Anonymous reviews are once again turned on, but if things go out of hand, I will be turning it off again. Happy reviewing!
Chapter 13
The Mastermind Strikes! The Truth Behind the Disaster!
Somewhere in the northeastern outskirts of Hinamizawa and in the middle of a forest, there was a large bulldozer type vehicle that had a towering body with the cockpit at the top. There were two mounted guns attached to the side of the cockpit and each had a seat behind them.
Eggman, Scratch, and Grounder were standing around the vehicle polishing and fixing it up. "Good, it's done at last," Eggman said, wiping his forehead. "With this, we can easily barge into the village and find the other half of Everything!"
"Are you sure we can find the power there?" Grounder asked.
"My sources are without doubt correct! The other half is surely in that village! Seeing how it is a small and undefended village, nobody can stop us from claiming it this time! After we get this half, we will find another way to get the remaining half from Princess Elise again."
"But the emeralds…" Scratch reminded him.
"Oh yes, the Chaos Emeralds… We'll see about that later. Okay, let's get moving now!"
And thus the three of them climbed up onto the body and each took a seat for himself. Eggman obviously took the highest cockpit while Scratch and Grounder took the right and left respectively. "Full speed ahead!" Grounder said.
"You're not the one giving out orders here!" Eggman said to him. As he started the engines, a circle symbol suddenly appeared on the ground before them, and the circle was giving off a bright flash. "What the?"
Then a bizarre monster flew out of the circle afterwards. The monster was the size of a man and it resembled a bat, but it had large hands with sharp claws like that of a mole and it also had only one large eye on the forehead.
"What is that?!" Scratch gasped in shock.
The monster looked at them and gave off a high pitched screech.
-
Back at the village, Rika was sitting on the porch of her house, looking at the sun that was beginning to set in the distance. "The time draws nearer and nearer," she thought.
-
In a forest not too far from the outskirts of the exit, and no, it's not the same forest Eggman is in currently. He's on the direct opposite side.
So anyway, several people in uniforms and hat armed with guns were gathered at the entrance of the forest, overlooking the village before them. Standing in front of these people was the same woman from the temple, Takano. "The time for the village to meet its demise has come," she said. "Now I can finally get my revenge!"
She turned around to the men and said, "Do not kill anyone just yet. Force all the people you can find into the school building. And especially keep an eye on this girl!" She showed them the photograph of Rika. "I want this girl captured no matter what! She is the target I am looking for!"
-
Back in the forest that was on the opposite side…
The bat-like creature fell onto the ground with a burned marks all over, and then the creature exploded and left behind no trace of itself afterwards.
"That was easy," Eggman said.
"Haha! Nobody can mess with us and get away alive!" Grounder boasted.
"Guess we'll never know what that was," Scratch said.
"Probably just some animal native to this area," Eggman said. "Let's get going. We wasted enough time already!"
As the villains began to start their move, the Smashers showed up from the forest in front of them! "It's the Smashers!" Eggman gasped.
"Well, what do we have here?" Ike asked.
"Hey! That's Eggman!" Ness pointed out.
"So he's the strange creature the villagers were talking about?" Bowser said.
"Darn it! What are the Smashers doing here?!" Eggman said angrily. "I thought they will not be around to foil my plans again!"
"Did you say foil your plans? What are you up to?" Ike asked.
"There's no use hiding things from you anymore, so I might as well tell you before you die. I'm here to find the second half of Everything, which is in the village called Hinamizawa!"
"I see… Then we have to stop you since that is the reason we are here in the first place."
"Looks like it's not only the Failures going after that," Kirby said.
"You Smashers better not get in our way or else the great Robotnik will crush you all!" Grounder warned them.
"Yeah! You do not want to face his wrath!" Scratch added.
"We faced his wrath and survived before, so this won't be a problem," Ness told them.
"I'll make sure you meet your maker this time!" Eggman growled. "Get ready to be schooled!" And he stepped on the pedal and the bulldozer charged forward at a fast speed while giving off a loud sound.
"He's coming!" Kirby gasped. The kids got out of the way, but Bowser, Ike, and Wario remained behind and they used their hands to halt the bulldozer in its tracks when it came.
"What the?! How can they be so strong?!" Eggman gasped.
"I can understand Bowser and Wario standing up to that, but I didn't know Ike is physically strong too!" Ness commented.
"You're not going to get past my muscles with this thing!" Wario said as he pushed back the bulldozer with the help of his comrades.
