Hi there, let's start another chapter of The Beast Within, all characters belong to whoever owns them, the Super Smash Bros series belongs to Nintendo and the Smash Minde series belongs to Ultiman92, The-3-Sueslayers is my Bata reader.
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Chapter 3: The Beasts Escape
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The Smash Mansion, now rebuilt by the Hands, was a huge place, easy to avoid people in. Bowser stalked down one hallway, feeling irritable. The nightmares hadn't gone away, and the mixture of fear and lack of sleep was driving him crazy. Every night, the same one. And every night, someone would catch him waking up afraid. Much longer of this and they would probably start to think he'd snapped. He'd simply decided to ignore them for now. The Smash Balls were another matter - however badly his opponent was thrashing him, Bowser refused to touch them. He denied any fear, simply saying he preferred to win on his own. Deep down he knew the truth: they scared him more than anything else.
"Stupid dreams, why won't they just leave me alone?" Bowser muttered to himself.
"Why do you think, idiot? Because I'm still in here and not out there!" the voice echoed like a war gong through Bowser's head. "Let. Me. Out."
"Are you kidding me?" Bowser asked incredulously. "Not in a million years!"
"Why not? Don''t you want to be free of this curse?" the voice whispered, becoming less angry and more persuasive. But Bowser wasn't fooled.
"Well, yeah! But letting you out will make it worse!" Bowser said. He heard a robotic shifting sound and saw ROB, accompanied by Kirby, staring at him.
"What are you looking at?" Bowser snorted fire at the robot and the puffball. The two of them dodged the fire and left him alone.
"It's a win win situation, Bowser," the voice said. "You're free from me and I'm free from this prison."
"I'm not that stupid," Bowser said. "You can't just pull a body out of thin air. You want mine, and you're not getting it!"
"I apologize for underestimating your intelligence," the voice whispered, "But you aren't exactly the smartest koopa around. At one point you thought Yoshi was a green donkey, remember?"
"I was barely out of the shell!" Bowser said angrily, losing his last shreds of patience.
"Besides... that wasn't even me, and we both know that!"
"Fine, leave me in here. But don't think I'll make it easy for you," The voice said darkly before it fell silent. Bowser sighed.
"I'm going nuts," he said, holding his head.
"Pika pii?" A little voice questioned from behind him. Bowser turned to see Pikachu. The little mouse pokemon looked solemn and concerned as he stared at Bowser's face.
"What do you want, rodent?" Bowser grumbled. He didn't have it in him to sound threatening.
"Pii. Pika pika pii pikachu!" Pikachu said, clearly worried. Bowser couldn't make sense of the words - all the pokemon found it impossible to communicate with the others without the psychic Mewtwo's help - but he could understand Pikachu's basic meaning.
"Look what I was doing is none of your business, why don't you leave me alone? Buzz off, cat food." Bowser turned away and stalked off down the hall.
"Pika pii," Pikachu said softly. Bowser was acting very strangely, and Pikachu knew just who to talk to about it. He looked around to see no one there, and slipped off down a seldom used hallway.
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The seldom used hallway led Pikachu down a wide set of stairs and into the very bottom of the mansion. The door at the end of the stairs opened into a large basement, empty save for the trophies. With the hands distracted by a particularly tense battle between Lucario and Link, Pikachu was fairly sure that they wouldn't catch him there. Any Smasher who the Hands had tired of playing with was stored there. One of them, known for his wisdom and drive to help others, was the one Pikachu searched for that day
Pikachu crept across the floor and gently tapped the base of the Mewtwo trophy. In a glow of light, the pokemon appeared in the flesh, deep in a trance.
Pikachu reached up and tapped Mewtwo's leg with his tail. The pokemon didn't move, but Pikachu could sense his awareness of the world around him returning.
"A beautiful dream fades to dust upon waking," a soft, melancholy voice sounded in Pikachu's mind. Mewtwo opened his eyes and shook himself slightly, rising into the air with his habitual levitation as he banished the last of whatever dream he'd had. The melancholy faded from his voice, and Mewtwo was all business. "Pikachu, I told you not to risk yourself unless there was an emergency. Is something happening?"
"Pika!" Pikachu said with a nod. He explained in as few words as were necessary.
"Bowser has been acting... oddly? Talking to himself, angry, waking up from nightmares almost every night?" Mewtwo's voice was suffused with concern. "Tell me, has the talk been of 'releasing' something? A 'curse' perhaps? Does it sound like there is another talking to him that you can't hear?"
Pikachu nodded slowly. "Pi, pika pika pii?" How did you know?
"I can sense what is going on in an open mind, and in my trance I managed to keep my mind even if my body was a trophy. Bowser has no telepathic protection whatsoever, and before I was put down here I could tell that there was something alien in Bowser's mind. I have had time to think, and now I am sure I know what it is. Pikachu, I'm going to need your help for this, it could be very-" Mewtwo stopped in mid-thought and slowly looked up. "Pikachu, run. Now."
Pikachu, trusting Mewtwo as he did, fled immediately. But before he got very far, he was swatted against the wall by the Master Hand. From his limp position on the floor, he saw the Master Hand grab hold of Mewtwo, squeezing him and turning him into a trophy once more. A purple flash suffused the living Mewtwo's eyes and, a second later, faded slowly out of the trophy's.
Pikachu ran, racing back up the stairs toward the mansion.
"Dumb toy! Don't come back down here!" Master Hand called.
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"Hey... no... leave me alone..." Bowser twitched in his sleep. His eyes flew open, his breathing hard. "I can't take this anymore!" He had to do something.
Earlier that day, Pikachu had gotten major hurt from the Master Hand when he had slipped down to the Trophy room in an attempt to revive Mewtwo. The pokemon had spent the rest of the day being treated by Jigglypuff and Zelda, and was probably asleep.
But where he had gone gave Bowser an idea... possibly one that could free him.
Bowser stormed out of his room, still fuming. Marth peered out of his own as Bowser stomped by, rubbing bleary eyes and asking an instinctive question in his native language, switching quickly back to the common one they all used. "What's going on?"
"Nothing," Bowser said.
Marth nodded and closed his room door once more. This time, Bowser walked quietly - there were others who slept less soundly than Marth who he might wake.
Eventually, he reached the bottom of the stairs, heading into the room Pikachu had gone in before. He found, at the back of the room, a massive trophy in pale colors, with most of the life sapped out of it. Life force that was now inside Bowser and driving him insane. He put his hands on the Giga Bowser trophy, allowing the life to drain back into it, filling it with color once more.
Finished, he felt a deep weariness spread over him, which quickly changed to dizziness, and he collapsed. Unconscious, he was unable to stop his head hitting the base of the trophy, which slowly formed into Giga Bowser.
Giga Bowser took one look down at the sleeping Bowser and left, laughing scornfully.
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Well that's it for this chapter, I will update as soon as I can, goodbye for now.
