Chapter 9: Samus
In the mainstream universe, Mario, Peach, and Sonic watched Samus and the other scientific minds as they made their final adjustments to the circular warp gate attached to the back of the Tornado.
"Ready to test it?" Peach asked.
"As ready as we'll ever be," Samus answered as she finished welding the warp gate together. Various cords attached to the warp gate were plugged into Samus' Varia Suit. "My suit's linked up to the space transporter and ready to go." She stepped away as far as the cords would allow her to.
Tails gave an encouraging nod to his best friend. "Alright, Sonic. You're up."
Sonic approached the warp gate and held up the Chaos Emerald in his hand. "Hope I'm not too rusty. Haven't done this in a while. CHAOS CONTROL!" The warp gate contained the opening rift in time and space, starting the engines of the pilotless Tornado. In turn, Samus' suit surged with activity.
"Alright, the portal is stabilized. Now my suit should be able to lock on to their energy signatures, allowing the Tornado to pull them back here," said Samus.
Peach sighed in relief as she pressed her clasped hands to her chest. "Thank goodness. All of our lost friends are coming home."
Clemont self-assuredly slid beside Peach. "Like I told you before, princess. The future is now, thanks to science!"
"Whoa! Science is so amazing!" Mario cheered.
As the other scientists watched their invention at work, Shulk's eyes glowed blue as he received a vision of the future. When the vision ended, Shulk turned to his colleagues in a panic. "Wait! Who did the final testing on the space transporter?"
"I'm pretty sure it was Clemont," Jeff answered.
"SHUT IT DOWN, NOW!" Shulk warned Samus.
"Don't worry, Shulk. I got this," Samus calmly assured him. In the next moment, Samus was consumed in a bright light as the warp gate suddenly exploded.
Samus caught her breath as she rematerialized and landed on one knee. She got up and surveyed the unfamiliar surroundings, unaware that she had been transported to the Insurgency's base in the other universe.
"Well, that's what I get for not listening to the guy who can see into the future," Samus said to herself. "I don't know if I should pat myself in the back or kick myself in the…" she stopped herself as she heard familiar voices coming from around the corner. Samus cautiously made her way down the hallway and a quick glance around the corner confirmed her suspicions.
"My fellow Koopas will provide power-ups, but as you know, we're always short on personnel," said Bowser.
"The Yiga Clan is too reckless and undisciplined," Wolf criticized.
"True. But the chaos they create is useful."
"We need more than pawns if we're going to take down Mario."
Samus readied her Arm Cannon. "That's all I needed to hear." She turned the corner and fired at Bowser, but Wolf jumped in front of him and redirected the shot with his Reflector.
"I thought you said this place was secure!" Wolf complained.
"Just keep her busy!" Bowser instructed as he tactically retreated.
Wolf stepped up to Samus and grinned. "With pleasure."
Wolf quickly closed in on Samus, slashing her with his claws but failing to penetrate her armor. Samus countered with an upper swing of her Arm Cannon, stunning Wolf long enough for her to blast him at point blank range with a fully charged shot.
Changing tactics, Wolf pulled out his Blaster and tried to impale her with its bayonet, but Samus jumped back and smacked Wolf backward with her Grapple Beam. She then shifted into her Morph Ball form, rolling under Wolf's legs as she dropped a bomb underneath him. The bomb blew Wolf high into the air, and Samus followed up with a Screw Attack that knocked Wolf down for the count.
"Pleasure's all mine, Wolf," Samus quipped.
Bowser returned, piloting a much more sleekly designed and technologically advanced Koopa Clown Car than what she was used to. "What do you think, Samus? Like yours, only better."
"It's not the machine that counts but the one using it, Bowser," said Samus.
Samus launched a Super Missile that collided with a cannonball shot out of the Clown Car's mouth. She tried to get closer to Bowser, but he pummeled her with the spiked fists of the Koopa Clown Car. Knocking her back, Bowser tried to swing at her again, but she slid under the attack and into the Clown Car's propeller, toppling the vehicle over. As Bowser tumbled onto the floor, Samus put him in a headlock with her left arm while aiming her Arm Cannon into his mouth. Bowser tried to use his Fire Breath, but was too late as Samus fired into his mouth, blasting his insides.
