/N: Goombella and Frankly almost never talk about U Goom, well it's not critical to PMTTYD anyway but I'm going to have make up what it's like as well as the surrounding area which may not be in the Mushroom Kingdom. I've given the city/town the most cough creative cough name of Goomville. The characters might get up to a fair bit in Goomville outside U Goom hours.

While on the subject it's pretty silly how much land that single Kingdom covers. It's all headed by a Princess who will never become Queen and there is only one appearance of a minister (not Toadsworth) and the Mushroom Kingdom's politics are never mentioned, surely Mario should have to save some hapless Toad politicians at least once, or was this something Luigi did and nobody cared.

Anyway this isn't about the politics of the Mushroom Kingdom (not yet anyway) it's about U Goom. The only clue to its whereabouts is that Goombella said that she grew up in a warm place, doesn't really mean that U Goom is in the same location but it's a likely possibility that it is near by.

More story.

U Goom – Function Hall 6pm

Goombella and King K walked into the Function Hall. It was a huge room, with a stage and several tables stacked up a corner. K was in trance looking at it thinking he could fit the Glitz Pit in here easily however Goombella brought him back to his senses.

"I didn't ask you to do this. You should have got settled, got to know the area"

King K shrugged "Naw I'm good, unlike AJ, he takes a bit to get used to change… he and Andy are going round the city now"

She noddedwhile looking around the room making calculations. Although K was not telling the entire truth. In reality, he somewhat liked Goombella, she was attractive, intelligent, easy going, pleasant, and usually wasn't afraid to speak her mind, he realised there was a bit of a silence and spoke to keep up conversation "Uh anyway, you got a plan of how we are going to set this up?"

"Sort of, the Professor and I worked something out. I've got a bit of help on the way, Koops, Waffles and Vivian said they'd be here and Kooper is bringing some of his friends"

"Oh"

"We can get a start but I don't think we'll get far, but it's not like a big problem anyway"

"Stupid question, but… why doesn't U Goom hire some people do this kinda stuff, know what I'm sayin'?"

"Yeah, but you know how I told you attendance was a problem, I'm pretty sure staffing is too. Keep this one between you and me but I think U Goom's funding got cut back, which obviously means one of two things"

K was confused, Goombella spoke as if he was in the know of all this and he would be stupid if he did not know, he just nodded but Goombella saw through it like glass and raised a slight smile "Sorry, you probably didn't understand a word of my last sentence did you?"

"Uh, not really… so what does it all mean?"

"It means either U Goom is not performing well as the higher ups would like, or for some reason they want to close down U Goom or both. Of course it's all speculation, and I will never get it out of Professor Frankly. To get back to the point, it's not like this work is totally unpaid, there is a party for the staff at the start of the year and we'll be invited for helping out, but don't tell anyone"

Goomville – 7.30pm

Goomville, a bustling metropolis that was like a city that never slept, by day a city of the working class and the standard hustle and bustle that large cities are known for, and by night an active town, with fast food joints, bars, arcades, shopping centres with ridiculous hours and more.

"Wooooooowwwww" AJ stared mindlessly into the arcade as the music from the Zoness multiplayer level in Star Fox Assault boomed throughout the arcade

Andy slapped him lightly across the face to get his attention "Hey what's the matter with you, you act like you've never seen an arcade before"

"Well… I haven't, not one like this. There aren't many huge cities in Leincart, and I haven't been to any in ages, come on! Lets go!"

"If I must" Andy shrugged half heartedly as the pair went inside

Ralph and the other 3 Koopa brothers looked for a railing above the entry floor watching anyone that entered, there were games on this floor so nobody was really paying attention to them.

"I thought we were looking for Kooper at U Goom? For this party" Greg looked over to Ralph

Yang shook his head "We should have tried to follow, Kooper might have changed his plans anyway"

"And how pathetic would that be, following him all the way here, its like we have nothing better to do"

"But Red we don't"

Ben's comment got him a hit over the head from Ralph "Shut up, I don't need to be reminded of that. Now I wonder where you trade in your coins for those game tokens"

The rest of the group sighed, Ralph did not truly think Kooper was here, he just wanted to play the games here.

