A/N: Bowser's appearance draws from various Mario fanfiction and art, with the brow of Jet Black of Cowboy Bebop, and the rest of the facial structure from Viral of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and hair like Akira from Eden of the East. A very rough sketch of his face in profile can be seen at: (h tee tp: double slash) walk azo. livejournal (dot com slash) pics/catalog/292/16283 (just remove the spaces and replace the bracketed stuff with real coding - getting around the anti-spam stuff's a pain, eh?). Also, I know it's not realistic that Bowser gets the hang of walking so quickly, much less being able to talk right out of the gate (pretty much everything about his oral anatomy changed, after all), but him not being able to do more than flop around and babble incomprehensibly didn't really fit in with the story I wanted to tell, so for the sake of that, and to keep the fic moving along at a brisk pace, I took some liberties.
Chapter 2: Wake
"AHHHHH!" Bowser woke himself with a scream, sitting bolt upright in his bed and desperately catching his breath. In an instant, he knew something was very wrong. He felt... wrong. Just… wrong. He turned his head, surprising himself at how far it actually swiveled, although that was nothing compared to the realization that there was nothing on his back. "AHHH!" he screamed in horror: what the hell had happened to his shell? He looked down at his body to see if anything else was wrong and screamed again. His ribbed belly scoots were gone, replaced by a flat, human-esque torso. But… it wasn't just human-esque, he realized as he held his trembling hands in front of him, staring at the ten slender fingers. "No! No, no no!" he gasped, bringing the hands to his face and desperately feeling for his snout, his horns, anything. But there was nothing. His face was flat, with a triangular nose, and bare temples and earlobes. "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"
"Your Highness!" The guards outside had been getting increasingly worried by the screams emanating from their king's chambers: usually the fallout from a nightmare didn't last this long, and with the last scream reaching a particularly shrill decibel, they couldn't stand it anymore and bashed through the door.
"AAAAAHHHHHH!" screamed Bowser as the guards came bursting in on him.
"AAAAAHHHHHH!" screamed the guards at the sight of the strange human where their king was supposed to be.
"WAIT!" screamed Bowser again as the Koopas turned their weapons on him, lunging forward out of the bed but getting the covers tangled in his unfamiliarly lanky limbs and landing in the floor in a heap.
"Who are you and what did you do with the king?" demanded the first guard as the second one turned the lights on.
"I am the king!" roared Bowser, scrambling to his feet.
"No you're not! Answer us, naked human!"
Bowser glanced down: he was indeed buck naked, and sporting a couple extra anatomical features to show for it. That's new, he mused, but now wasn't the time to worry about mammalian dangly bits and he glared back up at the guards. "Yes I am! I've just been transformed!" He looked over at the full-length mirror on his wall, despairing as his suspicions were confirmed. "I've been turned into a human!"
"A likely story!" snarled the guard.
"It's true! How else could a naked human have suddenly appeared in my room?"
"Maybe the window," suggested the second guard.
"Yeah, and then you threw the king out the way you came in," hissed the first guard.
"That's what all the screaming was – it was a battle!"
"You bastard human!"
"WAIT!" the charging guards stumbled to a stop, the tips of their spears inches from the cringing ex-Koopa as the two familiar voices filled the room.
"Kammy! Kamek!" shouted Bowser in relief, circling around the guards, but when he caught sight of his advisors, he screamed again. They screamed too.
"AAAHHHH!"
"You're humans too!" exclaimed Bowser in horror, pointing at the figures in their now-far-too-baggy robes.
"And you're naked!" observed Kamek, making a face and holding up a hand to block his view of Bowser's lower parts. Kammy had her whole face hidden, masking her raging blush.
"Oh, don't be such pansies! I'm naked every day!" growled Bowser.
"Yes, but you don't look like that," squeaked Kammy, lowering her hands so that she could see Bowser's face as he strode up to them.
"You're one to talk," he snorted, peering down at Kammy and Kamek, who were both over a head shorter than the king. "You guys look even worse as humans."
"Yeah, now you can tell Kamek's gotten so much work done," snorted Kammy, sneering at Kamek's unnaturally smooth skin.
"Hey, swilling the youth potions beats looking like you, wrinkles," seethed Kamek.
"Guys! Focus!" demanded Bowser, trying and failing to snap his fingers. Scowling at the unfamiliar digits, he waved his hand around for emphasis. "What happened to us!?"
"It must've been Wart," said Kamek. "He cursed us."
"No, he dumped us in a tornado, or flushed us down a drain, or whatever that was."
"That might have just been for show, Your Skepticalness – remember how your firebreath went out?"
