Snake in a Box

“OH MY GOSH I’M SO EXCITED!” Link shouted happily. The young elf was eagerly jumping up and down in anticipation outside of the doors of the Smash Bros. Stadium, where Master Hand was about to introduce the latest additions to the Super Smash Bros. team. “I CAN HARDLY CONTAIN MYSELF!”

Standing next to Link, Zelda rolled her eyes at her overexcited companion. “Link, please. Aren’t you afraid that some trendy new kid will take all your fans away, and no one will like you anymore?”

Link stared blankly at the princess for a while, then shrugged. “LINK STILL GETS NEW FRIENDS AND FIGHTING BUDDIES! YAY!”

Suddenly, the doors of the stadium mysteriously opened. Link immediately rushed inside, followed closely by the rest of the Smashers. They all came to a halt in front of a platform, where four unfamiliar figures stood.

“Hello, everyone!” Master Hand said, appearing out of thin air next to the mysterious figures. “I know you all are eager to meet the new ranks, so I will introduce them to you! First, Meta-Knight, from Kirby’s universe!” Everyone cheered as the strange round masked winged creature came forward and bowed politely.

“And next, Pit, from, uhh—from some old random game! Whatever! Everyone still loves him because he’s hot!” Master Hand announced. The young winged boy gave Hand a rather frightened look as he nervously walked forward.

“Now, Wario, yet another dumb character from Mario!” Everyone booed as Wario came forward. Wario cried on the inside, and made a note to write on his blog about how horrible his life was later.

“Next, Zero Suit Samus!” Zero Suit Samus waved kindly as she walked forward. She caught sight of normal Samus in the crowd, and smiled at her double. Normal Samus flipped her off.

“And finally—” But Master Hand was cut off before he could announce anymore by the mad stampede onto the platform to meet all the new Smashers. Everyone surrounded the strangers, all trying to talk to them at once.

Zelda alone remained outside the crowd. “What! Only four new ones?” she pouted to Master Hand. “And not a single new potential man whore for me to snog!” She suddenly felt a tap on her arm. She found Wario looking up at her with a sly grin on his face. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, Zelda set his head on fire.

“Oh-ho, but you are mistaken, Zelda!” Master Hand shouted loudly and excitedly. “This is only a preview of the new Smash Brothers! Why, there could be hundreds of new ones! Thousands, even!”

Zelda raised an eyebrow at the eccentric Hand. “Then were are they?”

Master Hand’s look darkened. “BUY MY GAME!” he screamed. “BUY MY GAME AND YOU FIND OUT! ONLY THEN!”

Zelda looked fearfully at Master Hand.

Master Hand growled threateningly. “BUY. GAME. SLAVE.”

Quickly scooting away from the large and dangerous appendage, Zelda accidentally bumped into something fat, ugly, and globular. She looked down to find Wario looking up at her with a rather scary smile on his face, holding up a bouquet of dead dandelions and lawn clippings. Zelda frowned disapprovingly and stabbed a hairpin in his eye.

Meanwhile, Link was talking excitedly with Roy and Marth, his two fellow swordsmen.

“I don’t know, these new Smashers are kind of boring,” Marth commented. Link looked at him, shocked.

“But Marth, they are so cool!” he declared defensively. “I so wish I could—” But something suddenly caught Link’s eye. He quickly ran to the very edge of the platform. Roy and Marth looked at each other and quickly ran after him, to be sure he didn’t hurt himself or anyone else.

“Hey, guys, look!” Link shouted excitedly. “It must be another new Smash Bros!”

Everyone quickly gathered around to see what Link had found. It was a cardboard box. Not just any sort of cardboard box, though! A cardboard box with the Super Smash Bros. label on it! So it was special and mysterious. And probably explosive.

“A box? As a Smasher?” Zelda asked incredulously. “That is so lame!”

“No way, it must be magic or something!” Link kicked the box. “Be magic, you dumb box!” However, the box stubbornly refused to be magic.

“Man, this box is useless,” Link grumbled. He took out his sword and stabbed it into the cardboard. He thought he heard a low moan from the inside. “Hey, what was that noise?” Link began stabbing faster and harder, to see if anything else happened. A red liquid began oozing out of the bottom of the box.

"See?" Link said. "I told you it was magic!"

