//------------------------------// // Siege on Bowser's Castle (Part 2) // Story: My Little Paper Mario // by Codex92 //------------------------------// "You sure that was a good deal, Twilight?" Applejack asked as the alicorn held the map of Bowser's fortress in front of her. "All the money from this world we had left from...fightin' every enemy in our way?...Still don't know how that's a thing." "I don't think we'd have anymore use out of them now that we're already so far in the enemy stronghold," Twilight reasoned. "Besides, when I figure out a way for us to get back home, it'll probably be useless currency for us." "We could still use it," Goombario said as he pointed out himself and the other Mushroom Kingdom inhabitants. "We'll probably find more from the rest of Bowser's soldiers," Kooper said, looking over the map as the group made their way to the other hall on the other side of the foyer's upper level. "Looks pretty straightforward, although it would be helpful to see where patrol routes are in the later floors." "We can do this, guys," Parakarry assured. "We've come this far, and we're not stopping now." "Not when we got this awesome travel music accompanying us as we keep going and fight evil Koopas!" Pinkie added, humming along to a song the others didn't hear. Through the next hallway, they fought a few more guards, more Kameks firing magic spells to try to slow them down, but with Mario and Twilight working together, they managed to respectively deflect or blast through their geometrical magic attacks. Even with a few Koopatrols and a Hammer Bro. with them, they stood no chance; Sushie squirting a burst of water at the shell-tossed Koopatrols while Applejack managed to avoid the flurry of hammers and bucked the Hammer Bro. hard in the chest, definitely knocking him out cold even as an imprint of his body was made in the wall. The next room was split up in two sections, different levels connected to each other, though navigating around them was hard to figure out with the wooden 2x4's placed along the edges of a few of the platforms. Rainbow flew around to see what was on each level, finding a key sitting at the highest section near where they entered. She flew back down with it, figuring it was needed for a doorway up ahead, though it left everyone baffled by what exactly the point of these rooms were. In the next section of the room, there was a locked door which the key was definitely needed, but everyone paused as they wondered how this room was supposed to be solved. "Ok, was there supposed to be some sort of puzzle?" Twilight pondered aloud. Pinkie found a nearby spring and bounced up, finding a chained handle that reached up to the really high ceiling. "Oooh! Mystery cord! Let's see what's behind curtain number one!" Jumping up and grabbing onto the handle with her teeth, Pinkie pulled the cord and a flushing sound echoed all around the room. Suddenly, water came rushing in, making everyone yelp as they floated on the surface as the room was filled up to the second level in the room. This explained how they were supposed to solve getting that key as the hallway in the water connecting both sections was tall enough to swim when the water was up to the third level, which would have been possible with the other cord higher up. "Did that just sound like a toilet flushing when Pinkie pulled that?" Lakilester questioned. "Eww! Are we in Bowser's sewage room!?" Rarity exclaimed, flailing her hooves around with a screech as she swam over to dry land. "Why is there always something related to sewers in this world!? The warp pipes, traveling underground to get to places faster! How do you all live like this!?" "I'm sure if this was sewer water, it would be a lot filthier," Sushie said. "Water's pretty crystal clear, surprisingly." "Pinkie, do you think you can lower the water level?" Fluttershy asked. "If pulling the cord again can drain the water," Goombario hoped. Pinkie tugged on the cord again, the flushing sound effect rolling in the room again, only this time the water began draining out of the room. Once it was fully drained and everyone was standing on dry land, Pinkie rejoined the others with Rarity slowly lowering herself down, her body shuddering as she quickly tip-hooved over to the locked door. "Can we please get out of this area!?" Rarity pleaded. "I'm done with sewers!" Rainbow rolled her eyes, using the key she grabbed and unlocked the door. Rarity ran through, sighing with relief, only to yelp when she heard a blast come up from the flight of stairs beside her. Just as she was about to peek over the top of the stairs, she squeaked and ducked as a pair of golden bullets about as big as Mario flew over her head. "Ahh! What in the name of Celestia was that!?" The others hurried in the next room to see what was going on, Mario, Goombario, Kooper, and Bombette gasping as they saw golden Bullet Bills flying over them, staying parallel with the ground on the upper level at the end of the staircase. "Oh crud! Bullet Bills!" Kooper said. "Not just any Bullet Bills; they're Bombshell Bills," Goombario