Zhenxuan20002: Glad to hear!
Authorial Nerd: As I always say, treat your characters like your children; hit them to make them work harder. (I know I took this line. Sue me.)
14shiffna: Deep breaths, man. Deep breaths. Please, don't do what I do. For the sake of me understanding whatever the heck you want to say, please chill. So, it's fine if you think the heroes are bad at fighting since they're supposed to be the weaker side, getting in each other's way and all that. The heroes start off weaker than the villains so the audience can watch the heroes grow.
Clouds drifted over an orange sky outside the window as the sunlight stretched over the vast sea beneath them. At the bridge, Captain Vul, a large, brown bird in a captain's outfit, watched the Meta Knights on the deck below scramble around, tiny shapes on the ship running between the massive cannons strapped to it.
Everything seemed to be running smoothly, with the Halberd cruising over the Orange Ocean at a leisurely crawl. Blue eyes glanced at the screens on the console beside him. The engine was pumping at a steady pace, the fuel tank still had enough to keep them flying for the rest of the month, and no problems had come up with the cannons so far. The ship, down to the smallest bolt, was fine. For once, they weren't being bowled over by a certain pink puffball or being attacked by a giant rainbow-colored bird. Captain Vul smiled as he brought a mug to his beak, taking a long sip as he relished the rare moment of peace.
A Waddle Dee with a sailor hat burst through the door in the middle of Captain Vul's drink, shattering the brief calm. Captain Vul sighed as he turned to face the Waddle Dee, and he put his cup down on the windowsill.
"Captain!"
"What is it, Sailor Waddle Dee?" he asked, keeping his face flat.
"You remember that group of mercenaries the boss kept on board for Master Hand? We're receiving a transmission from them."
Captain Vul perked up at this, straightening his feathers as his shoulders rose. "You think they got them? The dragon cultists?"
"I can't say, sir."
Tearing his gaze from Sailor Waddle Dee, Captain Vul turned to the Meta Knights stationed around the bridge. To his irritation, he noticed that the commotion had all their eyes on him. "Well, what are you waiting for?" he barked. "Patch them through!"
"Yes sir," they replied in unison, and they hastily forced their attention back on the computers scattered about. A Capsule J, a blue creature with a green visor over his face, fiddled with the communications console to the left wall. The speakers on it gave a low buzz, before the Capsule J turned a red knob, cutting it off with a click. A second passed, and a video feed flickered to life over the large glass window at the front of the bridge, the face of Fox McCloud on display.
"McCloud," Captain Vul said, taking the mug into his hand. "How has your mission gone?"
"Very badly," Fox said. The voice that came over the video was low in quality, riddled with static. Past the loud crackling and hissing, Captain Vul could hear the faint sounds of blaster fire.
"I see." Captain Vul frowned, and all traces of his relaxed mood vanished, replaced with a stern expression.
"We're being chased, and we need somewhere to dock for a little while. We also have an urgent message for Meta Knight, so we have to come aboard."
"You can stay here for the time being. As for Meta Knight..." Captain Vul's eyes fell to a clock on one of the consoles before him. "He's in a meeting with the Council of Fe. I'm afraid you'll have to wait an hour if you want to get in contact."
"That's fine. Just let us land. We should be approaching soon."
"We'll let you board." Captain Vul nodded to the Capsule J, business finished.
As soon as the video cut off, his sharp eyes spotted three tiny specks in the distance. Ships, no doubt. They neared in a matter of seconds, and Captain Vul was able to make out a more detailed outline from the three ships. Two of them were sleek and triangular in design, with four wings branching off the hull. The one in the front had blue wings, while the one in the back had red. The third ship was bulkier, padded with bright red metal. He recognized the blue-winged ship and the bulky red one, so the last one must have been their pursuer.
Glued to his place at the bridge, he leaned down to another one of the Meta Knights, a Waddle Dee. "Order the cannons to fire on the ship with red wings."
The Waddle Dee replied with a nod, before turning to the console before him. Confident that he would get the job done, Captain Vul turned his attention back to the three ships in the sky.
