During the next few days, Peach tried to find a silver lining in her continued imprisonment.

It was hard, but she did find it: after the Kamek finished out his two days of lockup and was released, he left behind his pen and legal pad for Peach to use. For many hours she ignored it, her head buzzing with anger and frustration at this unjust and unwarranted imprisonment, but eventually she had no choice but to turn to it for distraction. There was literally nothing else to do, save look out the window (which gave an unchanging view of the lava lake), pace, use the latrine, sleep, and just wait for her next meal to come.

So she took up the pen and pad, and drafted out her messages to both Daisy and Rosalina. Soon after she started, she realized what a task this was: explaining all of it was difficult in the first place, but there was so much to explain, and objectively, it made so little sense... Hopefully her sisters wouldn't think that she'd lost her marbles over the last year.

Daisy—

I cry your aid. This is difficult to say and even moreso to explain, but I will as clearly and concisely as I can. This may all sound mad... But you can be assured that all of it is true. I swear on my mother's grave, the stars, and my own life.

I have been removed from the throne, and am considered a wanted fugitive in the Mushroom Kingdom. Currently I reside in the Koopa Kastle under Bowser's protection.

The party responsible for this is a woman by the name of Colette. She is apparently a princess of the Crescent Kingdom, but this is unverified. She asked me for help about nine months ago because she was waylaid by bad weather and needed shelter. I did so and was summarily incapacitated shortly after. I spent the following eight months locked up in the Castle's dungeons, isolated and tortured, all while Colette crowned herself queen and turned my kingdom against me.

Isolated as I was, I am not sure how it all happened, but it did. Everyone is compromised, Mario, Toadsworth, Luigi. All of them. It's as though they've been brainwashed, though I've never seen anything like it on this kind of scale, but again, it has happened. It may be part of Colette's repertoire of mysterious abilities, besides the power to generate and distribute poison from her own body seemingly at will.

Whatever the case, I was only recently able to escape captivity, during what was supposed to be my public execution. I have since made my way on foot across the border into the Koopa Kingdom, where I was granted asylum by Bowser. But I do not intend for this to be the case for long. My goal is to retake the Mushroom Kingdom from Colette and I need your help to do so. Please retrieve me from Koopa Kastle as soon as you get this letter.

When she finished this part, she reread it a couple of times, and imagined Daisy doing the same. Again, even to Peach it all sounded ludicrous, even though it was clearly in her handwriting. She would want verification of this story, somehow. But what kind of verification could Peach give in a handwritten letter?

Nothing. She couldn't give her anything, nothing absolute and concrete. She would just have to hope that Daisy would stay true to her nature (assuming that Colette hadn't somehow already gotten to her) and would be so intrigued by the contents that she would see they warranted investigation. Still, she added a little something to really push the Empress:

I know this all sounds like the height of insanity, but I swear again on my mother's grave that it's all true. However, I would completely understand if you doubted the words on this page, and would need time to investigate. I am safe for now, but if you need to do so, I would suggest that you start with the barrier that has appeared around the Mushroom Kingdom, a barrier that is not of my doing.

That was it. She wasn't sure of how to end the letter, so she just said,

Please help me, sister.

With much love,

Peach

She sat back and flexed her right wrist. What a bomb this would be when she opened it... Several months from now. Peach hated that it would probably take that long, but there didn't seem to be another choice. Perhaps she would get together with Wendy in the future and get to use Minerva's laptop, but even then... Again, wouldn't Colette have shut down her government email account, or at least changed the password?

Stop hand-wringing. Back to work.

Yes. She tore her draft of the letter free from the pad and then started on the finished product. One for Daisy, and then another for the icy queen of space... Busy work that may or may not lead anywhere, but she had nothing else to do.

***

"Only two hundred soldiers?" Bowser remarked. "Seems like a token force for this kind of operation."

It was two days later, and they were in the throne room: Bowser on the throne, Chancellor Goondig and Defense Minister Mortis at the top of the steps, Ludwig at the bottom. Defense Minister Mortis had Ludwig's proposal in his chalky hands, but Goondig was actually reading from it: Mortis's dentures were loosening up on him again, and kept falling to the floor in the middle of every sentence.

"Yes, Father, but two hundred soldiers with smoke grenades," Ludwig pointed out. "The rally's going to be at dusk, so visibility will be low, and the staging that I have prepared is designed to confuse the crowd into thinking that there are more soldiers than there actually are. The grenades will strengthen the effect."

"Makes sense," Bowser amended. "But still. How're you gonna arrest more than a thousand people with only two hundred soldiers?"

