It is well known that the glorious King of All Koopas, a.k.a Bowser, has quite the kingdom, and with such lands to control, and of course infamous enemies to fight, quite the army to go along with it. The list is long and arduous, the casualty list is most certainly a lot longer . Goombas, shyguys, a menagerie of bullets, spikey things that most forget the name of, and of course the bulwark of the army, a whole family of different koopas. Koopa Troopas and Paratroopas being the most common of the bunch, often seen walking about, on the lookout for that most unprecedented of heroes, Mario. At the top of this section of Bower's army lie the Hammer Bros, so coined the name for the various hammer like projectiles thrown hither and dither as they try to deter their most hated enemy

But what isn't so well known is the fact that the war, and even though the King has refused to actually call it a war and more of a… *ahem* "Forceful Action"... has taken quite a toll on his subjects and sadly, volunteers no longer cut it anymore, and conscription has been required for probably a long time, but really when you have years labeled as ✩✩✩✩, it's hard to remember.

It's not all gloom and doom for the subjects for his royal terribleness though, after all most of the time they're after just one guy, or just one girl, or babysitting his kids so really how bad could it be?...

This was the question that one certain Hammer bro asked himself on a daily basis, not because he needed reassurance that everything would be ok, but rather he liked a good laugh, and if he couldn't laugh at his own misery than life would really not be so hot. His name was Kurt, and like all Hammer Bros were to be required, he was indeed a brother to someone, two someone's to be exact.

It was kind of odd, how unlucky they all were to be assigned to different units, not to mention how each particular unit eerily lined up with their previously chosen profession. It was something he thought about often and yet another thing that made him chuckle from time to time, just the dramatic irony of it all.

"Maybe the universe does have a sense of humor after all eh?" he mumbled to himself, in the comfort of the castle. The cold, hard, brooding, death trap filled castle… So maybe it wasn't so comfortable, but he was on break and alone, so if that didn't constitute as a comfort, than he'd hit himself with his own hammer.

Normally, in these wonderful moments of solitude he would work on a private project, maybe write to his lovely third cousin that was twice removed, but today, today was a good day to talk to oneself about the idiosyncrasies of life. "They give us these helmets as protection, as if we were going on a bike ride"

And that would have been the extent of his break had it not been for yet another abnormality of the day to come barging in on his quiet break

"WHOA! Its my broslice hombre brother! Watch out!" it was Kurt's brother, an obvious dude of a Boomerang Bro, it was also a frisbee, which landed on Kurt's face with enough rudeness to tip a cow. "Oh total bummer man… But hey, what's up bro!" the blue shelled turtle jogged over to his frisbee covered brother and plucked it off his face, only to reveal a bit of smoke and frustration

"Jack... what are you doing here, and furthermore what is this disc of yours doing here?" Kurt had always seen himself the responsible one, the party pooper as the youngest one liked to call him, and normally Jack had a guard post to be at this hour

"Oh you know man, just tossing some frisbee with the guys, but you know you caught it so the games over now. Made a touchdown and everything without even playing, that's pretty legit" He was obviously impressed with said feat… and very unaware of the implications of the question given to him, which wasn't uncommon for Jack, much to Kurt's chagrin

"Jack, aren't you suppose to be on guard duty or something?" he crossed his arms and raised an inquisitive eyebrow

However Jack didn't take to parental like gesture "Nah bra" he waved a dismissive claw at him "I got an early break today, castle's been busy with all the stuff lately"

"All the stuff?"

"Oh yeah man, all the stuff"

This was apparently all Kurt was going to get out of his brother as to why he was here and what was going on, but hey, he was a big Koopa, if Jack wanted to get in trouble so be it "If that's the case, and now that you've disturbed my alone time, why don't we pay our other sibling a visit eh?"

"Little red? Sure, yeah, sure, it's been awhile since us bros got together and did a mumbo" without saying else Jack helped his slightly older brother of his cot and the two began walking out

"You know, I still don't understand what you say half the time"