Fluff and Circumstance or The Cult of Ario

by Ze Dybbuk

In this crack-fiction adventure, Pit is convinced that Lucario, Mario, and Wario are all trying to destroy the world! There's a good chance he's just crazy, but the more everyone learns about it, the wierder it all gets... NOW COMPLETE, IF ANYBODY CARES!

1. Lucario and his Lucario Evil

A note to readers: Hmmmm. So I don't really have any notes for the readers. The old version of this chapter had a really, painfully stupid author's note, and this "note to readers" thing is here right now mostly because I just wanted to get that stupid author's note out.

Well since I've already pretty much straight up admitted this is crack fiction, the actual "substance" (for lack of a better word) shouldn't come as a particular shocker. I don't want to SPOIL anything, so I'll just promise that it contains no sex scenes or gory, needless violence. However, it will have some very benign inuendo which shouldn't trouble anybody over the age of thirteen, "comic mischief" since the human race has yet to come up with a more awesome way to describe that, and also about a buttload of really indecent language.

One last thing:

Beware of eggplants.

Okay go.

FLUFF AND CIRCUMSTANCE or THE CULT OF "ARIO"

Ike was in his room later, stuffing a bag to get ready to go down for a workout. He had been knocked out of this season's brawler tournament, but after a couple months of doing nothing but hanging out and eating chicken he'd put on a few pounds. Marth had yelled at him earlier today for eating five plates of the stuff right in front of him, so for the sake of the vested interest he had in his chicken-munching habit, Ike had decided he'd better start working out again so people would shut the hell up.

He kneeled on his bedroom floor contemplating with a vacant expression whether or not he ought to take his sword with him to practice fencing or to just lift weights and run today. Even if he didn't end up using his sword, he felt like he wanted to take it anyway, you know, just for giggles. Maybe he could split Pikachu's head with it on the way there, or something.

It was nice, not having to unknot it from Pit's haphazard pile of crap. His roommate was a slob and usually winged all his stuff in the corner of the bedroom as soon as he walked in, not bothering to sort what was his from what was Ike's. He did that with most of his other belongings, too: leaving great stinking mountains of his dirty laundry in the middle of the room that Ike would usually end up tripping and falling face first into it; always just chucking his toothbrush back into the drawer, and more often then not, Ike would open it later only to find that their two toothbrushes were making out, one's bristles buried passionately inside the other's; and one other time, Pit had put a five gallon bowl of potato salad in the fridge on top of Ike's leftover fried chicken and just crushed it all into a big greasy crater of mayhem. But Pit wasn't here right now, thank science, and that meant Ike's sword wasn't hopelessly entwined with Pit's bow and shield and wrist-guards and laurels. The squirrelly little bastard had somehow managed to survive this far into the brawler's tournament, and that was the reason for his absence. He was off, more likely than not, getting his ass flattened by Lucario. Ike allowed himself a moment to daydream that he was absurdly lucky, and Lucario ended up killing Pit, and then he wouldn't have to put up with his crap anymore. He'd also probably go do a little dance on his grave.

Behind him he suddenly heard the door open and he snapped out of his reverie. He wheeled and leaned through his bedroom door to see a haggard and sick-looking Pit standing with a dazed expression in their living room. He limped over and threw himself face-first into the couch. Ike slunk inside, feeling a conflicting explosion of emotions, mostly a combination of disappointment with Lucario for failing to finish him off, and delight that Pit had at least apparently lost.

"How'd your fight go?"

Pit forced himself up and shot a look of fire at him. "How do you think, Fatty? Fan-freaking-tastic! Ass hole, Lucario…" he moaned and dropped his head into a hand, "Turned out he was ready yet, after all."

"So he caught you in the middle of a taunt again?"

"Son of a bitch, yes!"

Ike blinked for a minute, thinking. "That was a cutoff match, wasn't it? So if you lost, that means--"

"Yeah, I'm a knockout. Thank you, Dr. Mario!" He flopped back down on his face, but a moment later his stomach growled and his eyes snapped back open with an air of annoyance. "I'm gonna go grab something to eat. You hungry?"

