It is probably not unfair to give Nintendo the coveted (and entirely unofficial) title of "Most Famous Planet in the Galaxy", although this has very little to do with the planet itself. It is very, very similar to Earth – it has the same length of day and year, the same land/sea ratio, the same size (and thus gravitational pull) etc. But a planet is more than the sum of its geographical features, and Nintendo scoops the gongs at the InterPlanetary Awards Ceremony (IPAC, pronounced "eye-pack" – or it probably would be if it existed) on the basis of its people and animals.
The F-Zero Grand Prix is the event that brought the planet to the attention of the wider galaxy, but its main "features" are the two key nations, the Mushroom Kingdom and Hyrule, both very powerful and very wealthy monarchies with the strange feature that both of their rulers are known in the common tongue as "princesses" rather than "queens".
The Mushroom Kingdom is the more modernised of the two, as well as being slightly bigger. It derives its name both from the multitude of mushrooms that grow within it, many with interesting body-altering effects, and the surname of its royal family. It is ruled over by Princess Peach Toadstool, who spends her time not governing the kingdom trying to avoid being captured by King Bowser Koopa, a tyrant in charge of the kingdom next door. Fortunately, the kingdom's saviour, an ex-plumber named Mario Mario, is almost always nearby to save the day. Hyrule is ruled by Princess Zelda, who in turn is occasionally kidnapped by Ganondorf Dragmire and saved by Link, a.k.a. "the Hero of Time".
There are other important areas, such as Dreamland (which has been mentioned already), the lush green jungles of Donkey Kong Island, the thriving metropolises of Smashville and Port Town, the peaceful Eagleland… There are other important people too, such as Kirby, hero of Dreamland and walking marshmallowy thing; Samus Aran, deadly bounty hunter from outer space; Fox McCloud, vulpine pilot of the Lylat System; the Pokémon, seemingly normal animals who could be stored and transferred as digital information…
But none of it is really important now, and in any case Captain Falcon did not tell Sonic any of this. He expected Sonic to know it. Sonic should have known it, but he had dozed off in the IPAF lectures meant to prepare him for travelling to Nintendo, and dreamt of running around outside instead.
What Captain Falcon told Sonic as they travelled is paraphrased below.
o o o
There are many evil forces at work in the various nations of Nintendo. The reader has already been introduced briefly to three (Bowser, Ganondorf and King Dedede), but this does no more than scratch the surface. There are enough villainous beings to form a parliament capable of ruling the whole planet, but they hate working together. A villain's main concern is power, and if he believes that he can get it by himself (as they almost all do), he will not bother seeking support from anybody else. (I use the male pronoun here because none of the main villains of Nintendo are female. Women are too sensible to waste their lives searching for absolute power.)
For a world with so many villains, Nintendo has been surprisingly good at keeping them in check. Every country has a hero to match its villain. Mario against Bowser, Link against Ganondorf, Kirby against King Dedede… No villain has ever been able to seize power for any reasonable amount of time without being shot down by a hero or, in rarer cases, a team of them.
It was about a year ago when strange things started to happen. This was, coincidentally, at about the time when distress signals were received from the Mushroom Kingdom and Hyrule – only there was no coincidence. First, Hyrule fell. There was no warning. One day, the citizens were going about their business. Overnight, Ganondorf was in charge in the palace, Zelda was locked up and Link was nowhere to be seen. Literally a day later, the Mushroom Kingdom went the same way, and suddenly Bowser and Ganondorf were the two main players in the planetary game.
After that, the nations fell like dominoes. At first, no one could work out whether the villains were working alone or together, but as King Dedede seized Dreamland, Port Town fell to an extra-terrestrial force, and the Pokémon countries and Eagleland followed similar fates, it became clear that Ganondorf and Bowser were directing the operation. Somehow, they had actually convinced the other villains to co-operate. They created an organisation called the League of Villains Extraordinaire…
"So that's what you meant when you said that LOVE stole your car!" interjected Sonic. "Surely they could have chosen a more threatening acronym?"
"I think the name was Bowser's idea," said Falcon, downcast at the mention of his car. "I don't think Ganondorf has ever forgiven him. Not that it matters anyway. Everyone associates the word 'LOVE' with fear now, silly acronym or not." He continued.
All the major villains joined it. They had a meeting, during which they divided up Nintendo into sections and declared who would be in charge of what. And through all of this, none of the heroes intervened.
