Interlude-Red and That Other Guy Inc.

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Marth propped his legs upon the desk and leaned backwards slightly in the folding chair as he stared at the ceiling. As he threw his arms behind his head in an awkward fashion, he wondered aloud, “Link, what do you think happened to Roy?” Link glanced up from his book of crossword puzzles and frowned at his colleague. “I mean,” Marth began once more, lowering his feet to the floor and sitting properly on the chair, “we haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

Link bit his lip, but remained silent as he twiddled a pencil lazily between his index finger and thumb. Marth lowered his arms and allowed his hands to drop to his sides, then blinked and added, “You know what? Actually, I don’t know why I should even care…”

“You should care,” Link replied as he set his pencil down within the crease of the crossword book’s spine. After a moment of hesitation, he perked up his eyebrows and stated, “Or not; it’s not really up to me.”

Marth smirked at his colleague. “I wish Roy was more like you, Link, instead of being a self-centered, idiotic pyromaniac.”

Link’s expression faded into a confused wince as he said, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were coming onto me.”

“Maybe I am, Link,” Marth replied, grinning slightly as he narrowed his eyes. “Maybe I am.” He hesitated, and his smile drooped into a frown as he returned his focus towards the desk. “…But, I’m not.”

“That’s good to know,” Link responded, breathing a sigh of relief. “I had a bad experience. Don’t ask.”

Marth held up a nervous hand and grimaced, “Don’t tell.”

Link frowned and then looked away solemnly. Marth rose from the chair to his feet and then swiftly brushed his side with the palm of his right hand. “Well, now it seems as if we won’t be getting any work today,” he stated, grinning to himself as he outstretched his arms. “That’s a good thing to know. Now I can finally head down to the salon for that appointment-”

“Salon appointment?” Link interrupted, abruptly returning his attention to Marth. “Wasn’t that a couple days ago?”

“Not when you work for Captain Dork,” Marth responded, scowling at the thought of Roy. “I had to cancel it and move it to today. That’s why I’m screwed if we do actually get a job to do.”

Link cocked an eyebrow. “Is a salon appointment really that important?” he questioned, setting his book of crossword puzzles upon a nearby end table. “Roy could be back any minute from his job.”

“ ‘Job?’ ” Marth recurred, dumbfounded. “Oh, great… that means he’s got something up his sleeve! God, why don’t you just kill me now?”

Link stared upwards towards the ceiling, and Marth hesitated in his speech as he eyed his colleague with suspicion. Subsequent to the awkward silence, Link turned his head to peer at Marth and stated, “He must be busy right now.”

Marth sighed and rolled his eyes. “It must be difficult to make time,” he began, folding his arms in irritation, “when…” He trailed off in his lecture, his eyes wide with embarrassment, and eventually added, “I’m not going to finish that sentence. Things are bad enough already for me.”

Link opened his mouth to speak, but an abrupt clamor from the door slamming into the wall interjected in his statement. He instantaneously glanced in the direction of the commotion, then lightly gasped when he caught a glimpse of Roy’s tattered state.

“That stupid Kirby-puffball loser,” Roy mumbled as he ran his hand over his dilapidated suit. He peered down at himself and then whined, “These grass stains are never going to come out.”

“I’ll get you another one as soon as possible,” Link declared, clasping his hands together.

Roy nodded and then grinned at Link. “Good, good,” he started, brushing one of his suit’s ragged sleeves with the opposite hand. He tilted his head to the side swiftly, forcing a sharp cracking noise to pierce the silence that followed, and then glared at Marth. “Well, well! Look who’s pissed off at me today. Oh, wait! It’s Marth… who would’ve guessed?”

“Stop that,” Marth sneered, his arms remaining folded before his chest. “You were out chasing Kirby for almost twenty-four hours!”

“He started it,” Roy hurriedly stated. “He took my soul, and I didn’t get a chance to catch the little puffball, so now what I want to know is what happens to me when I die.”

Marth unsheathed his sword and retained a furious grasp upon the handle. “Let’s find out…”

Roy shook his index finger at his colleague as if to indicate a wrongdoing to a child. “Don’t you dare,” he began, sneering. “Then you’ll have to clean up all the blood.”

