Peach paced back and forth in front of a blackboard with many notes and sketches scribbled out on it.

She stood before a small group, an elite team that would carry out the tasks before them. They were Mario, Luigi, Captain Toad, Archivist Toadette, and Goombella, who had recently returned from an excavation trip in Subcon. Toadette and Goombella were busy trading theories while Luigi and Captain Toad argued about the scariest ghosts they had ever seen. Mario simply stared at the other person in the room, sitting noticeably to the side of the four... Bowsette. It was clear to Peach that Mario was not accepting whatsoever of these recent developments, and having to be in the same room as her was disconcerting to him.

It had taken a while to explain everything to even Peach’s closest friends, and she knew it would be even more difficult in the inevitability that Bowsette’s residence in the castle became public. So she had been practicing her explaining skills on them first. Bowsette was a cruel dictator, the despotic ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom’s worst geopolitical enemy, a woman who had plunged both kingdoms into chaos with rebellions and secessions and uproar. But she deserved a chance to redeem herself. It wasn’t just a confusing mix of pity and anger that Peach felt anymore. She genuinely cared about Bowsette and wanted to fix whatever was broken inside of her.

Which, for the time being, meant literally fixing what was broken inside of her, as in her magic that had been sealed away by the Mushroom Soul that Mario unleashed a few months prior.

Toad, Toadette, and Luigi were reluctant to accept Bowsette into the fold, but they seemed to be warming up to her presence a little bit. Goombella treated it as if it were no event at all, which was almost stranger considering Goombella was originally from Bowser’s Kingdom where Bowsette had previously ruled with an iron fist. Mario, though, was his usual aloof self.

No matter. He’d get over it.

“Our first phase of the plan to save the Earth is to bring back Bowsette’s magic powers,” Peach said, taking out a pointy stick thing and tapping it against the blackboard. “She was the one who defeated Morton Koopa, her biological father, all those years ago, so without her power we don’t have a chance.”

Captain Toad politely raised his hand.

“Yes, Toad?” she asked.

“This is a bunch of Moo Moo crap! Why can’t we defeat him all on our own? We’ve got the Mario Brothers on our side!” He gestured over to the two superheroes of the Mushroom Kingdom. “They never lose! Not when the Shroobs attacked, not when the X-Nauts invaded, not when Bomberman and Wario started blowing up the planet together. They stopped the bad guys every time!”

Luigi took it in stride, and Mario lowered his cap like a cowboy.

“But this time is... a little bit different,” Peach said. “Morton Koopa is unlike anything we’ve faced before.”

“Even the Shadow Queen?” Captain Toad asked. “Even Bowser-- Bowsette’s Galaxy Reactor? Even Culex?!”

“Yeah,” Bowsette chimed in. “I faced him myself. See, unlike any of you, I actually beat him, decades ago. I was at my full strength, with six Generals and my first wife by my side and the Firestone Amulet that gave me immense strength for one moment only. No, it is no longer with us. Sorry. We don’t have any new special items to search for this time. There aren’t any secret devices that will allow us to defeat him. We just have to stop him before he can figure out a way to revive his true form, or else we’re all goners.”

“So first things first, we need to figure out how to get Bowsette’s powers back. We might have a fighting chance then,” Peach said.

“And when she gets them back we’re... still going to help?” Toadette asked meekly.

“Um, yes,” Peach said. She realized what the others were probably thinking: why would they trust their lives with a bonafide villain, one with newly-minted magical abilities that will allow her to take over the Mushroom Kingdom all over again if she pleases? “I trust her, and so should you.”

Bowsette closed her eyes and smirked.

“We can restore her magic if we... well, figure out how to negotiate with the Mushroom Soul. Ever since Mario unleashed it, it has been wandering the Toadwood Forest, floating around as if it were guarding something. But we have no idea how to communicate with it, much less figure out how, or even IF it could unseal her.”

“I’ll do it,” Luigi said. “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!

“So... the real question is... does anyone know where the Great Wizard Merlon may be?” Peach asked. “He’s the only one I know of who would be powerful enough to do it. But ever since he exiled himself from the Mushroom Kingdom...”

“Oh, I know that!” Goombella shouted. “I actually heard a story about Merlon hiding out near one of the entrances to Subcon when my party was returning. He’s holed himself up in some small hut near the ocean somewhere out in the West, but nobody has been able to get anywhere near him because of all the barriers he has set up.”

“Then... that’s where we’ll have to go,” Peach said.

Peach looked once more at Bowsette, who was very excited to begin another adventure so soon, especially one that would directly help her out. The others didn’t trust her at all, but Peach knew in her heart that this was all going to work out. Well... mostly.