Chapter 1: Stolen Stars

"Ahem! Today… I'll tell you the story of the Star Festival."

[BGM: Luma - Super Mario Galaxy]

A book opens up, showing a picture of a comet soaring through space.

"Every one hundred years, a comet appears in the skies of the Mushroom World."

The page turns, showing a picture of a Toad and Toadette sitting down together watching the shooting stars.

"The comet was so large one year, it filled the skies and sent countless shooting stars raining down."

The page turns again, showing numerous toads carrying these shooting stars that fell from the sky.

"The Toads brought the shooting stars to the castle, where they became a great Power Star, and showered it's magic upon the castle, giving it the star power it has today."

The page turned again. This showed the Toads, who all gathered around the great Power Star.

"It should have been a very happy time for the citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom."

The page turned one last time, once again showing the comet.

"That was the night of the Star Festival, held once every hundred years to celebrate the comet."

[BGM end]

Then out of nowhere, a clawed hand ripped out the last page and shut the book.

"Gwahahahaha! LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!" a gruff voice shouted before throwing the book and the page into a nearby black hole, where he watched it get spaghettified into smithereens.

The villain who threw it was a large turtle/dragon-like monster that had a green shell with spikes, yellow skin, a green head with a peach-colored muzzle, red eyes, and a red tuft of hair. He wore black spiked cuffs around his arms and neck and a large green spiked shell on his back. He was King Mortimus "Bowser" Koopa I, and he was standing on one of his airships in the middle of space.

"What a dumb story. Not enough action, evil, or conquering," Bowser said disgustedly. "Luckily, I'm about to fix that."

[BGM: Attack of the Airships - Super Mario Galaxy]

Bowser took out his binoculars and saw the very comet mentioned in the book approaching.

"Bwahahahaha! At last! FIRE!" Bowser commanded, and his ships fired their cannons at the comet, which made it slow down and come to a stop. Confused screaming could be heard on the comet, making Bowser's sadistic grin grow even bigger.

"Aaaahhhhh!"
"What's going on?!"

"HELP!"

"Mama, I'm scared!"

The comet came to a stop, and it's spinning slowed down rapidly. When the spinning slowed down enough, its blue shield disappeared to reveal that it actually wasn't a comet at all! Or at least it didn't look like one. The "comet" appeared to be an observatory traveling through space with many domes representing rooms normally found on a space station, such as a Terrace, Fountain, Kitchen, Bedroom, Engine, and sixth and seventh ones in which Bowser couldn't tell what they were, but he didn't care. Various star creatures which reminded the evil king of the Star Spirits he terrorized a while back were floating around, panicking, and a mysterious human woman was on guard. One of the star creatures seemed to fall off the ship.

"So, the rumors were true! Then it must have the star power I need. Koopa Troop, it's time to get what we came here for!" Bowser announced as the airships surrounded the observatory.

"State your name, and your reason for attacking my home and family!" said the mysterious woman with a noticeable echo in her voice

"Glad you asked. I am Bowser, King of the Koopas!" the evil king introduced himself. "I heard rumors that this very comet is the origin of the star power I tried to steal from Peach's Castle a while back, and that said power could give me the power to rule not just my home planet, but the ENTIRE UNIVERSE!" he exclaimed with his typical koopa pride. "So, if you'd be so kind as to hand over the star power you have to your future emperor, I won't harm you or your, uh… 'children'."

"I will NEVER comply with malicious creature such as yourself!" the woman snapped. "Leave now, or suffer the consequences!"

The lady charged her magic wand, preparing to strike Bowser, however the wand suddenly ran out of power.

"What?" The woman said, confused. But she looked back, and her eyes widened in horror to see a large vacuum from Bowser's airship sucking up all of the Power Stars from the beacon in the center of the observatory

"NO! No, no, no, no, no, no!" she screamed as the beacon got smaller. The observatory also got progressively darker as it lost more and more of its star power, with Bowser laughing in enjoyment as it happened. Once the last of the Stars were sucked up, the observatory was plunged into complete darkness, came to a complete stop, and the beacon was so small and dim that life couldn't survive with it for long.

