Chapter Text
In the Metaverse, Ren, aka Joker, stepped out from the door to his “room,” emerging into the endless hallway identical to the ones in the mansion, each door leading to a combatant’s Palace. But he wasn’t interested in any of them. The door he was interested in was supposed to be at the very end of the hallway… emphasis on “was.”
"What the hell?" Joker muttered, frowning as he noticed that the door that should’ve been at the end of the hallway was gone.
He ran quickly and touched the wall, hoping the door was just invisible and still actually there—but it wasn’t. He turned back and started glancing into the other Palaces, opening doors rapidly, thinking maybe the one he was looking for would reappear.
But it didn’t. The door remained missing.
"This doesn’t make sense. If the door to the announcer’s Palace is gone, that means..."
Panting, Joker exited the Metaverse and reappeared in his room, now wearing his school uniform. He rushed out and turned left, banging desperately on Byleth’s door.
He heard a mattress shift, grumbling from inside—clearly complaints—and finally a click as the door opened, revealing the Garreg Mach professor with messy hair, closed eyes, visible bags under them, and a loosely thrown-on nightrobe that left her underwear exposed.
"...Kid... do you have any idea what time it is...?" she said irritably, as the clock read 1 a.m.
"Forget the time!" Ren exclaimed, pulling out his phone and opening the Metaverse app. "You need to see this!"
Before Byleth could say anything, a horrible wave of vertigo hit her. She blinked, confused, and suddenly realized she was wearing her normal outfit again—and the whole world around her had turned red and black.
"...What just happened?"
But Ren—now back in his Joker attire—didn’t answer. He grabbed her arm and led her to the end of the hallway, where the missing door still wasn’t there.
"...Ren... did you seriously wake me up at 1 a.m. just to show me a wall?" Byleth asked, both incredulous and irritated.
"Listen first, then question," Joker said seriously. "You already know why I’m here: I took Rayman’s invitation that never arrived and entered the tournament in his place because I have a feeling something bad is going to happen, and that the announcer knows something about it."
"Yeah... I’m aware of that. And?"
"You also know I’ve come here—to the Metaverse—and checked the announcer’s Palace multiple times already without finding anything useful that could lead me to him."
"Yes, you’ve been updating me on all that since I found you talking to Arcane, or Arsine or whatever his name is. What’s your point?"
"The door that leads to the announcer’s Palace should be right here." Joker pointed at the wall. "But it’s not! And if a door disappears, that means the person it belongs to is no longer around."
Byleth immediately processed what was happening, her expression shifting from confused to alarmed as her eyes widened.
"...If the door isn’t here, that means..."
"The announcer is gone!" Joker finished for her. "The only person who could’ve given me a concrete clue about what’s going to happen—even if we don’t know when—is gone. If we weren’t prepared before, now we’re even worse off!"
"...Ren..." Byleth said, though she didn’t seem to have fully processed what she’d just heard.
"I should’ve broken into his office months ago. I should’ve demanded answers! How didn’t I see something like this coming?!"
"Ren," the professor called again, now more firmly.
"Whatever horrible thing is coming, it’ll probably be his fault! I should’ve known his Palace was just a well-constructed facade—"
Byleth shut Joker up with a slap when she saw that calling his name wasn’t snapping him out of it.
"Shut your damn mouth and listen already!" Byleth yelled, making Joker look at her wide-eyed while rubbing his slapped cheek. "You say the announcer is gone. How, exactly?"
"...What?" Joker asked, as if she’d just spoken another language.
"The announcer 'is gone,' but in what sense? Did he pack up and leave without us knowing? Has he been dead for days and we never noticed? Was he kidnapped? Saying he 'left' is, believe it or not, a very vague way of explaining his whereabouts."
"I don’t know..." Joker admitted quietly, gritting his teeth as his eyes drifted back to where the door used to be. "All I know is he’s no longer in the Metaverse. There’s not a single trace of his cognition left. That means he’s either no longer in the mansion... or he’s dead..."
"Before waking me up—by the way, I’m still mad you did—did you try looking for him in his office?" Byleth asked, crossing her arms.
"His office is always locked," Joker frowned. "I’ve tried before, back when the door was still here in the Metaverse, to sneak in, but I never got anywhere."
"Ugh, how convenient..." Byleth rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Look, we need to warn the others about this. They could help us investigate the announcer’s whereabouts, and then—"
"No way!" Joker shouted. "We’re not telling anyone about this. The fact that you believe something bad is coming is enough for now, but do you really think it’s a good idea to tell everyone the announcer might’ve vanished and that he was the only one who knew something terrible could happen?"
"Not telling them will just make them hate you later for staying quiet so long," the professor pointed out, frowning. "If you don’t say anything now, they’ll find out anyway."
"Byleth, don’t forget that before we even got here, most of them already went through a dangerous situation in another tournament. You do know about Tabuu, right? What he did? How it affected the others—especially R.O.B., who’s now the last of his kind because of Tabuu? Do you really think it’s wise to let them think something like that could happen again?"
