The Crossover Saga
By Stoney (stoney107@yahoo.com)
Chapter Six
The Great Escape
A whisper, almost inaudible, disturbed the heavy silence.
"Daisy! Psst! Hey, Daisy!"
Somewhere within the black void, something stirred. A click joined the whisper in its conquering of the quietness, and light suddenly sent the darkness scurrying into the shadows. Daisy sat at her bed, hand still wrapped around the light switch. "Hello? Is someone there?" She called loudly.
"Ssh! Keep it down!" The voice whispered fervently. It seemed to be coming from the other side of the door to Daisy's room. "Daisy, listen to me. It's Peach. I got out of my room and want to know if you'd like to escape with me."
Daisy's reply was heavily sarcastic, but at least this time she kept her volume to a minimum. "No, I'd much more prefer it if I remained stuck here forever, thanks."
Peach ignored the remark. "Okay, then. I'll get you out in a minute, so hang on."
The door to Daisy's room was secured by a massive metal padlock. At its top, Peach noticed, there was a keyhole. She stared at it blankly for a couple seconds, wondering how in the world she would get it open. Her eyes darted around her immediate area, half-hoping that whomever had locked the door was careless enough to have left the keys lying around. Finally her eyes spotted a heavy suit of Koopa-shaped armor set up on display nearby, complete with an old-fashioned, sheathed sword. Staring at the ancient weapon, Peach got an idea.
Assuming that the suit of armor wouldn't be needing it any time soon, she relieved it of the sword and its sheath, strapping it onto her own back instead. She held the blade in both hands, observing the unfamiliar coldness of it against her palms and lightly running a finger along its edge to verify its sharpness. She gave a few practice swings, testing the weight and feel of it, until she was pretty sure she could swing it hard enough to serve her purpose.
"Okay Daisy, I need you to stand away from the door, okay?"
A whisper to the affirmative from beyond the door met her ears, and she nodded.
Peach eyed the padlock, aimed carefully, closed her eyes, and let the sword swing.
CLLAAANNGG! Instead of slicing the padlock into two separate pieces, as Peach had intended, the sword bounced right back off the dense metal in a fit of vibrations. Peach's balance was overthrown by the recoil and she stumbled backwards straight into the suit of armor. She couldn't keep her grip on the violently shaking sword, and it fell to the ground with a sharp CLACK as she collided with the armor's feet. The armor lost its balance and began to sway back and forth above her precariously. Peach looked up at the unbalanced armor with the wide eyes of a deer caught in the headlights of a moving car. Letting instinct take over, she scrambled out of the way as the several hundred pounds of steel and metal came crashing forward to collide with the door to Daisy's room. Aged wood cracked and splintered, and the door broke away from its hinges under the weight. The resulting sound from both the door and armor crashing to the floor, Peach later decided, was probably loud enough to wake the dead.
Daisy raced out of her room through the now-vacant doorway and over to where Peach was picking herself up off the floor. "Well, so much for leaving here quietly." She muttered. "They're bound to be wise to us now…"
As if reading Peach's thoughts, alarm klaxons simultaneously went off throughout the fortress. The sound was high-pitched and intense, creating a deafening racket that pierced their eardrums and stabbed directly into their brains. Both princesses yelled and covered their ears, but the noise refused to quiet down.
Peach was about to make a tactical retreat through the castle's corridors, but stopped before doing so to pick up the forgotten sword from where it had fallen on the ground nearby. She might need this later, she mentally decided as she sheathed it. Then she grabbed Daisy's hand.
"C'mon! Let's get the hell out of here!" Peach yelled over the shrill wail of sirens. Daisy readily agreed, and both princesses ran for their lives.
"What's wrong with him?"
"I don't know. I found him like this. He won't wake up…"
"This doesn't look like any sort of magic I've ever seen."
"Well, it's not like you're a magic expert, Fairy-Boy."
"Malon, will you PLEASE stop calling me that?!"
"Okay, Fairy-Boy."
Link sighed irritably. "Look, I think I've battled enough magic-wielding monsters to know what spells some can cast and what spells they can't. And no monster I've ever seen was able to cast a sleeping spell like this one. Least of all Moblins…they're by far the worst magic-users I've ever messed with!"
"Well then, in that case, what's wrong with him?"
Link, Malon, and Luigi were all crowded into Mario's room, puzzling over the sleeping plumber and trying to determine why he refused to awaken. All three of them were stumped as to the cause.
"You don't suppose he's in a coma, do you?" Luigi suggested tremulously.
"Naw, he'd have some mark on his head if that was what had happened." Malon replied.
"Maybe he got knocked out by something?" Link guessed.
Malon shook her head. "How? There was nobody around here to knock him unconcious. Unless you're suggesting he knocked himself out on purpose." Malon looked at Luigi steadily. "Are you sure he isn't just a very heavy sleeper?"
Luigi shook his head. "Not even Mario could sleep this long. I've known Mario my whole life, and I know that he would normally have woken up by now after some of the things I did to try and make him." The others didn't bother to ask what these deeds were.
