Kamek paced around in his prison cell. The castle dungeon's horror engulfed him, and only moving could calm his jittery nerves. Penny's concerned eyes burned through him, heightening the already-tense atmosphere.
"You have a lot of energy for an old geezer," Penny remarked.
"Old geezer? I'd rather be known as a senior magikoopa. A guru of magic," Kamek replied, "I have a mission from Lord Bowser himself, and I cannot rest until my calling's fulfilled."
"And what would that be?"
Kamek pulled the sphere from his robe. He's thankful the koopatrols didn't confiscate it, but that confiscation would've also allowed the sphere's safe passage to Junior.
"This orb. The very orb you saw me with in Ice Land," the wizard said, "Much like how the Lux Aeterna represented the koopa king's power, this orb represents the koopa king's authority. This authority prevents the magicks' powers from potentially corrupting anyone, and the authority aids the user in gaining a deeper understanding of magic."
"And you're giving it to Junior?"
"Whether we personally like this fact or not: Bowser abdicated his throne," Kamek explained, "Junior is the rightful king of Dark Land. He may kill me, but I refuse to combat the truth, and I refuse to fight against him. That will be fighting against the universe's established system."
"But… He allows bad things to happen to everyone! Sometimes he's even doing that!"
Kamek sighed, "Light magic declared its loyalty. The situation's not like Kammy, who usurped the Wand of Light and forced its allegiance to her. The Lux Aeterna called to Junior. Light magic is with him. And I'm afraid Light magic knows better than you or I do. This plight could build our world as a strong and mighty fortress; the ones no living being could even comprehend. But I trust the Light magic around us, because it's the knowledge and truth of all things. Light will always win in the end."
Penny nodded, "I suppose you're right."
"You'll learn one day. Hopefully before you're an 'old geezer' like me," Kamek added, "That's why I came back. You have to put yourself in difficult, uncomfortable settings in order to learn. Annoying situations will teach you patience; fearful experiences will teach you courage; people who anger you will teach you compassion. All it takes is the correct attitude and the right viewpoint."
By now, Kamek's frail body begged him to sit. He leaned against the prison cell's granite wall and stared at the exit. Multiple situational possibilities swirled around his head: escape plans, fight moves, elaborate schemes—but none sat well with the magikoopa.
Kamek snapped from his thoughts when the prison door opened and slammed shut, and Bowser Junior approached him, crown and all. The magikoopa refocused on the koopa king and, if looks could kill, the king would've slaughtered him.
"Well well," Junior held his glare, "Look who desperately came crawling back."
"I did," Kamek answered, "And I did it on behalf of your father."
"Papa's a traitor, like you are," Junior declared, his scathing words like an overheated magma pit.
"Master Junior, I've always been loyal to the rightful king," Kamek said, "Your father is too. He is not against you. He is only a cog in tremendous events he cannot control."
"Hiding secrets from me is being against me, especially when that secret's fighting me!" Junior shouted, "And you came crawling back because we're destroying your conspiracy!"
Kamek sighed—he only hoped Junior was correct.
The two started at each other—Junior with wrath and Kamek with concern—before the koopa king broke it off, "Anyway, I'm done here. I have a night to spend thinking about which death I want to give you tomorrow."
"Master Junior…" Kamek exhaled again, "Perhaps you do need a good night's rest. The stress is clouding your judgement—"
"My judgement is clouded? My judgement is clouded?!" Junior repeated. He clenched his claws and gritted his teeth, "I'm not here betraying my Land like you did!"
Penny stared at the two groveling koopas in concern. She waved her hands to signal Kamek to quit, lest he'd die this very moment, but he didn't pay mind to her actions.
"I've been waiting to do your punishment for weeks. I thought about it. I drafted it. But I was too busy leading the army to conclude it. That's tonight's homework," Junior continued, his claws now relaxed but his eyes still piercing, "Why did you even come back? Why make my job easier?"
"I was sent by your father. He acknowledges you as being the true king, and he wanted me to give you the symbol of our authority," Kamek held the now-pulsing orb before Junior. The king cautiously eyed the orb, "We believe this allows the king to access the wisdom of ruling the kingdom."
Junior reached into the cell and grabbed the orb with one hand. He felt an arcane power flow through him, although the stream's nothing compared to the first time he held the Lux Aeterna. He needed to investigate this, and prepare himself for a possible trap Kamek summoned. Nonetheless, he took it from Kamek and pocketed it.
