Chapter 9: Pieces of Crap

By the time Palutena had finished beating Kratos, the Cyclops had finished beating Revan. The Dark Lord of the Sith had fought defiantly all the way, though. His mastery of the Dark Side of the Force had allowed him to match the Cyclops's oversized cortorsis club, and his use of lightning had done serious damage to an arm of the Cyclops. He had only been beaten when he'd pressed a wrong button in the quick time sequence and the beast had stuck his head into Ivysaur's flower.

Kratos hadn't stood a chance.

Red was the only one not physically or emotionally hurt, so he took over. "Come back Ivysaur," he summoned, and drew another pokéball. "Go Charizard! Hey Pit! Shoot the Cyclops in the eye!"

Pit, who had been in tears from earlier, nodded a little and then shot the target in question with barely a glance. The Cyclops roared in agony as it was struck blind by the innocent little angel. Pit beamed in joy as he watched Charizard then tear into her opponent. Kratos, unwilling to be outdone by an orange dragon that gave birth to a pink floating cat thing, leapt to his feet and used his blades help cut the Cyclops's legs off.

"Wait a minute, how come there isn't any blood?" Kratos asked.

"This is Nintendo," Red answered.

"But what No More Heroes or Madworld? I know for a fact there was blood in there."

Red paused and thought about that for a moment. After some thought, he really had no answer for the warrior. So he shrugged. Red was about to ask Revan, but it looked like exposure to the inside of Ivysaur's bulb had exposed the Sith Lord to something more mind altering. Currently, Revan was slowly moving his lightsaber back and forth, staring wide eyed at the blade.

"Dude, it just blinked," he swore. Red sighed as Pit started watching too in an attempt to see the lightsaber blink. Well, as long as Pit didn't get high either, Palutena wouldn't kill him.

On the other side of the cave, Kratos and Charizard were close to taking down the Cyclops. It roared as Kratos jumped on it to yank its eyeball out. But before he could, the baby Mew leapt from Red's arms, stuck out its tongue, and devoured the Cyclops in one swallow. "Mew," it called.

"What—on the other hand, I'm not sure I want to know," Red muttered. "It must be a mutation from being parented by a Charizard and a Mew." Kratos's eye twitched. Between being routinely killed by a helicopter goddess and the rules of Nintendo's world, he was close to snapping and killing everyone in sight. The only things stopping him was that the people currently killed would include Pit; if Pit died then Kratos was certain Palutena would make sure he ended up dead as well. He wasn't looking forward to dying again.

"Let's get whatever this Cyclops was guarding then," Kratos growled. He grabbed a phased out Revan, and Red and Pit followed him further into the cave. There it narrowed into a single passage, with a sign every now and then to tell them they were going in the right direction. All they had to endure was Revan's attempts to eat his lightsaber.

Finally, after several minutes of marching, they reached end of the cave. At the far wall, the surfaces turned to polished and cut silver. A silver stand, narrow and leading up to a flat square that had a red velvet cushion on it, stood out. And there, resting on the velvet cushion, was the piece of the relic that they had just fought for, that could help save them from the ESRB.

"What the h^%! It's a piece of crap!" Kratos screamed.

The relic was a pair of AA batteries.


As Kratos cursed about their acquirement of the relic AA batteries, Samus was leading her team further on. She was trying her hardest to ignore Garrus's jibes behind her, Toon Link's incessant philosophizing about what the implications would be if his older self was in a relationship with her, and Pikachu's occasional assurances that his new world order would wipe Garrus off the planet. This was all Link's fault. He was the source of her problems. Of course, she couldn't help but dream that he would come and solve them, too.

Bah; forget Link and his stupid green hat thing. She was better off with that pointy eared, green loving, grinning, amusing, kind-hearted, good looking—dang it! She was doing it again!

"Well," Samus said out loud, catching everyone's attention as she tried to distance herself from her own thoughts. "Do any of you have any idea where to go to next?"

"There's a forest up ahead," Garrus indicated.

"Good enough. We'll keep going straight then until we either find help or die. At this rate, it might be die," Samus growled.

"But if you die, then Link will be sad, and Pikachu looks sad already!" Toon Link defended. Samus sighed and face palmed her helmet. Ness was the only kid who had a lot of sense outside of his own gaming realm rules. And he just had to be a jerk about it too. Red was good enough… until you took him away from what he knew. Same with the others. Lucas might have been smart, but he was too timid to do much but follow the others around and scream when they managed to get stuck in the well again.

