A/N: today's chapter inspired by -pyrotechnicalities 's Illusions and Lies

Screw you leo

-Em

***

"WE SHOULD GO TO AN ESCAPE ROOM!" Roy screamed.

"...We should also have an introduction," Marth noted.

"Who cares," Roy shrugged. "We should go to an escape room, it'd be fun."

"So Zelda, Claude, and I can do all the work for you?" Robin said, clearly annoyed.

The group sat in the sunroom, each enjoying a nice cup of hot chocolate on this snowless winter day. Not like there'd been any snow. Yet. Christmas was nice, boring, but nice. There wasn't much excitement to be had as of late, with that pandemic that didn't affect them in any way at all. Now it was New Years Eve. How. How the hell is it already the end of the year. That doesn't make any sense, January was three months ago. Absolute nonsense.

"Well not all the work! But most of it, yes," Roy smiled.

"Yeah how about no," Claude smiled sarcastically.

"I think it'll be fun!" Lucina said. She glanced at Dimitri, blushing. "It'd be a nice time to bond with each other."

"You act as if we don't tell each other dick and fart jokes 24/7," Palutena snickered.

"Shut up."

"Zel? You doing okay?" Link asked, noticing how dreadful she looked.

"Yeah, just... side effects... I think," she groaned slightly.

"Side effects from what?"

"I don't know. Anyway, I don't think it's a horrible idea."

"Count me out," Sheik said.

"Same," Samus agreed.

"You are so boring," Roy groaned, making the two glare at him. "Anyway, so we're going right?

"Doesn't look like there's much of a choice," Peach sighed.

"I think my throat is a little sore- can I stay?" Ike said, letting out the most obviously fake cough ever. The look he got from the others was confirmation enough that no, he would not stay. Dammit.

"What's an escape room?" Pit asked.

"You'll see," Shulk said.

***
quick a/n: I've never been to an escape room so I'm borrowing a game grumps episode for reference since unnus annus is... well... dead so I can't reference theirs

Enjoy
***

Immediately, the vibes inside the room were horrible. It was dark, messy, and just to make matters worse, it looked like a doctors office. Oh and there was blood coming out from underneath the door. The gang looked horrified as they gazed into the room. Maybe an escape room wasn't a good idea after all. Much less when it's 11:30 at night. What made Roy think this was a good idea, he didn't know. Honestly, he wasn't even expecting for there to be any escape rooms open, yet here they are. About to possibly step into their deaths. Fun.

"You are new recruits tasked with investigating the office of a doctor, where many patients come in, but don't come out. Your task is to find out what's happened to those patients and leave, all before the doctor comes back," said the owner of the place.

"If we don't make it out in time, will we die?" Roy asked.

The owner shrugged. "Guess you'll find out in thirty minutes." They then pushed each one of them into the room and shut the door behind them, locking it. Everyone looked at each other, then back at the door, then Ike and Marth turned on the flashlights in their hands.

"Well, this is nightmare fuel," Ike said as he moved around, pointing his flashlight at random things. There were sharp tools all over the floor, which were hopefully fake, and random splatters of blood on the walls. Again, hopefully fake. At one point, he pointed the flashlight at a heart in a container full of muddy, red water. To say the least, his heart might as well have jumped in there too.

"At least what happened seems pretty obvious. The guy's a serial killer," Roy said.

"No shit," Marth hissed. He noticed something written on a wall. Looked like a grid full of numbers, with some of them missing. "Zelda, Robin, Claude, do you have any idea what this could be- what are you doing?"

The Genius Trio, as they will now be dubbed, sat around in a circle, close to the door. Claude took out a pack of cards and put them on the center, leaving Zelda and Robin to shuffle and distribute them. "Playing Uno," Claude smiled, turning around to look at Marth. "We told you, we're not helping. It's about time you yourself start making smart decisions, don't ya think?"

Something about that struck a chord in Marth. And he didn't know why.

Zelda clicked her tongue and snatched the cards away from Robin. "You are horrible at shuffling."

"Well excuse me, Princess," Robin glared, taking off his glasses and placing them on top of his head. "Kinda hard to shuffle when I can't even tell whether I'm dropping cards or not."

"And you think taking off your glasses is gonna help?" Zelda asked, bewildered.

