Chapter 25
The Fire Emblem


Stu and Pid found themselves on their knees and facing the wrath of King Starman, who sat down on a chair in front of them looking not so happy, and it goes without saying that they were sweating nervously. KS tapped his finger against the arm of the chair and let out a sigh before saying, "The both of you continue to disappoint me with your failures. No matter what I tell you to do, you always give me the kind of result that I am not pleased with. You have attempted to steal the Holy Weapons from the Smashers several times already, but every single time you return empty-handed. Not only that, you didn't even manage to at least kill one of the Smashers!"

"We're very sorry, boss…" Stu said in a scared tone. "We won't fail you this time!"

"Please have mercy, your omnipotence!" Pid pleaded. "Give us another chance and we will surely not fail you!"

"Don't bother," KS grumbled. "Someone is already heading towards them even as we speak. I'm sure he'll do a much better job than you two useless clowns. I don't know if I can tolerate any longer your constant failures!"

The two clowns fell face down onto the floor and begged for their dear life. "Have mercy on us!"

KS got up from the chair and stomped the floor loudly, making them tremble in fright. Pointing outside the room, he said out loud, "After you scrub all the floors here, then we can talk about mercy!"

The two clowns immediately got to their feet and saluted to him before rushing out of the room to grab a pair of a mops and buckets.

-

Sacae is a country of Elibe that consisted mostly of plains and grasslands. Comparatively primitive to the other countries on the continent, Sacae does not have large bustling cities and its citizens consisted mostly of nomads who lived in tents, and many of them are skilled archers from birth.

However, those details are not very important to this story, so I might as well skip the boring parts and move on ahead.

In fact, we moved so far ahead of the story that the Smashers had already obtained two more weapons that were hidden in this place. Look, the team that consisted of Link, Young Link, Zelda, and Jigglypuff are coming out from a hidden staircase that led underground even as we speak.

"Phew... Good to get out of that dangerous place at last…" Link sighed with relief after stepping out into the sun. "That place reminds me of the Temple of Doom, and it brings back painful memories…"

"It's good that all of us made it out in one piece," Young Link said. "And we even found two of the weapons!" In his hand he was holding a quiver of arrows and Link was also carrying with him the same kind of weapon.

"But quivers of arrows… Where's the bow to fire this thing?" Link wondered. "And there's only one arrow too… Don't tell me that this is a one-time use?"

"We'll have to ask Master Hand for more details," Zelda said. She looked into the sky and saw the Final Destination coming lower. "Oh look, there they are!"

Up on board, Master Hand looked down from the edge and said, "They found those two weapons all right! Time to pick them up!"

Crazy Hand came up to MH and said, "There's some strange-looking bat coming in from 12 o'clock."

"What?"

"Don't you understand navigation terms?"

"I can't say I'm an expert in those, so I don't really understand what you mean when you said 12 o'clock. I do know that it's referring to a direction though."

"Well, I don't understand navigation terms also, so that one was spoken at random."

"Very funny… Anyway, what was it that you said was approaching?"

BANG!!!

Both the Hands were surprised by the sound of the explosion and they looked down to see a charred spot on the ground and the Smashers were pushed back onto the ground and looking in horror at a terrifying beast that was approaching them from the sky. "What is that?!" Zelda screamed. She huddled Jigglypuff closely in fright while Link and Young Link got out their swords and shields to battle the beast.

"Whatever this thing is, it's not friendly!" Link said. "If he's coming after us, we'll let him have it!"

"What the…?" MH said in surprise.

Samus then came running over to the edge and asked, "What was that explosion just now? Is everything all right?" She looked down and was surprised to see the monster that appeared, but then she recognized who that is. "That… That's Ridley!"

Sure enough, it was the Space Pirate captain Ridley, brought back to life with mechanical parts—Meta-Ridley.

Down there, Meta-Ridley took a step closer to Link and Young and said in a wicked voice, "Heheheh! Found you Smashers at last! I'm going to make you suffer the same kind of defeat I experienced last time!"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Link said angrily. "But if you are trying to kill us, we won't go easy on you!"

"I know him!" Jigglypuff said. "We see him on tower!"

"What?" YL said, not understanding what she meant.

