Super Mario Bros: The Origin Story
It was an ordinary day in Bowser's Keep when the King Koopa suddenly summoned his faithful minion, Magikoopa, to the throne room. The blue-garbed koopa wizard appeared at the king's side in a puff of magic smoke. "How may I serve you, your highness?"
The over-sized koopa was slumped in his massive throne, looking droopy and bored. "Take a look around this place," he grumbled, indicating to the throne room with a sweep of his clawed hand. "The tapestries are all saggy, my throne smells musty, and the lava in the moat doesn't gurgle like it should."
Feeling puzzled, Magikoopa scratched his hooded head with his wand. "Shall I summon the cleaning koopas?"
Bowser thought about it for a moment, then shook his head with an aggravated grunt. "No, no...this place needs something more. It needs..." He absently scratched the shock of red-orange hair that grew out of the top of his head as he thought hard.
"A woman's touch?" supplied Magikoopa.
King Bowser looked blank for a moment, then leaped from his throne so fast he sent the hefty seat toppling over. Magikoopa hopped back with a squeak
"That's it!" hollered Bowser. "What this place needs is a queen! A cute little lady who'll keep this place neat and tidy, and tell me daily how wonderful I am, and massage my little toes after a hard day of mushroom stomping."
Magikoopa polished the top of his wand with his sleeve. "Very good, sire. Shall I locate a bride for you?"
Without waiting for an official order, the koopa-magician raised his wand dramatically. "Abra-Koopa-Dabra-Hoopa-Loopa-Foopa-Zabra-Do-"
Bowser cleared his throat loudly. "Is all that really necessary?"
"Yes. Do-Dabra-Koopazam!"
There was another puff of smoke, followed by a shower of sparks, and a twinkling of stars. When the smoke cleared, there was a glistening crystal ball resting where the throne (which was now lying on its side several feet away) once stood. Bowser peered closely at the object, his reflection growing more and more distorted the closer he came. "What's this for?" he demanded. "I want a wife, not a game of fortune telling."
"It'll help you find a wife," Magikoopa said patiently. "Just describe the kind of bride you wish to have, and it will show you your perfect match."
Bowser cupped his broad chin in his clawed hand and thought for a moment. "Well, she'll have to be as good-looking as me," he began.
"Naturally."
"She'll also have to be as smart as me, and have a little skill in the kitchen. And by a little I mean a lot."
He thought about it a moment longer before nodded decidedly. "Yes, that should about do it. Okay, Mag, show me my perfect match!"
King Bowser stared closely at the sparkling orb again, his nose practically touching the glass surface. "Better stand back, sire," Magikoopa warned as he raised his wand again.
Bowser stepped back, with narrowed eyes. "No theatrics this time, or you'll be in charge of feeding the chain chomps for the rest of the month."
"Oh, fine," muttered Magikoopa.
He skipped the chant and waved the wand several times, and the surface of the crystal ball warped and changed, until it reflected the image of another room. A blonde girl in a pink dress and wearing a gold crown on her head was walking through what looked like another throne room, with a blue stone floor that was decorated with a bright red carpet runner.
Bowser hopped up and down with glee, making the chandelier hanging from the ceiling clatter and sway. "She's perfect!" he exclaimed happily.
"I think that's the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom," Magikoopa commented.
"She's so pretty," sighed Bowser dreamily. "And I bet she's great in the kitchen, too. And she's probably-"
The princess suddenly tripped over her own two feet and fell flat on her face. Her crown flew off her head and rolled across the glossy carpet. The princess sat up and rubbed her nose with an embarrassed titter.
Several seconds of silence ticked by as Bowser and Magikoopa stared blankly at the image. Magikoopa glanced at his king, who gave a shrug. "Well, two out of three isn't bad."
The koopa king turned from the orb and hollered for his other servants. "Goomba! Paratroopa! Get in here, pronto!"
An armless brown blob with bushy eyebrows scurried into the room on stubby feet, and a red koopa with wings flew in after him. "You bellowed, sire?" said Goomba.
The king was bouncing with excitement again. "I've a mission for you," he declared, pointing at the image still reflected in the shining orb. "Go fetch the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom and bring her back here immediately!"
The pair of them glanced at the princess, who was now singing to herself, then looked at each other blankly. "Whatever for?" Paratroopa wondered.
"Who knows?" sighed Goomba. "I've given up trying to understand his weird schemes."
Bowser stomped on the floor, making the chandelier clatter again and the gabby subordinates squeak in fear. "I want her so she can bring some class to this dreary place," he explained hotly.
The pair exchanged glances again. "I suppose he has a point," Goomba allowed.
"Yeah, this place needs some serious brightening up."
"Totally. The kitchen is a mess, and our rooms downstairs-"
Bowser began hopping up and down in anger, and the pair quickly hid behind a nearby statue. "No, no, no!" the king hollered. "You're going to bring her here so I can marry her!"
Goomba peeked out from behind the statue slowly. "Is he serious?" he whispered.
"He always is," Paratroopa whispered back.
"Eeewww..."
"I heard that," snarled Bowser.
"Eep!"
Goomba raced out of the throne room, and Paratroopa flew rapidly after. "We'll bring her back ASAP, promise!" he called.
"Good," muttered Bowser. He turned back to Magikoopa. "In the meantime, I want you to start the preparations for my wedding. The guest list is going to be huge, of course..."
