title: Adventure Mode

rating: Ohhhhh Jesus I don't know. Maybe, like, PG-13? I mean, it's video-game violence. You don't die, you turn into a trophy. Eh.

summary: How can a video game unite three squabbling sisters? By uniting them against a much bigger evil than chores, of course.

author's notes: RIGHT SO YEAH. There's about 30 million stories out there that involve the newcomer in Smash World and I'm flattered that you've chosen to read mine! :3 I'm trying to make this one different. Like, have a point to the story that is not self-insertion for the sake of macking on your favorite character, NO. None of that. This is about family and friendship and other good values that I can't talk about without sounding real, real cheesy. So, if you would please give it a chance, that'd be fabulous. The only thing that could make me love you more is if you leave a REVIEW! Oh My God, I'll love you forever. Reviews to let me know you love it, you hate it, or that you have loads of constructive criticism for me are GREAT. Especially constructive criticism, as I am trying to avoid falling into too many clichés.

ps. Yes, it does take place during the subspace emissary. x3

--

"Sasha, it's going to kill you! Move!"

"Shut up!" cried Sasha, looking more annoyed than anyone could possibly fathom. She hopped away from her older sister on the couch, seating her eleven-year-old self on the arm and mashing buttons on the controller. "It's just a game, Lily!"

"Yeah, but you're stupid!" Lily barked in frustration, throwing her arms in the air wildly and effectively looking about as stupid as she was claiming her sister to be. "The point of games is to win them!"

"Lily, shut up," groaned a third female, seated furthest away from the other two on the couch. "God, you're like a five-year-old in an eighteen-year-old's body. Don't you ever get tired of video games?"

"No," said Lily plainly, glancing at her blonde sister before looking back to the screen, where a small ball of yellow had just flown off-screen and the word 'Failure' appeared with an announcer vocalizing it dramatically. "Sasha!"

"What!" yelled Sasha, staring at the oldest sister and pursing her lips.

"You died!"

"I know!"

"Why?"

"Lily!"

"What!"

"Shut up!" bellowed the third female, throwing a pillow at her two sisters. It bounced off Lily's head and lightly bonked Sasha, but did its job of shutting the two up as they glared at her.

"Don't throw crap at me, Emmaline," said Lily huffily, folding her arms over her chest and glaring at the sixteen-year-old.

"It's a game!" burst out Sasha and just as Lily opened her mouth to argue, the middle sister cut them off with a second pillow.

"Shut up!" she reiterated, with more emphasis on each word this time. The oldest and youngest of the three sisters sat there angrily, glowering at each other. A long moment seemed to past where everyone was angry and silent and fuming and just being generally pissy, until Lily cleared her throat slightly.

"…can I play adventure mode?" she asked.

"I'm playing it!" said Sasha, completely taken aback for a reason unknown to either of her older sisters.

"You are not!" Lily shot back. "You were doing event mode!"

"I have saved data in adventure mode!" cried Sasha desperately and Lily rolled her eyes.

"And I can make new saved data, Sasha! It won't overwrite yours!"

Sasha did not seem aware of this fact, but fell silent as her older sister presented it to her, simply staring at her for a minute before smiling sheepishly. "Oh."

"Oh my God, just give me the controller," Lily groaned, snatching it out of her sister's hands. She fiddled with it for a moment before choosing adventure mode, raising one eyebrow at the title of it, and simply began her game, Sasha watching like a hawk and Emmaline trying to pretend like she was more interested in whatever online homework she had instead of watching the well-created cutscenes that were appearing on the screen before her. One for tradition, Lily chose to fight as Kirby in the opening sequence as he was the one she fought with way back when they had gotten Super Smash Brothers for N64, and spent half the fight trying to figure out the controls and then the other half whooping Mario's butt. Another cutscene launched after the fight and Lily got all sorts of excited as the plot of this new adventure mode began to kick it, squawking in dismay as Mario was smacked clean out of the stadium and making anxious noises when she realized she had to fight the gigantic plant thing.

"You saved Peach?" said Emmaline flatly, gawking at the screen as Peach and Kirby stood side by side and faced Wario.

"I thought I was beating up the plant, not the cages. I didn't realize I wasn't saving both," replied Lily with a shrug, crying out as Zelda was shot with a literal arrow and turned into a trophy. "Oh my God, they're turning them into statues!"

"Trophies," corrected Sasha, pushing her glasses up her nose and generally completing the nerdy statement she had just made with her actions.

"Whatever," sighed Lily as she watched Wario abduct the trophy of Zelda and Peach and Kirby race after him. Kirby glanced at the bomb as he was going by and realized that it was in its final countdown just as Lily did. "Oh no! They're gonna get blown up!"

"No, watch," said Sasha proudly, further into the game herself and knowing what was going to happen.

Lily had to restrain her excited squeal as Kirby and Peach flew off on a star while the stadium was absorbed into what looked like a giant black hole to her. "That's so fly!" the eldest sister cheered, but stopped as the screen remained focused on the rapidly expanding black hole. "Uh, Sasha? Does something else happen now?"

"Nothing did in my game…" she mumbled as the black sphere got closer and closer to the screen.

"That's some neat animation," said Emmaline lazily, thinking nothing of the oddity of the scene and more focused on how realistic it looked. So realistic, it was almost like it could…

"Jesus!" cried Lily, dropping her controller and hopping to her feet. "It's coming through the TV!"

Sasha practically fell off the arm of the couch as she tried to get away and Emmaline's laptop found itself on the floor in a matter of seconds. The three bewildered sisters had barely gotten their bearings and felt like they could actually make a good sprint for the door when the black sphere, now engulfing a good half of their media room, simply sucked them back into it with its vacuum-like pull. They couldn't even open their mouths to scream before everything went black.

