Chapter 1:

In which an old Toad is grumpy and Pokemon are annoyed.

"Get the garden weeded, hurry up and clean those stables, put your back into it!" Toadrice stomped his foot and glared at all the younger lazier Toads working on the mansion and the grounds.

In a foul temper he stamped round a large flower pot and frowned up at the yellow spotted cap Toad, which was hanging by a rope cleaning one of the three hundred or so windows of the mansion.

"Put some elbow grease into it, we have royalty staying with us." The toad merely glanced down at him before resuming his work. Toadrice glowered, shook his head and continued his trek to the stables, snapping at anyone that didn't get out of the way fast enough.

The stables were situated fifty yards away from the mansion. Toads were not the only ones helping with the clean up (though most of them were), a few Pokemon were running around carrying tools and supplies, the most noticeable of them were working on the stables.

Three Smeargle were painting the trim around the windows and doors.

"No, no, no." Toadrice growled, slapping the tip of his cane against the tiled walkway. "I said blue, paint the trim blue.That is not blue!" The Smeargle didn't even look up Every time Toadrice had come to the stables he had screeched at them for painting the wrong color , each time seeming to forget the previous color.

The poor Pokemon had been terribly confused and must have repainted the trim about a dozen times before a small green cap noticed what was going on.

The green cap told them to paint it what ever color would like nice and to pay no attention to Toadrice, he was always like this when the Smash Bros. were returning. So the Smeargle had taken his advice and were now painting the trim crimson. This was their first time working at the mansion; they had been called in to repaint several different things around the place.

Toadrice snorted and walked back to the mansion barking at a pink cap girl Toad who was bringing in hay for the stables. When his back was fully turned, one of the Smeargle looked up from the window sill and shook his head at Toadrices retreating form, before returning to brushing perfect, even strokes with its tail.

Toadrice continued to grumble under his breath as he made his way around the left side of the mansion.

He passed by the kitchen window and paused to look to his right. A hedge maze stood about twenty yards away. The maze was mostly used for a quiet place to think, the reasons being that within it there was a small garden with a fountain, and several benches that were situated around the flower beds. The main reason was that a combination of magic and technology had been used so that as soon as you entered the maze all noise outside the hedge stopped, and you could only hear sounds that came from within the maze. So the soft whisper of the breeze, the songs of the small birds, native and imported, and the light rush of the fountain water, all reached your ears, rather than being drowned out by the chaos that the mansion was always in. Toadrice gave a shiver, the maze always creeped him out.

The breeze changed direction slightly, bringing him a whiff of baking. Turning to his right he looked through the kitchen window (it was more like he looked up through the window, as Toads are smaller than humans,), and saw a somewhat over weight Hyrulian man, his pointy ears powdered white. He saw Toadrice and waved at him cheerily with a flour covered hand.

Chief Gamdin, or Gam as everyone called him, had been working at the mansion just as long as Toadrice had. The Smash Bros. had been a team for eight years, Toadrice and Gam had lived and worked at the mansion for the same amount of time. Each of them had their own reasons for staying full time, but Toadrice found it easier to get along with Gam than any of the other ten or so full timers.

Irritably he raised the hand holding his crooked walking stick and jerked his wrist back and forth in a sort of disjointed wave, before setting out again on his inspection of the grounds. Despite the fact that he and Gam were on good terms (which was no small feat where Toadrice was concerned) they didn't always see eye to eye.

"What was there to be so cheery about all the time?" Toadrice thought grumpily.

Gam continued to watch Toadrice walk down the tiled path that led round the house. Why was he always so uptight? Perhaps it had something to do with being the grounds keeper as well as the house keeper for so many years. Yes, that had to be stressful, but still… "He just doesn't know how special this meeting will turn out to be. Does he?" Gam said to the little brown bat that hung sleepily from a rafter. Gam was still watching as Toadrice paused, and apparently finding something wrong with the tile, proceed to yell at a Ivysaur Pokemon that was near him.

Gam grinned, then pretending to frown seriously, puffed out his chest and said in a mock deep tone "Bah, humbug." Then he burst out in a roaring deep jolly laugh before returning to kneading the bread dough.

