The symbol "&" will show the thoughts of characters.
"-I" will act as a section break.
"-" has replaced all astericks, which do not show up here.
Now
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LEVEL FOUR: Paradoxic Smashfest
Because This Is
Really Late...
Day 2 Noon Again: Final Round
The trio found themselves in a very familiar room that was around as large as the Smash Ring with marble tile floor, nonexistent walls, and several links to different areas, represented by stylish arrows and signs revealing their destination.. "Well, like Crazy Hand said, we should go to the Mute City Adventure," reiterated Proto Man to the other two. Saying nothing else, they ran up to the appropriate link and dashed in.
After a brief flash of light, the three companions appeared on a wide racing track. It was night, but it was hard to tell from the surrounding city's bright lights. Though the pathway was clearly suspended very high into the air-so high that one could see nebulae in space very clearly despite the pollution-you could still see Mute City below stretching toward the horizon. While most of the buildings appeared as stars against a dark Earth, quite a few stretched so far upwards that they went above the track, and even more futuristic billboards hovered, raving about low, low prices for hotels and the world's largest unicycle. Floating in the air were several pink platforms several feet above the track, but just low enough to jump up on. At that moment, a large group of cars levitating above the ground drew up behind the travelers (can they be called travelers if technically they have been staying in the same place for most of this chapter?) and they wasted no time hopping onto the platforms, which were just out of the cars' reach.
"Mute City Theme From SSB:M"
"Well, this is definitely Mute City," commented Jon as he looked around.
"So we have to just get to the end of this section by staying on the pink platforms, right?" Proto Man asked.
"And get on the track if there are no cars, yeah."
"Sounds easy enough."
They traveled on the 2-D path for a few minutes.
"Jeez, this is almost pathetic," commented the robot. "Run on the track, jump on a platform when that humongous exclamation point tells us. It's a lot easier than the previous adventure programs."
"Well, it's supposed to be more of an endurance thing than anything, so keep on going, dammit," Toad responded.
They jumped up on a floating platform as some AI racers passed, but it suddenly disappeared below them. "WTF?" was the word as they all fell on the track, thankfully after the cars left.
"Okay, I have a feeling that wasn't supposed to happen," commented Jon.
As the Game Master got up, Proto Man noticed something odd about his teammates' positions. "Hey, we're all in different places on the track."
"What's so weird about that?" asked Toad.
"Remember, before that invisible barrier thing stopped us from moving the our sides. You wouldn't be where you are right now if the barrier wasn't gone."
Jon walked around in a circle. "Hey, you're right."
"But that makes no sense," pointed out the robot. "The reason the barrier existed was because the Hands didn't program the third dimension into the Adventures. Why did they program it into the Mute City Adventure of all places?"
"Let's ask them," Toad suggested, pulling out his PET and emailing the hand in question. After about a minute however, the cars finished their lap and were coming around back towards the fighters.
Jon was the first to notice them. "They're coming back! What do we do now?"
Toad pulled out his kart again out of nowhere. "According to Newton, if we go as fast as those cars, it will hurt less when they crash into us!"
"Are you sure he said that?"
"It's better than nothing," explained Proto Man as he hopped in the back of the kart, followed by Jon. Right before the cars hit, Toad's kart shot forward, traveling a bit slower than the other racers as he skillfully swerved around them. As the last racer passed, the miniature car stopped.
"Okay, so all of the pink platforms disappeared and we can move in three dimensions again," recapped the Game Master. "I'd say it's a good idea to ask Crazy Hand what the heck's going on." He pulled out his Game Boy.
"I already did that, remember!" pointed out the mushroom.
"Oh, right," responded Jon as he put his system back in his pocket.
A few seconds later, Toad's PET beeped. "Okay, the response to my e-mail is here."
I got your e-mail. I checked the network and it turns out that those creatures must have hacked into the system, altering every adventure program in some way. Thankfully, the programming is too complex for them to simply delete the programs, so they had to choose a more roundabout way. For the one you're on, they erased the programming for the platforms and the moved the lock from the end of the track to the inside of the lead car in the race. As for you being able to move freely in the program, me and my brother took the cheap route with the Mute City Adventure-we simply took the standard F-Zero training program and edited it to have more detail and restricted movement to match the other programs. The gray creatures must have accidentally deleted the restriction while making the other changes.
By the way, sorry I didn't mention this before, but in order to log out of these programs, you have to destroy the lock in this area and e-mail me. Then, I'll be able to activate the machinery that brought you there and bring you back.
Signed, Crazy Hand
Dated 12:05 PM
"So, the lock's on the first car. I guess we have to go after it with Toad's car or something," commented Jon.
Proto Man looked at a sign that was conveniently near him. "We better hurry, the cars are on the last two laps.
"Well, let's go, dammit!" Toad yelled as he got back into his car. The other two shrugged and did the same.
End "Mute City Theme"
-I
-I
"Big Blue Theme" even though it's still Mute City
Toad's kart whizzed along the well-lit, but still dark, track
"It looks like we can see the other cars now!" Jon yelled over the engines' wails and he stood on the back of the car while holding the handrail with Proto Man.
