02:35, 13th April 20XX
Heavy rain battered against the many windows of the Smash Brothers' expansive mansion, and, on the fifth floor of this mansion, an Inkling lay on her bed, unable to sleep. Matches continued even at this ungodly hour, and the squid kid switched on her TV to watch a match in the hopes of entertainment, witnessing a 1v1 at Suzaku Castle.
Unfortunately, that hoped-for entertainment didn't arrive, and the orange inkling sighed.
She flopped back onto her bed, listening to the cheers of 'Cloud! Cloud! Cloud!' emitted from the TV as the aforementioned SOLDIER scored another KO against the Villager. Then, she jumped up abruptly, an idea popping into her head. She supposed she may as well have a bit of fun.
Venturing over to the mahogany door, she opened it just enough to poke her head out to take a 180° view of the fifth-floor corridor, checking for the AI guards that were installed by Master Hand after the 'incident' back in the third tournament. No one ever bothered to elaborate on the 'incident', so the squid kid wasn't exactly sure what happened, but, either way, it meant that a curfew of 12am at the latest was imposed on all Smashers under 18, which, unfortunately, included all the Inklings.
She tiptoed out into the corridor, her shoes silent against the carpeted floor. Passing by the floor-to-ceiling windows that showcased the storm raging just outside of the mansion, she ducked into a sliver of residual orange paint just in time to avoid the guard that had passed through the connected hallway on the left. Letting out a blub of relief, the inkling returned to her kid form, slipping into the next corridor, which was lined with windows on both sides. She'd have to be sneaky to get through it unnoticed.
It turned out a Splat Bomb did the trick, coating the floor and windows with orange paint, allowing her to transform into squid form and swim through the corridor. It was only when she turned the corner that she saw two figures standing against the wall and tripped over herself running back into the paint.
She hid in the paint, waiting several moments before hearing muffle words in a robotic voice that she guessed was Miku's. Turns out she wasn't the only one out after curfew. Her suspicions were confirmed when she emerged from the paint and saw the trademark turquoise twintails that denoted the virtual diva. Miku uttered something in what the squid kid assumed to be Japanese – Miku didn't speak English and normally had a translator accompany her – and stepped aside to reveal the Mother duo of Ness and Lucas. It looked like it'd be a team effort here to sneak around.
As the four stealthily snuck their way around the mansion, down stairs, through vents and across floors and ceilings, it became apparent that none of them had an actual plan as to what they were intending to do whilst out past curfew. The inkling then had an idea. Having painted a path from her room to her current location, she turned into her squid form and swam back to her floor and knocked on all the doors around her room.
As Miku stood in a puddle of orange paint, anxious about the guards patrolling the corridors, she noticed a pool of green, yellow and blue paint growing ever closer down the hallway. The streams eventually reached Miku's foot, and up emerged the orange inkling alongside three other inklings: A yellow girl and two boys, one green and one blue. After some complicated bout of pseudo-charades between Ness and Miku to combat the language barrier, the group all banded together and journeyed on through the hallway, picking up other people as they went.
Once the band of four picked up the Villager straight after his match (which they did whilst avoiding the hypervigilant Cloud), thus beginning the group expansion, they began to forge a plan to first paint the entire mansion different colours, which the inklings gathered more of their kind to help accomplish, then pull off a heist on the kitchen, which seemed both easy and hard to achieve with the size of group they had accumulated: Miku, Ness, Lucas, Villager, both Young & Toon Link, Pit, the Ice Climbers, Roy (who joined reluctantly), one of the Pokémon trainers, all 8 of the inklings and even the Piranha Plant. Finally, they'd all return to one of the members' room and dig in, basking in the triumph of their nocturnal rebellion.
Fast forward about half an hour, and a rainbow's worth of colours decorated the halls and walls of the mansion. However, Roy had overheard the conversation of the other smashers, who had supposedly gotten up to lead a search for the intruders. It appeared as though they had been heard. He passed this onto Miku, who waved her hands around at the others indicating for them to split up.
The orange inkling found herself on the second floor with Miku, Pit and the Piranha Plant. Pit appeared extremely nervous, darting his eyes about every corridor and stairwell.
'Aw man… Lady Palutena's gonna kill me…' He whispered, his voice quivering as he spoke.
Miku silently patted him on the back, but then abruptly pulled the 4 of them into a room, darting into a closet as the goddess of light turned left into the corridor that the group were previously in. They all collectively held their breaths, the inkling gently holding Piranha's maw closed as they heard Palutena's shoes click on the floor of the room they had entered. There was an agonising pause, before they heard the door closing. They all exhaled, the inkling having to quickly pull her hand away to avoid it getting chomped by Piranha Plant.
Miku warily opened the closet door, stepping out when she saw that no one was there. She spotted a vent in the wall and lead the other 3 Smashers to the wall. It took the combined strength of her, the inkling and Pit to pull the vent cover off the wall. Miku tossed the cover out the window before climbing in, followed by the squid kid and the angel. Piranha had to stay behind, but he could integrate with the adult searchers as he, too, was of age to bypass the curfew.
The group, now whittled down to 3, emerged from the vent in one of the several libraries, where Bayonetta, Corrin and Robin were searching. Miku slowly stepped out of the vent, ducking down behind a shelf. She slowly inched forward, followed by Pit and the inkling, crawling along until she reached the end of the shelf, where, because this is technically still a video game that still goes by video game logic, 3 of Snake's cardboard boxes lay conveniently in the corridor.
Slowly pulling the boxes towards the three by use of Miku's twintails, the three covered themselves and slowly trudged along the library floor, trying to find either a way out or another ventilation shaft. This continued for about a minute before Miku's felt two hands lift up the box, at which point she immediately screeched and took off running out the door and down the corridor, deserting Pit and the inkling.
She burst her way into a vent in the corridor as Robin left the room to run after her, sliding down the chute formed by the vent. The momentum built up by her sliding downwards lead to the vent cover on the other side flying off as Miku hit the other side, flying into the wall as the virtual diva jumped out and frantically looked for a place to hide. She spied a basket in the corner and leapt into it, calming herself.
Switching POVs halfway across the mansion to Toon Link and the Mother duo, the three found themselves sprinting around in circles, being chased by several robot guards. Toon whipped himself around and drove his sword into one of his pursuers, the mechanical being crumpling onto the floor as the blade was removed. He turned back around, finding himself cornered, Ness and Lucas having rounded the corner as Toon stabbed the guard. The swordsman slowly backed into the wall, holding his shield in front of him.
And then he fell into a ventilation shaft.
Sliding down into the same room Miku slid into, Toon also immediately chose the basket as a suitable hiding spot. The basket shook as Toon leapt inside, and then capsized, the two yelling as they both tumbled out onto the floor of the near-empty room. This sound had evidently alerted several of those who were searching for them, and the two scrambled to climb back up the ventilation shaft they both slid out of before as footsteps could be heard clicking up to the door.
Miku turned around and saw the door, kicked down, with none other than Cloud standing in the centre of the room, looking at the overturned basket. The two made it back out into the corridor, looking around before they saw people closing in on both sides, surrounding the duo…