Snake and Ganondorf stood side-by-side in their fighting stances waiting for Crazy to return.

"Look, thanks for saving my ass back there but I have to ask you something." Snake said.

"Make it quick." Ganondorf simply stated.

"Why are you opposing Crazy? He wants to create a world of chaos and conflict, and an entire civilization that thrives on that idea. No offense but that sounds like something right up your alley."

The King of Evil let out a small laugh. "Indeed I would enjoy a world of conflict, but Crazy's methods are a paradox. Like all other people in the past who envisioned a "utopia", his is full of flaws."

"What a shocker." Snake sarcastically responded. "What's your take on it?"

"Crazy doesn't understand the concept of balance. He should understand that our world is already full of conflict as it is. It may not always be violent, but it is conflict. And these conflicts stem from people having a different set of beliefs and desires. I fight Link because we want different things for the world. If we shared the same interest then we'd be allies. If Crazy creates a collective consciousness of people wanting chaos, but complete irradiates people who oppose the idea, then we'd all be allies. We'd have no reason to fight each other. If the world is to have conflict, it needs heroes and villains. It needs people with conflicting beliefs."

"Interesting. Thanks for answering my question. Anyway it looks like he's coming back. The best thing we can do is fight him without getting too close. You got a weapon for that?"

Ganondorf then drew out his massive sword from its sheath. "I'm good to go."

"Good!" Snake said as he pulled out his Stinger missile launcher. "Here he comes! Move!"

The two rolled out of the way as Crazy attempted a rocket punch on them. Snake did a quick turn and blasted the hand with a powerful missile. The explosion staggered Crazy. Ganondorf came from behind and stabbed the hand, followed by repeated slash attacks. Crazy turned to Ganondorf, only to be hit with a throwing knife from Snake, followed by several shots with his SOCOM pistol. Crazy could be heard grunting in pain. He ascended and then smashed his palm to the ground, creating a shockwave that knocked his two opponents back. They got back to their feet, but Crazy suddenly began dropping bombs above them. Crazy was targeting Snake, who broke into a sprint as he avoided the explosions going off behind him. Ganondorf stopped his bombardment by shooting Crazy with a bolt of dark magic.

"This isn't working…must use different tactics." Crazy muttered and teleported away from the other two.

"Running away? That's uncharacteristic for one of the Hands." Ganondorf insulted.

"Not so fast. I don't think he's running. He's got something planned…" Snake said.

Crazy opened his hand and on his palm were the skeletons of all the Koopalings.

"Looks like he got to them too." Snake sighed.

"Well what good are some skeletons in battle?" Ganondorf asked.

Suddenly Crazy crushed the skeletons in his hand, shattering the bones into small, sharp fragments. Then he pointed towards his two foes.

"Oh shit!" Snake cursed realizing what was happening.

"Is he going to…"

"Ganon, we need to haul ass. If we don't then our we'll be shredded by foreign bodies."

"I thought so." Ganon sighed and the two took off in a sprint. Crazy began firing the bone shards towards them with a fire rate of a machine gun. Lucky for Ganondorf, he was dressed with his armor that provide great protection from the shards. A few managed to hit his body but the armor stopped it from going any further. Snake on the other hand wasn't as shielded. He had his Sneaking Suit that at the very least had Kevlar around the torso area but that was about it. He could feel pieces of bone stick into his left arm. He ignored the pain and the two eventually made it to cover.

"You good?" Ganondorf checked in with his teammate. Snake removed the three bone shards from his arm and took a bandage from his first-aid kit and wrapped the marks that were made.

"Yeah…I'm good." Snake said as he finished tending to his injury. "Can't stay behind this fence for long. He's coming."

"I'm aware." The Gerudo replied. "But if we can get back to close range with him then we can put the battle back in our hands. You get what I'm implying?"

"Yeah I got it. Just say the word and we'll jump out." Snake planned. As Ganondorf kept an eye out, Snake took out his 50. Caliber Sniper Rifle and put a clip in.

"That's a big fucking gun you have there." Ganondorf said amazed by the size.

"Well I figured when we hit him, we hit him hard."

"No arguments here." Ganondorf agreed and fully charged a bolt of dark energy in his hand. Crazy Hand was getting closer to the fence they hid behind.

"You idiots should know you can't hide from me!"

"GO!"

Snake and Ganondorf simultaneously jumped out of hiding and attacked the unprepared Hand. A massive bullet and an incredibly powerful dark magic attack hitting the hand in unison. Crazy dropped the bone shards he had and fell to the ground. He was actually bleeding from the attack.

