…I have no words anymore. Seriously; 31 reviews in 1 day. You guys are nuts.
First thanks goes to piplupfan580; Um, not Zelda! Someone else maybe. XD ~ Thanks to MessengerOfDreams; Gotta love/hate CoD, don't you? XD Yes, you've reviewed A Quiet Place (thank you!). ~ Special thanks to Sogo; YOU GOT AN ACCOUNT! Woot! See? I updated! Keep her cooking away from me! ~ Thanks to introtothepanic; There's definitely murder in this one. XD thanks for pointing out the typos, I'm terrible at catching them. ~ Thanks to RawkHawk2.0; I do love writing the Fire Emblem men. They all have such distinct personalities. XD ~ Thanks to EggplantWitch; It's not Zelda, no worries. It's just someone else. (mwahaha) ~ Thanks to STKB; Yeah, her moves do kind of make it hard to shoot, don't they? ~ Thanks to AcolyteOfAzura; Your review made me laugh. It was awful and I shouldn't have, but I did all the same. XD And yes, this arc got much darker than I expected. Sorry. :\ ~ Thanks to anomynous; Ooh, I sort of want to bring him in…I'll have to do some Black research. ~ Thanks to GameGuy12; …CoD was just the first shoot'em up game to pop into my head. No deep meaning. XD ~ Thanks to Diagon the Uber Lord of Lawlz; Heaven forbid I write something that could actually happen, ne? Thanks! ~ Thanks to Eternal Nocture; I don't know if you've made it up to this point yet, but thanks for all the reviews! ~ Thanks to Lord Lithos Maitreya; …I would never kill Zelda. I might kill someone else though. XD No, I've never read Soundwave, but I'll check him/her out. Sir StarIlI actually helped me come up with the announcer idea. XD ~ Thanks to pikachuandarceus; Yeeeah….I got addicted to the all caps button. XD ~ Thanks to Pk Love Omega; Oh the suspense! ~ Thanks to RaymondTHEspriter; You are loved. There's no limit for the contest, it just has to be done by the deadline. ;) Hershel did work his butt off on this one. ~ Thanks to newcomer (or oldcomer) redhazeKJ; Mission accomplished. (jk, jk) Thanks for sticking with it since the beginning! There will be some Z/L fluff soon! ~ Special uber thanks to Sir StarlIl; LOL, Ollie would totally pwn if he had a clipboard, wouldn't he? That was a hysterical mental image, thank you. XD ~ Thanks to Foxpilot; Ah, but I love replying to reviews! I don't mind. XD Marth totally fails at FE. I don't think he got past the prologue yet. ~ Thanks to StgPeppersLHCB; Well, sort of. I hope it turned out okay. :\ ~ Thanks to MusicGamer; Yay! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! ~ Thanks to PrincessDiMimi; My updates are either super speedy or…three weeks in-between. XD That's how I roll. ~ And a final thanks to the very special angel; Behold the fluff! Angel's going to be a permenant fixture for now, so you get to enjoy reading about yourself….That sounds so weird. Sorry. XD
Oh my Lawd (alternate spellings FTW). I have so many reviewers. XD But I like replying, so I don't mind. Please keep it up, even as this arc comes to a close!
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, and I apologize for casting CoD as the bad guys…I play CoD infrequently (and I suck)—no disrespect or anything intended. :\
Man, I really earn my T-rating with this chapter. Just be forewarned. Somebody dies via a handgun. :\
Please read, (maybe?) enjoy, and then review!
Chapter 36: The Assassin: Part 6
"ZELDAA!" Link screamed, but he got no reply except his own voice echoing back to him. Next to him, Roy hadn't paused to yell and just kept running, his bright eyes frantically scanning the side corridors for any sign of Sheik. Behind him came Oliver Stoelhart, who was managing to keep up with the two teenagers fairly well and was only panting a little. He slowed a little and cupped his hands around his mouth to shout, "Sheik, Zelda! If you can hear me, call something back!"
Once again, there was no reply.
Link cussed, horrible mental images flashing unbidden into his head. It was bad enough having to remember Marth and Ike, who Link personally thought of as his brothers, lying completely unresponsive in that pool of blood without imaging Zelda lying alongside them.
