Terror in Daylight
We will start with Mario's group as the mission to reclaim Vindfält's base begins. Strap in for some action!
It's as if there is no end to these cultists. Just when we think that the base is about to be ours, we get swarmed with another wave of hostiles. I wish for a quick end to this war, but after years of terrible onslaughts, I see no end in sight.
-Letter to the royal family, attributed to a senior officer
Whoosh…
Mario brought forth the Staff of Björn as he prepared to battle villainous cultists in what would become his first battle in broad daylight. His group began to fan out in a planned fashion to aid the soldiers that had either survived last night's assault or were sent as replacements, and such soldiers were barely holding out against a barrage of vicious attacks from terrorizing Drakar and their cohorts on the ground. Explosions from airborne vehicles forced several fighters to take cover in dilapidated buildings near the base, while others were forced to evade as they prepared to confront their robed enemies. The older plumber skidded towards a trench in the ground as he took aim with the magical weapon in his hands.
ZAP!
The cultist marked for death was unaware of the approaching projectile until it was too late, being torn in half within a second. Nevertheless, Mario had to remain low with several Rosträdgårdian soldiers when heavy-weapon cultists fired at the group with grenades, all of which exploded with sudden flashes of blue light. Just before he could fire away with his weapon, Falco and Samus outpaced him for the kill by launching lasers down on several of those same cultists. Some managed to teleport away, but others faced the misfortune of becoming fried by raw energy. Peach, now soaring thanks to her propulsion systems, used her railgun to disable a war machine that was about to incinerate Olimar and his group—Marth, DK, Ike, and Pit. A flaming shot from the ape's Coconut Shooter demolished the interior of the affected vehicle and partly dismembered the operators inside. Red and Charizard were staying behind the safety of a ruined building as the latter fired away with jets of fire…
BOOM!
…when a Lord wielding an RPG-style weapon noticed the two fighters and tried to shoot them down. The Flame Pokémon immediately retreated to the safety of a battered wall, which nearly blasted the hat from Red's hair. Another shot was fired by the cultist, but Mario's weapon sniped the explosive projectile before Charizard could be blasted away. An anti-air vehicle owned by the Lords swiftly penetrated a Rosträdgårdian unit with a small swarm of missiles.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOOOOM!
The defeated fighter jet descended to the ground like a mechanical meteor and crashed in an area where the two sides were skirmishing. More soldiers for the kingdom were killed than cultists in the subsequent blast, and the Smashers and Black Guard members that were involved—Wario, Diddy, Yoshi, Roy, and two other fighters—were barely out of range to avoid severe burns. In fact, the fat miser even felt a burning ember strike his arms while they shielded his face from possible hazards.
"Fuck…" he growled. Afterwards, he rolled into a trench with Yoshi to avoid incoming fire from multiple Lords. Several cloaked Lords tried to sneak up on Roy and Diddy, only to fail due to interception by a Black Guard member and his also-cloaked partners. The older man drew a dagger from his coat that, upon the addition of magic, transformed into a katana-style blade with enough power to disembowel those who approached him. One of his partners physically grappled with a female cultist before the latter electrocuted the former with her magic; he was saved by the aged magician and his effort to decapitate the malevolent woman. Nearby, Wario and Yoshi proceeded to toss bombs from the safety of their trench, with the green dinosaur also swallowing and spitting out approaching enemies. Sometimes, however, he would go even further and transform foes into eggs for throwing. Meters away, Mario raised his staff's shield in response to an incoming grenade.
BANG!
It was blocked successfully, although the plumber was nearly forced to the ground in the process. A nearby member of the Black Guard conjured a black whip to pull two cultists into the trench for dismemberment by Mario and a handful of soldiers. The plumber, no longer burdened with the explosive bomb on his staff's shield, sniped a vehicle that was harassing Olimar's group and gave his allies a chance to advance. Marth and Ike advanced onto their foes while Black Guard members silently incapacitated or killed Lords from their hidden states, slicing apart limbs. Pit found himself in a difficult position when a Drake started to fire at him, an event exacerbated by offensive attacks from heavy infantry and a lieutenant. Pit fired as many arrows as he could before one of his wings had the misfortune to be grazed by a spiked wheel from one of the fanatical believers.
"Okay, that hurt," the angel moaned. He was forced to fall back following the approach of an overwhelming black swarm in front of him, forcing Olimar and DK to support him. Charizard swept into the field and, with a mighty roar, swiftly bisected three cultists with a deadlier version of the Shadow Claw. It dodged every projectile thrown in its direction…
SPLACK!
…except for one energy spear that impaled it below the ribs. Red would have been struck by this damaging attack as well; on the contrary, the weapon was slightly off and grazed not even a skin cell on the trainer's body. Charizard struggled to stay afloat as it assumed simultaneous offensive and defensive maneuvers, and it needed the support of Mario and those in Ike's group so that its body—a surprisingly light entity compared to heavier fighters like DK—would not sustain more damage. Several Black Guard members created a unified to let the Smashers advance without fear of retaliation. A cloaked enemy tried to stab Ike from behind when he was eviscerated by an accompanying member of the Black Guard; she had utilized a spell to detect Lords who were under the effects of stealth suits and catch him red-handed. On the ground, it was not wrong to assume that the Smashers and their allies were slowly pushing back their adversaries, if only at a slow speed due to fierce resistance.
