Chapter 9: Mother Reunion.
Sarah just stared at Moon with her mouth hanging open. Her eyes were almost the size of golf balls. She looked stunned as she just sat there in silence.
"A-A-Are you...are you actually serious?" she asked. "That's the big thing? That's what she's done?"
"She's broken almost every rule in her damn book!" Moon replied. "She's illegally messed with reality and she's broken the Trans-Cluster relationship law, not only that, but here's the best part, she messed with Mario's mind to make him forget and then told Rosalina that it was Peach who was her mother!"
Sarah rubbed her head with her hand. "That...that's just...wrong." she said breathlessly. "We need to tell Dark Pit and Viridi right now!"
Moon walked back over to the door to the central hall. He opened it, everyone was still there chatting with each other. All their eyes darted towards him as the door creaked open.
"Hey," Moon said calmly, looking throughout the room. "I uh, I wanted to talk with Dark Pit and Viridi again."
The angel and the goddess of nature had all eyes on them, most notably from Pit, who looked quite angry. Dark Pit shrugged and walked over, followed by Viridi. Moon closed the door, leaving everyone else in the room.
"What's he been doing talking to Dark Pit?" Pit demanded.
"We aren't sure Angel." Samus growled. "Ever since we arrived at Skyworld, those four have been talking in private, we assume that Moon's using them to get the locations of the other competitors. Since, you know, they're still on the villain's side in their eyes."
"Well, I'm not going to sit by and let that happen." Pit fired back, "I'm going to give that kid a piece of my mind." The angel made a motion to move towards the door before Paula stood in front of him.
"Do you really think that Moon is going to let you walk in on him?" She asked furiously. "Did you learn NOTHING from what he did to you and Mario?"
"I do agree with Pit little girl." Mario said furiously. "For the boy to ah just attack ah me like that! That was ah totally unnecessary! I was ah just trying to ah form a straight forward plan."
"No." All eyes darted towards Zelda, who, for once in her life, actually looked mad.
"Zelda, honey, please don-" Link began before Zelda cut him off she turned to face him with an angry look in her eyes.
"Link, both of those two had it coming for them."
Everyone in the room stared at Zelda with wide eyes. They were just left speechless by her words as they looked at her in shock.
"YOU THINK WE DESERVE THAT TREATMENT FROM THEM?" Pit shouted.
"What you did Mario, was totally uncalled for." Zelda continued. "Sure, Moon may be as old as Ness, but he has helped rescue almost everyone in this room, and is continuing to help rescue others. For you to call him incompetent and then try to take control of a situation when you knew full well you had no control was flat out wrong. Then, you had the audacity to try and attack him yourself. He acted in self defense, if anything, you did it to yourself."
"You are wise to think that Zelda." Mewtwo said calmly. "But where is your justification for Pit?"
"Well for one thing." Akira said calmly. "You did call both him and Sarah monsters. Which in my opinion, was just flat out wrong...why call two people that rescued you and are helping rescue the rest of the people here isn't exactly giving yourself the best image."
"But that's because they are monsters!" Pit snapped back. "Lady Palutena warned me all about those two, they're dangerous! They're up to something! That's why Skyworld's been tracking them, to make sure they've been…"
"HOLD ON A SECOND!" Paula nearly screamed. "You've been TRACKING THEM? Ness said that was illegal!" Pit eyes seemed to go into a horrified expression as Link, Samus, and Captain Falcon were now looking at him with frowns on their faces.
"Girl's right Angel." Captain Falcon growled. "We outlawed Multiversal tracking unless the situation was deemed necessary by a vote from the council. To my knowledge, we never took a vote on them."
Zelda let out a huff, something that was very out of character for her. "I think," she said slowly. "That you both owe those two an apology."
"Like ah hell we do!" Mario snapped back. "I'm ah not appologizing to that ah stupid brat for ah nearly killing me!"
"You should though." Byleth said, calmly jumping in on the situation.
All of a sudden, the whole room exploded with shouts and fits of rage. Everyone jumped down each others throats over who was in the right.
"WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL IS GOING ON HERE?"
Everyone stopped shouting and turned their attention back towards the doorway. Moon had opened the door and looked pretty pissed off.
Moon looked among the room with a cold hearted stare. "See, this is why I ask all of you to turn in for the night instead of sitting here in the same damn room together." he snapped.
"We have a right to speak with each other whenever we please." Chrom said, folding his arms as he leaned against the wall.
