"Their hurt will be mended

When you return to end it."

~Naminé

Chapter 27: The Fourth Voice

Realgam Tower

Orre Region

Red hadn't moved from his fallen father's side since the battle the day before. After Pikachu, Jigglypuff, and Luigi left, the boy had wept on his knees for hours knowing that there was nothing else he could do for This World. Their future was in the hands of the Twelve now. Then he had fainted or fallen asleep from emotional and physical exhaustion.

When he awoke, the scarlet sky was crackling with black lightning, the wind howling around the tower as if in prelude to some unimaginably huge hurricane. He sat up and looked around at the largely empty arena. Besides Quentin's body, there was only one other figure remaining.

"Red," Gary said, limping over to him, wincing from the injuries inflicted by the Unown. He too had been unconscious through the night. "You okay, cuz?"

"Yeah." Red looked over at the edge from which his sister had fallen, but he had no desire to peer down at April's distant body again. "I think the others left to face Xehanort. Mewtwo probably took Lance and Agatha with him since Gardevoir hurt them pretty badly. So we're kinda stuck here."

"Should we go down and find Wes or something?"

Red shook his head. "If there was more we could do, Mewtwo would've come back for us by now. And I have a feeling This World doesn't have much time left."

Gary grinned. "So we might as well stay up here where we've got a good view of the end of the world. You got it."

He sat next to Red and they watched the skies together, caught between the grief of what they had lost and the dark premonition that soon there would be nothing left to lose.

Red thought of his dear Pokémon and fellow Smashers, of the seemingly insurmountable odds they would have to overcome.

I believe in you all, he thought.

Candy Chateau

Sony World

Solid Snake and the other surviving All-Stars were gathered at the crumbly toffee precipice of Candy Chateau, where they had had an unpleasant encounter with Master Chief once upon a time. But this time, the cause of distress had nothing to do with Microsoft, and had everything to do with the unnaturally red sky and the jagged black lightning bolts, each of which closely preceded soul-shaking peals of thunder. They all had a feeling that the Great Convergence was at hand.

"Whoa!" Crash Bandicoot jumped out of the way as a bolt struck the cliff, carving a chunk out of the chocolate-frosted toffee and causing it to tumble into the milky white waters below.

Sonic sped over to the FOXHOUND soldier with a worried expression. "Hey, you sure we shouldn't try and help the Smash Brothers out? This looks like it's gonna get real nasty."

Snake shook his head. He had already tried calling Samus's Power Suit just to check up on their progress, but wherever the bounty hunter was, she didn't seem to have reception. Normally this lack of control over the situation would have irked him to no end, but his surreal conversation with Meryl had convinced him otherwise. "We have to trust them. Our mission within our sphere of influence is as important as their mission within theirs. If they need us, we'll know."

The flightless Spyro crawled over to them. "Yeah…or they'll be too dead to ask. But hey, at least we've got front row seats at Armageddon, am I right?"

Snake smirked. "That's the spirit, soldier."

They took a few steps away from the edge so another lightning bolt wouldn't send any of them 200 feet below, and just stood or sat, soaking in the airborne tension, knowing that one way or another, the world as they knew it was about to end.

New Alexandria

Microsoft World

The Master Chief watched the understatedly inclement weather rage from his personal chambers in one of the futuristic city's tallest skyscrapers. He could hear the distant screams of panicking citizens below, the screeches and blares of horns as people ran for cover or fled the city in some vain search of safety. Master Chief had already publicly advised all of Reach, and Microsoft, to not panic and to remain indoors, but portentous cataclysmic conditions tended to leave people a bit unhinged. So he just stood calmly, the black bolts crackling in his amber visor's reflection.

He received a transmission from the Enchanted Kingdom, and accepted the call. The holographic image of Kameo appeared above his communicator.

"All the RareWare Islands are secure," she reported.

The Chief nodded. "Our meteorologists say this anomaly extends far beyond Smash Planet, so there would be no use ordering an evacuation. We just need to ensure that no one gets hurt from unnecessary civil unrest."

"Yeah." Kameo hesitated before speaking again. "Is this it, Chief? Is this the Great Convergence? Is it game over for us?"

The tempestuous lights outside caused Master Chief's visor to flicker like a faulty television. "Knowing the Smash Brothers? I'll bet my life they pull through. The light in their hearts is far stronger than Xehanort's darkness. I only wish I could be there to share in their imminent triumph."

Kameo nodded. "I'll tell that loud-beaked, doomsday-chirping Breegull you said that. And the others. But mostly her."