A beeping alarm threw off Samus's thoughts. She frowned and checked to see what the problem was, but it didn't take her long to find out. "Guys? When did we end up upside down and tied hanging over boiling pots?"

"Wha—Huh? How did I get here?" Garrus asked back.

"Pika?" Pikachu answered. What the Furret?

Toon Link didn't even have an answer. Samus gritted her teeth and set on finding a way out of their sudden predicament. Her arms were bound to her sides and she didn't have a clear shot on anything other than Garrus; then again… Her only other option was to turn into a morph ball, but that was mean dropping into something boiling that she couldn't recognize except as probably lethal.

"We have you!"

The voice came from nowhere, and Samus had to enhance her vision tens of times to realize the surfaces were alive with billions of tiny people. "That's right!" one of them went on. "We are the Minish, and we will destroy you ESRB spies!"

Samus groaned. The only people who were doing something about the ESRB besides themselves, and they were completely wrong. "We're not spies; we're looking for something to help defeat them," Samus argued.

"Liars! Why should we believe you?" one asked. Samus looked over at Toon Link, and the kid was more than ready to tell him who he was.

However, Toon Link was cut off as he opened his mouth; one other party member had something to say. "Pika Pikachu!" the yellow Pokémon screamed. I am Pikachu your new Emperor and you will untie me! The Minish looked among themselves for some sort of answer to the claim.

"I didn't know we had an emperor," one Minish remarked to the others. "I thought we were an autonomous collective."

"You're fooling yourself!" another retorted to the first Minish. "We're living in a dictatorship. A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working class—"

"Oh there you go bringing class into it again."

"That's what it's all about! If only people would—"

"Hi!" Toon Link finally managed, interrupting the debaters. "It's me, Toon Link!"

The Minish paused, and Samus could see them all moving closer to get a good look. "Toon Link!" they cheered, and cut down the kid hero and moved him to safety. "It's good to see you! But what are you doing with these people?"

"These are my friends," Toon Link explained. "You have to let Samus go, because older me likes her."

"Doesn't that mean you do too?"

"I'm not sure yet," Toon Link replied as Samus was saved from being boiled as well. "Oh, and you have to save Pikachu because he's Samus's friend!" Pikachu was removed from hanging as well, and jumped to Samus's shoulder. "And Garrus…"

Garrus looked hopefully at Toon Link, only to realize the kid was thinking about his relationship to himself. Unable to decide, Toon Link turned to Samus. "What do you think?" he asked her.

From behind her visor, Garrus could sense an evil expression coming. "Crap."


Gasping once more, Mewtwo used his power to speed the other four through the sky towards their destination. What their destination was, they didn't know. However, Link usually did well charging off into random places so he felt pretty good about it. After an hour, they slowed as Mewtwo reeled in pain, clutching his head. "What's wrong?" Cloud asked.

"I sense a disturbance," Mewtwo moaned. "Captain Falcon has suddenly begun… chasing Dawn, Peach, Zelda, Lyn, and Jigglypuff…"

"Crap," Link muttered.

They landed outside a place they hadn't been to before. It was a tower that was white with a strange diamond pattern on the exterior. Surrounding the tower was a giant wall, similar in design. It looked like there were guards of some sort inside the walls, so Mewtwo placed them down outside the walls. A steel gate barricaded the only entrance, locked with a giant steel chain lock.

"Don't worry, Lord Kirby," Altair began, kneeling to the pink puffball. "Your humble servant, Altair, will climb the walls and unlock the gate from the other side for you." He stood up and looked at the wall, only to find everybody up there. Mewtwo had teleported up. Kirby had flown up. Cloud had jumped. Link had killed the key master, unlocked the gate, killed all of the guards, and then climbed up the stairs to join them.

Feeling depressed, Altair climbed up after them, completely ignoring the open gate.

Once they were all in front of the tower, they went in. Inside was nothing more than a revolving staircase that led up to a top floor. Altair cracked his knuckles and turned to carry Lord Kirby up the stairs… and was too late again. Kirby had flown, Mewtwo had teleported, Cloud had jumped, and Link had used Farore's Wind. "I feel very small in Kirby's sight," Altair whispered as he ran up to join them.

