Level 3: Revenge of the Beefsteak Tomatoes

20XX SIDEQIX LTD.Our heroines relax as Pinky’s warp drive takes them far, far away from that Matoroid guy, who seemed like just a silly minion. Well, who knew?

And what did those shadows want, exactly? Did it really matter whether or not they had the coordinates to Missy Girl? Or maybe we should refer to her by her real name…

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LUNA

"Absinthe," she says for Luna’s benefit.

The green fairy sits atop a toadstool next to Luna. Clearly, this fey foreigner is delighted to meet another of her kind. She talks a bit about her world, where she was always doing the humans favors. "Spelunking about sofa cushions for loose change, shoe repair, flying lent cups of sugar across town—that was fine. But then there were the thorny-toads, the ice-screams, the snails-o’-nine-tails… and that gremlin boss who found everything funny.

"They kept coming back! My heroics were an exercise in futility! So you see, Luna?" She gestures about the flowery field, pausing a moment to savor the way the melting frost trickles down the bold, colorful petals, every drop glistening in the sun like tiny naiads dancing…

She has a look of remorse, almost as if she’d rather not say. But Absinthe is sure she’s doing right by Luna. A fairy. A sister.

"It’s not abandonment. It’s love.

"You love your world, and if you leave it, the villains will stop."

And Luna… you don’t recall whether you stepped into that warp pipe on purpose, or just peeked as you contemplated Absinthe’s wisdom. But somehow, you felt the pull of the warp pipe—and you saw her—Absinthe—reaching for you, trying to stop you despite her words!

Maybe she was trying to talk you into a different warp pipe. But here you are now, on a planet that is only three melons high. (Or should you say three melons in diameter?)

There’s a solitary tingleberry bush. It seems quite healthy for the only living thing on the planet until you showed up about half an hour ago.

Well, fortunately there seems to be a regular coach service. You can see a pink starship coming toward you. The only other things to look at are a billion stars and one bush. You should probably embark on the coach. The next one might not come for another hour!

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PINKY’S CREW

A warning light goes off.

SORRY TO INTERRUPT, CAPTAIN. THERE IS A TINY PLANET APPROXIMATELY 2.97 MELONS IN DIAMETER. BIOSCANNERS CONFIRM THERE IS A SENTIENT LIFE FORM. SHALL WE INVESTIGATE

Pinky’s holodisplay shows a fairy seated on the dirt of a potted plant drifting through outer space.

Pinky considers the co-pilot’s concern and runs an analysis.

ANALYZE LV.3 . . .

VEGETATION IDENTIFIED!

TINGLEBERRIES ARE NON-MONSTROUS FRUITS THAT ARE CONSIDERED ESSENTIAL FOR HEALTHY BODY FUNCTION AND ABLE TO HELP YOUR SKIN LOOK RADIANT

Pinky’s databank is not exaggerating. The fairy on the viewing screen looks very healthy for someone stranded on a floating bush. She radiates a golden glow!

Morumi, Larumi and Kurlumi—the Mini-Ks—are in fact monsters known as Reflexions, low-level mini-bosses who worked for the Matoroid. "All we ever did is pop out of the three-way funhouse mirror and chase heroes away," says Larumi. Morumi agrees, "Thanks to you, Kurumi, we got better things to do!" Kurlumi flits about the control panel on the starboard-side of the engineers’ deck. "What’s this button do?"

WAIT --THAT FEATURE IS LOCKED UNTIL HUMANS CAN SAFELY

Before Pinky can dissuade her, the bald fairy starts fiddling with buttons on a control panel with a piece of paper taped to it:

DON’T

Morumi assures Pinky, "I will stop her!" "You always get to stop her. Lemme do it," Larumi offers.

Kurlumi is trying to pull a lever that won’t budge, thanks to an enormous padlock. "Hey Morumi, hey Larumi, c’mon!"

"What’re ya tryin’ to pull?" Morumi scolds.

