The Ultimate Battle Against Evil: Take Two.
"…And to be honest," Chris chuckled, "I was thinking about meeting as many characters from the 'worlds beyond the real world' with you…" He shook his head. "I could make interesting friends if I get to talk with any of them… but… now that I think about it…" Once again, he looked worried. "It's not like I CAN really make friends with the protagonists of the worlds in just one single conversation! It took me like a year to get you to like me! To them, I'm… I'm a non-playable character who will keep saying the same thing over and over again if spoken to…"
The Subspace Emissary's Worlds Conquest
is a Super Smash Bros. fanfic that is absurdly long and entertaining. It stars the OC Chris and Lucario, who embark on a quest to stop the Subspace Emissary from taking over all the worlds. Soon, the Brawl cast is slowly gathered and the spotlight switches over to one or two focus characters for each arc, so that you forget there's an OC running around that takes a lot of attention. Among the Smash Bros. fandom, it remains as one of the most dedicated stories of all time.
As the work implies many times throughout, it shares the Central Theme of its predecessor (The Bond Of Aura): solitude is a horrible feeling, but the people you spend time with are there to help you out.
At 4,102,217 words as of June 2018, which is the last time it's been updated, the story has become one of the largest works of fan fiction ever, and was sometimes claimed to be the longest single work of fiction ever writtennote , sparking attention from many media outlets. In January 2018, another fanfic, Ambience: A Fleet Symphony, surpassed it at 4,418,061 words.note Calling it a Doorstopper is probably an understatement.
Tropes found in this work:
- Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: The group is provided with their own personal shop (run by Crazy Hand) to obtain all sorts of powers. Common sense would dictate that they'd be given everything, but Master Hand discourages it and forces everybody to gain Smash Coins finishing worlds and fighting battles so that nobody becomes lazy.
- Adaptation Expansion: A few times does the story use this, such as giving Wes and Rui their own backstories to flesh them out or making Ai the main representative of her series.
- A Day in the Limelight: Each arc focuses on a particular character dealing with a personal issue. Usually, they get a partner from a crossover world rooting for them the most.
- Aerith and Bob: Bound to happen. There are many normal names being mixed with weird ones.
- An Aesop: Never feel alone no matter what.
- Alternate Universe: The "werehog" world where every Smasher is one. The cast is so horrified and disgusted that they forgot all about it for very good reasons the next chapter.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: Each game world has a different set of protagonists. On a greater extent, each Smasher gets a "partner" character in each world.
- Apocalypse How: A Class 0 on Nintendo City. It gets better once a village starts to grow.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Up to nine different Smashers who fit the criteria to visit a different world can go. This factor is usually accompanied by more specifics or even reduces said amount. Reason for this imposed requirement is because the author wishes to keep ridiculous character choices from meeting other characters that have no chance of having good chemistry with them.
- Art Evolution: The author is actually striving to become an artist and release artwork for the story himself. That picture on this page? He made it.
- Ascended Extra: Many second main characters from other games are promoted, particularly Quill from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Chip at the end of the Werehog Saga.
- As Long as There Is Evil: Dark Gaia will keep existing as long as Light Gaia lives. However, as long as both are keeping each other from going insane, all things will be kept in peace.
- Attention Whore: Chip clearly displays this when he rammed a battle tank into the mansion's living room. He gets beaten up for nearly scaring the living daylights out of Chris.
- Auto-Revive: A special skill they all have. It only works once per battle.
- Ax-Crazy: Dark Super Sonic, only when he's in full control of Sonic's body at every night. During the days, he's a conscience constantly mocking the hedgehog.
- Berserk Button: Do something nasty on Chris, and his Lucario will put you near death in less than five seconds.
- Benevolent Boss: Master Hand thinks he is this.
- Beware the Nice Ones: The less courageous Smashers fall into this.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Sometimes, characters stare flatly at "nobody in particular" after listening to a completely absurd idea as if they were trying to say "this guy is seriously not being serious."
- Break the Cutie: Many characters go through this a lot, especially in the Werehog Saga.
- Book Ends: Apparently, each 100 chapter batch is a disc. The author wishes to go for 400 chapters. On a lesser extent, each arc ends in its own set of chapters.
- Boss Banter: Insults and attacks are in high demand during boss battles.
