...
World 8-4: Poetry Slam Brothers Penultimate DX
This was it. They stood before the colossal doors of the main hold. Runes writ in blackened blood bordered crazed hexagrams branded into the door planks, while spiked bands of iron provided further mundane reinforcement. If Koops' intel was correct, beyond this grim portal awaited the queen's Research and Development Laboratory Number Four, where her deadliest weapons technology was built and tested. The dark, scary stuff she didn't trust to keep close to home.
A dozen First Echelon stood before the hold doors in phalanx formation, spears bristling, shields shining, faces squinting and grim. Their captain fingered the jeweled sheath of his tulwar and curled his fingers in a smug gesture of beckoning. From where he was looking out, he stood among his fungi like a coin secure in an iron safe, his unit an invincible fist of razors poised against three grubby beggars. How could he lose?
Daisy made the first move.
In a scene Bowser would never forget, the fugitive empress took three steps forward and proceeded to stare down every Toad in the hold. It wasn't clear from observation alone how Daisy managed this—it was rather... a new awareness. Awareness that a previously unknown fundamental of the Toads' existence was now for the first time witnessed.
The elite guards turned even more pale, some of them convulsing with the effort to gibber or scream, but no matter how they strained their jaws and tore at their throat stalks, only ragged breaths and drool dribbled out of their puckered mouths.
Every gaze tracked the empress who sashayed ever closer. Daisy stopped before the foremost guard and neatly slid his saber from its scabbard. She proceeded to run the Toad through with his own sword, slowly, savoring every inch of penetration. The First Echelon died slow. His eyes, and the burning, unspeakable things reflected within them, stayed locked with Daisy's, his face contorting until blood sprayed from the hole in his sternum and he collapsed. Then Koops threw knives from both hands and two guards fell gurgling around the steel in their throats. The spell broke, the remaining First Echelon charged the escapees (they were brave little bastards for doing so, Bowser had to admit).
For the queen's guard Bowser played the song of his people. The battle paean of his ancestors was the drumbeat of his heart, its lyrics the hissing blood in his veins, the screams of his enemies its chorus. The symphony hit its high notes as his bare claws disemboweled the fifth consecutive Toad. Daisy had called it right: uninhibited slaughter. And it felt oh so right.
Bowser body slammed his sixth victim into a shivering snare of pulverized flesh. The frenzied fungus had been about to smash his foot with a hammer. A very familiar hammer, much too heavy for the guard who had been struggling to wield it. Bowser plucked the oversized mallet from its spasming hands. Luigi would want his tool back.
Koops snapped the neck of the last Toad, while Daisy bent over one of the fallen, tearing away with the gusto of three hungry vultures.
"Let's go. We've got a queen to kill," growled Bowser. His blood ran hot, pounding through his skull like the devil's own drum solo, and it seemed best to strike while he was warmed up. The fire of kings strained for release against the walls of a calloused pocket somewhere below the lungs and above the stomach. Hurtling through the air thousands of feet above the uncompromising earth in a wooden boat flapping its several hundred tiny artificial wings to stay aloft was not the ideal playground for pyrotechnics, yet inside R&D 4 he suspected there would be need and opportunity to release the scourging fire.
Daisy rose from the corpse on the floor and daintily wiped a slick of dark blood from her chin. "Coming."
Bowser looked down and saw that she had eaten away the guard's face and most of the mushroom cap.
"Don't feed their prisoners too well, do they?" Bowser asked. Talking kept him from shaking. Were these battle jitters, or something else? Hard to say.
Daisy nodded, humming with satisfaction. "They're doing a good job now, though."
Koops looked like he wanted to vomit.
Daisy laid hands on the doors and breathed a word. Black iron bands turned silver gray and cracked apart. The wood under the runes seared, blotting out all writing. The empress took a step back, breathing a little hard but grinning with satisfaction, and beckoned them forward.
"All right then." Wrapping claws around an iron ring riveted into the door, Bowser pulled with all his strength. He had to pinwheel his arms to keep from falling backwards. The door swung to with well greased ease, letting escape an orange light into the dim passageway. Heated air washed over them. From the hold rushed the clang and buzz of industry.
Crossing the threshold, they entered a space which ran nearly the full length of the airship, walled with steel plates bolted over the wood hull. Strange machines hung from the ceiling in hammocks of chains, billowing and chugging liquids and steam. Before their feet a grated catwalk bridge spanned the hold's length, skirting the red mouths of two huge ceramic block crucibles of molten lava, over which the bridge was suspended. Pipes and wire bundles webbed the whole mess of equipment and energy sources together. Here was his castle's purloined magma. Bowser would've recognized the smell of it anywhere.
Toads in white laboratory smocks scurried across the deck below, toting lab equipment, making notes on clipboards, or slaving over worktables affixed to the hull. Secured against the sloping hull on either side sat eight statues carved from greenwood. Each, when on its feet, would stand at least ten meters tall. The long, thin nose of one sported a twig bearing green leaves. Toad artisans had carved faces from the head blocks and dyed them with abstract representations of eyes, and each bore a nutcracker lever mouth, finished with varnished, bared teeth. A sense of witnessing something profane fell upon Bowser, making his scales slither. The researchers seemed to be focusing most of their efforts on the giant creepy dolls.
Bowser couldn't figure out what the hell was going on, but then he had more important things on his mind.
Halfway down the bridge, over the glowing mouth of a crucible, Peach waited, serene. A disheveled Mario stood tethered to her by a dog collar, the leash wrapped in the queen's fist. In Peach's other hand a pair of sheers, the split blades resting easy around a thin cord from which Iggy dangled, bundled in a knot of heavy rope. At their backs loomed a great machine of obscure purpose. Most of the pipes snaking through the hold converged in its bulk. At first glance it resembled a furnace, though a number of flywheels and gears attached hinted engine might be a closer guess. At the moment it stood cool and silent. An intake chute fronted the monstrous structure, in the shape of a five-point star. If his scales had been crawling a moment ago, they now wanted to leap off Bower's hide and run away.
Bowser led the column of his much diminished Koopa troop forward. The bridge was too narrow for anyone to walk side-by-side, doubtless as Peach intended. He didn't like this. What defense did she have planned beyond the hostages on display? With Peach, nothing was as it seemed, even a cut-and-dried hostage situation.
The queen watched them approach, looking not the least bit worried.
