Chapter 2: Bug in the System
Rock stepped in to the WarioBucks coffee shop and looked around. This was sort of the unofficial hangout for Rock and his friends after school. Although on the outside it looked like any other money-grubbing WarioBucks, on the inside it was so much more.
"Hey Rock!" A raven-haired boy with a red cap yelled and waved. This was was Ness Onett,, the laid back baseball champion of Smashville elementary. "Over here!" He was sitting in a circular booth in the corner with Link "Toon" Outset, Lucas Tazmily, Link Dekotre, Andrew Villager, Kirby Star and some orange-haired girl.
"This is Orange. Her family moved in yesterday and I thought we could help her get acquainted with the town." Ness continued. Rock thought about this as he slid into the end of the booth, next to the new girl. Yesterday Blues had said something about a guy named Blue(now that's going to be confusing) with a younger sister being introduced in his homeroom class, so Orange's story checked out, but Rock still got the the feeling she was hiding something.
"Hai!" Kirby interrupted. He was the only person not in middle school, being a rambunctious preschooler who joined the friend group out of sheer force of will. Being cute didn't hurt his chances either.
"So anyway, those police over there are Officers Aran and Falcon." Ness continued, ignoring both Toon and Rock. "Falcon is pretty cool, but don't ever talk to Aran while using her first or last name. Just call her Officer, or Ma'am, or just don't talk to her at all.. She's … intense." He shuddered.
"That guy eating the mushroom omelette? He's Mr. Mario. He's the best plumber in this neighborhood of Smash City. Actually, he's the only plumber in the neighborhood. Funny story, he once fought off an escaped zoo gorilla with nothing but a hammer and his wits. So, the gorilla had cornered him and his girlfriend on a construction site, when he grabs a nearby hammer, and viciously attacks the girder that he and gorilla are standing on. It becomes dislodged, and they both fall down from the height of four floors. The gorilla recovers in a month or so with a couple broken bones, but Mario stays in a coma, until his girlfriend visits the hospital and gives a heartwarming speech about- "
"Bull****, Onett." Link finally spoke up. Link was a conundrum to Rock. He was not fun in any way. He kept to himself, the only interaction he had with human beings in his classroom was when he turned in assignments to his teachers. The only way he had talked to the friend group at all, let alone joined them, was when they had needed his help for an art project.
Link was constantly drawing. Sometimes he drew creatures and objects out of nightmares, and other things. Once Rock peeked into Link's notebook, and saw a drawing of Blues wearing his sunglasses and scarf, and some kind of armor. As far as Rock knew, Link had never seen Blues in his life.
He was boring and was never surprised by anything. That's not to say he was mean, he just never seemed to care about anything or anyone, which is why him interrupting Ness was such a shock.
Everyone looked at Link in surprise. He continued "The government tested an experimental resurrection formula on him, which is why-" Oh. Right. Link was also a conspiracy theorist who constantly spouted garbage about dead universes or something.
"Oh take a rest Link, we've been over this." Toon groaned and facepalmed. Toon was the 'straight man' to Link's quiet craziness. Although they kind of looked alike, you would never have guessed they were cousins.
Ness continued. "Well, uh, that's the chef of the cafe. Everyone calls her Mama because no one has figured out her name, and believe me, we tried."
Orange had been nodding politely during Ness' monologue, but here she spoke up.
"Have you tried just asking her?" she asked patiently.
"Well...Not exactly...we were..uh..looking for a challenge.." Ness muttered and trailed off.
"But wouldn't that be the first thing you tried?"
"Well, we're, uh, very talented middle schoolers, and we considered this a test of our skill...Oh man! I can't believe I forgot to introduce my friends and their talents!
Rock over there has a photographic memory, , Link spouts nonsense and draws photograph-quality images, Andrew is a strategic mastermind, no one can stay mad at Lucas, Kirby has a bottomless stomach, I'm good with people and uh, Toon… is good at sleeping, I guess. And as for me, let's just say if I wasn't good with people, these buffoons would have killed each other long ago. Looking at you Link" Ness chuckled at his own joke, while everyone except Orange and Link was giggled like a pack of schoolchildren. Which they were.
Orange opened her mouth to say something, but what happened next would ensure they would never hear what she said.
At the other end of the cafe, a man walked in. This in itself was not remarkable because people were constantly entering and exiting the cafe, but this man drew everyone's attention.
