A/N: Well, since this story now depends on the others, how quickly this story will be updated is up in the air, as well as how long the chapters will be. Oh well, here's the first transcript of the RP.

P.S.: Fixed the paragraph clumping. When I copied and pasted the posts from the RP, there was residual coding that caused them to clump, even though it looked all right on the Works document. Butthanks, I like specific criticism.

Chapter 6

A Cold Reunion

The first thing that Mario came to realize was that it was cold. Everything was dark, but as he started to come into the waking world, he became more aware of how cold it was. He stirred and blinked his eyes, as soon as he realized his surroundings, he immediately stood up.

Mario was lying face down in the snow, inside a small crater. Mario looked around him, and everywhere he saw was snow. There was light in the sky, but it was a dark light with the thick clouds overhead and the snow blowing over him. His body ached, his skin was going numb, and he didn't have a clue what he was doing there.

"Wha…what happened? Why am I here? A small crater…lying face down…did I fall from the sky? What was I doing last?" Mario thought hard to remember, despite the chilling wind. "I was…in the 64. We we're heading to Mantai." Flashes of fire and feeling of danger then entered his mind. "Eh, no, something went wrong. We…we were under attack. No, it was an ambush! The Zox were waiting for us! We were attacked, and then there was an explosion, and I was knocked from my chair, and then…Eh, I must have blacked out. But, if I was in outer space, then how did I end up here? Alma had mentioned that Mantai was a cold planet…could this be it? But why am I here?" Mario was frustrated. He had blacked out, and was now in a completely new surrounding.

"Wait! If I'm here, maybe the others are!" Mario got to his feet and crawled his way out of the small crater. Everything around him was covered in snow. There was mostly snowed-covered ground around him, but there was also a forest of what seemed to be pines not to far in front of him. Mario scanned the area through the falling snow, and found a few other small craters, and one of them had long hair sticking out of it.

"Zero!" Mario ran over to the crater and found Zero lying in the snow face down, just as he himself was. Mario grabbed and shook him, trying to get Zero to wake up. "Zero! Come on, wake up! Tell me you're not dead!" Mario shook Zero, but there was still no response. Thinking of another idea, he took out a fire flower from his pocket. Mario had stocked up on some supplies before they left Nintendo just in case, and it looked like he needed it.

Mario didn't know much about reploids, but surely this snow wasn't helping him. Walking over to the forest, he collected some pine cones and twigs. Then, he setting them up in pile near Zero, he used the power of the fire flower to shoot a fireball at the pile and it instantly went ablaze. After a few minutes, Zero started to twitch and mutter, "Marina.…"

"Marina? Uh, I don't know, she might be here. You wait here Zero." When Zero didn't reply, he could see that he was only talking in his sleep. Mario then got up to look for the others, but before he got far, he tripped and fell on his face. Looking back to see what he had tripped on, he found it to be Ash's leg.

"Ash!" Giving it a good tug, Ash was pulled out of the snow. He was looking blue, so he took him over to the fire to warm up. As Ash started to come to, the first thing he did was reach for his belt.

"Huhhh...my Pokeball's gone...maybe...maybe I can find it.…"
Ash tried to get up, but his strength soon failed him.

"Ash, take it easy. I'll look for it."

"Mario? Ash?" A faint voice came from behind. Mario turned around to see Marina and Donkey weakly walking towards them. D.K. was helping Marina stand up, as she didn't look too well.

"Guys! Over here!"

"What's going on, why are we here?" Marina asked in a weak and worried voice.

"I don't know. I think there was an explosion on the 64, and somehow we're here now. Here, sit by the fire, I'll look for the others." Zero then started to mutter again.

"Marina...Marina...is that you...?"

"Zero?" Marina looked at Zero stirring in his sleep, and couldn't help but feel bad for him, yet strangely embarrassed. Zero never said anything like that when he was awake, but if he said it in his sleep, could it mean anything about how he actually felt?