"THE CAR'S GOING TOO SLOW, WE NEED TO BOOST!" yelled Toad
"Well, Toad, it's only been about a minute, so we're going at a pretty good pace if you ask me, but I'm not going to pass up an opportunity to boost!" commented Proto Man from the back.
"But F-Zero racers can't boost until the first lap is done, and this kart has a F-Zero engine, so we can't!" pointed out the Game Master.
"NO PROBLEM! PROTO MAN, GO INTO THE TRUCK, GET A BUNCH OF BOOST MUSHROOMS, AND PUT THEM IN THE POWER-UP TANK!"
The red robot searched through the cart's trunk, pulled out three Boost Mushrooms (while all of those red mushrooms look the same, they have different effects-the Super Mushroom makes you grow in height, the Boost Mushroom can be used as booster fuel for certain engines, etc.) and placed the mushrooms into a special slot above the trunk labeled "Place Power-Ups Here To Use".
"TLIPIRU BUUSTU!" Toad yelled as he pressed a button on the control panel.
Suddenly, the kart's speed seemed to suddenly triple and fire started to shoot out of the exhaust pipe. This would be bad for the two people in the back, but the sheer speed was causing their bodies to float up in the air, avoiding the flame, and they were forced to hold on for their lives. Their situation did not improve when the speeding car crashed into one of the AI opponents and flew right off the track.
Everyone screamed as they dropped toward the star-like oblivion of the Mute City when suddenly, a UFO beamed them up and dropped them back onto the track while a loud voice yelled, "Off Course!".
"Well, this sucks!" Toad exclaimed as he started up the car again. "You probably think we shouldn't boost again, huh Jon?"
Jon was shaking his head in order to regain feeling there and didn't hear Toad's question.
"What, we should? Well why not! Proto Man!"
"Got it," Blues responded as he repeated the boosting process. The car shot ahead as Jon was too busy holding on to speak. They found themselves in the middle of the fray when the power-up ended and some of the surrounding racers started knocking into the kart in effort to damage them, which pissed off the mushroom.
"OKAY, THAT'S IT!" he yelled as his hands left the steering wheel and he pulled out his bazooka.
When the kart started swerving, Proto Man yelled, "No, it's okay Toad, Jon and I will handle them, you just keep driving!"
"NO, I HAVE A BETTER IDEA, JON CAN DRIVE!" the mushroom suggested as he flipped over to the back of the car and placed Jon in the driver's seat, who had to fold up his legs to fit in.
"Uh, well, okay," the Game Master said to himself as he looked over the controls, making sure the car was going straight at the same time as the cars surrounding them exploded from all of the blasts. "&OK, A is the left pedal, B is the right pedal, the shoulders... are the right pedal too, the items are this button here, the F-Zero boost is this button here, I'm set. Gah, hard turn ahead&!"
Just as Toad was about to fire a shot toward one of the attacking cars, Jon slid to the right in the kart, throwing off his aim. "HEY! WHAT ARE YOU-" mushroom-man yelled, but was interrupted when they crashed into the wall and a bunch of the opponents passed by.
"Sorry, I thought the slide would be like in Mario Kart, not F-Zero GX!" Jon explained as he pulled the car out of the edge and started driving again.
"Happens to the best of us!" commented Proto Man.
"WELL DON'T DO IT AGAIN! DO YOU NEED A TUTORIAL!" asked the red-spotted midget as two buttons-yes and no-appeared a few feet in front of the car. Jon quickly turned, ran over the "no" button, and drove toward the rest of the racers.
"Hey, the finish line's ahead, we'll be able to boost normally once we cross it!" Captain N commented.
"We only have one lap left to reach the first place car, we better hurry!" pointed out the Red Bomber.
"BOOST!"
"Boost."
"Good," said Jon to himself. "Let's see how you feel having to hold on to a handle bar at 1000 miles per hour. After this triple boost, I'm going to do an F-Zero boost the rest of the way, m'kay!"
"Got it!" The robot acknowledged as he put the mushrooms in the power-up tank and Jon pressed the button. The car shot forward, much faster than usual for some reason, and as it flew up a ramp into the air, Blues and Toad whooped like the Duke brothers.
While in the air, Proto Man looked back behind them. "Is is just me, or are all of the cars we destroyed back!"
Jon was focused on underage driving, so he didn't turn when he said, "The UFO probably brought them back, since it saved us back when we fell and this is based off a training program where that happens!"
"I can see the other cars in front of us! From my estimate, we're pretty far back, but this boosted jump is getting us ahead!"
"That's good to hear!"
"I HAVE AN IDEA!" Toad exclaimed
"I have a better one! You can shoot ahead while I shoot the cars coming back!" Proto Man said.
"...Proto Man, do you think you could use that high-techno programming of yours to calculate when we're going to land!" asked Jon.
Blues looked around below them. "Strange, we wouldn't be going this far with three mushrooms, and I put in three mushrooms!"
