Chapter I

As with every country everywhere, a checkpoint lay at the Koopa Kingdom’s boundaries, patrolled by the country’s residents. The Koopa guards continually stared down a long straight, dusty road, the Mushroom Kingdom’s checkpoint a pinky-white blob in the distance, the desert heat making it shimmer, giving it an almost mirage-like effect.

The unforgiving midday sun beat down on the four of them, their black rifles almost unbearable to touch. Their leader, a green-shelled fellow, stood before the other three, gazing the length of no man’s land. A fifth Koopa came out from the small building beside them, which housed nothing except communications equipment and some conveniences. He adjusted the strap of his rifle over his shoulder and fell into line. Normally there were only two Koopas guarding the entrance to Bowser’s realm, but they had more than doubled when the KBT had caught wind of a dangerous traveller expecting to come their way.

The leader squinted – a brown dot had appeared before the Mushroom checkpoint.

“Someone’s coming! Stay alert!” he commanded, raising his binoculars to his eyes.

The brown dot became a featureless blob. With his claw, he turned the knob on top of them, adjusting the zoom, then changing the focus. The figure was dressed in a brown, hooded cloak, invisible except for a large, bulbous magenta nose sticking out from its head area.

“It’s a Yoshi,” the leader warned.

“It must be mad to be out at this time of day,” a Koopa chimed from behind him.

“No…it’s not mad, it’s out here at this time for a reas – what the…”

He dropped his binoculars as he saw something shining above the figure’s right shoulder, like a cruel, boding light.

“What is tha –“
The Koopa had no chance to complete the sentence – the four of them had been sliced across their torso with a sky-blue flash, the two bloodsoaked pieces now littering the ground, turning the sand red. The leader yelled, raised his rifle and began to shoot madly at the figure. Instead of dropping dead or running like he had expected, there was a pling-pling-pling-pling-pling-pling as the bullets hit a forcefield around the Yoshi, with yellow dots of light where it made contact, before falling to the ground. The Yoshi kicked them away as he walked over them, before pulling out of the recesses of its clothing a long, black stick of some sort. It twirled it in its right hand, before it was pointed at the leader, firing a black beam.

The leader had no chance to scream as it sank through his shell, through his skin, and into his body. He collapsed as his life exited him.

The Yoshi walked calmly towards the dead Koopas, looking straight ahead as he passed over them.

“Welcome to the Koopa Kingdom,” a voice said.

Suddenly, there were two Yoshies as the speaker stepped out from behind the other. The second was dressed the same, except his nose was orange, and sported a pink patch of zinc cream behind its nostrils.

“Drepatos, Dy, did you have to do that?” it asked, shuddering. “I won’t be able to eat for quite some time now.”

“Sorry,” the one called Dy replied. “I am a criminal here, so I needed my entrance to be unknown. Though who knows if there were any KBT agents camouflaged and watching…hope not. I can’t sneak over the border outside of here, anyway – they tend to camouflage themselves.”

“Why couldn’t we have flown in?”

“Because they’d shoot us down.”

The magenta Yoshi gave it a moment’s thought, before he turned.

“Shouldn’t we bury them?”

Dy turned and looked at the five corpses.

“I believe you could cremate them?”

The other Yoshi flicked back its sleeves with its arms, then waved them in an alternating pattern before itself. A red circle of light appeared around him, on the ground. It then raised its palms to the sky while holding them close to its chest, its fingers wiggling, before moving its arms out so that they were almost at full length.

A line of flame appeared and began to rush along the ground. When it reached the Koopas, it sprung up and began to blaze. The smell of meat permeated the air as the two turned and continued to walk deeper into the Koopa Kingdom.

“Is it alright to remove the hood?” the magenta Yosh asked.

“No, not until nightfall,” was the instant reply. “Though, we’ll be in Va’kotiku by then. It’s a good sized town, so there’s bound to be KBT agents. You’ll need to keep it on.”

“It’s annoying.”

“You have to dress to protect yourself from the elements in a desert, Ark. Anyway, once inside, we have to come off as any other sort of Yoshi traveller. If anyone asks, we’re going to B’kirik on business.”

“What sort of business?”

“’Look, we’re here to fight a clandestine war against the Gr’tokoru,’” Dy answered in a singsong, nasal voice, glaring at his companion. “Private.”

“Okay, okay! There’s no need to get up me, this is my first time at doing these things.”

“…Second…third…” was Dy’s weak voice.

“Pardon?”

“Never mind. I’m trying to get to Va’kotiku by four. Let’s up the tempo a bit.”

As part of his border patrol duties, KBT Agent 83741 would report to the checkpoint to present how many travellers who tried to enter or exit the kingdom his small group of Koopas had shot in the past 48 hours, and any identification as to whom they were. There were always at least two guards at the checkpoint…today, as he rounded the corner from behind a large rock beside it, there were none. This could only mean one thing.

He quickly produced a small black box from his shell and pressed a button on top of it as he ran to the building.

“We have a code 2-1-2, repeat, code 2-1-2. No sign of explosives…sentries cremated. Further details coming as I discern them.”

The agent opened the door to the building and entered. The printed read-outs of the weather machine on the roof littered the floor. He knew that a sentry tore off the readings every hour to start a new piece afresh – he fought through the paper and read the time markings…

“Code 2-1-2 occurred two hours ago.”

Another printout nearby was of the pressure plates embedded before and after the checkpoint…

“Two aggressors headed into Kingdom! Repeat! Into Kingdom!”

The clockwork of the KBT whirred. There were two enemies of the state within the Kingdom’s borders – they would be found…