Hello, children!
So here I am with another update. Let's disclaim since some new stuff appears:
Dead or Alive does not belong to me; it belongs to the guys at Tecmo and Team Ninja.
We all know what happens next, so let's get started already!
Enjoy!
Serene and Ness walked along the desert pathway, the boy holding a trident as they triumphantly marched down the road.
"Man, that was easy!" gloated the young boy. "That guy that surfaced from the water never saw it coming!"
"Yep," said Serene as she walked around. "I do need to clean my scythe, though. Everybody will notice the blood."
The two of them had decided to hunt for artifacts, and they had managed to nab a trident by fatally wounding somebody who has swum to the surface of an oasis with the artifact. It was child's play attaining the thing, really; they just had to wait for him to surface.
"I know, right?" asked Ness. "Why didn't you clean it there?"
"Because I was scared somebody would come by," said Serene.
"They would have understood, though," said Ness. "I mean, they were part of the organization, so all we have to do is tell them that they're trying to end the world and we're home free. You know?"
"Yeah," said Serene, seeing an oasis somewhere off of the road. "Come on. We can probably wash my scythe over there."
The boy nodded and walked over to the oasis that Serene pointed out. They arrived there, and Serene dipped the blade of her scythe into the water. The oasis was not that deep, so the red still showed, but the purified blue blade came out of the water as if nothing had ever happened.
"There," said Ness. "We got away with murder. Now what's up next?"
"The Gem of Parnassus, that's what," said Serene. "It should be in a temple somewhere."
"Asking time again?" asked Ness.
"You bet," said Serene.
The boy rolled his eyes and sighed as he walked back to the road, Serene following closely behind.
"Shut up!"
"No, you shut up!"
"You said it first! You shut up!"
"No, you shut up!"
Frank Castle felt like plugging a few bullets into his friend again. They had successfully gotten into the canopy of a very high tree that was apparently the place they needed to go. However, once they were inside they were confronted by a bunch of villainous guards that were storming the place. Castle wanted to run in there and gun every last one down, but Falcon was more towards being cautious about it. Finally, it had erupted into a whisper fight between the two of them.
"Look, it's not good to be that reckless," said Falcon. "I know what I'm saying."
"And I say my method works more than your method ever will," replied Frank. "It's worked for me, so why should it not work now?"
"Because we could be dealing with a hell of a lot of reinforcements," said Falcon. "Look, I know that your method works best, but we also need stealth."
"Then go down there and mow them down so we don't get people on our tail!" exclaimed Frank. "Meanwhile, I gun down these people over here."
"Okay, okay!" said Falcon, finally deciding that enough was enough and that they really had to accomplish something before they were found. "Give me a weapon."
Frank inwardly exhaled heavily as he handed a semi-automatic rifle to Falcon along with a silenced pistol.
"Go," said Frank. "I'll open fire when you're off of the floor."
The captain nodded, and he took off, darting amongst the green walls and the crates with skill as he successfully avoided the guards and eventually got to a hole on the other side of the floor.
Frank waited for a sign, but he managed to see Falcon going down into the hole.
The Punisher smirked coyly as he prepared to stand up, two semi-machine guns at the ready.
"You're all goin' to hell, bitches!" yelled the man loudly.
The guards had no time to react before Frank stood up, jumped on a crate, and opened fire on the entire group, killing every last one of them as he stood there twirling around.
Aika turned the wheel somewhat nervously, right in front of the rift that was supposedly uncrosseable. Fina paced nervously on the metal floor as Enrique leaned over one of the control panels, holding his stomach in place with Snake attempting to be steady. Leo stood right next to Aika, ready to direct a change in velocity in the blink of an eye.
"Well, here we are," said Leo. "The entrance to the Dark Rift…"
"It's so… intimidating…" said Fina.
"Yeah," said Snake. "But that ain't stopping us from going in. We're going to prove the people of Esperanza wrong, and we're going to do it in style!"
"And hopefully, we can even go through it twice!" said Aika.
"Let's hope we can," said Enrique. "Oh, man, this better not be rough."
Leo retained his stoic expression as Aika hovered in front of the entrance to the rift, but a large part of him had plenty of sympathy for the poor prince. He really wanted to call a halt to the crossing of the Dark Rift because he would not want to trouble Enrique at all. However, Leo also knew that they needed to cross the rift to make history and to go on with their quest. At the end of the day, they had to cross it.
There was a short silence as the ship hovered in front of the Dark Rift's entrance.
Then, Aika put her hands on the wheel.
"Ya guys ready?" asked Aika.
Everybody nodded at this, Enrique managing a nod in his sickness to show his belief in their quest.
"Then let's do this!" said Aika. "Delphinus, full speed ahead!"
Mario plodded down yet another hallway in his search for his partner in crime.
"Link?" asked Mario out loud as he walked. "Link?"
The halls received no response from him, but he kept on walking forwards, keeping careful track on the vines in the hallway.
