"My princess," an exasperated mushroom headed courtesan said, bowing, "The king and his winged army have failed. We know of no survivors."
A thunderbolt crashed outside. It was no normal storm that raged tonight. The forces at work were disrupting the natural flow of the land and in response a rainless thunderstorm raged all across the Mushroom Kingdom.
Princess Peach rose from her seat. Her peach colored dress silently untangling and straightening back into the regal form it was meant to look like. She put a hand on her tiara and paused.
"Where are they now?" She asked, apprehension filling her voice.
"Just over the great desert. The green valley seems to be their ultimate destination as from their they can use it as a springboard for attacks to almost anywhere within the seven Kingdoms." The mushroom headed creature eyed her.
"And your army General Toad?" She returned the look.
"We have no air ships. We can hold them off on the ground for a while but given they have air ships we can only do so much, M'lady." Toad looked back at the floor.
Princess Peach sighed. She hated using magic, hated invoking the powers that permeated the land, especially against an enemy who had little knowledge of it's use. What was she to do though? The king was missing and surely dead with no queen to take his place.
"Then I guess we have no choice." She removed a piece of chalk from behind her tiara and began walking to the large open space in front of the throne.
"Call the court magicians. We're going to need the best artificers around." With that she began drawing the proper symbols upon the floor.
The wind whipped loudly in his ears as he plunged headfirst through the darkened cloud cover. Thunderbolts crashed around him in the thick fog of the storm as he swerved left and right, avoiding the chunks of land that had become dangerously hidden within the sky. He knew this area well but even he knew better then to get overly confident, especially at night during a storm. The airships had been wise to have avoided using the storm for cover.
The whipping wind calmed to a steady stream as he broke through the last of the clouds. Flexing his tail as a rudder, Mario began steering himself toward the largest of the flying wooden battleships. A series of lightning strikes on the prow of the ship lit it up for him revealing the make up of the surface. Numerous Bill launchers lined the sides of the ship followed by drop ports for Koopa Paratroopa's as well as a series of flamethrower pipes along the underbelly. There were numerous areas that had suffered heavy damage already from the previous encounter with the Kings winged forces.
It didn't take long for Mario to realize these weren't battleships, they were heavily armed transports. His stomach tightened as he grew nearer to the flying ship. Armored transports meant General Koopa was planning more than a petty land grab. He wondered how much of this Princess Peach knew.
Mario swooped low over the deck of the ship before arching upward, landing perfectly on his feet. He then reached for the medallion around his neck and removed it. The medallion held the symbol of a feather. Immediately after removing the medal, his clothing began to turn to smoke reverting back to the red and blue overall/shirt combination he normally wore.
Mario said a quick prayer of thanks to the medal and replaced it in an inside pocket of his front overall. He then removed another medal, that of a flower and placed it around his neck. Thanks to Princess Peach's artificers, Mario was well prepared for this strike.
As Mario placed the medal around his neck, his clothes again did that smoky transformation. The colors were sizzling off, turning a bleached white. Even his cap changed white but his undershirt instead turned fire red.
Mario was not into stealth. Subterfuge was not his strong suit, instead his best plan was to just run in through the front door smashing anything and everything in his path. It took him a couple of seconds to find the entrance to the lower levels of the ship but upon finding it, he began a dash for it.
The door to the lower levels exploded in a shower of fragmented burning wood as Mario sped past it, a fireball already formed again in his hand. Down the hallway of the interior he ran, his destination was the series of lifts to the bowels of the ship.
Up ahead, four Koopa Troopas stepped out from a side door into the hallway. Behind them, a bulkhead of solid oak came sliding down followed by the same behind Mario. He kept running anyway as the Koopa Troopas took their stances readying themselves. Mario got almost within arms reach of the first Troopa, then he jumped into the air releasing three fireballs rapidly at the bulkhead.
Before the first Troopa could react, Mario's foot came down on the back of it's neck snapping it in two and giving him a platform to jump off of again. This time his foot came down on the face of the second Troopa, pressing the back of it's head into the shell that covered it's back. He felt the crunch of it's skull under his foot and made another jump. Having a little more time to react, the third Troopa got a hold of Mario's left leg as he delivered a killing blow with his right foot to the side of the Troopa's neck. In the last seconds of it's life, the Troopa managed to throw Mario toward the exposed spiked shell of one of it's fallen comrades.
Flying in the air, Mario, rolled and faced the upcoming shell then quickly extended his right hand. His right hand hit the shell, narrowly going in-between the spikes that jutted from the shell. He then pivoted on his hand, twisting and re-launching back toward the wall of the hallway. The fourth Troopa was already bounding down the hallway toward him as he bounced off of the wall, somersaulted and sailed by the rushing Troopa. The Troopa skidded to a stop, turned around and then was disintegrated by a fireball thrown by a crouching Mario.
