Chapter Text
I awake in a field of swaying sunflowers, staring up at the hazy figure of a person standing over me. Like the dream where I was running and running towards her, trying not to cry as all the hurt and longing came back. But the person looming over me now isn’t my mom. Through the blinding light of day, the figure is familiar in a different way.
“Claus?”
“Don’t know who that is, but he must be a handsome devil if you’re mistaking me for him.”
The voice snaps my brain into focus, and my vision clears to see Ness grinning down at me. I let him pull me to my feet and glance around. My home sits in the near distance, a little cottage that breaks up the sunflowers that stretch until they hit the horizon of a blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds.
Right, I’m in the Smash Realm, and this is the area was made for me to feel at home. I remember that the shifting metaphysical landscape of this world gave me trouble when I first arrived, but I’ve long been comfortable with it. So why did it make me pause?
And why can I not recall how I ended up here?
“Was there anything else around when you found me passed out on the ground?” I ask.
“Lots of sunflowers.” Ness looks around. “The others all talk about how pretty your land is. Word on the grapevine is that Peach and Daisy like it so much that they’re jealous.”
So he didn’t see anything that could explain why I passed out in the middle of the field, and as I search through my memories I can’t remember anything I did in the last… I don’t even know how long. It could have been minutes before I got knocked out, and it could have been years. The way time flows in the Smash Realm is more like a tide than a river, with my mirror showing me a face that grows younger as often as it grows older. I can never keep track of what happened when.
“Well, thanks for getting me up,” I say. “Why did you come over to my area? Have I been missing for long?”
Ness hesitates, frowning.
“I can handle the truth,” I say.
“It’s not that. I woke up in my area with no idea of how I ended up there too. And…” he shakes his head. “Easier to show you. Follow me.”
He heads off towards the central Smash Tower without waiting for a reply. For Ness to be anything other than a chatterbox is a strange turn of events already, and the fact that we both woke up with no recollection of what happened to us can’t bode well for the others. I jog to catch up, and quicken the pace even after walking.
At least I have no shortage of experience facing uncomfortable truths.
#
Smash tower appears as we reach the edge of my area, a steel spire in the middle of a city block that pierces the skies. Screens at the top that typically display live footage from matches are now empty, and the area is devoid of sound or movement. Smashers like us don’t tend to hang around outside the tower, but usually there are hundreds of spirits—ghostly figures that take on the form of creatures and objects from various worlds. Occasionally, I even see Claus and my mother floating around.
“Creepy,” I say.
“And check this out.”
Ness waves me over to the side. When I look back, I can see a sign labelled “Lucas” that leads to my sunflower field, and right next to it is a sign labelled “Ness” that leads to a cozy little town resembling Onett. But aside from those two signs, the others are blank and don’t lead anywhere.
“Did you check all of them?” I ask.
“Lucas, there are more than eighty of us to keep track of. Do you think my legs can handle all that walking?”
I shoot him a look, but decide not to take the bait and get us further off track.
Ness sighs. “Fine, fine. No, I didn’t check on all of them because I saw yours and wanted to make sure you were okay. Let’s do a loop now.”
We do, and all signs other than ours are blank with none of the usual areas with Smash fighter homes connected to them. Ness and I haven’t discussed what that means, but even within the ever-changing rules of this ethereal world I can only think of one explanation.
All the other fighters are gone from this realm.
“You know,” Ness says. “I think I’m starting to remember what happened.”
“Really?” I look over at him.
“Yeah, I think Porky showed up in his big ol’ spider mech and I had to rescue you.”
I suppress a sigh. “That was Subspace Emissary, Ness. We dealt with that a long time ago.”
“Damn, do you have to act like a disappointed teacher whenever you disagree with me?” Ness’s grin conveys a lack of real offense taken. “But seriously, I do get the impression that Porky showed up. And that I got to be all heroic and awesome.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Pretty sure actual heroes are supposed to be humble.”
He waves a hand in dismissal. “Come on. Where’s the fun in that?”
But now that he mentions it, the bit about Porky showing up does give me a sense of déjà vu. I collect my thoughts and enter a state of focus like I’m about to use PSI and hone into that impression.
The buildings around Smash Tower on fire, surrounding me in screams and hazy smoke.
Porky’s spider mech advances step by slow step, accompanied by a wheezing laugh by the wizened figure of a child inside.
A figure darts out from behind the mech, glowing beam sword shedding light on the cold gaze from the one pale green eye not covered up by his mask.
Claus, ready to kill.
“Lucas?”
I come to, kneeling with my head in my hands. Ness frowns and offers a hand again, but this time I stand up on my own. Within that memory, there’s a lingering resentment towards Ness in particular. Why is that?
“Come on, man,” Ness says. “You can’t scare me like that and then immediately go into thinking mode. What happened?”
“Memories,” I say. “Of Porky and…”
And I haven’t mentioned Claus or any other part of my past to Ness so long as I’ve been here. Every time I consider opening up I decide to put it off for later, but the way one day flows into the next means that “later” never arrives. Time does move, but it swings like a pendulum rather than proceeding in a line. Flowers will recede into buds as often as they bloom, and rain will rise from the ground as often as it falls.
In a world bound by a rhythm that always cycles back to the same place, it’s so easy to pretend that I’m the same way. That I can go through my routine without anything at all changing.
“And?” Ness says. “Don’t leave me hanging.”
But now there is change, and the way I sparred and shared meals with Ness while never risking anything deeper is coming back to bite me. If Claus is in the picture again, Ness needs to know for tactical reasons if nothing else.