"Listen," Moon muttered, rubbing his face with his hand. "I don't have the time and I frankly couldn't care less about whatever was going on, but when I have absolute chaos going on right below me, I can't freaking do anything. So, who here started this whole mess?"
"Paula." Pit and Mario said quickly.
Moon looked at the angel and plumber with an angry glare, then he simply closed his eyes and sighed. "Paula, come here."
Paula nervously walked up to him. Moon pointed her to the left of the doorway. Then, he turned back to everyone else.
"If you were on Paula's side of this conundrum, come over here, otherwise, stay put."
Zelda, Link, Byleth, Akira, Mewtwo, Samus, Captain Falcon, Sapphire, Genji, Scar, Meta Knight, and King Dedede all walked over to Paula's side.
"Alright, the rest of you, turn in for the night, if any of you dare go outside your rooms I can, and will, start being less lax on your privileges."
"Wait a second!" Lucina shouted. "You can't just boss us around! You hav-"
"I have total control, remember, 10 to nothing vote, I've taken Palutena's place and hold her authority and power at the moment. Therefore, I have complete control over every single one of you. Sure, I may not have access to Skyworld's technology to allow me to deliver punishments. But I'm sure I could coax Dark Pit into showing me how to get into it."
"THAT'S TREASON!" Pit shouted.
"It's not treason if the legal head authority figure asks it of you, you stupid piece of shit!" Moon growled. "So, unless you want things to really start getting ugly for all of you, I recommend that you all shut the hell up, go turn in for the night, and think about the trouble that Angelboy and Fatass over here have caused you all to get into to."
"And for the rest of them?" Peach asked.
"They do not have to turn in, because they have not angered and disrupted the peace, unlike the rest of you. Those of you who want to argue a case to me to get your normal turn in schedules back can do so tomorrow, word of warning, I'm not easy to persuade."
"But-"
Moon's eyes narrowed as he reached behind himself for Saphria, only to find that he did have it.
"I came in with my sword...right?" He asked, looking at Byleth.
"Yes, you did bring your sword back." Byleth responded.
Moon's anger faded as he looked around with worry. "Shit, Shit, Shit." he muttered.
"Mr. Wolfe?"
He quickly turned around in the doorway to see Isabelle, what shocked him more, was that she was holding onto his sword, only, it was cleaned up, no more blood or dents or scratches on it. Isabelle was holding it perfectly fine, not a single trace of corruption was entering her body.
"Um...Isabelle...why do you have my sword? More importantly...are you hurt?"
"Nope!" Isabelle responded happily. "I noticed that your sword looked at bit worn out, probably from all the fighting you've been doing...don't worry about a thing, I fixed it up, polished it, and cleaned it, it's good as new." she said, holding the sword out to him.
Moon just stood there with wide eyes.
"Is something wrong Mr. Wolfe?" Isabelle asked. "Are you okay? Do you need me to go get something from the infirmary?"
Moon shook himself back to reality. "No, I'm good Isabelle...thank you for taking care of Saphria for me...just...let me know when you're going to repair it next time...you nearly gave me a heart attack that I left it out for one of the villains to find."
"Okay!" Isabelle said. "If you ever need anything, let me know!"
Moon let out a deep breath and then turned back to everyone. "Alright you all, just go turn in. I'll see you all tomorrow." without saying another word to anyone, he turned back towards the room and entered.
Dark Pit, Viridi, and Sarah were all standing by the entrance to Skyworld Central Control, still waiting for him.
"Alright kid, what's the big deal?" Dark Pit asked. "Did you actually get something mind blowing?"
Moon cracked an evil grin. "What if I told you that Palutena and Mario had a sexual affair that led to Rosalina becoming of Skyworld descent as Palutena's daughter?"
"I'd say that it sounds like you're writing so creepy fanfiction that we should avoid at all costs." Viridi replied.
"Well, do we have news for you." Sarah said. "Because it's true!"
"You're joking." Dark Pit said. "How the actual hell would you figure something like that out?"
"Rosalina couldn't read the Demonrift." Moon responded. "Only people of Imperium Origin are unable to read the Demonrift. Rosalina is half Imperium, therefore, she is unable to read it."
"Not only that, but she took a bribe from Marth to not press charges against Lucina for using Time Travel to save Chrom, then went and manipulate reality so that time wouldn't correct itself. She's broken two of the Three core smash code laws. No Trans-Cluster Relationships and No Reality manipulation."
