Super Smash Bros Alternate 001
The (bootleg) World of Trophies.
A vast, expansive world sown together from bits and pieces from dozens of other universes. One could go their entire live in their section of the land without ever knowing of what else lays just over the horizon, but word of mouth tends to spread pretty quickly, especially when the center of it all sees a gathering of thousands from every corner of the world.
The Super Smash Brothers Tournaments.
Ostensibly an annual event, but more accurately the forever war among fighters to prove their dominance. Nobody knows just how the Tournaments came to be, and the central building has always been in what is now the capital city.
Not the bustling New Donk City, not the peaceful Smashville, but smack dab between them on the shining Tomodachi Island. The elusive founder and announcer of the games resides there, surrounded by his people. But this isn’t a story about him… yet.
…Somewhere in Green Greens…
Rolling hills and fertile soils, same as always. Three people, one big and hair, one thin and scaly, and one short and blobby, were at the farmers’ market. The big and short one were at one stand, the thin one right next to them.
“Yoshi! Yoshi! …Yoshi. Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
“Hmm?” the theropod hummed absently, barely turning to acknowledge the Kong standing behind her.
“Remember that other time we were fruit shopping? And we accidentally bought an assload of those bananas that explode when you hold ‘em funny?”
“Uh huh,” Yoshi nodded. She turned back to the Pianta at the neighboring stand. “That’s wonderful, Palmer! Your wife must be so proud!”
“How do know which is which again? Was it that the exploding ones have the stickers on them, or do the eating ones stay fresh for longer, or…” Donkey Kong slapped his forehead in confusion. “D’oh, forget it. I’m just gonna start shoving these down Pinky’s gullet.”
“Yes, yes, that’s nice, Donkey - And I don’t know where I’d be without all the people in my life. We all go through that stage growing up, and now it’s your son’s turn.”
“You heard the lady, Kirby; if anyone asks, we were supervised! Bananas in yo mouth!”
“My body is weady!” the little pink guy chirped as DK started dumping bananas into his expectant mouth. Yoshi still wasn’t paying attention to the other two.
“Oh, I must be boring you with all this personal talk; please let me pay for something. I hear watermelon is great this time of year,” Yoshi offered as she pulled a wallet out from under her shell. She opened it over his counter to shake some gold out, but something caught her attention mid-motion.
Yoshi tuned out the angry cries of the banana vendor one stand over as she kept staring. A few yards away, Yoshi could swear she saw something shifting in the bushes. Her pupils narrowed and she leaned her neck forward… until the rustling stopped.
“Uhh, ma’am?” the Pianta urged Yoshi. She wasn’t trying dumping all of her gold out.
A very confused Waddle Dee poked his head out of the bush and held up what looked to be a glowing, blue snow globe.
“Did someone drop their… this?” Waddle Dee asked. “I don’t know what it is, but it looks expensive.”
The globe suddenly exploded in the Dee’s “hands”, throwing him back and drawing everyone’s attention to where Yoshi was staring.
Everyone except the banana vendor, who jumped on his stand’s counter in a fit of fury.
“HEY! Dat ain’t right! Don’t youse just stare at dat explodin’ apple guy! This gelatinous schmuck’s swallowin’ my wares whole! Do ya know how much I had to go through to get dose bananas? Fruit doesn’t just grow on trees, y’know!”
The vendor’s tirade was promptly cut short by an arrow whizzing by, pinning the end of his tail to a wooden pole.
“Holy…! Kirby! Quick!” DK cried as he whipped around to the vendor. Kirby, his mouth still filled with bananas, looked up at him. “Grab as much fruit as you can carry before Meowth gets his tail free!”
That finally caught Yoshi’s attention as she shot DK a nasty look, but a figure suddenly lunged - from the opposite of where the arrow came out from.
“HIIYAHHH!” screamed a half-naked man, to everyone’s astonishment. The crowd broke out into a variety of noises, from cheers to frightened screams to a stray “not this guy again!”
The wild boy wasn’t listening, though. In one fell swoop, he shoved as much fruit into his mouth as possible before pulling his sword from its belt holster.
The wild boy said nothing, for his mouth was full.
“Get ‘im! Don’t let that pointy-eared thief get away!” the vendor shouted.
“What? Who is that? What’s going on? Why isn’t he wearing a shirt?” asked Yoshi.
“Who is dat? Who is dat?” The vendor stopped to think. “…Who is dat?”
“No, no, wait, I’ve seen his face before! On TV! He just shows up out of nowhere at vegetable gardens and produce places!” an orange, egg-shaped blob in a toque explained.
“He always steals as much as he can carry and disappears!” a limbed yellow ball with a red bow added.
“You don’t wear a shirt, either,” a snappy-dressed giraffe chimed in, looking at Yoshi judgmentally. Yoshi turned to Palmer with a distressed look in her eyes.
“…He’ll pay me back someday,” he shrugged as he gave Yoshi her copious change.
