Chapter 13 Ace Pilot vs. Heroine
Falco stood on his end of the rail-car, bracing against the wind from the fast moving locomotive. Over on her end, Ashe shot a smirk towards Falco. "What's the matter hot-shot?" She asks, "The wind's not too much is it?"
"This breeze?" Falco lets out a laugh, "With all of the crap I've had to fly through, this is nothing. Now get running!" He yells while whipping out his pistol and firing off three shots.
Ashe smiles and runs towards the shots, timing her jumps to land in between the blasts. Within two seconds she's right in Falco's face and only another second passes before she socks him in the face. Before he could recover, Ashe swung her leg up into his jaw...err...beak, and knocked the pilot up into the air.
The teen was planning on leaping after Falco, but he shifted the fight in his favor by jutting a leg out and kicking Ashe away as he came down. She was tossed away to the far end of the car as Falco lands upright, but the bird doesn't immediately rush after her...he got distracted by one of the most bizarre looking items he had ever seen.
It stood to about his waist and looked like the end of a vine, a really spiky vine. This 'vine' had a slight curve to it and down at the non-pointy end was a huge bulge where the deep-green coating of the vine broke apart to reveal part of a yellow orb. This whatever it was seemed to be some kind of club, but considering Falco had never seen it before, he could've been wrong.
Regardless of what it could do or what it was, Falco had learned from two seasons of Smash to keep your opponent from the items, so he dove for and grabbed onto the vine. Instantly he learned that it wasn't a club because the second his finger touched it, the vine was absorbed into his body.
"Huh...wonder if this thing is some kind of power-up. Nah, I don't feel any different." Falco mumbles to himself, then snaps out of his thoughts fast enough to dodge a punch from Ashe.
The blue-haired teen throws another punch, and again Falco dodges before throwing a fist to her gut, knocking her backwards. A couple punches later and Ashe is teetering at the edge of the car, mere inches separating her from a fall onto the ground.
"Forgive me for the corny pun, but this is your stop Ashe!" Falco exclaims. Even though he couldn't hear it, a loud groan was issued from all of the spectators...but that was Falco for ya.
"Nope. I'm not getting off for awhile!" Ashe exclaims. With a click of her heels, Ashe triggers a couple jet rockets hidden in the heel of her boots and leaps over Falco's head to the safe center of the car. "But you're getting left behind!"
Ashe whips out her own laser pistol and fires off a couple shots. However, unlike mimicking what Ashe did earlier, Falco plucks a small hexagonal device off his belt, turns it on and slips a piece of string connected to it onto his finger all in one quick smooth motion. Then in an equally quick motion, he kicks the now turned on reflector shield towards Ashe.
The device bounces Ashe's own shots back at her, and while she takes more damage Falco gives the string a tug to pull his reflector back, switches it off, then snaps it back to his belt.
"Clever little piece of tech." Ashe comments, rubbing her shoulder where the laser zapped her.
"Heh, you can think my little buddy Slippy for that." Falco says, his cocky attitude seeping out of his words.
Ashe however, is unfazed. In fact, she actually smirks at Falco. "But is it as clever as this? Mega-merge!"
Like what happened several matches ago with Aile, Ashe's body began to glow but this time only one little object appeared over her shoulder. That difference was soon forgotten after the Biometal was absorbed into Ashe's body and the light faded, since now Ashe had gotten her own battle armor.
The high-heeled boots became a pair of normal boots that reached up to her knees, with a white base, navy blue armoring the rest of the way and a red ankle clasp. The belt had changed into a simple piece of white plastic that went around her waist, with a magnetic clasp that kept her pistols at the ready. Her jumpsuit was still the dark-blue from before, only know that color was only present as a stripe up her middle, both sides were now a light blue color as well as the arms. Her gloves had grown out to her elbows and changed into the same navy-blue color as her boots, and there was also a red clasp around each wrist.
Her orange jacket had become a large piece of chest armor, navy blue underneath and an upside-down red triangle over that, with the base being at the shoulder level while the point was at the bottom of the armor. Finally over her head formed a helmet that let her long ponytail out, with white side-guards, a blue casing, and two horns that were red for about halfway before suddenly becoming golden yellow.
"Aw crap..." Falco mutters, realizing that now he had to deal with the same thing Fox did. He jumps up into the air to avoid a punch from the now armored teen, and uses his second jump to get over her to a safe distance. Upon landing he found another of those weird vine things and quickly picked it up before getting out of the way of a kick.
"Come on Falco, are you just going to dodge me the whole match?" Ashe asks, before drawing her pistol again and firing off a shot. It was too close for Falco to try his reflector trick again, so he's forced to bend out of the way, then counters by running up and landing a swift punch to Ashe's face.
