Let's see if the salmon garb – mystery has a solution, shall we?
Bowser stepped around on the Doomship's deck. "Speedy! Where the hell are you? We're leaving in ten minutes!"
"Right here!" She was sitting on top of a trunk carried by two Sledge Bros. The Koopa king frowned.
"What are you doing up there?"
The Bro's helped the queen down. She thanked them. "I'm so nervous about this trip, but Bob here," she pointed at the Bro to the left, "Said the best thing to do was just stand tall. But I'm not very tall, so… I sit up, um, tall. Trust me, it works."
Kamek and Kamella appeared in front of the king and queen, followed by the Koopalings. The wizard opened his prayer book and found the highlighted segment, while the sorceress lined the children up.
"Your Majesties and Highnesses. When you decided to sign the contract of matrimony, the power of the Koopa crown was shared between you. You both must take this journey together to ensure that the mandates of the Peace Treaty are followed."
"Would you get to the point?" Bowser grumped. "We're on the clock!"
"I'm sorry, Your Awfulness, but I'm not on your clock right now. I have to read this, otherwise the Board demands that you dock me a month's pay."
Speedy's anxiety was quickly accompanied by Bowser's. In order for the Mushroom League of Nations to accept the autocratic Dark Land as a nation of peace, the royal Koopa family had to spend one whole summer in the Mushroom Kingdom and do several diplomatic tasks. Their accommodation had been preordained by the League – Koopville Manor. To stall this just for an hour or two Bowser had suggested they picked up the recently discharged Iggy and take a break in Real World Wisconsin. According to Kamek nobody in Wisconsin would look twice at eight large, colorful individuals having lunch at an outdoor restaurant.
"How did I do; you think they got it?" the Magikoopa asked Kamella.
"Of course. No one can resist you when you dress up in your pink cape."
Kamek sighed. "It's not pink; it's salmon!"
At the asylum Iggy was waiting outside with Medikoopa, who had taken a day off to tell the Koopaling the good news. He ran towards his mother, and she immediately embraced him, holding him tight. None of his brothers made fun of Iggy for it; they all became putty in her loving hands.
"Is he cured?" Bowser mumbled to Medikoopa. Apparently there had been a heinous incident involving the death of the chief of medicine at the ward where Iggy had stayed. Nobody knew for sure who the perpetrator was, but Bowser wouldn't be surprised if Iggy was the mastermind.
"Sort of." Medikoopa took off into the air before anyone could make him answer more uncomfortable questions.
After sailing for a while in the beautiful sunshine, Lemmy looked over the railing.
"Look everybody; there's Water Land!" He jumped up and down, and Kamek had to hold on to him; lest the featherweight be blown overboard.
"Do you think they like to have fun in Sea Side City?"
"I very much doubt it," Ludwig replied somberly. "They're so conservative they make Fox News seem like Beavis and Butthead."
"Young sir, that's just not true." Kamek said.
"It is so true." The blue-haired one crossed his arms. "They're so Republican they keep mentally ill as pets and believe babies are delivered by the stork till they're in their forties."
Bowser and Speedy's first diplomatic task was to take care of two Koopa girls who had been granted a holiday from the asylum. They arrived by ferry five minutes after the Koopa family. The youngest one; Shelly, was a little shorter than Iggy, had a calm disposition and black tips in her pink Mohawk. The other one was Lynnie. She would probably have outgrown Bowser in a year. She was plump, had peach hair, a violet shell, brown eyes and arms of pure muscle, as well as a face full of hatred.
Roy, who had been bored out of his mind, saw her in the corner of his eye and for the first time in his life, he felt the infamous butterflies. He walked right up to her, cleared his throat and said: "Hi there, beautiful. You come here often?"
Lynnie responded to this, not with words, but a powerful punch to his face before walking off; fuming. Roy sat up with trembling moves.
"Uh, are you alright?" Ludwig was disturbed by the red and blue bruises appearing on his brother's snout. But Roy just smiled as wide as the pain allowed him.
"She likes me!"
The eldest Koopaling turned to Iggy. "We should do something before he really gets hurt…"
"No," Iggy interrupted with a smirk. "Let's see where this goes first."
Everybody in Sea Side came to witness this event, but Bowser soon realized that his family wasn't the only ones who would be living at the manor that summer. Every living Koopville greeted them behind the gates. The first one was Spiker; simply called Spike, her cousin. He didn't care much for formalities after hitting his thirties.
"Eleanor; darling!" He exclaimed and embraced Speedy. "Oh, dear; you're so pale! Don't they have any sun in Dark Land? Huh! Better get you to a tanning salon."
This was how he greeted everyone he met for the second time. Her brothers took turns hugging her too until she was woozy, and they turned to Bowser. They were all about his size, and the oldest one explained Roy Koopa's interesting color scheme.
"These are our children," Speedy proudly presented the four of them. She still hadn't formally adopted Ludwig as hers, although she regarded him as family.
"Koopums!" a guttural, yet shrill voice emitted from the open main entrance of the mansion. A Koopa woman, almost as big as Bowser and suspiciously similar to him came rushing toward the royal family.
Bowser's eyes widened in sheer terror, and his throat dried up. Speedy noticed it. "Dear, who is that woman?" she whispered.
"That… is my mother."
Mama Koopa violently embraced her son and left half an ounce of red lipstick on the sides of his snout, and about two liters of White Linen on his shoulders. "My da-a-a-rling is here! Mama loooooves you!"
The fearsome and vulgar-looking Koopa lady then turned to Speedy, who did her best to appear inconspicuous.
"So this is your little bride?" Mama Koopa approached Speedy in a manner that made Kamella take two protective steps toward her mistress. Mama Koopa pinched the Koopa queen in the cheeks.
"Yes, um, pleasure to meet you, Madame." Speedy looked at Kamella, who hadn't prepared her for this.
Bowser's mother turned to her son again, glanced at the Koopalings and said to him; as if Speedy wasn't there: "It's amazing you managed to spawn anything from that stick you call a wife!"
Nobody had noticed Speedy's mother, who had suffered the vulgarities of Mama Koopa the entire day. She greeted Bowser very graciously, after all; he was the one saving her from having a spinster daughter.
She then thoroughly inspected Lemmy, Roy and Iggy and graded them as "Hmpf", completely ignoring Ludwig for some reason. Her coldest greeting was however reserved for her daughter.
"Eleanor. Welcome home." Her face said different things.
"Mother," Speedy grumbled. The whole pack got away from the public and press, but to what alternative?
Speedy Yellow hadn't seen her childhood home in years, but there was no time to reminiscence as she and her husband were housed in the biggest guest room, which had always been locked off when she was a little Koopa. To get some refuge from the summer heat, everybody took a siesta in their rooms before dinner. However, in the bed the two shared not much sleeping was taking place.
"For God's sakes stop tossing," Bowser grumped. "I'm trying to sleep and your ass is in the way."
Speedy scoffed. "Hah, if someone's ass is in the way…"
"What's that supposed to mean?" King Koopa's eyes narrowed.
She sat up. "Why did you tell me your mother was dead?"
"I didn't say she was dead; I said she was not among us."
"That implies that she's dead!"
There was a knock at the door. "What?" they both roared.
Kamek and Kamella entered timidly. "Dinner is served."
"Please sit next to me," Bowser mumbled to Kamek.
"Are you kidding? Kamella and I aren't even allowed to set our feet in the dining room. I was allowed to use the stair case, but Kamella had to be consecrated first, because she's a woman."
Bowser almost froze. What kind of summer was waiting for them?