Before I begin this, EXTRA-SPECIAL thanks to Smashking24 for the extra-long review! Sorry about the little brother thing, that was supposed to be edited out, but it slipped past me!
Enjoy the extra-long chapter I made for you guys!
/*\ Chapter 5: Sparks and Stories /*\
It was the sudden knock to the side that finally woke him up.
Fox had been in blissful unconsciousness, dreaming on about one of his many adventures with the rest of Star Fox, when some deity or other had seemingly kicked the side of his…wherever he was at the moment. Now he found himself on his side, several white strips over him while he was sprawled on a large, flat object.
Someone yelped something from the outside (he was inside something, apparently) and the whole place shifted back so that he was no longer on the flat object but below it—and it was tilting.
Instincts, self-defense tactics, and common sense caused the pilot to raise his hands in an X and summon a half-globe of some kind of glassy, red material—the common smasher's shield. Others had more complicated shields (Ness bragged he could pull up an entire dome) or even actual shields, but he just had the standard shield.
The flat objects—stone, perhaps?—fell over him but knocked back against the shield, making his vision fuzz out but giving him time to crouch into the slanted tent they formed.
The fight-or-flight response died off in his mind as he shifted into a more comfortable posture. He felt around the floor and walls of his place, smelled the air, looked about the darkness, looking for anything that could give a clue as to where he was. The results he came up with was that the walls felt beaded and slightly fuzzy, whilst the floor held the traction of rubber. It smelled of paper and stiff air, some kind of fruit's scent was in there too if he squinted.
He listened again to the outside world. A woman's voice was droning on, though he couldn't make out the words through the walls and the odd tablet-things. Occasionally she would pause and soft scratching would take her place. It wasn't an earsplitting sort of sound, more like quick, rapid strokes in lines or corners or the occasional circle. Some scratching didn't stop if her voice returned, but would pause and move on in muffled silence with long, gentle movements.
Fox couldn't tell how long he was in there, listening to the described noises while he pondered and crouched. The thought of the mouse attack surfaced after a while and he outwardly shuddered at the experience, but was left hanging as to what had happened after he was dragged out. Did Marco leave him there? Or did he take him to this odd place? Did he take them all? What about the mice?
All of a sudden, a loud ring made its way through the muffler of the tablets and walls, causing Fox to yelp and cover his ears. No one seemed to notice him, but it was mainly because there were all sorts of other noises going on again; rubber squeaking, books closing, pencils clattering, a door opening, and—
The entire area lurched upward, all at once, thumping the tablets against the side and making himself fall back into the while cloth he first found himself in. He inched back from it and gave it a more curious look before he focused on holding to something during the rhythmic jostling he was trapped in.
He eventually found a loose, thick string poking out of the wall and grabbed it. It didn't budge under his weight, so he took hold with both hands before he was knocked against the tablets.
A familiar voice made its way from the outside. It sounded like Cress.
"Hey, is Fox alright?"
"He didn't make a sound the entire time, even when the bag fell over, so I'm not sure," another voice, much closer, answered. Marco…?
"I thought I heard something when the bell rang. Oh, the group's getting away! SAGE, WAIT UP!" Cress shouted before apparently running off.
His ride jostled and sped up to keep up with him, and it was then that Fox came to the brilliant conclusion that he was in Marco's backpack.
/*\
Back at home, the four yet-to-be-met smashers were in quite the opposite environment.
Although it was the size of any other average hall closet, it was lined to the top with shelves—and those shelves, in turn, were almost overloaded with tubs of toys, piles of blankets, and boxes of any variety of connecting bricks or stacking planks. Sheets of word-heavy papers were stacked or simply left around the actual playthings, serving as notes for just about every game ever to have existed in the playroom itself.
A gorilla, the one with the red, initialed tie, had already mounted these shelves and was looking down from a third-story one. Three others were below; the pink ball of fluff with the big eyes, the dinosaur with a custom-made saddle, and the green-clad plumber of Mario's family.
They had been in there since the morning of that day and were still toying with the various objects contained in the closet. The door was opened a small sliver, beckoning them back for when a door slamming and shouting was heard, but they happened to be riffling through the muffler blankets and hadn't heard a thing.
