Wow, I'm really late in updating just as the big news has come in regarding new Smash Bros. DLC. Regardless, I'm going to stick with my plans, though I did have to make some changes in future chapters regarding the ones just added to the current roster (I'm not going to speak of them until it's time for their debut here).
Ness stared intently into the team form held inches in front of his face. Villager and Toon Link were at either side of him, exchanging peculiar looks before gazing upon the paper as well.
The form was simple. On the top was a box for the team name. Below that box was a large box divided into four even slots. They were to hold the names of the participating Smashers in the team. So far, only three out of the four slots were written, holding the names of Ness, Villager, and Toon Link.
So who would be their fourth?
Breakfast was done and over and every other Smasher was pairing up into teams. Being as curious as he was, Villager glanced over to see what other teams were being formed around them.
"Mama mia," Luigi sighed, walking along side Yoshi from the dining hall. "I wanted to be in Bro's team, but apparently Master Hand had-a different plans for him."
Yoshi placed a hand on the Man in Green's shoulder, attempting to comfort his long-time friend. He, too, was upset that Mario had been assigned to a team by Master Hand as part of 'promotional purposes,' or however the Hands had worded it.
"Hey, you two!" Ike greeted with a wave. "Looking for a teammate?"
"Ike?" Luigi questioned, clearly confused. "But I thought you'd-a be with Marth?"
"Master Hand wanted us to go out and meet new people, and Marth was already taken in by Link along with Shulk," Ike explained, looking away with lingering amusement. "I could've been the fourth, but Zelda had clung to Link the whole time, so I'm out of luck. Crazy girl… What about you?"
"I couldn't get to be with my Bro, b-but I think it'd be cool if we were… um… teammates?" Luigi suggested bashfully, receiving an earnest pat on the head by the Radiant Hero.
"It'd be an honor working with you, Luigi," Ike said with a confident smile. "So right now, it's you, me and Yoshi?"
"That's-a right!"
"Then look no further, because I just happened to have our fourth teammate."
Ike then looked up and gave a side gesture with his head. Something, or rather someone, came diving down upon them in a swift strike. After recovering from the aftershock of the encounter, the fourth member brushed his cape back and looked up to see his new team.
"M-M-Meta Knight?!" Luigi stuttered in amazement. "You'd t-t-team up with me?"
"I have no preferences on the beings I wish to be around," Meta Knight replied darkly. "I enjoy a good fight with worthy opponents, though with a bit of more training, you could appear to be more confident in yourself."
"That settles that then," Ike concluded rather cheerily. "Let's sign up."
Villager blinked a few times in disbelief. He certainly wouldn't have imagined a team combination between two of the most docile fighters in green and the pair of rough, battle-hardened swordsmen. He also had the opportunity of overhearing who was in Link's team just from watching the previous spectacle.
The young mayor then glanced about to see more future team possibilities. He found Peach and Rosalina together, getting to know Jigglypuff and Kirby. Rather, Rosalina's Luma was getting to know Kirby even more by playing another wild game of tag while Peach daintily extended a cup of tea to the Balloon Pokémon.
Palutena and Lucina appeared to be even closer now that they seem to have presumably paired up into a team. Of course, where the Goddess of Light was concerned, Pit was close by, watching the two women at a distance with an envious look while strangely enough, Greninja appeared to be tapping him on the side of his head for some reaction. Villager wondered what happened with Dark Pit if he wasn't going to be with Pit and Palutena.
Pikachu was walking alongside Samus and R.O.B. That was another unusual team combination, though Villager remembered Ness mentioning Pikachu and Samus's unique bond during their Subspace adventure quite a ways back.
The last team Villager managed to get a glimpse before the members left was that of Fox and Falco taking along Olimar and Charizard for the ride. Their team was bound to have some fiery, yet unpredictable combinations.
"Villager, pay attention!" Ness called out, his voice calling the Mayor of Smashville out of his thoughts. "We won't be able to come up with our fourth member if you can't focus with us."
"I doubt that'll matter," Toon Link muttered. "Everyone seems to have already found a team to be in."
"What makes you say that?" Ness asked.
Toon Link sighed before motioning to the PSI boy to look around. Ness had no more comments upon discovering that they were the only ones left in the hall while the other Smashers had gone their way after forming their teams. He felt himself sweatdrop in a short moment.
"We'll find a solution," Villager assured, walking away.
