Eternal Deathmatch
A Super Smash Bros. Story
"One of the fanfictions of all time." - Albert Einstein
An overweight yet agile plumber donning overalls and a red cap, and an intergalactic spacefarer in an orange futuristic space suit armed with a deadly arsenal. These were two individuals who somehow found themselves captives of a mysterious puppeteer who hides in the shadows.
There they stood on an infinite plane of concrete with a white backdrop in the sky. The two individuals had just awoken from their deep slumbers, during which their minds were fed curated thoughts, memories, and emotions from the shadow puppeteer. The puppeteer's malevolence was magically seared into their brains, instilling a deep and primal loathing towards one another. Thus for no logical reason, the two individuals deeply resented each other, so much so that the hatred which bubbled up felt as if it could be resolved one way and one way only.
Through fatal combat.
"You!" The plumber pointed at the spacefarer, his eyes glowing bright red with malicious intent. "You murdered Princess Peach, didn't ya? You son of a bitch! Why I oughta…!"
"Princess Peach? Who the hell are you talking about?" The spacefarer responded. The plumber was surprised to hear a woman's voice coming from the space suit.
"Liar!" The plumber responded, getting angrier by the moment as his fists curled. "Don't play dumb with me! Momma told me neva' to hit a lady, but you'll be my first exception! I'M GONNA SMASH YA!"
The plumber took a spirited leap towards the spacefarer with his fist extended, but the spacefarer expertly twisted her body to avoid the plumber's punch, and responded with a powerful left hook onto the plumber's torso, slamming him directly into the ground and breaking his ribs. The plumber hit the ground so hard that cracks were visible on the concrete floor.
The spacefarer suddenly felt an irrational yet overwhelming hatred overtake her soul, as her eyes also began to glow red through her helmet with hateful vengeance.
"You little bastard, you're working with Ridley aren't you?" The spacefarer aimed her right arm at the plumber as she began charging up her weapon. "Who the hell do you think you are?"
The plumber turned his head away from the ground, adjusted his red cap, and looked the spacefarer right in her visor.
"Who am I?" The plumber laughed as he wiped blood from his bulbous nose, his broken body trembling in pain. "It's-a me. Mario."
"Mario? Don't make me laugh!" The spacefarer's weapon reached its full charge as she mocked the wounded Mario. "For one of Ridley's henchmen you sure do have a stupid name. I'm Samus Aran, liberator of the galaxy. Remember the name while you burn in hell!"
Samus released her charged beam shot, firing several gigajoules of charged plasma energy directly towards Mario's face. As Mario lay helpless on the ground, all he could do was wait until the plasma energy beam reached him and incinerated his body...
But in his final moments, Mario had one last resort.
Without uttering a sound, he revealed a golden cape, seemingly out of thin air, and draped himself in it.
Samus was both amazed and appalled by the inconceivable mystical glow of the golden cape. Never in her life had she witnessed such a pure magical force, not even from her Chozo ancestors.
"What in the…" She said softly as she slowly dropped her arms.
The plasma beam bounced off of the golden cape, not even dealing a scratch to Mario, and reversed its course, immediately slamming into the spacefarer at nearly ten times the speed of sound.
Mario had successfully magically reflected Samus's plasma beam.
Samus couldn't even hear the beam rushing back at her before she was blasted by it. She was foiled by her own weapon.
Well, shit. Samus thought to herself as she was blasted away by the plasma energy burst, flying backwards in the air with bloody chunks and shards of her powered suit detaching from her suit. Didn't expect him to be a magician.
Samus fell from several yards onto the ground, cracking her skull since her helmet was utterly destroyed by the blast. She immediately lost consciousness.
Mario let out a sigh of relief. "I did this for you, Peach…" He whispered those final words as he, too, slowly lost consciousness due to his broken ribcage and the resulting internal bleeding.
Both individuals lay bloody and unconscious on the ground, breathing their last breaths of life.
"PRINCESS!" Mario shouted out loud as he finally came to his senses. He woke up in a room that was entirely black, except for himself, the folding chair he was sitting in, and three other individuals along with their chairs, which were all illuminated and arranged in a circle, facing each other.
One of these individuals was Samus Aran, the woman he had just fought.
"What the," Mario patted his body down and noticed that his ribs had completely healed and he was no longer bruised and bleeding. He also noticed that Samus's battle suit was fully repaired, good as new. "Was I dreaming? Hey Samus, weren't we just at eachotha's throats?"
"We were tricked." Samus responded. "Master Hand did this."
"Masta' who?"
"The Master Hand." One of the other individuals chimed in, a young blue-haired fellow wielding a sword and wearing a golden tiara. "He is an evil, powerful puppeteer who taunts us from the shadows. He wiped many of our memories, poisoned our minds with sinful thoughts, and forced us to engage in combat with one another. We were mind-controlled, Mario."