"YOU PUT IN THREE MUSHROOMS! I PUT IN THREE MUSHROOMS!" You should know who is saying this by now.
"...I suppose that could explain it. Anyway, we should be landing in a few seconds!"
"I think that's the first place car over there!" pointed Jon ahead.
"MY CAR CAN BARELY HANDLE THREE MUSHROOMS! WITH SIX MUSHROOMS, THE BOOSTER WON'T BE WORKING ANYMORE! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT COSTS TO FIX IT!"
"I don't think we'll have to boost anymore... Uh Jon, you may want to turn a bit the the right!"
Before the Game Master could ask why, Toad's kart crashed right into the first place racer. It was knocked into the wall and received visible damage while the kart ricocheted off the car and barely missed the wall, falling into the abyss yet again.
All of them started screaming as they fell toward the city... until they landed on another part of the track with a loud, but harmless, thud.
"...Well this sucks! Now we're five thousand miles behind everyone!" Toad yelled as he and the other riders got out/off of the car. "And without a boost, we'll never reach the lead car again!"
"Yeah, I hate when you fall off the track and instead of being put back, you land on an earlier part of the path," commented Jon as he stretched his legs, which were sore from being folded up.
"Actually," the robot pointed out, "we're actually ahead of everyone. Look, those are the other cars going around the curve there. The former lead car is the black one there. I suggest we start firing at it"
The racers were blazing right toward them, and while they were quite far away, they were closing in very quickly.
"...FIRE!"
Proto Man fired several shots of his Proto Buster, Jon fired a stream of A-Shots, and Toad launched missiles, but all of them either missed their target or they hit a car that would suddenly go in front of the black one.
"S---, none of them are hitting!"
Jon thought for a while as the cars came closer. "I got it! Everyone, just get out of the way of the race!" When they did, Jon pressed the START button. The delay ended, time paused and all of the cars stood in place. By this point, the cars were in walking distance, so Jones went up to the black racer, got on top, and unpaused.
The shock of the sudden movement when he restarted time left the Game Master reeling a bit, but he managed to recover, and when he got a good grip, he turned his controller into the Light Gun and fired a string of A-Shots at the damaged car. Just before it exploded, Jon airdodged off of it and double-jumped out of the way of the others, leaving only the lock. With the range clear, both Blues and Toad fired at it and the crystal eventually shattered.
End "Big Blue Theme"
"Well thank god that's over," commented Proto Man.
The Game Master pulled out his GBA. "I'll e-mail Crazy Hand."
After a while, the response came.
I got your e-mail. I'm creating a shortcut from where you are back to the main link room. I'm not going to upload you back to the real world until I finish the scan of the area, because the fact that you were uploaded onto the computer gives me the suspicion that the fighters may have been trapped in an on-line area too. Also, the invaders may be in the mainframe room, so it wouldn't be a good idea to go back there until I knew for sure.
The link will appear in a few minutes, and the scan will take ten minutes and then ten more minutes to scan the computers if the fighters aren't in the real world.
Signed, Crazy Hand
Dated 12:13 PM
As the e-mail said, the link back to the main room materialized near the three after a few minutes-it was nothing fancy, just a small white arrow jutting out of the side of the track-and the fighters walked into it, finding themselves back in the Hand Stadium Stage Network Main Database.
"I guess we'll just wait here," said Jon as he pulled out his GBA and started playing a game.
-I
-I
"... Dan, do you see those guys following us?" asked Bill from the second seat to the left.
"Yeah, I do," Dan the driver replied, keeping a close eye on the tailing cars through the rear-view mirror.
"Hey Hippy, did you see that bumper sticker!" Eggplant Wizard asked, not stuck in the window anymore. "It was high-larious!"
"No! I missed it!" King Hippo admitted.
"Well that's okay, there's another car with a bumper sticker just like it!"
"I see it! DFE563H! Hahahahahahahahahaha!"
"I know! The best part was FE!"
"Yeah, but you shouldn't forget the 3H!"
Sam looked toward the back seat where the two were. "That's the tenth license plate they've found funny. Am I missing something?"
Suddenly, Eggplant Wizard looked back toward the following cars. "Hey! It's those sucky cheerleaders from before!"
"Sucky cheerleaders?" asked Manny. "Do you know those guys, Eggplant Wizard?"
"Yeah, they were hanging around in that last town with guns and cigarettes and drugs and knives and graffiti and head-flag-things and sunglasses and a different thing!"
"...So you called some Los Santos gangsters sucky cheerleaders!" asked Bill.
"Holy crap, this is bad," replied Dan. "We have to get out of here."
"Look! They're pulling out guns!" yelled one of the as-of-yet-unnamed band members.
"I see them, Will," Dan replied. "We're going to have to go off-ro-"
Bullets started firing at the bus, and everyone cowered in their seats, but for some reason, none of them seemed to have hit.
"What?" asked Sam. All of the band looked back toward the gang members' cars and saw what seemed to be a purple streak hovering right behind the bus. Every time a bullet was fired, the streak would change in order to halt it.
