It Came from Lucina's Head
Chapter 28: Trapped
The battle for the mansion was over before it started.
Simply put, any Smasher who was not able to find an escape route from the main foyer was consumed on the spot. The Swarm began pouring in from every possible entrance, including windows, trapdoors, and chimneys. It was like a sea of black tide had come out from Hell to defile the magnificent corridors of the mansion. The Smashers who were quick on their feet, such as Sonic and Diddy Kong, were able to escape albeit with a few leeches latched onto their bodies. Other airborne fighters like the angel twins and Charizard were also fortunate enough to flee without getting so much as a scratch, but it didn't mean anything when every exit had been completely sealed off.
The mansion had gone into lockdown, effectively amplifying the magical strength of the outside barriers and trapping the Smashers inside the mansion with the Swarm. This was a security measure implemented by both R.O.B. and Master Hand in the case of a catastrophic event. Realistically, having the mansion on lockdown prevented the tournament from being upheld by natural disasters, and other similar tragedies like a rampaging Rayquaza or even Tabuu's great return (knock on wood). It was really meant to keep trespassers out, but oddly enough, it was doing a hell of a job at keeping the bad guys in.
While a lot of the Smashers were busy running for their lives or fighting back in scattered areas of the mansion, Robin and crew were making their way to Master Hand's office just as he originally planned. Along the way, they had managed to run into Yoshi and Villager, two characters who did not hesitate in the slightest to join their fleeing caravan. Fortunately, they weren't beat up too badly, and Yoshi even took the liberty of jumping into the front of the line, clearing the way with his signature Egg Roll ability.
"Stay close everyone! We're almost there!" shouted Robin from the front of the pack as he followed the steamrolling Yoshi egg down the hall.
The flood of gaining Swarm lashed out at Marth, but was deflected thanks to Samus' Charge Beam. The Smashers realized that they themselves may have been the last surviving members in the mansion, and they weren't about to find out what would happen if they were nabbed by the shadow creatures.
Getting overwhelmed by the Swarm sounded painful to say the least.
"Left corridor!" said Shulk, his eyes glowing with the light of the Monado.
Without a moment's protest, Yoshi turned down the appropriate hall just as another pack of Swarm poured out of a room from the right. It seemed that the closer they got to their destination, the more enemies were starting to appear. This was even more apparent when the group bypassed several cowering Waddle Dees who were getting picked off one by one like insects.
Eventually, the Smashers came across the final hallway, which just so happened to be an exceedingly long one where Master Hand's office was situated. Unfortunately, Yoshi had to stop upon turning the corner as the entire area had been littered with bugs. The ceiling, walls, and even floor were covered in Swarm, the constant vibrations and buzzing now louder than ever before. Both Ike and Robin almost flinched upon seeing the dark wasteland before them.
"It's a dead end," said the blue-haired swordsman, narrowing his eyes on the double doors of the office on the other side of the hazard.
"There's got to be a way around this!" replied Marth from the back.
"I've got it," said Robin all of a sudden as he pulled out his tome and began charging a spell. "Just give me a second and I'll clear this up in no time."
The stampeding sound of the Swarm from before echoed down the hall, and soon the monsters in question came rushing towards the group like a hurricane. Villager grabbed onto Samus' leg out of panic, but the bounty huntress showed no signs of fear. She aimed down her sights at the approaching mob and began firing rockets, followed by Yoshi who joined in with his own fair share of eggs.
"We don't have a second," muttered Meta Knight, his golden eyes darting from one enemy to the other.
Robin ignored his comment as his special attack finished charging.
"Alright, stand back!" shouted Robin over the harsh noise. He threw out his hand, a large bolt of lightning surging through his body. "Thoron!"
The electric spell fired from his fingertips, whizzing down the hall and disintegrating Swarm creatures on sight. Unfortunately, the spell wasn't wide enough to cover the entire area as he was only able to carve a narrow path through the Swarm that were on the floor. Given the miniscule amount of time they had, it looked like this would have to suffice.
"Single file, everyone! Come on!"
The tactician dashed down the narrow corridor followed by Ike, Shulk, Meta Knight, and the others. The Swarm pack from before was now chasing them down the hall as well, and Robin almost lost his footing completely when he noticed the creatures on the floor were starting to close in from the side. He could see the doors to the office in the clearing just up ahead! He couldn't look back, but he silently prayed that his friends would be as fortunate as him.
Being at the front of the group, Robin broke through the mass of Swarm and into the clearing with ease, but not before collapsing on the floor. Other Smashers soon followed, including Samus who still had poor Villager latched onto her metallic limb. Ike offered a hand to the tactician who took it graciously, while Yoshi and Shulk also pulled themselves to their feet.
"Did we make it?" asked Robin, his head still spinning slightly.
"Not quite," replied Meta Knight.
