DISCLAIMER- Super Smash Bros. is property of Nintendo. I do not own any of the characters in the story.
Chapter One
Some movies are filmed in colors. Not color, as in shade and depth, but specific palates. Sad, haunting films have blue tones to enhance the feeling. Lighter spirited films use yellows or greens.
The world beneath Samus Aran's eyelids was beige. Bland and dry. Empty. A movie in beige tones wouldn't be very enjoyable.
As morning pierced her world of beige, Samus bundled her comforter tightly and turned away from the window, which was now spewing sunlight across the tiny dorm.
"Oh! I'm sorry!"
Samus groaned at the noise. Nana's whisper was certainly louder than it needed to be, but it was to be expected, with Nana as a roommate. She was pure spunk and jive—Samus's total opposite.
"I totally forgot you don't have to be up yet!" Nana continued to use the over-exaggerated hush in her voice, much like a young child with no concept of an 'indoor voice'. She remained oblivious as her closet door thumped loudly against the wall.
"Shut up," groaned Samus.
"What was that?" Nana asked, snapping to attention. Samus didn't respond. At the foot of her bed, she felt Pikachu stirring.
"Did you say something?" Nana pestered. Samus peeled the covers away from her face. Her roommate was hovering above her bed in a state of half dress, buttoning her blouse both absentmindedly and incorrectly. Her short black hair was disheveled and messy, but Samus had come to find that Nana had a way of making messy look like it took effort.
"Nana. Shut up and go to class."
"No way bozo, I'm not even dressed yet." Nana seated herself abruptly at the edge of Samus' bed, unaware of the fact that she was nearly sitting upon Pikachu. Jolted awake by her sudden intrusion, Pikachu perked upright, sniffing about rapidly and urgently. He quickly realized the uninvited guest was only Nana, and thusly plodded in a lazy circle before he dropped once again into a ball of sleep. Nana, meanwhile, began pulling on her long, white dress socks.
"Don't you have your own bed to sit on?"
Nana didn't seem to hear Samus—and if she did, she was ignoring her, smiling all the while. Frustrated and, furthermore, tired, Samus finally pulled herself out from under the blanketed warmth of her sheets and propped herself up on her elbows, facing her roommate. Her scraggly blonde hair was knotted and disheveled, hanging in front of her face in every which-way. Her eyes were squinty with tiredness. She was just about as drab as she could ever get. Samus was not a morning person.
"Nana. I went to bed at one in the morning last night, because I expecting that I would be asleep until nine forty-five. It's seven forty-three."
Nana gave her roommate an innocent look, acting as if she had no clue what she was doing wrong.
"Don't test me Nana. I'm tired and I'm grumpy and I will split your pelvic bone in a heartbeat if you don't let me go back to sleep."
Nana stood up from Samus' bed, now finished tying her shoes.
"Fine. Be a huffy bitch and stuff." Nana got off of Samus' bed, grabbing her back from the middle of the floor as she headed for the door. As she turned the knob, she turned to address Samus again.
"I'll see you at lunch?"
"Yeah. Sure." Samus turned on her stomach and gripped her sheets tightly as she pulled them back over herself. "Now shut up, go to class, and let me sleep."
Nana muttered something unintelligible as she let the door to the dorm room swing shut. As the latch clicked, Samus inhaled deeply, satisfied with the silence and ready to enjoy spend her next two hours in a state of unconsciousness. The only thing bothering her now was the sunlight, but she was far content in her bed to be bothered getting the shades.
Her momentary Zen was shattered by a rap on the door. Samus was determined to ignore it, but it came again, and when she let it go a second time, it evolved into a chorus of banging and wailing. At her peak of annoyance, she threw her covers off and swung out of bed. As she ripped away her sheets and blankets, Pikachu was once again abruptly awakened, thrown out of bed suddenly. Samus threw the door open, at ready to give whomever was there a piece of her mind. It was Nana, standing there sheepishly, notably not wearing any pants.
"I forgot my key," Nana explained. "And my skirt."
Samus couldn't get back to bed fast enough. She buried her face in her pillow as Nana dressed, amazed that her roommate could be so flaky as to forget to put a skirt on.
"I'm really going this time! Sorry for waking you up again! I'll see you at lunch!" Nana's words ran together. She slammed the door loudly as she left, but afterwards, everything was silent. Samus waited a moment for any other noise, but when things stay silent, she tried to drift back to sleep. It didn't work.
Pikachu, now awakened once again, wasn't falling back asleep. No longer dazed from his sudden expulsion from his sleeping place, he leapt up on the bed and trotted along Samus' back. He batted at her ear with his paw, and when she didn't move, he spoke.
"Chuu."
"I'm sleeping."
"CHUU."
Samus inhaled sharply, her intake of air muted by the pillow against her face. She was wide awake now, and Pikachu knew it just as well as she. Could the Pokémon speak English, his cries would surely translate to "Bullshit, Samus. Get up and feed me."