"She's fine," he whispered fiercely to himself. "She's got to be." His head snapped up, the fire back in his eyes as he sprinted to catch up with Roy. "ZELDA! Come ON! ZELDAAA!"
xXx
Wolf, accompanied by the group from the stadium, trooped miserably back to Snake's bedroom, where Donkey Kong was still standing watch over the man himself, who was now sitting on the floor, looking resigned and bored.
"Let me guess," he sneered when he noticed Wolf's furious expression. "They don't match at all, do they?"
Wolf vented his anger by throwing Snake's gun down on the ground as hard as he could. Thankfully, the safety had been on, so there was no accidental misfiring. "You got lucky," he snarled. "The guys said you own the gun that the bullets were from though. Where is it?"
Snake shrugged as he picked up the gun to stick it back into the waistband of his sweatpants. "How should I know?" The harsh tone had left his voice, leaving him with his usual monotone. "Usually my guns are locked up in the weapons locker. You know that."
Wolf made a distasteful noise. "Well, that gun's gone missing, idiot."
Snake scowled at his bedroom door, which was completely off of its hinges and leaning up against the wall. "Well, considering that you've searched my private property already, I don't think there's much else you can do, unless you want to do a strip search. And even if you do, I promise you won't find anything unusual, so why bother?"
Wolf opened his mouth, and then closed it again, growling curses to himself. Snake allowed himself one smirk, and then struck out down the hallway at a crisp walk, disappearing into the darkness.
xXx
Unknown to the three men searching for her, Sheik was actually almost on the exact opposite side of the complex from where they were looking. Still wearing the grey hoodie sweatshirt and shorts, she ran through the corridors, her ash blonde hair flying out behind her, for once thankful for her strong endurance as she raced laps up and down hallways and in and out of rooms.
"ZELDA!" she shouted with the last gasp of air in her lungs, and then paused to double over and catch her breath. When the sharp throb in her ribs receded to a dull ache, she struck out again.
As she rounded a corner, she heard a sharp BANG! that she instantly recognized as a gunshot. Her heart lurched, and she flung herself down the hallway and around two more corners before finally bursting into the scene.
Zelda was surrounded by a spinning magical diamond, and a bullet was rolling around lazily on the ground by her feet, flaring with a blue light occasionally as it caught the light of one of her magical sparks. She looked exhausted, her hair falling out of its pins and clouding her eyes. Just down the corridor and directly in front of Sheik—was Mr. Simonson. She could only see the back of his shoulders, but she could tell by the set of them and by the way the hand holding the handgun was completely steady that he was dead serious. At the moment, he hadn't noticed her, although her heart was beating so loudly that she was surprised he couldn't hear it. She had always hated guns—they destroyed the idea of a fair fight. It didn't take a whole lot of skill to pull a trigger. The idea of aiming a machine like that at another animal (or human) disgusted her.
Without really pausing to think about it, she flung herself at the announcer, not even considering the fact that she was at a huge weight and height disadvantage or the fact that she had no weapons on her at all.
"SHEIK!" Zelda cried, magic swirling around her face and hands.
Zelda's un-magical counterpart was long past hearing, clinging to Simonson's back as she was, trying to drag him down to the ground despite him weighing almost eighty pounds more than her, raking at any exposed piece of skin she could get at with her nails. In a lucky kick she managed to knock the gun out of his hand, but she knocked it backwards, where Zelda couldn't get to it. In the same kick, her heel struck his groin, and Simonson dropped to his knees.
To his credit, the announcer recovered quickly and used his revised position to fling Sheik over his shoulder. She crashed bodily into the wall and started to scramble to her feet, only to hear the cool click of the gun being cocked again as Simonson picked it back up.
"…Another one?" he sighed, limping back towards the two girls. His cheek was striped from Sheik's nails, one of the cuts going deep enough to bleed. "I'm going to run out of bullets. But I have to ask, Sheik," he said pleasantly, keeping her from moving simply by pointing the barrel of his handgun in her direction. "How did you find out? I thought I covered myself pretty well, you know, but that makes three of you now who've figured it out, although Zelda here doesn't really count seeing as she just happened to run into me."
