She slept... surprisingly alright, for the most part. It wasn't the greatest rest ever, but it was decent enough, and she didn't even wake up groggily. Guess it was another day of busywork and coming up with plan after plan in between.

It got tiring. When would she be able to flame someone?! The simplicity of her old life – being able to shoot fire at subordinates who weren't subordinating properly, having a castle town full of people, writing poetry about her kids while strolling through her garden at midnight – er, well, maybe that one is something she wants to keep private. The other ones, though, still perfectly valid!

Her eyes wandered out of the window, and she was nearly at threat of getting introspective again, when she heard footsteps outside her door. That was either Luigi or Snifit, so she got up to go check, almost turning the doorknob when she realized she had a peephole. Peering through, it was that hammer koopa from earlier, staring right at her door. She thought she even caught a glimpse of him staring directly into her eyes, but he thankfully looked away at the last second, scanning the rest of the room slowly.

She froze, hoping Luigi was still in the bed-and-breakfast with her.

Luigi was halfway in his boat, when he realized that he left one of his fire flowers in the room. Nearly falling between the boat and the dock thanks to a short, distracted step, he wearily got back up just to have to climb the steps up to the main square, an aching march that slowed time enough for him to, er, "admire" the Rogueport scenery while waiting to finally reach the bed-and-breakfast pulling the door open with a surprising amount of force just to see a hammer koopa staring at him. Unfortunately, for Luigi at least, the koopa's eyes lit up in a malicious happiness, making a beeline for the plumber. Hopefully he wasn't someone he needed to keep a lookout for.

"Hey, Luigi! I've been hoping Mario would show up, but you'll do just fine! Hey, I've been wanting to know if you have any information on Bowser's whereabouts."

The koopa, realizing how desperate he must have (and, in my opinion, very much did) look, gave a slight laugh inwardly, doing his best not to show it. "My bad, my bad – I'm Koopiter."

He hushed a little, pulling Luigi in to embrace (and lock in, but he didn't want that to be obvious) his arm and talking in his ear in somewhat more than a whisper. "Here's the deal, Luigi – I'm with the Dark Kingdom, and we're trying to kick Bowser out for wasting his people on those quests for conquest, but we need to find him to make sure that he can't just try to counter-coup."

Luigi pondered for a second, his blood running cold as he realized that the koopa could easily fight him in this rather unprepared moment if he didn't like the answer, and not face any repercussions from whoever was in charge of what remained of the Dark Kingdom, and came to a decision. "N-no, sorry. I've been looking for him myself. Actually, I was just about to grab something I forgot, but... consider looking in the Beanbean Kingdom. I saw a note on his castle that mentioned something about it."

Koopiter kept his eyes on Luigi as he waded around him to get to his room, coming out with a small paper bag in his hand containing a few magic mushrooms and a fire flower. He looked at the koopa and gave him finger-guns before scurrying off, shutting the door behind him and really hoping that he was convincing as he picked up his pace, jumping off the halfway point of the Rogueport Dock stairs and nearly running into an old sea-captain bob-omb in his attempt to quickly get away from the koopa and the Dark Kingdom as a whole, reaffirming his focus on finding his way back to New York.

Bowser could feel a drop of sweat trickle down her forehead, another one flooding her ear annoyingly, muffling every sound she could have theoretically heard out of that ear, and still she didn't dare move. Her hands shook as she watched Koopiter scan once or twice more before leaving, a groan escaping his mouth.

She was... oddly taken aback with how Luigi didn't rat her out. She pondered, her first thought being that he had seen the light of how much better the Dark Kingdom is, but given she's not the head of it anymore, that might not be the case. Maybe the opposite... whoever Koopiter is working for, they seem a lot more, well, competent at least, and who knows how opposed they are to being way, way worse of a captor than she was. She just treated her prisoners with... well, okay, it wasn't much (no, really?) but it was enough that they were never in any danger, and they were teleported away while the castle itself was under attack whenever she had the time to.

Maybe with the talk of wasting her men on conquest, they'd be more pacifistic, but knowing the sociopathic beasts – and this is compared to her, that at least before her world was flipped on its head, burns people for very little reason, including just being annoyed at the world – that she had to keep in the royal court and would be the next in line of succession with her kids out of the picture, she couldn't help but shudder at the thought. Koopilla, especially... he was absolutely nasty, couldn't even keep a pet without torturing the thing. The thought of a King Koopilla... she barely wanted to think about it, but every second that she did, the resolve to come up with a decent plan started right back up again.

After all, she may have been a war criminal that regularly kidnaps foreign leaders to, ahem, "propose" annexation, but she made sure those kidnapped foreign leaders had a comfortable stay while they waited for those pizza-faced plumbers (okay, seriously, I need to get new material to insult those two pipe cleaning p- oh, there I go again clinging onto old material!) to save the guest of the hour before she could even explain what she even wanted to propose in the first place, and why!

