Wario's bite is probably one of the best moves in the game imo. It can wreck characters who don't have disjointed hitboxes. Like, assuming you had perfect timing I'm pretty sure bite can beat every one of Falcon's moves.
It's one of many reasons I'm glad I play Robin.
He's been pretty reliable at wrecking Warios in my experience.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
It's an aerial grab. Of course it's amazing when used correctly.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
So tube gave me permission to post this in a thread
I'm streaming some dumb amiibo/smash bros stuff and I'm trying to raise some money for a kid I know who has cancer. It was stage 4 neuroblastoma, and to be completely honest and finger crossing he might be cancer free right now, they're just waiting on some results. So yes he's been through all his chemo and he's doing great, but his single mother had to take off work and ran out of paid time off a long time ago, so our community is trying to raise money to help her with the bills.
So please, come check out how dumb smash bros can be and maybe spread the word? The... fun is going to begin around 6pm est.
GGs Zilik! We had some pretty lulzy matches there, especially on Kongo.
I used to think that Tornado Hold was just an OK move, until I figured out how to cancel its landing lag. Then I realized it's an amaaaaaazing move. Respect my airspace! I AM KING ZONER.
GGs. I'll never understand how to fight Megaman when customs are on. He seems like one of the best characters in the game when he has Danger Wrap available to him.
It's a boss move, and easily a contender for one of the best customs in the game.
The only advice I can give for Danger Wrap is that you can punch it out of the sky, and this is sometimes a better option than trying to dodge it. Danger Wrap only explodes when it touches one of your character's hurtboxes or the stage. Pre-explosion, even the weakest attacks will clank with it and make it disappear, and stronger attacks will outprioritize it. Multihit moves like Mario's dair work particularly well for this because they take the guesswork out of the timing a little bit, and can also still end up hurting me at the end too.
The thing is, though, that Danger Wrap has a deceptively large hitbox and its speed and trajectory are both pretty weird, so hitting it without it touching you first is easier said than done.
ChopperDave is the guest TO this week! Like last week, we're doing formal stage striking for the starter stages, which means you and you opponent take turns banning starter stage until just one is left (which is where you play the match). The higher seed is just the player with the higher number.
Double Elimination, with regular matches will be best of three 1v1 matches with three stocks. Winner, Loser, and Grand Finals will be best of five. Time for all matches is eight minutes.
The results of Sudden Death are ignored, and the player with the lowest damage percentage when time expires is the winner.
Items, and equipment are banned; Custom Moves are allowed.
Players may switch characters/moves between matches. The winner of the previous match opts to change first (notify your opponent of whom) and then the loser may change their character in turn.
Starter Stages: 1. Battlefield, 2. Final Destination (or an identical Ω stage), 3. Duck Hunt, 4. Smashville, and 5. Town and City.
A starter stage is chosen via striking. Starting with the higher seeded player, players go back and forth banning starter stages until there is one stage left. The set begins on that stage.
After a match, the winner may ban up to two stages. Then the loser picks the next stage, and which may be any of the starter stages or the following counterpick stages: Castle Siege, Delfino Plaza, Kongo Jungle, Pokemon Stadium 2, Luigi's Mansion, Skyloft, Wuhu Island, Lylat Cruise, and Halberd. The loser may NOT pick a stage they have previously won on in that set.
When a set is finished, report results on Challonge. If you wish, you can also report the scores of each match (how many KOs each player got), but this is optional. If a mistake is made, report it to me and it'll be fixed.
Sets should take thirty minutes to complete. If after five minutes your opponent has not shown up, please contact me and you will win the set by default.
When playing on Final Destination, either player may choose to play on Omega Palutena's Temple instead.
Smasher's Agreement: a player make pick a stage not on this list if both players agree to it.
ORDER: Winner Bans Stages -> Loser Pick Stages -> Winner Announces Character -> Loser Announces Character -> Play Match
Cast is finally off, and I am killing it on For Glory with WFT. I had the funniest fucking set of matches, I had gone to the washroom and somehow when I came back a match had just started with me as DK (!?) against a Marth. I died super fast, switched to WFT, and 2-stocked them, Next match they switched to Sheik, same result. I can only imagine how confused they must have been.
Still think Sonic is the most annoying character in the game, although not the best character in the game. Rosalina is interesting cause basically luma serves to soak up just tons of hits from my projectiles.
Jiminy Christmas, but I do hate the unlock system for custom moves. Are there any tricks to it, or am I doomed to unlock all the moves for characters I never play while never getting the ones I actually want?
Jiminy Christmas, but I do hate the unlock system for custom moves. Are there any tricks to it, or am I doomed to unlock all the moves for characters I never play while never getting the ones I actually want?
Trophy Rush is probably the fastest way to do it
Otherwise
When playing classic, select stages that are related to the character you're trying to get moves for. Easier with Mario or Zelda or Pokemon characters. Below those, select enemies you want moves for. Etc.
Hmm. Thanks, I didn't know trophy rush gave out moves! I'll have to try that.
Otherwise, bleeeeehhhhhhh, why Nintendo
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turtleantGunpla Dadis the best.Registered Userregular
Not really. Pretty much just do All Star or Trophy Rush with characters you like over and over and hope for the best. Be prepared to get nothing but equipment over and over again.
Also don't do classic mode to try and unlock moves, as it likes to drop moves for the characters you are fighting or characters who belong to the same franchise as the stage you are playing on more than the guy you're playing.
The 3DS version apparently dropped stuff for the character you are playing WAY more than the Wii U version does. Fuck if I know why they changed that.
If I tagged anyone who didn't want to be included I apologize, please ignore this post, and if I failed to tag anyone who did want to see it, I apologize for that too. Hopefully this post will get around a bit
Anyway
This is the late entry into Speed's fanfic competition. I'm making this post because of a bet Daypigeon made with me, dependent on whether or not SMTxFE was actually still a real game or not. It is, so here I am. I think most people picked their pairings on their own, but not ol' Wyborn. I picked by assigning each cast member a number and then using a random integer generator to create a pairing, then decided I would use whatever it spit out.
This is actually the second pairing this process produced. The first one was Zelda and Zero Suit Samus and come on, I have some dignity.
This fanfic went to some weird places. I hope you appreciate how absurd certain bits must have been to write.
Grey Ghost can't read this until he's at least up to Chapter 13, and even then there are some spoilers herein.
Oh Christ it's so big the board is making me split it in two!!!!
Don't click this spoiler unless you want some shipping all up in your grill:
pt. 1
The light of the fire lent Chrom's study a certain warmth, which was an element he appreciated at times like this.
Not his study, he corrected himself. It had never really been his in the first place, never a place he had felt comfortable. Emmeryn had been comfortable here, finding some fount of strength in the many tomes held on bookcases that lined every wall, but when the room had passed to him with the title of Exalt he had never felt comfortable there. He'd like to say it was because he felt the presence of the woman his sister used to be, but that was not true: he just preferred to be outside. If he was being honest with himself, it was Robin's study much more than his.
She was seated across from him now, an enormous tome laid across her lap, its broad cover partially supported by the armrests of the deep chair she was sitting in. He watched her, the pulling together of her eyebrows telling the intensity with which she was treating the subject of her study. She was beautiful when she read.
Lucina clapped her hands and squealed, and he snapped out of his reverie, bouncing her on his knee.
"All right, all right, my impatient princess. Do you want to ride a horsey? Ah?"
"Hosey!" she responded, holding her hands up, fingers splayed. She had gotten a lot grabbier since turning a year old. A lot chattier, too.
"Get ready, then." He put his thumbs in her palms and she latched onto them with a grip like iron while he wrapped his fingers around her hands. "OK? Here we go." He bounced his knee rhythmically, and she was already laughing in her anticipation. He didn't chant the words, just spoke them to the rhythm, but the effect was pronounced anyway. "Ride a horsey, go to town. Ride a horsey, don't fall down!" He parted his legs and dipped her between his knees and she shrieked with laughter, the kind of wild and fearful abandon that spoke to a level of trust he barely understood. He pulled her back up, and she pulled her hands out of his and leaned forward and latched onto his shirt, still laughing, holding onto him so as not to fall again.
Robin looked up and looked him in the eye, her amusement only showing through a quirk of her mouth. "Not a very good rider, is she?"
"Well. She still has a while to learn, I think." A knock at the door, firm but polite, had both of them looking up. "Come in," he said.
The door opened slowly, and a shock of blue hair told him who was there before he saw the tiara or the face of the woman at the threshhold.
"Father? Mother?"
"Ah, Lucina!" His infant daughter looked up, grinning and confused, and he cleared his throat. "Haha, sorry. Big Lucina."
"Beelu!" the younger said, and squirmed to turn around on his lap and gape at her older self.