"Wow, score…" Greg called out

Ben turned to him puzzled "What? Oh yeah… right there"

Ralph looked to where Ben was pointing and he spotted a familiar blue shell "See I told you! Change of plan, since Kooper's come right in front of us it would be much easier to group attack him now, so we don't need to crash some dumb party"

Yang looked away in irritation "This is a stupid idea, it'll be impossible to make a good impact without attracting too much attention"

"So we'll do it real quietly"

"You go do it yourselves, I've got better things to do" Yang headed down the stairs away from the brothers

"Coward!" Greg called out after him but the yellow Koopa merely turned around and replied with a rude gesture surprising the other three

"What's up with him?" Ben scratched his head

Ralph shrugged it off "Who cares, lets get after Kooper before we lose him"

The 3 Koopas headed down to the lower floor and followed Kooper. However it was crowded and it was hard to keep track of him and the flashing lights that changed colour and stayed the same one seemed make Kooper's shell change colour in the light, but they progressively drew closer.

"On the count of three… we tackle the bastard" Ralph whispered "One… two…"

Ralph never said three but all dived on when the three would have been called in perfect synchronisation.

"I told you to watch your back Kooper! NOW we get revenge!" Ralph covered the mouth of his target so all everyone could hear was a muffled voice

"What the hell are you guys doing?" Bandy Andy protested trying to get the Brothers off but he was outnumbered

"None of your business, and if you don't want to get hurt stay out of the Koopa Brothers way" Ralph tried to act very intimidating but the bandit seemed less then impressed

Ben realised something was wrong "Uh Red, a problem"

"What is it?" Ralph continued to apply pressure to a weak point

Two dinosaurs came and stared at the brothers, the one of the left had a purple skinned dinosaur with a turtle like back and his tail extended was at least half the length of his body, while the dino on the right has blue coloured skin and was far bigger then anyone else and had a long neck and looked down on the scene in an intimidating fashion.

Greg and Ben seemed to lose their courage and when Ralph realised this he spoke up

"What's your problem then?" Ralph looked at the dinosaurs in the eye "This is just a little matter between me and Kooper, none of your damn business"

"Kooper? Are you blind or something, if you actually looked you'd realise that's not Kooper" The purple dino looked at their victim and knew it was certainly not Kooper.

"How would you know that!" Ralph protested "I bet you've never met the guy and are just one of Kooper's friends in an attempt to throw me off"

"That doesn't even make sense! If I'm one of his friends how could I have never met him?"

By now the security had come by in the forum of two Clubbas "What's the big deal here?"

Ralph now knew he was in trouble, these guys looked serious and looked tough, and now Ralph had worked out that he had made a mistake, this Koopa had a light red shell as the lights returned to normal, on realising his error he allowed the Koopa to stand up.

"Uh nothing, just a case of mistaken identity, somebody stole something from me, that's all, it's rather important" Ralph looked for his partners but Greg and Ben had long since bolted

"Well in future you report it to us and don't take the law into your own hands. Consider this a warning"

Ralph nodded and then rather embarrassed by the incident walked away.

"Hey you alright AJ" the bandit gave had hand to AJ to help him stand up

"I think so… thanks Andy, but you guys had sweet timing to delay those guys"

The purple dinosaur nodded "It's alright, just happened to know what Kooper looks like. Speaking of which look who finally shows up"

"Sorry about that, those guys are sort of desperate to settle a score with me. I can't believe they'd be stupid enough to try in a public place though. I'm Kooper as you're probably painfully aware by now" Kooper extended his hand and shook AJ's.

"Yeah… its okay, they didn't break anything so it's all good. That would be an uncool way to start the semester"

"Ah so you're going to U goom I gather, I'm going there. Or is there somewhere else that I don't know about in this crazy town?"

Andy nodded "We both going to U Goom. That is AJ and I"

"That makes five of us" the purple dino added

Kooper turned to the dino "You're an Ankylosaurus right? You wouldn't be Peppy now would you?"

"That's my brother, I'm Heppy and this big guy is Bronto"

Bronto gave a chuckle "Heppy, we should really catch up with Shelia though, she's been addicted to that stupid Princess Peach fashion game ever since we got here"

"You've got a point, it's getting a bit late and I still want to check out the fairgrounds. Anyway I'll catch up with you guys later at U Goom, see ya" Heppy and Bronto left the area causing most to look at them and stare at Bronto's sheer size but neither seemed to care.