"Well, I don't have a clue." Link admitted while drawing away from where he'd kneeled by the plumber's bedside. "There doesn't seem to be anything wrong or abnormal with him at all. I can't even detect a spell around him that would keep him from waking up. He's just…asleep. Naturally."
"But he won't wake up."
Link shrugged. "He probably will, eventually. Right now, though, I think we should just let him rest. Trying to investigate this further may just worsen the problem."
"I agree." Malon spoke up. "There isn't anything we can do for him at this point, anyway."
Luigi sighed. "Oh, alright. If you're sure he'll be okay…"
"He will be," Link assured him, "but this might put a kink in our plans……until Mario wakes up, I doubt that he'll be able to leave the safety of Lon Lon Ranch."
"Which means it might be forever before we get home!" Luigi despaired.
"Now hold on, I think you're exaggerating." Link replied. "At worst, we'll probably be set back a couple weeks or less. That's all." Link paused for a moment. "All hope isn't lost, however."
"What do you mean?" Malon asked curiously.
"Well, even if we can't wake Mario up, that doesn't mean that one or two of us couldn't go looking for someone or something that could help him and Luigi get home."
"Well, Mario definitely won't be going anywhere." Malon agreed. "Howabout you, Luigi?"
Luigi suddenly looked nervous. "Me? Go out there? ALONE?? Uh…um…"
"Heck no! You'll be with me!" Link grinned. He walked over and gave Luigi a good-natured clap on the shoulder. "So, whaddaya say? Care to come with?"
"Well…I…"
"Great! I knew you'd agree! Malon, help me go pack our stuff; we're leaving tomorrow!"
"Righto, Mr. Fairy-Boy sir!" Malon agreed with a mock-salute and a smile. Then she dashed out of the room before the pillow Link had thrown at her could collide with her head.
The entire group-save for Rush, Tango, and Eddie-materialized in an open field. Mario recognized it as the one he'd found himself in when he first came to Dreamland. Off in the distance, the bizarre forest began. They were standing next to one of the few trees that were growing in this empty plain. Mario blinked and looked at Mega Man, wondering why he'd sent them here.
Mega Man returned the look with a cocky smile. "Just watch."
Watch what? Mario wondered.
All eyes were now on the blue robot. Mega Man nodded to the group, then turned to face the tree. "You guys might want to back away a little bit before I do this."
Not bothering to question the blue robot, the group members did as they were told.
Mega Man didn't even bother to turn around and check on the group, somehow not needing to. All at once a bizarre white glow surrounded his right hand. Mario watched in complete awe as the hand abruptly morphed from a normal humanlike appendage into a circular, oval-like tube with a glowing red hole at the end.
Energy began to visibly gather into this hole. As it did so, the glow at the tube's end became brighter and brighter, seemingly charging up for something.
Abruptly the energy ceased to accumulate in Mega Man's arm. Mega Man then raised the arm, aimed its end at the tree, and released the energy.
A massive bluish-white fireball erupted from the end of Mega Man's arm, knocking him back a couple feet from its recoil. Mario squinted his eyes at the blinding projectile. It looked like it was made up of several long, snake-like energies wrapped around each other into a shape similar to a comet, complete with a shimmering "tail" flowing along behind it.
The cometlike fireball collided with the tree, enveloping it in a bright flash of light.
Mario blinked. He must be seeing things. He rubbed his eyes, trying to correct the image. One moment, the tree had been there. The next, it was gone. Only a slightly smoking brown crater marked the spot where it had once stood. Mario blinked again several times, trying to will the tree back into existence. It didn't work.
Pikachu was the first to speak up following this display. "Pa cha kaka pi chu?!" (What the hell was that?!)
"That," Mega Man replied with a slight bow, "is why they call me MEGA Man."
Pikachu's expression was devoid of understanding. "Pa?" (What?)
Mega Man proudly held up the ovalike arm as it morphed back into a hand. "This is called my Mega Buster. It's a highly advanced plasma ray gun that can charge up to be even more powerful by collecting specific atoms from the atmosphere into itself."
"But how does it do the…um…switch-thingy?" Mario asked.
"You mean like this?" Rock asked, switching from his hand to Mega-Buster and back again. Mario nodded.
"Matter converted to energy and then converted back into matter again." Mega Man shrugged. "It's simple physics, really."
Mario cocked his head at the obviously very advanced robot. He knew little about the kind of physics Mega Man seemed to be referring to, but nodded as if understanding anyway. "Oh. Okay."
Mega Man suddenly seemed to hear something. He turned around and pointed over to the distant forest. "Look over there, guys. We're about to have touchdown!"
The group did as they were told, wondering what the robot could mean. Their answer came a moment later as a distant black speck came carreening down out of the sky, trailing flames and tiny black dots that floated down to the ground similar to leaves in the wind. With a deep vibrating rumble that the whole group could feel through their feet, the object crash-landed in the middle of the forest.
Kirby gazed, awestruck. "The tree?" He asked Mega Man quietly.
