It seems I have some more reviewers to acknowledge:

falcored: I think in order to fully understand all the goings-on in my stories one must play, or at least know a thing or two about, other games that the Smashers feature in individually. And aside from the anonymous authorities at Nintendo's "Centropolis," a central hub that I made up, Nephorius is really the only original character that I incorporate into this particular story.

crystalicios: Glad to hear you've read "Survivors' Accounts from the Wormhole Crisis," because this is the primary chapter I'm talking about that you would not understand without reading "Survivors' Accounts." If you found that it explained a lot before this point, you'll certainly be glad you've read it now.

So without further ado...

Search and Rescue

While Fox McCloud and Team Starfox grieved over the loss of Falco Lombardi, in quite a different galaxy, another SSBM fighter sought out one of his fellows and three others imperiled now in the enemy's grasp. This man was Captain Falcon, a renowned bounty hunter and F-Zero pilot in addition to being a SSBM fighter, and he was now on a search-and-rescue mission for the psychic boy Ness and three friends of Ness's named Paula, Jeff, and Poo.

Captain Falcon might have had many reasons for embarking to rescue these four children, but those of us who know the truth up to this point could narrow them down to the three most plausible reasons. For one thing, he was a SSBM fighter, as was Ness, and any such fighter with a sense of honor would consider it his duty to help fellow fighters in need and any others who may be in that same need. Secondly, even if he had not been a SSBM fighter, Falcon's sense of honor would still dictate that if children were in danger as Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo were, he must not stand by and leave those children to their fate. But probably a more pressing reason than mere SSBM fighter's honor was the last request of a dying princess.

In the infamous Wormhole Crisis of less than five months ago, Captain Falcon had been wormholed straight out of an F-Zero race and to the Mushroom Kingdom, where travel-speed regulations caused any vehicle traveling faster than maximum allowed speed to crash upon entry, via wormhole or otherwise. Falcon's crash not only totaled his racing machine; it caused him broken bones and grievous burn injuries that landed him in the critical care unit of Nintendo's Central Hospital—which, Centropolis doctors said, Falcon would not have even survived if not for the immediate attentions of the Mushroom Kingdom's own Princess Peach, as she had treated his wounds to the best of her ability until an Emergency Response Team arrived on the scene.

But when Falcon stepped out of his base of operations in Port Town just in time to see an injured woman collapse into a heap at the entrance to the back alley, he realized that the woman was, in fact, the very Princess Peach to whom he owed his life—and by that time it was already too late to save her. She had several injuries under the reflective purple suit that she had worn hopefully to resist blaster fire—including a long, angry blade wound to her right side that must have been the primary cause for the loss of blood that prostrated her strength until her collapse. Falcon spotted that Peach had been carrying an Intergalactic Travelers' Center-issue tracking device (apparently used to look for an N-gate), and that she must not have known the device to have an emergency transmitter built into it—which he himself promptly activated to summon an Emergency Response Team from the Centropolis. Alas, however—Peach was too far gone; she died before the Emergency Response Team arrived.

Peach did, however, manage to tell her fellow SSBM fighter this much: the children Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo were wormholed and held hostage; Peach had found them and tried to get them to Port Town, via Hoverboard, in search of an N-gate (either the princess had the idea that she could deliver the children to safety by catching the enemy off-guard and taking the long way to an N-gate, or she knew that she could call on Captain Falcon for help in the unlikely event that she should cross his path—or both). The king of evil Black Shadow and his soldiers, however, chased the escapees down until they reached the outskirts of Port Town—in the battle that ensued there, Black Shadow's soldiers succeeded in recapturing the children, and Peach, too badly wounded to continue fighting, was forced to attempt to make her way to an N-gate so that she could get to the Central Hospital to be treated. But she didn't have the strength to make it; she lived just long enough after her collapse to tell Falcon about the fate of Ness and company, and to ask him to rescue the children in her stead. If only the princess had been able to take a few more steps—if only Falcon had stepped outside a moment sooner, he might have been able to save Peach's life and renew the Bond of Salvation forged in the Wormhole Crisis…

But no, Falcon could not lament the loss of the princess. He remembered overhearing an argument that Princess Peach had had with another fellow SSBM fighter, Princess Zelda of Hyrule, merely two days before the fateful battle—"The heart of a bounty hunter is unbreakable," Peach had vehemently asserted. And true enough, Captain Falcon was a bounty hunter—he was determined to prove Peach right by showing the unbreakable heart that she believed him to possess. For while it may be only fitting for Peach's dear beloved, a plumber named Mario, to weep uncontrollably soon after receiving the news of her death; while it was acceptable for Princess Zelda to cry about the loss of a dear friend, those same tears from Falcon would be a grave dishonor to the princess who gave up her life in an attempt to rescue the four Earthbound children.

Thus a dark hour found the intrepid bounty hunter onboard his flagship, the Falcon Flyer (with one Assault Team from the Centropolis stowed aboard and another accompanying him in cloaked fighter ships), searching for the whereabouts of Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo.

"Our intelligence reports indicate a number of Black Shadow's soldiers, as well as a contingent of Red Canyon bandits, entering Eastern Mute Spaceport via a black shuttle identified as belonging to Black Shadow and his soldiers," explained a Gamemaster's agent traveling with the Assault Team stowed aboard the Falcon Flyer. "Are we to attempt to enter the spaceport undetected and sneak onboard the shuttle to rescue the children when it lands?"

