"A pox on those dreaded Shroobs that literally bound me to this uneventful present…!" Bowser grumbled as he got out of his bed and stretched well. "I think it's payback time…"
It was exactly 12 a.m., and all this time, Mushroom Kingdom's most iconic villain was not able to sleep for one bit. He, too, wanted princess Peach back. His life simply wouldn't be the same anymore without the ability to cause trouble to her.
It was a good thing that Bowser's Castle was located fairly closely to princess Peach's castle, where all of the time holes were located.
The king of the Koopas silently made his way out of his home, and used the convenience of sliding through town while being inside of his shell to make it to the rivalling castle, where everyone currently slept, so he had to act like a ninja to subsequently make it to one of the time holes.
For the sake of the fact that he knew that the two Toadsworths, the two pairs of Mario brothers, Stuffwell, Professor Gadd and baby Peach were sleeping on the first and ground floors, Bowser decided to go to the basement of the castle, where he thought nobody would be present.
Fawful, however, was soundly sleeping in the back of his shop, where he made a temporary home of his own. Until, of course, he felt strange tremors that woke him up.
"Who has had the letting in of a herd of elephants of fury in the morning…?" he mumbled as he got out of his bed, rubbed his eyes and grabbed his glasses from his nightstand to put them on. "What does the time have anyway?" He looked at his digital alarm clock and saw that it was 12:10 a.m., also not known as the morning. In response to that, he decided to check outside of his shop.
Meanwhile, Bowser had found a time hole, namely the one that led to Shroob Town, and went into it.
The Engrish Beanish used his iconic vacuum helmet to explore the basement to find the source of all of the tremors he just felt, but to no avail, as Bowser had already travelled back in time when he wasn't looking yet.
"Well, it has been worthy of a trying…" Once he set foot back into his shop, he took his vacuum helmet off, parked it next to his bed, closed the hatch in the ceiling, took his glasses off and put them back onto his nightstand, briefly went to the nearby sink to splash some water into his bare face, and then huddled back into his bed. "Next time someone has the interrupting of my sleep, they'll have to taste the mustard of my doom…" And with that, he swiftly fell back asleep, snoring loudly as he did.
Meanwhile, at the Gomata household, nearly everyone was soundly sleeping, except for John and his father, Jake, who were still busy working on the latter's most recent literature project.
"We should probably call it a day, son" Jake yawned as he closed the word processor on his computer before shutting it down. "After all, I'm still not sure whether I should release this book or not…"
"It's a good thing that I don't have school anymore for the rest of the week, Dad" John also yawned, "but know that I'm always happy to help, even if it lasts until ridiculous hours of the night like this." He gave his father a hug and a peck on the cheek. "Goodnight, Dad."
"Goodnight to you too, John." The formal-looking Shroob gave his son a kiss back before they both departed to their respective rooms and beds.
Jake was a 'regular' Shroob, as well as the father of John, Jane, Joey and Jude. He was barely seen without his white fedora-like hat and his bubble pipe, which he had been using since his teens in order to process his thoughts and energy whenever he felt restless. Unlike most of the stereotypical fathers, he worked from home so he could also be there for his children in case something would happen to them. He was a writer of spy novels, and some of them were quite well-known among the rest of the Shroobs.
"Sweetie" Jake's wife June said, "you've been overworking again, haven't you? That's healthy for neither you nor John, you know?" She was a Guardian Shroob and the mother of the four aforementioned children, as well as a housewife. She and Jake have been together since the near end of 6th grade, and had John when they were both 17 and in their last year of high school, and upon discovering that they were expecting, her parents had estranged her since she wanted to keep the then unborn baby, but that didn't stop her now parents-in-law from living with them and their son back then, which had been very sweet of them. Furthermore, she commonly had blushy cheeks and wore a light blue apron by day.
"I'm sorry, June bug… I didn't even bother to look at the clock once again, and I promise that it's not a lie… once again."
"It's alright, but do remember that once school starts again for the kids, that you should send them and yourself to bed on time. After all, John will have to make his final exams in about 2 or 3 years, and it wouldn't be any good if he still stayed up late by then, huh?"
"No, I know… remember when we also consistently had to remind one another of that before we had John?"
June chuckled a little, as that was one tough time, the final exams while a baby could possibly be born anytime soon. It was a good thing that the final exams were already over for a week once John actually decided to introduce himself to the now former Shroob Planet. In fact, he was even the youngest spectator among everyone back when his parents celebrated their high school graduation 2 months later.
"We were so young yet already very rational back then… if only we'd remain that way nowadays…!" She gave her husband a peck on the cheek. "Sleep well, sweetheart."
"You sleep well too, darling."
But just as the two were about to sleep (again), sudden tremors were felt. And surely they weren't the only ones in the house who felt them.
"Okay" John said to himself as he calmly sat up in his bed, grabbed his glasses from his nightstand and put them back on. "You know what to do when there's an earthquake, right?" He breathed deeply for a few times to stay calm.
In the room across him, however, Jude was suddenly shaken awake by quite an intense tremor. He started weeping out of shock, which also slightly shocked John, as well as their parents.
"Oh my goodness…!" June said as her breath somewhat shuddered. "Why must there be sudden earthquakes…?" She sprinted towards her youngest son's room and swiftly took him into her arms to comfort him. "Shh, shh… Jude baby… I'm here…"
In the hallway, John suddenly saw a fairly large, but not larger than his house, shadowy figure through the window, and was quite shocked at the sight.
"D-Dad?" he stuttered to his father. "L-look! Outta th-the window!"
"And you're sure that it's real, son?" Jake asked.
"Yes…"
"Goody, what's that supposed to be?!"
The shadowy figure had suddenly noticed the presence of the Shroobs who were awake.
