"Wake up, wake up!" Pichu squeaked in Pokémon language while jumping on Pikachu's belly. In response, the older mouse rolled off his small bed and landed on the ground with a muffled thump.
"What is it?" Pikachu asked the younger Pokémon, tired from being woken up so early.
"Master Hand has a special announcement, we have to go NOW!" With that, Pichu started dragging his older brother to the door. But not before they each put on a small, thin collar that turned invisible once they equipped it. The device was a special translator made for the smashers that normally couldn't speak the universal language known as English.
With the ability to be able to converse with non-Pokemon smashers, the two walked out of their shared bedroom and into the hallway.
The hallway leading to the meeting room, despite how large it was, it was packed full of bustling smashers, some of them rudely shoving their way up to the front while others walked at the back, conversing with friends.
In a matter of minutes, the smashers made their way to the enormous meeting room. Each chair was elegantly designed exactly for a specific smasher, mostly due to problems that arose due to weight and height. That and some just wanted a cool chair that could shoot lasers and stuff (the latter not included as Master Hand didn't want an 'accident' to occur).
After the seating turmoil subsided and all were silent, Zelda spoke, voicing everyone's-or mostly everyone's-thoughts.
"Why did you call us here at six in the morning, Master Hand? Surely the matter isn't too urgent, right?" the princess politely asked.
"Well, my brother Crazy and I found some very shocking news." The smashers waited with bated breath for the hand to continue. "We have found a part of Subspace, still intact." It took a while to calm all the commotion. It was already four years since they defeated Tabuu and eliminated all traces of Subspace. Or so they thought.
"Everyone calm down before I use Laser Fluffy on you!" Crazy yelled, making everyone silent. They knew better not to ask Crazy what he meant or give him a chance to use it.
"Now, as I was saying..." Master Hand continued, "I'm sure you all remember the Isle of the Ancients." He seemed to look directly at R.O.B, the robot's eyes full of sadness and grief. "Well, remember how all those Subspace Bombs were detonated there? When we defeated Tabuu, we couldn't recover the isle because of the sheer number of them that exploded. However, in its place was an X-shaped mark of light. That light mark still exists, yet it's different what we thought it was. Upon further inspection, I found that it acts like a hidden doorway from here to the remains of Subspace. For now it is mostly closed, but it could fully open at any moment. So much that Subspace could start spilling into our world. My brother and I have decided we must enter Subspace and find out what's causing it to open again. Once we find that out, we get rid of Subspace completely." Silence. All the smashers were trying to take in what the hand was saying.
"So, that's it?" Ganondorf asked, partially annoyed. He was planning things to do to a certain green-clad Hylian as revenge for their brawl, but the meeting interrupted this.
Master Hand shook his 'head.' "Not quite. Just in case something happens, I need to keep contact with you guys. So, in advance, I've gotten Slippy Toad-" a groan escaped from Fox and Falco, "-and Miles 'Tails' Prower to help arrange a special room to do so." As mouths opened to ask questions, the hand pressed a red button on the table in front of him. In response, the walls of the room started shifting around to change shape. In awe, the smashers watched as large monitors started to occupy the now steel walls. There was a large control panel with a multitude of buttons, and the screens lit up with an abundance of information.
"This is what the two mechanics accomplished together," Master Hand told the smashers, but most still seemed in awe of what they were seeing. After just battling each other without any wars or something special going on for four years, it wasn't a surprise. Even so, the appendage decided to continue. "This is how Crazy Hand and I will be keeping in touch. In our human form, we'll wear gadgets similar to Snake's codec. If either end has to talk to each other, by a press of a button we can in mere seconds. Any questions?"
"Yeah, why is Crazy Hand going with you?" Bowser asked in his usual loud voice.
"Well, does anyone want to take care of him while I'm gone?" Everyone quickly shook their heads. "Alright then. We'll both be departing immediately." Peach then raised her hand.
"How long will you be gone?" The hand responded by 'shrugging.'