The group turned around to see that the Swarm had molded into a giant wall, completely blocking off the rest of the hallway. Poking out of the wall was just a hint of paleness that contrasted horrifically with the surrounding blackness. It was Marth's hand.
"Marth!" cried Ike, shoving past Meta Knight and reaching for the Altean's hand. Samus quickly grabbed the swordsman by the wrist, pulling him back from the infectious creatures. Ike stood there motionless, staring at the lifeless hand of Marth, which was quickly consumed by the rest of the Swarm. If Marth had given out a cry for help, no one would have been able to hear him. "Dammit all!"
Robin suddenly felt a mountain of guilt dropped on his shoulders; he didn't expect the Swarm to close in on them like that so swiftly. After all, it was his idea that killed Marth. How many more friends were going to suffer because of his misjudgments?
"We have to move on," said the mage, turning to face the double doors further down the hallway. "Come on."
He ran ahead, followed by a reluctant Shulk and Samus. Ike ended up being the last to regroup as he continued staring at the blackened hand of his friend for a few seconds, but was snapped out of his trance as more Swarm broke free from the pack and began lashing out at him. He quickly caught up to the group just as Robin opened the doors, a horde of Swarm on his tail.
"Quickly! Everyone inside!" said Robin as the other Smashers came darting in one by one. This really didn't take more than a few seconds, but just as he was about to shut the doors for good, the familiar sound of a friend caused him to hesitate.
"Hey! Wait for me!"
Robin poked his head out of the room and down the other hall to see Captain Falcon scrambling towards him with Lucina in his arms and a mob of angry Swarm on his butt.
"Falcon!?" shouted Robin in disbelief. "What took you so long!?"
"Take a guess genius!" replied Falcon as he galloped towards the tactician's location. He noticed the other group of Swarm heading right towards him from the other corridor, so basically what this came down to was who was going to reach Master Hand's office first. "Don't you dare close that door!"
"I won't! Will you hurry up?!"
"I'm trying!"
Fortunately, Falcon made to the door just in time by practically falling into the room. Robin slammed the office doors shut just as the evil creatures reached their position. What resulted after this was more or less a series of violent ramming against the other side as the Swarm army attempted to break down the door. Robin was immediately pushed to the ground from the force of the blow, but Samus and Meta Knight were quick to reach the barricade and prop their bodies up against it.
Captain Falcon was lying on the floor, along with Lucina who had landed a few feet away from him. Despite all the excitement, she was still sleeping.
"You alright there?" said Ike as he pulled the captain to his feet.
"Oh yeah, I'm good," replied Falcon, cracking his back as he stood up. "Just another day in paradise."
The racer's gaze quickly fell to Lucina, who was now in Robin's arms. Well actually, her head was more or less in his lap as he kneeled next to her on the floor.
"She's still asleep," muttered the mage.
"So is it true?" asked Shulk from the side. "Is she really?..."
"She won't wake up." Robin sighed. "Grima has her under his control. Her breathing is a sure sign that she's alive though."
"Not to be rude," interrupted Ike," but we've got more important things to worry about right now." He glanced at the double doors where Meta Knight, Samus, and now Yoshi were at. The continued slamming from the Swarm was only getting worse, and the friends knew it would only be a matter of time before they broke in. "Hold on… Where's Villager?"
Samus glanced down at her leg to find that the happy-go-lucky silent kid was no longer clutching onto her. She shook her head in dismay. The other Smashers looked around the room, but Villager didn't turn up anywhere. It seemed that he had also been taken by the Swarm right from under the noses of the Smashers.
"You gotta be kiddin' me," said Falcon, sitting cross legged on the carpeted floor. "Who else did they get?"
"Mario, Fox, Link," replied Robin. "We were outnumbered right from the start. We were lucky to escape when we could, although I'm not sure what good it does us now."
Indeed, the Smashers were now trapped within the confined space of Master Hand's office with no Master Hand to guide them. They believed he was the only being powerful enough to put an end to this nightmare, or at least the only one who would have a logical explanation as to why the hell these Swarm were attacking them in the first place.
The office itself was quite the grand room, the walls reaching up high about twenty feet and lined with bookshelves containing information on fighters, tournament regulations, items, and stages. At the far end sat Master Hand's large desk, the very same desk he sat behind when he was interviewing each of the Smashers for the new tourney. Beyond the desk was a large window that reached up to the ceiling, although the window was now sealed with a sheet of reinforced steel thanks to lockdown mode. The desk was littered with various files, and the computer appeared to be unplugged. A lone Mario trophy sat on the corner of the desk.
"We can't fight these things," said Shulk as he brought a hand to his chin. "They move so fast, I can barely predict where they're going to be next."
"Maybe Master Hand left us some kind of a clue?" thought Ike aloud as he started investigating the large desk.
