A heart began to beat within the dark… slowly and quietly.

The girl that was frozen within the crystals heard the drums of the planets beat around her, slowly shedding away the darkness.

How long was she out? It mattered not.

She needed to find the truth of what happened around her.

The girl heard the drumming beating louder across every planet that slowly orbited around her.

She felt the beating heart inside her pumping louder and faster. Her eyes opened to reveal eyes of deep garnet, which glimmered like jewels as she saw a star float right towards her. The girl was in complete paralysis at the time, and all she could do was watch the star dance right in front of her. It then flashed a bright orange, blinding her completely.

The girl sat up straight on the bed, gasping for breath as though she never took in fresh air after being submerged in water for a long time. She could feel something wrap around her, but it wasn't exactly what. Her nerves were beginning to swim, slowly but surely kicking themselves back to normal as best as they could. All she saw was a blurred vision surrounded by a tunnel of orange light.

She unknowingly tumbled out of the hospital bed she was hooked up to, numbingly feeling something attached to her arm. Her head throbbed with a loud ring as she tugged hard and painfully pulled away. The girl stood up for the first time in ages, fumbling as the blue slippers on her feet tried to fall off every step she took. Her blurry eyes gazed upon the light of a deep-red moon behind the small window, with the orange light surrounding her vision growing brighter.

The next thing she saw was fire across a lifeless battlefield wherever she stepped. She could barely feel the door opening all on its own, and she landed flat on her face as a result. Something was calling out to her, and she had to find out what. As soon as she entered another room, she saw it.

There, glimmering in the darkness, was the star she saw in her dream. Except it was somehow real at the same time. She saw a hand holding that star in place, and the face of the individual was completely blurred out within the darkness. She heard the blurred face mumble in random nonsense that sounded like it was trying to tell her something, but she didn't know what. All she could hear as she reached for the stone was muffled sounds of concern and warning. Her world then went dark as she numbly felt her hands push away the individual and grab the star.

Everything else was just a blank after that.


Three figures covered in white flashed within the transporter on the Legacy, each one completely tired as though they worked the night shift. They just so happened to be Mega Man, Simon, and Pit, who were all tired after having to work for Isabelle when she disappeared.

"What a night," Mega Man sighed, his eyes flashing with the blue screen of death for a few seconds before he quickly recovered. "Who knew we had to work hard, even after Isabelle came back?"

"And didn't the Villager say something about giving us his phone before we left?" Pit asked.

"I think it could probably be a misspelling…" Simon answered. "As far as I could tell, we had to use Isabelle's… 'phawn' to answer."

"Wait… can you two stop moving…?" Mega Man asked the other two, placing his hand on Pit's chest. "I think I see something in that hallway over there…"

"Is that…?" Simon questioned shortly before the angel interrupted him.

"Rocks!? Oh no… Link!" Pit exclaimed with a bad feeling about the Champion of Hyrule, pushing the Belmont family member and Rockman aside and running down towards one of the hallways where he heard the painful breathing. Mega Man and Simon followed after the angel, stopping when they saw a complete mess that spilled out one of the rooms. Papers and a broken chair were against the wall, and a pile of rocks were scattered across the small room. Research equipment was crushed by the boulders, and comforting the unconscious trophy of Link within the rubble was Pit.

"Okay, okay," Pit hyperventilated, pulling out the trophy from the rocks. "Just relax. Hope you've retained all your memories and just… tell us what happened, Link." The angel touched the golden base of the trophy, and a bright flash illuminated the room. The Hylian was brought back from his immobile state, falling limp upon the pile of rocks.

"Oh my God… Link, are you okay?" Mega Man anxiously asked, holding the Hylian warrior's shoulders with the utmost care. "What happened last night?"

"The… the girl…" Link groaned, trying to open up his eyes after getting a nasty concussion from the events of last night. "The Earth Citrine… she took it…"

"Concentrate, Link!" Simon responded, kneeling close to the Champion of Hyrule. "Let us give you some space, and you can tell us all you know." The three fighters moved away from Link, by which he tried readjusting his position upon the rubble.

"...I think it's all coming back to me," Link answered as he held his head up with his hand. "It all started back at the multiple acres between Civiltatula and that fortress the Villager and Isabelle discovered. Aside from the Miis, Wii Fit, R.O.B., Mr. Game & Watch, Duck Hunt, the Ice Climbers, and Sonic, I was pretty much the only one alone on the planet. Everyone else was off in their own worlds, taking care of businesses of their own. At least… I thought I was alone…"


*Several hours ago…

Link was walking on a path where a small cliff dipped down to a beach, and he was watching the setting sun over the horizon. He began to look down at his own hands, wondering what prompted him to change into this new outfit. A light blue that went against the traditional green all of his past reincarnations wore. Zelda and Ganondorf, the only people he knew were from the same timeline as him, are now completely separated from him mainly because of what they chose to wear. Is the reason why they went off to separate dimensions related to a simple fashion choice, or was it something else?

"Whatcha doing out here late at night?" a familiar voice asked. Link jumped at the sound, and he quickly looked behind to see none other than Cloud Strife behind him.

"Cloud!" Link replied with a bit of aftershock in his voice. "I… I wasn't expecting you here as well. Aren't you supposed to be back at your homeworld like the others?"

"Things have gotten quite sleepy at my corner of the multiverse as of late," Cloud sighed, rubbing the back of his head with his hand. "How about yours? Does it fall under the same 'curse' mine does?"

"If you're talking about how there hasn't been anything involving Ganondorf due to a platonic relationship established between him, me, and Zelda here in this world… then I guess so," Link answered with a bit of laughter in his voice, with Cloud chuckling along with the Champion of Hyrule.

"Platonic relationship?" Cloud asked with some form of entertainment in his voice. "Is that the reason your timeline's quiet?"

"Well, there's this thing involving me and Zelda - the Zelda I'm stuck in the same timeline with, not the one from the Twilight Princess timeline - it's basically rebuilding the lost kingdom of Hyrule," Link responded. "...Cloud, do you still think it was a mistake changing in clothes from a timeline I have no knowledge of?"

"I don't know, to be honest," Cloud Strife answered. "Whatever crazy rules this place comes up on the fly, you'll have to accept it for better or for worse. That's just how life is."

"Ah… I see. Well, anything else you'd like to talk about, Cloud?"

"Hm… probably how awesome the moon looks tonight. I like how red it is. Beautiful…" The two blond-haired swordsmen gazed across the ocean, watching the full moon glow a deep red. Cloud Strife gazed upon the natural satellite, his blue eyes filled with wonder.

"Did you know this planet has two moons, and they're both locked in a binary orbit?" Cloud asked with a random fact. "They share the same course around Arcus as it rotates around the sun, and they're always parallel to each other. Some stories going around recently say the first humans that colonized this planet went to explore the moons and found that each one is like a seed within their opposing colors of light and dark. It reminds us of the philosophy that one can't exist without the other… kinda like yin and yang. That moon right there is supposed to be that seed of light within the darkness, and the same goes for the satellite on the other side of the planet."

"R-Really?" Link asked. "How do you know this?"

"When you live in a village of talking animals for ten years, you often go exploring for a while and find some interesting stuff," Cloud answered, placing his hands behind his head and just taking things easy. "Hey, Link. Are you okay?" The Champion of Hyrule stared at the blood moon with a feeling of uneasiness. He felt as though his blood began to churn, gazing upon the moon in the night sky.

"Yeah… I'm fine," Link lied, feeling a bit of a bulge in his throat.

"No, you're not," Cloud sighed, aware that Link was looking at the moon in its current state as though it was a bad omen.

"It's just… every time I look at the moon, it reminds me of a sign of terrible things to come," the Hylian responded. "I've heard of a realm different from Hyrule that was about to end from the moon about to crash upon their world in just three days from a cackling demon. I think Young Link experienced something like that. I don't know. As for me… in the Hyrule I ended up in, a blood moon occurs once in a while, and every monster I've killed returns to flesh."

"Ah, geez," Cloud Strife sighed with a chuckle in his voice. "I've had bad omens in my part of the universe too, mainly involving JENOVA, her son Sephiroth, and his Meteor spell. All three that I and my friends took care of in the past. Anybody helped you out when your land was in danger?"

"Last I remember, I had a fairy who calls herself Navi and Midna, the Twilight Princess," Link answered, looking at the slate attached to his waist. "Now I just have… this thing: the Sheikah Slate. I don't remember when I got it or… how I learned how to use it and become a master at this kind of technology, let alone fight with my right hand. It must've been one last spark of the Master Hand's magic before we went off to continue the mission."

"Hm… well, for what it's worth I like the new look," Cloud noted with a small smile on his face.

"You mean it?" Link asked, his face a bit red from how the 1st-class SOLDIER complimented his clothing and design choice.

