Alph fiddled with his gloves as he waited for his turn to head into the arena. He was seated on a rather uncomfortable slatted wooden bench, far too tall for a small statured Koppaite such as himself- He'd actually needed a boost from Olimar to get up- In the slightly unglamorous backstage area of the arenas. His stomach churned with pre-fight nerves and nausea but no one else seemed to be feeling anything, Olimar sat to his left chatting away into his suit's communicator like he was simply popping down to the shops, their combined group of pikmin playing under the benches, and for the life of him Alph couldn't find anything to take his mind off it.

A tv attached to the wall played a live feed of the battle going on outside, and Alph finally turned his attention to it as one of Luigi's more grating screams played through his helmet's speakers. It was a teams day, and Team Mario played off against Team Kong on the little screen. Luigi was already down for the count, and Alph winced as Mario lost his last stock and thundered past the blast line, ending the match with a yell and a flash of red light.

"GAME!"

The results screen would have been a lot more entertaining without the knowledge that Team Pikmin would be gracing it next, in either winning or losing. Alph tapped Olimar's helmet a few times to get his attention, catching the tail end of his conversation as the captain unmuted his speakers to talk.

"-It seems we are up next," Olimar said warmly, "give my love to the children! I'll be seeing you soon!" with that, Olimar hung up and turned to Alph, asking "Are you ready?"

"Yes, I think-" Alph was cut short as he was abruptly dragged down by his helmet as Olimar jumped off the bench, the two of them banging into each other with the ringing sound of glass-on-glass, landing in a pile- Alph yelping as his life-support pack jammed uncomfortably into his spine "Oof! Ow! What was that for?"

"It wasn't me!" Olimar paused for a second, glancing upwards, "...It seems someone has tied our antenna together."

That 'someone' couldn't hold in his laughter any more, and Wario's signature "Waa ha ha!" floated across the room to them, the villain falling about himself with laughter, pointing and rolling around on the bench, gaining hardly a glance from Kirby, his team mate, as he kept laughing long after it had stopped being funny. Alph heard Olimar sigh heavily at the display as the pikmin helped them up and they got to work on the antenna.

A few minutes later and the pair were rushing down the corridor to the arena teleport with their squad of six in hot pursuit. In the end it had taken the combined efforts of Fox and Peach to free them, all to a soundtrack of Wario's uproarious laughter. Alph frowned sourly as he jogged, where did Wario get off acting like that anyway?

Olimar, already out of breath, told him to ignore it "Wario does that to everyone," He gasped "Why, the first thing he did to me when we met was attempt to steal my helmet! Luckily, he didn't succeed..."

Alph was briefly struck with an unpleasant vision of Wairo holding his own helmet just out of reach, cackling as he flailed and choked in the oxygen atmosphere, before they finally reached the teleporters and warped to the arena.

The teleports had a dual purpose- One was to allow any arena to be reached from a single area, very useful when you're sending fighters across dimensions every single match, and the second was to allow everyone to enter in their own unique way. Mario jumped out of a pipe, Samus stepped out of a doorway, and Alph, Olimar and their pikmin hopped out of the rickety Hocotate Ship, which disappeared in a puff of smoke behind them, onto the squishy ground of the Garden of Hope. In the moments before the match started, Alph grinned despite himself- This was their stage! A home field advantage. Maybe the match wouldn't be so bad after all.

And then the smile fell off his face as the opposing team entered. Team Garlic, composed of Wario and Kirby. Their entrance was a bit of a team effort, in which Kirby crashed into Wario's bike, sending himself spiraling into the scenery and Wario hard into the ground. Wario got up, brushed himself off, spotted Team Pikmin and broke into a renewed bout of laughter. Alph bristled as they were counted in, the antenna incident still as fresh in his mind as it apparently was in Wario's.

3…

2…

1…

GO!

Wario leapt onto his motorbike with an unexpected agility, hitting the throttle and gunning it forwards with an enormous roar from the engine. Alph tweeted his whistle, him and his pikmin rolling to the side in a dodge, Oilmar choosing to jump overhead instead, smacking Kirby to to the ground mid-flight with a red pikmin- The impact causing a small, fiery explosion.

At the same time, Wario ploughed into Alph's back.

Thankfully, Master Hand had done a masterful job applying all kinds of protections and spells on the competitors to keep them from actual, deadly harm. So being run over from behind did not break any bones, destroy any life support, or smash any helmets- It just sent him flying into the air with a cry of alarm and the kind of bruises you're definitively going to feel tomorrow to land in the sudden darkness of Kirby's mouth. In the constricting space, with pikmin squished against his sides, Alph kicked out as hard as he could, if he was quick, he could pummel his way out.

It didn't work, Kirby swallowed, and for a moment Alph found himself floating in an enormous starfield before being unceremoniously spat back into the dirt.

Face to the ground, he heard the sound of someone breaching the blast zone around the arena, thankfully nothing more than a particularly fancy teleport- Acting to send fighters back into the arena, and keep anything unwanted out.

Spurred on, Alph rolled to his feet just in time to dodge a faux pikmin, courtesy of Kirby. The pink orb threw another one, and Alph chucked one of his own to intercept it- It's death cry still bothered him, though he knew it wasn't really dead, just sent away for a touch of extra realism. Alph rolled again, smacking Kirby away from behind, and glanced up as a platform rolled in.