Something started to rustle in the snow, and when Ash turned to see it, he smiled when he saw Pikachu slowly crawl out of the snow.

"Pika.…" Pikachu was weakly standing there holding onto his Pokeball. Walking sluggishly, Pikachu came on top of Ash's lap and tried to warm up.

---

Mario went back into the field of snow, looking for the rest of the team when he saw Falco lying in the snow. Mario ran over to him to see if he was okay. Whether he was horribly cold or not he couldn't tell, as Falco was naturally blue.

"Falco? Are you okay? Come on, wake up!"

"Ugh, Mario...?" He slowly stood up, legs shaking. "Are the others...?"

"Alive? At least some of us. Come on, let's look for them."

"Falco, is that you?" Both Falco and Mario looked to their right, seeing Krystal slowly walking their way, her arms folded for warmth.

"The others...they're here, but I can hardly sense some of them. You okay, Falco?"

"Yeah, I think so." Falco answered. "Can you point out to Mario where the others are?"

"Yeah. Mario, this way, I think Jazz is over here." While Falco went to sit with the others, Krystal followed her mind to Jazz's presence. Sure enough, they found him in a small crater, his green fur covered in snow flakes.

"Jazz, can you hear me?" Mario asked while rubbing Jazz's fur.

"Eh, what? Huh, Mario? What happened?"

"Go over to the fire and warm up. We're still looking for the others." Despite the cold numbing away his body, Mario couldn't let himself sit until everyone was safe.

---

Zero was walking through a meadow with Marina. It was a bright, sunny day, but suddenly the sky darkened. A portal opened and an ugly, skinny hand came out of it and grabbed Marina. Zero tried to jump and slice it, but the hand shot an energy beam at him and Zero fell down. Burnt and his armor chipped, he could only mutter Marina's name.

---

Ash slowly bent himself up and looked at his Pokeball.

"Wonder how we managed to survive? And our gear too!" Ash tossed his Pokeball, calling out the Pokemon he wanted. "Magcargo!" Ash had called this Pokemon because of its naturally heated body. "Not even a good rain could cool him down."

As D.K. sat by the fire with the others, he slammed his fist against his palm.

"Dang, how could this happen? We had the 64 blasting away the Zox, and now we wind up here without it! How could we have fallen for a trap like that? That blasted Sandfire knew that we wouldn't let down Alma, so he had those CDs waiting for us, ready to fire as soon as we got here."

"Speaking of which, where are we?" Falco wondered. Marina wasn't any more sure than Falco, but she did have an idea.

"Perhaps we made it to Mantai. That's where we were headed, and Alma said it was a cold planet." Marina looked to the gray sky, hoping to see if she could see the sun, but with all the clouds, she had no luck.

Ash looked around the area hoping to see some sign of civilization.

"If that's true, then where is everybody? I don't even see signs of the…." Ash's last words trailed off as he spotted a small shadow dart off into the storm, and fade out of sight.

"Well...so much for no one here!"

"If the Zox know we survived, they'll probably come looking for us." Marina noted. Falco was just as curious about their current situation.

"Huh...Well, I guess we all will just hafta wait for the others. And we still don't know where the 64 is, or if it even survived that explosion." Of course, after that last upgrade, as the others had earlier explained to him, the 64 should have been near invincible. It should have survived...or did it?

---

As Fox started to come to, he felt rather cold, but he could hear voices going on beyond his vision. It was the sound of Krystal, and that was all he needed to hear to get himself to stand up, even though his body was aching as if he had fallen.

"Krystal?" Krystal turned around as she heard Fox's voice. Looking at one of the small craters, she saw Fox stand up.

"Fox!" Krystal ran over to him, and gave him a warm hug. "I'm so glad you're okay. Your presence was weak for a moment there, and I had trouble knowing where you were." Mario looked at the two foxes who appeared to be better off in the cold then he was.