"Not sure. I'll tell you by the communicators." Master Hand looked at the smasher's faces, taking in every detail. It could take weeks, months at worst, before he and his brother would return. After examining the last smasher's profile, which happened to be Mario, Master Hand ended the meeting and headed towards the portal room where he would teleport to the cliff overlooking the light mark.
With all the smashers following them, Master Hand and Crazy Hand made their way to the portal room, floating over the large, glowing green platform. While Samus in her Zero Suit got the portal ready by setting up the coordinates, Master Hand motioned for Link and Mario to talk.
"What is it Master Hand?" Mario asked with his usual Italian accent, Link merely nodding.
"I need you guys to be the watchers of the mansion, okay? You're two of the best veterans here, and you're both good leaders. Make sure nothing bad happens while I'm gone, got it?"
"Don't worry, you can count on us!" Mario exclaimed cheerfully, while Link nodded again, a smile on his face.
"The portal's ready," Samus said, her finger hovering over the start button. Master Hand nodded at the bounty hunter to start it. But not before both hands transformed into their human state. In the span of the four years they learned how to transform for more convenience. Both hands had pure white hair, Master Hand's neatly combed while Crazy's was a chaotic mess. They both donned white apparel, but Master Hand was wearing a pair of white glasses and a glove on his right hand, while Crazy just had a glove on his left. They both put on their codec-like communicators on their wrist.
"I'll contact you when we find anything new," Master Hand told the smashers before walking onto the green glowing teleporter, Crazy Hand following him.
As Samus pressed the button, the humanized appendages smiled at the smashers before they disappeared in a bright green brilliance.
Master Hand and Crazy Hand appeared at the cliff overlooking the dazzling sunset where the entrance to Subspace was. The manifestation of creative spirit, Master Hand made a set of glowing blue stairs leading up to the X-shaped light mark in mere seconds. Walking up the set of stairs, the humanized hands made their way to the Subspace entrance. Master Hand placed his hand onto the light mark, and as blue energy surrounded his hand, the entrance revealing itself. The light mark started to rip open at the center, slowly at first but then faster until a small, human-sized hole was made.
"Ready, brother?" Master Hand asked Crazy Hand.
Crazy nodded energetically. "Yeah, I wanna see some evil dust bunnies!" Before Master Hand could tell him the 'dust bunnies' were Shadow Bugs, the manifestation of destruction spirit ran through the door to Subspace. Master sighed and decided to keep the stairs and portal how they were in case the Smashers had to come and help. He followed his brother into the depths of Subspace, the world of darkness.
Crazy and Master Hand's footsteps echoed eerily on the dark floor.
"Brother, how did the Subspace War begin again?" Crazy questioned.
Master Hand sighed. "Well you know how I decided to hold tournaments every so often. I wanted to gather the greatest warriors, or at least those with potential, and then I would test their strength to find the greatest of them all. It was actually very fun and exciting to see a new face fight against me, the last trial for them."
"Getting bored, speed the story up, and add more laser robot bunnies!" In response, Master Hand's eye twitched.
"Anyway, while preparing for the third tournament…that's when everything started. I heard a small explosion near the stadium I made for the tournament, and when I investigated it, I didn't know until later that it was the first instance of Subspace. At the time, I was curious where it would lead, and I was wondering if any good fighters were there. The moment I entered that darkness, I was harpooned with those chains of light, courtesy of Tabuu. I was unable to move a muscle, and I was like a lifeless doll. Until Ganondorf freed me that is."
"So that's what happened when I was looking for some new fighters!" Crazy Hand exclaimed. Master Hand sighed and decided to just look around Subspace for anything. Looking around the desolate world, it was easy to spot something unusual. Like some glowing item sticking out of the ground.
"Oooh, shiny!" Crazy Hand exclaimed in awe before dragging his brother to the item. Kneeling down before the item, Master Hand gingerly picked it up, examining it closely. The color of the thin item continually changed similar to a Smash Ball. There were intricate designs carved, and when Master Hand finally looked up, he saw similar fragment scattered around them.
