Information

Bob-omb has a minion!

⭐ the Starguardian

Bob-omb

The

Darkmatter Blob
Owner:

Balloon

Age: 6 years, 6 months, 5 days

Born: November 13th, 2017

Adopted: 5 months, 2 weeks, 2 days ago

Adopted: December 2nd, 2023

This pet has been nominated for the Pet Spotlight!

Statistics

Level: 107
Strength: 165
Defense: 66
Speed: 22
Health: 59
HP: 59/59
Intelligence: 240
Books Read: 238
Food Eaten: 70
Job: Ardent Art Archivist

Ardent Art Archivist at the Delphi Museum of Modern Art

You've got to get yourself together.
You've got stuck in a moment,
And you can't get out of it.

Don't say that later will be better.
Now you're stuck in a moment,
And you can't get out of it.

Life in Bob-omb Village had always been quiet and peaceful, until the rumors started.

Sparky—one particular little Bob-omb who lived in a small wooden house on a plateau near the top of the mountain overlooking the village—didn't pay much attention to them at first. He'd never been very interested in gossip. Yet after Downtown City was flooded, Sparky had no choice but to listen, because the Bob-ombs who had lived there came to his village seeking shelter after their own homes were destroyed.

“It's just like what happened in Dry Town!” one of the refugee Bob-ombs was telling a Goomba as Sparky passed by them on his way to pick some flowers from a patch that grew near the Goomba's house. “It was that horrible man with the mustache and the red hat. I warned him not to enter our sacred temple because it would anger the gods and the rivers would overflow—and he went right on in anyway! And then as if flooding our city wasn't bad enough, he stole our Power Star too on his way out! We barely made it out alive!”

The Goomba frowned and argued, “Red hat? I heard that Bob-omb from The City say it was a man with a green hat that flooded his home!”

“Red, green, whatever!” grumbled the refugee Bob-omb. “The point is that some psycho is going around destroying our lives! Even when he doesn't flood a place, he takes all its Power Stars so the inhabitants don't have any source of energy. Bob-omb River got it the worst—after that mustached monster took some of its Stars, a war broke out among the Bob-ombs living there who had to fight for what resources were left. And he kept coming back! The more Stars he stole, the colder it got until the whole place froze over. . . then when the ice finally melted, it flooded the entire valley. Anywhere that man has been, he's left a wasteland behind!”

Sparky had shivered and slunk away to the flower patch, although by then he was so worried that even the smiling pink and yellow flowers couldn't cheer him up. As he sat in their midst, he wondered, Could one person really have destroyed so many places? Maybe there's two of them, and that's why some say he has a red hat and some say he has a green one.

However many of them there really are. . . what if they come here and take our Power Star?

He tried to tell himself that Bob-omb Village's Star was so well-hidden, no outsider could ever find it. You couldn't even see the Star until you had visited five secret spots in the village—the doorways of each of the houses.

But I bet the other towns' Stars were hidden pretty well too, Sparky thought dismally. I guess we just have to hope no one with a mustache ever finds his way here.

That hope was shattered only a few days later, when Sparky looked down from the plateau to see a human man with a mustache—and, he noted, a green hat—far down below, near the flower patch. He appeared to be talking to the Bob-omb who'd come from Downtown City. Sparky wondered if the refugee Bob-omb might be able to scare the Mustache Man off somehow, but to his dismay, the human ignored whatever he'd said and instead wandered further into the village.

From his vantage point, Sparky watched the man's progress as he went from house to house—first the Goomba's house (the Goomba appeared to yell at him, to no effect), then each of the others.

He stopped in the doorway of each one, and with growing dread, Sparky realized that the Mustache Man somehow knew how to find their Power Star and intended to take it, just like he had all the others.

The last secret spot was the doorway to Sparky's own house, and he paced in front of it as the intruder made his way up to the plateau. Another house stood next door, and the Mustache Man paused in its doorway before turning to look over at Sparky and his home.

Sparky narrowed his oval-shaped eyes and tried to look threatening. Despite his species' reputation for having short fuses (no pun intended), Sparky was a peace-loving Bob-omb and didn't want to resort to violence.

And as he looked up at the Mustache Man, he realized that the human didn't look very threatening himself. In fact, he looked rather bewildered, with wide blue eyes that stared back down at Sparky. It gave the Bob-omb some hope that maybe the stranger could be reasoned with.

“Please, don't take our Power Star!” Sparky begged him. “We need it!”

The Mustache Man's face fell as he told Sparky, “I—I'm sorry, but I have to. I need it too.”

“What for?” demanded Sparky. “We need it because it's our only source of energy! Without it, our village will freeze! What do you need it for? You've taken so many other Bob-ombs' Stars—why do you need ours too?”

The green-hatted man's eyes dropped to look at his feet as he mumbled, “You wouldn't understand. I don't. . . I don't really understand myself. Do you know who Bowser is?”