Zelda clenched her teeth, wondering if there was any way to protect Sheik and herself at the same time. She didn't think she could throw out two strong shields at once. No, there was no way to do it without sacrificing Sheik, and that wasn't going to happen—So…there was nothing she could do!
"I mean, you realize I'm going to have to kill you now, right?" Simonson continued conversationally, still breathing a little heavily from their scuffle. "The whole point of this is to frame Snake, after all, so I can't have you running around saying I did it." He held out the gun to show it off. "See? This is his. Convenient, isn't it? Don't you think that was clever?"
"Sure," Sheik growled, her red eyes blazing as she glared up at her gunman. "So you're just going to kill me now, right? And then what? You can't shoot Zelda, she's got shields."
"I'll find a way," Simonson assured her. "Anything else you'd like to say? Last words or something?"
"Yeah," Sheik snapped. "You should've killed the shrink instead of just whacking him over the head. He told me everything, and by now he's probably told everyone else as well." She smiled softly. "Don't you think that was clever?"
"Sheik!" Zelda shouted, magic floating around her head like some otherworldly crown. "Stop it! He shot Marth and Ike, do you think he won't shoot you?"
"Yeah he shot the guys, and he missed, didn't he?" Sheik yelled back, easing herself back up onto her feet. Her eyes were a bloody red as she took a proud step towards the announcer. "And you know what? He's not going to shoot me, because I'm going to get to him first."
"Hah," Simonson smirked. "You think you can dodge a bullet now, ninja-girl?"
"You shot Ike," Sheik said, and her voice wasn't laced with any menace now. It was dull, quiet—and somehow that made her seem even more menacing. "And I won't let you go for that."
Simonson rolled his eyes and sighed through his nose. "Always so melodramatic," he complained, and then pulled the trigger of his handgun once.
The gun roared.
"SHEIK—NO!" Zelda screamed as her counterpart was flung back against the wall by the impact and crumpled to the floor. "No…no…please, no…"
"SHEIK?" came Roy's voice from around the corner. "Sheik, where are you?"
"No!" Zelda cried. "No, Roy, go away! Leave!"
"Zelda?" called Link. "Zelda! Where are you? Is Sheik there too?"
Zelda's eyes were drawn down to where Sheik lay, and she suddenly couldn't find her own voice. She knew that if she didn't say something, then Link would walk right into Simonson's line of fire, but she couldn't say anything. She couldn't move. She couldn't think. It was like her whole world froze the moment the gun had fired. The moment it had fired into Sheik.
Link and Roy suddenly burst into the hallway, their faces flushed from running all over the complex. Zelda was too dazed to really even realize that they were back, much less that they were still wearing their full costume.
Oliver Stoelhart, of all people, ran into the hallway after them and skidded to a stop as well, his green-gold eyes flicking from Zelda to Sheik to Simonson.
Roy had just noticed Sheik lying on the ground and lurched forward, his feet shuffling across the ground until he collapsed on his knees next to the fallen girl.
Simonson hardly noticed him at all, for his hard eyes were fixed firmly on Stoelhart. "You," he snarled. "You ruined this."
Oliver didn't even honor the announcer by making eye contact. Instead, his eyes were on Roy, who was doubled-over, clutching at his own shoulders in an attempt to keep his emotions in check, a sound somewhere between a sob and a moan escaping from his mouth.
"If you hadn't told anyone…!" Simonson shouted. "Then this would never have happened. I would've gotten away, Stoelhart! This is your fault, your fault! This is all your fault! You killed these people, not me!"
"You know," Oliver said sadly, still watching Sheik intently as if he expected her to stand back up again. "I really hate it when people say things like 'your fault' or 'I didn't do it.' It's irresponsible." He finally looked up at the announcer, his face blank. "That's all I have to say."
"WAIT!" Link and Zelda both shouted in unison as they realized what was about to happen.
"You could have prevented this," Simonson said bitterly, leveling the gun at the psychiatrist's chest. "You know that, don't you?"
"Quisque moritur," Oliver Stoelhart said quietly, closing his bright eyes.
Simonson's face hardened. His hand flexed on the trigger…
Link tried to fling himself in-between the announcer and the psychiatrist with a hoarse scream, but Oliver shoved him away. Zelda jumped forward, her mind unclear as to what she was going to do, but a hand came down on her shoulder, stopping her.
