Author's Note: Somehow, the poll I had for the past two weeks got a vote. Therefore, the real name of Joker to be used in this continuity will be... Akira Kurusu!
I still might not be using the name for a while. Originally, I planned to also write a Super Smash Bros. fic focusing on Joker but I decided to put that on the hold for a while.
Review Responses:
Elysium: Yeah, I kinda see where you're coming from. I'll come back to Ch. 16 again someday and edit it. Not sure when that will be but it's on the to-do list.
Disclaimer: I don't own Nintendo and/or Super Smash Bros. If I did, we would be getting a Pokemon Gen 4 remake.
Chapter 17: Three's a Crowd
"Apple, apple, a〜pple!"
"Stop singing," Oblivion begged. "You've just been saying apple over and over again."
"Stop doing what you're calling singing," Crazy said. We were leaving Darunia's dojo, having spent the night there. Currently, we were heading to the path that I had opened the previous day.
"Fine. I'll stop saying apple" I almost tripped on the first step of the stairway and I fumbled, nearly dropping the apple in my hand. "Ringo, ringo, rin〜go!"
"I hate you."
"Now you're just saying apple in Japanese," Crazy pointed out as we ascended the stairs.
"Am I? I have amnesia, I don't even know what Japanese is." We reached the top, and I took the moment to look around. We were standing on the wall and to the left seemed to be the crossroads where I fought Lucario. I guess that means right is the right way to go.
"It's the language of the country you seem to be descended from, judging by your last name." She pushed past me and turned right. Naturally, I followed Crazy's lead, falling into step next to her.
I took a bite out of the apple before a thought came to mind. "Hey, Oblivion?" I thought to the voice. "If apples keep the doctor away, what would happen if a doctor ate an apple?"
"Excuse me? Where did that come from!"
"I'm, like, 64% certain it's a saying in my world. 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away,' or so they say anyway."
"It should be obvious. Due to the doctor-repelling properties of an apple, the doctor would not be able to go anywhere near an apple."
"However, it is possible that a single apple by itself is not strong enough to repel a doctor. A person needs to eat one everyday to keep a doctor away after all."
"The problem with that is that a person needs to eat only one in order to constantly keep the doctor away. Of course, a single apple may not be able to keep the doctor away forever which may hint that a single apple does not have enough force to keep a doctor away." Oblivion paused, as the actuality of our conversation dawned on him. "Why are we talking about apples and doctors anyway?"
"By the love of waffles, you're right. I don't know why." I tossed the apple up, watching as it flew into the air. Newton lied. An apple did not come back down, as the law of gravity said it should. Apple bits did instead, raining down on me. "Gah! What!"
Another arrow flew by my head, making duck on reflex. Crazy began to return fire and I scanned for who was shooting at us. They were quadruplets, all the same fighter, all were shooting laser arrows at us. All four were dressed in togas, white, pink, yellow, and blue. In addition to being armed with bladed bows, they all had wings on their back and a golden laurel atop brown locks.
"I better not be sent to Hell for killing angels," I muttered as I began to fire back with the Steel Diver.
"Who cares! Let's make some barbecue wings!"
"Don't worry Nathaniel," Crazy stated as she sidestepped several arrows before shooting. Her shot hit the pink angel in the forehead and it broke apart into smoke. "I'm sure that when you die, you'll go to Hell for plenty of reasons besides killing Pit."
I stared at her, my jaw dropping. "Who names their kid Pit? That's just begging for him to get bullied."
Before I heard her response, an arrow nailed me in the side of my head. Thrown off my feet, the submarine gun slipped from my fingers and I rolled to my feet. I spun out of the way of any arrow before running at the trio.
Somehow, I got close enough without getting filled with holes and I grabbed Blue Pit by the toga. Giving him an uppercut to the chin, I kicked him into White Pit. I spun, drawing the Beam Sword from the inventory. Facing Yellow Pit, he split his bow apart into twin blades before charging, slashing at me with them. I jumped back, dodging several more attack.
I leapt out of the Pit's reach before countering with the Beam Sword. The blade extended and created a deep gash across the angel's chest. I kicked him away and he faded away. I heard Crazy's Staff go off and a third Pit fell to the ground before disappearing. An arrow hit me in the back before I could turn. Landing on the ground, I shot back.
White Pit put up a barrier with small floating shields. The torpedo hit the barrier and bounced back towards me. It hit blew up, hitting me in the chest and I slid back. Screaming, I jumped back to my fight, "WHY DO SO MANY FIGHTERS HAVE REFLECTORS?"
The angel dashed towards me. I swapped the Beam Sword with Death's Scythe and used it like a spear. Jabbing Pit in the stomach, I pushed him back before hooking the blade around his ankle. He fell and rolled away before I could bring the blade down on his head. Pit brought up the bow, knocking an arrow, pointed at me.
Naturally, I threw the scythe at the angel. The blade cut through Pit, and the spirit was released from the Puppet Fighter.
I picked the scythe up and Crazy walked over to collect the spirit. I stood, watching the horizon as she did so, when something caught my eye. "Who is that?"
"Who're you talking about?" Crazy asked, absentmindedly.
