"The subject of the possible attack on the Observatory," Master Hand explained, "is absolutely not an accident. It was attacked with malicious intent, and the attacker most likely began by attacking the keeper of the stars."
Ryu and Little Mac had been brought to Master Hand's office. Located on a small floating island nearby Central City, the building was fairly large on the outside, but immense in the inside. There was definitely pocket space involved with the structure of the building, and was reasonably so considering how large Master Hand and Crazy Hand were.
Before them, Master Hand had descended from the table he usually worked at, which was probably the size of a moderately large super market to the two Smashers in front of him. The entire place had an antique feel, most materials of the room itself being made of carefully polished wood and gold. It fit the Hand's tastes.
Standing on the ground, Little Mac and Ryu remained still, their eyes set on Master Hand as he continued,
"What you have seen there is… a fragment of an enemy from a battle the Smash Brothers had faced years ago. Fortunately, the source of these foes had been eliminated, so eradicating all of them is only a matter of time.
"We do not know what to name it, but we call it 'the Swarm.'"
Mac nodded slowly, though he would have flinched had it not been for the fact that he saw it coming.
Samus had mentioned it as if she knew what it was, and that much was obvious considering that she was one of the original contestants of the Super Smash Brothers tournaments. She told him not to get himself involved with the Swarm, but he got into a situation where he could not just ignore it.
If irony tasted sweet, Mac would have had a sugar rush.
Now that he thought about it, looking at the swarm gave him a feeling he definitely felt before. It was when he was walking through a portal for the first time…
"Though the Swarm may have attempted to attack one of our contestants, I assure you that eliminating their traces one-by-one will end the problem," the Hand pointed out. "There is only so many left now that its creator has vanished, so should you find these things again, destroy it immediately.
"You two may be one of the newer contestants to the Smash Brothers, but we have welcomed you with open arms for a reason. This applies just as much to you, Little Mac, as it does to Ryu. The Swarm is no longer a large threat, and it will probably be eliminated enough to the point where people will just forget about it. And I would like to keep that the case, as it had brought in a dark age I would rather not experience again.
"Do you understand what I am saying?"
The two fighters nodded.
"Then that is all. Once again, I apologize for letting you two go through this.
"Please, understand."
As Little Mac and Ryu were brought out of the small floating island nearby Central City, Crazy Hand floated into Master Hand's office. He twitched, but only at a moderate degree.
"Well," the left Hand commented, "that happened."
"Indeed, it did."
"Cawm awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwh-n," Crazy Hand chided as he lightly nudged Master Hand. "If the matters get worse, we'll just tear the matters apart before it gets to the worst level! We're stinking fancy like that."
The right Hand remained silent as he floated over to his table. Remaining in place, the destroyer twitched like crazy for one second before returning to his regular pace.
"Speaking of which," Crazy Hand asked, "why did you lie to them?"
"…"
Silence fell over the right Hand, which only served to spice up Crazy Hand's interest. "You know that we're not sure if the source of this thing is gone or not," he trailed on. "Wouldn't it be bad if something gigantasaurus huge came over to their way? Cause, like, we're not always watching over them.
"And you've only just returned from that long-a#% trip you suddenly made to the world beneath us! Like, seriously, you need to take a chill pill, because I'm pretty sure the Subspace Emissary is not happening any sooner."
For the past week, Master Hand had went down from the floating islands to the world he had long abandoned. Most of what was left were remnants of the Subspace Emissary- the war he was manipulated into fighting by Tabuu.
The very thought of Tabuu angered Master Hand rather than scare him. But he did fear what gave Tabuu such power in the first place, and what said source of power had in mind aside from eternally locking away every world's life from seeing the light of the day.
"I have to find it," Master Hand muttered.
"…wot? You wot?"
"I have to find the source of these new Swarm entities," the right Hand added in.
"…Wait, but you just said-"
"Crazy Hand, they're not the old Swarm. They're completely new; I can feel it. And these new Swarm entities do one different thing from the old ones."
The left Hand titled himself a bit. "And that is?"
Turning to face his destructive partner, Master Hand pointed out,
"They're not just trying to absorb and freeze the time of worlds slowly. No. They're trying to destroy them. I can tell their intentions are different because of my connection to them.
"This doesn't have anything to do with Tabuu; he didn't have that much control over the Swarm, and yet this new Swarm deliberately attempted to kill our contestants. We're dealing with something entirely different here.
"Something that's actually in charge of the wars we fought so far."
