New miniseries? Maybe. I've been playing more Ultimate than is healthy recently, and when you've got 70+ characters in one game, my mind is bound to come up with some ideas for a new story. This'll just be a collection of random one-shots, from all kinds of genres. Just whatever I feel like writing in the moment, really.

Now. Shall we begin?

Purpose
In which two villains manage to share a heart-to-heart without murdering each other

Wolf had given up wondering if the door to his room in the Smash Mansion would be blown open by a sphere of dark Phazon energy. It had happened enough times before that it really was more of a question of when rather than if.

The renegade fighter pilot sat cross-legged on his bed, getting ready to clean his blaster and sharpen the vicious blade attached to it. His blaster was something of a source of pride to him, especially considering how useful it was in battle. Besides, he still had a few minutes before his next scheduled match with Link. He could never remember which one was which, now that there were three of them. There was the cartoon one, the kid one, the blue one…

*rumble…*

Wolf felt a tremor shake the foundations of the entire mansion, and he paused his cleaning for a brief second to turn on his reflector, casting a purple ring of protection around him. As soon as he did, the door to his room literally exploded in a shower of blue light and shards of wood. Wolf was left unharmed, thanks to his reflector. He didn't even glance up as a vaguely humanoid figure floated in through the smoke left in the decimated doorway, a deathly blue glow surrounding her.

"Bad day?" asked Wolf, not turning off his reflector to make sure his roommate didn't try to vaporize him with one of her energy blasts. His casual question was met with an unnatural shriek of rage and frustration that would have made anyone else's skin crawl.

"Don't give me your sass," snapped Dark Samus, tendrils of blue Phazon curling around the still-steaming mouth of her black arm cannon. "I have half a mind to eviscerate every living soul in this mansion."

"Just another Tuesday for you, isn't it?" Wolf smirked as he heard Dark Samus scream in rage and let loose a barrage of plasma missiles in his general direction, each offensive projectile deflecting off his protective barrier. The room shook from the force of the explosions, but nothing was destroyed. After their room had been trashed the tenth time, Master Hand had decided to completely redesign the room with reinforced steel walls. It saved money in the long run.

"I will atomize you, O'Donnell!" screeched Dark Samus, her clawed hand curling into a fist as the smoke cleared from the room. "I do not need your smart remarks! Not today."

Wolf finally glanced up from his blaster and turned off his reflector, so he could look his roommate in the eye. Her blue visor had stopped glowing as her rage settled down, so he could actually see the pair of venomous electric blue eyes that glared at him. "So, what happened?" he asked calmly, reaching into one of his pockets to pull out his blade sharpener. "Someone rub you the wrong way? Captain Falcon flirt with you?"

"Of course that steroid-munching lunatic tried to court me," Dark Samus said with a dismissive wave of her arm cannon. "I repaid him by checking him back into the infirmary."

"Missile in the face?"

"Grapple beam up the ass."

Wolf gave an impressed whistle. "You're a wonderful sadist, aren't you?"

Daruk Samus allowed herself a chuckle, but her mirth was short lived as her anger returned. "Jury's out, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that I lost my match against that infuriating pink puffball."

"Which one?" asked Wolf as he began disassembling his blaster to clean the components. "The sleepy one or the destroyer of worlds?"

"The sleepy one, dammit!" snapped Dark Samus, slamming her fist into a steel wall in sudden anger. "This is unacceptable. I am an unstoppable force of primal energy, and I can't defeat a pink marshmallow?"

"Take the hit, train harder, come back stronger," Wolf said with a shrug, fiddling with his cleaning supplies. "I've told you this before, Lilith."

"Don't call me that," snapped the Phazon doppelganger, a hint of embarrassment poking through the anger in her voice. A while back, Dark Samus gotten tired of simply being called Samus' "evil clone". So, in an effort to distance herself, she had searched for a new name and eventually settled on 'Lilith'. Apparently, it was a name that traditionally was associated with the devil, which was something Dark Samus was more than willing to have associated with her.

