Smash Titans

THE TOWER

The Tower

"Damn it!" The woman screeched in frustration as she slammed her hands angrily, helplessly, down on the dusty, stone dashboard. Unsatisfied, she brought her hands down again. And again. And again. And again, until her palms were pink and sore.

Hissing in frustration, she looked through the large, rectangular hole in the wall, into the enormous, dark chamber that existed somewhere on the other side of the wall. Well, not so dark- the room was currently crackling with red, otherworldly electricity that spiraled down around a large, blazing white portal. It hovered in the air like an electrical vacuum, filling the chamber with wind and causing the woman's pink hair to bluster around her face.

Currently, the floating, crackling portal was admitting a huge, hulking beast into the chamber: a massive, two-headed dog, its body blazing with fire. As it cleared the portal, it howled, a terrifying, grating roar that rumbled the stone walls, causing sand and fine rubble to rain down on the woman from above.

Honestly, she could care less about the beast or its terrifying roar- irritation currently filled her chest, irritation that was driving her close to tears. Why? Why couldn't she find the right key? It had to be here, it had to be! But she'd already looked through them all-the floor was covered with the stone tablets, from where she'd thrown down their canister earlier, screaming in frustration as she'd tested the last one.

It wasn't there. The key to her home was not there.

The roar of the beast caught her attention- it had spotted her through the little window in the wall and had shifted so that it faced her, both heads snarling as it stalked closer. She hissed, seriously not in the mood.

"Get him out of here!" she snapped upwards, at the floating blue symbols that hovered in a protective circle around her. They obeyed, flying through the window and into the beast's chamber and floating protectively in front of the window. One of symbols flew forward and collided with the two-headed dog beast, transforming in a flash of blue light into an enormous, winged serpent, rivaling the beast in size. The serpent coiled and spewed green fire at the dog beast, driving it out of the chamber with a surprised roar.

Soon, the sounds of its lumbering retreat faded into the distance.

The woman glared down at the floor, at the tablets- keys- that littered the stone beneath her feet. Some of them, to her dismay, were cracked in half. Her anger had gotten the best of her. Again.

She clenched her fists as she bent and picked up the intact tablets, each of them marked with a different symbol. As the red, crackling portal in the other room slowly faded, she picked up the first of the tablets, engraved with a strange, jellyfish-like creature, and grit her teeth, trying to tamp down her rage. It had to be in here somewhere. The key to her home. Had to be. And she wasn't going to stop until she found it.

Taking a deep breath, Uzuki Yashiro inserted the first key into the panel.

===

It was a bad day to live in SmashVille.

On any other day of the year, SmashVille was normally quiet- save for a few crazed villains, some holdups, and some B and Es, of course, which the Smash Titans had no problem taking care of.

Today, unfortunately, was not one of those days.

Today was one of the few days of the year in which the citizens of SmashVille, the game world's largest cities, usually considered high-tailing it to Toadopolis or Nintenburg. It was one of those days where Mayor Mario wondered why in the world he hadn't stuck with plumbing. It was one of those days where the Smash Titans wondered why in the hell they'd decided to volunteer for their current gig as the city's main line of defense.