A/N: Update delayed due to Brawl's Japanese release (and the subsequent flood of information submerging the Internet). Apologies are in order.
Disclaimer: The following contains characters and concepts that are NOT the property of the author. They are the intellectual property of Nintendo, HAL Laboratories and their associates. This work of fanfiction is NOT endorsed by the original creators and is NOT in any way meant to insult the original work. The author has received NO monetary benefit from this piece of shit.
(5)
Marth's weight kept him grounded. Roy stomped a blind path through stone corridors, navigating the maze of dark by instinct, a washed-out visual, and a loose sense of memory. He smelled blood. His body ached. His steps wavered. But he was okay.
Everything was fine. Even if the world sometimes tilted, there was a warmth against his back, solid and real and reassuring. Soft breath glided on his neck. He couldn't hear it over his pounding footfalls, so he tuned in to the feel of it. Held onto that feeling, pulse for pulse, as he ran.
A left turn at a T-section led to a pair of closed metal doors. At some point, the corridor had transitioned from stone to steel. The doors were sealed along a diagonal line. No lock, no keypad.
Roy turned and sprinted the other way. Problem. He had no clue anymore which way was the right direction.
He dashed into the first open doorway, trying to find his return path.
He came to a dead halt. One of Goroh's men spun around, startled, dropping pots and pans all over the floor.
They both stared at each other dumbly for a second. Finally the other man drew a cleaver from his belt with nervous hands.
Knives surrounded them on the walls, hanging on racks next to plates, bowls and large pots.
The swordsman straightened up a bit. He turned his head slightly, tried to nudge Marth while keeping his eyes on the man in front of him. They were in trouble.
But the kitchen worker didn't make a move. He met Roy's gaze, eyes wide, terrified.
He was an older man, short and sinewy, skin lined with age, darkened by the sun. His thinning black hair was close-cropped. He wore an apron instead of an armored vest. The hand that held the knife did so with an experienced grip. But right now, that hand was shaking. He made no effort to attack.
Roy shifted his stance, edging back slightly. Played it non-offensive as best as he could.
The silence was broken by a weak gasp. Roy felt it glance the skin of his neck.
For the first time, the man with the cleaver focused his eyes on the face half-hidden behind Roy's shoulder.
The hand on the knife went down. He stood with his arms at his sides.
Roy took another step back, carefully. Marth's breaths came in short flutters.
Then the man sheathed his weapon in a broad leather pouch at his waist. His stare was perfectly blank when he raised his head to face Roy. Slowly, he lifted his empty hand, pointing to his right.
Roy risked a moment to glance in that direction. There was a heavy steel door to the side of the kitchen.
He looked again to the face of the kitchen worker. The man held himself completely still, stone-faced, arm outstretched.
What sort of an idiot--?
Heavy steps came from the hall, accompanied by urgent voices.
No time.
"Go," Marth whispered.
Roy gritted his teeth.
GO!
x x x
Marth had known that they would never be friends. Roy spoke with growls and grunts and one-sided grins. He wore his sword too casually. He took his hits too proudly. And he left his hair uncombed. He was the champion of a rival school, and one year, he was brought to the tournament by his teacher so that he might defeat the highest ranked student under Marth's master.
That was to be Marth.
In battle, they would prove to be too much the same, yet too far apart to meet in the middle.
That year, Marth almost lost his title to the relentless, world-renowned kick boxer, Captain Falcon. A single miss during an attack combo had left Marth open on a fall. From there, the match would turn in Falcon's favor.
The Captain had exploited a weakness. Throughout the battle, he kept the distances between them short, where Marth's sword was less effective. He had learned to reverse all of the swordsman's throws and to counter all his counters. He had lost a great deal of the brashness that had cost him the title last year.
And then, Marth had mistimed an aerial strike. His blade would hit only empty space as the Captain managed to evade with ease. Next, he was falling, Falcon following close behind, from the highest platform to the lowest level of the fighting stage. The powerfully-built boxer pummeled the slighter swordsman with a flurry of fists and knees until they both crashed landed onto the floor.
From there, Marth could not regain his momentum. He could barely catch his breath.
The arena rolled and sailed past him as he was grabbed and thrown over the edge. Only last-minute instinct made him reach for the ledge with his free hand. His fingers secured it, but just barely. His muscles were losing tension. The world around him seemed to spin. He looked up from the daze, through the sharp pain pounding in his skull, and found Falcon looming overhead, ready to put an end to it.
