Chapter Text
NATIONAL ANTHEM
Epilogue
It has been seven years since I last visited this city. It feels like seven lifetimes ago, or, more accurately, an alternate universe ago…a multiverse ago… Walking the streets in the bright sunlight of the perpetual Spring here feels strange. I recognize many landmarks, but they exist now in better days, a peaceful era.
After the Melee’ Tournament, I was sent home. My big brother and I were sent back to our world, but we became as one again. Big Brother is always in my heart, because he became a part of my heart again, alive and breathing and happy. I suppose I regret sharing my memories with him – that part of myself that he completes - but it couldn’t be helped. He went back to his time to eventually become me, and… well, Time itself really got twisted on account of us. Separated parts of a soul became one again and we were left to go grow up together. I honestly do not know if I am a young man at present, still a child, or an old man… My body is now a young man’s body, but I feel old… so very old.
I remember shooting my older self down, but I don’t remember being shot as my older self… such is the nature of our memories and what happened when I pressed the great golden reset-button. The Brawls of Honor never began. Instead, what is going on now in SmashCity and surrounding areas is merely the “Brawl” – a tournament in the old style, the way it was meant to be.
I suppose I was always something of an “ageless” being. I’ve hopped through being grown up and not-so-grown up so many times by now that I’m sure I’ll never know where I stand. The idea of becoming a shade after my death, bound to Hyrule for generations due to my regrets seems like it would be pretty accurate for me as far as fate goes. There are rumors that it happened in one of the universes… Link ‘d Ordon’s golden wolf…
The world of the Stages… the world of Ninten, ruled by the Hands… Here I am again, not as a competitor, but as member of the audience. It is a place that exists outside of Time. I met (again), those people from two different possible futures of my world, hundreds of years removed from me, even though I’m only seven removed from them.
It broke my heart when Tiny didn’t recognize me… I told myself that it was for the best. We’ve become friends again, but we lack the closeness of the fire-forged mentor and charge relationship we had in the reality I do not tell him about.
After Melee’ disbanded, Ganondorf never took over. He never found his way into the Hands’ artifact-room, never found any sufficiently-magical items to carry out his plans and never gained control of the Triforce, and that was that. My wish had worked – leaving me with memories of “another time that didn’t happen,” which seems to be a common thing that happens to me.
I don’t mind too much not having a story to tell – or having true stories to tell that I know others did not live. Sometimes people take my tales as entertaining fiction. After my initial quest to save Hryule, I grew used to it. I learned to take it as course for my life after my endless days in Termina. It is okay… I tell myself this constantly. It is okay… though I’m not sure that my whole self believes that it really is. Having one’s own story that cannot be shared with anyone else you’ve lived it with is a lonely thing.
My dearest friends are alive. Lady Zelda is ruling Hyrule – my Hyrule, with her velvet fist. The awakened Sages are guarding their respective elements. I roam the countryside doing odd jobs for the Crown, schooling the knights and seeking out people who need help. Since the portal opened and Master Hand has invited us to be spectators to his new Brawl tournament in his pocket-dimension, I chose to return – although Zelda has stayed home, having too much business to attend to.
SmashCity is a nice place to take a little vacation. I’ve been attending tournament Brawls as a spectator, watching various people fight in pageants of athletics and ingenuity – and more than a little bit of comedy. The fights are set small, as they once were – like the ones I participated in before the dark times. There are tiers and a general tournament-structure, but sometimes the players get together to fight for fun in practice matches, in random formations… Master Hand has created super-powered attacks for them, too, tailored to each fighter’s personality and the world that he or she comes from. When someone grabs as “Smash Ball,” the audience is in for a great show.
I take my seat in one of the open live-viewing areas… The Pokemon Stadium, which has many seats. I’ve always liked this Stage. It’s one of the old ones, not the vast force-field encompassed arenas. Today’s matches aren’t a brutal game of survival, but merely a good old-fashioned fight.
I have a bottle of cold milk with me. It’s not Chateau Romani. It’s a funny thing…. After I became myself again, after the wish… I had no desire to drink anymore. It is like the physical aspects of addiction disappeared. I still feel the mental aspects crop up from time to time, but I’ve decided that I want to face life as clear-headed as possible, even if it hurts. The nightmares I have are tough, but I always wake up in the morning to the dawn of a new day.
From what I’ve learned, Ninten was not without its trouble in my absence. Just because I made a Triforce-wish to set everything to rights doesn’t mean that the world did not face threat. In fact, the threat that the Hands did face in lieu of Ganondorf’s game was a power so significant that it made Ganondorf mellow out. Yes, Ganondorf has been participating as a fighter and he’s been legitimate. In fact, coming here to watch matches and seeing the man play by the rules amuses me greatly. It’s like seeing a lion turned into a lamb, although that’s not exactly accurate. He fights as cruelly as he can get away with. His Smash-attack turns him into his beast-form temporarily and he still has all the look and strength of a wild boar, even as he strikes me as having been made into a domesticated pig.
