A faint gold radiance started emitting from the back of Zelda's right hand. She'd noticed it just now, in the chaotic midst of this whole flurry of commotion. Zelda glanced down at the top of her clenched palm, but her eyes widened in shock to see that the glow came from none other than her own Triforce of Wisdom.
This could only mean one thing: Link was still alive!
It had to be so. There couldn't have been any other explanation. The mystic energy of her Triforce was directly connected with his after all, in quite a spiritual sort of manner. If her energy flowed, then Link's had to be the initiating spark by one way or another.
"LINK... Oh thank the Gods...!" Zelda whispered through a sigh of relief, managing to forget about everything else for a beat. At least, that was until a frightened shriek from someone behind jerked her attention right back. The Hylian Princess quickly looked up to see that swarm of primids a couple of steps down from her.
"... Hold," uttered the dark-blue haired swordsman. His fellow warriors standing beside him appeared unable to restrain themselves any longer. Their hands quivered whilst gripping tightly around their weapon hilts. They'd even shifted their feet a few small paces backward.
"... HOLD," he commanded again, louder and more strained this time. The front of that robotic horde was now a mere three meters away, but after clearing the royal balcony's top step, they inexplicably came to an abrupt halt.
Foreboding silence ensued. The primids all stood there, staring straight ahead through their glowing red eyes, until it seemed as though an unspoken direction had been given. The entire first two ranks raised their weapons in unison, pointing them right at the group of warriors to form a razor-sharp barrier of mechanical swords, spears, and axes.
Daisy, Zelda, and those others could only stare back darkly. That earlier prospect of hope, albeit a slim thread, at least gave them something to try fighting for, but no longer. The bitter reality began setting in, because it really looked like there was nothing left to be done. Those warriors certainly couldn't risk charging forward into that razor-sharp barrier, nor was there anywhere else to run.
Peach also kept her tear-lined eyes locked on that menacing mass, waiting in agony for whatever might happen next. She could hear fearful whimpers and cries coming from the dozens of other helpless attendees who'd huddled together closely, back near all the rubble blocking the exit.
What were the primids waiting for? Why had they just stopped like that?
A dour and sinking feeling churned inside every one of the survivors. Was this it, then? Was this how everything was to end for everybody here?
Suddenly, out of nowhere, two huge harpoons shot straight through the dense smoke and lodged deep in that concrete overhang-structure, directly above the royal balcony's top level. Attached to each harpoon's rear was a thick metal cable of some kind, and with a loud twang they straightened to become fully taut.
People screamed, yet something else came right after.
CLINK-CLINK. What looked like a pair of canisters landed in front of the primids, bouncing several times before rolling to a stop right at the feet of Daisy, Zelda, and those warriors. They had but three seconds to glance down at them, realizing what they actually were, but by then it was too late.
A pin burst out from the top of each canister, followed by a dreaded sharp hiss of what could only be high-pressured gas escaping. No one could see any of it, though, for it was something invisible.
Peach suddenly started to feel light-headed. Her vision morphed into a blur; her hearing became dampened. She tried inhaling, but found no air to breathe. All she could do was struggle to let a cough spill out.
Time itself began slowing way down as Peach just watched everything happen through fading senses. Her dear relative, her Hylian friend, and those warriors all covered their mouths, coughing hard and gasping for breath likewise. Each of them stumbled around at the same time, unable to even hold their weapons anymore, until one by one they'd dropped to their knees and collapsed on the floor.
They all lay over there, knocked unconscious without a chance from whatever gas had been in those canisters. The front ranks of primids seemed to cast their stark shadows upon them, staring through those soulless red eyes all the while and residing in that menacing pose with weapons raised.
Now the weightlessness overcame Peach entirely. Her body and legs felt as though they weren't there at all. She desperately tried reaching an arm out, towards that blurry group of motionless bodies, but just couldn't. Everything went numb as she finally fell to the cold tile floor.
Facing upward on her back, one last cough escaped her lips. Muffled roars of fire and faint shrieks were the only things left for her to hear, until that too drowned away into nothingness. Her eyelids lowered steadily; she struggled with all her might to keep them opened, but to no avail.
Right as they were about to shut for good, Peach managed to catch sight of something new descending through the smoky shroud.
Two silhouetted figures repelled down the cables behind those lodged harpoons and detached the ropes from their harnesses once at the base. Both landed with a thud on the balcony's top level, not far from where those unconscious bodies lie.
All the other horrified royal attendees fell dead-quiet, meanwhile. They remained huddled together near the rubble further behind, unable to do anything except watch those two figures swiftly look around in a manner which showed they knew exactly what to do.
