"Sonic! SONIC!"
Sonic… Sonic… The word seemed familiar. Of course! It was a name. Whose name? Why, his name! Sonic sprang to his feet.
"Shadow?" he said, thrown again. "What happened? Am I outside?"
Super Shadow chuckled mirthlessly. "See for yourself."
Sonic looked around. He was outside, and he recognised the oak, up on the hill above. The grass, the trees, the sky – all as they should be, except for the purple haze that covered them.
"Everything's gone purple?" Sonic tried.
"Has it really? I hadn't noticed. Try your other senses."
Sonic listened to the absence of rustling grass, of birdsong, of any noise at all. When he sniffed, no smell of fresh grass or of anything else filled his nostrils. It was almost suffocating. He removed a glove and put an experimental paw to the ground. The soil felt rock hard.
"What's happened?" he asked Shadow again.
Shadow shrugged. "Why don't you ask him?"
Sonic looked over Shadow's shoulder, yelped and rushed over to the stationary form of Snake. A peculiar purple colour like everything else, he was standing stock still, not even breathing. His eyes were tilted skywards, a look of astonishment on his face. Sonic gave him an experimental poke – he felt like stone.
"Trophy base, too," said Shadow, pointing at the golden circle beneath Snake's feet. "Just like the R.O.B.s.
"Snake and I were standing here when we saw this massive purple wave coming from the east, covering the sky with lilac. There was another one coming from the west too. It looked just like SubSpace from back in the factory. As soon as the purple waves reached us, meeting each other in the sky, he froze. Not all at once – he started to slow down, and then just stopped. He's been like that ever since.
"I don't know how much time passed after that. I didn't know what to do. But at some point, this massive purple shape came out of the oak and landed with a thud over on the grass. It was some sort of giant hand, but it was a trophy before it came out. You can see it, just over there. It was followed by you guys, all trophies.
"I brought you over here, away from the hand and the oak. I get the feeling something's going to come out of that opening soon, and I don't wanna be near it when that happens."
All trophies? Sonic was struck dumb. His friends were gone, victims of SubSpace. Everything was gone. Stopped, trophy-fied, frozen in time. Were he and Shadow the only ones left moving in the whole world? Speaking of which…
"How come I'm not a trophy any more then?" he asked. "And what about you?"
"The Keys."
Sonic leapt, Shadow floated several inches off the ground and they both stared down at the small round figure.
"This is the Day of Reckoning," growled Meta Knight. "The SubSpace Keys were designed not only to let people into the Dark Prison, but also to keep them moving in SubSpace. I'd imagine Shadow's emeralds protect him from the same fate as Snake."
Sonic and Shadow just stared at him.
"Not my hypothesis, I must admit," he continued. "Yoshi's idea. We're all awake now, just a little stunned."
Sonic looked behind him. The members of the LOL were getting to or on their feet, breathing, trophy base-less and, he noticed, still in colour.
"But I have my own theory," Meta Knight said, inspecting his glowing key. "I suspect these were never meant to be a permanent solution. As time passes they will absorb SubSpace, until they fill up and we too freeze in time."
Sonic pulled his own Key out of his fur. Its stone still shone brilliant cyan, but now half of it was filled with a malevolent purple glittering.
"They have already absorbed enough to bring us back from trophy form," continued Meta Knight, sounding like a prophet foretelling the end of all things. "I do not know how long they…"
"AAAAAAAAH!"
It started off lower, the scream, then suddenly rose in pitch to an ear-piercing wail. Sonic, Shadow and Meta Knight dashed, flew and Tornado-ed over to where the others were standing and staring at Peach, who was looking at her hands with a hunted expression.
"What's going on?" she yelled, almost in tears. "Why did everything speed up?"
"Everything didn't speed up," said Pit, taking a step back. "You slowed down."
Sonic noticed her key, clutched tightly in her right hand. The gem was almost completely purple, after absorbing the extra SubSpace from the clone Mario.
"Peach," he said, "just stay…"
They had grown almost accustomed to the background silence, a fact they only realised when it was broken. The massive explosion caused them to fall over, eardrums singing in pain. When the purple cloud at the top of the hill had receded, two figures had taken its place, also in different colours.
"No one here?" said one in a cut-glass voice. "How disappointing. I went to a good deal of trouble telling them exactly where to come when the SubSpace waves hit. Maybe the e-mail didn't send. SubSpace shouldn't freeze the Internet, should it?"
"Everyone, down behind the furrow!" hissed Shadow unnecessarily, because they were lying face down already.