“Of course!” Sparky said impatiently. “He's the one who gave us our Star in the first place! Most of us here in Bob-omb Village used to be part of the Koopa Army, but we didn't like fighting and hurting people. So since we'd be no good as soldiers, King Bowser let us leave to go live in peace, along with a Power Star to give us energy.”

The Mustache Man's eyes had lifted back to Sparky's face and widened as the Bob-omb spoke. He asked, “He just. . . gave you a Star and let you go?”

“Yeah!” Sparky nodded. “So it belongs to us, and you don't have any right to steal it!”

The human frowned and countered, “But Bowser stole it! He broke into Princess Peach's castle in the Mushroom Kingdom, and took all of the Power Stars there—and he kidnapped the princess! Again. My brother Mario and I went to the castle to help her, and we have to find all the Stars so we can fix things.”

Sparky cocked himself to one side and regarded the Mustache Man suspiciously. “Yeah? Fix what things? How?”

“I—I, uh. . . .” The man's shoulders slumped, and he sighed, “I don't know. Something's—something's wrong. Mario and I got separated as soon as we got to the castle, and I can't find him. I haven't been able to find Princess Peach either—at least not the real Princess Peach—and Bowser. . . .”

The Mustache Man trailed off a moment and dropped his eyes again as he mumbled, “I came across him a couple times, but I don't know that that was the real Bowser, either. He wasn't acting like himself, and his eyes. . . . But anyway, not only can't I find any of them, I can't leave the castle! Every door just goes to another part of it. There's all these paintings everywhere that I can jump in, and those go to other worlds like this one, but every time I leave one of them, I just end up back in the stupid castle again! I'm trapped. . . and I'm all alone.”

The Mustache Man raised his eyes to meet Sparky's once more as he finished in a miserable voice, “I keep hoping that if I can just get enough Power Stars, something else will happen. That some door will open, somewhere, and I'll be able find my brother and we can rescue the princess. . . and then Mario and I can leave the castle and go home. So maybe your Star will do it. Maybe one more Star will be enough.”

Sparky felt sorry for him. Despite what the other Bob-omb had said, the Mustache Man didn't seem like a monster at all. . . just a confused, gentle, and very lonely man. But Sparky wasn't a monster either, nor were the other Bob-ombs or the Goombas or any of the other creatures whose lives were being ruined by the Mustache Man's actions.

“Even if it will be enough, what about us?” Sparky cried. “You want to go home, but these places—maybe they're just living paintings to you, but they're our homes! There's got to be some other way for you to save your friends and escape.”

His words had no effect. The Mustache Man only averted his eyes again and muttered, “If there was, I would have found it by now. There's no other escape for me—or for you, either. You're trapped just as much as I am. I've seen how your worlds change because of the things I do. . . but the changes don't stick. If I take your Power Star now and go back to the castle, then turn around and jump back into the same painting, everything here will be just like it was before. No matter what I do, nothing will ever truly change for you, so I've got to keep trying to change things for me and Mario, and for Princess Peach, and—and for Bowser too! I'm sorry, but it has to be this way. Try not to worry, okay? You'll be fine.”

He started towards Sparky's doorway, the last secret spot protecting the village's Power Star. Sparky narrowed his eyes further and ignited his fuse. He'd never blown up before and was afraid he might not respawn like the other Bob-ombs did.

But it has to be this way, he thought.

He ran at the Mustache Man, but to the little Bob-omb's abject humiliation, the man simply caught Sparky in both hands, lifted him in the air, and threw him some distance away. When Sparky hit the ground, he exploded and everything went black. . . .

. . . But only for a few seconds before he did indeed respawn, right in front of his own house. Still, those few seconds had bought the Mustache Man enough time to reach the secret place, and as he stepped into Sparky's doorway, the Power Star appeared hovering in the air in the space between Sparky's house and the one next door. The bright yellow star blinked its black eyes in confusion as it looked down first at Sparky's familiar face, then at the stranger who'd summoned it.

“Don't take it, please!” Sparky cried in a last, desperate attempt to stop the inevitable.

As he approached the star, the Mustache Man looked back over his shoulder at the Bob-omb and said as before, “I'm sorry. . . but don't worry. You'll be fine.”

“That's just what you think!” shouted Sparky in response. “You don't know!”

“Yes, I do,” the man replied. “The paintings in the castle that lead to these worlds—they don't ever change, and whatever a painting shows is always what I find in the world on the other side.”

Sparky demanded, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“The painting I went through to get here—it's a painting of you,” the Mustache Man explained. To Sparky's amazement, he smiled a little beneath his mustache. “So I know that you're always going to be here, little guy, safe and sound.”

A painting of me? Sparky marveled. Someone painted a picture of me?

The bit of pride he felt over that didn't last. When the Mustache Man jumped up into the air and grabbed the Power Star, its eyes widened with alarm as it realized that he intended to take it from its home. It cast an anguished last look down at Sparky just before both it and the man disappeared.

The Mustache Man was wrong: Sparky wasn't fine.

