FSE

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Many things could be said for the Mushroom Kingdom. It could be said that there were many lands that made it up, all different from the others, and that would be true. It could be said that there were many castles that kept it safe, where the soldiers of the kingdom were fortified to keep watch over the land, and that would be true as well.

However, no matter what the tourism department said, the Mushroom Kingdom was not a suitable destination for tourists trying to find new places to see. The reason for this was very simple, and could be summed up in a single word.

Bowser.

The Koopa King had a castle of his own at one end of the Kingdom, but despite the castle itself being something of a smaller one than the others in the land, he had a massive army of creatures, ranging from Goombas to Lakitus to other Koopas such as himself, and they ranged out and about the lands of the Mushroom Kingdom. What they were supposed to do, even the rulers of Mushroom Kingdom didn't know. Sometimes they kidnapped princesses, and other times they just made bothers of themselves at the hubs of travel through the kingdom, occupying the different pipe entrances that would take people from one end of the kingdom to the other.

Most of the time, the people of Mushroom Kingdom found ways of dealing with them, but sometimes, to the bad luck of the victims involved, the Koopa army was able to do what they wanted without interference, and that was the case here.

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Nathan stumbled over yet another broken block, almost falling onto his face before he managed to get his balance again. His sudden stumble had pulled on the rope that bound him to the other captives in the train, and they all glared at him for almost pulling them down with him. The glare only lasted a moment before the Koopas leading them along tugged the rope again, but it got the point across.

The wolf sighed and looked at the ground again. It wasn't his fault, really; they had been walking for ten hours already, and the sun was still high enough in the sky to tell him that they would be walking through these rocky mountains for a good bit longer still. The ground was broken and uneven enough for even a well-rested man to have a hard time finding his footing, and Nathan was anything but well-rested at this point.

He was still in shock over the situation, too. How could this sort of thing have happened? He knew that the Mushroom Kingdom had its problems with monsters and creatures like the Koopas, but he hadn't thought that the rulers would let it get this out of hand, capturing simple travelers without the slightest problems with the local law. He wondered just why the rulers let things get this out of control.

His eyes traveled behind him, looking at his fellow captives. Two foxes, a horse, and another wolf walked behind him, their hands tied to the rope that ran through the group, two of them standing to one side of the rope, the other two standing on the other side. They were all as tired as he was, but they still occasionally fought against the tugging of the rope, glaring at the Koopas that led them along.

Nathan had stopped fighting after the first hour. It was just not worth it, considering the strength and numbers of their captors. He turned towards the front of the line. At least twenty Koopas walked ahead, some with green shells, others with red, but each of them grinning to each other in that weird way that they did. It was like they were always happy about something. Well, unless one of them got bopped on the head or the back of the shell. He stifled a little chuckle at the memory of one Koopa that had been under a falling rock. It hadn't hurt the guy, but the red-shelled reptile had almost jumped out of his skin, leaping into the air and leaving his shell behind for a moment.

That hadn't happened since, but the memory of the scare was enough to keep Nathan's spirits lifted, at least a little bit. He felt that he wouldn't get many moments of that sort of levity for a while, and it was good to have them while he could.

He still wasn't sure just why they had been grabbed. The other travelers might have had some reason to be captured - some of them looked somewhat wealthy, at least, and definitely looked better than he did, appearance wise - but he didn't know what the Koopas had seen in him. He wasn't the strongest wolf, and was a little scrawny by the standards of his species. Nor was he that tall, a little bit shorter than usual, and his fur, while well groomed, was no rare color. Was he just a hostage, or brought along to keep the word of what had happened from spreading? That seemed the most likely, but he just didn't know.

Lost as he was in his thoughts, he didn't realize that the scenery had changed until he heard a gasp from behind him. Shaking his head, the wolf looked forward -

And stared at a massive stone structure, sticking out from the mountains around it, and surrounded by a massive lake of lava. Bubbling heat billowed off of the lake, reaching him and the rest of the group where they stood. He felt sweat break out under his fur almost immediately, and he groaned as he pulled his arms up, rubbing his face in instinct. It was already hotter than the hottest summer day that he could think of, and they were still over a hundred feet away from the lava. The Koopas didn't seem to be bothered, though they were starting to shine a little bit with sweat of their own. Apparently even lizards could get a little hot from something like this.

Despite the wonder of the lava moat, and all the work that must have gone into making sure that it wouldn't damage the surrounding area while still protecting the castle, Nathan couldn't take his eyes off of the castle beyond it. It was massive, seemingly carved out of the rock of the mountain itself. Two large hands, tipped with claws and detailed amazingly well, stuck out of the top of the castle, as though they were reaching for something. Just underneath them, forming the majority of the front wall of the castle as well as the gate, was a large carved head. It was like a larger, more dangerous version of a dinosaur or lizard, and among the many stone teeth was a large metal grate, apparently the drawbridge to get into the castle.

While Nathan was awestruck, other members of the group were frightened by the castle. Some of them tugged, and the horse tried to run away. Unprepared for it, the wolf and the Koopas were tugged along for a few feet before the rest of the troops grabbed hold of the rope.

The horse pulled so hard that, for a moment, it seemed that he might get free, either from the rope breaking or from his tugging yanking the Koopas off of their feet. But it was eventually proved futile; fifteen of the Koopas held tight to the rope, keeping the horse from getting away, while the remaining five hurried down the line to him. One of them pulled out a hammer, hitting the horse over the back of the head.

Nathan winced. He could tell that it wasn't a hard blow, as there was no blood and the horse didn't collapse from it, but the horse whinnied in enough pain that he could tell that it wasn't a light tap, either. Tears formed in the horse's eyes, and he glared at the Koopas, but he ceased pulling. Despite the situation, the wolf was almost grateful; that tug had been painful, and felt like he was going to have his wrists sawed off from the pressure on them.

The Koopas glared at them, and the one with the hammer threatened each of them with it as he walked back up to the front of the line. Each of the other captives were cowed by it, flinching back. When he got to Nathan, however, the Koopa smirked a bit. Rather than threaten him with the hammer, he tucked it away and patted the wolf on the back before walking to the front of the line.

That confused the wolf, and more to the point, it worried him. He could feel the glares of the other prisoners drilling holes in his back, and he hunched up his shoulders as he flinched. Shaking his head, he wondered to himself. Why did the Koopa do that? Was it because he'd stopped fighting? Or was there something that he didn't know about waiting for him in the castle, to explain why he had been one of those grabbed?

There wasn't time to think about it, as the castle drawbridge suddenly began to descend. The massive metal fixture swung out and down with a whistle, and it hit the stone with a clang that echoed through the mountain pass, and the vibrations from the impact rattled the ground below their feet. One of the prisoners, the other wolf, actually fell on his ass from the shaking. He growled and got back to his feet immediately, blushing and daring one of others to say anything, but everyone was silent. Not out of respect or compassion, but because of what was coming out of the castle.

The moment that the drawbridge had hit the stone, more soldiers had started emerging from the castle. Their boots clanged on the drawbridge as they walked over the lava moat. Goombas, Koopas, and even a few cloud-riding Lakitus made their way across the bridge, forming up in a line on either side. Most of them had some sort of weapon, save for the Goombas, and they were simply so numerous that there was no chance to fight all of them.

If there had been any chance of escape before, it had effectively been cut off by this massive reinforcement to their escort.

Each prisoner gaped at the number of soldiers. There had to be at least a couple hundred of them. For his part, Nathan stared out of a mix of fear and honest curiosity. If the owner of the castle had this many soldiers, why did he only send out small parties like this one? Couldn't he move out on different places in the Kingdom with so many people? And why did he have them out like this when they'd arrived? It didn't make sense to him. This was more like an honor guard than anything else, and to show that when some prisoners were escorted inside...well, it was weird.

Tugs on the rope reminded him that they were supposed to be going inside the castle, and he jogged forward as the Koopas led the way. The other prisoners followed behind, some of them lagging a little bit until the soldiers pointed their weapons at them. They sped up a bit, but held their heads down, sullen, beaten.

Not Nathan. For some reason, he couldn't really feel anything but curiosity about this whole thing. A part of him actually looked forward to finding out what was inside. Oh, he wouldn't have come here on his own, he wasn't that stupid, but he was ever a curious wolf, and now that he had been presented with something so different and weird, all he wanted to do was figure out what was going on.

Of course, the metal drawbridge did put a little damper on that. As soon as he stepped onto it, Nathan winced. He should have realized. Suspended over a lava moat the way that it was, it was going to heat up rather quickly, and he didn't have thick boots the way that the soldiers did. The horse had some hooves, he knew, and the other wolf and one of the foxes had some shoes, but he was going to have a heck of a time getting over this.

Hopping more than walking, Nathan whimpered a bit as his feet constantly heated up, cooled off, and heated up again. His pads started sweating twice as much as the rest of his body, and he felt the bridge getting more and more slippery. Every step was a balancing act, and if his arms were free, he was pretty sure that they would be windmilling behind him, trying to keep him upright as he made his way across.

Several Koopas and Goombas in the line of soldiers chuckled at him, shaking their heads a bit at his problems. He blushed a bit at that, but kept hopping. Walking would keep his feet WAY too warm, and he wasn't sure if he could make it across without burning himself. They were barely halfway across the massive drawbridge and the fox was already whimpering, yelping now and then when the bridge was hotter than he had expected, and the last thing that Nathan wanted were burned paws. He didn't know how much longer he'd need to walk, and burned pads would make any distance very difficult.

He almost didn't think he'd make it, and he started panting when they were three quarters of the way along the bridge. The heat from the moat was immense, and he didn't know whether to shiver or collapse from the weight of the sweat coating his fur. He could smell himself, and the others in the group. There wasn't one of them that wasn't drenched with sweat, and the air was musky with the smell of their rank bodies. The soldiers at their sides weren't much better, as the Koopas had shiny yellow skin from sweating, and the Goombas were slick and shiny. He couldn't see much of the Lakitus above him, but he would bet that they were pretty overheated as well.

Just when he thought that he couldn't take much more heat under his feet, though, he felt his paws touch down on something that wasn't heated metal. Stone. It wasn't a great deal cooler than the metal, and he probably would have found it uncomfortably warm in another time, but compared to the metal before, it was a cool river along his toes. He literally moaned as his pads touched it, and then blushed as he realized how he sounded. That moan was more like what someone would make in the bedroom, rather than someone just getting some heat relief.

As he looked back at the other prisoners, though, he could tell that they weren't paying all that much attention to him. They were just as happy to be over the bridge, and were panting in exhaustion. The heat had taken its toll on them as well, and from what he could see, the bottoms of the shoes the fox wore had basically been worn away. The wolf as well, for that matter. Only the horse seemed to have made it across the bridge without losing something of his footwear, but looking closer, Nathan could swear that the metal on the horse's hooves had changed shape and color from the heat.

Shivering a bit at the thought of hot metal nailed into his feet like that, and turned his attention back to the castle at hand, moving along quickly when the Koopas tugged him forward.

His eyes traveled along the walls, looking at the different tapestries that covered the stone walls. The ceiling of the place soared high, more than five times his height, and the top of the room, where the ceiling would normally be, was open. Well, partly open. Slits about the size of one of the Koopas could be seen throughout the roof of the castle, and he wasn't sure if it was so that the Koopas could get in and out, for looking up at the sky, or some other reason that he hadn't considered.

The further that they got into the castle, the more soldiers could be seen. Some of them were Goombas, but the majority of them were different varieties of Koopas. However, unlike the ones that the wolf had become used to, these were armored. From head to toes, they wore a shiny dark gray armor, with spikes on their heads and on their shells. Their hands were covered in spiked gauntlets, and they carried spears in those gauntlets. The only similarity that they had with the other Koopas were the same little boots that the others wore. They walked in pairs or fours, moving in patrols through the castles, and anytime they passed by the prison train, they turned their heads and watched them pass with eery red eyes.

After a while, they reached a part of the stone hall that had a red carpet, and the Koopas led them onto that. It was a little softer than the stone, and there was a definite coolness to it that the stones lacked. It was a bit further relief for Nathan, but judging by the yelps of the fox behind him, he was pretty sure that the burned paws didn't appreciate it very much. Considering that the carpet was soft but still made of different fibers sticking up, he was pretty sure that was hell on burned pads. He felt a little luckier; that might have been him if he had stuck to walking along the drawbridge.

