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The Short Stories
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"THAT'S Bowser's Keep?!" Mallow squinted into the smoldering distance; whatever he perceived with his beady black eyes, it evidently did not impress. He frowned with a little sigh. "It's pretty crumbly now that I see it from here."
"Crumbly!" snarled Bowser. "Crumbly, he says! About my castle?"
"That's what it sounded like to me!" said Peach.
"Ghrk… well! Well!!"
Mallow turned his beady eyes towards the overgrown turtle. "Well what…?"
"D'aw, well, of course it's gonna look crumbly!" was his stellar retort. "Damn thing's got a big fuckin—"
"—language—!"
"—sorry, Princess—I mean the darn thing's got a big fuckin' envelope opener sticking out of the foyer! You know we just renovated that part of the castle? We were gonna put the new Bowser's Castle Welcome Center and Gift Shop in there," Bowser continued; while his brave face was game as usual, it would once more be stymied by the way his eyes welled up like overflowing toilets. "It was looking real good, too! Mario saw it! Yeah, you saw it didn't you? Didn't it look real good?"
The plumber nodded and gave a couple energetic bounces with his arm raised in the air; by now his traveling companions knew to interpret this as an enthusiastic yes.
"So don't gimme that crumbly crap! It's just... It's just got a boo-boo right now, okay? Eh? Oh yeah, that reminds me—oi, Geno! Oi!"
The caped creature failed to respond to Bowser's verbal hailing, forcing the testudine tyrant to resort to a more physical means of address; the well-timed punch to the shoulder not only did the intended trick, but also did roughly 8-10% AOE splash damage to the rest of the party.
"Ow!" Geno yelped and clutched his arm, thus putting paid to the question of whether or not a doll's body could feel pain (at least while occupied by the incomprehensible essence of an extraterrestrial lifeform).
"What was that for?" he begged.
"Got a question for you!"
"Great! Can you ask it without maiming us?"
"Guess not." Bowser shrugged. "I just wanna know one thing! Whenever we fix that Stairway to Stardom thing you keep going on about—"
He paused.
And Geno waited, only a few awkward seconds before it became clear enough that that blankly blinking prompt was meant for him. "Huh…?"
"Aren't you gonna correct me and go That's Star Road like you always do?"
"I hadn't planned on it," he replied. And he really hadn't planned on it; in truth, he gave up on trying to correct everyone's constant misnomering long ago. The endeavor started to feel both pedantic and pointless, and frankly he couldn't tell which one was more grating. "Why, do you want me to say it?"
"Ghrk—! Of course I want you to say it! How the hell else am I supposed to know you're payin' attention?"
"…that's Star Road, Bowser."
"Yeah! That's more like it." He nodded, eminently satisfied. "Now. If we collect all the pieces and actually fix the Star Rail thing, that'll definitely get rid of that overgrown Ginsu knife squatting in my castle, right? Like automatically, right?"
Geno tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Mm. Now that's going to be hard to say."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Mallow.
"I mean it's going to be impossible. Impossible to say."
Bowser growled, a promise of a threat. "Don't care much for that word, Timbertoes. Especially when it involves my castle."
"Sorry Bowser, but I just don't know," said Geno. "So far, my experience in your world has led me to conclude that only two things are an absolute guarantee: Death, and a Toad-Mart in every village. And given the number of Dry Bones I've seen lurching around the place, I'm not so sure about the former."
Mallow resumed gawking at the castle across the chasm; crumbly as it was, the sword itself had a rather mean look about it. The hilt glared back at them hatefully, daring them to approach. The blade looked new, sharp enough to effortlessly split infinitives.
"You think we're gonna have to fight that thing, then…?" he wondered meekly.
"Well. The kid did say Death is one of the world's absolute guarantees," spat Bowser.
With these hopeful words left hanging in the air with the smoke and cinders, Mario jumped up and down a few more times, his arm raised high.
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"Do you know where this leads to?"
Nobody seemed keen to answer him at all. Geno muttered on, more to himself:
"Looks like Exor was indeed the contact between the two worlds…"
"Worlds?" Mallow piped up. "You mean, like, levels? Is this the Minus World?"
"Minus World?"
"Yeah! I guess it's kinda this urban legend in the Mushroom Kingdom, but they say if you go down a pipe after kinda like, jumping through a wall backwards at a really specific angle—"
—while Mario bobbled into the air, arm held high, as if agreeing with Mallow's farfetched tale hearkening back to the days of 8 bits and all their strange limitations.