"Sure, why not?" Cloud answered, still looking at the blood moon while the Hylian stared at Cloud from behind. "I mean if that's what the world wants, that's what the world wants. But I'm not complaining. You were probably separated from the buddies you made in alternate timelines mainly because of your duties, and I've got duties of my own too. I guess you're not the only one with a lot on your mind."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Link responded. "Anyways, I have to go and research this Earth Citrine more. I wanna try studying how this thing works without being fused to the other stones, and since Mega Man's gone right now, I guess it's up to me to research this thing and… check on the sleeping girl."

"Interesting," Cloud answered before shifting his next sentence towards a question. "Mind if I help? I kinda noticed work like this isn't something you can do alone."

"I'm fine," Link replied, keeping his eyes on Cloud. "This is basically professional work, meaning you might get into an accident or something."

"...I understand," Cloud Strife sighed, looking away from the blood moon and looking back at Link. "I'm going to be living in the Smash Mansion for a while, though I feel like it would be more of a Smash Fortress due to the structure. Eh, Smash Fortress is better. I'll just be tidying up there and wait until the others get back. You're welcome to stop by and move in, if you want. Oh wait. Before you go… here." The 1st-class SOLDIER pulled up Link's hand and placed his own over the palm. He then quickly moved his hand under the Hylian's, swiped his hand left to right before trying to fist bump and shake afterwards.

"Uh… what was that?" the Champion of Hyrule asked.

"It was a… secret handshake I performed," Cloud Strife answered with a bit of embarrassed nervousness in his voice. "I do this with my teammates all the time, at least back on the Planet. Hm… how does a good-night hug sound instead?"

"I guess it's fine," Link replied a second before Cloud hugged him. A pat on the Hylian's back was given, and the two Smashers parted ways.

"Hope you'll see me tomorrow," the 1st-class SOLDIER complimented, walking down the path.

"Thanks," Link returned the favor with an honest and heartfelt condolence in his voice. "See ya!" The Champion of Hyrule ran off in the opposite direction, not looking back as he pulled out his Sheikah Slate, configuring the location of the Legacy on his Sheikah Slate and warping off in streaks of blue into the air.


As soon as Link arrived back on the ship, he walked up close to a table with the Earth Citrine lying down on it. The Hylian pulled up a chair and sat down in it, taking out his Sheikah Slate and activating some sort of notepad on the blue screen. The language was in Hylian when he wrote down what he knows of the stone so far, which mainly talked about how much power it has over the Element of Earth.

"Link's Log: Night 201," Link spoke, watching another drone-like orb emerge out of the walls like liquid before floating next to him. "Ever since the fabled Devil Hunter accidentally uncovered the Earth Citrine, strange things have been happening as of late. Apparently, while Mega Man was also looking through this thing we went on a hunt for where that stone was leading us deep within Ginnungagap, and we almost left the Crazy Hand to die. Thankfully, we all got out alive, and thanks to the stone we've uncovered a girl from an era where toys ruled this planet before the dragons… which begs to question: how did Sonic know about this? Why did the stone lead us to the girl? Where are the other jewels that split up from Ultima after she sacrificed herself to save us? There are so many questions to answer, like… the nod that we may be toys after all… I don't know. It's late, I need to sleep, but research on this Earth Citrine has to be completed in order to figure out what the heck is going on. I wrote down what I assumed the Earth Citrine can do in terms of raw power." The Hylian grabbed the jewel and lifted it into the light of the blood moon, getting a clear view of the cut gem within the blood-red light.

"Apparently, from what I've gathered from the memories shared with Kirby, that stone has the ability to shape the geography of entire worlds simply by just existing in it," Link continued, unaware of the hospital equipment crashing and footsteps occurring outside of his room. "However, this thing can only grant and take away this ability from one guardian, and even then it has limitations. Plenty… of limitations. End log." The drone-like orb vanished into the walls, and when the Champion of Hyrule reattached the Sheikah Slate to his belt he heard a raspy breath at the open door. Link turned his head to the right and saw the half-awake girl that was sleeping in the hospital bed.

"Oh," Link noted, instantly recognizing the girl. "You're up late. The monitor we hooked up to your bed did say all your vital organs are healthy. That's pretty fascinating. But… we kinda noticed you should sleep in a while longer before you fully recover." The girl simply said nothing, only pointing at the Earth Citrine the Hylian held with him. Link glanced down at the stone, aware of what she wanted.

"Uh… look," Link went on, his voice becoming completely nervous as the girl walked up to him. "I need this for research. You need some more rest. Wait until I get back to your room, okay?" The Hylian got up from his chair, unsheathing his Master Sword while holding the jewel in his left hand. The girl continued walking forward, still staring at the stone.

"We can talk about this, okay?" Link asked, keeping his courage intact as he pointed his sword at the girl. "This is your last chance. Stand. Down." The girl suddenly pounced at him, swiping away the Master Sword with one clean punch. As Link was shocked by the amount of strength she had in that arm of hers, he was pinned down by her foot. With a soft touch as she tried to grab the jewel from Link's hand, a terrible accident occurred. A complete landslide took place, with sharp rocks cutting deep through the Hylian's chest and wounding him greatly with punctures. The last thing he saw before he felt his aching body harden into his trophy form was watching the girl run out with the Earth Citrine as though she was under some sort of spell.


*Present…

"And… that's what happened?" Mega Man asked.

"As far as I can remember," Link responded, rubbing his forehead. "She can't have gone far. Quick: any idea where I can access the security cameras?"

"I think it's on the other side of the ship," Simon answered. "But I'm not entirely sure. I think you need someone to guide you around the Legacy in case-" Link ran out of the room before the Belmont family member finished, going around the trio as he pulled out his Sheikah Slate. A map appeared on the device, allowing him to mark the location of the security camera room and routed out a mark on that place. The Hylian ran across the floor through the building, stopping in front of the outline of what appeared to be an elevator at the end of the hallway. Pressing his hand against the smooth wall, he phased through the wall like it was ghostly gelatin. He ended up in some sort of capsule, with a map of the ship generating in front of him. Link checked his Sheikah Slate for the location again, and he tapped the exact same room on the elevator walls.

The Champion of Hyrule was transported across the Legacy, getting off once he felt it stopped moving. Link emerged out of the futuristic elevator, gazing upon the hundreds of security cameras being monitored by only a couple Mii Fighters and Primids.

"Excuse me… do you think you guys can help me out?" Link asked. "The girl that was sleeping aboard the ship has vanished with the Earth Citrine, and I need help tracking her down. Did your cameras catch her last night?"

"Hey, Link?" Gilbert called out to the Hylian as he was the only Mii to respond. "I think I found who you're looking for." The Mii Swordfighter waved over to Link, alerting the Hylian to come over to his place in the large room. The Champion of Hyrule stopped walking over to the Swordfighter Ultimate Reborn when he saw the Mii adjust the control panel in front of them both, replaying the footage from the previous night.

"Apparently, it looks like the girl you're looking for somehow used the stone she stole from you to blend in with her surroundings, using a special tactic of optical dispersion from the crystal shield she created to sneak off the Legacy. Probably another reason why we didn't notice this sooner," the Mii Swordfighter explained, aware that it was completely idiotic of him and the others not to double-check the cameras. "Looks like she used one of the floating islands to hitch a ride onto the planet, crashing into one of the areas near the Smash Fortress."

"Thanks for the info," Link responded, adjusting the settings on his Sheikah Slate's map so now he knew where to check. "Cloud said he'll be living there for a while. Better drop in for a visit and ask if he knows where she landed while he's still in that place. Thanks, Gilbert."

"Don't mention it!" the Mii Swordfighter replied, waving to Link once he left the security camera facility. The Ultimate Reborn watched the recorded footage again, watching the orange glimpse in the girl's eyes.

"Why does she even want the stone?" Gilbert asked, tapping his chin as he rested his head on his hands. "Is there something I'm missing out on? Maybe we'll have to look into the history of this world deeper…"


The warm air filled the inside of a dry cave, where tufts of grass and moss grew near the ragged walls. There was a small campfire in the center of the area, which had already died out to reveal the charred wooden logs used to fuel it. Marx was asleep next to the fire, with his golden wings wrapped around his round body and bubbles of snot forming as he snored despite not even having a nose.

The tiny splashes of the bubbles popping near his face were enough to have Marx wave one of his wings above himself, which resulted in said wing getting grabbed. Marx was pulled up into a sitting position, and he growled when he saw that Mephiles woke him up.

"Eat some breakfast and meet with me outside the cave. We have work to do," Mephiles spoke, snapping his fingers and generating fried eggs and bacon, a blueberry muffin, a glass of milk, and a stack of pancakes with butter and syrup drizzled onto them. Marx licked his pointed teeth, biting deep into the stack of pancakes and overall devouring the whole thing. His tongue quickly lapped up the syrup and shortly later the eggs and bacon, followed by him gouging down the muffin and drinking the milk. He finished the whole meal just before Mephiles walked out of the cave.