"Stop where you are, or I cut him loose," she said at last. She waggled the sheers.
"Go ahead," said Bowser. "If I had any money on me, I'd pay you for VIP seating."
"Is that true?" she asked Iggy.
Iggy giggled. "Yeah. I'm trying to earn his forgiveness and acceptance and all that wholesome jazz. Not doing so…" and he looked down, the magma glow shadowing the recesses of his face, eyeglasses shining yellow like the sun, "hot."
Peach looked back and forth from the sheers in her hand to Bowser as he inched closer. "Damn it all. Then you leave me no choice. I'll throw Mario over." She used the sharp heel of her shoe to prod Mario half-way over the guardrail.
"I'm not buying what you're selling, Peach. This bit is too overused to take seriously. I know he's far more valuable to you alive. Without Mario's connection to the Star Spirits you'll never achieve real ultimate power, immortality, and all the other items on your supervillain's bucket list," said Bowser.
"I'm appalled that you're so willing to gamble with the life of your dearest friend. I would rather—yeah, you know what? I'm not feeling this either."
She let out a tired sigh, her shoulders sagging, the armor of her imperial hauteur dropping away for a moment. It had been carefully hidden by makeup and the odd lighting, but there were hints of shadows around the queen's eyes. A bruise hid under the foundation and blush, the one sustained from slamming face-first into Mario's bedroom door earlier that week. Vital signs that she had not yet wished herself invulnerable.
"You want to just move on to our the final battle?" Peach asked.
"I think that'd be for the best," said Bowser.
"I'm sorry," said Mario. No longer threatened by the heel spike, he lowered himself back down to the catwalk. "I feel so guilty getting kidnapped all the time and causing you all this trouble."
"Don't worry about it, little buddy. To Peach you're just another piece on the board. If you weren't around, she'd be putting the squeeze on some other lovable loser I cared about," said Bowser.
"Yes," said Peach. "We are fated to clash, no matter the circumstances." The queen favored them with a scythe smile, as cold and sharp as a real blade. "Just as I'm fated to triumph in all things."
Peach might be tired and cornered, but she still seemed too confident for comfort. A horrible possibility occurred to Bowser. "Hey, buddy?" He cocked an eyebrow at Mario. "You didn't grant her immortality, did you?"
Mario hid his hands guiltily behind his back. "No, not immortality. But... you have to understand. She said she'd kill you if I didn't cooperate."
"She ordered me killed anyways." Bowser slumped forward and threw his arms up in exasperation. "C'mon man! You should know how this works by now." His voice softened. "Just tell me what wishes you've granted her."
"Do not worry, my vanquished. It was only a trifling boon of power from the star gods." Some of the fatigue lifted from Peach's bearing. A little of the old, murderous dazzle returned to her eyes.
"Hey, can I receive a boon? A boon of getting out of these ropes? They're really digging into my—"
"Silence, animal trash," Peach snarled. She cut the cord with one snip of the sheers. Iggy nimbly caught the guardrail of the catwalk between his thighs and scissor gripped the metal bar tight to keep from tumbling into the magma below.
"And you gave Mario the dog leash!" he screeched. "You know I'd love it if you'd leash me. Seriously. After all I've done for you, no kiss, no touching, not even a freaking hug! A small token of appreciation, a tiny fraction of the affection you've promised me for services rendered is all I ask."
Bowser pointed at his son with the hammer. "You should've gagged him."
"Yes, I can only agree. And people wonder why I don't like children. All right Iggy, tell you what. I'll let you put your hand up my dress for five seconds if you'll help me kill your father right now."
Iggy shook his head. Grunting and whining, he'd wriggled his way onto the catwalk. "Nuh uh. I've fallen for this too many times before. You'll yank away at the last second and cut my hand off or stick a needle in my eye or something else horrible, just like always. I know it!"
"Nut up or shut up, Iggy." Peach wasn't even wearing a dress, sticking to practical slacks, a pink lab smock embroidered with silver, and a protective apron fashionably glossy. The only piece of her usual ensemble still present were her high heels and the jeweled amulet she never removed, pinned like a brooch through the top buttonholes of the smock's collar. She stuck out a foot and rucked up the pant leg to show off a pale crescent of lower calf.
"Sold!" Iggy writhed once and slipped his bonds, earning a surprised raise of the eyebrow from Peach. He kippered up to standing. "Prepare yourself, Father." Iggy waved his hands smoothly through the rippling air, making strained cooing noises in an imitation of movie martial arts masters. "Chaaa! The things I'll do for love."
Bowser rolled his eyes. "Iggy, get the hell out of my way."
"Hello, Peach," said Daisy. She had climbed the spikes of Bowser's carapace and twined her arms around his horns.
Peach gave Bowser a glare that radiated disappointment. "I knew I should've had Gadd gut you first thing," she said.
"But you didn't. Aspiring overlords shouldn't underestimate their rivals. Transporting more than one of us, in the same vessel, at any given time was just asking for disaster."
"Gag Iggy; dispatch one adversary at a time. Got it. Now let me hand out some constructive criticism of my own. Bowser, darling, you need to be more careful of the company you keep." She pointed at Daisy. "That one will bring you sorrow before long."
"It'll be a sad day when I have to take social coaching from a mass murderer like you," said Bowser. He flexed his claws and struck a forward-leaning offensive stance, tail straightened out as counterweight.
Peach shrugged. "Be it on your own horny head."
From the hidden depths of her pants, Peach produced a large cast iron skillet. The dark, granular surface was dented and well seasoned from frequent use. This culinary weapon had inspired a myth cycle expansive enough to fill a tome, and none of its legends were happy ones. Speculation on what significance this symbolic tool of domesticity held for the queen had indeed furnished the content for several dense volumes.
"This one is the original. Took it from the kitchen of the King of World 1. I fried his wife's heart on it with some chive butter while he watched and afterwards fed it to him. A souvenir of my first major conquest. Makes for a surprisingly effective maul, provided one disciplines the forearm muscles first."
"Oh, fuck the Stars bloody, can we just stop talking and get on with it already?" shouted Koops. "It's hotter than a podoboo's balls up here and I've been fighting the need to piss for the last hour."
"I concur," said Daisy. She fluttered down from Bowser's head like the world's most soiled cherry blossom petal and landed soundlessly on the catwalk before him. "I'm still hungry."
