Larry Koopa. Not a guy a lot of people know a lot about. Pretty easy for Mario to fight, goes down in only 3 hits, and bloody hell but he does have a screechy painfully high-pitched voice. But what do you know, you are not a person who exists in Larry's life. If you were larry's brother or sister you'd know more about him. So now you are getting a chance to comprehend this experience…think if it like you got a ring on your doorbell and you think it's the postman but instead of the postman it's actually Kamek and Kamek casts a spell on your mind that let's you see what it would be like to be in the same room as Larry Koopa.

Larry Elshabius Koopa rose from the confines of his bed within his chamber in Bowser's Castle. As he rose, the twenty Koopa-Scrygers aligned next to his bed (Scryger is a word in the Koopalasci language which means "Declarers of the Royalty) began to chant the traditional song "Rise of the Prince" that had been sung every morning to Larry as he rose. Larry sauntered to his mirror which was looming over his wall, fifty feet tall. He drew his hairgel from a holster like the scabbard of a sword and spiked his mohawk.

"Today will be a good day," he thought. He made sure to even in his mind think his thoughts in a Mushroom Kingdom accent, for the Toads were cultured folk and he needed to rise high in court if he was ever to overcome his meager standing thanks to his low birth.

For Larry was the son of a Magikoopa who has used forbidden magic, and because of that he was shunned in more places then he was not. Larry's mother Yallanoria Koopa had even become a friend of Wario's and she spent most of her time in the Wario Bar these days scarfing down Poison Mushrooms (which were kind of like the Mario version of drugs).

Larry still remembered his mother's shining eyes, her bright blue shell and her charming smile. But that was before Bowser had cast her aside for that women…no, not Princess Peach, but Iggy and Lemmy's mother who was far worse. He remembered the kiss she had given him on the cheek before walking with a brave heart to her Koopa Clown Car and flying off into the Angry Sun.

At first she had written, sweet letters with tender words, sent him gifts like a Piranha Plant stuffie and a signed Rawk Hawk poster. Then they had slowed, and the messages grown grim, until they had stopped altogether, and that was when Larry knew that the shadow of Wario and Waluigi had fallen over Yallanoria as it had so many of the others.

"Try this poison mushroom…you'll really like it. Wha ha ha…"

The Koopa-Scrygers were still singing as they twirled around the room in a form of interpretive dance. Larry hated them, just as he hated all the old traditions Kamek insisted on the Koopa family following even as Bowser shut himself within the Hall of War and lobbed fireballs at the thrice-a-day repaired model of the Mushroom Kingdom that eternally sat above the great table. He shoved one to the ground and he yelled, blue star-covered robes wrapping around his shell. "Get out, you filthy sons of Toads," he spat, using the most offensive insult in the entire Koopa vocabulary.

The lead Koopa-Scryger, a wizened old woman named Kaladescia who Larry swore carried within her the blood of the Boom Booms, hobbled up to Larry across the torn carpet, wrinkled claw atop her power-star cane. "Prince Larry," she growled, and as she did she revealed the emerald fang she had had in her mouth for as long as Larry had known her, "Our presence is commanded by Kamek, who among all Koopas who hold broom is named "High Mage Supreme". If you command us to leave, you insult him, and if you insult him, you insult your father and the five hundred Koopas who have sat the Gold-Spiked Throne before him!"

Larry took a few steps towards Kaladescia. Nobody was singing now, and they could hear Larry's footsteps ringing throughout the lonely abyss of his room. He walked until he was only a foot from the head Koopa-Scyger's Dry-Bones like face.

"Do you see this?" he whispered, and he opened his mouth, letting fire burn at the end of his throat so that it was as if Kaladescia stared right down the barrel of a Bill Blaster. "Do you understand what it is? This is the mark of a king. Yeah, I'm a prince, baby, and don't you forget it, or there will be a fracturing in your life, and when people like fracture, who's name are they shouting?"

There was a dead silence, deader than King Boo himself. Larry could here the distant dudududu of an Item Block opening in a distant corridor as a member of the morning patrol helped himself to a much-needed refreshment.

"They're shouting your name, Prince Larry," Kaladescia finally said.

"Then get out."