"Wait a minute…" Master Hand muttered as realization came over him. The glowing fragment in his hands was a part of Tabuu's wings that Sonic sliced off. What was even stranger was the fact that Tabuu's wings shard a similar energy to Smash Balls. They both held a tremendous power, but how the power was unleashed was different. With Smash Balls, the energy was transferred to the user, letting them use a powerful move called a Final Smash. A fitting name. However, Tabuu's power was just destructive. The moment the energy would touch someone, its destructive properties would greatly damage a person, easily turning them into a trophy. But if they could somehow change the destructive properties to aid them…
"Crazy, do you have a bottle or something?" Master Hand asked. As silly as it might seemed, he learned from Young Link that bottles could hold a lot of things. Like princesses.
"What about this?" Crazy pulled out a backpack from his pocket.
"…I'm not going to ask how you have that. Just toss it here." Catching the backpack, Master Hand picked up the fragments and put in the backpack. Despite the size, the backpack could easily hold the items. The appendage just assumed it was magic, the same magic that let the Twilight Princess Link hold a ball and chain on his persona without being weighted down. Once putting the last fragment in the backpack, the humanized hand stood up along with his brother.
"I guess that's everything here, let's go deeper into Subspace," Master Hand told his younger brother before starting to walk. Both of them didn't notice the sinister aura sneaking up on them. Before they could even scream, both hands became unconscious, their vision turning black.
"Mario, do you think Master Hand and Crazy Hand are alright?" Peach asked, her voice full of concern.
"Don't worry, Peach. It's just been a week, if anything bad happened, they would've sent a distress signal," the plumber reassured. He was comfortably sitting in the chair in Master Hand's office. Plastered on the walls were posters of tournament competitors, even the five from Melee were there. The wooden floor was polished to a shine, and everything on the mahogany desk was well-organized. Metal filing cabinets were lined against the wall, and overall, the office seemed rather normal. Sure there were laser defense systems that could rip you to the shreds, and some of the objects in the filing cabinet were questionable, but it still seemed normal.
Hearing an urgent knock on the door, Peach opened it to see a panting Snake.
"What's wrong?" the Toadstool Princess asked.
"Signal …Master Hand…urgent…" the spec-ops soldier managed to say, out of breath. Mario and Peach quickly looked at each other before running to the transmitter room, Snake tiredly following them.
In record time they busted into the room, all the other Smashers already there.
"Geez, you guys are too slow!" Sonic complained.
Before Mario could reply, Samus interrupted.
"Look, no time, a message is coming through, in a few seconds it'll play. So be quiet and listen, or you get plasma up your throat, got it?" All conversations ended as the bounty hunter pressed the 'Connect' button. On the screen, there was just static. Then, Master's Hand voice came through.
"Can…can you guys hear me?"
"Loud and clear," Samus responded, "what's wrong? Why haven't you called until now?"
"Too dangerous…there's new monsters…send in help…"
"Who do you want us to send in?"
"I need…Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox, Pikachu, Captain Falcon, Luigi, Jigglypuff, and Ness. Also Ganondorf, Bowser, Wario, and Mr. Game and Watch"
"What?!" Everyone was surprised.
"Master Hand, that's all the veterans and more. Do you really need sixteen of us?" Zelda asked.
"The matter is urgent…any less and there's a high chance Crazy and I will die. I can't keep this signal up for much longer…"
Samus sighed. "We'll be there as soon as we can. Just let us prepare really quick." She then pressed the 'disconnect' button, ending their conversation.
"…Does this seem weird to anyone?" Snake asked. Everyone looked at him.
"What do you mean?" Peach questioned.
"Master Hand and Crazy Hand are like deities. Just six of us can defeat Tabuu now, we tried it in the simulator. So how is the threat so dangerous it would take sixteen of us plus the hands, and we never knew about it until now?" Everyone was silent, unable to answer. Well, except for Samus.