Although he had just eaten an hour ago and Pit wasn't exactly his first choice for someone to share a meal with, Ike would be damned if he passed up any opportunity for chicken. "Yeah, I'll come--"

"HAH!" Pit gave one short laugh, like a fox barking. "I met Marth on the way back, and he told me you already had five plates of chicken today!" He smirked at him, flickering the tips of his wings mischievously. "You're going to die."

"Am not!"

"Odds are you're going to eventually inhale a chicken bone, so…"

"Shut up!" Ike scowled at him, but Pit was bent over laughing like a maniac. "And you're awful damn cocky for just losing your last match today!"

That straightened him out a little. "Well, you shouldn't know anything about what it's like to lose a match, considering you haven't even had one for the past two months. So you shut your face."

Ike stared at him like he was talking gibberish, which is fitting, I guess, cuz he kind of was.

"You know what, Ike?" Pit said suddenly, "We don't need to bugger with this crap."

"Well, now I understand everything."

"You should. I tell you what. What's it really matter if a guy eats five plates of chicken in one sitting or takes a gooey bomb to the face while he's trying to taunt?" He leaned over closer to Ike and narrowed his eyes at him, staring with a staunch severity. "We spend far too much of our lives dawdling over fluff and circumstance, my friend. What we really ought to be doing is working towards taking out the one source of supreme evil."

"Supreme evil?"

"Oh yes." Pit's eyes narrowed even further before he responded to him with the gravity of the world entire, "Lucario."

Ike stared at him blankly. "You're an idiot."

Pit didn't seem put off in the slightest. "And you have a freaky chicken obsession, but I wasn't gonna bring it up again. Yeah, so anyway," and he got up and began to pace the room as if he hadn't just taken a gooey bomb to the face, "I been thinking a' how we can get him, you know, and so far I think our best shot would be right in the morning, huh, when he just gets up so he's still kind of out of it? I was thinking that I could squat up in one of the ceiling corners of the foyer all night like a ninja, and then in the morning you could meet him right outside, underneath of me, and then I'd just drop on his head, huh? That might not do him in though, just that," he mused delicately, "So maybe I'll grab a couple smart bombs before we do our thing, and then once I hit him, you know, I could try and shove one down his throat?"

Ike stared at him blankly. "You're a psychotic idiot."

"Thank you! In return for your unbridled flattery, let me offer to tell you that those ten extra pounds don't make you look like a total drooling slob."

"First of all, it's only eight." Ike groaned and massaged his temples. "Oh my God, why are you my roommate!?"

"Eight, hell! After five plates of chicken today you think it's still just eight?" Pit laughed mightily again. "If that's really the case, you must be a psychotic idiot, too. Maybe that's why we're roommates."

Ike sighed and wondered in a vague and unfeeling sort of way whether the chicken would be worth it if he had to put up with Pit's crap. So far that was still a "yes," it would take more than Pit's usual brand of obnoxiousness to put a damper on the illustrious promise of chicken. But still, he was thinking…

…and Pit was talking. "Well, we wouldn't have to do the foyer plan, I guess, I can kinda understand why you think that wouldn't fly. So instead of that, I don't know. Maybe we could meet him at breakfast then or something and pelt him with a bunch of muffins, although that seems painfully mainstream. I guess I wouldn't have a problem with using kumquats, though, you don't hear about stuff like that very often. But on the flipside, I'm not sure I really believe in the purported deadliness of the kumquat variety, you know, I'm willing to embrace change, but I'm still a firm believer in baby steps away from the well-established traditions. A good compromise might be bananas, I guess. Or those little individual cups of half-and-half you get with coffee."

"Shut up, Pit, you're making me hungry."

"Fatty," Pit said exasperatedly, "Roadkill could make you hungry. I don't have the time or the will to avoid or embrace all of your bizarre little personality quirks. Lucario is out there polluting the world with his Lucario Evil, and he has to be stopped!"

"Do you think Lucario could postpone his Evil pollution until we grab a bite?"

Pit looked thoughtful for a minute. "Yeah, he probably would be okay with that, I guess. Lucario is not completely without compassion, Fatty; you need to learn this. Maybe we can use that against him…"

Ike was bopping up and down impatiently. "Yeah, maybe, like throw Pichu in front of a train or something and hope he jumps after him. Can we go now?"

