Deep in the heart of Dark Land, a volcanic region untouched by the light of day, King Bowser of the Koopa Troop marched through the halls of his castle. The large, green and orange turtle-like monarch was growing frustrated. Mario was dead. Princess Peach held securely within his dungeons. He had finally won this pitiful game. There shouldn't have been anything more standing in the way of Bowser finally getting everything that he ever wanted. But of course, his luck never turned out that way.

Bowser was flanked on either side by a pair of old magikoopas hovering along on flying broomsticks. To his right was the blue-robed Kamek, who had served as the king's most loyal and trusted advisor since he was still just a young koopaling prince, while the purple-glad witch Kammy Koopa flew along on the king's left.

"Status report!" Bowser ordered as he threw open the doors to his throne room.

"We have assembled your forces here, Your Highness!" Kamek informed him. "All of your highest ranking officers are here, awaiting your orders."

Bowser huffed and looked around as he made his way to where three ornate gray and red thrones were lined up, taking a seat in the largest, central one. His son, Bowser Jr, was slouched in the smaller throne to his right while the third one remained empty, reserved for Princess Peach once Bowser had finally managed to make her his. But that would have to wait for the time being. For now, he looked up at the rows of his generals lined up along the sides of the chamber, awaiting their orders.

The seven koopalings, Iggy, Larry, Lemmy, Ludwig, Morton Jr, Roy and Wendy O. made up the bulk of his generals but were by no means the only elite members of his army that the two magikoopas had gathered. The relentless juggernaut Boom Boom and his younger sister Pom Pom, the gluttunous plant monster Petey Piranha, the explosive King Bob-omb and the mad jester Motley Bossblob filled in the rest of their ranks. Bowser noted that this lineup was hardly 'all of his highest ranking officers' but it would have to do for the time being.

"What's going on?" Junior asked, looking up at his father.

Bowser took a deep breath before replying. "As many of you have likely heard, Mario is dead."

Cheers filled the throne room as the Troop Generals celebrated their greatest enemy's defeat. Bowser wished he could share his underlings' jubilation but found that he couldn't. He had been working to defeat the red plumber for as long as he could remember but had found since the news of his rival's fatal end that he just felt… hollow.

"He was done in at the hands of an alien space pirate I hired," Bowser continued his explanation once the cheering had died down. "But then the pirate turned against us and sided with those do-gooders from the Mushroom Kingdom to try and rescue Princess Peach. I tried hiring a bounty hunter who was supposed to have had a personal grudge against that pirate but apparently that must have been some kind of scam and now she's teamed up with them as well. We've tried sending everything we can after them but our forces have proven too incompetent to fight those aliens and now they're apparently planning to storm my lands any day now. So now it's up to you bozos to defend my kingdom from aliens!"

The response to this revelation was tepid. The news of alien invaders getting ready to attack was a bit much to take in, even for Dark Land's elite. King Bob-omb fidgeted uncomfortably, while Boom Boom and Pom Pom looked at each other nervously. Even the koopalings seemed unsure of themselves for once. Motley, however, seemed completely unfazed and laughed at the danger. Or at least that's what Bowser chose to believe Motley was laughing at, anyway.

Kammy Koopa pulled out her new wand, a silver rod with a purple gemstone, which she had replaced the one Rosalina had stolen from her with and waved it around to summon a large chalkboard featuring detailed diagrams of their known foes.

"The main threats we're facing right now are the pirate Ridley, who's basically a big dragon thing, and the bounty hunter Samus, who's a walking tank," the supercentenarian turtle witch explained. "In addition, we've also confirmed that Mario's brother Leopold, Rosalina from the Comet Observatory, at least two Yoshis, Orange Peach, what appears to be a blue recolor of Samus we're calling Blue Samus, and some whippersnapper in green that we're calling Little Luis are traveling with them. They had an armed spaceship but thankfully it was destroyed through the combined efforts of the Koopa Brothers and the Neo Axem Rangers so we won't have to deal with that."

"Unfortunately, the Koopa Brothers are currently taking their mandatory vacation days and the Neo Axem Rangers are currently offline while our scientists upgrade them into the Axem Rangers Space in order to deal with potential future alien invasions, so neither group will be able to help in defending the homeland," Kamek added.

"Hey, does anyone hear an engine rumbling?" Larry raised his hand.

"Based on our latest reports, we will likely have at least a week before they are able to arrive here on foot," Kammy continued. "Thus, we will use that time to prepare our defenses as the rest of our forces are recalled to the castle. By the time they get here, we should be able to unleash the entirety of our forces down on their heads, overwhelming them with sheer numbers before they have the chance to do anything."