Mephiles was outside of the entrance to the cave, gazing out into the distance as he waited for Marx to come out. The cave's entrance was covered in vines, and the cave itself was located on a floating island tied to an arc emerging from the land by the roots of the small trees. The land itself was foreign and alien-like, but not as much as Arcus appeared to be. A mountain range surrounding a disc-shaped valley was located far off in the distance, obscuring the rising sun.

"Remind me again why we're here at this place," Marx asked as he emerged out of the cave tangled in the vines obscuring the entrance. He hissed as he tried to move, ripping off the vines he got caught in and tripping behind Mephiles.

"Because for the past few days of preparation, I have noticed you've got a problem," Mephiles answered, aware that Marx was tearing off the vines with malicious intent. "You tend to act sweet, cute, innocent, and naive around those that have no prior knowledge of your past as a way to hide your true intentions. I've heard the tale about how you earned the trust between Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright and got them to fight each other, as well as how you convinced Kirby to contact NOVA just so you can get your true form back. You really are power-hungry and manipulative, especially after you killed your entire race just to show them who's boss."

"That's apparently what you get when you're abused and mocked all your life by your own family to the point where the clothes they make you wear have integrated into your personality," Marx answered. "Everyone was just awful back at my old planet. Living in a perfect world while leaving me in the mud."

"I see," Mephiles noted shortly before he continued. "After all, the marks on your horns translate to 'malice' and 'destruction,' and each personality of your race is determined by what language their horns read when fully translated… right?"

"Of course," the adorable winged jester replied. "After all, these people think too highly of themselves and only care about what they want to see. Who gives a crap about virtues, anyway? It's all about the fear and control to help you get what you want, and I learned that from my father Grendel through his… abusive actions. That old man should've learned that I would go wild after mocking me at every turn..."

"But you said so yourself: the only time you need someone is to push you to your goals," Mephiles continued. "And you know what? I think I see something over there. Would you like to come over here and look closely?" The jester floated over to Mephiles, trying to keep his eyes on where the crystalline hedgehog was pointing at.

There, within the pine trees, Marx saw something. He looked upon the bat-like wings caressing over the bushes filled with ripe berries, and beak-like jaws picking the berries out as the creature harvesting the bushes placed the berries it picked into a basket around its neck.

"Well now," Marx chuckled, only focusing on the berries that were being picked. "They sure do look tasty. Lemme at em!" Mephiles quickly grabbed ahold of Marx's feet, keeping a firm grip on the jester as he was about to fly off.

"Don't you dare!" Mephiles spoke in his usual tone as he threw Marx onto the ground of the floating island. He then detached the jester's wings, holding them in his grip

"My wings! Give them back! Give them back!" Marx growled with a twisted sense of brattiness, stomping his feet in an angry manner.

"I will give them back once you learn this crucial bit of advice: in devoting your time to the thing you want just to momentarily satisfy your greed, you are not only putting yourself in danger… but you're also giving away our position," Mephiles explained. "Besides, did you even pay attention to the beast harvesting the berries?" Marx, while he was still pouting, marched over to the crystalline hedgehog and looked at the bushes again. There, he saw the creature gather up all the berries it could fit into its basket before taking off into the sky.

"A… dragon!?" Marx asked with complete surprise in his voice. "I thought they all were extinct thousands of years ago! I thought the Hands and the royal siblings were the last of their kind!"

"That's right," Mephiles replied. "And that creature is flying off to the valley to meet with the rest of the dragons, including those who had survived the genocide."

"I thought you were joking," Marx spoke, still bewildered with disbelief. "That there's no way dragons like this guy would have survived…"

"Over a thousand years of living far from your old home does eventually take a turn for the better," Mephiles pointed out. "The sad thing is: this valley protects the dragons from the likes of us at the moment, leaving the far lands for ourselves to seize control over."

"Okay, I get it," Marx noted, solely focused on his golden appendages. "Now gimme back my wings." Mephiles sighed in annoyance as he tossed the wings at Marx, to which the demonic jester gleefully stuck the wings back on with his teeth.

"And here's another problem: you rely too much on power for power's sake and manipulating other people that you don't understand how determination works," Mephiles continued. "You obviously take what you want with nothing you promised in return. You simply use people without a clear goal in mind, probably alluding to more on how spoiled you are. It's clear you're only undermining the crucial elements."

"Alright then, smartass," Marx spoke with a little bit of prejudice against Mephiles. "Let's say the only thing I desire is power. Good old power of friendship. What exactly are the three core elements of determination I gotta learn, just like you said?"

"I guess I should get along to that, considering how impatient you get," the crystalline hedgehog replied. "Follow me." Mephiles crossed his hands, warping off the island. Marx obeyed and disappeared, the two villains reappearing near a lake near a couple mountains. Trees with overgrown branches bent over the surface of the lake from the weight of their leaves, and freshwater fish swam around near the bottom.

"Determination is the will to persist after death, granting those with strong souls the ability to save. I take it you already knew that," Mephiles explained. "It depends on what you can save, as long as you have three core elements: emotion, sanity, and most importantly… cognition. Take a look below the surface of the lake. What do you see?"

"I see fish. And lots of em," Marx answered.

"But what do the fish see?" Mephiles asked. "How do the fish use determination to live their normal lives together?" Marx stared at the lake, his face crunching as he tried to figure out what could this exactly mean.

"Allow me to clarify, in case you're stuck," Mephiles taught. "These fish are living in the emotion of happiness. That happiness allows them to connect with each other and create an ecosystem for themselves. Emotions are natural instincts driven by an individual's circumstance or mood, depending on the relationships it makes. Sanity is the ability to think and behave in a rational manner, allowing an individual to cope better or worse with others. Now pay close attention: from your perspective, how would you describe this lake?"

"...Just a boring old lake," the jester replied. "Nothing much I can tell you, aside from the obvious fact it's cold and wet."

"You would be right," Mephiles continued. "To you and everyone else who doesn't live in the water all that much, it would be another lake. But to these fish, it would be a home. They have lived here all their life and would swim downstream should the colder season approach. We will call this cognition, the imagination and belief for those who choose to believe in whatever they want to believe. Whatever they want to see, that is how they determine reality. Think about determination as the cake, and cognition as the icing. Emotion and sanity would be the sprinkles and berries that boost the flavor of the cake, but they aren't necessarily needed. Does that make sense?" Marx glanced down at the small colonies of fish, watching how happily they swam around without a care in the world.

He hated that happiness right down to his gut.

"I guess it does," Marx replied.

"Now then… let's say I reach into the water and take one of these fish out," Mephiles went on, submerging that crystalline hand of his into the lake. "See how the fish scatter in random directions as I dip my hand in. They have spent so much time together with little knowledge of the outside world that they often forget to stay together in perfect harmony. As a result, they flee from anything that seems out of place in their cognitive senses. They use determination as a means of purpose, and that purpose is to survive out of fear." Mephiles managed to grab one of the fishes within the lake, pulling it out and watching it gasp for the dissolved oxygen within the water and squirm around. Marx got a good view of the fish in the crystalline hedgehog's hand, starting to understand more about how it works.

"Watch as the fish is trying to use all three of these core elements to stay determined, or in other words save itself. Its emotions are spiraling out of control through fear, trying to seek the comfort of the same home it was taken out from. It knows that it needs water to keep itself sane, which is also the one cognitive element taken from it as I pulled it out of the lake. And have you looked at the other fish? Even after one of their kind was taken away, they are unphased by this and continue back to where they previously were. Now let's say I return the fish I have so far… except I killed it." Mephiles crushed the fish in his fist, hearing the tiny bones crunch in his grip. He opened his crystalline fingers, exposing the limp body of the fish with blood dripping out of its mouth. He dropped the body back into the lake, where the colony swam away from the corpse sinking down from the surface.

"Pay attention to the fish now," Mephiles carried on with. "See how they analyze the fresh corpse before eating it. The urge to feast on the dead body is driven from their sanity to behave according to their place in the circle of life, as well as the cognition of how they see it. To you and me, it's another dead fish. To them, it's more food. That's how life works, and I viewed it the hard way from my time with the mortals. Humans and sentient beings are completely different from animals, and they have free will. That free will boosts their determination and helps them contextualize and survive by viewing the cognitive world through a moral lens. Now then… let's say I separate this harmonious colony of fish and divide it into multiple ones based on their… let's go with something simple like colors right now." The crystalline hedgehog snapped his fingers, trapping each fish within the colony in magical bubbles. Each bubble was organized so that each fish was in a group that matched with their colors.

"Let's say these fish are wiped of their memories, remembering no one but only those that match their respected colors," Mephiles went on, moving his crystalline fingers a bit and erasing the memories of all the fish within the colony. "Let's say I manipulate these fish, making them think that nothing matching their color should be trusted. Now thanks to an outside source they have no knowledge of, their determination and its three core elements have been severely altered. Emotion is altered as it is changed through blinded anger and rage, sanity has been tipped in favor of trying to get rid of the races they see as 'imperfect,' and cognition has been changed as they now throw away all that understanding and awareness that something is not right. Their behavior has been altered to fit insanity, and they're blind to the fact that violence will not make them feel any better." Mephiles removed the bubbles around the fishes, and both the crystalline hedgehog and the winged jester watched as each fish attacked on another.