At this point, the bulk head had been burning pretty good from the three fireballs Mario had hit it with earlier. Smoke was beginning to choke the small space between the two closed bulkheads, not to mention Mario himself who was now forced to stay low if he wanted to continue breathing.
A swift kick was all it took to bring the already fire weakened bulkhead down.
"…Mario…" A familiar voice called out of the ether.
Mario ignored it, jumping in a lift and riding it down.
"…Mario…." Again the voice called to him.
Now was not the time for random people to be calling him magically.
The lift shot to the bottom of the shaft unnervingly fast before coming to a shaky stop at the bottom. Seconds before it hit the bottom of the shaft, Mario had already jumped out and came to a rolling landing on the floor below.
In front of Mario lay a makeshift throne room consisting of a single massive chair, a waiting area in front of it and General Koopa sitting upon it the massive chair.
"Return to the Machine Islands and your king where you belong." Mario growled as he stood, readying fireballs in both hands.
"My king? King Wikwik is dead. I'M the new King." General Koopa stood, glaring at Mario.
"It was only a matter of time before your ego grew too big to be ruled by someone else, General Koopa." Mario advanced slowly, not taking his eyes off of Koopa.
General Koopa laughed at that comment and then said, "I am General Koopa no more. Now! Now I am King Bowser!" He threw back a cape for dramatic purposes.
"King Bowser, huh? We'll see about that." Mario began running toward Bowser.
"You'll never get the chance to challenge it, Mario of the Tubular Court." Mario rolled as Bowser fired a large stream of flame from his jaws.
Everything around Mario exploded into flames. He returned fire with the fireballs he had formed in his hands but the flames from Bowser's maw effectively blinded him. The fireballs missed, adding to the fire within the throne room.
There was a loud guffaw from Bowser and for a second, Mario could have sword he saw a pipe appear before Bowser disappeared from the room entirely. Mario turned and ran for the lifts.
"…Mario…" There was that voice again.
He ignored it again, instead extracting chalk from his pocket and beginning the sketch of a pipe. Upon completing the sketch, the real pipe materialized. A four foot slightly leaning green plumbing pipe now stood in front of the lifts and Mario. There was a kind of deep darkness in the pipe that even the light from the flames could not lift. The glow of two eyes were the only thing Mario could see inside of the pipe.
"Mario, I've been trying to get in contact with you for an hour now!" A voice from the pipe proclaimed.
An explosion rocked the ship causing Mario to grab hold of the pipe.
"Now's not the time Luigi…" Mario began.
"The Tubular Court thinks it is. They're demanding your return to the Realm of Pipes. They are demanding that no one get involved in the fight between King Rose and General Koopa." Luigi's voice was stressed in ways Mario had never heard it before.
"She summoned me. By the laws put down by the very same Court I was obligated to answer and serve her." Mario hated dealing with the Tubular Court.
"They've rescinded that law. From now on, all summons from the Mushroom Kingdom are to be ignored. You have to return with me, they want us both to report before the Tubular Court." A ghastly white gloved hand extended from the pipe for Mario to grab.
Another explosion rocked the ship and part of the ceiling caved in.
Mario growled a series of curse words toward Koopa, the Court and anything in general before grabbing Luigi's hand and diving into the pipe. This turn of events were most upsetting indeed.
Outside of the ship, King Bowser watched as his burning flagship fell slowly from the sky. None of the other ships were quick enough to turn out of the way of the flagship and as such, the flagship ended up tearing through one transport before halfway impaling a second one spilling Koopa Troopa and munitions all over the countryside below. A third ship crashed into the side of the burning flagship, exploding into a massive fireball that lit the night sky up. The explosion revealed the hundreds of ships that followed behind the few ships that were being destroyed. In the grand scheme of things, four ships lost were meaningless.
Bowser laughed to himself, Mario had failed to stop the invasion and soon his Koopalings would return to him the magic wands of each king of the seven Kingdoms.
"Do you see, Lord Goomba? Do you see what I mean when I say the oppression of the Mushroom Kingdom ends tonight? No more will those who hold magic hold the power! Now is the time of the magic-less!" King Bowser yelled, turning toward a regally dressed mushroom Goomba.
"For ages the Goomba people have waited the day we would be free of the magicians who use us. You have the pledge of the Gloomba Army." The Goomba's voice was a whisper, but it still revealed the excitement that filled it.
"Gloomba's and Goombas?" Bowser smiled a toothy, evil smile and turned back to the view of his flagship disappearing below a second layer of clouds.
Bowser was pleased with how well this was going already. It was looking to be a short fight.