Robin looked up and then closed her book. "Is something on your mind? You look preoccupied."
"Ah, well, I suppose," she said, and it was only then Chrom noticed the way she was shifting back and forth from foot to foot, and looking at the floor. "If this is a bad time, I can come back later."
"It is never a bad time," Chrom said, and meant it, trying to invest his earnestness in his voice. "Whatever you want – or need – to tell us, we will listen."
"Thank you, Father. Mother." She straightened, held her head high, and her eyes darted back and forth between them. She only very occasionally looked down at her younger self. "The thing is, I've... met..." She mumbled, looked up expecting to have been heard, saw she had not, and looked at the floor again. Her face had gone red. "I've met someone."
"Met someone?" She met people almost every day. What did that even mean?
"That's wonderful, Lucina!" Wonderful? He looked over at Robin, who was wearing a smile and looking at him in a way that said I cannot believe how stupid you are. "Can you tell us about them?"
Them? Wonderful? Oh. "Oh! Yes, Lucina, please tell us about this person."
"He's, well," she cleared her throat, then straightened her spine again. He saw himself in that look, the same expression he was sure he'd worn when he'd told his advisers about Robin. "He's strong, and brave, and... and much sweeter than you'd think." She must not have liked the beat of silence, because her tone shifted to something more like an appeal. "And he's royalty!"
"Oh, Lu," he said, bouncing the baby to keep her distracted, "you know that sort of thing doesn't matter to us."
"You and Mother are both of royal blood..."
"Chrom is right. I was a peasant with no past when he married me. You don't have to worry about us judging him based on class." Robin paused, thoughtfully. "But it is nice that he's royalty, still."
"Yes," Chrom said, not sure how else to contribute, "it's nice. When will we be able to meet this man?"
"He, uhm." She cleared her throat again. "He's actually in the main hall." Chrom looked over at Robin, and her face showed all the surprise he felt. "He wanted to be able to introduce himself." She clasped her hands in front of her stomach, wringing them together. "He wants so badly to make a good impression for you. I had to talk him out of announcing himself with his personal heraldry!"
Robin nodded. "It sounds more like he wants to make a good impression for you."
"Yes," Chrom said. "If he cares that much about proving himself worthy of your company, I'm interested in meeting him."
"May I...?"
"Yes, please. Bring him here."
She was gone, the door shut behind her before either of them had registered she was moving. They heard her footsteps retreating down the hallway, breaking into a run as she rounded a corner and was gone.
"She was very nervous," Robin said.
"Yes, she was. Maybe she thinks we won't like him, whoever he is. Maybe he's Plegian?"
Robin set her mouth in a line, thought for a moment, and then shook her head. "I doubt it. Lucina's from a future without borders and her grasp of geopolitics is fairly tenuous. I don't know if it would occur to her that we might care where he's from."
"What, then?"
"I don't know. I'm sure we'll be finding out in a mome-"
Footsteps returned down the hall. Lucina's steps he recognized, but the tread of the other person was much heavier, like a general in armor. Whoever she had taken a shine to, he was not a slight man. They were speaking to each other, but he could not make out the words. The man's voice was deep.
The door opened and she stepped through it again, stepping off to the side almost like a herald herself. Robin and Chrom both sat up, and even baby Lu looked up with as much rapt attention as she could muster. Lucina breathed deeply, once, and then let it out. "Mother. Father. I would like to introduce you to my, um. To my beau."
Eight feet and seven hundred pounds of red-headed, scaly Koopa King rounded the doorway. One massive hand gripped the frame as he stooped beneath it to step into the room, and once clear of it he straightened – and promptly banged his head on the ceiling. He winced, lowered his posture, and grinned with a mouth that looked like a wall of big triangular daggers.
He was wearing a tie made of red silk.
He had a black eye.
"This is Bowser, King of the Koopas. Bowser, this is my father, the Exalt Chrom, and my mother Robin, slayer of Grima."
"Uh, yeah." The king's voice was deep and gravelly. "Charmed. This is a very nice castle you have here!" He looked around, as if to encompass the entire palace while looking at the walls of a personal library. "Fancier than mine, even. Needs some lava maybe, but it's nice!"
Lucina winced.
Baby Lu grabbed Chrom by his chin and he realized his mouth had been hanging open. He closed it, looked over at his wife, who was still in shock. Which meant saving the moment was up to him! Which was bad. But he'd try anyway, because it couldn't get much worse than silence.
"Well, King Bowser," he said, "Lucina's had... very kind things to say about you."
"Wahahaha!" His laughter was like a beast roaring, and only his body language said it was anything else. Baby Lu tensed in Chrom's lap and clung to him again. "Well, it's not every day one gets to hang on the arm of the one King of the Koopas! But, ah," and he stopped, taking on a very grave, almost reverent expression, "your daughter is a remarkable woman, Exalt."
He looked over at Lucina, who had turned red. He couldn't tell if it was from embarrassment or shame or pride or what. "Yes, she is."
"Dinner!" Every eye in the room looked to Robin. "Who would like to have dinner together?"
"I could really go for some chow," Bowser said, and Lucina beamed – Chrom assumed it was over the prospect of her parents already breaking bread with the new man in her life.
"That sounds wonderful, Mother."
"I'll alert the wait staff and put the baby down for her nap," Chrom said, rising up from his seat and setting Baby Lu in the crook of his arm. Her fingernails dug into his skin so hard he thought they would draw blood as he walked past Bowser.
"And wine!" Robin shouted after him. "We had better have some wine!"
~~~~~~
Robin ended up holding her liquor admirably, but she was going through wine faster than anyone else, including their esteemed guest. And Chrom had expected it, but Bowser could eat - he had devoured an entire country ham by himself, then eaten the bone to follow it. In that respect, at least, he had Chrom's admiration: with Bowser there, he was able to abandon the artifice of decorum and eat as he liked. Lucina was eating carefully, as if concerned that Bowser might somehow think less of her for bad manners – a notion that was reinforced by her shooting anxious yet disapproving looks in Chrom's direction.
A pleasant enough meal, all told.
"So, Bowser," he said, and the Koopa looked up with the bone of a turkey leg sticking out from between his teeth. "This seems like a pretty recent development, from what Lucina was telling us."
"Development?" Bowser looked at Lucina, and then at Chrom. "Oh, you mean me and... yeah! Yeah, I guess you could say that!"
"Well," he said, taking a sip of wine, "how did the two of you meet?"
Lucina turned crimson and her hands paused in the middle of cutting off a piece of bear roast. "W-well, it was a, ah."
Bowser rubbed at his chin, looking embarrassed. "To be honest with you, it was a kidnapping attempt."
Robin promptly choked on her wine, setting her goblet down and covering her mouth with her hands while coughing. Chrom looked over, making sure she wasn't about to die, and when she waved him off he looked back at Bowser. "A... kidnapping attempt."
"Yeah! I mean, I've been chasing Peach for a long time, and a guy needs a little variety, right? I saw your daughter and, well." Bowser looked at Lucina, and she placed a hand on top of his claws. "I saw the tiara before the sword. You know how it is."
"I'm... not sure I do."
"Father..."
"Well," Bowser said, "Lucina definitely put up more of a fight than I was expecting, for one." He gestured at his black eye. “See, it was a bit like this...”
~~~~~~
The Falchion sang through the air in an arc that traced out the shape of death, its edge skidding and sparking against the broad shield of Bowser's back. Lucina landed beyond him, and the crowd of the coliseum roared its approval. Bowser roared in return as he wheeled to face her, fist swinging out in a wide arc.
The blow took her in the left shoulder and she skid backward, spinning the Falchion in her hand as she came to a stop. It was glowing now, reacting to the dragon beast's presence, and it was calling out to bite into him, to skewer his heart and end him, but Lucina knew as well as Bowser did that it would not be that easy.
He reared back, arcing his spine and sticking out his chest, and roared as a stream of fire poured from his mouth. Lucina charged, the tip of the Falchion kicking up sparks as she held it low enough to kiss the stone floor, the heat of the flames turning her skin red and prickly as she ran next to them. He turned his head to catch her, but she was faster than the change in the stream and then she was in his face, her body inches from his, and she looked up and the two of them locked eyes as the Falchion sang.
Steel clashed against claw as Bowser warded off the first blow of the dance. With the second, he staggered back, unsure of his footing, and Lucina found her rhythm, the sword an extension of her arm. Bowser met the third blow with an open swipe of his hand, anticipating the timing, trying to knock her off balance, but she whirled through the extra momentum and his hands came up to block her again and she went low, low, the blade biting into the koopa's feet over and over, the thrusts of her arms the termination of the rhythm. With the last blow she pushed with her body, investing all of her strength, and Bowser was sent careening back, hitting the ground and rolling badly.