"Zelda, are you okay?" said Wario, taking her trembling hand.
Zelda said nothing. She gritted her teeth and buried her face in the grass.
"Or maybe they all gave their Keys away," continued the figure. "Their loss, in that case."
"They probably haven't had time to get here," rumbled the voice of the other one.
"Well, I'm not willing to wait long. They'll have to… Ah, here comes one!"
There was a mutual turning of heads from the LOL. A creature coming from behind would have seen them clearly, dots of colour against the mauve terrain. Fortunately, there was no one visible.
"I'm getting a slight rise in SubSpace energy on the other side of the oak," said Shadow. "We're safe for now."
They waited with bated breath, looking up the hill, until a large winged figure rounded the oak and landed heavily. He gave a gasp of agony and dropped to the ground.
"Ah, Ridley!" said Ganondorf, walking over to meet the new arrival. "So glad you could make it. Goodness me, you look a state! I mean, I like the metal exoskeleton, but what's with all the dents? You look like Samus has come back from beyond!"
"In a manner of speaking," wheezed Ridley. "Ganondorf, what's going on here? Everything's purple and frozen! There's SubSpace everywhere!"
"Ah yes," said Ganondorf, smiling broadly. "The two are kind of linked actually. I was going to wait for everyone to arrive before I did the explanation, but you seem to be the only one who has deigned to show up. Do you have your Key?"
"Lost it." Ridley spat purple. "That Sonic creature beat it out of me."
Sonic allowed himself a grin. Ganondorf tutted.
"Oh well," he said. "Never mind. At least you didn't hand it over, eh Bowser?"
He chuckled. Bowser stared grimly at the grass.
"So," said Ganondorf, "let's give you some exposition, shall we? It all began slightly more than a year ago, before we contacted you. I was sought out by… a friend, who taught me all about this mysterious purple fluid called SubSpace. Sometimes it behaves like a liquid; sometimes, like a gas; sometimes it behaves more like empty space. It was versatile enough to be formed into the barrier that once surrounded this planet. But I digress.
"Its most important properties are threefold. One, it will freeze most things in time upon contact, making it ideal for barriers. Two, for those with significantly darker minds than average, a sufficiently strong blast of SubSpace can actually be absorbed, giving the user immense power. They do need to be significantly darker than usual though, Bowser, so trying to imbue your cheeky but ultimately well-intentioned son was never going to work."
Bowser looked up with a horrified grunt. Was there nothing Ganondorf didn't know about him?
"The fact that you're moving without a Key means that you must have absorbed the SubSpace – well done! You took quite a blast yourself, I assume?"
Ridley thought about crashing through the Flatzone, but said nothing. "What was the third property?"
Ganondorf held up a hand. "All in good time, Riddles.
"Now, we owe a lot to this friend. He not only imbued me and Bowser with SubSpace power – he also suggested that we invite other villains, including you, to help us take over Nintendo, and gave us the technological know-how to set up your factory. And all this…" He indicated the purple stillness around them. "…was his idea! But how, I hear you ask?
"In return for the power of SubSpace, this… friend wanted some projects run for him. One was Project Z, which of course you know about – or do you?"
No, thought Sonic, he doesn't.
"You don't actually," said Ganondorf before Ridley could respond. "What your Flatzone was actually doing was processing SubSpace in a manner that could be fed through several machines we constructed with his help. The third wonderful property of SubSpace is the way it can be moulded into men, which can be prototyped by machine to produce the Project Z clones you know and love. And here comes one now!"
The portal was opening, and out of it stepped a figure of the same dimensions as Mario. Its appearance, however, was totally different – a glowing purple wireframe, with some basic organs in its chest and a red mask. It turned its featureless face towards Ganondorf and Bowser.
"They look different in SubSpace," Ganondorf explained. "Hang around, Mario – we may need you soon. And you don't want to go back to the Mushroom Kingdom. I hear Bowser's made a right mess of it."
Bowser bit his lip.
"Project Z was, sadly, not as efficient as we might have hoped," said Ganondorf sadly as Mario took up a position beside the oak. "The SubSpace has to be piped to your factory, and then go through the Flatzone, and then come back as men, and have those men transformed into clones. The journeys cost us quite a bit of SubSpace. When the men arrive, they're weak and often fail to clone correctly. Our friend had an idea that would help things along, which he called Project Ω. Aha, I see your eyes light up! You recognise that from the dossiers at your factory, eh? But don't know what it is? Let me explain.
