Disclaimer: I do not own any of the material appearing in this story. The OC's belong to their respective owners.

BGM: World 2 Map (Super Mario 3D Land)

"So, young maiden, I have to ask… what kind of semblance is that?" Shovel Knight asked Maia.

"Hmm? Oh, well, the funny thing is, I never thought a Nobody like me would even have a Semblance." Maia explained. "Let alone aura. I mean, I'm just an empty shell… I still don't know what I even am, to be perfectly honest. My memory is still… blank."

"Ah… forgive me for prying, I was just curious."

"Oh no no, it's fine." Maia waved it off. "A few weeks ago, I unlocked my aura and semblance. Little Red over there crafted me these new weapons." She showed them off. "Akechi was visiting one day and he saw the new weapons and, well, he called them Spring's Rebirth."

"I see!"

"As for my semblance, it's called Spring Breeze. Essentially, I can control the wind."

"Wind manipulation… fascinating!"

Nearby, Lea let out a chuckle. "That's interesting, she was born a few weeks ago and she's quite the chatterbox. I think during that time, Roxas was finally able to speak complete sentences. He could even barely utter a few words."

"Yeah, you kept calling him a zombie." Xion giggled.

Lea playfully elbowed her too. "You were a zombie too."

"I was not!"

"Yeah, you were!" He grinned.

"Maia was able to speak in full sentences after she was born? I don't know if I should be disappointed in Roxas or not." Isa said.

"You can always just tease him." Lea pointed out.

"Isa… teasing?" Xion chuckled. "Yeah, you might want to teach him not to be so blunt first!"

"I was not that bad." Isa responded.

Pause BGM

"Demyx, you need to stop being such a baby and fight those Heartless."

"I do not know what you see in those two, Axel. Those two are just tools."

"Yeesh, did you wake up with a stick up your ass or something?"

"You are a puppet, nothing more."

"Hah, a puppet with emotions? Please, don't make me laugh."

"Larxene, stop reading those gossip magazines."

"Why don't you mind your own business, asshole!"

"Saix, was the mission a success?"

"The mission was as successful as you'd think, Xemnas."

"Axel, it's a puppet. I don't get what the big deal is."

"We don't accept resignations."

"I've got nothing to say to you."

"Then let's make this short and sweet."

Resume BGM

"Yeeeah, I've heard you tended to be quite blunt." Ven said.

"Aaaand a bit of an ass." Lea added in.

Isa rolled his eyes. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Reminds me of when you used to be like that." Weiss whispered to Blake.

"Was I…? I don't think I was." Blake said.

"Alright, you keep telling yourself that." Weiss chuckled, scratching her behind the ear and walked off.

"No, seriously, I wasn't that bad!"

"…Uh… Chiaki-chan, we might have a problem coming up." Ibuki said.

"What do you mean?" Chiaki asked.

"Look!" Ibuki pointed ahead, seeing flip panels up ahead.

"Hmm? Oh! Well, it shouldn't be that ba-" She paused, seeing everyone in the group as she grimaced. "Oooh…" She then closed her eyes, remembering a certain level she played in 3D World with Ibuki and Sonia.

"Waaaah!"

"Whoops, sorry!"

"Man, Ibuki forgot how chaotic this level can be with a few players!"

"Hup-" The panel flipped over, causing Chiaki to fall to the ground. "Aww…"

"Sorry Chiaki!" Sonia apologized.

Chiaki cringed. "Ooooh, this is gonna be brutal…"

Ibuki nodded. "Yeah… hey, at least on the bright side, this is nothing like Cakewalk Flip."

"True, but there's still bottomless pits we have to worry about."

"Riiiight… we'll figure that out!"

World 2-4 - Flipping Around

BGM: Chainlink Charge (Super Mario 3D World)

"Oh, I remember these things!" Pyrrha said. "Jaune, remember Flip Swap Galaxy?"

"How could I forget?" Jaune chuckled, remembering how he got launched high into the air.

"Oh, you guys had fun without us, eh?" Nora teased.

"How do those even work?" Laxus wondered.

"Simple." Pyrrha jumped up as the platform flipped, going from red to blue.

"My word! It went from red to blue!" Sarge exclaimed, then pumped his shotgun. "Hey, platform! Turn back to the superior color, you Benedict Arnold!" He threatened, causig Pyrrha to snicker as she jumped again, turning it back to red. "That's more like it!"

"Threatening platforms… so that's how low Red Team's sunk now." Grif said.