Before long, Nathan realized that the red carpet was a way to find one's way through the castle. Their guards ignored several turns down different hallways of the castle, following the red carpet, and when he thought to look at some of the other soldiers that they passed, he could tell that they followed the carpet as well. What were in the other rooms, he wondered? Or were the other paths simply traps, to keep out the intruders that might try and find their way here? He shook his head. He was already curious enough, and each question was only making him more curious.

Stretching on and on, the red carpet took them past several different rooms. One had a slightly open door, and he thought that he heard a few Koopas on the other side. He couldn't see more than a few flashes of yellow, but after a few of the words they said reached his ears, he blushed and ignored it. Well, apparently even the soldiers had needs. They must have needed somewhere to go and deal with them.

Shaking his head, he forced himself to look down at the carpet, and just the carpet. That seemed to be the best and safest thing to do. He didn't want to look like he was overly interested in the castle - what if they thought he was a spy? It might get him killed or something if he did something like that - and he most DEFINITELY didn't want to look in on another room where some Koopas might be...well, working off a little bit of steam. That was their business, and he didn't want to think about that just at the moment. He was curious, but not quite THAT curious.

Intent on the red carpet, he barely realized that the Koopas ahead had stopped walking, or that his fellow prisoners had halted. The tug on the rope was the only warning that he got, and he jerked forward, then backwards, then a little forward again before he managed to make himself still again. The prisoners glared at him for nearly tugging them forward again, and the Koopas in front of him sighed a bit in annoyance. They were all on their knees, Nathan realized when he looked forward. And they weren't in a hallway anymore, he figured out as he looked upwards.

Around them were large braziers, adding to the heat and the stifling warmth that pervaded the castle. Smoke from them rose up to the ceiling, and between the different braziers were more of the armored Koopas that he'd seen throughout the castle. Each one was armed with a spear, and they slowly started to clang them on the floor. The metal clang and stone thud filled the room.

Clang-BOOM, Clang-BOOM!

Every Koopa in their party had fallen to their knees, and had their eyes fixed on a massive stone seat at the end of the room.

Clang-BOOM, Clang-BOOM, Clang-BOOM!

Nathan looked around as more torches lit up in the upper rafters of the room, casting light down on banners that hung from the walls. The banners were simple, depicting the same face that made up the front of the castle.

Clang-BOOM, Clang-BOOM, Clang-BOOM, Clang-BOOM!

The banging and clanging was getting louder, faster, and more frequent, and the wolf felt like there was a pressure in the air, a powerful expectation in a way. The grins of the Koopas were wider than usual, though each one seemed to have a bit of nervousness around their faces as well. Nathan felt himself sweat a bit more, and it had nothing to do with the heat, this time.

Clang-BOOM, Clang-BOOM, Clang-BOOM, Clang-BOOM, Clang-BOOM!

A red light filled the room, coming from the base of the throne. A pipe, almost like the other ones that filled the land save that it was red rather than green, rose out of the light. It continued to glow for a few seconds, and the clanging suddenly stopped.

Without warning, a large, clawed, yellow scaled hand thrust upwards from the pipe. Another joined it, and they pressed down on opposite sides of it. A loud grunt emerged from the pipe, followed by spikes of white. A green shell and red hair came after that, attached to a hulking, muscled, powerful looking creature. Big and thick, and standing several feet taller than the horse in the prison line, the creature gradually emerged from the pipe, and descended to the throne behind him. For that was what it was, Nathan realized. Not a seat, but a grand, stony throne.

As the creature sat down, the pipe disappeared, and the glow went with it. Laughing in a deep, chortling way, the creature looked down at the Koopas and the prisoners. "Heh, yes, these will do well," the big guy said.

"Yes, King Bowser," the Koopas said.

"Guard, take the rope from them," Bowser said. One of the armored Koopas walked over, taking the rope. The other Koopas bowed their heads and scurried out of the room, knowing that they weren't needed any longer.

Bowser's eyes scanned over the various prisoners, and Nathan felt like he was under a microscope when the king's eyes were on him. There was a great deal of power in Bowser's gaze, and he felt a great deal more nervous. They would do well? Well for what, he wondered.

Before the king could say anything or the wolf could figure it out, the other prisoners took matters into their own hands. Led by the horse, they pulled back on the rope, all at the same time. The Koopa guard was strong, and he held onto the rope longer than Nathan expected him to, but it was all for naught as the rope came free from his armored grip.

The prisoners moved together, though Nathan was dragged along more than he participated. They mobbed the one guard that had held their rope, and somehow managed to get his spear away from him. It was the work of seconds to cut their ropes with the blade at the end, and the horse kept hold of it. With a bellow, he charged up the steps leading to the throne, spear in hand.

His intent was clearly regicide, yet none of the guards stepped forward to stop him. The other wolf was rushing one of the other guards, and the two foxes started to run towards the end of the throne room, but none of the guards moved to stop them.

Nathan had a very bad feeling about this. Despite seemingly being 'free', he remained rooted to the spot. Moving just seemed to be a VERY bad idea.

Just as the horse reached the top of the steps, Bowser grinned. Time seemed to slow as the Koopa King sucked in a breath, and before Nathan's eyes, the big King spewed out a dark yellow cloud of...something. It wasn't fire, but it wasn't a gas either. Rushing from his mouth, it hit the horse immediately and swallowed him up in it, followed by the other wolf. Nathan was hit next,and he couldn't tell what happened to the two foxes, as the yellow stuff kept him from seeing anything other than himself.

The yellow stuff licked at the edges of his body like fire, but it didn't burn. It did, though, tug at him. He could feel the yellow stuff pulling at his fur, pulling at his skin, like it was tugging him down to the ground. Not like a person tugging him to all fours, but like a slow pull all over his body.

Whatever the feeling was like, though, the results were far from slow. Nathan stared as he watched his clothes rapidly become bigger and bigger, and lay over him in a baggier way. He filled it out less and less by the second, and with every moment that went by, he felt like they were going to fall right off of him.

It didn't take long for him to be completely swallowed in his clothes, buried beneath them, and he could no longer simply remain still. Half panicking, half driven by his own damnable curiosity, he wriggled through the cloth, swimming through the wrinkles of his shirt and his pants and his underwear, until he found an opening. He wasn't sure if it was a former sleeve or something else, but it was big enough for him to wriggle out of, and he squeezed through as his body continued to shrink down.

As the yellow 'fire' finally disappeared, he looked back at his clothes. They were massive compared to his new size, and he could tell that he was much, much, much smaller than he'd once been. Comparing himself to the zipper of his pants, he'd say that he was maybe three inches tall, and that was if he was being generous with an inch or so.

The others were nowhere to be seen, but if they had shrunk as much as he had, they wouldn't be, Nathan realized. They'd be so small that the soldiers would have to go out and pick them up. They'd need to be carried to Bowser if he wanted to have them in front of him within the next hour.

Which seemed to be the plan, as one of the armored Koopas reached down and picked him up. The armor was warm against his fur, not quite hot, but definitely warm. He held still as he was carried. With his size, struggling and fighting was the last thing that he should do, if he wanted to live. The others had fought, and he was sure that they'd be punished. Probably a lot more than they'd already been. Regardless, Nathan did NOT want to get himself noticed by the King for further punishment if he could avoid it.

Three other guards joined the one that carried him, walking up the steps to the throne with closed hands. Looking over at the King Koopa, Nathan saw that the horse was held in the king's hand, wielding an ineffectual spear against the king's scaly palm. It was pathetic, the wolf thought. Brave, but utterly pathetic at the same time. He shook his head. Why didn't the horse just give up? It was safer to surrender, and there was no way that they'd be getting out of this now.

The King looked down at him, and Nathan pulled himself to a kneeling position. What the hell, he thought. He was shrunk, he was caught, why show defiance?

He thought he caught a little smile on the King's face out of the corner of his eye, but he wasn't sure, and the grin wasn't there as the King looked around the rest of the captives. "On the floor with them," Bowser commanded, setting the horse down on the floor by his feet just as the guards did the same.

What now, Nathan thought to himself.

As the guards stepped back, Bowser moved faster than Nathan would have thought possible. The King's feet stomped down, catching one fox in place, and smashing the other one into the ground. The one that survived cried out in some pain, squirming around with his head between two toes. The other one didn't have the chance to make any noise, as he was completely covered by the king's foot. The little bit of him that stuck out didn't move, showing that the fox under it was either dead or unconscious.

The others, the horse included, just stared at the stuck furs. Well, in Nathan's case, at the furs and at the feet that covered them. The power behind those feet was just amazing, and the speed that they'd moved at was unnatural. There was something more about this King than met the eye, that was for sure.

But the wolf only thought about that for a second or two before his mind started trying to introduce new thoughts. They weren't entirely unwelcome, but they were NOT appropriate for the situation that they were in, and he shook his head rapidly, trying to get the thoughts out of his head.

While he was doing that, the horse stepped forward, shaking his fist. Idiot, Nathan thought, but didn't say anything as the horse spoke up. "What the hell are you doing?! You can't do this to us, we're - "

"You're pains in my ass at the moment, nothing more and nothing less," the King said. At this height, even a normal voice would be thunderous as it washed over them. The voice of the King Koopa was something else entirely, shaking them on their feet like the winds of a massive storm, and the other wolf fell back again. Nathan almost fell down as well, and it was only through windmilling his arms in the most ridiculous way that he managed to stay on his feet.

Pushing down on the screaming fox, the King chuckled. "What you were won't help you now. I know what most of you are. The secrets that you were keeping as you traveled." A sneaky look filled the large, angry, almost crazed eyes, and the horse and wolf went wide eyed, backing up a few steps. "Yes, I know what you are. And you know that what I'm going to give you is probably less than you deserve. Perhaps I'll keep some of you alive for some later play, but that's something that I'll decide later."

The shouting from the pinned fox continued to fill the air, and the King sighed to himself. "I was hoping that he'd keep quiet." With a shake of his head, the King stood up, and the shrieking cut off. The fox continued to squirm, but the pressure atop him kept any sound from getting free. "That's better. Go ahead and keep squirming, worm. I'll deal with you in my own time."

He was more confused than ever. Bowser seemed to know the horse and the other wolf, and thought he hadn't mentioned them yet, he felt that the King knew the foxes as well. Just what they were, he didn't know, but the King was treating them like criminals. Perhaps they were, but they'd have had to be pretty bad ones to deserve what they were getting, considering that one fox looked like he'd been crushed under the weight of the King's foot, and the other one was gasping for air, his face turning blue.

Yet, despite all of this, the horse took a step forward again. The other wolf tried to grab his arm, but the horse shook him off. Nathan shook his head a few times, wondering if he could get back a few steps without getting the King's eye on him. He looked up. The King seemed rather intent on the horse....

"Do you have something to say, foal?" Bowser asked, a smirk crossing his lips.

"I do." The horse took a few steps forward. Either he was insane or he was insanely brave, Nathan thought to himself. "We don't deserve what you're doing to us. All the things that we did were under the orders of someone else. There's nothing that we did that we wanted to do, it was all what - "

"What you had to do?" Bowser threw his head back in laughter, and for a moment, his foot on top of the fox lifted up a little bit, enough for the fox to breathe, and just barely enough for him to move. He rolled over onto his chest and started crawling as fast as he could. The King laughed, almost standing on one foot at this point, and for a moment, it almost looked like the fox would manage to get free.

But then the moment passed, and the king brought his foot back down. The toes came down on the fox's back, pinning him down on the ground, holding him in place again. The look on the vulpine's face was one of pain, and then fear. Nathan could guess what happened, considering where the toes and the foot had come down. They laid right over the fox's hips and the bottom of his spine. Enough weight there, and not only would the blow paralyze the bottom half of the body, but the pain from it wouldn't register. He winced in sympathy, but said nothing.

Bowser stepped down harder, and the wolf would have sworn that he heard a few other crunches from beneath the King's foot. The yellow foot seemed to expand outwards a bit as weight was put on it, Nathan noticed, and the sides of it were pushed up a little bit by the fox's arms sticking out. Not much, but enough to make slight indentations on the pliable flesh. Indentations visible from this size, anyway.

Still wearing that smirk, Bowser looked down on the three of them. "You think that the fact that you did all that you did on orders makes you not responsible for the outcome? Oh, there will be others that will pay for all the things that you did, but you have your own price to pay." He chuckled, the sound rippling through the stones in a near tickling way under their feet, and then stepped off of the fox.