Beneath his helmet, the Master Chief's virtually never-before-seen face smiled. "You do that."

Corneria City

Lylat System

From General Pepper's office in one of Corneria City's comparably tall skyscrapers, the old hound dog squinted out the window as the Cornerian skies were enveloped in a similar blood-red blanket. He hadn't been as involved in the Smash Brothers' endeavors as he'd have liked to be, but from what Star Fox had told him, he knew this must mean the end was approaching.

"General, you getting this?"

Bill Grey's image appeared on a nearby screen.

"Yes, captain. If Dash Bowman's prognosis is correct, it appears the Great Convergence has begun. How is the rest of the galaxy?"

Bill frowned. "Weird. Within all the planetary atmospheres throughout the Smash Universe, the same red skies and black lightning are on the loose. But in open space, rainbow nebulae are swirling around everywhere and shimmering like oil puddles. No systems have been drastically affected yet, but it looks like all matter is being pulled toward a source way, way out on the other side of the Federations, and it's slowly picking up speed, like a draining space tub."

"Thank you for that image," General Pepper said with less than complete earnestness. He coughed and looked out at the sky again, his wrinkled face creating folds of skin around his eye sockets. "Now we must count on Fox McCloud and his Smash Brother friends. They are our only hope."

"Yeah," Bill said. "But you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way."

Gadd's Laboratory

Nintendo World

"Oof…"

Either Master Hand and his colleagues had a twisted sense of humor, or Luigi was just extremely unlucky. For the umpteenth time, he found his face squashed by DK's hairy behind as they awoke outside Professor E. Gadd's lab on the outskirts of Fourside.

The building still retained its Heartless remodeling, a low black structure with the Gadd-Reeka Labs insignia on the front. But Mario and the others were assuming that with the demise of Xehanort, Heartless were at least one thing they no longer had to worry about. What was more concerning was the crackling crimson sky, an ever-present reminder that they had very little time to save This World.

Once they were all awake and alert, Mario rang the doorbell at the front entrance—hesitating only slightly before doing so. They waited for two full minutes, their eyes wandering around the intricate power plants and foul-smelling mounds of chemical waste strewn across the landscape. There was much wrinkling of noses.

"Maybe we should—" DK began. But then a green light flashed above the entrance, and the metal door slid smoothly open, allowing them inside.

The lobby was deserted and rather grim-looking, with paintings of ghosts from Luigi's Mansion adorning the walls—not the least of which being the coronated King Boo himself. There were also images of some of Reeka's repulsive hybrid monsters: Piranha Gohma; the Topi Bear; Krackorock; Mr. Dragon Patch; Aparidley; the Shadow Hand. A message in red teletype text scrolled across the message board above the unoccupied secretary's desk.

"Come to my bedroom," Ness read aloud.

They exchanged glances, shrugged, and went off down the mostly familiar hallway toward the professor's private quarters. There was a tension in the air—not of danger, but of what they would find. After all, Gadd's mental togetherness had been on the decline even before the Heartless came, ever since his traumatic experience being Deleted by L.O.G. in the Citadel.

At length, they reached the door to Gadd's bedchamber. Mario knocked tentatively on the door.

"Come in!" a faint voice called. The awkwardness was almost palpable; it looked, for all the world, like they were visiting a great-grandparent in a nursing home.

Mario turned the knob and pushed the rather out-of-place wooden door forward, which squeaked as it permitted them into Gadd's bedroom.

It was almost disappointing how little had changed. Gadd's room was still an unruly mess, papers strewn all across his bed and desks and floor, ghostly ectoplasm soaking into the carpet and sheets here and there, stray Piranha Plant leaves littered everywhere, equations and foreign scribblings scrawled all along the walls and shelves and windows and even the door. And hunched over in his wheelchair like a shriveled grape was the man himself.

"Why, Smash Brothers!" Gadd said with an almost unsettling lightness. "How good of you to pop in, lads!"

Mario and Luigi came forward, each of them taking one of Gadd's emaciated, liver-spotted hands in their own.

"How are you a-feeling, professor?" Luigi asked. "Do you remember what's been a-happening?"

Panic crossed over Gadd's expression. "Gadzooks! Did I miss the Grand Prix Finals? Must've slept in again. Drat. This old coot's not as spry as he used to be, no sirree…" He began muttering incoherently, his whole body shaking with muscular weakness.

"Professor, we need your a-help," Mario said, squeezing Gadd's hand urgently. "We don't have a-time to explain everything. But This a-World's about to end, and we have to get to a black hole to unlock the Kingdom a-Hearts. Can you tell us how to get a-there safely?"

