Tragic Kingdom
Summery: Finally the Mushroom Kingdom is brought down to its knees. The Kingdom's finest hero out of action. Is this really what Bowser wanted?
Disclaimer: I own nothing that belongs to Nintendo. Sadly.
Chapter 1: The End...
Bowser watched as the Mushroom Kingdom went up in flames. This was all his doing, he let out a low chuckle as he watched the pitiful community flee. Toads, Koopas and humans alike all scrambling away from their fiery homes.
Waves of Koopa Troopers stormed the walls of Princess Peach's castle. This was the last building to burn.
'So much fire and destruction...' Bowser inhaled deeply. His eyes flicking with the reflection of the burning castle. The smell of smoke and screams of terror filled the air, this was heavenly to the Koopa King.
'Yes the Princess is still out there... somewhere. She can run but there's nowhere to hide. How does it feel Mario? To know you could not save her in the end?'
There came no answer to Bowser's question. He smirked.
'Oh yes, I forgot. You can't answer me can you?' He spun round to face his arch enemy. The look of shock still etched into Mario's face. The finest hero the Mushroom Kingdom had ever known was now a statue. Bowser beckoned for some of his troops to come over. He pointed over at the statue.
'Take him back to the Darklands and put out a message to those who dare stay behind, tell them their hero is gone, the princess has run, who is here to save them?'
Whilst the reptilian King was rejoicing in his hard fought victory the fleeing victims were hiding out in the sewers. At least one hundred survivors filled the area they had secured. A sad, small even pitiful amount of survivors.
In one corner a small Toad child wept in the arms of its grandmother, together they mourned the loss of the childs parents. This was a similar story for many of the survivors, no real chance to bury the dead that lay in the streets above them. No chance to say goodbye.
Above them a loud voice boomed over a megaphone. The broken crowd huddled together in silence.
'Attention pathetic suvivors! A message from your new King! The battle is over, Mario and Peach have gone. There is no one left to save you! However, should you choose to join the great Bowser Empire you will be welcomed. Fail to join us and you choose death! Bwa ha ha! You have two days to decide!'
The message ended leaving a stunned silence. One by one frightened voiced began to cry out.
'What do we do?' Cried a Toad.
'We'll starve if we stay down here,' came a shrill cry from a human woman who held a blood ridden cloth to her head.
'We'll die if we go up there too,'
'We're going to die!'
'I wish Mario was here,'
All these voices started to speak up, no one was listening to each other. It descended into chaos. Suddenly there was a sharp bang. Everyone looked up to see an old Koopa stagger towards them, the banging coming from his walking stick hitting the wall.
'I'll tell you what we don't do! We don't give in to Bowser! We stay loyal to Peach!' The old Koopa said as he eyed up the crowd.
'Yeah? And where exactly is she? Bowser ain't got her,' Someone cried out.
'Well where ever she is she wont be sat on her pretty little backside will she? She'll know what she's doing and we have to have faith in that!' The old Koopa cried out. There was a small round of applause.
'Shut up old man! We're done for, we have no way out. We're completely alone in this!'
The crowd gasped as someone riding a Yoshi pushed their way to the front. The recognised the person immediately and a small glimmer of hope appeared. The man dressed in green hopped off the Yoshi and turned to face the crowd. His clothes were torn and burnt, his face battered and bloodied yet he still managed a faint smile.
'You're not alone,' He whispered.
The crowd went wild. People were hugging and laughing.
'Nice of you to join us Luigi,' The old Koopa grinned. Luigi nodded back.
Once again the crowd started to make noise, firing off questions at Luigi. The main question was what happened to him. He motioned for them to quieten down before he stated to tell his story.
Earlier that day, the younger Mario brother was sat outside his house enjoying the glorious sunshine. Today was going to be a very important day for Luigi for his beautiful girlfriend Princess Daisy was coming over for a few days and that very night he was going to propose. Nothing was going to spoilt this day for him, or so he thought.
He was too busy cleaning his house and preparing that night's dinner. It was to be a nice romantic affair. He was too busy thinking about his upcoming proposal to notice that outside a swarm of Koopa Troopa soldiers were ransacking his neighbours homes.
All the activity continued to go unnoticed for sometime, it wasn't until a bob-omb came hurtling through Luigi's window that he realised that something was wrong. The bob-omb exploded, taking half the kitchen with it. The force of the explosion knocked Luigi onto the floor.