"Hey, I hear it too," Iggy spoke up.

"That's Plan A, anyway." Kamek adjusted his glasses as he flew up beside Kammy. "We also have a Plan B but we've chosen to withhold that information for now as a precaution against the Inverse Law of Plan Exposition."

Then the castle exploded and everyone died. Bowser fell to the floor surrounded by flame and debris as the world grew cold and blurry. He couldn't believe that this was how it ended, so suddenly and without any fanfare. Everything was gone in an instant. There was still so much he wanted to do, so many regrets. But it was too late now. It was too late for anything. He just wished that he could have spent more time with his family and that he could have finally gotten the chance to win over the love of his life. But it was too late. Too late for anything. Bowser struggled to let out his last breath as his eyes closed for the final time…

…then he opened his eyes again and realized he was overreacting. With a groan, Bowser climbed back to his feet and looked around. A massive hole had been blown out of the ceiling and the entire throne room had been thrown into disarray. His generals were panicking and running around, Petey Piranha was on fire and King Bob-Omb had exploded from the shock of the surprise attack, adding to the damage. Outside, a small spaceship with a shoddy orange paint job had its guns trained on him. Perched atop the ship, a purple dragon unfurled his wings.

"He~re's Ridley!" The manic alien cried out as he leaped down into the throne room. "Miss me?"

The spaceship hovered closer and one-by-one the other members of Ridley's gang dropped in. Rosalina, Lloyd, the other princess, a hefty yellow Yoshi, Samus, Blue Samus and the unknown boy were all ready for a fight. Bowser hoped that he and his underlings would be able to give them one.

"We're-a here for the Princess!" Laraby took a step forward.

Bowser shoved aside his panic and chuckled menacingly as he rose to his feet. "You come barging here into my castle and make demands? I never would have expected this kind of audacity from you, Laurence. But I suppose putting on a brave face and acting like a thug is easy when you've got so many minions standing behind you."

Luigi clenched his fists and stood there silently for a moment. The brown-haired princess wrapped her arm around his shoulder gently.

"Don't let him get to you, honey. He's just trying to rile you up."

Wait, were those two a thing now? Bowser had to blink a few times as he processed the implications. How did the scared green brother manage to win over a princess before he, the mighty King of the Koopas and the most handsome and charismatic eligible bachelor in the world, could. His nostrils flared as Bowser steamed over how unfair things had gotten.

Luigi sighed and relaxed, before turning his gaze back to Bowser. "Just-a let Peach go. We don't-a want a fight."

"Then you made a mistake coming here," Bowser leaned forward, preparing to charge. Glancing around the room, he could see his followers also readying themselves for battle.

"Speaking as one unfettered, tyrannical villain to another," Ridley raised his hand politely, "you should know by this point that we always lose in the end. You might as well just surrender now and save everyone here the trouble of going through with this."

"Koopa Pack, attack!" Bowser yelled out as he charged forward. At his command the others sprung into action around him.


Chaos erupted and for once Ridley felt at home. He dashed over to Luigi to intercept the charging turtle king before he could attack the recently engaged plumber. He only took two steps, however, when a giant pink throwing-star passed in front of his face and he was forced to make an abrupt halt, allowing Bowser to tackle Luigi at full strength through a wall. Ridley wanted to go after them but instead he turned his attention to the source of the sneak attack as the fighting broke out in earnest around him.

Ridley's eyes narrowed as he pinpointed a red and pink turtle at the other end of the room, who had pulled out another of her four-pointed stars, and he dashed across the room like a purple torpedo. Before she had a chance to throw the weapon, he had pounced and pinned her to the floor.

"Pom pom pom pom!" The overgrown tortoise struggled to get out of his grip as Ridley waved the sharpened point of his tail over her face menacingly.

"And give me one good reason to?" Ridley chuckled threateningly, slipping back into old mannerisms.

"Boom boom boom boom boom boom!"

Ridley's eyes widened as a sudden intense force struck him from behind like a train and he was thrown flying into a wall, slumping to a heap on the ground. It took him a moment to get back to his feet and a moment longer for the room to stop spinning around him. Once he had regained his focus, he stared down the two big turtles approaching him cautiously. The brown one who had hit him flailed around his giant fists while the red one gripped her throwing star tightly.

"Wait, Boom Boom?" Ridley cocked his head to the side curiously as he recognized the brown turtle who he had fought and subsequently teamed up with back near the beginning of his adventure.