Of course, she had quickly come to her senses about how childish the idea was and dropped the silly name before anyone could find out about it. Somehow, Wolf had figured out the name she had chosen for herself and now called her Lilith whenever he could. Never outside their room, thank goodness, but that didn't mean she had to tolerate it. Never mind the fact that she actually did kind of like how 'Lilith' sounded…

"Remind me who exactly decided to name themselves that?" asked Wolf with a chuckle, reassembling his gun and holstering it. The lupine leaned back onto his bed and cast a casual glance at Dark Samus, who glared back at him with intensity that could destroy suns. "I digress. I've seen you come back from rougher hits than this. What's your problem?"

Dark Samus sighed and moved over to her bed (also made of reinforced steel) and took a seat on its edge, lifting her head to meet Wolf's stare. "I am Metroid Prime," she said eventually, her synthesized voice now a bit quieter. "My only desire is to become stronger by defeating my enemies and consuming their energy. I cannot accept defeat, not ever. Victory is the only thing I live for; without it, I have no purpose."

Wolf frowned, maneuvering a claw between his teeth to pick out a bit of lunch that was stuck in there before responding. "That's your first problem," he muttered, squinting at the fleck of meat he'd pried out of his mouth before eating it.

Dark Samus bristled, and the tip of her arm cannon began crackling with energy. "Excuse me?" she hissed, death glowing in her eyes. Wolf met her stare evenly. I've seen a lot worse than you, woman.

"You have a fire in you, Lilith," said the renegade pilot. "I like that. Single-minded determination and relentless will can make up for a lot of faults. The problem is, a one-track mind destroys itself."

"Quit talking like a scam artist," Dark Samus growled, her veins glowing with Phazon. "Tell me what the hell you're talking about."

Chuckling, Wolf sat up and flexed his claws, watching the gleam in the dim light of their room. "Victory's the only reason you fight, correct? To destroy your enemies?" the mercenary asked, and Dark Samus humored him with a nod. "Who are your enemies?"

"Everyone," Dark Samus hissed, annoyance creeping back into her voice. "Metroids are the only lifeforms strong enough to survive. All others are nothing more than energy pockets meant to sustain us."

"Right," said Wolf, rolling his eyes. "So, let's say you kill everyone. You win, absorb everyone's energy, and no one's left but you and your… metroids."

"That sounds wonderful," said Dark Samus, and Wolf cocked a brow at the somewhat dreamy expression that had crossed his roommate's face. It passed quickly, though, and her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What's your point?"

"My point," continued Wolf, "is this; what happens next?"

"What?"

"If your only purpose is victory, and you achieve victory," Wolf said, tilting his head and looking at Dark Samus dead in her eyes, "what happens to you? What'll you do when there's no one else to beat?"

"The universe is infinite," Dark Samus replied. "There will always be someone else to consume."

"And if you can't find them? Odds are you'll just find parsec after parsec of empty space."

Dark Samus went silent. The light from her Phazon blood dimmed, and Wolf could see her two gleaming eyes narrow in confusion. "Then… I…" The mutated lifeform huffed and crossed her arms in a way that made her seem more like a person instead of a ravenous murderer. "Fine. I'll admit I haven't thought that far ahead. But it doesn't matter. Victory is victory."

"Victory doesn't mean much if there's nothing left for you afterward," Wolf said, rubbing his head with one of his paws. "Once you've fulfilled your only purpose, it won't take long for you to fade into nothing. Take it from me. There's nothing I would like more than to decimate Star Fox and show that group of self-righteous rookies who the best pilot in the galaxy really is."

"So why haven't you?" asked Dark Samus, genuine curiosity hidden behind her synthetic voice.

"Because then there wouldn't be anything left for me to do," replied Wolf, and he was pleasantly surprised to see Dark Samus tilt her head in confusion. "If I prove I'm the best once and for all, there'll never be a challenge for me again. I need that thrill of competition; it's the only thing I care about. That and money, of course."

"You lose on purpose," Dark Samus said incredulously, "just so you can keep losing over and over again? What kind of villain are you?"

"One who wants to survive," Wolf replied with a scowl. "I enjoy what I do, but I won't be able to do it anymore if I win. The same goes for you. You enjoy consuming energy, but you'll wither away once there's nothing left to consume."

"And what exactly am I supposed to do with that information, O'Donnell?" snapped Dark Samus, her visor lighting back up in quiet anger. "You're telling me I'm doomed to destroy myself and there's nothing I can do about it?"

"You've really only got three options," Wolf replied. "The first one would be to just ignore what I've said and to run yourself into the ground."

