It was far to the South of the Mushroom Kingdom, past the Dry Dry Desert and along the coast, where they would find the Bananan Ruins, a small jungle deep within a stretch of mountains and canyons, separated from the rest of the world around it. It looked like it would have been perfectly in place in a place like the Kremling Isle, but it was halfway across the world from there, in another continent entirely. That was what made the Bananan Ruins so interesting to Bowsette...
...and to her first wife.
“No more Chain Chomping around. You have to tell me,” Peach said. She was currently dressed up in a really fancy jungle getup, with beige clothes and a special hat, but she still had short shorts on. Very attractive, Bowsette admitted, but terrible for walking around in a place where there were more types of insect species than there were sentient beings. Bowsette just wore her normal outfit, though, and hoped that her extremely high body temperature dissuade mosquitoes from bugging her. Ha, get it? Bugging her.
“Yeah, I’ll tell you,” Bowsette said. “Clawdia Koopa. My first wife.”
“Was she cute?”
“She’s cute. For a Koopa. You have to remember, our sense of beauty is different, so... my definition of cute is not the same as yours.”
“And yet we both think I’m cute.”
“Well, some opinions cross boundaries. Anyway, story time. Clawdia Koopa. She was my first love, but more importantly... She was my first General.
“My biological father abandoned me in the Kalimari Desert when I was a hatchling. I was the last of twenty-five children, a nuisance from a wife that had already betrayed him and had already been exiled to the furthest reaches of Sherbet Land. So for most of my life, I was raised by my real father, the Magikoopa Kamek, and my real grandmother, Kammy Koopa. The two were both busy as wizards and doctors in the local region that consisted of many nomadic races trying to survive in the wilderness, but they took the time to raise me properly, to teach me magic and how to be a strong leader.
“The whole time, I don’t think I had any idea that I was truly the child of a great King, with some royal blood inside of me that would propel me to heights unknown. I probably didn’t until adulthood. But my father did. I look back and realize he had been training me as a honed weapon to defeat Morton Koopa. My entire life was about enacting revenge against the man who had exiled him to the Kalimari Desert, and shaping me into a fearsome, charismatic warrior. And it worked.
“By the time I came of age, most of my other siblings were gone. Many died of old age, or of natural causes, or of accidents in dangerous magical research. It varied a lot. But many began to rebel and plot against Morton, who had somehow lived many centuries past the point he should have. That rebellion was quashed and all of my siblings involved were turned to stone and hidden away in some deep cavern we will never discover. Soon, I was the only one living. Morton had acquired a new wife to sire a final child, the perfect heir, but he had forgotten that one child still lived.
“When I touched my toes on the earth of Dark Land for the first time since early childhood, I essentially began a rebellion at that very moment. The revolution that would take down Morton Koopa for good. I was unable to fight the battles myself, naturally, but Morton Koopa for the first time in his life began to fear. I had united many villages in hatred against him, just like the Koopalings are doing right now, and while his Koopa Troop army was effective in putting down resistance, the embers within their hearts were never able to simmer.
“For the next five years, I began to look for weapons to defeat Morton with, something that would actually work against an invincible Koopa King, as well as a group of lieutenants to lead into battle that would be able to fight alongside me, the seven Great Generals. And that was where I met Clawdia Koopa, back in the Kalimari Desert. She was a Koopa, just like me, who had been cast out by her family and left to survive in the wasteland all her life. But she had never had a family. She learned to live on her own, to survive off robbing passers by, to survive off hunting and gathering. I was a young Koopa obsessed with finding power. She was a young Koopa haunted by a life lived in constant turmoil. We collided and began our messy relationship immediately.
“We met out of desperation, and now that the Koopa Troop was actively pursuing me across the world, we fought together to survive. We thrived. While I was the largest and most powerful for sure, she was agile, quick, and ruthless. She was my Knight, and I was her pearl. A whole lot of my fighting style as Bowsette was based on what Clawdia had taught me. It wasn’t as effective when I was eight feet tall and hulking huge, but at this size I am perfect for it. I can be your Knight now, Peach, and that pleases me greatly.
“Clawdia and I probably weren’t meant for one another, but we stayed together in a passionate romance for the duration of the next five-year revolution. Together, we assembled the Firestone Amulet, a powerful magical device that would imbue a weapon, a person, a place, with infinite, but temporary, power. We didn’t know how we would use it, but to keep it safe, Clawdia kept the red gem around her neck at all times. It was never safer than it was at that point.
“I found six more Generals who would support me in my quest, sometimes in exchange for territory, for power, sometimes in exchange for friendship, for loyalty. Goomboss, the ambitious despot whose self-defeating nature always undermined his ability to rule. Whomp King, the isolated, gruff ruler of a floating fortress, always a little stubble on his stony chin. General Guy, whose command over the Shy Guys was impeccable but his ambition and ideas always too thin, too hesitant to be on his own. King Bob-omb, a regal and long-serving ruler caught in a generation-long civil war between the red and black Bob-ombs, one that still rages today. King Boo, the eccentric and enigmatic ghost of some unknown ruler from eons past. And Crystal King, the reserved, cold warlord from the great white north, and the most powerful being of the whole army, aside from myself...
