Chapter 2: Being Solar – Day 2: Steps 5-6

Master Hand stood limply, looking out at his tiny earth, somehow guzzling down his morning coffee. It was his great misfortune to have barely slept the night before, partly due to Crazy Hand's "exclusive all-night concert", and partly due to the terrible feeling he'd gained in the pit of his "stomach" after eating spaghetti that was on fire.

"Guh…" he grumbled. He floated groggily over to the table where World Creation 101 lay open, its spine facing upward. Flipping it over, he glanced at the open page–Step 5: Make a sun. "Crazy," called the hand weakly. "Crazy, we have to make a sun today–" He was interrupted by a swift smack across his side that sent him sprawling back into the table. "WHAT THE HECK, CRAZY?" he yelled furiously at the left hand. "Oh hey, I'm actually awake," he noticed.

"YOU'RE A SICK, SICK HAND, MH!" Crazy Hand yelled back. "How could you even suggest something so vile? What kind of hand do you think I am, eh?"

"All I said was that we have to make a sun today!" He pointed at the page in the book. "See?"

"Oh."

"Whatever did you think I meant?"

"…Nothing."

"Well anyways, we're skipping step 4 because that was to make stars, and we kind of already have stars," explained Master Hand. Crazy Hand raised himself. "…You have a question?"

"Can we make more stars?" Crazy Hand asked innocently.

"We have enough stars as it is..." the right hand said. "So we're just going to go ahead and make a sun. It seems like a pretty easy step. All the book tells you to do is take a burning star and…make it bigger." He reread the sentence hesitantly. "…Is it just me or is this book oversimplifying the process?"

"It's just you." Crazy Hand circled his brother impatiently. "Let's gooooo!"

"Why don't you do it, Crazy Hand?" Master Hand suggested pleasantly. "I'm sure you'd do a much better job that I would." He wasn't exactly in the mood for getting close to any scorching-hot, flaming balls of fiery destruction at the moment. Besides, it sounded more like Crazy Hand's department anyway.

"You really mean it, brother?"

"I sure do." Master Hand patted him on the back and led him out the door. "Now go make me proud." He watched with great satisfaction as Crazy Hand zoomed away. "And while he works I can get more sleep…" He yawned, going back inside, and crawled into his bed. He placed a small nightcap on the knuckle of his index finger and fluffed the pillow. "Crazy will be fine…"

Master Hand awoke to the smell of burned wood and hot gas. He got up with a jolt, cinders flying up about him, and looked around at what supposed to be his room. Instead, he was surrounded by piles and piles of ash. He stared at it, traumatized, as he wondered how he could have ever thought to leave Crazy Hand to handle any scorching-hot, flaming balls of fiery destruction on his own.

"WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?" he yelled in anguish.

"I finished the sun!" Crazy Hand said, zipping over to him proudly. The Hand of Destruction bounced around joyfully while his brother sobbed. "You must really be proud of me to cry like that!" he remarked, which only made the other hand feel even worse.

"What have you DONE?"

"I thought I told you! I finished the sun! You need to pay better attention or something," the left hand lectured, shaking a finger at him disapprovingly.

"And you burned down our home in the process?" Master Hand cringed at the thought of it.

"We had some minor technical difficulties." Crazy Hand looked away shiftily. Master Hand sighed in defeat.

"So where is our sun now?" he asked as calmly as he could.

"We have a son?"

"You just made it!" Master Hand pinched his fingers together and shook them slightly. He took a deep breath. "So where is it anyway?"

"Oh it's over there." Crazy Hand pointed his thumb to a large pile of soot at the far right. "It was getting too bright and I didn't have any sunglasses so I covered it up with a blanket instead! Good idea, huh? Except I'm not so sure where the blanket went. Spooky." With a sigh, Master Hand set out to fix his brother's mess for what felt like the millionth time that week. He looked behind the towering ash pillars and frowned when he saw their new sun. He'd expected it to be bigger than that, but, given the somewhat expected circumstances at its current size, was grateful that it wasn't. Now he just had to move it elsewhere.

"Uh…." He peered at it dubiously for a moment before curling up into a determined fist. He snapped his fingers. "Oh! No big deal. I'll just cover it in fireproof material." He made a box around the sun and hauled it off the platform, where it stayed aloft in the void of space. As with their earth, they'd be increasing their sun's size drastically later on.

