3Darklands Royal Palace, Sixteen years before the events of the First Super Mario Bros.
Bowser had been on the throne for five years so far. He had consolidated power into his hands and united his realm with his great warp pipe network, which was on schedule to be completed within the month.
The fact that he essentially completed the project in only five years was due to the extreme level of control of the Darklands government his subjects had invested in him. He had been centrally coordinating the massive project from the beginning.
The news seldom reported on the actions of Darklands' elected president who had essentially been forgotten.
Bowser had the bulk of real political power in the country. But a question had been gnawing at him ever since he took the throw—what was all that power for?
He'd started down this path with King K. Rool's guidance at his mother's funeral.
He had rededicated himself to it when his brother was assassinated.
It had been to keep his family safe that he'd sought absolute power, but just what family did he have left?
Of course there was Kamek, whom he regarded more as a father than Morton ever was. Bowser would do anything to keep Kamek safe, and every in Darklands knew their beloved king was fond of the bumbling wizard.
Bowser also had seven bastards by various female Koopas, but he rarely saw them except for paying their mothers hush-coins to keep them out of the spotlight. They weren't really family.
Bowser supposed that he'd swallowed his hostility toward his step-mother, Kamek's sister, Kammy Koopa—she had been essentially to his usurpation of his father after all, but even if he wasn't hostile to her, he wasn't exactly warm to her either.
The only other being in the whole Mushroom World that Bowser felt was sort of family was his Kremling counterpart, King K. Rool.
It had been K. Rool who'd set Bowser on this path and had been his coach all the way through it.
However, as a King himself, K. Rool did not need Bowser's protection.
K. Rool was more popular with his subjects than ever after activating the geothermal vents on the sunken islands of Kremlantis and Krematoa and raising them back to the surface. K. Rool was now practically being worshiped by his subjects/comrades as a living god, so he needed no help from Bowser.
So, who was there for Bowser to protect...apart from Kamek, obviously?
Bowser felt lonely at the top. He couldn't climb down or Kamek wouldn't be protected—but Kamek alone was not enough. The daily phone calls with K. Rool were not enough.
The only other options Bowser had were Kammy and his bastard Koopalings.
He refused to get any closer to Kammy than was necessary, and his kids—
He did need an heir...but so many...by so many different female Koopas...
Bowser plopped himself down on his throne and sighed.
Tomorrow was when the final sections of pipelines would be completed in the predominately Goomba city of Mushburg. As a king for all Darklanders, Bowser needed to show up in person and would do so.
Bowser' cellphone vibrated under his shell, and he took it out.
"King Bowser of Darklands," he said.
"For how much longer?" K. Rool's voice asked.
Bowser knitted his eyebrows in confusion.
"What do you mean, sir?"
"I mean your direct control of the economy ends in a month when the last link in the pipeline is constructed. The senate will want to put you back in your constitutional box."
Why did K. Rool care, Bowser asked himself.
"So?" The King of Darklands asked.
Bowser heard an audible slap, like K. Rool's palm against his snout—the Kremling equivalent of a palm to the forehead.
"Think, Bowser," The Kremling King said, "Why did you take this job in the first place?"
Memories of his mother and brother in their caskets flooded back to Bowser, enraging him.
However...
He only had Kamek left.
But family was family, no matter how small.
"To protect my family!" Bowser said defiantly.
His defiance was not directed at K. Rool, but at his own apathy.
"Thank you, sir," Bowser said. "I still have to keep Kamek safe."
"And you will," K. Rool said, "and you know how."
This statement confused Bowser.
"How?"
"Think back to your first speech," K. Rool said gently, "when you united the rival protestors outside the citadel."
Bowser remembered that day, but the details of the speech had left him.
"What was the state of interspecies relations in Darklands at the time?" K. Rool ventured a suggestion.
"Oh," Bowser said, "they hated each other, and I appealed to our common history as Darklanders."
