If a Tree Falls in the Forest...
When Toph woke up, she couldn’t feel her legs. Panic rising, she punched the ground, sending out a pulse, allowing her to sense that she still had her legs, they just… weren’t moving. She ground her teeth and let out a harsh growl.
“Oh, you’re awake!” Cosmo said, walking over to her. “How do you feel?”
“Like half a person,” Toph said through gritted teeth. “...Can’t feel the legs.”
“Twilight couldn’t fix Caspian’s broken arms or ribs either, even with the power of the stars…” Cosmo shook her head. “We need to get you back to Flipside.”
“Heart first,” Toph said, slapping her hand down again. “Then we go.”
“The Metarex are still playing games with us,” Cosmo said. “And Twilight… isn’t doing very well.”
“Ugh, I’m just heavily injured, that’s not an excuse to mope around! I’ll be fine!” I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.
“That’s… not what’s bothering her.”
“Huh?”
“She almost cut O’Chunks in half. If Tippi hadn’t stopped her…”
Toph wanted to say that Twilight should have gone through with it, but she couldn’t bring herself to say such a thing. O’Chunks had never been that dangerous of an enemy, he’d always fought without any intention to really hurt anyone, just a desire to win. What he’d done to her… that was Dimentio’s fault, not O’Chunks’. If Toph had to guess, the poor man was probably scared out of his mind right now.
“Help me up,” Toph said.
“You can’t walk…”
“Then carry me!”
“Data?” Cosmo said, gesturing for him to come over. He did as asked, picking Toph up with his left arm—the one that was working.
“Take me to Twilight.”
She wasn’t far away—there weren’t very many places to go on the glass platform in the midst of the rainbow energy. It had apparently healed itself after the Metarex had crashed into it since there was no sign of damage. Twilight was sitting on the edge, staring directly at the indigo Pure Heart in the distance.
“Hey. Twiggy.”
Twilight looked up, eyes red. “Toph, you’re… you’re okay.”
Toph decided not to mention that her legs weren’t working. Data set her down next to Twilight.
“So, why aren’t you going after the Heart?” Toph asked. “We all need to get back to Flipside.”
“Because I don’t want to do what we need to do.” She lifted a star-shaped object off the ground. “This is what made O’Chunks so strong. I could give it to someone, and they could go get the Pure Heart. But… whoever takes it will lose themselves, and I’m not sure how to get it out of them short of beating them into submission.”
“So? Any one of us would totally go for getting bashed into the ground for the mission.”
“I… I just don’t want to take th—”
“Suck it up,” Toph said. “You can’t just keep making easy decisions: you’re going to have to make hard ones. How much force are you willing to use? Is there another way? Are you going to have to do something terrible? You might. But you also might not.” Toph tapped Twilight in the chest. “But you can’t avoid making the decision.”
Twilight sighed. “You’re right…” She sucked in a deep breath. “Data, gather everyone together. We need to make a decision.”
Shortly thereafter, everyone was standing or sitting in a circle in the center of the glass platform. Twilight threw the star into the middle of the ring. “This is a star of what I’m going to call 'cosmic potential.' It will unlock every hidden niche within someone’s body, at the cost of essentially removing their mind. Whoever takes this will do whatever they’re ordered to do to the best of their ability, but they will have no restraint. No… control. And to get the star back out, they will have to be beaten within an inch of their lives. It is a hard task, but with the Metarex keeping the Heart out of our grasp, I think we need to take it. The only question is… who?”
“It will have to be someone with enough hidden potential,” Tippi said. “Someone who isn’t heavily injured. That leaves Caspian, Data, and Toph out.”
Toph snorted. “If I wasn’t down for the count, I’d be the best candidate and you all know it.”
“Yes… and I know you want to,” Tippi said. “But it won’t work. Similarly, I don’t think it’ll work for me. If this goes downhill, I need to keep my mind so I can find the Pure Hearts.”
“Which leaves me, Vivian, and Cosmo,” Twilight said.
“You shouldn’t go,” Cosmo said. “We need you as a leader.”
“But I—”
“Don’t ignore your subjects,” Caspian chided. “They really do need you. Both here… and back in the world you come from.”
“Equestria could survive without me.”
“Perhaps. But could this group?”
Twilight sagged her head. “Possibly, but it would… all right, fine, I won’t do it.”
“So… me or Cosmo?” Vivian swallowed hard. “I… I’ll do it, but my power might be…”
“Unwieldy? Dark?” Cosmo smiled softly. “Don’t worry Vivian, you won’t have to. I’ll do it. I’m generally the least useful anyway.”
