Disclaimer: I do not own Mario, Bowsette or any of the video games referenced in this story.

Betaed by: Zim'smostloyalservant

Chapter 7

Double Trouble

Levels 3 & 4

Mario adjusted the fedora hat he was wearing as he made his way down the sidewalk. His friend said it was a City Slicker hat, and sure enough it had been useful in letting him use taxis, doors, and bypass the fuzzy ropes. Still odd for magic, Mario thought. It was as if these power-ups had not been especially well thought out.

The level had stunning scenery, but it had not been very remarkable. The traffic red light-green light was the only really notable mechanic. The well-dressed Goombas he counted more with the scenery. Overall he'd give it a C. Mediocre.

But now there were no enemies or obstacles in front of him as he entered the theater district. Which, along with the change in music from city swinging to slow build rock, indicated something big was coming up. Only one theater was lit up, and its marquee read "Anger Koopa vs Mario! BOSS FIGHT". With his fedora, he slipped under the fuzzy rope and bypassed the hulking bouncer to get through the door.

The lobby was empty, a bass heavy soundtrack playing from the speakers as he crossed it toward the empty ticket booth. Mario looked over the framed posters, all of which were featuring the redheaded Koopa girl in homages to famous movies.

"Angry." Showing her with boxing gloves and black eyes.

"Koopa Wars." Showing her in white robes holding a red lightsaber overhead.

"Free Chompy!" Showing her on a rocky outcrop holding up a fist as a Chain Chomp jumped overhead.

"Shy Hard: Payback." Showing half her face gasping in black and white next to an image of the Mushroom Castle with its towers aflame.

"Silence All Phones During Performances!" Showing her breathing at the viewer in fury.

"Mama Mia," Mario shook his head. As if the billboards declaring this one Koopa the mayor, star baseball player, top model, MMA champion, top lawyer, and iron chef hadn't been enough of a clue. Bowser seemed to have fresh competition for ego size among the Koopa Troopa.

Finally, Mario passed the ticket booth and followed the sign arrows to the theatre door, where a Koopa dressed like an usher stood with flashlight at the ready. Without a word, he opened the door for Mario, letting him pass.

The theatre was dark as Mario entered. He squinted, adjusting his hat, wishing he had a Fire Flower, but there had been no time for that invasive species to take root here.

"MARIO!" a voice boomed on speakers, "SO YOU HAVE NAVIGATED MY CITY OF TREACHEROUS TRAPS! CONQUERED GRIDLOCK AND ROAD RAGE! AND SURPASSED THE LOCKED DOORS AND FUZZY ROPES OF SOCIAL INEQUITY! SO NOW, ON THE GREATEST STAGE THIS CITY HAS TO OFFER, THERE IS ONLY ONE QUESTION TO BE ANSWERED…"

…

"Eh?" Mario asked the darkness.

"ARE YOU READY TO ROCK!?" she roared, as flames ignited and neon lights blazed on.

Anger was standing on a stage, adorned with fire and neon images of Koopa Troopas that were likely supposed to be menacing as they held spears, Bob-ombs, swords, and one dressed like a pirate with a cutlass and eyepatch.

On the stage itself, Anger was jamming away on an electric guitar dressed for hard rock, wearing a spike-studded vest and knee-high black boots with spikes protruding from the soles. Banging her head, she sang about Mario being a hero to one side and a designated protagonist to another. Mario ignored the singing as it started to wax on about beaches and Anger's apparently undying hatred for seagulls and whales. Instead, he ran steadily down the aisle and jumped onto the stage.

Hitting the stage, a spotlight clanked on and tracked him as he approached Anger, who was shooting fire out of her guitar, drawing an image of Bowser's face in the air while praising the Koopa King. Mario drew close, holding up his dukes and ready to jump. Anger jammed on, eyes closed as she shredded at the guitar quicker than Mario could track, and began to shriek. Blinking, Mario jumped over the rocking Koopa and ground-pounded.

BRASKINKSNAP

Mario got up and looked in puzzlement at the stunned Koopa woman with stars circling her head, her guitar crushed under her.

"Eh?" Mario asked.

"Curse my own awesome. Rage was right, I do rock too hard! Erk," Anger gasped, before passing out, her tongue rolling out in a most undignified manner.

With a thump, the main lights came on and the fires died down. A duo of Koopa Troopas ran onto the stage, one pushing a dolly. Stopping by Mario, they loaded the Koopa Boss onto the dolly and rolled her offstage. As Mario watched, other Koopas broke down the set, paying the confused plumber no mind. But as the pirate Koopa neon prop was rolled away, the flagpole was revealed and the fedora Region Hat was hung atop it.

He could not help but feel this level was poorly engineered.

