A/N: Revised version. C&C please.

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.

(6)

Marth woke to a cold morning. The sky was a faded blue, and his body didn't feel like it belonged to him. The desert had brought strange dreams. Somewhere, embedded in its vision, was a message: colossal machines turning over earth and sand, kings crushed beneath tumbling stones, and a place under the heavens where a boy lay twisted on the ground, blood on his face, pink muscle exposed through split skin.

"I'm sorry, Dad."

Marth clenched his fingers into a weak fist, expecting the hilt of a sword that wasn't there, the torn skin on his knuckles stinging with the motion. He was tired and his body ached.

But still, he looked up and tried to stare down the dark eyes of Goroh's cook.

The swordsman was at the disadvantage. Stare-downs were difficult with only one eye.

The other man had the advantage of two eyes.

Two eyes and a sharpened cleaver leveled at Marth's throat.

x x x

I never saw my mother and father again, you see. I signed a contract with the company. That meant I couldn't leave. My mother cried when I told her what kind of work I had found. I told my father to make sure the money got wired directly into their account. I told them to always double check the payments. I also told them not to worry. I would see them in five years.

But I was young then. And very stupid.

We worked every hour when we weren't sleeping. They fed us workers' rations and gave us drugs to keep us awake and moving. Everyday, we did nothing but work until we were too tired to walk. We had no time to spend idle.

I married a woman here. Do you need to know this? Oh, yes, I will get to what's important, don't worry. We had a child, and there were days I almost fell over as I worked my post. I did this, as did my wife, so we could have our son imprinted. It's so necessary these days. Because things happen. As you well know, Merciful Swordsman.

The mines are a dark place, son. And all those years we dug into the ground, breathing in fatal dust when our masks broke down--we never found anything valuable, just useless rocks and coal. Sometimes animal bones.

And then, one day, the whole thing came down. Right on top of everyone. Killed twelve of us. I think it was supposed to be sixteen, but fate stepped in. You see, I was there too. I remember--you would remember it too, if you were there. The earth shaking, not just underneath you, but all around you and above you. It sounded like a large animal growling, only much louder. I fell down. When it stopped, I could stand up again, and everything was dark. I had no communications with anyone.

You try to find your way out of something with no light. Nothing but rock all around me. I had a feeling I would die.

But after a time, someone came, moving heavy stones out of the way. He had a light. So there were two of us in there. Both of us trapped.

They told us in training that the mines rarely collapsed. They also said that the rescue operations were always successful if it ever happened..

We waited a little bit because there was nothing to do. But my partner noticed that the battery was damaged in the lamp and it would not last long. He wanted to start digging out.

I told him we would never make it, just the two of us. Even if we were close to the entrance, it was still impossible. Better to wait. Or else we'd just bring down the rest of the place with our digging.

'No one's coming,' he said. 'You think the company cares?'

I told him that it didn't matter. We couldn't last without water.

He didn't listen. He told me, 'If you have any meds left, take them.' He used that light and crawled around until he found a pickaxe and a shovel. Batteries were low on those too. But it was all we had.

So we found the markings on the walls pointing towards the way out. And we hooked up with our machines and started digging.

Even in those months when I knew my son was soon to be born, when I worked those long shifts, all that endless digging, when my arm and machine were the same--even in that time, I had never worked as hard as I did when that mine fell. My hands bled; my eyes were stinging behind the mask. I kept injecting myself so I didn't have to stop. We found two others trapped there. They helped us by moving rocks with their bare hands. One had a canteen of water.

The water lasted us a day. The digging took longer than that.

The first signs of light in the dark wall made us hopeful. We were weakening. The battery finally gave out on the light. After that, we just followed the sound of his axe--our leader's--as it crushed stone. We were like a bunch of blind, tired, thirsty bats.

We broke through after…after…

The wall opened with a little hole. There was a sound. Rain hitting the ground. It was raining outside, and outside was within reach. We forced the gap until it broke. We crawled through like worms, losing pieces of skin to the mountain, until we made it to the other side. The first thing I felt was a drop of cold water on my finger. One of us cried. I was too tired. We three collapsed, choking on open wet air. We drank the rain. We couldn't go any further. Only one was still standing.

