MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE! This is my present to you: one of the longest and wordiest chapters I've ever written in my life!
Chapter 25
The warehouse wasn't a terribly complex building, luckily, but there was still a dozen rooms that either contained caged enemies or weaponry. The explosions, clamor, and shouted taunts from an apparent battlefield resonated slightly through the metal of the place, though the actual battle seemed distant.
"You know, I bet that's our team fighting off the enemies," Kat stated confidentially.
"No way!" Wario huffed. "I took 'em all out on my way in here!"
"Then there's definitely some others elsewhere, trusting your normal sense of fighting," Bowser growled.
"Which is…?" Renee asked.
"Ramming through them like a lazy butt with a totally overpowered motorcycle."
"Yea, that sounds about right," Steven muttered.
"If there's a battle out there, should we get some weapons that we may or may not know how to control?" Faith asked.
"What, like these?" Bowser asked, head butting through a random door leading to a minor arsenal of various weaponry. Beam Swords and Super Scopes were lined against one wall, Smart Bombs and Gooey Bombs were separately packed into warning-labeled crates, Laser Guns were piled haphazardly into a large bin, there was even a glass container stuffed to the brim with Mr. Saturn.
"JACKPOT!" Wario shouted joyously, snatching a Super Scope from the wall and looking it over experimentally.
"Indeed!" Steven whistled.
"What is this, a light saber?" Faith asked, swinging around a Beam Sword.
"Watch it!" Bowser barked as it almost took off his head.
Kat was cooing to the caged Mr. Saturn, something along the lines of "You're just a buwnch of cute wittle twoblemakers, aren't you? Aren't you?"
"OOO, Lasers!" Renee admired with a whistle at the stockpiled guns.
"…what have I done?" Bowser face-palmed as she snatched one and accidentally fired a blast at the floor.
"Okay, we are so going to plunder…whatever this stuff is," Faith stated, looking to the other wall. It had several hooks nailed into it, all bearing weapon sheaths or back-belts for the larger arsenal.
"What?! Are you crazy?! We have no idea how this stuff works!" Steven argued.
"Probably not, but I do," Bowser stated. "We'll bring this stuff and charge into that battle, all heroic or whatever, and totally curb-kick these guys."
"I like that strategy!" Renee nodded, trying on one of the belts for size before sticking her laser into it.
Steven eventually agreed, mostly due to the fact that he would be wielding an actual Super Scope for once. Each sheath could carry three Mr. Saturn, two Laser Guns, a Smart Bomb, a few Gooey Bombs, and either a Beam Sword or Super Scope over the back. Bowser ended up wearing three of these, two crosswise and one around his waist, thus looking like an even more killer turtle with all the weaponry.
"So much explosives, it's amazing!" Renee sighed as she stuffed a Smart Bomb in her pocket.
"Now remember, you need to throw that thing and run for your pathetic life," Bowser stated, "or else…you won't have a pathetic life."
"I'll have an awesome one?" she joked.
"You won't have a life, PERIOD."
"Oh. Because it's a smart bomb, I always thought that meant it made you smarter…"
"Well, Fox isn't any smarter, is he?" Bowser asked with a raised eyebrow.
Renee shrugged helplessly.
After the weapon kidnapping, the army of six continued on their way. They were almost at the entrance/exit to the building when a sharp yelp of "OW!" caught their attention. It originated from the very last door on the hall—the one with the Primids running into it.
"I thought you said you killed them all!" Faith spat to Wario.
"Did you hear what I said?! He's unreliable!" Bowser interrupted.
"Says the turtle who got back-handed by his own boss!" Wario shouted.
"Oh yea, like getting robbed by a penguin's any better a score!" Bowser roared.
"SPEAK OF THE DEVIL!" Renee gasped, looking into the room. Inside, a large mound of crates most likely containing more weapons was piled in the center—and on top was a certain penguin, Gerudo, and legion of young smashers.
"LUCAS! NESS! GUYS!" Kat shouted to them.
Ness, who was currently fighting off Primid at the bottom with Lucas, looked over and shot them a pleased smirk before returning to Primid-bashing.
"What's in those crates?! Guns?! Swords?!" Renee shouted, pointing to a warning label.
"Let's find out in this fight!" Faith shouted determinedly, drawing her Beam Sword and commencing something like a duel with a nearby Beam Sword Primid.