Pit sighed. "Alright, let's go. And, hey, if you see Pichu laying around anywhere on our way down there, let me know, okay? Do something useful for a change, huh?"

---

While he was tearing into his sixth plate of fried chicken, Ike took the time to wonder in a disinterested sort of way whether or not Pit's sudden vendetta against Lucario was just a mark of his eccentricity or proof that he'd finally snapped. The way he sat there across from him, twisting his spoon around his soup with an expression of plotting, glaring across the room at Lucario from underneath the shield of one of his rigid, upraised wings, made Ike start to think increasingly that it was the later.

"Hey, Pit?" he began tentatively, "What do you have against Lucario, anyway? I mean, I know he beat you in that last match, but really, is it just that, or…"

Under the malevolent glare he was receiving for bringing the subject up, Ike trailed off. Pit's eyes immediately snapped back over to Lucario, and he began stirring his soup with an increased fervor, showering the table with little drops of eggplant paste. "Look at that little bastard over there," he growled, and whether it was to himself or to his roommate Ike couldn't tell, "Getting his curry, probably trying to practice, work his way up to the super spicy stuff without it killing him so he can go freakn' nuts on the battlefield with it, while the rest of us are being charred into cinders around him! Don't underestimate him, Ike! No matter what happens, he can't so much as get an inkling of a vagueness of a suspicion! The fate of the world hangs in the balance!"

"Of course it does," Ike grumbled, "But have you ever considered that maybe he just likes curry?"

"No one could like curry!" Pit hissed back at him, "It's the food of the communists!"

"Of course it is." Ike grumbled again, and began picking apart his chicken very slowly to try and buy himself some time to think of a way to get the hell away from Pit.

"FATTY!" Pit snapped at him so loudly that many people around them looked up. He had the most hardcore expression of disbelief on his face that Ike had ever seen, and had drawn up his other wing to shield himself more completely before motioning to Lucario.

Ike glanced at him. He had taken a seat with Mario and the two of them were talking energetically across the table. He looked back at Pit. "So what?"

"So what!? So what!? Ike!" He slapped his palms against the table and stared him right in the eye, clearly baffled by his roommate's inability to see the obvious. "What reason would he have for sitting with Mario? If the two of them are talking, that clearly means they're in cahoots!"

"Oh, yeah, yeah, clearly…" Ike wondered if Pit would try to stop him if he said he had to leave.

"Think about it!" Pit's eyes widened with a new revelation. "Mario? Lucario? Dude! Their names are like, practically the same! Why else would they both end in "ario"? It's probably the insignia of their cult, you know, how they identify their members."

Ike's patience was beginning to wear by now. "Mario's been here, like, forever, and Lucario only showed up last year!" He had been trying to throw a wrench in Pit's rationale, but not to great avail.

"Holy hell!" Pit put his hands over his mouth. "Mario's probably the ringleader!"

"That's not what I meant!" Ike snapped, "I meant, Mario's been here forever, and he's always been named 'Mario', so why would his name mean that he's part of a cult now just cuz somebody named Lucario showed up, huh?"

"He hasn't always been named 'Mario'," Pit said quietly, "They used to call him 'Jumpman'."

"Christ almighty, Pit, he still changed it at least thirty years ago! Still long before Lucario ever showed up!"

"He's been plotting a long time…." Pit whispered, shifty-eyed, and still freckling the table with drops of soup.

"Alright, you know what?" Ike pushed his chicken aside and got up, "This has gone on long enough, I can't tell if you're for real or just playing around, but either way you're being an idiot, and I don't wanna be a part of it anymore, okay?"

Pit's jaw dropped, and for one wild moment Ike thought that he'd offended him, but then he noticed that Wario had come up and joined Mario and Lucario.

"What about THAT, huh!?" Pit whispered triumphantly, accidentally beaning his spoon off the table in his excitement. It bounced and flew twelve feet over his shoulder, pegging Link in the eye. "Wario? Lucario? Mario? And all of them are sitting together!? You can't tell me that's just a coincidence!"

