As the adage goes, 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer'!
But.. What if, despite yourself, the enemy was too close? When the Mushroom Kingdom to Dark Land Peace Pact is insidiously broken, the stakes become so high that everyone's secret...
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Mario and Bowser: Frenemies Forever (Redux)
Go-Karting With Bowser (Chapter 1)
Zoom! A mushroom powered racer takes the ramp. Thousands of feet up, their cart soars in the sky, creating a picture perfect sweep of their silhouette across the moon. Screech! The racer in eighth overshoots a tight curve. Sparks fly from the metal rails separating them from death. The racer directly behind, not so fortunate, is flung off the edge. On the opposite side of the track, the first place racer has their moment of peace shattered when the second placer relentlessly fires heat seeking red shells.~
A Mario Kart kicked off the recreation weekend, for the uninitiated, a long running and profitable extravaganza the famous plumber hosted. Groups of heroes, villains, and everyone in-between had a chance to compete fiercely on streets, dirt tracks, underwater, through sand, snow, and whatever Cheese Land was supposed to be, to vouch for prizes. Recently among Mario and co, there'd been a lull in activity, so he wanted to set the mood by starting them on the infamous Rainbow Road. Fit for a Special Cup circuit, the track was a vivid and colorful ribbon-like band, perpetually suspended in the stratosphere. Only the occasional rail and Lakitu's diligence separated the racers from certain doom. For Mario frontrunning however, the soundtrack from hidden boomboxes was crystal clear, almost making the race leisurely- Not exactly what he was going for.
"Finally I caught up with ya, moustache!" Followed by the nagging alarm of red shells, that was more like it, the plumber thought.
Though those projectiles couldn't handle the tight twists of the anti-gravity section, King Bowser Koopa could. Mario watched from the mirrors his rival's red eyes boring into the back of his head, and how his claws were about to snap the steering wheel in half. Bowser's lean pipe frame kart was riddled with dents and scrapes marring the orange paint, no doubt from fighting his way up from his seventh starting position. Mario had to wonder if that was in response to him borrowing his neighbor's Bullet Blaster cart and being dumb enough to inform Bowser of that during a totally innocent phone conversation. In exchange for the bulk Bowser could terrify most racers with, sans Donkey Kong possibly, he could actually recover from obstacles and catch up, superbly in that moment, side by side with Mario and smirking.
"You're slacking!" he teased.
Mario rolled his eyes. His foot had fallen asleep is all, and- the shooting stars distracted him! ..Indeed that's why via his map, all those blips representing the rest of the crew were right on him.
"This'll wake you up."
After Bowser slapped a bob-omb in his face, Mario had to swerve for a trick ramp. Exhilarating as they were on a joy ride, time trial specializing racers resisted temptation for a reason. He landed a few microseconds behind, the bouncy rubber tires wasting more time before an item box section. Mario grumbled over the single banana. Thankfully Bowser was a combination of arrogant as always but narrower, driving right in-between the boxes. Ha, he laughed, now in the position where he saw Bowser eyeing him in the mirrors. Mario used some quick mini turbos as they traversed through a zero gravity loop, descended down a spiral, outwitted a blue shell twice, and crossed the finish line to start the final lap. Just as the music sped up-
