Hack: This chapter was pretty long, and I got pretty lazy on the Cackletta fight too. Sorry... But I'm more focused on the general plot. Trust me, the next worlds will be much more involved than this...
Chapter 10: A Lightning Charged Fight
Popo, Nana, Marth, Pichu, and Kirby stood at the entrance of the Smash Mansion, Kirby furiously knocking on the door.
"I can't believe that I have to go with a bunch of little brats…" Marth murmured.
"Shut up! We can all hear you from down here!" Pichu yelled.
"There's nobody answering! What's taking them so long?" Kirby complained as he knocked on the door again. "And I didn't hear any explosions yet, and we've waited here for half an hour. I'd expect even Captain Falcon to open the door for us!"
"Move aside, Kirby!" Popo shoved Kirby aside with Nana next to him, then they both smashed the stable door down with their dual hammers. The group of five walked inside, expecting to see the previous group of five in the mansion.
Instead, they saw the dark insides of the mansion, no power, no people, none. None at all.
"What the hell…" Everyone but Marth said. Marth bravely walked into the room and spotted a note on the floor.
Hey, it's Samus! For the next group coming over to watch over the hands, we've left. Supposedly, we're supposed to save the world from these weirdos that have this power of the Endowment of Exigency. I hope you all have fun staying here without any power, because the power source is out.
"No… electricity?" Pichu cried, tears falling on his face. But his voice was barely heard.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The four others yelled. "WE CAN'T WATCH SEINFELD!"
"There, I've brought you that carcass," said Nergal. "Now what do you want me to do with it?"
The other dark one looked at Nergal. "Was there any more power of the Endowment of Exigency in Ridley?"
"No, and even if there was any power, I'd take the precious power for myself…"
"You know what the master would do if he heard you say that, Nergal."
"Well the master may be more powerful than me, but it is impossible for you to lay a finger on him either, Black Shadow!"
Black Shadow entered the light from the darkness. "Yes, it may be, but remember that I am unmatched in technique by anyone in here. The only ones that have defeated me in fair combat are the master and Metaknight. You have only defeated King K. Rool, Nergal…"
"By the way, was it you that killed him, Black Shadow?"
"No, and if you weren't here, I'd believe it was you, since he was so much of a weakling that even you can defeat him."
"You are angering me…"
"Of course. That is the point."
"...someone stole King K. Rool's powers too. I suspect it was someone of our league."
"Hmph. If so?"
"I will probably be next."
"Go right ahead. Get killed. Get your precious power stolen."
"Never! I will arm myself and become stronger than all of you! I will find those who have been defeated and take their power! The next one most likely to be killed will be Cackletta."
"You don't have faith that she will defeat the Mario Brothers?"
"No. She is a weakling. She does not even know how to unleash her Ren Kiu form."
"Neither do you, Nergal."
"Shut your blabbering mouth, fool. I shall master it one day, and my ranking shall go up!"
"Whatever."
"What about the plans to conquer the worlds?"
Black Shadow smiled evilly. "They are all already in action."
"You don't seem so tough now, do you Luigi?" Cackletta cackled. Luigi panted, obviously tired. He faced over a hundred Cacklettas, and all but one was fake clones. Next to him was an unconscious Mario.
Luigi was constantly moving to dodge the constant barrages of lightning bolts; there were too many of them to control. He just mastered these new powers recently anyways.
"Damn it, there's too many of them…" He murmured as he jumped to the nearest clone and took it out with a powerful punch. He jumped on another and kicked off of it, landing on the ground.
Mario coughed and slowly kneeled up. Luigi looked down at him.
"Mario! You're back?"
"Ow… It's impossible for me to take her out alone…"
"Yeah… Well it's been a while… Let's do it together."
Both brothers held hands. "Yeah," said Mario. Luigi quickly jumped on Mario's head with an electric orb charged in his hands. Mario threw Luigi up into the air as Luigi shot the orb into the ground, zapping everything on the ground. Mario quickly hopped to avoid this. The clones weren't so lucky, as all of them disappeared except for the real deal.