"Actually, I can."

"Huh uh!"

"It's just a coincidence."

Pit stared at him.

"I told you so."

"Why else would freakn' Wario be talkin' to Mario? Aren't they supposed to, like, freaking hate each other, or something? Why this sudden change a' heart, Ike? Isn't Wario supposed to be, like, Mario's creepy uncle with the gastrointestinal problem?"

"No, Pit! I don't know what the hell Wario's supposed to be! I always just kinda thought of him as a meat sack with legs!"

"Yeah, but he and Mario don't really get along, anyway, right?"

"I guess not. Whatever. Are you gonna finish that?"

Pit hadn't touched his soup, but it was still mostly empty since he'd dumped a lot of it out on the table. He scowled up at Ike. "It's my soup, you fat ass!"

"Give it to me!"

"No! I haven't eaten freaking anything today, and you're an ass hole!"

"But it's cream of eggplant."

A look of abject horror seized Pit's face and frantically he pushed the bowl across the table, touching as little of his skin to it as physically possible, and in the process ended up spilling most of what remained of it. Trembling he backed off away from it, drawing his arms tight against himself and collapsing his wings as far as he could. "T-take it! J-j-just t-take it!" he sputtered, eyes widening and never leaving the bowl, "It's not, it's not…r-really…?"

"Hey, chill!" Ike scolded him quietly, quickly swiping the bowl and setting it behind him on an empty table. "It's gone, Pit, you can stop being psychotic."

Pit just trembled wide-eyed, giving him a look of helpless betrayal. "You can't do that crap to me, Fatty! I told you I don't like eggplants!"

"Yeah, but when you said that I just thought you just meant—"

Pit brushed him aside and scowled over at Mario and Wario as if the evil eggplant incident hadn't even happened. "They seem pretty chummy now, though, don't they? Funny how secret cults of evil can do that to people…"

Ike started to think that he might be able to get up and walk out without Pit even noticing, he was engrossed enough in his paranoid delusions. Just as he began to slide his chair back an inch, though, Pit hissed at him urgently.

"Look now!"

Weeping on the inside, Ike obliged him yet again, but this time was different. Across the cafeteria, the three of them had stopped their friendly banter. Wario and Mario were sitting rigidly, and Lucario had gotten up and was flicking his eyes over the room. They hesitated for just a fraction of a moment on Ike and Pit's table, but it was long enough to be noticeable. Without another backwards glance, he scuttled off, and just as his tail disappeared behind the door, Mario and Wario got up to follow

"Now!" Pit said triumphantly again, "Where exactly do you suppose our little meat-sack cult is off to, hm?"

"I obviously came in at the wrong part of this conversation."

The two of them jumped. Pit turned around to see a disgruntled Link looming over him. He had a hand slapped over his right eye and held out a spoon to Pit.

"I believe this is yours."

Pit was apparently oblivious to the fact that he was supposed to be intimidated and apologetic. "Link! Holy crap, perfect timing! Okay, this is great, really," he took the spoon from it and started flicking it between his fingers since his dastardly soup was gone, "Three-on-three really is better, Ike, I think we should get him in on this!"

"In on what?" Link's ears flicked back, and what they could still see of his expression was marked with a genuine curiosity.

"That does seem to be the question of the evening, doesn't it?" Ike grumbled and flicked a chicken bone across the table.

"Now, Fatty, don't be sour," Pit said in a patronizingly lighthearted way, although Ike had no idea in hell what had happened to make his mood better. "We got a mission, now! We've got to go right now and figure out what they're up to!"

Link turned to Ike with a look of delighted disbelief. "He really calls you Fatty?"

Ike pretended not to hear him.

"And you let him get away with it?" Link leaned in closer to him and whispered. "Can I call you Fatty too?"

"No! Shut up! You're not supposed to talk!"

"Well, you're not supposed to be so cheap, Fatty!" Pit whooped at him, "Now come on, before they all get away!" He jumped out of his seat and charged towards the door. Link knocked his head between Pit and his own table a few times, apparently torn about what he ought to do, but he eventually took after the squirrelly little angel. His decision probably had something to do with the fact that his own table had consisted of Olimar and Diddy Kong. Ike got up reluctantly and plodded after them.

