Thanks for reviewing! Note: Now, my 'X Smashers remaining' is going to relate to Smashers captured by the enemy, instead of how many are sick, the enemy heal any Smashers they captured, as I mentioned last chapter. All right, continuing on…

Chapter 9

21 Smashers remaining…

Charizard flew as fast as he could, Pit unconscious on his back. The four warriors they'd just fought had remained behind for several minutes after Charizard had fled, but soon the fire pokemon had found himself being hunted by four elemental warriors.

He was headed back in the direction of the Smash Mansion. Nobody would be there, as nearly everybody was on board Meta Knight's Halberd, but it was better than just flying off into the unknown while being chased by these creatures.

Pit stirred on his back and groaned softly, and Charizard felt the human push himself up into a sitting position. "Charizard?" he mumbled sleepily. "What's going on?"

In answer, he roared and stretched his long neck over his shoulder, gesturing with his head to the elemental warriors on the ground. Pit followed his gaze, than gasped and tightened his grip on his bow. "Palutena, help us," he muttered under his breath before diving off Charizard's back, rising on a thermal current and flying underneath him.

Toon Link and Nana walked slowly along the path, Nana dragging Popo and Pikachu pulling Ash along behind him. They were all exhausted. It had been about five hours since they had fallen from the burning Halberd and so far, they had found nobody in their track back to the Smash Mansion. When Toon Link had climbed to the top of a tree to try and see any familiar landmarks in the area and had only discovered a forest fire what looked like thirty miles to the northeast of their current location- probably where the most of the burning wreckage had fallen.

After stopping for a short rest, Toon Link and Pikachu both stood up and were about to start on their way again when they heard an explosion not too far away.

Toon Link drew his sword and whirled around, Pikachu mimicking his motions as electricity bristled in his fur. They left the edge of the river and hid in the trees as whatever had exploded knocked several trees out of the way, allowing them to see a group of four people- elemental warriors.

Three of them were standing still and glaring at a male with red hair, who laughed sheepishly and shrugged. "You defy the power of prediction," a blond male said. "That's how ridiculous you are."

One with blue hair, and the only female in the group, nodded in agreement. "Exactly. Was it our plan to go crazy and practically create a volcanic eruption for that ship the Smashers were on? No! You probably gave Ace a seizure with everything happening all at one, as he's trying to cast Mind Read over such great distances already and that's not even his base power. You need to grow up."

The other three started walking and the redhead hurried after them, exclaiming, "Wait, come on! This one was just an accident!"

"Oh, just leave it. I don't know why exactly you just tried to create a forest fire a second ago, but blowing up their ship was completely unnecessary. They would of run into some mountains only a few miles from here and been forced to either turn around or land and we could of confronted them then. But no, now they're all spilt up! It's going to take days, even weeks to find them all!"

The four continued to walk down the path and Toon Link smiled grimly. He beckoned for Pikachu and Nana to follow as he gripped his sword tighter and hurried after them as quietly as possible. Finally. Elemental warriors still had the upper hand, but the Smashers had some leverage of their own.

Link and Zelda led the way through along the bank of the river, twirling the Master Sword in a neat circle as he looked around for any sign that the elemental warriors had passed through here. "Well, what do you think?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder. "Will we find these people before or after Mewtwo and Lucario tear each other apart?"

Zelda just sighed. "They way things are going, we're all going to starve to death before we make any progress. She ducked as a purple ball of pure energy that Mewtwo had aimed at Lucario sailed over her head and crashed into a tree.

Lucario was about to retaliate before Meta Knight shouted, "That's enough!" He turned and hurried towards the two pokemon. "Why are you two always fighting? If the elemental warriors didn't know where we were before now, the sound of that tree nearly exploding certainly gave them a nice hint to our location! Why are you two always going at it? And don't give me the excuse that Mewtwo tried to take over all pokemon, Lucario- because Jigglypuff's here, and you don't see her trying to attack anybody!" As he spoke, Jigglypuff bounced by happily, green eyes wide and innocent.

Lucario raised his hand and a small orb of fire came to life above his palm. Meta Knight raised his sword and extended his wings, narrowing his gaze and preparing for a fight before Kirby bounced in between the two of them.

"You guys!" he cried. "Stop it! If we start fighting each other, then we'll never be able to stand together and fight the enemy!"

Lucario, Mewtwo, and Meta Knight remained in their standoff, caught between violence against themselves or the unknown enemy. Finally, Meta Knight lowered his blade and nodded. "As ridiculous and naive as that sounded, I agree. We fight each other every day of the year; it's time we stood together and fought somebody else."

