Link felt his palm meet his face. He let his hand drag down his nose, and the cause of his current distress came into view.

Marissa.

"I-I just don't think this is my thing..." She said, fidgeting. The bow in her hand quivered. (Ha! Archery joke. Sort of.)

"It's not difficult..." Link said, sighing. He felt bad. It was really due to Elenast's hatred of Ike that Marissa was being put through this.

See, Elenast was usually the first one in the group to wake up, followed by Meta Knight and Kirby, then it would be up to them to wake Link and Marissa up, because if they weren't woken up, they simply wouldn't get up.

However, since Ike had joined the team, Elenast's routine was thrown off. She had woken up that morning, and rather than staring at trees until the others started to wake up, she found that Ike was already up. This only succeeded to further fuel her hatred of him.

"Why are you up?" She had snapped.

He shrugged. "I don't usually get up this early, but I woke up earlier and couldn't get back to sleep. Why are you up?"

Elenast felt her blood boil. "I asked you first!"

"I already answered you." He went about getting himself a bowl of mush. (The group didn't have to worry about constantly finding food. The authors, through their generosity, provided convenient bowls of mush.)

Elenast was getting really mad, considering how early it was. Here he was, acting like he was part of the team or something! Well, technically he was, but she didn't have to accept that. She grabbed his arm, preventing him from further mush-eating.

"Let me tell you how things work around here. These are my friends, this is my team, and this is me telling you you need to learn your place."

He pulled away from her and tried not to laugh at her anger. "I already kind of know how things work around here. Marissa explained your routines and stuff to me."

Elenast gasped. How dare Marissa! The traitor! She wasn't even in charge of dispensing information! "Well, I- WAIT! I know what you're thinking! You're going to tell everyone embarrassing stuff about me!"

Ike raised an eyebrow. This was getting ridiculous. He just wanted to enjoy his mush. "I don't know anything emba-"

By this time Meta Knight and Kirby were awake, and watching this argument unfold.

Elenast cut Ike off, "Just tell me what you want."

Ike blinked. "I want to eat here. Whenever I want. For as long as I want."

Elenast flared. "Fine! But know this, Ike, I dislike you."

He shrugged. "I feel indifferent towards you."

So naturally this comment caused an onslaught of yelling, and certain words we'll keep out of this because this story is K+. Before long, the two remaining team members were awake, and a certain Marissa was very grumpy. (Towards Elenast, at least. Once she discovered that Ike was the reason for the yelling, she suddenly lightened up.)

Elenast had metaphorical steam pouring out of her ears by this point. "You know what? FIGHT ME."

Ike swallowed a spoonful of mush. "No."

"Why? Are you afraid OF LOSING? WELL GET OVER IT!"

"I just don't want to fight you."

Marissa groaned. "You guys it's too early for all this yelling. Elenast, Ike's part of the team now, you'll just have to deal with it."

Elenast rolled her eyes. "Just like I have to just deal with the fact that he attacked us, left you in a pit, and dragged me all over the place? No way am I just going to deal with it! He's just too weak to fight me!"

Ike stood, finally fed up.

Marissa screamed internally. I really hope they don't turn into Zutara.

Ike said, "Fine. If you want to fight me, get out your weapon, and fight." He drew his sword.

Elenast suddenly looked like a deer in the headlights. There was no way she'd get the Star Rod back, she had gotten quite the talking-to for doing it before. She looked around, panicking. She picked up the first thing she saw.

"AHAHAA!" She yelled, brandishing her... Stick.

Ike couldn't help it anymore. He burst out laughing.

Marissa looked from the current love of her life to her friend, and knew what she had to do. She ran forward and grabbed Elenast's arm, and pulled her the heck away from there.

"Elenast!" Marissa said, exasperated. "What in heaven's name was that?"

Elenast sighed, suddenly less angry. "I-I don't know... I just hate his slimy guts! Why did you have to invite him along?"

"Okay, take a look at everyone in the group. When you get down to it, we all need something. It only made sense that he join us. But never mind that, we do need weapons. Pikachu's lazy, and there's no way you'll ever touch the Star Rod again."

Elenast cocked her head. "What do you mean, Pikachu's lazy?"

"Watch this. Pikachu, come on out!" She threw the pokeball, and out came Pikachu.

"Pika!"

"Pikachu, Thunderbolt, please!"

