A diamond hidden within the gray line

Chapter 17: Bowser's reveal and max's bombshell.

That was over 1,200 years ago and some members of koopa royalty has been plagued with this curse that lead to dark results. So far, i have never been triggered to that form. Then again, i seem to have a lesser form of it that can be triggered easily; but it still worries me since it forces me to wonder if junior has it too.

The fact that max has it? It's become clear that he's no human, but how am i going to break that kind of news to my kids? And to max? As for me...i was determined to be different the moment i became king in my late teen years, and for a long while, i certainly kept my promise. However, my father's influence was impossible to avoid, and i ended up capturing princess peach, who had just taken the mushroom kingdom throne, and i caused chaos in her kingdom even though i made sure that there were minimal or no deaths, and at some point found myself a worthy, yet annoying enemy in mario.

But in doing so...i truly believed that by making her sign a peace treaty, and showing her subtle hints that i am not this heartless monster deep down, i would be finally be rid of my father's unwanted influence and make sure no such tyrant would ever rise again. I still believe my impossible endeavor can, and will actually happen even though the dark star event did that for me...yet i could not help but wonder if that would last, and if not...then maybe...maybe there is still a chance?

Looking back, i remembered everyone making the assumption that i was infatuated with peach from the moment i laid eyes on her, and i had no problem making that assumption look very real even though only clawdia and kamek knew the truth. Hm..now that i think about it, clawdia was so secretive that nearly no one knew about her until she became pregnant with junior, and yet she still refused to let the even the mushroom kingdom know anything about her.

As for peach...falling in love with her didn't actually happen until after clawdia's death...while i was still grieving. I still think about clawdia to this day...especially since she was the one who stopped me from completely turning into my father once she found out about my past.

"Bowser...you do realize that we must watch him more carefully now, right? I know that this is especially hard for you, but we both knew that it would become difficult. I will be there soon to tend to max. We will talk more from there later on." Kamek informed. "Fine. You better hurry." I sternly tell him, before i hung up.

I'm so grateful that no one could hear me as i immediately broke down in tears. All over max...a koopa who lived as a human.

The king of awesome does not cry, yet...my painful past has returned to haunt me...and the pain coming from it is something that i never thought would come back....

-Narration-

Twenty minutes later, max began to wake up and morton is the first to notice. "HEY! He's waking up!" He yelled as all of the koopalings were there now including junior who had no idea why everyone was in max's room as he slowly stood up. "Where.." He started to say before he quickly saw that he was in his room. "Oh..i'm in my room." He muttered, as he saw ludwig sitting on his bed, looking very unnerved and terrified, lemmy sitting beside him and the rest standing there even though wendy was mostly on her phone texting or on social media. "What's...going on?" He asked before quickly looking at his arms.

"They're not there anymore..." He mutters. "What's not there anymore..?" Iggy asked. "He had these cracks all over his body..his feet were on fire, his pupils were gone, and his skin became this weird dark color." Morton explained, which caught lemmy off guard. "But...he was fine when he left my room." Lemmy objected. "Pff..that's like, a lie. A human can't possibly look like that!" Wendy replies. "Yeah! There's no way that's possible!" Junior chimed in. "I was the first one who saw him...that is exactly what happened!" Ludwig snapped, and before an argument was started, kamek arrived flying on a broomstick and bowser came in moments later.