Marth took a long look at the red liquid. “Link, I think that’s blood…”

Roy looked closely at the puddle as well. “I think there may be something in the box, Link,” he offered. “We should open it!”

“Good idea, Roy! Let’s open it!” Link agreed. Slowly, he and Roy turned the box over and opened the flaps. A gray-suited, unshaven man fell out, groaning and bleeding from all the sword wounds inflicted upon him. He clutched his chest, made an awful choking noise, and slumped over, completely still. He looked pretty dead.

“Well, he would be handsome, if he didn’t have a sword through his eye,” Zelda observed.

“Oops, my bad,” Link said, pulling his sword out from the man’s eye. He wiped the bloody sword off on the man’s pants. “Thanks, buddy.”

“Hmmm,” Marth mused thoughtfully. “The ID tag says his name is Solid Snake.”

“Wow!” Link said, poking at the body with the tip of his sword. “He must be pretty cool, because his name is an animal name!”

Fox looked offended. “Link, I have an animal name, and you never say I’m cool!”

Link punched Fox in the face, and then stole his lunch money. “Shut up, Fox! You’re so stupid and not cool!” Fox cried, but no one cared because he wasn’t cool. Stupid Fox! I hate him!

“Snake is so cool! He made Fox cry! Snake, you are my new best friend,” Link told the corpse.

“Link, I thought I was your best friend!” Roy said sadly.

“Not anymore! Snake is too cool! His attacks are so awesome!” Link said. Blood leaked out of Snake’s wounds all over the floor and Roy’s clothes. “See? He can bleed on people.”

“I can bleed on people, too!” Roy said defensively. He stabbed himself in the stomach with his sword.

“Shut up, Roy! You’re so uncool!” Link said. Roy began crying, but then he died after a while, because he had a large sword sticking out of his abdomen. Stupid Roy! I hate him, too!

“Snake, you are my official best friend! Let’s go do fun stuff!” Link said excitedly. He pulled up Snake by the shoulder and stood him up. Snake fell over with a dull thud and cracked his chin on the floor. Everyone looked at Link.

“He’s just too cool to walk,” Link explained. He shoved Snake’s body back in its box and pushed it along with his hands. “Wow, this is super fun! You have the greatest ideas, Snake!”

Marth and Zelda watched as Link towed the dead body around. “Snake’s pretty dead, isn’t he?” Zelda asked.

“Yes,” Marth replied. “Dead as a doornail.”

“Should we tell him?”

Marth looked at Link, having the time of his sad life with his new dead best friend. “I think Link needs any friend he can get, even if they are kind of dead…”

xxx

The next day, Link eagerly dragged Snake’s box onto the main room of the giant Super Smash Bros. stadium.

“We’re going to battle against Fox and Falco today, Snake! It’s going to be so awesome!” Link said excitedly. He carried Snake’s box up unto the platform and dumped the lifeless body onto the ground.

Fox and Falco were already there. They looked uneasily at the dead body.

“Uhhh…I guess we can start…at Final Destination, and two lives each sound okay?” Fox asked. He then down looked at Snake, his arms and legs bent at odd angles in a bloody mess on the floor. “Or, um, no lives…”

“Whoo, yeah! Let’s go! Snake and I are so going to school you guys!” Link said. Fox and Falco exchanged nervous glances as the battle began, and the platform suddenly transformed into the desolate Final Destination stage.

“Okay, Snake!” Link shouted, unsheathing his sword to attack. “ATTACK!”

Snake bled.

“Good job, Snake! Just keep doing that!” Link said encouragingly. Meanwhile, Falco ran up and trapped Link in a headlock, while Fox zoomed in to attack Snake.

“Bleed on Fox, Snake! Bleed!” Link shouted. “Go get him!”

Completely oblivious to Link’s shouts, Snake’s body remained in the same place and bled on the floor instead.

Fox kicked Snake’s body over the edge.

“Oh no!” Link gasped. With Link distracted, Falco managed to snap back Link’s head and flip him over the edge of the platform, too.

Snake reappeared on the field, dead as ever. Link appeared next to him a few seconds later. Falco quickly tackled Link and slammed him down underneath his body.

“Snake! Snake! Bleed faster, Snake!” a panicked Link shouted from underneath Falco’s bum.

Fox shrugged and pushed Snake off the platform again. Shocked, Link threw Falco off of him and jumped off the edge after Snake. “I’ll save you, Snake!”