As the two of them started on the wedding plans, Goomba and Paratroopa raced to the Mushroom Kingdom. They had to stop and ask for directions several times, but they eventually found the princess's castle. Once there, they hid behind a tree as they discussed how they were going to get in.
"We should just march in through the front gate," Paratroopa decided.
"But there's guards," protested Goomba.
"So? Just act natural and they won't even notice."
Goomba had his doubts about this particular plan, but he eventually followed Paratroopa to the front gate. The pair of mushroom guards merely stared, bewildered, as the pair breezed by.
"How's it going, guys?" asked Paratroopa calmly.
"Uh, pretty good, I guess," replied one of the guards. The other scratched the side of his mushroom cap with his spear.
The plan, which seemed so silly at first, turned out to work perfectly against the inexperienced guards. The pair strolled right into the princess's room, and it wasn't until Goomba head-butted her onto Paratroopa's back and the two took off did anyone suspect anything was amiss.
The two uncoordinated subordinates could have been caught during their escape, but it was a while before the guards could decipher what the princess's hysterical maid was trying to say. Finally, she managed to calm down long enough to say that the princess had been kidnapped.
"This is the worst catastrophe our kingdom has ever faced!" the head guard cried.
Half the guards were in tears, and the other half still looked bewildered. "What should we do?" one of them asked, rubbing his red-speckled head.
Though he was close to tears himself, the head guard knew he had to be brave for his princess. He stood tall and said, "Someone needs to rescue her!"
The guards exchanged glances. "Not one of us," one of them muttered.
"Yeah, is he kidding? King Bowser picks us out from between his toes for fun!"
"I can hear you," the head guard muttered. "And no one said that King Bowser is responsible for this."
"But who else could it have been?" asked the maid, before she burst into tears again.
"Yeah, he's first suspect on my list," a green-capped guard decided.
"He's the only suspect on the list," said another with a roll of his eyes.
"Okay," said the head guard loudly, "we all agree that Bowser is probably the one behind this. The next question is; who's going to rescue her?"
The guards exchanged glances again. "Someone else?" one of them suggested.
The others nodded rapidly in agreement. "Yeah, someone else—a real hero!"
"That's probably a good idea," the head guard decided. "We only have experience with standing still and watching stuff, so it's best to leave something like this to someone who knows what they're doing."
He also wasn't anxious to go within stomping distance of Bowser's big feet, and was glad that the others were so quick to agree with his plan. He pointed to a pair of guards who usually watched the royal vault, named Tip and Topple, respectively. "You two—go find a hero, and be quick about it. The rest of you, back to your regular duties."
The body of guards shuffled off, leaving the pair alone—and confused. "How do we find a hero?" wondered Tip.
"The same place we find everything," said the head guard wearily. "The phone book."
"Oh."
"But don't we pay for everything we find in the phone book?" asked Topple.
"So? You two are in charge of the vault, aren't you? Now get down there, grab some coins and order us a Grade A hero!"
"Yes sir," the pair said meekly before scurrying away. Once in the vault, Topple, the green-capped of the pair, turned to Tip with an exasperated look. "Any more bright ideas?"
"Me?" said Topple defensively. "It was your idea to start betting on Yoshi races."
"But it was your idea to start borrowing money from the vault after our's ran out."
"Never mind," said Topple testily, straightening his blue-speckled cap. "Just go check how much we have left."
The other guard took a moment to pick a handful of coins off the otherwise empty vault floor. "Counting what I have in my pocket, we have ten coins to work with," he announced.
Topple pulled out a phone book and flipped it open. "Let's hope good heroes run cheap," he muttered.
After several minutes of searching, it soon became obvious that good heroes weren't cheap at all. In fact, the two naughty guards were pretty sure they wouldn't have been able to afford one even if the vault had been full to bursting.
"So what do we do now?" Topple wanted to know.
"I don't know," said Tip fearfully, "but we're going to catch it if we don't do something."
"Let's look again. There has to be something in here we can afford."
They poured over the phone book again, until they found themselves in the plumber section. "Man, even plumbers are expensive," Tip muttered.
"That's because these are the best available," said Topple. "Check the back, that's where the third and fourth rate prices are."
Tip turned to the last part of the plumber section and began scanning the page. "Here's one that only charges ten coins a visit," he exclaimed, pointing to an ad at the very bottom of the page that read Mario Bros. Plumbing.
"But we're looking for a hero, not plumbers," Topple reminded him.
"There's nothing else we can afford," his betting buddy insisted. "We just won't tell them."
"Who? The plumbers? Or our superiors?"
"Neither."
Within a few minutes they had dialed the number written in the ad, and a few hours later a short, pudgy plumber dressed in blue overalls and sporting a bushy black mustache came knocking on the castle door, looking for a faulty pipeline to fix. Walking behind him was a thinner plumber dressed in green and carrying a large toolbox.
Tip dragged the first one inside, nearly knocking the plumber's red hat off in his haste. "There's a huge leak in one of Bowser's castles," Topple began.
"But we're not sure which one, he has at least eight of them," Tip added.
"Our princess is already there to oversee the operation, so when you find her you'll know you're in the right place," Topple finished.
Before the puzzled plumber could utter a word, the naughty guards shoved a map in his hands and pushed him out the door, where his equally puzzled brother was waiting. "And make sure the princess comes home as soon as you find her," Tip called before locking the door. With the vault was empty, the two wandered off to find someone they could borrow more coins from, since another Yoshi race was coming up.
And the plumbers, still scratching their heads in confusion, started on their journey with absolutely no idea of what they were getting into.