"It must be Eggplant Wizard," commented Manny.
"No one tries to attack a jazz band and gets away with it! I'm going to... ah, never mind. Dan, crank up the radio!" ordered Bill.
"Song From the Blues Brothers Scene Where The Two Go On Stage Near the End"
"Or that could work. Either way, let's go!"
Dan shifted gears an the bus shot off. I could give you a long chase, but there was just a car sequence the last scene.
-I
-I
"Almost... almost... there," said Prof. Gadd as he added a finishing touch to the devise.
"Well, we're finally done," commented Dr. Jones, no relation to the main character. "The Gadd Industries. ShieldBreaker 3-Omega is complete, and just in time at that!"
"I'm very pleased to have worked with you, gentlemen, and all of you will be adequately paid for your efforts. We should get this over to Hand Stadium immediately, and Prof. Bird, you call the general and tell him it's complete," said Master Hand as Dr. Light left to retrieve his flying machine.
The Bad Scientists watched all this. "You know guys," started off Dr. Cortex, "I just realized that we had several opportunities to kill the Good Scientists."
"What do you mean?" replied Dr. Wily.
"Remember when we ransacked their hotel rooms? We could have put some time bombs in them or something. Or when they were working on the shield breaker, we could have ran in there with our guns blazing."
No one spoke.
Dr. Eggman broke the silence after a while, "Now that I think about it, we could have. Fancy that."
Everyone murmured in agreement.
"Either way, there is nothing we kan do about it now," pointed out K. Roolenstein.
"Or can we...?" said Dr. Tongue. "Does anyone have a gun?"
Everyone said, "No," but not at the same time.
"Oh, well, then forget that."
Everyone went back to watching the Good Scientists pack up.
-I
-I
After the Runaway Five bus leaped off of the bridge onto the dirt path, Sam asked, "Are they still following us?"
"Yup, they still are," replied Manny. "Jesus, don't you think they're going a bit to far over being called sucky cheerleaders?"
"Wait, I have an idea! Maybe there's something useful in the mail!" exclaimed Bill. A bunch of the band members got up to look at their shipments.
"I found something!" Will exclaimed. "Some guy won a pokeball through eBay!"
"Well what are you waiting for? Throw it!"
Will pressed the button on the pokeball and a light came out of it. A figure started to form on the ground. It was rather short, had large eyes, and had a propeller on top on its head. As the figure formed, one could see bolts on the surface and that it was robotic in nature.
It spoke. "Hey, what happened? The last thing I remember was that I was going to the stadium for my commentary job and some crazy kid with a backwards baseball cap thought I was a pokemon and captured me. Oh hey, I didn't see you there, my name is Omochao and I am-"
Before Omochao could finish his sentence, Bill grabbed the robot chao and threw him at one of the cars behind them. With a distant scream, the adorable machine tore through the cars and exploded on the road, but he didn't die, unfortunately.
"That's the last useful thing I can find," said Manny.
"Well, we still need to get away from them!" exclaimed Dan.
"Coming right up!" Eggplant Wizard yelled. Suddenly, an eggplant turbo rocket appeared on the back of the bus and with a loud explosion, the vehicle shot forward.
-I
-I
In a hotel room near all of the action and coincidently near a bank lived a man named Joe. He was watching TV.
"Awesome! The comic book convention is tonight and the new episode of "Kickfirstman!" is starting soon, and this one is supposed to have the return of Dr. Muerte!" the man said. "The Smash Bros. Tournament is nice and all, but I wouldn't miss this for the world!"
Suddenly, there was explosion outside at the bank Joe happened to be next to. He then ran to the window and saw a group of robbers running out of the building with large sacks of money as the alarm blared.
"Those have to be the worst bank robbers I've ever seen! I guess I should show them how it's done! Henshin a g-"
Suddenly, a rock song that sounded strangely like "Pegasus Fantasy", the theme of the anime Saint Seiya, blared out of the TV as the clock struck 12:30.
Kickfirstman! (Firstman!) (Firstman!) (Firstman)
"Woah, a new theme song! They didn't say anything about this!" Joe exclaimed as he ran over to his television.
There was gunfire outside, followed by someone yelling, "You'll never take me alive, coppers!" and "Say 'ello ta my little friend!"
"Hmm, I should probably stop them… but it's a new theme song!"
He runs through the night!
And he's gonna p\/\/ns0r your bones!
What can he do? Nobody knows because...
Ooh-ah-eigh! (Eigh!) (Eigh!) (Eigh)
"I need a blank tape!"
Evil Bob Solo!
Is gonna come and p\/\/ns0r you bones!
What can you do?
Have salmon kill for you!
"I guess Silvia won't mind if I record over her copy of "Random Romance Movie 3". It'll only be a few minutes anyway." Joe placed the tape in the VCR and pressed record. He was about to walk away, but he decided to stick around for the rest of the opening.
Kickfirst's gonna kick your ass!
And he will kick it well!
Just look at these guys, he will p\/\/ns0r their bones
Just like head-cha-la...
Kickfirstman!