Falcon stretched his arms before falling over and lying flat on the floor. He closed his eyes for a few seconds trying to ignore the constant slamming against the doors.
"Well you sure are relaxed," said Robin from the side.
"Not really," replied the racer. "I'm just out of ideas. I ran into Sheik earlier and she told me to look for Master Hand ASAP. And here we are in his office, the one place where the guy usually is ninety-nine percent of the time. Death is literally knocking on the door and we have no way of getting out of this room." His eyes rolled over to Lucina, who continued to sleep soundly in Robin's arms. "At least she's enjoying herself."
"If you're just going to sit there, you can come over here and help," said Meta Knight from the entrance as he pushed his back against the door. Shulk thought he detected a hint of annoyance in the Star Warrior's voice.
"No thanks, I'm good," replied Falcon, who was immediately met with an egg to the face from Yoshi. "Alright alright I'm coming!"
Shulk ended up joining Ike at the desk, and the two continued to look for any signs of Master Hand's whereabouts. Falcon wasn't aware of what Ganondorf had said earlier, but all of the Smashers in the room believed the disembodied hand to be alive anyway. He wasn't very easy to kill, as was proven when some of the Smashers challenged the hand to one on one fights on Final Destination. If the hand was feeling extra cruel one day, he would sometimes invite Crazy Hand to join in on the pummeling. There were only a small handful of Smashers who ever dared to challenge Master Hand to a fight, and to this day, no one had ever managed to beat him… Well, not without the help of a Smash Ball, but those were normally banned anyway.
While Falcon, Samus, Meta Knight, and Yoshi continued to hold up the door, Robin sat in the middle of the floor with Lucina, staring at her face as he tried to decipher the origin of these shadowlike creatures.
"They attacked us without any sign or warning," thought the tactician, his gaze falling over the closed eyes of Lucina. "Shulk was the first to discover them barricaded in this room, but Master Hand couldn't have unleashed them upon us knowingly. He must have been unaware. It's entirely possible that he could have gone into hiding in order to protect himself… or something else. This wouldn't be some kind of test, not with the tournament still on suspension and Lucina having the demonic nightmares…"
His eyes followed the girl's body all the way down to the Falchion in its hilt.
"He was persistent in ensuring that the Dream Tap was not in anyone's possession. Because of her induced sleep, Lucina is the only one who hasn't laid eyes upon any of these shadow creatures. How convenient it is that the day she falls into a coma, these monsters begin attacking us." The mage looked up at Ike and Shulk across the room, his eyes becoming struck with some sort of realization. "Unless…"
Suddenly, a voice came from the other side of the door, but the buzzing of the Swarm continued as always.
"Hello? I-Is anyone in there?"
The Smashers couldn't believe what they were hearing, and Falcon almost lost his balance entirely at the sound of anyone being able to speak from the fog of bugs outside.
"Was that Marth?" said Falcon in disbelief.
"H-Hello?"
Indeed, the voice coming in from the hall sounded exactly like that of the Altean prince. But that was impossible! Robin saw Marth get consumed by the creatures with his very eyes! He was certain that there was no escape from the Swarm after being consumed. Was this some kind of a trick?
"Marth!" shouted Ike as he stomped back over to the door. Samus and the others continued to hold it back as the mercenary approached them. "Marth, is that you?"
"Ike?" said the voice from the hall. "Please, open the door. The Swarm are taking over my body. Please, help me!"
"He's lying," responded Meta Knight seriously. "Do not be fooled so easily. The creatures must be using his body as some sort of puppet to speak to us."
"It's not a trick," continued Marth. "I promise."
"Oh yeah?" said Falcon. "Well, if you really are Marth, then what did I get you for Christmas last year?"
"A hair straightener."
"Hey, he's right!"
"Falcon, you give him one of those every year," muttered Meta Knight while shaking his head.
Yoshi leaned up and put an eye to the peephole in the door. As expected, what he saw on the other side was a haze of blackness, like static on the useless channels of a television. The green dinosaur angled his head up and down, trying to get a view of the Altean in question, and eventually was able to see the side of Marth's head. The blue-haired Smasher appeared to be fine, and he stood out like a sore thumb among the darkness of the Swarm. It wasn't until the prince turned to face Yoshi through the peephole that the dinosaur gasped horrifically before dramatically fainting on the spot.
"What the hell?" mumbled Falcon as the other Smashers stared at the petrified body of Yoshi on the floor. Ike made his way up to the door and took a look through the peephole, but froze on the spot when he realized what he was staring at.
Marth's face had been completely wiped clean of any facial features. No eyes, no nose, not even a set of precisely plucked eyebrows. What remained instead was nothing but a gaping hole of blackness, as if the prince was some kind of defective doll that came out of the factory. The sight itself was terrifying to say the least, but it became even creepier when Marth continued talking through the abyss that was his face.
