[center][img]https://www.mariowiki.com/images/thumb/b/b2/Koopa_Troop_artwork.png/658px-Koopa_Troop_artwork.png[/img]
[h2][color=FD0000]The Koopa Troop[/color][/h2]
[b][color=FD0000]wordcount:[/color][/b] 2,082 (+3) (none for Kamek’s bit part)
[b][color=FD0000]Bowser: Level 6 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=FD0000]/////////////////////////[/color]//////////////////////////////////// (25/60)
[b][color=SpringGreen]Bowser Jr: Level 5 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=SpringGreen]////////////////[/color]//////////////////////////////// (16/50)
[b][color=DeepSkyBlue]Kamek: Level 5 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=DeepSkyBlue]//////////////////[/color]/////////////////////////////////(18/50)
[b][color=FD0000]Location:[/color][/b] Gneidxick‘s Casino
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When Bowser (who had increased his size to maximum in preparation for a fight) and Jr arrived on the other side of the portal what they found was both very familiar and yet utterly alien. The long narrow platform floating in a void littered with deadly obstacles was a rather common sight for the pair, it's just that most of the time they weren't on the receiving end of such an obstacle course. 

[color=FD0000]”Pretty lame set up. Same trap over and over. No pits or jumps or,” [/color] Bowser began to say, immediately launching into a criticism of the stage, only to be halted when the arena lurched into life.

[color=FD0000]”Hay what,” [/color] Bowser exclaimed before realizing that they were actually standing on an auto scrolling convayorbelt [color=FD0000]”Oh one of these! Yeah, that's why it’s so repetitive looking” [/color] 

Jr, who had glanced behind them and spotted the massive spike wall they where now being dragged towards them, had no time for Bowser’s analysis of another stage maker’s art and instead yelled [color=SpringGreen]”Papa! MOVE!”[/color] before taking off at a run before hopping over the first set of spikes. After glancing behind him in confusion and then noting [color=FD0000]”, and there’s the thing to force us forwards,” [/color] Bowser took off after his son. Well versed in the art of jumping, it was pretty hard to get around their world if you weren't, the pair breezed past the first few sets of spikes. Things got a little trickier however when their opposition showed their face or, rather, faces.

The person taking up their usual spot of villain on the right towards which they would have to advance where, in fact, two people sharing a massive domino shaped body and which was riding a swing that descended down from nowhere. After introducing themselves as Pip and Dot and then immediately went on the offensive, sending a domino bird after Jr while the much larger Bowser had to contend with the lazily bouncing dodecahedron. 

[color=FD0000]”Ahahaha is that it!”[/color] Bowser laughed before slapping the energy shot with the energy buckler projected from his mecha mitt. Instead of being batted away as he had intended however the uninterruptible shot tore through the energy shield and was only prevented from tearing a hole straight through Bowser's hand because his had hit it with the edge of the shield rather than the center. Instead it simply singed furrow through the scales and flesh on his hand. [color=FD0000]”GAHH!”[/color] Bowser cried out in surprise and pain before ducking into his shell, which thumped down to the ground just in time to avoid being torn through by the unstoppable shape. A moment later he popped out again and had to put in a burst of speed to avoid a collision with the ever advancing spike wall.

Meanwhile the domino bird swooped at Bwoser Jr. The boy dodged to the side hastily while narrowly avoiding the spikes he’d just jumped over and then he had to sprint to make up lost distance while shouting [color=SpringGreen]”Mimikyu keep it off me!”[/color] as the bird came in for a second pass. Sat atop Jrs head where his new horn met his hair the small rodent did as instructed, its elongated tendrils lashing out to slash at the avian playing piece’s two massive eyes. When struck it swerved off to one side, partially blinded and squawking in pain as it did so, giving Jr enough time to take a leap over the next set of spikes. As he did so he extruded slime from his hands, gathered up a mass of it and then, once he’d landed, gathered it up between his hands lobbed it at their foe with a hadouken like thrust. The pair, swinging merrily, tauntingly, ahead of them, guffawed loudly as the splatter of goo barely made it far enough to stain the conveyor beneath them. They laughed even more when the goop rolled back towards the troop, forsing them to dance around the substance lest it blow their legs off. 