Geno looked nonplussed. "Huh? Are you alright? You didn't hit your head in that fall, did you?"
"Nah," said Mallow. "I'm okay. I'm pretty springy today."
"Oh. Well, maybe I hit mine…" Geno gave his own head a good shake and resumed. "No, this is another planet, far, far from your own. A dead star."
Bowser folded his arms and sneered. "No kidding! Heh. Place looks deader than the Goom-Bar on a Tuesday night. And take it from me, that's pretty darn dead."
It's because Tuesday nights were "Boo-gie Nights" at the Goom-Bar, when all Boos could get in with no cover charge plus free cocktails from 9 to midnight. However, Bowser would choose to elide this minor detail from the narrative, as Geno looked dumbfounded enough already and there were more pressing matters at hand beyond attempting to explain the sophisticated concept of "if it's being offered for free then you're the product" to an extraterrestrial who surely knew nothing of such diabolical schemes.
In reality, Geno was more worldly-wise than any of the others realized, having visited their planet many times before in the past albeit in a litany of different forms. For example, his most recent stint saw him occupying the body of a little windmill at a miniature golf course. And to put it politely, a little windmill at a miniature golf course sees many, many, many things it can never ever unsee…
Geno would choose to elide this minor detail from the narrative.
"I'll take your word for it," he said. "As for this place, nothing grows here. Hardly anything even lives here save for the amoebas. No flowers, no trees, no princesses or plumbers or cloud folks or turtles. Not anymore, anyway—Smithy saw to that. This is his home. Well, his corporate headquarters, at least."
"Oh my!" Peach cupped her hands over her heart. "Do you think this terrible place is what our world will become if we don't stop Smithy?"
"Aw, c'mon! It's not that bad, Princess," remarked Bowser. "Kinda reminds me of your daddy's Toadstool Turnpike! Rush hour traffic, minus all the cars." He sniffed the air. "Smells a lot worse though."
Mallow scrunched up his entire face, such that it seemed to disappear into the voluminous folds of his body. "I'm scared! I want to go home!" came a muffled wail from deep within.
"Yeah yeah, you and me both!" Bowser rolled his eyes; in a final flourish of frustration, he turned towards Geno and stopped just short of ripping the wooden curls off his head. "Gwah! I'm not gettin' dragged another inch on this stupid star chase of yours, Timbertoes. I already got what I wanted out of the deal, so if you wanna storm HQ and seize the means of production from some outer space creator god with a buncha screws loose, I say that's between you and…" he struggled, "…you! C'mon guys! Let's go rebuild my castle! Royalty first! Heh."
He graciously stepped aside and gestured towards the Exit Spring, but Peach didn't budge.
"You do you, Bowser. I'm staying with Geno," she duly informed him, pointing her nose up and away, towards the sky, instantly regretting this (and perhaps—just a little—her own hasty affirmation) when the perfume of machine grease and sulfur dioxide and other assorted volatile organic compounds filled her nostrils…
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"Ha HAA—! Take that! Again!" Mallow crowed, breathless with the rush of a battle well-fought.
Without so much as a final Nya, Bowyer Mk. II—his warranty thoroughly voided—collapsed to the ground in a chaotic jumble of bare steel and unfinished wood, a satisfying if somewhat wan imitation of his predecessor's demise back in the Forest Maze.
Goodness, that seemed like ages ago…
"Hey, remember the very first time we did that? I never thought I'd ever get to do anything that cool!" he went on. "I think it was Geno's idea, wasn't it?"
"Oh yeah, that's right…" said Geno, wistfully. "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I guess Bowyer had to learn that the hard way."
"Y'know, I still can't believe you actually thought we'd be strong enough to make a good team! I mean, Mario's pretty tough and he's the real deal—like I wouldn't wanna have to face him in a kick fight or anything. But me? I mean, all this time traveling with the master and I still can't even jump a foot to save my life!"
Kick fight…? Geno shook his head and decided to let that one go—life on the road tended to engender a certain fondness for watching midnight kung fu comedies on whatever UHF frequencies their motel room television set could receive. "Well, so what if you can't jump? You think you could've journeyed with us for so long and so far, all the way to this miserable scrap heap at the other end of the galaxy, if you weren't also the real deal yourself, in your own way?" he posed. "Though that does remind me of something. I keep meaning to ask how you do that thing where you read other people's minds. Is that for real?"
