Well, after taking entirely too long to write this and dragging my feet for weeks, I finally completed my part of the raffle prize.  FellFallow got the art done almost blazingly fast given the number of revisions we had her do (Thanks Fell) and we were also lucky enough to snag the last of her "semi realistic" pieces ever, so that was nice. Anyway, enjoy the art and the story that goes along with it. You can thank the raffle winner,  Aarpple for the idea. It was more difficult than I thought to keep this within the original bounds of 2-5k words, but I did it (coming in at just about 4.8k). Also, being as unfamiliar with Smash Brothers specifics as I am, this was an interesting writing/research opportunity. (Also do note, Aarpple isn't huge in the picture, I just had to be shrunk down a bit in the art for the composition to work :P Ah, the sacrifices we make for art XD )

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***

“Watch out! On your left!” the green and yellow wolf-fox hybrid barked as his character pummeled one of the enemies leaping up to attack him and his hopelessly flailing companion.
“I’m trying Aarpple, this isn’t exactly easy!” The large, feral dragon growled back as his orange-scaled tail-tip lashed in irritation. He’d chosen to play as bowser for the first few rounds of Melee when his friend had suggested they hook up the old system. He was big, heavy, kinda reptilian, and he breathed fire. Close enough to a dragon for Jarren’s taste. He was quickly coming to regret that decision. Aarpple had chosen the more nimble Ness, and that advantage in mobility and more versatile attack suite was paying off in spades. The folf’s efforts were the only thing keeping the pair from losing to the bots. These controllers are hardly dragon-sized, Jarren lamented as he, once again, missed his intended button press and swore under his breath as he tried to not accidentally break the fragile piece of technology.
“Are you even trying, Jarren? You’re gonna get K-O’d again!” The folf warned, seemingly effortlessly smacking the two enemies off the edge with a rapid flurry of button presses and joystick flicks. The stage was left empty apart from the two victors as the respawn platforms showed up over Hyrule temple again.
Despite the small victory, neither player could revel in it as Jarren, his claws ill equipped and ill sized to handle such a small controller, bumbled his character clear over the edge of the stage and down into the void below. A blast of blue from offscreen announced his demise.

Player 2 - defeated! the announcer called.

