"Walk away, walk away," Bleck exclaimed as Mimi's head cracked and started spinning. 

Peach found herself frozen in place, unable to even move. How could see after seeing, well, THAT!

Mimi's laughter continued to echo as a number of long, thin legs seemed to pop out of her, lifting her small body into the air. Now, Peach had seen many disturbing things before, but nothing half as disturbing as this. Even King Boo's ghost stories couldn't equate to something so horrific.

"Peach, RUN!" Bleck begged.

The urgency in his voice seemed to snap her back into reality. The heroine nodded, then turned and started running as fast as she could. Peach could hear what sounded to be the turning of gears close behind her, as well as an insanely eerie laughter.

"You said you can tattle, right?! Give me a read on her!" Peach gasped, out of breath not from the running but from the pure fear running through her veins. It wasn't often she felt this terrified.

"Um..." Bleck muttered, briefly turning and glancing at the terrifying girl. "We can't really hurt her. It won't work. She's too high up to jump on right now, and she'll just hit us first. The only chance is to escape."

"Ugh, I hate just running from fights," Peach huffed under her breath. By leaving Mimi undefeated, she was essentially pushing back the battle for another day. Peach knew better than anyone else that villains always come back until they're officially taken care of. It's one of the reasons King Boo was so annoying. He was a ghost, so he couldn't be defeated. Not for good, anyway.

"Maybe we should use the return pipe! Or call Pierre!" Bleck suggested.

"Dude, we can't just call Pierre the second things get rough," Peach breathed.

"What do you mean?! I thought that's exactly what we were supposed to do!" Bleck cried. "It's what he's always told me to do."

"No, I can handle this," Peach said, pulling out her backpack and taking out a metal water bottle. She held it up, then threw it back at Mimi, hitting her right in the chest and causing her to fall back.

"Our water!" Bleck gasped.

"Our window to attack," Peach grinned, stopping in her tracks and turning around. She sprinted towards Mimi as fast as she could, then jumped into the air, kicking the stunned villain back with as much force as she could possibly muster.

The green girl hissed as Peach took the water bottle back, then opened it and started pouring water onto Mimi's now distorted face. Makeup dripped and left black watery marks as Peach stepped back and tossed the empty bottle aside.

"Darn, I was hoping she'd melt," Peach breathed.

"MELT?!" Mimi gasped, offended. She was about to sit up and keep fighting when Peach pressed her foot to the girl's chest, pinning her down.

"Shh... stay down," Peach breathed, lowering her voice just slightly.

"Why? So you can kill me? How heroic," Mimi spat.

"I'm not going to kill you," Peach stated calmly. "I'm going to remove my foot, then you're going to go back home to your countess and tell her that I'm on my way to stop her and rescue my friends. Got it?"

Mimi remained still for a moment, then slowly tilted her head until it returned to its normal position. She retracted the new spider-like legs as well, though her makeup remained smudged and ruined.

"Or else what, pretty girl?" Mimi hissed.

"There is no or else. This is what you're going to do," Peach stated, slowly stepping back and brushing her arms off. "Good day."

Mimi rolled her eyes, then sat up.

"But—"

"I said good day," Peach repeated. "Come on, Bleck. We've got worlds to save."

The heroine turned around, then continued walking. Bleck hovered for a moment, however, just staring at Mimi.

She looked smaller than before. He had been so afraid of her just moments ago, but now? She looked...

"Hey," he breathed. "I know you hate us... but someday... you'll be glad we stopped the countess. All of you will. And maybe we could be friends someday!"

"Friends? Yeah, right," Mimi hissed. "I don't need your sympathy."

Bleck drew back slightly, then nodded, turning and quickly floating after Peach.

He wasn't sure why he expected Mimi to be as nice as Peach was to him. Pierre had always warned him that the world was filled with both good and bad people, but he always wanted to believe that everyone had at least a little good in them. He supposed for that to be true, everyone would also need to have at least a little evil in them too, right?

