Legend of the Godly Wolf -大神伝説-
Chapter 7: Sonic Odyssey
Author's Note: A couple updates: I raised this fic's rating to mature. I don't think the story's content really warrants that yet, but it may be necessary later so I may as well change the rating now. I was experimenting with some of the features on AO3, like putting links in the text, so I made a mini-AMV to go with one of the jokes in the chapter, linked on AO3 and available on my YouTube channel. It's sort of NSFW so it's age restricted. There's no fixed release date in my mind for the next chapter, some time around August or September. How about September 21st? People should be able to remember that.
2:02 PM, April 22, 2020
"This is great!" Saki Amamiya declared, enthusiastically playing a game on his old Sega Saturn, which had just been set up in room 239. Wolfutena, Isabelle, Pit were all observing intently, and even Dark Pit seemed a bit curious. "This was my favorite system when I was a teenager." The blond man continued. "I've always wanted to play on it with my son, but the only game he ever wants to play is Fortnite."
Pit watched as some sort of diminutive witch-like character clad in red glided towards the right of the screen, an expansive skyline sprawling, shooting red energy at a group of dolls, which seemed to knock them backwards without harming them. "Cool, but how did this game inspire Ikaruga ?"
"Weren't you paying attention at all during stage one?" Saki asked. " Ikaruga is kind of like a sequel to Radiant Silvergun , my favorite Saturn game, mixed with Silhouette Mirage 's attribute system." He explained as he grabbed one of the dolls and began pummeling it, coins spilling out, then turned around, the witch's outfit turning blue, and hurled it at another enemy approaching from behind, then fired blue shots at the two to finish them off. "See, it's basically an early form of Ikaruga 's polarity mechanic."
A horde of dolls began swarming into the play field over a bridge coming out of the screen, but the bridge began to collapse and they desperately raced back towards the screen as it fell. In the upper corner the word "GO" flashed on screen along with a series of arrows pointing to the right.
"Why do you have to turn around to swap colors though?" Pit pressed. "That's so weird. Wouldn't it be better to use a button? I like how easy it is to switch in Ikaruga , it's like the enemy doesn't even notice. They must have gotten the idea from Gi Gi in Red Earth ." The angel gasped. "Aha! We caught these guys ripping off Capcom!"
The witch was in the middle of raining down blue energy onto an army of dolls on motorcycles from atop a streetlight but Saki paused the game and turned around to face Pit. "I've never even heard of Red Earth ." He said. "I doubt a developer as amazing as Treasure would be taking inspiration from a game doomed for obscurity."
"But…" Pit began to object, until Isabelle placed a paw on his shoulder.
"I think that's enough of that." The dog told him. "Where's Snake?" She asked Wolfutena. "I thought he was supposed to get here soon."
"Yeah," Saki added. "I was waiting on him so we could play Guardian Heroes with a full six players."
Wolfutena grunted and shrugged. "Dunno. He said his back has been bothering him ever since we fought Galleom. Hopefully that's not giving him any trouble."
Saki sighed. "I suppose we could get started without him, or play something else that supports five players like Death Tank , though that's with the yellow-label games."
"Is that what this box is for?" Pit asked. Saki had brought three cardboard boxes with him: a small one that contained the system itself, a larger box filled with games, and a mysterious third one identical to the second except it was taped closed.
"Yeah," Saki affirmed as rose from his seat to shut off the Saturn. "I'll get it in a second."
"No, I can get it!" Pit insisted, rushing over to the box and tearing it open. "It'll give me a chance to practice reading the names!"
"I don't think that…" Saki started, but trailed off as he saw Pit rummaging through the games, pulling them out and reading the titles aloud, at least the portions in English, then tossing them behind him. Saki faced away, scowling, as he shut off the system and opened the disc tray.
" Can Can Bunny 2 ... Desire ... something if … DOOM …" (Isabelle scrambled to catch that one as it sailed through the air) " Eve Burst Error … uh oh, I think I missed it."