Nathan's guess seemed to be right. The fox's legs were half the thickness that they'd been, but twice the width. Somehow he had kept them whole despite being under that much weight, but there was no way that he could walk. Maybe he could crawl?

The fox tried, but it didn't work. Shaking his head, Nathan watched as the horse and the other wolf reached down and picked up the wolf, tugging him back from Bowser. The looks on their faces were nothing like they were during the trip to the castle. Back then, they'd been reasonably confident, and though they'd have some fear, it was under control. They'd thought that they could handle the situation. They'd probably thought that they could do it until they'd been shrunk down. Seeing the fox crushed the way that he had been...well, that had broken their spirits.

But not Nathan's. Once more, his curiosity had taken hold, and he was very curious as to how the King had kept the fox in one piece. That much weight should have broken off the fox at the waist, leaving him with nothing but his torso, arms, and head. Yet, while he was crushed below the waist, it was like...like a pancake version of the fox. Just how had that happened?

Still wondering on the state of the fox, Nathan distracted himself from the fearful companions by looking at the other fox as Bowser pulled his foot back. That one was in no better shape, and considerably worse. The way that he looked, there was no doubt that he had died. Flat as a pancake, he was, from head to foot, and his formerly brilliant and bushy tail looked like paper.

The King grabbed him by that thin tail and picked him up. All of them watched as the King licked his lips, and then threw the fox into his mouth. They stared in awe, shock, and in some cases, disgust, as Bowser not only ate the fox, but did it without chewing him up in the slightest. A swallow, and the fox was gone, as if he had never been. There wasn't even a hair left on the ground to show that he had been there, and as the guards took away the clothes - including his own, Nathan noticed with a look over his shoulder - there was no sign that the fox had ever been in the castle.

Though he felt a little nervous, the wolf couldn't help himself. He'd always been curious, and this was driving him insane with it. The group he'd been brought in with were harboring some sort of secret, and he wasn't being told; the King was able to smash people down to pancake size and not rip through them despite his greater weight and size; and he was able to shrink them down with something that he spat out of his mouth. Just what kind of creature was Bowser?

When the King was done licking his lips, he sighed in contentment. "Heh, that was a good little snack." He looked down at them. "Are the rest of you going to be so good, or am I going to have to crush the rest of you the way that I crushed your friend? Or worse?" He laughed, sitting down again. "Oh, that's right, he wasn't a friend, he was just a hireling. How could I forget?"

That was the breaking point for the other wolf. He ran, and he ran as hard as he could off of the dais that the throne sat on. It wasn't a quick run, and Nathan expected the King to get off of his throne and take the few steps needed to catch the wolf as he tried to run down the - to them - man sized steps.

Yet, the King allowed the wolf to run, and fall, and run, and fall. Each step that he ran down forced him to pause for a bit longer, and for a moment, Nathan thought that it was from the impact from the fall, taking its toll on the wolf's body. But that wasn't the case, he found out. The wolf was getting more and more tired, yes, but something else was happening. The wolf's feet...they were growing!

It wasn't by much, but each time that the wolf fell down another stair, they grew a few sizes. After a few steps, they were almost as big as his calves, and after a few more steps, they were almost as long as his legs were. By the time that he had hit the bottom, there was no way that he could move. His feet were as big as he was, and too heavy for him to lift, even if he had the energy to keep moving.

Laughing as one of the guards picked up the wolf and carried him back up the stairs, Bowser leaned forward. He looked the wolf right in the eye. "Heh, I like it when a person has courage to try something that just won't work, but you still need to be punished for what you did. But I'll let you live for a little while longer, to suffer while you're punished." He sat up again, and shouted, "Koopa Kelt!"

A Koopa wearing sunglasses and a blue shell hurried into the room. Almost as a side note, Nathan noticed that this Koopa had a pair of wings on his back, but it was a small thing. "Yes, Your Majesty?" he asked as he bowed at the base of the throne. "How can I serve you?"

"Oh, you are going to get a reward today, Koopa Kelt," Bowser said with a smile. "Take off your boots."

It was clear that Kelt was curious, but he obeyed quickly, kicking off his shoes and revealing his feet, as he had worn no socks. His feet were yellow, as was his skin, and the heat of the castle gave them an oiled, shimmery appearance to Nathan's eyes. They had three toes, each slightly spaced from the others, a little more distance between them than his own had. Well, would have had, if they were proportional sizes.

Even from the distance between them, though, he could smell the sweaty funk coming off of both the shoes and the feet themselves. It was strong, as though the Koopa hadn't taken his shoes off in days, perhaps even weeks. Despite himself, Nathan felt a slight stirring at the sight of those feet, and at the smell that came off of them. He would never have admitted it in present company, but they were...appealing. Secretly, darkly so, but they were.

The other wolf started to squirm in the guard's hand, and squirmed harder as Bowser reached for him. However, rather than taking the wolf, he simply touched the wolf's feet. They shrunk back down to normal, looking positively tiny compared to how they had been. Bowser smirked a bit. "Take the bug over to Koopa Kelt, and put him in the shoes," he directed. He looked the wolf in the eye with a chuckle. "See? You get to live. Oh, wait, one more thing." The King snapped his fingers, and a few little mushrooms just...poofed into his hand, appearing in a puff of red smoke. "We don't want you falling apart too soon."

Against the wolf's will, he was force fed pieces of the mushrooms, one after another. Each time the wolf swallowed, his body flickered with a bit of light, and his fur shifted color for a few seconds. Only when the wolf had eaten and swallowed a full two dozen mouthfuls did Bowser relent, allowing the guard to take the wolf away.

The blue shelled Koopa was grinning, and he fell to his knees again. "Thank you, sir, thank you for allowing me my own little foot slave," Kelt said with a smile. "Praise King Bowser!"

"Praise King Bowser!" the guards echoed the Koopa, much to the King's amusement. At least, Nathan thought it was amusement. He didn't want to think about what else that smile might mean.

The wolf started to scream as he realized what he was going to be put through, and he almost managed to pull himself out of the guard's hand. However, it was futile, as he fell into the shoe just as he managed to get free. Quick as lightning, Koopa Kelt shoved his foot back into the shoe. Whatever shrieks had managed to cross the distance between the Koopa and the throne were cut off as the wolf was smothered by sweaty, slick, hot foot. Nathan's imagination tried and failed to supply him with the mental image of what it would be like in there, but he was sure that it was...interesting.

Koopa Kelt bowed one more time before turning around. He walked out rather than flying out, and one could only imagine the feeling of that foot coming down again and again on a tiny wolf body.

The horse slowly put down the fox and screamed at the King, a hysterical look on his face. "You're going to kill him! You said that you'd let him live!"

"And I am," the King said with a chuckle. "Those mushrooms he ate will let him heal from the damage that his body is going to take with every step. No matter how many times he's walked on, he will heal again within a few seconds, only to feel it again. And again. And again. For twenty four days at least." He shrugged. "After that? Maybe I'll kill him, maybe I'll let him live a little while longer. We'll just have to see how my mood is that day."

The sheer menace and uncaring tone in the King's voice finally cut through to Nathan's emotions, and he felt his own nerves get on edge. It was the first time that he had been this nervous in a long time, and verging on scared. But...but there was something else there. Something that he didn't really understand, and couldn't put a name to. Just under the nerves, just waiting to be understood.

But the King didn't give him time to understand the new feeling. Moving again at a speed that Nathan could hardly comprehend, he managed to snatch up the three of them and hold them in the palm of his hand. Small as they were, they could all fit in his palm easily, and with room to spare. Hell, the other fox and wolf could have stood on here, and they'd still be able to move around comfortably.

"We're going to have a little game," Bowser said, looking down at them. "The game is simple. You are going to fight. The one that wins will have a chance to maybe save his life. The other two will be executed if they manage to survive the fall to the floor." The King looked at the paralyzed fox. "Looks like you're going to be the first to die, worm, but if you hadn't moved, you would have had a better chance." He laughed, and up close, the vibrations from his laughter was nearly strong enough to send the three of them falling from his hand without any further force. "Heh, oh, this is going to be a good show. Now get started, or I'll drop all three of you right now."

Nathan would have thought that the horse would have tried to help the fox a little bit, or at least shield him from anything he'd do. After all, he'd helped him before.

But the horse surprised him, in a nasty sort of way. Without hesitation, he grabbed the fox, picked him up by the neck. Without a second look at the sputtering fox, he threw him over the edge of the King's palm. Nathan's eyes went wide as the fox screamed, falling, falling. Out of sight, the scream cut off, but he had no idea if it was because the fox had died, or any other reason.

He didn't have time to think about it. The horse was upon him in the space of a blink, and he had to fight to keep himself from suffering the same fate. He'd been quiet, still, and compliant so far, but no more. He wanted to live, and he was still following the King's instructions.

The wolf ducked under the horse's grappling rush, and rolled along the King's ridged palm. It had wrinkles on it, he noticed, sort of like a human hand, without the pads that he and other furred creatures had. It made it both easier and more difficult to walk on. There were no pads on it that he could go flying over and get pinned on, but the wrinkles were harder to notice, and easier to get caught in. Particularly when the king flexed his hand, catching the horse's hooves in one such wrinkle.

Tumbling towards the edge, the equine almost looked like he was going to fall over, without the wolf having to do a thing to push him over. But with a quick kick and a spin, the horse recovered. He huffed, his eyes narrowed, and Nathan gulped. The look that he'd gotten, that glare...it wasn't the glare of a normal traveler, or even a normal horse. Just what were these guys, that the King wanted to hurt them so bad?

Both of them walked sideways, keeping their eyes on each other, circling. Nathan felt his way with his toes, with his pads, feeling for safe places to step, and skipping around a bit more than the horse did as a result. It was his one advantage; his paws were just sensitive enough for him to find the safe places to step on, whereas the horse had hooves and metal shoes. Good for kicking, good for a few other things, but crap for feeling one's way around. The horse was forced to look down now and then, and Nathan waited for a time when the horse had to look down for a bit longer than usual.

After a few circles around the King's palm, and dodging a few rushes, the time came. The King had laughed again, his hand tightening, and Nathan had avoided the trapping wrinkles. The horse, on the other hand, hadn't. He stumbled to the side, and his eyes went down to his leg.

He didn't waste a second, Nathan had to give the horse credit. As soon as he realized he was caught, he had his leg up and spinning in a kick, and if Nathan had been a second slower, he would have been caught on the end of it. A kick with that force, and with the metal shoe to go along with it, would have sent him all the way to the edge of the hand, and probably flying past it.

But he was quick, and it flew over his head as he ducked under it. The horse's eyes went wide as Nathan pushed himself upwards, arms extended and locked outwards. The impact felt like it would shove his arms right back into his body, and the horse strained against the tackle. Yet, the momentum of the kick was pulling against him as it spun around, and as the King finally relaxed his hand, the horse went back....back....

Whinnying wildly as he reached the edge, the horse suddenly snapped out his arms. Just as his hooves left the King's hand, his grip grabbed hold of the wolf. Nathan fought against the weight...

And lost, tugged off of the King's hand and into the open air.

He didn't know how long the fall was. It was probably only a couple of feet, maybe as much as six feet for a person of normal height, but for someone that was only three inches tall, it was a great deal more. He thought that they might have fallen about half the length of the fall before something stopped him.

The tug on his tail hurt, and hurt bad, but he was glad enough to stop falling that he wasn't going to complain. He slowly turned his head to look back up, and saw two pointed fingers belonging to a giant yellow hand keeping him from falling. The King had saved his life.

Slowly they were pulled back, and the King looked at the horse. "You lost. And you tried to pull down the winner. Just like you to do something like that." A few little tugs up and down - OW OW OW, Nathan thought to himself as it happened - and the horse went falling down. His scream echoed in Nathan's ears, and he hit the floor hard. He was clearly still alive, but only long enough to see the King's foot come down on top of him. And with that, there were no more screams.

A look to the other foot showed that the fox was under it, crushed just like before, though this time it was far more permanent. He shook his head. He didn't really know them, but it felt...weird, almost wrong to see life taken out that fast, and for reasons that he didn't know.

Slowly the King set him down on his hand, and lifted him up to stand just before his face. "Heh, so you're the winner. I'd say I'm surprised...but I'm not."

