Chapter 107: Master Hand
"Nice to meet you, Master Hand. Thank you for your help against Giovanni," Sweetie Void said.
"You are welcome. I saw what was going on and knew that you couldn't win without help. And if nothing had been done, this whole multiverse would have been destroyed, and the destruction could have eventually spreed to other universes. Since you clearly needed a hand, I decided to intervene."
...
Many groaned at the pun made by the giant hand, and a few others laughed, including Sweetie Void.
"Oh boy, you are a handful, uh?" she replied with an amused smirk.
She was bonked on the back of the head by an annoyed Phantom. "Don't you start!"
Master Hand laughed. "I should be the one saying that."
"Oh, you have no idea," Sweetie Void's Rarity said with a sigh.
"Things have certainly gotten more interesting since Sweetie Belle returned from Popstar," Sweetie's Twilight said.
Chromatic Bolt suppressed a laugh. "Things got more interesting since you arrived in Ponyville."
It wasn't just the one Twilight that sighed at this, but the three present, and they said, "I wonder why..." making many of the others chuckle.
The ponies and everyone else then proceeded to present themselves to Master Hand who then confirmed that he was a God. A First Category one he added, of Creation.
"First Category...?" Sweetie Void repeated thoughtfully. "Right. Gods that represent forces of nature or that kind of stuff. Of Creation? So you can create whatever you want?"
"Pretty much, yes. Curious that you already know about the God Categories. Not many mortals know about them. Many Gods don't even know about them. It's generally something more known to Third Category Gods and a select few of the others."
Sweetie Void shrugged. "I encountered a God who told me about them, including Devourers."
Master Hand visibly shivered when he heard the word 'Devourers'. "Pray that you never encounter one."
Too late for that... Sweetie thought.
"Excuse me, Master Hand. Sorry if this sounds rude, but why are you here exactly? For you to be among us must not be just a coincidence, right?" one of the Luna asked.
"You are right. This is not a coincidence. You see. Contrary to the majority of the divinities of the Omniverse, I don't have a specific universe or multiverse I live in. I'm a wanderer, seeking challenges. I heard about little Sweetie Void here, and she picked my interest."
"What? You heard about me? From who?" Sweetie Void asked.
"Let's just say that you are starting to gain attention. I found you thanks to that and arrived just in time to witness your clash of omnipotence against Arceus. I didn't expect to see something like that upon arriving. Such clashes are very rare. Especially when one of the clashing beings isn't a God."
"Well, I hope that I won't have to do this again. I don't want to retake this form. Too dangerous. So, you seek challenges?"
"Yes. I like facing foes. TO SHOW THEM MY SUPERIORITY! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" he said in a dramatic evil act, even doing the hand movement when someone is cackling evilly while they have their hands raised beside them, palm up with the fingers partially curled, and he even added lightning for more effect. This made many laugh at how hammy he acted. "And I'm not disappointed by what I found today. Not only you, but a lot of your friends here. I can see that many of you would be fun to face. This whole multiverse is full of such beings. These Pokémon sure have a lot of potential. As well as YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU!" he repeatedly while pointing a finger at everyone present that knew how to fight one by one, Phantom, Apple Death, Kirby, Mario, Sonic, Link, and so on. Once he finished, he continued. "However, this is clearly not the time. After these intense battles you had, fighting is clearly the last thing in your minds, especially you Sweetie Void."
"You really want to fight all of us? Even the Pokémon?" Link asked in disbelief.
"No. It would take too long. And I'm sure that many of you isn't interested in fighting me. So I had that idea of creating a tournament where challengers would enter and fight each others in duels, and the winner would face me. But I'm ready to wait until everyone recovers from this ordeal. A couple of day, local time, should be enough, I think. You can use that time to decide who will participate. Until then, I guess that I will remain here to help rebuild. My creation powers will be very useful for this."
"I imagine. Your help will be very welcome," Dawn said.
Master Hand replied with a thumb up.
After that, Sweetie Void quickly learned the consequences of this huge battle.
For starting, Sinnoh was almost entirely destroyed. Not a single city or town was still intact. the West was ravaged by the water, the East was destroyed by earthquakes, and the mountains in the center forever changed. Thankfully, the volcanoes that appeared because of Shadow Groudon went extinct not long after its defeat, but the lava they released changed the landscape around the mountains and burned some of the towns around, and new caverns will have to be dug as ancients were now buried.
But the damage were nothing. They could be repaired, and a new Sinnoh will be born from this with the help of the whole planet and the other dimensions.
What couldn't be repaired, however, were the casualties this battle caused.