None of them were. Without their Power Star and the energy it brought to the town, Bob-omb Village began to freeze over just like Bob-omb River had. As time passed, many of the villagers left, and the few who stayed tore down their houses one by one to burn the wood for fuel, until only Sparky's house remained standing. Even the waterfall froze over, and Sparky's beloved flowers had long since withered and died.

Worst of all was the feeling of darkness and malevolence that now hung over what little was left of the village. “Dark energy” the Bob-omb from Downtown City called it. The Goomba scoffed at that and bluntly called it an “evil spirit.” He even claimed to have seen it, a shadowy figure lurking around the mountain. The refugee Bob-omb rolled his eyes, but despite their bickering, they and everyone else agreed that they couldn't stay in the village any longer.

“There's nothing left but this one house,” the refugee Bob-omb told them as the remaining Bob-ombs and Goombas all huddled in Sparky's home to take shelter from the icy wind and perpetually falling snow. “We don't have any more food or anything else to burn for warmth—if we don't leave and find a new home, we'll die!”

“But where can we go?” Sparky asked him, trying to keep his voice from shaking with cold and fear. “We'll freeze before we can make it to some place warmer!”

The other Bob-omb murmured, “I'll create a warp, here in your house. It'll take us somewhere else.”

“You can just make warps wherever you please?” retorted the Goomba skeptically. “Since when?”

“Since always!” snapped the Bob-omb. “I wouldn't have been appointed the guardian of Downtown City's sacred temple if I didn't have some special powers! That's how all of us got here when the city was flooded: I made a warp that ended up leading to here.”

The Goomba raised an eyebrow. “'Ended up'? You mean that when you make a warp, you don't know where it will lead?”

“Well. . . no,” muttered the Bob-omb defensively. “I said I had some special powers, not all of them. But wherever it leads, it'll lead somewhere else. . . and that's the only way we're going to survive.”

The Goomba agreed—albeit reluctantly—and so did everyone else. Sparky hated the thought of leaving the only home he'd ever known, especially since he had no idea where he was going. . . but anything was better than freezing to death, alone in the world the Mustache Man had destroyed despite all his reassurances that everything would be “fine.”

After he created the warp via a process Sparky didn't understand in the least, the refugee Bob-omb ushered the other survivors through, until only he, the Goomba, and Sparky remained behind.

“You two go ahead,” Sparky told them. “I'll follow you.”

The other Bob-omb and the Goomba exchanged worried glances; then the Goomba frowned and prompted, “You are coming, aren't you? We're not just gonna leave you behind, Sparky.”

“Yeah, I'm coming—I promise!” Sparky swore. “I don't want to die or anything! I just. . . I want to take one last look around before I go.” He didn't admit the rest of it: he was afraid that he might start to cry as he said goodbye to his home, and he didn't want the others to see.

They might have figured it out anyway, because both of them nodded and the other Bob-omb said, pretty gently for him, “Okay, just make it quick. We'll see you on the other side.”

“Yeah, see ya,” said the Goomba. He gave Sparky a smile before the two of them turned and disappeared through the warp together.

Left all alone in the frozen remnants of his world, Sparky walked outside into the frigid wind and snow, wincing as he made his way to the edge of the plateau and gazed down into the valley below. As he'd feared, he felt tears start to well up in his eyes when he looked at what had once been his favorite flower patch, the spot where the Goomba's house used to stand, and the flat stone platform where the Bob-omb from Downtown City used to hang out, watching for intruders. It was there that he'd accosted the Mustache Man the day he appeared in Bob-omb Village. . . .

. . . And it was there that the Mustache Man again materialized into the world he'd destroyed, before Sparky's very eyes. Those eyes widened, and Sparky's fuse almost ignited in surprise as he wondered if maybe he was going crazy and hallucinating. But he didn't think so. The man, who had apparently warped in from somewhere else, looked very real with the bright green of his hat and the way he wrapped his arms around himself and shivered as he glanced around.

I guess now he knows what effect his actions had on us, Sparky thought, although he didn't have the heart to feel smug about it. Maybe he'll be fine someday, him and his brother and his princess. . . but not us.

Then Sparky realized that things weren't going to be fine for the Mustache Man at all, because the omnipresent depressing feeling of the town's “dark energy” heightened abruptly—and for the first time, Sparky saw the shadowy figure the Goomba claimed haunted Bob-omb Village. It was descending from the top of the mountain, drifting downward through the air. . . straight towards the shivering Mustache Man.

He saw it too, and Sparky could hear his terrified yelp of “Mamma mia!” even from that far away. Sparky could understand just how frightening the apparition must be to the man, even more frightening than it was to Sparky, because it looked just like him: another Mustache Man his exact height and shape, wearing the same hat and the same mustache. . . except this horrendous doppelganger was literally made of shadows, solid black from head to toe save for its glowing red eyes.

That's because it's his dark energy that's been haunting us ever since he took our Star, thought Sparky frantically. It's the ghost of what he's done to our world and all the others—and it's going to destroy him. Despite how bad it made us feel, it never actually hurt us. . . but it's going to hurt him.