"We only sink too low if we land on the blue platforms, Grif!" Sarge pointed out.

Epsilon sweatdropped. "Riiiiiiiiight…"

"How much do you wanna bet that Sarge is only going to stick with red panels?" Tucker whispered.

"AIs don't bet." Epsilon said. "…But I'll wager a hundred coins."

"You're on!"

Rosalina looked up ahead. "Hmm… I'll go ahead and catch you if you fall."

"We'll do the same." Xena said as she and Rosalina levitated off the ground. Ibuki hopped on her hoverboard.

"Need a ride, Chiaki-chan?"

"Nah, I got my own ride of transportation." Chiaki smiled, having just summoned Beat.

"Ah, Beat-chan. Nice~!"

"I also called out Rush just in case." Chiaki added, hearing a happy robotic bark while the Branwens simply turned into birds, Summer floated up while Maia manipulated the wind around her to lift herself off the ground while Gloria went into her Beedrill form.

"Alright, let's try to figure this out." Dark Pit said.

"Yeah, let's go!" Pit said as they jumped across the first platform, though the others simply climbed over as they walked ahead and saw the flip panels up ahead.

"…Wait a sec." Ruby decided to walk on the corners of the red panels, climbing over the platform easily. "Hey, you don't even have to jump!"

"Hahaha! It's perpetually red!" Sarge exclaimed as he walked over as did the others, but then Ruby turned her head to see Grimm Stingbies charging at them rapidly, shooting out acid at them.

"Wah!" Ruby side stepped out of the way and quickly used her silver eyes to disintegrate them. "Great, these things spit acid!"

"Eugh, that's disgusting…" Blake grimaced as they safely walked through the red panels and climbed over the platforms, though Mario instinctively jumped over the platforms, which would cause Luigi and Grif, who were still on the panels, fell over.

"WAAAAAH!" Both of them yelled.

"Whoops." Mario sheepishly rubbed his head as Rosalina and Xena telekinetically caught the two and brought them back up.

"Nice going." Daisy shook her head. "You two okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Luigi nodded.

"You'd be surprised how often I fall." Grif mumbled as they walked through the platforms and spotted a dark portal opening up as Grimm Goombas appeared, where they immediately started to attack them and headbonked them, only for Laxus to easily destroy them with Nora helping out.

They would then turn around and hopped down where they would see spiked bars and blue panels, but a jump from Sarge made them go back to red. "Ha! Try as you like, you can't make me go on blue!" He said proudly as they went ahead, where unfortunately, there seemed to be no other way to get across other than making the panels go blue.

"Well, that's a problem for you, isn't it?" Epsilon said smugly.

"Nope. I refuse to budge!"

"Hmm…" Chiaki looked at a Super Note Block as she decided to jump up, but in turn, it caused Sarge to fall. Luckily, everyone saw this and jumped up to the beat.

"AAAAAAAAH!" Sarge yelled as Xena caught him and took him to the other side. "Dag blast it! These red panels are turncoats!" He complained as Ibuki watched Chiaki launch high into the air.

"Nice going, gamer girl." Ibuki giggled as they made their way over while Rosalina spotted a ? Block high into the air. She curiously flew over and hit it as a 1-Up popped out. With a smile, she took it.

"Maybe that could be of some use later." She said, storing it in her pocket as Chiaki landed on the ground nearby.

"Aaaand that's another 1-Up for later!"

"How did your ankles not shatter?" Maia wondered.

"Eh, you get used to it when you're flying through space." Chiaki said as she walked off.

"I'm sorry, space?" Maia sweatdropped.

I'm still jealous… Ven thought as they hopped down a platform where they saw regular Stingbies fighting against their Grimm counterparts, only for the reguar Stingbies to melt from the acid that was sprayed against them.

"Ooooh, that's a horrid way to go!" Ibuki grimaced as Rosalina swiftly threw down meteors to destroy the Grimm Stingbies.

"You missed the spike bars!" Tucker said.

"Ah, they're no big deal." Mario waved it off as they walked ahead, carefully timing their jumps as Chiaki attempted to jump, but the blue panel switched back to red.

"Wha?!" Chiaki yelped as Beat grabbed her and flapped his wings hard as he could to get her back up… only for the panel to come down and smacked Beat upside the head. "Oh!" Chiaki winced as Rush came over in his Rush Jet form and caught the two. "Thanks!" Chiaki smiled, cradling Beat in her arms and gently rubbing his head as she flew back up to meet the others as Pit, Ruby, Weiss, Shield Knight, Ren, Tai, Dorothea, Epsilon, Donut, and even Xion had all fallen but Rosalina and Xena caught them all and brought them back, and then Luigi took the flagpole.

