14When Ranma woke up this morning, he was thrown out of his room and into the hot pool of lava down below his window.
A short moment afterwards, he resurfaced, his pigtail dripping with molten magma. "What's the big idea, Pops?" he angrily yelled as he shook his fist, looking up to his window, where the burly form of his father had just appeared. "What did ya do that for?"
"Boy, I did that as part of your training." Bowser, king of the Koopas, looked out of the keep's window, down to his eldest son. "You need to be prepared for an attack at all times. Keep that in mind if you want to be the same great ruler I am. Your castle can always be under siege."
"You mean, a couple of plumbers could sneak past the Thwomp and firebar defenses," Ranma grumbled. The eldest koopa prince stepped out of the lava and wrung out his pigtail. For a royal koopa, the youngster was pretty fit and slim, standing taller than all of his siblings (hairdos not included) and almost as large as his father.
"Details, details," Bowser sighed as he waved his large hands around. "But you see, something like that can always happen. And you need to be prepared for that. Some day, you will go and kidnap your first princess. You will thank me for my training methods when the day comes. Now come up and get some breakfast. After that, we'll meet in the dungeon. Iggy set up a new obstacle parcours, Bullet Bill blasters included."
Ranma sighed as he began to walk around the Koopa Keep. Every morning was the same. The old man would wake him up by making him part of his new training routine, every time claiming that this was part of his new 'masterplan' to defeat the Mario Brothers.
Sheesh! The last time the kingdom had been under assault by the plumbers had been years ago. It had become unusually quiet in the Dark World. The guards had nothing to do and some were even showing signs of boredom. When Ranma walked up to the front gate, the Koopatrol guard on duty just gave him a weary salute and leaned back against the wall. "Same morning routine, Highness?" he asked.
Ranma nodded with a sigh. "Same as every morning. Say, um…" He tried to remember the Koopatrol's name, but it was just impossible with so many subordinates to remember the name of each and everyone."
"It's Bob, Highness!"
"Bob… why don't you go inside and take a break? I doubt anything is going to happen today. Nothing ever happens…"
Bob shrugged. "No can do, Prince Ranma. Your father's orders: We are to keep guard of the castle at all times, twenty-four hours a day."
Right. Why would his father improve the labor conditions of his troops? With a weak nod, Ranma just walked past the Koopatrol, pushed the main gate open and made his way to the royal dining room.
When he walked past the kitchen, his heavyweight brother Roy came stepping out, munching on some Dino Rhino spare ribs, his favorite snack. "Yo, bro!"
Ranma frowned at him. "You left me some, right?"
"Um… sorry Ranma, but those were the last ones. Hey, but you know what they say: First come, first served!" He grinned.
Whoever knew the royal Koopa family also knew their infamous battles for food. With so many siblings, there was barely enough to keep everyone satisfied. Not wanting to eat the leftovers, Ranma jumped at the sunglasses-wearing koopa. "Gimme those!"
"No way!" Roy protested. He held the ribs close to his body and began running down the corridor, with Ranma hot on his heels. However, both of them knew that Roy wasn't exactly the fastest koopa around, and Ranma's training allowed him to keep up with all of his brothers. From behind, he jumped on top of Roy's spiky shell. "Give me those Dino Rhino ribs, Roy!"
"Not this time, Ranma!" Roy shouted as he pulled his head, arms and legs into his shell and started spinning. Just like a spinning top, he ricochetted off the walls, taking Ranma, still sitting on top, with him. They zoomed past the rooms of their brothers Larry, Lemmy, Iggy and Morton.
"Hey! Roy got his hands on Ranma's dino ribs again!" Larry chuckled as he watched the spectacle. "You wanna bet he'll get them back in five minutes?"
"I'm betting 5 gold coins that Roy is gonna throw him off before that," Morton smirked.
"You're on!" Larry grinned.
Just before Ranma and Roy managed to get past the last door in the corridor, it opened, revealing the only female member of the family. "What's all this racket in the morning?" she shouted. She then saw how her two brothers came in her direction at full speed. She grinned. "Oh! RANKO! You're just in time!" She giggled and reached under her shell. She pulled out her magic wand, spun it around and created a bubble of water out of nowhere… a bubble of COLD water, which promptly splashed Ranma in the face.
