Ike and Pit stood in front of the Silph Co.. It was the tallest building in the city and, compared to the rustic feel of the rest of the city, looked very futuristic. Although glass windows lined the sides of the building in rows, Ike noted they were all closed, preventing one on the outside from looking in. On the same line of thought, two men in olive-colored uniforms stood beside the entrance.
"Here goes nothing," Pit muttered. Ike grunted in agreement. They stepped toward the front doors.
"Hold it," the man on Ike's left said. He and Pit stopped. "Are you entering the Silph Co.?"
Ike returned the man's gaze. "We are."
"The Silph Co. is currently labeled an unstable research environment. We've got some experiments going on in the upper floors which could endanger casual visitors."
"What if we're not casual visitors?" Ike asked. It wasn't a challenge; he honestly wanted to know what would happen.
The man tilted his chin to up to the side a bit. "Do you have business with the Silph Co.?"
"Yes," Ike replied. "It's important. We're willing to risk your...experiments' side-effects. We just need some information."
"Well, orders are orders," the man shrugged. "I would need special permission to let you in at this point."
"Special permission?" It was Ike's turn to get cheeky. "What, may I ask, are you doing in the upper floors of the building that warrants so much concern?"
"That - " The man stopped speaking abruptly and put his fingers to his left ear, looking away from them. After a few seconds, his gaze froze over. A couple of moments later, he nodded once. "Understood." He put his hand down and looked back at Ike. "Uh, looks like the authorities okayed you. You're free to go in. The reception desk on the first floor should direct you where you want to go."
Ike glanced at Pit, who glanced back at him. This was a strange turn of events.
"However, we can't let you in with a weapon," the man continued. "If you're going in, leave the sword with the guards inside the door, and we'll get it back to you when you leave."
Ike considered this for a moment. He was extremely vulnerable without Ettard, and he wasn't so sure they were going to give it back to him. Still, he didn't see how he was getting in any other way. He detached Ettard and held it by his side. He gave the man an indifferent thank-you and walked past him. The glass doors in front of him slid sideways to let him in.
Two more guards in uniform received them as they entered. They held their hands out, indicating for them to stop. Ike handed Ettard to them without a word. The one on the right frisked the two of them and searched Ike's bag. To Ike's immense relief, the guard searching Pit had thought nothing of the soft lumps on the youth's back. When they came up with nothing, they were let through.
"Well, we're in," Pit whispered. "Something's definitely going on in this place, and I don't think it's whacked-out experiments."
"I don't like how the 'authorities okayed us,'" Ike muttered back. "Did you see his face before he told us that? I think he knows who we are." Pit gave an aggravated sigh. "Let's get the information we need and get out. The longer we stay here, the more danger we put ourselves in."
The room was mostly empty. The white floor reflected a faint image of Ike back at him, but the rest of the room was otherwise rather simple-looking, if somewhat high-tech. A long blue desk with a young red-haired woman sitting behind it rested beside the wall they were facing. They stopped in front of it, causing the woman to glance up. She gave a smile that seemed forced.
"Hello," she greeted. "Welcome to the Silph Co.. Is there anything you need?"
Ike put his hands on his hips. "We're just looking for some information. The Silph Co. does research on things like...teleportation, right? Portals and all that?"
The woman laughed. Her laugh, like her smile, sounded forced. "Actually, the Silph Co. is all about teleport pads. I think you've come to the right place. Extensive research on the issue happens on the fifth floor." Ike muttered an affirmation and was about to walk off when she promptly brought up another topic of conversation. "So, um, what brings you here? Are you thinking of, eh, building your own teleporter? It's a somewhat dangerous activity, I hear, so please be careful if you are..."
The woman continued like this for what seemed like forever. Ike felt the last dregs of his social etiquette fading away. He was considering just walking out on her one-sided conversation, rude as it would appear. They didn't have time to waste learning about how her ex-boyfriend's brother had once tried to build a Teleporter years ago.