Bowser's eyes widened and he slapped his forehead, misjudging the distance and socking himself half in the eye in the process. "My firebreath!" he yelped, wincing about the eye. Sucking in a deep breath, he lifted his head and tried to send a flame out over the heads of his advisors, but nothing came out, not even smoke. "No! Not that too!" cried Bowser, staggering backwards in horror – and also because he wasn't quite used to walking as a human yet. Stumbling over his long human feet he plopped onto the ground. Rubbing his stinging butt with one hand, he stared at his other set of fingers, but as much as he focused, he couldn't get any sparks to appear. "And my lightning powers too? Awww, man!"
He got back to his feet, but he didn't have the heart to try to ground pound: had a feeling all it'd do was make his rear end hurt even more. He frowned at himself in the mirror, twisting his torso to get a look at his backside. It was so weird not having a tail. "This sucks – turn me back, NOW!"
"Don't you think that if we could undo the curse, we would have changed ourselves back already?" said Kamek.
"Wait… Did Wart take your powers too?"
Kammy and Kamek exchanged glances, before Kammy answered. "Sorta… Your Angryness… Magikoopas are a lot more magical than even the strongest human mages - it's a gift from our draconian ancestors. In turning us human, Wart has severely lessened our-"
"In other words, you still have some power," seethed Bowser. "Great! So I'm the only one who's been turned into a weak little nothing?" Shooting the two near-forgotten Koopa Troopa guards a side-glance, Bowser added: "Uhh, no offence."
"Don't worry, Your Despairingness – we'll think of something," said Kammy reassuringly, her hand still blocking out the sight of Bowser's externalized genitalia.
"You better," snarled Bowser, looking at the mirror again and sighing. He could hardly believe the human was him. So tall and lean – nothing like his usual hulking self, although he still had decent muscle tone to his arms. His chest and belly were flat, however – as a Koopa, he admittedly never paid much attention to his abs or pecks, although running his hands down his belly, he was pleased to find that he could feel the solid muscles beneath only a thin layer of fleshy stuff if he tensed up. Watching his progress in the mirror, he moved his hands down over his hips and seized a handful of ass in each mitt. He smirked – if he was stuck being a human, at least he was a sexy one.
In fact…
Bowser approached the mirror, his attention now on his face. He was large-eyed as far as humans went, and had kept his red irises and red hair, which was shaggy and a bit less than shoulder-length, with shorter stuff in the front hanging down over his high forehead. He still had a prominent brow and thick eyebrows, as well as a pointed, slightly upturn nose – likely reflecting the fact that his snout was upturned. He was just glad he didn't wind up with a bulbous schnoz like Mario, and as he ran a finger down his angular jaw, he grinned, flashing his white – yet regrettably fangless – teeth. No doubt about it, he was much better looking than Mario. Suck on that, plumber's butt, he smirked. Even his skin was better: like Kamek and Kammy, the natural yellow of Koopas translated to pale, yellowish tan skin – much nicer than Mario's pink hue. The only person pink looked good on was…
"Peach!" gasped Bowser.
"Come again?" said Kamek, standing around at the door with Kammy and the guards as they awkwardly watched Bowser feel himself up in the mirror.
Bowser turned to them, his eyes twinkling. "There's no way Peach would recognize me like this!"
"True, but-"
"I mean, even my voice is different, right? I mean, it sounds different to me but-"
"It is different," reassured Kamek. While he and Kammy's size hadn't changed overly much when they transformed from humans to Koopas, Bowser was a shadow of his former self, even with his well-above-average height. And with smaller vocal chords came a higher voice; he even lost much of the growl, although it was still husky.
"Good. Then I say we should make the most of the situation," said Bowser, standing up straight and facing his advisors, forcing Kammy to hold up a protective hand once more.
"What are you talking about, Your uh… Smilingness?"
Bowser's grin widened. "We're gonna take a little vacation – well, sorta. You're gonna keep working on a way to turn us back, but you're coming with me."
Kammy and Kamek exchanged a worried look. "Coming with you… where?" asked the witch.
"The Mushroom Kingdom!" said Bowser, excitedly approaching the other Koopa-turned-humans. "Thank about it – this is the perfect chance to show Peach that we're meant to be together! The only reason she rejects me is because I'm a Koopa, so if you take that out of the equation, there's nothing stopping her from letting herself fall in love with me!"
Kammy and Kamek were both shaking their heads. "What about the fact that you're, I dunno, evil?" said Kamek. "It's not just that you're a Koopa – it's that you're the evil King of the Koopas."
"And proud of it!" added Bowser, lest they forgot. "And I know Peach is biased against evil too – she holds everything against me."
