Post by bobsnicket on Feb 13, 2008 18:57:21 GMT -5
Chapter 10: Shadows and Stars
Outskirts of Northern Fourside City
The gate was in ruins. Buildings were burning in the starless night. People and creatures were screaming and fleeing. Chaos resounded throughout the outside area of the city. Crazy Hand’s army surged through the city, destroying anything and everything in its way. Some desperate citizens were attempting to fend off the Wire Frames, but it was hopeless. With Metal Marth, Roy, Pikachu, Fox, and Ice Climbers as well as Crazy Hand at the lead, the meager resistance was swept away on all sides like dust on a table. A few cowering people noticed that the army was making a direct course for Fourside Colosseum. But regardless of the direction they were going, everything left behind was empty and destroyed.
Professor Frankly’s house was included in the attack. The professor in question was currently taking cover in the basement of a hotel with a handful of others. But frankly, Frankly could not figure out why the army had suddenly attacked now, or why the force was headed towards Fourside Colosseum. He worked over the facts studiously in his mind. Some outer territories had been struggling against Master Hand for several years, but Master Hand had not yet attacked an area on the mainland, which would obviously be the most difficult to conquer due to the denser populations. He also knew that today was the day of the Fourside Colosseum Tournament. Perhaps there was a connection.
Professor Frankly temporarily gave up on figuring out the situation, and turned his mind to an equally interesting matter.
The Wire Frames had been known for many years to only resemble the simple forms of male and female. But now they came in with a variety of other features besides gender, which was unheard of in the history of the world. Many had wings, claws, horns, spikes, swords, larger limbs, and many other characteristics. They also moved and fought in new ways as well, including running, leaping, flying, crawling, dashing, spinning, slashing, diving, charging, shoving, and others. It was as if the two original types of frames had had extra pieces added on to most of them to make them different.
Well, that was pretty much the truth.
THE FINAL MATCH: The Shadow Queen vs. Sonic
After reading all 62 of the other matches of this tournament, you probably expect the final match to be the longest, hardest, and closest battle of them all. You also most likely predict that Sonic will finally discover the Shadow Queen’s weakness, and that he will use it to end the dark entity’s reign of terror. You might even hope that Sonic would then save all of the trapped characters in and under the infirmary, defeat Waluigi and Wario, and gather a considerable force to fight Crazy Hand’s army, thus beginning a long and devastating battle in which Sonic’s troops would obviously come out victorious. Then, you might think in an annoyed and all-knowing way, all the Nintendo characters would team up, defeat Master Hand by a close call, thereby turning all of the trophies back to their live states, and they would all live happily ever after. Yes, The Trophy would turn out to be a lame and predictable amateur story after all, no offense to the not-so-creative author. Well, if this is even close to your way of thinking, then it is now my turn to laugh at your lack of creativity. First of all, only two of all of the events I listed above actually happened, and not in the ways you might expect. And secondly, if you indeed think the way I think you think, this is all much more complicated than you think it is (think about it).
gh.ffshrine.org/song/1319/133
The reader’s lack of creativity aside, Sonic himself truly had no idea how he would face this final opponent. He was already very tired from all of his previous battles, especially the one with Shadow, from which he had been cut, scratched, bruised, and had most of his energy sapped away from him. This really was a flaw in the Fourside Colosseum Tournament system-- competitors often did not have enough time to fully recover from their previous battles, depending on the level of difficulty of their previous matches. But to most of the competitors, this was not the problem with the tournament that they should be worried about.
The audience, after witnessing all the other failed attempts to defeat the Shadow Queen, did not have much hope for Sonic, despite his outstanding performance so far. In fact, some of the crowd was already leaving the colosseum, declaring the winner of the tournament basically decided. Oh, how they would wish they hadn’t done this later.
Sonic looked through the crowd, looking for a source of hope and motivation. Then he saw a single row near the top of the stands with a bunch of cutesy characters and Pokemon, and among them, sticking out like a sore thumb, was Bowser. Sonic got eye contact with him from across the stadium, and the great Koopa gave the blue hedgehog a great big thumbs up (as well as he could do with claws that didn’t have thumbs). For Bowser, that was a huge compliment. Sonic cheered up a little. Perhaps it would not be so bad. Sure, he would lose painfully to the frightening purple hand in front of him now, but at least he could feel assured that Bowser would make sure he and the other competitors made it out okay, and expose the sinister plot composed into this tournament. It was at this point, when the match began, the crowd unenthusiastically cheering for Sonic, the Shadow Queen making mocking hand gestures, that two fateful things happened.
First, Bowser began to lose his temper at the Shadow Queen again.
Second, Sonic’s brain began to think logically enough to wonder what on earth the monstrosity known as the Shadow Queen was. Since Sonic was among those who had heard the story of the Shadow Queen’s defeat from Mario firsthand, he knew for a fact that there really was no possible way for the old demon to find a way back this time. She had avoided death from age by remaining in pure energy form, but when something is destroyed, it is destroyed. So what was the truth of this “Shadow Queen”? Then a crazy though came to Sonic.
Perhaps the only way to find out was to ask it himself.
So crazy it just might work.
“What are you? I know you are not really the Shadow Queen. Tell me the truth!” Sonic glared at the purple hand, and the purple hand seemed to glare back (as far as anyone could tell).
“My masters do not wish me to reveal that information.” The deep, booming, faintly feminine voice echoed throughout the stadium.
Sonic was about to give up on his attempt, but then he noticed the abnormality of the Shadow Queen’s only words.
