The Three Shadows return in Chapter 4, seeming at home in its dreary gothic horror setting. Beldam has constructed a イチコロバクダン “trouncing bomb,” in English called “Superbombomb,” to kill Mario. However, she loses it in the tall grass of Twilight Town, blames Vivian for her mistake yet again, and forces Vivian to search for it while she and Marilyn “go take a well-earned siesta.” Meanwhile, a malicious shapeshifting monster who is invincible to anyone who doesn’t know his name steals Mario’s body and identity, turning him into a shadow and taking away the entire crew of friends the player has relied on so far. Vivian doesn’t recognize the shadow as Mario. In probably the most extreme example of Mario being kind in the entire franchise, he finds Vivian crying because she will be “punished” again and then locates the Superbombomb for her. However, it is broken.
“What’ll I do? What’ll I do? I guess I was just meant to be punished for life…” (The 2024 remake changes this to, “What’ll I do? What’ll I do? Ohhh, why does everything have to go wrong all of the time?!”)
Mario can respond either, “Hey, don’t feel bad!” or “Here, let me fix it.”
Moved by what might be the first kindness anyone showed her, Vivian, fed up with Beldam’s cruelty, declares her intention to help Mario get back his name and body, kisses him, and abandons the broken Superbombomb. “Gee whiz, you have way worse problems than I do! And you were worried about me that whole time… That’s so…kind…” At this point, the script makes explicit that Vivian is not a cisgender woman. The 2004 script seems to indicate she is a crossdressing boy, but the 2024 remake depicts her as transgender.
This is also when the player can use Vivian’s abilities in gameplay. Her combat powers are enabled via simple quick-time events. She continues to wield fire magic, capable of burning enemies for multiple turns. Another of her abilities is Infatuate, in which she blows a kiss that is able to inflict the Confused status on enemies, a fairly common power in Japanese RPGs (some of them add a unique status ailment specifically for being seduced, rather than the generic Confused status).
Vivian’s most important power is Veil, which conceals her and Mario in the shadows to avoid obstacles and attacks, as well as, only in Chapter 4, to eavesdrop. The latter power is necessary for them to discover the shapeshifter’s name from a parrot he keeps locked in his basement. In the original Japanese script, the name turns out to be ランペル Rumple. Though you would think an English-language audience would more readily recognize the reference, localizers gave him the English name Doopliss.
Mario’s allies believe that he is Doopliss and, seeing him in league with their enemy Vivian, join a battle on the impostor’s side. After the boss fight, Mario recovers his body. Mario’s party members are apologetic to him but unsympathetic to Vivian until he sticks up for her. Having already proven herself, Vivian apologizes for attacking him in Boggly Woods and “REALLY” joins the party.