"I think she means that she encountered him when they were looking for the weapon at Tin Tower in Ecruteak City," Zelda pointed out.

"Ah yes, I remember now!" Link said. "Samus did bring up that she met an old enemy in that place, but I thought he was killed already!"

"Do you think that I would fall so easily?" Meta-Ridley asked. "No matter how many times I die, I will always return and make sure that people who crossed my path burn and suffer in hell!"

BGM: vs. Meta-Ridley (Metroid Prime)

"Ridley!!!" shouted the voice of Samus. The SP captain looked up and saw Samus, in her power suit, falling towards him with her arm cannon pointing at him and charged up, and while she was still in air, she fired a plasma shot. Meta-Ridley quickly raised his arm and swatted away the shot like it was a plastic ball. Samus then fell on him and tried to land a stomping kick, but he knocked her back onto the ground with ease. "You!"

"You again! Still angry about me for some sad past or whatever?" Meta-Ridley asked. "I don't remember about those, but anyone who dares challenge me will die!"

"You're the one who is going to die first!" Samus said angrily as she fired at him again, but this time Meta-Ridley took off into the air.

"You are the ones who will die!" Meta-Ridley said. He opened his mouth and energy started to churn up in his neck, and then he fired a blast of energy at them.

"Watch out!" Samus shouted, and the Smashers quickly got out of the way before the energy struck the place they were standing on.

BANG!

Samus aimed up at him and fired several missiles, but Meta-Ridley easily avoided them by flying aside. His chest then opened up to reveal a pack of missiles inside which he fired in her direction. She carefully aimed and shot down each of the incoming missiles before trying to escape the remaining ones that she couldn't shoot.

"We have to help her!" Link said. Taking out his bow, he stuck a light bomb to the tip of an arrow and fired at Meta-Ridley and managed to catch him off guard and hit him in the side of the body.

"You're asking for a death wish, aren't you?" Meta-Ridley said, and he breathed out energy breathe at him but Link avoided it.

"Get down here and fight like a man!" Link yelled.

"Don't cry if I do then!" Meta-Ridley said. He swooped down at him and landed onto the ground violently, and Link immediately ran to him with sword him hand. Ridley spun around a bit and swung his tail, which detached at the segments and lengthened, at him. Link held up his shield to block it, but much to his surprise, the tail stabbed through the shield but went past him, barely scraping him across the face.

"Ugh!"

When Ridley pulled back his tail, the shield was pulled away from Link's hand as well. Samus fired a plasma shot at him again and this time he swung his tail at the incoming energy and blocked it using Link's shield which was still on his tail, and then he spread out his wings and dashed at her at a fast speed. Samus was too late to pull away and was rammed full force by his head. Ridley jerked up his head and threw her high into the air and then opened his mouth and shot out a burst of energy.

"Dammit!" Samus cursed. She couldn't move around in air and the best she could do was to hold up her arms in defense in hope of softening the blow. Suddenly, Mewtwo flew at her and pulled her away in time. "Mewtwo!"

"Uh?" Meta-Ridley looked around and saw that some of the other Smashers just jumped down from the FD and were all glaring at him angrily.

"You again!" Bowser said. "I thought you were burned to death by that giant bird!"

"So this is who you guys fought when you went to the top of Tin Tower?" Marth asked.

"He look's-a pretty intimidating all right-a," Mario commented.

Meta-Ridley looked at the Smashers who were all in fighting stance and said, "I'm not going to falter just because of number disadvantage! In fact, it has never been an issue to me at all!"

"You'll see that it is a disadvantage soon enough!" Bowser said before breathing fire at him. Meta-Ridley countered with his own energy breath that overpowered the fire immediately and Bowser was burned and consumed the energy and fell back onto the ground charred. "Gwaaaaa…"

DK ran to Meta-Ridley and pulled back his fist and threw a punch at him, and Meta-Ridley foldedhis wings in front of his face and blocked the punch with ease and opened it again to push DK away, and he shot out an energy ball from his mouth to hit him but DK moved back to dodge it.

