Din's Fire

"Bonus matches today," Link informed Princess Zelda when she reached the dining room, "You'll be up against Samus Aran."

"Good," answered Zelda shortly. This prospect worked to the Hylian princess's advantage: her attending embarrassment at lecturing Ness on how the human reproductive system worked had largely given way to anger at the two guilty Smashers who had made the lecture necessary. Since Samus was one of the guilty parties, Zelda could take her fury out on Samus in the fight—and because it was a scheduled fight, her act of giving Samus a beating would not look suspicious. Then later maybe she could challenge Captain Falcon in order to give him a similar beating.

Link, however, heard some of the anger in Zelda's tone of voice. "Is everything all right?" he asked. Zelda nodded yes and tried to change her facial expression into a yeah-everything's-fine look, but Link was unconvinced. What was she upset with Samus about enough to want to beat her in a fight?

He didn't really have time to ponder the subject, though, because Master Hand called out to everyone to go to the teleporter room, where the Smashers would then be teleported to the stages where they did battle. Link was scheduled to fight Jigglypuff first, on the Onett stage, and beat the wide-eyed pink puffball by over four thousand points.

Zelda would be fighting Samus Aran next.

Crazy Hand, Master Hand's brother, announced that Zelda and Samus would do battle on the Pokémon Stadium stage. Zelda stepped into one teleporter with a determined look on her face, as Samus obediently did the same. When both Smashers were on the destination stage, the battle began with Master Hand's call of "GO!"

Zelda made the first move, throwing a blast of flames at Samus—a "Din's Fire," as she called it. The fire hit its mark, making Samus flinch, and for once in ages, Samus Aran was actually on the defensive in this fight against Princess Zelda. The princess, who usually fought like a calm strategist in bonus matches, attacked the bounty hunter in a tremendous fury, striking a thousand blows at once, so that Samus might break free and try to grab an item only to find herself thrashed yet again at Zelda's hands. It didn't even help that Zelda did a lot of angry shouting along the way—the yelling should have wasted her energy, but somehow it did nothing to that effect.

Meanwhile, the villains who watched in wait for their matches apparently found this fight highly amusing to watch. "Oh man, a Shriekbat attack couldn't possibly be that bad for Samus to face, could it?" asked Ganondorf derisively. Bowser snickered appreciatively at the remark.

Fox McCloud, however, seemed perplexed. Unusual behavior indeed on Princess Zelda's part, he thought—first taking almost three hours to lecture Ness in the library (with a lot of pointing to diagrams and passages in encyclopedia volumes along the way) and then flying at Samus Aran like a fury. What had gotten into her? "Might I suggest interrogating Princess Zelda about her unusual behavior so far today?" he eventually suggested to Master Hand.

Fox couldn't quite tell, but the giant white-gloved right hand seemed highly interested. "Odd behavior? Tell me more," was Master Hand's reply.

"Well, apparently Zelda took Ness to the library for a long lecture involving reference-book entries after Ness found something in the attic as he went to fetch extra blankets—Ness wouldn't tell YoungLink or anyone what the thing was, though—and now you'd think Zelda suddenly hates Samus's guts, the way she gave Samus a beating just now," Fox explained. "What the heck's gotten into her, I wonder?"

"Interesting. I'll keep an eye on her and question her if she does anything else that might be out-of-whack," Master Hand concluded—a statement that, as Master Hand had no eyes to speak of, caused a disbelieving look to cross Fox's face for a moment.

Zelda, meanwhile, left the teleporter room after her fight, walking in the direction of the five closed-off rooms, and barely had she reached the foyer when she felt a human-sized hand close lightly around her upper arm. As if she had foreseen that Captain Falcon would be the one who intercepted her in the hall, she turned abruptly and backhanded the F-Zero pilot across the face with a force not unlike the blows that she had leveled at Samus in the fight.

But even as Falcon staggered back from the surprise of Zelda's blow, releasing his grip on her arm, two Fighting Wire Frames seized hold of the Hylian princess by both arms and lifted her off her feet. "You're coming with us, princess," said one of them gruffly, "Master Hand has a few questions for you."