Notes: Sorry to keep you waiting. I know I've not gotten this chapter out as quickly as previous chapters. This was due to a rare weekend of "having a life" of sorts. Went to an event held by a relation of mine and then had the relation over for a visit. He brought his PS3 and, well, I've newly developed a little gaming-crush on Fallout: New Vegas. This story was already set in a wasteland, but if this and future chapters start getting a little more "stylishly bleak" in setting, you know why.
Sadly, the game left with my houseguest, to await me next time.
Strangely enough, the "nuclear" events in this chapter *weren't* inspired by my weekend gaming experience, but by events I remember being in Organ Trail, the online flash Oregon Trail-parody this was inspired by.
ROAD TRIP
"Peach is just a little sick! We can't condemn her without seeing it out!"
"If she's turning, she'll become a danger to us all!"
"What do we do with her? We can't KILL her, we just can't!
"We can just leave her behind…"
"That's as good as killing her! Plus, whatever remains of her would likely chase us down, target us!"
"This is ridiculous! We leave no man – or woman – or Pokemon – or dog… behind!"
"Arf!"
"Fine by your honor, soldier-boy, but you were hurt, too…"
"Zelda healed me. I'm not sick. My wing's as good as new and I'm as healthy as ever."
"I'll keep trying to purge it out of her."
"Zelda… you're getting weak. At this rate, you're going to destroy yourself!"
"We're helping! Just because we're 'just kids' doesn't mean you shouldn't let us take this over!"
"What she has… it's really aggressive."
The argument inside Otto had many voices and had been going back and forth for at least three hours. That was how long everyone had been stuck, hunkering up inside against the cold. Those who had cloaks and blankets used them. Ness and Lucas used Lucario's body and aura for warmth. Toon Link cuddled up with Duckie. The angels had it especially bad, being dressed as lightly as they were. They shivered, huddled next to each other with their small wings drawn over their bodies as much as they could cover. Neither of them was feeling particularly "cuddly" anymore, but probably would wind up in a brotherly embrace before the storm was through out of simple necessity.
The bus was stranded. Snow was steadily falling and the road was impassible without a plow. Strange lights had flashed a few nights ago in the direction of Smash City, well after the crew of Otto had left the ill-fated hot spring. There was something definitely going on there – perhaps some last ditch effort left in place by the order of the Hands or a strike by one of the outside worlds to quell the infection and its effects. As it was, the sun had not risen today. If it had, it was behind a cloak of thick cloud. It was as pitch as midnight and it was three-thirty in the afternoon. Everyone speculated that the cloud may have been dust and vapor stirred up by whatever had transpired in the city. With the artificial darkness had come snowflakes, only a few at first that had built up to a blizzard.
No one knew what had happened. When someone turned on the radio to try to get Smash City's broadcast, there was no news, but there wasn't static, either. There was, strangely enough, old-timey music. Some of it was about riding off into the sunset with one's sweetheart; some of it was about luck. It wasn't any of the themes they'd heard playing on the tournament stages.
Link took off his cloak – a tattered red one that he was seldom seen with, and only outside of the arena-games. He tossed it at the Pits. "Here."
"We don't need your charity," Dark Pit groused.
"Yes, we do," Pit protested, taking the cloak and quickly wrapping himself and his reluctant, weakly squirming brother up in it. "Thanks."
"No problem. Dark looked like he was turning a little blue. It's not a good idea to get hypothermic. It's likely we'll need you both on the roof to fight if we get caught out here, so both of you - get warm."
Dark looked a little happier at the mention Link made of there being a practical reason to give up his cloak, rather than just pity.
"Are you going to be alright, Link?" Pit asked.
"I'll be fine. I have more layers of clothing than you do."
Link glanced over to where Mario was holding Peach. She shivered slightly, not from cold, because her dress had enough under-layers to warm her - but because she'd been crying. The plumber had the princess' head on his shoulder.
"It's alright, princess," he said as he rubbed her back. "We're gonna take care of you. I'm not a' gonna let anyone leave you behind."
The princess choked and gasped. She'd gotten pale and had been throwing up in the snow outside earlier. She was shivery and twitchy with what looked like the flu. Her arm was still wrapped and useless. Everyone was aware that the "flu" might not be a simple influenza and, in fact, probably wasn't. Healing powers and items were just not working on her.