A couple of red doors in the wall beside the reception desk slid apart. Two more men in uniform strode out. As they walked farther into the room, their pace slowed. Ike watched them in his peripheral vision. As one, they turned the corner of the desk and continued walking. In their direction.
Warning sirens went off in Ike's head. He pretended to be deeply engrossed in the receptionist's speech, though every fiber of his being rejected the circumstances and told him to act. The men weren't changing direction. If they wanted to speak to the receptionist, she was right there.
The men were coming directly for them.
Ike looked at Pit, hoping he would get the message. The angel had already noticed. Ike began to walk past him when something sharp stabbed him in the side of the neck. A hand wrapped around his torso to prevent him from struggling. Pit recoiled and took a step back. The receptionist stood up and put her hand over her mouth.
Ike's vision began to blur. His body was quickly entering a forced sleep mode. He stumbled backward, sliding onto the floor. In his fading eyesight, he saw Pit punch the other man in the face. Scarlet sprayed from the man's nose. The man supporting Ike lowered Ike's head to the ground and went to help his comrade. Ike tried weakly to get up, but his body refused to listen to him. The man who had gotten Ike jabbed Pit in the neck with a needle as the other one held him back. Despite Ike's inner struggling, his eyes closed.
"Please don't hurt them," he heard the receptionist say before he passed out.
Ike slowly opened his eyes. His vision was still blurry, but he could tell he was sitting on a chair. Although his head ached and his body felt sluggish, he remembered everything that had happened to him. He and Pit had been captured. So where was he?
He looked around the room he was in. There wasn't much light to go around, save for the bright beam trained on his face. He squinted and looked away from it. The room was almost entirely bare except for a few chairs and a table containing equipment. Among the vials and needles he saw on the table were metal items with sharp ends. He swallowed.
"Looks like it's working," a female voice said somewhere in front of him.
Ike tried to sit up straighter, but something wouldn't let him. His arms had been handcuffed behind the chair.
He wouldn't bother asking where he was or why he was here. Those questions seemed trivial now. "Are you guys working with Pane?"
"It's him alright," a male voice said. The voice had originated to the right of the first one. "Our dear little Catalyst. Look who's come back."
"So you are working with Pane," Ike responded. "What do you want with me?"
As his eyesight adjusted, he saw glimpses of the two sitting in front of him. The woman had long blonde hair and didn't look like she was beyond her early twenties. The man had a buzz cut, which made it difficult to judge his hair color, and appeared to be around thirty. Both were wearing uniforms similar to the guards Ike had met outside the building.
"Information," the woman answered. "For one, was there anybody besides Pit who came with you? And I'd like you to know that if you lie or withhold information, there are other, harsher ways to get the answers out of you."
Ike sighed. "No. Nobody else came with me. Just Pit." It didn't surprise him that they knew Pit's name.
"Beyond that, are you aware of the locations of anybody else you know from the academy?"
"No."
"Be honest with me."
"I am."
The woman stared at him intently. Ike stared back at her, though his gaze was less intimidating as he was sweating heavily. The room was sweltering.
"How did you arrive in this dimension?" the woman pressed.
"How the heck should I know?" Ike grunted. "I just woke up in the middle of nowhere. You'd know better than I would."
"You weren't conscious when you arrived?"
"No. What about you? Weren't any of your guys warped away?"
The woman ignored his question. "Where were you when you woke up? If what you're telling me is true."
Ike struggled to remember names. "Foo, uh...Fuchsia City. In some sort of special grounds directly north of it." He glared at her. "Enough of this. Let me out of here and start answering some of my questions."
"That's not how it works, Ike," the woman said flatly. "You're not in a position to bargain. If you cooperate, we'll make sure you have every available comfort in whatever happens to you next. Give us trouble, and we can put you in a lot of pain. When and where did you meet Pit?"