"What are you trying to imply? Master Hand would never do anything without good reasons. Maybe the new threat hid itself until now, have you thought about that?" Without waiting for an answer, Samus continued. "Look, it might seem suspicious, but I'm sure it's not. I'll keep in touch with you guys with the communicator in my helmet, got it?" When she saw the others nod, the bounty hunter walked to the teleportation room nearby, the others that Master Hand called for following her. Snake sighed and ran after her.
Once reaching the teleporter room, Samus started inputting the coordinates with one hand(it wasn't exactly safe to type with a plasma cannon arm), but was stopped by Snake midway.
"What now?" Samus asked, irritated.
"Here, you get in the teleporter with the others, I'll do the rest," Snake told her. The bounty stared at a few seconds before sighing and walking to the green teleporter with the others. Making sure everything was perfect, Snake pressed the teleport button, covering his eyes from the bright flash. Walking back to the communication room, Snake was confronted by Peach.
"Will Mario and the others be okay?" the princess asked Snake.
"Who knows? All we can do it sit and watch." With that, the soldier plopped into the black swivel chair overlooking the control panel. All of them waited for Samus to start her video feed.
"Can you hurry up already, this is taking forever!" Bowser roared in complaint.
"Hold on one second," Samus muttered before at last started the video connection with the smashers at the mansion. They would be able to see what she and the smashers in Subspace were faring. "Got it!"
"Then let's-a go!" Mario exclaimed, running up the blue stairs leading to the entrance to Subspace, the others following in suit. The moment they set foot in the dark and empty world, all the heroes got dark chills sent through their spine. Despite the emergency Master Hand was in, there was just silence and nothingness. Getting her plasma cannon ready, Samus cautiously scouted the area, unsure of what was ahead.
As the others accompanying the bounty hunter were trying to do the same, Wario had his own agenda.
"Hey, evil! Come here and let me knock some send into ya!" Wario than quickly ran ahead of the group, despite protests and obscenities hurled at him. Chasing after the obese plumber, they went into the deepest depths of Subspace, a sinister aura seemingly enveloping the smashers.
Link was the first to notice this, and stopped in his tracks.
"Something's not right..." the Hylian muttered, but before he continued his thought, two figures clad in white walked towards them.
"Poyo!" Kirby shouted in glee, running towards Crazy and Master Hand. The latter kindly smiled at the pink puffball before looking at the others gathered before him.
"I'm glad you all made it," Master Hand said, relief flooding into his voice.
"Master Hand," Samus started to say, "there wasn't a speckle of an enemy in this proximity. So why did you need our help?" The others muttered (beeped in and Watch's condition) in agreement.
The smile was still plastered on the humanized appendage's face. "Well, I need your help for something important. Here, let me show you." In a blink of an eye, a seemingly invisible force made everyone, except for the villains, bow down to their knees, all movement restricted. As Wario started backing away, he found a wall of Subspace formed behind him, hindering any tries of escape.
Master Hand looked at the villains, his silver eyes now a dark purple. And not just the iris, all his eye was just a dark and sinister purple. "Now, will you cooperate with me? If you help, I will make sure you get a fair share of power and wealth, along with all of desires finally achieved." While Bowser and Ganondorf bowed to show their cooperation, Wario took a bite of his garlic and laughed, which was deemed a sign that he would help.
The smile, once so innocent, was now cruel and sadistic on Master Hand's face as his gaze turned to the heroes.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Samus growled, trying to suppress the urge to blow the hand's brain out.
"I need help accomplishing my goal," the hand said simply, not knowing about the live video feed.
Mario managed to make eye contact with Master Hand. "And what exactly is your goal?"
"Isn't it obvious? I want to cover everything with this lovely Subspace. And everyone here will help me."
"Why do you think we would do that?" Link asked.
"Well, I know you wouldn't want to do this. On your own will, that is." With a snap of his fingers, Subspace started to swarm the heroes. However, it wasn't coating them in the dark substance. Instead, their mind started clouding, all good thoughts in their head starting to become twisted. The pain from the procedure was excruciating, and the silence of Subspace was broken with screams. Master Hand and Crazy Hand looked on, sadistic looks on your faces.
