Chapter Text
Ow, that-a really hurt, thought a short, mustached man. He wore a red shirt, blue denim overalls, a pair of white gloves, and a red cap with an ‘M’ stitched on the front. It was Mario, the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom. What happened? Where am I? Why is…? And that’s when it came rushing back to him. The attack on the castle, the fight, the explosion of violet light…
The princess!
Mario struggled to get up, but there was no time to waste. His friends needed him.
He looked around. It was dark, but he could somewhat see he was in an enclosed space. He walked to one side of the room, his footsteps echoing in the empty space. The wall had a small rectangular gap with bars in the middle, allowing him to see into the other side and see—
“DK!?” Mario exclaimed. It was hard to see, but Mario would recognize the silhouette of that tie and body shape anywhere. The ape was sprawled on the floor, clearly unconscious. “Come on, DK, wake-a up!”
A groan came out as DK stirred awake. Through the darkness, Mario could see the Kong slowly get to his feet and come to his senses. Once he was completely awake, he yelped in horror of where he was, eyes popping out comically.
“DK!” Mario called. “Over here.” DK turned to Mario’s voice, running to the bars. The Kong squinted in the darkness, and upon recognizing Mario hooted in surprise.
“Mario!” The ape grunted in his own language. “Where are we, buddy?”
Mario reached for his rival through the bars. “I don’t-a know. Maybe-a prison?” Mario, admittedly, was at a loss. Where were they? Who could have done this? Were they alone here?
As if that final question was fated to be answered, a harsh clang came through the opposite wall of Mario’s cage, causing the two to flinch from the noise. “Hyah!” The noise and screaming continued and the two glanced at each other, then looked at the direction of the noise. Mario approached the wall and found another barred window and peeked through the space.
It was hard to see, but he could make out the form of a humanoid being with pointy ears viciously attacking the bars with its hands and teeth. The being stopped, stepped back, and lunged back at the bars with their body. Clang!
The being hissed in pain and slid to the ground, hands grasping to the bruises from repeatedly slamming against the bars.
Mario, sympathetic for whoever this was, saw this as the ideal moment to make himself noticed. “Ah, hello? Are you-a okay?”
His voice startled the being, triggering the person to back up to the other side of the room in a defensive stance. After a few seconds of tension, they made a series of distinct hand gestures, which confused Mario a bit until he came to a realization.
“Oh, is that-a sign language?” The person nodded in confirmation. “I’m-a sorry, I don't understand-a that form of sign.”
Mario, while not sufficient in sign, could understand the basics of the language. While the darkness was hindering his ability to see the motions, he was confident that he had never seen such gestures in the sign languages he was familiar with. They can’t-a be from the Mushroom World, or at-a least the surface…
The stranger considered this, then spoke up with a rough voice. “…Who are you? What is this place?”
“It’s-a me, Mario!” he placated the person. “What-a is-a your name-a?”
The person, still wary and watchful of Mario, loosened up and came closer. Mario could now make out more of their attire—well, more like their lack of attire, much to his surprise. They were completely naked, stripped down to their underwear! “Link. My name is Link.”
Link was, for lack of a better word, confused. They awoke in a completely enclosed and unfamiliar place. Again. They were stripped down to their underwear. Also again. They were even without his weapons and tools. If they had a rupee for how many times this has happened, they would have three, which wasn’t much—but hey, a rupee’s a rupee. They were starting to wonder if this was all some cosmic joke. I just hope I don’t have to fight Ganon again. They shuddered at the thought.
When they woke up—seriously, how many times will they have to wake up in these weird situations?—they did the most logical thing that came to mind: use their body to break through the bars. It didn’t work, of course, because that’s how bars work.
After a couple more tries of this, the short man—Mario, he called himself—greeted Link. He also did not startle the experienced warrior, thank you very much. That definitely didn’t happen.
Link was still wary of Mario, but they supposed it was good they weren't alone in this. “So…” Link said. “Any way out of here?”
“That’s what I want to know.”
Rather than being answered by the accented man in front of him, they were responded to by another voice coming from behind him. The two both looked to the other side of his room, seeing another barred window.
Now, while they were not sure about Mario, they themselves had excellent eyesight. Whether that was due to the Shrine of Resurrection, the Zonai powers, or the goddesses, they didn’t know. However they were able to, they were able to see the head of a red fox with white streaks of fur and green eyes, a creature Link was unfamiliar with.
Mario and Link stared at the fox-like creature. Seeing this, the newcomer sighed. “The name’s Fox. Fox McCloud.” The fox gave a two-fingered salute. “I was hoping you guys would know a way out of here, but I guess not.”
“Hmm,” Mario thought to himself. “Maybe if we—”
Before he could say another word, his train of thought was suddenly interrupted by a large explosion. Bright, yellow light lit up throughout the now visible hallway in front of their prison cells, the sound of cracking of lightning piercing their ears.
“That’s it!” screamed a yellow rodent with red cheeks sparking with electricity and a glowing, lightning-shaped tail. It was a Pikachu, but not just any ordinary Pikachu. This was Ash Ketchum's Pikachu, Michina Town’s Thunder Creature, a trained Pokémon who has gone toe to toe with gods. “I’ve had it with this Tauros-shit!”
Pikachu was killing whatever bastard caused this fiasco—killing!
He’s had it with those Legendaries, those sorry excuses for gods. He was tired with their shenanigans, the chaos they caused, the deaths that come from their destruction, the torture they put his trainer through—and if it somehow wasn’t their fault, they were getting captured and controlled by some random terrorist! And kidnapping Ash was the final straw. He was going to march straight to whoever decided to fuck around Pallet Town and beat them up.
He stormed through the melted prison bars, steaming with rage. If it wasn’t for the light emitting from the lingering electricity, he might have missed the other prisoners. The prisoner in the cell next to him looked kind of like a Dragonite. The Pokémon was reptilian, green with a white underbelly, had a small, red shell, and wore orange boots.
He moved to the fellow Pokémon. “Hey.” Pikachu greeted. “You need help?”
The Pokémon tilted its head at his words in confusion. “Niaaa?”
“Uh, what?” Pikachu was puzzled at the Pokémon’s speech. That wasn’t how Pokémon spoke—at least to other Pokémon. Pokémon always understood other creatures, be it humans or others of their own kind. It was humans who were weird; they had to make up languages to understand each other, rather than inherently understand all forms of speech. So unless it was a human disguised as a Pokémon…
“Oh…” His mind thought back to his adventures in Alola and came to a sudden realization: Pokémon couldn’t understand the language of Ultra Beasts, extradimensional, alien creatures that hailed from other dimensions. If this creature was an Ultra Beast, then… “I’m really far from home, aren’t I?”
Pikachu shook his head. Now wasn’t the time to have a situational crisis. He took a stance. “Stand back.” Pikachu warned the alien. Thankfully, despite the language barrier, it understood what he meant and stepped back from the bars. He imbued Steel-type energy in his tail, which now shined like metal.
He leaped to the bars and swung his tail on the bars twice, slicing them in half. The detached pieces fell to the ground, allowing the creature to step out of the cell, giving a grateful smile and thumbs-up to Pikachu. “Yoshii!”
“Great! Now let’s help the others and get out of here.”
But just as they began rushing to the next cage, the hall lit up with dark, violet light. They flinched when sirens sounded out through the air. And an ear-splitting voice boomed throughout the prison.
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