Chapter Twenty-Six

Inside the Halberd, the All-Stars were introduced to some quite unusual characters. Most of the Smashers did not even wish to make eye contact with the Lastation residents, with the except of one princess in a light-blue dress giving a false-smile.

"We're going to process this disk first thing, because it could lead to our actual culprit of who took the Mirror of Twilight and possibly Primeval! I got a feeling those CFWs have to do with it as well!" Fox placed it inside of a computer slot. "If we can just translate these… I know! Of course!"

Fox then turned to Meta-Knight. "Can you contact the Great Fox nearby? I know someone that could easily help us with this." Although curious, he didn't question McCloud, and opened up face-time. Only to be met with a less than pleasant Falco Lombardi on the other end.

"Geez! First off, you're going to be dead meat, Meta-Dweeb! Second, Fox are you alright?!… That's a dumb question though, cause you're clearly there." Meta-Knight glared at Falco for the sudden threats

"Can you get Slippy out here for us? We need for him to look at something."

"WHAT?! Him?! Are you serious?!"

"It's urgent, no need to use caps." Meta-Knight replied.

Before Falco could object, the green toad showed up from behind. "Hey Fox! How's everything going? Falco keeps throwing fits and bad-mouthing your knight friend- Oh, whoops! Er, sorry!" Meta-Knight twitched a little, reminding himself to challenge Lombari later on.

"We've had a few incidents in the Arbiter's and met some Playstation All-Stars, who aren't really that bad once you get to know them… But I'll talk about that later! Right now we need you to scan this data to find out where it came from." Fox pressed a few buttons to send what was on the disk over to his teammate.

Once it was received, he nodded. "You got it chief! May take a while though, so I hope you all have stuff to do so you can be preoccupied as I work on it."

"All of us are already heading for Lastation, because some of my friends are in trouble there." Sly responded.

"I'll be seeing you later then when I'm finished!" Afterwards, the communication was turned off so Slippy could work without distractions of the sort.

Sly couldn't help but be impressed and grin. "You got some interesting partners in your universe. They're friendship and concern for you reminds me of my own team. Me, Bentley, and Murray. We pull of the best heists, as I come from a long line of thieves."

"Wow, really? The Starfox team was formed to save the Lylat System from any threats." Fox then paused for a moment. "I took over when my father, James died after being betrayed." Sly was shocked, then a bit depressed to hear that, feeling bad for McCloud.

"I'm… Sorry about that… Not just for your loss, but for leaving you behind earlier in the Arbiter's. It was unprofessional of me to do that."

"Eh, it's not your fault. I was just being hostile, and slowing you down most likely... I only wish I listened from the start, then these things would've been cleared up a lot faster."

As both Sly and Fox continued to talk about the incidents in Arbiter's Grounds along with what their team has done in the past, Arle went on about her adventures to Sir Daniel. "So, now I just play puzzle games to keep me calm and rid of any trauma from the past. The trend caught on rather quickly, plus it's really fun!"

Daniel took note of the fact she was a lot more calm and less snarky than before. "Now that your friend is gaining popularity, stole the title of original game, and even seems to be liked by you All-Stars or followers of All-Stars… I can't help but feel frustrated by such ignorance!" Arle then let out a sigh. "Whew! Apologies if I've been talking your ear off. I've just never been able to get all of that off my chest! You're not annoyed, are you?" Sir Dan shook his head.

In fact, he actually felt sorry for Arle. Heihachi did bring up that Pupuru was a 'replacement of a very talented magician' when they first met the younger sorceress, but Sir Daniel had no idea that she was overshadowing the original's adventures. It was even more surprising to know that the armored heroine went to Lyla's Ruins far before the All-Stars did during the battle against Gigadis.

By now, another call came up for the Halberd. Meta-Knight opened it up to see Rock, Mario, Luigi, and others. "Hello? Anybody there?" The red plumber called out. "Nice-a to see you again! Going in our direction?"

"Your direction?" Marth wondered.

"Of course! To Lastation! Us and some people from Leanbox are with us heading there! Are Sonic and Arle alright? We lost connection yesterday!" Rock asked, seemingly worried.

