Little Mac gulped as he reached for his boxing gloves, only to find that he did not bring them this time. Normally he would have had them, but he had followed Samus out without thinking about picking his trusty gloves up. He was unarmed, and the bounty hunter in front of him was armed to the teeth.
That meant only one thing.
Gotta go fast.
The WVBA boxer was quickly given a reality check as soon as he attempted to run away from the armored shooter. Right as he took five steps to his left, Samus sent out a power beam right where he stood half a second after he took his sixth step. Little Mac tensed up as he proceeded to run behind a convenient pillar sticking out of the fountain nearby one of its edges. Survival instincts kicked in as his lips tightened.
"I heard the entity that is bothering Master Hand is quite sensitive," Samus stated, the tone of her voice altered by her power suit. "Research with some of my comrades also concluded that it is all-too-flexible."
Little Mac breathed harder and harder as the bounty hunter approach the pillar he hid behind. His head was turned slightly to hear the bounty hunter's footsteps better, and his brain went into maximum overdrive. He needed to do something that Samus would not expect him to do.
…
…
…
And no, becoming an air fighter was not an option.
"Extensive pressure upon a subject related to the entity would bring one to a vulnerable state of mind. All subjects infected by this entity have so far showed a single reaction to pressure; the revealing of a true form.
"So far there have been several factors that lead me to deduce that you are related to this entity. The first factor comes from your lack of emotions."
Alas, the boxer cursed his lack of interest in being an amusing social bee.
"But that is but a minor factor. What really allows me to suspect you of being related to this entity is your unfounded strength. You were able to defeat Space Pirates with immense ease; this is a feat that no average human being had achieved. You are clearly not ordinary."
…Did she just compliment him or insult him?
But then again, she did have a point. Even if Little Mac did punch a bunch of aliens out of confusion and fear, it seemed a tad bit overstretched that a human boxer like him would be able to take on foes that a bounty hunter had to take on with good preparations. Could it have been related to gravity or some freakish stuff like that?
Perhaps all of those bologna fantasy novels might have been true to some extent without even knowing it…?
"The final factor derives simply by Master Hand's reaction to your presence during your debut match. I believe I have already gone over this, but I will add in that this confusing reaction you brought out of him connected well with the 'swarm' that he sent out towards you.
"This 'Swarm'… is the same entity I have talked about. And it is stronger than the other entities that have appeared before it. Other entities similar to this Swarm, that is."
Soon, Little Mac found Samus at a distance he considered far too close for him to be comfortable with. He bit his bottom lip as he remained dead silent.
"So if you know what you are," the bounty hunter demanded, "and if you are who I think you are, and if you know what you are doing…
"I order you to stand down."
Lifting her arm cannon, the bounty hunter stepped to the side of the pillar and pointed it straight at-
-nothing but air.
"?!"
In her moment of confusion, Samus quickly turned on her scan visor and searched for signs of excessive movement. She turned to the other side of the fountain as soon as she heard the sound of water splashing.
Across the water ran the WVBA boxer.
Before Samus was able to do anything, the boxer leapt off of the Fountain of Dreams.
Little Mac felt no wind blow against his face. He simply fell, his body not feeling any form of resistance as he plummeted down to clumps of dreamy clouds surrounding the fountain. If he was going to die, he might as well try his luck and jump off of a gigantic fountain floating in space.
The fact that he was still able to breathe in space confused him, but that was not important. What mattered was that he escaped one moment of danger and jumped into another.
The lightweight boxer continued to fall.
As he continued to fall, the boxer heard some sort of mechanical noise generate nearby him. He turned to his left.
An orange spaceship flew towards him, with Samus standing on top of it.
Now I've really seen some things, the Bruiser from the Bronx thought as a grapple beam caught his body and dragged him towards the ship.
With Little Mac having a grapple beam wrapped around him, Samus slowly went inside her ship as she slowly brought the boxer in. The boxer soon collapsed and promptly picked himself up inside the bounty hunter's portable lair.
Samus' ship reminded him of something Mac would see in Star Trek or Star Wars.
"Look," the bounty hunter said, taking deep breaths behind her armor as she stood in his direction. "I only ordered you… to stand down. I never said I'd just flat-out kill you."
The boxer gulped as he remained still. It would be crazy for him to try running out of a spaceship, so he decided to stand by and see what the bounty hunter exactly wanted from him.
Her body somewhat tensed, the galactic warrior walked up to the lightweight boxer as her arm cannon transformed into some sort of scanning device. Little Mac hoped that she was not trying to blast his head off as she pointed it straight at his face.
A sky-blue horizontal line of light shined out of the cannon and slowly moved down Mac's face. Then an orange line moved up his face after the blue line vanished.
Though Mac did not know what exactly Samus was doing, he presumed that she was doing some sort of analysis on him. If that was all she wanted from him, she might as well just take things less seriously and simply ask of his assistance rather than scaring the living daisies out of him!
These people never stop amazing me with their unique thinking processes.
Soon, four white lines formed a rectangle around the total area between the far corners of his eyes. Then Samus proceeded to use the orange and blue line thingy on his entire body. He wondered when the process would end.
It took about two more tests with the weird devices for Samus to stop analyzing him.
"…One discrepancy the Swarm leaves when it mimics living beings," Samus suddenly explained as her arm cannon returned to its normal form, "is that there is always a limb or a set of organs that have some kind of unnatural structure to them. Many of these mimicked forms tend to boast a hollow limb, a limb with non-human internal structures, or most notably, strange eyes."
