Chapter 25: Nightmare

Moments after the four challenges sent by Master had been vanquished, the rounded quarters of Final Destination, without warning, jerked into motion and floated back toward the center. The victors readied themselves for whatever came next, and Master awaited them silently. Finally, after several long, drawn-out seconds, Final Destination clicked into place and was reformed once more.

Master did not look happy.

His pretense of civility extinguished, the swirls of purple substance flared angrily around the man, somewhat of a visible manifestation of his emotions. His grip tightened around the Smash Rod; the sphere at the top of it was now only filled about a third of the way with the blue gas-liquid.

The Smashers and the other survivors noticed this.

Still, his voice remained calm. Dangerously calm. "Your petty victories against my pawns have amused me, heroes, but this has gone on long enough. You have evaded defeat for the last time. I…even I…grow weary of this game. And now, I intend to end it."

Gadd, observant as always, whispered to the others. "I may be wrong, but I believe the amount of blue substance contained within that sphere signifies how much power he has. It's possible that we need only endure until his powers are depleted—"

"Ha!" Master had apparently overheard the professor's hushed words of encouragement. "You think attempting to exhaust the Smash Rod of its power will allow you even the slightest chance of prevailing against me?" He held out the magnificent golden rod before them. "But you do not even know what this is. This…is more than a mere power source. It is the scepter of ultimate authority in This World, and whoever holds it possesses sole sovereignty over these lands. It was another idea dismissed by the creative team from my dimension. Little did they know that by exiling me and my ideas to the Nintendo Universe, they unknowingly sent with me every other rejected idea ever to be concocted, including this." The sunglasses flashed at them, and Master's lips stretched in a cruel smile. "Would you like to know which of your friends are rejects as well?"

"Stop right there, sir!" Professor E. Gadd's resonant voice pointedly refrained from calling him Master. "Now, you either give back everything and everyone you've taken away from us and leave our world forever, or we will destroy you! You decide."

Master glared down at the short leader below him. "I will finish my explanation prior to ending this so you may grasp the full extent of your cause's hopelessness, little scientist.

"The first third of the Smash Rod's energy was used gradually since the first Smash Tournament, allowing me to split my identity between the Hands and oversee the growth of my armies. The second, recently depleted portion, as you can now see, was spent in arranging this climactic moment we are now experiencing, and in bringing forth the four challenges I presented to you. The main reason so much of its strength was used is because of the complexity of creating Giga Bowser out of that pathetic Koopa. So, as I shall now demonstrate…" The blue sphere began to glow brighter. "…you can hardly comprehend how easy it will be for me to kill all of you with this much power at my command. The end has come!"

The top of the Smash Rod produced another blinding white flash, which preceded another change of setting. This time, however, the change was mind-boggling, for their surroundings were not the only thing to change.

In place of the boundless darkness: a rotating, cylindrical chasm of glowing green, blue, and red tiles, the colors separated into rows that reversed directions every few seconds. The chasm swirled around them so quickly, so chaotically that it was impossible to tell whether one was ascending or descending—a truly dizzying sensation.

The platform of Final Destination was nowhere to be seen; the eight Nintendonians found themselves devoid of a surface to stand on. It followed, then, that while Gadd, Kirby, Meta Knight, and Mewtwo were not troubled by this shift, Mario, Dr. Mario, Link, and Ness found themselves suddenly groundless. And since the environment seemed neither to pull them down nor up, they were in a state similar to open space, with nothing to push them one way or the other. This was a very difficult position for the latter four, so the professor took it upon himself direct the hovercraft toward them and pull them aboard. Thus, what remained were Mewtwo and Meta Knight flying solo (although both were injured) and the remaining six grouped together in the scientist's small vehicle. Not to mention the monstrous thing in the center.

What first caught their eye was, well, its eye. A huge, disturbing eyeball the size of a small blimp, colored a reddish-purple with only a black slit for a pupil. No blood vessels or eyelid—just strain marks around the black like the Eye of Sauron. Although several of those present had faced creatures with enormous eyes before—Mario, Link, and Kirby at the very least—nothing compared to the savage gaze of the transformed Master's eye.