"Man, wish I had a fur coat." Mario thought to himself.

"Come on, let's go find the others before someone, or something, else finds them."

"Y-yes. The l-longer we stay here, the more d-danger we're in of being spotted. This is a Z-zox-controlled planet, after all." Slippy said through his chattering mouth behind them. Mario, Fox, and Krystal looked to see their friend walking up to them. Slippy's kind was able to survive a wide range of temperatures, but the cold was still enough to make him sluggish.

"Slippy! You're all right!"

"You mean besides freezing my butt off? Yeah, I'm fine. Though I have this aching pain in my back."

---

As soon as the hand went up into the portal and disappeared, the beautiful meadow turned into a frozen, desolate wasteland. Zero then started to mutter again.

"Marina...no.…" Then, the hand came out of the portal and picked him. The hand then threw Zero into a pit of spikes at the bottom, and right when he landed, the dream ended.

Zero bolted upright as he woke up from the nightmare and looked around.

"What's been going on...where are we? Marina! You're safe!"

"Yes, I'm fine, Zero. Why would something bad happen to me?" Marina said with a smile, slightly chuckling. Even though the cold was making their skins less of a fleshy color, Marina's face was slightly red. Zero's face then suddenly registered as shock.

"Huh? Oh, uh, I mean, I had this uh, nightmare, and well, I guess it was playing tricks on my mind. So, where are we anyway?"

"Wish I knew."

---

"What's going on?" Link asked. He was slowly walking towards Mario while holding his head.

"Link? There you are! Thank goodness you're all right! I don't know what's going on, but somehow we survived an ambush. Come on, we need to find Sonic and Samus." Mario said.

Krystal directed them to another one of the craters, and in it laid Sonic and Samus. Samus was holding on to Sonic's arm, almost as if she was trying to protect him from the fall. They were both unconscious though, and still laid in the snow.

"Samus! Sonic! Come on, get up!" Fox ran up next to Krystal and helped her pull Sonic and Samus out of the crater.

"Let's try to wake them up." He then pulled out a small bottle of water, though it was nearly frozen by now, and poured some on Sonic's face to try and wake him up. Never liking the water, Sonic woke up and shook off some of the cold.

"Oh, hey, Krystal...Mario.…" he said looking up, somewhat dazed.

"Ungh…." Samus mumbled, sitting up slowly. She rubbed her helmet as if trying to get rid of a headache. "A…are we here?" She asked uncertainly. She looked at the others, hoping for an answer.

Sonic then looked over at Samus.

"Yeah, guess so...but how'd we end up here?" Link then stared at Samus.

"I'm not even sure were here is…."

"It could be Mantai, but I'm not cer.…" Mario paused in his talking as he heard a ship fly off in the distance. "I don't think we should hang around here." Everyone gathered at the fire to look at what their next move is, but Marina noticed something.

"Hey, wait, where's Professor?"

"I...I'm sorry, Marina, I don't sense Theo." Krystal said sadly.

"He was sleeping in the beds when we were in the 64, perhaps he's still on it." Mario said.

"If the 64 is even in one piece." Jazz mentioned. Marina became quite worried about her professor, but their attention was changed when they heard footsteps in the snow. It was coming from within the forest, and once the figure came out, everyone was shocked at who they saw. Somehow, for some reason, it was Knuckles.

"Knuckles?"

"There's no time to explain! Quickly, follow me to safety!" Knuckles shouted. Mario was hesitant to listen. After all, what if it was a trap? Another ship could be heard in the distance, and this time, Mario was certain that it was the sound of a CD. Trap or no trap, they took their chances.

The team ran as they followed the speedy Echidna into the forest. They were led here and there through the trees, and more and more CDs could be heard convening where they once were. Sonic raced after Knuckles, trying to get some answers.

"Hey! Knux, wait up! It's me, Sonic!" Knuckles ignored him though, and they continued until they came to a rock wall. Knuckles kept running on ahead, and vanished right into the rock wall.