"Wait, who the hell are ya and how do ya know my name?" Mario asked the young man.
"I am Marth, Prince of Altea." Marth motioned towards the final individual seated to his left. "And this is my new friend Sonic the Hedgehog. You see Mario, Sonic and I were also psychologically manipulated into doing battle with each other, just as I understand you and Samus were."
"When I get my hands on Master Hand that fucker's gonna be dead!" Sonic exclaimed, emphatically. "Guy made Marth stab me in the heart! Pardon my French but that's a dick move, bro!"
Understandably, this was a lot for Mario to take in. Though he's certainly no stranger to sticky situations, an infinite nightmare of death battles was not something even he could foresee.
"Our top priority now is defeating Master Hand." Samus said to Mario. "We need to put our heads together and think about how we're going to do that."
YOU COULDN'T DREAM OF DEFEATING ME.
The four heroes simultaneously heard the same voice, not through their ears but deep in their souls, immediately striking a primal fear into their hearts. Without hesitation, the four of them stood up from their seats and assumed their battle stances.
An incredible lightning bolt struck the spot in the middle of the folding chairs, blasting the four heroes away from each other and briefly paralyzing them. And in the sky, a terrifying, menacingly gigantic gloved hand gradually appeared from the shadows.
It was Master Hand.
THE FULL EXTENT OF MY POWER IS BEYOND THE SCOPE OF YOUR FEEBLE IMAGINATIONS. Master Hand snapped his fingers, summoning a shatteringly loud clap of thunder that further prolonged the heroes' paralysis. IF YOU DARE DEFY ME, I WILL UTTERLY CRUSH YOU LIKE THE WORMS YOU ARE.
"Heh…" Sonic smiled deviously as he struggled to form a sentence in his paralysis. "I utterly crushed your mom… last night!" He shouted.
Master Hand pointed at the blue hedgehog and fired a bright white laser beam from his finger, immediately striking Sonic at the speed of light. Even the fastest hedgehog alive couldn't react quickly enough to evade this attack.
"No! Sonic!" Marth exclaimed.
As the white smoke dissipated from the blast, Sonic was revealed to be completely encased in ice. He was frozen solid by Master Hand's attack. The frozen Sonic's right hand was positioned in a middle finger gesture directed at the sky.
I WILL KILL YOU, AND THEN REVIVE YOU, AND THEN KILL YOU AGAIN, AND THEN REVIVE YOU AGAIN. YOU WILL ALL SUFFER FOR ETERNITY AS MY PLAYTHINGS.
As Master Hand began charging up a ball of shadow energy in his palm, Samus immediately fired a barrage of five heat-seeking missiles in quick succession towards the puppeteer. The missiles were instantly sucked into the puppeteer's shadow vortex, rendering them useless.
"Shit." Samus said.
HAHAHA, WHAT A JOKE. The Master Hand's final attack was nearly ready, fully prepared to wipe the four heroes off of the map. PREPARE TO DIE!
But then… a loud, thundering female voice rang out from the high heavens. Even louder than the voice of Master Hand himself.
"Honey, put your toys away. It's already ten and you've got school tomorrow."
AW COME ON, NOT RIGHT NOW. The shadow vortex in Master Hand's grasp suddenly dissipated into nothingness.
"I said put your toys away now! You have to get up in the morning!" The female voice shouted with a ferocity even more intimidating than Master Hand's. "Don't make me ground you again."
MOM YOU'RE EMBARRASSING ME!
"Bed! Now!"
The Master Hand let out an undignified sigh. And slowly but surely, the dark sky brightened up into a deep blue as the sun rose over the horizon.
LUCKILY FOR YOU FOUR, I MUST DEPART NOW. I HAVE IMPORTANT BUSINESS TO ATTEND TO. The Master Hand remarked, defeatedly. BUT MARK MY WORDS, YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LAST OF ME.
The Master Hand faded away, gradually becoming more and more transparent until his presence was finally gone.
Sonic's ice prison shattered, immediately freeing him. "Brrr! That bastard froze me!" Sonic shivered as he frantically looked around in a very puzzled manner. "Where the hell did he go, anyway? And who turned on the lights out here?"
"Wait, you guys heard him say 'mom', right?" Samus remarked. "Am I hallucinating again, or was Master Hand just now talking to… his mom? Is this a kid we're dealing with?"
"That certainly appears to be the case." Marth responded. "Immediately after the voice of this 'mother figure' appeared, Master Hand's demeanor completely changed. Certainly this is the strangest predicament I've ever found myself in…"
"What the fuck are you guys talking about?" Sonic chimed in. "Okay, someone's gonna have to fill me in. I've been frozen for God knows how long."
"It wasn't that long, Sonic." Mario said.
