Clash of the Smashers

Chapter Twenty-Three: Kraid's Massive Revenge. Extremely Massive. Large, Big, Enormous really.

On the elevator ride down to the next level in this revamped Zebes, most of the Smashers were congratulating Bario and Samus for their impressive job against the Emperor. Most of them.

"Samus, that was a sweet explosion!" Falco said, still slightly giddy from not being dead.

"Bario…that magic thing…was AWESOME!" Diddy said.

"Yeah, I was very impressed," Samus told him.

While they laughed and told everyone how great they were, Link hung back, glaring angrily at Bario's back. Seeing him, Samus detached herself, and since she had a bit of extra time, since this elevator seemed to either be going slower, or traveling farther…or both, went to talk to him.

"Link…," she started, unable to continue as he turned his piercing, blue eyes on her. His expression changed from one of anger, to a smoother, but more emotionless one.

"What?" he said, loudly enough to be heard, but quiet enough to avoid detection from the others, as the elevator was a decent size.

"Look…I know you don't trust Bario…but please, give him a chance. He seems to be trustworthy, and-"

"He's not who he says he his!" Link said, cutting Samus off, "I already explained that his story doesn't match up!"
"So what?! He might have a perfectly good reason for that! Besides, everyone else is starting to pick up on your emotions, you're not keeping them well-hidden!"
"Your point is?! I don't want our blind trust of this guy to come back and bite us in the butt! And besides, what does it matter if everyone else knows I don't like him?"
"It's going to destabilize the team! I don't know how much longer we're going to be together, but if we start fighting each other, we'll never survive! Don't you-"

Their conversation was abruptly stopped when the elevator door opened. Exchanging a quick look, Samus and Link left with the others, who didn't seem to notice the argument between them.

The nine fighters, not knowing what to expect, expected everything. They immediately spread out, the cheer seemed to leap away from their faces, as all their weapons were aimed and charged at…nothing?

It was very obvious that this room was very different. It was the same size as the others…obscenely large, although the ceiling seemed higher than usual, but was almost unnaturally bright after the previously dim rooms. The entire room was a sickly bright green and pale orange, and taking up half of the room was what looked like a humongous pit of thorns. Unfortunately, the pit was between the Smashers, and the exit door, which as usual, was dim and clearly not operating.

Further augmenting the differences in this room were several small platforms. None were larger than five feet long, or two feet wide. They jutted down from the ceiling, from the walls and floated mysteriously in midair. They were situated in ways so that a decent jumper could conceivably reach all of them…but none of them were over the fifty plus foot long pit of thorns. The small un-thorny section of land that the closed door was on seemed impossibly far away…

The entire room was easy to see, and it took them all a while for their eyes to adjust, after a string of dim chambers. They took several steps forward, sweeping the room and squinting. While the elevators had decent lighting, this whole room seemed off, and the strange lighting was bothering the Smashers…especially Samus, who had a good idea of what was lurking in the pit…

"What is going on here? Is there nothing to fight?" Diddy asked, wandering around, getting closer to the pit of thorns.

"Yeah…there's like no place to hide…and that door is closed, what's up with that?" Falco asked following Diddy.

"No! Don't go by the-" Samus said, as the two got too close to the pit, and a massive clawed green, arm, easily ten feet long whipped up and out, shattering several thorns and smacking both Diddy and Falco into a wall.

A second, identical arm shot out, and both arms started wildly slashing at the Smashers. The majority of the heroes jumped back, although Bario got a nasty cut on his chest. They seemed safe from the arms as long as they kept their distance, but these arms had a surprise…

They started flinging their claws at them. Each of the arms had three fingers, with three claws, that could be detached and thrown as a weapon…and instantly regenerated. Each of these claws was over a foot in length, and even if they didn't skewer the Smashers, they would certainly hurt.

The standing Smashers did their best to avoid or deflect the attacks, but the claws were fast and unpredictable due to their shape.
"Samus! What is this?!" Link yelled, knocking a claw away with his shield.

"It's Kraid!" she said, dashing away from an attack and firing a missile at the left arm.

