Bowsette: A New Life
Chapter 52
The Truth
"I say, I'm afraid it's true Master Mario." Toadsworth said, just as bewildered as Mario despite having seen it. "My eyes did not fail me. Bowsette did in fact gather everyone in town to apologize for her actions in the past, organized the defense, and then protected the town." Toadsworth gulped. "I say that the town would likely have been destroyed by those creatures without the Koopa's stalwart defense."
Mario nodded, elated at the same time as he was confused. What was Bowsette planning? Did she intend to turn on them all later? If not, was she just siding with them until the threat was dealt with, like against the Smithy Gang, Cackletta, and others? More unbelievable still, could she actually be changing for the… no, she had plenty of opportunities to do that before, when the two had allied together against a common enemy, but Bowsette would always turn around and try to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom again a while after.
More confusing was, if Bowsette was changing, why would she? The Koopa Queen's mind had been a puzzle Mario could never understand. First Bowsette seemed like she kidnapped Peach but didn't give a Goomba's butt about her, then she seemed like she at least cared enough to not want her hurt. First Bowsette was reveling in the destruction and terror she caused as she conquered the Mushroom Kingdom (several times), then she put up a peace treaty, and then she's defending the kingdom. Then there's everything Mario and Bowsette have done together ever since that kiss.
Mario scratched his head as he tried to work out what was going on. In fact, even without all of that, Bowsette was clearly different. In truth Mario didn't know Bowsette as well as Kamek and her other servants and her son did, but even he could tell something was off. From the last time Mario fought Bowsette over a pit of lava like countless times before, Bowsette wasn't the same. Even the way she moved when they fought wasn't quite like what he remembered, less sure, more careful, as though she hadn't fought that much. Later, Bowsette was rude, crude, and far more boisterous and louder than she had been before.
Mario was still busy contemplating when the door to the meeting room opened.
-
Bowsette's joyful outburst warmed Kamek's heart. He was glad to see that Bowsette wouldn't have to suffer through those painful transformations ever again. There were more problems to deal with however, and nervously Kamek approached even as his Queen still cackled.
"Ahem. My Queen? My Queen!" Kamek had to shout to catch her attention. Bowsette looked down at him and smiled warmly. Bowsette's appreciative face terrified the Magikoopa, she would be dismissive of any aid given to her by her minions including Kamek himself. Kamek shook it off however and got back to business. "I have been able to confirm many of my suspicions with the Super Crown pieces."
Bowsette's expression turned grim. "Really. Well, out with it." Kamek then began to explain what was going on. "I see…" Not that Bowsette was likely to understand everything, but she got the gist. "Alright, time to find Mario and explain everything."
Kamek was, once again, surprised by this. It was getting to the point where he shouldn't be surprised by the fact that he's surprised by Bowsette anymore, but he wasn't that numb just yet. Why was His Majesty going to spill everything? Kamek would have expected, or at least hoped, that Bowsette would keep quiet about most of it. "Shouldn't we keep much of this to ourselves my Queen? I can't imagine the reaction of the Plumber is going to be positive."
Bowsette shrugged. "Probably not, but lying or being evasive would be far worse. If we're going to get past this, I… we need to be honest with him." Bowsette sighed. "Besides, I figure he'll forgive me, eventually." Without further comment, Bowsette walked out of the room leaving Kamek al…
Bowsette rushed back. "Fuck! What're you just sitting there for!? You're coming too!" Bowsette grabbed Kamek wheelchair and all before rushing off before Kamek could even try to protest.
-
Bowsette walked into the meeting room with Mario, Toadsworth, and the Chancellor already there. She plopped Kamek down next to the table before solemnly taking a seat at the middle of the table not far from them. 'There's still a chance to back out of this…' Bowsette considered before shaking her head. 'No, I should rip out that thorn now. If I don't tell them and they find out Mario will definitely hate me.'
Mario was looking at Bowsette confused yet hopeful. She hated to crush Mario's hopes, but Bowsette had to do it. Bowsette coughed to clear her throat and began. "I'm here right now to tell you that this is my fault." The words felt like they were a sharp hook being pulled out of her mouth. "The shadow things, the pink lightning storms, and more things than even I know, all of it."