They went all over the damn place. Ike wasn't exactly in the best shape of his life, if you hadn't managed to surmise that by now, and he struggled as he ran just to keep the dancing green tail of Link's hat in his view. His head began to swim and blur as endless, monotonous corridors zoomed past him. He didn't pay attention to these at first, but as their frenzied sprint continued for a few more sweaty minutes, he started to, just to take his mind off the blood pounding in his skull. After that, of course, he realized they had passed the door to the cafeteria six times already and that his ass hole roommate was just doing laps around the first floor. He was about to start screaming obscenities in Pit's general direction (since he couldn't seem to catch up to him and kill him) when he caught Link finally thumping up one of the stairwells. Ike felt the inside of his mouth starting to coat with something slimy that served the dual functionality of being absolutely disgusting and making his already difficult breathing completely impossible. He stomped up the stairs after the two of them, anyway. By now he felt totally lightheaded, and just when he thought he wouldn't be able to go on, he rounded a corner and found the two of them suddenly stopped rigid in front of a doorway.

While he was bent over to catch his breath, Pit explained in low whispers, "They met in the auditorium, so we came to the stage-balcony entrance. We'll have a better chance of spying on them from up here without them seeing us."

"Yeah, yeah, right, great plan, Pit, good stuff, really," Link was nodding energetically, "Uh, hey, say, who exactly are we spying on again?"

"Wario, Lucario, and Mario. They're in a cult of pure evil." Pit said matter-of-factly.

"Really?" Link for his part only sounded slightly surprised, "They do a pretty good job of hiding it, then."

Pit narrowed his eyes in a hardcore sort of way. "Not if you know what to look for."

Ike still had his hands on his knees, breathing heavily and generally just trying not to pass out. "Right…" he choked, "Obvious…the signs…their names all end in "ario"…Wario's a meat-sack with legs…it only makes sense…if you're on a crack high…"

Pit crossed his arms and stuck out his lower lip at him. "Well, nobody asked you to come, Fatty. If you're all for Mario and his Mario Evil taking over the whole world, maybe you should have just stayed behind and eaten another plate of chicken."

"I have to make sure…" he sputtered, "You don't kill Link."

"Oh don't be silly," Pit brushed him off, "Link here is prepared to die for this cause!" He slapped him on the shoulders heartily. Link wasn't looking so eager anymore.

"Ya know, Pit, maybe I'll just catch you later…"

"Nonsense!" Pit barked at him, and since he already had him by the shoulders, shoved him through the doorway. He brushed his hands off and turned to Ike, cocking his head with a look of something like concern. "You're not gonna die, are you, Fatty?"

Ike looked up at him with his eyes watering. "What, exactly, were those six laps around the first floor for?"

"One for each of your plates of chicken today."

Ike stared at him.

"It's sort of a celebration kind of thing. Sort of like how the American flag has a stripe for each colony, huh? I figured it was only fitting."

"Pit…"

"I was thinkin' about fireworks instead, but that's just entirely too much money, and frankly Fatty, I just don't like you enough to plunk down that kind of change. Chicken accomplishment or no."

So then Ike made to strangle him, but he was able to dodge his best efforts, and instead of tormenting his roommate further, Pit re-opened the door he'd just shoved Link through. "After you."

Keeping a wary eye on Pit as he smirked like a fox, Ike obliged, walking onto the poorly lit stage balcony and looking around. The platform he was walking on was made from very squeaky wood planks, and all around there were large, generic, nondescript objects with tarps conveniently thrown over them so I wouldn't have to describe them in any greater detail than that. Cobwebs hung from the wiry tangle of track lights above him, and the ceiling stretched so far beyond those that he couldn't see it. He squinted and looked around for Link.

Pit was more brazen. He clopped in through the doorway. "Now, where the hell is he?" he asked Ike loudly, "Hey, Link! Link! Liiiiiii--"

Ike clapped a hand over his mouth. "Shut up! Aren't we supposed to be spying on somebody?"

"You make it sound like I'm doing it wrong."