"My primary targets will be the event organizers--"

"Including Wendy?"

"Yes." It wasn't easy to agree, but he managed it with a more or less straight face. "I assume that they're all going to say a few words before they march on the Kastle. At that time, we will strike and take them into custody. Morale will plummet, and the rest will scatter."

"W-what makes you... Think t-they w-w-w-w-won't fight back?" Mortis asked. The Dry Bones held his hand up to his mouth to keep his dentures in.

"Most of these people are sheep, Minister," Ludwig explained. "They're only going along with it for safety within the mob. Others are sympathetic to the cause, but have brittle spines, and will break rank at the first sign of trouble."

"So that's what the goal here is?" Chancellor Goondig summarized. "To splinter and demoralize the KQG?"

"Yes."

"Then why do you need the gold, Your Highness? It says here that you've requested nearly half a million coins, and you know we don't take opening the Treasure Room lightly."

"Bribes."

Bowser narrowed his eyes. "Not a wage?" he growled.

"No, Father. After careful consideration, I came to understand that you were right: buying off their non-participation ad infinitum is the wrong way to go about this. Instead, we present them with a small miracle: a large reward for insider information. The same sheep that will abandon their comrades at the first smoke grenade will be just as eager to give up information on the KQG's inner workings for a bag of gold. In this way, not only do we break up the KQG by separating the protestors from their leaders, but we gain knowledge on how to completely dismantle them from their own followers."

"By why half a million coins?" Goondig demanded. "How much do you plan on offering each informant for what he knows?"

Ludwig shrugged. "That depends. Also, the gold is mainly for show. When they see how much we have in the bank on offer, their tongues might loosen a lot more quickly."

Chancellor Goondig peered over the document once more before saying, "It seems you have your bases covered... Seems as good as anything else we've tried, Your Majesty."

"A-a-agreed," Mortis rattled. "I a-a-approve, Your Muh-Majesty."

Bowser waved his hand. "Leave."

Goondig and Mortis both bowed and left the chamber; the Dry Bones handed Ludwig back his proposal before shuffling after the chancellor. Once they were alone, Bowser said, "So this letter."

Ludwig stiffened. "Yes, Wendy, she..."

"Wanted you to turn coat. But you decided not to. Why?"

Ludwig looked Bowser in the eye and said, "She's wrong, Father."

"About me being a money-hungry tyrant?"

"About how to fix this problem. I agree that there's an ongoing economic struggle in Kastle Town and that people are hungry and upset and living in bad conditions... But marching around and bellowing on megaphones about being neglected isn't doing anything to help. And certainly fighting against the Army and holding rallies to march against the Kastle isn't. We need to extinguish this fire and then work on a solution."

"So you don't sympathize with her at all?" Bowser asked suspiciously.

The young prince bristled. "I love my sister," he said, "but I serve the king. Father, I would never--"

"I wasn't accusing you of treason," Bowser said, waving the idea away. "I dunno, I just..." He sighed, and for the first time in quite a while, Ludwig got a good look at how the Koopa Kid was really feeling: tired and disheartened. "A lot of things are going wrong lately," he admitted. "And ever since Wendy, well..."

He trailed off, and Ludwig found himself on a pin's edge. "...Well?" he prompted.

Bowser shrugged. "Well, if any more of my kids hate me, I wanna know. It's easier to deal with if it's out in the open."

"No!" The response burst from Ludwig. "I don't hate you, Father! How could you think that?"

"Wendy does. Is it that much of a stretch?"

"Wendy doesn't hate you," Ludwig blurted. "No matter what she says. She just... She made those friends in Kastle Town, and saw what happened to them when their businesses went over, and now she..."

"Hates me for it."

Ludwig opened his mouth to deny it, but couldn't. "She wants Kastle Town to get better," he said lamely. "We all do. And you just have different ideas of how to do that, so that's why you're butting heads. It happens all the time in other families."

Bowser didn't look convinced, and sagged in his seat. "Well, you've got my stamp of approval," he said, long claws tapping the arms of his throne. "So go and see Mortis about the allocation of those troops. I hope it works, Lud. This is a headache I'd just as soon see gone."

Ludwig nodded, but was slow to leave the chamber. Lud. It had been so long since his father had called him that, and he felt nostalgia for his younger years -- the years that had come before he'd assumed the title of Prince Regent or, as Lemmy like to put it, The Koopa Kingdom's Substitute Teacher -- when he and Father and his other siblings had been closer. Smiles had been more common, and Bowser hadn't been so standoffish.