Aarpple did what he could, dancing Ness across the screen to try and fend off the two recently revived enemies. But alone and outpaced by the two CPU opponents, he was juggled, battered, grappled, and finally launched from the stage. Complicit in his defeat, perhaps, was the angry rumbling of the large dragon next to him. The growling of a pissed off dragon is a sound that can chill the blood of most and, even when said dragon is a friend, is more than enough to warrant one’s clear attention. Fortunately, the growl was directed at the purple piece of plastic gripped in his trembling foreclaws. The woefully undersized controller looked near ready to break at any moment.
“Mmmmaybe we could try something else?” the green glitch-folf suggested, a minor pixelated distortion running across the concerned canid’s face.
“Not a terrible idea….” Jarren took a breath and ceases the growling, taking a moment to compose himself. “It wouldn’t be so bad if those controllers weren’t so bloody small,” he asserted as he stood and stretched, sending Aarpple scrambling to his feet as the friend he had been leaning against was, quite suddenly, not there to be leaned on.
“Sorry, I brought the biggest controller I could find,” Aarpple apologized following his dragon friend as he padded away from the television and accompanying gamecube, a look of frustration still writ large across the drake’s muzzle.
“I know, it’s not your fault,” Jarren sighed and looked down at his taloned digits, “I guess these claws just aren’t made for holding a controller. I almost broke that one…. Sorry about that, by the way.”
“It’s alright,” the green folf chimed in. “It didn’t break, I don’t think.”
“I just got frustrated.”
Aarpple took a moment to think, contemplating their predicament. He had a way that he could get around issues like this, but wasn’t entirely sure if others could experience it too, or if it would be possible at all to even try with someone else. Still, he felt bad to leave his draconic friend out of the fun and in such a mood. The idea struck him that he ought to at least try to help. Even if it didn’t work, it would at least be something to distract his friend from his plight at hand.
“You know, I might know a way to solve that problem of yours…”
Jarren perked up a bit, ear frills fanning out a bit wider and his stance relaxing a bit as his expression softened. “And what’s that?”
“Well, you know these little glitchy things about me?” He pointed at his ear which appeared to pixelate the further from his head it got. Other patches of his body seemed to have a similar ‘affliction’ to them. Clusters of low resolution came and went across his fur and sometimes would simply dissolve into static to a few moments before snapping back into clarity. Even his left eye, it had not escaped Jarren’s notice in all the time he’d known the folf, bore the red “x” of a browser image that had failed to load.
“Yes,” Jarren said, “What about them?”
“Well, I’m capable of interacting with digital media like games and movies and such on a much more…direct level than you can with a controller.”
“Okaaayy….” the dragon humored him.
“I can actually glitch myself into the game,” to demonstrate, he dashed back over to the Gamecube and, with a snap of his fingers and flash of light, he seemed to dissolve into a cloud of pixels that rushed their way into the console through one of it’s vacant ports. For a second, nothing happened, then Jarren saw it. On the screen, in the character menu, a tiny, yellow and green canine appreard, strolling across the top row of character portraits. He waved once and, almost as quickly as he had vanished, appeared beside the television once more, the little, green avator of himself winking out of sight on screen.
“Just like that!” He announced with a bit of flair as his outline resolved again from the cloud of pixels. Jarren, dumbfounded, stared for a few moments more, glancing between the TV and his friend.
“Okay, firstly, how the hell did you do that?” the rather perplexed dragon asked, taking a seat and cocking his head to the side, expectantly.
“It’s…. Just something I’ve been able to do for a while. I was gaming one evening, there was a storm and…. I really don’t remember much of it. I saw a flash and woke up looking like this,” he gestured at the shifting, pixelated patterns along his body, “And I was able to glitch myself into some of my favorite games. It was terrifying the first time it happened but, over time, I learned to control it.” The Glitchy folf shrugged.
“Okay then… why didn’t you mention you could do this sooner? Why’d you even bother using a controller?”
“If figured it would be easier for you to keep up,” he shrugged.
“Fair enough. Now, secondly, it’s all well and good that you can do that but how does it solve my problem?” Jarren asked, circling back to the original issue of the small controllers.
“Well, I was thinking that I might be able to bring you in with me.” Aarpple stated matter-of-factly.
“Really?” Jarren asked “You’re sure?”
“I said might. I don’t know if it will work for, well, someone who isn’t me.”
“And this will be safe? Like, it’s not as if I’ll die for real if I die in game, right?”
“You shouldn’t, and you’ll have a lot more freedom in the game than you would as a one of its characters.” Arrpple was getting really into the explanation now. “There’s really not that many limits to what you can do, and it lets you have more options than you ever could normally! It’s great.”
Jarren was about to accept before he caught his tongue.
“And you’re sure you’ll be able to get me out with you, yes?”
The folf’s mouth opened in response only to shut again just as quickly. His face grew pensive as he thought.
“If I can get you in, I should be able to get you out. You’ll just have to ride along with me when I do it. You probably won’t be able to do it on your own. Assuming I can even get you in.”
“I’m not entirely sure about this…” Jarren said as his claws clacked against the cave floor, “You’re sure I won’t end up getting stuck in there? I really would like a guarantee that I can at least get out.”
Aarpple hesitated a moment before responding, and that was all Jarren needed to pressure him further. “You’re not even sure you can get me out again....”
“Sure I can… I-I’m just not sure how,” Came the folf’s response.
“That’s not exactly reassuring....”
“I’ve done it thousands of times. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
“I’ll need your word on that before I let you try this kind of mad technomancy on me,” the dragon stated flatly, pointing emphatically at his orange-scaled chest.
“Techno-what-now?”
“The word doesn’t matter. I need a promise from you that this will be safe.”
Aarpple stayed silent for a moment, foot tapping lightly against the floor.
“You have it. I promise you’ll be fine,” Aarpple assured his larger, scaly friend.
Jarren hesitated a moment, as seemed to be the pattern in this particular exchange. With a huff, he finally relented.
“Okay… okay, I’ll try it,” he strode over to the console and TV. “So, what do I need to do?”
“Well, really you won’t have to do anything. Just stand right where you are and…” Aarpple walked up beside Jarren, one hand outstretched and touched his shoulder. A few seconds passed where nothing happened. The dragon turned to his friend and opened his mouth to offer a suggestion but before he could speak the air around the two of them began to distort into a whirling cloud of pixels which came swelled to include them both. Where once the two had been standing, in a flash of light, there was nothing but empty floor.

