to reveal a portal. The moment they were through, they were whizzing against the air on a train. "WHOA!" They crouched to stabilize their selves. "It's not a Western level without a train!" Star said. The roof of the next car was spiky, so Star shifted gravity onto the left of it. Gophers stuck out the windows to shoot the trespassers, the boys returning fire. The gravity led to the bottom of the next and following cars; the train was traveling above a canyon and there were no boards between the rails. "Well, this sure takes a new perspective on train levels!"
"STAR!!" Kid panicked at the incoming stone peak. Star noticed it was crumbled, so he dashed and smashed it with Shinespark. The second-to-last car had a hatch they could climb into the train from.
"Huhr, huhr, huhr." A thinner, grayer Castean was giggling at a golden bullet. The trio came up behind it.
"I don't think gold would make a good bullet." Spike said, drawing its attention. "Gold is softer than it looks." He calmly cocked his gun and shot the alien. The door to the engineer's room was a rift.
They landed atop a mesa overlooking a familiar desert. "Hey! It's my home!" Kid exclaimed.
"New Mexico!" Star beamed. "Though… something's a little off." That would be all the large rifts scattered throughout, with floating grapple points between them. He decided to chance and swing over one; another mesa rose from it, granting Star landing. "Whoa! That would mean the rifts on the other side are moving. Well, I guess that one on the train was moving, too." With his allies following, Star jumped over the next rift—it was full of cacti! "YOWCH, OUCH!" He sprung back to the previous one with spikes in his butt!
"Heh heh…I guess I should've leapt first." Kid blushed.
"That's why we look before we leap." Spike said.
"I'm sorry, who crashed in the first place?" Star asked. He could Gravity Shift them onto the side of the mesa, traveling to the other side to jump to another portal mesa. Teedos occupied this one, but the boys dispatched them just as easily. The next grapple point would swing to two rifts; one of them would likely be dangerous. This time, Star tossed Kid over the right one; this would bait both mesas into coming up as Kid fell on some cacti. Star and Spike swung to the safe left one as Star grappled Kid over—"OW!" Needles were still lodged in Kid's gooey body when he bumped into Star.
"Haha! Sorry!"
"There's the last one." Spike pointed down the mesa. The Castean was knelt by a motorcycle, giggling as it rubbed its golden tires. When they jumped down to the desert surface, the Castean started in alert. It mounted the motorcycle and rode away. Star urged Kid and Spike into holding onto him as he broke into a Shinespark boost. "AAAAAHH!" Spike's tall frame was forced into a leaning run. With rifts hanging along the air above, mesas would thrust out to crush them like giant hammers. "This is why I never took up babysitting!"
"Then why is there a kid in your crew?!" Kid asked.
"Because stowaways and computer hackers are the hardest kids to get rid of!"
Star avoided the mesas and caught up to the Castean as it was crossing a road. "STAR, STOP!"
He abruptly stopped at Kid's cry. "Hey, you're gonna give a guy whiplash!" Spike shouted. "What's wrong, we nearly had him!"
"Look both ways before crossing the road!" Kid did so.
"Kid, it's an empty road!" Star said. "Come on, it's heading for another portal!"
The Castean laughed. Beyond this rift was its ship. It would make a clean getaway. "GUAH!" But a gas-loaded bullet punctured its skull from the rift.
"Now there's the ol' varmint that pilfered our ride." A black-clothed cowgirl exited the portal on a horse. She had toxic-green eyes and short blonde hair, laced with a thick hat and boots. "And I guess I weren't the only cowboy chasin' 'im."
"An outlaw!" Kid exclaimed.
"Kimaya Diaz!" Star recognized.
"Kimaya… Diaz…" Spike lazily raised a scanner and examined the woman. Her name came up on a wanted poster, worth $500,000. "Ah. Most wanted woman in North America's deserts."
"Pleasure to acquaint you." Kimaya twirled a gun. "'Course, with all these portals poppin' up around here, Ah reckon we might broaden our range of business. You lookin' for work, slim? It seems like ya got yer eye on this job."
"Heh…" Spike pulled his gun. "Maybe I do."
Both cowboys were still. Their gazes were locked. Great tension loomed between them. Star and Kid glanced from Kim to Spike to Kim to Spike again. Which one would make the first move? A tumbleweed rolled along in the breeze. The guns were trained… the barrels were packed… and the fingers ready to bend the triggers.