A single man, wielding a sword, was waiting for them. "Hello, Link and friends," the man greeted. He had fiery red hair and was dressed in strange clothing that looked faintly familiar to Link. He drew his sword and faced them, ready for a battle.

"Wait, I know you," Link called. "You're Joshua of Fire Emblem."

Joshua nodded. "Yeah, I am. After I was paid for my role in FE8, I got a job defending the relic that is contained above us. I have to kill anyone who is unworthy of accessing it. Anyone who is worthy, I have to tell them how to access the relic," he explained. "It's a little rough, since I don't get many days off to go see Natasha, but it pays well and I get great benefits."

"You see, this is what Sony needs," Cloud grumbled. "We don't have any retirement or supplementary careers other than casting, and it really sucks that they screwed me out of royalties for that movie."

"Are we worthy?" Altair asked. "We must be; Lord Kirby is with us."

"The only way to find out is for me to fight you. If you win, you're worthy. If you're dead, then not," Joshua explained. "They were specific about that; this relic's highly important."

"Is it AA batteries?" Mewtwo asked.

"No, but it uses AA batteries," Joshua answered the question. He dropped into a fighting stance. Link and Cloud drew their weapons. Joshua wasn't the main character of his Fire Emblem game, but games didn't always tell the truth. He was one of the greatest swordsmen ever born, and probably could take Sephiroth with just an iron sword. And right now he had an official Nintendo Relic Guardian; those things packed a punch. This wouldn't be an easy fight by a long shot.

Altair began to draw his sword as well, but then he paused. "Wait; what if we made a coin flip first?" he asked. Joshua immediately lowered his sword and fished a coin out of his pocket.

"Sure; I haven't had a bet in decades," he said, eyes gleaming with anticipation. "Call it." They did, and Joshua flipped the coin into the air. It came down and the swordsman snatched it out of the air before revealing what it was. "Dang; I lost. All right, so instead of maiming all of you I'll just tell you how to access the relic instead."

Link, Cloud, and Mewtwo sighed in relief and put their swords away. Kirby smiled and patted Altair on the boot for his good work. Altair promptly passed out from enthusiasm. "So how do we get this relic?" Link asked.

"That's easy. There are six switches on the floor, right?" Joshua noted. "You have to stand on all of them and the relic will be lowered down. But they can only be pressed down by actual weight and no magic. Furthermore, I can't help you at all with it or I'll risk my job. So it looks like the five of you are out of luck."

"What if we knock you out and use your body?" Mewtwo questioned.

"Good point," Joshua noted. He turned and jumped out the window instead. They watched him hit the ground, briefly die, come back to life, and run home to Jehanna.

"Dedication," Link noted.

Cloud snorted. "Hey, didn't you hear how great his benefits were?" he reminded. "But what are we going to do? There's you, me, Mewtwo, Kirby, and that Altair passed out over there, but that's only five of us. We need one more person."

At the sound of one more person, Kirby perked up and ran over to where they were. He opened his mouth, reached around for something inside, and then spat out a saliva soaked Roy.

"FREEDOM!" Roy cried, stretching his arms to the heavens.

"I thought I'd bumped into somebody else at some point," Mewtwo muttered.

Once the shock had worn off of Roy and they'd informed him of the situation, they set to getting the relic. They woke up Altair and then they all stood on a switch. Just as Joshua had assured, part of the ceiling lowered to reveal the relic, sitting on a red velvet cushion.

The six could only stare at the relic.

Link scratched his head. Cloud gaped. Kirby thought about eating it. Altair swore obeisance to Kirby. Mewtwo gaped at it. Roy kept distance from Kirby. Finally one of them were able to speak. "This is it?" Roy asked. "I was inside Kirby for years on end, finally freed during the gaming equivalent of Armageddon, and we just scored a sacred rock?"

"A rock with an insert for AA batteries," Mewtwo added.

They stared at the strange rock some more. Finally Link picked it up and put it in his pocket. "Well, on that weird note, back to saving all known gaming?" he asked. The others shrugged and they started heading back down. One thought was going through all of their minds. How was the author going to manage to increase the epicness while finding better humor than a sacred rock with a spot for AA batteries?


A/N: Increase of 5 Karma to the person who can recognize the quote.