Princess Peach stared for several seconds out to the destruction of her kingdom, in shock, in horror. Her eyes burned at the heat and tears coming in. It seemed longer than only the few seconds it actually was before Mario grabbed her arm and pulled her to the doors of the balcony. "Come on," he said standing her up and hastily guiding her to the double doors.
He opened them and shut it behind the two. A large crash made Mario realize that the stand they were on weakened and fallen.
He was only slightly less stunned than Peach. He had reacted only on instinct to get out of there. The muffled sounds of attacks and screams sounded distant behind the doors. "Did you know about this?" he asked dumbly, not thinking about the implications.
Her shock of betrayal mingled with indignation. "Are you accusing me of betraying my own Kingdom?!"
"I don't know." Mario answered, grabbing his cap and wringing it in his hands. "I don't know what I'm saying. But Bowser?!"
He was only dumbfounded. Peach shook her head, crossing her arms and letting her anger melt away. He wasn't pointing a finger, only wanted to know which way to point. "I. . . I think his feelings were genuine. . . He was eager to tell both kingdoms."
As soon as she said that, they both felt a pang of fear.
Was all of this just a lie? Was Bowser just going along with everything to find a weakness in them? Peach frowned and tears stung at her eyes. Naive Princess. She shut them tight to think but nothing came to mind. Only Bowser being a liar filled her mind.
"How about we go to the roof and see what he's up to? . . . I can go." Mario corrected. "If it's an attack for real." Despite whatever may happen, he still wanted his Princess to be safe.
"Can you take him on for real?" Peach asked, her turn to ask a question without thinking first.
"I CAN!" Mario insisted, "I've had to battle the troops along the way, and Bowser and I did more than just. . . you know. It wasn't always just me fighting against him." Mario shook his head. "Anyway, I'll go see what's up. . . I hope I can talk some sense into him."
Princess Peach nodded. "Good luck. I'll. . . think of what to do." She said, thinking about the aftermath of all this anyway. Her People. . . given shocking news, then an event that just contradicted everything she just announced to them. She sighed. "Be safe."
"I will be," Mario bowed to her. Then he ran off, going higher up the stairs to the roof's staircase.
Peach walked off to head to her room. If anything else were to occur, she would need items, supplies. "Oh, Bowser. . ." she muttered with despair, anxiety, and a shaky voice. "What's on your mind? Were you unhappy? Were you planning this all along?" Her narration out loud was stopped when she heard the step-step-clop of a familiar figure present in her life.
Toadsworth.
Oh, dear. She could hear his scoldings, his worries he would voice to her, the "why did you think you could trust him?"
And honestly, she would have no answer, and he would be in the absolute right. . .
"Princess!" Came his voice amidst the now more distant attacks outside.
She turned and saw him speed-hobbling on his cane. Her eyes were extremely watery and stinging.
"Princess, come with me." he waved his cane around to gesture the 'follow me' and walked straight past her without a second glance.
That. . . was not at all what she expected from the old, wise Toad. But he didn't even spare a glance back to her and clearly fully expected her to follow him without a doubt.
So, with all her mixed emotions of anguish, faint hope, and confusion, the young blonde Princess followed suit before her caretaker disappeared from her sight.
Mario ran up and up and up, the sounds from outside getting louder. He and Bowser. . . their relationship has always been an odd one.
Their first time fighting had been ferocious. It was a genuine final battle between life and death for the Princess. He dodged and weaved and it had reminded him of his thrill of jumping over barrels at a high altitude of an unfinished building. But instead of cool night air, the suffocating heat of lava rose, and fire was shot at him, and the threat of being crushed was real. He could have fallen, been burnt to a crisp, melted in lava, anything.
But against all odds, he was the victor.
The win was breathtaking, and the Princess even more so. She had thanked him sweetly, she seemed so tired, ready to get back home.
And he, on the other hand was buzzed from the adrenaline. The battle was anything but anti-climatic, but he was already missing the feeling.
He and the Princess grew to be close friends, and he relished time with her as much as the time spent away from her to go through it all again to rescue her.
He dreamt about a situation close to it, but this time she was helping right alongside him.
Mario was a thrill seeker, and felt horrible about at the same time. Hoping for disaster felt sickening, but he couldn't help himself. He desperately wished that his thoughts wouldn't somehow make its way to Star Haven. What would the Stars above that he's saved before think? And even so, he wondered if they had heard and didn't mind it, considering Bowser never stopped trying.
One day, Princess Peach invited him to her castle, and not Luigi. The green brother was fine with it, assuming the Princess simply wanted to be alone with Mario. He was on board with the two being an item. He believed he knew how Mario felt.
There, the castle's stars were stolen. Everyone was contained within the walls and not harmed. Not a single Toad, and the magic spell placed on the castle was even weak enough that a handful of Toads were able to bestow power stars upon him.
The paintings led to interesting worlds, and if he made the mistake of getting harmed enough to fall unconscious or fall into the sky, he would be rejected out of the portal. And the power of the caps he discovered. Extremely fun, useful, and breathtaking.
It seemed too fun, too elaborately planned. Too coincidential.
Honestly, the red plumber hadn't even thought about the adventure that way, even upon meeting Bowser. The normally extremely hostile Koopa was different. Somehow. Mario couldn't put his finger on it at the time. He laughed more. But he defeated the King and saved Peach once more. The Princess showed her gratitude, and invited him to partake in baked pastries and tea.
