The Power of the Voice
Chapter 12: R&R
*Smash Mansion*
Throughout the past few weeks, Julia was teaching Arla how to use her katana to its full potential. Master Hand completely shut himself in his office to finish his research on how to destroy Subspace as well as taking off the Smash Bracelet from Arla. Because of this, he never scheduled any tournament battles for the Smashers. They've been sparring with each other as well as the things they do in their free time. While they kept themselves mildly entertained, the Smashers were running out of things to do. Right now, they're all lying in the living room (it's a big room trust me) just looking bored. Julia and Arla came in after finishing another lesson with their swords.
"Hey y'all, what are your plans for today?" Julia asked.
"This," the Smashers replied in unison.
"Seriously?"
"With Master Hand isolating himself in his office, we can't schedule any tournament battles," Marth said.
"We've been sparring several times with each other as well as other things for days. They're becoming pointless now," Falco added.
"You guys really can't think of anything else?" Arla asked when she typed down on her new translator from Tails.
"There was that Mini-Olympics he gave us, but that was almost as boring. It had math problems, MATH PROBLEMS!" Pit reminded.
"Poyo poyo po poyo (Master Hand isn't that creative when it comes to fun stuff)," Kirby commented.
"I thought the Mario Kart event was cool," Toon Link muttered.
"But other than those, any other ideas we can try," Fox asked. They all became silent as they pondered what else they can try. Soon Julia spoke.
"Then, think bigger," Julia said.
"Just how big are you thinking?" Ness asked.
"Not life-threatening big, but we might have an idea we could try," Julia said referring to both herself and Arla. The Smashers, even Arla, was confused. "Arla, do you remember our little birthday tradition?" Arla thought hard until her eyes lit up excitedly.
"You mean those stuff?"
"You bet. And since we're doing it for the Smashers this time, we really need to put it into a whole new level of dangerous fun. Can your battle simulator shape into any stage you can imagine?"
"It can. For place from our worlds, only the ones Master Hand inserted in the computer. If a completely new world from scratch, then it's up to you I guess," Zelda explained.
"What are you up to?" Peach asked curiously.
"You'll see soon enough. It might take us some time, especially for the changes for you guys, but I think we can make it work. Arla, let's go," Julia said as she grabbed Arla and went to the battle simulator.
*MH's Office*
As he was working on his project he was notified that someone was in the battle simulator building a stage from scratch. When he checked the cameras, he saw Julia… bringing pillows onto the battlefield. Then, he turned to the camera to the backyard to see Arla using PK freeze all over the ground and created a dome from Zelda's magic.
"What are you two up to?" MH said curiously.
*Next Day*
The Smash Brothers waited all day and all night for Julia and Arla to finish up with their projects, even through lunch, dinner, and breakfast. They still ate during meals, but every time they entered, the two ladies were always exhausted. The Smashers can tell they've been working hard.
It was already 9:00 a.m. in the morning and everyone was done with their breakfast. They were also growing impatient for what was planned for them as they sat in the living room once again.
"Ugh, that's it. I'm done waiting! It's time to see what they were up to!" Bowser exclaimed.
"Patience Bowser. We all can tell they've been working really hard to do this on their own, especially without the aid of Master Hand. We should respect their space," Peach said. Bowser only grunted. After a couple of minutes, Arla and Julia came in once again.
"Sorry for the holdup everyone. We were able to make something similar to our Birthday Bash tradition."
"Yep, Arla described your Mini-Olympics you had before. It sounds really similar to a tradition we have on my birthday when we come up with a ton of wicked activities. Apparently, your activities sounded like a real bust, so we were trying to attempt to make a better version of it that could meet up to all your… standards. An 'Olympic Bash' you could say," Julia explained. "This was made with all the resources we could find, so sorry if it isn't the prettiest stuff."
Arla led the Smashers to the backyard to find an ice rink instead of the normal ground.
Julia gave everyone, including Arla, a pair of skates, a hockey stick, and a hockey puck. Everyone but Julia skated onto the rink.
"Are we playing hockey?" Lucas asked.
"Sort of. But it'll be a brawl instead." Arla typed down.
"You can't be serious? We already know how to fight," Wolf said.
"In your own way, yes. But, have you ever tried to fight with nothing but a hockey puck?" Wolf shook his head.
"Well, that's the aim of the game. It's similar to that archery game you had before. Just shoot and don't get shot," Julia said as she sat down ready to watch.
"How come you aren't joining?" Dedede complained.
"Someone's gotta be the referee. Plus, with me in it, that would be majorly unfair."
