The party made their way down the sloped hallway of Mt. Lavalava after finding their way across the moat of lava, already feeling the intense heat permeating the active volcano. Kolorado blindly ran ahead of them, concerning Kooper with his idol's safety in such a dangerous place that once held an ancient civilization.
"Ugh," Twilight groaned as she already felt her body sweat from the heat radiating from the lava inside. "This is worse than Dry Dry Desert's dry climate."
"Now I really need a shower before we go anywhere after this," Rarity complained. "I hate being all sweaty."
"Well, I'm feeling fine," Parakarry said.
"You're a walking, talking turtle to us ponies," Rainbow said. "You guys clearly love the heat, even if it gets you sleepy."
"We're not that kind of reptile," Kooper corrected. "And how do you know much about reptiles? Isn't Fluttershy a better expert with animals?"
"I have a pet tortoise named Tank back home. Hope the little guy's doing alright. If he doesn't get read any Daring Do stories before bed, he can get pretty cranky." Kooper and Parakarry stopped and looked at each other, both Koopas surprised to hear a pegasus that loved being fast has a pet tortoise of all animals she chose to take care of.
"It's a long story," Fluttershy said, noticing the odd looks they had. "Rainbow Dash wanted a pet that was cool like her and could fly as fast as her, but after a life-threatening race through a place called Ghastly Gorge, Tank saved Rainbow Dash after her wing got caught under a boulder. I knew letting her give him a chance would come through in the end, and they've been inseparable."
"Yeah, you should have seen what happened when Tank had to go into hibernation one winter," Pinkie added. "That was a really messy start of the season, and she tried to stop winter from coming. And she was really scary when she was mad just mentioning that word."
"Hey, I'm over it now!" Rainbow exclaimed, only to be shushed by the others.
"Rainbow Dash, be quiet," Goombario warned. "We might run into any of Bowser's minions in here. And with most of them possibly being Piranha Plants, they could pop up out of nowhere."
The Goomba ended up jinxing their luck as a Putrid Piranha popped up out of the ground from a far enough distance. "IDENTIFIED AS...MARIO!" it said in a robotic voice, surprising everyone.
"They can talk!?" Twilight exclaimed in both fascination and confusion.
"No, they're not supposed to," Sushie said.
"IDENTIFIED AS...FIVE OF SIX UNKNOWN CREATURES INFORMED BY BOWSER!" the Putrid Piranha said. "ALERT! REPORT TO BOSS! ALERT! ALERT!"
It soon fled back underground, apparently the leader of whoever was in charge of protecting the Star Spirit. "Uh oh. Umm, looks like they know about our pony friends, too," Watt said.
"Well, they're not going to catch us if we can fight back," Rainbow said. "Let's show those monster flowers we're not so helpless."
"Wait, what about Prof. Kolorado!?" Kooper exclaimed. He ran on ahead, quickly skidding to a halt once he left the long hall and into a room filled with lava with a few solid platforms spaced out, some of them even moving left and right conveniently to father spaced out safe spots. Standing by the edge near the entrance was Kolorado, making the blue-shelled Koopa Troopa breathe a sigh of relief as the others caught up to him. "Professor, thank goodness you stopped."
"Of course!" Kolorado said. "I was just trying to figure out how to get across this sea of lava safely. And the only way is by these stone platforms." They looked out to the platforms, some of them shifting slightly in the lava as if they were bobbing up and down, some of them remaining stationary. "Hmm...I sense quite a lot of danger within this volcano, but that's the point of an adventure! Danger around every corner, and only the bravest of explorers venture forward in search of ancient treasures."
Most of the group facepalmed/facehooved, clearly obvious that a volcano with lava flowing about was a dangerous for an adventure. "Gee. What was your first clue?" Bow asked, questioning Kolorado's expertise in his field.
"Let us tally forth!" Kolorado said, leaping onto the first platform. He succeeded in jumping across, puffing out his chest at his feat, only to look down as the platform began to sink. As soon as his feet touched the lava, he let out a shriek and immediately leapt out and back onto safer ground. "What is wrong with that rock!? It sank into the lava!"