"Lazy, no good, multi colored…" Toadrice growled turning round the side of the mansion and into the huge back yard. It was comprised of a large green grass lawn that stretched out about twenty-five yards before hitting the yellow-white walkway that ran all the way round the grounds.

The tiled walkway split the back gardens in two on its way to the arch in the hedge wall. The archway led to a beaten down path through the grass field and onto the edge of the forest. If one walked down the path to the field, the flower beds would be on the right while the vegetable beds, filled with vegetables of every size shape and color, would be on the left.

Toadrice continued to growl, anyone else would have said the entire place was perfect, but not Toadrice.

"The flowers are all leaning over, water them! And if they're still drooping, stand them up with sticks!"

Several grass type Pokemon jumped at the sound of his voice calming down again when they saw who was talking, and returning to work with an annoyed air. The other Toads didn't even blink. Toadrice had just puffed himself up indignantly and was about to embark on one of his long speeches, when the speaker system came on, making everyone but Toadrice start.

"What, What? Is it on? It's on? Oh, Ahem. This is a mansion wide announcement. A space ship is on route to the landing pad.

We have yet to confirm which Smasher is on their way, but we do have confirmation that it is a friendly ship, and we will let you know when we have been sent ID codes. In the meantime, will head grounds keeper and head housekeeper, Toadrice, please come up to the landing deck to welcome the Smasher? That is all." Toadrice had already begun making his way to the landing pad as soon as he had heard the words, space ship.

He had made his way though the back door, past all the back rooms that were used for storage, past the door that led down into the creepy basement and was now in the lavishly furnished elevator, riding up to the roof top. He already knew who was on their way, she always came exactly an hour early. He pushed his walking stick further into the deep light blue carpet and shook his head. Every year without fail, one hour early. Toadrice thought maybe it was because she liked to get settled in without turmoil around every corner, which is what it was like when everyone returned.

His thoughts were interrupted when a ding sound reverberated through the red wallpapered elevator and the doors slid open with a slight whoosh. A cool breeze brushed his face as he steeped out of the elevator and on to the roof, five stories up. Symbols were painted on the floor, strategically placed so that the ships would not hit each other. Toadrice walked over to the nearest landing pad and scowled down at it.

"Didn't I tell those painter Pokemon to repaint this so you can see it from miles away in the sky?!" he snapped at a human boy with black hair

"Yes sir." The boy replied without stopping his sweeping of the roof.

"Well why didn't they?!"

The boy stopped and turned round to look at him. His eyes were deep emerald and seemed to know things that other people didn't, while still retaining youth.

"They did sir." He said simply before looking up at the sky. "You might want to move sir, she's coming down."

Toadrice looked up at the sky as the boy resumed his work.

Against the blue cloudless sky, an orange ship was slowly leveling off of its dive. He took one last look at the circular symbol with the zigzag lighting bolt going down the middle, before heading off to the door leading to the winding staircase. That boy always caught him off guard, he never reacted to things like Toadrice thought he would. Walking down the stairs and onto the landing deck, Toadrice heard the speaker system come on again, announcing who had arrived at the mansion. He didn't listen, he was to busy inspecting the landing deck. Tools and equipment lined the walls, all neatly polished and in order, and before Toadrice could find something to yell at the workers about, there was a low humming whirr.

He looked up from the vantage point on the bottom stair to see a large circular piece of the ceiling splitting into fourths to make way for the medium sized Hunter class ship that was drifting easily downward.

The ship passed though the hole of the Chozo symbol pad, landing lightly and sending a small shock wave though the floor of the workshop. The noise of the engine died and the room was absolutely silent. All of the Toads and the one Pokemon had stopped working to stare at the orange ship. Toadrice gave himself a little shake and walked over to the ship that sat to the left of the stairway, the tap of his walking stick echoing around the huge room.

As he reached the side of the ship a figure clad in orange amour slowly rose from the top of the space craft, blonde hair spilling down her back while she held a helmet under her right arm.

Toadrice cleared his throat and the woman turned her gray blue eyes on him. "Welcome back to the Smash Mansion , Miss Aran."