- Bounty Hunter: The supposed bounty hunter that's trying so hard to finish sidequests before the Smashers can turns out to be Red Savarin.
- Breather Episode: The Mansion Chapters. Random events involve multiple Smashers doing something together inside the mansion or outside the village.
- The Cameo: Many singular characters from other games seem to take residence in the nearby village, not to mention the musicians living in the mansion.
- Can't Drop the Hero: Chris must absolutely go to every mission regardless of what happens because Master Hand expects him to bond with each single Smasher and unlock powerful moves.
- Can't Stand Them, Can't Live Without Them: Snake, Wolf, Mewtwo, and Meta Knight.
- Cassandra Truth: The Smashers roll their eyes to the idea that all of their universes were all created through Chris's world when Snake brings it up. They do get over this revelation and start bragging about their own games.
- Central Theme: The main focus of the story seems to be The Power of Friendship like its predecessor. However, it's not the power drawn out from friendship, but rather how valuable it is to have people by your side at all times when you feel truly lost.
- Character Development: Tons of it, most of the time making a certain character start acting mature.
- Chase Scene: Yuffie causes this in the Final Fantasy VII arc to an absurd degree, outrunning every single pursuer except for her scripted kidnapper.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Chris due to his knowledge of all the worlds he knows about.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Link is this, but he undergoes a very psychological issue with it in the Chrono Trigger arc.
- Climax Boss: One at the end of every arc.
- Collection Sidequest: Agitha's golden bugs. They all are scattered all over the universe due to Chip disrupting their ball.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Lucario can tell who is an ally/normal person from an enemy using his aura ability. Blue aura is nice, red aura is nasty. This does not work on robots like the Ancient Minister since they don't have a soul.
- Combination Attack: All characters can do certain combinations (a total of 3 each) only if they support with Chris. Anything unlocked through him can apparently be used freely by unfamiliar characters that have the means of doing it.
- Competitive Balance: Everyone can virtually become a killing machine if given the right skills. It's just that both Mewtwo and Lucario are in their own league. Even then, the restrictions put on each character balance everything.
- Continuity Nod: The story has multiple nods to every single character from their beginning and (chronological) latest games. The most brutal example is the Dark Super Sonic nod that was never resolved in the hedgehog's anime.
- Continuity Porn: Bound to happen since the story does have more than 40 main characters.
- Cool Airship: The Halberd. It's seemingly reclaimed back by the escape team.
- Counter-Attack: Several Smashers have this. The Monk job has this as a skill as well.
- Creepy Child: The "little Toad girl with pigtails" that appears out of nowhere on occasion to Mind Screw anybody who dares talk to her by talking about the laws of the universe and life itself.
- Curse Cut Short: Let's keep it friendly.
- Yet the author is now allowing this to happen without interruptions.
- Cuteness Proximity: Peach to all cute things. To a lesser extent, Chris himself.
- Darker and Edgier / Lighter and Softer: The story tends to shift between these two quite a bit in a dynamic way. In short, anything can happen.
- David Versus Goliath: The Smashers VS. Dark Gaia who is truly Dark Super Sonic having taken over his body due to having a stronger negative will. The only reason they can even hurt him enough is that he hasn't absorbed Sonic's werehog essence.
- Which leads to plenty of Colossus Climb.
- Deadpan Snarker: There are so many characters showing up that fall into this, but special mention goes to Soren for having joined the group because he found out that Ike died so he remained behind to keep Mist from ever finding out their dark secret herself.
- Death Equals Redemption: After finally getting his ass kicked, Dark Super Sonic starts to wonder what would've happened if he did manage to destroy everything and have nothing else.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: The Werewolf world arc, for Wolf.
- Demonic Dummy: Chris's Tokunaga doll. The same one Anise Tatlin uses.
- Difficulty Levels: The group can actually tamper with the difficulty of the missions. Higher difficulties mean more rewards and money. This also applies to the Battle Floor.
- Doomed Hometown: None of their hometowns is ever destroyed, but the one in the "Smash World" is.
- Door Stopper: As of October 2016, the story has over 4 million words and 220 chapters. It's one of the longest fan-fics on Fanfiction.net and definitely the longest Super Smash Bros. fic. That's over 17,000 words per chapter.