"Where are you going now?" Toon Link inquired. "Do you know someone who'd fill in?"
"No, but I did promise Alph that I'd help out with his fruit garden after breakfast," Villager explained. "This whole tournament completely sidetracked me, so I'm heading to the garden area in the back now. I'll catch you guys at lunch!"
He then ran off, leaving his friends in a rather awkward silence. A few seconds, along with a cold wind, had passed through the hall where Toon Link and Ness still stood as they were left behind watching Villager's wake.
"… Uh-huh."
"He cares too much about helping others," Ness remarked in an attempt to break the awkward silence. "We need to teach him how to be selfish for once."
"And how do you plan on corrupting him?" Toon Link asked wryly. "It still takes you over ten minutes to find matching socks."
"Five!" Ness corrected as his right eye twitched.
At the garden…
"Thanks again for helping with the harvest, Villager!" Alph exclaimed, carrying a large basket filled with a variety of fruit. "My people back at Koppai will thrive forever more."
"It's not a problem," Villager replied, stuffing a filled basket into his limitless pockets. "Growing a variety of fruit-bearing trees is my specialty on top of fishing and bug-catching."
"All that and running a town? How do you do it?"
Villager shrugged before picking a couple of fresh oranges from a nearby tree he grew for Alph, handing one over to the Koppai ship engineer.
"Just good at it, I guess."
"I wish I could go back to the slow life again," Alph sighed wistfully. "But the S.S. Drake crew needs me."
"The slow life is always nice, but sometimes I wish I can have my own big adventure like you and most of the other Smashers here have," Villager admitted. "I've been asking stories from Ness and Toon Link on their adventures so that I can imagine what it was like being in their shoes when it came to saving the world."
"It's not as easy as you think it would be," Alph said. "The fate of huge populations even greater than that of your village would be riding on your shoulders for survival. My crew and I have to make sure we have enough fruit for Koppai to survive, though I have to get extra for Brittany. I know she keeps trying to sneak extra rations for herself, so hopefully with this amount will satisfy her hunger."
"Who's Brittany? Your girlfriend?"
"W-What?! No! Sh-She's just…!"
Alph stumbled over his next set of words and became a bright red, incoherent mess while Villager watched on, confused over his over-the-top reactions to his questions. While the engineer attempted to sort himself out, Villager polished his orange against his shirt.
"Was it something I said?" Villager mused, concerned for his Koppai friend.
"Man, look at all this fruit!"
"You can feed twenty islands with all of this!"
Villager spun on his heels to see Ness and Toon Link walking in from behind, admiring the bountiful harvest. A shocked expression momentarily took over his face. He certainly didn't expect his friends to just show up in the garden, much less express any sort of interest over it.
"What are you two doing here?" Villager inquired. "I thought you were still trying to find another member."
"Trying to remember who's already on a team and who isn't is too hard," Ness drawled. "I thought about finding Mewtwo after you left, but I don't think we need another psychic on board. That would be cramping my style. And most likely, some lucky team must've convinced him by now to join them."
"Besides, we wanted to see how you work in the garden," Toon Link added thoughtfully. "You said you come here every other morning to help pick fruit for breakfast."
"Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt for you guys to look around," Villager pondered. "Just be careful. This is Alph's portion of the garden and every piece of fruit here means a lot to him."
"He sounds like a bigger health nut than you and Wii Fit Trainer combined," Ness snickered.
"I'm not a health nut, I just sometimes have problems trying not to think of friends back home when eating… certain foods," Villager reasoned, scratching the back of his head sheepishly.
"Details, details," Ness waved off, looking at Toon Link. "Let's explore this place a bit more."
"Yeah!" Toon Link exclaimed as both young boys ran off before Villager could say anything more.
"Don't worry, my fruit garden will be fine," Alph reassured, walking up to the Mayor of Smashville. "I have Pikmin stationed at every corner of my fields, so they'll make sure they won't cause trouble."
"If that's the case," Villager resumed, holding up his orange while Alph followed suit. "To a successful harvest!"
"For the people of Koppai!" Alph added, bumping his orange into Villager's before they consumed the result of hard labor down their throats.
A few minutes later…
"Okay, I'm bored now," Ness hummed, approaching back to the center of Alph's garden where baskets of his harvested fruit were. "It's pretty much similar to Villager's… village."
"When you see one garden, you've pretty much seen them all," Toon Link surmised with a shrug. "What do you want to do now? It looks like Villager and Alph left."
