Disclaimer: SSBB belongs to Nintendo.

Author's Note: Right. I needed a short break from WtCB. So here's a new fic of mine. It's dark material, punctuated with dry, dark humour here and there. It'll probably be a three-part fic or something. It's in Snake's POV, with some quasi-philosophical ramblings and references to other universes. He's not a very reliable narrator - but listen to him.

This story will likely be kind of sad. It concerns an AU, futuristic version of the Subspace Emissary, where Tabuu succeeds and takes over the world of Smashers. It also makes very little sense. Kind of anti-war too, if you think about it - so it's not easy to read nor classify. But I promise that it will not disappoint. It may contain onesided slash, but not any contact.

I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

- Albert Einstein

Well, of course that's what will happen.

Everyone out there's so god-damned conceited and foolish to think any different, aren't they? We brought this on ourselves.

All of this unspeakable tragedy was started when we started fighting amongst ourselves. It was fun at first. And it was all for sport, nothing more. There were no grudges against anyone from anyone else. It was just pure, clean fun, and when we finished the brawls, we simply shook each other's hands and said a few heartfelt words of encouragement. That was all. You wouldn't think it now, of course, but there was actually a time when the victor of a brawl would extend his hand and help the defeated to their feet. There was a time when the strong and weak alike sat down next to each other for a drink. All of this was watched over by two entities called Master Hand and Crazy Hand. They were forever in conflict, with Master Hand overseeing creation and Crazy Hand overseeing destruction; sounds pretty violent, no? Well, but in an odd, screwed-up way that I can't exactly explain, it was the very thing that made us stick by each other. It kept us progressing, kept us in harmony, kept us united. They were in perfect balance. Life couldn't be more simpler.

This world, the world of Smashers, is the supreme of them all. It is not the largest out of the millions of worlds in the universe, but is in the very centre, ruled over two heavenly entities. Occasionally, there are a few people who are specially invited to live here - they are the chosen ones. I was one of them. There were only forty or so of us. We could all get along with our normal lives, and meet other people from other worlds at the same time. We could all come and go.

We were happy.

But then it all went wrong.

You recall I said that Master Hand and Crazy Hand were forever in balance? Well, we didn't think it would ever be broken. They were such powerful entities, our gods... nobody expected it. Master Hand suddenly started to give out some extremely bizarre orders one day - and what was more, new creatures were appearing mere weeks later. Not Smashers (as we were called). They were hateful-looking, mass-produced bundles of machinery and mutated flesh that somehow gained sentinel properties.

Master Hand would never create them. Never.

It wasn't him in the end, it turned out. He had been enslaved by another being, called Tabuu, from the depths of a dark parallel world called Subspace - Master Hand, who we had believed was a god, was nothing compared to Tabuu. He used Master Hand as his puppet, and threw him away to die when he had no use for the stringed 'god' anymore. Crazy Hand disappeared - I think he was killed as well. Tabuu destroys a lot better than he ever did. No use having two gods of destruction.

We were confused and frightened. Eventually, stress levels reached extreme proportions - and you know what people are like. Think of caged mice; you lock them in a cage, you don't provide any explanations nor happiness, you don't give them enough provisions - whether it be food, water, or warmth - and they go mad. They attack each other. That's exactly what happened with the Smashers.

... You have no idea.

No idea at all.

You don't have a clue how I, as part of the Smashers myself, watched it all happen in front of me and felt sick and ashamed for every single creature alive.

...But then, it has been a while since I had a clue about anything. I'm a god-damn madman, I swear I am.

Today is the seventh of August. As of today, seventy-seven days have passed since Tabuu completely took over, and it has been seven months since the beginning of the invasion.

Kind of ironic, no? Seven is meant to be such a lucky number and all that. Everyone goes nuts when they look at it. Now look what's happened. There's no luck here. The Shadow Bugs have infiltrated nearly every corner of this world. We were all pulled into Subspace, under Tabuu's mercy, left to fight amongst ourselves and get killed... or something worse.

It's entirely dark in this place, you know. Light doesn't mean much here. Only stray crackling of elecricity and energy. Electricity can provide us with some light... and chemical energy in batteries, of course. But there is no sunlight. As I said before, the Shadow Bugs have covered every inch of the surface - even gathering in clusters around the edges of the Subspace in order to completely block out the sunlight.