X X X

"That… was disappointing," Lamek remarked. Bowsette didn't answer, at least in words. As he quirked an eyebrow, Bowsette stopped air-guitaring and ad-libbing lyrics to clear her throat.

"Yeah, she didn't even get to finish the song. We can sell albums to recover the expenses for Shell! It's gonna be huge! We'll start a band. Of course I'll be the head singer and drummer. Rage can do something. Larry will be the long-suffering manager, and Shell can't be in the band because he sucks. But he can be the roadie and beat off all the guys trying to get me to acknowledge their…" Bowsette went on as Lamek left to get a sandwich.

The caged king for his part was humming the tune. He wondered if it would be possible to buy the album when it came out? ir would that not be fitting with his civic duties. Such were the burdens of leadership.

X X X

Mario stepped out of the taxi and waved goodbye for now to his friend. Turning his back on the paved road, the mustached hero looked up at the forest looming over him. It was well-leafed and needled, with soaring trees. Not a haunted-looking forest, but it was the next obstacle.

He frowned, putting a hand to his ear. Was that the sound of chainsaws? He had been told this was a protected natural area. Had Bowser taken a level in eco-villain, Mario wondered with a frown? Setting foot on the packed dirt trail before him, the city skyline to his back, Mario entered Lumberjack Woods.

He hoped this level would be less awkward than the last.

X X X

Bowsette flicked her tail as she sat on the throne, watching Mario enter the forest. Tapping the crystal ball she was holding, she brought up Rage, who was throwing an entire apple into her mouth.

"Wkello," Rage greeted her around the apple the blue haired koopa was chewing.

"Rage! Your sister rocks hard, but she failed to stop Mario!" Bowsette yelled. Rage nodded, jaws visibly working on the apple.

"So, STOP MARIO!" Bowsette declared pointing dramatically. With a visible bulge in her throat, Rage swallowed.

"Okay," Rage agreed.

"…Did you swallow the apple core too?" Bowsette asked her finger drooping.

"It's tasty," Rage replied.

"…That is cool. NOW GET TO WORK!" Bowsette roared before hanging up.

X X X

Mario walked through the forest, appreciating its beauty but wondering if he had somehow missed the level part of it. He had been told the Koopa that was the forest's boss was Anger's twin, so maybe it would be another odd level?

Really, Bowser was not in good form this adventure.

A massive chainsaw rammed through a tree to his right, sending the pine plummeting toward him.

"Wooow!" Mario yelled, dodging it, and after it impacted jumping on top. The massive chainsaw retracted, and a crane arm loomed through the gap, a Koopa woman with short blue hair and red eyes glaring down at him as she perched on the ball over the hook, holding her balance with one hand.

Then she took a very big yawn.

"Took you long enough… Mario. I am Rage Koopa. And I hate you," she introduced herself with a dull tone.

"Eh?" Mario said, tilting his head.

"I won't bore you with backstory. But I will kill you. This level will be game over for you. Make it far enough, and I'll get my own shell dirty to do it," she declared in a tired monotone. With a lifting gesture, the crane screeched and she was hauled up and away out of sight, letting Mario turn his attention to the level made of trees fallen and placed at various bizarre patterns.

X X X

The level was very different from the city, Mario had to admit. The trees were arranged to keep things tight. There were pits lined with wooden spikes everywhere. And Koopa lumberjacks either kept dropping trees toward him or cutting off individual branches to send beehives down.

Though for the beehives and branches, if Mario had the lumberjack hat, he could deflect them by timing the jump right, sending them crashing down on the Koopas. And using the axe, he got to cut through a few of the wooden obstacles.

Though was it just him, or were there fewer power-up boxes than usual?

Snowcap Peak, Meanwhile!:

Shellhead grit his teeth as he pulled the floating bundles of question mark blocks up the slope through the blizzard.

"I am Shellhead!" he roared his defiance.

X X X

Mario shrugged as he entered a clearing and the music changed. It was probably just his imagination.

A massive crate big enough to hold a truck slammed down in front of Mario. Mario exclaimed, jumping back, then advanced toward it curiously. The crane arm lowered into sight, with Rage perched like before.

"I see you're still inconsiderately alive. Well, in that case, you can face the TIMBERWOLF!" she said in a normal tone instead of her monotone, flashing a fang-filled smile of doom.

Nothing happened.

Mario tilted his head and, holding that nightmare face, Rage turned to look at the crate.

"I said, TIMBERWOLF," she repeated.

…

"One sec," she said, her face snapping back into its usual expression. Leaping off the crane, she landed on top of the crate and started pounding her foot on it.

"Hey, Ritsuko, wake up!" she demanded, seemingly calmly.

Mario wondered if it was this lot's first time doing a job like this.