“I can live with that,” Marth retorted.

“I can, too!” Roy replied, grinning smugly. “It might be painful, but I suppose I could live through it.”

Marth grimaced at his colleague, clenched the handle of his sword with ferocity, and spat, “Roy, you’re such an idio-”

“Marth, you’re over your incoherent babbling limit for today,” Roy abruptly interjected. “Get back to… whatever it is that you do around here. I seem to have forgotten already; must not have been too important.”

Link bit his lip with anxiety as he witnessed the petty argument between his colleagues. Roy placed his hands on his hips and directed a smug grin towards Marth. “After all,” he continued, “I suppose you don’t really need to have that important of a job, since I always seem to be the one who does everything - perfectly!”

Marth lifted the Falchion slightly and then thrust it at his colleague, halting it before Roy’s neck. Following Roy’s broadening smirk, Marth scowled and then retracted his sword, sheathing it into its holster and then glowering at his colleague in frustrated resentment. “You have utterly monopolized what it means to be an honest businessman!” he abruptly cried at his aggressor.

“Marth, are you blind?” Roy accused. “We’re not playing Monopoly!”

“That’s it!” Marth shouted in blind fury, pointing a condemning finger at Roy as he strengthened his stance upon the floor. As his eyes widened in rage, he forcefully swung his right arm outwards until it came to a resting location at his side, crying, “I quit!”

Roy raised his eyebrows in perplexity as Marth stormed past him and disappeared behind the doorframe into the hallway. He alternated sweeps on his suit jacket’s sleeves and then took a moment to hesitate as his colleague’s outcry settled in. He immediately bolted for the doorway, halting beneath the doorframe and extending his arm towards Marth as the blue-haired prince trampled down the hallway in irritation. “I don’t need you, either!” Roy cried after his colleague. He glanced into the room at Link and then sneered, “Get over here, or you’re fired!”

Link did as was requested of him and stood beside Roy in the hallway facing the direction in which Marth had disappeared. “Roy…?” he sputtered, turning his head to stare confusedly at his colleague.

“Shut up!” Roy spat, frustrated that Marth was now out of his sight. He returned the glance at Link and then continued irately, “Join me in shaking my fist angrily at Marth!”

Link hesitated at first, then raised his hand nervously to chest level and slowly clenched it into a loose fist. He shook his hand slightly and then raised a curious eyebrow as he turned his head to eye Roy. The furious Roy merely continued to grimace as he lowered his fist and then allowed his arm to descend to his side. Link did the same, and then timidly asked, “Roy, what are we going to do now?” He paused to glance past Roy at the open doorway to Marth’s room, and then added, “Now that Marth has quit-”

“He’ll come crawling back,” Roy interrupted, narrowing his eyes, his vacant stare remaining fixed in an unknown location towards the end of the hallway. “Crawling back. Or, maybe walking… but, probably crawling.”

Link shook his head and frowned disgustedly in Roy’s direction. “I know I barely ever speak up,” he began, “but there’s no way I’m going to work with just you.”

Roy held his chin up and glared down at Link with irritation. “Why not?” he questioned, scowling.

“Because people will think we-”

“Look stupid?” Roy interjected as he further enforced his scowl. “No, they won’t! Don’t get your panties in a knot, Link! …Please.”

Link hesitated and then muttered, “Yeah, we’ll go with that.”

Roy glanced once down the opposite direction of the hallway and then returned his focus to Link. “It’s just like I’ve said before,” he stated, elevating his hand into an awkward gesture, “we don’t need Marth! He’s just been a pansy who’s brought this company down from day one.”

“Day one was a few days ago,” Link replied, biting his lip nervously, “and Marth helped on day one.”

Roy shook his head and shot an accusing glance at Link. “Stop living in the past, Link,” he spat. He sneered once at his colleague and then turned around to proceed into Marth’s room. He strolled casually to his desk and then lazily took a seat on the folding chair behind it. He casually propped his legs upon the desk and threw his arms behind his head to accompany his developing grin. “Just you wait until somebody calls,” Roy assured, shutting one eye and staring at his colleague smugly, “then we’ll be back in business like nothing ever happened.”