It wasn't always dark and cold here, I swear it wasn't.

When that happened, and a couple of weeks passed since the complete obtrusion of the sun, extreme changes in the weather occurred. Nobody can go out there without protection and survive now. It's minus forty-five degrees Celsius outside, and it's likely to drop further. That doesn't bother those hateful creatures. It just makes me hate them even more. I suppose it hasn't helped that the occasional Subspace Bombs that Tabuu detonates have nuclear bomb-like properties. It's not really he needs those properties - Subspace Bombs have enough power without radioactivity. I just have a feeling he hates us all and wants every single creature wiped off the place.

Pardon my sarcasm. I was never a very social person.

Radioactive fallout contaminated with dark energy keeps on raining down, along with Shadow Bugs, and the bombed area gets instantly sucked into the depths of Subspace that will never be recovered again. Mass destruction and darkness in one.

... So what would have been a sunny, bright August summer...

... has been turned into nothing more than a freezing nuclear winter that rains Shadow Bugs from the sky.

Swell, eh? I can't say much, though, because all I've seen of it was from my camera screens.

My hideout is equipped with food, water, necessities and even electronic transmitters to last seventy years. Surprising, no? Technology is astounding. All this food cannot go rotten unless I open it, and they're all in nice, meal-sized packages. When I'm done, I can send the waste down a further few hundred metres. But it's not something I can be enthusiastic about, having food. Think about it. I am thirty years old. And I have enough nutrition to sustain me until I'm a hundred years old. I'm never going to live that long, though, am I? I highly doubt I'll last more than a couple of years at the most before I get fed up and top myself.

Think about that. My food is going to outlast my life. How screwed-up is this?

My hideout has a supercomputer, comfortable sleeping quarters, ensuite bathroom, kitchen, and even a library full of books that I will never get through in fifty years even if I read five books a day (it's deep down in the earth, who else needs all that space?). I have plenty of oxygen. I can make my own electricity from the depths of the earth, even if they're all corrupted by Subspace. And the creatures can't attack me through those thick steel walls, nor do they bother. They can't waste time on a human being like me. Too busy flushing out traitors and looking for Smashers that have succumbed to the Shadow Bugs. And they wait. They can't feel, so they can wait. It's one of the best things they can do. Fifty years is a laughable amount to them. Eventually I'm going to die, and when that happens, I'm just another statistic to them. I mean absolutely nothing to Tabuu and his creatures.

But the funny thing is...

My hideout is equipped with cameras. You heard that right. Cameras. Linking to thousands of meters above on the surface. Because of that, I could stay holed up in this prison without bars, watching life die out on the surface, watching the hellish skies above and not doing a damned thing about it.

Nine cameras, nine screens. All for the comfort (or the lack thereof) of myself. It was a gift - a cruel one - by the builders of this hideout.

Who were they, I hear you ask?

... It was Meta Knight and Otacon.

Otacon's real name was Hal Emmerich. A good friend of mine, he was, and he was the smartest guy you'd ever see in your lifetime. He was the kind of genius that only comes around every two hundred years or so. But he wasn't a Smasher - he lacked fighting skills and was mostly a pacifist. If he had to fight, he couldn't do it with his bare hands. This was perhaps his greatest downfall. I'll talk about that later.

Meta Knight, unlike Otacon, was a Smasher, and a very good one too. He was a mysterious and grim figure that even I was wary of in the beginning; yet we became fast friends, and as soon as we started to discuss the potential dangers of this world, he was the one who came up with the plot to create an underground hideaway. Should something dangerous happen, we could hide until it was all over. He only said this to Otacon, never told me what was going on - I have no idea how he managed to create such a secure hideout in such a short time. All I know is that the construction of this place began just three weeks before the invasion officially begun. It was complete in four months. He was an amazing Smasher.

Now Otacon was a smart guy. Not only was he a genius with machines and weapons, but he was good at sensing when something would happen. I suppose he knew that the fragile balance between Master Hand and Crazy Hand could not possibly last for a long time. The very day Master Hand turned strange, he and Meta Knight put their heads together and decided to build the hideout. I was only made aware when the construction had already begun and I could say nothing in protest.