Mario's words seemed to go in one of Gadd's ears and out the other. Gadd was now staring vacantly at the opposite wall, as if he'd forgotten his visitors entirely. His head drooped and he started drooling.

The Smashers looked at each other in dismay. It didn't look like they were going to get any help from Gadd, as much as they loved and respected him. Why had Master Hand sent them here if the one with the knowledge they needed—and soon—was unable to give it to them?

Pikachu leapt gently onto Gadd's lap and looked at him pleadingly. "Chu?"

But Gadd just went into another bout of muttering, paying the Pokémon no heed.

"We need to act now, whether the professor can help us or not," Jody said, turning to Samus and Fox. "Do we have any way to find this black hole and fly there?"

Samus shook her head. "If we had a few days, maybe. But even if we could get back to the Starcutter in time and hyperjump right up to the black hole, there's no way even Magolor's ship could withstand that kind of force. There has to be another way."

"If only my father were here," Fox sighed.

"Maybe we should search the room," Sora suggested. "We don't have time to visit anyone else. And if we don't figure this out soon, the Smash Universe will be history."

"H-history…"

Now Gadd had raised his head, somehow stimulated by Sora's words. He raised a trembling arm and pointed toward his bookshelf. "M-map…"

Zelda went over and scanned the shelf, trying to follow the professor's extremely unsteady gesture. She soon identified the familiar old tome and pulled it out: The Foreseen and Unforeseen History of the Near and Distant Past as well as the Near and Distant Future, As Glimpsed from the Present Past, Presently.

"Let me see a-that," Luigi said, taking the book from her and starting to flip frantically through the pages. Suddenly, his visit to Madame Clairvoya three years ago jumped to the front of his mind. Some of the ghostly medium's words stood out.

The Darkener of Hearts shall assemble his Thirteen Vassals, and they shall accomplish his work. The Thirteen will only fall against the Twelve and their allies. Then, where the end begins, all will be revealed and the struggle will bear its ultimate fruit…

Where the end begins…

"Found it!" he cried, spreading the book out on the desk for the others to see.

It was the map of Smash Planet, with little irregular shapes representing Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and the various islands. And underneath the tiny island at the center, scrawled in barely legible script, were these words: Where the End Begins.

"Atari Island," Ness said.

Zelda smiled. "As the pirate in me would say, we have our heading."

After saying their thanks to Professor E. Gadd (who responded only with a spooky whistled tune blown through his goofy teeth), the Smashers left with the book to find the nearest of Gadd's portals in another part of his lab. Most of the party were fully committed to the task at hand even though they still weren't quite sure exactly what they would be doing, but two among their number were still numbed by the recent deaths that afflicted their souls. Things had happened so fast since the showdown with the last four Vassals and Xehanort that only now did the gravity of their losses press upon them with full weight.

DK, lost in thought, found himself joined by Samus, of all people.

"Hey," she said as they walked back down the hallway. "You'll be back with Chunky before you know it. You know that, right?"

DK nodded. "Yeah. And besides…there are others who have it a lot worse than me." He inclined his chin forward, where the Mario Brothers were pacing beside each other, ahead of the rest.

"Bro," Mario said as they turned a corner and neared the portal room. He put a hand on Luigi's shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Luigi's mind filled with images of the frenzied, alphabetic Unown; of April tumbling over the edge; of the hole in his heart which had been ruptured with her death. And he couldn't help thinking—even if they were able to stop the utter extinction of their universe, there was a high chance that he would never see his girlfriend again.

"I'm a-fine," he said.

Mario knew his brother's words weren't true, but he didn't press it. He just squeezed Luigi's shoulder and smiled reassuringly.

"We're almost a-done."

They hurried into the portal room and waited as Samus and Jody booted up the portal. Soon enough, the purple foil texture filled the space under the arch, and they were ready to go. But first, Mario turned to address them all. He tried not to look or sound as anxious as he felt.

"Whatever happens in a-there," he said, "we're a-ready. Ever since L.O.G. called us a-programs with no control over our a-destinies, I wondered if all a-this…everything we've a-worked for…our kingdoms…were worth a-saving. But now we know—we're much a-more than that. We can get a-back what we've lost. So let's a-go and do it!"

There was no fanfare or chorus of cheers in response to this speech. Just nervous nods of acknowledgement before each of them filed through the portal, clinging onto their last shred of hope contained in the old book in Luigi's hands.