Before she could react, Falco hit her with a flurry of kicks, then delivered a fairly harsh roundhouse kick that shoved her back to the edge of the car. He was about to force her off, but got distracted when an alarm sounds. Looking around, he noticed that the next car on the train was starting to move in-bounds as their car slips towards the left boundary.
Not two seconds after that, the coupling between the two cars explodes, causing the cars Falco and Ashe were one to slide towards the boundary even faster. As much as he wanted to get an edge in the stock counts, Falco knew that it was wiser to get to safe ground, and he did so with his double jump.
He lands on the new car, noticing that there was one large crate sitting over the mark splitting the left third from the middle third and a second crate, this one up in the air on a few supports at the edge of the car, over the middle and right thirds. What he didn't notice however, was Ashe landing behind him and landing a punch to his back, tossing him into the crate.
It stung a bit to have your face smashed against metal, but Falco was able to fly upward with his Falcon Fire move before Ashe could get him trapped. As could be expected, Ashe jumped after him, but Falco punched her back down, sprawling the armored teen on the car below.
Just then, Falco hears a thud from behind him and turns to see another new item, but it wasn't another vine...this had a sort of lime-green center part shaped like a rounded triangle and crossing right through the middle was a deep-green section that formed a small stubby tail at the the bottom and big curving horn at the top.
Falco still didn't have a clue as to what they were, but regardless...more items for him meant less for Ashe, so he grabbed it. Unlike the vines, which did nothing when grabbed, this one triggered an effect that reminded one of the Dragoon from the previous tournament. The two vines separated from Falco and hovered down near the tail of the new piece on their ball end before flipping to point the vines toward the horn.
Falco leapt onto the newly formed Air Ride and took off, expecting it to work much like the Dragoon...boy was he wrong. True this one did fly out towards the camera and it did spin around to face the stage...but where the Dragoon patiently waited for its rider to aim, this Air Ride let out a roar and took off, barely giving a now terrified Falco enough time to grab onto the horn to avoid getting left behind.
The psychotic machine dove for Ashe, and just barely missed as she jumped atop the lower crate. It wasn't going to give up that easily though, and the machine turned on its own to fly around and attack from the stage's left. Ashe jumped over that one.
The machine pulled a U-turn and dove for her again, missing as she ducked down. It flew around in a wide arc then tried to come in from behind the stage, missing yet again as she rolled out of the way. The insane machine continues to divebomb Ashe from various directions and angles until it finally manages to land a full on tackle roughly fifteen seconds after Falco formed it. The force was so strong that it threw Ashe clear over the right boundary despite her relatively low percentage, but it was also the second that Falco lost his grip on the horn and was left behind as the machine vanished.
Sure he was ahead in stock and had a somewhat low percentage, but the bird was still swaying back and forth as he stood on the higher crate. That gut-wrenching ride had thrown off his balance, but the more apparent effect was the look of terror frozen to his face. Clenched teeth, eyes the size of dinner plates, hand clutching his heart, beads of sweat dripping from his feathers...yup, he went for one terrifying ride.
"Oh god..." he mumbles as Ashe is brought back in, "If this wasn't virtual...I'd probably need to change my pants right about now."
He was soon his old self though, since Ashe took the opportunity to attack from behind and drop him down to the car below from a punch, then followed up with a stomp to his torso.
Falco groans as he gets up, blocks a few punches from Ashe then skips backwards to get away from her. With one hand nursing the sore spot on his chest, Falco yanks out his pistol with the other and fires off shot after shot to keep Ashe away.
She only takes a few hits before double jumping up to the higher crate and coming down on Falco's head with a Star Rod swing, tossing the avian from the wall he had back himself up against.
He barely had time to get up before getting slammed in the back by a star shot. "Hey!" he yells, turning around so another shot can nail him in the gut, "Knock it off!"
"Fine." Ashe shrugs before putting all her might into tossing the rod. The rod spins a few times in the air before pegging Falco between the eyes with the star end, tossing him back...right to the edge of the boundary.
He groans from the hit and opens his eyes to see Ashe standing in front of him, Star Rod back in hand. Half a second later, he explodes off the right boundary and is standing on a revival pad.
Falco would've waited to catch his breath, but there wasn't any time. A Smash Ball had just appeared and flew down on the right side of the upper crate. The bird leaps to the crate and looks down to see Ashe had punched it underneath the crate he was standing on. Being smart, Falco jumps backward off the crate to come down from the left, and managed to do his spin-kick move into the ball after Ashe punched it again, causing its energy to flew into him instead of her.
"Here go again." He mutters while absorbing the energy, "Time to drive around in another landmaster...personally I prefer the air!" He shouts before leaping high into the sky.
However, instead of finding a landmaster waiting for him, he found something that almost brought a tear to his eye...an Arwing was waiting instead. With a yell of joy he backflips into the cockpit, grabs the controls and flies to a position between camera and stage.
