Bowsette's Princess Lessons Chapter VIII: The Appropriately-Named and Conveniently-Placed Janitor’s Closet

Bowsette's Princess Lessons Chapter VIII: The Appropriately-Named and Conveniently-Placed Janitor’s Closet

By Yu May

Princess Daisy looked ahead to the horizon, trying to mentally calculate how far they still had to go. Her mental calculations were not giving her much hope. “Even if Luigi buys us some time, we’re still two whole worlds behind Bowser.”

Mario said nothing.

Captain Toad took the lead, knocking enemies aside to clear a path. “We’ll have to make record time! Follow my lead, as fast as you can!”

Princess Peach, Princess Daisy followed, along with Gonzales Jr. (carrying Koops and Koopie Koo), and Mario bringing up the rear. Spike “Lakilester” Lakitu flew alongside the group, ready to catch the first person who fell. “Um, dudes, I’m only going to be able to catch one person, so could you all go as fast as you can, as carefully as you can!” 

Ahead of them loomed the great stone castle, bearing the legend: “World 1-4.” Its towering gates and shadowy windows gave it the look of a monstrous, stone-faced giant.

Princess Daisy grinned. “This fortress is full of all sorts of terrifying, deadly traps! …I can’t wait!” 

Immediately, the castle crumbled into rubble, seeming to fade into nothingness as the stones began to fly away to rearrange themselves further down the course.

Princess Peach pointed through the debris. “The Mario Maker must be trying to load the next world’s fortress level! It’s disassembling the castle to acquire the building materials it needs!”

Mario paled. “But what about Watt? She was supposed to be waiting in that castle as part of the obstacle course!”

Overhead, a delightful, childish giggle echoed through the empty sky. They looked up and saw a small ball of energy, as bright as the sun, with an adorable face, sucking on a pacifier. It was Watt the Sparky! “Weee! Mr. Mario! Look’it me! I’m flying!”

Two gigantic cornerstones, each the size of an elephant, smashed into Watt on either side. Watt was only a toddler, but since she was also a ball of sentient, living electricity, she was entirely invincible. “Weeee! Aha ha, ha, that tickles! Do it again! Tee hee hee!”

Mario winced, then groaned as he watched Watt slam against stone pillars, wooden stakes, and boiling hot lava. She was positively beaming with joy the whole time, but Mario still felt like a terrible babysitter. “Watt? Be…careful…young lady?”

Watt stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry. “Whatta’ you gonna’ do? Spank me?”

“I will if he won’t, little missy!” barked Princess Peach.

Watt’s eyes went wide. She hated spankings. After all, they hurt! “Sorry, Princess Peach! I’ll be good! What do you want me to do?”

Peach pointed to a pillar of fire and a double bladed axe that were both spiraling in Watt’s direction. “Just be careful, and watch where you’re going!”

If Watt had hands, she would have been saluting. “Aye, aye, Princess! You can count on me!”

Watt narrowed her eyes, focusing all her attention on being careful, and avoiding danger. The pillar of fire crashed over her like a wave, followed by the axe, which snapped in two as it smashed against her determined face. Watt cheered in delight. “See, Princess? I’m being super careful, now!”

Princess Peach sighed. “There’s nothing else we can do for now. Keep running!”

Mario made a mental count of everyone he needed to save at the moment, a habit he had formed over many years of diligent practice. “Then we’ll need to warn Mrs. Sushie, Madame Flurrie, Ms. Mowz, Lady Bow, Vivian, Bombette, and Admiral Bobbery!”

Koopie Koo pointed to the horizon. Ahead they could clearly make out World 4 loading. “Mrs. Sushie went to the moat in World 2. Madame Flurrie and Ms. Mowz set up an ambush in World 3, and Lady Bow and Vivian are haunting a fortress level! They should be safe, for now!”

Daisy huffed, as if the world collapsing around her was a minor annoyance. “That’s great, but it also means Bowser skipped past all of them. They won’t be able to hold him back!”

Koops interjected, concentrating to overcome his habitual stammer. “Admiral Bobbery and Bombette will get a chance! They were in World 4.

