Note: There's a segment in here about flaming alcoholic drinks. Do not attempt to drink alcohol that's on fire. You will hurt yourself.

Adjacent to the stadium was a large bar, and every night after fights it was filled to the brim with spectators partying the night away. Because of how close it was to the complex where all the champions lived, there were frequent appearances by famous members. Thousands of fans would spill into the place after the day's events were over to have fun and hope to meet someone famous.

Above this place was a smaller, private bar. This one was reserved for champions, board members, Hand, and special guests. It provided a much cozier atmosphere compared to anywhere else. It also had covered entrances and exits facing towards the complex, giving champions a discreet way of entering and leaving the place away from the crowds.

No champions would be staying for long at the bars tonight, though. Captain Falcon had made it explicit that the champions would be having their own party in the dining hall of the main complex to celebrate their first day back in competition. Therefore, the dance floor downstairs would only be occupied by spectators tonight.

However, Fox had not joined the festivities yet. He still hadn't left the private bar back near the stadium since he arrived after his fight against Pikachu. After taking an early one game lead over the small electric rat, the proceeded to be crushed in three straight sets and lost the match. He bowed out of the stadium for the bar and hadn't moved from his spot since.

The exponential increase in the noise below told him that the day's events were over and people had made their way to the bar to start a night of drinking. Fox knew this also meant the party back at the dining hall would start soon, if it hadn't already. He looked down at his half empty mug of beer, which had been refilled a couple of times already.

"So, are you going to keep moping around all night or are you going to go out and have some fun, at least?" said Tapper, the brown haired, mustached bartender. With the room being empty, he was leaning against the bar table staring down it towards Fox. Tapper solely worked the private bar himself, separate from everyone else that worked downstairs.

Fox gripped the mug, and then began lightly banging it against the table.

"So. Many. Thunderbolts," he said, exasperated.

"Don't dent my table, now," said Tapper.

The door opened behind them. No one had been by since Ganondorf and Ridley had passed by about an hour or so ago, most likely because Samus was in the last fight of the day.

"Get 'em next time," Ganondorf had said, patting Fox rather roughly. Ridley hadn't even looked at him.

This time, the person who entered was at least a foot and a half shorter than Ganondorf, and much less foreboding with his looks. An older man with a full set of thick, white hair walked in and approached the bar table, taking a seat two away from Fox.

"Evening, Tapper," he said to the bartender, who responded in kind and handed him a drink as soon as he reached the table. "Nice to see you, Fox. How've you been?"

"Lately debating if I should've become a writer like you, Scrib, rather than a pilot," Fox replied.

"Oh, I see," Scrib said, laughing. "Did Pikachu really take that much out of you? It didn't look that bad from my point of view, you know. Well, it's never too late to become a story teller!"

Fox groaned and drained the rest of his mug. Truth be told, it really hadn't been that bad of a loss, but it felt like a crushing defeat nonetheless. As one of the Big Eight, Fox had a bit of a reputation to maintain as being one of the best and most seasoned fighters out there. Being comfortably beaten by another one of that group was humbling to say the least.

"Hey now, the crowd still loved it, didn't they?" continued Scrib. "I mean, sure it may not have been your day, but at least they had fun, right?"

Fox shrugged. "They love every fight, regardless if it's a blowout or a nail biter. When the score starts getting lopsided, they want one of two things, either for the blowout to be complete, or for a massive comeback to happen. It's more of a personal disappointment than anything."

Scrib nodded knowingly.

"Anyways," said Fox, "how's the next book coming along?"

"Oh, I've been having a lot of fun with it. I'm hoping to have it out some time early this winter."

"Never understood how you got such a kick out of the writing part," said Fox shaking his head.

"Well, you've never been much of a book worm," said Scrib, "no offense, of course. Your specialties are far more entertaining to watch compared to someone writing."

Fox raised his hand. "None taken. Just don't take any offense yourself when I never read any of your books, no matter how much they're praised."

Scrib laughed again. "Hey, as long as Hand continues to let me in here to have a private drink with my favorite stars, I won't complain about anything. Even so, I do recommend you at least give them a try."

"I'm sure your writing is fantastic," said Fox, "but I don't know if I'd be able to make it through any novel."

"Hate to butt in," said Tapper, "but Fox, aren't you guys throwing a party down at the complex? Overheard some of the others mention it as they passed by earlier today. Wouldn't want you to miss it."

"True," said Fox, looking at the clock. "I'll be disappointed If Cap hasn't smashed the dining room to pieces already. Guess I should head back. Nice to see ya, Scrib." He waved goodbye to the famed author.

Just out the back exit, which faced the complex and away from the stadium entrance, Fox ran into someone almost immediately in the dark.

"What the-? Kaitlin?" said Fox suddenly.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you like that." The panther looking lady from the media day had been waiting just outside the door.