As he watched them grow closer, the assortment of creatures below started scrambling around more frantically. The large cannons mounted to the ship moved slowly, taking a few moments to align themselves in the right direction. The Halberd's weapons were by no means fast, as much as it frustrated Captain Vul to admit. They did have much lighter guns on the ship, but those lacked the range they needed right now.
Where the Halberd's cannons lacked in speed, however, they made up for in power, and when the cannons were locked on, the air, calm and quiet moments before, rumbled as they discharged with a resounding boom. Large blasts of energy streaked through the sky, flying past their allies' ships with precision as they hurtled towards the single ship behind them. The ship wove around the sluggish volley with ease, but Captain Vul never intended to hit the tiny ship. As the blue-winged ship and the red gunship drew nearer, their pursuer turned away from them. It would be suicide to go after them, not when they were so close to the Halberd now, and as the third ship flew away, a small smile crossed Captain Vul's beak, satisfied with scaring them off.
The two ships began to lower on to the deck, preparing to land as the cannons moved back to their original positions. With them so near, Captain Vul was able to see how badly damaged both of them were. The blue-winged ship had smoke pouring out of its thrusters, even as the fire coming from it died down, while the bulky red ship was torn open down the side, with fuel dripping out from another wound beneath it. As the Meta Knights on the deck rushed out to the two ships, Captain Vul turned around and headed for the door.
Noticing his departure, Sailor Waddle Dee ran over to catch up with him. "Where are you going, sir?" he asked as he fell in line beside him.
"To greet our guests," he replied, and he pushed open the door, stepping through with a proud strut.
"Well, at least we made it out alive."
After all they'd been through, after the bunker, after their brutal defeat at the hands of the masters of shadows, it seemed a little too convenient that they ended up back where they started; standing around the conference room on the battleship Halberd.
There was a long table in the middle of it now, and chairs were placed on the sides. The first time they had gathered there, the room had been completely dark, the only source of light being the large screen at the head of the room. That was still there, but now the room was much brighter thanks to the windows lining the wall that were closed before, letting in a cascade of orange light. The room felt warm in the soft glow, but the atmosphere couldn't be any colder.
Mario, Yoshi, and Donkey Kong huddled together in one corner of the room, the former leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. While the latter two looked uneasy with the tension in the air, Mario never made to speak with any of the others, so neither did they. Donkey Kong sported a black eye, and the fight left little rips and tears all over Mario's blue overalls and a slight singe on his mustache, but aside from that, they just seemed tired.
In the other corner, Link shuffled his feet, clutching Jigglypuff in his arms. The Pokemon didn't seem to mind, a little lost without Pikachu, and when one of Link's hands moved up to stroke her tuft, she leaned into it. Her fur was a little ruffled, and Link had taken off his cap, revealing the frazzled blond hair. His tunic was covered in dust, his belt hung a bit low, but they were spared of any serious wounds.
Samus stood by the door a few feet away, her heavy suit striking an imposing figure against the evening light. It was still badly damaged, cut open across the chest and arms, and a particularly nasty gash ran down her leg. Her visor had cracked during the fight, revealing nothing more than a single blue eye behind it. The rest of her face was unreadable, hidden from view. And at the front, Fox glanced between the seven of them, an awkward smile on his face as he tried to bring them together again.
His words hung over them for a few seconds. It did little to reduce the hostility in the air, and no one gave a reply. The room remained quiet, leaving Fox alone. In the corner, Jigglypuff sneezed. No one paid her any heed, all eyes on Fox. His tail twitched, but he refused to buckle under their gaze. His team had never turned against him like this. Maybe he was misreading the atmosphere.
Finally, Mario stepped off the wall, tired of all the silence. "You know what? No," he said with a growl. "We just had the fight of our lives. You can't just act like everything is okay."
"If you all just listened to me and worked together, we could have avoided this."
"Oh sure." Mario rolled his eyes. "Like you could've seen whatever that was showing up on our doorstep, or figured out how to beat it, Caesar." He turned to Donkey Kong and Yoshi behind him, and asked, "Right guys?"
Donkey Kong and Yoshi exchanged hesitant glances. Neither one seemed eager to agree, Donkey Kong giving a concerned frown, but in the end, they both nodded.
