smashfic ultimate

Chapter 1: Tears of a Plumber

It's a warm, sunny day in Mushroom Kingdom. As I walk up to Mario's modest shack on the outskirts of civilization, I recall the myriad tales of his great adventures told to me by his fans over the years.

"Surely," I think to myself, "a man of such renown could afford to live in something a little less ramshackle."

I knock a few times and wait to hear the squeak of his old Jump Boots as he walks to greet me. After a few moments of silence, I assume he isn't home and take a seat on the porch steps. I open the cooler I had dragged along and pop the top on an ice cold Chuckola Cola to enjoy while I wait for his return.

"I wonder where he's run off to? I sure hope the princess didn't get kidnapped again."

A few minutes pass and my worry starts to grow. I play a few rounds of Dr. Mario on my phone, which is oddly comforting.

"I don't have to worry too much," I laugh to myself. "He is a doctor after all!"

After a particularly good round of Dr. Mario (I'm ranked #3 on the leaderboard, only after Peach and Bowser Jr.), I stand up to have a stretch. I close my eyes and take a deep breath of that good, good Mushroom Kingdom air, feeling energized and ready for our planned day at Cheep Cheep Beach. When I open my eyes, however, I felt all the positive beach vibes drain from my body at the mere sight of my best friend Mario's panicked running down the road.

While I could sense his distress from afar, but nothing could have prepared me for seeing him up close. Tears in his eyes. Overalls soaked in sweat. I had never seen Mario cry before. I had never seen Mario sweat before. The most fearless plumber I know, capable of fixing any leak, was seemingly unable to control the most important leaks of all: the leaks of oneself.

I drop my half-drank Chuckola Cola to the ground; it shattering behind me as I run to meet my distressed friend.

I catch his gloved hand, moist with sweat, just as he collapses to his knees. I take a knee before him, trying to match his stature.

"Mario?" I ask, a tremble in my voice. "Mario, what happened? Is it Peach? Did she get kidnapped again?"

Amongst Mario's labored breathing, I can hear failed attempts to make the words happen. His head remains turned down toward the dirt, unable to muster the strength to provide me a direct answer. He weakly shakes it left to right, indicating that the Princess is safe.

"No? Was it....did Bowser get kidnapped, then? I know you two have something of a rivalry, but deep down you really care about each other. Frienemies, if you will."

Mario shakes his head again, with slightly more energy this time. I can tell he's starting to catch his breath.

"It's okay, Mario. Whatever happened, I'm sure you'll be able to save the day. You always do. Goombas, Koopas, Boos, Bullet Bills....ain't nothin' the Great Hero of the Mushroom Kingdom can't handle. I bet you could look Death itself right in the the eye and not show the least bit of concern!"

Just then, Mario reaches up with his left hand and grabs my shoulder.

"No," he coughs, his breathing still a bit labored. "Not-a Death."

His quiet, weak words shake me to my core.

"Mario?" I sputter meekly.

After what felt like an eternity, he finally looks up at me, his face red and swollen from crying. His mustache a disheveled mess. I stare deep into Mario's giant blue eyes, acutely aware that these same eyes had witnessed something truly terrible that day. Something uniquely horrible, something even the myriad tales of this man's great adventures I had been told over the years could not have prepared me for. Mario had battled so many great evils and emerged victorious so many times, but even never for a moment did his one of his adventures take a turn like this.

"It's-a Luigi," Mario sputters out, tears beginning to well up once again. "My brother, he's-a fucking dead!"

-----------

Chapter 2: Fallen Angel

"This is Snake. We've successfully infiltrated the castle."

Solid Snake looks back to me as he waits for Otakon to respond. I give him a thumbs up to show that I'm doing alright and we continue moving forward.

"Great work, Snake!" Otakon chimes back through the codec channel. "Did you have much trouble getting in?"

"Not really. I had to CQC a couple of skeletons before we found an opening into the ventilation system but now we're crawling through the ducts. Are we getting close to the target?"

As Snake talks to Otakon, I take a moment to appreciate his immaculately sculpted rear. It's truly awe inspiring to be so up close and personal with it as we continue to crawl forward.

"Sorry...did you say 'ventilation system'?" Otakon says with some disbelief in his voice. "Snake...I don't think Dracula's castle has a ventilation system."

"Are you looking at an up-to-date map?" Snake scoffs.

Snake's skin-tight sneaking suit keeps him almost dead silent as he moves. It allows him to sneak right up behind his enemies and take them out without ever taking notice. Quiet as he may be to the foes at his front, however, there are few things louder than catching a glimpse of Snake's behind.