The ponies were a bit surprised that Kolorado didn't burst into flames when he touched the lava. Either lava for those in the Mushroom Kingdom only burns them and sends them bouncing off to safety like a painful trampoline, or he was lucky and barely got burnt and jumped back toward them.
"Ok, someone's going to have to carry me across," Sushie pleaded, quickly jumping up on Rainbow's back. "I'm not going to be turned into a cooked filet if those rocks are going to sink with any weight on them."
"Alright. So, everypony jump across one at a time until we get all the way through the ones floating about," Twilight said, letting out a loud gulp as she looked down at the floor of lava a few inches away from safer ground.
Slowly, one by one, everyone jumped across the bobbing rock platforms toward the ones that were thankfully stable. They were caught off guard when floating balls of fire called Lava Bubbles, or Podoboos as Goombario also called them, jumped out of the fire and tried to ambush them. Since they were made of fire, touching them was a bad idea, so the only way to hurt them was with a weapon or Kooper and Parakarry flinging themselves at them while in their shells. Sushie easily disposed of them, squirting a painful burst of water she kept stored in her, dousing them and defeating them pretty quickly. After finally making it through the room, they were now in a much bigger section of the volcano, leading further down as if it was carved out to be a dungeon many years ago. There were even some similar zip lines on the higher cliffs to get to some sections that weren't accessible on foot.
"Alright. Now where do we go?" Rainbow asked.
"I'm guessing where the Star Spirit is located would be down in the deepest part of the volcano," Twilight pondered.
"Wait for me!" Kolorado yelled out after he finally made his way through the previous room. He panted as soon as he caught up to them, barely making it across with the sinking platforms. "I...don't know how you all do it."
"Maybe if you pay attention, then you wouldn't end up getting burnt," Bow chided.
She then looked at Kooper, wondering why he ever idolized someone who she sees as a dimwit, the Koopa giggling nervously as he approached Kolorado. "Uhh, listen, Professor, you think maybe you should stick with us? Through the whole volcano?"
"Nonsense! I'm perfectly capable of adventuring on my own! You know of my greater explorations in my younger years!" Before Kolorado could jump onto the zip line, Kooper quickly grabbed his arm and stopped him.
"Prof. Kolorado, I'm dead serious," he said. "I know you want to find the treasure and all, but please, for all of our sakes, including Twilight and her friends' safety, can you not jump the gun and run ahead of us?"
The explorer looked at the alicorn and her friends, eventually letting out a sigh despite his itch for adventure telling him to keep moving forward. "Well, alright then. I'll try to keep my composure."
"Thank you," Kooper said.
They continued on, carefully making their way down further into Mt. Lavalava. They came across some Putrid Piranhas patrolling the area, along with a new kind of Buzzy Beetle that thrived in the area. Instead of blue shells, they wore red ones, and they had a sharp spike on their backs, Goombario recalling them being called Spike Tops. It was impossible to jump on them or whack them with how thick their shells were, but they were able to trip them up and whack them hard on their soft underbellies when they tried to attack them.
When they walked down a flight of stone steps, they saw a pathway that was blocked by a red and yellow block that wasn't anything like the yellow or stone ones. "Oh boy. More giant blocks blocking our way."
Mario approached the block with his hammer out, giving it a hard whack. Instead of breaking, his mallet stopped stone cold, his arms shaking slightly from the impact. The block was made out of solid steel, and the hammer he found in Dry Dry Ruins wasn't strong enough, so that meant there had to be a stronger one somewhere in the volcano.
"Seems like we're going to have to find another way," Twilight suggested. She looked down, finding more of the area to explore, along with some more lava and more enemies roaming around. "There's two pathways we can take. Should we split up?"
"I'd rather not while we're inside a volcano that could erupt at any moment," Sushie said. "We all scatter and end up at a dead end, hello seventh degree burns."
"I say we go down the road beneath where we came from!" Pinkie suggested. "My gut tells me there's something very useful down that way that can get us farther!"
"You mean your Pinkie Sense is acting up again?" Fluttershy asked, suddenly whimpering as she and the other ponies quickly looked up. "Y-You're tail's not twitching, is it?"
"Nope, thank goodness," Pinkie said. "But my Pinkie Sense isn't going off. I just have a gut feeling about that way."
