Wow. Fuck. Things really went to hell here.

Heyo everyone. Herr Wozzeck here. Well, it looks like everything fell apart. RoyalFanatic is no longer writing in the Super Smash Brothers section, college caught up with BabyG and KTE... well, I haven't heard from him in a damn while.

So, over a year and a half after the last update (and after the three-year anniversary, can you imagine?), I've decided enough is enough. I'm going to finish this on my own. I talked with at least RoyalFanatic, and she supports my decision, and if I can ever get a hold of the others I'm sure they would agree it's for the best.

And so, I bring to you the next chapter of this saga, as it's way past overdue...

Chapter 20

"What? You almost had her, but she blew up?"

"That's what it looks like, Mr. Albrecht. Also, it somehow got broadcast across on the television."

"What?"

A rather lengthy silence took hold of the office. Marth bowed his head at the head of Albrecht's desk, Isolde, Fox, Peach, and Mario all standing by his side as he had related what had occurred after the end of Fox and Samus' match.

Mario shook his head solemnly the whole time. "I don't think there's anything more we can do," he said sadly after a while.

The German was quite angry with this, and with a loud bang his fist slammed onto the top of the desk, and he looked them in the eye. "There is no way this can be true!" he exclaimed. "There is no way!"

"I'm sorry, but it seems like it..." said Marth.

Albrecht shook his head, crossing his arms in front of him as he began pacing around the desk. "Damn it," he said. "Why does that illusion have to be there?"

"Why else?" pointed out Fox quickly. "It's clear this guy doesn't want any of us to escape."

The office was silent for a long time as Albrecht paced back and forth in front of his desk, a worried expression on his face. He looked to Fox, Marth, Mario, and Isolde sadly, his eyes showing quite a large amount of concern.

"Let's face it..." said Fox. "We're doomed. Popo is the only survivor so far, and everybody else has been brutally murdered by somebody. And we're all going to follow soon until only one is left."

Albrecht shook his head, biting his lower lip before speaking. "I only wish we had some way to take this tournament off of the airwaves," he said. "As it is, I can't contact the network, and we're already far too late to be able to cancel the coverage..."

Peach shook her head, a defiant expression on her face. "We can't give up," she said sternly.

All eyes went to the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom. "But Peach, we've done everything we can," said Fox.

"Not yet we haven't," she replied, crossing her arms in front of her. "The way you guys are moping around, the murderer has already won. So our deaths are being broadcast out to the general public. So what? The only thing that changes is that all of our attempts to hide it have gone to nothing. But that doesn't mean we can't stop this man. We have to keep trying. Even if we fail, we can be at peace with ourselves knowing we did the best we could to save our friends."

Albrecht looked at her sternly. "But Peach..."

"We can't give up hope," she replied. "Because that's the only thing we have left to hold on to."

"But what hope is left for us?" asked Marth.

"Our deaths are being broadcasted to the general public now," replied the princess stoically. "And since auditions for what was supposed to be next year's tournament were around the corner, someone's probably taken notice. So maybe we'll get outside help soon."

"What about the reporter, then?" asked Fox, shaking his head.

The princess frowned at this. "You guys really are dense," she said. "Don't stop believing in ourselves. We can't go wrong as long as we still have hope."

And with this, she left the office, leaving a thoughtful silence behind her as she walked to the hospital wing.

The Smasher's Haven was rowdy, the smell of beer pregnant in the air as men lifted glasses to the victor of each match and drank until the glass was empty. The matches were broadcast on a huge TV, and everybody always had a good time.

Or would have, if not for the fact that the unplanned footage had leaked into the next time slot. As soon as the figure had left the screen and a paid programming commercial had gone on, all was silent in the bar. People held their beer glasses in disbelief. Even the ones that were totally drunk could not believe their eyes, and their beer spilled onto the floor.

Wolf O'Donnel was one of the ones stuck there. He had not only seen Samus' death, but somehow he felt that something was awry.

"So that's why we couldn't find Falco..." he said.

The criminal had of course caught wind that Fox and Falco were in the Super Smash Brothers Tournament, and so he had gone to Smash City to keep track of them. He knew that Falco had lost to Mario sometime, but he never in his wildest dreams thought he could be killed by a murderer. But having seen the cross with the bodies of all of the deceased on it, he could not help but shake his head.