"I'll investigate this, but don't think you're off the hook," Junior threatened, "The moment something happens to me is the moment my guards will hunt you down."
The threat implanted, Junior stomped away from the prison and left the two shoken prisoners behind.
Yoshnors. Cannons. Bob-ombs.
Kylie didn't remember the order the threats came in, nor could she comprehend them during the situation. She could only focus on the doomship spinning and plummeting from the skies, heightening her usual nausea. She steadied herself at the doomship's wheel and turned it hard left, but the doomship couldn't break from its cycles.
Voices filled her head, whether from the blaring radio, the commands outside, or from a foreign voice within her mind. She didn't understand a word as the commotion shouted over each other, mixed by the doomship's spins. The chaos continued until a splash washed them out, the motions halted, and something launched her towards the ceiling.
Kylie woke up. She wasn't in the doomship, but tied dorsal-up onto an ostro's trotting body. Bright orange sand surrounded her, and the Sun's blistering rays shone on her back. She looked at the ostro's handler: a pink-clad primate holstering a Mercenary-styled raygun, her blonde hair tied in a near-threatening ponytail.
"Dixie?" Kylie spoke. The handler froze before she turned to the now-awake koopa.
"Kylie!" Dixie exclaimed, "Are you okay?! I'm so glad to see you awake!"
"Yeah… I think I am," Kylie shrugged—to the best of her bound ability, "What's with the cords?"
'I had to make sure you wouldn't fall off. A fall could make an injury worse, so I had to be careful," Dixie explained, "Let me loosen them."
"Thanks," Kylie sat up and hugged the ostro's neck, "What happened? How'd you find me?"
"We had reports of the Sages' army traveling through Desert Land, which caused Junior's army to also come here and attack both the Sages and us Mercenary. We went looking to find the reported armies, but we found you instead," Dixie said, "Junior probably thought you were part of the Sages' army."
"That explains the chaos…" Kylie shook her head, still aching from the ceiling collision, "Wait. Where did I crash?"
"In the oasis," Dixie replied, "If you landed just a few meters more north, east, or west, we could've been holding a funeral for you now."
"Wow…" her possible death took Kylie aback, "Thanks… Thank you."
"Eh. You should thank fate more than me. I'm just the messenger," Dixie winked.
The duo sojourned the desert in silence for almost a half hour. Dixie focused on leading the ostro back to the shelter before dusk, while Kylie ran the past few months' events through her head at warp speed.
"So," Dixie broke the silence, "Where were you at this whole time?"
Kylie shrugged, "It's…," she sighed, "It's complicated."
"Hmm? You can tell me anything."
"Well… It's about Roy and me."
"Do tell!" the beginning piqued Dixie's interest.
"Sure... Do you remember Ludwig's party, and how I was feeling sick?"
"Of course! That was the night we all had to flee down here!"
Kylie sighed, "When we left, Roy didn't take me to my room. We went to Morton's to discuss something with him about magic," she paused, but Dixie remained silent, "Morton had to go, and we sat around to wait for him. But minutes passed, and we got tired of waiting, so we tried to leave. But something blocked our way out, and I remember smoke filling the room."
"The smoke from the fire, maybe?" Dixie shrugged.
"It couldn't be. The smoke was like… A pinkish-purple. We breathed it in, and that's all I remember. But I feel something else happened."
"Something else, like what?"
Kylie shook her head, "I dunno. Something bad to me, or even something bad to Roy. I try to ask Roy if he remembered, but all I get is anger from him. He never got angry at me. But something with him completely changed."
"Wow, Kylie. I'm so sorry to hear about that. Thanks for telling me," Dixie sympathized.
"You're one of my best friends. You deserve to know," Kylie offered a weak smile.
Dixie smiled back, but her eyes widened at a realization, "Wait! He had an anger fit at me and Diddy when we offered to walk you back to your apartment. But, at the same time… He looked almost clueless."
"That's why I want to know about this," she sighed, "But if we're victorious against them, maybe we'll finally know."
"We will win this," Dixie promised, "And I'm sure the shelter will love to see you and hear your advice."