Mega Man nodded. "The tree. Full power would have disentegrated it on the spot, but I only charged up enough to give it a good whalloping. In this case, it was a trajectory to beat all home-run pitches ."
"Oh, wow." Mario muttered. "Hey, Mega Man? At any time in the future that I get mad at you, do me a favor and remind me about this, okay? It'll help calm me down…"
Mega Man grinned. "Okay, will do."
"So! What say we get going, then?" Kirby asked eagerly. "Hey Mega, can your teleporter take us to the location of Dreamland's problem?"
Mega Man slowly shook his head. "Sorry, but it can only transport us to locations that we've been to beforehand."
"So what?" Kirby argued. "I've been everywhere in Dreamland! It should work regardless!"
Mega Man suddenly started laughing. "Gee, I hadn't thought of that! Okay, let's give it a shot. Grab hands, everybody!"
Mario reluctantly grabbed Mega Man's right hand, sparing a side glance at the tree's newly-vacated spot and repressing a shudder.
Mega Man slid open a panel on his left arm to reveal six buttons arranged in a square. "Let's hope this works." He muttered, too quietly for the others to hear. He pressed one of the buttons.
The group was enveloped within a bright flash of cyan light. A moment later, not a trace remained of their prescence once being there.
"Get down!"
Peach pulled Daisy to the floor and around the corner as a group of Koopa Troopas marched by in row formation. The princesses waited breathlessly until the sounds of marching footsteps couldn't be heard anymore. Daisy let out a shaky breath. "Oh wow, Peach. I didn't even see them until they were right on top of us!"
Peach seemed rather shaken herself. "I didn't, either. I heard them." She repressed a shudder as her imagination began supplying images of what might have happened if she hadn't done so. "C'mon, let's get moving."
The princesses were hopelessly lost within the sprawling recesses of Bowser's Domain. To make things worse, the entire castle had been put on high alert since their escape. Now all of the Koopas, Goombas, Lakitus, or other troops within the castle's interior that weren't dead or unconscious were all searching for them. This wasn't the first time they'd hidden from Bowser's soldiers, and it definitely wouldn't be the last.
Peach slowly peeked around the corner. She ducked her head and whispered, "Okay. All clear."
Together the cousins got up and began running. They'd been running for hours, Daisy realized. Man, she was SO sick of running! She mentally decided to take out her anger on the next hapless Troopa they encountered.
They arrived at an intersection. Oh great, another one. Daisy thought sarcastically. Crud.
Peach stopped running, trying to catch her breath. "Well…what now?"
Daisy had never been known for her calm demeanor. She'd always been something of a loose cannon, especially when she found herself under pressure. Like right now.
"Aw, heck with it!" She burst out. Randomly she chose one of the hallways. "Come on!" She grabbed Peach's hand and yanked her off her feet in her rush to get going.
"Agh!" Peach yelped as she stumbled and fell to the floor. Daisy suddenly found herself being yanked backwards and down by her grip on her cousin's hand. Both of them abruptly wound up piled on top of each other.
"Gack! Get off me!"
"Ow! Stop pulling my hair!"
"Hey, watch the dress!"
"Get your shoe out of my face!"
After a few minutes of this, one of them suddenly stopped moving and went rigid. "Wait! Ssh! Listen!"
"Umf! Listen to what?"
"Hush! Be quiet and you'll hear it!"
Both princesses paused their struggle. Silence resumed, only to be quickly broken by the noise of a faint, far-off rumble.
Boom.
Both princesses gasped simultaneously. "Oh, crap." Daisy whispered. Peach muttered something very unladylike before finally managing to get up off Daisy. "C'mon. We need to get out of here…"
Daisy didn't need to be told twice. She was on her feet quick as a flash. "Great. But which way do we go?"
Both of them peered around at the identical corridors uncertainly. The faint rumbles seemed to be coming from every direction at once. "I don't know…" Peach finally admitted.
Boom…
Boom…
Peach began to panic. "It doesn't matter! Let's just PICK one already!"
"Alright, fine!" Daisy started to run for the tunnel she had chosen earlier, with Peach following close behind.
Almost immediately they encountered a group of Koopa Troopas. "Ack! Wrong way! Go back, go back!" Daisy cried.
The duo executed a perfect 180 degree spin and ran back the way they had come, choosing one of the other tunnels instead. "Hurry!"
The sharp patter of marching feet signaled that the Koopas had seen them and were in pursuit. Peach cast several panic-stricken glances over her shoulder as they ran. The amount of Koopa Troopas following them was surprising; apparently they had stumbled on one of the larger squadrons. Their numbers filled the corridor. They were still a distance away, but they were gaining. Peach mentally urged her legs to move faster.
Boom...
BOOM...
The princesses rounded a corner and found a brick wall to greet them. "%#&$, dead end!" Daisy yelled.
Peach searched the wall frantically, hoping against hope that there was still some way out of this situation. Her eyes located a small, insignificant-looking grate down near the floor on the wall. She showed this to Daisy. "Do you think we could fit into it?"