"Well, this one is from GameFAQs and last updated in 2000...but my intel tells me that this is the Symphony of the Night era castle so I wouldn't expect many deviations from the original blueprints."

"Well, we're definitely inside an air vent, so..."

Much like a real snake, Snake's rhythmic side-to-side movement is mesmerizing. Unlike a real snake, however, he's got a butt that just won't quit.

"A lot of games are getting ground-up remasters these days, Snake. I wonder if the castle was updated to have vents so it would better appeal to an audience of gamers who are used to being able to sneak around in vents in modern games? I prefer my classics untouched, however..."

"Focus, Otakon. Are we near the target yet?"

Goddamn, that ass is fine.

"Wait! Stop crawling, Snake, it's gonna-"

Before Otakon can complete his warning, there's a loud creak, followed by the unfortunate loss of Snake's perfect behind from my gaze as the shaft gives out under his weight and he drops from the ceiling. I shuffle to the edge of the open shaft to make sure he's alright.

"Oh no," I whisper to myself (and Otakon, via our group codec call). "Snake has fallen into Pit!"

"What?!" Otakon yells, "Snake has fallen into a pit?? No...Snake.....SNAKE.....SNAAAAAA-"

"Calm the hell down, Otakon" Snake grunts, interrupting Otakon's weird mourning process. "I didn't fall into A pit, I fell into The Pit."

Snake picks himself off the ground and dusts himself off. Cartoonishly flattened facedown on the floor beneath him is none other than the flightless angel, Pit. I drop deftly from the ventilation shaft (doing a really sweet backflip midway through my decent) and land at Snake's side. We appear to have landed in some ornate hallway in the depths of Dracula's castle, surrounded by creepy old paintings and ancient, dusty furniture. Snake and I each peel one of Pit's flattened legs off the floor and pull until he finally pops back into 3D space. He floats for a moment before we finally let go of his legs and he drops back to the floor. The impact seems to quickly restore his consciousness.

"Ouch! My head! And the rest of my body, too!" the young boy screams as he rolls over, reaching for his bow and arrow. "Don't think I'll let you demons get the jump on me!"

Snake picks up the bow before Pit can grab it. Pit looks up at Snake, angry at first, then relieved that he's in the company of friends, then angry again when Snake suddenly tosses the bow up on top of a nearby armoire and continues walking.

"Hey!" Pit yells as he picks himself off the floor and runs to the armoire, "Jerk move! I thought we were friends!"

"There are no friends on the battlefield, kid. Only allies and enemies. Also, I couldn't remember if you were the evil one or if that was Dark Pit. Better safe than sorry." Snake peeks down the length of the hallway, assessing potential threats.

"Come on! His name is literally DARK Pit! He's obviously the evil one!" the short (and once again, flightless) angel barks as he hops up and down in front of the armoire, reaching desperately for his bow. "What are you guys doing here, anyway?"

Both Snake and I look down at the floor, solemnly. After a moment of silence, I speak: "Didn't you hear the news, Pit? Luigi is....no longer with us."

Pit stops jumping for a moment and stares blankly at me as he tries to process this information. "What...but Luigi....he's a gamer. He can't NOT have a life, he has many! We all do!"

I put a hand on his shoulder. "True, my friend, but the big Game Over comes for us all eventually. I heard it straight from Mario...apparently Luigi was struck down by Death himself."

Wiping away the tears beginning to well in his eyes, Pit's expression turns to one of conviction. "Alright then! So our mission is to take down Death! Just let me get my bow down and I'll join you in avenging Luigi's death!"

Snake, completely ignoring Pit, returns to his codec call. "Otakon, the shaft broke so we're on foot now. No enemies in sight yet. Let me know when you have a lock on our target."

Unaware that Snake is talking to someone else, Pit responds: "Oh, so that's where you guys fell from! No wonder it broke, Dracula probably had his demon lackeys install it...such a bad idea! You should always hire a licensed professional. One time, Lady Palutena asked me to paint a fence for her and I got bored, so I hired a Monoeye to finish it for me. It did a lousy job! Never even picked up a paint brush, just floated there for hours watching paint dry! These demons, I tell ya..."

Totally ignoring Pit's rant, Snake had already begun moving deeper into the castle.

