This wasn't a time to worry about what would have happened. The only thing that mattered was what was happening right now. Yoshi was still within aim, and I carefully bounced along Bowser's stairs until I hit another item box. This was perfect - it was a red shell. I decided to not use it now; it would be safer to wait until we got out of all the sharp turns. Even sliding through them, my kart came very close to hugging the wall, just like everybody else.
My opportunity came near the line. I let the thing go and it hit its target perfectly - going into the final lap, I didn't have much to worry about... or so I thought.
Luigi and Wario came right towards me along the first few turns leading to the castle's interior. This was when I realized that I only race well when I have somebody to directly compete against. I habitually end up slowing down out of boredom. The competitive fever returned once they kept appearing larger in my mirror. I headed to the item boxes before the Thwomps, and picked up a mushroom. I was going to wait for the right moment to use this one as well. Wario blasted down the pavement next to me with a mushroom of his own. When he got next to me, he stared at me, revealed an evil grin, and bumped me a couple times. This slowed me down considerably, letting Wario in front of me. He started to laugh until he was silenced by a Thwomp smashing down upon him. Now Luigi was the one that was close to me.
The whole course got dusty again. This was the part with the narrow bridge. Multiple thoughts rang inside my head yet again on what I should do. Luigi might knock me out if I was too careful, but if I went too fast, I could lose it anyways. My train of thought was interrupted due to the large drop - I didn't see it because of all the dust. As I regained my senses, Luigi went ahead of me and decelerated to cross.
I straightened out, saw that I was only a few meters from the narrow crossing, and at that point, all logical reasoning and calm spirits flew out the window of my head. I went straight at the lava, tossed my mushroom into the engine, and was in for the ride of my life.
The acceleration boost by that mushroom rocketed me forward, glided my kart across the lava, literally
skipped my kart across the red liquid, and bounced me off a curved stone. This was like a crazy roller coaster. The force I bounced agaist that stone sent my kart high enough so that Luigi looked about the size of my wheel. My kart was also tilting backwards from the wind, forcing me to hang onto my life not only to continue the race, but to make sure the thing didn't turn upside-down on me and turn me flatter than if Mario had jumped on me.
I landed the right way, fortunately, and the last of the mushroom kicked in. It let me soar through Bowser's collection of pictures, out of the interior, turn sharply around the castle balcony, and beat Luigi to the finish line.
That was just plain incredible. That feeling of hovering in the air was insane. Luigi greeted me a little after we had all finished and said "That-a was amazing, Charles." He also asked if I could try to show him that again. I told him that something like that was something I wished to do once and only once.
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I stopped at Koda's place before resting at my pad just so I could show him my 210 Coins I just earned, but he wasn't there. I peeked through the windows, but all the lights were off. Because I didn't really want to wait, I put 10 Coins on the doorstop, wrote a note for him, and stuck the note on the door.
The note said "You missed it. I became a Paragoomba for three seconds."
Origin of Entria S1x's superior puzzle is approaching...