Shulk woke up. It was a cloudy day, so he was a bit late; the clock said it was 9:13. At least no one was expecting him today.

He rolled over and tried to remember the dream he was having. It was a weird one. The first and last parts were reasonable enough as far as dreams went: he was trying to learn left-handed swordplay from Dunban, but his sword kept turning into something other than a sword when he wasn't looking, and Dunban would get annoyed that he'd "given up" and give him terrible advice for that weapon. But in the middle, he was standing in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere, and a ton of beams of light were swirling through the sky. His dreams didn't normally do that sort of thing.

Well, he supposed there was a way to explain it - he dreamed of getting a vision of the future. He hadn't seen a single vision since he gave up the Monado, but the interruption seemed a lot like one. The thing was, even when he dreamed about getting visions, they were usually either least related to the rest of the dream or a memory of a vision he'd seen in the past. The strange beams of light were neither of those.

Shulk rolled back over and looked at the Smash Monado sitting in his desk chair. While its basic operation was much like the actual Monado, it was very limited in scope, and was basically a movie prop when it came to "real" fighting. It seemed very unlikely that it could give him visions.

I guess it's possible though, he thought. It does do those pretend-vision things for the counter move. But it still probably wouldn't work outside the stages, right? Guess I've never tried.

He stretched and rolled over again. The entire cast of Smashers was expected to be present for the introduction of the next set of newcomers in a week; he could try it then.

Shulk hustled into his house, doubled back to actually close the door, rushed upstairs, and started filling in a blank sheet of paper. He had plans to make.

It was three days before the introduction of the Smasher newcomers. Shulk had been gleefully minding his own business in the lab, experimenting with implementing High Entia materials science into Homs weapons, when he tripped and splashed a bit of liquid light ether on the floor. It combusted harmlessly, and the flash only blinded him for a second or two thanks to his safety goggles. But moments after, he saw another flash as a vision began to play before him.

A sphere of blinding light suspended in the unnaturally bright sky, surrounded by uncountable gloved hands and six white wings of rectangular rainbow feathers.

A blast of power, rippling powerful lines of light energy across the sky.

He couldn't deny it this time. This was a legitimate vision of the future, as impossible as that should be. And furthermore, he recognised Fox McCloud and Marth of Altea in the chaos of the light beams, so whatever was going on couldn't be in this world. Somehow, this was a vision of something terrible that was to occur to the Smashers.

As impossible as the whole situation was, he wasn't going to risk ignoring it. So, he had to plan.

"The first thing," Shulk muttered to himself as he referenced his affinity chart of the Smashers, "is to get the best fighters ready."

It wasn't going to be easy. Usually, Shulk would quickly warn his friends that he'd had a vision so they could get to work on stopping it as soon as possible. But he didn't fully understand the nature of this threat, so he didn't want to risk changing too much and having events go off in an unexpected direction. He had to keep things a secret until the last moment, while still readying as many people as he could. For that, he had to figure out who he could trust the most, and collect as many resources as he could to enable them to fight to their best potential.

He wrote out a list of all the Smashers, excluding the newcomers as he didn't know them, and started crossing out names. "No one who hates me. No bad guys. No dubious guys." He paused for a moment. "No one without experience fighting big supernatural things in the sky. No one who usually has an inconvenient plot role. No one who needs a vehicle to do their best."

The list was of reasonable size now. He looked back over it and considered how he could help them only minutes beforehand.

"Cloud...can he use ether gems as Materia? That would be cool, I hope so, because I have no idea where to get Materia. Kirby could use some Copy Essences, he must have some laying around the Mess Hall. The Links, they're usually equipped well enough themselves. The Mario bros, they'll want mushrooms and flowers, there's always some in storage. Ness I think is fine by himself? I forget how his PSI thing works. Pit has Palutena, that's all he needs. Samus always has her suit ready, or can put it on quick."

"That's...twelve, plus me. Should be enough to give us a foothold at least. From there we...we'll probably need to start reviving people quick from being trophies, assuming all those hands attack. Try and find Sonic first, he'll be a big help with the rest. Once it's all started the bad guys should be smart enough to realise we have to fight together, it happened against the Subspace Army so it can happen again."

With a plan in hand, Shulk started to calm down. It wouldn't be easy, but they would probably be okay.

A sphere of blinding light suspended in the unnaturally bright sky, surrounded by uncountable gloved hands and six white wings of rectangular rainbow feathers.

A blast of power, rippling powerful lines of light energy across the sky, bending down to the landscape and destroying all in their path.

A crack of blackness in the unnaturally lit sky.

A monstrosity of inky tentacles, centred with an ominous eye, crawling out of the rift.