She rose, and he was already on his feet, roaring. The ground shook beneath them as the coliseum heaved, and the flooring began to split. She thought to see how the platforms would rise, but he was already charging, his footsteps nearly as thunderous as the machinery that churned beneath them. She met him at speed.
The fight between them was not like one between swordswoman and beast; Bowser had all the intelligence of a person and all the strength of a dragon, and Lucina danced around him with all the agility her legs could produce while trying to stay out of range of his killing hands. Falchion flashed out over and over and over, scoring deep grooves in his yellow hide, but for every strike that scored a clean contact there were three that were turned away by claw, or shell, or the warning heat of fire. He attacked with every limb at every moment, and in spite of how slow he was it was impossible to avoid him altogether. Every time he struck her was worth three of her own, or more, and more than once she was sent skittering back at the impact of his hands or feet or head.
He raised his left hand to strike and she ducked to his right – realizing too late that it was a feint, and his right arm came around and suddenly she was caught in his claws. She struggled in his grip, and would have broken free but that he slammed his head into her and heaved her through the air with his horns.
He was already charging as she sailed to the outermost edge of the arena. She landed well, catching herself and flipping back onto her feet, and she saw his legs bunch as if to leap. She reared back, bringing the Falchion round in an overhead strike that would cleave even his skull in half – and with a grace that should have been impossible for his size, Bowser retreated into his shell and spun around her, regaining his feet directly behind her. He jumped into the air, bunching up his entire body, pouring all the strength of his massive frame into his legs.
And Lucina turned, bringing her sword up in a defensive posture, eyes alight with fire.
~~~~~~
“And then,” Lucina was laughing so hard she could barely speak, and had to catch her breath before continuing, “and then I countered using the weight of his body, and the force of it was so great that he was sent flying and crashed into a big rock outcropping. Head first!” She lost herself, grabbing her sides and sinking into her chair, gasping for air between fits of laughter. “I thought he died on impact!”
“Yeah, well,” Bowser said, not nearly as amused as the princess he had failed to abduct, though his humor was good for someone whose pride was so clearly wounded, “it was a close call. If I had delayed that drop kick for just half a second-”
“I probably would have exploded!” And this was apparently the funniest thing of all.
Chrom and Robin and Bowser ate in silence while waiting for Lucina's sense of grim hilarity to subside. Chrom turned the story over and over in his head while he ate. If nothing else, it sounded like a hell of a fight. Robin had decided to forgo the rest of the wine and was now quaffing water with even more vigor, adding in a lot of meats and green vegetables.
When Lucina finally composed herself, the silence stretched on for a bit longer. Bowser finished eating a roast chicken, made sure his plate was clean, and cleared his throat. “Well. Exalt, Slayer of Grima. It has been a pleasure to meet you.”
“Having you here,” Robin said with a smile, “has been an experience.”
“It's always an experience when Bowser's around! Wahahaha!”
“I'm getting that impression. Will you be heading back to your own keep?”
Bowser rose from the table, pushing back the heavy iron chair that had supported him and adjusting his tie. “Yeah, I figure I need to make sure the troops are keeping things in order while I'm out. But listen, you really have been great hosts! We should do this again sometime, all right? At my place! I'll show you how we throw a party in the Koopa Kingdom!”
Chrom rose from the table. “I might take you up on that. Should I see you out?”
“Nah, I can find my way all right.”
Lucina looked up at him. “I'll see you partway home, though. Let me talk to you before you leave, at least.”
“Sure thing, girly. I'll be right outside.” He nodded to Chrom and Robin, which Chrom figured was about the most deferential motion he was capable of. “Catch all of you later!” He trundled off, his enormous strides taking him out of the dining hall in only a few steps.
Chrom sat back down, thinking to continue eating, but then Lucina stood up, looking down at them expectantly, even hopefully.
“Well?” she said. Chrom said nothing, looking at Robin. Robin said nothing, looking at Chrom. They both looked back at Lucina, whose face... Chrom wouldn't say it fell, exactly. Her eyes welled up and she looked like she was trying very hard not to cry. “You don't like him.” It was somewhere between a moan and an accusation.
Robin spoke first. “Lucina, he's just... not what we expected.”
Chrom felt more thoughtful than he had expected. “He's sort of like a manakete, come to think of it.”
“Father! That is... that is not very kind!”
To him or to manaketes? “Sorry. But he... I don't know, Lucina, he does have a certain... reputation, doesn't he?” This was the wrong thing to say, and he could see it on her face. He was playing right into the way she most feared this conversation might have gone.
“He's... he's very sweet! I know he wasn't on his best behavior tonight, but he's like that when he's not comfortable around someone.”
“You've only known him a few days,” Robin said. Now both of them were playing into her most feared version of this conversation. Nowhere to go but forward. “We just don't want you to get hurt.”
“He did try to kidnap you because he was tired of chasing another woman,” Chrom said, and that was the exact moment that he knew he had gone too far.
“You... he...” She was holding back her tears, but the dam was on the edge of bursting. “How could you say something so cruel?” Then she turned and ran from the room, in the same direction Bowser had gone, her cape fluttering behind her.
“I don't know if I've ever really seen her cry before,” Robin said. “It's kind of unnerving.”
“It is. I'll apologize to her, later.”
“I wouldn't. She's a grown woman, but she came to us seeking the advice of her parents, and we gave it to her honestly. She brought home Bowser. Bowser!”
“She is... definitely dating Bowser.” They both took long droughts of wine. Then: “Well, I want to see his castle.”
He was outside, waiting for her, looking down the cobblestone road that ran through Ylisstol. He ran his claws through the tuft of his hair, grumbling wordlessly.
“I didn't present very well, in there.” He must have heard her coming, though he didn't turn around.
“You did just fine,” she said, realizing too late that her voice was still cracked. “You did fine.”
“Huh?” He turned, looked at her, and flinched at what he saw. “Hey! Hey, it's OK! No, come on, it's OK!” He was moving toward her, claws reaching out. “Hey, hey, hey...”
“I'm fine, I'm fine,” she said, trailing off into wordless sounds as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against the scales of his chest. She wanted space for her misery, thought about pushing him away, braced her arms to do exactly that, and stopped. He was very warm.
“Ssshhh. It's OK. I promise, whatever it is, whatever they said, it's OK.”
“I didn't...” She stopped, swallowed. “I just didn't expect them to do and say what they did. I didn't expect them to look at you that way. I didn't expect them to look at me...” She didn't say any more, because she didn't know if she could without shaming herself. Later she might decide she didn't need to worry about that around him, but here, now, shame was piled so high on her back that she thought her knees would buckle under the weight of it. So she stood there, leaning against him, and he stroked her back and waited in silence.
After a long time the feeling subsided.
“Listen,” he said, letting go of her, keeping his claws on her shoulders and stepping back to look her in the eye. He was so serious. So different. She wished they could have seen him like this. “It doesn't matter. All right? We both knew what we were getting into when it came to other people, and we agreed we would weather that together. Right?”
“Right, but-”
“No. No buts. I know that I can't support you as much as you might need it, that I can't shoulder the eyes of your parents and the people around you. If I could bear that weight for you, I would, but I can't. But you are a very strong person, maybe the strongest I've ever met, and when you are feeling weak you can come to me and I will be there for you. That's what this is about. If I can't carry your burdens, then I will carry you. OK?”
“...OK.”
“And you'll carry me.” A smile played across his face, faint and cheerful. “You know. Figuratively.”
“Literally, if I have to,” she said, and realized she felt better. She did her best to smile at him.
“You probably could,” he said. “Do you want to go into town? Get an ice cream or something?”
“No. No, I think I'll be all right.”
“Good. Then you go get rested up. It's been a big day. I'll be by the day after tomorrow to pick you up, all right? I'll take you somewhere fun, and we'll spend the whole day together.”
This time the smile came easier, and it must have shown because he stopped being able to look at her face, finding something very interesting on the back of his hand, or on his feet. “That sounds very nice. I'll see you then.”
“OK then. See you later.” Then he turned and trundled away. His gait suggested he'd actually be more comfortable moving on all fours, but there was a quiet dignity about the way he carried himself, his slow and deliberate steps speaking to the weight of his crown and his authority. She found herself thinking he was magnificent.
She went back inside.
~~~~~~
Mario leaned on his bag of clubs, watching as Bowser set up at the tee. The koopa flipped his driver in the air, catching it by the handle deftly in his right hand before squaring up. The wind wasn't very strong today, more like a nice breeze, so none of them were too mindful of that.
Watching Bowser golf was almost aggressively strange. The width of his diaphragm and the length of his arms meant he couldn't get a good rotation if he was holding his clubs in both hands, so he had been refining his one-armed swing for almost twenty years. It showed.
