Okay, now that we're back with La Belle and it's no longer a crossover between myself and two other authors, I think we can safely say that I have my hands full. Let's hope things don't get too out of hand, shall we?

With this, I bring you the next chapter. Away with the next kill!

Chapter 21

The pick-up truck rolled along the tarmac road, slowly going by. Ike, Soren, Sonic, and Bowser Jr. had all taken to sitting in the truck's bed, Sonic sitting next to the equipment that Snake had brought along to make sure it would be all right. The espionage agent was driving the truck, Wolf sitting in the passenger seat as the vehicle moved along. The group of six had made great progress to the mansion, and according to Sonic they were almost there. They were silent the entire way, saving their dialogue for when it would be most needed.

Finally, the group saw a mansion in the distance, a flag bearing the Smash Brothers logo standing prominently in the noon-time day. The group seemed to light up, but as they neared, Soren seemed to be looking less and less well. Finally, when they came to a stop, the mage was only too glad as he had been feeling awful right up to being next to the mansion. Ike was obviously the first one to notice this, but before he could say anything, Sonic had beaten him to it.

"Hey, Soren, you okay?" he asked.

"No..." replied Soren.

"You certainly don't sound okay," said Bowser Jr., tugging on his bandana as Snake and Wolf stepped out of the truck. "What do you think it is?"

Soren shook his head. "It's nothing I can't get used to," said the mage. "Give me a few minutes and I'll be able to tell you what is going on..."

Wolf had gone to the back and opened up the bed. Snake retrieved his equipment from the bed and taken it out as he looked at the mansion. "Well, here's the mansion," said the tactical expert.

"Indeed," said Wolf. "But... something seems wierd about it..."

"It kinda does..." said Sonic, who had jumped onto the top of the pick-up truck. "I thought there was a garden to the side of the mansion, but I don't see one..."

"Probably because it's in the back," replied Wolf.

"No, I swear!" replied the hedgehog, jumping in front of his lupine companion and gesturing with his hands. "The garden's right on the left side of the mansion! Or, it should be, only it isn't for some reason!"

Wolf glanced at the part indicated by Sonic. Not seeing a garden there, he raised his good eyebrow before facing the hedgehog again. "Yeah, it isn't," said the lupine. "Are you sure you weren't seeing things."

"I swear!" cried the hedgehog.

"He is not delusional," replied Soren, already sounding much better than he had previously.

All eyes turned to the mage garbed in black. Ike's face furrowed in concern, the mercenary crossing his arms in front of him as he looked at his companion. "Why?" he asked.

"I was exposed to more magic in a short time than I should have been," replied Soren.

At this, everybody except Ike gave the mage a very baffled look. All of them stood there for about a minute, wondering what Soren meant. None of them dared raise their voices to ask what he had meant by that, but Ike unfortunately had no such plans.

"So there's powerful magic here?" he asked finally.

"Of the darkest kind," replied Soren, walking up to the mansion slowly. "Now, this can mean several things. This can mean that somebody is performing an illusion on all inside the mansion. It can mean that they have portals to another dimension that open up when the time is right. It could mean there is a force field up around the mansion and the immediate vicinity."

The mage then stopped after a certain distance, facing the group and nodding. He then held his hand out as if to knock on a door, and then he placed it against the air.

To everybody's great shock, Soren knocked on a certain part of the air twice. What creeped them out most was not so much the fact that it stopped in the same place every time, but rather that a rather soft knocking sound rang out in the air when he did. All of them looked at the mage in disbelief as suddenly, a ring of molten lava seemed to circle the mansion, the house seemingly suspended in the air for a brief second as pathways to rooms they did not know could exist came up. All this disappeared after around ten seconds, however, and all of them were left dumbfounded.

"Or it could be all three," replied Soren. "And that seems to be the case here."

The group turned to each other, looking nervous before turning to face Soren again.

Sonic was the first to speak. "So... to get in there, we have to break this spell first," he said. "How the hell are we supposed to do that?"

"Kill the caster, I'd imagine," said Wolf. "Right."

"Precisely," replied Soren. "Whoever the mage is that is doing all of this magic must be powerful indeed..."

Bowser Jr. rubbed his chin with a small hand, however, looking at the mansion in wonder. "But chances are that mage is killing everybody," he replied. "So how do we kill him if he's in there?"