"Open the door, Ike."
Ike backed away from the door and hesitated before shouting out of anger and kicking it violently.
"Monster!" he cried. "Bring him back now!"
"That cannot be done," replied the deranged Marth. "You are all going to die here. Once these doors are open, you will all be consumed and become one with the Core. Doomsday is now upon thee."
"The hell's he going on about?" asked Falcon in confusion.
"He's threatening to kill us," replied Meta Knight flatly.
"What?!"
"This isn't over!" said Ike, putting his face up to the peephole again. "We won't go down without a fight! We'll find a way to save you, Marth! Mario, Link, everyone!"
"It's too late for that," said Marth calmly. "But alas, you have chosen your fate. You may all shut up and die quietly now."
With that, Marth vanished back into the mass of Swarm while the slamming continued to grow stronger and stronger. Ike ended up joining the barricade seeing as how Yoshi was still passed out on the floor.
Robin continued to sit still and conjure up a new plan, his original thoughts now a distant memory thanks to Marth's distraction.
"Shulk, any luck over there?" said the tactician, glancing to the far side of the room where the Homs boy was tossing up papers and other various files.
"Nothing!" he replied. "There's nothing here but schedules for the tournament!"
"Try something! Anything! Look for a button or a switch that can seal the doors permanently!"
Seeing as how Master Hand had a security measure for the windows, there was no reason why he wouldn't have one for the doors. Unless of course that was disabled too, but then again that would be all too convenient for the poor Smashers wouldn't it?
"It's too much!" said Falcon as the forced of the next blow knocked both him and Samus away from the door. They swiftly got back into position. "We can't hold it for long!"
"Aha!" said Shulk as he poked his head under the desk to find a shiny red button underneath it. "If this isn't suspicious, I don't know what is. Here goes!" He pressed the button, causing the entire room to shake like crazy. The Smashers by the door were almost knocked off their feet, while Robin shielded Lucina in case of any falling debris. Soon enough, an area by one of the bookshelves rose up out of the ground, revealing what appeared to be a small elevator. Apparently, Shulk hadn't hit a button to reinforce the door, but unlocked an entirely new and hidden passageway!
"A secret transport," said Robin, nodding his head. "Of course." It appeared as though his suspicions about Master Hand going into hiding may have been correct all along. There was a good chance that the hand had disappeared into his office and fled using the elevator before the Swarm initially attacked. At least, that's how the tactician hoped it went down. "Everyone, let's go!"
He quickly got up, lifting the unconscious Lucina up in his arms. He made his way over to the elevator where Shulk was already waiting. Meanwhile, the four Smashers on the other side of the room were in a bit of a dilemma on their own.
"We can't all go," said Ike all of a sudden. "Two of us need to stay back and hold the doors."
"I vote you and Meta Knight!" replied Falcon instantly. "Come on Samus, let's get out of here!"
The F-Zero racer made a mad dash for freedom while grabbing the bounty huntress' hand, but she immediately pulled back and remained stationary. She shook her head silently beneath the helmet of her power suit.
"You go, Ike," said Meta Knight calmly. "It makes sense to have the fighters who are better armed for fending off the Swarm remain behind. Samus and I will stay."
Ike nodded his head in the Star Warrior's direction before looking at Samus and giving the same gesture.
"Alright, if you're sure," he replied. He glanced at Falcon who had a bit of a sad look about him. Leaving their friends for dead wasn't easy to accept, but they both knew that there really wasn't going to be any other way out of this. "Good luck, you two. Stay strong."
Samus raised a clenched fist, proving that even in the face of Death, the bounty huntress retained no sense of fear.
"Remember, you must find Master Hand," said Meta Knight. "He's the only one who can put an end to this."
"Right." Ike reluctantly moved away from the door and hesitated for much longer than he should have before finishing off with, "Good-bye."
Ike and Falcon ran to the small elevator where the others were waiting. They had no choice but to leave Yoshi behind since he was too big to carry, and there was barely enough room for everyone on the elevator anyway.
"Punch it," said Ike as he stepped onto the platform. Falcon boarded silently while Shulk obediently hit the switch. The next thing they knew, the elevator roared to life and began descending into the ground, Samus and Meta Knight's eyes following them all the way to the floor.
"You sure they're okay with this?" asked Robin.
Ike nodded, but didn't give any kind of verbal response. He could only stare as his friends slowly became obscured by the view of the ground. He felt terrible leaving them behind like this, as if he was abandoning them precisely in their time of need. The feeling was mutual among Shulk, Robin, and Falcon as well, and it made for a very unsettling ride all the way down.
It seemed as though Falcon and Ike both arrived just in time however, for as soon as the elevator disappeared into the floor, the doors to Master Hand's office burst open. The sea of Swarm began pouring into the room.