The one upside to this was that Muimikyu copied jrs attack, using it to slap goo over the bird as it continued to harry jr. The subsequent blast took it out, right in time for Pip to summon another from beneath his hat.

[color=SpringGreen]”OH COME ON!”[/color] JR complained loudly. His frustration only grew hotter and hotter as the two continued to run on the treadmill while narrowly avoiding the infuriating harassment coming from Dot and Pip. It didn't help that they initially failed to find a way to strike back. Mimikyu and Jr’s attacks didn't have the range to strike their foes while Bowser didn't have enough time to stop and charge up fire balls thanks to the barrage of birds, shapes and ever looming threat of the spike wall behind them. 

The pair were left sweaty and nerve wrecked by the constant pressure and, in Jr’s case, increasing angry at the extremely frustrating combination of attacks and the fact that [color=SpringGreen]”I. Hate. Exercising!”[/color]which he yelled at the world in generally, before shouting at [color=SpringGreen]”Get down here so I can punch you in your stupid faces.”[/color] at Dot and Pip specifically.

Laughter was the response. “No no, keep running tiny I’m sure you’ll catch us eventually. Your soooooo close! You just need to keep running for a few more minutes I swear.” Dot mocked him.

“Yeah you’ll have to get up here if you wanna hit us. Good luck with that you ugly tortoises!” Pip added.

[color=SpringGreen]”GAHHHH”[/color] Jr raged in response to the taunting. There where a number of ways of dealing with the problem that he might have thought of, but under the influence of his anger Jr instead picked the most reckless and cathartic one. [color=SpringGreen]”Throw me at em, I wanna bash their faces in!”[/color] he demanded 

“What?” the pair asked together, only to screech “What!” far louder when Bowser responded with a casual [color=FD0000]”Yeah alright”[/color] before grabbing his son by the shell, leapt up into the air (as Mimikyu bailed off of the soon to be projectile and onto his hat) and then lobbed him at the domino duo who where two surprised to try and do much of anything as the child rammed into them. The pair reeled from the impact, and then Pip screamed as Jr rabidly sunk his teeth into one of his arms to avoid falling. 

“Ahhh!” the pip cried as Jr grabbed the rope of the swing with one hand, while with the other he began to repeated punch a slime extruding fist into Pip’s face. 

“Get off him pipsqueak!” Dot demanded as she attempted to kick Jr off, only to receive a foot full of spikes from jr’s back and some retaliatory kicks from to the forehead as a result of her attempt.

[color=FD0000]”Yeah that’s it Jr. smash em up!”[/color] Bowser cheered as Mimikyu swatted at the last bird pip had put out from atop the king’s back.

“You idiot. Stop being punched in the face and just.” Dot began to say before Pip’s voice joined hers and together they growled “bite him back!” before the central maw loomed open to chomp the boy. Cries of alarm from his father and Mimikyue gave jr just enough warning to drop out of the way. Blindly. It was a miracle he didn't skewer himself on one of the sets of spikes scrolling below in the process. Instead he simply landed hard and was left panting dryly as the mass of slime on Pip’s face exploded. Red slime from the first punch detonated, vaporizing or set off the rest of the unprimed goo, sending Pip reeling but neither unhorsing the pair nor putting the man out of the fight just yet. 

As their foe tried to recover from the blast Bowser scooped up his son could be dragged into the spike wall, wincing as their spiky, now blue, shell grazed the wound the the dodecahedron had inflicted earlier. 

[color=SpringGreen]”Again,”[/color] jr growled horsley [color=SpringGreen]”I can take it”[/color] 

[color=FD0000]”Nah, you did enough already. I figured how this fights is meant to go now anyway. See I got other things to throw exept you.”[/color] Bowser replied before grabbing the annoying birds and lobbing it at the pair as right as they finished recovering from Jr’s attack. The squawking bird sailed through the air and smacked Dot in the face.