Renee rushed up to the pile and started blasting approaching enemies away, eventually joined by Diddy Kong as they fired peanuts and lasers. Three Primid started approaching to Ness and Lucas' left, the cue for Kat to back-Mr. Saturn them and knock them out. She threw one into Bowser's enemies, Bowser himself creating a practical bonfire out of all the nearby Primid. Wario happily proceeded to rotate around the pile, driving at high speeds on his motorcycle and keeping anyone from getting close—not to mention randomly biting any Primid nearby. Steven assisted Toon Link in getting the Primid off the sides of the explosives, the two shooting and stabbing all close by.
Faith, Jigglypuff, and Pikachu were all surrounded by the Beam Sword Primid, so Jigglypuff inflated itself and picked them up moments before the Primid did a dogpile. Faith let go and landed on top of the pile, stabbing several Primid through with her newfound sword while Pikachu paralyzed them into oblivion.
Jigglypuff looked over to where the two Ice Climbers were doing a spin-swing combo attack, though they weren't the best at defeating them. She deflated and used Rollout in midair, going in at an angle and destroying the extras.
The King of Gerudos and red-robed, bouncy penguin ended up back-to-back through some twist of fate, at the top of the pile, watching the shadow bugs drift away from the dying Primid only to respawn elsewhere and attack again.
"Why, this is pointless!" the penguin growled in a heavy, southern accent. "They'll just go and respawn again!"
"We have no other option, Dedede," the other king stated levelly, red eyes darting to each fighter as they struggled.
"That's KING Dedede to you, pork," Dedede said angrily.
"I am a king, you are a king, it doesn't matter what I call you…" the other king turned his head to glare mischievously at Dedede, "…puffball."
Dedede glared at the crate he was standing on, only for his eyes to widen. He tugged at Ganondorf's cape and pointed to it, saying, "do you know what we're standing on here?! Bombs!"
Ganondorf turned to his own platform, eyebrows raised. "We are, aren't we…?" he mumbled. His eyes lit up with an idea. "Dedede, get everyone out of here through any means necessary…except for that one," Ganondorf ordered, pointing to a brawling Ness.
"Why Ness? Does he owe you money or somethin'?" Dedede asked. "
No, but he does know pyrokinesis. Now go. Or would you rather be caught in an explosion…?"
"Alright, alright, I'm goin'," Dedede huffed, making his way down and taking out a random Primid with his mallet. Waddling up to the nearest person, Kat, he shouted, "HEY, YOU!"
"AUGH! THE KRAGLE!" Kat screamed, throwing a Mr. Saturn at his face.
"OW!" he yelped when it hit. "What was that for?!"
"Sorry—OH MY ARCEUS YOU'RE KING DEDEDE!" she screamed again, jumping back.
King Dedede, with a proud smirk, spun his mallet while it was perched on his shoulder and confidentially introduced, "why yes, yes I am. And you are…?"
"K-Katie, sir," she smiled wider. "Uh, did you need something?"
"Oh yea, we've got to get everyone out of here," he relayed, pointing to the crates. "Those there are bombs."
"Bombs?! WHY THE HECK ARE WE USING FIRE NEXT TO THEM?!"
"I HAVE NO CLUE!" he yelped back. "But we've got to get everyone out! Except for Ness, for some reason."
"…okay…" Kat trailed, "anyway, HEY, RENEE! WE'VE GOT TO GET OUT!"
"WHY?!" Renee shouted over her gun's blasts.
"THAT PILE IS MADE UP OF BOMBS!"
"WHAT?!"
"I KNOW, RIGHT?!"
Through methods of shouting and translation to Pokespeak, they all eventually got the word and made their way out. Before Ness could flee, Ganondorf clasped a hand on his shoulder.
"Ness, I hate to say this, but I'm going to need you one more time," he rasped.
"Okay, for what?!" Ness shouted as the Primid began to surround them both.
Everyone was waiting across the street from the overtaken warehouse, panting or starting to tend to their wounds.
"H-hra…ha…hya!" Toon Link noted.
"Man, I really wish Zelda was here—good to see you too, man!" Steven panted.
"So, wait, what were you guys doing in there? And what's with all the weaponry?" Nana asked.
"We were trapped, now we're not," Bowser stated simply. "What were you doing in there? And where'd you get Dedede?"
"It's KING Dedede!" said penguin shouted. "K-I-N—"
"I'm a king myself, I can call you whatever I want," Bowser argued.
"Why do ALL these people need to be kings? It's not fair!" King Dedede huffed, turning his back on them.
"Yea, we had a jailbreak. Renee, Kat, guys, i am so sorry if we get you in prison," Nana said through gritted teeth.
"Meh, so worth it for Ganondorf and King Dedede," Kat huffed. (Somewhere in the background, Dedede perked up)
"...are you telling me you would gladly break the law for evil?!" Steven barked.
"Uh...that's actually a pretty hard evil-for-evil cycle, I'm just gonna think that over a moment..."