stated. Being one of the smallest of the group, he poked his head up at the top of the stairs, where he found what was blasting the Bombshell Bills out at them. "And they're being fired by Bombshell Bill Blasters, or B. Bill Blasters for short. They're tougher than regular Bullet Bills." "I thought Bowser had his artillery outside to keep us from flying up to the top!" Rainbow complained. "Why are they in here!?" "Ask him why he loves keeping lava pits in his castles to try to burn Mario into a fried plumber," Bow said. They could hear more blasts coming from up above, Bowser's men having set up several more pairs of B. Bill Blasters along the path leading higher and higher to try to stop them. "Thankfully, these Bombshell Bills only go straight in a line from where they're fired, unlike some of those homing ones Bowser sometimes uses," Lakilester noted. "Those can be a real pain to avoid when the lock onto you." "So, we're actually gonna run right toward them cannon things and avoid getting hit by these Bullet Bill things to get through?" Applejack asked worriedly. The ponies winced when they heard some of the Bombshell Bills flying over blowing up as they hit the wall. "Them things are gonna blow us to bits!" "Not if we work together to destroy the cannons and knock back the Bombshell Bills," Twilight said. She flared out her wings and flew up, using her magic to reroute the pair of living artillery units toward the cannons, ramming them into another pair of Bombshell Bills as they blew each other up. "We've already gotten this far, and Bowser is not going to stop us this time!" "I'm with Twilight!" Rainbow agreed. "Let's charge right in!" "I got my hammer ready, so let's whack those bullets right in the bill!" Pinkie said, pulling out her trusty mallet and gripped it tightly in her maw. Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack were a bit unsure of themselves, not willing to get blown up while struck by a Bombshell Bill of all things. They stuck to the back and followed as the others charged ahead, facing the Bombshell Bills head on and either knocking them away or pummeling them as they came right toward them. Twilight, Rainbow, Parakarry, Bow, Watt, and Lakilester flew overhead and saw three more pairs of cannons on the next raised levels of the long stairway, flying ahead to take care of the last one while the others dealt with the the other three. Mario grabbed Bombette and tossed her hard, sending her right into the barrel of one of the cannons for her to blow up inside, destroying it instantly while the close proximity of the explosion did some damage to the other. Kooper finished the second one off with his Fire Shell technique, his rapid spinning setting his shell ablaze as he dashed off and struck the B. Bill Blaster hard, shattering it to pieces while catching some of them on fire. On the next floor, Mario and Pinkie used their hammers to smack away the Bombshell Bills to clear a path for their friends. Pinkie managed to knock one of them back into a Blaster, damaging it despite how similar they both were in metals. While she continued sending more Bills into the one she's targeting in its barrel, Mario rushed toward the other one, the Lucky Star glowing orange as his fists were surrounded in a similarly colored aura. After smacking the next Bill that aimed at him, sending it sailing off and blowing up into a wall, Mario swung his hammer down with an incredible amount of power, crushing the Blaster and turning the barrel into a flat piece of metal. Pinkie finished off her cannon, actually jumping inside the barrel as several loud clanging noises could be heard inside, the cannon suddenly pointing up in the sky and fired the party pony out along with several streamers and confetti while she cheered excitedly, landing perfectly beside her new party cannon. "Ah, how I missed the party cannon," Pinkie said, giving a few hammer smacks in quick succession as she planted golden wheels on the B. Bill Blaster. "Now I've got my new patented Party Cannon Mark V, now with optional Bombshell Bills to fire and blast even more confetti!" "Uhh, 'Mark V'?" Goombario questioned. "Was there ever a Mark I? And what happened to II, III, and IV?" Instead of answering the Goomba, Pinkie pocketed her new party cannon away in the random hammerspace for her random items for future use, baffling the Mushroom Kingdom heroes before they shook their heads. "Never mind. It's Pinkie Pie." "Y'all are catchin' on quick," Applejack said, the ground troop continuing onward to the third roadblock of cannons on the other side. Up ahead, they could see the flying group dealing with the last pair of Blasters, Watt dealing a majority of the damage with her electric tackles into the metal bodies while the others dealt with the Bombshell Bills. Sushie decided to take on the Bills, puffing up her body as she unleashed a powerful torrent of water on the incoming bullets in a massive tidal wave. She even managed to drench the Blasters as she landed behind them. Goombario charged forward while buffing himself up, veins in his head pulsing