"Bowser and I were tasked with having two massive towers built, known as Projects X and Y. They took a long time to build, especially Bowser's one, but they're done now. Essentially they take SubSpace direct from this portal here and saturate Nintendo's atmosphere with it, freezing everyone who hasn't got some sort of resistance to it! But the best part is that your Flatzone is now being overloaded with a high concentration of SubSpace coming in from the massive funnels in the top of the factory. The procession of men is coming in thick and fast, and they're losing less of themselves on the way back because they're surrounded by SubSpace, meaning that the creation process will speed up and produce fewer defectives! Do you see?"
As if to demonstrate the point, another clone emerged, this one a clone of Red. It stood nearby, no doubt waiting for some clone Pokémon to emerge, until Ganondorf's fist thudded into its wireframe chest and it dispersed into mist.
"That is Project Ω in a nutshell. But all this is only Stage 1. Now that everyone on the planet is frozen, we can select the best for cloning, making a huge army with which we shall conquer the galaxy, filling it with SubSpace as we go! Doesn't that sound brilliant?"
Ridley stared at Ganondorf with vacant eyes. The stones had gone, and his migraine was back, accompanied by pain in pretty much every other part of his body. Bits of his exoskeleton were hanging off, and two of his limbs and his tail were all broken. If SubSpace had bestowed upon him "immense power", it was doing a good job of hiding it.
"Oh, you doubt me," said Ganondorf with a wink. "You perch there, thinking, 'Ho, this Ganondorf chappy, this technologically backwards gardener, what does he know about SubSpace? What does he know about anything? And why does my head still hurt?' Isn't that right, Riddles?"
"I don't like being called Riddles," growled Ridley.
"Oh, don't be so gauche, Riddles. Here, let me give you a little demonstration of what SubSpace can do."
Ganondorf's voice had gotten lower, his shoulders more hunched. Purple lightning, barely visible against the equally purple background, crackled around his body as he began to change shape. His nose receded, his teeth dropped, and he fell onto all four limbs as they developed hooves. His red hair grew outwards, and began to spring from his backside as well. And he grew – oh, how he grew. His robust armour plating gave up the ghost with barely a whimper, as his body shot out in all directions. Ridley scrambled frantically away from the snout of the giant pig Ganondorf had become, barely recognisable save for the red hair and gem on his forehead, although that had turned from yellow to violet.
"You see, Ridley?" he intoned in a voice deeper than Meta Knight's and far more powerful, which still maintained traces of the upper-class gaiety Ganondorf had been wont to demonstrate. "This is what SubSpace could have done for you, old fellow! You should have found out about it earlier, you know! Because if you had done, you might have stood a chance."
The massive boar, three times Ganondorf's original height, began to paw at the ground. Ridley realised the very real danger he was in and flapped his wings clumsily, just about becoming airborne.
"But sadly, it was not to be. Villains have never liked sharing power, Riddles, especially not with dinosaurs that get beaten up by hedgehogs. I just don't think you're universe-ruling material."
Ridley opened his mouth and fired a beam of yellow energy. In response the boar roared, a roar that shook the LOL at the bottom of the hill, transfixed Ridley and dissipated the beam in mid-air. Then it charged, there was a crunch and Ridley was flying far over the horizon, his scream vanishing into the dead air and his body forming a star in the sky as it vanished from sight.
Ganonboar, panting slightly and with a hideous grin on its large-fanged face, turned back to Bowser, who was in his shell and skating away from the swine.
"Oh, well done!" said the latter with a chuckle. "You figured out that you were next! Shame you took so long, though. Too late now."
Now it was Ganonboar's turn to fire a beam, which was of course purple. It struck Bowser's shell with a low crackle, sending him flying towards the LOL's hiding place.
"Run for it!" yelled Sonic.
They scattered, using legs, wings and magic to get out of the way of the approaching shell. Looking over his shoulder, Sonic saw Peach running at half speed. The shadow of the shell loomed over her as she failed to run any faster, a slow teardrop oozing from her eye. Then she was whisked off in a yellow glow by Shadow, just before Bowser's head and limbs popped out of his shell and he hit the ground, dazed and smoking slightly. He groaned.
From behind him, the voice of Ganonboar rang out, echoing even in the dead space: "Now I am become Ganon, destroyer of worlds! This is the end, Bowser!"
Snake's trophy had not been rescued from the collision. Bowser had landed on top of it, and it was unscathed. His mind raced as the sound of Ganon's terrible hooves thundered behind him. Summoning what strength he had left, he leapt from Snake and put his hands on the trophy.
