Chapter 4

Fears and Hesitations

Fully stocked with mushrooms, fire flowers, and even a star or two, Mario headed for the highest spire of Peach's castle. Upon closer inspection, it was draped in a strange dark and violet energy wave. However, Mario couldn't stop now. After stopping at the store and dropping the mushroom kids off under a bush, the cloud he was riding was about to disappear. He pulled out a star and jumped out of the cloud just in time, crashing through the window and through the plasma energy around it.

The four in the room stared at him in pure shock.

"Mario?" Peach's eyes welled up with tears.

Bowser growled. Daisy's jaw dropped. Kammy shrieked.

"Master Bowser!" Kammy raged. "I thought you said he was dead!"

Mario turned to him, "You said I was dead? Come on, Bowser…"

"I said he was defeated!" Bowser corrected, crossing his arms.

"That does not look very defeated!" Kammy waved her wand frantically in his direction.

He smiled and formed a fireball. "I can show you what defeated looks like, King Koopa."

Bowser rumbled, fire forming at his lips. "Bring it, plumber!"

Mario's fireball was ready… as soon as Bowser attacked, he'd throw it… any second now…

Kammy looked back and forth between them. "Oh for badness sake!" She flicked her wand forward towards Mario, who turned immediately and countered the blast with his fireball. He chucked another fireball at her and she wailed. "ACK! Master Bowser! Do something!" She flew around the room frantically, her broom on fire.

The princesses couldn't help but laugh at her misfortune. Bowser even held back a chuckle. Kammy ended up repairing it with her wand, but steam was nearly coming from her ears as she saw her audience. "MASTER BOWSER!"

Bowser shook out of it, back to reality. There was Peach… lovely Peach… behind Mario. He needed to fight. He dove at him with his claws extended.

That was not the attack Mario expected. He jumped back, but got scratched a bit in the stomach. He winced but forced a fireball into Bowser's face. The beast held up his claw and came down, but Mario stopped it with his hands. They struggled against each other for awhile before Bowser realized he had another claw to use. He brought it down toward Mario's face, but this time a pink sphere opened in front of him and pushed him backward. Peach had opened her parasol against him.

"You okay, Mario?" she asked.

"Of course! Thanks, Princess!" he gave a wink and a peace sign.

Bowser roared in frustration again. He could finish it… here and now with Kammy's help he could end it. He could win.

…but he didn't want to.

"Tactical retreat, Kammy!" he growled.

"What?!" everyone in the room asked him.

"Let's go!" He jumped in his clown mobile and flew off, a hesitant Kammy behind him.

Kammy tried to catch up, "You could've won, Master Bowser…"

"Nah… Mario always wins…" he lied.

.

Daisy wrapped her arms around Luigi, holding back her relieved tears. "I'll get you a new hat, Weeg," she promised him.

"Ah… it's just a hat…" he patted her back, knowing full well she was worried to death about him.

"I can't believe we survived that…" Mario mumbled. He looked off toward the direction of Bowser's castle. What is going on with him?

"What's that?" Luigi asked.

"Uh… nothing…" Mario shrugged. "Just saying… um… we easily survived that."

Luigi looked at him skeptically. His brother was reading him like an open book. Daisy pulled away quickly, a sly smirk on her face. "That's right! You did! Both of you did!"

"Daisy…" Mario said warningly.

She didn't pay him any mind. "You're pretty powerful, Weegie!"

Luigi frowned. "It was mainly Mario…"

"Oh, come on! Luigi, you are on-par with Mario! You could probably take him in a fight!" She retracted. Oops.

Luigi shook his head violently. "No way! Not that I'd want to anyway…" He looked at his brother, who was giving him a soft smile. He turned back toward Daisy. "But no way!"

"A-Anyway…" Peach was anxious to change the subject. "You guys are welcome to stay at the castle until your house can be… um… fixed."

Mario and Luigi looked at the wreckage. "Thanks, Peach," Mario smiled. He held out his elbow to her. "Shall we?"

Peach stifled a giggle. "We shall." And she took his arm.

As he passed Daisy, Mario whispered, "That was too close, Daisy. Let it go." And continued on.

Daisy sighed. She looked at Luigi, who was staring at the broken house. She put out her hand and cleared her throat. Luigi looked at her, and she looked meaningfully at his arm. He reddened. "Oh… sorry, Daisy…" He put out his elbow for her, and she grasped it with a small peck on his cheek, making him even redder.

.

"His biggest fear is causing harm to come to us, so LET. IT. GO." Mario was saying.

Daisy sighed. "I know, I know… but still…"

Luigi was getting washed up while the others sat around a lounging area of the castle. The mushroom servants were tripping over themselves trying to make the four of them comfortable. They felt so bad about not being able to bust into the princess's chambers when they needed to.

"Daisy!" Mario nearly shouted.

"Would you two stop bickering for five minutes?" Peach asked, exasperated.

"What now?" Toad and Toadette came in, huge grins on their faces. They were always amused by the constant arguments between the Sarasaland Princess and their local hero. Usually, they were arguments about Luigi, but the only arguments the mushroom children ever heard were the petty we-don't-want-to-agree-with-each-other-on-anything arguments.

The two arguers stopped when they appeared though. "Nothing…" Mario mumbled.

"It's not important…" Daisy shrugged.

"It's important… just not easy to explain," Mario disagreed.

"It's very easy to explain. We're just choosing not to."

Peach rolled her eyes. "I guess you can't."

The children giggled. This was the type of argument they were used to. They didn't care about the secrecy.

Soon enough, Luigi came down. He was still a little shell-shocked from the day, but Daisy sat him next to her and rubbed his back a bit. He shivered every once in awhile and absentmindedly scratched his hatless head. Other than that, he tried to remain focused in the conversation.

"So… anyone else notice Bowser acting weird?" Mario asked.

"Moreso than usual?" Daisy raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah," Mario dismissed her joke with a serious furrow of his brow. "Very strange."

"Well… he did retreat when he didn't have to…" Peach said. "I mean… I really thought we didn't stand much of a chance against him and Kammy…"

"And his ambush plan was better this time around… maybe he knows something we don't," Daisy added. "Maybe he's taking things more seriously… getting better at evil plans…"

"Hm… I don't think so…" Mario rubbed his chin. "I mean, sure, his ambush was perfect and he actually came close to winning… but… I don't know… it was almost like… he was… holding back?"

"Bowser?" Peach asked. "No way. That's not like him at all."

"Exactly." He looked at Luigi. He wanted to say, 'He could've killed us.' But seeing his brother made him backtrack. He didn't want to bring that up. But that was the best evidence he had. He decided he would have to figure it out on his own.

Yes… Bowser could've killed them… so why didn't he jump at the chance?

.

"What was that about, Your Awfulness?" Kammy kept nagging.

Bowser just wanted to be left alone. "I… um… have another plan… That one… um… wasn't working out…" he tried. "Anyway, I need to take a walk through my kingdom… catch you later, Kammy!" And with that, he stormed out of his castle and took a walk through his moonlit kingdom.

"What is the matter with me?!" he scoffed at himself. "I had them right where I wanted them! I had them right in the palm of my claw! So what the Underwhere was I thinking leaving a perfect plot? I won… I WON!" He roared.

"Yeah, you did…" the voice made him visibly jump. "So why didn't you?"

He turned and was once again staring Mario in the mustache.

"Everything okay, Bowser?"

Bowser just stared at him. He couldn't even open his mouth. What could he say? Nothing.