An awkward silence followed. Link took several cautious steps inside the room and then halted near the psychiatric couch. He glared at Roy in confusion, and began to blink gawkily. Roy’s smug smirk faded, and then he lowered his feet to the ground and let his arms plummet to his sides as he sat up straight in the chair. He glanced around the room in annoyance, and then shifted his livid attention to Link. “It’s going to ring any minute,” he assured his colleague as he sharply pointed at the telephone sitting atop his desk. “It’s just having a bad day.”

Link neglected to reply to Roy’s confidence. “I don’t think we’re going to have any work today,” he responded after a lengthy hesitation.

“What makes you say that?” Roy asked confusedly.

Link shrugged and stared down at his questioner. “Call it a side effect of the schizophrenia.”

“I’d rather not,” Roy replied, “because that sounds ridiculously stupid…”

“And redundant,” Link interjected.

Roy rose from the chair and shot a fierce glance at his colleague. “Do not finish my sentences for me unless I give you permission!” he accusingly shouted.

“You told me that was my job,” Link responded, an apprehensive shudder overlapping his voice.

Roy paused and then smirked. “Sorry, I guess I’m so used to yelling at Marth about these things,” he said, nonchalantly shrugging as he raised his eyebrows. Then, his smile once again faded into a frown of discontent as he muttered, “We don’t need Marth.”

---

“We need Marth.”

Roy had been lazily laying his head on his folded arms in a careless fashion upon his desk as he stared at the telephone. Finally, he lifted his head from its resting position and scowled down at the object in frustration. “Damn him and his pretty-boy status,” Roy sneered.

“It’s a blessing and a curse,” Link replied, nodding in solemn agreement.

Roy looked up at Link and then sighed. “We haven’t gotten a call all day, just because Marth isn’t here. H-How does that work?”

Link glanced at the watch on his wrist and sputtered, “Uhh… Roy? We’ve only been waiting for an hour.”

“Tempus… something,” Roy muttered. “Bah, foreign languages are stupid, anyway.”

“Roy?” Link nervously began. “I hate to be the one to tell you this at the risk of being yelled at, but you speak a foreign language.”

Roy rose from his chair and then tapped his finger on his chin as he thought, ignoring Link’s comment altogether. “If we can get that pansy Marth to come back without making a compromise, then maybe we can make some money.”

“How?” Link asked.

Roy turned his head to glower at his friend. “Because, if we can get Marth to come back and be our poster child, then people will hire us more often, and then they can help me on which words to stress when I speak.”

Link remained silent for a moment as he returned Roy’s vacant gaze. “By God,” he eventually began, “that’s a brilliant plan.”

Roy nodded in smug confidence, and then halted to overview his previous statement. “Err, I suppose Marth wouldn’t be a poster child, but more of a… umm…”

Link hesitated and then added, “Mascot?”

“Mascot?” Roy repeated as a flabbergasted expression appeared carelessly upon his face. “Marth? No way! He’s not mascot material. Come to think of it, he really is a poster child.” After receiving a perplexed stare from Link, Roy smirked nervously and continued, “Y-You know? Like, he’s all girlish and wears women’s boots, and he, uhh, looks good on a large, laminated piece of paper.”

“I think you’re missing the point,” Link replied.

Roy shook his head and stared discontentedly at his colleague. “Shut up for awhile, Link. I’ve got it all figured out!” he declared boldly. “All we need to do is figure out a way to get Marth to come back, and then you just let me handle it from there.”

“Sounds like a plan!” Link pronounced, holding up a fisted hand in anticipation. After an unsettling silence descended into the room, Link lowered his hand and continued, “Well, should I tell you where Marth is probably hanging out right now?”

“No, don’t tell me!” Roy yelped with glee. “We can make a game out of it. Alright, I’m guessing that he could be hanging out with Bowser, since he’s always had his eye on Bowser’s stamp collection.”

Link paused. “Well, no-”

“Don’t tell me!” Roy repeated. “Umm… Maybe he’s in my room looking for the curlers I stole from him.”

“You wear curlers, too?” Link questioned, eyeing his colleague in bewilderment.

Roy stared impassively at Link and eventually responded, “No.”

