Legend of the Godly Wolf -大神伝説-
Chapter 8: An Extraneous Episode
Author's Note: Just a short and simple chapter this time, but it doesn't seem to be quite as "extraneous" as I feared when I came up with the title. Next chapter coming November 13th.
2:08 PM, April 24, 2020
Compared to the recent commotion that had been common in room 239 it was quite relaxed at the moment, with just Dark Pit laying back on the couch reading Berserk while Wolfutena and Pit set up a chessboard.
"So, um, what are these guys called again?" Pit asked, holding up a small piece with a rounded top.
Wolfutena looked up but before he could answer Dark Pit grumbled, "These men are pawns."
"Thanks!" Pit said as he finished setting up his side of the board and the two began to play.
"Pawn to e4," Wolfutena said, moving the pawn in front of his king forward two spaces.
"Okay, pawn to e6!" Pit said, mirroring his opponent's move.
"That's e5, not e6," the wolf pointed out.
"Really?" Pit responded.
Wolfutena nodded. "Trust me," he said, "I'm very familiar with e6." He made his next move without waiting for a reply. "Bishop to c4."
"C4, huh? Oh, this is turning out to be an explosive game!" Pit declared, once again mirroring Wolfutena's move. "Bishop to c6, I mean, c5!"
Wolfutena narrowed his eye and slowly shook his head. "Don't get too excited. If you lose your cool already then you're not going to survive long, and quit being a copycat!" He growled as he moved his queen up diagonally to the right side of the board. "Queen to h5."
"Aha! You didn't think I forgot the horsies can jump over pieces, did you!" The angel exclaimed, moving his knight up and to Wolfutena's left, into a position where it would be able to capture Wolfutena's queen if he didn't move it. "Horse to, um, f6! What are you going to do now!" He challenged the goddess.
Wolfutena sighed, then grabbed his queen again. "I warned you not to lose your head," he said as he moved the queen up and to the left a couple spaces, capturing one of Pit's pawns and leaving it one space from the king. "Queen to f7, checkmate."
"What!?" Pit shouted, slamming the table, not in anger but in shock. "Already!?"
"That's right." Wolfutena said, then explained: "The queen has you in check and the only way you can get out of it would be to capture her with your king, which would put you right back in check with that bishop here. I don't think I've explained how castling works yet, but that wouldn't help you anyway because you can't do it after your king's been put in check, so there's no way out of this."
"I see…" Pit muttered sullenly. "That was, let's see, four turns, right?"
"Right," Wolfutena said. "Don't get down, it's a pretty infamous dirty trick, but no trouble to avoid if you know what you're doing. Even a ten year-old can learn it, no problem. They call that the scholar's mate, and -"
Suddenly, the door to their room seemed to explode, flaming scraps of wood flying into the room, which Wolfutena reflected with ease, and Terry Bogard and Joker stepped into the room. "I hope that's the only sort of mating you're planning on doing!" The muscular blond fighter said, cracking his knuckles.
"The door was unlocked, you know!" Wolfutena snapped, baring his teeth.
Dark Pit sighed. "So how did they wind up on everyone's hit list?" He muttered to himself, not looking up from his manga.
"Of course, this again. You two are just a couple more of Palutena's henchmen now, is that right? Palutena's behind it again, isn't she?" Wolfutena snarled.
Terry simply gave a noncommittal shrug in response, and stepped aside so Joker could step forward. A ghost-like figure materialized behind the teenager as he pulled out a gun and pointed it at Pit and Wolfutena.
"He's aiming at us!" Pit cried in panic.
"Will you stop being paranoid!" The other angel shouted in response, holding his book closer to his face as if that would somehow block out the noise.
Unfazed, Wolfutena merely grinned and pulled out a timer, activating it right as Joker fired off three shots and Terry leaped into the air with his fist raised; everything around him slowed. Even with the effects of the timer, he barely had time to react to the bullets, but was still able to swipe at them and spin them around 180 degrees before they hit him. He warped behind the phantom thief as the bullets flew back and struck his mask and gun, disarming and stunning the young man, then kicked him up into the air so that he collided with Terry. He leapt up and struck the suspended teenager once more before the effects of the timer wore off. Terry fell face-first in front of Pit and Joker slammed into the back wall of the apartment, knocking him out.
"I saw that trick in a game once. That's how you're supposed to deal with Jokers." Wolfutena gloated.
Terry rose to his feet and faced the goddess with an even more smug look. "Come on!" he taunted, beckoning the wolf closer.
Wolfutena held up another item, this time a metal box. "Ready for some metal wolf chaos?" He asked, and Terry laughed in response.
"That won't work woofy. My fists are harder than metal!" The fighter replied, then charged at the canine as he activated the item. Though most of his blows didn't seem to faze the wolf, Wolfutena was also too slow to land any hits on the agile brawler, so it seemed that Terry was slowly gaining the upper hand in their battle.