"Drat, it saw us!" the father and eldest son said in unison as they tried to get out of the figure's sight.
June had also seen the strange creature out of Jude's bedroom window, but she decided to go and check on it directly instead.
"Mum?" John asked. "What do you think you're doing? You're endangering yourself and Jude that way, you know?"
"Doesn't matter, John" June simply replied as she calmly headed downstairs, towards the front door.
The shadowy figure turned out to be Bowser, who wanted to investigate the Shroobs, but had 'apparently' woken up about one half of the Gomata household.
Even Urchie, the family's pet Spiny Shroopa, had become somewhat curious in the meantime, and took a careful gander out of the open door. However, he soon seemed to have lost interest in the sight upon noticing that Jude was visibly upset, and carefully licked his left arm in an attempt to comfort him.
"Huh?" the young Shroob suddenly lisped through his tears and blue soother that he usually just slept with. "Oh, Uhchie. You thocked, too?"
The Spiny Shroopa looked him into the eyes as if saying yes.
"Bowser" June said in an annoyed tone, immediately recognising the nemesis that often tried to interfere with Princess Shroob's plans. "How dare you wake us up and especially shock poor Jude that way? We literally thought there was an earthquake the other minute. Also, I thought Princess Shroob forbade you to ever visit our species again."
"Wait, she did?" Bowser asked. "Huh, didn't know that. Well, let's cut to the chase here: I was trying to investigate your species while you lot were asleep, so that weird princess of yours wouldn't comment on me and my overall presence. However, it now appears that I've failed in that."
"Oh, really?"
Jude briefly took his soother out to add only a partly necessary statement.
"We waugh at youh faiwuwe!" he said in a very evil tone for his young age.
Urchie had now noticed the shadowy figure to the fullest, and yelped as he immediately hid into his shell.
"You think you're able to get your weak princess back that way, huh?" the Shroob housewife continued. "Well, you should try better at that."
"Try better?!" the king of the Koopas growled. "What do you mean by that?! I'm already good enough!"
"Well, no. Just now, you shocked the majority of us with the tremors that you bring while you walk."
"Tremors?"
"That's right, those tremors are anything but stealthy, and like I mentioned earlier, they were like earthquakes to us at first. Also, in case you're wondering where the Shroob Castle is… not in this neighbourhood, you've probably stepped into the wrong time hole while sleep was still causing a galore of fog in and around your brains. In fact, that fog is most likely there when you're well awake, too!"
"I don't understand, could you explain this in plain English, please?"
"Well, in a nutshell, this all means…"
"You suck!" Jude giggled after having taken his soother out once again.
"Language, Jude." But from the inside, June knew that her youngest son was a hundred per cent right.
"What the-?! I…" Bowser was left speechless at such a strong and harsh statement from a mere toddler. In fact, not even the baby Mario brothers could legally say that to him. "I… I'll seriously send my underlings to this whole neighbourhood so they can interrogate all of you living here individually!"
"Really? Well, in that case, wish one of them good luck interrogating Jude and Urchie then, since I don't think they'd understand the whole concept of that."
"I'm not talking about them interrogating each family member of yours individually…"
June was left laughing at the not-always-that-obvious Koopa king.
"Why didn't you mention that sooner? Too befuddled? Well, only better, because you should be."
"I thought you'd already understand it in the first place!"
"Us Shroobs also need clearness, you know? Especially in the respect of the English language! No, but seriously, please refrain from sending your underlings to our neighbourhood to interrogate us, okay? Because otherwise, you're literally going to have to pay for this."
"Uh, I'm… well… broke? Then what?"
"Then I dwaw Mama's gun" Jude added in a somewhat menacing tone with a matching smile before deciding to stop speaking and popping his soother back in due to his fatigue taking over.
"Yes you will, Jude baby" the Shroob housewife chuckled somewhat evilly at the thought of a strange Koopa, Goomba or any other species suddenly standing at the doorstep of her and her family's home. "Now, be gone, and mark our words." And with that, she slammed the door shut and headed back upstairs to finally go back to bed, with Urchie following suit.
"Well then" Bowser said to himself, "I officially declare this plan as a failure… on to plan B, then. To send my underlings to either Shroob Town or the Shroob Castle as secret spies soon." He huddled into his shell and made his way back to the time hole.
Once he went back to the present, however, the fact that he landed on the ground hard with his shell woke Fawful back up, and this time…
"Now I have fury!" the Engrish Beanish grumbled, as he frantically put his glasses back on. "Fury of being woken up roughly like sandpaper once again!" He swiftly put his vacuum helmet back on and investigated the area once again. "A-ha!" He noticed the Koopa king within only the fraction of a millisecond. "How do you have the daring of waking me up?! I have the need to sleep too, you know?!"
"Ugh, it's all night with those who wake up from me and disapprove of me" the iconic fire-breathing Koopa replied. "It should be time that I, Bowser, get some recognition and praise instead!"
"Well, not when the night looms over us like a weighted blanket filled with moon particles… puh-lease, could you let Fawful have his beauty rest for even one second as tiny as a grain of sand?"
"Well, since my most recent plan failed, yes…"
"Good! Then have a disappearance."
"Wait, but I wasn-"
"I say to you scram!"
"Alright… but puh-lease to you to not shout at me! You owe me some praise, bean weirdo!" Via the same 'secret' hole, Bowser left the castle's basement and headed back to his own home.
Fawful grumbled once he made his way back to his sleeping corner in the back of his shop.
"Oh my good grapes and gravy… cannot even have the rest on a night of peace like peace signs…" He put his vacuum helmet away, closed the hatch in the ceiling once again, put his glasses back onto his nightstand and huddled underneath his covers. "I do still have the wonder about my beans, though…"