The day started seemingly normal in the Mushroom Kingdom, the land mostly at peace and not under any initially visible threat. Not even Bowser was causing trouble, mostly due to how the last time he had tried to kidnap Princess Peach the Mario Bros had managed to defeat him through a combined assault of Ice Flower attacks, and the resulting slow thaw had left him vulnerable to catching an actual cold. Worse, it had spread to his son Bowser Junior and most of the Koopalings, causing Kamek to become very busy looking after his liege and his top subordinates. In fact the only Koopaling NOT currently stuck in bed sick was Wendy, mostly due to not actually getting close to the others during the infection period because she was getting her claws done. However due to Kamek running himself half-ragged caring for everyone he neglected to keep a close watch on his wand, and when she found it laying around Wendy got an idea…

Since it seemed like a safe enough period of time Princess Peach felt that it was fine to invite over a few of her friends, and so that morning the pink clad princess was playing host to Princess Daisy, Princess Rosalina, and even Mayor Pauline on a rare break from running/singing in New Donk City. The quartet of women were having a wonderful time together in one of the gardens of Peach’s castle, chatting and catching up on events, when suddenly the very air around them began to shimmer in a rainbow of colors. They were all confused, even as Rosalina said “What? This is some sort of magic…” before drifting off into silence. All of their eyes began to faintly glow, and their expressions turned to neutrality even as Wendy came out from around a hedge holding the wand, its orb flashing the same colors as the air.

Seeing the four women standing still around the table they had been sitting at, Wendy grinned evilly to herself as she maintained the spell. “Oh this is just perfect. I had hoped to just catch Princess Peach in this, but it looks like I lucked out and am getting a four for one sale here! Now, what would be the best scenarios for each of them…” Wendy began to swiftly plot how to cause some real chaos with this opportunity, even as she opened up a bag kept at her side holding a number of very large orange mushrooms with red spots. Finally she came up with some good ideas, and began to REALLY work her magic.

Some distance away, a Goomba named Goomber was minding his own business going for a walk. Goomber was not one of the Goomba’s that routinely worked for Bowser, and actually was one of the more welcome and friendly residents of the area. Strolling along with the ease of his people, the short squat brown skinned being suddenly became aware of something being off. There were numerous small tremors coming from the ground, gradually becoming stronger as time wore on. Stopping and looking around in confusion, Almost a moment too late he realized that they were coming from behind him and that he had to move.

Not a moment later the ground where he had been standing was compressed down by a red high-heel, and Goomber was nearly knocked rolling forwards as he narrowly escaped. Keeping to his feet and looking back, the Goomba was shocked to see the titanic figure of Mayor Pauline towering over him looking around. Her hands on her massive hips the woman seemed to examine the area before saying “Hmm, yes. This area looks perfect to develop for New Donk City, I just need to prepare it.” The giantess then began to purposefully stomp around the area, clearly trying to flatten it out by crushing rocks and trees in some misguided attempt at pre-construction work.

The Goomba tried to come up with a reason for why she would do this, but then he noticed the shimmer in her eyes. Her stare was almost vacant, her blinking slow and methodical, all signs that she was clearly under some sort of spell that was effecting her mind. Then things took a turn for the worse as her eyes seemed to suddenly focus upon him. “Ah, it looks like there is another rock sticking out. Better get to flattening it.” She then raised her foot up again, bringing it over Goombers position and the Goomba had to start running again. He was not sure if she actually thought that his naturally roundish and brown body was really a rock or she was hypnotised to think so, and in the end it did not really matter.

The next few minutes for him were spent desperately fleeing, his body not meant for great speed and the terrain being a bit of a mixed bag for him. On the one hand he had ended up at the bottom of a small valley or gap between two hills, and with the human womans greater stature trying to climb up them would just slow him down and allow her to catch up. As such he had to mostly just keep running forwards, all while the heels smashed behind him. On the other hand the somewhat rough terrain also was distracting Pauline, as she would routinely pause to eliminate a bush or boulder just off to the side, meaning she was not moving as fast as she could have in pursuit.

In the end Goomber lucked out, as just as Pauline finally reached him he also reached the point where the valley opened up a bit more. Spotting a particularly large rock, the Goomba desperately ducked behind it just as Pauline raised her foot to stamp him. The tip of her heel landed upon the boulder and all but snapped it in half, but it also meant she missed hitting him. Then as she lifted up her foot to adjust and smash with the wider portion of her shoe, he slipped back behind her while her own foot blocked her view of him. When she finally did look at the ground she just saw a pile of brown gravel, and with the wider area with more to flatten she did not look behind herself to see Goomber fleeing. As he did so his luck continued, as he over heard her say to herself “Ah, good. The project is proceeding well, I am so glad that Wendy sold me the land.” Now he knew where to go to try and figure this out.

