Prologue: The reborn of a star.
When stars die, they return to stardust and scatter across the cosmos.
Eventually, that stardust reforms to create a new star… And so the cycle of life continues.
But the cycle never repeats itself in quite the same way…
So… you'll see.
- Rosalina. Guardian of the baby stars.
- That fateful day -
It was a long and hard battle, the fate of the world was at stake, should the light lose, the darkness will swallow everything; should the dark lose, the light will return everything to peace.
And the fate of the world was decided.
"GAAAAAAHHH HA HA HA!" A loud, gruff, but booming voice triumphantly laughed.
Standing tall and proud in 8'7ft. It was a creature like no other, giant body frame, a huge, burly, green turtle-like shell with spikes on the back; with a fantasy-dragon-like head holding up; green scaly face, with a pink muzzle of a beast contains shark-like teeth; bushy eyebrows and lone lion-like mane fittingly bright with fiery red-orange that of a burning flame; fierce bright red eyes of a tiger; two ox-like curvy horns spouted both sides of the head; with an alligator-like body covered with yellow thick scales, hands, and feet with sharp white claws, a turtle-like plastron belly, and a short tail with two spikes sprouted at the end; it wears several black band spiked collars on both wrists, arms and neck.
Powerful, menacing, this creature was none other than Bowser Koopa, the "Great Demon King Koopa" or "Great Sorcerer King Koopa" whichever you prefer.
And right now he is facing perhaps one of his second greatest enemies, a dark doppelganger counterpart that stole his look, his power, as well as his title as the evilest being in the world.
Correct, the enemy we are referring to is none other than Dark Bowser, a Bowser but with color swapping to deep blue and black scheme, blood-red evil eyes with no pupil nor brows, upward spike mohawk instead of a smooth fire-like mane. This was a being that was once known as Dark Star, a dark entity with an unknown origin, a being that sought on the path of swallowing the entire world into darkness. A powerful being, so powerful that even the old god-like entities known as Star Spirits can't put an end to its vile atrocity. In ancient times, the Star Spirits can only put the Dark Star into a long slumber, and hoping that its sleep stays forever undisturbed, so no one will have to ever deal with it, hopefully stopping the clashes from continuing.
But fate has a different idea.
The dark entity's sleep was rudely disturbed, by a high-pitch laughing and gawking, awakened it back to the world, despite not going the way it anticipated, a lowly greenish lifeform though it could hold on to the power of pure darkness, grasp it in the palm, playing with it, fiddling it like a stick. How utterly foolish. The being soon meets its demise by losing itself in the endless void.
With the little hiccup dealt with, and the set goal of spreading death and destruction was continued once the vile being fully awakened.
However, the dark being soon finds something standing in its way.
An ever-familiar present once again stood in front of it… no, four familiar presents.
With one behind it, her power drained by it to fuel its awakening.
It's quite… amusing, the eternal enemy of it was the reason why it's awakened fasten.
The dogs of those self declare sacred beings, they show up again and again whenever it's kin trying to consume the world.
Eons ago they battled, eons later they still battled, but in a different body each time. They never remember it, but Dark Star remembers them.
Always, as always, Courage, Bravery, Wisdom, Power, Diligence, Faithful, and Loyalty. They may not appear together at the same time at each encounter, but every time a certain two will always show up. Courage and Power, these two always were there to stop it.
They actually take it by surprise in this encounter, after trading blows, it confirms the beast in front of it was without a doubt, the current host of Power. With hosts of Courage and Bravery inside of its body somehow?
This pointless world is getting weird and weirder within each resurrection.
But no matter when and where, if they encounter, they fight.
So fight they did.
And now the Dark Star finds itself in agony, it's core, the root of its physical presence, was destroyed once again. By the two lapdogs of the star inside Power's body.
With the power source removed, the body known as Dark Bowser can not stay intact anymore, it feels like its body is breaking apart, tearing, melting, dissolving.
Holding its head in pain, looking up into the sky, Dark Bowser's eyes shot wide open, a horrible sound of screech no creature ever heard of left its throat. Dark energy escaping its body, black orbs with purple mist emitting fastly like a losing dam, the cold brooding deep blue of its body flashing in a static-like manner with faint pink and red light.
Everything was falling apart.
It took every power Dark Bowser could summon just to keep what's left of the body to stay intact, the result of this battle was by definition... decided.
"What's wrong with you? Your color is... weird!" The current Power mocked, as brash as always.