Mario, Toadsworth, and the Chancellor all looked at each other. "I could say I was surprised, but I'm not." Toadsworth admitted. The Chancellor was uncharacteristically silent, but with a smug look of satisfaction on his face. "The Chancellor and I had suspected something of the sort, and now here you are admitting to it. What are you plotting this time?"
Bowsette chuckled humorlessly. "That's the thing, I fucked up big time. Had any of my plotting gone the way I had wanted it to, nothing like this would have ever happened." Bowsette contemplated her, or his, own foolishness as she had made her way over to the castle to find Mario. The Toad boy had been waiting for her to come out of the sewers and told her where Mario went. He was a good boy… Bowsette shook her head and turned back to the others.
Mario sighed. "How? What happened to cause-a all of this?" Trust it to Mario to get to the heart of the matter.
Bowsette shrugged. "It was typical of me, but at the same time wasn't." Bowsette began. "After you defeated me over at the Moon Kingdom, I almost lost all motivation right then and there. Maybe it would have been better if I had." Bowsette admitted. "However, after a bit I went down to my treasure vault and saw the Super Crown." The others looked at each other confused as to where this was going.
"Super Crown? I say, that's the thing that turns Toadettes into Peachettes right?" Toadsworth noted. "What does that have to do with your scheme?"
"I'm getting to that. So, there I was with this powerup in front of me and a lightbulb when off. If I could use it to change my gender, I'd be able to go anywhere, and nobody would ever suspect." Bowsette looked away.
"And you wanted to-a be turned to a male for this then?" Mario was admittedly less enthusiastic the more Bowsette went on.
"No, I wanted to be turned into a woman, much like Peach." Bowsette let the implications of that hit them before continuing. "You remember my other form? That's what I originally was, I was King Bowser for almost all my life." Bowsette turned to look Mario right in the eye. "That's what you originally fought against all this time, though you don't know it."
"That's…" Mario looked at Bowsette in disbelief. "How… how?" It was the only thing Mario could manage to say. Bowsette simply gestured to Kamek to take over from here.
Kamek sighed. "The crown had to be altered in order to work for Lord Bowser's plan. However, something about the alteration didn't work correctly, I still don't know what. The Super Crown was not only flawed, but increased in power by, a conservative estimate, several tens of thousands of times." Kamek sounded disappointed in himself. "It not only changed Bowser into Bowsette but made broad sweeping changes to reality to match that change. You might remember it as a massive pink light."
"How is that possible?" Toadsworth asked. "No power that I know of is great enough to do that!" Toadsworth sat there looking for any sign that Bowsette and Kamek were lying, but he found none. Truth be told, everybody has felt like something wasn't quite right for a while now, though the arrival of those creatures put such concerns aside. "I say, what has it to do with these shades?"
Kamek shrugged. "Honestly, I still don't know, it was a completely unintended consequence on my part." Kamek sounded solemn. "What I do know, for certain now, is that the creatures we've been facing, the pink lightning storms, the infection, all of it is connected to that incident."
"I'll explain it like this." Kamek pulled out a large roll of paper and laid it across the meeting room table. Kamek quickly drew the world alongside another quick drawing of same. "When the accident occurred, reality was altered. For example, there were once King Bowser statues, they are now Queen Bowsette statues. Everyone except Queen Bowsette herself including me had their minds altered to think that the King Bowser statues were always Queen Bowsette statues. This is true of anything that we know of involving the change so far in at least the Koopa and Mushroom Kingdoms."
Kamek drew an arrow from one world drawing to another. "However, the reality alterations did not destroy the Bowser statues to replace them with the Bowsette statues. More like…" Kamek folded the paper until the world he had the arrow pointed to covered the other. "The magic overlaid the changes over the existing reality and removed any little bits from the other reality that didn't conform."
