Five Years Later, Bowser's Study, Royal Palace

That interview had gone to neither Bowser nor Clawdia's plans.

She had expected to talk to a spoiled, entitled prince-turned dictator.

He had expected a sexual excursion.

Neither happened.

Bowser found that Clawdia was easily more intelligent than he was and just as committed to the good of Dark Lands as he was. Maybe she was more useful as media ally than as a sexual plaything...

She found that the young king could easily think on his feet and was not as easy to expose as a power-hungry tyrant as she thought.

If she had lost her family to opposite extremes on the political spectrum, she would feel the same way that Bowser did about democracy.

He was clearly no Koopa-supremacists as he was thinking of passing the high throne to someone of one the other species' royal lines rather than his legitimate cousins or illegitimate children.

Clawdia found Bowser...well, mysterious. He wasn't just mysterious as a leader, but as a Koopa.

Said mystery drew her to him.

Bowser found something even more attractive than her body: her mind. He found that he would be happier spending hours talking with her about any topic he could hold a conversation on than in mindless carnal pleasure. The same realization also made him feel a pang of guilt about his plans. He realized that using her for just her media connections would be as demeaning to her as using her body for his pleasure.

He knew that his sexual escapades would demean at some point during their first interview. The realization that he would also be wrong to use her career came more slowly.

He called for a second interview after the first had ended with her still unconvinced of the soundness of his plans for possible war with the Mushroom Kingdom, but no longer doubting his genuine convictions.

She agreed. After all, she wanted to learn more about why he was so sure that the Mushroom Kingdom was behind his family tragedies, feeling an unexpected sympathy for him grow. This sympathy went hand in hand with his magnetic charisma. She tried to and for period had success, but she would eventually know she was succumbing

After the first interview really, but more consciously after the second, both wanted to see more of the other. It wasn't so much love at first as fascination.

Clawdia saw Bowser as a sympathetic yet charismatic young king who exuded mystery.

Bowser saw Clawdia as the most intelligent being he knew—apart from King K. Rool, of course—and a pretty female—traits Bowser did not normally associate with each other. She was as mysterious to Bowser as he was to her, and the fascination grew along with the respect on both sides.

More interviews from Clawdia followed, with Bowser feeling increasingly guilty. The interviews only reinforced both Koopas' fascination until Bowser asked if they could meet sometime to discuss current events over Kremling coffee, with no cameras—just to chat as friends. They had known each other professionally for a year by that point.

She was eager for the chance to understand this Koopa with a captivating personality, who just happened to be making policy decisions in a private capacity.

The idea of writing a biography of the king struck her, but ultimately, she wrote it off as a betrayal of their friendship.

These meetings over coffee frequently turned into inquiries about recent events in the other's lives.

Gradually, the curiosity gave way to care. They cared about what went on in the other's life.

Neither knew exactly when the curiosity turned to care or that it was reciprocated, but it was real, nonetheless.

What Bowser had become increasingly sure of on the other hand was the Mushroom Kingdom's involvement in the deaths of his mother and brother.

Bowser had made it up when he staged his own failed assassination attempt. It had been a pretext designed to put Dark Lands on war readiness prep and extend Bowser's own control of the economy past the five-year warp pipe infrastructure project. The excuse also gave Bowser sweeping executive powers which left the president as a ceremonial figure.

It had all been excuse of course, born out of Bowser's idea to make Dark Lands great by annexing Koopa, Goomba, and Bob-omb majority areas of the Mushroom Kingdom.

The population factor made Dark Lands' eastern neighbor a tempting target.

However, Bowser had asked K. Rool to lend him investigators. The Kremling's had a far more sophisticated internal and external intelligence system than the Dark Landers. Furthermore, Bowser knew that even as popular as he was, he still had enemies who thought he had stolen the throne from his father or that there shouldn't be a monarchy at all.

As Bowser saw more of the files, he was shocked to see how much of his excuse lined up with the truth.

Koop Smoothshell, the Hammer Bro who had killed his mother had been in contact with numerous groups that either were directly subordinate to the Toad Royal family or at least were strongly aligned with.

The 15 Bob-omb student protestors who had simultaneously exploded on his brother at college all had relatives who were Mushroom Kingdom agents active in Dark Lands.

Bowser had just received the final intelligence report today, five years to the day after his fake assassination attempt.

Bowser felt the weight of the file in his hands as he sat at the desk in his study and gulped.

It was real now.

The Mushroom Kingdom had in fact killed his family. There had been no need for pretense.

That meant that the war really was as essential for Dark Lands' survival as for his staying in power.

Bowser felt his spine stiffen as he grasped his true destiny.

He was supposed to be Dark Land's King in this hour of crisis. His dirty fake assassination attempt and warmongering had been justified.

He was the only one who could save Dark Lands.

Destiny, maybe even the Star Spirits themselves, had chosen him.

A torrent of contradictory emotions flooded through him.