Falling into a thoughtful silence, Crazy Hand himself began to wonder how the Swarm would exactly destroy the world. The only purpose they served in the Subspace Emissary in terms of attacking was to mimic the forms of the Smash Brothers tournament contestants, or outright emulate monsters that had fallen once, twice, and even thrice.
Unbeknownst to the Hands, a small, caped figure stood outside of the building. When the Hands no longer discussed about the Swarm, Meta Knight's eyes glowed red.
With an ominous silence, the knight jerked at his cape as he silently vanished into thin air.
Ike stood in front of Mac's television.
The television turned out to be one of the best things he had come across ever since he escaped his own dormitory. It had all sorts of things in it! Whenever he felt like watching a series of interesting recipes for certain foods, a cooking channel would grant just that. If he wanted to watch a football game, it played whenever it was game day. And he did like football quite a lot, especially after Captain Falcon properly introduced him to it.
There were also several cool channels that provided fitness-related things. And Ike was watching one of such things, his eyes filled with fierce determination. He wore a simple black t-shirt and shorts.
Tightening his lips, the mercenary thrusted an elbow to waist level as he jerked a knee up. He switched elbows and knees endlessly as he followed an interesting exercise program.
I've focused so much on running away from those fools, I didn't get to a proper training schedule, Ike thought, quickly remembering Robin, Lucina, and Roy's antics. He understood Robin and Lucina being crazy, but why Roy had to be crazy alongside them for no reason boggled his mind. Maybe the Young Lion just enjoyed torturing the Radiant Hero for some sick reason even the redhead himself did not know.
And so, he pumped his arms! Jumped around! Kicked as if he were pedaling a bicycle and did an insane amount of sit-ups! He went through an immensely large series of exercises, and he soon found himself drenched in sweat.
Work it!
An entire hour of intense exercising went by. And then another hour flew out.
Two hours of crazy exercise, however, was not enough.
I probably need about twenty hours to actually tire myself out, Ike thought with a small grin. From what he knew, not even Bowser could exercise as much as did. He still did not consider him to be the top tier among those who exercised because… well, Ryu was a thing.
And when Ryu was a thing, every bragging right was immediately lost.
Aside from the depressing thought, Ike felt quite happy with being able to work out without going out to the gym. Mac did not mind Ike training in his dormitory; as long as nothing broke, everything was fine to him apparently. All Ike needed were light clothes, a training mat, and the television, and he would do different exercises every single time he worked out.
In his earlier years, Ike was fairly scrawny for someone who swung around the heavy Ragnell. Through consistent training and a good portion of food, the Radiant Hero eventually gained the ideal body of a heavyweight swordsman.
Though his raw strength had increased over the years, however, he knew he had to become even stronger. He fought for his friends, and to fight for them with an advantage on his side meant that he needed to continuously gain strength.
Ike eventually pulled off a five-hour long exercise routine. He had not used all of his energy, but he decided that he exercised enough for the day. It was not every day that Mac left him complete freedom over the television, so he wanted to make the best out of his free time. He decided to take a shower.
A few minutes after he took his shower, the blue-haired swordsman emerged from the bathroom. Funnily enough, there were about three bathrooms in the dormitory alone, all except one being cleaned by Little Mac. He would have cleaned every single bathroom in the dorm had it not been for Mac claiming that it was to exercise his own body.
Walking over to the kitchen, Ike approached the refrigerator. Evening loomed over the world.
He should be here soon, Ike thought as he reached out to open the fridge, only to find a yellow post-it note plastered on the thing. He snatched it off the fridge, reading out loud,
"Ike, I am practicing my aerial mobility. You're going to have to eat dinner by yourself unless you want to wait until eleven- which is before midnight, in case you don't know that.
"You can eat anything."
The Radiant Hero looked up from the note, blankly staring off at a distance.
A few seconds later, he found himself sitting on the sofa with a chocolate bar watching television. As he ate, he surfed through channels in hopes of finding anything interesting.
"News sources state that 'Gordon Freeman' is actually a- BEEP- Y'know, what?! Forget about this doggone town! I'm outta he- BEEP- So I- BEEP- And the Kanto Reds score yet another dunk with the fabulous play made by- BEEP- Daddy? I'm just a bit curious, but why does mommy look different every day? It's almost as if she's not the same per-"
Ike blinked as he continued to surf through channels, taking a bite out of the chocolate bar. All of his motivation in working out had died down at that point. Why? He had no idea.
"Say hello to my little fri- BEEP- It's a thriiiiiiiiiiiiillerrrrrrrrrr! A thriller night- BEEP- Roy and the Fire Emblem: Episode Two Point Five."
A sigh escaped Ike as he put the remote control down. There was nothing on the television that interested him.
