Somehow, Bowsette’s transformation into her true self had reenergized the combatants around here. The koopalings, all eight of them, sprung to their feets. Peach and the Knights of the Toadstool hobbled back up and charged once again. Bowsette extended wings from inside her shell and took off into the air, igniting her entire body in fire. She collided with Morton and knocked him onto the ground, the first moment of real damage to the man since the battle began.

Something inside of Bowsette had always been there... and now it was awake. Not at any point in her life until now had she realized what she truly was. Not the weakling descendant of ancient dragons, whether they were cosmonauts or terrorizers. Not some girl wearing a power-up suit. Not when she was waging a revolution, or when she was putting down Shisai’s rebellion, or when she was taking over the Mushroom Kingdom any number of times. The true power inside of her was... herself.

Because Bowsette was Bowsette. And that meant there were no limits to be had. Because any limits that she found, she would break. She always did.

Morton stopped his meandering and got into full fighting mode, getting into his shell and spinning around. It knocked into a wall and obliterated any remaining source that this ever used to be part of the castle. They were fully outside now.

And that was probably for the best, because now the entire Grand Unity Army was in the vicinity, with a clear shot at the sixteen-foot undead monster in the middle of the rubble and destruction.

And the entire army charged.

Boom Boom was the first one to enter the battle, spinning into a top and unleashing a flurry of fists at Morton’s feet. He swung his axe and hit the stone floor in a crack, but his weapon was too slow to hit him.

King Boo and his hundreds of ghosts swarmed the room and trapped him in some sort of barrier of ghostly magics. He couldn’t move outside this barrier, not until he swung his axe and evaporated a good thirty of them in one blow.

Now infused with fury, he sent a blast of fire in all directions, turning his head in a full 360-degree spin and trying to kill as many people as possible.

Bowsette took this moment to extend her Chomp Shell chain and begin the final assault.

Instead of bashing it against Morton which seemed to be as useless as normal, she decided to make further use of the Ztar-infused power within her weapon that absorbed the energy, magical or otherwise, out of anything it impacted with. Its dark-black glow was absolutely iridescent at this point and she realized that it was soon going to be ready for its special attack. So she smashed it right against the Axe in Morton’s hands. It hit the weapon and bounced backwards, nearly hitting Bowsette herself in the face as it swung towards her, and then hit the Axe on the other side. With each thud the Chomp Shell grew brighter, even if the Axe didn’t seem to be affected. There was some magic left in the thing after all, even if it didn’t look like it.

Morton noticed what was happening and flipped the Axe upside down, holding the steel hit forwards and jabbing it towards Bowsette. She swiped it away with her claws and then jumped on the hilt itself. This thing was only six inches in diameter and actually balancing on it was next to impossible, but Bowsette was done with thinking anything was impossible. She ran up the hilt of the Axe and reached the side closest to Morton himself, where the cutting edge of the Axe was facing the the ground right at his chest.

She whipped it and struck the end of the handle; the axe head itself was disattached and felt to the ground, striking Morton in the foot and cutting off his toe claws.

Morton could not feel pain, clearly, but he felt very obvious rage at this. He dropped the remains of the axe and jumped backwards. With a piercing roar, he did something unexpected--

He grabbed Morton Jr. and held him up to him.

“Stop right there, all of you. I’m not giving up now,” Morton said.

“Mom! Help!” Morton Jr. shouted.

Boom Boom took the opportunity to attack while everyone else had halted, but Morton kicked him, launching him so far he flew past the curvature of the Earth.

“I’m going to finish a ritual one way or another, even if it ends up killing all of you. If I can’t have a Dread Lord, then at least I’ll bring myself back to life. And my dear son is the best way to make that happen.”

He clutched Morton tighter, and a new aura of magical energy burst forth, making Morton Jr. scream out in pain while everyone else stood by helplessly.

There was only one thing Bowsette thought to do. With no inclination as to how effective it might be or how stupid it might be, she marched over to Peach, grabbed her hand, and prayed.