There's the girl who wrote "do-do-do"
Kickfirstman!
There's the man who said "----", oh yeah!
Kickfirstman!
There's the guy who killed Yogi Bear
Kickfirstman! Is gonna kick his!
His very soooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuul!
"Well, that was a great theme song, but it's time for action! Henshin a go go, baby!" Joe struck a pose and his body was engulfed by light. Suddenly, his skin seemed to fly of his body, revealing red tights, white gloves, white boots, a large white boomerang emblem, and a long white scarf.
After a stylish scene transition, Joe jumped onto the top of the bank from off screen and looked down at the criminals, who were shooting at police officers hiding behind their cars. --insert witty remark--. The robbers looked up at the superhero.
"Who are you!" yelled one of them.
The nerd then started posing. "My name is Joe." He made another pose. "Viewtiful Joe!" The criminals started shooting at the hero, but he avoided all of the blasts by jumping down the building and landing right behind them. A message appeared in the air.
GO FOR IT!
Joe started beating up everyone with moves that were of great viewty when the Runaway Five bus drove by with its eggplant rocket boosters. Coincidently, at the same time, Joe used his Slow ability to have everything go in slow motion, which made all of his attacks twice as powerful and increased the thrust of the bus's engine. A lot.
"Wooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaah!" all of the band members yelled when the Slow Motion ended and the bus lifted off of the ground. After a while, the vehicle started to fly above all of the buildings.
"Uh... Dan... could you tell us where we're going?" asked Sam.
"I have no idea, Sam. No idea," Dan the driver replied with full honesty.
Soon, the bus was in space.
"Hey, EG, there's an atmosphere down there!" exclaimed King Hippo.
"Let's jump out the window and beat it up for being so breathable!" Eggplant Wizard responded.
Thus, the two jumped out the window and floated out in space.
"Well what do you know, they managed not to get stuck this time," commented Manny as he looked back.
"Doesn't really help our situation, though," Bill pointed out. "Oh, Dan, by the way, have you noticed that we're heading right toward that dimensional star?"
"How are we breathing up here?" Will queried, but he was ignored.
Dan responded. "Yeah, I see it. I just hope we don't crash into a something in that dimension."
The bus collided with the star and after a flash of light, they found themselves in a completely different area of space on collision course with a planet.
Everyone screamed as they entered the atmosphere. Thankfully, the eggplant blob that earlier protected them from the bullets also prevented them from burning up, so that problem was solved. Unfortunately, they were still going to crash into the ground. This turned out not to be so, however, as they luckily landed on a steep road going down a hill that slowly leveled out. After a few minutes of going down the empty road, the bus slowed to a stop with no one harmed.
No one said anything for a while.
"... Well... that was... strange," said Sam.
"Hey, I just noticed, we're right in front of one of the warps to the Reel World," Manny revealed, pointing to an old movie theater ahead. "We just need to activate the key that came with our letter from Phantomile to get in that world."
"What're the chances of that?" asked Will.
Thus, they drove to the Reel World, delivered the mail, and their job was done.
-I
-I
Jon's GBA beeped, so he turned off his game and switched to his e-mail account. "Well, we finally got the e-mail. Let's see where everyone is."
I finished the scan. As you may have guessed by how long it took, none of the fighters could be found under the stadium. However, we did find them on the network, specifically in the Fourside Adventure. Why there, we don't know for sure. It isn't exactly the best area to hide, but this may be because the kidnapper felt that his plan would have been complete by the time he was found, because he didn't feel the need to hide within a hiding place, or because he wanted his encounter with you guys to be in a city environment for whatever reason.
There's one thing that is odd, however. During your entire adventure, you have never been attacked by any of the gray creatures on the network, despite the fact that they quite clearly had the capability to do so. One may presume that this is because of one of two things: 1. they are playing with you like a cat toys with a mouse before it is eaten, or 2. they don't know where you are or what you're doing.
Evidence supports number two, however. The monsters didn't even appear until a few minutes before you broke the lock in the first adventure, they didn't attack again until you broke into the mainframe room, and when you got on the network, they altered the programming instead of going in. This last one implies that there are less of these creatures than we thought. Thus, the kidnapper doesn't exactly have much control over this entire situation, but he's still very popular so you should be careful.
As mentioned before, they changed all of the adventure programming, not just Mute City. They altered Fourside by placing background buildings that you cannot enter in the path, so you would have to scale the buildings, but I rewrote the programming again so that there is a tunnel right through all of them, but you should hurry in case they fix it.
Finally, after 10 minutes, hopefully once you free the prisoners, I'll download all of you to the Smash Ring, where the army will be waiting-the scientists have completed the shield breaker and are bringing it here right now-in case the gray creatures are downloaded too. When the downloaded ones are defeated, the army will comb the arena depths.
Signed, Crazy Hand
Dated 12:34 PM
"... Popular?" asked Jon, referring to the end of paragraph 3.
"I think he means 'powerful' Jones," replied Proto Man. "Even giant hands make typos."
