Leaf stamped her foot on the ground in frustration. She wasn't used to this.

"It's okay," said Lucina, somewhat exasperated with how much Leaf was getting angry with herself.

The two of them were at the training grounds. It was a large open area between the complex and the stadium that held many makeshift fields to practice fighting on. Each field had the same technology present on it, from the aerial jumps to the boundaries to the medical drones. However, they were completely flat, and you couldn't fall under the stage like in the stadium. Still, it was enough for them to practice.

To substitute for not having floating stages, a gigantic fifty-foot wall had been built at the training grounds, strictly made for champions to practice trying to get back to a stage they had been knocked off from. There were ledges cut into the wall every ten feet for various forms of recovery practice.

There were also a number of challenging obstacles, each which had different uses and applications champions could use to train themselves. High ropes, balance beams, and a track were present in the area.

Including the gym, which was the sole building in the area, this was where the majority of the "workday" was spent for the champions. Getting better as fighters by working out and sparring with each other.

For Leaf, however, this "getting better" was coming in the form of defeat after defeat at the hands of Lucina. Countless times in a row Lucina had knocked her beloved Pokémon out of the artificial boundaries and into the dust.

"Just keep trying," said Lucina. "You're only going to get better, I'm sure."

Leaf sighed. Lucina could tell there was hardly any confidence within her. Going easy wasn't an option, though, because then she'd probably feel patronized. She watched Leaf send out a Pokémon to fight her once again and raised her sword.

Lucina stared down the edge of her blade at her opponent, panting. The summer sun was beating down on her. She wiped the sweat from her brow with her free hand, not breaking eye contact.

"Ready?" she called.

Facing her was a smiling Squirtle. The little Pokémon looked up at the blade being pointed at it.

"Yeah," said Leaf.

"Alright," said Lucina. She launched at Squirtle, moving swiftly between each slash of her sword, trying to land a hit on the little water turtle. Squirtle moved deftly from side to side, dodging the flurry of attacks.

"Withdraw!" called Leaf. Squirtle ducked under one last swing from Lucina's sword and retracted in its shell. Lucina hardly had a moment to react as the shell suddenly launched itself at her. She jumped over it and it flew along the ground underneath her. By the time she had landed, Squirtle had already popped back out and turned around.

"Water gun!" said Leaf.

Lucina braced herself as a powerful jet of water smashed into her. She slid several feet backward in the dust but managed to hold her footing. Had she been caught off guard, it probably would have thrown her on her back.

Gross, thought Lucina. In a few minutes, she was about to become a hot sticky mess now that she was properly drenched.

She hardly had enough time to wipe the water from her eyes when a completely new Pokémon was launching itself at her. Leaf had switched Squirtle out for the plant-like Pokémon Ivysaur. Two vicious vines lashed out at her, but she easily sidestepped the attack. With Ivysaur now too overcommitted, she landed a solid kick on it and launched it backward.

Leaf grimaced as Ivysaur shot past her, but it got up quickly. Lucina pursued with more rapid attacks of her sword. Ivysaur parried the swings with vines that waved repeatedly in front of it.

"Razor leaf!"

Lucina felt a sharp leaf cut across her face. This time she was knocked flat on her back, but being one of the faster champions out there, she quickly rebounded onto her feet and-

WHACK

A gigantic orange tail with a fire on its tip walloped Lucina right in the gut. She felt the air get knocked out of her, and the force of it lifted her off her feet. She was launched well into the air, and when she landed, she found herself outside of the makeshift boundaries.

In front of her, the dragon looking fire Pokémon, Charizard, roared triumphantly. Leaf must have switched Ivysaur out for Charizard while Lucina was down.

"Nicely done," said Lucina, wincing as she sat up. A medical drone quickly arrived and began healing her wounds.

"Thanks," Leaf said shyly. She didn't look up from the ground as she poked at it with her foot with her hands folded behind her back.

"You don't seem convinced," said Lucina, looking up at her from the ground, now covered in dirt as well as soaking wet. A small puddle had formed underneath her.

"Well, that was the only time I was able to beat you," Leaf said. "And it was kinda lucky, I guess. Charizard just hit you without me telling him to."

"Probably got that from Red," said Lucina, looking up at the large Pokémon with a smirk. "He's a more aggressive type. But hey," she continued, gesturing broadly to her current beat-up state on the ground, "it worked, didn't it?"

"I just wish I felt like I had done it, you know?"

