Chapter 8: Swords Galore!
Moon grunted to himself as he walked out of the central hall. He didn't feel bad for what he did to Mario, that was the plumbers own fault for messing with him. Zelda had given him the warning to stop. It was the man's own arrogance that had come back to slap him in the face.
Though, Mario, and the rest of the Basidiomycota Cluster, were all kinds of flawed in his opinion, sure he may yahoo and woohoo all over the over the place. But between the rescues of Peach, which were honestly so dumb in his opinion, he had used the money he collected to inflate the entire encomony of his once beloved Kingdom. Poverty was a widespread issue amongst the poorer residents of the Kingdom of Mushroomia, and with a greedy tax collector like Wario around, it probably didn't help the poor toads of the Kingdom. That was just the bottom of the barrel however, deep down, he suspected Mario was also guilty of several other flaws.
Then there was Peach, who had to have the award for World's Worst Leader in history. He would've thought that after one or two kidnappings she, or even Mario, would've tried to up security at some point. But nope, time and time again she would be kidnapped by Bowser. And if that was what Mario used as his excuse to gather funds for whatever the hell it was he used those coins for, then he obviously didn't see a reason to stop it.
It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Yoshi would meet the qualifications as someone he'd respect. Throughout the whole affairs and constant sacrifices, the Yoshi species remained heavy allies of Mushroomia, having saved Mario and Luigi as babies, it only made sense that Mario would treat the leader (The only green Yoshi) with the utmost respect other than the slowly endangering species thanks to all the sacrifices. However, there was a fine line between loyalty and insanity.
In all honesty, he could go on and on about the rest of the residents. The only two that didn't seem to have any hero problems on the surface, were Luigi, and Banjo-Kazzoie. Banjo hadn't had much action after being mysteriously kidnapped by a group of mysterious individuals who seemed to love...building. Luigi on the other hand, was just kind of, well, unique. He opened up the Demonrift and looked at Luigi's biography. The picture of him had him next to Daisy.
009 Luigi Mario
Luigi is the little brother of Mario by two years, and was one of his best friends. They have had multiple adventures together, showing the true family bond connection. Luigi is the underdog, usually, he plays second hand to Mario, he picks up the scraps of his brothers success, he bunks in Peach's castle in the section made out for Princess Daisy. Luigi is a good hearted individual who used to support his brother.
However, quite recently, Luigi has grown rather resentful of his brother. I theorize that he has caught onto Mario's corrupt ways that have been plaguing Mushroomia. However, quite sadly, there is nothing the poor man can do. The Toad species and Yoshi species are too kind and innocent to start a rebellion against them and Luigi is basically blackmailed by his brother in important political decisions on the Multiversal Council.
Interestingly, Luigi has received a mysterious shift in Luck by the Master Hand. Literally. Turns out, whenever he freezes, whether it's because of fear or lack of energy, random ghosts and demons begin to twist reality into his favor. I will have to do more research. As this could mean that he could, quite literally, win by doing absolutely nothing!
Moon shook his head. He honestly felt bad for Luigi, however, it seemed as if Luigi did have one thing going for him, that was his performance in these tournaments. He had a very good track record overall. Mario's on the other hand, not so much. Made sense though, Luigi was clearly superior to everyone else.
"Moon?" he turned to face Sarah as she cautiously approached him. "Moon...are you feeling okay?" she asked nervously.
"Yeah." he said. "I'm fine, Mario just...got on my nerves."
"Okay...Paula said that Ness says the Gladio cluster is famous for raising warriors...we should probably be on our guard tomorrow facing them. They sound though, and different weapons and all."
Moon chuckled as they approached Skyworld Central Control. "Maybe." he said calmly. "But...let me pull up the data on the fighters for you to see."
He placed the Demonrift back onto the altar and, on the large holographic screen, eight people, seven boys and a girl of similar ages, except for one, two had white hair, one had red, the remaining five had blue.
"The Gladio Cluster is...interesting." Moon said. "Time does indeed flow throughout the cluster, however, all worlds remain in the medieval ages. Weapons and Military, alongside kingdoms and wars plague this cluster non-stop. Dragons are found in this cluster, however, they've been hunted to near extinction. Some dragons have evolved to the point where they can be seen as humans. I'm not going to go too in depth on that."
"So...who are these people?" Sarah asked.
"Well there's Marth," Moon said, pointing to the first image of a boy around eighteen, he wore a dark blue outfitted armor and cape with short blue bangs that nearly covered his eyes. "Then there's girl Marth, Fire Marth, Daddy Marth, Edgy Marth, Magic Marth, Dragon Marth, and Professor Marth."