"What do you think they do with these?" the green plumber asked out of thought, leaning a wooden plank the size of a log onto its top. The thing balanced before finally tipping, the man jumping out of the way with a yelp as it almost crashed on him.
The dinosaur babbled something in its language, occupied with one of the small creatures the two girls of the house played with.
Suddenly, a mouse squeezed through the door's crack with a rodent squeak. It glanced around the dark closet briefly before making a break for a hole in the corner of the wall.
The round, pink monster hopped out of the way when it did, avoiding the blasts and arrows shot after it. Link also followed through the gap she caused, leapt into the air above the mouse, and stabbed his sword through its back with a war cry.
A sickly snap briefly played though the closet with the mouse's dying squeak before the creature slumped to the floor. Link stood up on its back, not one to gloat over a simple beast's defeat, and tried getting the sword back out again.
"W-what the?!" the plumber gasped. "Mario, what is this?"
"Luigi! There you are!" Mario noted from the door. "You already missed Marco and Cress, they had to take Fox with them when one of the mice nearly ate him…"
"Ate him?" Luigi gulped. "Is he alright?"
"He's alive, that's all we know," Ness answered, walking through the door just in time for Link to finally get the sword back out—the rebound causing him to fall down the carcass.
The gorilla chose that moment to land next to the mouse with a slight thud. He inched closer to it and prodded at its side curiously before turning to the two from outside.
"We decided upon taking out the mice so we don't run into a situation like that again," Mario explained. "But it's not going so well—"
"HEY!" Samus' irritated tone shouted from outside. "Are you helping or what!? I'm going down the hole!"
"What?! No!" Ness shouted back as the seven left the closet.
Samus was standing with his hands on his hips outside one of the holes, looking determined. Captain Falcon was busy chasing down a different individual as it cantered under the tables, Kirby having decided the "upwards" route was much better and floating from table to table. Pikachu had disappeared before the hunt began, little surprise—he was based off them!
"Samus, have you lost your mind? You could get eaten!" Luigi shivered.
The pink ball slid in front of the hole with tears in its eyes, silently pleading him not to leave.
"Jigglypuff, move over," Samus sighed. "I'm covered in metal, remember? They couldn't eat me even if they got past my blasts!"
Jigglypuff let out a long, dramatic sigh and did as Samus ordered, still asking for him to stay safe.
Samus took on his form resembling an orange and yellow ball of metal and rolled down the hole. He ended up hitting the inside of the wall when it happened and rolled the other way like a pinball, startling a mouse out of its path and up the hole.
He ended up on a continued roll until he hit another wall, uncurling before he went rolling again. He had to be on the outside wall; insulation was thick here and there wasn't any way forward.
The tunnel was a little larger than the vermin's bulk and a little shorter than his height, leading his pose to be of a slightly ducking form with the blaster out and ready to kill.
The first to enter his wrath was a mouse leaving its nest in the insulation; it was dispatched and the hole was fixed not because he happened to be a neat freak, but because the batch of hairless pups inside needed to be dealt with.
Then another was killed, and another, a fourth joining their spirits—it felt oddly like déjà vu, even if he couldn't remember doing a thing vaguely like running through tight corridors and taking out man-eating monsters.
But the more he doubted, the more he realized that the previous sentence had happened, in another time, in another place. It was the same as going into an infested area that others don't dare to travel for the sake of taking out the enemy…
Then he remembered:
The stories.
Back in the amazon, back before all this nonsense about trade started up, she could remember the craftsman's daughter who had spoken of her father's stories. Not just any stories, their stories, the ones of taking down evil for the sake of princesses or whatever else the craftsman had thought up of while he worked on them.
She had a love of each of them, and a story to match them. If Samus could recall, his was of a bounty hunter that traveled the galaxy in search of jobs to be done, being orphaned by a pirate of sorts titled as Ridley.
The girl was the most upset about them leaving, if not the only. It was for the sake of rare herbs needed to cure the village's illness, if she could remember. None of them saw how hard she waved after them, on the lone cliff that overlooked the sea, but they overheard one of the sailors saying so.