"...Damn it," Byleth muttered with a frustrated sigh, looking away.
The conversation had taken a much darker turn than she wanted to handle at this hour of the night, but she couldn’t deny Joker had a point. Many in the mansion were still carrying trauma from the Brawl tournament, and a mysterious disappearance like this would only trigger alarm bells.
"So... what do you suggest?" she asked finally—tired, but thinking more clearly now.
"I need to gather information, and maybe try to get into the announcer’s room," Joker said with resolve. "I need to figure out what happened to him and where he went—if he’s not dead. With a little luck, I’ll find him before something truly bad happens. In the meantime, you gather your own intel by keeping an eye on the surroundings. Try to detect any suspicious activity and let me know if you spot something."
"Okay... that actually sounds somewhat reasonable," Byleth admitted. "But you don’t expect me to keep this a secret from everyone, right?"
"If you can’t keep it from Corrin, then tell her—but only if she can keep it to herself and help."
"And if she refuses to cooperate?" Byleth asked, folding her arms and eyeing him seriously. "Corrin is one of the most honest people I’ve ever met. She’s not the type to enjoy keeping secrets from others... especially not when those secrets might put someone in danger."
"I know," Joker nodded. "But she’s also someone who understands the weight of a hard decision. If you explain the situation like I did with you, she’ll understand it’s not about covering things up—it’s about preventing panic. And if she refuses... then don’t tell her."
Byleth stayed silent for a few seconds, contemplating that answer. Then she sighed and lowered her shoulders.
"Fine. But if I see this escalating... or if someone else goes missing, I won’t sit around and do nothing."
"That’s fair," Joker replied, glancing once more at the empty wall at the end of the Metaverse hallway. "This might be the calm before the storm. Only this time... we have no clue what kind of storm is coming."
Somewhere unknown, the announcer began to slowly open his eyes, groaning in pain from the sudden shock the Master Hand clone had given him back in his office...
Only, once they were fully open, he realized he wasn’t in his office.
He was sitting on something hard and solid. Upon closer inspection, he saw it was marble. His clothes were slightly torn, but he had no serious wounds aside from a bruise on his right arm and a light scratch on his cheek. He also wasn’t wearing his sunglasses—the ones he almost never took off, even at night—but chose not to question it. Honestly, in his current situation, dark lenses would’ve only made things worse.
He tried to move his hand to touch the bruise on his arm, but that’s when he realized his arms were hanging from the wall. Looking up, he saw them chained by the wrists to the stone behind him.
"Great..." the announcer muttered sarcastically, tugging at the chains with no success. "Either I got kidnapped for a cheap gothic roleplay... or this just got a lot more serious than I thought."
He tried forcing the shackles open, but they were tightly fastened, probably with a lock that couldn’t be picked without tools. He looked around more carefully: it was a cell, clearly old and dusty. He could literally see a line of ants moving in and out through the single barred window in the place.
Examining the bars on his own cell, he noticed they looked old and worn... and that gave him an idea.
He got to his feet and started yanking hard on the chains, gripping them with both hands to apply more force. After about two minutes of effort, he noticed the chain tied to his right hand slowly beginning to separate from the wall.
The stone cracked little by little with every pull, making a dull cracking sound each time he strained against the old wall. He was breathing heavily, sweat dripping down his face. The announcer gritted his teeth and gave one final, forceful tug with a muffled grunt.
CRASH!
The right chain tore loose, making him drop to his knees as his now-free arm hung forward, numb but functional.
"One down..." he panted with a half-smile. "Good. With both hands, I should be able to put my ex-military skills to use."
The announcer took a deep breath, feeling the sharp pain in his shoulder begin to mix with firm resolve. This wasn’t the first time he’d been captured... but it was the first time it had happened in what was clearly a place beyond known dimensions. Something didn’t add up.
"Where the hell did they put me...?" he muttered, glancing again at the small barred window.
Using his free arm, he fumbled around until he found a loose stone. It wasn’t especially large, but it was sharp enough to try something. He turned to his still-bound left arm and began using the rock as a lever between the shackle and the wall.
"Come on... come on, you rusty piece of—" he growled through clenched teeth.
With patience, alternating between pushing hard and giving his sore arm time to rest, he slowly loosened the other chain. The dull clinks of metal scraping against stone echoed through the cell. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of effort, the second shackle gave way with a loud CLANG, falling to the floor.
The announcer dropped to a seated position, panting but satisfied. Now free, he stood up and began carefully checking the wall, the bars, and the cell door.
The lock was old—probably predating even the existence of the tournaments. He pulled a paperclip from his pocket and bent it into a makeshift lockpick, working it into the lock until he twisted it just right. A loud click signaled the mechanism’s release, and the door swung open.
"Alright... now let’s see what’s going on here..."
The announcer quickly walked down the hallway of what appeared to be a dungeon, surprised to find all the other cells empty—as if they’d been made just for him.
