Clash of the Smashers

Chapter Ten: In the land of the dead…living things shall be in short supply!

After a spinning journey through a psychedelic tunnel (the Portal) Bario was dumped roughly onto the ground. He slowly staggered to his feet and looked around. He was in what looked like a ruined and desiccated town and market. There were several dark alleys, leading to other parts of the town and there was a ruined drawbridge leading further into this new area. In front of where Bario showed up was a path leading to an evil looking castle. In the towns prime it was probably a bustling market…oh. No. Bario ran over to one of the rotting signs. He recognized that store…this was Hyrule Castle Town!
Before he could come to grips with that terrible fact, Diddy came shooting out of the Portal as well. He scrambled to his feet quickly and pulled out his peanut guns while looking wildly around for Giga Bowser.

"Alright! Where is that scumbag? I'm going to kill him!"

However it wasn't long before Mario came flying through the portal feet-first. Since Diddy was still in the way, Mario landed on Diddy's head and, using Diddy as a springboard he leapt high into the air before coming down gracefully on his feet several feet away from the Portal. Diddy however was sprawled on the ground, stunned. That was a bad thing as in the next couple of seconds Link, Samus, Falco, Meta, Kirby and Raichu all came out of the Portal and landed in a twisted and confused mess…with Diddy on the bottom.

"AGH!" Raichu yelled as he struggled to get Falco and Link off him.

"Oh great job guys, what with the squishing me and everything!" Diddy shouted.

Eventually, with no help from Mario or Bario who both thought the situation was pretty funny the others managed to untangle themselves. However as soon as Link got a good look at his surroundings he froze.

"Link? Hey what's up?" Falco asked, "Hey why is Link freaking?"

"I can answer that," Bario said before any one could say anything, resulting in the rest of the Smashers to look at him, "This…gray and twisted place…is in his and mine land of Hyrule. Our largest town, Hyrule Castle Town. Neither of us lived here, although we have both been here…the last time it looked like this was when Ganondorf attacked so many years ago. It stayed like this for seven years…but eventually Ganondorf was beaten as I'm sure you've all guessed."
At that most of the Smashers nodded their heads in agreement.

"Anyways, I don't know how this town got like this so fast. I'm assuming when Link and I left Ganondorf struck, sort of like when Bowser attacked, leaving it like this and driving its people out. Without any further ado I welcome you to…Redead Town."

At Bario's words, almost as if on cue a loud piercing shriek cut through the decaying air.

"What the heck was that?!" Diddy asked.

"The reason this place is called Redead Town. It was a Redead," Bario sadly said while he unsheathed his swords.

Diddy and Raichu both looked confused, and Meta had resumed his random babbling but the other Smashers nodded. Most of them had encountered Redeads at the last Smash tournament in a special arena designed by Ganondorf. He tried to use real traps that might have killed some of the other Smashers, but Link and Zelda (A powerful magic-wielding princess) managed to block them off before anyone went through.

"What's a Redead?" Raichu asked.

"That," Bario told him while pointing with his swords.

The Smashers all looked where he pointed, down a dark narrow alley. A strange deformed creature shuffled slowly toward them, just barely coming in view from the gloom. It was a light brown color and while it appeared to be human shaped, it also appeared to be lacking in bones with the floppy way it moved. The creatures head was rounded and only had three black cavernous holes as features. The Smashers unconsciously backed away from the evil beast, before they noticed three more coming from a second alley. Several more followed behind the first, and at least five came from the ruined drawbridge area. The Smashers moved into a defensive circle with weapons raised as the Redeads edged closer. Suddenly large iron bars shot from the ground, blocking off the drawbridge and the path to the castle.

"Alright guys, they may not look it but the Redeads can take a few hits. Don't look at them in the eyes when they scream or you'll freeze! Also don't let them get close, or crazy as it may sound, they will latch onto you and bite your head with teeth they've got hidden away somewhere! Attack!" Bario commanded.

Link threw his boomerang at Bario's words. The twirling weapon spun towards a Redead and impacted its body with a wet smack. The sharp boomerang cut through the creature's abdomen and came back around and sliced through another's head. Link caught the boomerang as it flew towards him. The first Redead let out a low groan, but despite the massive wound it kept coming, undeterred while the one who's head was removed exploded in a puff of dust.

While this was happening the Redeads still shambled closer, completely surrounding the Smashers.

"Cut a path through them! They're slow, so if we can get behind them we can wipe them out!" Bario said.

Samus fired multiple missiles, and the other Smashers also used their ranged attacks on the Redeads by the path to the castle…but they were only fifteen feet away and even though several were destroyed they kept coming, bit by relentless bit. Eventually enough were destroyed for the Smashers to charge forward and slip out of the increasingly small circle the Redeads were creating.