In another portion of the Mushroom Kingdom Toad was busy tending to a small field of Fire Flowers, wanting to make sure that they grew nice and quick so that they may be harvested for future use. Before that phrase of “future use” would have applied almost exclusively to the Mario Bros, but lately a few Toads including himself and even the Princesses had been able to take action when required to face Bowser or other threats. However for now the aforementioned plants were just buds, so the classic white cap with red dots mushroom man continued to tend to them.

His power up gardening was cut short however by a vast shadow covering the sun, and at first toad thought that it was just a cloud. He frowned as he began to turn and look upwards, as Fire Flowers required a lot of sun to grow up strong and quickly. He began to grumble to himself “The weather report called for clear skies all week, so what give…s…” Toad was cut short as he finally looked up, seeing not a cloud but instead a huge mass of light blue. He needed a moment to process that he was looking at the massive figure of Princess Rosalina hovering in the air, the sun behind her, and in that time she suddenly STOPPED hovering and began to fall to earth.

Toad only narrowly jumped out of the way of her descending heel, and while her body language told a story of daintily and easily landing upon the ground the shaking of the ground and faint cloud of dust kicked up told a different one. Toad looked back towards the Fire Flower garden only to see a wall of blue shoe in it place, and as the overly Mega-Mushroomed woman took a step Toad could see the footprint crater where the garden USED to be. Frowning in anger the toad looked up to the seemingly serene face of Rosalina and shouted “OI! Watch where you are going!” However as the Princess began to look down, the lights shimmering over her dull gaze made the toad pause in his rant.

Slowly a smile began to form on Rosalina’s face, and she said “How lovely. I come to terraform this new planetoid and there is already a toad here. Now if I recall that advice correctly, the proper thing to do is to press the toad into the soil so that its hyphae can spread out to enrich the soil.” This information filled Toad with a massive amount of dread, as it obviously was untrue, and somehow Rosalina not only thought that this was some new micro-planet to cultivate instead of the Mushroom Kingdom, but she also thought toads were supposed to be small and planted in the ground! This dread bore bitter fruit as Rosalina turned to more directly face him, and lifted up her blue heel exposing the slightly dirty underside to him.

Lacking better options Toad turned and began to run, knowing that there was not a single thing that he could do to fight a person empowered by even one mega mushroom, much less the several one would need to take to reach the Princess’s current size. He started to run not a moment to soon, as Princess Rosalina stamped her foot on the ground where he had been making another crater. Toad continued to run and flee from the woman, even as she said “No, wait come back! I just need to plant you for the good of the planetoid!” He continued to try and scream for help, but this was a fairly isolated area and so none was forth coming. More than once toad only escaped ending up underfoot by a few inches at most, and one time he even saw his own horrified face reflected back at him when the polished to a literal mirror shine heel landed in front of him.

At last his fortune took a turn as he took a moment to glance behind himself to track Rosalina’s exact position as well as her feet, only for him to fall into a suddenly open space. He landed a short distance down and looked around confused, seeing walls of dirt all around him. It was only when he spotted a sad scrap of green in the dirt below him that he realized that he had unintentionally gone in a circle, and this was the remains of the Fire Flower garden aka Rosalina’s shoe print. He had no more time after that however, as now Rosalina was here. Toad cried out and shut his eyes thinking that this was it for him, expecting a hard heel to now land upon him.

Instead he suddenly felt dirt pouring in all around him, swiftly covering his legs before reaching his torso and then neck. Toad opened his eyes to find himself buried up to his head in the soil, and a glance to either side of him revealed the sides of Rosalina’s shoes pushing more dirt into the hole. Against all odds despite endangering him up until now, the delusion Princess Rosalina was operating under now saved him. Since he was already below ground the cosmic mother had not needed to stamp him in, she merely needed to push the already churned soil over him. Glad that the toad was now in its proper place Rosalina said “Wonderful. I am so glad that Wendy gave me this advice, I’ll have to thank her later.” With that the Princess turned and walked away, likely to “terraform” more of the surroundings, giving Toad both time to dig himself out of the soft soil and a target to get answers from.

