Chapter Eight
Peach was moved back to her guest room for her own safety, according to Bowser. The guards that had been put to sleep by Lavanda's magic were harshly woken up, and the Koopa Troop was put on full alert. Even the koopalings were woken up and informed about the situation concerning the Mario brothers. As the koopalings stood in line receiving instructions from Kamek to prepare for the plumbers' arrival, it seemed that Wendy and Ludwig were the only ones who were fully awake, but none of the eight koopalings was paying attention.
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"Stupid boys and their stupid cooties! Why do I have to be here?" Lavanda would be useless against the Mario brothers in her current condition, so she was sent to her room.
"Someone sounds upset, is it the sound of failure?" A voice was heard, but Lavanda couldn't figure out where it was coming from.
She frantically looked around, searching for the source of the voice to no avail. "Who's there? Keep your cooties away from me!" It was a male voice; that was all she could tell.
The shadows moved, twisting and turning in ways that did not match the objects they belonged to. "What a failure! You claim to be the heir? Two and a half minutes is not enough to reclaim such a title, dear sister." The shadows united in the center of the room, and a figure emerged from the floor.
Lavanda looked at the male magikoopa curiously. He was surrounded by shadows that made it hard to see him. She pointed at him. "The cooties are strong in this one!"
"You're so foolish. Go finish your mission and fail once and for all." He gathered energy in his wand, the large onyx at the end glowed silver.
Lavanda didn't even have time to blink before the spell hit her. Time seemed to move faster for both magikoopas, and soon, the side effects that the medicine had in Lavanda wore off. "Ugh... That's so annoying! You're going to turn yourself into an old geezer, you know!"
Even if he was still covered by the shadows, Lavanda recognized the male magikoopa as Kuvio, her brother. He dressed in black, actually wearing pants instead of the long robe most magikoopa preferred. His eyes were a deep violet and his hair was long and black. He was supposed to be two and a half minutes younger than Lavanda, but he looked several years older, thanks to his ability to speed up time. He could not time travel or turn time backwards; he could only speed up time affecting one target, while suffering a small side effect.
It was useful to cause his opponents to tire out, by making it feel as if they have been fighting for hours, or even days, instead of minutes. Kuvio would age ten times that much, but he would not feel the effects of exhaustion. The result was a possible advantage in battle in exchange for a relatively small portion of his life. He had mostly used his powers to speed up time by the hours, and in some rare occasions by days. A week was his limit.It had all added up, making him five years older than his sister, yet their father still recognized Lavanda as the heir, even if she did not posses the time magic Kuvio did.
He didn't respond to what she said, he merely ignored her and sunk back into the shadows.
Lavanda held her amethyst wand tightly. Her bother moved by using shadows as portals. Even if she didn't have the ability to speed up time, at least she didn't depend on the environment to change locations. Lavanda's specialty was teleportation, and she was about to put it to good use.
She then rapidly teleported to different locations in the castle, until she found Bowser, and as expected, Peach was in her room. Lavanda focused on Peach and Bowser, and teleported them to Bowser's castle in Iceland.
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Peach was shocked, to say the least. She thought she saw Lavanda appear in her room and disappear in a split second. Then, she was suddenly in a different castle, freezing cold. "Lavanda," Peach frowned. She had a very bad feeling about this.
Lavanda appeared before the princess with a blank look. "This isn't how it was supposed to be. You were supposed to taste happiness, or at least pretend to be happy with Bowser for a little while before your life came to an end. Sorry Peach, it's not personal, it's only... my purpose!" Lavanda raised her wand and gathered a massive amount of energy. A force-field of pale lavender light appeared around them, preventing Peach from escaping. The approaching koopas in charge of that castle were thrown back violently by the magical power.
Fierce wind blew inside the force field as Lavanda's magic was focused in her wand. She had placed Bowser in the other side of the castle, he would never make it in time and a normal koopa didn't have the power to stop her.
"Lavanda, stop! Please stop!" Peach pleaded, she was hurt and confused. She had forgiven Lavanda and thought the magikoopa could be a nice person. But Lavanda was a traitor...
"Goodbye!" Lavanda shot a ray of purple light towards Peach. The princess tried to escape the approaching ray, but the shield that once surrounded them both had become much smaller, holding Peach in place.
Suddenly, another beam of light, this one blue, intercepted Lavanda's purple energy. Kamek appeared in front of Peach, pushing Lavanda's magic away with his own. "Traitor!"
