Another World pt 6 ch7

Chapter 7: The kingdom’s history.
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Dark Land

Maria knew the cravings were coming. She anticipated them, as well as the possibility they might be strange as the classic pickles and ice-cream, but she thought they would come to her sometime after she was six months along and she was only five and half months. Her bump had grown to a bulge. She couldn’t believe she was over five months and still hadn’t come up with a name for her child.

Her craving wasn’t as shocking as she had anticipated it would be. She wanted some watermelon. She didn’t care if it was from a fresh cut whole melon or if it was cut into cubes and stored in a plastic container in a fridge. She just wanted some juicy ruby red watermelon. She also wanted some chocolate, and she didn’t care what form it came in, whether it be a cake, in ice cream, or from a candy bar.

“Kammy?” Maria knocked on the door to the throne room. Wait a second. When does the queen of the castle knock on the door to her throne room? Bowser hadn’t mentioned anything about wanting to have a private meeting where he didn’t want to be disturbed.

Bowser was having a small meeting of sorts with Mario, Luigi, and Kammy, and by their expressions on everyone’s faces, Maria could tell something was wrong. Mario papered flushed and out of breath.

“What is going on?” Maria asked.

“Nothing,” Bowser told her. “There is nothing for you to worry about.”

“Don’t lie,” Maria placed her hands on her hips. “Saying that there is nothing for me to worry about means that there is something for me to worry about.” There they go treating her as if she were a Faberge egg. “Now tell me what is wrong?”

“Peach has been kidnapped again,” Mario said, earning an annoyed glance from Bowser. “Sorry.”

“If she is kidnapped then why are you here?” Maria asked. She hoped she didn’t sound like she was accusing Mario of accusing her husband of kidnapping the princess. “Did you come to see if Luigi wants to go with you?”

“Now that you mention it,” Mario turned to his brothers. “So Luigi are you ready for another adventure?”

“You know,” Luigi nodded. “I always have your back bro.”

“Why did you come here?” Bowser asked. “If you went originally going to ask for Luigi’s assistance then why did you come here?”

“I just want to know if you had heard of anything,” Mario asked. “Someone mentioned a shady character with a top hat and a monocle. Do you know of anyone like that?”

“No dear,” Kammy shook her head. “I never heard of anyone like that.”

“Bleh heh heh heh,” a ghostly laugh echoed through the castle walls.

“What is that?” Bowser looked up. “Is one of the boo’s trying to be funny?”

“Guards,” Kammy shouted.

“Bleh heh heh heh,” the laughter repeated as a glowing dot appeared above them. The dot formed a line, followed by a second like, a third, and a forth forming a rectangle. A dark bluish purple figure dressed in white appeared in the rectangle and flew out.

“I think this is the guy,” Luigi said and took a fighting stance as several Troopas, Goombas, Hammer bros, and Magikoopas ran into the room.

“Perfect,” the shadowy figure said. He was indeed wearing a monocle and a top hat along with a cape. He held a cane in his hand. “The right one for the Chaos Heart is here.”

“Where is Peach?” Mario growled.

“Right here,” The figure waved his wand and Peach materialized while inside a strange cage with clear honeycomb shaped bars.

“Mario,” Peach shouted.

“The princess has been taken by Count Bleck and is now a guest of Count Bleck,” the figure laughed.

“What a moron,” Bowser chortled. “Not only does he admit his crime, but he also reveals the evidence.”

“You never been secretive when you kidnapped Peach in the past.” Maria reminded her husband.

“The princess is needed for my plan,” the strange man said. “The chosen executor of the dark prognosticus is me, Count Bleck. The one who shall destroy all worlds is me,  Count Bleck.”

I’ll tell you who doesn’t make the least bit of sense,” Bowser glared at the count. “Count Bleck.”

“Release Peach,” Mario snarled.

Bleck shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. The princess is needed to help destroy all worlds.”

“Destroy all worlds?” Luigi asked.

“I don’t think so,” Mario leaped and tried to land on Bleck’s head. But was blocked by an unseen barrier.

“What a weak specimen of Koopa,” Bleck pointed the jewel tipped end of his cane at Mario and released a blast of dark energy.

“Mario!” Luigi shouted before he released a flame onto Bleck along with a blast of magic from Kammy’s wand. The barrier blocked both attacks.

“None of you are strong enough to defeat me,” Bleck said. He pushed up the brim of his top hat up. “The evil Koopa king, you are also needed for my plans.”

“Excuse me?” Bowser raised his eyebrows.

“He is not evil,” Maria glared at Bleck. “He may have been a bad guy in the past but he is not evil.”

“He is still needed,” Bleck floated higher than before and a dark vortex appared beneath him.