"Wait THEY ALL ARE NAMED Marth?"
"No just a running joke from the community." Moon muttered. "Their actual names are Lucina, Roy, Chrom, Ike, Robin, Corrin, and Byleth."
"Oh, so, anything important you can tell me about them?"
"Marth, Lucina, Roy, Chrom, and Ike are all essentially the same thing with minor differences." Moon said. "Marth's sword, the Falchion, has a unique trait where if you are hit by the tip of the sword, it'll deal more damage. Lucina's Falchion does not. Roy's sword does more at the hilt, and can summon fire, Chrom's Falchion does not. Ike hits harder, moves slower, and his sword is connected with some goddess I think."
"Wait a second...did you say that Marth, Lucina, and Chrom ALL have the Falchion?" Sarah asked.
"The Falchion is a unique sword that changes how it's used...based on who uses it...it's passed down by...family heritage." A sudden look of shock crossed Moon's face. He turned back to the control altar and began running through files again. After a moment, he pulled up a file on Lucina and Chrom.
Chrom and Lucinia are both descendents of our very own Marth. In the original timeline, Chrom, her father was killed leaving Lucina left to save a now destroyed Ylisse. To change the course of time, she used Time Travel to go back and guide her father, and Robin, on a path to change history. This has resulted in a tear in the fabric of the cluster, resulting in a scatter point of different worlds. No charges were pressed, however, thanks to some royalty offers from Marth. I shall now see it fit that her world now adjusts to this new timeline.
Moon slammed his fist down on the altar. "THAT DAMN GODDESS!" he growled. "Not only is the reason for Lonk being banned from these tournaments now completely invalid! They didn't even press charges! Lucina shouldn't competing, neither should Chrom!"
"Moon...she did it to save her kingdom...and her father...of course they let it slide."
Moon turned to face her, his eyes looked very cold, it honestly scared her.
"Ness has said that the reason we can't fix our world, is because time travel and reality manipulation is illegal, UNLESS, it is to save the Multiverse. The law states to let the timeline flow properly. There was nothing that changed time to make Chrom die, he was supposed to die and Lucina was supposed to save her kingdom and rebuild it! But she broke a law, and that bitchy goddess took a bribe from Marth to not press any charges! What's even worse, is that she then manipulated reality to ENSURE that the timeline didn't correct itself. Lucina not only destroyed the way her cluster functions, but she broke it apart!"
"Moon...this is different."
"How?" Moon snapped at her. "Our timeline that the voice planned out for us was altered, the voice clearly knew how unstable and dangerous the timeline was because that voice altered it into three possible safe timelines and let fate decide. Then someone changed it again and nearly destroyed everything!"
Sarah looked at him in distress. "Moon...you've known about our alternate futures for six months now...and you've never bothered to share them with me...but...they've been bothering you...why?"
"Because…" Moon said as tears started to fall down his cheeks. He looked down in despair. "In each of those futures...Olive was still alive."
Sarah bit down on her lip as she looked at him. "Is...Is that what this is all about?" she asked, tears started to develop in her eyes. "Are you really going through all of this...just for Olive?...is that the reason you decided to come back instead of leaving me?"
A sudden look of horror crossed Moon's face, quickly, he grabbed her hugged her tightly. "No…" he said quietly. "No Sarah, I'm not doing this for Olive...I came back because she made me realize that I couldn't leave you, and everyone else, in a world where someone like Palutena runs the Multiverse. I came back because I couldn't leave you and Astro alone on Ness' world. But before I left Dark Sanctuary, I promised Olive I'd find out who was responsible for our world's destruction. Because whoever was responsible...they were the one who killed her. The one thing that nearly destroyed everything, was someone changing the timeline to one where she died. Then hiring Pokey to finish the job."
"Well...Akira said it had to be Tabuu." Sarah replied. "Why don't we look up some records on him...he might give us a clue."
"Later." Moon replied. "Right now, I want to tutor you in the heroes we will be rescuing, I've already told you about Lucina and Chrom, they'll most likely be with our target, Robin." he clicked on the image of a male with white hair. The male carried a book and a weird sword that looked like a lightning bolt. "Robin is probably the most diverse fighter out of all the Gladio Cluster, he uses tomes, special magic abilities like Thunder, Fire, Wind, and healing abilities. His Levorn Sword has lightning like properties to it. The one drawback to his fighting style, however, is that it is very limited. The sword and tomes can run out of energy and need to recharge for a certain amount of time."
"Okay then. So, sword fighters galore...sounds like you'll be relying on Saphria for most of the fight huh?
