Kodai Island - Ponderosa

Chapter 5 - Juror 5

*Sigh*

...It's not like I don't know what to say, but it's rather me having a million things to say tbh. I don't even know where to begin. ...Well, we can start off with the after Lucario played his idol on Mewtwo . Yet he clearly didn't need to since Mewtwo already had one and almost went home with an idol in his... "pocket". That's what they always say anyway.

But the main fact was that Wolf O'Donnell basically betrayed Bowser Koopa and indirectly sends him to the jury. Link accidentally finds out about Wolf's idol, which explains the reason to why he looked beyond devastated that Wolf chose not to play his idol on Bowser, despite saving him three times. One for playing his idol on him at the Samus vote, two for manipulating his alliance to target Falcon over Bowser, and three for flipping with Mewtwo to take out Ganondorf. Just...

More will be said in the next chapter for the main story, but let's just focus on Bowser solely. This is his Ponderosa chapter after all so let's just get straight into it. But all I can say is that the worst part is that Bowser never even knew that Wolf had an idol, and all the rest of the jurors do is to speculate. So let's see...

~KF

"Hi, I'm Bowser, juror number five, and this is my Ponderosa!"

Night 32

Sigh...

"Feeling like I'm at the top of the world ever since I won that immunity challenge... I've made a big move and found myself in a final four alliance..." His head was hung down as he walked. "Then I became a swing vote, but then... I dunno what happened..."

"I got voted out..." He was still shaking his head in disbelief. "I don't believe it. ...I was one entire week away from getting a million dollars. Lucario played an idol. I don't know why he would waste it on Mewtwo since I doubt he has another one... Now I'm out of the game..."

"It was a 5-4. That was what it was. I don't care if my name is written down. Bottom line is that I wasn't supposed to go home tonight but the idol screwed me over. I didn't know Lucario had an idol, let alone play it on Mewtwo of all people. Now my entire alliance is screwed."

"I don't have bitter feelings towards Lucario because we never worked together. ...I just didn't want to be voted out. I didn't want this to happen! The moment I felt that everything was going right, I'm all of a sudden out of the game. They saw through me and here I am sitting here on a Ponderosa step."

Bowser Koopa took his time making his way towards the tent. Upon opening it, of course it was time to greet Crazy Hand.

"Hi Bowser!"

"Hi..." He looked to the side. "I guess..."

"I wish it didn't happen the way it went down. Unlike most people, I'd rather know that I'm going home than be blindsided, because all my hopes of getting a spot in the final four are now gone. Mario is somehow still in the game but I'm not. That's one thing that ticks me off, but I guess I gotta get used to it while I'm here, don't I?"

"What was the hardest part of the game for you?"

"Um..." Initially the koopa did not even know where to start, and he expressed it by placing a hand on his forehead to think. "I dunno. So much has happened for the past month I can't think of one particular thing at the top of my head... Well,... I guess the absolute hardest part of the game was me simply trying to deal with everybody. Like, everyone knows how much I can't stand Mario. I hardly liked anyone in my tribe. But even when I got to the merge, people were still annoying me all the time, whether because of strategy or not. Like, one time I got into an argument with Wii Fit Trainer for not holding this 'tree pose' right or whatever she calls it..."

Crazy Hand 'nodded'. "It's understandable that some castaways get irritated when you're surrounded by strangers for a long time. Let's try out the scale. How did you initially weigh?"

"..." He looked back before raising an eyebrow. "Um... 2600? ...This does not include my shell..."

He was then told to step on the scale.

"...2359!? ...Really!?"

"So that means you've lost..." Crazy Hand used his calculator to perform the subtraction. "241 pounds exactly. Good job."

He buried his hands to bring them down his face, subsequently walking towards the tent exit. "I need to eat something. Let's go..."

Juror number five was then seen getting off from the boat.

"When I finally made it to Ponderosa, the first person I ended up seeing was DK..."

"Hey! Welcome to the Ponderosa alliance, haha!" Donkey Kong shook Bowser's hand and gave him a hug. "You didn't even get the majority of the votes so you weren't even supposed to go home tonight."

"Welcome aboard, Bowser." Bayonetta spoke next with a hand on her hip. "You performed rather well out there, in spite of your aggressive strategy."

Even Ganondorf spoke. "Greetings, Bowser. My apologies for hardly interacting with you on the island. Part of me feels as if me and you started on the same team, perhaps things would have been different."