Spike’s eyes went so wide, they could be seen behind his incredibly cool triangular shades. “Uh, Dudes? What if they attack us?” 

“Then we will defeat them in honorable combat!” roared Gonzales Jr.

Koops started to get flustered. It occurred to him that both his own life, and his bride-to-be’s life, were in Gonzales Jr.’s teeny-tiny little hands, at this very moment. “Um, when we see them, someone better tell them to not attack us, preferably someone good at…talking? So…er, can we please not attack them, Gonzales, Jr.?”

Gonzales, Jr. boomed with equal dramatic emphasis. “Okay! We will not defeat them in honorable combat! We will tell them to join forces with us, and use the strength of our eternal friendship to defeat Bowser in honorable combat!”

Without having to worry about the obstacles in the castle, our heroes charged across the bare red brick foundation that marked where the fortress formerly stood. As they passed the end point of level 1-4, they rushed past a hologram of a Toad retainer, ignoring it.

The hologram started to say, “Thank you, Mario! But our Princess is in another castle!” before it stuttered, froze, and blipped out of existence.

…

The air around the Mario Maker actually rippled from the radiant heat. The icons on the user interface stuttered, then reloaded with corrupted text.

Goombaria panicked as she realized the stylus to control the panel was on a delay. “What-do-I-do-what-do-I-do-what-do-I-do?”

Toadette bounced up and down in terror. “Use the keyboard to type control, alt, delete, then force quit any unnecessary programs!”

“That’s it! Duh, Goombaria! Toadette, you know more about the Mario Maker than I do! You do…whatever you just said, I’m going to get help!”

Toadette quickly switched places with Goombaria at the control panel and began to type. “From who?”

Goombaria flashed a buck-toothed grin. “From the best big brother in the whole wide world…if I can just get him out of bed!”

…

Luigi threw back his fist, preparing to land an overhand punch on Bowser’s jaw. But as he saw the trembling, slender body of his opponent, and the pained expression on the feminine face, Luigi couldn’t see Bowser. Rationally, Luigi knew it had to be Bowser, despite his current feminine form. But subconsciously, Luigi saw Princess Peach’s face. Checking his blow at the last instant, Luigi slammed his fist into the ground at Bowser’s feet, pulverising the red brick platform beneath. “Just give up, B-B-Bowser! Don’t make me hurt–”

With a high-pitched roar, a pink candle flame sparked to life at the end of his tongue. Luigi sensed the danger, dodged to one side. Luigi felt the bullet of pink flame before he saw it, grazing across his cheek like a thin wire, hot as iron. After the bullet shot past Luigi, it ripped through three question mark blocks in a row.

As he realized how naturally he was able to control the deadly flame attack, Bowser was simultaneously thrilled by his mastery of this new ability, and annoyed by Luigi’s luck. Spinning wildly, Bowser smashed his spiked tail into Luigi’s chest, hoping to throw Luigi off balance. Luigi would have hurtled to his doom, had he not clutched Bowser’s tail in a tight embrace. To his terror, Bowser felt Luigi’s weight pulling him toward the edge of the platform, and clawed at the brick floor with his pointed fingernails. “Hey! Leggo, you lunkhead!”

Luigi glanced down at the hard pavement 500 feet below, and squeaked with fright. “N-no, thank you!”

“Well, f__k you, Luigi!” 

The grating sound of nails scraping against stone made them all flinch. Alerted by the sound, Parrakarry arced in midair to divebomb toward Luigi, grabbing him by the suspenders of his overalls to lift him back up.

Bowser, whose face had turned blue from holding his breath, gasped with relief as he felt the heavy weight pulling at his tail relax. Immediately, Luigi started spinning Bowser in a tight circle by the tail, just like he and Mario had done countless times in the past. Luigi went silent as his fighting instincts activated. He knew everyone was counting on him! He had to take down Bowser! But then, Luigi noticed Bowser’s new, feminine, cartoon-heart-boxer-clad buttocks wriggling in the air before him, and his subconscious betrayed him yet again.

