The First Skirmish
Classified maximum security prison somewhere in Earth Federation territory, 2647 AD
Moving in an eerie, synchronized march, three identical, lanky, black-haired men in suits ventured to a vault in the very back of a subterranean floor of a prison facility with a location so shrouded in mystery, that it was only known to the highest echelon of government officials and the few people who worked there. Their mission, to free a man who went from war hero to greatest genocidaire humankind had ever seen in just a few seconds, the man who's name the vault was inscribed with,
Bill Rizer.
The three men nodded to the technician, who used a retina scanner to make a holographic keyboard appear. The man typed in a 15 digit code, then another, then another, and yet another. Upon completion of the final string, the layers holding Bill within began to peel away, ending as a fourth vault door open. Rizer was bound at the hands and feet by large metal shackles, his blond hair wet and long, and his military issue camouflage pants uncomfortably damp looking. The man grumbled in groaned, his eyes opening to reveal an icy stare of immediate content, "Who the hell're you?" he grumbled
"We represent the President of Earth. The Blood Falcon, a spiritual successor to the organization that you and your old partner Lance dedicated so much of your to fighting, has begun to wreak havoc upon this Earth, but they have begun moving through a portal. The President's scientists have determined this to be a portal of alternate dimensional origin. We request that you follow them, and prevent them from coming back here. Transportation will be provided, but upon stepping through the portal you will have no backup. Mister Rizer, do you accept these terms?'
Bill grinned, a fire in his eyes, "When, and where?"
The Pillar of Autumn, in Instillation 04 Orbit
The ship was under siege, that much was made obvious by the throng of Covenant warships outside, but that wasn't worth breaking composure over. Part of this was a carefully crafted poker face, as realistically, Cryo Specialist Connor Johns had plenty of reason to worry didn't wish to worry his younger subordinate and fellow Cryo Specialist, Sam Avidan, by losing composure. However, part of his stony demeanor was genuine. Every once in a while, a nagging voice told Johns that the man they were about to introduce into this conflict would win the war for Earth.
"Right. Let's thaw him out" snapped Johns, partially to bring the starry-eyed Avidan back to reality.
"Okay, bringing low-level systems online," began Avidan, talking himself through the steps, " Cracking the case in thirty seconds"
In those thirty seconds, all sound seemed to fade from Avidan and Johns' perception. This was all that mattered right now.
"Okay, he's hot! Blowing the pins in five."
As each connection point strapping the figure in cryosleep snapped, the schematics of the man's armor appeared on the computer screen in front of them. Avidan let out a muffled, "oooh" as it did. There was no doubt what the cryo pod contained, a 100 percent genuine Spartan soldier. Below the intimidating schematics was the man's codename, 'Master Chief.' A third man, Cryo specialist Dolph Rowe, was walking Chief through the basics of movement, to make sure the cryosleep hadn't impeded his motor skills, when suddenly, the Chief growled, "No time. I need a weapon."
Even though some distance and an observation deck separated Rowe and Johns, Johns could see Rowe's skin visibly pale, hurriedly tossing Chief his service pistol. Rowe walked Chief over to the shield recharge station, Johns and Avidan activating it. After bringing the shields down, and the shields automatically recharging as they were designed, a call came from Captain Keyes that Master Chief needed to be at the bridge immediately. After Rowe began to spew diagnostics and procedure at him, Keyes reiterated his command, more forcefully this time. At the exact moment, the doors to the cryosleep control room were blasted open by the first wave of Covenant invaders. Cryo Specialists Connor Johns and Sam Avidan never stood a chance. Rowe lead Master Chief through a door, Chief making sure to keep several paces behind. This was a battle instinct the proved correct, as the door became engulfed in an explosion, incinerating Rowe along with it. Chief ducked through a side door in the hallway, bolting down long corridors, and through explosions. The Spartan ducked and weaved through malfunctioning automatic doors. Down one particularly dark hallway, a Covenant grunt stood, roaring to sound intimidating. Without hesitation, Master Chief jammed the service pistol into its alien maw and shot it dead. Bounding into the next room, an older Marine was beckoning to him that he could lead him to the bridge, but unfortunately, in attempting to be helpful, the Marine took his eyes off the present battle, and so he was shot did in one laser blast from the covenant Invader. Chief emptied a few bullets into the offending grunt, killing him, bounding into the next room, which appeared to be a supply room, littered with the corpses of dead Marines.