Pikachu turned back and gave her a girl, please look, before performing the weakest Thunderbolt mankind had ever beheld. Marissa called him back, then turned to Elenast. "So, yeah. Weapons."

The previous day, while filling Ike in on the mission, they happened past a little store.

Marissa made everyone check their provisions. "Do we need anything? This might be the only one we see for a while."

There were murmurs of "No," "Hiiii," and "Ike dead". (You can guess who said what. Hint: Three people said "No.")

So they kept walking, not expecting to need to go back. But none of them knew what would go down the next day.

Now they stood at a distance from the place, plotting.

"I added up what we have to spend," Marissa said.

Elenast clapped her hands together. "Excellent! How much is there?"

Marissa wrote up numbers in the air. "Let's see, add the 0, carry the decimal over… Exactly zero dollars. Link has rupees, but odds are this area has its own denomination."

"Well, looks like we're going to have to steal," Elenast said, shrugging. Clearly the idea of theft in a strange place didn't faze her.

Marissa rubbed her chin. "It won't be that simple. We need to be careful in how we do this. I'll go in with a disguise to see who's behind the counter so we can plan our attack better."

"Why are you making such a big deal about this? It's probably going to be some old lady who's going blind and probably won't care whether or not we steal." Elenast said.

"It doesn't hurt to check," Marissa said. She had already tied her hair back, and was now using her cardigan to make a turban. "Hm… We'll need to disguise my face…"

"Here," Elenast said, then threw some dirt into Marissa's face.

"Thanks, Elenast. You're a really great friend," Marissa said sarcastically.

Elenast nodded. "You've got it! Now go in there!" She pushed Marissa towards the store, and not thirty seconds later, she came back out, looking very puzzled.

"It's a girl. Like a young one. Like 17 at the oldest."

Elenast thought for a moment. "Was she blind, at least?"

Marissa shook her head, thus removing the turban. "Nope. We're going to need a really good distraction to get anything past her. "

"Well, we're three years behind her, about. So what would keep us distracted…?" Elenast said.

"Oh, most definitely a cute guy," Marissa said, almost immediately.

"Aha, you're right. When in doubt, manipulate hormones, as I always say. But we're going to need a guy to go in there," Elenast said.

There was a pause.

Then they turned to each other and said simultaneously, "LINK."

"Lose the hat."

"No, keep it."

"No, see, the tousled hat-hair gives him points."

"Okay. Expose the earrings."

"Definitely."

Link finally spoke. "Do I have any say in this?"

"No," Elenast said. She and Marissa had him seated on a log, and were making him more distracting than he already was. He was still debating whether or not he was enjoying being fussed over like this. Marissa was standing a couple feet away, and directing Elenast.

"Hm…" Marissa defaulted into gnawing on the inside of her cheek while she thought. "What do you think, Elenast? Weapons or no weapons?"

Elenast circled Link the way a bird of prey circles a dead chunk of meat. "No weapons. We'll try to play that 'weary traveler' thing."

"Right. Link, please remove your sword and shield. We'll just hope that she doesn't notice the chain-mail."

He obeyed, trusting that they would be okay as long as no one played with them or anything. Before long, his hat, sword, shield, gauntlets, and dignity were in a pile on the ground beside him. Marissa also asked that he loosen the cord that was securing the collar of his undershirt, he began to call his own masculinity into question.

Marissa came closer, and gestured for him to stand. He stood. She reached up and adjusted his bangs. "You look…"

"Amazing," Elenast whispered, loudly enough for them to hear. Link fidgeted.

Marissa nodded. "Like an elven Fabio." Link felt the tips of his ears heat up. He had no idea what that was supposed to mean, or whether or not it was a good thing.

"So now phase one can commence. You remember what to do, right?" Elenast asked.

Link nodded.

And so the mission began. The plan was, that Link would go in and ask for food. The girl would turn around, and Marissa and Elenast would grab their weapons and run, and Link would follow. It seemed simple enough. But due to the fact that it was being executed by those three, something was bound to go wrong.

Link walked in, and coughed. The girl behind the counter looked up, and they started talking. Marissa and Elenast stood near the entrance, trying to listen. They caught snippets of the conversation.

"… Water..?"

"Yes…but… off to?"

"Um… That way."

The girl laughed. Elenast mentally slapped herself for letting this happen. This girl was older, and clearly less morbid than herself. And Link was perfection. This girl was taking the bait! What if she tried to keep him there?

