Soli Deo gloria

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Mario and Co. or Sonic and Co. I wrote this for The Rules of Thoughts contest on figment . com. So it's my first time writing a story with video games and it doesn't have much plot, but . . . anyhoo . . . :P

The soft slopes of snow became trampled with varied-in-size shoes. A considerable troop of ten notable, famous faces crossed over from the aircraft that'd brought them in to the great city of Vancouver, Canada. The cross over from Italy was tiring, for they'd all shared first-class. Not the greatest place to put seasoned, bitter rivals against each other. Bowser Jr. and Luigi had been torn apart by their father and brother, both scolding in their own language, when a call rang out: "We've now landed in Vancouver."

Luigi and Mario walked side by side. Bowser Jr. and his namesake kept pace with them, the elder lumbering heavy breaths to keep up with them. But not any of the four of them wanted to step down from their sworn enemy; so they merely kept an eye on each other.

The less concerned members of their party hurried forward. Princess Peach and her cousin, Daisy, were both wearing warm color-coordinated clothes and hurrying ahead in their fur-lined boots. "Oh, it's so beautiful, isn't it, Daisy?" Peach exclaimed. She beckoned for her boyfriend and his grumbly crew to hurry up.

DK pushed himself forward on his cold knuckles, and Yoshi was alongside Mario. Wario and Waluigi made up the back of the pack. They didn't talk much, but instead muttered complainingly about the ride over, and the cold. When the ten famous characters received the personal invitations to compete against Sonic's crew, they'd all anticipated the fierce competition against their competitors and amongst their own team, but none had expected Vancouver to be so freezing. Wario waddled forward without much evidence to back up his claim of freezing to death, but Waluigi wracked his thin, long fingers against his limbs, trying to conjure up some warmth.

Another crew came walking up to the ski lodges and long, alpine slopes of Vancouver. Dr. Eggman, towering over the rest of his 'team', was in an excellent one-sided conversation with Shadow, who folded his arms and pretended that Dr. Eggman didn't exist.

Silver and Blaze spoke in quiet tones; "It shouldn't be that hard to beat them," Silver said.

"They wouldn't have been chosen if they were bad, Silver," Blaze said, giving the Mario crew the benefit of the doubt. "Whether or not it will be easy to defeat them, we must perform our best."

Disgruntled Knuckles walked a few paces behind them, wanting to maybe say a sarcastic comment every now and then but losing his courage every time he opened his mouth. Beside him trudged Vector, who carried the weight of Metal Sonic. Dr. Eggman didn't want his robot to have the chance to be rusted at all, which only made the rest of the crew raise their eyebrows; the robot had to perform in the snow. Sonic himself wasn't pleased with bringing Metal Sonic, his robotic equivalent, as their tenth member; but they needed ten to go against Mario, or else they'd suffer the loss of a member.

Then finally Sonic walked confidently ahead, flanked by his two favorite friends. Tails was ecstatic about everything; he exclaimed about the ice rink, the ski slopes, the luge and snowboard equipment he saw being taken out of storage sheds. "This is going to be so great, Sonic!" he said, hopping up and down, his large tail spraying snow everywhere.

"I can't wait," Amy said, sounding thrilled. She wore an adorable pink coat and scarf. "Where do you think the Mario crew is? Are you worried about them?" she asked Sonic.

"Nah. I know we can beat them; we've got the skill, the stamina, and"—he smirked—"the speed."

"One of us does, anyway," Amy said observantly. "You can't carry the entire team, Sonic."

"I can try," Sonic said.

"But what if they're really, really hard to beat, Sonic?" Tails wondered.

"We're not going to beat them if you keep up that attitude, Tails!" Sonic said, almost arrogantly.

"Do you think they've gotten in yet?" Amy wondered.

"Nah; of course we've shown up first," Sonic said. Arriving in second sounded exactly like what it was.

Amy appeared to agree, but worried slightly about the Mario crew. They had quite the reputation around the Mushroom Kingdom, and quite the track record.

Well, speak of the devil. Her thoughts were answered; for around the corner came the competitors in question. Mario, the head honcho, lead his crew obliviously towards the mass of Sonic's . . . 'allies', for a lack of a better inclusive term.

"Sonic!" Tails said, pointing ahead.

Sonic saw, gasped, and stopped.

Vector didn't pay attention to the sudden stop ahead and ran into the back of Sonic, colliding fleshy hedgehog with blue painted-metal. Vector complained, "Watch where you're going!" but then stopped before another word could escape him.

Even Dr. Eggman and Bowser stopped their huge selves as they faced the ten competitors before them. Everybody stared; some, like Peach and Amy, gasped; Knuckles cracked his knuckles; Waluigi and Wario punched their palms; Bowser Jr. growled and Donkey Kong pawed at the ground; Blaze, well, blazed, and Tails jumped up and down in anticipation.

"Mario," Sonic said.

"Sonic," Mario said, enunciating it in his heavy accent.

Sonic stepped forward and Mario joined him in no man's land as their sides viciously gnashed their teeth and silently promised utter destruction to their competitors.

They each reached out their white-gloved hands.

"Break a leg out there, Mario," Sonic said cheerfully.

Mario wondered if he meant it literally. "Right back at ya, Sonic," he said.

Then they shook their hands and stepped back, the straight-back leaders amongst their wild, howling crews. It all became quite clear now:

The Games were on.

Thanks for reading! Please review? :) God bless!