"I didn't take them off because of that! It's because my ears hurt because of the glasses/mask combo, so I'm taking off the lesser of the two evils," Robin explained.

"Why do we all have masks on? Corona, or whatever, isn't in this world," Claude wondered.

"Isn't corona the name of a beer brand?" Palutena asked.

"Pretty sure it means crown in Spanish," Lucina added.

"ANYWAY," Marth said loudly, hoping to rein the conversation back to whatever was happening around them. "Can you three, O' Mighty Geniuses, at least give us a clue?"

Claude groaned and turned around again, looking at the grid. "Sudoku. Whatever numbers are missing are probably the code for something."

"Thank you, O' Mighty Genius," Marth said, bowing dramatically. Claude rolled his eyes and turned back to the game.

"What's Sudoku?" Pit asked.

"All you need to know is that we need to find some numbers," Marth said, kneeling down in front of the grid. Almost all of the boxes were filled, with the exception of five. Should be pretty easy, hopefully. He started murmuring away numbers and weird calculations, not really paying attention to what was happening around him.

"Well ya better hurry cause we have like twenty-five minutes left," Link warned.

"Yeah, yeah, just start looking for something that might need a code," Marth waved him off then got back to murmuring.

"There's a locker here, with a lock," Palutena said, taking the lock in her hands. She moved it around in her hands, noticing how rusty it was. She hummed and used both hands to hold it, then pulled. Nothing happened. "Sturdier than I thought," she said quietly.

"What are you doing?" Lucina asked as she walked up to her.

"I feel like this lock could snap open any second if I just... pull... on it!" Each time she pulled, she could've sworn the lock got looser. That is, until it slipped out of her hands and she was falling. Thankfully, Lucina grabbed her by the wrist before she could fall all the way down. The whiplash Palutena got from certainly made her dizzy, but what made her more dizzy was when Lucina grabbed the lock, pulled it, and opened it like it was nothing.

She looked back at Palutena, and once she saw her confused face, she said, "Marth said the code while you were stupid. I had to do it with one hand, so thanks for that."

"Oh," was all Palutena said. She stood up straight again walked to the locker, opening it. She was greeted by a large lump of... something that was covered in a bag. It looked an awful lot like it could be a human body. And then it started falling. Palutena screamed and moved out of the way, letting the hopefully not real body fall on the ground. "Holy shit," she whispered. She then noticed a paper taped to the back of it, so she hesitantly reached for it, making sure to stay as far away from the body as she could, then snatched it up and read what was on it. "It says... more numbers."

"Does it look like they have a pattern?" Marth asked, to which Palutena shook her head no. "Great, so we're back at square no."

"Perhaps, and only perhaps," Robin called. "PERHAPS.... That's the code itself."

The others looked at each other and shrugged. Might as well give it a try, right? So now they looked around for anything that might need a combination. They looked through cabinets, drawers, all kinds of things. But none of them thought of the obvious...

"THE FRIDGE!" Roy suddenly shouted. Oh yeah there was a fridge in the corner of the room.

"We have fifteen minutes left," Link said worriedly.

"Good, I wanna get out of here, this place is giving me the creeps," Peach shuddered.

"If we don't get out of here by ourselves, we'll die, Peach," Roy said.

"Wait really?! I thought you were joking," Pit said.

"Why would I joke about that?" Roy said. Idiots, was all Peach could think.

Palutena walked over to the fridge and grabbed the lock that connected a chain that wrapped around the whole fridge. She input the numbers in and pulled, and to her relief, the lock opened and the chains came apart. She opened the fridge, immediately realizing it wasn't a normal fridge, but a passageway to another part of the room. Even from where she stood, she could feel how cold it was on the other side, and she could only fear whatever she would find there.

"Okay, so the guy is a serial killer, and a potential cannibal. Great," Palutena smiled awkwardly.

"I'm not going in there," Peach said, hiding behind Ike.

"It might be our only way out," Link pointed out.

"Let's go!" Roy cheered, with the utmost confidence. He ran to the fridge, gently pushing Palutena out of the way, and carefully made his way inside the room. It was covered in ice, and hanging from the roof was... "Never mind, screw this." He was about to turn back around, but unfortunately, Marth was already halfway inside. They bumped into each other, with Roy being the one to fall.

Marth looked around, completely expressionless. "Interesting."