Dark Pit and Viridi both looked at each other. Then, they turned back to the two of them.
"You two have done good." the angel said. "This is exactly what we were looking for, Palutena is as good as dead.
"Now uh, about that." Moon said. "I know you may be eager to go back that bitchy goddess into a corner, however, I'm going to request that we all agree to either wait until this conundrum is over to attack her. I'd rather hold this threat over her head to keep her quiet while I'm in charge...understand?"
Dark Pit and Viridi both nodded in response. "Agreed," the angel said. "We'll keep quiet about all of this."
"Alright then, goodnight you two."
Moon sat centered in the middle of the central hall early next morning. He was just flipping through the Demonrift, in terms of rescuing others, there wasn't much he was looking for...at this point, all of the mainstate people he really needed were rescued, they had no luck finding Ness and Lucas, who weren't under corruption due to their Giegue Origin, they could be anywhere at this point, everyone else was either not relevant or would just piss him off even more than everyone else who was already here.
"Pardon me, Moon correct?"
Moon looked up from the Demonrift, Byleth was standing in front of him, the older mercenary professor looked at him with a rather concerned expression. He still carried his signature Sword of the Creator with him, however, the other lord's weapons were nowhere to be seen.
"Oh, hey Byleth…" he said slowly. "Why are you here? You didn't get in trouble with me yesterday so you should just be relaxing."
Byleth's expression changed to a bit of a confused look. "Your...your sword is quite a special one." he said, looking at Saphria. "It looks like the sort of weapon creators used...I've wanted to ask you this for a while...could I...examine your crest?"
Moon blinked in confusion. "Um...we just met yesterday." he said. "Also...I'm not from your cluster...so I don't think I could possibly have a crest."
"Even still...could I please see your arm?" Byleth asked, extending out his hand. Moon, though puzzled, obeyed and put his arm in Byleth's hand. The two stayed in silence as Byleth just looked down. Something strange was Byleth didn't seem to flinch in pain...he couldn't fight off corruption that good. The only reason Isabelle was even able to hold Saphria was because of her purity...he could put his hands on her without any consequence whatsoever...however, that didn't mean that she could use Saphria correctly. But Byleth on the other hand…
Byleth eventually let go of his arm, his eyes formed a more remorseful look as he looked at him. "I think I understand." he said to him. "Sorry for taking up your time Moon, if you ever need anything, you know where to find me." The blue haired male then walked off.
"Hey, Byleth." Moon called. The mercenary flinched a little before turning around. "How's...how's your life with Lady Edelgard been?"
"Edelgard and I are doing just fine...thank you for asking." Byleth replied with a weak smile.
Moon watched the mercenary leave before letting out a sigh. That was rather odd, of all the competitors he expected to have a weird connection with, Byleth wasn't exactly the first that came to mind. Sure, he had...that...with Zelda. But that was different.
"Hey, Moon?" Sarah and Paula both approached him. "Are we ready to go?" Paula asked.
"Yeah, we're ready." Moon replied. "I think we'll just head out and scour the area looking for someone today. I'm not really sure who I want to rescue, but I think we should just look around." both girls nodded in response as they looked at him. The three then vanished in a flash of pink light.
Byleth stood in the doorway, he had watched them disappear. The Mercenary let out a sigh as he recalled some memories with Edelgard and the rest of the Black Eagle house.
"I wonder," he whispered to himself. "Maybe he's...no...that's a silly thought. Get ahold of yourself Byleth, there's no way that's possible."
(New Pork City)
Moon, Sarah, and Paula all nervously walked around a giant city. There was propaganda showing support for Pokey almost everywhere, smoke billowed out of buildings and various shops and restaurants paved street corners.
"This was the capital of Nowhere Island the Pokey constructed throughout his reign of terror on the islands." Moon said. "While the city does still exist within Lucas' home world, it has been abandoned in favor of going back to Tazmily Village. It's nowhere near as productive and dangerous as it is here."
"I...I can't believe that Pokey just...built this whole place." Paula said, as they walked by a massive Pokey Statue made of rock. "No wonder Lucas has a small resentment for him."
"Lucas is a good hearted kid." Sarah said. "He doesn't outright show hatred Pokey unless his emotions flare high, he still tries to see some good in him. Especially since he fought Pokey when he was a sick old man before the Dark Dragon reverted him back to youth.
