Bowser looked up at the arch that granted foot traffic entrance into the Mushroom Kingdom. The place was hardly deserving of the title, really - it was really only a small city, mostly filled with homey mushroom-shaped shops and houses, all dominated by the quite large castle inhabited by the Princess and her retinue.
But that was neither here nor there.
Bowser had cooked up quite a plan this time, if he didn't mind saying so. In his claws he held the Gorgon Scepter, a handsome crystal and metal rod acquired at great personal expense from the ruins buried at Land's End. It was a legendary magical item that granted its bearer the ability to transform its targets from living to unliving matter, or so Kami told him. Basically, he now possessed the power to turn people to stone.
It was really quite brilliant, he mused. Toad-statues couldn't run for help to those accursed plumbers, couldn't engineer their own escapes… they only had the ability to look pretty in his rock garden. Oh yes, Toad-statues would be all the rage among evil overlords soon, he was sure. Very feng shui.
He paused. He couldn't help noticing that the doors set into the arch were closed, with a piece of paper taped to the front. The doors to Mushroom Kingdom were never closed. Princess Peace's people were open and welcoming to the point of stupidity.
He was starting to get the uncomfortable feeling that his grand plan was off the rails before it had even begun.
He glanced at the paper. In cheerful, blocky handwriting, it read, 'Sorry Bowser, no princess today either. Vikings!' There was a little frowny face doodled at the end. It had a mushroom on its head.
Valuable metals and priceless historical value splintered like matchwood in his clenched claws. Bowser stomped away, muttering and shaking his head. "That doesn't even… Mushroom Kingdom is a landlocked nation, how did…? … did they walk…? … why Vikings, anyway?…"
This was the last straw.
The door to the lodge blew inward like someone had taken a battering ram to it, clearing at least five feet into the crowded - but now silent - hall. Bowser stalked through, having to stoop slightly just to make it through the human-sized door.
Princess Peach had gotten used to Bowser as one does an annoyingly persistent suitor or relation one does not much care for. He was just so… cartoony in his villainy, and he was really a bit of a crybaby when things didn't go his way. And it wasn't like kidnapping held any particular fear for her, after having been kidnapped by everything from aliens to a smelly disturbed man in a large tower and everything in between. Anyway, it is said that familiarity breeds contempt, and it was hard to feel terror at a fellow who Mario trounced on a near-weekly basis.
She supposed she'd forgotten that just because Mario - who was arguably the strongest, most tenacious man in the world today - could beat the Koopa King didn't make Bowser a pushover. Bowser had, after all, spent the better part of a decade fighting that very man, and coming back for seconds as soon as his wounds healed up.
She'd forgotten that the Koopas were classified as a monster race, not a humanoid one like the Mushroom people. And that Bowser was the biggest and the strongest and - okay, not the most intelligent, but two out of three wasn't bad - Koopa that race had ever produced. He didn't have alliances or trade agreements or brains. He'd carved out a kingdom for himself and his race on brute strength alone.
This Bowser that stomped through the door was certainly no laughingstock.
The dim light from the cooking fires reflected off spikes and studs and the tips of claws, added even more fiery highlights to his bright red mane, and his eyes glowed yellow-green in the dimness as his gaze swept the assembled feasting warriors. He looked very big, standing there, so big that his presence seemed to fill the hall and she was half-surprised that his Mohawk didn't brush the tall ceiling.
The Koopa turned a slow, unimpressed eye over the proceedings. The feasting had ground to a halt at his entrance, and all was quiet.
Then he turned his glowing gaze to her, and she remembered why she'd thought he was such a goofball; because he totally was. The second he took in the fur bikini they'd dressed her in - over her protests, but they'd claimed it was traditional - that fearsome gaze turned into something more at home on a lovesick puppy, his mouth dropped open and his tongue was wagging.
"Bowser," she said icily, "take care of this, won't you?"
Though she considered herself a pacifist, the fur bikini - though surprisingly comfy - was really just going too far. She just wanted this whole episode over and done with.
The man who had been lounging in the over-large, fur-draped chair - like a throne except covered in wolf skins instead of brocade and velvet - stood up. He was himself very big, almost up to the Koopa King's chin. A golden-maned monster of a man in a brown bear-fur vest stretching across his muscular chest.
He called himself the Thane.
"Is this creature one of yours, 'Princess'?" he asked her.
Bowser had apparently found his tongue, swaggering forward. "Just the opposite, pal. She's mine."
The blond Thane stepped closer to the reptile, within the sweep of Bowser's claws, showing supreme confidence in himself. "Not so, monster. With the strength of mine arm have I taken this woman as mine prize. That I have rightfully taken her by virtue of strength, none may contest."
Toadstool was about to protest that, but Bowser steamrolled right over.
"Then I guess I'll just have to take her back," he pointed out smugly.
The Thane's ego roared, demanding metaphorical - or perhaps literal - blood. "I am the Thane! Unmatched in games of skill or chance! The unquestioned leader of mine people! What are you, monster?"
"I'm the Koopa King," he said simply. She thought he'd go through his speech about being 'lightning in a bottle, an earthquake in a can' again, but apparently he'd said all he wanted to say.
"Very well, King," the Thane said levelly. "If you wish to take that which I have taken, then you must prove yourself my better!"
He reached for the massive, flat-faced axe leaning against his throne, the tempered crescent edge glinting like a superior smile in the semi-dark of the cooking fires.
"Draw, King!"
Bowser shrugged and lashed out, his claws moving so fast they traced their own white crescent through the air. The Thane collapsed as blood, black in the firelight, flew. "Medic!" he requested.
Some of the younger warriors, lacking the braids and impressive beards of the elder ones, moved to close in on them but were held back by older warriors. Probably to keep the Thane from losing even more honor by breaking his word. Honor seemed very important to them, Peach had noted.
"Let's roll, Princess," Bowser said, ignoring the angry warriors like insects with magnificent disdain. He swept toward the door, warriors parting around him.
What could she do, but tag along in his wake?
"Thank you, Bowser," she said simply.
The words still tasted uncomfortable and awkward on her tongue, but manners required she put forth the effort. And they were getting easier to say with each repetition.
"If you want to thank me, hang onto that fur bikini," he said with a toothy grin.
She'd smack him for that remark, but she's just hurt her hand. She resolved to use her frying pan when she got back.
A/N: Kind of a different tone for this one. Anyhow, this is done bar an epilogue thing wherein the Mario Bros finally return, though I do have some ideas for a somewhat more serious sequel. We'll see how it plays out.