Mallow broadened his smile, revealing his single, cherished tooth. "Sure is! But I don't really know how I do it," he admitted. "I guess I start out by thinking real hard. Then I just keep thinking and thinking, until I thunk so hard that I start thinking inside-out in someone else's head. Sorry, I can't explain it any better than that."
"That's alright. It's pretty useful, either way," said Geno, however disinclined to repeat Mallow's process and thunk that hard about any one thing in particular.
"You're tellin' me!" said Mallow. "I even used it to save you once!"
"Is that right?"
"Yeah! Don't you remember that one time you got eaten by Belõme?"
Geno grimaced to the best of his ability. "Ah. Yes, I was trying to forget that, actually…"
"And then he made that weird copy of you, and it was so good we couldn't tell which one was the real you and which one was the fake? Remember?" Mallow recounted the tale with a whole lot of relish, which was jolly well and good for him as he—by some highly improbable turn of RNG—missed out on the unforgettable experience of becoming that monster's afternoon snack.
"I remember."
"Well, obviously we had to clobber one of ya! But we couldn't figure out which one was the clone! And then you both started trying real hard to convince us who was real and who was fake, and then you both had your guns out and pointed dead on each other like—"
"—yes, yes, I remember, I promise I remember this entire episode to adequate detail, right down to the music video*," Geno prodded him patiently. "But how did you solve the riddle?"
"Like I said, I did it by reading your minds!" Mallow told him. "Nothing else to it! Look, his thoughts, I could read 'em like a book: What's up with all these Star Pieces? I don't care either way. Or something like that. And I thought: Oh no! That's not the Geno I know! And I was right!"
"Oh! I see..."
"And your thoughts, well! Every time I try to read your thoughts, I just get this really weird noise in my brain," continued Mallow, his enthusiasm blinding him to his own unwise treading. "And I can't figure out what the noise is, y'know? I can't even describe it, it just gives me a bad headache if I listen too long—"
"—w-wait a minute! Hold up. What do you mean, every time you try to—" Geno stammered his way into a forced restart. "Do you try to read our thoughts, like, regularly, or…?"
Caught! All Mallow could do was shuffle sheepishly in place and grin, and wonder if he could somehow fit his whole entire foot into his mouth if he thunk hard enough about it…
(* Yes, every episode of the Super Mario RPG Super Show features a brief musical montage, using thematically appropriate hit songs by popular contemporary artists, that will have unforeseeable consequences when people try to archive this series on YouTube several decades later…)
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"Well, Mario, old friend. I guess this is the end of the adventure for now."
"(NOD NOD BOUNCE)"
"You'll make sure Gaz gets his doll back, right? And… And tell him I'm sorry I got it so scuffed up. But I think it's still got all the original pieces. Well, except the boots I lost as collateral when Bowser blew all our coins at Grate Guy's."
"(RUEFUL NOD)"
"But you don't have to tell Gaz that! J-just tell him I'm really sorry…"
"Farewell, Peach! It was a pleasure to finally meet you and yours. And may I say, out of all the cosmic service routes to which I've been assigned over the eons, this one is far and away my most favorite. Kind hearts like those belonging to the Mushroom folk really make all the difference."
"Oh, Geno. 💖 What a lovely thing to say! Of course, you're welcome back in the Kingdom any time. I only hope that when you do return, it's under much happier, or at least… far less filthy circumstances."
"Likewise! And also likewise, I really hope your Ameboid Rash clears up soon. I-I'm sure it will! Look, you can barely even see the spots anymore…"
"Yeah, yeah, boo hoo, good bye, good luck, good riddance. You just remember what I told you, Timbertoes. About that big fuckin' sword that's still stuck in my castle."
"I heard you loud and clear the first time, Bowser. No worries! I already put in a Wish Request for you, personally stamped and set to highest priority. I'll take care of it first thing when I get back to the office."
"You… You will? I mean of course you will! 'cause you know I'm gonna rip your head off and eat your stuffing if you don't! Now scram! Beat it! And, uh, don't be a stranger or nothin', y'hear?"
"Mallow, I—"
"…"
"Why are you making that face?"
"I'm not… I'm not gonna cry. And I don't like saying good bye. I don't wanna say it."
"Okay. You don't have to say it if you don't want to say it."
"But! I wanna say something—!"
"How about good night? Like, we aren't really saying good bye, we're just saying good night, for now."
"…good night, Geno."
"Good night, Mallow."