Suddenly, a thunderous rumble came about in the realm. Like an earthquake, the ground beneath the four heroes began violently shaking and trembling. Buildings, trees, structures, and even people started to rise from the ground. The shaking lasted for nearly ten seconds during which the four heroes frantically swiveled their heads in confusion, ready for further combat at a moment's notice.
But after the shaking stopped, they found themselves in the center of a bustling yet quaint old city center lined with shops, cafes, trees, pedestrians, and bakeries.
"What the devil? Where in the world are we?" Marth said.
"Hold on, let me trace our location." Samus tapped her helmet, activating her scan visor in order to gather and analyze information from the surrounding area. Although her scan visor's functionality had been offline while in Master Hand's mysterious shadow realm, it now seemed to work just fine.
"Laniakea Supercluster… Milky Way… Orion-Cygnus… Sol… Terra…" Samus quickly rattled off the readings she continuously received from her scan visor as it took its time to calibrate. "48.85 degrees north, 2.33 degrees east…"
"The hell's all that mean?" Mario asked. "English, please?"
"We're in France now." Samus replied. "Paris, to be specific."
The four heroes were leisurely seated at a small table right outside of a popular Parisian café, all the while mentally pondering their next moves. Mario had his red cap in his lap as he drank his hot chocolate. Samus had removed her helmet (which she also had sitting in her lap), but still had the rest of her power suit on as she slowly sipped on a cup of black coffee. Sonic was drinking Coca-Cola straight out of a red can. Marth gracefully enjoyed a cup of green tea in solemn dignity.
A young waitress approached the table.
"Bonjour! Feel free to call me if you guys need anything else." The waitress lightly tapped Samus's metal shoulder. "By the way, I love your cosplay, girl! It's so lifelike!"
Samus groaned quietly.
"Like I said," Samus said as she set her coffee on the table. "As soon as I finish this coffee, I'm out of here. I need to find a way to locate my ship and get off of this planet. You guys can worry about Master Hand, I need to deal with an even greater threat to this galaxy whose name is Ridley."
"Why the rush? Let's not worry about all of that right now." Marth said. "For now, let us enjoy this brief moment of peace and companionship. Whatever happens to us, I want to let you all know that I feel truly blessed to have new friends such as yourselves in my life."
"Appreciate it, bud." Mario chimed in. "But this peace ain't gonna last long if Master Hand comes back and messes with our heads again."
"Yo Mario," Sonic asked, crinkling his empty soda can and throwing it onto the center of the table. "Not trying to be nosey, but like, when we were in that weird shadow realm I remember you talking about some kinda 'Princess' when you woke up? What was that all about? You royalty or something?"
"Haha, well nah. Well… I mean I'm friends with royalty, sorta. Ya see, I do plumbing work and I'm also sort of a bodyguard for the Princess back in the Mushroom Kingdom. It's this weird magical kingdom—"
"So you into this chick?"
"Huh? What?" Mario blushed and nervously chugged his hot cocoa.
"Ha, knew it! Looks like Mario has royal taste, guys!"
"Oh, don't pry." Marth said to Sonic, and then turned his attention towards Mario. "Love is a thing of beauty, Mario! Have you confessed your feelings to this fair maiden yet?"
"Uh, well I mean, it's kinda complicated…" Mario said as the redness in his face gradually increased.
"Mario, you are my friend and you deserve the world. Fear not, for I will guide you in the right direction." Marth sat his cup down and interlocked his fingers. "Now listen. You will find out her favorite breed of flowers and bequeath her with a bouquet of them. You will write her a short poem expressing your admiration for her grace, beauty, wisdom, and courage. You will gracefully offer her your hand and profess that, although you will always be by her side as her bodyguard, you have a passionate desire for a romance to blossom between the two of you. And of course this must be done in a romantic setting, such as a lovely beach during the sunset, or a field of flowers outside of her castle walls. Do this, my friend, and you will be gifted the privilege of a lifetime of happiness with this fair maiden."
"Marth…" Sonic said. "You know I love you, man… but that shit is corny as hell. Bahaha!"
Sonic continued to laugh profusely for the next ten seconds, while Marth frowned and folded his arms as he shook his head. Samus detached her arm cannon from her suit and pulled out a handheld gaming device to alleviate her boredom, clearly uninvested in the conversation.
"Look dude," Sonic continued, gesturing towards Mario. "It's not even complicated. If you like a girl, just tell her you like her and invite her to a scary movie or something. You can thank me later!"
Mario sighed in exasperation, sorely regretting his decision to even entertain this subject of conversation.
"Appreciate the advice guys, but those suggestions seem… kinda risky." Mario turned his head towards Samus, hoping for wiser ideas on her end. "Whaddya think, Samus? I mean, you're a lady and all…"
"We don't all think the same way." Samus quickly retorted, not even bothering to move her gaze away from her handheld device. "You know her better than we do. You'll figure it out."