"Simple," said Soren. "We contact somebody in there and try to help them figure out who is killing everybody. Snake?"

But the espionage agent had already set his equipment on the ground, and he had begun fiddling with knobs and dials. "Already on it," he stated simply, his lips holding on to a cigarette as he worked. "Those guys used compact radios. I'll try to see if I can hijack a particular frequency and see who I end up with."

"All right, good," said Wolf, looking on the mansion. "Hang in there, smashers. We're working now."

The group looked at the mansion uncertainly, the tactical agent testing knobs and dials with uncanny speed. He moved as fast as he could, knowing that time was not on their side.

"Fox! Open the door!"

"Go to hell!"

"Fox! We need your help to save Bowser!"

"I don't care! He's gonna die no matter what we try to do to save him! Just leave me alone!"

Marth shook his head. He had been banging on Fox's door for quite some time by that point, Isolde and Peach both standing by his side. The prince was beginning to think that getting Fox out of his room would be impossibe, as the vulpine had locked his door. He was quite concerned about Fox as well, as he was afraid something would happen to him even if he wasn't in the match.

"Fox," said Peach, stepping by the prince to help him. "Please, think about it a little bit. Think about his son, for crying out loud!"

There was a brief silence from the room in which the vulpine had holed himself up, the quiet unusual in the air. Isolde had figured that maybe they had finally convinced the fox differently.

But the vulpine was not to be swayed. "There's nothing we can do," he said. "Marth should know that more than anyone, as he's fighting in that damn match."

The prince frowned, crossing his arms in front of him. "Fox, Mario and Roy can't do this alone!" cried the prince. "And also, you'd be betraying the investigation that you helped set up."

"To hell with it all!" screamed Fox. "Get the fuck away from me!"

"Fox, this is ridiculous!" shouted Marth. "You only met Bowser in this tournament and you're acting like your lover died or something!"

"Maybe I admired him!" The vulpine's voice sounded angered beyond all hope. "He had strength and hope where others didn't! And he only had our best interests in mind! And now he's going to die, damn it! Don't you realize what this means? He's going to leave us all! He's going to leave me! All the hope I ever had is gonna die with him, and you're sitting there treating it like we can still save him! Face it, Marth! This is all hopeless! It's all fucking hopeless!"

A dense silence took a hold of everybody that was standing around as many things came to the foreground. Peach, Marth, and Isolde exchanged glances for a few seconds, the three of them having been hushed by Fox's exclamations.

Isolde sighed, shaking her head. "Forget it," she said. "There's nothing we can do to persuade him..."

"Looks like Mario will have to go in then," said Marth. "Isolde, Peach, you two should keep track of the radio that we have."

"Okay, Marth," replied Isolde softly.

And the three of them walked down the hall, the grim reality of Bowser's death coming at the forefront.

A short while later, Marth stood in the teleportation room, waiting on Bowser. When Peach had wheeled him in on a wheelchair, the koopa was looking a little dejected as he looked up at Marth. As Peach stopped pushing the wheelchair, the koopa king stood up with great difficulty. Around the prince were gathered Isolde, Mario, Roy, Popo, and Albrecht, all that remained of the organisation except for Fox and Sergio. Fox had holed himself up in his room, and Sergio was busy trying to get him out and attending to matters throughout the mansion, and thus their absences were noticeable. Slowly, the king of the koopas turned to everybody in the room.

"Peach, I already made my peace with you, so I have nothing more to say about that," began Bowser simply. "As for the rest of you..."

"Mario." The plumber looked to his arch-nemesis, nodding slightly. "I already told Peach this, but... I'm sorry for having kidnapped her so many times. I..."

"You don't have to say much else," replied Mario with a nod. "What you've done here is enough. You're not a bad person at all, Bowser. I only wish I got to meet the real you..."

Bowser nodded slowly, turning to Popo. "Popo..." said the king, the ice climber blinking as he heard his name. "I'm sorry we couldn't save your sister."

"No hard feelings," replied Popo. "It wasn't your fault anyways. Bowser..."

The Ice Climber chose not to say anything more as he rubbed his eye with a glove. He turned to Roy last, nodding to the prince of Pherae. "Roy," he said simply. "I'm sorry about what--"

And before Bowser could continue, the prince was on his knees in front of the king. "I'm so sorry about what I did!" he cried out. "I didn't mean to! If I hadn't tried to kill you this wouldn't have happened!"

