Roy had never been to anything like a "soup kitchen" before. It wasn't as if he was too busy for it; despite his princely duties, he still made plenty of time to visit the poorer parts of the kingdom, and he still made great efforts to help those in need.

There had just been no such thing back in his world. When Zelda had told him just what a soup kitchen was over breakfast, and had asked him to help during lunch, he was curious enough to say yes.

Now, here he was, waiting outside of a worn wooden door just at the end of the mall. A few feet to his left, the mall's pristine marble floor cut off away to a hole engulfed in bright white light. The sign above the hole read: "Duck Hunt Universe".

Roy had only heard in passing from Master Hand that it was sparsely populated, and even then, all seven of its residents were already living in the mall. That explained why there was no one coming out of it at the moment.

It was empty, just like the soup kitchen beside him. The cracked windows displayed an empty room inside, the wooden tables barren of any customers. Everything looked so abandoned, like it hasn't been touched for the longest time. Even the sign Roy was standing under was in disrepair. Only half of the big words on the sign reading "Soup Kitchen" were on, and even then, every few seconds one of them would flicker and spew burning sparks. The only sign that anyone cared about this place at all was the hastily scrawled "Fodlan" at the top in cracked red paint.

Was this where the Byleths lived? They never talked about it, but then again, they rarely talked at all so it was not much of a surprise there.

Roy glanced up at a clock standing in the middle of the hall. 11:25 AM, it read. Zelda had asked him to meet her at 11:30 AM, but Roy had arrived ten minutes early. It had been five minutes, however, and there was still no sign of her. Of course, there were still five minutes left, but Roy was beginning to think that maybe he had the wrong place. Was there another soup kitchen in the mall that he hadn't been aware of?

"I hadn't even known there were people impoverished enough to need a soup kitchen," he muttered to himself, fiddling with the sign hanging from the door. "I thought all fighters could get free meals from the food court."

"Hey! Not all of us are fighters!" someone called from behind him.

"Gah!" Roy jumped and spun around, but there was no one there.

The someone cleared his voice. "That's awfully rude of you. I'm down here!"

Roy craned his head down. Standing by his feet was a tiny round purple creature with large eyes, bouncing on top of a brightly colored ball. The creature grinned when he saw it.

"Hey hey hey! Glad you finally noticed!" it said. "Now, you think you could let me in? I'm starving!"

Roy inclined his head to the side. Had he met this creature before? He felt like he had, but he couldn't quite remember where.

"Sorry, this may sound a little rude, but... have we met before?" Roy asked.

The creature's grin died an ugly death, leaving a frown gouged into his face. "Oh, of course you wouldn't remember me." It stuck out its tongue; Roy might have taken offense to that, had it not immediately split in half and flailed about like a pair of ribbons.

The bizarre action sparked recognition in Roy's eyes, and he said, "Aren't you one of the boss enemies in the tournament? From Kirby's world?"

The creature's tongue snapped back together, and its smile reappeared in an instant. "That would be me!" the creature said, bouncing on its ball. "I'm Marx!"

Roy's face twisted in bewilderment, but he still extended his hand in greeting. "Nice to meet you. I'm Roy."

"I don't recall asking, and I don't care either. Just open the door."

Roy turned back to the door, and the sign dangling from the doorknob. "Closed", the sign read.

"I'm sorry, I don't believe I can," Roy replied. "I think someone else was supposed to come to open up, but I don't know where she is."

Marx snorted. "Then what are you here for? Standing around and looking pretty?"

Shuffling his feet, Roy glanced at Marx, then back at the door. "I'm supposed to help."

"Then help me get in! I'm starving, and if I don't get my food soon, I'm going to eat you."

Roy chuckled at the strange threat. When Marx didn't laugh with him, his cheer faded, and he coughed awkwardly.

Surely that was a joke, right?

Roy turned back to the door, and he looked it up and down. It was wood. It was old. It had a handle, and a sign hanging from the knob. It didn't look like it was supposed to lock–there was no keyhole–but one could never be sure.

"Stop stalling and open the door!" Marx hissed.

Roy jumped again, and he shot a look back at the tiny creature that barely reached up to his hip. With a sigh, he reached for the knob and pushed it open.

The wooden obstruction pulled away to reveal Zelda standing behind it, her arm reaching down for the handle.