In the air, things were bleaker. Samus felt her body shake rapidly when her gunship sustained several shots from opposing units in both divisions of the battle, land and air. Its auto-repair systems were helpful in mitigating some damage, but it was not enough to stop the ship's energy from decreasing. Losing her patience, the orphaned warrior of Chozo blood unleashed a charged shot from the ship's main cannon to ensure that many opposing vehicles on the ground did not survive another day outside the scrap heap.
Falco was faring better due to his Arwing's superior mobility as well as the ability to reflect incoming projectiles with a well-timed aileron roll, but even he could not fully escape hostile fire. Worse yet, his attempt at disabling a Drake via his explosive weapon was badly hampered because an opponent made the choice of ramming him from behind. The Smart Bomb was launched off-course and nearly reduced a Rosträdgårdian unit into heated slag. Rosträdgårdian jets, those that fled last night due to extreme hostile presence, provided some help, but the fact that they were greatly outnumbered only worsened the ace pilot's problems. Peach, with her cyborg body's great flexibility in high-speed flight, was highly swift and had no problem disabling enemy engines—or piercing energy shields—with her projectile-based weapons or her powerful blade…
CRACK-BOOM!
…until she was shot in the back with a powerful round. With a slight sense of rage rising from her mind, she refocused her attention on the grounded vehicle that nearly disabled her and launched powerful bombs from her right arm's cannon. Before its final destruction, however, it expelled a final shot from its elongated weapon; this one nearly detonated on the princess's metallic body. It only failed to hit when she reached into her left leg's compartment chamber and activated a red energy barrier with holographic hexagons on its surface. The device itself was shaped into a small rod with a button on its center and two projectors on its ends.
"Nice try," she spat forcefully. Another shot from the railgun was enough to simultaneously destroy two Drakar and stun a third, bypassing shields entirely. Doing so was enough to reduce the intense pressure on Falco, who, in turn, aided Samus by bombing and zapping enemies that dared to approach her.
"Got ya covered, Sam," the pheasant announced. His Arwing dropped down to outright splatter a handful of foes in the process of assailing Mario's group, complete with secondary fire from the gunship. Nearby, DK slapped the ground repeatedly to create earthquakes, launching or tumbling Lords with the sheer strength in his muscles. This gave fuel to Falco's process of reducing targets into bloody paste, a risky action considering all the armed threats on the earth, by hoisting them into the air or otherwise leaving them unable to stand up faster than a participant could yell "game over". An aileron roll was enough to remove black blood from Falco's view.
Marth and Ike were standing together to assist their Rosträdgårdian allies during the advance, but they were forced to retreat when two Lords with heavy weapons interrupted them in one of the most explosive ways possible.
BOOM-BOOM!
Rocket-propelled grenades nearly deafened the ears of both swordsmen, but the flames had yet to reach them due to inadequate distance. Marth was slowed down by an incoming enemy with ice-based spells, leaving it upon himself to skewer and hack apart his foes before escaping another grenade. Two Black Guard members shielded Ike while he retreated to a trench. Charizard took potshots with its ferocious Flamethrower despite a grievous injury, with Red supporting it by exploiting the healing property of a spray-type medicine. The Pokémon felt burns as the medicine touched its exposed wound, which was not enough to distract it from the battle or its attempt to slay a Drake by melting its engines with Flamethrower. Falco and Samus were instrumental in rescuing Olimar's group from a lieutenant and her group, especially since Pit's fragile wings were about to be totally eviscerated by the sinister woman's magic. Fate would not be so kind to them, however, when several hostiles created a tight formation to outmatch the ace pilot and push him into a dangerous predicament. Lasers and missiles were fired in synchrony, which only added to the difficulty of avoiding all of them in a perfect run, and on top of that, the missiles had homing capabilities. Even aileron rolls could not shield him entirely.
"Fucking son of a-!" the frustrated pheasant grunted. "I'm getting whipped here! Can you folks give me a hand here?"
"I'll help," Samus replied through commlink, but more Drakar and anti-air vehicles on ground halted her gunship in place. Even with its full firepower, it simply could not shove its way past a thick enemy line without becoming attacked. Peach tried to step in and help the bounty huntress with her powerful arsenal, aiming both the railgun and the standard cannon at the dark group.
Bzzzzzzz-ZAP-ZAP!
"Gotcha now-"
BANG-ZAP!
