A/N: So, after four years I have decided that this story needs not only an update, but a new name and a complete overhaul as well. It actually made me wince to read it over again. Just a warning, this is a Muse Fic which means my avatar is a main character (though she's really transcended avatar status over the years =/). But, hey! At least there are zero pairings. XD
Disclaimer: I own nothing but this brain of mine, and it is a tentative ownership at that.
Those Assets Feminine: Prologue
The King of Dark Land's trophy room was large even by his outlandish standards. Sharing the high ceiling of the neighboring throne room, it took advantage of this space to display the accomplishments of the King from top to bottom. Rows and rows of shelves lined the walls in perfect symmetry, each one laden down with medals, plaques, and trophies of various metals all bearing the name Bowser Koopa. Well, all except for that one bronze trophy with the spelling error that had yet to be noticed, but it was kept far to the back with the other unimportant awards and would probably read Browser Koopa for the rest of eternity.
The room was rarely frequented and then only by the King himself. To him, it was physical proof that he was as awesome as he always believed himself to be. It was his quickest and favorite way of boosting his ego whenever he was down, particularly after a defeat at the hands of his nemesis. Other than that, and the few times necessary to make additions, it sat in silence until the next time it was needed. Today just happened to be such a time.
"RRRaaargh!"
The serenity of the room was destroyed as Bowser kicked the wooden door open with enough force to send a few award ribbons fluttering to the floor. Behind him, the two guards standing watch by his throne chose that moment to scramble for a safer location. He didn't notice.
"That little PUNK!" the Koopa raged. With another savage kick, he slammed the door shut behind him. More ribbons joined the fallen. "How DARE he insinuate...I shoulda ripped him in HALF...!"
Smoke streamed from Bowser's nostrils as he stalked further into the room, snarling to himself in dangerous undertones. The light provided from the few lit torches was sufficient only to see where he was going, but he was not in any mood to waste time lighting more. The trophies themselves glittered faintly in the gloom. The King stopped abruptly as one particularly large golden cup caught his eye.
"See?" he shouted at no one, yanking it down from its place of honor. He squinted at the writing on its base. "1st Place - Star Cup - Bowser Koopa. Hah!"
"What are you cackling about, Your Hiding-in-the-Darkness?"
Bowser's grip on the cup tightened in surprise at the unexpected - though familiar - voice. He winced as the soft metal crumpled beneath his hands. "Kammy, you old hag!" he growled, turning to face her and waving the damaged trophy in accusation. "Look what you made me do!"
Though she couldn't actually see what had been done to the cup, Kammy Koopa did not hesitate to bow her head submissively. "A thousand pardons, King Bowser," the Magikoopa apologized.
Bowser sneered. "Whatever. What are you doing here?"
She stepped closer so that he could more easily see her in the dark. "I came to ask you the very same question." Bowser was silent, busy trying to smooth out the dents in his Star Cup with his fingers, so she added, "Something is bothering you, Your Perturbedness."
He snorted derisively in response and, with a careless flick of his wrist, tossed the cup over his shoulder at her. A pained "oof" and the clatter of metal on stone told him she hadn't seen it coming. "Fix that," he ordered before stomping away to examine more of his achievements. He hadn't gone far when a pattering of footsteps filled his hearing. Kammy soon appeared beside him, puffing slightly.
"Fixed it yet?" he grumbled at her.
She ignored the question. "The minions are nervous, Your Awfulness. They heard your roaring throughout the entire castle. What happened when you went out today?"
Bowser contemplated remaining silent. Not only was he loathe to admit he was overreacting to a comment made in jest, but he also knew that being kept out of the loop drove the old witch crazy. Seeing her get hopping mad might make him feel better. In the end, he decided to give in to his need to rant at something with ears and a tongue that could be trusted to remain silent.
He growled lowly. "It's stupid. I just - hey, lemme ask you something first."
"Anything," Kammy replied, though her tone was wary.
"What do you think of all this?" Bowser made a sweeping gesture with his hand at the awards glimmering like jewels in the torchlight. He glanced at Kammy as she peered about, apparently squinting through her glasses. He rolled his eyes. "Can you even see anything, Blindy?"
"Yes," she replied tersely.
"Well, what do you think?"
"I think you have accomplished an awful lot for someone barely your age, Your Amazingness."
Bowser nodded, grinning at the praise. "Yeah, I have! Especially when you think about all the time I spend running a kingdom while those other dopes spend all theirs actually practicing."
"Well, you more than make up for that, Your Cleverness." Kammy turned to smile at him warmly, but froze when she caught sight of his face. Quick as she could, she removed her glasses, rubbed them on her purple robes, and then replaced them to look again. Bowser's expression of severe offense remained. "Uh...did I say something wrong?"
"What do you mean I 'more than make up for that'?" the incensed Koopa King demanded. His claws had curled into fists and it seemed to be taking all of his willpower to keep from frying her while she was standing so close to his baseball awards.