“Tell me,” Sonic’s voice said, regaining some strength. “What do you mean by ‘masters’? How can you have more than one master?”
For the first time, the purple hand hesitated, as if she herself had never considered the logic behind what she had said. Its voice sounded out again, but now it was a lot less mechanical, even sincere. “Well, the master I serve directly has a master himself, and so on. So by serving my initial master, I really serve all of his masters, do I not? After all, no one can have no master, for if one does not serve another, one is his own master.”
The Shadow Queen’s words echoed through Sonic’s mind, as if there were some deeper meaning in them that was yet to be understood. If one does not serve another, one is his own master. “Regardless, no one can serve two masters equally,” Sonic said quietly. But then he realized they were getting off topic. “So, ‘Shadow Queen’, who is your initial master?”
The purple hand seemed to consider whether her opponent was worthy of an answer. Then she said, “Very well, since you fought a long way to make it here, and you will soon fall victim to my masters’ plan anyway, I shall tell you the name of the one I serve primarily. His name is: Professor U. Reeka.”
Sonic was shocked by this, for he had been almost sure that the Shadow Queen would say Master Hand. And although he had never heard of this person, the name reminded him of another professor with a title that had the same effect. But this still did not satisfy Sonic.
“You have still not answered my first question. What are you, since you are neither the Shadow Queen nor a simple Floormaster?”
The Shadow Queen seemed to reply more willingly, now that she had already spilled the beans of her master’s identity. “I am both of the creatures you mentioned, in a sense. Some time ago, Professor U. Reeka captured a Floormaster, and later somehow fused it together with a small portion of the late Shadow Queen’s shredded essence. He created me, and made me his loyal servant to accomplish his and Master Hand’s desires, naming me the Shadow Hand.”
The purple hand waited for Sonic to respond, but he did not say anything, as engorged with information as he was. From what he had learned, though, he knew that if this experiment had had a choice, she would not have chosen this fate for herself. So the Shadow Hand spoke once again.
“But that is quite enough. Now I shall defeat you and thereby help bring to pass the next step of Master Hand’s ultimate plan of conquest. Farewell, Sonic the Hedgehog.”
The purple arm, extending from its dark purple circle, prepared to lunge forward and attack. Sonic prepared to attempt to dodge her attack. But at this moment, something happened that not one character in the stadium could have predicted.
Bowser’s patience failed him. He could not stand to watch the last friendly face in the tournament be defeated by a purple hand. He gave a mighty roar, and suddenly leaped out of his seat, jumping high into the air across the stands. The audience cried in alarm at the mighty Koopa’s sudden move. Both Sonic and the Shadow Hand looked up in surprise at Bowser’s now-falling figure.
Bowser had intended, for all intents and purposes, to land on the purple hand at all costs. But he fell just a few feet short, shaking the whole stadium as he landed next to Sonic.
This happened to be a very good thing. For during the entire tournament, not one instance had caused the hidden flip panel (like in Paper Mario) to reveal itself. This flip panel happened to be directly beneath the Shadow Hand at this moment.
A simple ground pound would have been enough to make the flip panel come up a few feet, but with the force of Bowser’s hulking mass, the flip panel, along with the purple hand, was sent flying high into the air. Due to some flaw in Professor U. Reeka’s experimenting, the purple circle around the Shadow Queen’s arm seemed to stick to the flap like a suction cup. But at the height of the purple hand’s journey, the flip panel dislodged itself from the Shadow Hand’s form, and each thing fell separately (and painfully in the Shadow Hand’s case) to the ground.
This was a moment of revelation. Where the flip panel was previously sticking to the Shadow Hand’s circular underside was a circle of shiny white area. And as all Zelda/Star Fox game players know, the shiny white areas usually signify the weak point.
Bowser realized this, and before the pancake-flipped arm could attempt to lift itself upright, he let out a heavy stream of fire towards the white underside.
The Shadow Hand screamed in agony, the hand writhing on the ground. This seemed to confirm Bowser’s assumption. Forgetting the rules against killing (although he had already disregarded the rules in any case), Bowser then jumped forward and slashed the white spot ruthlessly with his mighty claw.
Sonic, Bowser, and the crowd watched wide-eyed as Professor U. Reeka’s creation, instead of exploding or disintegrating or something to that effect, simply disappeared in a large puff of purple smoke in the same way that the robotic aircraft in Chapter 4 had.
Bowser and Sonic looked at each other and exchanged triumphant smiles, although both were weary.
The whole crowd, especially Wario, was unsure what to do. Should they cheer at the Shadow Hand’s defeat, or boo angrily at Bowser for interfering, or do something else? It didn’t matter in any case, because before they could decide, another infinitely more deadly interference occurred.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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Character Locations
Fourside City (Colosseum): Slippy Toad, Peppy Hare, Pichu, Jigglypuff, Toad, Tiny Kong, Bowser, Sonic, Wario
Fourside City (Infirmary): Yoshi, Roy, Samus, Prince Peasley, Young Link, Donkey Kong, Lanky Kong, Mr. Game and Watch, Popo, Captain Falcon, Luigi, Kirby, Fox, Ganondorf, Waluigi, Bomberman, Diddy Kong, Shadow
Fourside City (Holding Cell): Zelda, Link, Falco, Nana, Goombario, Mario, Bottles, Banjo and Kazooie, Professor E. Gadd, Pit, Metaknight, Rito Postman
: The Shadow Sirens
Trophy: Pikachu, Princess Peach, Samus, Chunky Kong-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The next part will be the end of Chapter 10...unless it won't fit within one post...
