Princess Peach was getting absolutely bored in her now way too monotone life, waiting to be interrogated by her new arch-nemesis, Princess Shroob.
But now was apparently the time, as she was free to briefly get out of her temporary room. It looked boring with the dark grey walls, only a tiny window, and a wooden bed that was not comfortable at all.
Okay, the iconic pink-dressed blonde princess thought, you can do this, and you can use arguments. She breathed deeply to ease her nervousness on her way to the centre of the room where Princess Shroob always stayed.
"Feels good to be a little free for now, huh?" Clyde, who escorted the princess, asked kindly, but it fell on deaf ears since Peach couldn't understand Shroob language that fluently just yet. (Yes, she was actually learning it due to hearing snippets of it often and daily.)
"Good day" Princess Shroob stoically said to the human princess as she already sat on her floating throne at the round folding table that was temporarily placed in the centre. "Clyde, get me something to drink, will ya?"
"Yes, ma'am." The teenage RC Shroober went off after letting princess Peach settle in the folding chair that was specially reserved for her.
"So" Peach reluctantly asked, "is this the interrogation?"
"Will be soon" the alien princess replied in her somewhat broken English. "Care for some water?"
"Uh… n-no thanks, I'm good."
"And you're sure?"
"Definitely."
"Alright, have it your way."
Clyde soon returned with his princess's favourite kind of red wine, and sat down on the floor a few metres ahead.
Who says I'm mandatory to listen to the whole interrogation, he thought, while some beans could possibly keep my eyes open? He grabbed one of his most recent bags of beans and pulled it open. They were the popped beans, and coincidentally, this snack was quite fitting for something as boring yet amusing as the upcoming interrogation.
"Now" Princess Shroob said, "let us start the interrogation."
"I have a question" Peach said.
"Go ahead."
"Why is there an interrogation between us?"
"Well… we're both princesses, and I'm superior over you."
"Uh…"
"Doesn't matter furthermore. Why did you lock up my sister in that weird Cobalt Star of yours?"
"To protect myself since I felt threatened about her presence."
"You felt the same way about the rest of us, and still do. For your own good, you could've locked all of us Shroobs up."
"But I didn't even see you lot yet back then."
The purple monarch sighed loudly and rolled her bright red pupils as she took a 'casual' sip of her wine.
"What a lousy statement."
"If you think that way, why not free your sister? After all, I'm convinced that the two of you are usually inseparable…"
"Not until this interrogation is over, princess butt fruit."
"That's Peach, thank you very much."
"I call you whatever I want."
"Would you like it if I called you princess enoki, or princess shiitake, or anything else in that way?"
"Are pancakes a type of fruit?"
"Of course not."
"You do have a legit point somewhere, but we digress now…"
Clyde was silently snickering in the background while munching away on his popped beans.
That's some yummy stuff, he thought, I'm surely going to buy more next time Fawful drops by!
"Would you like to be the tertiary princess of us Shroobs anytime soon?" Princess Shroob continued. "You know that this is now officially the Shroob Kingdom, right?"
"But I'm already the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom, ma'am" Peach replied. "Please, I'm mandatory to return to the present!"
"Are you?"
"I am."
"Doesn't matter. I'll crown you as the tertiary princess of us, even if you're just another lame human."
"Us humans are not lame!"
"Zip it!"
"We live in a civilised society and such societies also need leaders like me!"
"Well, guess what, so do we the Shroobs. Those who are aged 4 are mandatory to go to pre-school, and then onward to kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school as their age increases, and college and the university are optional but recommended, especially if one wants to have a job later in their life. In fact, we already have plans for the development of bullet trains and other forms of public transport for those who cannot drive or cycle."
"Sounds like you Shroobs don't have a society that differs from the human society that much."
"Well, your kind is not allowed to carry laser guns at all times, like us."
"No, that's right, but we are allowed to use stuff like Ice Flowers as we please." The human princess put her tonal emphasis on 'Ice Flowers' in an attempt to startle the alien princess.