Ganon screeched to a halt. "Just what do you think you're doing?"
Purple energy was sucked from the trophy up Bowser's brawny arms. He had practised this with his son and Kammy, little knowing how important it would prove. Snake blinked.
"No!" roared Ganon.
"Where am I?" said Snake, shaking his head.
"Not important," said Bowser, glowing purple. "Remember how I saved your life? Time to repay the debt."
Snake stared stunned at the giant boar, who stared equally stunned at him. Snake waved his arms experimentally. The pig, many times his height, flinched with an expression of pure terror on its enormous features. Then Bowser's strong scaly arms were wrapped around the human, and he was being hurled towards Ganon's face. He landed with a smack and gripped onto the red hair for dear life.
"Get him off me!" yelled Ganon, shaking his massive head. "Get the slimy reptile off me!"
Snake could feel time speeding up around him as the SubSpace filled his body again. Thinking quickly, he reached into his pocket and drew a small piece of C4, clinging to Ganon like a limpet with the other hand. He stuck the C4 to the purple jewel, just as his grip was loosened and he flew from Ganon's face.
"Bang," his freezing lips said, and he activated the detonator.
An unearthly wail drowned out the noise of the explosion. The jewel shattered, Ganon began to shrink. His cries became higher-pitched and his face started to regain its normal proportions. Hooves vanished, hair receded and forelegs became arms. In all of five seconds, Ganon was become Ganondorf, destroyer of heroes, panting on all fours and entirely unclothed.
"Okay," he said, getting up, "that was clever, I admit. Using Snake against me. But even as a human, I'm more than a match for..."
Suddenly there was no Bowser, just a bright purple light that forced Ganondorf to cover his eyes, snarling. When he peeked out from beneath his hand, standing in the purple glow was…
"Your heart will be the only one to bleed, gardener."
It was twice Bowser's height. Its arms and legs were proportionally longer and more muscular, as was its tail. Its orange scales had turned a dark brown, its horns were longer and curved like a ram's, and its red hair rivalled Ganonboar's in length and volume.
Ganondorf stepped back, his hands spread in front of him. "N-n-now, B-B-Bowser, can't we discuss this? Teamwork, we agreed, remember? And you need to give me the order to release your son from…"
The clawed hand had curled into a fist. It now launched itself at the dark wizard, producing a plume of purple light on impact and knocking him back. Ganondorf spat purple blood and tried to pick himself up. Instead, the monster lowered its head to the ground, sucked in a torrent of air and roared:
"BANG, and the shit is gone!"
A massive palm shot round and grabbed Ganondorf. The green man struggled ineffectually, kicking his legs like a baby . SubSpace, flowing down his captor's pillar-sized arm, was being squeezed into him, faster and in greater volume than his evil could cope with. This time, the "son on a stick" ploy could not save him. Ganondorf's struggles became slower and slower, until all that remained was a grinning monster grasping a purple statuette. It was thrown to the ground viciously and punted into the distance.
Bowser's new form turned to the oak tree again, where a portal was slowly opening. Out of it emerged a large white hand, flexing its fingers experimentally. Bowser smiled and walked towards it.
"My liege," he said, bowing his head on lumbering approach. "Giga Bowser, at your service. All has been done as you asked. Project Ω is complete."
The hand spun slightly, as if looking around. SO I SEE. YOUR GUARD DID A SHODDY JOB OF CONTAINING MY TREACHEROUS SIBLING, THOUGH.
Bowser looked at the hand statuette, motionless on the grass. "My apologies, Master. I see that he has been dealt with, though. And our army is emerging as planned."
They were. Every ten seconds or so now, the portal was spitting out a new purple wireframe being, forming neat ranks upon the hill.
OF COURSE IT IS. I PLANNED IT AS SUCH. WELL, I SAY I PLANNED IT…
What a curious turn of phrase, Bowser thought. What could it mean? Furthermore, what could the golden chains attached to the Hand's fingers mean? Why had he not seen them before? They seemed to be connecting the Hand to the portal…
IN FACT I'VE BEEN NOTHING MORE THAN A PUPPET FOR QUITE SOME TIME.
The ends of the chains emerged, attached to what resembled a haze of blue that spread out like a genie emerging from its lamp. Slowly it expanded, filling Bowser's vision.
"But it has fulfilled its purpose."
The chains yanked the Hand, large as Giga Bowser, around and around, twirling it as if its weight was negligible, and let it fly.
"It can join its sibling now."