Despite blowing at least three vehicles to burning pieces, Peach was swiftly shot by an unexpected enemy: a lieutenant who—notwithstanding attacks from Ike and anyone else in his group—fired an absurdly fast lightning bolt from one of his hands. This lieutenant had stepped in to replace a cohort of equal rank and was accompanied by his subordinates to push back Ike and his allies, and his eyes had already caught the cybernetic princess in her attempts at assisting the assailed Samus. It was no surprise, then, that he chose to remove her from the equation while his magical shield blocked several targets contemporaneously.
The blonde-haired cyborg was forced to land on the ground for the third time in the adventure due to her malfunctioning propulsion system. However, unlike the instances within the battle with Magnus Hedin, the electrical currents were significantly more painful because of the lieutenant's higher magical output and, therefore, stronger spell. Additionally, her limbs were harder to move, and her bionic eye displayed the following message:
WARNING: DANGEROUS VOLTAGE PRESENT IN SYSTEM—EXTREMITY MOVEMENT REDUCED. PROPULSION SYSTEM MALFUNCTION.
"Urgh!" The princess slowly crawled across the ground to recover before her propulsion system could work again, which soon caught Mario's eyes. The plumber, now pushing forward with his Rosträdgårdian allies and the staff's shield, launched three fireballs to attack incoming cultists. A cultist with a cloaking suit nearly stabbed him through the heart, but one Black Guard member quietly averted a potential death through the attacker's incineration. Not too far away, Wario, now outside his trench, unleashed a massive fart to knock down every Lord around him and push away a hostile war machine. Diddy and Yoshi contributed to the miser's efforts by launching eggs and explosive peanuts, and the nearby Roy swiftly hacked apart all but one of his foes. The one enemy who was not hewed by the Sword of Seals was a female lieutenant who teleported away from the fiery blade and produce a spiked chain to impale the redhead. It was already too late for the swordsman to turn around when he impaled just below the ribs.
SPLACK!
"No!" he yelled. In the effort to pull himself away, he failed by being ruthlessly jerked forward and whirled around in a circle. His head felt a swelling sense of pain, the stomach in his gut almost became tempted to expel everything inside it, and his back was wracked with stabbing knives in his nerves after the woman launched him next to a Lord-operated vehicle. As he shakily regained his battle stance, the operator took aim at him and fired a fatal round.
BOOM!
He barely dodged by remaining low before leaping up to the vehicle's top, slamming the Sword of Seals with explosive force. Flames emerged from the blade to melt or otherwise destroy cold steel and expose the Lord inside. The troubled cultist was scorched and sliced in two with an inverted version of the Blazer, with Roy quickly descending instead of ascending. Rather than leaving the vehicle where it was, he hijacked it and fired away at other hostile machines. This fact was not lost among the Smashers, Lords, or Rosträdgårdian defenders.
"Looks like one of those fuckers is malfunctioning," Falco muttered, unaware of Roy's hijacking. He was still avoiding heavy laser fire and homing missiles, all of which were only avoided by spinning around and speedily dodging. In desperation did he launch one of his Smart Bombs, but even that was imperfect. One of the Arwing's wings was shot to derail the ace pilot's path and force him to go on the defensive position with Samus.
"A traitor…" the female lieutenant snarled. She had not noticed Roy's attempt to steal one of her organization's vehicles and tried to freeze the treads at the bottom.
BANG!
A shot close to the woman's feet was enough to catapult her into the air, allowing Rosträdgårdian soldiers to attack her. She conjured magical chains to constrict several of them, but one man was lucky enough to leap away and fire a shotgun-like blast into her chest. It was not enough to keep her down or prevent her magic from freezing the man's weapon, but interference from Yoshi—who had previously pushed enemies away from his location with eggs—resulted in her launch towards Roy's vehicle; his tongue wrapped around her neck and tossed her all the way to the desired spot. The cannon's subsequent blast fried the woman and forced her chains to disintegrate.
"…?" A handful of Rosträdgårdian soldiers approached the hijacked vehicle to notice the young swordsman inside, having defeated the lieutenant with his new weapon.
"Don't worry, I've got your backs," he stated. With a helpful asset in play, he proceeded to blast apart Lord-owned machines and grounded cultists who posed the greatest threat.
Farther away, minutes earlier…
"Can't wait to get back with the folks in Vindfält," Johan Eriksson muttered. He had taken a Drake from the central palace at the Isola del Inferno with permission from his masked leader and was already on a smooth path to the besieged air base. Without the disgraced Magnus Hedin to threaten him, all he needed to worry about, in his mind, was a possible threat from the Rosträdgårdian military, one that could possibly nullify last night's victory. The sun's rays kept him warm in the winter's harsh coldness, a necessary respite from the climate at the Northern Plains.
"Hope Lina's doing okay at her post. I don't want to see the daylight wreaking havoc on some of her guys." The clouds zoomed past his ship as the captain remained high in the atmosphere. The ocean below him was an endless wave of blue with a shade darker than the dimmest parts of the sky, but the land consisting of Rosträdgård and its neighbors was a canvas of greens and tan coloring. As he approached the kingdom's southern coast, traces of smoke were more visible from the city and from a handful of other areas on the larger continent. Broken ships on the waters nearby were merely the remains of what had once been a fierce skirmish over naval superiority, though the captain paid no attention to what would have been a haunting memory to a native of the city.