"Some people got bit and didn't turn into zombies," Ness spoke up. "Remember the news casts when things were starting to turn bad? And Doctor Mario was able to purge it from Marth, right?" He blew and popped a pink bubble from some of the Malo Mart's stash of gum he'd grabbed and had been using. "It gave me some hope."
"Yeah!" Toon Link said. "And Red, wasn't he able to save some of the stage-Pokemon?"
"Yes, he was. I just hope they all got out of there okay and that they could save themselves."
Everyone sighed as they thought of the various people they'd simply lost contact with. The swordsman Ness had mentioned might not have succumbed to zombie-infection, but he very well could have become meat for them if he wasn't able to get out of the mansion like they had. Considering the flashes earlier, if he and the other tournament fighters hadn't gotten out of the city, they were likely dead.
Red licked his dry lips. "I watched the doc deal with a Gogoat. It was actually starting to turn… eyes going dead, leaves falling off its hide. He just kept using healing items on it and it came back."
"So, there's a chance," Zelda said, yawning.
"Take it easy," Samus said. She glared at Ness and Lucas, as well. "You, too. Pace yourselves. Like Link said, we can't have you draining yourselves dry. Besides, I think she's looking a little better already."
That was the moment when Peach took a big bite out of Mario's left shoulder. He shouted in surprise and pain. Before he could raise a struggle, Peach snarled, tearing in and down.
The interior of Otto was chaos. Everyone was either yelling or jumping into action. Toon Link and Link grabbed Mario and pulled him away. Peach looked up with blood running down her chin. Her eyes were flat and emotionless. She made a guttural growl like a beast. Duckie leapt toward her and grabbed her by the leg with his jaws. The angels braced themselves with their swords and put themselves in front of Ness, Lucas and Lucario. Red made ready to deploy a Pokemon, but before he could remove a ball from his belt, Samus had taken her hip-blaster and fired the deciding shot.
Peach just looked confused with half a skull. She turned and with one good eye, glared at Samus, who could have sworn the princess was trying to say, without sound "How could you?"
The flat eye looked too dead to convey betrayal, though it did not matter to the small clench in Samus' heart. She fired again and the corpse of Peach stayed down.
"How's Mario?" she panted.
The Links had taken their friend behind one of the seats. They didn't answer. Pit didn't wait for an answer; he crept up on them and looked past them. Both the Links were muttering something in tandem.
"Din, Farore, Nayru…" they said, "From Farore's Life to Nayru's Wisdom… May the Power of Din grant your spirit rest…May the Light of Hylia…"
When Pit saw what they were doing and caught a glimpse beyond Link's shoulders, he immediately fell to his knees in Otto's aisle and began reciting a prayer to Palutena in something that sounded to the rest like some form of Ancient Greek. It did not seem to matter to him that Palutena was unlikely to hear it and would not be able to answer.
Curious, Red looked past them all. He took off his hat, put it over his face and tried to quell his nausea.
Mario's shoulder had been torn down to the clavicle. His windpipe had a sizeable hole in it. At least there wasn't any chance for him to become infected, as it was, ironically, a living invasion that did not take already fatally damaged bodies. Peach, apparently, had just wanted a snack.
"I'll go out," Samus said dully, "dig a couple of graves. The snow's stopped."
"I'll come with you," Dark Pit said. He wasn't as much into rites and prayers as his twin was, to say nothing of the Hylians. Zelda had begun singing something sad in Ancient Hylian.
The children of psi hugged each other and cried.
Lucario meditated on the matter.
Red was busy continuing to get sick in the snow right outside of Otto's passenger-doors.
The dog howled, long and loud and then he howled long and loud again.
The impromptu funeral went quietly, without invasion by any enemies. The graves were simple, dug mainly by Pokemon-claws and the paws of Duckie. They were marked with splintered old boards the kids found to fashion into markers. The group burned symbols into them. The Links allowed the tips of their swords to be heated by Red's Charizard and they burned the symbol for the tournament into the wood and symbols resembling mushrooms with eyes before marking down the names in the common language of the Hands' land.
Red's Squirtle was used to hose the blood out of the bus.