The jewel case of Silhouette Mirage snapped shut and Saki turned around, planning to tell off Pit, but his anger faded as he saw how sullen the angel looked.
"I'd prefer it if you don't look through there," the man told him, "but if you must, you need to find Seireki 1999 . Death Tank is just a little bonus minigame in there, but with enough players it's more fun than the main game."
Pit perked up again, eagerly looking back into the box. "All right! Now where are the S's?" He inspected the spines, which were mostly written in katakana or kanji, until he at least came across a word beginning with S. "Oh, Steam-Heart's , here they are!"
He resumed his search technique of haphazardly yanking cases from the box, and Dark Pit barely caught Steam-Heart's before it smacked him in the face.
"Watch it, dumbass!" He growled as he took a look at the case. "Oh my, this looks… interesting." He showed the back of the box to Wolfutena, whose ears pricked up when saw the anime-style screenshots on it. These included a close-up of a pink-haired girl with ram horns as she lay down in a field, moaning and clutching the grass, and a dark-haired elf laying down in the dirt with her wrists tied behind her back while a red-haired cat-girl loomed over her.
Saki took a slow breath before speaking. "Not really, it's just a typical shmup with some, etooo , elaborate cutscenes. There are plenty of better STG's we could check out instead. I'm afraid I don't have Battle Garegga or Shippu Mahou Daisakusen , but I've got Soukyugurentai . That's a really cool game, Raizing's best work in my opinion. Presentation-wise it's a lot like Radiant Silvergun , so that's a big plus in my book, but the closest thing I can think of mechanically would actually be Layer Section ."
"Quit changing the subject!" Wolfutena demanded. "What's up with these games?" He asked, gesturing at the pile of cases Pit had dug out of the sealed box.
"Why the hell do you need to know?" Saki snapped. "Look, my first break-up happened when I discovered that my girlfriend was cheating on me, and I was devastated. I went through a bit of, ano , a visual novel phase while coping but I guess in hindsight that wasn't a healthy way to deal with it. You buy Evangelion: Girlfriend of Steel on a whim and before you know it you're stealing a PC-FX to play Dokyusei 2 and Pia Carrot uncensored."
"What's a PC-FX?" Pit asked, but no one heeded the question.
"Hmm, sounds like you have a real problem." Dark Pit remarked.
"Don't be like that, Pittoo." Isabelle said. "Addiction is a serious issue. I'm sorry you had to go through that, Saki."
"Hey, it wasn't quite like that." Saki hastily insisted. "Besides, some of them were genuinely good games like YU-NO or Pia Carrot , and they got me into more sophisticated adventure games, like Machi and Policenauts . Policenauts was something I really wanted to show Snake, actually. I think he'd find it interesting."
"I'm sure he's seen it already: his partner's probably that game's biggest fan." Wolfutena said. "Either way, I'd say it's about time I sniff out Snake." He got up and exited the room, though with his acute hearing he could still hear Saki discussing his favorite visual novels as he traversed. the Smash Hotel's halls.
"I once read this cool interview about Gyaku - I mean, Ace Attorney 2 , and the director of Policenauts was there. He had nothing to do with it, he was just a big fan! That's sort of where I got the idea to shout ' kurae ' at Wolfutena that day we met. The executive producer was saying how he'd like to try saying that in a meeting!"
Dark Pit snorted. "I'd advise against that, if he wants to keep his head…"
"Hey, are you in there?" Wolfutena called as he knocked on the door of Snake and Samus's apartment.
"Yeah," Snake's voice shouted, "I need some help in here!"
"Can you let me in?" Wolfutena asked.
"No, just get in here!" the voice yelled back.
Wolfutena pulled his arm back, then smashed his paw through the door. He grabbed the inside knob and pulled the door open. Snake was being held upright by streams of electricity in the middle of some large metal contraption..
"What the hell were you doing in here?" Wolfutena asked, stunned.