Whoosh…
The Drake soared pasted ruined buildings and abandoned roads, traveling a small group of kilometers north to observe the pathway towards the ruined base. Noticing several new enemies on the ground and a slight replenishment of mechanical targets to be annihilated, Johan became more than eager to continue his fight against the opposing military. What piqued his interest, however, was the sight of Samus's gunship in the battle's aerial theater.
"What have we got here?" The gunship was an unusual specimen to him, a metallic creature from another place in Terramythica or even an entirely different dimension. He had never observed anything it, and it was possible that he could encounter a foreign creature inside after shooting the ship down. Preparing himself, he proceeded to fire away with his weapons. Falco was lucky enough to catch the captain in his sights, breaking formation with Samus and spraying blue lasers at the new threat after shooting down Drakar with the few Rosträdgårdian jets that survived Magnus's assault.
"Not gonna let ya get away," the pheasant grunted. His trusty aileron roll deflected the first of Johan's shots and simultaneously provided a time window for counterattacking, which he happily accepted. Another bomb shot the front hull of the captain's ship, soaring past an electromagnetic pulse that failed in its effort to disable the Arwing as expected. However, this same pulse fried the engines of an unaware Rosträdgårdian jet that was about to smash the tight formation of Drakar into smoldering pieces. Upon impact, the pilot inside performed an emergency ejection and left his crippled vehicle to slam into a Lord-owned war machine on the ground. Removing the parachute from his person by cutting the ropes with a magical knife, he joined his remaining comrades on the ground while Falco continued to battle Johan.
"Time for some pain, bitch!" He tried to strike with a Smart Bomb when the captain suddenly swerved to the right and, following a sharp U-turn, rammed into the smaller ship from behind.
"Aw, what?" He barely regained control when a pair of red lasers shot him from underneath, a sign of Johan's approach from below. Never the pilot to accept being outwitted by an opponent, Falco pulled back and launched another bomb to disable the Drake's shield. Samus aided the ace pilot by launching lasers to stagger Johan, but even that was not enough to prevent him from retaliating. He fired an EMP to weaken the gunship before harassing the Star Fox pilot with a homing missile. Falco managed to avoid an explosive death by rolling in place at the right moment, but Samus experienced a slight decrease in altitude from the pulse—notwithstanding her botched effort to dodge. The gunship's backup generator sustained the primary systems so that Samus would not be completely removed from the fight, albeit at the cost of much energy for the main weapon. Charizard, still at the ruined building, teamed up with the pheasant to fight off Johan and aid Samus, complete with fiery blasts from the mouth.
In the process of having to flee from multiple attacks, Johan nearly splattered Mario and his group from remaining low. The Mushroom Kingdom's most recognizable defender, keeping the Staff of Björn's shield active, lobbed fireballs at various Lords in a nearby trench and simultaneously granted Peach some time to recover from the devastating lightning bolt. Peach was reduced to utilizing her right arm's cannon in its standard mode, with occasional charged shots to annihilate tougher cultists. Her bionic eye was set to its X-ray mode, and this handy asset allowed her to discern where cloaked Lords were hiding; this was helpful in killing or stunning enemies who threatened either of the other groups on the ground. It also fired lasers intermittently. Wario, Diddy, and Yoshi continued to lob their usual projectiles, all swordsmen except Roy valiantly sliced apart incoming cultists, and Olimar stunned foes with his chain of Pikmin. DK fired an explosive coconut to cripple an enemy vehicle already under attack from Roy's hijacked unit.
BOOM!
Roy's efforts were instrumental in clearing many hostile machines on the ground to reduce stress, but when he tried to decimate the lieutenant in opposition to Marth's group, the intended shot was deflected with ultrafast reflexes and a magical shield, something that nearly pierced Samus's recovering gunship. The iron-clad warrior of Chozo blood retaliated unsuccessfully with a twin array of laser shots, blocked by the same shield. Falco eviscerated more Drakar with his bombs, which were now running low, and came close to battering Johan with more firepower.
"Can't let you win this one," the captain proclaimed from the safety of his cockpit. With the power to create portals as he pleased, his entire ship entered the warping void, reappeared above the Arwing, and blasted the unprepared pheasant with a charged shot.
BOOM!
"Oh, come on!" Falco yelled. With Samus and Charizard shifting focus to attack more Drakar, he was now on his own in the fight against the prankster-captain. Johan's abuse of his portals complicated matters with their ability to protect the lone Drake from firepower as well as granting Falco little time to react against Johan's own attacks. The Arwing repeatedly dodged in many directions and fired as quickly as possible, intermittently battering its larger opponent to prevent the energy shield from regenerating. At one point, the captain chose to ram into Falco head-on at high speeds, and since the ace pilot was dangerously close to the Drake when it emerged from the latest portal, he barely evaded the damning blow in what was essentially a fraction of a second. Falco, growing increasingly frustrated, fired two Smart Bombs in rapid succession before switching to lasers.
