Time for another chapter.

I feel like adding Fawful and Cackletta to this fanfic was a good idea.

I'm open to ideas as to other villains I can feature…whether it's from Mario or Dragon Quest.

Any suggestions?

Chapter 43: Fawful and Cackletta

Our heroes talked to the residents.

They noted that the kingdom didn't seem to be the same with Bowser gone. Usually he was trying to sway Koopa Troopas and the like to join his cause. There were rewards to be had, it claimed.

But now that he had left, things were quiet. Supposedly he was trying to recruit from a different kingdom at the moment.

But now that there was another overlord, they needed to stay alert.

They never knew when the Dragonlord's minions were going to invade. While Bowser didn't target other Koopas, they didn't have that luxury this time.

Luckily for our heroes, the Koopas were willing to sell them supplies. Though they did need some armor and weapons for themselves in order to protect themselves from a potential attack.

"Thanks!" exclaimed Peach. Perhaps she could invite them to Toad Town sometime. Though the residents of Toad Town might feel worried that the Koopas would attack them. Seeing a Koopa got them a bit on edge after the invasion Bowser had created.

Peach bought a blizzard dress.

It seemed appropriate since it could be cold in the mountains.

Wario bought a new pair of gloves.

They were Mountain Gloves.

Supposedly, they would give him the strength of a mountain.

Though that was probably an exaggeration, they did seem to improve his strength.

Mario bought an Avalanche Hammer.

It sounded like a strong hammer indeed.

Apparently, one of the tower bosses was Morag.

The Wight Knight had history with her.

"Good to know." spoke Jessica. It was best to be prepared before going into a tower. It was a good thing that there were towns and whatnot scattered throughout the land.

Morag was an evil sorceress, so they should expect dark magic.

Jessica imagined she could counter her magic with her own. She had experience dealing with dark wizards before.

Speaking of which, she got the feeling that another group of heroes were dealing with an evil sorceress themselves.

She wished the best of luck to them.

The second level our heroes needed to traverse to get to the first tower (and by extension the castle) was a water level. It wouldn't be out of place in Sparkling Waters.

But something told them the enemies were stronger.

Mario and Luigi would travel with Bianca and Jessica this time.

Porcupuffer Fields

'There are no Porcupuffers here." noted Luigi.

I guess I'll use a different kind of "pork" then.

Pigmalion Fields

Some Pigmalions began to swim towards them.

They had the power to restore their comrades by sacrificing themselves.

They were a tad obscure, but at this point, the author was running out of ideas for aquatic enemies to include.

There were also Baleen Mages.

They used water magic.

So they had to take care not to get sucked into their whirlpools.

That would make them dizzy,

There were also Elepuses.

They had the flexibility of an octopus and the strength of an elephant.

So they were foes that they should worry about.

They also could fire ink, which would blind them.

The boss in question was Geyzer this time.

"The Dragonlord requested me to stop you! You shall defeat me!" exclaimed Geyzer.

"It sounds like you don't believe in yourself." noted Luigi. He felt the same way sometimes. Though thanks to the Year of Luigi, that wasn't much of an issue nowadays.

Geyzer then realized his mistake.

He had a habit of mixing up his words.

"Wait, hold on. I shall defeat you!" shouted the merman.

He was still recovering from his head wound, it seemed.

Jessica noted that she was encountering a lot of bosses she had fought already.

Well, technically she didn't fight this one. Though in the remake there was a memoriam version of Geyzer she could fight.

But while she hasn't fought him, he was still from the same game as her.

However, since he wasn't the boss anymore, Geyzer was a lot stronger than before.

Before a party of two was enough to take him on…though players did have difficulty doing so.

But now, that didn't seem like such a good idea.

As his name implied, he could summon whirlpools. This time, anyway. They were faster than the ones the Baleen Mages used.

He still had his cursed mist attack.

Unfortunately, none of the party members were immune to curses this time around.

And his claws were sharper than ever.

Luckily, he had a lightning weakness, befitting a merman.

"Yeowch!" exclaimed the orange merman.

The head wound on his forehead served as a weak point as well.

So it was a good idea to aim there.

Mario leapt on top of Geyzer's head.

"Ow!" exclaimed Geyzer.

He swung his hand at him in retaliation.

Luigi then hammered him in his chest.

"Enough!" exclaimed Geyzer.

He launched cursed mist at Mario and Luigi.

Luigi dodged, but Mario was cursed.

Since Mario was immobilized, Geyzer smacked him on the head.

"Ow!" shouted Mario.

However, Bianca zapped Geyzer with lightning.

He fell to the floor.

"I won again! I mean, I lost again!" shouted Geyzer.

"I guess you aren't the luckiest merman in the world." noted Jessica.

Of course, she could the same for her brother. It was a tragedy that Dhoulmagus killed him. Or should she say Rhapthorne?