"You mean that giant thing I saw in our second Smash Tournament?!" Link said, vaguely recalling the massive lizard that attempted a few times to halt the matches. Violently. With much violence. And a small amount of extreme violence thrown in there.

"I remember him! He's the one who kept trying to swipe us into lava…why were we having a match over lava again?" Falco said, helping Diddy get up.

"That's the one!" Samus said.

"I have a feeling, then, that this is going to be bad," Bario said, doing his best to deflect the majority of claws with his swords.

After the initial shock wore away, and all the Smashers took their lumps, they started responding with their now often used projectile attacks. The two arms flailed around, and made themselves difficult targets, but were hit nonetheless, as all but Bario used distance attacks, which created quite a field of fire. Soon there was a loud shriek from beneath the thorns, and the arms slammed down onto the ground, motionless.

Before anyone could ask a question, Samus spoke.

"He's not dead. Stay back…," she warned.

The two arms flexed suddenly, and palms down, started to push. The thorns crackled and flew up as Kraid started pulling himself up and out of the pit, sending spiky chunks of thorns all over the chamber, and several of the Smashers suffered from minor cuts as the painful barbs cut into a few of them.

All they could see was Kraid's head and part of his upper body; the rest of him was buried beneath the apparently extremely deep thorn pit. He was a light greenish color on his underside, but the majority of him was a dark green. He had bumpy scales and three large red eyes. His mouth was most of his head, and it was long and shaped like short alligator jaws, but with more teeth. The part of him that was sticking up was almost twenty feet high, there was no telling how massive he'd be if he fully came out of the pit.

He roared, and shot his hands out, barely missing Samus and Kirby, his reach having been considerably extended now that more of his body was out of the pit. The Smashers opened fire, and were easily able to hit him with most of their attacks. He was a very large target. Kraid countered with arm slashes, and more of his detachable claws. He had better aim now that his head was above the surface, and he could see his targets, but they held their own.

At least, they were holding their own until they realized that Kraid really didn't care about their attacks. If they hurt, he didn't seem to notice.

"Samus? How do we hurt this guy?" Falco asked, ducking under an attack.

"Well…I have an idea…aim for the mouth and fire when I say go," she said.

The Smashers adjusted their aim as Samus leapt up and shot off a missile into his center eye. Kraid shrieked loudly…and opened his mouth.

"Now!" Samus said, but her command wasn't needed because as soon as the giant lizard…thing, opened his mouth they figured out what to do, and started firing like crazy into his mouth. Kraid shrieked even more, and this time he even looked like he was in pain…and then he closed his mouth and his eyes and started pushing himself up even more.

The Smashers stopped firing temporarily as all of Kraid was revealed finally. As he pushed himself out of the thorns he crushed them, causing the thorns to become a fine dust, which was packed thickly by his weight. They stared as he rose up…and up…and up. He was easily the largest foe they faced so far on this journey…and perhaps ever will.

He stood over sixty feet tall, and was very wide. He seemed to have the vestiges of a tail, and short stumpy legs. His arms, though long, now seemed almost feeble compared to his massive bulk, and there were three sections down Kraid's belly with weird thick spikes. He roared again, snapping the Smashers out of their stunned stupor…and into action.

Kraid continued throwing claws at them, but as they ran around the room avoiding those, several of the Smashers stepped on the thorns, injuring their feet and hampering their movement. And now that Kraid was so high they couldn't hit his eye…things were looking bad…

Bario looked around the arena, trying to see anything they could use to their advantage…just as Mario leapt up to one of the lower platforms. Bario grinned.

"Guys! The platforms! We need to get to the top so we can hit Kraid!" Bario said.

The others nodded, and soon the Smashers were turning their attentions to the series of platforms. There was one reasonably low to the ground that Raichu clambered up on, as Mario speedily leapt to the top, with Falco trailing behind. Raichu looked up and realized that his jumping ability wasn't the greatest. He could do it, but it would be tough…at least until Diddy ran over.

"Raichu! I'm going to grab you with my tail!" Diddy said, ducking under a random claw.

"You're what?" Raichu asked, as Diddy whipped his tail around him, and then started using his rocket-barrels to fly up the platforms, with Raichu hanging on…extremely tightly.