The flood caused by Shadow Kyogre was particularly deadly. Many, both Rockets and League trainers without forgetting Pokémon, drowned because of it. Others fell into the cracks caused by the earthquakes, and others were burned to death by the lava. and of course, many trainers and Pokémon were killed by Shadow Pokémon and their mortal Shadow moves.
Among the Rockets, the Executive Proton died very early in the battle because of a cavern collapsing on him. This was also a big cause of death since many people and Pokémon had been in the caverns of Mt. Coronet and the mountains around.
To the Executive, hundreds of Grunts and their Pokémon added to the count, generally caused by the disasters caused by the Shadow Legendaries, but also killed by Federation marines or the Star Fox lasers.
Among the League trainers...
Ex-Champion Alder was taken by the flood. This was the only casualty among Champions and ex-Champions, but this still was a terrible loss.
And then there were the Elite 4 members and the Gym Leaders, both current and ancients.
Bruno. Flint. Olivia.
Erika, Morty, Jasmine, Norman (Ruby was devastated upon learning that he lost his father), Volkner, Burgh, Skyla, Valerie, Wulfric, Milo...
And many others from other Regions from across the world.
And hundreds of trainers and Pokémon plus some Federation marines and pony royal guards.
The League trainers definitively took the biggest hit, but it wasn't surprising considering that they had been more numerous than the Rockets and that the Shadow Pokémon had been absolutely merciless. Their Shadow Z-moves or Max moves (or both) especially caused a real slaughter. And this was without forgetting the Shadow Legendaries. By themselves, they were responsible of the majority of the deaths.
Casualty among wild Pokémon were thankfully minimal. Thanks to teamwork and the help of some Legendaries, most of the wild Pokémon of Sinnoh were evacuated before the start of the battle.
And then, there were the greatest casualties of all:
Giovanni.
...
And Arceus...
Sweetie still couldn't believe that she killed it.
As she laid on her back at the top of Mt. Coronet by herself, wanting to be alone a bit, she looked at the sky, reminiscing her encounter with the God all these weeks ago, after her battle against Red during her very first adventure. Arceus had been so nice to her.
For what was probably the hundredth time, she closed her eyes and sighed sadly.
She knew that the others were right. She shouldn't let herself being eaten by the fact that she killed it. She had been cornered. She had been left with no choice. But she just couldn't stop. After all, Arceus had been innocent, and knowing this hurt the filly. And it also hurt that many were probably hurting because of its death. Arceus had been the (fore)father of all Pokémon after all (well, almost since some were from human origin or other stuff), and had been venerated in many places all over the world. But she repeated to herself: this wasn't her fault, this was Giovanni's. She had no choice.
She opened her eyes to look back at the sky.
Only to see two big blue eyes just a few centimeters before hers.
"Eep!" She tried to sit up by reflex and headbutted the eyes' owner. "Ow..."
"Owie!"
After rubbing her forehead a bit, Sweetie Void looked to see who she accidentally headbutted and saw a familiar little pink cat-like Pokémon now sitting on the ground and also rubbing its forehead.
This same cat-like Pokémon she met and played with that first time.
"Mew? What are you doing here? Uh, sorry for headbutting you."
Mew stopped rubbing its forehead and looked at Sweetie Void before giggling. "No, it's my fault. It was silly of me to get so close of you like that."
The two then silently stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity before the filly looked down sadly and said, "Sorry..."
Mew immediately understood that, this time, Sweetie Void wasn't apologising for the headbutt but for something else. And it knew what, because that was the reason why it was here.
Instead of answering Sweetie's apology, Mew smiled at her before it wrapped its paws around her as much as it could. Before Sweetie Void could say anything in reaction to this, Mew then looked at her and booped her muzzle. "Boop! You are it!" Then it flew away giggling.
Sweetie Void was left behind, speechless. A smile then slowly formed on her muzzle. "Just you wait!"
And thus began the most epic game of tag in history.
Mew was known as a very playful and childish, sometime mischievous Pokémon. And that was exactly what was sometime needed to help advance after a terrible and traumatic ordeal.
Sweetie Void made a mental note to find a way to thank Mew appropriately later. It lost what was pretty much its progenitor partially because of her, and yet here it was, helping her get over it. This Pokémon was too good.
Later that evening. Dinner time.