"Come on, Pit, we're falling behind!" I say as I kick the armoire, knocking the bow down and running after Snake. It bounces off his head before he catches it and starts following in a huff.

~~~

"Snake, I'm detecting a number of large heat signatures behind that door!"

I catch up to Snake and turn to the door Otakon seemed to be referencing. A sign clearly labeled "SUPPLY CLOSET - CLEANING STAFF ONLY" hangs from the center of the door. Snake stares blankly.

"Okay, well....we'll just avoid that room, I guess. This is a sneaking mission after all. No need for extraneous encounters."

Pit skids to a halt behind us; his breathing labored from all the running he just had to do. It really is a shame he can't fly on his own free will. As Snake and I step aside to give him some space, he looks up to see the supply closet door we were pondering a moment ago.

"Is this Dracula's room?? Finally! Let's go kick his butt!"

Snake's eyes widen as he realizes what's about to happen. "Wait, kid, can't you read the sign??"

Pit looks up to Snake and smiles before yelling, almost as a sort of battlecry: "I never learned how to read!"

Both Snake and I look on in horror as Pit body slams the door and rolls into the supply closet, ready to take on the unknown forces within.

-----------

Chapter 3: You Can't Cheat Death

This is it. The moment I've trained so long for. Hours at the firing range with Fox. Sparring with Roy and Marth. Sitting under waterfalls with Ryu. Intensive yoga with Wii Fit Trainer. So many times I offered to aid my best friend Mario on his adventures and so many times he convinced me to stay in the Mushroom Kingdom where it was safe. So many times he risked his life so that I could live a comfortable life without ever having to endure the horrors of war that were just business as usual for him.

Finally, after all this time: I would have a chance to return the favor.

Snake looks to me. I nod in return. In perfect sync we both swivel from having our backs against the sides of the door to standing just inside the supply closet, guns drawn and ready to fight.

I was not prepared for the scene inside this supply closet. The first thing my brain is able to process is the massive, dragon-like, space pirate Ridley seemingly pointing in my direction before it lets out a horrible screech.

"Hey, can someone pass Ridley the beer nuts?"

The sheer horror of Ridley's presence wanes somewhat as King K. Rool slides a bowl of assorted nuts across the poker table and in front of the beast. Ridley daintily picks up a single peanut with his razor-sharp claw and pops it into his huge jaw.

"Now, what's so important that you dinguses felt the need to barge in and interrupt our poker night?"

My eyes finally travel away from Ridley (which seems as though it would be a death sentence in any other scenario) and I find Dark Pit standing on the chair next to him, obviously waiting for an answer to his question but likely to be just as pissed no matter the answer. A number of other great villains are seated at the table: Bowser, King Dedede and Ganondorf. They also don't seem especially happy about our surprise visit.

"Ah, Dark Pit..." Snake says, lowering his weapon. "Good to see you. Maybe you can give us some directions."

"HEY!" (Non-Dark) Pit screams, finally picking himself off the floor after apparently knocking himself unconscious for a moment after his tumble through the door. "He's not going to give you directions! He's the EVIL one, remember?? We talked about this???"

Snake looks to me for confirmation via my extensive knowledge of video game character moral alignments.

"Pit is to Dark Pit as Sonic is to Shadow." I state solemnly.

Snake looks back to the room. "Right. So Dark Pit is the good one." Pit faceplants on the floor for what is now the third time today (that we know of).

I turn back to the assortment of poker-playing evil. "We've Come for death!" I shout, my voice trembling slightly as Ridley decimates the entire bowl of beer nuts (including the bowl itself). A few bits of ceramic cascade from his ferocious maw.

"You've come for...death?" Dark Pit repeats. "You know there are easier ways to die than tracking the location of Dracula's teleporting castle, entering said castle, and interrupting the villainous poker night he so graciously hosts every other Tuesday, right?"

"I um...." I stutter meekly, now hiding behind the safety of Snake's tight ass. "I may have emphasized the wrong word there....we've come for Death."

"Oh, that makes....slightly more sense...." Dark Pit sighs, realizing he just lost his excuse to royally fuck me up. He drops back down into his chair and picks up his hand of cards. "Who's deal is it?"

Bowser deftly swipes up the cards scattered across the table and shuffles them between his meaty claws before dealing a hand out to each seat at the table. He has obviously done this before.

"So is Death nearby?" Snake asks, anxious to move things along. He pulls out his Nikita missile launcher and points it at the poker table. "If not, I'm sure a pile of bodies would draw his attention."

Dark Pit shakes his head, looking exhausted. "Look man, we're just trying to enjoy a night off from villainy and play a nice, quiet-" Ridley suddenly interrupts with another horrible screech. "DUDE, can you chill for like two seconds? I'll ask a skeleton butler to get you more fucking beer nuts as soon as I tell the three stooges over here to get the hell out."

Ridley nods and emits a defeated chirp. Dark Pit takes a deep breath and composes himself before continuing his speech.

"Ahem...as I was saying...we're just trying to play a round of poker in peace. Death USED to play with us, but we kicked him out after we caught him cheating."

Dedede opens his mouth and makes just the most horrible sound. Maybe worse than Ridley's screeches. I can only assume he's always sounded like that but for some reason it only really hits me just now, almost as though I couldn't remember if he was able to canonically speak English so I had to look up a Youtube video to refresh my memory. It sucks real bad and makes me very upset.

"Alright, alright," Dark Pit responds to Dedede's awful devil speak, apparently understanding it perfectly. "We didn't kick him out. We just lied and told him we were skipping this week. That's why we're crammed into this dinky supply closet instead of chillin' in Dracula's sick game room."

Snake lowers his missile launcher a bit. "Okay, so where is Death now?"

Dark Pit knocks on the table, obviously ignoring Snake's question. "I check." Bowser reveals a Royal Flush and begins raking in poker chips from the center of the table. Ganondorf, using his psychic abilities or something (I don't really know what Ganondorf's whole deal is) and detecting that Bowser had used the confusion of our presence to cheat, jumps out of his seat.

With a powerful shout (not as bad as Ridley or Dedede, but still unpleasant to the ears), he lifts his leg high into the air and drops it down on the table, snapping it in half. Chips and cards scatter as the scene erupts into an all-out Brawl. Surely a sight to be seen, all of these once Brothers suddenly Smashing each other with their most powerful attacks. I've seen some pretty Super fights in the past, but with the inclusion of King K. Rool and Ridley, this is certainly the most Ultimate one I've witnessed.

Dark Pit weaves deftly through the chaos of the Melee and begins walking toward us. Pit jumps in front of him and yells, "Stay away from my friends!" Dark Pit places a single hand on Pit's face and pushes him to the ground for the....I forget how many times now.

"Look," Dark Pit starts, already looking defeated. "Y'all have caused enough trouble already...if I tell you where Death is, will you please just get the hell out and leave me alone?"

