Upstart Villainy

by Compendium of Steve

Seriously, She's Mine

Night had just fallen across the land. Or had it fallen several hours ago? Honestly, it was hard to tell when night really began in World 3, since it’s night all the time. These were the peeved thoughts that filled Bowser’s mind during his trek across the mostly-forgotten landscape from a simpler time, when he first started out and there was only mushrooms and fire flowers to worry about. The journey also showed how out of shape he had gotten as of recent.

Having hopped over pits, hurdled blocky stairs, and navigated pulley platforms—all while in the dark mind you—the extra large koopa was huffing and sweating up a storm. Yet he continued onward, fueled by one single narrow-minded goal: Vengeance... and also taking back Peach. Totally can’t forget that part, no matter how exhausted or peeved. Still, the thought of stomping that interfering princess-swiping Sombra was what kept him going with a smile in between his heavy breaths.

Towards the end of Sector 3-3, Bowser caught his second wind.

“Finally, the end at last. Both for this level, and for Sombra! Bwuhuhuhuhuh, hack kwuff!” He bent over to catch a breath. “Darn it, how did Mario manage all this? I swear, I’m turning that horse into glue for taking the Klown Kopter. Donate him to the Toads to use on all their wimpy arts and crafts. It’ll be so hilarious.” Bowser stomped further along, regaining his strength over the promise of poetic revenge, as the last obstacle came into view.

“Alright, just gotta hop over some hills, grab the flag pole and I’m... What, The?”

Before him, like some hideous sore thumb, stood a massive spiral staircase of carved crystal that rose twenty stories by the wall of a cliff. Bowser knew his destination was at the top of that tall cliff, but he stood slack-jawed at the monolith of stairs.

“W... Where did this come from!? What happened to the hills? The floating platforms? He completely ruined the place!” Looking closely at the many steps and envisioning what they entail, the koopa king shivered. “So many stairs... He truly is a monster...” Remembering his mission, Bowser shook his head back into focus and glared at the staircase with clenched fists. “Like a heck ton of stairs are gonna stop me now! You just made your day a whole lot worse, Dum-bra! Here I Come!”

Bowser charged the stairs and climbed upward, upward to the source of all his pain, humiliation and wrath.

Not too far away, within the confines of a cold and dark throne room, Sombra tended to his dainty captive in a most diabolical fashion.

“So as you can see, princess, given that your subjects already bend themselves to you willingly—much like slaves—it would make for a relatively painless transition.”

“While you do make some valid and eye-opening points, Mr. Sombra,” Peach acknowledged from her swinging cage. “I still refuse to betray my people’s trust by giving my kingdom to you. The sun is much too valuable to them!”

“Give it time, my dear. You’ll come to see the light, or rather, the glorious absence of it. Mwuhahahaha.”

At that moment, a koopa troopa with a dark-painted shell, black cloak and mascara walked up to Sombra looking as solemnly sinister as possible but failing miserably since, you know, koopa troopa and all.

“Master, we have a pudgy guest on the Stairs of Malice,” he said to his vile liege.

“Ah yes, as to be expected.” Sombra got up from his sitting position and slowly trotted with heavy hooffalls, looking to the crystal viewing screen he had installed just a week ago. Watching his ornery rival climb his prized spiral stairs, he turned to his servant and said, “Orick, activate the outer defenses.”

Bowser’s chest was on the verge of exploding, but still he climbed valiantly... not without constant panting, mind you. He decided a quick breather at the quarter mark would be fine and stopped to do so, planting a claw on the column to stay balanced.

“Not... fair...” Wheezed for a bit. “Would’ve toppled these stairs... if I didn’t have to do the whole stage... beforeha— GAH!” A brightly-colored red fish with yellow fins and large white eyes slapped Bowser in the face as several more came flying by.