The Master Hand crashed down on top of the Crazy Hand, purple and with a trophy base, on the other side of the army of clones from the barely breathing LOL.
Bowser looked in confusion at the blue smoke, which seemed not to speak or even to transfer messages directly into his mind, as Mewtwo had been wont to do, but convey the meanings of its sentences without even bothering to use words…
"I find it easier simply to manipulate the neurons in your brain."
Who was this creature?
"Well may you ask that," I said, using the word "said" in its loosest possible sense. "I am, in my natural form, beyond your feeble comprehension. Don't feel angry – it's true. The comprehension of every being on this planet is feeble, save for my own and maybe those of the Hands. Allow me to take on a form of matter, that you may understand me better."
It was all very well for the cloud of blue light to tell Bowser what he should and should not feel, but Bowser felt insulted nonetheless. He looked on with a grimace as the blue shrunk into the figure of a man, barely taller than Snake had been, sharing a lot in common with the clones – an insubstantial body, though cyan, and a single internal organ, red and pulsing, within its chest cavity.
"I am the Forbidden One. My true name would be incomprehensible to you: you may call me Tabuu."
"Taboo-oo?" said Bowser, imitating the "words" the being conveyed.
"It is incorrect, but will suffice," I said, still troubled by my difficulty in conveying spoken language. "I must thank you, Giga Bowser. You and all the villains who worked for me to let me explore this world. For so long I have desired to leave the Final Destination. Only now…"
"You need the SubSpace to move?"
You would describe what I felt just then as anger, maybe. This acknowledgement of my incapability of moving through space… Although I was no longer forbidden from accessing this world, it still stung.
"It helps. But this is just the beginning. I wish to explore this galaxy, this verse of Space! That is what this army is for – it will spread SubSpace across the stars. Soon there will be Project Ωs spanning all you can see! Space will be banished: SubSpace will cover all!"
"Yes, my liege!" said Giga Bowser, with what he hoped was a roar of enthusiasm. "But… one thing continues to bother me…"
"You wish to know what is the point in you ruling a galaxy where everything is frozen? I see no point. I think it would be pointless. And that, Giga Bowser, is why your role in this grand scheme ends here."
And where had this new chain come from? Golden like the others, Tabuu held one end in his hand, and the other was flashing towards him, Bowser. Now it was around his neck, and tightening. He yelled, a cry of betrayal that in no way ceased the purple SubSpace energy he contained from flowing out of him down the chain.
"Thank you for all your work. I am so grateful. Through you, I have not only escaped the Dark Prison, but also had a chance to observe the effects of SubSpace on creatures of Space. That some of them may absorb it and become stronger, while others are frozen by it – these things I now know."
As the SubSpace continued to drain, Bowser shrank to his normal size and appearance, howling with cries that got weaker and higher. SubSpace from all around was filling his body, too gently and gradually to give him power. Time began to speed up around him. Only Tabuu's "voice" remained at a constant pace.
"Good-bye, Bowser Koopa. Your statuette shall return to your castle, where your family and troops remain."
Time continued to pass faster and faster, until…
The chain flashed out in a shimmering arc and flung the statuette around the planet, presumably back to Bowser's Castle.
I made myself wings of matter, large and beautiful wings that suited the appearance of the god of this planet.
"My soldiers," I said to them, and they inclined unto me and heard my words, "it is time. Begin your infinite march across the lands, collecting the strong figurines that they may form more clones. We will have an army beyond any other, an army of SubSpace for SubSpace!"
They began their march, my children (of sorts). Meanwhile, I would survey my domain. Now that I could not afford to waste energy it was sensible to maintain my matter form. Drinking in the SubSpace, I set off on a tour of the planet, beating my wings for my own amusement as I flew off over the horizon, leaving the LOL looking at an ever increasing march of heroes emerging from the portal.
They were very, very scared.
o o o
Clomp, clomp, clomp. Wireframe after wireframe emerged from the Gate of Souls, each one recognisable as a hero. There was Clone Pikachu, bursting with SubSpace-enhanced electricity; two Clone Ice Climbers had teamed up, swinging their wireframe mallets with undisguised glee; Clone Donkey Kong lumbered across the grass behind them, his giant fists dragging him along the ground; clones of all shapes and sizes marched unendingly from the Dark Prison.
"We have to do something," said Meta Knight at last.
"What do you suggest?" hissed the Captain. "There's thousands of heroes out there, and we couldn't take on one clone Mario!"
"Plus there's a blue guy with wings!" croaked a shivering Wario.