The reason for this had eluded Captain Falcon. He had been staying in Lilycove City in Hoenn, a region populated by Pokémon and one of the last to be affected by LOVE's world takeover bid. As he sat on the balcony of his room overlooking the sea, sipping a Red Gyarados (Tamato berry and vodka – very spicy, for real men only) and having his sore shoulders worked on by a beautiful young masseuse, while the room's television informed him of the takeovers of Port Town and Smashville, he scratched his auburn hair in puzzlement. Samus Aran was currently staying in Port Town, yet had apparently done nothing. And his friend Captain Olimar, a spaceman from a distant planet who had extraordinary control over the earth, was living in Smashville. What was going on?
He was so perturbed that he had sent the masseuse away with the rest of his Gyarados and immediately put a call through to Olimar. No one had picked up. Thoroughly bewildered now, the Captain completely failed to sleep that night despite the Gyarados' influence.
It had been ten past midnight when he gave up trying to sleep and left his room to take a walk along the seashore. It was fifteen past midnight when a seeker missile filled with sleeping gas had hit his room. It was twenty past midnight when he quickly paid his bill and set off in the Blue Falcon. And it was then that he had realised exactly what was going on.
The LOVE had captured all the heroes before they could fight back in what was now called the Purges, and then the invasions had begun. It was when he returned to Port Town that he learnt of the attack on his island fortress two days after his departure. And had he not kept moving from place to place after that, he would have been apprehended by any one of the people and beasts that visited each and every location he was spotted in.
"But what I still don't understand was why they wanted all the heroes alive," he told Sonic, who was yearning to get out of the car and run. "Why not just kill me and get it over with? Otherwise, whatever prison they lock me in, I might Falcon Punch my way out and kick all their asses, know what I'm saying?"
"So Mario and that lot are still in prison somewhere?"
"Reckon so. And the only reason I'm not is because the Blue Falcon's too fast for them to catch, plus I've fitted it with a cloaking device. Doesn't work too well up close, though."
"So why haven't they caught you now you don't have the car?"
The Captain glared. "I'm getting to that."
So in shortly under three weeks, the LOVE was in charge of practically all of Nintendo. With all the countries governed by the same group of people, there was no need for border controls – everywhere was as oppressive as any other place. Nintendo became one giant country, run by the LOVE and kept in line by the threat of instant disappearance. The LOVE was very good at disappearance. Any threats to the regime, or even those who dared to speak out against it, simply… disappeared. It was not long before everybody bowed his or her head in submission to the LOVE.
There were three other major events. One occurred about eight months ago. Meta Knight, the governor of Smashville and second-in-command of Dreamland, was disappeared. He stopped appearing in the LOVE broadcasts and on the LOVE posters and pamphlets. Smashville was quietly transferred to Porky, a self-centred teenager who was already in charge of Eagleland. Nobody knew what had happened to Meta Knight.
"Dead?"
"Probably."
The second happened about five months ago. The LOVE announced that an outsider had landed on Nintendo.
"Snake!"
They called him a "threat to the planet", come to "disturb the peace and tranquillity of our world" with his "violent and revolutionary speeches and deeds". They announced that he had been executed in Hyrule "for the good of the people", and showed a video of him being pummelled by Bowser himself and dropped to his death. They also announced that they would be erecting a force field around the planet in order to protect the Nintens from "vicious external influences" and "maintain…"
"NO!"
Sonic shouted so loudly that Captain Falcon braked on reflex, bringing the little machine to a violent stop and hurling the two of them windscreen-wards. When he had recovered, Sonic turned to the Captain with a manic glare in his eyes.
"Snake was a highly accomplished tactical genius. He was – no, is a master of hand-to-hand combat and espionage. He wouldn't let himself be killed by a brainless idiot like Bowser! The LOVE is making it up!"
The Captain shook his head, revving up the car again as he did so. "I understand you're upset, buddy, but that footage was genuine. The guy in the film had a moustache and a straggly beard. He was wearing a headband and all kitted out in explosives. Does that sound like your guy?"
Sonic was boiling with rage, but he couldn't think up a satisfactory retort for this. That was Snake all right. Nevertheless, he stood his shaky ground.
"I think you're wrong. I think he's alive."
The Captain knew how Sonic felt. When his car had first disappeared, he had tried to lie to himself in a similar way. She was just round the corner, or he'd parked her somewhere else, or the cloaking device was too strong. Sonic would come around, like he had, but the best thing to do was to give him time.
"Now listen carefully, Sonic. This is the most important thing, and it happened two months ago."
Sonic rolled his eyes. "Your car."
