Round 1

Team Chaotix vs. Sephiroth

"I'm Vector, head of Team Chaotix. These're my partners Charmy," Vector crowed in the interview room earlier today, gesturing to the bee ambling in mid-air behind him, "'An Espio," he continued, gesturing to the purple chameleon squatted beside him on his right.

"And we're Team Chaotix!" announced Charmy.

"Any detective work ya need done, we're the best sleuths for the job!" boasted the crocodilian leader.

"That's all well and good but…how do you feel about Sephiroth,"

Charmy seemed to freeze in mid flap of his wings, teetering towards the ground for a second, face pale as a ghost. The young bee recovered enough to resume his latitude in the air but retained the same frozen, petrified look as he had before.

"Don't worry Charmy, we got a plan!" shouted Vector.

"We do?" asked Charmy and Espio at the same time.

"We do! Let's just say there's a power no man can resist."

"Chocolate?" blissfully asked Charmy.

"Erm, Vector, I don't swing that way," shuddered Espio.

"No no no! None 'o that!" a confidant grin spread across Vector's maw despite shaking his head in disappointment, "We ain't gonna reveal that here, but trust us,"

Nikki chuckled, "Alright. Any person you're hoping your fight?"

"Well, any 'o the duos," Vector began, "Picking up a duke against the Ice Climbers would be the ultimate honor. Them River City Girls wouldn't be a bad fight themselves."

"Oh, and Sonic!" Charmy interjected.

"You're right Charmy. Sometimes it slips my mind that they're the only ones we didn't get to spar against when we all got wrapped up in Metal Sonic's nonsense years ago," Espio explained.

"Yeah! And he wouldn't have Knuckles or Tails with 'em! We can beat ole blue easy! We can beat Sephiroth easy!"

"If you say so, boss…"

"Where's your team spirit Espy," goaded Charmy, looping circles around the stoic chameleon, "Remember our motto, Team Chaotix is gonna kick your Team Chaotix!"

"That's…that's really your motto?"

"You bet your bottom dollar it is Nikki. I mean, admittedly Mighty's printer, god bless him, screwed up and printed one and one-third of a form and we didn't notice the error until we'd already spent the money at Office Max, but we're making the best of it damn it!" Vector hooted, pumping his fist.

"It's as the old proverb goes. Never trust a dead man's printer, especially if it still has a Y2K compliance sticker on it," Espio mused, a far-off look in his eyes.

"Woahhh Vector, you're so wise," Charmy's voice cracked with awe.

"Enough jibber-jabber Team Chaotix. To victory!"

At his own proclamation, Vector bounded out of the room, Charmy followed happily repeating his mentor's last words, while Espio simply mouthed it, bringing up the rear of the trio.

Sephiroth title card animation played, and he was in the interview seat next.

"I must say, I haven't done one of these in a long time," Sephiroth mused, looking contemplatively into the distance.

"An interview?" Nikki asked, her voice uncharacteristically shaken.

"Yes. I was subject to them all the time when I was a public figure. It gave me a distaste for inane questions. Do not waste my time," warned the silver-haired interviewee.

"So, the standard operating procedure is to ask thoughts on your opponents, who are Team Chaotix."

"I have none," came the snarling response.

"Even though the match has been modified so that you'll be facing them with one stock each, three on one?"

"No. It simply makes the match easier from a strategic standpoint. As if this needs to be any easier."

"So I'll take it that means you don't have anyone you're looking forward to fighting?"

"Sephiroth sneered, "That isn't what that means at all. I'm looking forward to fighting any of the swordsmen, for example, Cloud especially. The simple matter is that they will not pose a challenge despite my anticipation. Are we done?" Sephiroth asked, his conclusion dripping with disinterest.

"Y-yes." quivered Nikki's voice.

With the slyest of smiles, Sephiroth teleported out of the room.

Now, the television audience could see Cranky and 9-Volt. 9-Volt was a consummate professional as always, but Cranky, oddly, was slouching in his chair, arms indignantly, "So, Futaba, do we even need to ask?" grumbled the Elder Kong.

"Nope!" Futaba declared her image on the screen for what seemed like a microsecond before it was back on the voices of Smash.

"Whelp, let's get this live execution underway," Cranky once again grumbled.

"Yep, let's throw it down," 9-Volt agreed.

