Heroes of Dreamland, Book 5: Nintendo World: The Fate of All Worlds (OLD)

Time-Travel, Unlikely Reappearances, Danger at Dawn

Byte's POV:

Groaning, I flop back on the porch swing and stare up at the stars through the lattice work of the porch roof. It's been such a long several days. It may shock you to hear this, but video game characters aren't your average house guests. For one thing, Magolor has a tendency to get stuck in the air ducts whenever he goes 'exploring.' Thankfully, he's avoided the furnace (so far.) Mario and Luigi aren't exactly picky eaters, but they also aren't exactly fond of my fare. We've compromised by having spaghetti squash with tomato sauce several times, but 'Eet's-a still not a-da same as spaghetti, man,' as Luigi put it.

Speaking of spaghetti, all of the wires all over the place in several of my rooms pose a real health hazard to our current resident Elf. Rinda literally can't walk into any of my gaming-related rooms without falling over at least three times, typically more. And there's plenty of stuff for her to trip over in the rest of the house. Chairs in the kitchen, Magolor in the everywhere, tomato planters on the porch, stairs in the hall, steps to the porch, rugs in the bedrooms... The world is a dangerous place when you are prone to tripping over anything, including flat surfaces.

Geek Toad is having a heyday studying Mega and Giga. Giga loves him right back, although she acts more and more star-struck by Magolor all the time. Mega, on the other hand, continues to hate everybody without exception. Well, his hatred isn't obvious, but you can tell that he'd be perfectly happy if we all spontaneously combusted and left him free to take the longest power nap in the history of the universe.

Giving a huge yawn, I close my eyes and continue to think. We've got all the non-heroes here, we've got Mario and Luigi here, we've got Mags here-

"Pika? Pika-pika? Pikachu..."

-and now we also apparently have Pikachu here.

Getting up, I walk into the garden where the 'pika-pika's' are coming from and gently hold my hand out to the little guy. Since I work with electronics, I'm used to the occasional zap, but I'd still rather not get the Ash treatment. "Hi, Pikachu. Do you remember me? I'm Byte, I helped get rid of Tedium a few years ago. Well, after I froze you, but still..."

Eyes narrowing, Pikachu gives me a terse 'pika-pika' in reply, then tries to shock me. Without magic to amplify it, all I get is a bit of a static sting.

"Is Ash close by?" I question him as he grows more scared, continuing to kindly hold my hand out to him. After a long moment, he sniffs it, then gives my palm a friendly lick. "Atta boy," I laugh, carefully picking him up and nuzzling him. (I'm getting to cuddle with a real-life Pikachu. Be jealous. Be very jealous.) "But seriously, where's Ash?"

"Pika-pika," Pikachu replies sadly, and I can sense somehow that he has no idea. I hope Ash is okay, wherever he's at.

Smiling at him, I let him climb up onto my shoulder and tell him, "Let's go find you some strawberries or something. Sound good?" Giving a little giggle, he agrees with an eager nod. "All right then," I laugh back.

After feeding our newest guest and giving an adorable Thdwee a snack of his own, I head into the game room to see what the others are up to. What I discover sends me into laughing fits.

Magolor, Mario, Luigi, and Rose are all playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl, playing as Meta Knight, Mario, Luigi, and Zelda, respectively.

"Mags? Why in the heck are you playing as Meta Knight?" I gasp out somehow among my laughs.

As the current brawl comes to an end, Magolor shrugs nonchalantly and answers, "What can you say? He's the strongest character, as far as I can tell. And when I'm playing the strongest character, then victory is my destiny!"