~~~

"Luigi? Oh, I let that poor lad leave about hour ago."

Snake, Pit, and I sit in Dracula's library, in the presence of Death. He offers us a cup of tea which we all politely (but also fearfully) refuse.

"Let...leave?" I wonder out loud. By Mario's reaction it seemed pretty clear that Luigi was very dead.

"Oh yes...it was all just a horrible misunderstanding, to which I am quite sorry about," Death continues, sipping his tea. "I seem to have mistaken the green boy for someone more deserving of my cold embrace."

We collectively gulp at Death's words, wondering who's soul he had intended to reap.

"Not one of us, I hope! Hahahahahahahah...ah...." Snake and I both stare daggers at Pit for prodding further.

"Oh my, no. You still have....some....time left. No, no, I was looking for a...." Death checks what appears to be the Notes app on his iPhone. "Wall iguana? Damn autocorrect! See, this is why my reaping has been so inaccurate recently!"

Once again calling upon my encyclopedic knowledge of video game trivia, I venture a guess: "Could you be looking for Waluigi?"

Death cackles and a chill runs down my spine. "Oh, yes!" he shouts, slowly typing the correction into his phone. "That's the one! Waluigi! That horrid man has been on my todo list since he first joined the tennis circuit. I can't believe I mistook that nice young plumber for the heinous war criminal Waluigi."

"So, you mentioned letting Luigi go...." Snake interjects, hoping to gather more intel while Death is in a good mood. "He's not dead then?"

"Oh, not anymore! I straightened out his mortal coil and fed it right back into his corpse. Took some time, too! You ever have a hoodie where the drawstring has come out and you have to feed it back through? Un-harvesting a soul is kind of like that."

Snake stares blankly at Death, either contemplating his own mortality or just trying to wrap his head around the analogy, having never owned a hoodie before. After a moment, he turns to me and gives a thumbs up: "Mission complete?"

I stare as well, definitely contemplating my own mortality, but also wondering if it would be pushing it to ask Death to re-thread the drawstring of my favorite hoodie....no, perhaps another time.

I turn back to Snake and smile.

"Mission complete!"

THE END