"You weren't waiting for too long out here, were you?" said Fox.

"No, no," she replied, waving his concerns away. "Right after everyone started heading to the bar, I figured I would try and catch you before you left. Hand mentioned you had gone this way. Mind if I walk back with you?"

"Sure," said Fox, making his way towards the complex. "Need something?"

"Well," said Kaitlin, walking briskly on his right, "there was something that came up today during the matches that I thought you should be aware of. Strictly speaking, this is business information right now, but Hand knows about it already and I thought as one of the Big Eight you ought to know as well."

"You know none of us are good at the whole business side of things," said Fox uncertainly. "That's all left to Hand for a good reason."

"You don't need to be a master businessman to understand this," Kaitlin said knowingly. She pulled out some of the papers from the leather pad she had and offered them to Fox.

"So, what am I looking at here?" Fox said, looking at the graphs drawn on the papers.

"The blue bar is the raw total number of viewers you guys pulled in the last time you had a big opening event. That was some years ago. Obviously, biggest event of the day, even the month. That's pretty expected of you guys."

"And the red?" asked Fox, a little apprehensive as he could already guess the answer.

"It's not final, those numbers won't be out until tomorrow when they're made public, but that's the estimated viewership for today's event."

Fox looked down at the little red bar. It was barely two thirds of the blue one.

"Well that doesn't look good," said Fox. "What're all these other ones?" he asked, rifling through the papers.

"Just extra research trying to figure out exactly what was causing such a huge drop. It didn't matter what demographic we looked at; it was a consistent thirty percent drop across the board."

Fox handed the papers back. "You said Hand knows, right? I can't image there's anyone but him that could deal with that."

Kaitlin didn't look thoroughly convinced.

"That's just one day though, right?" said Fox. "I mean, it's not like this is a consistent trend. Maybe there was just something off about today?"

"I wish it were," said Kaitlin, "but I'm not totally sure it's not already."

"What do you mean?"

Kaitlin stopped walking and turned to face Fox. "You know how Hand got all those champions to come back? Everyone that had ever been in any previous competition along with a few new faces as well. I'm not completely certain, but I've heard rumors from some fairly solid sources that he brought all those people in almost as a kind of PR stunt. A way to jack up interest for the competition because there had already been some growing problems. That's an expensive PR stunt, and I'm not sure if it paid off at all. If that's true, Hand will be in some hot wate-"

"It'll be fine," Fox cut her off calmly. There was a pause in which only the distant noise from the bar and the now very clear roar from the complex were heard. Kaitlin folded her arms.

"Hand has been running this ship for ages now," he continued. "I'm confident he can find a solution if it gets to be too big of a problem."

Kaitlin stared back at Fox, still unconvinced. "You have a lot of faith in him, don't you?" she said.

"The guy has pulled his fair share of miracles in the past," said Fox. "This isn't anything but another obstacle for him to clear." With that, he left Kaitlin and headed into the complex.

The dining room was on fire. At least, the area immediately round one of the tables was. Cap and Incineroar had gotten so excessive with the lighting of their shots that they had overdid it with Incineroar's fire and set the wooden table ablaze.

The small water turtle Pokémon, Squirtle, jumped into action, blasting the surrounding area with a jet of water and stamping out the flames.

"Good going, little guy," said Cap with a smile and a thumbs up for the little Pokémon. Squirtle seemed entertained, but Peach wasn't.

"What are you doing?" she shouted at the pair of them. Despite the deafening music being played, her voice was clearly audible above it. The Mushroom Kingdom princess was stomping her way over to the smoldering table. Squirtle turned tail and bolted out of the way of her footsteps.

"Oh c'mon, Peach," said Cap, still smiling. "Nothing hurt, just a bit of a mishap with the fire."

"The entire table is burned black!" she shouted back.

Two tables down, Link and Rosalina were joined by Fox.

"Surprised to see the place still standing," remarked Fox. Every champion was in the dining hall partying. Some of the tables had been cleared out of the way for a dance floor, and there were huge amplifiers where Hand had given his speech at the end of last week. The sound was lightly shaking the tables and all the alcohol on them.

"Well, Cap did manage to set a table on fire," said Link, pointing at the smoking table and Cap, who was slowly starting to cower under Peach's increasing rage. Squirtle was staring blankly at the pair of them, and Incineroar looked apprehensive realizing how much fury Peach was capable of generating.

"Shame I missed that," said Fox. He had half a mind to inform Link about what he had heard from Kaitlin, but given the slightly tipsy nature of both Link and Rosalina and the fun everyone was having, he didn't want to put a damper on the mood. Besides, he was confident Hand would have an appropriate response by tomorrow.

At another table, Zelda and Palutena were sitting across from Lucina, Marth, and Chrom.

