Author's Note: It's been a long week since the last chapter, and I hope you all enjoy this chapter and the rest of the final arc! Now, for the poll results: "Yes, because it'd be cool to hang out with Meta Knight and Lucario and Dedede and Falco and stuff!" won with 11 votes, and "Yes, because the weird adventures they have sounds fun!" is in second with a measly 3 votes. Everything else got no votes at all - it's nice that you all want to be Normals.
Also, thank you fanfiction, for letting me put all the Normals down as characters. Go, four character slots!
THE GARLIC KING STRIKES BACK - PART 2
The tunnels were cramped, but well-lit. Platforms connected to the pathways that ascended, and there were maps posted on walls around the place, telling where they led.
"You... really were prepared." Meta Knight said in complete awe.
"This place really is amazing." Lucario said' he saw the scale of the tunnels with his vision powers and was astonished.
"How did you build this place?" Falco asked Dedede.
"I just ordered my Waddle Dees to do it." the king said, hands at hips, beaming proudly.
"Figures."
Lucario continued to scan the intricate caves until he looked up. A look of distress quickly took his face. "...Welp."
"What is it? Is it Wario? It probably is, isn't it?"
The Pokémon looked away and whistled anxiously. "Doesn't matter. Let's just find the exit."
"Right." Meta Knight agreed. "Which way do we go, Dedede?"
"This way - follow me!" Dedede ran down one of the paths, with the others following him; he remembered these tunnels off the back of his head. Being a thief truly pays, such is the life of an anti-hero. As the penguin monarch led them, Lucario kept glancing up nervously. Although, as long as they got out, there would be nothing to worry about.
Of course, if they were able to get out, this would be a boring final arc, wouldn't it? Just imagine: The Garlic King and the Puppits take over Smash Castle, the seven Smashers that were sent out to deal with the squid distraction would come back and discover a smoking crater where the castle once was, and the Normals would run away. They'd run all the way to the other side of wherever the hell they were to the floating stadium, where they end up setting a souvenir shop; maybe they'll sell bobbleheads, or commemorative t-shirts saying, "Our castle got trashed and we chickened out." That would be the life, wouldn't it?
But no, that's stupid.
The Normals stopped at the mouth of a corridor that led to a bright light. King Dedede gesticulated at the exit, for dramatic emphasis. "Here's the end of the road. Now, let's get out of here!" He rushed to the light; before anyone else could, they witnessed Dedede disappearing in the light. Suddenly, they heard footsteps behind them. Meta Knight and Falco brandished their weapons and Lucario charged an aura ball, ready for a fight; they immediately dropped it when they saw that King Dedede was behind them. He gave them a baffled look and spun around before asking, "How did you guys get in front of me?"
"I believe you're mistaken. You appeared behind us." the knight answered, equally befuddled.
"But... I walked in a straight line. Seriously, how did you guys get ahead?"
"We stayed right here."
"Are you sure?"
"...What." Falco said, just as confused as everybody else.
"Oh... oh dear." Lucario said, looking ahead at the light, more fearful than he was before.
"What is it?" Meta Knight asked.
"I can't see anything beyond the end of the hallway." Lucario said plainly.
The others were quiet. Dedede asked from the silence, "...Are your eyes working?"
"Yes, my eyes are working. In fact..." the Pokémon jerked his head around. "...I don't see anything beyond the castle. It's just an empty void from there."
"...Maybe you have cataracts..."
"My eyes are perfectly fine, Dedede. The real problem, however, is that the castle is somewhere else entirely."
They all stood there, taking in what Lucario said. Then, to test this out, Meta Knight sprinted down the corridor; to no one's surprise, he ended up right behind the others. He sighed. "First time froze, but now this...?"
"I'm going to punch whoever's doing this in the throat." the angry bird pilot said, clenching his fists.
"...Hmm... How odd, I feel as if somebody wants to punch me in the throat." Dialga said.
"Oh calm down, Dialga, you're just imagining things." Cresselia said, fingers moving across a keyboard; she and Dialga was trying to look up information on the Garlic King. "Okay... according to Google, the Garlic King is a somewhat average restaurant. Maybe that fellow was the owner of that place."
"That might be a coincidence. Try adding 'Smasher'."
"Okay." She tapped the keyboard a few more times. "Alright, this pointed me to a fanfic called 'The Normals'. Apparently, it's a story revolving around the 'Normal' Smashers. I think it sounds neat."