Link was KO’d. The four fighters appeared back in the stadium. Link and Snake had lost badly, but Link didn’t seem too upset.

“Good job, Snake!” Link said proudly, giving Snake a high five. Snake’s arm flopped about disgustingly. “Snake’s pretty cool, huh guys?”

Fox and Falco exchanged looks. “Er, you may want to take Snake to Dr. Mario, Link,” Falco said. “He’s looking a bit…ill.”

“Aw, everyone looks like that after his first match! Don’t worry, Snake, you’ll be fine!” Link said, roughly slapping Snake on the back. Snake’s eye popped out of its socket.

“Oops…” Link said. Fox and Falco’s mouths dropped open in horror.

“Uh, that happens all the time, too!” Link said nervously. “Heh!”

“Link, someone had to tell you eventually,” Fox sighed. “Snake…is dead.”

“What!” Link gasped. He turned to the dead Snake and shook him violently by the shoulders. “Snake? SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!” Link suddenly began laughing hysterically.

“Ha ha, get it?” he explained to Fox and Falco, who looked a little disturbed. “They always say that in the Metal Gear Solid games after Snake dies! I crack up ever time! It’s great!” Link smiled good-naturedly. Greatly troubled by the Hylain’s masochistic behavior, Fox and Falco slowly backed away from him and ran as fast as they could out of the stadium door.

“Well, screw them! They don’t have a sense of humor, clearly,” Link scoffed. “But you do, right, Snake? That’s why we’re best friends, right?” For some reason, Snake didn’t say a word. Link looked over at his friend worriedly.

“Snake…you aren’t really dead, are you? You wouldn’t hide that from me, would you?”

There was only deathly silence.

“Oh no…Snake, we’ve been buddies for, like…” Link thought for a while. “…as long as I can remember! You can’t leave me now!” He began bawling. He wiped his nose on Snake’s bloody sleeve. “Snake? Wake up, man! Snake? SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!” Link chuckled again at his clever humor.

“Ha ha, wasn’t that funny, Snake? They say that all the time in your game…” He looked down at his friend. Snake didn’t laugh. Or move. He just bled more. Link looked severely offended.

“Snake, I can’t believe you didn’t laugh at my funny joke!” he exclaimed angrily. “That is so mean of you!” Snake didn’t respond.

“Well, fine! Just ignore me, why don’t you?” Link spat. Snake bled on Link’s tunic.

“Snake, we are so not friends anymore,” Link told the dead body. “I cannot be friends with someone who is so rude to me.” He stood up and kicked Snake’s body in anger. Then he stole the boots off of Snake’s cold, dead feet.

“Now that I have Zelda’s birthday present,” he declared angrily, waving the boots in front of Snake’s face, “…I want you to stay away from me! You hear me, Snake? I never want to speak with you again!” Holding the stolen boots in one hand, Link stormed off of the stage and out of the stadium.

Ten seconds later, Link burst back into the room, sobbing hysterically. He took up Snake’s limp body in a very touching embrace.

“Oh Snake, I didn’t mean those cruel, mean words! You’re still my bestest best friend!” Link blubbered. “Oh, please, forgive me! Snake? SNAAAAAAAAA—” But Link was cut off by a large, strong hand firmly gripping him around the neck.

“Sn—Snake!” Link gasped for air. “You’re alive!”

“Yeah,” growled the angry soldier. His eyes narrowed as he tightened his grip around Link’s neck. “I was having a pretty easy job of spying on you guys, until you decided to stab my box. Then I had to freaking play dead, too!”

“Heh heh, yeah…sorry about that, buddy!” Link tried to laugh, but his windpipe was being crushed by Snake’s strong grip. “Uh, Snake? When are you going to stop strangling me?”

“As soon as you promise never to make that stupid Snake crack again! I get plenty of that already, thank you,” Snake grumbled angrily.

“Yes sir!” Link wheezed out. Snake reluctantly loosened his hold around Link’s neck.

“Now give me back my boots.” Link obediently set down the stolen boots in front of Snake and slowly began to back away from him, lest he try to jump him or shoot him and eat his liver or something.

“Oh, and kid? One more thing,” Snake growled, glaring darkly.

Link fearfully looked up at Snake’s face. “Y—Yes?”

“Never, ever, ever touch the box. Got it?”

“Y—Yes sir.”

THE END