“Wait, what does he need all this food for? Is he just out here, on his own? Actually… where’d he go?” Yoshi realized. She looked up to see the man high up in the air, spinning rapidly and inadvertently dropping fruit everywhere. “Now, of all the insane-”
“Awww, learning how to fly? Why didn’t I think of that? I could get away with so much!” DK whined. A melon landed squarely on his head.
“Take that, ya ape bastard!” the vendor jeered. He pointed up at the half-dressed boy in the sky. “And you! Every food sellin’ gig I ever got, you went and screwed it up! But not this time! Now you’ve finally grown too big for yer britches; I knew that by letting myself get robbed, you’d get yourself caught! Now one of youse! Shoot ‘im down!”
Everyone at the market looked at the vendor, thoroughly unimpressed by his “strategy” of letting himself get his wares robbed.
“Please?” the vendor added.
The wild boy kept dropping fruit. He only had one free arm to carry it with, and he barely had five pieces left.
Yoshi looked at the boy with a mix of sympathy and confusion, not paying attention to DK’s attempts to yank the melon off of his head.
“Guhh, seeds in my ears,” DK griped. He unhesitatingly chucked what was left of the melon at the airborne man with enough precision to send him hurtling towards the ground.
Unfortunately for everyone around him, he was still thrashing about violently, sword in hand. Just about everyone watching scattered to avoid getting diced. By the time the wild boy touched the ground, he was horribly disoriented and the market was empty save for himself, DK, Yoshi, Kirby, and the vendor.
“Dere he is! Get him, monkey!” the vendor commanded.
“Hmmm…” DK hummed as the stroked his chin thoughtfully. While he was thinking, the man was slowly but surely coming to his senses and silently trying to work out an escape plan.
After about thirty seconds of DK attempting to think, the wild boy decided he could turn around and leave without anyone to stop him. After all, the vendor was pinned to the stand, the blob was stuffed with bananas, and the dinosaur was just…
…staring at him? That was a new one.
The wild boy waved cheerfully and turned around on his heel.
“…Today, ya roided Mankey!” the vendor shouted.
“Today?” DK absently asked. “Oh, yeah. The kid. Yep, we can take him.”
“We can?” Yoshi squeaked.
The wild boy, hearing DK, broke out into a run, but DK somersaulted into the air and intercepted his escape route. Without a first thought, he threw the wild boy over his shoulder and strolled back over to Yoshi and Kirby.
“Good heavens, you’re serious, aren’t you?” Yoshi said in disbelief.
“Would an unserious man do this?”
DK smacked Kirby on the back, making him spit out all of the bananas in his mouth. They all exploded on contact with the ground, and when the yellow smoke cleared, the foursome was gone.
“Oh, what the hell!” the vendor screeched.
…Somewhere Else in Green Greens…
“I sent you. To buy. Groceries.”
“But Fox! We got a whole paason, fo fwee! He was a steal!” Kirby smiled obliviously. Yoshi hastily took her phone back from him.
“Okay, I know this seems bad, but - but, this might be good news, actually!”
“Uh huh,” Fox deadpanned. “From what you’ve told me, he’s a wanted outlaw, not to mention completely feral. He’s practically-”
“An animal?” Kirby finished innocently.
“Nonononono, wait!” Yoshi protested, only to cut herself off when she saw Fox look at someone off screen.
Fox sighed and handed the phone off to a diminutive, mustached man, who in turn gestured for Yoshi to turn the communicator to face the wild boy.
Yoshi did just that, revealing that the wild boy to be lying a few feet behind her, facing the other direction and apparently asleep. DK was also there, eating his ill-gained goods.
While his eyes were obscured by the brim of his cap, Mario suddenly perked up and promptly handed the phone back to Fox. He pointed to it expectantly. Fox threw up his hands in resignation.
“Fine. Mario wants you to bring him back. I think he knows something we don’t. McCloud out.”
Yoshi gave the phone to Kirby, who promptly ate it. Getting up, she slowly made her way to the wild boy’s still form. He was fairly short for someone so humanoid and covered in faint scars. His hair was dirty blond and done in a small ponytail, his ears were curiously long and pointed, and his eyes were open and staring right at Yoshi when she circled into his line of sight.
“Yahh!” Yoshi yelped as the wild boy jumped up and to his feet.
“Hi, new best friend! You’re adopted now!” said Kirby.
“What he means is… how do I put this delicately?”
“We don’t!” DK piped up, pushing Yoshi and Kirby aside. “Congratulations, guy I don’t even know, we’re… hey, what are we doing?”
“Mario and Fox want us to recruit him, I’m just trying to phrase it in a way that isn’t… I don’t know… demeaning!”
“Well, haven’t you guys have been looking for a replacement teammate? Ever since the old one dropped out?” DK turned to the wild boy. “Wazzup, homeless dude! You want a job? Do you speak? …I don’t think this guy can talk.”
The wild boy spit out enough while fruits to fill a small bowl.
“Hey! You wike eatin food, too!” said Kirby.
