A/N: Well, the results of my daydreaming now span 18 pages. That surprises me.
Mario didn't know how he was going to get out of this one.
"Jojora! I don't want to fight!"
He barely managed to avoid Oholina rolling towards him, only to nearly run into Hoohoolia trying to grab him. He dodged that, running facefirst into Teeheena. A large ice spike hit him from below, sending him flying into Oholina, who sent him flying into the wall.
It isn't like last time… they're pushing each other and rolling even faster than Chucklissa when Luigi and I fought her.
Mario struggled to prevent Jojora from burying him in snow. He ran over to one of the many staircases outside the castle, hoping to get at least one of Jojora's friends to roll off the edge. Oholina did so; she rolled over the railing and her face emerged from the snow far below. Mario stood atop the staircase, throwing fireballs at Hoohoolia, who tried desperately to run up to him. As fireballs pelted her face she tripped and fell down the stairs. Teeheena tried and failed in the same way.
Mario forgot to watch the ground, earning him an ice spike that, luckily for him, threw him up and onto the stairs.
Sometimes fights were won in spectacular displays of tactical brilliance.
Sometimes, instead, they were lost by whoever made the last mistake.
At her age, no one could blame Jojora for failing to realize that wielding a ranged weapon meant maintaining range was a good idea. When Mario charged toward her, she stood her ground and prepared to deliver another ice spike.
Mario simply ripped her wand from her hands. She fell, now defenseless.
"We lost. You came here to kill us, right? Like they did to my parents? Come on. Do it already. Jerk."
Mario knelt.
"Jojora… ever since we left Beanbean Kingdom, I resolved that if we ever came here again, we would apologize for what we did. At the time Luigi and I thought you were trying to kill us, but with the whole adventure behind us, I realized the whole time, you really did just want to play. I didn't want to come back here, since I didn't think I was ready to face you. I'm sorry for what happened, and I know I could never make up for it."
"All Chucklissa wanted to do was have a tea party with you!"
"What did you want us to do when she came rolling at us?"
"Give her a big hug and move onto her side so you can spin while she's rolling! Duh!"
"Jojora… not everyone knows to do that. When a snowball twenty times someone's weight comes rolling their way, they really fear for their life."
"Wait… really? You thought Chucklissa wanted to squash you?"
"I thought we were both going to die in that room."
Jojora broke into tears. "I never… I never knew… so all this time, you felt the same way I did…"
Mario held the wand out to Jojora, who took it. "We were in a hurry. A witch kidnapped our princess and told us to come here. The same princess who's missing now… she probably got kidnapped again, and I'll probably have to save her."
"I'll go with you."
Mario stood, shocked.
"No! You don't have to…"
"It's the least I could do for you. Hoohoolia, Teeheena, and Oholina stay here. They can't be out in the warm weather. But I can go with you to help save your princess."
"She usually gets kidnapped by a giant Koopa who breathes fire."
Jojora blew an ice storm Mario's way. "Who's afraid of a little fire?"
"You might like her. She knows a thing or two about tea parties." Of course, more tea parties means I'll have to attend more of them. But I can worry about that later…
"Great!"
I hope you're ready, Bowser.
After lifting everyone out of the pit, Jojora flew onto the ship with Mario. She waved her friends goodbye.
"Bye! You all be nice to each other, OK?"
The guards looked at each other in confusion.
"Hooray for Mr. Mario! But… why is she coming back with us?"
"She's coming back with me to save Peach," Mario replied.
"That monster? She tried to kill us!"
"She's our friend now." Mario showed no interest in discussing this further.
As they left Joke's End, all the guards huddled together on the opposite side of the ship from Jojora.
I hope Mr. Mario knows what he's doing.
On a little-traveled road, Popple and Gus headed to board a ship for Keelhaul Key.
Popple stared at their prize. "Geez, how can this thing even be worth so much? What does it even do?"
He dropped it in shock as two red eyes appeared in its star emblem and dark spikes surrounded it before it split into five. A thick fog filled the air, and Popple and Gus were given no time to react before being knocked aside by the fake Dark Stars. The real one then flew off into the distance.
"Cripes! We did all of that for nothing? At least we're still rich! I've had enough of this place. We can bring this back to the Beanbean Kingdom, see?"
The duo headed back to Twilight Town to grab their secret stash of money so they could live comfortable lives in the Beanbean Kingdom.
Fawful scurried over to a spaceship armed on every square inch with an enormous variety of weapons. Lasers, missiles, gravity manipulators, and a couple other things Fawful created were on it.
Midbus groaned. Fawful told him he finished "Fawfulizing" the ship, and the last thing he wanted to hear was a long explanation of what "Fawfulizing" meant.
Luckily for him, the only demonstration he got was the spaceship disappearing, then reappearing again a short distance away. Midbus was then dismissed.
"Fawful is not needing to show you more of the excitement. I am knowing you have the boredom."
Fawful is not conquering the castle of that stupid Bowser again! No, I am thinking of another target! I have chortles at such excitement!
He did his research, and he knew his target.
Rosalina… Fawful is coming like the horse no one expects to be having the victory in the race!
Surrounding the spaceship was an army of drones.
"Fawful is needing more dark power for the ship to have the functioning! But soon, I WILL! HAVE! FURY!" He returned to the depths of the palace.
The Shadow Queen was never accustomed to being the hero.
On her seventh birthday when she found that shadows came when she waved her hand, she began hearing the mocking voices of everyone she knew.
"Oh no! She'll kill us all! Run for your lives!"
They told her she could be nothing but a horrible witch, and she worked her hardest to prove them wrong. Until that day she decided to prove them right. She learned how to control the darkness that came so naturally to her.
Her first conquest was her home village, where she heard familiar voices.
"OH NO! SHE'LL KILL US ALL! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"
The Queen then appeared in Rogueport, destroying the city and transforming a quarter of it into the Palace of Shadow. She created many monsters and nearly conquered the world, but those four heroes attacked her, destroying her human body and sealing her spirit in the palace.
Now she stood before townspeople who didn't run away in fear.
They looked grateful. "Thank you! I'm sorry for how we acted towards you earlier. When Mario came to our town, we didn't exactly treat him very well, either…"
"Mario came here?" Luigi asked.
"Do you know him?"
"He's my bro! What do you mean when you said didn't treat him very well?"
"A fake Mario showed up, and we all thought it was Mario. We didn't know until right before the real Mario left. That was embarrassing…"
"We will take our leave now." Shadow Peach left.
"Hey! Wait for me!"
What now?
We cannot attack my castle in our current state. We were unable to defeat even those two wretched fools.
What else can we do?
We should… I hate to admit it, but we should request Mario's aid.
Great! He probably came back when he heard I was missing. There's no telling where he went since then, but going back's probably our best shot.
Mario arrived back in the Mushroom Kingdom. Having Jojora fly him over there took all of thirty minutes.
Well, nothing's destroyed. That's good. That probably means it was really easy for Bowser, though.
He found Toadsworth running around in a panic. "What to do…what to do…what to do…"
"How did Bowser get in this time?"
"I don't know! Nobody even saw him!"
That's not like Bowser. He always makes sure everyone knows he did it. That's the kind of guy he is.
"Do you even know if it was Bowser?"
"I don't know! I know this is far too long for the princess to be playing some silly joke on me!"
Mario decided to find out more. After all, if it wasn't Bowser, he would certainly be wasting a whole lot of his time. He could just fly to Bowser's castle now, but there were plenty of other places for him to hide her. Besides, there were plenty of times she had been kidnapped by someone else. Like Princess Shroob.
Except this time, he hadn't even been around to find out who it was.
This wasn't going to be easy.