Each may have been wearing pitch-black clothing with hoods covering their heads, yet there was something distinct about this duo. They surely weren't primids, or anything robotic. Rather, they both appeared quite human-like. One was tall and lanky, while the other fared shorter albeit much more stout.
Nevertheless, they quickly found what, or more accurately who they'd come down here for. Uttering not a single word or sound, the stouter one hurried over to Peach's motionless figure and dragged her by her limp arms, back to where the lanky one had moved Daisy and Zelda together.
With these three Princesses now lying directly next to each other, the taller figure took some sort of air-powered tool from their rucksack and aimed it right down at them. Out shot an elastic net which spread all the way around the unconscious trio, slipping underneath and tying them up tight like a cocoon.
Apparently the stout one boasted quite a bit of strength, because he grabbed this large bundle of Princesses and hoisted them up over his shoulder without a hitch. The duo then quickly took those hanging ropes attached to the cables from their descent and fastened them back onto their harnesses. Finally, the lanky accomplice pulled out another small remote once done and wasted no time in flicking the switch on it.
Upon a second glance, their ropes had been part of a miniature winch mechanism set around those taut cables. Each one revved up and immediately began lifting these two mysterious figures back into the air, along with their bundled prize.
As for the unconscious warriors and those other surviving attendees, they were all being left to their fate. The horde of primids kept standing rigidly with weapons raised, until it looked like they eventually took another step forward. Part of a huge black smoke column suddenly drifted across, obscuring anything that would've happened next.
Nothing more was seen down there on the royal balcony.
Nothing more was to be known.
Music: "Beautiful Lie"
Blades clashed, fists bunted, flames roared, energy bursts struck, robotic body parts flung every which way, and misty storms of particles spewed up amid the melee's ongoing mayhem.
Grunting with all his might, Mario hurled another primid head-first into the turf, only to then look up just in time and spot that tiny pair of shadowy figures ascending through the air. They were so high above that this was the first time Mario had even noticed those taut cables stretching all the way down from the Halberd's opened loading bay, yet he all but froze upon seeing the shape of that bundle being carried by the figures.
There was no fooling his mind. Mario knew right away that bodies had to be in the bundle, especially since he saw how they'd risen from the smoke-shrouded royal balcony. The question was, though, just who were they taking? It seemed he held the strangest clairvoyance on that as well.
A flash from before...
This tournament's representative Princesses, honorably announcing themselves right as the opening ceremony commenced...
Only three did stand there at the very front of the royal balcony, beautiful dresses cladding each in the day's glorious light...
One had donned a silvery white, another had been a vibrant yellow, and the third had been a rosy pink...
Mario felt a sharp ache throb inside his chest when the dreadful realization came together.
Princess Zelda, Princess Daisy, and... Princess Peach!
They were the ones being taken! They had to be the ones!
He took a step back on wobbly legs, struggling to comprehend the implication. On one hand, might this have meant that they were in fact still alive? Maybe they'd survived those first missile impacts! On the other hand, Mario just couldn't know for sure.
The only thing he felt dreadfully certain of was that they were the ones being taken. There was somehow no other possible answer.
Now Mario felt his eyes starting to tremble, unable to hold a tear back any longer. It leaked down his cheek while he kept watching those tiny figures rise all the way to the hull, disappearing behind a wavy plume of haze once they got there. The taut cables subsequently detached, collapsing atop an upper portion of the stadium.
"... Take this, you SCUM!" Mario then heard a furious Meta Knight yell.
His gaze inevitably lowered, focusing on the blue Star Warrior who leapt from primid to primid, thrashing them in whatever way he could. He grabbed hold of one's feathered antenna and barbarically smashed the top of his head right against its dark metallic face, crumpling it to pieces. Kirby also sprang past, leaping up to deliver strong kicks and blows to another few nearby.
Quivering hands gripped onto Mario's shoulder from beside him. Luigi mouthed words in an attempt to say something frantic, yet everything fell mute. His older brother merely stared back at him, cold and numb with that devastation over what likely happened to their Princesses.
How? How could he try to tell Luigi in all this madness right now? Just how would he even begin to say it?
Then there was Link! What about him? Did he realize anything about how Zelda had been taken either?
Nevertheless, the other smashers fought on in a chaotic blur around the brothers. Ike, Roy, Marth, and a frenzied Lucina tried to stay close to one another, fending off any approaches. Captain Falcon and Little Mac seemed to stick together, while Red had joined back up with his brave Pokémon. Alternately, Link was largely fending for himself, using both his sword and shield. He fearlessly bashed right up against primids of all types, before swinging and slicing them to pieces.
