The captain sat down at the meeting table, where all of the remaining captains sat. From the fact that they took up a meeting table alone, excluding Alpha's assistant, told a lot about numbers.

"Ok, the issue on the floor: Alpha is gone. Any leads so far?"

One of the captains, a Gormott resident, raised his hand. "We have no leads. How are we supposed to get leads? What do you expect from us?"

"Yeah!" Said a battle-hardened Hocotation. "We have nothing! But we have each other. That's all we have."

The assistant silenced them. "Ok, listen. It's time to spitball ideas, bounce them off of each other."

"Like what?" Said the Gormotti captain. "Go headfirst into any Gamma base we find? That's what they expect!'

"They expect us to be clueless!" Captain, (or, for this scene, Lucifer,) replied.

"What else can we do? They evade everything we do! They're too slick for us!"

Lucifer looked around. Everyone was disagreeing like no tomorrow.

"That's what they want."

"What?"

Lucifer looked around. "They're turning us against each other. If we don't stand together, we will die, one by one. How about this, we brought in a character who was friends with one of my agents. We could use her to get a location. Maybe then, we could-"

The assistant stopped him. "Ok, wait. We can't do that, we have secured all of the bases. The only one we can find is the one we haven't even found! It's the one Alpha wrote about… but it's more hidden than anything we've ever seen, and probably bigger…"

Lucifer looked around again. "We are all brilliant captains, we can come up with something, I'm sure! If it's that much of a problem for ONE team, we're EIGHT!"

"Yeah, and we're also LOST! I'm leaving. Maybe we could get together as soon as Gamma shows their face-"

The assistant saw their comms device flickering. Someone was calling.

She turned on the comms and listened.

"Can you hear me? God, I hope you can… it exists, the megabase exists, and it's hidden very well, but I'm okay. The leader of Gamma has me locked up, but I can tell you, it's not hard when you, ahem, track it down." A voice much like Alpha's sarcastic self was talking to them.

"If you didn't get the memo, I want you to track the call!"

The assistant ran and the entire room followed. She ran and hooked the comms up to the wireless tracking board. They started tracking.

"Have you found anything- and please don't say it loudly, I think there are guards out there…"

"Yes, we're tracking it right now, sir… sir?"

Alpha didn't respond. Yet. The comms flickered back on after about five minutes. "Ok, I'm back, but there's… someone here… hold on."

They leaned in and listened. "You ARE on my side, right? You're not gonna rat me out?"

A faint voice spoke.

Alpha sighed in relief. "Ok, anyway, just keep tracking, I'm-"

A loud noise played and the comms shut off.

"Sir, are you there? S-sir?"

Another voice was heard. "Ah, are these the MVPs? Cool, because I have your supposed superior."

"I think we know that!" One of the captains had the gall to say.

"Well, I have him in a tight spot. Needless to say, if you don't stop tracking right now, I will not hesitate to shoot him, okay?"

The assistant instantly pressed the button to stop tracking.

"Good. It is done then. Because of your obedience, I will delay the day I will kill him. Good for you! Now, hurry up and find your boss, so that I can see you. I'm getting antsy just thinking about when you arrive! Now, I must run along, bye bye!"

The comms were destroyed, everyone assumed. The tracking had stopped as it was almost done.

"That's it. He's going to die and then us."

Lucifer sighed and they looked around. "What do we do? It's not like we can do anything about it. All they're going to do is kill him when we arrive."

Lucifer felt a stroke. Not one with your heart, get your head out of the gutter, I'm talking about determination, it's not time for me to kill him yet! He felt a stroke of determination come on.

"I'm going to find Alpha. You're going to come with me, or I'm going alone."

"Rest in peace, Lucifer."

At base…

"What?! How could they?" Luigi protested.

"Yup. They gave up. That leaves the whole job up to us."

Alph looked at everyone. 3 looked miserable. Luigi was low on hopes and probably knew they couldn't win. Simon was thinking. Alph guessed about family. The captain looked sorry. They all seemed to know one thing; the scales didn't tip their way.

