Princess Peach Needed a Hero: She Got Me!

Chapter 15: The Koopalings

Me, Luigi, and Blue Toad entered the castle together. I was feeling more anxious than ever, but just as much determined. Of course I was driven to succeed because I would be saving our worlds, but more so because if I failed, I would be letting Princess Peach down. One of the worst feelings in the world is knowing you disappointed someone, and I could not let that happen today.
     Inside this castle, a fast-paced, exciting sort of song was playing. I admit, it was pretty catchy.
     The walls were stone and there were deep blue carpets and rugs on the ground. A few crystal chandeliers hung from the high ceiling.
     We looked around and saw several different staircases leading to different places.
     I looked over at Luigi and Blue Toad, who were walking around with caution, and asked, "Where do you think they are in here?" My voice echoed in this large area.
     Luigi jumped a bit at being startled, but quickly replied, "Peach mentioned that they were upstairs to the right."
     "Let's look there first," I said.
     They agreed and we approached a steep staircase to our right.
     "Why aren't there any enemies here to guard?" Blue Toad wondered as we climbed the stone stairs.
     "Maybe they don't think they need any," I guessed. "Isn't Bowser Jr. pretty arrogant?"
     "Yes—and all of the Koopalings are, as well," Luigi said with disgust.
     We reached the top of the staircase where there was a wooden door. We pushed through it and found a narrow hallway with more wooden doors on both sides. The ceiling was a lot lower in here.
     Just as we started walking forward, someone popped out from one of the doors on the left—it was a tiny figure who looked a lot like a mini Bowser. But I figured out who it was quickly.
     "You're Lemmy!" I said, somewhat excited to meet him.
     I remembered that Lemmy was the smallest of the Koopalings. He had a yellow body, a small, spiny shell, and wildly long, spiky hair that was rainbow-colored. I admit, he was a cute little guy.
     "I'm Lemmy, that's right!" he giggled in an innocent, high-pitched voice. His eyes were slightly cross-eyed which made him look even less threatening.
     After staring at him for a moment longer, I realized what he was holding; in his tiny arms he had a handful of items—Fire Flowers, Ice Flowers, and Tanooki leaves.
     Me, Luigi, and Blue Toad really needed items if we wanted to have any chance against the rest of the Koopalings. We had to steal them from Lemmy.
     Before I could do anything, Luigi next to me demanded, "Where in this castle is the portal being made?"
     Lemmy giggled harder than ever and replied, "You'll have to get past me if you want to get to the portal!"
     "Where is it?" Luigi repeated.
     "Are we gonna talk all day or fight?" Lemmy squeaked, laughing again. "Prepare yourselves for the wrath of Lemmy!"
     The way he talked was just so adorable! It was hard to be intimidated by this guy even when he tossed the items behind himself and pulled out a wand.
     His wand was basically a short stick with a round half-sphere shape on the end—like the top of a mushroom.
     Lemmy waved his wand above his head and started muttering under his breathe. And instant later, there was a poof of smoke and he was balancing on top of a big yellow ball with orange stars on it. He was now giggling uncontrollably. It was kind of freaky the way his eyes were bulging.
     "Wow, how impressive," Blue Toad said sarcastically, glaring at Lemmy.
     But I knew what else was coming; I remembered it from New Super Mario Bros. Wii.
     Lemmy raised his wand again and one by one, smaller balls identical to the big one came bouncing out towards us.
     Now there were a dozen yellow balls bouncing around the hallway, flying off the walls and repeatedly smacking into the three of us. It was the most annoying thing ever.
     "Hahahahaha! Look at you three!" Lemmy mocked in his high-pitched voice.
     "Luigi, he has items!" I managed to say before being hit right in the face by a ball.
     "I know, I saw—oof!—I saw them, too!" he replied while recovering from a hit in the stomach. "We need to—ouch!—get them."
     Luigi ran forward towards Lemmy, who was still making more and more balls appear with his wand, and tried to leap over him to get to the items behind. Unfortunately, Lemmy jumped upward at the same time and kicked Luigi square in the chest. Luigi fell backwards onto the stone floor, now half his usual height.