"That was also in the middle of nowhere," said Ike, thoroughly annoyed. "Look, I'm not keen on answering all your insipid questions if you don't answer mine first, pain or no pain. Did you take over the academy, or is the battle still going on? What state is the academy in?"
"That is not your place to ask."
"Then you'll get no answers out of me."
The woman drummed her fingers on the armrest of her chair. She continued staring into his eyes, expression unchanged. She grabbed a clipboard from the table beside her and began reading aloud from the paper attached to it.
"Let's see...Ike, no middle or last name, age 19. Residence in Crimea, Tellius. Blue hair, blue eyes, runs a mercenary company with his younger sister and nine others. Former general of the Crimean Liberation Army and proclaimed hero of the 'Mad King's War.'" She lowered the clipboard and focused her attention back on him. "You see, Mr. Ike, we are the ones in the know. We are the ones in charge. We know all about you, just as we know all about every other member of the so-called 'Super Smash Bros.' Your willpower is admirable, but ultimately fruitless. We didn't come here with merely a list of 'insipid questions,' and your willpower is not going to thwart our interrogation. We have truth serums, lie detectors, as well as various devices of torture. If one thing doesn't work, we can always switch to another. Resistance will get you nowhere, Mr. Ike, except in a new life with no comforts at all save for the few minutes a day you will get to see the sun."
Ike scowled at her. "Little brat. You're too young to be involved in a scheme like this." He turned to the man. "And what about Stone-Face over there? Does he do anything?"
The woman smiled. "Not yet. He's our torture expert. If you continue to resist, he might just do something after all."
"Don't you have a conscience for this?" Ike growled. "Why would you involve yourself in Pane's plans? What could you hope to gain from this that you couldn't honestly earn doing something right?"
Silence passed between the two of them. The woman looked at the man. "Derek, could you get the truth serum ready while I attempt to pry a few more answers out of him?"
Derek gave a short nod, stood up with a groan, and walked to the door. Light from the outside flooded in for a brief moment. When the door closed, Ike felt as if his hopes had vanished with the light.
"Now then," the woman continued, standing up, "I may not be the torture expert, but I'm nonetheless skilled in using a few torture devices myself." She picked up an injection needle from the table and slowly walked to Ike. "Do you know what this is?" Ike glared at her silently. A small smile formed on her face at his defiant stare. "This is the key to unraveling your future. The liquid in this can quickly turn your life 180 degrees. In the wrong direction."
She walked around his chair and stopped behind it. Gently, she pulled up the short sleeve of his right arm. "This injection permanently cripples the muscles it spreads to," she explained. "This is your sword arm, am I correct? In a few short seconds, I could rob you of the ability to properly use a sword ever again."
Ike tried to yank his arm away from her touch. "Even if you cripple me, I'll do everything I can to cause you grief. If you'll answer my questions first, I'll quite obediently answer yours."
"Really?" the woman whispered. She was trying the sly, get-behind-your-mind approach. "You won't just answer our questions outright? Can you really live with no sword arm?" He felt her lower herself to the ground. "You could no longer lead the Greil Mercenaries. You could no longer support your allies in fighting. You couldn't be there to save them. Can you imagine staying at your base while everybody else goes off and risks their lives? And what about your little sister? Can you really handle your friends coming in from the last mission to inform you of her tragic death?"
Ike envisioned the scenario in his mind. No, he didn't think he could handle it. The woman's mind tricks were working.
"And why would little Mist have to die?" the woman went on. "Because you weren't there to save her. Because you had stubbornly refused to answer a series of simple questions and thus lost the use of your arm. You can really handle that?"
Ike didn't know what to say. Even if he answered her questions, would he ever return to Tellius again? An overwhelming urge to see his friends and sister again enveloped him. I've got to get out of here. Even if I die trying, I've got to get out of here.
"And your stubbornness will not pay off in the end," she added. "We have an extremely potent truth serum that is guaranteed to loosen your tongue about anything we ask you. And what will you receive after that? All possible comforts withheld from you, subjecting you to a life of absolute misery. If you merely answer our questions truthfully, we'll see to it you live in relative comfort for the rest of your life."