He was tall and scrawny, you could see his ribs through his dirty grey tank top, and he looked as though he hadn't eaten in a week. His head was shaved except for a messy purple mohawk. While most people looked at him once and went back to their business, Rock couldn't keep his eyes off the man. Something in his eyes gave Rock a very bad feeling.
The purple-haired man caught Rock's gaze and gave a horrible grin. His teeth were filed into triangles. Rock's thoughts on why anyone would do this to themselves were abruptly cut off, when the man walked into the coffee line and held out his hand toward Rock at the other end of the room.
Rock's reflexes took over and he dived from the corner booth onto the floor as a strange metallic tendril flew over his head. With a sickening thought, he realized if he hadn't moved, he would have been impaled in the chest. Instead the tendril was lodged in Orange's arm, which was slightly better, but not by much.
Then just as fast as it came, the tendril retracted and Orange was yanked by her bleeding arm into Purple-Hair's waiting hand. Then he spoke in a low, gravelly voice "Nobody move, or my next attack hits a lot more than orange-hair's shoulder!" This entire exchange had taken about 5 seconds.
A strange phenomena that Lucina noted was that after Pit dropped her off at the library, people did not seem to notice her. At first, she thought they were self-absorbed, or simply not too bright. But when the same people who interacted and reacted with total strangers walked past her in total ignorance, she realized something was wrong.
People just didn't notice her unless she spoke to them, and even then, it took a while for them to see her. It bothered her for a long time, until she realized that she went unnoticed even when she was stealing stuff. In a perfect world, Lucina would have preferred not to steal, but since the she didn't have the currency of this strange new world. (or any world. Turns out you don't think about money that much during the apocalypse.)
With her newfound "talent" she obtained "normal"-Lucina's fashion sense left something to be desired-clothes, as well as sunglasses, a cello case to hide her sword, and a laptop. With all of these, she looked a normal down-on-her-luck college student studying at a cafe with free wifi, if anyone noticed her at all. She had almost found the location of her target, the past version of the monster that destroyed her world, one Robin Sterling, staying at the dorms in Smash City Community College. She just needed to find his room number and kill him. While she was thinking of ways to find that information, the purple-haired stranger strolled into the cafe.
While the tendril thing caught everyone by surprise, and while he told everyone to stay back, she was having an intense inner dialogue over whether to interfere.
He'll see me if so much as reach for my sword.
No one's noticed you so far, why would they start now?
If I interfere, they'll definitely notice, and I'll have a lot of unwanted attention.
If you don't interfere, Orange-hair will have worse problems than unwanted attention! Lucina sighed and quietly opened her cello case and took out the Falchion. She had chosen a booth in the corner, away from the entrance. She had enjoyed because it was farther from the usual crowds, but now it worked against her because she had more ground to cover before reaching Purple Hair. She murmured a silent prayer to Naga before sprinting towards him.
Naga must have heard her prayer, because no one reacted to her until she brought the Falchion down on the arm that held the orange-haired girl. It sliced cleanly through the elbow, the orange-haired girl falling to the ground and taking a rasping breath. The purple-haired was unfazed, with a tendril emerging from his other wrist and shooting straight for Lucina. She parried the tendril and cut through his other arm at the elbow. The man seemed surprised at this, but strangely didn't express any pain. His eyes widened and he hesitated for one second before Lucina's world was filled with pain and thunder.
Samus should have recognized him. She should have gunned that bastard down the moment he stepped into the building. But no, whoever was in charge of the universe was dead-set on making this day as torturous as possible.
It had started like a normal day, with Samus entering the run down Smash City Police Department at 7:00 sharp. She found herself wondering why they even bothered funding the Police Department at all when everyone knew it was just a formality. Smash City crime rates were at an all time low. She greeted a passing night shift officer, Ike Greil, who simply mumbled back. After dealing with 'Grumpy Greil' as Douglas called him, she continued to her office, where Douglas himself, the department jokester, exercise enthusiast, and her boyfriend was waiting.
That was where the normality ended. She knew something was up with Douglas waiting at all. He was the laziest person she knew. Set an alarm for 6:00, he'd sleep in a half-hour, get dressed in the car, eat breakfast while walking into the building and still manage to come in on time as a presentable human being. So why was he here early? Whatever the reason, Samus invariably preferred this to her normally boring paperwork that filled up her day.