Finally, the lid facing Mario fell out and away, revealing an empty crate that was missing the opposite lid. Mario, and Rage when she ducked her head over to look, saw clear through the crate to the forest beyond.

"I guess teaching a diredog to use a chainsaw and tying one to its head was not as foolproof a plan as I thought," Rage admitted, standing back up and pouting. Snapping her fingers, she called the crane arm over to hers and hopped back on.

"Well, no Miniboss for you, Mario. I am going to go look for my dog," she said as she menacingly rose out of sight, shaking a bag of dog treats she pulled out from somewhere.

Shaking his head, Mario continued through the forest.

X X X

"Huh, I didn't know we were doing Minbosses," Bowsette stated.

"Our beautiful forest," the king lamented.

"We weren't, my Queen. And it seems we still aren't," Lamek pointed out, "How does one lose a a diredog with a chainsaw on its head, anyway?"

Earlier, Snowcap Peak:

"YAAAAAAAGGGHHH! Obey me!" Shellhead screamed as a giant wolf-like creature with an oversized chainsaw tied to its head with a rope chased him up the slope.

X X X

"Who cares? It's not important," Bowsette shrugged. Watching Mario navigate the intricate assault on environmentalism, a thought occurred to her.

"Did we budget for this?" she asked.

"I'm so glad you asked, Your Majesty. Even with Project TIMBERWOLF, we came in barely in budget for this level."

"'Barely in budget'! That means it was in budget! Woohoo! Bring me booze!" She cheered, kicked back on the throne.

"Maybe we should wait until the Boss battle, Your Majesty?" Lamek said.

"I'll take a Rob Roy now, if you don't mind?" the king asked, sitting in his cage.

X X X

Mario was actually hoping he was reaching the end of this level. It had proven far more difficult and lengthy than the previous ones, and that was with the Miniboss fight having been cancelled. This Rage certainly threw together a better level than her sister.

Reaching a clearing, Mario was relieved when the music blaring in the forest changed to the song that accompanied Rage. Time for the Boss fight, he thought, straightening his hat as logs fell around, forming barriers and platforms.

The crane arm lowered into sight, Rage perched on it.

"…Die," Rage said, jumping into the air and pulling into her shell.

Without further preamble, she started ricocheting off the walls, forcing him to dodge. When she finally came to a stop, instead of stepping out her tail extended and stabbed the ground for an axis, and she started to spin herself. A blue aura engulfed her shell, and freezing cold started to erupt from the head hole as she spun wild. She nailed him, citing him one hit for the ice and another for when she struck him, knocking him free.

After a few rounds of dodging, he realized he could use the lumberjack hat to cut through portions of the arena, clearing small spaces Rage would be trapped in, ricocheting until she stepped out of her shell, standing dizzily. At which point he jumped on her head.

But after three times, she pulled out a chainsaw, affixed it to her tail, and revved it up.

"Wow!" Mario exclaimed as she started to ricochet with greater effect, even keeping the chainsaw waving around while trying to freeze him. But one drawback for her was, even though the chainsaw let her cut her way out of the boxes, it also at times got stuck at random times she hit wood, forcing her out of her shell to try and pull it free. Which let him jump on her head.

"You are annoying," she declared, rubbing her head under the Region Hat as she leapt back after the sixth blow to her head. Reaching behind her beak, she pulled out three more chainsaws, one in each hand, one in her mouth, and still one held by her tail! With some impressive balance and footwork, she revved up all four chainsaws and launched herself against him.

"YOOWWWW!" Mario said, desperately jumping around. She was less ricocheting now than cutting through everything as she chased him out of the arena, bouncing around and surrounded by chainsaw blades.

At last, Mario realized the potential downfall, tricking her into cutting down a tree and then backtracking, luring the buzzsaw Koopa into being smacked into the ground like a nail by a hammer.

Leaning against the massive fallen tree, Mario wiped some sweat off his brow. Three modes, that surely meant the end of that Boss fight.

Sure enough, he saw the flagpole and made his way toward it. But touching it, instead of a triumphant tune, a deep rhythmic beat started to drop, and as he watched the banner changed into a Koopa banner bearing the Bowsette crest.

The ground rumbled and cracked. Mario ran toward the trees as the grass and roots were torn up while the ground was ripped asunder. The Bowsette banner rose high into the air, lifted by the emerging mass as two steel smokestacks began to spew exhaust.

A wooden mecha towered over Mario, its cylindrical head level with the treetops. A light clicked on in the cockpit, revealing Rage, head bandaged but still wearing the Region Hat, working levers. The wooden humanoid body opened several panels. And the joints also shifted, all revealing…

That it was a mecha made of wood, AND CHAINSAWS!