“Maria,” Kammy grabbed her by the wrist and they headed towards the entrance. “No time.” She embraced Maria while she chanted. Maria watched as Bowser, Luigi and the small army that had gathered in the throne room were sucked into the small void. “No,” she struggled to get out of Kammy’s grasp.

“Bleh he heh he heh heh Bleck,” Bleck laughed as the void closed before it could suck in Mario. Peach and her cage also vanished before Bleck followed after them.

“Bowser,” Maria shouted and ran to where Mario stood. “Luigi,” she felt the tears form in her eyes.

“Don’t worry,” Mario grabbed her hands. “I will get them back.”

“How?” Maria asked

“Maria is right. It is too dangerous to go in blindly without a plan,” Kammy said. “You don’t even know where to look.”

“I  know,” A thin and pleasant voice said. Maria looked up to see a large butterfly flutter down to them. “I know and I can take you there.” The butterfly’s wings were like prisms that reflected all the colors when struck by light

“Who are you?” Mario narrowed his eyes at the butterfly. “One of Bleck’s flunkies?”

“Mario,” Maria used her lecturing tone. “You don’t think this butterfly is with that guy.”

“It did appear mysteriously,” Kammy said. “And in the same location as where that count appeared and disappeared.”

“Exactly,” Mario pointed a claw at the butterfly. “Who are you?”

“My name is Tippi,” the butterfly said. “I’m a not an enemy. I’m a pixl.”

“A pixie?” Maria asked.

“Sort of,” Tippi said. “I am like a fairy or pixie. Count bleck wants to destroy this worlds and all worlds and I was sent to find the hero that can stop him.”

“Am I the hero?” Mario asked

“You do fit the description,” Tippi flew around Mario. “A Koopa with a noble heart and lots of courage, and the physical description. A red shell and a splendid mustache.”

“Well I guess,” Mario stroked his facial hair with his claws.

“We don’t have much time,” Tippi said. “I need to take you to Merlon in the Flipside. He will explain everything to you.”

“Let me say goodbye first,” Mario turned to his mother. “Mom, take care of Maria until we return.”

“Be careful,” Kammy embraced him. “Be safe and bring back your brother and Bowser.”

“I will,” Mario hugged her before he hugged Maria. “ Save them all.”

“I know,” Maria said.

“Are you ready? Tippi asked.

“Ready,” Mario said as a box appeared around him. “Bye,” the box flipped around as Mario and tippi disappeared

“Bye,” Maria whispered as the pent up tears began to flow. She wanted to join her brother in finding Luigi, her husband and the princess as well as stop Count Bleck.

“You were about to ask me for something?” Kammy asked her. “Before you found out about Peach.”

“I can’t ask now,” Maria stared at the Koopa witch. How could she ask such a question? “Don’t you care that one of your son’s has been abducted and the other is on a quest?”

“I care,” Kammy glared. “I care more than you can possibly imagine, but there isn’t anything I can do about it.”

“Not like you have done much. You could have tried to keep everyone from being drawn into that void. You let them take Bowser and Luigi and almost took Mario.”

“Don’t you dare,” Kammy pointed at her. “I tried to protect everyone with my power, but I could not reach them. I couldn’t even reach my sons and if Mario wasn’t knocked out from the blast he would have also been taken.” Tears dribbled down from behind her glasses and trickled down her cheeks. “Don’t you dare accuse me of doing nothing when I tried everything.”

“I’m sorry,” Maria gushed out more tears. “I didn’t mean to blame you.”

“I blame emotional imbalance due to your condition,” Kammy hugged her. “You and I have to be strong. As the queen, you are in charge of Dark Land until Bowser returns.”

“Shouldn’t that responsibility go to Ludwig?”
Kammy shook her head. “Bowser is missing and not dead, besides I don’t want to trouble the boy while he is on his honeymoon in Delfino. We will let him know when he returns.”

“I have to be strong,” Maria wiped her eyes. “But I need some watermelon, and chocolate.”

“That can be arranged,” Kammy smiled.

-

It had been two weeks since Bleck appeared in the castle and Mario still hasn’t returned with the others. Maria and Kammy knew that they were still okay. Kammy with a little bit of assistance from Kamek managed to get Kammy’s crystal ball to peek into the Flip side where they were able to see Mario, Peach and Bowser.

They still hadn’t found Luigi yet, but they haven’t stopped looking for him as well as searching for something called pure hearts. It’s always something along that line, either pieces of a star road, or crystal stars, or in this case pure hearts.

Maria had been trying her best to keep the kingdom running smoothly along with help from Kammy and Ludwig. She signed orders, granted requests and spoke with the other leaders in the Mushroom World. The council even told her, that while her husband was still banned they would be honored if she could come to next year’s as a representative from Dark Land.