"Darn it!" cursed Eggman as he backed off again. "Take a load of this!" He pressed another button and the panel used for pushing dirt rose up to reveal missile launchers behind it, and several missiles were shot out afterwards.
When the missiles approached, Ike stabbed his sword into the ground and created an explosion that burned up the missiles when they came close.
"It's our turn!" Bowser shouted, and then both he and Wario ran up to the bulldozer to attack it.
Another pair of missiles was fired at them, but Bowser swatted one missile out of its path while Wario caught the other one using his mouth and hurled it aside. The panel came down again and the bulldozer charged forward to run them down for the second time. "That won't work on us again!" Wario said, and he used his strength to push against the bulldozer along with Bowser.
"Then take this!" Eggman said. He pressed another button that caused the panel to give off heat, and it burned their hands and they pulled back in pain.
"YEOW!!"
While they were in pain and blowing their hands to cool down, the bulldozer moved forward and pushed them along, burning them in the body in the process too. "OW! HOT!!"
Ike and the other Smashers got out of the way as the bulldozer approached. Scratch turned his mounted gun to Ike and fired a projectile at him. Ike used the flat part of his blade to block the projectile, but it exploded upon contact and pushed him back. Scratch followed up with another shot and Ike jumped aside in time to avoid this second shot. Meanwhile, Bowser and Wario managed to get out of the bulldozer's way, but they were badly burned by the panel. Not that it's going to kill them anyway.
"Argh! I'll get you for this!" Bowser growled.
"You'll pay for messing with me!" Wario said angrily.
"Haha! I'd like to see you try!" Eggman said. The front of the cockpit opened and a satellite came out of it and began charging up. "I'm going to fire my laser!" The laser was then fired but they got away in time to avoid getting shot.
On the left side, Grounder was firing bullets at the kids. Toon Link used his shield to block out the bullets, and then Ness released a thunderbolt from behind him and guided it into Grounder and zapped him. "YEOW!!"
Kirby jumped at him with a hammer in hand and smacked Grounder over the head hard.
CONK!!
"Doh…" And just like that, Grounder fell back and was seeing stars.
"Useless robot!" Eggman growled upon seeing Grounder knocked out.
"I won't fall like him, boss!" Scratch told him, and he fired at Ike again. Ike dodged the attack by leaping up high and he fell back down and slammed the flat part of the blade onto Scratch's head.
CONK!
And he fell back too.
"You two are nothing but talk!" Eggman said angrily. "I can deal with them alone!"
"You'll never beat us since you are already outnumbered!" Ness said.
"I won't fall so easily to you guys!" The panel lifted up again and more missiles were shot out. The Smashers ran out of the way to avoid getting hit by the missiles.
They ran all around the bulldozer and each of them unleashed an attack at it. Ike shot out a sword beam, Bowser breathed out fire, Wario unleashed a concentrated fart, TL threw a bomb, Ness used PK Rocking, and Kirby slammed down what appeared to be a knife onto the ground to shoot forth a shockwave.
All these attacks came to the bulldozer from all sides and instantly destroyed it.
BAAAAANG!!
However, the tower flew up into the sky afterwards and it was mostly unharmed. "It's not over yet!" Eggman said. A dome-shaped device with several turrets came down from the bottom of the flying tower and it began firing bullets in every direction.
"Watch out!" TL brought up his shield and Ness hid behind him to avoid getting shot.
The device then withdrew into the tower and this time a large amount of fire came down and burned furiously, and Eggman moved in the direction of the kids to burn them. They saw this and quickly ran while Eggman gave chase. "You can't run forever!" Eggman said.
Kirby got in front of him and opened his mouth and inhaled the fire! "What the?!" Eggman gasped.
Kirby suddenly obtained a hat with fire burning on top of it afterwards, and then he moved back and jumped into the air before shooting forward like a fireball into the body of the tower. The impact pushed the whole thing backwards a couple of steps. "Ow! That sure surprised me, but it's not enough to bring me down!" Eggman growled.
"Oh… What happened…?" Grounder said as he woke up. Scratch also got up too.
Scratch looked down and said, "Looks like they got us again…"
"No, it's not over yet!" Eggman said. "You guys better do something useful before I lose my temper!"
"Sorry, but you aren't going to do anything useful!" Bowser said as he ran towards where Scratch is, and Wario ran to where Grounder is.
"Just die!" Grounder fired his gun at Wario, who did a spinning jump into the air to avoid it. Scratch also fired at Bowser, but he also did a spinning jump into the air.
