Thanks for reviewing! Woo! I'm all better now! Goodbye, sickness, goodbye! I also need to hurry up and finish this, because I leave for Chicago in a week. So expect quicker updates!
Chapter 8
28 Smashers remaining…
Marth, Ike, and Dr. Mario walked along the river as they headed back towards what they hoped was the Smash Mansion, Squirtile dragging Roy behind them.
Squirtle frowned, feeling the harsh heat emanate from Roy's skin. It was so obvious how to fix what was wrong with him. He didn't know why the humans hadn't thought of it before and hadn't wanted to test his theory of a cure, but it was shaping up to be a long day and dragging this unconscious lump around was getting tiring. Based off Ness's progress, Roy was going to start getting worse very soon and Squirtle decided that it was worth the risk.
"Squirtle Squirtle!" he called, turning around so he was facing Roy and jumping on the human's face, spraying water all over him.
"Squirtle!" Ike exclaimed, turning around and pulling the pokemon off Roy. "Hey, what are you doing?"
Ignoring him completely, Squirtle squirmed out of his arms and jumped down towards Roy. He'd just swallowed some of the water and Squirtle could already sense his high fever going down, just slightly. "Squirtle Squirtle!" he exclaimed proudly, jumping over Roy's chest happily and rolling around in an circle around him.
"Hey, what's gotten into you?" Ike shouted as he started to approach the pokemon, glancing down to make sure Roy was all right.
Roy's eyes were open.
"Oh my god!" Ike gasped, dropping to his knees beside Roy. "Marth! Dr. Mario! Get over here; Roy's waking up!"
"What? But… that's impossible!" Dr. Mario cried, hurrying over and kneeling next to Roy worriedly, checking his pulse and his fever.
"You guys?" Roy asked weakly and coughed slightly. "What… what's going on?"
Marth stared in amazement, then gasped, "Squirtle! Squirtle, you did it!" They helped Roy sit up and he looked around at them in confusion. His fever was getting lower and Roy seemed to be weak, but fine.
Roy's teeth were chattering as he brushed red hair back from his sweaty forehead and leaned back slightly on his hands, Marth and Ike still holding up most of his weight. "I'm… it- it's c- cold," he stuttered, still in the dark completely about what was going on.
Dr. Mario sat down next to him, resting a hand against his forehead before swearing under his breath. "His fever's still high- lower than before, but high enough to make him feel cold."
Supporting Roy's back as the recently healed warrior looked down at the pokemon, Ike untied his cloak and draped it around Roy's shivering shoulders, Squirtle's cool body still resting against his feverish skin. "What's going on?" Roy asked again, absentmindedly patting Squirtle's head and looking around worriedly.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Dr. Mario asked, looking him over for any signs that he might not be well.
"Um… fighting Ganondorf with you two. What happened after that?"
Marth sighed in relief- Roy, Ike, and himself had all been fighting Ganondorf right before Roy passed out. "Well, remember how Ness was sick? You ended up with the same thing. About a dozen more got sick and we'd sent some scouts out, who couldn't find out why this was happening, so everybody left fled to Meta Knight's Halberd and we left- the scouts we'd sent out had found a possible lead and we were searching for another. That was before one of the people we were tracking sent up some kind of of column of fire and broke us up. We don't know where the others are, but right before we were hit in the sky, Ness got a lot worse. You would of been next, if Squirtle hadn't healed you."
Roy nodded slowly, trying to digest it all. "And now?"
"We're on our way to the Smash Mansion."
Ike glanced around nervously before announcing, "And we should continue doing that. It's getting late and I'd rather nor run into any of those creatures who blasted us out of the sky in the dark. We can catch you up, Roy, on the way. Can you stand?"
Roy hesitated, nodding uncertainly before slowly pushing himself up to his knees. Marth and Ike quickly slipped under his arms and pulled him to his feet, leading him towards what they hoped was the Smash Mansion. Dr. Mario walked in front of the trio and Squirtle jumped up on Marth's shoulder. Together, they set out to either meet up with the others or find the creatures behind this disease and turning the Halberd into a gigantic fireball in the sky.
