Koporo eyed the rocks with the passing fascination of a person window shopping. He turned them in his hand before clunkily tossing them on his workshop table.

"So…" Peach began, watching his actions closely.

"Yeah, these are real."

Bowser gagged in surprise. Bits of smoke came out in a puff as he tried to recollect himself.

"Okay, and?! You were the one who told us to get it! Why wouldn't you think it was real?!"

Koporo shrugged.

"I hate this town. I hate all of you people." He rubbed his temples.

"Calm down sport. Now you kids can go to the temple!"

"This isn't all we had to do?" Peach asked. Her hair lopped over her shoulder as she spoke, her shoulders aimed high with confusion. "I thought these were the artifacts we needed."

"Yeah, they are the artifacts you need to get the REAL artifacts! Stars, it's like you whippersnappers never heard of a legend before. Everything is always complicated."

"So now what?" His tail swished in irritation, which Peach noticed. It twitched, side to side and in short bursts, usually just as Bowser started to speak. It was curious that she never noticed that about him before. She wondered how many instances she was present for when Bowser did this exact behavior.

"There's a temple not far from here, where you can walk in and put the what's-its in. Then you get the REAL ones which you bring to me, and I can fix you up with some weapons. Sound good?"

"Wait, wait, weapons? Who, or rather, what are we fighting?"

"I don't know. What do I look like, an expert on weird legends?" Koporo coughed, his age tiring out from talking so much. "Just take them to the temple, and leave me alone. Got it?"

He paused, staring at the two in front of him. Peach nodded while Bowser just grunted in acknowledgement.

"Good. Now SCRAM!"

'Not far from here' was one of the biggest understatements either of them had heard. One, they had been walking since the morning, pushing through an open field with nary a temple let alone a building in sight. Two, Peach had fully given up on shoes, as her high heels had nearly dug holes into her soles. She had resigned to carry them again, but was slowly getting irritated with the whole thing. Bowser had watched her out of the corner of his eye, not making much noise but making quite a lot of faces. He almost couldn't take it, but his stubbornness kept him pushing forward and staying out of whatever was going on in her head.

"Bowser," she began, her voice wavy with strain.

"Yeah?"

"How sharp…is your shell?"

Oh Stars, he thought. She wanted to impale herself with his shells in agony. How was he supposed to talk her out of this?

""Uh, I mean, pretty sharp-"

"How much weight can it handle, theoretically?"

What kind of question was that? He was strong, but now he had no idea what she was asking.

She sighed, turning her head to the sky.

"I can't walk anymore. If I take another step, I might just faint. And these shoes-" She threw them dramatically away in the grassy flats. "-are worthless beyond looks. Honestly."

It finally clicked what the Princess was asking for.

"I mean, you can try to hang on. Just don't lean backwards, okay Princess?"

"Of course," she said softly, climbing onto him as he leaned down. She perched herself on his shoulder, wedged between him and the rim of his shell. Looking up close, it was interesting to see the cuts and scrapes embedded in it, the glossy spikes that jutted out, and the way it bent almost perfectly around his back. She thought back to the inn, and the implication that the shell portrayed.

"Say, Bowser?"

He grunted in response.

"Did you choose the spikes?"

"No, I was born with them."

"I see. I've never met a Koopa with spikes before, that's all." She gasped. "I-I mean, not saying that all Koopas don't have them, I m-"

"No Koopa has them," Bowser replied, in a short and curt tone. "I'm a mutant."

"No, no I didn't mean it like that-"

"Koopas aren't born huge. They usually top out at, well, probably Koporo's height if he wasn't so old and hunchy. The spikes are rare. The snout is rare. The size is basically one in a million."

"I'm…sorry. I really didn't want to offend."

"Nah, it's fine. Besides, I scare the crap out of every other Koopa and Toad."

"You don't scare me."

"Give it time."

They kept their pace in silence, as Peach didn't want to make him mad, and Bowser almost forgot that he was different. Not that it was a bad thing now, mind you. When he was a kid? Horrible. Ugh. He shook off the bad memories and kept focus on the path and where they were going.

"If you don't mind me saying, I guess that makes me a mutant too."

Bowser turned his head towards her, as she stared into the distance.

"I mean, my Father, he was… about the size of a regular Toad. So was my Mother. Toadsworth used to say that my Mother was gorgeous, with blonde hair and rosy cheeks. They would probably be baffled at me now. No headcap, three times the size of Toadsworth."

She kept using past words. Now. Was. His parents weren't around either. All he had was Kamek and then later Kammy. Both were annoying. But they tried.

"Sorry, " he muttered. He never knew how to comfort people when they said things like that. He wasn't good with words. She yawned, now finding it comfortable as the ache wore off her feet.

"How much longer?"

He eyed the path. Maybe it was a mirage, but he did see something….blurry.

Grey? Maybe?

He shrugged as the answer, not realizing that Peach was still precariously sitting on his shoulders.

"Oop," she responded, adapting quickly to the movement. "It doesn't look close."

Bowser stopped.

"Give it time."

When they finally arrived, it looked just as blurry as it did in the distance. As to say, the weathering of rain and sun had smoothed the once hard stone into a softer texture, warping the stone to look rather awful from far away and up close. Peach hopped down with ease, almost floating as Bowser watched in bafflement. She seemed to make everything look seamless.

"Ugh, let's get this over with."

Vines had taken over the inside of the stone building, weaving between the bricks and threatening its very structure. They wandered in the dim light of the scarce openings in the ceiling, a telling sign that they had limited time before it would become encapsed in darkness. It could have been the worst sign, but yet.

But yet.

A light appeared. And then another. Peach and Bowser stepped back in surprise.

"WELCOME, ONE AND ALL TO THE BEST GAME SHOW ON THE PLANEEEEET!"

Notes: (dramatic peace signs) I'm hoping to get the next chapter up quickly! Hopefully tomorrow, maybe the next day. Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for y'all I have a lot of free time. Also, sneak peek: the characters in the next chapter were inspired by the game show friends from TTYD! :P