But, luckily, the girl left through a door behind the counter. As soon as the door shut behind her, Link turned and gave them the signal. They didn't waste any time running in and grabbing the first thing each of them could reach; Marissa grabbed simple bow and a small quiver, and Elenast took a basic sword. Link was the first to make a hasty exit, followed by Marissa. But right when Elenast reached the door, the girl returned. Elenast threw the sword outside before the girl could see it.

"Where did he go…?" She asked.

Elenast decided to take this opportunity to put this girl in her place. "Oh, really good-looking guy? About yay high? Blonde?"

The girl nodded. "Yeah, I went out back to get him some water, bu-"

"Yeah, he'll be fine. His girlfriend takes good care of him."

The girl looked a bit crestfallen. "Girlfriend?"

Elenast laughed. "Well, I should hope he appreciates what I do for him."

"You? What are you, like eleven?"

Elenast twitched "Good day, miss." And with that, Elenast strutted out, angrily muttering something about, "Stupid girl" and "I'm fifthteen" . When she reached the others, she took a deep breath. "Let's get going on this training thing."

Then the training began.

Ike and Kirby were sent to "look for firewood" while the remaining four paired up and began training with their weapons.

That brings us to the present. Link is trying to teach Marissa to shoot arrows, and she is embarrassing the human race.

"You're not pulling back hard enough," he said. "The bow won't bite, you just need to pull back and release."

Marissa said, "I know, I'm just worried I'm going to mess up and hurt someone. This was a bad idea."

"No no no," Link said, "I mean, you both could have only gone on for so much longer without weapons. Look, all you have to do, is hit that tree. Not any particular spot on that tree. Just, hit that tree." Link pointed to a nearby tree with a thick trunk. A child could have shot it.

Marissa exhaled and readied her bow, shaking.

"Easy," Link said. "Pull back more."

She pulled more, then released. And they watched as the arrow went a glorious three feet then landed on the ground.

Link sighed. He wondered how Elenast and Meta Knight were doing.

"STOP! Stop!"

Elenast stopped swinging her sword, panting. "WHAT?"

Meta Knight said, "You need to calm. Down. Your swings are too violent! You'll get tired out easily! Or chop off your own head!"

"Hey, bloodshed is the name of the game. You don't like it, that's your problem," Elenast said, idly swinging the blade around.

Metaknight wished his arms were long enough to slap himself. "No, you need to gain full control of your weapon. Think of it as an extension of your arm, and don't overdo it."

Elenast adjusted her grip and did a few swings. It moved differently, when she thought of it that way. "Like this?"

"Right," Meta Knight said. She learns fast. "Okay, now some swings on that tree trunk."

Elenast took a deep breath and began hacking away. Each swing was punctuated by an uttered word. "I. Will. Kill. You. Ike!"

Meta Knight contemplated whether or not fwooshing would be wise. "Stop! Stop stop stop."

Elenast stopped, and turned to him, panting, "WHAT NOW?"

"You're just really disturbing me..." Meta Knight admitted, sweat-dropping.

"I. MUST. WIN," she declared, thrusting her sword into the air.

He couldn't help himself. He had to ask. "Why are you so opposed to him?"

Elenast just shook her head and went back to practicing her moves in midair as she talked. "Because. I can tell he looks at me like some... Little kid! I'm NOT a child! I'm not vulnerable! And HE'S infuriating!" Meta Knight watched her as she spoke. She wasn't bad, her movements were just to jabby and would be very ineffective if she were actually battling someone. There were too many moments when she let her guard down.

Meta Knight sighed. "Not necessarily..."

She stopped. "Not necessarily what?"

"He doesn't necessarily look at you that way, actually he..." He reflected on what Marissa had said to him. Looks like you've got some competition! "... Look, to be good at this, you need to have some amount of respect for your opponent."

"Well I don't respect him! And I never will! He clearly doesn't respect me!"

"Give him a reason to, then!" Meta Knight snapped. She was just so hard to teach. Once she set her mind on anything there was no way she was budging off of it.

She just scowled and went back to decimating the tree.

Marissa smiled. "I think I'm making progress!"

Link winced, "Let's find a different adjective..." She had managed to hit the ground at varying distances, that was it.

"No, no... I'll try again." She loaded her bow, pulled back, and closed her eyes. She was determined to hit that tree! And she was going to do it! She released the bowstring, and waited for the sound of an arrow hitting the forest floor, but instead heard a satisfying thwack. She looked up. She did it!