"Hey Sam, so, uh, since it's been a year since we started dating, so I, uh got something for you." He stammered and held out a small white cardboard box. This was the second thing that tipped Samus off. Douglas was infuriating for many reasons, but being shy was not one of them. Samus kept an eye out for any potential life threatening objects and didn't see any, but any thought of danger when she saw what was in the box. Marshmallow Extra-Tart Raw Ovoid Donuts, or Metroids, if you were the kind of person who messed around with acronyms. Commissioner Emmeryn Ylisse once said that Samus singlehanded ate all the metroids in Smash City. It wasn't a joke.
Douglas saw Samus' expression and showed his signature smirk. "And these aren't any normal Metroids. These are straight from the Chozo family bakery." Ever since the Chozos went out of business a couple years back, they simply stopped making their godly baked goods. Another weird thing about today. How did someone as impatient and arrogant as Douglas convince the Chozos to bake something for him? There was the possibility he was lying, but that vanished as soon as Samus tasted the first one. They were Chozo metroids alright!
She didn't get Chozo metroids every day, she should save them… but she hadn't had metroids in years, and she was a bit hungry, now that she thought of it. Well, now it was a matter of health, she rationalized, nibbling on another metroid.
As she munched on her fourth one, the last one in the box, she bit into something hard. What in h*** was this s***! As the marshmallow dissolved around the object, it felt like...some kind of coin, or perhaps a ring. A RING?!
Suddenly all the discrepancies of the morning fell into place to reveal the big picture, and she never saw it coming. Was Douglas going to propose? Even now she still couldn't believe it. She seemed to notice the smallest details now. There was Douglas with barely hidden anticipation, Ike leaning on the stairwell wall with an air of disinterest that belied his staring at the group, and Commissioner Emmeryn with her trademark knowing smirk.
The worst part was that it made sense. The Chozos would have made the metroids for her. And this was just about the only event important enough for Douglas to drag his well-defined a** out of bed early.
Samus was so busy ruminating the facts she almost swallowed the ring. She needed to buy time. She hid the ring under her tongue and made an exaggerated swallowing motion.
"'scuse me, think I swallowed something hard, needta go to the bathroom." She muttered and scurried off before she could see Douglas' expression.
She avoided Douglas the rest of the day(not that hard, as she and Douglas patrolled separate zones, at least until they met at the Wariobuck's. It was at the edge of their zones to patrol, so after their separate morning patrols, they would take a break, have a coffee, and discuss dumb stuff. Of course, that was on a normal day, not today, so when Samus saw Douglas' face all the thoughts she had been conveniently dodging came rushing back with a vengeance.
Should she say yes? Was she ready for married life? Was Douglas? Could she accept being tied down to Douglas, of all people? While she and Douglas were close, it was still going to be a huge leap to living together. Was this all an elaborate prank Samus was overthinking?
It was thoughts like that that ran through Samus' head, and she couldn't focus on her iced coffee, Douglas' distracted attempts at small talk, or anything else for that matter. That was the reason she didn't shoot that dirty bastard the moment he stepped into the Wariobucks. Once she recognized him he had already channeled his inner eldritch abomination and taken that weird orange haired girl hostage. The reason she wanted to kill him with extreme prejudice? Well, it's pretty simple. He murdered her parents.
Samus didn't have many vivid memories of her childhood except for one. When a small time thief/homeless guy murdered her parents in an alleyway because they forgot their wallets at home, and only spared her because he ran out of bullets . The Chozo family found her crying over her parent's dead bodies and adopted her as their own. When she was old enough to join the police in any capacity she checked the records and found her criminal.
His name was Scott Ridley, a robber who pulled off his crimes by pretending to be homeless and helpless. Unfortunately for Samus, he disappeared shortly after the incident with Samus' parents, so she never got her revenge on that sorry excuse for a man. That still left the question of what the **** he was doing with robot tentacles in a coffee shop!
RIdley's stalemate abruptly ended when a blue-haired girl came out of nowhere and sliced off both of his arms and he was distracted long enough for Samus and Douglas to draw their firearms. They were just standard issue MM sidearms or 'Megabuster' but they did their job.
At least, that's what Samus thought until Ridley took two full ammo clips to the chest. They only seemed to annoy him, even though Samus saw most of them hit in his chest area. His wounds were even bleeding! Why wouldn't he DIE!
Ridley seemed to notice the police duo after that, and took his sweet time sauntering over. His smug grin revealed that he knew that couldn't hurt him, and they knew it too.