"I can't watch!" Pit cried, flipping over the table they'd been playing chess on and hiding behind it.
Wolfutena managed to use his reflector to push back Terry. Instead of rushing back in, the man said, "Are you okay?" and pulled back his fist. Wolfutena readied himself as well, both of them charging towards each other at the same time and striking each other, but Terry's blow connected first.
"BUSTA WOLF!" Terry shouted as an explosion of flame erupted around them, setting the chess pieces on the ground ablaze and sending them flying everywhere, splitting and igniting the table Pit was hiding behind, and flipping over the couch that Dark Pit was lounging on. The force split apart the table Pit was hiding behind and, When the smoke cleared it revealed Terry lying unconscious amid the smoldering remains of room's rug with Wolfutena sitting down, no longer metallic, rubbing his head.
"Shit, even in metal that hurts like fuck." He groaned.
"You're okay!" Pit shouted, running over and kneeling down to hug Wolfutena.
Dark Pit crawled out from under the couch and began to laugh hysterically at the scene before him. Wolfutena and Pit gazed in alarm at this incredibly strange sight, as Dark Pit wheezed, "This is some of our best work!"
That night, these events were being discussed in Dracula's Castle by the remaining half of the Four Friends. No one was sitting at the table, with Palutena pacing anxiously in front of Shulk, leaning against his usual pillar with books scattered haphazardly at his feet.
"I can't say I'm surprised that those two went off-script," Palutena remarked to Shulk, "but I was hoping they'd at least be able to accomplish a bit more. Even with the metal box I can't believe anyone could take the full force of Terry's Buster Wolf and stay conscious."
Shulk crossed his arms and scratched his chin as he considered the conundrum, eyes shut beneath his dark glasses, then quipped, "It seems the Spanish are no longer the only ones to have a Wolfram Crisis."
"Explain," Palutena ordered.
The Homs took a deep breath, then launched into a lengthy explanation: "Wolfram is another name for the metal tungsten, hence why its symbol in the periodic table is a W. When researching the weapons used in different worlds, I found that tungsten is often used for armor piercing rounds due to its extraordinary properties. It's even denser than lead, in addition to its high melting point and tensile strength. We don't know what metal Wolfutena transformed into, but I'm suspecting it was wolfram. The name wolfram traces back to the Latin name for one of its ores, lupus spuma , meaning something like wolf's froth, since it seemed to have a ravenous hunger for surrounding metals like tin. They call Terry the 'Hungry Wolf,' but I suppose you could say that wolfram had that nickname long before he did, and now we've seen which one of them is tougher."
Palutena nodded. "I'm glad our weapons researcher didn't feel like abandoning me, at least." She commented. Shulk looked down at his feet and shifted nervously, but Plautena continued speaking without noticing. "Could you also explain how he fought Joker?"
"That's actually quite simple," Shulk said. "I've been monitoring his internet use, and I believe he was just copying this video that he watched:" he took out his cell phone and showed Plautena a video entitled 495.23 from VanessaZSchneiderFanboy2010 that consisted of gameplay from a cel-shaded beat-em-up with a character in a red superhero outfit repeatedly beating up a robot in a dashing suit, complete with a cape and top hat, and slowing down time to dodge the slashes from its sword and deflect the bullets from its gun.
"The game shown here is Viewtiful Joe , a series of flawless fights with a certain miniboss. I don't know what's up with that title, however." He paused, then added, "I was also able to verify another of Wolfutena's claims while monitoring his internet usage, the one about, um, well, you know…" he trailed off, blushing. I'm dirty! I'm dirty! He berated himself.
"No, I don't know." Palutena said. "However, that's of no concern at the moment. Right now, what we need to do is rethink our approach to this issue. It seems it was a mistake to only look to the other fighters here for assistance." (Shulk refrained from pointing out that Saki wasn't technically a fighter) "I believe we'll have to go beyond the scope of this tournament for aid."
"You mean, recruiting from other worlds?" Shulk asked.
"That's right," Palutena said, "and you can start by asking your buddy Albert Wesker if he can spare any help."
"He's not exactly a friend." Shulk protested. "When he first visited, I was quite interested in meeting another weapon researcher but as I look more into his work I'm really starting to worry about the ethics of it all."
"Yet you're still wearing his glasses." The goddess retorted. "Tell me, why would you be doing that if you really had a problem with him?"
Shulk struggled for a while to find an answer, eventually just mumbling, "'Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart."
"In Hamlet , that is!" Palutena admonished him.
"Sorry," the plagiarist muttered, "I'll go see Wesker as soon as we're done here."
"Good, and after that you can go check with Eggman." Palutena said. "I'm sure he'll be willing to help us now that Sonic's out of the picture."
"Oh, my job is to talk to all the mad scientists, is that it?" Shulk replied. "Who's next, Lucca Ashtear?"
"I'm afraid Lucca is, shall we say, unavailable, but that does give me another idea. There's a couple others you should talk to as well, I think…"