Rainbow Road [Super Mario Bros.]

26

He looked up, and took a precious second to examine the device. Yes, yellow, glowing, buzzing with energy, locked into place with a metal ring... A gravity drive, he was definitely hanging from a gravity drive. What did this do for him?

His thoughts picked up speed, racing a thousand miles an hour. Several things came to him, several life-saving things: 1) Still attached to his legs; 2) Gravity drive; 3) No control; 4) Break; 5) Strong kick; 6) Springs.

It took him a good ten seconds to put them in comprehensible order: 1) Springs; 2) Still attached to his legs; 3) Gravity drive; 4) Strong kick; 5) Break; 6) No control. Even then, it was another three seconds before his thought process came to full fruition: Destroy the gravity drive. Hurry!

He didn't waste another moment: if he didn't move now, Nabbit would most certainly throw him free with his next maneuver. So he kicked upward with all of his strength.

Excruciating pain followed: he knew that he was still wearing the Springs, but even so, his leg sliced up and over his head with such extreme severity that he thought he felt something tear in the back of his lower thigh, resulting in a red-hot, screeching Charley-horse. But the deed was done: the toe of his tennis shoe broke the reinforced outer casing of the gravity drive so easily that it might as well have been wearing a BREAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCY sign. Smoke, sparks, and a small fire burst through the cracks, streaming out behind them in a wispy tail.

A few things followed. First, Luigi started screaming in an attempt to cope with the awful pain striking up through the back of his leg. Second, the flying shroom swung wildly again, knocking him from the underside. Third, Nabbit's furious cry came from the speaker — somehow, Luigi wound up on the roof again, skidding back across the RRPD letters until he came to rest against the speaker once more.

"What the devil?" Nabbit screeched. "What have you done, slimeball?"

Luigi wished that he could clutch his leg and wail, but he didn't have the luxury — he was holding onto the speaker for dear life again as the flying shroom spun crazily through space. Nabbit continued cursing in his ear, and it finally occurred to Luigi that it had worked: something was going wrong. The criminal was losing control.

But what next? How to get Nabbit into a place where he could be safely apprehended? All he'd done so far was throw a wrench in the criminal's plan. Where the heck were they, anyway? Were they still near the Road? They had to be, since they hadn't been reversed by the gravity wells yet, but Luigi had long since stopped trying to tell up from down. But he squinted now, and was just able to make out the slurry glow of the Road spinning above them before his eyes began to hurt. How do I get him back to the Road?  There didn't seem to be a clear answer, except to continue what he was already doing.

So, as Nabbit continued snarling and wrestling with the controls somewhere below and managed to stabilize the ship, Luigi swallowed his anxiety and crawled across the rooftop, where the next gravity drive lay just under the lip of the roof. There was a crossbar for him to hold here, and he did as he sent a foot down to beat the drive loose. With the power of the Springs, it came away easily, and was accompanied by another cough of flame and smoke as it powered down.

"Stop it!" Nabbit screeched. "You imbecile, what are you doing? Are you trying to make us crash?"

Yes. Luigi didn't bother to answer aloud, though, and simply made his way over to the next drive, which lay directly north. Moments later, it was destroyed, and suddenly the ship stabilized almost completely — Luigi realized that this was because he'd destroyed the drives that allowed the ship to turn up, turn down, and turn forward. Now, the last operating gravity drive was the one to the immediate south, and it was driving the ship straight forward and up at a ninety degree angle.

And not straight into empty space, either — Luigi realized with all the suddenness of a thunderbolt that the flying shroom was speeding towards a giant, floating metal monstrosity that seemed to swallow up the cosmos dead ahead, one glittering with a million lights and to which was tethered the very end of Rainbow Road.

They were flying straight for Orbit City!