She was still preparing the royal nursery for the baby. She decided on yellow as the main color motif since yellow was considered to be a happy color. She had ordered the crib, a mobile, a changing table, a bassinet, a baby sling, a diaper bag, a diaper pail, a high chair, an infant seat for the car, and a few toys. She had bought some clothes and bags of diapers.

“This will be your baby,” the purple Cheep Cheep they hired to help with the nursery said. “There will be some of these mothers I like to call the crunchy super moms.” She rubbed the top of her head with her fin. “Remind me please, but are humans mammals?”

“Yes,” Maria did not fault her for forgetting the Cheep Cheep certainly wasn’t a young fry anymore. She had told Maria that she was a grandmother.

“Ah yes, these mothers will tell you to only use organic diapers, to breastfeed until the kid is in school, but don’t think about using public school, or even private school. Only homes schooling is good enough for these mothers, never give them juice to drink because of natural sugars, and you should be up all night worrying that a single grain of sugar might ever enter their bodies, never give them presents, only plant trees or donate to charities in their names and at their birthday parties serve only tofu cake and encourage the parents of other children to plant trees and donate to charity as gifts. When they start earning an allowance never give them the money, just show them what they have earned and tell them it is going to college.”

“And once they reach the age of eighteen all hell will break loose,” Maria added. “I knew someone like that, except they were homeschooled until high school, but man the amount of pizza and other junk food they ate and the soda and beer they drank would have made me sick, and not to mention when holidays rolled around they made excuses and try to find ways of not going home.” She never realized how good she had it until she met Casey. She remembered drinking juice and Kool-aid as a child and when she turned eight she was allowed to have soda, albeit it was the caffeine free kind and when she turned ten she was allowed to have one caffeinated cola a day. “My parents were overprotective, but they gave me sweet things for dessert after I ate all my vegetables, let me have material possessions for presents, and I got to keep my allowance money.”

“Everything in moderation,” Sushi nodded. “I know some of these crunchy super moms with grown children and they wonder why their children rarely write or visit. They are enjoying their freedom to indulge in sweets and fun stuff that they had been denied for eighteen years. I understand wanting to have a smart and healthy child with a good moral compass, but let them have a little fun. Let them have at least one cookie a day and make sure they brush their teeth afterwards.”

“Your majesty,” a Paragoomba entered the room. “You have a visitor.”

“Is it my parents, or Pauline?” Maria couldn’t wonder who else would want to visit her besides them.

The servant shook his head. “It’s one of Lord Fido students. Mr. Rashing.”
“Jolt?”

“That is correct.”

Maria turned to the nanny. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

“Take your time dear,” Sushi said.

Jolt was waiting for Maria in the hall with a backpack filled with scrolls, and a large book in his arms. The book seemed new with a very shiny dust catcher cover. In fact it was probably fresh from being unpacked, the tiny Styrofoam fleck that was stuck to the lower left corner proved it.

“Hi Jolt,” Maria greeted the young archeologist. “How is Amanita?”

“Good,” Jolt smiled weakly. There was something he wasn’t telling her. “Well could be better. Amanita is going to have to sneak out her home and we are going to end up eloping.”

“Let me guess,” Maria rolled her eyes. “Her parents refused to allow her to marry you?”

“Yes,” Jolt nodded. “Her parents are part of one of the richest toad families in the kingdom.”

“Even though I’m married to Bowser, even though Mario and Luigi are deemed heroes and even though Peach has mentioned that Koopas are not all bad?” Maria asked.

“Still not good enough.” Jolt sighed.

“I should have known,” Maria said. Racism was still present in her world, even with notable heroes, and political figureheads of all races. People were still going to hate people, based on the color of their skin, or what language they spoke, or their religion.

“I doubt even with our new book it would change,” Jolt held up the book in his hand. “It’s the history of both the Mushroom Kingdom and Dark Land.”

“It covers both of them,” Maria peered at the book. It didn’t look that big.

“Well it covers it when they were both one land,” Jolt handed her the book.

“Wait,” Maria stared at the cover title. “Bright Kingdom lost?”

“I hope it is a good read,” Jolt said. “Lord Fido, Kolorado, Goombario and I were able to find a lot of information on our last dig. It’s all in the book. It goes on bookstands next week. I brought your brother one of the first copies.”

“I’ll take that for him,” Maria said.

“I doubt it will change everyone’s minds, but there is hope.”

“Thanks,” Maria said and took the book into the throne room to read later, but first she had to finish work in the nursery.

