Alone without a clue of where to go, Riku has hunted for the Phoenix of Destruction for a couple months now. It has now been a little over two years since the beginning of his journey.
His trip is suddenly interrupted by a huge spike in the presence of elemental energy on a planet nearby. When he moves towards it, he finds a hole in the atmosphere, an unnatural one at that. Believing that only the Phoenix of Destruction could have brute forced his way through the barrier, he heads down to the planet, cautiously, of course.
But the very moment he lands a massive explosion goes off in a base nearby, and the supposed Phoenix of Destruction emerges...Only to disappear right before Riku can engage.
Riku then rushes right to the base and finds a Goomba with mechanical arms buried under the rubble. He pulls them out and gives them to a yellow-shelled Koopa for medical attention. Curiously, the Koopa seems to recognize him, or rather, his kind of face.
After things have calmed down Riku speaks with the Koopa, and learns his name is Gemini. And the Goomba's name is Alpha.
Riku pieces together from their conversation that Mew knew this people but somehow those memories hadn't transferred to him at all. Not only that, but this world, Mario's world, is where the Elemental Overlord successor first rose to power.
Gemini leaves all those explanations up to Alpha though, once he wakes up. With him out of the picture, Gemini has to lead the others through the panic.
A couple hours pass before Riku can talk with Alpha, who immediately realizes that Riku is Mew's brother...Clone rather, but still.
Alpha tells Riku everything about the first Elemental Overlord successor, Alex Whiter, and the last sighting of him post-Mr. Reality.
Turns out Alpha had been in contact with Alex and tried to help him out, but only managed to spend a few months time with him before he went off on a journey with a blonde-haired girl whose name he can't remember.
Talk of a blonde-haired girl lines up with Thanos' story but still, Riku isn't certain that she's fully responsible for Alex becoming the Phoenix of Destruction.
Alpha murmurs aloud that he sort of expected this to happen, but still tried to trust his gut with Alex for his sake. Alpha doesn't know what Alex plans to do now, but warns Riku that if he plans to go after him...He has to be prepared to kill him, as the way Alex is now, he's merciless.
Riku feels confident he can maintain the element of surprise, since there's no way Alex should know about him.
Alpha, despite everything that's happened, chooses to trust Riku just as he trusted Mew. Riku lets him rest and heads out to determine his next move.
He meets up with Gemini in the garage and finds him working on a motorcycle, curiously enough. Gemini laments not being there to help Alpha but wonders if he could've even brought himself to fight Alex after all they'd been through.
Riku tells him not to be too beat up over it and then asks for suggestions on what to do next. Gemini thinks it'd be best if Riku relaxed a bit before planning his next move, but Riku can't agree given its unknown what the Phoenix of Destruction will do next.
Gemini then suggests going to E. Gadd, thinking maybe, just maybe, he'd have put a tracking device into Alex's glove.
Riku decides to go to Toad Town but keep as low of a profile as he can. Fortunately Bowser is performing his monthly kidnapping, so Mario and Luigi are preoccupied with that.
Riku glares at the memorial statue for Alex in the middle of town and then heads to E. Gadd's lab. E. Gadd, working on some modifications to the Poltergeist, is caught by surprise by Riku's appearance.
E. Gadd does deduce that Riku's a clone of Mew, and he also appears to be in the know that Alex was still alive. Riku deceives the professor a bit by saying he's looking for him, but not why.
E. Gadd sadly didn't put a tracking device in the glove, so Riku's out of luck there.
Riku then looks at the Stargadd in the back of the room and thinks how he could've used that plus the tracking device to find Alex quickly.
But then E. Gadd offers up another suggestion for Riku...To use the device to return to his Earth and say "Hi" to his brother.
Riku considers it, but wouldn't know how to tell him about the amnesia Alex Whiter put on him...Or even Alex's current rampage itself.
But it does give him an idea. Right now, he wants to check up on the old worlds he visited along the way...Starting with Hyrule.
When Riku arrives he doesn't find a land filled with flames and brimstone...But the same bright and cheery fields him and Link traversed some time ago.
With the strange flow of time difference between worlds Riku wasn't certain how much time has passed since he left. However, Lon Lon Ranch is still standing and even Hyrule Castle Town seems to have been fixed up quite a bit.
People are even celebrating the fifth year anniversary of Link...defeating the King of Evil?
Riku quickly becomes unnerved, even admitting that he'd have rather seen a city in ruins than to have encountered this anomaly.
The presence of Zelda, alive and well, forces Riku to retreat stealthily before he loses his mind trying to figure this timeline out.
When he returns to E. Gadd he suspects that he's accidentally learned how to travel timelines. Turns out no, which means there were some shenanigans going on, likely with the "higher-ups" involved.
