Peach's heart started to fill with dread as she was placed in a small gondola leading into a furnace. I have to get out of here! She tried with all of her might to move but still found herself motionless. As the furnace drew closer she began to lose hope. This is it, isn't it? She thought. All at once fear overcame her, fear of a fate worse than death.

Being a statue was bad enough, but at least I am still me. After this I'll be nothing more than loose change. Just coins to be put in blocks, left in parking lots, or lost between couch cushions. Pieces of me will be spread across the Kingdom! People will wonder what happened to their poor princess while the use me to by a soda at the gas station!

As the gondola pulled into the furnace, she sat down and started to cry. The heat started to get to her. She could feel a change inside her, not one of melting. In fact a cool chill shot through her. She could feel the temperature drop as she got back to her feet. What's happening? As ice started to cover the gondola, she recognized the feeling.

It was a few months back. Her birthday party, actually. All of the Kindgom was celebrating the occasion, though only her closest friends were invited to her private party. Mario had insisted she save his present for last. He always knew exactly what to get her.

"Go ahead, open it!" Mario said with a smile.

"Okay then." Peach grabbed the box. It was cool to the touch. She pulled on the ribbon and opened the box. Inside it was a blue flower. "What is thi- HEY!" The Princess had looked up to receive a snowball to the face. Thrown by none other than Mario, wearing a light blue cap and shirt, with red overalls. One by one, Luigi, Toad, Toadette, Daisy, and Rosalina pulled out flowers too, as they did their clothing changed to a light blue or white color.

"Go ahead, grab the ice flower, if you dare." Mario taunted.

That birthday was the best snowball fight of her life, despite it being summer.

So Barry made this thing with an ice flower, how nice of him.

The gondola pulled out of the furnace, and instead of pouring out molten pink metal, it unceremoniously dumped Peach out onto the floor. A worker noticed this and pressed a red button, and all at once the movement in the facility stopped. "Woah, never seen that before." He said, waving down some other workers and grabbing a cart.

A couple of them looked inside the furnace and noticed there was a solid sheet of ice inside. "Wow, who decided to turn our furnace into a refrigerator? Hey guys come look at this!"

After a little bit, Peach was set back up and hoisted onto the cart. "Hey! This thing is ice cold." A devilish smile came across the koopa's face. "Hey Benny, I will give you 50 coins if you kiss this."

"Sure!"

Eew, don't kiss me you creep! Of course no one could hear her object, so Benny walked on up and kissed her on the lips. That is where his lips were frozen for the next 20 minutes. As the guys were laughing their shells off, Wario came down to see what the commotion was about.

"What the heck is going on down here? I thought I told you guys to melt this thing down." Fortunately for Benny, Wario couldn't see him behind the statue.

"We were sir, it went through the furnace and it froze. There is literally a good 3 inch thick sheet of ice in there."

"Don't lie to me." Wario was not amused.

"We aren't sir, look for yourself!"

Wario climbed up and took a peek, and sure enough, there were icicles everywhere. "Wow, what caused this?"

"We think it's the statue. Benny hasn't been able to unstick himself from it for the past 20 minutes.

Wario noticed the koopa, lips stuck to the statue. "WAHAHAHA! Oh, man that is rich." It took him a moment to stop laughing. "Seriously though, get him unstuck and get back to work. I don't pay you to goof off."

"Yes sir!" they all said.

Yes, please get this fool off of me, and never speak of it again.

"Oh and send your makeout partner there down to shining. I am glad it didn't get melted down, we have a buyer."

While the past hour was traumatic for the Princess, at least she got another spa day. She just hoped they would wash her mouth out with industrial strength cleaner.

The next day everyone at WarioWare inc. was sweating. Despite being up in the mountains, being without an air conditioner was terrible. They had to shut down smelting and reclamation operations just to try to keep the temperature down. Wario looked at the thermostat. "102! This is ridiculous!" He grabbed his phone and dialed a few quick numbers.

"Hey uh, Burnie!"

"It's 'Barry' sir."

"Yeah whatever. Call a repairman to fix the darn A/C thing. It's hotter than Dark Land in here!"

"Actually sir, I took the liberty of calling them yesterday when it broke, they should be here in the hour."

"Good job! I should give you a raise!" Wario wasn't going to give him a raise.

"Ok sir, anything else I can do for you?"

"That's it." Wario said as he hung up the phone.

Meanwhile, downstairs. Barry clicked on the small chat box and started typing.

Blue: We're on.

So it begins.

I knew that a near death experience would make for a pretty dark chapter so I figured, "Why not have some fun". Interesting fact, Benny now holds the record for longest kiss with a Princess. Next chapter will be up on Wednesday!