"Dang it, I don't have my Spiny bag..." Thumbs whispered to Silver.
"And I am without my swords," Silver whispered back.
"Then what do we do?"
Silver looked around. "Free those Koopas. They can help."
"What?! No!" Thumbs shouted.
"Do it... I can hold Doopliss off, but not for long."
"Fine..." Thumbs started shifting sideways toward Lemmy and Iggy.
Silver, on the other hand, wasted no time in blasting Doopliss with light energy from his left hand. Doopliss seemed stunned. "I hope you can take more than that," Silver said.
Doopliss responded by headbutting Silver and knocking him to the ground. "I can take plenty, Slick.."
Thumbs cringed at hearing the name "Slick",
but kept tiptoeing towards Lemmy and Iggy, and eventually
reached them, and began untying them.
Silver swung his fist at Doopliss, dark
energy in his right hand. Doopliss avoided the punch and fired some red
beams from his eyes at Silver, burning his skin. Silver shouted out in
pain. Doopliss laughed at this, but his fun didn't last long as he soon
received a Shell Shot to the back. He turned around to see Lemmy
looking down at him.
"Where's my ball?!" he demanded, advancing on Doopliss.
Iggy was soon also untied and beside Lemmy. "And where's my wand?"
Thumbs ran up to Silver. "Silv! You okay?"
"I'll... be fine... Just a... little burn," Silver replied weakly.
"I could heal you if I had my Hurricane..." Thumbs muttered.
Doopliss did not respond to Lemmy and
Iggy. Instead, his eyes turned bright red and he turned into a short
Koopaling with rainbow hair. He then
tackled Lemmy into the next room. Iggy followed them, and when he
entered, he could see two Lemmys. He
wasnt sure which one was real. In addition to that, all of their various
items could be seen: Lemmy's ball,
Iggy's wand, Thumbs's fishing rod, and Silver's swords, all piled up in
the corner. While the two Lemmys were still fighting, Iggy ran up and grabbed
his wand, pointing it at the two Lemmys, who upon seeing this, stopped
moving.
"Now, I've seen this on TV plenty of times," Iggy said, "so I'll be able to find out which one of you is real easy." The fake Lemmy gulped quietly. "Okay, first question: Who is our dad?"
"Bowser!" the Lemmy on the left answered quickly.
"That's strike one, Mr. Fake," Iggy
said to the Lemmy on the right. "Next question: How many siblings do we
have?"
"Five!" the Lemmy on the left answered again.
The Lemmy on the right groaned. "Iggy, how about you ask questions that someone with only half a brain CAN'T figure out?"
"Hey, shut up!" Iggy shouted, "Stop
whining because you're losing!" He pointed his wand at the Lemmy who
last spoke. "If you don't answer this
next one right, you're toast. Now, this is one only the REAL Lemmy would
know. How much money did I spend at that ice cream party last summer?"
The Lemmy on the left had no clue. However, the Lemmy on the right knew. "You spent 41 coins!"
"Huh?" Iggy was in a bit disbelief.
"You gotta be the real Lemmy. No one knows that. But that means-" Iggy
was cut off as he was blasted by a
red beam.
The Lemmy on the left laughed and changed
back into Doopliss. "Fool, I could have done that at any time."
Whatever Doopliss had planned next
never happened, as he was whacked in the head by a fishing pole and
knocked out.
"That'll teach ya to mess with my friend," Thumbs said, walking over to Silver and raising his Hurricane into the air. A cloud formed over Silver and started raining on him, healing him of his wounds.
Silver soon stood up. "Thanks, Thumbs..." he simply said.
"No problem. Now let's go get that treasure!"
Thumbs and Silver dashed out of the room after obtaining
their things.
"Owie..." Iggy moaned, standing up. "Sorry, Lemmy... I shoulda known it was you..."
Lemmy shrugged. "Doesn't bother me. I just wanted my ball."
