"Charge!" Otto yelled. The Koopa army gave a huge battle cry, as they advanced upon the undead army. They attacked the skeletons standing at the edge of the crowd. Bones were flying everywhere.

"Mace, help me!" Otto punched the skull off a resurrected Fire Brother. It snapped right off and bounced for two meters before cracking in half.

Mace wiped some emesis off his chin, and ran to his friend's side. He tackled a skeleton that was sneaking to Otto's back. They rolled a short distance. Mace and the creature's skull were face to face. Mace could smell the stench of being buried for years before being pulled out of the dirt abruptly to fight in a war. Mace ripped its legs and arms off. The limbless zombie wriggled around, unable to do anything.

"Thanks," Otto said.

Mace got up and looked around. It appeared that they were winning. Dismantled bones lay scattered around the pools of lava. There didn't seem to be a single Koopa harmed. It was almost as if the corpses weren't trying.

Mace looked at the five Koopalings. Despite their many losses in soldiers, they did not seem to be perturbed in the slightest. Then, Ludwig stood up once more. His younger siblings followed. They waved their staffs. More rainbows shot out of the orbs at the end of their staffs and joined the colors in the sky, and more horrible music filled the air.

Suddenly, there were many clanking noises around the battlefield. Right in front of Mace's eyes, the skeleton he had just dismembered stood up. Its legs had been pulled by magic back to the torso and they connected at the joint. The two arms slid across the ground and connected itself back to the body as well. The zombie had come back to life.

Mace looked at Otto, who was just realizing the same thing, as two halves of a head fused back together and leaped back onto the neck, where it belong. Many Koopas screamed in terror.

Then, the skeletons really started to attack. They demonstrated excellent strength and speed for things that had been dead for a long time now, as they tracked the first Koopa they sensed, and hunted them down. Many Koopas were decapitated. Some retracted back into their shells, but this only allowed the zombies to pick them up and throw them into one of the lava pits.

The huge Chain Chomp was getting taken down. More and more zombies threw themselves onto it and attacked its big metal head. The Chomp shook and bucked them off, but more just climbed on. Eventually, the beast exhausted its energy and fell unconscious into a lava pool.

"I'm going to fight over there," Otto said. Mace didn't say anything. Otto grabbed a hammer out of his hammer bag and ran.

Mace couldn't move. He was frozen at the sight of what was happening around him. He had seen many Koopas die on the way here, but he had never before witnessed the raw massacre that was happening around him. Everywhere, Koopas were dying in ways he never wanted to think about. Dead Paratroopas were raining from the sky, after being hit by the undead Paratroopas. Miniature earthquakes happened, from the giant Koopas wrestling with World Four's skeletons. Mace remembered his old life, his old station. Maybe it would have been best if he had just stayed there.

"Hey kid," a voice said. Mace looked around for the speaker, but couldn't find it.

"Down here."

Mace looked down. It was the fire-flower. "I know what you're thinking. You think it would have been better if you had stayed at your station in World Two and never went on this rebellious mission." The flower looked angry. Sparks flew around its petals. "Well let me ask you this. Do you want to be in your desert right now? Bored to the point of insanity?"

Mace knew the answer was no, but he was still discouraged.

"Now I know what you're thinking now. All your comrades are dying around you, getting killed, and you think it's all your fault. But these people would have gotten killed in worse ways by Mario, if you didn't go on this mission and defeat him? Now, the people that have died while fighting for a good cause, and not murdered by Mario because they were standing in the way. There's still hope for them, if you would lead them in their time of trouble."

Mace smiled in agreement. He nodded to the flower.

"Go fight, kid," the flower said. "It's never hopeless." There was suddenly a flash of fear in the flower's eyes. "... um, you might want to turn around."

Mace snapped back to reality. He felt a clammy hand grab his right arm, and another his left. Two more zombies were at his legs. Mace snapped back into reality. Four zombies were holding him up and moving him. Mace turned his head to see a sideways river of burning lava.

