Animal Crossing Heroes to the Rescue!

(Version 2)

Concept Fall 2004/Published Winter 2006/Revised Fall 2008

By Hoverbike Girl

Once again, my dear readers, I, Hoverbike Girl, am back with this story, Animal Crossing: Heroes to the Rescue! A review from a good friend of mine, C.S. Bernard, pointed out some mistakes I had made in this story. Being the nitpicker that I am, I couldn't ignore them and went back to fix them; one of my mottos is "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right!"

Each and every chapter has been examined for errors (but don't worry, not all have been drastically changed). Feel free to completely read through it or simply skim through to find these changes. The most notable would be Ratchet & Clank's introduction (Chapter 3), which has been completely overhauled. That said, I will make author notes in the appropriate chapters to point out where I have changed things and to iron out any last questions or uncertain parts about the plot.

Okay, now that that's been said, here's the disclaimer again:

Disclaimer: I do not own Animal Crossing or any of its characters; they belong to Nintendo. All AC towns mentioned in this story (example: AnimaCity) are fictional. If anyone has a town with the same name as any of the towns, it is by pure coincidence. So please, don't sue me.

I hope you enjoy this final version of my story!

--Hoverbike Girl

Intro: A Wild World at War

Animal Crossing is a peaceful country that allows humans to live with talking animals…but you already knew that. What you probably don't know is that it is now at war.

War in Animal Crossing?! That's very hard to believe for many villagers. The country never had any grudges against the humans or other neighboring lands. So why are they fighting? Well, they aren't quarreling with their neighbors; they're fighting an invader within their own borders.

His name is "Big Boss". An alias, obviously, but the animals don't know him by any other name. Few animals have ever seen him and returned to their friends to tell them about him; in fact, the only animals that have seen him face-to-face are his most trustworthy spies. He is never seen in public; whenever he has a message to send to the population, he has a robot spokesman do it for him. It is whispered among the animals that he is a human, but this cannot be proved or denied. Rumor also has it that he has settled in a dark castle from Animal Crossing's Dark Age.

No one is quite sure where Big Boss came from, but they do know how he started his tyrannical campaign. The experts say that the first Animal Crossing town to fall was Tombstone—a village that was modeled like a Western boomtown. The town had been founded because of rumors of gold in the area, but it became deserted when all the gold was gone. Nasty characters and criminals liked to use Tombstone as a hiding place, which is probably why Big Boss took over it first; he could recruit the hoodlums living in the town as spies.

Once he had a good number of spies, he started to build a factory in Tombstone. His existence was still unknown to the outside world, so he got away with the project. When the plant was finished, he began making weapons…and robots.

The robots are obedient, color-coded, armed with special group-specific weapons, and shaped in different ways. Regular infantry are red, portly figures that barely tower over a regular animal's head. The grunts are equipped with arm-mounted blasters, and officers within the small hierarchy of the army are allowed a wider range of weapons. Village police (for controlling an occupied town) are slightly taller than infantry, colored blue, and are armed with clubs, Tasers, and other weapons designed for crowd control.

There are rumors about a third group existing, called the Animal Crossing Secret Police, and if they are real, they are the most dangerous of the robot army. Reports vary, but most agree that they are tallest type of robot, painted a deep gray, and have a tube on their heads for eyes, with a moving red laser for a pupil. Their job is to root out and capture any animal that is conspiring to commit crimes against Big Boss's Empire—in other words, freedom fighters. Their searches in homes and village buildings are thorough, and their raids (usually at night) are swift, silent, and successful.

It is also rumored that they have a leader, known as The Secret Police Chief. He is described as a short, non-robot (human or animal, no one knows) with a deep, menacing voice, and he wears a black cloak that covers both his body and his face. These stories about the Secret Police and their Chief are so well described that it is hard to deny their existence, but nobody has ever captured a functioning robot or acquired scraps of one.

Once he had built up a good-sized army, Big Boss sent his horde of robots out into the towns neighboring Tombstone and forced them to swear allegiance to his empire. Within a month he had about half of Animal Crossing under control. And then a week later he encountered the first resistance.

Upon hearing of the takeover, the mayor of Animal Crossing's capital of AnimaCity—Tortimer the old tortoise—immediately called a council of war with the most prominent villagers in the city. Everyone agreed that open war was too dangerous and would have too many casualties; for the unprepared animals, the best form of fighting back would be to form an underground resistance group that would sabotage Big Boss's work. Thus, "The Animal Alliance" was born.

The Alliance quickly found many supporters and recruits, and among them were prominent citizens—Tom Nook the shopkeeper, Blathers and Celeste the Museum curators, Copper and Booker the police dogs, and even K.K. Slider the famous musician. Soon they had a good operation set up in AnimaCity, and the work spread to other towns that were still free. From gathering intelligence on Big Boss's activities to sabotaging factories, the "Allies" were always busy.

Big Boss was quick to react to the counter-attack. He set up patrols in his factories, monitored the transport of supplies harder, and sent companies of robots to seize the resisting towns. A month after the Animal Alliance was formed, AnimaCity, the Allies' HQ, was taken. Fortunately, the Allies hid their plans, and The Boss had no idea that the capital was the headquarters of the "Rebels" (as he called them). The Allies continued to fight back the invasion, but no matter how hard they tried, Big Boss and his horde stuck fast to the land. It would take a miracle to defeat them.

And they got their miracle, in the form of eight heroes…