***

As their vision returned following the ordeal of being forcibly shunted into a video game system the first thing that became apparent was that neither dragon for folf had adopted the resolution of the environment they were in. Pixels, hard edges, and flat textures abounded, now viewed from an angle never intended. Nor were they truly bound by the normal constraints of the game’s code and programming, Jarren found, as he stepped left and right out of the normal two dimensions of the game’s movement.
“Well this just seems like cheating….” the orange dragon quipped as he flexed his wings. In a moment he lept skyward and began to swoop about before returning.
“Well, it kind of is. We’re not under the same controls and limitations as the rest of these little guys.” Aarpple pointed at a small, brown, waddling mushroom creature. A goomba meandering it’s way towards the pair in a vaguely hostile manner, almost like a puppy trying to sneak up on its parent, teeth bared and ready to bite, but of little actual threat.
“So, that’s the first thing we’ve gotta fight?” Jarren asked, settling in low, like a cat ready to pounce. “I think we can take it.”
“Well, we don’t have to fight it…” but before Aarpple could finish his sentence the dragon had pounced upon the all but defenseless mushroom man and had begun to savage it. Teeth bit into the poor creature and it’s comically oversized feet flailed in vain as it was shaken and tossed aside. The unfortunate fungus vanished in a puff, leaving no trace behind.
Two more appeared, coming down the slope of the battlefield toward the pair. A quick blast of fire from the dragon roasted them both.
“We can just avoid them!” Aarpple called from behind, trying to catch Jarren’s attention and stop him before his rampage got out of hand and took him too far afield. Both the goombas were torched quite quickly, and a third which had just begun its descent of the ramp halted in its tracks. For a brief moment, a look of fear flashed across its face and it seemed to retreat a step. But still it plodded on, stopping just short of the burning patch of grass that had consumed its fellows. It couldn’t even scramble out of the way as the dragon swatted it clear off the stage, sending the poor thing spinning through the air and toward what would have been the screen had they still been using controllers to play.
“Jarren, wait!” Aarpple shouted after Jarren, finally catching the orange drake’s attention and he whipped around to look back toward his friend, an eye ridge cocked high in a questioning expression. The folf had noticed the hesitation the goomba had before it had strolled forward towards it’s fate. That wasn’t normal. “Did you see what that one just did?”
“You mean how it just walked straight into striking distance? Yes, I saw that.”
“No! I mean how it stopped. It hesitated. They’re bound to the programming of the game. They shouldn’t have any free will to do that…”
“Maybe it’s just an animation glitch,” the dragon practically trotted back over to his green-furred companion. “Either way, this is much easier than trying to use that small controller. I can actually fight like this!”
“I don’t think that was a glitch…” Aarpple said glancing toward where the creature had crested the rise. Another goomba was waddling it’s way in their direction. This one, however, seemed to have better sense than its predecessor. It turned and ran. Jarren tensed up to make another leap after it but his friend placed a steadying hand on his haunch before he could launch after it.
“Look how it’s acting…. That’s not normal,” he pointed after the fleeing goomba.
“So?” The dragon asked.
“So, that means something has changed, and I think us being here has changed something…”
“You’ve been here before. Hasn’t it happened to you?”
“No...” Aarpple trailed off, looking out along the length of the narrow stage they occupied. In the distance it seemed that the first goomba wasn’t the only one who had taken off running. A veritable stampede of the creatures was fleeing towards a tiny, brownstone castle in the distance, a flag waving just above it. Several koopas had joined them in their wholesale retreat to the miniscule fortress and, upon reaching it, they vanished inside.
“So, should we be worried about that?” Jarren asked.
“I don’t know. For now, let’s just keep going. There’s nothing in out way anymore,” Aarpple offered.
“I suppose,” Jarren agreed.Then he perked up. “Good opportunity for a speedrun.”
Aarpple grinned in response, despite his earlier concern. “Yes it is!”
“Hop on,” Jarren nodded towards his back and knelt so his friend could climb on.
Without wasting a moment the green, glitch folf leapt upon the dragon’s back and with a kick of his hind legs Jarren sent the, both soaring into the air, gliding right toward the distant castle.
Jarren tucked his wings close in to his sides as they approached, angling directly towards the castle entrance, left open by the fleeing koopas and goombas.
“Hold on, and stay low,” Jarren shouted back to Aarpple. Heeding the warning, he ducked just as they passed through the portcullis and emerged into…..
….nothing.
On the other side was simply a void. No features in any direction as far as either companion’s eyes could see. The sole occupant of the space was a floating platform, bereft of any apparent means of suspension. There was no sign of the other digital denizens who had fled into the castle ahead of them, either on the platform or tumbling off into the abyss below. Even the open portcullis they has flown through seemed to have vanished behind the pair. Aarpple clung tighter ot his dragon friend’s neck.
“This doesn’t look like where we were supposed to go….” Jarren commented as they flew towards the platform, the edges of which had taken on a purple glow.
“It isn’t. This is supposed to be the last stage you fight on in this gamemode. I don’t see the boss though,” Aarpple said, concerned.
“Well, looks like we’ll be making better time on that speedrun than we thought,” Jarren grinned back at his friend from over his shoulder.
“This doesn’t make any sense though. We haven’t changed anything about the game. We should be in the jungle,” the folf protested. “This really isn’t the jungle.”
“Then what’s happening? You’re the one who’s done this before. I’m just along for th-” before Jarren could finish his sentence he was struck from behind and sent tumbling through the air in a jumbled mess of legs, tail, and wings. Aarpple flew next to him, having lost his grip almost immediately. Thankfully, both landed on the floating platform, skidding to a halt just before sliding off the edge.
Jarren was the first to his feet, shaking off the sudden shock of both impacts and looking around for the source. Teeth bared and wings mantled around him he cast his gaze back and forth as Aarpple regained his footing.
“Okay, that really wasn’t supposed to happen. What is even going on here?”
“I don’t know, but something hit us,” Jarren growled. Then a sudden *snap* from far above the platform, like a small thunderclap wanting to make its presence known, directed their attention up and into the gloom. Looming starkly against the black backdrop was a massive, white-gloved hand. It snapped it’s fingers again, letting loose another of those thunderclap sounds
“So, that’s the boss?” Jarren asked, hesitantly.
Aarpple shook his head.
“Not for this game mode. That’s Master Hand. You fight him in classic not adventure.”
“Then why is he here?”
That question was answered at the massive hand began to trace a line of text in the air above them. Quickly it scrawled the words:

You should not have brought another. He does not belong here. You brought an unprepared outsider, so you have brought free will. Now, you will feel it used against you.

With that, the hand swept the glowing letter from the air and swept down at the pair, striking the ground between them. Both rolled aside and fled to the other side of the stage. Aarpple, in a flash, summoned two glowing orbs of energy to his hands and fell back to stand beside his friend.
“Neat trick you’ve got there,” Jarren quipped.
“Thanks. Pretty sure you can do something like that too,” Aarpple said.
“Don’t need to,” with that, the dragon spat a gout of flame at their giant, gloved opponent as it gestured tauntingly at the pair, until Jarren let loose a gout of flame at it, bathin the previously white glove in a cascading wall of flame and leaving it blackened, if only for a moment. In the blink of an eye it appeared just as pristine as ever and curled into a fist, sailing directly at the dragon who had just had the audacity to try and burn it. He narrowly avoided the blow, leaping up and over the hand. Aarpple, a step further back had managed to side step their enemy and let loose a hail of those glowing orbs, pelting the giant hand again and again as it circled back around. Despite their attacks, the tremendous, gloved appendage still swung at them, slapping, punching, flicking, and even attempting to grab them as the pair ducked left and right around their opponent or hopped clear over it.
The exchange continued for some minutes. The hand’s seemingly limitless endurance coupled with its freedom of movement left the dragon and folf little opportunity but to take passing swipes and attacks at it when it came close enough without getting hit themselves. Even still, the occasional blow would land on one of them, tossing them skyward, tumbling and struggling to regain their orientation and land on their feet. Still, the movements of the hand began to grow less and less vigorous. Maybe they were having an effect on it?
“I think we’re finally wearing him down!” Aarpple said, panting to catch his breath. He had summoned a home run bat to his hand when his energy attack had seemed useless and in the few swings he had managed to land, he seemed to have damaged Master Hand a more readily than before.
“Seems like it. He’s slowing down,” Jarren agreed dodging out of the way of another slap and delivering one of his own with his tail. “We’ve been fighting a bit dirty, though. There’s two of us, and only one of him. Plus, you’ve got that bat.”
“So?” Aarpple asked, landing another swing against their foe and narrowly dodging a flick from one of it’s fingers.
“So, we’re ignoring the normal game constraints, maybe he can too! Doesn’t he have a friend?”
Aarpple paused for a second after retreating out of the hand’s grabbing range. “Yeah, Crazy Hand…” Master Hand rose up above them and from his fingertips sprang beams of blue-white energy, lancing down across the platform surface as he moved his fingers. Jarren caught the worst of it, being larger and having a harder time hiding. Still, he clung to the stage surface for dear life.
“Doesn’t he normally show up once we’ve beaten on his friend enough?” The dragon asked, shaking off the effects of being zapped as he was. As if on cue, a shadow fell over the three of them. Erratic and just as large as the hand they now fought, the owner of that shadow loomed above them for a moment, twitching and writhing before it too came slapping down at the pair. Only narrowly did Aarpple avoid that being squashed beneath it, and Jarren’s tail took the worst of it.
“I just had to open my mouth,” Jarren muttered, leaping up into the air as the two hands came together in a fist bump fit to crush him entirely if he got caught between the devious duo. Aarpple landed a few decent hits on Crazy Hand before having to leap away as it spun around to swat at him spasmodically. He was able to get out of the way, but the jump took him perilously close to the edge where he teetered a moment too long. Master Hand, seizing the opportunity, surged forth and seized Aarpple about the middle, pinning his previously flailing arms to his sides.