Luigi hummed to himself as he walked through the slightly rocky landscape, looking around for anything out of the ordinary. Things might have been calm for once, especially with Bowser down with a cold, but Luigi felt that it was worth keeping an eye on other places. Many people thought of him as a coward, but that was not strictly true. He was perhaps more nervous than his brother Mario, but he could show bravery as well when the time came, and he could channel his nervousness into vigilance. Still things seemed to be going well enough out here, no signs of problems.

That was right up until the green clad plumber heard a series of echoing thuds, getting louder and louder as whatever its source got closer. At first Luigi thought that it was a Thwomp or two pounding the ground heading this way, but then he turned around a corner and saw the sight of Princess Daisy looking huge striding confidently in his direction. Thinking that perhaps she might have heard about his impromptu patrol and was coming to visit or even help, the man jumped high into the air from behind the small cliffside he had been behind and into the open and began to wave his arm in greetings.

Strangely the tanned woman in an orange dress seemed to be focusing more on her feet as she walked closer instead of her surroundings, as if she was looking for something. Exactly what that was became clearer as Luigi viewed a Koopa Troopa come running around a rock, the Princess hot on their trail. Luigi might have thought that it was indeed just a sign of some plot or another that Daisy was dealing with, save that he recognized the turtle man as being a resident of the kingdom in good standing, and he at last heard Daisy saying “Ugh, slow down you dang bug” before finally catching up and stomping on it. The final nail in the coffin of his original assumption was the way Daisy was grinding her foot on the turtle, thankfully safe inside his shell. Wanting to get to the bottom of this he jumped forwards closer to her.

This ended up being a bit of a mistake, as the green and blue of his clothing stood out on the dusty brown terrain, and the motion of his jump drew her attention to him. Before he could say anything Daisy took a step in his direction, and as he took in the sight of her slightly crazed and multi-colored flashing eyes she boomed “Yuck, a grasshopper. Well, just another bug to go squish I guess.” This told Luigi everything he needed to know, at least to inform him of what his next course of action should be. Thusly as soon as he landed from his long jump he immediately about faced and jumped again, only narrowly evading the orange heel first in front and then behind him. This was followed by more jumps and more stomping, the latter making the very stones shake.

Luigi tried to come up with a plan on the fly, long experience allowing him to do so even in the midst of some panic. At first he had thought that Daisy had just been using a regular Mega Mushroom, but up close he now knew this was not the case. As such simply waiting for the powerup to expire was not in the cards, and he needed a new plan. This was difficult as the ground quaked beneath the hypnotized princesses shoe based assault, and more than once his landing on a rocky spire was nearly interrupted by it starting to crumble beneath his feet. Still however he forged on, all while Princess Daisy continued to rant about bugs and the smashing thereof.

It was actually in the middle of half-listening to said rant that Luigi got a lead, and even then he nearly missed his royal friend saying “glad Wendy warned me about all these creepy-crawlies being around.” Now he knew the probable source of Daisy’s brainwashing, but how was he going to be able to use this information? The answer to that came when one of the quakes caused by the rampaging brunette made a small cliff face collapse, and Luigi spotted a broken block amidst it with a particular white sheet half-hanging out of it. Quickly detouring he ran and jumped towards it, Daisy hot on his heels.

The princess in question watched as the “grasshopper” seemed to be heading towards some disturbed rocks, but she would not let it escape. Even as it landed amidst the debris she lunged forwards in a short jump, and landed upon the area with both feet. Her landing completely decimated the area, and for good measure she stamped repeatedly all over it for 10 seconds while she ensured it was not sneaking away in any direction. With no sign of it at all the self-satisfied woman walked away, looking for more bugs to kill. Behind her not 5 seconds later Luigi faded back into view, the Boo’s Sheet he had found running out its 15 second limit. He held his hand to his chest to calm his heart and nerves, and before Princess Daisy could look back he was already running in the direction of the nearest Bowser Keep.

Like the previous three males, Mario was initially ignorant of the monumental events occurring in the Mushroom Kingdom this day. Having personally been the one to check and confirm that Bowser had indeed gotten sick and that it was not a ruse or rumor, he was confidant that the Koopa King was indeed out of action for a while. On a whim he decided to go visit Peach at her Castle, to see what she might be up to. He never expected to exit the pipe leading to her home only to end up somewhere darker than expected. At first Mario thought that he might have taken a wrong turn somewhere, exited the wrong pipe, but as his eyes adjusted he felt himself flush as he took in his surroundings.