BOOM-BOOM!
As the explosions were expanding, Johan fled the first with relative ease and, in turn, was blasted away with the second. A forced grin emerged from Falco's face as he felt the tired joy of being able to remove the goofy captain from the fight via rapid-fire lasers. He fired away with extreme prejudice…
Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-ZAP!
The engines of the lone Drake were reduced to burning bits, and it was more than enough to force the captain—a man who was notably less experienced in piloting compared to the vile organization's prime necromancer or even the obese warmonger—into retreat; he shot the windshield and soared into the cold atmosphere of Vindfält. With one threat eliminated, or so he believed, Falco then switched priorities, now assisting Marth's group against the lieutenant. As with Roy's shot, the Arwing's lasers were blocked, but due to a cumulation of damage, the commander's shield was on the verge of collapse.
"Gonna take you down." With a loud yell, he charged his ship right into the weakening barrier. The lieutenant quickly alerted himself to the Arwing's incoming speed. Quick eyes, unfortunately, were inadequate in pulverizing the ship while simultaneously trying to harass Ike's group, and they were soon staring at the sky when the cold tip of steel hacked through bones and soft tissue, alongside the shield that shattered into ethereal pieces of glass.
"You're done, motherfucker." Falco, spinning his windshield clean, focused his attention on zapping opposing infantry on the ground to save up on his bombs. Samus was utilizing explosive missiles from her gunship to disable shields and gave to herself and Charizard opportunities to permanently eliminate multiple Drakar. On the ground, Mario's group joined with Yoshi's and poured in all the firepower possible to slowly loosen the cult's grip on Vindfält's premier source of aerial defense. Peach, still mired by her electrically induced sluggishness, fired a bomb towards a small group of cultists before it even managed to slice apart Ike and Marth with elongated blades of pure energy, and this granted Ike enough time to blow away the survivors with Eruption. Farther away was Johan Eriksson, now alone with his high-power sniper rifle and ready to resume his battle on the ground. As the Smashers pushed back the Lords into the base with their allies, the prankster wasted no time on spitting bullets from the cold, long barrel in front of him.
BANG!
The first bullet to defy the tranquil air's omnipresence pierced the cranium of an unwary soldier, more than enough to kill him instantly. Five more darkened the field with their terrifying presence and pierced Marth, Peach, Mario, a Black Guard member, and Falco's Arwing on the spot; these were strong enough to ignore the defense of even the cyborg princess's metallic exterior and the ace pilot's speedy machine. Mario kept his aim straight to fire away at the captain, intense pain from the chest notwithstanding. He had just enough luck to damage the sniper rifle and disable a ranged threat to the group, an aggravating event for the captain as well as a trigger for a closer approach.
"You wanna play dirty, huh?" As he teleported towards the base, Mario, Marth, and Peach experienced leeching pain from the bullets that bypassed their bodies. The young king was bleeding near the affected right hip, the plumber could not neglect the result of that which demonstrated the true fragility of mortal flesh against soaring steel, and the princess felt some sparks leak from the hole in her steel body thanks to a bit of damage applied to her cybernetics. In fact, Peach was even hoping that her internalized nanomachines would step in and fix the injury, a relatively slow feat compared to the battle's intense pace. Alongside Charizard and its partner, Samus, Falco, Marth, and Ike remained outside with a handful of soldiers and members of the Black Guard while everyone progressed inside, with Ike himself supporting the wounded Hero-King.
Inside the base, the hangar bay was dotted with Lords of differing types, ruined air machines, and corpses of fallen Rosträdgårdian defenders. The fact that the few remaining cultists had either a heavy weapon, a suit for invisibility, or—in the case of one enemy—a lieutenant's ranking signaled that the Smashers and their supporters had encountered what could have easily been the last line of defense. As an insult to injury, Johan emerged from one of his portals to confront his enemies directly.
"Eh, you folks might want to back off, because I don't want to disappointment my boss or let the resurrection be halted," he grunted with a playful type of anger in his voice. He would have continued his intended statement if his eyes had not captured the sight of Olimar, one of his enemies at Tallon IV.
"Hey, I know you. You're the little fella who was with that Samus gal at Tallon IV! Y'know, getting back at ya folks wasn't on my list of objectives today, but I'll be more than happy to provide a smashin' good time to ya folks… by smashing your spines to dust." That last part chilled Olimar's already-cold body. He had already suffered from the goofy captain's power inside Glacier One and barely survived to live another day, and the ironic coldness that reeked from those words…
It was a telling sign that he would no longer play around with him, the Hocotatian.
"Is Olimar okay?" Yoshi asked to Mario, noticing Olimar's tense expression.