There was no rescue. He had been right.

He walked on alone and called for help at the station.

And so, we lived, the four of us. Weeks later, my wife's grey hairs started growing out, in spite of being rather young. She had worried so much.

But after the hospital, after we made a small cemetery and buried our friends not far from the place where we spent all our days digging, and after all that, the company told us, 'Back to work.'

So then, you can probably imagine what happened when he--that one who led us out of there, who grabbed us, pushed us and forced us to move when we wanted to lie down and sleep--when he stole some guns and other weapons and a truckload of supplies and announced that he was leaving, heading deeper into the desert, closer to the canyon, that he would find that treasure the company wanted, and not just that, he would beat them to it….

You can imagine that we followed--we, the original three, plus a group of others who were fed up with the company's control of our lives.

My wife stayed behind with my son. I made the same promise to her that I made to my parents years before. 'I'll come back when we find gold.'

Ten years later, our band of men grew in number, and we were at war with the town police. Ten years, and no one yet had found Red Canyon's secret. Ten years, and my son stole a mechanical horse and came out to find me.

Ten years, I followed him, that man. He made me the cook because I wouldn't go down into the mines again. Never again.

And if he--the Samurai Goroh--was here, we would not be having this conversation.

My son--

x x x

The man had turned his back to Marth. He brought his sleeve to his face.

Slowly, Marth tried to stand. It hurt to do so, and his head was spinning. The morning air chilled his bare arms. He wrapped one cape around his shoulders and tied it off at the neck, even as his wrist panged intensely at the movement. He draped the other cowl--the blue one--over Roy, who slept on his side against the ground.

Sharp pain stabbed him in the chest as he straightened up. His throat was dry. Marth looked over at Goroh's man and watched the hand that held the cleaver. It was still. At the wrist, a round metal socket stood out, embedded into the skin, the kind that miners used to plug into their equipment.

The voice that came from the sagging figure was hoarse. "Did you make it easy for him?"

"Yes," Marth confessed desperately. He took a breath. He needed it to steady his words. "I assure you, he didn't have time to suffer."

Dawn had colored the sky pink. A childless father pressed his sleeve against his eyes.

"That is why they call you 'Merciful Master,' isn't it?"

Marth looked away. Remembered two boys, inexperienced and eager to prove themselves, cornering him against the canyon wall with guns and knives in hand. ("We got him!") But he had wanted to live, and he had been stronger. That was all that was needed. It had nothing to do with morals or justice. The younger one had screamed in such terror and agony when he saw his friend cut down. The swordsman had not let him scream for long.

"All sons," Marth offered softly, "want to be the pride of their fathers. So, please, be proud of him."

Off to the side, he caught a glimpse of movement--Roy, pretending to sleep, had placed a hand on his sword.

The cleaver made a slick sound when it hit the ground, blade now rooted in the red sand. A muted keening filled the air between them, tightly restrained. The man held something against his chest. His other hand hung limp. Marth couldn't see what Goroh's man kept to his chest, but he could guess.

The swordsman took a step forward. "Come with us," he said, his voice stronger now, "and we will see you into town, or wherever you want to go."

The strangled wail faded into ragged breaths.

They waited in near silence, the three of them.

When Goroh's man finally turned, his face was drained and his eyes were swollen. He held his fist against his sternum, around a silver chain that hung from his neck.

"We will help you take care of your son," Marth said. "And his friend too, if you have him. This next time, perhaps, they won't have to live the way we have."

Slowly, the man shook his head. "His friend was never imprinted. That boy is lost."

"But your son is not."

The father said nothing. Marth stared at him in silence. He didn't know the price of a body these days. It could not have been inexpensive.

"My old master can take care of him," the swordsman persisted. He needed to do this. Needed it more than escape or rain. Otherwise, he would carry Red Canyon with him forever.

They watched each other for another painful moment--old and young, ages apart, enemies, sorrowful and honor-bound. The man opened his mouth to speak.