“Cheep-cheeps? You’re supposed to be in the last world!” The barrage of flying fishies didn’t relent, and while waving his thick arms about in a hopeless act of defense from the flying hoard, Bowser ran headlong up the staircase, forgetting his fatigue. Storey after storey and the glubbing kamikazes kept coming, hitting just about every square inch of the lumbering koopa.

“No stop it Blugh no Blegh cut it out Aie I’m serious Oww Doh Nooo!”

After much yelling and complaining, Bowser found himself blindly running off the top of the staircase and down several yards before flopping on brick grounding once again, bringing an end to the cheep-cheep attack. Lifting himself up and spitting out the fish scales in his mouth, he looked up and beheld a circular fortress of brick: four storeys tall, with openings that gave it the impression of eyes and a green flagpole and torches out front. The castle of World 3 stood before him, pristine. Its very condition left Bowser speechless for a moment.

“Wow, he’s really fixed up the place. It looks just like in the old days...” The wave of nostalgia passed quickly, and Bowser pumped himself back into vengeful focus. “Doesn’t matter; I’m still gonna tear this place apart, and Dum-bra’s face is gonna be the wrecking ball, huhuhuh.” Looking at the castle entrance, he was briefly disheartened at the sight of a thick steel gate over a once-open entryway. But only briefly.

“Very clever, but metal can’t keep me out for long!” He turned to the side in thought. “It would still take awhile. Maybe there’s a faster approach...” He turned back around, and an (!) appeared over his head. “That’s it! He wouldn’t expect that at all!” Running forward, Bowser grabbed the flagpole and swung it around into an impromptu pole vault. “Get ready to suck it, gate!”

In mid-sprint, Bowser stuck the flagpole into the ground and began to lift up, but halfway through the motion a sharp crack split the pole and sent him flailing into the metal gate with extra bumbling force, busting a hole right through it. After a hard roll down a hall and some stairs he came to a stop, mildly dazed but unscratched. Hopping back onto his feet, he looked around at the bits of gate lying around him and chuckled deeply.

“No match for the all-beefy Bowser!”

“‘Beefy’ is one way of looking at it.”

Bowser jumped at the other voice, but then growled upon recognizing it. “You! Are you in the walls or something?”

“My control over the shadows allows my very essence to seep into every dark recess of this castle. I am everywhere at all times; there is no escape from my influence.”

“Blah blah blah blah. Just materialize in front of me already, and preferably with the princess as well to save myself the trip.”

“Now what fun would that be? You made it past the initial defenses, and it would be so disappointing if things were to end right after you stumbled into my castle.”

“My former castle. And real funny siccing a swarm of cheep-cheeps on me instead of something actually, I dunno, threatening. And stairs? Honestly? That’s not any kind of defense at all!”

“They seemed rather formidable from what I saw. Getting a bit winded in our old age, are we? Hahahaha.”

“Bwuh!? You saw that!? Grrrrr!” Bowser stomped a foot several times. “Just laugh it up, chuckles, cuz once I get through here you’ll be laughing without any teeth!”

“Ohhhhh, such a dreadful fate indeed~. Mwahahaha! I dare you to come and honor those words, you overweight dinosaur.”

“Gladly, Secretariat!”

With a huff, Bowser stomped forward to begin Sector 3-4 proper. After a few steps, he came upon a series of pits spewing up fireballs with platforms that spun rings of flame.

“Looks like he’s kept the lava in working order as well. Welp, off to it.” He stepped to the edge of the first pit, waited for a fireball to fall back into the lava, then hopped across. He hopped to the next platform, waited for the spinning fire to go down, then made two more hops back to safe ground.

“Piece of cake!” Stomping down some stairs, he came upon three blocks hanging in mid-air before another lava pit. “Oh come on, you kept those blocks exactly the same? Laaazy!” He jumped and bopped the blocks into broken chunks. “That’s what I think of your rehash level design! Heheh.”