'Mama mia,' He muttered as he sat up rubbing his head. Shards of bob-omb plastered his face and clothing. Blood spattered everywhere. He pulled himself off the floor and walked across the kitchen to wear the window was smashed. He gazed out into the street only to come face to face with chaos. People running up and down the streets shrieking, bob-ombs being tossed in all directions.
Grabbing his phone and rolling his sleeves up he ran into the foray. Jumping on a Koopa Troopa here and kicking one there. No matter how many enemies he defeated more arrived. Luigi knew he needed to find Mario to find out just what was going on.
He got as far as the end of his road when a familiar voice called out to him. Luigi spun round on the spot, a smile touched his lips as he realised who it was.
'Yoshi!'
'Luigi! Thank heavens your alive. The whole of the Kingdom is under attack!' Yoshi said as he greeted Luigi.
'We need to get to Mario, he'll know what to do,'
Yoshi agreed and allowed Luigi to ride on his back. It took them half an hour to fight though the Koopa Troopas and reach Peach's castle. They were prepared for battle but they were not prepared for what came next.
Luigi and Yoshi reached a battered down wall, as they peeked over the top they spotted the main boss himself.
'Bowser!' Yoshi yelped, Luigi motioned for him to hush.
'Whats that he's holding?' Yoshi whispered. Luigi shrugged his shoulders.
They watched as Bowser waved some kind of wand towards some unsuspecting Toad. The wand glowed a bright red and shot a beam at the Toad, before the Toad could reach the beam hit him and he turned into a statue.
Luigi and Yoshi watched in horror as Bowser stomped over to the statue and crushed the Toad with his strong fist.
'Bowser! Fight me you coward! Leave these innocent people alone!' Came another voice. Luigi, Yoshi and Bowser all looked round. Luigi felt a sense of relief flood over him. Mario was here to defeat Bowser.
'Ah! Mario. You've come to meet your doom?' Bowser cackled. Mario smirked and dressed in his fire Mario outfit he raised his hand to send a fireball at the evil tyrant.
'Not today Bow-' He couldn't finish his sentence. Before he could throw a fireball Bowser had raised his wand and had turned the plumber into stone.
'Ha ha ha! Mushroom Kingdom is mine!' Bowsers maniacal laugh rang through the air. Sensing Luigi was about to go after Bowser, Yoshi stopped him. Now was not the time for heroics.
After relaying his story to the silent crowd, Luigi closed his eyes as he relieved the days events. Remembering his phone, Luigi pulled it out of his pocket. There was a missed call and voicemail from Daisy. He listened to it.
'Hey Luigi, it's me. I don't think I'm going to be able to get over today. Flights to the Mushroom Kingdom have been suspended. Not sure how long for. Phone me when you get this message. I love you,'
Luigi sighed and was thankful that she was out of this.
'So what's your plan?' The old Koopa asked.
'Well, I'll need to get a team together. If Bowsers got some kind of magic wand that can turn people into stone then he's not going down easy,' Luigi thought out loud.
'It's not just stone...' Came a small voice from behind them. Luigi turned round and asked them to repeat themselves.
'It's not just stone, he can turn people into what ever he wants,'
A few members of the crowd gasped when the owner of the voice emerged from the shadows. It was a girl and she was about Luigi's age, he guessed. The girl was half human half Koopaling.
'He caught me with the wand as I ran,' she explained with a sad expression.
'Who are you?'
'My names Ember and I want to join you in bringing Bowser down, I want to be human again,' She replied.
'Well... I do need to get a team I guess,' Luigi agreed.
'Where to first though?' Yoshi asked. Luigi scratched his head as he thought about it.
'There's someone who I think would be an asset... whether he'll agree or not...'
'Who? And where are we gonna find them?'
'We need to get to Rogueport, that's where he lives now,' Luigi told Yoshi, who shook his head.
'How are we going to get there?' Yoshi asked. Luigi wasn't sure how if he was being honest. The old Koopa who had been listening to the conversation interrupted.
'I can get you a boat out of here, I know a retired Bob-omb who has a little boat. I think you may have heard of him, he traveled with Mario on an adventure once,' The old Koopa explained.
'You mean Admiral Bobbery?' Luigi asked. The old Koopa nodded.
'Lets go then!' Luigi said looking at Yoshi who nodded.
The four of them left the sewers and headed to the Mushroom Kingdom harbour.
Up Next: Getting to the harbour & Rougeport.