Ness placed a hand under his chin in a way that would make Dr. Mario proud, pondering over what else to do early this day. There was the possibility of going back on finding their fourth teammate, but that was too much hard work to do right now.
"Want to play baseball?" Ness suggested.
"Sure! But we don't have a full team."
"Then how about we just practice with our pitches and batting before getting our team?"
"Sounds good to me."
"Okay. I'm up to bat then."
Ness handed over a handful of baseballs from his backpack to Toon Link before he retreated into a fair distance away into an open pathway, steering clear of Alph's crops and Pikmin as he did. Toon Link stored the baseballs into his pouches, leaving one out to prepare for his pitch.
"Ready to strike out?" Toon Link taunted.
"Bring it, Greenie!" Ness demanded, pointing his bat into the distance.
The Wind-Waking Warrior wound up his arm with the intent of throwing the ball as if it was one of his bombs. He first threw a powerful straight shot, but Ness was quick enough to land a hit on it. However, his reaction time was not quick enough to hit it hard, so it wound up tumbling to the side a few meters away from Toon Link.
"Not bad, kid," Toon Link muttered, smirking. "Try this on for size!"
Their rounds continued on. At the beginning, Toon Link attempted to overwhelm Ness with power pitches, but the PSI Powerhouse was quick enough to catch on to his tactics before hitting one out of the garden and right into one of the Smash Mansion's windows.
*CRACK*
"What the?! My window!" Lucina's voice irately echoed from inside the room. "Where did this strange orb come from?!"
Ness and Toon Link blinked several times out of shock and fear. The Pikmin around them looked at the shattered window with curiosity. Before the two young boys decided to run away and destroy all traces of having played baseball in the garden, they both mentally agreed on doing one more pitch and hit.
Though in his panic, Toon Link wound up reaching into his bomb pouch, grabbed something round, and quickly tossed a curve ball without looking at what he actually threw. Ness, equally distressed, did not see the distinctive features of Toon Link's toss that he swung and knocked it straight into a direction.
It was only after Ness landed a hit that they both noticed that it was one of Toon Link's bombs that was pitched and hit.
Right into Alph's collected fruit.
*BOOM*
The baskets of fruit had been incinerated by the blast's impact. The mouths of Ness and Toon Link were left hanging. This just wasn't their day. First the window, and now the fruit for Koppai.
A loud shriek interrupted their guilty thoughts. They found the source to be Alph, who just came back to the garden to see months of hard work up in smoke. Villager also looked on in shock, though clearly not as stressed out as Alph was.
"What did you two do?!" Villager asked, horrified by the damage.
"Well, Ness suggested that we practice playing baseball," Toon Link began rather casually. "So I pitched and he batted. He knocked one ball into Lucina's window and then knocked a bomb I threw into Alph's−Gah!"
Toon Link collapsed.
"You bonehead," Ness muttered, brandishing his bat before placing it back into his backpack. "Why did you even use a bomb anyway?"
"What gave you the idea of playing baseball in Alph's garden?" Villager continued.
"Eh, I was bored?" Ness offered tentatively, holding his hands up in surrender.
Villager had actually mustered up a menacing glare that intimidated Ness into a frightened mess before backing off with a heavy sigh. He then saw Toon Link trying to stand back up, recovering from the bonk Ness left on his head just recently.
"As if I didn't have enough brain damage already," Toon Link mumbled, clasping a side of his head with a hand.
"Anyway, I'm not that one you should be apologizing to," Villager pointed out, looking at Alph's direction.
"… I… I needed that fruit today," Alph said between gasps. "Today I was supposed to ship all of it back to Koppai… I ship them out every month… … I can't grow all of this back today!"
"I thought Koppai was doing well after you extracted the seeds from the fruit you collected from the Pikmin Planet," Ness said.
"It was, for a short time," Alph explained. "We collected enough fruit for our planet to survive, but our base instincts of overeating overrode our desires of changing our lifestyles. In short, we had a relapse, so now that I'm here with Super Smash Bros., Master Hand promised me a large portion of the garden area, including his and the other Smashers' help, in growing a lot of fruit for my people."
"So basically, we just endangered Koppai with the destruction of your shipment," Ness surmised, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach.
"I guess 'sorry' is not about to cut it, is it?" Toon Link added with a bashful grin.
"What am I going to do?" Alph contemplated with a heavy sigh.