Something that the plumber had noticed as he walked down the temple was that there was an odd capacity of the vines to have a heavy concentration in certain places as opposed to others. Since Mario knew that Link had been taken by a vine monster, it had to mean that Link would be close to him if he followed the concentration of the vines.
It had not been that easy, really. Mario had to break down several walls with a well-launched fireball or two, but otherwise he had been doing a good job.
And Mario was almost positive he was close to Link since the vines were getting very concentrated.
Finally, the vines led to a dead end, and Mario looked up. He then noticed a crack in the mud and held a hand out in preparation for a fireball. Sure enough, a small flame flickered to life from Mario's hand, and then it grew to a rather large size such that it eventually formed to be the size of Mario's hand.
"Ha!" he yelled, rearing his hand back and releasing the newly-formed fireball at the crack.
Sure enough, the crack widened to a large enough size such that Mario could practically kick the wall down. This, the plumber did with a rather quick speed.
The wall gave way to a complete darkness. Puzzled by this, the plumber began a fireball in his hand and walked into the unforgiving darkness, the fireball lighting the way to a very surprising sight.
He was greeted by the sight of a large carnivorous plant sleeping on the other side of a long pit. It slept with a rather loud snore that literally caused the chamber to reverberate, and Mario saw by the light of the fireball that he was constantly keeping in place that Link was on the other side of the pit. The plant had a vine ripped around the sleeping Hylian.
However, Mario also noticed that there was a stranger he was unable to identify. The person in question was dressed in what looked to be a blue ninja dress, long auburn hair falling on the sides of the vine that was holding what was apparently a woman as she snored in her sleep.
Hm thought Mario. Who's this?
The plumber walked forward a little, but he realized he had to do something about the vine creature. He decided to steal the Master Sword, stab the creature in the head, collect Link and whoever that woman was, and leave.
As he walked forward, however, he could not help but notice that large vines were gathered in one corner of the room.
Suddenly, the earth-shaking vibrations stopped, and a pair of mauve eyes opened to find the plumber there.
When Mario looked at his foot, he realized too late that he had stepped on one of the large vines.
"Oh, for-a the love of—" muttered Mario under his breath.
His sentence was interrupted by a roar that was multiplied thousands of times over in the small space that was the chamber they were in at that moment in time. The vibrations were enough to wake up Link and the female figure, but neither were fully awake before all of the vines in the room jerked upwards, forming a dome around an angered vine creature.
The vines then shook rapidly, waking both captive figures up fully. Link looked at Mario's direction.
"Mario, get out of here!" yelled Link.
The plumber had no time to reply, however, for a vine would have slammed into him had it not been for the fact that Mario jumped out of the way in time. By the time Mario had jumped, the heat at his hand was unbearable, so he threw the fireball at the large creature. The fireball went straight into the creature's eye, and it flailed around in pain.
In its flailing, it released both of its captives, dropping Link on the side Mario stood on and dropping the girl on the same side it stood on.
Both people promptly stood up, Mario running around.
"Give-a me a light, damn it!" shouted Mario.
A blue light suddenly emanated from the hand of Link, illuminating the room enough to give it a sapphire tint.
"There," said Link. "Happy?"
"Yes," said Mario.
The plumber prepared another fireball as he dodged the tentacles that constantly attempted to take his feet out from under him or otherwise drive him into the ground. There were many close calls as the fireball grew in size, but the girl seemed to catch on to Mario's plan quickly enough to provide a distraction for Mario. This mostly consisted of jumping around and jabbing the said creature to remind it that there was a more immediate threat against it. As the girl jumped around playing its game with the creature, Mario charged the fireball until it grew to a size such that it sizzled most of the tentacles that whizzed past the plumber.
Finally, the fireball was as large as the plumber himself, and Mario smirked as he prepared himself.
"Take-a this!" shouted the plumber as he whirled around and released the fireball on the fiend.
The massive fireball sailed straight for the creature, and the girl saw this and leapt to the other side just as the creature began to burn from the point that the fireball struck.
The creature roared in pain as the vines attached to it flailed around wildly. The girl turned to face Mario and Link, grabbing the Hylian's hand as she turned.
"We must go!" she shouted.
The two other fighters nodded and went straight out of the room, the vines behind them beginning to burn at an unbelievably fast rate.
And as quickly as Link had been sucked in by the creature in the first place, the fire chased the group of three down the corridors, the three of them making it past every jump and break in the walls that Mario had created simply to get out alive.
After what felt like a few seconds to Mario, they finally found the hole that the plumber had leapt into in the first place.
All three of the fighters managed to jump out of the hole and get off of the mud before the mud itself became a mess of flames. When they had retreated into the safety of the nearby forest, the group looked back and was awed at the flames that towered over the spot that the Temple of Mud used to be.
Nobody said anything for quite a while.
Finally, Link cleared his throat.
"Jeez," he spoke. "What the hell was that?"
"I am not sure," responded the girl. "What I do know is that we are safe from its clutches."
"Well, that's-a always a good-a thing, right?" asked Mario.
"True," said Link.