"Appealing," said Dark Samus dryly. "My other options?"

"Option two is to do what I do," Wolf continued. "Lose so that you never have to cope with what comes after winning."

"Not a chance. I enjoy siphoning the energy out of living beings too much for that."

"I'm sure," Wolf said with a raised brow. "That would leave you with option three, which I'm not sure you'd like either."

"Try me."

"Alright. You have to find something else that you care about."

Dark Samus' eyes narrowed, and she rubbed her head with her non-cannon arm. "Something I care about…?"

"You need to find something you like doing just as much as sucking the energy out of your victims," Wolf clarified with a quiet scoff. "Basically, if you have something else you care about besides winning—something else that you can't live without—you'll always have a purpose even after you've vanquished your enemies or whatever." Dark Samus' brows furrowed in confusion.

"Find… another purpose?" she asked, and Wolf was surprised by how genuine her confusion was. It was as if she hadn't ever thought about anything except destroying her enemies.

"That's the gist of it," Wolf said with a sigh, standing up and straightening his jacket. "Well, this has been a lovely chat, but I have my next match coming soon and I need to get ready. I trust you won't blow down any more doors until I get back? You know how much I love watching you destroy our property."

"Go fuck yourself."

"Only if it pleases you, Lilith."

"I will castrate you, O'Donnell."

"You'll try," Wolf quipped as he walked through the exploded doorway. Dark Samus scoffed and shook her head once the fighter pilot had left the room. Now that he was gone she could actually give serious thought to what he'd told her about finding another purpose or whatever that was supposed to mean.

Something that I couldn't live without, Dark Samus thought with a frustrated frown. I don't even do anything besides fight, train, and terrify my enemies in fits of psychotic rage. I suppose terrifying people is fun, but that wouldn't be possible after I annihilate everyone! Dark Samus huffed in annoyance. Being a sociopathic murderer is harder than it should be.

Dark Samus got up and paced back and forth in the space between their two beds, the tips of her feet barely skimming the steel floor as she floated back and forth in distress. Stupid Wolf. This is all his fault. I wouldn't be having this existential crisis if he hadn't decided to open his mouth. I was much happier as a mindless killing machine.

Well… that wasn't entirely true. Wolf was a cocky prick that got on Dark Samus' nerves more often than not, but for whatever reason she was willing to tolerate him for longer than anyone else. If there was a reason for that, she'd have to guess it was because of how casual he acted around her. Other Smash fighters, even the other villains, typically gave her a wide berth and a number of terrified stares. They acted like she was nothing more than a savage murderer who only delighted in destroying lives (never mind if that was true or not…).

For whatever reason, Wolf was different. He knew she had a bloodthirsty psychotic streak in her, but he just held normal conversations with her as though she were anyone else, and not the mutated monster the rest of the world saw her as. That was what confused Dark Samus the most, because she knew thatshe wasthe monster that everyone thought she was. She had destroyed, murdered, stolen, and done many other unspeakable things that justified everyone being terrified of her. Wolf, somehow, just pretended like that didn't matter. She could go on a tirade about the specifics of how she'd like to dismember a certain opponent and, instead of giving her a weird look and ignoring her, he would humor her and give suggestions, even if most of the time they were in a joking manner.

Wolf treated Dark Samus like an actual person, and that was something she hadn't even realized she'd wanted until he'd given it to her.

Maybe Wolf can be my purpose, thought Dark Samus, not realizing how oddly sentimental that sounded. Not that I actually, you know, care about him at all or anything like that. It's just that I enjoy our little talks, despite all the death threats I give him. Maybe I'll keep him alive when I consume everyone in the universe. Just to see if that'll help. if not, I could always kill him anyway. Yeah…

Dark Samus sighed and shook her head. My head hurts. I need to go murder something. Captain Falcon's probably out of the infirmary by now…

The bloodthirsty Phazon clone floated out of her room in search of her next conquest on the road to worldwide destruction, and for some reason she felt idiotically optimistic about her chances of survival. At the very least, she'd have someone to talk to when it was all over.

Hope you enjoyed! Tell me what you think/who you'd like to see in a review, and hopefully I'll be back to add more to this collection soon!

Thanks for reading,

EyeofAmethyst07