They left with the pit-patter of footsteps like mice, tiny, insignificant beings no different from the Mushroom men who squealed with despair each day his father's battleships broke through the smile face'd clouds that shrouded the Mushroomic skies. Larry waited until they had vanished into the dim corridor beyond, and then shut the door, locked it, and cast a spell of protection for extra caution. If Kamek learnt of this he would inevitably be thrown to the Chain Chomps royal blood or not, for it was illegal and no small crime either.

He strode to his desk, felt around for a secret latch, and lifted it open. A pistol stared back at him, shiny chrome black. More specifically, a .44 Magnum revolver with the chamber modified so it could hold extra bullets and with the serial numbers filed off.

Larry lifted it up and chuckled, staring at his reflection leering back at him through that midnight abyss. Wario and Waluigi thought they were safe, lounging high above the red light district in their Diamond City penthouse sipping Chuckola-Cola with Pianta Syndicate big-shots and Mushroom Kingdom congressmen alike. But they didn't know that a storm was coming, and he was his name.

He'd bought this gun off the black market – King K Rool himself had handled the transaction. Firearms were illegal even more military use in the Koopa Kingdom…but they were so much more effective than magic wands or Fire Flowers. The last thing the Wario Brothers would see would be the bullets about to burrow through their brains.

Larry left his room, and walked through the castle, over a bridge that spanned a chasm fathoms deep, with the red glow of lava at the bottom. Here in the Imperial Apartments Larry could traverse that chambers of Bowser's Castle with ease, but in the lower floors the ballrooms and galleries once-immortalized by painters such a Goomiuilio and Toadatiucchi had long been torn to bits and replaced with a gauntlet of firebars and Thwomps, three-inch thin walkways over lava and enormous statues of King Bowser which pulverized the iron floor.

All this, to kill one man…though granted, he was a strong one, for in spite of all the hidden arts Larry knew he had rarely managed to scratch Mario, Princess Peach's "ace". Yet for every lava pit that had "almost" killed Mario, it claimed the lives of three minions forced to pass over it on their way to the bedroom or bathroom, and so the ranks of the Dry Bones continued to grow just as the ranks of the flesh-and-blood Koopas dwindled.

As he passed by a door of purple iron he heard the sound of rap, a pulsing beat he had never heard before but contained lyrics which clearly signified its creator. Certainly, this was as far a cry from the applauded Koopa Symphonies of Ludwig as a Baby Yoshi was to Macho Grubba himself.

Yeah, Yeah

Get Lost

I'm the Koopa who's tough the Koopa who's rough

I charm the masses with my glasses I'm so cool I could teach classes

Who's the bad boy? Who's the best boy?

Roy. Roy.

Larry paused for a moment by his brother's door. "Not bad," he mused, "Certainly better than his last one which was all about inhaling the smoke from used Fire Flowers."

He knocked on the door, a moment later Roy had opened it. "Hey, wassup bro," he grinned, "Like my new beat?"

"It's fine," Larry replied, "You ought to include a line about Porcu-Puffers."

"Porcu-Puffers, huh?" Roy mused, strolling into his room which was filled with the posters of rappers and bombs. "I mean, I like it, but what can I rhyme with Porcu-Puffer?"

"Uhh…what about "While the rest of hide behind your mother, I beat em' up like a damn Porcu-Puffer?"

"YES!" Roy laughed, stomping his leg so hard it smashed some of the ground. He walked around and clapped Larry on the shoulder. "This is why you're my favourite brother, man. So classic, so classic."

"Hey," he said, shifting around and fist-bumping the sunglasses-wearing Koopa. "Maybe next time you'll land a gig at the Electrodome."

"Oh yeah, baby!" Roy chuckled. "Record label deal, here I come!"

He strolled over to a treasure chest near his spikey bed and took out something that looked like a little stick with a Bowser head on it. "Hey, wanna smoke a Bowz with me?"

"Ok, I'll indulge you," he replied, taking the Bowz from Roy. He didn't usually like smoking…the taste with not his fondness and he had heard Koopas who smoked too much had to have the Shrink-Doctors running overtime around their body playing all the minigames that stimulated weakened organs lest they end up going Dry Bones early. However Roy had a fondness for them and Larry liked his brother much, so he did do it from time to time.