They suddenly heard a massive explosion in the center of the city. They quickly ran down a ladder that was near the statue of Pokey and into the center of the city. Ness and Lucas both lay on the ground, beaten and bruised by Pokey, who in a spider like mech contraption.
Pokey took notice to the three of them standing there. Moon heard Paula getting ready to make a movement, in response, he put Saphria out in front of her.
"Do not engage." he muttered. "Otherwise Ridley will be on our tail ends."
"What does Ridley have to do with this?" Paula asked furiously. "Look at what he's done to Ness!"
"Paula, you need to understand." Sarah whispered back. "Ridley his own gang of villains called The Rogue Alliance, which Pokey is a member of, There are five other members in addition to Pokey and Ridley, the Rogue Alliance is comprised of some of the Multiverse's most deadly villains. If they were to show up, we would have to retreat, we can't fight them without our Dark Sides taking control...however, with Pokey, they simply know not to put you, Ness, and Lucas in danger that means our Dark sides will join them. Do not engage with Pokey."
Pokey looked at the three of them furiously, then he simply scoffed. "You'll have to trust that I didn't do this to them." he snarled. "There's other corrupt heroes here if you want to rescue them. I know the arrangements of the deal...Later Suckers." Pokey and his mech then vanished in a flash of pink light.
The three of them ran over to Ness and Lucas. Moon was about to kneel down to heal both of them when he noticed their injuries, Ness had a few blue pins on his shirt with several bruises that looked like he took quick punches. Lucas on the other hand, had large cuts that seemed to come from a sword.
"Moon why aren't you going to-OW!" Paula was cut off as a streak of blue light shot into her knocking her backwards. The streak then began to move around Moon and Sarah. Who put their backs together. Moon clutched Saphria as he waited.
"Three...two...one…" He held out his hand and quickly clenched his fist. The streak of light attempted to strike him but just found itself now stuck. He had his hand around the neck of a tall bipedal hedgehog with blue fur and spikes wearing red shoes and white gloves. He quickly lifted his hand above the ground to remove the hedgehog's feet from the ground. The creature now flailed around his grasp.
"Fighter number 38, The Blue Blur, Sonic the Hedgehog." Moon muttered. "He's an arrogant ass hedgehog who can run at the speed of sound. He has access to these special emeralds called the Chaos Emeralds, when all 8 are connected to him, he goes super saiyan and can move faster than the speed of light, without the rules and magic charms to balance out the tournament, Sonic would be the seventh strongest competitor here."
"How the hell did you just stop something moving at the speed of freaking sound?" Paula asked as she got up and limped over to them.
"He wasn't actually moving at the speed of sound." Sarah replied. "Sonic is bit of egotistical loser, he doesn't really take fights seriously because of his speed. Moon checked and the villains did remove the magical balance charms from all the competitors. Sonic could've just destroyed all of us. Plus, if he was running faster than sound...science says he would've created a sonic boom affect to push us all back."
"What about those chaos emeralds?" Paula asked. "Surely he doesn't just leave them lying around, he had to have brought them with him!"
"He did." Moon replied. "But again, this guy's got an ego that stretches from here to the edge of the Milky Way galaxy. He won't use them unless the world is in danger...or when he gets the smash ball and is allowed to use them under strict magical limitations...which were also removed...is this asshole even under corruption?"
"Why are you asking a question that you already know the answer to?" Paula asked.
"ON YOUR LEFT!" Moon suddenly turned around and, quite literally, threw Sonic at Paula, startled she jumped out of the way just in time feel a whoosh past her as Sonic collided with a boy around the age of 21, he wore an all black outfit with one gray shoulder pad on his left shoulder that looked like the top of an underwater mine. He had spiky blond hair and watery blue eyes, he also carried an obnoxiously big sword.
Apparently, Moon threw Sonic with enough force to knock the boy out cold. Because neither one of them moved.
"Well…that wasn't my intention...but...okay I guess." Moon muttered. "Fighter number 61, The SOLDIER 1st Class, Cloud Strife. He's a first class rank of Soldier...whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. He carries a special Buster Sword that allows him to utilize photokinesis, I've learned a few tricks from watching him back home. Anyway, he's gifted with this special power called a Limit Meter I don't really know what it does...but I do know that when this stupid guy gets hurt enough, he'll unlock some sort of...special upgrades to his moves...he'll hit harder, move faster, you know, the usual crap."
"Ness has spoken about him on multiple occasions." Paula said. "He says that Cloud is a real pain about all this."