"You're the traitor, Kamek!" Lavanda yelled angrily. "Have you forgotten what you did?" She intensified her magic, pushing Kamek to his limits. He was far more powerful than Lavanda, but she was younger and had stamina that he had lost with his youth. The purple beam of magic split into two, passed left and right of Kamek, and reached its target- Peach. At the same time, Kamek's magic no longer had an obstacle to stop it from reaching Lavanda.
"Princess!" Kamek rushed to Peach's side. The princess had fallen and wasn't moving. "Princess Peach!" He tried to use his healing magic but Peach didn't have any physical wounds, she just wasn't moving, she wasn't breathing and her heartbeats had stopped.
Lavanda was inevitably reached by Kamek's magic. That last move would cost her life and she knew it, but she would not leave without completing at least a portion of her father's revenge. The two cast spells were quite different from each other. Kamek's spell was turning Lavanda into a stone statue. In Lavanda's opinion, there were already enough statues of Peach in the world, plus turning things to stone wasn't her specialty.
Maybe it was true what they say, that when someone is about to die, or be transformed into an inanimate object, their entire life flashes before their eyes. It was certainly true for Lavanda┘why else, right then, would she remember when she first arrived at the Koopa Castle?
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The rain fell heavily, and the world outside the castle could barely be seen. The place wasn't called Darkland for nothing, but tonight it was darker than ever, and the harsh storm brought more rain and wind than anyone would expect. Kamek and Kammy were both perplexed. Neither had seen such a harsh storm during the summer season in all their years, not to mention that they felt traces of magic in the storm. The koopalings who leaned more towards a scientific interest were also puzzled by the unexpected storm. There wasn't supposed to be any rain in Darkland during the summer, let alone this much. Yet the rain continued to defiantly pour.
As if coming out of nowhere, a light was seen in the distance, slowly approaching. The guards of the main entrance to the castle remained in at their posts despite the bad weather, and watched the light carefully. The figure holding the light approached and was finally recognized as a young female magikoopa. "Good evening," she greeted them, though it was late night.
The guards exchanged looks as they silently asked each other 'do you know her?'
"You shouldn't be out in this weather, miss. Please return home right away. If you don't find shelter, you'll catch a cold." One of the guards was a koopa troopa with a yellow shell and blonde hair.
"I'm afraid I can't do that. I must see the king right away. I'm certain you won't deny me this." Her smile was enchanting, but there was a hint of mischief in her eyes.
Keres, the koopa troopa with the yellow shell, glanced at his partner. The other koopa troopa, wearing a green shell, had a lost look in his eyes. "So beautiful," he whispered in such a quiet voice, Keres almost didn't catch it. "We can't just leave her out in the rain. Let her go inside." The way he spoke was different from his usual tone.
Keres blinked. Did the magikoopa use some kind of charm on his partner? Well, it wasn't like they were going to leave her out in the rain anyway. Wait, couldn't magikoopas easily generate items from their magic, for example, an umbrella? Why didn't she? Was it all done to add to some dramatic effect? Keres felt suspicious. "Miss," he started, but by the time he managed to sort out his thoughts, the magikoopa had entered the castle already. It shouldn't be anything too troublesome, so Keres simply continued his watch.
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Making her way into the castle was easy. Lavanda's charm spell didn't work on the koopa troopa with the yellow shell, but it didn't matter. He must have been in love with someone, true love. Lavanda's spells couldn't break it, she wasn't sure anything could. That is what kept her from using magic like she had that night, to get Peach and Bowser together. It was all an act. Lavanda never believed they were right for each other. She was convinced that Peach was in love with Mario, and never bothered using magic to find out if it was true.
It was all part of the plan to make Bowser suffer. He would get what he wanted the most, Peach. Then she would be taken away as he had barely started to enjoy true happiness. The cherry on top of the evil cake would be Bowser being blamed for Peach's death. Lavanda's mission was to play matchmaker, then frame Bowser; the Mario brothers would do the rest. Her plans didn't work; she became frustrated and impatient when Kuvio interfered.
Lavanda remembered when she offered to help Bowser. It was evident how much he cared about Peach, but even then Lavanda didn't believe it could work, Peach and Bowser were too different.
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"You really care about her, don't you?"
Bowser was surprised by the sudden voice behind him. It made him swallow a fireball, not to risk burning his precious Peach doll. He was talking to the doll as if it were the real princess. "Who are you?" He glared at the intruder.
She was a young magikoopa that Bowser did not recognize. "My name is Lavanda. I'm a traveling fortune teller and matchmaker. Please hear me out, your highness, for I am sure I can help you and Princess Peach be together."