"Anyway, we better come up with a plan or something in case the gray things are there," the Game Master suggested. "First of all, judging from all of the facts given to us, it should be assumed that the creatures are in fact Starmen from the Earthbound games. They are powerful psychics with several abilities and there are several types.
Starman Jr. has 200 HP, infinite PP, 11 OFF, 10 DEF, 1 SPD, 80 IQ, 0 GUTS, gives 16 EXP, and gives $20. It can guard, use PSI Fire Alpha, use PSI Fire Beta, and PSI Freeze Alpha. However, as far as I know, only one was made, and it was killed by Buzz Buzz the bee, so it won't be a problem.
Starmen have 545 HP, 155 PP, 103 OFF, 126 DEF, 24 SPD, 16 IQ, 25 GUTS, give 23396 EXP, and leaves $720. They can fire beams, use PSI Magnet Alpha, Shield Alpha, Guard, and use Sudden Guts Pills. They don't have any elemental PSIs, so it can't be them.
And... wait, dammit, it can't be the Starmen."
"Why not?" asked Proto Man.
"I just realized, no Starmen besides Jr. can use elemental PSI attacks like Fire and Freeze, and like I said there aren't any more Starmen Jr.s."
"Well, either way, the gray things can fly and shoot fire, ice, and lightning, and in my mind, that's all we need to know. The way I see it, they aren't too much of a problem. Remember, like Crazy Hand said a while ago, the on line network copies the entire Hand Matter thing, so the attacks will only knock us farther and farther back. However, they can still knock us off the screen, so we can't just walk into every attack or anything."
Blues stopped and smacked Toad on his head, who was jumping up and down upside down, not paying attention.
He started again. "Like I was saying, we first have to find out what kind of cage everyone is being kept in, so as soon as we go in the area, Jon has to pause and go investigate. If it needs a key, he'll have to go look for that too. If he can get the key without any trouble, he should and come back to us with it. If he can't, he'll come back to us and we'll go get it. Then, we'll free everyone while someone distracts the guards. If he can't find the key, he'll come back and we'll assume that we have to defeat one of the guards to get it. If-"
Proto Man was interrupted by Jon's Game Boy Advance beeping.
"It looks like we got another e-mail from Crazy Hand," commented Jon.
The shield is down and the army will be arriving any second now. I've e-mailed to tell you something I just found out.
You don't have to free the fighters, just go to Fourside and I'll upload everyone to the Smash Ring. To understand this, let me first explain something to you. There is a difference between copying objects to the Smash Ring as solid-light holograms and downloading uploaded objects there as actual objects. For the actual objects, it seems that only objects uploaded through the mainframe room, or the Smash Ring apparently, can be downloaded back to the real world. For the holograms, everything saved on the hard drive is copied to the ring, but not people uploaded to it like you.
So, assuming the cage, like the buildings on the path and the holes in them, is now part of the programming, then everyone will be saved by uploading them to the ring. I'm having you go to Fourside, too, because it would be simpler than going through the entire path back to the entrance.
You'll still be brought to the Smash Ring in eight minutes.
Signed, Crazy Hand
Dated 12:36 PM
"... You know, it took a full minute to process that plan," revealed Proto Man. "All that time... wasted..."
"Well okay then, let's go," Jon said as he started walking toward the link to Fourside.
"Wait," the robot said. "It would still be a could idea to come up with a plan."
"For what? We just have to go in there and wait for eight more minutes. We don't even have to be anywhere near everyone else! Nothing will happen."
Thus, everyone walked into the link. In the city, the gray creatures stood right in front of them, staring.
"... So, they were Starmen."
Toad looked at the Game Master. "You have damned us all!"
LATER
The three were carried by the Starmen through a city of tall skyscrapers toward the center along the 2D path. The gray aliens had a shiny surface with a strange black symbol on their chests. It was an upside-down triangle with two columns of rectangles below it-the first had two long ones and the other had a single shorter one. Their heads were parabolas pointing upward connecting directly to their bodies without any neck. In the center of their head was a black strip going across, acting as a visor. At their shoulders were silver tentacles around the length of a normal arm. They had knee-less legs and metal plates for feet, but this didn't really matter as they preferred hovering above the ground as opposed to walking.
After a few minutes, the travelers were tossed into a semitransparent, hollow, yellow hemisphere which closed up when they were placed inside.
Proto Man got up and started tapping on the edge of the sphere. "Well, this sucks. There is some good in all this, though. I'd say there's about a 100 guarantee that this sphere was programmed in here, not uploaded. All we have to do is wait here for about five more minutes."
Jon too got up and started looking around. "Hey, there's another sphere thing over there. Maybe that's where all of the fighters are being kept."
The robot searched the inside of the sphere. "Hey, I just noticed, Toad's been gone since Crazy Hand's last e-mail."
Suddenly, outside of the sphere, a loud, disgusting voice spoke. "I'm glad to see you finally got here, butt-munchers!"