"That's because he is." Sarah replied. "Cloud REALLY does not want to be here. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that everyone in the Sonium Cluster basically begs him to go and the fact that he's most likely slammed with invitations on a regular basis. He probably would never show up.
"You said he was the Runner up of Smash Duel." Paula continued. "He must've learned that he had a shot at winning. Why would he not want to compete?"
"He was actually in a position to win Smash Duel." Moon replied. "However, he lost in the final round to Bayonetta because he missed his Finishing Touch, then tried to follow up after realizing his mistake. Which allowed Bayo to set up her witch time and unleash an insane combo, thus giving her the victory...Anyway, let's heal these two up and then heal Ness and Lucas...there's uh...some things Sarah and I wish to discuss with you all. No need to do Sonic, I drained the corruption when I had ahold of him."
He and Sarah placed their hands on either side of Cloud's arms and stood in silence for a moment. After a while, they took their hands off them. Moon then opened a portal below the two laying down heroes, sending them through a portal and back to Skyworld.
"Alright, now for Ness and Lucas." he and Sarah moved over to both boys and place their hands on their heads. Both of their hands flashed green as the injuries on them began to fade. After a moment, they withdrew. Both boys blinked back into existence and stood up. Upon gaining awareness of their surroundings, Ness nearly ran over Paula, embracing her in a tight hug.
"Thank god." he whispered softly. "I...I thought you were gone."
Paula hugged him back. "It's okay Ness, I'm alright...Moon and Sarah have been protecting me, and the rest of the smash competitors."
"Moon...thanks." Lucas said, speaking up while the two hugged each other. "Ness and I weren't sure if you all retreated, got killed, or were doing anything to help."
"Well...yeah...about that." Sarah said, as Ness and Paula separated from each other. "We haven't exactly been...doing much for help. In fact, working with some of the Smash competitors has been...stressful at best...we've been debating about using our dark sides to keep them in line...a handful of them already know we're the children of Giygas as well. We're gonna stay here and help run this operation."
Ness' eyes widened. "No." he said flatly. "You guys can't stay here any longer...I've been working too hard to keep you both safe...if Palutena finds out you're here...she'll kill both of you. More importantly, if you were to show others your dark sides, they'll probably agree with her."
"Which is why we wanted to discuss something with you all." Moon said. "I've uh...I'm the new Palutena. I was elected to take over the position that she holds for the time being. I'm in control of the Multiverse, the Council, which I have disbanded, and all of Skyworld."
Ness looked like he was ready to faint. "Moon...you're committing borderline treason!" he said. "Palutena will have your head when she finds out."
"I followed all the procedures." Moon replied flatly. "I got 10 competitors to unanimously agree, all ten did so willingly, and none of them were from the same cluster or had any prior relationship to me. Palutena can't commit any acts of attacks against me without looking bad herself. But that's not what Sarah and I wanted to discuss with you."
"What did you want to talk about then?" Paula asked.
Moon looked at them. "Paula, this is going to shock you, but you didn't create me and Sarah."
That's all for Chapter 9, Cloud and Sonic, two of my less liked characters in Super Smash Brothers, it's not for the fact that I hate fighting them, it's more just that I think they have more hype and love then they deserve, Palutena will probably forever be my least favorite video game character in General, but hey, that's just me.
For those of you who didn't get the whole gag with Isabelle and Saphria, I'll just say it makes sense if you've read Bound By Earth, I'm sure that moment caught you by surprise if you have read it.
Anyway, I've been doing some thinking about what I wanted to do after this story was over, and, honestly, I've come up with two different ideas for a sequel.
The first one involves Moon, Sarah, Ness, and Paula once again traveling to another cluster to fix a few problems with corruption. I'm not going to give any further insight then that but speculation is always appreciated.
The other one is actually a bit of unique twist on my style of writing, that being that it could potentially see Moon flying solo without Sarah for the duration of the adventure. I have no intention of killing Sarah off and she will of course have some role and make appearances in the story (just not in the way you all would expect), but this option would be a big step away from what has defined this series, however, I think it would be one you all would enjoy, it is indeed another crossover with a game that I'm sure a lot of you wouldn't expect until quite recently.
As always, any thoughts you have are greatly appreciated, especially on my ideas for sequels. See you all next time.
P.S. Byleth is indeed fun to play as! For Lady Edelgard and the Rest of the Black Eagles! ;)