"So...what now, your Majesty?" the wolf asked, his voice quiet, his face looking down. "What are you going to do with me?"

"Heh, I'll give you a chance to live. A chance to save your life. What there is of it. If you do what I say."

The wolf slowly bowed his head, looking down at his feet. He had seen how the others had been treated, how they had gotten killed for their defiance, or punished in the case of the wolf. They were stupid, he thought. They had thrown all kinds of defiance against someone who was just too strong to be defied.

Nathan wasn't going to be stupid. Raising his head back up, though not quite meeting the King's eyes, he nodded his head. "I'll do whatever you want me to do, Your Majesty," the wolf said.

"Good." The Koopa King leaned forward and down, and extended his arm towards the floor. The movement was just enough to make Nathan a little worried about falling off, but the slightly raised fingers provided him plenty to grab onto, and he made it down without incident. He jumped the last inch down to the ground, and then turned to face the King. His eyes properly downcast, of course; he didn't want to make Bowser think that there was any defiance in his system at this point.

"You're a different one than those assholes," the King said, gesturing to the horse and fox on the ground. He curled his toes around them, lifting them off of the ground. Grabbing one, then the other, he continued. "You're not so stupid as to think that you're untouchable. That you have some sort of way out, no matter what I might do. I think that the fox had some idea, and I know that the wolf did. But this horse..." Bowser shook his head, and threw the mini-equine into his mouse. Unlike with the fox earlier, he did chew the horse, and Nathan looked away at the little crackling sound of the big reptile's chewing.

The horse went down Bowser's throat with a grunt of satisfaction on the King's part. "Heh, well, at least he was a good snack." He looked down at the fox in his hand, dead and broken, and shrugged. "I'll save him for later. Right now, how about we focus on you?"

"I...I would appreciate that, Your Majesty," Nathan said with a little tremble in his voice. The last thing he wanted to do was find his way into the King's mouth, whether he was alive or dead. The images of his body breaking apart on those sharp teeth...just the thought of that sent a tremble through his body.

Bowser nodded. Nathan watched as he leaned back on his throne, the big reptile looking down at his feet. He examined each of them, looking over the soles, and almost against his will, Nathan did the same. Despite the crushing weight that they'd applied to both foxes, and having picked up the broken horse, neither of them were stained, bloody or otherwise. They were, however, slick and shiny, and as the wolf took a quick look at where they had rested, there were wet spots on the stone. Not visible for long, as the heat evaporated the moisture before his eyes, but it had been there. The thought of how sweaty the feet must have been to leave a mark like that made Nathan gulp, and not in nervousness either.

He could feel himself reacting as he looked back at Bowser's large yellow feet. They were three toed, like the Koopa, but unlike the Koopa, the toes were clawed. There was no way that Bowser could ever wear shoes, he saw, unless they were made in a very different, very specific sort of way so as to keep from being ripped apart by those claws. The skin was chubby, puffy almost. The best way that he could think of it was like a chubby but not fat leg; enough stuff under the skin to slip and give a bit, allowing for a smooth and soft sort of thing, but still strong and powerful at the same time.

The toes wiggled a few times, and Nathan realized that the King was looking at him now, rather than at his feet. The wolf blushed a bit, shaking his head and looking back up at the Koopa monarch. "Um...I'm sorry. Did...did you say something, Your Majesty?" he asked.

"Heh, I didn't, but your body is saying something, my little bug." Bowser used one of his toes to point at the wolf, and Nathan looked down.

His eyes went wide as his face went red with a blush, his hands darting down over his groin, covering up the rising level of pink down there. "Uh, there's....there's an explanation, Your Majesty. Please...please forgive me my reaction, I didn't mean to offe-"

"Offend me? Oh, that's rich, you little insect," Bowser said. He leaned on his throne, an elbow on the arm of the throne, and his chin on his hand. "You think you're the first one to get aroused at my feet? I look through Mushroom Kingdom for little slaves and toys that have your sorts of tastes."

"T...tastes?" Nathan asked, blushing worse.

"Do I have to spell it out for you, worm?"

"No...no you don't, sir..." Nathan muttered, looking down again. It wasn't something that he went around advertising, but he had always enjoyed looking at the feet and paws of different species. In fact, it had been quite the work of self-control to keep from showing a reaction to Kelt's feet and the fate of the wolf earlier, but when the King had started showing off his feet, and when he had a chance to see how magnificent they were...well, there was no way for him to hold back his reaction.

But..."Why are you looking for people with...with my tastes, as you call it?" Nathan would have slapped himself if he could. Asking something like that to the King that held his life in his hands? Or on his feet? Or whatever it might be. Damn his curiosity, it was going to get him killed!

He waited for the foot to come down on him, or for the Koopa King to do something else. If he could shrink someone, he could doubtlessly do something else with the magic that he had. It had to be magic. What else could explain it?

But the foot never came. Instead, he felt a vibration rumbling through the rock underneath him. It was low, but powerful, and he wondered if it was some sort of earthquake or something. However, the shaking only seemed to be present for him, as the guards didn't react. Slowly, he lifted his eyes to look at Bowser again.

The King was laughing. Not very loud, but he was laughing. Deep, throaty, coming from all the way down in his belly, Bowser was laughing, one hand to his stomach and the other on his forehead. The vibrations from the laughter continued to roll through the stones, growing stronger and stronger. It reached the level of a buzz, then a tickle, forcing the wolf to fight to keep from laughing at the tingling tickles to his pads.

Finally, Bowser simply burst out laughing. It echoed through the room, the guards turning to look, but not bothering to react otherwise. Nathan saw nothing more than familiarity in their eyes, like they had seen the King do this many times before. He laughed this regularly? The wolf thought that he must have been a monarch that was grim and grumpy, considering just where he had lived.

Just as the vibrations threatened to knock the mini-wolf off of his feet, they stopped just as suddenly as they started. He tentatively took a few steps from side to side, but they didn't start again.

Bowser shook his head a bit. "Just when I thought you had a few little brains, you prove that you don't have a clue how things work." He gestured to one guard, snapping his finger and pointing to the side of his throne. The guard ran up, armor clanking with every movement and saluted. "Koopa, what do I do with the prisoners I bring here?"

"Your Majesty treats prisoners differently depending on whether they are spies, special offenders, or toys, sir." The Koopa stood with his spear at his side, and banged the butt of it against the floor at the end of his answer.

Shaking his head, Bowser rubbed his forehead with one massive hand. "I do NOT have the smartest subjects," he muttered under his breath. It was quiet enough that Nathan doubted that the Koopa might have heard it, particularly considering the helmet that he wore, but he definitely heard it. Speaking up, Bowser said, "What do I do with my TOYS, Koopa?"

"You use them to relax, sir," the guard said, clanging the spear again. "You use them to relax your feet after a long day of deal with the Mushroom Kingdom, sir."

"That will be all, Koopa," he said. The guard saluted again and returned to his place on the wall. As he walked away, Nathan noticed that he had one unarmored part, the tail that stuck out from under all the armor in the back. Unlike the skin of some of the other Koopas that he'd seen, ones that weren't wearing armor around the castle, that little bit of exposed skin didn't shine with sweat. It was drenched with it. One could only imagine how soaked the Koopas were inside of the armor, if the only exposed piece was that hot and wet.

Bowser cleared his throat, and Nathan turned to look back at the King again. "You see? That's what you're going to do. I'm running through pipes and all across my land and castle during the day. I need a little toy, a little slave, to help me unwind during the night. And it helps if this particular toy has a particular taste. Get my drift?"

He did indeed. A toy with a foot fetish would serve a King much more eagerly in that way than anyone else might, though the skill really depended on the different person involved. But it was clear that Bowser wanted eagerness more than he wanted skill, otherwise, why would he go after people with....tastes?

But that begged another question, and it was out of his mouth before he could stop himself from asking. "How did you...well, did you know about me, before I got here?" Nathan asked.

The King chuckled again, and Nathan leaped from foot to foot to keep from being tickled by the vibrations going through the stone. "Heh, I have my ways of knowing things. You didn't think that shrinking things down was the only thing I could do, did you?"

"Well - "

"Don't answer, maggot, that's not what you're here for," Bowser said. He crooked a finger. "Come closer. Get right between my feet." As Nathan approached, the King wiggled his toes as he continued to talk. "I said that you were going to get a chance to earn your life. A slave's life, yes, but you're going to have the chance to survive, while the rest of your group died. Except the wolf. But he might die anyway, I haven't decided yet."

The wolf nodded his head in understanding. He had to jog a bit to get between the King's feet quickly, but he did it. The toes danced at either side, about four footsteps away in either case - for him, at least - and he could smell the rank musk coming off of them. He had thought that the potent smell coming from Kelt's feet and shoes had been strong, but this was something else. It was...well, it wasn't offensive, in any way. It might have bothered some wolves, or other species, but it didn't bother him in the least. The sweat had a salty odor to it, but it also burned in a way, hot, almost spicy. Maybe it was the smoky heat of the castle from being around so much lava, he thought to himself. That would probably affect the King's odor after so long. Or maybe it was something that he'd come across during his travels through the Kingdom. Nathan had by no means explored all of it, but there were places that smelled just plain weird, and Bowser might have absorbed a smell that he hadn't found yet.

One foot slowly lifted up, and Nathan's eyes were glued to it as it went over his head, suspended by the King's own whim. "May...May I lay down, Your Majesty?" he asked.

"Heh, you better, or you're going to become a little red stain at the foot of my throne," Bowser said. He wiggled his toes again, and the smell wafted down to the wolf. This time, he couldn't hold back his reaction, and he moaned softly as his member sprang to full erection. He just couldn't stop it anymore, but at least nobody could see it. He was so small that only the King would be able to see him clearly, and he was at an angle where his cock was invisible even to Bowser.

He laid himself down in a hurry as the foot started descending, and he only just managed to spread himself out on the rock when the foot came down on top of him. It was massive, and easily covered his three inch body. The only thing that he could move was his head, and that was only because Bowser had put his foot down in a way that let his head come up between the yellow toes.

Of course, that also placed his head right at the rankest spot, too, considering the pungent odor that came off of the feet. Nathan groaned as his nose brushed a musky pool of sweat between the King's toes, some little bit of it getting into his mouth and in his nostrils. He huffed softly, puffing some air out of his nose, just blowing the moisture away so that it didn't get sucked into his lungs. Held where he was, it was humid enough, the heat of the castle combining with the sweat on the King's foot to make it feel like he was wading through a hot spring.

"Heh, I'll let you start with licking the space between my toes clean, little bug," Bowser said. He fanned his toes out before curling them, and Nathan stared as the claws dug into the stone of the castle floor. To his shock, they didn't scratch the stone, nor did they drag along it. They burrowed right into the rock, cutting through it with a simple, deadly sharpness. "Don't make me wait, though. I want to feel that tongue, to know that you're eager to embrace your new life as the Royal Foot Slave."

Nathan didn't need further incentive. He would have dived into servicing this foot without the threat, of course, but now he had a particularly good reason to do a great job. His tongue darted into the puddle of sweat between the toes, and he started licking away.

It was thick and hot on his tongue. Clean, potent, salty man-sweat, oozing out over the course of the day, and soaking into the skin itself after it had come out. The saltiness made him all the more eager to keep licking it off, both making him more thirsty and soothing his thirst at the same time. Barely made any sense, even in the part of his mind that rationalized it, but he went with the reason.

The rest of his body was pinned down totally, his arms and legs unable to move with all of the weight pressing down on him. The pressure was constant, steady, save for when he paused too long to catch his breath in licking. Then the King leaned forward a bit, the heel of his foot coming off of the ground and pushing down with a greater weight on his body. It wasn't enough to damage his body, he was sure, but he could definitely feel the warning behind it, and he got right back to work.

His earlier thought about the King's foot had proved more or less correct. It was puffy and soft, smooth and slick against his body. His body made an indent against the underside, and he felt like, if he had a different set of eyes looking at the foot from underneath, he'd see something like a snow-angle...only in the bottom of a foot instead of in the snow.

But that was a passing thought, as his mind only had the energy and focus to think about two things. The first was the feeling of the sweat and musk on his tongue, the taste and smell blowing through his mind. It was powerful, and manly, and it almost obliterated his thought, pushing him to do nothing more than to nuzzle and lick at the King's foot. And there was always more for him to get, as the heat of the castle made the King sweat out more to replace what he had licked up.