"Maybe not," replied the tertiary leader of the Smashers. He did not allow Johan to spew another word from his mouth by piercing a nearby enemy with the staff's laser beam; the target, having been burdened with a heavy weapon, failed to raise his shield in time before his torso was blasted apart. Peach fired away with her main weapon with support from Wario, Yoshi, and Diddy, a helpful asset due to her reduced speed; her bionic eye was still in its X-ray mode to let her alert other fighters of cloaked threats. Johan switched to his pistol to shatter Olimar's helmet and expose the Hocotatian to an oxygen-filled atmosphere with the potency to kill someone like him. Pit interfered just in time with his reflective shield, albeit clumsily since the speeding bullet offered him an infinitesimal time window to properly react. For his efforts, the angel was shot at the ribs twice.
"Why me?" he moaned. Before he could be shot again, Olimar stepped to his defense by tossing his red and yellow Pikmin at the captain, who avoided the attack by warping away. Wario chomped on a clove of garlic from his bag to enhance the strength of his vicious bite, a boost exploited to its limit with a cultist who was about to impale him with a deadly spear. He was only stopped by a cloaked enemy and her tipped blades, piercing his ribs and almost beheading him. Mario fired away with the staff, and while the initial shot was blocked by her shield, his high jump allowed him to slice her head and arms into large pieces.
Yoshi latched his tongue onto an icy shot and waited until there was an opportunity to retaliate against the aggressive lieutenant who was maximizing the ensnaring aspect of his chains to send a handful of Rosträdgårdian soldiers and Smashers into a living hell; even Mario was slowed by this attack, and the Staff of Björn was nearly lost when a tipped chain grazed his left forearm and left a significant gash there. The dinosaur, normally a jolly creature, expressed a serious look on his face as his mouth expelled the icy projectile, mere seconds before forcing himself to avoid a spiked wheel from a cultist on the second floor.
Ping!
Cracks destabilized the icicle's structure upon impact with the sudden conjuration of a shield from the high-ranking Lord. As he continued to assail his targets, a small contingent of his comrades, Johan included, added to the offensive barrage with their magical spells on many forms. Mario, Peach, DK, and Diddy were forced to attack these black-blooded figures, but this left the Kongs distracted long enough to be captured by the lieutenant's chains and—in DK's case—impaled by a tipped offshoot. The larger ape nearly screamed in agony as the tip's serrated steel almost pierced his heart. Two more chains without tips wrapped around his arms with the intent of tearing them off, with another two attacking Diddy. The bionic monarch, her longtime guardian, two soldiers, and Roy—now outside his vehicle—lashed out with whatever could quickly strike the lieutenant and distract him from butchering the Kongs. His shield was durable against the physical and energy-based attacks, but when Mario fired a fully charged shot from the staff, visible cracks were etched on the purple surface with a translucent character.
"I will not yield to you," the leader snarled. However, his downfall would materialize in the form of Olimar's three Pikmin, who slipped through a gap in the weakening barrier to attack him. Without his fullest concentration, his only form of protection disappeared in a flash. Mario, Peach, Roy, and Olimar attacked simultaneously from all angles to finish him off with their respective methods of eliminating Lords. Johan intervened too late to save his best subordinate, but a bullet from his weapon penetrated the space explorer's suit and left him bleeding profusely.
"…!" Olimar failed to eject a scream from his throat while his body became exposed to the oxygenated atmosphere, a lethal prospect for someone like him. Meanwhile, the rest of the Smashers inside the building, paired with Rosträdgårdian soldiers, attacked the heavies in clear sight and most of the enemy forces. It was far from easy, for the expansive shower of magical spells and explosive RPGs either forced the fighters to stand back or inflicted grievous injuries. For one example, three unlucky soldiers lost their lives when a grenade injected enough shrapnel into their bodies and destroyed some of their limbs, killing them on the spot. Some stealth units began to assault Wario and the Kongs with physical blows and magic, and this prompted DK to create localized earthquakes in frustration. Peach, equipped with her robotic eye, aided her cohorts from the Mushroom Kingdom by firing freezing energy at the evil fanatics, an event which Wario exploited by tossing Bob-ombs onto his chilled opponents. His success was almost short-lived when a heavy Lord fired a grenade at the trio with the intent of killing them; in a swift response, Yoshi executed a risky trick by wrapping his tongue around the soaring grenade and, without striking the environment, hoisted it back to sender.
BOOM!
"Yoshi got him," he squeaked. Nearby, Johan tried to splatter Olimar's Pikmin with his shoes, stopping only when Roy tried to incinerate him with the blazing blows of the Double-Edge Dance. Wario performed a high-rising belly flop to assist Roy's attempt in pushing away the captain.
Zip!
He was merely greeted with a cold, hard floor after the goofy leader had warped away. His nose was dangerously close to being smashed thanks to his physical orientation, which would have worsened the lingering damage from his first encounter with the Lords in the Mushroom Kingdom.
Zip!
