Far up north, journeying through some sort of cybernetic pathway dotted with binary codes and electrical currents was Group C, with Samus, Bowser, Pichu, Lucas, King Dedede, Lucario, Isabelle, Piranha Plant, and Mii Gunner as the teammates. The path they were walking on split up into fiber roots, which were coated in glowing diamonds and fuse wires.

"Oh geez," Sherry sighed, rubbing her temple. "I had no idea things would get this intense…"

"Don't count your lucky stars just yet, chieftess," Samus responded. "Hopefully things will get better once we're through with Galeem and Dharkon…" As they continued down the path, King Dedede noticed something in the confusing walkway.

"Do y'all see this?" King Dedede asked in his stereotypical Southern accent, pointing at what caught the glimpse of his eye. The fighters looked in the direction the King of Dreamland was focusing on, spotting a portal surrounded by crystals. This could probably be the location of the sub-area they were traveling to.

"Nice eye, Dedede," Lucario responded. "You have the potential of a navigator." The fighters walked across the glass path, keeping their eyes on the portal. Little did they know of what was to happen next before any one of the fighters could jump through the portal. Samus' visor started beeping, alerting her of an incoming threat.

"Everybody, back away from the portal!" Samus warned, pushing her pals back. A Crazy Hand that was not the one from Arcadia slammed its palm down onto the futuristic ground, missing as soon as the armored bounty hunter jumped back.

"Look-y who we have here," the Crazy Hand spoke in a voice different from Hakai's, its fingers twitching uncontrollably. "Figured I would bump into you here. Oh, Dharkon and Hakai would be so pleased of the boss I'm gonna bring out! Porky! Sans! Take them out!" The Crazy Hand snapped its fingers, vanishing upon sight. A Launch Star spawned above the portal, sending out yet another captured fighter. It was the Rosalina & Luma Primary, with both the blue-dressed maiden and her yellow star child glaring at the team with violet eyes. Landing right behind her with a thud so hard it cracked the ground was the Pig King Statue, looking exactly how it appeared twenty years prior. The statue bursted open with rubble flying everywhere, with the long legs of Porky's bot crawling out with the horrid stench of a nauseating gas accompanying the Pigmask Commander surrounding the machine.

"So… I get the Porky thing, but where's this Sans guy?" Sherry asked, taking a close look at the Rosalina & Luma Primary.

"Isn't it obvious?" a voice from the Rosalina being of the captured fighter duo asked. An image flashed on her chest, showcasing a skeleton with a funny smile, a blue hoodie over a white shirt, and red slippers.

"You're Sans, aren't you?" Isabelle asked in a curious tone.

"Why wouldn't I be?" the Rosalina & Luma Primary asked. "The ruler of the sub-area is a special one indeed. I guess you can say he has a BONE to pick with you guys." The classic comical rimshot played out of nowhere in the futuristic landscape, with the teammates of Group C looking around in confusion as the captured fighter smiled awkwardly.

"Not… cool," Porky Minch spoke from inside his robot. "You always gotta plan ahead with your jokes."

"Get it…?" the Rosalina & Luma Primary asked, sweat dripping down her face. "It's because… I'm a skeleton, and we're made out of bones, so… Ah, screw it. Sic em, Porky!" The captured fighter grabbed ahold of the Luma of the duo, jumping on top of the machine and letting Porky do the rest of the work. The Smashers readied their weapons and attacked once more.

Samus grabbed ahold of Pichu, jumping on top of the Porky Bed-Mecha as it dashed towards the fighters. The captured fighter on top launched her possessed Luma at the two fighters, attacking as usual. While Pichu was busy with the Luma, the armored bounty hunter started spamming charged shots and missiles. However, the blue maiden of the Rosalina & Luma Primary simply started dodging and parrying, avoiding all her attacks.

"This isn't my job to join the fight," the captured fighter spoke up in that laid-back tone from Sans. "However, I can't say I won't participate." The possessed Luma flew back to the corrupted blue maiden, hitting Pichu into Porky's jabbing legs. It blasted a powerful laser at Samus like a Gaster Blaster, knocking her off the Bed-Mecha. Lucario got right in front of her, throwing an Aura Sphere at the glass vial containing Porky. The Pigmask Commander then started releasing Porky Bots that ran towards the team while he released a red orb that shot electricity around his mechanical robot.

