Clash of the Smashers

Chapter Forty-Two: All that Matters…

Something large and weird looking was floating in front of the Smashers. It had a ball-like shape; about two or three times the size of Kirby with many white sides. It had twenty-one red and black circles all over it, which contrasted sharply with the white coloring. The thing floated calmly in the air a few feet above the ground, and what it was exactly was unclear.

"What is that thing?" Diddy asked, not sure if they should attack it or not.

"I…am not sure," Meta said.

"I know," Bario said, "I've heard about this. It's Miracle Matter, right Kirby?"
Kirby nodded.

"One day I'd like you to go into some detail on how you know all this about these creatures…but I don't think now is the time," Link said.

"I'd be glad to, but I agree. Now is a bad time. As I'm sure Kirby can vouch, this thing is tough."

Miracle Matter punctuated his statement by flying slowly towards the Smashers. Without waiting for an order, they opened fire…and their attacks dissipated against an invisible force field surrounding Miracle Matter.

"How do we get past that?" Falco asked.

"Just wait…it can't attack us like that," Bario said, his body tensed up, as if he was preparing for some strenuous action.

Miracle Matter stopped a few feet away and then the various sides on its body, each of which were shaped like a triangle, separated and were absorbed into what appeared to be a brown boulder inside the shell. It floated there for a second before spawning four large rocks, one above, one below and two to either side.

"Wait for it," Bario said.

They didn't have to wait long…Miracle Matter put on a burst of speed and flew over the Smashers, flinging the rocks at them. The rocks were easily dodged, but Miracle Matter was unperturbed.

They retaliated by firing at it, but their attacks seemed to cause little damage.

"Hit it with the rocks! It's weak to that!" Bario said.

Mario nodded and grabbed one of the rocks and hurled it at Miracle Matter. The rock slammed into it hard, producing a rather large crack and forcing it to drop to the ground. Matter rolled forward, attempting to squish Mario. He jumped over it, but it was fast and it clipped his foot as he jumped, knocking him back down to the ground.

It turned around and was about to attempt a second squishing when Kirby jumped over Matter and turned into a rock, slamming hard enough into Miracle Matter to cause it to shatter…and beneath the rock was the original, mostly white form.

It floated back in the air, and at first it appeared unharmed…but the Smashers quickly noticed that three of the circles were now entirely dark. Once it was in midair again it transformed, this time revealing an orange ball surrounded by eight spikes that gave it a vaguely sun-like appearance.

"What now?" Link asked, still uncomfortable with taking orders from Bario.

"I guess now we hit him with something…pointy."
"Pointy?" Falco asked.

"Yeah, like Link's arrows, or a sword and WATCH OUT!" Bario said, diving to the side as one of the spikes lengthened considerably, nearly skewering him. Two more spikes almost did the same to Samus and Kirby, but they managed to avoid it.

Link managed to pull out his bow and shoot off a few arrows at Miracle Matter while it was busy retracting its spikes. They didn't penetrate the armor, but they did create small cracks in it. Link was about to reload and fire again, when a spike forced him to dodge.

Kirby and Meta looked at each other, and nodded. The two jumped up, Meta quickly taking the lead thanks to his superior aerial ability. Matter extended several of its spikes but Meta easily dodged them and managed to deal a powerful slash to it before having to drop down as it rotated to bring more spikes to bear.

Kirby managed to dodge the spikes as well, although they came a lot closer to him and managed to hit it with another mighty sword strike. The attacks did enough damage to shatter the orange shell, revealing the inner Matter yet again. It was virtually unchanged…except now six circles were dark.

Miracle Matter didn't waste any time…it transformed again, this time into a ball of orange and yellow fire, with a light red flames leaping off from it. Mario didn't even need an order for this, he fired several firebombs into it, but Matter, despite flashing slightly, ignored that and shot a blast of fire at Mario, than a second and a third one at Kirby and Meta.

Meta managed to use his cape to reappear away from the attack, but Kirby only managed to roll part of the way away, one of his feet got a bit scorched. Mario used his cape to deflect the majority of the attack back at Matter, but it fired off more flames, forcing Mario to jump away.

At that moment Falco used his Fire Falco ability to slam into Miracle Matter from behind, shattering its flamy shell.

It stayed in its white form for only a moment before turning into a trio of close together thick green and blue crescents, with the first surrounded by rotating sharp "teeth". It dropped to the ground and sawed towards Link.

He didn't want to stay and see if his shield would work blocking it, he rolled aside at the last second, revealing that this form of Miracle Matter was not very good at turning. As it slid past him he slashed at it, and managed to hit the third crescent, causing it to dissipate.

Kirby dashed towards it from the side, limping slightly because of his foot. When he was close enough he threw his cutter blade at it. It slammed into the second crescent, causing that one to vanish. The Cutter blade came back to Kirby and he prepared to throw it again, but someone beat him to it.