His ears twitched nervously as he turned in his stool to face the bartender, pointing at the screen in shock.

"Did you know this was going on?" he asked, breaking the silence.

All eyes fell on the lupine, all of them looking at the futuristic eyepatch over his left eye as he turned to the bartender.

The bartender shook his head. "No idea," he replied. "There was the whole hustle and bustle about Ganondorf being executed for killing a few smashers, yes, but we didn't know that everybody had been killed up to that point! And we didn't know the murderer was still running free!"

Wolf shook his head, his good eye reflecting some kind of strange anger. "What the hell?"

"This is ridiculous!" The person sitting next to Wolf relative to where the bar was chimed in, rubbing some of his blue hair as he pointed at it. "We can't let those people die!"

"But what can we do?" asked the bartender. "They're dying. So what?"

Wolf shot the bartender a glance. "So you don't care that they're dying?" he asked. "They are people!"

"Like you would know what that means, mister bounty hunter," pointed out the bartender quickly. "You take lives too, you know."

"But this is not fair!" he replied. "Even I'm not this sick!"

The person sitting by Wolf nodded in agreement. "We've gotta do something!"

"But what can we do?" asked the man behind the bar as he began rubbing glasses.

Wolf shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "But there's no way in hell I'm letting anybody kill my rival without me getting in on it! I might not like Fox, but damn it I would hate it if the world lost one of its best pilots because of some sick bastard!"

The bartender shook his head. "Good luck with that," he said.

"Then what about Popo Climber?" asked the man behind Wolf quickly. "I didn't see his body on that cross! Maybe there are a few survivors! And I don't know what we can do to help, but we have to try something to make sure the rest of them can survive!"

"Yeah!" said Wolf, standing on his stool. "I don't know about you, but I'm not about to sit here and watch anybody else die here! I'm going to the mansion, and nothing's going to stop me! Who's with me?"

The blue haired man to Wolf's side stood up, a smaller, black haired man standing up as well. "We're in," said the larger man, pointing at himself and the smaller person with him.

"Okay, that's two people," said the lupine. "Anybody else up for it?"

A rather gruff man in a stealth suit stood up slowly, raising a hand. "I can hijack radio frequencies," he said. "I also specialize in tactical stealth operations."

"Okay, that's good, we could use that," said the lupine. "Anybody else?"

A blue hedgehog then jumped up, raising a hand. "Count me in!" he cried. "I don't want to miss out on this chance to save anybody!"

"Well, I tell you, good luck with that," said the bartender, waving his hand dismissively. "When you guys fail, you can come here any time and I'll give you free drinks for trying."

With this, he left them alone. Wolf beckoned the others who had volunteered over to him, the other four moving over to where the lupine sat.

"Okay," he said. "So we're all heading to the mansion. Anyone know where it is?"

"Three miles south, in the middle of a field," replied the blue hedgehog almost instantly.

At this, everybody else blinked. "Memorized that already?" asked the expionage expert.

"Oh yeah," replied the hedgehog. "I'm Sonic, by the way. Sonic the hedgehog. Speed's my game."

Smirking naughtilly, the lupine crossed his arms in front of him. "I see..." he said. "If you do crack and weed as well, I know a few guys you can--!"

"Not that speed!" replied Sonic disturbedly. "I can run really fast, that's why I use that word!"

"Like that will be of any use to us..." muttered the black-haired man under his breath so that Sonic couldn't hear.

"And you two," said Wolf, indicating the blue haired man and his companion. "What can you do?"

"Well, I can't really do much, but Soren's a mage," said the blue-haired man.

"And I have a very strong feeling that this could be related to very powerful magic," added the smaller person.

"And I'm Ike, by the way," replied the mercenary with a smile. "And my friend here is Soren."

"A pleasure," stated the mage simply.

"And you with the espionage tech," said the wolf. "You are...?"

"Solid Snake," replied the gruff man. "You can call me 'Snake', though."

Wolf nodded. "And you can call me Wolf," he said. "Okay, so, where do we need to go before we head over to the mansion?"

"I need to go to my hotel room to pick up some equipment," said Snake quickly. "We'll need it if we want to find a radio frequency to try to contact someone in there. Also, there's someone there who I think will really want to know what's going on."

"Another person?" asked Soren, exhaling and shaking his head.

"Well, we could use all the help we can get," replied the wolf. "Who's the last man?"

