(A/N: Lately, a lot of my "Super Mario Odyssey" fanfics have started out with the rejection at the Moon Kingdom. This one is like that, but it's going to start out a little differently! I'll get it started so you can find out how this is different.)
It had been two weeks. Two long, wretched weeks since the day that Bowser, the Koopa King, flew to the Mushroom Kingdom and kidnapped Princess Peach, which happened more often than not. And it didn't take long for the Toads to become very upset.
The princess had assumed that this was just going to be another routine kidnapping, so she wasn't too worried about this... that is, until Bowser flicked her crown off of her head and replaced it with a very frightened little Bonneter who took on the form of a bridal tiara.
Peach quickly got scared as she looked at the frightened eyes on her tiara. She began to realize that this time, Bowser was planning to do something far more sinister than just kidnap her. And she was mortified when he told her that she was going to wear that tiara at their wedding, and she was going to be his wife.
Yes, you read that correctly: Bowser was planning to forcibly marry the princess in a picturesque wedding ceremony at the Moon Kingdom! The thought of being married to someone like Bowser, in a place where weddings don't normally happen was daunting, to say the very least!
A week flew by rather quickly as Bowser and his evil wedding planners, the Broodals, stopped off at many different kingdoms all around the world. They were stealing... I mean, gathering up all the supplies that were needed for this wedding as they made their way to the wedding venue.
However, Bowser had a nasty thorn in his side throughout this journey, and that thorn was none other than Mario, the puny, red-clad plumber who claimed to be Peach's true love. Bowser knew that as long as Mario lived, he would never allow the princess to become the Koopa Queen.
It quickly became clear to Bowser that if he wanted to marry the princess so badly, he would have to kill Mario! But he knew that this wasn't going to be an easy chore. So he asked the Broodals if they wouldn't mind helping him give Mario a permanent 'Game Over', in case he had trouble killing him.
Well, their first answer was a firm no, and they reminded Bowser that their job was to help people plan weddings, not kill people who didn't agree to a wedding. But Bowser convinced them by telling them that their hard work would be all for naught if Mario wasn't stopped before the event, and he offered to pay them interest if they succeeded. Dollar signs appeared in their eyes when he said that. It was an offer they couldn't refuse!
However, despite everything they tried, they were unable to end Mario's game, and Mario chased Bowser all the way to the Moon Kingdom, putting a stop to Bowser's Moon Wedding before it could really begin! And to make matters worse for Bowser, Mario had successfully saved the innocent princess from being forced to live miserably ever after.
The plumber and princess had long since returned to the Mushroom Kingdom after all that, but what about Bowser? How was he holding up after his bride made the trip back home with the man who had saved her life? Where was he after all was said and done? Let's go look for him.
Well, as it turns out, Bowser hadn't left the Moon Kingdom after his wedding was ruined. He just sat on his bed in his personal quarters on his airship, stewing over the fact that he wasn't married like he was supposed to be. It was plain to see that the Koopa King was not amused that his Moon Wedding, which he spent the last several months planning so meticulously that it couldn't possibly fail, had fallen apart, courtesy of Mario.
"This is wrong on so many levels! I planned this wedding right down to the letter, crossing all the t's and dotting all the i's. Peach and I are supposed to be happily married right now and enjoying our honeymoon! But nooooo! Mario just had to follow me all the way here and ruin everything! I hate him so much!" Bowser yelled as he threw himself on the floor and started throwing a tantrum that he was glad no one else could see.
"But that's not even the worst part! Every time I thought I had done Mario in, he somehow managed to cheat death all so he could show up at the wedding and rain all over my parade! There's just no way that stupid little plumber could have survived all of the horribly nasty things the Broodals and I did to to try and kill him..." Bowser growled.
Then he remembered something else, and he added, "Okay, the only way Mario could have survive those things would be if he had a few Super Stars on him, but I highly doubt he had any this time around! If he did, then I would've seen him use one to protect himself, and he never did it! By rights, Mario should be dead, but for some reason, he's still alive! What is he, a cockroach?!"