"Barbarians," muttered Marth, staring at Cap and sipping on his wine with dignity.

"Are they usually like this?" asked Chrom, eyeing the smoking table. "They seem to have no end to their energy."

"Pretty much," said Zelda apathetically. "Surprised they hasn't wrecked half the room by now. With Incineroar now the amount of fires they start is going to quadruple. These were the guys that loaded poor Pichu up on energy drinks and sent him flying off the walls until the thing blasted itself unconscious with an electric charge."

Lucina giggled. Her face was quite red. "That does sound pretty funny. Hic."

Marth eyed Lucina over his wine glass. "Perhaps you've already had too much as well."

"Oh, leave her alone," said Palutena, who was also turning red. "It's not like we do this every night like those four do."

Back at the smoldering table, Peach had finished her berating of Cap and Incineroar and had left them.

"Alright bud," said Cap, rubbing his hands together and looking at the shots. "Let's try this again, but, uh, maybe a little less flame."

A few seconds later, they had a nice blue flame inside each shot glass.

"My only question is why," said Zelda. "I mean, I guess Incineroar looks like he could handle anything heat related, even throwing fire in his face, but Cap doesn't have any special fire resistence."

Incineroar picked up the shot glass like any other glass, but Cap was using a straw instead.

"One. Two. Three!"

Cap put the straw in and drained the shot glass. Incineroar merely put the glass to his lips and took it like a normal shot.

"Idiots," muttered Marth as Cap high fived Incineroar.

"Actually, that reminds me," said Zelda, standing up. Lucina's eyes lazily followed her. Zelda, however, was still in complete control.

"What is it?" asked Palutena.

"I meant to ask Hand if we could do something about those guys causing a ruckus throughout the night all the time. Sound proof their room or something. He should be in his office right now wrapping things up."

Zelda finished off her drink and smacked it on the table. "Be right back," she said with a smile.

As she left the dining hall, she heard Peach berating Cap and Incineroar again. "You don't need to set any more of those on fire!" Zelda laughed quietly to herself. As annoying as they could be, Cap never meant anyone harm. He was actually one of the gentler champions when it came to caring for others.

Zelda was correct in her assumption that Hand would be in his office. He could hear him talking to someone on the phone. Feeling that she should knock first instead of barging into the room in the middle of his call, she raised her fist to the door.

"Catherine, you have to trust me on this. This isn't the first difficulty we've faced...yes, I know it looks dire, but you know I can figure this out."

Zelda froze, her hand an inch from the door. She stared straight into the wood, wondering what was happening on the other side. Hand's voice seemed measured, but there was an obvious amount of stress in it.

"Look," continued Hand, "I'm sure we can consider some other options first. Wouldn't doing something like that been seen as desperate? It's a bit extreme in my opinion...No, I'm not saying it wouldn't help, but there are other options we can explore first."

Zelda was unsure whether she should be listening in on this. Despite being a business matter, it seemed rather private. She debated if she should leave and come back in a few minutes, but her curiosity was getting the better of her. What could possibly have Hand feeling so stressed? They had just had what seemed like a very successful first day of events after all.

"I understand, but I think we should leave this until the next meeting. After all, the numbers don't even come out until tomorrow. Taking measures now might be a bit premature...yes of course...good night."

Zelda heard Hand hang up the phone and put it back down on the table. She gave it a few seconds, then knocked softly on the door.

"Um, yes, come in," said Hand distractedly. Zelda opened the door slowly.

"Oh, hello, Zelda." said Hand, looking up from his table. "How are you?" There were a handful of papers with charts featuring red and blue bars on them. Hand hastily stuffed them into a folder.

"Doing well," said Zelda apprehensively. "Are you though? I couldn't help but overhear..." Even without hearing the conversation, it would have been obvious that something was wrong with Hand.

"Ah, you heard that?" said Hand, scratching the back of his head nervously. "Well, just a bit of a rut. Nothing I can't dig out of though."

Zelda eyed Hand. Her original purpose for being here had been driven from her mind. Despite Hand's response, he seemed genuinely concerned about something.

"Doesn't seem like a small deal," she pressed.

Hand sighed and slumped into his chair, rubbing his face. Zelda wasn't comfortable seeing him so distressed. Hand was always the confident, put together person that kept everything running smoothly.

"You're right," he said, his hands covering his face. "It's actually something that's been building for a while. I just haven't been able to find a solution to it."

"You want to talk about it?" said Zelda slowly. Despite technically being their boss, those who had been around the complex for a long time treated Hand like family as if he were any other champion. He was their foundational pillar, the one who had brought them together all those years ago and introduced them to so many new people. For many he was the symbol of stability within their business.

Hand paused, staring at the table. "Sure," he said, "but shut the door behind you. This isn't exactly something I want to burden anyone else with yet."

