In this chapter, we'll get to see who this king is.

If you've played Dragon Quest V, you probably already know who.

And I just got another favorite. Yay!

Maybe someday someone will give this fanfic a review.

But I'll accept what I get.

I could come up with more original Mario baddies. I don't really see the need to make original Dragon Quest monsters though. There already seems to be enough of them as it is.

Kudos to anyone who gets the chapter reference.

Chapter 50: Return of the King

Shifting-Floor Cave

Since the floor was constantly shifting, our heroes had to be careful not to fall into any pits.

Some Juggulars were in the cave.

It was weird how they juggled eyeballs.

But they had to be careful not to get hit by these eyeballs.

Sometimes, these eyeballs would fire beams.

So our heroes needed to watch out for that as well.

They resembled Moosifers a tad. But these demons wore clothing.

There were Black Dragons in the level.

These dragons were very dangerous.

It seemed appropriate since they were getting close to the sixth general. Which meant they were moderately late in their adventure.

Like many dragons, they had flame breath.

Though their flame breath was more potent than the dragons that they had faced before.

These dragons were also rather fast.

And their war cries could knock them off their feet. These dragons were very loud. Where were some earmuffs?

They could also fly, which made them more difficult to hit.

It was safe to say that the Dragonlord wasn't playing around anymore. Hence the decision to send strong dragon enemies after them.

Water could temporarily stop their fire breath, but they also had strong jaws. So this wasn't too helpful. Preventing them from hitting the whole party made fighting them easier though.

There were also Hellions in the tower as well.

They were related to Marquis de Leon.

Luckily, they were not as strong as he was.

But this did not mean the heroes should throw caution to the wind.

Some Dragsters were running around the castle as well.

These dragons were very fast.

So our heroes had to be quick to dodge their attacks, and quick to hit them.

They could sweep the heroes off their feet with their tails.

The boss of the level was King Korol.

And yes, he had a throne room. This throne was shaped like a crocodile's head. So it was a bit of a change of pace.

Donkey Kong was immediately reminded of King K. Rool. For one thing, his minions also had a reptilian theme.

Luckily, since he had experience fighting reptiles, this would give him an advantage.

However, King K. Rool was not a priest to his knowledge. Though he was a boxing champion. And a pirate captain. And a mad scientist. The list went on.

So perhaps King Korol wouldn't be too predictable.

For some reason King Korol could breathe ice.

It was unusual given that he was a reptile. Were they not cold-blooded?

Though to be fair, there were dragons that could breathe ice as well.

Jessica retaliated by launching a Kafrizzle.

But King Korol casted Kaboom.

"Mamamia!" exclaimed Wario.

That attack certainly packed a wallop.

Alistair decided he would try grabbing Korol's staff with his tongue.

He figured depriving him of his staff would restrict his ability to cast spells.

"Hey! That's mine!" exclaimed King Korol.

He yanked the staff in the other direction.

It looked like our heroes had a distraction.

So they would make the best of it.

Donkey Kong punched King Korol square in the face.

He lost several teeth.

Luckily, crocodiles could grow back their teeth very quickly.

They were like sharks in that aspect. Crocodiles were the more aggressive of the two though.

But the crocodile sank his teeth into DK in retaliation.

"Ooh!" exclaimed DK. That was a lot of teeth.

Alistair let go of the staff. His tongue was getting sore.

King Korol then summoned Heligators to aid him.

Our heroes had to take care not to get slammed.

Luckily, it turned out Heligators were vulnerable to poison.

So fighting dirty just might be the way to go.

And Wario could poison his enemies with his farts.

It was gross, but effective.

King Korol wondered why it was so hard to find good help these days.

Of course, the Dragonlord felt the same way after all the minions our heroes had defeated.

King Korol decided to whack DK on the head with a staff.

Luckily, he had developed a resistance to being whacked on the head by Cranky.

So he was able to pick up King Korol and throw him at a wall.

Jessica cast Kafrizzle again, but King Korol deflected it with a magic shield.

"Ha! I was prepared that time!" exclaimed the king.

But Wario shattered the magic shield with a hammer.

It was times like this Jessica was glad she had a well-balanced team.

King Korol groaned.

Donkey Kong then finished him with his bongos.

"Forgive me, Atlas!" exclaimed the king who was also a priest for whatever reason.

Perhaps Atlas could handle the heroes himself. But he was running out of minions. Meaning he was running out of options.

After defeating King Korol, our heroes approached the castle.

It was orange in color, like Atlas himself.

Now seemed like a good time to buy some new weapons and armor. They imagined that Atlas was a mighty opponent. And the foes that they had faced before were mighty themselves.

The mountain town had some surprisingly good gear in shock.

Atlas noted that as the vanquishers of his fellow generals they were going to be a challenge.

But that was alright, because he liked a challenge.

At Chucklehuck Woods…

Since their last visit, some new Bowser Baddies had decided to call the forest home.

It made things more challenging for our heroes since last time.