Daisy cast a glance back down the hallway at the approaching Koopas. "It doesn't matter! Let's try it!"
Daisy not-too-gently wrenched the grate away from its opening and ducked her head inside. She came back out to report that the grate opened up to some sort of drainage tunnel. Then without any further conversation, she slid herself into it feet-first.
"Daisy! Wait!" Peach yelled, torn with indecision. "Ooh, I'm going to regret this later." She muttered as she slid herself into the opening similar to how Daisy had done so. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she pushed herself inside.
To her dismay she found that the drainage tunnel began to slope downward at a steep angle almost immediately after the entrance. Without any warning Peach was suddenly sliding down the perfectly smooth tube without any way to stop or slow herself down. She screamed, and the reverberating sound followed her for the entire flight down.
Static.
All around him. Everywhere. Where was he?
Oh wait, his visual sensors were offline. Maybe, if he rerouted power to his self-repair systems...
Ah yes, that was better. Now he could see.
He was in an unidentified landscape. This is not where he had been a moment before, he realized. He played back the recorded data for the past few minutes. He had been on normal patrol. His radar scans had picked up a peculiar spacial anomaly a few kilometers to the right of his current patrol area. Curious, he had started to investigate it.
When he approached the area, he suddenly found himself being bombarded by a primitive array of weapons, including spears and throwing knives. He'd sought shelter behind a large outcropping of rock...
...and a brilliant flash of light overloaded all his sensors, while a thunderous boom shorted out his auditory input. Static for a few moments, and then he was here.
Where was 'here', though? He activated his jet thruster and smoothly glided forward without touching the forest floor. Who needed to walk when he could fly? Being a robot had its advantages.
He began to explore. He was apparently within some sort of forest. Trees towered up on either side of him. He pondered for a microsecond whether he'd been transported into the Great Forest. He quickly cast aside the idea. He knew what the Great Forest looked like. It was only a couple hundred years old, with its tallest trees only reaching around 30 feet in height. The forest he was currently in was far older, with trees hundreds of meters high. He did a brief scan over one of the thicker trees nearby and noted with some slight astonishment that it was nearly five centuries old. No, this was definitely some other foreign locale that had yet been undiscovered by himself. He silently marveled at this. How could such an expansive and ancient place have escaped his notice for so long?
He looked around himself constantly as he flew, recording as much information as his memory banks would allow. His boss would definitely be intrigued by this, that was for sure. A tingling sensation around the sides of his chromium skull informed him that his self-repair systems had finished stabalising his auditory sensors. A moment later data began streaming in from those sensors to be recorded in his memory banks as well. Birds chirping. Branches creaking. Typical forest sounds, he admitted. Still, the visual data should be enough to impress his master anyway.
Movement. His head snapped around in the direction of the disturbance. Sensors that could hear a spider crawling up a wall detected a faint rusting in the bushes somewhere off to his left. With barely a thought he switched to infrared vision. Yes, two lifeforms were watching him from a rather large bush there. Friend or foe? He decided within the space of a picosecond to wait and let them make the first move before judging where their loyalties lie. Pretending that he had not yet detected them, he continued to silently fly inbetween the massive tree trunks. The lifeforms began to follow him.
After several minutes showing no difference in their behavior, he finally got fed up. Turning off his booster, he settled down to the forest floor and turned to face where the lifeforms were. He activated his voice synthesiser and output speakers.
"Come out from hiding, organisms. I know you are there." He spoke. Silence answered him. No movement came from the organisms' hiding place. He waited half a minute before taking matters into his own steel hands.
With about as much thought as an average person gives to stepping on the sidewalk, he raised his right arm and activated its built-in laser blaster function. A small barrell of a cannon appeared above his wrist and fired a massive red beam of deadly energy at the tree which the organisms had chosen to get behind. A flash of light, an explosion of emitted energy. Within half a second a brown crater stood where the tree had beforehand, a faint cloud of smoke slowly curling up to the sky above it.
Directly behind it stood two childlike humans in green clothing.
He was stunned by this. All humans had been thought extinct from his planet long before he had been built. Could it be possible that he'd stumbled upon a surviving pocket of the species?
Slowly the children uncovered their faces from where they'd shielded them from the tree's destruction, allowing him to get a good look at them. They certainly looked similar enough to his master's accounts of human children. However, their ears seemed a bit too long. That didn't matter too much though, because everything else about them checked out perfectly.
As soon as the children had realized their cover was blown, they leaped to their feet and began yelling at him in an unknown language. He made a valiant attempt to understand their babbled phrases, consulting his extensive library of known languages. None of them matched, and he was at a loss to understand them. He attempted some form of communication nonetheless. "Greetings, humans. I am Mecha Bot #02, commonly referred to as Metal Sonic. Please state your identities and buisness."
Upon hearing this request, the two humans instead abruptly turned and fled into the dense forest. He began to follow, but the massive trees around him disrupted his scans. He was unable to keep track of the two and they quickly disappeared altogether.