"I told Sam about my back problems and he said I should get one of these on eBay. I was a bit wary of the idea of shock treatment after past experiences, but it went fine. I just don't know how to turn it off." Snake answered.
"Maybe introducing you to him was a mistake." The wolf muttered as he examined the machine. However, before he could find a release switch the door slammed open and Samus and Captain Falcon casually walked it, hand in hand.
"Samus? What are you doing back here?" Snake asked his girlfriend.
"I was just going to have sex with my boyfriend." The woman stated flatly. Captain Falcon laughed uncomfortably and looked away from Snake and the goddess.
"As blunt as ever." Wolfutena countered.
Snake snickered. "I mean, I'm a bit tied up at the moment, but you might be into that!"
"Hold on, something's not right here." Wolfutena said. "Think back to what Shulk told you, Snake."
"You mean about Sonic's movie? I don't need that to get in the mood." Snake replied.
"Get your mind out of the gutter!" The wolf snapped. "Don't you remember who's working for Palutena?"
"Well, Shulk was talking to Saki, Samus, me, and a fourth person…" He trailed off, eyeing Captain Falcon. "Wait, he actually said Samus's boyfriend and a fourth person. I… was I the fourth person?"
"That's right." Samus answered coolly.
Captain Falcon shifted nervously. "This isn't how I wanted things to go, Snake." He told his old friend.
Snake scowled. "Shut up, you bastard! Some friend you turned out to be! Not to mention, an even worse boyfriend than friend. What happened to you and Lucina being your only true love?"
Captain Falcon grimaced. "Don't act like you know what's going on. Lucina dumped me weeks ago. She kept on saying it was like we were meant for each other, right up until she ran off with him and didn't look back."
"You broke up with Lucina?" Snake asked, his surprise masking his anger.
The bounty hunter clenched his fists. "That implies she called things off. She just left, swinging away with that so-called Spider-Man without even a goodbye."
"Wait, she cheated on you with Spider-Man?" Snake asked incredulously. Captain Falcon nodded bitterly. "Spider-Man, seriously? What the hell?"
"Unbelievable, I know. At least I have Samus. We have more in common than I did with Lucina, and if we help Palutena we'll be able to get payback. She'll set it up so, next time Spidey and Lucy are on a date, he'll have a little accident on Broadway."
"Another one? Palutena's cruelty knows no bounds." Wolfutena growled. "The chaos emeralds must have really screwed with her head."
"Enough of this." Samus said. "We have a job to do."
Samus drew her Paralyzer and fired it at Wolfutena, who barely activated his reflector in time. The blast ricocheted off at a light angle and hit Captain Falcon rather than Samus.
He lunged at Samus, but she deftly flip-jumped over him. Her plasma whip lashed out and wrapped around him. He struggled to get free, but the ionized matter held tight.
"Do it, Falcon!" Samus shouted at her partner, who had just recovered from the Paralyzer blast.
The muscular bounty hunter looked down at his fists. "Time to go to work, guys!" He told them, then kissed each one.
"Just hurry up." Samus ordered.
"Wait, this isn't a fair fight!" Snake shouted. "Let me down from here, and we can do this properly, two on two."
"I'm sorry Dave," Samus told her former boyfriend, using his real name, "I'm afraid I can't do that."
Wolfutena continued to struggle against his bonds. "Dammit, what is this thing?" He saw Captain Falcon draw near. "If you know what's good for you you'll back off now." He snarled at the bounty hunter.
The racer did not heed his words. "Falcon…" He pulled his arm back and flames began to engulf his fist.
"No!" Snake shouted.
Wolfutena smirked, then vanished.
"What!?" Samus hissed.
"PUNCH!" The fist rocketed forward, and an explosion of flame erupted as it collided with Samus's face. She flew into the back of the apartment, slamming into the wall. She slid to the ground, leaving a dent behind her.
Snake sighed in relief.