As Matter attempted to turn Bario managed to get close enough to attack. He narrowly turned aside the creature with one blade, before skewering it with the other.
The third and final crescent shattered, yet again revealing Miracle Matter. It floated into the air, twelve of its circles now dark, and without a pause it turned into a large purplish bubble-like ball.

"What the?" Raichu asked, a sentiment that was shared by the other members of the group.

Even Bario looked uncertain, and was unable to provide immediate orders.

Four small bubbles, identical in shape and color to the large one suddenly appeared around Miracle Matter and slowly floated towards the Smashers. When they had narrowed the distance slightly they split again into smaller balls, this time forming eight.

They floated motionless for a moment, and none of the Smashers were quite sure what to do, or even if this was a threat. Kirby knew something was up, but it had been a while since he had fought this foe, so he was having a difficult time recalling it.

The question of whether or not this was a threat was soon answered.

The balls put on a surprising burst of speed and shot towards the Smashers, one to each one, with the exception of Raichu who lucked out.

The attack was so surprising that they almost didn't react fast enough, but they did. All eight of the attacked Smashers managed to avoid a direct hit.

Too bad for them these things didn't need a direct hit.

As soon as they hit the ground the balls exploded. The explosions were small, but they were enough to knock several Smashers off their feet, and shower all of them with bits of debris. Most of them were now bearing several minor cuts.

"Oh!" Bario said excitedly, looking past the explosive attack, "It's a bomb element! Hit it with bombs!"
"No duh," Diddy said a little angrily, jumping up and throwing an orange grenade at it.
Link shot off a bomb arrow at the same time. The arrow hit first, followed closely by the grenade and their combined explosive power was enough to shatter the "bubble."
Miracle Matter wasted no time however, before turning into a yellow ball with sparks of electricity arcing out from it, making it appear even more "sun-like" now than it did when it was in its spike form.

It shot out a long beam of energy that flew towards Samus. She dodged it and fired a blast from her gun at Matter, a move that was mimicked with an electric ball by Raichu.
Miracle Matter flashed, but when the beam hit the ground something interesting happened. It rebounded and slammed into Matter, forcing the beam to split into two pieces, which shot off towards Kirby and Meta.

Both dodged, and Samus and Raichu fired again. Matter shuddered, but the two beams rebounded and split again and this time they went for Link, Falco, Diddy and Bario. They dodged again, as the beams weren't that fast…although they were getting faster.

Samus charged up her gun and fired that, and Raichu shot off a small bolt of lightning…but Miracle Matter wasn't done yet.

The beams rebounded once again, splitting into eight balls of electricity that flew towards eight Smashers like the bomb attack. This time Mario was the lucky one.

They dodged the balls, and made sure to get some extra distance, which was good because they exploded into sparking, painful static electricity that managed to miss all of the Smashers…except for one.

Raichu didn't dodge it. Instead, he let the attack hit him, and used it to power a more powerful lightning bolt attack that slammed into Miracle Matter hard enough for the ball to shatter, revealing the normal white Matter…that now had only three colored circles.

It changed again, this time into a large blue and white ice-cube with six ice-pyramids floating around it.

It shot off the ice things at the Smashers, all of which dodged them, with the exception of Mario and Kirby, both of whom caught one of the pyramids. They were pretty cold, so rather than hanging onto them they threw them at Miracle Matter.

Both connected, Mario's with considerably more force. The ice form shattered, and it looked like Miracle Matter couldn't take anymore as it shrank in on itself, and then each of the triangles that made it up shot outwards and exploded.

Fortunately, none of the Smashers were caught in Miracle Matter's death throes.

The Smashers stood still for a moment, unsure of whether or not they should be celebrating their victory, or remain cautious because of the surprisingly easy victory.

They should remain cautious.

There was a strange wheezing noise coming from behind the Smashers, and they turned to face this new threat. As it neared, clouds slowly started to cover the sky. Dark clouds.

The object was obscured in darkness, and it looked like a blobby misshapen circle. It floated haphazardly towards the Smashers, dipping and rising erratically. When it neared enough for the dim light to illuminate it, it became obvious as to why it was acting the way it was.

It was Dedede. However he didn't look the same. His eyes were shut, and his stomach was pitch-black.

"What's he doing here?" Samus asked angrily.

"I'm not…sure," Bario said slowly.

Dedede didn't stay still for long. With a surprising speed the dark patch on his stomach opened up in a horrifying eye that stared at them with a harsh glare.

"WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?!" Falco yelled, his words echoed, at least somewhat by most of the other Smashers.

"Bario?" Link asked, "What…what do we do?"
"He's possessed. Just attack him…this is only a precursor."

"Possessed by what? A precursor to what?" Raichu asked.