On either side of him were a pair of legs, clad in sheer white stockings leading down into a pair of fashionable and shiny pink high heels. They stretched up into a dark ceiling, but not dark enough to fully obscure a pair of lacy white underthings. Finally around everything there was a curtain of pink fabric blocking out most of the light, and although he could not clearly see it due to said lack of light he could tell that it was very frilly, just from having seen it before. Realizing that he was somehow underneath a Giantess Peach’s dress, the noble hero wasted no time in dashing out from underneath the tentlike clothing to avoid further embarrassment.

Emerging back into the light, Mario took a second to calm his nerves before looking up at his Princess, wondering if she had realized that he was here yet and why she was so large. Had there been an accident with a Mega Mushroom? Or more he supposed, based on her size. His thoughts were derailed when he took in a confusing and slightly scary sight, Princess Peach holding one of her castle’s towers in her gloved hand and tossing it to the ground where it broke. She then lifted her foot and stamped upon the ruins, breaking it up more. Mario only needed a moment to see the angry look on her face and the flashing colors over her dull vision to know that this was a serious problem. One that became even more complicated when she finally noticed him.

“There you are Bowser! I have had enough of you kidnapping me, its time to stamp out you and your castle once and for all!” Mario knew that Peach would never do something such as this, and so clearly she was being mentally manipulated to view her own castle as Bowser’s and himself as the Koopa King, all with her aggression ramped up greatly. Further introspection was cut short as Peach lifted her foot and swung it over his way in a swipe, and he needed to react quickly to jump over its smooth hard surface. When she followed up with a quick stab from the point of her shoe followed by a stomp, he knew that he need to come up with a strategy and fast.

Mario knew that someone under the effects of a Mega Mushroom was basically immune to all physical damage, so that was not an option even if he could bring himself to harm Peach (outside of the Smash Bros Tournament). Trying to simply run would not work as the Princess might easily catch up with him, and trying to take shelter inside the castle was no good as she could just bring the whole structure down upon his head. The pipe he had used to arrive here was probably his best bet, but it would take a few seconds to actually enter it, time he would not have with Peach actively trying to turn him into a stain under her heels. In desperation he just continued to run avoiding the woman’s stomps, until he saw his salvation in one of the collapsed and broken towers on the lawn.

It was very clearly one of the smaller power up storerooms of the castle, and s Mario ran over to it and quickly took a searching glance through it before leading Peach away. Sadly there were no Mega Mushrooms in there that he might use to try and even the odds a little, but there was something else. Grabbing a clearly marked chest, Mario continued to run and tossed it behind himself in the direction of Peach. Taking a gamble in how she would react, Mario was rewarded by the pink clad woman saying “Ha! Your bob-oms are no match for me Bowser, see how I can crush them under my feet, just like y-“ Peach paused in mid-sentence, more literally than that phrase usually implied.

Mario took a second to thank his lucky star that his plan had worked, Peach stamping upon the box he had seen contained several Stopwatches. The items were rare and at times a bit situational, but in this moment they were worth it. They froze an enemy touching them for a quarter of a minute, but did no damage at all. That last bit was the key as it meant it would not just plink off of the Mega Mushroom invulnerability, and considering the number she just broke Peach was liable to be frozen in place for at least a few minutes. Or not, as Mario saw the blonde already starting to wiggle in place, fighting to break the effect.

This was all the prompting Mario needed to get out of there, silently saddened by how he had hoped to use the time to come up with a better plan, but it was not to be. He dashed to the green pipe and prepared to enter it, just as Princess Peach broke out of the time stop effect. Furiously she turned in his direction and tried to stop him, but she was just a little too slow, even with her massive size granting her equally gargantuan strides. Then just as he began to sink down into the safety of the pipe system, Mario heard her say “Oh sure, run away! Wendy sold you out Bowser, and after I am done with your castle you’re next!”

At the Bowser fort nearest to the Mushroom Kingdom, the four males aware of the situation all coincidentally arrived at its gates at just about the same time. They quickly swapped stories of what they had seen and was going on, and all confirmed that as the common factor Wendy was likely the culprit. Steeling themselves the quartet strode in past the doors of the fort, entering a large dark space. Suddenly they heard Wendy’s voice boom out saying “Well, well, well. It looks like I have some meddling guests. So you want to put a stop to the rampage? TOO BAD! I am not going to stop them, and they are going to wreck the Mushroom Kingdom for Bowser.” Then the lights came on in the room as the door slammed shut behind them, revealing the titanic form of Wendy grinning evilly down at them. “By the way, in case you can’t tell, I kept a few Mega Mushrooms for myself.”