"Get clear Chief" shouted a Marine in the next room, who was mid firefight.
Chief didn't even acknowledge the young man as he whizzed into the next series of hallways, all of which were oddly serene, "The rapid tapping of keyboards, followed by the sight of men hunched over computer banks confirmed to Chief he was on the bridge of The Pillar. Steadying from a run to a walk, he walked around to the big monitor to meet the man he knew to be the captain of this ship, Jacob Keyes.
"Captain Keyes" grunted Master Chief, extending a hand.
The old war veteran happily took the hand, shaking it, "Good to see you Chief. Things aren't going well. Cortana did her best, but we never really had a chance."
Master Chief took note of Keyes' expression. If he was fearful or angry, he didn't show it. Cortana, the ship's AI appeared from a hologram projector on the desk, in a provocative human female form.
"A dozen Covenant superior battleships against a single Halcyon-Class cruiser. With those odds, I'm content with three, maybe four kills."
No one could see it, but Master Chief frowned. He had forgotten how inappropriately snarky the AI could be.
"Sleep well?" Cortana asked with a flirty wink.
The only way to make it through this is to go toe to toe thought the Spartan
"No thanks to your driving, yes." dryly remarked Master Chief.
"So you did miss me," Cortana shot back with equal dryness.
An explosion suddenly rocked The Pillar. Both Keyes and Chief were nearly sent toppling into the holographic screen but kept their footing.
"Report!" snapped Keyes.
"It was an anti-matter charge, judging by the impact, and I bet it was fired by one of their boarding parties," Cortana explained, a hint of annoyance in her voice.
"M'am! Fire control to the main cannon is offline."
Keyes clicked his tongue. That was as close to negatively emoting as anyone bearing witness to this would see the aging warhorse.
"Alright, I'm initiating Cole Protocol 2. We're abandoning The Autumn. That means you too Cortana." Keyes explained, suddenly thrusting a pointing finger in the AI's direction,
"While you do what?" Go down with the ship?" barked Cortana
Keyes pulled a smoking pipe from his jacket pocket as he spoke, "In a manner of speaking, yes. That object up ahead, I'm going to try and land the ship on it."
"It's foolish to…" began Cortana, but Keyes shook his head.
"USMC protocol is clear about these situations. The capture of a shipboard AI is completely unacceptable, and that means you're leaving ship. Lock in a selection of emergency landing zones, upload them to my neural lace, and get set for a hard transfer," ordered Keyes.
"Aye-aye sir" piped the morose voice of Cortana as she disappeared.
"Chief, your mission is to get Cortana off the ship." Keyes began, " Keep her safe from the enemy. If they capture her they'll learn everything about, force deployment, weapons research…"
"I understand," said Master Chief.
Cortana suddenly reappeared, "I've set evasive maneuvers and subroutines for landing. Not that you'll obey either without me around, but you know, due diligence and all that."
With a smirk on his face, Keyes took a long drag of his pipe, "Thank you Cortana."
Cortana went to say something in return but stopped. She closed her eyes, deeply inhaling, and then exhaling, "Yank me," she demanded
Keyes punched in a code on the keyboard connected to Cortana's holographic stand. She fizzled out of existence, and a disk lurched out of the disc drive. Wordlessly, Keyes handed the disc to Master Chief, who inserted it into the back of his helmet. Immediately, he could hear Cortana's sultry voice in his head,
"Mmmm, your architecture isn't much different from the Autumn's."
"Don't get any funny ideas," growled Master Chief
When Chief focused on the scene around him, Keyes had unloaded a USMC Assault Rifle from underneath the desk, "It's got a round of ammunition, after that you'll have to find ammo as you go."