as he flexed every muscle in his body, and with a mighty leap, he dove down headfirst into one of the cannons, his tough skull managing to dent the tougher gold metal, bending it more and more as he bounced on it several times until it was unable to shoot anymore Bills out of it. The last one was finished off by Sushie, squirting a blast of water into a Bombshell Bill as it was fired from the Blaster, then hit by the Cheep Cheep's incredibly tough underbelly as she belly flopped on it. With the last of the cannons destroyed, the party regrouped and continued on to the next room. It wound up being a dead end, to their surprise, but the foes in the room startled the mares yet again as they encountered Dry Bones, Kooper explaining to them this time that they were the living skeletons of Koopas. They can take the fact that there were ghosts living in the Mushroom Kingdom, some sensible and friendly like Bow and her Boos at the mansion and Gusty Gulch, but that the living dead was able to walk in this land, and were a part of Bowser's army, it made them feel sick to their stomachs. The Dry Bones weren't able to go down easy, because when they're were supposedly beaten as a crumbled pile of bones, their bodies shuddered, reassembled themselves, and were back to normal like nothing happened to them. "Oh dear Celestia, these things are like the timber wolves back home," Twilight muttered. "Only instead of being made of twigs and bark, they're made of bones..." "Ah think Ah'm gonna be sick," Applejack groaned while Fluttershy and Rarity fainted from the discovery of these undead Koopas. "Well, there's only one way to kill a zombie," Pinkie said, pulling out her Mushroom Kingdom party cannon, designed similarly to her old one with a Mushroom Kingdom artistic twist, and had it aimed at the reviving Dry Bones. "Kill it with fiyah!" She kicked the back of the cannon, the firing sound it made sounding similar to the squeaking sound her original party cannon made back home as it shot out a Bombshell Bill repainted to look pink with a big smile on its face. The speeding bullet flew past everyone, the Dry Bones rattling in surprise before it struck them, exploding on impact and turning their bones to ash from the fiery blast. "...Ok, when did she get that?" Bow asked. "Better yet, HOW did she turn one of those Blasters into that!?" "Have we not learned by now?" Parakarry answered the Boo. "I don't care as long as that cannon can help us in the future." A few more shots killed off the other Dry Bones, leaving them to figure out where to go next. As soon as she recovered, Twilight pulled out the map of the fortress, noting there was a hidden passage behind the same Bowser blocks back in the room with the guard door. Pushing aside the center block revealed the hidden hallway, moving on to another room with some more guards, this time with a door at the other end that was locked up. They moved the next center block once the room was clear of enemies and continued down the next hall into yet another similarly designed room, only this time the center block in this one was already opened to reveal the next "hidden" hallway. "Huh. That's weird," Twilight mumbled as she looked down at the map again. Pinpointing their location, she saw two different hallways that connected this section, but when she looked inside, there was only one direction as it lead to the right and not the left as well. "Two pathways, but only the right one?" Mario volunteered to check the right hallway in case it was a trap. He came back a few seconds later, shrugging his shoulders as he found nothing but a dead end. "Hmm...That's definitely interesting," Kooper commented. Feeling curious as he looked at the map again, he approached the middle block as his explorer's intuition began kicking in. "If that hall lead to the right, then there must be..." He pushed the middle block over to cover the hall, revealing an actual hidden hallway that was behind it. Going on ahead, he found the hall that actually turned left, reaching a dead end where it had the key they were looking for. Snatching it and returning back, he returned to his friends and held it out for them to see. "Jackpot! That was way too easy. It was more fun discovering secrets back in Dry Dry Ruins or Mt. Lavalava." "That's because Bowser's castle aren't ancient ruins," Twilight said. "Besides, if Bowser designed these methods of trying to confuse us, he's not that bright if it's this easy." "True," Kooper agreed. The group backtracked to the locked door and unlocked it, walking into a room similar to the guard door room back near the entrance of the fortress. And just like the last door, this one moved as well as it spotted the intruders making it halfway through the Koopa King's fortress. "Ugh, who'd have thought you'd all make it this far?" the door said, sounding exactly like the first one. "Wait, aren't you that same door who tricked us by opening that trapdoor on us!?" Pinkie exclaimed. "I'm an enchanted door. I'm connected to the only three special doors in this castle," the door answered. "You're lucky this