End BGM

"Alright, no need to worry about all of that anymore!" Luigi said, watching Chiaki dismiss Rush and Beat.

"Uh… it's still flipping!" Ruby pointed out.

"Maybe it's glitchin'." Gloria said.

"Eh… let's not worry about that." Yang waved it off as she walked off.

"Hmm…" Byleth rubbed her chin. "Could a platform truly glitch…?"

"Got me." Dorothea shrugged as they walked off along with the others, and about a minute later, the armadillo Faunus hopped down. He looked at the flagpole with a curious expression before he turned around and continued to follow them.

Up ahead, the group would see a few airships above them. "Looks like we're going up there!" Ruby said.

"So uh… do we have any ways to get up there?" Ven wondered.

They heard a whistle, where they turned around to see Blake near a cannon. "We could try this!" She said.

"That's a bit extreme." Maia sweatdropped.

"Extremely fun!" Caboose added as he immediately jumped in and blasted off. "Weeeeeee!"

"That's gonna take a while with just one cannon." Daisy said as Mario noticed a ! Block and hit it, as multiple cannons rose up from the ground. "Alright, now we're talkin'!"

"…Oh boy." Laxus sweatdropped.

World 2-Airship: Bombs Away

BGM: Bowser Jr's Airship Armada (Super Mario Galaxy)

Caboose landed on the ship. "That was fun!" He said as everyone else landed on the ship.

"Alright, let's-a go!" Mario said as they walked ahead.

"Laxus, hold on a moment." Rosalina said as he groggily turned around, then she placed her hand on his chest as an aura surrounded him. She then pulled her hand away. "How do you feel?"

"I feel… great. What did you do to me?"

"Simple. I temporarily got rid of your motion sickness. It should last around a few hours." She said.

"Heh… that reminds me of a trick Wendy used to do for us." He said and nodded at Rosalina. "Thank you." He turned around and walked off.

"You're welcome." Rosalina smiled and hopped down where a few Burners activated and shot out dark plasmic electricity to try and shock them, but they avoided these easily as they would spot a tightrope, and would see a yellow helmet on the other side.

"Oh, joy… Mets." Chiaki groaned. "Of course they'd be at the end of the tight rope." She said as Laxus decided to fire a lightning bolt, but it didn't do anything. "It's no good, those things are invincible!"

"Helmets can't be invincible… the hell?" Laxus wondered as the helmet sprang up, revealing it to be a Grimm Met as it spat out bullets at them, but they would dodge it.

"Oh! Ibuki's always wanted to try this!" Ibuki jumped on the tight rope and jumped over, then landed near the Grimm Met and picked it up. It's eyes widened as it kicked its feet in the air as she dropped it into the abyss. "See ya~!"

Chiaki smiled. "That… was actually pretty cathartic."

"That was probably cathartic for all the Mega Man fans out there too." Ibuki glanced at the screen and winked, then a few Bullet Bills flew by. Luckily, they were just the standard Bullet Bills as everyone waited for them to cross, or Pyrrha just simply redirected them as they all made it across.

Once they made it to the second airship, a few Grimm Rocky Wrenches came out and threw bombs out at them, forcing them to return it back to sender or dodge them. One Rocky Wrench threw a bomb, but Dark Pit caught it and shoved it back into the manhole and stood on top of it, where it exploded underneath him.

"Heh, worth it." Dark Pit said as they walked off as Grimm Bills started shooting out, where they hit the walls and exploded into shrapnel, hoping to hurt them but Rosalina put up a force field to protect them as the Grimm Bills harmlessly slammed into the force field.

"Yeesh… this is quite intense…" Nyx said as they would find the Warp Pipe as they would all go inside.

End BGM

Once they all entered the room, they would see a young man land on the ground in front of them. "About time you dimwits got here."

"Mercury?!" Yang exclaimed in shock as Mercury had his arms folded.

"Sup?"

"Heeeeey, there you are!" Nora said. "Emerald's been worried sick about ya!"

"…She has?" Mercury asked in surprise.

"Yeah, she works for the Winter Ops, but her main priority has always been trying to look for you." Ruby said. "Her teammates are also helping her out."

"What about that hag?"

"Cinder? As far as I know, she's hangin' at Bowser's Castle." Yang said.

"Marn told me she cooks for them now." Gloria said.