"Might as well go along with it if there's something down there that can help us in the future," Kooper said. He then looked over to Kolorado, who was also eager to see what lied down the left pathway down below. "Professor, you stay up here by this block."
"What!?" Kolorado exclaimed. "You mean all of you are going on ahead while I stay up here to watch this giant block!? And you're letting the rare creatures from another world go down there with all the dangerous traps and threats before me!?"
"One; they can take care of themselves," Bow said, giving the Koopa a blank stare. "And two; you got burnt within stepping inside of Mt. Lavalava. Who's going to be more of a liability here?"
Kolorado let out a dissatisfied grunt, crossing his arms over his chest and sulked like a five-year-old who wasn't allowed to get what he wanted. "This is turning out to be a less fun adventure if I'm going to be constantly scolded."
"Because you're not even listening to us!" Bow yelled, appearing in the spooked Koopa's face. "Clean out your ears and read my lips: Stay! Put! Or else I'm going to slap you again!"
Shaking fearfully at the thought of being slapped again, he nodded his head rapidly, promising to stay in place. "You do need to work on your people skills, Bow," Sushie commented.
"You're all thinking the same thing, right!?" she asked. Everyone seemed to mumble their agreements, to Kolorado's disappointment. "Would have been better for us to go in without him and find his stupid treasure for him while we find the Star Spirit."
"But it wouldn't be fun!" Kolorado complained, only to get a terrifying glare from Bow as she gripped her fan tightly in her hand. He instinctively hid in his shell in fright, peeking his eye through the neck of his protective body. "I'll shut up now."
"Can we get a move on!?" Rainbow asked. "We've got a world to save, and we don't have time to waste, right!? So let's go!"
Rainbow ran ahead, taking the zip line down to the bottom level or the area. Seeing Kolorado had complied with Bow's warning, the others hurried after the cyan pegasus before she ended up getting herself hurt. Passing through another similar hallway back near the entrance, their progress was halted by a river of lava flowing in the middle of the room. It was too wide for any of them to barely make it across safely, unless they were Mario. There was an upper pathway where the source of the lava was flowing out of, along with some conveniently placed blocks on the other side that were big enough to block the red river of burning hot magma. Mario jumped ahead and pushed those blocks, blocking the lava flow and shortening the deadly river enough for everyone to make it across.
In the next room, there was a big chest similar to the ones from Dry Dry Ruins and in Boo's Haunted Mansion, but it was blocked off by one of those tough red blocks they couldn't break earlier. The only way to get to it was across another river of lava, past a few Lava Bubbles floating around like guards, and jumping up the steps to access it on the other side. There were only two of the pushable blocks in the area, which wasn't enough to even try to block the lava river, and everyone wasn't that crazy enough to jump across while using them as a short makeshift bridge.
"Well, there definitely is some treasure here," Bombette said. "I wonder what's in that chest."
"Probably a new hammer," Pinkie guessed. "Which means I take Mario's old new hammer, then we both get an upgrade!"
"Are you sure it's a hammer in there, Pinkie?" Rarity asked. "That would be too much of a coincidence if that were the case."
"We did find Mario's current hammer in the Dry Dry Ruins that helped destroy those stone blocks," Goombario mentioned. "And his new shoes back in Bow's mansion when she was testing us to get through those boarded up holes in the floors. So, maybe it is a coincidence, or dumb luck that we find something to help us get farther along."
"Either way, stronger gear means easier times taking out baddies!" Pinkie concluded. She then pushed Mario forward, not too far to push him into the lava and give him a burnt behind. "Go get it, Mario! More power awaits you! And give me your other hammer when you get back!"
Once Pinkie stopped pushing him, Mario looked back at her innocent grin and let out a sigh, straightening his hat and readied himself for a running jump. He ran forward and long jumped across the lava with ease, even without the two extra blocks he could have used to make his jump simpler. After snuffing out the Lava Bubbles that spotted him with a hard whack from his hammer, the plumber jumped over the rock-like steps and reached the chest. Mario opened it up, and as Pinkie had called it, inside it was another hammer. He picked it up, which was a bit heavier than his current stone hammer, but it wasn't difficult for him to wield, colored similarly to the block not too far from him, the ends of the head yellow with the base being red.
