Chapter Text
“Oh, this is getting ridiculous.” The old advisor and magician and full-time babysitter of the Koopa Kingdom known as Kamek said as he hobbled down the stone halls of Bowser’s Castle. It was not the first time he wished he had better eyesight and didn’t need these heavy glasses. It would have made it easier to glare at the mooks he walked by. At the very least his apparent mood made them all stay away, if they even bothered noticing him.
The troops were disorganized and gossiping about, meanwhile their King and most of the higher ranking members aside from himself were off... playing around . Needless to say he was rather tired of it.
And so, the Magikoopa stood before the door to Lord Bowser’s room. Now, if he were a bit less sane he would have barged right in and demanded the King get some work done. But Kamek would not have reached his position without patience, sanity, decency, and a sense of self preservation, so instead he leaned his head towards the heavy wooden door and listened in, even using some magic to enhance his hearing (not that it wasn’t already enhanced. Listening to the glorious King Koopa’s loudest boasts and angry roars daily didn’t do anyone’s ears any favors.)
Giggling .
Now, most people would question why there’d be a giggling woman inside the King’s Chambers. Most people would start gossiping and spreading rumors before they were shot out of a cannon or sent into Chomp care duty. Kamek, though, Kamek just sighed and knocked politely on the door at the confirmation.
“What is it!?” A muffled, loud, yet oddly light and not AS loud as usual voice demanded.
“It is Kamek, your lordship. May I enter?”
“Kamek? Heheh... yeah yeah, come in, what do you want? I’m busy, you know!”
“I’m sure...” Kamek muttered under his breath, before steeling himself and opening the door. He inwardly complained, not for the first time, about how heavy the door was. Too old for this. Far too old.
The familiar sights of Bowser’s room did nothing for him, so instead he focused on the most unfamiliar and glaring things that he thought shouldn’t have been in Bowser’s room to begin with.
The rather elaborate vanity full of makeup and brushes, for one thing.
The dresser, currently open and displaying all sorts of clothes that shattered the Magikoopa’s confidence and made him wonder where his life had gone all these years.
But most importantly the... woman that was sitting at the vanity, currently brushing her hair rather dutifully.
One may have mistaken her for the lovely Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom (also known as Bowser’s love interest), if perhaps someone gave Princess Peach horns, a tail, a spikey green Koopa shell, pointy ears, sharper teeth, and if she didn’t clip her eyebrows for several years and suddenly developed a taste for black, spikes, and less elegant hairstyles.
The imposter Princess smirked at her reflection, setting down her brush as she eyed the Magikoopa in the reflection. “Well, what is it Kamek?” She spoke, her voice thankfully not like the Princess’ she was imitating, that would have been a little too uncanny. “You’re lucky I’ve already gotten myself prettied up today, Bwah ha ha!! What do you think, by the way? This ponytail is definitely me , right?~” The woman scoffed haughtily, brushing her manicured black fingernails through her long blonde hair.
“Yes, it’s... very eye-catching, your cruelness.” Kamek looked about the room. It looked... rather uncannily clean and tidy, for Bowser’s standards. “Lord Bowser, how long have you gone without changing back?”
Indeed, the woman before him was in fact the large king of the koopas. Yet, he was currently a she, and a human one at that!
“Hmm... I dunno. 2, 3 days? Whatever, I don’t keep track of that kinda thing. That’s your job, right? Get to the point.” She waved her hand dismissively, staring at her reflection.
“My King‒” Kamek tried to ignore the way Bowser tugged on her shoulderless dress and made a point to block out the idea that the king he had raised since he was but a baby was showing off cleavage ‒ the youth today had no modesty!‒ and switched to reasoning, “the kingdom needs order and leadership! You’ve been spending too much time, ahem, experimenting with those crowns, I believe. Why, even some of your subordinates have taken to them!” Kamek rubbed the bridge between his eyes as Bowser stood up and played with the hem of her dress.
“My lord. Your royal badness. Please, we must do something!” He already heard rumors about some of the mooks starting ranking systems on who wore the crowns better.
He heard people talking about how he’d look like as a Princess!
“Hah! Oh, poor, slow Kamek! As dim as usual, aren’t you?” The KingPrincess giggled. “What do you think I’m doing?”
‘ What do YOU think I think you’re doing? ’ Kamek replied inwardly.
“This!” Peach-Bowser turned around with a dramatic flourish, grinning sharply. “Is all part of my newest plan! Ohoho! I don’t blame you for not seeing it! But I expect better from you of all Koopas, Kamek!”
“Your... plan?” the Magikoopa regretted asking.