"Soon will be the beginning...of a beautiful world..." Master Hand muttered.
Then, in a few seconds, the video feed cut to static, the smashers at Smash Mansion dead silent. Peach was the first to break it, sobbing loudly.
"M-Mario, L-Luigi!" Peach cried out, Zelda comfortingly patting her on the back as she held back sorrows of her own.
Snake slammed his fist against the control panel in frustration, turning off the video feed in the process.
"That son of a-" he cut the sentence short as he saw Lucas and the other young smashers looking at him, all holding back tears.
Ike, clearing his throat, attempted to cut short the sob fest. "So, what should we do? Master Hand's now an insane maniac, Crazy was already insane, but now they want to cover everything in Subspace. Any ideas how to stop them?"
"Right now, there is no way." Everyone turned to Meta Knight. It was always surprising to hear his voice, and every smasher knew to listen when the knight spoke.
"What do you mean?" Snake growled. "Are you saying we should just let them do whatever the heck they want?!"
"I did not say that. What I mean is that we are at the disadvantage."
"Meta Knight," Zelda began, "there is forty-one of us in total, including the Melee attendees. Master Hand made sixteen of us evil. Including the hands, there's eighteen against us. That still leaves us with twenty-five. We have the bigger army. "
"But think about the people who we are fighting against. Twelve of them are veterans. They have more experience than all of us, and think about the all their adventures. Link is the Hero of Time, banished evil from Hyrule multiple times, and he is chosen by the goddesses themselves. Samus has Chozo DNA infused in her, giving her more resistance. She was trained like a warrior before being given her prized Power Suit. Working as a galactic bounty hunter, she defeated the greatest of monsters, like Ridley and Mother Brain. The others have faced many challenges too, and all of them have more battle prowess than all of us. Even I cannot beat them in our current state." The others were shocked. They knew Meta Knight could easily take on Master and Crazy Hand at the same time. For that difficult feat, he was highly revered by many. If the knight admitted he couldn't defeat the evil smashers...
"Wait, you said in our current state," Marth pointed out, "so, what should we do so we can stand a chance?"
"Well...the verterans and the hands know our battle styles, and they will know how to counter us. So, why not get new people, people that no one knows the fighting style of yet?"
"Won't they be weak?" Sheik asked. "How will a few newbies be able to stand up to the veterans and two deities?"
"That's why we need to train them, make them learn to use their powers to the fullest potential. With the help of them, we will be able to fight on fair grounds."
"T-Then what?" Peach asked as she wiped the last tears from her eye.
"...I am not sure. We can only hope for the best outcome."
"But where will we look for trainees?" Pit asked the knight, getting a small chuckle in response.
"Pit, Master Hand has been improving the teleporter so we can travel to so many worlds. We can find someone using that. But, we have to be careful Master Hand doesn't get there first and engulf the land in Subspace."
"Then where is the first place we should look?" Zelda asked.
"Hm...there's that realm above our world...I remember Master Hand saying powerful beings lived there. Maybe they know where to find some people."
"Don't forget Earth," Roy pointed out. "There are some good fighters there too, it's another good place to look."
Meta Knight nodded. "Then it's settled. Tommorrow we will start looking everywhere for help. Let us hope our plans will work."
End of chapter! I hope this was a good intro. Please note that Sheik and Zelda are different people in this story, the reason will be shown in later chapters. I will try taking turns updating this and Legend Of Smash. Also, I have a question. What would you like to see as the cover for this story? Just give me an idea, and if I really like it, I'll draw the cover image based on that. People who sumitted their OCs, they will start being shown next chapter. People who haven't submitted and wanted to, please send me a PM of your OC, or someway on deviantART on my account DarkZelda15. I will only accept OCs in reviews if they come from anon reviewers. Only rule is you can only submit two OCs, and you must tell me what they start out with, and how they develop over time. For example, at the start, an OC may not use a sword, but later on he may learn how. Detailed descriptions are very appreciated. Anyway, critisism is appreciated, hope you enjoy the story!