There came then, a surge of heat through the air, a soft, incredibly soft, crack, close enough that Marth flinched.

The man stood still for some seconds after. It took that long for a dark spot to appear on the front of his shirt. It took another second for it to grow into a red circle, for it to begin to weep.

He pitched forward, face-first into the rust-colored earth. Marth was at his side the moment he hit.

x x x

Roy rolled to his feet, armor scraping on rocks, cape tangled around him.

Sniper!

He dashed forward, got a hand on Marth's arm, but Marth was holding Chen and he wasn't letting go.

Move! You--

Something hot grazed Roy's face, singing the skin there, lighting it like fire.

Close…!

Without thinking, Roy grabbed Chen, and he and Marth dragged him. They tumbled gracelessly into a crevice in the ground.

Rising up as much as he dared, Roy peered up. In the distance, it was Green Man again, at a higher point on the mountain, taking aim with his gun. The shots did not emit a visible light. Roy could barely make out the traces in infrared. It was too fast. A flash, and then it'd be on you, just like that.

Roy ducked back down as another blast of heat struck the ground above him. It did not throw up grains of sand, but it left a dark impression and a pit in the earth. Each shot had been barely audible, but he recognized the sound now. Like the crack of lightning, but deadly soft, different from the thuck! of impact that he remembered from before.

Their other guns had fired infused projectiles. This weapon was something else.

The left side of Roy's face stung sharply and burned, but it did not bleed. Next to him, Marth huddled with Chen's head in his lap. The wounded man trembled violently, breaths coming in shallow gasps.

"The medicine…" Marth urged.

Roy looked up. The kit was up there, out in the open.

Impossible. Green Man controlled the high ground.

Chen made an incoherent noise that sounded like a dying engine.

"Roy, please."

He hesitated. His head was throbbing. He blinked, tried to shake it off, but that only made it worse. The rock-faced wall seemed to be moving toward him. He reached down for a familiar burden at his hip and grasped only air.

"Dammit!"

Roy looked up again. He grabbed the ledge above him and sprang up and over into plain sight.

That weapon took longer to charge than a normal gun, so it could not rapid-fire. It stalled for nearly a full second in between shots. Roy could see the flash of the charge-up, had timed it between the sighting and the impact. A stone's throw from impossible.

It came as an infrared flicker. Roy dodged to the side, felt the heat of its passing right next to him. It would take another moment for the sniper to realize he had missed and fire again. Roy had fallen into a roll by then, throwing himself on a diagonal path off the direct line of sight. He rose, sheathed sword clanging against his leg, and twisted to the side again, as another blast almost burned him.

He ducked the next one and made a dive for two things on the ground: the med-kit and the wine.

The first he snatched up, rolling onto his back, and pitched it in the direction he had come from, over and into the ravine where Marth was.

The other he took in hand as he turned over onto his feet. He sprinted for the safety of a tall cluster of rock formations. Something burned at his heel as he ran, but it didn't stop him. He sank behind the boulders. He looked up but had no sight on Green Man.

That meant Greenie couldn't see him either.

He tested his foot. Nothing broken. Boots barely singed. Then he unplugged the wine gourd. His hands were steady.

x x x

He used to say we'd find a way out of this place--my son. I knew him as a child, and the next I saw, he was almost a man. He used to say he'd find a way out for all of us--he'd make a place for us, his mother, his friends. He swore to be something better than a cook for a gang of bandits. He swore to make Goroh proud and leave this place and he'd learn to fly those machines, like what Goroh drives in those races that everyone sees all over the galaxy. He swore he would be champion…someday…he will…and his grandparents will see his face on the broadcasts and know him.

And I…never doubted that.

Because he never wanted my…my praise. He had his hero. Goroh…became his father…his better father. I was just a cook.

You look like him. But you must have a father too.

Make sure…he is nothing like us, and I won't blame this on you.

Will he re--mem--

You--you--tell him--a…bout me?

My mem--ry--to--my wife…

Look…

Rain…it's raining…