"All of us are fine, we just ran into a-"

"CFW? Master Chief mentioned that one was in Lastation. And we had all run into them as well." Glacius responded.

"Shoot, you too Mario?! This is becoming crazy! Someone handed us some data by the one who we think took the Mirror of Twilight, so we'll get answers and figure out who's behind it all!" Fox exclaimed.

"By the way, did you find Mewtwo?" Meta-Knight tried to hide concern under his tone of voice.

"Glacius found him. Now we're on our way to prove Lastation residents innocent! Blanc and the others think they're behind it according to Raiden, and we're willing to help him!" Diddy Kong shouted over to them.

The All-Stars looked up to the screen in shock, seeing Raiden next to Snake.

Upon the defeat of Judge from Flandre's blast, Minion ended up having to recover as well… And be more aggressive because of being hit. "I didn't do jack#$%& you stupid kid! What the hell was the point of blowing ME up?! He's the bad guy!" Most chose to ignore the giant demon.

Except for Flandre herself, who was trying to wake up Sweet Tooth by poking him with her lævateinn. "You say naughty words too much! Bad devil-man! Sorry Cole for getting carried away, but I just had to save you all from that armored person thingy… " She then looked down at her feet, shifting them.

"Hey now, don't be hard on yourself. You were just doing that to protect others. You're allowed to go all-out powerful if it's a life-threatening situation. Just don't do it for regular and fair fights… Or if you're out for, uh, prey? I don't encourage that exactly either, but, feral instincts I suppose." Cole shrugged, trying to laugh it off.

Flandre then smiled at him. "My big sis Remilia is a light-eater, most of her victims live since she won't drain a whole lot of blood… I think the maid is the one who goes out and kills people for food. She stuffs human-parts in my sweets." A few of the All-Stars and Microsoft characters cringed from that statement.

Once again the vampire girl beamed up. "Ooohh! I miss the mansion! I wanna play now! Onii-sama! Wake uuuuuup! I promise it won't be danmaku either!" Grunting in pain, Needles got up to see her jumping around him.

"My truck though…" He sniveled a bit. "Well, maybe Isaac Clarke can fix it again. He's good with stuff like that when it's beyond my repair talents!" Sweet Tooth then looked over to Flandre. "Alright kiddo! I'll play around with you!"

"Wait! Me too! I wanna play too!" Little Sister called out. "When Sackboy and Kuu aren't here, I get lonely…"

She then giggled at the zombified child. "Okay! You get to play too! Uhm, is your guardian alright with that?" They all looked over to Big Daddy, who's eyes remained yellow, letting out a groan.

"He said 'yes'." Little Sister then turned around. "Mr. Spike, PaRappa, Toro, would you like to join?"

PaRappa and Toro shuddered at the both of them. "Whats the matter PaRappa? Don't you like having fun?" Spike joked, remembering their encounter before Polygon Man. He rolled his eyes at the boy's comment.

"It'd be nice, but… Uhm, we have to discuss the stuff that just happened! Yeah! After all Spike… You like saving the world." PaRappa then nudged him harshly in the gut.

"Awww, oh well!" Flandre then looked around. "Hmm… I don't wanna play without my big sis Remilia, so we need someone to take her place. It can't be you, because you're 'Little Sister', and Kane onii-sama is too big!"

"What are you talking about? I would make a wonderful big sister… Remmyleeah?" Kratos couldn't help but slap a palm against his own face, humiliated by the fact Sweet Tooth was his rival. "Or the cat-girl over there, I could convince her into it…"

Ichigo saw that she was getting unusual looks as she turned back into her human form. "Huuuuuh? What are you all looking at me fooooooor?" Flandre then removed her hat, putting it on the pink-haired girl.

"Perfect fit! Can you play with us pretty please? We need someone to be my big sis Remilia!" She was about to say 'no', but then noticed Sweet Tooth cracking his knuckles, which made Ichigo instantly nod repeatedly.

Afterwards, Little Sister and Flandre cheered. "Yaaaay! Now we just need chief-maid Sakuya, gatekeeper Meiling, Patchy, and Koakuma!" Her eyes then wandered, looking at Minion.

Staring back at her, Minion growled. "What do you want, ya puny kid?"