Would he have evil in him, if that were the case? Or would he not count as a person? Pixls weren't people, so did that rule even apply to him?

. . .

Bleck and Peach continued their journey into the hottest of deserts. With each step they took, Bleck could sense the heart becoming closer and closer. They stopped in one of the marketplaces they briefly passed by to purchase a new water bottle since Peach used their old one as a weapon. Bleck made sure to give her a lecture on how harmful littering was to the environment, which Peach took the time to hear out. She wasn't usually one to make an unnecessary mess of things, she supposed she just got caught up in the heat of the moment.

"We're almost there," Bleck promised after their journey continued to stretch on. It had been a few hours since they had seen any civilization, by then. Peach was used to walking through deserts, so she didn't complain. She had gotten rather good at moving quickly.

"How much further?" she questioned. "Can you tell?"

"I can't give an exact estimate. I just... can feel it growing stronger the closer we get," he admitted.

"Well, I think we've got to be—"

"And what do we have here?" a cold, deep yet chilling voice chimed, echoing through the air. Though the desert was hot, the sky had suddenly turned a few shades darker aside from the bright gash and the air felt cold.

Peach immediately clenched her fists and looked around, trying to determine where the voice was coming from when a large, dark dragon-like creature appeared, looming over her and Bleck. It was a deep, icy blue color.

"You..." Bleck trailed off. "You must be the guardian of the Chaos Heart fragment."

The dragon-like monster seemed to snarl.

"Guardian is one word for it," he hissed. "Though... I would say I'm a prisoner to it."

"Who are you?!" Peach demanded.

"Who am I?" it laughed. "You don't know? I am rather famous."

Peach simply stared, remaining silent.

"Hmm... no?" it asked. "Well... thousands of years ago, before I was punished and forced to spend centuries guarding the Chaos Heart fragment, the world knew me as Bonechill. I was one of the fiercest sinners known to ever exist, first imprisoned by Grambi and Jaydes, and now imprisoned by my assigned duty to the Chaos Heart."

"Thousands of years–how old do I look?!" Peach asked. "How the heck did you expect me to know who you are?"

"Never mind that," Bleck breathed. "We appreciate your hard work, mister Bonechill sir, but we're going to need that Chaos Heart fragment."

Bonechill stilled for a second, then erupted into fierce laughter.

"Oh, what a cute little pixl pet," he chuckled. "How innocent, naive, and stupid. You really don't know a thing, do you?"

"He knows lots of things," Peach spat. "Now I'd love to keep chatting, but we're on a tight schedule."

"Oh, so I've been told," Bonechill stated. "One of the countess's followers actually just stopped by to warn me."

Peach stilled.

One of the countess's followers?

Suddenly, a woman with bright pink hair and sky-blue skin appeared, standing on the ground right in front of the large creature. She kept a straight face and adjusted her glasses slightly.

"Yeah, he means me," she stated calmly, her voice smooth and low.

Peach remained still, her gaze narrow. The countess must have felt really threatened by her and Bleck if she was already sending multiple people out to stop her, and Peach hadn't even retrieved her first Chaos Heart fragment yet.

"And who would you be?" Peach asked.

"Me? Oh, I'm just another humble follower of the countess," she stated. "You are to refer to me as Nastasia. Don't forget it. K?"

Bleck seemed to still, though just for a short second.

"You..." he muttered, his voice quieter than usual. "I think...I know you—"

"I thought that allowing you to have your games ended without an audience would be just a waste of a good fight, so I came to watch and make sure things go the way I want them to," Nastasia continued, interrupting Bleck. "Oh, but please, don't mind me. In fact, it'll be like I'm not even here."

She turned away and vanished as if a page had been flipped. Peach had to blink a few times to make sure she was truly gone. Did everyone around these parts have such strange powers? Teleporting looked different with some people. When Dimentio was teleporting people at the altar, he seemed to make them ripple and vanish. Nastasia's teleportation felt more structured in a way.