"What?" Cackletta gasped. Before she could do anything else, Mario jumped on top of Luigi. Luigi grabbed his brother's feet as they both floated through the air, spinning like a top.
"Advanced?" Luigi asked.
"Of course."
Cackletta drew her wand and shot a bolt of electricity at Luigi. Luigi quickly threw Mario into the air with his head as he stopped the bolt with a snap. Mario, spinning like a top, dropped into Cackletta, drilling into her body.
"Advanced Splash Brothers!" Mario cried as he expertly flipped off of Cackletta. Cackletta slowly got back on her feet, staggering.
"You… I won't meet that same fate as before! Take this!" A dark hole appeared below Luigi, who was alert enough to jump to the side to avoid it. Soon, Mario dodged another dark hole, attempting to swallow him.
"Is that it? You're just using the same tricks as before!" Luigi yelled. "And I expected you to be more powerful than before!"
"I'm only getting warmed up!" said Cackletta as she boarded her broom and hovered high above the Mario brothers. She briefly lifted her hands up, crying "Thunderbolt!"
A single bolt of lightning shot out from her wand, aimed at Mario. Mario quickly wavedashed backwards to avoid it, but the moment the bolt touched the ground, an enormous force field of electricity engulfed Mario, shocking him.
Luigi acted quickly. He held his hand at the force field and snapped, using his mind and hands to make it disappear. When it disappeared, however, Mario was nowhere to be seen!
"Mario!" Luigi cried. Cackletta smiled.
"Well, well, my attack must have made him disappear!" she cackled. "Not so cocky now, are you?"
Luigi said nothing. Cackletta quickly fired several thunderbolts at Luigi, who simply deflected them with his hands as he ran towards the wall. He jumped up high and kicked off the wall to gain more height, in range of Cackletta.
"What?"
Fire surrounded his right arm, while electricity surrounded his left arm. Before Cackletta could do anything, Luigi charged both his hands into Cackletta's body, engulfing her with shocking fires.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" she cried, falling off her broom. Luigi grabbed her broom as he fell, and snapped it in half with his knee with little trouble. On the ground, he whirled around to see the witch, back on her feet again.
"I've been holding back up until now… I won't hold anything back now!" Cackletta cried as she held her palms out in the front. An enormous force field surrounded her.
"You can't hurt me now, I am now invincible with the power of the Star Rod! You can't possibly defeat me!"
Luigi still stayed silent. He quickly ran up to Cackletta, deflecting all bolts of lightning shot towards him. He flipped into the air and landed on the witch's arm. He kicked off, at the same time delivering a karate chop to her face. As he fell, he gave a fierce drill kick and upwards flip kick at Cackletta's back, causing her to fall. She immediately got back on her feet yet again, seemingly unharmed.
"I told you, you can't harm me now you fool!"
"…so it really is the star rod… But do you know its full potential?"
"What? Of course I do! I am the great witch!"
"Yeah right, you'd have destroyed me by now if you knew it. Sorry, but I'm pretty sure that I can break through your barriers."
Out of anger, Cackletta shot multiple bolts of lightning at Luigi, who simply deflected them to the side telepathically. He quickly ran up to the witch and rolled around her, avoiding all of her attacks. He stood behind her and snapped his fingers. An enormous lightning bolt struck Cackletta with full force, piercing the star barriers and zapping Cackletta.
"You know, if you could shoot lightning out of the barriers, then who said the barriers didn't let lightning go in?" said Luigi. "Of course, this wouldn't have happened if you actually knew the star rod's full potential."
"You… insult my witchcraft?" Cackletta said, getting back on her feet. "I was simply caught… off guard!"
"We'll see about that," said Luigi. He took off his white gloves, showing his pitch-black hands. He threw those gloves aside and grabbed a pair of green identical gloves from his pockets.
"I just stitched these recently in my free time on Samus's ship," he explained, strapping them on. "I thought something like this would happen. Why would an idiotic witch like you be able to master the star rod? Even Bowser knows its full potential. Oh, wait, but he's a really powerful guy too. There's no way that someone ten times weaker than someone who could barely master the star rod can do the same."