Suddenly Samus wasn't a qualified, skilled and confident policewoman, she was a scared little girl watching what mattered most to her being ripped apart. Ridley being a nightmarish abomination didn't help either. That wasn't an exaggeration, as new tentacles sprouted from his arms, split into strands, and began weaving themselves into monstrous, skeletal hands.
Douglas, on the other hand, charged in and began fighting Ridley in hand to hand combat. Samus could only watch in horror as Ridley kept his terrifyingly slow pace. All of Douglas' years of police training and street fighting were useless against the biomechanical monster, at least until Douglas decided to do a basic martial arts throw. Ridley had been ignoring Douglas, so Ridley wasn't prepared for it, and he flew into a table and landed face first in someone's soup. You've just made him mad! Samus wanted to scream, but she was still petrified by fear.
Ridley's counter attack was so fast that if you blinked, you missed it. He picked up Douglas by the neck and slammed him into the cheap tile floor so hard it cracked. He then picked up Douglas by the arm and threw him through the front window of the Wariobucks.
Ridley seemed to look around for something in the horrified crowd before storming past the terrified Samus, muttering something about 'Mother will have to be satisfied with this one', before stepping through the broken window, roughly grabbing an unconscious Douglas, and...were those strands on his back weaving themselves into..wings? Just as he took flight, Samus wanted to dismiss the whole day as fever dream, except for that small voice of reason, slowly returning, in the back of her head that told her it was all real, and all her fault.
To tell the truth, Dark Pit Icarus had never expected this day to be normal. After all, finding 5$ on the street as a homeless kid is like finding a lode of gold in a mine…well it's less, but it's still enough to buy a coffee. 2 coffees if they're small and at a Wariobucks, so that was where Dark went, especially since he hadn't eaten in 2 days. Sure the life of a homeless young adult sucked sometimes, but he would never trade in his freedom for money...or a warm bed… or actual food….Okay so he didn't want to stay homeless, but who's going to hire a young adult with no references and an attitude?
Dark could taste the deliciously warm coffee in his mind as he ordered, or he was until Tentacle Man showed up and sent the day to h*** and back. *sigh* He wasn't going to get coffee now.
Even if Tentacles left without shutting down the cafe(unlikely), the cops would take all witnesses into questioning, including him, and then they'd find out about his past, and BAM! Back to the orphanage for you! This was a sticky situation, and Dark prided himself on finding his way out of sticky situations, which terrified him even more because it was a lose-lose situation. Run, and get killed by Tentacles; stay, and go back to the system he so desperately tried to escape.
Dark's internal panicking was shattered by the invisible girl. Well, she wasn't invisible, per say, but is was strange how he didn't notice her until she lopped off Tentacles' arms with a f****** sword! Then the cops started shooting, and she disappeared. Now Dark was suspicious, which took his mind off his panic because, he could see where she was a second before. People don't just disappear! Especially after getting shell-shocked by two guns at point blank range! Seriously, those things were loud. Dark hoped he wasn't deaf after the two cops' trigger-happy display.
Dark nearly jumped when he felt a tap on his foot. After checking to see if Tentacles left, he slowly crouched. He could be imagining things, but you couldn't be too careful when there was an invisible girl on the loose! Suddenly, he saw her. She was on the ground, holding her side, her blue hair matted with blood. She mouthed something that Dark couldn't hear because of the ringing in his ears.
"Can I get some help over here!" He shouted, before he realized his mistake. If he drew attention to himself, that would lead to questions, which would lead to…
"It appears no one else noticed. I'm Rock, by the way." A black-haired middle school kid walked up. "I would guess we only saw her because we noticed she disappeared in the first place. But enough half-baked theories. She needs help." He continued. Dark did not know what to make of this kid. Him and the kid carried the girl out, holding her shoulders and legs. Everyone was stunned by what just went down and focusing on the ambulance taking that Orange girl, so they probably wouldn't have noticed them even if they could see Blue girl.
They just unceremoniously plopped her down onto a park bench just outside. Strangely, she was only wearing one glove. Dark wouldn't have given it much thought, but when the kid
brushed against her bare hand, he gasped and recoiled.
"You alright, kid?" Dark asked, but the kid started screaming and writhing on the ground. Now he was attracting attention, Dark hated to leave him or the girl...who disappeared, leaving a note. People were noticing, Dark needed to leave. He grabbed the note and faded into the crowd.
