CHAPTER 3: Fox's Thoughts On Love

A/N: I'm going to start individualizing the stories now, so that each chapter is kind of a story unto itself. That's what I wanted to do with the whole "101 Stories" thing. Now that we have the premise set up, we can start the REAL storytelling! MWAAHAHAHAH… (cough) (cough) (hack!!!) Ahem… ok, here we go.

The first day of the preliminaries was kind of rough for everyone, since nobody was really accustomed to the fighting style of "fight till you fly off the field." However, once a few rounds had been fought, everyone loosened up and things started moving swiftly.

The way the battles were arranged was simply this: Out of all 14 contestants, each one is paired up with someone else, and they are transported to a replica of their homeland in the form of a battlefield, where they fight each other until someone has suffered five outs. They then switched to the other player's battlefield and repeated, until one of the players won 2 out of 3 rounds.

The array of items that dropped from the sky was astonishing, and many people recognized items that were direct from their homeland. When Link grabbed a hammer in his match against DK, DK started having flashbacks and fainted. Mario threw down a Poke Ball in his match with Pikachu, and although Pikachu tried to communicate with the Marill that emerged, it seemed absolutely ineffective, and he was doubleslapped off the field. Let us now take a peek at Fox and Samus who are fighting their second match of the round.

Fox jumped high and drill kicked Samus, whose armor seemingly deflected the entire attack. She grabbed him with her grappling beam and threw him to the ground.

"You'll have to work twice as hard as that just to inflict damage on me, Foxie!" she taunted, rolling to the other side of the Brinstar stage.

Fox got up. "Oh yeah?" He grabbed a ray gun that had just fallen, and whirled on her with the ray gun in one hand and his blaster in the other. And, speaking like Clint Eastwood, he said, "Be careful what you wish for….punk!" He eased his fingers onto the triggers. "Come on!!!"

Unfortunately, Fox had forgotten that Samus had already charged her energy ball up to full power, and just when he let loose with the guns, he found himself deep fried and flung from the arena!

"That's out 5! I win!" Samus cried gleefully. Detecting the fifth out, the battlefield dissolved back into a regular, stone-floored room. (All the arenas start out that way, btw.) Fox landed on his butt on the stone floor.

"Yeah, you win all right…" he said, rubbing his shoulder. "That energy ball smarts, you know…"

Samus ignored him. "Ugh, I'm overheating!" she groaned, and she took off her helmet and placed it on the bench beside her.

Fox looked up and saw Samus without her helmet for the first time. Twinkling eyes, perfect smile, long golden hair…

"What are you staring at?" Samus grunted, glaring at him. "Haven't you ever seen a woman before?"

Fox was a bit tongue tied. "Uh, uh, uh, I mean, yeah of course I've seen women before! What are you talking about?"

"Hmmph… If you'll excuse me!" Samus got up and walked into the ladies room, slamming the door behind her.

It is true that I have seen many women before… Fox thought to himself. But… never one quite as beautiful as her. Ah, what am I saying? There's not even a chance! Not one speck of hope.

The door opened again and Samus reappeared, out of her armor and in a dark red sweatsuit. "It feels so good to get out of that armor!" she sighed. She tossed her hair behind her and said, "So how do I look?"

Fox was baffled. "Ummm… ummm…." Finally he gathered himself and said with a smile, "You look great."

Samus looked up and smiled brightly. "Why, thank you, Mr. Fox."

"Just Fox, if you please, Samus."

"You can call me Sam," she said, picking up her bag. "All my friends call me Sam."

"Oh… I guess.. I'm one of your friends then, huh?"

Samus laughed. "You must be! Well, I've got a match with Pikachu in five, so I'll see you around." And she was gone.

Fox sat down on the stone bench.

I think she likes me… he thought. Or maybe not… maybe it was just "friend talk." But wouldn't that be something? Samus and I? Heh heh. Well I don' even know anything yet, but it's nice to dream. What time is it? Hmm, 3:25. Hey, I have a match in five minutes too! I better get moving!

Fox packed up and left the locker room, perhaps a little happier than when he entered.