"It really was a hammer," Twilight uttered with a groan. "It's definitely a coincidence at this point."
With there being a new block nearby, Mario decided to test just how strong the bright red and yellow mallet was. Held tightly in his hands, he approached the block, raised the hammer up, and slammed it down hard. The block instantly shattered, the heavy impact causing a small quake a couple yards around him as pieces of the metal block scattered around him. The others were just as surprised as he was, practically feeling the amount of power put into that new hammer.
"Ok, that's sure to knock some skulls in really well," Rainbow said.
"Aww! Now I want a hammer like that!" Pinkie whined. Mario rejoined the group, giving Pinkie his other hammer. "Oh well. A bit more oomph for me than with this weak hammer. Anypony want a weak hammer!?"
"That's my Goompa's hammer," Goombario said. "I'd take it back, but because I do better bonking enemies with my head, I'd like that kept safe."
"Okie dokie!" Pinkie then placed the wooden hammer in Twilight's saddlebags for safekeeping, testing out her new hammer's weight with a few swings. "Now maybe I can at least do some decent damage."
With a new hammer to help them further along, everyone began heading back to regroup with Kolorado. As soon as they arrived at the wide open area with the several cliffs and zip lines, they used a bounce spring to send them back up to the same level where they encountered the tougher red and yellow blocks. Kolorado was a bit curious to know what was down there, but if they had come back, then that meant there was no treasure down that way. Mario then smashed the block impeding their progress, opening the way further into the volcano.
"Ah! Excellent!" Kolorado said. "Let us not wait any longer! Onward to glory!" Walking through the passage, they entered another open area, where they stood on a cliff with a zip line in place to carry them to the other side of the wide gap. Down below was nothing but a dead end with more foes wandering about, and it was at least five stories below where they stood, which would leave someone with a pretty bad back if anyone walked off the edge. "Hmm...I smell treasure! Make way! I'm going on ahead!"
Kolorado ran forward, forgetting about the cliff side. "Wait! Professor!" Kooper called out.
Before he ended up running off the edge, Twilight used her magic to pull the explorer back on solid ground, planting him on his behind. "Did you forget that there's no ground in front of you and you could have fallen?"
"Hmm?" Confused, Kolorado looked down and finally noticed there was no solid ground ahead of him. "...Oh...Hehehehe. Yes. I...didn't see where I was going?"
Everyone faceplamed/hooved, even Kooper as he began losing all hope for his idol. "Professor, you really can't be aware of your surroundings before moving on?"
"Clearly not if he's too blinded by searching for ancient treasures to notice a pitfall right under his nose," Bow uttered.
After Kolorado had gained some sense of how gravity worked again, he followed the others as they all used the zip line to get across to the other side. Moving onward, they headed down yet another slightly sloped passage, some of them wondering just how deep Mt. Lavalava really was compared to how it seemed on the outside.
"Great, another boring hallway," Rainbow said with a bored sigh. "Is there anything exciting that can happen to us besides beating up bad guys?"
As if tempting fate, a heavy thud shook the ground behind them as they turned around, spotting a large, spiky stone with a face on it. With its rounded shape, it began to roll toward them. Everyone screamed in panic and quickly ran down, the faced boulder slowly gaining speed to try and catch up with them and turn them into Swiss cheese. Thankfully, it was too big to fit through the passageway, the group making it out safely as it crashed in the entrance. After they caught their breath, everyone leered at the pegasus for jinxing them, even Kolorado with his own stupid decisions earlier that only pertained to injuring himself.
"You know, it's a curse when you ask for anything to happen, or even that certain phrase none of us are ever going to say?" Pinkie said, chiding the pegasus as she looked at something the others couldn't see. "You all know that magic phrase out there! Nopony say it, even if you're reading this, otherwise bad things will happen to you, or me, or anypony else!"
Kolorado stared at Pinkie in confusion, scratching his head as looked at the wall she was staring at. "Did she stumble on her head? Who was she talking to?"
"It's Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie," the other ponies said simultaneously.