"Since you two are the cause of this, we're going to take responsibility and fix this ourselves," Villager announced.
"Wait, 'we'?" Ness repeated.
"I'm not letting you guys fall because of this," Villager stated. "Besides, it's my own fault for not keeping an eye out for you two. Ness, you and your crazy plans get you in more trouble than they're worth. And Toon Link pretty much goes along with whatever you tell him."
"You got me there," Ness chuckled lightheartedly.
"But how are we going to grow the fruit back in one day?" Toon Link inquired.
"We'll just have to be creative somehow," Villager mused, folding one arm over his chest while placing his other arm over it to rest his chin upon. "I still have a bunch of fruit tree seeds on me and I can grow them instantly, but that won't be enough to replenish Alph's losses."
"Hey, I got an idea!" Ness proclaimed, prompting everyone to look at him in surprise. "A good one, I promise!"
And so…
Ness's idea turned out to be as creative and successful as Villager hoped and more.
For the next couple of hours, Ness focused on each individual tree and used his PSI powers to help them carefully grow back the fruit while making sure no adverse side effects came from doing so.
Toon Link used the mystical properties of the Wind Waker baton to create small storm clouds to water the fields and age other portions of the garden to help them naturally bear fruit through the manipulation of time and weather.
Villager handed over a spare watering can and half of the amount of seeds he had to Alph and the both of them planted and instantly grew new fruit trees over an empty plot of land. Of course, Villager had to chop down the previous trees in order to make room for the new ones.
Finally, Alph had his Pikmin collect the fruit once they have grown to maturity and place them in blast-proof crates. The Koppai ship engineer learned his lesson this time, especially when it came to these three youths, though more in particularly, he had to be weary of Ness and Toon Link specifically.
It had been time consuming and exhausting for the most part, but the efforts of the four combined managed to recreate all of the lost fruit plus some additional harvests. Koppai should be well off for another month, possibly even longer now.
They all gathered outside of the S.S. Drake, Alph's ship. The Pikmin worked together in loading up the collected fruit into the ship. Alph, Villager, Toon Link, and Ness looked on with exultant smiles.
"Thanks to all of you for your hard work in producing even more fruit for my planet," Alph said graciously. "Of course, this wouldn't have been necessary if I didn't lose the first load in the first place."
"I'm glad we can help out and all, but I learned my lesson," Ness groaned, attempting to straighten out his back.
"I'm so tired," Toon Link mumbled, who was already face first into the ground.
"At least we were able to make it up to you and your people, Alph," Villager added. "I hope you have a safe trip to and back."
"Thanks," Alph replied, waiting for the last group of Pikmin to bring the food in. "I don't think Olimar needs me at this time to sub for a match any time soon, so I'll be back the next day."
With all said, done, taken care of, and forgiven, Alph boarded his ship and prepared for departure. Ness, Villager, and Toon Link waved good-bye to the Koppai engineer as his ship flew up to the sky and vanished in the twinkling of an eye.
"I'm hungry," Toon Link spoke up, rubbing his thin stomach. "Is it lunch yet?"
"I think so," Villager responded, attempting to determine time through the sun's current position in the sky.
"We were here working in the garden for so long, I really need something to eat and drink," Ness said, taking his cap off and wiping the sweat off his forehead with it.
"Nice idea," Villager concluded, walking alongside his friends back into the Smash Mansion. "Then maybe we can resume looking for a new member for the rest of the day?"
"Deal. Hey, Villager, do you know what teams have already formed?"
"I saw some Smashers getting together after breakfast, but I don't know if they've made it official yet."
"Did you ask Alph if Olimar is already part of a team?"
"I saw Olimar with Fox and Falco, so I think he might already be on their team."
"Dang it!"
"This is going to be a long day," Toon Link mumbled, placing both hands on his needy belly.
As the three of them went inside and made their way to the dining hall to see what was being served for lunch, they did not notice as they passed by an enraged blue-haired swordswoman making her way towards the garden's direction.
Whoever broke my window without owning up to it is going to pay dearly, Lucina thought, gripping the baseball in her fist as tightly as she could.
I had to change up some teams due to the DLC. Of course, the four-man team tournament is still the side story and is only used to unite characters together. I'm pretty sure most of you can guess who would be our main trio's fourth member, but unfortunately, it'll be a few chapters before I include in the up-to-date content and make the teams official.
And so, thus ends the episode of gardening with Alph.
Please review!
L-ater!