Chapter 18: A new world!
The Master lifted up the sword and was ready to cleave off Pikachu's head. "This is it!" Pikachu thought.
"Now die!" The Master shouted as he swung his sword.
The blade stopped an inch away from Pikachu's neck. A sigh of relief left Pikachu's mouth, and the temporary paralysis had begun to ware off. Pikachu had moved away from the radius of the sword, but that wasn't where The Master's eyes were. He was staring at his arm. "We are the sprits of the bodies you selfishly absorbed, to make your own body stronger!" A voice that sounded like millions of different voices mixed into one said out loud. "As a punishment, as long as we over power you, you will never be able to harm another being again!"
"Then lets see how strong you are after this!" The Master shouted enraged. In his left hand he held three smash shards and he forced them into his right arm.
"Do not take us as likely to be disposed of after 3 shards are added to your power!" the voices shouted out. "And with out the crystal's magical property you just have 3 shards of glass in your arm!"
Instead of exploding in the normal crimson blast that the crystals normally did a pure white light began to stretch out, still forming the Seal of Smash but it seemed to be hurting The Master. His skin has begun to be burned, the Master did his best cover the wound. The Master himself was covered in shock, most likely because he was normally able to control the seal. He lifted up his left hand, which became transparent and used it to grab the three shards. His right arm had suddenly become limp, and it fell down uselessly, unable to move.
"It just wasn't glass!" Master Hand thought to himself. "If it was just glass, my arm would still be usable." He rose his left hand, a purple ball of energy appeared in it. "But that still won't stop me!" A spark of energy came from The Master's left arm causing the shadow ball to explode, also hurting The Master. "Why isn't anything working?" He shouted out frustrated. The Master glared at each of his opponents, Kirby, Link, Pikachu, Jigglypuff, and Rai. "I'm different from you pieces of trash!" an otherworldly aura emerged from his body, it glowed with the color purple. It wrapped itself around every one of the Master's limbs, restricting his movement.
"What's wrong Master Hand? Can't attack us?" Link shouted. They of course were unable to see what was going on, or hear the voices.
The Master looked at Link and then at Pikachu. "It would appear that I'm not fully accustomed to this new body…" he lied. "I'll let you live for now… but know that the next time we meet you won't be so lucky Smashers!" A barrier appeared around the Master and it floated into the air.
"YOU'RE NOT GETTING AWAY!" Link shouted. The gates opened up in the sky and, The Master flew into the gates.
"We have to follow him!" Pikachu shouted.
Link gritted his teeth. "I know but how?" he asked. Jigglypuff began to inflate as though it was a giant balloon. Kirby also inflated. Rai went onto Jigglypuff, and Pikachu followed, while Link jumped on to Kirby. The two puffballs floated up into the sky and through the gate.
This time traversing the gate was different. Strong winds blew from all directions, trying to push the warriors off of the two puffballs. That however didn't stop them and they reached the end of the gates, landing on a hill. In the distance was a castle.
"And so we have arrived in the Mushroom Kingdom!" A voice from Link's back came. Everyone except Link and Kirby jumped back in shock.
"What was that?" Pikachu asked.
Link took out the NES sword, and placed it on the ground. "It's a magical sword, that can talk for some reason."
"Master Hand isn't on this planet." The NES sword confirmed, just as they were about to jump back onto Kirby and Jigglypuff, the gates closed.
"So now what?" Kirby asked.
"We will be trapped on this planet for a while." Link sighed. "I'm just hoping this place is better than the previous one." Link looked at the castle. "My guess is we should go to that castle and hope for the best."
They progressed towards the castle, until they reached a town, at the base of the castle. From the moment they entered the town they were receiving strange glares from all of the inhabitants. The inhabitants were all rather small compared to Link, and were about Kirby's, Pikachu's, and Jigglypuff's height. They were also dressed up as mushrooms.
They were passing an armory when the NES Sword spoke out. "Link stop!" Its voice rang out. "I sense something in that building!" to the swords command Link walked into the building. Displayed all across the room were several swords, but what caught Link's interest the most was a shield displayed proudly above the fireplace. "The SNES Shield!" the NES Sword telepathically told Link.
"That shield…" Link muttered.
"You've got a good eye!" A voice said. Link looked at the counter to see a mushroom mostly covered in soot. "Never have I been able to craft a sword that wouldn't break when hit against it! Who ever made it was no amateur, not even age has weakened it."
"How much do I need to pay for that shield?" Link asked.
The sword smith just smiled. "You don't need to pay anything, all you have to do is accept my challenge, and if you win you can get the shield." The sword smith noticed the swords on Link's back. "All you have to do is hit the shield once, with any of those swords. If the sword breaks, you give all of those swords to me, but if the sword doesn't break the shield is yours!"
"Let me attack the shield." The NES Sword responded telepathically. Link grabbed the sword but then stopped. "I will not break!" it reassured him. Link drew the sword and with one swing slashed the shield. But the sword went through it effortlessly. Confused Link stuck the sword through the middle of the shield, and then took out the NES sword. There were no scratches where Link had attacked. "We the weapons can not harm each other," the sword explained.
Link took the shield off of the wall and put it on his back. "I'll be taking the shield," he informed the sword smith. He walked outside.
"2 of the 4 items found!" The NES sword informed Link. "Though I can't help but wonder why a sword smith is in this town, it just seems completely out of place." Suddenly Link grabbed his head as if a great pain had shot through, but as quickly as it appeared it was gone. "What was that?" The NES sword asked.
