T’was a fine and perfectly cloudy day in Kastle Koopa. K.K. kept slipping on wet floors while the janitor laughed, Roy beat up Iggy, Wendy confided herself in her room doing who knows what, Ludwig and Karma were ignoring each other and working on separate projects, and Lemmy and Morton were playing video games. However, one Koopaling was not very merry…
“I’M BORED!” Larry cried through his window, cupping his ear and listening to the echo. He slumped on the windowsill. Nothing was interesting around here anymore. His plants didn’t need watering, either, so he had spare time… with nothing to spend it on!
Sighing, he decided to get on the computer for a little bit. As soon as he got onto the Internet, he was bombarded by useless and trivial ads. He clicked them away, but one caught his attention. It was rather glossy, speaking of a modeling competition. The prize, however, was 1,000,000, 000 coins. His eyes boggled, trying to see what he could do with that kind of money. There was more to it as well. The winner ALSO received the last deed of Blake Cunnington, one of the richest people in the world, so they would get his giant estate and all of its perks. Larry grinned at the thought of getting his OWN mansion. He pushed his feet against the wall, propelling his swivel chair over to what looked like a phone. Ludwig had installed a special communicating device among the Koopalings so they could talk without other people interfering. He dialed up Ludwig’s number and put his ear to the receiver.
There was nothing but static for a while, until a gruff voice that seemed tired and unhappy pushed through.
“Hello?” the oldest Koopaling yawned at one end.
“LUDWIG! HI! I found this ad! There’s a TV show coming up, about competitive modeling-“ Larry started.
“… Modeling?” Ludwig seemed disturbed, yet interested. “Terribly sorry, Larry, but I don’t think they’d let you enter.”
“You haven’t heard the whole thing yet! Anyway, the TV show needs contestants, and I saw that the prize is 1,000,000,000 coins! Imagine what we could do with that money!”
Ludwig paused at the other end, as if he was actually daydreaming about what Larry had just said.
“That’s great and all, my youngest sibling, but WHY did you tell me this? We’d have to send in a videotaped audition, and we have no female to sponsor, along with the fact that there are tons of other entries,” Ludwig stated blandly, then started to hang up.
“WAIT! We could enter WENDY! She’d LOVE mushy, girly stuff like that!” Larry reasoned, trying to keep his sibling interested.
“Wendy’s going off to camp tomorrow. She can’t make it,” Ludwig countered. Larry’s heart sank, until he heard Karma yell in the background.
“That’s it! What about Karma? She would LOVE all that dough!” the youngest sibling hopped up and down with excitement.
“She’s a HYBRID, Larry. I doubt they’ll let her get in-“ Ludwig’s glumness and negativity was cut off by Larry’s bright and shining hope.
“Get her to take her shell off! I’ve seen her do it before. As for the other stuff, we can just whittle down her claws. Then, she’d look just like a Yoshi! We can also pitch in with our wands for a temporary physical transformation, to get her to look more slender and smooth like a Yoshi, too!”
Ludwig ran out of things to argue with.
“Hmmm… All right, that’ll work. Larry... that’s BRILLIANT! I can’t believe you came up with a genius plan like that! I’ll meet with you shortly, okay?” Ludwig’s downhearted speech was replaced by a much more uplifting and ecstatic mood.
Larry hung up, then waited a few minutes before Ludwig barged into his room.
“LITTLE BROTHER! We MAY have a SLIGHT problem...” Ludwig murmured, scratching the back of his head.
Larry raised an eyebrow, until Karma came into the room.
“WHADDYA THINK I AM, JUST A MINDLESS PUPPET FOR YOU TO CONTROL?” she screeched.
Larry winced. He had forgotten the fact that Karma hated helping out the Koopalings most of the time.
“Listen… uh… Karma. If you help us, then I will… I will..." Larry winced and looked down at the ground, “split part of the prize money with you if we win.” When Ludwig gave him a nasty stare, he also negotiated to split with him, too.
Karma seemed to think it over. “Fine,” she said. “If we LOSE, however, then you have to do ALL MY CHORES FOR A WEEK!” She crossed her arms and sneered.
Larry opened his mouth to object, but Ludwig stopped him. Oh well, he thought, hopefully they’d win.
They agreed to make the audition tape the next day, since they had only 3 days to do so.
~
That night, Larry couldn’t sleep. Visions of him being a millionaire flashed through his mind. All that money. He was completely content…
…and didn’t know of the strangers creeping on the outside of his window.
It was two odd-looking creatures. One was a Sidestepper wearing a red cap, and the other was a Goomba wearing a spike-covered green cap. Both had suction cups attached to their feet and were crawling around on the wall.
“Are you SURE, Goomigi, that we’re at Wendy’s window?” the Sidestepper asked his accomplice.