Kooper looked at the watch on his wrist "Yeah come to think of it I gotta go too guys, but I'll see you both again sometime"

Kooper walked off at a hurried pace again and headed to U Goom. He was running really late now, but no big deal he had organised a fair bit of what was going on and Goombella was there and she surely would have made smooth progress by now however when he got there he did not expect it to be all set up.

Goombario, Lakilester seemed proud with the work they did. There were others in the group Kooper was not familiar with.

"Yo, you're a bit late there Kooper" Lakilester teased giving him a playful punch on the shoulder

"Sorry I got delayed in Goomville, just an incident involving the Koopa brothers"

"I cannot believe this. Those Koopa Brothers are still harassing you?" Goombario rolled his eyes

Kooper sighed heavily "It would appear so. You guys all finished up? That was quick"

Goombario took a water bottle Lakilester passed to him and with a trained foot held the bottle with his foot and took a quick drink before replying "Yeah Goombella and her group got a good start and then it didn't take much longer, but what is this room used for anyway?"

"It's a function hall, mainly used for performances, presentations, parties and all that kind of stuff" Goombella explained it as if she were tattling but stopped herself from subconsciously telling a random feature about the room.

"I'm a little tired now, so I'm off for some sleep" Lakilester stretched his arms as his cloud gave a yawn

Koops nodded at that proposal "I could fall down right here, I am so tried"

Everybody slowly filed out the exit and headed back to the main city of Goomville. For tonight, mostly would check into a hotel and check out their 'new home' tomorrow.

Goomville hotel – 9.30 am

Koops rubbed his tired eyes still feeling the muscle strain from all the lifting and shifting he did last night but to save money he, Vivian and Waffles all shared a hotel room, on Waffles' condition that Koops and Vivian didn't do anything disgusting like kissing in front of him. Goombella had her own place not far from U Goom but the first thing Koops noticed was that he had received a message on his Mailbox SP.

Hey Koops,

Come down to U goom's basketball courts at 2 pm. Professor Frankly wants to see us at 3 anyway.

Goombella

'Basketball?' Koops thought, he was never any good at sports but that said Goombas couldn't play basketball either so there had to be another reason.

"Hey sleepy, get Goombella's message?" Vivian walked into the bedroom from out of the bathroom, it seemed as if she had just had a shower

"Yeah… where's Waffles?"

"He's long gone, probably to look at his accommodation, but he got the message too. Anyway we should get a move on too"

Koops nodded and headed off to the bathroom to shower as well. After about 30 minutes when Koops changed and he and Vivian had breakfast they set out to the address of where their accommodation was.

The street it was on was rather peaceful despite being only about a 10 minute walk from the main city, but most of the buildings here were usually two or three stories high. It was uncommon for so many two story buildings to be put together, in the Mushroom Kingdom anyway. Koops was at 5/16 while Vivian was at 6/16 and judging by the way these buildings were, Koops suspected they'd be living close together.

"10… 12…" Vivian counted the numbers down "14 and ah 16… this is it"

Koops saw a three story building not too unlikethe others. It was painted with a rather nice white colour with modern looking windows.

"Took your sweet time getting here, but it's a pretty nice, check it out" Waffles led the Koopa and Shadow into the apartment block and after going up one flight of stairs Waffles came to number 7.

It was a simple 4 room place, it had a kitchen, lounge room, bathroom and bedroom and even had a fair few bits of furniture, there was a freshly cleaned smell about it and with one bedroom it was supposed to be only for one person but it could accommodate more if required.

Koops was a little in shock, he wasn't expecting something better then his own house "There's something I wonder about, how can U goom afford this? It would cost a bundle being so close to the city"

"Yeah but remember that this place is only free for the first two months, after that you've got start paying up for it which is how they make their money, some people get together and I bet you'll probably be doing that even before the two months are up" Waffles seemed somewhat disgusted "If I ever hear strange noises from over there…"
"WAFFLES!" Koops and Vivian both shouted out the same time stopping him going any further with that sentence

Waffles shook his head and changed the subject "I want to watch my new DVD 'Prince Mush' the ultimate beatdowns. I'd really like to see what made that guy as strong as he was, and why he was… or rather is so popular, he doesn't seem much of a crowd builder to me"

Koops and Vivian took that as a hint to go away so took the hint and left the Yoshi alone.