"This!" Kurlumi stops struggling with the lever so she can point to it.

"Oh," says Larumi. But Morumi says, "Nothin’ doin’!" She and Larumi try to stop their sister, but as the three fairies struggle with each other and the lever, Kurlumi cries, "Waitaminute, waitaminute—remember what Kurumi said? Stop fighting!"

The three fairy-Reflexions stop. They lean forward against the lever, and they sigh in relief as the contemplate Kurumi’s first words to them. The lever is locked. It does not move.

But when all three Mini-Ks look up at their own reflections on the monitor before them, there is no lock in the mirror image. The Reflexions’ reflections accidentally push the lever—

—and the✨little✨fairy on the potted plant is immediately bathed in golden✨glittery✨light!!!

Suddenly, Luna finds herself on a ship full of ladies—five Bigguns and three fairies who look just like one of the Bigguns, aside from the hair (a sugarbowl hairdo, porcupine curls, and the third fairy is completely bald).

ABSINTHE. THE SHADOW MITES WHO ATTEMPTED TO INFILTRATE MY SYSTEM ARE INTERESTED IN FINDING HER. THEY BELIEVE HER MAGICAL INFLUENCE OVER WARP FIELDS, IF UNDER THEIR CONTROL, WOUKD ALLOW THEM ACCESS TO AN ALTERNATE DIMENSION.

MY OWN WARP DRIVE IS NOT CAPABLE OF THIS. I DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY THOUGHT EXTRACTING MY SYSTEM WOULD HAVE ACCOMP

An actual red-alert light flashes. Pinky warns her captain (and Pira),

MY SENSORS HAVE DETECTED SEVERAL SHIPS AT 5 O’CLOCK, AS OUR COPILOT MIGHT PUT IT. THEY ARE APPROACHING RAPIDLY. THEY ARE HOSTILE

Our heroines don’t quite know how their world works. If they did, they would know exactly why Pinky never suspected Luna was a threat, and exactly why the blips on the radar obviously are enemies whose soul purpose is to kill her captain and crew.

But Casanova knows that Pinky is never wrong. And so, she makes the effort to outmaneuver her pursuers. But experience tells her that trying to run from a fight before it starts is an exercise in futility.

More and more blips appear on the radar. Firing up the afterburners makes the blips disappear… but by the time the booster-rockets are reloaded, the blips are back. And… seemingly closer than before, and better positioned to surround and overwhelm.

Finally, a star begins to look like a sun. Pinky’s display identifies a planet, just a few million miles past an asteroid belt.

THE ASTEROID FIELD AHEAD IS GOND’S RAINBOW. IT WILL BE DIFFICULT FOR THE MATOROIDS TO SURROUND US IF WE CONFRONT THEM HERE

Pinky is about to present the alternative to a fight—but that’s when the green lasers start to fly!—illuminating otherwise pitch silhouettes of tentacled tomatoes clinging to asteroids with their spidery tripod legs. These Matoroids are even larger than the one you saw in the temple. Just one of these creatures—or machines???—is as large as your ship!

💙💙💙💙💙💙
🚀

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While the captain navigates the asteroid field, Luna and Princess Diamond shift the force fields to full power. Luna’s icy magic gives the force field a reflective property! Lasers ricochet! Kurumi’s covering fire adds to the chaos! The lone attacker can’t get a clear shot—

—but Thundra takes hers, and SPLAT! Gobs of tomato juice and shards of metal float from the blast! As the Matoroid’s tentacles writhe like scattering snakes, the thicc warrior princess gets this feeling of deja vu. Tripod machines with tentacles and fire magic were the enemy in her Ares Attacks! mission! (The overgrown tomato where a metal head should be… that part is new.)

A wave of Materoids form a wall to block Pinky’s escape from their ambush—but Pira J-turns, singing the Materoids with Pinky’s afterburners and ramming through the pursuers!

