Talk to the Hand: Prologue
Two white cotton gloves slammed on the desk, "Again?!" shouted their owner as he stared down the giant white glove on the other side.
"Yes, again," replied the large hand, speaking in a low powerful voice despite the absence of a mouth.
Waluigi, dressed in his best black overalls and purple shirt, wailed as he held his head with his two white gloves emblazoned with an upside-down yellow L on their back, "But how?!" he cried, his purple hat hanging on as he shook his head.
"You'll have to be more specific, Waluigi," the being known as Master Hand responded, stoically sitting upright on his wrist, fingers relaxed in a soft clench.
The purple plumber glared at the giant hand, "How could you possibly put-a Waluigi in the game and make-a him an Assist-a Trophy?"
Master Hand's thumb twitched for a second, "Well, it was very easy. See, we made this list back during the development of Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, and sorted who would be the fighters and who would be the Assist Trophies again. You just so happened to be in the latter-"
"That's not-a what I meant!" Waluigi interrupted him and planted his hands back on the desk, "I've-a been waiting ten years since Brawl! You promised-a me that a couple o' gigs here would get me a spot on the rooster!"
"Roster," Master Hand corrected, "And I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to Little Mac. You were just sitting next to him at the time."
"Details, schmetails!" the purple man persisted, "I've-a been waiting the longest out of everyone here for a shot at Smash!"
Waluigi was interrupted by a hoarse, growl of a cough made by someone sitting at the far end of the room. He looked back to see a large, purple humanoid dragon with a long tail eyeing him from his chair.
"Did ya need-a somethin'?" he shot.
Ridley softly shook his head in response, "No, just felt like making myself known here," he replied, sitting still next to a humanoid in a white and blue spacesuit with pink gloves and boots, silently polishing a lit bomb he was cradling.
Waluigi shrugged his shoulders and looked back to the giant white hand sitting stupidly at the desk, "Anyway, why haven't you made Waluigi a fighter for Smash-a Bros. already?"
"Well," Master Hand started, leaning forward a bit, "There are a number of factors. You would need to have at least one game in your history, popularity with our demographics, the ability to represent a facet of Nintendo's history in video games, and overall appeal as a potential fighter."
"But that-a broad Daisy is in and she has none of those!" Waluigi pointed out, "All she has-a going for her is that she's besties with that-a bimbo Princess Peach and that weenie Lui-JAH!"
Waluigi could not finish his sentence as a golf club nailed him in the back of his head, knocking his face into the wooden desk and flattening it comically. Master Hand glanced over to a disgruntled Daisy sitting next to a blue capped Toad, who then proceeded to get up and walk over to retrieve the club.
"Nice shot," Master Hand complimented, receiving a nod of acknowledgement from the princess as Waluigi groaned.
"I won't forget that," the purple man said vindictively, shaking his head to regain his bearings.
Master Hand sighed audibly, "There's also the other thing about you that makes it…difficult for us to consider adding you to the roster."
"Yeah? And what's-a that?" Waluigi challenged, rubbing the back of his head where he was bruised.
"You're not exactly the most pleasant person to be around," the hand stated, "You're intrusive, loud, loathsome, egotistical, and villainous."
The man looked at the giant hand with a raised brow, "I don't-a get it. First you tell-a me I'm not that great, then you go and-a list off all my best qualities? You ain't-a speaking straight here."
Times like these made Master Hand wish he had a face to palm.
"Fine, I'll spell it out for you," his tone shifted from indifference to annoyance, "Nobody here likes you, Waluigi," Master Hand stated, moving up from his seat to extend his index and nearly poke the purple man's head, "The only person in this castle that can tolerate you is Wario, and he's so affable and gaudy, it somehow loops around to a degree of likability!"
Waluigi leaned back to avoid contact with the giant finger pointed at him, while at the same time taking in his words. Was he trying to tell him that he should try and make friends with the other characters? Nah, that's unlikely, because Walugi is already the most likeable person in all of Nintendo. It's just that everyone else is a jerk and an idiot for not seeing how great Waluigi is, and he's tried many times to help people see that. Sadly, envy and jealousy always gets in the way of that, and that's not something that Waluigi can fix by himself. Surely, Master Hand must know that this is basically impossible, so all he could say was…
"…so, what's-a the problem?" the purple man asked.
Shocked by his ignorance, Master Hand's finger drooped as he leaned back and sat straight behind the desk, sighing quietly.
"You know what? It doesn't matter anyway," Master Hand responded in defeat, "The roster has already been decided, as is your place in the Assist Trophy lineup."