Ever the gentleman, Luigi quickly released his grasp on the “woman’s” tail, stammering apologies and averting his eyes. The centrifugal force sent Bowser flying through the air further down the course, heading towards the flag that marked the goal post. 

Below him, Bowser could dimly make out a little, round, pink, screaming thing. 

“Bowser incoming! Bombs away!” roared Bombette, the Bob-omb, as she dive bombed forward to intercept him, igniting her fuse.

Wide-eyed, Bowser felt his tail smacking against Bombette’s face, before a fiery explosion sent him shooting straight up, cracking his skull against the question marks above him with such force, it flattened his head down to meet his shoulders. (Fortunately, Saturday morning cartoon and video game characters can take that kind of punishment in stride.)

Bowser slapped back down onto the brick below, chin-first. “Ooch! My throbbing head! My stinging tail! My aching…everything!”

Bombette, who always went flying when she blew her top, crash-landed a few feet ahead of Bowser, her eyes dazed. 

Admiral Bobbery appeared at her side. “Bombette! Are you hurt? How many fingers am I holding up?” Admiral Bobbery held up zero fingers on his invisible hand.

Oblivious, Bombette began singing the lyrics to My Bomber Lies Over the Ocean in a dazed, yet oddly sweet, warble: “One night as I lay on my pillow…my batman awoke me and said…‘I say there are ships in the channel…and bags of black cloud overhead!”

Snarling, Bowser arose to his feet. “Grawr! Bob-bombs? I’m surrounded by traitors! I thought King Bob-bomb was supposed to bring you duds in line!”

Admiral Bobbery scowled, his magnificent mustache shivering with manly rage. “I owe no allegiance to your puppet king, Bowser. We are proud, free bob-bombs!”

“Bring back, bring back, oh, bring back my bomber and me, and me! Bring back, bring back, oh, bring back my bomber and me!” crooned Bombette, with all her might, rolling onto Admiral Bobbery’s manly, perfectly spherical shoulder.

Bowser grinned, and with a click of his tongue, felt the pink flame spark to life again. “What a pity. I could have used an Admiral…Guess I’ll have to settle for a fireworks show.”

Admiral Bobbery tensed as he saw the pink flame in Bowser’s throat pointing like an arrow towards his own fuse.

“So I climbed in my bloody old bomber! And I took off right dead into wind! And I searched the whole length of the channel! But no bloody ship could I find!” sang Bombette.

Luigi erupted from the ground, just behind and below Bowser, and tackled the feminine King of the Koopas to the ground. Bowser’s fire tore through brick and stone, leaving a clean hole behind. Bombette began to sing the chorus as a refrain: “Bring back, bring back, oh, bring back my bomber and me, and me! Bring back, bring back, oh, bring back my bomber and me!”

Parrakarry shouted a warning as he slammed into a question mark block, revealing a fire flower right behind Luigi. Snarling, Bowser spun on Luigi, charging another bullet of pink flame. All at once, Luigi grasped the fire flower, Bowser shot a bullet, and Luigi held up a hand to shoot a fireball. Bowser’s pink flame was easily swallowed by Luigi’s green flame, and ricocheted back with force towards Bowser’s face, the force of the two attacks feeding into one another. Clenching his teeth, Bowser ducked back into a limbo pose and felt the hot flames grazing right past his new set of inconveniently large boobies. Kicking wildly, Bowser slapped his bare foot uselessly against Luigi’s chest, and felt a shiver travel down his spine. He wasn’t strong enough to handle Luigi?

Since he was very young, Bowser had developed the habit of coaching himself, whenever he encountered a problem that seemed impossible, whether it was overcoming an enemy, or wooing Princess Peach. “C’mon, Big Guy! You can do this! It’s just Luigi!” thought Bowser.

“Brute force won’t work! You’re outmatched! Run, you dumbass!” screeched the far-away, feminine voice. Dimly, as though in a dream, it occurred to Bowser that he had heard that woman’s voice somewhere before. But in the heat of battle, Bowser had no time to dwell on the voice inside his head.