"Indeed," said the girl in kind, azure eyes going in Mario's direction as the girl turned to him. "Link, who is this?"
"Oh!" said Link, clambering in between the girl and Mario. "I'm sorry. Kasumi, this is Mario, and Mario, this is Kasumi."
"Uh, hi!" said Mario, taking the girl's hand in his own and shaking it.
"Pleasure to meet you," responded Kasumi. "I am grateful for my salvation."
"Why do you say that?" asked Link.
"That creature was evil," responded Kasumi. "I was kidnapped by it, and I was taken here to this place."
"Ouch," said Mario, rubbing the back of his head. "So did it-a eat anything?"
"It ate a lot of people," responded the girl. "For some reason, it spared me, but I would have been eaten had it not been for your intervention."
"You're-a welcome, then!" said Mario.
"So you know where to go, right?" asked Link.
"I do not, actually," replied Kasumi. "I believe I got… lost…"
"Oh dear…" said Link. "That's not good."
"It is not," said Kasumi. "In the meantime, though, I believe you had a quest you wanted to tell me about?"
The plumber's eyes narrowed as he looked at Link, instantly knowing that Link had told her.
"Link!" shouted Mario. "You-a know you weren't-a supposed to-a tell about-a the quest!"
"I had no choice," said Link. "I thought I would die in there."
"What, do I have to join now that I know?" asked Kasumi, bending down to Mario's level as she said it.
"You-a should!" said Mario. "We could-a use the help!"
"Well, then, I guess I will join," said Kasumi. "Besides, I have no real home to return to. I will not tell anybody, and you will not tell anybody else you met me."
"Sounds like a deal to me," responded Link. "Welcome aboard, Kasumi!"
The shinobi bowed down respectfully.
"Thank you," she responded as she stood back up. "By the way, you were looking for something, yes?"
The plumber nodded. However, Mario immediately widened his eyes when he saw Kasumi take a scroll off of her being and hand it to the plumber.
"I believe this is what you were looking for?" asked Kasumi.
Mario was shocked, but Link patted him in the back and Mario felt compelled to take the scroll.
"Yes!" shouted the plumber when the shock faded away.
The plumber jumped up in the air, raising his fist as he punched the air in glee.
"Well, with that out of the way, we should probably leave," said Link.
"We should also regroup," said Kasumi.
"True," said Link. "Let's get going, shall we?"
The other two warriors nodded, and then they walked off away from the blaze and into the darkness of the forest.
"Okay, this is really messed up. Somehow, we're getting through here. But how?"
"Maybe we're just really damn lucky."
And then a vomit sounded in the area.
All eyes turned to face Enrique, a new puddle of yellowish liquid resting at his feet again. He had not fared well at all in the Dark Rift; every two seconds the poor Valuan was being rocked about by the harsh winds of the rift. He was also finding the urge to vomit a little too tempting, and every so often he did spew the contents of his stomach all over the floor. Nobody yelled at him, though, as they understood, themselves having to undergo the effects of the winds on the Delphinus.
Aika turned back to facing the wall while Leo went in with a mop and immediately went to work getting rid of the puddle and Snake went to work fanning Enrique with a paper fan, Fina standing by and casting Sacri on Enrique for the umpteenth time.
"Oh, man, how long are we going to be in here?" asked Fina when she finished casting the spell.
"I'm not sure," said Leo. "I hope we get out, because this place gives me the creeps."
"No kidding," said Snake. "I've never quite seen anything like it myself."
"Well, the area we're in is rather long according to the holographic map, so we should be stuck here for…"
Aika trailed off midsentence as she stared at the monitor in disbelief.
Leo placed the mop back in the pail as the ship rocked dangerously, using his agility to get to Aika at the wheel.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I think we're almost out of here!" shouted Aika. "The winds seem to be dying down!"
"That's great, but are we on the side we should be on?" asked Fina, also running to the wheel.
"Only time will tell that one," responded Aika.
"So we sit and wait," Leo added, looking at the wind gauge decrease ever so steadily.
Eventually, the ship's rocking stopped, and a small blue window was eventually seen. Aika went for the light, and then they went out of the rift and into a wondrous night sky.
The pressure shutters were lifted from where they had been in the Delphinus' flight time, and the group beheld a glorious night sky.
Fina looked around, eyes finally falling on a large satellite that was visible in the night. Eventually, everybody looked at the said satellite and was awed at what they saw.
When they were in Esperanza, they were under the influence of the red moon.
And on the other side of the rift, a blue moon greeted them.
Aika let go of the wheel and jumped up in glee, punching the air as she did.
"Yes!" shouted the energetic girl loudly. "We crossed the rift!"
"We did it!" shouted Leo. "We made history!"
"I knew we could do it!" said Fina. "I knew it!"
"Well, I guess there is hope for all of us after all," said Snake.
Enrique was not in a disposition to say anything, as he was still trying to recover from the winds of the rift.
The group had crossed the Dark Rift, something that many before them had tried and failed to do.