Kolorado decided to follow the mares' explanation for Pinkie's weird antics, to his curiousity and confusion. Once they gathered their bearings, they ended up in another lava-filled hallway with more stone platforms that moved back and forth, the center platform a long stretch of rock with a few fireball sticks spinning around and some Lava Bubbles. At least none of them sank into the lava, otherwise Kolorado would have had another hot footing moment. Thankfully, they made it across without getting burnt, although Pinkie and Rainbow made a game out of jumping over the sticks of fireballs, which kept going faster and faster with each jump until they imploded and turned into coins.
The next room was another spacious one, with yet more Putrid Piranhas, several more of those red and yellow metal blocks on a ledge beside them that kept another one of those rolling spike balls held in place at the top of the stairway.
"What is that thing?" Rarity asked curiously.
"I think that's some kind of Thwomp," Goombario said. "Most of them are actually rectangular, but they can also be round. Some are flat or have spikes, but one thing they love doing is waiting for victims, mostly Mario, to walk underneath them, then slam down and squish them like a pancake."
"So they're held up on the ceiling and drop down like the heavy stones they are?" Twilight asked. "And are they sentient?"
"Well, they can talk, but being held up on the ceilings is an understatement," Goombario said. "They can actually float back up once they hit the ground, only until they hit the ceiling. Thwomps can be pretty deadly if you're not careful."
"Heavy blocks of stone that can manipulate their own gravity to crush their victims...That's...terrifying to come across." Twilight could only imagine one of Bowser's fortresses having a long hallway filled with Thwomps, every single inch of the room filled with tons of solid weight threatening to squish unsuspecting intruders. She shuddered at the thought of anyone running for their lives to avoid getting squished, eventually getting crushed before they reached the end and to safety. "I kind of want to know what kind of magic they have that allowed the block ones to float up, but I'm afraid of getting crushed as their answer..."
Continuing on, Mario whacking the Putrid Piranhas with his new hammer and dealing an insane amount of damage to them while the others finished them off, they ended up reaching a dead end. There weren't any cracks in the wall, so Bombette couldn't blow up beside it to create a pathway.
"So, where do we go now?" Fluttershy asked. "I don't see another way."
"My intuition tells me it must be beyond this wall!" Kolorado said. He then approached the wall, pressing his hands against it to feel a hidden pressure switch to move it, even though they're inside a volcano and not an ancient ruin. "It should be around here somewhere..."
While everyone figured out what to do to get beyond this dead end, Mario looked back at the stairway of metal blocks and the stationary rolling Thwomp at the top. Bringing a hand to his chin, he had an idea that can help them continue forward. He then informed Twilight about his crazy plan, getting a second opinion from the intelligent alicorn.
"Hmm...That might work." She followed Mario back to the blocks, getting a lift up onto the ledge as she got a better look at the Thwomp and the angle of the stairs if the blocks were destroyed. Using her knowledge of mathematics in her head, judging the weight of the Thwomp to the slope of the stairway, getting an estimate of its maximum speed and the force of impact against the wall, she was sure that it can break through after rechecking her mental equations. "Oh, yeah. This is definitely going to work. I'm going to tell everypony to get out of its way first, and when I give you the ok, you break the blocks."
Mario gave Twilight a thumbs up and waited patiently while the alicorn trotted back to the group. Kolorado was still trying to figure out how to "open" the wall while Twilight relayed to everyone about unblocking their way.
"But what about Mario?" Fluttershy asked in concern. "Won't he get run over?"
"Not with my super speed he can use with that pendant thing he has around his neck," Rainbow said. "He can outrun it in ten seconds flat...but he's not faster than me."
"We get it, Rainbow Dash," Rarity said with a roll of her eyes. Everyone stepped out of the rolling Thwomp's path, all except Kolorado, who was still infatuated with the wall to hear them. "Kolorado? I don't believe there is any secret switch on the interior wall of a volcano. And I have a keen eye, so I can tell if there is such a switch on there."
"Wait, I think I've just about found it," Kolorado insisted, only to yelp as Twilight, yet again, enveloped her aura around him and dragged him toward them. "Hey! I was on the right track!"
"We're not going to let you get run over by a spiked, sentient rock as it crashes through the wall," Twilight said, aiming her horn up and shooting a small burst of light above them, giving Mario the signal.
