Chapter Two:
The Domestication of Dark World
The people went into an uproar when I delivered the bad news. Of course they did; I saw it coming but went through anyway. The crowd bickered amongst itself, and a few individuals saw it fit to use me as a scapegoat. "It's his fault!" one of my own kindred cried as he pointed a finger at me. "He coulda protected the king and queen, but he didn't do anything, the coward!"
"Yea!" a woman agreed with him.
"We're all gonna die!" another spat out in fear.
"What do we do!" yet another cried out.
"Quiet!" I hollered above the crowd's ranting. The enraged mob fell silent at once, and I continued. "Don't you think I wanted to protect them? It was His Majesty's wish, however, that I did not intervene for the sake of his children, and what kind of Koopa would I be if I would deny our king his wishes?" Most of the crowd stared towards the ground in shame, but one in particular, a girl about five years younger than myself, remained stubborn.
She separated herself from her parents, maneuvered to the front of the crowd, and asked me, "Where's the bright side, Mr. Kamek?"
I felt the answer was obvious, so I answered, "Why, the fact that both Prince Boom-Boom and Bowser survived the ordeal, my dear."
"I meant about Dark World," she replied with a surprising firmness.
"Oh," I stammered, "I haven't really given that much thought…" Seeing the crowd's growing uneasiness at my tactlessness, I managed to think up an idea. "Well, look at it this way: We will be the first surface-dwellers ever to tame the lands of Dark World. We will be seen as the ultimate survivors, living in the dangerous (not to mention demoralizing) depths of that hellish place. Why, we may even find resources there no surface-dweller has ever seen or heard of before!" I continued this speech, becoming increasingly excited by such notions myself.
"We still have one more issue to address," an older member of the crowd shouted as he stepped forth.
"Oh?" I wondered. "And what is that?"
"Who will lead us?" he asked all of us.
"Well," I attempted to answer, "Clan law dictates that the next heir to the throne be seated, but Boom-Boom is far too young to succeed his father yet. So, that would mean the next highest on the hierarchy should be declared Regent."
"And who is that?" the little girl asked me.
After an awkward pause, I replied, "I… don't know." I began searching the pockets of my robe for a hierarchy chart, but my search came up empty-handed. I growled to myself then asked the crowd, "Does anyone have a hierarchy chart on his or her person?"
"I do!" a man shouted. He unrolled the piece of paper he was holding and mumbled to himself, "Ok… King, queen, prince, princess… ah ha!" He looked up and announced, "It says here the next in line is the Chief Magikoopa!" At this, most of the crowd stared at me in disbelief as I stared at the crowd in equal disbelief. I tried to argue my way out of it, but the crowd eventually lauded the role of Regent and the care of the true heirs in my hands. Once I was convinced there was no way out of this predicament, I vowed to raise the late king's sons as if they were my own.
The more unfortunate duty, however, was the leadership role. It took some time for me to adjust, but I feel I eventually became a decent leader, though I was nowhere on par with Bronx. Oh, a side note about the crowd incident: that little girl would eventually forget this day, and she will grow up to become the Magikoopa known as Kammy Koopa. Now, back on topic.
Soon the time came for me to lead my people into Dark World. Though the rumors of it being a dark, fire-lit place were true, many of the legends of terrible beasts lurking in the magma-filled depths were, to our benefit, false. Sure, many fascinating creatures—no, they are better described as people—roamed Dark World's caverns and open spaces, but nothing on the level of a threat to the Koopa Clan's existence. Over time and patience, we managed to make alliances with many of the surrounding natives—Thwomps, Buzzy Beetles, etc.—and tamed the local varieties of Piranha Plants. We also found and tamed local Chain-Chomps, but that proved to be more work than expected.
Since then, we developed two new divisions of our army: a collection of our allies, and an elite fighting core known to the public as the "Hammer Brothers". Don't be fooled by the title, however, since they employ several types of weaponry besides hammers. Over time, rather than a division of the army, the Hammer Bros. became a guild of sorts; people used the training to do things other than combat, although warfare is the Hammer Bros. primary objective.
As if things weren't getting better all the time, the little remainder of doubt in the Clan's minds was quelled with the ceremonial hatching of Prince Bowser. Oh, even at birth he had his father's red hair and his mother's ruby eyes. Boom-Boom's relative appearance to the family, however, had to be traced back to his grandparents- Wait! I was talking about Bowser! Please forgive my ramblings. Continuing on, one of the other Magikoopa—this fellow was much older and more experienced than me, I might add—had a vision foreseeing that a child of the Mushroom Kingdom was being returned from a mid-wife via stork to its parents. Supposedly, this child would grow and eventually partake in a battle determining the fate of the world with King Bowser. Not only would this child become very powerful, but also there was supposedly no chance that Bowser would have victory.
There were two very large problems with this prophecy. First of all, what were we going to do about this child? I mean, from the prophecy, it seemed as if the only way to best fate was to eliminate the poor thing! Secondly, and more importantly, why did he foresee Bowser as king? Boom-Boom was clearly next in line, and all prophecy variations predicted that Boom-Boom would live almost as long—if not longer—than Bowser himself.
I made the decision, half-heartedly, to personally kidnap and execute the child and its brother—for, supposedly, his brother would play just as important a role in the prophesized conflict—and execute them. It was cold-blooded, I know, but I felt it had to be done…