Spinning lightly away from Admiral Bobbery’s embrace, Bombette skipped and pirouetted towards the fighters. “So I turned ‘round and headed for England…just thinking of coffee and bed…The controller said ‘How come you missed them?’ And I’ll leave you to guess what I said!”

“Bombette? Wait!” barked Admiral Bobbery, sprinting after her. 

When he reached her, Bombette spun him into an absurd, stumbling waltz. “Bring back, bring back, oh, bring back my bomber and me, and me!”

Luigi grasped Bowser’s frail, delicate ankle in his gloved fist. “Bower, you’ve gotta’ listen to me! If you don’t stop–”

Bombette glomped into Bowser’s chest, tripping a horrified Admiral Bobbery, who was pulled into the dogpile. The two Bob-ombs each smacked their perfectly round faces against one of Bowser’s massive, perfectly round boobs. Still punch drunk, Bombette’s fuse lit as she finished her song on a high note. “Bring back, bring back, oh, bring back my bomber and me!”

Perfectly on cue, Bombette exploded again. Luigi shielded his face, but was still forced to stumble backward and off the floating platform.

The force thrust Bowser downward, through a layer of floating brick, to the floor below. He bounced once on his shell, spiraling, and came to a stop when he crashed the back of his head against the base of a green Piranha plant pipe. “Rraargh! I’m gonna rip the next thing I see into tiny pieces of confetti!”

The Piranha plant inside snapped up reflexively, looking for a meal, took one look at the Queen of the Koopas, and ducked backinside its pipe to hide.

Bombette and Admiral Bobbery flew into the air in a perfect 90 degree vertical angle, and plopped right back down to the platform where they had been before. Bombette shook her head. “Whew! What a nice nap! Say, Admiral, have Mario and the gang shown up yet?”

His eyes spinning, Admiral Bobbery began to rap the lyrics of the 2012 indietronica song Blond Bombshell by Owl City:

“That blonde, she's a bomb, she's an atom bomb.

Rigged up, and ready to drop!

Bad news, I'm a fuse, and I've met my match.

So stand back, it's about to go off!”

Bombette cradled Admiral Bobbery gently, her eyes wide with loving concern. “Oh no! My poor Admiral! He’s shell shocked!” 

Bowser clung to the pipe for support and willed himself to stand up, every bone and muscle in his body screaming in pain. He wanted to rip and tear. To crush anything that got in his way. Then he spotted Luigi, stumbling to his feet with equal difficulty. As the power of the Fire Flower emanated through him, Luigi’s clothes changed color to dazzling white and green.

Bowser had lost plenty of fights in his life. But never once, even in defeat, had Bowser ever felt like he was the weaker fighter, compared to Mario. On the few occasions Bowser had fought Luigi, he had always treated the green-clad Mario brother as a secondary concern, the lesser threat.

But at the sight of his foe, Bowser knew he didn’t stand a chance. In terror, Bowser scampered toward the flag, narrowly ducking under one of Luigi’s green fireballs as it flew an inch over his head. The second fireball struck Bowser full on the tail, and he leapt forward clutching the scorched remains of the seat of his black dress. 

The King of the Koopas was running for his life…like a scared little girl.

…

Toadette felt every agonizing second of delay as the Mario Maker’s user interface froze, then loaded the task manager. After closing out background programs, Toadette loaded the graphics card settings and diminished the resolution of the texture packs, anything that would take strain off the overclocked operating system. The screen blinked, and stuttering footage of Team Mario appeared, running at only 2 frames per second. Toadette exalted with relief as she spotted the entire crew, safe and accounted for, along with Spike the Lakitu. 

Behind Toadette, the door to the castle walkway flew open, and Goombaria sprinted through, leading out a pajama-clad trio: Goombario, Goombella, and Kooper. “Toadette! I woke ‘em up!” 

Toadette shrieked, as her heart skipped a beat. Everyone winced at the shrill sound. “...Sorry, I had no idea working with computers could be so nerve-wracking!”

“Have you tried turning it off and on?” mumbled Goombario, as he yawned and blinked blearily.