"It's enough to make you cry with joy, isn't it?" Mephiles asked.

"Yes, it is," Marx wept, his violet eyes glistening with happy sadism as he saw his reflection on the surface of the bloodstained part of the lake.

"Unfortunately, my powers are not yet strong enough to start a war like the one that happened at the lake," Mephiles assured. "But have you noticed what I'm going for? These bubbles and the different types of fish are all symbolic of parallel universes, and I have driven them mad with flashes of false information. And little do they know…" The crystalline hedgehog extended his hand into the water, and the small Insaniton slithered down his limbless appendage into the battle between the fishes of different colors. The blood cleared as Marx watched the Insaniton latch onto every single one of the fishes and absorb them into its pink, slimy body. Once every fish was gone, the Insaniton jumped out of the water and into Mephiles's hand again.

"...they have become a farm of insanity for this joy of creation," Mephiles noted, and Marx watched as the Insaniton formed another blinking green eye on itself. "Do you know how hard it is to get just a little bit of insanity through starting wars between races of smaller, less intelligent creatures? Very difficult, especially since the Eyes of God have been informed of my existence through the Super Smash Brothers."

"Oh... yeah," Marx spoke. "Those guys. Wait, are talking about THE Eyes of God?" Mephiles simply glanced back at the jester, giving out no answer through words and instead letting Marx find out that Mephiles said yes to the question.

"Back to the topic at hand: the Super Smash Brothers have a power unlike any you and I have ever seen," Mephiles went on. "That power has kept them determined from beginning to end, helping them persist to the point where outside forces would bring them back into new bodies. It must be whatever leftover cognition is trying to rebuild them from their memories, hereby granting them bodies to help them survive in any environment. But they do have a weakness: their Smash Balls are all connected to the item I need to become Eternia again... But at least it will be enough to get what the both of us want. In the meantime, we should start training you to use more than just magic and that spoiled temper of yours. Real determination comes from more than just a hunger of power for power's sake. You need a purpose, and mine is already planned: the destruction of all universes so no one can fall into sin again."

"And what about the dragons living here?" Marx questioned. "If you're struggling nowadays because these Eyes of God know you're out there, we'll basically die from these grown-up kids."

"Maybe YOU might die, but I am practically immortal for now," Mephiles responded. "Besides, we have the outer lands to ourselves. We can worry about taking over the valley after Sozo and Hakai recall the dragons back to Arcus. Now come along. It's time we teach you how to fight the hard way."


The Champion of Hyrule was walking through the forest, journeying on the path under the guidance of his Sheikah Slate. He pulled the device out, checking his marked location and putting it away as he spotted the large fortress peeking out of the alien forest. Link ran towards the place, crossing the bridge and entering the front door. The Champion of Hyrule looked around the spacious place, with the colors on the mosaic tiles popping.

"Cloud?" Link asked as he called out for the fighter. "Cloud? Are you around here? No?" The Hylian opened the door to the garden, looking upon the islands within the lake without taking a step down the stairs. Link figured the 1st-class SOLDIER was nowhere around this part of the mansion, so he entered the larger door next to the garden one. He then found himself within the outer walls of the fortress, supported by pillars as he got a good view of the large dome-shaped roof from down below. There were multiple doors on his left, each of them getting a clear view of the hallways behind the glass. The Champion of Hyrule caught a quick glance of the blond-haired mercenary admiring the books found within the castle's library as he ran past. Link opened the door and entered through the door leading to the shelves of books.

"Oh. Hi, Link," Cloud Strife spoke with surprise as he looked ahead to see the Hylian enter the section of the castle. "What are you doing here?"

"Listen, there's something I have to tell you," Link panted as he tried to catch his breath. "It's very important… what are you doing here?" The Hylian lost his train of thought as he looked at all the books tucked neatly into their shelves, his focus shifting towards the fact that the 1st-class SOLDIER was taking attention to one of these books.

"Just… reading through these books," Cloud answered. "And by reading, I mean looking through whatever they've got in here. Seriously, come over here. There's something about these books I don't understand…" Link walked up the stairs, walking over to the 1st-class SOLDIER.

"It's just all… randomly generated code on some blue pages," Link noted.

"I know, right?" the 1st-class SOLDIER replied. "I flip through another book like this and it's all the same. Do they have books like this in your world?"

"Kinda," Link answered. "They're all written in Hylian, but they're moreover just inked text written on paper instead of… whatever you've got here."

"I guess I can say the same for you," Cloud noted, putting away the book that he got out. "I… kinda wanted to continue the conversation we had last night, but you kinda left to research on that Earth Citrine."

"...Well, is there anything you'd like to talk about?" the Hylian asked.

"Y'know, whatever you've got in another timeline," Cloud replied.

"Before we ended up here, the only thing I remembered was that I, Zelda, and Ganondorf were from the same timeline," Link uttered. "I dunno what it was, but something was convincing us to change our designs. I think the only other person affected by this was Ike. He went from a man with swollen muscles back to his teenage self."

"Perhaps it could be metamorphosis," Cloud Strife acknowledged. "Since we often regenerate all wounds upon defeat and temporary unconsciousness, there could be a chance we change our appearances." Link simply looked at Cloud in disbelief.

"But that doesn't make any sense," Link objected. "Zelda and I weren't even trophies when we changed in looks and personalities. And we were doing this with the fear that we might die for real if we fall in battle. So this just raises more questions than it does answers."

"Hm… you do have a point," the 1st-class SOLDIER muttered. "I mean, it can't really be natural. It could have just probably been another trick up the Master Hand's... sleeve, like I said."

"Or could it have been the Crazy Hand?" Link responded. "I still don't know why I was thrown into another timeline and expected to connect the dots. I guess Zelda and Ganondorf must feel the same... I forgot to mention, you're a pretty calm guy to have around. I pretty much thank you for giving your compliments to my Champion's Tunic last night."

"You're welcome," Cloud added, still admiring the books without changing his tone. "I guess no matter how much has changed, you'll still be the hero in green that the legends of your homeworld always go on about."

"...I've been meaning to ask, do you have to deal with reincarnations and stuff?" Link questioned, with Cloud glancing at the Hylian. "Like… you are told time and time again that you're the chosen one and you have to save the world from an evil that has been tied to you and a damsel for millennia through a piece of a macguffin split into three?"

"... Can't say I do," Cloud answered. "I think it had to be more of… relationships turned sour and you and your party group up and take down a benevolent being and his plan to destroy the world by powering himself with his alien mother. I think the only person closest to a damsel was Aerith Gainsborough, but even then she proved she could defend herself time and time again, so… I don't know what your definition of 'damsel' means. She… asked if I could show her the 'real me,' like she was asking me to make a promise. I probably returned the favor by saving the Planet, but… before that…" The 1st-class SOLDIER sighed with a thought of painful heartbreak, leaving Link to come to the conclusion of what happened to Aerith. He kept silent about the conversation, unaware of what to say.

"Oh, Cloud… I didn't know," the Champion of Hyrule spoke with realization. "I'm so sorry about what happened to her…"

"You don't have to apologize," Cloud Strife sighed. "I guess I made the promise to her after I helped you guys save the multiverse from Galeem and Dharkon. So I guess that could be a good thing. Any people you lost in your timeline?"

"Well, there were these Champions that were killed by the Calamity Ganon," Link answered. "Again, I don't really know what to expect, even after a few months of living in that timeline. I might have to ask Zelda when she comes back. Or maybe Ganondorf. Even Sheik and the other two mes. Maybe they could give me their thoughts on what they think of the timelines they ended up in…"

"Maybe… but I don't know. We kinda have some pretty weird friends. There's Barret Wallace, who serves as the muscles of our team and an overall badass. Red XIII, a wolf-like creature who's sometimes accompanied by a robot cat who calls himself Cait Sith, then there's Sid Highwind who serves as our pilot, as well as a couple rogue Turks named Reno and Rude. Then there was Zack Fair, who gave me the sword I carry with me into battle. And just like Aerith… he… I can't really say it. The thing I want you to know is that he helped change me into who I'm meant to be. I even confused my own past with his. I guess you aren't the only one who lost someone… right?"

"Not really, even though I can never see these people again… Oh wait a minute!" The situation involving the girl came back to Link, and he felt dumbfounded just by forgetting it. "Cloud! I just completely forgot! I'm looking for a girl we found in Ginnungagap. Have you seen here come this way? She managed to escape and take the Earth Citrine with her!"