Peach's lashes flickered as she shot a look to Bowser which seemed to say, See? I told you.
Daisy held the saber of the half-eaten guard, gracefully tilted upwards into the plow guard stance. She seemed more comfortable wielding the saber like a long sword rather than a fencing foil. Peach responded by assuming the fool's guard with the cast iron. Mario got down and hugged the floor, hands covering his head.
Iggy looked back and forth at the two sides, brow rumpled in confusion. Then he shrugged and flared his nostrils, stoking the fire in his guts. Koops fingered his last remaining throwing knife. Bowser licked his claws and rumbled, hoping it would cover the thunder of his slamming heart.
Below, the scientists and technicians had stopped their labors to gaze upwards, cylindrical faces blank, black eyes moist in the red magma glare.
The moment stretched. All were ready for action, yet no one wanted to tip the first domino, set match to fuse, tear open the condom wrapper and get on with it.
Luigi chose that moment to soar over all their heads in one giant leap, bellowing as if all the Yoshis of hell were after him. Bowser tossed up the hammer and Luigi caught it mid-air. He dived dead on for Peach, the sledge raised for a swing with his full momentum riding through it.
It was a blow to cave in the skull of a giant. Peach sidestepped at the last possible instant and slammed her knee into his abdomen as he crashed down. The hell-scream died with a strangled squawk.
Luigi tumbled over the catwalk safety railing, arms twirling for purchase. Mario, free because Peach had dropped his leash, caught him by the forearm and began hauling his red-faced and panting brother back onto the narrow bridge.
Peach paid the brothers no mind, focusing instead on the biggest threat. She brushed past a posturing Iggy and rushed Daisy. The Empress of Sarasaland swept the blade down low, aiming to chop her nemesis short at the knees. Peach blocked the saber cut with a master stroke against the strong section of the blade. Sparks flew. Polished steel scraped over pitted iron. Peach snarled and shoved Daisy's guard aside. She pressed the assault, forcing Daisy back nearly into Bowser, hammering for her collar bone and shoulders. Daisy brought her arm up inside the queen's reach and knocked her skillet-bearing hand aside before Peach could land a blow.
There was no room on the bridge to circle around the dueling royals, either to get at Peach's back or protect Mario. In mounting frustration, Bowser coiled up for a risky leap over the fray.
"Uh, boss? We've got an evolving situation here," said Koops.
Toad, the Toad, charged down the bridge towards them. He bore not a club, but a scimitar, the wide, heavy blade flashing yellow fire.
"I'll take him." Koops touched the bandage across his beak and braced for carnage.
Bowser glanced back. Peach and Daisy hacked at each other in a frenzy of bloodlust, each having yet to score a single hit on the other. Shirt sleeves and pants legs and grimy wrappings gaped with new openings, testament to near misses. Closer by, Luigi chased Iggy, who fled and capered down the bridge, throwing blasts of magic using his old mage's wand and spitting balls of fire to keep the raging juggernaut at bay. Luigi leapt out of the way of everything the koopaling fired his way, but he couldn't keep dodging forever. The blurring speed of his movements and the hard muscles impressing clear outlines against the strained fabric of Luigi's clothes told of a determination to keep attacking, even if his arms and legs were severed. Mario moved his lips in silent prayer to the Star Spirits, eyes shut against the chaos and the sweat that poured out of his forehead.
"I've got a better idea." Bowser hoisted Koops off the grated catwalk. The captain, wise to what was coming next, withdrew his limbs and head into the shell. "Make sure the Mario brothers don't get themselves killed."
Mere seconds before The Toad reached them, Bowser hurled the shell and laughed to see it smack Iggy in the back of the head. Iggy sank to his knees, head reeling from the blow. Luigi and Koops seized on the opportunity and in an instant were on him. Iggy's lunatic sneer vanished, face stony with concentration as he fell back, mouthing spells, doing all he could to keep two determined attackers off his throat. The jewel in the wand shone with a eldritch blue light.
Bowser heard the subtle whistle of blade-swept air. Turning his shoulder, he caught the scimitar's blow on the studded iron band worn on his upper arm.
"Tired of you always getting the first hit. It's my turn."
The Toad twirled the sword from right to left hand, then flourished the wide blade up for a diagonal strike, using the mirror sheen of its face to reflect a glare into his foe's eyes. To counter, Bowser swung a monster fist square into The Toad's face and rejoiced in the resultant snapping and crackling. The Toad squirted blood on Bowser's knuckles and wheeled backwards. Bowser stuck on him, laying on another and another haymaker to the head, pulling the full might of his shoulder and waist into the looping punches.
"How you like the taste of these knuckle sandwiches, punk? I'll make you wish you'd never crawled out from beneath the toenail that spawned ya."
The Toad reeled, struggling to remain standing. Bowser reared back to wind up the killing blow. The fungus dived low and clinched Bowser's knees in a bear hug.
"Oh, that's rich. But I don't swing that way, so you'll get no sympathy from—"
The Toad grunted, and by straightening his knees, lifted Bowser clear of the grating. The King of the Koopas found himself at a loss for words. He'd heard Peach's favored retainer was strong, but this show of might was more than he was prepared to accept. The Toad proceeded without his approval and threw himself backwards, suplexing Bowser face first into the catwalk. Before he recovered his breath, much less his dignity, Bowser felt tiny hands pushing up into his stomach. The Toad had crawled underneath to power lift Bowser up over his mushroom capped head.
Bowser rabbit punched his fungal nemesis in the face. When that failed to elicit a response, he went in with the claws. The Toad ignored the lines of flesh unzipping all over his body. He grunted and threw Bowser off the bridge.
The hungry orange-hot lava, the shocked stares of Toad researchers, the shadowy recesses of the log ceiling all spun around and round again. Bowser's softer underside slammed off the lip of a crucible. The dull metallic clang reached his ears a second later. He landed on his shell, stunned. Fresh blood odor flooded his nostrils—not his own. A researcher had broken his fall and lay crushed and dying beneath the spiked carapace.
Above, The Toad dived off the bridge, falling with sword thrust straight down, his aim impeccable. No time to rock and sway onto his side. On instinct, Bowser spat the fiery breath he'd suppressed since escaping Gadd's lab. Ball fire engulfed The Toad. The retainer exploded into flames, but still he plummeted on, the sword held firm to its interception course with the pale, exposed belly below. Even as he seared in gut-borne fire, The Toad's aim was uncanny.