He wondered if there was a way to return to those days. The Koopalings mostly kept to themselves now, especially after Bowser had begun locking them up in Tyrant's Tower for not seeing to their duties... But that conversation just now... It had been proof that those connections, or at least the one between him and his Father, were still there.

Maybe not, not after what you're about to do. Ludwig clenched his teeth around that thought, trying to suppress an upwelling of guilt. None of that. You've got the approval... Get to work.

With that, he shelved his thoughts, and went to find his brothers.

***

Everything was ready by late afternoon. They were furnished with one airship for the troops, but the brothers went in their Clown Cars: Ludwig, Roy, and Lemmy.

If not for their particular abilities, Ludwig would not have chosen these siblings to accompany him on this venture. Roy and Lemmy were different in many ways, but one thing they had in common was their stark similarity to a hand grenade: a lot of energy that was hard to control. With Roy, it was a matter of not knowing when to stop, and with Lemmy... Lemmy was just an outright wildcard, and though they'd been together since birth, Ludwig still found it hard to predict what this little brother would do next.

Like right now: he was wheeling crazily with his Clown Car as if he'd completely lost control of it, spinning down through the sunburnt clouds and then spiraling back up like a boomerang. Ludwig didn't try to stop him: it was a good idea for Lemmy to blow off some steam before the operation started.

As he dove back into the clouds, screaming wildly, Roy pulled his Clown Car alongside Ludwig. "So when do I get to blow stuff up?" he asked.

Among the Koopa royal family, Roy's powers were some of the most destructive, after Bowser and Junior's identical ability to conjure what the Magikoopas had named "Draconic Fire". After they had been conceived and demonstrated before the Magic Order, the Onnimek had named Roy's abilities "Volcanic Quake" after his ability to summon the overwhelming and wholly destructive power of volcanic activity. It was particularly potent near and around Koopa Kastle and the Kastle Town, which was likely one reason that the citizenry had not dared to march on the Kastle yet, not with Roy in residence. It was a fact that Ludwig planned to remind them of at tonight's rally.

However, the last thing Ludwig wanted was to wipe Kastle Town off the map.

"Just before the march," Ludwig said evenly. "I want our entrance to be grand. Fire and magma, shaking earth, that sort of thing. Can you do that?"

"Can I? Can I?" Roy lowered his sunglasses to show Ludwig just how much he could do just that. "Don't you worry, big brother: you wouldn't be able to make a better entrance if you hired the best movie directors in the world to plan it! They'll all be peeing in their nappies and calling for Mommy when I'm done with 'em!"

"Good. But I expect injuries to be kept to a minimum." And there would be injuries -- there wasn't a single instance where Roy had used his powers and everyone had come away unscathed, so Ludwig just had to accept the fact and move on. "If you get overzealous, I'll cage you and bury you at sea for a day. Understood?"

Roy swallowed: he hated the ocean, and the last time Ludwig had punished him that way, he'd come out the other end very twitchy. "No problem, bro -- minimal injuries, I can do that. Fifty burns, that okay?"

"Make it twenty."

"Thirty."

"Twenty-five. Don't ask again."

"Twenty-five. Got it."

Just then, Lemmy came spinning out of the cloudstuff again, and pulled his Clown Car to a halt right above them. "I see a huge crowd gathering down there!" he squeaked. "Hyuuuuuuuuge -- maybe a thousand heads! That all them?"

"Probably," Ludwig said. "You remember what you have to do, right?"

"Sure!" Lemmy said, going around in circles again.

"Then repeat." Lemmy kept spinning, and Ludwig snapped, "Lem! Repeat what I told you before we took off!"

Repetition was everything with Lemmy Koopa -- the Koopaling was easily distracted and had a short-term memory, so it was imperative that he constantly repeated anything that he -- or you -- wanted him to remember. In this case, his role in the operation:

"Yeah, yeah! The red-shirts throw the grenades, and then I cast the cretins into the Mind Swamp! Easy-peasy!"

"How, though?" Ludwig demanded. When Lemmy began fiddling with some of his Clown Car controls, flipping the vehicle upside down, Ludwig said, "How, Lem? How are you going to cast it?"

"Fog!" Lemmy said, turning himself rightside up again. "So it blends with the smoke!"

Ludwig nodded tightly, hoping that his brother wouldn't forget. Lemmy had a unique brand of Mind Manipulation power unseen anywhere else in the kingdom. It had the ability to highly confuse the enemy, and though the effect only lasted about three minutes, during that time it was highly infectious and notoriously hard to throw off, even with mental healing magic -- for that reason, Lemmy had branded it the Mind Swamp, and it was imperative for this operation to work, even moreso than Roy's.