"You don't even know our real weakness, huh?"
"We're still experimenting with it. Also, those anti-human circles that the kids among you occasionally make are not really effective either. I mean, every kindergarten-aged species with the intellectuality of a human can draw a circle around themself and poke at those who they dislike with a stick!"
"Is that so?"
"Yes, and if you want proof, I'd only recommend it to let one of your Shroobs investigate us anytime soon, because I've heard rumours that some from the Mushroom Kingdom of the present are also investigating you lot!"
"Wait, what?!"
"They're only rumours for now."
"Then that's good, because I want to keep my population to myself, and I refuse to share it!"
"Alright, you don't have to shout at me, ma'am."
"Wow, for someone who's usually very scared of my species, you're standing your ground awfully well without flinching."
"I can even speak some of your language already." And princess Peach repeated the same sentence in her mediocre ability of Shroob language.
"Wh-?! You…" Princess Shroob was speechless and dumbfounded, and then suddenly saw that Clyde was, in reality, not paying that much attention to the interrogation, but decided not to mind about that.
The teenage RC Shroober shrugged and ate his last handful of popped beans. All the time, nothing special had happened to him. Hereby, you, the reader, know that beans are absolutely not a weakness to Shroobs. At all.
"Alright, I give up. I declare this interrogation to be over, and neither will I crown you as the tertiary princess of the Shroob Kingdom anymore. You outsmart me too much and I don't like that about you. Now scram back to that measly Mushroom Kingdom of yours, but do know that your baby self and the others of this now altered past are allowed in here under absolutely no circumstances! So this doesn't mean we're having a truce either!"
"Okay…?" The blonde human princess got up from her seat and made her way out of the castle by foot. "Wow, those Shroobs aren't just evil and scary, they're weird, too… well, here I go. Alone, without any back-up or anything remotely similar."
Ian the Commander Shroob and his Support Shroobs had already gotten a message from their princess that they were allowed to stay where they were since princess Peach actually got the permission to leave the castle early, rather than being locked up there forever.
Outside, in the castle's courtyard, Pit was playing on their own, and for their own safety, they had also made an anti-human circle with a stick that they found at one of the trees.
"Oh!" they gasped in some of the only English they could once they saw princess Peach wander by. "You'we not awwowed to weave! Thtay hewe, pwithonah!"
"Believe it or not" the human princess replied in Shroob language, "but your princess hates the fact that I apparently outsmart her, so she set me free early." She also wiped her foot across one part of the drawn circle in the earth.
"What the-?!" The kindergarten-aged Shroob was also dumbfounded upon hearing that a human could speak their species' language. "You wuined my anti-human thihcle, now I'm doomed an' done fo'!"
"Relax, it's just a circle, you can always redraw it."
"Be gone!"
"I'll ask some of the human kindergartners to draw anti-Shroob circles too soon."
"You'we kidding me, wight?" But that question was left unanswered, as Peach had already departed back to the present via the time hole that she found very quickly. "Thtupid thon of a Thwooboid…" At the same time, a loose tooth fell out of Pit's mouth. "Hey, at weatht I'm not bothewed by that anymowe."
Back in the present, the two adult Mario brothers were playing a game of chess at the castle's courtyard because they were still bored without their very own princess.
"I just took your last bishop" Mario said. "Sorry, but check."
"Figures" Luigi said, as he brought his king back to safety. Or at least, he thought he did.
"You shouldn't have done that." The last black bishop was placed next to the white king. "Checkmate."
"How do I still always lose after a decade of knowing the rules like I know the English language?"
Suddenly, the baby Mario brothers noticed the presence of a certain something.
"What's the matter?" Stuffwell, who watched them, asked.
"I sense somefin'" baby Mario replied, "but I dunno what."
"Me too" baby Luigi added.
"Couwd it be the pwincess? She be back?"
"No, no, she be gone. She be doomed."
"I vewy confused now…" The younger counterpart of the older twin sat back down and sighed.
