Peach woke in darkness, nestled between the covers of a soft, warm bed. Her momentary confusion was enough to flip that mental switch back on, and she was immediately assaulted by the horrific memories of what went on at the palace. She spent the next five minutes softly crying to herself, trying vainly to recompose herself but unable and unwilling to.

"Princess?" The light flicked on in the room. "Princess, are you awake?"

Peach dried her eyes, but she still couldn't regain her royal demeanor. "Yes," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "Please come in."

The door to the bedroom opened, and a male Koopa stepped in. He was rather muscular for a Koopa, with a scarred blue shell and a shock of greying hair. He wore a pair of overalls that had been patched in nearly every place imaginable.

"Princess Peach, first, let me say, it's an honour to host you here," the elderly Koopa said. "Er, my name's Koojo. We're near Rose Town and the Forest Maze."

Rose Town? That was nearly five hundred kilometers away from the palace. Had Mario really thrown her that far? "Thank you, Mr. Koojo. May I ask how long I've been here?"

"I found you in the woods about a day ago," Koojo said. "You looked pretty beat up. Uh, sorry... but your dress was pretty much ripped to shreds."

Peach had the sudden realization that she was wearing only a cotton slip and her undergarments underneath the covers. She reflexively drew the sheets closer to herself, though she got the impression that the old Koopa was even more embarrassed than she was. "Please forgive my indecency."

"Oh, it's fine. I'm uh, not really interested in Mushroom women, so I uh, didn't do anything while you were asleep. Oh my god that sounds weird-"

"I trust that your conduct was impeccable," Peach said, a hint of a smile crossing her lips. "In any case... have you heard anything about the Mushroom Kingdom? It was, well, not in a very good position when I was forcibly ejected."

"Well, about that..." Koojo scratched his beak. "Oh, you must be hungry. I'll make you something to eat. There's some clothes in the chest of drawers, they're for Koopas, but hopefully there's something you can wear." Koojo bowed to Peach and hastily left the room.

As Peach dug through the chest of drawers, she considered her own situation. She'd been thrown hundreds of kilometers clear of the palace, but the Mini Mushroom would have protected her from the fall. Something else must have got to her to shred her clothing, and possibly drag her even further away, but she had no scrapes or bruises on her from any potential attackers. Mario was stronger than he looked, and the Mini Mushroom would have increased her flight distance, but... all the way to Rose Town? That was, at the very least, highly improbable.

The old Koopa Koojo seemed a bit shifty as well. Peach was good at picking up subtle cues in conversation, and Koojo's body language and hesitancy suggested that he was hiding something. Still, he'd recovered her from who-knows-where and given her a place to rest... but he could have any number of reasons for that.

Peach slipped on a stained wool smock. It was a bit short for her tastes, but it was fine for now. She stepped out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, where Koojo was busy frying up some eggs and Mushrooms over a wood stove. His home was rustic, lacking many of the conveniences of an urban home, but Peach got the impression that he had intentionally eschewed those.

"I hope you like Shroom Omelettes, Princess," Koojo said.

"That sounds wonderful," Peach said, her stomach growling. "But Mr. Koojo, about the Mushroom Kingdom..."

Koojo hesitated for a moment, then said, "From what I've heard, Toad Town has been almost completely demolished. All of the settlements around the castle - Koopa Village, Shiver City, Dry Dry Outpost - have been taken as well. The Beanbean Kingdom and Sarasaland are defending their borders, but it's not looking good."

Peach stifled back a sob. "And what of Mario and Luigi?"

"I don't know." Koojo turned back to the skillet. "They say that the Koopa Troop only moves by night or under the shadows of their Airships. And that they're completely draining their victims of body fluids."

"Yes... I've witnessed that..." Peach said.

"...But I've also heard that they're weak to bright light, and that you employed such a spell to great effect against them, Princess." Koojo scraped his omelette onto a plate and handed it to Peach. "Would you like something to drink?"

Peach declined, and they ate in silence. The Shroom Omelette was excellent, just as good (if not better) than the same dish made by the palace chefs, but Peach had other things on her mind. "Mr. Koojo, do you know what a 'vampire' is?"

"Yeah," Koojo said in between bites of his own omelette. "They're walking corpses. They need to feast on the life-force of the living to remain 'alive', and they're said to have a number of strange powers."

"...How does one become a vampire?"

"There's a bunch of different ways. Sometimes you need to be bit by another vampire, or you need to drink their blood. Other times, you need to possess a special artifact. There's plenty of other ways, too." Koojo gave Peach a meaningful look. "But you're wondering how I know all of this. And the answer to that... is complicated."

"Do you know how to defeat a vampire?"

"I do." Koojo finished his omelette and put the plate in a water-filled basin. "They're weak to some types of light, but a strong vampire can resist it. Water blessed by a holy man sometimes works, as does a holy artifact."

"Holy artifact? Like the Star Rod, perhaps?" Peach asked.

"Well yeah, but I'm talking more about a symbol of faith, something like a cross or other religious item. Then again, that doesn't always work either, and strong enough vampires can melt those quick. Different types of vampires have different weaknesses, but there are a few common ones…" Koojo gave Peach another look, and Peach gazed into his eyes. They were old and weary, but intense in a way she couldn't quite describe. "Princess. I can teach you a way to defeat the undead. Are you willing to learn?"

"I am," Peach said, returning his steely gaze with one of her own. "I will do anything to protect my kingdom, even if it lies in cinders."