Even the blonde-haired boy started wandering around this battlefield, sporadically engaging primids but easily pummeling them into mist. It certainly seemed he knew how to defend himself, despite still being in a half-entranced state.
Just over half of the primid horde had been destroyed by now, yet this was only here, on what remained of the smash platform. Swelling ambiance from around the rest of Midair Stadium revealed something far more grim and haunting that'd been transpiring this entire time. Indeed, intense fighting had erupted all over the vast arena, but more and more it became one-sided. Hardly anyone in the panicked crowds even knew how to fight, so they stood no chance against these swarming primid masses.
No mercy got shown. No remorse whatsoever. Countless attendees had been slain while trapped, or cut down in the aisles while trying to flee. Many just stood frozen in place, completely paralyzed with fear and meeting the same gruesome fate by sword, spear, or axe. Some people did attempt to fight back, yet it made no difference in the end. When one primid fell, twenty more were there to replace it.
Rubble lay everywhere. Fires kept raging across destroyed seating sections all over, with untold numbers of victims strewn about each vicinity from those missile blasts earlier. All the while, literal floods of screaming attendees kept packing through any and every exit to get out of the arena, but the multiplying armies of primids simply pursued them into the corridors.
Their sole purpose couldn't have been more blatant. It was apparently to cause as much chaos and carnage as possible.
"... HAAAGHH!" Lucina effortlessly parried an incoming slash and countered with full force, stabbing all the way through the primid's head. Then she reared around and let out another fierce cry, about to strike the figure she sensed was right behind her, but halted in her tracks when she realized who.
That blonde boy stood there rigidly, having stopped fighting. He'd been gazing up at the horrors everywhere high above him instead.
Confusion overtook Lucina now, causing her battle-hardened focus to get thrown off entirely. She didn't know how to react at all since the last time she'd seen this strange boy, he wasn't even on his feet. For several moments the Ylissean Princess did nothing but stare at him, when a sudden spike of pain exploded from the side of her right thigh.
"AHH-!" Everything flashed red in her mind. She glanced down to see a primid's mechanical blade stuck quite deep in her flesh. Enraged beyond measure, she grabbed its robotic arm and pulled the blade out from her leg before violently hacking that primid apart.
"N-Nghhh...!" Lucina gritted her teeth and hunched over, groaning against this agonizing pain. Blood spilled out of the wound, running down along her tight blue legwear. She tried holding pressure on it, but immediately got forced to fight almost a dozen more primids lunging at her.
How many had she even destroyed thus far? Probably upwards of thirty at least, yet they just kept coming. She raised her blade with only one hand and clashed hard, managing to block several swings in rapid sequence.
Slowly but surely, the wounded Princess started to limp backwards. Half her fighting ability was suddenly taken away, although her will remained. She would try and fight to the bitter end, despite feeling more and more fatigued. Her left hand clutched her sword's hilt firmly, while her right hand kept holding the bleeding side of her thigh.
What Lucina didn't realize was that she'd been backing up straight toward the platform's edge. By the time she looked over her shoulder to see where her footing was, not even a meter lay between her and the ledge. She gasped loudly, feeling cold swells surge within herself.
A ways over, Ike yanked his great sword's shaft out from a primid's torso. He came to notice that Marth and Roy were still fighting tirelessly nearby, but not Lucina. Then he heard a faint struggling cry from somewhere behind him. The mercenary knew it was her voice right away, yet through the blur of violet mist and figures running by, what he caught sight of locked his attention.
Lucina stood there at the ledge, dangerously cornered by those dozen or so primids. She couldn't react fast enough to destroy any of them now due to being both wounded and exhausted. Her wide eyes were filled with panic and fear.
What made Ike snap, though, was when a primid gave one last powerful strike, knocking Lucina's Falchion clean out of her hand. It disappeared from sight below the edge, leaving her utterly defenseless.
"... NO," bellowed the mercenary, making a mad sprint all the way over. Both hands clutched his great sword's hilt and he swung as hard as he could, unleashing his most devastating slash yet. Every one of those primids cornering Lucina got their heads severed clean off, much to her shock.
She'd covered her face, though once she saw Ike standing right there, all she could do was start weeping softly. Tears rolled down Lucina's cheeks again, not merely from the searing pain of her wound, but more so the bleak realization that everything had been lost. Her family, many of her friends, and now her cherished sword. She'd been rendered helpless to even fight back.
This was also the second time Ike had saved her life so quickly, which had only resulted from her own mistakes of getting distracted.
Lucina couldn't feel anything now, other than the strangest shame.
"... Hey, c-can you move alright?" Ike asked after frenetically eyeing her injured state.