The black-haired, second-oldest koopa prince instantly transformed into the red-haired, oldest koopa princess, gasped in surprise as she was splashed in the face, lost her hold onto the spikes on Roy's shell and fell down, right in front of her sister's door.
Wendy had a wide grin on her face. "Come on in, sis!" she gleefully shouted. "I have prepared the cutest bow that would look just adorable on the end of your pigtail… or maybe on your tail? You can choose!"
"Ack! Wendy!" Ranma sputtered as she climbed to her feet. "I told you, I'm not interested in that! And don't call me Ranko! I'm a boy… this is just a stupid curse!"
"Don't disappoint me, big sister!" Wendy cried with fake tears. "I'm the only girl in this family… but ever since you and Daddy visited those cursed springs, I can have a sister anytime I want!" She giggled. "We can share clothes, jewelry, makeup…"
"GAH! Keep that stuff away from me!" Ranma yelped as she jumped away from Wendy.
"Hey RanKO!" Roy snickered as he popped his head back out of his shell. "What about the dino ribs?"
"You can keep them… just keep Wendy away from me!" And she fled into the dining room, closing the door behind her.
Wendy sighed, while her brothers all snickered.
Bowser looked up from his food when his son-turned-daughter entered the room. "Ah, son! Got yourself cursed this early in the morning?"
"It was Wendy and her stupid water bubble…" Ranma grumbled as she sat down at the large marble table. She picked up a bowl of water, opened her mouth and spit a small flame at the bowl, heating the water.
"Ranma, if you can't dodge simple bubbles, you can't expect to dodge fireballs someone is shooting at you," the koopa king sighed as he watched how Ranma poured the hot water over her head, turning back into a male in the process. "To be honest, I did not just ask you to have breakfast with me for breakfast reasons… hmm… well, how do I put this…"
"Out with it, Pops!" Ranma said.
Bowser sighed. "Ranma, you are almost 17 years old… when Ludwig was your age, I gave him command over his first batallion of Koopatrols."
"I already told you, I don't need no troops," Ranma muttered. He didn't like letting others fight for him. Why commanding troops in battle if you can do the fighting yourself?
"Yes, you told me… and that's not what I wanted to say. Hmmm… Ranma, do you know how old I was when I kidnapped my first princess?"
'His first princess?' Ranma wondered. He couldn't think of any other princess his father had ever kidnapped besides Princess Peach. "Get to the point, Pops!"
"I mean… you are now old enough, Ranma. I know you are strong and you are a good trainer for the soldiers. But I think it's time you find out just how it is to go out and follow our family's tradition. Staying in a castle and commanding your troops is one thing… but stepping out into the world to find a suitable target… a princess that can never escape your clutches… maybe a rich princess… with a big kingdom… that's what makes you a royal koopa… my son!"
"Wait a minute… you want me to go and kidnap a princess?" Ranma asked with disbelief.
"Just one princess, Ranma," Bowser sighed. "That's all I'm asking for."
"Oh… and what princess did you have in mind? Not Princess Peach?"
"No! No!" Bowser said quickly, waving his scaly hands. "Peach is taboo! Only I am allowed to kidnap her, understood? No, I want you to find another one."
"Just how many princesses do you think are out there?"
"I'm sure you'll find one. Maybe Princess Daisy. Sure, her boyfriend is a wimp… but she makes up for it by being pretty feisty herself." He grinned.
"I'm not kidnapping any princess…" Ranma frowned. "That always gave you trouble in the past. Remember how often our castle was demolished by your battles with the plumbers? Remember how many coins we had to spend to rebuild it every time? And don't let me start on the bill for the drawbridges…"
"Ranma, you cannot refuse this! This is a family tradition! Can't you see the glory of the victory when you manage to grip her in your powerful hold? The gloating in front of your enemy? Having a helpless damsel stuck in your dungeon?" A grin appeared on Bowser's face.
Ranma rolled his eyes. He knew that grin well. It always appeared when his father came up with a new plan to kidnap Princess Peach, invade the Mushroom Kingdom or defeat Mario. "Pops… forget it… I don't wanna get myself beaten countless times the way you do…"
"You can't talk to your father like that, Ranma!" Bowser grumbled.