Bario didn't answer as he flung several magic balls at Dedede. Dedede seemed to take the damage, and the eye on his stomach retaliated by firing three dark balls of energy at the Smashers.
The balls moved slowly and were easily evaded. The Smashers needed no further prodding to attack and several projectiles were flung at Dedede.

He switched up his attack, his eye-filled stomach turning into a teeth-filled mouth that started chomping towards the Smashers.

Although the attack was startling, it was also slow, and so the group had little trouble evading it, and in fact Link, Mario, Kirby and Bario all managed to land a powerful slash or smash into Dedede.

Having apparently taking enough damage he collapsed to the ground, and a dark ball shot out of him and high into the shy.

The Smashers watched the ball warily, until a sharp coughing from Dedede grabbed their attention.

"He's still alive?" Samus said, displeased with the idea.

"Apparently…" Bario answered.

"Of course I'm still alive," Dedede growled, looking up at the growing ball of darkness that was forming above them, "Looks like Dark Matter's still causin' problems."

"Dark Matter…that's what I suspected," Bario said.

"What is Dark Matter?" Link asked, "And why didn't you tell us before?"
"Didn't have time, and it really isn't important. Basically Dark Matter is evil, and can possess things, turn into Zero, look we should really focus more on killing it than talking about it."
"I tink dat I'll help," Dedede said, hefting his hammer up.

"You? Help us? Why?" Meta asked.

"I'm pretty sick of dat ting taking over my body and messing with my kingdom. Plus, I really want to hit someting after dat bird beat de crap out me." Dedede stated, hefting his hammer.

"I believe him," Bario said, turning back to Dark Matter as it neared its completion.

"You do? How?" Samus asked, surprised that he was willing to accept someone who tried to have her captured.

"His reasons are sound. Let's just beat this guy so we can go."

The other Smashers nodded, some muttering their disapproval of the situation, but all agreeing that it was not the appropriate time to worry about it. Above them Dark Matter had taken a clear and definite form.

It was bigger than Miracle Matter, about twice its size. And where Miracle was blocky and looked like a mess of polygons shoved together into a shape, this one was smooth and round and much more ball shaped. It was mostly black, with some strange purple petals ringing its back, and its large white eye was marked only by a dark pupil that glared down at the Smashers.

It swooped down at them, intending to use its massive bulk to flatten them, but the slow attack was easily dodged, and the Smashers punished it heavily with their projectiles as it attempted to retreat back into the sky. As it flew past them Dedede hit it hard with his hammer, knocking it slightly off balance. It recovered quickly and managed to return to the safety of the air.

Dark Matter than released its petals and they flew at the Smashers quite quickly. Some were blocked or deflected, but Mario, Link and Raichu were all hit pretty hard and had to take a moment to catch their breath.

Dark Matter didn't give them a moment.

As soon as it noticed some of them slowing, either from being hit by its attack, or merely fatigue from their previous battle, it started firing off thin streaks of black lightning.

The bolts were fast, and several of the Smashers, while managing to avoid direct hits, were suffering electrical burns from the near miss, and the dark aspect of the lightning gave it a poisonous aspect.

Raichu, still trying to recover from where the solid petal thing slammed into his back was the only one not dodging. Even Dedede was doing pretty well in avoiding the attacks, although he was apparently useless at long distance combat.

His lack of movement made him a sitting duck for a lightning bolt from Dark Matter…which was exactly what he wanted. For the second time in recent memory he absorbed the power behind the attack and used it to fire off a very powerful bolt at Dark Matter, so powerful that when it was combined with the damage it had already suffered it caused the dark shell to shatter…revealing the creature inside Dark Matter.

The powerful attack did not come without a price however. Absorbing attacks like that while temporarily beneficial did drain him, especially if he used most of it to unleash an attack. Additionally, the dark aspect of the attack was not drained off in his release of the energy, and so Raichu collapsed, struggling to remain conscious.

"Raichu!" Diddy said, turning away from the changed Dark Matter.

"Not now Diddy!" Bario commanded, "He did his part…make sure you do yours."
"But!"
"Bario's right…we have other things to worry about," Link said, realizing the irony of him telling someone else to listen to Bario.

The thing that was revealed in the destruction of Dark Matter was something Bario called Zero. It looked like a large white, slightly deformed egg. Once the Dark Matter shell was gone it expanded, soon taking up considerably more room than Dark Matter did. Once it was finished growing it opened up its small red eye…and attacked.

The eye flashed at the Smashers, and it fired off several red laser bolts. They were somewhat slow, and the Smashers abused that seeming mistake by pummeling Zero with their projectiles, at least the ones that could reach him.

However the laser bolts had an added effect. Once they hit something they exploded outward, creating a small ring of energy. It burned several of the Smashers that were too slow to avoid it.

"Ow!" Falco yelled, his right side sizzling, "OW!"