A gun fired, the noise earshattering in the small hallway. A second gunshot followed the first, and Dr. Oliver Stoelhart snapped backwards—as if he had been punched with a giant hand—and toppled to the ground, screaming in pain.
xXx
Roy had been mostly unaware of all the chaos occurring behind him. It was like an invisible wall had been raised between him and the rest of the world, shutting him off in this quiet corner with Sheik.
His mind spiraling, he had sunk to the floor next to her, fighting back tears that blurred his vision at the sides and made his chest tight. The feeling was indescribable; it was as if someone had plunged a knife into his heart, it was like someone had smashed some very important part of him, and he was desperately trying to hold all the pieces together.
"Sheik," he moaned, feeling none of the usual thrill he got from speaking her name simply because he doubted she could hear it. "Shiek…?"
And then, miraculously, she managed to open her eyes. Her eyebrows came together. "Roy? Is that you?" Her voice was pained, but not terribly so. Roy hoped that she didn't feel anything. For her sake, he hoped that she didn't. He had forced himself not to look down at the terrible wound, but now he found his eyes glancing down there of their own accord. His stomach flipped nauseously—
—But there was no blood.
"…Huh?" Roy heard himself say dumbly.
Sheik winked at him; the expression was so nonchalant in such a dangerous situation that Roy couldn't really comprehend it. As further explanation, she tugged down the hem of her sweatshirt to her collarbone, revealing the edge of what appeared to be some sort of thick, armored vest.
xXx
The echoes from the twin gunshots slowly faded away, but the expressions of bewilderment on Link and Zelda's faces didn't leave.
The announcer was lying facedown in the hallway, the gun dropped from his slackened hand. A puddle of dark liquid was starting to pool around his chest.
Stoelhart was bloody as well, but he was no longer screaming. Instead, he had managed to sit up on his own and was now glaring furiously at his shoulder, which was slick with blood. "Of all the places," he wondered aloud, his voice tight with pain.
"We should get you to the infirmary, Doctor," came a gruff voice from behind Zelda. Link looked up from the ground where he had fallen after Stoelhart had pushed him, feeling as if his mouth couldn't open up any wider as he gazed upon Snake, who had flicked the safety back on his smoking pistol and shoved the thing back into his pants.
Calm as can be, Snake brushed past the frozen Zelda, stepped lightly over Simonson's limp body, and then waltzed his way over to Stoelhart, his expression more than a little smug. "Can you stand?"
Stoelhart was still muttering to himself. "I'm wearing a bulletproof vest, for crying out loud, but would he do me one favor and actually shoot me in the vest? Nooooo. Of course not. He has to go shoot me in the bloody shoulder!"
"Bulletproof vest?" Link squeaked disbelievingly. "And Snake? Did you shoot Simonson?"
Snake nodded, and then finally seemed to realize that Zelda was still in shock. "Look," he tried to explain. "His gun was loaded, I thought he had just killed two people and he had an easy shot at three more. What was I supposed to do?"
"So he's…dead?" Zelda whispered.
Snake squatted down thoughtfully next to the body and gave it a quick once-over. When he stood up, he shrugged. "Yeah, he's dead. It was such an easy shot—I couldn't have missed if I tried." He looked over at Oliver. "Should I be getting rid of the gun or something? Destroy the evidence and all that?"
"The fact that you shot him when the gun wasn't pointing at you is going to complicate things," Oliver said, somehow managing to keep his voice steady despite the blood seeping from his shirt. "But I think we'll be fine. Now could we please get to the infirmary?" A slight pleading tone had entered his voice. "If the cleric is still here, I'd like to have her fix me up before I have to go into surgery or something awful like that. Come on, Link, give me a hand…Snake, you too."
"Bulletproof vest?" Link repeated. "You're serious."
"He's serious," Sheik said breathlessly as Roy gently helped her stand up. "And those things really work too. That guy shot me at point blank and all I think I have is a bruise."
Zelda's mind was reeling. She felt like she didn't understand anything. "…Cleric?"