When he reached the end of the hallway, however, he came across a door that didn’t look nearly as old as the rest of the place. In fact, it looked like an advanced automatic door. The moment he stepped in front of it, it slid open, leading into a different room. This room also had cells—but far more advanced ones. Instead of bars, the cells were sealed off with strange energy fields that couldn’t be passed through. He knew because he touched one, and although it didn’t feel solid like glass or steel, it didn’t yield either.
"Why didn’t they put me in one of these...?"
And yet, that wasn’t the only surprise: on the far end of several cells, he saw a sort of floating orb—one in each cell. The specific orb he was looking at stopped in place and stared directly at the announcer.
Narrowing his eyes, the announcer noticed a figure inside the orb... and eventually recognized it: Rayman.
The image was frozen within the orb. There was no voice coming from it, but the fact that it had stopped the moment it noticed him made it clear: the orb was aware, and it could see him.
"Rayman?" the announcer asked, confused. "I don’t get it... What’s a floating orb with Rayman’s image doing in a place like this...?"
Soon, he noticed there was a screen beside him, and as he approached it, he read the text: "Spirit No. 1285: Rayman. Universe: Rayman."
"...Spirit...?" the announcer repeated quietly, perplexed.
He ran a hand over his face, still sore, as he looked again at the cell with the orb projecting Rayman. He knew that the 71st fighter who was supposed to arrive at the tournament was Rayman, but the one who showed up with the invitation in hand had been Joker. That wasn’t against the rules of the tournament—the rules stated that anyone with an invitation to Smash could enter—and he had never questioned why Joker came in Rayman’s place...
Now he realized he had made a mistake by not investigating further.
He looked at the other cells and approached to read them: "Spirit No. 781: Knuckles. Universe: Sonic the Hedgehog", "Spirit No. 79: Pauline. Universe: Super Mario", "Spirit No. 867: Dr. Light. Universe: Mega Man", "Spirit No. 500: Rayquaza. Universe: Pokémon", and "Spirit No. 972: Mòrag. Universe: Xenoblade Chronicles" were just some of the spirits he found inside.
"This can’t be real... Galeem did all this? But... how? He was sealed in the jar, and the jar was sealed... Or was it... not?"
Just then, Mòrag’s spirit hit the barrier to get the announcer’s attention, and once she had it, she turned to face the door leading out of the room.
Confused but determined, the announcer headed toward the door. And when he opened it? He was horrified.
Before him stretched an enormous space, with many round platforms floating in midair. All across the room were Master Hand clones. How many? At least hundreds upon hundreds—maybe even more.
On one of those platforms was Master Hand—the original—floating completely still, chained with glowing blue magical chains. The announcer scowled at the sight, but then noticed a golden liquid descending from the ceiling, pouring over Master Hand before falling onto the platform below, seeping through, and emerging on the other side, slowly materializing into a perfect replica of Master Hand—only made of plastic.
The replica dropped to the ground without breaking, and shortly after, it became a living being. It floated up and joined the others as if nothing had happened. It was clear now: Galeem was building an army.
"I don’t believe this..." the announcer murmured, terrified. "Galeem must have somehow released his power—captured Master Hand and cloned him... and with the cloned Master Hand, came after me so I couldn’t warn the fighters... But what are the spirits for? The Master Hands aren’t possessed by any of them... unless..." He gasped—perhaps a bit too loudly. "The spirits he captured are just test subjects... He wants to do the same thing to everyone else who isn’t a fighter in the tournament because he plans to capture the fighters just like he did with Master Hand. And if he captures and clones them—he’d be completely unstoppable!"
The announcer took a step back, feeling an unrelenting chill race down his spine. Every cell in his body screamed that he was witnessing something that shouldn’t be possible. That Galeem, the entity sealed away for generations, had somehow not only escaped—but delivered a strategic strike that could bring the entire Smash tournament structure to its knees.
"And no one... no one has noticed..." he whispered in disbelief, his voice barely audible.
He looked around. The platforms—which he now realized were meant for the fighters—the clones floating like swarms, the replication process repeating itself on yet another Master Hand further in the distance. A production line of doom.
And then... something cracked behind him.
He spun around quickly, fists clenched—but what he saw was worse than anything he could’ve imagined.
Behind him floated an orb made entirely of light, surrounded by a set of colorful, crystalline wings—sharp and gleaming like glass.
Galeem.
"...Son of a bitch..." was all the announcer managed to say.
Just then, Galeem moved one of its wings, striking the announcer and knocking him unconscious again. Humming with energy, Galeem summoned a Master Hand. The clone approached, looked at the announcer lying on the floor, gave a small nod, and dragged him back to the dungeons to imprison him once more.
And as the Master Hand clone floated away with its prisoner, Galeem looked over its work. After so many centuries sealed and guarded by "protectors" far too incompetent, it was finally one step closer to reshaping the world to its will.
And this time... no one was going to stop it.
It would make sure of that.
Sonic was resting on a tree branch, feeling lazy, when he suddenly felt a strange tickling in his spines.
"Huh... I have a feeling something really bad is going to happen..." he muttered to himself, before smiling and stretching out to make himself more comfortable. "Nah! I'm sure it's nothing."
End of Chapter 90.