"A hologram? This is starting to look familiar." Taking a leap of faith, Mario ran towards the rock wall, and disappeared.

Fox started running after them, even though things were uncertain.

"Hey team, lets go before the CDs get here!" And with that, they swiftly followed the others into the unknown.

As they walked beyond the holographic wall, they entered a tunnel of ice. All around them was solid ice, and though it was cold, it felt warmer than it was outside. Knuckles was running down the tunnel, so they followed him in deeper. As they got deeper in, Knuckles started slowing down. Despite Sonic's call, he remained quiet, ever facing forward. After walking for about a minute, the natural ice cave took more of a uniform shape. It apparently had been dug further in.

Mario looked straight into the echidna's eyes, and could sense a different mindset than the person he knew as Knuckles.

"You're a Zoramite, aren't you?" Mario asked plainly. Knuckles then turned to Mario with a smirk.

"Yes, I am. Come, all will be answered when we reach the base." Knuckles then looked at Sonic, and though he had never really met him before, he had memories of him.

"So, you're Sonic, eh? Knuckles has quite a few opinions of you."

"Heh, that sounds like Knuckles." Sonic replied. Fox came up next to Mario and whispered into his ear.

"If he's a Zoramite, how did he get to the real Knuckles? I think he might be in league with the Zox." Knuckles, however, happened to overhear their comments.

"Don't worry, Knuckles is fine as far as I know. I took this form long before the Zox even invaded dimension N. The Zox often use us to gather intelligence on places before they invade." They then stopped as they came to a metal door with a key pad to the right. Knuckles started entering something on the key pad, and after an affirming beep, the door slid open.

"Welcome, dimensional warriors, to the Resistance base." Beyond the door was a large cavern, with many people. Some had the original bodies of Zoramites, while others had the form of other people. Sonic couldn't help but gasp in wonder.

"Whoa.…"

"Wow, there are certainly quite a few people here!" Link exclaimed. Sonic then walked up to knuckles, still confused.

"Wha...what's going on here?"

"It's the Zoramite Resistance, Sonic. While the Empire is controlling us with an iron grip, a few of us have managed to hide here while trying to liberate our people. Considering that you are here, and you know who we are, I take it that Sandfire's plan of using us against you has failed. What happened to those people, anyways?"

"They're...dead." Mario said solemnly. "They died protecting us. They went against Sandfire and helped lead us to Compet. Sandfire said that he would destroy Mantai if they turned against him, so we've come here to help them by helping you."

"Yes, we did hear that Sandfire threatened to destroy Mantai, but I doubt he'd do that." Knuckles said. "I think it was more of an empty threat because he knew there was the risk of them turning against him. But, you're still going to help us, right?" Mario then nodded his head.

"Of course. But, we don't know what happened to the 64, and in our present condition, I'm not sure if we'd be too helpful."

"What? You don't know where your ship is?"

"No. We're not even sure how we ended up here." Jazz said. Knuckles then looked puzzled.

"Hmm, that's strange. Come, follow me. Perhaps a refresher is need." Knuckles led them further into the base, and towards a computer station. Fox followed closely to ask a pressing question.

"Did you find anything recently like ships or fighters of any sort? Even if I had one Arwing we could try to find the 64."

"No, I'm afraid not." As they walked to the computer station, Mario couldn't help but ask the question.

"If you have the body of Knuckles, then where is Knuckles?"

"Wherever you last saw him. I took this body about two months before the Zox invaded your world. I was used to take Knuckles's place to gather intelligence, while Knuckles was kept away in stasis. After a week, I was taken back and Knuckles was returned without anyone knowing. For all Knuckles could know, he just had a long sleep. When the Zox took me back here, they saw that I had taken a form that's too strong, and saw me as a threat, so they tried to execute me. I managed to escape though, I found my way to the resistance. That's how it is for most of us you see here; people lucky enough to have escaped the Zox and come here."