Riku then decides to test this further by going to Samus' Earth next, specifically, right outside the Galactic Federation HQ.
This time around he walks in to discover that Adam Malkovich is dead, meaning not much time has passed since he left, it seemed.
But when he questions further about this, he soon notices that Samus is a wanted fugitive, meaning this is post-Fusion, and the Galactic Federation wants him taken in for questioning about this.
However, Riku noticed their approach and disabled all their guns. He's about to casually walk out when he's hit with a very powerful shot in the back that knocks him out.
He wakes up handcuffed in a jail cell that's sapped most of his strength. There he meets Anthony Higgins, one of Samus' few actual friends since becoming a bounty hunter.
Anthony had fired the shot that knocked him out because otherwise, Riku might've gotten the whole Galactic Federation on his tail.
After hashing out some details regarding the current timeline of events, Riku and Anthony discuss Samus and how Riku survived.
Anthony subtly implies he did this to Riku so he could secretly get an ally out there to help Samus since his hands are sort of tied here. Sadly, Riku has to focus on his own affairs.
Even still, Anthony secretly helps him escape and after a quick jailbreak plus EMP burst, Riku bolts out of the HQ and through the portal out before anyone can follow.
Riku immediately decides to go to Pop Star next, wondering why he didn't check on that FIRST given what Thanos did to it.
Fortunately the planet seems to have recovered quickly and Riku...still becomes a Kirby, complete with losing his elements AGAIN.
After an hour spent snatching them back up falls flat exhausted right in front of Kirby carrying a stack of food.
The two of them enjoy a nice feast and catch up on each other's adventures. Kirby's since gone through the events of Mass Attack, Return to Dreamland, and Triple Deluxe.
Kirby REALLY wants to follow Riku back to Mario's world but Riku forbades it, stating how it'd only get weird for everyone involved.
Still, Kirby is really happy to see Riku again and wishes him well, and to come back again when he has the chance. Riku vows to keep that promise.
He then makes a brief return to the lab before setting the coordinates to Sonic's Earth, specifically outside Tails' Workshop.
There its late at night, but Tails is still a little awake and is happy to see Riku pop in. Riku finds out that him and Sonic are just coming off their adventures on the Lost Hex, and Tails is using scrap he picked up to make a new Tornado.
Tails becomes intrigued by Riku's communicator but Riku can't let him speak to E. Gadd as that'd probably be a rule violation of some sort.
Sonic then pops in unannounced and without hesitation asks Riku for another race. Riku accepts but despite performing better than before, Sonic still wins out.
Sonic wants to have another race with Riku in Light Form and him using the Chaos Emeralds, but that can wait for another day.
Riku wishes Sonic well and then returns back to the lab again. After he leaves, Sonic makes some jokes to Tails about wearing sports tape for fun.
Next up is Aselia, the reunited world. More specifically, he decides to go to Iselia since that's where most of the people he knew would be gathered.
He only ends up running into Raine though, who explains that Colette, Lloyd and Genis are traveling the world to accomplish their own duties.
Her, personally, has chosen to stay behind in Iselia to teach the children here about the state of the world now. The world's changed a lot geographically, but some other things remain the same.
Its really not been that long for Raine, but she doesn't want to imagine how much longer its been for Riku. She does admit its sort of cruel for him to come back for only a brief visit, and Riku sort of agrees.
Raine wishes him well, and Riku returns to prepare for one last trip to Skyworld.
Nothing's really changed since the short time since he left there. Pit's happy, and Palutena's happily observing the humans. The world's recovering from Hades' wrath, though Viridi is still threat to worry about in the future.
Riku confides with Palutena in private, warning her about the Phoenix of Destruction and even saying if he fails, it might be up to them to stop him by any means necessary.
Palutena takes the warning to heart, and blesses Riku's efforts going forward.
With all this weight off his shoulders, Riku returns to E. Gadd's lab and determines what he must do going forward.
He loved traveling all the worlds he did. Even for all the hardships, he got to meet and make friends with so many people. And he doesn't want to lose them to the Phoenix of Destruction's wrath.
He's not going to seek him out and fight him now. He has a chance to prepare and will take full advantage of that to determine Alex Whiter's weaknesses and get stronger himself.
As he makes this declaration though, Driad winds up wandering into the lab, having got off work from his job as a professor at New Hoohoo University.
Driad is stunned by Riku's appearance but Riku quickly defuses it by explaining his connection to Mew. Driad is actually just super happy to hear that Mew is still alive, at least.
After making Driad swear not to tell the others of Riku's presence here, Riku contacts Alpha and Gemini and tells him his plans moving forward.
As the Elemental Overlord, this is his duty. He has to face Alex Whiter and make him pay for sullying the title he bears, along with the pain he caused Mew.
This is something only he can do, and he'll do it even if it costs him his life...
Part 4 END.