Bowser smirked at the miserable state of Dark Bowser, completely unaware, and uncared of the thoughts that lie behind the century-old beings. "Well, whatever, I'll still win this fight, no prob!"
"And for the final, one KO PUNCH!"
Walking up right in front of a powerless Dark Bowser, the holder of Power slowly draws his right fist back, the fist's routine set deadly on track. His left foot soon stayed airborne, with a bulky frame as such, the owner of the body displayed a level of perfectly balanced punch stance.
"HERE I GO!" Burning red stars-like energy bits gathering around the concentrating fist of the unstoppable beast, slowly making the fist flash with white light.
With a mighty roar, Bowser shot out a fast and powerful punch right on Dark Bowser's face, creating a powerful shockwave, effectively knocking the dark doppelganger several feet back.
Raising up the opposite fist, Bowser repeats the move again, this time aiming at the chest of Dark Bowser. The force behind the punch powerful than the previous one
Another punch, aiming at the face again. The power of the punch only increased.
And another, aiming at the lower belly. And each punch caused Dark Bowser to lose more grasp of the power it left.
Bowser raised his fist once more, but this time he drew his arms all the way back as he could, hot steam blew out from his snouts, he once again took on the stance of arching his back up, standing on one foot.
Stars-like energy gathering to his fist again, this time, each burning bright like rainbows, the flows of the very airs, was even affected by the charging up fist, a powerful aura emitting from Bowser's body.
With one final roar, Bowser shot himself forward, putting everything into this one final strike.
If one were to look at the top of Princess Peach's castle at that moment, they would witness a powerful shockwave burst out from the highest point of the castle.
Bowser's fist digging deeply into Dark Bowser's chest, knocking every single air out of it, with his fist arcing up at the process of the motion, time seems to have slowed down.
Dark Bowser's whole body was held airborne by Bowser's fist, and Bowser himself was moving forward like a blur. It was at this moment, signed Dark Bowser's end.
And with that set in stone, the time resumed.
Dark Bowser flew all the way up in the air, spinning because of the physical inertia behind the punch. The force carried it to the air, only then for the cold blood, logical gravity to drag the heavy frame back down to earth.
And so it lands back on the floor, its body can no longer hold anything together, the dark hurricane created by Dark Bowser slowed down, a deep blue, purple and black aura slowly leaking from the body, and then retracting back, cracks appears on Dark Bowser's entire body, more and more; pure black light shooting out from the cracks, one by one.
And every single dark energy burst out from Dark Bowser's body, following with its cries of agony, leaving only its battered, torn, broken, and hollow frame behind.
"ROOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!" The booming voice of the Koopa King echoes through the sky of Mushroom Kingdom, proclaiming the end of this battle.
The Dark Star and Dark Bowser were defeated.
The unthinkable happened...
How it has fallen, to come so far, so far… only to lose.
But… it knows, the world can never get rid of it.
As long as light exists, dark will follow.
Today's victory of lights, was just another day's defeat for the dark.
It'll continue to exist within the world, physically or not, and patiently waiting for the next chance to arrive.
For now, Dark Star will accept this defeat, and give its formidable enemies their victory and credits.
And it will now take a rest once more.
Until the next time…
Somewhere, in a land of unknown. Death, that's the word to describe this wasteland, the sky was painted red as blood, the land was stained in a blood-red mix with deep purple and black, purple spiky crystal filled with negative energy sprouted everywhere. Creatures made from hatred, blood-lust, and darkness looming among this dreadful land.
Seating in one corner, a brilliant castle carved from one gigantic crystal standing mighty and tall in this wasteland, shrouded in an ominous and menacing aura.
Salem was seated in her throne in quite an amusing mood, this long time scheming plan of her's has finally been set in motion, Cinder is now on her way to Vale for the first phase to bring the Beacon Academy alongside the Kingdom of Vale to ruins; With the new recruits of Authur Watts, the plans of bringing the system that Ozam designed to ruins was pushed forward with easy; the cowardly Lionhearts has been driven to the corner by her, with his life grasped tightly in her palm, the helpless old man can only clench onto the thin thread she mercifully bestows him as he struggled to stay alive. With the exchange of arranging some "identity" for her subordinates; and the foolish conflict between Mankind and Faunus only fuels and motivate her lovely creation more; this world is slowly coming to an end.
Yes, for a long time, everything was finally moving smoothly for her, how delightful.
But fate has a different idea in store.
