Chapter 1: Invitations

Greetings!

Congratulations on being part of the twelve citizens of the Nintendo Multiverse to be selected for the newly-established Super Smash Bros. Program! This program is designed as an attempt to create friendship and co-operation between various universes. While friendly combat is a primary component of the program, "Smashers" may freely travel to other partaking universes and do whatever they wish with other Smashers.

To accept this offer, sign this letter in the indicated space. Then, simply place the letter in a new envelope and replace it in the mailbox you retrieved it from. Please accept as soon as possible, as there is a deadline. A specific time cannot be given, as time moves differently in various universes. Once your acceptance has been received, you will receive further instructions.

To decline this offer, simply ignore it.

We hope to see you soon!

Luigi finished reading the letter to Mario.

"So-a what do you think, bro?" Luigi placed the first letter on the table, keeping the second. "There's-a one for each of-a us…should-a we go?"

"Hmm." Mario scratched his chin. "I-a like-a the sound of it…but what if Bowser decides to-a kidnap the princess while we're-a gone?"

"Oh." Luigi sat down. "I hadn't-a thought of that…what if he-a got one of these as well?"

"No no no," Mario said dismissively. "It-a said something about-a 'friendly combat'. I-a doubt they would-a invite Bowser for anything friendly."

Luigi thought of something. "Wait a second. We'd be-a free to come-a back anytime, right? And we could-a have others to help! There'd be-a no problem!"

Mario's eyes lit up. "Hey, you're-a right!" He quickly grabbed a pen and signed his letter. Luigi followed suit.

"Okey-dokey then, now we have to mail-a these." Mario pulled two envelopes out of a drawer, each with a Mushroom printed on the front. He put in his letter and sealed the envelope before pausing. "Now just a moment. Where do we-a mail these to?"

"It-a said we just put them back in-a the mailbox," said Luigi. "I-a suppose whoever sent them can-a take over from there."

The two Mario Bros. walked outside and placed their letters in the mailbox.

"Now-a we wait," said Mario.

Once the two plumbers had gone back inside, the two letters vanished in a flash of light.

Yoshi jumped out of the ocean and onto the beach.

"Another nice day on Yoshi's Island," the dino mused. "Bath time's over. And now it's food time."

While Yoshi was walking to his house for his imminent meal, he noticed a letter in his mailbox.

"I hate it when I miss the mailman," he mutted. "Ah well."

Yoshi grabbed the letter and walked inside. He used his tongue to snatch a knife from the table and had the letter out of the envelope within seconds.

"Lessee here. "Smash Bros.", hmm, that sounds a bit like Mario Bros. Friendly combat, eh? Hopefully that means giving Mario the business for punching me in the head a few years ago. Assuming he got one of these. Sign and return to sender without an address? Well, I guess when you work across universes, you can just grab the letter out of the box if you know where it is."

Once Yoshi had finished reading the letter, he had already eaten two apples, an orange, and a watermelon. He signed the letter and grabbed an envelope emblazoned with a Yoshi egg, grabbing a bunch of grapes on the way out.

"I wonder who else might be coming," Yoshi thought after putting the mail in the box. "Probably Mario, maybe his brother, DK possibly?"

The letter disappeared in a bright flash. Yoshi raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Ummmmkay. There's efficiency, I guess." He ate the rest of his grapes.

"Well…" started Donkey Kong. "They're wondering if I want to participate in…some sort of exchange program, it looks like."

"That sounds cool." Diddy grabbed another banana. "So you might be seeing that Mario again a few times, right?"

"I can only guess he got one of these." DK took a pen and tried signing the letter, but it was out of ink. He snapped it in half, threw it out the window, and tried another. "But really, who would invite a bunch of guys from a bunch of places and NOT invite Mario? That'd just be dumb."

"Unless they did it at random." Diddy threw a peel onto the pile in the corner.

"No, I wouldn't think so." The big ape slapped a "DK" sticker on the fresh envelope.

"Well, if he is there, you'll finally be able to have a real battle with him!"

"That's what I'm hoping for." DK gave Diddy the envelope. "Go put this back in the mailbox."

"Definitely." Diddy bounced off.

