Rainbow Road [Super Mario Bros.]

25

"Have you ever played Bucking Bronco?" Nabbit asked.

He hadn't, and he got a bad feeling in his stomach when he heard the flying shroom's engines begin to spin into high gear. He barely had time to fling himself at the speaker and wrap it in a big hug before the spaceship took off at high speed.

It was like riding a roller coaster, except without any of the safety equipment to hold you in place. And he had to say, it was about a thousand times worse than that ghost-hunting spree in that mansion had been. He tried to scream, but the wind drove his cry back down his throat and tore at his legs, lifting them up and behind him like wind socks. He felt like he was playing a terrible game of tug-of-war, except his opponent was the G-force — it took all of Luigi's strength to resist as it tried to tear him from the rooftop.

"Wow," Nabbit remarked — even with his face pressed against the speaker, Luigi could barely hear the crook for the roar of moving air in his ears. "You can be pretty stubborn when you want to be, Greenie. Take a hint, will ya?"

The flying shroom slowed and abruptly reversed. Luigi's loose legs spun him around in a circle, and the speaker's rough exterior grazed his arms painfully. Somehow, he managed to hang on.

"How about this?" Nabbit said with sudden glee. They fell out of the sky.

No, it's more like they began speeding downward like a meteor, passing a loop in the Rainbow Road and plummeting straight down towards the vast nothingness of the cosmos. It was a terror unlike anything Luigi had ever experienced before — his legs went straight up now, and the downward plunge exerted an unbearable pressure on his body, leaving him unable to take in a breath, vomit, or scream. Consciousness began to leak out through his ears, and he felt his eyes start to roll back.

No! If he passed out, he would definitely let go, and—

Suddenly, he was squashed flat against the roof again — they were going up now, with such speed that it felt like an elevator car had come to rest on his back. Ugh!

"Color me impressed," Nabbit said. He sounded less amused than before. "I didn't think you would last this long, so I guess you've got that going for you. But you're about to make me mad, cucumber — why don't you give up before that happens? I'll even be nice, and drop you back off at the Road. We'll go our separate ways, no hard feelings."

It was a tempting offer, and the part of him that was easily dissuaded wanted to take it — this crazy stunt was costing him tomorrow's strength to hang on for as long as he had, and despite the fact that they were no longer going down, the thin cord tethering Luigi to consciousness was still fraying away, strand by strand.

Fight it. He couldn't let Nabbit get away — he remembered this, even as the thought of throwing in the towel wormed deeper and deeper into his head. He couldn't let Nabbit get away because he'd thrown him through that stupid tea shop window, and because Mario wasn't here to take care of business if Luigi's consciousness decided to call it quits. He had to hold on, and more importantly, he had to do something. Soon.

Nabbit spoke again, and now he sounded angry. "Okay, no problem," he growled. "One loop-de-loop, comin' right up."

Luigi's heart nearly punched out of his chest. Loop de—?

The flying shroom jerked into motion again, with such speed that the craft almost slipped out from under him. Then it did — the roof rolled skyward and left Luigi behind, all of him except for his hands, which still clutched desperately at the speaker. In a second, the ship was upside down, with Luigi dangling beneath and holding on for dear life.

He screamed his throat raw as they bulleted forward, and then nearly choked on that same throat as they crashed into the Road's gravity well and reversed, this time shooting up at a forty-five degree angle. The shroom spun like a top, flinging Luigi around in a circle, and his hold on the speaker box slipped dangerously. Stars, no!

Yes — around and around they went, zigging and zagging all across the sky in nonsensical patterns and terrible loops and spirals, until Luigi no longer knew where they were in relation to the Road. Every time the shroom plunged into a wild spin, he lost another precious piece of real estate on the speaker box, until he was hanging onto the very edges with the very tips of his fingers.

"Stop!" They were still inside the gravity wells, but if he was flung off now, he would be too far away from the Road to make it back by himself, and could be stuck floating out here for days, maybe weeks, until someone found him. "Stop, please! I'm sorry, take me back to the Road, I'll—"

"Too late for that, Weegee," Nabbit sneered. "Get lost!"

One last spin, and finally he came loose. He expected to go flying from the craft, shooting straight for open space, but instead, because the shroom had spun up, he went splat against the domed roof and went sliding down across the big white RRPD letters painted on the side. For a moment he was overwhelmed by the white noise of terror, and his panicked hands flung out, scrambling for a handhold. His tennis shoes hit the edge of the roof, then his knees, then his elbows, and he screamed, "NO!"

Then something large and yellow and blazing went by in his peripheral vision: a large, round knob bolted to the underside of the roof. With all his strength, Luigi lashed out for it.

He managed to dig his fingers into the bolts mooring the device to the roof's plating, and then he lunged with his other hand and secured his grip on the thing. Immediately, his fingers began to scream — this was a terrible handhold, and his grip was flimsy, already in peril. Beneath him, his feet kicked, and beneath them he could see the torso of the flying shroom — through the cockpit's window, Nabbit was glaring at him.

"What a pest!" The crook's voice, coming from the speaker, sounded tinny and far away. He turned back to the controls.

Think. Luigi's head was drowning in a veritable tsunami of panic, but now was not the time! He had seconds before Nabbit drove the flying shroom into another wild maneuver, and even less time to stop that from happening. But how? Right now, he was completely at Nabbit's mercy — he was in no position to do anything about this tortuous ride. He was barely managing to hang onto this knob, for stars' sake!

Then a realization hit him like a punch to the face: this knob... Wait, it wasn't just a random knob screwed to the underside of the roof for no reason. Wasn't it...a gravity drive?