A/N: And finally, another Bowser Jr. interlude. This will be the last one that leads up to the big crossover at the end of World 3. Enjoy!

Interlude: The Beginning of the End of Mario

Hey everyone, it's your favorite Koopa here, Bowser Jr., recounting his further mischievous escapades!

So after the Fiery Flotilla was destroyed and we recovered Jake from its wreckage, Kamek teleported all of us back to Dad's Galaxy Generator. I never get tired of that place. It's probably the coolest final base Dad's ever created, even better than his castle or Galaxy Reactor. The whole thing takes place inside a gigantic planet shaped like his head, with these huge, foggy pathways leading throughout it. The only planets Mario would visit if he ever makes his way here are in the front of the head, right behind the eyes. Farther back, down a really long hallway, are our living quarters and meeting rooms and a bunch of other stuff. It's pretty cool; then again, I'm pretty sure any home base that's over 100 million cubic feet is gonna be.

And because of all that empty space, I figured it would be as good a place as any to have my new friends stay until we'd have to go fight Mario. And maybe even after that. I don't really have too many friends given that most of society despises me. All I have are my siblings, but most of the time we're fighting over one thing or another.

That night, Dad arrived back at the Galaxy Generator. "Junior, are you here?" he called. "I'm home."

Me and the others were currently watching KNN (Koopa News Network) in Living Room #71. I got up and opened the doors. "Yeah, Dad, I'm in here. Did your recruitment mission go well?" Kamek and I had already agreed we'd hold off as long as possible on telling Dad what had happened to the Fiery Flotilla. Somehow that ended up being one of the most expensive galaxies Dad created, despite how small it was, and I anticipated he would be rather furious to learn it had been destroyed.

Dad came into sight at the end of the hall and approached the living room, followed by some blue, humanoid creature with red eyes and a cowboy hat. "Yes it did. Junior, Cad Bane. Cad Bane, my son, Prince Bowser Koopa Junior."

Bane tipped his hat. "How do you do?"

"Pretty good." So this was the guy Dad went to hire. He sure looked pretty formidable. Heck, he could probably scare that coward Luigi to death just by saying "Boo" to him.

"So, how did your mission go?" Dad asked. "Did you find the Murk?"

"No, but I found us some new friends too." I gestured to the living room, where everyone was sitting on our giant, U-shaped couch.

"Who the heck are they? Where did they come from? I hope you're not planning to keep them as pets or anything, because the last thing I need right now is more expenses. Hiring Bane turned out to be a bit more costly than I thought it would be."

"What? No, no, they're gonna help us kill Mario too."

"Are you Bowser?" Harley asked. "Junior's talked about you a lot. Harley Quinn. Pleased to meetcha."

"Yes, I'm Bowser. Again, where the hell did you get all of them from?"

Kamek appeared in the hall next to us. "Welcome back, sir. Is this Cad Bane? I'm Kamek. How do you do? I just want to say, thank you so much for killing Jay Gatshroom. That guy was such a pain in the butt. So annoying. I think I might be your new biggest fan-"

"It was the job," Bane said. "I get a target, I take them out, I move on. Nothing more to it."

"Stop fanboying over him, Kamek," Dad said. "At risk of repeating myself, Junior, where the heck did all these people come from?"

"That was kinda my fault, sir," Kamek said. "I tried casting a spell to crack open the multiverse and summon the Murk, but the spell went awry and we got these eight instead. That's Shaggy, and that's Bugs Bunny, and Batman, and Harley, and Arya Stark, and Wonder Woman, and Jake, and Tom."

"Everyone knows the multiverse is just a big load of hooey," Dad said.

"Well, wherever they came from, they're here now, and overall I think they could be pretty helpful at stopping Mario," I added.

"That's what I hired Bane for."

"Well, these could be, like, a backup plan or something, if Mario somehow gets away from Bane."

"I never lose my target," Bane said. "Well, I mean, I did lose Omega that one time, but that was different…. And I'd already captured her too, she just escaped."

"Well, you won't have to worry about that, because I don't care about Mario and Luigi being brought to me alive," Dad said.

"Will do; I'll get right to it," Bane said. "Do you have any idea where they are right now?"

"Be right back." Dad used his Grand Star power to vanish, then reappeared again with a tablet. "The invisible drone we have tracking Mario shows that he's currently in orbit of the Haunty Halls Galaxy in World 3. And as far as I know, Luigi's back on the Mushroom Planet in the Ball Cock Galaxy, probably going about his ho-hum daily life, or cowering in fear in some haunted mansion, or maybe even bedding Daisy, who knows?"

"Wait, so you can actually travel between galaxies?" Bane shook his head. "I'll start with the Haunty Halls Galaxy. Do you have any spaceships I can borrow?"

"Not at the moment, no." Dad then turned on Kamek and snapped, "What are you doing just loitering around here? You heard the man; go magic him up a spaceship or something!"

"Yes, sir," Kamek borderline whimpered before teleporting away.

I started, "If Mario does somehow get away from Bane-"

"He won't," the bounty hunter insisted.

"-then I'll have our eight new allies ready to crush Mario at the Fearsome Fleet. Between them and Megahammer, that plumber won't stand a chance."