"Looong story," Link said with a grunt as he slid an arm underneath the psychiatrist's shoulder and helped Snake gently lift him to his feet. Roy, Zelda, and Sheik trooped dazedly after them, all of them unfortunately so calloused to dead bodies that they hardly gave Simonson a second glance as they exited the hallway.
xXx
"So, to summarize the whole thing," Marth said at length after everyone had eventually gathered in the infirmary and told their side of the story. "Basically, Activision has been harassing our resident psychiatrist for a few weeks about getting a Call of Duty guy into Brawl. That's how all this started, right Dr. Stoelhart?"
Oliver, who had obligingly unbuttoned his bloodstained shirt to let Ellen get at the gunshot wound, which she was now looking over, nodded and then cringed as Ellen—with the help of a real surgeon—finally extracted the bullet and began to heal.
"So, because you wouldn't let the soldier in willingly, they resorted to other tricks. Namely, shooting a well-known brawler or two like Ike and myself,"—Marth gestured over at Ike with his chin. Ike had emerged from the operation room only several minutes after Ellen had walked in there with her magical staff, and while he and Marth were both noticeably paler than usual, they were both standing without assistance and appeared to be without pain.—"and then attempting to frame Snake, the only person here well known for using a gun, for the accident by using one of Snake's guns that he stole from the weapons locker. Because the announcer has been around this stadium for as long as the rest of us, Lucario was unable to pick up any sort of aura, which led—as Simonson undoubtedly planned—to us questioning one another, which eventually led to people coming to the conclusion that Snake did it. Last evening, Link and Roy went to Stoelhart because they wanted to find a way to heal Ike and myself. Dr. Stoelhart, at this point, was being actively stalked by Simonson and his gun, so he quickly sent off Link and Roy to Lycia for a cleric and a healing staff. Unknown to the doctor, Simonson probably followed them down there and shot the warp device after they went through, presumably trapping them in Lycia. Snake could, in theory, have been blamed for that as well. Meanwhile, everyone else was getting anxious and decided to split up and accomplish different goals. Wolf's group went out and actually accused Snake, although Simonson had already anticipated this and framed Snake even further. Then Simonson left that corridor and accidentally ran into Zelda, who had been separated from Sheik when the two of them mistook Dr. Stoelhart for the shooter."
Marth paused for breath, but continued on almost immediately. "Meanwhile, Dr. Stoelhart was informing Sheik of everything that had happened, and before starting out in their search for Zelda, they both went down to the weapons locker to confirm that one of Snake's guns was missing, and in there they also decided to take two bulletproof vests, right?"
Sheik nodded. Her vest lay in the corner; a small hole punched in the center of it. She had a large bruise on her abdomen, but was otherwise unharmed.
"They then started looking around, starting first in the infirmary. While they were there, Link, Roy, and Ellen returned, and Ellen healed me and Ike. Sheik left without the psychiatrist noticing, and when he noticed he, Link, and Roy went looking for him, but they took the wrong fork in the hallways and ended up on the wrong end of the building. Meanwhile, Wolf and Captain Falcon had basically proved that Snake was innocent, so they let him go. Going back to Simonson and Zelda…"
"This is confusing," Quincy complained, rubbing his eyes sleepily.
"Bear with me, kiddo, I'm almost done," Marth said with a grin. "Sheik engaged Simonson and was shot in the chest in the process. The impact knocked her into the wall, where she struck her head and blacked out, causing everyone who didn't know about the vests to believe she died. In this time, Dr. Stoelhart, Link, and Roy came on the scene. Stoelhart—believing he was safe because of the vest—"
"It was a stupid mistake, I admit it," Oliver sighed wearily as Ellen pronounced him healed.
"Yes, it was," Ike said. "Never assume you have the advantage. It makes you cocky."
"Point taken," Oliver nodded, massaging his previously injured shoulder.
"Anyway," Marth said. "Around this time, Snake—who had been searching for Simonson, came down the hallway after hearing all the shouting and, when he saw Simonson pointing the gun at the doctor, proceeded to shoot him. When shot, Simonson's finger reflexively tightened on the trigger, causing the gun to fire into Dr. Stoelhart's shoulder. Sheik then woke up, and everyone eventually found their way back here. Did I leave anything important out?"