Link had suddenly turned pale, his hands were beginning to shake uncontrollably, and he began to sweat like mad. With out warning he collapsed on to the ground.
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The Great Fox was landing. Ganondorf couldn't believe how slow time seemed to travel in space. After all it was just a barren wasteland that only radiated death. The only sound was that that the engine of the Great Fox had made. But that had soon become as natural as the wind to him. Simple background noise, overpowered by the clanging of his armor and sword.
Ganondorf walked off of the ramp and onto the Mushroom Kingdom soil, he breathed in the fresh air, mixed in with a bit of the sea breeze, off of the coastline. For the cruel type such as Ganondorf it was rather intoxicating. Under his arm were several papers, each filled with information on the Seal of Smash however they were severely limited, only the odd excerpt from legends seemed to vaguely describe it. He then glanced up at the castle. "This is the place we will be staying for a few days!" Fox muttered. "While the ship is being repaired you will be given a small assignment."
"What is it?" Ganondorf replied in a slightly bored tone. He was not used to getting assignments, as he was the king of his race.
Fox maintained his straight posture, "We need you to hunt down someone. We think he is a target for that seal!"
"Who?" Ganondorf asked.
"Now is not the time!" Fox replied calmly.
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Link had reawakened in a bed. Rai was sitting on a chair right beside him; the boy was staring at him.
"You're awake," He said rather bored. Kirby, Pikachu, and Jigglypuff ran up to Link, surprising him slightly.
"You gave us quite a scare, apple." Kirby said in a somewhat unconvincing tone. "You had us quite worried for a while, and we had to get you checked by a doctor. He said it was mental exhaustion."
"You were more worried about the doctors bill!" Pikachu laughed. "You were running in fear wondering how we were going to pay the bill. Link you should of seen the look on Kirby's face when he found out that they had free health care!"
"You weren't exactly all calm either!" Kirby snapped back.
Link couldn't take much more of Kirby and Pikachu's arguing, and stopped them. "All that matters is that we are all ok. Now then how long was I out for?"
"Five days." Rai responded.
Jigglypuff jumped up onto the bed bringing the newspaper. "And it gets worse…" Jigglypuff sighed. "In the five days you were unconscious Kirby has racked up a debt of one million mushroom coins." Link stared at Kirby in disbelief.
"What a guy has to eat." Kirby responded innocently.
"And now for the bad news," Jigglypuff sighed.
"That was the good news!" Link said shocked.
"Two days ago the Galactic Federation found the remains of Popstar, followed by them finding the remains of Pikachu and my home world. It now becomes a race against the clock to find and defeat the Master. They are sending all of their forces for an investigation, it's only a matter of time before they find us." Jigglypuff paused for a few seconds. "And in other news the only way off of this planet would be hijacking a ship that just landed here this morning."
She pointed at the front page where the headline read: Team Starfox lands! But Link unable to read English was more interested at the picture; there in the background leaning against the ship was Ganondorf.
"He's here!" Link muttered. "He survived…" with out hesitation Link got up and began to look for his swords. "Where is the NES sword?" he asked. Kirby went under the bed and grabbed the 3 swords giving them to Link; along with the swords was the SNES shield. Link then ran out of the Inn that he was in, Kirby, Jigglypuff, Pikachu and Rai followed.
They arrived at the castle. There beside it was the Great Fox. Several Toads were working on repairing the ship. They were complaining about how advance the technology was. With them distracted the warriors were able to enter the castle. Sitting on the staircase waiting for them was Ganondorf.
"It has been awhile Link," Ganondorf sneered. Link grabbed onto his blade, preparing himself if Ganondorf would attack. Ganondorf on the other hand was just sitting on the stairs relaxing, with no intention to attack. "Honestly Link, must you always draw conclusions? We can't be beating the crap out of each other every time we meet."
"Tell us where the ruler of this kingdom is." Link said.
Ganondorf got up off of the stairs and walked up them, he stood beside the giant doors at the top of the stairs. "Her throne room is up here." They all walked up the stairs and through the doors. Ganondorf closed the doors behind them.
They were in a throne room. Most noticeably in the room was a giant throne, where a young lady who wore a pink dress, and had long blonde hair sat. Immediately several of the guards noticed the group and surrounded them. They were trapped inside of a circle of mushrooms wielding spears. From outside a man wearing a red hat and shirt, with denim overalls, jumped into the circle.
"What-a do you-a want?" He asked "Are you-a with Bowser?"
"Who?" Link asked clueless.
"Guards stand down!" A soft voice shouted. The guards quickly obeyed, and returned to their original post. From the throne the Princess had stood up and walked towards the group. "I am Princess Peach!" She said. Link was staring at her noticing a strange similarity between her and Zelda yet he couldn't put his finger on it.
Rai, Kirby, Jigglypuff, and Pikachu however were staring at Mario. "You're a plumber too?" Pikachu asked shocked. The four of them glanced at Link for a few seconds realizing it might not be the best thing to tell him, and they silently swore not to tell Link, who his doctor was.
"Oh you must have met my cousin!" Mario replied dropping the Italian accent, which I find incredibly annoying to type and even more annoying to read.
"So why are you here?" Princess Peach asked.
Link stepped forwards and bowed to the princess, and in great detail he began to explain the situation.
To be continued…
Thanks once again for the reviews. And so begins the Mario Ark.