"Yeah right. I like to see you try to hit me. Come on, I like to see you try. I won't even move," the King of Dreamland said confidently. Julia smirked at the challenge. She skated to the middle of the ice. She aimed directly at Dedede, but at the last second, she shot the puck to her left. The puck whizzed between Link and Falcon's heads and hit the dome, ricocheted off the dome to a higher part of it, and then bounced back towards Dedede. He stared with wide eyes, frozen, only to find the puck only hitting his hat off.
"Ha! I told you that you couldn't-" he didn't finish his sentence. The puck rebounded from the floor and hit the blue penguin on the back of his noggin, knocking him out. The others looked surprised.
"With that, Dedede is eliminated, continue," Julia said nonchalantly as she dragged Dedede off the rink. The Smashers looked at each other then began the brawl, trying to shoot opponents away with their pucks.
After about half an hour, only the Olympic Smashers, Sonic, Mario, Yoshi, Peach, and Luigi are left. They had the most experience of playing hockey. Sonic and Mario were about to shoot each other, and Peach with Luigi. Once they did, their pucks went to the other shooter, taking both of them out. Yoshi was the only one who didn't face off 1v1 against someone, and because of that, he was the victor.
"Yoshi! Yoshi!" Yoshi cheered as he jumped up and down after skating off the ice.
"Onto the next event. Arla." Julia said. Arla nodded and led the Smashers… onto the roof? They knew the mansion was really high up since it housed 35 of them, and they knew a drop from that height would be fatal if they fell without any padding.
"Uh, what's this about?" Nana said nervously as she looked down at the edge.
"Arla, the trampolines are set right?" Arla nodded as she pointed to where she put them. The Smashers turned to where she pointed. They saw a bunch of trampolines hanging widely scattered all over a giant pit about a football field away. "Alright, let it rip!"
Arla jumped off the roof and used PK Freeze once again. With the ice, she started to make a makeshift slide with a lot of twists and turns but not much railing. Soon she ended the slide at the front of the pit going upward. She launched herself up and aimed for one of the trampolines and bounced on them until she landed on solid ground. Then, Arla used Pit's wings and Sonic's speed to fly back onto the roof.
"The goal is what you just saw me do. Slide without falling off and land on the trampolines to solid ground without falling into the giant hole. Only this time, I will try to find ways to distract you. The rules are no flying of any kind, no recoveries, no using your powers, and no shields or weapons. All you can use is your own momentum and your wits. Good luck!" Arla typed down.
One by one, they slid down trying not to fall. Though it was hard since it was made of ice. Arla made sure the slide wouldn't break or melt. Julia can't participate since she doesn't have a way to recover or have any armor to protect her, so one fall could kill her, and she couldn't transform into a trophy like her sister now can.
As they continued, Arla was throwing her metal fans hoping to trip someone up, and she throws other stuff in the mix like fireballs, lasers, even grenades. In the end, the Smashers had at least two to three bruises on themselves. More if you included the bruises from the hockey game pucks before.
"I think that should be enough for today," Toon Link commented as he took a breather from all that happened so far.
"Don't you think this is a little intense for us?" Marth said as he laid down on the grass like some of the others.
"Hard to say. You guys are a different level of circumstances from normal people. I just assumed that since you already do intense stuff already, like bashing robots or sneaking into top secret facilities, doing normal life stuff would be too boring for you," Julia replied.
"But when doing such intense, we tend to forget the normal life, so it's not so bad to live a normal life again. Like a break from our version of norm," Snake said.
"That's a good point. Well usually, the usual activities are always held in controlled environments. Luckily this next event is a normal life activity. Come on." A few minutes after everyone rested up, they followed Julia to the next event she has in store. While Arla worked outside, Julia worked inside the battle simulator. When they entered, they saw a whole new battlefield, one that looks like one of the Splatoon turf war fields.
"Who's up for some laser tag?" Arla typed with a smile.
"I thought you said every activity in your life is in a controlled environment. That means no one getting seriously hurt in your case," Zelda said.
"No not literal laser tag like the lasers in Fox's gun. I meant using the harmless kind of lasers." Arla and Julia passed out vests of all sizes with blue lights on their chest and back and shoulders, and attached to the back, is a cable with a gun at the end of it. For the Smashers who stand on all fours or with short arms, they were given vests that have an automatic gun on their shoulders instead of a handheld gun.
"It's simple. You have half an hour to get as many people as you can. Repeats count. Aim for the lights on each others' vests. Once you're hit, the light will turn red, which means you can't use your gun. After about 10 seconds, the light will turn blue and you can use it again. After times up, the screen will show the results of who gets the highest score. This is basically like a VR video game." Julia explained.