After that was taken care of, the remaining Smashers left quickly, for fear of company. Link took the wheel of the bus. He sorely wanted something to do to keep his mind off the day's events. The snow had melted off the road fairly quickly after it had stopped falling. There were still some slick patches to worry about, but he was glad that he'd learned to drive this thing during one of their early rest-stops, or at least, the basics. Samus watched him carefully. He insisted upon the task. The road ahead of him was a focus for him to keep his vision clear.
Samus had liked Mario and Peach well enough, but she knew what everyone else did. Mario had been one of Link's dearest friends. Both the plumber-hero and the princess, in fact, had some friendship with Link's ancestors of all people. Due to characters being chosen by the Hands for the Smash tournaments outside of space and time, Mario had been privileged to know the Hero of Time – someone who was only a legend to the current Link. To say that the Mushroom Kingdom and Hyrule had very strong relations with each other would be an understatement.
It was Pit who tried to console Princess Zelda. Peach had been one of her best friends. She let him hug her tightly and he let her stroke his wings. She did so methodically. Dark Pit did his own methodical thing. He checked and re-checked all their supply-bags for healing supplies and weapons. He also kept polishing his staff – which was not a euphemism for something naughty: He'd found his favored weapon in among the mess of the bags of holding and was making sure it was in good condition. It was a weapon so favored by him that he simply called it the "Dark Pit Staff."
"Careful," Toon Link told Zelda. "I think you're petting Pit too hard. He's losing feathers."
"Huh?" Pit asked, looking up from Zelda's shoulder. He looked to the seat he was on and the floor to see some of his smaller feathers scattered about, as if someone had lightly beaten a pillow.
"I'm sorry, Pit," Zelda said.
"Uh, no problem?" he questioned. "I didn't even feel them come loose. They were probably due for a molt."
"That's kind of a lot," Toon Link observed. "Angels don't have a molting season, do they? Sometimes, Rito get like that."
"Not really. The feathers just kind of come loose when they need to."
"Then Lady Zelda might be petting too hard. She's gonna pet you bald!"
Pit pouted. "You sound like Lady Palutena. She liked to tease me about my wings going bald. I take it from her, 'cause she's my goddess, but you're being kind of mean."
"Toon, maybe you should go sit with Samus for a while. I think she may need a friend right now," Zelda said.
Toon Link shook his head. "She thinks of me as a bratty kid. Besides, she's in the front, watching big brother."
The radio switched to a pre-recorded commercial.
"You bought it! You're smart! You bought it at the Maaaaalo Mart!"
Link choked out an angry battle-cry and punched the radio with a free hand. Toon Link leapt into action, pulling his brother's hand back before he got his knuckles too bloody. "Easy!" he cried out. "You're gonna hurt yourself!"
Lucas grabbed a music disk and shoved it. Link sighed and stopped his rage as something a little more soothing played.
"What was that about?" Samus asked. She'd enabled her armor quite a while ago. She didn't want anyone to see her face. A helmet made a good concealment for emotion. She was supposed to be the "tough one" of this crew, calm, collected. She was a destroyer of infectious and dangerous organisms. She was known for slaughtering space pirate crews and blowing up the occasional planet. She had done today precisely what needed to be done and was glad to bear the burden. However, the fact was that she had put down someone she'd counted as a friend. She'd found Peach to be obnoxious most of the time, but no one she ever thought she'd end up killing.
The bus started to swerve as Link as hunched over the wheel and started weeping openly and bitterly. Samus stood up and pulled him out of the driver's seat to take over. Toon lead him to one of the seats in the back and started sniffling again as he pulled bandages from one of the medical kits and started cleaning and bandaging his elder's slightly bloodied hand.
"I hate the Malo Mart jingle, too," he whispered. "It's worse than Beedle's shop-music."
This earned him a small smile.
Pit inexplicably started singing along with the music from the disc that was now playing; only he started changing the words.
"We all live in a yellow bus named Otto, a yellow bus named Otto, a yellow bus named Otto…"
Ness and Lucas started laughing. This started more laughter – a release, of sorts.
"I've got a hole in me pocket!" Red joked. He had known this music. Enough of the Fourth Wall-breaking music was known in Smash City… though some of it was known well across a few of their respective worlds.