"Give…them…BACK!"

Link shoved the Master Sword into the Like Like one last time. It sputtered and shrank, leaving behind multiple items.

The Hero of Time wiped his brow. "Good grief. What is this, the sixth time today?" He scrambled to re-equip the Goron Tunic and Hylian Shield the creature dropped. "Those Golden Skulltulas better be worth all this trouble."

Link was about to move on to the next room in the Fire Temple when he noticed something else on the floor.

"Hey, what's this?" He picked it up. It was an envelope with an odd symbol on the front. The letter was addressed to "Link, the Hero of Time".

"I don't remember getting any mail recently…" The letter was opened and promptly read. "Hm, this sounds fascinating. A chance to develop my skills and meet new people."

Link looked around. While he was anxious to sign the letter and put it out of his mind, there was no suitable place to sign it - more than likely, the heat of the room's walls would set the paper on fire, and the floor was covered in dirt and grime.

"I guess I could use my arm." Link pulled a quill out of his hammerspace and signed the letter. "There. A bit wobbly, but it should be good." He pulled out an envelope that had previously held a letter from Zelda and stuffed the letter into it. The Triforce-emblazoned seal just managed to stick.

"Now how can I put this in the mailbox I got it from? I don't remember checking my mail for…well, probably a week or two now." He thought for a bit. "Well, what if I never got the letter until that Like Like spat it out? Maybe that's how they delivered it to me."

Link cautiously placed the envelope in the same spot on the floor where he found it. Within seconds, it vanished.

"Well that's good." The Hero of Time started towards the next room. "I had no idea if that would work."

"Data received."

Samus looked over to the screen on her right. "What?"

"Data received." The gunship's language processors were on the fritz.

"Fine, just keep driving." Samus rotated her pilot's chair to the right to get a better view of the monitor. The e-mail popped up.

"smasherrecruitmentservice at nintendo dot ntd? Hmm...hey, this looks kind of fun. Yeah, sign me up." She instinctively brought her right arm up to the screen.

"Error."

Samus rolled her eyes. "Oh shut up." She deactivated her Power Suit before taking a stylus and digitally signing her name. "Maybe I wanted to sign with my Plasma Beam."

"Unknown command."

"It's sarcasm, you dumbbell." The bounty hunter put her head in her hands. "Why does this thing always break twenty thousand parsecs away from the nearest spacedock?"

"Unknown command."

"And THAT was a rhetorical question." Samus applied a Screw Attack-shaped digital stamp and pressed the Reply button. "Do you want me to roll in there and Wave Beam your synthesizers to Zebes and back?"

"Maintenance required."

Kirby snatched the mail from his mailbox. "So…magazine…magazine…weekly death threat from Dedede…junk…junk…aaaand that's it."

The puffball turned back towards his house when there was a "shoof".

"Wuhwuzzat?" Kirby looked back to see that a letter had appeared in the recently-emptied mailbox. No one else was visible.

"…that was odd." He grabbed the letter and opened it on the spot.

"Now this sounds like a good way to get out more often and meet more good guys." Kirby produced a pen and signed the letter. "Not to mention I've heard rumours of some other guy that thinks he has a bigger appetite than mine - I'm going to Show. Him. Up!"

With a basketball-like move, Kirby rammed the letter into an envelope with Popstar's image on the front before jamming it back into the mailbox. It vanished with a "shoof".

"And there it goes." Kirby cracked open his fresh copy of Munchies Monthly and started reading.

Fox walked into the break room with an air of exhaustion.

"What's up, Foxy?" Falco was sitting at the table with a mug in hand. "You look like you've been through a ringer."

"Don't call me Foxy." The team leader grabbed his own mug, labelled "My Other Car Is A Landmaster", and filled it with black coffee. "Peppy insisted I do some on-foot battle training."

"No!" Falco's beak dropped open in mock surprise. "Did you break a nail?"

"Oh shut up." Fox sat down. "I used my legs, mostly. But they're kind of sore now."

"Well then. Shall I attempt to brighten your day?" Falco handed over a letter. "This appeared in your mailbox today."

Fox opened the letter and gave it a look-over.

"Well? What's it about?"