"…But maybe later." Spike sheathed his gun. "You can keep that one's bounty. That portal wouldn't lead back to Jakku by any chance?"
"Ah dunno." Kimaya climbed off and roped the Castean to her horse. "'Guess we'll find out how much this boy fetches. He might be a bit lighter without this gizmo." She picked a handheld tracker off the alien and tossed it in the sand. "See you, Space Cowboy." She galloped back into the rift. (End song.)
"This is a metal detector." Star picked it up. "Telegraphed to gold. We can use this to track Gold Bolts easier!" He turned to Kid, expecting to gauge his excitement. "…Kid?" But his sidekick was walking up the road.
Star jogged after him. Kid stopped beside a lone rock beside the road. A bouquet of cacti with flowers lay against it. "This is… where my parents died."
"Oh…"
"I was five… We were driving home at night, behind a truck. It suddenly stopped and…"
"I'm sorry…"
"Do you think… they're proud of me?"
"Of course they are."
"Haha… Well, I am saving the universe from an alien overlord after all."
"Hehe, it's hard not to be proud of that!"
"Just watch, Mom and Dad! I'm gonna be the best hero ever!"
"You and me both, partner. Ready to head back?"
"Uh-huh!" They hurried back to the rift after Spike. It set them off in a part of Jakku a few miles away from the Bebop, so they made the journey over.
"Well, at least the bounty on those Casteans will be enough to pay for repairs." Jet said. "Unless you kids want a fraction of it."
"Just make sure to pay Marty for his help." Star said. "We make plenty of bolts already. Speaking of, I think it's time we upgraded our weapons."
Zebes; Station ZDR
Rick and Morty crossed an underground canyon on a tram. "Well, Tallon was a waste." The scientist complained. They had searched for the Heart of Zebes in the Phazon Crater and Magmoor Caverns, but only had a charred Morty to show for it.
"Rick, how do we know the relic thing is even where the Heart is?"
"Morty, the Chozo hide all their important things deep underground, where else would it be? Now, this station is connected to the planet's core. If we don't find the MacGuffin here, I have a backup plan."
"Is it to threaten Nintendo not to make Metroid Prime 4?"
"Morty, there's not going to be a Metroid Prime 4. Because four isn't a prime number! The next game is going to be Metroid Prime 5, then it'll be 7, 11, and so on; it's simple math, Morty! Now, put these bird-person costumes on." Rick tossed Morty a small, feathered cape and helmet and equipped his own.
The tram stopped at a walkway to a tremendous, round, sealed mechanical structure. Rick and Morty calmly passed through its outer layer, with an inner wall inside. The outer entrance sealed them in. "Quick, Morty, do bird things!"
Dozens of spherical drones with red scanners rose from the chasm surrounding their bridge. As it scanned the visitors, Rick and Morty flapped their wings in forceful thrusts, stomped their feet, and yelled, "Caw! Caw! Caw!"
Lifeforms identified as: bird-people. Only Chozo are authorized in Elun. Chozo are bird-people. Therefore… bird-people are Chozo. The scanners turned green. Scan complete. Access granted.
The inner door opened. The duo proceeded. "This place used to be a containment sector. And since time distortions are happening here, they might be back."
"What might be back?" Morty asked. They stepped in a puddle of black goo when- "OH, SH**!" A Chozo Zombie rose. Morty wasted no time in blasting the heck out of it with his Semuncher; a gun that shoots white "worms" with teeth. The Semuncher gnawed the zombie right up… but a gelatinous red amoeba with tiny lights inside emerged from it. "Whuh?!"
The amoeba possessed the Semuncher and turned on Morty, who panicked and blasted his normal laser gun. The amoeba escaped from the Semuncher's corpse and entered Morty. "WAAAAAH! RICK! There's an alien Gummy Bear inside me! I feel my insides jellifying!"
"Yeah, hold still, Morty." Rick stuck a large syringe into his grandson, attached to a capsule as it painfully sapped the amoebas out of him. Morty was left half-shriveled.
"Whuuuh…what are these things, Rick?"