The match was over.
But then, from some height above both fighters, there came the sound of shattering glass. The alarm went off as a blaring siren.
Falcon, along with the crowd of spectators, turned to look.
Marth threw his head back but could only see a shadow dropping toward the stage, a silhouette against the spotlights.
"New Challenger!" the announcer screamed.
The intruder had broken through two layers of safety glass at an observation booth and now was aimed directly for Falcon, falling fast. His red cape trailed behind him. Falcon dodged just in time to avoid being stomped on but immediately fell back to an onslaught of steel. Unlike the Captain's intended opponent, close distances did not deter this challenger. The aggressive arcs of his sword pressed Falcon further and further back toward the platform's edge. The final strike released a wave of flames that engulfed the boxer and swept him out of the ring, beyond recovery.
"Game! Victory to the challenger by ring out!"
The new swordsman pumped an energetic fist into the air, his excitement unrestrained. Spectators in the audience surged to their feet. The stadium was packed for the title match, and the winner indulged them by sinking into a pose. Immersed in their screams and applause, he forgot to watch his back.
Marth, unable to swallow his pride, hauled himself back onto the platform, unsteadily trying to shake the clouds from his eyes. He found his balance, and then he rushed in, sword ready, and dealt the new contender a cheap shot across the back.
That got the interloper's attention.
The challenger stumbled, and then he spun around in a defensive crouch, blade drawn. His eyes met Marth's for the first time, an intensity barely contained.
So this, went Marth's thoughts, was to be the victor. This teenage boy with unruly red hair and an all-too-casual stance, whose manner did not suit the gold armor he wore. His stately, though unadorned, uniform was better suited to a military commander of rank, not a juvenile who went into battle with his desires unmasked.
Cheap! decried the clenched jaw, the half-formed sneer.
Marth raised an eyebrow, then raised the tip of his sword. Cheap? Like intruding in on someone else's fight? Like attacking an opponent already worn down by another?
Those eyes were a predator's blue. Too much power behind them--power and the promise of violence--for so short a stature and a frame not much heavier than Marth's.
But, dragon eyes or no, Marth had no intention of allowing the match to go to this one. Falcon had been the superior fighter. He deserved better.
Predictably, the challenger rushed him without preamble. Marth turned and leapt for one of the higher platforms. He had taken too much damage to meet a fresh fighter head-on.
The young swordsman followed him, taking an overeager swing with his weapon. Marth dodged by a narrow margin. That blade had a decent range, he realized. Greater than his own.
Marth took flight again, trying for higher ground.
His pursuer was not far behind. An angry cry, a burst of fire, and the boy had catapulted himself off the platform, up to where Marth sought distance. He slashed straight upwards with the sword, barreling toward his opponent from below.
That's...!
Marth recognized one of his own signature moves without a doubt, only he had never had to defend against it before. He sprang back, but the tip of the sword caught him anyway. He tumbled, not enough air left in him to vocalize the sudden pain in his gut. The force of the attack carried him over the edge once more. Again, he was at the ledge, clinging with one hand. Nothing below but a long fall and an unseen safety net.
The match needed to end soon. He didn't have the stamina to carry on for longer than this.
He watched for the blade. When it cut down toward him, he kicked off the wall and swung himself back onto the stage, rolling behind his opponent. His hand grabbed a fistful of the boy's cape, as the red-haired swordsman was still in the middle of the forward lunge, and threw the other fighter as far off the ledge as he could.
The young challenger fell until he hit the opposite wall of the arena, skidding along its surface. He abruptly kicked off the wall and flew back at Marth, eyes angry, blade already swinging.
Marth's sword countered his before that strike ever landed--a quick slash to an exposed midsection, like a flick of the wrist--and sent the new contender plummeting back down.
The announcer called "Game!" a second time. The audience roared.
Marth sheathed his sword.
A beast by blood or training, it didn't matter. This weapon was meant to slay dragons.
x x x
Roy watched the man play with his tools. He seemed inexplicably comfortable now, though Roy still kept a hand near the hilt of his sword.