"Yeah, probably." Moon said.
"So uh, Moon...about Bowser." Sarah said.
"He's not dead." Moon responded. "Let's get some rest though, we're off to rescue Robin tomorrow."
(New Donk City)
Ridley soared high above the New Donk City area. The dragon growled to himself as he looked around irritably.
"Stupid Tabuuto wanting me to check up on Bowser and Necrozma." he hissed to himself. Rather annoyingly, it seemed as if Necrozma had vanished entirely, there was no sign of the Pokemon in any of the Animalium Cluster's areas.
The dragon then noticed that several buildings in the center of New Donk had been either destroyed or had just completely collapsed into rubble. Confused, the dragon swooped down towards the central town. Once he neared the bottom, he was met with a rather shocking sight.
The central park of the town had been almost reduced to nothing, trees had collapsed, benches were destroyed, there were several sinkholes in the ground, and a few statues had been destroyed completely. Alongside several buildings that were now in ruins, Bowser layed on the ground with several sword slashes through his thick armor like skin, the spikes on his shell were dented, or even destroyed, and much to the dragon's surprise, the end of his tail had been severed from his body. The eight Koopalings were around their motionless father, they looked quite devastated.
Ridley landed on the ground near them, startling the eight Koopalings completely.
"What the hell happened here?" The Dragon hissed at them.
None of the Koopalings spoke up, they all just stood there, paralyzed in shock and fear.
Ridley let out a screech. "Alright fine!" the Dragon snarled. "I'll just send you all back and figure out what happened myself you useless pieces of shit." The Dragon fumbled around with a remote control that Bowser Jr had dropped and, after a moment of fiddling, all nine turtles disappeared in a flash of pink light.
A pink portal opened in front of the Dragon after the light had settled down, out stepped Pokey Minch, the chubby blond psychopath grinned evilly at him.
"You called?" he asked.
"Yeah, what the actual hell happened here." Ridley snarled.
Pokey looked around at all the destruction that was in the city. He pulled out a few gadgets and scanned a few things. A couple of sirens and alarms went off from the machines as well as few dings that one would normally hear from a casino machine upon winning. After a few minutes, the kid turned back to Ridley.
"Well, I'll have you know that there are massive traces of Dark Energy and several corruption blood stains all over the place." Pokey replied. "Based on the injuries I saw from Bowser, I'd say that you're looking at the work of Dark Moon."
The dragon's yellow eyes narrowed at him. "The boy did all of this?"
"Absolutely." Pokey sneered. "While Moon himself does have all the capabilities that Dark Moon has, the traces of left behind Dark Energy and corrupt blood seem to indicate that Dark Moon was in control. Moon will resort to extreme violence if necessary, but Dark Moon is usually the one responsible for heavy destruction."
"What can you tell me about Dark Moon and Dark Sarah?" Ridley asked. "You've mentioned that I'd be interested in them, but you've never stated why."
"Well, look around O' Cunning God of Death." Pokey said. "This is just the tip of the iceberg. Dark Moon and Dark Sarah are very powerful, and very destructive, they're the soul that Giygas placed in those two as babies. While they don't see themselves as a part of Giygas anymore, they retain his memories and strength. They do things primarily for the benefit of themselves."
"That's good, but what exactly makes them noteworthy?" Ridley snarled.
"The corruption that they use is extremely powerful, it comes straight from Giygas himself." Pokey replied. "There are no bounds to what that corruption can do, it can even fool magical weapons only wieldable by bloodlines or special conditions."
"Interesting." Ridley hissed. "But...I'm looking for something a bit more...just how destructive are we talking about with Dark Moon and Dark Sarah."
"Destructive enough to destroy almost all of the smash competitors. They have a drawback however, they won't attack anyone from their own cluster...in fact, should they see someone they care about, i.e, anyone from their cluster, they'll be forced to rescue them. So, basically, an invasion of Giegue would be strictly off limits, as for the rest of the Multiverse, you've got yourself a free reign."
Ridley nodded. "So, if I wanted to use these two for my conquest, how would I go about doing it? Sounds like Dark Moon and Dark Sarah are a perfect fit for the Rogue Alliance."
Pokey's face kind of slumped at that. "Well, here's the problem." he said. "I'm certain that they would be happy to help you reach your goal. However, it's unlikely that they'll take orders from you. Dark Moon may be inclined to, but Dark Sarah, as a young minded influence, has been strictly raised to listen only to Dark Moon."
"How do you know all this?" Ridley snarled. "And how do I know you aren't lying so YOU can use them to betray me?"