"Now that you guys just mentioned this" the talking suitcase said, "I also sense something!" He unfolded himself into radar mode. "The sense of someone coming towards us. It emitiates a positive presence, so it's sure-likely not a Shroob!"
"Wait up" Professor Gadd said, "someone is coming? Golly, this should better be good."
"We should wait and see."
The group waited, and were surprised upon hearing a familiar feminine voice shout "Mario!" from one of the halls.
"Mama Mia" Mario gasped in surprise, "could that be?"
"Oh my Globin!" Toadsworth exclaimed. "Please tell me I'm not dreaming!" He pinched both of his cheeks twice. "No, this cannot be real…!"
"Well, think again, Toadsworth" Peach said in a sing-song voice once she had set foot in the castle's courtyard for the first time in what seemed an eternity. "You guys, I'm back!"
"But how?!" Luigi exclaimed before passing out from disbelief.
"Weegee!" baby Luigi yelped in a panicky voice as he frantically tried to wake his adult self up.
"Princess!" Mario cheered once he saw his long-time crush back. He ran up to her and glomped her in an almost bone-crushing hold. "Thank the Emoglobins you're okay!"
"Oh, Mario" Peach sighed, "I'm glad that you're okay, too…!"
The two exchanged a brief kiss, to which baby Mario reacted with slight disgust.
"So, how did you eventually get here again?"
"Well, Princess Shroob interrogated me, but I apparently outsmart her due to me having learned some Shroob language during my captivity, and that annoyed her to the point where I was allowed to return here. However, there won't be a truce, and neither are we allowed to go to the past again, so the current situation there will most likely remain the Shroob Kingdom, and that's no good, I'm afraid."
"As long as those Shroobs won't be going as far as to invade Termina and the entirety of Hyrule and its archipelago, to name anything else than just our kingdom, you won't hear me complain too much."
"Yeah, I guess you're right."
"And what about the Cobalt Star?"
"Bad news… it's gone. I've been pickpocketed, and saw you guys go through the same back then."
"What?!" all of the Mario brothers, the two Toadsworths, Professor Gadd and Stuffwell gasped.
Once again, the loud ruckus startled baby Peach to the point where she started weeping so loudly that if that one creepy moon would still be there in Termina, it would've probably exploded due to the noise overload and caused a sudden meteor shower (or should I say moon shower?) by now.
"Yeah…" The iconic princess was freed from her crush's grasp and restlessly wandered around the courtyard. "Some naughty little scampering Shroob with a lisp and crooked teeth just mercilessly nabbed those Cobalt Star parts from Stuffwell without any hesitation, and before I knew it, they also grabbed some of them from me! Fortunately, they didn't assemble them just yet, but it could still possibly happen anytime soon. Oh dear me…"
"Wait, they did?" Stuffwell asked. "I thought they were just pretending to be cutedorable next to that nasty alien princess as her servant, with the baby-doll eyes, the colon-three smile and whatnot. Plus, didn't they look a little too youngfantile to even be her servant?"
"Yes, I can confirm that for a full hundred per cent. They just did some sleight of hand-like thing, and before I knew it, they ran off with an evil smile and giggle."
"Okay, that's just crude. But if we cannot travelport back there, then what?"
"Then it might be up to the Bowser to send his troops there" Mario pondered.
"An' the Fawful possibwy go thewe, too" baby Mario said.
"Wait, Fawful?"
"Yeah, he be wiving in the basement wif his beans an' badges, an' baby Weegee an' I saw him when you an' big Weegee no wooking. I no undahstand all of his stowy, though. You bewieve me, wight?"
Baby Luigi nodded in agreement.
"Alright, if you say so."
"Then" Toadsworth said, "it's most likely indeed for the best if we just remain here and let the others investigate them and a possible weakness of theirs. Until that time comes, nothing special, I presume."
Everyone else nodded in agreement, and went on with their lives in the present, trying their utmost best to make the most out of it.