Lemmy buzzed around Roy's ship, poking his older brother in the back, and as Ludwig watched him try to punch Lemmy, he felt his anxiety increase. They've got orders and wands. It'll be fine. And probably it would be. But there was no telling with these two: he felt like he was taking two lit fireworks into a room full of old paper, and trying to keep everything from going up in flames.

Let's get this over with as quickly as possible!

***

In a few minutes, they arrived.

Below, Kastle Town sprawled across the volcanic landscape, swamped in its iconic dusty smog. But even from on high, the crowd gathering at the downtown square was impossible to miss: Lemmy was right, there had to be at least five hundred people milling about beneath Bowser Junior's defaced statue, waiting for the event to start.

Ludwig spoke into his Clown Car's radio: "Stay at this altitude until I give the order to descend. Use the clouds for cover. We'll be going down to survey the area."

The airship obeyed, rising a little higher into the fluffy evening clouds until it was masked from sight. "Let's go, you two," Ludwig said. "Invisibility shields up. No funny business: we don't act until after the event starts."

"Roger," Roy said. He disappeared a moment later as his Clown Car buzzed out of the visible spectrum. Beside him, Lemmy cackled.

"So exciting!" he said before vanishing.

They went down, passing through thin layers of cloud before dropping into the city's smoggy shroud. They slowed when they reached the rooftops of Koopa Kastle's dilapidated suburbs, and came to a full stop just above one of downtown's many derelict buildings. This one was brick, with a broken chimney, and had a perfect vantage point of the square. There were even more people now -- Ludwig could barely see a square inch of pavement for all the Shy Guys, Dry Boneses, Boos, and Goombas. It was difficult, accepting that this many people were choosing to stand in stark opposition to the Koopa King... And these were just the ones that had chosen to show up. And likely their numbers will only grow after tonight...

"Psst," Lemmy said from nearby. "I spy with my little eye... Our traitor sister!"

Yes -- a small platform had been erected right below Junior's statue, and Wendy was there, along with a few other citizens -- including a Birdo, a Magikoopa, and a Boo -- that must've been her partners in crime. The crowd was milling around them in eager anticipation; was the rally about to start?

Ludwig spoke into his radio: "Start descending, but slowly. Generate cover. We don't want them to know they're about to be surrounded."

Somewhere beside him, Ludwig heard Roy cracking his knuckles.

Then a loud cry went up from a megaphone: Wendy was on the stage now, speaking into a bullhorn that could've been heard from space. "Good afternoon!" she said. "Welcome Boos, Birdos, Goombas, Koopas... No. Welcome, the KQG Army. My name is Wendy O. Koopa, and this meeting of Kings, Queens, and Guillotines is officially called to order."

A great cheer went up, and over the din, Wendy continued: "Tonight is the night that we give the Koopa King proof of our sincerity. He has ignored our calls for economic and societal reform at every turn, and our invitations for civil negotiation and mediation. Enough is enough. He is clearly content to sit up in his Kastle and plug his ears, but we won't let him. Tonight, we go straight up the gut, straight to his door!"

Another cheer, but surprisingly lower than the last: it was clear some of those gathered had qualms about taking their demands right to the Koopa King, as well they should: that magma moat wasn't there for nothing.

Impressively, Wendy seemed to sense this: "Now look," she said. "I understand that many of you are uncertain about this. It's one thing to say that you're going to picket the Koopa King's home... But another to actually do it. What about the magma? What about the soldiers? Is our safety guaranteed? And I'm going to be straight with you: the answer is no. There are significant risks, significant stakes in tonight's event. Some of us will be arrested, and may be sent to prison, just like many of our other comrades last week. Some of us will be injured as the Army tries to take us out. Some of us may have our lives or livelihoods ruined. Let's take a moment to understand this...and accept it. This is war -- not the kinetic kind, certainly, but war nonetheless, and war doesn't come without risks, and if the road we tread was an easy one, we wouldn't be going down it.

"Still, there may be some of you here who perhaps have loved ones to care for, and do not want to risk what we're about to undertake tonight. If that's the case, then I urge you to return home. No hard feelings. We understand. But for the rest of you... Gird your loins. It's time to stop talking, and to start walking."

Thunderous applause that would have drowned out a storm. Again, Ludwig was impressed: he did not agree with Wendy's standing in this organization, but that speech had been a good one. Honest and transparent about the perils that lay ahead, but uplifting in why these perils were necessary to reach their goals. If he'd been an impressionable young Shy Guy living the poor life in Kastle Town, he would've lapped it up.