He was, once again, alone.
By Stoney (stoney107@yahoo.com)
Chapter Six
The Great Escape
A whisper, almost inaudible, disturbed the heavy silence.
"Daisy! Psst! Hey, Daisy!"
Somewhere within the black void, something stirred. A click joined the whisper in its conquering of the quietness, and light suddenly sent the darkness scurrying into the shadows. Daisy sat at her bed, hand still wrapped around the light switch. "Hello? Is someone there?" She called loudly.
"Ssh! Keep it down!" The voice whispered fervently. It seemed to be coming from the other side of the door to Daisy's room. "Daisy, listen to me. It's Peach. I got out of my room and want to know if you'd like to escape with me."
Daisy's reply was heavily sarcastic, but at least this time she kept her volume to a minimum. "No, I'd much more prefer it if I remained stuck here forever, thanks."
Peach ignored the remark. "Okay, then. I'll get you out in a minute, so hang on."
The door to Daisy's room was secured by a massive metal padlock. At its top, Peach noticed, there was a keyhole. She stared at it blankly for a couple seconds, wondering how in the world she would get it open. Her eyes darted around her immediate area, half-hoping that whomever had locked the door was careless enough to have left the keys lying around. Finally her eyes spotted a heavy suit of Koopa-shaped armor set up on display nearby, complete with an old-fashioned, sheathed sword. Staring at the ancient weapon, Peach got an idea.
Assuming that the suit of armor wouldn't be needing it any time soon, she relieved it of the sword and its sheath, strapping it onto her own back instead. She held the blade in both hands, observing the unfamiliar coldness of it against her palms and lightly running a finger along its edge to verify its sharpness. She gave a few practice swings, testing the weight and feel of it, until she was pretty sure she could swing it hard enough to serve her purpose.
"Okay Daisy, I need you to stand away from the door, okay?"
A whisper to the affirmative from beyond the door met her ears, and she nodded.
Peach eyed the padlock, aimed carefully, closed her eyes, and let the sword swing.
CLLAAANNGG! Instead of slicing the padlock into two separate pieces, as Peach had intended, the sword bounced right back off the dense metal in a fit of vibrations. Peach's balance was overthrown by the recoil and she stumbled backwards straight into the suit of armor. She couldn't keep her grip on the violently shaking sword, and it fell to the ground with a sharp CLACK as she collided with the armor's feet. The armor lost its balance and began to sway back and forth above her precariously. Peach looked up at the unbalanced armor with the wide eyes of a deer caught in the headlights of a moving car. Letting instinct take over, she scrambled out of the way as the several hundred pounds of steel and metal came crashing forward to collide with the door to Daisy's room. Aged wood cracked and splintered, and the door broke away from its hinges under the weight. The resulting sound from both the door and armor crashing to the floor, Peach later decided, was probably loud enough to wake the dead.
Daisy raced out of her room through the now-vacant doorway and over to where Peach was picking herself up off the floor. "Well, so much for leaving here quietly." She muttered. "They're bound to be wise to us now…"
As if reading Peach's thoughts, alarm klaxons simultaneously went off throughout the fortress. The sound was high-pitched and intense, creating a deafening racket that pierced their eardrums and stabbed directly into their brains. Both princesses yelled and covered their ears, but the noise refused to quiet down.
Peach was about to make a tactical retreat through the castle's corridors, but stopped before doing so to pick up the forgotten sword from where it had fallen on the ground nearby. She might need this later, she mentally decided as she sheathed it. Then she grabbed Daisy's hand.
"C'mon! Let's get the hell out of here!" Peach yelled over the shrill wail of sirens. Daisy readily agreed, and both princesses ran for their lives.
"What's wrong with him?"
"I don't know. I found him like this. He won't wake up…"
"This doesn't look like any sort of magic I've ever seen."
"Well, it's not like you're a magic expert, Fairy-Boy."
"Malon, will you PLEASE stop calling me that?!"
"Okay, Fairy-Boy."
Link sighed irritably. "Look, I think I've battled enough magic-wielding monsters to know what spells some can cast and what spells they can't. And no monster I've ever seen was able to cast a sleeping spell like this one. Least of all Moblins…they're by far the worst magic-users I've ever messed with!"
"Well then, in that case, what's wrong with him?"
Link, Malon, and Luigi were all crowded into Mario's room, puzzling over the sleeping plumber and trying to determine why he refused to awaken. All three of them were stumped as to the cause.
"You don't suppose he's in a coma, do you?" Luigi suggested tremulously.
"Naw, he'd have some mark on his head if that was what had happened." Malon replied.
"Maybe he got knocked out by something?" Link guessed.
Malon shook her head. "How? There was nobody around here to knock him unconcious. Unless you're suggesting he knocked himself out on purpose." Malon looked at Luigi steadily. "Are you sure he isn't just a very heavy sleeper?"
Luigi shook his head. "Not even Mario could sleep this long. I've known Mario my whole life, and I know that he would normally have woken up by now after some of the things I did to try and make him." The others didn't bother to ask what these deeds were.