"Like all those times you've attack her kingdom and tried to kill her friends and held her prisoner and-"
"Hey, whose side are you on?" growled Bowser, shutting Kamek up. "My point is, that without her anti-Koopa, anti-evil, anti-Bowser bias, I know she would fall in love with me. I mean, who wouldn't, right? I'm awesome! And this body…" Bowser ran his hands down his torso with a pleased little smirk while Kamek and Kammy both averted their eyes. "…well, it's just the icing on the cake. Between my sexy human body and my killer personality, Peach will be mine in no time!"
"You're nuts," said Kamek rolling his eyes.
"Besides, how do you expect to get close to Peach, Your Impulsiveness?" added Kammy. "You're not gonna tell her who you are-"
"Obviously," now Bowser rolled his eyes.
"But it's not like she's gonna go cavorting around with some random guy, Your Nearsightedness. You'd need an in."
"Hmmm," Bowser frowned. He hadn't thought of that, but looking around the room, his eyes landed on the pile of papers on his bureau near the mirror and he snapped his fingers – successfully this time. "Got it!" He hurried over, still wobbling a little but getting better at mastering his new legs. He grabbed a report out of the pile and waved it in the air. "This is our in! There's a delegation from the Waffle Kingdom headed to the Mushroom Kingdom – they'll be arriving tomorrow."
"So? We weren't even invited to that."
"Yeah, but remember, I'm not going as myself – I'll be going as the ambassador from the Waffle Kingdom."
Kammy and Kamek stared at him, grunting in unison: "What?"
"We'll hijack the ship before it comes into monitoring range of the Mushroom Kingdom and hypnotize everyone, then when we land, I'll masquerade as the ambassador. No one from this continent has met him yet, and the Waffle Kingdom is so far away, it's not like that Princess Eclair's gonna call and check up on her folks. It's brilliant!"
"No, it's crazy – what if they find out the truth? Sire, I don't think you grasp the full severity of the situation," argued Kamek.
"Yes I do! I'm horrified about what's happened to me – er, us – but if I'm stuck being a powerless human for the time being, might as well make the most of a bad situation."
"But that's just it, Your Uncomprehendingness," pleased Kammy. "You are powerless – you've lost your near-immortality. If something happens to you when you're like this, you might die – and not come back."
This gave Bowser pause – he hadn't thought of that.
"Yes," added Kamek. "If your enemies find out, they might try to seize this opportunity to be rid of you. We cannot let news of this get out." This last point was directed to the guards as much as Bowser. Kammy and Kamek had made sure no one saw they were human on their way over to Bowser's room and had closed the door behind them, with a soundproofing spell for safe measure. The only ones who knew that the three leaders of the Koopa Kingdom weren't actually Koopas anymore were in that room. "We'll make a cover-story. Tell everyone we're all sick and highly contagious. Ludwig and the other Koopalings will have to run the kingdom, but I think they'll be okay – hopefully it'll only take a couple weeks to figure this out. Again, I cannot overemphasize the need for secrecy: we have no idea who could be spies, so no one can know…"
"All the more reason for us to get out of this castle," said Bowser, coming out of his thoughts. "I mean, no one would expect the Koopa King to be hanging out in the Mushroom Kingdom as a human impersonating the Waffle Kingdom ambassador: what better place to keep me out of harm's way?"
"Well, in front of a speeding train, for one," seethed Kamek. "No one expects it because it's nuts – you'd be surrounded by our enemies: Mario and Luigi and-"
"Yeah, but they wouldn't know it was me, so no worries."
"But Your Stubbornness, what if they discover the hijacking?"
"We'll use Shy Guys - that way it wouldn't obviously link back to the Koopa Kingdom. We'd say we're pirates or something – hell, we can tell the Shy Guys that too: that we're mercenaries hired by King Bowser to infiltrate the Mushroom Kingdom. That's totally believable, right?"
"But it's not like they'd be overly happy about pirates masquerading as foreign dignitaries either, Your Unwiseness."
"Yeah, but they wouldn't kill us – not right away: they'd throw us in the dungeon, and then we'd bust out like we'd always do. We won't let them know you're mages, so they won't be ready for us."
Kammy and Kamek shared another look and sighed. This was a very bad plan, but Bowser was adamant, and they knew there was no arguing with him when he got like this.
"All right, Bowser. If you're sure about this…" said Kamek resignedly.
"I'm sure," said Bowser. "I'm gonna make Peach love me, and it'll be awesome, and then when I turn back into a Koopa she'll still love me, because she'll have realized that I'm awesome and that our love is more important than species or alignment or anything!" As he spoke it aloud, even Bowser started to sense a tinge of ridiculousness to his claims, but he shrugged it off. He was sure his plan would work, and that he could turn this nightmare into a dream come true.