"Toad, is that you?" asked Blues. It was quite difficult to turn around in a sphere with another guy so it took a few seconds to find the speaker. Eventually, both Blues and Jon came face to face with a short fat kid with a blond mullet in a stereotypical evil overlord outfit with an overly large collar. Oh, and he had green skin.
"You don't recognize me, snot-licker! After what all you guys d-"
One of the Starmen teleported to the fat kid's side and whispered something in his ear.
"Oh, right, time travel, didn't happen yet, yadda yadda. Anyway, I think you ball-suckers might as well know who I am before I-"
Jon interrupted him. "You're Pokey, one of the villains from the Earthbound game. At the beginning of the game, you're just Ness's cowardly neighbor, but later, you get corrupted by the power of Giygas and eventually become his second-in-command. Since Giygas was killed at the end of Earthbound, all of his forces must have been left under your control. You used to have normal colored skin, but by the end of the game, Giygas's corruption turned your skin green."
"He's the mastermind behind all this? The supposed second-in-command of the intergalactic conquerer Giygas, who happens to be a short fat kid? No offense, but you look too stupid to control an army like that," said Proto Man.
"Hey, no butt-farter interrupts and insults Evil Overlord Pokey and gets away with it! I'm gonna kill all of-"
The Starman whispered to Pokey again.
"Oh, right, I was already going to do that. Anyway, I've got this speech all ready for all of the earwax-chompers in Videoland. I'm going to practice it on you guys, m'kay?"
"Uh, well, I never liked speeches..." Jon said.
"Sure, why not," Proto Man responded. He gave Jon a quick nod.
The fat kid pulled out a bunch of notecards. "Ahem. Hello, fart-sniffers! I own you! While you bean-belchers were doing all this past-y stuff, Evil Overlord Pokey here has been building a time machine in the future to come back to the time before the Third Coming of Giygas! In case you beef-tossers don't realize what's going to happen a few years in the future, Giygas would have returned for the third time-"
Inside the sphere cage, Proto Man whispered to the Game Master, "Third time?"
"The first time was in the Japan-only game Mother. Earthbound is the second time and is called Mother 2 in Japan. The third time, like he implied, hasn't happened yet," he responded.
"-and Giygas was literally pumping out these soldiers, I mean seriously, you'd think he was a frisky rabbit or something. Then, he decided that he should have control over more than just the wheat-farters on EB-Earth and spread his plans to all of Videoland, and we were kicking the collective butts of everyone, until all of the puke-sucking fighters starting screwing everything up i-"
"Information on the future?" whispered Proto Man. "Should we really be listening? This could cause one of the universe-destroying paradoxes."
"Well, nothing's imploded yet, so there's nothing to worry about, I guess," remarked the Game Master. "Just try not to think about it right now."
"-and Giygas was smashed by those bee-chuggers like that, leaving me here with no troops, just these weed-wacking Starmen Jr. prototypes. I still wanted to take over the world and all, so I used my great intelligence to work all day and night on them for years-"
"Wait, we just missed how we beat Giygas in the future," Jon pointed out silently.
"Let's just stop talking until he finishes," the robot responded.
"-but I could go back in time, kill all of the fighters who helped stop Giygas, who were all coincidently in this tournament except for Captain N and some other guys apparently, taunt all of the barf-eaters in this time with this message, and go back to my time, and live in a world where I rule... oh, and Giygas too. Anyway, I killed all of the poop-tossers by uploading them all onto the Hand Stadium computers and deleting everything, including them, not only killing them, but making it impossible for there to be another tournament, breaking the spirit of Videoland or whatever. Anyway, in conclusion, I rule you, yadda yadda, I'll be going to the altered future now. After I finish my speech, I'll start playing the theme from Back to the Future during the credits for my awesome broadcast, you know, the one with the lyrics and starts with 'Take me away, I don't mind. Just promise me I'll be back in time!', not the big orchestra one. So, what do you think, back-feelers?"
Jon started critiquing. "Well, it's pretty nice, but shouldn't you be a bit more formal?"
"Why should I be nice to all of the past-farters here? They're all past-y and farting and stuff."
"I have a question," stated Blues the red robot. "Why did you go through the trouble of capturing us when you were going to kill us anyway?"
"I was going to videotape all of you whale-bombers slowly being deleted for the world to see and broadcast it after my speech, and it wouldn't work without everyone there."
"Ah, okay, that makes sense. So why were the Starmen trying to kill us in the real world?"
"Well... uhh..." Suddenly, everyone was engulfed by a bright light. "What? Who ordered an uploading!"
"Uploading? It's about time Crazy Hand started!" exclaimed Jones.
"Evil Overlord Pokey!" psychically exclaimed a Starmen. "We're being uploaded to the Smash Ring, and apparently the Main Region army is there waiting!"
"How many Starmen Jr. MKII do we have on this program?" asked Pokey.
"Ten."
"Then when we get there, use Operation Barf Magnet!"
"Operation Barf Magnet, which reads: Start beating up everyone while I run away?"
"Yeah, that one."
After a few more seconds, everyone disappeared from the area, leaving behind everything, including the sphere cages.
