"Are you serious right now."

"Well, I'd assume if they weren't serious, they wouldn't have—owww!"

"It was a rhetorical question, princey boy."

The Smashers stood around the bulletin board, trying to digest the information spread before them. There was a picture of a man dressed almost entirely in black, with a sword to eclipse even the Monado or Ragnell. But perhaps the most striking thing about him was the mass of blond spiky hair that rested upon his head.

From the crowd, Wario asked, "Uh, who is this, and why do we care?"

"It's Cloud Strife, nimrod, only one of the most famous characters of the multiverse," replied Yoshi. "And we care because he's going to become a Smasher!... for some reason."

There was a quick, brisk knock at the front door. Before anyone could react, Master Hand fretfully rushed past them, leaving a trail of papers in his wake. "Oh, for goodness' sakes…!" He ineffectually tried to pick them up one by one. Considering he was a giant hand, this was very difficult.

Shulk spoke up. "Master Hand, do you… need any help?" The hand dismissively waved him off. "Nonono, it's fine, really, I-I just need—" He was interrupted by more knocking at the door. "Oh, for the love of—coming! Mario, go answer the door. As you can see, I'm very busy at the moment."

Mario trotted towards the door as the knocking intensified. After a certain incident involving a scavenger hunt, the glass doors had been replaced with large, ornate wooden doors. With a great heave, he pushed the door open, if only to stop the now-endless sound of knocking.

"Hello, how can I help-a yo—oh…!"

There stood the man whose picture was on the bulletin board, toned and lean. Wearing a black sleeveless shirt and hoisting a giant sword over his shoulder, he stared down at the plumber. He was holding an envelope with a red wax seal bearing the Smash Bros. logo. "Uh, yeah, this letter told to come here for some tournament… It's the weirdest thing, 'cause a giant talking glove gave it to me…" Mario simply stared at Cloud. Upon closer inspection, it wasn't the sword that was striking: it was his eyes, an unnatural shade of blue. Master Hand floated in behind Mario.

"Ah, yes, the newcomer! Cloud, was it? Yes, I thought so." The hand puffed himself up. "My name is Master Hand. Welcome to Super Smash Brothers. You'll have to excuse appearances today, we're currently very busy!" He gestured to the other Smashers. "These will be your opponents, associates, and hopefully even friends. See if you can make yourself acquainted with them. …Normally I'd have a much more ornate speech prepared, but as I said before, I'm simply swamped with votes! Well, I must be going now—oh, jeez, brother, I told you to wait."

Crazy Hand had floated onto the scene, and was putting up a "Welcome, Cloud Strife" banner. "Aw, come on, do I have to wait?" He noticed Cloud standing in the lobby. "Heyyyy! Welcome, newbie!" he hollered, as he waved excitedly.

Cloud stared at the waving hand. He was honestly startled to see that there were two giant talking hands (as if one giant talking hand wasn't enough), but he shrugged it off. After all, he'd seen plenty of bizarre things.

"I will warn you, though," said Crazy Hand with an informative finger pointed up. "You must never look into the silver treasure chest in the dungeon. The last guy that tried that? Reduced to nothing but a dirty rag. …Well, have fun enjoying yourself! Toodles!" And with that, Crazy Hand swooped back into his office.

Master Hand sighed. "You'll have to excuse my brother, Cloud. He's always had a fondness for being… himself. Anyways, I must take my leave. In the meantime, go on and mingle with your compatriots!" Master Hand floated back into the office, leaving Cloud alone with fifty Smashers staring at him.

"…Hm." Cloud awkwardly shuffled his feet. He wasn't exactly sure how to greet the odd cast of characters before him. He'd seen a lot of bizarre things in his adventures, but none of them quite like this. At last, the mustachioed red man stepped forward. "Well, let-a me be the first to say welcome to the Smash-a Mansion. It's-a me, Mario!" He offered his hand, which Cloud took.

The other Smashers inched closer to Cloud, eyeing him up and down. Murmurs arose among the crowd:

"Look at the size of that sword!"

"I know, right? Clearly he must be—hey!"

"You hush. Acting like he can't hear us…"

"Forget the sword, look at how handsome he is!"

"Puh-lease, this guy's nothin' new. We're already crawling with guys with faces like that anyway."

Mario turned to face everyone else. "Alrighty, let me introduce-a you to the others." He gestured to a tall, skinny green man. "This here's my bro, Luigi." Luigi scratched the back of his head and waved awkwardly. Next was a woman in an elegant pink dress. "And-a this is Princess Peach." The woman (Who names their kid Peach? thought Cloud.) smiled and curtsied.