"So... we go home now?"
"I don't see why not." Lemmy jumped on his ball and began to roll off.
"Wait."
"Huh?"
"We should do something about this guy." Iggy pointed to Doopliss. Lemmy looked over and laughed with Iggy in unison.
***
"How is our patient doing, Doctor?" Grodus asked an X-Naut PhD.
"Very very well," the X-Naut responded.
"Due to our highly advanced medical technology, Lady Umbron will
be healed in no time."
"Good, good. Allow me to take a look."
The X-Naut PhD led Grodus into a room with several chambers filled with
green water. Pura was inside one, hooked up to some wires to allow her
to breathe. Already, it appeared the missing part of her tail had grown
back, and any broken bones were mended. "Excellent," Grodus said.
"She will be healed in a matter of
a few hours,correct?"
"That is correct, Sire," the PhD responded.
"Perfect. I shall leave you to your work." Grodus exited the room.
While being healed inside the chamber,
Pura was having yet another dream. This time, she was at the Glitz
Pit, battling Rawk Hawk.
"Hello, Rawk Hawk," Pura said. He was one of the few people she respected, despite his... ego.
"Are you ready to RAWWWKKK?!" Rawk Hawk challenged.
"Ready when you are." Rawk Hawk responded
by diving towards Pura, who quickly moved out of the way and tossed at
him a dark-shaped blade, which she called the shadow shruiken. He dodged,
and did a flip and
bounced off of Pura's head. She jumped
back and blasted Rawky with a shadow ball.
"Not bad, not bad, but I can do better,"
Rawk Hawk said, and then he slid into Pura's feet, knocking her down. However,
she quickly got back up and fired some energy into the ring and under the
floor. It surfaced
as a giant dark beam that fired right
under Rawk Hawk. It knocked him towards the ceiling, where he held on
and started shaking it, causing various
items to fall down near Pura. She dodged all but the last one, which
struck her side. Rawk Hawk remained
holding onto the ceiling.
"This should be fun..." Pura said, and
then jumped up to the ceiling and held onto the raptors. She then
began climbing towards Rawk Hawk. He
began tossing items from the attic at her, but she fried them with a
dark beam that also hit Rawk Hawk,
knocking him down and out. Pura landed nearby. "That was... fun, as I
had predicted." She looked over at
Rawk Hawk to find he was no longer there.
Grubba walked up to Pura. "Congratulations!
You are the new Champion of the Glitz Pit! Guess what your
prize is." The crowd was cheering loudly
as Pura listened. "You win a chance to fight me!"
"Huh?" Pura looked back over at Grubba to see him lowering into the ring and under it. Pura could soon feel the ring shaking below her.
***
"Crump!" Grodus called.
Lord Crump dashed into Grodus's office. "Yes, Sir Grodus, The Master of Dudes?"
"I told you to stop calling me that... Anyhow, about collecting the Crystal Stars..."
"Yeees?" Crump was expecting to get a chance to collect them on his own.
"Now that Pura is injured..." Grodus continued.
"Yeeeeees?"
"That we should..."
"Yeeeeeeeeeeees?" Crump was waiting for it.
"We will wait until she is healed," Grodus concluded.
Crump did a facefault. "Buh... why? I can get the rest, I swear."
"No, I can't trust you," Grodus told him. "Not after that business with that Mario guy."
"But he's gone!" Crump shouted. "Dead dead dead!"
"I don't care... I'm sure there are plenty others just like him."
"Oh, come on!" Crump complained. "We all know Bowser would have finished off anyone else like that!"
"I'm not taking that risk!" Grodus said, slamming down his staff. "Pura is yet to fail me while you've failed me on so many occasions. Argue this any further and I'll remove you from your position."
"But..." Crump objected.
"I mean it. Now leave!" Grodus demanded. Crump grunted, before turning around and leaving.