Oh no, he thought. He turned his head the other way to find that the fire flower had disappeared. He jerked one foot up and managed to break off the arm of one of the zombies that was carrying him. The arm began to vibrate as if it was trying to connect with the corpse's shoulder again, so Mace swung his leg and sent the arm flying.

A bone zipped over Otto's head and made a small scratch on his helmet. He wasn't sure if it was a zombie's bone, or that of a Koopa, but he whipped a rapidly spinning hammer in the general direction that it came from anyways.

Then, he realized that the hammer was twirling towards Mace, who was about to get thrown in a lava river.

"Mace!" He shouted. The hammer flew over Mace's head, and over the lava river. Otto and Mace both watched it turn in mid-air like a boomerang and finally hit a target on the tank. The blunt part of the hammer's head slammed directly into Prince Roy's head.

"Oh," he grunted. He lowered his staff to rub his swollen head.

Suddenly, the four zombies that had captured Mace relaxed their grips. Mace dropped onto the igneous rock floor. He got up, and ran to Otto.

"Why did they release you?" Otto asked. The four zombies were standing listlessly. He looked around.

Then, Otto realized what was going on. While Prince Roy was rubbing his head, about one fifth of the undead army stopped what they were doing as if they were paralyzed. Roy finally raised his staff when his bratty younger sister poked him angrily. The army began to work as a whole again.

"The Koopalings are controlling the army!" Otto turned, but once again, Mace had disappeared. Mace was running up a drawbridge to the Airship Fortress.

Otto yelled to the rebels. "Attack the Bosses! They are controlling the undead soldiers!"

The rebels obeyed. They swarmed the tank. The five siblings' poker faces were gone now, and was replaced by looks of panic. They fired Bullets randomly from the two guns, but it did nothing, as the Koopas simply ran in the areas where the gun couldn't hit. Several of them jumped onto the throne and had a huge brawl with the Bosses. In the end, the Koopas scattered, with the Bosses' staffs. All the zombies fell apart for good.

"Fire!" The scream came from the parked Airship. A Banzai missile was shot from a cannon. It homed onto the tank. The nasally screams of the five Bosses were ended when the missile hit, created a huge fiery explosion. Planks of charred wood were tossed into the air. A metal gun fell onto the ground, making a loud clanking sound. The tank and the Bosses were destroyed.

There was silence around the rebel army. They had won this battle, but they had lost so many. Some weren't sure if this was what they signed up for. Many had lost their friends and loved ones.

Suddenly, another Banzai was shot from the cannon, this time towards higher up on the volcano. There was another explosion, which caused the ground to rumble for a couple of seconds.

Mace ran back from the Airship. "Let's go."

Otto blinked. "Go where."

"To Bowser's Castle. I just shot a hole in it, so we can get in."

"Oh yeah," Otto had forgotten that before they were free, they still had to face Bowser. "Should we take some soldiers with us?"

"No. We should let them stay here for a while. You know, to calm down after the huge battle."

"Oh."

Mace began the trek up the active volcano. He walked in between the rivers of lava that leaked from the volcano's top.

After a moment's hesitation, Otto followed.

Bowser's Castle was nothing that they had imagined it to be. It was at least twenty times as big as one of the Bosses' Castles. While a Bosses' Castle had two stories, both square shaped, Bowser's had towers and smaller Castles built into the main building. There were more Bowser flags than either of them could count. From far away, it looked more like a small city than a single building. There was a smoldering hole on the front wall.

Mace jumped in. Otto limped up, huffing and puffing. They had just walked up a mountain, at extreme heats. Somehow, Mace didn't look the bit flustered.

I guess that's because Mace doesn't have to lug this bag of hammers everywhere, Otto thought. He painfully climbed in afterwards.

It was a maze inside. A labyrinth of black stone halls. It was lit by small lanterns that were hung around in certain places.

Mace and Otto walked in cautiously. They knew how enthusiastic Bowser was with traps. For some reason, there didn't seem to be any traps here.

Mace noticed a block with openings on four sided sticking out of a wall. It seemed like the base of another one of those chains of fire. Curiously, it wasn't turned on.

Suddenly, the floor beneath them broke apart. The two of them were sent screaming.