"Koakuma!"

"… What?"

"You're Koakuma!"

"No! I'm Minion! A powerful devil who doesn't take orders from-" Flandre pointed her lævateinn at him, which made Minion remember his pain from earlier. "Okay fine! I'm… Koakuma." He grumbled.

At that very moment, the Halberd landed along with an unfamiliar space shuttle. The first thing that came out of either of them was Raiden. "You guys took down that CFW already?… Ah. Now I see why." His eyes landed on two things. Sweet Tooth's destroyed truck, and Minion.

On the spot, a majority of the All-Stars greeted Raiden, happy to see him again. "Listen you guys, Blanc and Vert think the Playstation goddess is up to no good. All of us are trying to prove Lastation didn't have anything to do with the Mirror of Twilight. Do any of you know where Noire or Uni went?"

Most of them froze, not having the answer. Only Minion spoke up. "I saw Noire chatting with Mr. Ash in the underworld, which is why I came up here, to see what the big deal was. Because I wanted to check if anyone knew about Primeval's disappearance... This piece of crap said he had that vehicle!" He then pointed to the unmoving CFW Judge.

Frinnia exited the spaceship followed by Mario and Reimu. The latter making Flandre's eyes beam up. "Reimuuuuuu!" The shrine maiden froze up upon seeing her run over. "I missed you so much! And Marisa! How's Marisa? I miss Marisa the most!"

Inside of the Halberd, out came Sackboy and Kirby firstly, who were greeted by Little Sister. "Mr. Bubbles! Look who came back home! And he found a new friend!… And another one!" Meta-Knight walked into the scene as well, puzzled by what he was seeing.

Without any warning at all, Little Sister scooped up the warrior. "Young lady, please put me down at onc- No! Return that!" Meta-Knight yelled as his mask was taken off, showing a face very similar to Kirby's except blue with white-eyes.

"Awwww… He's so cute! Can I have him Mr. B?"

"I see. So he's your new friend Link?" Zelda asked, coming outside with Link and Sir Daniel Fortesque. "I honestly would have confused him for any monster in the Arbiter's, but his demeanor seems to be light-hearted.

Spike greeted the Animal Crossing Villager and Lucas right on the spot when they exited the Halberd also. The two Smashers wee surprised to see that their business rivals would be this friendly.

The Gunstringer and Peach walked right into Emmett Graves and Fat Princess, who had just shown up. They seemed to get along with them instantly.

Raiden introduced Cole to Snake, explaining their past in the Metal Gear games.

Arle came out along with Carbuncle, holding a comic book and a donut as a quick snack. "Kinda glad that Captain Falcon picked these up, I might become addicted to them!" She managed to grab Nathan Drake's attention by saying that.

Samus seemed interested in what Master Chief and Isaac Clarke was all about due to their space-armpr, as the latter just arrived to fix up Sweet Tooth's truck... Radec seemed unhappy about them being nice to each other already.

"Banjo!" The smaller chimp called out with Donkey Kong.

"Diddy?" Banjo and Kazooie saw him, completely surprised to see the two Kongs. "Oh man! It's been such a long time! We've got some catching up to do, huh?"

Everyone seemed to be actually doing well upon meeting those from outside their nation…

This did not make the dark figure happy, as he watched from a distance, only his eyes leaving an eerie glow.

((Lazy chapter because I went to the funeral today, only for a little bit to see the body and look at photos… Oddly enough, I was the only one there who didn't break down into tears... So, I'm going to stay home again to take my mind off things tomorrow, as I've been self-loathing lately.

Depressing things aside. I re-read my first PSASBR fan-fic, "A Newcomer's Journey"… And holy crap! I never realized how many mistakes I made! I actually want to go and remake it some time, because there's so many errors! xD

Though the story is only a year old, and this was back when my only ways of playing PSASBR was at my dad's work-place, so it was harder for me to do back then.

Anyway! Next chapter or two should have the following…

More adorable Flandre and Little Sister… And Sweet Tooth. Torturing Minion along with a few others. Plus, Slippy should hopefully be able to identify the lair of who's behind all of this! :P

… But what of Dr. Nefarious and Scervo?…))