The bus crossed into a strangely green country. The sun shone and the sky was blue. Pit had to assure everyone that they didn't all die. The bus hadn't driven off a cliff… while most of the crew was asleep, Link had taken the wheel again and had delivered them to what looked like one of the other worlds – an un-sealed-off one through which they'd passed a barrier. They had a hard time figuring out where they were. It looked like one of the territories some of them had passed through during the debacle with the Subspace invasion. Link wondered if it might have been a part of Sonic's country or even his younger counterpart's New Hyrule. If it was the latter, it wouldn't serve them for what they sought, being that the Triforce had been "lost" in that world.
Link did some hunting with Duckie as his trusted hunting-hound. Together, they brought down a young doe, which Link skinned and dressed, stowing the venison in a food bag that was getting light. The bags of holding kept things fresh indefinitely, so he could drag out the carcass and cut off chops and bits as needed.
Of course, the hunting trip was cut short when a pack of zombies showed up, perhaps drawn by the smell of blood at Link's butcher-tree. Everyone was back on the bus, firing from the windows and the back. The "psi-brothers" gave some of the undead a good PK Fire and PK Freeze, respectively. Thankfully, there wasn't anyone any of the group actually knew in the horde as they saw it, though Red thought he'd sighted a twin-tailed fox.
When the "guardian" angels came down from the bus roof after the action was over, Pit was moving a bit sluggishly.
"We're free to fly the crimson sky, the sun won't melt our wings tonight…"
Pit made a face at the song that was playing as Samus pulled him next to her on a seat and let him rest against her armor. "Tough out there?" she asked. She was in her "big sister mode."
"A little," the winged boy answered. "I've just been getting a little tired lately. I don't know why. I think it might be because I haven't been near Lady Palutena."
"Pit misses his mommy?" Samus teased.
"At least everyone likes to mess with me like she does. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing."
"Come on," Dark Pit said from seat across the aisle. He held up Link's red cloak. "Get some rest with me. You'll stay warmer and sister-Sam can do her own little weird ball-thing."
"Can't. Keeping first watch. Making sure Link doesn't drive us off a cliff."
Night fell and those that could get their rest tried to. Dark Pit was being particularly nice to him, Pit noticed as he sidled up next to him in a seated position beneath the cloak, sharing the warmth of their wings. He wondered if he'd noticed how sick he was starting to feel. It had the white angel worried. He didn't let on about it. He didn't want anyone to worry.
Dark was drifting off, his head titled back, soft snores. Pit hadn't quite noticed how warm his brother was before. Or how he smelled. A tiny growl burbled up in Pit's stomach. Dark smelled really good to him right now. It was a strange odor, not what he expected. There was the usual soft scent of feathers. Dark had been keeping himself clean, so it wasn't dirt or BO. There was a slight odor of sweat, but mostly he smelled of blood and it had become a strangely savory scent.
In the dimmed light of the bus, Pit watched his brother's throat flash and felt his chest move up and down against his own side. Why was he so hungry? He'd eaten his ration for dinner with the others and he knew that he shouldn't have any more food. Lately, as well as tired, he'd been getting hungry all the time. His twin's warmth against him set him to thinking about the coursing blood beneath his skin and tender muscles, relaxed in sleep. Dark Pit was smart, too… probably had a nice, big fatty brain.
Pit jumped away instantly. He backed away, toward the back of the bus.
"Pit, are you alright?" Samus asked from her seat.
"Yeah, yeah," the angel struggled. "I'm just… the ration tonight was too small. I'm too hungry to sleep."
"We all get what we get," Link said from the driver's seat, not taking his eyes off his task.
"I really, really need something, pleeeease?"
"One cookie," Samus commanded. "The cookie-pack should be in the small bag."
The sounds of Pit's rummaging peaked her attention. "I said it's the small bag, it shouldn't be hard to find, even in the dim light."
"Garrghgll! Rwarreaggh!"
"What in all the realms of your Hades is going on back there?"
Link pulled over and flipped on the lights to full. Sleepy children, Pokemon and a dog woke up.
"Huh? Wha?" Dark Pit said blearily as he found his seat empty.
Everyone, including Link, walked toward the back of the bus. There was Pit, having emptied one of the larger bags, hunched over the venison carcass tearing into it like a scavenging bird.
He looked up with a few threads of raw meat in his teeth and asked "What?"
"Those are just his eating habits!" Dark Pit protested.