"But." Said the captain. "This is the multiverse we're risking if we give up. Lives would be ruined. Everyone would suffer. We HAVE to do something."

Luigi stood up. "My brother might be missing, I can't find him, but we aren't giving up just yet. If we save the multiverse and get back Alpha, it may become easier to find him. But we can't just sit here in despair."

Simon sighed. "There have been too many casualties to just say that we give up. Every time someone dies, a family has to bear that. It's better to die, knowing you tried, rather than having the guilt of leaving everyone else to die."

3 hopped to her feet. "If I saw the good of a murderer, I can look upon an entire multiverse and say there's hope somewhere. Even if it's just us, we have to try. It's now or never."

Alph looked around. "So… what's the call? The temporaries are in training, so it's just us. What's the plan?"

The captain nodded. "Then it's confirmed. We're doing it ourselves. We do it as soon as we get a plan together. Now, to the tracking room, I have an idea."

Everybody, together, came up with a plan. A foolproof plan. And it was going to work, or they would die. (But, we get to see both!)

Meanwhile…

Mario co. (+ Meta Knight) walked through green fields.

"Wow! This place is so friendly, I can't imagine anything bad going on here!" Mario said, with a giddy tone.

"Oh, you wouldn't believe what happens here on a monthly basis."

Mario chuckled, but they all halted, as a great forest lay in front of them.

"Is this Whispy woods? Peach is lost in there?" Bowser mumbled, in awe.

"Kirby should be in there somewhere. Let's hope we can find him before-"

A loud THUD resonated from the forest and the largest tree they could see had shrunk down to its normal size.

"What?" Meta Knight whispered. "Someone's gotten to Whispy before us! We must find them!"

Meta Knight took off running, same with everyone else. They ran for what seemed hours, without getting tired. Until they got tired and sat down for a second.

Toad fiddled with the watch. "Swear I've seen this thing before…"

Mario leaned in. "Seen what?"

"This crest."

An abstract shape made up of lines was at the bottom of the watch, like a symbol.

"See? It looks like a cross over something."

Mario looked at the watch, turning it around some to see it properly.

"Wait… look there." He said, after turning it upside-down. "It's a cross over an M…"

They thought about it, until they heard the bushes shake near them.

Mario got into a battle stance, Toad hid behind Mario, Bowser got into a show-off battle stance, and Meta Knight unsheathed his sword.

"Who's there?!"

The bushes split in half as a round, pink organism wielding a sword and a weird green Santa hat jumped out.
"Mario!" A familiar voice called.

Princess Peach ran past the pink being and to Mario.

"Princess! How good it is to see you again! I thought that we would have to leave you here for a second there…" Said Mario.

The princess looked at the pink being that held it's sword out. Meta Knight stepped forward. "Kirby! There you are, I was searching for you. It seems you have defeated Whispy Woods by yourself! Now that we're all together… how do we leave?"

Mario looked around and quickly noticed that they were lost.

"Ok. Let's go… Thataway." Mario pointed to his left.

They walked for a long time. Mario stopped. "Ok, maybe we should look from above. Bowser, gimme a boost!"

Bowser climbed as far as he could up a nearby tree, and grabbed Mario's hand. Bowser flung Mario upward, above the trees. The trees ended nearby.

Mario dropped and pointed to the right. "This way!"

They ran as fast as they could. They felt ten times better when they exited the forest and saw Dedede's castle.

They ran, Toad tripped a few times, Bowser tripped over unfortunate Waddle dees, and they made it to the castle, with Kirby and Peach.

Dedede seemed happy to see Kirby. "Hey, kiddo, how have ya been? Have you tried that new ramen recipe? It's so GOOD!"

Kirby seemed to communicate with Dedede just fine, though nobody understood him.

Mario looked around at everyone. "We could go home now! But… the watch says we need to wait. It's okay, though. Maybe we could have a vacation while we wait?"

Toad and Bowser were already gone. "Oh, well."

Meanwhile…

Alpha looked across the room. A beaten up, emerald Inkling sat on the other side.

"Hey, hey buddy, I need your help."

