SMASH GAMES 2: CHAOS | Super Smash Bros.

3 - The Rules

Lucina 

The crawl space beyond the ceiling was narrow, dark, and damp. Lucina could barely lift her head without accidentally knocking it against the pipes that twisted and turned above them. Her stomach was twisting about as much-she'd never thought she had a fear of small spaces, but she'd never much been in small spaces until now. 

She tried to breathe through the paranoia that the pipes would fall on them on focused on following the angel as he crawled ahead of her. No, he couldn't be an angel. Angels didn't exist. But she couldn't stop staring at the pair of wings that hugged his back, brushing against the rusty pipes they crawled under. 

Maybe he was one of those mythical creatures her father used to tell her about...laguz. Yes, they were called laguz, from a continent known as Tellius. Legends were that the laguz were part human, part animal, like the taguel from her own continent. The bird laguz could shift from bird to human form.  

"Are you a laguz?" she blurted before she could stop herself. 

His nose crinkled as he glanced at her over his shoulder. "Sorry, a what?" 

She pointed. "A laguz. You have wings. Can you shift into a bird?" 

He looked at her like he thought she was crazy. "Um, no, last I checked, I couldn't shift into a bird," he said. "I'm not a...lagoon. I'm an angel." 

So she'd been right the first time. No, wait! An angel? "But angels don't exist," she protested. 

"They do where I come from." Short pause. "What's your name?" 

"Lucina." 

"I'm Pit. Lucina, how'd you get here, anyway?" 

The space bent in a turn, and she followed Pit as he shuffled to the right. "I...I don't know," she said, a little embarrassed at that. "I-I was on patrol, and then...then I was here." 

"Huh," Pit said. "Looks like I'm not the only one with a bite taken out of their memory." 

She blinked in the darkness. "You too?" 

"Yep." 

How could that be? Those people she'd seen in the hall of curtains-had their memories been erased as well? "What do you remember?" 

"Talking to my friend-and then ending up here." 

"And you're certain you don't remember what caused you to black out?" 

"No." Pit let out a frustrated sigh. "It's like my brain just shut off and turned back on when I wound up here." 

"That's madness." Lucina's words echoed his frustration. "I've never met a foe that defeated me before I could see who they were." 

"Well, I bet there're plenty of 'em out there," Pit said, sounding a little pained, "but I'm pretty sure that I know what took us down." 

Lucina's head rose before she could stop it, and she clapped her skull against the pipes. With a hiss, she rubbed her head and said, "You do? How? Who are these people?" 

"This happened to me before," Pit said as they rounded another corner. "Some psycho named Game&Watch kidnapped a bunch of people and threw us in a ring and had us fight to the last man for perverse entertainment." 

Pit's words were like a blow to Lucina's chest. "So this has happened before?" she demanded. 

"Yeah. I was in one place, and then another, held captive. They dumped us in this arena and had us fight each other."