The two powerful foes locked in combat, tearing apart the structure of the world as they launched opposite energies at each other.

Shulk half-tumbled out of bed and jammed his shoulder into a leg of furniture. It hurt a fair bit. He growled to stop himself from yelling and used Light Heal on his shoulder. The clock read 4:28 in the morning, but he was wide awake from the combination of pain and what he had just seen.

"New plan," he mumbled. "Now."

Shulk hastily shoved all the papers off his desk, lit the lamp, fetched a fresh sheet of paper, and unfolded his Smasher affinity chart. The newcomer event was in less than 30 hours - there was no time to lose.

"We can't fight this," he began. "It all happens too fast, and whatever that beam attack is, it's way too agile. And then there's another one, a dark one, that comes to fight the light one later. We need to run, to avoid the first wave and come back when the two are occupied with each other. So new plan. I need to wait as long as I can get away with, so it doesn't suspect anything, and then get as many people out as I can. And I might be only able to get one, it's hard to tell exactly how long we have. So who should that one be?"

A new list was written, and he started to cross Smashers out.

"No bad guys. No dubious guys. And no one with too big a grudge, or too many grudges. If they're the only one left, they need to be able to work with whoever they happen to find and save." Bowser. Bowser Junior. Dark Pit. Ganondorf. King Dedede. Meta Knight. Mewtwo. Wario. Wolf.

"No one whose first thought will be to fight. The first thought needs to be to run." Bayonetta. Cloud. Corrin. Donkey Kong. Ike. Link. Lucario. Lucina. Mario. Marth. Mega Man. Palutena. Pit. The Pokémon Trainer. Robin. Roy. Ryu. Samus (if suited). Toon Link. Young Link.

"No one whose first thought will be to protect or save someone else. They need to save themselves first." Pikachu. Popo and Nana. Rosalina. Sonic. Yoshi. Zelda. (Sheik? He wasn't sure if they were still the same person, he'd assume they were for safety.)

"No one who would need to drive or fly a machine to get away fast because they only have human run speed. Monado Speed doesn't work on normal vehicles, and I'm not spending it on just an average person." Captain Falcon. Diddy Kong. Doctor Mario. The Duck Hunt group. Falco. Fox. Jigglypuff. Little Mac. Lucas. Luigi. Mister Game & Watch. Olimar. Pac-Man. Peach. Pichu. R.O.B.. Snake. The Villager. The Wii Fit Trainer. Zero Suit Samus.

"No one who needs to teleport to escape. Newcomer events always have teleporter blocking devices set up to protect against the interference of so many new arrivals." Greninja. Ness.

"And ideally, someone who has experience fighting alone against supernatural threats..."

Shulk looked at the one name that had not yet been crossed out.

"...with a single eyeball."

Kirby is excited!

Kirby loves Newcomer Day. Kirby loves to meet new people. Kirby also loves to taste new people. New people do not always understand this about Kirby. But Kirby teaches them fast.

Kirby runs Kirby's Mess Hall. Kirby makes all the food for all the Smashers. Kirby is the expert in all food from everywhere. This is another reason Kirby loves Newcomer Day. Kirby loves to learn new food from new places and new people.

Newcomer Day is tomorrow. Kirby sees a lot of Smashers arriving early. Kirby always makes the best food for them.

It is lunchtime. Kirby's next customer is Shulk. Shulk is a young man from a place called Colony 9. Kirby has a lot of fun making Shulk's food, because Shulk will eat almost anything and say it tastes great. Kirby sometimes gives very, very ugly food to Shulk. Shulk still says he likes it. Kirby always laughs and Shulk smiles.

Because Newcomer Day is close, Kirby always makes favourite foods. Kirby gives Shulk a very bitter sandwich and a glass of milk.

But Shulk looks sad. Why does Shulk look sad? Kirby is worried.

Kirby says, "What's wrong, Shulk?"

Shulk was hoping no one would notice that he was preoccupied, especially Kirby. "Oh, uh...well nothing's wrong really. I'm just a bit distracted, is all."

Kirby wants to be cheerful to help make Shulk less sad.

Kirby says, "Distracted with what?"

"Well, uh..." Shulk knew that he could probably say a lot of things and Kirby would buy it. He wasn't stupid, he just wasn't very good at knowing when someone was lying. But as he was about to go in that direction, he had a better idea. "I was thinking about how your Warp Stars work."

Kirby says, "Why?"

Shulk shrugged. "I'm an engineer. I like knowing how things work."

He paused for a moment as he thought of a good angle. Did he want to mention that he was looking for specifics on the propulsion mechanism? Or was a more general path better to get Kirby's youthful attention?