The second thing was the ever-present feeling of his erection pressing up against the underside of the King's foot. Nathan didn't moan - he couldn't moan, not with his mouth full and his tongue ever busy - but he was sure that Bowser could feel that little extra push up against his foot. He hadn't made any sign of noticing it, not in his facial expression or in any words, but the wolf was sure that the King knew just how much he was turned on, and just how much he loved being down where he was. It was only a matter of time, he thought, before the King pointed it out.

So far, though, it hadn't happened. And he would continue as though it wouldn't.

Without warning, the King lifted his foot up again, and Nathan gasped as the pressure came off of his body. It hadn't been so bad when it was constant, but with it removed, he could feel just how stressed his body was. His ribs ached, and his lungs hurt as he breathed in without restriction for the first time in minutes.

"HAHAHA! This little bug is better than the last one!" Bowser laughed.

A soft 'puft' caught Nathan's attention, and the wolf turned his head a bit. A small red mushroom had landed near him, just barely within reach. "You'll want to eat that, worm," Bowser said. "Unless you want to die from what I'm about to do."

That was enough reason for Nathan. He grabbed hold of the mushroom, jamming it into his mouth and swallowing it as fast as he could. It was a little bitter, but there was a spice to it as well. Not much, but enough to wake his mouth back up. Sort of like a gooey, warm sorbet to clear his palette, he supposed.

He felt his body flicker for a moment, his fur going white, black, brown, white black brown, whiteblackbrown, until it settled back down to normal again. A little dizzy, he groaned, shaking his head to try and clear it.

However, he had barely shaken his head once before he saw the foot coming down. And this time, the descent was as far from slow as it could be. This wasn't simply stepping on him, this was a full on stomp, a trampling. Nathan started to throw up his arms out of instinct, knowing that it would be futile. He thought that he'd done a good job; why was Bowser trying to stomp him now?!

The big yellow foot slammed down on him with an immense level of pressure, and Nathan was sure that he was going to go straight through the stone from the pressure. He closed his eyes, wondering how it would feel when his body split apart, when his bones were crumbled into dust, when his life was snatched away from him in this stomp.

Oddly, there was no feeling other than a massively higher level of pressure, and that felt...way too good. He blushed, feeling his erection throbbing with need, his body reacting to the presence and pressure of the foot with a massive wave of increased arousal, not at all decreased by pain.

In fact, there was no pain. There should have been - should have been a LOT of it just before his ability to feel things was extinguished - but there wasn't the slightest trace of pain. Hell, the only discomfort he felt was from his head being trapped under the big puffy foot, and that wasn't more than a bit of annoyance compared to what he should have felt.

The foot ground against him, rubbing back and forth like he was a miniature doormat. Every rub ground against his cock in a very pleasurable way, and he moaned against the foot flesh. Sweat, droplets of them, rubbed into his fur and soaked it with the scent of the King, and he panted as he was pinned and rubbed, ground and marked with the smell of his new ruler.

Just as he was on the verge of a climax from being rubbed against, ground against, the foot lifted off of him again. He panted, groaning, moaning, begging in the form of whimpers and yelps for the foot to return, but all he got was a chuckle from Bowser's throne.

As the King laughed, Nathan took the time to look at himself. He was completely intact to his shock. A little bit flatter than he should have been - alright, he was almost a pancake - but before his eyes, his body pulled back together, rising back up to what his normal shape was. Well, his three inch tall normal shape. He completely reformed in the space of a few seconds, as if he had never been stomped on.

"I think you'll need a few more of those later, little bug," Bowser said. His voice was more satisfied, more relaxed than it had been earlier. Probably working out his frustrations with a stomp on a living thing and then grinding it into the ground had gotten his stress out a bit, Nathan would guess. He knew that it would work for a lot of people.

But he didn't think about it long. The foot came down again, this time trapping his head under the arch. "Go ahead and keep licking, flea," Bowser commanded. "You got the toes and a bit of the bottom, but you still got a long way to go. I want to feel every lick you make, too, so dig in. Be enthusiastic. You're doing good so far, but you still have a ways to go."

Nathan nodded his head, turning his attention back to the royal foot. It pinned his legs down again, but this time his arms were free. His head stuck out from the arch, pointing out at a ninety degree angle from the toes, which wiggled impatiently for him to start. Taking his cue from the toes, he set to work, using his hands to pull on the skin a bit, pull the wrinkled flesh out smooth so that he could get at the cracks, lick at the moisture that he would miss otherwise.

His attention was focused on the foot in general, but he still could hear the King above him. He didn't talk, but he was pretty sure that Bowser let out a moan now and then. It wasn't for sure or anything, but it encouraged him. He was doing a good job, and his monarch was enjoying his efforts. He grinned, and redoubled his efforts, dragging his tongue along the musky, soft flesh as quickly and as firmly as he could. He dragged the skin along with his licks, little bits at a time, true, but enough for the King to be able to feel it, he hoped.

And all the while, as he licked, he felt his cock throb further under Bowser's foot. It was a consistent, persistent distraction, and more than a few of his own moans were due to it rather than the licking and the taste on his tongue, but he did his best to ignore it. If he lived through this, he'd have a chance to get off later, but if he didn't pass the examination, then it really wouldn't matter that he had gotten off somehow.

So he threw himself fully into the work of getting the Koopa King satisfied. He ground his face against the arch, rubbed at the foot when he wasn't licking at it, massaged it with his entire body. Every move that he made had some purpose in getting the King more comfortable, more satisfied with his service. Every now and then, he could feel the King's foot rolling around a bit, grinding against him, rubbing him, sometimes even shifting the weight on him in a way that almost made him feel like his bones were going to be crushed, but he didn't let that distract him. He only worked that much harder, digging his tongue along the smooth, giving flesh, drowning in the musk of the large, sweaty foot.

His world was a large yellow foot, and he lost count of the amount of times it shifted over him. Sometimes he was completely covered, other times his legs stuck out, and still other times his head. But at all times, some part of his body was covered by Bowser's large yellow foot, and at all times, he could hear the toes drumming against the stone floor. The wolf's arousal was the highest he could ever remember it being, but that was subsumed in the need to relax, pleasure, and please the King's foot. It was his only purpose.

He had been working on the bottom of the middle toe when the foot lifted off of him again, and he waited for a few seconds for the foot to come back down, barely cognizant of any other possibility. When it didn't, he slowly opened his eyes again, panting desperately for some unrestricted air, unable to speak from the lack of it at the moment.

The Koopa King looked down at him with a little chuckle. "Well, you may be nothing more than a worm, a little bug under my feet, but you work hard, I gotta give you that." He snapped his fingers, and two guards walked up to him. "Take this bug to my chambers. He's passed his test. Give him a little bit of food, make sure that he's got a good little spot to rest, and then get back here." Bowser smirked at the wolf as he was lifted off of the floor in an armored fist. "I'll be seeing you later, but right now, King stuff calls. Congratulations. You're the new Royal Foot Slave."

Nathan tried to say something, but his mouth wouldn't work right. He barely had the ability to pull his tongue back into his mouth, and that took a good bit of willpower and strength to keep in. Exhausted. He must be exhausted, considering how he swayed on his feet when the hand holding him up was completely still. Just managing a bow, he then fell on his ass on the armored palm. "....Ow..." he muttered softly to himself. Even saying that hurt his jaw a bit.

"Heh. We'll have to make sure you get a little more stamina, so you can work on both of my feet in one session," Bowser smirked. Nodding to the guards, he watched them as they took the wolf out of the throne room, and back to...well, Nathan didn't know. His eyes closed as soon as the guards turned him away from Bowser.

He must have fallen unconscious at some point, because when he opened his eyes again, he was laid out in a small cage. He leaped to his feet, or at least tried to. When he jumped up, he just fell on his face. Thankfully the bottom of his cage was lined with a thick blanket, allowing him to land without injury, but it still was embarrassing and stung his dignity just a little bit.

Pulling himself up to a sitting position, Nathan slowly turned his attention to the room around his cage. There was a lava fountain of all things in the middle of it, and the heat from that made the room absolutely sweltering. He already had his tongue back out, panting at the feeling of being pushed to such a high heat, but he did his best to ignore the heat for the moment. More important was the water that he noticed in the back of his cage. He'd need to get some of that later, just to make sure that he wasn't dehydrated, but he wanted to know more about his situation before he went for that.

His cage sat on a small table that was next to a bed, it seemed. The bed itself was big, but if it was Bowser's, then that was sort of a given. There was a patch in the center, covering some sort of emblem that had once been on the center of the blanket, or some design, he didn't really know. But there had been something there, and it had been ripped off and repaired. The bed was covered by a top, with some curtains that could be drawn around it. Privacy curtains, he imagined.

The rest of the room was rather spartan. His cage was on the solitary nightstand next to the bed, and there was a small table at the other end of the room against the wall. A few chairs were against the wall, probably to be drawn out when the King was entertaining someone, but for the moment unused, and dusty enough to make it look like it had been unused for some time.

Nathan slumped down against the blankets in the cage, panting from the heat, but barely noticing that he was doing it. Since entering the castle it had become an unconscious reflex from the heat, and he would probably not stop unless he was taken to a cold room. But those were things he'd consider another time.

What he needed to figure out now was simple. How was his life going to go?

Bowser had mentioned that there had been other toys for him before Nathan had showed up. Did the King stomp and eat them when they became boring, or were they let free? If it was the latter, how long did he have to work before he was let out? And if it was the former, then what sort of things bored the King? Either way, he needed to be on his toes if he was going to make it out of here alive. Or just remain alive, for that matter.

Well, until Bowser or someone else entered the room, there was no way for him to get any answers. He'd just have to wait, and hope that things turned out for the best.

In the meantime, he needed to get some refreshment. Sweat was good in the heat of the moment, but it didn't do a darn thing for his body when it came to hydration. Standing on shaky feet, he slowly made his way across the cage. It was at least a big cage. There was a padded pile of cotton on one side of the cage, which he assumed was his bed, and a sheltered spot at the other end where he could...well, he could only assume that was for him to do his business in. At least they gave him privacy for that.

But his attention was focused on the water cup that was on the opposite corner from the sheltered toilet area. It was a small raised area, attached to the side of the cage, and as he dunked his hand into the water for a drink, he was amazed to find the water was not only not hot, but cool. No, not just cool, but COLD! He gasped and dunked his head into it, stifling an underwater moan at the feeling of the water soothing all the heat that he felt.

Pulling his head back, he sucked down mouthful after mouthful of water, the cool water comforting him and making him feel a little more relaxed. He took a few handfuls, holding the water over his head before letting it fall down over his fur. It was cold, chilling him to the bone, but the heat of the lava and castle itself had seeped into his bones as well. It wasn't a full chill, nor was it completely comfortable, but it was enough to let him stop panting for a little while, at least.

Taking advantage of the cold, he walked over to and sat down on the cotton pile on the other side of the cage. Leaning back on it until he fell onto his back, he stared up at the ceiling, shaking his head. "Why did he want me?" Nathan asked. That was what it boiled down to, really. There had to be others in the land that had foot fetishes. Maybe not many in the Mushroom Kingdom proper, considering how uptight they had been when he had passed through, but there had to be a couple, at least .People that were local, and knew more about this than he did. Why did Bowser have to catch him?

As he thought, the heat burned away the cool chill from the water, and despite all of his self control, he couldn't quite keep his eyes open. Slowly, they drifted shut, and as they drifted shut, he drifted off. His last thought before he fell asleep was a repeat of what he had been asking all day.

Why me?

#

Awareness came with a thump, a loud one, and the vibrations spread through the floor, up the nightstand, and through the cage. Despite all the distance that they had covered, the vibrations were still enough to knock him off of the cotton pile, colliding once more with the soft blanket that covered the bottom of his cage. Though softened, he had still landed on his face, so he immediately rolled over with a cry of pain, rubbing his muzzle quickly, but softly. "OW!" he shouted. "What the hell?!"

"Do you really want to talk to me like that, worm?"

Nathan froze in place at the sound of the familiar voice. He had half convinced himself that the last night had been nothing more than a dream. That the entire day had been nothing more than a dream, though a kinky one. But the voice...

Slowly, he opened his eyes. Looking through the top of the cage - which didn't have a lid, he noticed - was Bowser's face. He wore a grin still, and his teeth were all on display. "Good morning, slave. Did you like your first night in your new home?"

