11 p.m. A time when almost every Smasher emerges from the various nooks and crannies of the Smash Mansion and retreat into the humble abode of their own rooms. The house is settling, the night is falling. Tranquility comes and knocks on every door, sprinkling pixie magic over those who welcome her with doors wide open, caressing them gently as they fall in the loving embrace of her arms.
11 p.m. Yoshi lies on his bed, smiling to himself as select screenshots of the day blur his mind with clutter and disorganization. A Villager frozen in a chunk of jagged ice… Soaring wings, the ecstasy of wild winds, a panicking Pokémon hanging by his heels… An out-of-body view of his and Lucario walking down the corridor with nothing but empathy and understanding paving the way… An apple, bulging, throbbing, an object deserving of all malicious scorn as it screams it silent rage, which echoes within the inner walls of its impermeable cages…
11 p.m. Lucario stands lightly on the grassy floor of his room, eyes closed, arms crossed, Aura blazing, mouth uttering soundless names. A nightly exercise, a silent roll call, to keep his Aura sharp and honed, a test of concentration and mental fortitude as he strains the limits of his energy and subjects the entire grounds of the mansion to the sight of his third, invisible eye. Life is detected, and the owner of said life is identified. He starts with those nearest to him first. Lucas is in his room. Lucina is right outside her door. Little Mac...
11 p.m. Lucina stands outside her room, having already said her goodnight to Robin. The two had spent a romantic evening on the very top of the Smash Mansion, bundled up in their winter clothes and enjoying steaming mugs of hot chocolate. Standing in front of her room, she checks her pocket, experiences a nasty jolt, and curses.
11 p.m. Luigi sighs, stretches, pops his elbows and his knees and his back. The drive from E. Gadd's laboratory to the Smash Mansion has gone on for an agonizingly lonely and monotonous five hours. He is stinky and fatigued and wants nothing more than to curl up and grab a good night's sleep… But there is still thirty more minutes to go before he arrives at the gates of the Smash Mansion. Pull through, pull through…
11 p.m. Lucas lies on his bed, rubbing his stomach as it scolds him with rumbling whines and punishes him with searing burns that jolt him from the fumbling grasps of sleep. You didn't feed me enough, the stomach pouts. You weren't hungry then, Lucas argues. Shut up and feed me, it snarls back, electrocuting Lucas with another poke of its acid-laced torture instrument.
11:02 p.m. The boy gets up, groaning at his own idiocy for not finishing his dinner. He opens his door and looks out into the corridor. The lights have been extinguished, presenting instead the gaping grottos of the maws of darkness that want nothing more than to swallow him whole and satisfy its own hunger. Arms shaking, legs trembling, Lucas lights an orb of PK Fire in the palm of his hand. A small circle of red carpet and wooden walls and the opposite door, with an infinite cage of black all around, a cage that will eternally haunt him as he trudges through the unknown of its amorphous body, all the way to his personal fridge in the Kitchen on the ground floor. Lucas shivers. Forget it, he squeaks. Forget it, the stomach agrees. He is just about to scramble back into the safety of his bed when he sees something in his peripheral vision.
A door, slightly ajar…
Lucas brings up the ball of fire. Luigi's room is open, the door left unclosed as its sweeping arc is interrupted by some lumpy mass of white and plastic. Lucas frowns, squints, walks a little closer to see what it is.
A bag of dried fruits.
Snacks.
The decision doesn't even take a second. Dried fruits he does not like, but what of other goodies that Luigi might keep in his room? He only needed it for the night – he would surely have enough time to return what he ate before Luigi came back, which was a lengthy week from now, according to what Yoshi had said. Never did Lucas think such passing remarks could be of such usefulness. As for why it was open… Well, Mario probably needed something from his brother… It wouldn't be that surprising for either of them to know the code of the other, after all, considering they were twin brothers…
Kicking the disgusting fruits back into the room, Lucas enters, flicking the switch of Luigi's room on and shutting the door behind him. He walks forward, approaching an absolute mess of a chest, overflowing with things that shared no common value and surrounded by miscellaneous other objects of equal randomness…
11:06 p.m. Ness lies on his bed, playing Earthbound Beginnings, showing no signs of fatigue that threatens to slacken his grip or loosen his eyelids. The next song on his iSaturn begins to blast from his speakers: A catchy drumbeat, followed quickly by some wild, almost primal yowls, complemented by the exotic chika chika chika of maracas. A snippet of random grunts and laughs, then:
"Please allow me to introduce myself; I'm a man of wealth, and taste~"
11:10 p.m.
"Everything is gonna be alright," Yoshi breathes as the gentle hands of sleep coax his eyelids to flutter shut, closing his eyes to the reality of the night. "Everything is gonna be OK…"
END OF PART I