Unable to face the mercenary any longer, she pivoted her head away and looked down at her blood-soaked hand as it pressed on this ghastly thigh wound.
"Lucina? Here, let me-..." Right as Ike stepped beside her to try and help, he caught a dreaded glimpse of something in his peripheral vision above. Another huge support beam from the retracted roof's framework had broken off, and was barreling straight down.
Before Ike could even utter his next word, it struck.
CRASH! A mere couple of meters next to where they stood, the unimaginable force from the impacting beam cleaved the ledge apart. The very surface gave way beneath their feet and swung downward, causing Lucina to flail backwards.
"AAAAAHHH!" Out over the edge she tumbled, screaming. Ike made a desperate dive onto his belly, reaching down and barely managing to grab hold of her bloody right hand. Now he lay there, precariously hanging over the tilted edge himself while a panicked Lucina dangled below.
"Lucina," he uttered, shaking his head firmly. "Don't... Don't you let go...!"
She writhed frantically and struggled to get a better grip around his own hand, yet the slick blood all over her finger-less glove prevented her from doing so.
"Here, give me your other hand!" Ike then lowered his right arm. Despite trying with all her might, Lucina just couldn't manage to fully grasp it.
"Come on! Reach!"
"Ahahhh...! I-I can't...! I'm... I'm slipping!"
Bit by bit, the Ylissean Princess felt her fingers sliding out. Several long and agonizing moments of more attempts went by, when everything around them seemed to slow to a stop.
"... I-Ike..." She gasped. A pair of tears leaked down her face while she stared helplessly into Ike's own frightened eyes.
"No... Don't...!" He pleaded desperately, but nothing could change the inevitable outcome. An empty, fearful sigh was all Lucina gave as the last of her blood-soaked fingers slipped from the mercenary's grip.
In this frozen wave of silence, she fell.
"... LUCINAAA!" Howling at the top of his lungs, Ike watched through devastation as her limp figure got smaller and smaller down in the open-air. Both his arms kept hanging there over the ledge, before he clenched his trembling hand that was stained with Lucina's blood.
Now, a thick tear crept along the mercenary's own rigid cheek. His eyes boiled with the bewildered rage of how he couldn't manage to save her.
Lucina had made no further cry nor sound. She just fell, almost in a way that seemed willing.
Soon enough, after straining to let out a bitter sob, Ike forced himself to refocus. He slowly got back on his knees and numbly looked over to see a pair of wide blue eyes upon him. The blonde boy lie nearby, propped up on his elbows after having been knocked onto his back from the beam's jolting impact. He'd witnessed this whole tragedy unfold not far in front of him, though he wasn't the only one.
Similarly dazed from all the ongoing mayhem, Mario kept standing there with Luigi clinging onto his shoulder. The battle raged, prompting his weary gaze to wander around in horror and see more of the smashers getting overwhelmed.
Little Mac had drifted apart from Captain Falcon and fought alone. He landed rapid punches on the primids' metallic bodies, swiftly sidestepping any attempted strikes back before finishing them off with strong haymakers or uppercuts. However, he was becoming exhausted, panting hard and grunting with every desperate swing of his gloved fists. The robotic figures mounted on Little Mac more and more, until one suddenly approached in his blind-spot.
It swung its axe upward, but by sheer chance, the flat side was what struck the young boxer right across his head; knocking him out cold. The force made his body tumble all the way back and roll over the platform's opposite edge, disappearing from sight altogether.
"Mac! No!" Mario heard Captain Falcon yell from a ways over, glancing just in time from beating down a primid to see it happen. Link dashed behind him and sliced another sword-wielding primid's torso in half without a mention, right as it'd begun lumbering up.
Then there were Marth and Roy. Despite having lost sight of both Ike and Lucina, they'd managed to stick together and were trying to head back towards Red and his Pokémon still deep in the fray. Ranks of primids constantly moved across and blocked their path, forcing the two heroes to skirt dangerously close along the ledge. Nevertheless, they cut their way through with relative ease, until a primid's spiked fist swung and caught on Roy's cape.
"Gaakkh!" It yanked hard around the red-haired swordsman's neck, making him lose all balance and spin. Before he even knew what'd happened, he leaned right out over the ledge with a foot slipping half-way off. The single counterbalance holding him back was his stretched cape, stuck on that mechanical spiked fist. It started tearing slowly, only to rip loose all of a sudden.
Petrified, Roy fell forward into the chasm until a slender hand shot out and grabbed hold of his arm. Marth had mere milliseconds to lean back and brace for the weight, but he'd completely underestimated how much it was. He too got pulled off his feet and tumbled out over the ledge, plummeting with his red-haired companion to their apparent fate.