"I don't think I even saw what she looked like," Cloud answered. "But I think one of those floating islands crashed into the westside of the woods. If you see any rubble that looked like an island fell from the sky, you might- hey, where are you going?" By this point, Link had heard enough and walked away towards the same door where he came in. He pulled up his Sheikah Slate yet again and marked a location in the westward woods on his device's map.

"I don't know if you should go out alone," Cloud called out. "There could be a bunch of creatures you and I haven't encountered since… well… none of us haven't exactly been around Arcus when the dragons thrived."

"It's okay, Cloud," Link responded, opening the door. "I can take care of myself. You don't have to worry about me. I'll be back with her soon!"

"No wait-! Shit…" By the time Cloud tried to at least suggest he should go out into the wilderness with the Champion of Hyrule, it was too late. The 1st-class SOLDIER knew it was best that he would go out and follow Link through the woods just so he could see that the Hylian was safe.


Link was walking through the woods for quite a while, checking his Sheikah Slate only once to check if he was heading in the right direction. The Champion of Hyrule kept wandering around until he suddenly heard a crunch underneath his boot. He lifted it up and suddenly recognized that what he stepped on was a crystal fragment, and upon looking up he paid close attention to the fact that the tops of the trees were torn off. As he continued down the path, he saw some sort of ditch filled with uprooted trees and large crystal shards. From there, he encountered a small piece of land just a few average humans across submerged into the ground.

"Hello?" Link asked, calling out to the girl who was supposed to be around here. "Little girl? Are you okay? If you're around here, say something!" The Hylian heard soft groaning coming from beneath the deactivated island, and his eyes widened in fear as he knew exactly what happened. The girl was probably trapped underneath the rubble, and he had to get her out of there.

Link activated the magnetic powers on his Sheikah Slate, pulling off the pieces with ease as he found out there were small chunks of iron and nickel embedded in the rocky ground. Through this simple trick, Link quickly cleared the rubble and pulled the girl out. Her clothes were tainted with dirt and torn apart, with the Earth Citrine still in her hands. She opened up her deep garnet eyes, looking up at the Champion of Hyrule like the curious child she was.

"Hi there," Link spoke, trying to make his first real impressions good towards her. "It's alright. You're safe now… I'm Link, Champion of Hyrule. Your name…?" The girl simply stared up at the elf-like humanoid holding her while she recovered, having fully come back to her senses and no longer experiencing the beating drums and orange tunnel in her vision.

"...I never really… had a name," the girl answered as Link took the jewel from her limp hands and put it in one of his pockets. "I was just… created and sealed off. Where… Where am I?"

"You're in Arcus, just within this forest," Link responded. "You went under the influence of the Earth Citrine, probably during the blood moon last night, and it looks like you hit a ride on one of the floating islands here… thank Hylia it was tiny, otherwise it would have had major consequences."

"Floating island?" the girl asked, squirming out of the Hylian's arms as she looked at the desolated island she ran into the ground for some reason. "The last thing I remember was… I can't recall honestly, but this place looks so familiar…" She tried to stand up, balancing herself on the broken ruins of the island next to her.

"And this place…" the girl continued, gazing at the forest as though something was clearly wrong. "This forest wasn't supposed to be here. All the trees… they're growing over the bodies of the soldiers." She walked into the ditch she created with the grounded island, wobbling with every footstep until she landed on both knees and began digging.

"Look!" she went on, holding the arms of what appeared to a stuffed bear and a robot soldier. Both of them were tainted in dried blood and ripped apart from both battle wounds and time itself. "They weren't buried last time I got here. They were… lying dead. On the ground. They didn't bother giving them a proper burial."

"Stop stop stop… what happened?" Link interrupted, wondering where the girl was going with this. "What are you going on with? The racism against different types of toys, like Sonic said? Is that what you're talking about?"

"Racism?" the girl asked as though she had no idea what the word even meant. "What is that?"

"Y'know… something that these toys went through," Link answered. "There were those different types of toys. Weren't you… caught in the crossfire?" The girl put down the detached arms she pulled out, starting to have something come back to her. Her garnet eyes trembled, with her mind having escaped through scattered flashbacks and trauma. The sky was black with smoke and ashes, with starships crashing down around her. Screams were echoing throughout the fire, and during this whole time she tried to stay awake and try not to fall into a panic attack.

"I… was a hybrid," the girl replied, holding her hair as she tried to recollect her past. "I was part Neomeat and part Wïsha, a blend of strength and creativity… the best of both worlds. A war broke out because of that racism between them. I didn't know what that was at the time, but I guess there was this hatred. Before the fire consumed the sky, I was forced to pick a side. I knew if I chose neither, who were both cruel in their own way, it meant certain death. I ran away and eventually fell into a pit of ice and fire. It seemed as though the stars saved me for a reason, because I was concealed deep within the darkness. I… remembered nothing else after that. Please tell me what I missed, Link. How long was I asleep?"

"Hm… well, there were these dragons that showed up who established their own world, a war between light and darkness, us discovering other worlds through plenty of methods…" Link pointed out. "So it might have been thousands of years. And I don't know why, but I think the Earth Citrine called us to you…"

"The Earth Citrine…?" the girl questioned. Before she could listen to the Hylian's answer, she heard the sound of trampled branches and rustling leaves several feet away from her. Link noticed where she was looking, his hand on the indigo handle of his legendary blade. Soon enough, a bear-like quadruped creature with a boar's face and hooves emerged. Both the Hylian and the girl were standing completely still as the hybrid creature gnawed on the bush's leaves just to get the berries that grew on it.

"What… is that thing?" the girl asked, with Link quickly covering her mouth the second he heard her speak out loud.

"Shh… I have no idea, but we need to keep quiet," the Hylian whispered, letting go of her mouth. "Just stay put and don't move." Link crouched close to the floor, tiptoeing towards the bear-boar hybrid while reaching into his pocket. The four-legged beast lifted up its head, snorting with a soft growl as it spotted the Champion of Hyrule walking up to it.

"It's okay," Link hushed, pulling out a small handful of berries while attempting to press the palm of his free hand on the beast's forehead. "I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm just gonna make sure you don't attack us. We're nice people… don't worry…" The Hylian gave out his handful of berries to the bear-boar, letting the creature sniff the tiny fruits with caution before lapping them up. Link slowly reached his hand over to stroke the beast's mane, scratching it behind its flappy ear. The creature snorted in tolerance, flapping its ears as it oinked. However, just as things were starting to calm down…

"Hey, Link!" Cloud called out from a distance. "Watch out!" The Champion of Hyrule looked towards Cloud Strife's direction, completely unaware that there was a winged creature diving straight for the bear-boar until he heard a piercing screech. At first, Link thought it was just Ridley who dropped in for a visit until he remembered that Ridley had a different pitch and sound in his alien roar. The Champion of Hyrule looked up behind himself to see a winged creature with its talons unfurled.

The creature's appearance was that of an amphiptere, with scales of blue and feathered wings of white. Its legs stretched out like a falcon's, ready to catch the bear-boar in its clutches. Link quickly rolled away as the amphiptere grabbed ahold of the smaller beast, with Cloud Strife running into the scene in time to protect the girl.

"You leave us alone!" Link shouted at the amphiptere, which was tearing off the head of the bear-boar beast and simply dining on the smaller creature's flesh.

"Link, wait! Don't attack it!" Cloud objected, aware that the dragon might just be hungry and didn't mean any harm. Link, on the other hand, was not willing to back away from danger. He thought the creature meant harm, and he slashed the Master Sword at the amphiptere's talon. The dragon screeched in pain, flapping its wings and blowing quite a strong breeze from its flapping wings. Link, Cloud, and the girl shielded their faces from the airborne dirt and leaves blowing in front of them. The amphiptere roared with a powerful gust of wind streaming from its outstretched mouth, pushing the Champion of Hyrule into the 1st-class SOLDIER. The Earth Citrine dropped out of Link's pocket, landing on the ground next to the girl. She looked up with widened eyes as the serpentine dragon caught witness of the glimmering orange jewel.

"It doesn't want to fight!" Cloud groaned, holding an overconfident Link's arms with his tight grip. "Leave it alone!"

"That thing was going to attack us anyway!" Link objected, trying to squirm out of Cloud's grip with the Master Sword in his hand. The girl, in complete panic, grabbed the Earth Citrine again and tried to run off. The amphiptere took off into the air, swooping down upon the girl and snatching her.

"Link! Help me!" the girl screamed, too frightened to even let go of the stone in her hands and lose it on the forest floor. As soon as Link pushed the ex-mercenary to the ground, he looked up into the sky and saw the amphiptere fly off to the top of that mountain. Cloud groaned as he got up, pissed off at the fact that Link even thought about attacking that dragon.

"I told you you shouldn't have gone without me," Cloud sighed in an irritated tone. "Now look what happened! We're enemies with a dragon!"

"Well, if you hadn't held me back, that girl and the Earth Citrine wouldn't have been taken!" Link objected.

"Did you even get the girl's name?" Cloud asked, folding his arms across his chest.