"He's right," Link said after a moment, everybody gathering in a ring around Meta Knight. "We can't fight this menace like this- spread across the land into a dozen different factions, half the time pitted against each other rather than the enemy. Our best- no, our only chance is if we stand together. Because we're all heroes in our own land; imagine the threat we pose united! Not like this, where everybody's either sick and unconscious or is fighting another Smasher. No- we've got to find the others, then stop running. Just because we don't know who we're facing… well, look at who we have on our side! Pokemon, Kirby and Meta Knight from the Dreamworld, Zelda, holder of the Triforce of Wisdom… we all hold something to our names. Surely we can fight back and prove ourselves stronger than whoever it is we're facing!"

"Yeah, and standing around here isn't helping!" Meta Knight shouted, raising his sword and spreading his wings. "Come on! To the Smash Mansion!" Everyone shouted their agreement as he took flight, running on the ground underneath him, their spirits renewed. It was only a matter of time until they found some of the others, and then they could finally make their stand.

Samus slowly regained consciousness to find herself splayed out on the uncomfortable ground, her blonde hair loose and hiding half her face, which is what made her realize that she wasn't wearing her suit anymore. Groaning softly, she felt around for her gun, but only found an empty holster.

Things weren't looking good. When she heard voices, Samus kept her eyes closed and waited for someone to say something that made this situation any clearer.

"Well? Any progress, Sev?"

"No. Well, not on this front, anyway. But…" The voice trailed off and Samus heard footsteps approaching. She tried to remain as still as possible as a hand touched her on the forehead. "Well, this one is awake, but she's trying to hide it."

Samus gasped, reflexively rolling away from the unfamiliar touch and jumping to her feet, sinking into a defensive stance as she looked around worriedly, apprising the situation.

Not good. There was a collection of eight warrior standing in front of her, all watching her quizzically and holding a variety of weapons, while all Samus had was her fists. They were the people she'd been tracking before, and her gaze instantly went to the one who had transformed into a wolf and she tightened her fists, taking several steps back.

They all laughed. "Even if we hadn't taken your equipment away, it would be an easy fight. Here," one said, unclipping Samus's gun from her waistband and tossing it to her. "You can even have this back if you want to fight us. We left your suit behind; too heavy to carry and besides, none of us would be able to hurt you too badly with our powers with that thing on."

Samus caught her gun, running a hand over it to check for any abnormalities as she kept her eyes on her opponents. "Well, it's one versus eight, might as well give me some advantage," she said before charging up her weapon and aiming at the wolf-girl.

Sev just sighed. "Are you sure you want to do this? We'll even fight you one on one if you want, but I must warn you, we don't fight fair. Not in this contest, anyway."

"I don't need you to make this easier," Samus snarled, and with that, she fired.

Sev ducked with speed faster than that of a human and growled, her eyes flashing dangerously. Taken aback, Samus jumped back and fired again, this time at a blond man who stood at the head of the pack and had yet to speak. Her shot blasted straight into a slab of rock that had appeared literally from nowhere in front of the man, who brushed it aside and laughed as it crashed to the ground.

"I guess you all weren't kidding about not fighting fair!" she shouted, holstering her weapon as she threw herself into the battle. If her gun couldn't do any damage, then maybe her fists could.

And they could. Samus smiled grimly as her foot connected with the blond one's head and he crumpled to the ground, but she didn't have time to enjoy her victory- seven more to go.

Luckily for her, these creatures were clearly exhausted, but she was well-rested, having just woken up from a nice, long nap, and she quickly wore down their remaining energy. It wasn't easy, not in the least, but within the whirlwind of blows, it was clear that she could win. Letting out a wild, animalistic cry, Samus kicked the second to last warrior in the stomach and smashed the butt of her gun into his skull. He dropped like a stone, leaving just her and Sev.

They paced around each other, the wolf girl laughing all the while. "You do realize that you haven't killed any of us? We'll all be fine. And you still can't win."

"Where's your confidence coming from? I just took out seven of you all at once. What makes you think you can defeat me?"

"Because," Sev said with a low chuckle, "I cheat." With that, Sev fell to all fours and roared, convulsing as she transformed into a wolf.

Samus laughed again, but there was anxiety behind it. Yes, she had faced much more hideous and deadly creatures before… but that was all with her suit and all the advantages that came with it. Now she had nothing but her own strength to rely on.

The wolf pounced.