If Little Mac had special eyes, he would be sure to remember to look at any possible eye prescription brand he could later claim.
"But you…"
Silence filled the ship as the bounty hunter fell silent. Little Mac blinked, wondering if he really was infected by some Ridley Scott mumbo jumbo.
"You show no such signs."
Well, wasn't that obvious? If Little Mac had an alien inside him, Mr. Sandman would have knocked the alien straight out of him with a single uppercut back when he had an active boxing career. Of course, Little Mac also felt that his skeleton would have been knocked out of him, but that was- fortunately for him- impossible.
At her revelation, Little Mac sighed. He was happier to the idea that he might have a chance to live longer more than the fact that there was no "Swarm" crap inside him.
"Though that does not explain your unfounded strength, I will halt my suspicions in you being related to the Swarm. I did not want to take any chances in having this potentially present enemy attack me, so I had to be quite forward with this."
Apparently, bringing an unarmed human being up into a fountain floating in the middle of space and pointing an arm cannon at said human was quite forward. Then again, he did not know how Samus felt about the entire process as well. If she did not care at all, she probably would not have apologized indirectly like she just did.
Samus sighed as she turned away from the boxer. With her head hung a bit low, the bounty hunter walked to the front seat of the ship, her body noticeably relaxed at that point.
"I will bring you back to the mansion," she said, her tone no longer as serious as before. "It won't take long. It may seem like an odd request, but do not tell anyone that we had this exchange of misunderstandings."
All that came from the WVBA champion was a small nod.
Even after the boxer left the spaceship at the backyard of the mansion, Samus felt confused.
She had been sure that Little Mac was connected to the situation, but it seemed like he had no clue as to what the Swarm even was in the first place. And much to her own embarrassment, the boxer seemed like he tried to take the entire event from her perspective, as he eventually started being more cooperative when she started analyzing him.
Her confidence in being correct could have possibly given him a bad impression of herself.
With her power suit off, the blonde bounty hunter walked back to the mansion. Her spaceship was underneath the backyard, alongside some of the other vehicles the other Smash Brothers contestants like Fox or Falco had. It had been a while since she used its emergency function, as she did not expect a person who had no ability to manipulate movement in the air to jump off of the Fountain of Dreams.
Guilt crept into her as she headed to the mansion. On her way, however, she found someone standing on the path she took.
Meta Knight, a small, round knight who hailed from the same land Kirby came from, stood with his cape wrapped around most of his body. The golden eyes that hid behind the mask he wore gazed into Samus' ocean blue eyes.
"So it was not him, I suppose," the blue knight said with a deep voice, his eyes glowing green briefly.
"I needed to analyze him," Samus stated.
"There is no need to frighten others, Samus. The Swarm will show its sign of weakness when we naturally come across it."
"…"
"I understand your impatience, but in the game we are playing with this unknown foe, whoever makes the first move also reveals much of themselves.
"I know that you are normally patient even with a lack of information on present anomalies, but a foe like this is bound to make us tense and act without thinking twice."
His eyes flashing white briefly, Meta Knight slowly turned to the mansion as he saw Peach walking her way down the path toward them. The princess had come out to water her plants, it seemed.
"We will talk about this later," he said as he turned to the bounty hunter. "Though the boxer may know a bit of the situation we are looking into, it is best not to get him involved. The same applies to everyone else excluding the six of us.
"Be on the lookout."
Having expressed his thoughts on Samus' actions, the knight of Dreamland jerked at his cape, vanishing into thin air as he spun. As the bounty hunter turned to walk back to the mansion, she saw Peach wave at her with a wide smile.
Samus lifted her hand awkwardly as she softly pursed her lips, her mind remaining quite clouded over some things that she could not stop thinking about.
Returning to his dormitory did not take long after Samus landed her spaceship. The lightweight boxer walked straight into his dorm as soon as his feet touched the solid grounds of the mansion.
"You're back," Ike said as he tore his gaze off of the television set in front of him. He was watching the Fire Emblem Network channel.
And somehow, there was a documentary of Wario being played on the channel. The sounds of "Wa ha ha" and "Here I go" vibrated annoyingly across the living room as Little Mac headed over to the couch.
He let out a small grunt as he settled down at the couch.
The mercenary hero asked, "Tough day?"
Little Mac nodded.
For some reason, Little Mac already forgot when Ike had barged into his dormitory. It seemed as if they were buddies for two years even though it had only been two days.
To be fair, Ike had explained to Mac that Robin and his friends constantly invaded his dormitory somehow. That was technically not a big enough reason for the blue-haired mercenary to ditch his own dormitory and practically sleep at Mac's place, but the boxer did not care. Ike cleaned just as much dishes as he did, and that was all it took for Little Mac to accept Ike as if he were his brethren.
Not even his parents cleaned as many dishes as he did. It was understandable given their busy lives, but still.
"Television is a cool thing," Ike said as he picked up the remote control. Thanks to Little Mac, Ike was given enough exposure to a television and mastered channel surfing in a four hours.
Just for that day, Little Mac felt like taking a nap during the day.
Author's Notes:
A quick note; I'm intentionally not talking much about how characters are involved with the story, so I'll apologize firsthand to those who want a straightforward answer. But hey, curiosity is one of the things that drives this story.
Next chapter: "The Meanest Doctor In The World!" I would like to point out that before this chapter is released, a side-chapter will be sent out first. It'll probably come out very soon.
The new cover art was made in Source Filmmaker. I made it in several minutes so I'll probably make something better later.
-NK-