Bowser reared back and swung, and the crack of the ball being struck by the club was an order of magnitude louder than for almost any of the other golfing regulars. Mario and Peach and Bowser all watched as the ball screamed through the air, coming down within easy chipping distance of the green.
“Oh! Wonderful shot!” Peach said, clapping politely, and Mario took that as his cue to do the same.
“Ah, well, you know,” Bowser said, slipping his club back into his bag. “It's pretty standard for me, really. If I was at my best it'd be in the hole already.”
Peach laughed into her hand, the sound like birds flitting between tiny bells. “I suppose that leaves a lot for us to live up to, doesn't it, Mario?” He nodded, grunting his affirmation. He and Bowser weren't especially competitive most of the time – one could never say what would happen on the race track – but he was going to be doing his best to beat him today. Losing at something like golf was different. With golf, you were really competing with yourself.
The princess set up her tee and stepped back to take a few practice swings. Her form was so orthodox it could almost be called picturesque, and every swing she took cut the air so sharply it was like listening to someone swing a sword next to one's ear. She adjusted her visor to keep the sun from her eyes, stepped up square to the tee, and slowly brought her club back.
“I'm dating someone,” Bowser said, and Peach's back tensed on her downswing and there was an odd sound and the ball went sailing far off course, missing a third of its usual distance and landing in the rough far off to the left of the fairway.
Bowser coughed. “You can, uh, take a mulligan. If you want.”
“No.” Peach looked over at him and smiled without using her teeth, eyes crinkled shut. It was the most exasperated she'd looked in weeks. “No, that wouldn't be quite fair, would it? I had better play it where it lies.” She carried her golf club over to her own bright pink bag with all the clam and grace one would expect, but small things in the way she held herself and the way she let go of the club to drop it into the bag told Mario everything as clearly as if she had kicked the bag clear off the course.
Both of them were waiting for Bowser to elaborate, but he just looked at Mario and inclined his head at the tee box. Mario shrugged, took out his own driver and bright red tee and ball, and set up. He'd been warmed up for a while, and didn't really need the practice swings. He was going to knock the fire out of this one, and if not land as close as Bowser had then at least he'd be in chipping distance. Peach would come back. She always did, when she had a bad hit. He had to focus on his own game.
He swung back, the weight of the club rotating his body in clean, comfortable lines.
“It's Lucina.”
His head whipped around as he was swinging down. The ball burst into flames as he struck it, and he snapped his attention up to watch it sail through the air.
“Lucina of Ylisse? Daughter to the Exalt?” Peach was not trying to hide her surprise – if anything she was wearing it like a sash.
“Yeah, that's the one. But. You know. The one from the future.”
The fireball winked out, but Mario kept tracking the ball itself as it trailed smoke through the air. Distance was decent, not perfect, but the trajectory was off. Aw, no. He could feel it coming before it happened.
“That's...”
“What? No congratulations?”
When the ball landed in the sand trap it kicked up a tiny geyser of sand. It was buried deep. It'd take one stroke just to dislodge it, nevermind getting it up onto the green. This hole was a wash unless Bowser messed up his putting game, and Bowser never messed up his putting.
He turned back to look at the other two, knowing he shouldn't really interject. Peach had her imperious face on, feet planted lightly and close together as if she were wearing a gown, arms folded crisply across her abdomen.
“Bowser, you are going to hurt her.”
“Why,” he said, hefting his bag on his shoulder, his tone turning cold, “would I do that?”
“You are three times her age. And you are you.”
The ice turned to fire and glittering coals. “What is that supposed to mean.”
“You are single-minded in the extreme and I don't doubt that you believe you can be true to her in a relationship, but I have never known you to be anything except for what you are.” She inhaled through her nose, and her expression softened. “I'm sorry. I love you – we love you – as one of our dearest friends, but I don't know that this relationship can do anything but hurt both of you. How will you deal with the pressure of it? With the political implications?”
He relaxed, visibly, waved his hand. “I don't see how any of that matters. I know how to deal with pressure better than anyone, and political implications don't seem so big when the person you're dating is the rightful heir to a doomed alternate future.”
“Maybe you can deal with that, Bowser, but can she? Has she ever been with anyone like you before? Or anyone at all? Do you think that what you're feeling will be able to support her if and when she can't support herself?”
“I can support someone much better than you apparently think.”
“Childish love cannot sustain you!” Bowser flinched, and so did Mario, and Peach stomped one foot. “This is not a wonderland where we can be beholden to our hearts above all other considerations! There is no returning to the vestiges of youth-”
“-Because we can only mimic its shape, never capturing its substance, and all artifice will slip away.” He sighed, ran his claws along his scalp. “I know. I know all that. I'm always going to be who I am, and I always hurt people. It's what I do. I know.”
“Then why?”
“Because!” He flexed his claws, looked down at them, looked at Mario, looked at Peach again. His face was all screwed up, as if he wasn't ready for this argument even though he'd been anticipating it for days or weeks. He looked like he was on the edge of losing his composure. “Because when we met, there were sparks, and we didn't understand each other at first, but, but then we talked. We talked and talked, and there was something in her that spoke to me, in the way she moved and held her sword and walked so confidently with the weight of worlds on her spine. She said something in me spoke to her, that I was, that I was kind and she wanted to speak to me again and, and-” His hands fell, and Mario took a step back. Bowser was actually crying. “I've known both of you for three decades. Thirty long years, and I have never had anyone say that to me. Not anyone. Do you – do you have any idea what that's like? Have either of you ever known what it's like to be lonely?”
Peach didn't answer. She just shook her head.
“No. Of course you wouldn't have. You have each other, and what you have is perfect and I'm inexpressibly happy that you have it, and I hope you have it forever, but I want it too. I've found someone who helps me feel the things you feel, who says, who says I bring out the same things in her. I have never been so happy as when I'm standing with her, and.” He inhaled deep, trying to calm himself, failing. “She's so beautiful. And she called me kind.”
For a long moment, none of them spoke, and no one moved except for the shaking of Bowser's shoulders as he tried to keep himself under control. This moment stretched, and stretched, and Mario wondered if it would go on forever.
Then Peach stepped forward, and reached up, and put her arms around Bowser's neck. Bowser blinked his surprise, his shock.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “You deserve that as much as anyone. Do you understand? You deserve to be happy.” She gestured with her fingers behind Bowser's head, and to anyone else it would have been fruitless but Mario caught her meaning and walked over too, and together the both of them embraced the Koopa. “And we will be here for you, no matter what happens.” Another few seconds of confused gawking and then he squeezed his eyes shut and wrapped his arms around both of them. It was like being hugged by a tree.
“Thanks, guys. I mean it. Thank you.” He let go of them, and the embrace broke off, and he stepped back and sniffed and wiped his snout on his arm. “All right, that's enough of that for now.” He hefted his bag again, and started walking down the course without looking back. “Come on! I still need to beat the both of you senseless for another eight holes – I think this one is as good as mine. Wahahaha!”
Peach looked down at Mario, and all he could do was shrug his shoulders in response. Both of them hoisted their clubs and walked after the Koopa, sobered but thinking about how best to play the lie.
~~~~~~
Lucina took a bite out of her ice cream, catching a bit of the cone and crunching on it. “Like this?”
“Yeah, just like that. It's better with the cone, isn't it?”
“Mm. Yes, it is! That is very complementary.”
“Told you so. I can't believe you've never had ice cream before.” Bowser had had a cone for himself, but there was no evidence of its existence that Lucina could see except for a smudge of ice cream on the left of his mouth.
“Well, I never had much opportunity growing up,” she said. “Here, hold still.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, reaching up and wiping the corner of his mouth for him.
“Sorry.”
She laughed at how sheepish he looked. “It's all right! You really like it, and I do too!” She took another bite, chewing on it because she wasn't sure what else to do with it. Maybe she'd get used to it soon. The taste was very nice, still. “It's been a wonderful evening. Thank you.”
“Wahahaha! There's no need to thank me. I've had a lot of fun too! We really tore this place up!”
A carnival worker look up at the sound of his voice, his scowl telling the story of how literal Bowser's word might be taken. They had taken in all the games at the carnival, or all the ones that caught their fancy: the bell-ringing couldn't be fixed until they bought a new bell and a new hammer, Lucina had managed to break the machinery that made the whack-a-mole run, the ring toss was filled with the remains of two hundred shattered glass bottles, and the House of Horrors had literally been burned to the ground. Lucina didn't particularly mind any of it, and Bowser had dropped enough coins into the owner's hands that the man had actually invited them back next year, but it was a lot quieter now that the fire had scared off so many people.