"Boom?" Boom Boom hesitated.

"It's good to see you again, though I wish it could have been under better circumstances. How have you been?"

"Boom boom, boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom." Boom Boom replied.

"Yep, I understand." Ridley nodded. "My old boss Mother Brain could be like that, too."

"Pom, pom pom pom pom pom pom pom?" the red turtle asked, looking back and forth between them in confusion.

"Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom," Boom Boom explained.

"The name's Ridley," the purple space dragon bowed. "And you?"

"Pom Pom," the turtle, Pom Pom, replied. "Pom pom pom."

"Good to meet you." Ridley nodded again.

An awkward silence passed between them, as the rest of the battle went on around the three.

"So, are we going to keep fighting, or…" Ridley trailed off.

"Boom boom boom boom boom, boom boom boom boom," Boom Boom said. "Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom."

"Pom pom pom pom pom," Pom Pom agreed.

"Alright," Ridley nodded. "Let's meet up again sometime, after this is all over. It's always a pleasure talking to you."

With that, Boom Boom and Pom Pom headed to the main doors and left to head home.

"Nice family," Ridley muttered as he turned back to the battle. "Now, what was I doing? Oh, right."

With that, Ridley raced back to where Bowser had knocked Luigi out of the room.


As chaos erupted around them, Kamek and Kammy took the opportunity to flee from the room, using their enchanted brooms to fly out through the hole that had been blasted out of the ceiling. Their intent was to slip out unnoticed but unfortunately for them they weren't able to manage it.

Rosalina spotted the two Magikoopas fleeing the fight and quickly flew after them. Her last duel with Kammy had cost Rosalina her wand, but she would not be so careless this time. She was not accustomed to making the same mistake twice.

With a swish of her stolen wand, Rosalina sent a bolt of cyan lightning arcing through the sky, narrowly missing Kamek's pointy blue hat.

"Gah!" the startled Magikoopa nearly fell off his broom.

"You again!" Kammy's eyes narrowed as she scowled down at Rosalina. "That's *my* wand you're using!"

"Is it?" Rosalina lightly tapped the ruby tip of the stolen wand against her chin. "Because it looks to me like it's mine now. Certainly not as strong as the one you cast into the lava last time we fought, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers. I have been thinking about making some customizations to it once I finally get a chance to go home after this mess is over. Boost its potency and really make it mine, you know?"

"Why, you pesky little brat!" Kammy aimed her new wand at Rosalina and a ball of purple flames shot out from it.

Rosalina acted almost reflexively, pointing her wand at Kamek and pulling it back. The younger Magikoopa found himself yanked off of his broomstick as he was pulled directly into the path of the magical flames.

"OHGOSHITBURNSWHY!" Kamek flailed around as his broom sailed through the air to catch him and he nearly dropped his glasses as he fell back on the wooden shaft. He thrust his wand in the air and a rain cloud formed above him, dousing the flames. "I'm going to get you for that!"

Kamek thrust his wand out and a Bullet Bill fired out from it, launching straight at Rosalina. With a flick of her own wand, Rosalina flung a star-shaped ring of light that seemed to swallow the Bullet Bill before shrinking down into nothing.

"Why don't you just make this easier on yourselves and surrender now?" Rosalina taunted them. "We all know I'm going to beat you."

"Spoiled brat!" Kammy yelled and flung a giant yellow block at her. "The youth should respect their elders!"

"I know," Rosalina dodged to the side and sent a spray of colorful amorphous crystals scattering through the air at her opponents. "But you insist on acting out anyway."

One of the crystals smacked Kammy in the forehead and she fell off her broom, barely managing to grab hold of its feathery brush. Meanwhile, Kamek spun his wand around and launched a miniaturized tornado flying at Rosalina. Once she had climbed back up on her broom, Kammy gave her own wand a flourish and summoned a swarm of bat-like Swoops that arced around the other side. Rosalina, cornered between the two attacks, spun around quickly and disappeared.

"Huh, where did she go?" Kamek asked as the tornado and Swoops crashed into each other.

"Right here," Rosalina answered from behind him. "And I think it's about time that I end this."

Before either Magikoopa could turn around, they both suddenly found themselves encased in blocks of ice. The weight of that ice proved to be too much for their flying broomsticks, which suddenly became more accurately described as falling broomsticks. They both crashed hard into the roof with enough force to shatter the ice, leaving Kammy and Kamek both unconscious.

"That's going to hurt in the morning."


