Upstart Villainy

by Compendium of Steve

Something of a Snag

The citizens of Toad Town strolled about their usual, complacent lives under the warm blanket of peace their kind and gentle ruler had bestowed upon them. However, unbeknownst to them, a menace floated high above their innocent heads, looking to destroy this peace. At his altitude, Bowser would evade notice from the townsfolk, allowing him to gloat over their ignorance.

“Just look at them with their dumb little caps. Must make it hard for them to look up at their impending doom, bwuhahahahaha.”

While the commoners would be easy to bypass, the watchful eyes of the approaching palace would be an entirely different story, especially in broad daylight. Luckily, Bowser had just the plan to handle them.

“Engage stealth mode.”

A hiss came from the Klown Kopter as white vapor shot out from its underside and billowed into a thickening mist, rendering it indiscernible from any other cloud... save for the lower propeller and the obnoxious whirring noise it made.

“Yes, works like a dream! Bwahaha, here I come, Peach.”

Bowser hovered within the perimeter of the castle grounds, with nary an alarm sounded. Without slowing down, the deviously slick koopa descended his Kopter down to the castle’s second floor. Employing all the stealthiness of a bulky, noisy cloud, Bowser edged up to the windows and did a slow sweep across them, keeping a close eye on what was inside. Servants, potted lilies, a guard sunbathing, mostly boring stuff passed his gaze. Upon reaching a sizable bay window, Bowser made his vehicle stop. Before him was a large tea room, and having tea was none other than the darling Princess Peach herself... and the meddlesome Mario Bros as well, including the green one. Sometimes Bowser worried for these two: along with endangering themselves to save her every other week, they waste most of their free time doing whatever she wants. A part of him wept for the decay of manly independence that was unfolding, but he intended to even things out.

“As unaware as ever, Peach. From here, I can swoop in, make a quick snatch, and be out of there before the dust clears. Heheheh, it’ll be so fast those lame-o Mario brothers won’t be able to stop me. I bet by the time they realize it, I’ll already be halfway to my cas—”

A loud crash from inside disrupted his thoughts, as well as the peaceful idleness of the princess and her escorts. Mario stood up quickly, followed by Luigi two seconds later, the two of them looking off in the direction of the noise. A toad ran into the room and started babbling something to the plumbers, but he barely got a sentence out before three royal guardsmen came flying and tumbling in from where the toad entered.

“What’s going on here?” Bowser muttered.

He looked on as the mustachioed bros banded together to defend the princess from whatever danger approached. A low rumbling like thunder filled the air as trails of inky shadow went along the surfaces of the room, and stepping into view with a calm, cruel stride was... Sombra!?

“What?!”

The armored stallion with the wicked red horn came to a stop a yard from the princess’ defenders, his eyes glowing green and purple malevolence. He looked blankly at the brothers a moment before letting out a sinister grin, while outside Bowser started fuming up more steam to complement his camouflage.

“That-That-That-That!”

Completely oblivious to the billowing cloud outside, Sombra gave a laugh so deep and threatening it could make children cry, and reduce men to crying children. The Marios raised their guard even more.

“Ah, my fair princess, so nice to finally make your acquaintance,” he spoke, venom practically dripping from his words. “I’ve heard rumors of your beauty and kind disposition, but looking at you I see now they did a grave injustice. My name is King Sombra, Ruler of Shadow. And today, I wish to discuss matters regarding the futures of our respective king—”

“Wait Wait Wait Wait Wait!”

The bay window to Sombra’s right exploded as something loud and rotary swooped through in a burst of smoke and debris. After a moment of coughing, the air dispersed when the massive scaly frame of Bowser dropped in with enough force to make the entire room and much of the castle quake. While the Mario brothers and the princess rocked about, Sombra retained his firm stance as he looked over at the disgruntled arrival that stood close to him. Bowser quickly took his own stance, pointing a hateful claw right at the tyrant unicorn’s face.

“Who do you think you are coming here!”

“A reasonable conqueror is what,” Sombra calmly replied. “Since a head-on assault proved far too costly, I felt that a more diplomatic approach was in order.”

“Oh No No No you don't!” Bowser screamed with enough hot breath to peel paint. “Taking one of my old castles was one thing. And so was mooching off my gold coin mines and hogging the primo spots for the company picnic, and messing up my invasion. But you never, ever, go trying to kidnap My Princess! She is off limits!”

“I dare say the lady should have a choice as to who her kidnapper should be, though given the lack of competition I can understand how you can develop the delusion of ownership.”

“I’ve been kidnapping this particular princess since day one of my reign; you can’t just bud in on chemistry this good! And how’d you get here so fast anyway?”

“I move like the shadows: quick and unnoticed. And that impromptu launcher of yours certainly cut down the travel time, degrading though it was.”

“Stop talking like some big shot already, you weaselly horse... guy!” Bowser stomped a foot before holding out his arms for a rumble. “You’ve been a pain enough as it is, so I’m giving you this one chance to leave before I pound you into mulch.”

Sombra brought up a hoof to feign covering a chuckle. “With arms as flabby as yours, I don’t even think you could manage a weak hook.”

“Why you—!”

A cough stopped their bickering, and the two villains looked over to see two rather impatient plumbers with arms crossed and holding over-sized hammers. A bead of sweat formed on the side of Bowser’s head.

