“That’s your wife????” Peach asked in a daze. “I thought she....”

“She what? Died?” Bowsette balked. “No. She walked out on me and her entire family to ‘go find herself’ and then disappeared completely.”

“You sure still found me,” Clawdia said, her toothy, sharp-fanged grin a clear mirror to Bowsette’s own typical smle.

“Kakakaka... Woman, you have no idea what kind of spies I have around here,” Bowsette said. “My network is vast.”

“Or you just remembered the place where we found the first piece of the Firestone Amulet... Where we first made love...”

Peach blushed and tried to distance herself from this conversation, but Bowsette kept her by her side. “Whatever. I just can’t believe after all this time, you’d still just... be here.”

“What can I say? I like it in the Bananan Ruins,” Clawdia said. “Lots of stuff to kill. Nobody around. No responsibilities except keeping yourself alive. Weather’s always warm, but not too warm. It’s a paradise.”

“But what about... our children?”

Clawdia shrugged. “Sorry. I’m not perfect. I was your Angel of Death. Not your Angel of Motherhood.”

Peach raised an eyebrow. “Angel of Death?”

“My nickname for her.”

“Your relationship was weird...”

“You don’t know the half of it, honey,” Clawdia says. “This one over here, for a good two years, refused to go to sleep without a plush doll to hold. Said it was an anxiety thing.”

“We were fighting a bloody revolution! I really needed some comfort!”

“Sex was good enough comfort for me,” she said. “Keh keh keh... I KNEW you were a girl inside, uh... Bowsette. Kind of a cheap name change, isn’t that?”

“Wait, what?” Bowsette asked. “What are you talking about, you ‘knew?’”

“We were inseparable, honey. We knew everything about each other. And you expect me not to remember all those conversations we had? About the way you felt detached from yourself, your masculinity some weird guise?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“I mean... I never said anything about feeling like a woman. I... I didn’t even realize it myself until I had been Bowsette for half a year!”

“Well... it’s hard to get past the fact you were the sweetest, most emotionally vulnerable little Koopa out there, and I loved you for it. But... stereotypes and all, I never wanted to just confront you about it. Probably should’ve.”

“Yeah... that would have utterly changed the course of the rest of my life, Clawdia,” Bowsette said. “Wow, I wish you had told me.”

“And I wish... I had done a lot of things differently,” Clawdia said. Her cheerful demeanor collapsed instantly and she fell to her knees, sobbing. Her necklace dangled off her neck. “I’m.. I’m so sorry, Bowsette... I never should have left you... My babies...”

Bowsette paid it no mind. “Well, I suspect you know why I’m here. You may not know the details, but I’ll give you the short of it. The world’s in danger. Morton Koopa has been revived as an undead skeleton and has taken over Dark Land again, all thanks to Kamek being a dumbass.”

“He... always was one...” Clawdia said, still shedding tears.

“Yeah. So... I need the Axe again. I don’t know if it’ll do any good this time with no Firestone Amulet, but... it’s our only shot. Five of the Generals are dead or incapacitated. We’re on our last legs. So, Angel of Death. Where is it?”

“Don’t... don’t call me that anymore,” Clawdia said. “I don’t deserve it.” She was practically bowing to Bowsette at this point. It was honestly a little pathetic.

“Okay, Clawdia. Will you buck up, grow a shell, and give me what I’m here for?”

Clawdia got back up. Her shell, unassuming and smooth before, suddenly jutted out with spikes. “You can’t have the Axe,” she said. “I made a vow, with YOU, to keep it safe, so it would never again fall in the hands of anyone looking to use it for war. Including YOU.”

“Well... yeah... but...”

“Fight me for it.”

“Uh, no?” Bowsette shook her head.

Clawdia extended her claws, snarled, and began circling around Bowsette. “You’ve gone all soft. Literally. You’re half a human now. Good look on you, but not a good look on you when you get pulverized. You’d better get out of the Bananan Ruins now, or I won’t hold back.”

Bowsette pushed Peach back a few steps and then clapped her hands together. Here was a new technique she had been working on recently: her entire body turned red, and fire jutted up around her, covering her in an aura of flames. “Kakakakakaka. Kakakakakaka!”

“Keh keh keh. Look at you. You think that fleshy body can stand up to me when we’re the same size now? You don’t stand a chance. I’ve lived in the wilderness for decades. You’ve lived the cushy royal life. We’re completely different beasts.”

“I don’t even have a Chomp Shell, you know,” Bowsette said. “I’m going to beat you down with my claws alone.”

Peach got the heck out of the way and let the two start circling around each other in the middle of this temple room.

Bowsette flashed her teeth.

“I’m getting that Axe.”