Roy froze. So to did Zelda. Her eyes briefly widened, before she pulled back and let her arms fall back to her sides.

"Oh! Hello Roy," she said, smiling that warm, radiant smile of hers, warm enough to melt the ice off the snowy roof of the mall. "What a surprise! I was just about to fetch you."

"You were?"

"Indeed. When I came here to open up the kitchen, you weren't here, so I assumed you'd forgotten."

Roy paused. He turned to the left and gave Zelda a sideways look. "When did you arrive?"

Humming, Zelda put a finger to her cheek. "11:00 AM. How about you?"

"I arrived at 11:20. Was I supposed to arrive earlier? We did agree to meet at 11:30, after all."

"We did," Zelda said, nodding. "You don't have to arrive with me. I come early to make sure the supplies are set up and–"

Her white skirt fluttered, and Zelda glanced down to see Marx brush past her and to the front of the kitchen, picking up a tray from a stack at the end.

"And it seems like we already have our first customer," she remarked. Turning to Roy, she nodded in the direction of the back door. "Follow me. I will guide you through your duties."

Trailing behind her, Roy followed Zelda through the door into the kitchen. Metal trays and pots and pans surrounded them, stacked high atop counters in the kitchen and flooding the sinks, yet Zelda led him over to the serving corner.

Slots behind a tall glass barrier held all sorts of food, from an earthy-smelling chicken soup to a selection of sandwiches lined neatly in their little pockets. Zelda handed him a ladle and a bowl as Marx bounced up to the glass barrier and nudged a tray over the top. As she plucked a sandwich from the counter, Roy spooned soup into the bowl and placed it atop the tray.

"About time," grumbled Marx, and he bounced over to one of the empty tables.

"So..." Roy said, tearing his eyes away from the small round creature, but when he turned to Zelda, she had disappeared. He craned his head over his shoulder just in time to see her white dress disappear around the corner.

Roy let his soup ladle dip back gently into the soup, closing the lid softly before he hurried after her. He found her by the sink, arms deep in hot water and a tray covered in brown sludge.

"Do you need help?" he asked.

Zelda shook her head. "I'm fine, thank you. Could you unpack the rest of the sandwiches? The ones we have up front are a day old."

"What sandwiches–" Zelda nodded over to the countertop beside her and to the large box sitting on top. Roy tried to open it, only to find a strip of tape holding the lid in place. He tried using his nail to slice it open. When that didn't work, he drew his sword and, slowly and carefully, traced a line over the top. His blade, sharpened to cut through flesh, slid straight through the flimsy tape.

Roy was sure the royal blacksmith back home would have had his head if he saw Roy using his weapon as a box opener.

"So," he said as he opened the box, revealing rows upon rows of sandwiches, "this is a soup kitchen?"

"Quite ingenious, don't you think?" Zelda replied, and her voice overflowed with joy. It was soothing and soft, like a silk blanket that wrapped around Roy's shoulders. "A place where the poor and hungry can be fed during the day, to ensure that no one starves no matter how little money they may have."

Roy smiled with her. "It is. I don't know how no one in my kingdom ever considered it. I think, as soon as Master Hand allows us to visit our home universes, I should propose such a system in my own kingdom."

"I am considering much of the same," Zelda said. "It's good to know that all you Fire Emblem fighters care enough about your people to take care of them. Although..." she hummed, pausing to scrub gunk crammed into one of the corners, "I spoke with Marth earlier this week, and he said that he was planning on implementing such a system in your kingdom."

"My kingdom?" Roy frowned, confused. "Marth and I come from two separate universes."

"You do?" Zelda stopped and looked Roy up and down. She nodded slowly, before she returned to scrubbing the tray. "Oh. You must be one of the new Fire Emblem fighters, like Corrin and Byleth. You arrived around the same time as Corrin, so that means you're from a completely different Fire Emblem universe, is that right?"

"That's not–"

The door creaked open. Roy and Zelda back toward the food serving station, and they exchanged a glance.

"I'll take care of it," Roy said first.

"It's fine. I can attend to it, you may resume unpacking your sandwiches."

"I'd just like to know who comes here."

"Then we can both head over there and see who's here."

Motioning for him to follow, Zelda left her dirty dishes in the sink, wiping her hands on a towel hanging over the edge as she left for the front. Roy set his sandwiches in a neat pile next to the box before he followed her.

