Since Nintendo "canon" is filled with retcons, I feel at liberty to keep certain aspects that are no longer up-to-date like the Koopalings being Bowser's kids, Paper Mario as being the same universe as the rest of Mario and Star Fox Adventures having taken place. Even though it was never canon, I'm also doing homage to the Mario is from Brooklyn idea with a friend's unique twist, and keep Rare's decision for Cranky to be DK's grandpa rather than his dad. And I'm borrowing KoopalingFan's idea that all the Koopalings are all the children of Clawdia Koopa, but that she died before Bowser Jr. was hatched, hence Bowser being overly protective of him.

There were many worlds. Anyone familiar with the history of the Mushroom World knew that. After all, almost seven decades ago, a group of around twenty humans from Brooklyn, New York, USA, Earth ended up in the Mushroom World where one, Pauline, was abducted by a young Cranky Kong. Her descendants with eventual husband, an Italian plumber, included the famous Mario Bros. But until Master Hand had shown up and made the Super Smash Bros. Tournaments a yearly occasion, travel between worlds was almost always accidental.

Almost always, K. Rool thought. Once his people, the Kremlings had been the most advanced civilization in the Mushroom World. From their original homeland in Kaos Kore in the Northern Kremisphere, they had spread to the daughter cultures of Krematoa, Kremlantis, and Crocodile Isle. In an age before electricity and the steam engine, the ancient Kremlings had uncovered a massive source of geothermal energy. It was clean and renewable and enabled the Kremlings to rise from fishers, hunter-gathers, and and subsistence farmers to a society of poets, philosophers, explorers and scientists. By experimenting with the multicolored crystals that contained this energy, the Kremlings created the volcanic island Krematoa in the Northern Kremisphere and the volcanic islands of Kremlantis and Crocodile Isle in the DK Isles. It was from these islands that K. Rool's ancestors took their title Rex Insularum. But when the Kongs or Kremling in-fighting had destroyed the energy siphons on Krematoa and Kremlantis respectively, that left only Crocodile Isle standing above the waves. The Kremlings of Kaos Kore regarded their island dwelling brothers as warmongers and would not help them. The survivors crowded on Crocodile Isle which rapidly became filthy and polluted. When envoys from the Mushroom Kingdom and the Darklands first reached Crocodile Isle they assumed that the Kremlings had always been a species that did not care for nature. And the Kongs preferred the Mushroom version of history to their neighbor's version of history. Recent events caused the Mushroom World to revise its views of the Kremlings. A few years ago, K. Rool tapped into the submerged energy siphon of Kremlantis and raised the island. What the archeologists found there was proof of a culture that lived in harmony with nature. The Mushroom Kingdom and the Darklands had revised their views on ancient Kremling history. Sadly, that was also the year that the Kongs disrupted the energy flow at Crocodile Core on Crocodile Isle forcing it to sink. On the whole, things could be worse.

Soon, Krematoa was raised and work was begun on an artificial Crocodile Isle. The main population of Kremlings lived on this artificial Crocodile Isle or in Kaos Kore, while the nobility and intellectuals spent long holidays in resorts or private estates on Kremlantis or Krematoa. K. Rool was at a resort he legally owned in southwestern Krematoa, where the jungle met the mountains. His room contained both a bedroom area and a study. Most of it looked rather ordinary: brown chests-of-drawers, grey-green carpet, brown chairs and tables. However, one item stood out. To the untrained eye it looked like a flat screen high definition TV with black casing. One of its settings was for two-way face-to-face communication across realms. Kremling scientists had long ago realized that the crystals could open portals in spacetime from one realm to another, and K. Rool had made frequent use of them.

One ally, with whom he actually formed one of the few genuine friendships in his life, was Gannondorf. Gannondorf's people, the Gerudo, had a genetic sensitivity to an energy field in their homeworld. They could manipulate it like magic. They lacked the technological sophistication and scientific understanding to distinguish between magic and the stranger parts of science. Gannondorf however had been interested enough in K. Rool's world to let the Kremling King install a power generator and a comm device in his castle. The two kept each other informed on events in each other's worlds, addressed each other as familiars, and shared many a good laugh at Bowser's (the Koopa King), expense. Neither would go so far as to actually trust the other with his life, but they did like each other.

K. Rool turned on the comm device and entered the code for Gannondorf's castle. It took five minutes but his ally finally responded.

"Crășa, how goeth it with thee?"

"Charming as always, Gannon. And yourself?"

"A day nearer to claiming the Triforce," Gannondorf said, the tone in his voice indicating the exact opposite was in fact the case.

"Well, I have come upon a brilliant plan that could help both of us. My son is about to consolidate his hold over the remnants of Andross's former empire."

"Thou hast a son in the Lylat System? How?"

K. Rool decided that since this was about to go public he may as well tell Gannondorf about his prior activities in the Lylat System. He'd been in contact with Andross for several decades. K. Rool exchanged information about the Mushroom World with Andross, in exchange for K. Rool contributing to Andross's experiments. K. Rool knew that as the Mushroom World and the Lylat System were in the same universe, the same galaxy even, Andross would eventually want to conquer it as well. However, he'd need a planetary governor to manage it for him. In light of their dialogue that would probably be K. Rool.