Armstrong wasn't much of a fighter when he began his career as a bounty hunter. He had been inspired to take up the job after being rescued by Samus on one of her early missions and subsequently managed to get his hands on his own set of Power Armor, a one-of-a-kind prototype from a scrapped Federation project to recreate Samus' iconic Chozo armor. It wasn't as strong as hers but with a few tweaks he had been able to make it work well enough for the job.

Of course, he hadn't understood what being a bounty hunter really meant. To him, it was just a way to earn fame, glory and money, as well as grow closer to his hero and the woman he wasn't ashamed to admit he had a huge crush on back then: Samus Aran. It wasn't until he had met her again after the destruction of the BSL Research Lab, when Samus was branded as an outlaw and went from 'The Hunter' to the hunted, that his entire worldview had changed. He had taken that job of course, like every other hunter in the Federation, expecting to take Samus in for the biggest paycheck of his life and take her spot as the most famous bounty hunter in the known universe. That is, until he managed to track her down and found the supposedly-treasonous rogue rescuing struggling refugees from a powerful warlord in the outskirts of Federation Space. It was only then, after they had teamed up to take down that warlord and he learned the truth of Samus adventures, that his entire worldview had been shaken. Gone was the gloryhound bounty hunter enforcing the corrupt Federation's ideals for cash. In his place, Armstrong had set out to grow, to become stronger and become someone who could stand side-by-side with Samus herself as an equal. He was still trying to reach that mark but he had at least gotten far enough to be considered her partner.

That was why Armstrong wasn't about to back down as he found himself cornered by a trio of overgrown Geemers. He readied his arm cannon, quietly analyzing the situation before making his move. Normally, Armstrong would just take them all out quickly with his Plasma Beam but that wasn't an option right now as their team was apparently operating under a strict 'no-killing' rule for this mission. Unfortunately, Armstrong didn't have much in the way of non-lethal takedown methods in his armory. But not much wasn't none.

"Man, are you guys ugly." Armstrong tried goading the aliens as he slowly moved his free hand to his side.

"Look who's talking," one of them, a burly looking creature with a pink shell and what appeared to be sunglasses, replied. "What, did your momma dress you this morning?"

"Actually I believe it was your mother," Armstrong retorted, glad they were taking the bait.

"Hey, don't you dare talk about our mother like that!" Another, this one with a blue shell and matching wild hair.

"You're right, I'm sorry." Armstrong shook his head. "I'm sure that she's twice the man I'll ever be."

"Oh, that is it!" The third alien, with a black shell, darker skin than the others and a notable star-shaped mark around its left eye crouched down and tried to tackle him.

Armstrong uppercutted the turtle with his arm cannon and slid under it. Now that he was no longer surrounded, he activated a switch in his cannon and a small metal object was ejected from a secret compartment in his armor's left leg, which he caught with his free hand and tossed at the spiky alien turtles. The flash grenade exploded in a burst of light, temporarily blinding the black and blue turtles. Unfortunately for Armstrong, the pink one managed to shake off the disorienting effects of the grenade, in part due to its dark sunglasses lessening the brightness of the flash.

The pink Koopa tackled Armstrong and slammed him into the ground, winding him. He didn't stay down for long, however, activating the thrusters in his right boot to launch his attacker into the ceiling with a rocket-powered kick and rolling out of the way before it could fall back on him again. By this point, the other two had managed to recover from the flash grenade and were preparing to attack. Thinking quickly, Armstrong managed to lift the unconscious pink Koopa and tossed it at the black-shelled one with enough force to knock it back into a wall. That just left the hairy one, who went down with a suckerpunch to the face.

Armstrong took a moment to catch his breath before straightening up and pumping his fist in the air. "They don't call me Armstrong for nothing!"


Roshi was not a fighter. This was something that he knew all too well. He had grown up with stories of how his people had ventured across their island home facing perilous dangers and fighting countless enemies on a grand mission to return a lost baby to his home. His cousin, the plainly-named Yoshi, and even some of the others from their village would regularly go out on adventures with the late Mario and his friends. Roshi had even heard of a young hatchling who had become a champion fighter in a famous fighting arena in a far off land that Roshi himself would likely never see. Yoshis were warriors, yet somehow Roshi himself had simply been skipped over for that trait. He was slow, physically speaking, and not very strong. He wasn't the sharpest lightbulb in the toolbox, and he never thought he was as brave as the others around him. He ate less than half of what the other Yoshis his age did and yet gained twice the weight. He had been put down and discouraged by his peers his whole life and had, he was ashamed to admit, completely given up on himself.