"His name is Bowser Jr.," replied Snake. "He's Bowser's son, and he was sent to my hotel a few days ago. He hasn't been able to leave, but I think he'll want to know about this."

"Okay," said Wolf. "So come on, guys. We're going to the hotel, and then we're heading straight for the mansion!"

And with this, the small group left the bar, optimistic about being able to help the smashers trapped inside the mansion, and unknowing of what they would uncover as they arrived there.

Albrecht and the remaining smashers were all crowded into Bowser's hospital room. Popo was able to stand and move around, and so he stood by Peach's side, looking around nervously. Looks of melancholy were splayed on everybody's faces as they looked to the German head of the tournament. Bowser nodded, and the rest of the group seemed to bow their heads in respect. Peach, however, still held her head high. She was very confident that the smashers would overcome this latest obstacle by themselves, and that they could do it no matter what happened.

Fox was the first to speak. "So who's next?" he asked.

The German nodded his head slowly. "The next match is Pichu and Roy," replied Albrecht.

Bowser shook his head. "God damn it," he said sadly. "It's another child's time to fight! Why?"

"Bowser, it's okay," replied Popo softly. "Isolde was able to save my life. And he hasn't come back for me yet..."

The king of the koopas nodded. "But that doesn't change anything," he replied.

Pichu shook his head nervously from where he was perched on Fox's head. "But I don't wanna die!"

"Neither do I," replied Roy, shaking his head. "Neither do I..."

"Well, what the hell do we do?" asked Marth. "Making the match a tie doesn't work, being at the scene to save someone only worked once, and we can't just walk out the front door..."

Peach crossed her arms in front of her, shaking her head. "You guys give up too easily," she stated bluntly. "We have to keep trying. Who knows? We might get lucky again."

"I wouldn't count on it," replied Fox, shaking his head.

"No, she's right," replied Bowser. "No matter what, we can't give up. Not even in the face of certain doom."

"Thank you," said Peach, nodding. "At least someone isn't losing hope."

"And I survived!" added Popo. "Who's to say that nobody else can?"

Everybody else simply sighed at this, shaking their heads grimly. "I don't know," said Fox, shaking his head. "We're all going to die somehow. But since you're pleading so ardently for it, I guess we'll keep on trying."

Peach nodded. "All right," she said. "Popo, you want to stay with me and Bowser?"

"Sure," replied the Ice Climber with an nod.

"Then that leaves the rest of us to attempt to save one or the other," said Fox. "I don't know what we'll tell you when we can't save another person..."

Peach shook her head. "No matter how many people die, my answer will always be the same," she replied softly.

And with this, the princess fell silent, the rest of the group nodding solemnly.

Roy and Pichu were both in the teleporter room, preparing for their match. The small mouse pokemon looked rather sad, and seeing this, Roy sat down on the ground next to the mouse.

"Something on your mind?" asked the red-headed swordsman.

The mouse shook his head. "I just remember the first time I was here," he replied. "In this room, I mean. Captain Falcon had told me to let him be the one to die..."

Roy shook his head. "So he chose his fate?"

"Yes," replied the mouse, nodding. "Such a brave person... I didn't want him to die..."

"Nobody did," replied Roy. "And nobody wants either of us to die now..."

The mouse shook his head, tears coming to his eyes. "Oh, Roy... I don't know what to do..."

The red-head shrugged, standing up. "I guess we'll have to do what everybody else has done up to this point," he said. "May the best fighter win."

Pichu nodded sadly, another tear escaping from his eyes.

And with this, the two of them stepped onto their respective teleportation pads, the both of them knowing that they might go to their doom.

Peach had pulled up a chair in the room next to Bowser's bed. Popo was situated in her lap, the three of them looking at the TV screen.

"Thanks for staying with me," replied Bowser. "Sergio's been very busy lately."

"Hey, nothing to it," replied the princess. "It's all I can do to make you comfortable."

Bowser nodded, looking up at the television as Roy and Pichu teleported onto the field.

It was then the match commenced. Pichu jumped at Roy, and the two of them could have sworn they had seen a tear slip down Pichu's cheek as he attempted to zap Roy with a jolt of electricity. The swordsman dodged, however, rolling under and swiping at the electric mouse with his sword.

Bowser gulped as he watched the match progress, and suddenly his arm found itself latching onto Peach's shoulder. The princess turned to face him, at first surprised by the contact, but then seeing the solemn expression on his face she relaxed.