Sprouting from the back of the eye were two massive, leathery black bat wings, which could most likely envelope a skyscraper with their vastness. The only other feature of Master's reincarnation was the two skeletal white arms with four equally bony fingers each, the two fleshless hands curling in and out in a motion eerily reminiscent of Master and Crazy Hand.

This time, there was no lecture, no roar, no hesitation from the transformed exile. No time to wonder at their surroundings or let the terror of their enemy's appearance sink in.

Beating his great wings, Master lashed out at the hovercraft, intent on tearing it apart with his skeleton hands.

Those inside retaliated in defense, doing the best they could to hold back the Behemoth (which it shall be referred to as). The Marios hurled fireballs and Megavitamins at the eye like there was no tomorrow—which, if they lost, might very well be true. Link shot arrows—fire, ice, and standard—at the same target. Ness used PK Thunder repeatedly; the professor controlled the craft and fired red lasers; and Kirby, at a loss, did nothing, but was prepared to help when needed. From behind, Mewtwo sent Shadow Balls, grunting as the wound on his shoulder burned with each toss, while Meta Knight seemed to be creeping up stealthily behind the Behemoth, waiting for the most opportune moment.

The eye seemed to flash a slightly lighter hue with each attack, so damage was certainly being done. What wasn't certain was whether at this rate, enough damage would ever be done to deplete the Behemoth's life force, which would likely be a very high amount. The Adversary Analyzers, oddly enough, had ceased to function within this bizarre, surreal cylinder.

The Behemoth appeared, for a while, to be held back by the constant stream of projectiles, and as long as this seemed to be working, the survivors would never cease. But it folded its gigantic wings over the vulnerable center, and then all further projectiles simply bounced off the black appendages. Sprouting from below the encased area of the wings, a swarm of bat creatures, identical to their creator except for their size, scattered out in all directions. The baseball-sized eyes came in every color of the rainbow: red, orange, green, blue, indigo, and violet. They would have been little more than a nuisance to the Smashers except that from their eye slits they produced small beams of burning energy with the color of the beam corresponding to that of the eye. Often, the multitudinous array of colors got mixed up with the spinning surroundings. The Behemoth, meanwhile, remained enfolded within its wings.

One could not ask for a more chaotic situation.

As the bat creatures reached them, the hovercraft's occupants fought them off ferociously. All watched out for the multicolored beams as well as the tiny, ravaging skeleton hands that tore at their faces, cloths, and hair. Mario executed Mario Tornadoes and reflected beams back with his yellow cape. Dr. Mario stuck to his Megavitamin-throwing, fending off the swarm with the same skill he applied to fend off the Viruses back home. Gadd had a harder time, being as defenseless in close combat as he was, but despite being singed and scraped in many spots, he managed to punch in a combination on the control panel to call upon the lightning rod, which zapped some of the abominations with the stored green electricity. Link slashed at them with the bent Master Sword like Keese, but because of the difficulty of using such a deformed weapon, he also suffered from several beam hits. Ness applied a wide variety of yo-yo tricks which spun through his legs, under his arms, and over his head. As often as he could, the boy also activated a PSI magnet whenever possible to recover from the fight against Aparidley. Kirby, perhaps, was the most prepared this time. After sucking in and swallowing one of the creatures, Beam Kirby (with a red-and-yellow jester's hat) rotated chains of spherical lasers above him like the propeller of a helicopter, taking out several enemies with each revolution.

Meta Knight, dismissing his injured wing like it was nothing, made his move. Diving gracefully below the Mini-Behemoths coming his way, he came back up where the Behemoth's eye was still vulnerable even within the folds of its wings: the underside. The winged warrior stabbed his golden blade into the shiny reddish-purple jelly with vigor.

Mewtwo, meanwhile, had taken advantage of the headache accompanying his wounds to cause all Mini-Behemoths in the vicinity to explode grotesquely from a mind-shattering Psychic attack. Finding the pathway clear, he moved closer until he spotted Meta Knight's stunt. Eager to return some of the pain Aparidley had excruciated upon him to its sender, Mewtwo focused his telekinetic powers on the golden sword, and with an intended jerk, shoved the blade with his mind deeper and deeper into the eye's interior. Ignoring the Behemoth's forthcoming reaction, he kept pushing it through until it penetrated through the other end.

