Clash of the Smashers

Chapter Thirty-Four: Reptiles make…interesting pirates

The Prison…

The portal opened up, disgorging Ganondorf and Fox, both of whom landed hard on the ground, and sucked out a good chunk of the air in the room before Ganondorf raised his hand and closed it.

"What the distended Koopa shells was that?" a considerably startled Bowser choked out after air returned to his lungs.

"That was this one's attempt to kill me," Ganondorf said, shaking the unconscious Fox a bit.

"Did he succeed?" Bowser asked.

Ganondorf stared at him.

"What? Oh."
"Let's just pretend you didn't ask me that. Is a cage ready for him?"
"Yeah, it's been ready for a while."

Ganondorf dragged the beaten Fox to the door, and forced it open. Inside Mewtwo was fortifying Captain Falcon's cage, as the man had been trying to Falcon Punch it open.

"Ganondorf! You won't get away with this!" Zelda shouted.

"Already did, princess. Mewtwo! Where's this one's cage?"
Mewtwo pointed to a cell farther down the area. Ganondorf dragged Fox down the aisle, drawing many gasps from the prisoners as they saw another companion join their unhappy group.

"Oh man, Fox too? I told you! We're doomed!" Ness wailed.

"Shut up!" Falcon shouted, "We're not doomed. Falcon Punch!"

Captain Falcon's hand glowed red, and a fiery image of a bird appeared suddenly as he let loose a powerful punch at the door of his prison. Before the attack could connect he was halted and flung hard into the other end of his cage by Mewtwo's psychic powers.

"Pika! Pika!" Pikachu shouted, shooting bolts of lightning that couldn't travel past the bar of his cage.

"Stop trying, it's useless," Bowser growled, breathing fire at Pikachu, forcing him to back off from the front of his cage.

With casual disregard for his captured prisoner, Ganondorf threw Fox into the cage and slammed the door shut. Fox groaned, but otherwise remained still. Ganondorf frowned at Zelda as he walked out, but she merely ignored him and focused on a glowing light in her hands.

"There's nothing you can do, so you may as well give up," Ganondorf told her.

"You'll see!" Zelda said, before returning her attention to whatever it was she was doing.

With an uninterested grunt Ganondorf walked out of the prison, closely followed by Mewtwo and Bowser. As Bowser left, he slammed the door, trapping the Smashers again, with only themselves for company.

In the portal room Ganondorf stopped near the center and faced Mewtwo.

"Now what?"

"Why do you ask me?" Mewtwo said…or more accurately "thought."

"Because apparently you're M.C.'s favorite now. Do you know what we do with them?" Ganondorf growled, gesturing at their prisoners.

"For now we wait. M.C. should be contacting us soon, but I can already assume what he'll have us do with them.

"Start the battles?" Ganondorf said.

"I still don't get that," Bowser groaned.

"I'm not too sure myself why we force them to fight, there is no logical reason," Mewtwo said.

"I'm sure M.C. has his reasons," Ganondorf said, "Speaking of reasons…what are yours?" Ganondorf asked pointedly.

"What?" Mewtwo asked, confused by the question. On any other being he would merely probe their mind, which would normally eliminate the need for asking clarifying questions but Ganondorf had an exceptionally strong will, making mental probes nigh impossible.

"Your reasons for fighting for M.C. Mine are obvious, I want to stand next to the ruler of all worlds, as does Bowser-"

At that Bowser grunted, but didn't say anything. Ganondorf paused to see if Bowser would follow that grunt with anything, and when he didn't, he seemed to have trouble considering where to pick up his questioning.

"My reasons for fighting?" Mewtwo asked for clarification.

At a nod from Ganondorf Mewtwo began to speak.

"They are quite simple. I want to free the Pokémon in my dimension from their continued imprisonment by the humans, and by extension, rule them as their leader."
"So the classic 'I'm fighting for others,' but you mix it up by making sure you stay on top. Never figured you for the domination type." Ganondorf said
Mewtwo looked taken aback.

"I assure you, I am not working for M.C. for purely selfish reasons."
"No? Then why were you so eager to bring in that yellow rat and his friends?"

"They resisted me."
"Well as long as you're not deluding yourself," Ganondorf said with a smirk.

"Oh yeah, as long as whatever," Bowser grumbled.