"Luigi, watch out!" I cried, but not in time.
     Lemmy had hopped down from his ball and kicked Luigi in the gut—with an astounding amount of force considering how small he was.
     Through the chaos of the bouncing balls around myself, I saw Luigi disappear and then reappear on the spot, looking disoriented.
     He had lost a life.
     "I only have one more life!" Luigi said gravely to us.
     "Not good!" I shouted back.
     But Luigi was still as daring as ever; I watched as he jumped up again, swiftly avoiding another ball from Lemmy's wand, and landed his feet right on top of Lemmy's head. Lemmy let out a startled "ouch!" and disappeared with a poof. All of the balls he had created disappeared with him, which was nice; it was relieving to not have a bunch of balls smacking into me every two seconds, not to mention it was super quiet now without the sound of the balls hitting the floor and walls.
     Blue Toad and I rushed forward; I hardly believed Lemmy had been defeated so easily. In the game, you had to jump on them three times, not just once.
     So—he isn't gone for good, right?" I asked Luigi, looking around myself in case he suddenly reappeared.
     "The Koopalings each have three lives," the short Luigi said as he was gathering up the items Lemmy had left behind. "Lemmy must have already lost two lives and was on his last one."
     I nodded. This made sense. But I was secretly kind of sad Lemmy had been the first to go out of all the Koopalings. He was so cute and almost harmless compared with the rest of them. I was afraid to find out how powerful all of the others were.
     Luigi held out all of the items.
     "Which one do you want?" he asked me and Blue Toad.
     "I'll take ice," Blue Toad squeaked and accepted an Ice Flower from Luigi.
     "I'll have... um..." I had to think for a second. Which item would be the most helpful in retrieving Kamek's wand? I suddenly realized he might have a broom. "I'll have a Tanooki Leaf—thanks."
     I took one from Luigi and squeezed it, feeling the pleasant sensation you always get when you use an item—the energizing rush of confidence and power.
     I had decided that Tanooki Leaves were my new favorite item. When playing the game, fire flowers were great, but in real life, throwing fire balls wasn't as fun as flying.
     I looked at Luigi and Blue Toad—Luigi had sprouted a tail and ears, just like me, and Blue Toad now had light blue spots surrounded by dark blue on his head.
     "Well—let's keep looking for the portal," Luigi said.
     We rushed down the rest of this hall, peeking into every door. As we searched, my heart beat faster and faster—we each only had one life left, and we couldn't fail. The stakes were higher than ever.
     At last, we reached a really big room full of high shelves and a bunch of random boxes stacked everywhere. It was really messy in here—it reminded me of an attic. A really big attic.
     But we heard voices in here, and that was why we decided to take a look around. Luigi, Blue Toad, and I slowly and silently crept up behind one of the shelves and listened to the conversation happening in the middle of the room behind it.
     "Morton, hurry up and hand Kamek those clam pearls!" a sassy, female voice shrieked. "We don't have all day!"
     "Morton has them, Morton has them!" a deep voice responded stupidly. "Morton has the—"
     "Shut up, you fat, ugly oaf—"
     "Wendy! I'm in charge here, not you," a commanding male voice sneered, and the female groaned in annoyance. "Kamek, are you absolutely sure it'll be done soon?"
     A strange, eerie laughing filled the room.
     "Of course, Bowser Jr. sir! Just a few final ingredients until the portal will be complete!" Kamek said.
     My heart dropped into my stomach as I listened. Only a few more ingredients? But they couldn't have Peach, she was outside. And Daisy had lost all her lives, she was out of reach, too. So how did they expect to make it without a princess available?
     I exchanged nervous glances with Blue Toad and Luigi.
     "What should we do?" I whispered.
     "Let's just go for it and make ourselves known," Luigi said bravely. "No more hiding behind this shelf."
     My heart was pounding hard against my chest. Kamek was in this room. I had heard him. All I had to do was get his wand, use it, and this would all be over.
     "Ready?" Luigi counted us off. "One, two, three!"