"FUCK! This won't do! I'm too big of a target!" Crazy thought in panic. Then he looked back and saw Demon Snake, who was still on his knees with a thousand yard stare. Crazy then hatched an idea. He got up and rocketed towards Demon, and then disappeared inside of him. He was now in possession of Demon's body.

"I'm sorry my friend, but until your mind comes back to you I'll have to take control. This is best for both of us." Crazy promised.

"Did he just…"

"Yeah…he did." Ganondorf confirmed Snake's suspicions in a grim tone.

Demon's body began glowing with aura, showing Crazy's presence within him.

"Get ready for round two bitch!" Crazy roared and charged at the two. Snake and Ganondorf readied themselves for the next phase of the fight, not looking forward to it at all.

"That's…that's preposterous!" Master Hand shouted. The others had just finished explaining the situation of Crazy's treason to him and he didn't like it.

"Sir, we understand how you feel. None of us could believe it whenever Snake said it, but there are just too many clues…"

"That's all they are!" Master Hand cut Rosalina off. "Their clues! Coincidences! No concrete evidence to back them up! Unless you can provide me with proof, then this is a ludicrous accusation!"

Lucario had then filled up with rage, and it finally came out. "Just accept it you FUCKING FOOL!" The Pokemon uncharacteristically screamed with anger. Everyone in the room was shocked by Lucario's sudden outburst.

"Wh-What?!" Master Hand was taken aback.

"I'm with Lucario!" Meta Knight spoke out. "Need I remind you that most of the group is fucking dead because of this mad man?! And what the fuck have you been doing to help the situation other than sending most of them to their death?!"

Master Hand was speechless. He hated remembering all the casualties, it filled him with guilt.

"Want to know who did decide to help us! Snake! Somebody who was forced out of this group! A man who has every reason to hate us, to not give a shit about what happens to us! And he didn't hesitate to leave his home in the mountains to help us! Now he is out there, fighting a battle that he knows he can't win, for us! If someone like that is willing to die for us, then what the fuck does that make you?! Our so called "leader"!"

The room grew dead silent, but the tension was so thick you'd need a sword to cut it. Suddenly Samus violently barged into the room, almost knocking the door down.

"Alright you piece of shit! You better listen to what I have to say!" She said to Master Hand, looking at him with eyes burning with rage.

Back outside the arena, Snake and Ganondorf continued to fight Crazy, who was now merged with Demon. After that happened, the battle began to turn toward's Crazy's favor. His powers combined with Demon's strength actually made Crazy stronger. He had Demon's expertise in CQC, and his magic attacks at his disposal. He was engaging the other two at close range. He shoved Ganondorf away with a magic powered palm strike, and Ganondorf crashed into a wall. Snake rushed towards him to attack, but Crazy pulled out a knife and slashed Snake across the chest, with enough strength to go through the Kevlar vest. Snake shouted in pain from the attack but would not take his focus off of his opponent. Crazy went for another swing but Snake caught his arm. The two began struggling to wrestle the knife from the other. Though he was giving great effort, Snake could feel himself losing his grip. In desperation, he head-butted Crazy which made him release the knife and was staggered. Snake gripped the knife and stabbed it into Crazy's chest. Normally this would be a critical attack, one that would win the fight. But Crazy's magic still allowed for a healing factor. Crazy ripped the knife out of his chest and stabbed Snake. It was aimed for his chest, but Snake had attempted to dodge. He did however get the knife into his shoulder, and left it there.

"FUCK!" Snake screamed as he felt the blade penetrate his flesh. Crazy then blasted him with a magic sphere, knocking him on his back. Crazy walked up to him, grabbed him by the throat and lifted him up, high enough where his feet weren't touching the ground.

"You know you can't win this fight! Why bother?!" Crazy asked.

"Because it's better than giving up!" Snake answered. He managed to grab his SOCOM pistol from its holster and started shooting Crazy. Though the bullets couldn't kill Crazy they weren't any less painful. Crazy threw Snake aside, not wanting to continue to get shot point blank. He began charging up a magic attack to kill Snake when he was suddenly impaled from behind by a large sword. He turned to see Ganondorf, who clocked him with a Warlock Punch. Crazy was again launched by the forceful attack.

"Thanks again." Snake expressed his gratitude as he got back on his feet. He then pulled the knife out of his shoulder, letting a small grunt of pain when he did. At this point the two were breathing heavily. They had been fighting for quite some time, Snake especially.

"You know we can't keep doing this. We can't kill him and he'll never run out of energy, but we will." Ganondorf reminded him.

"I know…I know. I guess convincing Master Hand would be a harder task for the others than I thought."

"Ever considered that they might not be able to do it?"

"I have."

"So you're willing to fight to buy time for something that may never come?"

