[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/6W7bqko.png[/img]
[h2][color=FD0000]The Koopa Troop[/color][/h2][sub]and the twilight princess[/sub]

[b][color=FD0000]wordcount:[/color][/b] 1,876 (but interspersed so +3 for J B &M, +1 for R & K) (+1 rapport for Kamek and Rika, +1 for Bowser, Midna and Jr)
[b][color=FD0000]Bowser: Level 14 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=FD0000]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (220/140)  (+1 bonus pending)
[b][color=SpringGreen]Bowser Jr: Level 14 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=SpringGreen]/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color]////////////////////////////////////////////// (103/140)  (+1 bonus pending)
[b][color=DeepSkyBlue]Kamek: Level 13 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=DeepSkyBlue]////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color]/////////////////////////////////////////////////// (94/130)  (+1 bonus pending)
[b][color=Aqua]Rika: Level 9 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=Aqua]/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color](113/90)  (+1 bonus pending)
[b][color=Aquamarine]Midna: level 10[/color][/b] EXP: [color=Aquamarine]//////////////////////////////////////////[/color]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (41/110) (+1 bonus pending)
[b][color=FD0000]Location:[/color][/b] Carnival town: Ballyhoo’s Big Top
[hider=warp locations]
[s]
Central hub: Smash City Alcamoth
Accessible locations:
Peach’s castle
Limsa Lominscuttle Town
Lumbridge
Twilight Town
Kosm’s Beach
[/s]
[/hider]
[/center]

To say the royal koopas were both causing carnage and tearing up the road was something of an understatement. With oodles racing experience, blasting back and forth across town was a breeze, but, of course, between villain and mario kart involving interfering with other racers as a core component, they couldn’t simply be satisfied with just out racing the others. They had to mess with them too.

Which made trying to share a road with even one a nightmare, let alone two, let alone cross the bridge between islands with instant game overs on either side of you. Unfortunately for Midna, that is exactly the position she found herself in, with Bowser in front taking up the whole half of the highway, and jr coming right up behind her as they all approached that most dangerous of crossings.

[color=Aquamarine]”move!”[/color] honk [color=Aquamarine]”out”[/color] honk  [color=Aquamarine]”the”[/color] honk  [color=Aquamarine]”way!”[/color] she demanded, having discovered and now making liberal use of the car horn after getting tooted at herself by the none-people-cars.

As for why she wanted to get past, well, a certain prince had gotten clever with his strikers, and recreated an old classic of mario kart which he put an end to Midna’s honking by sending another volley her way: green shells.

[color=Aquamarine]”Goddesses you have got to be kidding me”[/color] the princess cursed, swerving to the side to avoid the first of the triple burst, only to careen into the central divider as looking where she was and where she was going proved much to difficult. Sparks flew as she scraped her vehicle against it, only for her to pull off just in time to avoid the second shell, and then dodged the third purely because she was swerving wildly to try and avoid the shells that had rebound off of the back of Bowser’s mega vehicle.

She let out a little sigh of relief as she saw the prince had run out of ammo, for now, for now, only to put her eyes back forwards and meet those of Bowser leaning over the back of his vehicle. 

[color=FD0000]”Get lost tailgater!”[/color] he demanded, before taking a swipe at her with a titanic claw. She hit the brakes with an [color=Aquamarine]”ach”[/color] to avoid this, only for Jr to rear end her, ramming her forwards back into Bowser’s swiping range with a [color=SpringGreen]”yeah, get her papa!”[/color]

[color=Aquamarine]”You little-”[/color] she began to bite bark at him, only for the sound of jet engine flaring to herald her boom as bowser swung his kinetic strike module down, smashed it into the side of her taxi, and sent it, and the princess, careening over the bridge’s barrier and down into the drink. 

She surfaced a few moments later, just in time to see father and son duo fist bump rather than keep up their sabotaging ways vs each other. Had she simply been taken down, she might have just stewed in the drink, but she drew the line at nepotism. Ironic for a princess, yes, but technically she had been appointed as her parent’s successor rather than simply inheriting the position.

Either way, she swore then and there she would have her revenge as she slipped into the shadow of the bridge and began to scheme.

Compared to the deliberate carnage her adopted father and new brother were causing, Rika’s was entirely unintentional. Despite Kamek sitting in her lap and giving her pointers, her lack of land legs was biting her in the butt again. She mostly compensated for being a land vessel via using her gauntlets when on foot, but having been made to sail everywhere meant she didn’t actually have the most strength or dexterity in her lower limbs, which made fine motor control of the pedal operated, well, motor, a touch tricky.

Hence why she was up there in the property damage department with Nadia, an unintentional rampage that ended with an [color=DeepSkyBlue]”Easily does it- oh dear”[/color] from Kamek before they missed a corner, rammed straight into an exercise ball store, and where bounced right back out. Two more bounces atop the parasol of a food vendor and a shop awning later and they had crashed, upside down in the middle of the street.

With a groan, Rika popped her gauntlets back on, shoved open the door of the car, and then forcibly shoved it back on its wheels, only for it to not start up again.