Kirby and Meta had no problem ascending the platforms. Meta simply flew up, while Kirby sucked in huge amounts of air and used it to make the pink puffball float up. Samus and Link looked at each other, nodded, and shot out their Hookshot and Grappling Beam, latching onto the platforms and propelling the two Smashers up rapidly.

Bario leapt up the platforms, noticing that there were five distinct levels to this chamber. The ground floor, and then four levels of platforms evenly spaced, and all stationed at one of four heights.
"This doesn't make any sense…why is this place set up with platforms that will allow us to reach his weak spot…what's going on?" Bario wondered to himself. His question was quickly and unfortunately answered.

Falco was one platform level below Mario, who, with Meta was at the top. Samus and Link were on the first level, and Bario, Kirby, Diddy and Raichu were on the second. Falco was about to make the last jump when something whizzed past his face, nearly smashing into him.

He spun around to see a thick greenish spike quivering in the wall behind him. A second spike flew past him, close enough to cut his left arm-wing. Turning around he saw Kraid shooting the spikes in his belly. Falco leapt over another one and scrabbled for purchase on the top level of platforms. A fourth spike shot under him, almost impaling his legs…geez, how many did this thing have?! Falco struggled to pull himself up, and was about to resign himself to a very painful meeting with a spike, when Mario leapt over and yanked him up, to relative safety.

Samus ducked under a spike, and then shot another into smithereens. Link deflected one with his shield, but the force of it was so strong that he was sent tumbling over the side, and only barely managed to stick his sword in the side of the surprisingly soft platform.

"Samus! What's going on?!" Diddy said, trying to get his jet-pack to take him and his defenseless passenger to a safe location. Raichu was trying very hard not to freak out. He had rarely felt so helpless before. Not only was he completely relying on Diddy, who granted he did trust, but if he tried to attack the electricity would shock Diddy. Not a good situation.

"Kraid's got an unlimited amount of those things! They're like his claws, they just keep growing back! Watch out, and keep climbing!" she said, trying to find a place that she could use to get off the first level, unaware of Link's plight.

"So that was the plan…the platforms are designed to put us at the right height for his spikes," Bario said to himself, casually swiping away one, "But…seeing how some of them miss…it looks like he can't aim them, meaning that his attention is focused on…" he trailed off, as he looked up…at the guys who made it to the top.

Falco didn't have a chance to thank Mario, because Kraid decided to start swiping at them. His claws cut the air several feet in front of Mario, just as Meta shot three energy balls at Kraid's head. Ignoring the attack Kraid let out a low growl and started throwing his claws again. Not only did Mario and Falco have to dodge them, but several started falling below the upper level…adding more problems to those beneath them.

Bario flipped over a spike, landing on it as it flew towards the far wall. He then used it as a springboard to hop up to the third level, where Kirby was using his Cutter to destroy spikes flying towards him.

"Ugh!" Bario cried in frustration, placing himself next to Kirby and assisting with the spikes, "These spikes are just designed to slow us down and split us up! We're never going to kill this guy at this rate!"

Kirby, seeing Bario, leapt up and started floating to the top, as Diddy and Raichu managed to put themselves down behind them, as Diddy's jetpack needed a minute to recharge.

"Hey Bario…don't give up, we can do this!" Diddy said, trying to remain cheerful…just as a claw flew down from above, nearly impaling Raichu.

"Diddy? Not a good place to be!" he said.

"Hey Samus!" Link cried, as he felt his sword slipping, "A little help here!"

He was about fifteen feet off the ground…survivable, but not a particularly comfortable fall…especially with all the broken thorns.

Samus shot another spike to dust, turned and saw Link barely hanging on. She gave a feigned groan of exasperation, and dashed over to him.

"Do I have to do everything for you?" she asked playfully, grabbing his arm and yanking him.

"Yeah, yeah, shut up," Link said, with a half-smile.

Kraid chose that moment to fire a spike into Samus's back. The force of it knocked her into Link, sending both tumbling below, the spike coming free in the fall.

"Agh! Samus! Samus-hurgh!" Link groaned, hitting the ground hard, with Samus landing not to softly on him. She didn't move.