There were Bullies roaming the woods.

If they saw our heroes, they would charge.

If there was one thing a Bully was known for, it was being angry.

Since they had sharp horns, it was best for our heroes to avoid them if they could.

Luckily, they could make them crash.

One of the Bullies crashed and ended up with stars around his head.

The Bullies were very adaptable, as they could thrive in both hot and cold environments.

There were Boom Guys as well.

These Shy Guys were armed with Bullet Bill blasters.

It seemed they thought having portable Bullet Bill blasters would give them an advantage.

It turned out they were right. You wouldn't be able to dodge the Bullet Bill blaster by just moving away from it.

Sometimes, they could fire Bob-Ombs as well.

Hence the name Boom Guy.

There were also Sockops.

The Koopa Krew had managed to recruit them…by giving them socks.

It seemed the plants found them comfortable.

As their name implied, Sockops resembled socks.

These plants were not safe to jump on. Though they lacked spikes.

If the party did jump on them, they would end up being burned by their acid.

And they could potentially poison our heroes.

However, being plant enemies, these enemies were weak to fire.

And due to video game logic our heroes didn't accidentally burn the woods in the process. Hooray!

Luckily, the locals knew where the next Beanstar piece was.

They had found it on a statue.

But they wished that our heroes would help them with the Koopa Troop before they had it.

They were invading the forest, after all.

Our heroes nodded and got to work fighting the Koopa Troop.

Luckily, it seemed that there weren't any boss enemies in the area.

So their task was easier than usual.

What they did find were Scuttlebugs.

These spiders could use webbing to slow down our heroes.

This made them great for support for other Bowser Baddies. After all, it was much easier for the Bullies to hit a slowed down target.

And there were more Coconutters.

Since they were outdoors, they could summon rain to heal themselves.

This made them harder to deal with.

"Oh look! It's raining!" exclaimed a Wiggler.

Luckily, a wind spell could blow the clouds away.

Our heroes managed to take care of the Bowser minions without too much trouble.

"Alright, you can pass." nodded the Winkle elder. A deal was a deal.

But when our heroes went to get the Beanstar piece, they met a familiar face.

"Yes! I managed to find one of the pieces!" exclaimed Popple.

Now there were only three more to go.

"You again!" exclaimed Ruff.

Popple's eyes widened in surprise.

He had once again run into his enemies.

"Why do I keep running into you heroes?" questioned Popple. Couldn't he steal things in peace?

If he counted correctly, this was the third time this had happened.

Ashlynn shrugged. Maybe it was a small kingdom? They had ended up visiting the Chucklehuck Woods twice.

"Well, you're not stopping me from getting that Beanstar piece!" exclaimed the thief.

He was taking it and there was nothing that the heroes could do about it.

Or so he thought, anyways.

"I wonder how many times we're going to fight this guy." noted Ashlynn.

"I don't know." answered Alena. She heard that Bowser and Mario had been fighting for ages. So it was hard to say for sure.

There was also Donkey Kong, but the two seemed to have formed a truce.

Popple reached into his loot bag to see what he could use against the heroes.

Surely there had to be something he could use.

After all, it was a pretty big loot bag.

"Let's see…" spoke the thief.

He discovered some Poison Mushrooms.

A wide grin formed on his face.

"These will do nicely!" exclaimed Popple.

He threw Poison Mushrooms at our heroes.

Our heroes scrambled to avoid being poisoned.

But Ashlynn was hit by one.

"Oof!" exclaimed Ashlynn.

She ended up being poisoned. Her face turned green. It ironically made her look like a witch.

"It looks like it's time for me to take a Refreshing Herb." noted Ashlynn.

"It looks like it's time for ME to take a Refreshing Herb!" exclaimed Popple, swiping the Refreshing Herb.

"Hey!" exclaimed the mage.

Popple snickered.

Unfortunately, this meant Ashlynn took some damage from the poison.

Nera cast Squelch on Ashlynn.

Luckily, she had a spell that could be used to cure poison. So they didn't need to worry too much about him stealing their Refreshing Herbs.

However, that was not the only thing that he could steal.

Popple decided to take Nera's staff.

"Hey!" exclaimed Nera.

Popple laughed. He found it so ironic that he was about to use one of the hero's weapons against them.

"Now, how does this work?" questioned Popple.

He cast Crackle on our heroes.

"Brrr…" spoke Kiryl.

That was nothing short of cold.

"Hahahaha!" laughed Popple.

He could get used to using magic.

If there was one thing a magician and a thief had in common, it was that they both made things disappear.

But Alena grabbed it and handed it back to Nera.

"Dang it!" exclaimed the thief.

Alena then threw Popple into a tree.

Some Chuckola fruit dropped from it.

Popple reached into his bag again.

But Nera burned it.

"Oh no! My loot bag!" exclaimed Popple.

Ruff then punched him in the face, knocking him down.

"Fine! You can have the Beanstar piece!" exclaimed Popple.