“I thought I was the only one! Everywhere I go, people just give it away, not even sharing it, and all they get in return are shiny rocks,” the wild boy finally said. It was around this time that Yoshi’s jaw seemed to go south for the winter.
“Good, you got a weapon, and you know people-talk. You’re hired!” DK clapped.
“What’s that mean?” the wild boy asked, head cocked.
“Oh my goodness…” Yoshi said as she brought her hands to her mouth. She wasn’t trying to be rude; the reality of the wild boy’s situation was dawning on her, and it broke Yoshi’s heart more and more as she thought about it. The only consolation she could find was that the boy seemed resilient to it all. Happy, even. But isolation in the wild was no way for a human…oid to live.
“Hey, I know how to fly! Do any of you know how to fly?”
Kirby puffed his cheeks and levitated to meet the boy at eye level.
“What’s your name?” Kirby smiled.
…In a More Clearly Defined but Still Redacted Location in Smashville…
“I can’t believe you invited Tarzan into our house,” Samus said dryly.
“I don’t know what a Taazan is. This is Wink.”
“He means ‘Link’, and I know this is sudden, but he was just out on his own, no parents, no guardian-”
Link seemed to bristle at the word “guardian”.
“…That’s new. But the point is, we couldn’t just leave him alone! Samus, you of all people should understand what I’m talking about!” Yoshi pleaded.
“Ughhh, you’replayingtheorphancaaaard…” Samus groaned. “His name is ‘Link’, eh? Small world. I guess if Fox says it’s okay-”
“Actually, it was Mario who wanted to see him,” said Fox as he, Mario, and a yellow bunny-mouse thing entered the living room.
The seven fighters all lived together in a modestly sized house in Smashville, itself a modestly sized village near the shore. So modest, in fact, that Tomodachi Island could be seen right over the horizon. Most of Smashville’s natives were animal people, but it was also home to a lot of the competitive fighters who wanted to live close to the official tournament headquarters. In a perfect world, Fox would be able to base his operations in a more remote area and fly to and from Tomodachi on his own time. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option.
“Of course, it’s our team that has an empty spot, so I suppose I still get final say.”
“Teams? For what?” Link asked.
The little yellow guy slowly turned to leer up at Link with a level of vitriol that made everyone else but Mario wince.
“So lemme get this straight. We’re seriously replacing our fourth member with some rando who doesn’t even know what game we’re playing?” Pikachu asked.
“Bye!” said Pikachu, but Kirby held him in place by the tail.
“Why is it every time a group gets a new member, there’s always that one asshole?” DK thought.
Fox explained the absolute basics of the tournament before quickly segueing into their teams.
“Let me put it in terms you might understand. It’s abundantly clear by now you haven’t really spoken to anyone… ever. Have you at least seen animals hunt in packs before?” Fox asked. Link nodded. “Good. So, if you’re hunting on your own, it’ll take a lot of time and effort, and you can only take on… relatively small prey. But if you’re in a group of, say, four, you can take down bigger things with less energy expended. Now let’s imagine two packs are so intertwined, they’re essentially one pack-”
“We’re two teams in an alliance so we can pool our prize money together,” Samus explained, far more succinctly.
Link just looked confused.
“So we can get more food between the eight of us?” Link asked Fox. Samus hung her head in annoyance as Fox smiled smugly.
“That’s right, Link,” Yoshi said patiently. “I know it’s a lot to take in, especially if you’re only just learning of it. We’ll explain everything, bit by bit, but the most important thing is to get a roof over your head. …He will get a roof over his head, right?”
Mario had said nothing throughout the entire exchange, his expression unreadable from under his hat and behind his mustache. He turned to Fox and nodded following a brief pause.
“Seems so. Lucky you, our old fourth is out of commission due to… we’ll introduce you later. The first order of business is to get him adjusted to our way of doing things. He has a sword, a bow, and an empty quiver; we can begin his training in a week’s time.”
“No, the first order of business should be to get him fed and fully dressed! It’ll be fall soon, and I don’t want him catching cold!”
“Then you take care of it! I’m Samus and Kirby’s leader, I’m not the boss of you! Just have him home before night…” Fox walked out the front door, stepping over Kirby and Pikachu. “I’m leaving to get the paperwork sorted out. I trust Link will be fine in the interim.”
“When are we gonna tell him Link’s a kind-of-criminal?” DK asked.
“As opposed to the actual supervillains allowed to compete? Yeah, I’m sure the little guy’s got nothing on them.” Samus gave Link a smack on the back. “Congrats, little man. You’ve been drafted.”
“Thank… you,” Link articulated, not sure he was saying the right thing.
“See, you already know your manners! Everything will be okay, right Mario?” Yoshi asked.
Mario nodded once and promptly left. Samus waved it off.
“He’s not much of a talker, don’t worry about it,” she reassured Link. “You must have really done something to impress the guy.”
“Pfft, yeah! You know that coin head guy?” said DK. Pikachu’s ears quickly pricked up.
The fighters spent the rest of that day talking in the living room.