"…And she hasn't poisoned them? That's impressive."

"Yeah, but she doesn't trust her at all, no matter how many times she's heard praise about her cooking."

"Tch… well, good for those two, I guess." Mercury folded his arms. "I'm living my best life alone, thank you very much."

"So you're controlling these Grimm?" Ruby asked.

"What, do I look like I have the power to do that shit?" Mercury rolled his eyes. "Whatever, just come at me with everything you got… not that I care." He mumbled.

"Are you… feeling okay?" Weiss asked.

"Yes, I'm fine. Thanks for asking. Now go ahead, clobber me and move on. I could care less…"

"Ahahahaha! Don't tell me you're willingly going to submit yourself to a painful beating!"

BGM: Dimentio, Charming Magician (Super Paper Mario)

Mercury stiffened as Dimentio appeared before them. "Where would the fun in that be?"

"YOU!" Ruby growled, instinctively going into her Zinogre form.

"Settle down there, fido. I'm not here to fight you."

"Who's that?" Byleth asked.

"That would be Dimentio." Yang said with a low voice.

Byleth's eyes widened. "So… he was the one who shoved Ruby into-" She quickly brought out the Sword of the Creator.

"Get lost, clown." Mercury spat.

"Hahaha, I'm just here to give you some motivation." Dimentio said, snapping his fingers as an aura surrounded Mercury.

"Rrrgh! Mmmph! AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" Mercury cried, falling on both knees and clutching his head as suddenly, metal started to form around his arms.

"Now then, let's make this fair, shall we? Let's randomize~!" He said, snapping his fingers where everyone started glowing, and then they all disappeared, save for Iris, Umber, Shovel Knight, Yang, and Weiss.

"Huh?!" Yang exclaimed.

"What is the meaning of this wizardry!" Shovel Knight demanded.

"I simply put them in Dimension D, where they will only get out once you defeat Mercury. Although considering I upgraded him, I highly doubt you'll get that chance. I'll just be sitting here eating popcorn and watching you get pummeled by him!" He moved up to a high place. "Now Mercury, dispose of these fools!"

"…Yes, Master Dimentio." He said, his voice sounding semi robotic as the five of them got in their battle stances.

BGM: Spark Man Stage (Super Smash Bros for Wii U/3DS)

Unwilling Pawn - Mercury

Mercury rushed at the five where Iris jumped ahead, bringing out her sword and slashed him, but Mercury caught her sword with one hand as his metal hand crackled with electricity and slugged her in the gut, making Iris slide back a few feet as Yang jumped in and used a haymaker to punch him, but Mercury caught a hold of it with a smirk, however Yang smirked back as Weiss slid between his legs and came up by kicking him in the leg, but felt her foot hitting metal.

Huh? She thought as Mercury kicked her in the face to send her sliding, only to turn around and getting slugged in the face by Shovel Knight's Dust Knuckles. Mercury crossed his arms as an electric shield surrounded his front, forcing Shovel Knight to jump back as Mercury shot electric bolts from the shield, but Umber set up reflective mirrors and sent them back, hitting Mercury as Weiss came up from behind and stabbed him a few times with her rapier as Iris swiftly did a flashy spin attack and then aimed her gunblade at him and fired a powerful point blank shot at his face.

Mercury shook it off, his metal hand turning into an arm cannon and fired charged up fireballs at them, forcing them to dodge while Umber put up more mirrors before he put his hand down on the ground, and with a smirk, a dark aura came underneath Mercury as dark mirror-like tendrils shot out and impaled him. "Rrrgh!" Mercury growled as he weaved his head to the side from a straight from Yang as he delivered a powerful metal punch into her gut to make her hunch over.

Yang smirked, and then swung her head up, the back of her head hitting his chin as he let out a grunt as she delivered a powerful uppercut to knock him into the air and then Iris jumped up in the air and slashed him down, where he slammed into the ground as he let out a growl and punched the ground as electric streams tore through the ground.

A shadow was cast over him as he instinctively blocked to what he thought was Yang coming in for a landing, only for a massive anchor to land on him. "Rrrgh!" He grunted as Shovel Knight picked it up and shoved it into his gut to make him fly into a wall, and then Yang threw out a Hadoken for insult to injury.

Mercury weakly got up, squaring up as he tried to take a step forward before falling on one knee in defeat as his metal arms broke apart.

End BGM

"Interesting, the knight can pull an anchor out of nowhere…" Dimentio mused. "Fascinating! Ah well, a deal's a deal." He snapped his fingers as everyone who was trying to get out of Dimension D found themselves back to where they were.

