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"Zzzzz.....Remember kids, never buy marmalade from a guy in a top hat...zzzz....."
"Hey, get up! There better places to sleep than on the ground, you know!"
Gex groaned and sat up, rubbing his head. "Alright, alright, keep it down! That musta been one heck of a luau at Mel Blanks' place..." The gecko shook himself awake and opened his eyes.
He blinked. "Okay, this definitely is not where I went to sleep," he muttered. "Lots more gray, and a lot less of those little hot dogs with toothpicks in 'em."
Gex was in some sort of dusty army base, and kneeling down in front of him with a hand extended was something that was quite rare in his experience: a perfectly normal human being. Well, normal may not have been the perfect descriptor. He was dressed in some old-age fantasy garb with a fancy sword in his hand, AND his hair was blue. Still, a heckuva lot more tame than most other things he's run into since getting sucked into the media dimension.
"I'm Chrom," Blue-hair said, "and we'd appreciate a hand right now."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, mister." Gex stuck his hands out defensively. "You need to slow down for a sec. Who's we, and what's so important that you dragged me into this b-movie looking base?! I'm a very famous gecko, you know!"
Chrom blinked, slightly stupefied. "I'm sorry you're upset, but it wasn't me who brought you here! Me and my allies were hoping to destroy this base to halt the production of subspace bombs here. I'd explain more but-"
Chrom was abruptly cut off by a hellish metallic pounding noise echoing from past the door behind him, along with what sounded like....some kind of adhesive being peeled off? "Gods, there's no time! Here, take this," he shoved something into Gex's hands, "And get ready to defend yourself!"
With that, Chrom drew his blade and charged towards the door, and as he drew near...
clang
Clang
CLANG
The door burst open (quite literally) as a colossal metallic monstrosity leapt into view, knocking Chrom off his feet. It stood 12 feet high and looked like it weighed as much as a truck. Its fists could singlehandedly pick up a car and crush it into dust, and on its back, four mounted missile launchers were primed and ready. The head resembled that of a rhinoceros, underneath it's steely visor was a pair of baleful eyes and flesh, purple with rage.
And sitting right next to its armored feet was a wheel of tape, rolling and spinning in place eagerly. "Hah! Too slow, see!" And now it was chuckling in an old timey gangster accent. "And now Me N' Galleom 2.0 ova 'ere are gonna bust up yer swordy buddy real nice! Baddabing BaddaBOOM!"
Following up the rear was an even more motley bunch, presumably in hot pursuit. Some sort of....orange.....blob thing(?) leapt through the air with surprising grace, landing on a rainbow platform that materialized in thin air below its feet, before springing off feet first towards Tape, who barely managed to roll out of the way in time.
"Ey, I'm taunting 'ere!" If Tape had a face, it'd presumably be locked into a nasty scowl right about now. "Mind yer own beeswax, why dontcha!"
"$&@!," the orange thing shouted back.
"Whyioughta! No one disses my mudda' and gets away walking! For dat, you'll be sleepin' wid da fishes!"
"Not on my watch, evildoer!" A man with green skin, a squid for a head, and a rocking set of abs flew into the fray with a pair of bat like wings, before swinging a sword of his own at Galleom, who angrily tried to swat him out of the air. "The great and powerful hero Cthulhu doesn't let anyone lay finger nor weird tape appendage on his groupies! Also, I've slept with the fishes, for 100000 years in fact, and I know from those 100000 years of experience that it's very boring and uncool!" The eldritch deity's rousing speech was interrupted when Galleom predicted his movement and knocked him to the ground, but he soon leapt to his feet and struck a heroic pose. "Rally to me, groupies! This miserable office supply and his pathetic science project can't stop us if we all work together!
The sound of Exhausted panting flew down the hall, before a very short man in a wielding mask and smithing apron stepped through, leaning against the totaled doorway for support. "That's not hard for you to say, you big squid! You could have stood still for a sec!"
"Hey, strength and charisma of this magnitude waits for no one, Tinker Knight!" Cthulhu shrugged dismissively. "Besides, you could have used that mobile gear contraption of yours to give yourself a boost, no?"
Tinker Knight paused for a second, before sighing, defeated. "...right. Should have used my gear first." He then deployed a large platform with a gear-shaped wheel on the bottom, and as he hopped aboard, the platform ejected from the gear and propelled itself into the air with thrusters mounted to the bottom. He then flew towards Galleom and began flinging a barrage of wrenches into its eyes, causing it to roar angrily and attempt retaliation by morphing its left fist into a minigun and opening fire, forcing Tinker knight to weave around its shots as Cthulhu rejoined the fray. Tape rolled its way to the head of Galleom and attempted to mitigate the damage being inflicted by applying tape to its wounds.
The orange creature, forgotten up until this point, bounced over to Chrom and helped him to his feet. "$&@!?"
Chrom nodded. "I'm fine Q-Bert, thanks. But Cthulhu and Tinker knight need our help up there, and I'll need you to take me up. And him, if he's able." Chrom gestured back towards Gex, who for the first time in his life had been left speechless. Q-Bert nodded, and deployed some sort of yellow and purple spinning platform that carried Chrom into the air to join the fight in earnest. Q-Bert then deployed another such platform and turned to Gex, cocking an expectant eyebrow.
Gex shook his nerves off and manage to regain enough of his wits to properly snark. "Just gimme a second, nozzle nose." He then looked at the item Chrom had handed to him before Galleom had burst in: a letter, addressed to him, sealed with a mysterious but distinct insignia.
Gex groaned in comprehension. "Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me." He looked up to the sky, as if talking to the heavens themselves. "Y'know, if it makes you change your mind, I was kidding around when I was playing up my fame! Haven't had a proper game since 1999, honest! I've been living in cosy retirement down by James Earl Jones' place, and he'll definitely miss me, we have Taco night every Thursday. There's gotta be someone else you can drag into your most ambitious crossover of all time, right?!?"
There was no answer, aside from the sound of the ever-raging battle close by.
Gex exhaled, before shrugging, as if conceding. "Well I suppose it might not be TOO bad repping ol' B-N again. Irrelevant or not, I AM a celeb. Hopefully that ever-popular mansion fan canon winds up true." Gex tail-bounced to his feet and called over to Q-Bert. "Alright, Put me in coach!"
Q-Bert smiled (or rather, squeezed his nozzle together in a rough approximation of a smile) and kicked the platform over. Gex stepped onto the platform and cracked his knuckles and it rose, a single quip escaping his smirking lips.
"It's tail time!"