"It will also be glow in the dark themed to make it interesting. Once the lights turn off and you only see neon colors, that's when the game starts. Vice versa when the game is done. There's a grace period for one minute once we enter the room. It'll give you time to see the layout and plan. Rules are the same as before, and the only weapon you can use is that gun. Is everyone ready?" Arla finished.
"So, we won't get hurt from the lasers at all?" Ness clarified.
"Yep, let's go!" Everyone entered and began to spread out. After the grace period ended, the lights went out, and only black lights remained to show the neon colors. The match had started. Julia and Arla both joined this time as well. Everyone could see lasers fly all over the place as if this was some war.
Every time someone got shot, they heard a power down sound effect, and when they shot someone, they heard a trumpet victory sound. Some people even teamed up for a short time, and some kept shooting constantly at the same people for personal bitter rivalry business.
*MH's Office*
He started to hear laser noises. The fact he could hear it from all the way from his office confused him, even though it was muffled. The simulator was a few floors below his office. He switched the cameras again to see the room all dark but colorful, and he saw all the Smashers inside.
"What the heck?" MH said confused.
*Battle Simulator*
After time was up, the lights went up, and the Smashers laid on the ground mildly exhausted, except for a few obvious.
"Maybe 30 minutes was a stretch," Julia said.
"Probably," Ike replied, who was sitting across from her. Soon a screen came down that showed everyone's score. The top three were the Star Fox characters. The three of them smirked at the results, but they saw the names for most accurate and the one who had the most kills. Apparently, Olimar had the most kills even though he was in 12th place, and Marth was the most accurate despite being in 18th.
"How did they get those titles?" Falco asked slightly annoyed.
"That's likely because Olimar did hit the most people, but at the same time, he was shot at too often, losing points in the process. Marth was the most accurate since out of all the shots he threw, the majority of them didn't miss. He knew when to fire, but it's likely he didn't fire enough, which is why he is low on the board." Arla explained.
"Was that all you had planned for us?" Meta Knight asked.
"I think there's one more thing left. But, I want to get dinner first I'm starving." Everyone looked at the clock to see that it was already 8:00 p.m. They've been busy for almost the entire day. "When you all are done, I suggest changing into your sleepwear before doing the last activity."
Eventually, they had dinner, eating and conversing about the day so far and they thought of it.
"That ice slide event was honestly cool, we were going zip, and then up, and then boom," Pit said excitedly to some of the Smashers sitting by him. As he talked, he waved his spoon that was covered in mash potatoes back and forth. However, he was swinging it too hard that a big chunk on the spoon was tossed and hit Bowser in the head. Pit didn't notice it though.
"Hey! Oh, now you're getting it," Bowser said. He looked back at the directing where the food was thrown. He saw Mario right beside Pit and assumed it was him. The Koopa King threw his curry right at him.
"What, hey! Argh!" Mario said angered. He threw his mushroom soup at Bowser, but he ducked in time and the soup hit Wolf.
"What the hell!" Soon Wolf threw his food at another Smasher. Then slowly, it became an all-out food fight for everyone. After an hour or two, I'm sure everyone can guess who showed up looking like a hot pepper.
"WHAT'S GOING ON HERE!" MH yelled looking at the mess of food the Smashers made. "I had to pull out of my work to see you guys all acting like children around here!" Everyone glanced at each other in silence. Then all at once, they began to laugh despite MH's mood.
"Apologies Master Hand. It's just been a while since we had some actual excitement," Marth said as he looked at all the food he was covered in as well as everyone else.
"Was this another one of your activities?" MH said as he 'glared' at Julia and Arla. Julia remained calm, but Arla looked somewhat ashamed and had her hood up.
"Not at all actually. We just wanted to join," Julia replied.
"Fine, I'll let it slide just this once. You at least gave me an excuse to get some fresh air," the hand said sternly. "Just make sure this last activity of yours doesn't make that much of a mess like it already is." With that, he left without saying another word. Julia gave a slight chuckle and went to clean up like everyone else. While she helped clean, she couldn't help but feel partly guilty for participating.
"Don't let Master Hand get to you Arla. He's usually angry when doing something like this," Olimar said.
"Yeah, most of us got in trouble with him at some point, so we're used to taking on his wrath individually," Ness added.
"For you guys maybe. This was the first time I ever did something so inappropriate. It was exhilarating, but I can't help being ashamed for not being what I'm expected to be. I'm just so used to following the rules. Every time I do get in trouble though, it was always because of someone else," Arla typed.
"We've done stuff way worse than this. Trust me," Sonic said.