"Rrrgh… gragh…" Mercury tried to get up.

"Now now, no need to strain yourself. Come. I know when we are beaten…" He said, snapping his fingers.

"Help-" Mercury weakly blurted out before he disappeared.

"Did he say help?" Ruby asked.

"He did." Ibuki nodded. "There's no doubt about it."

"Something tells me he got in with the wrong crowd…" Laxus said as they suddenly heard an explosion.

"Mmph! I know what this is… Dimentio's trying to take these airships down and take us out with it!" Rosalina said.

"That's not going to work." Chiaki said.

"Exactly." Rosalina nodded as she teleported everyone out to safety as they watched the airships crashing into the ground, where they all exploded.

"That takes care of that." Mario said.

"Now let's go!" Daisy smiled as they walked off, but as they started to walk, Dark Pit stopped himself again.

"…There's no bushes to hide you this time." Dark Pit said, pulling out his silver bow. "You were clever then, but you aren't clever this time!" He turned around and fired an arrow as everyone else turned around to see a rock sitting there. A rock that had moss and mushrooms growing off of it, and on close inspection, a faint SDC mark.

"Hmm…" Summer walked over to the "rock" and gently pounded on it. "Hey there, little guy." She said gently as the rock started to move and form into the Armadillo Faunus. He had short brown hair and bright green eyes. He had several wolf pelts on him surrounding his body. He was also really short, around a hundred centimeters tall and looked about eight years old.

The boy stared at Summer, tilting his head out at him. "Do you have a name? Are you lost?" Summer asked gently as the boy looked behind Summer to see Dark Pit still aiming his Silver Bow at him. "Don't mind him, he's always a sour puss." She said, gently holding out her hand. "What's your name?"

The boy let out a few soft growls. Summer frowned in response. Judging by the vegetation on his shell, I'd wager he's been out in the wild all his life. She thought. …SDC, oh my gosh, Jacques got to this boy? She thought.

The faunus took Summer's hand and gently sniffed it. He continued to examine her arm before letting out a soft smile and instinctively closed his hand. Summer giggled. "I won't hurt you." She said, gently petting him on the head. He flinched, yet he quickly realized she meant no harm.

She turned around. "I think he wants to come with us. He doesn't want to hurt us!"

"I don't know… I don't trust him. He's a stray!" Dark Pit said.

"Put the weapon down."

"Not going to happen, Summ-"

"I SAID PUT THE WEAPON DOWN!" Summer yelled, her motherly instincts kicking in to where Dark Pit flinched.

"…Fine, but I don't trust him." Dark Pit put it away as Summer guided the boy over to the group. Friggin' mama bear... He thought.

"Oh my gosh, he looks so cute!" Chiaki gushed.

"What's a cutie like you doing out here all by yourself?" Daisy asked with a smile as Byleth and Dorothea knelt down and held their hands out to the young boy. He shyly hid behind Summer's leg as he saw the Mario Bros staring at him with smiles.

Summer giggled. "They don't mean any harm… but, I guess baby steps are in order." She said with a shrug.

"Well, I guess we have a cute little member with us now!" Ruby smiled as they turned around and walked off, Dark Pit grumbling to himself as they walked to the next area.

Meanwhile, at Moonview City…

Kazuya looked out the windows of his office, hearing the sounds of screaming. He looked down to see the Grimm Koopa Troop terrorizing the city. He raised an eyebrow as the door behind him was pushed down.

He turned his head to see a Grimm Chargin' Chuck revving up his foot. "Oh, you're approaching me?" He asked in amusement as the Grimm Chargin' Chuck charged at him as Kazuya had his arms folded with a smirk.

As soon as the Chargin' Chuck got to him, Kazuya instantly grabbed him and shoved him into a wall, punching him in the face repeaedly beore throwing him to the ground and kicking him out of the window.

With a nod, Kazuya looked out of his broken windows with a pleased look on his face, and yet… these strange creatures perplexed him. Where did they come from? He's heard about Grimm off and on, yet he paid no mind to it.

He personally didn't care that his new city was getting destroyed, but something about this bothered him. He jumped out of the window and went into his Devil form and flew off into the sky.

He demanded answers.

Ibuki: Oooooh booooy...

Ooooh yeah, he's-a comin'!

Ibuki: This'll get interesting!

And the armadillo faunus turns out to be a friendly little guy! What's his name? Weeeell, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.