Mewtwo looked pensive as Ganondorf turned his attentions towards Bowser.

"What's wrong with you?"

Bowser looked at Ganondorf with an unhappy frown on his reptilian face.

"The boss said that I haven't been doing a good enough job…and took away my power to go Giga."
"So?" Ganondorf said.

"What do you mean so?" Bowser demanded.

"I mean it's not like you need it anymore right? We've already got almost everyone."
"What about Mario and Link?" Bowser growled back.

"I'm sure M.C. has a plan about that," Mewtwo said.

"Yeah, well I hope M.C. focuses on them. If we let them walk all over us like they have up to now, they could be on our doorstep in moments," Ganondorf warned.

"We don't have a doorstep," Bowser said.

"It's a figure of speech, fool," Ganondorf snapped.

"What do you propose?" Mewtwo asked.

Ganondorf started to answer, but before he opened his mouth he looked carefully around the room.

"Don't worry, he's not paying attention to us now," Mewtwo said.

"Good. I think he's planning on using us as cannon fodder," Ganondorf said.
"Why?" Bowser asked.

"He's sending us in one at a time, he's ignoring them…I think he wants them to reach him," Ganondorf said.

"Maybe he wants them to get rid of his competition and remove…any untrustworthy elements in his army…" Mewtwo said, glaring at Ganondorf.

"Oh come on, you weren't thinking about it? Do you really want to be second to him?"

"He is the most powerful-"

"I don't care. I don't think he's trustworthy, and he knows we're not," Ganondorf said.

"Wait, what are you talking about?" Bowser asked.

"It's simple. Ganondorf thinks that M.C. thinks that we're going to backstab him so he's throwing us at the heroes in order to get rid of us," Mewtwo said.

"Correct! And I say we beat him to the punch! We do what he says, but when he sends us off to die, we'll escape and make it to the back room." Ganondorf said with a smile.

"The back room? Are you sure he won't find us there?" Mewtwo asked.

"Positive. And from there we can figure out a strategy to get back at him. Are you in?" Ganondorf asked Bowser and Mewtwo.

"Wait," Bowser said, raising a claw, "We're going to disobey M.C. because he thinks we're going to betray him, and in essence we are betraying him, but only because he thinks we are, and if he didn't think that we wouldn't, but he did so we are?"
Mewtwo and Ganondorf looked at each other for a second.

"Yes," Mewtwo said.

"Pretty much," Ganondorf agreed.

"Well, I do agree that it is a logical conclusion that M.C. will attempt to have us all killed one way or another, but I still think there is a strong chance he could deliver what I want," Mewtwo said.

"That's the beauty of this. We abandon M.C. after he lets those guys get all the way here, they battle it out, and we swoop in and kill the battered winner. Then we're left the undisputed rulers!" Ganondorf laughed excitedly, having already figured out a "brilliant" strategy.

"That is a good plan," Bowser said, grinning.

"Only one problem. None of us appear particularly trustworthy. Why should I trust you two not to kill me after all this over M.C. killing me before we betray him?" Mewtwo said, who paused after saying that, as if to verify that it made sense.

"Because you at least have a chance of beating us. None of us have a chance of killing M.C. now, but maybe after he gets weakened from battling them-" Ganondorf stopped suddenly eyes widening.

"I feel it too," Mewtwo said.

"Back to work," Bowser stated.

"The boss is here," Ganondorf said.

On K. Rool's Ship…

The Smashers turned to see a large dark colored flying crocodile. Or at least it looked like one, but the large propellers revealed that it was in fact not a crocodile, and according to Diddy's frantic explanation it was the Flying Kroc, one of K. Rool's vehicles.

Ah, Diddy Kong. A chimpanzee with sidekick tendencies. His motivations are quite simple to spot. Like all of the Smashers, he possesses a desire to do right and stop evil. In the past he often did right and stopped evil by beating up hordes of vile crocodiles and preventing them from eating the Kong's stash of bananas. He's still not too sure why the Kremlings wanted to eat bananas.

Later he and the other Kong's fought for survival as K. Rool came back not merely for mere sustenance but to kill the Kong's as revenge for his prior defeats and take over their land.

