Bowsette: A New Life
Chapter 36
Old Rivals, New Enemies
Luigi picked himself up off the floor. He had been watching Peach rant and rave, something about truth and taking back the world or something, Luigi had long since stopped listening. When a massive explosion took out a wall to the room, Luigi had dove to the ground and covered his head. A purplish Koopa Copter flew into the room and shot Bullet Bills his direction which Luigi dodged as best he could.
A strange Turtle Dragon creature pulled themselves up out of the Koopa Copter and looked at him. It quickly grabbed a Bob-omb and threw it at Peach's cell, which exploded and destroyed the bars easily. Luigi once again took cover as well as he could as more Bob-ombs were thrown around the room. Luigi managed to avoid getting more than a couple of scrapes all told.
Luigi stood up and was about to attack this enemy when... "Hug…gack!" Luigi struggled as a chain was wrapped around his neck from behind. "Pea… Pe… gack!" Peach was trying to strangle him with one of the chains she was restrained with. Luigi tried to breathe, but he was starting to see spots. "You will see the truth! YOU WILL SEE THE TRUTH!" Peach yelled and squeezed harder. The last thing Luigi remembered was hearing Peach chuckling as everything went black.
***
Mario ran up the stairs as fast as he could, the fires of determination in his blue eyes. Mario could swear he heard Bullet Bills and Bob-ombs exploding up there and tried to pour on the speed. Mario had left Luigi up there with Peach and it worried him, if Peach got loose who knows how long his brother could hold out? Whatever kindness and gentleness Peach had was gone from whatever she was now. A stab of terror shot through Mario's heart at the thought of what she could do to Luigi.
Mario opened the door to Peach's room and entered into a scene from a horror or war film. Peach's once beautiful room was a complete mess, fires and scorch marks everywhere. The thing that surprised Mario most was the Turtle Dragon creature in a purple but otherwise featureless Koopa Copter. The thought briefly occurred to Mario that it looked a lot like Bowsette's alter ego, but what else he was seeing drove the thoughts from his mind.
Peach was sitting casually on the rim of the Koopa Copter, scowling at him. She still had the shackles of the chains she had been restrained with on her wrists but not her feet, they were broken but the long length of chain well over 2 dozen feet was still mostly intact on both sides. The sight struck fear into Mario, but it was quickly trumped. "LUIGI!" Mario screamed. His brother was in the grasp of the Turtle Dragon, limp and lifeless. Mario could only hope that he was still alive, but the alternative wasn't much better.
The sight of Luigi pushed Mario into action. "Give me-a back my brother!" Mario ran towards the copter. The Turtle Dragon dropped Bob-ombs in his direction, which Mario easily avoided but slowed him down. The Copter slowly withdrew out the hole but started firing Bullet Bills as well. The Copter was too high up in the air for even Mario to jump to, but it took more than that to stop him. Much like Bowsette herself had, Mario used the Bullet Bills as platforms by leaping from one to the next... but after a couple of hops, something rocketed at him out from the inside of the Koopa Copter.
Mario saw it coming and used the next Bullet Bill and leaped to his side to avoid the attack as… himself? tried to leap on him. Twisting in midair to hop off a second Bill, Mario was forced to land onto a tall arch in the castle courtyard to avoid plummeting to the ground, but his other self followed using another Bullet Bill and landed on the other side.
Rain started to fall, a rain that was pinkish. It felt wrong but not painful as it touched Mario's skin. The two combatants faced each other down, both in eerily identical combat stances. Thunder sounded, lightning flashed and briefly lit up the night sky and both of them staying still as statues. Below were dozens of evil Toads trying to break inside, but the Turtle Dragon creature roared, and the evil creatures all stopped to look up at the scene. All it would take is a slight movement to begin the battle.
Mario stared at his opponent, waiting for any sign that it was going to attack. "Who are-a you!?" Mario yelled over the storm. 'I'm-a you of course.' It seemed to speak inside Mario's mind. Mario scoffed. "That's-a stupid. I'm me!" Mario growled. 'Are you? You haven't felt like everything is not-a quite right? That's something has-a changed?' Mario did, but it was something he only had in the back of his mind. Something was off, in particular about Bowsette most of all.
Mario shook off his doubts and looked the creature dead in the eye. "Luigi told me about-a you! You claim to-a be me? Ha!" Mario chuckled. "Attacking the-a innocent? Hitting Peach? Turning her-a into… whatever she is now? Breaking my-a brother's arm? I'd NEVER do any of those things! You're not even good enough to be-a my fake!" Mario spit in disgust. The creature only held it's perpetually furious glare, but Mario could swear something he said stung it.
'You deny-a the truth. Like all of-a them. This is not how-a it's supposed to be! WAKE UP!' It pointed a finger at Mario and sparks formed. A bolt of electricity shot out, but Mario threw a fireball, impacting the bolt and stopping it. "You're not-a getting me like you did Peach! Let's-a go!" Mario ran toward the thing that wore his face while it charged at him in turn, it's movements so much like his own.
***
Bowsette was helpless to do anything but stay inside of her cell. Kamek was there and had promised to make the dampeners around a larger area soon so she wouldn't have to stay here long, but it didn't lessen Bowsette's frustration at the current situation. She would spasm occasionally and it hurt like the Underwhere, but there were no full changes just yet. All she could do was lay on her bed and try to sleep while she could.
However, it was a pointless attempt and Bowsette knew it. The pain was barely a factor at this point, what pissed her off the most was the fact that Mario and even those worthless Toad guards were out there fighting those things and all she could do was absolutely nothing! Her! The great Queen of all Koopas was stuck in a cell, barely strong enough to even stand much less go out there and fight, even if she wasn't having these transforming fits!
Bowsette got up and walked over to the cell window to look out. Bowsette recalled how many times she had, mostly as Bowser, seen Peach doing the same thing while she was in her own cell. Though at the very least Peach's accommodations beat Bowsette's current ones by miles. She wondered if Peach had similar thoughts at those times, feelings of helplessness as she was stuck in a room she couldn't get out of and worrying constantly about her would-be rescuers. Not that Peach couldn't fight, but mostly she was too delicate and refined to want to unless she really needed to do so.
Bowsette's thoughts drifted back to those days. One of the few times the Princess fought off enemies was against the Smithy Gang, mostly acting as the medic in fights but she could do damage when she really wanted to. Then, of course, was the "fight" against Bowser's minions and Bowser himself after he had switched it up and kidnapped the Mario Brothers instead. Naturally, and it was no idle boasting, Bowser had let Peach win. Despite her "vibe scepter" giving her power she really stood no chance of victory, but Bowser couldn't bring himself to put any real effort into harming her. Even in the sewers when they were fighting for their lives it was hard to muster the will to attack Peach.
Bowsette was shaken out of her thoughts as she heard the sounds of Bob-ombs going off and then Bullet Bills impacting for a while, she would know those sounds anywhere. Then, what scared her was how all the noise stopped. The only thing she could hear was the sound of thunder and then droplets hitting the ground as it started to rain these strange pink droplets. Bowsette spotted something by the pink light of a flash of lightning as she looked out the window, a familiar silhouette… no, two of them, almost exactly alike.