Still, that was all right, too. She liked the quiet, and there were still enough people around to give the illusion of anonymity, of being lost in a crowd. She slipped her free hand into his, and he looked at her before taking hold himself. His grip was firm, like his hands were made of iron, but so gentle that she felt supported rather than pressured by his attention.
“I feel much better now,” she said.
“Me too.”
She looked up at him, studied his face. “Did you have a hard conversation, too?”
“You know how it is. People want the best for you, but sometimes they don't know how to express it. Friends or family. It's just something you have to deal with.”
“I suppose so.” She tightened her grip on his hand, looked up at the darkening sky, and sighed. “I heard there might be fireworks later.”
“Want to stay for them?”
“I'd like that very much.”
“All right! Then that's what we'll do. Come on, I want to find the guy in charge of the show. I'm going to make sure they really knock our socks off – or else I'll burn this whole place to the ground!”
He laughed, and she imagined him going on a rampage, knocking over the ferris wheel and kicking people around like rag dolls while they tried to stop him, and she laughed too.
This will do for now, I think. I don't know where we're going, or if my parents' fears will play out, but right now I don't care.
Bowser reached over with his free hand and swiped the remains of her ice cream cone. She yelped in shock as he took it from her and popped it in his mouth, crunching it noisily as he let go of her hand and made a run for it. Without thinking about it she drew the Falchion and chased after him, and he looked back at her and laughed and laughed, and people were leaping to get out of their way and she was laughing too. She leaped into the air, her sword catching the last light of the day, and her date looked up with sudden surprise on his face.
“AGH!”
She brought Falchion down in a stroke that caught Bowser full in the shoulder, and he went flying.
Right now I'm happy.
I hope you enjoyed this exercise in egregious stupidity.
Posts
It's one of many reasons I'm glad I play Robin.
He's been pretty reliable at wrecking Warios in my experience.
Why I fear the ocean.
I'd be down
I used to think that Tornado Hold was just an OK move, until I figured out how to cancel its landing lag. Then I realized it's an amaaaaaazing move. Respect my airspace! I AM KING ZONER.
The only advice I can give for Danger Wrap is that you can punch it out of the sky, and this is sometimes a better option than trying to dodge it. Danger Wrap only explodes when it touches one of your character's hurtboxes or the stage. Pre-explosion, even the weakest attacks will clank with it and make it disappear, and stronger attacks will outprioritize it. Multihit moves like Mario's dair work particularly well for this because they take the guesswork out of the timing a little bit, and can also still end up hurting me at the end too.
The thing is, though, that Danger Wrap has a deceptively large hitbox and its speed and trajectory are both pretty weird, so hitting it without it touching you first is easier said than done.
3DS: 2981-5304-3227
I already have the whole soundtrack so I don't really have a use for it. Probably just hand it off to my brother.
NNID: Glenn565
Also, good god that match on MK8 with Shulk; I don't even know how I survived.
NNID: Glenn565
sure
http://www.audioentropy.com/
sry had to put the dog out i'm comin
http://www.audioentropy.com/
the idea that they fucking enforce those time-outs on frind games is absurd
also that they don't start the timer until you go to get into a game
http://www.audioentropy.com/
pretty satisfied with how rosalina and sonic are comin along
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Still think Sonic is the most annoying character in the game, although not the best character in the game. Rosalina is interesting cause basically luma serves to soak up just tons of hits from my projectiles.
so you really have to be mindful of what you're doing if you want to actually get any benefit out of his speed
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Trophy Rush is probably the fastest way to do it
Otherwise
When playing classic, select stages that are related to the character you're trying to get moves for. Easier with Mario or Zelda or Pokemon characters. Below those, select enemies you want moves for. Etc.
Outside of that, uh
Yeah
Otherwise, bleeeeehhhhhhh, why Nintendo
Also don't do classic mode to try and unlock moves, as it likes to drop moves for the characters you are fighting or characters who belong to the same franchise as the stage you are playing on more than the guy you're playing.
The 3DS version apparently dropped stuff for the character you are playing WAY more than the Wii U version does. Fuck if I know why they changed that.
Anyway
This is the late entry into Speed's fanfic competition. I'm making this post because of a bet Daypigeon made with me, dependent on whether or not SMTxFE was actually still a real game or not. It is, so here I am. I think most people picked their pairings on their own, but not ol' Wyborn. I picked by assigning each cast member a number and then using a random integer generator to create a pairing, then decided I would use whatever it spit out.
This is actually the second pairing this process produced. The first one was Zelda and Zero Suit Samus and come on, I have some dignity.
This fanfic went to some weird places. I hope you appreciate how absurd certain bits must have been to write.
Grey Ghost can't read this until he's at least up to Chapter 13, and even then there are some spoilers herein.
Oh Christ it's so big the board is making me split it in two!!!!
Don't click this spoiler unless you want some shipping all up in your grill:
pt. 1
Not his study, he corrected himself. It had never really been his in the first place, never a place he had felt comfortable. Emmeryn had been comfortable here, finding some fount of strength in the many tomes held on bookcases that lined every wall, but when the room had passed to him with the title of Exalt he had never felt comfortable there. He'd like to say it was because he felt the presence of the woman his sister used to be, but that was not true: he just preferred to be outside. If he was being honest with himself, it was Robin's study much more than his.
She was seated across from him now, an enormous tome laid across her lap, its broad cover partially supported by the armrests of the deep chair she was sitting in. He watched her, the pulling together of her eyebrows telling the intensity with which she was treating the subject of her study. She was beautiful when she read.
Lucina clapped her hands and squealed, and he snapped out of his reverie, bouncing her on his knee.
"All right, all right, my impatient princess. Do you want to ride a horsey? Ah?"
"Hosey!" she responded, holding her hands up, fingers splayed. She had gotten a lot grabbier since turning a year old. A lot chattier, too.
"Get ready, then." He put his thumbs in her palms and she latched onto them with a grip like iron while he wrapped his fingers around her hands. "OK? Here we go." He bounced his knee rhythmically, and she was already laughing in her anticipation. He didn't chant the words, just spoke them to the rhythm, but the effect was pronounced anyway. "Ride a horsey, go to town. Ride a horsey, don't fall down!" He parted his legs and dipped her between his knees and she shrieked with laughter, the kind of wild and fearful abandon that spoke to a level of trust he barely understood. He pulled her back up, and she pulled her hands out of his and leaned forward and latched onto his shirt, still laughing, holding onto him so as not to fall again.
Robin looked up and looked him in the eye, her amusement only showing through a quirk of her mouth. "Not a very good rider, is she?"
"Well. She still has a while to learn, I think." A knock at the door, firm but polite, had both of them looking up. "Come in," he said.
The door opened slowly, and a shock of blue hair told him who was there before he saw the tiara or the face of the woman at the threshhold.
"Father? Mother?"
"Ah, Lucina!" His infant daughter looked up, grinning and confused, and he cleared his throat. "Haha, sorry. Big Lucina."
"Beelu!" the younger said, and squirmed to turn around on his lap and gape at her older self.
Robin looked up and then closed her book. "Is something on your mind? You look preoccupied."
"Ah, well, I suppose," she said, and it was only then Chrom noticed the way she was shifting back and forth from foot to foot, and looking at the floor. "If this is a bad time, I can come back later."
"It is never a bad time," Chrom said, and meant it, trying to invest his earnestness in his voice. "Whatever you want – or need – to tell us, we will listen."
"Thank you, Father. Mother." She straightened, held her head high, and her eyes darted back and forth between them. She only very occasionally looked down at her younger self. "The thing is, I've... met..." She mumbled, looked up expecting to have been heard, saw she had not, and looked at the floor again. Her face had gone red. "I've met someone."
"Met someone?" She met people almost every day. What did that even mean?
"That's wonderful, Lucina!" Wonderful? He looked over at Robin, who was wearing a smile and looking at him in a way that said I cannot believe how stupid you are. "Can you tell us about them?"
Them? Wonderful? Oh. "Oh! Yes, Lucina, please tell us about this person."
"He's, well," she cleared her throat, then straightened her spine again. He saw himself in that look, the same expression he was sure he'd worn when he'd told his advisers about Robin. "He's strong, and brave, and... and much sweeter than you'd think." She must not have liked the beat of silence, because her tone shifted to something more like an appeal. "And he's royalty!"
"Oh, Lu," he said, bouncing the baby to keep her distracted, "you know that sort of thing doesn't matter to us."
"You and Mother are both of royal blood..."
"Chrom is right. I was a peasant with no past when he married me. You don't have to worry about us judging him based on class." Robin paused, thoughtfully. "But it is nice that he's royalty, still."
"Yes," Chrom said, not sure how else to contribute, "it's nice. When will we be able to meet this man?"