Master Chief set off with a nod. Weaving through the hallways now sufficiently armed, he moved from room to room, clearing rooms of Covenant Forces, and cleaning up the firefights that had Marines pinned down especially the shield baring higher level Covenant troops. Serenity returned to the ship as the living Marines celebrated the Chief's arrival and their good fortune. Suddenly, another blast rocked the ship.
" What the hell? Did something just hit us?" cried a young Marine
"Move it, back to the airlock." Ordered another voice, no doubt the first Marine's commanding officer as Chief exited the room.
A horde of Covenant soldiers burst from a side room, bringing with them a barrage of laser fire. Chief took them all down with ease, but not without the cost of a bit of shield.
"Keep your head down!" whined Cortana, "There's two of us in here now remember?"
"It'll be fine. I don't need a backseat driver" growled Master Chief.
Chief heard Cortana grunt in displeasure as he rounded the next hallway. Suddenly, the AI piped up again, "They're using our lifeboat airlocks to attach their boarding craft! We come out and they come in. Clever bastards."
"Our main concern is getting out of here Cortana."
The two journeyed through the winding hallways of The Autumn, Chief pausing occasionally to take out a horde of Covenant, with Cortana providing an extra set of eyes when Chief needed it. Chief was especially grateful for this when Cortana directed him to the dark maintenance accessways. Chief surmised that if he had followed the main hallways, he likely would've unintentionally gone running into Covenant gunfire or worse. Chief surmised that, while Cortana could be annoying, she was an invaluable ally.
"I think they wanted to catch you napping," Cortana said to herself.
"What?" whispered Chief, peering down and seeing Covenant run about the Cryosleep area that the maze of hallways had led them to.
"The reason why they were so hellbent on following us was…you."
Master Chief couldn't afford to ponder the implications of that statement, as he mowed down the final remaining horde of Covenant enemies, before heading to the last lifeboat. He effortlessly scooped up a downed Marine, throwing him inside as the latch door closed, and the lifeboat launched away.
"We are disengaged, going for minimum safe d… what the hell?" asked the pilot, a country-accented Marine suddenly.
Master Chief worked his way up to the front of the lifeboat, peering out the window.
"What the hell?" simultaneously cursed Chief and Cortana.
It was a wormhole, and judging by the gravitational pull, which was sucking every Covenant ship into it, they were next. Suddenly, the lifeboat broke apart, and in an instant, Chief and Cortana were sucked through.
Devil's Pit, Mount Sumatra, Indonesia, 2017
Chun-Li looked up at the top of the mountain she was about to climb. It all started a few days ago when Akuma had reappeared and began to embroil himself in the affairs of conglomerate warlord father-son duo Heihachi and Kazuya Mishima. This had lead to Heihachi using a satellite to blow up a building with thousands of people inside, and Kazuya had turned into a devil and blown up the satellites. Now, the two were in some sort of fistfight at the top of Mount Sumatra The law had long since turned a blind eye to the two, as they were rich beyond reproach and pillars of the economy, at least that what Chun-Li's corrupt as hell Interpol bosses had said. No matter, if no jail cell would have them, the very least she could do was climb the mountain and kick their asses.
Or at least that's what she thought, until a purple explosion rocked the top of the mountain, sending what seemed like an entire slice of the mountain down at her. Chun-Li let a curse slip in Chinese as she flipped backward, just narrowly avoiding the enormous mass.
Chun-Li let out a breath of shock, looking first up at the steaming husk that had once been a considerable length of Mount Sumatra, and then at the red, futuristic watch Ryu had given her from one of his adventures, with the catch being that it was for cataclysmic emergencies only.
"And, now seem like that time," breathed Chun-Li, "Now to get this thing to work." She grumbled, poking at the watch.
Violet Systems HQ, Tokyo Japan, 2017
It's up to me… I must kill Kazuya Jin mulled over the announcement he had just made to his adopted brothers Lars and Lee, as well as the investigative reporter who's fate had become intertwined with there's.
Just as he pivoted to walk away, a purple bolt of lightning sliced through the sky sideways, then, a wormhole straight out of a sci-fi movie tore open the sky, with spaceships of unknown origins piling through.
