Holly Koopa fumbled with her key ring, hands shaking as she hurriedly tried to locate her house key and get inside. A car alarm went off behind her and spooked her, but when nobody showed up behind her she was able to regain her composure and find her key.
She went inside...
And her home was wrecked. Furniture overturned, glass covering the floor, her late husband’s shell cracked and ashes spilled out.
Spray painted on her TV was a simple message: “KOOPAS GET OUT.”
Holly couldn’t bear to look at it-- she ran back outside crying.
Shroom City wasn’t supposed to be like this! This was supposed to be for the bumpkins in the Toadwood Forest, not here! Why... why did they hate her so much?
She had no destination, but she kept on running. It was all she could do.
***
“...and effective immediately, I will depart from the Mushroom Kingdom, never to return,” Merlon said, looking down at the floor. “I apologize for any pain I have caused you or your families. It was only my intention to keep the governmental change stable and easy, not... not to hurt any of you. And that’s what happened.”
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The crowd was upracious, screams and shouts overflowing and reverberating across the city.
“Traitor!”
“Stay here and let us take care of you!”
“Merlon should stand trial with Bowser! They’re best buds!”
“Yeah! Justice for the Mushroom Kingdom!”
***
In a holding cell in an unmarked dungeon in an unmarked castle in an unknown location in Dark Land...
Boom Boom sat amongst a dozen other political prisoners, chained up and huddled in whispers. If the Koopatrols outside heard them, they’d be beaten. But they still spoke. It was their only way of staying sane.
He had heard whispers, literally, of what was going on outside. Not outside this building, per se; it was obvious what was going on in Bowser’s Kingdom, with the worst succession crisis he’d ever been witness to. The revolution against Morton Koopa was deadly and it was a half-decade struggle; Boom Boom had seen his own people suffer and his home destroyed, and for a while he never thought it would have an ending except in his own death. But that revolution was a noble cause fought by honorable comrades against a tyrannical evil. This succession struggle was nothing more than a sham. So many dead, so many imprisoned, so much destruction...
And it was all for naught, apparently. For those whispers Boom Boom heard... they were that Bowser was alive and well... but captured by the Mushroom Kingdom.
Boom Boom looked up at the ceiling and said a little prayer to himself. “Wherever you are, Bowser... Boom Boom is looking out for you, buddy. Be strong. Be the King you were meant to be.”
Boom Boom tried to say that, at least. His voice was too dry to make any sound come out of his throat. Instead, he said it in his mind. And that was enough.