Interlude: Staff Meeting Redux
Hey there, it's me again, Bowser Jr.! And oh boy, this past week's been crazy. First there was that craziness at my Fearsome Fleet, where a bunch of my new multiversal "friends" suddenly turned against me, and Batman got squashed, and Cad Bane got his head blown off, and then that creepy giant dude fell from a portal right onto Megahammer and wrecked it. I just barely got away with my life! It was harrowing, I tell you!
Apparently all that multiverse madness got resolved somehow, but we have no witnesses to said resolution, so the "how" of it all is a big question mark right now.
And that was just the beginning.
A few days later, our operatives in the Starshine Beach Galaxy reported that Starship Mario crashed there in the morning, and then there was a big showdown between Mario and Lubba Waluigi and some superpowered Star Bunny and a football player and a bunch of witches and a unicorn and…I don't even remember what else. The rest of us are split pretty much 50/50 on whether this actually happened or if the Piantas in the Starshine Beach Galaxy somehow injected our operatives with a bunch of hallucinogens and they just imagined the whole thing. I believe them, just because their story isn't much stranger than what went down at the Fearsome Fleet.
And in the few days since then, there's been a whole bunch of other chaos coming at us left and right that I've only caught snippets of here and there. Something about a UFO sighting (not sure why that's big news given that we're literally in outer space), classified information being leaked, Mario getting healed with a Power Star, and…something to do with applesauce?
All I know is Dad's been going ballistic about all this.
Except the applesauce. Kamek's the only one I've heard complaining about that, and pretty much every time he does, Dad yells at him to shut up.
This morning when I got up, I saw that there were flyers all over Dad's Galaxy Generator. They read:
MANDATORY STAFF MEETING TODAY AT 2:00 P.M.!
I REPEAT, MANDATORY STAFF MEETING TODAY AT 2:00 P.M.!
TO DISCUSS THE STRING OF RECENT CRISES BEFALLING US!
ANYONE NOT CURRENTLY ON ASSIGNMENT TO ANOTHER GALAXY
WHO DOESN'T SHOW UP WILL BE LOCKED IN THE DUNGEON!
Huh. Maybe attending this would give me some answers about what the heck had been going on all week.
So that afternoon at 2:00 P.M., I took my seat in our staff meeting room. A few minutes later, Dad showed up. Smoke was billowing from his nostrils, and he looked even angrier than usual. He stood at the head of the table and slammed his hands down on it. "Greetings," he said. "Thank you, everyone, for being so kind as to attend this mandatory meeting. Now, I'll cut right to the chase. This week has sucked. Completely, totally, sucked. Now, I'm not an idiot. I've come to expect that, despite my best efforts, somehow, Mario will eventually find a way through all the levels I've created, or at the very least, enough of them to make it to the final battle with me. But this week has been even worse than usual. Observe." He reached for the table, then froze and looked up. "Who took the projector remote I put here?"
A Goomba a couple seats away from Bowser spat the remote onto the table.
Bowser gaped at the Goomba, the remote, then the Goomba again. "Why the flip was that thing in your mouth?"
"Because it's made of plastic, sir," the Goomba said. "And I love the taste of plastic."
Dad breathed a stream of fire at the Goomba, incinerating him.
Welp, I should've seen that coming. It's not a staff meeting until one of said staff (usually a Goomba, for some reason) gets killed.
Dad gingerly picked up the remote, wiped it off on Kamek's robe, and turned around. He pressed a button on it, and the projector in the ceiling turned on, illuminating the far wall. The words "THE PRESENT CRISES" were written in red against a white backdrop. Dad pressed a button again, and the image switched to a jumbled map of words and pictures connected by a bunch of lines. It was like one of those detective boards in cop shows, but somehow even messier.
Dad started explaining his way through the board. "So first we have the…incident earlier this week at the end of World 3, which I'm sure you've all head about. I hired Cad Bane to kill Mario, Junior and Kamek screwed around with the multiverse and recruited a bunch of other allies to kill Mario, and then…somehow it all fell apart at the seams. Junior here, our only surviving eyewitness, says that a bunch of other portals to alternate universes started opening, and some giant insects came out, and all of his multiversal allies backstabbed him and killed Cad Bane, and Mario got the Grand Star from Megahammer. Now, I'll let this one slide. I'm a glass half full kind of guy, and at the very least, this means I don't have to go even further into debt to pay Cad Bane the rest of his money for killing Mario and Luigi. Now, I have no idea how this situation got rectified, because halfway through the battle, Junior chickened out and escaped in his Robot Cockpit-"
I sighed.