“Don’t say that!” Tippi fluttered to her face. “You keep us together!”
“I know… and thank you for reminding me. But I’m usually useless in physical matters. Please… let me do this.”
“...What about Tails?” Twilight asked.
Cosmo closed her eyes. “He… will understand.”
“Okay.” Twilight levitated the star over to her. “You… can take it. Remember, we’re going to get you back.”
“By beating the tar out of you,” Toph winked.
Cosmo laughed nervously. “Looking forward to that…” She picked the star up in her hands, looking into its shimmering surface. “...I just want you to know, I love all of you. This relatively short time I’ve spent with you… it’s been amazing. Thank you.”
“Don’t… talk like that,” Tippi said. “We’re getting you back after this.”
“I know. But there’s a chance I won’t be the same when I come out. I… want you to remember this, just in case. Now…” She took a deep breath and clapped her hands over the star. It shattered into dust that flooded into Cosmo’s face, turning her eyes a shimmering rainbow color. Her nervous smile vanished, replaced with a blank, robotic look similar to Data’s. Her posture became rigid and as flat as a board, her only motion a slow, controlled breathing.
Twilight grimaced. “Cosmo. Are you ready to undertake your… mission?”
“Yes,” Cosmo droned.
“Go. Get the Pure Heart.”
Cosmo grew slightly in height, taking a more slender body shape. Her leaves extended and her rounded fingers sharpened to points like rose thorns. A shimmering glow not unlike sunlight began to emanate from every part of her, focusing on the rosebuds coming out of her head. With a vibrant flourish, the buds bloomed into dual flowers, each one glowing with the rainbow power of the starmen.
She twisted herself around and floated, lazily, toward the Pure Heart. The traps of the gauntlet activated first, shooting fire, bullets, and spikes at her. The moment anything approached her, however, it disintegrated into golden dust that matched the hue of her sunlight. Seeing her approach, the Metarex released a barrage of attacks, only for these to disintegrate as well. Then again, this mattered little to them—they just crashed into the Pure Heart again, sending it fleeing from the unworthy to another part of the gauntlet.
Cosmo stopped approaching the Heart. Whatever was inside of her recognized that simply drifting to the Heart was not the solution. So she returned to the center of the gauntlet. However, she did not come in defeat—she came to act.
Sensing that they should move, Twilight jumped off the glass platform and levitated everyone into their Metarex ship. Cosmo ignored their motion, landing in the center of the platform and pressing her hands together. The light emanating from her became more intense until she appeared as little more than a white star—a white star that grew in height several times before dimming enough for them to see what it was.
Cosmo had become a massive tree, roots spreading throughout the center of the gauntlet. Her leaves sparkled in the light of the miniature stars. Slowly, vines grew out of her branches and claimed the starmen, absorbing their power to grow even more. These vines reached out and surrounded the Metarex ship Twilight and company were in, but didn’t destroy it, merely using it as a platform to reach a drifting planet behind it, and the platform behind that…
Vines snaked off from the center of the gauntlet in all directions, overrunning every trap within. The chainsaws stopped running, the monsters stopped spawning, and whenever Cosmo’s reach touched an area with plants, every plant there grew several times its size and began helping claim the gauntlet.
The Metarex ships attempted to destroy the vines, but there were too many of them. Several vines coiled into spikes and punctured the Metarex ships’ cores, detonating them until nothing was left. Those few who were smart enough to leave the gauntlet found that their longer-range attacks still did almost nothing to the eternally growing plant.
“...How are we going to beat up a giant tree?” Vivian asked.
Twilight didn’t answer, because she had no idea.
The Metarex bumped into the Heart one last time as the vines approached it, but this time when the Heart jumped to the other end of the gauntlet, the vines were already there. It accepted their touch, allowing the green tangle to surround the Heart and transport it all the way back to the center. The vines released the Heart right in front of Twilight, allowing it to bathe her in its indigo light.
She took it in her magic, swallowing hard. “...We have it.”
“How do we get Cosmo back?” Vivian asked. “How do we…?”
Twilight felt something change. The magic of the star Cosmo had taken was suddenly gone, and she swore she heard laughter coming from somewhere in the distance. The leaves of the central tree started to turn brown and wither.
“Cosmo!” Twilight shouted, running to the tree and laying her hooves on it. “Cosmo, no, don’t do this! Yo—”
Part of the bark in the side of the tree exploded outward, revealing a green, humanoid shape covered in sap with two rosebuds on her head.