"Time for a little trick…" Johan, rubbing his hands together, created a strange field with an effect of inducing inverted colors onto the affected area and slowing down time greatly for everyone except for the captain himself. With a sly smirk, he launched bullets at many opponents in his vicinity and magic spells with the capacity to impale when his pistol slurped up its regenerating supply of bullets. Loud bangs were stretched out and deeper in pitch, as were all sound effects produced by spells. Johan's methods of inflicting pain onto his enemies were so closely bunched together such that all victims yelled or grunted in unison when time returned to its normal flow.
"Mamma-!" Mario yelped in pain. As most of his allies focused on eliminating the few cultists that remained, he blocked another bullet with the staff's shield and continued to deflect incoming blows until there was a window for him to strike back with a laser beam and then a fireball. With a high-pitched yell, he struck the stunned captain with a fiery uppercut before the captain teleported away in self-defense and electrocuted Wario, both Kongs, and Roy. A propelled grenade nearly blasted Olimar and his Pikmin, and Yoshi barely yanked the Hocotatian away from the lethal blast in time. Peach was knocked down when Pit was blown away by an orange shockwave from Johan, the impact of which tossed him into the princess's metallic body.
"Ow…" the angel moaned. Olimar's Pikmin, who barely avoided the RPG with their leader, stayed nearby as they tried in vain to clot the deep wound in Olimar's body and seal the suit.
"…" The small space explorer felt his consciousness drift away as he slowly bled and noticed the presence of oxygen, slowly entering his suit and on the verge of suffocating him. Despite the Smashers eventually eliminating every Lord aside from Johan, comfort was all but a distant dream for him. Outside, Charizard fried some Drakar with the help of Falco, some Rosträdgårdian units, and Samus, though enemy shields needed to be disabled by concussive blasts before fire could straightforwardly melt cold steel. Realizing that they were slowly becoming outmatched, the dark machines were forced to flee the scene.
Inside, Johan felt slight nervousness from the mind as the Smashers and their allies surrounded with wholehearted intents to subdue him.
"Give it up-a," Mario demanded, pointing the staff towards the captain. "No trick can-a save you now."
"Okay, okay," his opponent conceded. "You guys win! I'll just take my leave and let you guys reclaim the base for yourselves. I promise."
"No way, man," DK objected. "You've caused WAY too much crap around here; it's not like we're gonna let you go so easily. You're coming with us."
"Uh… FAST BREAK!"
POOF! Zip!
"What…?!" Wario gasped. He and the others were blinded by a smoke grenade from the captain, and they could not notice his escape via portal; furthermore, they did not realize that, after having teleported only a single kilometer towards Vindfält's central district, he proceeded to contact one of his cohorts.
"Yo, Lina! Can you send the big guy towards my location? The Smashers and the Rosträdgårdian military are about to claim the airbase."
"Rest assured, our friend will be there to reduce your enemies to ash," the vampire replied.
"Gotcha. I'll get the navy to transport me." Utilizing another portal to transfer himself to the kingdom's rocky coast in the south, Johan caught the sight of a small fleet of darkened ships and, hoping for an escape, created a bright, crimson-colored flame in his hands to gain attention.
Farther away, the Smashers investigated the base with the kingdom's armed forces to search for any survivors inside, but their sweep was fruitless. Afterwards, three of the soldiers, doubling as medics, treated their cohorts, natural-born and foreign. Peach needed no treatment due to her regenerative factor, but Olimar was close to blacking out due to blood loss and exposure to oxygen. Although a medic and the three Pikmin sealed the breaches on his suit, it was still not enough. Outside, the airborne Smashers settled themselves on the ground, while two of the soldiers proceeded to call for escorts and declare their success to the central palace.
No one realized, however, that a new entity was approaching the base at extreme speeds after a handful of minutes. This figure was initially visible as a violet light in the distance.
"Can't-a wait to get back," Mario sighed under his breath. As transports arrived to pick up what was left of the base's reclaimers, Falco, Samus, and Charizard began to take off in preparation for a departure. It was here that the avian pilot noticed the light, now brighter, emerging from the northwest.
"What's that?" he muttered. His mind was initially filled with curiosity as he wondered what Ingrid or some other Rosträdgårdian official might have sent as assistance, but this was slowly replaced by dread as the figure came into closer focus. Even worse, as other Smashers came to notice this newcomer, it began to charge what appeared to be an attack. Then…
BZZZZZZZT-BOOOOOOOOM!
"…?!" Mario nearly lost his posture as the entity fired a massive beam that tore two massive holes into the base and destroyed everything between them. As more beams were fired to viciously attack the entire base, the Smashers and their allies entered a hasty retreat towards Björnstad in the north. Their escape was soon hammered down by shockwaves sent by objects that loosely resembled swords, ear-piercing lightning strikes, spheres of dark energy, and a continuous beam of absolute devastation. The pilots tried their best to avoid these deadly obstacles whenever possible, but luck would not remain on their side for long. Within seconds, some of the ships were fried by bolts. Others lasted slightly longer, as did the Arwing and Samus's gunship, but the beam and dark projectiles—created en masse by the pursuing figure—eventually inflicted serious damage to all targets involved. In fact, one of the Rosträdgårdian ships had lost its rear door from the beam and was quickly battered by two spheres; these events were enough to launch Mario, who was clinging to a set of handles on the inner ceiling due to a lack of seating, clean out of the ship and into the cold atmosphere, meters above the marshlands. As he desperately reached for his cape, he swore that there was the sound of Peach's yell from inside the vehicle.