"I suppose that's a safer plan than attempting to board the shuttle in space—but on what grounds are you suggesting that the Red Canyon bandits are involved in this?" interrogated Captain Falcon suspiciously.

"A report from the forensics lab indicated that the blade wound that killed Princess Peach was, in fact, made by a katana—but from there arises another unforeseen complication," the agent answered in explanation, ignoring Falcon's curse at the mention of a katana being the killer's weapon.

At the mention of another complication, however, Falcon's eyes narrowed unseen behind his visor. "Complication of what nature?" was his wary response.

"Investigators at the scene of the battle have found a Beam Sword dropped at an area of ground splattered with what tests confirm to be the Princess's blood, and marks on her right glove indicate she was holding that very weapon and fighting with it; presumably she dropped the sword in the initial pain of being slashed with a katana…"

"But the blade of a Beam Sword is pure energy; it should have sliced straight through any attackers and their weapons," Falcon contradicted, "unless Peach's killer attacked her from behind."

"That's where we come to the complication," stated the agent. "Analysis of the wound confirmed that the attacker made his fatal slash from the front—which would mean that Peach had traded blows with this particular attacker for some unknown length of time before her enemy landed the blow."

Falcon muttered under his breath, "Not long, it isn't likely; she's not very good with a sword—but what are you suggesting, if Peach was fighting with a Beam Sword?" he interrogated.

"What the Gamemaster is beginning to believe is that a certain mage of darkness named Nephorius is behind the death of Princess Peach, as well as those of several other SSBM fighters that have been killed over the past several hours. A poem inscribed on a stone that Falco Lombardi found on Planet Sauria before his Arwing was blasted apart makes mention of Nephorius as a killer of 'fighters renowned…'"

"Not now, maybe later—we're approaching Mute City, and I need to be focused," Falcon interrupted, in proof whereof fixing his face into the determined expression that he usually reserved for either racing in Grand Prix events or chasing down dangerous criminals. He activated the Falcon Flyer's cloaking device and radar scramblers to avoid detection as he and the two Assault Teams made their way to the Eastern Mute Spaceport, where the enemy kept the Earthbound children hostage aboard Black Shadow's shuttle.

Falcon landed his own flagship in a smaller landing bay that was more obscure than most of the others, but was unfortunately far enough away to make bringing back the children undetected more difficult. Luckily, however, he brought along several SSBM-issue Cloaking Devices to further reduce the risk that either he or any of the children would be seen.

It took all of Falcon's skill and agility to make his way through the spaceport unseen by Black Shadow's forces and the Red Canyon bandits; he was determined not to use any Cloaking Devices until he also had to shield Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo from prying eyes.

Finally the Universal Locator that Captain Falcon had been carrying (the same one that Princess Peach had dropped when she collapsed in Port Town) revealed the Earthbound children to be exactly where he suspected the brig of the shuttle to be. That was easy, Falcon couldn't help but think sardonically. Now comes the hard part.

There was a cargo-hold door to the outside of the ship that could only be opened from the outside and had several bolted locks to disable. Falcon looked warily around from time to time as he did this, prepared to hide if he spotted one of Black Shadow's soldiers, but at last he disabled the last lock and found the four children on the other side.

"I can't believe it! It's Captain Falcon here to get us out!" Ness whispered joyfully, now freed of his energy binders (as Jeff had eventually learned how to release himself from them, freed Ness and Paula, and was just now trying to release Poo).

"Here, let me unlock that last set of energy binders, I can do it faster," Falcon ordered, releasing Poo from the binding device. "Now we haven't much time, so take a Cloaking Device and follow me!"

The children obeyed, Paula, Jeff, and Poo having learned from Ness how to operate Cloaking Devices, as Falcon led them through the spaceport as quickly and quietly as possible.

Within just thirty yards of the Falcon Flyer and safety, however, Jeff let out a cry of pain as a blaster bolt grazed his ankle and he fell.

"Oh, no! They've spotted us!" Paula burst out in alarm as she ran to Jeff, while Ness and Poo broke into a run to catch up to Captain Falcon. The bounty hunter didn't have to call on the Assault Team stowed aboard his flagship for assistance; the Gamemaster's agent had heard Jeff's outcry and rallied the Assault Team to begin shooting at Black Shadow's soldiers and the Red Canyon bandits as they brandished their weapons, giving the good captain just enough cover to hastily usher the children onto the Falcon Flyer.

As that ship left the spaceport with all speed under escort of the second Assault Team, with members of the first quickly boarding a few of the fighter ships that entered the spaceport to pick them up, it was not until everyone involved was back at the safety of the Intergalactic Travelers' Center that anyone dared to let their guard down.

"I saw Peach get hurt really bad when she tried to rescue us, just before those creeps tied me up in the energy binders—is it true, what they said, that she didn't make it?" Ness ventured to ask Captain Falcon some five minutes after the landing.

"I wish it wasn't true as much as you do, Ness, but I'm afraid the Princess did die before she could make it to the nearest N-gate," Falcon told Ness. "When she stumbled into my path in her last moments, she lived just long enough to tell me what happened to you and your friends, and asked me to rescue you."

Ness let out a sigh of despair. "I was so worried you'd be killed too…you shouldn't have risked your life for me…"

Placing a hand on the boy's shoulder for a moment, Falcon told him still more gravely, "Some things are more important than saving one's own skin, I hope you understand this."