Ike made up his mind. He didn't know if his plan would work, but he had to try. It was all he had left. "Alright. You win. I'll answer your questions in exchange for keeping my sword arm. Deal?"
She stood up and walked back to her seat, a triumphant smile on her face. "I knew you would see the light, Mr. Ike. We have a deal." To his dismay, she still held the needle, likely to show she wasn't backing down. "Now, where did you first meet Pit?"
"Super Smash Bros. Academy," Ike replied, playing dumb to buy him more time. He needed to wait for the right moment to try his plan.
"I'm talking about this dimension," the woman reiterated. "Where did you first meet Pit in this dimension?"
She turned to grab something off the table. Ike seized his chance and began pulling his arms away from one another in an attempt to break the handcuffs off. His muscles strained. He didn't think he was getting anywhere. The woman didn't seem to notice. He envisioned his little sister, bleeding on the ground, dying because he couldn't come back and save her. Fire flashing before his eyes, he wrenched his arms apart. After a strain, the chains broke. The woman jerked back around in surprise. Before she could react, Ike dove forward, grabbed her left hand to prevent her from stabbing him with the needle, and punched her in the stomach. She tumbled off the chair with a gasp. Ike snatched the needle from her and planted his knee on her chest.
"You think I'm just going to sit back and let you have your way with me?" Ike growled. For the first time, the woman seemed frightened. "Now it's time for you to answer some of my questions. And I'd like you to know that if you lie or withhold information, there are other, harsher ways I can get my answers." He pinned her arms to the ground and leaned closer to her face. "For one, where's my sword?"
"I don't know for certain."
"Well, guess."
The woman looked into his eyes for a bit. "Maybe the storage room on the first floor. In this place, it could be anywhere. Perhaps the guards at the entrance still have it."
"What's the status on the academy? Has it really been taken?"
She sighed. "Completely and utterly. It's under our boss's control now."
"Pane?"
"Yes."
Ike closed his eyes. He'd feared as much. If they had this much access to the Teleporter, it could only mean the academy had fallen. He renewed his strength and continued asking questions. "Where's Pit?"
"Currently being interrogated in Storage Room 5B."
"How do I get to it? Remember, I won't take lies."
"I'm aware of that. Take a right outside this door, then a left down the next hallway. At the end of the hallway is a T-shaped junction. Take a right there and keep going down the hallway. The door at the end saying Storage Room 5B is the one you're looking for."
Ike went through the directions in his head to make sure he had them down. "Alright. Anything I should be aware of on my way there or when I arrive?"
She continued to switch her gaze from one of his eyes to another as she thought. "There are two more interrogators in Pit's room. If I remember correctly, there's also a guard standing outside a door on the...second hallway you'll pass through. That's not counting anybody walking around casually."
Ike's heart beat faster. How was he supposed to make it to Pit's room? And if that torture guy, Derek, was coming back with the truth serum, he didn't have a lot of time left to think. "How long until the torture expert comes back?"
She blinked. "Probably between thirty to sixty seconds."
Ike straightened up and tried not to swear. Thirty seconds to a minute. If he was going to do something, he had to act fast. Looking around the room, he found some cord on the table - presumably used for some sort of torture. He bound her wrists and ankles and, taking his shirt off, gagged her. Seizing one of the sharp instruments on the table, he stood by the door, hand raised. He was uncomfortably aware of the sweat dripping off his face as he waited tensely.
A minute or so later, the door opened. As soon as Ike saw a buzzed head, he hit the man in the face with the back of his fist. Before anybody outside could see or hear what was going on, Ike shut the door and flung Derek inside.
"What the...?" Derek shouted.
The truth serum clattered across the floor. As Derek attempted to scramble to his feet, Ike planted a foot in his chest and sent him backwards. Before the man could recover, Ike swung around to his backside and placed him in a chokehold.
