I realize it has been 2 years. But, I'm back in the game and ready to write! Here's chapter three! This one's a bit light-hearted, but does have its fair share of secrets. As for Samus and Fox's theory, well, there's more on that later.
Please, if you haven't already, I suggest reading the story from the beginning. It may make a little more sense that way.
Disclaimer: I don't own this game or the characters.
Chapter 3: Visitor from Another Realm
Hazy blue eyes watched as the tiny particles floated towards the surface and danced with one another throughout the murky liquid. It was quite fascinating for one who came from a darker age and had never seen anything like this before. Well, at least it would've been, if that person hadn't been lost in thought.
Absentmindedly, he took a sip, and was met with a gritty aftertaste and a weird feeling in his mouth. The overwhelming amount of sugar stung his teeth, making him immediately wish he had grabbed a cup of water to accompany. "How can you drink this stuff, kid?"
Ness just shrugged. "It's good. How can't you?"
Ike didn't even know how to respond to that. He watched Ness swirl his drink around in the glass with a straw, before adjusting his baseball cap and taking another powerful sip. The kid appeared nonchalant, but his eyes were dull, as if there were something that had been bothering him. Ike figured the kid didn't want to talk about it, so he wasn't going to pressure him.
The mercenary's eyes skipped around, searching for something to kill his boredom. Across the room at the round table near the corner sat Link. Not once had he looked in this direction. Well, not once that Ike noticed. The Hylian was ten times as subtle as the straightforward Ike, and he was also more perceptive.
Beside him sat Zelda, of course, along with Peach and Mario. The plumber looked absolutely drained, while Peach held an almost sympathetic look, as if she were attempting to console someone who had lost all hope long ago. Ike couldn't tell which of the four that might be, but none of them looked really enthused either way.
Yoshi trotted back and forth between tables, searching for scraps to steal, while Sonic and Captain Falcon argued in a corner over who would win in a race.
Ike spotted a few assist trophies standing around the soda machine, but he couldn't recognize all of them, being fairly new to the mansion and, according to others, slightly dense. Upon normal circumstances, the assist trophies would be sealed in the attic, most notably around the beginning of the tournament, so they could be summoned on call, but during social events and between tournaments, they wandered freely.
Behind Ike came a high pitched voice. "Hello, Ike! Care if I join you?"
He glanced up to see Daisy standing there with a tray of food and a mile wide smile. "Uh, sure." He'd dropped all formalities after Daisy insisted that he call her by name, because, as she had said, "we are friends after all!" and so Ike just went with it, if not completely understanding her logic. Why a princess would even want to be near him, he had no idea. He was still a bit shaken up by what he saw earlier that day. That room... who all knew about it?
Something really was going on here. And he apparently hadn't noticed it until the end of the Brawl tournament.
While Daisy babbled on about something unimportant and cooed over the young kids, Ike wondered something. Why was there a tournament in the middle of nowhere? And if this place really was the middle of nowhere, where did all of the fans come from? People always watched the fights from the stands, but when he was down there he could never make out any faces. The people just seemed to be there, not really doing anything or being anyone in specific. Just a mesh of bodies crammed together for the sole purpose of watching the fight. Almost as if it were staged to look that way-
Obnoxious giggling finally caught his attention. When he glanced up, he saw Ness and Toon Link practically crying from their laughing fit. Beside him, Daisy was attempting to hold it in as well.
With narrowed eyebrows, he asked, "what's so funny?"
This produced another blast of laughter from the kids, which caused Ness to fall off his seat onto the floor. Toon Link lost it after that, making incoherent noises and pounding the table repeatedly with his fist, while his other hand clutched his heart as if it might suddenly stop working.
With a raised eyebrow, Ike turned to Daisy, who looked more concerned for the well-being of the children than anything else.
After awhile, Ness finally got off the floor, his face red from laughing so hard. He clutched his sides as if they physically hurt, which they may have, judging by how he fell onto the hard floor and all. Toon Link took off his hat and used it to fan himself, suffering from the same symptoms as Ness.
Beside him, Ike heard Daisy's voice. "Boys, are you alright?"
Expecting them to burst out laughing again, Ike was almost surprised to see them nodding their heads in unison. "Alright," she added. Turning to Ike, she finally explained that the two kids had snatched a piece of his chicken while he was deep in thought.
The mercenary glanced back down to his plate, noticing that they had, indeed, taken one piece of his chicken from him. But he was too lost in another place to really care.
He lazily finished the rest of his meal, and, deciding to skip out on the Coke, headed for his room.
Nothing eventful happened for the rest of the day, until Red decided to go outside the mansion at night.
The kid wasn't superstitious by any means, nor was he afraid of the dark. He wasn't running out on a dare, either. Somehow, his Charizard had gotten loose from the Pokeball and he had been following the little flame on its tail and calling for his beloved pet, but with no avail.
"Come here, Charizard!" He whispered firmly, hoping the dinosaur would listen to him this time and go back inside where it was nice and warm and not as creepy.