Having no other shield, Bowser positioned the bands of steel on his arms deflect the impalement. The scimitar cut deep into the left forearm, and would have sheered through bone if the black steel wrist bracelet hadn't arrested the blade's gruesome run. White hot, wet agony swelled up from the wound. Bowser sucked in breath, refusing to make time for pain. He swatted The Toad with all his hate, knocking the sword clear from the fungus' hands.
The Toad stopped, dropped, and rolled until he'd smothered the flames. With his dancing partner distracted, Bowser rocked back and forth until the shell tipped over, setting him aright. Peach's retainer was hurting, but the king reckoned he still had the worse of it. His battered head felt like someone had swapped out the bones for a soggy candy skull. Gadd's slice stung as if massaged with salt. Blood gushed from the newest hole. Bowser squeezed the scimitar wound closed while confirming he could still flex his left hand.
Break-time over. The Toad, back on the soles of his curly-toed shoes, was inbound. Face swollen beyond recognition, vest and pants charred halfway to carbon, multiple lacerations dribbling away his life, The Toad came on with murder cold and inexorable as a doomsday comet shining in those beady eyes.
Researchers scattered, squealing and gibbering as the two combatants charged. King and retainer met in a fleshy clash of snarling and biting and punching. High over their heads an explosion boomed, for an instant outshining the magma glow with an eerie blue light. A woman screamed. Somewhere, Koops was shouting an unbroken string of profanity.
But Bowser dared not look away from his opponent. The Toad could not match him for muscular strength. Instead, the runty fungus relied on sheer technical superiority. The Toad drilled with tiny fists of diamond into pressure points, nerve clusters, and soft spots previously unknown to their owner. The Toad jumped all over him like a blood crazed flea. Bowser's cut arm was useless in a fight. The other was going numb. More than once his knees shook, threatening to give out and dump him to the floor. Sunspots of fresh pain glowed all over his body as The Toad dismantled him with fists and feet. A primal fear frosted over the carefully cultivated firestorm of rage within. It was the realization that another being could know more about his own body than he did. Bowser paid The Toad back one lick for every three and his energy was flagging, lukewarm breath panting from nostrils straining to open wider.
Sensing victory close to hand, The Toad made his move. A blink-and-you-miss-it dodge to the left, then the right, he swooped in, a tiny arm outstretched. Bowser lurched into a roundhouse spin, hoping to whip the lamed arm's claws into the fungal juggernaut's face. He was a full second too late. The Toad clotheslined one leg out from beneath Bowser, felling him to one knee. The mushroom monster circled behind and seized Bowser by the tail.
"You wouldn't dare," the King of the Koopas croaked.
The Toad managed to freight a mountain of self-satisfaction into a single grunt as he flexed and began to haul on the tail. Bowser tried to crab walk around to reach him and found his feet no longer had a purchase on the plank flooring. The Toad swung hard enough to spin him into centrifugal flight. Leaning back on his heels, The Toad spun the king higher, around and around, until Bowser hovered by an inch, two inches, a full foot and more off the ground.
Bowser swallowed the acid taste of vomit creeping up his throat, squeezing eyes closed against the blurring scenery and the shame. Blind claws scraped over the splintery floor, unable to find a grip. Fire, no longer content with the stomach, colonized his spine.
Sufficient velocity attained, The Toad let go, hammer throwing Bowser towards the mouth of the nearest crucible. None too eager for a dunk, Bowser shifted mid-flight, increasing the air drag. He thumped against the scorching rim of the giant crock of molten stone and flopped backwards to the deck below. Mercifully, he landed belly down.
Tiny fingers snarled into his hair. The Toad slammed Bowser's face into the porcelain wall of the crucible, pulled his head back, and smashed it home again. Before he could knock thrice, Bowser snatched the sloped head and squashed The Toad against the griddle hot blocks, transforming the crucible into a vertical grill. The Toad began smoking, began squealing.
Bowser guffawed. "Thought you could make an ally of fire, did ya? But that element is my friend, buddy, and no one can take the heat like a Koopa. Fungus just wilts. My, you're sautéing up nicely. Now, if only I had some butter…"
While fire was not his friend, The Toad was on good terms with fundamental forces, such as velocity and torque. Filled with the full berserker strength of desperation, The Toad planted both feet against the crucible wall and wrapped hands around Bowser's wrist. Kicking off the surface currently cooking his face, the elite fungal retainer threw his whole body into a savage wrenching orbit that twisted the Koopa's forearm into a painful new angle. Bowser was forced to let go.
Smelling roasty and delicious, The Toad double drop-kicked Bowser to the face hard enough to knock him back onto his shell. As the retainer scrambled to find his scimitar, the king rocked back over and crawled in pursuit. He caught up to The Toad just as the fungus laid hand to the sword's grip.
"Hey, now. Don't be greedy." Bowser scooped up The Toad, crushing him close. The scimitar rebounded off of horn and carapace, its edge striking green sparks.
"Mom sez it's my turn to ride you."
Bowser jumped as high into the air as his exhausted muscles allowed. High enough to catch a glimpse of the on-going tumult of combat raging across the catwalk. Hard to tell who was winning. On the way down, Bowser held The Toad thrashing and squeaking flush against the smooth scales of his belly.
"Settle down, boy. I expect a smooth ride today."
The crash shivered the timbers of the hold. A cool wetness spread across his midriff. Shifting up to review the results, a fragment of arm and stem rolled out from beneath. Snapped into pieces and pinned underneath a great weight, the favored retainer of the queen struggled on. The Toad twisted about until he was face-up. Still gripping the scimitar, he hacked at Bowser's abused pate while the free hand crawled up his face, searching for an eye or nostril to gouge.
Bowser, remembering the cooking analogy he'd made moments earlier, took inspiration from Daisy and chomped down on The Toad's face. Blood, salty and rich, gushed over his tongue. The skin, delightfully crisped, carried a beguiling hint of caramelization. Delicious. Bowser reared his head and with an alligator's cold savagery yanked and pulled until half of The Toad's face tore off in a dripping flap. One lidless eye rolled crazily amid a nest of clenching, bleeding muscle. The scimitar dropped to the floor with a dull clatter. The Toad began to scream. Bowser sampled the mushroom cap next. He chewed and swallowed, nearly gagging on the bitter twang of fungus flesh, yet an unholy hunger had risen within and demanded more.
