'Baby, You're a Peach': Being a work of fan-fiction set in the Super Mario Brothers Universe
Thursday:
He heaved a sigh and kicked his tiny little legs over the edge of the precipice, seemingly unfazed by the bottomless nature of the pit in front of them. The vast panorama of the Mushroom Kingdom laid out before them. His gaze fixed on a distant [?] block, still shockingly unopened, if only to avoid meeting her eyes.
“Bowser is not known for his leniency on treason you know...”
Princess Peach swept her dress beneath her and took a seat next to her Goomba companion, Enoki.
“I understand the risk you have taken for me... and I am grateful... truly...but...” she trailed off, unsure of how to continue.
“I know, it's that... plumber.”
She reached over one of her be gloved hands, placing it on the top of his mound shaped body, in what was meant to be a conciliatory gesture.
“You needn't condescend to me Princess,” at this the Enoki pushed away from her, and Peach dropped her hand to her lap, self consciously picking at the lace of her dress. A dense silence hung between them, broken only by the distant flapping wings of a Parakoopa Trooper.
* * *
One Week Earlier, Thursday:
“Get a move on!” a Magikoopa, who Enoki recognized as Kamek, growled, as he guided a girl, bound, and with a bag over her head, down the hallway toward the dungeons. Enoki was curious, he had only just begun working at Bowser's estate, so he was unaware of his new bosses propensity for kidnapping royalty at every conceivable opportunity.
Enoki crept stealthily along after the pair, insofar as what is essentially an anthropomorphic mushroom can display stealth, a process aided somewhat by the fact that Kamek was quite loquacious about Bowser's power, about the weakness of the mushroom kingdoms current regime, and his own mastery of the arcane. After what seemed an eternity of rantings, they arrived at the cell reserved for Peach.
Roughly Kamek pushed her into the cell and with a wave of his wand cut her bindings and caused the bag to vanish. Enoki caught the barest glimpse of her before the cell door slammed shut. That glimpse was all he needed. He needed to free her, to be with her. So he formulated a plan.
* * *
A Few Days Later, Sunday:
Enoki took a deep breath and tried to bring his racing pulse back under control. He peered down the hall to her cell, two Hammer Brothers were stationed just outside the door. As he approached their hands dropped to the mini-sledges strapped to their waists.
“Halt!” they cried in unison. “Who goes there?”
“Private first class Enoki, 314th squadron, Lemmy's Irregulars. I have orders for a prisoner transport.” At that, Enoki thrust an official looking piece of paper at the guards.
“Why haven't we heard of this before?” The Hammer Brothers asked, again in unison (a peculiar side effect of the magical processes by which Hammer Brother pairs are engineered).
“You're hearing about it now,” Enoki retorted coolly, “the boss wanted it kept a secret, to foil rescue attempts. Bottom line boys, I'm sorry, but the Princess is going to another castle.”
After a breathless moment the Hammer Brothers nodded and opened the cell, allowing Enoki in.
“Aren't you a little short for a Koopa-trooper?” Peach asked after sizing up the new arrival.
Enoki was too stunned to finally be in her presence to formulate an answer.
“I... there... ummm... prisoner... transport... castle... pretty...” he stammered.
“I take it back, you fit in perfectly here,” Peach began, a wry smile on her lips and one perfectly trimmed eyebrow raised in amusement, “Lead on, oh noble fascist.” and with that she flounced out of the cell and tapped her foot, seemingly impatient for Enoki to catch up. As soon as they were around the first corner, Enoki whispered,
“Just follow my lead, I'm going to get you out of here.”
“Yes,” Peach answered, “I'm pretty sure we covered that, you know prisoner transport, foiling rescuers. It won't work you know, Mario will come for me, he always does.” At this, a faraway look came over her eyes and a small smile crossed her lips. Enoki's heart sank like a stone.