"You have my word that I wouldn't dream of betraying you." Pokey replied. "Tabuu's guidance to Master Giygas and myself was to always keep our allies close, Giygas tutored me to always keep loyalty to people. I'm being honest, for once in my life."
"Okay, but how do you have all this information?"
"I used to have access to this thing called the Demonrift, I tossed it away after ending up in Moon's world by accident, knowing how dangerous it would be to keep it with me. Moon ended up getting his corrupt hands on it...so...oopsies."
Ridley nodded his head. "So, I see that this'll be what we may need...your services are no longer required here Pokey...go back to your work building your mech or whatever."
(Coliseum)
Moon and Sarah slowly looked around a stage the reminded them a lot of a Colosseum. Moon already had Saphria out of its hold, he gripped it tightly.
"Never bothered to play Fire Emblem Awakening." Moon muttered, "My knowledge of most Fire Emblem characters come strictly from what I've learned from Smash. With the exception of Byleth, of course."
"What'd you say about me?"
Both of them turned to see a male, around the age of 21, he carried a long, glowing sword, wore a black outfit with cape, he had blue hair and blue eyes, he had his sword braced out facing the two of them.
"So, this is Byleth." Moon said. "He's a mercenary turned professor turned back into a mercenary, I think. He was the professor of a monastery for a rather unsettling Church that did some crap with Crests, caused some corruption, killed a shit ton of their subjects, then allied with the Flame Emperor, his ex-student Edelgard to go against the church, then went against Edelgard for some reason."
"Sounds stupidly complicated and weird if you ask me." Sarah said.
"Still haven't finished Three Houses, probably just pissed off a bunch of people, who really cares though, this is what happens when the community bullies Alpharad into canceling his let's play of the game."
Byleth kind of just stood their, blinking in confusion. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"
"We came to rescue you and whoever else is here." Sarah replied.
Byleth didn't lower the sword, "Well, the other fools are around here somewhere."
"CHROM!"
A man with blue hair and a blue cape holding onto a sword charged at them, the sword slash klanged with a quick slash from Saphria, Moon then teleported behind Chrom and slashed across the man's back. A girl with long blue hair wearing a blue cloak, alongside a man with a black cloak and white hair approached the two of them.
"Byleth, you gonna help us?" Moon fired at him.
Byleth nodded and slashed his sword through the air, all of a sudden, the sword expanded into what looked like almost a whip. Byleth swung the whip across, throwing Robin backwards. Lucina then made a motion at Moon, who klanged in response with Saphira, he then proceeded to kick Lucina backwards before launching a Pk Hydro, the jetstream of water formed into a hand, before grabbing Lucina and tossing her into Chrom.
"Thoron!"
A giant beam of lightning fired from where Robin was, Sarah jumped in front of Moon and casted a PSI Shield, the beam of lightning reflected back off of the shield and back into Robin. She then launched a PK Freeze, the beam of ice hit Lucina and encased her in ice. Chrom then motioned for a dancing blade, to which Moon gave his own dancing blade in response.
A giant slam from what looked like an axe with a hook suddenly slammed overtop of Chrom's head, the axe strike launched Chrom over Moon and into a wall.
"Thanks for the assist Byleth." The mercenary nodded in response.
"Arcfire!"
A blast of fire launched from Robin, Sarah responded by launching her own PK Fire, the balls of fire collided with each other creating a blast of heat in the center of the area. Robin then attacked her with his Levorn sword. The blast of lightning from the slash launched Sarah across the area and she collided with a wall and fell to the ground with a loud slam.
Moon felt his anger increasing as he watched Robin attack Sarah. He quickly launched a PK Rollin, the blast of light blasted Lucina's ice statue into Robin where they both collided with each other and dropped to the ground.
Moon wiped sweat from his forehead. "Alright good," he said. "I was hoping for something a bit easier, but this'll do fine. Let's take care of Lucina first, then the other two. They both placed their hands on Lucina, draining bits of corruption from her. They both then did the same for Robin and Chrom, while Byleth watched them with interest.
Once the fire emblem crew had blinked and shook their heads. They all braced themselves for another attack. Byleth then approached the three of them.
"It's okay, the two of them just helped me rescue the three of you." he said. "The villains had you placed under mind control, everything will be okay now, let's just hear what they have to say."
"These two children seem rather incompetent." Chrom said, crossing his arms as he leaned against the wall. He noted Moon's sword in his hand. "Is he one of ours." he continued. "A student of yours that you invited to the tournament?"
Byleth's eyes narrowed. "No, I don't think he's one of ours."
