ROAD TRIP

Link felt his former friends holding him down. He prayed the Hylian Prayer for the Dead, watching the light of the Triforce glow above him. He felt teeth sink into his left arm. The pain from such a deep bite, not to mention the stress from the situation he was in caused stars and blackness to edge his vision. He expected to awaken in Farore's golden fields, the Land of the Ancestors, the Heaven for Heroes.

Link groaned as he got out of bed in his chambers at the Smash Mansion. It had been rebuilt in recent months, due to popular demand. The fallout in the city was no problem for anyone living there anymore, mainly because no one in Smash City was technically living anymore.

Several months had passed between the time told upon the previous pages of this tale and the company of Smash getting back to business as usual. Becoming a zombie hadn't stopped Link's daily activities much. Sure, his skin was pale and bloodless and he had problems with it occasionally flaking off when his chainmail rubbed him the wrong way, but otherwise, no biggie. His reflexes were fine at first – as many new zombies could be quite speedy, but they had tapered off into a sluggish, dull rhythm. He wasn't quite as quick with his clawshot anymore, but he managed.

"Life" came back to the usual routines for all of the Smashers, despite their big adventure. Those that had been partially-eaten or killed prior to zombiefication came back, too, in undead form. Zombie Link had given the body of Zelda a not-so gentle kiss and that had been enough to cause her to re-animate. One of Ganodnorf's fresh minions had gotten to him, killing his desire to rule the world. In fact, Zombie Ganondorf had become quite meek compared to his fully-alive self. Mario came back and, as for Peach, even with her head blown apart, she'd managed to crick herself to un-life thanks to the delicate patchwork of Dr. Undead Mario. It was a wonder what heavy-duty staples and duct tape could do.

"Maaaoh…ooh…" Dark Pit greeted Link as the latter wandered into the Main Hall.

(Now, zombies do typically speak in moans and groans that most observers think of as mindless. However, there are subtle differences in these moans. Zombies, in fact, have a rich and vibrant language with a variety of expressions.

Observe Link, if you will. For the moment, he is staring at you with flat eyes and a dropped jaw. "Mooooah!" he says. That is his happy face.

"Moooah!" Anger.

"Moooah!" Sadness.

You see, it's quite simple. However, for the rest of this chapter, I will translate what the Smashers are saying to one another in the narrative).

Dark Pit greeted Link with a "Maaaaoh…ooh." This translates to "Hey." His right wing was still missing and his left wing was still stripped partially to bones. He'd learned how to work his exposed radius and ulna with the remaining scraps of muscle in order to flap what was left of the wing, but, sadly, he had no more Power of Flight. Pit shambled up beside him. You see, once Pit had failed to preserve Link's life, his spirit decided to re-enter his buried body. He dug himself out of the grave, but still wears the bloody bandage upon his head beneath his laurel crown. There is a dot of dark blood right in the center that makes him almost look like he's wearing a blackened version of the Japanese flag.

Marth and Yoshi were once thought to be immune to the zombie-infection, being that they had initially survived infection. They succumbed, as well, due to the fact that diseases have a tendency to mutate. They'd caught a second-strain.

All this meant was that the Smashers were one big happy family again. They all gravitated back toward the ruined Smash City after the failed attempt to quell the infection with superior weaponry. Someone had even gotten to the culprits, ensuring that a certain Mr. Snake was a part of the roster again. Even the divinities had returned, and, surprisingly enough, they proved as capable of falling to the infection as any mortal.

It was kind of strange, even to fellow zombies, seeing a gray Luma shamble about instead of bounce…

As for Palutena, she had come back as soon as a portal was opened to try to save her boys. She had a trip to the Rewind Spring lined right up for them. However, her angels cornered her. She was still quite a beauty, even in a zombie-fied state, but she had a tendency to become weakened by her own holy light whenever she used it.

"Moan! Maaaoooh! Moooooah!" Pit had said upon "acquiring" her with his brother.

"Moooaaah! Garrrgh! Oooh!" she'd responded. – This roughly translates to "Lady Palutena! I'm so glad you're back!" followed by "I'm glad to see you, too, Pit!" spoken in the zombie equivalent for laughter.

After this, Palutena tried to cook a big dinner of brains-from-places-we-do-not-want-to-think-about for everyone, only to bring a troop of shriveled up dead carrots to life.

The Hands, naught but bones beneath their gloves, chose to run the Tournaments again, although they were… a bit more sluggish this time. Every Smash match now ran as though someone had grabbed a stopwatch-item and whenever anyone grabbed said item, it became a Super-Slow-Mo Smash.

The "live" spectators loved it, but ratings on the televised airings began to dwindle. Most actually-alive fans missed the high-energy spectacles of the past and did not warm up to the Zombie Smash. Sure, they were gorier than ever before, what with black blood flying everywhere and the fighters being able to re-attach their own severed limbs at will with a bit of duct tape and no pain, but there was just no more frenetic energy to the battles anymore. Some families found the new-Smash too frightening to let their children watch. Funds began to dry up.

Now, living expenses were dramatically reduced for everyone, seeing that un-life is a lot easier to sustain than normal life. Still, certain basics needed to be covered – electricity… air conditioning to keep the rotting and smells to a minimum… Everyone continued to wear the same tattering and fraying clothing, feeling no shame or need to change themselves. At the same time, Link enjoyed the occasional trips to Telma's in Hyrule, and that required cold hard rupees.

