Origins: Cuphead

The same afternoon Goro was recruited, Mario and Shulk were in the midst of a heated meeting in the conference room.

"Mr. Game and Watch?"

"I mean, he'd definitely something the new recruit is used to, but it might be…too far in that direction, you know. Besides, he's got a bit of unpredictable personality, not the style we need for recruitment."

"Ice Climbers?" Shulk asked.

"No. Nana's too harsh, and Popo's too docile. Good for a relationship…not-a so good for a-recruitment."

"But…him? You'd really want him representing the Smash Brothers brand?"

"Look, of the admin team, Marth and I have done our fair shares of recruitments, you and the Duo are pegged for later recruitments, ROB's the only one capable of running this place while somebody's doing a recruitment, so we need him here. So that leaves him."

Shulk sighed, "Alright, you're the boss. You owe me 20 Smash Coins if he messes up."

Mario grinned devilishly, "You're on!"

He pressed a button on his wrist communicator, "Buzz up Sans please."

Immediately, the door to the conference room opened. Sans walked through the door, precariously. balancing at least 30 hot dogs on his head, the first 20 or so impossibly bent to where the slightest provocation would send them spiraling to the floor. As he and his incredibly balanced meat casings completed their trek through the door, the remaining 20 hotdogs snapped into position, as if Sans had tried to pass through the door in a large top hat, and the hat had bent to fit under the door.

"Wow." Shulk breathed; his mouth hung open in shock,

"That, dear Shulk, is-a why I'm the boss. Sans, take a seat, and pass us a dog while we're at it."

"Sure man," Sans said,

Sans plucked the first two hot dogs off the bottom, the remaining hot dogs falling perfectly into their place on the stack, balancing perfectly atop Sans' head. He tossed them to the two other Smashers who caught them. Mario took a bite, his eyes widening.

"Woah, these are delizioso! Where have you been-a making these?"

"My room. I bought a grill. Then Altair said it was against his religion to eat pork, figured the dude would cut me if I didn't stop, so I just came up here with them."

Shulk opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again.

Mario cleared his throat and slid Sans a dossier across the table. The skeleton's eyes narrowed, perplexed as he viewed the picture inside, "Who's the cuppa milk? He looks like something from an old Human cartoon."

"That's-a Cuphead, from the Inkwell Isle. His moveset is pretty similar to the one you're inheriting, but apparently, it's-a bit more nuanced. Cuphead and his friend Mugman freed the Inkwell Islands from The Devil."

Shulk raised an eyebrow, "Like the Assist Trophy that moves the stage around? That Devil?"

Mario shook his head, "No. Multiple universes, therefore there are different incarnations of the Lord of Darkness."

Shulk smirked, "Ah, right. So we can assume this Cuphead defeated The Devil. Do we know if this Devil is still a threat?"

Again, Mario shook his head, "This is one of the many universes we're going into the next couple of days completely blind. Sans, your power set is best equipped to handle…well, anything. Recruit Cuphead and bring him back."

"You got it, boss," said Sans.

"I'm assuming you've got a shortcut to the Portal Room?" Mario asked,

"You know I do!" Sans said with a wink, before standing up and shuffling out of the room, dossier in hand once again managing to get his tower of hot dogs out the door.

Mario chuckled before patting Shulk on the shoulder, "I know he annoys you, but I'm putting you as his point of contact of our end. You've got a critical eye for his goofiness, so make sure he doesn't mess up, or it's 20 Smash Coins out of your pocket. I've gotta set up the next recruitment."

Shulk nodded, "You've got it, Mario!"

Mario nodded, exiting the conference room, as Shulk exited just behind him, sprinting in the opposite direction to The Portal Room.

The Portal Room

In the dark quiet of the Portal Room, a certain skeleton was muttering to himself, pacing back and forth

"I'd like to recruit you for the Smash Bros Initiative… no that's not it. The few…the proud… the Smashers…. no, that goes against the rules of an elevator pitch. Nobody out-pizzas The Super Smash Bros…no, again, elevator pitch. Can a sentient cup of milk even be bribed with pizza? Milk is just coagulated cheese, so would that be like serving a Human dried blood? Nah, not the time for this. Focus Sans, focus! Oh, I'll know. I'll hit him with a "sup." That always seems to work. But he's from like an ancient cartoon. Would he even understand, 'sup' if I said it? Knowing my luck that's probably slang for some kind of drug."