-

For over two millenniums the Bright Kingdom was one of the most prosperous kingdoms in the world. It was ruled by a variety of humans, Toads and Koopas. Not long after the Shadow Queen was sealed the royal family of the Bright Kingdom who consisted of a human queen and a Koopa king had twin daughters: Princess Raison and Princess Prune.

“Poor girls,” Maria shook her head. It seemed the fruit related names went back further in the family. “Don’t worry. I promise not to give you a name like that.” She rubbed her abdomen before she continued to read.

The twins grew up and decided to share the kingdom. Princess Raison had her castle built in one part of the land, not far from where Peach’s castle was, and Prune had hers where Bowser’s castle stood. Raison married a Toad named Agaric and Prune married a Koopa named Snap. The two families shared the kingdom for centuries.

Three hundred years later, several volcanoes erupted in Prune’s descendants’ part of the kingdom. The smoke that was belched out  blackened out the sky. Many plants died and that area was dependant of the other kingdoms for food.

A hundred more years went past. A few plants adapted, and new ones, including the piranha plants were developed, but there still wasn’t always enough food. The king of Prune’s castle at that time, King Redear had begged with King Chaga of Raison’s half for more food, but Chaga wanted more money despite the fact the crops were prosperous and that there was always plenty of mushrooms. Chaga still refused and Redear offered trade, special flowers that gave toads and human’s the ability to throw fire balls and weapons such as hammers, Chain Chomps, and Bomb-ombs. Chaga felt the trade was fair.

As time wore on people started to call Raison’s half of the kingdom the mushroom half, and Prune’s side was called the Dark Half, later was changed to Mushroom Kingdom and Dark Land. Dark Land was constantly in debt to the Mushroom Kingdom for food, while they tried to develop their own crops with the adapted plants and by use of magic.

Then another tragedy happened. A princess of the Mushroom Kingdom disappeared around the time of the famous century comet came to visit. The kingdom searched for the princess and many soldiers had come across several Koopas stealing mushrooms to be transplanted in Dark Land. The people of the Mushroom Kingdom blamed Dark Land and even after they combed Dark Land and found nothing, the toads of the Mushroom Kingdom still blamed the Koopas of Dark Land for their lost princess, many have grown to distrust them and soon that distrust was passed over to the Koopa’s that lived in the Mushroom Kingdom, only the Troopas of Koopa Town were spared of the hate. The Koopas eventual were driven out of the Mushroom Kingdom.

“So that was it,” Maria said before she fell asleep on her throne.

She woke when she felt a hand grab hers. It was Bowser’s hand.” Bowser?” She opened her eyes and sat up in time to see her husband as he bent down to give her a kiss. “I missed you.”

“I had to be a hero,” Bowser said after the kiss had ended. “Again.”

“You can always be a hero if you want to,” Maria said and stared past his shoulder to see Mario, Peach and an upset Luigi behind him. “Mario, you did it.”

“We all did it,” Mario corrected her. “We were the four heroes who used the pure hearts.”

“You killed Bleck?” Maria asked.

“No,” Peach shook her head. “He nearly destroyed himself. He was once called Blumiere and was in love with a human named Timpani. They were not allowed to be together and Timpani was forced to wander all worlds until she died.” Peach wiped away a tear. “Blumier tried to find her, but when he thought she was dead he became Bleck.”

“And because he lost his true love he wanted to destroy everything?” Maria felt her jaw drop. She had never heard of someone who was so emo before. This guy had to be the most emo of them all. “Arrogant and selfish little shit. He was willing to destroy everything, this world, my home world and everything because he thought his girlfriend was dead.”

“She was alive,” Mario said softly. “You met her. It was Tippi. She was near death and Merlon saved her by turning her into a Pixl.”

“Oh, did she try to talk her boyfriend out of it?” Maria asked.

“They did,” Mario nodded. “After they remembered they destroyed the chaos heart with their love.”

“I was used,” Luigi sat down and wrapped his arms around his knees. “They
brainwashed me into this jerk and that backstabbing clown used me as his tool.” He closed his eyes.

“Luigi we know it’s not your fault,” Peach placed a hand on his shoulder. “I know how guilty you feel. I felt the same way when the Shadow Queen possessed me, and Bowser knows how you feel.”

“I was also brainwashed,” Mario reminded them. “I had my memories erased and replaced with lies.”

“I don’t think I can understand,” Maria said. “Although there are two souls sharing my body, and one is making my emotions go all wonky, causing me to have odd cravings and having to pee every fifteen minutes.”  Everyone laughed, including Luigi. “Well I’m glad I made you laugh, but I’m serious. I have to pee right now.”

She ran towards the entrance. “I’ll hug you all once I’m done.”