Now, the person at the counter was a tall man with curly white hair and pale skin. His dark clothes stretched all the way from his shoulders to his feet, and the unnatural way his clothes flowed over his body left Roy feeling uneasy.

Evidently, Zelda had no such qualms about serving such a man. "Hello Dracula," she said, returning his cold, dead gaze with a smile of her own, cozy like a fireplace on a winter night. "Did you have a match today? How did it go?"

"Not as well as one would hope," Dracula replied. "The Belmonts must have shared my weakness to everyone else because I could not defeat a single fighter that crossed my path."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Like before, Roy spooned him a bowl of soup, and Zelda gave him a sandwich. As they sent Dracula on his way, Zelda turned to Roy and nodded at him.

"One of the many benefits of working here," she said, "is that you are given an opportunity to hear all kinds of stories from the people who eat here. These people, the people who do not fight in our arenas as fighters and are not treated as such by Master Hand have equally interesting stories to tell as the rest of us, wouldn't you agree?"

"Certainly. It really does remind me of home, and the campaign I led before I came here. Every single one of my friends had an interesting story to tell, and though it was quite a task to listen to every single one of them, it was certainly worth it, for I gained a better understanding of how they fought and why they fought."

"I see," Zelda said. She gave Roy a look. "That sounds different to any war I've ever witnessed."

"Ah, well... you know us Fire Emblem fighters. We're all like that."

"Speaking of that, you were about to say something earlier. What was it?"

"Huh? Oh, I was going to say–" The door creaked open again. Roy sighed, annoyed, and glanced back at the door, "I was going to say it later, then," he murmured.

To his surprise, the person who walked through the door was none other than Olimar himself.

What was Olimar doing here, of all places? he thought, but as he came closer, however, Roy could see that it was not actually Olimar. His head was too round, and his eyes were a little bigger.

"Alph?" Zelda asked from beside him. "What are you doing here?"

Alph! So that was who he was! Roy mentally chided himself. How could I forget who he was?

"You're Olimar's relative, aren't you?" Roy asked as Alph approached the serving counter. "Aren't you a fighter? Fighters eat for free, don't they?"

"Yeah, well Master Hand forgot to give me one of those food court passes," Alph replied with a huff. "Now I'm eating here."

"Oh, no!" Zelda said, disappointment clear in her voice. "That can't be right! I'll bring it up with Master Hand right away!"

"You would? Oh, thank you! I'd bring it up with him myself, but I don't think he even remembers I exist," Alph said.

Alph, like the two before him, left with a sandwich and a soup. As he left to join Dracula and Marx at one of the tables, Zelda sighed to herself. Frowning, Roy turned to her and asked, "Is something the matter?"

"How could Master Hand forget him? He's a fighter, just like us!"

Roy coughed. "Well, I suppose there are so many of us, it's easy to lose track of them."

"I suppose so. When you've been around as long as I have, it's easy to forget how much things have changed."

"Yes." Roy stopped. "When did you join the Smash Mall? I don't believe I've seen you around at all, are you new here?"

That got Zelda to stop as well, and she returned his gaze with an odd look. "Not at all. I joined during the Melee sale. When did you join?"

"During the Melee sale. The same as you."

The two of them exchanged a confused glance. With no one else entering the soup kitchen, they stared at each other for a full minute before Roy blinked, frowning as he said, "How have we never seen each other before?"

"I'm not sure," Zelda replied, a disturbed expression on her face. "Do you think there might be anything else we missed about this place?"

"Perhaps it would be best if we discussed this further on our way back."


Yeah, this chapter is a day late, but I had a flight to catch this morning so I needed to go to sleep fairly early. I still ended up not getting a lot of sleep due to outside factors, but I tried to mitigate some of that by skipping out on writing.

Originally, this chapter was going to take place in a McDonalds, but then I figured that the previous chapter probably would have been better off as the McDonald's scene, and putting that here would de-knee the pacing. I'd go back and change the previous chapter, but then I'd probably need to halt on the writing.

I really need to stop staying up till midnight to write these. I can never sleep past 8, and my sleep schedule tends to suffer whenever I pull these late-night writing sessions. I might have too cut back on the daily uploads if I feel like I really need to catch up on sleep, but at the same time, writing these chapters are always fun.

Until tomorrow, always remember that no matter how you might mess up today, tomorrow is a new chance to make yourself into something better. Take care of yourselves out there, and stay safe!