Lucas landed painfully on his front. As he got to his feet, groaning, Wario landed next to him. Lucas ran away but there was no exit from the cave. There was a stack of mining equipment on the floor, and Lucas assumed the mine carts had been used to ferry this equipment back and forth to the other areas of the mine. He picked up a pickaxe and advanced towards Wario. Who was gone.
Lucas turned around to see Wario standing near the equipment pile, wielding a pickaxe in each hand. He wasted no time in attacking Lucas, swinging both pickaxes in wide horizontal arcs. Lucas jumped backwards and the weapons collided with a loud, resounding clang that reverberated around the cavern. Wario then tried a stabbing motion instead of slashing. The point of the pickaxe embedded itself in a small crevice, right where Lucas' knees would have been if he hadn't jumped. He landed on the shaft and jumped over Wario's head. The weight of the axe made him clumsy however, and he made a complete hash of the landing. He face-planted painfully, and then rolled onto his back. Just in time to see an axe scything down towards him. In a display of remarkable - er- axemanship- or- axeboyship- , he deflected the blade with his own, and then sliced the shaft of the axe, before scrambling away. Wario began to worry. In truth, Lucas had just been completely lucky, but Wario wasn't to know that. He quickly picked up the blade of the severed pickaxe and threw it like a shuriken. Lucas ducked and felt a few hairs get sheared off from the top of his head. Lucas returned the favour, throwing the axe blade back at Wario, whose remaining axe was knocked from his hand and pinned to the wall.
Lucas advanced warily; he was obviously and understandably wishing he didn't have to murder. Wario noticed that Lucas was uneasy to finish him, and so, he rushed forwards. Lucas panicked, and rammed the butt of the pickaxe into Wario's gut. The pickaxe butt was not the only butt that was involved- Wario's digestive system had been jolted, and an extremely powerful blast of flatulence propelled him across the cave. He started ricocheting around the cavern, and every time he hit a wall, the ceiling, or the floor, it would send powerful tremors through the cave. Then Wario hit a structural weakness. The whole cave shook. The ceiling began to crumble, colossal chunks of rock coming loose, one of them missing Lucas by inches. Wario had finally come to rest. Unfortunately he had contracted mild concussion, and was in no shape to move. And moving was the very thing he had to do. A huge boulder plummeted towards him like a huge boulder plummeting towards someone. But then, at the last second, the flatulent "after-shock" sent him sliding away, avoiding the boulder. Wario crashed into Lucas, knocking him backwards right into the path of another chunk of falling debris. Years later, Lucas' remains would still be visible amongst the detritus of the cave.
Fox hopped into a go-kart and sped out onto the track. Link accelerated after him, both of them opening the throttle to the maximum extent. Fox's extreme speed almost caused him to crash into the wall of tyres around the course. Then Link stopped, turned around, and went the other way. As the go-karts didn't have rear-view mirrors, Fox didn't realise until he saw Link speeding towards him. Link wasn't going for a headlong collision; he was just going to stab him as he went past. Fox put the go-kart into reverse. Link almost caught up with him before Fox's kart got its speed back up.
He did his best to steer around hairpin bends at full speed while making do with having to look over his shoulder. He did well, but there was no evasion of the inevitable. Link caught up, but instead of swinging, he jumped towards Fox's kart. Fox slowed down slightly, and his plan almost worked. Link almost overshot the kart, but he managed to grab hold of the back.
Fox immediately sped up again, hoping to smash Link into the outer barrier to at least give himself a brief reprieve. Link stabbed his sword forward, and then yanked it back when it missed. But it took the steering wheel with it.
Link was about to hit the barrier when he stabbed his sword forwards again. It stabbed right through the accelerator pedal and stuck it to the floor. The cheap engine stalled. The first thing to break…. was the brakes. Because of the broken brakes, there was nothing to stop the cart shooting forwards. There was nothing Fox could do. The cart slammed into the barrier in front of them instead, and Fox went headfirst into a stack of tyres. The tyres were so bouncy that the kart bounced backwards and rolled away. The engine chose that moment to conk out completely. Link yelled in frustration; he could never get to the tyres in time before Fox escaped. And then the chase would continue yet again. He threw his sword in irritation. It flipped end over end. Link caught his breath. It was going straight for the tyres. He groaned when the hilt went in first. He went over to investigate and found to his surprise that Fox had been knocked out by a hilt-blow. It was more difficult to kill him when he was unconscious and defenceless. Difficult. But not impossible.
Link appeared in the Waiting Room and checked out who had survived their battles. He was mildly surprised to find that he was one of the last to finish.
"Right so there's Luigi, Ike, Ness, Wario, Pit, Lucario, Marth, Sonic, Mario, Olimar, Popo, Yoshi, and Bowser. And me. Which means that Snake, Mr. Game & Watch, King Dedede, Lucas, Zelda, Fox, Falco, Meta Knight, Samus, Pikachu, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Kirby, Ganondorf, Toon Link, Nana and Jigglypuff are either battling, or…. dead…."
"Are you sure you're okay, Marth?" asked Ike. "You've been acting pretty weird for a while now. Almost like a comedic American cartoon protagonist. It's just….. weird."
"Sure I'm fine!" laughed Marth. "I'm finer than Luke Skywalker after he blew up the Death Star! Even finer than after Marth won his- I mean, after I won my battle against Meta Knight!"
"Okay"... said Ike, voice layered with suspicion.
There was something peculiar about Marth's behaviour lately. He knew it. Maybe he had some terrible secret, and he was masking his insecurities with bad humour. Or maybe this whole tournament thing had got him all stressed out and he was using comedy to take his mind off the situation. Whatever it was, something strange was afoot. He could feel it.