Samus resigned herself to the fact that although she didn't have anywhere to be until much, much later, she wasn't going to spend her time asleep. She begrudgingly pried herself away from the warm pull of her mattress, looking longingly at her bed before she set her sights on Pikachu. His expression told her that he was taking no prisoners—he was hungry, and he was in control. In no particular mood for electrocution at the hands—or rather, cheeks—of her Pokémon, Samus decided to comply. She walked over to her closet for Pikachu's bowl when she noticed Nana's rumpled sheets began to stir. Samus stood in complete shock as a naked figure emerged.
"You're a boy," Samus stated emptily after a long, uncomfortable pause. His presence was most certainly an unexpected turn of events.
"That I am," replied the nude blonde. He punctuated his statement with a wide grin, and reached to scratch at his nether-regions. There was another uncomfortable silence. Samus couldn't stop staring at his nakedness. She knew it was rude, and though she tried to pull away her gaze, it was too bizarre not to look. The strangest part was that the boy didn't seem to mind.
"Um, I…" Samus wheeled to face her closet again. She began rummaging, slowly, for Pikachus' bowl. "My Pokémon needs to be fed," she muttered. She was hoping that by the time she had a bowl of food ready for Pikachu, the boy would have stopped being so naked. Scooping a cupful of kibble for the bag in the back of her closet, she didn't dare look back.
"I'm Link," he offered, finally beginning to collect his scattered wardrobe.
"Samus."
With Pikachu's bowl in hand, she turned, relieved to see that Link had finally begun to clothe himself. With underwear and a beater, she felt much more comfortable examining him.
He was attractive, with long blonde hair, heavily disheveled from sleep. His ears had a distinctive point to them.
"So. You and my roommate…?" Samus trailed off as she placed Pikachu's bowl at the foot of her bed. He began to munch heartily, totally ignorant to the situation unfolding with the humans above him. Samus was envious. She wanted out of her awkward predicament as soon as possible.
"Um, yeah, I guess," Link said as he pulled his shirt over his head.
"Your shirt…" Samus gestured to her neckline. Link looked down to see the tag facing him.
"Oh, thanks," he muttered, peeling his shirt off to push it inside out. Catching another glimpse at the boy's well defined body, Samus decided that the situation had endured for much, much longer than necessary.
"Nana left. She has an early class." Samus told this to Link with disinterest and desperation. He nodded while her eyes expectantly bored into him.
His response—"And?"
Samus raised an eyebrow. "Don't you have your own room that you'd be more comfortable in?"
Link shook his head. "I'm perfectly comfortable right here." He sat back down on Nana's pink mattress and grinned from ear to ear.
Samus stood in disbelief.
"I've… got to get going," she muttered. She went to her dresser, beginning to strip off her nightshirt while pulling the top drawer open. She stopped with the shirt midway up her abdomen.
"I'm getting dressed," she told Link, still expectantly watching her. "I'd appreciate if you didn't watch," she clarified before he could stupidly continue.
He obliged and turned away. Samus changed in a hurry—not much differently than she would on any other day. Samus was never one to give too much thought to her physical appearance, but when someone else, especially an attractive boy, is watching you in your most vulnerable state, you can't help but be somewhat self conscious.
Samus grabbed a brush and her room key and left hurriedly, realizing only after she was at the end of her hallway that she had left Pikachu with Link. She decided against returning for him. She figured if Link tried anything suspicious, Pikachu was more than capable of handling himself.
Samus left her dorm wing and entered into the high ceilinged main hall of Grand Cross Academy, watching the floor as she scurried towards the boy's dormitory wing. The hallway was deserted in the early morning, and the sound of Samus's footsteps echoed endlessly.
She knocked twice on her friend's door and waited, cursing in her head. She realized DK was probably asleep. She should have just gone to the library instead.
To her surprise, the door creaked open allowing a pale face surrounded by dark hair to slither out from the room. His dark, beady eyes glared menacingly at Samus.
"DK's not here," Ness hissed.
"Is he in class?"
"Do I look like I care?" Ness disappeared as quickly as he had appeared, the door flew shut, causing Samus to jump slightly in shock. She stood in the hall for a while, staring down the corridor. She was unsure of what to do next.
Could she go back to her room? Samus wasn't sure. In her head, she was kicking herself. Despite her prowess in combat, she lacked the spine to kick one of Nana's boy-toys out of her own room. Link had no right to be there if she didn't want him there, and come to think of it, why would he want to be there anyway? Without Nana, was there really anything in their room that he couldn't find in his own dorm?
Samus stormed back to her own hall, seething inside. She threw her bedroom door open, filled with indignation. The door slammed against the wall with a loud whack. Link was leaving, she had decided.
But when she stepped into the room she shared with Nana, there was nobody there but Pikachu, perched on the heater next to the window, staring out at the bright morning sun. His food bowl was empty.
"He left," Samus said, to nobody in particular. After closing her door quietly, she walked over to the window and scooped Pikachu up in her arms. The Pokémon made no attempts to resist as she clutched his soft fur and held him against her chest. She squinted against the beaming sun and looked into the courtyard below. It was empty, the only motion being the rippling of the pond as the koi mulled about beneath its' surface.
This was Samus Aran. A drab, gangly girl with a fist like iron and no confidence to back her punches anywhere besides the battlefield. The world she surveyed, Grand Cross Academy, was, in a way, the only world she'd ever known. And she wasn't at all sure how she fit into it.