Chapter Text
The world turns dark. The beam becoming the only thing visible. Jeremiah braces for impact waiting for it to end when it shifts slightly barely missing him destroying the wall, it’s outline being the only thing visible as the rubble falls. As the color returns to the world, Darkness is seen next to Herbert, his arms on the cannon, his face in panic. His panic swiftly turns to anger.
“I told you we need him alive!”
“I got caught up in the heat of the moment.”
Jeremiah is suddenly shocked by Nic’s electricity while simultaneously being pushed down by Tiffany’s psychic force.
Tech Girl gets up and sees Jeremiah being pinned down. Instead of opting for her blaster, she puts a circular handle on it, twists it in place, and her eyes spark slightly as it turns into a beam saber. She makes the most unexpected move imaginable and rushes the guy making the barrier. A fireball comes at her and she slices it in half, her face full of determination reflected in the passing flames. Once they rushed past her, she sprints once more. The barrier guy is scared and puts up a barrier in front of him, but he’s too slow. Tech Girl jumps and grabs the edge of the rising barrier with one hand and climbs on top of it. Linda wakes up, sparks enveloping her. As she opens her eyes, she spies a falling Tech Girl slashing the barrier man. Tiffany’s barrier goes down and she gets back up and with no training runs at full speed, screaming, tackling Tiffany to the ground. This releases the psychic barrier leaving only Nic’s electricity. Being able to move, Jeremiah gets up and presses a button on the side of his helmet closing access to his mouth with a retractable blue panel with a glowing orange splotch. This reduces the electrical flow further as he gets up. Launching at inhuman speed, he grabs Nic and slams him into the ground stopping the current. The side of his suit opens up again and he grabs a light ball from his pocket. Nic takes the opportunity to pump him full of electricity but Jeremiah slams the light ball into him causing him to gasp for air as his shadow marking dissipates. Everything stops for a brief moment as Nic rubs his face where the mark was. “What hap-” Before he could finish his question, several minions rushed Jeremiah.
Herbert repositioned the cannon further down at a huge crowd of agents, charged, and fired. They weren’t so lucky as they were completely evaporated. Nic screamed, “What is this? WHAT IS THIS!?”
Time suddenly froze as Darkness started descending towards Nic. However, Jeremiah was unfrozen. He took the opportunity to leap out of the fray towards Darkness conjuring up his Light Sword and spins midair to slash him. This hurt Darkness but he pressed on. Jeremiah changed priorities and levitated towards the cannon. His right shoulder glowed blue as time unfroze. Darkness was right on top of Nic, Jeremiah was right on top of Herbert. Tech Girl slammed a flashbang. Jeremiah grabbed Herbert and tossed him off. Missiles came out of the crowd and hit him. As he started falling, Bowser Jr. with a helicopter bag apparently grabs Herbert and lifts him back up to his throne.
“Maybe you’re not so useless after all,” complimented Herbert.
“I am offended you ever thought that,” bantered Bowser Jr.
“I can’t hit him with the cannon but now I can hit the most problematic individuals. Keep him distracted,” requested Herbert.
“With pleasure.”
Bowser Jr. started descending as Jeremiah started using levitation to slow his descent before rising once more. Two mechanical hands came out of Bowser Jr.’s bag and clapped Jeremiah. He was dazed for a moment and a moment was all that was needed for a hammer to come out and hit him back down to Earth.
As Nic got back up, clutching his throbbing head, Tech Girl grabs his arm and yanks him away from the area. As his vision returns from the flashbang, he sees Tiffany wrestling with Linda with the former kicking off the latter. A hand came down where Nic was standing and grasped air. The hand was black as shadow so there was only one person it could belong to: Darkness. He screamed in anger. “Fine. Have it your way. Tiffany: destroy your ex-boyfriend.”
Nic’s heart metaphorically shattered, “Ex?” Tech Girl slapped him across the face. “Nic, while Tiffany is corrupted by shadow energy, she is not in her right mind. While her personality is similar, that is not the Tiffany you fell in love with.” She handed him something, a little yellowish-white ball. “That is the cure for shadow energy. That is your way of reclaiming her heart. Now go and win her BACK!” Nic was suddenly pumped and rushed in for two seconds before going into the fetal position prompting Tech Girl to slap herself in the forehead.
Head Spikey is launching fireballs at Bowser Jr. who is bouncing them back with tennis rackets coming out of the bag. He is running on all fours away from his own fire as Jeremiah kicks him in the face from below at high speed launching him only for the propeller to stabilize him. Herbert aimed at another group and started charging. Thinking quickly, Jeremiah rushed to the barrel of the cannon, leg glowing, and kicked the cannon away from the crowd before it fired destroying a good chunk of the wall. Many minions start firing at Jeremiah who dodges and says sarcastically, “Umm…you’re welcome.”