"He, uhm." She cleared her throat again. "He's actually in the main hall." Chrom looked over at Robin, and her face showed all the surprise he felt. "He wanted to be able to introduce himself." She clasped her hands in front of her stomach, wringing them together. "He wants so badly to make a good impression for you. I had to talk him out of announcing himself with his personal heraldry!"
Robin nodded. "It sounds more like he wants to make a good impression for you."
"Yes," Chrom said. "If he cares that much about proving himself worthy of your company, I'm interested in meeting him."
"May I...?"
"Yes, please. Bring him here."
She was gone, the door shut behind her before either of them had registered she was moving. They heard her footsteps retreating down the hallway, breaking into a run as she rounded a corner and was gone.
"She was very nervous," Robin said.
"Yes, she was. Maybe she thinks we won't like him, whoever he is. Maybe he's Plegian?"
Robin set her mouth in a line, thought for a moment, and then shook her head. "I doubt it. Lucina's from a future without borders and her grasp of geopolitics is fairly tenuous. I don't know if it would occur to her that we might care where he's from."
"What, then?"
"I don't know. I'm sure we'll be finding out in a mome-"
Footsteps returned down the hall. Lucina's steps he recognized, but the tread of the other person was much heavier, like a general in armor. Whoever she had taken a shine to, he was not a slight man. They were speaking to each other, but he could not make out the words. The man's voice was deep.
The door opened and she stepped through it again, stepping off to the side almost like a herald herself. Robin and Chrom both sat up, and even baby Lu looked up with as much rapt attention as she could muster. Lucina breathed deeply, once, and then let it out. "Mother. Father. I would like to introduce you to my, um. To my beau."
Eight feet and seven hundred pounds of red-headed, scaly Koopa King rounded the doorway. One massive hand gripped the frame as he stooped beneath it to step into the room, and once clear of it he straightened – and promptly banged his head on the ceiling. He winced, lowered his posture, and grinned with a mouth that looked like a wall of big triangular daggers.
He was wearing a tie made of red silk.
He had a black eye.
"This is Bowser, King of the Koopas. Bowser, this is my father, the Exalt Chrom, and my mother Robin, slayer of Grima."
"Uh, yeah." The king's voice was deep and gravelly. "Charmed. This is a very nice castle you have here!" He looked around, as if to encompass the entire palace while looking at the walls of a personal library. "Fancier than mine, even. Needs some lava maybe, but it's nice!"
Lucina winced.
Baby Lu grabbed Chrom by his chin and he realized his mouth had been hanging open. He closed it, looked over at his wife, who was still in shock. Which meant saving the moment was up to him! Which was bad. But he'd try anyway, because it couldn't get much worse than silence.
"Well, King Bowser," he said, "Lucina's had... very kind things to say about you."
"Wahahaha!" His laughter was like a beast roaring, and only his body language said it was anything else. Baby Lu tensed in Chrom's lap and clung to him again. "Well, it's not every day one gets to hang on the arm of the one King of the Koopas! But, ah," and he stopped, taking on a very grave, almost reverent expression, "your daughter is a remarkable woman, Exalt."
He looked over at Lucina, who had turned red. He couldn't tell if it was from embarrassment or shame or pride or what. "Yes, she is."
"Dinner!" Every eye in the room looked to Robin. "Who would like to have dinner together?"
"I could really go for some chow," Bowser said, and Lucina beamed – Chrom assumed it was over the prospect of her parents already breaking bread with the new man in her life.
"That sounds wonderful, Mother."
"I'll alert the wait staff and put the baby down for her nap," Chrom said, rising up from his seat and setting Baby Lu in the crook of his arm. Her fingernails dug into his skin so hard he thought they would draw blood as he walked past Bowser.
"And wine!" Robin shouted after him. "We had better have some wine!"
~~~~~~
Robin ended up holding her liquor admirably, but she was going through wine faster than anyone else, including their esteemed guest. And Chrom had expected it, but Bowser could eat - he had devoured an entire country ham by himself, then eaten the bone to follow it. In that respect, at least, he had Chrom's admiration: with Bowser there, he was able to abandon the artifice of decorum and eat as he liked. Lucina was eating carefully, as if concerned that Bowser might somehow think less of her for bad manners – a notion that was reinforced by her shooting anxious yet disapproving looks in Chrom's direction.
A pleasant enough meal, all told.
"So, Bowser," he said, and the Koopa looked up with the bone of a turkey leg sticking out from between his teeth. "This seems like a pretty recent development, from what Lucina was telling us."
"Development?" Bowser looked at Lucina, and then at Chrom. "Oh, you mean me and... yeah! Yeah, I guess you could say that!"
"Well," he said, taking a sip of wine, "how did the two of you meet?"
Lucina turned crimson and her hands paused in the middle of cutting off a piece of bear roast. "W-well, it was a, ah."
Bowser rubbed at his chin, looking embarrassed. "To be honest with you, it was a kidnapping attempt."
Robin promptly choked on her wine, setting her goblet down and covering her mouth with her hands while coughing. Chrom looked over, making sure she wasn't about to die, and when she waved him off he looked back at Bowser. "A... kidnapping attempt."
"Yeah! I mean, I've been chasing Peach for a long time, and a guy needs a little variety, right? I saw your daughter and, well." Bowser looked at Lucina, and she placed a hand on top of his claws. "I saw the tiara before the sword. You know how it is."
"I'm... not sure I do."
"Father..."
"Well," Bowser said, "Lucina definitely put up more of a fight than I was expecting, for one." He gestured at his black eye. “See, it was a bit like this...”
~~~~~~
The Falchion sang through the air in an arc that traced out the shape of death, its edge skidding and sparking against the broad shield of Bowser's back. Lucina landed beyond him, and the crowd of the coliseum roared its approval. Bowser roared in return as he wheeled to face her, fist swinging out in a wide arc.
The blow took her in the left shoulder and she skid backward, spinning the Falchion in her hand as she came to a stop. It was glowing now, reacting to the dragon beast's presence, and it was calling out to bite into him, to skewer his heart and end him, but Lucina knew as well as Bowser did that it would not be that easy.
He reared back, arcing his spine and sticking out his chest, and roared as a stream of fire poured from his mouth. Lucina charged, the tip of the Falchion kicking up sparks as she held it low enough to kiss the stone floor, the heat of the flames turning her skin red and prickly as she ran next to them. He turned his head to catch her, but she was faster than the change in the stream and then she was in his face, her body inches from his, and she looked up and the two of them locked eyes as the Falchion sang.
Steel clashed against claw as Bowser warded off the first blow of the dance. With the second, he staggered back, unsure of his footing, and Lucina found her rhythm, the sword an extension of her arm. Bowser met the third blow with an open swipe of his hand, anticipating the timing, trying to knock her off balance, but she whirled through the extra momentum and his hands came up to block her again and she went low, low, the blade biting into the koopa's feet over and over, the thrusts of her arms the termination of the rhythm. With the last blow she pushed with her body, investing all of her strength, and Bowser was sent careening back, hitting the ground and rolling badly.
She rose, and he was already on his feet, roaring. The ground shook beneath them as the coliseum heaved, and the flooring began to split. She thought to see how the platforms would rise, but he was already charging, his footsteps nearly as thunderous as the machinery that churned beneath them. She met him at speed.
The fight between them was not like one between swordswoman and beast; Bowser had all the intelligence of a person and all the strength of a dragon, and Lucina danced around him with all the agility her legs could produce while trying to stay out of range of his killing hands. Falchion flashed out over and over and over, scoring deep grooves in his yellow hide, but for every strike that scored a clean contact there were three that were turned away by claw, or shell, or the warning heat of fire. He attacked with every limb at every moment, and in spite of how slow he was it was impossible to avoid him altogether. Every time he struck her was worth three of her own, or more, and more than once she was sent skittering back at the impact of his hands or feet or head.
He raised his left hand to strike and she ducked to his right – realizing too late that it was a feint, and his right arm came around and suddenly she was caught in his claws. She struggled in his grip, and would have broken free but that he slammed his head into her and heaved her through the air with his horns.
He was already charging as she sailed to the outermost edge of the arena. She landed well, catching herself and flipping back onto her feet, and she saw his legs bunch as if to leap. She reared back, bringing the Falchion round in an overhead strike that would cleave even his skull in half – and with a grace that should have been impossible for his size, Bowser retreated into his shell and spun around her, regaining his feet directly behind her. He jumped into the air, bunching up his entire body, pouring all the strength of his massive frame into his legs.
And Lucina turned, bringing her sword up in a defensive posture, eyes alight with fire.
~~~~~~
“And then,” Lucina was laughing so hard she could barely speak, and had to catch her breath before continuing, “and then I countered using the weight of his body, and the force of it was so great that he was sent flying and crashed into a big rock outcropping. Head first!” She lost herself, grabbing her sides and sinking into her chair, gasping for air between fits of laughter. “I thought he died on impact!”