"That's right. Only way this ends for me is Master Hand comes, or I die. If you don't feel the same way, then you can leave. That's fine by me."

Ganondorf chuckled. "I guess the goddesses made a second Triforce of Bravery." He said with a grin. "Well I got myself involved in this, so I'll see it to the end."

"Alright then."

They saw Crazy Hand in the distance, sprinting towards them with visible fury. With no fear they charged at him. They were about to close the gap between them, but before they could strike…

"BROTHER!" A booming voice roared, stopping the three of them on their tracks.

"Uhh…" Crazy nervously looked around. Then Master Hand teleported in with the others.

"So it is true! You're the mastermind behind this whole plot!" Master Hand's voice became angrier by the second. "Get out of that body!"

Crazy Hand ejected himself from Demon Snake's body, causing him to regain control of himself and his mind, but he fell to the ground exhausted.

"Brother! I know this looks bad, but trust me! What I'm trying to do is better for business!" Crazy nervously explained himself.

"Business?! Smash Brothers was never a business! We created Smash Brothers as a sport for the fighters and as a means of entertainment for our people!"

"Yes I know! Entertainment is the key word! It's something that Smash Brothers is lacking."

"What are you talking about?!"

"People who watch Smash Brothers want violence, tension, danger! Smash Brothers has violence, but only a partial amount of tension, and a complete lack of danger." Crazy Hand explained now sounding a lot less nervous and more confident. "We have people using swords, explosives, and weapons in the fights. Those are things that KILL people. But of course, our system grants the fighters protection from death. There's no limbs being severed, no bodies blowing up, not even a simple cut or drop of blood. So I must ask you, where's the danger? Where's the tension both the fighters and the audience can feel in knowing that somebody could lose their life?! It's nowhere…it doesn't exist. Hell even in sanctioned fighting sports like Boxing and Mixed Martial-Arts, someone can get injured, people bleed, and there's even a small chance that one of the fighters can accidentally kill their opponent!"

"You want Smash Brothers to be just death matches? People don't want to watch that! It's disgusting!" Master Hand scoffed.

"That's where you're wrong brother! People may say that don't want to see it, but somewhere, some primitive part of their brain wants to see it. And they enjoy it. In ancient times, the average citizen would go to the Coliseum to see Gladiators kill each other and they loved it!"

"Okay enough! So if that is your plan, what did killing so many of our fighters have to do with it?"

"Well I hate to break this to you brother, but you're terrible when it comes to picking fighters. So many of them are just not gladiator material. We had "cute" little animals, children, a pink alien, a penguin, and so many other cartoonish and foolish looking characters. I wanted to start from scratch, with Demon leading my new generation of fighters. I had originally thought that all of the current fighters weren't warrior material…but today Samus and those two…" He said and pointed to Snake and Ganondorf. "proved me otherwise. Snake especially, and it's no surprise since he's from the same universe as Demon. Yet you and the other pansy fighters voted him out!" Crazy angrily said.

He took a moment to compose himself and continued. "Brother…I really want this world I've envisioned to become a reality. Please, come and help me create it." Crazy sincerely offered to his brother.

"No Crazy! As the protector of this world, I will not allow you to create this world. You either stop right now or I will have to kill you!" Master Hand threatened. Crazy let out an audibly sigh.

"I was afraid that you would say that…" Crazy said and suddenly started glowing.

"What's going on?" Fox asked upon seeing Crazy light up.

"No! Crazy…" Master Hand begged.

"If I can't have the world I want…"

Crazy started glowing with blinding light.

"CRAZY DON'T!"

"THEN YOU CAN'T HAVE YOURS!"

"NOOOOOOO!"

Master Hand quickly grabbed his brother and teleported them both high into the skies. The fighters looked up and then saw a massive explosion.

"OH MY GOD!" Peach shrieked in horror.

"Master…" Snake whispered, just as shocked as everyone else on how the situation played out.

"Their…their gone." Zelda choked up.

"Our leader…our guardian…gone…" Lucario grieved.

"Well at the very least, the last thing he did was save all of us." Ganondorf said.

"No kidding, that explosion would've destroyed the world.

As everyone talked, Snake had been thinking and noticed that there was something still to be resolved.

"Demon!" He shouted. He looked to see that he had disappeared, but his injuries allowed for a trail of blood to mark his movements, which led to the forest.

"Come on! We can't let him get away!" Snake yelled and pulled out his pistol.

After traversing through the forest for half an hour, they had finally come to a Cliffside. There, Demon was standing near the edge of the cliff, looking down below.

"Demon!" Snake shouted and aimed his pistol at him. Demon slowly turned to face Snake. Oddly there was no look of hostility on his face.