No more were they seen, while everything else swept by in what felt like a flash.
The once-massive primid horde diminished more and more, largely from the unrelenting fighting power of Red's Pokémon. Only a handful were eventually left, standing scattered about the smash platform. A still-furious Meta Knight thus took it upon himself; he leaped around to each and every one of those remaining primids, relentlessly pelting them back into mist with his bare fists, but after the very last one smacked the turf, the blue Star Warrior couldn't restrain himself any longer. He bellowed through a pure, unfettered rage:
"... GRRAAAAGGHHH!"
Naught but brooding stillness followed, enveloping him and the other surviving smashers. Mario, Luigi, Captain Falcon, Link, Ike, Red, his five Pokémon, the blonde boy, Kirby, and himself were all who remained here. Most panted with exhaustion from their adrenaline long since wearing off, although another despairing sensation quickly set in.
They now could see the true extent of the horrors above; the horror of how Midair Stadium was all but in ruins.
Friends had been lost, families torn apart. Seating sections high above still had whole crowds of panicked people trying their damnedest to escape this arena. Then there were the pursuing swarms of primids, as well as the dreaded notion of what chaos could be going on inside the corridors.
To much more of a consequence, Meta Knight's mind nearly withered in face of the grim and demoralizing truth that his own battleship had been responsible for causing all this collateral destruction and carnage. It'd been outright hijacked from him during the journey over from Dreamland, yet as for what happened exactly, he just couldn't recall much of anything right now.
Finally, he glanced back over at Kirby and opened his mouth to break the silence. Hesitation befell him instead, for the pink Star Warrior was gazing upward through widened eyes. All the others, including the blonde boy, were warily looking up for that matter, so Meta Knight did the same.
Something new was descending through the vastness of the stadium, amid the ash-filled air.
A dark, rounded silhouette carrying some sort of spherical cargo glided down steadily, through towering plumes of dark smoke until the group could better make out what it was. Green robes and a long trailing hat clad this shadowy figure, while a pair of glowing yellow eyes shown from its otherwise shrouded face. The object it carried beneath revealed to be a large metallic sphere, marked with horizontal red lines and a stark 'X' on its front.
After getting to about ten meters or so above the smash platform, this cloaked figure hovered there and gazed down at the group of survivors. No one knew what to think, let alone feel, though Red's Pokémon were certainly tensed up. Pikachu hunkered on all fours, while Charizard growled deeply.
Meta Knight also narrowed his eyes greatly; a telling indication that he might've recognized what or even who this figure was.
Then, without any warning, that large sphere got released and dropped heavily on the turf right in front of everyone. Nothing more happened at first; they all just stared at this foreboding red 'X' facing them, until the sides let out a sharp hydraulic hiss. Each half started to extend outward, splitting the 'X' straight down the middle. The entire sphere opened apart to reveal a broad glass tube within this metal casing.
What lay inside the glass, though, left everyone dumbfounded. A black orb of a violet-indigo tint floated there in the center, held in place by surrounding arcs of electricity. Just below it was a display panel, with what appeared to be a time code reading five minutes.
Glancing back up, Meta Knight glared coldly into the hovering figure's yellow eyes. All it offered in return was a slow, single nod; one which almost seemed to acknowledge who Meta Knight and the others were, and what fate they would soon meet.
That wasn't the only factor either, because several low-toned beeps abruptly sounded from the little display. Those numbers on the time code didn't read five whole minutes anymore. Rather, it now read three, then four, then five seconds less.
Everybody's hearts just about stopped. This was a timer on some sort of bomb which had started counting down right here in front of them!
Thus, the cloaked figure waited no longer and quickly ascended the whole way through the stadium's vast space. After disappearing into the Halberd's cargo bay, those huge bay doors came to life once again, sliding together and shutting with loud clangs. Slowly but surely, that massive dark underside of Meta Knight's battleship began to drift forward, allowing rays of the bright afternoon sun to pierce through the thick clouds of haze and ash.
Daylight was finally returning to the open-roofed arena, but how everything had changed.
Each second on the timer kept falling by one of those dreaded low beeps regardless. The smashers and that blonde boy all seemed frozen where they stood, fearfully watching these red digits count down without the slightest inkling of what to do. This very well may have been the bitter end.
"Uh... Hey, you guys?"
All of a sudden, somebody's voice spoke up. It was Captain Falcon, and he couldn't have looked more determined. Nearly everyone glanced over at him as he announced:
"... I think I've got an idea."
Whatever his plan, it needed to be fast. Close to half a minute had already gone by, with no sign of the timer stopping.