The others—the refugee Bob-omb and the Goomba and all the rest—might have said that was no worse than what the Mustache Man deserved for all the destruction he'd caused. Yet in a flash, Sparky remembered the man's kind eyes and gentle smile, the loving way he'd spoken of his brother and the princess, and his concern even for King Bowser, his enemy.

He's not a bad person, not really. What happened to him wasn't his fault, any more than what happened to us was ours—he's only been reacting to his fate as best he knows how, just like us. He doesn't deserve this! It wasn't his fault!

Sparky lit his fuse, not to self-destruct but as a beacon, and shouted down from the plateau, “Run!” The Mustache Man tore his eyes away from his nightmarish living shadow and stared in shock up at the little Bob-omb high above him.

“Run!” Sparky yelled again. “This way!”

He was afraid the man would just stand there like an idiot until the shadowy figure reached him, but at the Bob-omb's second cry, the human took off running. Sparky watched anxiously, wondering if the Mustache Man was fast enough to escape the pursuing figure as he pelted up the side of the mountain, darting along the paths and jumping up the cliffs heading towards the light of Sparky's glowing fuse. The shadowy figure kept after him, but it didn't speed up, and somewhat to Sparky's amazement the Mustache Man really was fast enough.

He hurtled up the path to the plateau and staggered to a stop in front of Sparky, trying to speak through gasps for breath.

“You—!” he panted. “Bob-omb—!”

“In here!” Sparky ordered, running to the doorway of his house and pointing inside with his fuse. “There's a warp in my house!”

“But you—” the Mustache Man began again.

Seeing the shadowy figure appear over the edge of the plateau, Sparky screamed, “Go!” and threw himself against the Mustache Man's legs to shove him into the house. The human man in the green hat stumbled forward and disappeared through the warp just as the shadowy figure reached the doorway.

Sparky looked up at it in terror, certain that he was about to die in the Mustache Man's stead. The apparition stared back at him with its blank red eyes. . . and then it began to dissolve, like a shadow chased away by the dawn. It dissipated into a black mist that was swept off by the same wind that carried the snow, then vanished entirely.

The heavy, depressing feeling dissipated as well. Nothing else changed—the village was still dead—but there was no more sorrow or bitterness, no more ghost of wrong choices made.

There was nothing left but one small Bob-omb, standing alone in the wind and the snow.

That thing wasn't made of his dark energy after all, Sparky now understood. It was made of ours, our anger and resentment. Then once everyone else had gone and it was just me here—it was made of my dark energy. But now that I've forgiven him, there's nothing left for it here.

A particularly strong gust of wind blew out his still-glowing fuse, and he shivered.

There's nothing left for me here, either.

Sparky turned away from the frozen world that had once been his home and followed the Mustache Man into the warp to the unknown.

Sparky found himself tumbling down from a high ceiling to land on a red carpeted floor with a thud. When he managed to roll onto his feet, he looked around the large, open room. It was a fancy place with walls made of large bricks, a chandelier overhead, and a great number of doors on all sides.

This must be the castle the Mustache Man talked about! Sparky realized. He was telling the truth. So that means there's a painting of me around here somewhere, a painting that leads back to Bob-omb Village where—how did he put it? Where “everything will be just like it was before.”

If that's really true, I can go back home! I've just got to find that painting. . . .

It wasn't as easy as it sounded. Just like the Mustache Man had said, the castle seemed enormous and endless, with doors that sometimes led to places they shouldn't and dozens of paintings—none of them depicting a Bob-omb. Sometimes Sparky came across other Bob-ombs living in the castle, but he never found any of his friends from Bob-omb Village, nor did he ever see the Mustache Man. He didn't know if the warp had taken them to other worlds instead, or if the castle was just so big that they could all wander lost in it without ever running into each other.

Sparky had no idea how much time passed in the castle, and sometimes he despaired of ever finding the painting he needed. Maybe the Mustache Man had been lying, making something up to make Sparky feel better about losing the Star. But even if that was the case, Sparky had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, so he kept looking for the painting anyway.

Then, one day. . . he found it. He'd somehow made his way to a large room he'd never seen before. At one end was an enormous portrait of a pretty blond lady wearing a crown. Sparky had seen the same portrait plastered all over the castle, and he assumed that the lady was the princess that the Mustache Man was trying to rescue.

Sparky was so busy studying the princess's portrait that he almost didn't notice the other large painting hanging on the wall to its left. But then he glanced over at it before turning to stare at it head-on.

“It's me!” he exclaimed, the first time he'd spoken aloud in what seemed like forever. And it was, exactly like the Mustache Man had said. The painting depicted a contented-looking Bob-omb walking along in front of the mountain in Bob-omb Village on a pleasant, sunny day. . . Sparky in the town that had been his home, back when everything was fine.

Sparky didn't hesitate. The bottom of the painting wasn't too far above the ground for him to reach when he took a running jump, and the Bob-omb hurtled through it and into the world on the other side. His world.

