A Nutcracker and the Beast

"How is he?" Peach asks as she sips her tea, Daisy and Bowser with her as they wait to hear what Bowser tells them. Bowser sighs as she asks that, the stress showing as he rubs his face.

"Better, but he's paranoid right now. He thinks that all the Koopa are out to get him, even though he knows that the only ones he needs to be scared of are those with gray eyes. He's hiding again like he did when he first showed up at the Castle..." Bowser said in a sad voice. He can't blame Luigi for feeling this way; he almost got caught by one of King Boo's ghosts. Yet he still has to find the other two, who may or may not still be gone now, and the Koopa they do have. The poor thing looks like it's fighting for its control back while Kamek works on trying to make a cage to keep the ghost in places as quickly as possible. Till then, they can't question the ghost and heal the Koopa till they are apart. They have to watch for any Koopa coming in and out of the dead forest and recheck every Koopa and their eyes to ensure they haven't already talked to them. It was a mess.

"Damn, Bowser, sounds like you're having a hard time too," Daisy said, grabbing a cookie and eating it. She was soon roped into this after last night's events, Peach and Bowser having to go over all the events again with her and the boys since they wanted to know. At that point, Luigi was back in Junior's room, sleeping with him, so he couldn't tell the whole story even though Bowser had told them that he had only found out the entire truth a while back himself. But they both told the general information to them all; they showed signs of anger for keeping all this info from them since they had seen the scars on Luigi's body. They now knew that King Boo can't get him back no matter what.

"Yeah, and I think it's affecting Junior too. He's with Luigi right now trying to cheer him up because Luigi had a "nightmare," but Junior isn't stupid. He's going to figure out that it was just a cover up of what's really going on." Bowser told them.

"What you need is a break," Daisy told him, her mouth full as Peach waved her hand as if in agreement.

"Or a date." Peach said, a smile growing on her face as Bowser waved his hands.

"It's charming that you two want to help with my love life, but I don't think now is a good time. Not with everything that's going on." Bowser told the two of them, but they just side-eye each other.

"Okay then when?" Daisy said in a passive-aggressive voice as Bowser rubbed his neck.

"Um, maybe once we have King Boo?" Bowser said with little confidence in his words.

"So another 2 or more years," Peach said as she sipped her drink before putting it back on the table.

"No, I'm not going to let that mad man chase him for that long! He needs to be stopped right now!" Bowser told them as he brought his fist down on the table, almost flipping it over as Peach took her cup off the table before it spilled. Daisy copied him and banged her fist on the table, rattling the table.

"Then you need to take Luigi on a date and woo him!" Daisy yelled as they had a staring contest.

"I think what Daisy is trying to say is," Peach said as she put her cup down now that it was safe to do so, "is that both you and Luigi are going through some troubled times. I know you want to help him and stop King Boo but right now Luigi doesn't need that. What he needs is someone he can trust, calm his nerves and show that not everything is bad right now."

Bowser sighed at that. What they said was true; Luigi is just seeing all the bad more than the good right now. He should focus on cheering up Luigi rather than stopping ghosts for him right now.

"I guess you're right but what should I do? My kind of date is a grand gesture that ends up in the dumps afterward. I don't think he'll like that." Bowser told them as they thought about a few date ideas.