"X Parasites, Morty. Worst vermin you could possibly find on Zebes. They get into your nervous system, you become their puppets. The Chozo invented the Metroids in the first place to suck the parasites out of their citizens. 'Course, then they had new parasites on their hands."
"And you're just taking some with you?!"
"Relax." Rick turned to leave the base, his grandson following with several worried looks back. "They can't control targets with high levels of willpower. Which you don't have. That's why you made good bait. But if it comes to it," he drew another syringe, "I can inject you with some Metroid DNA. …Oh, crap!" A waterfall of bluish energy began washing toward them from beyond the outer wall. "Quick, in the portal, Morty!" He clicked a green portal open, the two jumping through. As the energy poured over the containment zone, all the other X Parasites inside vanished.
"Haaaaah." Ruford Stork fell into a sit, the Chrono Staff propped up with his right hand. He and his friends were on Zebes' platform in the Planet Chamber.
"Nice job, Ruford!" his mother said.
"Thanks. I can't believe Zebes got hit with so many rifts. We'll barely have time for the other ones."
"Zebes takes priority. It has a lot of dangerous extinct creatures that will put the Chozo in jeopardy. If it weren't for the Enyclopod, they wouldn't be around at all, anymore."
Rick and Morty exited in Ghavoran, an underground forest in ZDR. "This planet wasn't gonna hide from the Ghost of Time's gaze for long. Maybe we should push the plan ahead a bit." The scientist smirked at the X specimen. "If that hunter knows where Zebes' Heart is… this will get her to talk, one way or another. Wubba-lubba-dub-dub!"
W.A.R.P.S.T.A.R.
"Mmhh…agh…dahg…" An uncomfortable itch caused Star to shift in his seat.
"Ha ha…got an itchy butt?" Kid snickered.
"Ap…parently, I do. What is-?!" Star forced himself up, reached under, and grabbed the object beneath his rump before sitting back down. "A… tomato?" A small one. "Huh?!" A compartment rose from the stem on top. It was a small screen.
"Sav'aaq!" Edward's face appeared. "That's Gerudo for 'good day'!"
"Ed?!" the boys exclaimed.
"Ed wanted to say 'thank you' for helping Spike catch those aliens! This is Ed's Baby Tomato! If you need a computer hacked, just put this tomato in and let Ed take care of the rest."
"Really? Well, thanks, Ed, we'll keep it handy! Just hope you're good at Vilgaxian computers. …OH!"
"What?!" Kid started.
"I just thought of someone we could ask about the Omnitrix! IRIS!"
"YEAH! IRIS! …Who's IRIS?"
"Oh, IRIS is an ancient supercomputer that's gathered data on the universe for ages. There's a chance she could tell us about it, or at least give us some clues about Vilgax."
"Cool! Where do we find her?"
"She's based on the Kreeli Comet, but I wouldn't know where that is. Maybe Mom would know. Let's see if she's available. Ready to go to school, Kid?"
"School?!"
"School~"
Galaxia Elementary was the first intergalactic school designed to immerse and introduce various alien students to each other's cultures. It taught basic subjects as well as a little about the various worlds in their curriculum. The school grounds, complete with a sports field, were based on a flat asteroid under an air dome. "Wooooow!" It was Kid's first time actually setting foot on the grounds. He's passed by on his bike a handful of times.
"You said you've never been to school, haven't you?"
"Nah…my family's always been kind of poor… especially after my parents…"
"Oh…" Star felt a little bad for asking. "Well, it's not really all that special."
"But you know so much!"
"I know, but the act of keeping track and managing it all is…well, not important."
"What do you MEAN they're playing hide-and-seek?!" A yellow-skinned, half-Kateenian woman with black hair and an antenna shouted at a pink, spider-like man with a large round head; a Terachnoid.
"Well, um, it's clearly a playground of giant toys, Makava, so one would assume that children would-"
"One would assume the parents and the board of directors are gonna kill us if we don't find them and get these portals patched up!" Makava glanced over in her tirade. She lit up. "STAR!"
"Ms. Makava, Mr. Sollyx, what's going on?"
"Well, we…erm…"
"Will someone tell me," Principal Nebula stormed out, "why the Mushroomians thought it was a f***ing great idea to build floating slides in the sky WITH NO F***ING RAILING?! Huh?" She'd only then realized there were children present.