“Yes! My greatest and most surefire plan yet! I call it The Ultimate Princess Conquest plan!” She boasted, swishing her tail in excitement. Seems she was waiting to announce that to someone.
“And by all means, why did you wait until I’ve had to try and corale all the troops on my own for the last two weeks to tell me this?”
“I couldn’t risk it getting out too soon, you see. The surprise is part of the plan, ohohoho!” Peachser laughed haughtily, turning to face the mirror once again.
“I see.” Kamek didn’t. “What is this plan, then? Considering the entire castle knows about your... current state, I doubt you meant to surprise the Koopa Kingdom.”
“Hmm... I’ve been doing some thinking, Kamek.”
“Oh, dear...”
“Do you remember it? My last glorious plan, crushed by that plumber and his hat?”
“The marriage plan, yes, our treasury is still recovering from catering costs and legal fees.”
Powser decided to ignore that and kept going, “As you may recall. The Princess, there on the altar, on our beautiful wedding day... rejected me !” the woman almost seemed to sniffle and tear up at the recollection, wiping her eye. “But! But but but! Something else happened, you see!”
“It just seemed like a normal defeat to me...”
“Hm hm, that is where we are different! You see, I looked at the big picture. I looked at the whole scene and thought about it! And you know what happened? Huh!?” The false Princess looked towards Kamek with a fire in her eyes. “Princess Peach rejected not just me, but MARIO! Mario! Her greatest hero! That red plumber! The mustachioed menace!” She shook her head in disbelief. “Can you believe that?”
“It’s mostly the lower troops that gossip over relationships and who’s better for who, I wouldn’t know.”
“Oh, you have not a bit of romance in your body do you?” She sighed in disappointment. “Anyway, after that embarrassment I got to thinking. See-- The Princess had two eligible bachelors in front of her and she rejected both of us. I ain’t gonna compliment Mario or nothing, but he’s completely different from me, you know? How’s it make sense that neither of us are Peach’s type?”
Kamek glanced aside.
“So I started thinking. What IS her type? And then I figured it out, all thanks to this beauty! Bwahahaha!!!” Powser adjusted the pink crown on her head, laughing mightily in her boisterous, loud, yet still oddly musical and cute voice.
“Oh no.”
“Oh YES!!” The Queen of the Koopa Kingdom exclaimed. “It all makes sense! Peach’s type... is Peach herself!”
“Oh Lord Bowser, your genius as always stupefies the lowly and old me! Please, explain this reasoning .” Kamek almost hissed out. Almost.
“Naturally, my loyal advisor,” the blonde beamed brightly, “You see, I’ve been ignorant this whole time. I, in all my bad tough awesome coolness, love myself more than any other.” She flexed in front of the mirror. Her muscles weren’t anywhere nearly as large, but she admittedly loved how much more obvious they were in this smaller body. “And you know what? At first I thought: If I’m so cool, then everyone else obviously has to love me, maybe not as much as I do, but still!” She laughed, putting a delicate hand to her forehead. “And while it’s true, I was dumb enough to not think about the even more obvious! If I love myself as much as I do, then obviously everyone else loves themselves more than they’d love me!”
“Oh wow.”
“I know, right!? I can’t believe we missed this the whole time! I made a mistake, sure, I’m modest and romantic enough to love someone else- plus, having to fight with someone as bad and cool as I am for the top spot? No way. But the Princess? No, she must be all in on the narcissism! Sure she hangs around that one Daisy chick but obviously they aren’t close enough!” She sniffed. “I almost feel bad for Mario. As a love rival, it must hurt, never even having a chance to begin with! And he doesn’t even know what I know now!” She shook her head.
Kamek strongly considered that maybe Bowser needed a vacation after some of these more violent defeats lately. Enabling him to jump immediately back into his next conquest plan without proper recovery or... an examination of his faculties has clearly started building something up over the years. “So... your plan is to... capture Princess Peach’s heart... while looking like Princess Peach.”
“Of course! But not just looking like her! I’ve been practicing my Princessness all this time! In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve become a lovely lady to rival the queen of lovely ladies! Why, after this I won’t just be the King of the Koopa Kingdom! Yes, I’ll be King of Princesses! There’s no way she’d be able to resist my lovely, elegant charm. It’s her own, after all! Ohohoho!~”
Kamek took off his glasses and wiped them, then placed them back in their proper position. “Okay,” was all he could say.
“I’m glad you approve, Kamek!”
“Sure.” Kamek nodded. “But, Lord Bowser, as good as this plan is, the problem with the troops is still amok.”