The screams softened to wet mewling. Tiny fists that once hit like iron hammers now beat against him with all the force of a puff of hatchling's breath.
A few more nibbles later, The Toad shuddered and lay still. Bowser took the scimitar and staggered to the closest catwalk access ladder. Along the way, he noted the giant seam running along the center of the deck. The floor was a pair of bay doors, perhaps originally intended for bombing runs. Bowser filed this fact away for later use. The scene on the elevated walkway above was a grim one.
Saber and skillet locked, Peach had forced Daisy to one knee. Their faces hovered in the rippling mirage air a mere inch apart, heads shivering and hair writhing like serpents with the effort of transmitting or enduring whatever hexes flowed between them. Bowser looked away, none too eager to meet either woman's dementing gaze. Further down, a bloodied Koops and a singed Luigi had at last overcome Iggy. Luigi held the koopaling off the grating by the neck, using his free fist to work over Iggy's face while Koops pounded his underbelly. Mario cowered, arms shielding head, shaking.
Daisy cried out and collapsed, a hand over her eyes. Bowser whistled at Luigi and Koops. They turned around, took in the situation, and dropped the wheezing, half conscious Iggy.
Peach was caught now between Bowser and his two allies. The queen smiled and wept tears of dark blood. The timbers of the airship rattled and creaked against nail and epoxy as if haunted by caged ghosts restless to win free.
Bowser and Koops stopped. Luigi paused, hammer clutched against his chest, teeth bared. The air more than stilled, it went fully dead, pooling in their lungs like lukewarm water. The super-heated rock below failed to stir the air, its glow dimming.
Then Peach gave herself a shake, the bloody tears already dry and flaking away. The timbers stilled and the heated air began to circulate. She looked as fresh as when the battle begun.
"You know why I've got your lava here?" she asked. She placed one boot under the discarded saber and kicked it up, catching the wire grip in her free hand.
"I'll hold a séance to ask you about it later," growled Bowser. He charged, swinging the scimitar about with gusto.
"Geothermal power is the most plentiful energy source yet discovered, disregarding the inconstant sun. There aren't enough trees on the planet, nor coal beneath its crust to fuel the industries to come."
Peach trapped the scimitar's blade between saber and skillet, twisting it from his grasp. Bowser took a great breath, caution thrown to the furnace breeze wafting about them as he summoned the fire. Peach's hand flashed to one of many trouser pockets and whipped out another damned Sub-con turnip. It bore a face on its lined skin, its expression one of blank horror. She corked his gaping jaws with the root vegetable. "My industries."
The pointed toe of her shoe met Bowser's left temple. A whirlwind of searing lights exploded into his vision. He sagged, blinking away tears as he choked on bottled flames, the dread tuber sticking in the teeth like spiderwebs in hair.
Luigi, too respectful of the queen's prowess to announce his presence with the usual theatrics, crept up behind her with liquid grace, arms outstretching to embrace her in a choke hold.
Without turning from Bowser, Peach blind stabbed over-shoulder, running the saber through the spot where Luigi's shoulder met his neck. The blade sunk in with the moist hiss of slicing meat. With a strangled cry, Luigi lunged for her neck, pushing the blade deeper. Even while strangling, Bowser couldn't look away. Peach maintained eye contact as she twisted the saber one way, then another. Limp, gloved fingers trailed down Peach's flawless cheeks. Luigi collapsed, gasping, curled inwards and bleeding.
"Little bro!" Mario rushed in and placed hands on his fallen brother.
Koops stood gawking, at a loss for what to do.
Bowser finally managed to rip the soul-sucking vegetable out of his mouth. Strength returned. Thinking grew easier, a brain fog lifting distinguishable only by its absence. He vomited, using the guard rail for support. A taste fouler than hot garbage and long dead things washed from his taste buds by an outflow of drool.
Peach waited politely for him to recover, then jammed a rapier-tipped heel into his kneecap. Bowser groaned, hanging onto the rail for dear life.
"Tapping magma from the reservoir beneath your kingdom helps meet present energy needs, but it's a stop-gap measure. Primitive. Thanks to your dearest friend, I've now begun to access a far more awesome energy source. A higher form of power, you might say."
"Mario." Bowser sucked air noisily through his snout, voice raw. "What did she ask you to do? What did she wish for?"
Lifting his head from the heaving chest of his brother, Mario rose in pained slowness, as if in doing so he bore up a ponderous weight. He looked to the king and queen, cheeks shining with tears.
The connection the Mario brothers shared with the Star Spirits endured after they crossed over from their world. In reward for providing shelter and aid to the Spirits in their extremity, the Spirits lavished their stellar gratitude on the pair, granting them powers unknown to mere mortals. They especially blessed the gentle, softer brother. The Stars gifted him the power to heal and, in moments of high import, bestow miracles. They even gave permission to grant the occasional wish. Mario was known, in the Koopa Kingdom and beyond, as the Prince of Stars.
Peach took a running jump and springboarded off Bowser's head, knocking him off balance. She glided like a feathered spore into a gentle landing. Within her reach the sinister engine waited.
A villainess supreme, caught up in a moment of imminent victory, she succumbed to monologue. "You must have been so very happy the day the brothers came to your rescue on Star Hill. I bet you savored my momentary embarrassment for months. Appreciate, then, how deep my satisfaction that I will use the prince's connection to the Stars to harvest their power for my own. Fueled by Star blood, my empire will build a greater, more terrible army. My factories will churn out at great speed weapons that will inspire deathless horror. My domain will encompass every horizon. No span of distance nor obscurity of local will be beyond my reach. The agents of my authority will bask in the shine of alien suns and none will know escape from the fear of my wrath. All thanks to the dear friend you failed to protect."
Peach hauled down a nearby switch, which spat sparks and set the needles of the engine's gauges to dancing and its lights to blinking. Next, she gripped the release handle on a lever longer than she was and walk-pulled it to the ON position with full regal grace, like a game show hostess on Who's End of the World Is It Anyway? Worse than anything, she just would not stop smiling as if rediscovering a child's simple euphoria in hosting the perfect birthday party for their friends—and the time had just arrived to unwrap the gifts.
Gauges began to tick their needles and fill with dyed fluids. Somewhere deep within the machine came the startling boom of something heavy released. The engine began to rattle with buzzing moan.