"Ok, so the sooner we finish this, the better," Master Hand said as he went back to Crazy Hand.

"Aren't you gonna fix the house first?" Crazy Hand asked.

"We might as well wait until we finish the universe and make a new house on the earth." The Hand of Creation stretched his fingers. He retrieved the world creation book–which was, unremarkably to him, completely unscathed–to see what the next step was. "Step 6: Make a moon. Oh, and it's actually more difficult than making a sun, what a surprise," he said drily. As he read on, however, he grew even more skeptical of the book. "…'Make a bunch of random asteroids and mush them together into a spherical shape.'" It can't be that simple, he thought. They were making a universe, after all. There has to be more to it. He drummed his fingers against the floor in a baffled manner.

Crazy Hand sprang over excitedly. "What's the next step?" he asked. Master Hand showed him the step and he let out an exaggerated gasp. "You have, like, totally gotta be kidding me!" he exclaimed in disbelief. "What is this?"

"I know," Master Hand replied. "It's absolutely maddenin–"

"THIS IS SO EASYYYYYY! I CAN TOTALLY DO THIS! Right? Right?" The left hand poked the right hand zealously. A little too zealously.

"Ow! OW! O-"

"Wowzers! You're frozen!" Crazy Hand said, literally pointing out the obvious. The glacier that Master Hand was stuck in shook with his rage. A loud, muffled sound could be heard coming from him. "What's that? You want me to do this step, too? Oh you're so nice to me, brother! Even if you're getting lazy! Of course I'll do it for you!" Master Hand twitched slightly, his stifled protests failing to reach the other hand, who had dashed out of his sight.

The glacier shattered a few moments later and the Hand of Creation stiffened as a wave of asteroids went zooming past him–he might've been better off frozen after all.

"Crazy–" He quickly bent backward as the asteroids passed him again. "What the hack?"

"WHEEEEEEEEE!" Crazy Hand yelled as he chased after the large rocks. "FASTER! ORBIT FASTER!" It was at this point that Master Hand noticed just what they were orbiting around; the fireproof box holding in the tiny sun. He moved away from the asteroids' flight path and watched curiously.

"What are you up to, Crazy Hand?" he asked the next time the hand flew by. Said crazy hand jumped out of the path of orbit and fiddled his fingers restlessly.

"Force field glove, stat!" He seemed to beam at Master Hand.

"So what's the plan?" Master Hand asked as he filled the order.

"I'm wearing two gloves!" Crazy Hand replied, much to the other hand's chagrin. "NOW BACK IT UP BROTHA!" he yelled. The left hand engulfed himself in a strange dark aura. Master Hand backed away startled–he'd never seen his brother so ominously determined before.

"Crazy?" asked Master Hand. His voice wavered at the sight of the oncoming asteroids. Crazy Hand clenched into a tight fist and hurled himself at the rocks.

"PAWNCH!"

A huge explosion lit up the void. Its blast was so loud that it could be heard worlds away…

"HEY! LISTEN!"

"Well what is it this time?"

"Did you hear that weird noise?"

"No, no I didn't. And you know, that's an even less helpful remark than usual. So thanks."

"FOX! Do a barrel roll!"

"Peppy, there's nothing on radar."

"But I heard an explosion! There's gotta be something!"

"…Maybe you should take a break. Old guy is going loony…"

"What was that?"

"Oh nothing."

"Whoa. Hey, hey, dude! Did you hear that noise?"

"Dude! Quit shoving me! You're gonna make me get Game Over!"

"But, man, it was all…explody-like!"

"Go play Pokémon or something. See look? I'm down to two hearts."

"Bowser's not that hard a boss…"

"Shut up."

What was left was a round moon and two gloves the color of charcoal. There was a brief silence as they stared at their mini moon.

"I don't think there's a man in there," Crazy Hand said after a moment. "If anything there's a pink bunny rabbit."

"I'm going to go clean off now…" Master Hand sighed. Looking around he added, "In fact I'll be cleaning everything so–"

"I'll help!"

"No!" Master Hand shook fearfully. "I mean…" He shifted slightly. "If you stay you might see that rabbit." Crazy Hand gasped.

"That's a great idea!"

The Hand of Creation floated away and his left-handed counterpart giggled; he liked rabbits.