"For God's Sake, what now?" whined Lee
"Lars, Lee, take the reporter. You and Alisa help the people on the ground. I'll go up top," Jin commanded
All three men nodded, heading for the stairs. Jin focused. He felt anger and hate piling to the front of him, like vomit. His eyes became blood red. His back exploded with pain as if daggers were flying out of his back. In truth, they weren't daggers, but wings. With a similar intensity horns sprouted out of his forehead. Using his laser beams that came out of his eyes, he eviscerated half of one ship, before swan diving off the buildings before taking to the air.
Scream, splat, splat, thunk thunk thunk
Master Chief had fallen onto the top of the Covenant ship, while the body parts of Marines eviscerated by the wormhole connected with the ship. Those that lived could barely scream before their bodies impacted with the ship's outer armor and simply exploded.
"What? How… Where?" gasped Cortana.
"No time! This is a Covenant Ship. Maybe we can break in through the window!"
"You crazy bastard," cursed Cortana.
Suddenly, Master Chief saw a red laser erupt from one of the skyscrapers of this new world, sawing the Covenant ship two across from his clean in half.
"Bright side, we have an ally manning an AA gun." Cortana quipped
Using the visor on his helmet, Chief zoomed in on the origin point of the blast and saw a man with wings taking to the air.
"Cortana…that's not a man," Chief explained.
Meanwhile, barrel rolling and tucking to brace his descent was Bill Rizer. Connecting with a Blood Falcon ship and rolling down it perfectly, he grabbed onto the nose of the ship, punching out the glass when he eased himself up and tossed the pilot out. Just as he did, he saw a man with wings fly by. The second of distraction gave the tens of Blood Falcon troops who were now out for blood time to pull him inside the ship, all surrounding him with weapons drawn. Suddenly, he heard a scream, one that sounded human
"THERE!" growled the voice.
Suddenly, the center point of the room exploded, taking a few Blood Falcon grunts with it. Bill used the moment of confusion to use his trusty Spread gun, firing, and easily taking out the remaining Blood Falcon Soldiers. After that happened, a man with camo fatigues fizzled into existence, prone on the ground.
"Who're you and how the hell did you get up here?"
"My name's Snake, and I snuck on when these alien assholes deployed ground troops. Everyone else that was a non-friendly on this vessel is dead. You're welcome." Snarled the man now known as Snake
"My name's Bill Rizer, formerly of the Contra unit. I'm assuming you, me, and the goth kid with wings are on the same side?"
"Yeah, I'm looking for him too. I have a feeling we're going to run into the other two guys I'm looking for too at the end of this."
"Looking?" asked Rizer, confused
"It's a long story. Now help me figure out the weapons on this damn thing," growled Snake
Meanwhile, Master Chief was clawing his way down the side of a Covenant ship when the winged man Chief had seen earlier flew to him, his wings idly flapping, "Are you an ally?" he asked in a bored monotone
"I'm against these assholes if that's what you mean," Chief growled
"Then you are an ally."
"Enough! Just blow us a way in."
Jin nodded, swooping down to the window of the ship, and blasting a hole through it. Suddenly, what appeared to be a gang of identical mohawked, combat fatigue wearing men, jumped out, smother Jin. Jin flew up to where Chief was, thrashing. Chief could hear the beeping of multiple time bombs emanating from the men. With no hesitation, Chief unsheathed his Assault Rifle, gripping the metal frame of the Covenant ship, and firing at the bomb men, with Jin barrel rolling and shifting so Master Chief could get a good shot at each one. Eventually, the bomb men all fell to the ground, completely limp. As Master Chief looked to continue his climb inside, Cortana interjected, "Chief, there's a weapons cache, we might want to try to preserve it."
Chief nodded, "Jin! When I get inside I'm going to need you to blow out the thrusters. I'll try to land the ship. I need the cache inside."
Jin again, nodded, watching Chief climb down, occasionally blowing up smaller ships that had come out of the capital ships with lasers to give Chief safe passage. It was at this point that Jin noticed one of the red-painted ships was turning against its own allies, firing every bit of its external weapons at the neighboring capital ships. Just as Jin began to ponder the scale of this invasion, Master Chief clawed his way inside. Jin swooped around, using his eye lasers to blow up the propulsion systems. The explosion was mighty, sending Jin backward, and sending about half the ship to smithereens. When it safely landed in a nearby body of water, Jin took off towards the rogue red ship."