Cackletta was fuming by now, unable to take any more of Luigi's insults. She immediately raised her hands into the air, black clouds appearing near the ceiling.
"Rain Dance!" she cried as dark rain fell upon everyone in the room. Luigi and Cackletta were both completely drenched in water now, and anyone who ever watched one episode of pokemon should know that water conducts electricity.
"I shall use my most potent attack, an attack that even you can't control!" Cackletta yelled, shaking a finger at Luigi. She raised both her hands into the air, crying "Thunder!"
The clouds above roared as they opened up, allowing various beams of electricity to thunder through. All of them were targeted either at Luigi or near him. Luigi simply stood there, raising one of his hands.
"You underestimate me. Now you will know how much of a difference these new weapons will make." The beams struck the ground and Luigi, sparks flying everywhere. The explosions were so bright that even Cackletta couldn't see anything. When the light disappeared, Luigi was still standing with the same posture, unfazed. Sparks of lightning were seen on his gloves, as if they were charged with electricity.
"What? How could this be? You should be dead by now! What happened? I demand that you tell me!" Cackletta yelled.
"It wouldn't make a difference if I told you now or not, so I'll tell you. Simply put, I absorbed all of your attacks with these gloves."
"Wait… So… you can release it… afterwards?"
"That's for you to find out." Luigi placed his hands on the ground, charging another electric attack. Enormous balls of electricity surrounded his gloves as Luigi started to run towards the witch. He held out his open palms and released the electricity.
"YOU FOOLS CANNOT DEFEAT ME! I AM…" But Cackletta was cut off. Lightning covered every inch of the room in front of Luigi. There was no way for her to dodge it. Bolts of lightning coursed through everything, and pierced through Cackletta's star barrier. And the fact that Cackletta was already wet pretty much guarantees death.
When the lightning disappeared, Cackletta was nowhere to be seen. Her black cloak and her broom were lying on the ground. The entire room in front of Luigi was pitch black, everything burnt to ashes. All of the windows were blown up. Luigi fell on the ground on his back, panting.
"Damn… That was tiring… I never really tried these in a serious fight before…" he said to himself.
Suddenly he felt something heavy crash on his body. Painfully. Another object fell on him. And another. And five more. The last one was definitely the heaviest, as it was ten times heavier than all the other combined.
"Finally! You got us to the right place!" Captain Falcon yelled. "Just trying to break down the door would be much more easier than trusting you to use teleport!"
"Sorry! I'm really sorry!" Jigglypuff cried.
"Stop being so harsh on her!"
"Man, can't you fuckers just shut up?"
"I don't seem to be able to find Luigi or Cackletta in this room…"
"Um, because you all landed on top of me?" Luigi murmured under the pile of people. There were many murmurs of sorry, and everyone got off of Luigi's body.
"What the hell just happened anyways?" Luigi asked.
"That freakin teleport screwed us over…" Bowser said.
"Just shut up!" Samus yelled at him.
"While everyone else is arguing, I'll explain what happened," Geno said as he walked up to Luigi.
After several pointless minutes, Fawful finally gave up on trying to get the door to open.
"My mistress… How will she cope with those fink rats without me? They have locked me out, because fought with my servant I have…"
CRASH! A barrage of lightning bolts struck Fawful off guard, causing him to fall to the ground, unconscious. Peach, Bowser, Geno, and Mallow ran past Fawful, reaching the locked door.
"You're sure that he's an enemy?" Mallow asked.
"Of course. We fought him outside of the princess's castle," Geno answered.
Bowser angrily banged on the door. "Damn it, there's no fucking way to get past this!"
"Really? It must be some sort of spell that Cackletta placed on it. And I think somebody locked the door from inside. I do not believe that sheer strength will open it."
Right on cue, four people fell on top of the group, causing them all to tumble and fall on the ground.
"What the fuck?"
"Who's there?"