"Interesting. Maybe we should try reading it from the beginning."
While the two started to read, Palkia was cleaning up the place, using his powers of space to simply will the rubble out of existence. While trying to get rid of a piece of rock, he ended up wishing an entire pillar away. "Aargh! Damn it!" he roared angrily. "I will punch the weakling who did this in the throat and blow him up!"
Lucas sweated - not because of the Puppits, but because he felt that somebody wanted to punch him in the throat and blow him up. The Smashers huddled together, glaring at the Puppits that surrounded them. Wario and the Puppit King looked at them, a triumphant look in their eyes.
"WE WILL NEVER BOW DOWN TO YOU, YOU KNOW." the Ancient Minister said.
"Oh, YoU wIlL." the Puppit King rasped.
"...Why would you team up with that thing?" Sonic asked Wario, referring to the Puppit King.
"Hey, he's fellow royalty that hates you just as much as I do!" Wario said. "I'm actually hoping that we could hang out. Play on solid gold tennis courts maybe, because that's how kings like the Garlic King rolls!"
"You aren't a real king!" screamed most of the Smashers.
"Whatever, losers."
"Don't call us losers! Only 2/3rds of us are losers - not including me! We can kick your fatass out of here!" Bowser roared.
"I dOuBt ThAt. ThAnKs To A dIsTrAcTiOn We'Ve SeT uP, 1/5 oF yOuR sMaShErS aRe GoNe."
The Ancient Minister coughed. "...IN HINDSIGHT, SENDING SOME OF MY BEST SMASHERS OUT TO DEAL WITH THE PROBLEM WASN'T A GOOD IDEA."
"Damn it Minister, this was the worst idea you've had yet!" Link screamed, while wrapped in a tentacle. The Smashers had arrived at the lake, only to be greeted by the giant squid. He had Link in his crutches, who was trying to hack away at the tentacle with his sword.
"Die already, you freak of nature!" Samus yelled, firing a missile at the squid, who whacked it away with another appendage.
"There are less of you fools than there were last time! This time, I shall destroy you all!" the giant squid roared.
Pikachu was shooting lightning bolts into the lake, but the squid seemed to withstand the electric shocks. "Damn it, he's monstrous!"
"Ha! Captain Falcon eats monstrous things for breakfast!" Captain Falcon shouted, punching a tentacle that was heading for him and dismembering it from its owner.
"Should I sing a motivational song to help out?" Jigglypuff asked.
"No." the other Smashers said.
"...Hmph. You guys are no fun." The female puffball jumped up to dodge a tentacle and fell asleep on top of it, causing it to explode.
"Who is-a responsible for-a this?" Mario questioned to nobody in particular.
"If I find out, I'm going to make them into a banana sundae!" Donkey Kong screeched.
"I think somebody wants to make me a banana sundae." Wario said suddenly.
Back in the tunnels, the Normals were sitting on the floor, scheming on what to do. First things first was to know who was attacking them. "What did you see up there, Lucario?" Meta Knight asked.
"Uh, I saw Wario..."
"I knew it!" Falco shouted.
"...also a whole army of Puppits."
"...Well shit."
"That is worrisome." the knight admitted.
"How did they somehow trap us here, though?" King Dedede inquired.
"...Maybe, somehow, they convinced Dialga and Palkia to help them." suggested Lucario. "I mean, think about it, who else has the power to fool around with the fabric of space and time?"
"That's true... but why would they do that?" Meta Knight said, adding onto the chain of questions.
"Maybe one of us pissed them off." Falco said with a shrug. "Whatever the reason, we're stuck in some timeless void and can't do shit about it."
"...Oh... now I know why they sabotaged the Halberd..." a wide-eyed Meta Knight said. "You know in fiction, when spaceships are capable of using a hyperdrive like device to go into lightspeed or the like, right?" The others nodded. "Well, all the Smasher ships that can fly in space - minus Captain Olimar's due to its condition - can do that. Traveling at lightspeed practically breaks the regular conventions of space-time and would have surpassed this barrier."
"I'm not a space pilot. I don't know what any of that means." the kingly penguin said.
"What he means is that all of us could have piled on Meta Knight's ship and jumped to get out of this place." Falco, the fellow pilot, said. "Those creepy assholes sabotaged it so that no one can escape their puppety clutches."
"Why can't we use your ship then?"