"Don't rush me." A bit of time passed. "Well, it seems like I've been invited to some sort of all-star camp."

"Really?" Falco took a large gulp of his beverage. "I guess you'll go just to leave us guys behind for one in your life, right?"

"Well, not completely…" Fox signed the letter. "But it will be a nice change of pace."

"Bah. I know you. You can't wait to get me out of your fur."

"Oh shut up." Fox got a Star Fox-labelled envelope from the cupboard and slid the letter into it. "Maybe you'll get one of these sometime."

"Whatever."

With a flash of light, a Pokéball appeared in the middle of the burrow.

"Pi?"

"Puff?"

The burrow's two occupants, a Pikachu and a Jigglypuff, both walked cautiously towards the object. Ever since the two friends had gotten lost on the Indigo Plateau, they were under siege from powerful Pokémon. Making too much noise had a chance of alerting unwanted company.

"Should we open it?" asked Pikachu. "It might be a trap."

"No, I don't think so." Jiggypuff walked around the Pokéball. "Pokémon can't use Pokéballs."

"Well…alright then." Pikachu poked the Pokéball's central button. The ball enlarged a bit. "Uh…I don't know how this works."

"I think we have to throw it."

"Oh." The Electric-type took the Pokéball with both paws and tossed it across the room.

The spherical device struck the floor and burst open, sending two pieces of paper into the room. The two Pokémon each grabbed one.

"Hey, this is some sort of letter!" Pikachu seemed excited.

"This one too." Jigglypuff sat down. "And it's written in Pokémon scratches!"

"Someone must be trying to rescue us!" Pikachu's eyes darted across the page. "Or…well, this could help as well. I mean, if they could get a Pokéball in here like that, they could save us."

"But…" Jigglypuff was sceptical. "How are we supposed to sign it?"

"Hmm…" The mouse looked around the burrow. He found a black tube. "Hey, what's this?"

"That's my microphone. I found it a while ago."

Pikachu gave the object a sniff. "I don't know about that…this smells like ink. It must be a writer!"

Jigglypuff walked over and gave the cap of the marker a tug. It popped off and bounced off the back wall.

"Now let's sign these, put them back in that Pokéball, and wait to get out of here."

The phone started ringing.

Captain Falcon groaned. "Why does this always happen?" He rolled out from under the Blue Falcon, wiped his hands off, and grabbed the phone.

"What is it?"

"Ahem." Falcon recognized the voice of his agent. "You have an important piece of mail."

"I told you, all fan mail-"

"This is not fan mail. It was sent with a priority signal."

"…Fine. Send it over." The F-Zero champion grumbled and hung up.

Within about half a minute, a letter was deployed through a slot in the wall. Falcon took it and started reading.

"Friendly combat, eh?" Falcon thought for a bit. "I've always enjoyed beating thugs up. This might actually be a challenge."

The speed demon signed the letter with a signature that took up half the page before putting it in an envelope and putting his falcon-shaped stamp on it. He shoved it back in the mail slot with a message reading: "Put this back in my mailbox or else."

"You has this mail! Boing!"

Ness looked over at the door. A Mr. Saturn was walking in with a letter perched on top of its nose.

"Uh, okay." Ness got out of his chair (a patched-up recliner) and took the letter. He was wondering how anyone could mail him something way over in Saturn Valley, but he didn't worry about it too much.

"It have came in sunflash. Zoom!"

"Um…so, it just appeared." Mr. Saturns were difficult to understand at times, but Ness was getting used to it.

"For yes! Ding!"

The psychic kid opened the letter and started reading it. "Hmm…this looks like a fun way to pass the time. Ever since all that crazy stuff happened, life's been kind of boring." Pause. "Well, except for that time where we tried each other's moves. That was nuts." He looked around for a writing instrument. "Uh, do you have a pen or something?"

"I has a writes. You wait just. Doink!" The Mr. Saturn waddled off, returning a minute later with a slightly gnawed-up pencil.

Ness hesitated for a second before taking the pencil and signing the letter. He then found an envelope in the corner and a stamp with the Earth on it in a drawer.

"Go put this back where it came from."

"Rightyokeydokey. Twing!"