"But why?!" Waluigi nearly cried, "Why must-a Waluigi be an Assist Trophy?"
"Because Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is an updated rerelease of the 3DS and Wii U version," the giant hand pointed out, "And you were already cast as an Assist Trophy back then too. You're complaining about a decision we made four years ago."
"Oh," he replied, looking around himself, processing the answer, "And there's nothing I can do about it?"
Master Hand straightened up, almost euphoric that he was finally getting through to the purple man, "It would take a miracle at this point."
Waluigi rubbed the back of his head where his bruise still was, "Huh. Well, then, I guess I should…pray?"
"Better than causing trouble, I suppose," Master Hand said with a shrug, emulated by nudging his thumb up slightly.
Waluigi sighed in defeat, "Wahhh…this stinks."
"Undoubtedly," the hand retorted, "Now, is that all?"
"Yeah, I suppose-a so…" Waluigi said as he turned around sadly. A thought came to him all of a sudden, however, and he turned around slightly as he spoke, "Actually, there's-a something I'm curious abou-"
"Great, this has been an experience," Master Hand quickly said as he floated over and lifted Waluigi by the back fold of his shirt, "See you and have a day."
Waluigi was dragged across the room with a shriek "Wah!" as the door opened automatically and he was tossed out as gentle as the giant hand could care to do.
"Next!" Master Hand boomed as the door closed shut behind Waluigi.
"Oh, you're back," greeted Wario from the far end of the room, "How'd it go?"
Waluigi scoffed in annoyance as he stomped over and sat on his purple bed. He bore a mean scowl that was meaner than usual, and Wario could tell without even looking that it didn't go anywhere.
"That-a bad, huh?" the round man said, hammering the fifth nail to the wall.
"Smash is-a big-a fat joke!" Waluigi damned, flopping onto his back and nearly hitting the wall, "How could-a Nintendo put all of their-a best superstars in-a one game and not-a include Waluigi? How?!"
"Didn't you say that-a junk last time?" Wario commented, pushing down on his hammock to see if the nails could support the force.
"Yeah, but this-a time's different!" the tall man said, righting himself on the bed in preparation of sleep, "Not only did they bring-a back everyone, but they even invited Daisy! Oh, and-a that kid, too."
"You mean-a the squid?" the other man corrected as he sat on the hammock, happy to find that it didn't break for the fourth time today.
"Whatever, and that big ugly purple thing too," Waluigi finished.
A knock on the wall came in suddenly, followed by the muted sound of a childish screech, "But Waluigi, you're an Assist Trophy, not one of the fighters!"
The purple man responded by slamming the wall as hard as he could, "Keep-a the jokes to yourself, Diddy!"
Monkey laughs echoed in the room over as Waluigi looked back to Wario, who yawned and stretched and pulled out a bag of garlic.
"Well, whatever. I for one am-a glad you're here," the fat man consoled, taking off his biker hat and discarding it, "I don't-a like the idea of beating you up here."
"Tch, well, I wouldn't mind-a whacking you upside the head every now and-a then," Waluigi retorted, to which Wario responded with an indifferent wave of his hand.
"But aside-a from that, why do you wanna join-a the fight so badly?" Wario asked, popping a peeled garlic clove into his large mouth, speaking through the obnoxious crunching and chewing, "All-a you do is fight other people and-a get recognition and-a fame and-a get new games and-a get treated like royalty and-a actually, now that I'm-a saying it out loud that sounds like-a the best thing ever."
Waluigi grunted in response.
"But being here as an Assist-a Trophy is good too, no?" Wario asked, popping two more garlic cloves into his mouth.
The purple man scoffed in reply, "Tch, yeah right. All you get-a is free food and-a room and-a get to hang out-a with people you can't punch-a in the face!" he listed, taking off his hat and placing it on the post of his bed, "What sort of schmuck would-a be happy with that?"
Wario snored in response, his treasured bag of garlic nestled in his arms as he swayed on the hammock. Waluigi knew he was deep asleep as he began farting small amounts of noxious gas, swaying him with each toot. The tall man scoffed for the fourth time today and flipped on the A/C on the wall close to him so that he didn't die by carbon emissions in his sleep. Frustrated, Waluigi waited for sleep to come to him.
Waluigi waited for three minutes before giving up and deciding his time was better spent being angry about it online. A little known fact about the tall, purple man was that, in between playing sports and go-karting, Waluigi had quite the free time on his hands. There he sat on his bed, his legs painfully coiled around his laptop thanks to the yoga he had done in the past, skimming through the internet and its reaction to the new game he wasn't in.