"-and because of that, we don't know where these other multiversal visitors ended up. So, until we find proof to the contrary, we have to assume that these traitors are now all running amok around the universe together with Mario, aiding and abetting his campaign of destruction across the cosmos. Kamek!" He snapped his fingers.
Kamek waved his scepter, and a flash of blue light filled the room. When it faded, several sheets of paper were in front of each of us. I flipped through them. They were sketches, albeit pretty lousy ones, of Mario's alternate universe partners in crime.
Dad continued, "These are witness sketches drawn by Kamek-"
Well, that certainly explained why they were so low-quality.
"-of the traitors. As of now, consider them as hostile, dangerous, and valuable to me as a prisoner as you would Mario himself. Now, onto the next order of business. A few days after that fiasco, our operatives in the Starshine Beach Galaxy report that Starship Mario crashed there early in the morning, and a massive battle took place there with many, many participants." He walked over to the right side of the image and pointed to the upper righthand corner, where there was a long list of items I couldn't make out. "The witnesses seem to be able to agree on a few of them. Mario was definitely there, as was Yoshi, a Penguin, a bunch of Piantas, the Toad Brigade, Lubba, a superpowered Star Bunny, and for some reason, Waluigi."
A Koopa raised his hand.
"What?" Dad snapped.
"Uh, sir, that can't be Waluigi," the Koopa said. "Early last week, the Mushroom Kingdom Herald reported that Waluigi was arrested for trying to rob Toad Town Savings Bank. I'm sure if he'd broken out since then, the papers would've reported that too."
Dad slammed his fist on the table. "Well, then the Mushroom Kingdom Herald is obviously full of garbage! Because every single witness from the Starshine Beach Galaxy corroborated Waluigi being there during the battle! Backtalk me again and you'll end up like the Goomba that ate my remote!"
The Koopa retracted his head into his shell.
"No one's been able to definitively ID any of the other participants, but I've managed to piece together descriptions of some of them based on the multiple witnesses. There was definitely a purple unicorn, a sentient vampire stuffed animal, and some guy wearing a purple shirt with the number 8 on it - a lot of the witnesses think he was a football player. Now, as for the others, depending on which witness you ask, there were anywhere between one and seven witches there helping Mario as well. Everyone agrees they were witches, everyone agrees they were wearing dark-colored clothing, but beyond that none of the witnesses can agree on anything. Most of them only described said witches by comparing them to fictional characters, but among all the witnesses, no fictional character comparison was used more than once." He tapped the list at the top of the image. "A Cheep-Cheep said that the Wicked Witch of the West was there, and the unicorn and all the other supposed witches were actually just her flying monkeys. A Crabber said that two of them looked like Maleficent and Magica De Spell. Someone else mentioned Bellatrix Lestrange, someone else said Ursula, someone else said, and I quote, 'the second Ruby from Supernatural, the one nobody likes.' And an Urchin was pretty sure that one of them was someone named Enoby Darkness Dementia Raven Way. Does…does anyone here know who that is?"
I sure as heck didn't, and judging by the silence that filled the room, neither did anyone else.
"Alright, whatever," Dad said. "Now, it would seem that all these…folks were helping Mario out. Why Waluigi was, I have no idea, but everyone agrees he was there, so whatever. Consider all of them just as wanted as Mario and his multiversal allies from the Fearsome Fleet incident. This group apparently left with the superpowered Star Bunny through a portal or something, so they're probably not journeying around with Mario, but still, be wary.
"Onto the next problem. The day after that, Mario acquired one of the Power Stars from the Starshine Beach Galaxy, and that Luma that's traveling with him used the power from the Power Star to fully repair Starship Mario. I never really thought of Lumas as a serious threat before – I mean, look at how small they are – but if one of them can sap the energy from a Power Star and somehow get reality-warping powers from it, clearly we need to be more cautious around Lumas going forward. If any of you get the chance, try to capture one. Maybe then we can conduct some experiments to figure out how they harness Power Star energy like that and, you know, how to transfer those abilities to me."