At that very moment, a thought bubble appeared over Bowser's head. Mario was in it, wearing his white wedding tux and frowning angrily at Bowser as he held up a sign that clearly read in letters of fire, "I AM NOT A ROACH!"
When Bowser saw Mario glaring at him, he simply smirked and got ready to breathe fire at the plumber in his thoughts. Unfortunately, Mario's hat friend noticed, quickly pulled out a safety pin, and popped the bubble, protecting the plumber from being burned to death, which didn't make Bowser very happy. Once again, he came close to killing Mario, only to have the plumber's stupid little hat friend prevent his death, even in his thoughts.
Now the Koopa King didn't know what to do. He sat up against his bed and let out a defeated sigh as his mind began to wander. Well, that was not a good thing, because all Bowser could think about was the incident with Peach after Mario defeated him. He'd had a one-track mind since this defeat, and now his mind was about to go over the whole thing for what felt like the thousandth time.
"Oh no! Please stop! Don't even go there again!" Bowser pleaded out loud, but it was too late. In his mind's eye, he saw himself outside, watching as Mario, who was clad in an elegant white wedding tuxedo, slowly approached Princess Peach, who looked so angelic in the exquisite Lochlady Dress the Broodals had stolen for her to wear.
Bowser was mentally freaking out, for he knew what Mario was planning to do, but there was no way he would ever let him follow through with it! He wanted Peach as his wife, and come hell or high water, he would have her. But how was he going to stop Mario and achieve his dream of marrying Peach so he could rule her kingdom?
Bowser looked around wildly before he noticed the Soirée Bouquet lying nearby. Seeing the flowers gave him an idea. If there was one thing he knew about girls, it's that they're crazy about flowers, and Peach, being a princess, was no exception. It was worth a shot, and he would have to act fast if he planned to have the life he wanted with her.
The Koopa King quickly grabbed up the stolen flowers, then pushed Mario down and away from the princess. Right before Peach could say anything to Bowser about that, he quickly held out the Soirée Bouquet to her in a last-ditch attempt to propose marriage to her, for he said, "Princess Peach, I order you to accept these flowers and marry me. You know you want to..."
To Bowser's good fortune, he saw that Princess Peach was smiling sweetly at him. She was obviously flattered by this somewhat thoughtful gesture. Bowser saw the look on her face and grinned to himself. She was reacting the way he'd hoped she would.
Bowser knew he would've had the princess in his clutches if Mario hadn't seen what he was doing and tried to one-up him by offering Peach a single flower. It was a pretty good thing he smacked that plumber in the head to keep him from asking Peach even one word of the big question, for if he had, she probably would have turned to him with a happy cry of "YES!"
"If Mario had just stayed away from us, Peach never would have turned down my marriage proposal! She knew she liked the flowers; that she liked me just as much!" Bowser grumped, thinking back to when he and Mario were angrily shoving against each other while shoving the flowers into Peach's face, trying to get the princess to pick one of them.
...But some good that did! While they made it clear that both of them really wanted her for their wife, neither of them really noticed that Peach didn't look very happy with what they were doing. Their negligence caused the princess to react in a way neither of them imagined. And her reaction was something that neither of them ever wanted to witness again.
Bowser laid down on the floor, shut his eyes tight, brought his hands up to cover his ear canals, and shook his head hard, trying but failing to block that horrible moment when Peach angrily demanded, "Enough!" The way she rapped out the word, and the look on her face when she said it, told the Koopa King that he wasn't getting married to her today, or for a very loooooong time. He'd never seen the princess look that angry at him before, and it was kinda scary when he thought about it.
However, Bowser realized when Peach said the word, it was all she had said. She didn't exactly specify from whom she'd had enough. Mario was still there, too, and if he remembered correctly, she didn't accept his flower, either. Mario was still standing next to him when the princess angrily stalked away from them with a look of disbelief on his face. So that meant she turned down not just Bowser, but Mario as well.
"Wait a minute!" Bowser said, sitting bolt upright as this interesting thought came to him. Mario had been turned down, too; by the princess, no less! That was almost too good to be real!