Once there, he looked around him in amazement. Just as the Mustache Man had promised, everything was exactly as it was before he'd taken the Power Star: all the houses standing, the patch of flowers in full bloom, the refugee Bob-omb and the Goomba and all of Sparky's other friends hanging out in their usual spots.

Sparky skipped over to admire his flowers, then made his way up the mountainside to the plateau where his own house stood. Everything there was in order too, and Sparky wandered over to the edge of the plateau and gazed down at the warm, sunny village so different from his last look at it, frozen over and silent except for the howling wind.

Yet even as happy as he felt, Sparky remembered something the Mustache Man had said which made his heart sink: “If I take your Power Star now and go back to the castle, then turn around and jump back into the same painting, everything here will be just like it was before.”

What if he does do that? Sparky wondered. I don't know how all this time stuff works, but I guess if this is the past and he hasn't taken the Star. . . all that means is that he hasn't taken it yet. He could still come here—or come back, like I did—and steal it all over again, and the village will die just like before. And then I'll leave and come back here again, then he'll come back, and—and we'll just keep doing the same things over and over forever!

Sparky's mind reeled beneath his fuse. The logistics of it were beyond him, but what he did know was that he couldn't bear it all happening again.

I've got to do something different this time! he decided. If he can change things in this world, then so can I. I'll find a way to protect our Power Star so that even if he does come back, he can't take it away again!

After some thought, Sparky came up with the idea of taking the Power Star from its hiding place and concealing it in his own home instead. Obviously the Mustache Man had somehow learned about the secret spots in the house doorways that would release the Star, but he wouldn't know to look inside the houses themselves.

And if he tries, I'll—I'll blow him up! vowed Sparky as he hurried down the mountain to the Goomba's house and the first secret spot. Last time, he saw me coming so he could react, but if I have to do it again, I'll wait until he's right on top of me. He won't be able to avoid me then!

Sparky visited each of the village's houses in turn, sidling into the doorways when no one was looking. Not only was he afraid the other villagers would disagree with his plan if they knew about it; he also wanted to keep it a secret because if no one else knew about it, there was no way the Mustache Man could find out either.

Sparky returned to his own door last, and the Star appeared between the houses for him just as it had for the Mustache Man. It seemed surprised now as well, especially when it looked down to find that it had been summoned not by anyone significant but by a single little Bob-omb who gazed back up at it hopefully.

“Um, can you come down from there?” Sparky asked it, a bit nervously. He didn't quite know how to act around something so important as a Power Star. “I—I need to talk to you.”

The Star blinked at him but then descended to float just above the ground directly in front of him. It cast a soft golden glow on the grass beneath it and on Sparky's shiny face as it twinkled and the Bob-omb haltingly explained what had happened before, and what he feared would happen again. He worried the Star wouldn't believe the outlandish story, and he finished with an impassioned plea:

“You've got to come with me, please! You can live right here in my house, and I'll keep you safe so he can't take you away again!”

The Star seemed to be staring at him blankly, although Sparky supposed its range of facial expressions wasn't very wide. (Not that a Bob-omb's was, either.) Then it suddenly bobbed up and down as if nodding, and drifted over to Sparky's house, where it paused and looked back at him.

It believes me! Sparky understood in relief. Thank goodness! He followed the Star to his doorway and gestured with his fuse for it to go on in.

“This is your home now too!” Sparky told the Power Star happily. It twinkled at him and closed its eyes in a cheerful sort of way, as if it were smiling.

Life in Bob-omb Village was again quiet and peaceful for a little while, but Sparky remained watchful. As before, the Bob-omb from Downtown City bemoaned the city's watery fate at the hands of the Mustache Man in the red hat (who Sparky figured had to be the green Mustache Man's brother), and Sparky was pretty sure that meant that everything else that had happened before would happen again as well.

All he could do was wait for the Mustache Man to return, and so that was what he did.

In however much time had passed since the day Luigi first set foot in Princess Peach's castle—and he wasn't so sure anymore that it even was Peach's castle—he'd never lost a Power Star. Even when he'd revisit a painting he'd jumped into before and find the world on the other side otherwise unchanged, any Stars he'd already collected were no longer there. They remained in his possession no matter what, and as he wandered the time loops in those worlds and within the castle itself, Luigi relied on his increasing Star count as proof that for him at least, time actually still moved in a straight line and he had a definite future.

A future where I can find Mario, and we can get out of this madhouse and go home! Luigi reassured himself. I have 238 Power Stars now, and there can't be that many more of the things! Soon I'll have them all.

Even though he knew exactly how many Stars he had, thanks to his habit of repeating the number in his head every few minutes, Luigi checked again just for a little extra reassurance. . . .

. . . And, with a terrible feeling of dread, found that he only had 237.

One's missing?! Luigi wondered, trying to hold back his rising panic. That's impossible, I can't have just lost a Power Star! I must've been wrong about how many I had. . . .