Wario hopped off- Letting Alph breathed a sigh of relief, charged up a shot, and whacked Wario from beneath the moment the plumber dropped close enough, hitting hard enough to send him flying back into the air, Olimar running past and smacking Kirby with a purple pikmin, almost sending him toppling over the edge.

The two ended up back-to-back, Wario approaching Alph with the angry look of a man who'd just been electrocuted by a sentient yellow carrot, Kirby on their other side, still sporting his copy ability.

Then, an item dropped.

Taken aback at it's sudden appearance, Alph blinked, confused.

Part of an actual competition, rather than a casual brawl, the rules for the fight stated, in no unclear terms: 'Two stock, omega mode, no items.'

Yet there it was. The assist trophy dropped between Alph and Wario, kicking up a little puff of dust as it hit the floor.

There was something... Off about it. Maybe it was the lighting, but it it seemed to be just the wrong colour. The light filtering through the giant trees reflected off it the wrong way.

Taking advantage of Alph's hesitation, Wario, noticing nothing, dived for it. Large hands scooping the trophy off the ground and holding it in the air, cackling.

Alph gasped, if he used it, he'd invalidate the match! "Wait, don't-"

The assist trophy didn't shatter. It melted.

Wario yelled in disgust as thick, black goop flowed down his arm "Hey! Gettoff!" The portly man started to jump around, flailing his arm, trying to get the gunk off and shouting all the while.

He made such a scene that both Olimar and Kirby broke out of their showdown to stand and watch with Alph, confused.

After a few more seconds of hopping about and shouting the black stuff sunk into Wario's arm, like it had never been there at all.

Wario himself stared, slack-jawed at where it had been, unmoving.

Olimar cleared his throat "Wario? Are you quite alright?"

The plumber didn't move. If anything, his mouth had grown wider.

Wait, Alph realised, his stomach dropping like a rock. It was growing wider.

Wario's jaw was distending, so slow at first they didn't notice, but more and more rapidly with every second, disturbing clicks, cracks and pops issuing from the joints. And inside…

An eyeball stared out, taking up every inch of space inside Wario's mouth.

It swiveled, staring at the horrified group. Wario's own eyes rolled back into his head as he jerked towards them, twitching erratically, dark lumps of goo sliding down his chin and hitting the dirt with soft thumps.

These lumps opened their own little eyes and scurried away, toppling off the sides of the stage like lemmings off a cliff, hitting the blast line with a series of little pops and disappearing.

"Oh no!" Kirby spat out his copy ability, the little star bouncing away and off the edge of the stage, and stepped in front of Olimar and Alph, dropping into a fighting stance, he held his little arms out in an attempt to keep the two astronauts behind him.

"W-What's wrong with him?" Alph hissed, refusing to take his eyes off Wario and his continuing advance.

"I'm not sure, i-it looks like Dark Matter!"

"Dark what-"

The moment Kirby uttered those words, Wario charged- Bowling the three over and skidding to a stop behind them, motorbike suddenly roaring out of nowhere for another go as everyone dived out of the way and the fight began again, three on one.

As he tried to hit Wario off his bike without being run over again, dodging as an unlucky Kirby found himself flung into the air, Alph wondered why no one had pulled them out of the match yet. He'd seen incidents more minor than this bring fights to very abrupt ends indeed.

A lucky hit from Kirby destroyed the bike. A second from Alph sent Wario flying over the edge, and a third from Olimar spiked him into the blast zone- An explosion of light and colour marking his defeat.

The trio crowded at the edge, peering down at the semi-transparent barrier that stood between them and a very long drop.

….

….

"… Should we go after him?"

–

The teleporter room was a mess.

Out of the eight pads set up in the room, two had been outright destroyed. The rest were in states of disarray ranging from 'a little dirty' to 'thrown five feet away from where they'd been installed'.

Alph popped in without too much issue, his boots hitting the ground so heavily he stumbled forwards with a grunt of pain and almost fell off the pad, his little squad of two pikmin falling on their faces behind him.

Kirby appeared as the Koppite stooped to help his colourful friends to their feet- Materializing three feet in the air and not quite managing to catch himself before he hit the ground face-first with a resounding squeak like a children's toy.

Across the room, Olimar popped into existence on a pad caked so thickly in burnt black gunk that he appeared already buried knee deep. Not because the gunk was unreasonably deep, no, Alph and Olimar just so happened to be among the shortest people in the competition. His pikmin were lucky enough to land on top, and light enough to stay there as the captain struggled to free himself.

It was too dark, something must have taken out the lights- And with the glow of the teleporters already fading as they shut down, Alph took it upon himself to find a light. Navigating by the relatively meagre blue light of his beacon, he stepped around computers, both of the smashed and un-smashed variety, everything bathed in an unnatural blue light: The computers, the wall, the light switch, the figures standing in the doorway to the outside corridor, pointing something yellow and glowing at him.

Alph flicked the switch- Well, he jumped while holding a pikmin and the pikmin flicked the switch- Bathing the room in florescent light, the sudden whining buzz of the bulbs making one rounded ear flick as he slowly turned to find Samus' gun pressed to the glass between his eyes with a ringing, metallic, 'dink'.

"Eep!"

"Whoa! No, no, no!" Kibry came running, stubby little hands waving in the air as he popped his puffy form tightly between Alph and Samus, forcing her to take a few steps back. "Don't attack us, where's Wario?"

Samus pointed silently at the doorway, her gun still trained on Alph's face.

In the light, there was only one figure. One figure, and a trophy.