Atari Island

They came out into a large, sandy clearing. Some of them soon recognized the place as where Reeka had once installed one of his satellite facilities. Reeka had sucked it through a vortex back to Microsoft when a few of the Smashers had stumbled upon Atari's plight and had rescued the Atarians from the Space Invaders by defeating the Space Invader Queen. Palm trees whipped in the wild winds stirred by the tempestuous sky. The red light reflected off the ocean like the surface of a giant sea of rubies. But other than the storm, the island still felt like the isolated, forgotten paradise it had always been.

"Now what?" DK asked, looking to Luigi for answers.

Luigi frowned. I don't a-know. The book doesn't a-tell us anything more."

Mario nodded, having accepted the likelihood that their task would be anything but easy. "We can start by a-finding Rocketman, and ask him if there are any strange a-portals here that could a-take us to the black hole."

"And we will come with you."

They turned toward the ocean to find a familiar crew of motley Smashers: Mewtwo; Princess Peach; Bowser; the Ice Climbers; Mr. Game & Watch; Marth; Roy.

This was all who were left of the Original 25.

"Princess!" Mario ran up to embrace Peach and nodded to Bowser. "How did you a-find us?"

Bowser snorted. "You wouldn't believe us even if we told you."

"Was it Master Hand?" DK said.

Bowser's grin faded, as if DK's correct guesswork was cause for grumpiness. "Well, yeah. I guess we were all brought here to meet with you and save the world. Cheesy as that sounds."

"We are all glad to have you with us," Zelda said, especially acknowledging Marth and Roy, who had done so much for her already. "Now…shall we go on?"

They delved into the sandy jungle of the inner island, wondering whether, at any second, their whole world would be swept up in an apocalyptic outburst of the rainbow nebulae seen by a few of them in the Mystic's vision; and then they would be too late, forever lost, forever forgotten. But nature continued to spare them as they trekked on, eventually reaching the ominous black wall of the vast diamond shape that marked the center of Atari's strange low-resolution realm.

Game & Watch paused before the wall. The last time he had been here, the diamond had been selective about when and whom it allowed to pass inside. He could only hope that this time it didn't reject them like an impenetrable block of Jell-O.

"Here goes no-thing," he said, and stepped inside.

The Smashers all passed through—without incident, to their great relief. Now their surroundings were completely black, without any sense of direction, hot or cold, depth or dimension. Some of them wondered how this part of the Smash Universe had been welded onto Smash Planet during the war that had dissolved the dimensional fabric between worlds. So jarringly unfamiliar, and yet in its own way, unique and wondrous.

They walked across the black backdrop for some time, until ahead they could see the colorful shapes of Atari's peculiar subworlds: Pacman's blue maze; the pixelated mushrooms where the Centipedes dwelled; blocks of Galaga alien bugs sliding back and forth in their quaint formations. Each of these worlds scrolled by the Smashers on either side as they went on, until finally they found the astronaut of the hour, busy dropping pink canisters of fuel into his rocket ship, his white jetpack keeping the rest of his two-dimensional body aloft.

Rocketman took notice of them and hovered over, landing on the "ground" and approaching them. Text appeared above his head.

"SMASH BROTHERS! WHAT BRINGS YOU TO ATARI?"

Game & Watch wasn't quite sure what to say. Did Atari not feel the imminent disintegration of their world as the rest of the Smash Universe did?

"Rock-et-man—we are here to find a por-tal to a black hole. It is of su-preme im-por-tance we do so in or-der to save This World from im-pen-ding de-struc-tion. Can you help us?"

Even though Rocketman's primitive helmet design afforded little in terms of expressive flexibility, his utter lack of physical reaction seemed to convey a clear sense of confusion.

"PORTAL? LIKE THE ONES PROFESSOR GADD USED TO MAKE, OR THE NATURAL PORTALS SCATTERED AROUND NINTENDO? I WISH THIS WERE NOT THE CASE, SMASH BROTHERS...BUT I AM AFRAID THERE ARE NO PORTALS IN ATARI. IT IS AN ENTITY WHICH EXISTS EXCLUSIVELY IN AND OF ITSELF. THAT IS WHY GADD HAD TO BUILD HIS PORTAL OUTSIDE THE REALM ON THE ISLAND SHORE. AS FAR AS I KNOW, ATARI DOES NOT LINK TO ANYWHERE ELSE. IT IS AN EMPTY SPACE WAITING TO BE FILLED, NOT A COMPOSITE KINGDOM BURSTING AT THE SEAMS."

Luigi, trying not to feel discouraged, came forward with the open book. He showed Rocketman the map of Smash Planet. "What about a-this? Does this a-mean anything to you?"