"Mario!" Hoping to stay by the princess, the plumber swiftly tightened his cape and tried to straighten his course in alignment with the squadron, but just when he was about to stabilize himself…
WH-WHAM!
Two dark spheres nailed him in the back, stripping him of altitude and removing control. He barely managed to avoid a lightning bolt at the cost of lowering himself even further, but something in front of him would slam into his body very suddenly.
BLAM!
He felt serious pain upon smashing through a moderately thick tree branch, followed by two more that incapacitated him before he finally landed in the River Solen, now at its widest. Wetness swallowed him as he slowly drifted towards a small group of rocks in the river's rapids; before he lost consciousness, he twisted his head to the left and witnessed a reddish column created by the unidentified figure, which—upon closer examination—loosely resembled the silhouette of a familiar, minotaur-like creature. However, he could not identify it prior to blacking out.
Later, at the palace of the Lords, mid-afternoon…
"I will take this boy to the mountains in the west," Lars Isberg told his commander. He and the mysterious man were in the hangar bay, with the former setting up for a launch from the volcanic island. Next to the captain's ship was a bag filled with a body.
"Excellent, Captain Isberg," the masked figure replied. "I wish you the best of luck and thank you for providing Lillian with a form of entertainment for today." As he watched Lars's ship leave with the bag, he teleported back to Lillian's room to inform the maiden on a certain subject. Entering with a stoic expression underneath the mask's unmoving visage, he watched her slowly stand up with nervousness.
"Greetings, I am here to prepare you for your future destiny." He proceeded to escort her to a room on a lower floor of the building, which was a metallic fighting ring suspended over a pool of boiling lava. Traces of blood indicated that this ring had been in use several times in the past.
"I want to see if you can cast aside your peaceful nature in favor of one suited to bloodshed on the battlefield. There is no way to end your battles peacefully in here; if you refuse to kill, punishments shall be dealt, either to you or to your opponent. Now, your first opponent is one that was unexpected by me; Lars Isberg molded this captive woman into a fearsome entity that could serve a vital role in my army—something that I did not expect regarding his previous actions with her, but he quickly conjured a worthy adversary in response to my demand. I want to see if you can defeat and kill her with cold-blooded intent."
"Do you expect me to slaughter my opponents just for your satisfaction?" the woman objected. "I refuse to attack those whose innocence has been stripped from their souls anymore."
"But you have no say this time, my queen. You will kill, or there will be punishments." As he fell silent, Lillian's first enemy leaped into the ring. This new adversary resembled the armored servant under Lina Lindqvist's control, barring the feminine body shape and the lack of a sword. As the battle approached its beginning, many Lords teleported into the seats around the ring for observance. The leader then whispered into Lillian's ear with a chilling venom that nearly frightened her…
"Play nice…"
Same time, at Vindfält…
"Ow…" Mario moaned. He was caught by rocks along the Solen, which were the only things that prevented him from floating downstream or drowning. Upon feeling his head, he realized that his cap was not there, presumably lost in the river.
"Damn it…" Frustrated by the loss of one of his items, and weakened by his injuries and acute coldness, he struggled in swimming to land due to the strong current, succeeding only after grabbing onto a rock that led to dry ground. As he dried his cape, he observed the environment to check on his allies and friends. They were not in clear sight, so he tapped into the handy cloth's power of flight—keeping the Staff of Björn and the Ultra Hammer in his jacket—to locate them. However, they were still not visible; instead, he only observed the decimated base, now in shambles due to catastrophic damage. He did find the remains of Falco's Arwing, Samus's gunship, and a handful of transporter-style ships, albeit in an abandoned state. Stuck in a fearful state, he called out for his allies.
"Hello, are you guys around-a here?" But nobody responded to him.
"C'mon, I'm not-a joking. Please respond-a." He was still greeted with silence.
"Guys?! Hello?! Are-a any of you around-a here?!" Even as he traveled farther away from the crash sites, he was still unsuccessful in gathering responses. This, in combination with sinking his heart to lower depths, forced him to yell at his loudest:
"GUYS! WHERE ARE YOU?!"
He is testing my willpower, but why? How is it connected to what he called my "future destiny"? What is he trying to prove by forcing me to slaughter my opponents? I know not the answer, but I hope to avoid losing my sanity in this hellish environment.
-Lillian Åkerfeldt
Things have gone terribly wrong for Mario's group, and Lillian's stuck in a fight to the death. How will things play out from here? We will find that out soon enough, along with seeing what the other two groups will experience.
Read and review, as always.