"I think we're good father." Lucina said. "These two rescued us, we'll be fine."
Moon opened his mouth before Sarah shot him a glare that said shut up. He sighed and closed his mouth.
"Back to Skyworld with all of us." Moon said, "All of you grab onto me."
(Skyworld)
Moon and Sarah sat down outside of the Skyworld Central control area. Both sat down and coughed constantly. They had excused themselves from the rest of the competitors, after being asked, once again, by Pit, if they could go rescue Palutena.
"It's...it's getting so much worse." Sarah said, nearly on the brink of tears. She vomited up more of the black essence. "Please, there's gotta be something in that stupid book that tells us what is going on!"
"I've looked, there's nothing." Moon responded, pulling out the Demonrift. "It just keeps getting worse and worse." he then vomited himself.
Dark Pit flew into the room, taking notice to the two of them vomiting, he walked up to them.
"Is everything okay?" he asked.
"Does this look like we are okay?" Sarah snapped at him.
"Sorry, but um, just letting you know, Pit's temper is almost at its breaking point, you might as well face the music and go rescue Palutena before he blows our cover to the villains."
"We do that without enough information, and we're getting pounded on by her immediately." Moon responded. "We might need a break for a day or two before we go rescue anyone else."
Dark Pit frowned. "Listen, you tried," he said. "No need to feel like you let us down, Viridi and I were losing hope anyway...just...take some time to rest." The angel flew out of the room immediately.
"I'm not resting." Moon said, flipping through the Demonrift. "She's hiding something, something huge, something big, there just has to be something she's done that would blow everything we've ever known about her to smithereens."
Rosalina suddenly floated past the two of them. "Oh, hello." the Mother of Lumas said calmly. "I see you two aren't feeling to well...Skyworld does have a large assortment of magical remedies down in an infirmary that may be of use to the two of you." She took a glance over Moon's shoulder, her eyes narrowed a little as she looked at the Demonrift.
"I don't see what sort of fascination you have reading a book that's simply a drawing of someone flipping you off." the goddess continued. "But, the magical remedies come from various clusters, try using some to help yourselves. Also, please don't hurt my father again." the goddess then floated out of the room.
Moon sat there, puzzled for a moment, before suddenly gasping in shock.
"NO FREAKING WAY" he nearly shouted, startling Sarah. "There's NO FREAKING WAY!" he quickly dashed into the Skyworld Central and Sarah heard a bunch of quick beeps and button presses from the area. Moon walked out a moment later with an evil grin on his face.
"Checkmate Goddess." he said to Sarah. "We got her, and we got her good. This goes far beyond what anyone had been expecting. I thought that her agreeing to look the other way for Lucina was bad. But THIS! This is so stupid! So ridiculous! But it's true! That's the coverup she's been hiding. A whole affair with Mario that all lead up this! Rosalina is her daughter!"
Welp, I'm probably going to offend someone with this chapter. Heh, honestly, that's all I ever felt like doing with a Smash Brothers Fanfiction, just pointing out flaws that I see with the so called heroes of gaming.
So uh, yeah, Byleth comes out tomorrow, and while we're on topic, I might as well explain some plans.
I never intended for this series to be a long drawn out story, frankly, I had it as a rather quick wrap up to plans that could lead into future sequels possibly. Now um, rather unfortunately, I won't even stress with this one, my mother has asked me to "tone down language." frankly, I've warned everyone, including her (who doesn't even read this damn story) about my use of Language for this story in particular as I feel like even most of Nintendo's all stars would be guilty of dropping swear bombs. But, then again, I use her computer to post (thanks shitty school computers) so, I'll be toning down on F bombs until I get older...sorry for lack of characterization being lost.
Anyway, I never realized how freaking long Three Houses is, so I'm sorry if I've failed any sort of specifics for Byleth's black eagle house route.
As for plans for next time, I'm thinking possibly Palutena, but it just occurred to me that we don't even have Ness and Lucas. Super hyped for Byleth coming to Smash as I really enjoyed Three Houses, specifically Edelgard...who should've been in Smash. But I remain a committed person to my characters.
Also, I don't know what came over me, but here's my list of characters I played the most in Smash Ultimate.
1. Ness
2. Hero
3. Lucas
4. Lucario
5. Robin (I prefer to use the female alt)
Not the greatest player by far. (Hell I prefer to play casual with items). But I've entered tournaments held by my high school for fundraisers. My friend Erick, who's a Luigi main and character in this story, also enters, he placed top 8 last time (losing to a super Spammy Snake)
Anyway, leave a review if you want, I'll see you all next time.