"Well, I don't have a clue." Link admitted while drawing away from where he'd kneeled by the plumber's bedside. "There doesn't seem to be anything wrong or abnormal with him at all. I can't even detect a spell around him that would keep him from waking up. He's just…asleep. Naturally."
"But he won't wake up."
Link shrugged. "He probably will, eventually. Right now, though, I think we should just let him rest. Trying to investigate this further may just worsen the problem."
"I agree." Malon spoke up. "There isn't anything we can do for him at this point, anyway."
Luigi sighed. "Oh, alright. If you're sure he'll be okay…"
"He will be," Link assured him, "but this might put a kink in our plans……until Mario wakes up, I doubt that he'll be able to leave the safety of Lon Lon Ranch."
"Which means it might be forever before we get home!" Luigi despaired.
"Now hold on, I think you're exaggerating." Link replied. "At worst, we'll probably be set back a couple weeks or less. That's all." Link paused for a moment. "All hope isn't lost, however."
"What do you mean?" Malon asked curiously.
"Well, even if we can't wake Mario up, that doesn't mean that one or two of us couldn't go looking for someone or something that could help him and Luigi get home."
"Well, Mario definitely won't be going anywhere." Malon agreed. "Howabout you, Luigi?"
Luigi suddenly looked nervous. "Me? Go out there? ALONE?? Uh…um…"
"Heck no! You'll be with me!" Link grinned. He walked over and gave Luigi a good-natured clap on the shoulder. "So, whaddaya say? Care to come with?"
"Well…I…"
"Great! I knew you'd agree! Malon, help me go pack our stuff; we're leaving tomorrow!"
"Righto, Mr. Fairy-Boy sir!" Malon agreed with a mock-salute and a smile. Then she dashed out of the room before the pillow Link had thrown at her could collide with her head.
The entire group-save for Rush, Tango, and Eddie-materialized in an open field. Mario recognized it as the one he'd found himself in when he first came to Dreamland. Off in the distance, the bizarre forest began. They were standing next to one of the few trees that were growing in this empty plain. Mario blinked and looked at Mega Man, wondering why he'd sent them here.
Mega Man returned the look with a cocky smile. "Just watch."
Watch what? Mario wondered.
All eyes were now on the blue robot. Mega Man nodded to the group, then turned to face the tree. "You guys might want to back away a little bit before I do this."
Not bothering to question the blue robot, the group members did as they were told.
Mega Man didn't even bother to turn around and check on the group, somehow not needing to. All at once a bizarre white glow surrounded his right hand. Mario watched in complete awe as the hand abruptly morphed from a normal humanlike appendage into a circular, oval-like tube with a glowing red hole at the end.
Energy began to visibly gather into this hole. As it did so, the glow at the tube's end became brighter and brighter, seemingly charging up for something.
Abruptly the energy ceased to accumulate in Mega Man's arm. Mega Man then raised the arm, aimed its end at the tree, and released the energy.
A massive bluish-white fireball erupted from the end of Mega Man's arm, knocking him back a couple feet from its recoil. Mario squinted his eyes at the blinding projectile. It looked like it was made up of several long, snake-like energies wrapped around each other into a shape similar to a comet, complete with a shimmering "tail" flowing along behind it.
The cometlike fireball collided with the tree, enveloping it in a bright flash of light.
Mario blinked. He must be seeing things. He rubbed his eyes, trying to correct the image. One moment, the tree had been there. The next, it was gone. Only a slightly smoking brown crater marked the spot where it had once stood. Mario blinked again several times, trying to will the tree back into existence. It didn't work.
Pikachu was the first to speak up following this display. "Pa cha kaka pi chu?!" (What the hell was that?!)
"That," Mega Man replied with a slight bow, "is why they call me MEGA Man."
Pikachu's expression was devoid of understanding. "Pa?" (What?)
Mega Man proudly held up the ovalike arm as it morphed back into a hand. "This is called my Mega Buster. It's a highly advanced plasma ray gun that can charge up to be even more powerful by collecting specific atoms from the atmosphere into itself."
"But how does it do the…um…switch-thingy?" Mario asked.
"You mean like this?" Rock asked, switching from his hand to Mega-Buster and back again. Mario nodded.
"Matter converted to energy and then converted back into matter again." Mega Man shrugged. "It's simple physics, really."
Mario cocked his head at the obviously very advanced robot. He knew little about the kind of physics Mega Man seemed to be referring to, but nodded as if understanding anyway. "Oh. Okay."
Mega Man suddenly seemed to hear something. He turned around and pointed over to the distant forest. "Look over there, guys. We're about to have touchdown!"
The group did as they were told, wondering what the robot could mean. Their answer came a moment later as a distant black speck came carreening down out of the sky, trailing flames and tiny black dots that floated down to the ground similar to leaves in the wind. With a deep vibrating rumble that the whole group could feel through their feet, the object crash-landed in the middle of the forest.
Kirby gazed, awestruck. "The tree?" He asked Mega Man quietly.
