Pit loved to freefall. With his wings spread wide to prevent him from losing balance and flipping over, he felt like he was on top of the world. And, in a way, he was. Far above the ground below, he finally beat his wings fiercely to bring himself to a halt just above the clouds, and alighted gently on the cotton-wool landscape.

It felt good to be out again. The goddess had given him permission to correct the wrongs in the world, and he had thrown himself at it wholeheartedly.

A glimmer in the distance. He increased the pace and skidded to a halt in front of two trophies. One was familiar… hadn’t he been watching this moustachioed man take on the pink Star Warrior earlier?

As for the other one… he did not recognise her. She looked friendly enough, though, and it was in his nature to give people the benefit of the doubt. Pit stood between the two fallen fighters and touched both trophies simultaneously.

The red-hatted man got to his feet slowly, shaking his head. Strangely, the other trophy didn’t keep the same outfit when it revived. She was wearing more or less the same clothes as the plumber, which was confusing.

“Oh. Oh dear- oh!” Amber sank through the clouds, alarmed, and felt her foot stick out into nothingness. “H-help!” she whimpered. Pit grabbed her wrist and yanked her to the top of the cloud bank again. “I don’t th-think I can stand here- I’m sorry- oh god I hate heights…” She peered uneasily down at the shifting clouds at her feet, seemingly unaware of the glow that was passing from Pit’s arm to hers. It spread across her body, changing her clothes again. She realised at the last minute and squeaked in surprise as she found she was now wearing sandals, a long, flowing white robe and a shimmering golden wreath entwined on her head. And best of all…

“Oh wow. Wow…” She flexed her new wings experimentally and beat them once or twice, rising above the clouds a little. Pit let go of her wrist, alarmed. In a way, her outfit reminded him of Palutena’s… though perhaps it wasn’t as complex, it was more or less the same design without the golden trimmings.

“Wh-who are you?”

Amber blinked, lost concentration and dipped sharply before she remembered to keep flapping her wings. “E-ehh… Sorry if I shocked you. I’m Amber. Pleased to meet you, and thanks for letting me nick your powers for a bit.” She tested the clouds with her foot, but it just went straight through. “Maybe it’s because I’m not from your world, but I can’t walk here. I suppose I’ll have to keep flying…”

Mario tested the clouds where she’d been standing. They held firm underneath his feet. The girl could be right – after all, if he could walk on the clouds but she couldn’t, there was clearly a difference between them.

“Well, I’m a player character, anyway. Does that answer your question, Pit?”

“Uhh…” He thought back to what Palutena had told him. A human girl will aid the resistance against the true evil. For once, not a puzzling double-edged myth. A solid fact. Whether or not this was the girl Palutena meant was the only possible problem, and somehow he felt he trusted this person.

Amber tried a little spin in mid-air and felt her confidence growing. As terrified as she was of being so high off the ground, seeing the other two standing on the clouds helped her to relax, as if she had a soft cushion to fall onto.

“If you guys were attacked by the flying ship,” Pit interjected, avoiding her question; “it was going in that direction.” He pointed. The clouds along that way were scattered with dark purple. He shuddered. “I saw everything that happened at the arena. I’m starting to have my doubts that we should go at all.”

“Yeah. It would have to be the way with so many enemies.” Amber sighed.

Mario detected the unwillingness in her voice, and rolled his eyes. “Let’s-a go,” he called out, grinning as he tugged on the wings of both his new flying companions and took a running leap off the cloudy ledge and down into more dangerous territories.

---

Amber couldn’t remember the last time she’d dreamed at all, never mind so vividly.

A white blur. Blue lines. She tried to focus. It felt important that she focused. Extremely important. Life-threateningly so.

Her heart beat slightly faster and the girl rolled over in her sleep, nearing the dangerously steep edge of the rock. The ground was uncomfortable to lie on, but at least it was something. She couldn’t sleep on the clouds like the other two, and she envied them for it.

The blur sorted itself out into the shape of a hand, straining against blue threads which seemed hooked into its fingers. Something was wrong. This hand was powerful – somehow, she could sense it. But it was being restrained by something unseen.

The vision was being sent to her by someone. She shouldn’t be seeing it at all. Something about this dream made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. But who was giving this sight to her?

A flash of colour at the side of her line of sight.

Something was seriously, seriously wrong.

That rainbow spark again.

Numbers flooded her mind, as well as a deep-rooted fear.

Rainbow

numbers

too many-

“Amber?”

The girl sat bolt upright, hitting her head against Pit’s. Both recoiled, groaning in pain, and Mario looked on in vague amusement.

“Five… three… n-nine… what?”

“Are you okay? It’s morning. We need to get moving.”

Amber rubbed at her eyes tiredly and stood up, yawning. Her yawns were always impossibly wide. Pit backed off. Were they intimidating, too, or was it lack of dental hygiene? She dismissed the thought. She took very good care of her mouth, thank you very much.

“Sorry. I had a wacky dream.” Somehow, the word ‘wacky’ just didn’t work with a British accent. “It was all black except for a hand and some string.”

“Not sure I want to know,” Pit grated, and Mario chuckled jovially. Amber shrugged.