Team Chaotix made their entrance first, Vector air-guitaring to the fabled Team Chaotix theme with Espio and Charmy curled up in balls, somehow fixated on the crocodile's nostrils. As soon as they made their way to the middle, Vector falling to his knees to do one final air guitar shred for the cheering stadium, a bell toll could be heard, stopping both the theatrics and the cheering. Drums to mimic a heartbeat traded off with the bell toles. Then, a choir began to sing forebodingly to a villainous string quartet. From the dome of the stadium descended Sephiroth, the crowd mixed between silent awe and the squeals of young girls.

Meanwhile, up in the AVALANCHE Family box, the tension was so thick it could be cut with a Buster Sword. What had once been a talkative, fun day had descended into an eerie silence as soon as Sephiroth's name appeared on the screen. Upon hearing the squeals of the crowd, Tifa was the first one to break it.

"Does he…have fans?"

"And I thought my faith in humanity would go up after Shinra kicked the bucket," Barrett bemoaned.

"They know not what Sephiroth has done, as they are not from our world," Red reminded them all.

Aerith nodded silently, stroking Red's fur, but this did nothing to appease her environmentalist colleague.

"Ignorant buncha…"

Reeve, feeling the storm that was Barrett's self-righteousness coming, put a hand on the massive shoulder of the man next to him, "Barrett, do you know the struggles that befall...Hyrule for example?"

"No!" snapped Barrett, "Ain't even been there!"

Red cast a lazy glance over at his gun-armed comrade, "Do you see his point?"

That seemed to defuse AVALANCHE's mountain of muscle, whose posture relaxed, "Yeah…"

"To Barrett's point, it is quite strange to see such a reprehensible being be cast as someone to be admired," Vincent added.

Barrett turned to say more, But Aerith shushed them, "The coin toss,"

Back on the stadium floor. Team Chaotix and Sephiroth stood across from one another, and Mills began his introductions, "The following contest is a round 1 match in the Super Smash Brothers Ultimate Tournament! The winner will face either Jin Kazama or Bill Rizer in round 2. Introducing first, in the corner to my left, they are the detectives you want on your side, Team Chaotix!'

Vector flexed his biceps Charmy and Espio waving to the fans as they politely applauded.

"Introducing the corner to my right, he is the One-Winged Angel, Sephiroth!"

More fangirl squeals. More uneasy glances around the AVALANCHE Family Box.

"If Team Chaotix wins the coin toss, the stage will be Windy Hill Zone, if Sephiroth wins the coin toss it will be Northern Cave. Call it!" Mills demanded flipping it into the air.

"Tails!" Charmy shouted.

"Heads!" Mills announced.

"Well, we never were good with money anyway," chuckled Vector.

"Due to the special nature of Team Chaotix, the match will be three on one. Each competitor will have one stock. Items medium. Smashers ready?"

"Yes!" Team Chaotix shouted in unison.

Sephiroth simply shrugged, chuckling.

The four Smashers teleported away.

Stage: Northern Crater

Rules 3-on-1 Team Battle, one stock, Items Medium

Music, "Funk With Me/Vibe Valentino/Sync or Swim"

Team Chaotix drifted onto the stage in a pyramid hoisted up by Charmy, where Sephiroth floated down on his own.

3

2

1

GO!

"Wow! This song's got a beat to it, thank the Chaos Emeralds!" Vector observed

"You know what that means!" Charmy proclaimed.

In synch, the three took out plastic, yellow-rimmed sunglasses, putting them on. They then posed, their heads bowed as if in prayer, and their arms crossed at their pelvis. It was then the madness began. The three began to shuffle to the left, then to the right, completely out of time with the music. Swiveling their bodies, rocking forward, then back. Charmy began to fly circles around the other two grooving members of Team Chaotix, eventually divebombing onto the floor and doing The Worm.

"Charmy with The Larva! Busting a move in the biggest interdimensional tournament ever!" 9-Volt called, very audible over the unanimously cheering sea of spectators.

Vector strutted up to the still unmoving Sephiroth, brandishing his own pair of glasses, putting them gingerly over the black-coated man's eyes.

"He's not gonna…" Zack said from the AVALANCHE Family box.

"There's no way," said a slouching Cloud in the Smashers' Box, every eye in the place gauging his reaction.

And then, Sephiroth's toe began to tap, swaying and strutting his way over to Espio. Vector and Charmy being to clap their hands in synchronous, as if they'd expected this.

"Could the power no man can resist they talked about earlier be the power of dance?" 9-Volt asked Cranky.

Cranky only grunted disapprovingly.

Meanwhile, in the Smashers' Box, everyone erupted in cheers, save for Cloud, whose mouth was uncharacteristically agape. In the AVALANCHE Box, the gang sat in silence, completely stunned.