When they came to the computer station, they saw several monitors showing different views of the planet, and some of outer space.

"This is where we monitor things that goes on around Mantai." Knuckles explained. "So you say you don't know how you got here then?"

"Right."

"Well, let me show you what happened then." Knuckles started pressing a few buttons on the console, and one of the screens showed a blurry picture of space with several CDs floating around. "Please forgive the poor quality; we make due with what we manage to swipe from the Zox. We first noticed some strange activity was going on about a day ago, as several CDs formed a barricade around the planet. It wasn't until recently did we hear about the attack on Compet, which would make sense for this sudden action. Anyways, this is what happened two hours ago."

A spot in space started to swirl around, and a small object came out of that point. Nine CDs immediately targeted the object, which they could now see was the 64, and fired their main cannons at it. A bright flash filled the screen once the beams impacted the 64, and the ship began to drift towards the screen.

"As you can see here, the 64 began to take a direct course towards Mantai. I suspect that is when the pilot became unconscious, as it doesn't appear that anyone is flying it. Course, I'm amazed that the 64 could even survive a blast like that. Most ships would have been reduced to space dust."

"Yeah, that's the last thing I remember: us being ambushed by the Zox. But, I don't remember anything after that until I awoke on the snow."

The screen then switched to a view of the snowy planet, with the 64 coming down like a comet towards the surface. Just as the ship was about to crash into a chain of mountains, it straightened its course, and flew across the sky.

"This is the part I don't understand. If you were all unconscious, then who was piloting the ship?" Everyone stood there shocked, unable to answer Knuckles's question. How could the 64 fly itself? As far as they knew, there was no auto pilot of sorts that would do that, and they were all unconscious. Marina's face suddenly lit up, though, as she remembered something.

"Hey, could it be the professor? He was the only one who wasn't in the control room with us. Maybe he came and tried to pilot the ship!"

"Hmm, that might be possible. The flight path is unsteady, like someone who doesn't know how to steer." Zero mentioned.

Back on the screen, the 64 was gradually descending, and speeding across the sky. As it came closer into view of the camera, they could see that it was in bad shape. Several sections of the armor had been blown apart, there were fires coming out of it, and two of the controller ends were missing.

Two CDs were chasing the 64, and managed to catch up quite quickly. One of them fired several shots at the side, and an explosion ripped apart the hull on the side of the ship, right where the control room was.

"This is where you all fell out."

"You know, the 64 never did have any seat belts." The 64 continued to fly away, leaving behind a trail of smoke. As the CDs continued to fire at it, it then disappeared from sight.

"It went into stealth mode!" Mario said with a gasp.

"Then that means the 64 must still be in one piece somewhere!"

"And with the professor!"

"You know, even with the repair bots on board, it would probably be a while to repair all of that damage. It's possible that if we wait, and Theo is on board, then the Nintendo 64 might find us." Samus mentioned.

"It's a good thing you guys landed near our base. If you hadn't, it would have been the Zox who found you first."

"Well, now that we know the 64 is still somewhat intact, what about the Great Fox and all of our Arwings? A landmaster would also be very helpful right now; it would be easier to get through all this snow. Mantai is a lot like Fichina with the Climate Control center offline."

"Oh yes, the Great Fox. Well, if you look closely enough to the screen, you can see the Great Fox along with the 64, but after the explosion, it becomes less and less noticeable. A robot named ROB pilots it, yes? I think he might have retreated seeing that he was vastly outnumbered. He might come back when it's safe, but I can't say for sure."

"Well at least there's a possibility that it survived. maybe we can try contacting ROB." Fox then tried to use his wrist communicator to contact the Great Fox, but all he got was static. "Darn it, I can't get through!"

"Hey Fox, try to change the frequency, huh?" Falco said, disappointed that Fox didn't think to do that.