“Well, what can ya do? Anyway, off we go.” She stood up, beat her wings and took off over the surrounding clouds. It felt good to be moving again, even if she did feel bruised all over from the rough night on the rocky cliff.

“What’s-a that? Over there. See it?” Mario pointed as he ran to keep up with Amber. Pit nodded.

“It’s… well, it’s the same creature which dumped that bomb at the arena.”

“Call it the Ancient Minister,” Amber called back. “If you’re ever stuck for a name again, ask me.” Her voice started to be ripped away from her by the wind as she picked up speed. “Hurry up or we’ll miss him!”

Mario put on a burst of speed and Pit’s wings glowed blue as he accelerated. They had just about caught up to the Ancient Minister.

“Go!” Mario growled, making a daring leap for the bomb the strange figure was carrying and missing by inches. Pit saw his chance and used Mario as a foothold to boost himself even higher, but the Ancient Minister adjusted accordingly and he missed as well.

What the robed figure hadn’t been counting on was a third person.

Amber let out a cry of victory which soon turned into a strangled yelp as she realised she was the only one to have made it. The Ancient Minister struggled to compensate for the extra weight. Fear broke out in her mind and she felt her form shift suddenly. The clouds were left way behind and below them, as well as Pit and Mario. In her regular Pikachu form, she felt terrified. She shouldn’t have done this. It was rash. She could slip and fall. She might find some weird random trigger and accidentally activate the bomb or something! She might-

Amber felt a prickling sensation in her yellow fur, and with some effort turned her face upwards from where she was clinging for dear life to the smooth metal bomb. The Ancient Minister returned her gaze emotionlessly, its strange yellow eyes fixed on her black ones with the slivers of grey in them.

Pit’s voice broke through the vicegrip their eyes were locked in.

“Amber! You can’t let go now – I can’t catch up enough to help if you fall!” Amber was reminded of the fact that she no longer had wings, and broke away from the Ancient Minister’s stare just long enough to glance down at the gaps in the clouds, which revealed the ground - far, far below. “Just hold on!” Pit ran out of energy to fly and dropped to the cloud level. Mario slowed to a halt beside him.

Hold on… until when? Until the bomb goes off? Until I can’t hold on any more and I just fall to my death?

Her small hands scrabbled for a better hold, and reached the heavy clip that kept the bomb secured to the Ancient Minister. She clung on there, her ears just brushing the hem of the odd being’s green cape.

Strangely, there was heat emanating from it. It warmed her hands just to the point of being uncomfortable, and she slipped downwards a little. Was the Ancient Minister travelling via some kind of jet engine?

She regretted now never playing enough of this game to find out anything more about this character. No, this person. It was all real now, and she would have to stop thinking of it as a game. After all, her fear was real.

It felt like it was over an hour and a half before the Ancient Minister showed any signs of changing course. Amber became aware of their speed decreasing over a period of time, and slowly they began to descend. The clouds were scarce here, and the small island below was getting closer by the second. Eventually, the Ancient Minister came to a halt just above a desert. Sword clashes were heard in the distance, and they were approaching fast. The Ancient Minister loosed the bomb and it fell, with Amber attached, to the ground, where three strange robots were waiting.

No.

The Ancient Minister hesitated… and then dropped the bomb to the ground below. Amber had no time to dwell on this, but it seemed significant somehow. She felt a metallic claw close around her tail and gently tug her away from the bomb. She struggled briefly, but the robot lowered her carefully to the ground and merely put itself between her and the bomb.

There’s nothing I can do. I have to get out of here. She spurred herself into action, finding that she could run faster as a Pikachu than she ever could as a human. Amber could still hear the blip of the countdown timer in the back of her mind even as she got to be out of earshot. She knew it wasn’t far enough. She wasn’t going to make it. The bomb was going to explode again, and she would be stuck as a trophy again for God knows how long. She wondered where she’d end up next…

Something was up ahead. Three warriors, their swords creating sparks, fighting Primids of all kinds. She gasped as she recognised one of them.

“Meta Knight!” she screamed. At home, she’d always been told to tone it down. But now she was thankful for having a loud voice.

The knight turned to face her, confused as to how a small yellow creature with a bandana could both talk and know his name. Amber coughed as she accidentally kicked up dust into her face, but soon realised it wasn’t her who had done so. Her paws lifted from the ground. A horrible feeling of gravity pulling her in the wrong direction. She was falling horizontally, into the Subspace vortex. She curled up around her tail instinctively in mid-air and waited for it to be over.

The end never came. Instead, she felt a glove snatching her out of the air and cold metal against her side. Pulsing wingbeats.

“Ike! Marth! We must flee from this area!”

“What about the castle?”

“Right now, our lives are our main priority! Move!”

“Thank you,” came a small, breathless voice that didn’t match those of the hardened warriors around it. “I’ll repay the favour at some point, I’m sure…”

The small Pikachu lapsed into unconsciousness. One paw limply grasped a corner of the V-shaped section cut out of Meta Knight’s mask. The warrior took another look at the bandana she was wearing. Where had he seen that marking before…?