Bowser reached into the Clown Car, pulled out a Mechakoopa and threw it at Samus, but she snatched it in midair with her Grapple Beam and tossed it back into his face. The Koopa King collapsed as the Mechakoopa literally blew up in his face.
"Looks like I'm the one that counts," Samus declared.
"At ease, Samus," said the Insurgency Link as he and the displaced heroes entered the room.
"Link?" Samus questioned, confused on two counts. One was the sight of a Link that looked not quite the same as the one she knew. The other was Marth, Kirby, and Leaf helping Bowser and Wolf up.
"Welcome to Wonderland, Samus. But at least this isn't a Wonderworld, especially not one of the Balan variety," Pit greeted her with a joke.
"Alright, what did I miss?" Samus asked.
"It's a long story," Link began.
Back at the decimated Hyrule Castle, Mario arrived to help Regime Leaf and her Pokémon search for clues as to why Link and the duplicates were there. Leaf presented to Mario an empty treasure chest found in a far off corner in the room and placed it on top of the pillar.
"He took a big risk coming back here. Why?" Leaf pondered aloud as Mario inspected the chest. Mario placed his hand in the treasure chest and suddenly felt weakened. Leaf grabbed Mario before he hit the floor. "Mario! What's wrong?"
Mario recognized the trace amounts of Crazy Hand energy on his hand. He remembered how vulnerable he felt five years ago when Link used a Crazy Remote Bomb to temporarily remove his Master Hand powers. And Mario feared that whatever Link took from the chest would be far more dangerous to him.
"I have to flush them out. Now!" Mario determined.
Later at the Insurgency's base, Samus, now brought up to speed, examined the damaged weapon as she sat with Bowser and her displaced friends. Wolf stood quietly in the corner with his arms folded.
"Alright, if we take this back to our dimension, I'm sure the other scientists can fix it in no time...as long as we don't let Clemont anywhere near it," Samus said bitterly.
"And we can come back with reinforcements," Kirby suggested enthusiastically.
"I'm sure I can get…" Leaf started to say before Link came in and cut her off.
"There's no time." Link turned on a big screen Sheikah Slate in the room, showing a broadcast of Mario holding a press conference.
"Five years ago, a tragic event cost the lives of millions. Overwhelmed by guilt for the role he played in the destruction, he was driven mad. He became an agent of chaos; an enemy to peace and security. But no longer. The leader of the Insurgency will pay for his crimes," Mario announced.
"Oh I don't like this," said Kirby.
"At 6PM local time, Link will be executed at Isle Delfino Prison. May the Star Spirits have mercy on his soul," Mario continued before Link turned off the screen.
"Getting help will have to wait. Rescuing your Link just became our priority," said Link.
"It's a trap," Marth stated the obvious.
"Of course it is."
"Then we'll have to be sneaky about it," Samus suggested.
"Sneaky how?" asked Kirby.
"We take over the Space Colony ARK's teleporter."
Bowser shook his head, activating a holographic map of the prison to illustrate. "Unfortunately, that's not going to work. Isle Delfino Prison is equipped with teleportation dampeners, making it impossible to teleport inside or out. Ludwig and Iggy made it themselves under my supervision."
Samus studied the Dampening Field displayed on the map, making an observation. "The Dampening Field only covers the building itself. You just have to get Link outside."
Bowser's mouth hung in shock. "That never even crossed my mind! You saw a weakness in our Koopa-designed defense in seconds!" he yelled in both awe and a slight bit of umbrage, feeling his pride as a Koopa wounded.
"So, straight through a brick wall? I'm game," Pit volunteered.
"You'll need a diversion. To keep Mario occupied," Wolf pointed out.
"Leave that to me. I think I know who to recruit to our cause," said Marth.