"Peach," he stated simply. "I... I have something I need to tell you right now. And it's one of many things I have to tell everyone."

"Bowser?" asked Peach, raising an eyebrow.

The koopa nodded. "Peach, I know I'm going to die when I fight my next match," he said. "There's no denying that. So I wanted to apologize." The king nodded nervously, a few tears coming to his eyes as he looked at the princess. "I'm sorry for all those years of nothing but relentless kidnapping. I'm so, terribly sorry about it all. I wanted a mother figure for my son, even if I had to steal one... I'm sorry, Peach..."

The princess looked to the large turtle as the fight between Pichu and Roy went on on the television screen. She bit her bottom lip nervously, thinking about what to say next. Finally, she nodded.

"I forgive you," she said. "You've done more than enough for the rest of us now. You've given us all hope. You've never given up, even with everything. If we can't save you... I'll miss you, Bowser..."

The koopa sniffled sadly, Peach taking a hold of Bowser's hand as the two of them sat in silence.

Popo began jumping up, however, and this distracted them in their moment. "Guys, they're on their last stock!"

Peach turned her head just in time to see Roy dodge an electric blast from Pichu. The swordsman then slashed at Pichu several times, the mouse dodging every slash except for the last one. The last slash sent Pichu to the other end of the platform, which then gave the mouse time to charge a Skull Bash. Just as he was about to hit Roy from the force of his jump, though, Roy went into a counter stance, and then the counter connected. This sent Pichu flying farther, and then the lord ran forward and slashed Pichu again. The mouse was then set sailing away from the arena.

"GAME!"

As soon as Fox heard this, he found himself phasing into the wall. He found himself staring down a long corridor much like the one Roy had faced when he had attempted to find Samus.

"Oh, bloody hell, more of these hallways?" asked the vulpine to himself.

Fox shook his head before beginning to run down the hallway. As he did, he heard the radio cackle to life, static coming up quickly.

"Fox, we can see Pichu!" cried Mario from the radio. "You've gotta hurry!"

Fox nodded, grabbing the small radio he kept with him as he rushed forward. "What's it look like this time?"

"He's strapped to some wierd chair!" exclaimed the plumber. "You better move it! There's a shotgun aimed right at him!"

The star fighter did not really need to hear anything else to know that he needed to hurry. "All right," he said simply.

With this, he stowed the radio away. "Dear God..." he said. "I hope I can get there in time..."

The vulpine continued to run down the corridor, his feet running across the surface as he felt eyes on him. When he turned around, he found a hooded figure looking at him blankly.

Fox swore to himself as he looked at the figure. He had set his eyes on the one responsible for all of this. Seething in anger and forgetting the danger Pichu was in at the moment, the vulpine turned. Forgetting all of his tact at the moment, he rushed for the cloaked figure.

"You!" he screamed out, fangs bared as he stared the villain down.

The figure said nothing, merely retreating into the hallway quickly. Fox ran forward, giving chase. As he did, the radio buzzed to life.

"Uh, Fox, what the hell are you doing?" asked Marth.

"I found the murderer," said Fox, only pressing the button on his unit to speak. "And I'm gonna catch him and then get Pichu!"

From the other end of the radio, he could hear Marth, Mario, and Isolde all protesting loudly. He paid them no mind, however, instead running after the fiend. Fox chased the murderer through a series of winding hallways, all of them ending in abrupt corners that the fox had a little trouble navigating. This served to put some distance between Fox and the hooded figure, but the vulpine was always able to gain ground before the hooded figure could get away on the straight sections. Fox blocked everything else out, intent on catching the murderer in the act.

However, after around five minutes of chasing the figure, Fox suddenly felt something strange around him. When he focused, he saw the murderer phase straight through the wall. What made this even more strange was that there were no white screens anywhere, and so the vulpine wa left to stand around.

"What the hell...?" he asked.

He looked after where the figure had disappeared for a few seconds before he suddenly became aware of voices yelling at him.

"Fox!" cried the voice of Marth. "Get to Pichu! Now! You're running out of time!"

Fox shook his head, rubbing one of his ears as he moved forward without thinking. However, as soon as he did, he saw a door to his right. Smiling softly, the fox ran forward. Pressing a button on his device, the vulpine nodded.

"Okay, I think I found it!" he cried. "That figure led me right to it!"