"This time, I didn't forget I can just warp out of danger!" Wolfutena bragged.
Samus groaned. "Falcon, you idiot, we're through."
"You're breaking up with me?" Her boyfriend asked, stunned.
"That's what I said." she answered.
"Does this mean we're back together?" Snake asked.
"You seriously want that? Okay, fine." Samus replied, then passed out.
"What, it's over? No…" Captain Falcon muttered in despair, collapsing to his knees and putting his right hand over his face.
"Look at that, he's assuming the Silver Surfer position!" Wolfutena exclaimed.
"What should we do with him?" Snake asked.
Wolfutena lifted the bounty hunter up by the neck and bared his fangs in front of his face. "We'll let you off easy if you promise to quit working with Palutena." He snarled.
"Whatever, nothing matters without Samus." Captain Falcon sullenly replied.
"Don't worry, I'll try to get Saki to lend you his PC-FX." Wolfutena assured him.
"What's a—" The bounty hunter began, but Wolfutena tossed him out of the room and slammed the door before he could finish the question.
He went over to the machine and managed to shut it off, then helped Snake down. "Now that we've taken care of that, there's something I wanted to ask you. Have you ever played Policenauts ?"
"... and that's how the events of this afternoon were described to us. Captain Falcon has already sent in his resignation, and I won't be surprised if Samus's follows soon after."
None of the other Four Friends seemed to be listening. Shulk was staring down at the ground dejectedly and still wearing Wesker's glasses, Sonic was reading a book entitled Torch with a cover depicting a young wizard and an anthropomorphic dragon in an intimate position, and Pikachu was watching Sonic closely. As Palutena concluded her speech the curious electric mouse hopped up on the table and scampered across. He leapt over Sonic to perch on the back of his chair and read a sentence of the book over his shoulder at random: "Only as weird as you're tail in my ass."
"Piii…" The Pokemon gasped as he fainted and toppled backwards off of Sonic's chair. It seems that the egregious typo was to much for the poor creature to handle. [A little lesson: You're: Contraction of "you are;" Your: Second-person possessive; Yor: The Hunter from the Future : "We will need a lot more hemp before we're through."]
"Sonic!" Palutena snapped at him, "Do you really need to be reading that smut during a meeting?"
"Uh oh," Sonic muttered as he rose from his chair and kneeled down to make sure Pikachu was okay, then answered the goddess. "Look, my girlfriend sent me this. It's your fault I can't see her right now, you know, so I'd say it's only fair to read it here. You didn't have a problem with Shulk and his Kefka book."
"Kafka," Palutena corrected, "though Kefka's work is looking very appealing these days. Do you have anything to add, Shulk?"
"Not really," the Homs sighed. "I just can't believe that the hero of Shadow Moses nearly turned into a bigger cuck than Leopold Bloom."
"Who's Leopold Boom?" Sonic asked. He noticed Pikachu was holding something and opened the Pokemon's paw to discover a revive.
"Bloom," Sulk corrected, perking up a little. "One of the protagonists of the novel Ulysses . He and his travels are supposed to be a parallel for Odysseus, also known as Ulysses, from the Odyssey , hence the book's title. However, perhaps the biggest difference between them is that while Odysseus spent years trying to return home, where his wife was faithfully waiting for him, Bloom spent a day wandering around Dublin to avoid returning home because he knew his wife was cheating on him. He is a literal cuckold. However, he had some awareness of the situation and was wondering how to reassert his dominance or, towards the end of the book, at least set it up so he would only be cucked by the author's self-insert. People always talked like Solid Snake was a real ladies' man. His code name is as masculine as you can get but when it comes to women he has more trouble than someone who used Henry Flower for a pen name."
Sonic used the revive on Pikachu and the Pokemon began to stir. The hedgehog sighed, but it was not a sigh of relief. "The way things are going here, I'll be away from my girlfriend longer than Odysseus was."