I loved Megahammer. I couldn't wait to try him out in battle.

Dad shrugged. "Can't hurt to have a backup plan, I guess. You're sure they stand a chance against him, though? They look kinda…plucky. I don't usually bet on plucky."

"I never rule out plucky," Junior said. "Just look at how many times those plucky plumbers have beaten us."

"True. Alright, but if these eight are sticking around, I'm not reminding you to feed them or anything. They're your responsibility, got it?"

"I told you, they're not pets." Although, granted, one was a cat, one was a dog, and one was a rabbit. Maybe I could see where the "pets" thing was coming from.

The following morning, our new allies joined me, Dad, and Kamek for breakfast. I poured a bowl of Chomp kibble each for Tom and Jake, and gave Bugs a few carrots. Batman and Wonder Woman each had a bowl of cereal (along with Bane, who was disappointed we didn't have blue-colored milk on hand), Harley made an egg sandwich, and Arya cooked a few Scaredy Rats she said she'd found running around the Galaxy Generator overnight.

"So how's my spaceship coming?" Bane asked Kamek as we all sat around the breakfast table.

"I'm still working on it," Kamek replied. "I'm building it with pieces from some scrapped prototypes for Junior's Robot Cockpit, but none of the prototypes actually had thrusters attached to them, so building your ship is taking a while."

"Is Mario still in this Haunty Halls Galaxy?"

Dad huffed. "No, but now I have no way of knowing where he is going forward. See, this morning he headed to another galaxy in World 3 called the Rolling Masterpiece Galaxy, but then the idiot flipped his spaceship upside-down to get this thing called a Star Ball out of it, but then the Star Ball hit the drone when it fell and broke it. So now we'll have no way of knowing where he is."

And he only had three more Power Stars to get before reaching my Fearsome Fleet. I should probably head there soon to make sure I'm definitely there when Mario shows up.

"Your galaxies have weird names," Bane remarked.

Dad's tablet suddenly beeped. "What is it?" I asked.

Dad picked it up and groaned. "Not again! The Whomps in the Throwback Galaxy are threatening to unionize if I don't give them another pay raise. Excuse me, everyone, I have to go deal with this." He got up from his chair and vanished as he teleported away.

"So how did the Joker get here?" Batman asked.

"What?" I replied.

"The Joker. You said all our greatest enemies have teamed up with this Mario, so how did the Joker get here?"

Oh. Right. I did say that, didn't I? "Well, uh, from what we can tell, Mario somehow got his hands on technology or magic or something to jump across the multiverse, and he…summoned all of your foes to help further his own evil plans."

"And what about the Night King?" Arya asked between bites of Scaredy Rat. "I killed him."

"Well, uh, you know how it is…."

She leaned towards me and spread her arms in a "Huh?" gesture.

"You know, how no one's ever really dead. There's always some sort of resurrection hijinks going on."

"Yeah, like how Jon was killed and then resurrected," Harley said, thankfully saving me from that desperate attempt to make up a believable story. "Or even your mother – wait, no, that was only in the books. Never mind."

I took a leap of faith and agreed with her. "Exactly. Mario summoned them from across the multiverse, resurrected them, whatever. And all of them, they're here, now. And we need to stop them before they take over this whole universe!"

"The Night King is actually working with these villains?" Arya asked. "Or did he kill them and turn them into wights or something?"

I had no idea what the hell a wight was. "Uh, yes, yes, he turned them all into wights. The Joker, the, uh, I can't remember the name of your nemesis." I gestured to Tom. "Whatever, yes, point is, the Night King turned them into wights, except for Mario. See, Mario is actually controlling all of them, even the Night King. If we take down Mario, maybe all of the others will be defeated too. I think the magic he used to resurrect them is somehow linked to his own lifeforce, so if he dies, they all die."

I couldn't believe they were actually buying this.

"And you said all of them are headed towards that hideout of yours?" Harley asked.

"Well, I think so. That's what it sounds like based on the secret intel we collected. You think you're…up to the task?"

Everyone gave some sort of affirmative.

"Alright," I said. "Bane, once Kamek gets that spaceship ready, I'm assuming you'll be heading after Mario?"

He nodded.

I continued, "The rest of you, after breakfast, we're heading back to my Fearsome Fleet. We'll get our game plan together for what to do when Mario and the others attack, if Mario somehow gets away from Bane."

Really, when just Mario attacks.

A/N: Whether it seems like it or not with all the craziness of this fanfic, I have actually been keeping a timeline of what's happened on what days so far in this story. For a while, the Bowser Jr. multiverse-related interludes were actually set several days ahead of the regular chapters I posted alongside them, but now, as you can probably tell based on this interlude, they're taking place more or less concurrently. And (SPOILERS) in the next batch of chapters I post (probably in early February), after Mario rescues Bartholomew from the clutches of the Chimp, he'll be heading to the Fearsome Fleet.

Let the countdown to the big multiversal confrontation begin….

Next up: "Search for the Toad Brigade Captain," "Bowser Jr.'s Mighty Megahammer," and more multiversal madness!