But things had changed. He had friends now. Actual friends, not just people who were forced to hang out with him. He had traveled farther from home than he had ever thought he would be able to. He'd gone on adventures like he had always dreamed of. And most importantly of all, he finally had the positive affirmation that just because he couldn't be as strong or smart as he wanted, he was still good enough. He was who he was, and he could do what he could do, and that was all that mattered. And that was why he was finally able to work up the courage not to back down from his first real fight.

Motley Bossblob danced around wildly in his brightly-colored patchwork outfit, globs of dark goo swelling up from the floor around him. Each gooey ball seemed to have a pair of starry eyes that all fixated on Roshi, and soon they began inching towards him. Roshi braced himself, not knowing what to expect, and slowly approached the jester.

As Roshi reached his opponent, the globs all around suddenly began to shake violently before leaping into the air. Roshi panicked and fell over but to his surprise, the balls aimed at Motley instead of him, covering their creator in a mass of goo that formed into a giant version of himself. Roshi gulped as the giant goo clown looked down at him, before it grabbed him in its slimy hand and ran out the room.

Roshi struggled and squirmed in Motley's grip only to find it harder and harder to move. The goo construct bounded down an otherwise empty hallway and Roshi could only guess at where Motley planned on taking him. Roshi continued to fight his way out but was instead sucked further into the slimy mass until eventually his head was submerged in the unknown substance.

Roshi felt himself suffocating and soon lost the strength to struggle. Everything was dark and it felt to Roshi like he no longer had any chance of escape. He struggled to cling to the hope that one of his friends would come and rescue him but he knew that they were all busy with their own fights and likely hadn't even noticed that he was gone. All Roshi could do was cry, buried in goo. His mouth opened and some of the gunk slid into his mouth.

It tasted like licorice. Not Roshi's favorite flavor -that would be bananas- but it wasn't particularly bad. As far as he could tell, it wasn't poisonous, either. Roshi had a plan, now. He was a Yoshi, after all. He just had to eat his way out of the situation.

Roshi began chewing and shoving more of the dark goo into his mouth with his tongue until he finally emerged from what was left of the Motley construct's arm, finally able to breath again. He stopped to see what was happening. They were still in the same hallway, the door to the throne room still visible in the distance, and Motley was stumbling into a wall, clearly startled by Roshi's sudden attack. Roshi then dove back in, continuing to swallow more of Motley's goo until at last his tongue struck something solid in the center of its mass. This was his chance.

Roshi pulled Motley into his mouth, managing to cram the large koopa in there in his entirety. The rest of the goo shook and fell apart, no longer being able to hold its form on its own. Suddenly finding himself hanging in mid-air without any support, Roshi tried to stay airborne as long as he could with a flutter jump but quickly came crashing down into the floor like a brick. The force caused Roshi to involuntarily swallow and his eyes widened for a second as he realized what he had just done, before he found a giant white-and-yellow spotted egg forcibly ejected from… Roshi didn't want to think about where that egg just came out of. It was the first time that Roshi had laid an egg, despite it being one of his species' most well-known abilities, and he was at least glad that it didn't hurt as much as he had always assumed. The unexpected experience was, however, still mildly traumatizing and he could only wonder how the others of his kind could stand doing that so often.

Staring at the egg for a while, which was occasionally shifting around as Motley tried to break his way out, Roshi decided to just leave it there and run back to the others. He wasn't sure how long that egg shell would hold out, but he was confident that they wouldn't have to deal with Motley Bossblob again until after this was all sorted out.


Daisy was a princess. She always had been and she would remain as such until the day she took the Sarasaland throne as Queen. To most people, that indicated that she had a pampered childhood and a dainty physique. But a childhood full of self defense courses ensured that only one of those things was true. There was a reason Daisy had only ever been kidnapped once, by a literal alien invader, compared to how regular an occurrence it was for Peach. And to add to that, Daisy was still armed with her new favorite weapon, the old iron pipe she was now calling the Ghostslayer. Said pipe was now pretty beat up and bent in more places than she would like, but it would continue to serve her well until she had a chance to return home, where she would ensure that the old pipe would be placed in an ornate display case and she would commission her royal blacksmith to make a Ghostslayer II.

Opposite the princess were two of the Koopalings: Wendy O., the only girl of the group, and Lemmy, the smallest. Lemmy was rolling around on a big yellow ball, while Wendy twirled around a pair of large gold rings. This was going to be fun.