In between the cliffhanger at the end of the last arc and the start of the first one, Falco was flipping his shit in his Arwing. "Aaargh!" Falco screamed. "The controls are sticky - that idiot did eat in here!"
"Your Arwing is still working though.. right?" Lucario asked rather nervously.
"Yeah, but some of the damn buttons aren't working. At least it's the unimportant ones though; I don't need to use this dumb lightspeed button when I'm not in space."
"..." Falco put his head in his hands and actually cried. "My beautiful ship..."
"...His ship can't do that." Lucario answered for him.
"Also, assuming that they haven't meddled with the other worthy ships, they could only take a handful of people - probably 6, at the most." Meta Knight answered.
The four continued to sit there, full of dread. "To think, this all happened because we wanted batteries." King Dedede said quietly.
"So, are you chumps ready to surrender to the Garlic King? Really, I'd like that to happen - I don't want you guys wasting my time." said Wario.
"NO. OUR NUMBERS MAY BE DWINDLED, BUT WE CAN STILL FIGHT. CAN'T WE?" the Ancient Minister said, the question directed at his Smashers.
"Yeah!" the non-Normal Smashers cheered. Some of them actually got to work immediately, launching themselves at the nearest Puppits and beating the shit out of them. This inspired the others to start fighting too. However, the evil kings only laughed, not caring about the Puppits getting defeated by their enemies.
"Fools! While you guys wasted my time with your chumpness, you do not realize that you were also wasting yours! Wahaha!"
"What the hell do you even mean?" a Zelda turned Sheik asked.
"WhAt He MeAnS iS tHaT aLl ThIs TaLk WaS sImPlY a DiStRaCtIoN. mY mEn HaVe BeEn PlUnGiNg In YoUr ItEm StOrAgE rOoM tO rEtRiEvE... tHiS." the Puppit King pointed at two Puppits who were carrying in a crate. On his cue, they dropped the box on the floor, releasing its prize...
A Smash Ball.
"SHIT." All of the Smashers said simultaneously.
"Wahaha! I shall become Super King Garlicman, and you will bow to my mighty awesomeness!" Wario pounced toward the Smash Ball, which was floating around aimlessly in the room.
"WARIO, THAT IS A RIDICULOUS NAME. SMASHERS, GET THAT BEFORE HE DOES!"
The Smashers, not looking forward to Wario's Final Smash, made a rush for the Smash Ball. As the ball floated, various fists, weapons, and feet went into the air, trying to break the mystical sphere. The Puppits tackled the Smashers, trying to keep them away from it. Their efforts succeeded; they managed to keep the Smashers from the Smash Ball until Wario broke it. The not-king glowed, laughing evilly. Then, he transformed. The room was filled with a bright light and a bad smell and when the light went away (but sadly not the stench), Warioman stood, wearing the Garlic King crown and cape with his usual superhero ensemble. "You cannot stop me, chumps!"
"Oh yeah? Taste the blade of my elegant sword!" Ike screamed, running at Wario like an idiot with his sword raised. The superhero (supervillain? superanti-hero?) simply punched him; Ike flew across the room and hit the wall, leaving a dent in it.
"...RETREAT! RUN UNTIL HE TURNS BACK TO NORMAL!" the Ancient Minister ordered before Wario jumped up to meet his level...
The Normals could hear the fighting and the screaming going on from where they were. Most of the screams came from Smashers, so it was clear who was losing.
"...So yeah, let's stay down here forever." Dedede chirped. "I've got food stashed in here, ya know."
"...No." Meta Knight said.
"What?"
"Dedede, we are not going to hide out down here." the valiant knight stated plainly. "We're going to take this threat head-on."
"Yeah." the aura Pokémon stood up, cracking his knuckles. "We can't sit back and let Wario and the Puppits have their way."
"...I agree." the falcon pilot said, much to the surprise of the others. "We're not going to let that jerk take over, are we? Come on Dedede, do you really want Lord Asshole in charge?"
"...You're right, that'd be horrible!" the outraged king stood up with the others. "Count me in."
"Okay. Now that we've agreed on it, we're going to take down the Garlic King. He will never rule over us ever again." Meta Knight said.
To be continued...
Author's Note: Spring Break 2013! I can't wait to stay indoors and write and play video games all day, since I'm a shitty person! So, to tide things over until I write the next chapter, have another poll: what are your top three favorite arcs in The Normals? Should be self-explanatory. However, this arc and the first chapter are exempt from the poll. So, get to voting, and I hope you all have a happy Spring Break!