Now that Peach’s castle no longer functioned as a center of a national government and was simply the estate of the absurdly rich, self-deposed King Peach, it was a lot quieter around here. Peach was very pleased about it that way. Other than her friends, her wife, and a few housekeepers and handmaidens, she had the whole castle to herself.

Thanks to this, she was able to set up an entire display with charts and maps and graphs for everyone to see. Everyone who ended up volunteering to join Peach’s war effort, that was.

It was a total of about thirty people so far. She really hoped more people would join. There was an entire group of Toads, a Lakitu and Koopa couple that seemed a little too young to be joining this kind of fight, and a few of Mario’s former adventure partners, including Goombario and Kooper as well as Vivian and Admiral Bobbery.

Of course, there was also the usual crowd of Mario, Luigi, Captain Toad, Yoshi, and Birdo. Almost all of these people were among those who had fought and been defeated by Bowsette all that time ago. It was very interesting to see them all readily join back up to help save Bowsette’s homeland from self-destruction.

The only notable absence was Toadette. Turns out, like Bowsette seemed to suspect, wasn’t actually visiting a cousin. Well, they were allegedly third cousins, but it was definitely not a family visit when Toadette ended up spending the night three times in a row. Apparently she had decided to stay in Shiver City with her new boyfriend for good and had fully moved in with him. Good for her...

Now that everyone was here that would likely be here, Peach cleared her throat and began discussing with them the entire situation.

“I want to tell everyone about what’s happening here, more of an update than last time for anyone who heard this before. We are facing a worldwide crisis and we’re going to need to get the world to unite to solve it, difficult as it may be,” Ironic for Peach to say this after she de-unified the Mushroom Kingdom, but unity in a spiritual sense was what she actually meant. “Morton Koopa, the undead King Koopa, is planning on reviving an ancient evil to destroy the planet. It is known as a Dread Lord, a kind of dragon from many eons ago, long before any of our races were even thought to have ever existed. Their main goal, according to legend, is to consume and destroy until there is nothing else, and then lay their eggs in the core of them planet before they cast themselves off into space towards a new destination. Then once the planet has revitalized itself millions of years later, new Dread Lords hatch and begin the process again.”

“Mamma-mia,” Mario said.

Luigi was shaking in fear, as usual.

Peach continued. “We will never be able to defeat a Dread Lord if fully revived. So we must stop Morton before he can do that, or even come close to doing that. But the last time Morton was destroyed, it took seven complete armies as well as a special magical amulet that no longer exists. So as far as we have been able to figure, there is no foolproof way to win this.”

Now the Toads were shaking in fear as well.

“But, uh, fortunately, because Morton is undead, even if he is a sixteen-foot-tall behemoth, he is nowhere near the height of his power. We may be able to take him down much more easily this time. But even so, we will still need to gather a force large enough to defeat the Koopa Troop and free the people of Dark Land that have been subjugated to his rule.

“If you look here, this is a list of our current coalition. We have two Generals with forces that will allow us to fight in large-scale battles: Whomp King and King Boo. There is also Bowsette’s son Iggy, who is leading a resistance force within Dark Land at this very moment. Beyond that, though we have nothing. Our, um, ally Nabbit has been apparently trying to recruit more forces, but he has gotten mixed success so far, as far as we’ve heard.

“Therefore, I am going to institute a new drive that will change everything. All of you, you who have decided to join me in saving the world and risk your lives, will be a part of my army. House Toadstool will lend its full support to Bowsette’s Army and I will act as a General. I do not have significant combat experience, and I assume none of you do either. Even my guards are relatively untrained. But we have Bowsette here, as well as Mario and Luigi and several others, who will begin training all of us. Before long, we will be able to fight just the same as the rest of them.”

Bowsette and the others were taken aback by this. She hadn’t consulted about it with them. But they surely knew that in this time of need, desperate measures were needed, so she didn’t think it was necessary.

“Even though House Toadstool no longer governs a nation, it is still a powerful royal estate, and therefore I am instating a new rank for those who fight for me to the ends of the Earth. You will not be my soldiers in any small sense. You will be Knights of the Toadstool. With swords and everything.”

This certainly made a lot of the Toads interested, but some of them were clearly about to go home after this because apparently danger and training weren’t actually what they had signed up for.

That didn’t matter, not to Peach. She only wanted those who would be brave enough to serve, so those others were right in leaving.

“So, is everyone ready? Because we’re going to start tomorrow, first thing in the morning. If you want to become a knight, here is your chance.”

She looked over to Bowsette, who was grinning like a madwoman.

She grinned back.