Koopilla, on the other hand... he'd be launching total war.

She got up off the bed she didn't even realize she sat down on to take it all in, and pushed aside the chair to the typewriter on her desk, getting to work on another new plan – Plan Q.

Catherine was keeping an eye outside. Koopiter stood outside the door, completely ignoring Snifit's existence, let alone his desire to go back into what was, essentially, his own home. His head just turned around, sunglasses rising up to cover his eyes, kicking the ground. It was a minute or two before he finally walked away, noticing Catherine a few moments later and turning his trajectory to her, a smirk growing on his mouth. A terrible smirk she knew the exact meaning behind.

If only she had a big, fire breathing koopa by her side...

Koopiter was by far her least favorite client – not only was he too attached, but he... well. He never really treated her with respect. At best, he complied with her most fervent, panicked demands. But he would never learn. She honestly hated him. He was, in short... pettily evil.

And now he was expecting her... services. At least in public, he'd have to ask.

The King was expecting a letter. His toe-claws tapped a rhythm on the floor alongside the salvaged throne in the newly rebuilt throne room a hundred miles from the old castle's grounds. What he didn't expect was an in-person messenger, a paratroopa in an orange shell, winded (not that paratroopas could hike a single mile, what with their over-reliance on their wings! I'm surprised that moron Bowser ever saw any utility in these weaklings, even for recon!), sweat beading up on his forehead from the combination of the workout and the intense heat of the Dark Castle.

"Sir – neither of your espionage units in Rogueport have reported seeing any signs of Bowser – but one has reported seeing a reial koopa, as yet unidentified. The other one hasn't. He's looking into her identity. As for the royalty of the Mushroom Kingdom – the King is still missing, his daughter is still present and acting ruler, and Mario and Pauline are still keeping watch. Luigi seems to be missing. I'd say that right now would be a good time to launch an invasion, maybe print some maps showing the extent of Koopa land from... four centuries ago. If I recall right, it included about seven tenths of Mushroom territory and about a fifth of the Beanbean Kingdom, as well as Rogueport and Brightsea to the south."

The Dark King took his crown off to polish it, pondering his next move, when a second courier – a goomba – kicked the door open and hopped in.

"Koopiter – one of your espionage units – has apparently spoken to Luigi. He says that he believes that Bowser is in the Beanbean Kingdom. I don't know how verifiable the information is in any case, but consider sending units there."

The King's thumb pushed against a cloth in circles, buffing out dust and fingerprints from the gold and jewels. His eyes only looked up into the goomba's after a minute or two, brows low and muttering. It was enough that the goomba shuddered, a frightened pit in his stomach opening up as he braced for the burning. But burning never came, the only thing falling out of the King's mouth being a soft request – "very well. Mount a search team for the Beanbean Kingdom. Rogueport is not to be left unattended for now, unless, of course, we really never do see Bowser show up there."

The goomba nodded, eyes flicking around and toes curled.

Just as he was about to turn to leave – "And, by the way. If you do find him, I don't care in what condition or, if necessary, container he's brought back in."

Goombert didn't think that such... drastic measures were necessary, but he wasn't going to disobey considering the massive size difference between the two.

All she could do is write up a five page essay on why a Koopilla monarchy would be the worst thing to happen to the world in possibly decades. (And the world had to deal with me, at least for three of them!). Her predecessor – her father, actually, was a rather... conventional king with rather more imperial goals in mind. Glory stuff, wanting to leave a legacy. But he was never the worst king she could have thought of; he was at worst somewhat generically unpleasant, and often believed he knew far better than those outside of the Dark Kingdom, considering it the center of the world and believing it was a moral good to conquer and civilize. And at first, she wanted to keep it going, if for no other reason than just to continue on what he set out to and not a bit more, since that's what everyone expected of her. And at first she did have some passion for it! But thinking it over, she less and less understood what she was even accomplishing.

It got to the point she was just going through the motions to keep the expectations up. And, in it, it did help keep her busy. She even wanted to make some deals while Toadstool was in her grasp. But... her plans were always stopped.

Maybe this silence was nice. Who knew. She didn't think she enjoyed it, but certainly the freedom of not having expectations wasn't unwelcome. At least she wasn't being called the great wizard king by someone, or essentially pressured by tradition to plan out what would be the best way to arrange koopas to have the least casualties, considering they only had a few hospitals in the whole kingdom, and paying out medical and psychiatric expenses was too expensive.

She tried not to think about watching Koopinta slamming into the wall and never getting back up, her brother watching, and never being the same. His vacant stares as he worked around the castle, how distant he grew, even seeing him nearly call her over before remembering and just sitting down. As much as she wanted to snap and tell him to get back to it, but she... never did.