Wendy tossed one of the rings at Daisy as hard as she could. Daisy hit the ring out of the air like it was a baseball, managing to smack Lemmy straight in the face with it, knocking him off his ball. In turn, the ball was launched straight at Wendy, knocking her off her feet.

"Ow, hey!" Wendy yelled as she stood back up. "That was, like, so not fair."

"Oh, wow, I can see colors," Lemmy declared as he sat up. Daisy thought for a moment that the hit had sent him crosseyed, but then she remembered that he was always like that. "Wait, that's normal. Ooh, it's a haunted hat!"

"Gimme that!" Wendy grabbed the Ghostslayer and yanked it out of Daisy's hands while she was distracted by Lemmy's non-sequitur.

"Hey, give that back!" Daisy yelled at the koopa girl.

"No!"

Wendy tossed the old iron tube off to the side and Daisy reached out her arm as if to grab it despite the fact that it was well out of her reach. To her surprise, it worked. A large spectral arm shot out from her hand and grasped the Ghostslayer. It steamed a bit as it made contact with the iron, before retreating back into her arm as quickly as it had appeared.

"What?" Daisy stared at her hand blankly. "How did I… What?"

"Haunted hat! Haunted hat!" Lemmy clapped excitedly, jumping around on his ball again.

"What's going on?" Wendy fell flat on her rear, eyes focused just above Daisy's head. "Your crown, like, has a face."

"Huh?" Daisy instinctively looked up, even though she couldn't actually see her crown while she was wearing it.

"Oh, that's just me." Roger emerged from the crown, his flowers sticking out of his ghostly head like normal. "To be honest, I have no idea how you did that, either. But you're welcome anyway."

"Wait, does that mean I have ghost powers now?" Daisy asked as Roger retreated back into the crown, and her face spread into a massive grin. "Man, this day just keeps getting better and better!"

Holding up her free hand, Daisy wiggled her fingers around as a test, trying to will the ghost hand out. A translucent, blue-tinted hand with long, pointed fingers emerged around her own and seemed to match her movements exactly. Daisy thrust her fist out and, sure enough, the ghost arm stretched out from it, punching Wendy in the face and bowling her over.

"Cool." Daisy laughed. "I'm going to have fun with this."

"You should see if you can do my fire breath," Roger suggested.

Daisy inhaled deeply while thinking about how to do the fire trick. Her lungs suddenly grew icy cold and burned like crazy. She blew the air back out as quickly as she could and a ball of blue flames shot out with it, nearly hitting Lemmy who managed to jump over the freezing ghost fire.

"Ow, my lungs," Daisy rasped. "Not doing that again… I feel kind of numb."

"Well, it was worth a try," Roger said. "In retrospect, I suppose that it makes sense that your mortal body wouldn't be able to handle generating soul fire very well. But now we know, and knowing is half the battle."

"What's the other half?" Lemmy asked.

"Violence!" Daisy backhanded Lemmy's ball with her outstretched ghost arm, her strength beginning to return, and Lemmy face-planted into the floor. "Behold, I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds and Wrecker of your Stuff!"


Iggy and Larry pounced at their target in unison, slashing with their claws. Surely a young boy like Joey would go down easily, especially since he wasn't even armed. They quickly regretted their decision as they crashed into an invisible wall.

"Hah, you're going to have to try better than that." Joey lowered his hands as he deactivated his father's Field Knuckle. The armor may not have looked like much, resembling little more than plain green clothes, and yet it had the strength and durability of any metal armor. Even when not activated, it could still protect even his exposed arms and head. "Nothing can get past my Field Wall barriers."

"Oh, cool!" Larry proclaimed excitedly.

"Interesting, so I assume that the energy is produced from that generator mounted on your back, then carried along the yellow straps running down your arms and emitted from the metal caps on your gloves?" Iggy inquired, scratching his chin.

"Oh, yeah…" Joey wasn't used to his opponents taking such an interest in how the Field Knuckle worked. Usually they only cared about how they could get past it. "Something like that. It can also create magnetic fields and recently I've been experimenting with other kinds of energy."

"Neat." Larry nodded. "Can you do any tricks with it?"

"Um, yeah, I guess I've picked up a few neat moves." Joey said sheepishly.

"I'm also curious to see what you can do," Iggy said.

"Well, there's this one I've been working on but I haven't quite worked out how to do it properly yet. You see, there's this one bounty hunter I've met, though I think he's better known as a racer… Anyway he can control fire somehow and uses that when fighting bad guys. I'm not sure how he does it but I've worked out how to make Field Walls out of the superheated energy that Samus and Armstrong use for their Plasma Beams, and if I construct the Plasma Fields around my fist in a certain way, then… Falcon!" Joey drew his fist back as it erupted in flames. "Punch!"