“Look at the map, Crabio,” Goomigi suggested. Crabio shrugged and stared at the floor map in his hands. He hadn’t a clue that he was holding it upside down.
“Yeah, I guess this IS her room. All right, we’ll creep in like… like… THE NINJAS! Then, we’ll snatch her up in this sack,” Crabio held up a huge potato sack in his claws. “And we’ll go back home to Kloney with our mission a complete success! HIGH FIVE!” Crabio held up one claw, and Goomigi slapped it with a foot.
They lowered their movements to a whisper, and snuck into Larry’s room with surprising speed. Larry only caught a glimpse of color before he was engulfed in darkness.
~
Ludwig tapped his foot impatiently while Karma munched on a bagel. Where WAS Larry? They'd agreed to meet in Ludwig’s Lab to shoot the tape. Without Larry’s combined magic, he could never make the necessary changes to Karma’s body for the competition. Speaking of the hyrbrid, her shell had already been taken off, and she had filed her claws down to nothing.
“Are we going to shoot this stupid thing or not?” she growled, irritated that it was taking so long.
Ludwig told her to wait, and went out into the hall. He looked up and down it before he caught Kamek yelling at some Hammer Bro over incompetence. Normally, the old Magikoopa was old and philosophical, but ever since he had found his wand gone a few days ago, he had become bitter, convinced it had been stolen.
“Um, Kamek?” Ludwig tapped the wizard’s shoulder.
Kamek whipped around, angry. “WHAT? CONFESSING to STEALING MY WAND?” he spat.
“No, sir! Not that! I was just wondering if you had seen Larry around here.” Kamek constantly flew around the halls and corridors, watching everything. If you wanted to know here somebody was, he was the person to ask.
“NO, I HAVE NOT SEEN THAT MISCREANT! Now LEAVE ME IF YOU HAVE NO INFORMATION ABOUT THE WHEREABOUTS OF MY WAND!” Kamek paused, as if waiting for Ludwig to tell him some helpful fact. When the oldest Koopaling said nothing, he stomped off seething.
Ludwig sighed, unsure of what to do, when he noticed the janitor. He acted older than he really was. The Boom Boom was shelless and orange in hue, and wore gloves and a hat. He also had an abnormal fetish with newspapers.
“Larry’s kidnapped, Ludwig. Gone and probably gutted somewhere.” The janitor whistled, turning a page in his newspaper.
Ludwig rolled his eyes. HOW had he EVER been tricked into letting this fool out of jail? All he ever did was torture K.K. day and night. He DID scare other minions into submission, though.
“How do you know that?” Ludwig queried, not interested.
“Do the math. He’s gone, without telling you. Without Kamek seeing him. Odd things happen here, Ludwig. My best bet is that he got kidnapped by some crazed killer… No, seriously, I’m betting with the other minions on what happened to him,” the janitor answered, not moving his eyes from the article he was reading.
“Oh please. He probably just went into town for some odd reason.” Ludwig left the conversation at that and walked off. He was only slightly trouble by the janitor’s words, but they still unnerved him. He decided to ask Clawdia, his mom.
Clawdia blinked and momentarily stopped reading her book. “Larry, dear? Hmm... Oh, that’s right! I DID sign him up for the same camp as Wendy, and they must have both left this morning!” she explained, turning back to her book and leaving Ludwig confused.
Larry had gone off to camp this morning? Why hadn’t he told him, so that he could know to shoot the tape without him and get somebody else’s wand? That seemed odd, Ludwig thought.
Long after he was out of earshot, Clawdia closed her book again and looked thoughtful.
“Wait… Did I ever TELL Larry I signed him up for camp? I don’t remember doing so… Oh well.” She ignored her own thoughts and went back to reading.
~
Larry struggled and writhed to get out of the bag. Nothing he tried worked, until he saw the opening open up, and he tumbled out into a rather ordinary-looking living room, decorated with normal furniture. In front of him was the Sidestepper from the previous night, along with the Spiky Goomba. Leading them, with a sense of kingship, was a small, 9-year-old-sized Piranha Bean that was colored purple and black. He had a Hammer Bro helmet on, a Koopa shell, and very wide, flat feet.
“What the-“ Larry started to cry out.
“BEYUCKUCKUCKUCK! Are you AFRAID, Wendy O. Koopa? You SHOULD BE! For you are in the presence of… of… of, wait a minute!” Kloney Jr. yelled, turning to his companions.
“You idiots grabbed the wrong one! Does THIS guy look ANYTHING like who we were aiming for?” he screeched, making Crabio and Goomigi withdraw backward.
The two minions crept up to Larry, and started inspecting him.
“He certainly looks girly enough,” Crabio commented.
“HEY!” Larry angrily yelled, insulted.