"Corkscrew Conk!"
"Whirling Fortress!"
Both the Smashers rammed into Scratch and Grounder violently and their mounted guns were smashed and they flew back into the air and landed onto the ground.
"Argh! That does it!" Eggman shouted angrily. "I'm really going to get you guys this time!" The device came down from underneath the tower again and it fired bullets like crazy all over the place.
Ike ran forward while using his sword to deflect the bullets. He forcefully threw his sword at the device and it stabbed into the device. He jumped at his sword next and grabbed it by the handle, but he continued moving up and pulled out his sword in the process. He flew up to the same level as Eggman and raised his sword to slash him. "Aether!"
He brought down his sword and slashed down in front of Eggman, making a gash from top to bottom.
SLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!!
The tower began to malfunction and Eggman cried, "NOOOOOOO!! NOT AGAIN!!" It then exploded.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!!
Eggman came out from the explosion sitting on the seat which had rocket boosters underneath to help it fly. "Darn it! Why must I always be defeated without putting up a fight?!" he shouted. "You're going to pay for this!" And he began to fly away.
"Boss! Wait for us!" Scratch and Grounder shouted as they ran after him.
"Well, they got away," Ness said.
"Just let them be," Ike said. "They're no threat like that anyway."
"I was expecting to see some big ugly monster," Wario grumbled.
"At least we saved the village from danger," Bowser said. "Though I'm still wondering if Eggman really is the strange creature they told us."
Ike looked at the sky and saw that it was evening. "It's getting late. Let's go back now."
"I'm feeling hungry," Ness said, holding his stomach.
"Me too," Kirby said. "I'm so hungry I could eat a Fatty Whale!"
The Smashers went back through the same path that they used to come here. I didn't mention this beforehand, but they actually went across a bridge on the way here. They made their way back to the bridge, but…
"Hey! The bridge is severed!" Bowser gasped. Sure enough, the bridge has been chopped off, leaving there no method for them to cross over to the other side of the chasm.
"Who could have done this?" Ike wondered.
"Now we'll never be able to get some food!" Kirby cried.
"We can just go down there and climb up the other side," TL suggested.
"That's easy for you, not us," Ness told him.
Suddenly out of the trees, a truck came charging right at them! "A truck is coming!" Kirby gasped.
"Hehe! Die!" the driver said to himself with a wicked smile. The kids ran away, but Ike, Bowser, and Wario simply lifted up their foot and the truck came to a crash when it touched their foot.
CRASH!
The force was so strong that the driver crashed through the front window too, but good thing he was wearing a hat to help lessened the pain in the head. Bowser looked at the driver and said, "Look! I found the same guy who tried to ram me to death yesterday!"
"So he's the drunk driver?" Wario asked.
Bowser grabbed the man by the collar and lifted him up and said to him, "Now tell me, you jerk! What do you have with me that you want me dead?"
"I'll tell everything…" the driver cried in pain. "I was only following orders…"
"Orders from whom?"
-
Back in the village…
Satoko found herself on the run. It was no funny situation. She was scared, very scared. As she ran, she thought to herself many things. "Who were those people…? Why are they after me? Where are the others? I hope they are all right…"
"There she is!" shouted some men. "Don't let her get away!"
Satoko quickly ran for her life again as the men opened fire. Luckily, the sky was getting dark and it was hard to see, so their aims weren't very good. Satoko continued to run until she found herself outside the village, and she was now on a bridge hanging over a river. She stopped to take a break and thought, "I can't… run like this… forever…" She looked back and saw flashlights getting nearer and nearer. Thinking fast, she quickly climbed over the ropes on the sides of bridge and slowly climbed underneath the bridge and grabbed hold onto the ropes there.
She could hear the sound of footsteps above her and voices shouting. "Where'd she go? She must've run into the forest! Kill her if we must!"
Satoko continued to hang onto the bottom for dear life, even if her fingers were getting sore. The sounds above her gradually faded and the coast seem clear. However, she lost all her strength and her fingers lost grip, and she fell into the river below.
SPLASH!
-
At the school building…
Several of the villagers were all locked up together in the classroom. Strange people had showed up suddenly and took the village by surprise and force, and the villagers were all dragged into the school building to be locked up.
Olimar was also among the people locked up in the room. "Um… How did I get myself into this again…?" he said.