"Through Mario, I wished for an audience with a Star Spirit. To It I expressed my desire that Its stellar wisdom illuminate how I might be a more fair and compassionate ruler. And when the smiling heaven dweller flitted down here to grant me an audience, I thanked the Star. And then I fed It into this machine."
Escapements decoupled with gears, which began to turn. Great mosaics of interlocking teeth and whirling spokes dazzled the eye. Hoses shuddered, then plumped taut. Sparks showered down onto the rubbernecking scientists below, while arcs of golden lightning jumped from rod to coil to copper electrode.
Felt, more than heard, was the long scream of something not meant to die radiating out as the engine ground it to slurry. Gurgling, sucking noises from the engine competed with the death wails. They were the worst sounds Bowser had ever heard. Shrieking still, the unseen victim of the engine was digested by mechanisms whose functioning made Bowser, a hardened Koopa warrior king, ill to imagine them.
"I have been called monster. Beast," rumbled Bowser. Struggling, he regained his footing and began a ponderous march towards Peach. "Better to put the truth to every slur idiots sling my way than be whatever elemental foulness you are. Queen Scum, it's not just you that's stained by this atrocity. This entire plane of existence and everyone living in it is damned by this crime."
Peach stifled a yawn. "I don't care. I only want to hear whether or not you're impressed."
Bowser swung for her head, a weak, wobbly blow she swayed around with ease. "You should have gathered your family. Hid away under your ancestral pile of stones." She placed one finger below his chin and tilted his face up to meet hers. "Then you could've watched, momentarily safe, as my empire absorbed one nation after another. Enjoyed a few more peaceful years of prosperity. I would've saved you for last. Given that extra time, you might've upgraded your defenses. Devised brilliant schemes to thwart my unstoppable advance. Make the inevitable more fun and interesting for me." She sighed. "It seems I fantasized in vain, for now all doubt is removed. I overestimated you."
Bowser toppled forward, hoping to crush her beneath him. Peach took away her finger and offered up her knee instead, lancing his jaw. Teeth closed with a loud crack. Bowser flopped to the grating, then surged back with a rising uppercut. His fist rocketed through empty space, far off the mark. Peach retreated from him while standing still. She waved goodbye as the engine and everything else in the background pulled away from him with sickening haste. Stale air whistled over his ears. So lost to pain and rage, he hadn't felt the giant fingers of pale greenwood plucking him off the bridge.
Powered by the queen's blasphemous engine, one of the wooden colossi had broken its restraints and risen from its berth. It held Bowser in a clenched fist as it scrutinized its catch with glowing eyes of glazed crystal. The thing's splintery body radiated an alien warmth, the flesh stronger than wood or steel. It resisted Bowser's claws and teeth without sustaining a mark.
The lever jaw revealed an eerie organic flexibility by stretching into a frown. Bowser stared back, too shocked to do much more than open and close his own jaws as if he too were a mute dining table decoration made for delivering walnuts from stubborn shells.
"The power of the Star Spirits. Impressive, no?" Peach projected her voice across the hold. "This day I have remade legend into reality. You are of course familiar with the myth of Geno. For now, it's a body of wood. Soon, the power of the Star Spirits will indwell any substance I choose. And my Genoes will be programmable. They will obey my instructions. And you thought mere flying boats were the apex of my ambition? Ha! Mario will grant me the full blessing of the Stars, and then my invincible legions of wood and stone and steel will shatter every mountain to rubble, tear down every castle wall, unearth every buried refuge of my enemies."
"Boss!" Koops vaulted off the catwalk at the Geno. He managed to smack into the giant's leg belly first. After sliding down to nearly the ankle joint, he snagged a hand hold and began climbing. What the hell he was going to do when he reached the summit Bowser had no idea. Meanwhile, Luigi regained his feet, weaving as if drunk, the bleeding stopped by the healing magic of his brother's touch. Grip on hammer firm, Luigi twitched his mustaches and leaped, sailing through the air in a long and weirdly floaty arc. He landed on the arm of the manufactured Geno and began swinging away. Bowser felt the hammer impacts through the pine claws. Daisy had also returned to her senses. She began a stately, solo waltz, glowing with a pale yellow light as she worked some eldritch rite. His friends and allies, coming to save his shell. Peach stood back, smiling into her sleeve, content to watch her work pay off.
The Geno ignored everyone but the wretch in its fist. Creaking open, the lever jaw lowered and a voice like the wind blowing between the stars gusted out in a thunderous whispering.
"Who dares blaspheme against my soul? Who has so defiled my flesh?"
"It is the one you hold in your hand, Great One," Peach shouted from the catwalk bridge. "He is the great despoiler of our age, seeking to dim all that is bright. To smother that which shines."
"Hrrmmm," it rumbled. This abused peer of the Stars pondered the situation to a depth that one felt in their flesh. A field of sobriety radiated out from the dislocated soul of the Star Spirit so profound everyone present paused in their climbing, hammering, dancing, and dying. The silence of the outer voids took possession of the airship and the heaped lumber of its holds dared not creak nor its toiling engines rattle. The moment held long enough to grow surreal.
Into the great space cleared for it, boomed the voice of the Geno. Even Peach flinched at its return. "No one creature, even one so debased as this, can bear full responsibility for the sorry fate of this plane." The Geno slowly shook its fist. Bowser felt seasick on top of the giddy shock which rode along with the realization he might die in the next few seconds.
Eyelights blazing like dying stars, the giant of wood and soul began to chant. "The shrieks of the innocent shout down the winds, and the whole earth is made a shambles with their mass graves. The rivers flow with blood, the waves crash upon shores of bones. The sky is empty of sun and stars. Over the remains of all that was once good grows the mold of evil. In the dread empire of fungus only the dead are fortunate."
Impossibly, the mouse skitter of Mario's voice found its way to Bower's ear holes. "Oh, great Spirit, do you speak of the present, or is this a vision of what is to come?"
The blaze of its gaze dimmed, and the Geno looked to Mario, groveling on the catwalk. "Stars are beings of light, and to light there is no time. For us, only the eternal, undivided moment of Everything. To discriminate between what has been and what will be falls to mortals such as you, Starfriend.
"Better I..." it hesitated, then continued with more force. "Better I destroy this tawdry world and all who dwell within it. Better for all, in the end."