Hopping over the lava pit and jumping onto an elevated platform, Bowser saw two more platforms surrounded by lava with fire rotators, all looking exactly as he remembered them from so many years ago.

“No change-up whatsoever? You try to sound intimidating, but this is just sad.” That comment aside, Bowser went to hopping over the platforms. Upon landing on the second one, a stream of fire struck him, only to glance off his shell without leaving a singe. “Ha! And still just as weak!” He proceeded to jump at a leisurely pace, uncaring of the fire streams that spun around. After hopping over a hole in the ground, Bowser stomped forward with a hardened look.

“Okay, Lame-bra. Got past my old, outdated traps, and now I’m coming straight for you sorry behind with a one-way punt to Pain Town, baby. Wait, what’s that?”

Much to Bowser’s surprise, there stood a stone wall in the middle of the corridor, with an ornate and rather old-looking wooden door built into it and adorned with a black crystal on top. The koopa was rather bemused by this, but as with any other emotion besides anger, it was only brief.

“A door? Just a door?” He laughed. “Gotta hand it to ya for making a wall, but you kinda defeat the purpose by installing a flimsy wooden door.” He stomped to the door and grabbed the handle, looking to rip the whole thing off with one claw. But to his surprise, the door opened without resistance. “Huh? It’s not even locked! What sort of boneheaded... uhhhhh...” Bowser stood still, fixated entirely on something behind the door as his eyes flickered green.

About ten yards away on the other side of the wall, Sombra sat on his haunches and laughed with evil mirth at the viewscreen above him. “Have fun being a prisoner to your own mind.” With a mental flick the viewscreen vanished, and getting up, Sombra trotted slowly across the room. “Now to deliver the finishing blow to that poor excuse of a rival. Or should I just leave him there? The enchantment is supposed to last indefinitely, so I could just let him rot for a while. Maybe send some rats to nibble his tail off as he stands there. His scales might be too thick though. Ah! I’ll use the chain-chomps instead. The servants just had their teeth filed, and what better way to break th—”

Sombra’s outspoken musings ceased as abruptly as the wall exploding right in front of him. The blast caused him to slide back and trip a bit on his hooves, and upon stopping he looked to see Bowser standing with arms held high in the jagged hole that had appeared.

“Oh Yeeeeeah!” The koopa pointed at Sombra. “The King is In!”

“H-how?!” was Sombra’s immediate reply. “You were supposed to be paralyzed by your greatest fear!”

Bowser laughed spitefully. “Joke’s on you, bub: I’m afraid of nothing!”

‘It can’t be!’ Sombra screamed in his head. ‘Is he really that stupid?!’

The malevolent unicorn visibly shook at the implications of Bowser’s immunity to the Fear Door, but he got hold of himself and stood tall. “Well, congratulations are in order: you’ve finally proven yourself worthy enough to be considered a threat.”

“It ends here and now!” Bowser proclaimed as he clenched his fists. “No more tricks or general horseplay! Just old fashion bare-knuckle brawling until last man standing!”

“Because fighting is your only means of resolving any sort of intellectual disagreement.”

“Darn right it is! Between evil kings, words are meaningless; any and all important matters are truly resolved through fists! And since you don’t have fists, then I’m the clear winner!”

Sombra shook his head. “I earnestly tried to avoid such pointless hoofticuffs, but now I realize this was bound to happen. You shall now bear witness to the full offensive range of the Shadow!”

“In case you already forgot, your shadows and magic do squat to me. Heck, not even a shadow me could do anything. Especially before the light of my Fire!”

Bowser reared back and roared out a ferocious stream of flame at the caped stallion. Sombra, however, ducked into his own shadow away from the fire, and a moment later dropped from the ceiling above to shoot a bolt of black lightning downward. Bowser rolled forward to avoid the attack, and instantly turned his aim upward to fire a string of fireballs. Some fancy aerial dodges brought Sombra back to the ground untouched, and with a silent chant he conjured two bleak orbs which he launched toward Bowser. Bowser ducked into his shell as the orbs hit, creating a cloud of crackling darkness. From the cloud, the koopa leapt to the airspace over Sombra and flipped into a ground-pound. With a great thud his rump slammed the ground, but he sprang up with a yelp as a prickly black crystal stalagmite shot up underneath.