"Um, it was...it was quite comfortable...and the water was very good," he said with a quick nod. Pulling himself to his feet, he bowed his head and put his hands behind his back respectfully. "What...what can I do for you today, Your Majesty? Do you need me to be underfoot again, or anything else?"

"Look at me, little bug."

Almost against his will, Nathan looked up. The King shook his head at him. "Good taste in feet or not, you're going to take a while to break in properly." He reached into the cage, and Nathan held still as the big yellow fingers wrapped around him. The claws were a different temperature than the skin itself, each of them feeling a little bit cooler than the skin that they were attached to. He held still as the fingers tightened, preventing movement, holding his arms and legs tightly to his body, but not really hurting him.

Nathan was thankful for the way that the King held him, considering that it was pushing him forward rather than swinging him around like most people did when they walked around. He looked over his shoulder at Bowser, wondering where they were going, but the King was quite silent. He did, however, have a smile on his face that made Nathan a little worried for whoever the King was thinking about.

Since his head was out in the open rather than hidden behind a metal gauntlet, Nathan could see a little more of the castle than he could the day before. It was interesting seeing it from a smaller perspective, he had to admit. The tapestries on the walls were huge, and if he had was placed on them, he'd be smaller than most of the different bugs that walked along it. The thought that he was a good little snack for spiders occurred to him, and he shivered in Bowser's grip. What little thought that he had of moving around without a guard with him, or the King, disappeared in the space of a second. If spiders would be the right size to eat him or hurt him now, then he didn't want to think of what else was in the castle that could take care of him without someone on hand to help him.

Minutes passed, five, ten, fifteen, and the two of them were still walking. The wolf looked over his shoulder again. Bowser's grin hadn't abated in the least, and he wondered just what the big guy was thinking about to make him grin that much. He almost opened his mouth to ask the King about it, but he managed to stop himself from asking. He had to shove his head down against the King's hand, of course, trapping his mouth shut while his common sense caught up to his mouth, but he managed it.

He'd had some time to do a little thinking, and the first thing that he needed to do was put a cap on the curious questions for a little while. The King would tell him what he needed to know, he was sure, but asking about things that he didn't need to know might stress the King out. A stressed out giant lizard was not the best thing to see in the best of times, and when he was the foot slave, liable to be trampled anytime, it didn't pay to have the person responsible for seeing you survive angry at him. Curiosity would just have to wait.

Besides, he could tell that they weren't going to the throne room. The red carpet was elsewhere, a good five halls back the way that they had come. The rooms that they walked through were dark, and Bowser walked in different directions with each hallway. In fact, now that Nathan thought about it, the King hadn't walked in a straight line since he had left the red carpet.

Curiosity beckoned again, and he forced his face back down against the warm, yellow fingers again, keeping his mouth shut. No, no more questions!

Bowser stopped when they were in another archway, and looked down at him. "What's the matter with you? Did you have some fleas of your own that shrunk down with you or something?"

"Sorry, Your Majesty. I'm just trying to keep from asking stupid questions," Nathan said. They weren't stupid to him, but they could be stupid to the King.

"Heh, good. Glad you know your place. You are just here to lick my feet and help me get rid of some stress. Make sure you remember that, and you'll be able to live for a lot longer," Bowser said. He looked up, turning his head from side to side. Eventually, he smiled and started walking again.

"You know," Bowser said as he walked along, "I was a little surprised to see someone so suited to my needs next to the people I wanted to capture."

The wolf cocked his head to the side. "Your Majesty?"

"You know what I mean. You are a foot slut, worm, and don't you deny it. It's part of your charm that I keep you for," Bowser said. The wolf bowed his head. "That's better. Now, why don't you tell me why you were spending time with those four? They didn't seem to like you much, and you don't seem to be too annoyed about them all being dead."

"Except for the wolf."

"Except for the - Don't interrupt." Bowser squeezed him tightly enough that Nathan groaned, feeling his ribs pushing inwards in a way that he definitely didn't like. He nodded quickly, and the King loosened his grip. "Now why were you with them? It was convenient, but I don't like convenience so much that I'm going to ignore just how easy I was able to kill two birds with one stone."

"I...I was just traveling, Your Majesty," Nathan said, coughing a few times as he sucked in air. God that had hurt. He didn't know how much of his strength Bowser had used with that squeeze, but the King hadn't seemed all that bothered by what he did. Definitely had to watch what he said and did, Nathan thought to himself. The King could squish him easily, and he didn't need his feet to do it. "I was just traveling through the Kingdom, and I met up with them during one night of camping out."

"Met up with them? You had no plans to meet with them?" the reptile asked. His eyes focused on the wolf, and Nathan had a hard time not flinching away from the power behind that glance. "You weren't planning on meeting with them and traveling to do...something?"

"No, no, I swear. I don't even know their names." And that was the truth. They had shared the same campsite for a night, and then they'd been captured the next day. There hadn't been any time to learn names. "We were just traveling in the same direction. I was heading for the pipe that would take me on to the next Kingdom over, and we were caught by your Koopas before we were halfway there."

The King looked at him contemplatively, the look on his face considering, but there was no evidence whether he believed or disbelieved Nathan's story. The wolf considered begging, but he forced himself to stay quiet. Begging might work if the King still didn't believe him, but there was a fine time for begging. Too late, and one didn't have a chance to say anything. Too early, and it made a case against one. As long as the King wasn't trying to kill him, he wasn't going to start begging yet.

It seemed to be the right choice, as Bowser relaxed his grip a little bit, allowing the wolf a little bit easier breathing. "Alright, I think that I believe you. Enough to not kill you yet, anyway; it'd take me too long to find a replacement for you already, anyway."

They stopped in front of a large wooden door, and Bowser pushed the door open slowly. Inside was a large map on a circular table, and around that table were various Koopas and Goombas, most wearing some sort of hat or badge or other symbol of authority. All of them bowed or saluted when Bowser walked in, clearing a spot for their King at the side of the table.

Bowser set Nathan down on one of the shelves around the room. "Do some cleaning or something," Bowser said with a negligent wave of his hand. Walking over to the table, he started talking in a hushed voice with the other assembled soldiers.

After brushing some of the dust that came off of the shelf and soaked into his fur, Nathan leaned forward a bit, trying to listen in. Most of the words exchanged between the soldiers were quiet, hardly heard, but he could tell that they were talking about the map on the table, where certainly people were on it.

It took a little work, but if he walked all the way to the edge of his shelf, grabbed hold of one of the books that were placed on it, and leaned over to the side as far as he could, he could make out a few geographical landmarks. Nathan couldn't tell what some of them were, as the mark for them was unfamiliar and the words that told what they were named were upside-down or blocked from his sight, but he could tell what one of them was. It was marked the same as the castle they were in, and it was far enough north to match where this one was.

So, it was a map of Mushroom Kingdom. He looked at the different Koopas and Goombas. They had different hats than he was used to, but the way that they walked, the way that they talked. Could they maybe be the generals of the Koopa army?

If that was true, then they might have been talking about some war, some fighting that they were preparing for. This was big stuff, Nathan thought to himself. If that was the case, then there had to be some bigger reason behind taking the four other travelers yesterday. What might they have been?

Before he could pursue that line of thought much further, the door to the room burst open, the force of the door hitting the wall almost enough to knock him down from his shelf. He actually did fall a little bit, and he had to grab the edge of the shelf and kick at the air for almost a minute before he was able to get back up. Finally he hooked one foot on a splinter and managed to push himself up the rest of the way, and he spent a few seconds on his knees, huffing and puffing in relief. "Gotta...remember...my new size," he muttered to himself.

The wolf slowly turned to the table again, but nobody was around it. Bowser and the others had run out of the room at high speed, leaving him alone.

Nathan was almost offended, except that this meant that he had a chance to check out the table without being interfered with. Finally, a chance to indulge his curiosity without getting in quite as much trouble as just directly asking King Bowser.

Still...how to get down?

He eventually found out that the books on the shelf had a nice quality to them. They were all bound together by string and rope. It took some work to get the first knot undone, but once it was free, then the string came free easily. He undid one book, then another, and three more before he judged that he had enough to get down from the shelf to the floor about seven feet below. It wasn't much of a distance for a normal person, but he had no illusions about himself. Whatever Bowser had done to shrink him had left him as vulnerable to falls as anyone else falling from a height ten times this one. Perhaps more vulnerable, at that. He was taking no risks.

Tying the string rope to the back end of the book shelf, he threw the other end over the edge. It fell, and fell, and fell, until it finally came to a stop a little bit above the floor. The wolf couldn't quite tell how far it was above the floor, but he figured it was less than a foot above it. That would have to be good enough.

Holding onto the rope, he jumped off of the shelf. He swung back and forth a few times as he slid down the string rope a bit, but it held his weight, and soon he stopped swaying back and forth. "Good, good," he muttered under his breath. That part worked. Now he just hoped that knot held until he reached the bottom of the rope.

Hand over hand he climbed down, gradually making his way down. It was easy enough to start, but he soon started to feel the burn in his arms as he made his way down. The rope swayed, too, back and forth with each length of his body down he moved. That wasn't much either, at least to start, but the further down the rope he got, the more he started to sway, his weight forming a pendulum at his location. He was only halfway down before he was swinging back and forth - what seemed to him - a massive distance, and he flinched a few times when he was sure that he was going to hit the wall.

Eventually he did hit the wall, and the impact knocked the breath out of his lungs. He clung tight to the rope, though, and held still. He waited, letting the rope start to calm down before he dared to continue.

However, as the rope stopped and he got ready to continue his descent, he heard some footsteps outside the door. He froze, slowly turning his head over his shoulder. It was dim enough that he didn't think that he'd be seen in this corner, but movement would give him away if he wasn't careful. He really should have stayed completely still, not moved at all. That would have been the safest thing to do.

Yet, his curiosity was so strong that he couldn't help himself. Cursing himself for every bit he moved, he looked out into the hall.

It wasn't Bowser that had returned, nor was it one of the generals. It wasn't even one of the regular soldiers. Instead, it was a winged Koopa. He wore sunglasses, and, save for the fact that he had a red shell rather than a blue one, he was the spitting image of Koopa Kelt from the last night. The winged Koopa looked back down the hall he'd come from before slowly stepping into the room and shutting the door. It clicked shut, and Nathan gulped at the thought that he might be locked in a room with someone that he didn't know, that might not have his best interests at heart.

The Koopa fluttered over to the table, and stood on the edge of it, looking over the different dispositions of models on it. Nathan, unable to dampen his own interest, looked at it too. There were different forces on the map, some marked as Koopas or Goombas, and others marked as Toads, and a few other units. It looked like it was a map of all of Mushroom Kingdom's forces, as well as Bowser's own army.

But there were some other pieces that didn't match up. Some things that didn't match the different armies. Two or three different colored and shaped units were on different parts of the map, clustered together rather than spread out.

He ripped his eyes away from them to look at the Koopa again. The red shelled lizard had stopped looking over the map, and pulled out a piece of paper. Writing on it, he seemed to be taking notes of the way that the forces were out on the map.

"A spy?!" Nathan gasped. His eyes widened as he realized what he'd done, and he slapped one hand over his mouth.

It was too late. The Koopa looked up from his paper, and his eyes went wide too behind his sunglasses . He wrapped up the paper quickly and took to the air again, flying away from the table and towards the miniature wolf. "You saw that, huh?" he said, his voice quick, clipped, a bit high pitched. He extended one hand, seemingly in slow motion to Nathan's eyes. "Well, I can't let you tell the King that he's got a few of us to worry about. Heh, goodbye!"

Nathan wasn't sure if it was his arm that gave out, or that he had actually let go of the rope. However, whichever it was, he found himself falling down from the rope. The yellow fist closed above him, right where he had been on the rope, and he heard a muttered curse as he continued to fall.

He fully expected to die, but he hit something on the way down. Papers, piled together. The shove from the Koopa's fist must have pushed him off to the side just enough to land on them rather than continue his fall towards the ground. It shocked him, surprised him, but he was happy for it.

He rolled off of it and hit the ground running, hearing the footsteps of the Koopa behind him as the red shelled lizard landed. Hands grabbed for him, and fingers tried to trap him. Nathan jumped and dodged around them as best he could, dancing around the room.