Diddy looked at one of the creatures as he was running past…and it looked back and shrieked. Before he knew what happened he discovered he was unable to move. He stopped, frozen as the other Smashers ran on, unaware of the monkey's plight. Diddy stared in petrified horror as the Redead shambled towards him. Diddy thought he heard someone cry out his name but was too full of fear to be sure. As it got within striking distance it splayed its limbs out and leaped onto Diddy knocking him down. It tried to bite him but the paralysis was wearing off and he was squirming, plus he was considerably smaller than the Redead was used to attacking. The fiend was surprisingly strong and easily held Diddy down. It wouldn't be long before it could deliver a finishing blow…

Raichu stopped. That shriek he just heard sounded unnervingly close. He turned around, just in time to see the Redead about to attack Diddy.

"Diddy!" Raichu shouted before rushing back to help his friend, not realizing that the other Redeads were moving to cut Raichu and Diddy off from the others…

Raichu didn't want to shock the Redead as he feared the electricity would travel through and hurt his friend so he did the second thing that came to mind. He jumped up and bit the Redead on the shoulder. The creature moaned but didn't do anything else, and Raichu spat out the chunk of Redead.

"Bleh! It's like dirt! Wait…dirt…that doesn't conduct electricity, well I don't know how this'll work but…"

Raichu fired a ball of electricity at the Redead. The creature again moaned but then fell apart as the electrical surge appeared to have unbalanced its decaying composition. Diddy shakily got to his feet.

"Thanks…," he started before Raichu interrupted.

"Think nothing of it."

They turned to rejoin the other Smashers, only to see eleven Redeads standing between them and their friends.

"Hey!" Falco yelled, "What are you guys doing over there?"

"We ran into some problems!" Raichu said, "And why are those things just standing there?"
"It looks like their waiting for something…" Diddy remarked.

"Yummy cheese kitties!" Meta exclaimed.

Suddenly the Redeads charged forward with a surprising burst of speed at the main group of the Smashers. The Redeads were leaping and trying to get on them while shrieking. Kirby, Link and Falco were all frozen, but the rest managed to avoid that and hacked and attacked at the Redeads. Raichu fired more thunder balls, while Diddy used his peanut gun to keep the Redeads off of their frozen friends. Soon the Redeads fell…but the battle against the minions of death wasn't over…

"So…was that it?" Falco asked.

He shouldn't have asked. At that moment skeletal hands clawed their way through the dirt around the Smashers.

"What?! What's happening?!" Raichu asked.

"I think…Stalchildren," Bario said.

More hands shot up from the ground and pulled hard. They appeared to be yanking themselves out from under the ground.

"What are these things?" Diddy asked.

"Skeleton creatures, rumored to be the souls of dead children who died in a terrible war. I think they're just more minions of Ganondorf," Bario said.

"Woohoo," Mario said in a monotone voice as he got his hammer ready.

The Stalchildren finally pulled themselves up. They were skeletons and apparently mostly human skeletons…but the heads seemed like horse skulls, and the eye sockets glowed red. They were only four feet tall…but there were at least two dozen.

"They aren't nearly as strong as a Redead but they like to swarm. Watch out for their hands, the bones are sharp!" Bario said as the Stalchildren staggered towards them.

Mario shot off several fireballs. Apparently the Stalchildren were weak to fire because as soon as the fire touched them they went up in flames and disintegrated. Raichu was trying to zap them, but it wasn't very effective. Apparently bones aren't weak to electricity. Diddy was using his tail, as a good blunt attack caused the Stalchildren to fall apart.

Several appeared to be nearing Kirby who smacked them away with his hammer, but one managed to slash him. He lost focus and more pressed in on him until Meta-Knight swooped in and sliced them up with several well-placed sword strikes. He looked at Kirby.

"Will you be the daughter of my child?" Meta asked before flying away again. Kirby just looked at him in confusion.

Link used his bombs to blow up some of the Stalchildren and when they got close he slammed them with his shield, causing them to fall apart. Falco tried using his pistol but the shots were ineffective. So he used his Fire Falco and destroyed four in one attack. Samus shot at them, and essentially ignored them when they got close as their bone-claws couldn't penetrate her armor, although when five surrounded her she gave them all smacks with her arm cannon which of course caused them to fall apart. Bario used his swords to great effect, although he used the flat more than the sharp sides, as that was more effective.

Soon all the pathetically weak Stalchildren were piles of bones…but then the bones began to move…

"Eh?" Falco said as the nine Smashers formed into a loose cluster.