"N-nothing bad, of course, sire!" she gulped, taking a careful step back. She bumped into a glass showcase almost immediately and winced as it rattled. Bowser quickly advanced, forcing her to brace herself against the case to keep a proper distance between them.
"You're trying to say I cheated to get them, aren't you?" he hissed.
Kammy nodded eagerly with a sigh of relief. "Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying! And cheated so cleverly that no one - not even the judges - noticed what you had done! I remain very impressed, sir."
The Koopa King stood glowering at her for a long moment. Then, he backed off and permitted her to step away from the showcase. She gratefully did so. One of its sharp corners had been jabbing her in the neck.
"I didn't cheat to get all of them," Bowser muttered almost too softly for her to hear.
She tilted her head curiously. "No?"
"NO!" His outburst sent Kammy leaping back in alarm. She struck the showcase yet again, this time nearly tipping it over. Only Bowser's quick reflexes saved it - and her - from a horrible fate.
"You keep breaking my stuff, hag," he growled, "and I'm going to throw you outta here on your ugly face."
"S-sorry, Your-"
"Yeah, all right." He took a deep, calming breath. This was not the place to start losing his temper. And over something so trivial, too. "No, I didn't cheat to get all of them. Just...a lot of them. Most of them, even. Maybe. Probably."
Kammy took advantage of his distraction to carefully sidle away from the showcase, ducking under Bowser's arm where he was still holding it in place. Why had she followed him in here again? "But, you won them in any case, sire. What does it matter how you got them, so long as you did? Especially when you put just as much effort as anyone into your...creative problem-solving?"
Bowser shrugged. "It doesn't."
"I don't understand. If it doesn't matter, then what is the issue?" Bowser had begun walking again and Kammy hastened to keep up with him. The aisles of the trophy room were fortunately designed for someone of Bowser's girth with additional space for anyone he might care to show off to. As far as Kammy knew, only the royal children had been invited in, and then only once. She had tried to warn Bowser of their destructiveness, but he had been so proud...
"Have you fixed that trophy you made me crush yet?"
The sudden topic change momentarily confused her. "What? Oh. Yes, I fixed it and put it back onto its shelf. But you-"
"How about your head?" Bowser continued indifferently. "Did you fix that?"
She bristled. "Excuse me, Your Rudeness?"
He chuckled. "I meant after I beaned you with the trophy. Or don't you remember?" Actually, she hadn't. Now that he'd reminded her, the bump on her head began to throb again.
"I'll take care of it later," she muttered.
He shrugged. "Suit yourself."
Kammy shook her head. She'd known him long enough to know when he was being evasive; even if she hadn't, he wasn't exactly subtle about it. Bowser was many things - boorish, impatient, irascible, occasionally brilliant - but he was never subtle. He was, however, extremely stubborn. If she wanted to get the truth out of him, she'd have to be patient.
Bowser led the old Magikoopa around the trophy room in silence, hands held up and close to his chest to keep from knocking anything over, and examined the adornments on the walls. Along with his awards, and the empty spaces where new ones would go, were portraits depicting him in the winner's circle. Each portrait was lovingly detailed and he could remember the exact occasions they were portraying; the rush of victory, the looks of dismay on the faces of the losers, that one time that creepy Birdo tried to steal a kiss; it was all crystal clear. He could also remember how he came to receive them. Was it true what that minion had said?
He broke the silence. "Honesty time, haggy. Do you think I'm skilled?"
Kammy blinked in surprise. "Of course I do! Of course you are!" There was a pause. "...Skilled at what?"
"Anything. Everything. What all these lousy trophies are supposed to prove I'm skilled at. Do you think I deserve them?"
"Most definitely," Kammy replied firmly. Her eyes narrowed. "Why? Who's been trying to tell you otherwise?" Bowser went quiet again, compelling Kammy to feel the need to rip her hair out. Then, to her great surprise, he answered.
"Okay, keep in mind that the guy was joking when he said it. I'd have known if he wasn't, and then I'd be instructing the clean-up crew to get the quicklime instead of wandering around in here with only a moldy old crone for company."
"All right..."
"All right." He paused, and then continued, "You remember how I was supposed to go down to the training field to inspect the progress of the new troops? Yeah, well, I did and they were looking pretty okay, so I stuck around and kind of kidded with them, you know; got 'em comfortable with me so I could catch them off guard and see what they were really like."
"Most wise," Kammy praised, though her quirked brow said otherwise.
Bowser didn't notice. "Hey, what'd you expect? This is me you're talking to. Anyway, we got to chatting about tennis and it turned out that one of the guys played in the first match before it went annual. Remember that? The one I didn't go to?" He waited for Kammy to nod before going on. "So I asked how it went, he said he lost, I ribbed him about it, and then he said 'we can't all cheat like you' or something stupid like that. And I..."
Kammy waited for him to continue. When he didn't, she prompted, "And you...?"
"I kinda just...stared." The Koopa King lifted a random trophy from the back of the nearest shelf and passed it from hand to hand distractedly. "For a while, anyway. Then I just laughed and gave him a good punch on the shoulder before getting outta there." He frowned. "I hope it bruised."