Before Mario could introduce the next Smasher, a large turtle-like creature shoved his way to the front of the group. "And-a here, we have—oh, hello, Bowser."

Bowser sneered down his nose at the newcomer. Cloud kept a tight grip on his sword. He hadn't been here for ten minutes, and already there was someone he didn't like.

"So," Bowser growled, "this is the famous Cloud Strife." He stared him up and down, then turned to the crowd as Mario had. "Getta load of this guy's hairdo!" he jeered. "What'd ya do, steal Lucas' hair gel stash?" Giggles rose from the crowd as a blond boy—obviously Lucas—tried to shrink away. "And another thing!" Bowser plucked the Buster Sword out of his hands. "What's this thing?"

"That," Cloud growled, "is my Buster Sword. If you don't mind, I'd really like to have that ba—" He was interrupted by Bowser flattening out his hair so he could rest his elbow on his head. "This is a sword?! It's the weirdest thing, I have a meat cleaver that looks just like this!" He held the giant sword up to the light. "Wooooow. Pittoo was right, you are compensating." The giggles increased, punctuated by Pittoo saying, "Stop calling me that!"

Mario stepped in to break up a potential fight. "Alrighty, alrighty, that's enough-a." Bowser tossed the Buster Sword back to Cloud. "Feh, whatever. Pretty boy-types like him, they're a dime a dozen." He stomped away, making sure to step on Luigi's feet as he went.

"Ignore him," advised Mario. "He may be a villain, but he's-a not necessarily a bad guy. Now then, about-a everyone else…"

And so, Cloud met all the other Smashers, from the relatively mundane ("This is the Duck Hunt dog. Now, now, Cloud, don't-a get too upset! Hee hee!") to the strangely familiar ("This is Link from-a Hyrule. …Hmmm? You say he looks-a familiar?") to the downright bizarre ("Mr. Game & Watch is… eh…" "A Superflat Worlder." "…Sure, why not."). With over fifty of them, it was a long and tedious process.

An exhausted Cloud slumped over on a couch in the break room. Meeting so many weird people in such a short time really sucked the life out of a person. But now that that little meet-and-greet was over, he finally had some time to himself. He smiled and closed his eyes. He wasn't scheduled to actually participate in any matches for a long while, so he had plenty of time to relax…

"Hey, you!"

…Of course.

Cloud opened his eyes. Staring down at him was a very irritated-looking red-haired man. "You're… Roy, right?"

Roy snorted offendedly. "Are you—are you serious?" He addressed the almost-empty room. "Is this guy for real right now?" he asked no one in particular. Charizard and Olimar, the only other people in the room, paid his question no attention.

Cloud sat up. To his mild surprise, Roy was holding his sword. "Listen, here, bub, you must think you're soooo special, huh? 'Oooh, look at me, I'm Clod Stripes—'" ("It's Cloud Strife," put in Cloud) "'and I've got a pretty face, spiky hair, and a big ol' meat cleaver! Well, I've got news for you, buddy!" He scowled down at Cloud. "You're nothin' special," he hissed. "If anyone's the lovable spiky-haired swordsman, it's me."

Cloud stared at him, bored. He'd honestly expected something more from him. He lay back down. Probably not worth his time.

Roy was none too pleased about being ignored. "Yeah?! Well… I—" he sputtered. "I challenge you! Come on, let's go! Mano y mano!"

Charizard heated up his coffee with his fire breath. "Roy, you really need to chill out. So we've got another swordfighter. Big whoop. Just because someone's got a sword doesn't mean they're stealing your thunder."

"Indeed," put in Olimar. "In fact, statistics have shown that just under twenty percent of all fighters here use a sword."

Roy pouted and crossed his arms. "But just look at the size of that thing! He's so obviously—" Charizard held up a claw to stop him. "Dude, he's literally right there."

Roy sat in a chair and angrily gnawed on a bran muffin. The flame Pokémon sat across from him. "Listen, man, jealousy never looks good on anyone," he said sagely. "I know Cloud's the new big thing right now, but you shouldn't let that get to you. Remember when Ryu first arrived and everyone got all excit—oh, come on."

Roy had taken a marker and was about doodling all over Cloud's sleeping face. Charizard leapt into action. "What are you doing?!" Charizard asked heatedly. "Are you really that immature?"

"Hold on a minute," said the prince without looking up. "I'm going to draw an actual cloud… with a dumb face, like he has!"

"Alright, that's it." Charizard snatched the marker out of Roy's hands. "I honestly expected better from you, Roy." The prince rolled his eyes. "Charizard, if you're going to lecture me, can you hurry it up? Cloud's gonna wake up any second now, and I wanna draw him with a big ol' pair of buck teeth."