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"That doll's saying words!" Booster blurted. Again...?
Actually, this whole entire episode was starting to feel a bit familiar. Peach began to wonder if Booster was the sort of chap who more or less lived out the exact same day every single day, over and over and over and over again, yet never tired of it.
Sure, the nitty-gritty details of each day could differ dramatically, but the shape of it, the hyperbolic swerving of its narrative through-line—Peach had to figure that the life of a Booster never knew a dull moment, though she had two different theories for this (not necessarily conflicting):
- Booster absolutely refused to tolerate dull moments of any kind, sort, ilk, type, genre, genus, species, et al and so forth, and/or
- Booster had the memory capacity of a goldfish, whom every hour or so finds itself newly dumbfounded by the presence of a plastic coral reef sprouting from the neon gravel of its demesne.
Oh well. At least he always seemed to be enjoying himself.
Though speaking of wanton hedonism, Peach side-eyed Geno, the most recent recipient of Booster's questionable generosity. In his hands, he carefully dandled a contraption of some kind, some geegaw, some kickumbob. Possibly even a doohickey!
The look on Geno's face seemed even more vacant than usual. It wasn't his fault, what with his host body having such a limited range of facial articulation. He could open his mouth and eyes, and that was about it. A bit of a pity, Peach thought; she would freely admit that he looked a little scary when they first met, and even after traveling together for so long she could still sense something uncanny about the way he moved and spoke. In truth, she didn't really like to watch him for too long, lest she become overwhelmed with the absolute crazy-go-nutsiness of the whole thing.
And coming from someone who lived through Doki-Doki Panic!, you know that's gotta be pretty crazy-go-nuts.
At the same time, she would always vouch for the kind and considerate nature of the spirit inhabiting the doll. Even now, Geno took the time to compliment Booster on his craftsmanship, no doubt hoping that a little encouragement in a different direction would prevent any more party-ending mishaps with Engine 023.
"Yes, well, about this body…" The doll started saying more words, however absently—probably preoccupied with the new toy of his own. "In order to search for the Star Pieces, I inhabited a doll belonging to a young boy named Gaz, and—"
"—I don't have time for your excuses!" Booster blurted toothily. "In fact, you should be leaving now. Get lost!"
The sudden encroachment of his three Snifster bouncers signaled an abrupt end to this playdate, which was all hunkey-dory with Peach. No doubt the odd little man had pressing business elsewhere.
Probably involving eating his weight in telephone books, if she had to take an educated stab at it.
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"Hey, hey, what do you think this thing does?" Mallow wondered as he raised the crystal shard towards the sun, allowing it to split the light into enough tiny flecks to drive the whole of Monstro Town absolutely bonkers.
"What it does is annoy me! So give it a rest, capisce?" muttered Bowser. He kept picking at his fingers and grumbling under his breath, no doubt still steaming over the fight that saw his claws so egregiously chipped. "Yo Geno, make sure you write down what that guy did to us in full detail. I wanna remember this for the rematch!"
Geno sat propped upright against a pile of crates. Standing unassisted would be temporarily impossible—or at least difficult for the doll, whose left leg had been ripped off his body close to the hip joint, exposing a bundle of severed copper wires, red and blue, arteries and veins of the body electric. The leg itself laid beside him, its stillness yet possessed with a strange aura of pride, having proved its worth as a crystal-busting cudgel.
"Yeah, sure," he said. Business as usual, he scribbled words into the group's scrapbook but gave no indication towards what, precisely, he was scribbling.
"Make sure you get the part about my claws!"
"Gee, Bowser. How could I possibly forget to mention that you broke a claw on one of Culex's crystals." Geno's statement was suspiciously devoid of the expected question mark.
Rather, he seemed stumped on something, tapping his pen against the paper in anticipation of words late to arrive. Peach leaned over his shoulder and took a peek at what he'd written so far:
...but once again, when defeated, Culex didn't seem to be up to anything overtly evil.
"You're right about that, I guess," she noted. "Seems like all Culex wanted to do was prove himself in a good fight. I hope he got what he wanted."
Geno kept tapping, leaving tiny flecks of blue biro ink in the margins. "Hmm. I don't know. Something about this doesn't sit right with me."
"I think you're overthinking, Geno."
"Not one of my better habits, for sure. Well. Do you think it's enough to simply declare one's intentions as evil?"