“Yeah, well,” Bowser said, not nearly as amused as the princess he had failed to abduct, though his humor was good for someone whose pride was so clearly wounded, “it was a close call. If I had delayed that drop kick for just half a second-”
“I probably would have exploded!” And this was apparently the funniest thing of all.
Chrom and Robin and Bowser ate in silence while waiting for Lucina's sense of grim hilarity to subside. Chrom turned the story over and over in his head while he ate. If nothing else, it sounded like a hell of a fight. Robin had decided to forgo the rest of the wine and was now quaffing water with even more vigor, adding in a lot of meats and green vegetables.
When Lucina finally composed herself, the silence stretched on for a bit longer. Bowser finished eating a roast chicken, made sure his plate was clean, and cleared his throat. “Well. Exalt, Slayer of Grima. It has been a pleasure to meet you.”
“Having you here,” Robin said with a smile, “has been an experience.”
“It's always an experience when Bowser's around! Wahahaha!”
“I'm getting that impression. Will you be heading back to your own keep?”
Bowser rose from the table, pushing back the heavy iron chair that had supported him and adjusting his tie. “Yeah, I figure I need to make sure the troops are keeping things in order while I'm out. But listen, you really have been great hosts! We should do this again sometime, all right? At my place! I'll show you how we throw a party in the Koopa Kingdom!”
Chrom rose from the table. “I might take you up on that. Should I see you out?”
“Nah, I can find my way all right.”
Lucina looked up at him. “I'll see you partway home, though. Let me talk to you before you leave, at least.”
“Sure thing, girly. I'll be right outside.” He nodded to Chrom and Robin, which Chrom figured was about the most deferential motion he was capable of. “Catch all of you later!” He trundled off, his enormous strides taking him out of the dining hall in only a few steps.
Chrom sat back down, thinking to continue eating, but then Lucina stood up, looking down at them expectantly, even hopefully.
“Well?” she said. Chrom said nothing, looking at Robin. Robin said nothing, looking at Chrom. They both looked back at Lucina, whose face... Chrom wouldn't say it fell, exactly. Her eyes welled up and she looked like she was trying very hard not to cry. “You don't like him.” It was somewhere between a moan and an accusation.
Robin spoke first. “Lucina, he's just... not what we expected.”
Chrom felt more thoughtful than he had expected. “He's sort of like a manakete, come to think of it.”
“Father! That is... that is not very kind!”
To him or to manaketes? “Sorry. But he... I don't know, Lucina, he does have a certain... reputation, doesn't he?” This was the wrong thing to say, and he could see it on her face. He was playing right into the way she most feared this conversation might have gone.
“He's... he's very sweet! I know he wasn't on his best behavior tonight, but he's like that when he's not comfortable around someone.”
“You've only known him a few days,” Robin said. Now both of them were playing into her most feared version of this conversation. Nowhere to go but forward. “We just don't want you to get hurt.”
“He did try to kidnap you because he was tired of chasing another woman,” Chrom said, and that was the exact moment that he knew he had gone too far.
“You... he...” She was holding back her tears, but the dam was on the edge of bursting. “How could you say something so cruel?” Then she turned and ran from the room, in the same direction Bowser had gone, her cape fluttering behind her.
“I don't know if I've ever really seen her cry before,” Robin said. “It's kind of unnerving.”
“It is. I'll apologize to her, later.”
“I wouldn't. She's a grown woman, but she came to us seeking the advice of her parents, and we gave it to her honestly. She brought home Bowser. Bowser!”
“She is... definitely dating Bowser.” They both took long droughts of wine. Then: “Well, I want to see his castle.”
He was outside, waiting for her, looking down the cobblestone road that ran through Ylisstol. He ran his claws through the tuft of his hair, grumbling wordlessly.
“I didn't present very well, in there.” He must have heard her coming, though he didn't turn around.
“You did just fine,” she said, realizing too late that her voice was still cracked. “You did fine.”
“Huh?” He turned, looked at her, and flinched at what he saw. “Hey! Hey, it's OK! No, come on, it's OK!” He was moving toward her, claws reaching out. “Hey, hey, hey...”
“I'm fine, I'm fine,” she said, trailing off into wordless sounds as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against the scales of his chest. She wanted space for her misery, thought about pushing him away, braced her arms to do exactly that, and stopped. He was very warm.
“Ssshhh. It's OK. I promise, whatever it is, whatever they said, it's OK.”
“I didn't...” She stopped, swallowed. “I just didn't expect them to do and say what they did. I didn't expect them to look at you that way. I didn't expect them to look at me...” She didn't say any more, because she didn't know if she could without shaming herself. Later she might decide she didn't need to worry about that around him, but here, now, shame was piled so high on her back that she thought her knees would buckle under the weight of it. So she stood there, leaning against him, and he stroked her back and waited in silence.
After a long time the feeling subsided.
“Listen,” he said, letting go of her, keeping his claws on her shoulders and stepping back to look her in the eye. He was so serious. So different. She wished they could have seen him like this. “It doesn't matter. All right? We both knew what we were getting into when it came to other people, and we agreed we would weather that together. Right?”
“Right, but-”
“No. No buts. I know that I can't support you as much as you might need it, that I can't shoulder the eyes of your parents and the people around you. If I could bear that weight for you, I would, but I can't. But you are a very strong person, maybe the strongest I've ever met, and when you are feeling weak you can come to me and I will be there for you. That's what this is about. If I can't carry your burdens, then I will carry you. OK?”
“...OK.”
“And you'll carry me.” A smile played across his face, faint and cheerful. “You know. Figuratively.”
“Literally, if I have to,” she said, and realized she felt better. She did her best to smile at him.
“You probably could,” he said. “Do you want to go into town? Get an ice cream or something?”
“No. No, I think I'll be all right.”
“Good. Then you go get rested up. It's been a big day. I'll be by the day after tomorrow to pick you up, all right? I'll take you somewhere fun, and we'll spend the whole day together.”
This time the smile came easier, and it must have shown because he stopped being able to look at her face, finding something very interesting on the back of his hand, or on his feet. “That sounds very nice. I'll see you then.”
“OK then. See you later.” Then he turned and trundled away. His gait suggested he'd actually be more comfortable moving on all fours, but there was a quiet dignity about the way he carried himself, his slow and deliberate steps speaking to the weight of his crown and his authority. She found herself thinking he was magnificent.
She went back inside.
~~~~~~
Mario leaned on his bag of clubs, watching as Bowser set up at the tee. The koopa flipped his driver in the air, catching it by the handle deftly in his right hand before squaring up. The wind wasn't very strong today, more like a nice breeze, so none of them were too mindful of that.
Watching Bowser golf was almost aggressively strange. The width of his diaphragm and the length of his arms meant he couldn't get a good rotation if he was holding his clubs in both hands, so he had been refining his one-armed swing for almost twenty years. It showed.
Bowser reared back and swung, and the crack of the ball being struck by the club was an order of magnitude louder than for almost any of the other golfing regulars. Mario and Peach and Bowser all watched as the ball screamed through the air, coming down within easy chipping distance of the green.
“Oh! Wonderful shot!” Peach said, clapping politely, and Mario took that as his cue to do the same.
“Ah, well, you know,” Bowser said, slipping his club back into his bag. “It's pretty standard for me, really. If I was at my best it'd be in the hole already.”
Peach laughed into her hand, the sound like birds flitting between tiny bells. “I suppose that leaves a lot for us to live up to, doesn't it, Mario?” He nodded, grunting his affirmation. He and Bowser weren't especially competitive most of the time – one could never say what would happen on the race track – but he was going to be doing his best to beat him today. Losing at something like golf was different. With golf, you were really competing with yourself.
The princess set up her tee and stepped back to take a few practice swings. Her form was so orthodox it could almost be called picturesque, and every swing she took cut the air so sharply it was like listening to someone swing a sword next to one's ear. She adjusted her visor to keep the sun from her eyes, stepped up square to the tee, and slowly brought her club back.
“I'm dating someone,” Bowser said, and Peach's back tensed on her downswing and there was an odd sound and the ball went sailing far off course, missing a third of its usual distance and landing in the rough far off to the left of the fairway.
Bowser coughed. “You can, uh, take a mulligan. If you want.”
“No.” Peach looked over at him and smiled without using her teeth, eyes crinkled shut. It was the most exasperated she'd looked in weeks. “No, that wouldn't be quite fair, would it? I had better play it where it lies.” She carried her golf club over to her own bright pink bag with all the clam and grace one would expect, but small things in the way she held herself and the way she let go of the club to drop it into the bag told Mario everything as clearly as if she had kicked the bag clear off the course.
