As a Goomba, I always had a natural psychic ability. Never thought I would end up being able to slowly crush in a some poor Koopa's head like it was nothing. But here I was, in some dimly lit, one room apartment, filth littering the floor and the ceiling, thinking some poor turtle to death. I have no idea who this poor guy is or what he did to deserve this, but I'm not payed to ask questions, I'm payed to use my talents quickly and leave.

I'm out of the building as fast as I was in it. The sooner I do my work, the sooner I get my coins. I take the usual alley roots through the city until I can find that nifty little pipe I always take after completing a job, and head down it. Smells like shit and piss, but dirty jobs come with dirty smells.

"Done already?" asks my partner, a Gloomba named Cordelia. What I wouldn't give to shove my mushroom up one of her warp-pipes.

"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't" I tell her.

"Still can't believe you can off someone so quickly."

"I hope you're just as fast cleaning up the gore. Pretty messy this time."

"Next time, could you just melt their brain from the inside?"

"It doesn't work like that."

Cordelia goes through the pipe for clean up duty. Her rear-end peach is princess-tier on the way up. I lay low, and wait for her to come back. To pass the time, I levitate over a bottle of Chuckola Cola from the little mini fridge Cordelia set up down here. This underground abode has really grown on me these past few months. It isn't much, just a couch, the fridge, the television with the VHS connected to it, a box of videos, and Cordelia's spare clean up supplies in the corner, but it's like a little home away from home. I can see why her Gloomba kind spend all day living down here, in a weird way.

Cordelia comes back just as I'm about to finish watching a nature documentary on Piranha Plants. I have no idea why she likes this stuff, but I'm willing to give anything a chance.

"You can go now," she says.

"See you later," I tell her.

I make my way up the pipe, get on a bus, and head on back home. This job pays real well, but I don't have enough to buy a car just yet. In time, maybe.

My apartment isn't big, but it's much better than where I was living before. It's the least I deserve, I think, after the shit I went through in the war. Yeah, I'm a veteran, but who isn't these days? It seems there's a new war with the Mushroom Kingdom every year, our whole fucking economy is based on war. Really though, the war helped me. I wouldn't have discovered that I had better psychic powers than any other Goomba, and I wouldn't have gotten the work that I do because of it.

As far as shitty situations go, I've got the least shitty one out there. I look out the window, at that night sky over this broke, crime filled city.

My name is Conrad, and this is KoopConica. My home. My shitty little home.