Also, everyone really did want to go back to the way things were. Sadly, between Doctor Mario, the Hands, the various characters who'd once possessed healing energies and everything else everyone looked into, there was found no cure for zombism.

The cycle of feeding and despair began. Everyone had a craving for raw meat. Fortunately, there were enough cattle, cuccoos and Ordon goats found in the various lands to fulfill this, in addition to supplies that could be trucked into the Smash Mansion and the arenas. The zombie-Smashers would binge on regrets and despair – then on truckloads of raw meat. Kirby, Pac-Man and Yoshi took up about a truckload each every time they fed. Pit was hardly better.

"Maoaooaah! Grrrrooon….urgh…argh…" W offered one day, seeing that the meat-budget was beginning to get low. She gave everyone in the Smash cafeteria cups of yogurt. "Arrrgh…grrrr!" she insisted. - This means "This is a healthier alternative. Try it."

Everyone did try it, and found it to their liking. Ganondorf, particularly, loved to sit for hours at a table in a chair too small for his hulking frame nursing a little cup of strawberry-flavored yogurt.

What's so great about yogurt, you ask? Well, it is full of live bacterial cultures. It is a fermented food which, apparently, has the potential to help other things "ferment." The Smash zombies found they enjoyed it for certain preservative qualities.

It also kept them from slaughtering all the goats in Hyrule, seeing as they could be put to a more sustainable use.

After a time, Link's rotting brain came up with a thought. He realized just how the Smashers could end their money-troubles. He traveled back to Hyrule and bothered a certain happy-clapping obnoxious banker he knew. Now, bank-fraud was nothing new to the Hylian Hero, for his ancestor-and-presumably-other-life had done it before to this mysterious knee-slapping fellow through time-travel.

Fortunately for Link, he'd previously established a life-insurance policy with the man. The banker had refused at first, seeing as Link's job was dangerous, but Link had been able to collect enough rupees on his quest for a down-payment that shut the man up. It is quite difficult to convince the holder of your insurance policy that you are, in fact, dead AND your "next of kin" when you are moving around and can participate in the Super Smash Tournament. After much argument, Link convinced the man by holding him up by the neck and breathing a big whiff of zombie-breath in his face. Not wanting to die from asphyxiation, the banker paid out on Link's life-insurance.

Zelda managed to convince the Kingdom of Hyrule of just the opposite: Being undead meant that she was technically living and still had rights and privileges, including the right to rule. She was able to acquire an allotment from the royal treasury for her stay in Smash City and to keep the tournaments going. Peach, being held together with duct tape, was less convincing to her subjects. The Toads just ran and hid, barricading their homes when she made a return to her kingdom.

Palutena commanded Pit to acquire hearts for the funding. Of course, being a zombie, he didn't quite understand that he was to acquire the kind of cute, monetary-value Valentine hearts that he always used to get from monsters. He tended to bring home harvests of things from monsters and men that were still beating.

Money problems solved, the Zombie Smash continued. Forever. In fact, it became such a sensation that the living spectators of the sport found themselves the unexpected victims of the undead spectators.

One of these days, you might be playing a Smash game on your console or your 3DS and BOOM! There's Zombie Mario, RIGHT BEHIND YOU!

The infection spread to all of the worlds of Nintendo… then beyond, into other videogame worlds… the erstwhile worlds of Sega… of Sony… even X-Box. Oh, that little Candy Crush game you've got on your cell phone? It's a goner. Robot Unicorn Attack? How about Zombie Robot Unicorn attack!

Yes, that is another thing. The robots. No one knows how the infection managed to mutate into a form that could infect electronics, but not even cybernetic characters were safe. It is rumored, that much like another zombie-videogame crossover fic out there, that even stone giants from one of your charming author's favorite non-Nintendo games were infected, despite already having black blood.

Soon, everyone in all of the universes was an undead version of itself. It happened faster than anyone could have thought. The Triforce, at some point, probably became a zombie, too, turning black and inverting on itself, showing its Lorule-shadow.

All is not lost. There is no more war or poverty, pain or death – for everything is zombie. Everything is one.

Zombie Pit even helpfully…demolished…the Forth Wall…with….an….Ore…Club…

Maoaoggh! Grrraggh! Gaaah! Acccck! Argh! Urrrrrgggggghllll….

Congratulations! You've got the Otto the Bus Trophy! A long-overdue trophy, it's ramping over the road, like in the first chapter! Continue?

ENDING TWO OF THREE. This is of course, the joke-chapter. For the last possible ending, stay tuned!

This ending was based upon Episode 4 of Season one of the anime "Space Dandy," as some readers may have guessed. For those who aren't into anime or just not into Adult Swim anime, "Space Dandy" is a quirky little science-fiction comedy series about a loser in space and his crew consisting of a cat-alien and an old, but cute robot/vacuum cleaner. They eak out a living (just enough to keep their ship running and to make trips to the space-Hooters) by bounty hunting rare and unclassified aliens and they aren't very good at it.

The series has a loose to non-existent continuity, which means that anything that happens by the end of a given episode has no bearing on any of the other episodes, being that "alternate universes" are a major theme of the series. Episode 4 of Season 1 was a zombie-episode and I found it THE most creative and fun take on a zombie apocalypse I had ever seen. Yes, robots became zombies in the episode without any explanation whatsoever. At the end of the episode, everyone, including the narrator/God was a zombie. Of course, I had a parody ending for this fic based upon it in mind ever since I started the story.