"No! You can't just draw on Cloud's face! What if he wakes up and he sees you? Then how will you explain yourself? 'Oh, sorry, Cloud, I was busy drawing on you 'cause I've been insecure about myself ever since I wasn't invited to the Brawl tournament! Now hold still while I finish up this rude saying!' Is that what you're gonna say?"

"…Maybe."

Charizard's claw met his forehead. "You're missing the point, man. You shouldn't be drawing on Cloud's face! It's rude, vulgar, embarrassing, and—"

"Ahem." Olimar's voice came from behind a chair. "Charizard, remember that little talk we had about fire hazards?"

"Whuh?" Charizard looked at his tail, and what he saw caused his heart to stop and his blood to turn to ice.

Cloud's once dangerously spiky hair was now on fire, burning nearly to his scalp. Of course, Charizard's flame-tipped tail was a couple of inches from Cloud's ear. And to make matters worse, Cloud was just about to wake up.

"Hmmm…" Cloud smacked his lips. "Why is Bahamut orange…?" He rubbed his eyes. "Say, does anyone else smell smoke?"

Charizard stared helplessly at Cloud while Roy tried to stifle a laugh. "Okay, whatever you do, don't look in a mirror…"

Cloud stared at the dragon worriedly for a split second, then pulled out a pocket mirror to look into. In a moment that seemed to go on forever, he almost didn't react. Then…

…

Far away from the scene, Yoshi and Pac-Man's game of chess came to a sudden pause.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Pac-Man. "What—or who—was that?!"

"Dunno," shrugged the dinosaur, working to right himself after nearly falling out of his chair. "Kinda sounded like… Oh! Lei-Fei!"

"…Who?"

"Mamma mia, that was a close one, eh? Luckily Charizard and Olimar brought you here just in time! Now hold-a still…"

Cloud winced as Dr. Luigi rinsed his scalp. His hair hadn't been totally burnt, but the golden sea urchin that once rested upon his head was now nothing more than peach fuzz, if the peach in question had been cooked medium rare. Off to the side, Charizard looked guilty with his head hung low. Olimar looked worried, while Roy just looked apathetic.

"It's not your fault, Charizard," Cloud reassured for the seventh time that day. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "My first day here, and I'm already getting injured…"

"Well, look on-a the bright side!" put in Dr. Luigi helpfully. "A lot of the fighters here use-a fire, so think of it as a taste of what's-a to come!" This suggestion was met with the deadpan stares of everyone present. "…Right. Lemme just-a get the ointment." He turned and left for the infirmary's back room.

With Dr. Luigi gone, the four Smashers were left alone. Roy broke the silence. "I would just like to say… it doesn't look that bad. In fact, that look actually works on you."

Cloud merely gave him a sideways glance. "I'm just glad Tifa or Yuffie aren't around to see this… They'd never let me hear the end of it."

"I suppose we should keep this little incident under wraps," said Olimar. "After all, word spreads quickly around here, and who know what would happen if someone like Bowser or—"

"Did someone mention the King of Awesome?"

"Speak of the devil."

The lumbering Koopa King stomped into the infirmary, a wicked grin spread across his reptilian face. "Darn tootin', 'speak of the devil'! So I heard our little newbie got a stylin' new haircut." His eyes fell on the ex-SOLDIER. Bowser paused, then burst into laughter. "Gwa ha ha ha! Oh man, it's better than I imagined! Get a load of this! It's like someone shaved his head and pressed a hot iron on it! Ohoho, this is just too rich!"

Bowser's loud voice carried through the walls, and soon more Smashers appeared at the infirmary door. Cloud buried his face in his hands. Dr. Luigi reappeared with a bottle of ointment, and was shocked at the sudden appearance of almost a dozen Smashers. "Hey now, come on, get outta here! Cloud needs his-a privacy!" he said as he tried to send them away. But the doctor's insistence that they leave only served to attract yet more Smashers.

"Oh my goodness!" cried Zelda. "Cloud, are you all right?"

Wario, on the other hand, was much less sympathetic, and fell on the floor laughing with the Duck Hunt dog. "Wahahahaa! Look at 'im! He's bald! Bald as a bean!"

Captain Falcon winced at the sight of Cloud's burnt scalp. "Ooooh, that's gotta sting. Hey, Marth, this reminds me of the time—"

"I thought I told you not to go there."

"Alrighty, that's enough," said Dr. Luigi with finality. "Everyone-a go on. Leave-a Cloud in-a peace, thank you very much. Okeydokey, bye-bye." The Smashers, having lost interest in Cloud's scorched scalp, dispersed. As Bowser left, he threw a final remark over his shoulder. "Catch ya later, Spikesy McCleaver."