"Don't get carried away, now," the queen interjected. "I know well how satisfying extreme measures can be, but they're not necessary here to punish the crimes of a few, surely." A rare note of worry had entered Peach's voice.
The Geno revolved its ponderous head in a slow, solemn shake. "No. The corruption is all encompassing. Any who would exploit the Stars are a disease to be burned away before the infection spreads to other worlds. Unless..."
The giant's hand squeezed. Bowser puked Koopa fire all over the arm, most of it squirting out of his nose. He gasped in agony, trying to scream through the coughing for surely the moment had arrived when the aggrieved Spirit would slay him.
The vomited fire proved hot enough to set green wood ablaze, yet the flames died a second later, leaving no scorch marks. Faster than seemed allowable by physics for something so large and ponderous, the giant's free hand rose and swatted a soaring Luigi away. A finger tip receded as the digit transformed into a cannon. Out blasted a black iron cannon ball which clipped Daisy, twirling her around to crash unconscious and bleeding to the catwalk grating. Koops slid down the leg to the floor and scurried off to hide. Mario wept and wrung his hands.
"Unless," continued the artificial Geno as if nothing had happened, "you can give me some reason to spare this world a while longer."
"That's ridiculous! Exterminate the pest and return to your rest. Your ordeal has befuddled you," called out Peach. She stamped a heel spike hard enough to strike sparks from the catwalk. The exchange had taken the shine off her wicked glee. Perhaps she had not expected her puppet to retain a mind of its own. The pinewood giant turned the star fire of its gaze upon her. To Bowser's astonishment, Peach shut up and took a step back, face paling even as her clenched fists shook with rage.
Bowser swallowed the aftertaste of fireball vomit and thought hard. Harder than he'd ever thought in his life. Mercifully, the "Geno" seemed content to wait. He recalled then the foretelling of Kammy. When the hand of doom holds you in its fist, turn from ugliness to beauty.
"I've read—"
Peach snorted somewhere in the distance, cutting Bowser off. The king cleared his throat and pressed on, feeling pretty sure he was about to meet a crushing, splintery end. "I've heard the wise say the Star Spirits esteem life and creation over death and entropy. Let me do one thing to prove there's some beauty worth saving in this craphole of a world. Plus, you know, I wasn't the one who decided to weaponize your soul. I deserve a shot, damn you!"
The giant rumbled, the coals of its eyes stoked to a greater brightness. "Proceed."
Bowser cleared his throat, took a moment to finish composing, ran a last second double-check, and then, too buoyant with intently living in the moment for the usual anchor of self-consciousness to sink him, he began.
"Like the moon over
the day, my genius and brawn
are lost on these fools."
Somewhere in the hold sounded the fleshy clap of hand smacked against forehead. Bowser decided it was Peach, for if one of his friends was the critic he might have to kill them later. He awaited judgment inside a block of ice.
The pinewood giant hummed in the back of its resinous throat. "A, hurrmm, valiant effort, but marred by the use of simile. I cannot accept it. Do you have another?"
"Sure." Bowser ransacked his panicked brain for striking images and novel juxtapositions to pair them with. The strain was horribly new, for he'd never had to be creative when lives were on the line. Empty pawed and sensing the Star Spirit's growing impatience, Bowser did what everyone must when all other resources are gone. He resorted to honesty.
"Dropped in red lava
flames caress the swallowed weight.
I am returned home."
The moment of judgment returned and in its train followed an immense gravity. All assembled felt themselves crushed into unbreathing silence. At last, the Geno nodded.
"Acceptable. Not the best I've heard, but I respect the effort mustered in less than perfect circumstances. It would be a shame to extinguish a promising young poet in the dawn of his skill. Destruction postponed."
The queen was not having it. Peach held her hand out, fingers spread. "Foolish doll. Do you think I make anything I cannot destroy?" She squeezed the fingers into a fist, tight, painfully tight. Crunching, crashing noises resounded inside the giant's hollow chest. Blazing eyes widened into full moons of white shining agony. With its free hand it clawed its sap weeping body.
"No!"
Mario rushed the queen, flailing. Peach gouged his side with the saber and cuffed him across the mouth. Mario collapsed, clutching at his bleeding flank.
"Silence, clown! I need you alive. Alive doesn't necessitate whole."
Bowser wanted to help, really he did. A true shame, then, that the wood giant held him still. In death throes, the manufactured Geno staggered and roared, fist clenching until Bowser heard his shell creak under strain. At last, the Star Spirit's ersatz body rattled, its eyes dark as extinct ovens. It toppled against the hull, and with a final twitch of life tossed the Koopa king clear. Bowser took what felt like the tenth flight that day.
The ceiling caught him by the shell, knocking wind from his lungs. He plummeted to a belly flop before the entrance of the hold, returned back where he had started.
Lolled out on grating, Bowser forced air back into a burning chest, each gasp agony. Then, he saw the axe.
It leaned against the hatch jam. Its double-head blades strobed with alternating red and orange light which originated not from a reflection of the smoldering lava crucibles, but from some inner power that overflowed the steel. A crude, hand-painted sign hung from the railing beside it, which read Use Me!
"Sure." Suspicion and incredulity required energy Bowser no longer possessed. He took up the axe. A prickling energy flowed from the grip into his functioning arm, lending it fresh strength.
Every breath heavy, squinting against exhaustion, he shambled back to Peach, who was stalking a backwards treading Koops, frying pan poised for a killing blow. Mario cowered behind the captain, the focus of his eyes darting between the lethal cookware and his brother still laying prostrate behind her. A trail of blood spatter bread-crumbed his retreat across the bridge. Which was fine. Bowser was streaking ketchup everywhere, Luigi had a nice puddle going, and The Toad had gone all out. Painting the airship hold red was the fashionable thing to do this night.
"Hey, super bitch."
Peach turned around.
Bowser beckoned with one claw. "I ain't done with you yet."
"My vanquished," she purred. "You show amazing stamina. I elevate you from a dismal failure to a spectacular one."
Bowser stepped over Daisy, picked up a groaning Luigi by his overalls, and flung him clear of the bridge and the crucibles below. "Koops, take Mario and get off this bridge. The floor below is one huge bay door. Find the release that opens it." He hesitated, then reached back without taking his eyes off the queen, and tossed the Sarasaland sovereign over the railing. Even insensate, Daisy fluttered feather soft down to the planking below. "Secure our friends fast to something sturdy before you pull the lever." Koops nodded, took Mario's hand, and together they ran for the nearest ladder.