-
Out in the hallway, there were several armed people in uniform patrolling the place, and lying on the floor were Keichi, Mion, and Shion, and they were all tied up by ropes.
"Darn it! If I get out of this, you guys are so dead!" Keichi growled angrily.
"Me too! You guys are all dead if I can still move my hand!" Mion shouted. "Don't look at me like this, but I have a black belt in karate and judo!"
Shion just remained silent and thought to herself, "I hope Satoko, Rena, and Rika are all right… They are the only ones who managed to escape…"
Then the entrance opened and Takano came in. "Is that everyone?" she asked the men.
"It seems so," one of the men replied.
"Ms. Takano!" Mion gasped. "Don't tell me that you're the one behind this!"
Takano turned to the three teens and said, "Isn't it obvious by now?"
"Why are you doing this?!" Keichi shouted.
"Why am I doing this? There is only one person to blame, and we are looking for her at the moment."
"We found her!" shouted some voice, and then some men came in with Rika in their grasp.
"Oh no! They caught Rika too!" Shion gasped.
Takano smile when she saw Rika and said, "Finally! I've been waiting for you, Rika."
Rika looked at her with angry eyes and said, "Ms. Takano… I knew it…"
"Are you telling me that Rika is the reason you are doing all this?!" Mion asked. "What has she done to you?!"
Takano turned to her and replied, "No, she has not done anything to me."
"Then why are you doing this?"
"However, it is what her clan did that I want to get revenge on this entire village. I'm going to get you all for what happened seven years ago!"
"Seven years ago…? You don't mean… the dam incident?"
"What else is more striking than the dam uproar seven years ago? Do you know who was in charge of that project and who were the ones that went against it in the first place? My grandfather was the one who proposed the dam project, but the Furude clan, being the leaders of the village spurned the project!"
"Then what does Rika have to do with this?!" Shion asked.
"She may not have anything to do with this, but she is the last remaining member of the Furude clan, and because her clan was the one responsible for shooting down my grandfather's project and researches, I want to get revenge on the clan through her, as well as the village that supported them!"
Shion turned to Rika and asked her, "Rika! Is this all true?!" Rika simply nodded as her answer.
"And I might as well add this," Takano continued. "You know the reason people die on Watanagashi Festival? Do you people seriously think it was a punishment from your god? Let me tell you the truth: I was the one behind everything!"
"What?!" they all gasped.
"What better way is there than to take advantage of some stupid religion that this village believes in and scare them with it?"
"You monster!" Keichi shouted.
Takano laughed and said, "So what if I am a monster? So long as I can avenge my grandfather, I don't care if I turn into a monster! This time you ungrateful lot shall face the punishment that you all deserve and I will be the one to laugh at you all as you burn in hell!"
"You're the one who will burn in hell!"
"Yeah! And don't think you can get away with this too!" Mion added. "The Smashers are currently in town and they will whop your ass anytime!"
"Oh, you're talking about that troublesome bunch?" Takano said. "Rest assure that they most likely won't make it here in time, because they are probably busy dealing with something else."
"What?"
"Just so you know; I met someone who was willing to give a hand on my revenge under the circumstance that I find some hidden power in this village for him. I don't know the details, but anyway… He seems to hold a grudge against the Smashers, so to ensure that they do not get in the way, the Smashers were lured out of the village some time ago to deal with some creature that he created. I think he called it Type B or something… Whatever… They're probably killed by that creature by now, but even if they do manage to overcome the creature, they're not going to return to the village in time either. So you are all still screwed in the end!"
-
"So it was a ploy to lure us out of the village…" Ike said after hearing the man explain everything.
"But there is no way you can do anything about this," the man said. "The bridge is severed and you cannot go back to the village. The village will be doomed for sure!"
"You sure have lots of guts to say that for someone who is about to meet his maker," Bowser said, continuing to hold him up by the collar.
"Sorry…"
"That's a better."
"Can you spare me now?"
"Sure." And then Bowser hurled him with all his might into a tree.
CRASH!
"C'mon, we need to get back to the village as fast as possible!" Ike said.
"But how do we get back there?" Ness asked. "The bridge is destroyed and we don't know this place enough to find another path."
"No, we're not without ways…" Bowser said, eyeing the truck. "We still have a way!"
TO BE CONTINUED
I am aware that the Eggman battle isn't impressive, so don't talk about it unless you want to praise.
Also, the plot here is somewhat different from the actual plot of the series, but since I always alter backgrounds and history for my own interpretation of certain series, that shouldn't matter.
