Solid Snake had priorities.
As a master of stealth, it was only natural of him to utilize his skills passively and actively, regardless of his circumstances. Whether he decides to rest or goes out on a mission, there was always the "stealth op" within him that made him seem sneaky to others.
Throughout his years, he had encountered plenty of oddities even in his own world. Whenever he thought he took down someone for good, they always came back even stronger than before. Whenever the blueprint of some random Metal Gear had been wiped out, it always came back even bigger than before.
Why?
Well, it had to be the nanomachines. Everything was fixed with nanomachines, after all.
The man remained still at the main lobby in the mansion as he watched Peach carry several books. As she walked, one of the books slid out of her grip, falling on the floor. Snake squinted as he watched Peach bend over to pick up the-
WHAM!
"NAUGHHHHHHHHHHHHhh-!"
Right before he witnessed something beautiful, Snake felt a boot slam against his face, propelling him into a wall. Samus stood where Snake once sat at, one of her eyes twitching a bit.
But still, Snake had seen what he wanted to see for one nanosecond.
Why does everything related to me have the prefix "nano-" in them, anyway? Snake thought depressingly.
Dear Mac,
If you are reading this, you will be notified of our Pizza Party. It will take place at the cafeteria during lunch at twelve in the afternoon. You don't need anything with you. There will be lots of pizza.
Sincerely, Link.
Little Mac blinked, standing in front of his dormitory entrance. He had never heard of a Pizza Party being held, and the fact that there were so little details put next to it confused him.
But it sounded delicious. Going there seemed like a good idea.
Having jogged nearby the mansion, the boxer walked into his dormitory, walking past the living room as he dressed out of his pink jumpsuit and put his clothes in a laundry machine. He brushed his teeth and took a shower. He did not need to deal with facial hair, thankfully, so he quickly left the bathroom and got back into his jogging outfit.
The pink clothes smelled like… clean clothes.
In other words, it smelled like something that went into a laundry machine.
The boxer made sure he had everything with him before leaving his dormitory. After all, the clock had long gone past eleven. Getting to the cafeteria a little early would not hurt him.
Ike was not present in his dormitory. Mac presumed that he either had gone off to deal with personal business or went to the cafeteria with thoughts similar to his.
His hands in his pockets and his boxing gloves dangling by one of his hips, Little Mac silently walked down to the cafeteria. As he minded his own business and paid attention only to getting to the cafeteria, his eyes fell on Dr. Mario, who loitered around the hallway the boxer had entered.
With a strange bump underneath his coat that was mysteriously shaped like a shotgun.
Little Mac was well aware that doctors did not have strange bumps that resembled the shape of shotguns on their chest.
So he decided to play the role of a sane man and went past the doctor without a word.
From what he heard and seen, Doctor Mario had some sort of complex personality that made him all too unpredictable. Spending minimal time with the doctor sounded like a good idea. He was nothing like Mario, who was a very social and nice man.
There was no way Doctor Mario was Mario. Absolutely no way.
Yup.
Much to his relief, he soon entered the cafeteria. Several tables had been placed next to each other, the other tables being pushed to the corners of the dining area.
No one aside from a single angel sat at the table.
Kicking his legs up and down, Pit hummed a tune Mac did not recognize as he, too, waited for the party. Mac had heard of the winged warrior before. Despite being an angel, Pit was an angelic warrior unable to fly. But his heart more than made up for his physical and magical inability to fly. Heck, he bested a bunch of gods from what Mac heard.
Gods.
Pit literally fought gods, and Mac was fighting in the same competition as him.
Sometimes I question why I didn't get insurance yet, he realized as he walked over to the tables.
Remaining silent, Mac took a seat next to Pit. The brown-haired angel turned to him, his eyes widening at Mac's presence.
"Oh, uh," the captain of Palutena's Guard fumbled through his words as he greeted Mac. "H-Hi!"
"Ey."
"…"
"…"
As soon as Mac fell silent, a look of curiosity washed over Pit's once intimidated expression.