Sonic said nothing. For once in his life he was out of ideas. No weapon on the planet existed strong enough to wipe out both the blue angel and his purple infantry. Yet if they did nothing, their keys would fill up and they too would freeze, more instruments to be used in the cloning programme. Peach's bitter tears, which intermittently halted mid-descent, were a constant reminder of this.
"We need something more powerful than Taboo-oo," said Zelda, her voice shaking but still just about calm. "There are beings stronger than it in this world, if they will but listen to us!"
"Zelda," said Pit quietly, "has it ever occurred to you that your goddesses, believing that the beings in their kingdom should have free will, prefer to provide psychological help if they help at all?"
Zelda looked at him with a confused expression. "What do you mean?"
Clomp, clomp, clomp. No sound but the marching and Peach's tears. Suddenly Yoshi yelped.
"What's he saying?" clamoured six desperate voices at once.
"He suggests that the Hands may be able to beat Taboo-oo," said Meta Knight. "While separately each has failed, maybe together…"
"But look at them," said the Captain, pointing in the direction of the former creative and destructive spirits of Nintendo, now just more purple trophies. "How are they meant to fight the blue guy like that?"
Yoshi's downcast expression stated a lack of answer that required no translation.
"We power them up."
Despite the fact that he was standing in their midst, glowing bright yellow, the group had completely forgotten Shadow.
"With what?" asked the Captain. "The luminescent paint you used to decorate your fur?"
"Similar."
The group cottoned on at varying speeds. Sonic was one of the first to do so.
"Shadow," he said, "as soon as you expel the Emeralds, you won't be Super any more. You'll freeze in time before you can use them to power up the hands."
"Peach!"
Everyone turned towards Pit's squeal. Peach was sitting stock still, the pink vanishing from her dress and being replaced by a shade of lilac. The key she cradled to her chest was glowing purple. It was only for a moment: Peach jerked out of it with restored colours, looked around in confusion and then sobbed at changing speeds. The Captain sat down beside her and spread his arms over her shoulders.
Shadow looked at the embrace, then at the floor with gritted teeth. He seemed to be shaking slightly from his position just above the ground. Then, as if throwing off a spell, he charged forwards.
"Peach," he said quickly, "I want you to use the Chaos Emeralds to power up the Hands."
Peach looked at him with an expression of complete incomprehension. Shadow rolled his eyes.
"You absorb the power of the Emeralds, you cut through the purple army and get to the Hands. You release the Emeralds, and quickly push them into the Hands. The power of the Emeralds should do the rest for you."
Peach looked at him as if he was mad. "But if you give me the Emeralds…"
"WHY DOES EVERYBODY SEEM TO ASSUME I HAVEN'T CONSIDERED THIS?" yelled Shadow, hovering back to the ground in order to stamp his foot. "I don't even know what I'm doing here. I'm no member of the LOL. Now go out and save the world! That's what legends do, right?"
The brief silence was only broken by the sound of marching and Shadow's heavy breath.
"How do I activate them?" Peach asked quietly.
"Just take one and think of something you feel passionately about. I think of how much I hate Sonic."
There was a flash, and the Emeralds were raining down around a purple figurine of Shadow, faux contempt for all life stamped on his motionless features. Peach realised that everyone was looking at her. Moving in fits and starts, she lurched forward and picked up an indigo gem. Grasping it in her hand, she shut her eyes and concentrated.
She thought of her poor dear Mario, trapped inside the Dark Prison for over a year, floating unconscious in a suspended state and being used to create these awful clones! How she longed to see him again, to kiss him, to hold him without pushing a key into his neck! Dear, dear Mario!
She felt no different. No superpower, no feeling of might, just cold and strange and with the sound of breathing around her speeding up and slowing down. Disappointed, afraid and hyperventilating, she opened her eyes and looked into those of the Captain, who was kneeling down in front of her, peering anxiously at her face.
There was another flash.
o o o
From my lofty post I looked down upon Nintendo. I floated in the furthest reaches of the SubSpace zone that surrounded the planet, so that any "higher" would have been painful to me. My dominion in this verse was below – one small sphere of semi-molten rock, hanging from its star by the fragile thread of gravity. I could have plucked it from its orbit myself and bull-dozed through other planets that way, but curiosity overcame my appetite for destruction. Was I not, after all, the first of my kind to explore a "space verse"? It would be a shame to destroy it. I wanted to investigate new worlds, not destroy them.