The lucky few to dodge the ramming attack fire from both sides!The Materoids that formed a wall open fire, illuminating the asteroid field with red and green lasers. Fortunately, these kill-bots have terrible aim, buying our heroines time to shift force-fields to protect Pinky’s caboose!

As Pinky speeds past the Matoroids’ metallic tentacles that Pira just can’t shake off, Thundra unleashes a volley of laser blasts, compelling the distant enemies to take cover behind an asteroid!

Kurumi launches a missile—

—but that’s the moment Luna shrinks the ship to funnel her new friends through Pipespace!

When they grow back, Princess Diamond notices the pixel-dust coated nuke drifting through the void, comparable to a fire-cracker in both size and potency. She works her engineering magic—

Alarms sound! And by now, any of our heroines traveling space for the first time knows that sound in space is extra-loud! The sound waves from the alarms blast the pixel-dust off of the rocket! It soars with an extra-loud WHOOSH—straight at the asteroid where a dozen Matoroids are taking cover—and BOOM!! Chunks of rock, metallic limbs and blobs of tomato juice are everywhere!


Meanwhile, the Pipespace stunt got Pinky past the grabby tentacles, but Matoroids adapt quickly! One tries to take hold of Pinky’s nose come with its tripod limbs!

Our captain makes a hard left—

Scraaaaaaaaaaaaap-p-p-p-pe!!

💙💙💙💙💥💥
🚀

The metal limbs claw at Pinky, tearing violently at her hull—but what they really want is to grab the ship!

Fortunately, there’s just a little bit of pixel dust left from Luna’s stunt. The Matoroid scrapes the last of the glitter, and POW! The ship (and her crew) snap back to full size, breaking free of the tripod limbs as the sudden growth breaks the Matoroid’s tripod limbs!

There are only six or seven Matoroids remaining. Five of them fire lasers!A sixth Matoroid is perched on an asteroid, waiting.

If you’d rather not fight, there is a planet ahead of you, but plenty of asteroids whizzing by. Escaping to the planet is an option, but not an immediate one—unless of course a pilot were to press the rocket-boost button. But then the other pilot would have to do some fancy stunt-driving to avoid a crash.

SHIELDS AT 50%.

. . . 55%. THANK YOU, LUNA

Despite taking a pounding, Pinky is in good spirits. After all, her crew is winning, and they’re all making the right decisions. It just seems as if the mad gods of this universe somehow made life more difficult for the heroines!

The Mini-Ks’ miniboss decides to step up and do something. "Time to fasten our seatbelts, girls—" Morumi is immediately interrupted by Kurlumi’s "Oh!" She snaps her fingers and a fanny pack appears over her dress. Larumi shakes her frizzy head and fastens the actual seatbelt over her sisters. The belt is half as wide as fairies are tall, and the length of the taut belt is of course wide enough for a human. All the belt does is cause Morumi to lose her train of thought. But before she can call her sisters ‘idiots,’ Kurlumi points out the starboard window in the five-o’-clock direction. "Nyuk, nyuk," she laughs. Larumi flits to the window, face pressed against it. "Those Materoids might be stellar at murdering us, but they sure can’t dance!" The seemingly lone Matoroid atop the small asteroid is rapidly kicking its tridpod limbs, as if to jog backwards. The asteroid itself is ‘rolling’ forward. Squiggly tentacles and the glow of rocket fire behind the asteroid imply that another Materoid is behind the asteroid, pushing it.

The three other Matoroids can’t safely shoot at Pinky. Instead, they move even faster than the ‘rolling’ asteroid to hold Pinky still so the ship will get smashed!

Pira pushes the throttle (well… the red button), accepting the Matoroids’ challenge to a game of Space Chicken!

The ship moves forward, faster and faster! The grabbers speed up, their greedy tentacles insisting that bowling pins aren’t supposed to hit back. Casanova pulls a 360 to shake them. Thundra fires! But the Matoroids are too quick—their movements too irregular! They latch on to Pinky—

—who rights herself as Pira steadies the ship straight at the asteroid!

