Chapter 1- Only the Beginning:

When people look at me, it isn't a person that they see. Normally, when people look at me, I must look like a punching bag or something to that effect. Why else would they throw such harsh words in my face, or push me into walls or lockers? Why else would they try to touch me in ways I'm not comfortable with? Why else would they toy with my feelings? I dunno, maybe I'm trying to read too much into it, but I think it's cause they don't see me as human. They see me as less than them.

I'm a 5'3", flat-chested, scrawny girl, only seventeen years of age. My hair is a light green, unmanageable, and stretches down to the middle of my back tied into two braids that have several flyaway hairs sticking out since my hair refuses to be manageable. My eyes are the blue of the sky I love to stare at when I lay in the grass relaxing in the afternoon. My skin is pale, and I blush extremely easily. There a few zits here and there. I wear baggy t-shirts and ratty jeans, things that cause people to assume I'm a twelve year old boy when they see me for the first time. My appearance is nothing more than average. I'm not athletic, I hate sports and I can't do anything athletic without injuring myself. I'm clumsy and end up doing more to harm the teams I am on than to help them. I am just a burden to them. I sing in my school's choir, and this is my sixth year in choir, however, I'm nowhere near as good as the other members of the choir at singing. I'm decent, and it doesn't cause anyone to lose their hearing to listen to me, but I'm nowhere near as good as professional singers. I draw and write in my spare time, but I never show anyone my drawings, and everything I write either is extremely corny or extremely depressing. There is no in-between.

I either talk way too much, or not enough. All I do is annoy the people around me. That's what other people always tell me, anyways. And it's what I believe. It's why I believe I am unlovable. And I don't think anything will ever change that. However, life doesn't always dredge on in the same old monotonous pattern. That's what I learned today. That's what I learned as I walked home from school down the same path I always walk home down. It's what I learned as I walked by an alleyway, smelled something sweet, and then collapsed into the sultry embrace of darkness and unconsciousness.

We were just some Koopa Knights, servants to the King of Koopas, King Bowser. We were assigned on a task of finding a teenage girl to bring to the castle. Ludwig was supposed to be taking the throne once his seventeenth birthday hit, and he is supposed to get married during his coronation to ensure that he will have heirs. However, Prince Ludwig currently had no girlfriend, no mate, no fiancée, and no romantic relationship with a girl… it is our job to fix that. He either has to choose a girl from the Dark Land capital and marry her, or he'll be forced to marry the girl we bring to castle on his birthday before the crown is handed over to him. It would be wonderful if he could actually gain feelings for the girl we grab, but that probably won't happen. He'll at least learn to tolerate her and use her as a factory for making heirs, but other than that, he probably won't like her. He hasn't felt any romantic feelings towards any girls since his girlfriend died three years ago.

We also had some criteria. The girl must be human- supposedly that will strengthen the offspring's immune system and allow more offspring to survive to become heirs. King Bowser actually sired over 20 heirs, but only 8 survived longer than a week after birth. The girl also had to be near Ludwig's own age, and at least look decent. We had no idea what "decent" looks like for a human, since they are an extremely rare sight in Dark Land, and we had never seen a human girl before. We all had seen Mario, however, so we all knew that someone who looked like Mario was automatically out. We, Koopie, Koopzin, and I, Koopsumi, were sent out to find a girl and bring her to the castle by any means necessary, meaning we have to knock her out and kidnap her, bringing her to the castle against her will. That's when we saw her. She was taller than the average Koopa by about 3 inches, but still shorter than the members of the royal family, besides Wendy, Lemmy, and Jr. by about 4 to 5 inches. She was the same height as Wendy, about 5 inches taller than Lemmy, and about 10 inches taller than Jr. She had light hair… and she had curves to an amount that showed that she was a girl but also didn't make her seem like a slut or a whore. And… she was also the first girl we saw.

We saw no reason to put any effort into this assignment, Prince Ludwig probably wouldn't end up choosing a girl he liked anyways, so why go out of our way to get him an attractive future wife that he may get along with? So, as soon as we saw her, we sprayed her with a special serum from the Dark Land that only knocks out humans, and we caught her as she fell and quickly slunk back to the castle. Prince Ludwig would be meeting her at dinner. She should wake up in half an hour, so we'll send Kat and Jitt up to her room around then to help her get dressed and prepped for meeting Prince Ludwig. Hopefully she won't make too much of a fool of herself, since she'll probably have to live with Prince Ludwig for the rest of her life… and she probably doesn't want to be married to a husband whom is always irate with her and ended up hating her within the first few minutes of meeting her. It is going to be fun to see where this all goes. So, we gently laid her on the queen sized bed that had blue sheets, meant to match the signature color of her future husband, and we walked out, locking the door from the outside so she couldn't escape.

We now had a future wife for Prince Ludwig, so we completed our mission. We can go and rest now. For finishing this mission, we won't be sent to the front lines to fight Mario when he comes again to take Princess Peach from our grasp. We hope that King Bowser doesn't dislike our choice of girl, since we have no idea what "decent" for a human looks like. We worry about this because if he does dislike the girl we brought on grounds that she doesn't fit our mission criteria, we'll be used as meat shields that Mario has to kill off before he can challenge our King, as the final barrier between Mario and our King. What we want most is to live.

I opened up my eyes, and I saw I was in an unfamiliar, round, stone room with a single wooden door and no windows. I was lying on a bed with dark blue sheets and a pink blanket. The floor was stone. There is a wardrobe on the far side of the room. I do not recognize my surroundings, and I feel very, very scared. I don't know what to do. I feel the fear and panic rise up through me, and I begin to breathe in and out heavily while curling myself into a ball, with my arms around my legs, and I begin to rock back and forth. That is when I heard the most ominous sound I could think of in that instant; a long, loud, knock on the large, wooden door. I froze, terrified. I, Tatiana Anastasia Greene, had no idea what to do, and I was in an unfamiliar location and was undoubtedly kidnapped. I heard the knock on the door again, louder and longer this time. My captor was probably getting annoyed with me. Afraid of getting on my captor's bad side, I did the only thing I could think of.

"H-hello..? W-whoever's there… you can come in…" I said, in a small, timid voice. And with a click, two figures stood in front of me. They had opened the door to both the room, and to the changes that were about to occur in my life. Who knows what I'll find on the other side of the door. But I don't get to find out now, since the two figures closed the door behind them.

"Hi, my name is Kat Koopa!" said the figure on the left enthusiastically, and she had long, pitch-black hair and an ebony shell, looking very much like the Koopas from the Mario series, which is probably where her surname comes from.

"And I am Jitt Koopa," said the figure on the right, unenthused. He had short, spiky, neon pink hair, and a shell that was white with orange splotches. "We're here to help you get dressed and prepared for meeting Prince Ludwig von Koopa at dinner. What is your name?"

"M-my name…?" I said as fear filled my voice, my eyes, my entire being, "My name is… Tiana… Tiana Greene." I said, shortening my name to what most substitute teachers call me at school. I was too scared to say my full name. What if they wanted to sell me? What if they wanted to torture me or hurt me? I didn't feel comfortable giving them my full name.

"Well, it's nice to meet you Tiana!" said Kat.

"Yes, it is very nice to meet you," said Jitt, "and now, it is time for us to get started on getting you ready."

"Yes," said Kat, "it is time to begin!" Kat smiled brightly at me. And with that, my life began into a drastic change.