“Hmph. You say they’ve gotten lazy? Fine then, I’m already prepared to woo the Princess with my sheer overwhelming Princessitude! We march now! Prepare the ships!”
“We can’t.”
“W-” Peachowser coughed, her charismatic flow completely interrupted. “What do you mean, “we can’t”!?”
“No money.” Kamek sighed in defeat. “That mess of a wedding and all those cancelled honeymoon plans destroyed our treasury. Catering wouldn’t give us a refund and made us pay all their hospital bills too, my liege.”
“WH-WHAT!?” She paled. “Those... those vultures! Taking advantage of my tragedy to bleed me dry! They can’t do that!! I’m a Princess!!!” Bowser cried out, running and grabbing Kamek by the shoulders, tears in her eyes. “You can’t be serious, Kamek!! How much of the treasury is left!?”
“Well aside from the ships not having any fuel or men on board we had to cancel all birthday parties for the next 7 months. And the Bowser Parades. And all of the Prince’s game subscriptions.”
The Princess winced. “...I’ll take Jr. on a few... cheap... trips to calm him down some later. Maybe a nice, relaxing, carefully budgeted picnic will be some good family bonding.” She offered weakly.
“Maybe.”
“R-right. Well, erm, you know what!” She dropped Kamek gently to not ruin the old Magikoopa’s bones. “Maybe, ah, perhaps it’s better this way! Yes, bringing my army won’t be a very princess-like thing to do!” She nodded to herself.
“So what are you going to do, your, erm, beautifulness?” Kamek adjusted his glasses and brushed his cloak as he got up. Huh, did Bowser clean his own room? He hadn’t noticed when he entered. Well, at least some good things came out of this.
“I’m gonna- I mean, I shall take my private royal... clown car... and meet my fellow Princess for a peaceful get together in which we will... heighten the relations between our families and kingdoms!” The Princess Koopa recited, seeming rather proud.
“Alone? But, your lordship, what should I do, then?”
“Ah, I don’t care, do whatever you want, Kamek. Read a book or whatever old people do.”
“B-but the troops!”
“Bah, those schmucks can take a day off, I don’t care! Not like I have the money to pay them anyway,” she waved a hand dismissively even as she opened the door and started moving down the hall. Naturally, she basked in the stares of those who stopped to gawk at their princess . This was also a good time to show off her practice in walking with heels!
Seriously, Princess Peach earned another tier of respect and Coolness after the King Koopa was humbled by how much of a pain walking in these things were, and she can run with them? Insanity.
“Your lordship, while I won’t speak against this plan, are you certain it is wise to go off on your own? There may be some unscrupulous types out there,” Kamek noted, completely missing the irony of such a statement.
“I can take care of myself, my dear advisor .” Princess Bowser giggled. Giggled!
“B-but what should I do about‒”
“Kamek! Seriously, stop being a killjoy and go away! I can’t do my plan if I’m distracted by an old nanny! It’d totally ruin the mood!” She complained, turning around. “Seriously. Go... take a walk or a nap or something, you’re stressing out over nothing.” She suggested.
Kamek was perhaps just a bit weirded out and taken aback by his... Princess. Strange, much less threatening of a request to leave his presence than usual.
“Now, I’ll be off~ Wish me luck, bwahahah!~” the blonde woman that was once a redheaded Koopa laughed as she climbed into her floating clown-themed ride. “I’ll be back later, maybe after the date I’m obviously about to get after I charm the Princess, oho!~”
“But... your lordship...” Kamek mumbled.
And then Princess King Bowser flew off towards the Mushroom Kingdom, to the sight of many onlooking Koopas and Goombas working in the airdock.
Kamek rubbed his head. “What should I do about all the... other crowns the troops have been finding...?” He asked his boss that was no longer there.
“Kaameeeek! Hey, hey Kamek!” A soft and screechy voice called out, shaking the aged Magikoopa to his core.
The royal advisor turned towards the entrance along with everyone else.
There was a short, adorable girl with mischief in her eyes wearing a simple, big black dress, with comfy black loafers on her feet, oversized dark grey bracelets hanging loosely on her wrists, and a large bandana sporting a grin-like design wrapped around her neck. Really, she was the spitting image of her father-... mother?? Parent? Aside from having a much shorter and more wild ponytail that, oddly seemed to tint towards a familiar shade of red at the ends.
The girl seemed to grin wide at the sight of Kamek, stomping towards him. “Finally! Hey Kamek! Where’s papa, huh? I found this cool thing and turned into this! I wanna show ‘em!” the girl snickered, hands on her hips.
Kamek, for the tenth time this morning, sighed.