U Goom – Basketball courts

It seemed Goombella had gathered not only Waffles, Vivian and Koops, but King K, AJ, Andy, Hamma, Bamma and Flare too.

Waffles folded his arms in disapproval "Hey since when did Hamma, Bamma and Flare get into U Goom"

"Since we heard about the awesome sports program you guys run" Jamma then paused and thought of another reason "That and it'll get my Dad off my back about going to business brothers school"

"Besides, what have you got against us anyway?" Flare asked frowning

"Don't tell me you are still bitter about losing to them" Andy laughed as he saw the Yoshi go red in embarrassment

Waffles approached Andy and shouted in his face "That was ONLY because Jolene had to put a stupid condition. She didn't want me eating my opponents and spitting them out because the kids were trying to do the same and she didn't want bad press, so I DID NOT LOSE! GOT THAT!"

"ANYWAY!" Goombella shouted back to get everyone's attention "I've gathered you guys here because at U goom there's a sport we play here called Socketball, sounds totally stupid I know but the name catches on, it can be called SKball for short"

Bamma grinned "Wish we could plug Gonzales Junior into a socket right now, he'd be energy efficient"

"Nah, he'd probably blow a fuse" Hamma and Bamma both laughed

"Come on guys… cut it out" Flare noticed Waffles was ready to deliver 'Operation: Bulldozer' at any given moment

Goombella sighed and continued "Anyway it's a combination of soccer and basketball. Those without hands try to kick the ball and use their bodies to place the ball into net of the opposing team. Those with hands however try to bounce the ball like you would in basketball and shoot it into hoop at the opposing teams end, if you have hands you can't touch it with your head or your feet. I've gathered you guys here because I want you to be on my team"

"Your team? So your sayin' there's somekinda tournament goin' down?"

"Yes, U Goom form teams and you submit them and then we play each other. It is always played on a 60 meter by 60 meter square, but these are the basketball courts as the socketball courts don't open until the start of the year, I just wanted to see who was interested. That and Goombario and Kooper are sure to form a team with the others that travelled with them too. So there's bound to be contests of which of Mario's partners are better"

"I've never been much good at sports Goombella" Koops admittedly shyly

"I'll be honest Koops, the level of play isn't that high, last year the competition was an outright farce. I've never played myself either, so it's going to be a learning experience for all of us. There are other rules but I'm just looking for interest at this stage"

"Those other partners of Mario are complete wimps. So they stopped Bowser using some silly magic wand from ruling the world, big deal. Bowser's too dumb to know how to use it anyway" Waffles said full of his usual ego "In addition to that, we took on Bowser AND Kammy at the same time, we also had to deal with Grodus before that and the Shadow Queen after that. And we've got some decent fighters on our team, those guys don't stand a chance, sign me up"

Bamma shook his head "Full of trash talk as usual huh, but I guess it seems like fun"

"Yeah I'm in, be nice to break up the study thing with this" Andy shrugged

With Andy's comment nobody seemed to object and Goombella had formed her team.

Next chapter I'm going to cover some of the teachers as we've done quite enough of the students then I'm going to warp right into the classes. Sorry if this chapter seemed a little dull, I had problems writing a few parts with this and changed it several times. Also I wanted to build up a few more relationships, some negative and some positive to create more of a realistic atmosphere rather then everyone just sticking within the characters they already know.

A/N1: The houses in Paper Mario are really stupid, I wanted to change that and give the wonderful characters something to actually live in aside from a one room place. Flurrie gets two rooms but there is no toilet or kitchen, honestly. Perhaps this is why Glitzville is so popular, it is one of the few places in the Mushroom Kingdom with a toilet!

A/N2: Socketball, entirely a creation of my own although surely somebody else has thought of it, but based on the fact that a few species in the Marioverse are lacking arms I figured it would be best to make a sport that any species could enter so you could have these dream match style face offs. Even Fuzzies could probably play this if they really wanted to and those poor things are the most deprived, no arms no legs, just a whole lot of sugar.

A/N3: I almost forgot! In fact I did forget... twice. Mew Spice1 owns Mirage, Duplica and Birdy, Yoshizilla owns Heppy, Bronto and Shelia. I own Koopfina, Aliciagoom, AJ, Parakenny, Gerato, Patey and Piantayan although Patey and Piantayan are designed by others they let me have them. Nintendo owns everything else I think, but I'm sure I have made a mistake somewhere.