Lucas suddenly glanced around, noticing something the others didn't. "H-hey!" he spoke up, getting their attention. "Where's Ness?"
"And come to think of it, I don't see Ganondorf anywhere…" Bowser muttered apprehensively.
"He's not here…" Faith trailed, eyes widening, "and he can't be elsewhere, except…"
Slowly, the majority of the group turns back to the warehouse. All but Dedede, who simply lowers his gaze and shakes his head, "I knew I shoulda disagreed…"
And all at once, the building exploded.
Meanwhile, a few streets down, the smashers are having the life-or-death fight of their (at stake) lives. The enemies were everywhere, and they weren't even one forth the way through the mob.
Just as they're about to be vanquished, the sudden explosion of the old warehouse makes the enemies freeze in their tracks and turn to face it. It had destroyed the two neighboring buildings and a heck of a lot of street…not to mention their entire cargo and weaponry (or so they thought).
It was a huge square of smoke, ashes, and Shadow Bugs burned to crisps. It contained all their backup, all their fighting materials, all their prisoners, and their only portal home…well, only half the crowd actually recognized 'home', but it's the thought that counts.
On the smasher's end, things were even worse. They put hands to their hearts, gasped, exclaimed, or simply froze with faces pale as bone. They had all heard the Ice Climber's, Lucario's, and Tyrone's words; they had allies in that place. To be more specific, did…
That pause of silence, the eye of the storm, was all it took for them to rejuvenate. Weapons were charged and honed, stances were taken, paralysis and recoil recovered from.
By the time the enemy turned back to them, all they would catch was the shot of a gun/arrow or the slash of a sword, maybe the foot or hand of a rage-fueled fighter. It was oblivion for them from then on.
The beings actually in front of the once-building had a similar reaction.
"No…" Lucas mumbled.
Renee hung her head and muttered, "We failed. I failed. I promised him everyone would turn out fine, no one would die here…"
"Promised who?" Faith asked gently, without her usual sharp tongue of irritation.
Renee met her eyes with sadness, "I promised Lucario. We were still getting to know each other, and I told him that I would get all the smashers back to their world, safe and sound, no deaths or separations. And…" She choked, "and now they're dead…"
"He can't be," Bowser stated, but eyebrows raising at every passing second without a comeback from Ganondorf and/or Ness, "he just can't. The king of Gerudos, killed in a boring ol' fire? It always took a hero in green and a sword to kill him, not a fire. He didn't ever get to rule Hyrule, for crying out loud, he can't be dead already…"
"With great victory comes great sacrifice, as all those corny movies say," Popo sighed.
"I can't believe he chose to die heroically. Saving others and sacrificing himself? Did he have a sudden burst of OOC-ness or something?" Nana pondered. "And now I feel guilty..."
Toon Link stabbed his sword into the ground, put his hands on the handle, and bowed his head at the fire with a long and heavy sigh as some form of respect—like a salute to a diseased soldier.
They held their silence for a few minutes longer…
"…well, if you're all like that about me dying, should I just go and jump in the fire?" a familiar PSI user questioned from a few feet away.
"NESS! YOU'RE ALIIIIIIVE!" Katie squealed, tackling the soot-covered Ness in a full-on, grateful, bear hug. "YOU'RE COVERED IN SOOT, YOU STUPID IDIOT, BUT YOU'RE ALIIVE!"
"Do I smell a Mother 3 reference?!" Renee quirked from nearby. Lucas chuckled softly.
Toon Link glanced up to see the (also soot-coated) Ganondorf, but quickly pulled his sword back out and sheathed it with an awkward but casual face. Ganondorf raised an eyebrow, simply stating, "Well then…"
"I HAVEN'T FAILED LUCARIO!" Renee fist-pumped high into the air.
"…How did they live?" Steven asked.
"I don't—"Faith started before being cut off by him.
"How did they live?!"
"I don't—"
"HOW DID THEY LIIIIVE?!"
"I DON'T KNOW!" Faith sobbed. "BUT I'M GLAD THEY'RE ALIVE!"
"Easy, teleportation! Though it leaves you covered in soot...Kat, can you get off of me now? I kind of need to breathe sometime…" Ness groaned from underneath Kat.
"No," Kat said blissfully, pressing her head against him and looking black in the face from the soot rubbing off.
A sudden blast from a few streets away caught the reunion's attention.
"…okay, maybe just for that," Kat said, rolling off him and getting a running start to the place. Everyone had a similar idea; it was a mini-stampede to the final battlefield.