"You're… Little Smack, right?"
"Little Mac."
"O-Oh, right."
"…"
Straightening himself up, Pit smiled nervously as he attempted to give the boxer a good impression. "I'm Pit!"
"Hi."
"Yeah, uh… Hi."
"…"
"…"
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
Pit turned and stared into nothingness with a blank smile that refused to go away for a while. As the two remained silent, however, his smile slowly faded and an idle expression took over once more.
He seemed hesitant in leaving Mac alone, though. The angel had rarely met him face-to-face, and considering that he was one of the most hyped up newcomers in Smash, he felt that he needed to know more about the dark-haired pugilist.
Putting up a smile again, he asked Mac,
"So… how's it goin'?"
"Ye."
At his response, Pit blinked and slowly raised an eyebrow.
"…Ye?"
Mac nodded.
"Ye."
"…"
"…"
"Okay."
Confused, Pit decided to stare at the tables in front of them, not knowing what to say. As time crawled on, Mac felt his eyes becoming heavier and heavier at every second.
In a matter of minutes, he fell asleep.
Ten minutes before the pizza party, a swarm of Smashers entered the cafeteria.
Within a single minute, the cafeteria had been filled up with plenty of the Smash Bros contestants. None of them carried pizza boxes, though it was obvious that they were looking forward to it. Apparently, some sort of rule had been set between certain fighters after they riled up Master Hand with pizza somehow. Now, said fighters declared that they would only eat pizzas in parties and similar events.
So they constantly tried to hold parties as much as possible.
Falco yawned as he took a seat next to Fox at the cluster of tables. "Geez, the pizza's still not here yet?" The pilot muttered as he sighed. "Last time we held a thing like this, the pizza came like… thirty minutes earlier than expected."
Ganondorf tapped his fingers on the table, staring into nothing in particular as Bowser came up with a strategy that could let him eat a good amount of pizza. Link sat next to Pit and encountered a spree of random topics thrown out by the angel, and Captain Falcon chatted quietly with Wolf, who bragged about some sort of accomplishment he had achieved all by himself.
A cheeky grin on his face, Shulk bombarded Robin with a series of random chit-chat, though the tactician seemed like he wanted to sit next to Little Mac. Unfortunately for him, the wielder of the Monado dragged him away from the boxer as he obliviously talked about how Fiora once punched a hole in the wall when he said they were genuinely perfect friends.
King Dedede, a huge penguin known to wield a hard-hitting hammer, waddled around poking at Kirby endlessly with a wooden stick. No one knew why he decided to start poking the pink puffball with the stick, but apparently he had nothing better to do aside from bother Kirby. The round hero of Popstar did not seem to mind Dedede's poking, and started to poke the penguin as well. Dedede screamed when Kirby latched onto him before poking him endlessly.
Peach chirped about her flowers to Zelda, who smiled softly as the blonde princess shared her observation on her tiny garden's growth. Ike sat at the table with his arms crossed, begging to every god he could think of in hopes of not sitting next to Robin, Lucina, Roy, and literally anyone else linked to his universe- except for Marth. Marth was a decent guy… But he was quick to become frustrated whenever someone called him Lucina.
A little too frustrated, really.
There were also quite a handful of other Smashers as well. Little Mac did not wake up as he sat at his seat. He did not snore or breathe loudly, making it quite hard to notice him. The boxer's head was tilted due to the headrest of his chair being slightly under his neck.
He woke up at the sound of Ganondorf and Bowser respectively kicking and punching each other at the same time.
Of course he had to wake up to the sound of Smash.
His eyes filled with sleepiness, the dark-haired boxer shook his head as he straightened himself up. He blinked at the sight of the good amount of Smashers in the cafeteria.
I guess a lot of pizza like people- no, people like pizza.
Shaking his head to wake himself up, the lightweight boxing champion groggily stared down at the table.
Not a single sign of pizza was present.