room doesn't have a trapdoor to lock you in another cell, but this time, there's no way you'll make it through this door! The door chuckled mischievously as an idea came to mind. "But...if you are still willing to pass, I'll give you one chance. But I know it'll be impossible. For real this time." Everyone looked at each other, feeling skeptical about this chance of passing through the next doorway. "...Ok. What do we need to do?" "If we have to smell your rancid breath, count us out," Rarity said. "...Wait, do living statues even breathe?" "I may have Lord Bowser's face, but like I mentioned earlier, I am an enchanted door," the guard door said. "Anyway, if you want to pass, you'll have to answer five out of seven different questions I'm going to ask you. What's going to happen is that these blocks will rise and release some minions." He gestured his head to the three Bowser blocks against the wall as he explained. "Pay very close attention to everything and answer correctly. If you can get five of them right, I'll let you pass, but you get three wrong, then you'll have to face the worst punishment of all time, which I doubt any of you would survive." "So, basically, you're going to quiz us?" Twilight asked, giving the door a smirk as she was sure to ace this test like many others in the past. "Alright. Challenge accepted." "Alright! Bring out the minions!" The blocks rose up to reveal three different passages, and coming out running from them three Dark Koopas and four Goombas. They ran all around the room to try to confused the group as they paid attention to the scrambling foes. "Time's up!" the door exclaimed, his announcement cuing the Koopas and Goombas to return back into the halls they respectively walked out of, the blocks closing down behind them. "Now, tell me: How many Koopas were there?" "Three," Twilight quickly responded, the guard door growling as a chime was heard, a red circle appearing on the wall above the blocks. "Grr...Right," the door grumbled. "But that was an easy one! They'll only get harder! Onto the next one!" The blocks opened up again, this time releasing several Shy Guys: three red, four blue, and four green. After a few seconds of them running around, they headed back in the halls as time was up and the next question was given. "Which were there three of?" "Ok, that one's even easier!" Rainbow said. "The red Shy Guys!" Another correct chime and another grumble from the door. "Correct." The next set of enemies that ran out were two four blue Shy Guys, two red Shy Guys, and two green Bob-ombs, exiting from left to right in order. The door was getting desperate to stop them, hoping to trick them into getting a wrong answer when the groups made their leave. "Now, then...Who came out of the middle entrance!?" "Red Shy Guys," the majority of the group responded, making the door wince as they got it right. "C-Correct!" The next group for the fourth question that came out were four Shy Guys, one blue and three green, two regular Goombas, and four red-shelled Koopas. The hero party wondered if this was supposed to be difficult, especially with their numbers able to spot other things the others might not have noticed. With time up, the guard door began to ask the next question. "How many Goombas were-!?" "Two," everyone answered, giving them another correct guess and giving them their fourth circle up on the wall. The door growled, grinding its stone teeth in frustration. "C-Correct! AUUUGH! You have four right already!" he exclaimed. "Alright, that's it! No more messing around! This one's gonna be harder than ever!" The blocks raised up, but instead of a large group, there was only a Goomba, a Koopa, and a Dark Koopa. They ran around for a bit before fleeing back in the entrances. "Alright then...How many arms did you see!?" "Four," Twilight answered instantly. "Ha! That's-!" The door paused, letting out a strangled gasp of distress as the alicorn answered correctly, having expected her to get it wrong. That last correct chime rang around the room, a fifth circle appearing on the wall. It squeaked, staring at the wall, completely flabbergasted. "...T-That's...right...I can't believe you solved five of my brain-busting questions..." "They weren't even all that hard," Bombette said. "I think a five-year-old could solve those questions, even with them all running around like they were on fire." "Or getting chased by Bzzaps!" Watt added. "...Urgh...Again, I have no choice but to let you pass now...I've never felt so humiliated in my life." With a disappointed and shameful growl, the face stiffened and returned to its statue-like form, allowing the party through. "If Bowser can stop us with brute force, he can do a pretty good job," Twilight said, sounding disappointed that their supposed test to pass was nothing more of a memory game that a preschooler could get right. "Mental puzzle solving, however...I think he needs to hire somepony else to do that for him." "That Kammy Koopa seems like she's capable of giving a few brain-teasers," Goombario said. "Bowser just doesn't have the brain cells to think to