Marth ran to Meta-Ridley from behind and swung his sword, but the tail quickly went to him and clashed against the blade. Like a metal whip, the tail struck itself with Marth's sword a couple of time and then speared forward at a fast speed and barely scraped across his shoulder. "Whoa!" But he ignored the slight injury and jumped at Meta-Ridley. Meta-Ridley immediately spun around and hopped back though and avoided getting hit.

Ganondorf and Mewtwo, who were standing on his left and right respectively, charged up dark energy balls in their hands and hurled it at him. When Meta-Ridley saw them coming, he spread out his wings and performed a spin, smacking his wings against the energy balls and deflecting them into the air. "Whoa, he can do that?" Ganondorf thought, looking at the energy ball which disappeared into the air.

Meta-Ridley turned to Ganondorf and was going to do something when suddenly Mario landed onto his head with a nasty stomp and bounced down in front of him. "You pest!" He tried to swipe him with his claw but Mario jumped up and did a spin that landed a kick into his chin. "Oof!" While in air, Mario shot out three fireballs from his palm that blasted him in the face.

While Meta-Ridley was shaking the fire off his face, Ganondorf used this opportunity to run up to him and slashed his body in a cross formation using his dual katana blades.

SLAAAAAAAAAASH!!!

"Ugh!!!" Meta-Ridley groaned and held his hand over his body and then quickly took off into the air when Ganondorf moved forward to attack him again.

"You cannot escape through the air either!" Mewtwo said as he gave chase.

"You persistent insects!" Meta-Ridley growled as he shot out burst of energy balls at the Pokemon who moved left to right to avoid getting hit.

Suddenly, Red on his Aerodactyl zipped across the air and struck Meta-Ridley over the head in the process. Meta-Ridley growled in pain and glared at him, but then it started to rain. However, this rain was strange in the way that only the spot above Ridley was raining while everywhere else it was dry. "What the?" he wondered.

"That's an artificial rain cloud made by Poli using Rain Dance," Red explained to him while pointing to his Poliwrath who was standing on the FD with one arm lifted into the air. "And if we put a little bit of electricity into that cloud, do you know what will happen?" He snapped his finger and Pika, who was standing next to Poli, fired a ball of electricity at the rain cloud. Immediately, the cloud was charged with electricity and let loose a powerful thunderbolt onto Meta-Ridley

ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!!!!

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!" he screamed as the thunderbolt fried him.

Samus ran underneath Aero and then leaped at him. "Lend me your tail for a moment!" she said. She shot her grapple beam at the tail of the fossil Pokemon and then the Pokemon swung his tail and threw Samus in the direction of the dazed but still airborne Meta-Ridley and grabbed onto his chest. Planting arm cannon against his body, she open fired at point blank.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!!!!!!

Samus was blown back into the air while Meta-Ridley shot down across the air and crashed onto the grassy ground with a powerful impact.

CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!!!!!!!

"That's got to hurt!" Link commented.

Samus fell back onto the ground on her feet and pointed her arm cannon at the fallen Meta-Ridley just in case he was going to get back up again, which he did. "Still at it? We can take on you again!" DK said, raising his fists.

However, Meta-Ridley had a hard time trying to stand perfectly because the damage that he took earlier was a strong and painful one. "Argh… I can't keep on fighting all of you like this… Should retreat for now… But first…" He turned his eyes to Bowser who was still lying unconsciously on the ground from getting hit by the energy breath attack. A wicked grin appeared on his face as he suddenly charged at Bowser and grabbed him by the head and took off into the air.

"Hey! Where's he taking Bowser?!" Young Link cried.

"Give him back!" MH shouted, and he folded into a gun and fired bullets at him, but several Starmen and Moonmen suddenly appeared hovering in air in front of Meta-Ridley and managed to block the missiles with a force field.

"You go first," the Moonman with a spiny back said to Meta-Ridley. "We'll handle things from here." Meta-Ridley nodded and then flew away as fast as he could.

"Dammit! You're not getting away!" MH shouted. He tried to go after Meta-Ridley, but the Moonman formed a large crescent blade out of energy and swung it at him and MH dodged it.

"Meta-Ridley is given with an important task, so you are not to interfere with him," the Moonman said. "Instead, I, Moonman Deluxe, will deal with the likes of you with my army!"

-

Meanwhile, something big had just happened within Bern, the country with the most powerful military force in Elibe.