"Spikesy McCleaver? That doesn't even sound original," said Cloud as Dr. Luigi rubbed the long-awaited ointment on his scalp. The sudden silence and gaze aversion tipped Cloud off that something was wrong. "What? What happened?"

Dr. Luigi sighed as he began wrapping gauze around Cloud's head. "I wasn't going to tell you this, but… the burnt hair isn't the only thing that happened. Have a look…" He held up a mirror for Cloud to see the damage done.

Scrawled all over Cloud's face was a variety of rude drawings and phrases, including, but not limited to, a cloud with a silly-looking face, a buck-toothed caricature of Cloud, a handlebar mustache right under his nose, and, of course, 'Spikesy McCleaver'.

Cloud nearly dropped the mirror in horror. "W-wh—who did this?!" The question was intoned with shock more than anger.

Right away, Charizard pointed a claw at Roy. "It was all him." Roy's hands went to his chest in faux-innocence. "Me?! I am honestly shocked, shocked at you, Charizard. I, ruin Cloud's beautiful face? Never!"

"You literally threatened him just an hour ago."

"Threatened is such a strong word." As he said it, the offending marker fell out of his sleeve. "…That's not mine."

Cloud's eye twitched in anger. Sensing danger, Dr. Luigi shooed them out of the infirmary. Once they were outside, Cloud took out his Buster Sword and rested on it. "Alright, you better have a good excuse for this."

Olimar quickly stepped in, hoping to avoid a conflict. "Now, now, Cloud, I'm sure Roy didn't mean to cause you such humiliation." He looked to Charizard for backup. However, the flame Pokémon was perfectly fine with watching Roy get carved up. He shrugged his shoulders. "Have fun slicing him up," he said, stomping away.

The Hocotatian had to think quickly. He racked his brains for something, anything that would help. What had happened while Cloud was asleep?

"Well, I've got news for you, buddy! You're nothin' special. If anyone's the lovable spiky-haired swordsman, it's me…"

…That's it!

"He's jealous," Olimar blurted out. Cloud looked taken aback, as did Roy. "Jealous?" they repeated.

"Yes, Roy is jealous," Olimar replied. "He's jealous of your, ah…good looks! Yes, that's it!" Roy looked scandalized. "Jealous?!" he hissed. "I am not—" Olimar stopped him with a hand. "Just let me handle this," he whispered. "Do you want to get cut to ribbons? Now, as I was saying…"

"Roy has been jealous from the start. He feels threatened by you, Cloud. You see, Roy is a veteran, but he has only recently returned to the tournament. Now that he has become stronger, he wants to prove himself to those that thought he was nothing more than a Marth clone." Roy winced at the words "Marth clone". Even though this was only his second time around, he knew a surprising amount about the Smashers. Olimar continued. "But then you came along, and Roy took as an attempt to steal your thunder. So he sought to vandalize your image by writing all those mean things on your face. But now he realizes the error of his ways." ("I do?" "Yes, you do!") Surely, surely, you can find it in your heart to forgive him, right?"

Both swordsmen made eye contact. Roy suddenly felt very nervous. It was like Cloud's piercing blue eyes could see right into his soul. "Are… you really jealous of me?"

Roy looked between Cloud and Olimar. He sighed. As much as he hated to admit it, he was, on some level, jealous of Cloud. Gritting his teeth, he spat out, "Yes, I'm… jealous."

Cloud's expression softened. "Well, Roy, you need to understand that being jealous and slandering others isn't the way to do things. If you're jealous of me, you can use that motivation to enhance your own abilities. Who knows? Maybe you could become the strongest fighter here. So what do you say?" He extended his hand in peace.

Roy's mouth worked as he considered his question. After some deliberation, he took his hand and shook it. "Fine…" Olimar beamed and breathed a sigh of relief. "Technically, Olimar said I was jealous, not me." The ex-SOLDIER chuckled.

"So… what now?"

The three Smashers were alone in the hallways. "I say," suggested Olimar, "three tall glasses of Pikpik carrot juice from the pub. My treat!" After the day they'd had, that was as welcoming as a warm blanket. As the Smashers walked off together, Cloud asked, "So, what's really inside the silver treasure chest in the dungeon?"

"Trust me, you don't want to know."

Author's Notes: Honestly, I have nothing against Cloud. However, he is, without a doubt the most unexpected newcomer we've seen yet. In fact, it's pretty surreal...

Next time on Super Smash World: The ballot results are in! Or are they? Who knows!