14th installment of the VGNU.
The time has finally come.
Heroes are called from all corners of a universe self-destructing.
A mysterious figure has gathered them to save their worlds before it is too late.
Will they stop this great calamity?
Or...
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24 hours remaining
Link stood at the replicator, looking at all the buttons and dials that still didn't make sense to him. He'd only memorized patterns the other fighters used. If he saw something he thought looked good, he'd just mimic someone else's order. With nothing but time, and in need of a distraction, he decided to experiment.
Pressing the blue button pulled up a list of words on the small screen all listed as meal types. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack. Having not selected it before, he tried the snack option. What showed up all sounded like what were supposed to be foods, but he didn't recognize most of them. Soda, milkshake, icecream, fruit, jello, pudding, popsicle.
Pressing the first button on the pad gave him options for the first item on the list and spit out a new list. Rootbeer, grape, cherry, Dr. Pepper... And way too many more. Playing it safe, Link chose grape since he actually knew what that was. What materialized in the dispenser was a tin can colored purple. It was unlike anything he'd ever seen before, but the tab looked simple enough. He gripped the tab with the tips of his fingers and pulled. This immediately sliced his fingers and he dropped the can.
It hit the floor and rolled away.
Shaking his head, he pressed the button on the replicator he knew would give him a knife, then retrieved the can. He punctured the top, and it sprayed a short burst of purple liquid which hit him in the face, then started foaming.
Annoyed, Link tossed the can away.
"So 'snacks' just means 'pranks'," Link sighed. No more experimenting. He materialized a glass of water to remove the sticky liquid from his fingers, proverbially and literally washing his hands of this failure.
_____
Mario sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands. His room was covered in scorch marks, but he hadn't left so much as a scratch on the seemingly indestructible walls. Granted, he'd only thrown a punch or two, but he gave it everything before resigning himself to his thoughts.
He knew he was better than this. The person he'd been lately... No, not just lately. He'd been like this for as long as he could remember.
This whole tournament, sealing himself off from home, the movie turned TV deal, the fight with Luigi, the play, fighting Bowser, dying, going through the Mushroom Kingdom, moving back to America, dad d--...
Mario caught himself. He'd been numb for so long, and he finally realized why.
"God I'm an idiot," he hissed at himself, falling backwards on the bed.
Realizing that all this had gotten in the way of him dealing with his dad's death... He couldn't even imagine how his brother must feel... must have felt. And it wasn't until that moment, when he went into that fight, that he finally felt something again.
How? How was he still here? Of all the fighters, trained fighters, Mario remained. Why? He wasn't special. He had power, sure, but Fox and Link could still play with fire and they had other tricks too. He had strength, but so did DK and Samus and they're gone too.