Though telling him about Claus now will only raise awkward questions about why I kept that information secret for so long. He doesn’t need to know our connection to be equipped for this.
“And a boy in a helmet with a laser sword,” I say. “Brainwashed, emotionless. Carrying out Porky’s will.”
“Scary.” Ness furrows his brow. “I want to say that rings a bell, but who knows if I’m grasping? Still, if we both remember Porky then there could be something to the idea that he’s involved. But I have no idea why the memory is vague for both of us.”
I know Porky’s scientists can mess with memories, but they only ever did that as part of a brainwashing procedure. The fact that we’re both here as ourselves makes me think that whatever happened to our minds isn’t related to Porky.
“And if we got knocked out fighting him,” I say, “Why aren’t we injured?”
“Guess none of this makes sense. Come on, let’s check out the tower instead of asking more questions we can’t answer.”
I hesitate, and then nod. There’s not much left for us out here on the streets, and with the areas of other Smashers out of the picture for now there’s only one place to go.
The unease begins welling in my stomach.
#
The tower is as empty as the streets. All the various amenities are there, from restaurants to club games to swimming pools to indoor gardens, but none are staffed by the usual menagerie of extradimensional workers Master Hand employs. And when we check Master Hand’s office on the top floor, we find the door open and no sign of the overlord glove itself.
“Well,” Ness says. “We may be fucked, but at least we can break all the rules and nobody will notice. I’m about to sneak into the bar and grab some of that alcohol.” He pauses. “Well, unless you want to be a killjoy and chew me out.”
“No, I understand the impulse.”
Ness regards me. “Really. I thought you said that you couldn’t see why people like drinking.”
“That’s still true. But if there’s a single person around you’ll fumble the stealth mission, so this could be your once in a lifetime opportunity.”
Ness laughs. “See, this is why I value our friendship. None of the others get to see how savage the real Lucas is.”
I pause. Ness says that, but I haven’t opened up myself at all. Ness is an open book, always happy to chat about his home town of Onett and his adventure to defeat Giygas, and in return all he knows about my world is from fighting on the New Pork City stage.
“Right now, I’m less interested in our ‘savagery’ and more interested if we can put our heads together and figure this out.” I start to pace back and forth. “No Master Hand and no other fighters. Do you think something took control of it again like what happened during Subspace? That could explain Porky.”
“And why all the other fighters are gone, I guess.” Ness frowns. “But why spare us?”
“Maybe Porky wants to toy with us?”
As soon as the explanation comes out of my mouth, I see the holes in it. Porky likes to see people squirm, but he lacks the subtlety to let us struggle on our own. If he were in control here, we’d know it.
“I guess what matters more than figuring out what happened to everyone,” I say, “Is where they are and how to rescue them if something bad did happen. And if they’re not in the tower, not on the streets, and not in their own areas…”
“They must be in other worlds,” Ness says. “Do you think we can use the Dimension Launcher to find them?”
“Worth a shot. If it connects to our homes, it should connect to theirs as well.”
With that, we head down to the floor below Master Hand’s office with a computer system hooked up to a set of eight teleporters in the center of the room. I look up to the screen in the back showing the destination as a location called “Inaba.”
“That’s not a stage, is it?” Ness says.
“It’s not. So it has to be the world of a fighter.”
“Great. So we head in, knock some skulls together, and rescue whoever got thrown in here. And the more people we save, the more pieces we’ll be able to put together about what happened. I’ve been itching for another adventure, and this sounds perfect.”
“Hmm.” I frown, looking at the screen. “I wonder if we should split up and do some scouting first.”
“Split up?” Ness frowns. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay on your own?”
“I don’t know why I’m the one you’re worried about. Intel is what we need, and I know how to be subtle.”
Ness huffs in mock anger. “And you think I don’t?”
“I infiltrated the Pigmask army, Ness. You couldn’t have done that even with a lifetime supply of burgers on the line.”
“Then you haven’t seen me perform when burgers are at stake.” After a second, the playful confidence drops from his face. “Seriously, Lucas. Doesn’t splitting up sound like a bad idea?”
It should, and all of the logic I can come up with about covering more ground and avoiding detection by operating solo rings hollow in my mind. Being a psychic means I need to stay in tune with my mind, and right now I can’t lie to myself.
I have no idea what I’m getting into, and if I fail I don’t want Ness to get dragged into it. After Subspace, he’s only seen the side of me that’s efficient at training and fighting. I’d like to keep it that way, especially when I’m working through partial amnesia.
“Well, you’re out of luck anyways,” Ness says. “Looks like we can’t change the destination.”
I blink back to reality, seeing him fiddling at the computer controls. I head over and look over his shoulder, prepared for the issue to be that Ness missed some basic setting, but he’s at the right screen for destination selection. I see that he even has the usual stage select enabled, but none of the options for Smash stages pop up. This Inaba really is our only choice, to the point that we couldn’t get back to our homelands if we wanted to.
“Huh,” I say. “Guess I’m stuck with your loud footsteps that will ruin our ability to sneak around.”
“And I’m stuck with your attitude. Should I activate the Dimension Launcher?”
I nod, and Ness clicks through commands to activate the teleporters for two. A pair of the cylindrical pods begin to glow, indicating that they’re ready for us. Ness whistles as he approaches one, and I taste bile in the back of my mouth as I walk up to the other.
Just like teleporting to a Smash stage. Why is this making me so nervous?
Ness steps into the teleporter, and I do the same. The world fades to white around me, and I hold my breath.
#
When reality reforms, I’m standing at the edge of small town, little houses lined up by a gurgling river that gleams like glass in the sunlight. Is…
Is this Tazmily?