Within the royal castle of Bern, a soldier rushed into the room and reported to the large imposing man on the throne—King Zephiel. "Your majesty! The national treasure of Bern, the Fire Emblem, is stolen!"

Hearing this, Zephiel raised his head from resting on his hand and said, "The emblem is stolen? How can that be? It was supposed to be well guarded. Could it have fallen down to the side or something like that?"

"No, we have checked the place and found nothing, and further investigation revealed that someone had hacked into the security system and turned it off before taking the emblem. The Fire Emblem indeed is stolen!"

"To be able to break through our security system… That is praiseworthy indeed…"

"Your majesty! What do we do? The Fire Emblem is the symbol of royalty to our country! We must find out who the culprit is at once!"

"Calm down," Zephiel told the soldier. "It's not like the country will fall apart without it, but nevertheless, we should still find out who stole it. As for this matter, it is not something that you have to worry about."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you forgotten? The Fire Emblem is installed with a tracking device. No matter where it is, we can always track it down and find out who stole it."

"I almost forgot! We'll get to it right away, your majesty!"

After the soldier left, Zephiel sat back onto his throne and began to ponder. "Who could have stolen the Fire Emblem? And what for? The Fire Emblem's only actual use is to… Could it be that the culprit is planning to go after THAT?"

-

While the focus was on Bern, the Smashers had fought and defeated the Starmen and Moonmen already. Badly wounded all over, Moonman DX fell over on all fours and coughed painfully. "Damn… you… Ugh…" And he collapsed onto the surface of the FD lifelessly and slowly disintegrated into thin air afterwards.

"Well, that takes care of that," Captain Falcon said, dusting his hands. "Pretty challenging all right, but we still manage to win in the end."

"But everything is all right!" Ness reminded him. "That winged monster took Bowser away!"

"Why would he want to take Bowser anyway?" G&W wondered. "If he is planning to capture one of us as hostage, he could've taken a damsel such as Peach, Zelda, or Samus."

"Like I'd get captured by him so easily!" Samus told him in an annoyed voice.

"Yeah, you're not the kind to get captured so easily… Maybe Nana or Jigglypuff?"

"That's beyond the point now!" Pikachu said. "We must rescue Bowser fast!"

"But we don't know where he went…" Fox told him. "He must've been taken to the enemy base, but we don't even know where King Starman built his base yet! If we do not know their location, there's nothing we can do."

"I wouldn't-a worry too much about-a Bowsa," Mario said. "Not-a becuz I don't-a care for him, but-a becuz I know he eez capable of protecting himself."

"Yeah, Bowser is strong," MH said. "He can definitely hold up for himself no matter what they are planning to do to him. In fact, he might be able to beat up King Starman by himself and save us trouble!"

"Wouldn't that kill the point of collecting all these Holy Weapons…?" Pikachu said.

"Just kidding around… But then, I'm sure Bowser will be all right. He'll probably try to escape that place himself. For now, we can only concentrate on finding the remaining weapon and then heading for King Starman's base to rescue Bowser."

"Oh yeah, speaking of the last weapon…" Fox brought up. "It's in Bern, right?"

"Correct," MH nodded. "The final Holy Weapon is the Binding Blade, and it is supposedly the most powerful of all the weapons and was the one responsible for bringing an end to the Scouring thousand of years ago."

"Whoa… With a weapon like that at our disposal, I can just imagine how easily we can take down King Starman!" Ness said in awe.

"However, getting it won't be easy because it is considered something sacred in Bern. We will have to consult the king first before we can do something about it."

"So what-a do we do?" Mario asked.

"Nothing will do if we just stay here, so we should at least head over to Bern first and try to make an appointment with their king and talk about this matter with him."

Just then, Jigglypuff walked up to them and showed them something that she found. "Pretty jewel!" She was holding a red jewel that had gold linings around it.

"What's this?" Ness asked, bending down to look at the thing. "Where did you find it?"

"On the floor."

MH looked at the thing and a shocked face (okay, he doesn't have one) appeared on him as he said, "That's… that's… That's the national treasure of Bern, the Fire Emblem!"

TO BE CONTINUED

Can you spot the Wand of Gamelon reference in this chapter? Heheh!