"Yeah, actually," Link spoke up. He and Roy, still in their costumes, stuck out in the group of pajama-clad brawlers who had somehow all managed to squeeze into the small infirmary room. "This one's for the shrink."
Oliver looked up curiously.
"The main reason we all wondered if you were the shooter at first was because you said you came straight to the arena from your office," Link said. "But your office is too far away. Where'd you come from? That's the only thing I still don't get."
Oliver looked up at the ceiling as he cast his thoughts back. "Well…to be honest, I was down in the weapon's locker. I had received an alert that someone had broken in, so I went down to see what had been stolen."
"Why didn't you tell us that right away?" demanded Mario. "It was important!"
"Because I honestly didn't know who shot Marth and Ike at that point," Oliver admitted. "I knew that Simonson had been bribed by Activision, but I had no way of knowing if he was working alone or not. I had no suspects, I had no legitimate leads at that point, and I didn't want to let on that I already knew that the weapon had been stolen. I panicked and I lied—I'm sorry."
"So, you suspected us?" Roy asked, horrified. "How could you?"
"How could you?" Oliver answered immediately, his voice calm as he rebuttoned his shirt. "Face it, everyone suspected everyone at one point or another. I don't think there's anybody here who can say that they knew that it was Simonson directly from the beginning."
"Actually…" Marth and Ike said in unison, and then Ike blinked, startled.
"What?" Sheik, who had been standing next to him, asked. "What is it?"
"Ganondorf knew…" Ike said at length. "When Marth and I turned around, we saw Simonson. But because Ganondorf was facing us, he would've seen him too. But he never said anything, did he?"
There was a long, awkward silence as everyone scanned the room, only to realize that Ganondorf was the only one not there.
"That lousy, sinking sack of —!" Link cussed. "I'm going to kill him! We could've avoided all this! We all almost died, thanks to that sick sonuva—"
While Link vented his anger by kicking at the wall, Pit quietly slipped over to Angel's side. She had remained mostly silent ever since Ike had woken up, but her face was tearstained as she looked up at Pit.
"What?" she said thickly.
"You okay?" was the best thing Pit could come up with to say, and even to him it sounded shallow and stupid.
She obviously thought it sounded shallow and stupid as well, because she didn't even humor him with an answer. She just turned her head away and shrugged listlessly.
Pit looked at her for a moment, and then took a hesitant step forward, wrapping both arms gently around her shoulders. She started when he touched her, and then relaxed. Neither of them said anything, but neither one tried to move away either.
Sheik, who had been clinging to Ike's shoulder almost ever since she had walked through the infirmary door, broke off of him momentarily to go talk to Roy, who had been standing at the edge of the group and looked rather lonely.
"Hey," she said to him. He looked up at her and offered a weak smile, his blue eyes dull, and then looked away. "Hey," she repeated, stepping into his field of vision again. "You know something? When I woke up after hitting my head, the first thing I saw was you."
"So?" he asked, his voice slightly constricted.
"So you thought I was dead," she said quietly, "And you were crying."
"Was not!" Roy exclaimed indignantly, a bright flush creeping into his cheeks. "I don't cry, Sheik!"
"You were," Sheik insisted. "You were crying because you thought I was dead, and…That made me really happy, Roy."
He looked up at her then, his face boyish and surprised, and suddenly Sheik remembered exactly what she had once loved about that face, back in Melee. She remembered how she used to love how his eyes lit up whenever she spoke to him, she remembered how she had loved his easy smile, she remembered laughing at his faked seriousness, and then cracking up when he was unable to keep a straight face any longer.
And she realized…that maybe she still loved all of that still. Just a little.
Marth, who was using Samus' shoulder sort of like a pedestal to lean upon (which Samus didn't appreciate), watched Sheik speak to Roy with a frown, and then glanced over at Ike, who was watching them as well. "Do you mind?" Marth eventually couldn't help asking. "That they're talking like that?"
Ike laughed. "I've said it before and I'll say it again; Sheik is free to pick whoever she wants. I'm just happy for the time I get to spend with her, you know? I mean…when I got shot, I didn't think 'oh-no' or anything like that. I just thought, 'oh well.' I thought 'I've lived my life pretty well so far. Sure it'd be nice to have a bit longer, but I'm fine dying now.'" Ike shot a glance in Marth's direction. "What about you?"