She knew what not having someone there was like. After all, she had just lost her wife the year prior, forcing her to raise their six kids alone. Of course, they weren't technically speaking alone, but... not having both parents really was never a good way to grow up even if they were never under threat of bombing, nor were born into living in a royal family, with all of the things that made it different from any other family.

She got up off her chair. Coming up with a plan wasn't working.

Today was just a day for menial labor, she supposed.

Better than just sitting around and reflecting. At least this inched her closer to her goals.

She was surprised at just how much there was on the board.

Normally, there would only be four or five jobs on the board, in part because she usually got there later in the day, but there were sixteen in total today. Part of it was simply her getting there in the midday, as opposed to the evening, but another part of it was that she had never seen so many Government of Rogueport stamps on the papers – every paper past the typical four was a governmnent request. Typically in finding a particular person, but there were a few more manual labor jobs, and one job in assisting with paperwork.

The paperwork seemed boring, but it was the only one with a time limit, and paid 50 coins an hour, so it seemed fairly compelling. If she started immediately, she could still come away with 470 coins. And maybe she'd even get to learn something along the way.

The entrance to the administrative offices didn't look particularly different to anywhere else in Rogueport. It was a normal brownstone building perfectly flush with the others, and the only difference being that it had gold foiled trim with matching welcome mat. Interns scurried in and out with folders in their hands and coffee trays with four or six drinks resting precariously on them. Bowser opened the door for one that was trying to open the door with his foot owing to all of his hands being full, and followed in afterward, clutching at her cloak.

It was... in far, far better shape than she was expecting, with the white roof showing no signs of mold or mildew, none of the walls showing water damage, and perfectly fine wood trim and half-panelling. Chandeliers carrying candles lit the core of the building, and all of the side rooms showed signs of electric lighting. Her eyes wandered around idly, mind almost gone blank taking the sights in and only returned on the third time that a clerk asked what business she had here.

"Oh, uh, I'm here to do the, uhm, paperwork. Yeah, that's it!"

The clerk narrowed her eyes. "And what would happen to be your name, then?"

"Bo- uh, Kooplisto." She gave a half-hearted smile trying as hard as it could to be a beam, eyes closing a second too late in an attempt to mask the attempt.

The clerk stared at her for a second, blinking before shrugging it off. False identities were just a part of Rogueport's character as a town, after all. In any case, she didn't get paid enough to care. "Right, well, if you're doing the tax returns, it's Room 9. Immigration requests, Room 10, internal communications, Room 11, and business licenses, it's Room 13. Just explain you saw the help wanted board and they'll understand."

Bowser stared for a second. It really was just that easy? They didn't want any proof of identity or anything? Hopefully whatever country they were in (if Rogueport wasn't a city-state, and she wondered how any of the citizens made enough to sustain it if it were), really didn't have any enemies that would send spies – nor would it send anything important to Rogueport. Looking at the town itself, she didn't really see much good reason to. If she conquered it, and she really still was considering it, she wouldn't make it very important at all.

At least without flushing out everyone that's currently here in this office building.

The stroll over to the paperwork hall wasn't long or eventful. It was dimly lit with a single incandescent lightbulb, bare besides a red plastic cone hanging over it and the pull-cord just dangling for anyone to use, the temptation really, really hitting Bowser where it hurts. That place being her stomach, as a pit of contemplation formed in it. She really could just pull it.

Or, she could get on with the job. Looking around, she could see all the rooms nine through fifteen, though Room 12 was nowhere to be seen. While tax returns would no doubt be interesting, her feet eventually shuffled along toward Room 11, her eyes scanning the sign to make sure this was internal communications. Maybe there'd be something even juicier here?

Well, she'd find out. Her arm went to reach for the door handle when it swung away from her, revealing a paratroopa wearing a pair of glasses.

"Ah, so you must be the un-hired help. Welcome, welcome, and may I be the first to tell you I'm surprised to see a reial koopa helping me with the papers." The koopa tipped his glasses, nodding sagely with eyes shut at the same time. "Well, no matter paying attention to your species, help is help."

Bowser could tell she was in for an... interesting time.

She found something interesting. A forward from the relations department, from the Dark Kingdom. It regarded her – they wanted to know if anyone had seen her. Thankfully, they still referred to her as "him", so with any luck, they won't recognize her.

Hopefully. After a few seconds' reading, she put it in the return to sender box.

The other pages were interesting, too – the mayor had plans to demolish much of the northwest, with no plans on replacing any of the houses there, instead installing a high-rise apartment building ran by a new governmental department. Sinking Glitzville and forcing them to pay twenty years' unpaid taxes that legally they didn't need to pay since they were a legally separate city.

Interesting.

The last piece of paper she had to sort into the right bin left her blood to run cold. It was from King Koopilla of the Dark Kingdom.

Finally, the story picks up.