But then again, it was also very odd, because Bowser was sure the princess was also in love with Mario, judging by the way she looked when she saw him enter the Wedding Hall. Her pretty face lit up like a Christmas tree at the sight of him! And yet she turned him down flat! He never thought he'd live to see the day Peach turned down Mario, the man he would not allow her to mourn whenever she witnessed what was supposed to be his 'Game Over'.
Bowser also recalled the moment when he and Mario were running to catch up to Peach, who appeared to be leaving in Mario's stupid airship. He realized that Mario was not that far ahead of him as they ran, which meant that he didn't run right after the princess, begging for her forgiveness after she harshly rejected his proposal. Apparently, he hadn't left Bowser's side when Peach walked away from them.
Now that Bowser thought about it, he recalled that while he was sitting on the moondust in sorrow, he swore he heard someone behind him. Given how Mario managed to stay just ahead of him as they ran to the ship, it had to be Mario he was hearing. And Mario also sounded kind of... sad. In fact, he sounded like he was crying...
"Hold the phone!" Bowser exclaimed, his eyes wide. Mario, of all people, was crying?! It seemed as though Peach's rejection must have done a number on that guy's emotions. Perhaps Mario was starting to believe that the princess, the woman he said he loved, didn't love him anymore. Did she really hate him for what he had done? If so, that would be a blessing.
But wait a second! Didn't the princess invite both him and Mario to join her when she was leaving the moon on Mario's airship? Bowser was sure that Peach was talking to both of them when he heard her calling out, "Let's go home!" But Mario had prevented him from coming along for the ride.
Bowser was thinking that Peach really was referring to both of them, not just Mario. If she had been referring to both of them, and Mario stopped him, hopefully the princess called off their relationship! That would teach him a lesson!
"There might still be hope for me. If the princess really was mad at Mario, she probably didn't want to hear an apology or explanation from him. He'd have no choice but to realize that Peach doesn't love him anymore, so he'll have to give up on her. And if Mario stopped caring about her, that means I can take her for myself, and she'll be mine for the marrying, 'cause no one else is gonna be able to stop me!" Bowser said out loud.
However, there was a new problem. Bowser was sure that the wedding guests had gone home by now, and if they had, they most likely took the wedding supplies with them.
"But first, I think I'd better go check out the Wedding Hall." Bowser said to himself as he stood up and left the airship. He was pretty sure that the guests had assumed that the wedding was over and had left the building a long time ago, but he'd been too upset to notice, or even care.
When Bowser got to the Wedding Hall, he walked inside and was not the least bit surprised to see that the place was bare and echoing. There were no guests, and the wedding supplies were missing.
"I guess it's a good thing I expected to find something like this in here. The wedding was set to take place a week ago." Bowser huffed to himself as he turned to walk back to his airship.
Bowser couldn't help feeling unhappy that Mario had lived so he could ruin what was supposed to be the happiest day of his life. That really stunk, for he knew that once Peach learned to love him, she would gladly refer to their wedding day as 'a day to remember'.
At that moment, Bowser heard his black smartphone ringing. He pulled it out, and a look at the Caller ID told him that one of the Broodals was calling him. He supposed they were probably going to ask him if he was planning on paying them for everything they had done for him, even though the wedding had been ruined by Mario. He might as well answer them.
"Hello?" Bowser said as he walked back to his airship.
"Boss? It's me, Topper of da Broodals. Now listen up, 'cause we've got something real interesting to tell you. You're not gonna believe this." Topper's voice was heard saying.
"I probably won't, or maybe I will. But since you took the time to call me, you might as well tell me what it is and find out whether or not you were right about it." said Bowser. He knew they were going to say that he didn't pay them, and they wanted their money now.
"Okay. Well, we decided that we're gonna go back to the kingdoms that we got your wedding supplies from, just to see what we could see." Hariet began as Topper put the phone on 'speaker' so they could all hear Bowser.
"I already know what you're going to say about them. I was just in the Wedding Hall to find it empty, so I'm pretty sure that they've all been returned." Bowser said, faintly surprised that they didn't bring up the money he owed them.
"Well, we figured that was the case when we saw that the Binding Band had been returned to the Sand Kingdom, but the treasure that we stole from the Cap Kingdom hasn't been returned yet." Hariet continued.