"Gwahahahaha! You see, this is what happens when you mess with the king of awesome! I hope you enjoy running around in the darkness, for it will be your only friend," Bowser gloated. He then walked over to his containment storage, where he put on a devilish grin of satisfaction when he saw just how many stars he had stolen.

Just then, a little kid approached him. He looked like a younger version of Bowser, with a tuft of red hair, beady eyes, gray cuffs without spikes, and a smaller green shell. He also wore a bib around his neck depicting a drawing of fanged teeth. He was Bowser's son.

"You got 'em all, papa?" the kid asked.

"You bet! Every last one. All 90 of 'em!" Bowser laughed in satisfaction when he imagined the possibilities he could achieve with this unlimited power.

"Can you believe this, Junior? With this amount of Star power, we can grant ourselves power beyond our wildest dreams! We'll rule the whole universe in no time!" Bowser described, leasing Junior into excitement.

"Yeah! I can't wait! This is gonna be so awesome!" Junior shouted with glee.

"It will be, my son! It will be."

Bowser let his ecstatic grin disappear for a moment as he gazed out through the vacuum of space to see his home planet, thinking of someone. Someone he's faced and lost to for years on end. This guy gave Bowser a love-hate relationship with the color red. On one hand, it represents his fiery and vile personality which made him feel so fearsome and strong over the years. It made all of his worries go away knowing he would always be the one to come on top. On the other hand, though, it represents the very being who had prevented his success over many years on end, and has overtime grew into Bowser's most loathed and despised adversary of all time. His smug smile came back, feeling more confident than usual.

"Mario… I would just LOVE to see you even try to stop me this time! It would be so amusing!"

A Goomba approached.

"Um, sir?"

"What do you want?"

"Unidentified object off the hind quarters."

Bowser took a look through his binoculars, Junior took some out as well. They saw a silhouette of a person headed towards them at high speeds, with a trail blazing behind them like a comet.

"Is that… Mario?" Junior asked looking confused.

Bowser examined the silhouette in as much detail as he could make out, and it wasn't much. The figure had a body shape sort of like Mario's, but they seemed a little taller than either him or... what was his name again? Weenie? Greenie? Linguini? Screw it. Let's just call him Green 'Stache. It... couldn't be him, could he...? Bowser just shrugged it off in annoyance.

"That can't be Mario! I saw him preparing for the Star Festival an hour ago. He couldn't have time to follow me! Whether that's Mario or not, he looks like trouble. Blast him away!" Bowser ordered.

The airship cannons now fired meteoroids instead of regular cannons thanks to the star power. The figure dodged a few of them with quick reflexes until one caught them off guard and sent them flying uncontrollably in the other direction.

"Good riddance! Alright troops, back to the Mushroom Kingdom! We got what we needed."

The troops set a course for the Mushroom Kingdom. As they left, Junior tauntingly waved at the woman.

"Thanks for the sparklies, Cyclops!" Junior taunted as the ships left for the Mushroom Kingdom.

[BGM end]

"No! Get back here you heartless monsters! You have no idea what you've just stolen!" the lady yelled out to them in a desperate state as they left. The observatory was now pitch black, and the star creatures were panicking.

"AAAH!" "Help!" "It's dark!" "Mama!" the star creatures cried. One of them approached the woman with concern.

"But… how will we get to the festival?"

The woman didn't know how to respond. Silence followed. After a minute, she said with sorrow in her voice and tears in her eyes "I don't know Polari… I just don't know…"

Fun Fact: The original game implied that Rosalina never directly encountered Bowser and that some unseen force pulled Star Bits and Power Stars away towards Bowser. With them, he discovered the power to cross the universe. While this worked for the game, I felt that for my particular angle of storytelling, it would be more dramatic if Bowser and Rosalina had a direct confrontation.