[color=Aqua]”What? Why? What’s wrong now!?”[/color] the ship girl complained in exasperation, only for Kamek to gently inform her that [color=DeepSkyBlue]”Sadly I think you are out of time young mistress”[/color] prompting a deep and frustrated [color=Aqua]”Uuurgh”[/color] from the ship girl before she complained that [color=Aqua]”this has been no fun at all”[/color] as she weakly kicked the taxi cab

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Perhaps there is something more amusing to do around the town for those who are out of time? We’re hardly the first and only to run out of time”[/color] Kamek suggested, before actually properly taking in the place they had been racing around and noticing the odd thing about it, namely that [color=DeepSkyBlue]”huh, it seems like the whole place is more gym than city? How odd”[/color]

[color=Aqua]”What’s a gym?”[/color] Rika inevitably asked, to which the mage replied that [color=DeepSkyBlue]”it’s a palace where people train their bodies to be stronger”[/color] before pointing out a few of the things that had given it away [color=DeepSkyBlue]”those would be weights for lifting to build arm muscle, and those treadmills to make you better at running, and, I suppose that”[/color] he gestured at a Leg Press Machine that had been placed where a park bench might have been in an actual city, [color=DeepSkyBlue]”would be for lifting weights with your legs to make them stronger I suppose”[/color]

[color=Aqua]”Huh”[/color] Rika replied, before saying [color=Aqua]”I’m going to try that then”[/color] which is how she ended up using the rest of the time they had doing leg exercises.

While she was at that, Bowser and Jr were still trying to win the game, but they were about to receive a thorn in their side as consequence for their actions. As the prince once again came to cross the bridge on a long and daring red passenger request, the shadow of vengeance sprung her trap. With a heave, Midna swung herself up onto the brigade, landing on all sixes and then lashed out with her shadow hand, grabbing the front of his rather diminutive taxi. As the prince yelled at her to let him go, she casually hurled him and his vehicle off of the bridge to cap off one perfectly executed ambush. 

She didn’t stop to gloat however. With the lighter target down, now came the daunting task of running the road hogging Bowser off the, well, road. 

Finding him was pretty easy, what with the roar of rage that echoed into the sky when he found out about how she’d ended his son’s game. Unfortunately, him finding out about that made things a fair bit trickier for her, as when she roared into view on the back of one of her stolen motorbikes, she was just in time to spot the prince clambering up onto the back of his papa’s cab.

[color=SpringGreen]”There she is papa! There’s the meanie who threw me off the bridge”[/color] the prince shouted, pointing her out with his paint brush, before calling out that [color=SpringGreen]”show her what a loser she is and win the race, I’ll hold her off!”[/color] when his dad made to come after her rather than break away from the race

[color=Aquamarine]”Oh I’m the mean one? You two should have thought about the consequences before messing with me!”[/color] she called back, before revving her motorcycle and charging right at them.

[color=FD0000]”Ha! We’ll see about that!”[/color] Bowser taunted back, before yelling [color=FD0000]”Now get in here!”[/color] at the closest available fair, who happened to be red.

That was Midna’s cue, as she brought up her second set of arms, and started to pepper the passenger with shots from her twin commando auto pistols.

[color=SpringGreen]”Hey what the heck!”[/color] jr shouted in complaint as the passenger too started complaining, (though not nearly as frantically as being shot might suggest) before forming an iron shield and sticking himself, and it, in the way of the shots. 

[color=SpringGreen]”Na na na na na! Can’t hurt me!”[/color] he shouted at her as Bowser hit the gas and roared off towards their destination. Not deterred, Minda kept up after them, forming a shadow hand and slapping it into the side of the koopa-cab, causing it to swerve into oncoming traffic. The royal ride naturally plowed everything aside, but it was all to much for the picky red fare, who bailed on them after the fourth collision.

[color=FD0000]”Alright, that does it, get off the road!”[/color] the koopa king roared, as he powslid the cab around, and then gunned it right at her. Seeming undeterred, she countercharged, only to leap at the last moment before the collision, her bike going down into a portal, and her up onto the hood of the car.

[color=FD0000]”Huh!?”[/color] the king grunted in confusion, only to panic as the princess made a grab for the wheel with her shadow hand and tried to forcibly turn all three of them off of the road and into the sea.

As she did so however, the mirror shield he had left sitting against the side door of the car flashed once, and a man very familiar to them all stepped out of it, brandishing a [url=https://i.imgur.com/IkQGYMx.png]pure white blade[/url]. 

The sight of her killer in the form he had worn when he struck the (temporarily) fatal blow made the princess flinch, and then when he came at her with that pure white blade prompted her to leap off of the vehicle entirely. She hit the asphalt, tumbling over and over in a way that would have really hurt if she could have taken damage at all. Fortunately, as it was off, she merely pushed herself up off the ground after reorienting herself, only to find the reflection of Ganondorf coming at her, blade in hand. 

With a flash she swung out her sword tipped tree spear to block the opening blow, and then emptied auto pistol rounds into the reflection as their blades clashed again and again, only for nothing to harm the reflection, because, of course, damage was off. It took her adrenaline spiked mind far too long to realize this was why she was making zero progress. To the point that when time ran out she’d still be trading parries blows with the phantom.

[color=FD0000]”That guy’s her biggest enemy? Thought he was Link’s nemesis”[/color] Bowser grunted, unsure if that was useful info or just funny, while Jr noted that [color=SpringGreen]”Did you see her face? She was really spooked by him showing up. Like really spooked”[/color] not quite able to interpret the look Midna had had on her face when her death flashed before her eyes, as much because half of it was covered in mask as because of his youth.

[color=FD0000]”Well it got her off our case, so time to make up for lost time! We can still win this thing!”[/color] Bowser declared, even as his timer ticked perilously close to out of time thanks to Midna’s sabotage and the mixed blessing of his mega sized vehicle.