The medical drone left. Lucina stood up and patted the dust off her dripping legs as best as she could. "I think you judge yourself too much," she said. "You beat me that round fair and square. Now let's go shower before I die from this humidity."

Leaf called Charizard back into the Pokeball, and she walked with Lucina towards the gym. She still didn't look very sure of herself. Lucina noticed this and began looking around the training grounds.

"Hey, watch this," said Lucina, pausing to look at the massive recovery wall. It towered above just about everything else in the area aside from the high ropes course.

"What is it?" asked Leaf.

"See Cap over there?" Lucina pointed towards a bare-chested man approaching the wall.

"Of course, he's shirtless," said Leaf flatly. Cap began stretching his legs and arms, staring at the wall.

"Yeah, he's always worked out like that," said Lucina dismissively, "but watch this."

Cap continued stretching for a few more seconds. Falco approached him and began to lightly shove him around some, hyping him up. Eventually, Cap approached the wall, staring up at it.

"He's going to try and reach the twenty-foot ledge in a single jump," said Lucina.

"One jump?" repeated Leaf, alarmed.

Lucina nodded. They watched Cap do a few squats in preparation. Then, in one single motion, he dropped down and mustered all his power into a single hop. As he launched himself off the ground, there was a dust cloud of dry dirt kicked up underneath him in the blazing sun. He thrust his hand towards the clear blue sky, reaching as far as he could as he approached the wall.

His hand landed flatly in the middle between the eighteen- and nineteen-foot markers. A defeated Cap slapped into the side of the wall and slid miserably back down it. He hit the ground and fell flat on his back, eyes closed.

"Ugh…dammit," the two heard him say.

"Oh," said Leaf, "he was so close."

Falco walked over and grabbed Cap's hand, helping him back up. Cap immediately began doing a few more warmup stretches, staring at the same point at the wall twenty feet up.

"He's been trying to grab that twenty-foot ledge in one jump for a year now," said Lucina. "I think the closest I saw him get was when he barely cleared nineteen about a month ago."

Lucina turned away from the wall and began heading to the gym again. Leaf followed, still looking back at Cap as he measured up his second attempt at the wall.

"How high could he jump when he first started?" she asked Lucina.

"Hm," Lucina thought for a moment. "I think I remember him clearing seventeen feet last winter. That's about when he started getting obsessed with trying to reach twenty feet."

"All that time and he's barely gotten one to two feet higher?" Leaf asked incredulously. "Like, I'm not taking away from what he can do already, but that seems like he's hardly gotten much higher, no?"

Lucina looked over her shoulder and saw Cap impale himself in roughly the same spot on the wall. She shrugged and said, "That's Cap's life. When you're as good as he is, it takes a lot of effort and time to make marginal increases. He'll probably fail a thousand times before he reaches his goal. Then he'll move on to something else. Look over there."

Leaf faced where Lucina was pointing and saw Link sparring with Ike. Ike wielded a gigantic golden colored sword that was devastatingly powerful. Link, however, had forgone his shield and was parrying the behemoth directly with his own, smaller sword.

"No shield?" asked Leaf. Link dropped to one knee briefly as Ike dealt a crushing blow on top of him. Link was holding off the impact with only his sword. His shield was lying in the dusty dirt off to the side. Slowly, Link pushed the two-handed sword off of him and stood back up.

"Link's been trying to increase his strength by not letting himself use a shield in training. That way he has to absorb all the power someone like Ike throws at him," said Lucina. She smiled and added, "It also makes things a little fairer for Ike."

"But, doesn't Link use the shield in fights? Wouldn't it make sense for him to practice with what he's going to be using?" asked Leaf.

"Well, he's been using a sword and shield for ages. It's not like he needs the practice that desperately there," said Lucina. "Like I said, though, this at least makes the fight more in favor of Ike. Link is just too good with all his gear."

"AGH!" yelled Link. Ike had pounded him again with his sword and the force proved too much for a battered Link. He went flying through the air. Leaf winced when he crash-landed in the dirt, his sword bouncing away from him with a clang.

"I think," she heard Link mumble from the ground, "that I'm just gonna take a break here for a second."

They arrived at the gym, which was wonderfully air-conditioned. Lucina breathed a sigh of relief as her sticky clothes immediately began to cool down and the water still in them was extremely refreshing on her skin.

"Oh, and those two have been trying to outdo each other on the powerlifting for ages," Lucina continued as she let the refreshing cold air wash over her. She was pointing over to Ganondorf and Bowser. They were spotting each other at the power rack.