Travis looked up at Alpha. He was pleading, begging to get out.

"I can't help you. These guys are too strong. I'd be lucky to even have a calm death here."

"Yes, you want to die, but, at least, help ME."

Travis couldn't help but smile. "This is awkward. I expected you to say something like, we can both escape together… but I know I won't leave. The only thing I wish next is… never mind."

Alpha looked around. "How did you get here?"

"...a temporary. I was a temporary. But. I was also a part of Gamma. I swore that it was an accident, but no one believed me. But I think vengeance is the last thing on my mind right now."

"And you're telling me this… why?"

"Because I doubt I'd make it out of here."

"I knew that- why did I even bother?"

Travis got up.

"I'm going to help you escape out of pity. Once you escape this cell, run. Run as fast as you can, because this place? It's going DOWN. We should plan this out though. You are going to get out of here… "

Alpha looked up. "Why have you decided to help me? Hm? I thought that we were supposed to be bitter enemies…"

"Not you and me. I'm going to kill everyone in here, and I wish upon you that you get out. You seem like a nice guy."

Alpha smiled. "You would make a great MVP, putting others before yourself… but I respect your decision. Now, how are we gonna do this?"

They sat down and tried forming some sort of plan.

Travis's house, 1 hour later…

3 searched through Travis's drawers, searching for some sort of lead. It seemed as if she weren't getting anywhere, until she found something. A key. It looked like it was old. Rusted over and all that.

She looked up and down for an unlocked door to use the key on, but found nothing. And then she looked through the drawer again and found a note.

"To old house- do NOT lose."

3 instantly looked to the door, as he had left his car and keys at the house and she knew the address of the old house. The house she searched for was… decrepit, old, not much to it. That is, until she opened the door.

It smelled like some sort of herbs inside. The air conditioning was on. Someone lived here, but who?

3 looked around. The walls were cleaned. Painted, but not long ago, from the fact that she touched the wall and had to scrub the paint off of her hands. 3 looked through what she could get her hands on and took it with her.

The next few minutes was 3 searching for something to prove her friend innocent or finding a way into the Gamma base. Like most of the captains had said, it was greatly impossible.

3 turned and tried unlocking things. The key didn't unlock anything, but the basement. The basement had dust webs holding the trapdoor shut, telling someone who'd opened it that it hadn't been opened in forever…

3 switched on her phone light and started walking. The basement smelled horrid. A reeking, rotten fish smell blew up the entire basement. The basement was relatively empty, aside from the 5, horribly mutilated corpses on the floor.

3 looked around for something, anything. She found a tape. A tape, something from Travis, because the creatures inhabiting Earth now didn't have tapes.

3 took it, the tape. Perhaps it would help her in the long run?

Right as 3 went to leave, she locked eyes with another inkling. She was a magenta sort of color and was dark-skinned. She was shorter than 3 (by quite a bit, too.)

3 tried to come up with a lie, but the character in the foyer spoke first.

"Who are you? How did you get in here? I thought I was the only one with the key."

3 pulled out the key from Travis's house. "You mean this one? I found it at-" 3 remembered. She wasn't supposed to tell the exact truth, that would not end well. "-a friend's house."

"Who owns that house, I need to know, NOW."

3 found herself breaking her own rule and telling the truth anyway.

"His name is Travis, if that helps-"

The character, of whom we don't know the name or reasoning behind yet, smiled awkwardly.

"Did… did Travis have a sort of… emerald hue?"

Travis was, in fact, emerald. Unfortunately, 3 still found herself telling the truth.

"Y...yes…?"

"Where is he now?"

"I don't know, that's what I was trying to find out, but I found this key first."

The character just stared, coldly. "I've heard enough. You need to leave. I'll find you later, just take your bearings and leave."

3 stopped herself from talking any longer and left. The thought nagged at her, though... who was that?

Shoot it wasn't ready sorry for the misdirect, oops. That right there, the weird lady, isn't important right now, go and look at something else instead, we're almost to the end. Which is done, btw. I just need to post it. In a few weeks. See you then. Except then is 2 chapters from now.