Thanks for the reviews! Just so you know, I count the Ice Climbers as one Smasher in my whole 'X Smashers remaining' thing. I also call the blue one Popo and the pink one Nana, but I may have that switched. Or the names may be completely wrong. Sorry.

Chapter 7

29 Smashers remaining…

Lucas tumbled through the trees, his own shout lost to the others surrounding him as the branches cut his skin but slowed him down enough to save his life when he finally hit the ground.

The blow knocked the air out of his lungs and he remained still for a moment, staring up through the trees before pushing himself upright, wincing at the pain in his back. That was sure to leave a bruise. He looked around at the others who'd escaped the ship with him, running a hand through his hair and dislodging at least fifteen leaves.

There was Bowser, Ganondorf, and King Dedede, who'd all fallen on top of each other and were fighting to roll away from the heap. Mario lying next to his sick brother, Luigi. An unconscious Sonic and Yoshi were dangerously close to the edge of a river, with Ness, Mr. Game and Watch, and Peach collapsed a few feet away from them. Pichu and Ivysaur were sticking close together as they maneuvered through the crowd of mostly sick, unconscious people, the few who were well rolling on the ground in pain. Olimar and his Pikmin were following the pokemon hesitantly, seeing, like Lucas, who had been trapped on their section of the burning Halberd.

Coughing slightly, Lucas got unsteadily to his feet and stumbled over to the two sick people who were on the verge of falling in the river. He pulled them back to safety before looking around for anybody to talk to to figure out what they were going to do now.

Lucas jogged over to where Mario was still looking over his brother. "Hey," he said, pulling Mario back. "Don't touch him. You could get sick."

Mario laughed bitterly. "Now that we're back down here, we're probably all going to end up sick. No use in prolonging the inevitable."

"Well, we might as well start moving- the Halberd didn't just fall out of the sky. Those elemental warriors caused it and they're probably hunting us right now."

Mario sighed, closing his eyes for a moment in exhaustion before forcing himself to his feet and calling for everybody's attention. No one who was awake and conscious was very keen on just waiting here like sitting ducks, and the general consensus was to get moving as soon as possible. Olimar, Ivysaur, and Pichu took care of transporting the six sick people as they started moving, heading in what they thought was back towards the Smash Mansion. That was the most likely place they could hope to meet up with any of the other Smashers- the fact that they'd managed to destroy the Halberd from the ground meant these warriors were more powerful than they had ever suspected.

"Pikachu, Pikachu!"

Toon Link opened his eyes to see Pikachu climbing from his stomach to his neck and purring into his neck. "Pikachu, Pikachu!"

He groaned. "I'm up, I'm up," Toon Link mumbled, but the moment he sat up, Pikachu nudged him over to the unconscious body beside him- Ash.

Swearing under his breath, Toon Link rolled over to check on Ash, catching sight of the two Ice Climbers waking up on the other side of Ash. "Pikachu, go check on the Ice Climbers, all right? I'll look over Ash," he ordered, sitting upright and feeling Ash's pulse. No slower or faster than was natural, and his fever seemed as high as before too- but Ness had only gotten worse after almost a week, and Ash had only been sick for a couple hours. It was going to take time.

"Don't worry, Pikachu, he's fine. What about Ice-"

"Pika pika pika!"

Frowning, Toon Link moved closer then recoiled in shock, pulling Pikachu back with him.

The Ice Climbers were both unconscious, but Nana just seemed to be asleep from the hard fall.

Popo had a fever and a nose bleed.

Lucario growled, pushing Mewtwo away from him seconds before he crashed into the hot yellow sand of the desert. Mewtwo simply came to a stop about an inch above the ground and continued levitating with a smug smile.

Glaring at him, Lucario got to his feet and dusted himself off before looking around worriedly. Thankfully, they had landed on the edge of the desert, near a forest, and the loose sand had provided somewhat a nice cushion for their fall.

Diddy Kong was currently nudging a sick Donkey Kong nervously, trying to wake him up but to no avail. Jigglypuff was following Mewtwo, Link and Zelda were talking in low, worried voices and Kirby and Meta Knight were looking up to the sky, where Meta Knight's magnificent Halberd had been only minutes before.

"Well, we know that these guys are done playing," Link said softly, drawing his sword and running his hand along the blade. "I'd love to fight them, man to man, without any of their special powers added in that mix."

"Don't think about, Link," Zelda advised. "These creatures are too powerful to be defeated by brute force. Whatever they are, they'v emanated to scatter us like dust in the wind, and we're all accomplished fighters… I'm worried. About the others. What if someone who was sick ended up in the wild alone? How will we ever find them?"

Shaking his head, Link sheathed his sword and turned towards the forest. "We can't worry about that now. Right now, we have to find the others."

"How, though? We have no idea where they are!"

"Then we head to the Smash Mansion. That's our best bet."

Pit and Charizard, in the dark about how much trouble all the other Smashers were in, flew over the grassy plain, headed straight for the group of four people who were standing there, waiting for them. It was slightly unnerving, how they didn't even try to run.

"Confident, huh?" Pit snarled. "Let's go, Charizard! We'll show them how we really fight- not in the dark with hidden diseases! We'll show them!"

Charizard roared in agreement as they soared towards the ground, landing in front of the four warriors and preparing to fight.

The new group of six remained still for a moment before one of the group, a man with long brown hair, stepped forward and asked, "You… Pit and Charizard, right? How did you find us out here?"

Pit separated his bow into two swords and glared at them, keeping his silence. Charizard stretched his wings and took a step forward, growling furiously.

Another from the group, this one another male with long blue hair, shrugged. "Fine. I see you're not interested in talking. Are you here to fight us?" He was met with more silence, so he smirked and exclaimed, "Good with us! Although don't blame us when you lose and say it wasn't a fair fight. You're choosing to fight two on four. Go!"

The four jumped out of their stillness, rushing towards Pit and Charizard. A female redhead and the one who talked first ran to Pit while a young blonde and the one with blue hair attacked the Pokemon.

Pit found himself accosted with glowing fireballs that he was barely able to reflect with his blades and earthquakes shaking the ground beneath his feet. "What- how are they doing that?" Pit shouted just before another earthquake knocked him off his feet.

Meanwhile, Charizard was having his own problems. He found himself being attacked with cold blasts of wind and worse, water. He roared in pain and released a wave of fire at them in a desperate act- throwing the two back and knocking the blue one out completely.

The blonde gasped, taking a step back and shouting for the others to help. The redhead ran at Charizard, shouting, "You're lucky he's already exhausted! You won't be so fortunate with me!"

Charizard tried breathing fire on her but she barely seemed phased by it; in fact, she laughed at him and began fighting back with fire herself. It didn't seem to hurt Charizard too much either, but Pit was still struggling to get away from the man apparently causing all the earthquakes. Finally Pit was able to jump and hover in the air, so the earthquakes couldn't touch him, and began shooting arrow after arrow at the man.

The few that weren't dodged clearly caused a lot of pain until the blonde interceded, slashing at him with her sword so he was forced to revert to a defensive strategy. The redhead cried out and began fighting Pit as well, abandoning the man with brown hair to Charizard. When Pit was knocked out and thrown to the ground, Charizard was able to force his opponent back just long enough for him to grab Pit and jump into the sky, flying away to safety as fast as they could.

They'd ended up losing, but it was as close as anyone had gotten to beating these elemental warriors. If it had been four against four instead of two against four, they would of won.

It was a start.

So sorry for the long wait. I got sick again, a lot worse than before, and had no motivation whatsoever to get up and update. Not totally better yet, but enough to do this. Sorry for making you wait almost a week.