The bones shattered into dust. The dust swirled around and around before coalescing into solid shapes. Nine solid shapes. As the dust cleared the Smashers could see that they were again facing skeletal creatures. These ones were larger, about six feet tall and somehow had summoned large, red, twisted swords and similarly beaten shields. The nine skeletons looked at the Smashers with blazing eyes and raised their weapons…

"Uh…Bario…what are those?" Raichu asked.

"Those…are Stalfos. Never saw them form from Stalchildren before, but they do appear to be related somehow. The Stalfos are very powerful and adept with their weapons, but they don't really have any special abilities…" Bario told them.
The Stalfos grinned their skeleton grin and walked towards the Smashers. Samus fired a missile at one but it merely deflected it with its surprisingly strong shield.

"I don't think projectiles are going to cut it with these guys…we'll have get up close and personal!" Bario said as he ran at a Stalfos heading for him.
"Up close? To that?! Uh…oh…" Diddy and Raichu said.

Two Stalfos headed for them, but rather than staying and fighting, they ran.

Mario pulled out his hammer just in time to intercept the swing of a Stalfos. The clang of red steel and Mario's hammer made a resounding noise throughout the ruined town. The Stalfos growled and swung again. Mario spun his cape, spinning the creature around. It looked where it thought Mario would be in confusion before a hammer smacked him from behind. Disoriented the skeleton tried to turn around but it got a face-full of fire, which, like the Stalchildren before, disintegrated it immediately.

Link used his shield to block a vertical slice from the Stalfos attacking him, and then stabbed at it while it was distracted. It grunted, but then slammed its shield at Link with such force it knocked him over. The Stalfos then jumped and came down clearly intending to cleave him in two. Link however rolled out of the way at the last second and while the Stalfos struggled to get its sword out of the ground, he threw a bomb at it. The Stalfos tried to avoid the bomb, but it forgot to let go of the sword, slowing it down so the bomb hit the creature in the chest…and exploded, completely destroying it.

Meta battled his Stalfos quite skillfully. He flew just out of range, only diving in long enough to strike before flapping away. The Stalfos was getting quite upset, and without thinking it threw its shield at Meta. Meta deflected it with his sword, causing the shield to fly off and slam into one of the Stalfos chasing Diddy and Raichu. Meta then dived in and struck again. The Stalfos tried to block with its shield…before realizing its shield was gone. Meta's sword cut through the creature and it crumbled almost immediately.

Kirby however was not having such an easy time with his opponent. His large hammer essentially covered him from all attacks…but it was difficult to strike the Stalfos. Kirby eventually decided to be defensive. He blocked all of the skeleton's attacks with the hammer, and occasionally rolled to avoid a well-placed stab. After a bit the Stalfos became very angry and tried to use a jump attack. Seeing an opportunity Kirby slammed the foolhardy creature with his hammer, knocking both weapons from its grasp and causing it to collapse onto the ground. It struggled to get back up, as Kirby jumped over it and turned into a rock. Kirby plummeted down and crushed the evil creature's head, destroying it.

Falco just barely dodged the Stalfos sword as it struck again. He let out a flurry of kicks but the Stalfos intercepted them with the shield. The Stalfos then knocked him down by slamming him with the shield. Falco fell to ground and the Stalfos sliced, but Falco turned on his Reflector at the last second, zapping the skeleton. While it tried to recover Falco used his Fire Falco move and smashed through the Stalfos, vaporizing it.

Bario deflected the swing from a Stalfos attacking him with a deft twist of one of his blades. The creature growled and blocked a swing from Bario with its shield. It then went for a powerful vertical slice. Bario blocked it by crossing his blades above him and then twisted, sending the Stalfos sword spinning into the ground. The Stalfos tried to slam him with its shield but Bario rolled under the strike and as he came up he sliced its legs off. The Stalfos fell to the ground and felt surprise, and then stopped feeling much of anything as Bario removed its head.

Samus again fired a missile at a rapidly approaching Stalfos but again it raised its shield, causing the missile to explode with out causing any damage. The Stalfos leaped forward and tried to slice at her, but Samus rolled into her Morph Ball form. The Stalfos looked confused at the small orange ball that suddenly appeared. It bent down to get a closer look when the ball suddenly dropped a smaller glowing ball. The orange ball then darted away. The Stalfos looked at the glowing ball…then figured that maybe whatever it was wouldn't be a good thing and was about to run before the ball exploded. It was a small explosion, but effective nonetheless as it caused the skeleton to fall over and be temporarily stunned. Samus unrolled and as the Stalfos tried to recover, she blasted it with a missile, blowing the offending creature into smithereens.