A mechanical hand hands Bowser Jr. a giant paintbrush and he paints the ground giving rise to an inky blob in Head Spikey’s shape. Head Spikey bared his fangs, “You have got to be kidding me.” It spat an inkball at him and Head Spikey jumped out of the way. One minion tried to stab him to no avail as he simply sidestepped and chomped on the trident breaking it in half. The minion looked at his trident in anguish as Shadow Head Spikey went to chomp on the genuine article as the real one shoots fire into its inky mouth destroying it from the inside making all the ink spew in every direction. While all this was going on, a shadow was passing by.
Tech Girl was fighting Tiffany with her energy saber but she is proving surprisingly athletic. A horizontal slash, she flips above her opponent to the other side. Every strike Tech Girl attempts to make, she dodges with grace. Linda is trying to help but her lack of combat experience makes her more of a liability as she is tossed aside like a ragdoll. Nic is sulking as a minion tries to stab him only to be shocked away. “Nic, can you get off your sorry sack and help us!?” screamed Tech Girl.
“But she doesn’t love me anymore,” whimpers Nic.
“Oh, for the love of-!” screams Tech Girl as Tiffany looks over at Nic and something comes over her. Seeing Nic in this vulnerable state stirs something within her as she hesitates for a brief moment and mutters the word, “Nic.” This was not lost on him as he gets up looking at Tiffany as Tech Girl takes advantage of the momentary distraction and hits her upside the head with a steel chair knocking her on her back. Linda questioned, “Ok, seriously, where did you get that?”
“I may have copied the technology for Jeremiah’s infinite storage pockets,” answered Tech Girl.
“But why a steel chair?” asked Linda unamused.
“Don’t ask!” yells Tech Girl.
Nic looks down at Tiffany’s face, her eyes closed. His eyes move towards the ball in his hands. Kneeling down, he grabs her hand with both of his pressing down the light ball into the top of her hand, her shadow mark dissipating. Her eyes open and she asks, “What happened?”
Darkness arrives at the cannon’s cockpit and enters a set of coordinates on the interface. “There’s a certain place I’d like you to target.” The cannon rotates upward as Meta Knight and Mr. Game & Watch reenter the Courtyard. The cannon now faces upward as a portal opens up darkening the sky. Everyone looks in the cannon’s direction and above as the destination on the other side fades in: a yellow realm full of disjointed platforms, the Light Realm.”
“No,” muttered Jeremiah.
Tech Girl sees this and immediately winces. She recognizes the place from a mission long ago and knows that Darkness hitting that place would be disastrous. She looks around for something to use when she spies Darkness’s Time Controller X. While normally, it would shield him from temporal changes, what if she activated it remotely? Sparks appear in her eyes as she attempts to interface with it. Something is horribly wrong. Her head hurts. Her ears are ringing. Everything is flashing before her eyes. The lush, natural environment of the Courtyard turns into a tunnel of blue circuitry and cables. It keeps flashing back and forth between the two until Tech Girl sees a humanoid figure in the tunnel. She screams in utter agony forcibly snapped back to reality, the whole ordeal causing her to collapse.
“Tech Girl!” screamed Jeremiah as he jetted over there to check on her.
The cannon finished charging and fired. Jeremiah rushed at incomprehensible speeds to the cannon creating shockwaves in his wake. He couldn’t take a single risk so he got in between the beam and the portal and attempted to block it with his Light Shield but that only slows it down and it starts to crack. Head Spikey rushes at Herbert but is intercepted by Bowser Jr. who simply claps him with his mechanical hands. Jeremiah’s eyes glow blue as the shield cracks and attempts to send the beam back with telekinesis but the force is too strong. It only eases the pressure off the shield. Tiffany recognizes what he’s doing and attempts to aid him and her powers far exceed his actually making some headway forcing the beam back a bit, but not enough. Linda checks on Tech Girl noting she’s out cold but breathing. Looking up she sees Jeremiah charging up a Light Blast as he dismisses his shield and turns into his Light Turbo Form increasing the output. Linda wonders if there’s anything she can do. Anything at all. Jeremiah fires, splitting the beam into two barely missing the portal hitting the edges creating holes in the sky. Herbert is not done yet. He reroutes the power drawing in more energy from the shadow energy core increasing the cannon’s output. This begins to force the blast back. However, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He looks at his side and sees Gary right next to him who places his Boom Box 3000 on him and activates it. It explodes knocking Gary back but leaving Herbert dazed and covered in soot before he falls out of the chair. Gary rushes over to the cannon and tries to turn it off but it starts flashing warning lights sounding alarms as the beam kicks up it another notch. Jeremiah was about to be vaporized so Gary starts turning away from the portal tearing open the sky as the Light Blast, suddenly free from the opposing force, rushes into the cannon’s barrel destroying it in an explosion knocking Gary out cold.
Everyone on the Agency’s side starts cheering at the cannon’s destruction. The cheers echoing across the Courtyard. The minions exasperated. The battle won. However, victory is cut short when something comes out of the hole in the sky and starts sucking up everything.