Mega Man nodded. "The tree. Full power would have disentegrated it on the spot, but I only charged up enough to give it a good whalloping. In this case, it was a trajectory to beat all home-run pitches ."
"Oh, wow." Mario muttered. "Hey, Mega Man? At any time in the future that I get mad at you, do me a favor and remind me about this, okay? It'll help calm me down…"
Mega Man grinned. "Okay, will do."
"So! What say we get going, then?" Kirby asked eagerly. "Hey Mega, can your teleporter take us to the location of Dreamland's problem?"
Mega Man slowly shook his head. "Sorry, but it can only transport us to locations that we've been to beforehand."
"So what?" Kirby argued. "I've been everywhere in Dreamland! It should work regardless!"
Mega Man suddenly started laughing. "Gee, I hadn't thought of that! Okay, let's give it a shot. Grab hands, everybody!"
Mario reluctantly grabbed Mega Man's right hand, sparing a side glance at the tree's newly-vacated spot and repressing a shudder.
Mega Man slid open a panel on his left arm to reveal six buttons arranged in a square. "Let's hope this works." He muttered, too quietly for the others to hear. He pressed one of the buttons.
The group was enveloped within a bright flash of cyan light. A moment later, not a trace remained of their prescence once being there.
"Get down!"
Peach pulled Daisy to the floor and around the corner as a group of Koopa Troopas marched by in row formation. The princesses waited breathlessly until the sounds of marching footsteps couldn't be heard anymore. Daisy let out a shaky breath. "Oh wow, Peach. I didn't even see them until they were right on top of us!"
Peach seemed rather shaken herself. "I didn't, either. I heard them." She repressed a shudder as her imagination began supplying images of what might have happened if she hadn't done so. "C'mon, let's get moving."
The princesses were hopelessly lost within the sprawling recesses of Bowser's Domain. To make things worse, the entire castle had been put on high alert since their escape. Now all of the Koopas, Goombas, Lakitus, or other troops within the castle's interior that weren't dead or unconscious were all searching for them. This wasn't the first time they'd hidden from Bowser's soldiers, and it definitely wouldn't be the last.
Peach slowly peeked around the corner. She ducked her head and whispered, "Okay. All clear."
Together the cousins got up and began running. They'd been running for hours, Daisy realized. Man, she was SO sick of running! She mentally decided to take out her anger on the next hapless Troopa they encountered.
They arrived at an intersection. Oh great, another one. Daisy thought sarcastically. Crud.
Peach stopped running, trying to catch her breath. "Well…what now?"
Daisy had never been known for her calm demeanor. She'd always been something of a loose cannon, especially when she found herself under pressure. Like right now.
"Aw, heck with it!" She burst out. Randomly she chose one of the hallways. "Come on!" She grabbed Peach's hand and yanked her off her feet in her rush to get going.
"Agh!" Peach yelped as she stumbled and fell to the floor. Daisy suddenly found herself being yanked backwards and down by her grip on her cousin's hand. Both of them abruptly wound up piled on top of each other.
"Gack! Get off me!"
"Ow! Stop pulling my hair!"
"Hey, watch the dress!"
"Get your shoe out of my face!"
After a few minutes of this, one of them suddenly stopped moving and went rigid. "Wait! Ssh! Listen!"
"Umf! Listen to what?"
"Hush! Be quiet and you'll hear it!"
Both princesses paused their struggle. Silence resumed, only to be quickly broken by the noise of a faint, far-off rumble.
Boom.
Both princesses gasped simultaneously. "Oh, crap." Daisy whispered. Peach muttered something very unladylike before finally managing to get up off Daisy. "C'mon. We need to get out of here…"
Daisy didn't need to be told twice. She was on her feet quick as a flash. "Great. But which way do we go?"
Both of them peered around at the identical corridors uncertainly. The faint rumbles seemed to be coming from every direction at once. "I don't know…" Peach finally admitted.
Boom…
Boom…
Peach began to panic. "It doesn't matter! Let's just PICK one already!"
"Alright, fine!" Daisy started to run for the tunnel she had chosen earlier, with Peach following close behind.
Almost immediately they encountered a group of Koopa Troopas. "Ack! Wrong way! Go back, go back!" Daisy cried.
The duo executed a perfect 180 degree spin and ran back the way they had come, choosing one of the other tunnels instead. "Hurry!"
The sharp patter of marching feet signaled that the Koopas had seen them and were in pursuit. Peach cast several panic-stricken glances over her shoulder as they ran. The amount of Koopa Troopas following them was surprising; apparently they had stumbled on one of the larger squadrons. Their numbers filled the corridor. They were still a distance away, but they were gaining. Peach mentally urged her legs to move faster.
Boom...
BOOM...
The princesses rounded a corner and found a brick wall to greet them. "%#&$, dead end!" Daisy yelled.
Peach searched the wall frantically, hoping against hope that there was still some way out of this situation. Her eyes located a small, insignificant-looking grate down near the floor on the wall. She showed this to Daisy. "Do you think we could fit into it?"