"No hard feelings, Roy," said Bowser. "I was a little out of it myself. Just know that I forgive you."

With this, Bowser faced Marth, nodding. "Don't you dare take it easy on me, you hear?" asked Bowser.

"Well, that's a problem," replied Marth softly. "If I give it my all, we will be at disparate skill abilities."

"Well, I'm telling you not to hold back," said the king of the koopas. "Even if I am mostly paralyzed right now. Doesn't mean I can still fight."

The prince of Altea sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Fine," he grudgingly agreed. "I won't take it easy on you."

"Good." With this, Bowser turned to Isolde, the German looking quite sad. "Isolde, take care of Marth and the others for me."

The female simply nodded, and then he gestured to the doorway.

"Well, what are you people waiting for?" he asked. "If Fox ever comes out of his room, tell him I'm sorry I couldn't save Falco."

With this, the others filed out wordlessly, Bowser and Marth both standing in the teleportation room. All was silent as Bowser looked to the prince of Altea. Marth noticed that Bowser was very obviously in pain, but given how stubborn the king of the koopas was there would be no backing down. With this, the prince of Altea nodded.

"You better not take it easy on me either," he said simply.

And with this, Marth and Bowser were both teleported to the match.

The match was very short, however. Marth did exactly as the king of the koopas had instructed him to, and he did not hold back. Bowser, being barely able to move without some form of aid, was left to the mercy of Marth's blade.

As the smashers watched, Mario readying himself to rush in through what had been termed 'the wall of doom', they all shook their heads at how one-sided the match was. It mattered not where they were fighting, or how; Marth was taking down Bowser's stocks much faster than even Bowser could fathom. The koopa was only able to get a few blows in, and even those blows were countered by Marth.

Such that when Bowser flew away on his final stock, the speed of the match had a very surreal quality about it for everybody involved. In fact, when the announcer screamed out 'Game', nobody really heard the announcer.

All they had seen was the match between Bowser and Marth go by faster than any other match before. And in a way, it was heartbreaking.

When Bowser had lost, he found himself warped right into bondage. His bonds kept him against a grey wall, and only then did the fear of death set in. He looked around almost frantically, surveying his surroundings.

The room was quite dark, and Bowser felt a dampness surround him as he just sat there with the restraints keeping him in place. Turning his head, he saw what looked like a giant hand splayed out on the wall next to him. It was connected to some device that seemed pointed straight at him, and looking a little harder, the king of the koopas realized that if the device went off it would crush him. With this, the koopa king panicked, but he knew there was nothing he could do to save himself. It was all up to Mario whether he lived or not.

"It was amusing watching you amble around, you know."

At this, Bowser turned his head quickly, facing a hooded figure that had apparently materialized into the room. Seeing this, the koopa growled.

"You!" he said.

"I did say that I had no heart for separating a father and a son," replied the murderer slowly, his voice a slow drawl as he approached the koopa. "And yet, I'm going to have to retract that statement seeing as how you lost. It's unfortunate, really."

"I said it before, and I'll say it again: you have no fucking heart!" replied Bowser, trying to sound as vehement as he could.

The murderer shook his head. "I may remind you it was your choice to participate in the fight even though you knew full well you would lose miserably," he replied.

"I did that because I didn't want anybody else to die, damn it!" cried the king angrily. "I'm not going to sit back and watch as everybody dies and I'm helpless to do anything about it! If ths is how I can help, so be it!"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk..." The murderer began pacing around the room as he looked at the turtle. "You silly, silly king. They gave you a chance to survive, and you refused to take it. Such a noble king. You and Marth would both have lived if you had only stayed in your room. I am a murderer yes, but I am not without my sense of honor..."

"And you are only delaying the inevitable while you are at it," he continued cooly. "See, there is something I need all but one of your souls for, and whether you like it or not, your death will not end the murders. I will keep killing others so long as people lose matches. And unfortunately nobody really seems to have any plans to end the tournament."

Bowser refused to believe this, even being helpless as he was. However, there was one last question he had to ask. "Why are you doing this?" he asked sadly. "What the fuck do you want?"

The murderer's reply was too concise for comfort-- or what little of it the king of the koopas had. "Revenge."