“Aarpple!” Jarren called to his friend, trying to leap over Crazy Hand to intervene. All this got him was a backhanded slap that sent him reeling across the battlefield, landing on the far end of the platform. Before he could even try to stand the free hand was upon him. Much like its companion, beams of light shot from the gloved fingertips, but these didn’t burn. Instead, they coiled about his limbs and snaked across his hide and with them spread an odd tingling sensation. He tried to stand, and for a moment it looked like he would, but instead, the dragon’s body went stiff. Defiant of his will. The seemingly magical binds them disappeared, seeming to meld with Jarren’s scales and then, finally, he stood.
However, the will that drove him back to his feet was not his own, as evident by his staggering gait as he approached his friend who was still firmly restrained by Master Hand. Jarren, bidden by the will of his foe, marched up toward his helpless friend, looming above him. His eyes were frantic, but his bared teeth spoke of every ill intent.
“J-Jarren?” Aarpple begged. “Please, don’t. Snap out of it!”
His please seemed to fall on deaf ears as the dragon raised a claw as if to strike him. He held the cruel talons just above the folfs head, ready to strike a brutal blow.
For a moment it hung there. Too long a moment. Crazy Hand, giving another twitch, clenched into a fist and the dragon recoiled in apparent pain, his forepaw lowering as his orange-scaled body shuddered. Then he stood again and the claw rose once more. This time it fell without hesitation. Vicious talons lanced through the air towards Aarpple’s head. His head, however, was the only part of him not restrained.
Thinking quickly, the green folf tucked his chin to his chest just in time. Jarren’s claws swept just over the flattened tips of the canine’s ears, missing him by not even a whisker’s width. What he didn’t miss, however, was the giant, gloved hand that held his friend. Talon met soft glove and then, suddenly, Master Hand wasn’t so masterful. It recoiled and dropped it’s prisoner.
Finding himself free, Aarpple took his opportunity to strike another blow and threw the homerun bat he still held directly at Crazy Hand. Caught entirely by surprise, or perhaps too caught up in controlling Jarren, it was struck full force and drew back violently. In that same moment, its grip on Jarren’s mind faltered and with a shake of his head and a roar the dragon was free and promptly turned on the now stunned mind-controller. Aarpple turned his wrath on the same target. Jarren leapt upon the still reeling and spasming Crazy Hand and began savaging it with tooth and claw as Aarpple darted forward, retrieving the dropped bat.
“Jarren, get off it!” he shouted and with some hesitation, the drake complied, winging his way skyward as the folf brought the home run bat down atop the sprawled hand in a sweeping arc. That was all it took. In a series of small blasts and a echoing (for lack of a better term) scream, one of their gloved opponents crumpled and vanished. Now, only one remained. One that had suffered quite a great deal of damage at their hands and claws not too long before. Master hand practically cowered at the edge of the stage. All semblance of threat nearly gone.
“Shall I do the honors?” Jarren asked, teeth bared. “You got the other one.”
“By all means,” Aarpple assented.

It was over in seconds.

Some time later, the two combatants, victorious, materialized back outside the television, seated almost as they had been before taking the plunge into the game, the green canid leaning against the flank of his dragon friend. Both glanced at the controllers sitting beside them, on the floor and lost themselves to laughter for a moment.
“I think that’s quite enough for one day,” Jarren said, being the first to regain his composure.
“Afraid I’ll beat you again?” Aarpple chided, elbowing him playfully in the ribs.
“I know you’ll beat me. I just don’t think anything can compare to the immersion we just had.”
“Okay then,” Aarpple relented. “Lunch?”
“Now that’s a plan I can get behind!”