Samus lacked the power her Varia Suit granted her, but skill, agility, and gymnastics were all it took to flip every Primid and knock every Bytan. After roundhouse-kicking a Primid and shooting it with her charged gun when it had recovered, she noted that all the shadow bugs were returning to the warehouse…more specifically, the fire-filled area it had once been in-thus committing suicide.
What a lovely ending.
The adrenalin of battle and fast-pace of the combat kept her mind off how many were left, and how the others were doing. She could vaguely tell the others were faring the same, slashing, hacking, blasting, smashing like the true maniacs they were.
Like right then, while she lashed her power whip at a Primid, Pit's wing had knocked against her ponytail while he took off from a small crouch to dive from above.
Or back there, when she found herself assaulting a Primid that R.O.B. also had in his (laser) sight.
And just now, she was scoring a Primid with high-speed kicks when a Puppit was flung over her and clattered nearby, sword-sliced scars like fingerprints pointing straight to Ragenell and Falchion.
Shink! CRASH!
She suddenly found herself rolling with the force of a Greap's slash, the huge downward cut on her back stinging on the beaten pavement. Ugh…she had been too absentminded for the others, and now was paying the price.
The Greap rolled towards her slowly, its eyes filled with sadistic joy as they glared at her. Samus, noticing her hand empty, looked in the corner of her eye and spotted her blaster quite far from where she needed it.
Just as the Greap was ready to either run her over or slice her in half, a dozen different forms of shots hit it from all angles—even above, Light Arrows never looked so good. Then it was assaulted on all those sides, by everyone, and it was then Samus realized that this Greap was the last one. There WASN'T anything else to fight, so the smashers were taking all their emotions and piling them onto this Greap's metaphorical shoulders.
She smiled inwardly at them all: having the knowledge of a veteran, one of the twelve who saw through every game and every brawl, she remembered that this was the reason the hands named them "smashers". Thirty-some fighters dedicated to nothing less but making any enemy encountered suffer their wrath, sometimes playfully, sometimes life-or-death like now.
The Greap was eradicated by the time that thought train had passed, and she found herself being helped back up by Mario as they recollected from the fight. The sun's moved spot told them it had taken a few hours at the least.
"Well…that…was the hardest…thing…I've ever…done," Tyrone panted, lowering some-odd Primid's beam sword that he had been using as his own.
"Meh, maybe second to Tabuu," Falco shrugged.
Yoshi babbled in agreement before turning to face further down the street and giving an excited chirp. He bolted down, his injuries minor, and knocked the fast-approaching Ness clean over.
"JEESH!" she could hear him from her distance. "WHAT IS WITH YOU PEOPLE KNOCKING MY BREATH OUT?!"
"Ness? GUYS?!" Tyrone yelped.
"TAIIIII!" Renee squealed, ringing him around the neck in a bear hug. "Did you save the digital world yet? Huh? Huh?! Wait, is that Samus Aran?!"
"Is that Mario?!" Faith gasped.
Mario waved sheepishly, Samus chuckled softly.
"What the heck happened to you guys? I mean, we heard a fight, but…" Kat asked, trailing off at all the little scrapes and bruises that came from fighting a hundred-Primid army.
"What happened to—YOU!" Peach ended in a squeak as Bowser approached.
"Hey, Peach," Bowser tried for a smile, ending up more like a very pained snarl. He saw Mario glaring him daggers and quickly went back to a full-on scowl. "Oh, it's you. Well, I found your kids, if that's what matters."
"Hey, Wolf!" Wario perked.
Wolf, as well as several others, rolled their eyes and muttered, "Hey look, its gasbag."
"Well, good to see you all safe…and…with others…" Mr. Jeckson trailed, lowering his own makeshift weapon—a fistful of Puppit claws, of all things.
"Ness, what happened to you? You're pitch black and covered in soot!" Mrs. Jeckson gasped, putting her hands to her mouth. (Somewhere in the background, Lucas giggled a bit).
Zelda looked over to Ganondorf, who was approaching at a walk, with the same look one would give to a disliked relative; an awkward, cautionary, just-to-be-polite glance. Toon Link was walking nearby him, Link's eyes widening at the hero ever being so close to the villain…unarmed. And looking completely at ease.
He asked something, Toon Link responding with a long-winded tale that ensued a few gasps from Link and Zelda and a few awkward looks aside from Ganondorf.
"Is that true, Ganondorf?" Zelda confirmed, looking back to the Gerudo.
"Maybe," he stated dryly, quickly flipping around with a dramatic swirl of the cape, "but this doesn't mean anything, princess."
The three Hylians shared a mischievous smile before heading to where everyone was collecting.