With this, the murderer approached the koopa and crossed his arms. "You said you wanted to get your hands on me before the tournament ended," he said, bringing a hand to his hood. "Now's your chance. Come get me."

With this, the hood was drawn back, Bowser's eyes widening in shock as he saw the identity of the murderer.

"Y... You... You fucking bastard!"

Bowser struggled against his bindings, growling angrily as he felt nothing but pure rage against the murderer. But try as he might, he was unable to break free. His paralysis certainly didn't help matters at all, but it was Bowser's rage that towered over everything else. After around a half a minute of seeing the king of the koopas fight against his restraints, the murderer simply let out a diabolical laugh, putting his hood back on and bringing his face almost directly in front of where Bowser's face was. The murderer simply laughed in his face for a good while before turning around as Bowser's rage quelled itself and became replaced by a feeling of humiliation. As the grim reality of his situation settled on Bowser, this time more forcefully, he began to cry.

"Butthurt?" asked the murderer. "Good. I shall end your life here. God will not save you!"

And with this, the murderer snapped his fingers, and suddenly the large hand next to him swung around at a high speed. Before Bowser knew what had happened, the murderer disappeared in a flash, and then he felt a great pain before everything was black.

Peach was in tears upon seeing the hand crush Bowser fatally, his blood spewed across the walls. The hand thankfully did not pull back to show what gore could possibly have awaited him there.

The worst part was that they had seen the murderer taunt Bowser. This should have been taken as a good thing as they should have been able to identify the murderer after so many failed attempts to do so. However, what defeated it was that it changed so that they could see Bowser's face contort in rage as he tried in vain to break free. He looked extremely weak as he did, and seeing this only tormented the poor princess of the Mushroom Kingdom.

Popo was simply patting her on the shoulder from where he sat in her lap, Isolde shaking her head sadly at what she was seeing. Marth, who had gotten back from the teleportation room just in time to see the murderer taunt Bowser, patted Isolde's shoulder comfortingly, the woman resting her head on Marth's shoulder.

Mario was seen on-screen soon after Bowser had been crushed, and upon seeing his arch-nemesis reduced to a bloody corpse on the wall, he shook his head and cried, falling to his knees as he did so. It cut away to a paid programming commercial afterwards, and everybody knew that it was it.

Bowser was dead. And there was nothing they could do about it.

To say the least, Fox was nearing the point where he would become a psychological wreck.

His TV had turned on of its own accord, and he witnessed every piece of the final moments of the king of the koopas. And when he saw the murderer get taunted, it only hurt the vulpine more.

The problem was, Fox had acquired a crush on Bowser fairly late in the tournament. The truth was, the fox admired the strength of character that Bowser exhibited. True, they messed up sometimes, but the fox found himself drawn to Bowser's refusal to give up. He always tried to spare another person's life where he could, even if it endangered his life. And seeing his death was a huge blow to Fox McCloud, who had begun to lose hope after the death of Samus. Now, there was almost no hope left for him.

And so, he kept himself locked in his room, crying into his bedsheets.

He heard knocking on his door a short time after he had seen Bowser's death with his own eyes. He knew who it was and paid no attention to the voices trying to tell him of Bowser's death. The vulpine stood up, wiping some tears from his face as he moved to the desk. He then picked up a piece of paper, scrawled something on it, and slid it under the doorway. Fox was only sated when he heard the sound of the footsteps go away from the door to his room, and when he was alone, he looked out of the window, seeing the sky warped by magic.

"I'm sorry, Bowser..." said Fox under his breath. "I'm sorry for being such a fucking coward... I love you..."

And with this, Fox sat on his bed, expecting nothing to happen for the remainder of the day.

But then, an unexpected thing happened. For then, something happened in the room that was subtle, yet Fox noticed it. Upon listening, he found that the static drone that had taken a hold of his room was no more. He had turned his to a different frequency to keep the other smashers from attempting to contact him, but he hadn't expected anybody to find the frequency he had turned to so quickly. Looking down at the radio, Fox wondered if the murderer was trying to say something to him.

"Wha...?" he asked, pressing the button as he wiped a few tears from his eyes. "Hello?"

"Fox? What the fuck are you doing on this channel?"

It was not the murderer's voice. It was a voice he didn't want to hear, but it was better than hearing the murderer's voice. For Fox recognized the voice.

The voice belonged to Wolf O'Donnel.

Jumping up in surprise, he turned to the radio.