Still Andross, had underestimated K. Rool. When Andross spoke of his experiments on the planet Sauria, K. Rool came face to face with the Sharpclaw. What happened next was Andross's idea, but K. Rool quickly found a way to turn it against him. Andross was interested in crossbreeding a Kremling with a SharpClaw. It would take massive genetic manipulation of both the sperm and egg cells' genomes, but it could be done. Naturally K. Rool volunteered himself, with Andross understanding that the child would be K. Rool's successor, educated on Venom, and loyal to Andross.

Or so Andross thought. K. Rool frequently visited Sauria and frequently brought young Ivar Krasjason to visit him on Crocodile Isle. He taught him to see himself as the rightful heir not just of Crocodile Isle but of Andross's empire as well. It didn't hurt that the boy's mother steeped him in the legend of the Daroganson who would one day rule all of Sauria.

Now Andross was dead, and General Scales, the name Ivar was known by, was gathering the ape's former generals to himself. He only had to deal with Andrew Oikonny, Venom's so called "emperor." That he was employing Andrew's former teammates, Wolf O'Donnell and Leon Powalski, only made victory that much more delicious. And that wasn't where K. Rool wanted to end with Star Wolf.

After explaining Scales's origins to Ganondorf, K. Rool asked, "Would you like to rent Star Wolf from him?"

Gannondorf arched his orange eyebrows.

"I know them from the Smash Bros. tournaments. O'Donnell is an effective fighter, but how know I that he wilt not be working for thee?"

K. Rool and Gannondorf were so alike that they knew to distrust each other, no matter how much they may have liked one another.

"You don't. But he's a mercenary. You can always out-bid me." K. Rool said.

Gannondorf smiled and chuckled, and said "That I shall do. Contact me when we are ready to begin."

"As always, Gannon. Bye for now." K. Rool entered a new code on his remote and Gannondorf's face disappeared.

The Kremling King sat back in his chair and smiled. He had trained Scales well for this day. The only thing he faulted his son for was that Krazoa fiasco, but then no one had could have foreseen that Andross was manipulating those events. Scales's true test, as genetically engineered military genius was about to begin. He would be arriving on Mushroom Planet shortly, and then the wrath of Venom would fall on K. Rool's greatest enemy of all—the only one he hated more than Cranky Kong. K. Rool arose to turn a miniature globe on the shelf until his finger and gazed touched Darklands.

"A glorious winter is about to descend on the House of Koopa and its heirs."


The day so far was typical, meaning that Ludwig von Koopa was hating it thoroughly. So far he'd seen his youngest brother devour three giant sized chocolate covered donuts for breakfast and then get to stay home from school because of a tummy ache. His dad had naturally yelled at the minions who had prepared the meal rather than little pig who gotten himself in the mess. Ludwig himself had a stress filled day as a senior at Dark City Enriched High School. His heavy load of physics, calculus, Koopa lit, Mushroom language, and sociology were all basically college level courses. On top of this, though maintaining a straight A average, Ludwig was always assigned mandatory extra credit assignments that cut down his personal time to fifteen minutes before bed each night. He had no so social life, while the little pest could make himself sick and probably get applauded for it. Nothing was too much for the little one who'd worn diapers till he was four.

Ever since Bowser Jr. had been old enough to join their father on his evil schemes to kidnap Princess Peach, he had consistently been referred to as "the" Koopa Prince, not "a" Koopa prince. By all rights that title belonged to Ludwig since he was the first hatched, but Junior was the favorite. Ludwig did not understand his father's reasons for this, but at least he made an effort to guess. How accurate his guess was, he'd never know. The brat was spoiled, getting every new toy he wanted, eating a high sugar diet (regardless of future health consequences such as the family predisposition toward obesity), and never being criticized by Bowser, Kamek, or Kammy. All this told him that Junior was not their father's choice to inherit the throne. Such a pampered, spoiled, brat could never grow into the head of a nation state. He would be too prone to govern by knee-jerk reactions to things not going his way. No, even Dad had to see the stupidity of making that little piece of crud his heir—not that the Darklands had an absolute monarchy. Every action a monarch took had to be approved by the Darklands' Council—there! That was it! Junior could make any kind of decision he wanted and the council would never approve. The only reason the council kept approving Dad's plans to kidnap Peach was because it kept the Darklands' military the most heavily funded part of government. The Darklands needed Mushroom World's largest army, as the Kremlings' had the largest navy.

The next king should be someone who understood geopolitics. Princess Peach's Mushroom Kingdom had the largest economy in the Mushroom World, which meant that power on their planet was in that most unstable shape, a tripod. A union between the Darklands and Mushroom Kingdom would be the end of the Kremlings, and a union between the Kremlings and Mushroom Kingdom would be the end of Darklands.

Errgh! With all this on his mind was it any wonder Ludwig couldn't concentrate on his essay about the Koopspeare's notions of death in Clawd's soliloquy? The Koopa prince stared at the flashing cursor on his computer, and at the time on the screen's lower right hand: 9:05 P.M.

He would devote one more hour to his essay, call it a quits for the night, catch the news, watch the monologue of his favorite late night talk show and go to bed. He'd slave under the tyranny of the future Bowser IV tomorrow.