Toadette glanced nervously at the reset button on the Mario Maker. “But if I do that, everyone will die!”

Goombario shook his head to clear his vision, feeling stupid. “Good point, don’t do that!”

Kooper examined the stuttering footage on the screen, sternly. “How can we help?” 

Toadette shivered as she saw her friends narrowly leaping past the ledge that led to world 2-1. “I’ve tried minimizing the strain on the Mario Maker 2’s CPU. But there’s nothing else I can close!” 

Goombella, yawned, smacked her lips, then finally seemed to wake up. “Wait, the Mario Maker 2? So, is there a Mario Maker 1?”

Toadette nodded, scrunching her face in concentration. “Yeah, I think it’s in the janitor’s closet.”

The conveniently-placed janitor’s closet, which was decorated by a wooden sign that declared it to be “The Appropriately-Named and Conveniently-Placed Janitor’s Closet,” was right inside the castle tower, only a few feet away from our intrepid heroes! Inside said closet, said intrepid heroes discovered a cardboard box containing a dusty video game console, along with cords, controllers and game pads, and a smaller Question Mark Block.

Goombaria whistled. “Phew! Is that a Wintendo Wii U? Totally retro! This thing looks ancient!”

Kooper was taken aback. “Huh? But, the Wii U’s still a pretty new system, isn’t it? Retro is more like…the Super Wintendo Entertainment System, right?” 

Goombario shrugged, somehow, even without having any visible shoulders. “What are we supposed to do with this?”

Goombella frowned. “I figured if the problem is the Mario Maker, like, breaking down, maybe we could, like, ya’ know…use another Mario Maker?”

“Ugh! What am I saying? Goombario must think I’m a total, complete, legally-blond bimbo!” thought Goombella.

Goombario flashed a buck-toothed grin. “Goombella! You’re a genius! We’ll just…aim the Mario Maker at where they are, and–Pew! Pew! Pew!–Fire a bunch of clouds at them to catch them if they fall!”

“But how are we gonna’ aim it?” inquired Goombella.

Goombario froze. “Oh no! I’m such an idiot. Goombella must think I’m a total dorkus, dingus, MacDoofus!” he thought.

Kooper snapped his fingers. “Maybe I can help with that. Toadette, are the building blocks in the Mario Maker uniform, across both versions?”

Toadette nodded eagerly. “Yeah! The ‘tiles’ are always a five foot by five foot cubic square!”

Kooper pulled out a graph paper journal and began sketching. “Then that means I can calculate their rough distance away from the castle. All I need is a copy of the game world map. Are they available anywhere?”

Goombella pulled out her laptop. “Yeah, all the maps are based on Super Koopa Cousins. You can download the files from…” Goombella stiffened, as the words “Brown Sugar Pirate Bay” appeared on her screen, then snapped her laptop shut. “...Um, you’d have to buy them, legally, from Wintendo’s e-shop, exclusively on the Wintendo Switch.”

Toadette narrowed her eyes. “But…we need them on a Wii U? And Windtendo shut down the Wii U eshop years ago.”

Goombario nodded absent-mindedly as he blew the dust off the ancient Wii U. “Actually, it’s surprisingly easy to mod a Wii U. All we’d need is to–”

Goombario choked on the rising cloud of dust, and hurriedly stuffed the Wii U back into its box. “Kaff! Do what Goombella said! Which is to legally purchase a copy of Super Koopa Cousins for the Wintendo Switch, then after we connect it to the Mario Maker 2 we can…uh oh.”

Goombario froze as he overheard a metal panel collapse off the side of the Mario Maker 2, belching a thick cloud of black smoke. Fortunately, it was still running, as evidenced by the fact that its patented 3D rumble feature was causing it to vibrate with such force, it was emitting an ominous humming noise.

Toadette snarled. “What is wrong with you guys? We’ve got to act now! Why can’t we just use the Wii U?”

Goombella’s eyes started to water. “B-but, Toadette, pirating video games is illegal!”

Goombario took a step back from the Wii U, as if afraid it would bite him. “Yeah, and Wintendo doesn’t take kindly to anyone hacking into their hardware, let alone running rom-hacks of their old software!”