And without waiting to hear a reaction from the others, the vulpine opened the door quickly.

This turned out to be a big mistake, however. Fox had opened the door to the place Pichu was being held in, and for a second he saw the mouse intact. However, something had triggered a small trap to go off, and then the vulpine heard the loud boom of a shotgun blast in the small room. The sound was shocking enough for Fox to take, and so he covered his ears and squeezed his eyes shut.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the remains of the electric mouse splayed on the wall behind the chair, guts and blood flung about everywhere. Slowly, the vulpine uncovered his ears, eyes glazing over in shock at what he had just seen.

"... Damn it..." he muttered, very sure that the remaining smashers and the people watching the tournament had just seen the exact same thing.

And in his shock, he simply stood there, his eyes glued to where Pichu's arms and legs were shackled, the gore behind him becoming overbearing slower than anything had anyright to...

"There was nothing he could have done to save Pichu."

Fox, Peach, Marth, Isolde, Mario, Popo, Roy, and Albrecht were all crowded into Bowser's hospital room. The German had gone through the surveillance tapes again, something not seeming totally correct to him about Pichu's death.

Upon saying this to the rest of the smashers, however, he got some very odd looks. "What do you mean?" asked Marth.

"There were two entrances," said the German. "But both entrances were rigged to activate the shotgun. From what I saw, there was nowhere else he could have entered from."

"Bullshit!" exclaimed Mario. "There had to be somewhere else!"

Albrecht shook his head. "Again, I couldn't see any other entrances..."

The vulpine shook his head dejectedly, sitting by Bowser's bed. "Great," he said. "So no matter what, I couldn't save Pichu..."

"You were saying, Peach?" asked Mario.

The princess shook her head. "When at first you don't succeed, try, try again," she replied slowly. "We can't give up, even in the face of doom. Because then we can never be comfortable knowing we just sat idly by."

"Peach, in case you haven't noticed, we've been trying again and again to save people's lives," replied Fox. "And now we're all that remains of Super Smash Brothers. We couldn't save Samus or Pichu, and we were so close! Hell, the only person we've managed to save so far is Popo!"

"And that should give you reason to have hope!" cried the Ice Climber loudly. "At least one survived!"

"One out of twenty possible victims!" exclaimed Fox, standing up. "True, we killed Ganondorf ourselves, and there was nothing we could've done about Samus or Pichu, but everybody else could have been saved!"

"Or maybe you've lost sight of the fact that we didn't realize what was going on until Yoshi died?" asked Peach, obviously beginning to get enraged. "And that Master Hand fully deserved his death for jumping the gun and accusing everybody he set his eyes on?"

"That doesn't change the fact that we could have saved everybody else!" cried Fox, frowning at the princess. "And we tried to, too! This is hopeless, Peach! We can't save any more people without failing!"

"Guys, calm down," said Bowser, holding his hands up. "We're doing everything we can, and so far I think that's all anybody can ask of us. I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"

Albrecht then glanced to the side nervously, shaking his head before crossing his arms in front of him. "Unfortunately, I have a feeling something else is going to occur."

At this, all the remaining Smashers and Isolde looked at Albrecht. "Why do you say that, father?" asked Isolde.

The man shook his head, rubbing his eyes as he turned to face Bowser.

"It's your turn again," said Albrecht. "The next match is Bowser versus Marth."

All eyes turned to the German, shock splayed on everybody's faces as they heard the words. Everybody knew Bowser would be hopeless against whoever he was up against. But to think it would come so soon was shocking to the smashers. Bowser, the one who had begun the investigation, the one who always had everybody's lives in mind throughout the entire tournament, the one who was caring to the children, the one that everyone looked up to in their time of despair...

He would be killed soon.

And it was then that the gravity of the situation occurred to Bowser. The Smashers that were already losing hope would lose it completely. Fox would hole himself up in his room, the guilt too strong for him. Ganondorf would be waiting at the gates of heaven to jeer at him. His people would be thrown into chaos seeing their ruler brutally killed onscreen.

But worst of all, he would never get to see his son again.

At this, the koopa shook his head, a single tear escaping.

"It all comes down to this..." he said, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, Junior..."

The only other thing to be heard in the room then was the stamping of Fox's feet as he ran out of the hospital room, tears streaming down his face as all of the other smashers looked to where Bowser lay in the hospital bed.