Kid was agape. "I didn't know teachers could say the 'F' word."
"Hah…hi, Mom. Did something bad happen?"
"As a matter of fact, something did. Come in, Star." They followed the principal into the hallway. "Notice… anything bizarre?"
All the classroom doorways had rifts. "I think I do."
"Yep. Just when our students were piling into the classrooms to start their day, they're suddenly on field trip recess all around Mushroom World!"
"So… they all connect to Mushroom?"
"I know, it's like the portals wanna be consistent or something! Kid, time for your first lecture, did you know that when Star God Jirachi used to wake from his 100 year slumbers, he would sometimes create a magical planet? Mushroom World is his biggest planet and it's giving me a fricking ULCER right now! The kids started running around wherever their portal led, then they ran into other portals they found! Now my teachers are having a field day trying to find them!"
"T-Take it easy, Mom! Why don't we help you look for them?"
"Oh, you don't have to, sweetie, you're already busy with your mission. Actually, if you didn't know about this, why are you here?"
"Um…we need to research something called the Omnitrix. We thought we'd ask the IRIS Supercomputer, but we don't know where to find her."
"I can help you!" Mr. Sollyx declared. "I have a satellite designed to track her position! Unless she were in the Bermuda Tetrahedron, em, of course if I couldn't track her then, we can easily assume that she's there. Oh, but I suppose I should help with the-"
"Look, we'll look for the students." Star said. "You can set the satellite up in the meantime."
"Sigh, I'm sorry to trouble you like this, Star…"
"It's fine, Mom. I told you to call if something bad happened."
"No, I promised to call if we were attacked, not if bad students played intergalactic hooky."
"Haha, close enough! Why don't we try math class first, Kid?"
"Yeah!" Kid bounced into the portal with a hop and a skip. (Play "Good Egg Galaxy" from Mario!)
Stage 7: Mushroom World
Mission: Be a good student and round up the bad students!
Star decided the first class they should try was math. And math dropped them right at the foot of Whomp's Fortress, set at the top of a mountain. The duo traversed a garden of Piranha Plants, which would get their mouths stuck on Kid's goo, leaving them vulnerable to Star. Since this was a school mission, Star thought it fitting to use the upgraded S.C.H.O.O.L..: the piranhas now had cybernetic legs to walk on land, and they only costed two Gold Bolts! The piranhas chewed the plants off their stems.
They followed a cliffside stairway up to the next layer of the fort, having to avoid Thwomps along the climb. …One of them was chewing something, an antenna sticking between its grit teeth. Star shot the Thwomp with the S.P.O.R.E. to force it to spit out a Pumparian student. "Geez!" yelled Sparky. He had freckled light-green skin and a big, darker-green nose. He wore a red and white space suit with three tufts of light-blue hair sticking from it. "I was only trying to share my caramel slugworms! Oh, hey, Star!"
"Hey, Sparky. Having fun playing Hooky?"
"H-Hooky? I was helping round up the classmates with Becky and X-5!"
"Oh, okay. So, where are they?"
"They, uh…must've gotten lost in Flipsville."
"Just get back to school. There's a portal down there."
"Not like we can get into the classrooms, anyway…" Sparky walked away grumbling. Star and Kid continued to the next layer of the fortress, patrolled by angry Whomps. Defeating them was as simple as Kid tricking them into falling on him, letting Star drop bombs on their fragile backs. There was a balcony with a flagpole, and Kid wanted to do the classic thing of climbing to the top of the pole to get a 1UP. But when he did, the weathered pole seemed to give to his weight and fall against the roof of the fortress. Conveniently, this provided a way for them both to climb up there.
"UHR-UHR! GET OFF ME!" The Whomp King himself was frozen face-first on the ground by his hands and feet. A Glacian and yeti student were responsible, playing ice hockey on his back. "It happens every time! We build your castles, your roads, and all your little shitstains do is use us for tables!"
"Alright, you two, knock it off!" Star ordered.
"We're trying to!" That was the objective of their hockey game.
"Kid!"
"On it!" Kid knocked them out with the H.O.M.E.R.. They pulled the students away before breaking the ice, allowing the towering Whomp King to flip up.