Both of them were waiting for Bowser to elaborate, but he just looked at Mario and inclined his head at the tee box. Mario shrugged, took out his own driver and bright red tee and ball, and set up. He'd been warmed up for a while, and didn't really need the practice swings. He was going to knock the fire out of this one, and if not land as close as Bowser had then at least he'd be in chipping distance. Peach would come back. She always did, when she had a bad hit. He had to focus on his own game.
He swung back, the weight of the club rotating his body in clean, comfortable lines.
“It's Lucina.”
His head whipped around as he was swinging down. The ball burst into flames as he struck it, and he snapped his attention up to watch it sail through the air.
“Lucina of Ylisse? Daughter to the Exalt?” Peach was not trying to hide her surprise – if anything she was wearing it like a sash.
“Yeah, that's the one. But. You know. The one from the future.”
The fireball winked out, but Mario kept tracking the ball itself as it trailed smoke through the air. Distance was decent, not perfect, but the trajectory was off. Aw, no. He could feel it coming before it happened.
“That's...”
“What? No congratulations?”
When the ball landed in the sand trap it kicked up a tiny geyser of sand. It was buried deep. It'd take one stroke just to dislodge it, nevermind getting it up onto the green. This hole was a wash unless Bowser messed up his putting game, and Bowser never messed up his putting.
He turned back to look at the other two, knowing he shouldn't really interject. Peach had her imperious face on, feet planted lightly and close together as if she were wearing a gown, arms folded crisply across her abdomen.
“Bowser, you are going to hurt her.”
“Why,” he said, hefting his bag on his shoulder, his tone turning cold, “would I do that?”
“You are three times her age. And you are you.”
The ice turned to fire and glittering coals. “What is that supposed to mean.”
“You are single-minded in the extreme and I don't doubt that you believe you can be true to her in a relationship, but I have never known you to be anything except for what you are.” She inhaled through her nose, and her expression softened. “I'm sorry. I love you – we love you – as one of our dearest friends, but I don't know that this relationship can do anything but hurt both of you. How will you deal with the pressure of it? With the political implications?”
He relaxed, visibly, waved his hand. “I don't see how any of that matters. I know how to deal with pressure better than anyone, and political implications don't seem so big when the person you're dating is the rightful heir to a doomed alternate future.”
“Maybe you can deal with that, Bowser, but can she? Has she ever been with anyone like you before? Or anyone at all? Do you think that what you're feeling will be able to support her if and when she can't support herself?”
“I can support someone much better than you apparently think.”
“Childish love cannot sustain you!” Bowser flinched, and so did Mario, and Peach stomped one foot. “This is not a wonderland where we can be beholden to our hearts above all other considerations! There is no returning to the vestiges of youth-”
“-Because we can only mimic its shape, never capturing its substance, and all artifice will slip away.” He sighed, ran his claws along his scalp. “I know. I know all that. I'm always going to be who I am, and I always hurt people. It's what I do. I know.”
“Then why?”
“Because!” He flexed his claws, looked down at them, looked at Mario, looked at Peach again. His face was all screwed up, as if he wasn't ready for this argument even though he'd been anticipating it for days or weeks. He looked like he was on the edge of losing his composure. “Because when we met, there were sparks, and we didn't understand each other at first, but, but then we talked. We talked and talked, and there was something in her that spoke to me, in the way she moved and held her sword and walked so confidently with the weight of worlds on her spine. She said something in me spoke to her, that I was, that I was kind and she wanted to speak to me again and, and-” His hands fell, and Mario took a step back. Bowser was actually crying. “I've known both of you for three decades. Thirty long years, and I have never had anyone say that to me. Not anyone. Do you – do you have any idea what that's like? Have either of you ever known what it's like to be lonely?”
Peach didn't answer. She just shook her head.
“No. Of course you wouldn't have. You have each other, and what you have is perfect and I'm inexpressibly happy that you have it, and I hope you have it forever, but I want it too. I've found someone who helps me feel the things you feel, who says, who says I bring out the same things in her. I have never been so happy as when I'm standing with her, and.” He inhaled deep, trying to calm himself, failing. “She's so beautiful. And she called me kind.”
For a long moment, none of them spoke, and no one moved except for the shaking of Bowser's shoulders as he tried to keep himself under control. This moment stretched, and stretched, and Mario wondered if it would go on forever.
Then Peach stepped forward, and reached up, and put her arms around Bowser's neck. Bowser blinked his surprise, his shock.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “You deserve that as much as anyone. Do you understand? You deserve to be happy.” She gestured with her fingers behind Bowser's head, and to anyone else it would have been fruitless but Mario caught her meaning and walked over too, and together the both of them embraced the Koopa. “And we will be here for you, no matter what happens.” Another few seconds of confused gawking and then he squeezed his eyes shut and wrapped his arms around both of them. It was like being hugged by a tree.
“Thanks, guys. I mean it. Thank you.” He let go of them, and the embrace broke off, and he stepped back and sniffed and wiped his snout on his arm. “All right, that's enough of that for now.” He hefted his bag again, and started walking down the course without looking back. “Come on! I still need to beat the both of you senseless for another eight holes – I think this one is as good as mine. Wahahaha!”
Peach looked down at Mario, and all he could do was shrug his shoulders in response. Both of them hoisted their clubs and walked after the Koopa, sobered but thinking about how best to play the lie.
~~~~~~
Lucina took a bite out of her ice cream, catching a bit of the cone and crunching on it. “Like this?”
“Yeah, just like that. It's better with the cone, isn't it?”
“Mm. Yes, it is! That is very complementary.”
“Told you so. I can't believe you've never had ice cream before.” Bowser had had a cone for himself, but there was no evidence of its existence that Lucina could see except for a smudge of ice cream on the left of his mouth.
“Well, I never had much opportunity growing up,” she said. “Here, hold still.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, reaching up and wiping the corner of his mouth for him.
“Sorry.”
She laughed at how sheepish he looked. “It's all right! You really like it, and I do too!” She took another bite, chewing on it because she wasn't sure what else to do with it. Maybe she'd get used to it soon. The taste was very nice, still. “It's been a wonderful evening. Thank you.”
“Wahahaha! There's no need to thank me. I've had a lot of fun too! We really tore this place up!”
A carnival worker look up at the sound of his voice, his scowl telling the story of how literal Bowser's word might be taken. They had taken in all the games at the carnival, or all the ones that caught their fancy: the bell-ringing couldn't be fixed until they bought a new bell and a new hammer, Lucina had managed to break the machinery that made the whack-a-mole run, the ring toss was filled with the remains of two hundred shattered glass bottles, and the House of Horrors had literally been burned to the ground. Lucina didn't particularly mind any of it, and Bowser had dropped enough coins into the owner's hands that the man had actually invited them back next year, but it was a lot quieter now that the fire had scared off so many people.
Still, that was all right, too. She liked the quiet, and there were still enough people around to give the illusion of anonymity, of being lost in a crowd. She slipped her free hand into his, and he looked at her before taking hold himself. His grip was firm, like his hands were made of iron, but so gentle that she felt supported rather than pressured by his attention.
“I feel much better now,” she said.
“Me too.”
She looked up at him, studied his face. “Did you have a hard conversation, too?”
“You know how it is. People want the best for you, but sometimes they don't know how to express it. Friends or family. It's just something you have to deal with.”
“I suppose so.” She tightened her grip on his hand, looked up at the darkening sky, and sighed. “I heard there might be fireworks later.”
“Want to stay for them?”
“I'd like that very much.”
“All right! Then that's what we'll do. Come on, I want to find the guy in charge of the show. I'm going to make sure they really knock our socks off – or else I'll burn this whole place to the ground!”
He laughed, and she imagined him going on a rampage, knocking over the ferris wheel and kicking people around like rag dolls while they tried to stop him, and she laughed too.
This will do for now, I think. I don't know where we're going, or if my parents' fears will play out, but right now I don't care.
Bowser reached over with his free hand and swiped the remains of her ice cream cone. She yelped in shock as he took it from her and popped it in his mouth, crunching it noisily as he let go of her hand and made a run for it. Without thinking about it she drew the Falchion and chased after him, and he looked back at her and laughed and laughed, and people were leaping to get out of their way and she was laughing too. She leaped into the air, her sword catching the last light of the day, and her date looked up with sudden surprise on his face.
“AGH!”
She brought Falchion down in a stroke that caught Bowser full in the shoulder, and he went flying.
Right now I'm happy.
I hope you enjoyed this exercise in egregious stupidity.
...
*backs out slowly*
I want to play
am I still contractually obliged to draw something from this
I'd feel like a heel for getting you to do something you wouldn't have fun with just for the sake of a dumb bet