"Knowing you, Your Brutishness, his whole arm is most likely numb." Kammy smiled and was pleased to see him flash a grin in return. "So, you're upset because he knew you'd cheated before?"
The grin vanished. "You don't get it, do you? It's not about the cheating! I don't care who knows about that; so long as they can't prove it, what's the big deal? What ticked me off was that the little punk was, I dunno, implying that the only reason I ever win anything is because I don't play fair. Like there's no way I could ever best anyone without some sort of trick." He snarled at the remembered slight and impulsively crushed what he was holding into a shapeless hunk of metal. He glanced at it with a look of disgust before tossing it to Kammy. "Fix that."
She pulled out her wand and did as he asked. "What do you intend to do?"
"For now I'm trying to keep from going back out there and punting him into the lava moat. After that, I don't know what there is to do." He chuckled mirthlessly. "I guess it all really depends on how successful I am with staying indoors, huh?"
Kammy shook her head. "I didn't mean about that idiot Troopa, Your Misunderstandingness. I meant about you."
Bowser grunted. "What about me?"
"You're obviously doubting yourself if you're taking a bad joke so seriously."
"I know! It's stupid, right?" Bowser exhaled in frustration. "That's why I came in here, to remind myself how awesome I am. I dominate anything I put my mind to! But then I got here and I realized just how many of these things came from less than 'righteous' means and I thought, if I've got the skills, then why do I need to cheat so much?"
Kammy considered this. "Insurance?"
The corner of his mouth quirked. "Thanks, but I think it's a little more complicated than that." He sighed then and it was not out of frustration or anger; to Kammy's ears, he sounded genuinely depressed. This was not good. Not for the King and definitely not for the kingdom. She'd have to do something before anyone found out that Dark Land's ruler was feeling even an ounce of self-doubt.
She cleared her throat. "Would you accept some advice if I offered it, Your Highness?"
He snorted. "Ain't that part of your job as advisor? To advise?"
"Is that a yes?"
"It's a maybe."
Better than nothing. "Perhaps the only way to regain your confidence in your 'skills' is to enter some contest and win it strictly by the rules."
The Koopa King considered this carefully, tapping his chin with one claw. "That makes sense, I guess," he murmured somewhat ruefully. "But – and this is completely hypothetical – what if I don't win? I don't want to look like a moron in front of everyone! Then they'll really believe I'm some kind of loser."
The Magikoopa didn't seem phased. "Then enter a contest that doesn't receive much press, and threaten anyone who wants to change that once they realize who you are."
"Bah!" Bowser scoffed, teeth gritted in annoyance. "You know how crafty those lousy reporters are when they've got a celebrity in their sights. No, the only way I'd ever not be recognized is in a completely different univ—"
Kammy, who had been reading the recently repaired trophy in her hands, glanced up with a curious expression. "You trailed off there at the end, Your Forgetfulness."
"Shut up, hag! Can't you see I've got an idea?" Bowser snapped, but his voice lacked venom. In fact, his whole demeanor had lightened up considerably. Kammy was instantly suspicious.
"Am I going to like this idea?" she asked, squinting against the torchlight reflecting off his grinning fangs.
The Koopa laughed. "Who cares? I love it and that's all that matters! I'm gonna enter a contest, kick the collective butts of whoever opposes me, and remind myself that I'm the King of… whatever it is. What's shaking this time of year, anyway?"
"Uh, only team sports, I think, sir."
"Team sports? Rats! I don't want anyone around here to know what I'm up to." He frowned, deep in thought. Suddenly, he brightened again. "Wait, wait, wait…I got the perfect team in mind!"
Kammy stared after him as he rushed past her toward the exit. "Hold on! What about your royal duties?"
Bowser lingered at the door. "No time! Just postpone everything until…uh, actually? You might not even notice I'm gone at all."
"Huh?"
"Yeah, I don't know how this is gonna work." He waved a dismissive hand. "Tell ya what: if I'm gone for more than half a day, just put everything on hold. If not, then forget about it. And don't mention this conversation to anyone! Not even me, y'hear?" He turned to resume leaving.
"One more thing!" Kammy screeched after him, freezing him in his tracks. She held up the bronze trophy she'd been reading. "Did you know there's a spelling error on this?"
He made a face. "Seriously? Huh, shows how important third place is. Just slap some whiteout on it or something; bronze-out. Whatever. I got a team to assemble!" He was out the door and halfway out of the throne room before he suddenly remembered something. Hurrying back, he called to Kammy, "Say, do we have any ham? That would make this a thousand times easier."
She blinked. "…Ham, Your Weirdness?"
"Yeah. Or bacon. Anything porky, really."
"Try the pantry."
"Right. Thanks, hag." He turned and left once more. Kammy waited for a while, but this time he did not return. Glancing back down at the trophy in her hands, she made a face of confusion.
"Bronze-out?"