"Yes, yes, so do what you will. But please, as your game ends, remember what an honor it is to have it ended by my talons," Bonechill grinned.

Peach shook her head, then grit her teeth. If it was a fight this dragon creature wanted, it was a fight he was going to get. She didn't care how famous he was. She was going to save her friends, even if it meant fighting a beast banished by Grambi himself.

The heroine adjusted her cap slightly, then took a deep breath.

"Let's-a-go," she said determinedly.

"Peach, duck!" Bleck quickly cried as the large beast breathed a line of ice into the air. Peach quickly dived away before the icicles could hit her, then ran up to the beast, jumping on top of the ice it spat out and landing on its head before falling off and landing on the ground.

The monster seemed to glare at her, then took a deep breath.

"YOU NEED A SHIELD!" Bleck yelled as a thick icy cloud came hurling toward Peach. 

The heroine nodded and reached into her backpack. She grabbed the first thing she could get a grip on, opening it and holding it out in front of herself. She pressed her eyes shut, bracing for impact.

Impact didn't come, though.

She slowly opened her eyes and looked at the open umbrella in front of her. It was pink and looked fairly dainty, but the fabric was somehow thick enough to shield her.

"That'll work," she muttered with a smile and a shrug. She closed the umbrella but kept it in her hand as she ran back toward the monster, jumping as high as she could into the air and opening it up so she could use the drag created to float up to the top of Bonechill's head. Once she made it, she closed the umbrella and used it to hit the monster as hard as she could. Once she landed on the ground, she opened the umbrella back up and hid beneath it, using it as a shield once again. She could feel cold air surrounding her, but the umbrella prevented her from taking any damage.

Was this cheating? No.

Well, maybe a little, but Pierre had her pack all that junk for a reason, so she might as well make use of the things she was gifted.

As soon as Bonechill paused to take a breath, she launched into the air, closing the umbrella and stabbing the sharp end right into his center, causing him to freeze in place.

Peach landed on the ground and held the umbrella behind her, breathing heavily as Bonechill began to tremble.

"How..." he muttered. All the deep blue color that had covered his face before was now faded, making him look almost ghostly, but not the same kind of ghostly look King Boo had. "How... could such a puny girl destroy the master of... the cold dark?"

"Oh, she's the furthest thing from puny," Bleck stated as the bones holding Bonechill together started to fall apart.

"And I think you're really overestimating yourself," Peach stated while crossing her arms and grinning. "You're not special, Bonechill. I've fought harder. Maybe time has worn you down, but I think you lost your touch. Happens to the best of us."

The monster remained silent as more bones started falling to the ground. Peach felt an ounce of sympathy for it but tried to shake the guilty feelings away. Being a hero wasn't for everyone. The hardest part of the job was defeating enemies, especially ones she didn't know well. But, if she let the guilt stop her, then she'd never be able to save what mattered most. Being a hero meant having to do hard things, and this was no exception.

Bonechill fell to the ground, falling to pieces in the process. Behind sat a rainbow door with a large star on it.

The heart was in there. Peach didn't even need Bleck to tell her. She could feel it too.

She looked at her pixl companion, and the two exchanged a brief nod, then walked through the doors.

The desert landscape had shifted to an old temple. Inside was a small heart that shifted from glowing gray to purple. Peach felt her eyes go wide as she slowly approached it. She could feel the energy surrounding it.

"The Chaos Heart fragment," Bleck muttered.

Peach nodded, then reached up and took it in her hands. The second she did, she felt a surge of emotion. She wasn't sure how she'd describe it, it wasn't anger, but it wasn't sorrow either—something in between.

It was nothing she couldn't handle, though.

"Peach, you did it!" Bleck chimed, circling her excited. "You actually found it! Oh my gosh, you really are the heroine we've been waiting for! You did it!"

"We did it," Peach corrected, smiling softly at the pixl. "Now let's get this back to Flopside."