Strange, considering he just had an intense workout thanks to the same television he became disinterested in.
I wonder if there's anything else this television could do? The mercenary wondered as he looked around the living room. There were a couple of papers lying around the coffee table, some box that had a power button on it sitting nearby the television, and-
…?
Ike's eyes trailed over to the video game console.
"What's that?" He wondered out loud as he got up from the sofa. Curious as to what the thing was, Ike carefully approached the box.
He had no idea as to what it exactly was, but he had seen one before. People called it the "Wii." From what he knew, the Wii Fit Trainers actually made an appearance in a fitness game for the console. It was a massive hit, much to the Wii Fit Trainers' delight, and made a lot more people burn calories than they had expected.
The console looked intriguing.
It was the year 30XX, where space pirates have disrupted all forms of transportation through the utilization of infested space stations. To combat the pirates, all human organizations scattered across the galaxy have banded together to eliminate the masses of cruel and merciless entities.
Ike loaded a gun as he entered one of said space stations, his eyes locked onto his surroundings. Through training that lasted for only five minutes, he apparently became one of the rebellion's most crucial members. He kind of questioned why the federation would deem him to be an admirable figure after only five minutes of training, but he decided to focus on the task in hand.
Suddenly, a space pirate popped out of nowhere as if his only purpose in life was to attack Ike in that specific moment.
Surprised beyond belief, Ike shot at the space pirate, missing every single shot due to an unstable aim. The space pirate remained surprisingly still, charging up a single plasma blast as it stared at Ike with a somewhat idle expression. After a whole three seconds of shooting around the space pirate, Ike finally managed to fire at its chest. The enemy fell down in such a fabulous manner, Ike nearly laughed.
"Good work, commander," a radio crackled. "As expected of your expertise."
"…"
Ike did not know whether to respond with a "thank you" or a "f#$% you," so he remained silent.
A few more space pirates popped out of nowhere, and every time he met an enemy, he began to feel more confident. His aim became steadier, though for some reason he kept swinging around his gun as if it were a two-handed sword whenever he got surprised. After going past a long hallway, Ike encountered a gigantic tower loaded with rocket launchers.
It was the funkiest thing he had ever seen in his life. Because while it was not extremely funny, something about it just felt… off. Maybe it was because the shape of it looked indecent.
Reloading his machine gun, the commander (?) who somehow thought it was a great idea to go alone into a space station fired at the rocket launchers. He ran to the side, dodging the slow rockets in the most repetitive fashion ever. After blowing up all of the rocket launchers, he suddenly felt the urge to run up to the tower and plant a bomb on it. And plant a bomb he did.
A large explosion erupted as the tower blew up.
Ike blinked as he watched his character coolly leave the room as the words "Mission Complete" glossed over the screen.
"That was really straightforward but surprisingly fun," he noted.
A small grin took over his once idle expression. Television channels did not allow him to get directly involved with many things. It was only natural for Ike to pick up a Wiimote and a Nunchuck and find a bit of satisfaction from an action game. He had to admit, his view on games changed a bit. The mercenary once found it pointless to play video games, and had repeatedly asked Solid Snake why he played so much.
"Alright," he said to himself out loud as he took on a more comfortable position on the sofa. "I guess I'll see if there's another game to play."
Little Mac eventually returned an hour before midnight. Letting out a sigh from all the training he did, the boxer pulled down his hoodie. He worked on his landing and finally managed to land consistently without using his hands. Of course, there will be times where he has to use his hands before he planted his face against the ground, but in most cases, he would need to jump and move quickly whenever he avoided large or long-reaching projectiles.
As he walked into his dormitory, he saw Ike furiously jerking a Wiimote up and down. The boxer remained deathly still for a few seconds before he realized that the Radiant Hero was playing a particular hack-and-slash game that was a bit infamous for unorthodox usage of the controllers.
"Oh, welcome back, Mac," Ike said as he swung around the Wiimote in a rhythmic fashion. "I actually forgot to eat dinner."
"…Wanna eat some smores?"
"Sure."
That night, they had smores for dinner. Both of them went to their respective bedrooms almost immediately after dinner.
Author's Notes:
So the funny thing about this story is that I originally wrote it as a one-shot, but I ended up changing a few words and it fit right into Out-Smasher.
Also, a quick question: who's your favorite character so far in the story (and why?), and who's your least favorite character (and why?)? I would like to hear the opinions of my readers, cause y'know, reviews are like drugs to us authors. We go high and get even higher when we get feedback.
Next chapter – "Pizza Party!"
-NK-