Ok, so maybe I lied. I just couldn't wait until monday to post another page, so I guess I will make the update schedule Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.
"Whoawoahwoah, SLOW DOWN! You're saying Peach was kidnapped by WARIO!?" Mario was furious, the only thing preventing him from blowing a gasket was the pain from a fractured femur.
"Kinda" was all Barry managed to squeeze out.
"Whaddya mean, 'kinda'?"
"I... i mean Wario didn't know it was Peach, at least I don't think."
Luigi, who seemed a little more calm about the situation, chimed in. "How do you not know you are kidnapping a princess?"
"Because I was preventing her from being kidnapped by Bowser! You see, I made a special crown for her so she can turn into metal and pose like a statue. So when Bowser came by, he wouldn't know the princess was right under his nose! I designed it to turn her into gold instead of regular metal, so it would be more convincing. But Wario being Wario probably saw a solid gold statue and had to have it."
"Congratulations Barry, you successfully designed the world's worst kidnapping countermeasure." Mario had finally calmed down enough to think straight. "Barry, how did you make this crown?"
"Well the main ingredients were a few metal caps and some coins."
"Good" Mario sighed with relief. "The caps will have definitely worn off by now and Wario will be left with a beautiful woman. He's probably returning her to the castle right now."
"Umm, probably not." Barry squeaked, he knew Mario was going to kill him for sure.
"What do you mean, 'probably not'?" If Mario's eyes shot lasers, Barry would be a pile of ash right now.
"You see, I didn't want Peach to return to normal too soon, so I added an Ice flower to stop the reverting process..."
Luigi knew his brother all too well, and with a well timed foot, intercepted a crutch meant for Barry, and continued the conversation as if that didn't happen. It had dawned on Luigi that there was a big hole in Barry's story. Why didn't Peach just fight Wario off? I've seen her do it at the Smash Bros. tournament countless times . It took him a moment to come up with an explanation "Barry, Do you even understand how the metal cap works?"
"You put it on and it turns you into metal, right?"
"Not necessarily, once the user puts it on, it reads their intent and carries it out to the best of its ability. If I need to walk through a poisonous cavern, it protects me from the gas. If I want to walk under water, it lets me sink to the bottom. Do you see where I am going with this?"
"So since she wanted everyone to think she was a statue, she's pretty much a statue." For all his smarts, Barry sure felt stupid at the moment. "But why couldn't the cap notice she changed her mind?"
"Probably because you decided to EXPERIMENT WITH THE FREAKIN FORMULA!" Mario had forgotten about his leg, but it was all too eager to remind him about the injury "MAMA-MIA! OUCH! Oooh, that hurt. Anyway, how did you plan on fixing her?"
"Touching a fire flower will cancel out the ice flower. You didn't think I wanted her to be made of gold forever, did you?"
Mario zoned out after that, he knew he had to confront Wario. And soon. He shuddered as he thought what Wario might do to her. Best case scenario, she would be mounted as the figurehead on one of Wario's yachts. Worst case, she would be melted down into gold coins and used in a money bath. At least Bowser never laid a finger on her.