Now Diddy fights because he wants help defeating Bowser and by extension Giga Bowser, an enemy that at least he and Mario have in common. His reason is simple: Vengeance for the death of his female companion, Dixie Kong. Revenge is a powerful motivator…but it will often spur its victims into making mistakes…and on this quest, one mistake could doom them all…and Dixie may not be as dead as she appeared to be…

The Flying Kroc stopped directly over the ship the Smashers were on. They aimed their weapons at it, but instead of attacking the Kroc opened a hatch on the bottom and dropped out a rope ladder.

"What now?" Falco asked, confused.

"I guess we climb," Bario answered, sheathing his swords and grabbing hold of the ladder.

He quickly scaled the ladder, despite its shakiness. Following closely behind was Diddy who almost climbed over Bario. Everyone else than put their weapons away and followed them up the ladder, with the exception of Meta Knight, who flew up.

Upon reaching the hatchway the Smashers got firm footing under them and yanked their weapons back out. The Flying Kroc had the typical look of an advanced vehicle: Shiny buttons, complicated machinery, boring greenish color…but it also had a large quantity of bananas and banana peels in a corner, as well as several other crates and worthless junk strewn about the sides of the ship.
However the group did not have long to examine these things before the pilot of the ship hit a large switch, closing the hatch bare seconds after the slow Kirby climbed up and trapping them all inside. The pilot than extricated himself from the controls, leaving the ship hovering and turned towards the Smashers, laughing quite evilly.

It appeared to be K. Rool, but his crown and red cape were gone. In their place was a black pirate's hat with the clichéd skull and crossbones, and yet another clichéd pirate vest. If it wasn't for the fact that he was a ten foot tall overweight evil bipedal alligator, he would have looked very much like a pirate. As it was, he just looked weird.

"What…the heck are you wearing?" Raichu asked.

"I am now Kaptain K. Rool. I should wear a garb appropriate for that!" K. Rool said with evil pleasure as he plucked up a large gun with a funnel shaped barrel. This blunderbuss was considerably larger than normal, but in K. Rool's massive hands it looked normal.

"What exactly was the point of changing into that outfit?" Samus asked.

"I…uh…it's not important! What is important, is how DEAD you're going to be after this!" K. Rool shouted as he fired several large cannonballs from his blunderbuss. Each one was about as large as one of Mario's firebombs, and they were moving quickly.

However the Smashers had plenty experience with dodging fast-moving projectiles, and they were able to easily avoid the cannonballs that slammed into the back of the Flying Kroc after missing their intended targets. In fact, they were so good at dodging that several of them were able to retaliate with their own projectiles, which K. Rool did not dodge. However he mostly seemed to ignore them, and continued to fire cannonballs, some of them with metal spikes that lent them an urchin like appearance.

The Smashers continued dodging the attacks, but somehow K. Rool was messing with the physics of his weapons, and some of the balls were swirling around each other in midair, while others were slowly bouncing. The sheer number flying at them forced the Smashers to cease firing back and focus solely on evading the attacks.

They were able to keep that up pretty well, until K. Rool somehow managed to fire a barrel through his blunderbuss and the sheer size of the barrel made it impossible for Diddy to dodge, and he was sent to the ground. He had to quickly roll to avoid a bouncing spiked cannonball and came up with an orange grenade in his hand.

He flung it at K. Rool and it slammed into his face, causing him to reel back, which allowed Mario to hit him with a trio of firebombs. K. Rool shook off the attacks and fired several gaseous blobs at the Smashers.

Link attempted to avoid the blobs, but their strange movements made it difficult and he was touched by one. Immediately he felt like he was covered in sticky molasses, and his speed was drastically reduced. Because of that Link was unable to avoid the cannonball shot his way and was sent careening to the ground, chest severely bruised. Fortunately for him it was not spiked, but the cracked or broken ribs he had didn't exactly make him feel any better.

Falco fell victim to the same double volley: gas cloud slowed him down, and then a cannonball was fired at him, only this time it was spiked. He managed to slowly dive down, but the spikes opened up shallow grooves on his back, and his graceful dive turned into a limp collapse.

In a matter of seconds two of their fighters were out for the count, and King…sorry, Kaptain K. Rool showed no signs of tiring.
At that moment Meta Knight leapt into their and spread out his wings. In one fluid motion he held his sword in front of him and spun around, causing the wind to swirl around him and create a white tornado-like appearance around himself. He then flew forward, skillfully sliding around a cannonball and drilled himself into K. Rool.