Peach shook her head. "That's your strategy? I praised you too soon. Go ahead. Dump the lava and lab goons into thin air. Replacing them is cheap. Forcing you to watch as I toss your friends overboard to kiss the earth at terminal velocity will be a reward beyond price."
Bowser drew up as straight as his aching spine would allow. "I have many friends. There's only one of you. Sorry, but your empire will have to find their new queen in another castle."
He swung the axe. The blade cleaved through railings and grating and supporting cables in one clean swipe. Its edge parted metal like a razor through rice paper.
Cloven, the bridge buckled, then collapsed as the support structure unwound, each square section of it falling away in an elegant cascade.
Bowser jumped. There was no researcher to break his fall this time. He hit the deck hard and rolled head over foot to a dizzy stop.
Peach's laughter stung him. She levitated over the crucible and its load of bubbling magma. Bowser cursed. That strange old talent of hers seemed to never run low on juice. He flung the axe at her, the double-head whistling as it arched upwards. Peach juked to the side, dodging the whirling axe with ease. She cackled, having a hell of a time.
"Spectacular failure!" she crowed, gliding towards a safe landing zone beside the star engine.
In a burst of rainbow geometric shapes Iggy teleported into the air beside Peach. He grabbed onto the queen and nuzzled his face between her breasts. "Mmmm. At last."
"Let go of me, trash!" Peach screeched. His added weight transformed her graceful flight into a harried bobbing as she strained not to plummet into the lava. "You'll kill us both!"
"No more than what we both deserve," said Iggy. He snatched Peach's amulet and gave it a savage yank, breaking it free of her collar. "One more time for the road." His face mashed into her shirted cleavage. Peach dug in her pockets frantically for a powerup as the last of her levitation gave out. They fell as one into the crucible. The lava swallowed them with a lazy plorp. A plume of molten stone splashed up from the point of impact.
"Ready, boss," shouted Koops. The captain stood next to a pair of levers coated in yellow rubber, at the far end of hold. The Mario brothers and Daisy he had tied around the ankle of the nearest inert wooden giant. Bowser hooked his less injured arm around a cool water pipe and waved a thumbs up.
Koops threw the levers and with a bone shivering moan the floor split and dropped away. Ice wind roared into the hold, ripping at Bowser's hair, sucking hard enough to lift his feet off the floor. He gritted his fangs against the pain and flexed hard the muscles of his arm. A few of the Toads were not so well anchored. They tumbled away into the blue void with the dropping air pressure, screams unheard in the raging howl of the cyclone. Bowser regretted that they'd likely die of heart attacks before kissing their native dirt at high speed.
The crucibles dipped out of sight without a sound, a little lava slipping over the rims as they disappeared into the details of the land far below. One of them still held Queen Peach Toadstool, or so he hoped.
"Shut it! Shut it!" Bowser screamed.
Koops braced his feet against the hull and hauled on the levers until the bay doors slammed shut. One by one, the captain gently shook his king's allies from their stupor, each whole if not unscathed. The body of The Toad was nowhere to be found. The surviving researchers huddled in a corner, stealing frightened glances at their captors.
"What now?" asked Koops.
Bowser laughed. Rested clawed fingers on belly, threw his head back, and belted out the guffaws with relish. "Either we learn how to fly this thing in the next five minutes or else we drop all the mattresses overboard and hope our aim has improved when it comes time to jump."
A sudden whoosh of displaced air and a burst of rainbow light brought everyone spinning about to meet this new threat. Iggy stood smoking in the center of the hold, his hide bright red. "Oh, Stars damn me, that was hot! Hot, hot, hot! I think my scales have been cooked clean through."
"Any Koopa worth the name can survive a short dip in some hot stone," said Bowser. "It's me who's going to kill you."
Iggy held out one clenched, steaming hand and dropped Peach's amulet into Bowser's reaching claws before they could lock around his neck. Its gold was barely warm. Incredulous at being served a smidgen of good fortune, however hard earned, Bowser inspected the amulet for secrets, expecting a trap, a prank, or a simple piece of jewelry his dipshit son had purchased for just such a chance to barter some undeserved favor. He found an unconcealed catch, set his claws to the delicate mechanism, hesitated.
"It's no longer cursed," said Iggy, smiling through the pain, perhaps smiling because of it. "I triggered it a few hours ago and she didn't have the time to lay a fresh one down."
Bowser scrutinized Iggy, crushing any admiration that threatened germination within his hammering heart. "What was the curse?"
The koopaling's lips twisted. "Blindness. Lucky for me, I have these." He tapped the swirling lenses of his spectacles, which were now brown and curling around the edges.
Taking a deep breath, Bowser opened the locket. Inside, on black velvet, rested a tiny roll of film.
"The blueprints," rasped Iggy. "For both the airship and that Star Spirit juicer of hers. Had to betray you so she'd let her guard down. Everything planned out all along, yadda yadda. Am I forgiven, Dad?"
Bowser looked at him for several long seconds. "Can you pilot this air barge and fly us home?" he asked his son.
"Sure thing." Iggy raked claws through his greasy hair, attempting to slick it back. His spiked rainbow locks caught fire instead and no one helped beat the flames out. Panting, he continued, "It's my design and was my ship before Peach stole it. Lemmy and me built it up from a box of popsicle sticks, we did."
Bowser nodded. "I'll consider a lesser punishment. If you get us home alive."
"It's over," said Mario. He shivered and shuddered, sweat beads as big as coins all over his face. Luigi, brutalized and drained of more blood than his shorter brother, held Mario up with one arm, the other using the hammer as a crutch. The bleeding from their wounds had been staunched by bandages and magic. Tomorrow morning would be hell, but they were alive and whole.
Bowser took Mario from Luigi and hugged him close, hoping to warm up his silly, weak, good friend. King Koopa was more grateful that this human was alive and safe than he dared say.
Mario managed a weak smile and looked up to meet his gaze with starry eyes. "The war's over. Queen Toadstool is dead."
Bowser shook his head. "That's what we assumed last time, and the time before, and look what happened. No, a cold shiver down my shell tells me there's loads more trouble coming down the warp pipe."
Koops rubbed his bandaged beak. "We can handle it. After all, what could possibly be worse than what we just went through?"