"Oh, it's just you guys."
Everyone got back up to see Captain Falcon, Jigglypuff, and Samus standing before them. Samus had Mario on her shoulder.
"Sorry, I misaimed it again…" Jigglypuff apologized. "I'm not used to using Teleport…"
Samus shrugged. "At least you saved Mario with a misaimed teleport, but unless u get it right this time, we can't get back in."
"Man, Mario was in big trouble! He was about to get blown up by a bunch of bolts around him and we teleported right beside him!" Falcon exclaimed.
Peach ran up to Samus, looking at the unconscious Mario. "Is he all right?"
"Just a bit beaten I think, but nothing a good rest can't cure!"
"Hey, can you also get us in that room?" Mallow asked Jigglypuff.
"Well, if all of you can manage to touch me when I use teleport, sure… But I can't guarantee that I'll aim it right…"
"It's worth a try," said Geno. "Let's do it."
"Then we ended up here after a few mis-aimed teleports. Right on top of you," Geno finished his short story.
By then, the room had calmed down and everyone knew what was going on. Mario was still unconscious, however.
"At least I know Mario's safe… And we finished off another villain," said Luigi.
"What villain?" all of the others asked.
Luigi sighed as he laid himself on the ground again. He looked up to the three other smashers. "You tell them everything, I'm exhausted."
The smashers smiled. "Fine, but you'll have to tell us how you beat Cackletta."
And so the smashers told the others everything that happened, their encounter with Metaknight, the defeat of Ridley, the Omega Pirate, and Kraid, and their separation from Fox.
"Wow… And you still have quite a few left…" Peach said.
Bowser nodded. "Don't worry about that punk, he'll definitely beat the shit out of any mother-fucker that messes with him."
"I agree, dude. Fox is a total beast at super smash."
"It's quite a story, I must admit. Right now, we are lucky that none of the civilians got involved with this conflict," said Geno. "I must return the star rod immediately."
"Geno! You just left us the moment we defeated Smithy years ago! This time, can't you just stay with us?" said Peach.
"I'm afraid not."
"Come on!" said Mallow. "Just chill out with us for one night! You'll need that rest."
Peach whirled around to the four smashers. "And I'm not letting you guys off! We're going to have a victory dinner tonight at my castle and you're all going to rest, no excuses! Especially you, Luigi!"
Luigi sighed. "But we're short on time…"
"Not really, it's only been one week. It'll all be over within one month."
Samus sighed as well. "Well, one night can't hurt. Why not?"
"But as Geno mentioned, we were lucky that none of the innocents weren't involved," said Luigi. "We'll have to leave tomorrow immediately. Who knows what could happen in other worlds?"
Peach sighed. "Please, Luigi... You can leave tomorrow at dawn, but at least get some rest."
Two wired frames stood guard directly in front of a large door, the windows showing that they were on a flying ship. Everything around them was somewhat dark, though not black.
"Did you hear?" one of them said. "That King K. Rool got killed! Just today!"
"Yeah, who could survive an explosion like that? He's near the bottom of the villain list and he definitely won't get out!"
"But I heard that it wasn't the explosion that killed him. It was one of the higher authorities."
"Hm?"
The wired frame scooted closer to the other's ear and whispered, "I heard it was Alex."
"So he planted the bomb as well?"
"So the rumors said. He killed King K. Rool right on the spot with his Mercury Adept powers. Psyenergy, he called it? Anyways, he and a couple others figured that King K. Rool wasn't using his powers, the Endowment of Exigency, properly. So they killed him to make sure it doesn't go to waste."
"How selfish."
"Yup. I also heard that… What?"
The other wired frame fell to the ground, a red laser visible through his body. The laser vanished as the one alive searched for the attacker.
BAM. Fox came flying down, storing his sniper rifle and wielding his staff, slamming the end of his staff on the wired frame's head. It immediately went unconscious.
"Damn… I shouldn't have hit him so hard, so I could question him. Oh well!" He looked at the large door that said, "HALBERD"
"Looks like this is the door to the boss's room. Might as well go in." He opened the door, and as he walked in, the doors immediately shut behind him.