“But he ISN’T HER! No, no, NO! NOW what? My plan shall never work!” Kloney stomped around in frustration.
Larry decided that he might as well squeeze out some information before he scooted out of this odd house. “What WAS your plan?” he interrogated.
Kloney smiled, glad that someone wanted to know. He turned to Larry.
“It was perfect! INGENIOUS! Not that I could think up anything else, that is. We planned to kidnap Wendy Koopa, the only female Koopaling, and enter her in the modeling competition! After we brainwashed her through use of Kamek’s wand, which we stole, that is! PERFECT! THEN, we would take out the other competitors! Once we win the prize money… then we can use it to buy the most destructive devices on the black market! AND, we get his mansion, which, you may not know, was owned by the richest TERRORIST FUNDER ON PLIT! WE’LL get his clients, AND his money! THEN WE CAN RULLLEEEE THHHEEEEE WOORRRLLLDDD!” Kloney hopped up and down with excitement, then threw his head up in an eerie, triumphant laugh, forgetting his plan had failed.
Larry noticed a flaw right away. “Don’t you see a slight PROBLEM with that plan?” he asked.
Kloney stopped and snapped his head down to the Koopaling, who still sat on the floor.
“PROBLEM? My plans HAVE no problems! They are perfect!” he challenged.
“Yeah, but everyone would have instantly noticed that Wendy was in the competition. We would have brought her home, investigated, and busted you guys!” Larry countered, crossing his arms and ending it with a smirk.
Kloney scratched his head for a little bit, then pointed a finger at Crabio. “THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!” he accused. Crabio hung his head in shame, though he knew he had done nothing wrong.
Suddenly, both Kloney and Crabio stopped and looked at Goomigi. Larry did too, and saw that Goomigi had a light bulb speared on one of his spikes.
“Goomigi… Why is there a light bulb on top of your head?” Kloney asked slowly.
“Cuz I just thought up an idea!” Goomigi responded gleefully.
Kloney sighed and rolled his eyes. “Does it involve horseradish, mayonnaise, or unicycles?”
“Nope!”
“Really? It might be worth listening to, then. OUT WITH IT!”
Goomigi hopped up and down, happy.
“ALL RIGHT! This is what we do! We take Kamek’s wand… and turn LARRY into a GIRL! That way, NOBODY would recognize him in the competition! We could brainwash him, too! Even though they would wonder where he went, they couldn’t associate him with the model we enter into the contest! BOOYAH!” he explained.
Larry started laughing like a maniac and rolling on the floor. “That’s the STUPIDEST idea EVER!” he yelped through his laughter.
He stopped when he saw Kloney, Crabio, and Goomigi’s heads turn to him, an evil, malicious face on them.
“… NO WAY! I’m outta here!” Larry started dashing for the door.
“GET HIM!”hHe heard Kloney holler from behind him.
Suddenly, a red streak and a green streak flew from behind him and stopped in front of the door, revealing them to be Crabio and Goomigi, holding ropes.
“Uh *gulp* you guys run awfully fast for having such stubby little legs,” Larry commented, nervous and sweaty.
Crabio and Goomigi grinned before leaping at him.
~
Ludwig bounced a rubber ball against the wall of his room. No prize money, no nothing. Why didn’t Larry tell him he was going away?
“Darn it!” Ludwig threw the ball harder than normal, and it bounced off with force and shot Bowser Jr. right in the nose. Ludwig didn’t notice he was standing in the doorway.
“Owwwwww!” Jr. cried. “I’m telling King Dad!”
The babyKkoopaling started running, and that’s when a light bulb went off in Ludwig’s head. He shot forward and tackled Jr. to the ground.
“AUGH!” Jr. yelled in pain.
“Listen, Jr! I need you to do something for me!” Ludwig hissed.
“I DON’T WANNA!” His brother wailed.
Ludwig grabbed his little brother’s head and pushed it onto the floor.
“I’m not as un-athletic as I was in Super Mario Bros. 3, Jr!” he explained. He and Jr. fought regularly, barely hurting each other most of the time.
“YOU’LL ALWAYS BE A FATTY TO ME!” Bowser Jr. insulted, and got another face press.
“LISTEN! I need YOU to help ME turn KARMA into more of a YOSHI, using your WAND, so we can get lots and lots of COINS from a competition!” Ludwig negotiated, stressing important words.
“… I can help with that!” Jr. finally agreed, and got up.
The two shook hands, and Jr. produced his wand-like Paintbrush. They both ran back to the room, where Karma was reading a magazine. “What?” she asked, surprised by the outburst.
“We can do this after all, Karma! We’re gonna WIN THIS THING!” Ludwig pumped his fist into the air, feeling giddy.
Karma rolled her eyes. “Oh, joy.”
To Be Continued...
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