Palutena scoffed. "It hasn't even been two weeks! It seems more parts of you than usual have turned blue, and I don't mean your arms. Is that why your Penelope sent you that fine literature?"
"Who?" Sonic asked. Pikachu sat up and whispered something into the hedgehog's ear. "Oh, I see. No, she just likes books with dragons and wants to read some of her favorites with me, but we haven't had a chance to yet. She has a ton of these, so she's fine with sending me a few."
"So, you're dating someone with a raging scalie fetish?" Palutena laughed. "If that's the kind of woman she is then I daresay you're more likely to end up like Agamemnon than Odysseus."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sonic inquired, narrowing his eyes.
Shulk stretched and yawned, then explained: "It means she'll dump you for the prophesied product of incestuous sheets, then kill you when you return from our long siege."
"Hang on, what!?" Sonic shouted.
Shulk adjusted his dark glasses before elaborating. "Agamemnon led the Greeks to victory in the Trojan war, yet he returned home to find his wife having an affair with Aegisthus, his father's murderer, and died by his hand as well. They were related, too: Aegisthus was the son and grandson of Agamemnon's uncle, Thyestes. Truly, the second worst Aegis I can think of. It may seem shocking, but it's really just business as usual for the House of Atreus, if you read the Greek myths you'll see—"
"I'll pass." Sonic interjected. "I've already been given enough reading to do." He looked at Torch with frustration. "Why do you two need so many books? Could you find one you really like and just stick with that?"
Palutena sighed and turned away. The sight of her backside brought to Shulk's mind one of the imperfections in Bloom's perfect day and he wondered whether there was any way he could rectufy it. If only Akai Riot had been around in Bloom's day.
He shook his head to clear it of such thoughts and tried to focus on Sonic's question. "You mean, is there a definitive book? Jacques Derrida said there are actually two of them: Ulysses and Finnegans Wake . I'm not sure I'll ever be able to read the latter, though..." He trailed off, then resumed looking down at his feet sullenly.
Palutena scoffed and recited, "That everyone may learn to read, in the long run corrupts not only writing but also thinking. Once the spirit was God, then he became man, and now he even becomes rabble." Shulk did not comment on the irony of a goddess uttering that quote.
"Okay, I'm done here." Sonic said. "I don't have to stick around and hear you make fun of my bae. I'd rather get back to hanging out with her instead." He grabbed Torch and got out of his seat. "Do you have a problem with that? Well, too bad!"
Palutena shook her head. "Why would I? Do you believe me to be the Poseidon to your Odysseus? Agamemnon had a relatively smooth journey home, so I'll afford you the same luxury. What you should be concerned about is whether Miss Clytemnestra has fallen for some dreamy hunk, some bad dragon, while you were away. You may wish you had stayed."
Sonic chuckled and turned away. "No way, she's not like that. I don't have anything to worry about. Shulk has a girlfriend back home too, and he's not worried at all, are you?"
Shulk didn't look up but began to mutter an answer anyway. "Right. I know what Aphrodite gets up to when Hephaestus is off in Lemnos, but I'm not going to end up like him, nor Agamemnon, nor Leopold Bloom." And hopefully not like any other Blooms either, he added to himself.
"Shulk, Pikachu, you guys coming?" Sonic invited.
Pikachu ran up to Sonic and hopped onto his shoulders but Shulk hesitated.
"Thanks, but I need to see how things play out here." The Homs replied.
Sonic tapped his foot nervously. "If you say so. You know where to find us if you change your mind?"
"I—" Shulk began, but a vision came to him before he could say anything: A deep valley, full of waterfalls and lush trees sprouting from rocky earth; a giant treehouse and a nearby tent housing a small garage; a strange echo, resembling his own voice, calling something like "dread more!" The clairvoyant paused for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah. You can... bet on it."
Sonic grinned. "We'll be waiting."
"Pika pika pi pikachu!" The Pokemon added.
Shulk hesitated a moment, then replied slowly and firmly: "And I will be the best guest you ever had."