Before anyone could process what was happening, Sephiroth hit Espio with an Octoslash. As the Chameleon was launched into the air by the slashes, and then slumped to the ground, Vector sat opened mouth. Charmy had his back turned, still clapping his hands to the music. The jovial bee turned just in time to see Sephiroth crush remove the glasses, and slash him as hard as he could, eliminating him.

"Charmy Bee has been eliminated!" Mills announced over the PA.

Vector shook himself awake, snarling and charging Sephiroth, Espio charging behind. By then, the sword-wielding mad man had already charged Mega-Flare. The blast was so bright, and its effects so absolute that no one even saw Vector careen into the blast zone. Even Mills' official announcement of the Crocodile was a stumbling one. Espio managed some sort of ninja jump maneuver to make it back to stage at 176 damage, but his opponent stood unphased, only aggressively snapping his fingers, once, then twice. Five orbs of dark energy circled menacingly around the purple Chameleon, who first tried to swat them away as if they were bothersome bugs. When that didn't work, Espio tried to roll away, only to leave himself open for his second Octoslash of the day. As if the 308 percent of accumulated damage wasn't bad enough, Sephiroth raised an open palm to the air, closing his fist. At his command the dark orbs descended on Espio, adding insult to inevitable injury a nanosecond before Espio the Chameleon was sent to the blast zone.

In the deathly silent Smashers' Box, Shulk tapped an earpiece. After listening to what the staffer on the other end to say, he leaned over to Mario, "Erm… boss? We have a problem. Our teleporters missed."

"What do you mean they missed?"

"Sephiroth teleported somewhere on his own," Shulk explained.

"Well, he's got his communicator, doesn't he? Track him, now!" Mario demanded; brow furrowed.

"Track him via communicator please," Shulk relayed to the camera crew.

A few seconds of nothing later, screens suddenly flipped to Sephiroth, glaring at the camera, a wall of fire behind him. With a small smirk, he turned, walking into the fire and out of sight.

Tifa and Cloud were in separate parts of Smash Stadium, but what rushed from their thoughts to their mouths in a river of anger were the same.

"That son of a bitch."

Mario, on the other hand, didn't see the symbolism. He saw disaster.

"Where is he? And what the hell is on-a fire?"

"Somewhere in the forest that surrounds the mansion."

"Longitude Latitude read-outs indicate…" ROB began.

"Spare me," Mario snapped.

"In the Western Quadrant of the forest outside the mansion."

"Nibelheim…" Cloud snarled.

"What?" asked Otis, his years perking up.

"It's the equivalent to where Nibelheim would be on a map of Gaia," explained the spiky-haired blond through gritted teeth.

As if on cue, Sephiroth appeared in the tunnel. Usually filled with, at the very least, polite applause when a winner entered the room, silence blanketed the room.

"Don't you have an interview to do?" spat Sans.

"I don't," Sephiroth smirked back, his eyes glinting with childish mischief.

Sans stood up, "It's one thing to walk around like you're the biggest bad, around here," he said, marching towards Sephiroth, "But genocide ain't something I take lightly, you know?"

Now, the skeleton was chest to chest with his taller human opposition, the former's left eye glowing a firey blue.

"And you wish to do something about it?" Sephiroth taunted, smirking down at him.

"Let's dance assclown," hissed Sans.

It was at that moment, Quinn, Altair Dante, and the rest of the admin team pulled Sans away, with a quartet of villains, Ganondorf, Wario, Porky, and Akechi pulling away Sephiroth. Cloud stepped forward, beginning to unsheathe his sword, but Snake clasped a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head sternly when the ex-SOLDIER turned to look at him.

"Both of you settle," demanded Mario, "Or you'll end up like K. Rool, locked in your rooms like impudent children. Do you understand me?"

Sans visibly defused, his posture, meanwhile. Sephiroth only nodded curtly, expression unchanged.

"Good," said the head of the Smashers flatly as he turned to watch the broadcast as it played out.

In the chaos, the Smashers had missed a lively debate between 9-Volt and Cranky. The debate seemed to be at its punctuation point, with Cranky asking, "All I'm saying is, he took no damage and dished out damage in the upper hundreds. And it only took him thirty seconds. Who can stop Sephiroth?"

"I don't know," 9-Volt submitted, his head hung, "Just…throw it to the randomizer."

The remaining match card cycled through at lightning speed, landing on…

"ICE CLIMBERS VS SAKI!" they announce team declared together.