"My reception was actually rather positive. I voted out everyone here except for Donkey Kong, yet no one had any ill feelings towards me. Not that I would even care if that was the case, but my reception was really good! Even the people at Ponderosa respected the game that I was playing out there. I was going to be cut-throat and I was not gonna hold back no matter what anyone said. I've done everything I could to stay in it. Even though I didn't win, knowing that you were willing to stop at nothing to get to the million dollars is what matters most at the end of the day if you lose."

Bayonetta was the first to head back in. "Make yourself at home, Koopa. You're just in time for some dinner. You look at yourself in the mirror, and we will have our discussion shortly."

He blinked in reaction, subsequently rotating his head around, the rest of his body doing the same after he found himself to be quite surprised. "Woah... I am almost just as big as Ganondorf. I can't even compete with DK at the moment. And when was the last time my head has grown this much hair!? Junior didn't tell me I looked different at all!"

"Poor Bowser. What a poor, poor little creature." Bayonetta softly shook her head. "I never cared for him that much when I met him, but over time, especially after the Wii Fit Trainer vote, ...I was sorta starting to root for him."

-/-

Hamburgers, french fries, pizza, fish, chicken, what else could a koopa like Bowser asked for?

As they all occasionally shifted their eyes to watch him devour his food, Bayonetta started the discussion as promised. "So, let's get started. Did you know anything about Lucario having an idol?"

He immediately shook in reaction, yet not even looking up from his plate. "Clearly no one did. Not Mario, not even Mewtwo himself because Mewtwo would have had an idol and I know he would've played it."

"And where did you find that extra vote?"

"I found it in the tool box." He answered Wii Fit Trainer. "I got tired of being on the bottom and there was no way I was gonna go rocks at the final twelve. I was winning a million for my kids here, and so I got the advantage at that point. Sure I could have used it just to stay on the safe side, but I knew it was going to be broken anyway."

"..."

"Hey, at least it wasn't my idea to get you out, okay!?" Koopa looked up for once to glare, but then right back at his food. "Wolf was the one that found out about your advantage."

"Say, speaking of him, why did Link look at him like that?" Bayonetta brought up. "He looked at him as if he knew something we all didn't. ...Was he expecting him to pull something out?"

"I doubt it..." He replied honestly. "If he had an idol, I would have been the first to know and I wouldn't be sitting here right now. If Link thought he had an idol, someone's lying."

Ganondorf blinked. He never seemed to sure about it himself. "From my perspective, I would have never told a soul. That idol would have been in my possession and I would not be obligated to tell anyone..."

"Well, whatever happened, happened and now I gotta live with it." Bowser took a sip of his beer. "But like I said: if Wolf had another opportunity to save me, he would have done it. He did it before. We were even planning a final four with Link and Ike."

"..." They all sat there speechless.

"Yeah, exactly. That's one of the reasons why Link flipped on his alliance and take Wii Fit out."

Her elbows immediately slammed on the table, covering her face with her hands.

"Who were you all going to target?" Bayonetta was now curious.

"I was actually the swing vote, 'cause Pit wanted to save his alliance." He elaborated. "Ike told me that it didn't matter what direction I took, but I thought I had no reason to flip, so I stuck with the Mewtwo vote. I didn't even he care if he wrote my name down (which he most likely did), because I was plannin' on moving forward with him anyway. We were planning on blindsiding Mario next, so that plumber has no idea how lucky he is right now..."

Ignoring the eyes, Wii Fit Trainer was still on the apparent fact that Link took her out. "I... I don't even know what to say right now. Link is the reason to why I lost a million dollars..."

Ganondorf rolled his eyes at her lack of self-awareness.

Bowser Koopa turned the lights on in his new room he was going to be sleeping in for the next seven days.

"Holy Star Spirits... I get to sleep on a bed..."

"Nothing better than to sleep in a nice cozy bed, rather than sleep with someone like Mario or Wii Fit Trainer. I somehow ended up next to her when we all met at the merge, and oh boy... That chick talks way too much. You couldn't even get to sleep anyway!"

"...Okay, despite me knowing myself, I don't really wanna get in it while I'm still dirty... That's just wrong..." The ninth place finisher folded his arms, then turning on his heel to head in another direction. "Lemme go to the bathroom and take a shower so that I can finally get to sleep..."

Day 33

"Oh, pass me the syrup over there DK. These pancakes aren't gonna pour syrup on themselves... Oh, there he is. The grand King Koopa!"

Even though Bayonetta was obviously fueling Bowser's ego, Koopa himself found it to be amusing.

"About time you woke up. You wouldn't want to sleep all day, would you?"

"Why wouldn't I? I finally get a break here! ...But you do have a point, now that we're in a place like this. I mean it's just fabulous. Also, I am basically king of the day after all since this is my time... I wonder what would happen if I was an actual king? Would be pretty neat, wouldn't it?"