"Like?" Julia asked excited to know.
"Poyo Poyo Poyo (one time we played frisbee indoors and nearly broke all the furniture)," Kirby said smiling from that memory. Everyone lightly laughed.
"There was one Easter when we decorated raw eggs, then we had an egg war," Falco reminded. More laughs.
"Pika Pi Pika (and that time when we had that prank war on April Fool's Day)," Pikachu said.
"Wow, those really are bizarre. And Master Hand's reaction?" Julia asked while laughing.
"Twice what you saw," everyone said.
"What about you two? Was there anything you did that was against the rules?" Peach asked.
"Not much. There were some small friendly competitions back in high school. They were usually about minor stuff, so the teachers shrugged them off. The bystanders, like me, found a lot of entertainment in them. I remembered one when a group called the 'Thorium Girls' were up against… I think they were called the 'Gulang Gang' in a game called 'Nine Square'. The rivalry lasted for about two weeks before it died out, and it happened during classes as well. There was another competition before as well. It was a group I joined that involved your games. A couple of us would play on the ds and play Super Smash Bros Brawl against one another. I just borrowed others' ds' so I could play," Julia said. "I'm pretty sure electronics weren't allowed, but I don't think the teachers cared that much. A couple joined actually."
"That's pretty dull," Falco admitted.
"Sorry, but that's all the gossip I got."
"What about you Arla?" Zelda asked.
"Nothing exciting. My school was a private school. The rules were extremely strict, and the teachers there watched the hallways like a hawk. Whatever bad thing you do, they always found a way to catch you. If you were a witness, you get in trouble too. That's why there aren't any friend groups or bullies at all in my school. Everyone's on their own. I was one of the few that never got into trouble or caused any mishap. With that record, I wasn't treated badly like everyone else, but that's when I was so used to the way I behave that I didn't know how to get out of the habit. They basically pushed me into the perfect student they wanted, obedient and disciplined."
"Oh my, I'm sorry for asking."
"Relax princess. I'm having fun now. Don't go giving me sympathetic looks with down faces. That'll spoil the last activity we have today," Arla typed down with a smirk.
"Oh yeah, what is it anyway?" Fox asked.
"First get yourself cleaned up, then, come to the battle simulator again with sleepwear," Julia reminded. They went to their rooms to do just that. After another half an hour they arrived at the simulator with their pajamas. Some didn't have sleepwear since they thought they didn't need any.
"So what is it?" Mario asked. The two ladies nodded and opened the room to find a completely new stage filled with pillows. They hid their smiles as they both grabbed a pillow.
"Pillow Fight!" Julia yelled as she and Arla started throwing pillows at the Smashers. Most of the Smashers smiled and began throwing pillows as well. Some of the lone wolf Smashers stood to the side but still threw pillows every once in a while. Some created pillow forts while others created barricades to block the barrage of soft attacks. Soon enough, the arena was split in half. One group versus the other. Suddenly, everyone froze when they saw Master Hand coming in.
"I saw everything on the cameras," MH said lowly. Everyone remained silent once again until MH picked up a handful of pillows. "Now which team am I on?" he said excitedly. With that, MH joined in the fray, making the chaos twice as powerful.
It was laughs and joy until everyone began to get tired when it reached close to midnight. Everyone fell asleep in the arena of pillows.
*Subspace*
"Yaaaah!" Akidan screamed as she sliced another Galleom in half. Throughout her few weeks, she had trained constantly to better herself. She started with only Primids. Next, she added a few bosses into the mix. Now she faced nothing but the bosses constantly without a moment's rest. She felt a ton of pain, but she didn't care. Tabuu did say to work until she dropped. She was slicing through them like an animal at this point.
Fast swing by fast swing, she sliced every boss from Petey P. to Duon (during the cutscenes) with a single slice. As she fought the last of her group, she landed, breathing heavily. Then, she heard a slow clap. She turned to the noise, ready to strike it, only for the source to catch her blade. She saw Tabuu with content on his face.
"Very impressive. To attack without question. That is an improvement," Tabuu said. Akidan simply nodded while still catching her breath. "Now then." Tabuu summoned more Shadow Bugs to form. This time it took the shape of Arla.
Akidan stared at her blankly. Then, with all the strength she had left, ran at her with blade out in front. The copy fought similarly to how Arla first fought Akidan. This time though, Akidan didn't play around. She didn't have that confident smile she had beforehand. When she got the copy cornered, Akidan sliced her without a second thought.
"Now, if she was in front of you like that for real, will you take her out?" Tabuu asked.
"Without hesitation," Akidan replied as she walked away.