"Are you quite done yet?" asked an irritated voice over the loudspeaker.

Sans jumped, "How long have you been listening?"

Shulk chuckled, "A while. I was waiting for the prime opportunity to make you jump. Now, we're opening the portal to Inkwell. Cuphead and Mugman live with The Elder Kettle, so I'm beaming you right outside his house."

"Got it."

"No funny business Sans."

"Hey, sarcasm isn't funny pal."

"I mean it."

"Fine."

The ringlet that housed the portal flared to life, the unknown energy showcasing a window to the other side, a simple hut with a smokestack piping smoke.

"The portal's all set up Sans, you can through now."

"Dope," said Sans, stepping through the portal.

What hit him first about this new world, besides the colors, was the smell. Sugar? Churros? Sans couldn't peg it, but the smell immediately sent a feeling of warmth over him, a feeling of happiness. Sans knocked on the door lightly. An old man with a tea kettle for a head answered the door, "Why hello there sir, how may I help you?"

"My name's Sans, Sans the Skeleton, I represent something called Super Smash Brothers, and I'd like to talk to Cuphead about it."

The Elder Kettle frowned, grunting disapprovingly, "Well alright, I s'pose it'd be rude to not let you make your pitch," he said, turning towards the innards of the house shouting, "CUPHEAD! YOU HAVE A VISITOR!"

In no time, they were seated around The Elder Kettle's family room table, Cuphead eying Sans up and down, "Are you sure he isn't one of The Devil's minions Elder Kettle?"

"I'm as sure as the day is long son." said the Kettle, "The Devil's men give off an aura, and this fella doesn't have it."

"Actually" interjected Sans, "The organization I'm a part of, the Super Smash Brothers is actually a unity of people put together to take out guys like The Devil, especially when they team up, which is what we think is about to happen. Meantime though, we're having a little tournament to see who's the best of us, and we want you to participate in both."

Cuphead's eyes immediately went wide, "Oh golly! That'd be great! Can I go Elder Kettle? Please? Sparring with Mugman has been so boring to me lately, and I'd like to test my mettle against Sans and his friends."

"Don't you mean…test your kettle?" Sans asked with a wink.

Cuphead laughed uproariously, "You tell a good joke Mister Sans. If your friends are half as on the beam as you are, I can't not accept!" Cuphead said.

"He has my permission as well," interjected Elder Kettle, "The boy's quite a hero, and will do you good."

"Sweet. Training facilities will be open in a couple days, but for now, we'll just be getting you set up with a room and…"

Bounding from the upstairs came Mugman, Cuphead's blue counterpart, looking quite flustered, "Guys, do you hear that music?"

Now that conversation had stopped, Sans did hear music, was that jazz?

"Oh no, it's King Dice!" Cuphead shrieked.

"King who?" asked Sans.

"The Devil's right-hand man," quivered Mugman, "What could he want?"

"Chill out guys, I'll take care of it," Sans said, opening the door behind to the front yard.

The source of the jazz music appeared to come from a man with a playing die for a head. His face was a smiling one but had creepy, leering eyes. He was dressed in a garish purple suit, impatiently twirling a cane.

"Ya know pal, it ain't nice to intrude in private business. I have a proposal for the residents of this humble abode, and it don't involve you, so scram."

"If you have business with them bud, you have business with me."

King Dice gave an unnerving, drawn-out chuckle at the skeleton's response, "You new around these parts pal?"

"No, but I know enough. I know you're The Devil's favorite lacky."

"I ain't a lacky son, I'm his right hand. An' when ol' hellfire and brimstone skedaddled outta here to serve some schmuck named Conker, he left me in charge. What that drip don't know though, is that I've been siphoning power offa him since those cup crumbs beat him a bit ago. Been lookin' to change the management up here in the near future. So, even though I wasn't someone you wanted to mess with beforehand, you certainly don't now."

`Alright pal, you wanna test your mettle? Fine, prepare to roll snake eyes!"

Sans right eye flashed blue as a building-sized version of his signature weapon, the Gaster Blaster, appeared out of thin air, firing at King Dice. Seemingly without moving a muscle, King Dice slid to the side of the blast. Sans snapped his fingers, and the massive Gaster Blaster split into six regular-sized ones, surrounding King Dice, all spinning in a circle and firing. In a similar vein as before, seemingly aided by magic King Dice managed to avoid all the blasts

"Swell," King Dice cackled as the blasts came to a stop, "We've got a humdinger on our hands eh? Well, two can play at the monster game buddy!"