Above the sky of Remnant, in the pitch-black deep space, an object comes to existence once again. A deep blue sphere took shape, with a black star print on the orb body.
The object stays lifeless, empty as if it lacks a soul, it drifts aimlessly in the black void that was space.
Then, the object slowly drifts off its path as if something or rather… some force is dragging it.
Before long, the violet orb starts descending into a planet like a shooting star.
A black, ominous shooting star that carries a horrible wish.
A loud explosion echoes through the sky, breaking the eerie silence of the wasteland, the dwellers of darkness lift their heads up, staring at the burning bright black object that sore through the sky. Includes Salem.
Standing up from her throne, the queen of Grimm made her way to the window frame, curiously looking at the object that invaded her land.
"How… curious." Was all she said.
And before long, in the distance not far from the Evernight Castle, a loud crashing noise was heard and followed with the shake of the land.
As an immortal, Salem had her fair share of knowledge on a lot of things over this never-ending life, rare phenomena like meteors or shooting stars aren't rare to her. But this situation she finds herself in at present wasn't one of them, or rather… this object in front of her.
With the burning smoke filling the sky, locating the whereabouts of this mysterious object isn't hard, with Watts, Tyrian, and Hazel accompanying her, the four now stand at top of the crater, created by the shattering impact of this mysterious... meteor.
In the center of the attention, was a middle-man size orb, colored in deep blue, with a black star print on it.
The Grimms in the nearby area had already gathered toward the object, without Salem ever ordering them to, thus further piqued Salem's curiosity, something must be really special about this object, if the Grimms are drawn toward it like a moth to fire.
One Alpha Beowolf had approached the object, using its long claw to poking the blue sphere.
No reaction, must be some kind of artifact. Salem thinks.
Her theory was immediately proved wrong in the next moment.
The orb slowly floats in the air, all Grimms, mortal and immortal had their eyes on the objects. The beast of hatred and darkness took a battle stance, Watts took a step back in case things started to go south, Tyrian drew his weapon out, with Hazel taking a defensive stance and a raw dust crystal in his hand.
Meanwhile Salem wasn't fazed at all by the development of the event, she just silently observed the object, actually eager to find out what this thing is.
"Grrrrrrrraaah" A Beowolf growls at the object, and then lunges toward the object, attempting to strike it with its claw.
What happened next made every monster and mortal take a step back in surprise.
The Beowolf's arm was halted in mid-air by an invisible force. Confused at the sudden halt of its body, the Beowulf tilted its head in puzzle.
Then in a blink of eyes, the Beowulf dissolved into black mists, and was absorbed by the blue orb.
Shocked by the sudden end of their kin, all Grimm growl at the blue sphere., ready to slaughter this thing into pebbles if needed.
But the orb starts rotating, faster and faster, until the air star gets sucked into it, soon the force escalates, creating a powerful vortex that consumes everything.
The Grimms nears the orb immediately becoming its first wave of victims, some try to run, some try digging their claws into the ground, but they all meet the same demise.
Watts, Hazel, and Tyrian dig their hands on the ground, but were soon proved fruitless, they notice they were airborne and were getting closer and closer to the center of the vortex, they were going to be the food of this object.
If not for three black strings that binding them midair, the three men would meet their end that day.
Looking back toward their mistress, they saw she was just looking at the ordeal with a look of interest, unconcerned, the Grimm Queen never once moved from where she stands.
The catastrophe goes on for a long 20 seconds, with the three mortals watching the orb devore Grimms like a black hole fearfully, and the immortal watching it with a blank face.
Slowly, the suction dies down, and the orbs stop spinning, it then goes back into floating in the air, idly.
The mortal gets back on their feet, looking at the object warily, knowing fully well that whatever this thing is, it's not to be underestimated and treated lightly.
As if the very world is going against them, a tremendous amount of black aura-like presence bursts out from the orb, and shoots up toward the sky, like a spear piercing the red sky, creating shock waves in the process, the powerful wind blows pulsing, following with clouds of dust storms up in the air.
Watts, Tyrian, and Hazel shield their face and crouch down to regain their balance, the force was so great, they couldn't even manage to look directly at it.
Salem for the first time, finally had an action, holding up her arm to block the dust stormed up by the wind flow, but still not moving an inch from where she stood.
As the energy burst dies down, 8 black spike tips extend out from the blue body, and start orbit around like a sun's radiance, then, two blood-red glows that could rival a Grimm's stares appear on the center of the black star.