"Well aren't you the sweetest," Roy groaned as he stood up, wiping imaginary dust from his jacket. "Didn't even help me up."

"What's in there?" They heard Peach say.

"Dead bodies."

"Oh."

Palutena and Lucina were next, followed by Shulk and Pit, though Shulk was covering Pit's eyes. He was still too young to see such disturbing things. Too young to suffer the cruel reality of the world. Even if this world was a made up one. Link, Ike, and Peach walked in together, though Peach was clutching Ike's arm for dear life. When she saw the first sack of guts, she shut her eyes tightly closed.

"I hate you, Roy," she whispered.

"What did I do?!"

"WHY'D YOU HAVE TO GO AND PICK THE SCARIEST ONE?!"

"WE ALL AGREED ON IT, I JUST SUGGESTED IT!"

"STILL-"

"There's a door back here," Link announced. They all snapped their heads at him, and sure enough he was holding a door knob. Salvation...! "It's locked. And we have seven minutes left."

"Seven minutes in heaven-"

"Shut up Palutena," Lucina said, lightly slapping the sly smirk off her friend's face.

And then they died.

But not really.

They scurried around the room, looking around for any sort of hint they could find. A key, preferably. Even The Genius Trio joined, but they weren't actually helping, as true to their words. There were three minutes left, but no signs of a clue.

And then, Dimitri, who had said nothing the entire time, randomly reached into one of the sacks and felt around the hopefully fake person's feet, until he felt a light metal object. He snatched it out. "I found a key."

Before he could say anything else, Roy snatched the key from his hand and bolted towards the door. He inserted the key, turned it, and...

"It's not opening," Roy said.

"We're gonna die!" Pit cried.

"Oh yeah, I found this box earlier-"

Link grabbed the box from Lucina's hands and threw it at Roy. It landed on his head but whatever. "Hurry up, we got a minute left!"

Roy hurriedly opened the box, grabbed the key inside it, and inserted it into the lock. By then, the entire group (minus the geniuses) had crowded around him, so when he twisted the doorknob and it actually did open, they all ended up falling, crushing Roy in the process. They groaned as they lifted their heads up, only to be greeted by the owner, with a party popper in their hands.

"Happy New Years, and good job on escaping," they said, releasing the confetti on the pile.

"Happy New Years to you too!" Claude said as the trio walked up to them.

"The fireworks have already started, you'll get a nice view of them if you go out now," the owner said before making their way back to the front desk.

"How amusing," Zelda said, helping Ike and Peach get up.

"You guys really can't do anything without us, huh," Robin smiled, helping Lucina and Palutena.

"Hey, we made it out in the end, didn't we?" Roy groaned as Claude helped him up. Despite getting crushed by several people, his back felt pretty nice, that or it was broken and he couldn't feel anything.

"Let's go see the fireworks!" Peach smiled, back in her spirits.

"Oh you must be so happy now that we're out, huh?" Roy glared.

"Duh, I don't wanna be surrounded by dead bodies," Peach said. "Now come on, let's go!"

The group followed her outside the building, and sure enough, all sorts of colors decorated the dark night sky. Red, purple, orange, blue, even a bit of green here and there. It was a sight to see, a sight that left them all in awe.

Ike tore away his eyes from the sky to look at his friends, smiling, "Happy New Years, everyone!"

"Happy New Years!" Everyone smiled and hugged each other, even giving out a few friendly kisses here and there. When Ike was about to hug Zelda, he noticed she was really pensive about something.

"What's wrong?" Ike asked.

She wrapped her fingers around her chin and furrowed her brows. "Did you see the owner at the front desk? I could've sworn I saw them going in that direction when we left the escape room, but..."

The sound of a chainsaw knocked all of them out of the happiness of the moment. They slowly turned their heads to the suspiciously dark alley the sound was coming from, and there they stood. Someone in a mask with glowing red eyes, and a chainsaw ready to chop people up. They lifted it up.

"Run!" Zelda screamed quietly, grabbing Ike's hand and running as fast as she could. The group ran away screaming for their lives that would unfortunately come to an end on the first day of the New Year.

Or so they thought.

The suspicious person put down the chainsaw, turning it off. They also took off the mask, revealing...

"That's what you get for coming to my escape room so late at night. Damn assholes."

Happy New Years!