Bowser rubbed his backside as Sombra arose a few yards away, poorly stifling a snicker at the koopa’s expense.

“You move quick for a guy wearing armor,” Bowser said. “But I’d like to see you dodge this!” Reaching into undisclosed personal storage spaces, Bowser pulled out two fistfuls of small black hammers. “Time to go old school!”

Bowser spun his arms wildly, unleashing a hail of miniature hammers in every arc imaginable. Sombra cantered and sidestepped from the chaotically-tossed tools, and after a few moments of dancing about in this perilous hail, a stream of hammers came right at him. He quickly brought up a dark portal for the hammers to enter, only to exit out from Bowser’s own shadow, clobbering his backside and knocking him onto his front. Not missing the rhythm, Bowser pushed himself back up onto his feet, but a whistle from Sombra made him stop.

“Nice bit of variety there. But I believe this fight has reached its... cutting edge,” Sombra said.

A ways from Bowser, the dark horse stood in front of a very familiar glowy upright axe. Panic overtook Bowser as he realized that they had been fighting on a steel suspension bridge that so happened to be above a large lava pit. He wondered: how hadn’t he not noticed, since it was, like everything else in this place, The Same Old Set-Up.

“Oh you can’t be serious!” Bowser shouted through a stream of nervous sweat. Sombra whistled nonchalantly as he lifted a rear hoof, tipping over the shiny axe. Instantly the bridge collapsed away, leaving Bowser to hang in empty air before dropping and yelling into the fiery depths below. When all was silent, Sombra alone stood, victorious.

“Good riddance.” He turned from the pit and back to the main chamber. “With that out of the way, princess, I would like to continue our ch—”

A fist flew in and smashed the side of Sombra’s mouth with an accompanied cry of “Surprise!” that broke off one of his fangs and sent him sprawling into the throne room. Getting up and steadying himself on his hooves, Sombra looked with a grimace up at Bowser, looking obnoxious with a toothy smile and a balled up fist, the same one that had knocked Sombra’s block.

Y... You...” Sombra said with his most deep-rooted hatred.

“I let Mario get by easy with that trick, but I’m not giving a copycat hack such as you the same privilege,” Bowser said. Sombra’s vision began to blur as his eyes radiated a deeper shade of red and green and the purple mist that rose from them became fire. The ceiling and floor shook and crumbled, dark crystals began sprouting around the place, and the ol’ war horse looked none too happy.

“I... Have Had Enough... Of Your Absurd Stupidity!”

“Final phase, eh? Bwa ha ha! Show me what you got!”

Sombra let out an animalistic cry before firing a beam of concentrated shadow from his horn. Bowser leapt down, avoiding the beam and the crater it left behind. With another hateful cry, Sombra magically ripped off some of the newly-formed crystals and shot them in an attempt to skewer the troublesome turtle, but Bowser’s thick shell made them as ineffective as toothpicks. Sombra roared and reared back on his hindlegs to slam his forelimbs onto the ground, causing the section of floor that Bowser was on to shoot up into the ceiling. Sombra’s gaze darted about the room, seeing if his foe was anywhere other than as gooey mess on the ceiling, but then the burly brawler landed atop his back. With a flare up of surprise mixed with rage, Sombra bucked about the room while Bowser held on tight.

“Yee-Haw, horsey! I haven’t done this kind of thing in forever! Bwahahahaha!”

Bowser rode the bucking bronco despot with the biggest grin imaginable while Sombra screeched incomprehensible curses and protests. His face flared red from both anger and humiliation as he destroyed more of the room with his unbridled magic in a desperate bid to get the rider off.