Fox sputtered. "Well, you didn't try, either! You just kept throwing random attacks at it."
Mario shrugged, uncaring. "It was fine before. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, my mama always said."
"Not when that thing could take whatever you threw at it and throw it right back." Fox paused, and he frowned as he considered his words. "What was up with that, anyway? It's obviously a bio-weapon if my battles against Andross are anything to go by, but that thing had the same weapons and attacks as us."
"Seems like whoever made it had us in mind."
"Yeah, that's possible. But at the beginning of the fight, it only used a small portion of its powers. We didn't see the other half until much later."
"Didn't we?"
"Yeah. It must be copying all our powers, much easier to do than making something like that just has all those powers."
"All our powers, specifically."
Fox turned to Mario. "What are you saying?"
Noticing Fox's confusion, Mario rolled his eyes again. "Ya don't get it? You think ancient magic rocks would break so easily? We've been set up."
"Set up?"
"Yeah, you got pasta in your ears?"
Fox's frown deepened further. "No, I heard you. They brought us together to hunt down each of our enemies, then set us up to take our powers." A realization hit him, and his eyes widened. "Only, it didn't just take our powers. They also took Pikachu, probably to power the thing. Using so many powers must take a lot of energy, so they needed a battery."
"So we know what they did, and how they did it. Now Wario and his pals have got some kind of bio-super-weapon, so we, being the kind citizens we are, have to stop 'em."
"But how did they get such a powerful bio-weapon?"
Mario threw his hands up in frustration. "Do we need to be having this conversation? So what if another bad guy is pulling the strings? We know who's on the team, so beating him is going to be simple as waiting for them to pull their big, money-making heist, asking them where he lives, and blowing up the place."
"You said it yourself; the gemstones were a set-up. We don't even know if making money is still their goal. If we knew who was leading them, we could try asking Master Hand to track him down, but we don't, so we're stuck here."
"I know who it is."
Fox and Mario froze. Link, who had been quiet ever since they'd landed on the Halberd, stepped out of the shadows. As he moved forward, he gently placed Jigglypuff down beside him. She quickly hid behind his legs. Link barely noticed, sweeping his eyes over both Mario and Fox. Even with his displaced hair and dusty tunic, he tried to stand tall, not a very hard thing to do when the only person taller than him in the room was Samus. Fox didn't miss him wringing his hands behind his back, but he didn't point it out.
"You do?" he asked instead.
Link immediately wilted. "Well, I've got a very good suspicion. It might be who I think it is, but it just seems so unlikely."
"What do you mean?"
"He doesn't usually work with anyone else." Link hesitated. "At least, anyone else he doesn't have complete control over or brainwashed."
"And how can you make sure this is what we're up against?"
"I need to get to the Capital and make sure he hasn't escaped, which isn't going to be easy, because..."
"The Capital isn't letting any public transport ships in."
Link nodded, and the room fell back into an awkward silence. Fox deflated, and he stepped back. So much for that lead.
Link must have seen his disappointed face, and he reached out to say something to him. His mouth opened, but he couldn't find the right words to say, so it snapped shut again. Mario moved back to the corner with Donkey Kong and Yoshi. They were stuck, and no one knew what to do.
Then, Samus finally stepped forth. "Hey kid," she said, and Link looked over his shoulder to meet her eyes.
"Huh? What is it?"
"About that ride I owe you..."
Seems two thousand words are what I can manage without melting my brain.
So our heroes are back to the Halberd, but things are not the same. Things are going to be left to stew for a little bit while the aftermath settles. Characters will change, and a team will be born from the ashes, all of which will happen... sometime in the near future.
Captain Vul gets a segment of the chapter dedicated to him because, I suppose, given the lack of a proper "escape scene", I wanted to make it a bit clearer what they were escaping from. Also, a really big reason why I wrote this up is that the really fun parts of a crossover involve characters who wouldn't normally interact getting to talk to each other, and this was just a fun way to explore one of the many worlds we'll get to explore on our journey. I had fun writing it, so expect more.
Until then, tune in next Wednesday for the next thrilling installment in Brotherhood of Smash!~