The man had been useful for certain pieces of information, at least. Fires were risky even if Roy could summon them at will. Goroh's thugs were bound to have regrouped by now. They would not, however, know which tunnel had been the escape route. Several of their machines were down for repairs at the moment, including a flyer. They would have to search on foot and on land crawlers, vehicles which were well designed for steep, rocky surfaces but not for night operations. Their equipment also did not allow them to actually see through any part of the mountain.
Know your terrain. Use it.
Temperatures had dropped rapidly with the sun. Goroh's defector cook placed a spherical, pocket-sized heater between them on the ground. Its faint light glowed orange.
Roy hadn't wanted to stop. But even he admitted that his legs were straining just to walk. When his newly acquired--not yet fully trusted--ally offered to carry Marth, Roy had merely ignored him.
The door from the kitchen had led to a rock-faced tunnel. Roy kept following because he had no other choice. The darkness made it impossible to measure the closeness of the walls, but it felt stifling. Something made the air heavy. So Roy had concentrated on walking, on Marth's heartbeat, on listening for footsteps that did not belong to just two. The winding path, lit by the other man's dim flashlight, opened into a broad chamber buried somewhere deep inside the mountain. They took the only available path on a steel walkway suspended above the ground. Below them, metal giants hummed, attached to each other by large pipes that disappeared underground. Their forms were made visible by orange lamps on the walls. Red and white lights flickered from the surfaces of each machine. The smell was strongest here, of oils, grease and fire.
The corridor exiting that chamber eventually emptied them out into the desert, somewhere on the rocky surface of the mountain.
Roy had only agreed to rest when he realized he couldn't climb with Marth on his back.
"My name is Chen."
Roy looked up. The man did not smile, did not even seem nervous.
Roy considered him in silence before speaking. "Why are you helping us?" He thought it a reasonable question.
It took a moment for a vague smile to form on Chen's face. Roy waited for a response, for the inevitable double-cross.
Next to him, Marth stirred. He had slept the entire way here.
Roy placed a hand on his friend's shoulder, found it cold, and pulled off the cape he had been wearing ever since he had cut it down from Goroh's front gates. He draped it over Marth even though he didn't want to. It was stiff with blood, torn by the wind. Beneath it, Marth huddled, curled on his side under another cloak, which had fared better. Even ripped at places and spotted with blood--at least it was the enemies' blood.
But one layer was not enough to fend off the desert at night. So Roy tugged the red fabric, tucking it under Marth's chin. He pulled the blue over it, making sure the second layer didn't actually touch Marth's skin.
His face was pale, even under the orange glow of the heater. Roy let the back of his fingers linger there. The skin felt soft and cold.
Across from him, Chen shifted position. Roy eyed him warily, but the man only lay down on his side, facing the heater, and closed his eyes.
Marth pressed up slightly against Roy's hand.
Under better circumstances, Roy would have made a joke to get his attention. Roy's in-battle taunts had always involved whistles and catcalls, cries of "Ey, Princess Tiara!" and questions of Marth's actual gender, the nobility-bred limpness in his wrist. ("Your lord likes you as a ladyboy, huh?") Off the field, he pestered Marth over taking up that single-handed sword style just so he had one hand free to flick his ridiculously long bangs out of his eyes, and did he realize how annoying it was to fight a guy who kept doing that?
He couldn't, of course, say anything like that right now, not even to lighten the mood. Couldn't because the last time he was sitting like this, watching Marth shiver in his sleep beneath two cloaks, the sun had been about to rise, and Roy had been working up the balls to leave. The entire night had been wasted on that effort, and in the end he still didn't have it in him, not until the threat of dawn finally forced his hand.
Sunrise called him coward all the way from the grassy field to the main road and on every morning thereafter.
Where that road--that one particular road--had led, he couldn't recall.
Until yesterday, he had forgotten about that night out on the open field, half-hidden by soft and rough grass.
Until yesterday, the days of the year were not separate things to him. Time ran together without distinction. The sun rose and fell to an irregular pulse, a non-pattern, and took away any connection between the hours.
Until yesterday, Marth had been nothing but a sensation that overtook him in the final moments before a drug-induced sleep--small bones and fine lines and warm steel and lethal-delicate skin. A shape his fingers knew. A curve on one side on the outline of face. And nothing else.
Until yesterday, he was not certain if that town on the horizon would be his first, or if there had been others.
Marth whimpered brokenly in his sleep. Roy stroked his cheek to calm him, but he flinched away.