Behind Sans, a giant glove hand appeared, and appeared to… walk in place. Materializing seemingly from the inertia of the walking hand, a deck of sentient playing cards appeared, surrounding the skeleton. Suddenly, Cuphead kicked open the door to the house, "I'll deal with the deck of duds, you deal with the King."

Sans nodded, flying forward, two floating Gaster Blasters firing rapidly, "GET DUNKED ON SUCKAAAA!" screamed Sans.

As the Blasters were firing more rapidly than before, with King Dice dodging each blast, Sans glanced behind him to see Cuphead shooting bullets of some description out of his fingers, all the while doing a flipping jump and bouncing off the cards in his way.

Heh, talented kid thought Sans.

Suddenly Sans caught the faint whiff of cheap cigar smoke, realizing that King Dice was within an arms reach of him. Using every ounce of his power, Sans took control of the gravity surrounding King Dice, slamming him into a pile of jagged bones he had materialized from the ground. King Dice pried himself off the bones, a murderous look in his eyes, "Alright, ya rotten schmuck. You wanna play a game, King Dice can play a game!"

King Dice snapped his fingers and the playing cards that Cuphead had been fighting floating into the air, swirling into a singular mass, and swirling all together until they became a birdcage, which came to contain Cuphead as it slammed into the earth. Then, a second, much larger birdcage appeared, slamming into the earth, capturing the Elder Kettle house.

King Dice laughed, "Now see, one of the things I can do with the boss' power is I can manipulate matter. I can also move things places instantly, so I can crush these cages and put 'em in a volcano so nobody has any remains to mourn. That is unless you accept my proposal. That is, I wanna set up a casino in Smash City when the tournament I've been hearing about starts. With all these marks comin' from other dimensions, it'll basically be pennies from heaven. We got a deal?"

"Yeah. I might even come and play a few rounds myself."

King Dice cackled, "Ey! You weren't as big a dope as I thought you were skeleton! I'll be awaiting my invitation in the mail!"

With an evil laugh, King Dice's entire body swirled into a portal which gave a cartoonish 'pop' as it disappeared

The cages disappeared, Cuphead ran over laughing uncontrollably, "Wow! That was the bee's knees sir!"

"You weren't too bad yourself kiddo, the way you were bouncing off the card guys was super interesting."

"You mean my parry ability?" Cuphead asked with a dismissive wave, "Pffft, that Bobbysox Brigade wasn't nothin'! Now let's go meet your friends."

"You got it bud," Sans said as he keyed in the portal code to his wristwatch

"I'll reserve seats for you guys if I can!" shouted Cuphead as the duo stepped through the portal the Smash Mansion foyer. In which Mario and Shulk were in the middle of an argument

"He invited The Devil's right-hand man to set up shop in Smash City! Tell me that isn't dumb!" Shulk was shouting

"He has every right to be here. Besides, if we show discriminatory business practices that might prompt Conker's gang to launch an attack on the city, which is the absolute-a last thing that we want. We gotta cater to them before during the tournament."

Shulk waved his hand dismissively, "Ugh, fine." he shouted, throwing two gold coins in Mario's direction, "You win."

As Shulk started to walk away, Mario laughed, "Sans-a, you did really good out there. You saved three people. You're a true hero."

Sans shrugged, "Better than the milk/cobblestone sandwich some volcano would've been dealing with otherwise."

Mario shrugged back, "However you see it brother. Anway, Cuphead, welcome to our fraternity, the Super Smash Brothers. Opening Day's in a few days. You're sharing a room with Ness and Lucas, I'll show you to the room. Sans your hotdogs are in the kitchen fridge, take as many as you want."

"Wait what?" Sans asked, confused, "They're my hot dogs, why do I need your permission?"

Mario shrugged, "Sorry, it's the boss in me. Have a good evening Sans." Mario said as he walked off with Cuphead

Sans let out a deep sigh, "For the love of Gaster, I'm gonna need a bottle of relish, it's been one of those days," moaned the skeleton, trudging off towards the kitchen.

(AN: Next chapter is Yoshimitsu!)