- According to several websites, it is the single largest piece of fan fiction ever written. It's a reasonable competitor for the longest piece of fiction written, period, against Henry Darger's 15,145-page In the Realms of the Unreal (measuring difficulties make it unclear which one is longer). It's more than six times longer than War and Peace. Hell, the 60,000 word prologue itself is longer than a few novels!
- According to several websites
- Driven to Suicide: The story adds a little more backstory to Shiki Misaki by having her do this because of her jealousy towards Eri driving her to deep end.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: The Melee characters and the in-game Lucario are killed off-screen.
- Encyclopedia Exposita: Just in case readers are unable to understand a crossover world and its characters, the chapters have entries explaining every important little detail they should know for the arc. In case one doesn't show up, it'll be most likely going to be explained by a character.
- Enemy Scan: The Scholar's Study ability. It can also shatter barriers as an added effect.
- Enigmatic Minion: The Ancient Minister is obviously trying to backstab Tabuu at the right moment.
- Ensemble Cast: A large cast done right.
- Evil Counterpart: The main theme of the Werehog Saga ala Persona 4 without the TV World.
- Foil: Many examples are everywhere.
- Foreshadowing: Right at Geno's final battle, he's the only one who notices Sonic having some body changes that he hides from everybody. It gets worse as Sonic's slow transformation into a werehog allows his Dark Super Sonic side to come out later...
- From Bad to Worse: A regular day starts off on a good note before Chris gets kidnapped by the Subspace Army. From there, the Smash Mansion is blown up by a special Subspace Bomb and the only ones who get out of trouble are Pikachu (who went back to Ash to distract himself from the utter depression from Pichu's death without even knowing what happened at the mansion) and a stray Riolu (whom Lucario tossed away just in time before the bomb blew up). Later on, the Ancient Minister's plans fail one by one: apparently, Mr. Game & Watch had a second copy made out of him as an emergency reserve for Shadow Bugs, and all the robots he told to board the Halberd to escape from the facility all went back to it without his intervention. Their escape is halted by Meta Ridley. The icing on the cake is Chris sacrificing his last life to save the Ancient Minister from the Halberd's cannon.
- First Kiss: Chris gets one from Maylene after having solved her conflict with her missing Lucario.
- Filler Arc: The Smash Mansion chapters between worlds.
- Global Currency: Smash Coins can work anywhere outside Crazy Hand's shop.
- Goldfish Poop Gang: The Bonne Family in the Mega Man Legends arc, especially Tron Bonne.
- Guest-Star Party Member: The characters that belong in each different world fall into this. On a greater extent, several guests who barge into the mansion are promoted to this if they nag Master Hand long enough.
- Hammerspace: Up to ten items can be taken around for anybody to use no matter how big the item is. This is immediately lampshaded.
- Heel–Face Turn: Wolf, only because the army left him stranded as a trophy in Kanto and thus wants to get back at them.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: And there are so many of them running everywhere...
- Heroic Mime: Both Links can talk and so does everyone who used to be this. The only one so far outside the cast who has feigned being this is Crono because he had made a bet with Lucca behind everybody's backs.
- Hidden Depths: Also bound to happen, but special mention goes to Peach being a yaoi/yuri fangirl of deviantart.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: Culex randomly appears at the very end of the Geno Saga and hands everybody's heads back to them in the most brutal manner, dooming Nintendo City.
- I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Mt. Battle is under siege. With a name like that, you'd expect bad things to happen eventually.
- Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: During the TTYD arc, the Smashers find themselves unable to do many mundane actions only because the game doesn't let them. As such, they can't even double jump and reach out for the Yoshi egg on top of the hot dog stand.
- Interspecies Romance: Peppita developed one for Fox, though it was one-sided for her. She ultimately chooses the I Want My Beloved to Be Happy route.
- It's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans: The Millennial Fair in the Chrono Trigger arc. Due to some hilarious-yet-dangerous results, it became razed from existence due to a Laser Bird Flock season.
- It's a Wonderful Failure: Geno doesn't take it too well that his efforts ended in failure.
- Job System: Chris' Special Ability, which also might alter his behavior. Later on, he can share his jobs with others.
- Joined Your Party: Used all the time, sometimes saying more than it should.
- Killed Off for Real: Chris, three times.