He suddenly became aware of a shiver creeping down his spine, feeling uncomfortable out here. "Charizard!" He called again. "Come here!"
The pokemon remained where it was, in a small patch of grass underneath a nearby oak tree. Red rolled his eyes and decided to humor the pokemon, who was now making some kind of noise at its discovery.
Red got a swift whiff of pine, nothing unusual there, but for some reason, it made his hairs stand on end. The boy pulled his hat down a little tighter and trudged through the grass to Charizard, grumbling the entire way. The pokemon should know better by now...
A hand reached out for the pokemon but stopped. His eyes scanned something on the ground. That...
It wasn't...
His eyes widened. Holy crap! T-there's a person! he shouted in his mind. And it was enough to send him fleeing into the mansion, leaving Charizard to fend for itself against the strange person sleeping in the grass.
Red flew through the doors like a ghost was hot on his heels, ratty old tennis shoes thudding rhythmically against the tile in the main lobby. He didn't stop until reaching the far hall, when his body told him he'd extended his energy too much, and the kid found himself panting for air and sliding halfway down the brick wall, heart pounding against his chest, his ribcage constricting until it was painful.
"Ughhh..." He groaned in pain. Glancing up, he nearly fell over in surprise as a nearby door swung open.
Two figures came out of the doorway, coming to a halt once they spotting the heaving kid.
"Red! Are you alright?"
Luckily for him, if he had needed medical attention, he was right outside the infirmary, with two of the "official" nurses headed his way.
He tried to catch his breath and form coherent speech, but succeeded in only falling to the floor and clutching his chest while sputtering.
"Oh dear," Daisy commented, putting a hand to her mouth.
Beside her, Peach moved to inspect Red further, to see if he was possessed or just playing some game that the kids did nowadays. The two princesses were still dressed in scrubs from their previous shift in the infirmary.
"Red?" The blonde pressed the back of her hand to his forehead, to gauge whether he had a fever or not. "You're burning up..."
Red shoved her hand away. "T-theres-" again, speech failed him, and he came up with the solution of just pointing towards the still opened front doors of the mansion.
They both followed his arm and saw the front doors of the mansion wide open, wind whipping through the doorway with an eerie whistling noise.
The two princesses exchanged confused glances. "Red, what did you see out there?" Peach asked, slightly nervous. She was almost certain that there wasn't anything to fear out there, but for a kid to come running in like that, it must've been something frightening. Or, at least, something out of the unusual.
For a brief moment, Peach pondered the thought of calling for Samus, but quickly declined it. The woman must've went to bed by now, and definitely wouldn't appreciate being woken up for nonsense.
Red wheezed again, his breath slowly returning to his body. "Outside…" he croaked with a ragged breath. "There's a girl outside!"
The two princesses exchanged confused glances again, having a non-verbal conversation between them. Solution found, Peach knelt down in front of the still traumatized but quickly recovering boy, asking if he would be okay.
Red nodded, his breathing becoming more rhythmic and less erratic. "Yeah, just-just a little startled…"
"Where was this girl at?" Peach asked in a way one might speak to a small child. Comforting, yet serious.
"There was a tree, Charizard found her… she's laying right by the tree."
"Alright, you just wait right here," Peach said to him. "Daisy and I will go check it out." Blue eyes locked, as if in confirmation, before the two decided to head out.
The girls left him there, heading for the mansion's entrance. It was fairly uncommon for anyone to be outside at this time of night, even the late-night training sessions ended long before this, especially with the addition of a downstairs gym at the end of the Melee tournament.
The two princesses took brisk but cautious steps, their tennis shoes squishing into the slightly damp grass. Anyone who would be laying out here must be cold, Peach thought to herself.
The nurse scrubs suddenly felt very light and vulnerable. An unsettling feeling swept across the two. It wasn't unheard of for newcomers to appear in the most strange and random ways, but the tournament had just finished about a week and a half ago. It was still early for anyone to show up.
"There!" Daisy pointed with a hushed whisper. "There is Charizard."
"Hmm." Peach crossed over to the pokemon, who, upon closer inspection, was sitting beside a figure lying in the grass.
Peach barely held back the gasp. This girl…
"Daisy," she motioned with her hand, barely able to say more out of shock.
The brunet followed, her eyes glancing over the sleeping figure sunk into the grass. She froze, eyes wide. "Who..?"
"Let's get her inside, quick!" Peach ushered. The resemblance was so uncanny that it couldn't possibly be coincidence. She'd need to contact Mario about this discovery in the morning, but for now, their main concern was with getting the girl inside and out of the cold. Who knew what kind of condition she might be in.
The two were quick to lift the girl off of the ground. At this time of night, a majority of the residents had already retired to their rooms, so there wouldn't really be anyone else to help. Besides, Peach thought, as she and Daisy reached around to lift the unconscious girl and carry her, this girl was fairly light.
As the princesses headed for the building with the new girl, a pair of cold eyes watched the scene unfold from a window on the second floor. The curtain fell back almost instantly, and with it, the night faded into a close.
Well, the plot thickens! I bet everyone already knows who the girl is, though!