"I think actions speak louder than words, if that's what you mean," said Peach. "Like if Bowser over there said he was going to sell his prized golden chain chomp and donate the proceeds to the Mushroom Kingdom community chest. I don't think it would really matter if he framed it as another one of his evil schemes or not. At the end of the day, he still did a good deed."
"What?! Grrahh!" roared the King of Koopas, having caught the conversation by the tail. "Hell're you jawin' about over there? Me, doing a good deed?! Urggh! Bag it, sister!!"
"Just a hypothetical good deed," Peach reassured him sweetly. "I would never suggest such a horrible thing for real, dear."
"Better not! Gonna make me puke! And we haven't even got to the buffet yet!"
Now it was Mallow's turn to settle in next to Geno and leer over his other shoulder.
"Hey, can I write some?" he asked.
"Sure," said Geno, finally giving up on his stalled train of thought and the pen to go with it. It doubled as the ring finger on his left hand—Gaz's doll was full of surprises and school supplies. "What do you think about good and evil, Mallow?"
"Mm. Not much. I like clam strips though!" he replied, already getting right to work and appending a sentence in his loose kid scrawl about that fight's real reward being a trip to the Seaside Smorgasbord, where they will no doubt enjoy a veritable pirate's bounty of king crab legs and fish fillets and smoked salmon and fried shrimp and imitation lobster and blooper calamari and the unlimited soup n' salad bar and also those little plates of red (or green) gelatinous cubes with dollops of whipped cream on top.
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He wanted to say it looked like stars—the spots of light whirling around and around over the dance floor, and the wedding guests scuffing up the parquet as each performed the Electric Slide to the best of one's individual ability (or memory). Geno wanted to say this but he knew too well that real stars were steady and reliable, fixed in the cosmos until they burned themselves out. With real stars (don'tcha know) any sailor with a sextant could circumnavigate any given globe just by looking at them the right way. So what then, would become of those who had only these flickering specks freckling everyone's faces and tables (and dinners in various states of completion) to guide their way to the nearest lavatory…?
Now Mallow, he was already on his second piece of cake. Like all good affairs it was sweet but messy, with equal parts relish and regret. For Round #2 he picked a corner piece with a big ol' red rose, one of those Wilton roses you pipe out petal by petal onto a huge metal thumbtack. But after sitting out for so long in the summer swarth, the rose now seeped Christmas Red 302 (and a little bit of Leaf Green 809) all over its snowy bed of buttercream. Most of the stuff would end up streaking the kid's mouth and cheeks, making him look like an extra from a grindhouse B-reel.
"Hey. Uh, this isn't the cake we beat up earlier, is it?" he asked belatedly.
"No dear, this isn't Bundt," Peach reassured him. She was already licking her napkin, moving in for the wipe. "Hold still."
"Hey. Hey Geno. Hey, so why'd the cake come to life anyway?" Mallow went on gamely, even as the woman's efforts to clean his face distorted his smile beyond recognition.
Geno shrugged. Once, in the past (long time ago, far far away, etc.), he assumed a body form that could actually could drink champagne and he never forgot it—the way it made his head spin like the fake stars flying around the room and the toad folks hustling across the floor in their glad rags. Longingly he eyed a passing waiter, with his tray loaded with loaded flutes, compliments of the new Mister and Missus So-and-So, nobody they knew.
"I can only speculate," he replied. "Personally, I suspect that the damage done to Star Road caused some kind of manifest corruption in a specific wish."
"Huh." Mallow tried to frown. "But is that a thing that can really happen? Like you make a wish but it comes out all wrong and weird and scary, like somethin' from a horror movie."
"Your face looks like a horror movie!" Peach giggled (unlike Geno, she could and absolutely did drink, and not just juice). "Hold still!"
Geno shrugged again, wading deeper into his own kiddie pool of thoughts. "Well. Not to be the bearer of bad news but that sort of thing happens a lot more often than what you might think, and than what we Star Agents may be comfortable admitting."
Oh dear—that chorus of stunned mullets… Even Bowser temporarily halted his meticulous dissection of his Pigeons Confits aux Raisins et Half a Dozen Ketchup Packets.
Cue comically timed record scratch stop from D.J. Koopaclectic.
"Uh." Geno stumbled over the sudden silence. "Then again, in this case (and now that I think about it), it was almost certainly Chef Torte's love that made it happen. His ambition. Dedication to the craft of baking cakes and piping out little roses made of frosting. Other nice things like that. For sure. Sure of it. Ah hah. Say, do we even know whose wedding this is, anyway?" he wondered as he anxiously extricated himself from his chair.