"Can we make them miserable now?" Lemmy asked. "She got them all happy. I wanna tear them down."

"No. We wait until the march is about to begin."

Next came a line of other speakers putting in their two cents: they called themselves "Neighborhood Leaders", but Ludwig knew that they were high up in the KQG hierarchy, probably second only to Wendy herself. He made note of their names: Holly the Birdo, Burton the Boo, Minerva the Magikoopa, and Goonie Goomba. He was the last to speak, and had a special announcement:

"Now, before we start marching, let's get to the business of the drawbridge," Goonie said; Minerva the Magikoopa was holding the bullhorn in front of him. "Most of you were probably wondering how in the dickens we are going to cross that two-mile moat of volcanic slop. You've been asking for days, and we've declined to answer; that's because we wanted to keep it a secret. But now, it's my pleasure to reveal to you the answer. Look there!"

He turned to the east, and so did the crowd. Immediately, Ludwig pulled a mini set of binoculars out from the dash of his Clown Car and took aim at the darkening eastern skies. Yes, there: coming down through the smog, a large, round shape, its ventral propeller sweeping the rusty clouds into a vortex around it. Cries of exclamation went up from the crowd, and Ludwig couldn't help but suck in a breath of incredulity. An Air Island!

Air Islands in and of themselves were not impressive: Bowser's fleet had a million of them, and they weren't even used for combat. They were essentially large, floating platforms used to deploy Paratroopas and other flying units during skirmishes with enemy troops. They were also used to distribute supplies or ferry troops to and from various camps. Basically, if something needed to be carried, then an Air Island was usually commissioned to carry it: if an airship was a truck, the Air Island was essentially its trailer. So again, nothing special.

But this wasn't a professionally-made Air Island, built in one of the Army's industrial factories in Black Beach. As it drifted down lower, Ludwig saw that this thing was a barely-functioning Frankenstein that had been cobbled together as a hobby project: the hull was a patchwork of wood and metal, the usual single propeller had been replaced by a series of smaller ones, and judging by the sound of the engine, it was barely being held together by staples, tap, and goodwill. But that it was flying at all was an impressive feat, and the crowd went wild at the sight of the mast: a giant flag was flying there, one of a broken crown against a field of blue, white, and green stripes.

"Thank your fellow comrades for this marvel!" Goonie cried as the Air Island continued to descend. "We all thought that building one was a shadow of a dream, but they did it in less than ten months, and now we have a direct path to the dictator in our midst!"

"Direct path?" Roy snorted. "Gimme a break: I wouldn't ride that thing to the grocery store, let alone the Kastle!"

He had a point: sure, the craft had made a grand entrance, but could it shake and shudder across two miles of magma? Ludwig wondered if they'd tested it for long-term flight, or considered what to do if it experienced catastrophic systems failure on the way over. Had they also considered what would happen if the Air Island got them there, but failed to get them back? In this, Ludwig had a deeper understanding of his father's point of view: this was a great feat, but these people's top priority was still just to get to Bowser and shout in his face. Maybe Wendy had considered the other risks involved, but they hadn't.

It was no longer about just discipline here. It was about saving these people from themselves.

"Base," Ludwig said into his radio, "take out that Air Island. EMP burst, low-grade."

Lemmy began cackling as, far above them, the airship fired up its EMP cannon, and delivered a concentrated burst of energy at the protesters' ship. It blasted away any clouds in a half-mile radius and struck its target with the sound of a thunderclap.

The Air Island lost power immediately and began spinning. Cheers turned into screams, but for a strange moment, no one moved: they simply watched the Air Island spiral wildly and make a sudden beeline for the opposite end of the square. Luckily, the pilot, a Paratroopa, managed to throw himself free just in time, and the crash was rather anticlimactic: the Air Island simply hit the ground and collapsed into a pile of junk, showing just how fragile it had really been.

"Look!" a Shy Guy shrieked.

The entire crowd turned the other way as the airship came down through the sky, discarding any cover it had as its cannons rolled out of the gunports and locked into full firing positions. Now pandemonium broke out: the crowd splintered almost immediately, running for cover. Ludwig snapped his fingers.

"Roy," he commanded.

Roy deactivated his invisibility shield, revealing a full-toothed grin, and lunged out of his Clown Car, falling a full four stories to the flagstones below. He landed with an earthquake, literally -- fault lines leapt across the pavement, and the entire square rippled in a rocky wave as the earth shifted underfoot. People fell to their faces, fell into one another, and Roy roared with laughter.