. . . No, that's impossible too. I know there were 238. I had 237 when I went into the Bob-omb Village painting, and I got the Star there, so that was 238. And then—

Luigi cringed when he remembered what had happened next.

Well, anyway, that made 238 Stars, and I still had 238 when I got back to the castle—I know I did, because I checked! I haven't been into any other worlds since then, so. . . did I lose a Star here in the castle?

Then it occurred to him to check just which Star it was he'd lost. Just as he wasn't sure how he knew how many Stars he had, Luigi wasn't sure how it was he could tell them apart. . . but he could, and he wasn't particularly surprised to find that the missing Power Star was the one from Bob-omb Village.

That little Bob-omb fought so hard to protect it. Could he have done something to get it back, somehow? wondered Luigi. Maybe if I go back to the village, I can find it again. . . .

Fortunately, Luigi remembered the way back to the village's painting and reached it fairly quickly. He stood in front of it a moment, regarding guiltily the cheerful-looking Bob-omb it depicted—before I ruined his life, Luigi thought—until he'd worked up enough nerve to jump in.

Everything in Bob-omb Village seemed to be just the way it was when Luigi first came there: the same grouchy Bob-omb scolded him as he entered (with good reason, Luigi now understood), the same grouchy Goomba told him to get lost. The sun was still shining, those insufferable pink and yellow flowers were still smiling mockingly. . . nothing even remotely suggested the haunted frozen shell the village had become after Luigi took its Power Star.

But something was different, Luigi realized when he ducked into the doorway of the Goomba's house. The last time he did that, he'd heard a brief tinkle of bells and seen a little sparkle—signs that he had activated one of the secret spots protecting the village's Star. This time, nothing happened, as if the spot had already been activated in this iteration of the time loop—not by Luigi, but by someone else.

Something was definitely off. Luigi decided to visit each of the other houses to make sure he wasn't somehow mistaken, yet he wasn't surprised when nothing happened in either of the next two doorways he paused in on his way up the mountain.

Luigi stopped his ascension at the foot of the plateau where the last two houses stood side by side. . . and where he'd encountered the brave little Bob-omb depicted in the village's painting. Luigi hesitated there, chewing his lower lip under his mustache, because he didn't want to see that Bob-omb again. He didn't want to cope with the guilt.

Don't be ridiculous, Lu! he told himself in the best mental imitation of his brother's voice he could muster. It's not like he'll remember me! He's never even seen me before, not in this loop. And I've got to check out the plateau—if the secret spots really have already been activated, then maybe the Power Star is up there!

And so, after taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Luigi hopped onto one of the checkered elevator platforms rising and falling endlessly alongside the plateau. When he jumped off onto the plateau, he saw that besides the two houses, it bore a spike-like rock formation, a Thwomp, more of those accursed flowers. . . and the Bob-omb, standing in front of his house right where Luigi had last seen him. The Power Star was nowhere in sight.

He's been waiting for me, Luigi realized, as much as he wanted to believe otherwise. It shouldn't be possible, but he does remember me. He remembers me and what I did to his home. . . and he's been waiting for me to come back and do it again.

Luigi's feet moved very reluctantly as he made his way over to the other house on the plateau and the Bob-omb turned to follow his movement, never taking his eyes off the intruding plumber. As Luigi had suspected, nothing happened in that doorway either, and he had nothing to do except face the Bob-omb.

“Uh, hi,” Luigi mumbled weakly. “You. . . you remember me, don't you?”

“Yeah,” said the Bob-omb simply. He looked Luigi up and down, then explained somewhat: “I followed you through the warp in my house, and you were right—about the castle and all. It's an awful place. It took me a long time, but I finally found the painting of me you talked about, and I came back here to my home, the way it was before you took the Star. So why are you here? You came to take our Star again, didn't you?”

“I, uh. . . .” Luigi fumbled for a way to avoid saying “yes.” “Something weird has happened. Out of all the Stars I've stol—collected, I've never lost one. . . except for yours. I had it when I got back to the castle from your village, but then the next time I checked, it was just gone. I came to see if it had ended up back here somehow.”

“Well obviously, it's not here,” retorted the Bob-omb, gesturing with his fuse up to where the Power Star had once appeared. “I saw you going to everyone's doorways—nothing there either, is there? You took the Star away from us, so it's gone from here for good. If you don't have it now, that's 'cause you lost it. It doesn't have anything to do with me, so you might as well go back to the castle and look for it there.”

Luigi frowned a second time and thought, The bomb doth protest too much. The missing Star does have something to do with him. . . .

“Yes, I went to everyone's doorways—except for yours,” he informed the Bob-omb. “If the Star isn't here, then you won't mind if I check the last secret spot, will you?”

The Bob-omb's wide round eyes got just a little bit bigger, and Luigi knew his suspicions were correct. If the little guy wasn't responsible for the Star's disappearance, he at least knew something about it.

Then the Bob-omb said with what sounded like forced bravado, “Of course not! Go ahead—you won't find anything!”