***
Back in Pura's dream, she stood before
a giant orange Clubba, also known as Macho Grubba. There was no time for
an exchange of words as Grubba quickly pounded Pura with his fists. Pura
shouted out in pain and
blasted Grubba with a shadow ball,
but it seemed to have no effect and he kept pounding on her. She jumped
back and tried a dark beam, but it seemed to only stun Grubba for a split
second and he retaliated
by punching Pura so hard she flew across
the ring.
Meanwhile, it appeared the audience
was gone and the Glitz Pit was falling apart; sparks were flying
everywhere and stagelights were falling
from the ceiling. Pura stood and jumped up into the air, floating rather
high using her levitation skills. Now in the air, she began firing shadow
ball after shadow ball at Grubba, each hit making its mark as a cloud of
smoke covered Grubba. Pura kept firing, as this went on for several minutes.
After one final larger shadow ball, she stopped and landed, waiting for
the smoke to clear. The smoke cleared, and Grubba was still standing there,
but breathing heavily. More of the Pit was falling apart as a metallic
pillar fell right in the center of the ring. Soon afterward, the screen
for the audience to view the battles exploded, and sparks rained down on
Pura and Grubba. Pura ignored it, and began charging up another beam. Grubba,
on the other hand, shot his arm in the air and began charging Pura. She
tried firing her beam, but it was too late, Grubba struck her and she flew
towards the now-destroyed screen. Just as she was about to hit, she woke
up.
"Aha!" an X-Naut PhD cheered. "The Lady
has been healed!" He proceeded to allow Pura out of the
chamber.
Pura stepped out. "Ow... What happened? Wasn't I in the Glitz Pit?"
"You were dreaming, Miss Umbron."
"But the pain felt so real... And don't call me by my last name..."
"My apologies, and our machines give off that weird feeling... It's hard to explain. I should get my clipboard." The PhD walked off.
Pura felt a bit woozy. She staggered
slightly to the next room to find no one in it. "Ow... Cursed Crystal
King... Well, I guess now is a good
time to meditate." Pura sat down near a wall and closed her eyes,
clearing her mind of all thoughts.
That's when Grodus walked in. "Pura! You're healed, I assume."
Pura growled softly for having her meditation interupted. Thankfully, Grodus didn't notice. "Yeah... I just got out of one of those healing things a while ago..."
"Excellent! Get ready because we're going for the next Crystal Star soon." Grodus walked out, apparently now in a good mood.
"I really don't want to look for any Crystal Stars now... or ever..." Pura mumbled. Now that Grodus was gone, she sat back down and closed her eyes, continuing her meditation.
***
"So... where we going now?" Thumbs asked.
"I don't know. I'm an adventurer. I wait for something to come to me," Silver responded.
"So we're just gonna wait?"
"Precisely."
"Is the middle of Rogueport really the
best place for it? Thumbs asked. "With all these people around, we
may have competition."
"Let them compete," was all Silver said.
"Well, all right..." After a few minutes, Thumbs asked, "Want a slushie?"
"They sell slushies here?" Silver wondered.
"Not to my knowledge."
"Then where do you plan on getting one?"
Thumbs reached into his shell. Some machine noises were heard, and when he pulled his hand out, there was a slushie in it. "Right here."
Before taking the slushie, Silver asked, "You have a slushie machine in your shell?"
"But of course. I love slushies," Thumbs responded, making one for himself.
"You have issues..." Silver said, poking the drink. "Is it safe?" he added.
"Of course!"
Silver took a drink. "Not bad. Not bad at all."
Soon, a Goomba with an archaeoligist's hat approached Silver and Thumbs. "Hello," the Goomba greeted them.
"Who are you?" Silver asked the Goomba.
"My name's Goombella," the Goomba responded.
"Professor Frankly, who's my teacher, told me to look for some adventurers.