"Where are you fools going?" he boomed. "I thought you were gonna give the big, bad, Koopa King a piece of your mind?" He stomped the ground, and there was another earthquake, more cracks. Deeper cracks: they turned red, then bright orange, and lava welled up in them, spewing into the air in giant columns. The screams became ear-shattering as protesters stopped, swerved, ran, stopped, swerved, desperate for a way away from this sudden volcanic insanity.

But there was no way out — with a twirl of Roy's fingers, the superheated cracks in the ground grew into ravines, channeling rivers of molten pyroclastic material, and the ground continued to rumble and shift, break apart and come together. In moments, the square was unrecognizable and cut off from the rest of the city: Roy had raised the plaza onto a crumbling plateau and surrounded it with a swirling moat of lava, stranding more than six-hundred people in place. Shrieks of terror rent the air as the people on the outside of the mesa scrambled to keep a firm footing and not tumble down into the magma below.

Roy twisted to look up at where Ludwig was watching; he was standing in the lava, and looked highly pleased with himself. "Whaddya think, bro?" He called up. "Don't see no burns, either!"

Indeed, and the protesters looked so terrified that Ludwig wondered whether or not Lemmy was actually necessary at this point. Unfortunately, it looked like Lemmy still remembered what Ludwig had asked him to do, because he dropped his invisibility shield and gave Ludwig a glowy-eyed stare.

"Can I go now?" he asked. "Can I, can I, can I? Please, please, please?"

Ludwig considered. Promising to let Lemmy run roughshod and then reneging had had pretty disastrous results in the past. "Fine," he said. "Go on. Scare them."

Shrieking with excitement, Lemmy whizzed down in his Clown Car, and made a wide circle over the terrified, trapped protesters. "Aw, are you guys scared?" he shrieked gleefully. "Maybe I should help you. Why don't I give you some rain, help you put out all this fire?"

Ludwig knew that only a storm of biblical proportions would put out Roy's volcanic flames. He also knew that he would know better than to trust a Koopa Kid, let alone Lemmy Koopa, in a situation like this. And yet still, he heard people in the crowd crying out, "Yes, please! Help us!"

"You got it!" Lemmy sniggered, and he waved his wand, conjuring a great mass of thunderclouds. Didn't he say he would do fog? Oh well. Lemmy liked to be theatrical.

Seconds later, it began to rain down on the protesters. At first, there were cries of relief as steam began rising up from the magma. But then... Something changed. The relief turned to confusion... And then terror. A scream went up. Then another. Then dozens more. The crowd began writhing like a mass of ants. No one was in the magma, and yet some of them fell to their knees as though they were burning alive. Others stumbled backwards from things that weren't there, and yet more attacked each other as though they were fending off beasts.

Ludwig couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for them: he himself had tested out the effects of Lemmy's mind manipulation power, last time in the form of fog, long ago, and it hadn't been pretty; the hallucinations had been horrifyingly life-like. He could only wonder what the crowd was suffering through now.

Lemmy hooted with glee. "Look at you go! And you fools thought you were gonna take down Dad? Puh-lease!"

Roy had the earth break and reform again, and created a giant wall of volcanic rock that both prevented the protesters from falling into the magma, and trapped them in a ring with each other. As the bedlam continued, Ludwig spotted Wendy near the northern edge of the enclosure, desperately clawing at the rock wall. The mania on her face chilled him to the core, and immense guilt came down on his head, but he tried to swallow it back. Three minutes and it'll wear off. She'll be fine, and then we can finally settle this business.

It was a long three minutes — Ludwig tried not to watch, but he couldn't help it. He also couldn't keep his eyes off of his little sister, even as he sent Roy's Clown Car down to collect him and relayed orders to the airship to draw back. At one time, he saw her crying. Another, she kept scratching herself, as if she were covered in fire ants. Another, she clutched at her throat, like she couldn't breathe. This is wrong. What have you done to these people? How could you do this to your own sister?

Finally, the counter on his dash hit 00:00. Ludwig dug his claws into his palm as he closely watched the crowd. Indeed, the hysteria seemed to finally be evaporating: the din leveled off as the screams and howls turned into groans of confusion and disbelief. People stopped shaking, writhing, choking, and rolling on the ground and stood, eyes clearing of tears and terror. They milled around, looked to the sky with disbelief. Ludwig knew, from experience, that their disbelief didn't come from a lack of memory: no, they remembered exactly what had happened. They were just stunned that their hallucinations had disappeared as easily as morning mist.

"Aw, it's over," Lemmy groused. His Clown Car had come to drift over to Ludwig. "They're all waking up. No fun. Can't we just keep 'em in the swamp?"