     We all three emerged from behind the shelf and came face to face with them. The Koopalings were all crowded around something; a large cauldron, from what I could tell. I was trying to count them all—at least five—how could we defeat that many of them?
As I looked at each one individually, I began to recall their names. Iggy, the tallest with bright green hair, also wearing glasses; Larry, pretty small like Lemmy, with blue hair and two pointed fangs; Morton, really big with black colored skin and a weird star-shaped mark across one eye; Roy, also big like Morton, wearing pink sunglasses and a dirty scowl; Ludwig, medium-sized with fluffy, dark blue hair and a single tooth in the center of his mouth; and Wendy, the only female, wearing pink shoes, a pink bow, and pink lipstick. Even her shell was pink.
     Bowser Jr. was behind the Koopalings. He looked like a mini version of Bowser. There was a bandana around his neck—it had a colored drawing of a ferocious, sharp-toothed mouth on it. I remembered this detail from playing games with Bowser. Jr. in them.
      Next to to Bowser Jr. was the very figure I needed to confront: Kamek. He stood holding a wand—the wand I had to steal—over the cauldron, swirling it and muttering under his breathe. He had long, light blue robes and a tall pointed hat. The lenses on his glasses were plain white.
     "What are you three doing here?"
It took me a moment to register that the voice had spoken to us. I was still taking in what I was looking at.
     "Can you take a guess, Wendy?" Luigi responded coolly.
     Wendy gave a shriek of laughter.
     "Look, everyone! Loser Luigi decided to turn up with a couple of frail sidekicks! Did you think you were gonna stop us? Huh? Did you think little babies like you could keep us from doing anything we want? Think again, morons!"
     The Koopalings all howled with laughter. It was an uncomfortable moment.
     "You can laugh all you want," Luigi said angrily, "but it won't do you any good. You simply can't make the portal. You're missing an ingredient."
     "You sure?" Ludwig asked, grinning nastily with his single fang.
     Bowser Jr. then stepped forward.
"Luigi, why'd you have to come and crash the party? You know how impolite that is," he said playfully. "And why'd you bring—" he gestured to me with a clawed finger "—him? Who is he?"
"Yeah! Who is he?" Morton repeated goofily. "Who is he, who is he—"
"Quiet, Morton!" Bowser Jr. hissed at Morton. "Anyway, I've never seen anyone like—"
"It's because I'm from a different world," I interrupted boldly. "The world you're planning to invade, actually. And I'm here to get that." I pointed at Kamek's wand behind them. "If you give the wand to me now, we won't have to fight," I said straight up.
Wendy snorted.
"Ha! He thinks he can actually stop us!"
"Well, yeah—actually, I might not have to do anything. You can't make the portal. You don't have all the—"
All of the Koopalings burst into uncontrollable laughter again. Kamek behind them was still concentrating on making swirling movements over the cauldron with his wand. My stomach clenched nervously.
"You really don't know, do you!" Larry said, giggling madly.
"This—is—too—good!" Iggy choked through his laughter.
"Should we tell them or show them?" Ludwig sneered with amusement.
I looked over at Luigi and Blue Toad hoping they would know what this was all about, but they looked just as confused as I was. What could the Koopalings know that we didn't?
"Well, spit it out all ready!" Luigi shouted angrily over their continued laughter and rude comments.
Bowser Jr. grinned evilly.
"Why not? We have time to spare. The portal will still need—maybe ten more minutes—right, Kamek?"
Kamek nodded.
"That's correct, sir."
"Perfect. Do you mind letting our—guests—in on the little secret, then?" Bowser Jr. said.
"Secret! Secret! Secret!" Morton chanted loudly, stomping on the ground.
"Absolutely, sir," Kamek responded. He finished a complex-looking series of swishes with his wand, and then he waved it around his head three times.
Luigi, Blue Toad, and I braced ourselves for what was coming.
A large, metal thing came zooming forward from behind some shelves and positioned itself directly above the cauldron. It was a giant cage; it looked like a bird cage, to be exact. And inside it I could see something orange and yellow—my heart skipped a beat.
It was Daisy.