25m Distance Between Us

Rocky Preparations

They did not know what to do at this point.

Pauline, especially. She had never gone to the moon. Heck, she never even thought it was possible. Then again, there were many things she thought were impossible until she had seen them for herself. Mushrooms that make things grow larger, for starters.

It reminded her of the time when Mario saved her from Donkey Kong for the third time. After the ape somehow grew to a gigantic size and tried to kill Mario she found a strange set of blocks nearby, and after some digging, found a red and white Mushroom within one of them.

She showed it to Mario, and he took a bite of it, and he grew twice his natural size. She almost felt sorry for Donkey Kong when he tried to get Mario again, because he had a nasty beating in store for him. The Ape never bothered her again since.

Pauline was curious as to what other areas of Mario grew due to the mysterious Mushroom, and she asked him if he was curious.

"Pauline!" Peach snapped her out of her funk.

"Ummmm...?"

"What were you thinking about?" Tiara asked, curious. "Was it something naughty? I felt naughty vibes! Can I go on her head, Peach? I wanna see!"

"No, Tiara." Peach replied, exasperated. This replacement-Crown was getting on her nerves, but then again, so was everything else at this point. She hated the Moon. She remembered the last time when she was on the Moon: the X-Nauts held her hostage to be used as a vessel to resurrect the Shadow Queen. She was trapped in the bottom floor with only a computer named TEC-XX to keep her company. Then Grodus shut TEC down and took her through a transporter of sorts down below Rogueport's Sewers.

"You know, Pauline..." Peach began. "I've been on the Moon before."

"I know that Mario did." Pauline stated. "That big, scaly pile of burnt shit told me. Excuse the language." She quickly put two-and-two together. "He came to rescue you, didn't he?"

"Yes. From an evil Moon-Earth teleporting cult of space scientists called..."

"X-Nauts."

Peach was surprised. "Oh, I guess Bowser told you all about it, huh?"

"I just know about them and a Moon Base." She repeated what she had learned from Bowser.

"Well," Peach stated. "Mario came to rescue me and to retrieve a Crystal Star."

"Wow. The story keeps on getting more and more interesting." Pauline stated.

"And what if I told you I was possessed by a demon witch Queen?"

"No-!" Pauline's eyes opened wide. "Tell me all about it when they come in and grab us!"

Peach realized that while the three of them were busy gazing out at the Moon's surface, Bowser's minions were in the small port with them, and that escape was now futile; there was no way Peach, Tiara, and Pauline could take on a hundred Hammer Brothers, Magikoopas and Koopatrols.

The Princess felt like an idiot at this point, and sighed exasperatedly as she and her friends were escorted to the Moon's surface.

Pauline marveled at the rocky terrain. It reminded her of the failed Panettone she had made last year around the holidays. She could never get it quite right.

After a bit of walking, Pauline's eyes widened at the sight of a beautiful white Cathedral there; smack on the surface of the moon. Why was there a Cathedral on the moon? Who would attend Mass in zero-gravity?