Reluctantly, Roy withdrew his hand. He realized what was wrong.
He had just a while ago been able to slap med-patches over the worst of his wounds. The pain in his shoulder occasionally radiated down his arm, but there was nothing to do at the moment. He would administer another painkiller if necessary. That was his sword arm, and he needed it.
His injuries were not severe beyond that, but the smell of blood had not come clean. It had followed him all day. It clung to his hands.
Now was the time to wish for rain, if only it wouldn't freeze them all to death.
Roy pulled the wine gourd from his belt. He only needed a sip. Just to stop the tremor in his right hand. He needed that hand. There wasn't much left, but as long as he made it back into town, he would be all right. It no longer made him dizzy or tired. It only slowed things down and killed his abhorrence to pain. He could see the hits before they came, as if all the pieces were laid out on a game board. It didn't matter how many opponents cornered him at any time. He knew the sequence of events before it unfolded, could see it all in his head as vectors and diagrams. He had mastered the chaos theory of fight dynamics. He could counter hits without hesitation, if possible. He could take them without flinching, if necessary.
The wine had never made him completely numb. But it made him stupid enough to think he could bear the pain.
He won more battles this way than he ever had without it.
His only weakness was curled up next to him, breathing gently.
If he hadn't lost that crucial tournament fight--what was it now?--five or six years ago, then they wouldn't be here like this. His master would not have cut him loose. Like a diseased limb. His master had no tolerance for weakness or failure. The world devoured the weak, she had said.
If he had not been cut loose, Marth's master would not have taken him in. He would not have been given a second chance to fail.
He remembered now.
All he wanted to know was who had replaced him. On either side.
"Do you know...what Goroh is mining here?"
Roy snapped his head up. Chen's eyes were closed, head resting on a folded arm. He was not asleep.
"What?" Roy asked sharply, trying to hide that he had almost dozed off.
"Goroh-sir has found something...quite valuable in these mountains. The people in town are always wanting to take it from him."
"Well, I guess that's because it was their land first."
"No. It was no-man's-land. It was until the Federation became law."
Roy listened and waited. Chen kept his eyes closed.
"What has he found?" Roy half-heartedly prodded, voice slack with disinterest.
"You know that sacred substance which is able to power starships for millennia or more?"
"That's a rumor."
"No. Is no rumor. The madman--Zoda is his name--he charges his battery here."
Roy stayed quiet, considering.
"You remember," Chen continued, "the machines?"
"Yes."
"They make it there. They pull it from the ground there."
"And Goroh," Roy said, "wants it for himself, or to sell?"
"To sell, of course. But first, need an army to protect. Or else, the Federation will seize it. This place is good. No one knows what is here."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because they will not let us get away."
"Then why help us?"
Chen did not answer. He feigned sleep.
"Look, you can't come with us unless you tell us."
"I know ways out of this desert."
"So do I," Roy lied.
"There is no reason," the man said. "My son is dead, and that one looks like him. That is all."
Roy glanced briefly at the sleeping form next to him. He was never good at telling a truth from a lie. Why couldn't Marth be awake for this part?
Chen lay on his right side, right arm folded beneath his head. His left hand clutched at something on his chest, making a tight fist. Holding something, maybe, against his chest.
"The people in town are poor," Chen continued. "I used to live there too. But the mines were empty. So I work for Goroh-sir because he can give me money.
"The town will not survive. Because there are no things of use to dig up. No diamonds or good metals or precious rocks."
"Yeah," Roy muttered. "Because no jewels are ever found in land where dragon's blood lies buried."
Chapter notes: Had a problem with Roy's sword. More specifically, with the position of his scabbard. On his Melee trophies, the scabbard is positioned in a way that seems like his sword would be impossible to draw. It goes horizontally across his lower back, hilt on the right. He is right-handed in the game, and so if he were to draw with his right hand, he would have to do it in a reverse grip, even though he doesn't fight that way. And the blade seems like it would be too long to easily draw in this manner. Even if he were left-handed, it would still be impractical because it would be too far of a reach.
Roy's scabbard is only pictured on his trophies. It is absent in-game. Marth, on the other hand, has his both during game play and on two of his trophies. He actually sheaths his sword when dodging or shielding. Roy dodges and shields with his sword out. I guess the animators ran into the same problem I did.
In other news, have you all been keeping up with Brawl?