"Lumberjerk Unit 0, mission 1. Kill Mario," Rage said over the speaker.

"YOWWW!" screaming, Mario ran through the forest from the mass of wood and chainsaws bearing down on him.

X X X

"How'd that fit in the budget?" Bowsette demanded as they watched Mario take to the branches and canopy to flee and counterattack against the advancing Boss of Doom.

"She made it herself. Wood from the cutting, and apparently Larry secured her quite a number of coupons for chainsaws," Lamek said as the epic battle of plumber vs wood played out.

"Hmm, you know, this level wasn't much good," Bowsette concluded.

"…How?" Lamek demanded, trying to sound polite.

"That level was too hard! Not enough blocks for one. It's not like it's a final level. And whoever heard of a Level Boss having a four stage fight? Rage is getting too big for her nonexistent pants! Acting like she's Final Boss material or in Dark Souls with her super cool death mech. Hmm, also, isn't this a bit more kill-y than we normally do?" she noted as Mario evaded chainsaws to climb the wooden portions of the mecha to ground pound its head.

"Yeah, it is pretty kill-y," Lamek agreed. As they watched, the mecha exploded, sending its head and Rage flying.

X X X

After the rain of chainsaws stopped, Mario fanned himself with the lumberjack hat. He was really hoping it was over. Then he noticed a rapidly-spreading shadow had fallen over him.

With a frantic long jump, he made it clear before the wooden mecha head crashed into the ground, its window popping out and its flagpole bent askew. Rage tumbled out and stood dizzily.

"I hate you… Bowser best villain!… Immaagonnabednow," the blue-haired bandaged Koopa muttered, before face-planting. She retracted into her shell and started snoring, leaving the Region Hat on the ground.

Tiptoeing up to the beaten Koopa, Mario grabbed the hat and gave a whispered victory cry.

X X X

Bowsette watched Mario leave the forest and start a little cinematic with their mole. He had orders to waylay Mario in a minoboss fight, but Bowestte didn't like his chances. Yes, Mario was going to be coming to her plundered front door, and wearing some darn nice hats while doing it.

Chuckling from deep in her chest, Bowsette dramatically adjusted the Top Hat on her head, before throwing her head back.

"Well, it's time for him to meet his doom! Khahahahaha!" Bowsette cackled maniacally. She looked around the throne room, and slumped while still leaning back with her face toward the ceiling.

"Lamek! I thought we fixed the lightning effect!?" the Queen demanded and pouted at the same time.

"We did-" *KCRASHTHUNDER* "There it is," Lamek answered.

"Ugh, we really need to get this final level into shape," Bowsette groaned, still in her dramatic pose.

X X X

Bowser cackled in his rented-for-the-month castle as he wrung his claws, watching the green clad plumber make his way through the latest world on a deluxe size crystal ball. Glancing to the right of his throne, he frowned as Peach sat in the giant bird cage, reclining in her chair and reading a thick book.

"Hey! Shouldn't you be feeling menaced?" Bowser demanded.

"Oh right, sorry! Ahem... You'll never get away with this, Bowser!" she said, getting up, putting the book away, and pulling her hair out of a ponytail.

"Ha! I already have! Why, even as he struggles to undo my scheme, your hero inadvertently moves to unlock a still greater power that I shall use to not only crush him and then the world; but will let me at last win your pure heart! BWAHAHAHAHA!"

"Fiend! Mario will stop you!"

...

...

"Um, Peach?"

"Yes, I know it's Luigi this time," she huffed, rolling her eyes.

"You know, he's not doing half-bad. I mean, those epic boss fights, the new love interest which has been written in such a non-awkward manner, sweet power spread..." Bowser counted off these good points on his claws.

"Bowser, please, it's still Luigi."

"Dang."

"Oh, I'm not saying he's not doing well. Just that, well, if it were Mario..." Peach explained with wave of her hand.

"I repeat, dang. Well, I'm going to get tacos, you want anything?" Bowser asked getting off his throne and stretching.

Junior rolled his eyes at the banter while he laid in the corner painting on paper laid out on the floor. His level hadn't been hit yet so he'd mostly been waiting and increasingly bored.

He hoped his mama was having more fun than him right now. Hopefully Luigi would at least give him a god fight.

Author's Note:

Another short chapter. Sorry it took so long, RL has been strange to my writing and I have been working on stories both old and new lately. I also am hoping to get one of my original stories rolling again after some lovely feedback from a coworker on one of my originals.

Anyway, now that mArio has conquered the twin terrors, he's off to the final level! What will happen when Mario and Bowsette face off for the fate of the Land of Hats?! Qill Luigi prevail over Bowser's insidious schemes?! Will Peach eat a Taco!?

FIND OUT! Next time.

Long day and pleasant nights to you all.