An idea grabbed him, and he ran at the table. The Koopa chased after him, slow boot steps nevertheless feeling like a metronome of fate. Nathan panted as he picked up speed, running as fast as he could. He heard the steps get closer, and closer, and he put on more speed. He felt like he might make it, but what he would do when he got there -

Was immaterial. Just as he tried to leap from the floor to the cover of the table, the Koopa grabbed him from behind. The grip was tight enough to make breathing difficult, and Nathan groaned as he was lifted off of the ground, pulled up to look the Koopa in the face. His reflection in the sunglasses was not flattering; dust covered, panicked, sweaty and ragged, he looked more like a rat than a wolf.

The sunglasses came up, and the Koopa looked at him with a grin, a smirk, evil, in a way that Bowser's grin somehow hadn't looked. "Heh. Finally got you. Question is...how to get rid of you?"

Nathan threw himself from side to side in the Koopa's grip, but despite all of his squirming, despite how slick his fur was with nervous sweat - and normal sweat for that matter - those yellow fingers clenched tightly around him. Whatever little gain he got was negated by a simple finger on top of his head, pushing him back down into the Koopa's hand.

For the first time since he was shrunk, Nathan felt truly helpless. No matter how much he moved, all his progress could be negated by a simple touch. No matter how much he tried to think of a way out, the Koopa was going to squeeze him to death, or crush him under his boot, or some other equally painful death. Already the fingers were tightening around him to make breathing nearly impossible, the semi-slick fingers making his entire body feel like it was in a vise.

"What...who...are you...wor...wor..."

"You don't need to know who I'm working for." The Koopa looked up at the shelf again. "Hmmm." White wings flapped, and the Koopa lifted off of the ground. Nathan trembled as the ground fell further and further away from him, only a few additional feet for the Koopa, but many body lengths for him. The distance from the Koopa's hand to the floor had been bad enough when he was on the ground, but now, there was no chance that he was going to live through this if the Koopa dropped him.

"You should have died in that first fall. Hell, Bowser probably expects you to die from a fall eventually, so why not make sure you die from it now?" the Koopa said. He held his hand even with the shelf, and the wolf could tell that the Koopa was measuring the distance to the ground. A few kicks sent books and papers out of the way, getting rid of any cushions between the wolf and the stone floor. "There we go. You should make a good splat from this distance."

"Please..." Nathan stared at the Koopa, his eyes bugging out a bit from the lack of air. He could feel himself starting to lose consciousness, but his curiosity was burning stronger than his desire to live at this point. He had to know. Just had to. "Who...who are..."

"You are too curious for your own good." The Koopa grinned, and opened his fingers. "Fall."

Three things happened in rapid succession. First, Nathan was able to breathe again, and he sucked in a massive breath. His brain, and more importantly, his body, started listening to his commands again.

Second, he used that to grab onto the littlest finger that the Koopa had. It wasn't much of a grip, and his arms danced along the slick, sweaty skin to keep from falling, but it was enough to keep him from falling down to the ground, for now.

Third, the lock on the door clicked, and the door was pushed open.

Wolf and Koopa turned to stare at the newcomer, and to Nathan's vast relief, it was the blue shelled Koopa from the day before, Koopa Kelt. Throwing all caution to the wind, he shouted, "HELP!"

His voice was quiet compared to a normal shout, but in the stunned silence in the room, it was enough to carry. Eyes widening enough behind sunglasses to be seen, Kelt looked over at the wolf and his fellow Koopa. "What are you doing with the King's foot slave, Koal?" he asked.

"Oh, this is the King's foot slave?" Koal asked. He shrugged. "I thought he was just another of the little bugs that -"

"He's a spy! A spy!" Nathan shouted, still scrabbling along the finger. Silence fell again, and he felt the red Koopa's eyes glaring a hole in his back, but he kept talking. "He was looking at the map, and taking notes, like he was going to show them to someone else!"

Kelt stared, and Koal shook his head. "You shouldn't have said that," he muttered. "Now I have to take care of two people instead of one bu - OOF!"

Koal went flying backwards as Kelt slammed into him, the high speed Koopa shoving the traitor into the wall. The impact was enough to send Nathan flying backwards, and he barely managed to catch hold of his rope again on the way down towards the floor.

Of course, the impact had other results, such as sending the books on the shelf rocking back and forth, and some of them started to fall down. Pages and covers from the unbound volumes filled the air, and Nathan screamed in fear as he rapidly climbed down the rope, ignoring the way that it swung back and forth as he desperately avoided the falling objects.

Despite his efforts, he was still battered by the broken books. It wasn't much, even for his size, but several times it almost made him lose his grip, and one time he slid down six inches before he managed to get hold of the rope again. His heart in his throat, he hurried down to the ground, and jumped to the stone below before hurriedly hiding himself behind some of the surviving books and papers.

Kelt held Koal against the wall, and the blue shelled Koopa was not allowing the red shelled one to move one bit. The two of them glared at each other through their sunglasses, and for a change, both of them were not smiling. That giddy grin that he had not seen one Koopa go without the entire time he'd been in their custody was gone, replaced with a toothy snarl that was surprisingly scary.

Fist pushed against fist as they wrestled one another, Kelt to subdue Koal, and Koal to get free from his captor. They soon rolled off of the wall and along the floor, going this way and that in their attempts to break the grip of the other. Shells clacked against the stone floor with each move, and soon started to knock Nathan's shelter out of the way.

Unable to keep fully out of the way, Nathan ran across the floor, leaping and sliding along to keep from being crushed under one of the Koopa shells. Several times he came all too close to being crushed, but managed to duck into a crevice between the shells. It rolled him around and sent him flying when that happened, but it kept him alive, and that was all he cared about.

After a minute or two of futilely wrestling with each other, Kelt seemed to get the upper hand. He rolled over on top of Koal, and pulled his fist back to punch him. It seemed like he was going to get a good blow in, and end the fight.

But suddenly Kelt winced, clenching his teeth as if he had been hurt, and faltered. Koal didn't waste a second, throwing Kelt off of him and punching him across the face. Taking to the air, he started to fly out of the room. He turned his head to throw a mocking glance back at Kelt -

THUD!

And fell to the ground right at the door as he collided with something much, much bigger than himself. He rolled back dizzily, coming to a stop barely a few steps away from where Nathan stood. He looked up, and so did Nathan.

Standing in the doorway was the King, rubbing his chest absently as though nothing more than a fly had touched him rather than a Koopa flying at near full speed. He took a few steps inside, his bulky body filling up the entire doorway as he stepped through, and looked down at the traitor. "Koopa Koal. What are you doing?" he asked, his voice deeper, angrier than usual.

By this time, Kelt had managed to pull himself back to his feet, and he was stomping down on one foot more than usual. "According to your foot slave, Your Majesty, he was taking notes on the map here," Kelt said. "And he looked like he was going to flee with them."

Bowser arched an eyebrow, looking from Kelt to Koal, and then beyond, to Nathan. "Hmmm, I thought that I had forgotten something in the room. Never thought that leaving something behind would turn out to be a good thing," the King said with a shrug of his shoulders. He took a step forward, and Koal squirmed back a bit. "I see some paper sticking out of your shell, Koopa Koal. Take it out."

The Koopa hesitated.

"TAKE IT OUT!" Bowser shouted, the words accompanied by a few little puffs of flame in the process.

With a few little yelps, the Koopa reached into his shell, pulling out the paper and holding it out to the King. Bowser took it with a slash of his clawed fingers, pulling it back to him and opening it up. His eyes flicked back and forth over the paper a few times before he threw it to the ground.

Nathan almost turned tail and ran at the glare that Koal received, and he didn't even get it full on. Considering that the full rage of that glare was hitting Koal square on, he was amazed that the Koopa wasn't backpedaling as fast as he could to get away. Then again, he was thankful that he wasn't. At this distance, it would be difficult to get out of the way in time to avoid being crushed.

Large, crushing footsteps echoed through the room as Bowser advanced on his traitorous Koopa. He bent down at the waist and picked him up, lifting him above his head. "What were you thinking, you maggot?!" he shouted, every word echoing around the room with the force of thunder. "Who are you working for?!"

To his credit, Koal didn't say anything. He simply remained silent, looking down at the King with a shake of his head. A nervous, fearful shake of his head, but a denial nonetheless.

After a few seconds, Bowser put Koal down. Hard enough to almost send him through the floor, but he put him down. He stepped forward, standing on top of the red Koopa's back. Koal whimpered in pain from being under the King's full weight, but Bowser shook his head, only grinding his foot back and forth along the shell. A few little cracks began to show, and Koal's whimpers got louder, and louder.

"Last chance, Koal. Tell me..who you're working for...or I'm going to break your shell and throw you out in the moat!" Bowser growled.

The cracks continued to spread across the shell, slowly spreading out from the center of it. Just as they were about to hit the edge, and be so extensive to never be repaired, Koal broke. "I'm working with the Water Kingdom!" he shouted.

"There's no such place," Bowser said. He turned towards the map. "At least, not yet." He removed his foot from the Koopa's back, and kicked him over onto his back. "What were they paying you? How much do they know?"

Koal cried softly as he looked up at his king, whimpering in pain, humiliation, and fear. "I...they....they didn't pay me yet...I had to get the information first," he said. "This was my first assignment. I needed to get all of this set up...and I didn't want to do it all myself. I was supposed to have some help."

"A group of four travelers, right?" Bowser asked. The whimpers cut off momentarily as the Koopa stared at him in shock. "You are an idiot. Kelt!" The blue shelled Koopa saluted. "Shoes off. Show Koal here your little passenger."

"Yes, sir," Kelt said. He slowly pulled off his right shoe, and reached into it. To Nathan's surprise, there was a bite mark on one of Kelt's toes, as well as a little blood leaking from it. "Little pest...biting me in the middle of a fight," the Koopa muttered. He finally grabbed hold of his little toy, and pulled the other wolf out.

The canine had obviously seen better days. All of his fur was matted down with sweat, and he could barely move. He looked a little flatter than Nathan remembered him being, but that wasn't much of a surprise. Considering that he had been in the Koopa's shoes for at least a few hours - hell, might have been a day, he couldn't quite tell time at this point - he would be a little bit flatter from all the pressure that came down on him. The fox had been flat as a pancake after being under Bowser's feet for only a few seconds, and while the Koopa's weight was doubtlessly less, he had been in there longer.

Koal's gasp of recognition was all the proof that any of them needed, and Bowser kicked him again, sending him flying across the room. The King's angry gesture, though, was another bit of danger for Nathan, as he was right in the path of the sliding shell.

He tried to dodge. He really did. The last thing that he wanted was to get involved in something that was so important. But he was too slow, managing to get out of the way of the dangerous part of the shell...but not get out of reach of Koal's hand. Once more those yellow fingers grabbed hold of him, and tightened so much that he could barely breathe. Spinning along with the Koopa, Nathan could barely tell what was up, what was down, or any other direction.

They hit the wall a bare second later, and Nathan could still barely see. Everything spun, and his head wobbled from side to side. Koal pulled himself to his feet after a moment, and held the wolf out, showing his prize. "Let me go, Bowser, or I'm going to crush your new toy!" he shouted.

The King arched an eyebrow. "Do you really think that's going to stop me from teaching you the lesson that traitros have to learn?" Bowser asked. He took a step forward. "Toys are easy to get. I can find another one in a day or two."

Koal squeezed the wolf again, starting to circle around the table before Kelt blocked the other side. He paused, caught between Bowser and one of his fellow soldiers. Admittedly, the soldier held a mini-wolf in his hand and he was missing a shoe, but he still managed to block him.

Another squeeze, and Nathan felt his sense of direction come back. Barely able to breathe, he looked at the King, at Kelt, and groaned to himself. He had...had to get...out of this...He didn't...want to die...

The only way out was against everything he tried to be. It wasn't keeping himself invisible, it wasn't making himself useful, and it wasn't satisfying curiosity. It went against not making people angry, and it went against not hurting people. But it was the only way that he was going to get out of this.

As Koal reached down to pick up the notes he'd made, Nathan made his move. He bit down hard on Koal's fingers, shaking his head back and forth to tear into the skin. He felt blood enter his mouth, could taste the iron and salt in it, but he dug in deeper, deeper. He heard Koal yelp in pain, and just like he'd hoped, Koal's hands opened to get rid of the source of his pain on instinct. Both of them.