But as I looked upon my works, I felt something rather akin to a twinge – not within me, but within my domain. Something was changing down there, and it gave me what, if I had bothered to fashion a proper digestive system for myself, might have felt like a stomachache.
I descended.
o o o
Peach had to restrain herself. It was so tempting, to whizz off skywards and fly! This was what it felt like to be Fox McCloud with his Arwing, or Mario with his cape, or the Captain with his Flyer! Ah, the Captain, that most wonderful of men. He had saved her from eternal frozen-ness, and better yet restored her dress to its pink and puffy state. What need had she for Mario? Wheeeee! This was fun!
But as she looked below her, she knew that recreational flight was not a viable option. The clones in her blossom-filled wake were sleeping peacefully, but that left thousands of soldiers watching her every move with malevolent intent. She had to relinquish this glorious feeling of power to save the world. She only hoped the others knew how much she was giving up for them.
Swooping down in a flurry of flowers, she landed beside the incapacitated Hands. Incredible, to think that she would be the one to save the legendary creative and destructive spirits of Nintendo from oblivion. She leapt towards them, and released the Emeralds.
She had tried to aim them in a stream directed at the fallen Hands. Instead they toppled to the ground like seven drunkards, and she followed suit. Looking over her shoulder, the tide behind her were sweeping over, getting faster and faster. Panting, she scooped up the Emeralds and ran desperately over to the Hands.
"Falcon PUNCH!"
A Kirby clone was knocked into the air, its purple body blazing merrily. The army stopped briefly to assess the new threat, leaving Peach with grateful tears drenching her cheeks as she clambered with difficulty on top of the rock-solid Hands. But now they were coming towards her again, the nippy Pikachu clones in front shooting lightning that just fell short. Peach ducked under laser fire from Foxes and Falcos and pressed the jewels into the open palm of the Master Hand.
Shadow had said that the Emeralds should do the rest. So why did the army keep getting faster? The inflating Kirbies, the leaping Marios, the tightly dressed Samuses all pressed on towards her, their red masks staring into her soul, speeding up, and up, and up…
"What is this?"
And now they were normal speed again, and she was sitting on soft, white material, and there was a bald blue man not twenty feet away staring at her; except it was no longer a blue man but had reformed into a large blue spearhead that launched itself at Peach, who weakly shielded her face.
"KAYAAAAAAAAH!"
Now it was a man again, barely a metre away, thrashing about as if being electrocuted.
THERE IS A SPHERE OF SPACE AROUND US. WE MUST HURRY – TIME IS SHORT.
No longer making any attempt to understand what was going on, Peach watched as the left Hand emerged from under the right and punched into the first rank of the clones, sending several soaring over the heads of their comrades and reducing a few to purple dust. Then it flew with its partnet over the heads of the army, Peach still clasped in the Master Hand's fist.
CAN YOU FORGIVE ME, SIBLING? said the Master Hand. AFTER ALL I'VE DONE?
IT WAS NOT YOU, SIBLING. YOU WERE NOT YOURSELF.
These despots had barred my way for too long, declaring that I was forbidden from their world. I would not let them hinder me any further. I spread my wings wide for effect and emitted large red waves that would fill them with SubSpace on impact.
The Master Hand countered with waves of space that briefly restored colour to the medium they travelled through. They slowed, but did not stop, the red circles. Peach made a horrified choking noise as the waves dissipated inches from them, becoming part of the medium through which they travelled. This was a creature more powerful than the Hands, its one weakness being that it could only travel through SubSpace.
The Hands landed safely enough on the far side of the army. The Master Hand set Peach down and formed a dome of space over the LOL, deflecting Tabuu's explosive projectiles. The Crazy Hand faced the oncoming army, who had rushed over to Peach and the Hands en masse and were now rushing back.
YOU WOULD SAVE THIS WORLD? boomed the Master Hand.
Dumbstruck, the LOL nodded together.
MAYBE YOU CAN. I FEEL THAT WE, THE ORIGINAL CREATOR AND DESTROYER OF NINTENDO, DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH STRENGTH.
The Crazy Hand writhed on the ground, creating earthquakes that sent the clones tumbling away.
BUT YOU EIGHT… YOU CAN TRY, ANYWAY. YOU MUST DESTROY THE LARGE TOWERS IN HYRULE AND THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM, AND WIPE THE SUBSPACE FROM THIS PLANET. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
They nodded again, with a bit more determination this time. Behind them, the Crazy Hand was leapt upon by a bunch of clones.