"Alright, we got…everyone," Tyrone blinked. Turning to Renee, he asked, "Now what? You started this, ya know."
"Um…I never really got that far in my head," Renee answered sheepishly, choosing to stand between Pit and Lucario (a tear was in her shirt from an embrace with the Pokémon…when she had forgotten he had a spike in his chest). "Uh, trying to travel dimensions? Introducing them to the public?"
"Wrong and wrong," a dreaded voice spoke up from behind the gathering.
The smashers and humans present on that one dreadful game night gasped and looked to the source with either scared or hate-filled eyes. There, slowly approaching the group at all the tender speed of a giant, Subspace slug, was Ecapsbus. Behind him was a huge tear that promptly split into all the little tears from which it had been summoned from and scampered, in front of him were the half-beaten smashers that had exactly two options in their position.
"…oh come on now, you gamers, you should know what happens next!" He called playfully to Renee, Tyrone, Kat, Faith, and Steven. "After the quest…after the collection…after every pain-staking hour to find each of your precious characters…"
"The boss fight," Tyrone answered firmly, a little crept out by the giant, purple-black, clawed THING in front of them but not willing to let millions of hours spent on Zelda go to waste. He had helped a lot in this big find-the-smashers party, but the party was over, as evident by the last battle; now there was just this one, last fight, and he was not giving up hope until he saw every smasher…"defeated".
Ecapsbus unsheathed his claws until they were the length of Tyrone himself, the red cracks lining them a permanent reminder of the last five this creature had dispatched. "Well come on then…you thirty-five have taken on plenty of monsters in your own realms, haven't you?" he challenged the smashers.
The gentle summer breeze stood between them, ten yards or so of free space that would be spilled with both ends' blood by the end this fight was over…if there ever was going to be a fight.
…
Donkey Kong approached first. He stomped from the back to only a few yards away from Ecapsbus, then bracing himself and waiting.
Then came along Mario, eventually tagged by Diddy Kong as the monkey followed his uncle's example.
And then Luigi followed along with the heroic stand-up thing, Peach joining, Bowser even stepping up to the task.
Samus, who had darted back into the skating rink earlier, now approached with metal-clad thuds, Wario joining in while loathing about heroics, the Ice Climbers as an agreeing-to-take-out-evil pair, Pit with a determined huff, Fox heading up to the task with Falco close behind, rolling his eyes.
They all followed in the step forward; Renee stuck to Lucario's side, Katie approached when Ness urged her on, Tyrone staying near Meta Knight's golden blade, Faith and Steven making the twosome a foursome when Link and Zelda stood up to the bat. Mr. Jeckson, doubts aside, picked up Samus's gun on his way over. His wife accepted the home-run bat from Peach and the two stood near each other, no longer the damsels in distress.
All of them had been damsels: these were the same beings kicked out of their residence when that beast tried to take them, the same ones who were all rounded up like wayward cattle by the same minions they used to (sometimes literally) eat for breakfast, the same ones driven to confusion and pain in this new, cruel world.
Well, they were done with it. It was time to end this like they always did, even if they were used to something like cutting down the bridge or plunging in the sword or inhaling it and spitting out a star or throwing a capsule ball or making its inners explode with psychic abilities.
And they weren't alone…
...yea, yea, it sounds cheesy, and not really on-topic since there were about three dozen of them, but when I say that, I mean they weren't alone. They weren't just the SSB series; this was about to involve ALL the series, and that's where we come in…
Well? Did your minds implode yet? The fact that this whole thing was being written by the game characters themselves, not just in a constant 3rdperson POV? EH? EEEH?
…are you still there…? AW CRUD I KILLED MY READERS—AGAIN—
Thanks for reading, guys who may or may not have died from an overdose of drama! I'm REALLY, REALLY hoping you'll stick around fooooor…JUST-ONE-MORE, JUST-ONE-MORE, JUST-ONE-MORE, JUST-ONE-MORE, AND AN EPILOGUE, AND AN EPILOGUE—
OH YEA! I had a question to ask YOU for once. Seriously. The first time I've ever legitimately asked the readers something for something besides nerd points: What made you read this book? Were you just hanging out in the archives and randomly chose this one to read? Were you looking for an into-the-real-world themed story? Were you a follower of me and heard about this? Did someone else direct you to this (that last one's a longshot *CLAWSHOT*, but hey, you never know)?
Well, I don't really care, I'm glad you've been hanging on this long and I hope you show THESE *Shoves giant pile of hug-deprieved Eevees towards readers* some love! Hug your Eevee, I'll see you next chapter, MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HANUKKA, HAVE A GOOD OTHER-VARIOUS-WINTER-HOLIDAY!