The next few seconds were chaotic as the quartet moved to avoid the stomps of the massive koopaling, thankfully successfully as on accident each had moved in a different direction, and so Wendy had wasted time deciding who to go after. Still she did her best, not bothering with the massive wand in her grasp and instead just using her feet. However as she stomped around the room after them all, Mario noticed a few small cracks forming in the stone floor. Recalling an event that had occurred one time when he had rescued Peach from Bowser before, he passed by Luigi and quickly told him something, and making sure that his brother would pass it on to the other two would be heroes as Mario distracted Wendy.

The massive female creature was slowly growing more annoyed at her failure to literally stamp out the resistance to her plan, but still remained mostly in control. After all there were no exits from this room, and they had to tire eventually, and she was invincible like this. However things suddenly took a turn as one moment when she was chasing after Mario Toad crossed her path avoiding her feet. It was odd how he had needed to get closer to her for that to happen, but she supposed that he was just blinded by panic. Either way he was closer now, so she stopped and aimed her next stomp at him. This one failed as well, but then she was distracted by Goomber actually running right towards her passing between her feet. Thinking he was mocking her she stomped more in place trying to catch him, but she was too slow. By the time she had to refocus on a new target as he was behind her now, Luigi was there.

This continued for two whole minutes, the four guys running around Wendy’s feet and making the increasingly furious girl stomp more and harder in more or less the same general area. So mad was she that she missed the slowly appearing cracks forming in the stone around her, nor could she hear the groaning of the tortured bricks over the echos of her own footsteps. Finally the floor of the fort could withstand the assault no longer, and Wendy was caught off guard as suddenly and seemingly without warning the ground below her crumbled away into the basement below. She tried to hold onto the wand, but as she fell through the floor the end of it caught on the edge of her hole, and it was yanked out of her hands where it shrunk back down to normal once out of her grasp. It spun in the air for a few seconds before landing crystal down on the stone floor, its multicolored spell ending.

Grabbing the currently drained and in fact actually a little broken wand, just in case Wendy was going to wake up any time soon, the four heroes exited the fort and began to head back to the Mushroom Kingdom. They knew that the spells over Pauline, Rosalina, Daisy and Peach would now be over, and things could get back to normal. They were crossing the cloud area where many Lakitu’s sourced their clouds from when they heard massive loud voices talking, starting low and getting louder. Looking up they saw the mayor and three princesses looking slightly tired and walking in their direction, each of them holding their shoes in their hands. For a second the four regular sized people were stunned, but then they recalled that while the brainwashing was magical, the reason that they had all been so large was purely due to the Mega Mushrooms.

They overheard Daisy say “Ow, I still don’t quite remember everything that happened, but I do recall stomping around a lot, and my feet are KILLING me. You are not meant to forcefully stomp the ground in heels” to muttered agreement from the other three. Then they arrived at the cloudy area, and let out pleased sighs. Peach piped up saying “Oh my, that’s better. I told you that these clouds are amazing at soothing sore feet.” The four heroes tried to wave and greet the women, but slowly their faces fell as they realized that while they could see the women, all the women could see was a field of low floating clouds at ankle height to them. They turned and tried to run, but it was too late. Between their hesitation in realizing the impending problem and already being tired from a day of running, they were too slow.

The girls spent the next half hour tromping and walking around the area, the clouds feeling fine when still but absolutely divine when in motion and stepped on. They were in no hurry and none went so far as to jump, they just continued their conversation from the morning even as the sun began to set. Finally as it grew dark they felt a familiar tingle within themselves, the feeling of a power up starting to end. Forewarned they gathered up their discarded shoes, each of them ignorant of a tiny addition present on a random spot on a random foot of each of them. Once they were set the Mega Mushrooms ran out, as intended including their clothes and anything in contact with them. Now back to normal they set out back to Peach’s thankfully still mostly intact castle, Goomber, Toad, Luigi and Mario now tiny and stuck inside of their heels.

All four would EVENTUALLY be found and restored to normal, but not all at once and not for a few days. In the meantime Wendy also shrank down to normal by the next day, but she was forcefully conscripted by Kamek to help in looking after the other Koopalings in repentance for stealing and then breaking his wand. She would not be causing any further problems for a while.