TIME IS BRIEF. MY SIBLING CAN ONLY HOLD THEM FOR SO LONG. TAKE THESE. THEY REPRESENT THE LAST OF MY ENERGY, AND THAT OF THE GEMS OF POWER.
"Chaos Emeralds," whispered Sonic.
The Master Hand turned his palm upwards, clenched his fist and released a multicoloured ball of energy. Then again, and again, and every time it released a ball it relaxed, visibly exhausted. By the sixth ball, it could barely lift its fingers, and the Crazy Hand, impaled upon the blades of a clone Link and clone Marth, was writhing in its death throes.
OUR TIME… IS DONE… gasped the Master Hand, creating the seventh ball with massive difficulty. BREAK... THE BALLS… AND UNLOCK… THE POWERS WITHIN…
A golden chain stabbed through the Hand. There was an explosion and the Hand was no more, leaving a final ball flying in its place.
"Smash them!" yelled Sonic.
As the clones bore down, and Tabuu charged up another attack, the LOL rose into the air like larks and set upon the balls. Sonic grabbed his and pierced it on his spikes. The shiny rainbow surface burst open in a blaze of coloured light.
"How much power did those hands contain?" said Sonic in wonder, as he floated back to earth, glowing yellow.
He was the first to descend, while above him an eruption of colours was taking place, emitting heroes. The Captain was dressed in red and orange costume, his head decorated with blazing orange plumage and two massive feathery wings, burning brightly, erupting from his back. Meta Knight was hardly visible, a rippling shadow bearing a sword that glowed bright yellow. Pit had hair green like Palutena's, and everything else that could be turned gold had turned gold. Zelda glowed green, red and blue, bearing in her arms a massive bow that put Pit's to shame. Yoshi had retrieved his wings and fire breath from the island battle, while Wario was Warioman once more, in a costume that was slightly too large for his new body shape.
That left one sphere unclaimed, floating just above head height. Turning, they saw Peach, a statuette gazing up with golden base. After the Master Hand's defeat, her key had given up the ghost and she alone was now helpless against the oncoming onslaught, not five metres away. A Mario clone let loose a vicious fireball at the statue's head. Thinking quickly, the Captain grabbed the figurine, surprisingly light for its size, and hurled it upwards. It hit the ball, which smashed on impact and revealed an animated Peach, floating in the air, trailing blossoms and looking slightly confused.
"So, the Hands decided to make a futile farewell gesture?" I said, amused by the ragtag group of misfits standing before me. "Pathetic. They had not enough power to save themselves, let alone..."
As the wave of clones hit, Pit flapped his burnished wings. The unexpected and violent gust flung the clones backwards into each other, while their master looked on expressionlessly.
It appeared that I had underestimated the Hands. Or maybe there was something in the right one's claim that the balls they made were simply keys for unlocking the power within. It was an interesting phenomenon, and one that merited further study once this little hiccough had been dealt with. I spread my wings.
"Impressive enough," I said, "but let's see how you deal with some more Off Waves." The name was my own, and a fitting one.
Three red waves sprung from the blue body, this time with no SubSpace Keys or space to absorb the impact. They rippled straight through the clones, turning them into purple smoke where they stood, and headed for the LOL.
"Take cover!" yelled Pit.
The waves hit Wario, who was standing at the front, and ceded harmlessly. One, two, three waves broke against his podgy body. He looked at Tabuu with an unimpressed expression.
A very interesting phenomenon indeed. I wondered why...
"Shut UP!"
Warioman's fist thudded into the bald head, knocking the blue figure to the ground in the middle of his army.
"I am SICK and TIRED of you narrating everything you do!" yelled Wario.
Was this... pain?
"Yes it was!" Wario turned to the LOL, eyes like iron beneath the lycra mask. "It's time to end this. Peach, you fly to the Mushroom Kingdom and take out the one tower. Zelda, get onto Yoshi and take the other. Pit, Falcon, go with them. Sonic..."
"I'm the one who's the unofficial leader!"
"Oh like I care. You and Meta Knight, stop that cloning process and free the heroes."
Zelda looked astonished. "But what will you..."
"NOW, you dumb shits!"
They were not used to Wario being authoritative, but with the more muscular figure and lack of garlic breath he managed to pull it off. Peach and the Captain flew off in one direction, while Zelda mounted Yoshi and shot off in the other, Pit flying close behind. Sonic and Meta Knight headed for the oak.
"And as for you..."
The one in the purple-pink clothing turned to me, his eyes filled with...
"OH ENOUGH WITH THE MONOLOGUES ALREADY!"