"Then follow me." Koojo led Peach out of the kitchen, and into the great outdoors. He lived in a simple two-room wooden cabin on the edge of the woods, likely the Forest Maze he'd mentioned. Peach had never been there herself, but Mario had, once on one of his many adventures. A seemingly-impenetrable wall of trees lied not a hundred meters from the cabin, over a babbling creek; to the south was a rolling valley full of even more trees, with the slightest hint of civilization just barely visible on the valley's other end.

Koojo walked over to a babbling creek lying between the cabin and the Forest Maze. Peach noticed that the ripples he made as he stepped into the creek were entirely unnatural, as if he was somehow controlling them.

"Princess, do you have any training in the martial arts?" Koojo asked.

"Er..." Peach did have some hands-on experience in Parasol and Frying Pan Fu, and she'd seen martial artists compete both in Toad Town and on the other side of the world, but she'd never really had to physically train herself. "Not really, I suppose."

"Good, that'll make it easier." Koojo took a deep breath, and something about the air around him seemed to change, as if he was surrounded by invisible electricity. "Vampires and other undead feed on the life-force of others, but they can't take in too much of it at once."

"Ah, like filling a balloon," Peach said. "If you give them too much, they explode. But it seems kind of dangerous."

"It is," Koojo said. He took another breath, and this time, the inferred invisible electricity briefly became visible. "But it works on nearly any type of undead, at least that I've seen. Where I'm from, we call it 'the Ripple'."

Peach again noticed the odd ripples coming from Koojo's feet. "This Ripple... it's the life-force vampires feed on?"

"The short answer is yes, but it's actually closer to the FP you use to cast magic. It's pretty complex, so I won't go into the details right now. The point is that you can create large amounts of Ripple in your body with certain breathing techniques, then deliver it to someone by physical contact."

"I wish to learn how to use the Ripple, then, if you would be willing to teach me," Peach said.

"Yeah, I'll teach you as much as I can." Koojo stepped out of the creek and took Peach's hand. "You've got decent potential for it. But we have a strict time limit. I would say we have about a week before the Mushroom Kingdom is too far gone."

Peach nodded. "I will do everything in my power to learn."

And so, by putting her mind to it and playing a lot of '80s music, Peach initiated her Ripple training montage over the next week. She'd never done anything so physically demanding before, so she started off having trouble with the special breathing and physical techniques required of her, but she slowly got the hang of it during the montage, and had pretty much mastered the basics by the end.

The basic use of the Ripple was defensive - simply having an abundance of Ripple in one's body gave them some protection against the undead. They might get bit or fed on once, but those same zombies wouldn't make the same mistake twice. The Ripple's other defensive uses allowed one to heal minor injuries and dull pain, both useful in the sort of situations that vampire hunters often found themselves in.

But the Ripple's offensive uses were more important. Striking someone with a Ripple-infused limb would deal extra damage against the undead, but it could also be focused and channeled into techniques called "Overdrives" with various and unique effects. Peach had limited time to practice the offensive uses of the Ripple, but as Koojo pointed out, she could use Ripple arts in conjunction with her own healing magic to amplify the effects of both.

"And what about you, Mr. Koojo?" Peach asked. They were sitting by a fire under the moonlight, resting from the last day of hard training. "I doubt anyone else in the Mushroom World knows this much about the Ripple arts. Where did you learn them?"

"I received some instruction in my youth, but I developed most of the techniques on my own through rigorous practice," Koojo said. "But then you'll ask how I practiced them when there's no vampires on the Mushroom World. Well..."

"...you're not from the Mushroom World," Peach said. "Interdimensional travelers are rare, but not unknown to us."

"Indeed." Koojo stared thoughtfully at the moon. "My home world was taken over by vampires during my youth. I narrowly escaped death or a fate worse than death by jumping into another world. I honed my vampire-hunting skills throughout my adulthood, but by the time I made it back to my home... it was too far gone. The vampires had reduced the world to ashes, and the few survivors were mindless savages. So I dedicated myself to stamping out vampires in other worlds. I learned of the Ripple in one world, but I can't use it very effectively in this body."

"This body?" Peach asked.

"Of course. Do you think I was always a Koopa?" Koojo chuckled. "Interdimensional travel can have some odd effects on the body. In my case, I usually take the form of a creature native to that world. In my home world, I looked something like those Yoshi critters down south, but here, I'm a Koopa."

"Hmm... vampire Yoshis. I can't imagine that."

"They were actually quite terrifying. Imagine the endless belly of a Yoshi with the endless thirst of a vampire." Koojo shuddered at the thought. "In hindsight, I shouldn't have been surprised that they tore themselves apart in the span of a generation."

"So why are you here if no vampires exist here?" Peach asked.

"It's my retirement home, I guess. I'm quite old by my species' standards, and I can't fight quite as good as I used to. And since I can't go back home, I decided that the next world I went to would be home for the rest of my days. And despite some of the oddities, and especially in light of everything that I know now, I'm glad I ended up here."

"...Thank you, Koojo. For everything." Peach took Koojo's hand, and for a moment, she felt the burden on the old man's heart, the years and years of fighting monsters, the physical and emotional scars, and the fear that maybe, somewhere down the line, he'd turned into one of the monsters he hated so much... "No. You're not like that."

"I've done some terrible things, Peach. Things I regret. Things that keep me up at night." Koojo shook his head. "And after it all, I've barely done anything in the grand scheme of things. Vampires are one of those things that I don't think can ever truly be wiped out. And I wasted my entire life fighting them."

"No. You've saved lives," Peach said flatly. "You protected people who otherwise would have died. And no matter what else you've done, you gave people hope."

He tried to hold it back, but Koojo was visibly crying. "...Thank you, Peach."

The two tucked in for the night. Tomorrow, they would go to war.