The others were gradually making their way up. Diddy and Raichu were knocked down to the second level by a narrowly missing spike, and Bario was doing his best to keep the third level clear for the monkey and mouse.
At the top Mario, Falco, Meta and Kirby leapt, flew and floated around the dozen or so platforms on the top level, avoiding Kraid's claws and dealing minor potshots to the beast. They tried hitting his eye, but none of their projectiles seemed to be powerful enough to get him to open his mouth, and none of them were willing to get close enough for him to swipe at them.

"Agh…Samus? You okay…OW!" Link said, carefully trying to push Samus off him, only to move slightly and realize that there were several thorns in his back. He let out a grunt of effort and managed to lift her up…only to have her move in surprise and fall back down.

"Link?! What happened?"
"We fell…and ow…," he said weakly.

"Oh! Sorry!" she said scrambling to get off him.

"It's okay," he mumbled.

"We fell…," she said to herself, looking up at the others battling Kraid, "I must have banged my head a bit…I was knocked out," she explained.

"The spike didn't hurt you?" Link asked, moving his arms to help himself up, and wincing as the thorns dug in deeper…his leg didn't feel too great either.

"Those things aren't as sharp as they look, and my armor is pretty thick, so I guess I'm fine," Samus said, standing up and looking at Link, "I don't think you are though, your leg looks-"

"I'm fine!" Link said irritably, leaping to his feet…before his leg gave out and he collapsed with a sharp cry…onto more thorns.

"I was going to say, your leg looks broken. Stay here, I'll help the others," Samus said, in a voice that could have been mocking, if it was delivered in a different way. As it was, it just made Link give Samus an annoyed half-smile and wave her on.

"Fine, I'll be okay. Just hurry up and kill that guy."
Samus nodded and than started leaping and grappling up the platforms.

At that time Diddy and Raichu managed to fight their way up to the top platform, with Bario following close behind. With all but two of the Smashers on the top level Kraid was feeling the heat from them. Bario still acted as a protector, since he had no projectile attacks, and mostly prevented Kraid's flying claws from hitting the others. The remaining six used their projectiles, to limited effect, until Diddy got an idea.

Using his jetpack, and hoping the others would distract Kraid, Diddy flew close enough to Kraid to throw a grenade at his eye. It exploded, as grenades tend to do, and Kraid opened his mouth in pain. The others leapt on this opportunity and increased the firepower coming from their weapons, all focused at his mouth.

As Diddy's jetpack died, he pulled out another Orange Grenade and threw it in the mouth as well, before landing and rolling near the edge of a platform.

"Nice job, Diddy!" Bario said, raising his swords defensively in case Kraid retaliated suddenly.

"Ow, and thanks," Diddy said, slightly stunned, glad that these grenades of his were helping him contribute to the others. If he was lucky, he wouldn't even have to use his extra weapon until Giga…

Regrettably for everybody, Kraid closed his mouth far too soon…and retaliated in an unexpected way. He lashed out his arms, smashing two of the floating platforms…the ones that Bario and Diddy were on. The two platforms careened into the wall, breaking off massive chunks off of both objects…and started to fall.

Diddy snapped himself out of his stunned state and hurriedly activated his jetpack. A sixty-plus foot fall onto thorns would not be fun…or even likely survivable. However it looked like Diddy had overused his jetpack recently and it sputtered once before fading.

"Ah! AH! AHHHHH!" Diddy screamed, as the platform, losing its small grip on the wall started to fall faster.

"Be quiet! You're fine!" Bario said, leaping off his platform, grabbing Diddy and jabbing one of his swords in the soft wall, to help slow their fall.

The other Smashers on the top stared at Kraid in shock as he roared again before grabbing one of the third level platforms stuck on the wall and ripping it off. The beast then threw it at Kirby and Raichu who, in dodging it, fell off the top level of platforms, to land roughly on the third level.

As Bario slid past them he called out.

"Guys! Drop to the floor, it's too dangerous there!"

A spike shot from Kraid, narrowly missing Raichu.

"Guess he's right!" Raichu muttered as he and Kirby quickly and carefully made their way down.