Daisy cast a glance back down the hallway at the approaching Koopas. "It doesn't matter! Let's try it!"
Daisy not-too-gently wrenched the grate away from its opening and ducked her head inside. She came back out to report that the grate opened up to some sort of drainage tunnel. Then without any further conversation, she slid herself into it feet-first.
"Daisy! Wait!" Peach yelled, torn with indecision. "Ooh, I'm going to regret this later." She muttered as she slid herself into the opening similar to how Daisy had done so. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she pushed herself inside.
To her dismay she found that the drainage tunnel began to slope downward at a steep angle almost immediately after the entrance. Without any warning Peach was suddenly sliding down the perfectly smooth tube without any way to stop or slow herself down. She screamed, and the reverberating sound followed her for the entire flight down.
Static.
All around him. Everywhere. Where was he?
Oh wait, his visual sensors were offline. Maybe, if he rerouted power to his self-repair systems...
Ah yes, that was better. Now he could see.
He was in an unidentified landscape. This is not where he had been a moment before, he realized. He played back the recorded data for the past few minutes. He had been on normal patrol. His radar scans had picked up a peculiar spacial anomaly a few kilometers to the right of his current patrol area. Curious, he had started to investigate it.
When he approached the area, he suddenly found himself being bombarded by a primitive array of weapons, including spears and throwing knives. He'd sought shelter behind a large outcropping of rock...
...and a brilliant flash of light overloaded all his sensors, while a thunderous boom shorted out his auditory input. Static for a few moments, and then he was here.
Where was 'here', though? He activated his jet thruster and smoothly glided forward without touching the forest floor. Who needed to walk when he could fly? Being a robot had its advantages.
He began to explore. He was apparently within some sort of forest. Trees towered up on either side of him. He pondered for a microsecond whether he'd been transported into the Great Forest. He quickly cast aside the idea. He knew what the Great Forest looked like. It was only a couple hundred years old, with its tallest trees only reaching around 30 feet in height. The forest he was currently in was far older, with trees hundreds of meters high. He did a brief scan over one of the thicker trees nearby and noted with some slight astonishment that it was nearly five centuries old. No, this was definitely some other foreign locale that had yet been undiscovered by himself. He silently marveled at this. How could such an expansive and ancient place have escaped his notice for so long?
He looked around himself constantly as he flew, recording as much information as his memory banks would allow. His boss would definitely be intrigued by this, that was for sure. A tingling sensation around the sides of his chromium skull informed him that his self-repair systems had finished stabalising his auditory sensors. A moment later data began streaming in from those sensors to be recorded in his memory banks as well. Birds chirping. Branches creaking. Typical forest sounds, he admitted. Still, the visual data should be enough to impress his master anyway.
Movement. His head snapped around in the direction of the disturbance. Sensors that could hear a spider crawling up a wall detected a faint rusting in the bushes somewhere off to his left. With barely a thought he switched to infrared vision. Yes, two lifeforms were watching him from a rather large bush there. Friend or foe? He decided within the space of a picosecond to wait and let them make the first move before judging where their loyalties lie. Pretending that he had not yet detected them, he continued to silently fly inbetween the massive tree trunks. The lifeforms began to follow him.
After several minutes showing no difference in their behavior, he finally got fed up. Turning off his booster, he settled down to the forest floor and turned to face where the lifeforms were. He activated his voice synthesiser and output speakers.
"Come out from hiding, organisms. I know you are there." He spoke. Silence answered him. No movement came from the organisms' hiding place. He waited half a minute before taking matters into his own steel hands.
With about as much thought as an average person gives to stepping on the sidewalk, he raised his right arm and activated its built-in laser blaster function. A small barrell of a cannon appeared above his wrist and fired a massive red beam of deadly energy at the tree which the organisms had chosen to get behind. A flash of light, an explosion of emitted energy. Within half a second a brown crater stood where the tree had beforehand, a faint cloud of smoke slowly curling up to the sky above it.
Directly behind it stood two childlike humans in green clothing.
He was stunned by this. All humans had been thought extinct from his planet long before he had been built. Could it be possible that he'd stumbled upon a surviving pocket of the species?
Slowly the children uncovered their faces from where they'd shielded them from the tree's destruction, allowing him to get a good look at them. They certainly looked similar enough to his master's accounts of human children. However, their ears seemed a bit too long. That didn't matter too much though, because everything else about them checked out perfectly.
As soon as the children had realized their cover was blown, they leaped to their feet and began yelling at him in an unknown language. He made a valiant attempt to understand their babbled phrases, consulting his extensive library of known languages. None of them matched, and he was at a loss to understand them. He attempted some form of communication nonetheless. "Greetings, humans. I am Mecha Bot #02, commonly referred to as Metal Sonic. Please state your identities and buisness."
Upon hearing this request, the two humans instead abruptly turned and fled into the dense forest. He began to follow, but the massive trees around him disrupted his scans. He was unable to keep track of the two and they quickly disappeared altogether.
He was, once again, alone.