They, too, missed the girl. Being separated from her tore them emotionally, but seemed to weaken them physically; by sunset, he was too weak to stay conscious.
Was that girl still there? It had been quite a few years since they last met, even if it felt like yesterday. Maybe she wasn't even a young girl anymore.
Samus sighed to himself and continued stepping down the mouse hole, thoughts of Nintenna still in her head.
/*\
Marco was between relieved and startled out of his wits when a voice in his backpack muttered, "you could walk more carefully, ya know."
"Good to see you're up, Fox," he noted, flipping it around and unzipping the top to see the lupine crouched under his books. The end bell had just rang but he had been helping a girl gather her upset book pile, leaving him in a deserted hall. Cress had ran off to the front already where their parents were probably waiting, but he had a bit of time.
"I don't think anyone's around, if you prefer a shoulder mount," he offered, lifting Fox out with the glove under him.
"Beats a backpack, eh?" Fox humored, running up his sleeve and taking a spot on his left shoulder. "But seriously, who in their right mind throws a bag that hard? Jeez!"
Marco winced at the memory of him tossing the bag when it was the start of PE.
"Where are we, anyway?"
"School," Marco answered, slipping the bag strap over his opposite shoulder and strolling towards the exit doors. "Cress kept bugging me about you, but I didn't want the teachers freaking out about a living t—figure…"
"Huh," Fox noted, tilting his head back to look up at the ceiling, "I don't remember a school being this modern. Then again, I've been in an attic for some-odd years, so don't take my opinion."
"Hmm…our dad first put that box up there twenty years ago, when his brother—out uncle—was lost at sea. But I don't know where he got it in the first place, or why he never took you out in the first place," Marco explained.
"Twenty years?!" Fox yelped.
Marco winced again and lifted a hand to that ear. "My ear is right above your head, you know," he complained.
By then, they had made it to the doors. Marco shoved it open with his free hand, an autumn breeze causing Fox to dig whatever claws he had into his vest. A black mini-van was parked outside with the motor running, Freya shouting at him to catch up from it.
"Okay, Fox, do you mind hiding? Like I said, the adults will freak."
"No pro," Fox nodded curtly, sliding back down Marco's sleeve and taking a short leap into his left pocket.
"Marco, what are you doing!? Taking in the scenery?! Come on, let's go!" Freya continued to yell.
"Alright, alright, you don't need to yell!" Marco shouted back, taking his usual spot in the second row while Freya returned to the backseat.
As he was about to sit and she was backing up, her hand managed to come over his left pocket before Pox poked his snout out to see what the ruckus was for. This resulted in Freya swatting his nose, which she immediately recoiled from accidentally doing with an "Ouch!"
Fox let out a muffled yelp and glared at her. Freya, holding her hand, happened to glance up at him. Her eyes widened and she jumped into her seat's corner with a shriek.
"What?! What happened?!" Cress jumped, taking off an MP3 player and looking between both.
Freya looked in horror where Fox had been, Caitlyn raising her eyebrows.
"Did something happen, Freya?" their mother asked, poking her head over the seat.
Marco shot her a desperate glance, Cress mouthing a dozen pleads with his hands clasped and an I promise we'll tell later!
"Y-yea, I'm fine," Freya answered, sending a questioning glare at the boys, "just a lot of static electricity or something."
THANK YOU, FREYA, FOR NOT RUINING MY FIC!
Sorry for the late update, everyone, life and my lack of motivation lead to a minor hiatus. CURSE YOU, MY LAZY BRAIN! Oh wait, it came up with the idea…NEVERMIND, BRAIN!
EXTRA...REEV POINTS for whoever can give their vague opinion on 1, why it hurt when Freya hit Fox, or 2, why she described it as "a lot of static electricity"! Hint: there are a few references to a "spark" in the introduction!
Thanks for reading! I'd love it if you hit that follow/favorite button, he hasn't been getting enough presses, and the review button is close behind!
And HUG DEM EEVEE, you know you want to! I'll see you next chapter!