"No," Ludwig said. "It's time to address the matter at hand."

Lemmy waved his wand, conjuring another vile cloud. "How about just one more round?"

Immediately, Ludwig Seized Lemmy: he reached out as though to grab him, and encased Lemmy, the Clown Car, and the cloud in an airtight sphere of crackling blue magic. Lemmy squeaked in surprise, and Ludwig said, "Since you seem to have stuffing in between your ears, enjoy the rest of our stay in solitary."

The cloud brushed Lemmy's arm, and the Koopaling squealed. "Ack! Ludwig, m-my cloud—"

Ludwig snapped his fingers, and the Containment sphere clouded over. "Not a peep out of you until we're back at the Kastle." He sent the sphere sailing up for the airship, where it would wait until it was time to go; though he'd soundproofed the vessel, Ludwig felt that he would still be able to sense his brother going crazy inside from his own mind magic. That was the downside to Lemmy's Mind Swamp power: it affected everyone, even the caster.

"Roy," Ludwig said, and obediently, his younger brother descended with him until they hovered about a hundred yards over the walled plateau. The crowd was rallying: people were helping each other up and dusting each other off, and when they came low, they pointed up at the Clown Cars. Ludwig activated the microphone feature on his Clown Car.

"Where is Wendy O. Koopa?" he demanded.

The crowd turned as one, and Ludwig spotted her near the center of the mass; she was being helped up by Minerva the Magikoopa and Holly the Birdo. She glared up at Ludwig, and he felt another lance of guilt: her eyes were bloodshot, her hands and feet were dirty, and she looked like she hadn't slept in days. The Mind Swamp had that effect on people. Someone handed her her bullhorn, and she switched it on.

"The Mind Swamp?" she hissed. "How dare you. How could you do this to me, Ludwig? How could you do this to your own citizens?"

"I didn't want to," Ludwig said. "But you all didn't help yourselves much. As far as the Koopa King's concerned, you're insurgents, and I had to deal with you on those grounds."

"We aren't insurgents! We're regular people trying to make our concerns known to the King." A few cries of agreement went up at this. "I thought you understood, Ludwig. I thought you wanted to join us. What happened?"

Roy raised a brow at Ludwig. "Join them? What's she talkin' about, bro?"

She was talking about the letters.

Out of all his siblings, Ludwig was perhaps closest to Wendy, perhaps because they were outliers in their family group: while Lemmy, Larry, Iggy, Mortan Jr., Bowser Jr., and Roy more or less took after Bowser in their love of the battlefield, Ludwig had a stronger passion for knowledge and the sciences, while Wendy's ambitions were artistic in nature. In their younger years, when Ludwig helped her through their father's rigorous training exercises, Ludwig would often coach Wendy along by asking her to focus on things she wanted to do, things she wanted to achieve, and would share his own ambitions to provide her with a suitable distraction from her labors.

He had never intended for those conversations to stoke her desires to the point of no return, but indeed, almost two years ago she had finally up and left the Kastle, determined to pursue her passion as a beautician and, much as he'd tried not to, Ludwig had spent copious quantities of time worrying about her. The Koopa Kingdom was a rough place, after all — how could she hope to survive on her own without her father or brothers to protect her?

But somehow she had, for not long after she'd left, Ludwig had begun receiving letters from his younger sister, delivered to his study by one Captain Glaue of the Goomba Infantry. The letters had described her fight to set up shop in Koopa Kastle Town, and how things had ultimately folded due to the terrible economy and ridiculously high standard of living. It had been a slap in the face for Wendy, a powerful dose of reality of what living in the Koopa Kingdom was really like for the average citizen, like her friends in the beauty community.

It was a problem that Ludwig himself had wrestled with since before Bowser had granted him the title of Prince Regent. After all, he'd grown up on stories that the Koopa Kingdom was a nation to be feared, a volcanic land where the weak failed and the strong thrived, but the honest truth was that the Koopa Kingdom was a hated place. Despised by other nations for its constant military activity, it was a kingdom where the land was either dead or violent, where the citizenry was ignored, where the king's sole focus was either storing up gold or ransoming princesses from other kingdoms for gold. It had been this way seemingly since its inception: Bowser's grandfather's grandfather's grandfather's grandfather had run the kingdom exactly had Bowser ran it today, almost to the letter, according to the histories. And no one, not even the citizens themselves, had truly seen anything wrong with it, because any opposition was immediately extinguished. Ludwig and Wendy were perhaps the first individuals in generations of any standing that took issue with how the Koopa Kingdom was managed.