"At least some people aren't-a complete idiots," Waluigi said quietly as not to awaken his roommate, although he doubted nothing short of two bob-ombs mating would awaken him.
Waluigi scoured the usual sites, such as FaceNook, Squitter, and Bumblr, and saw all of the typical jokes and memes surrounding the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Some of it was funny, sure, but his frustrations inhibited his enjoyment of this content.
What he did see that he agreed with, however, was that Waluigi should've been in Smash as a fighter, not an Assist Trophy. He saw a lot of people complaining about this, and it made him feel validated in his rage against the decisions of the big heads at Nintendo.
And this sort of validation can lead someone to make a less than intelligent decision.
"Heck it all! I'm-a gonna ask these fat bozos for help-a!" Waluigi exclaimed, stretching his fingers and preparing to type.
Waluigi owned a blog, which he updated often. It didn't have many followers, but he knew that someone was always watching it, because he kept seeing his content on different sites run through alterations and defamations to make a joke out of his words. Whatever loser had his page bookmarked, he was sure he was going to push off a cliff one day.
"Attention losers!" he narrated as he typed, but then reconsidered his choice of words, "No, wait. These are people that would actually want to help Waluigi."
For the first time in a very long time, Waluigi had to think about what he was going to say before saying it. Such a feeling was foreign to him, as his unfiltered words had gotten him all of the fame and praise for being so great. This time he needed to demand authority, but also respect, so he deleted what he had so far and started over.
Waluigi typed a little more quietly, carefully considering his words with each pause of his fingers. 'Hey, you!' nice-a strong-a start, he thought, 'You want-a to see Waluigi in Super Smash-a Bros. Ultimate?' Straight-a to the point, he affirmed with a nod, 'Me too! I've-a been waiting ten years for my chance-a to hit the big time,' Waluigi was careful to include the necessary a's at the end of those words so that people knew it was him typing, 'and if I have to take it, then I will! Help-a me out, will ya?'
It was a satisfactory lead in to the rest of his post. Waluigi continued to type, explaining what had happened to him earlier today, what Master Hand told him, and including those jerks in the room along with him that were jealous of how cool he was. He made sure to put in as much detail as possible to justify himself, although he was sure that his fans would agree with him regardless.
He finally got to the meat of the matter after four pages of expertly crafted complaining. He wanted his readers to suggest to him ideas of getting into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Although he had a few plans in mind already, he wanted to explore every possible option that even he couldn't come up with. He knew how literal the internet was, though, so he needed to lay down some ground rules.
Rule number one, Waluigi thought as he typed out, no murdering. Although it was fairly obvious, he knew he needed to explain in great detail why this wasn't an option. For one, pretty much all of them were immortal, and it was up to Nintendo who lived or died, as macabre as that sounded. Even if it was possible to dispatch someone to free up a slot on the roster, it would actually decrease his chance of getting in, as well as his chances of future installments, so that wasn't an option.
Rule number two, no bribing. Waluigi wasn't made of money as much as he wished he was. Besides, all of the fighters were very well off financially, and no amount of treasure or gold would make them forfeit their spot on the roster for him. More for him, he shrugged. He also quickly added 'no blackmailing either', as Master Hand doesn't look too kindly on such manipulation tactics.
That reminded him; rule number three, no fighting Master Hand over it. The other fighters had been doing that for nearly twenty years, and no one has been able to put him down for good. Yeah, some of them were gods or goddesses, but Master Hand was a being above that and none of them knew how or why. They've all learned to just deal with him and do what he says, and he can actually be a cool guy most days. But Waluigi was definitely not going to try his luck against that thing, especially considering that he wasn't the only giant floating hand hanging around them.
And finally, rule number four, he was only going to accept suggestions from people who had accounts and names. It didn't matter if they were aliases from the mid 2000's or a parody of something like 'cannabis king four twenty' made yesterday or whatever, if they had names, he could thank them if their suggestion worked, or berate them for their idiocy if it didn't. Of course, he would take anonymous suggestions if he was running dry on them, but he knew he was too popular for that to happen.
Satisfied with his work, Waluigi rubbed his hands together and skimmed over it for spelling and grammar errors, ignoring all the red and green squiggly lines. He was confident that, somehow, either through his own genius or the suggestion of one of his adoring fans, he would get into the game before it would release six months from now.
"Internet, don't-a fail me now," Waluigi said with a grinned as he hit enter.