A/N: Thanks for the reviews so far. Keep them coming.
"So why can't we exit the program," Fox asked himself as he started pacing in front of the holographic control panel.
Kirby shrugged. He was as confused as Fox was, if not more, since Kirby didn't come from a technologically advanced civilization like Fox did. Fox thought about what he had done before the fight. He had just gone into the center of the room and loaded up the program from the digital archives. The Boss fight Program was used a lot, so it was inconvenient to have to use a disk. He hadn't done anything different than what he usually did, so nothing he did should have resulted in an error. That meant...
"Kirby, did you put in a new program disk before you came in here?"
"Poyo Pai," replied Kirby, thinking of all the food that was waiting once Fox fixed the simulator and they got out of there.
Fox smacked his forehead. "Kirby you idiot, you don't try and start up a new program when there's already one loading up. So that's what happened. You broke the freaking simulator."
Kirby looked at Fox, crushed by the outburst. Sure, he didn't understand half the science involved in this machine, but surely there had to be some sort of safeguard to prevent something like this happening.
"Ker-Briiii," asked Kirby.
"No, I don't know what that means to us. I'll get to work on seeing if I can fix it from the inside, while you sit there. And don't go on to the next fight. Got it?"
Kirby nodded, and sat down on a rock while Fox got to work typing on the control panel, trying to make a bypass. About five minutes passed before Fox stopped typing and knelt down, trying to pry open the base from where the control panel was projected. He snarled as it proved impossible to leverage up without tools that he didn't have.
"Dang it. Alright Kirby, here's what we're going to do. I've been pretty much locked out of the controls because of what you did, and I don't have the tools to access the insides of the hologram generators, so we are going to sit tight here until someone notices we're missing and comes to find us."
He glanced over at screen projected on the wall of the cave to see who the next boss was in the sequence. Meta Ridley, well, that wasn't too bad, he supposed. Not that it mattered, since he planned on getting out with Kirby once they fixed the simulator from the outside. He slumped down against the cave wall and pulled out his pistol.
"I'd get comfortable if I were you, this might take a while," said Fox as he started disassembling his Pistol.
Kirby contented himself with running in circles while waving his arms, trying to keep his patience in check. Fox shot Kirby a glance that said, you're annoying me so much. Sit down and shut up, but Kirby didn't notice. Fox shook his head and both of them settled down to wait.
Morning in the Smash Mansion came slowly. There were no matches scheduled for today, so most of the fighters took the chance to get a bit of extra sleep. Nobody was in a real hurry to do anything.
The Mansion slowly crawled awake, and the Brawlers got started with the day. Most of them have some sort of daily workout routine which they do before having breakfast in the cafeteria.
"Hey Zelda, Mario," said Samus as she walked up to the table they were sitting at with a tray piled high with proteins and carbs.
"Good morning Samus," replied Mario.
"So, anybody doing anything interesting today," asked Zelda as Samus dug into her food with relish.
"Luigi's having a ping-pong tournament. Of course, I don't recall Ping-Pong being one of the skills in your dossier, but who knows? You might get lucky.".
"Speaking of which, has anyone seen Fox yet," asked Falco, who was sitting at the table next to them. "I didn't see him in the gym, and he's usually one of the first ones there."
"He's probably hiding under a rock," laughed Samus
"Hey now, be nice," said Zelda with a smile.
"Why? He got beaten by freaking Luigi. No offense Mario," retorted Samus.
"None taken. And I'm sure Fox is around here somewhere. He's probably beating up a Sandbag or something."
"Right. Best to leave him to it. He gets irritable when he loses, and he probably isn't in any situation he doesn't think he can handle," said Falco.
Laughing, the group kept talking in the mess hall, no one aware of Fox and Kirby's plight.
Lucario paced the halls of the Mansion. He was one of the newer contestants, but had already earned respect from the other fighters as a level-headed warrior with a deep sense of honor. In addition, he also had a trait that made him distinct from the other Pokemon here. He could speak English and converse with pretty much every fighter in the Mansion, a byproduct of his psychic abilities.
He knew that today was a rest day, but for some reason it was impossible for him. His psychic abilities were telling him that something was wrong, but he didn't know where to look. Right now, he focused on finding the source of his worry.
As he walked passed the simulator room, he was struck with a sense of anxiety coming from inside. Glancing over at the console. He saw it was occupied by Kirby and Fox. Not a sparring team he would have chosen, but maybe Fox had turned over a new leaf.
Usually he refrained from reading people's minds, but all he could read of Fox's emotions was mind numbing boredom, something that shouldn't ever happen in a simulator room due to the fact that you can make whatever world you want.
He walked up to the control panel near the door and saw that the Boss Battle scenario was loaded. Something that should most definitely not be boring. He flipped it over to show the view in the simulator room, and was surprised to see Fox and Kirby in the cave between bosses.
He reached out with his mind and touched Fox's thoughts. Fox McCloud, are you alright? I sense great anxiety, and it appears you are not moving on with this program.
On the screen, he could see Fox look around the cave. Lucario, is that you? Thank god. I was worried nobody would find us for a day or so.
What is the problem Fox?
Kirby managed to break the simulator somehow, and now we're stuck in here. We can't end the program, and I can't fix whatever is wrong from in here.
Lucario thought about that to himself. It certainly was a problem. Hold on. I will get the others.
Thanks Lucario. And be quick about it, will you? I don't think I can take being stuck in here with Kirby for much longer.
Lucario ran off through the halls to find the other Brawlers and tell them of Fox and Kirby's plight.