Falco could not believe this. Ace, M, and the other creature had been distracted by their arwings about ten hours previously and now, he and Wolf were hiding- they were trying to get back to their arwings.
Problem was, M and the other one were standing guard beside the two landed arwings. Falco and Wolf could of just forced their arwings to fly off to another location and escaped then, but Ace was tracking them amazingly well.
Falco and Wolf were animals. Wolf, especially, could track things extremely well- but he had never seen anything like this. It was like Ace could read their minds and was a step ahead of them the entire time.
"Son of a bitch!" Wolf gasped after he sniffed the air and could still smell Ace on their tail. They had been running non-stop ever since Ace had realized they were gone and while they were exhausted, Ace wasn't letting up.
"We can't keep this up much longer, Wolf," Falco panted, glancing over his shoulder. Sure enough, there was a flash of blue about twenty yards back that was Ace following them. "He's-"
A loud, panicked shout interrupted Falco, and both he and Wolf recognized it as Ace. They looked back to see that they were no longer being followed- in fact, Falco could see that Ace was on his hands and knees. He cried out again, and Falco and Wolf didn't stop to marvel at this new turn of events. Now that they could finally focus, they called their arwings to their current location and focused on Ace, who wasn't moving.
"On our way out, I'll call Fox. He should of-"
"Look out!" Wolf's warning came too late; a limp body crashed through the trees and landed squarely on Falco's head. Falco collapsed underneath Captain Falcon and hit the ground hard.
Wolf stared down at the entangled bodies on the ground before pushing Captain Falcon off of Falco with his foot. Other bodies came falling through the trees, most around Ace, except for Snake, who fell near Captain Falcon. "What the hell?" he muttered under his breath as Ace cried out again, right before their approaching arwings could be heard.
Falco got slowly to his feet, his exhausted body trembling, pulling on Captain Falcon's limp arm. "Come on. I don't know what's going on, but I don't want to stay around to find out. We're lucky Ace is out- for now. You get Snake; I got this one."
"Wait, stop!" Wolf hissed. "Look at them; they're sick! If we stick them in that tiny cockpit with us, we'll get sick for sure! I don't know about you, but I'm not going to risk it."
Falco glared at him. "Well, I'm not leaving this two hear to get captured by Ace. It's too risky to get the bodies closer to Ace- plus we wouldn't have room for anyone else- but we're not leaving these two behind!"
Their two arwings descended through the trees, cutting through thin trunks and scattering the wood and leaves all around Falco and Wolf. Rolling his eyes angrily, Wolf heaved Snake over his shoulder and jumped into his ship, snapping, "If I get sick, you're dead."
"Wolf, if you get sick, chances are that you'll wind up dead."
R.O.B. woke up to the sounds of two fierce, loud voices arguing. "Ace, how could you!" a woman's voice cried. "You let the falcon and wolf get away! What the hell is wrong with you?"
Then there was a loud thump, like something being kicked, before another voice- this one, male- said, "M, calm down. We gave up two captives, but we gained two more. And it's not his fault; to predict so much at that exact moment? God, it's all that moron's fault. All he had to do was have the kid think about what was going on and Ace would of known. Instead, we've got a passed out Ace and two sick captives."
"Well, not for long. Ace healed them already."
"Which resulted in Ace falling unconscious. I told you both it was too soon! They could of waited! M, you never listen to me."
R.O.B. opened his eyes and analyzed his surroundings. It was unusually hot and it looked like the place had once been a forest. Now, though, there were particles of smoke in the air and in his line of vision, he could see several trees burning. He could also hear a few unusual sound waves not to far away from here that he didn't think were related to the forest fire.
"Oh, that's rich! I don't see you going after Ace for-"
"M! Shut up! I hear something."
There was a very high probability that the people R.O.B. was listening to were the warriors responsible for the disease, the disaster on the Halberd, and now, this forest fire. And if they didn't know who was making those noises… it had to be other Smashers.
If he distracted the elemental warriors, perhaps the other Smashers would hear and wouldn't be caught unawares… well, anything was worth a shot at this point.