I suppose I can't really blame either of them. Had they not predicted this, they would never have disobeyed strict laws and build something large as this place. It was an astronomical amount of work and money put into all this, I daresay - where did they get it from?

Simple. Otacon gathered large sums of money by illegal operations and hacking. He and a few more units were all in this together. Some of the money went into bribery - but most, to buy large amounts of materials so they could build this shelter. He would technically be the biggest scam artist and traitor of all time if he were back in our world. Meta Knight did his part too - did I mention that he had his own airship, the Halberd? With it he could carry all the materials needed without arousing suspicions, and he technically couldn't get searched for it. He'd even managed to capture the earliest prototypes of Tabuu's army and turn them into slaves to do the work. They were effective, too. When everything was done, and the construction was complete, they were destroyed and burnt.

All right then, you may ask, so where are those two now?

Well...

... Merely hours before Tabuu announced his complete and total takeover, we met for the last time in the Island of the Ancients. It was a surprisingly unemotional goodbye - Meta Knight informed me that only I was to stay within the bunker, with no emotion audible in his voice. He would not listen to reason. Otacon shook hands with me for the last time - "Snake, you're our last hope", he said - and then I was given two parachutes and the Halberd. The airship was programmed to cruise one last time, eventually crashing to the ground near the Ruins after it had flew in one perfect circle. I even passed by Master Hand's body during that voyage - it was left for those evil beings to kick and punch at, left to rot in the ground. I was to jump out when the warning alarms went at the right time - the hideout was located in the depths of the Forest, and I managed to get down safely. I only disposed of the parachutes when I got into the hideout, as not to leave a trail nor a hint of my whereabouts. The place was well-concealed by grass and foliage, and the cameras around it were made of non-corroding glass. They could clean themselves easily. Think of them... like windscreen wipers. Yeah.

I've not been out since. There was a manual here, along with a long letter, explaining everything to me. Seventy-seven days I've been stuck in this place, and all I've seen of outside was from the camera screens. I heard the screams of a Smasher (it was Link, I believe) as he was brutally attacked and life drained out of him. I heard those creatures attacking all the good things. And I couldn't do anything about it. The other Smashers - thirty-odd of them - went into hiding. As soon as six or seven of them were killed and 'displayed' by Tabuu's minions, the rest all went into hiding. Meta Knight told me in the very last conversation we shared.

I know he's fallen now. He went out, all by himself, to try to fend off an army of Primids and R.O.B. sentries. No chance at all. He went down, and was the very last Smasher killed and made an example of by Tabuu. He died bravely, I heard. It's kind of hard to comprehend dying bravely - who wouldn't be afraid in death? I know I would be. And I'm the one who was specially trained not to be afraid of anything. What a terrible waste of training.

As for Otacon? He promised that he would come and rescue me once he got back to our own world and brought reinforcements. But he never showed up. Rescue attempts from other worlds are thwarted the instant they enter Subspace. If you're not one of those creatures - I will call them the Subspace Army - or a Smasher for that matter, you have no protection whatsoever because you technically don't belong. It's not where you're meant to be. Smashers can fight and are naturally resistant to the overall atmosphere of Subspace to a certain degree, and last quite a time before they fall. Non-Smashers disintegrate the moment they enter the darkness. So I suppose Otacon is dead now. Even if he were alive - he knows survival rules better than I do, him being the geek he is - he still has no way to gain resistance from Subspace. No Smashers except for one escaped this place as far as I know, and how will they get to him anyway?

He's not the toughest person ever. The poor guy. I wonder where he is. He's not very likely to be alive right now. Him being the idiot he is, he probably tried to rush straight into the Subspace barrier and died straight away. I wonder if he thought of me, rotting in this place, when he met his demise. I wonder if he's happy up there in heaven. Perhaps he's found someone to love - he's never been really lucky in those matters - instead of worrying about a mad bugger like me.

Took merely seconds to kill him, I bet. And another two centuries may not produce another person like him.

It's strange. I keep on thinking about it. Meta Knight and Otacon, you know?

I feel so wicked for saying it, but I just can't get over how selfish what they did was.