"No Mario, no Sumasshu (except DK here), no arguing, no fighting, no challenges, no strategizing, and no more paranoia. Those are the things I don't have to deal with anymore. I can finally actually enjoy myself here in Japan, since I've never been here before. I wish Junior was here right now, but he's being escorted back home, probably ready to tell his other siblings. At least he gets the right to see what they didn't see, since this season isn't even gonna air until months later, except for the live reunion show..."

-/-

A couples hours later, Bowser ended up finding Ganondorf on the hammock.

"You know, despite how aggressive my gameplay was, beside my alliance, I um... I sorta felt bad for Ganon in a way even though I voted him out (which I had no choice to or else I would have been sent home). Me and Ganondorf actually have some similarities, even though I said before that there can't be more than one me on the island, but I only said that because he was a threat. But anyway, like he said last night, we never really talked to each other much in the game at all. We were the big targets in completely different alliances. If only we were on the same tribe in the beginning, maybe that would have been our chance. So I sorta spent some time relating to Ganon a little bit..."

"So what exactly did Link do for the first three days?"

"Meh..." Ganondorf Dramgire looked away, still wishing that he was on the opposing tribe from the start. "He was simply a nuisance, a thorn on my side that I've never gotten rid of. He was such a know-it-all, as if one host for the show was not enough; having two of them is not needed and unnecessary. Day four, and as a unit, we were planning on eliminating Wii Fit Trainer from the island for being a liability, yet of course, Link of all people warns us to not 'plan too early' basically. It was day four on the island, she was obviously cancer to the tribe, and she had literally no allies. Look at what has happened now."

"..."

"Exactly."

"See, this is why I started to feel bad for you." Bowser said to him. "But then at the same time, I pretty much had to deal with my entire tribe except for my core alliance, which got wiped out anyway. Maybe we should have interacted more we would have done something. But the way things were, we just couldn't. Even if we had the chance, there was just so much crap going on. You know what I'm sayin'?"

"...Hmph..." Ganon rolled his eyes at that.

"I mean I'll be honest. If you would have somehow made it to the final three, with the right people, I would gave you my vote, hahaha! Maybe we should have took each other to the end."

"..." Whether it was a surprise or not, Koopa actually made Ganon smirk. Hard. Even a small laugh managed to escape. "Perhaps we should have, that way we could have eliminating Sumasshu plus Wii Fit and Link, that way things would have been easier for the both of us."

"I'll admit it when I say it. I am actually quite proud of Bowser and his gameplay. We have a very similar style when it comes to Survivor. Neither of us like it when someone stands in our way when it comes to taking control, and throughout our conversation, he had some pretty valid points. It's a wonder to why we were not put together on the same tribe. The Survivor Gods perhaps chose to separate us both so that we could have the opportunity to dominate everyone, in spite of it clearly not working on in the end."

-/-

"..."

"You think your kids talk about you everyday while you're gone?"

"While I'm out here? Of course..."

Bowser and Donkey Kong were viewing the horizon from standing on the sand.

The latter spoke again. "When they find out that you didn't win, would do you think they would do?"

He snickered at the thought. "They would most likely start begging me to play again."

"Sounds about right. My nephew would probably say the same."

"Even though I didn't win, I think it's safe to say that I probably had the best story out here. I survived all those pre-merge Tribal Councils, I won an immunity challenge, I got on a reward, I made it to the Loved Ones visit, I won individual immunity when I absolutely needed to, and I had my advantage that greatly impacted the game I wanted to."

"Who do you think it's next?" Donkey Kong asked another question.

"...Well,... I was kinda hoping that Mario would somehow be next since the alliances are tied, but now that I'm here, I kinda don't want to because that means that I have to sit next to him at the reunion, hahaha!"

"Even though I got voted out, if Lucario would have never played that idol, I would have been in the final four without question. Maybe even final three. I dunno if I would have won or not. but dang right I would have gave it my all. I have no regrets on how I played. The jury still respects me and my game. I know my kids do. Yeah, I might have wanted to win this game so bad, but after what I've been through with this much success... I realize that it is something I can live with."

Alright, done. So based off the reviews on my latest chapter from my main fic, it seems that quite a few people ruled for Bowser. Wolf really screwed him over, as well as his entire core alliance. Yet this chapter is for Bowser only, so we'll stick what that. I personally thought that even though he was clearly a villain, he had such an amazing story.

Questions:

1. Did you like Bowser? What did you think of his gameplay?

2. Do you think Bowser would have made it a lot further if he survived?

If you liked Bowser, vote for him in my poll if you havent already and I will see you all next time!