"Isn't that basically what you already do when you use Grand Stars to turn huge?" an Octoomba asked.
"Yeah, but come on, if I really want to turn huge, I can just have Kamek cast a spell on me. Fixing an entire crashed spaceship is next-level magic, and gosh dang it, I want to know how to do that!"
Dad took a deep breath, then continued, "Now, onto our last two problems. The first one, which I feel is quite frankly the more serious of the two, is that, while Mario was collecting that Power Star from the Starshine Beach Galaxy, a defecting Lakitu reportedly approached him with a list of Koopa Troop secrets that he hoped would convince Mario he was really defecting. Well, Mario didn't buy it. He assumed the list was just a bunch of lies and threw it in the water."
"If Mario didn't believe it, then why's it a problem?" a Boo cackled.
"Because a Cheep-Cheep swimming nearby managed to recover the list before it became illegibly waterlogged and revealed the items on it, some of which were highly classified. Now, Mario already knows I hired Cad Bane to kill him, and I don't really care if he learns that he'll need 70 Power Stars to access the Galaxy Generator or that the Throwback Galaxy is just a rehash of the Whomp Fortress, but the other two pieces of information Lakitu knew about are very sensitive. Heck," he gestured to me, "one of them even Junior here doesn't know about."
Well, now I was about 95% certain that that one was the SUBNAUTICA Facility.
But wait, you ask, how could I know what Dad was talking about if he just said I didn't know about it?
*sly grin*
Snooping, how else?
They don't call me the Prince of Snooping for nothing.
Actually, that's not true. No one calls me the Prince of Snooping. But they should. Because I am. Or no, maybe they shouldn't. Because if people were calling me the Prince of Snooping, that would mean my snooping were common knowledge. And the reason I'm the Prince of Snooping is because no one knows about my snooping, so if people knew about my snooping, then I would no longer be deserving of the title "Prince of Snooping."
Anyway, yes, the SUBNAUTICA Facility. I only know about it because, a few months ago, when Dad first presented me with Gobblegut at the Fiery Flotilla, I asked him where Gobblegut came from, noting his uncanny resemblance to that course Dragon Driftway from last year's Mario Kart tournament. Dad suddenly got evasive and told me not to worry about that, then started remarking on the weather, which he only does when he's really, really trying to keep something secret.
Which only made me more determined to find out where Gobblegut had come from.
So after a few weeks' worth of snooping through Dad's computer system, I found records indicating that Gobblegut's trip to the Fiery Flotilla had started at a secret base in World 6 called the SUBNAUTICA Facility (which is actually an acronym for some ridiculously long, wordy name I can't remember). And after sone further snooping, I found out that the SUBNAUTICA Facility is basically a giant laboratory where Dad conducts experiments combining DNA from existing creatures to create new ones. Apparently Gobblegut was a genetic amalgamation of a Dragoneel, a Brolder, and a Para-Beetle.
There were records for a bunch of other creatures under "construction" at the facility too. One was for Fire Gobblegut, who I already knew existed and was waiting for Mario in the Battle Belt Galaxy. He was created from the same creatures as regular Gobblegut but with some DNA from Fiery Dino Piranha mixed in too. One of the facility's other denizens was an attempt to make a real-life Cthulhu from a Mega Blooper, a Swoop, a Mega Unagi, and a Kremling. And there was also this nightmare fuel monster called a Reaper Leviathan who was formed by splicing together DNA from Eely-Mouth, a Klamber, a Fish Bone, and a Cheep-Cheep. There were quite a few others too, but I don't remember what they were.
Dad continued his rant. "So would someone care to explain to me how this information not only leaked, but leaked to a lowly Lakitu?"
Once again, the entire room was silent.
"Oh come on, have all of you forgotten how to talk?"
Not a word from anyone.