"Wolf? What the fuck are you doing here?" asked the vulpine. "I thought you were--"

"Smash Try-outs were in a couple of days," replied the lupine from the other end of the line. "And then we found out you guys were getting murdered."

"Yeah," piped up a voice unfamiliar to the star fighter. "So we're gonna try to get you out of here."

Fox shook his head, looking down at the radio. "It's no use," replied the vulpine. "Almost all of us are dead anyways, so we can't stop him..."

"Oh, so you're just gonna let this sick bastard get away with all he's done?" asked Wolf's voice from the other line. "You're better than that, Fox."

The star fighter shook his head, looking down at the radio. "Look, Wolf, things have changed," he stated simply. "Things are absolutely hopeless here, I tell you. Everyone's been dying, we've only managed to save one person out of everybody that's died, and we can't even figure out who it is that's killing everybody."

"You might be surprised then..." replied another unfamiliar voice.

"Yeah," said yet another unfamiliar person. "We've got a mage with us."

Upon hearing this, one of Fox's ears perked up. "You mean... he might have answers?"

"Or things that can lead you to them," said the other mage. "Either way, I think you might be able to figure out who is committing all of these murders soon enough."

And then, hope blossomed within the heart of the fox. It was not much given that Bowser had just died, but Fox felt at ease with what had happened.

"I see..." said the fox. "Okay. I'll trust you guys."

"Great," said Wolf. "But, there are a few things we do have to tell you."

"First of all, the rest of us in this motley crew," replied yet another voice unfamiliar to Fox. "You already know Wolf, so he won't need to reintroduce himself. I'm Snake, communications technician."

"And I'm Ike," said the third unfamiliar voice that Fox had heard.

"I'm Sonic!" exclaimed the first unfamiliar voice that Fox had heard. "Yeah, Sonic the Hedgehog."

"And I'm Soren," replied the second person to speak that Fox did not recgnize. "And I am the mage with the group."

"He's really good, too," said Ike. "Named all these spells that are being used on you guys after an hour of standing around."

"Right," said Fox. "What else?"

"You can't tell anybody about what's going on," said Wolf.

At this, Fox's eyes widened. "What the hell?" he asked. "But people will want to know!"

"Unfortunately, you might unwittingly tell the murderer," replied Soren. "One of the people in the mansion is using a spell that can make him hide anywhere."

"What?" asked Fox. "What's that supposed to mean? Is it an invisibility spell? Is he hiding in the rooms he created? What?"

"I will explain everything in a moment," replied Soren. "Let me just say for now that if the murderer finds out your on his trail, you, him, and everybody that's left in that mansion won't live to see another day."

Fox gulped, realizing the gravity of the situation. He nodded slowly, looking down and trusting Soren to know what he was talking about.

"Okay," said Fox. "I won't tell. But if anybody has any relevant information about the murders, I'm going straight to you guys."

"All right," said Snake. "Now, stay on this frequency as long as you can. I don't think this murderer can trace our calls, otherwise Soren or I would have noticed by now."

"Gotcha," said Fox, shifting slightly on his seat. "Now, what have you found?"

After the commotion surrounding Bowser's death had died down, Mario had gone to the hospital room in which he had spent his final days. It was eerily quiet, the other smashers having gone to try to get Fox out of his room after talking a little about Bowser and how much things had gone wrong. It was so strange, seeing his bed empty.

It was true that the king had only occupied the bed for a few days. But either from his impressive weight, or because Mario had known him for so long, there was still an imprint of Bowser on the bed. It was also true that Mario had used to hate the king of the koopas for constantly kidnapping the princess.

But during the tournament, his views on Bowser had made a complete rotation, and now he saw Bowser, not as a serial kidnapper, but as a brave man who only had everybody's best interests in mind. A year ago, he would have scoffed at the notion that someone could find good in the koopa king. And yet...

His thoughts were interrupted by a hand laying itself onto his shoulder. Mario looked over his shoulder to see Fox standing by his side. The vulpine had a sad expression on his face, but seeing the fox was out of his room, the plumber nodded.

"I was a coward," said Fox. "But not anymore... Not after this..."

"That's the spirit," said Mario with a smile on his face. "Come on. Let's go find if the others aren't around your room right now."

And with this, the two of them left the hospital room, accepting the koopa's death and deciding to move on.