"The Dragonlord promised me he would heal me if I defeated the villains…I mean heroes!" exclaimed Geyzer.

"If you're looking to be healed, I can help you." noted Bianca.

"I can? I mean, you can?" asked the merman.

Bianca nodded.

She cast a spell on Geyzer's forehead.

Now he was feeling better.

"Thank you!" exclaimed Geyzer.

He decided to join the party in return.

Perhaps he could help them.

Now it was time for the next level.

As it turned out, the next level was the tower.

Morag was waiting for them there.

It looked like they were going to be fighting her.

Were they ready?

They could always go back to town if they felt it was necessary.

Meanwhile, in the Beanbean Kingdom...

For whatever reason, the weather in Beanbean Castle Town had gotten stormy.

It was an empathetic environment, it seemed.

Though in an alternate reality, the weather had not changed, oddly enough.

Ruff headbutted Cackletta.

"Ouch!" exclaimed Cackletta.

He decided he was going to defend himself from the evil witch.

But the bats began to swarm him.

"Get off!" exclaimed Ruff.

Luckily, he did not get poisoned.

For whatever reason, Cackletta's bats were poisonous.

Ruff bit Cackletta's hand in retaliation.

She recoiled.

He then howled and summoned wolves to attack Cackletta.

He figured why not fight summons with summons? Even if he wasn't a spellcaster himself. Not without help from the Alltrades Abbey, at least.

Cackletta summoned black holes for the wolves to fall in.

But some still managed to get through and attack her.

At this point, Cackletta decided that she had enough.

She decided to go berserk.

"This can't be good." noted Ashlynn.

Peasley protected Alena from Fawful.

He sent him flying with his sword, after slashing him several times.

However, Fawful managed to reach the Beanstar's location...after he crashed through a window.

"Oh no!" shouted one of the royal guards. It looked as if their defenses had been broken through.

"At last! We are obtaining the Beanstar!" exclaimed Fawful.

This was their lucky day. They had waited a long time for this moment too.

Fawful tried to suck up the Beanstar with his headgear.

But Captain Toad grabbed it.

He had gone into the castle to make sure Fawful and Cackletta didn't take it.

Being an adventurer was nice, but being a hero made him feel really good.

"It belongs in a museum…I mean the castle!" shouted Captain Toad.

He didn't get any dialogue in the last chapter, which was a shame. It seemed the author had forgotten about him for a moment. Ti be fair, he was a new addition to the party.

But at least now he would get a chance to speak.

Meena showed up to stop him from taking the Beanstar as well.

She figured that Captain Toad would appreciate the help, just as Alena had.

Unfortunately, their fighting resulted in the Beanstar splitting into four pieces.

All of which flew in different directions.

"Noooo!" shouted Fawful, his eyes widening with shock. His jaw dropped with surprise.

This was really going to hinder Cackletta's plan of world domination.

He decided to tell Cackletta the bad news.

"Do you mind? I'm in the middle of something!" exclaimed the witch. Perhaps he should call when it was more convenient.

She didn't want her fight to be interrupted. Not when she was about to go full power.

Besides, taking out the heroes of the Beanbean Kingdom would make conquering it much easier.

"But the Beanstar has gone to the winds! It's shattered!" shouted Fawful.

"What?!" exclaimed Cackletta.

This invasion was not going well.

And to make matters worse, Alena was attacking her as well.

She attacked with lightning, but Alena was fast enough to evade it.

Cackletta decided to retreat.

With the Beanstar scattered, there was no point in sticking around anyway.

She gave Fawful a bat signal to let them know that they should be leaving...even though she had questioned Ruff's choice in reading too much fiction.

"I must be going for now, but I shall return!" exclaimed Cackletta.

"Soon, the Beanstar shall be Cackletta's!" shouted Fawful.

Once the Beanstar pieces had been found, of course.

'You did it!" cheered Lady Lima. Fortunately, her faith in the heroes had not been misplaced. Though when was it ever misplaced?

It was impressive that they had managed to defeat those two. They were feared across the Beanbean Kingdom for a reason.

They would likely eventually return, of course, but they would cross that bridge when they came to it.

Perhaps they should study magic and technology. It might give them the edge against that duo.

"Were those two working for Bowser?" questioned Maya. He seemed to have acquired a lot of help from this land. Why had so many decided to join his side? Was it because they feared him?

However, Queen Bean explained that actually wasn't the case this time.

"No. But those two did seem to be taking advantage of the situation he put the kingdom in." noted Queen Bean. Cackletta didn't plan on being anyone's servant, so she likely wouldn't become a minion.

A lot of royal guards had left the castle to make sure the Koopa Troop didn't cause trouble in other parts of the kingdom. So it seemed they had decided this was a golden Beanie opportunity to strike.