Nevertheless, he didn't move aside, leaving Luigi to squeeze past him to enter the doorway. There really wasn't anything there, no chime and no sparkle, and Luigi looked down at the Bob-omb with a resigned shrug. The little guy was so close, he practically stood on Luigi's feet as he looked back with his eyes narrowed. Then Luigi noticed that the tip of his fuse was glowing ever so slightly.

He's ready to blow me up in an instant! Luigi thought. There's nothing in this doorway—but what about in this house?

Luigi hesitated, a little afraid to move lest the Bob-omb decide to explode—which might not do much damage but would hurt—but then he dropped to the ground to kneel there face to face with the bomb.

“It's in here, isn't it?” Luigi asked him gently. “You've hidden the Power Star in your house.”

“N-no! Of course not!” the Bob-omb stammered a second time. Luigi raised an eyebrow skeptically, then shifted to peer into the dimly lit house. The Bob-omb's fuse glowed brighter, and he leaned forward almost into Luigi's lap as he growled, “If you don't mind your own business, I'll blow you up right now!”

Luigi gulped, eyed the lit fuse, then reached out to pinch it between his gloved fingertips, extinguishing it. The Bob-omb made an affronted noise, but before either of them could otherwise react, something very pointy came hurtling out of the Bob-omb's house and struck Luigi in the face, knocking him to the ground on his side with a thud.

“Ouch! Mamma mia, what was that?” groaned Luigi, as he sat up rubbing his sore cheek. Then he forgot all about the pain in his surprise at what he saw: his missing Power Star “standing” on its lower two points in front of the Bob-omb. . . glaring at him.

“Y-you're. . . you're alive?” Luigi squawked. At the same time, the Bob-omb squawked too and tried to nudge the Star back into the house.

“I told you not to come out—ugh!” the Bob-omb groaned in frustration, then turned to glare at Luigi as well. “Of course it's alive! All the Power Stars are! You never noticed the eyes before?!”

“Well yes, but I—I thought they were fake, just. . . painted on or something,” mumbled Luigi. But now he could tell that they were definitely real eyes, narrowed and boring into him with very real animosity. Luigi took in the way the Star had positioned itself between him and the Bob-omb. There was something familiar about it.

It's the way Mario's always gotten between me and anyone who threatened me. . . the way he's always protected me, thought Luigi. The Bob-omb has tried so hard to protect this Star, but when I snuffed his fuse, the Star thought I was going to hurt him—and it's protecting him.

Again as gently as he could, Luigi told the Power Star, “I'm not going to hurt him, okay? I just wanted to stop him from exploding.”

The Star's angry expression relaxed somewhat, and the Bob-omb moved around it to stand next to it rather than behind. His fuse drooped against the side of his body, and his round eyes shifted into a sad look.

“It was hiding in my house, just like you said,” the Bob-omb admitted to Luigi. He added with a pointed glance over at the Star, “It was supposed to stay in there out of sight. But it didn't, and I. . . I guess nothing I can do will stop you from taking it.”

His voice shook a little, but what tugged at Luigi's heart even more was the sight of the Star's black eyes growing shiny with tears.

If all the Power Stars really are alive, is this how they all felt when I took them from the worlds they'd settled in? he wondered. All I want is to find Mario—I never meant to hurt anyone! But my actions have destroyed whole civilizations, even if only temporarily. . . and they've broken hearts.

Luigi took a deep breath, exhaled it, then told the Bob-omb, “You don't need to do anything. I won't take your Star away from you. My brother and me, there's something we always tell each other: 'Nothing can hurt us, as long as we're together.' So you two stay together, okay? That way, you and this world will be fine, just like I promised.”

Both sets of eyes widened, and the Bob-omb stammered, “Y-you—you mean it? You're gonna leave us and Bob-omb Village alone?”

Luigi nodded. “I still don't understand any of what's happened to me, and whatever's causing it. . . it's hurting me. It hurts, and I want out. But hurting you isn't going to make it stop—and even if it would, I'm not going to do it anymore. You saved my life, little guy, even after I took your Star. You could've let that—that thing kill me and gotten revenge for you and your village, but you didn't.”

He paused then asked quietly, “Why did you help me? I didn't deserve it. I stole your Power Star and left your village to die, so if you had left me to die, it would have only been fair.”

The Bob-omb lifted his eyes to the plumber's and said simply, “It wasn't your fault.”

Luigi didn't ask him to explain; he didn't need to. His own eyes teared up even as he smiled.

“Thank you,” said Luigi. He reached out his hand—slowly, with a nervous glance at the Star to be sure it wasn't about to bonk him in the face again—and patted the Bob-omb on the top of his “head,” next to his fuse. The Bob-omb half-closed his eyes, “smiling” back.

Luigi started to get to his feet, then paused and asked, “Hey, do you have a name?”

“Of course I do!” declared the Bob-omb. “It's Sparky.”