"You know who to recruit? But Maaaars! Tricking your army into thinking you're the other you isn't going to work a second time!" Pit whined, reminding Marth of a certain other young archer he knows.
"I know. Just trust me on this, okay, Pit?"
"I'll take the teleporter," said Samus. "Out of everyone here, I'm the best qualified to operate it. And…" Samus briefly deactivated her Power Suit, only to rematerialize it as the same upgraded form the Regime Samus wore. "...I can infiltrate their ranks. Based on Kirby's description, this sounds like the suit my counterpart's using, right?"
"Whoa! Since when did you have a Gravity Suit that looked like that?" Kirby asked in surprise.
"I have plenty of upgrades and variations to my Power Suit that I've collected over the years that I've rarely if ever used, usually from my more uneventful missions that didn't involve Metroids, X-Parasites, Phazon, or anything like that," Samus explained.
"In other words, the missions that were too boring to make games out of," Pit fourth wall broke.
"I'm with you," Wolf said to Samus.
"You and me? Working together? Not a chance," Samus said disdainfully.
"The only way of accessing the ARK from Earth is with the teleporter inside the Smash Mansion," Bowser argued.
"Inside the what?" Samus asked.
"Y'know, the Smash Mansion," Bowser repeated. But from looking around the room, the other displaced heroes were just as confused as Samus. "It's where all of us Smashers lived whenever Master Hand hosted a Smash tournament," he explained. "We ended up in a lot of wacky hijinx back then."
"That's definitely not a thing back in our universe," said Pit.
"Anyway, if your cover's blown, you'll need someone shadowing you, Samus," Link added.
"I'm not asking for permission," Wolf insisted.
"But you will follow my lead," Samus stipulated.
Sneaking into the Smash Mansion was the easy part, though Samus figured that any security guard that saw them assumed that she was her counterpart escorting a prisoner around and dared not to ask questions to avoid incurring her wrath.
Samus shot the door to the mansion's control room, overriding the door's security and unlocking it. "Communications should be over there. Re-route them like we talked about, and I'll get the teleporter access codes," Samus ordered Wolf. "After you're done, make sure you…"
"This isn't my first rodeo, kid. I know the plan," Wolf interjected.
"Then stick to it."
Wolf turned to Samus as she continued working. "Whatever history you may have with my counterpart, here you and I have none."
"Oh, it's nothing personal. It just hate immoral scumbags like you who give the rest of us bounty hunters a bad name. And before you try to deny it, I already downloaded your history. You tried to kill this universe's Star Fox team."
"Only a couple of times," Wolf admitted.
"Then don't expect any warm fuzzies from me." She finished typing and stepped away from the computer. "Meet at the teleporter in fifteen."
Samus exited the control room and made her way to the teleporter. When she got there, she began inputting the access codes, but the teleporter activated before she could even finish typing.
"Not now," Samus groaned, realizing that someone was coming through from the other side. Emerging from the teleporter was none other than Captain Syrup, but this Syrup wore a black version of her original one-piece outfit with matching boots along with her purple bandanna and sashes.
Samus tried to act natural as Syrup walked by. "Hey, Samus," Syrup greeted her.
"Hey," Samus replied.
Syrup stopped and turned around, noticing that something was off. "You sick or something?"
"Uh...no...I'm fine," Samus tried reassuring her.
Syrup stood there for a moment and Samus prayed to herself that she wouldn't pry any further and leave. Instead, Syrup did something Samus never expected; she hugged Samus from behind and caressed her chest. "Well in that case, handsome, when are you going to take me out on a date?" Syrup asked seductively.
Wha...What!? Samus thought in complete bafflement. "You do know that I'm a woman, right?"
"Since when has that stopped you?"
Samus turned around and pulled Syrup in by the waist, trying to play along. "Uh...yeah! I've gotten a little bi-curious."