[color=FD0000]”Bullseye”[/color] Bowser cheered as Jr climbed up his arm and onto the back of his shell.

Pip, his face blackened and scorched by the explosion, and clearly furious about that fact, removed his hat and then began violently shaking it with one hand, popping out bird after bird from it's interior. “Take this you jerks!”

“Wait no you moron you’re just giving them more ammo!”Dot cried out in alarm as the miniature flock swooped down toward the troop. In response Bowser lashed out with the mecha mit, catching one of the birds while it’s blade scythed through others. Just as quickly as he had caught it the king threw it back again, smacking dot in the face a second time, much to her chagrin. Then as jr and Mimikyu fended off those birds that had tried to circle around he hopped over the next set of spikes, grabbed a second bird mid flight, and then upon landing hurled it at Dot.

“Stop that you imbecile!” the furious woman yelled at her partner after the third consecutive bird slammed into her. When he didn't immediately cease his avian onslaught she began [url=https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/cuphead/images/0/0c/Pip_and_Dot_knockout.png/revision/latest?cb=20180316164005]kicking him repeatedly in the face[/url] while yelling “Enough. With. The. Birds!” Before they could resolve their dispute however, the pair were hit by a mass of flying hat thrown by the now completely un-harassed Bowser. The pair were sent reeling and this time it was enough to cause Pip to lose a grip of the ropes of the swing entirely. Arms falling they toppled down onto the road, Dot’s head smacking into the back of some spikes as they landed. They weren't enough to pierce her hardened exterior, but they were more than enough to knock her out cold.

Pip, left unable to walk by dot’s unconscious state and being dragged straight towards the rapidly advancing troop (who paused only to collect Bowser’s hat), raised  his hands in the air and yelled desperately at them “stop stop I give up!”, causing both the conveyor belt to jerk to a sudden halt.

[color=FD0000]”Wait... What? YOU DO?”[/color] Bowser asked between heavy breaths as he slowed and then stopped his advance. He was already so used to the no surrender attitude of the Galeem possessed that this bout of self preservation came as something of a shock.

“You win!” Pip insisted before pointing a finger to the side of where Bowser had stopped at where a portal suddenly opened up leading back to the central area. “You can go spin the dice now, hooray for you!”

Bowser glanced at Pip, then at the portal, then back at Pip again. [color=FD0000]”YEAH ALRIGHT”[/color] he replied to Pip’s relief and Jr’s surprise, pausing only to add [color=FD0000]”OH AND 6/10 DEATH COURSE, COULD USE MORE VARIATION,”[/color] before stepping back through into the central room. Upon arriving he promptly collapsed onto the plush surface of the poker table.

Jr’s alarmed cry of [color=SpringGreen]”Papa”[/color] was joined by a call of [color=DeepSkyBlue]”Oh no Sire, are you alright!”[/color] from Kamek. The mage, who had been in the middle of demanding to know what was going on after Linkle had vanished into a portal that closed behind her, rushed over to his king while flanked by his two white mage clones.

[color=SpringGreen]”I hate treadmills”[/color] he responded simply as he had a nice lie down on the soft table surface. Jr slipped down of of Bowser’s back as Kamek got close, himself also rather tuckered out by all the running, which meant it was relatively easy for him to get clear when Bowser produced an explosion of green spores in response to being healed by the white mage Kamek clones.

After that incident had been resolved (it’s source quickly being discovered to be an interaction between magical healing and the mushroom badge Bowser had gotten from a loot box the day before) the group resolved to sit back and wait for the others to return from their fights so Kamek could provide them with healing and the two royals could get some well deserved rest after their time on the oversized running-machine of domino doom.

As they waited Kamek and Bowser proceeded to crush their way through the rest of the pile of sprites, lest they start to fade away, while explaining the situation both down here and far away in the Dead Zone to each other. Meanwhile a thirsty Jr tried to find out if anyone had brought anything to drink down into the pit with them.