There, she tentatively brought up Bowser, his recent adventure and how it was.
He answered nonchalantly, afraid of gushing over how amazing it felt to him.
She then tried beating around the bush and hinted at. . . something more. She pushed him forward inch by inch, until finally dumping the truth and suggestion on him unceremoniously.
And then . . .
and then, well one thing led to another, and the plumber was shocked at the revelation, but thoroughly enjoyed what happened after that.
So between the rivalry and tension and good times between, he thought as he reached the top, why, of all things this, Bowser? Even if he genuinely disliked Mario, what about the Princess? Did he really never care?
The red hero of the kingdom kicked opened the door to the roof. He looked up to the main ship circling the castle. He would board it, and get to the bottom of this. He would tear into Bowser until he figured exactly what the FUCK was going on.
Scaling one of the towers of the red roof, he jumped and hopped and wall kicked to the boat. He grabbed on and heaved himself up.
"Bowser!" He called out angrily. "Koopa!" He looked around the wooden deck, eyes narrowed. Was he not here? Hiding?! On a different ship? "Come out here! Explain yourself!"
Just quiet (as quiet as the attacks far down below and far and the whirring of the ship itself could be). Mario took a step forward to investigate inside the ship when he dodged the burst of colorful shapes to him. He looked up and saw the attacker on the high deck of the airship.
"I don't like what you were yelling out," came the slight accented voice of the Koopa.
"Ludwig?" Mario got held his fists, glaring at the blue haired Koopa.
The Royal Leader clenched the head of the wand in his other hand. "It implies the truth of something ridiculous I heard." he stated, a quiet subtle anger to him.
A lowkey sense of relief began to fill Mario's chest despite the circumstance. Did this mean . . .? But. "Where's Bowser?"
Ludwig Von Koopa's beady eyes narrowed. "It doesn't matter now. And you shouldn't care anyway. You should be adversaries, NOT! . . ." Before losing his cool, Ludwig shot out another burst of magic suddenly, and went inside his shell to dash attack.
Mario's relief washed away and worry began to set in. If. . . something happened. Worry and guilt kicked in as he jumped into battle, hopping over Ludwig's shell and turning on a dime. But he was unfocused, still unsure of everything. Bowser? Ludwig? Were all of the Koopalings here? Does all of Bower's forces know?!
Too many questions, and he was unfocused. He wanted answers but he was sure Ludwig would refuse to speak another word.
They battled tirelessly, and Ludwig's fury seemed to fuel him. Mario's preoccupied mind out him at a disadvantage. He kicked the spiked blue shell as it came toward him at one point, but it rebounded faster than he thought. He was knocked over, and Ludwig popped out as they tumbled over each other, with the Koopa ending on top, wand pointed threateningly at his face.
Mario frowned back, mentally kicking himself for being so caught up in his emotions. "What did you do to Bowser? Why are you doing this?!"
Despite his wanting to keep details known to Mario at a minimum, anger spoke for the usually collected eldest Koopa. He punched Mario "You! ruin everything! How long was this going on? How pointless was our efforts? I bet. . . I bet you're mind controlling our King! And they call you the good guy!"
"We aren't-!" Mario began/
A clawed hand swept against his face, drawing blood along the three cuts. "You! If not you! The Princess then! We'll take her down next!"
Adrenaline let Mario ignore the stinging pain. "You're already on thin ice for endangering Bowser. If you think you can get away with laying a single claw on the Princess. . ."
His threat was never finished. A final burst of magic knocked him out. Ludwig stood, glaring down at the blacked out plumber. An uneasy feeling rose in the pit of his gut. This couldn't be right. Was this real?! He looked out to the kingdom, feeling. . . something. Something unpleasant.
Taking out the communications device out of his shell, he hesitated before speaking into it.
"Koopalings, come in. Mario came to me. I brought him down. . . Let's fall back for now."
"Gotcha." Roy replied.
"Coming!" Iggy chirped in.
"Heard loud and clear," Morton said gruffly.
"Already? Fine." Wendy said.
"Alright." Larry answered blankly.
"Oki doki." Lemmy said a bit distantly.
With their verbal confirmations, Ludwig put away the shell phone. He looked from the kingdom to the castle, then lastly to the sky. He turned to Mario finally, and grabbed ahold of him. He dragged him off to the prison on the ship, a shell of a lot of mixed feelings and thoughts in his mind.
Author's Note: Hello agaiinnnnnn. Sorry for the late update. Life! Ya know. Lol. I'm trying to work on Personified, but the muse of the next group of characters isn't really coming to me. Maybe cuz the plot is starting to kick up.
Anyway, here we're seeing Mario's side of the story. Cute, oblivious plumber. The timeline I have is sorta vaguely explained, but I think context clues and descriptions of games are good enough. If need be, I'll clear things up later.
Leave a review for the struggling Trio!
And speaking of Reviews!
Whatanauthorsgottado: Thanks for reviewing every chapter thus far! It was nice to see a sudden surge of notifications all of a sudden. I am a fan of this interesting dynamic! I really just want to get to interaction between the Three, but ya know! Story's gotta story. I hope you like this update, along with more to come! P.S. Mario's curse was a reference to your review that made me laugh, lol.