(A/N: Yes, this fic is longer than I had expected it to be. But this is the last chapter! I promise!)
33. Rescue
The smashers started running toward the fortress, when their charge was suddenly halted by a large white figure/
"Need a lift?"
"Master Hand! Are you OK?" Samus asked, relieved.
"Yes, but I would have to advise you to leave the toys behind. We'll be traveling through other zones and we wouldn't want to have to fight all of the toys again. I'll take Mario, Luigi, Samus, Ness, and Link up to save the others."
"That makesa sense." Luigi agreed, and so the five real smashers climbed onto Master Hand's palm. He closed his fist and sped toward the fortress.
Aiming slightly above Ness's hole, Master Hand slammed through the wall with a force that the smashers could feel inside his fist. Apocalypse was just about to cut the rope that would drop the others into the acid when Master Hand fired into him with all his might. Apocalypse flew backwards, through a few walls until the unmistakable sound of breaking metal was heard. Master Hand quickly dropped the smashers and they set to work in freeing their friends.
In a few minutes, they were all freed, but they still had to stop Mistress. Luckily, she seemed to be willing to oblige them, since her laughter started booming around the room sourcelessly as soon as the last smasher was freed.
"You fools!" her voice shouted gleefully. "You walked right into my trap! Soon, I will destroy you all!"
As she spoke, trap doors opened in front of the smashers' feet. Mistress laughed as a flash of light appeared in front of Master Hand as well.
Each of the smashers stared as their toy counterpart jumped up from the trapdoors. As they stared down their opponents, the light in front of Master Hand began to materialize into a box.
"Mistress?" Master Hand wondered, his voice filled with anger.
"No…just me." Came the reply.
With that, the box exploded, and Juvenor appeared, flaunting his laser gun.
"What-you-"
"Ha! Isn't that nice! Father versus sons!" Mistress's still bodiless voice echoed.
"Sons? As in plural?" Master Hand wondered.
"Of course! You haven't figured it out yet?" Mistress suddenly started cackling loudly. "You're a fool, Master Hand, and you've always been a fool."
The smashers, who were all watching with interest, began to realize their situation and attacked their counterparts, while still trying to listen to the conversation.
"Before, when you were in your dimension, you noticed that Juvenor disappeared. That was because Ob had kidnapped him, and taken him to a dimension that was completely empty.
"Completely empty? But wh-"
Mistress sighed. "You STILL don't get it? The dimension was completely empty. The only things in it were Ob and Juvenor."
"So?"
"So…what do you think would happen if Ob were to, oh, say, kill himself?"
"His soul would g-"
Master Hand stopped, dumbfounded. He, and the other smashers, realized the fate of their friend.
Mistress chortled again. "Now you understand, don't you? Now you see how resourceful we are!"
With that, her voice's echo faded, and Juvenor/Ob took aim. The final battle was joined.
34. Battle (Kirby)
We are all shocked by Mistress's revelation. That explains why Juvenor shot Master Hand and then Doomsday before. It must be difficult to contain two souls in the same body. They must constantly be fighting for control. And most likely, Ob is winning.
Of course, I will hopefully have plenty of time to think about this later. Right now, there's an evil Kirby trying to kill me.
"You're going down, puff ball!" my counterpart shouts.
"If I'm a puff ball, what would that make you?" I retort, smiling.
"A…stronger puff ball?" the other replies, and kicks me. I jump at it and Final Cutter. It jumps out of the way, though, and kicks me up into the air. I Brick, and slam into it. This gives me some time to look around. I seem to unconsciously focus on Master Hand's battle, which makes sense. Juvenor's lasers are obviously much stronger and faster than Master Hand's missiles, and Master Hand has an incredibly slow recovery time. I think Master Hand is in trouble, unless Juvenor can win the fight for control.
Ouch. Stupid Kirby.
I turn around, and kick Kirby. I chase him down and grab him. I toss him backwards over my head, and decide to lend Falcon a hand. I inhale Falcon and absorb his ability. As Falcon pops out, the other Falcon performs a Falcon Dive and gives himself some time. I turn around just in time to avoid a Final Cutter.
I notice that Samus and Fox have already defeated their counterparts, and are lending aid to the others. Falcon is doing better, and everyone else seems to be evenly matched. Ob is doing heavy damage to Master Hand, but Master Hand is actually doing quite well in terms of dealing damage back to Ob. Of course, this also means he is hurting Juvenor, but that's the price he has to pay, I guess.