It isn’t like he can be tried and convicted for crimes he did not commit – treason he’d committed in another universe, much less one that was dissolved via my will.
Still, there is a rather popular series of books going around that some of the literate fighters have been reading that everyone has decided to keep out of his hands and away from his knowledge – at least ever since I started describing my temporally-dissolved experiences to some of my old friends, as well as a few of the new ones. I shivered as Tiny described the stories to me… it’s almost like the plot of my alternate experience followed those books… It makes me wonder if the great powers behind our universes can be a little uncreative at times.
It’s very funny… how some of the universes of the Hands’ nation of Ninten exist in different eras. The Hero of Winds (whom I know as “Little Link” and “Tiny”) as well as the Hero of Twilight (Link ‘d Ordon) keep their homes in possible futures from my perspective, yet Samus and Fox are the same old Samus and Fox… The Hands, of course, are ever-living and unchanging.
I, in turn, was told about the threat that happened fairly recently (from their perspective) to the World of the Stages. Something called “Subspace” blanketed the many lands of the Stages. It was controlled by an entity of great mystery and great power that everyone called “Tabuu.” All of the fighters from this go-round of the tournament banded together to stand against him and to keep Ninten from falling into the Subspace. This is what humbled Ganondorf, so I’m told. He had tried to use it as a means of taking over, or so the rumors say, and generally worked his own perpetual megalomaniacal wickedness - only to learn that some forms of Power are beyond his control. Link ‘d Ordon said that he and his Lady Zelda revived him themselves when he’d had the fate to become a still, dead trophy. He said that he “almost regretted” doing it, but that Ganondorf’s power was needed. The power of all the “Smashers” was needed to keep this world free.
Nonetheless, ‘d Ordon told met that he wasn’t surprised at all at the plot to my story. “Yes, Ganondorf would do that, given the chance,” he’d agreed. I left out a lot of details when speaking with him about it, though. He is a complete fan-boy of me, as his “Hero of Time” - almost as much as Tiny is. The legends of their respective worlds run deep. I didn’t tell Link ‘d Ordon… completely… of his role in what I’d lived outside of Time. I did not wish to burden him with what I’d seen him become for the sake of a dark kind of secret heroism. I tell him that I’m proud of him… whenever I see him. I leave it at that.
Little Link, too. I cannot express my pride in that boy enough. On the non-lethal stages - oh, he fights hard. He’s not a strong fighter, but he is quick and smart. He’s won the adoration of many female regular residents of the Hands’ world for the sake of his cute nature. He’s well liked by most of the other competitors, too. He plays to charm, that kid.
The national anthem of Ninten plays before the latest match begins. I close my eyes and listen to it. It always seemed wrong before, in Ganondorf’s world, but here, it is the most appropriate song in the world. My long ears catch its strains:
Audi famam illus…Solus in hostes wit…et patriam serwavit….
“I’ve heard legends of that person…” Legends, indeed.
Cucurrit quaeque tetigit destrunes… Spes omnibus, mihi quoque…
Terror omnibus, mihi quoque…
I look out over the people gathered to watch with me – not all of them are merely spectators, some of them are ex-combatants from Melee’ like I am - and some of them are current Brawl fighters sitting in to watch. To revere… yes, that is the right word. I cannot look at them without seeing brilliant plans and those plans suddenly shifted, kindness and cruelty – in some cases cruel kindness, courage under fire and great sacrifices. After seeing the things they are capable of, I have nothing but reverence for most of them, and a twinge of fear regarding the rest.
Ille… Ille iuxta me… Ille iuxta me…
Socii sunt mihi…qui olim viri fortes rivalesque errant…
Side-by-side, all of us… all of them. They aren’t pitted against each other scrapping for survival and destroying one another, instead, they fight together, for honor and for fun. The current competitors fought Subspace together, too. I remember fighting side-by-side in the plan against Ganondorf in the other time, but this time around, these lyrics are truer. Allies and rivals fight together for common glory in this world outside of Time, where this can happen… no deaths, no murders… all glory.
Saeve certando pugandoque…splendor cresit.
We shine ever brighter indeed.
This matches’ fighters appear over the stadium. Link ‘d Ordon taunts everyone by flexing with his sword. Even from here in the stadium-seating, I can get a good look at his face and see his beast-eyes. Samus materializes, looking as formidable as ever in her shiny armor. Pit appears above the stage, his white wings and golden crown catching the light. Lastly, there’s “my boy,” known as Toon Link to the crowds.
The fight begins. Ol’ stone-legged Link takes a dive off the platform into the carrier-system below, losing points as he ascends to get back in the game. Pit is knocked off and is as flightless as ever, but is able to power his wings temporarily. I bet the elder Link would love to have that power about now. Oh-ho! What’s this? Little Link has caught a Smash Ball and has caught Samus in a Triforce-Slash!
Way to fight, Tiny!
You will never know the extent of the pride I have for you nor how long I have rooted for you.
Go, kid, go!
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THE END.