Inside the aforementioned rogue red ship, Snake and Bill were counting the odds having to scream to each other and hang on to something bolted down as they were flying windowless on an aircraft, "Let's see, we're about six ships down, with how many to go"
"Presumably infinity if these assholes are like the assholes that came before them."
"Well that's just great" growled Snake
"I could fix it." Jin nonchalantly said, flying up to them.
"How?" Snake asked.
"By flying up in the portal and going nuts, and hope that whatever keeps the thing open is on the other side."
"I like this guy's style, but I came through the other end, and we didn't see anything."
Suddenly, the speakers on the ship flared to life, "Devil Boy may have a theory."
"Who the hell are you?" growled Rizer.
"He's Master Chief let him talk." barked Snake.
"The way I got in here was that I was sucked in, literally out of space, I wonder if they were being rerouted to a point between Point A and Point B."
Snake shrugged, "Worth a shot as much as anything I guess. Jin, take 'em down."
Jin nodded, flying into the sky, barrel rolling around small cruisers, and occasionally firing lasers if they interfered with his direct path, eventually flying to the portal. He breathed in as deeply as he could, firing and intense, concentrated laser blast into the portal. As Jin was sent flying backward by the force of his own blast, the portal began to flicker, and the remaining ships, aside from the one Master Chief was in, were sucked back through the portal.
"Heh, it worked," Jin announced to himself before colliding back first into a tree, knocking himself unconscious.
The next thing Jin remembered were the voices of his comrades
"Well holy shit, he's just a normal guy?" Bill asked
"Yep, that's what the dossier said," nonchalantly said Snake
"Dossier?" groggily asked Jin, "The hell are you talking about?"
"Well, as I was explaining to these two, I'm Snake, and I represent The Super Smash Brothers, an interdimensional fighting league that doubles as a crime-fighting league. We're in the middle of what you might call a recruitment drive right now because there's a big threat and we need all of you."
"Fighting? Taking care of big threats? What the hell, I'm in." sneered Bill
"Cortana and I second that" agreed Chief
"Cortana?" asked Bill
"My AI. I'm sort of her protector at the moment."
"Well, there's no safer place than the Smash Mansion, a pocket dimension, that you specifically have to know how to travel on an interdimensional basis to get to." Snake explained.
"I suspect my father or my grandfather or both are involved considering how I was mobbed by Jacks."
"Cortana!" barked the Chief, "Be mature!"
"What?" asked Jin.
"She made a joke that wasn't appropriate."
"Now," Snake barked, turning all three to him, "We can't leave yet, as we're looking for the fourth…"
Snake's red watch, which none of the other three had noticed before, began to flash blue and beep.
"…Person. Right on cue," growled Snake.
He pressed a button and spoke into it, "This is Snake."
"Hello. My name is Chun-Li, and I'm a friend of Ryu's. I believe I require your assistance now."
"We'll be right there." Snake informed her.
"Right there? Where are you?"
"Japan."
"But I'm in Indonesia."
"No problem. I'll be there in two."
"What the…?" Chun-Li's voice was cut off as Snake terminated the call.
"Everyone gather round." Announced Snake, "We're going on Snake's Magic Smash Bus."
"What in the blue hell did you just say?" growled Bill.
"It's a habit, I'm sorry. There's this show that my roommate likes from my world and she keeps watching it."
"Cortana says you don't need to explain yourself, that it sounds like fun," Chief interjected
"Has anyone told you you sound insane when you speak up for your computer?" asked Bill with a sneer.
"Oh, you'll meet her someday."
Realizing that cutting the chatter was meaningless, Snake used the watch's seldom used teleporting function
Indonesia
Chun Li was standing at the base of the mountain, as she had been at the beginning of this debacle, when three men, one in a sci-fi armor, one guy who looked like some sort of emo-rock music video star, and two men straight out of 80s action movies appeared before her.
"Chun-Li?" growled the man in the camouflage
"Yes, that's me."