Ow.
This is really getting irritating. I'm going to have to finish this toy off.
With a dramatic shout, I do a smash hit, lunging forward. My opponent flies backward with incredible velocity, bounces off the wall, and stops moving. Content with my victory, I go over to help Falcon. However, it seems that Falcon doesn't need any help, and he finishes off his counterpart with a well-timed Falcon Punch. I look around, and see that every battle is over except for Master Hand and Ob's. We all gather around to help him.
Master Hand has just punched Ob backward, and Mario runs over to kick him around a bit. As we send him back and forth with various techniques, Master Hand seems to be slowly recovering from his extensive laser burns. Suddenly, we notice a sudden change in Ob. He flips away from us and lands far away. Samus starts to attack, but Mario holds her back. She seems confused, but agrees. Ob/Juvenor seems to be in severe pain, holding his head. Juvenor must be winning again.
His face contorts violently. We hear a gasp and realize that it is Mistress's. Juvenor slowly raises his gun to the side of his head. His arm is shaking quite a bit, but it is pretty much in the right place.
His eyes close, and he pulls the trigger.
35. Victory
The smashers stared in shock at the corpse of their friend and enemy.
"Wait…" DK protested. "His soul would go into someone else, right?"
Master Hand shook his, um, fingers. "Once we die twice, that's it. Then we really die."
"Oh." DK said. "That's too bad."
"Yes, it is." Master Hand replied sadly. "Yes, it is."
Suddenly, Mistress appeared behind them.
"That does it! You may have defeated them, but there is still an entire army of toys waiting to destroy you!"
Her evil laugh continued for a few minutes before she realized that no one was coming.
"What the-"
Suddenly, a different laugh rang out. This one was deep, arrogant, and familiar.
"There is no more army, Mistress. It's over."
She turned to see Apocalypse in the doorway, with Knuckles and Captain Commando by his side.
"You! You traitor!"
"Hardly. Master Hand was kind enough to knock me right into the zoned controller that controlled your fortress, so I was free to move around. Once I got the closest ones with my projectiles and got Knuckles' and Commando's help, destroying the rest of them was easy." Apocalyse replied, smiling with his usual cocky smile that the smashers had not seen in a while.
"All of them?" Mistress struggled, trying not to believe what she was hearing. "They're all gone?"
"That's right. And we have some friends who have a bone to pick with you."
The room erupted with noise, as the entire population of the toy dimension emerged from hiding to oppose Mistress. She gasped.
The smashers smiled as they watched Apocalypse's plan succeed. Only one thing remained: kill Mistress.
Suddenly, Mistress floated over to a control panel and pressed a large red button. A computerized voice helpfully declared, "Self destruct sequence activated."
"What?" Apocalypse shouted. "How long has that been installed?"
"Since the beginning, you fool. It was all part of the plan. The smashers would fight, and probably win, then all of the toys would come in to destroy them and the building would explode. It would have been perfect! After I returned, I would have the entire dimension to myself to rebuild and prepare for war! But you fools ruined it, so I'll have to use it as an escape plan. So long, suckers!"
She started to fade away. Master Hand roared in anger.
"I don't think so, Mistress!" he shouted. He grabbed Mistress and held her from teleporting away. "Everyone, get out of here!" he shouted.
"But-" Mario protested.
"NO! Just go!"
"This building will self destruct in one minute."
"JUST GO!" Master Hand shouted. "Don't worry about me!"
Mario was flabbergasted. "Master Handa, when I firsta met you I thoughta you were the mosta evil pers-er…thing I hada ever meta. I was so glad toa defeata you. Then, wea fought youa again a few monthsa later, and you werea even worse! But now…now Ia see that you area a good perso-um…character ata heart. I'm glad to havea known you."
The other smashers agreed whole-heartedly, and the rest of the toys nodded their thanks. Master Hand was struggling to keep Mistress from teleporting away.
"You fool, Master Hand! Don't you realize what you're giving up?"
Master Hand looked at Mario and the others. "Now I do."
"This building will self destruct in thirty seconds."
Mario came back to his senses. "Let'sa go, guys." He said softly but urgently. The toys and smashers followed him out of Ness's and Master Hand's holes. Just as the last toy emerged from the gap, the entire fortress exploded.
