Battles in The Ruined Zoo: A Super Smash Bros. Brawl Fanfic
The wind howled through the desolate buildings and rusty metalwork of The Ruined Zoo. The palm trees and Greek theater-type construction were the only indications that this had once been a happy place. Just by looking at it, Lucas was sure that something terrible had happened to it long ago. How else could a zoo have become something like this? A creepy monochrome wasteland full of places for monsters to hide? Aside from him, the palm trees were the only spot of color around.
This place must have looked like Tazmily Village before, Lucas thought, moodily kicking an empty soda can. He stared at the ground with a sad expression on his face. Imagining what this place had been (and by extension, remembering Tazmily) brought his long-dead mom to mind. Lost in sad memories, he never saw the blobs of Subspace energy landing and clumping together…that is, until one of them made an ominous "SCHLOOORP".
Panicking, he looked up, then around to see the globs of purple energy forming into eight Primids. The robots encircled him, preventing him from running away. Ironically, Lucas could very well have taken all of them on if they had not surprised him. The situation got much, much worse when a familiar eyeless, crowned behemoth stomped into view: the Pig King Statue. Lucas knew he couldn't hope to defeat the statue itself, let alone the statue with eight Mook robots, by himself. So he ran.
True to form, Porky chased Lucas. Ruined Zoo was a lot more complicated than he'd thought: Where Lucas jumped over crates or rows of logs that were in the way, Porky simply smashed through them. Occasionally, Lucas would stop to defeat a Primid. And by "defeat", I mean "kick and/or punch that sucker into Porky, since touching it = instant death". There were also hills/valleys all over the place, none of which slowed either down. To say nothing of the flying robots, switches, and the time Porky fell into a pool only to reappear the instant Lucas couldn't see it anymore…
Mercifully, the next part was barren. Lucas broke into a full-on sprint, sure that safety was near…but then he got his foot tangled in a tree root. His attempts to army crawl out of the way proved fruitless. Crap… He tightened his abs/back muscles and covered his face with his hands, awaiting untimely trophification. Not that he was at all sure Porky could do that.
A strangely familiar voice shouted "PK Thunder!" Ness…? Lucas thought, hardly able to believe his good luck. Sure enough, a more solid version of Lucas' PK Thunder hit Porky right in the face and shoved it onto the ground. Lucas looked up in time to see Ness float gently to the ground in a flurry of sparkles. "Ness!" Lucas cried out. "How the heck did you do that?!" The black-haired boy turned to him and smiled. "That's the power of cutscenes, Lucas," he said. Cutscenes? What? Lucas thought.
Not to be outdone, Porky rose up again, created a small shockwave, and then leaped into the air. "Did you know it could do that?" Ness asked Lucas. "Nope," he replied. Ness stroked his chin thoughtfully, then snapped his fingers. "Watch this!" he grinned, following suit. Once at Porky's "eye" level, he began glowing with green PSI energy.
"PK Flash!" he shouted, dramatically releasing…little green sunbursts in Porky's direction. To his credit, the sunbursts hit it right in the chest. "Wait for it…" he muttered. "Wait for it…" Porky's chest/midriff was now decorated with a small green light, and the instant it got bigger, Ness zoomed upward. Not a moment too soon: the statue exploded in a big green semi-circle of PSI energy and statue parts. Lucas was pushed out from under the tree root by the force of it, and Ness got pushed back upon landing by the shockwave. Then they saw a spider-legged robot…thing with someone inside its glass dome center emerging dramatically from the dust cloud. "I have no idea what this is, but let's beat it down together!" Ness cheered. Emboldened by having a ridiculously awesome new ally, Lucas stood up and nodded.
Like the statue it had been encased in, the robot was one hell of an opponent. It had more hitpoints than Lucas and Ness combined (which isn't saying much given the way Brawl works), and a nasty habit of flying into the air and zapping them with lasers. Also, it sometimes summoned other robots. It took all their PSI powers and an equal amount of hand-to-robot fighting, but the two PSI-powered children eventually brought it down. Well, technically, Ness did, since Lucas got shoved out of the fight altogether the instant Porky-bot looked like it was going to crash.
"Phew," Ness breathed. "Pretty good for my first time fighting…whatever that was, right?" Lucas ran up to him, glanced at the broken robot, and nodded. "If you're lucky, it'll be your only time," he said. "Come on, let's find a way outta here before it starts raining," Ness smiled. Lucas had noticed some thunder during the fight with Porky-bot, but he'd hardly had time to ask about it.
"Oh, you won't need to do that." Both boys flinched. "Who said that?" Ness asked. Lucas looked around…then gasped when he saw who was on top of a nearby mountain. "Ness! Up there!" he cried. Ness looked too, and had a similar reaction to Wario's presence. Though, given Ness' earlier Badassery, it might've been more to the GIANT TROPHY GUN Mario's evil counterpart was holding.