"But that anger—" K. Rool started.
"—Has to go somewhere," Bowser finished.
"There are majority Koopa and Goomba settlements in the Mushroom Kingdom which I promised to bring under Darklands control!" Bowser yelled in excitement.
"I knew my apprentice was still in there somewhere," K. Rool said, "you just needed a little prodding."
"But it'll take time to build up our resources for a war," Bowser said.
"So? You have a month to find someone with ties to the Mushroom Kingdom to stage a fake assassination attempt on you," K. Rool said.
Bowser smiled toothily, "I know just what to do."
"Then I'll leave you to it."
Exchanging good-byes with K. Rool, Bowser put his cell phone back in his shell and exited his throne room through its massive red doors.
Two Terrorpin guards stood outside.
Bowser looked to the one on the left.
"Norbert, you're from Koopa village in the Mushroom Kingdom, right?" The king asked the guard.
"I was born there and have family there, sir," the guard replied.
"But your loyalty is to Darklands?" Bowser narrowed his eyes and smiled.
"Absolutely, sir!"
"And what if I needed you to pretend your loyalty was elsewhere?"
Norbert froze, but quickly responded, "I'll do whatever you say, sir!"
"Even if it cost your job and, for a short time, your freedom?"
Norbert saluted and Bowser smiled.
Mushburg, Darklands, Southeastern Province
Bowser stood on Podium at the entrance to the city on the central road.
To his right, a warp pipe was connected to the central hub just outside Dark City: the last link of the chain.
Bowser smiled at the crowd that had come to see his speech.
It was overwhelmingly Goomba, as this province, which bordered the Mushroom Kingdom, was over ninety percent Goomba in the rural areas. The rural areas made up most of the province, as they did in the neighboring province in the Mushroom Kingdom—also over ninety percent Goomba.
Koopas, Bob-ombs, Shy Guys, Boos, and other species were more common in the cities.
Bowser continued smiling as the Goomba technician exited the pipe to report that he had just been in Dark City.
At first Bowser clapped along with the crowd—the armless Goombas clicking their heels—but as the cheers grew louder, Bowser gently lowered his hands several times in an unmistakable motion that said, "Calm down." He kept the smile plastered on his face.
"My loyal subjects and fellow Darklanders, our kingdom is now connected—each part to all the others—from the Bob-omb mines of the northwest to the Goomba farms of the southeast—and everybody else in between."
More cheers erupted.
"Travel will be easier," Bowser said, "and through this travel we can all appreciate the tapestry of the many ways of life making up our beloved country. This broadening of our perspective will help us to see what it means to be a Darklander from many perspectives and help end the animosity between the species, classes, and regions. Now that we are united, we have truly made Darklands great again!"
Cheers erupted from the crowd when Norbert, standing next to Bowser, shouted, "And what are you going to do with this united Darklands?"
Bowser faced Norbert and fumbled with his words for a minute.
"We can improve transportation, build a national consciousness that includes everyone..."
"Sounds like your building a unified efficient army," Norbert interrupted, "And the only place you can aim it is the Mushroom Kingdom—where I hatched!"
"That's ridiculous," Bowser scoffed.
"I was sent here by King Toadley to get close to the Royal family and help keep your country divided!"
Everyone stared at Norbert as he said, "The only way for Darklands to be great is for the Mushroom Kingdom to fall, and I will not allow that!"
He jabbed his guard's spear at Bowser, but the Koopa King turned and the point broke on one of his spikes.
Norbert stammered and stumbled back a few steps.
"Seize him!" Bowser said to the remaining Terrorpin guard who started to converge on Norbert, and Bowser turned away.
"King Toadley was behind all of it you know!" Norbert shouted as Bowser spun to see the other Terrorpins force Norbert to his knees and point their spears at his neck.
"Playing all sides when there was division in Darklands! He killed your mother and brother!"
