Bowsette: A New Life

Chapter 53
Bowser is Bowsette

Most of the meeting, Mario didn't say much and just sat there as Bowsette and Kamek explained. Despite what they told him he still could not grasp the idea of who Bowsette had been, that the massive Turtle Dragon thing was Bowsette's real self. Mario wondered how much else was different from what he knew now. The whole idea that whole sections of his entire life as Mario remembered them never actually happened disturbed him.

Kamek didn't pursue Bowsette has she left, though Mario could tell Kamek wanted to. "With the remains of the Super Crown I will be able to mass produce the magic contained inside. It shouldn't take too long to develop defenses against their pink lightning." Kamek continued. "Afterward, I'll work on a way to cure the infection."

"I say, get to it then. The quicker we don't have to fear being changed the quicker we can fight back." Toadsworth began. "However, our next concern should be the Princess. Where could they have taken her?" Toadsworth asked.

Mario however wasn't paying much attention to this conversation. All he could think about was the look on Bowsette's face as she left. He had never seen anything like it. Even after her worst losses the determination in her eyes never left, but it was gone now. As that was there was a look of utter defeat and hopelessness that brought up an intuition that something was very wrong. "Uh… I'll be-a back in a while." Mario got up and left the room to go look for Bowsette.

As he walked the halls of the castle trying to find the Koopa Queen, Mario tried to make sense of what he was feeling. He felt anger over what Bowsette… or Bowser, had done yes, but what confused him most was how keen his disappointment was. Mario realized now that the Bowsette he knew now wasn't the one he knew of before this all had started. The fact is, the Bowsette from before the pink light that he remembered was never even real. It explained a lot of Bowsette's strange behavior that just didn't fit with what he knew about the woman.

Before this, Mario hardly knew Bowsette to begin with, except as an evil tyrant he would fight against time and again. Then, Mario tried to get to know Bowsette after their last fight, but he was working under faulty assumptions. The truth was, Mario didn't know this Bowsette at all and trying to compare and judge her from what he knew of the other one wasn't entirely fair to this Bowsette.

These thoughts continued as Mario looked around for Bowsette, and he started going up, until he found himself in front of the door to Peach's room. The door had been left slightly ajar which was odd, the last thing Mario had heard about it before his trip to the Koopa Kingdom was that the room had been locked after Peach was taken.

Mario stepped inside and there Bowsette was. She was standing before the hole in the wall that was left behind when her Remnant had blasted in and kidnapped Peach and Luigi. The castle staff had decided to just lock the room shut while they dealt with the other more pressing matter of the invasion and so hadn't bothered to fix it just yet. Bowsette was just blankly staring out the hole lost in her thoughts. It was sunset and the sun was just barely peeking over the mountains in the distance.

Something about the way Bowsette was standing there and the expression on her face made Mario feel uneasy. Mario walked up slowly to the woman and waited for her to acknowledge him. After a few minutes Bowsette sighed and turned to him. The usual fire in her eyes was missing, they reminded Mario of looking into the eyes of a corpse. "Yeah, Pasta f… Mario? Whatcha want?" Bowsette's voice was flat.

Mario hadn't considered what to talk to Bowsette about, or even to ask her anything. "I don't really know-a you, so let's start-a over." Mario tried to put Bowsette at ease and decided to put out a hand. "Hey-a there stranger, I'm Mario Mario. Some people call-a me Super Mario. Nice to-a meet you."

Bowsette didn't shake his hand. "Sorry pal, that's not going to do the job." Bowsette admitted. Bowsette looked out the hole again, she couldn't single out the spot in the sky where Peach had vanished, mockingly waving at them.

Eventually, Mario put his hand down. "Yeah, that-a was too much to hope for." Mario moved to the edge of the hole and sat down with his legs dangling outside. "Still, I would like-a to get to know the real Bowsette. Or maybe Bowser is the-a right term?" Mario looked out into the night sky and thought of the first thing to ask. "The Bowsette I know didn't care about-a Peach at all, but you seem to. Why?"

Bowsette sighed and sat near the plumber. "Well, I was once in love with her, that much I can tell you. I would kidnap Peach, take over the kingdom, and try to get Peach to marry me. Over and over and over again." Bowsette barked out a humorless laugh. "Fuck me I'm stupid. I think on some level I always knew it was a hopeless cause. I know Peach wouldn't have cared what I looked like but... A kind, refined, delicate princess like that going for a ruthless tyrant like me? It was always doomed to fail; we were nothing alike."

Bowsette shook her head. "Though, it didn't really click until the Moon Kingdom. For context, in the other reality Peach rejected both of us." Bowsette snapped her fingers. "That's when I realized it. If Peach wouldn't go for someone like YOU who has much much more in common with her not to mention a human, the chances for me were just straight up zero. I didn't even know what I was going to do with my life for a while. I think the years of futility caught up to me right then and… well, I wallowed in my anger at myself for a bit. Then I concocted that scheme with the Super Crown and well… you know the rest." Bowsette made an exploding gesture with her hands.