agree with someone else's smarter ideas unless he likes them." "In other words: never," Rarity summarized. "Makes it easier for us to get through this gigantic floating castle of his." As they walked through the doors, they found themselves outside a section of fortress, where they could the spire of Peach's Castle getting closer the higher they climbed. They had to deal with some more guards, many of the Kameks riding on broomsticks, which made them more mobile while casting their spells to strengthen their Koopatrol allies or hinder the invading party. Luckily, the swifter flyers easily took care of them, even managing to knock them hard enough off their brooms and grounding them, being sure to swipe away their enchanted rides before they could get airborne again. They went back inside the fortress after climbing up to the bridge onto the next level, entering a second foyer that was similar to the first one further back. Checking the hall across from where they entered, they headed down a long set of stairs where they found another cell, with more Toads trapped inside along with a penguin from Shiver City taken hostage as well. The Koopatrol noticed them as they came down the stairs, but unlike the rest of his comrades, he knew he had no chance since he was the only one keeping guard over the cell and immediately gave up. He dropped the cell key and fled, none of them bothering to go after him as they unlocked the door and released the prisoners, ushering them to quickly head back to the front doors of the castle and escape via airship, hopefully using either a working clown copter or the airship the Star Spirits gave them. Heading back into the foyer, the group climbed up the stairs, Twilight looking over the map to see where to go next. Of the two pathways, the one on the left lead to a dead end, which meant their only and right way to go was the right path. In the next hall guarded by Hammer Bros., there were two doors they could go through, but the one on the lower path was locked while the one up the stairs was open. After beating up the duo of hammer tossing Koopas blocking their way, they went up the stairs into the upper room. Inside were a few platforms leading up to a room at the end, a gap separating the way to the door, though part of the flooring looked like the surface of the platforms as it missed part of the carpet, and a red switch nearby that could be reached from that oddly out of place floor. Parakarry volunteered to fly up to the door after launching himself into a Kamek, knocking the Koopa mage out cold with a good whack in the face, and inside the small room was a key they needed for the locked door outside. Making their way back down, they unlocked the door and entered a long hallway. Luckily, they were given a break from fighting as they walked down the hall, Twilight noticing the torches on the wall positioned strangely. There were six sconces with blue flames, three of them raised a few inches higher than the other three, and in a specific order: up, down, down, up, down, up. The alicorn stopped and looked at the map again, Pinkie ignoring everyone as they all stopped when Twilight did as she bounced over to the other end where there were two paths, one up a flight of stairs and the other at ground level. On the map, there was only one room split between this long hall and the other few remaining rooms until they reached the top of the fortress, the next room marked with a "x6" above it. "I hate how simplistic the layout of the map is that Spiked Goomba gave us," Twilight muttered. "Are there really six more rooms up ahead?" Pinkie bounced through the lower door, but once the door closed, everyone turned around when they heard her yelp echo in the hallway, letting out a grunt as she landed on her belly as she hit the ground. "...I'm ok!" "Pinkie? I thought you went through the door," Fluttershy pondered aloud. "I did!" Pinkie said, bouncing back to the others. "It was so weird, I walked through, and suddenly, there was no ground and I fell! Now I'm back here!...Weird." "...Is this...Pinkie being her weird self again?" Lakilester asked. "I...don't even know myself," Twilight uttered. Feeling curious, she gave Kooper the map and tested something. She went to the lower door and walked through, winding up back at the beginning of the hall like Pinkie had through the enchanted hole above the door where they first entered. Everyone was even more confused, seeing how this wasn't some sort of random antic of Pinkie's that caused her to start over. "Hmm...Interesting..." Twilight flew over to the upper door this time, and when she went through, she walked into a different room this time: a stairway junction where there were doors on both floors, though she ignored the lower one on her side considering they possibly needed to keep moving to progress. She tried the upper doorway again, winding up back at the beginning of the hall where the others waited by the stairway. Looking back at the wall of blue flaming torches, she figured out the little puzzle as they were connected to the multiple rooms and