Director Maxwell Hand was not pleased. After nearly 10 years of protecting this fledgeling dimension from otherworldly threats, some wet-behind-the-ears biotechnoterrorists had to go and muck things up. Now, he had to intimidate his way into a hospital just to get access to the two patients that were suffering a fate worse than death. Awakening. Despite the optimistic term, one who is being awakened is having their mind and body forcibly overwritten by a alternate universe version of themselves. Maxwell had thankfully never had to deal with one, but his lucky streak ended today, when he had to somehow fix two.
"Wait outside. Make sure I am not disturbed." Maxwell ordered his two guards, Simon and Gann. They had saved his life many times each, and if something happened to Maxwell, they could take charge of the Department of Extradimensional Events in his stead.
The kid(Rock, as Maxwell checked his file) was currently strapped into a hospital bed struggling against his bonds with a crazed pained look in his eye. His entire right arm was replaced with a strange blue metal substance which was spreading up his arm. Maxwell frowned in sympathy. Transmutation was one of the most painful processes on earth, even when you didn't take the psychological effects into account. He had to end this quickly.
He slipped off one of his immaculate white gloves, and felt the power of Order at his fingertips. He could see all the strands of reality, this boy was shining like a lighthouse with otherworldly energy. Maxwell felt the fabric of reality, and slowly, deliberately begins peeling the energy away from the boys form. He can feel it at the edges of his conciousness, begging for Maxwell to let it in, for it to fix things. Maxwell tries to ignore it, but keeping the boy alive and well takes all his focus, and for just one measly second, it takes control. But the damage is done. It's used the power of creation to further its goals, and Maxwell knows it. But finally, Maxwell separates the energy, slips it into his pocket dimension, and dons his glove.
As is vision returns to normal, he sees the boy settle into a peaceful sleep. He can worry about it later. For now he has another life to save. That's what he thinks anyway, until a crestfallen doctor splattered with orange bursts through the room door. How did they get past Simon and Gann? But such trivial thoughts are banished from his mind the doctor deliver his message.
"She didn't make it. She..she just exploded...We couldn't do anything…" the doctor whimpers. And for the first time since this dimension existed, Maxwell gets the feeling that the peace he gave everything to maintain is going to shatter
Elsewhere
Smash City Central Park
On a message, in a bottle, in a crater, in a gathering crowd, the following message rested, waiting for some unfortunate soul to read it and take action:
My fellow Smashers,
As you all know, I will not live forever, and I do not wish to hand the reins of our glorious nation to someone incompetent. So, I have decided upon a test of skill, a contest, if you will. Somewhere, in our beautiful capital city of Smash City, lies a computer chip. But not any computer chip, oh no, this one is...well...you'll know it when you see it. Anyway, whosoever possesses the cunning, strength, and resources necessary to find this chip and destroy it will inherit the position of High President of Smash Kingdom, and all of my worldly possessions. I wish you all good luck, and good hunting!
Very Sincerely Yours,
High President Marth Altea of Smash Kingdom,
[Here is the official seal of Smash Kingdom Bureau of Management, and the one of the Department of Finances, and one for the Department of Health, as well as a seal for every major administrative branch of Smash Kingdom.]
Arc 1: Familiar Faces
START!
Well, I finally got around to uploading this next chapter. It was never supposed to be this long, but I hope it makes up for my lazy self dragging this out. In other news, I thought I'd share some status on my other crappy works.
Agents of Halberd: This one is going on a hiatus until I finish my Smash bros story, then I might rewrite what little there is. But it's not going to be for a while.
Fire Emblem Heroes Hardmode: This one is dead. I have lost all interest in continuing this fic, partly due to how Intelligent Systems handled Heroes' characters, and partly because I'm not enjoying Heroes as much as I used to. I might add a pseudo-chapter detailing my unfinished plan for the story, or a couple of one-shots with character interaction later, but that's going to be it.
Smash Bros: It's not all bad news, though. I'm going to be dedicating most of my free time to this fic(which isn't very much. I blame school). I will try to get some timely updates, just..uh..don't expect much.
I realize most of you probably don't care about this, I just felt like giving some closure to everyone whos been decent enough to read my so-so fanfiction.
And speaking of my readers, thank you so much! You guys motivated me to get off my ass and finally upload this chapter! A big thanks to everyone who followed, favorited, or reviewed!
Until next chapter,
Adrael79