"Wu'hr suhruh thurs huhrppuhrned tuhr yuhr suhr." Star spoke in Whompese. "(We're sorry this happened to you, sir. Galaxia Elementary will pay any compensation you need… if you promise not to hurt these kids.)"
"(Then they better pay me a thousand brick-tons, son!)"
"You can speak like these guys, too?!" Kid exclaimed.
"Yep. Mushroom is home to 100 races, and I had to learn a loooooot of their languages."
"That's insane…"
"Yeh…" Back down under the flagpole's base, there was another platform with a rift. Star could make Space Blocks to climb down to it. The rift warped them to a ledge overlooking Pianta Village—"HOLY CRUD!" The wooden houses that made up the village were on fire! Some of the Piantas; colorful portly creatures with grass skirts, were running around with their sprout heads aflame! "The bridge was burned, too!" Star noticed the charred boards that remained of the village's bridge. "We'll have to get in from down there!"
Pianta Village was built on a wide slab of land, situated around the trunk of an enormous palm tree that grew from the chasm beneath them. Star and Kid dropped down to the giant mushroom platforms that grew along the trunk, jumping them to reach a wooden swing. Kid sat on Star's lap as he kicked back-and-forth, building height on the swing. Their goal was to leap off and grab the wooden racks on the village's underside. Still, whoever's idea it was to build a swing precariously above the chasm, the wind howling eerily with every sway, must've been one sick Pianta.
With a leap of faith, they grabbed the hanging racks and clambered across. Unfortunately, Electrokoopas blocked their path: Kid could goo through the racks to get above them, then bounce the P.O.G.O.S.H.O.C.K. against the Koopas' soft bellies, sending them into the chasm. This teamwork allowed them to find a grate leading up into the village. The Piantas were throwing barrels of water over the flames, so Star helped by gravity-throwing the barrels. "Mumama, mumumu?! (What happened here?! Did the Chain Chomplets get loose from Corona Mountain?)" Star asked a Pianta.
"(No! That little demon caused the fire!)"
"Huh?" Star saw the small creature in question. "No, that's a Solaran! That's Kalux!"
Kalux (from Persia: The Lost Crown) was a small Solaran whose head was a single flaming eye. He casually walked around with a melancholic stare. "Even on the brightest day, life is full of dark corners." His voice was gloomy with a flavor of childish innocence. "No one knows where the course of fate will take us. Blissfully walking into our classrooms, we were reminded that."
"KALUX! What in the Solarans' frozen hell do you think you're DOING?!"
"Oh, hello, Star. Have you come to be enlightened?"
"I'll enlighten your way to detention!" Star shot him with the S.N.O.B.O.M.B.E.R.; which was upgraded so the snowmen would throw their own exploding snowballs before exploding their selves. Kalux was shivering on the ground; hopefully, he would stay chill until the teachers came. They were able to douse all the flames, so Star and Kid were free to explore the village. Many giant palm trees leaned off the sides of the village, and there were Piantas nearby to help them up.
The Piantas would each say, "Hi! I'm a chuckster!" Before HURDLING the boys like catapults! Star and Kid could walk on the trees' gigantic leaves; each tree had a portal, so they had a choice in direction, but this only made them more confused.
Their Gold Detector indicated something inside the spa's Pianta statue. Kid snickered at the statue's big nose and reached an arm up it. "Star, look! I'm a booger! Hahaha!" He bent his legs up and swung from the nose.
"HACHOO!" The statue spontaneously sneezed him into the spa, a Gold Bolt shooting out! "Hah! Good idea, Kid!" Star collected the bolt, his sidekick dizzily surfacing up from the spa.
With that, they elected on the portal in the northwest tree. With stars and a nebula above them and a planet below, they were on an archipelago in space. "Where are we now?" Kid asked.
"This must be part of the Rosalina Belt. It's a collection of planetoids and structures that orbit Mushroom's atmosphere. And judging by all the rolling boulders, these are the Boulder Bowl Islands."
They were on a circular island with boulders rolling in rotation, rubies embedded in them. In-between the boulders, Octoombas eyed the duo. The green, yellow-spotted, antenna'ed Goombas spat rocks at them and used the rolling boulders to shield from their weapons. The S.P.O.R.E. was effective in defeating them from the air. They needed to knock down a towering drawbridge, so Star used gravitybending to lift some boulders and throw them at the bridge. The bridge was slowly rising back up, so Star dashed across it with Shinespark, all the while having to dodge incoming boulders. At the angle the bridge had risen, Star could leap to a small planetoid with rolling Chain Chomps.