Sweetie Void joined everyone who had gathered in one of the many makeshift restaurants made in camps all over Sinnoh to house and feed the people and Pokémon that were helping rebuilding. Everyone was present, spread across different tables that were put side by side to form a giant one, with the Pokémon either eating on it or on the floor around it. There were the ponies. There were trainers like Red, Blue, Gold, Ruby, Dawn, and some others. There was Kirby, Magolor, Susie, and Spiky. There was her Pokémon. Everyone, from Link and Future Zelda to the full team of Star Fox passing by Ness' group, Captain Falcon and even Samus (currently without her suit), without forgetting Mario's group and Sonic and Tails, was present, happily chatting and getting to better know each others.
It warmed Sweetie's heart to see that. Many of the friends she made in her adventures were now together, starting to form what she hopped was a close knit group.
Master Hand was also present, but wasn't eating (could he even eat? He didn't have a mouth, but this didn't stop creatures like Waddle Dees from eating), simply discussing and listening.
"Seems like we are both used to fighting evil organisations led by a sadistic space tyrant on a regular basis. What would you think if we team up one of these days? I would of course buy you a drink afterward," Captain Falcon said to Samus, the last part almost flirty.
Samus smirked. "I will hold you to that."
"Are you serious?" Tails asked as he looked at Mario in shock. "How can you live with a villain that attacks so often? Not even Eggman attacks so regularly! We at least a one or two months of respite before he tries something again!"
Mario shrugged. "Bowser is VERY stubborn and determined. But we learned to live with it."
"How can something so small eat so much?!" Jeff exclaimed, not able to stop himself from looking in awe at Kirby who was eating by himself at least half of the content of the tables.
"And you have seen nothing. This is just a snack for him," Sweetie Void informed with amusement.
Blue whistled. "He could compete with a Snorlax."
"A Snorlax?" She scoffed. "That's small fry for him. I don't think that even a Guzzlord could compete against him."
"So it looked like Star Wolf would easily defeat us with their new Wolfen II. They really surpassed us in every points. But we had something that they missed: teamwork. Instead of spending our time trying to escape the enemy glued to our butts, we fired on the enemies glued on the others' butts while doing our best to avoid their shots. Their whole team was down in less than one minute, and the path to Andross was open," Peppy recounted, like one of these old people who like to recount stories.
And Link was listening to him in amazement, looking in every way like the child that he currently was.
Scootabot was also listening and exclaimed, "What happens next? What happens next?!"
"Our hotheaded boss decided to play the heroic lonely knight and flew into Andross' base alone, leaving us behind," Falco said.
Link looked at the bird questioningly. "And you didn't follow him?"
"We could have, but it clearly was something that Fox wanted to settle by himself. Andross did kill his father after all," Falco answered.
"Good point."
Discussions like this continued for a bit until Sweetie Void looked at Master Hand and said, "By the way, Master Hand, I will participate in your tournament."
"Good!"
Sweetie Void looked at everyone else. "And don't worry for everyone else who intends to participate. I will limit myself. It wouldn't be fun otherwise. And Kirby, if you decide to enter, no Stella Knight either. Give them a chance."
"Poyo!" Kirby agreed.
"I could perfectly take you at your full power, as long as you don't enter this Soul Form of yours," Phantom said confidently.
Sweetie Void gave her a deadpan look. "Remember Galacta Knight? How much trouble he gave you to defeat? Well, remember that I managed to barely defeat him... back when I was an unicorn." She proceeded to show her wings to remind her that she wasn't an unicorn anymore. "And Kirby in his Stella Knight form? I consider him my rival. Think about this."
Phantom actually winced at this. "Point."
"But then how much will you limit yourself?" one of the Rarity (probably Void's) asked.
"To how powerful I was before I ascended. Maybe a bit less. This should be good enough." Sweetie Void then eyed her Pokémon, and looked at Master Hand. "How does it work for Pokémon? Can they also enter the tournament?"
"Of course," the hand answered. "With or without a trainer. However, the trainer won't be able to switch Pokémon, or it wouldn't be fair. This reminds me..." He looked around at everyone. "Remember that the battles in this tournament will be duels. This means that the number of challengers will have to be in the powers of two. Two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty two, and so on. I'm hoping that we will reach sixteen, or at least eight, but if more decide to come than I thought, then try to reach thirty two, or even sixty four if this comes to this point, or I will be forced to remove challengers."
Everyone around nodded.
"So this means that you can participate too guys, if you want," Sweetie Void said to her Pokémon.
However, it didn't look like many of her Pokémon wanted to enter the tournament with her in it. That they still were relatively beginner compared to most other Pokémon present in the room obviously didn't help.
"Think of it as training. And this will be fun," the alicorn filly added to try to convince them, which worked a bit.