Kurumi fires at the colossal rock, expecting to blow it to bits! Instead, her laser passes through as if the asteroid were made of green cheese! Gobs of tomato sauce and squiggly tentacles disperse through space! The dancing Matoroid continues to jog backwards on the asteroid until one of its tripod limbs steps into the hole from Kurumi’s laser. It’s stuck—rotating toward Pinky’s nosecone—which pierces through the plant-based machine!

As the ship rams into the huge rock (or chunk of stale cheese?), the Matoroid cling-ons EXPLODE!Bright orange cracks form in the windows of the ship, even as the engineering team does all they can do with a song and a beat. Pinky’s viewing screen glitches, blacks out, displays zig-zags and snow… then slowly pinkens.

And sings along with Luna to Princess Diamond’s beat:

IN THE MOONLIT SNOW
I DANCE AND PLAY

WITH CRYSTAL WINGS
I FLIT AWAY

BZZT

THE STARS ABOV-BOVE
THEY SOFTLY GLEEEEEEEAM

IN WINTER’S HUSHHHHH
i WEAVE WEAVE WEAVE A DREAM

TO BEEEEEEEEEEE
WITH ALL OF YOU

AS WE SOAR FAR ABOVE
THE BI-IG BLUE

WHERE SKIES ARE STARRY
WITH THE FAIREST WEATHER

AND OUR FRIENDSHIP KEEPS
OUR SHIP TOGETHER


Suddenly, the cracks start to fade and mosaically blur. Pinky’s screen hums with a healthy pink glow. And there is no sign of the enemy…

The Mini-Ks each peek up from behind their oversized seatbelt one at a time.
"You ain’t kiddin’—and I ain’t kiddin’ neither. That was close!"

"But not close enough—nice work, Kurumi!"

"Nice job, all of you! Woo! ..whew."


Once Pinky safely navigates the outermost asteroids of Gond’s Rainbow, she identifies the planet up ahead.

APPROACHING CHARTED PLANET. IDENTIFYING…

WELCOME TO LEVEL 426Pinky continues to display facts about Lv.426. It’s one of the Frontier Worlds inhabited by a variety of friendly humanoids. This world is particularly known for its Polygon Trail, a stretch of rock formations that shield space colonists from the planet’s hurricane wind. The colonists are quite proud of their hanging gardens. Their tomato crop is especially abundant this year!

Enjoy your stay! And while you’re there, Casanova, be sure to say 👋 to some of your fellow aviatrices. The Star Vixen squad is stationed here!

With them around, nothing can possibly go wrong! You’re sure of that…

…aren’t you?

The holodesk displays a holographic montage of local foods, which don’t seem a lot different from what Pira has seen in various tournament locations… except for one distinct difference. For example, the Hong Kong stage had a street vendor selling (very smoky) roasted sweet potatoes and chestnuts and another selling bubble waffles.

In the Lv.426 montage, these same foods pop up, but the bubble waffle seems to be made of some kind of vegetable judging from the color. All of the food seems to be vegetarian, or possibly vegan.

Some of the vegetation is like that of her world, but larger. And then there are some not-really-that-different crops such as star carrots and cubaloupes, which are cube-shaped cantaloupes.

Text and medical diagrams appearing before Luna suggest that dysentery is not as fun as it sounds.

SPACE STATION, REQUEST PERMISSION TO LAND

Pinky’s request is answered by the all-too-familiar voice of the famous kitsune commodore from Squadron 64. "Granted, darling… I’ll order the men to fix you up and shine your hull. If your captain is in need of similar treatment, I’ll take very good care of her. She need only ask."

Vera’s tone is flirtatious, though in reality, she’s likely going to provide a safe place for Cass and crew to sleep and eat. Flirtatious seems to be Vera’s only tone to Casanova’s recollection. Even when under attack by kill-bots, Vera Vermilion seemed to almost literally *flirt* with danger.