"Sometimes it helps me make them better."

/ +♥♥♥♥ /

Kirby always makes a mess when driving Warp Stars. Kirby is excited at the idea of a better Warp Star.

Kirby says, "Great idea! I like engine-eering too! Here I'll show you my notes."

Kirby brings out a pad of paper with his Warp Star notes written inside. Kirby does not look like it, but he's very good with machines.

Surprised, Shulk carefully took the notebook and gave it a look. "Oh wow, this is better than I expected." Very messy and full of words that don't mean the right thing, but very detailed.

Kirby jumps into the air. Kirby loves happy surprises.

Kirby says, "I hope it helps!"

Shulk pointed at a page that showed the propulsion fields that formed the "engine". It might be tricky for him to make himself understood in Kirby's terms. "So this section here, the "want aim" part. How does that work?"

Kirby says, "It works the same as the rest of your body. You think where you want to go and how fast you want it to go, and it goes."

But this is a vehicle, not a body. Shulk repressed his first thought and went with his second.

"So it's like an extra muscle?"

/ +♥♥♥♥ /

Kirby says, "Exactly! It uses all the same parts as a muscle! You just plug it in by sitting on it. That's these plugs."

Shulk glanced over the "plugs" but kept his focus on the "engine". I might have to ask Sharla to be sure, but the propulsion field sure does look like muscle fibre. "That explains a lot. If you're only using a muscle a couple times a week, you'll never get as good with it as your own arms and legs, because they're always plugged in."

Kirby has never thought of this before. Kirby agrees.

Kirby says, "That kinda makes sense. So I just have to practice a lot more?"

"Practice always helps." Shulk didn't need to look any further - he was now fairly confident that Monado Speed would affect the Warp Star that Kirby would inevitably escape on. But his interest was piqued - he really did want to have a closer look at the rest of it. "Could I have a copy of your notes? So I can better look for improvement ideas?"

/ +❤ /

Kirby says, "Of course!"

Kirby runs as fast as he can to the copier room. Kirby then uses one of the most complicated machines to create a perfect copy of his notebook. Finally, Kirby runs all the way back to the Mess Hall.

Kirby says, "Here you go!"

"Thanks." Shulk was still somewhat amazed at all the technology that the Smashers bring together - not even the High Entia could fully duplicate a notebook in seconds, they could only scan and render a holographic stand-in. He hoped he had taken the right steps to saving them all.

Shulk being happy makes Kirby happy! Kirby moves on to serve the next customer.

A blast of power, rippling powerful lines of light energy across the sky, bending down to the landscape and destroying all in their path.

Shulk looked back to find where Kirby was amongst the crowd. About in the middle, next to his pal Yoshi. That might be a problem if Yoshi tried to grab Kirby and run away on foot; he was known to panic hard sometimes. But hopefully his talk with Kirby yesterday about Warp Stars primed him to think about that option faster.

He had to wait as long as possible, until the very moment the chaos began. He always hated having to wait for something he foresaw to finally happen. For most situations like this were it was only a couple seconds, he could throw up his defences right away, and the foe readying its attack would be too unfamiliar with what he was doing to know they were now being countered. But this giant thing was clearly exceptionally strong, and there was a huge amount of risk in assuming it wouldn't react to what he did.

Then, after what seemed like an eternity, it fired.

Shulk whirled around and fetched the Speed Conduit from his pocket. With the Smash Monado not having the same control of ether as the one he was used to, he'd gone to Alvis for advice on how to ensure he could get a use of Monado Speed out of it. To little surprise, Alvis unfurled a pre-prepared roll of material that he could attach to the Smash Monado, which would act as the ether conduit for one art. It would burn out after a single use, but that was all he needed.

He placed the roll at the hilt of his weapon and unrolled it upwards. The mysterious substance glued on effortlessly, painting a complex network of lines across the surface that glowed a familiar pattern.

Yoshi had indeed grabbed Kirby and begun to sprint away, but Kirby was also gesturing towards the sky.

"Monado, get him out!"

He swung towards Kirby, firing a streaky blue projectile that left a faint aura around its target. The Speed Conduit cracked and peeled like the lettering on an old storefront. No one else noticed anything - they were rather busy.

Kirby was now pointing upwards, with a tiny spark visible and approaching.

"GO LONG!" Yoshi hollered, stuffing Kirby into his mouth for a split second so he could spit him towards the incoming Warp Star.

It was hard for Shulk to tell at this distance whether Kirby had made it, but he did notice that after a moment the Warp Star accelerated like mad and vanished in a split second, chased by several of the beams of light.

I did what I could, he thought. Now it's up to him.