36. Epilogue (Mario)
Well, we all made it. With a few notable exceptions. However, overall, I am quite impressed with us. We make one hell of a team.
"Mario…"
I recognize Samus's voice and turn around.
"I…I can't believe they're gone…"
"I know." I agree, not using my fake Italian voice. "I would have never thought five months ago that Master Hand would die so nobly."
"Just like he did the first time." Samus realizes. The thought of this seemed to cheer her up.
"Yeah…But hey! We thought he was dead before, and he came back!"
"That's true." She admits. "But that only decreases the chances that he'll survive this one."
"Oh, yeah." I sigh. There's no use in trying to console her; we are all affected by his death.
"And Juvenor was pretty brave too." Samus puts in. "He killed himself to save his father."
"I know! That was really impressive."
"Hey, what are you two talking about?" Link asks, coming up beside me.
"Probably the same as everybody else." Samus replies.
"Master Hand and Juvenor? Like father, like son, huh?"
"I guess so." Samus agrees.
Falcon, Fox, Luigi, and Ness, who were having their own conversation, notice us, I guess, and come over to talk.
"Mind if we join you?" Ness asks.
"Not at all." Samus replies. "We were just talking about the battle."
"So were we. They were really brave." Fox comments.
"Unquestionably. I'ma glad they were ona our side." Luigi comments. We laugh.
"Even though Master Hand just was because he hated Mistress." Link suggests.
"No, didn't you hear him just before we left? He definitely was 100% on our side." Falcon disagrees.
"Oh, yeah. Maybe you're right." Link concedes. "Still, that's what it was at the beginning, just a coincidence that we were fighting the same person."
"Box." Ness grins, correcting Link facetiously.
"Oh, of course. How silly of me." Link grins sarcastically, and we all laugh again at the much-needed comic relief.
At this point, some of the action figures come over to talk.
"Hey, guys. We were just talking about you guys. You were really impressive. We saw you take out those toys." Captain Commando comments.
"Yeah, no wonder Mistress was so worried about you!" Spider-Man agrees.
"Wait…there's something I don't understand." Samus speaks out suddenly. "If Apocalypse destroyed the zoned controller, why did our action figure counterparts fight us?"
"We werea pretending." Mario's action figure counterpart replies, smiling.
"Very effectively." Falcon replies, rubbing his jaw. "You're quite an actor." The other Falcon chuckles.
"If you need any pointers, just let me know."
This evokes laughter from all of us. The rest of the smashers (except Pikachu and Jigglypuff), obviously hearing our laughter, come over to talk.
"Well, we sure showed her, huh, guys?" DK grins, blatantly ignoring their losses.
"Yeah, sure, DK." Samus replies sadly. DK realizes his mistake.
"Hey, I didn't mean-"
"Don't worry about it. That's the way it is."
I am actually very impressed with all of us. Everyone is holding their emotions in adequately, and seeming very professional. One thing's for sure, though: I'll never stereotype about bounty hunters again. Suddenly, something occurs to me.
"Hey…we shoulda really get backa."
"That'sa true! Peach will bea wondering where wea are!" my brother agrees.
"Yes but how we get back?" Yoshi, who apparently has been studying English in his spare time, asks.
"No problem. I'll just call someone from Master Hand's dimension to give us a lift. We should tell everyone that we're leaving though."
DK nods, and bellows, "HEY EVERYONE! WE'RE LEAVING!"
Pikachu and Jigglypuff rush over, and they are followed by the rest of the toys. After saying goodbye to every…single…person…we finally reach the end of the line. It's Apocalypse.
"Thanks, guys. For everything."
Apocalypse nods, indicating that he has nothing more to say. We say our goodbyes to each other next, but we are interrupted before anything gets too mushy. A portal appears in front of us, and we all jump through.
When I emerge into Mushroom Kingdom with Luigi, DK, and Yoshi, I can only think of one thing: when I will see the smashers again.
The End
(A/N: Yes, it's finally over, believe it or not. Of course, Mario will see the others again…sooner than he thinks! Hopefully by the middle of January, I'll have the next fic in the "Everything Explained" series, this time narrating the Classic mode of SSBM. By the way, for those of you who don't read the older fics, my first fic is called "Super Smash Brothers: Everything Explained". It was very well-received by the 10 people that reviewed it, so I'm going to try again. Hopefully it will be shorter!)