"Star, check out that one!" Kid pointed at a fiery-orange, crystalline planetoid.
"It's some kind of amber." Star said. "…And Gorami's inside it!" A Goron student. "Must've eaten his way in and got stuck. Hopefully, these guys can chomp him out." He raised the Chomps with gravity and threw them at the amber. They crunched the planetoid in their steel teeth, freeing Gorami as he fell down to his classmate's level.
"Thanks, Star. That's the last time I eat space candy."
"Just don't go eating these planetoids either." From here, Star shifted himself and Kid up to a spherical cage, which a Rollodillo was guarding. While Star evaded the giant, stone-shelled armadillo, Kid gooed inside the cage and hit its four switches in quick succession with the H.O.M.E.R.. This opened a part of the cage for Star to get in. Afterwards, they entered a rift in the center of the cage.
They landed in Flipsville, a neighborhood of white houses with red roofs somewhere else on the Rosalina Belt. The locals were Flip-Flop Folk, humanoids with colored, polygonal, simplistic bodies. Some were walking Chomps and others walked Pupdozers (yellow and brown dinos with purple spike spines). Unfortunately, the boys were met with unwarm welcomes as the pets gnashed or tackled them, leaving them no option but to fight the pets.
Flipsville's unique quality were circular hatches they could fall through to the opposite side of the village, gravity shifting in their favor. Flipsville was essentially a maze with the houses barring paths, requiring Star and Kid to switch sides of the village to find routes underneath them. They found another portal fairly quick, but… it connected with one of the rifts in Pianta Village. Instead, they continued through Flipsville until they were under a series of floating platforms. Star shifted them onto the first one; the platforms would move to-and-fro under spike blocks. The boys had to keep switching sides of the platforms to evade the spikes.
The platforms led to a peaceful pavilion with white garden chairs and a table. There was a catlike alien; a Betelgeusian, asleep under the table. "Hey." Star kicked him. "Eymyow. (Time to get back to school.)"
"Yaaaawn. (Sure, Star. I'll be there in a flash.)" The student lazily got up and strolled off. There was another portal to their right, leading to the base of a towering tree. They were on an archipelago of forested planetoids, except this one was within Mushroom's atmosphere, given the surrounding clouds. Star used Space Blocks to jump the branches ascending the tree while Kid shot down the Sprangler spiders that ambushed from above.
At the top of the tree, they met a Whittle, a blocky wooden humanoid with a carved, stoic mouth and face. "Whit-wit, wh-wh-whit. (I make big slide. Space holes make it bigger.)" Behind it was a long, hollowed trunk slide.
"(Have other kids been through here?)" Star asked.
"(More wood folk. Down slide. Don't know if fell.)"
"Kid, I think your stickiness will come in handy here." Star sat at the edge of the slide and Kid wrapped legs around his waist. (Play "Rainbow Cruise" from Smash Melee!)
"WHEEEEEEE!" Kid was aloft in joy as their sliding descent began! The tunneled slide had gravity around all sides, along with lines of prickly red plants, so they shifted position to slide through gaps in the plants. The tunnel let out onto a narrow portion, where they had to jump gaps or shift with the slide's direction let they fall into the sky. "OH, CRUD!" Unable to left-shift in time, they were about to go off, but Kid quickly lied back, stickified himself, and kept Star stationed. They used their hands to scoot backwards, regaining their selves to be able to make the left turn. As they jumped a string of prickly plant lines—missing a Gold Bolt on the ceiling, "Dang it!" the last line they jumped had them flying through a rift.
"WHOA!" They were suddenly going down the red slide beneath Mushroom Castle; said to be "The Princess's Secret Slide" constructed for Peach during her childhood. There were numerous Goombas sliding down, spinning on their rumps with delighted smiles. The slide made curves as they saw platform pillars over the sides. "WOODSWORTH!" Star noticed a Deku student sitting on a platform. Kid tried to stop them, but the sliding Goombas pushed his stickiness free. Star had to jump to a further platform, then bounce his way up the sliding Goombas to reach Woodsworth's. "What are you doing up here?"