Link blinked and permitted himself a few moments to register Roy’s response, then smiled with nonchalance. “I guess that’s good to know,” he stated heartily.

Roy forced himself to return the smile and then placed his index finger upon his chin as he geared towards a thought process. “Now,” he began, narrowing his eyes slightly to accompany his thoughts, “if I were a stupid, pansy, blue-haired wannabe, where would I be?”

Link opened his mouth to speak, but Roy interrupted with a swift lift of his hand. “No, Link,” he sneered, “I’m going to be the one to figure this out.” He shifted his focus to a corner where the east and south wall joined, and concluded with confidence, “The mall. No two ways about it.”

“Well, I was thinking more along the lines of-”

“Shut up, Link,” Roy interjected. “Maybe not the mall, since there’s too many girls there,” he added conclusively, perking his eyebrows up as he fixed a peculiar gaze on Link, “and we all know how Marth is around girls. He does that weird twitchy thing, remember?” Roy shook his head and persisted, “I think he’s got Parkinsonism.”

Link frowned. “Roy, I think Marth would probably be at the salon,” he stated with apprehension.

Roy fell silent and maintained his gaze at his colleague. “My God,” he eventually started, his expression fading into one of annoyance, “that’s it! Why didn’t you say anything before, Link?”

Link’s frown deepened as he replied, “I didn’t exactly get a chance-”

“Wait, that was my brilliant idea,” Roy interrupted. “You saw it; you’re my witness. I knew that Marth would be at the salon.” He trailed off for a moment to force a nervous laugh, and then continued, “So typical of him, isn’t it?”

“Sure,” Link answered, absent-minded. He glanced at Roy’s tattered suit and pondered, “Are you really going to go out like that?”

Roy remained passive as he answered, “Yes, and you should take notes from me on it, for I am a successful businessman.”

“Alright,” Link replied, fishing through his traditional video game hero storage… thing. “I’ll just need to find a pen…”

“Perfect!” Roy shouted, removing his finger from his chin, then balling his hand into a fist and slamming it into his remaining, open hand. “To the Red, Blue… scratch that crap. To the Red and That Other Guy Incorporated super-vehicle!”

Link began to grin with anticipation and enthusiasm. “I got dibs on the hair products!”

Roy’s smirk faded into a grimace. “Dude, we’re not going there to buy stuff,” he reminded. “…And I told you I needed help with the word stressing.”

---

Marth sighed with satisfaction as he leant backwards in the swiveling chair above one of several sinks in a row upon the wall. A hairstylist continually weaved her hands through Marth’s hair as her client contentedly smiled while keeping his eyes to a carefree close. “I don’t know why I didn’t quit sooner,” he whispered to himself.

“I’ve never met a man sensitive enough to walk in here all by himself,” the hairstylist above him stated.

Marth uncontrollably twitched and then anxiously opened his eyes to stare up at the woman. “Don’t look into it too much, please,” he nervously pleaded.

The hairstylist fell into an awkward silence as she proceeded to add a conditioner to Marth’s hair. Marth hesitated before opening his mouth to speak, but afterwards shut it and closed his eyes.

At that moment, a massive clamor of shattering glass and careless footsteps across tile forced Marth to immediately sit up straight in the swiveling chair and peer in the given direction. “Oh, no,” he mumbled under his breath as he winced at the sight of his colleagues dashing in his direction through the reception area of the salon.

Roy bolted as quickly as possible towards the betrayer with a peculiar expression plastered upon his face, while Link haphazardly followed. Link tripped over the extended step of a swiveling chair and plummeted to the tile, where he allowed himself a moment to recover and then glanced towards his colleagues.

Roy skid on the tile and came to an abrupt stop before Marth. “Marth!” he shouted in frustration, clenching his hands into fists. After receiving an accusing glare from Marth, Roy sighed and lowered his hands to his sides as he continued, “Marth, we need you to come back to Red, Blue, and That Other Guy Incorporated.”

Marth’s angry expression faded in favor of a more sincerely concerned one. “Y-You… need me?” he asked. He swiftly brushed several damp bangs away from his face and inquired, “And this isn’t some sort of cruel joke, like the first time you held my curlers hostage until I asked Peach to kiss me even though you knew I have this weird twitchy thing around women?”