Dawn had come with the Fellowship of the Bus arguing again. The coast was clear and everyone was off on their own business among the green-grass hills and a dirt-road stretch, stretching their legs, gathering food and water, looking out for danger and trying to take the edge off the rigors of their journey.
And, of course, the fights. Dark Pit and Samus were hammering it out with each other so angrily that they'd actually started something of a Smash-stage fight, without the benefit of the stage or an arena audience. The rest of the Smashers decided to steer clear of them instead of cheer. The two fighters were exhausted now, but still yelling at each other.
"He's sick, Dark. He's showing all the early signs of it. I think the molting is a sign, too. We need to do something."
"He eats off the floor like that ALL THE TIME!" Dark emphasized. "Palutena and Viridi back home joke that he's 'Pit the Buzzard.' You don't even want to know what he does with ice cream, the little glutton."
"Raw meat?"
"Uh… sometimes… When a battle gets really fierce and there's nothing else around and he gets hungry enough, YEAH! This is Pit we're talking about! He's not exactly Mr. Etiquette."
"He can't have been that hungry last night," Samus said. Her voice was weary with worry. "What he was doing was frightening."
"If he is sick, then whose fault is that, huh?" Dark accused. He tapped Samus on her armored chest with the tip of his silver bow. "He got hurt at the hot spring. You drove off! You just… left him there!"
Samus looked down. "I… I had the rest of us to take care of, Dark. Also… I've known Pit long enough. I was sure he'd fight his way through and come back to us, just like he did, and if he… if he didn't… I knew that he wouldn't want to put the rest of us in danger, that he would take the sacrifice. Especially for you."
Dark Pit looked up into her visor. "You're right. Pit's pretty stupid that way. I don't know… what will happen to me if he turns."
"Maybe if we can hold him down and force enough potions down his throat, he'll come out of it. He wasn't wounded as badly as Peach was and he has angelic fortitude."
Lucario walked past them. "He is, indeed, stronger than a mortal; however, I've seen a darkening edge to his aura."
"Oh, no," Dark Pit said.
"I am afraid so," Lucario answered. "Your aura, however… is unaffected. I believe that you and he are differentiated now enough that you are… independent."
"It is always what I've wanted to be… from the very start."
"Then you may have your independence in full soon," the jackal-like creature intoned, "but if you'd rather have interdependence with your brother, you should act soon."
Dark smiled a wry smile. "You know what?" he said, "I've gotten used to the squirt. It kind of happens when you've saved each other's lives a few times."
Link was sitting alone, thinking and trying to fashion a whistle out of a blade of grass. Pit, who had been "off foraging" or so he'd said, walked up toward him from beyond one of the hills.
"Hey, Pit," Link said. His eyes widened and his jaw hung a bit. "You look so… haggard. Please, sit down. Is something the matter? Dark told me about how you get when you're really hungry, so… don't worry about it, okay? You barely put a dent in the deer. We'll still have plenty."
Pit sat down heavily next to the swordsman. "There's something I want to talk to you about. Link, look at me."
Link met him with a worried gaze. Pit was sounding serious. Pit was almost never serious, and when he was, it was typically a hot-blooded seriousness, not the solemn tone he was being given.
"Link," Pit began, "I'm not right. I can smell Reaper on me. I'm pretty sure I wasn't just cut on the wing… I think I was bit and I think it took. The infection's just coming up slower in me.
He started choking up.
"Lady Palutena usually helps me with stuff like this… stuff out of my control. I can't talk to her… I can't talk to her at all!"
"Easy. I'm sure there's some way she can hear you. Goddesses work in mysterious ways."
"Link, last night… I got into the venison because, well, I was sitting next to Dark, and I started getting hungry. For meat. For…living meat." Pit shook his head. "I was so worried I was going to hurt him… I had to do something."
"Maybe Zelda and the boys can try to heal you up."
"No, Link," Pit said, putting a hand over the Hylian's. "We saw what happened with Lady Peach."
Blue eyes met blue eyes, piercing.
"Link, I know this is a hard thing to ask, but… I want you to kill me."
You got the Scavenger Pit Trophy! When Floor Ice Cream doesn't cut it, try Floor Venison! Continue?
Stop cryin'! It's only a fan fiction!
Musical selection: The Beatles, U2.
Link's cloak courtesy of the Skyward Sword prequel manga in the Hyrule Historia.