On one hand he felt humbled by the task he was given, while on the other he truly felt like the rightful king for the first time.

He would make this report available to the Darklands Senate and seal his hold on complete power in today's session...no longer because he wanted it, but now because Darklands needed it.

He had thought he had only Kamek to protect with his power, but now he could see he was protecting the whole nation.

Darklands Senate Chamber

Bowser stood at the Speaker's podium; a spot normally reserved for the President but increasingly occupied by the King during Bowser's reign.

The Senate Chamber, filled with delegates representing each county in Dark Lands by population—some counties had one senator, most had two, those with large cities had three—awaited King Bowser's address. There were precisely 150 of the delegates from Dark Lands' seven provinces and autonomous capital seated at rows of grey tables extending all the way to the back of a room the size of a small amphitheater.

Well, "seated" wasn't the best term. The three Piranha plant senators, each from a different county, were constantly there in their pots. They'd have to read their three dossiers—one was the Kremling report, one was Dark Lands' own intelligence report on Princess Kylie's assassination, one was Dark Lands' report on Prince Ludwig's—in braille. Piranha Plants had no visual organs after all.

Given their lack of hands, the Goomba and Bob-omb senators would have to dip their toes in ink and sign their approval to the upcoming bill that way.

"I trust everyone has read the contents of this file?" Bowser held up the intelligence report.

"We now have indisputable evidence that the Mushroom Kingdom has—"

"With all due respect, Your Majesty," a Goomba senator said, "This is a Kremling intelligence file. How can we be sure it has not been deliberately manufactured to provoke a war?"

Bowser smirked. "Senator Goomsley, remind us which county you represent?"

Failing to see the relevance, he said, "Your Majesty knows very well that I'm one of the three senators from Mushburg County."

"Were you in Mushberg for the completion of the warp pipe transit network?"

"Indeed, I was, Your Majesty. We even spoke."

"Then you, out of all the senators in this chamber should remember what happened that day."

They all knew Bowser was referring to the assassination attempt.

"We have it from the assassin's own words that his loyalties were with the Mushroom Kingdom, not the People's Kingdom of Greater Kremia."

Bowser let them dwell on his words for a moment before continuing.

"My friendship with King K. Rool is well known. What could he gain by assassinating me?"

Bowser almost chuckled silently about the event he orchestrated himself. Then, he remembered the conviction he'd felt earlier. He needed to rely on the truth, go back to the source, to the event that made him seek power to begin with.

"Need I remind you that in the first assassination, the one that took my mother, I was nearly killed?"

Everyone murmured something in agreement.

"We have verified Koop Smoothshell's links to extremist royalist groups including a meeting our intelligence places two Toad operatives at. Just look at the security file from my grandmother's reign."

Bowser was silent for a moment, letting those statements hang in the air while the senate absorbed them. When he was confident that they had, he continued.

"Thirteen of the fifteen Bob-ombs who killed my brother were seen with the same Toad operatives. This isn't K. Rool! It's our own intelligence! Our ally just connected some dots that I had already connected myself. All he did was double check me..." Bowser paused again, "...at my own request!"

This statement was mostly the truth: the DIA had identified the same two Toads in at meetings both the Bob-omb protestors and Smoothshell had attended. However, there had been many operatives of many governments at some meeting or another monitoring the political chaos in Dark Lands. There had also been agents of the Kremlings and Dark Lands itself at said meetings.

Of these two sources, Bowser never suspected his mentor, K. Rool, and his own government would have only had an interest in his mother's assassination. They needed his brother alive.

That left dozens of smaller states and the Mushroom Kingdom.

Bowser's thoughts were interrupted by a Koopa senator.

"Sir, we've been in a cold war with the Mushroom Kingdom for five years and neither side has moved against the other. How exactly do we respond to these findings without exacerbating the situation?"

Bowser nodded, "Neither side has moved against the other despite military build up here, because neither side has wanted a direct war. With these documents..." Bowser held up the papers, "...we know they have been trying to destabilize us."

Bowser paused before continuing, "In its wisdom the senate has granted me final authority over the economy, and we have invested heavily in airships, Bullet Bill production, Chain Chomp training and breeding, but the Mushroom King has only increased his rhetoric of my being a threat to peace."

Bowser narrowed his eyes, "We need a Committee of Un-Dark Landian Activities to protect our loyal citizens and isolate Mushroom sympathizers. They know they can't win a war of weapons and soldiers, so they'll come at us through a war of ideas. They tried this before, pitting segments of our population against each other. We need an to ensure that we are one people under one king providing and protecting all!"

The senate applauded and within minutes, a Committee of Un-Dark Landian Activities was officially created, with King Bowser at its head.

Everything was proceeding as Bowser had planned until he felt a chest pain with his next thought.

Oh, shit! What about Clawdia?!

She was an independent-minded journalist. Had he just put someone he cared about in danger with his own actions?

He had to see her...and fast!