Falcon nodded, deadly serious. "I was cruising through Hyrule, like we are now only much, much faster. And I had these spies on my tail. Big black birds with rockets on their backs and radar. I could outrun them, sure, but there was a whole pack of the fuckers. So I did a couple of u-turns…" The Captain made gestures with his hands. "Vroooom! Like that! Then I drove off a ramp…" More gestures. "Neeeowww! Right through the whole flock! Feathers everywhere. Got about half of them, but the other half were still on my tail. Like that. So I did a couple of handbrake turns…"
"For Gods' sake, keep your hands on the wheel!"
The Captain looked up and jammed on the brakes, steering frantically to avoid the large boulder in their way. When they restarted, he went on with his tale.
He had whacked the accelerator down, quickly leaving his pursuers far behind, and crossed the border into Dreamland while doing so. Leaving the car unlocked to urinate, he had bumped into Kracko. The fight had been long and gruelling, and although Kracko had been finished off the Captain was not on top form himself. He had been unable to make it back to his ship, and had slipped gently into unconsciousness.
"And when I woke up…"
He couldn't finish. The car ground to a slow stop as he curled up into a ball and cried sad, broken tears. Sonic patted him on the back, the hedgehog's mouth curled into a sneer of contempt and his eyes looking at the gently drifting cumulus. Eventually Falcon managed to collect himself and blew his nose loudly on a tissue.
"Ever since then, LOVE have left me in peace. Partly because I'm invisible in this old heap, and partly because I'm guessing they found my car empty, saw my body next to Cloudface's and left me for dead."
"We'll get it back."
The Captain looked up, surprised by the air of determination in Sonic's voice.
"If LOVE have it…"
"We'll get it back. We're gonna get your car back, and we're gonna find Snake, and we're gonna break LOVE's stranglehold on this planet and put you back in this solar system. D'you hear?"
Sonic was almost shouting now. He opened the door of the stationary car and half-walked half-jumped out onto the green grass of Hyrule Field. The Captain followed suit, looking at Sonic with his eyes agog and his mouth gaping like a hungry carp.
"My official job, as given to me by Eyepaff, ain't that important right now. 'Cause Eyepaff aren't here. But back on Mobius, I made a promise. I made it to my best friend, Tails, and my other friends, and most importantly to myself. And I promised…"
His speech was cut short by a barbed shaft flying into the Hylian turf by his feet. Across the field, a bunch of hooded goblins bearing bows and clubs were coming towards them, screeching in a decidedly hostile manner. Sonic hastily got back inside as the Captain applied the accelerator.
"And that is why we don't get out of the car."
o o o
The mobile telephone rang, and for "rang" read "made the sound of coins falling onto a large pile of coins". A chubby hand wrapped in a fingerless yellow glove, emblazoned with a capital W, picked it up.
"Yeah what? Make it quick, though. I'm busy," the phone's owner said, in a gruff Italian bass with hints of alcohol around the edges.
King Dedede's low, amiable voice floated down the line. "Hey there, Wazza. You're in the Hyrule area now, aren't you?"
Wario looked at the bar in which he was happily ensconced. Princess Zelda, and now Ganondorf, had run Hyrule through the use of magic. Modern technology was all but absent from the age-old kingdom. The bright slot machines, 14-inch television and even electric lightning he saw around him were not things he might have found in Hyrule.
"Yeah," he half-said, half-belched into the phone. "Why?"
"Did you get my e-mail?"
"Yeah, I got it. What's it to do with me? I thought you said Paint Roller was taking care of them."
"No, the other one. Asking you to take on the job."
Wario quickly checked his inbox on the phone, where the penguin's second e-mail no longer sat. It had been lovingly moved into "Trash" on the day of reception.
"Oh yeah," said Wario, doing a good job of sounding bemused. "Just seen it. Sorry."
"Well, can you get onto these guys?" King Dedede's voice was less amiable this time. Talking to Wario had that effect on people.
Wario scratched his bulging backside leisurely. He thought about saying "no". He was enjoying himself in this bar. Besides, Hyrule was Ganondorf's territory. But thoughts of disobeying the requests/orders of his "seniors" in the LOVE (for although in theory all the members were equal, in practise there was a strict and unquestioned order) always brought to mind the image of Meta Knight, sitting at his computer, composing a polite e-mail to the LOVE saying that their current actions were unnecessarily cruel, and this wasn't what he'd signed up for, and could they please consider toning it down a notch? And then he had disappeared…
"I'll get right on it," he hiccoughed, and hung up.