"She said she didn't have one…" Link sighed, sitting down on the ground in guilt. "All she told me was that she was the hybrid that started the racist war between the toys."

"Well, I'm glad she gave you that information, but that's not the point," Cloud replied. "It was because of your overconfidence to understand the simplest of things that you attacked that dragon while it was hungry!"

"Excuse me for being a bit barbaric there, princess," Link objected, being sarcastic in his tone. "Sorry if I couldn't see past the obvious differences between a hungry beast and a bloodthirsty monster! You can thank my past self for getting us into this mess."

"I tried warning you to stay away, and it would have left us alone! And yes: I can thank your past self, and give my regards to him that he should have known better instead of charging head-first into battle without a proper plan in the hopes that his own courage would solve everything instead of saving his own butt."

"Alright, alright, I get it!" Link groaned, his face blushing as he got mad. "The truth is… during these past few months I've been away from you guys, I've been fending for myself by hunting down whatever creature I come across... whether through self-defense or because I was just hungry. Just thank my behavior, if you'd like. It was just a… force of habit I developed."

"Link… I care for you. Truly I do," Cloud sighed, placing his hand on the Hylian's shoulder as a means to show comfort and forgiveness. "But as people with sworn duties to our nations, we have a lot going on. And I must confess: I tend to get distracted by tons of secrets, but at the very least I know when to leave from a fight if I know a monster doesn't bother me unless I attack it. I tend to get out mistakes other people made, including you, but you're going to need to utilize your wits more. You've got quite the essentials for survival, and it shows. But sometimes you might need more than just a couple of fancy weapons mixed with courage. It's okay to face danger head-on, but there's always a time and a place for those kinds of things. You can't always overestimate your own tools." Link glanced up at Cloud, aware of what the 1st-class SOLDIER wanted what was best for them both. He grabbed ahold of Cloud's hand, pulling himself back onto his feet. The angry blush in the Hylian's cheeks slowly faded away, and he looked up at the mountain where the amphiptere took the girl and the stone.

"We go straight ahead to that mountain," Link explained, pulling out his Sheikah Slate and marking the mountain's location. "We climb to the top and hold back the dragon just long enough to get us all out alive."

"Sounds like a reasonable plan," Cloud noted, only noticing that Link took out some rope and tied their waists together. "What are you doing…?"

"There's an easier way getting to the foot of the mountain without relying on walking," the Hylian responded. "Now hold on tight."

"Like this…?" Cloud wrapped his arms around Link's waist as tightly as possible, with the Hylian activating a spiritual orb with an avian imprinted on it. Link quickly pulled out his glider mere seconds before the orb vanished, activating a powerful gust of wind below the two swordfighters. It blew them high above the trees, with the glider slowing down their descent as Link steered them towards the mountain.

"Now according to my Sheikah Slate, there should be a nest or cave just at the top of the mountain," Link assured. "Better keep a tight grip on me, since it's gonna get windy from up here…" Cloud Strife tightly hugged Link's waist and chest to the point where their cheeks were touching each other, just in case the rope wasn't strong enough to hold them together. The 1st-class SOLDIER was aware of the warmth between their squished cheeks, and he simply decided to hold that position until they eventually landed safely at the mountain. As far as he knew, this sign of their cheeks pressed against each other was only the birth of a more mutual companionship slowly growing between them. Link simply didn't mind this gesture and only knew with certainty and relief that his close friend was holding on tight. All that matters right now was grabbing the girl and the stone before running away from the amphiptere.


In the other dimension where the surviving dragons settled down in, Mephiles and Marx were standing on top of a flat hill. Marx popped the bones in his wings, and Mephiles chuckled as he laid his Insaniton on the ground.

"Now then… first things first: what kind of abilities did you gain at the Mysterious Dimension?" Mephiles asked. "I had just noticed you seemed to be far weaker than you were when you were controlling the prison Dharkon made for you."

"Oh, there were a lot of things I could talk about," Marx answered. "I had super strength, telekinesis I had before which was then amplified to shape the land, summoning swarms of enemies and piles of food to my side. He just let me go crazy. Now that I'm free… I feel much weaker than before."

"Good," Mephiles spoke. "We're going to be playing a game across the land that tests your stats. There are seven stats: Attack, Defense, Speed, Special, Jump, Arms, and Intelligence." Mephiles generated seven symbols: an orange boxing glove, a blue shield, a green boot, a red starburst, a yellow wing, a purple sledgehammer, and a magenta brain.

"This glove resembles Attack, which amplifies physical strength," Mephiles explained. "The shield gives out Defense, and that's self-explanatory. Speed is symbolized by this boot, which increases movement speed. This starburst resembles Special, which is different from Attack since it utilizes magic for skills such as lasers, levitation, and teleportation to name a few. Jump, as evident by this feather, increases jump and flight. Arms, as evident by this hammer, is useful for a lot of things - it increases throw power, boosts items in a number of ways depending on usefulness, and upgrades projectiles. The most recent addition is Intelligence, and you can pretend this brain is a symbol for this kind of skill. Intelligence amplifies precision and combat when in battle, and it even increases your chances of getting the other six skills. These symbols should at least give you an idea on what they are. Now then… let us begin." Mephiles buried his crystalline foot into the ground, kicking out a chunk of rock straight at Marx.

The jester didn't know what was coming to him, meaning that he was hit in the face with the chunk. Several more chunks were flying straight at him, forcing Marx to roll out of danger and spit ice-coated balls at the flying rocks.

"What the hell was that!?" Marx snarled, growling as he was hit again by another rock.

"A test of marksmanship and patience," Mephiles replied, surrounding himself with rocks. "You're going to need to take down all these rocks as best as you can, but I feel that you've already gotten the hang of it so we'll move on. See how well you can face danger now that you no longer have Dharkon's dimension to assist you..." Mephiles looked down at his Insaniton, nodding at the pink slime. The Insaniton began to twitch, stretching out across the ground like a blanket and changing itself into a large gauntlet filled with pillars between swinging axes, puzzle-solving traps, flamethrowers, mallets, and possibly everything you could ask for when attending dangerous traps.

"If you're going to be a fit member for my army, you're going to have to prove you can do it alone," Mephiles continued. "I'll be tracking the seven stats based on performance and accuracy, and it's exactly what you want: a challenge that tests how much you want out of imperfection and madness caused by your mischievous antics. It requires intelligence as well as your stats. Remember: the three steps for determination."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Marx replied, stretching his wings over his head. "I got it. I got it."

"Alright then. I'll be meeting you at the end of the gauntlet. That way, I can determine if I can either let you into the front lines of my army or if you can work alone that I won't even require one." The crystalline hedgehog snapped his fingers, teleporting to the other side. A grin graced Marx's face as he glided in the air, which fell off just as quickly when an axe swung in front of him.

This is going to be far more difficult than I thought… Marx thought. Oh well! The jester flew around the swinging axe, laughing maniacally as he teleported away from the swing, only to be flattened by a heavy slab above him. As soon as the slab slowly lifted up to charge its crush, the winged jester pulled himself off the ground, popping his eyeballs back into their sockets. The slab was about to fall on him again, but Marx quickly scattered some seeds around the pedestal he was standing on. Those seeds grew into thorny stalks, holding the falling slab as best as they could. Just when the weight was about to win over them, the jester fired a laser from his mouth and shattered the slab.

A barrage of cannons popped up behind Marx, firing a barrage of lead balls straight at the jester. Marx quickly split himself in half, absorbing the rapid-firing cannonballs through a black hole. The demonic jester quickly dodged the second barrage, panicking and shooting an ice ball at a flamethrower just when it popped out of nowhere and tried to burn him. Saws and arrows far and wide were flying all over the gauntlet. Two mechanical arms quickly popped off Marx's wings like a fly, causing him to drop onto a large platform. The small jester landed in the beginning of a deathtrap, by which he was near a tiled floor. Each tile gave way underneath him once he slowly touched his foot on one of the tiles, by which they always led to certain death in a pool of lava.

Hm… looks like Mephiles's living contraption has clipped my wings, and I have to get them back once I cross over that tiled floor, Marx thought as he analyzed the saws moving across the floor along with the flame-tipped arrows. Whelp. No time to think! The jester ran across the tiles, jumping over every saw that got in his way and kicked out a bunch of beach balls to shield himself from the incoming arrows. Once Marx got to the end of the floor with several scratches on his plushy body, he grabbed ahold of the detached golden wings waiting for him from the pedestal they were resting on. The jester spread those wings open again, soaring into the air as he attacked a wall of dummies armed with assault rifles.

"Fascinating…" Mephiles told himself as he paid close attention to Marx's movements throughout the gauntlet. It was clear that even though most of the traps were what he struggled at, he was still filled with a malicious intent and a bloodthirsty appetite. That was what the crystalline hedgehog liked, but he knew Marx cannot do things alone. After all, his followers were still out there after the death of the Forgotten Gatekeeper, and Marx looked like he would be happy if more of his kind would play with him.