They left me. They got killed along with the dozens of people who tried in vain to liberate this world from Tabuu, along with the people who tried to help from the other worlds. They left with all of them.

Leaving me in an underground bunker with nine views of Hell to stare at.

The only thing that kept my solitary life somewhat bearable during those seventy-seven days had to be the wireless network. Tabuu has no control of it. It isn't hosted in this world - it's in the surrounding areas, just out of reach from Subspace. They're in places where Tabuu doesn't have any interest in conquering yet. The main station is situated in a place called 'Skyworld'. A very basic form of communication, perhaps considered a little too old-fashioned, but it's given me comfort. The supercomputer has no problem connecting to it. It doesn't have a formal name, but we all called it the 'World Net', back when you-know-who didn't exist and everything was fine. Simple and easy.

Since the invasion and complete takeover, the World Net was on fire. Blames, insults, rough threats... everyone was all divided by their origins, their gender, their abilities so that they could hurt each other even more. It wasn't just a 'brawl in words' - it was more than that, a war of its own, filled with rage and hate we could only unleash at each other.

I never joined in. All I did was watch the people trying to rip each other's heads off online. It was kind of funny, in a blank way, but extremely morbid - like watching caged mice tearing each other apart. It made me sick if I watched it more than a couple of hours at a time.

But I was still happy.

It persuaded me to stay optimistic. It convinced me that I wasn't the only one left in this place.

It was sad, though, watching such a grand project that aimed to link Smashers and the various worlds together simply falling apart, giving way to hate. That's what people are all like.

... However, it's not over from there. As the weeks passed, and summer darkened, more and more people disappeared from the network altogether. I had to accept the fact that Smashers that were in hiding were dying out - consumed by the Shadow Bugs, most likely. Or killed by fallout. I highly doubt that they all made grand-scale bunkers underneath the ground to hide out. It's likely that the Shadow Bugs got through and killed them.

You want to know what happens when Smashers die? They get turned into trophies. With a nicely-shaped base. What's so terrible about that, I hear you wondering out aloud, but it is the worst fate anyone can have. Unlike a purely brawl-defeated trophy, those ones cannot be revived. And think of it. Those are often left uncollected and abandoned. If I went out there for a stroll, I will inevitably see one of those lying around. It'll kill me. You're staring into the eyes of a dead person, in the form of a comical trophy that can never be brought to life again. Their lively poses mock their past lives. Even though they look just like ornaments, I know that they were Smashers in the past. The people you've shook hands with, the people you befriended... are nothing more than lifeless statues that stare blankly ahead. I fear that that was the fate of most Smashers out there.

But there's still hope.

I haven't yet said this, have I? Three days ago, I found a ray of hope in the form of a private site in the World Net. It's been quiet for a time, but now that a Smasher has put up a site, looking for survivors with the line 'Is there anybody out there?' - hell, you bet there is.

His name is Captain Falcon. I knew him quite well - a brash, loud racer and bounty hunter by profession. Yet he was a friendly man, a generous and kind-hearted man who I liked to brawl with often. He was surprised and delighted (as I was also) to be reunited with me, even though it was merely online. Turns out that he was actually hiding out in a bunker like mine that he built and constructed a year or so ago in the Ruins.

That's not all, either. There are a total of six survivors so far who have identified themselves in the site. Apart from Captain Falcon and I, there are four others, with varying abilities and well-matched skills:

There are two boys named Ness and Lucas. They were hiding in a specially constructed hideout, somewhere near the Canyon. They seem close; although very young, they are clever. They may potentially be the key to survival, as they are the youngest ones out of the six.

The third is an angel, named Pit. He's hiding out in the World Net station in Skyworld. I fought him twice before and found him strong and fairly sturdy. Pit's the one and only Smasher who actually managed to escape Subspace prior to Tabuu's complete takeover. He's an optimistic lad. He's not in a hideout, of course - he has been locked in the station, and he cannot escape. But he is an angel - he will find a way.

But the fourth survivor intrigues me the most. When he first came online, and looked into the screen nervously, I couldn't believe it. I knew him. I fought him. I never really talked of him much, but he's the younger brother of the most famous Smasher who ever existed. And he's so different to the others.

His name is Luigi.

I never thought I'd meet him here. My God!