"Just keep firing!" Bario said, his left boot missing a good chunk of material from another close call.

Zero fired again, but this time, instead of spreading it out it focused most of them on Kirby…four shots to be exact.

Kirby tried to dodge, but he didn't have enough speed. He was about to turn into a rock, when someone smacked him hard enough with a hammer to send him out of harm's way.

It was Dedede.

He was unable to dodge two of the blasts and was hit hard but was still able to look at Kirby, who was looking back quite confused.

"I'm da only one who's going to smash dat dere you," Dedede said with a grin before staggering to his feet, "and don't you forgets it!"

Deciding that its current attack was ineffective, Zero spawned some miniature Dark Matter creatures out of its body and dispatched them at the Smashers.

They were faster than the laser bolts, but not nearly as dangerous. Once they hit a target they vanished, and the worst the Smashers suffered from was a couple of large bruises.

Zero paused than, as deciding what to do. Upon reaching a conclusion, after numerous attacks hit it, it started firing off laser bolts again.

"Oh no," Mario said, pulling out his hammer and donning his cape.

Amazingly fast he flew up, arcing over the bolts before slamming feet-first into Zero and following that with a powerful hammer blow.

Zero started rolling around in midair, stopping its laser attack in an attempt to knock Mario off. Its super smooth body was already hard to stay onto so as soon as it looked like he was about to fall, Mario jumped off.

Unfortunately for Zero, when it stopped firing that let Dedede get close enough to do something. After a few losses to Kirby, Dedede had trained himself to suck in air and float around like him, and he could get some vertical distance. He used that ability to get close to Zero's position.
Dedede was running out of air though, and he didn't want to attempt a feeble attack from below before he fell. So, taking a page out of Mario's book he gathered all of his energy and flew up, over Zero and came crashing down on his head and slammed his hammer down right after that.

Zero made a strange whistling sound and with a sharp twist, threw Dedede off. Zero than began to change…

It grew slightly larger and rounder, taking on more of a spherical shape. Large white, red-tipped wings grew out of its side and a gold halo formed over its head. At its bottom a large spiked protrusion grew, until it was the same length as the main body.

"Zero Two," Bario said, "Mario! Get out of the sky!"
"Eh?" Mario said.

02 blinked its eye and five crystalline objects spawned from its eye and flew towards Mario. He flew out of their way, but like so many things in this battle they exploded, knocking Mario out of the sky, and hard into the ground.

"This thing changed again? What is he, Vaati?" Diddy asked.

"Aim for the eye!" Bario commanded.

"Really? An enemy who's vulnerable in the eye? What will happen next?" Link asked, firing an arrow at the eye.

"Shut up Link, not now," Samus said, annoyed that her Paralyzer beam didn't reach far enough to hit 02.

Kirby was pretty irritated to, as he and Samus were basically relegated to dodge duty. A few shots hit the thing's eye and it started to release a poisonous green cloud from the large spike, forcing all of them to jump back.
As the battle came closer to Raichu, who had managed to stand, he started to charge up some electricity. He was about to shoot a bolt at 02, but Samus grabbed him.

"Don't. They got this," she told him, a bit of scolding in her tone.

"But I should be helping!" Raichu said, "I can't be weak."
"You're not…look, we should worry about this later, cause now we should MOVE!" Samus yelled, carrying Raichu with her as she jumped away from one of 02's crystalline attacks.

Kirby stared at 02, more particularly the spiky bottom…and something sparked in his brain.

When the toxic clouds cleared, and 02 had fired a burst of exploding crystals at Mario, Link and Meta, Kirby jumped into the air.

He floated along towards the spike, and when he was close enough, he threw his Cutter blade at it. It slammed into the middle of the spike and stuck. Green gas seeped from the cut, but it seeped downwards and Kirby stayed above that.

02 made a squeaking noise, but a burst of concentrated fire from the others distracted it. Kirby grabbed onto one of the spikes sticking out of the larger one and yanked out the Cutter blade.

Pulling out the sword he got from Dark Meta he slashed again with both blades, getting them stuck in opposite sides of where the initial blow was. Before 02 could retaliate, he hammered the severely weakened section of the spike, snapping it off.

As soon as that happened 02 shook so violently Kirby was flung off, but not before he managed to grab his weapons. As he dropped…02 exploded.

Pink dust covered all of the Smashers, healing them. Dedede was startled, having never seen this before, but its rejuvenating effects were certainly welcome.

The Smashers started to relax; after all…surely the battle was done?

It was not.

Shooting out of the vanishing cloud of pink dust came the bodiless red eyeball of 02. It flew into the center of the Smashers and shot forth a powerful burst of energy, sending Dedede flying. The others jumped towards it, trying to destroy it…and it exploded.

The explosion expanded into a portal that dragged the Smashers into it before vanishing completely…leaving Dedede alone on the cloudy wasteland.