Falling the few inches to the floor, Nathan rolled as he hit the ground and kept moving. It was a hard impact, but he took it and kept moving. Acting on impulse, he grabbed hold of the paper with Koal's notes, and ran with that over his head. It slowed him down a little bit, but Koal was still wringing his hand and shaking his head, and wasn't able to chase after him immediately.

However, there was another danger. Before his eyes, the other wolf wriggled out of Kelt's hand and ran across the floor. Kelt couldn't get him, as he was too focused on Koal, and the King was blocking the other way out of the room. And as the wolf ran at him, Nathan knew that he would have to deal with this himself.

The other wolf grabbed hold of the notes as he came close, and Nathan knew that if he just let go, he could still get through this. He could make his way to a hiding place, and let the big guys deal with Kelt's little toy. They'd make sure that he never got out of the castle, never got to whoever he was working for. It'd be easy.

But...

But something had woken up in Nathan's mind. It was a small thing, and it was what had driven him to bite down on Koal's hand. It was more than the desire to live. It was the desire to do something right. And as strange as it was to side with Bowser, after he had been shrunken down, used, and more or less stomped on, it felt like it was the only thing that he could do.

Holding tight to the notes, Nathan started to dodge around the other wolf. His opponent had a grip with one hand, and used the other to throw punches. He kicked, punched, lashed out in every way that he could, and Nathan kept running around in circles, keeping just out of reach of the soaked canine. It was difficult, and it was already getting hard to keep his breath. But he could not let go of the paper. It didn't even cross his mind after the first punch the other wolf threw. He just had to hold on.

He heard punches in the background, voices, but he couldn't have said what was going on. All of his attention was on his opponent. One of the punches connected with his side, and he grunted, but didn't let go. A kick got his leg, but all his fingers did was tighten on the paper.

"Just...let...go!" the other wolf shouted at him.

"Not...going....to happen," Nathan panted.

Before long, the two of them simply resorted to tugging on their respective halves of the note, unable to pull together the energy to keep fighting in any other way. "I have to get this to the Aquos Army," the other wolf said. "They need this...for the war!"

"What war?" Nathan asked, not tugging so much as he was simply holding his ground. "There's no...war now!"

"There will be. War of..Independence...LET GO!" The wolf growled, and tried one last kick. It was powerful, and it hit Nathan right in the stomach, and knocked the air right out of his lungs. He fell to his knees, his grip weakening, but still present. He gasped, sucking for air, but knowing that he was completely helpless. He braced himself for another blow, knowing he couldn't get out of the way, couldn't block it.

But it never came. The other wolf kept shouting though, and he slowly looked up after he got his breath back.

Kelt had the other wolf in hand, and was using some string to tie the wolf's mouth shut. He shook his head at the mini-canine before pushing him down into his shoe again, sliding it back on and seemingly forgetting about the way wolf after that. Slumped against the wall was Koal's unconscious body, his shell even more cracked, but not quite broken.

And standing directly over him was Bowser, looking at him with a little raised eyebrow. He slowly reached down, thick fingers taking the notes out of Nathan's hands. "Looks like you kept the other spy from running long enough for us to get him back," Bowser said with a nod that just barely expressed approval. "Nice work on that. He's small enough that he'd be hard to find if he had gotten away."

"I....I'm glad...I could help," Nathan said, slumping down to all fours. He took a few deep breaths, filling his lungs up. When he felt a little more himself, he turned to look at the King again. "What...he mentioned a war. What was...what was he talking about, Your Majesty?" he asked. His curiosity. Damn. His. Curiosity.

Bowser looked at him, and for a moment it looked like he was going to be more annoyed than anything else. But then the King sighed. "I guess you earned an answer, after dealing with that wolf." He leaned down and wrapped his fingers around the wolf in a loose grip, lifting him from the floor and then putting him down on the table. "What do you see on this map?"

It seemed like a trick question, but Nathan answered as honestly as he could. "Um, I see the Mushroom Kingdom, and pieces that look like armies."

"Right." He pointed to the Koopas and Goombas. "Mine." Then he pointed to the toadstools. "Mushroom Kingdom." Then he gestured to the other pieces, all of which were unfamiliar to Nathan. "What do you think those are?"

"That's...kind of where I got lost, Your Majesty," Nathan admitted.

"That's because they never had anything there before," Bowser said. "Mushroom Kingdom is all of the land on this map. The Kingdom is made of different worlds, and each of the worlds is a good bit different from the last one. For a LONG time they've been all one piece inside of the Kingdom." He spat a fireball to the side, the orb exploding against the stone harmlessly. "But now, some of the worlds think it'd be a good idea to be their own kingdoms. Idiots. They're forgetting all of the stuff that they get from being in the Mushroom Kingdom."

The wolf was confused. He had heard of Bowser before, and he'd heard of all the attempts that he'd made to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom in the past. "But...wouldn't separate kingdoms make it easier for you to take over?"

"No." Bowser shook his head. "They might be weaker all apart like that, but each time I take over, I'd need to leave a lot of troops behind to make sure that they're not going to make problems for me. That means that I'd run out of soldiers before I get halfway to the center of Mushroom Kingdom, and then what would I do?" He glared at the pieces on the map, and his claws dug into the table in frustration. "When the worlds are all part of Mushroom Kingdom, they listen to whoever is on the throne. The last thing I need is for them to make a break from it."

"But...then why did you stop their spies? If you're not going to invade them, why do you care whether they know where your armies are?" Nathan asked.

"Because if they know where my forces are, then they'll know if they can safely break away. I've been putting on some shows, making them think that they still need Mushroom Kingdom's armies to keep them safe." He chuckled a bit to himself. "Not that they'd do any good in a real fight, but if they think that they need the Kingdom's armies to keep them safe, they're not going to pull out of their alliance with it. At least, not until they have bigger armies. What they have right now couldn't keep them safe," he said.

That much was true, if Nathan was reading the map right. The Mushroom Kingdom forces were spread out a bit, but even if all of the seceding worlds put their armies together, it wouldn't add up to more than a third of the Mushroom Kingdom forces. But there were other pieces on the side of the map, ones that hadn't been laid down yet, so apparently they were building up their forces, slowly.

The wolf nodded his head in understanding. "I...I see, Your Majesty. Thank you for explaining it to me," Nathan said with a bow of his head.

"Don't think that means that I'm not marching on Mushroom Kingdom eventually," Bowser said with a snort. "I AM going to take that throne. I just don't want to have to pull the Mushroom Kingdom worlds back together in order to do it. I want a whole Kingdom, not a puzzle box and a useless throne."

Nathan could understand that. He nodded again, and bowed once more. "I'm...I'm glad that I could help, Your Majesty. What do you want me to do now?"

"Now?" He looked down at the wolf. For a moment, it looked like the King was going to say something sardonic, or sarcastic, or something far too blunt, but then he seemed to reconsider. He placed his fingers against his chin as he thought for a few seconds, and then gestured to Kelt. "Take the royal foot slave back to my quarters. Give him some water and some food. Then go and take the day off, as a reward for helping with Koal and keeping this slave alive."

"Yes, sir!" Kelt said with a grin. He reached down and took Nathan in hand, and flew out of the room.

Flying was an entirely different sensation for the wolf. Oh, the feeling of being carried was different too, but it was still the familiar up and down movements of walking. Being flown around, though, was something new. It was faster, for one, and for another, it was a little more fun. The breeze in his face canceled out a good bit of the warm heat from the Koopa's palm, and cooled him down a little bit. Definitely a plus compared to the heat that would only build up while he was being carried.

He looked back at Kelt as they flew through the castle. "Do you know what's going to happen with the spies?" Nathan asked. "And with Koal?"

"Heh, the only spy that's left is stuck in my shoe, and he's going to have a lot of work to do to make up for biting me during that fight," Kelt said, chuckling as he turned at one of the hallway intersections, following the red carpet. "And as for Koal...well, I think that the King is going to make his life a living hell for the next few years. He'll eventually bring him back into the Koopa fold, though; Koal's too good to keep out."

"I thought he was going to throw Koal into the moat, though."

"That's just a threat to make him talk," Kelt said with a shrug of his shoulders. "The King might do it, if someone REALLY crossed a line, but there have been traitors before. They get harsh punishments, but His Majesty has a soft spot for the Koopas in the army. He won't hurt them as much as he will foreigners." Chuckling, the Koopa paused in his flight, kicking his shoe against one wall. Nathan almost winced in sympathy for the wolf in that shoe. Almost. "Like this guy. He's going to last a good long time, but the King is going to get rid of him eventually."

"Good to know," Nathan said. He didn't want to sound enthusiastic about the possible death of another wolf, but after being beaten up by him, and standing up to him the way that he did, he didn't really care too much about him getting off for what he did.

The flight lasted for a few more minutes before they arrived at Bowser's chambers. Kelt pushed open the door, and floated over to the little cage by Bowser's bed. "Alright, here we are," he said, lowering the wolf into the topless cage. "Don't try to get away, okay? The last thing I need is for His Majesty to be on me about losing his new Foot Slave," he said.

"I won't!" Nathan promised the departing Koopa. The door shut behind Kelt, and he sighed, leaning back in the cage. His stomach and his side hurt from the fight with the other wolf, and he needed some rest. Slowly closing his eyes, enjoying the heat of the room, he slid into slumber.

#

Rather than being woken up by sound, Nathan woke up to feeling a great pressure on his body. At least, pressure on the front. His back was buoyed by something soft, and giving, which negated some of the pressure above him.

Slowly he opened his eyes. For a moment, he could see nothing, but as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized that his field of vision was just blocked. Blocked by slick, slightly shiny, smooth yellow flesh. Familiar yellow flesh, at that.

A smile crossed his face, and he licked at one of the slowly falling sweat drops, catching it on his tongue and swallowing it. He slowly licked along the skin a bit, but he'd only managed a few licks before the foot was lifted up and its owner looked down at him. For a change, Bowser had a smile on his face, and it wasn't just a smirk, either. It was one that had some genuine pleasure in it. Sexual or otherwise, Nathan wasn't sure, but it was better than looking at the almost evil one that the King had had earlier.

"Finally you're awake. I've been grinding my foot against you for the last half hour," Bowser said with a shake of his head. "When you sleep, worm, you really sleep."

"Yes, Your Majesty, sorry, Your Majesty," Nathan said, lowering his head a bit. As he felt himself waking him a bit more, he noticed that his cock was out, pointing upwards. At least his body was enjoying the treatment of being the King's foot slave, even if he hadn't been awake to do it much himself. "How can I serve you?"

A mushroom, just like the one that he'd eaten before the throne, landed on the ground beside him. "Here. Eat that. You'll get a couple other servings of it tonight. I need to get a fair bit of steam out, and if you're going to last, you're going to need it."

Nodding, Nathan quickly grabbed it, chewing it rapidly before swallowing to try and ignore the bitter taste of it. It didn't work, of course, but it had been worth a try.

Bowser chuckled softly. "Heh. It'll be good to forget about the war for a while," he said with a smile. "I hope you're ready for a rough night underfoot, maggot. I have a lot of stress to work out."

"I'm ready, Your Majesty." The wolf stretched out his arms and legs, the plush and smooth blankets behind him making his legs and his back feel good. "Do whatever you want to do."

"Heh, that's what I always do. Good to have such an eager slave, though." Slowly, that big, yellow, dripping foot raised up. Some of the drops of sweat fell down from it, landing on the wolf's body and making him moan from the feeling. One drop even landed right on his cock, and he shivered. He was so close, driven so near the edge while he'd been played with in his sleep, that the droplet had nearly pushed him over the edge.

Then the foot came down. The pressure from above was immense, the mushroom and the giving nature of the mattress under him all that kept him from being crushed out of existence. He panted and moaned, and as Bowser ground the slick, smooth, puffy underside of his foot against his body, his cock got the stimulation he needed to go over the edge. Nathan gasped and groaned against the musky foot flesh as he came, his body getting the relief that he hand wanted ever since the first time under Bowser's foot. The strings of cum were rubbed into his legs and belly by the giant grinding foot, and he could smell his own scent mixed with that of the large foot.

For a moment, he thought Bowser would be displeased, but then he heard the King's chuckles. "Heh, it seems that the gnat has a bit of his own juice to add." The pressure decreased momentarily, then increased far past what the King had used before. "Let's see just how much my foot can milk out of you."

Nathan grinned. This was going to be a long night, yes, but it was going to be a good one.