"Well, it's the truth! I mean, how often do we have to act along? How often do we have to be part of your plans? Stealing the magic wands of the kings, fighting the Mario Brothers in fortresses… you even pulled Junior into this!"
"Junior enjoys helping me with my plans much more than any of you do," Bowser said.
"Yeah, because YOU put that idea in his head that Peach could be a good mother for him!" Ranma shouted as his protectiveness of his youngest sibling came to the surface. "I can already see him becoming a smaller version of you… do you remember the last time you tried that 'galactic ruler' plot again and stole all those Power Stars? Junior cried three nights long because Mario defeated him so often. He's just a kid, Pops! And you make him control giant battle robots!"
"It was his choice…" Bowser grumbled. "And I'd like to point out that Iggy constructed those robots… listen Ranma… I'm not telling you to follow in my footsteps. I promise, you can do what you want… but PLEASE do me this favor… just kidnap one princess. Just ONCE!"
Ranma sighed. Seeing his father like this annoyed him to no end. "Fine… all right… I'll go looking for one today… now get up from the floor and stop groveling! That's embarassing!"
"Oh, you made me happy, my son!" Bowser laughed as he jumped back to his feet, making the walls shake.
'Once he found a suitable princess, he will grow to like it,' the koopa king told himself. 'And in the end, he will do his best to help me kidnap Peach and beat those pesky Mario Brothers, I'm sure of it!'
After breakfast, Ranma left the dining room with a sigh. "He actually talked me into doing it… well, guess I better get it over with fast. Now the only question is: Where could I find a suitable princess?"
"Akane! Akane, where are you?"
Queen Peach, ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, stepped out onto the balcony and looked down into the courtyard of her castle, searching for her only niece. In her hand, she was holding a pale yellow dress, almost as beautiful as the pink dresses she always wore.
All she could see down below were a couple of Toads repairing the courtyard fountain, and her own daughter, holding a silver watering can, pouring some water over the flowers. She was also wearing a dress, however hers was dark blue. Instead of a crown, she wore a shiny tiara on her forehead. Her brown hair fell onto her shoulders in a long ponytail.
"Kasumi," Peach called. "Kasumi, have you seen Akane?"
Kasumi looked up from her work and shook her head. "No, mother. The last time I saw her today was at breakfast."
"Well, where could she have run off to?" Peach sighed desperately. "I have this wonderful dress I wanted to give her as a present… the color scheme fits so nicely to her own mother's dress."
Kasumi sighed. She knew her cousin pretty well… in fact, she and Akane were so close that you could almost call them sisters. Their personalities, however, were as different as they could be. Kasumi was as prim and proper as her mother, the exact way how everyone was expecting a princess to be.
Akane, on the other hand, was pretty wild and tomboyish, even moreso than her own mother, the Queen Daisy of Sarasaland, Peach's best friend. She had an adventurous streak and was exceptionally skilled with the hammer… even though she could not jump as high as her father, Luigi.
"Mother, I believe Akane ran off because she knew you wanted to give that dress to her," Kasumi politely pointed out. "You know how she is."
"But she always wears those overalls from her father," Peach said with a frown. "A princess should behave as people expect of her. She should leave adventuring to the adventurers."
"You mean Father and Uncle Luigi?" Kasumi asked. "But Mother… wasn't there a time when you joined them as they fought the evil nightmare king, Wart? Or when you and Father teamed up with Bowser to fight Smithy? And what about the time when you saved them both…"
"Young lady, that is quite enough!" Peach told her daughter in a stern voice. "Those were… special circumstances. I fought because I had no choice."
Kasumi sighed and nodded. Her mother was stubborn like that. Kasumi knew from her father that her mother had in fact enjoyed the times she had gone out adventuring. But she was too well-behaved to tell her that, so she just continued with the garden work.
Out in the green hills behind Toad-Town, the teenage princess of Sarasaland was doing what she preferred over castle life and government policies: She trained using her hammer by bashing Piranha Plants that had infested the pipes of the Mushroom Kingdom.