He wouldn't be able to use it without a pure voice, anyway.

Though he wondered if there was a way to steal people's voices.

Unbeknownst to him, Fawful had found a way.

As it turned out, the last Beanstar piece was in Yoshi's Theater.

Perhaps when they were finished with their adventure they could watch some movies there.

Meanwhile, in Little Fungitown…

Some Yoshis from Yoshi Theater decided to pay the Little Fungitown residents a visit.

It was nice to know that they weren't the only ones that had decided to move to the Beanbean Kingdom.

The Toads were happy to see guests.

Guests that weren't part of the Koopa Troop, that is.

Suddenly, a Shroob saucer showed up.

It dropped an egg.

"What is that?" asked a Toad.

The saucer then left as soon as it came.

The Yoshis noted that it resembled a Yoshi egg.

But it was rather strange. It didn't look like a Yoshi egg that they had ever laid.

Normally, a Yoshi egg was white in color. Though you could tell what color the Yoshi would be by the color of the spots.

But this Yoshi egg was magenta in color. It also had lime green spots, but that wasn't unusual by comparison.

It was also bigger than a normal Yoshi egg. Much bigger.

They wondered what Yoshi had laid that particular egg.

"Has the egg been planted?" asked Commander Shroob.

"Yes, it has." confirmed the Shroob. In only a few hours the egg would hatch. When that happened, the RC Shroobers would be ready.

"Excellent! The invasion is going according to plan!" exclaimed the commander.

Except for the shutdown of the Vim Factory. Princess Shroob the Younger wasn't happy about that. She had yelled to the Dr. Shroobs about it.

Not having the Vim Factory meant it took longer to refuel the saucers, which hindered the invasion.

But aside from that incident, he felt like the Shroob army was doing well.

The Yoshis stared at the strange Yoshi egg.

They wondered what kind of Yoshi it would hatch into. They would just have to wait and see.

Maybe they could make it into a tourist attraction. It was a unique Yoshi egg, after all.

Unbeknownst to the Yoshis, this was a bad egg. A very bad egg.

And once that egg hatched, the entire town would be in danger. It would be in their best interest for the Yoshis and Toads to evacuate while they still had a chance.

Our Beanbean heroes should be worried as well, because eventually this alien Yoshi would be sent to take care of them once it had gathered enough strength.

Meanwhile, Bowser heard about the Shroob invasion.

They had attacked the Mushroom Kingdom in the past. But they had mysteriously left the kingdom just as soon as they appeared.

The Mushroom Kingdom did not know why that was.

Unfortunately, it seemed they were going to the Beanbean Kingdom next.

Perhaps he should fight against the Shroobs. In his mind, the Beanbean Kingdom was his to conquer, not theirs. He had been there first.

He heard that they had abducted citizens and had sucked the vim out of them. That could not be a pleasant experience.

Even he had to admit that what they were doing was a bit extreme for him. Normally when he went to the Mushroom Kingdom he only targeted the princess.

Though his minions had decided to kidnap seven Toads once. They thought it would be amusing if they kept telling Mario "Sorry, Mario! But the princess is in another castle!"

Putting aside the fact that what they were doing to the citizens was too evil for his tasted, there was also the fact that they had brainwashed two of his loyal Koopas.

But he wasn't sure if he could fight the heroes and the Shroobs simultaneously.

Luckily, he found out that the heroes were also fighting the Shroobs.

Perhaps he should consider making an alliance with the heroes.

He had done it with Mario before.

Even though the two of them had been enemies since forever.

A Koopa Troopa told him that a strange Yoshi egg had been discovered in Little Fungitown.

"An egg, you say?" asked Bowser.

He didn't rule out the possibility of it being the work of the Shroobs.

He decided he would send a minion of his to investigate further.

He chose Kamek.

Kamek knew more about Yoshis than Bowser himself did.

While Bowser had been to Yoshi's Island, it was when he was a baby. So he didn't remember the Yoshis too well.

He vaguely remembered becoming a giant. He had become a giant in the present, so maybe it did happen when he was a baby.

"You want me to babysit some Yoshis? I already babysat you when you were a baby." noted Kamek.

"The Shroobs may have designed a weapon that's a threat to us Koopas." spoke Bowser.

Given their impressive technology, they might be a bigger threat to the Koopa Troop than the heroes themselves.

"Right…" nodded Kamek.

He decided to visit Little Fungitown.

He doubted that he could persuade the locals to join his cause though.

Personally he wondered what would hatch from that egg.

Perhaps he didn't want to find out.

It was time to see what the Shroobs were up to, and if the Koopa Troop should get involved.

What did you think of this chapter? I figured this would be a good chapter title.

Anyways, it looks like Little Fungitown is in trouble.

Pretty soon our heroes are going to have to save the town.

But I figured I would give them some time to obtain the Beanstar pieces.

I imagine that our heroes will be facing that commander in the future.

I figured I would give him a bigger role than in Partners in Time.

Besides, I like his stache.