AN: Keeping these short and sweet :D Enjoy the read and R&R
Disclaimer: I don't own anything owned by Nintendo!
A Warrior in the Making
Chapter 1: War, Horses and Jokers
"The end of the world is coming." A friend is telling me, we are sitting in one of Bowser's great castle. Bowser is the king of all of us in the Darklands, we know he's a ruthless dictator who only cares for himself, he is at least 8 foot tall with a sharp spikes on his grand murky green shell. A fire breathing half dragon that puts monster to shame. The other half you ask? We have no idea.
I happen to be part of his massive army, known to the world as 'koopatrol', not exactly a menacingly horrifying name, but the mere mention of it makes civilisations squirm in fear. Why am I apart of this terrible group? Well how else am I gonna pay for my stay?
Anyway I'm frontline cannon fodder, an average koopatroopa, a shiny green shell covering my body, and I have tan yellow skin with plain green eyes, yeah, not a lot special about me. Now, on with the story of this 'end of the world.'
"What are you talking about? You've said that enough times through out the conversation..." I say to my friend, also a koopatroopa, only difference is his turqoise eyes, slightly altered skin and a bright red shells.
"Have you been listening at all!? I have been talking about that prophet that came to give us that 10 year lecture! I didn't actually mean that's going to happen! Don't you remember?" At that my mouth slowly shapes into an 'O' while laughing,
"Ah sorry about that, I was sort of... day dreaming I guess." this is my meek reply as the koopa in front of me just sighs in frustration,
"You know if someone really attacked this castle you wouldn't realise until someone gave you a smack in the face screaming:"
"We're under attack!" someone screams in the distance, I just look at my friend wide-eyed,
"I guess you were right about-" We hear a loud smash as the whole fort trembles like an earthquake hit as rocks crash into the side of the walls, "that..."
"Positions you maggots!" A koopatrol cries, they are like us koopas but they wear shiny spiked silver armour and they are the true knights of Bowser's still grand army. "That includes you two idiots!" He shouts to us, we almost startle in surprise in unison as we jump to action,
"Argh fine, lets get to the front gate." My red koopa friend reminds me, I nod to him as we sprint to our positions,
"So much for my day off." I mutter under my breath.
...
We reach the front gate as I skid to a stop, "No way..." I couldn't help saying, 300 of them stand before us, all of them, toads. No, not that kind of toad. These ones are small humanoid creatures that wear mushroom caps on their head, mostly white and red spots. All of which who wield either brandished swords and spears, while some have shields and the leaders wear bright white capes. Some of them even found horses, goodness knows where in this land, and we found the sources of the rocks smashing against our walls, 20 foot catapults slinging massive rocks air with ease,
"How long were they preparing for this?" My red shelled friend told me,
"I don't think I wanna know Drake, I don't think I wanna know." I tell him truthfully, was the Mushroom kingdom preparing to invade us this entire time? Bowser had attacked that Kingdom many times, though only twice did he try to actually take over the world, the rest of the times he kept trying to capture this princess named Peach, though every time the plan was foiled but the mushroom kingdom hero, Mario. I still have no idea what he looks like, but I get the idea that he is ridiculous heroic, saving the world multiple times and defeating bowser at least 10 times over.
I think the Mushroom Kingdom, however, has had enough of it, and now we are the first to taste their wrath. Great.
"Attack! Now is the time where we finish the Darklands! Charge, in the name of the Mushroom Kingdom, in the name of Queen Toadstool!" A blue dotted toad calls out, obviously the leader as he wields both a sword and spear, along with a red and white striped cape and silver striking armour.
"Toadstool? Is there a new woman in power?" I couldn't help asking.
"No, Troy, Toadstool is her last name, hence the more majestic name to use, more likely than not, but that's not exactly important right now, we are in a warzone here!"
From that I snap back into reality and realise something, "We don't have any weapons! How do we deal with this!?" I raise my voice slightly as I say this, but Drake only slowly shakes his head,
"Hammer bros, fire bros, and all those others do, so do the princes, we're cannon fodder remember? But we do have the bullet bills on our side." My red shelled friend explains to me, the bullet bills are similar to cannons but we these massive bills are completely back except for their eyes with the white around the eyes. Even though they are the best cannons in the world it gave me limited reassurance.
"So we aren't going to make it in short." I make a statement of a question, he slowly sighs as he shakes his head. But before we could really take in that we might not live to tell the tale another day the legions of toads are upon us.
I quickly jab the toad in front of me and I made a dash for the weapon is his hand, whipping it off him in seconds, I take a quick look at it and realise its a slight curved sword, "A scimitar?" I mutter under my breath, but with this short hesitation my opponent pulls out another sword, I realise this is quite possible the sergeant of this first group. I fall into a battle stance and he tries goes to crush me under the weight of his sword, somehow my body seems slip and my scimitar comes up just in time, when did I learn how to use a sword? Beginner's luck I guess...
