Two Koopas, One Shell

[Android 17]

Seventeen poked his head through the hatch in the ground and glanced up to see Joe standing on a chair near one of the tower ‘windows’. At the sound of the hinges squeaking, the magical reptile glanced over his shoulder and waved the cyborg over to him. “Come on over.”

The cyborg pulled himself up the little ladder that connected the top of the stairs to the observation deck. He let the wooden flap smack shut behind him as he made his way over to Joe the Magikoopa. The wizard patted on a small, turtle-sized stool next to him before pointing out the little hole in the stone building. “The Ashen Steppes is pretty nice from heights like this.”

Once he was squatted over the little stool, Seventeen glanced at the view, and after a moment, he had to admit that there was a lot of truth to his new pal’s remark. From higher up, the Steppes looked far more picturesque and less horrifying to the wayward traveler. “That’s a lot of volcanoes,” the cyborg remarked as he glanced out into the interior of the verse. While he’d spotted many on the horizon on his walk into the area, the view he was exposed to revealed more erupting volcanoes than he could count. In fact, the sky became black after what seemed to be a few dozen miles.

“You think this place is called the Ashen Steppes for shits and giggles?” Joe snickered as he pointed in what seemed to be an entirely random direction. “That’s where I’mma take you.”

Seventeen squinted, but he was still unable to see anything worthwhile on the horizon. “That’s just a bunch of nothing out there, Joe.”

The Magikoopa shook his head. “You can’t see it from here, because it’s beyond those mountains.”

“M’kay,” the machine-hybrid muttered as he turned his attention back to his short acquaintance. “So what’s out there?”

Joe smiled. “That’s where the Koopa Kingdom’s central headquarters is located. It’s where you gotta go if you wanna join the Troopers.”

“You want me to be a Koopa Troopa?” Seventeen chuckled before realizing that the anthropomorphic reptile was being dead serious. “I’m not a turtle, if you can’t tell.”

The wizard rolled his eyes. “Not every member of the Troopers is a koopa… they take anyone willing to offer their services to our little subterranean kingdom. King Bowser’s a firm, excellent ruler.”

Seventeen nodded along with the account; even though he wasn’t sure he bought any of it. In the cyborg’s mind, there were few ‘excellent rulers’ who called themselves king. Most of them were just sociopaths who used divine providence or bloodline or some other bullshit excuse to do as they pleased. “I mean, if you think so, Bud.”

“Outsiders are good.” Joe nodded his head, as if he had to agree with himself before moving onto his next thought. “They help inject some variety into the group.”

“You some sort of bigwig?”

Joe shook his head. “Middle-management, really. Kamek, my boss, he’s the guy with the king’s ear. I just do what Kamek tells me and hope I don’t disappoint him.”

“He one of those…” Seventeen pantomimed a wizard’s hat, eliciting a nod from Joe.

“He’s a wizard too. A Magikoopa. He was the first.”

Seventeen nodded his head. “So how do we get there?”

The question caused the magically-imbued reptile to smile just a little wider. “I thought you’d never ask! Let me go get the gear ready, and we can be there by sundown.”

There's a fucking night time here?! At that, the cyborg glanced out the window at the mixture of gray and black clouds that lined the sky. “Man, I hate to see this place somehow darker than it normally is…”