“Ah, you have a boyfriend...” He frowned, “I suppose I should have guessed” he continued under his breath. Peach was too caught up in her reverie to notice. Enoki sighed, his mood suddenly dark. He was so caught up in his thoughts in fact, that he failed to notice that Peach had drawn an umbrella from somewhere in the folds of her dress, and after a few quick practice hefts, swung it full force at Enoki's head. Fortunately, the largely fungal anatomy of the Goomba's body made it uniquely suited to shrug off blunt force trauma, indeed, unless the strike carried enough weight to crush the Goomba's relatively weak legs (a weight roughly proportional to a somewhat obese human male bearing full force down on them from above, for example), they were surprisingly resilient creatures.
“By Bowser's spines, that bloody stings woman!” Enoki cried as the umbrella bounced off. “I'm trying to help you here!”
“Help me to a new cell you mean? How noble, truly.” Peach's lip curled in distaste as she spoke.
“That was a lie dammit! This isn't a transport it's a rescue!” Enoki was beginning to sound a bit hysterical, so desperate was he to win Peach's approval.
“What, really?” Peach seemed taken aback if only for a moment “Well... you needn't have bothered, Mario is probably already on his way.”
“Well, it seems his services won't be needed today, your escape is already well underway. What is so great about this Mario of yours anyway?” Enoki asked, unable to keep the jealousy out of his voice. Much to his chagrin, she spent the next three and a half hours explaining it to him.
* * *
Three Hours And Twenty Nine Minutes Later:
“...and some things are just better with a mustache.” Peach finally paused to catch her breath.
“Yeah... well, I meant besides that,” Enoki pouted as he stooped over to pick up another of the gold coins that inexplicably littered the ground on the Mushroom Kingdoms better traveled roads. Suddenly they heard a noise from behind.
“Halt,” two voices cried out in unison “The prisoner transport you are engaged in is unauthorized. Surrender the Princess at once or face execution.” Enoki turned to find the two Hammer Brothers who had been guarding the cell standing behind him, signature weapons already in hand.
“Stand back Peach,” Enoki warned and stepped forward to confront the aggressors, “The Princess is coming with me and that is non negotiable, so why don't you two...” Enoki was stopped mid-sentence, as a hammer came crashing down on his head, on they must have thrown into the air before they announced their presence. He dropped to the ground like a pile of bricks after they had been shattered by a plumbers fist, a trickle of fluid rolling out of his lips.
“Further resistance will not be tolerated!” The Brothers cried.
“Try and take me then,” Peach said and pulled out her umbrella, The Brothers hesitated at this, uncertain as to how much damage Bowser would forgive them inflicting. Finally one of them lobbed his hammer toward Peach. Peach deftly caught it in the crook at the base of the umbrellas handle, and spinning, lobbed it full force back. It caught the Hammer Brother square in the head, snapping back his head with bone crunching force. He fell backwards onto his shell, his head lolling at an impossible angle. The other Brother, struck mute by the loss of his twin, leapt up onto a nearby wall and released a massive volley of hammers. Peach opened her umbrella and charged through the line of fire, slipping behind her attacker, and dropping him with a blow to the head.
After Peach was certain he wasn't getting up again, she brushed her hair out of her eyes and quipped,
“Don't you know it's illegal to get hammered on a Sunday?” When no one laughed she huffed, and looked sharply toward Enoki, and upon seeing he was still collapsed she rushed over to his side. “Are you all right?”
“Heh, I'm afraid not...” Enoki gasped out, clearly having trouble breathing, “Sorry Princess, but you'll have to take the rescue from here.” His eyes rolled back in his head, as he said this, and his breathing grew even shallower.