He then flurries a million strikes at me and I struggle under the series of slashes. Eventually I lose my footing as I fall into the muddy battleground. "This is the end for you!" The toad goes for the killing blow as he stabs at me from his standing position.
Surely this can't be the end, I wont lose here, in fact, I refuse!
In a sharp reaction I crawl out of the way and I jump up so I stand once again, I dash towards him and slash as fast as I can. Though he only ducks and sidekicks me and I skid against the ground and head-butt someone in the foot causing them to fall on the ground, I notice its another toad causing me to jump in fear, though I find out he's dead, instead causing nausea inside me. Although after that the original opponent comes to finish me off again,
"This time, your mine!" He then stops me from moving by holding me down with his iron foot and then slashes at me with all his might. Then he stops. He looks down. Eyes wide, and he falls to the ground.
"This spears aren't too shabby are they?" Drake smiles to me. With mortal blood on the end of the sharp-headed spear. He then grabs my hand and pulls me up from the mix of grass and mud covering me and my now brown-green shell.
"Too close, man, thanks a lot." I slightly curve my mouth into a smirk.
"Not a problem, but we need to get out of here now!" Drake tells me with some urgency.
"Why? We took out this whole group of toads it looks like, aren't we winning?" Drake quickly shakes his head,
"Troy, look." He points behind me, and I see that we haven't even left a dent in their massive force, and our fort has half crumbled, our army's morale broken, and there could only be 50 of us to their 240,
"Retreat!" One of our knights shouts to us, and to be fair I'll be happy to oblige. Some of our warriors limp with injury though me, Drake, and the rest of us, ran as fast as we can. I hear a galloping in the distance. No! The horses, I completely forgot! They are gaining on us fast, the limpers didn't stand a chance and are quickly picked off. Do they have no honour? Who chases down broken men? I guess the mushroom kingdom has dropped all morals, and now revenge is all they think.
"The trees, we can lose them in that forest!" Drake shouts to others. I never understood why they didn't give him a promotion, he has got double the skill, fighting and leadership, that half us koopatroopas could ever hope to have.
Everyone nods to themselves as we race to the trees. Almost there, gonna make it, just a few more steps and freedom is- lost. A horse kicks my shell, sending me flying into a tree and a large crack on the once green shell of mine. The old thing protects me from most of impact but horse had enough kick to keep me on the ground.
I slowly turn my aching body as I see a horse galloping towards me with a caped toad sitting upon it. I don't have the energy left to get up, all I can do is brace myself as the spear is pointed at me. Right when I close my eyes I feel the spear hold between the tiny gap between my body and the shell as it throws me slightly into the air and I fall onto the back of horse.
As I land I startle in surprise and I hear a faint voice shout, "Troy!" in the distance however before I have a chance to turn I am smashed in the face with and elbow which in an instant knocks me out while everything goes black.
...
I take my sweet time opening my eyes, though when I do I feel like my eyes are still closed. Where ever I am its completely pitch black. The ground is solid and murky, and the room is damp. Due to the damp my body feels quite wet and the ground must be concrete because when I scrape my feet against it, it prickles against my skin.
I raise my body slowly, almost zombie like until, "So, you're finally awake then." This quickly startles me, although as you probably know, I'm easily startled.
"Whoa! Who are you? And where am I? Why am I here and-"
"Stop! Your a man of a lot of questions huh? We are in a prison cell, you must have been capture by the mushroom kingdom, so I guess you already know that the war has started?"
I only now finally turn my head to him, realising he's in the room with me, I nod my head though I tilt it a bit as I look at him, he didn't exactly look of this world.
He had a half white and half black mask on, with an extravagant purple and white pointy jester robe and hat, though the hat covered the whole of the back of his head, somewhat like the tail of a peacock. The rest of his body is black or covered in black. To be honest the whole outfit was quite... bizarre.
"Here, you must learn how to fight, with the strength of a buffalo, and the swiftness of the ninja."
"With the what of the what? What are you talking about?" I ask him with my head still concocted.
"You will fight almost everyday against some of the worst, and some of the best, you must beat them all in combat, and one day you will escape."
"And how do you expect me to believe that? You don't look ruft up at all, in fact, you look pristine clean, yet your still claiming that you fight all day? Who are you?" I couldn't help asking,
"Me? I am the master of dimensions, the pleaser of crowds, I am... Dimentio!"
"Oi! Be quiet prisoner, its time for you to get moving!" A toad guard wearing black chain mail and a spiky fail shouts at us.
"Prisoner? There is 2 of us in h-" I turn my head to find out the purple joker is gone, my eyes widen, and I look back at the guard.
"Alright mad creature, out of your cell!" He grabs me and throws me out of the cell and back on to the ground, my energy has hardly recovered so fighting back isn't an option, for now I can only do as he says as I slowly reach a standing position.
"Lets get moving, come on!" He pushes me forward and as we walk forward, I couldn't help asking myself,
Where am I, why haven't they just killed me, and who the heck is that Dimentio!?