With the go ahead, Mario twirled his metal hammer in his hand and began smashing through the blocks in rapid succession. As soon as he broke the last one, the Thwomp began to roll, quickly running back down the steps. It began picking up speed, slowly catching up to Mario, but he kept on running regardless of the oncoming danger of getting crushed. The ponies were a bit worried he wasn't going to make it, quickly turning to shock as he ran past them with the heavy living spiked boulder on his tail. He made a leap toward the wall, then kicked off it, leaping backwards over it, his back barely grazing the spikes as it rolled under him. The wall was broken through as Mario backflipped a couple times before landing on his feet, the plumber adjusting his hat before giving his audience a grin, followed by a thumbs up.
"...Show off," Bow commented.
The mares were speechless before Rainbow spoke up. "That...was...awesome!"
"And scary!" Pinkie Pie added. "Do it again! I wanna learn how to do wall jumps!"
Ignoring the shocked Fluttershy, Rarity, and Twilight, the former two nearly fainting after expecting Mario to get crushed, Kolorado ran on ahead. "We're getting close! The treasure must be this way!"
"Professor! What did I say about-!?" Kooper's words fell on deaf ears as his mentor went ahead of them yet again. He let out an annoyed sigh, now getting frustrated with his eagerness. "Ok, looking past his previous explorations that made him famous, he's really starting to get on my nerves running on ahead."
"Now you see how annoying he is!" Bow said. "If you want to be an explorer, don't be as dimwitted as him."
"I think Kooper's smart enough to know when to be careful and when to act like a little kid on Christmas about ready to open his presents," Bombette said in the Koopa's defense.
They chased after Kolorado, hoping he didn't end up getting into trouble or try to cry wolf again. Thankfully, he didn't wander off too far, coming back from a pathway where the rolling Thwomp kept going, where they saw it embedded into a wall on the other end as it eventually came to a stop.
"Well, it's a real dead end down that way," Kolorado said. "I could have sworn the treasure had to be close. Maybe it's further deeper in the volcano."
"Any further and we're bound to run into the Star Spirit too, as well was whatever's guarding it," Sushie said. She wiped her brow, the heat inside the volcano getting hotter and hotter the further they got. "Phew. I'm going to turn into a steamed Cheep Cheep at this rate."
"And it's only going to get hotter," Twilight said, pointing at a staircase leading down to another level. "I hope we're prepared for what's protecting the fifth Star Spirit."
"Come on, Twilight. We're going to trounce Bowser and his cronies easily with all of us," Rainbow said confidently. "It'll be a piece of cake when we save the Star Spirits, find Applejack, and show that giant dragon turtle monster not to cheat his way into taking over a kingdom!"
"Umm, he's actually a Koopa," Fluttershy mumbled.
"Even if we can outnumber him, he can really do a number on us with that Star Rod," Rarity said, reminding everyone of the powerful wand the Koopa King has. "And if he gave Tubba Blubba the power of invincibility, albeit by separating his heart from his body, who knows how much power he could have given to any of his lieutenants that are charged with guarding the other remaining Star Spirits."
"We can do this!" Watt cheered. "Umm, right?"
"Yeah. We can do this," Goombario said. "The fate of the kingdom is at stake. And if Twilight feels confident with her spell to bring her and their friends back home, so is their world without them being there."
"Or the possibility of Kammy Koopa finding a way to their world," Kooper added nervously. "If she managed to study enough of their unique magic and create some kind of portal or transportation spell to Equestria, Bowser might try to take over their kingdom if he still has the Star Rod."
"Then we have no time to lose!" Pinkie said. "Onward to the Star Spirit! Down into the depths of the volcano!"
Desperate to keep going and stop Bowser from getting any stronger, the party made their way down the stairs to continue their search for the Star Spirit. Kolorado stayed behind, taking another look around to see if there was anything he may have missed, along with not getting scolded and/or slapped in the face for running off and causing trouble again.
"Hmmm...I was able to see the lower area around here from that path," Kolorado said to himself. "Maybe I can provide a lookout just in case there's an ambush they aren't aware of. And when it's clear, I continue my search for that treasure."