Needless to say, her words caught his attention, but still the fact remained that she had intruded in his secret Peach shrine, which he personally built for his eyes and his eyes only. The walls were covered in pictures of the princess. Her dresses were always similar, but Bowser had stared at those pictures for so long, he was capable of identifying the slight differences in each one. There were also pictures of Peach playing different sports such as golf and tennis, pictures of her in a go-kart, all of them happy pictures. One of the pictures was special, because it represented Bowser's most desired wish. In that picture, Princess Peach appeared in a white dress similar to her pink ones, save for the color. It was a wedding dress, and beside her was the Koopa King himself.
The picture wasn't real. It was something that convinced him that computers were wonderful devices indeed, regardless of the bitter-sweet feeling he always got when looking at the picture. They had a real wedding before, even if he didn't have any pictures of that one. That wedding unleashed chaos, but even after that, Bowser wouldn't stop loving Peach. "You sound confident, but that's still no excuse for intruding here."
Lavanda remained perfectly calm. "I have never failed as a matchmaker. I can guarantee that you and Princess Peach will be together. If not, feel free to throw me in the nearest lava pit or feed me to the chain chops."
"You're that confident?" It seemed that the image of the angry Koopa King had no effect on her, or at least not the effect it had on most people.
"Yes, I assure you, I'm a matchmaker and fortune teller of exceptional skills. I can make Princess Peach your queen, if you give me the chance." Lavanda was certain that Bowser had no suspicions of her true plans.
It seemed that Bowser was starting to consider her offer. "If I agree to this, what's in it for you? What reward are you looking for?"
Lavanda expected that question, and she had prepared an answer for it. "I do not require a reward. Just seeing my king happy with a queen worthy of him is more than enough."
"I supposed there's nothing to lose by letting you try, but you better not mess up or I might just throw you into a pit of boiling lava, or feed you to many ferocious chain chops, or both. Good ideas, huh?" Bowser didn't want to get his hopes up. He told himself not to expect too much from the magikoopa, but she was so confident that he couldn't help it but to wonder, what if she was right?
"I am very thankful that you are giving me this chance, your majesty. I assure you, I will not disappoint you. Very soon, you and Princess Peach will be happy together."
"I want to know more about your plan, but not here." He led Lavanda to one of the many rooms in the castle, and once they were comfortably sitting with a goomba maid serving tea and cookies, it was time for Lavanda to start explaining.
"When two people are destined to be together, I can feel it. I guess you could say I can sense love, even if those people are not aware of it yet. Peach, being the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom, is under a tremendous amount of pressure. I'm sure she doesn't appear to be this way, but she is actually quite stressed. She is always thinking about what is expected of her as the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom, about the image she must project. She is expected to care for the hero before ever thinking about caring for the man that constantly kidnaps her. That is what is expected of her, and it is clouding her judgment when it comes to love," Lavanda explained.
Bowser looked thoughtful, so far it made sense. "Go on."
Lavanda continued. "What I plan to do is help Peach relax to help her clear her mind, and, in a way, find herself. Then, she will see you in a new light. She will judge you by her own heart and not by what is expected of her. Only then can she realize how she truly feels about you. Once she has been given a push in the right direction, everything else will unfold by itself. You must be patient and let her notice her love little by little, so that she is not too overwhelmed. If you follow my advice everything will turn out as expected, and Peach will realize that she returns your feelings."
Bowser had to admit that the deal sounded good. He picked up a large cookie and ate it, savoring the taste of chocolate chip. "That might work. For your sake, it better work."
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Lavanda remembered the recent events in her life. Meeting Peach at the train station, the supposed ghost invasion of the mushroom Castle, the events of the forest Maze, and all the time she wasted under the effects of that medicine to recover her magic. Her childhood wasn't worth remembering, nothing but magic training and fights with her brother. He wanted to see her fail. It had been his wish for as long as she could remember. It seemed that it was finally being granted.
Her life had been wasted, she didn't achieve her purpose. She had been born only because her father wanted someone to carry out his revenge. Lavanda never met her mother, she didn't know if she was still alive somewhere, but it made no difference. If her mother never bothered looking for her then she didn't care.
Revenge, that was the purpose of Lavanda's life. She couldn't achieve it; she might as well never existed... With those final thoughts, her body turned into stone completely and her consciousness faded away.
To be Continued
Disclaimer, I don't own the Mario games and characters. Beta reading credit goes to Razzi (ebtwisty9). There's a bit of a cliffhanger in this one. What happened to Peach? You'll find out in the next chapter. :D
