SMASH GAMES 2: CHAOS | Super Smash Bros.

18 - The Clubberskull

Samus 

"Looks like I misjudged you, punk," Samus said, raising her eyebrows as Bowser Jr. stumbled back into camp looking exhausted. "Maybe you aren't quite worthy of that bib after all." 

Junior glared at her as he slammed down the water buckets, all of them full to the brim. "Yeah, well, just don't blame me when you find a tadpole in your drink," he snapped, stomping off to his spot opposite of Pit's tent. He began fiddling with a gigantic paintbrush, something he'd had on him when Samus and company had found him crying in the middle of the woods. Samus had thought it was an odd thing to call a toy, but she wasn't complaining-as long as it kept the kid busy. 

"Nice," Falco said as he came into the trees-it was Pikachu's shift at the Lookout Tree. The bird chucked the Pokémon his gun before dipping his canteen into one of the buckets and taking a seat beside Samus. "Keep this up, kid," he continued, giving Junior the double-finger-gun pose, "and we'll let you try out the Lookout Tree next." 

Samus glared at Falco-Junior just ignored him and kept playing with his paintbrush. As long as she was in charge, there was no way the kid was keeping watch for them-with their luck, he'd fall asleep just as a band of monsters began scaling the slope to their campsite. 

Samus knelt beside Pit and felt his forehead. Despite exposure to the chill of the forest, his temperature was beginning to climb again. She checked his bandages and then wet two washcloths in one of the buckets of water. She cleaned his face and then wiped down his torso before flipping him on his back. She gasped. 

"What's up?" Falco glanced over her shoulder and raised his eyebrows. "Whoa." 

Pit's wings, which were lying limp against his back, were covered in inky black spots, to the point that he looked half-Dalmatian. That was odd in the first place, but even stranger was the fact that the spots seemed to be growing, the pitch-black color spreading from feather to feather, until they were as big as dollar-coins. 

"The heck?" Falco said, dropping his canteen. "Are they supposed to do that?" 

Samus gave him an angry look that said What do you think? Then she hurriedly rechecked his temperature and wound, fearing that the black spots on his wings were a symptom of some ghastly angelic disease. But his wound was fine-it was still healing rapidly-and his temperature was already falling once again. She sat back, perplexed. What did those black spots mean, then? 

Falco glanced at her confused expression and then looked back down at Pit. "First the black hair and now this," he said. "Think that white-haired kid hit Cupid with some kinda weird spell?" 

The hair. She'd forgotten about that. But now that she looked, she was alarmed to see that the black color was now spreading from the roots of Pit's hair to the very tips of his formerly caramel-colored locks. It was as if his hair was seeped with black ink.  

Samus was at a loss as what to do-the color changing didn't seem to be malignant to Pit's health, but either way, she didn't like it. Maybe it was because she so closely associated the color black with evil. But whatever it was, she couldn't physically stop it.  

Pit suddenly grunted in his sleep, making Samus and Falco jump. 

"Pit?" Samus asked, grasping her friend's shoulder. "Pit? Pit, can you hear me? Pit?" 

He grumbled something incomprehensible. His black eyebrows furrowed, making him look like he was glaring in his sleep. 

"Pit?" Samus said again, gently. "Pit, can you hear me?" 

An unexpected voice answered her: "Pika pi!"  

Samus immediately lurched to her feet, shouting, "Watch him!" to Falco as she pushed through the trees and out onto the cliff edge holding the Lookout Tree. Pikachu, currently on watch, rapidly beckoned her closer and pointed downward into the sea of trees below.