"Just watching the Goombas. From here, don't they look like little turds?"
"Slide back to class." Star kicked him back onto the slide. He and Kid resumed the descent as the slide went through another rift, leading to a frozen slide where Bumpties (penguins) were sliding down. Because of its cold, Kid solidified. They both relied on Star to make the tight turns, but hitting the rubber-feathered Bumpties threatened to bounce them off the slide. When a safety wall came on their right, the boys stayed along it—"HUH?!" but went through a non-tangible part of the wall into a secret tunnel! They collected a string of bolts and dropped off on a ledge in a brick room, high above where the slide would end. There was a mixtape up there for Mario Galaxy's main theme!
Star and Kid jumped down, using the crowd of Bumpties to soften their landing, and stepped through the exit door. It was a rift to another slide—"AAAAH!" except they were sliding right into a skull marking the edge of a chasm! Kid SLAMMED his body against the slide, his body stretching as Star fell right off the edge. Luckily, his fall stopped as Kid reeled him back up. They afterwards scooted up the slide, beneath the portal, and took an alternate route. They dodged more gaps in the slide before going through another portal, landing on a safe floor.
They seemed to be on a giant pachinko machine in the sky. "Oh, dear… this is quite a predicament." There was an upset Noki attendant (humanoid with a conch shell).
"What's wrong, Mister?" Star asked.
"Those poor kids got stuck in my Super Pachinko." There were three portly kids wedged in the machine's holes. One was a Mobian hippo, one was an Osirin, and one was an Anouki.
"D'oh, darn it." said the hippo.
"Those are classmates of ours." Star said. "That's embarrassing…"
"How do we get them out of there, Star?" Kid asked.
"We're too big to fit in that entrance hole. And even if we could fit, we couldn't squeeze them out. We'll have to come back when we have the right ability."
With that, they crossed the next portal into the Fluffy Bluffs, a Sky Island mountain range. The local Nimbus, cloud people with big faces and hair tufts, bid them a hello! There was a Nimbi, Artemyran, and Entia student frolicking barefoot in the pond park at the foot of the mountain. (Nimbi had wings on their backs, Artemyrans on their ankles, and Entia on their heads.) "Prithee, 'tis Star!" yelled the Nimbi. "He wilt bust us! Run!" They leapt off the island and flew away. Star sighed.
"'ey, Starshine!" Numbuh 20x40 called from his stand. "I got a puffin' new invention for you! The C.L.O.U.D.B.L.U.F.F. makes a great smokescreen to evade enemies. It can also trick drones' lenses."
"Maybe it can help us blend in here." Star purchased the weapon for 10,000 bolts.
Galactic Kids Next Door: C.L.O.U.D.B.L.U.F.F.
Creates Lovely Ozone Undercover Dealing Baffled Lookouts Utter Failure Foolishly
Star and Kid used Gravity Shift to walk along part of the mountain and reach an overlook picnic area. The Artemyran girl was playing with some birds. The boys coated themselves with the C.L.O.U.D.B.L.U.F.F.'s cloudy veil, deceiving the girl into thinking it was a normal cloud. They could easily sneak up and, "GOT YA!" Star tackled her to the ground while Kid KO'ed her with the H.O.M.E.R.. They used Blocks to jump up to bluffs' peaks, seeing the Entia girl merrily leaping from peak to peak. The boys used the cloud veil once more and waited on the peak. When the girl leapt over, they jumped and KO'ed her.
The two jumped cloud platforms to reach another island, where the Nimbi was looping around on a vine swing hanging from a tree. Applying the same trick, they crept up on the Nimbi as a cloud and pulled her off by the ankles, dealing a disciplinary K.O.. Afterwards, they found a portal up against the tree and slipped through. (Play "To the Gateway" from Mario Galaxy!)
"?" They landed on a peaceful planetoid full of flower patches, a small blue-roofed house, and a wide stone platform on top. Star and Kid looked down in awe at fluffy white bunnies, twinkling Star Bits on their ears. "Awww. Hello, little guys." Kid cooed. The bunnies flipped and hopped away.
"Oh…I know where we are." Star led Kid up onto the platform. It rested a statue of a tall, beautiful woman with a glowing gown and star-tipped wand in hand. "This is… Rosalina's Gateway."