"The fact that the Cap Kingdom's treasure hasn't been returned yet really isn't all that surprising to me because I happen to know that Peach really seemed to bond with it during our journey to the Moon Kingdom." Bowser recalled.
"Well, here comes the part that you're not gonna believe. When we visited the Lake Kingdom (where the Lochladies weren't too thrilled to see us), we discovered that the wedding gown we stole for your bride had been returned!" Rango's voice said.
"WHAT?! Did you just say the wedding dress got returned?!" Bowser shouted.
"Yeah! Weren't you listening?" asked Rango.
"I was listening! I'm just... surprised... because Peach was still wearing that dress the last time I saw her!" Bowser said, looking incredulous.
"She was? Well, she must have changed out of it or something because it was right back where we first found it." said Spewart.
"Huh. She must have returned it to the Lake Kingdom, unless she asked Mario to do it for her. Did the women there say who brought it back?" Bowser asked.
"As a matter of fact, they did. The women who live there told us that a tall, comely blonde woman came to their kingdom and returned the dress to them not too long ago." Spewart added.
"A tall, comely blonde woman, you say? Well, the only woman I can think of who perfectly matches that description is my bride, Princess Peach! Oh boy... So she went there and returned the dress to them herself! And if she did it not too long ago... You have to ask those women if she's still hanging around the place!" Bowser said.
"Oh! Um... I'm afraid we can't do dat right now." Topper asked.
"What do you mean 'you can't do that right now'?" Bowser asked in a threatening voice.
"Because we're almost at the Wooded Kingdom, Boss. We were going to see if the Soirée Bouquet was also returned, and from what we can see, it's right back where we found it the first time." Rango replied.
"Oh." said Bowser. He should've realized that.
"Now tell us, Boss: why do you want to find da bride so badly?" Topper asked.
"Well, I'm sure you already knew that the wedding failed." Bowser began.
"Yeah, we had a feeling that was the case. The characters in the Sand and Lake Kingdoms were nice enough to confirm that fact when they saw us." Hariet replied unhappily. She knew Bowser was going to be furious that they had failed to stop Mario from ruining everything.
"But since then, I've had lots of time to figure out some things." Bowser began.
"Like what?" asked Rango.
"I decided that even though my dream of marrying the princess in a fairy tale Moon Wedding was pretty much ruined by that stupid cockroach-" Bowser started, only to be interrupted by Spewart, who asked, "Cockroach? What cockroach?"
"The mustached guy I told you to kill!" Bowser said.
"Oh yeah. Dat guy. He ruined us." Topper groaned.
"You think he's a cockroach?" Hariet asked.
"I wouldn't be surprised if he is one! Those beasts are very hard to kill! Even when I breathe fire at them, it's not enough to turn them into crispy critters!" Bowser said.
"It's true that they're not easy to kill. Now what were you saying about the wedding?" Rango asked.
"Oh, that's right! I decided that I'm going to remain undaunted. I'm not giving up on the idea of having Princess Peach as my wife! I'm not going to stop until she and I are married and living happily ever after!" Bowser said.
"And I suppose you're going to ask us if we'll steal the wedding supplies again so you can have the wedding of your dreams, am I right?" Spewart asked.
"I'll pay you in rare jewels if you can get them." Bowser promised.
"What about da mustached guy you wanted us to kill? Do we still have to kill him?" Topper asked.
"Oh man! I was so excited about this idea that I almost forgot all about Mario! Did those women at the Lake Kingdom say anything about him being with my bride when she returned the dress?" Bowser asked.
"No, they didn't say that she had a man with her, but for all we know, they might have been lying in order to protect his sorry butt." Hariet replied.
"All right, then. Just get back the wedding supplies and deliver them right to the Wedding Hall at Honeylune Ridge. And try to kidnap a few guests for the wedding if you can. My main focus is still the bride. She might have her tiara with her, so you won't need to worry about that." Bowser explained.
"But what about the mustached guy? Don't we still have to stop him?" Rango asked.