Once the planet's sun was halfway down over the horizon, Marx emerged out of the end of the gauntlet. The winged jester's hexagon scales were shedding off, his two-tone hat filled with rips and tears as he stamped out a small flame that was lit on one of the white pom-poms. His face was completely charred, and his left eyeball was hanging out his socket by its stalk.

"Impressive," Mephiles spoke, having already waited for Marx at the end. "Truly remarkable, I must say. Your own lust for violence and destruction surpasses even my own, but your damage output is mediocre at best compared to mine."

"Mediocre!?" Marx exclaimed. "You mean I went through this torture for nothing!?"

"Don't interrupt me," Mephiles continued, displaying a graph bar of the stats he explained. "Your Special and Attack powers are moderate at best, at a bit of the lukewarm area. I suggest you try harder to increase your offense. As for your Defense… it's pathetic. Literally. You won't even survive against a mountain crushing you. But I see that your Speed and Jump stats are clearly remarkable, still the best you've got even though you can't beat the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog. For your Arms and Intelligence… they're above average, at least. You are quite clever, and you take your time to learn how to squeeze past traps due to your small size. And for that, I'm impressed."

"So does this mean I get to be your one-man army?" Marx asked with flee sparkling in his violet eyes, tapping his talons against each other impatiently as he waited for the crystalline hedgehog to give out an answer. Mephiles just simply laughed at that question, confusing the winged jester greatly.

"You? A one-man army?" Mephiles responded in the form of a question, snapping his fingers. The Insaniton that formed into the entire gauntlet quickly folded up and reverted into its pink slime self, crawling over to its master.

"You don't even come close, Marx," Mephiles continued, stroking the pink slime with his fingers. "I've heard the legends of how you rose up against your father, King Grendel, in meaningless hatred and ruthlessness; how you absorbed the sun warming your home planet to drive your species to extinction while sacrificing your powers in the process. NOVA gave you those powers back, and yet I see nothing of what a few onlookers spoke of you: the demon of genocide."

"Alright, quit rubbing it in my face!" Marx snapped, ramming his left eye back into its socket. "I admit: I overestimated my powers back there, and I still do. So don't give me any more funny business."

"Relax, I won't," Mephiles responded. "You are quite useful getting some tasks done. Emphasis on 'some.' You still have much to learn, and I figured with more of your kind… you can cause some major damage." Those words peeked Marx with curiosity by which he never knew, and he wanted to know more.

"What do you mean… more of my kind?" Marx asked.

"I'm talking about a circus under my alliance," Mephiles ushered, his Insaniton slithering up his quills. "Clowns who are just like you: chaotic, use magic, fly… and I'm sure you can find someone who agrees with your ideals of a perfect world besides myself. I'm thinking about… jesters. The craziest kind out there, each with their own strategies. Come with me. We'll be heading over to a certain someone I know. He'll be leading the cacophony, and at least be glad you'll be one of the frontrunners of the bandwagon."

"Hold on… you didn't tell me there was gonna be a leader! Why didn't I become one!?" Marx complained.

"Didn't you hear what I just said?" Mephiles sighed, taking care not to lose his temper as always. "Compared to my leadership, you wouldn't stand a chance. Let's go." Mephiles took hold of Marx's wing, warping the two of them off the planet in a mist of deep indigo smoke.


The girl was tossed onto the center of a large straw nest, keeping a firm grip on the Earth Citrine as she backed away from the amphiptere approaching her. Her garnet eyes dilated in fear, her heart thumped hard and fast in her chest, her fingers trembled as she held tight to the stone.

"Nonononono!" the girl stammered, sweat dripping down her face as she shut her eyes. "I don't want you anywhere near me! Do not eat me!"

"Eat you…?" the amphiptere asked in a voice the girl did not expect. It sounded soft and a bit quiet upon delivery, unbeknownst to her. "I don't even know what you taste like. What makes you think I should eat something like you? What are you even supposed to be?"

"A… a toy," the girl answered as she sighed, looking at the gaps between the functional limbs in her own plastic fingers. "50% Wïsha, 50% Neomeat… 0% confidence. I mean, I tried to run away from you despite knowing I was meant to stay put until you left."

"I was just minding my own business without a care in the world," the amphiptere replied. "Your friends just got in the way as I tried to hunt down that bear-boar hybrid. They attacked me first."

"I feel like they didn't mean to," the girl assured. "I've only known them for a few minutes, but I have high beliefs that they are nice people… even if they are misunderstood."

"Ah, I see…" the amphiptere noted, starting to get a little comfortable with the victim they captured.

At the foot of the mountain, the two swordfighters landed on the slanted rocky ground with the utmost care. Cloud pulled out his Buster Sword, cutting the rope that tied their waists together. Link brushed the dust off his Sheikah Slate, hiking up the mountain as fast as he could.

"Y'know, I've gotten kinda curious as to why that dragon's even here in the first place," Cloud pointed out as he hiked behind the Champion of Hyrule. "Outside of Sozo and Hakai, the only remaining dragons were the kids sent to another dimension… unless that one just so happened to find a way back here…"

"That's kinda what I want to find out," Link noted. "Now come on. The sooner we rescue the hybrid girl, the sooner we can get back home."

Back at the nest, the girl and the amphiptere were getting friendly quite easily. The girl herself completely forgot why she was even in the nest, even though she kept a firm grip on the Earth Citrine. Meanwhile, the amphiptere was explaining all that happened back at the planet they grew up in, which mainly involved holidays, celebrations, and overall relaxing and pretty much uninteresting activities.

"And I guess that's why they call me Cirrus," the amphiptere finished. "Can you tell me your name?" The girl hung silent over what her name could be. As she knew, she never really had one.

"I… I don't know," the girl replied, holding her hands close to her bosom. "I could say I stayed there frozen in ice and gems for so long I forgot even my own name, but I can clearly remember my own past. The only names I do remember being given were 'freak,' 'loser,' and weirdo.' There were far worse and more vulgar names both sides called me, saying I'll never accomplish who I'm meant to be - anything but a nobody that fits in neither side. Sorry. Guess I opened up to a complete stranger."

"It's alright," Cirrus replied. The amphiptere admired the silky dark magenta hair the girl bore, as well as the pinkish-orange skin covering her face and arms. "You know… you do kinda look like a gem yourself. I'm thinking along the lines of a special kind of sapphire. A rare color so incredibly hard to find, almost like it's one of a kind…"

"Do you mean a padparadscha?" the girl corrected. "When I'm often left alone, I tend to go into caves to vent my frustrations and, as a result, study rocks and jewels to pass the time. Sometimes I feel like they're my only friends…"

"...I understand," Cirrus sighed, lowering her wings. "Speaking of which, can I call you Pappy? It's short for padparadscha, just in case you haven't figured that out…" The girl looked up at the amphiptere with emotions she could barely recognize, trying to get used to the fact that this mysterious winged serpentine made entirely out of flesh and bone had just given her a name.

"Pappy… I like that," the girl spoke with a soft tone, having just accepted it as her own identity. She soon heard Cloud Strife and Link climbing up the sharp rocks surrounding the crater that the nest was located in, and the two blond-haired swordsmen drew their weapons upon spotting the beast.

"No wait!" Pappy called out to the fighters, crawling out of the nest as she dropped the Earth Citrine without knowing. "Don't hurt them! They gave me a name, and it's Pappy!"

"Why would you let that dragon give you a name?" Cloud asked as Pappy ran over to them.

"Because you two numbskulls were trying to kill me when I was just hungry, but you probably already knew that considering it took you long enough to just… show up here," Cirrus growled, its body curling as they tried to look threatening to their visitors.

"Sorry about the affair," Link nervously chuckled, sliding the Master Sword back into the hilt. "It was a force of a self-defensive habit. We didn't really mean any harm. You can thank me for that…" The amphiptere silly glanced down with a suspicious stare, their coiled body slowly straightening out.

"It's alright," Cloud spoke for the Champion of Hyrule, placing the Buster Sword on his back. "He was just overly confident in himself. Don't be too hard on us now. I'll be the one to help him change for the better…"

"...If you say so," Cirrus gruffed silently, reaching into their nest to take out the Earth Citrine and spat it out in the group's direction through a soft gust of wind. "By the way, you might have dropped this. You guys can head back to your home base now." Cloud Strife wiped the dirt off the stone, giving it to Link.

"You two can go on ahead without me," Cloud Strife spoke, placing his hands on Link's and Pappy's shoulders. "I know you might need to answer more questions you have about that gem, and I kinda have questions to ask this dragon too. And um… Pappy? Hope Link can teach you a few things about confidence the RIGHT way."

"I hope he does," Pappy responded as she followed the Champion of Hyrule. As soon as Link and the girl climbed outside the crater, the 1st-class SOLDIER kept his glowing-cyan eyes on the amphiptere.

"What are you doing…?" Cirrus asked.