The four archaeologists eagerly watched Madoso grow in size as their spacecraft approached it. They launched only hours ago, but the journey felt like weeks. No spacecraft littered the typically-bustling spaceway between Madoso and Planet X, which gave the four characters more breathing room to focus on their plan. Rosalina contacted them several times during the trip, and the quartet only felt more pressure for their strategy to come together. She suggested they search for artefacts specifically, as the old Council guarded them with all their effort.
A half-hour passed, and the characters entered Madoso's thin atmosphere. They flew around the planet until they spotted the group of nine buildings. They expected the same luxurious campus, but the Complex, built like a compacted world, instead perished to its own apocalypse. The collapsed Magikoopa Tower shredded the outer towers' inner walls, exposing multiple apartment bedrooms and abandoned shops. The massive air-filtering machines stood still, and the archaeologists knew that anyone who either wasn't burned from the fire or crushed from the central tower's failure, must've died from anoxia.
"It's quite unfortunate seeing a remarkable piece of civilization just crumble," Kolorado marveled at the destruction, "Just like what we've seen from our previous Ages."
"Do you think any artefacts survived?" Goombella asked.
"My main target was the Magikoopa Tower's tenth floor," Professor Frankly answered, "That's not happening, but there could be something else in the Complex."
"The Mushroom Tower's the closest thing to the official capital, right?" Kooper said, "Maybe they have their plans drawn out."
"Doubtful with MIDST being dominant," Frankly replied, "But that's worth checking."
The spaceship rolled itself into the Sarasa Tower's garage and parked itself in the empty hangar. Other than the dying Sun, its headlights offered the only light available within the gloomy garage. The archaeologists strapped on their oxygen tanks and grabbed their flashlights before they exited the spacecraft.
They pushed the door open, and the rusted hinges' squeaks filled the air—they knew the doors haven't been used for months. Silence settled over the then-bustling hallways, and darkness replaced its exotic lights. Rusted brown lines corroded the hallway's orange wallpaper, personifying the Complex's corruption, and even in the unforgiving environment, moss and mildew from the leaky pipes infested the ceiling.
The four reached the Sarasa Tower's lobby. Destruction overlooked the still-intact area, but the ruffled papers around the lobby desk proved the Society's rush towards the hangar. Professor Frankly picked up a piece of paper from the floor and read it.
"Instructions on activating a MIDST," Frankly let go of the paper, and it floated to the ground. The Complex still had air, but the researchers didn't trust the gases to be habitable, "We need to go to the Mushroom Tower—"
Frankly froze mid-sentence. The others thought he was deep in thought, but their assumptions turned to concern as the old goomba turned blue. A block of ice spawned around his feet and worked up his body.
Fear overcame Kooper, Kolorado, and Goombella as they heard cackling behind Frankly. They peered down the corridor leading to the Magikoopa Tower and saw Larry holding a wand, its tip illuminating his smirk.
"Intruders, I see," the koopaling laughed, "Now freeze!"
Kooper and Kolorado sprinted down the Mushroom Tower's corridor, but Goombella's small legs couldn't move her quick enough. Ice spawned around her feet, and she too turned into a frozen statue. The two koopas didn't have time to mourn—they instead ran into the Mushroom Tower's lobby and opened the staircase's door.
"Kooper, old pal," Kolorado gasped, "Go up there and explore. I'll distract him."
"But-"
"You're in your prime, and my prime was long ago. I can't keep up with you," Kolorado interrupted, "If I go with you, I'll just slow you down, and our mission will fail. Just go, my boy!"
Kolorado ran off before Kooper could retaliate. Instead, the young koopa sighed and climbed up the stairs. As he ascended, he only hoped that any find would be worth his three companions' doom, and he hoped that they'd end up being okay.
Kooper rushed to the eighth floor and kicked the stairwell door open to a small room holding nothing but the elevators' doors, the conference room doors marked F801, and a large sign stating "INITIATES". The same small room that he feared as an initiate, now haunted him when he noticed how empty the room truly was. The room felt like his hope: non-existent and trapped.
He creaked the door open, and he spotted the same stadium the sixteen Council members judged him in. He shone his flashlight across the arena's floor. No papers or objects sat on any tables; it's as if Council knew their mysterious front would be deserted. The koopa then beamed the walls across the upper balcony and the three other large double doors. They must lead to the offices, he thought.