“Alright, that’s enough from you!” Bowser cried as he wrapped both his arms around Sombra’s waist. “Big Bowser Koopa Deluxe Super-Plex!”

Pulling Sombra up enough to allow his feet back on the ground, Bowser bent backwards by an insane angle to drive the unicorn into the ground with the force of a lunar collision. The raw impact sent cracks just about everywhere in the room and created a tremor that shook a good portion of World 3, even causing the large crystal staircase outside to shatter from the intense frequency of the resulting shockwave. The rampant aura of magic that had surrounded Sombra ceased as his eyes went blank, and after a few moments, Bowser released his hold and stood straight up. Sombra remained planted in the ground, upside-down, held in place by his horn and a pain that could be seen from orbit, while Bowser took a deep breath and looked to the captive Princess Peach in her cage. His vengeance achieved, Bowser pulled back an arm, then pumped it up in victory.

“HYeaheheheheh! The better bad guy remains, Dum-bra! You: zero. Me: one princess! No alternative, no substitution, Bowser all the way! Koopa King reigns supreme once again! Ain’t nobody gonna stop this hunk of awesome! You hear me world? There’s nothing you can throw at me that I can’t over—”

Just then, two mustachioed plumbers with hammers jumped into the room.

“Mario! Luigi!” Peach cried with glee, just as Bowser’s shoulders and spirit sagged.

“So unfair...” he whimpered with a quivering lip.

Without asking questions the Mario Bros. rushed into the room and put a beatdown on Bowser offscreen, and after considerable violence they ran back the way they came, with princess in tow, to begin a walking end credits montage. As the upbeat music died away, all that remained was Bowser, badly beaten and lying on the floor, and Sombra, who finally tipped over onto his side to lie just as prone as his rival. A pained silence of shame and defeat hung in the air for the longest time.

“...I really hate you right now,” Sombra said in a tired tone.

“Same here,” Bowser replied weakly. “Blow up my army, crash my kidnapping, mooch my princess while I’m fighting a space dweeb, stairs, and in the end I get beat up by my eternal nemesis and his sissy brother.”

“You led them here. They never bothered me once since I moved in.”

“They came for the princess, genius. No matter what or who, they’ll seek her out like mustachioed bloodhounds. This is coming from years and years of beatings and castle wreckings.”

“You don’t say...” Sombra huffed and became silent again.

“...Y’know, you could have used the World 6 castle,” Bowser spoke up. “It’s always night there too, but the surrounding land’s more treacherous, and the castle has lots of fire spinners that would’ve slowed them down.”

“Is that so? That certainly would have been useful.”

"Yeah."

Another length of silence between the two.

“Soooo, what’s it been? A couple of months since you came here?” Bowser asked, lifting his head. “Figured you would’ve moved to someplace better than this dump.”

“Just decided to settle in the first place that suited me,” Sombra admitted, rolling onto his other side. “Been so busy making my presence known, I haven’t had time to think of relocation. Not easy with your fat self standing in the way.”

“Fat doesn’t break through steel, so you know. And this has been my turf for a very long time, newbie.” A thought occurred to Bowser. “Come to think of it, you’ve changed quite a bit.”

“Hmm?”

“I remember the first time bumping into ya. I was marching out a platoon for training when you walked by, mumbling about ‘crystals’ and ‘slaves’ with a slur, looking confused like some drunk.”

“Yes.” Sombra sighed. “I’d imagine I must’ve appeared that way.”

“You also fired some spell into one of my troopas and taking out a column of goombas before running off. Got a 1-up for it, but no way to make a great first impression, y’know.”

“I was startled more than anything. Seeing talking turtles and walking mushrooms, I thought my mind had given into complete insanity from being in this strange, colorful land. That attack was, I’m ashamed to admit, me giving in to panic.”