"Good idea, I should of thought of that." Fox said with a slight embarrassment in his voice. Fox then started scanning the frequencies until he started to get a faint beeping. "Hey, I think I'm getting a faint signal from the Great Fox. It's very faint; can we use these computers to track the origin?"

"Uh, yeah, I think so. Just let me see that." Knuckles took the wrist communicator from Fox and set it by one of the computers. He took off one of the panels on the communicator and connected it to the console, and then started typing in something.

"Eh, dang, I feared this. Looks like the Great Fox is somewhere in space directly above us somewhere, but how far it is I can't tell with this piece of junk. Man, cruddy computer!" Knuckles said as he whacked the machine, though not hard enough to do any damage to it. No matter how poor their technology was, it was better than nothing. Knuckles's shout, however, attracted the attention of one of the other Zoramites. His footsteps made a clanking noise, as his sword bumped against his metal armor. It was a shining blue armor, and his wild red hair stood out in contrast.

"Oh, heroes, let me introduce you to one of our captains, Moroni, though we usually call him by the name of the person he's taken, Roy." Knuckles said with his arms gesturing to Roy.

"Hello. It's an honor to meet the ones who actually succeeded in penetrating Compet. I'm glad to see that we can have some help from such heroes. Well, about that signal, maybe if we could swipe something from the Zox, we might be able to boost the signal."

"If you guys want to help us, we can raid some of the Zox installations, we could find some better equipment. Uh, you will help us, right?" Mario then replied in a serious tone.

"I made a promise to Alma that we would help save Mantai from the Zox, and I plan on keeping my word." Listening to the plan, Ash started becoming confident.

"We could definitely raid a Zox installment if we got out of the heart of Compet alive! One installment should be no problem! Especially with all you Zoramites as well." Ash then turned to Knuckles and asked, "Can Zoramites morph off each other? Because if we had a few more Knuckles we'd be able to take more than a few things from the Zox!" Knuckles, however, seemed rather embarrassed by Ash's question.

"If we transform into something other than a Zoramite, then we loose that power, as we completely take the body of someone else. Because of that, we rarely transform into other people. The only reason I'm like this is because the Zox forced me to. Asking to do such a thing is not a light matter. It's a life-time commitment."

"Oh, I see." Ash said, somewhat embarrassed. Trying to change the subject, Link moved on to the more important business at hand.

"How many Zox installments are there on Mantai?"

"How many? Pretty much everything outside of this base belongs to the Zox. Not just the military bases and command centers, but my people's living quarters as well."

"But How many large military bases are there? Because those are what we need to target."

"Well, main military bases, that would be sixteen."

"How far is the closest one?"

"About a day or two in this weather if you make good time." Roy said while typing at the computer. "But it's well defended."

"I'm sure it is." As Mario thought about the mission, his weariness started to come more to his mind.

"Well, if we're going to raid a base, I think we should rest first. After all, we've been thrown out of a ship and tossed into an icy world. I don't think we're in the utmost condition for fighting."

"It's colder the Phendrana drifts…." Samus muttered.

"I think all of us should rest so we can plan the attack in the morning."

"Agreed."

The Zoramites led the heroes to a hallway, where they were shown to a door to a room. Each bedroom was made to fit ten occupants, and the beds consisted of a thick blanket and a pile of greenery.

"Sorry, I know this isn't the best of accommodates, but it's all we have to offer." One of the Zoramites said.

"That's all right, thanks." Mario said, trying to sound humble.

offer." One of the Zoramites said.

"That's all right, thanks." Mario said, trying to sound humble.

"It's been a rough day, and it looks like it's not going to get any easier." Mario said as he dropped to the makeshift bed.

"Indeed. Get your rest, so we'll be ready for tomorrow." Zero said. Though it was not the most comfortable thing in the world, they managed to fall asleep. After all, it would be the best sleep they would have in a while.

A/N: Thanks for reviewing! I'm always glad to see people reading!