"Well, if anyone can tip me in the right direction, they might see a little token of my gratitude in their next paycheck. Operative word little; I'm still on thin financial ice here, but still, something's better than nothing. So if anyone has nothing to say about that yet, this brings us to our last point." Dad tapped the bottom left corner of the image. "Yesterday, Mario was in the Chompworks Galaxy completing the first mission there when a giant UFO suddenly appeared near the Lava Chomp Planet. One of the galaxy's security cameras captured this image of it." He pressed a button on the remote, and the image changed to a view of the Lava Chomp Planet. A gigantic flying saucer was hovering over it, mostly silver with deep red borders and multiple rows of spikes around its perimeter.
"That looks like the UFO you abducted Peach's Castle with back in 2007," I said.
"That's what I thought at first, son, but then I realized I was mistaken." Dad traced the UFO's perimeter with the remote's laser pointer. "See these spikes here? There's only one flying saucer I know of with those spikes around the edges, and it just so happens to be the same size and color scheme as this one too. This right here is the Top-Mothership."
Judging by the way he said it, I got the sense that name was supposed to ring a bell.
"What's the Top-Mothership?" a Chomp barked.
Dad scoffed. "A big, fat waste of 50 million Koopa dollars is what it is. See, back in 2007, when I established my first galactic empire, my original plan was to go all-out with the Melty Molten Galaxy, since it was the final main galaxy before my Galaxy Reactor. I wanted two bosses there: Fiery Dino Piranha in the second mission, and Mario's rematch with Topmaniac in the third mission. In keeping with the whole 'going all-out' theme, I agreed to Topmaniac's request that he get his own flagship to fight Mario on, and ended up diverting about a quarter of the galaxy's budget to building the Top-Mothership. Unfortunately, the plans for the Melty Molten Galaxy quickly fell through because of a…miscommunication, if you will."
Kamek gave a dismayed squawk. "Please, sir, don't tell them, I'm begging you-"
"See, even though Fiery Dino Piranha was supposed to be fought in the second mission of the Melty Molten Galaxy, Fiery Dino Piranha thought he was going to be in the third mission because that's what someone," he turned and glared at Kamek, "promised him in the job offer."
Kamek gave an exasperated sigh. "Sir, I've told you, it was an accident. I thought 'Fiery Dino Piranha' was supposed to be the final mission. It's just…." He waved his hands about. "…the whole thing with the levels' production numbers not always matching up with the actual order they were gonna go in was throwing me off, and I got it mixed up." He turned to the rest of us. "I didn't do it on purpose!"
"So how did all this get resolved?" a Dry Bones clattered.
"By completely redesigning World 6, that's how," Bowser said. "See, Fiery Dino Piranha threatened to quit if I didn't make him the boss of the third mission because that's what he agreed to, and Topmaniac threatened to quit if I didn't make him the boss of the third mission because he thought it would be stupid for his rematch with Mario aboard his eight-figure spaceship to be anything but the galaxy's conclusion. Eventually we ironed out a compromise that moved Topmaniac to the final mission of the Dreadnought Galaxy and Fiery Dino Piranha to the final mission of the Melty Molten Galaxy. But then to get that worked out, we had to move the Undergrunt Gunner who was supposed to be the boss of the Dreadnought Galaxy somewhere else, and ended up just sticking him in the second mission of the Deep Dark Galaxy for no real reason, and also scrap together a new second mission for the Melty Molten Galaxy at the last second. Which is why 'Through the Meteor Storm' is just a hodgepodge of smashed-together odds and ends left over from making a bunch of other missions.
"But then the Top-Mothership started causing some weird electrical interference with the Dreadnought in the Dreadnought Galaxy that none of our technicians could figure out. So, much to Topmaniac's chagrin, we ended up having to mothball the Top-Mothership and instead settle for having his boss battle take place on basically a duplicate of the planet he fought Mario on in the Battlerock Galaxy. And then, of course, all of these pains ended up being for nothing in the end because Mario somehow managed to get enough Power Stars to head to the center of the universe without ever setting foot in World 6."
Well, that went on a bit longer than I thought it would. What can I say? Dad loves to rant. He often says that, aside from kidnapping Peach and fighting Mario, ranting is his one true passion in life.