The Behemoth unfurled its wings in agony, the black pupil narrowing as it shook with pain. Unfortunately, now that such a deadly blow had been inflicted on it, Master's reincarnation became so reckless and vengeful that it no longer gave heed to its own survival. The winged titan suddenly began shining with all the colors of the rainbow, its features now shimmering into the conflux of mesmerizing brilliance. From what the heroes could tell, it was about to fulfill its words as Master: "The end has come…."

Self-destruction. Only this would surely be much worse than Krackorock's or an Electrode's. It would kill them all.

A preliminary ring of kaleidoscopic energy pulsed in all directions. It billowed inescapably through the heroes, tossing them all head over heels and filling every spot on their bodies with an indescribable sting, like a wasp sting that strikes everywhere and lingers afterward. So tremendous was the pain that it was beyond screams; it was all they could do to hold themselves together with whatever willpower they had left.

The hovercraft, on the other hand, did not have the willpower of a living being. The surging ring of rainbow force incinerated the machine, generating a terrible explosion that hurtled the six occupants into the open space.

It was the worst, most unbearable moment of all their lives.

And the Behemoth continued to shine brighter. It was going to do it again, except bigger. Fatally.

Just before the Behemoth was able to bring about the end, a shining yellow light shot from the Hero's Bow into the direct center of the eye. The Light Arrow glimmered effulgently with the endowed magic of the Triforce of Courage, and just when all was about to be lost, it pierced the shimmering, suicidal Behemoth.

Everything shattered around them: the ever-stretching cylinder of spinning tiles, the remaining bat creatures, the Behemoth itself.

As was beginning to happen more often than seemed reasonable, the scene changed yet again in a flurry of color.

They had returned to the barren, desolate room around which the Smash Brothers lay dead or incapacitated. The walls were solid once more, no longer transparent. The eight survivors stood upon the top of Master Hand's Fortress, waiting to see if it was all over, although most of them doubted it—not with their great enemy's pattern of never relenting until he had gotten what he wanted. Everything he wanted.

Sure enough, not a minute passed by before the ominous amaranthine shroud swirled into existence before them. No longer bothering with a masking silhouette, Master stepped out from the shroud into the air with an unfathomable expression on his cold, hard face, complemented by the flat-topped sunglasses covering his eyes. However, the man who was more than a man could not conceal the fact that he was visibly trembling, his tight grip on the Smash Rod shaking. But it was not out of fear or even anger. It was of pure disbelief, of a person whose life has been shattered by something that person had never for a second considered possible. His control over his countenance held, but a shadow of the emotions exploding inside him leaked out most noticeably.

The Smash Rod itself had also changed. Now, not a single wisp or drop of the blue matter remained within the glass orb bearing the Smash insignia. Evidently, transforming into the Behemoth and exerting such abysmal power in this form had rendered the golden scepter juiceless. A sudden leap of joy sprung in the survivors' hearts; Master's power was gone. They had won.

Then, unexpectedly, Master flung the drained Smash Rod with alarming, inhuman strength straight downward. The survivors flinched as the symbol of authority crashed against the battlements, the orb shattering and the rod rent in twain. Master's eyes bore into those who had so repeatedly defied him.

The voice was so very resonant; deep; and now, passionate. "You…you…" He pointed a pale, shaking finger at them. "You defy every one of the few rules that define This World. Because of a little unforeseen teamwork, you make sense out of the impossible, rebuking every form of death I throw at you, no matter how formidable. This cannot have been done by you mortals alone; destiny must have had a hand in this. It seems, for now, to be on your side." It was almost like he was trying to convince himself of this.

"So, you force me to upset the balance of fate and reality." A gradual, maddened grin appeared on his face. "It looks like I must show you my true, core self. For I have…another…name. It appears I must utilize the full extent of my power in order to claim this war.

"The Smash Orb means nothing to me, not when we absolutely must get down to it. I need no tool, nor army, nor pulses of destruction, nor even my imagination to prove my superiority. This World will bow to me one way or another, and if this must be the way in which my reign begins, then so be it!"