"Is that who this lady is?"
"Yeah. Rosalina was the earliest known princess of Mushroom Kingdom. There's a legend… well, more of a fairytale, that she found a Star Child when she was little. She took the star back to space on a ship to help it find its mom. She made friends with more Star Kids, ate Star Bits, and had lots of fun. But before she knew it, Rosalina was stranded in space… and her home planet grew smaller and smaller. She cried and cried… but then more stars appeared to comfort her. And she accepted her new home."
"Wow… Wait, the GKND was around back then, right? Could they have helped her?"
"Yeah, but she never appeared in their records. No one really knows what happened to her. That's why it's a fairytale. Nowadays, Mushroom commonly uses Star Power as a fuel source. It's believed those stars are gifts from Rosalina. This statue is just a guess of how she'd look as an adult. …Of course, Nintendo portrays her as a casual, recurring friend to Mario and co., which a lot of people complain undermines the fairytale."
"Hm…" Kid felt bad for the poor girl. "…Well, better find the rest of those students before the same thing happens, right?" He lit back up at the prospect.
"Yeah… let's take five for a bit." Star turned away from the statue and lied on his back. "I have a headache."
"Oh…okay." Kid lay beside him. "Is something wrong?"
"I dunno… Just, even seeing a fraction of Mushroom World feels overwhelming. You wouldn't believe all the studying. All the languages I have to learn, the people I have to know… not just for Mushroom, but everywhere in the universe. It's exhausting…"
"You don't like it?"
"It's not… I mean, of course I really like everything I learn, but it's the whole burden of having to know all of it because I'm the High Supreme Leader. Mom takes me on a bunch of trips just to learn stuff. But when I visit all these planets… I just want to walk around them and breathe. Once in a blue moon, I'll go with Jason on an adventure and actually have fun. …Except when property damage happens."
"I think I get it. But… if you didn't know all this stuff, I wouldn't know any of it either."
"I guess not. …You'd probably come up with weird names for the Mushroomians, too." Star smiled. "What would you call a Goomba?"
"Uh…a Shroomian!"
"And Pianta?"
"Hulanoids!"
"Ha ha ha! At least I was able to educate one person."
"Hehe! Maybe the problem is studying is boring. I love seeing all these alien places and I never did any studying!"
"Yeah… the universe has so many amazing things. Even on this mission, when I look past all the combat, I love looking at and walking around these worlds. And I want to be able to enjoy them without all the work that comes with it."
"Then… instead of just 'learning' about these planets, let's just go around and see all of them!"
"Heh…maybe we will."
"But we got a job to do first. Heroes can't rest for long!" Kid stood with a determined glare to the heavens. "Not when the universe is at stake!"
"Heh, that's right." Star stood. "But as far as this mess goes, I don't think we'll be able to find all the students, yet. We'll just have to get back to our regular mission. …Hm?"
The wand on Rosalina's statue was glowing. It wasn't like that before, was it? Star and Kid examined it curiously. When Star reached and touched it, "Whoa!" its light split into seven colored stars. They spiraled around the statue before flying off into the stars. "Huh…I wonder what that was. …Anyway, we should get back to Mom for now."
The boys navigated their way back to Galaxia Elementary. "Star! Kid! Welcome back!" Nebula beamed. "Thanks for your help so far. There's still a few rascals missing."
"Hey, Mom, I was thinking… since the school is in this state, why not just have a period of Mushroomian field trips? At least until the rifts fix? With the whole Vilgax war going on, I think it'd be a great way to lighten them up."
"That's… not a bad idea, but we still have a curriculum to follow. At the very least, we can set up outdoor classrooms in these areas. I'm sure they'll enjoy the fresh scenery."
"Yeah. They will! But for now, Kid and I should get back to our main mission."
"Then you're just in time!" Sollyx announced. "I've pinpointed IRIS' coordinates in the Solana Galaxy!"
"Solana? The Vilgaxians were active there as well. Kid, ready to learn about a new galaxy?"
"I dunno, my head is made of mush!"
"Haha! Then let's go!" The boys raced back to the car.
"Solana, huh?" Nebula said to herself. "Looks like they'll finally get to meet their daughter."