four


It was a long and silent trip back to the Mushroom Kingdom. Bowser lay on a large supported stretcher in the middle of the private jet. He was lying there, Peach thought to herself, as if his soul had permanently departed from his body, never to see the physical world again. But he was not dead, just unconscious and severely injured. If not for his thick shell, he would certainly be gone. Peach sat there looking at Bowser, thinking, how he saved her life. She didn't have the thick shell he did, and the incident, if had happened to her, would definitely have killed her.

When they reached the Mushroom General Hospital in the Mushroom Kingdom, the doctors and physicians studied him carefully. Peach stood outside the ward room door, waiting to see if he was okay. When the main physician came out, he told Peach he was going to be just fine in one week, but he would need to wear an arm cast. He also wasn't allowed to make any quick movements for a while, or anything else that would boost his heart rate. The explosion had decreased the reliability of the old Koopa's heart, making him open to strokes and heart attacks. But other than that he was fine.

"The most confusing thing," the physician told the princess, "is that he refused to eat the healing mushrooms we gave him. Every time he came here, and he doesn't come here very often, well, every time he came here, he always ate his mushrooms. I don't know what's into him. . . Oh, well. We'll just see what happens."


- - - - -

One week later, Bowser was up and about and in perfect condition excluding his injured arm. Everything was fine. Or so they thought.

A package came, from Princess Daisy, who had supposedly gotten over that chicken pox/flu/anthrax thing. The package had no label on it except: From Daisy. Nobody knew who it was for, so everybody in Peach's Castle gathered together in the lobby and opened the mysterious box together.

Muffins. What it looked like was rudimentarily baked blueberry muffins. And they looked delicious. Abnormally, Bowser wasn't hungry. He looked at the muffins and felt an uneasiness in his belly. As the other castle helpers and workers as well as Peach, Toad and Luigi dived in for the muffins, Bowser turned away.

The muffins were eventually finished, despite the fact that it seemed before the box never emptied. There were so many muffins in that box which were now in the stomachs of the workers. They all looked around. No more muffins.


- - - - -


The next day, there were more muffins. And the next day, and the next day. They kept on coming. And each day, as usual everyone dived into them like pigs. Nobody said anything about the muffins. After a few days, workers would start to wait at the front doors of the castle, waiting for the muffins to arrive. And on perfect schedule, the muffins would come in a large, brown box, and as usual, everybody would toss them down their throats. People from all over town would come to see what the commotion was about. And once they tried the innocent-looking muffins, they were hooked. But Bowser wouldn't eat them.

Eventually everybody started acting more droopier, more paler, and their eyes would turn a hint of red. It was almost as if they were turning into zombies.

The more the people would turn zombie-like, the more Bowser stayed away from the muffins. But each day, the people would get hungrier and hungrier.


- - - - -


One day, Bowser arrived at the castle to find Peach standing in the middle of the lobby staring at him with bright, red, glaring eyes. The look seemed to burn into his mind. He suddenly realized that all of the other muffin-eaters were standing there, looking right at him. Suddenly, the door bell rang, and the people rushed straight at him – no, past him, and for the door. As usual, the muffins were there, and as usual the people were eating away at them.

What was in these muffins which make them act so weird? Bowser thought. He walked over to the crowd and managed to squeeze his large body through the crowd and to the box. By the time that Bowser reached the muffins, there were barely any left. He reached down and picked one up, and then exited from the mob. When he had gotten a safe distance from the crowd, he studied the muffin. Normal; it looked entirely normal. Until he turned the muffin over. Engraved on the bottom of the muffin, and probably every muffin, were the words: Hypno-muffins. Secret Command: "Destroy Bowser!"

Shocked, Bowser looked up from the writing on the muffin. He turned to look at the group who had stopped crowding around the muffins. The box must be empty. They all turned around and stared with their glaring, red eyes again, chanting, "Destroy Bowser! Destroy Bowser! Destroy Bowser!"

Bowser turned and ran into the kitchen and bolted the door. Chef Cook-A-Lot had installed the door bolts to keep his food from being stolen by baby Yoshis. Bowser looked around. There was nothing in the kitchen except locked cupboards and a pot full of wild mushrooms. He didn't know what to do, so he grabbed the pot and exited out the backdoor of the kitchen, up the stone stairway up to the hidden tower room. Peach had showed it to him after the Tropicle Tennis Tournament incident. He had locked the trap door and climbed out the window and onto the roof of the castle.

"At least they can't get me here."

Suddenly there was a slam as the now-unlocked trap door flew open.

"Destroy Bowser! Destroy Bowser!" The chanting continued as the like-zombies clambered out of the tower window.

"You can't! No!! Remember me? Bowser? Please, someone hear me! Peach? Toad? Luigi? Oh dear! This is it for me now!" He could have used brute strength to survive, yet these were innocents who didn't know what they were doing, plus, even for him, he couldn't take on a hundred or more at once! So, he looked around for something. The pot. He picked up the metallic pot, but didn't know what to do with it. Suddenly, zombified Luigi advanced on him, and thrust a charged punch right at Bowser. Bowser held up the pot in protection and Luigi's fist sailed straight into it. Luigi grabbed his fist in pain, as Bowser countered his advance. Bowser pulled one of the mushrooms from the dented pot and shoved it straight into Luigi's mouth and down his throat. Luigi, suddenly stopped, shook his head, rubbed his eyes (which were no longer bright red) and looked up at Bowser.

"Where am I?" Luigi looked around to see that he was so high. "Oh my goodness! How did I get up here!" He turned and saw the zombies coming at them and realized that they were their friends.

"Here." Bowser handed Luigi some mushrooms. Together, they broke the mushrooms into pieces which they stuffed down more people's throats. And then those people 'woke up' and started stuffing the mushrooms down others' throats, until everyone was in the proper, not-zombified state of mind. They all climbed back through the window through the hidden tower, which wasn't so hidden any more, and back into the lobby.

"Whew! Thanks a lot, Bowser! We don't know what would have happened if you hadn't stopped us!"

"I do," Bowser said under his breath to no one in particular.


- - - - -


And the next day, when the muffins arrived, they burned them.

"But there's one thing that I don't understand." Peach said to Bowser.

"What's that?"

"Why would Daisy do a thing like that?"

"Daisy didn't. She had nothing to do with this."

"How do you know that?"

"When were threw the muffins onto the fire this morning, I saw something written on the bottom of the box."

"What?"

"The return address."

"Who sent them then?"

"I'll give you one guess."

"Ooh," Peach scrunched up her face and tightened her fists. Ooh, that rotten Mario!"