He walked across the stadium's upper balcony and pulled the door open to another hallway with several smaller conference rooms. Agriculture of F802, Appropriations of F803, Budget of F804, and Economics & Altruistic Affairs of F805 were all void of any useful information. The Education & Training committee kept a few MIDST diagrams in F806, but Kooper shrugged off the instructions. Documents laid scattered in F807, and Kooper creaked the door open before he grabbed a stack of papers. They were all addressed to committee chairman Bandy Andy, and they all complained about the possible conflicts of interests with Bowser and Wario. Kooper snickered; this is definitely the Ethics committee.
But suspense returned as Kooper noticed more documents in the Intelligence committee's F808 conference room. He entered the room and grabbed a stack. The papers mentioned the usual: monitor Scholar, help them find the Wands, and demand Emissary of all surveillance from the MIDST's or on Plit. But as he got deeper into the stack, Kooper noticed more conspiratorial elements: a planned coup on every land on Plit, possible ways to bypass the Wands' mortality requirement, and banishing all gods from the universe. Wide-eyed, he stared at the committee members' names: Kammy Koopa as the chairwoman, and King Boo, Bandy Andy, Morton Koopa Jr, Kamek Maedgin-Koopa as Council members. Kamella Koopa also appeared as a special Tier 7 to aid the committee.
Kooper's mind flashed back to the Plit takeovers. The tanks, the wars, the protests, the magic. The Intelligence Committee were usurpers. There's no doubt that every major event on Plit was brainstormed in this very room by the same people perpetrating those acts.
He pocketed the conspiratorial papers and glanced into the other conference rooms—he knew time was short, and Larry must've sensed him up here. As he peered into F817, a glimmering orange-tipped wand caught the koopa's eye. He entered the room and read a confiscation document placed by the wand. It listed Larry's name, followed by "Contraband material."
"I see you found the true conspiracy," Kooper froze as a voice iced over him. He turned his head and noticed Morton blocking the conference room's doorway. He held the Cosmic Wand, whose fervent glow bathed the entire room, 'It's mighty impressive that you escaped from Larry, but I must end that little chase now."
"What do you mean?" Kooper exerted himself enough to avoid stammering over his words, "Why do this?"
"This entire thing's bigger than me. You either join it, or you get wiped out."
"But that doesn't mean killing my crew!"
Morton snickered, "Kill? Nah, Frankly and the others are fine. They just need a little fire to warm up. But, I'm afraid I'll have to stop you guys from continuing."
Kooper squeezed the wand, and its orange tip glew until its luminescence almost matched the Cosmic Wand's, "And if I don't?"
"I was afraid you'd make this complicated."
Morton disappeared, but then reappeared seconds later with Larry in hand. Larry smirked as he pulled out the Wand of the Elements and pointed it at Kooper. Vines spawned around Kooper's feet, and the koopa initially fought back with the wand before the vines overcame him.
"Enough, Larry," Kooper heard Morton say, "I'll take him and the others to the prison now."
Kooper felt himself float in the air before a sudden rush overcame him. He couldn't explain the feeling—he felt like he moved through time itself, and it left him drained. He looked around—he wasn't in the conference room, but in the square of an ancient, run-down city.
He also wasn't alone. He noticed a blue-haired koopa and an orange-haired human woman walk toward him, but exhaustion put him under before he could recognize who they were.
A calm night fell upon Dark Land. The earlier day's scampering servants cleared the now-quiet hallways, and the armed armies patrolled the castle walls from potential behemoths.
Junior enjoyed the rare quiet nights. They gave him a chance to create more art, or to just listen to his compressed thoughts. But tonight, he laid on his bed and stared at the ceiling—only Kamek's ilk poisoned his mind. Earlier, he felt wrath about seeing that magikoopa, but now, Junior's confused. If Kamek was against his rule, then why did he come back? Why did he gift the strange orb?
The king retrieved the orb from his shell. It glowed a bright orange, and Junior could've sworn he heard voices within his head. Not in a schizophrenic sort of way, but something that offered… Comfort.
Junior second-guessed himself. Maybe he shouldn't plan Kamek's execution right away, but instead interrogate the magikoopa about the object. He needed answers, especially if this was thought to give the ruler power. Plus, exhaustion gripped his mind.
He shrugged—tomorrow's Junior can handle tomorrow's issues, but tonight's Junior needed rest. He turned off his lamp and draped his blankets over him. He left the orb beside him, and the koopa fell asleep before he could notice a dark crystal emanate from the ball, wrap around his body and solidify him.