"Oh, a couple toads from somewhere. Mister and Missus So-and-So, nobody we know," said Bowser, who just now decided to make it an even seven ketchup packets.
"I'll go find out who's wedding this is. Ought to wish them well. Yes, someone ought to wish them well…" Geno continued to mutter as he wandered into the dizzying farrago of falling stars.
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The Saturday Morning Cartoon
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Me: Hmm, I really want to write a Super Mario RPG fanfic but I have to come up with a good idea! C'mon brain, gimme your best shot!
My Brain, 48 Hours Later: Okay. Here's what I got:
—⭐🎳⭐🎳⭐—
It's the SUPER MARIO RPG SUPER SHOW!!
Episode 68: "Bowser's Bowled Over"
—⭐🎳⭐🎳⭐—
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Talk is cheap, Bowser
…and so are YOU!
And so, in this rather undignified way our poor Bowser gets dumped by Myrtle, a foxy lady Koopa he's been trying to woo, after she deems him to be "all talk and no trousers". While on the rebound, he tries his luck with Peach for the Nth time but she also politely turns down his dinner invitation because "it's League Night!". As it turns out, Peach is in a ladies' bowling league with her best mate Daisy and a couple other gal pals, and soon they're going to be competing in a local tournament. Bowser then gets the notion that an "honest demonstration" of his allegedly considerable bowling prowess could prove to be a viable solution to his romantic woes.
NB: This is only a 22-minute cartoon so no, we're not getting a sensible explanation to this leap of logic; we're just gonna go with it and hope for the best. Anyway it's now time for a commercial break! These action figures and sugary cereals aren't gonna sell themselves, kids…
Post haste, Bowser assembles a 5-man bowling league of his own, consisting of himself plus Mario, Mallow, Geno, and the only other guy they could find who was available at the time: Booster. Unfortunately, the first official outing of the new "Bowser's Minions" is a bit of a fiasco, for one reason or another e.g., Mario being a way better bowler than Bowser, Mallow being way more interested in the bowling alley arcade, Geno firing the ball down the alley so hard it leaves a crater (for 9999 crit damage to the lane), Booster discovering the snack bar and trying everything they have to offer (including three beer mugs, two plastic fry baskets and the tray they came on). What's more, Daisy's crew is there practicing too, and who should Bowser see among them but Myrtle herself! Staring at him! Pointing! LAUGHING! 😨
Bowser is totally embarrassed!! But, naturally, it'll take a lot more than a little humiliation to bring down the King of Koopas. In fact, he's more determined than ever for Bowser's Minions to beat Daisy's Dukes and impress Myrtle. The next time he rallies the team, he has a surprise waiting for them: Matching shirts! Then a Musical Montage™ (this episode's song: "I Heard a Rumour" by Bananarama) shows the group discovering their own unique bowling styles and coming together as a team, e.g., Booster manages to focus on the game instead of trying to crawl into the ball return, Geno manages to get a ball down the alley without causing more property damage, Mallow beats the high score on the arcade's "Beak Fighter" cabinet, Mario is still a way better bowler than Bowser, etc..
After the montage, the group celebrates their progress around a table at the snack bar, all agreeing that they are at least good enough to hold their own in the upcoming tournament. However, Geno wonders about Bowser's motivations, namely why he's still so determined to win the heart of a woman who doesn't seem that interested in him. Mallow agrees, noting that Myrtle was laughing at him earlier. Even Mario and Booster contribute to the list of concerns in their own ways! But Bowser just brushes them off as a misunderstanding of "Koopa Humor", and even goes so far to claim that this is how his people flirt!
NB: Yeah, now would be a good time to put in another commercial break. Fast food, various toys and board games, novelty oatmeal, PSA for milk, maybe a local promo for that night's episode of "The Golden Girls"…
The day of the bowling tournament, everyone arrives at the alley, dressed to impress and rarin' to go! Peach is delighted to see that Bowser actually applied himself towards an honest goal for once. Meanwhile, as Mallow makes his way from the snack bar to join his team, he trips over a pattern in the psychedelic neon carpet and stumbles, spilling an entire tray of (non-alcoholic) drinks. And who should be standing there laughing at him but mean ol' Myrtle! When Bowser sees this, he nearly blows his cool—laughing at him is one thing, but nobody laughs at his Minions and gets away with it! Rather than cause a scene, he decides to channel that energy into the tournament... forget impressing the lady, now he just wants to make her and her trash-talking teammates eat crow!