"No. I have a good feeling that Mario's not even going to interfere with this wedding. The bride spurned him as well as me when I tried to make a last-ditch attempt to propose to her." Bowser began.
"She rejected both of you?!" Hariet asked. She hadn't expected to hear that.
"Yeah, she did. But I don't think he's with my bride. Not if he thinks that she hates him. If they're not together, then he'll never know what happened to her until she returns to the Mushroom Kingdom, but that won't be until after she and I have enjoyed our honeymoon. When he sees her again, she'll be my wife, and I'll be the king that her kingdom needs! And once I'm sitting on the throne, I'll make my first royal proclamation: I'm going to permanently exile Mario!" Bowser said.
"Who knows? Maybe by the time you come back, he might have decided to pursue someone other than your wife, so he'll already be gone and you won't have to exile him." Spewart said.
"That would be great, but I still want to see the look on his stupid face when he learns that Peach is mine, and that he's never allowed to set foot in the Mushroom Kingdom again." Bowser said.
"All right, Boss. We'll go out and get back da supplies for your weddin' do-over." said Topper.
"Great! Oh, make sure that you bring the Lochlady Dress and Soirée Bouquet to me once you get them! Let me know when you have them, and I'll tell you where I am." Bowser said.
"Of course. See ya, Boss." Hariet promised as Topper ended the call. Then they turned their airship around. They were going back to the Sand Kingdom, to steal the Binding Band again.
Bowser laughed fiendishly as he ended the call and put his smartphone away. It was time for him to start searching for his bride while the Broodals got back the wedding supplies. The Koopa King was sure that this time, nothing could ruin his Moon Wedding! Princess Peach would be his wife and the queen of his kingdom before the year was over!
When he got back to the airship, he started it up and immediately set a course for his kingdom, he needed to go there first and do some things. Then he went to the bride's chamber, and was he glad to see that Peach hadn't thought to take back the dress, gloves, and shoes she had worn when he captured her. If she had, he'd most likely be sunk right now.
"I wonder if she even remembered that she left these clothes with me. Unless she decided that she wants me to have them." Bowser muttered to himself as he carefully picked up Peach's pink silk dress and checked it to see if it had any strands of her lovely hair sticking to it. To his good fortune, Bowser found a few golden strands, which he was planning to save. He couldn't wait to get back to his kingdom.
Once the airship arrived in Bowser's Kingdom, the Koopa King first flew to some print shop, where he made about 500 more copies of his wedding posters (he had a few left over). Then he flew back to his castle and parked right on the roof. Then he got in and made his way to his bedroom, where some much-needed supplies were kept.
Bowser picked up a huge bag and began looking around his room for the supplies he needed. He quickly opened the closet and pulled out something in a garment bag, as well as two boxes. He also pulled what appeared to be a tracking device out of his nightstand. He even got out a small tube and quickly dropped that into the big bag.
Bowser had to be quick as he gathered up the supplies. He didn't want Kamek or his kids to find out that he was here, come in, and ask him what was up. The last thing he wanted was to tell them that Mario prevented the wedding from happening (although he was sure they were expecting that). Bowser hated to disappoint the kids like that. If anything, he wanted them to believe that he and Peach were happily married and enjoying themselves on their honeymoon right now.
After grabbing up the things he needed, Bowser returned to his airship and carefully took all but one of the strands of hair from Peach's pink dress. He placed them in the small tube, then he gingerly dropped the last strand of hair into the tracking device. The device turned out to be a DNA tracker that Iggy made him for his last birthday.
The DNA tracker showed him that Peach was not in the Mushroom Kingdom, but it also showed that she was no longer in the Lake Kingdom. She was currently on the move, making her way eastward.
"All right! She's heading this way, so I'm going to intercept her! Westward ho!" Bowser said as he revealed that the garment bag held a spare wedding tuxedo, much like his first one, and the boxes held a new wedding hat and another pair of fancy shoes. It was time for him to find Peach, get her back, and marry her in the wedding of the century!
Uh-oh! Bowser's not planning to give up on Peach! Come hell or high water, he's going to have her as his wife! What's going to happen next? Will he succeed? You'll have to stay tuned in order to find out!