The Plasma Field, as he called it, exploded around Joey's fist as he struck the air with a dramatic punch. Larry and Iggy both clapped at the impromptu pyrotechnic display.

"Oh, man, that was soooooooo cool!" Larry cheered.

"Not really." Joey scratched the back of his head uncomfortably. "Oh, you should see the Captain do it. He actually manages to form the fire into the shape of a bird with its wings spread out when he does it and it's just so cool! But I haven't quite been able to form my barriers into complex patterns like that yet so I can't quite pull it off. Plus, the punch itself is so heavily telegraphed that it's not really that useful in a fight."

"Show us another one!" Larry demanded excitedly.

"Okay, okay, one more." Joey's earlier nervousness had all but vanished. "Okay, so for this one I start out by creating two magnetic fields. A positive field around my shoes, and a negative field just off the ground. And then…"

Joey crouched down and jumped, using the fields he described to launch himself into the air. Then, once he reached the peak of his jump, he formed a spiraling field of purple Wave Beam energy around his outstretched leg.

"Giga Drill Kick!"

Joey rocketed back down to the ground with enough force to make a crater in the floor. Larry and Iggy clapped even harder.

"That one's an armor-piercing attack," Joey explained, dusting himself off even though the Field Knuckle ensured that his clothes didn't actually get dirty despite the force of the strike. "Probably even my best move right now."

"That was awesome!" Larry raised his arms up dramatically. "You were all like 'woosh' and then you turned your leg into a drill and you were like 'zoom' and you made a huge hole in Uncle Bowser's floor!"

"An impressive display, indeed," Iggy agreed. "I think I'm going to need to study just how that thing works to see if I can recreate the results. A tool like that would revolutionize… well, everything."

"Um, we should probably get back to the fight now," Joey pointed out, realizing how much time they had just wasted on his showing off.

"No thanks, I'm good," Larry replied.

Iggy nodded his head. "Yes, if it's all the same to you, I'd rather sit this one out as well. It's clear that we wouldn't stand any chance against you in direct combat like this, so fighting would just be a waste of time and result in the two of us getting hurt when we don't need to. Plus, it looks like the other fights are all wrapping up about now as well, so we might as well just let you go and help your friends take down the king."

"It's not like we were ever really expecting to win this, anyway." Larry shrugged. "Dark Land always loses in the end. No matter what we do, we're never a match for Mario. Even when he's gone, apparently."

"Oh, well then…" Joey wasn't really sure how to respond to that. "Thanks, I guess. And, um… I hope things turn out better for you in the future. I think I heard Samus and Ridley coming up with a plan for what to do after the fighting. I didn't catch any details but I know I trust Samus to come up with a solution to help everybody. Less sure about Ridley, though. Anyway, it's been fun! I hope we meet again someday, on better terms."

"Yeah, it was nice meeting you!" Larry waved as Joey turned to leave.

"Indubitably." Iggy nodded.


Samus sized up her opponents. One was a giant plant monster with sharp teeth and which was currently on fire, though the flames didn't seem to bother it much. The scan visor identified the monster as 'Petey Piranha', though as the flames died down its green body turned red and the leaves and petals remained frayed, with the visor revised its identification to 'Fiery Petey Piranha'. Other than the odd name, this felt like a standard fight for Samus. Her other opponent, on the other hand, was a turtle-like creature with a spiky green shell and a white bib with an angry mouth painted on. He was small compared to the others of its kind but still fairly big for a turtle, and was holding a comically oversized paint brush as a weapon. Not quite what she was used to but probably fairly normal for this quirky planet. The scan visor indicated that this was 'Bowser Jr.', King Bowser's son.

The fiery plant monster predictably launched a fireball at Samus, which she dodged with ease. Junior followed that up by painting on the floor with his brush, and another plant-like creature popped up from the paint, a Proto Piranha according to Samus' visor. Samus fired at the new arrival with her Ice Beam, freezing its gaping mouth open with a large chunk of ice. Petey did a twirling jump, creating two mini-cyclones. The fire-breathing plant ignited one of the cyclones while Bowser Jr. somehow managed to electrify the other with a dash of teal and yellow paint, and the two wind funnels arced along the ground towards Samus. She was good, but not good enough, accidentally jumping right in the path of the electric twister while trying to get out of the way of the other. It didn't do much, but it did give the Proto Piranha a chance to headbutt her in the helmet, shattering the ice propping its mouth open.

