The air dances to the content purr of the beast laid out on the flat boulder. A pair of thick arms folded behind his head flex biceps larger than basketballs, like fluffing pillows for the dergaroo giant. Morning sun shines as bright as his golden scales. The soft hushes of vibrant waves stroll along the white beach. Like the golden giant, it stretches out to the sides of the beach and to the sea. A gentle breeze tugs on his flowing, wild mane of white, fluffy hair. It dances across palm trees as they slow dance the day into the world.

“Another day of nothing.” He says. A sigh like a mix of cat purr and a deep, distant thunder rumble free from the giant. “What better way to spend a day off from work?”

The universe comes with a reply - as a text message. His chest vibrates twice as he removes his thick, black sunglasses from his snout. A free paw reaches into the crevice made by his pecs and fishes out a vibrating smartphone. The lock screen glows with a message from Twitter:

“@BigBalans Happy Bowser Day! Hope you enjoy this art I found just now!”

”Oh crap, that’s today!?” Balans says. His digits pelted the phone’s keyboard, unlocking the phone in a second. He scrolls through his feed at lightning speeds; his golden eyes spotting every variation of Bowser his artistic friends have created. Some art shows Bowser on vacation, others as pinup posters, some as wholesome jokes, and some making the giant blush with flustered eyes open wide.

“I always wanted to try this.” Balans says aloud to himself, scrolling through dozens more artworks to celebrate the day. The thought pauses everything else for the giant as he glances to the distant, white cobblestone trail at the end of the beach. His blacksmith forge has sat silent for far too long. He could feel it call to him at the end of that path like a lover’s wink at the bedroom door. The sounds of waves count the seconds trickling by as Balans glances back to his phone. The digits fly across the screen again; a reply to his friend.

“Happy Bowser Day! This art is awesome yeah! I’m gonna do something to this year. Wait for late tonight. You’re all gonna love this.”

At this, Balans taps out of Twitter and brings up the search engine Derggle. Tabs and online orders go through just as fast as Balans thinks them; A big tub of flame red and light golden hair dye, the largest size he could find for five pairs of sharp-studded metal cuffs, and a bunch of fire bowls to light a walkway.

“Should do it.” Balans says to himself with a grin. He stuffs the phone back into his pecs and rises like the sun from his sunbathing boulder spot. The whole of his over 10 foot tall frame stretches to the sky. He lets out a long grunt, with a knowing gaze to the path.

“Man, they’re going to love this.” He says as he strides towards the path with a newfound fire for the day.

—

Beep-beep!

The camera on the tripod comes to life. At first, a mesh of gleaming golden scales covers the view. The ground shivers as the subject steps back. The night sky, gleaming in stars with occasional clouds striding by the moonlight, fills the corners of the screen and invades to the center. Moonlit plant life comes from the bottom of the screen. It flows out to a cobblestone pathway, and from there to a gleaming, white-brick bridge across a mighty chasm. Rows of black fire bowls sit on the bridge’s stone columns forming the railing. Fire lunges from them and licks across the night sky, painting the world in an orange golden hue.

“Ok, should be good and rolling!”

Balans beams as he poses before the recording camera. He rotates around, showing off a makeshift turtle's shell like Bowser’s own shell - made of the most gleaming metals painted just like his shell. The fire’s light bathes Balans’s whole upper body as he does a double biceps flex for the camera. His wrists and biceps gleam with the sharp-studded black metal cuffs around his thick wrists, immense biceps, and around his mountainous neck. His chest shines light across it; a custom-smith’d breastplate and placard beams like it smiles for the camera, polished and painted light-golden, just like the front of Bowser or the under half of a turtle shell. The moonlight won’t miss its chance to glide over the towering beast. It ruffles through Balans’s fire red dyed, flowing mane of hair. It glances off his eyebrows now just as red bright as the hair and slides around his light-golden horns when once they were mountain brown. He changes his pose. With his arms flexed, he holds his two hammers like he’s ready to throw them. Each one looks just like Bowser’s hammers from World 8-4 of Super Mario Bros, only with a sharp-studded black metal band around the hammer head of each of the hammers for that Bowser touch to the flair.

“BWAHAHAHA! You finally made it!” Balans says. His voice thunders with a deep and baritone richness unmatched on recordings, as his golden eyes gleam like broadway. He clears his throat, trying his best to mimic Bowser’s voice as he holds his hammers aloft.

“Jealous, Mario?! They’re custom made!”

Balans strikes pose after pose; some like Bowser from the video games, others as himself flexing his best, and a few even juggling his custom, charcoal black hammers made just for this cosplay. Bowser one-liners fill the skies as the golden dergaroo relishes his cosplay. The words thunder higher and higher, up beyond even the clouds.

“Go ahead—just try to grab me by the tail! You’ll never be able to swing ME around!“

The words feel like a whisper to the commuting magikoopa. They're enough to stop his world.
 
He slams to a stop, floating high above the clouds and glancing in every direction he can.

“Lord Koopa!?” He asks, calling out to every cloud and star vaguely resembling a large green turtle king. The clouds part just in time for the magikoopa to wipe at his spectacles with a sleeve of his blue flowing robe. Down below, he makes out a vague shape; a large green turtle with two hammers - who looks ready to take on his foe! He squints, gasps, then grips his golden wand in one hand and his flying broom in the other.

“MY LORD KOOPA! I’LL HELP YOU!”