"…"
He remembered eating a lot of pizza back at the Bronx. Back when his family was actually pretty average in terms of wealth and lifestyle, Mac sometimes ordered delivery food whenever he felt like not making dinner for the whole family. It was strange; he was the one who had to control the amount of times they all ate pizza. His parents were obsessed with pizza.
And burgers. But Mac himself loved burgers, and especially when they were homemade, so he did not say anything about that. Being unable to make pizza, however, made him feel less passionate about eating it.
Back then, he had a pretty loud personality. "C'mon, honey!" His mother would say with an innocent smile. "We didn't eat that much pizza if you think about it!"
"Mom! Put that phone down right now!"
Good times. Those were very good times, even if he did not know it back then.
After a few more minutes of waiting, Samus Aran, Link, and some stoic blond swordsman Mac did not know of that much walked in with pizza boxes stacked onto each other. They set the boxes on the table as Samus exclaimed with a flat tone, "Enjoy."
Sonic managed to snatch two pizzas before anyone else touched the food, bringing one of the slices to Lucas as he gave the boy a thumbs up. But Sonic getting the pizza first was almost a given whenever he came to the pizza party.
So when Falco managed to be the second one to pick up a pizza slice, he screamed as he flung himself away from the pizza boxes. "I GOT ONE!" He shouted as he unintentionally ended up sounding like one of his froggy and high-pitched Star Fox team members.
As everyone dug in, Little Mac simply sat still, waiting for everyone to back away from the boxes. Pit initially thought about charging in and grabbing some pizza slices, but when he saw Mac choose the option of waiting, he decided to sit and wait as well.
And thus, the feast began.
The party felt surprisingly normal to the pugilist. For some odd reason, everyone behaved well without attacking each other… aside from Bowser and Ganondorf.
And the instant moment he felt that, he knew that he had been too exposed to the chaos of the mansion. Not that he could really do anything about it.
The pizza tasted good like usual, though Mac presumed that the pizza tasted fantastic to those who had not eaten it till that moment. Mac watched some of the others chow down their food at the speed of light. It was a rare food for those who "grounded" themselves from eating pizza commonly, so he did not think of them to be weird for eating at a monstrous pace.
With a pizza in hand, Little Mac blankly stared at the ceiling.
After this, I should go and kick my punching strength up a notch.
It was not that Little Mac felt little confidence in his strength alone. From what he could tell, he was abnormally strong compared to what people thought he would have been like. But he could use an improvement here and there, and in an environment where it was impossible for him to sprout out wings like an X-Man, empowering his physical strength sounded like a good idea.
A faster and stronger body could allow him to compensate for his general vulnerability in the air. There would definitely be times where he needed to pour everything into one huge attack, and being able to shrug off damage as he does so would play a key part in using his opponents' attacks against themselves.
And the only way to improve was to train- train after thinking of course. Robin once stated how he and Mac were similar in some ways, though the one similarity that stood out the most was their biggest reliance on strategy over anything. They were both "tacticians," as Robin called it, and tended to make plans before a battle began.
A key difference between Robin's and Mac's strategies was that the white-haired tactician had a better ability in skewering out a bunch of scenarios before a battle began, while the dark-haired boxer relied on a mix of basic pre-battle planning and strategizing in the midst of battle. Under bad circumstances, Little Mac had a better time punching his way out than Robin did. Robin was smarter than him in many ways, but he also had his own strengths that made his thinking process unique from the tactician.
Mac had done a lot of "thinking" as of recent days, however. He knew that he had to focus on some of the more straightforward elements of his fighting style.
After eating another pizza, he felt the urge to go to the restroom. Little Mac eventually got up and left the cafeteria for the restroom, which lay quite close to the pizza party.
Time passed on, and eventually, one last box lay on the table. Bowser sighed, satisfied with all the pizza he ate as Captain Olimar, a short commander of a Pikmin "squad," took the second last pizza.
Only one pizza remained.
Laughing at a joke Fox made, Falco reached out for the pizza, only to find his hand touching Ganondorf's. His eyes trailed up to the King of Evil, who stared at him with a small frown. Falco's smile slowly faded as a serious expression took over.