“Well, I'm Luigi.” He looked at the Star and asked a little awkwardly, “What, uh, about you?” It did the eye-smile thing and sort of twinkled.

“Um. . . right.” Luigi nodded and stood up. “Good luck to both of you.”

“You too,” Sparky told him earnestly. “I hope you find your brother and your princess. And King Bowser—I hope he's okay. I know you probably don't like him much if he really kidnapped the princess and took the Power Stars from her, but he's a good king to us, really.”

“I'll try to find Bowser and help him if I can,” Luigi promised Sparky. “If he needs me.”

“Thanks,” said Sparky. He glanced at the Star then back up at Luigi as he offered, “You can come back here some time, if you want to. If you need a break from that weird castle or anything.”

Luigi smiled and said, “Okie dokie.” The fact that Sparky had even offered meant more to him than he could have expressed. Out of all the entities Luigi had encountered in his wanderings, Sparky was the first to want to be friends.

Luigi turned away and trudged back across the plateau. At the edge, he stopped and looked back at Sparky and the Power Star. The little Bob-omb gave Luigi a goodbye wave with his fuse, and the Star twinkled again. Luigi supposed that was the best it could do. He lifted his gloved hand to wave back.

When he warped back to the castle, Luigi hopped out of the Bob-omb Village painting and stood there a moment with his back to it, shoulders slumped, before starting for a door on the other side of the room. Then Luigi stopped and turned back to face the painting, wanting to see Sparky's friendly face one last time.

When he did so, he stared. Something was different about the village painting; something was there that hadn't been there before.

For the first time since he'd set foot in the accursed castle, a painting had changed.

It still depicted a cheerful-looking Sparky strolling past the village's mountain, but now the painting also showed a Power Star floating happily along in front of him.

Sparky changed something, Luigi thought numbly. I thought the time loops were fixed, that whatever changed in one would be reverted if I went back in. But he didn't just change things in there, he changed something out here.

He's not stuck in time anymore—he's free! By being selfless, he did the opposite of what anyone would expect him to do—he forgave me and put himself in danger protecting the Star. . . and he broke the time loop.

Luigi smiled as he thought of how happy Sparky and the Power Star would be now that they were safe, together where nothing could hurt them. And then he thought of something else:

If he can break the time loop. . . then so can I.

Luigi checked his Power Star total, which was still at 237. Two hundred and thirty-seven Stars, living creatures he had taken away from their homes and those who needed them.

Luigi reasoned, If someone is doing this, manipulating me and Mario and Peach—and Bowser—they want me to take the Stars, to keep taking more and more to try to win whatever twisted game this is. The last thing they'd expect me to do is to be selfless instead of selfish, and put the Stars back.

It had taken Luigi a long time to collect that many Power Stars, and it would take him a long time to return them all, but time was something he had plenty of. After one last look at Sparky's painting and a silent promise that he'd see the Bob-omb again, Luigi left the room and set out to change things.

After the Mustache Man—Luigi, Sparky reminded himself—had left the village, the Bob-omb and the Power Star looked at one another.

“You were supposed to stay inside,” grumbled Sparky. “But thank you. Thank you for trying to protect me.”

The Star shifted its eyes in a smile. Sparky cast his own round eyes to the ground.

“I guess you can go back to your old hiding place now that you're safe,” he mumbled. “I'll. . . I'll miss having you around the house. It's been nice, not being alone.”

The Star hopped closer and tapped Sparky on his round side with one point—a lot more gently than it had “tapped” Luigi earlier. When Sparky lifted his eyes and they met the Star's, it gave a little twinkle. . . and, for the first time, spoke. Not audibly and not in words, exactly, but in something like complete thoughts dropped directly into Sparky's mind: You're the first friend I've ever had, the only one who's ever cared about me for more than the energy I give off. I don't want to be alone either. I want to stay here, with you.

Sparky's fuse glowed a bit in surprise, both at the fact that the Star could “talk” and at what it had said.

“Really? You really want to stay with me?” Sparky stammered. When the Star twinkled again, the Bob-omb hopped up and down with excitement.

“It'll be just like Luigi said,” he promised. “'Nothing can hurt us, as long as we're together.'”

Sparky had vowed he was going to change things, and now he had. No frozen future awaited Bob-omb Village; no bitter darkness would ever haunt it mimicking the shape of a mustached man in a green hat.

But it wasn't just me who changed things, the little Bob-omb thought. It was the Star as well—and it was Luigi. I hope things change for him too, out there in that castle, so he can find his brother and the princess and King Bowser. . . so he doesn't have to be alone anymore either.

And if the night runs over,
And if the day won't last,
And if your way should falter
Along this stony path. . .

It's just a moment.
This time will pass.

Credits

fan pet for Bob-omb from Super Mario Bros., inspired by the "B3313" ROM hack of Super Mario 64
profile, background, artwork, and story by Balloon
screenshots from B3313, edited by Balloon
lyrics from "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" by U2

Bob-omb's story has been edited for length. You can read the complete version here.