Inside, he saw a control center and three people, two very familiar.
"You! What are you doing here, pup?" Wolf yelled.
"…who are you?" Alex asked.
"So we meet again, Fox," said Metaknight.
Fox held out his staff in one hand, a blaster in his other. "Yes, it's me. And I suppose it would bother you guys if I finished all of you one by one?"
Alex walked forward, drawing his sword. "You seem like an interesting enemy, I'll take you on."
"You must be Alex, the fifth in command on the list."
"What the… That's confined information!"
"Information I found on K. Rool's desk, thank you very much. If I defeat you, then I'll be perfectly warmed up to take on you two!" Fox pointed at Wolf and Metaknight.
"Pah! Just because you were able to defeat Ridley's underling doesn't mean you should get so cocky! His power is nothing compared with ours! Froth Spiral!"
Several blue bubbles of water surrounded Alex and shot towards Fox, surrounding and closing in on him. Fox quickly crouched and turned on his reflector, deflecting every bubble shot at him. He quickly ran after wavedashing once towards Alex. He threw his staff forward in a horizontal swing. Alex quickly retaliated by holding out his sword in defense. Fox crouched and swung his staff at Alex's legs, tripping him. He jumped up, preparing himself for a powerful ground quake attack on Alex's head.
Alex quickly jumped up, and cried, "Ice Missile!" Before Fox could initiate his attack, several long, sharp icicles shot towards Fox out of nowhere.
"Stop!" Metaknight cried. Alex quickly stopped his attack and Fox stood up, panting.
Metaknight walked forward. "Alex, stand back. I want to test this man again," he said.
"Who told you could order me around?"
"Who is the one more powerful than you? Who is the one with higher authority?"
Alex silently backed off as Metaknight approached Fox, drawing his long sword.
"You wanted to face me, yes?" he asked.
"Of course. I was itching for a rematch. Trust me, I was only caught by surprise back at the mansion. This time will be different."
"Then let's begin!"
Fox and Metaknight charged towards each other, clanging their weapons. At first, it seemed like they were equal, but Metaknight started to gain an advantage from his small body.
At this point, Metaknight decided to stop playing with Fox. He swiftly jumped into the air to avoid a tail sweep from Fox. He held his sword out like a sex kick and dropped himself on Fox. Fox attempted to bring his staff up to block it, but he was too slow. Metaknight's sword pierced through Fox's shoulder, blood spurting out of it.
"ARGH!" Fox cried, holding his cut arm as Metaknight drew back.
"If you do not keep an eye on your enemy, you will not win!"
"What?"
Metaknight glided forward and threw his sword into Fox's unexpecting body, right next to his stomach. Before Fox could cry out in pain, Metaknight pulled his sword out and diagonally slashed Fox's body again, sending him flying into the wall.
Metaknight slowly approached the almost-unconscious Fox. "Any last words?"
Fox gasped for breath. "You… I'm going to… defeat you one day…"
Metaknight grabbed Fox's body, which seemed weird because Fox was three times taller than Metaknight. The knight dragged Fox toward the window and opened it, seeing another world below.
"Stand up," he said. Fox slowly stood up, trembling in pain and holding his staff out.
"As you can see, we are in outer space. Below us is Eagleland, another world. If you survive this one attack… My Ren Kiu form… And fully recover in that world, then I believe you may grow stronger. Become a worthy enemy of me next time we meet."
Metaknight's body slowly flashed yellow and held a much larger blade. Fox couldn't make out the details, but he could tell it was insanely powerful.
"Halcyon… Form!" said Metaknight. He held the insanely huge blade to his side and dashed towards Fox with frightening speeds. Before Fox could retaliate with his already injured body, Metaknight dealt one final slash on Fox's body, knocking him off of the ship and into the world below.
Metaknight's sword disappeared. "No normal person can survive a slash from this sword. If you do, you are a worthy enemy. Grow stronger, Fox!"