"Y'see, boys, this baby turns anyone I hit into a trophy," Wario sneered. He pointed the gun at Ness and began charging it up. "The black-haired kid—don't bother telling me your name, I'll forget it—will make a great addition to my collection!" With that, he fired a black-and-yellow arrow at Ness, who easily dodged it. "Hmm," Wario noted. "The first and last person to think of that." He shot a series of arrows at Ness, all having the same effect as the first. They did, however, force him to a wall so he'd have fewer places to dodge to.
Wario frowned. "This is going nowhere fast…Hey, blondie! Smile!" he yelled, pointing the gun at Lucas and charging a shot. Faster than Lucas had ever thought possible, Ness ran up to him and shoved him out of the way right before the arrow would have hit him. "Run, Lucas," the black-haired boy whispered to him before the arrow took him up into the sky. Seconds later, Ness fell down; gray, immobile, and most chillingly, with a small smile on his face.
Lucas was struck dumb. He hardly knew Ness, but the other guy had just saved him from becoming a trophy? Wario (who'd somehow come down from that mountain) had a similar expression. "…noble idiot," he mused. "Oh, well, one less hero to worry about." He advanced on Ness the way a predator would its lunch. Panicking again, Lucas ran. The rain started coming down, only adding to the drama. When he looked back, he saw Wario staring Ness right in what had been his eyes and laughing evilly. The thunder and lightning made it all a bit cliché, not that Lucas cared about such things.
Farther away from that part of the zoo, Lucas halfheartedly looked for a way out. Mostly, though, he was kicking himself for not standing up to Wario when he'd had the chance. He would've done that for a much longer time had he not run into a much taller boy's bag.
"Ow…Sorry, I didn't see you," Lucas mumbled. The other boy—who Lucas noted had brown hair—turned to him. "Heh, neither did I. It's OK. Do you know what these are?" he said, gesturing to a veritable army of forming Primids. Lucas shuddered. "I've never seen so many Primids in one place! You think we can fight them off all by ourselves?"
The brown-haired boy put a hand on Lucas' shoulder and smiled. "Yup." Lucas was completely confused. "But…but how?" His smile became a grin. "You'll see." The boy pulled out a strange small red-and-white sphere with a button in the center. He pushed it once, and the ball instantly expanded to the point that his hand only covered half of it, and that scarcely. With all the flair of a professional, he threw it in the Primids' general direction. The ball opened mid-flight, and a ridiculously cute blue turtle popped out in a flash of white light. "I'm a Pokémon trainer," the boy explained, catching the ball in his hand. "Squirtle here may be tiny, but he's fast, and the most stubborn Pokémon I've ever met. Which, of course, makes him pretty strong." "Squirtle squirt!" it added, big eyes narrowed.
Lucas was undeniably impressed. "Do you think I could be one, too?" he asked. The trainer laughed dryly. "Here wouldn't be the place to start, but…sure, why not. We'll worry about it later, OK? Let's kick these—Primids, you said?—into next week!" Lucas took a deep breath to steady himself, then nodded once.
True to its trainer's word, Squirtle was, for lack of a better adjective, amazing. For all the moments that Squirtle outshone Lucas, however, there were just as many when they worked together to take down multiple opponents at a time (including the ever-annoying Floow). Lucas also noted that the trainer was no slouch, being able to follow Squirtle to all the crazy places it went. He made sure to do his part by either taking the various enemies the trainer didn't notice or giving them advice about the way the obstacle course they were fighting through worked. He would know; he'd had to fight through one to escape Porky, after all (though in comparison to this monster, Porky's had been a cakewalk). To say nothing of those giant colorful sphere things that never stopped ganging up on them and the time Squirtle almost got shot into the sky…
Eventually, the two fighters reached a clear spot. "Great job, Squirtle," the trainer smiled, taking out that ball again. With a flick of his wrist, a beam of red light shot from the center and enveloped Squirtle. The light went back into the ball, and he rubbed some dirt off it. "You were pretty impressive too, little guy," he added as an afterthought. "Don't follow me. I have to go find my other two Pokémon, and this is one of those things you have to do by yourself." With that, he turned and walked away.
Lucas stared after him, dumbfounded. Then he made the decision that would change his life: he ran after the trainer, calling "Take me with you!" The other boy looked at him, confused. "Wario turned this guy I know into a trophy, and I was too scared to do anything about it," he explained. "I'm going to see Wario again, and I want to be ready for him. And besides, you said yourself I was pretty impressive back there." The trainer stared at him. That fire in his eyes reminds me of Charizard… he thought. "All right, you've got yourself a travel buddy," the trainer grinned. "We didn't introduce ourselves earlier. My name's Red. Who are you?" "I'm Lucas, and I have psychic powers."