It was a lie of course—one crafted by Bowser himself, but the king knew he had to look like he believed it.
Firey eyes, a thud of his tail into the podium, and a punch to Norbert's chin did the trick.
The Terrorpin guard whom everyone believed to be a traitor fell backward, banging the back his head against his own helmet and losing consciousness.
The audience was silent, still processing Norbert's shocking revelation that the Mushroom Kingdom had been behind both the tragedies that had befallen the royal family in the last fourteen years and the political discontent between Darkland's species for the last twenty.
Bowser walked back up to the podium and spoke through the microphone.
He suddenly jerked a pointed finger in the direction of the warp pipe, eyes blazing.
"Look at what Darklands can do when it comes together!" His tone was not that of an uplifting unifier but of a general marshalling his soldiers. "See what great things we can do!"
The crowd cheered, chanting Bowser's name over and over.
Bowser ignored the cheers and just as suddenly jerked a finger at the unconscious Norbert.
"And look at those who fear our greatness—the ones who want us divided!"
The crowd cheered "Bowser! Bowser! Bowser!" again, but the king ignored them and spoke louder.
"We have just learned today that our division was not of our making! It was our enemies in the Mushroom Kingdom! They turned us against each other and killed my family!" Bowser's voice became increasingly angry.
"Well, they're not going to get away with it! Do you hear me, Toadley!? Do you hear me Peach?!" Bowser referenced the Mushroom King's adopted daughter before pumping his clenched fist in the air, prompting everyone in the audience that had arms to do the same.
The chanting of the king's name grew louder, more hypnotic, and more energetically crazed—until a feminine voice, almost drowned out by the cheers spoke.
"King Bowser?"
Bowser heard the voice and tried to locate her. He found standing to right of the main crowd, on his left.
Bowser examined her from head-to-toe claw and liked what he saw: a slenderly built Dragon Koopa with a spiked orange shell and flowing brown hair. He was about to label her as gorgeous when he noticed the mic in her claws.
Oh, Stars...a reporter, Bowser thought, feeling his fantasy end.
Well maybe this could work, Bowser's own second thoughts shot back at him. You've never had a reporter before.
"Yes," the general melted into the playboy, "...Miss?"
"Clawdia Koopstorm with DNN," she said, jumping straight into business, "Are we now at war with our closest neighbor?"
The seriousness of the game Bowser was playing came rushing back to him. Romance can wait, you idiot, he told himself.
"Well, Toadley will deny it and play innocent for as long as he can... but we are definitely in a cold war with them, and we will need as to build up our army as much as possible in case the war ever turns hot."
The crowd began cheering again, this time saying either "Bowser!" or "Darklands!" in repetition.
She looked uncertain.
Crap! Bowser thought. I can't have holes punched in my plot now.
"I know the word of one traitor isn't much to go on," he lowered his head in defeat, "But the Darklands Intelligence Agency has been pursuing all leads since my mother and brother's deaths. What the traitor said matches an intelligence dossier the DIA gave me a month ago."
He saw her face turn from frowning skepticism to calm placid consideration.
"I truly hope the report's wrong, and we can go back to being allies," Bowser said in a hurt voice, almost as if he himself didn't want to believe what he had just said.
Just as quickly he swallowed and said solemnly, "However, I'm afraid it is accurate "
"Miss Koopstorm, you clearly want to preserve the peace, as do I" Bowser said calmly. "I invite you to a one-on-one interview at the Royal Palace where I will go over what the DIA advises me can be made public, and why we do need to prepare for the worst even as we hope for the best."
Clawdia smiled.
Bowser returned the smile and nodded.
Her mind was on peace, war, and a career-making exclusive.
His mind was on deceiving a gullible public and his first sexual conquest since Larry hatched.
Speaking of deceiving the public, he had to do something with Norbert.
The Terrorpin had played his role perfectly and would be rewarded. No one could know though. Plastic surgery and witness protection on the southern coast?