Captain Falcon laughed half-heartedly at an innocent, yet slightly unfunny joke Pit shared to him as he reached for the pizza as well, though he was only greeted with a feathery hand. He looked up and found himself glancing between a Star Fox pilot and the wielder of the Triforce of Power. His smile turned into a small frown.
Everyone's conversations slowed down before coming to a halt as a tension rose in the air. Captain Falcon's stretched arm had noticeably tensed itself, Ganondorf's hidden hand covered itself in flames of darkness, and Falco slowly reached for his pistol. Bowser wondered what was about to happen but prepared to dropkick someone for no real reason.
"So guys," Olimar said as he walked over to the table, "are any of you gonna eat that slice? Because of no one's gonna eat it, I guess I can-"
"IT'S MINE!"
As soon as Ganondorf threw his hand up, a war began.
Falco performed a backflip as he fired multiple lasers at those who charged towards the last pizza. As he landed, he expertly fired at Link, who blocked the attack with his Hylian Shield, as he retreated from the heat of battle. Bowser roared as he picked up the Hylian before throwing him towards one of the stack of tables, burying the Hero of Time momentarily.
When Master Hand got angry at several particular Smashers for going nuts over pizza, there was a good reason why he got angry in the first place. And there was also a good reason why the Smashers themselves could not help but agree with him.
Even they admitted that in front of the last slice, they would do anything to get it.
Ganondorf kicked Olimar to one of the corners of the cafeteria and ran off to punch Captain Falcon. The F-Zero pilot dodged the punch and swung hooks straight at the King of Evil's face, though the Gerudo was fast enough to swat away each speedy attack made by the racer. Lifting himself from the ground, the pilot of the Blue Falcon swung his legs furiously, kicking at the air twice as Ganondorf stepped back. Ganondorf's experience in fighting Captain Falcon let him predict that the masked racer would connect the attack to an onslaught of punches with one clenched fist.
And sure enough, Captain Falcon did just as what Ganondorf thought he would do. During the middle of his punches, Ganondorf charged forward and caught Captain Falcon by his waist. The racer gritted his teeth as the wielder of the Triforce of Power picked him up and threw him against Doctor Mario, who had just avoided a motherload of bombs thrown by Link.
Knocked to the ground, Doctor Mario's eyes gained a terrifying fire as he raised an arm, smashing the racer off of him as he picked himself up. He reached for his coat, taking out what appeared to be a Super Scope and fired dozens of plasma rounds at everything in the room.
Everything turned into a hellhole within a manner of seconds as the entire cafeteria got thrashed about. King Dedede threw Samus at a trigger-happy Falco before getting run over by Wario's motorcycle.
Emerging from the entrance of the cafeteria with a bunch of explosives, Snake growled, "Kept ya waiting, huh?"
With a grenade in hand, Solid Snake tossed the explosive at one side of the cafeteria, causing many of the Smashers to fly across the room defeated. He himself got hit by a flying, unconscious Lucario, however, and was taken out anticlimactically. As he fell, he dropped a string of grenades he had tried to throw across the room to finish off the remaining Smashers.
"...Oh no," Link muttered as he got out of his little table burial. "That does not LOOK GOOD AT ALL-"
Everyone screamed in unison as the grenades went off.
Needless to say, the cafeteria turned into a cage of fire for a split moment.
When Little Mac got out of the restroom, he came across a cafeteria on the verge of utter destruction.
The entire place had been painted in black for whatever the Smashers did to the cafeteria. Many of them lay still, including the ones that had probably caused the situation in the first place. Some of them had successfully- and hopefully- vanished from the scene, Ike and Robin being among them.
But judging by how the last slice of pizza lay still on the table that had been somehow left untouched, Mac presumed that the pizza party was still going on.
So he ate the last slice and walked off to train at the gym.
Author's Notes:
Little Mac is untouched from the 1.1.5 patch. That's actually better than a Side B nerf.
Next chapter: "Goddess of Light!"