"Clever," Derek muttered. "How'd you get out?"
"Try fighting for your life nearly every day and see what it does to your body," answered Ike. "Do you know where my weapons and items are?"
Derek laughed. Ike tightened his chokehold to show his disapproval. After coughing a few times, Derek said, "And what are you going to do if I don't tell you?"
"Well, take a look around you. You're not in the most favorable of positions right now, and we're in a room full of torture devices. Where's my stuff?"
Derek sighed. "You got me. It's in the storage room on the first floor. Good luck getting there in a building full of trained combatants."
"Don't worry, you can help me there." Even in the dark, Ike was fairly certain Derek's clothing size matched his. "How do I get back to the Linking Dimension?"
Derek laughed again, this time out of disbelief. "You want to go back there? Why?"
"What's it to you? Just tell me how to get there."
"Top floor, meeting room. Incidentally, it's also the Commander's quarters. Nobody comes or goes without his knowledge."
Ike would deal with that later. "Go on."
"Prototype Teleporter...leads to any dimension we've established communications with. I wouldn't expect you to know the first thing about it."
Ike was getting near the end of his conversation. He wanted to reach Pit before they took him somewhere else. "How did you invade the Linking Dimension? How would you even know where to look for it?"
"Look, I don't know the details. I'm no science geek. Something about planting a bug on you, which connected a rudimentary portal to the Linking Dimension. From there, we all filed through. Or most of us."
A thought occurred to Ike. "How many of you are there, anyway?"
Derek shrugged. "Heck...four hundred? Five hundred? There are a lot of us, pal. What are you gonna do, take us all on, just you and the bird boy?"
"I'm done talking. Are there any serums in this room that would put you and your blonde friend over there to sleep?"
"Yeah. It's the red vial labeled 'Knockout Drug.'" He tried to turn his head to look at Ike. "I'm telling you this for your own safety. Drop it. This is a fool's errand. Don't make things worse for yourself, and especially don't tick off Pane. There's not a man, army, or machine that can beat him."
"We'll see."
Dragging Derek with him, Ike stepped back to the table, found the knockout drug, and injected it into the man's neck (hoping it would work, as he was not used to the subtleties of the human body). When he was sure the man was unconscious, he laid him down, bound him with the cord, and gagged him with his undershirt.
Before leaving, he kneeled down by the woman he'd left leaning against the table. "Just to clarify: out this door, I take a right, then a left, then another right, and straight down the hall to get to Pit?" She nodded. "Good. That better not be a lie."
Especially because Ike didn't know what he would do if she was lying.
He injected her with the knockout drug and watched her until her head drooped. Satisfied, he stood up and gathered essential materials.
A few minutes later, Ike walked out of the room wearing a Horizon uniform minus an undershirt. He buttoned his shirt higher to compensate for this and closed the door behind him quietly. He was safe from casual glances, but he knew his blue hair would probably give him away if anybody did a double-take. Looking both ways, he walked as calmly as he could to the right, mopping the sweat off his face.
Another white hallway opened on his left. Like the other halls he had seen, it was decorated with little more than some potted plants and basic machinery. He leaned forward to see down the hall. As the woman had said, there was a guard standing in front of a door on the right wall. He narrowed his eyes. He didn't think he could make it past the guard without being recognized. That only left deviating off his original path to find another route. Trying to remain inconspicuous, he walked past the hall on the left and kept going down his current hall.
His next left was a large entrance to an even larger room. Big machines and beeping noises filled the area. People in white coats and Horizon uniforms worked on various items and objects. To Ike's dismay, there was no opening to the third hallway in this room. His current route led to a dead end. Before he could be spotted, he turned around. Guess the hallway with the guard was his only choice.
He entered the second hall on the way to Pit's room as casually as he could. He didn't look at the guard, make a noise, or otherwise draw attention to himself. To his relief, the guard ignored him. Suppressing a sigh of gratitude, he turned right at the end of the hall.