Outnumbered, Samus considered her options. The easier solution would be to charge up a Diffusion Missile to freeze all three opponents completely, but that would also put everyone else in the room on ice as well, which was a less than stellar option given how many of her own allies were nearby. Power Bombs were also out for similar reasons.

Before she had decided on her plan of attack, Fiery Petey Piranha sucked in a large breath of air and launched another fireball at her. Samus barely managed to dodge that one but it did give her an idea. She hit the Proto Piranha with an Ice Missile, which finished it off in a mini explosion of brown paint, then fired a warning shot at Bowser Jr. to keep him from attacking for a moment. When the fiery plant opened its mouth to prepare another projectile, Samus sprung into action by curling up into her Morph Ball form and jumping so that she was sucked in with the air. She then started laying bombs in Petey Piranha's mouth that started going off before it had a chance to fire its attack. Petey spit Samus back out as the last of her bombs went off, before collapsing in a heap. That just left Bowser Jr. as her last opponent standing.

"So, you must be some kind of prince or something, right?" Samus decided that this was the right time for some banter. "I don't recall if I've killed one of those before, so this will be a first."

"Wait, killed? No!" Bowser Jr. immediately started to panic. "No, please don't hurt me!"

"Relax, kid, it was just a joke," Samus immediately backpedaled. "No one's killing anyone today. But since you obviously don't want to get hurt, and I don't like the idea of beating up a child, why don't you just stand down?"

Junior took a deep breath and slapped his cheeks a couple times before responding. "No, I can't do that. As the prince of Darkland, it's my duty to defend our country against our enemies. I-I can't just l-let you go and hurt my daddy!"

"Hm, I like you," Samus nodded. "Your knees are shaking and you're starting to stutter, but you're still standing up to me. Good, you might actually make a reasonable leader one day. But I'm afraid that won't be today."

Samus fired the charged Ice Beam she had been building up during their brief conversation. Bowser Jr. tried to deflect it with his paintbrush but the blast passed right through it and froze the young prince solid, right where he stood. Fortunately for him, the Ice Beam used a specialized form of freezing technology meant for cryostasis, meaning that he wasn't killed on the spot as being flash frozen like that would normally do. Samus had no idea how that actually worked but she did know that he would be fine after a few hours. Probably still quite chilly, though. Especially if he was cold blooded like his reptilian features implied. But it wouldn't be anything that a night under a thick stack of blankets or a large sunlamp couldn't fix.

"Alright, who's next?" Samus looked around the room to check on how the rest of her allies were doing, just in time to see Ridley run out through the hole in the wall. Everyone else seemed to be wrapping up their fights or were out of sight, so she decided to follow him out into what would soon prove to be the final battle of this strange adventure they had been dragged into.


Author's Note: At last, we have reached the beginning of the end of the beginning! And once again I've broken the record for longest chapter that I've written so far. I've been waiting years to finally get this this part of the story and now we're finally at the final "World" of this adventure. Only a couple chapters left now. This chapter's mostly just a series of back-to-back fight scenes, which I'm not particularly fond of writing, but I still had some fun with this. I also tried to fit in some background for some of the less-developed characters who I didn't explore as much as I should have earlier in the story.

For those unaware, Armstrong Houston was a character from the Super Metroid comics hosted in Nintendo Power in the 90's. I have not read those comics, so my portrayal of him in this story is mostly original, based off of what I've read about him. I also had to change his backstory a bit to account for this series' version of the Metroid continuity being mostly based off of the games, meaning that Armstrong himself wasn't involved in the plot of Super Metroid. Hopefully I've done the character justice. Similarly, Joey was Samus' co-protagonist from the Samus & Joey manga from the early 2000's, which I have read a fan-translation of. The events of the manga's first five issues have happened in this story's continuity, though with a few changes that aren't really that important. The main differences being that those events happened after Fusion instead of after Super, and that Samus was an outlaw during the events (since I started writing this series back before Dread was announced and I, like many fans, assumed that the fallout of the events of Fusion would have lead to Samus being on run from the Federation).

I also have some potentially exciting news! I've decided to make a Discord server for talking about my stories. This is my first time making my own server (though I do have some experience modding in another), so this is a new experience for me and I'm curious to see what happens with it. Feel free if you have any questions about this story or any of my others, or if you want to remind me to actually work on writing so that I can get back into something resembling a consistent schedule, or if you just want to chat! You should be able to join by entering in the server invite bgGPhUaz.