“Yeah, it started with eight and only four came out.”

“My hair still suffers,” Marth responded solemnly. He hesitated for a moment, then began to scowl. “Wait a minute, Roy!” he cried, rising from the swiveling chair. “You made fun of me so much and you made me look like a moron, and now all of a sudden you want me to go back with you guys? What about all of the things you said? What about all the things you did to me?”

Roy rolled his eyes and then eyed Marth in irritation. “Quit being so melodramatic,” he said. “That’s not something you do when you’re supposed to be funny.”

Marth gave a thumbs-up and grinned slightly. “Hey, that time you got the stress on the right word,” he stated.

“Oh, wow, I did, didn’t I?” Roy replied, smirking.

“Yeah, good job.”

Roy paused for a moment. “Alright, well, that’s not important right now,” he began. “What is important is that you come back and make me some money – err, I mean, provide a substantial balance of color in the naming of this company, or something.”

Link shook his head slightly and then rose from the tile floor before ambling lazily towards his colleagues. He halted beside Roy, glanced once at Marth, and then fixed his gaze on the bewildered hairstylist. “Who are you people?” she questioned.

“We are Red and That Other Guy Incorporated,” Roy confirmed, glancing at Marth. “Your sopping wet pansy here was one of our colleagues, though right now he’s on his time of the month and apparently we ran out of aspirin.”

Marth grimaced and retorted, “That’s not funny anymore.”

“It’s funny to me,” Link chimed in, clasping his hands together. “Although, I could’ve sworn I bought more aspirin for you, Marth.”

“You guys are in over your heads,” Marth stated as he shifted his focus between Roy and Link. He reached behind his neck and unbuttoned the salon cloak, and then gripped it within one clenched fist and tossed it onto the swiveling chair behind him. “I almost feel bad for you.”

“Does that mean you’re going to come back?” Link asked, displaying a puppy-dog expression on his face.

Marth cocked an eyebrow and frowned, “No.”

Roy narrowed his eyes. “Then it looks like we’ll have to do something drastic,” he said slowly as he scoured through the right pocket of the suit ensemble’s slacks. He lifted out a revolver and restrained it by the handle near his chest.

Marth gasped, and Link backed away cautiously. “Now that we’re on the same page, here,” Roy began, a devilish grin appearing across his lips, “we’re going to do things my way.” He instantaneously grabbed a bottle of shampoo from a nearby counter, gripped its sides hurriedly, and then pointed the barrel of the gun at it. “You’ll come back to the company, or else the shampoo gets it.”

Marth’s expression of anxiety was replaced by one of insensibility. “Roy, you ret-”

“You’ve done it, now!” Roy cried as if possessed by a demon. He cocked the gun and then immediately pulled the trigger, causing the bullet to emit and pierce the bottle and his hand. The plastic bottle shattered and spilled its contents onto the floor and Roy, who cried in agony, “Oh my God! My hand! …My blood!”

As Roy released the revolver, Link approached his wounded colleague in concern. He knelt on one knee, grasped the revolver, and then rose to his feet once more. “I think you dropped this,” Link stated as he innocently held the revolver out towards its owner.

Roy continued to cry in agony and clamped his right hand over its injured correspondent. “Oh my God!” he shouted once more. “This is hell in Earth!”

“I could’ve told you that, Roy!” Marth cried, cautiously reaching for his colleague’s hands. “Have you ever been shot with a crossbow and lived through it?”

“Twice!” Roy answered, the excruciating pain overlapping his voice, “but it’s nowhere near this pain!”

Marth lightly eased Roy’s right hand away from his left. “Geez, Roy,” he began, shaking his head, “you can’t be left own your own, even with Link. You’re too much of a hazard to yourself, and other people.” He shifted his focus towards the bullet hole in the wall and then said, “You’ll probably wind up paying for that, too.” The remaining conditioner from his hair dripped slowly from his bangs onto his suit as he shook his head. “We’ve got to get you to a hospital!” he cried in worry.

Roy managed to perk up an eyebrow, despite his cringed expression. “Nah, that’s alright; hospital bills are too steep…”