Unlike her cousin/almost-sister Kasumi, she wore a blue overall from the wardrobe of her father, over a pale yellow shirt. On her head, on top of her short hair, she wore a hat of the same color, with a capital 'A' on it. This had been a present of her uncle Mario to her last birthday… and she was mighty proud to wear it. Like her father and uncle, she wanted to become a famous shell-thrower, Goomba-stomper and pipe-crawler.
Too bad the Koopa Kingdom had become unusually quiet over the past few years…
Akane ducked under a fireball a Venus Firetrap had spat into her direction, jumped up and hit the carnivorous, fire-breathing plant with her wooden mallet. "Take THIS!" She shouted. The plant squeaked weakly as it disappeared into its pipe.
Akane wiped her brow. "Well, pretty good, if I may say so." When she heard clapping, she turned around.
She frowned when she saw a slightly older girl standing behind her, wearing an outfit similar to her own… even though it was colored orange and had a capital 'N' on the hat.
"Pretty good hit, cousin," the girl smiled.
"Nabiki?" Akane wondered. "What are you doing here?" She then frowned. "Did Uncle Wario send you?"
"He doesn't even know I'm here, businesswoman's honor!" Nabiki said. She came closer. "Dad's business can run itself for one or two days. I don't need to look after it all the time."
"Are you saying the job has become too much for you?" Akane asked, raising an eyebrow in surprise. Nabiki was working as the marketing manager at the mini-game producing company Wario Ware, owned by her father Wario, an old rival of the Mario Brothers. Saying that Nabiki had a knack for business work was an understatement… ever since she joined the company's staff, the sale of mini-games had skyrocketed exceptionally.
"You should know me better, little cousin," Nabiki smirked. "Marketing never becomes too much for me! However, seeing my father sitting on his posterior all day long, stuffing himself with garlic and being rude to the employees can be… distracting. That's why I came here to relax a little."
Akane nodded. She knew Nabiki's father and his behavior all too well. She was also glad that she and Nabiki were getting along much better than their fathers. "Can't Auntie Mona talk some sense into Uncle Wario?"
"My Mom?" Nabiki huffed. "Sure, when she isn't busy delivering pizzas, working in the ice cream parlor or practicing with that music band of hers… I really wish she would finally decide on one profession…" Nabiki definitely got the good looks of her mother… but her sense of business, she got from her father. She always liked to say that she got the best from both of them.
"Say, I've noticed that hammer of yours isn't exactly in the best condition… I see some splinters…"
It was true. Until her father agreed to buy her a new hammer, she was forced to use his old, wooden one. Too bad he refused to give her his Super or Ultra Hammer instead… but he always told her that she wasn't ready for that yet.
"You know, Wario Ware is not just selling mini-games…" Nabiki said with a glint in her eyes. "We just opened the new tool shop in our lobby… we have wooden mallets for sale, fresh from the factory, only 50 gold coins!"
Akane facefaulted. "You just can't stop it, can you?" she mumbled. "And 50 coins? Do I look like I have a multi-coin block as a purse?"
"That's a special offer because I see you and Kasumi as my cousins," Nabiki said. "Decide quickly before they're sold out."
Akane thought about it. She was saving coins for that new Poltergust 5000… but having a brand new hammer was pretty tempting.
"A Poltergust, eh? You trying to step into Daddy's footsteps, Akane?" Nabiki asked with a smirk.
Akane grimaced. "Oh, shut up… I know he's not the bravest around ghosts but at least he's very good when faced with a…
"Excuse me," a voice behind them spoke up. "But is this the way to Toad-To…"
"PARAKOOPA!" Akane shouted as she jumped up into the air and smacked her hammer into the shell of the winged turtle that had sneakily approached Nabiki from behind. The Parakoopa let out a yelp as he was soaring towards the horizon.
Nabiki whistled. "Nice shot! I didn't even hear him come up behind me. I wonder what he wanted, though…"
"Now what did you do that for?" a voice spoke up. "Pops always smacks up his minions, too, but he was just asking for the way."
Akane and Nabiki turned their heads… and saw a tall, muscular Koopa boy with a spiked shell and a black pigtail standing behind them.
"Who… who's that?" Akane muttered.
"Um, I'm Ranma Koopa," the Koopa prince said sheepishly as he scratched the back of his head. "Sorry 'bout this."