Ike stared at him.

"Oh, hey, look!" Pit said happily, "There he is, over there! Trying to melt into that wall and hope we don't see him, the little dickens."

Link had smothered himself back-first against one of those handy generic tarp-covered objects, but didn't flinch in the slightest when he saw Pit and his crazy ass. Instead, he threw a finger to his lips (we won't say which finger) and looked around nervously. "Be careful!" he hissed, "I think there's someone else up here with us!"

"Well of course there's somebody else in here!" Pit barked, "We're on a super secret spy mission, remember, you little silly!"

Link stared at him with something between horror and astonishment. "Sweet Farore! How did I get roped into this again?"

"You came willingly."

He looked as though he was ready to try and argue about the teleological implications the mind-body problem played in the phenomenologist's theoretically impossible view of freewill, but instead, he happened to glance over at Ike, gasped and shouted, "Watch out! Behind you! It's them!"

Ike turned to try and ready himself for the attack, but he was too late. Something collided with his back, and a moment later something else struck the back of his legs. He toppled forwards, and lay in a dizzy pile on the floor. Something heavy gently tapped the back of his head twice, and he felt his spine shiver as he got the feeling it was being held precariously over top of his head.

"I'm only going to ask you good people this once." A cool voice emanated from whoever was standing on his back. "Gather yourselves and leave us to our devices. We are in the midst of important work, and you three will only get in the way and cause more trouble than you're worth."

"Yeah! Ya little monkey-knocking shitwads!" The second voice wasn't quite as cool as the first. "Ya'll just gonna take a shit on everything! Get cho little bastard asses outta hea', or Popo'll plug Dike and his blue-furred pretty boy scalp right through de flo'!"

Popo? It was just the freaking Ice Climbers? Enraged by this development, Ike launched himself to his feet and was able to catapult Popo twelve feet across the room and into a particularly hard-sounding generic tarp-covered object. He had to admit he was relieved to find his strength undiminished.

Nana just sorta stood there and watched Popo fly for a minute. He slid down the generic tarp-covered object and landed on his head. She sighed in a resigned sort of way and then launched herself after him, striking the same generic tarp-covered object, only to slide down it and land on her head.

Link was scandalized. "Dude! That's not even accurate! If you hit one of them, the other one keeps fighting!"

"No! Shut up! You're the only one who even cares!" Pit turned to the Climbers, who were pulling themselves to their feet dizzily and holding their heads. "On a related side-note," he said to them cheerfully, "The important work you were in the midst of doing until we took a shit on everything? That wouldn't happen to have involved--" he paused and narrowed his eyes for dramatic effect, "The Cult of Ario, would it!?"

Nana and Popo gasped simultaneously, and then just sat in apparently shocked silence until Nana finally spoke up. "Actually, no. What's that?"

"Listen," Ike grumbled apologetically, "I'm really sorry, I don't think Pit's been remembering to take his anti-stupid medication lately, and now he's thinking that Mario, Lucario, and Wario are trying to destroy the world."

"Oh, but they are!" Popo said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah! Damnit, why didn't we think of calling it 'The Cult of Ario'?" Nana smacked him in the back of the head.

"Probably because that's retarded." Popo grumbled and rubbed the sore spot.

"But you're ABSOLUTELY RIGHT for trying to stop them!" Nana continued ostentatiously, waving her stubby little Nana-arms all over the dang place, "You see, not only do they exemplify supreme unholiness by having all their names end in "ario", but they're also in possession of the three Ignoble Gasses!"

"Ignoble Gasses!?" Pit said with a cliched flavor of terror, bringing his knuckles to his lips.

"Yeah, that's right," Nana continued gravely, "The most dangerous and pervasive weapons in the history of the history of the history of the history of the history of history! Mario! With his red fire that burns and destroys all it touches and leaves naught in its wake but charred rubble and unspeakable despair! Lucario! With his blue energy that invades even the most steadfast of wills to bend the denizens of the earth to his own command! Wario! With his shit-colored farts that permeate both cotton and polyester so thoroughly that no amount of dry cleaning, no amount of floral-scented cover-ups can ever mask the carnal stench of partially digested cow meat!"