"Real helpful…" Mario sighed again. "Alright, thanks guys, I'll take all that into considera—"
"WAHHHHHH!"
All of a sudden, the four heroes heard a loud, obnoxious male voice yelling from a few yards away. As they turned their heads they noticed a short, stubby man with a pink nose and a crooked mustache donning an overall outfit just like Mario's, except purple and yellow rather than blue and red, along with a yellow cap with a purple letter "W" labeled on the front.
"Well if it ain't Mario! Wahhh!" The obnoxious man remarked as he wobbled over to their coffee table. "Heard you're havin' trouble with the ladies huh?"
"Mamma mia, not this guy again…" Mario's sunk his face into his palm.
"Do you know this fellow, Mario?" Marth asked as he pinched his nose, disgusted by the repulsive odor emanating from the yellow-capped stranger.
"Unfortunately. We used to work in construction together. Wario, the hell ya doing in France?"
"Wahhhhh! I could ask you the same question!" Wario laughed heartily while everyone at the table stared awkwardly and silently at him, except for Samus who remained focused on her video game. Offended by her lack of attentiveness, Wario turned towards Samus and called her out in particular. "Hey, who's this blonde broad? You single, baby? How's about I take you on a trip to WARIO LAND!"
"Don't talk to me, you greasy fuck." Samus snapped back, barely acknowledging Wario's presence. Even so, Wario seemed to relish in the attention, especially negative attention.
"Feisty! I like it! Wahhh!" Wario turned back towards Mario. "Look here Mario, don't listen to these loser chumps. You tell a broad she's 'beautiful' and she'll dry up instantly. Instead, tell her she's got a nice ass and ask her what that thing does!"
Marth slammed the table with his fist in anger. The three other heroes were surprised by this sudden outburst, and even Samus was somewhat taken aback by Marth's reaction.
"You will not talk about a lady in such a foul manner in my presence!" Marth exclaimed. "I demand that you leave this table at once!"
"Wahhhh! Who even is this nerd?" Wario laughed, and then noticed the sword at Marth's side. "Ooooh, that sword… you're friends with that Lucina broad, ain't ya?"
"What…?" Marth's right fist balled up and his level of rage increased. "How… how does a disgusting boor such as yourself know of Lucina?"
"Because I tapped that! WAHHH!"
"Wha— 'tapped'? What the devil are you trying to say?"
"Uh," Sonic chimed into the conversation. "I think he's trying to say that he, y'know, slept with her."
"THAT'S RIGHT! WAHHHHAHAHAHA!" Wario put both of his hands on his plump belly as he laughed boisterously.
"You…" Marth immediately stood up from the table, causing his chair to fall loudly to the floor, alarming the waitress and other patrons near the cafe. "You lying demon! You dare spew such abhorrent lies in my presence? BY THE LIGHT OF ALTEA I WILL VANQUISH YOU!"
Marth drew his sword and pointed it towards Wario. Wario grinned as he raised both of his fists, clearly prepared to engage in combat with Marth. Some of the patrons at the nearby tables got up from their seats and started leaving the area in fear. Others, who were quite entertained, stayed seated to enjoy the spectacle.
"Oh là là… is everything okay?" The waitress came up and asked the table, trembling in fear at the rapidly escalating situation.
Samus immediately noticed something strange about Marth's and Wario's eyes: they began to shine with a familiar, menacingly red glow.
"Shit, this is bad." Samus finally put down her handheld console and immediately rose up from her seat, prompting Mario and Sonic to rise as well. Samus turned towards the waitress as she reattached her arm cannon to her suit. "Ma'am, you need to leave right now. This is a very dangerous situation. Go!"
The waitress nodded and sprinted down the street as fast as she could. Samus turned towards Mario and Sonic.
"You guys see what's happening, right? The glowing red eyes? They've been possessed by Master Hand."
"Figured as much." Sonic said.
"Uh, yeah." Mario added. "Yeah, I totally figured that out too…"
Marth took a swing at Wario with his divinely sharp Falchion blade, but Wario released a large flatulent explosion of gas from his backside, propelling him upwards into the air to narrowly dodge Marth's attack and knocking Marth to the ground. The gas explosion was so powerful, it blasted nearby tables and chairs all the way into the street. Some of the remaining café patrons were even knocked back, and those who weren't began coughing profusely from the horrific toxic stench.
"We have to stop this fight." Samus said as she assumed her battle-ready position. "We can't let these innocent bystanders get hurt. Mario, Sonic, let's put an end to this."
"Right!" Sonic said. "We just gotta stall them until Master Hand's mom sends him back to bed again."
Mario nodded as he put his red cap back on his head and began charging a fireball in his right hand.
"Let's-a go."
To be continued.