“No... not today,” Peach said firmly, and cast about her surroundings. It was pretty typical, bricks on the road at her feet, rolling grass, and in the distance phallic looking green hills, and perhaps a hundred yards away one of those floating [?] boxes. She dashed towards it and gave it a firm crack with her umbrella, “Here's to hope” she said and waited to see what emerged. When a green mushroom, rather garishly bedecked in white polka dots popped out Peach let out a delighted giggle, “Perfect timing.” She snatched the mushroom up and ran back to Enoki, pushing the mushroom into his mouth. At first nothing happened. A tear rose to Peach's eye and she looked away uncertain as to what had gone wrong, even the most grievous of injuries were supposed to be undone by the power of those mushrooms. A sob wracked her body, though she couldn't really say why, she had only just met this peculiar little Goomba after all. Then she heard a rattling breath from behind her and turned to see Enoki stumbling back to his feet. She helped him steady himself before nearly knocking him back over with the mighty force of her glomp.
“Don't do that again you silly fool, I am quite capable of taking care of myself you know!” Peach cried before finally letting Enoki out of her embrace. Enoki for his part was rather nonplussed blushing furiously, insofar as a giant anthropomorphic mushroom can blush .
* * *
Back to the Present, Thursday
The awkward silence that lingered between the pair seemed to stretch toward infinity, when suddenly in the distance;
“WAH-HOOOOOO” an exuberant shout echoed across the land with the decibel level of a gunshot. This was followed by the sound of running feet, and the occasional sound of something organic being crushed beneath black boots. Gradually the source of the noise became apparent as on the horizon, a red overall bedecked, rather portly looking Italian became visible. Without warning he leapt atop the distant Koopa-paratrooper whose wing beats had been filling the conversational void, and with a sickening squelching sound , dispatched it.
Then for the first time he saw Peach.
“IT'S A-ME, MARIO” He shouted as his gaze fell upon her and grinning broadly, (actually rather idiotically to Enoki's mind) Set off at a full run towards her. He leapt over obstacles, skillfully evaded local fauna, and when he came within a few hundred feet, jumped atop one of the ubiquitous green pipes that littered the landscape. Then the illusion of grace vanished. With arms pinwheeling comically, Mario let out a stunned
“WHOA-WHOA-OH”, and pitched forward down the pipe.
Silence returned.
“That's Mario?” Enoki asked, ill-concealed scorn dripping from his every word.
“Yeah... yeah that was him,” Peach said, sounding a little dazed.
“That pipe leads to one of the disused warp zones as I recall. He should be fine, but when he comes out the other end, He'll be a few hundred miles from here...”
“Oh...”
“I'll understand if you want to go after him.” Enoki said, sadly. Peach once again laid a comforting hand on him, this time he didn't resist.
“I don't think I do,” Peach responded, having a sudden change of heart, the sort that implies the writer of this tale suddenly realized he had already committed more then three pages of time and effort to what was ostensibly a joke, and wanted to wrap it up, character motivations and good storytelling be damned. ”In fact,” Peach continued, “perhaps what I'm looking for is right in front of me.”
Enoki smiled shyly, and Peach smiled right back.
* * *
Epilogue:
The light's were dimmed in Peach's boudoir. The two inhabitants, one a princess of the Mushroom Kingdom, and one, an anthropomorphic mushroom, were regarding each other with a certain measure of confusion.
“So... how is this supposed to work?” Peach asked breaking the silence.
“Actually, I'm not too sure myself... Usually I just release a cloud of spores and, you know, a light breeze and nature takes it's course.” Enoki explained.
“That sounds... unsanitary to say the least...” Peach sounded unenthusiastic.
“Yeah... you don't really seem equipped for spores either...” Enoki trailed off for a moment, then continued “I ah... I guess I really didn't think this through...”
“Look, you're a fun guy and all, and I hope we can be friends, but... maybe you should go.” Peach pulled her clothing back on and opened the door signaling for Enoki to leave. “Maybe I should see what Luigi is up too...” Enoki heard her mutter before she closed the door behind him.
A rather perplexed Enoki was left standing alone in the hall wondering exactly how he could explain his unscheduled leave of absence to his superiors.
THE END
You read it, you can't unread it.