Samus looked up curiously as Marth debated his answer.
"Well, I didn't exactly think 'oh-no' either," he said at length. "My thoughts were more along the lines of 'I can't be dying. They'll find some way to save me.'"
"You know that neither of you were actually dying, right?" Samus sighed. "Marth got hit in the arm."
"Yeah, well I didn't exactly know that at the time!" Marth said hotly. "You try getting shot with a bullet someday and let me know if you don't think that you're dying."
Link finished kicking the wall, walked over to Zelda, and suddenly grabbed her up in a hug, actually lifting her feet off of the ground.
"What was that for?" she asked breathlessly when she set him down.
He placed his hands firmly on her shoulders. "Don't you ever do that to me again!" he laughed. "You have no idea how badly you scared me, wandering around alone and getting shot at like that!"
"Then don't you ever run off like that again without telling me!" she shouted back, and then flung her arms around his neck, grabbing hold of the familiar fabric of his Hylian tunic. He held her close, a relieved smile on his face.
Oliver, who had been watching the entire romantic scene blossom with a look of subtle amusement, turned to Snake, who was standing lazily up against the wall.
"Teenagers," Snake sighed tiredly. "Whatcha gonna do?"
"Observe," Oliver answered. "Just like I always do."
Snake raised his eyebrow a notch. "You deserve a raise."
"I deserve a nap," Oliver moaned, falling back onto the cot he had been sitting on. "But, of course, the blasted paperwork must come first."
"Soldier on," Snake quipped, and then peeled himself off of the wall and quietly left the infirmary, leaving the rest of the brawlers to celebrate without him.
Oliver smiled happily up at the ceiling. "Soldier on…Just like always."
xXx
The Super Smash Brothers announcer lay underneath a white sheet in the hallway. The sheet had been placed there by several brawl staffers, and plans were already being made to have the body removed and buried. There was to be a proper ceremony, which all of the brawlers would attend, the next day. But for now, Mr. Simonson simply remained underneath the white sheet. In the end, his gravestone would read: Quisque moritur; everybody dies.
xXx
Snake walked back to his bedroom as the first tinges of sunlight started to peek through the windows, absently wondering how he was going to sleep without a door. Just as he was about to try and fix the door himself, Ganondorf's door opened, and the huge man stepped out with a yawn.
Stretching, he proclaimed, "I had a decent night's sleep for once. I assume things got rather exciting after I went to bed, though."
Snake crouched down to examine the hinges. "You could say that."
"Has anyone else been added to the body count?" Ganondorf asked nonchalantly. "How did poor Marth and Ike fare the night? Do we have any funerals to attend?"
"They're both fine," Snake answered. "So is everyone else. The shooter is dead, however, so you'll probably have to go to that one."
"That said, I'm assuming it wasn't you after all," Ganondorf said dryly.
"No," Snake replied curtly as he positioned his door back into place. "Although you would've known that already, right?"
Ganondorf smiled. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Snake shrugged, and then stepped into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
xXx
A/N: I reeeally hope I got those Latin words translated right…(Huh? Ollie speaks Latin? Of course he speaks Latin! He's Oliver Stoelhart! (did anyone besides me notice the play on words in his last name?))
So I bet I freaked a few people out with this chapter huh? I do believe I heard Oliver's line about 'I'm wearing a bullet proof vest, so he shoots me in the shoulder' somewhere before, but I can't remember where. :\ Either way, I borrowed that one. Anybody know where that line comes from?
Was Ollie really in the weapons room, or was he lying about that too? (mwahaha) I truly love Oliver; he's slightly insubstantial, so I feel like I can mess around with him a bit. XD Plus the whole Ike/Sheik/Roy love triangle made a bit of a comeback…I haven't written about that in a while.
Aaaah…it's over. This was the most complicated arc I've done so far, and I had way too much fun with it. I hope it all fit together in the end and I hope I didn't leave anything important out…*sigh*
Anyway, next chapter is back to one-shots: BEAM-SWORDS! "Link, I am your father!" It's gonna be great.
BTW, the Contest For Those We've Left Behind is still open!
Please review! (and pardon any typos-I didn't really edit this one-I'm in a hurry)