At the end of this next hall, as the blonde woman had told him, was a metal door with a plaque reading "Storage Room 5B" on it. Heart thumping harder, he quickened his pace and reached the door as quickly and silently as he could. Coming up with a basic plan for when he entered in, he knocked on the door a couple of times.
"There's an interrogation going on in here," a male voice answered.
"News from the top," Ike responded. "Figured you should hear it before Pane offs another one."
There was a small pause. "Well, come in."
Ike opened the door, let in as little light as he could, and closed it quietly. He was in. He trusted the darkness to conceal his features. In the back of the room, a beam illuminating him, Pit sat in a chair, his wrists handcuffed to it. The angel glared at him without realizing who it was. "First," Ike began, "how's the interrogation going?"
The man on Ike's left chuckled darkly. "Typical. Won't tell us anything, not even the name of the other guy we found him with. Which is pointless, 'cause we know his name anyway."
They both glanced behind themselves and gave Ike a quick appraisal. They still didn't seem to recognize him.
"So what's the word?" the man on the right asked.
Ike desperately hoped he wouldn't say anything revealing. "Pane's ordered all captured members of the Super Smash Bros. to be returned to the Linking Dimension immediately. Don't know what he's planning, but the first person who ignored him got stripped of his rank and put under probation."
The two interrogators stared at him. "You sure?" the one on the right said. "Where's the order file?"
Ike had no idea what an order file was but continued to play it professionally. "It's back in the room with Ike. The interrogators there are still going over the details, so I couldn't bring it with me."
The interrogator on the right looked at the other man and shrugged. "Guess we'd better hop to it. Let's not do anything conclusive until we've seen the order file. I don't want any chance of Pane giving me the boot. Or putting me full of holes. This is serious stuff."
"Good idea," Ike added.
They stood up and began unlocking Pit's handcuffs, which was just was Ike had been waiting for. One of them stood guard over Pit with a device in his hand while the other bent down and freed his hands. Ike slammed his fist into the back of the first man's neck. The man grunted and went down instantly. As the other interrogator looked up, having just freed Pit, Ike kicked him in the face. Before he could recover, Ike took the knockout drug from his shirt pocket and jabbed it into the man's neck. When the man slumped to the floor unconscious, Ike did the same to the other interrogator.
"What's going on here?" Pit demanded, standing upright. He held his hands up in preparation for a fight.
"Pit, it's me," said Ike. "I escaped from my interrogators. They're both unconscious right now." He stepped into the light to help Pit see better.
Pit narrowed his eyes and looked closer. A smile bloomed on his face. "Hey, it is you! How'd you get out of there?"
"I'll tell you later. Right now, I need to look for my sword and our bag. You stay here and keep your head down. If anybody other than me comes in, take something off the table and hit them with it."
"No need," Pit grunted. "I've already got a weapon."
Ike paused. "You do? Where?"
Pit stretched his right arm out, palm down. With a sound like the chime of a small bell, two golden rings appeared on his left wrist, hovering around the skin without touching it. In his outstretched hand, two metal blades appeared, extending away from each other until Ike realized they were the ends of a more complex object. The finished product was two dazzling blades bending towards Pit, connected by a small, golden bridge.
"What the heck is that?" Ike murmured.
"Palutena's Bow," Pit proudly announced. "It can fire a limitless number of Light Arrows, and by separating the ends..." Pit pulled the two ends of the bow apart with a small chink - "...they can be used as individual blades."
"Wow." Ike didn't know what else to say. "Well, uh, I'll go and look for my sword. If anybody comes in, just...shoot them or something."
Pit reconnected the bow. Before leaving, Ike noticed one of the unconscious interrogators was wearing a cap. Deciding it would be good for hiding his blue hair, he snatched it off the man's head and placed it upon his own. Making sure the most of his hair was tucked under the hat, he opened the door and left the room.