Syrup leaned in closer, as if she was going in for a kiss, until she stopped inches from her helmet. "No you haven't, though now I'm a little bi-furious!" With a squeeze, Syrup disabled Samus' disguise, reverting her Power Suit back to its Varia form. "You're one of them." She threw Samus aside. "Let's see if I can find that suit's 'off' button."
Captain Syrup hurled a bomb at Samus, who deflected it back with an Arm Cannon uppercut. Syrup was blown back by the explosion of her own bomb, which Samus tried to capitalize on by lunging at her. However, Syrup recovered quickly and smacked Samus silly with a swing of the Bottomless Coin Sack. Samus came to her senses just as Syrup rubbed the lamp hanging on her belt, summoning her genie servant, but unlike his parallel counterpart, this genie was buff with red skin and crimson clothing, sporting a perpetual evil grin that matched his equally sinister yellow eyes.
The genie flung fireballs from his fingertips that pinned Samus down, allowing Syrup to shoot clouds out of his lamp that formed into miniature versions of the genie. Samus turned into a Morph Ball and sped away, narrowly avoiding the miniature genies' rain of fireballs. She reverted back to normal and destroyed the miniature genies with a volley of Homing Missiles before firing an Ice Missile into the larger genie's shoulder. As he howled in pain, Samus rocketed off the ground with a Shinespark, ramming into the genie's forehead with a powerful shoulder charge. The genie made a loud thud as he crashed into the ground, and as Syrup's mouth dropped in disbelief, Samus momentarily went into her Morph Ball form to drop a Power Bomb next to her. Taking the full blunt of the Power Bomb's explosion, Captain Syrup was knocked out cold and blown across the room.
"Well, I'm still turned on," said Samus.
She only took a few steps before her suit suddenly locked up, freezing her in place. "You've been Hacked!" a message displayed on Samus' static-filled visor.
"Samus to Leaf. I've found a duplicate of me," Samus heard her own voice coming from behind her.
"Understood. Sending reinforcements," said Leaf via communicator. However, what Regime Samus didn't know was that her call was being re-routed to the Insurgency base, and thus, it was the displaced Leaf that answered. Back at the base, Bowser couldn't help but crack a smile at the deception.
"Don't mind me. Just hacking your systems," said Regime Samus as she stepped in front of her counterpart.
"How about I return the favor?" Samus replied, scanning and hacking Regime Samus' suit with her visor.
Each Samus stared the other down, both trying to out-hack the other. Eventually, their efforts canceled each other out, and an electric surge booted both out of the other's systems.
"How about we have a real battle this time?" Samus proposed.
"Fine by me," Regime Samus agreed.
Regime Samus started the battle by ramming into Samus with a Screw Attack. Samus used Screw Attack herself to keep herself in the air, avoiding her counterpart's Charge Shots. Regime Samus pursued with another Screw Attack, and the two spinning Samus' danced around each other midair, each trying to strike the other. Finally, Samus came back to the ground and froze Regime Samus with an Ice Missile as the latter landed. Samus pelted her with multiple Missiles before dropping a Power Bomb and rolling far away quickly.
After taking heavy damage from the Power Bomb, Regime Samus hit Samus with several scattered shots from her Arm Cannon. She followed up with a barrage of Homing Missiles, though Samus shot each one before any of them could reach her. However, this kept her preoccupied long enough for Regime Samus to charge up her Arm Cannon for a Zero Laser. Just as Regime Samus fired, Samus strafed to the side and countered with a quick shot that staggered her doppelganger, stopping her attack. Samus reeled Regime Samus in with her Grapple Beam and pinned her down as she charged up and blasted her with a Zero Laser of her own.
"Pummeled. Not a good look for me," said Samus as she stared down at Regime Samus' unconscious body.
Wolf entered the room and saw Samus' handiwork. "You beat me to her."
"Another contract lost?" Samus asked.
"This one was personal."
"I didn't think anything was personal with you."
"She made it personal when she killed the rest of Star Wolf and tortured me."
Unnerved by the revelation, Samus said nothing else as she went back to working the teleporter, warping herself and Wolf to the Space Colony ARK without further incident.