“Heh, I know that’s supposed to be pathetic, but I can’t help feeling complimented.” Bowser moved his arms together to rest his chin on them. “What’s the deal with you, anyway? Where’d you come from exactly?”

Sombra became silent as he rolled back over. “For the longest time, I was nothing but a shadow. A thousand years to be exact. Punishment for oppressing others of my kind, who were more vibrantly colored and so sickeningly peaceful and kind. So much hatred and contempt I had for them, and I had so much evil to spread around. Enslaving them, making them suffer, planting seeds of misery that blossomed into crippling fear. It was wonderful.”  Sombra paused to flick a hoof. “Then I was stripped of my physical form and left to stew in the frozen wastes. A millennium of shifting around, waiting for my return to prominence. When the opportunity came at last, I was expelled in an instant by pure, concentrated... love.”

“Wow, that’s rough. Especially from something uber lame like that.”

“I had my body back for less than a minute before I was blown apart, only instead of returning to shadow I ended up here.” Sombra looked up at the ceiling wistfully. “So vibrant and peaceful like where I had been, but not as nauseatingly sweet. I could sense genuine fear, greed, corruption. Born from the hearts of those that lived here, rather than perpetuated from a sole individual. I still felt the desire for evil, but it wasn’t as intense. I could think more clearly, take the time to properly recuperate from my imprisonment, and become whole.” Sombra took a deep breath and smiled. “Since coming here, I’ve been a bit more relaxed, and not as spiteful. Perhaps it’s because I’m so far from any living paradigms of utmost tolerance and kindness. A new beginning, a fresh start, to be evil where evil can be accepted, rather than extinguished indiscriminately. A realm of endless, villainous potential...”

Sombra looked over to Bowser from where he lay. “Sorry to bore you with my ramblings. The fact that I can barely feel my limbs, and likely suffering a concussion, tends to make me overly reflective.”

“Guess I overdid it a little, but I’m not someone who holds back. Just not my style.”

“This marks the second time I’ve been defeated by a dragon, or something similar to one. Despite the pain and humiliation, this has been the more respectable finish of the two.”

“Glad you’re impressed, bub.” Bowser pushed himself up onto his feet and began to stomp away. “I think you learned your lesson, so I’ll just let you rest up and show myself out. It’s gonna be a long walk back home.”

“Hey.” Bowser halted at Sombra’s call, who then resumed with, “Your flying teacup is parked on the second floor. There’s no guards, so you can take it.”

“Really? Awesome!” Bowser giddily stomped away, but stopped abruptly and turned back. “Wait, no guards? Come to think of it, where’s the rest of your forces? This place is completely empty.”

“They... were decimated by your bomb yesterday. Hence my vehemence for compensation.”

“Oh... Tough to be you then, heheh!” Bowser resumed his giddy stomp from the demolished throne room, eager to fly back home with class and another tale of personal supremacy to brag about. At the edge of the lava pit, he stopped to look back at Sombra, who remained lying on the ground, downtrodden.

“Buck up already. That was a heck of a fight, and you’ve proven you’re no slouch despite the pretty-boy cape and mane. So cheer up, otherwise I’ll be calling you Sob-ra from now on.”

In a single bound Bowser cleared the lava pit and was gone. For some moments Sombra remained where he was, but then he propped himself onto his forelimbs and looked to where the koopa had stood some seconds ago.

“Idiocy like that can withstand even the fury of the sun. Uncouth though it may be, it makes him resilient, unwavering, steadfast and unyielding to adversity, or reason. Exactly like a turtle... a big, stupid, destructive turtle.” He half-grinned. “How might the princesses have dealt with him, I wonder.”

Outside, riding in his Klown Kopter, Bowser flew through the cool night air of World 3 with an open-mouth smile and belting a tuneless song like some whirring shooting star as the actual stars twinkled silently, as though cheering his victorious return. Or they were just grateful things had finally quieted down. The hills with eyes certainly were.