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“...and aside from Clawdia. She was my first general. The only one I didn’t have to fight to recruit. The only one I could go to bed with and wake up knowing for sure she wouldn’t inevitably betray me. Before the invasion of Dark Land had begun in earnest, our love had produced a child, Ludwig, with another two on the way: Lemmy and Iggy. Despite all the risks, we left the child in the care of Kammy and Kamek and began our final assault.
“You see, Clawdia came up with a plan that would end up ensuring our victory over Morton. We knew that he had a new wife, and a new child surely along with that. So we kidnapped them both, just as the invasion was beginning. It turned out that the wife had been wanting to leave Morton’s sphere for a very long time and was glad to get away, but she also did not want to raise this child. So we were left with a hatchling, barely out of his shell, one that Morton may not have even known about yet, being so preoccupied with the war at hand. My younger brother.
“And dear Clawdia, my wife, she decided we would raise this child together. In a bit of intentional irony, we named him Morton Jr., and he became my eldest son. Whenever I look at him, I see my father, but I also see myself. And I’m proud of him to this day for being the terrifying villain that he can be. Uh, not that I support villainy anymore, per se. Anyway... Now, with the impetus of needing to raise a new family together, we fought much harder. Harder than we ever had before. We needed Dark Land to be the kind of lava-covered kingdom that we could raise a family in, that we would finally be able to live in without fear of death. And so Morton had to be defeated.
“With the help of the False Millenium Star’s magical energies, we were able to take back most of Dark Land, cornering all of Morton’s armies to the region surrounding Castle Koopa. But the final battle was a siege we were simply unprepared for. Even Crystal King’s forces were being repelled at rapid rates. My wife and I fought on though, and we stormed the castle.
“Morton was too powerful for either of us. Too powerful for both of us. Too powerful for all eight of us, even. He very nearly killed King Bob-omb, and his militia of Dry Bones warriors began to decimate our armies, unable to die without a Power Star and unable to tire out at any cost. So Clawdia and I used the Firestone Amulet. In one swift move, I launched Clawdia off of me, and onto Morton, who stood at four times her height and swinging an Axe around that could have evaporated her in one cut. She attacked him up close, stunning him for just one moment, and one moment that we took advantage of. I took the Axe from his grasp, activated the Firestone Amulet, and set it to power the Axe.
“In a burst of literally infinite energy, I used that Axe and cut Morton down. It took not one, not two, but eight strikes until he stopped breathing. He was simply too powerful at the height of his power. If you had been there, you would understand, Peach. We had to give everything to defeat him. Everything.
“Once the war was over, we suddenly were thrust into the role of leadership. We tried to make a council of the eight of us, but Clawdia and I had too much power with the two of us, and after Whomp King and Crystal King departed, we effectively became Emperor and Empress together. After Wendy was born, we even had a Royal Family that was growing larger and made for great public imagery. The other Generals simply fell from the limelight.
“So did Clawdia. Being a mother of six rambunctious children was very difficult for her, and the stress levels were very high. She was never too fond of Morton Jr., who fought with Ludwig constantly and always looked down on his siblings. He got over it with age, but Clawdia didn’t.
“Our last child together, Larry, was the end of it all. Clawdia was so stressed by all the childrearing, about her fading spotlight as I assembled my new kingdom, that I guess she couldn’t take it anymore. Postpartum depression, or something. So she just... I’m sorry. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of her. We weren’t compatible, maybe. Not like you and me. But we were in love, and that was what mattered at the time.”
“That’s so... Bowsette, that’s so sad...” Peach was moved nearly to tears by this.
“It’s not that bad. I still got seven wonderful children out of it,” Bowsette said. “Their royal blood may have been dissipated by the fact I married a commoner, but the only people that would have ever cared about that were Kamek, and Morton. Neither of whom I give any care to. And thanks to her, Norton’s Axe has been hidden away from the entire world... until now.”
They stepped into a temple buried under a growth of trees and vines. It was suddenly very quiet, the ambiance of the jungle disappearing behind them.
“In all of it, the only thing I regret... is not telling you sooner,” Bowsette said. “Maybe if I had given you that whole spiel the first time I kidnapped you, I’d have seduced you right then. Women love a good tragedy, huh?”
“They do, but I am glad we didn’t fall in love in a kidnapping situation. The power dynamics there are uncomfortable, and... I would never be able to shake the feeling that I only fell in love with you because my mind tricked me into falling for my captor.”
“That’s a very fair point. I can’t believe we ended up together like this. Beauty and the Other Beauty.”
“Yep, and--”
“KEH KEH KEH KEH.”
A deep-throated laugh reverberated through the temple.
“Is that the... Axe?” Peach asked.
“It’s a magic Axe, not an enchanted cartoon character,” Bowsette said. “No, that’s...”
A figure thudded to the ground. “Keh keh keh keh!” A blue haired, full-figured female Koopa wearing nothing but a gray necklace stood before them.
“Bowsette...”
The Koopa put her hands on her hips. “I KNEW it!” she shouted, pointing at Bowsette. “I friggin’ KNEW it!”
“Bowsette...????”
“That’s Clawdia,” she replied.