Slowly he drained his glass and eased himself off the chair, and looked at himself in the mirror behind the bar. He gazed into the watery eyes beneath the charcoal-black eyebrows. He stuffed one finger up the large, purple nose above the thunderbolt moustache and the cleft in his chin, and wiggled it about thoughtfully. Withdrawing it, he inspected his discovery and thoughtfully stuck it in his mouth. Then, drawing his biker jacket around him, and pulling down his goggles over the watery eyes, he turned to the bartender.
"Ahh, gimme one for the road, Brewster."
o o o
"Why are we doing this again?"
"You want to find out what's going on? Hyrule was where it all began. Also, they don't use technology – only magic and religion. So most messages are passed by word of mouth, making them easier to intercept."
"No – I mean why are we sneaking into Hyrule Castle Town when it's crawling with guards?"
"You want to get to the centre of things, don't you?"
"Yeah," said Sonic, as they left the car behind and walked towards the town's main gate, "but I wouldn't have minded a bit… you know… less central."
"You scared, hedgehog?"
"Of being captured by a horde of guards, brutally tortured and executed? Yes."
Captain Falcon scoffed under his breath. "Well, I've done this before. The castle guards are some of the biggest loudmouths and biggest drunkards in all Nintendo. They also hear everything. If anyone knows anything about my car, so will Ganondorf, and so will they."
"And about Snake, presumably," Sonic said, with not a little ire in his voice.
"Yeah yeah. Him too."
Hyrule Castle Town was surrounded by a tall, thick stone wall, which was surrounded by a moat. The only way in was through the main gate, which not only had a portcullis in front of it but a drawbridge as well.
"Don't they let the drawbridge down?" whispered Sonic.
"Only during the daytime. So unless you want to wait 'til morning, we're gonna have to find a way to scale this thing."
"Wouldn't mind getting some sleep," said Sonic, looking at the spot on the horizon where the sun had disappeared moments before.
Captain Falcon looked at him for a moment, as if he had been hit on the head by a brick.
Then he spoke. "Yeah, all right."
They went back to the car and slept there. They were cramped untidily into the small space, but the day had been long and both slept like babies. (This is not, strictly speaking, a very good simile, because babies have a nasty tendency to get hungry or fill their nappies in the night and wake up making shrieking noises, causing the rest of the house to follow suit. "Slept like chloroformed babies" might be a better one, only the author would have children's welfare groups calling him at all hours of the night and calling him most unsavoury names, and the more common "slept like logs" is even more inaccurate because logs do not wake up again… But I digress.)
o o o
Yoshi's Island lies slightly offshore from the Mushroom Kingdom, and to date it is perhaps the only place in Nintendo that has not been set upon by the LOVE. The unspoken agreement is as follows. Yoshi's Island is small and barely worth invading, so as long as the endemic Yoshis continue to export fruit at reasonable prices and leave what happens on the mainland alone, their island is safe.
This arrangement works nicely for both parties. The Yoshis are big-nosed, long tongued dinosaurs in all colours of the spectrum, with cheerful temperaments and no small amount of apathy for politics. Above all, they desire to be left to gorge on fruit in peace. In turn, the LOVE gets tasty fruit delivered to them at a reasonable price without the effort of invading a tiny island and having to govern a race of rowdy rainbow-coloured lizards. (Besides, there are rumours that the Yoshis' peace-loving ways are not all they seem, and no one wants to risk finding out the truth of this if they can avoid it.)
So, it is without a care in the world and at no risk of LOVE inspection that, at one of the two major ports on the island, a liner is preparing to set sail, owned by the Yoshi's Island Fruit Exportation Corporation (YIFEC, pronounced "Yife-eck"), destined for the Mushroom Kingdom and carrying a cargo of delicious and fresh fruit. That's all. Nothing else, and certainly nothing that could prove a threat to the LOVE in any way.
…
o o o
When the Captain awoke, Sonic was shaking him vigorously.
"Get up, you moron!" he said. "There's a massive crowd going through the town gate! Now's our chance!"
The Captain yawned broadly. "'Salways a massive crowd going through the town gate. Don't tell me you woke me up just for that."
"I woke you up because if we have to creep about like rats in a tunnel, I want to get this over and done with. Like, NOW."
"Yeah? Well, I wanna go have breakfast. Let's find a café."