He said he saw a couple guys fitting your descriptions claiming they were
out adventuring, and looking for treasure and stuff like that, which is
really cool because I look for treasure
and adventure sometimes. So... I was
wondering, can I join you guys? I think it'd be really cool. What do you
think?"
"I think this girl talks too much," Thumbs said to himself, rolling his eyes.
"Never!" Silver pulled out his swords
in a threatening manner. "I don't know who you think you are, but I
don't just trust total strangers to
join me in my life's passion. Now get out, before I get angry."
Goombella ran off screaming.
"... You really need to work on your
people skills," Thumbs suggested, sipping his slushie.
"The next Crystal Star is in Glitzville, the Glitz Pit to be exact," Grodus announced. "You two will be going there now," he said to Pura and Crump. Pura was taking aback after recalling her dream. Crump, on the other hand, was quite eager to get started and wasted no time rushing out the door and to the transporter. "Well, are you going, Pura?" Grodus asked.
"Yeah... Sure..." Pura said quietly, before turning around and following Crump.
Soon, they were underground in Rogueport. They wasted no time in entering a pipe to the east side of town. They then headed west and noticed Goombella running past. They really didn't care what she was doing, so they kept walking towards the center of town. Little did they know that Silver and Thumbs had a Crystal and were but a few feet away. Silver looked over and noticed Pura and Crump as they headed towards the Glitzville blimp. "Hey, who's that?" he asked, pointing at Pura.
"Beats me," Thumbs said, sipping his slushie.
"She seems like the adventuring type. Perhaps I should ask her to join us."
Thumbs narrowed his eyes. "Weren't you the guy who threatened to chop up a Goomba for wanting to join us a few seconds ago?"
"Um... No?"
"Um... Yes?"
"Um... No?" Silver repeated.
By the time Silver and Thumbs had finished arguing, Pura and Crump were already on the blimp. "Buh huh huh, it appears that Stewart guy was still scared out his mind from the Don Pianta incident," Crump laughed.
"Lucky for us, I guess..." Pura said quietly.
The blimp arrived rather quickly, and Crump and Pura got off and headed towards the Glitz Pit, as that would be the place they would first suspect the Crystal Star to be. However, they found no one inside.
"This is unusual..." Crump stated.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Pura warned. "Get Magnus Von Grapple ready. I'll check the back rooms." With that, Pura walked through the door backstage. She checked each room carefully, finding them all empty. Every locker room, Jolene's office, the storage room, she found nothing. "This can't be good... This place is always active, especially mid-day." Soon Pura heard a loud explosion coming from the ring of the Glitz Pit and dashed towards it.
***
"Hmm..." Larry thought to himself.
"What is it?" Jack wondered.
"I have no idea where another Crystal Star would be."
"I knew I shouldn't have followed you," Wendy started. "You're a one-hit wonder. The first Crystal Star you got was out of pure luck. Why, Lemmy and Iggy could do a better job o-"
"Shut up!" Larry interrupted.
"Well, what do you suggest we do, chaps?" Regal asked.
"I guess we'll..." Larry sighed, "ask my dad for help..."
"Haha!" Wendy laughed. "I knew it!"
"Shut up, Wendy..." Larry growled.
"No."
Larry ignored her and started walking towards Castle Koopa. The group followed.
***
Pura ran through the doors and tripped over an X-Punch of Magnus Von Grapple 3.0. She gasped as she stood up and saw pieces of Magnus lying all over the place. She could make out a figure in the ring. It was too small to be Rawk Hawk, so Pura thought it was Grubba in his usual form before transformation. But when Pura reached the ring, she realized it wasn't Grubba at all. It was in fact a Magikoopa in black robes. He had his back turned to Pura as she entered the ring.
"Good day, Miss Umbron," the Magikoopa said before turning around. "Were you expecting Grubba?"
As he turned around, Pura's eyes widened. "Y-you..."
"What's the matter?" the Magikoopa asked.
"You k-killed..."