As Diddy and Raichu tried to escape from their pursuers they heard a loud cracking noise and a spinning disc flew over their heads before being embedded inside the outer wall of one of the ruined stores. They turned around and discovered the cracking noise was the sound of a shield flying through a Stalfos. One of the Stalfos was lying in pieces on the ground. The second looked at its companion in confusion before growling and moving towards Diddy and Raichu. Suddenly Raichu had an idea!
"The Stalfos may be impervious to electricity…but they're metal weapons aren't! I can zap them through those!" he said.

Raichu fired a small bolt of electricity at the Stalfos's sword. The bolt traveled rapidly down the metal sword…and fizzled out completely upon touching the Stalfos.

"Oh. If they aren't susceptible to it…I guess having it travel through metal wouldn't do any good…," Raichu said.

The Stalfos reared back for a mighty swing.

"Crud!" Diddy said, "I was hoping to save this for Giga!" Diddy threw something orange at the Stalfos, "Get down!" he yelled as he yanked Raichu to the ground.

"Wha-" Raichu said before an explosion pummeled the area where the Stalfos was, destroying it and sending debris everywhere. Fortunately, when it got near other Smashers they deflected the bone shards. The remains of all the other Stalfos exploded into the classic pink dust, healing everyone. The bars, blocking the way to the foreboding castle disappeared but the one by the drawbridge remained. With all the Stalfos defeated the Smashers slowly headed for the center of the town, near where flowers used to grow in little gardens. Falco asked the most pressing question.

"I think I speak for everyone when I ask…what the heck was that explosion?!"
Diddy answered kind of sheepishly, although there was a hint of pride, "That was an orange grenade, made by Funky, a relative of mine. I have a few…but I wanted to save them for Giga since I don't think he'd expect a little monkey to be well-armed."
"Well that makes sense, but where do you keep them?" Raichu asked.

"Probably in the same place Mario keeps his hammer!" Falco cracked, since it seemingly appeared out of nowhere, as did Link's endless supply of arrows.

Right about then the Smashers noticed that Bario was gone.

"Hey…where's Bario?" Falco asked.

His question was quickly answered as several large crates were thrown near the Smashers, causing a few of them to jump.
"Here. I figured you guys could use some food," Bario said.

Link brightened upon seeing the crates and using his sword pried one upon. Bario walked over as well and opened the other two. Inside was bread, meat, fruit, and water…some basic foods and drinks that looked REAL good to the Smashers right about now.

"Where'd you get this?" Diddy asked.

"I used to live near here. That store over there stocked tons of food, and I figured that maybe the outside is bad, but there might be some useful stuff inside. Don't worry, I'm positive the food isn't poisoned or anything," Bario told them.

All the Smashers nodded and started eating with intense fervor; after all it had been quite a while since they last had some food. Samus removed her helmet to have some as well. Her suit had liquid nutrients that she could drink through a straw in the helmet, but eating actual food tastes so much better. Bario let everyone else grab something they wanted before selecting a large chunk of roast ham. Using his blades he sliced it into several slices, which he began eating.

After everyone finished their mad eating frenzy and slowed down a bit, Bario told them a bit of what he thought might be coming.

"Well…I think it is safe to say that this town is like this because Ganondorf has returned and is continuing his evil deeds. That's his tower," Bario said while pointing at the humongous castle that was in front of the town, "And I have a pretty good feeling he's in there waiting for us. Hopefully this won't be like Bowser's castle, where we had to battle quite a few enemies…but I think it will be worse. Stay on your toes, and follow Link's lead since this IS his homeland. He should be familiar with the enemies, right Link?" Bario asked. Link nodded.

"Bario, why'd you say just Link's lead…aren't you from here too?" Raichu asked.

"What? Oh…right. Yeah, I'm from here…but Link's probably more experienced…after all he's been on far more adventures than me. When you're all ready I guess we should get going."

"Yeah, but I have a few questions," Diddy said.

"Okay…shoot," Bario told him.

"Where did Giga Bowser go…and what does Master Hand have to do with Bowser and Ganondorf?"
"Oh. I'm not sure, but I'd have to say that Giga and Master Hand changed where the portal led in order to keep us off of him…and as for his involvement, well if I had to guess I would say that Master Hand is frustrated with being defeated in his plans to kill the heroes of the different worlds twice now and is probably using the villains of those worlds to stop not only us, but eventually rule all the worlds. I'm not sure if that's true, but super-villains usually work that way."

"Oh. Okay. I guess we should get going then, as we have a long road ahead of us," Diddy said, a little sad that this adventure was going on far longer than he or…probably anyone else expected.

The other Smashers all agreed, and after finishing off what they were eating and in Samus's case, getting their helmets on, they all moved as a group towards the evil castle, and hopefully some answers to Master Hand's involvement, and where Giga and Master Hand went. Next stop…Ganondorf's Tower!