"WHERE THE END BEGINS," Rocketman read. His head shook exactly one pixel to the right and then the left. "I AM VERY SORRY...BUT NO. I HAVE NO INKLING AS TO WHAT THAT MIGHT MEAN. IS THAT...ALL YOU HAVE, SMASHERS? DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER CLUES?"

"That is all," Mewtwo said. He, like the others, was becoming quite frustrated. "But there must be a reason Master Hand sent us here. What are we missing?"

"Surely there is some kind of breadcrumb trail we can follow," Marth said.

"Breadcrumbs…" Fox turned to Kirby, who was staring at the cherry in the Pac-Maze longingly. "Kirby…you got any Universe messages for us?"

Kirby just shook his head, confused.

"Wait…" Zelda closed her eyes, deep in concentration. For some reason, as Fox questioned Kirby, a particular moment had been reenacted in her mind. It was during the wedding feast in Hyrule Castle, back when everything had seemed right with the world.

At one of the tables, a disturbance was taking place. To the applause and laughter of many, Kirby was testing how precisely he could suck food from specific guests' plates across the room, adjusting the aperture of his mouth to control the flow of air—although the word "control" might have been a bit too generous in this circumstance.

"Kirby." Meta Knight nudged him and inclined his head toward King Dedede, who had deliberately sat as far from Kirby as possible and was about to dig into a Cucco breast, his mouth salivating. Kirby smiled a sneaky smile and nodded.

Not only did the chicken fly out of Dedede's hands, but it made a point of smacking him in the face on the way over, as if the Cucco's restless spirit had sought revenge on its would-be consumer. Dedede yelled in frustration and stood and pointed at the puffball.

"For the love of all that is edible—I can't enjoy my supper for five minutes without that moochin' menace suckin' the joy out of everything!" He began to reach for his hammer in his anger, but thought better of it. Instead, he just glared at Kirby and sat back down and folded his arms while a waiter ran off to refill his empty plate. "I'm tellin' y'all…Kirby's stomach is a doggone black hole!"

"Kirby's stomach is a doggone black hole!"

"A doggone black hole!"

"A doggone black hole!"

Zelda turned to Rocketman. "Rocketman—you say Atari is an entity in and of itself, an empty space waiting to be filled. But what if the reason it's empty…is because it's a spliced part of another empty space? A black hole, for instance? What if another empty space—Kirby's stomach—could transport things to the other side, but only while it's here?"

There was a long pause.

"Thaaaaaat's a stretch," DK said.

"But it kinda makes sense in a really weird way," Nana said. "I mean, when we were in the Dimension Conflux, we drifted through empty space, and were taken to other parts of that realm by touching these strange giant machines—containers, of a sort."

Popo nodded. "Kirby's stomach is a giant container if there ever was one."

"Let me get this straight," Bowser growled. He pointed at Kirby. "That gumball's stomach is part of a black hole. Atari is part of a black hole. So if he swallows us while we're in here, we'll go to another part of that same black hole?"

"Oh dear," Peach said.

Mario slowly nodded. "It's the only plan we've a-got." He turned to Sora. "Are you a-ready for this?"

Sora didn't like to think about falling on top of everything—and everyone—Kirby had ever eaten. But he knew this was their best chance. "Yeah. I'll do it." He turned to Kirby. "Kirby, suck me in."

"Suck us all in," Samus said, joining Sora. "If there are any apocalyptic space aliens guarding the Heart of This World, we can't take the chance of letting anything stop you."

"Well…" DK hesitated. After a moment, he pounded his fist on the invisible ground, making no sound. "Screw it. You can just spit us out if it doesn't work, anyway."

"IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO THIS," Rocketman said, "THEN I WILL WAIT HERE IN CASE ANYTHING HAPPENS TO KIRBY, OR IF YOU NEED HELP COMING BACK."

Mario nodded. "Kirby," he said, "it's a-time. Do it."

Kirby's eyes widened. No one had ever asked him to be eaten before. And after what happened to Meta Knight…

Kirby cast the thought from his mind. That hadn't been him. It had been Heartless Kirby. Now, he was confident he could command total control over his stomach. He himself had never been completely sure how his bowels worked, but this seemed like the right thing to do—however odd it might seem. He narrowed his eyes and exhaled deeply.

"Luck, friends!" he said. And then he opened his biological vacuum nozzle. He pulled each willing Smasher into his mouth, felt a weird turbulence somewhere inside, but swallowed all the same. The deed was done.