As it had prior to the fight against the Hands, the entire Room, even the Battlefields surrounding it, began rumbling and vibrating. Only this time it was on a much larger scale—like the difference between a 4 and an 8 on the Richter Scale. Giant objects on the desk, shelves, and table rattled and shook violently. Trophies shuddered like toy action figures, some even tipping over onto the array of bodies. The desk lamp the size of a fully grown Evergreen tree wobbled dangerously and fell over the edge. A devastating crash accompanied by a great electrical explosion gave birth to a large fire which quickly spread to be promoted to the rank of inferno.

The deep velvet substance swirled more and more violently around the single trembling figure before the survivors' eyes, forming a unified direction and purpose and developing some sort of current. Master's dark green hair whipped in the wind as his entire body became obscured by the growing flux.

"He'll never quit until we've lost, will he?" Professor E. Gadd said, as awed and horrified as the other seven around him, all of them standing agape. Kirby's eyes were the widest of all.

From no apparent source, glowing white star shapes mixed in with the spinning purple current. It had now grown so dense and strong that Master's outline could not longer be seen within; the bottom end slanted into a point, forming a man-sized cyclone speckled with the stars. The cyclone increased in size at an unnatural rate. The heroes waited for the swelling tornado to cease its growth, but it seemed to just keep on expanding and expanding.

More objects succumbed to the titanic tremors, and the great blaze spread, licking all the way up the shelves to the ceiling, and encircling the room like a horde of rioting demons. The entire room was now aflame except for the table in the middle.

At last, upon retreating only slightly before the limit of its growth—the ceiling—the great purple funnel ceased its expansion, although still spinning much, much faster than any eye could ever follow. A low, sinister laugh, deeper than Master's had ever been, echoed unmistakably, dreadfully, in the survivors' ears. Dark, curved shoulder armor formed atop the living tornado's wide edges. A massive head, only an indistinct shadow at first, slowly materialized into view.

It was indisputably the head of Master, but had undergone terrifying alterations. The giant, pale, grayish-blue head faced them, the double-chin jutting out in the same direction. The sunglasses had reshaped into two obtuse triangles, the tips pointing opposite directions. In place of the hair was a midnight blue cap covering from the forehead up; embedded in the center of it was a round red jewel with golden lining. A similar but larger jewel was located beneath the chin, a pendant hanging from a golden chain, appearing to hang over the edge of the cyclone. Two imposing golden prongs curved up like antlers from each side of the blue cap, only they did not split or veer in any direction that would ruin the symmetry, instead ending in perfect points, giving the appearance of a strange crown. The odd thing was that the spinning tornado had the appearance of a great cloak, as if it were both at the same time. It was like looking at a spinning wheel, but seeing a different picture that was an illusion of an image formed by the spinning. He looked like some kind of vampirish apparition from one's darkest dreams, like—well, there was no description that fit better.

A nightmare.

Pushing out through the cloak-tornado appeared two giant, white-gloved hands. Master and Crazy Hand were essentially back, only they were no longer independent, for the grand scope of their host could now be seen. Not much about their movement patterns seemed to have changed.

But something shocking happened. Purple flames erupted in countless spots on the hands, and the white began burning and withering away, disintegrating in small scraps. Almost as if rubber gloves were being scalded off the skin beneath. Revealing the true Hands.

They were unbearably horrid and grotesque. Wrinkled purple skin, like some kind of aged alien's. Long, obsidian-like fingernails, sharp enough to pierce through an unbreakable object. No wonder Master wore gloves.

Ness cringed at the repulsive sight. If there really was such a thing as the "Hand of Fate," he sure hoped this wasn't it.

Once this spectacle was established, the sunglasses shattered, the pieces being caught up in the tornado body, revealing two gleaming slits that emanated startling, unearthly whiteness. At the same time, the circular wall of flames around the room changed color in a flash to an almost blindingly bright purple-white. And despite this, the vast chamber became remarkably dark; every unoccupied inch of air was completely black, like some sort of apocalyptic eclipse.

A voice boomed across the room like a succession of thunderclaps.