The avian switches the starfighter into hover mode and activates the targeting system. Within seconds he begins firing off laser blasts at a fleeing Ashe. Luckily the stage seemed to want to help since this car also begin to drop away from the remainder of the train, squeezing Ashe into a tighter and tighter space.
His advantage soon disappears, since Ashe quickly jumps onto the the new car, this one having a pyramid arrangement of three crates on it, and is able to use the crates to make herself a harder target to hit. By the time the Arwing's autopilot took over to fly Falco back to the stage, all he had managed to do was increase her damage a bit.
The ship dropped him off at the top of the pyramid, and Falco's only got a second to jump away from a charging Ashe.
"Come on Ashe...you can do it." Aile mutters, intently watching her friend's fight. "You haven't let anything stop you before, don't let it now."
The mercenary teen winces when she sees Ashe take a hard hit to her gut. "I know you can win."
Samus notices Aile's muttering and leans over to ask, "Cheering enough?"
"What? I just want my friend to win."
"I'm cheering for her too, but Falco's tricky. He may not look it, but he's a tough one to take down, plenty of recovery moves."
"So? I know that Ashe can win. She's beaten much tougher things...she got the new Smash Ball!" Aile cheers as her friend grabs the glowing orb.
Ashe smirks at the cornered Falco before absorbing the energy into her armor. She whips out both pistols, which seemed to have gotten a little bigger, and aims at Falco before pulling the trigger and causing the now automatic pistols to pelt him with laser blasts. After maybe twenty or so blasts were shot, both guns begin to charge up power before releasing a single, giant laser blast at the trapped bird.
He took a lot of damage from the rapid-fire part, and the giant blast would've blown him away had there not been a large crate right at his back. Regardless, those shots stung like hell, and Falco is cringing from the pain tingles all around his body.
Despite her best efforts, the Final Smash ate up all of Ashe's energy, leaving her at the back end of the car, panting hard as she tried to catch her breath and doubled-over from a small cramp. She's was as good as done, and after Falco pushed her over onto the tracks, allowing her to get left behind on the rails, the match was done too.
Both fighters returned on their panels in the Brawl Room, Falco wincing from the tingles and Ashe with a hand over the cramp in her stomach.
"Hey, good match there." Falco compliments.
"Thanks. You're pretty good too." Ashe replies, stepping off the panel and taking a few steps before stopping and grunting from a new cramp, this one in the back of her left shin.
"Let me help you." Falco says as he comes over, but Ashe seems to ignore him and force herself out of the room on her own. Needless to say, Falco was a little confused at Ashe's compliment then rudeness, but he shrugs it off. "Girls..." he mutters while leaving as well, "Never gonna understand them."
By the time he returns to the living room, Master was already announcing the next match, Would the trainers Red and May please return their pokemon and head to the Brawl Room, your match is about to begin. Repeat, Red and May, your match is about to begin.
Both trainers recall their Pokemon before heading to the Brawl Room, Red politely allowing May to leave the room first. They walk into the room and stand atop their panels.
"These aren't like normal Pokemon Battles May, you'll really have to think outside the box if you want to win." Red says.
"Thanks, but you'll find that my Pokemon aren't as easy to beat as you think." May replies, giving him a smile that said she had a bunch of tricks up her sleeve.
Red gives her the same smile before pressing his button, with May shortly following suit. The two trainers are shot into a stage that Master was quite proud of...Poketopia.
This stage was a simple flat floor, no platforms, no dangerous obstacles apart from the surrounding ocean, it was...oddly simple. In the background, was two large floating grandstands filled with cheering fans, a couple floating boats shaped after the Pokemon Lapras idly drifted by behind those and in the far background was a huge island dominated by giant buildings shaped after Pokemon, shielding the stage from the setting afternoon sun.
Red appears on the left end of the floating stage, and May appears on the right. Both give the other a quick nod before tossing out a Pokeball they randomly pluck from their belt.
"Go Ivysaur!" Red yells.
"Mudkip, time to shine!" May shouts.
Their appropriate pokemon appear in front of them and face the other down.
"You're going down, bud-boy." Mudkip growls.
Ivysaur blinks, "Wow...that's not even good."
3
2
1
FIGHT!
My apologies...homework kept getting in the way and causing writer's blocks. I've also had to work on my own again since Cyphrus is unable to participate much, but since he's such a good friend and a bit of a Falco fan, this chapter is for him.
Now where was I...oh yea. That crazy Air Ride Falco built was the Hydra, Dragoon's counterpart in Kirby Air Ride. Also, my overly-descriptive side struck again when Ashe megamerged, so if you're confused, I'm sorry for it but go try and find a picture of her in Model A form. Maybe I should just start doing that...anyway, that's it! Just six fights left!