As the Rosalina & Luma Primary attacked alongside Porky Minch with Gaster Blasters and bone pillars, the Piranha Plant jumped out of the way while the rest of Group C were weighed down by Porky. He saw all his teammates pinned down by the Bed-Mecha, with the Rosalina & Luma Primary charging up a powerful laser. A Porky Not was approaching behind the Piranha Plant, just ready to self-destruct. The carnivorous flower grabbed ahold of the bot with his mouth and dashed towards Porky Minch, avoiding the electrical attacks.

"I told you I will fight, even if it isn't my job," the captured fighter spoke, trying to hit the fast Piranha Plant with fast pillars sticking out of the ground while the other fighters squirmed below the Bed-Mecha's clutches. The Piranha Plant avoided all that and landed right behind the captured fighter. Despite being able to dodge so many attacks, the possessed blue maiden and her star child could not avoid the carnivorous flower's forward smash, which involved the plant turning into a black, spiky variant of itself. The captured fighter duo was knocked off, but they quickly grabbed onto the legs of the machine. As an electrical ball was forming from Porky's legs stretched above him, the Piranha Plant smashed through the glass vial with his flower pot, shoving the Porky Bot into the same part where the Pigmask Commander was controlling. As soon as the Rosalina & Luma Primary climbed on top of the Bed-Mecha, the possessed blue maiden saw the Piranha Plant with his rescued teammates run farther from the bot, which had Porky Minch stuffed with a Porky Bot about to self-destruct within that glass vial.

"Well, it was worth a shot," the captured fighter chuckled, sweat dripping down her face as Sans within her knew what was about to happen next. Porky Minch's robot exploded from that encounter, killing both the Pigmask Commander and the Rosalina & Luma Primary. The fighters stood from a safe distance as they saw the remaining pieces of the Bed-Mecha go up in flames.

"People these days," Bowser scoffed, his thick, scaly arms folded across his chest as he watched the Sans Spirit and the shattered Dharkon Lock float away in the black sky down south. "You finally relax after so much bloodshed and company shows up."

"I think I can use a hand," Isabelle spoke, the assistant mayor Shih Tzu dog running towards the cooling rubble. Isabelle began digging through the mechanical legs and wires, with Lucas and Samus helping her. Soon, the team saw a dirty hand crawl out from the rubble, followed with coughing from both Rosalina & her Luma, who were lacking the red aura and had their eyes reverted back to their normal colors. The blue maiden was holding her star child tightly, shielding it from the impactful blast. The way the Luma's eyes shown with such sadness, such trauma, was enough to convince Isabelle to pick up the star child and hug it with so much care. Samus and Lucas helped Rosalina climb out of the rubble as the other teammates got back together.

"Oh my…" Rosalina sighed as her Luma squirmed out of Isabelle's arms and flew into it's mother's arms. "How long was I out?"

"Ten years, give or take," King Dedede answered, picking up his hammer. "You wouldn't happen to know any secrets beyond that portal, do ya gal?"

"Now that I think about it, I do," Rosalina answered, levitating towards the portal. "The ruler of this dimension is one of the gatekeepers to the Dharkon Void, no surprise. However, he seems to be far more twisted and dangerous than what Dharkon considers 'normal' in HIS multiverse, some even saying he's far too powerful that even the Seraph of Chaos locked him here. This ancient demon clearly hates visitors, and would do whatever he can to get rid of us…"

"Cut the chit-chat and let's get going already," Samus responded, already walking through the blue portal. Rosalina and her Luma followed the armored bounty Hunter in, with Piranha Plant, Lucas, Bowser, King Dedede, Pichu, Lucario, and the ex-Gunner Ultimate Reborn walking in. What the fighters saw as they arrived in the sub-area surprised them greatly.


Streaks of light graced across the torn-up sky, revealing a void of obsidian black behind those clear, cloudy blues. Roots and paths of light were the only things connecting pieces of land to each other, conjoining them into a web of trails. Places from different worlds, whether fictional or reminiscent of our own planet, were torn apart by the gravity spiraling from the glowing vortex swirling everything around. The atmosphere was neither light nor heavy, just simply an enigma.

As the fighters walked past the portal down a rocky path laden with crystals, their guards pricked up once they heard laughter echo throughout the sub-area. The laughter was filled with the content of despair and chaos, sounding like a terrifying madman. As the Smashers looked around the place, King Dedede started to get déjà vu from the maniacal hysteria. For whatever reason, the King of Dreamland started getting… terrible memories. They were just flashes in his mind, but what he remembered was of a mechanical comet stylized like a stopwatch, surrounded by seven glowing stars, and the laughter… the laughter… Even if Kirby was with the group, there was a high chance he would know about the one behind this dimension.