"I just need to know how you got here," Cloud Strife responded, folding his arms in front of his chest. "Tell me this, do you know anything about Sozo and Hakai, sons of Lord Ceresor?"

"I've heard the tales, and I was told to seek them out," the amphiptere answered, slithering around the ex-mercenary. "There were also these stones that made up some Diamond of Universes every solar system alignment here, and I think I found one of the gems…"

"Who told you to seek Sozo and Hakai out…?" Cloud asked.

"One of my friends," the amphiptere pointed out. "He went out harvesting berries outside the valley where us dragonkind live, and even though he was blind he had keen hearing and could listen to a conversation miles away. He was one of the few remaining dragons that mastered omniversal teleportation, and he… sent me here."

"Who, by chance, did those voices belong to…?"

"...I have no idea, but I have a gut feeling that they could be very dangerous if left alone to whatever sickening, twisted deeds they have for all of us…"


The dark indigo mist filled up a pitch-black room, by which Mephiles and Marx were warped into. Marx began to shiver upon feeling the dropping temperature, wrapping himself in his golden wings and flashing hexagon scales. The light the scales emitted was completely dim, but bright enough to see that the jester was standing on a floor of ice, and as a result see a cloud emerge from his mouth as he exhaled.

"M-M-M-M-Mephiles?" Marx stammered, shivering from the cold place. "W-W-Where do you th-th-th-think we are?"

"We're located within the Grave of the Wendigoes, a place locked deep beneath the bellows of the World of Balance," Mephiles explained, with the Insaniton shifting itself into a torch within the crystalline hedgehog's hand. The shapeshifted slime ignited itself, giving light to the room with no exits in sight. Marx looked around the place, seeing nothing but rusted cuffs and corpses of towering, rotting, reindeer-like humanoids either buried deep within the ice or almost submerged in it.

"The person we are looking for is straight ahead," Mephiles continued as he floated down the hallway. "When he and the statues were defeated, all the magic of this world vanished. The heroes of this world thought they put an end to his antics, but they only locked him up in a place where no mere mortal can survive. However, he's still holding onto that last remnant of magic, even after all these years."

"What? You two were old friends?" Marx asked.

"You could say that," Mephiles answered. "In fact, I often visit him from time to time, giving him the strength and confidence he needs to recharge what little magic remains inside him. It wasn't an easy process, but I promised him he would become the leader of an army of clowns just like him. Well… look where we are now." Mephiles stopped for a brief minute, with Marx standing still as a hope he wouldn't freeze if he didn't move a muscle in his body.

The two stood in front of some sort of cage made entirely out of ice, with chains cuffed to the prisoner's wrists and ankles. From just the torchlight the Insaniton was emitting on its own, it was just a silhouette. He laughed upon seeing the light from outside his prison cell, by which Marx was strangely comfortable with.

"Could it be? Is it he?" the silhouette of the prisoner asked with a lighthearted and flamboyant tone of voice. "If it isn't my old pal Mephiles! What brings you here to this fine and spacious establishment?"

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Mephiles asked. "I've been away for about ten years, waiting for a certain group of warriors to save the multiverse. And I guess I should return the favor."

"Hello. What's this?" the prisoner asked, grabbing ahold of Marx's wing without consent from past the icy bars. "Did you bring me a new snack? Good old Mephiles, as always. I think I'll start with the feet. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Don't touch me! I̷̞̯̲̼͎ͮ͋͒̊̾ͤ̐ ̒̀͊͏͓̰̠̣͈̦̞W̷̳͈̻̥͇͚̽̑ͪͨ̍̅̿ͅIͣ̊ͭ̇L̡̍̓͌ͮL̦͛̕ ͈̄̊̋͌ͫC̶̺̮̼̲̪̟U̖͙̪͖̪͉͐̇̏̅͋ͤTͯ̔̏͐͛ͅ ̜͕̳͛̏̌ͥ̓͞Y̟͚̠̠̳̳ͦͭ͆O̝̞̘͔͊̏ͯ͊̽́͌̕U̶͕̥̘͙̝̜͌̏̌̒!͙̝̣̫ͪ͌͊̔͐ͅ!͕̘͖͆ͦͣ!͌̏ͨ" Marx snarled, squirming out of the prisoner's grip and distorting his voice as he flew away, firing a laser at the prison cell. The ice scattered across the small room, with Mephiles chuckling as Marx tried to calm his temper.

"Thanks for doing all the sweaty labor for me, Marx," Mephiles spoke with a soft tone, rubbing Marx's hat. "I should have freed our friend long ago…"

"Another jester like me?" the prisoner asked, with the sound of chains dragging across the icy floor. "With the colorful outfit, the smile, and everything? Oh, Mephiles. You shouldn't have…" Within the Insaniton's torchlight, Marx now saw the appearance of the prisoner locked up. The enigmatic entity wore an outfit mostly made out of yellow and red fabrics, his fashion choice a completely nauseating jumble of stripes and polka dots. A ruffle of red and white wrapped around his neck, along with a cape with yellow and red inner lining. His skin was a pale white, with reddened makeup gracing his eyelids and a smile with the notion that he's not one to play nice. Marx looked up at the tall clown in complete awe from just the appearance of his complicated design alone.

"I've been dying to get the perfect company around here for eons!" the chained-up jester laughed. "It's like my birthday all over again~! Oh, the things you and I are going to do together, little one!" The jester wiggled his finger in front of Marx's face, to which the cosmic clown bit down as a sign to tell the prisoner to back off.

"Don't get too comfortable around me, punk!" Marx growled, his appearance shifting his more adorable features again. "Name's Marx, and I'm not one to be played for a fool."

"Oh, but aren't we all the fools around here, little one?" the prisoner continued, levitating in midair as his back faced the ground. "They refer to me as the clown prince of crime, but you can call me… Kefka Palazzo. I feel like the two of us are going to get along perfectly like peanut butter and peanut allergies: a spectacular performance I won't miss for the world." Kefka heard the sound of a cuff drop to the icy floor, and he felt his free wrist shake off the soreness he had to sit through. A small chunk of the Insaniton was slithering around his body, tickling him ever so to the point where he giggled as it was lubricating the other rusted cuffs.

"I hope you're welcome, Kefka," Mephiles said.

"Are you kidding!? This is exactly what I dreamed of!" Kefka laughed, dancing around the air as he embraced the freedom to move around. "Now I can finally cause all the mischief I want!"

"Hey, that's my line!" Marx snarled.

"You will once everything goes according to plan," Mephiles reassured, walking over to the two jesters. "But first… how about a little game? For old time's sake?"

"Are you kidding?" Kefka asked, gently setting his feet on the ground. "Games are what I've been living up to for this very moment! What kind of game are we playing?"

"A simple collect-a-thon game," Mephiles answered, spawning a scroll in his hands. "You two are tasked in bringing more jesters of your kind to our home base, and Kefka: I'm counting on you to be a leader of the clowns."

"Yeah, sure," Marx growled with complete jealousy. "Make a guy I barely know the eldest sibling."

"But look at all the playmates we get to invite!" Kefka laughed, presenting the cosmic jester with the complete list of names for every jester in the multiverse.

"If the Super Smash Brothers can send out an invitation of Smash World to other universes, then I suppose I can do the same," Mephiles explained. "I'll be traversing the cosmos and searching for the souls that had been guarded by the Forgotten Gatekeeper. Don't come back to the Hidden Dragon Realm until you've checked off every name on that list. Understand?"

"This is going to be so much fun!" Kefka cried with joy, jogging in place as he couldn't handle the excitement.

"Well now… more folks who'd like to play alongside us, huh?" Marx asked, reading through the list. "Well, I guess I agree with the lover-boy here. This is gonna be fun…"

"Excellent," Mephiles chuckled. "The first name on the list is a court jester who knows how to have fun. If it wasn't for the magic barrier keeping him locked up, he would experience true freedom with you two right about now. Now then… I'll be off. Good luck." Mephiles and the Insaniton vanished in an indigo mist, leaving Kefka and Marx alone in the dark, cold room.

"Well now," Kefka giggled in a playful manner, stretching his fingers. "First, we're going to have to figure out which of these universes to go off too. It might be perfect for our jester friend. Where do you suggest we should go, little one? Just the suggestion. I'll take care of the rest." Marx read the name at the top of the list, his galaxy-filled eyes twinkling with the utmost curiosity as written in bold among the other names was… Jevil. The cosmic jester scratched his head as he read through the names on the list.

Dimentio.

Joka.

Dhoulmagus.

Reala.

Clownpiece.

Far too many names to count.

"Little one…?" Kefka asked, spooking Marx a bit. "Which destination are we going to? I'm not one to lollygag all day. Oh wait, I am."

"Alright, alright… give me time to figure out where we need to go before you send me out to get the essentials necessa-" Marx spoke before he was cut off by his own thought. "Hey, Kefka… have you heard of a place called the Skylands?"