Kraid was not done. He shuffled forward, causing Link to have to roll painfully out of the way and grabbed a platform jutting out from the ceiling. He ripped it off and threw it at Mario and Falco, who managed to leap down the platforms rapidly, avoiding the attack as Kraid worked himself into a frenzy, destroying most of the upper two levels of platforms.

Samus managed to avoid the falling debris and get on one of the last top level platforms. The only Smasher who had managed to stay up there was Meta-Knight, who flapped slowly in front of Kraid, just out of reach.

Realizing that she would probably only get one shot at this Samus started charging her Power Beam.

"Meta! I need you to stab his eye when you've got an opening!" Samus said, not turning away from Kraid who was watching her carefully, as if wanting her to make the first move.

"Project Pickle is a GO!" Meta said cheerfully, raising his sword.

Kraid turned his large head towards Meta, and began to growl, when Samus called out to it.

"Hey Kraid! You ready to get blown up again?"
Kraid roared, but didn't open his mouth enough for Samus to get a shot in.

"Don't roar at me! That's rude!" Samus said mockingly.

Kraid roared again, raising his arms, as if he was preparing to strike.

"That's right, you-"

Kraid roared again.

"AGH! I said don't inter-"

Kraid roared.

"Cheese CHARGE!" Meta shrieked, diving towards the distracted Kraid.

Kraid had just enough time to see Meta plunge his sword all the way through his center eye. He let out a massive shriek, opening his mouth wide…just as Samus hoped.

"Bye, fatty," she said, firing off her bright yellow Super Missile into Kraid's mouth.

At the ground floor the remaining Smashers gathered together. There weren't enough platforms left to climb back up, as Kraid's rampage destroyed most of the upper level ones…which fell on the lower level ones, destroying or damaging them. Currently Bario was attempting to tend to Link.

"I don't need your help!" Link said, backing away from the mysterious mage/swordsman…or at least, crawling away.

"Link, come on, I can at least numb the pain!" Bario said, trying to appear unthreatening.

"Don't worry about it!" Link snarled, "It only hurts-AGH!" he said as he put some weight on his leg, "Ugh…it only hurts, ow, a lot. I'm fine, and I DON'T WANT YOUR HELP!" he said very clearly.

Bario shook his head, and turned his attention to Kraid, who chose that time to have his head explode in a large ball of fire.

"Alright Samus!" Falco said, punching his fist in the air.

Kraid let out a colossal shriek, before following the previous villain's examples and exploding into a massive cloud of pink dust, which did its traditional job of healing everybody, and everything…even Link's leg.
Meta slowly flapped down. Link looked up anxiously, but before he could think about helping Samus down, she jumped off the platform…and fell sixty feet.

"AGH!" Diddy, Raichu, Falco and Link said, as Samus plummeted to the floor…where she hit, bent her knees, and stood up as if nothing happened.

"Uh…guys? Chill. My suit can absorb damage from falls like they didn't even happen," she said. The others stared open-mouthed. Well, at least the four who screamed did. Bario and Kirby just grinned, Mario seemed indifferent and Meta…who knew what was going on there?

After a minute, where everyone calmed down from the fight Bario drew everyone's attention.

"Alright guys, that fight was brutal, but we have to keep going. Don't forget, we are doing some good here. I have a feeling that this is the bad guy's last stand. Once we take out them, and the Hands, we'll probably be living in peace for a long time."

"Yeah, but that's only if we can get through all these guys," Falco said.

"I think we will," Raichu said, "We have to. I still haven't found Mewtwo."

"And Giga Bowser is still out there!" Diddy said, enflamed at the thought of Mario's super-powered nemesis.

"Right and we will-" Bario started, before a black portal opened up fifteen feet away.

"What?" Link said, readying his sword.

The others prepared themselves for all manners of beasts and baddies…but not for a short man with a large white mushroom with red spots on his head. The man, a "Toad", ran towards Mario and grabbing at Mario's clothes in desperation, screaming in panic and fear.

"Mario! Mario! It's awful!" the Toad shouted clutching at Mario's shirt.

Mario looked questioningly at the Toad, and he answered Mario's unspoken question.

"It's Peach and Luigi…they're gone!"