Without another second of contemplation, R.O.B. had shot upright and fired a laser in the direction of the voices. He hit a woman, who had been arguing with a man other the unconscious body of another. She shouted in pain and staggered back a few steps, then turned and glared at him, practically snarling her distaste. "He's using heat," she laughed. "He's using heat and we're surrounded by fire. He can't hurt us. Robot, you just made a big mistake."
"Nice to join up with you two again!" Fox exclaimed, her voice crackling through to sound in both Falco's and Wolf's arwings.
"I told you we didn't need your help! We got out of there just fine on our own!" Wolf growled.
"Yeah, and now it's time for some payback! Team Star Fox, let's go!" The three arwings descended through the smoke and flames of the burning forest.
"Son of a- Falco, Wolf! We're attacking the other Smashers!" Fox shouted, pulling up in his flight sharply before he crashed into the crowd of Smashers hurrying through the forest. He pulled a 180 maneuver before slamming his hand down on t he controls in a panic, trying desperately to slow down- only about twenty yards away from the three warriors that Falco and Wolf had just escaped from were the other Smashers.
"They're going to meet if we don't do something!"
"Well, Falco, here's an idea for that- why don't we just obliterate these three morons? We're in the air, they're on the ground, shouldn't be too hard!" And before either Fox or Falco could stop him, Wolf was in a sharp descent towards Ace, M, and the other man, who were all currently engaged in a fierce argument.
Fox shouted in alarm when, instead of being destroyed in a blast of lasers, the woman screamed and a rope of fire erupted from her hand, catching Wolf's arwing in mid-air and holding it fast above the clearing. Wolf struggled to escape, but to no avail. "Help me!" Wolf cried in alarm. "Help!"
Fox tried to, but almost instantly ended up in the same situation as Wolf. Falco, luckily, maintained enough sense to stay out of range from those deadly ropes of fire and, instead, flew back to the Smashers to stop them from walking into this mess unawares.
He was too late.
Bowser, Ganondorf, King Dedede, Lucas, Mario, Olimar, Pichu, and Ivysaur all headed into the open clearing, the pokemon carrying the unconscious figures of Luigi, Mr. Game and Watch, Ness, Peach, Sonic, and Yoshi. Lucas and Mario, the head of the gang, froze, staring at the ongoing battle in horror.
Falco hovered above the Smashers, watching worriedly as the three elemental warriors turned to stare at the Smashers. M and the other creature crashed the Fox and Wolf into the ground, wrecking their arwings before turning to face the Smashers, preparing to fight.
"Fox! Wolf!" Falco shouted, landing his arwing next to theirs just in time to see Wolf and Fox climb from the burning wreckage of their ships. He jumped out of his own and hurried over to the incensed creatures, who both pulling their guns from their holsters and aimed them at the elemental warriors.
"Play time's over!" Wolf shouted, running towards them and joining the crowd of Smashers facing the three warriors. R.O.B., who'd somehow ended up as a captive of the warriors, joined the fight, with Wario, who'd also been captured, sick and unconscious on the ground.
"Well?" Ace shouted over the flames. "Are you all going to just surrender? If you do, it'll be easier for you in the end!"
No one said anything. The only thing that broke the silence was the crackling of the flames slowly taking down the entire forest.
"I see. Well, apparently you don't understand how powerful we are. You think you can fight us? You think you will survive?"
Once again, only silence responded to Ace's threat. The creature growled and raised his hand, ice crystals and water droplets forming around his hand, but M rested a hand on his shoulder.
"Relax, Ace. We all know that you could take them. I'd rather us take on the Smashers all at once, with the others to join us. I propose you let us fix this. We'll lead these creatures to the Smash Mansion, where we can meet up with the others…" M raised her hand as well, and, together with the other man, who still had no name, they created a ring of fire to circle around the Smashers.
"Hey!" Mario shouted, running forward but jumping back with a yelp with flames moved closer to him.
"I don't think so," M said with a chuckle. "You won't be escaping any time soon. Now, come on. Follow us…. well, you don't exactly have a choice."