Kamek grunted. "This includes thoughts, knowledge, and feelings. The problem was, those removed bits didn't simply disperse or vanish into the ether. The corrupted magic that covered the lands trapped those… Remnants inside it." Kamek finished by crumpling the paper up. "The lightning storms are those Remnants fighting to come back into being."
"Wait, then why didn't we-a see those things come right after the pink light?" Mario pondered.
"I thought you'd ask. I believe it's because at first this reality and the former reality weren't all that different, for the most part." Kamek explained. "I began receiving reports of random attacks by various of Bowsette's minions not long after the treaty. The Remnants of the old reality are trying to reassert themselves and restore the current reality to what it was previously. I think this reality began to deviate from the former more and more over the last few months. The further this reality diverged from the former, the more the Remnants responded. In fact, the first time I got reports of pink lightning storms almost immediately followed your last battle with my Queen."
Mario and Bowsette were blushing red, they both realized what had deviated right then. "So, if these things are-a trying to bring back the old reality, why-a are they trying to kill everybody?" Mario asked after a moment.
"I think it's because these Remnants aren't whole, mentally nor physically. They carry all the memories that their current counterparts did prior to the alteration as well as roughly equal bodies formed from the corrupted energy. This includes possessing all the same skills and abilities as you may have noticed. However, any desires their former selves might have had are subverted by a desire to restore the former reality, plus a lack of a truly complete mind. The result is insanity and extreme violence towards any of the current world's inhabitants."
"Infection is worse, as it isn't even placing the right Remnants back into a person, but a slew of random ones that slowly subvert the host's mind and body. However, as Peach and the captured subjects I've analyzed have shown, the infected are boosted in strength, speed, and resilience because of infection. The corrupted magic wreaks havoc on their bodies and alters them to exceed their normal limitations."
Kamek shook his head. "The unfortunate thing is, I don't believe anything these Remnants can do will ever restore the earlier reality. They are far too unstable to be able to do anything that could actually reverse it. I couldn't even do it if I had the power and knowledge. I wouldn't even be able to know what the previous reality was if I tried to restore it. My Queen might know some of the previous reality, but she couldn't know all of it. The only recourse for the Remnants would be to kill us all and live in our place, and even then, this reality and the Remnants wouldn't go back to the way they were."
"There's one bit of good news." Kamek held up a finger. "Destroying the Remnants doesn't mean they'll just pop up later again. The Remnants that form is all that remains from the former reality of that particular person. Just like if someone killed a Toad means they won't come back, killing the Remnant version of that same Toad means they won't come back either. There shouldn't be a means to resurrect them like with our troops either. I believe that is the reason why the attacks have been lessening. The Remnants are running out of Remnant Toads from and around Toad Town to throw at us."
"So, that means all we have to do in stay on the defensive and eventually these attacks will stop, right?" Bowsette asked. "Though… they can infect more people to throw at us too." Bowsette grumbled. "Unless we find another way, this could go on for a very long time."
"I was-a able to hear my other self talking to me in my head, but-a nothing from the rest of them." Mario noted.
Kamek nodded. "My guess is there's a connection between the Remnant and the current person. It is talking directly to your mind through the link between you. The other Remnants lack this connection with anyone else, so they can't talk to anyone else even if they want to."
Kamek growled and then reluctantly bowed to the Mushroom Kingdom residents present. "This all went horribly wrong. If anyone is at fault, it should be me. My failure at the modification caused-" Kamek began.
"SILENCE!" Bowsette roared and stood up. "I have no excuses and no one else is to blame. I didn't have any noble intentions, this was done under MY orders, and it was my impatience and impulsiveness that caused the crown to be worn before it was ready. This is MY fault Kamek, not yours."
The Chancellor grunted. "Now that that's cleared up…" The Chancellor finally spoke. "As much as I would like to, we can concern ourselves with Bowsette's role in this mess another time. The question is, what can we do about this?"
"I don't know." Bowsette sighed. She looked at the confusion and disappointment on Mario's face and couldn't stay there anymore. Bowsette walked through the meeting room to the door. "I don't know…" Bowsette left the room without looking back, she suddenly felt very very tired.