"That is a monument to disgusting." Pit screwed up his face as if he had just witnessed this attack in action and was trying to obscure it from his view.

"Dude, tell me about it! The guy ripped one next to me, and I had to get a new hat!" Link said in an outrage, wringing his new hat like a lame pigeon. "I gave my old one to Toon Link, and I'm pretty sure that's why he died."

"Oh, but that's not the worst of it," Nana continued in a tone of mounting fury, "Ya know what happens when they use 'em all at once?"

Link and Pit leaned in closer, and once he noticed Ike hadn't, Pit grabbed him by the front of the tunic and forced him down as well.

"It all combines together," Popo finished for her, "To create the ultimate source of Subspace."

They stared at the two of them.

"It's Super Effective!"

They stared at the two of them some more.

Ike facepalmed. "Really, I get that they've each got some…interesting powers, but if they really could unleash the ultimate source of Subspace just by using them all at once, don't you think they would have by now?"

"No no no no no no no," Popo shook his head furiously, "That's just a set up! They only want us to think they don't have any powers, and then BOOM!"

"But if they could unleash it anytime they wanted to, it wouldn't matter if anybody knew or not!"

"Clearly," Nana elaborated, "The reason they're waiting is to test all the other brawlers to see who's worthy of being spared and made a part of the New World Order."

"Yeah, they only want the smart ones."

"Well, Christ, they don't even make the cut!"

Pit stood up, walked over to Ike, gave him a hardcore look up and down and then promptly swatted him in the head. "Get yourself together, Fatty, and quit being such a communist!" he boomed as Ike tried to uncross his eyes, "You're spending too much time on the fluff and circumstance, my friend! We've got more to put into our lives, a higher duty to fulfill, and meanwhile you can't even see it over your freaking chicken fetish and your critical thinking!"

Well, Ike was about to turn around and kill him, but at that exact moment the door to the auditorium's audience seating opened a hairline and the stage balcony and all that brouhaha going on up there silenced. They all turned their gazes on that string of light as it exploded into a full golden rectangle and three dark shapes huddled through it. Lucario glanced about the hallway outside quickly before closing the door with a snap and then leaning against it with a sigh of marked relief.

He looked up and scowled at Mario. "This is ludicrous!"

Wario looked as if he were of a similar opinion. "Waaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Mario merely tightened his beady little Mario eyes on them for an uncomfortably long time. Once the moment had become almost unbearably awkward and Lucario and Wario were pretty well sure that he wasn't going to respond, he finally said, "It was a necessary precaution."

"Necessary!?" Lucario spat, "Mario! No one even knows what's going on except us!"

Mario shifty-eyed. "They know. And that's enough. They could ruin everything and now we're the only ones who can stop them. It's for the greater good, Lucario."

"Well, I don't think they're onto us yet." He crossed his arms.

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

"Wario's right. That's not what you said before."

Lucario was getting uncomfortable. "Well…Pit kept looking at us. But that doesn't mean anything, I mean, it's not like anybody's gonna listen to freaking Pit. Everyone already knows he's crazy, thank science. Even if he did try and do something, it's not like anybody'd be willing to help him, huh?"

Mario shifty-eyed again. "You'd be surprised. He has people."

"How can you know that?"

"I'm freaking Mario and I know everything, god damnit!"

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

"Wario think's you're crazy." Lucario grumbled at him halfheartedly.

"Wario lost the right to judge other people's sanity when he swallowed his own motorcycle." Mario cleared his throat and then cracked his knuckles. "So anyway, I was thinking that tomorrow would probably be a good time to end it, seeing as how Pit's finally catching onto us since someone--" he wheeled on Lucario, "had to go knocking him out and setting him up with all that free time!"

"If you'd been up there and heard 'You're not ready yet!' one more time, you'd have killed that son of a bitch, too."

"Well," Mario shifty-eyed yet again, "That may or may not be true, but it still does not excuse you from doing it."

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

"Wario wants you to shut up," Lucario snapped, "And where are we gonna be doing this thing tomorrow, anyway?"

"Right here!" Mario laughed in response, "This is their headquarters, after all!"