"I'm glad we could help...but what are we going to do about the Beanstar?" asked Peasley.

It was shattered into pieces and scattered across the Beanbean Kingdom. It was anyone's guess as to where those pieces were now.

They would have a hard time finding Ludwig without it. And if Lemmy decided to leave the Gwarhar Lagoon, they would have a hard time finding him as well.

And they didn't want the Koopa Troop to get their hands on the Beanstar either.

It probably wouldn't be hard for them to kidnap Peach and use her voice to awaken the Beanstar.

"Not to worry, we have a Beanstar Radar for this occasion." spoke Lady Lima. It was a good thing that they had prepared for such a situation. Otherwise they might never find all the pieces.

Using the radar, they could track down the Beanstar.

"That's a relief." noted Ashlynn.

She was worried for a moment that their quest was going to be stonewalled. Though the royal guard would let them know if there was a Koopa attack regardless.

With some time perhaps they could recover the Beanstar pieces. Hopefully they could find them fast. It would be bad if Bowser got his hands on them. It didn't seem like it would be hard to kidnap the princess after that and have her rewaken the Beanstar.

Although, perhaps he didn't know about its existence. Or how to awaken it.

But it was still a good time to try to collect the Beanstar fragments before anyone villainous got them.

They checked the radar to see where they could find the pieces.

It seemed one of them was on a ship.

A ship that was stranded in Teehee Valley.

Since that ship wasn't going anywhere, they decided to go there.

Though oddly enough they had just been to that valley to defeat Roy. At least they probably wouldn't have to worry about the Koopa Troop this time.

Though they had gone there again to go to the Guffawha Ruins. Why was their adventure in a loop?

The ship in question was known as the S.S. Chuckola.

As for the crew, they were a literal skeleton crew, according to Queen Bean.

"Skeletons?" asked Ashlynn.

Weren't those her enemy? She technically had a skeleton herself, but she wasn't friends with the undead. She had been attacked by them more than once.

For some reason the undead didn't seem to like her…or a lot of other Dragon Quest heroes. Maybe they just didn't like the living.

"Don't worry, they're not hostile." assured Lady Lima.

"That's a relief." noted Ruff. Sometimes he wanted a break from all the fighting.

Though considering he used to be a wolf, he could probably just eat them if they attacked.

Perhaps the Chuckola crew wanted their ship back in the ocean.

Oho Oasis was nice this time of year, after all.

Perhaps they would be willing to give them the Beanstar piece, as well.

They might want something for compensation though.

It was time to head back to the desert…once again.

"I think it would be best if we found the Beanstar pieces before Cackletta and Fawful did." noted Captain Toad. A world run by Cackletta would not be a happy one.

"That's a good idea. They can't reawaken the Beanstar without my voice but they might find someone like me if they search hard enough." acknowledged Alena.

To their knowledge, only they had the Beanstar Radar.

But then again, it seemed plausible that Fawful could build one himself. He had the technology.

So it seemed like they should try to get to The S.S. Chuckola quickly, before the duo made their next move.

There was also the fact that Fawful and Cackletta might know about Princess Peach.

Hopefully she could stay safe.

But given that Peach was all the way in the Mushroom Kingdom, Fawful and Cackletta would likely search for the Beanstar pieces first, since none had left the Beanbean Kingdom.

Our heroes went back to Teehee Valley.

Luckily, there was no sign of Fawful and Cackletta. It seemed they did not know where this piece was.

But they didn't know for sure whether they would suddenly attack again.

So it was time to get going.

"I'm looking forward to exploring that ship!" exclaimed Captain Toad. Who knows what he would find there?

Then again, he didn't plan on taking any of the treasures that the skeletons had. Though he wondered if they would need food or water.

"You don't seem to be planning to retire from adventuring any time soon." noted Kiryl.

"I'm still young!" shouted Toad.

Though he did admit that like humans, Toads did eventually age.

Toadsworth was proof of that. Eventually, he too would end up with a white beard and moustache.

He got the feeling this adventurer was going to be pretty excited.

After all, it was not every day that you got to fight against an evil witch and a mad scientist.

He just hoped that it would not result in the end of his game.

Otherwise that would be the end of his adventures as well.

The ship was within sight.

They could see the Beanstar piece.

Now it was time to collect it.

Oh no! The Beanstar has been split into four pieces!

Deja vu, huh? Perhaps the Mario Brothers and Popple and Rookie shouldn't have put so much pressure on it.

This is going to complicate their quest.

But I think our heroes can find those pieces if they look hard enough.

It's unfortunate that Fawful and Cackletta managed to get away...but perhaps they'll get their just desserts in Superstar Saga and Bowser's Inside Story. It depends on how this reality goes.

Though considering that the Beanstar pieces are scattered throughout the kingdom, our heroes just might meet with them again.