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“Wow!” shouted Claude von Riegan, starting the fic on an incredibly abrupt note. “We’re inside a video game!”
“That’s...impossible.” muttered Edelgard, her arms crossed as she surveyed the digital landscape before them.
“Cool.” said Dimitri, who is also here.
The three friends found themselves in a lush, expansive sea of plants. They bloomed in polygonal shapes, shimmering with greens and browns only possible on N64 Expansion Pak boosted technology. Somewhere in the distance, the sound of upbeat drums rang out, accompanied by wild animal calls as it rang through the 32-bit air.
“Oh no.” Edelgard whispered. She swore under her breath, horrified when the expletive came out warped and strangled...as if it was coming from a 1990’s era soundchip. Pressing her hands to the top of her head, she began to gyrate wildly, pacing in all eight possible directions as the hellish cacophony of percussion and monkey hoots got louder and louder. “Oh, no, no, no, no.”
“Umm.” Dimitri gestured at a two-dimensional banana floating in the air. “Is there a reason El is going…bananas?”
“It’s because I know exactly where we are.” Edelgard hissed. She fell to her knees, trying in vain to grab fistfuls of the entirely flat grass texture.
“This is Donkey Kong 64.”
The revelation shook Edelgard to her very core, and she was both surprised and disappointed to see the other two looking...utterly nonchalant.
“Okay.” Claude replied, his eyes slightly widened as Edelgard scooted on her knees towards him, “Gonna need you to explain why that’s worthy of such a dramatic move.”
“Because!” Edelgard was on her feet in nearly an instant, hands clasped over Claude’s shoulders as she tried to shake the substantially taller man. “I’ve played this game! I spent HOURS playing this game as a child! I know this level! I know these sounds! I know every inch of this forsaken place, and I have scoured it for bananas!”
His eyebrow raised, Claude looked less than impressed. “You...uh, 100%’d this game as a kid? And that’s made you...afraid of it?”
Rising on her tiptoes, Edelgard attempted to look Claude directly in the eyes, their noses nearly touching as she hissed out another sentence.
“Donkey Kong 64 goes up to one hundred and one percent.”
“I hate to interrupt Edelgard’s slow descent into madness.” Dimitri said, interrupting Edelgard’s slow descent into madness, “but I think we have a visitor.”
A lumbering light-blue shape approached, oddly teetering its way across the ground. It had a pair of bugged-out eyes above a buck-toothed grin, and its rectangular feet slapped alongside its flat tail as it walked.
“It’s...some kind of beaver?” Dimitri postulated, gesturing at the thing.
At the sound, it seemed to take notice, and the thing began to rush at them, sounding a bizarrely high-pitched battle cry.
“It’s a Gnawty.” Edelgard murmured, surpassing the shudder that arose in her at recalling such deeply repressed Donkey Kong Lore. “Stand back.”
Turning away from Claude, Edelgard stomped her way across the ground, tromping past Dimitri as she stared daggers at the screeching creature.
It waddled closer, its eyes unfocused and generally pixelated. Its arms were outstretched, as far as they could be while not actually able to move.
With a grunt, Edelgard drew back her fist, wound up, and unleashed the most devastating punch a woman in her mid 20’s whose primary hobby was card games could dish out.
The Gnawty toppled backwards, the motion of the attack sending it head over heels as it flopped backwards onto the ground.
“Buh.” grunted the creature, its final words before it turned transparent and faded out of existence. From where its corpse once lay, a rotating melon slice emerged from the aether.
“I have an almost unending amount of questions, but the most pressing, I think, has to be this.” Claude stared wide-eyed, running a hand through his hair. “Did Edelgard just turn a giant beaver into a watermelon with her bare hands?”
“That’s a health pickup.” Edelgard replied.
For a moment, utter silence reigned. Then the music looped.
“We need to get out of here.” Dimitri added. “I don’t know how many more bongos I can listen to without jamming those oranges into my ears.”
Edelgard straightened, shaking some stray pixels off of her hand. “First of all, you shouldn’t touch the oranges, they’re functional grenades. Secondly, don’t worry, I have a plan.” With a grin, she held up the still spinning melon slice. “And it starts with this.”
It was an ordinary day in Jungle Japes for Donkey Kong. Sure, King K. Rool had kidnapped his fellow Kongs, stolen his Golden Bananas, and parked a giant laser turret next to his home with the intent of wiping out all life upon it, but he would solve this problem by swinging, jumping, and collecting things, so it seemed alright to him.
As he continued through the wide-open level, picking up yellow bananas as he went, he noticed something rather intriguing mere vines (a unit of measurement used by monkeys) away. A melon slice, typically the sort of thing he had to flatten a few Kremlings for, was sitting in front of an utterly inconspicuous bush.
Never one to decline an offer of delicious fruit, the simian strongman ran towards the treat, picking it up in one paw.
“OK!” he bellowed, triumphantly.
At that moment, Edelgard struck.
She leapt from the bush, arms outstretched as she soared towards Donkey Kong. She gripped his furry throat, her fingers gaining purchase as he toppled backwards.
“Tell me, Donkey Kong.” she whispered. She locked eyes with the Kong, holding him down with all of her body weight. “Do you recall the Chance Time?”
“Hoohoo!” replied Donkey Kong.
“Edelgard, no!” Dimitri emerged from the bush next, his eyes wide. “You can’t kill Donkey Kong! He’s a mascot character beloved by young and old alike, a true symbol of early video gaming!”
“It’s the only way out!” Edelgard screamed. As he wiggled beneath her, she pushed down harder, her hair falling over her face. “To stop Donkey Kong 64, we have to kill Donkey Kong!”
Though the simian struggled, Edelgard’s will was iron, and her grip like steel. As his vision dimmed, Donkey Kong could only look helplessly into the eyes of this mysterious woman.
Something behind them burned.
Then, as soon as it began, it was over. As Donkey Kong lay on the ground, the mysterious figures disappeared without a sound, as if they had never been there at all. The ape rose to his feet, taking in the totality of what had just happened.
“OK!” he shouted, going back to hunting for Golden Bananas as if nothing had happened.
Her eyes stinging, Edelgard took a moment to wipe at them with her sleeve as she sat straight up. Slowly, she took in her surroundings. The room around her was dark and familiar, dimly lit by the faint moon in the sky. A blanket lay across her body, and the bed beneath her felt plush, warm, and real.
The figure lying beside her stirred, moaning slightly as she rose to a sitting position.
“El?” Byleth asked, her eyes lidded from sleep. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh...nothing.” Edelgard replied. “I just had a very strange dream...I think I had too many iced pretzels at Claude’s apartment…”
“I see. You need some real food. Hold on.”
Groaning, Byleth stood and walked unsteadily to a small fridge in the corner of their bedroom. She fished about inside of it, knocking boxes and bottles aside, until she seemed to find something that fit her exacting specifications.
“Oh!” she said, turning to reveal her prize.
“Banana!”