"I…AM THE EMBODIMENT OF FEAR IN THIS WORLD. I AM NIGHTMARE. I HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED, EVEN AFTER KIRBY FIRST DEFEATED ME. SINCE THAT TIME, UNTIL NOW, YOU HAVE KNOWN ME AS MASTER AND CRAZY HAND. THE NINTENDO WORLD BELONGS TO ME. YOU STAND IN MY WAY. YOU WILL DIE."

Dr. Mario remembered something he had said back in his world. "I happened to have just gotten a-back from Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland. The first Kirby was a-babbling about some enemy mix-up that occurred some a-years ago…" Well, that explained it.

Surely, now, the end had truly come.

And then Nightmare descended upon them.

Their ultimate foe apparently didn't mind destroying his own fortress in the process. Spreading out the folds of his shifting cloak, completely altering the shape of the tornado, Nightmare fell slowly toward them, tilting like a phantasmagorical tsunami, avalanching downward.

Soon, none of the survivors could see anything but the restless purple swirls. Each of them looked about them for some means of escape, some way of overcoming this; it seemed terribly wrong for them to lose now, after getting so far, so close to liberating their land forever. But it would never come to pass.

As the Cloaked Nightmare enveloped them, the last heroes did not shy away from looking death in the face to the very end.

Mario and Dr. Mario leapt in a final Super Jump Punch.

Link dived forward with his bent Master Sword, plunging into the belly of the beast with a broken hope that he did not know how to respond to otherwise.

Meta Knight held up his blue cape to the eye level on his mask and murmured, "So it ends…"

Professor E. Gadd carefully removed his swirling glasses to reveal small, squinty eyes, and gazed at their doom with a sigh of defeat. He had taken down the foremost servant, his own cousin; but the master, Nightmare, it seemed, had turned out to be impossible to overthrow after all. Well, they had given it their all. They had done their best.

Ness stood by Mewtwo, stock still. What now? he asked, not allowing reality to settle upon his conscience.

Mewtwo did not look away from the purple blanket descending upon them. His eyes, though, were without the flame they'd always held. I…do not know. I am sorry, Ness. You are and always have been the strongest, sincerest mind I have ever taught.

Ness just nodded, trying not to think too hard.

Kirby blinked in denial. He had already defeated Nightmare, a long, long time ago. It didn't seem fair that such an enemy was allowed to do this, to take away their victory through sheer immortality. Was this really what the creators of the Nintendo World had intended by secluding such an evil, heartless soul here? To annihilate and conquer them?

Just before the blanket of death completely domed over the battlements, a small spark burst through the ceiling of the giant, cursed Room, and shot below the purple darkness. Nightmare caused the fortress to collapse on itself, stones snapping and crashing over each other in a race down to the surface. Whatever was left inside—or atop—the building was seen no more. For several minutes Nightmare continued to fall upon Master Hand's fortress, the two monstrous hands pounding through the architecture like a sand castle.

The same white dot, tiny in comparison to Nightmare's towering tornado, whizzed out from beneath the demolition scene as everything was caving in around it. But now there was more to it; a single figure rode the speck.

Kirby steered the Warp Star sharply around in a direct course for the Cloaked Nightmare's head. Under normal circumstances, the Star Warrior could only summon a Warp Star when the sky was clear and he was outside to receive it. Yet some whim of fate had brought it to him at the direst of needs; he might never understand why. But it appeared that he, the hero of Dreamland, had been chosen for some unknown reason to slip away from death. Alone.

So, as the last free hero, Star Warrior, and Smasher of the Nintendo World, Kirby sped to meet the end one way or another: his, or Nightmare's.

No slowing down, no words, no hesitation. Kirby curved around on the most reliable of Air Riders so that his path of travel approached the fiend's theatre screen-sized face. The very last glimmer of rebellion.

Nightmare spotted the speeding spark only when it was within a hundred yards from his face. The ageless Master, eNeMeE, hastened to bring up his two purple Hands to stop the puffball, needless though it might have been.

Now glowing with golden light, Kirby swerved as little as possible and evaded the Hands' attempts to crush him. The Warp Star neared, and, with no extravagant flashes or explosions, seared into Nightmare's pure white eye slit, which was so large that the Warp Star and its rider vanished completely inside.