"It's over Snake." Demon said in a disinterested tone of voice. "I finished my role."

"Huh?"

"My role. Crazy Hand had brought me back from the dead with a role for me to play. That role was to carry out his violent fantasies of murder. The bloodier the better." Demon explained his voice still calm. "There are so many ways you could describe my actions. Evil, vile, disgusting, sinister, atrocious…I could go on but you get the idea. But personally, I would describe my actions as…acts of Heartlessness."

"Where are you going with this?" Snake asked.

"Snake, it was because of how I had such a low value of human life, how I had no problem taking another life, and how I didn't fear the consequences of my actions that Crazy chose me. He could of did it all himself, but he was afraid. Afraid of Big Brother catching him. So he used me so that he could see those murders, but with no blood one his hands. He loved what I did. He told me to be as violent as possible. Seemed like he got his rocks off from seeing me rip people apart."

Demon took a moment to smoke his cigar, letting out a puff of smoke. "So in the end Crazy was someone who was got a thrill with violence, but wasn't comfortable doing it himself. He's not the only person like that though. While not to the extreme of Crazy Hand, there's a lot of people that love violence from a safe distance. Watching it, Reading it, whatever suits them. Do you think they're interested in the killer's motivation as to why he kills people? Fuck No! They're just watching or reading for the mindless deaths caused by the killer. There's nothing wrong with having violence in fiction, but when an entire story is just based around mindless killing…then it's most likely not that great of a story. It's just murder-porn at that point. If it's just about the killing, do you think the reader cares about the plot? No they probably don't. After the murder stops, the intrigue ends. You know in those old slasher movies there's usually only one survivor when the killer gets killed? You think many of the viewers ever thought "Man, I wonder how they're going to deal with seeing all of their friends butchered"? I strongly doubt it. Take a look at this situation right now. You all won, but I've killed a massive amount of your friends and now your guardians are dead. What are you going to do after this? What happens then?" He asked Snake.

"We'll keep going, living our lives. Help each other get through the grief and the trauma, and we'll rebuild. Just gotta continue going one day at a time." Snake answered. Demon smiled and took another puff of his cigar. "But what's with all of this strange talk about violence and fiction? Is there something you know?"

"I'm aware Snake. I'm aware of what this is, what's going on. I hope that you can all recover from this, but I'm sorry to say that there are those who won't care, but they sure as hell enjoyed watching you all suffer."

"Who are you talking about?"

"Sorry Snake but that doesn't matter. Anyway like I said, my role is finished. There's no need for me now so…"

Demon quickly snatched Snake's pistol from his hands. He then put the barrel in his own mouth and pulled the trigger, blowing his brains out. The gun fell from his lifeless hands and his body fell backwards, off of the cliff. Demon Snake was no more. Everyone was silent for minutes, not knowing what to say even after the one who had brought them so much pain was now dead.

"I mean I'm glad he's gone, but now I'm fucking confused." Falco admitted.

"You're not the only one I guarantee you." Meta Knight said.

"Well whatever it was that he knew, he took the answers to hell with him. So we shouldn't concern ourselves with it. But he was right about one thing. Just because he's gone, doesn't mean are problems went away. There's still the aftermath, and I'm ready for whatever lies ahead." Snake said confidently.

"We'll be with you all the way!" Rosalina said. Snake turned back to the others, looking at the optimistic sounding woman. "Just like you said, one day at a time."

"Yes. We've suffered great loss over this week, but by working together, we will eventually recover." Lucario smiled.

"Alright…let's go home." Snake said. As they headed back, Samus walked over to Snake's side.

"So those people Demon was talking about. Say they do exist. Do you think they'll care about our recovery process?" She jokingly asked.

"Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that they won't know what happens next. They'll just have to imagine how things turn out.

And that's the conclusion of this tale. It probably not what you expected, but I hope you all enjoyed it. Thanks to Metroid-Killer for holding the contest, and good luck to the other contestants.

This was a pretty big project for me I must say. I never had to write a story with a deadline. I know I've finished this with a lot of time to spare before the contest deadline, but I was still feeling the pressure during this stories development. Because of it I focused all my effort on to this story, putting Wasteland and Snake the Handyman on hiatus until the time being. But that's not to say this was a hassle to write. I really enjoyed writing this and I'm happy with how it turned out. So if you want to know here's what you can expect from me in the future.

I'll be going back to working on Wasteland and Snake the Handyman. I'll definitely have a Christmas or End of the Year themed chapter posted for Handyman before the end of the year.

I'll probably be doing a collab story with an author who goes by Spawnzilla014. If you like stories that are action packed full of violence and fight-scenes (and on occasion some lemons if you're into that) then you should check his stuff out.

Take it easy everyone.