"Killed Crump? Of course not." The Magikoopa stepped to the side to reveal a battered and bruised Crump behind him. "He attacked me with his little toy. I was not one bit pleased. He may not want to get up for a while."
"You have the Crystal Star, don't you?"
"But of course."
"Just give it to me, and I won't harm you," Pura offered.
"You'll have to fight me for it, I'm afraid."
"Fine then." Pura tossed a shadow ball at the Magikoopa with deadly accuracy.
The Magikoopa caught it and tossed it aside. "Silly Pura, you should know something..." Pura did not respond, now even more frightened than she was before. "I've been testing you," the Magikoopa continued. "Who do you think gave the Punies that kind of techology? Hmm? And who helped Don Jr. overthrow Frankie? Oh, and what about who sent the Crystal King after the Crystal Star? That was all me."
"Why... are you doing this?"
"I'm testing you and your powers," the Magikoopa answered. "I'm rather impressed... However," he continued, "you've been using them for all the wrong reasons."
"What are you talking about?" Pura demanded. "I've done nothing wrong."
"Oh, you have. I assure you, Grodus isn't planning anything good when he obtains all of the Crystal Stars."
"I don't care what he's planning!" Pura shouted. "All I know is that I'm getting rid of you!" She fired a dark beam at the Magikoopa. Not caring if it had hit him or not, she charged him, forming her sword in her hands as she approached. The Magikoopa flung the beam aside and was met with a slash from Pura's sword. However, he was able to block the shot by quickly taking out a dagger he called the Fogblade. Pura pressed against the Fogblade, trying to strike the Magikoopa's heart for a quick kill. However, with a quick kick from the Magikoopa, Pura was knocked back, and her sword was flung from her hands. It landed nearby, and being made of energy, vanished into the air when it the ground. The Magikoopa fired a beam from his hand and hit Pura dead-on, knocking her back and to the floor.
"How do you like the Twinshade beam?" he asked. Pura did not respond. "Oh come on, sleeping already? We've only gotten started." There was still no response. The Magikoopa laughed and approached Pura to check on her. When he got close enough, Pura jumped up behind him and grabbed him by his neck with one hand, and had a shadow ball aimed at his face with another. Despite this, the Magikoopa remained calm. "Good show." Before Pura could do anything else, she was blasted in the back with a polygon spell. She fell to the ground, where the Magikoopa promptly kicked her away. "You really should have kept in mind my hands were free," he said. Pura quickly stood up and started charging a large amount of energy. The Magikoopa didn't make a move. "Ooh, good, I'd like to see this." He calmly waited for Pura to finish charging, and by then, there was a large purple orb in her hand. She quickly tossed the orb at the Magikoopa. As the orb appoached him, small purple daggers were flung out and went in every direction of it as it shrank. The Magikoopa, not having moved, was struck in the chest with several daggers.
Pura couldn't help but laugh. "You should really consider dodging."
The Magikoopa smiled. "It isn't needed." He took a deep breath, and the daggers were absorbed into his body, leaving no wounds. "Impressive, huh?"
"How am I gonna beat this guy?" Pura wondered to herself. "None of my attacks are working."
The Magikoopa reached into his robes and took out the Gold Star. He then dropped it at his feet. "There's no need to continue this fight. I've seen what I needed to see."
"What?" Pura questioned.
"Take it. I know you want it." The Magikoopa stepped away from the Gold Star. "You should be going now. I'm sure your 'mighty' Lord Crump needs a doctor." The Magikoopa chuckled.
Pura cautiously walked up to the Gold Star, keeping her eye on the Magikoopa. When she reached the Star, she placed it in her robes. She then looked over to where the Magikoopa was, only to find he was gone. Not concerning herself with this, she picked up Lord Crump and started to walk out of the Glitz Pit, not saying a word.
The Magikoopa stepped out of the shadows and watched Pura walk off. "Oh Pura, it looks like you'll have to learn the hard way. It's a shame."