"I know that gosh-dang laugh anywhere," King Dedede growled, raising his hammer. "Show yourself, ya evil demon!" The other fighters heard the King of Dreamland snap at nothing, curious as to what was going on. Making the fighters drop their guards was a large bubble floating right towards the group. Its oily texture was littered with neon rainbows, making it look sickly to the naked eye. It rippled as soon as the being in charge revealed his face to the group.

The boss of the sub-area was nothing more than a light pink demon with large, violet eyes filled with stars. His little smile had small fangs, and the jester's hat he was wearing was blue with white circles on his right side and red with white triangles on his left side. The demon had no visible arms, but he had a red bowtie and large brown shoes. He grinned with a vicious smile as the bubble suddenly bursted, and a bright aura accompanied by the demon's laughter shone above the Smashers. As the light faded and the mysterious being laughed again, golden wings stretched out like a pterodactyl, each decorated with flashing hexagon scales and a heart-shaped jewel. Claws appeared in the middle of his wings, supposedly serving as arms. Once the light vanished and the laughter stopped, the strange being in person floated down to his prey, shaking his head.

"Well, well, well, well, well-well-well-well-well-well-well," the demon chuckled, not moving his wings as he levitated around the group. "Don't you know it's rude to break into someone's house without knocking? Name's Marx, and I figured we'd meet again, Triple-D." Marx rested one of his wings on King Dedede's shoulder, clearly being nothing more than a nuisance.

"Alright, punk," Bowser snapped. "We know you're working for Dharkon, so come and give us a fight!" As the Koopa King lunged straight for Marx, the winged jester simply teleported behind Bowser, making him fall flat on his face.

"Y'know, I have to admit," Marx spoke in a cheerful tone. "You sure do look funny when you trip. But I'm not here to fight right now. I've come to deliver you a message."

"Message…?" Lucas asked.

"That this is gonna be different than all the other times you've encountered a boss," Marx answered, floating above the fighters. "I just wanna play with you before you guys get to attack me. If you all manage to defeat me at the center of that vortex, I'll give you a chance to fight against Dharkon."

"So does this mean you work for Dharkon or Galeem?" Lucario asked.

"I work for neither," Marx answered, shrugging his arm-wings. "Even if Dharkon technically has control over me, I work for my own limits, which could explain why he locked me here. So would you participate in my game… ò̡̧͞͠r̵͘͟ ̧͞d̶̶̢̧i̷̕ę̷̵̛͞!̶̶̶̀͜?̷͟͠" By the time the jester from Kirby's universe said those last two words, his smile stretched across his face and revealed a row of sharp, long teeth, his eyes spread slightly apart from each other with his irises shrinking and becoming more narrow vertically until they were slit, and his voice turned into something more hellish and demonic.

"Guess we don't have a choice," Rosalina sighed, comforting a terrified Luma, Isabelle, and Lucas. "What kind of game do you want us to play?"

"Just a game that asks how much do you know of the different worlds you came from," Marx answered, his voice returning to his normal tone and once again sporting his adorable wide eyes and small smile. "Since you're gonna be here for a while, figures I would get to know you guys a little better. There are many Supporters you'll go up against, and if you're lucky a Primary. All you have to do is answer my questions correctly until we get to the place where I feel like fighting you guys, specifically the glowing vortex in the center of the realm. Try not to die, and good luck!" Just like that, Marx vanished from the group. The Piranha Plant and Pichu both walked up to Samus, who was looking at the world they just set foot in. Only a few minutes in the sub-area and that boss was already giving her the creeps.

"We can do this, buddies," Samus spoke to the carnivorous flower and tiny Pokémon. However, before the group was allowed to go any further, Marx teleported right behind them, still with his golden pterodactyl wings with flashing hexagon scales.

"Oh, yeah," Marx spoke. "One more thing… try not to cheat or lose any of the questions once. Here in the Mysterious Dimension, where I basically control everything, you guys have consequences for failure, and I have eyes everywhere." As soon as the cosmic jester said that, eyeballs of blue, hazel, and amber opened up below the ground, frightening the Smashers and forcing them not to step on any of the blinking eyes. The eyes that formed on the sky and the crumbling ground looked at the group, giving them a grim reminder of the realm they were trapped in.

"See ya suckers later," Marx finished, bowing his head as he floated upward in midair. "I'll stick around and ask you guys the questions. Shouldn't take long until you get to your first trivia…" As soon as the eyes all vanished, Marx himself teleported away. The group looked back on the new world set in front of them, keeping their eyes on the glowing vortex.

"We have to do this," Samus sighed, holding onto her arm cannon.

"We're with you till the end," the Mii Gunner responded, holding a face of determination.