“Oh right, you guys. Just a moment, heheh.” With a hateful glare to Sombra he said, “We’ll settle this later. I’ve already wasted enough of my precious abducting time.”

“Don’t you mean my abducting time?”

“Oh don’t you even—!”

A flying hammer bonked Bowser’s face mid-sentence, resulting in a “Nice!” onscreen as the blunt instrument flew back to Mario. The blue-overalled brothers then charged at the sinister aggressors, looking immensely eager to lay a pounding to the both of them. The koopa, drawing from years of experience, shrugged off the attack with only mild annoyance.

“Hey, I wasn’t ready yet! Grrrr!!”

Bowser belched out a stream of flame at the charging Italian, but Mario leapt over the fire and double-bounced on Bowser’s head. Bowser waved his claws wildly at the jumpy plumber, causing him to leap away and send the Koopa King in pursuit. Sombra watched this silly display for a moment, but then his attention turned to the taller, dopier of the brothers, who stood poised for battle in front of him.

“You’re kidding, right?” Sombra sighed. “If you insist.”

Luigi pulled back his arms to deliver a hard hammer blow, only to hit empty air as Sombra poofed behind him from the shadows.

“Over here.”

Luigi yelped and dropped his hammer, but hurriedly took it back up to give it another go. Instead of vanishing again, Sombra turned around and delivered an buck that knocked away Luigi’s hammer in mid-swing, evoking another startled yelp from him. Laughing viciously, Sombra flipped around once more to run a magic-enhanced headbutt into the plumber’s stomach, launching him clear across the room.

“Far too easy!” Sombra’s eyes flared extra green as he focused magic in his horn to create a pulsating dark energy sphere. “Now, Die!” He fired the ball at his target, but Luigi immediately sprung into the air, leaving the ball to blast the wall instead. Having lost sight of his quarry, Sombra looked around the room from side to side, then looked up in time to catch a pair of worker’s boots to the face. The dark horse reeled from the shoe prints embedded on his face, and after rubbing them off with a forehoof he glared at Luigi, now looking cocky from his success.

“Why you uncouth little!” Sombra let out a roar before charging at Luigi with fangs bared. In no time flat the Mario Bros had engaged in yet another time-honored rumble with the threats of the Mushroom Kingdom, both old and new. As they fought valiantly to keep the tyrants preoccupied, Princess Peach made the uncharacteristically proactive notion to flee to somewhere that wasn’t being reduced to a blast zone. Bowser was the first to notice her flight, despite having a short Italian guy grabbing his tail.

“Hey!” The koopa whipped his opponent aside, breaking into a sprint after the escaping princess. “You deal with them!” he yelled to Sombra, who at that moment noticed what was happening as well.

“Wait just one minute!” Sombra made to gallop after, but was hit by a flying tea table instead, Bowser laughing mischievously as he continued to sprint. Knocking away the bits of furniture, Sombra looked to find both Mario Bros facing him. After a moment of mixed disbelief and outrage, he planted his hooves and flared his nostrils. “Hmph, very well.”

On a set of spiral stairs leading upward, Princess Peach ascended as quickly as her pampered royal-heeled tootsies could carry her. But despite her dainty figure she reached the third floor in little time, entering the recently designated “safe room”, which was really just the round observatory at the top of the castle. She caught her breath and began to relax, but became rigid the instant something heavy crashed nearby. A gasp left her lips as she turned to face the burly, mean green monstrosity before her.

“Bowser!” she gasped, as the studly hunk of scales let out a villainous chortle.

“Bwuhahahaha, you thought you could escape me that easily? Not a chance! I know you all too well, my little Peach. And what I also know is that yet again I will be taking you home as my Yaaaaaargh!” Bowser grabbed his head and gritted his teeth, biting back some intense pain as Peach looked on with newfound concern.

“A-are you alright?”

Bowser rubbed his head and straightened himself up. “Yeah, just a migraine. That Dum-bra coming here trying to make a mess of things has really put on the stress today.”

“Oh, well, maybe it would be better if you came back after—”

“No no, it’s fine. I’ll just cut the evil speech short this time.” Bowser cleared his throat, cracked his neck, then entered a menacing pose. “Now, my precious little captive, if you’ll just come over here it’ll make things real easy for—” Before he could finish, the observatory began rumbling violently and causing him to stumble about unbalanced. “What Now!?”

The answer came readily enough when the observatory roof exploded downward, filling the room with dust and making the rest of the castle shudder. One floor below, Sombra stopped his telekinetic sword fight with Mario as everything shook around him.

“What’s this now?”

In the observatory, Peach and Bowser were sharing a coughing fit from the cloud of building material that was everywhere, which abruptly dispersed as the roar of a high-tech engine filled their ears. From where the ceiling had been, a large craft hovered over the center of the room, gleaming yellow in the sunlight.

“Are, are you freakin’ serious!?” In reply to Bowser’s question, an obnoxious laugh came from the ship’s glass bubble cockpit, which was occupied by an odd purple creature in military uniform.

“Fools!” it screeched in an equally obnoxious voice. “Kneel down before the greatest conqueror this planet has ever known, for it is none other than I, the Great Tatanga!”