Despite not knowing what this thing is, the mortal and immortals are on the same thought line: Whatever this thing is, it's sentient, and it has awakened.
"Your Grace, what shall I handle this rude trespasser?" Tyrian eagerly asks, have his blood pumped up upon witnessing the destructive power this being possessed.
"Careful, we do not know what tricks this thing still has in its sleeve." Hazel warned, as he stabbed two fire dust crystal on his shoulders.
"This things' power is off the chart, my tablet can't determine its power." Watts says grimly, not liking the odd here.
Salem eyeing the creature curiously, before looking at the two henchmen. "Test it, but do not damage it too badly."
With the permission from his goddess, Tyrian rushed forward, circling around the dark sun, and took an aim for a test shot.
To their small shock, the bullet did nothing on the dark orb, as a forced field blocked the bullet before it could make contact with the body.
"So this thing is nothing like Grimm, Dust doesn't hurt it, noted." Narrowing his eyes, Tyrian immediately goes for a different approach.
He rushed behind the thing, as he delivered a slash and a dropkick.
To their surprise again, the force field appears again, absorbing the damage.
"Tch" Tyrian cursed with displeasure, this thing is trickier than they thought.
Fallback in line, this time, Hazel took the approach, forming a fireball in his palms, he hurled the equal-sized fireball at the dark sun.
"Boom!" The thing did not move an inch despite seeing the burning danger coming right toward it, and took the hit head-on, resulting in a huge cloud of smoke.
"Did that work?" Watts asks no one. As they all stare at the smokescreen intensely, looking for any movement.
A few seconds pass, the smokes start to scatter, and they see two red eyes peek through the smoke, stare at them.
The being, despite taking a powerful strike like that, still shows no sign of damage, it was still perfectly fine.
"This thing can take a beating, real beating." Hazel comments as he narrows his eyes.
The beings continuously stare at them, with no further movement nor reaction, just stare at them.
"Well, this thing probably lacks a soul like the Grimms." Watts theories, then cast another look at the being. "And probably can't emotion."
Looking at their leader, Watts asks. "What shall we do about it, Your Grace?"
Salem crossed her arms as she ponders about what they should do. Could this thing understand them? Or have a functional brain to understand? This thing is powerful, and she can find use of it if given enough time. But the question is how to start?
Well, guess it couldn't hurt to try.
Salem was about to speak to it. only for the thing to finally show a reaction.
Dark energy covered both Tyrian and Hazel's body, as they were lifted and dragged toward the being, holding them tightly.
Facing the two men, the being glanced from one to another, as if studying them.
The two try everything to break from the grip, to no avail.
Then to the confusion of both men, the beings use some sort of telekinesis to take a small thread of their hairs. Absorb through what appears to be the invisible mouth, and proceed to "eat" it.
The being then drops both men to the floor, as it starts shivering in some sort of discomfort.
"What was that about?" Tyrian asks, as he and Hazel both carefully back away from the weird orb.
"Probably trying to see if we're edible. Apparently it doesn't like what it was tasting." Hazel tries really hard to not deadpanned.
"Carnivorism then?" Tyrian giggled, only he could find joy from a situation like this.
The being then stops shivering, seems going over the taste test.
But what happens next catching all of them off guard.
A scorpion tail that looked like an exact copy of Tyrian's but with deep blue instead of his brown. Sprouted out from the back of the orb, following with a pair of muscle arms like Hazel's grow out from the side of the orb.
The thing has somehow, copied their body parts.
"What the..." Hazel trails off, at a loss at this development.
Watts has an amazing look at the ability displayed by the mysterious being.
Tyrian had scorn on his face as this thing copied his unique trait.
Salem was impressed by the ability this being possessed, her interest grew more and more.
But this talent show has just begun, as our judges have been surprised again when the performer starts speaking… with both Tyrian and Hazel's voice at the same time, just gruffer and distort.
"WhHHO… ArRre… yOOOu?"
Shocking but yet amusing, Salem took an approach.
"My name is Salem, I am the goddess of this world." Answered Salem as she smiled.
To Be
Continued:
Well, that was something, no, I'm not fully back at writing, I have hit writer block and several issues irl, barely holding myself together, but I really want to get this long-time brewing story of mine out. I have been thinking about this crossover for like 3 years.
Although fair warning, it's gonna contains a lot of self-head-canon for the Mario franchise, but no pairing, no OC.