“C-cosmo?” Twilight stammered. “H-how?”
“I don’t…” Cosmo held her hand to her head, falling over, where Twilight caught her—getting tree sap all over her coat.
“That… that shouldn’t have happened,” Twilight said, looking Cosmo in the eye. “The star wasn’t supposed to run out, you couldn’t have been… I…” In that moment, Twilight shut off the part of her brain that needed explanations. She no longer cared—she pulled Cosmo into a great big hug, squeezing the weak Seedrian. “Cosmo…”
Cosmo, though weak, still squeezed her. “It… it was so beautiful and so terrifying and I felt like… like I was everything and nothing and…” She lit up. “I… I entered the Mother state. I…” She looked out at the vines spread throughout the gauntlet—most of them were flowering.
Tears started falling from her face. “I never thought I’d be able to without…”
“What?” Twilight asked.
“My species… reproduces sacrificially. When we… become the Mother Tree, we cannot go back. But my flowers are out there, ready to seed, which… I thought could never be, without another member of my race…” She fell to her knees. “I’m not going to be the last Seedrian!”
Twilight lit up. “That’s… that’s amazing!”
“This is the best day ever!” Cosmo cheered. “Ye—”
The Metarex ship sitting outside the gauntlet fired a barrage of missiles. Not at them—at the planetoid Sir Grodus was on. At the blue launch star they had arrived next to.
The firepower shattered the metal construct into a thousand tiny pieces and disintegrated the hemispherical planetoid. With the launch star went their only way to return home.
They were trapped.
~~~
Dimentio looked at the green ball of the gauntlet from a distance. He chuckled to himself, twirling a branch from a male Seedrian in his hand. “I do hope they appreciate my present! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha!” With a burst of rippling spacetime, he was gone.
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...Oh. That's not good. Without her legs, Toph is... well, even more blind. And she's the best fighter of the group too...
I always forget that Toph is capable of giving good life advice.
I mean, she has a phaser, but... Cosmo needs some kind of weapon. Something... I dunno. Something cool. Unexpected. Preferably heavy.
Awww... We love you too, weird alien plant seed person.
She's Digivolving!
Huh, a giant tree. For some reason this reminds me of... something. Something's... nagging at me. There was something about a tree, and the Void, but... I can't quite... eh, I'm sure it's nothing.
Punch it. Works for Steve Minecraft!
We... got a Pure Heart?
Well, that sure is convenient and not suspicious in any way shape or form. Nope, not at all.
Well, that's one way to prevent Sonic X's downer ending. And I like how, of all the universes to be a host to a species from Sonic's universe, it's Mario's. Cute.
...Well then. This bodes... not good. Stranded in deep space. ...At least there's tree?
Aw, thanks Dimentio, you little scamp! Love you too, and thanks a bunch for not ending the heroes journey right here, allowing them to continue on and potentially stop your boss in the not to distant future. Very helpful.
Our heroes have... claimed the next Pure Heart? Well, it seems like they have, at least, but now they're stuck. No way back to Flipside, no way to return the Heart... What will they do next? Will they succumb to despair? Will they find a genius way out? Will there be a Deus ex Machina? Will the Enterprise finally get to play the hero? The heroes may have the Heart, but it's not End of Chapter just yet...
And even the miracles are corrupted by him
Well. This is a mixed bag. The question becomes whether Rosalina is aware of these goings-on, and what she may do about them. If nothing else, the fact that they got the Pure Heart may mean she'll let the Enterprise act as a taxi service. We'll see what happens.
And seriously, the Metarex really need to learn some sportsmanship.
10939328
Original version of Japan and European translation, he is a boy that looks like a girl, and wants to be threated and accepted as a girl by his sisters, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_(Paper_Mario) , it is mentioned there. If you meet a girl, who is actually a boy that looks like a girl, would you like to know that fact? or rather never knownig?, considering she/he is now your friend?, in my opinion, she/he not telling is considered a lie and deception.
It would good to know which version of vivian is she/he, american version, which is a real girl, or original version.
10939360
That's the most backwards way of thinking I've heard in a while. If someone is trans, they are not "secretly a boy or girl," they are their stated gender. It is not deception. It is simply a fact that, unfortunately, not everyone accepts so readily. Biological sex is not the same as gender, as you would learn in any anthropological or sociological class. Vivian is not "secretly a boy". Vivian is a girl. It's that simple.