Tired

As his fist sailed through his clone, he knew it was over. His clone stumbled back and fell to one knee, and looked up at him with surprised eyes.

"Huuh huuh huuh... Haah haah haargh...  I... have fallen." His clone spoke as the light, little as it may be, began to fade from his eyes. "To come so far... So far...
to lose..."

"Hey buddy. You just ACTED like me. That doesn't mean you can beat me. That, was your downfall." Bowser spoke softly. Just because he was "evil", doesn't mean he didn't have any respect for the dying, dead, or sickly. He respected a worthy opponent, No matter how bad they were.

"Dark... Even with the dark power completed I... The unthinkable happened..." Dark Bowser spoke between ragged breaths. Before he could finish his sentence, he glowed a dark purple light and reverted back to his original form, The Dark Star, Bane of the Star Sprites. His eyes flashed one last time to look at Bowser and managed one weak sentence,"You... were a worthy combatant.... Koopa King." With those words, he floated into the sky, and vanished, taking all the chaos he wrought with him.

"As were you." Bowser muttered as he said a silent prayer that his opponent would be safe in the afterlife. After all, he had died a warrior's death.

"The Dark Star... It's finally gone?" A new, chipper voice chimed in.

"Yeah. He's gone. He was pretty tough guy, all around." Bowser said, slightly miffed that Chippy had misgendered his opponent.

"And the princess? Is she alright?" The newly revealed Chippy asked.

Bowser recoiled in surprise, he had completely forgotten about her! He had been so wrapped in the fighting that he didn't check for her. He looked around and spotted Peach lying off to his left, and he quickly rushed over and checked her pulse. "Yeah, she's alright, just unconscious." Bowser confirmed.

He quickly reviewed everything Kamek had taught him about first aid and tried to help out as best he could. He could vaguely hear voices from inside his gut, Chippy's being the loudest, but payed it no mind while he tried to help Peach. As he finished checking on Peach, he backed up to give her some space.

She probably wouldn't like it too much if he was the first thing she saw when she woke up, and the best thing he could do was put some distance so she would feel somewhat safe.

Suddenly, an awful burning feeling began surface, starting in his gut and clawing it way slowly up his throat. "GOWWCH!" Bowser struggled to say. The feeling was like nothing he'd ever felt. The feeling wormed its was up his throat and into his mouth, his tongue and nose began to burn as the feeling, no SOMETHING, began to threaten to burst out of his mouth. He began to panic when his mouth bursted open with a mighty roar, releasing what ever was coming out. "NGGWAAARF!" Bowser roared as purple smoke began to come from his mouth and an excruciating pain began to spread throughout his body.

He couldn't think or breath, all he could do was hope that the feeling would GO AWAY. Soon, the pain began to subside, and his hazy pain filled mind began to try and put his senses back together. He began to breath heavily, to try and cool down his lungs that were still on fire.

Once the pain had gone away, aside from a lingering throbbing on and in his everything, he began to try to make sense of what was going on.

"Have at you! I'll thrash you! I'll... Ah. Could we be?" An elderly voice spoke. Bowser didn't recognize that one.

"Yes! We made it out of Bowser's body!" Said another voice. Ahh. Now THAT one he recognized. It was Chippy, and it sounded like she was out of his body. Good for her! He still never really got use to having someone in his gut.

"Looks like Fawful's final ploy failed at the last... His last ditch explosion rescued us all!" Chippy said again, with much more vigor in her voice than he could have thought possible.

"Everyone... Thank you... You've saved our dear Mushroom Kingdom." Said one other voice. He definitely recognized that one as well. That was Peach's voice. His roar must've woken her up.

"Princess! OH, PRINCESS! Such joy... You are safe! I'm simply awash with relief!" The elderly voice, which he now recognized as Toadsworth, Peach's Royal Advisor and Sub-Parent.

Bowser blinked his eyes to get rid of the weariness and looked at the scene in front of him. There were many Toads surrounding Princess Peach, Mario, Luigi, Starlow, and Toadsworth. They seemed to all be celebrating getting out of his body, from what he could gather from their conversation.

Seeing everyone there and, well from what "Chippy" was saying, they were ALL inside him. 'Okay then, normally I'd be mad but, I just need to breath.' His senses finally were back to at least somewhat normal. He stood up without a sound, and tried to think of what to do. Once the people celebrating realized he was still here, they would all-

"WAAAAAHHHH!"

Yep. There it is. The Toads had all run behind Peach and The Mario Bros. Starlow was floating close by with a worried expression on her face. Toadsworth was by Peach's side looking surprisingly fierce. Peach just looked really scared. Bowser just sighed and looked at the ground for a few moments. He then, after mulling it over, decided to speak up.

"I'm not gonna hurt you, you know that, right?" Bowser said.

". . . I beg your pardon?" Peach said in surprise.

"*sigh* I said, I'm not gonna hurt you." Bowser said, out of breath.
"I don't want to, not anymore." Bowser said as he looked up, and saw everyone's baffled faces.

"Not that I'm complaining, but why?" Peach asked carefully

Bowser let out a bitter chuckle, and shook his head. "I could go into every single thing that is wrong with me right now, and go into detail why I don't want to do anything right now. But to put it simply, I'm just.... tired." Bowser trailed off. He looked at the ground, hoping that they would believe him, so that he could go home to Junior. Be a better dad than he had been for the past few years. He looked up to see Peach looking at him with a... expression. The Mario Bros were looking confused, as was Toadsworth. The Toads just looked scared. Chippy, no Starlow, was giving him the same look Peach was.

"Okay." Peach said. Bowser sighed in relief, and gave her a weak and thankful smile.

"Thank you. I gotta get home to Junior, and say sorry." He mumbled the last part under his breath. He began to slowly walking forward and everyone began to move out of his way. He walked with a slight limp and silently gritted his teeth in pain.

It seems this action did not go unnoticed by Peach, as she called out to him.

"Bowser? If you want, I could arrange for someone to help you home?"

Bowser mananged a weak smirk at that, and said softly,"You're as nice as always Princess, but judging by the faces of everyone here, I doubt anyone would be willing to do that. Plus, I have a reputation to keep up. That would make me look weak." Bowser said with a smile, looking back at a now guilty looking Peach.

"Oh." Peach said simply. As he began to walk down the bridge, he stopped and looked back at everyone.

"Hey Chippy, the offer still stands." He said with a smug grin. That got a slight twinkling giggle out of Starlow and a small smile. He huffed, and turned around only to call out once more.

"Hey, Mario. And Luigi. You two are something special. You've got so much ahead of you. Please, for everyone's sake, never change." Bowser then walked off, leaving everyone to turn to each other and ask one question that was voiced by Mario.

"What just happened?"

End. Maybe?
A/N: Okay so this was my first time trying this so please don't judge too harshly. Please let me know if you want to see it continued. I have ideas, but I just want to be sure. Thanks anyways, bye~!