The drawbridge was full to capacity with people walking into and out of the town, talking, shouting, jostling, swearing and shoulder-barging each other just like civilians anywhere. Sonic and Captain Falcon were invisible in the crowd. Even a five foot eight blue hedgehog went unnoticed amongst the large, toad-like Gorons and the blue amphibious Zora.
Together, they walked along the busy streets and into a small café, where Sonic ordered a large coffee and a pain au chocolat while the Captain chose a blue potion.
"What do they put in that?" said Sonic, watching as the Captain downed the flask of viscous blue liquid in a few gulps.
"I dunno," his companion replied, "but it always wakes me up in the morning."
Sonic shrugged and ate half his pastry. Then, sick of standing indoors, he walked outside to survey the scenery, leaving the Captain to ogle a woman wearing a rather low-cut top.
Outside, it was market day. Throngs of people surged through the narrow passageways, leaving Sonic, more used to dashing through open spaces, trying to squeeze through gaps in the crowd. More than once he was forced to apologise for almost giving someone an impromptu piercing with his spikes.
In the main square, vendors clamoured for his attention, along with that of everybody else. Fruit-sellers waved handles of produce, jewellery-makers indicated their hand-crafted earrings, clothing merchants stroked rough and itchy fabrics as if they were made of silk, and a couple of Gorons waved their "Cure-Alle Hotte Springe Water: to Cure Eache & Everie Ailment".
If it hadn't been for the posters of Ganondorf scattered about the square, with various propaganda slogans attached ("Belovedde Father of Hyrule", "Servant of ye Goddesses", "He Who Standes in ye Lite" etc.), one might have been able to forget that the LOVE had ever existed. Yet there he was, his grinning face plastered onto every wall in a way Zelda would have abhorred, checking that the Hylians were not saying anything derogatory about him. One poster showed him with a moustache and monocle drawn on, making him look as if Bertie Wooster had dyed his hair ginger and got a nasty case of green skin. Another bore the legend "Ganon smells like Medusas ass", scrawled on in childish handwriting.
But the poster Sonic noticed was a different one, next to a fish stall ("Fresh Todaye fromme Zora's Domayne!" claimed a sign). Block capitals informed the reader that two people were "WANTED: DEADDE OR ALYVE". Apparently, they were wanted "For Crymes Against Churche and Stayt", although what "crymes" it did not say. The face on the right was a vicious looking rat with spikes grafted onto its back (apparently an "Artyste's Impressionne"), but the one on the left was immediately recognisable and caused Sonic to choke on the remains of the pain au chocolat.
He dashed back to the café as fast as the crowd would let him.
o o o
"Hey, guys, can't we figure this out? How about I buy you another pint of whatever that stuff is you're drinking each, eh? As a thank-you for letting me go? Huh?"
Sonic returned to the café to find the Captain being menaced by three muscular tattooed pigs, standing on their hind legs and pointing spears in a threatening manner at him. They grunted in a sinister fashion and moved ever so slightly closer. Their malevolent appearance was offset by their gaudy purple and cyan trousers.
"Look, I ain't never been in Hyrule before, and I don't want to cause no trouble. So what do you say to just letting me go and…"
From Sonic's point of view, it looked as if his comrade had fallen backwards. Then one of the pigs squealed as his legs were kicked from under him. The Captain jumped over the prone guard and the spears of the other two, which were thrust from either side towards the escapee. He landed cleanly by the cashier, snatching a jug off the counter.
"Eat coffee, motherfuckers!"
The scalding liquid and glass shards hit the oncoming guard in the face, making him drop his spear and clutch at his eyes in pain. His cohort banged into him at some speed and the two toppled over in a heap.
"Should have said 'Drink coffee', shouldn't I? Run, Sonic!" Dropping a banknote onto the counter to pay for the damage, the Captain dashed into the street, Sonic close behind him.
The Captain had been intending to rush out of the gate and away from the town as fast as possible, but three more guards occupying the drawbridge put paid to that plan. Instead, they rushed down small side streets, where the crowd was not as thick, trying to keep ahead of the porcine procession behind them, surprisingly mobile for all their bulk. They dodged through back alleys, gardens and even the scaffolding around an almost completed tower.
"In there!" shouted the Captain, pointing to a very old building across the main square from them.
"Why?" asked Sonic as three more guards appeared ahead of them.
"Old ruins should have lots of places to hide!"
Sonic dodged round a guard, jumped over a swing of his mighty spear and headed on towards the crumbling temple.
"You better have listened in to some damn good information to have put us through this!"
"Oh, I did," panted Falcon, smiling. "Your friend's alive!"