-I
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"Are they coming in?" asked the army general.
"Yes, any second now," responded Crazy Hand.
Above the Smash Ring, some staticy figures started forming.
"There they are right now. All of the fighters should be the big group on the far edge. The Game Master, Proto Man, and Toad should be that group of three people near the center. Everyone else is the enemy," explained Master Hand.
The general reiterated this information, but added, "You know your targets, men. Ready your weapons."
Surrounding the Smash Ring in the stands were several soldiers of all intelligent species, armed with laser rifles, plasma grenades, energy blasters, Mini Bill guns, and several other weapons. On the ground around the arena were the heavier weapons-space tanks, Bill tanks with Banzai Bill cannons as the main gun and Bullet Bills as support, missile launchers (just in case, it would be a bit counterproductive to fire them with the soldiers around) and more-along with energy sword wielding foot soldiers for some reason. Floating above them were attack helicopters armed with several weapons and robot fighters, including plasma cannons and smart mines that attach to the enemy and blow up.
"Sir, the images are clearing and the targets have been confirmed," stated one of the lower ranking members.
"Fire at my command." The figures above the ring remained staticy for a few more seconds, but they managed to clear. "Fire!"
All of the soldiers fired at the hovering Starmen as the foot soldiers used dash thrusters to jump in and rescue everyone there. Accidentally, one of the troops grabbed Pokey. All of them were carried away from to action out of the stadium and placed outside of police tape surrounding the building. When everyone was outside, the speakers announced, "Please, do not come inside the stadium. While we would appreciate your help normally, most us you are still under effect of Master Hand's drug that weakens you to fight in the tournament and would be more of a hindrance than help. I repeat, please do not come inside the stadium. While we would appreciate your help normally, most us you are still under effect of Master Hand's drug that weakens you to fight in the tournament and would be more of a hindrance than help. Thank you." With that, Pokey started tiptoeing away as he spoke into a wristwatch-phone, "Keep on fighting those guys while I make my daring escape!"
Back in the stadium, most of the first volley hit the Starmen, keeping them in roughly the same place since the shots came from all directions. As the larger weapons reloaded, the soldiers in the stands distracted them with lasers, energy, and Bills. They were hit again, but the aliens recovered more quickly and all ten of them fired psychic attacks at the stands, quickly taking out large groups. The tanks and other ground weapons fired another round at the Starmen, but most of them managed to teleport out of the way and used PSI to attack them, but they stood up to the blasts thanks to increased armor. When the airborne weapons joined in on the assault, two of the aliens were killed, leaving eight. All of the smart mines were ordered to attach to three of the Starmen Jr. MKII and when they did, they quickly blew up, damaging, but not quite killing-they were taken out by another volley of fire. This left only five Starmen.
Because this battle wasn't as interesting as I thought it was going to be, I'll just skip to the aftermath. Basically, the army wins. I should remember that big battle scenes aren't a good thing for a novice writer to include in fan fiction.
-I
-I
Outside of the stadium, Jon and Proto Man discussed what they should do. "So, we learned about the future from the fat kid," the robot stated. "We learned that Giygas the dimensional conquerer will be coming back in the future and that all the fighters here led to his defeat. We also learned that in order to prevent Pokey from coming here and such, we have to destroy all of the Starmen Jr. so he can't upgrade them or capture him. But if we do that, then he can't come back here to give us the information that led us to stop him."
"We could just say that it caused a new dimension to split off at the point where Pokey appeared here," Jon suggested.
"...Oh, well, that's okay then."
After all that, the fighters went back to the hotel room to relax, awaiting the news on what the Hands would do for the tournament now and they all received free coffee as retribution. As it turned out, Toad fell asleep in the Hand Stadium Database, which is why he wasn't with everyone else. He was found when the network and underground areas were searched for any straggling Starmen. Jon, Proto Man, and Toad got free tickets to the next preliminary round. They didn't really appreciate it. Eventually, at seven o'clock that night, the news announced that the Hand Brothers would delay the tournament until February next year, making it the first time the tournament would be done twice in the same year.
The next day, after everyone left, security found Pokey sneaking into the underground area, but he downloaded himself onto the computer before they could stop him, but not before he mooned them. It seemed that his time machine was one of the unknown devices moved to the online database until it was uploaded for further study, but it thankfully only had enough power to return back to the time he came from before it would overload and blow up.
The tournament's missing announcer, Omochao, was found in Sony's Main Region for some odd reason a few days later.
And in case you're wondering, yes, Viewtiful Joe had fun at his comic book convention.
-I
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NEXT TIME ON CAPTAIN N: 2005!
"Instrumental Version Of Captain N 2005 Theme Song"
"The following episode was supposed to take place on Christmas of 2004, in case you're wondering. Anyway, it's Christmas and stuff happens. I foil a band robbery, Proto Man and Bass meet, Knuckles the Echidna fights soccer moms, and stuff like that. Anyway, that's pretty much all there is to it."
"Be sure to read/watch Captain N Level 5: The Very Late Christmas Special!"
"Pikaburgers taste good."