--

It was… bright.

Very bright.

That was the first thing Lily noticed as she came to, head swimming and body feeling awkward and sluggish. She cracked her eyes open slightly, only to find that where ever she was laying on the ground was in an exceedingly bright place. The second thing she noticed as that her head felt warm. Not warm in a way like it was going to explode or perhaps was on fire, but in a way that felt like she'd been laying in the sun too long and the sunlight had warmed her dark hair and subsequently, her head. Putting two and two together, Lily realized that the bright light she was laying in had to be the sun and was more than likely nothing dangerous. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, having been lying on her stomach with her face against what felt like marble, then backwards onto her butt so she was seated cross legged on what was, in fact, a marble pathway.

In the clouds.

She scrambled to her feet, adrenaline pushing her sore body into action as she looked around. She was in the middle of… clouds. Logic dictated that she was supposed to fall through clouds. That these marble pathways wouldn't be able to stay floating in clouds. Everything that she had ever learned in school said—

Said that she also didn't have a complete and total outfit change or have a weapon in her hand because of passing out. Lily looked down at herself, just now noticing her clothing did not feel like the sweatpants and 'senior women' t-shirt she had been wearing in her house before… the black sphere. She looked around wildly for a second to see if it was nearby and going to suck her in again and when she saw nothing, took to examining what exactly she was wearing. Her sweats were replaced by oversized blue shorts that were held up by a studded black belt and her bright blue t-shirt had been replaced by a gray tanktop that was covered by a three-quarters sleeved cream jacket with gold trim and designs on it. Her wrist bore a thick, gold bangle in place of the handmade friendship bracelet her little sister had made her and her feet, which normally sported sandals or nothing at all, boasted oversized black and blue tennis shoes with gold socks underneath. She went to run her fingers back through her hair as she thought over what this meant (had she been kidnapped and dressed up by some psycho?) when she felt her hands bump… goggles. The eighteen-year-old groped at the top of her head, trying to figure out why in God's name she was wearing goggles. No one actually wore goggles around on the top of their head unless they were from Digimon or something!

"God, I look like something straight out of Kingdom…" she turned her attention to her hand as she mumbled to herself, slightly stunned and horrified to see what appeared to be none other than a keyblade in her hands. "… Hearts."

"Hey!"

Lily barely had time to turn around and see who had exclaimed before she had two people, one her height and one substantially shorter, in front of her and looking at her in a combination of nervousness and relief. The one her height held a golden bow in his hand and it was only a second before she noticed the angel wings, the toga-like outfit, and the overalls and red outfit design of the other and suddenly put two and two together and—

"Oh my God."

"Who are you?" asked Pit defensively, narrowing his eyes slightly at her.

"You're notta trophy!" exclaimed Mario cheerfully, the 'r' in trophy rolling slightly as he beamed at her, apparently relieved to find someone who hadn't been… statue-ified.

"Oh my God, oh my God," was all Lily could manage, staring at them in shock. Her brain was screaming move, but apparently her body wasn't receiving this message and stayed rooted to the spot. Pit frowned and Mario ignored her quiet ramblings in favor of taking note of her weapon.

"A Keyblade!" he said, seizing it from her hand. This seemed to stir her slightly and she reached out, trying to get it back, but Mario simply examined it animatedly. "I've-a hearda these! Like swords… but keys too!"

"Isn't there like, a copyright on that?" Lily finally spluttered, earning extremely odd looks from both the angel and plumber. "I don't think I'm allowed to have that without paying a quarter everytime I use it or something." Pit and Mario simply stared at her for a good long moment before Mario slowly returned the Keyblade to her hands and creased his brow slightly.

"Where are you a-from, kiddo?" he asked carefully.

"Where are we?" she countered, even though her head was telling her to not answer questions with questions, especially when she didn't know what was going on.

"This is Smash Kingdom," said Pit, feathers ruffling slightly as he was clearly proud to now be a part of something he had so avidly watched. "Or, well… we're trying to keep it that way."

"Someone is a-releasing subspace on our Smash Kingdom," said Mario solemnly, face straight as he spoke to her.

Subspace.

Lily recalled the title of the game, The Subspace Emissary, recalled starting up her own version, recalled the black hole, the black sphere thing, getting bigger and coming through the TV and her sisters…

"Oh God! Emmaline and Sasha!" she cried out suddenly, startling both Pit and Mario into jumping slightly. They raised their eyebrows at her suddenly panicked state. "My sisters! We… the hole.. Subspace! Sucked in… we're… I'm not from here!" she finished lamely, her words hurried and tangled up in each other.

"So we gathered," said Pit with an edge of coldness that made Lily feel small and stupid.

"I've got to find them and get back," she pleaded, as if they were holding her younger sisters captive and would simply hand them over and all would be well. Pit and Mario looked at each other cautiously, clearly convinced she was not a bad guy by now, but still unsure of what to do with her. They glanced at her, then turned their backs to her and conversed in hushed tones while she stood, looking confused and desperate. Eventually they turned back and Mario held out his hand to her.

"We aren't a-familiar with your sisters," he began and thrust his hand forward a little more. "But maybe you will find them if you come with us. Besides, we could a-use a Keyblade on our side." Hesitantly, Lily took his hand and shook it, nodding. Safety in numbers, right? And the map on the game had looked huge, so it would help to have someone who knew the place in search for her sisters. She glanced at the weapon in her hand at his words, raising a disbelieving eyebrow.

"This?" she said slowly. "I don't think I even know how to use this."