Zelda entered and closed the door behind her. She took a seat in one of the chairs facing Hand, folded her legs, crossed her arms, and looked at him expectantly.

"I will say that I'm comfortable telling you this because I consider you to be as experienced and capable as any of the Big Eight," he started seriously.

"Uh, thanks," said Zelda, blushing lightly.

"I planned on informing them of this tomorrow, and by the end of the week I suspect everyone will have some idea of what's going on. I don't want rumor or wild speculation to take hold, but I don't wish to start a panic either."

"And what is that?"

Hand clasped his fingers together tightly, still looking down at the table. "We've...been having some issues lately with our ratings. We're just not pulling in the numbers like we used to."

Zelda raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?" she said. Ratings records were something they were usually obliterating each year. Granted, she hadn't heard any new records being made for some time, but she figured it was because the previous ones had been set so high by them that they were nearly unobtainable.

Hand nodded. "And it's not just that they're lower," he continued. "They're dropping at a steady rate. I just haven't been able to figure out why, but we've been pulling in consistently less and less people. The opening matches today compared to the last opener was a thirty percent drop."

"You're kidding," said Zelda. She wasn't any master of business, but a drop of nearly a third seemed way too large.

"I'm not," said Hand. He pulled the papers back out of the folder and handed them to her. Sure enough, when she looked at them it was clear that there was a huge drop between the last opener and this one.

"I don't have the other numbers on me right now, but this drop has been a steady trend for quite some time. If this continues, in a few months we're going to start seeing some real financial trouble."

"And what will that mean?" asked Zelda, handing the papers back to Hand.

"Well," said Hand, "some of the board is already getting jumpy. They're trying to push for budget cuts in some areas. The big one..."

Hand sighed deeply.

"The big one being we start cutting champions."

Zelda's jaw dropped slightly. Cutting champions? Not even a week into the new competition and the board was already trying to cut members?

"Wh...but that's not fair!" said Zelda. She was wrestling with the idea of champions having to leave just after getting here. They had just gotten past this stressful moment a few days ago. Now it was back in full force.

"It's not, and frankly I believe it's a bit of an overreaction for now," said Hand. "Outright cutting champions this soon would be seen as panicky by the media. That would just hurt our image more in my opinion."

"For now, you said?" asked Zelda apprehensively.

"Well, for now it would be an overreaction. Like I said, though, if this trend continues, by the time we reach mid-autumn we might not have a choice. Housing champions is the most expensive part of our budget. Reducing our numbers would provide the most relief."

Zelda sat in her chair motionless. She was frustrated, but she didn't know what she should be frustrated at. Hand was doing all he could to protect people, the board was obviously trying to make sure the entire operation didn't capsize. Why wasn't there a solution?

"How many would you cut?" she asked.

Hand shrugged. "About seventy-five percent, maybe? That would cover our losses and give us a way to bounce back over time once we figured out the situation."

"Three fourths?" said Zelda incredulously.

"By mid-autumn, yes," said Hand. "As I said, some members wanted to cut some already. They weren't overly impressed by my idea of getting everyone to come back, but I had convinced them it would help with the situation. Turns out I may have been wrong."

Zelda gripped her chair tightly. Her frustration of the matter was already growing. She hadn't any better idea than Hand had of why their ratings were falling, but she felt like something had to be done.

"So, what're we going to do?" she said.

"What do you mean?" asked Hand.

"What're we going to do to fix this?" she said, trying to inject some urgency into the conversation.

Hand blinked. "What do you mean we?"

"Us!" said Zelda. "You! Me! All the others! What're we going to do to make sure we don't lose everyone?"

"It's really not your job-" started Hand, but Zelda cut him off.

"It is now!" she said. "It was yours to begin with, but clearly you're going to need some help! Anyways, I'd say this greatly involves the rest of us now that you're saying we might be cutting three out of every four people!"

Hand stared blankly at Zelda. He clearly had not anticipated this being her reaction.

Zelda stood up and put her hands on his desk, staring at him. "Let me help you. I might not be able to solve this for you, but I can at least help you buy some time. Is there anything we can do to at least slow down the problem?"

"Well, um," said Hand uncertainly. "We might be able to do some events outside the stadium. Some public engagement to get people interested, but I don't think-"

"Then that's what we'll do," said Zelda. "It might not fix the issue, but it'll at least delay it so that we're not getting wiped out come autumn. It might be able to buy you the time we need to figure this out."

"Well, I guess we can get started on that then," said Hand, not overly convinced still. "I have to meet with the board on Wednesday. If we can come up with something then it should at least calm down those who already want to start cutting champions. Then I can focus on the big problem."

And with that, they spent the next two hours brainstorming. They came up with ideas for events, appearances by champions in public, special events in the stadium, anything they thought would help stall what seemed like the inevitable.