The duel between Bowsette and Clawdia Koopa had officially begun, with Bowsette extending her wings and blasting forward to punch her ex-wife in the face with a fist full of fire.

Duels between the two used to be common. They had trained together nearly every day in their five-year revolution against Morton Koopa. They knew each other’s fighting styles as well as they knew each other’s bodies.

The difference now was that Bowsette had a new body. And she had a new fighting style.

The martial arts heavy throws and kicks, the hard swipes and shell spins she was so known for as Bowser had been eliminated. She was powerful, but not enough to simply knock someone down with a gimpy smash like she once could. No, she was faster. She was smaller. She didn’t need to take the brunt of damage and shrug it off. In fact, she didn’t need to be hit at all.

Clawdia adapted quickly to this new her, though; she stopped trying to weave around to catch Bowsette by the tail to throw her around, and instead dropping into a defensive position. She curled up into her shell and shot a few of her spikes forward.

Bowsette couldn’t dodge these spikes, because they flew too fast, too furiously, and so several of them stuck into her and sent her flying backwards. She couldn’t use her wings again, clearly, because she would get them ripped up, but she did the next-best thing; after ripping the spikes out of her body and tossing them to the floor, she jumped up and shot out a fireball out of her mouth. Clawdia blocked it with her shell, but that was exactly the predictable kind of move she’d make. When Bowsette was just over the shell, before any more spikes could form and launch, Bowsette breathed out a stream of fire, levitating herself from the sheer force of the blast and burning fire so hot around Clawdia that she begun to spin around as she hid inside her shell. Once Bowsette released, she dropped on the ground and kicked the shell with great force, sending it bouncing around the temple and very nearly hitting Peach in the face.

Every time the shell came near Bowsette, she bashed it again, sometimes with her fists, sometimes with her head, and let it ricochet rapidly around the room. Soon, when Clawdia actually worked out the will to escape from the inside of her shell, she was so dizzy that she simple crashed into the wall again, unable to control her movement.

“Kakakaka!” Bowsette rushed over to Clawdia and put her in a vice grip, latching her arm around her neck. Clawdia, still too disoriented to do much attacking, lashed her tail back and forth trying to strike against Bowsette, but she simply stepped on that tail and made her squeal out.

“Ready to say uncle?” Bowsette asked.

“What does that mean?”

“Are you ready to... give up?”

“Keh keh keh.” Clawdia slipped into her shell again, getting free of Bowsette’s grip, and then shooting out more spikes from the back of her shell. Most of them hit her, and really hurt too!

But Bowsette wasn’t even close to started with this. She jumped and somersaulted around and then kicked Clawdia in the chest, sending her reeling backwards. She followed it up with another fireball that impacted with great fiery force, and then finished with a tail whip to the forehead, knocking her to the ground.

Clawdia laid on the ground, struggling and failing to get back up.

“Looks like this is over,” Bowsette said. “Guess your survival skills weren’t so good in combat after all, huh?”

And then Bowsette felt something heavy at her feet, and her face crashed onto the floor. Clawdia had tripped her! Ahh--

Clawdia picked Bowsette up by the tail in that single moment and... humiliatingly... began spinning her around like a top. Just like Boom Boom, Clawdia’s spinning powers were a thing of miracles, and even Mario would be jealous about how easy it was to dispatch a foe in this manner.

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Bowsette got too dizzy to remain fully conscious of her surroundings, just as Clawdia let go and she went flying into the wall.

With a crack--the wall cracked, that is--Bowsette flopped on the ground and remained completely unable to move probably for the rest of her life. Owwwww.....

“Keh keh keh keh!” Clawdia chortled. “Good fight.”

“Good... fight...”

Clawdia grinned. “Well, anyway, the Axe is yours. If you’re willing to fight me like that, I know you’re serious. So I’m willing to break my oath for that.”

Bowsette stumbled back onto her feet, and then fell forward. Peach helped her up. “You’re... Clawdia, why don’t you come with us? We still need more Generals for our army...”

“No.” The answer was as simple as that. Clawdia was not leaving this place. It had become a self-exile, much like Bowsette’s own almost two years ago. She finally started to understand her ex-wife’s emotions. After all these years wondering and regretting... Why hadn’t she reached out to her in all this time?

She wasn’t going to regret anymore. That was all.

Clawdia turned to Peach. “Take care of her, will ya? You guys are lovers or something, right?”

“We’re wives,” Peach said. “And... I will.”

“Ha. Never thought she’d get over me,” she said, smiling even though it was clear from her face that she was very upset about that fact. “Well... best of luck to you.”

“Thank you,” said Bowsette.

“Also,” Clawdia added. “Um.... Uh, I don’t know your name.”

“Peach, King of the Royal House Toadstool.”

Clawdia eyed Bowsette. “Well, Peach. I have a bit of advice to you. It might not be the same in that form, but-- the weak point’s the back of her knees.”

Peach blushed, but said, “Yeah. I know.”

“Keh keh. Well then, did you also know she’s really into tail pl--” Bowsette jumped in front of Clawdia and covered her mouth.

“Let’s go get that Axe!” Bowsette exclaimed.

Peach winked.

They went further into the temple where they eventually stumbled upon, well, an Axe. It was too big for any human to successfully wield, and big enough that even Bowsette in her Koopa form would have trouble doing much with it. However, it had been Morton’s most impressive weapon and the thing that defeated him as well.

It was a bit rusty, and cobwebs covered it. But it still looked as formidable as ever.

“There it is,” Clawdia said. “You sure about this?”

“Do you know any other way we could defeat him?”

“The... power of friendship? The power of self-actualization?”

“Oh, Clawdia.”

She had missed her. She no longer loved her, not in the same way. But... she still missed her.

“And I have to guess,” Peach said. “That necklace around Clawdia’s neck, that’s the Firestone Amulet?”

“It was,” Bowsette said. “It was a one-time use. It was originally bright red, and much bigger, but it shattered into a million pieces, leaving only that gray stone behind.”

“I keep it as a momento. It’s... all I have left.”

“There’s a chance that this Axe will still have some faint glimmer of the Firestone’s energy left imbued within it,” Bowsette said. “But even if not... then we can still use it to cut his head off, right?”

“Can you even wield that thing?”

“If I use it like a comically-oversized baseball bat, maybe? We’ll see.” Bowsette turned to Clawdia. “Thank you.”

“Will I ever...”

“See me again? Do you want to?”

“I... Is it okay if I see my children someday?”

Bowsette softly smiled. “If the battle goes well, and the Koopalings don’t still hate you, then... yeah. We’ll come back as a family to see you.”

“Then... good luck.”

“Keep on surviving,” Bowsette said.

“That’s all I ever do.”

Bowsette and Peach left the temple and headed back out towards the nearest warp pipe, with Bowsette storing the Axe safely in her hammerspace pouch until it would next be needed. Seeing Clawdia again like that... honestly, it made Bowsette feel a lot better about herself. Not to see someone suffering, but to realize that no, she wasn’t the only messed-up person in the world. Everyone was messed up in their own way, and dealing with it however they could.

“I do have one last thing to ask, though,” Peach said.

“Yeah? What is it?”

“What about your second wife? The one you had Bowser Jr. with? Does she have some super dramatic story behind her too?”

Bowsette sighed. “Kylie Koopa... is a lesson never to date anyone you meet in New Donk City. That’s all I’ll say about that.”

And that’s all Peach asked about that.