which door they needed to go through. "That took a while for the door to mess up," Rainbow said. "Actually, I know what we need to do," Twilight said as she regrouped with the others. "Did you guys notice how those torches are placed on that wall? It's not a design flaw; it's the solution to getting through those doors." "Solution?" Bow asked skeptically. "You mean those torches are some kind of clue?" "When Pinkie went through that bottom doorway, she wound up back near the beginning, falling out from that dark passage up there," Twilight explained, pointing at the enchanted hall where she and Pinkie ended up coming out of when they went in the wrong door. "When I went through the upper doorway after testing what the lower one did, I was in a completely different room. But when I went through the upper door in that room, it brought me back here, which meant that the lower door must have been the right answer in that room." Kooper looked at the wall of torches, slowly getting what Twilight was saying. "So, there's a pattern we need to follow to progress through the enchanted rooms. And the correct path is given with that subtle hint from the sconces' positions...Gotta say that that's actually...kind of clever." "Probably not Bowser's idea, but if it does, maybe there are some brain cells that have some sense in his thick skull," Bombette said. Twilight lead the way as she followed the directions the torches gave them. It was a bit tedious going up and down the stairs in the six rooms beyond, but they were making progress until they finally reached the end of the enchanted hallways, now in a massive hallway with only a long bridge stretching between the doorways. There was nothing but the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and the enemies in their way, apparently the last line of defense before they reached the end of their goal. The Kameks, Koopatrols, and Hammer Bros. went all out to try to stop them, but the party's skills were much greater and made short work of the roadblock keeping them from their king and the princess he's held captive. Once the elite Koopas were defeated, they hurried across the other side as they were only a long hallway, a short room, and a climb up some stairs to the roof of the fortress where Peach's Castle rests. In the Sanctuary of Star Haven, the Star Spirits waited anxiously for the moment Mario and his friends met face to face with Bowser to pull off the Star Beam. They could tell they were facing some seriously tough foes, but despite the danger, they managed to pull through. Even though Mario didn't need to call them for assistance, they trusted that their numbers and abilities would be enough for their siege on Bowser's Castle. Muskular was on edge as he worried about Twink, wondering how the young Star Kid was doing after getting knocked all the way to Star Haven from Bowser. He wanted to leave his post to check on him, but as a Star Spirit, he had a duty to uphold, and keeping Bowser from using the Star Rod to make himself invincible when the Mushroom Kingdom heroes and six ponies confronted the Koopa King. Back in the city of Stars, the Star watching over Twink in the Toad House kept a close eye on him while cleaning around the building. Twink let out a weak groan, squinting his eyes open as he looked at the ceiling of the tented building, recognizing where he was in the city he had only recently seen almost a couple weeks ago. He sat up in the bed, still feeling sore from getting slashed out of Peach's Castle by Bowser. Remembering how badly the princess needed him, he ignored his pain and floated out of the bed, only to grunt and fall to the ground. "Oh, goodness!" the Star exclaimed as he heard Twink fall. He floated over to the Star Kid, setting him back down on the bed despite his squirming complaints. "Twink, you mustn't move yet! You've taken quite a serious injury!" "T-The princess...needs my help," Twink groaned as he tried to float up, but the Star lowered him back down in the bed. "Not in your condition," he said. "Don't worry about Princess Peach. Mario's on his way as we speak, and he'll stop Bowser and save her with his friends. For now, you need to rest, ok?" Twink grumbled, but complied as he laid down. He didn't care if he was hurt when Peach was in trouble, tied up and being held hostage by Bowser while waiting for Mario to arrive. The Star in charge of the Toad House told Twink he'll be right back as he headed out to get him something to eat, though that gave him the opportunity to sneak away, which would actually be a challenge with the fenced walls for the houses in Star Haven. He floated out of bed, nearly falling down again, but he fought through the pain as he snuck out the door. Making sure no other Stars were outside or looked his way, Twink flew off into the sky, making his way back to Peach's Castle, determined to help no matter how hurt he was. He felt like he needed to be there, having a bad feeling that whatever backup plan Kammy had in store for Mario, Twilight, and the rest of the group would end up turning the tide in Bowser's favor.