- For the sake of making things PRETTY serious, the story has canned Fox, Pichu, Ike, and Ness in the worst, yet dramatic, way possible.
- Not Quite Dead: This gets subverted later when Chris and Fox reunite in the afterlife...or rather, Shibuya's Game.
- Lethal Chef: The food is unwilling to cook itself for Fox.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: The party sometimes has two objectives that take place each in different worlds.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again / Other Me Annoys Me: The cast was morbidly frightened of seeing some of their bizarro-versions of themselves in the Night of the Werewolf chapter that they all decided to forget all about it. Though the author had made that chapter as a collaboration with another one and left a note saying that it wouldn't be referenced again to avoid giving it so much focus.
- Limit Break: The Final Smash attacks and the Combined Final Smash attacks.
- Limited Wardrobe: Averted for Chris as each singular job has a different set of clothes. It later gets averted for the Smashers with the inclusion of costume-changing titles.
- Lonely Rich Kid: How it opens, and we almost never see Chris' parents.
- Love at First Sight: It's a one-sided love at first sight from Wave the Swallow to Falco. She was so distracted by his looks that she swallowed the bomb meant to hinder Sonic's progress in the last race.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: The characters have gone so many places, even out of Nintendo. Mega Man and Final Fantasy VII are noticeable ones, but there have also been references to Persona 4 and many, many other games. The current list is as follows:
- EarthBound (1994)
- Metroid Prime
- Star Fox: Assault
- Sonic Adventure 2 Anime Form
- The Melee Universe, only because Master Hand wanted the only two characters to go fetch Roy, Mewtwo, and Pichu, seeing they were offed.
- Kirby & the Amazing Mirror
- Paper Mario (entire series)
- Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Anime Form
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon
- Pokémon Colosseum
- Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn
- Sonic Unleashed
- Sonic Riders
- Super Mario Galaxy
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
- Tales of Symphonia
- Tales of Vesperia (though the characters only wandered into the mansion)
- Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
- Mega Man Legends
- Final Fantasy IV, and to that extent, Porom's Tale from TAF.
- Final Fantasy VII
- Final Fantasy IX
- Final Fantasy X
- Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
- The World Ends with You
- May–December Romance: A very one-sided happens from Peppita to Fox. She does not take it well.
- Medical Drama: The pseudo-Trauma Center arc which only focuses on Naomi Kimishima and her team of inexperienced interns plus Dr. Mario.
- Never Found the Body: Partially invoked. The coffins with the four dead Smashers have been lost to the underground sewers and possibly to the sea itself.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Chris and Lucario get different powers depending on which world they're in.
- Though it ultimately falls on Chris as Lucario decided that his obscene Super-Strength was enough overkill. It gets deconstructed later on as now any character can learn whatever they can get.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Getting Dark Gaia/Dark Super Sonic to absorb Sonic's werehog essence only powers the monster up.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Don't go walking around with Shiki if you have a clothing malfunction. Neku and Fox learned the hard way.
- OC: Chris, one of the main characters.
- Ordinary High-School Student: Chris gets hit hard with this, and wishes he was this again.
- Parental Substitute: This is mildly invoked during the Partners in Time arc.
- Played straight when Lucario adopts a wild Riolu as his nephew.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Mewtwo and Lucario. The first controls his powers just fine. The latter does it too, as long as he doesn't snap violently and destroys every single living being and local landmarks within ten miles...
- Phantom Zone: Shibuya.
- The Power of Friendship: The only way of unlocking a Combination Attack is if Chris and a character understand each other very well. Sadly, screwing things up can block him from using one again till both sides are reformed.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Smashers. Becomes a whole lot sillier whenever they join forces with other groups temporarily.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: The extensive use of crossovers is only limited by the writer's knowledge of one.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Master Hand. On a lesser but much better extent, Mario and Meta Knight.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Each Shadow Nightmare to their originals.
- Rebellious Princess: Peach happily joins the team by jumping down the terrace from her castle, despite the fact Toadsworth yelled at her not to do it.
- Recurring Traveller: Crystal Chronicles' Stiltzkin. He also sells rare wares whenever called.
- Rouge Angles of Satin/Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: Quite common, especially in the beginning.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Peach and Zelda. King Dedede might be another example.