Roy and Larry left the room and went to a pit of lava, lighting the Bowzes by dipping them it. Larry took a puff, the Bowser head on the end lighting up and spewing smoke as if it were breathing fire.

"Man, it's been a long time since Prism Island, eh brother?" Roy sighed as he sat down on a bench near a Bowser statue and watched the lava bubble.

"Why are you reminding me of that?" Larry glowered, puffing on the Bowz sullenly, "I don't even want to think about frickin' paint or King Boo-cursed Toads again. Remind me of something sick like the Beanbean Kingdom, man."

"What, and that pointed-headed witch who stole Dad's bod? Not a chance in the Underwhere, Larry. I fricking hate that woman."

"What, Cackletta? Have you seen the pictures of what she looked like before Mario killed her and turned her into the ghost that possessed Dad? I mean, you can't deny she wasn't hot."

Roy laughed, before taking a long puff on his Bowz. "Yeah, like Chain Chomps she's hot, but hot doesn't mean I want to think about her? I mean, Rosalina's the hottest gal in the cosmos, but that doesn't change the fact that she nuked half of Dad's fleet. We lost so many good men that day, I tell yeah. Teddy Three-Shell, Goombalosiphicus, Lal Booley…"

His face fell, and the smoke from his Bowz trailed upwards until it was lost within the vaulted ceiling. "He treats war so much differently than I do," Larry thought. "He takes every loss personally, unlike me who views my men as expendable pawns. Then again, his mother died of natural causes, not like mine who was driven from the castle into the Wario Brothers' poison mushroom dens. It only makes sense."

But Larry did not voice these thoughts to Roy. Instead in he leaned in closer, and said, "Roy, crying won't bring them back. You gotta honour their memory. Immortalize them in a rap. You should. They'd be listening to it all the way up in the Overthere, I promise you that."

"Yeah," Roy nodded. "Yeah, you always got the best ideas, Larry. I really should, after I'm done my latest one. I wonder what I should say about Teddy Three-Shell. I gotta work his obsession with the Shroobs into it somehow, but like…in a way that makes him sound hardcore instead of a nerd. Something like "We learn in school about the Shroob Invasion, but Teddy Three-Shell was basically the king of the whole Shroob nation."

Larry nodded, allowing himself a last puff on his Bowz. "Not bad. You should probably work Angry Wigglers into it somehow though. According to my business analytics, they're really trending in the rap world, and if you're going to honour your old friends, best to do it in a way that racks in a lot of coin, right?

"Heh heh, yeah," Roy said, flicking his Bowz into the lava where it burned. "Then I'll build a giant monument to them that will blast sick beats all over Neo Bowser City on each of their birthdays. Man, I miss 'em. I miss 'em good."

Larry spent the rest of the morning alone. He did his rounds throughout the castle, went out onto a turret and stared out over the flames. He visited the barracks, investigated his personal airship to make sure nothing was wrong with the engine. He went to the library where he read a few chapters of the sacred text "Tome of Star Haven", the chapters about the razing of the Ruined Kingdom, where the Star Warrior Geno had brought the wrath of the Star Spirits upon those who sought to claim the power of Wishes for themselves. The knights of the kingdom that had once been called the "Apple Kingdom" had been renowned for their strength, but all it had taken were a couple Geno Blasts and Geno Flashes and it's storied towers were reduced to blackened ruins. It was in reading the passage where Geno struck down the Ruined Dragon that the Boo came.

"Esteemed Prince Larry…Kamek desires you to ascend to his tower."

Larry closed the book. For a moment, he found a momentary concern that Kaladescia had reported to the Vizier his mistreatment of the Koopa-Scrygers, but shook it off. This was the time where his magic lessons always were held…exactly when the Angry Sun faced Star Road…the most auspicious time for a Magikoopa to seek wisdom. Larry didn't believe a word of it.

"Fine," he said," rising and shooting the Boo one of his trademark charming smiles. "I'll do what she wants."

Yeah, let the elite of Bowser's Castle think he was the perfect, loyal prince, a flawless minion in King Bowser's schemes. Let them think as he slinked and smiled his to the top.

Hey, he wasn't called Cheatsey Koopa for nothing.