Anyway! Some bowling happens; in the end, both teams lose to The Rolling Snifsters! Still, Bowser's Minions put in an admirable performance and win a fifth place certificate (plus some coupons for the snack bar—delicious coupons, as Booster discovers)! Afterwards, Myrtle makes it known to Bowser that she might be willing to give him a second chance, but he knows better now and turns her down:
Roses are red
Myrtles are white
And I ain't got time
For your trash talk, alright?
—⭐🎳⭐🎳⭐—
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The Scrapple
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"You've really leveled up your game!" Punchinello observed. Indeed, but a brief survey of Bowser's Minions would suffice to reveal the tightly-knit, if morphologically diverse band of besties he'd anticipated after so many hours of poring over the official Nintendo player's guide to Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars at his local public library; the words "imperturbable" and "well-prepared" and "definitely impervious to bombs" came to mind...
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Mario, Bowser and Mallow's Limit Break Combo:
"Okay, okay. I got it! First, we all pile into the Clown Car, see. Then you do the fireball thing, and the mashed potato kid there does... whatever the mashed potato kid does, HDL cholesterol attack, clog some arteries, whatever! Just kill 'em! And then when the bad guys are all good and fried, I bust out the Colossal Clown Car Cannon and—hey hey, what's so funny? Hey meathead, you want a knuckle sandwich? You too, tater tot! I ain't above clobbering kindergartners! Hey, stop laughin'!"
Mario, Bower, and Geno's Limit Break Combo:
"Aw, geez, I dunno. Maybe we should just throw Geno at 'em."
"YES! Yes, this is a stellar suggestion! We should just throw me at them!"
"...yeesh, didn't think you'd actually agree with it..."
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Recently we had a chance to sit down and talk with Mallow about rumors that he's been "pumping iron" and "beefing up":
"Oh yeah. 'cause I was feeling a little wimpy. You know, like you can see how my arms kinda sag in the elbows sometimes like wet spaghetti. Peach says it's totally fine and I'm beautiful just the way I am. But I still wanna get tough! You know! But not too tough like Bowser—you know he gave me some Mentos and tried to tell me that they were He-Man Muscle Tablets and I should try putting them in some Croaka-Cola for extra he-man muscleness, but I'm not gullible like that, like I know there's no such thing as He-Man Muscle Tablets but I still wanted to see what would happen so I got Geno to do it instead. Boy did we get busted! I swear, if I'd known that was gonna happen we would've exploded that whole 3-liter ecomony-sized value bottle of Croaka-Cola outside instead of all over the hotel room. So yeah, that's how we got kinda banned for life from the Mush-Room Motor Lodge. Is that what you asked?"
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Recently we had a chance to ask Star Road Emissary “♡♪!?” about the alias and body it’s currently occupying:
"You mean Geno? Actually, it’s nice. It’s nice to have a name people can use and it’s even nicer to have things like thumbs. Simple locomotion even—my last mission saw me posted to a goofy golf course near Seaside Town, where I had to assume the form of a miniature windmill for about six months. I was tasked with monitoring the development of some irregularities that we detected in this world’s WMF (Wish-Magnetic Field), so fortunately I didn’t have to move around a lot. In fact, all I could do was sit and spin and get whacked by golf balls and the occasional club—some of these Mushroom folks have real tempers! Anyway, as for the irregularities, it was just sunspots again. It’s usually sunspots…"
"Now, as for Geno himself, I think Gaz or really any other child in this world could give you a more meaningful introduction. I’m not familiar with the character but Mallow tried to tell me a little about him. From what I could parse, Geno—the comic book character upon whom the doll was fashioned—is this extremely benevolent sort of… sentient wooden puppet guy? And he wears a blue cape and fights crimes of basic ethics while teaching his young and impressionable reader base to stay away from strange mushrooms and to not throw frisbees into electric power substations. But aside from that, he has quite the impressive arsenal, mostly pop guns and the like, all hidden in his fingers and arms. Knee cannons, that sort of thing. And yeah, while it is a little inconvenient to have to retrieve my hands every single time I fire them off at something, I still have to say that being Geno is a lot more fun than being a windmill."
"Oh! And Gaz very reliably informed me that the Geno doll has a wind-up missile-launching motorcycle that is, to our mutual dismay, sold separately…"
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