- Rule of Seven: The Smashers end up doing this a lot. Seven Star Spirits, Seven powerless Chaos Emeralds and Seven Temples of Gaia. They somehow feel that it's going to be repeated again in the future. To add more to the list, there's the implication that the dead ones will take part in three weeks playing Shibuya's Reapers' Game.
- Running Gag: Every universe and their main characters will always tell werehog Sonic that his transformation's explanation is "so overused nowadays," much to his annoyance.
- Save Point: Each chapter always ends with a "save file" to remind readers where the setting left and what characters are currently being used.
- She's Not My Girlfriend / Ship Tease: The cast definitely think that Link and Zelda will hook up one day. Both strongly deny it.
- Shipper on Deck: Marle can't just give Zelda a rest.
- Sidequest Sidestory: The Elizabeth sidequest story. It's not only a Call-Back to the game, but it also throws Theodore for good measure to add to the group's Mind Screw moments.
- Oh, Crap!: Pit is morbidly frightened of the two so much, especially Elizabeth.
- Squishy Wizard: Chris gears towards this role the most given the cast is seriously devoid of any magic users. That and he'll be safe from getting smacked in close combat, or at least that's what he thinks.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Pichu, Roy, and Mewtwo are main characters in the story despite not even appearing in Brawl before.
- The story also goes out of its way to spare some unfortunate people from dying. Namely, The World Ends with You Rhyme gets rescued by Fox when she's about to get killed.
- Straw Nihilist: The Little Toad Girl with Pigtails. Chris avoids her by now, but Marth brushes him off and tries to talk to her... He shortly returns without a single sense of emotion left in him.
- Superboss: A especially-designed Battle Floor in the mansion housing the universe's most chaotic bosses. The first one that bit the dust almost gave everybody nightmares.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Dark Super Sonic + werehog form = merciless bloodshed.
- Super-Strength: Chris's Lucario, due to being a legendary one at that. To make a point, he's over six-feet tall.
- Teaser Equipment: Crazy Hand's shop has some absurdly powerful equipment that cost a hell lot of money.
- The Stoic: Wolf, complete with a Defrosting the Ice King chapter.
- They Were Right There All Along: There are R.O.B. sentries spying on the group's every move from afar. The only reason why Lucario couldn't sense their auras is because they are not living beings.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: Master Hand has had many uninvited guests take residence in the mansion besides the Smashers. Those guests are Geno, Mallow, and Twink. Lucas, Dawn, and Barry. The Tales of Vesperia cast (
minus Patty). The Sonic reps minus Team Dark plus Chip. And lastly, Soren. - Verbal Tic: Averted...for Mario. The author thinks that writing an "-a" sound most of the time would become annoying.
- Yaoi Fangirl: Peach. She has spent one minute too many in Deviantart that everybody in the mansion is obscenely horrified of her hobby. Worse yet, they just don't want to yell at her because that would be reaching You Monster! territory.
- You All Look Familiar: The Diamond & Pearl arc has a hell lot of Lucario everywhere. There's Chris's huge Lucario, there's Maylene's insufferable Lucario, there's Riley's loyal Lucario, and then there's Cynthia's composed Lucario. Add the fact there's a valley full of them. Of course they all will look the same ( but not the main Lucario).
- Wham Episode: Oh ho, plenty.
- Chapter 74: Chris gets killed by Dark Mewtwo while three of his comrades argue their heads off during the first half of the battle.
- Chapter 130: Nintendo City is destroyed and Geno blames himself for everything.
- Chapter 143: Chris is slaughtered by Dark Super Sonic.
- Chapter 156: Fox lashes out on Peppita. She cries and calls him a moron.
- Chapter 182: Pichu, Ness, Fox, and Ike die.
- Chapter 196: Chris gets kidnapped by the Subspace Army.
- Chapter 199: A Heroic Sacrifice ensues with Chris sacrificing his life for the Ancient Minister. Earlier, though, a special Subspace Bomb consumes the Smash Mansion and everyone in it.
- Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: Whenever a character realizes something bad is going on to them.
- Will They or Won't They?: Fox actively tries to hook up with Krystal, but the two always are about to reach a romantic point until something ruins it for Fox in the end, much to his annoyance.
Read on, enjoy, and review, everyone.