"We will discuss this?" Tank questioned more than confirmed as he looked at his teammates.
Sweetie Void nodded.
Lot of discussions about who would enter followed that evening as well as the next day. Reasons to enter were many: to prove themselves, to have fun, to train, or to know each others better through battles.
Ruby didn't want to participate, still trying to get over his father's death, and his Pokémon wanted to remain at his side. But the other Champions and some others all wanted to have a part in it. To avoid flooding the tournament with Pokémon, however, they all decided to send in only one, which forced Sweetie Void to choose among her Pokémon who would participate as many were eager to battle. Spinning a bottle decided that Lulla the Jigglypuff was the chosen one, much to Volta's sorrow. It was quickly clear that some won't be able to participate however because there were only enough challengers to reach a bit above thirty-two.
They settled that through battles.
While this happened, Master Hand continued to help with rebuilding Sinnoh and even went to the portal to visit other universes, thus presenting himself to many who hadn't come to the Pokémon World following the end of the battle.
Then came the day of the tournament.
"Anyone who decided to participate, put your name on this paper," Master Hand said as he presented a blank paper. "For the Pokémon, I advise to put the name of the trainer between parenthesis beside theirs, just in case two or more of the same Pokémon enter the tournament."
One by one, the names of the challenges were written on the paper.
Sonic!
Phantom
Sweetie Void
Kirby
Lulla (Sweetie Void)
Decidueye (Hau)
Mario
Luigi
Yoshi
Donkey Kong
Diddy Kong
Captain Falcon
Incineroar (Elio)
Jolteon (Blue)
Samus
Zoroark (Rosa)
Cinderace (Victor)
Rillaboom (Hop)
Fox
Falco
Krystal
Pikachu (Red)
Apple Death
Link
Greninja (Calem)
Meganium (Gold)
Ness
Poo
Tails
Magolor
Serperior (Hilbert)
Empoleon (Dawn)
Master Hand looked at the names and counted them. "Thirty two. Good. I won't have to make the difficult decision of removing someone from the tournament."
"This is so NOT fair! I should fine you for this!" shouted a blond man named Barry, much to Dawn's amusement.
Blue mockingly grinned at him. "You lost fair and square. Stop being a baby."
Barry silently pouted and cried.
Meanwhile, a slot appeared in the air, and Master Hand put the paper with the list of names in it. The slot then disappeared, replaced by some kind of holographic screen also floating in the air, with the name of the thirty-two challengers appearing on it.
"Without further ado..." Master Hand began before he tightened himself into a fist above a big red button that came out of the ground. "Let's start the tournament! Let's see who will be the first ones to fight!"
He dramatically punched the button, and the names in the screen lit and darkened one after another, starting too fast to follow but quickly slowing down until one name remained lit.
"And our first fighter is... MARIO! Now the second one!" Master Hand exclaimed before he punched the red button again, restarting the process excepted that Mario's name remained darkened from beginning to end. Once it finished... "And the second one is... CINDERACE! Mario versus Cinderace! Now time to choose the arena!"
"Ya've arenas?" Apple Death asked.
"Of course! Homemade!" Master Hand answered before he punched the red button again. In the screen, the names of the challengers were replaced by images scrolling too rapidly to follow. when the scrolling began to slow down, everyone was surprised to recognise places from their respective universes. The Fountain of Dreams, the Great Fox above Corneria, the roof of Hyrule's castle, Onett...
Then the scrolling stopped on an image of a circular platform that seemed to be falling down a pit surrounded by metallic walls.
"Hey! I recognise this place! This is where I fought Eggman's Egg Dragoon for the first time, when I had that Werehog form!" Sonic exclaimed.
Master Hand gave Sonic a thumb up. "Exact!"
"But how?"
"Well, I allowed myself to have a look inside your minds - not too deep, don't worry, I'm very respectful of privacy - to search for places that could make good arenas. They won't be the real deal however. They are simple recreations that will last the time of the battles."
Phantom frowned. "I don't like having someone looking into my head, no matter how much they limit themselves."
"Yeah! Our mind, even the surface, is out of bound!" Slippy shouted.
"You could have at least asked!" Sweetie Void said.
Master Hand waved dismissively at them. "Sorry. Sorry. I won't do it again. Anyway." Using two fingers, he punched two holes in the fabric of space. "Mario. Cinderace. Pass these rifts to enter the arena. Victor, since you are Cinderace's trainer, you can enter too. But remember, only to give instructions and to encourage. No using healing items, no switching Pokémon, no attacking directly your opponent, no diversion..."