K. Rool let out a grunt of pain and then smacked Meta with the blunderbuss…hard. He then started to turn his attention back towards the others, but in the time it took for Meta to attack him Bario managed to get close enough to unleash his Super Stab attack.

Glowing a faint purple, the ends of his twin blades struck out again and again, actually forcing K. Rool back as dozens of small wounds opened up in his armor-like hide. It seemed like he was going to collapse…when he punched Bario in the face, knocking the portal-creating warrior down, but not out.

Looking quite upset now, K. Rool pointed his blunderbuss at the ground behind him and shot out a jet of flame. Amazingly the flame propelled the massive alligator forward at an impressive speed, and Mario and Kirby barely managed to avoid it. He quickly turned around and attempted to do the same thing again, but Raichu managed to zap him with a powerful lightning bolt, stopping him in his tracks.

K. Rool didn't stay stopped for long though, and with a twisted grin he looked at Diddy…and vanished.

"Where did he go?" Samus demanded, her stun gun, the Paralyzer, aimed at the spot he was standing in a few moments ago.

Her question was answered when he suddenly appeared in front of her and fired a spiked cannonball. Faster than anyone would have expected from the normally armored warrior Samus back-flipped over the attack and fired a bolt of yellow crackling energy at K. Rool. He took the hit and seemed to not care as he vanished again.

Link hesitantly raised his bow, but the pain in his chest caused him to lower it again. Falco managed to lift up his gun, but with an invisible pirate running around he had nothing to aim at. At least not until K. Rool managed to appear in front of Diddy.

He seemed to pop into existence mere feet away, and with a flick of a switch his blunderbuss began sucking air in at a fantastic rate. Diddy was slowly dragged towards it, and it was obvious that if he was sucked into the inner workings of the massive gun, his fate would be most unpleasant.
The Smashers that could still fight tried to, but K. Rool ignored them and focused entirely on Diddy, as if determined to kill him. Diddy scrabbled to hold onto the metal flooring, but it offered no grip and he was dragged inexorably towards his doom. At the last second he pulled out an orange grenade and threw it at the blunderbuss.

It was sucked in, where it promptly exploded, knocking Diddy back and completely destroying the front of the weapon. A subsequent explosion from the gun itself blackened K. Rool. K. Rool growled and tossed the useless gun at Samus who tried to jump over it, but the barrel clipped her legs, sending her painfully to the ground.

Wincing he dragged himself towards the controls, ignoring Mario, Kirby's and Raichu's attacks. With a triumphant grin he stabbed at a button on the control, which caused the entire floor of the Kroc, outside of the small zone reserved for the pilot, to retract.

"Bye!" K. Rool said cheerfully.

The Smashers attempted to stay on, but they didn't stand a chance and one by one, they fell back down to the ship.

The fall was a good fifty feet, and while some, like Mario and Kirby, and even Meta managed to land relatively easily, the others slammed hard on their fronts or backs into the hard deck. Cannonballs and junk also fell out of the ship, but fortunately none of the Smashers were injured by falling debris.

The Kroc closed itself up and started to fly away, deeper into the ocean. Samus managed to climb to her feet and pulled out a small device from her belt.

"I'm not letting that guy get away," she hissed.

"What are you doing?" Diddy asked, trying to get over the pain of falling fifty feet. If they were anyone else, this might have killed them, but as it was, they were all very much alive, although Link and Falco were both very injured.

"I'm bringing my ship down-" Samus started to say, before a trio of missiles of large green missiles flew from emplacements in the top of the Flying Kroc and went off into the sky.

"CRAP!" Samus said, hitting another button.

The Kroc fired some missiles towards the Smashers as well, but while the explosion was big, the ship absorbed most of the damage with little to no ill effects. By the time the smoke cleared the Kroc was fading into the distance.
"What happened?" Raichu asked Samus.

"He almost destroyed my ship! I can't bring it down…the second I do, he'll destroy it," Samus said, frustrated.

"How do we follow him now?!" Diddy demanded.

"Well, I have an idea," Bario said.

"What?" Link snapped.

"Does anyone have any sailing experience?"