Link clapped. "Good job!"

Marissa pulled the arrow from the tree and clenched it while she reached up and stretched. "So can we be done now...?"

"I guess we can take a break," he said. He sat on the ground, and Marissa went over and sat next to him. He crisscrossed his legs before saying, "So, I keep forgetting to ask, how is it that you and Elenast seem to know everything about us?"

"Us?"

"Meaning Meta Knight, Kirby, myself..."

"Oh. Um, it's kind of difficult to explain. I'll get to that another day. I guess you could basically say that you guys are very popular with certain social demographics where I'm from."

He nodded, more confused than ever. "And where is that, exactly?"

"Milky Way galaxy, a certain solar system, planet Earth, North America, United States of America, Virginia, the city of Stonewall."

"Right. Okay." Link had absolutely no idea what any of that meant.

There was a silence.

"You know," Marissa said, "If I could change one thing about today..."

Link could feel the tension build as she thought. He'd found that out of everyone in the group, Marissa was by far the most tolerable. She was easy to be around. Please don't say you'd pick another person to train you...

"It would be Elenast yelling and waking me up so early," Marissa decided, leaning back on her hands. "What about you?"

He looked at the ground. "Same."

"So, how much longer before I'm a master at archery?" Marissa asked.

Link stood, then extended his hand to help her up. "I'm not sure I can give you a specific time. The sooner you're more comfortable with shooting, the better."

Marissa accepted his hand and stood. "Let me just say this. The closest thing to physical violence I've ever gotten was an occasional gory drawing."

"A gory drawing?"

"Yeah. Once in sixth grade I drew a girl running through fire missing one arm while a gremlin in the corner ate the aforementioned missing arm."

"... Wow."

"Yeah, and then-"

"Let's focus on shooting."

Ike and Kirby arrived back at the campsite, only to find it empty.

"Where did they go?" Ike wondered out loud.

"Haaa…." Kirby also wondered. Really, he knew that the girls, Link, and Meta Knight had gone off somewhere and that is was his job to keep Ike occupied, but he had no idea where they had gone or why exactly.

He saw some blonde hair from behind a tree, but it disappeared.

Ike did a double take. Was that…? Yes. That was definitely Elenast. He began turning, and placed a hand on the hilt of his sword. He began experiencing strong feelings of impending doom. He turned his head back to where Kirby had been standing. "Kirby, do you…?" Ike gasped. Kirby was gone! "Kirby?" He walked over to where the pink creature had been and noticed that the bush nearby was missing some leaves towards the front. He leaned over to get a closer look. There was just enough of a gap in the foliage for someone to reach through and pull Kirby back. He cautiously peered through, and saw none other than a flustered-looking Marissa, curled up on the ground with Kirby in her arms. Presently he noticed that the forest had gotten very quiet.

"Maris-?"

She rapidly shook her head and pointed over his shoulder. As soon as he turned, he saw Elenast, leaping through the air, sword overhead. He pulled out his own sword, and readied himself for impact, resulting in a loud clang!

"What are you doing?" He asked, pushing against her. He hadn't known how strong she was. It was taking a lot of his strength to stay completely upright.

Suddenly Meta Knight was standing on a tree stump behind him. "That's no way to win! Let your opponent defend himself!"

Ike couldn't believe his ears. Was Meta Knight coaching Elenast? That must've been why they made him leave...

Elenast pulled back and looked at him expectantly. Ike didn't hesitate to swing, making sure not to use all of his power on her. Marissa had explained to him that she and Elenast actually suffered injury when they got hurt, and they didn't regenerate or anything.

Their swords met, and the clanging of metal on metal soon began to fill the air. Marissa slowly began rising from the bush, still holding Kirby. She really didn't like violence. Every time one of them swung at each other, her heart rate increased, and she squeezed Kirby tighter. At this point, Kirby was going a bit purple.

Elenast landed a solid blow onto his sword, and they began pushing against each other. She could see what was going to happen. If either one of them released, that person would get slashed. Ike noticed too.

At this point, Link entered the clearing from the trees, after having put on his various garments, and observed what was going on so far. He was honestly rooting for Elenast, but only for Marissa-related reasons. He went and stood beside the latter as he re-tied his collar. "I think you're going to want to put Kirby down if you want him to live."

Marissa jumped a bit, then released Kirby without so much as looking at him. Kirby then toddled around, gasping for breath. Marissa watched him. "I just didn't want him to get hit or something, you know..." It was pretty obvious that she was terrified and/or enjoying this too much.