I focused a bit and peered closer at the person. "Crazy! I'm going ahead!" I didn't hear her response as I ran towards the stairs that would lead me to the next area.
The area looked like something from a board game. Hills looked like giant, colorful balls that were cut in half and placed down on a grassy plain. Ribbons and rainbows acted like bridges, connecting those hills together. On one of those hills, a familiar swordsman was fighting a giant Pikachu.
Jumping off a ribbon bridge, I kicked the Pikachu away and placed myself in between the two. "How ya doing Clarence?" I asked the kneeling swordsman.
"Oh. It's you," Clarence answered. "By the Divine Will, why are you here? I had this under control." He rose shakily to his feet, before falling flat on the ground.
"Admittedly, part of the reason is to mock you. Now just sit still, Crazy's going to be here soon to heal you." I pulled out Death's Scythe before running at the Pikachu. The Pokemon charged up and launched itself like a rocket towards me. Shifting my grip, I used to the scythe to vault over Pikachu. Slashing several times at Pikachu's back, I hooked onto Pikachu's head and slammed it into the ground.
Twirling Death's Scythe, I took several steps away from the Pokemon as it rested on the ground. "C'mon Pikachu! I fought you yesterday! It's like this is on easy mode!"
The Pokemon responded to my words, rolling towards me and calling another Thunder. I threw up a shield, blocking the Thunder as it crashed down. Time seemed to slow as Pikachu moved closer, stretching out a paw to grab me. Grab beats shield.
While my shield was up, I shifted my body towards Pikachu and went into a roll. At least, that's what my body should have down. For the single second that my body was in that dodge, it felt wrong. It felt like it was weightless, like there was no mass there. I went through Pikachu and that feeling disappeared when the dodge ended. I screamed, "WHAT WAS THAT?"
"Don't forget about Pikachu!" Oblivion broke through my sudden concerns. I twisted, kicking Pikachu in the back. The Pokemon spun back towards me, giving me a headbutt. I dodged to the side, ignoring the weightless sensation and I knocked the Yellow Mouse away with a swing.
Pikachu fell to the ground as a dark, shadowy aura encompassed fighter seemed to be unaware of the dark aura and charged. I stood my ground and held my scythe ready. Pikachu jumped and spun around with it's tail. Moving out of the way, I swung. The fight ended as Pikachu seemed to implode the moment the aura touched the tip of my scythe.
Tucking the scythe away, I asked Oblivion, "Now, can I ask about that feeling I had during the fight?"
"Shouldn't you be more concerned about Clarence? I think he's dead."
"WHy? He's fiiiiiiiii-" I stopped as I turned around mid-sentence. Clarence was slumped over, face-first on the ground. "Oh."
"Why did you run over, -oh." Crazy popped up behind me. "So, you found Clarence."
"Yep."
"Is he dead? Why's he dead? Did you kill him?"
I sighed, walking over to poke Clarence. He groaned a little but didn't move otherwise. "I don't think he's dead. Blame Pikachu."
Crazy pulled out a sandwich and started to cram it into Clarence's unconscious mouth, "So where's the spirit?"
"Oh. Um." I spun around, scanning for the rainbow orb that came out of Pikachu's corpse. There was a small problem with that though. There were a handful of those floating around the area. Counting quickly, I announced the total, somewhat perplexed, "Why is there 9 spirits floating around?"
Her head shot up, now noticing them as well. "Give me a minute to finish with Clarence. We could worry about the spirits after he gets back on his feet."
"Fine. I'm gonna walk around a bit." I took off before she could respond, crossing another rainbow to get to an orange striped hill. I scanned the area again, and a building similar to Darunia's caught my eye. I decided to check it out.
"When you dodged earlier, did you get that feeling before today?" Oblivion inquired as I crossed another rainbow bridge.
"No, my dodges were completely normal yesterday. At least it didn't make me sick again." I stopped. The bridge connecting the hill I was on to the one that the building sat on was a wooden one. Did I stop in fear of the splinters that the bridge would give me?
No, I stopped because a giant, gloved hand popped into existence when I finished talking. Master Hand balled himself into a fist, before slamming down onto the bridge. Doing a snap, the hand vanished again. Thanks to physics, the bridge was now in splinters.
I gauged the gap between the hills, "Whelp, can't jump across. It would be super convenient if someone came along that would fix the bridge."
I waited.
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And waited.
"Are you actually waiting for someone to come along and fix the bridge?"
"Any better ideas?" I snapped back at the voice.
"Yeah, fix the bridge yourself."
I looked at the remains of what had once been a bridge, "But, I don't know how."
"Fine. I guess just wait for Crazy."
"Hey! Nathaniel!"
I turned to the source of the voice. "Speak of the devil."
Crazy was crossing the rainbow bridge, dragging Clarence by the foot. "Thanks for ditching me so I could pull Clarence all the way over here. By myself."
"Sorry." I pointed a thumb at the remains of the bridge. "Anyway, do we have anything to deal with that?"
Dropping the foot, she sighed. "I think I could build a bridge but could you grab all the spirits? It might be safer to get all of them before they float off to who knows where."