Wendy had seen this, known this, and that was why, in her letters, she had continuously asked him to join her in her efforts to remake the kingdom. And she was right, Ludwig had — and did — sympathize with her cause. But he knew that defecting to Wendy's side would not only splinter their family apart, but it would also be detrimental to her cause as a whole — he was currently in a position of great power, where he could do much. Demoting himself to a rebel with few resources would be of no use to anyone. There had to be another way to settle this. Right?

No. None that he could think of... That was, until Princess Peach had berated his father.

"Hey." Roy grabbed his shoulder. "Lud. What is she talking about? Join... You weren't thinking about joining them... Were you?"

Ludwig treated his younger brother to a freezing cold stare. Roy shrank back a little, and Ludwig said, "I do sympathize with you, Wendy. That's the truth. But marching to the Kastle... Do you think that's the best way to gain Father's cooperation?"

She lifted her chin. "Whatever works."

"Look at what we did to you today. That was just me, Roy, Lemmy, and an airship. Your movement is about as fragile as that Air Island, and bends under the slightest of pressures. Imagine what Father could do if he decided to put the full force of the Army against you, and not just the couple of squadrons he's sent out before. You're the only reason that he hasn't, Wendy, else the KQG would have been squashed by now."

Wendy was silent for a moment, and many in the crowd turned to her with dismay, probably wondering whether she herself was beginning to bend. Then: "We're not going anywhere, Ludwig. If you have to arrest us, then arrest us, but you can't stop the spirit of our movement. It's growing, you know. Soon, even the Army won't be able to stop us."

"I have no intention of arresting anyone here today."

That statement induced fear, rather than relief; Ludwig saw it on Wendy's face. "Then what—"

"Don't worry," Ludwig said, a little hastily. "I have no use for a mass grave or anything crazy like that either. I'm here to make a point. I want to show you, Wendy, how things should be done."

"I don't understand," she said. A thread of fright went through her voice.

Ludwig's next words were addressed to everyone in the crowd: "You there, all of you. Listen closely. You're here today because you live in a trash-strewn, lifeless, miserable metropolis, is that not so? You're here because you're angry, and you want to do something about it. Well, tonight, you will, and I will give you the means to do so." He pointed up. "In a moment, the airship will return and land nearby. You will form orderly lines and go to the airship, where you will find all the supplies you need: garbage bags, brooms, shovels, gloves, buckets, hammers. The soldiers will organize you into squads and send you into different sections of the city. There, you will spend the next twelve hours picking up every scrap of trash you see within a two block radius, putting them in bags and buckets, and bringing them back here for disposal."

He paused, and roars of protest, dismay, and rage rushed in to fill the silence. Below, the crowd spat curses at him, shook their fists, and made other rude gestures. Ludwig ignored them. He was waiting for Wendy to speak.

"You must be joking," she cried over the din. "This is your solution to our grievances? Slave labor? That's not what we want!"

"I never agreed to give you what you wanted," Ludwig said. "Instead, you will get what you need, and what you deserve. The Koopa King is right: you folks have too much time on your hands. Instead of crying about the problem, why don't you do something about it?"

"Us?" Wendy screeched. "It's not our fault that we live in such conditions! The Koopa King should be doing something about it!"

"He is," Ludwig said, raising a brow. "Now stop complaining, Wendy, and get your people ready to be organized. Anyone present who refuses to comply with our soldiers will be arrested and jailed. They also won't be paid."

"Paid?" Wendy's voice was high with incredulity.

Ludwig smiled, and shut off his megaphone. He spoke next into his radio: "Descend and land. Captain Glaue, dispatch your troops as directed. You have the authority to forcibly detain any dissidents."

Above, the airship groaned as it bellied down through the clouds and swung around in a slow circle, until it came to land a short distance outside the enclosed plateau. As it powered down, Roy drifted closer.

"Hey... I don't understand what's goin' on," he said. "This don't sound like the plan. I thought you were supposedta be arrestin' people and payin' off informants. That's what Dad said, and—"

"Change of plans." Ludwig watched the off ramp slide down from the ship and connect with the plateau and soldiers begin to march down. "A change of plans Father doesn't need to know about right now. Understand?"

Roy shrugged — obviously, he didn't want to be thrown into a Containment sphere like Lemmy. "Yeah, sure. Whaddya want me to do?"

"Go down there and make threats."

Now a grin. "Consider it done!" Chuckling, Roy directed his Clown Car down to the plateau, where the soldiers were pointing spears and gathering people into clusters. Ludwig watched and, though anxious, he couldn't help but give a small smile.

Operation Kastle Town Klean-Up had begun.

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