Mario let the minutes wear on as he contemplated this. It seems things weren't too much different from what he knew, just that Bowser's motivations were different. "So… now what are-a you going to do?" Mario asked. He guessed Bowsette had been considering that very thing.

"I don't know. I don't know anything anymore." Bowsette looked down through the hole and stared at the ground far below. 'Maybe I…' Bowsette got to her feet. "I… it would be better if I… I…" Bowsette chuckles in a miserable way that strikes a different fear into Mario's heart.

Bowsette stepped forward only to have Mario jump up and grasp her tightly. "Bowsette don't! This won't make-a anything better!" Bowsette struggled to keep going forward but Mario held firm.

"Won't it?" Bowsette asked. "WON'T IT!?" Bowsette growled. "I'm the Wrecker of Kingdoms! Underwhere even, I'm the Wrecker of Worlds! Even when I'm not even trying to I still ruin EVERYTHING for EVERYONE." Bowsette turned her head to look at the plumber. "I destroy everything just by existing, even the few things I DO care about! My people, my kingdom, even my son, I wreck it all." Bowsette stopped. "My own son can barely even spend time with me unless he's helping me with an invasion. There's so much time I missed with him because I was out chasing a woman who would never want me. I've only ever cared about what I wanted, never him. Junior loves me so much and I don't even know why. I've never done anything for him."

Mario held Bowsette tightly, but it was more like a firm hug than anything. If she was truly resolute in what she was about to do Bowsette could easily throw Mario off. Mario felt the drops of Bowsette's tears landing on his hands. "I'm tired of it! I'm tired of everybody fearing me! I'm tired of being HATED! What has it ever gotten me? NOTHING!" As if to underscore Mario's point, Bowsette swings out an arm and hits Mario so hard he goes flying off her until he hits the wall, dazed a bit but Mario has had worse.

Mario gets up and rushes over to grab Bowsette again. Rather than throw Mario off again, then simply turn back to the hole and leap, Bowsette looks at Mario with confusion. "Why? Why do you try to stop me? Don't tell me it's the right thing to do because it's clearly not. Everybody would be better off without me." Bowsette tenderly placed a hand on Mario's cap. "Why? Please. Tell me why…?"

Mario looks up at the distraught woman and smiles. "It's because you-a aren't as bad as you like to think. You don't do that much-a damage in your invasions. Your son loves you and he-a would be so sad to see you gone. Junior loves you because you're-a his mo… father, whatever. Besides… it…"

"Don't you say it." Bowsette growls.

"I'm-a gonna say it." Mario smirks. "It's the…"

"Don't say it!" Bowsette demands.

"I'm-a gonna saaaaay it!" Mario said mockingly.

"Don't you…" Bowsette began. Despite herself, the corner of her lips starts to turn up.

"It's the-a right thing to-a do." Mario finally finishes.

"ARRGH!" Bowsette roared in anguish. "You piss me off SO MUCH!"

"Ah come-a on Bowsette. I know you-a love it!" Mario starts laughing. Bowsette joined him and the two stood there giggling like idiots for a minute. "Are you-a okay now?" Mario asked. He was still worried. Mario hoped that teasing Bowsette would snap her out of it.

"No." Bowsette's response made Mario hold onto her a bit tighter. "I will never be okay. None of this is okay." Bowsette admitted. "I'm not going to jump if that's what you're worried about." Mario didn't entirely believe her, until he saw her face flush red. "S-so how long do you intend to hold me Pasta Freak? This'll be awkward the next time I take a shower."

Mario released the Koopa Queen, and she stepped away from the hole. "Come to think of it, a fall like that probably wouldn't have killed me anyway." Bowsette noted. "Sorry about the drama."

Bowsette looked away from the plumber. "You hate me." Bowsette's other doubts rose to the surface. Mario's only response was to shake his head. "You should. I'm the epitome of evil and destruction. I know I'm rude and messy and I don't care. I'm definitely hideous." Said the beauty who was only rivaled by Peach herself.

"Hey now. You-a definitely aren't hideous. Or plain. Or even-a just a bit attractive. You're gorgeous." Mario noted. "The rest… you-a can work on that. From what a little Toad kid-a tells me, you already are."

Bowsette blushed at the complement, then her face shifted to grumpy as Mario continued. "Ugh. What has that little ang… brat" Bowsette quickly swapped words. "been saying about me behind my back?" Bowsette's insincerity about her anger was clear. "Oh well, at least I don't have to tell you what I've been doing." Bowsette shrugged.

"Yeah. Let's-a go. We need to find Peach somehow." Mario wondered if Merluvlee could do the job.