"All right, fine." She passed me her Switch and I walked off. Tapping away at the screen, I pulled up what looked like a main menu. There a circle with the Smash Bros. logo in the center of the screen and four rectangles that were placed around the circle. The top left rectangle was red and said Party. Next to it was a blue rectangle that said Map. Bottom left was green and said Spirits. The last one was purple and said Chat.
"Going by the labels," I said to myself. "It's probably this one." Clicking on Spirits, more menus popped up. "Collection, capture, radar, -wait, there's a radar for spirits?"
I tapped on radar, only for the system to give me an error message. "Okay, that doesn't work. How about Capture?"
I hit the Capture and the screen changed to an empty loading bar with an A button indicated. Holding the Switch up to a spirit that floated by, I held down the A button. The bar began to load as the spirit began to be absorbed. The bar hit 100% and the Spirit was on my Collection.
"Sweet." I ran over to the next Spirit to restart the process.
"Now that we do have an opportunity to talk about the fight, you don't want to talk about it?"
"Oh yeah, that." I mused. "It sorta felt like, I'm not sure actually."
"Maybe you could try replicating it again?" Oblivion suggested.
"Gimme a minute. I'm halfway done with this Spirit. Okay done." I set the Switch done before taking a few steps back. Wiping my hands against my pants, I took a few deep breaths and got into my usual fighting stance. Rolling to the side, nothing happened.
"Didn't you have your shield up before dodging?"
"Oh, right." I shielded before going into a dodge, triggering that feeling again. A kind of weightlessness and my body not feeling solid anymore.
As soon as the feeling disappeared, I did another dodge, this time, looking down at my arms. During the move, my arms blackened and broke apart, leaving a wispy trail. As the dodge ended, they reformed.
I held up an arm and poked at it. Solid and not wispy. "Did you see that Oblivion?"
"Technically, I can't see anything. I don't have eyes. But I did observe what just happened. Did you just turn into smoke?"
"Maybe." I did several more dodges, getting used to the sensation of my body turning into smoke. Picking up the Switch, I headed to the next Spirit, chatting while I did so. "Y'know, this is actually kinda cool."
"You quite literally get a power out of nowhere and you're first reaction is that it's cool? For all you know, this is just the first step to Mary Sue Town." Oblivion pointed out.
"Hush, no one needs to know." I captured the Spirit before moving to the next one. "Besides, I didn't know how to shield before going Darunia's Dojo. Shielding is part of the process to do the smoke thing, it could have been part of my move set all along."
"I guess. You should probably grab that one before it floats into the stratosphere."
I hopped up after the Spirit that Oblivion pointed out, nudging it slightly. The rainbow ball floated closer to the ground where I began capturing it. "I think other characters like Mewtwo had dodges like that too."
"I guess since it's not bothering you too much it's fine." I finished collecting the remaining Spirits that were floating around the area before making my way back to where Crazy was fixing the bridge.
I got there as the sun was beginning to set. The bridge was in pristine condition but a certain someone was waiting outside the dojo.
"Hey Clarence!" I gave the swordsman a wave as I walked up to the building.
He looked up, "Oh, you." Clarence gave a sheepish smile, "I never got your name."
"Yeah, you tried beating me up when I tried giving it to you." I answered. I spun around, before pointing towards the dojo. "Is Crazy inside already?"
"Yes."
As I took a step to go inside, Clarence gripped me by the arm. He locked eyes with me, "Look, adventurer-"
"Nathaniel."
"Nathaniel," Clarence corrected himself. "I just wanted to say thank you for saving my life. I'm not sure what I would have done if you and Crazy didn't show up. I've also been thinking."
"About?"
He glared at me for interrupting before continuing, "If the offer to join the two of you still stands, I would like to join. Being in a group would help me return home quicker."
I smiled, "I think the offer still stands."
Clarence joins the party!
"After all, you saved our lives back at the fortress. And besides," I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him closer. "I still have to pay you back for that sparring session. An eye for an eye, isn't that how it works?"
Visibly stunned, Clarence took a step back. A laugh broke through as I smiled, "I'm sorry. I couldn't resist doing that. Just consider my debt for the fortress payed."
Clarence still looked a bit nervous but he laughed along a little, "I don't see what's so funny."
I patted him on the shoulder before pulling him inside, "C'mon! Let's go bother Crazy!"
Save File 2: Saved
Party: Nathaniel, Oblivion(?), Crazy, Clarence
Items: Nathaniel- Beam Sword, Steel Diver, Death's Scythe
Crazy Hand- Staff, Deku Nuts x2, Green Shell, Bob-omb x2, Bombchu x3, Smart Bomb
Clarence- None
Smashers: Mario, Link, Kirby, Pikachu, Captain Falcon, Peach, Bowser, Lucario, Villager
Author's Theater:
Clarence: So I just come back?
Nathaniel: Yep.
Clarence: And I just join the party regardless.
Crazy: Yep.
Clarence: Then what was the point of me leaving?
MG: Hush. No need to worry.
Clarence: But-
MG: I said hush. I'm busy catching this dang Pidgey.