He breaks into a dive, racing towards the bellowing laughter of Balans. With a cackling laugh and a swish of his wand, the magikoopa flings magic right at Balans’s head. The camera glimpses blue robes, as Balans crashes face first onto the bridge. In the far distance, the camera makes out a deeper shade of black in the distant night sky, as Balans rubs his head and horns.

Balans pushes himself up from the group as slow as the turtle he emulates. One paw rubs around his snout and head as he groans. The other searches around for one of his hammers. Then golden eyes fall to his metal wrist and bicep bands. The camera catches every sharp-studded metal band on Balans rippling; like a translucent, liquid rainbow washed over each one.

“Hmph! What’s. This?” Balans asks, feeling his entire cosplay squeeze into him as he stands. He looks to the bridge, and the fire bowls on the columns. They look smaller than before. They look smaller even as he stares at them, and smaller still. He feels the metallic shell on his back fight against him, pinching into his frame more and more. With his hammers back in his paws, he watches them glow with the same magic as his forearms swell before his eyes.

“Mwa… Mwa ha!” Balans says, regaining himself as he realizes what’s happening. “Good luck. Defeating. Me! Mario!”

The camera records every stunning second of power flowing into Balans. His forearms swell out wider, racing with a vein pumping ever thicker. His already immense arms pulse and pound, in each thump they push harder against the bicep arm bands he adorns. Below him his legs thunder thicker and fuller, where his kangaroo paws crunch more cobblestone bridge under their reach. He roars out with hammers in his paws, flexing his chest out as the camera catches cracks forming and growing along the breastplate and placard meant to represent a turtle shell.

He wasn’t just growing wider. The camera catches the already towering beast creep to ever higher reaches. To Balans, the world shrinks like his gaze was steadily floating to the heavens. The fire bowls seem further away, smaller in every second. The mighty bridge columns for a railing, once half his height and just as thick as himself, felt more like glorified bar stools to sit on. Cracks ripple out from his enlarging paws, leaping in sudden bursts closer to the chasm’s ledge and bridge supports.

Balans bellows out a mighty roar like Bowser. He brings one enlarging muscular arm to his eye level, and with a knowing smirk, he flexes harder and harder. The studded metal band around his bicep strains, warping into an oval shape as it and tricep shove ever harder against it. He grins more. The metal band squeals in cracks and wrapping metal. His shoulder, biceps, tricep, and forearm all pulse and surge fuller and stronger in every passing second.

It groans. It shears. With a mighty popping sound like a metal bar hitting a concrete floor, the arm band pops and flies away in scraps. The whole metallic turtle's shell behind him cracks and warps. The chest plate and placard look inches away from turning into shrapnel. Balans looks at his other relaxed arm and bellows out a roar.

“GWA HA HAAAAA!”

All at once, the cosplay crumbles at his might. The other bicep band pops clean off with a metallic ‘shing’. The green turtle shell made of solid steel buckles clean off his ever widening back muscles. His immense paws thunder into the white brick bridge like actual thunder because of his swelling size. The chest plate explodes away. Tiny, light-golden metal pieces scatter to reveal a proud pair of heaving pecs, flexing and protruding like a pair of mountains attached to Balans’s chest. His abs flex like carved chasms; row after row flexes with combined power of lats, traps, and abs to crunch his placard into chunks of crunched soda cans. All as the world around him shrinks even more - his paws having trouble finding space on the bridge to stand as the bridge railing only comes up to his shins.

“I’m HUUUUGE! Even scarier up close — huh!?”

Balans hears the creaks and crumbles of stone thunder beyond even his voice. He blinks. The once solid stone foundations feel like quicksand. He inhales. Already the mighty sound explosion of white bricks crumbling all around him deafens his ears. He feels the world give out from under him as he falls back - the bridge crumbling like wooden blocks falling all around him.

“GWAAAAAaaaa!”

The gigantic Balans falls as a rubble cloud rises. The dust and stone leaves a plume of white fog leaping from the chasm and enveloping the realm. Even the camera shakes as the bridge crumbles down the chasm, each stone chasing the previous one like a game of tag. Balans’s Bowser roar echos throughout the chasm. Then, like the white fog of chipped stone bricks, it too falls silent.

The camera continues to record. Now only moonlight, a rocky chasm, and swaying tropical trees remain in the camera shot. Silence takes center stage. The occasional wild call of wildlife in the distance ripples through the night. Moonlight peeks around the cloud cover to gaze at the scene.

A golden paw the size of a motor home rises from the chasm. A paw grips the ledge, carving channels into the earth, leading right to the chasm as another paw rises into the sky. Then a pair of light-golden horns breaks the chasm ridge, followed by golden irises, the largest studded metal band around a neck ever, and finally a pair of pecs larger than the buildings on a downtown street.

Balans bellows laughter like thunder. It’s short and sweet, but enough to remind the world of a thunderstorm. He lowers his head onto his crossed arms, peeking right towards a camera that looks no larger than a toothpick to him.

“Well, in a true tradition of the Mario games, right guys?” He asks, chuckling to himself. He reaches around himself with one arm and pulls out the dual hammers he held onto during his ascent. He glances to the chasm with a gentle smile, and with a single arm he slams his hammer into the chasm handle first. The size of the hammer makes for a perfect bridge; safe for lacking guide railing, it’d fit like a glove. Balans cracks a few more chuckles at the sight of his new “bridge”, then looks to the camera with his chin resting on his arm again.

“Happy Bowser Day everyone. I hope you all have fun, stay safe, and lose your footing like I did.”

The camera watches an immense golden paw wave goodbye, then it reaches for the screen. Golden yellow fills the whole screen, then it all goes black as a short “beep-beep” gingles out.