"Jesus, she could choke out Kimkoh with those legs."
Snake's palm met his face, "Forgive my friend here Bill here, he's new."
Chun-Li frowned, "I'm not going to make a big deal out of it, but trust me, someday, you'll get yours."
"Luckily for you, the invite I'm going to extend to you is part fighting tournament, part police work."
Chun-Li chuckled, "Ryu must've told you about me. He's acutely aware that those are the two things I'm best at."
Snake grinned, "Good, we're happy to have you then."
He punched in a code and a portal opened, Snake motioned them through. Before they knew it, the four were standing in an opulent mansion, where a blue-haired man in blue armor awaited them.
"Greetings!" said the man, with a wave, "I am Marth, Vice President of the Super Smash Brothers. As we're still going to be waiting for some stragglers for the next few days, I've been instructed to show you to your rooms. Master Chief and Bill, you will be rooming together. Jin, you will be rooming with Terry, and Chun-Li will be rooming with…"
"CHUN-LI IS HERE!" screamed a voice from the top of the stairs.
Ken and Ryu were at the top of the stairs, lightly jogging down to greet their long time friend. The three engaged in a group hug, "Ken! How're things with Eliza and the boy?" asked Chun-Li.
"He's almost a teenager now."
"Almost a….but Ken, didn't he just start school?"
"Wait for it," said Ryu, crossing his arms.
"Wait for what-aghhhhh." Chun-Li groaned, wincing.
"Eeyup. Smash exists outside of time, so if you come here you become aware of your future."
"This is…strange."
"Don't I know it." Ken said nonchalantly, "Anyway, you're rooming with us."
Chun Li's eyes went wide, "Really? It'll be like when Ryu and I used to bum hotel rooms off of you in the Street Fighter tournaments."
Ken shrugged, "I'm happy to do it! Three's company as they say. Hey Marth?"
"Hm?" Marth asked
"I never brought it up with Mario before, but sometimes our universe melds with another universe long enough for us to beat a bad guy and then it goes back to normal. Like, we know Jin, Yoshimitsu, Megaman, and Terry from four separate times where that's happened I feel like the villains will use that to their advantage."
"I'll bring that up with ROB immediately," said Marth
"Thanks, bro! Anyway, I'll show y'all where your rooms are if you wanna come with me."
As the three newcomers walked away with Ryu and Ken, Snake's shoulder slumped, "God, I need a cigarette." He groaned, heading for the front courtyard of the mansion.
"Don't go too far, you're actually needed for another recruitment in a few moments. It'll be much easier than the last however.'
"I'll be right there just, let me get a smoke break in." uncharacteristically whined Snake
Marth's wristwatch went off. It was the administration group chat.
Otis: Hey Marth, can't get ahold of Mario, and I've got a question you might be able to answer
Marth: He's probably catching up on sleep from Wario bothering him. What's up?
Otis: Why do the recruitment notes for the next one just say Offseason Smash?
Marth: There was a group that tried to rip us off in between Brawl and Duel, and Mario's always wanted to time travel and poach some of their big stars
Sans: If we don't keep Mario's ego in check, he might demand we lower him from a motorcycle so he can talk about how great it is to be king.
Mikey: ROB put that in the notes just to make Sans mad
ROB: Affirmative
Marth: That aside, Snake's going to use an inroad to talk to three of them.
Sans: Cool. The portal's ready when he is
Marth: Thanks Sans. By the way, can you tag Ken and Ryu's universe? Apparently the reason Ryu knows all these people is because their universes meld randomly. Worth keeping an eye on.
ROB: Affirmative Marth, I agree with your last sentiment as well.
Marth headed up the stairs to the bedrooms, With the rest of the team ready to brief Snake at any time, he figured he should follow Mario's sentiment and take a brief nap.
(AN: Just so you all know where all of our newcomers are in their respective timelines
Jin- Final scene/after credits of Tekken 7
Master Chief:Tutorial of Halo Combat Evolved
Chun-Li Super Street Fighter 2
Bill: The prologue of Contra Shattered Soldier.
Tune in a couple weeks from now when SSB and Playstation All stars finally cross over!)
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