"I get it. I get it," Victor said before he looked at the rabbit-like Pokémon at his side. "Let's go, Cinderace!"
"Yes!"
The two then passed one of the rifts while Mario passed the other one, and the adversaries appeared on the platform that they saw in the image, on opposite end. The others were able to see that thanks to the screen showing them and growing until reaching the size of the screen of a movie theater.
Master Hand then grabbed a microphone. "Before the battle starts, let me tell you the rules. Your goal is to either knock out your adversary or to send them out of the ring. For precision, the ring isn't just this circular platform. You see the translucent barriers above and below?"
Victor and Mario looked up and saw the translucent barrier Master Hand talked about. They then looked down beyond the edge of the platform and saw another such barrier. With the platform in free fall, the barriers were moving down at the same speed.
"Yeah, we see them," Victor said.
"These barriers are the actual limits of the ring. If the fighters are sent beyond them one way or another, this is ring out. Normally, arenas will be entirely surrounded by these barriers, forming a cuboid, but since this arena has these walls surrounding it, then the barriers are only present up and down. You can perfectly bounce off the walls, there won't be any consequence. But since the platform is falling and the barriers are following it, I highly advise to avoid remaining on these walls too long if you somehow stick on them."
Yeah. That was obvious, Sweetie Void thought.
"To defeat your opponent, everything is permitted excepted killing. We are here to have fun, not to have a bloodfest. Thankfully, you will quickly discover that it is rather hard to die in these arenas of mine. You could be hit by a plasma beam on the face and only get a bad burn. Don't try to snap your opponent's neck however."
"Not that we intended to do it..." Victor muttered.
"There won't be any time limit. The fight will end when one of the opponents is knocked out or sent beyond the barriers, not before. Be careful, this arena may have a few surprises for you. Are the fighters ready?"
Mario nodded.
"Cinderace?" Victor questioned his Pokémon who nodded in answer.
"Good!" Master Hand showed his five fingers and began to use them to count down. "Five! Four! Three! Two! One!....... GO!!!"
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I know Sweetie and Kirby will limit themselves for everyone else, but what if they fight each other?
11340823
Then they will pretty much have a rematch of the first part of their fight before she used her Soul Form.
You misspelled Cinderace's name several times throughout the chapter.
11340850
Ugh... Yeah. I was getting tired. Fixed.
11340856
to the full team of Steam Fox passing
prity sure you meant star fox right there...
also
YAY
new chapter!!
also
YESSSS!!!~
we are into the tournament!!!!
Ah, I see that Master Hand wanted to keep things simple for the first tournament and went with it being single elimination. Along with forcing a power of two for the number of competitors. I guess he didn't want to take the time to seed everyone and figure out who would get byes in the first round.
In any case, this is looking to be an interesting list of fighters. I look forward to seeing where this goes!
While time is more or less unmutable because Sweetie Void, could Dialga just make a part of the Pokemon World go back in time? I'm thinking like "Prince of Persia" when the main character fall in a pit and used the powers to make the clock go back so it never happened
11340952
Thanks. Fixed.
11340962
Yeah, he didn't want to get worked up on this. This is a little tournament for fun after all.
11341119
Yep, it could. Rewinding, stopping, slowing, or accelerating time are still possible, like Link did during the Majora's Mask events. This wouldn't bring back Arceus however. ALL of it is dead.
11341197
yeaaaa....
cause that means that literally all parts of it are dead...which means that since it was omnipotent that the past versions of it are ALSO dead
11341197
True, but it could bring back the pokemon world to normal, and maybe resurrect some trainers and pokemon or heal them. I could think with the Rainbow Rocket battle, many places have changed with all the weather and transforming, it could not surprise me if new islands were made and some places are now under the sea, or cities destroyed by a storm or a fight
11341276
The thing is that this is thinking like a mortal. Let's use the almighty power of Time to bring back everybody and bring Sinnoh back to normal. Seems normal. But Dialga is not a mortal. Unless this is to avoid some apocalypse, it will refuse to do something that drastic, especially now that everything has settled. Yes, people and Pokémon died and Sinnoh was forever changed, but at least the world will go on. Also, rewinding time would also bring Team RR back to its full glory, and who knows what would happen after that. Too risky.
11341119
Arceus is the sort of being who exists everywhere and everywhen. Killing Him wasn't supposed to be possible, so the usual means of escaping death weren't set up in advance.
Interesting conclusion to The whole Team RR thing. Wonder what will come next.
How awesome would it be if Sweetie were to commemorate a tournament by singing Lifelight?
11342179
I have a special place for this song, but it won't be before a long time.