Kooper paused from his cartography calculations, a sweat bead dripping down his brow. “Wintendo is infamous when it comes to defending their intellectual property. I heard they once sued Bowser…and ever since…even he’s been afraid to mess with them!”

Goombaria swallowed a lump in her throat, as big as a chestnut. “But, everyone is counting on us! Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Princess Daisy, and all of our friends! Their lives are in mortal peril…”

Toadette nodded slowly, as she continued Goombaria’s sentence. “...and the only way to save them…”

Goombella opened her laptop, and hovered the mouse over the torrent download link for the ROM for Super Koopa Cousins. “...is to download a pirated video game…”

Goombario retrieved the ancient Wii U from its cardboard box, his invisible hands trembling. “...then hack into this Wii U…”

Kooper’s knees were knocking as he finished the sentence. “...and load the maps we need on unauthorized, homebrew software.”

The friends looked at one another, and nodded. They knew there was only one right choice. “Let’s-a go!”

That’s right, dear reader: it is okay to pirate Wintendo games. It is always morally correct.

All together, they worked as one. Kooper attached the Wii U’s AV cables to the small Question Mark Block, then positioned it, meticulously measuring it with a level to ensure that it was perfectly flush with the larger Mario Maker 2. “All set! I’m ready for the maps on my end.”

Goombella started copying the pirated ROM of Super Koopa Cousins onto a SD card, glanced at the glitching screen of the Mario Maker 2, then flipped her laptop to face Kooper. “Here they are! Looks like Mario and the gang are in World 2-1. Goombario, there’s a copy ready for you too.”

Goombario typed furiously on his own laptop, which was connected to the Wii U. “It’ll take me a few minutes to install the Homebrew Channel, then we can load the maps.”

On the screen of the Mario Maker 2, they saw Spike the Lakitu dove toward a hidden block, revealing a hidden, magical vine that sprang high into the air, toward the clouds. They could barely make out his garbled voice, behind static. “There’s–*kiksht*–shortcut–*krrrk*–way! Up–*koosht*–vine!”

Kooper silently ticked off the number of tiles for the first few maps, doing the multiplication in his head before jotting each number down, then pulled out a protractor to check his angles. “I’m going to aim the Mario Maker 1 so that it leaves a path just to the left of the collapsing obstacle course. As long as it’s flush with the Mario Maker 2, our friends should be able to see it and leap to it…”

On the screen, they could see most of their friends scaling the vine, Captain Toad in the lead, Mario bringing up the rear.

Goombella shuffled her feet, not sure what more she could do. “But if it’s off by even a hair, the cloud path will either angle farther and farther away from the obstacle course, or crash into it!”

“Exactly, so it’d be better if we design a level that’s as simple as possible. We don’t need to recreate the levels from scratch, we only need a cloud pathway that corresponds to them, by length.”

Toadette raised her hand. “I think I can do that! I’ve used the level builder for the Mario Maker 2, at least.”

“What else can I do to help?” asked Goombella.

Toadette pointed toward the console of the Mario Maker 2. “There’s an ice machine in the servant’s quarters. If the Mario Maker 2 overheats, it could kick out at any moment!”

Goombella nodded, trying to keep calm, then gently nudged Goombario to follow her. “Got it! I saw it on the way over. Goombario, you help me fetch ice and a fan for–”

The image on the screen flickered once, and when it came back, Goombaria screamed in terror at the sight.

As the ground collapsed below the magical vine, the brick it was attached to began to spin wildly in mid air. Mario was clinging to the tail end of the vine by one hand when it began to twist on itself, and the whip-like force sent him flying. 

Peach's eyes widened with horror as she threw out a hand, but there was no hope of catching him. "Mario!"

Then the vine snapped cleanly in two, just above Captain Toad’s head.

The image on the screen stuttered a final time and froze. It was as if they were all suspended in mid-air, the moment before the law of gravity would take its course, and send them all tumbling toward their doom, along with Mario.

[End of Chapter VIII]