The sound of blade moving against blade, but it was unclear who had moved. Marissa gasped.

Elenast knew two things. First, if she moved her sword without carefully planning her next move, she was dead. Second, if Ike moved another inch, he was hurt. Not that she cared about him, but it would be really embarrassing for him to heal and be back fighting within two minutes.

So, taking a breath during which she calculated the move, she leapt to her right and quickly moved her sword in such a way that Ike stumbled forward. She pushed his shoulder and he fell to the ground, barely catching himself. She pressed her relatively small foot into his shoulder and grinned. "Haha! Do you surrender?"

Ike figured he had two options. Either let her win, and lose any chance of gaining any respect from her, or he could defeat her and keep his pride.

Oh, the mysterious workings of a man's mind. He chose the second one.

He pushed himself off the ground and, as she was stumbling back, found his feet and swung his sword. He wanted to give her a chance to fight back.

And fight back she did! She ran towards him, before rolling and standing behind him. She swung, but not quickly enough to land a blow that would injure him. He caught her sword with his and pushed out and up, causing her to stumble back on her heels. She stood and they began clanging their swords against the other.

Marissa raised her eyebrows. "They're actually pretty evenly matched."

"He may very well be going easy on her," Link responded. Ike could act like he didn't care, but he didn't seem to have the capacity to hurt a girl who would actually suffer permanent injury as a result.

Meta Knight shook his head- body?-. "Either way, she's making the same mistakes she was making earlier. There are too many instances where she isn't focusing in defense as much as offense."

Marissa sighed. "What do you think, Kirby?" Kirby just turned and looked back at her. His big eyes were full of worry. Marissa crouched and patted him on the head. "That's okay. I get the feeling he's too proud to let her win. This won't go on for much longer."

"You really think he's that prideful?" Link asked. Right now it looked like he might actually let her win in the end.

Marissa stood. "Well, yeah. Quite the hamartia, right?"

All three looked at her cluelessly, the only noise being the sound of metal on metal.

Marissa looked as though she couldn't believe that try didn't know what that word meant. "It's a hero's tragic flaw!"

Another moment of silence between them before they turned back to the battle. They were all wondering where Marissa learned all this useless information.

Ike could see that Elenast was getting tired. He swings weren't as quick, and she was taking deep breaths periodically. However, he wasn't given a stamina meter, so he could keep going. Until he got hungry, anyway.

Meanwhile, Elenast was regretting getting into this. She had expected that he would be simpler to defeat. But she had forgotten that he was both very much larger and stronger than her and also he was a video game. Her arms felt like lead. Suddenly her legs were very sore too.

His sword got a bit too close to her hand as she gasped. He took this moment to sweep his foot under hers, and she fell on her back. He stood over her and pointed his sword to her neck.

"Surrender."

Marissa uttered, "He is glorious." Unfortunately, Link heard. Why was this unfortunate? Even he didn't know, exactly. Either way, he suddenly felt extremely protective of Marissa and vaguely jealous of the newest addition to the team.

Elenast looked up at Ike in disbelief. That had been so fast. Had that really just happened? Then it all rushed into her mind, that she had just knocked over by the one person she disliked the most.

Rather than simply accept her defeat with grace, however, she started to loudly state her opinion, her words slurred with anger.

"GAHNOTHISISN'TFAIRYOUKNOWWHATISHOULDHAVEWONYOUSCU MBAGYOUFREAKOFNATUREWHYIOUGHTTA-!"

But a gasp from Marissa stopped her tirade. "Elenast, you're bleeding!"

Indeed she was. It wasn't a deep wound, but it was likely a result of being grazed by Ike's sword. Ike quickly put away said sword and extended a hand to help Elenast up. "Does it hurt?" Was all he said.

"No!" She spat. (Even though now that she knew it was there, it stung horribly.) Even as she said this, she felt stupid. Not really from pain, just kind of everything. She ignored his hand and stomped over to Marissa, muttering things that won't be said here. (K+...) Naturally Meta Knight began lecturing her on why she lost, even though she already was beating herself up about it.

He may not have said anything, but Ike was pretty sorry about the whole thing. He walked over and asked Link, "Should I have let her win?"

Link glanced over, then looked back to the group around Elenast. "I guess." Ike noticed that his tone was rather clipped. Great. Now Link hated him too.