Dad took a deep breath. "Anyway, yes, this is the Top-Mothership. I have no idea what it was doing in the Chompworks Galaxy, because I assumed it was destroyed when all of creation fell into that supermassive black hole eight years ago and the universe was rebooted. But apparently it was restored. So yesterday, after Mario landed on the Lava Chomp Planet, the Top-Mothership appeared and hovered directly over the planet for about five hours. At which time…." He clicked to the next slide, which showed an image of Mario and Captain Toad on the Starting Planet in the Chompworks Galaxy setting up a bunch of…fireworks, it looked like? "…Mario, who evidently got off the Lava Chomp Planet, beamed down to the Starting Planet with the Toad Brigade Captain whose name we can never learn!" Dad slammed his fist on the table. "The two of them then proceeded to set up a bunch of fireworks that they got from God knows where and aim them at the Top-Mothership. Which caused this to happen." He clicked to the next slide again. This one showed the Top-Mothership with a bunch of gaping, smoky holes all over its topside, lying half-submerged in the Lava Chomp Planet.
"I never knew fireworks could be so destructive," a Mandibug said.
I coulda told him that. After all, there was that time I equipped the Junior Clown Car with a fireworks cannon in its mouth and used it to blow open an armored truck transporting thousands of coins to Peach's Castle.
"In light of this," Dad said, "I've decided to send a task force of Li'l Cinders and Magmaarghs to the Chompworks Galaxy to investigate the ruins of the Top-Mothership and see if they can figure out how it returned and who was piloting it. There's no way it was Topmaniac, because if he was restored after the black hole incident too, I'm sure he would've made his way back to me sometime since then."
Suddenly, Dad's computer, which was set up at the head of the table, dinged.
Dad turned to it. "Kamek, what was that?"
Kamek teleported over to the computer and pulled up Dad's email, which all of us could see since the projector was just projecting whatever was on his screen. "Oh, you've got an email. Doesn't say who it's from. All it has is a subject that says, 'YOU'VE WON! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !' and an attachment. 'TOPM . exe.'" Then he gasped. "Sir, do you know what this is?"
"…A scam?" Dad growled.
"No, sir. There's only one thing in the universe that 'TOPM' could possibly stand for. Sir, I think this attachment is a copy of The Other Phantom Menace!"
"What the fudge is The Other Phantom Menace?"
I knew what it (allegedly) was, but I sure as heck wasn't gonna tell Dad. Given how enraged and even lower on patience that usual he clearly was after the litany of crises he'd been dealing with this past week, and that he'd already incinerated a Goomba for eating his remote, whoever provided the undeniably absurd explanation of what The Other Phantom Menace was was taking their life into their hands as far as I was concerned.
Kamek gasped. "Sir, you've never heard of The Other Phantom Menace? Well, surely you know Toad Wars: The Phantom Menace, right?"
"Yeah. It sucked. What of it?"
"Well, see, there's supposedly this much better alternate cut of it that was filmed but never released. There's been rumors swirling about it for years, but no one's ever been able to prove that it exists. But this…this has gotta be it. The Other Phantom Menace! We've finally got a copy of it!"
Dad stared at Kamek for several seconds. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! This email isn't some dumb alternate cut of The Phantom Menace, it's a scam! Look at it, it's got practically every hallmark of a scam written all over it. No sender, a subject line in all caps with an ungodly number of exclamation points after it claiming I won some contest I never entered, and the body of the email is just an attachment. This is the most textbook scam I've ever seen!"
"B-but sir, what else could 'TOPM' possibly stand for besides The Other Phantom Menace?"
"I don't flipping know! 'Totally Obvious Pile of Manure,' maybe? Because that's all this is – a pile of manure! Wait, what are you – Kamek, don't you dare open that attachment!"
Kamek was moving the cursor towards the "TOPM . exe" file. "I'm sorry, sir, but it's been a dream of mine for years to see The Other Phantom Menace, and now it's right here."
"Kamek, if you open that, I'm gonna-"
Kamek clicked on the file, and the image being projected on the wall immediately went dark.
Well, even I could've told you that was gonna happen.
Dad stomped over to Kamek and smacked him upside the head. "Nice going, idiot. Now my computer, with all the sensitive information on it about my evil plans, is probably being held ransom by some stupid hacker Toad for, like, two trillion Koopa dollars." He snapped his fingers. "Damn it, that's gotta be what the 'T' in 'TOPM' stands for: 'Toad'! Toad something something Malware, I bet my bottom dollar."
"Maybe the 'P' stands for 'Postal,'" a Pumpkinhead Goomba said.
"What?" Dad snapped.
"Yeah. Postal. You know, since it got sent through email, and email is like, digital postal mail."
Dad's jaw hung open slightly. "That's the second-dumbest thing I've ever heard, right after that spiel Kamek just gave about his fake movie. And take that pumpkin helmet off, it look stupid."
"But sir, you're the one who told me to wear this mask. You said it would make me look spooky."
"Well, now I say it makes you look stupid, so take it off!"
The Pumpkinhead Goomba sighed and shrugged off his helmet.
Suddenly, two angular red triangles appeared in the black image on the wall. Everyone jumped, even Dad.
"Oh my gosh, it's happening!" Kamek said. "This must be the beginning of the movie. The rumors said that this cut has an alternate design for Darth Maul. Maybe these are his eyes-"
"SHUT UP!" Dad and about half the others yelled at him.
Those triangles did look familiar, though. The shape, and the angles….
"HELLO, BOWSER," a deep voice boomed from Dad's computer. "IT'S BEEN SOME TIME."
"Whoever you are, you can shut off the pathetic voice modulator," Dad said. "I know you're really just some squeaky, pre-pubescent-voiced Toad trying to sound intimidating!"
"YOU CERTAINLY HAVEN'T CHANGED ONE BIT. BUT I DON'T BLAME YOU FOR NOT RECOGNIZING ME. IN ALL OUR PREVIOUS INTERACTIONS, I DID NOT POSSESS A VOICE OF MY OWN; WE WERE ONLY ABLE TO COMMUNICATE BY SENDING MESSAGES THROUGH MY DIGITAL INTERFACE. BUT IT IS I, YOUR ONCE AND FUTURE TECHNOLOGICAL ALLY: TOPMANIAC!"
That's where I'd seen those triangles before: they were the same shape as Topmaniac's eyes.
"Wh-wh-what?" Dad spluttered. "How? Where have you been these past eight years?"
"TRAPPED AS A DISEMBODIED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WITHIN THE TOP-MOTHERSHIP'S SYSTEMS. AND ALSO AS A COMPUTER VIRUS ON MARIO'S LAPTOP, BUT THAT IS IRRELEVANT."
"Wait, so that was you in the Chompworks Galaxy?
"INDEED IT WAS. I TRIED TO DESTROY MARIO MYSELF, BUT I FAILED ONCE AGAIN. SO I HAVE COME TO YOU, BOWSER, TO PROPOSE THAT WE ALLY ONCE MORE. I HAVE HAD EIGHT YEARS TO PLAN MY REVENGE AGAINST MARIO. SURELY, WE CANNOT LOSE THIS TIME."
"Uh, but he literally just beat you again."
"ONLY BECAUSE OF THE INCONCEIVABLE FACTOR OF HIS LUMA GAINING SUPERPOWERS AND BLASTING ME INTO THE LAVA. BEFORE THAT HAPPENED, I HAD MARIO ON THE ROPES!"
Dad gave a haughty laugh. "Ha. I could've told you that his Luma has superpowers now."
"YOU SEE, THEN, WHY IT WOULD BE MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL FOR US TO JOIN FORCES AGAIN. YOU HAVE INFORMATION ABOUT RECENT DEVELOPMENTS CONCERNING MARIO. I HAVE EIGHT YEARS' WORTH OF HYPOTHETICAL PERMUTATIONS ON HOW TO DEFEAT HIM, AND FIVE YEARS' WORTH OF HIS COMPUTER ACTIVITY THAT HAS PROVIDED ME VALUABLE INSIGHT INTO HIS PSYCHE. I AM CERTAIN THAT, IF WE JOIN THE KNOWLEDGE WE POSSESS, THIS TIME WE SHALL BE TRIUMPHANT!"
A/N: So…I was originally planning on holding out on some of the stuff I revealed in this interlude until the third anniversary special chapter this August, but then just spur-of-the-moment decided to put some of it here instead. Some of this will be pretty important for the upcoming story arcs I have planned…remember the SUBNAUTICA Facility in particular. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapters!
Next up: "Sorbetti's Chilly Reception"!