"What I'm saying," Lucina continued as they passed the pair, "is that everyone's trying to get better at something. We're not all perfect fighters or perfect in anything else. It takes time to get better. Being new just means you'll get better faster than any of us."

They entered the locker rooms. Despite her clothes now cooling her off rather than being stiflingly hot, she was thankful to get the water and sweat-soaked cloth off her back. She hopped in the shower and began washing her headful of blue hair.

"You know," said Leaf from the shower over the wall, "I meant to talk to Bowser about something over the weekend while he was showing me around."

"What's that?" asked Lucina.

"Just, nerves I think." Leaf paused. "I saw the fights this weekend and I already feel way out of my league, if you know what I mean."

"Well, I think you might be comparing yourself a little unfairly," said Lucina. "Those were the Big Eight. They could thrash most of us anyways. Samus beat me three to zero last time we played, and each match wasn't even close. You're plenty strong from what I've seen."

"You think so?"

"Course I do. Hand doesn't just bring anyone in to be a champion. He must think you're able to hold your own."

Leaf didn't say anything back to this.

"And from I've seen," Lucina continued, "you're more than capable."

A moment later they were out of the shower and each into a fresh set of clothes. They piled their things into their gym bags and left the locker rooms.

In the gym, they ran into Cap, who had just come back from the training grounds. He was covered in sweat and had a lot of dirt on his back. His hands were also quite red, as was his face.

"Get any closer?" asked Lucina as he passed by them.

"Nah," said Cap, pausing to face them. "Still cappin' out just under nineteen. Might be a bit before I can get to nineteen and a half. You guys done for the day?"

"Yeah, we went a handful of rounds together. She knocked me out the last one!"

"Really?" said Cap, impressed. "Nice!"

Leaf winced as a great sweaty hand patted her on her freshly washed hair.

"Get your sweaty hands off her, idiot, we just showered," said Lucina, smacking Cap's arm away. Cap raised his hands in surrender and walked away into the locker rooms.

"See," said Lucina brightly as Leaf wiped her hair with a slight look of disgust, "even Cap is impressed with you, and he's usually too busy boasting about himself to notice anyone else."

"Hmm," said Leaf indeterminately.

Lucina folded her arms and stared for a moment at Leaf. Her mood didn't seem to have changed much since they were outside. She then looked back around the gym.

"Hey, Bowser!" she called.

Bowser and Ganondorf were now leaning against the power rack, talking to each other. Bowser looked towards her.

"What?" he called back.

Lucina waved at him to come over to them. Bowser raised his hands indicating that he didn't understand why they didn't just come to him instead if they wanted to talk. Lucina rolled her eyes and gestured more vigorously for him to come over. Bowser also rolled his eyes and slumped over to them.

"What do you want," he said.

"I want you to help me," said Lucina simply.

"With?"

"Coming up with a plan to help Leaf train," she said, pointing at her.

Bowser looked over to Leaf. Leaf's head popped up from looking at the ground, fully alert.

"Wait, what?" Leaf started. "You don't need to-."

Lucina cut her off. "Leaf wants to get better and I figured you were pretty good at helping newbies out and could work with me on that," she said. Leaf looked at Lucina, puzzled.

"Hm," said Bowser, eyeing Leaf, who was now looking between the two of them as if she were being interrogated. "Yeah, I might be able to do that, but only if she's willing."

"I, uh," stammered Leaf, still confused as to what Lucina had just gotten her into. Bowser raised his eyebrows. "Um, yes," she continued, "I'd like that."

"I can probably start Friday," said Bowser, looking to the ceiling and thinking through his schedule. "Your first fight isn't until the weekend after next, right?" he asked, looking back at her. Leaf nodded. "Alright, that'll give us a solid week to get you started. Then, after we've seen you really fight, we can go from there."

"Uh, thank you," said Leaf, still not sure of what just happened.

"Mmhmm," replied Bowser, heading back to his conversation with Ganondorf.

Leaf turned to Lucina. "Why-?" she started.

"You need someone to help you set some goals so you can gain some confidence," said Lucina, heading back for the gym exit. "Bowser doesn't look the part but he's good with helping newbies out with that kind of thing."

Out of the gym, past the training grounds, and in front of the complex, Zelda came to a halt with a single heavy stomp of her foot. She put her hands over her head, panting, as sweat ran down her face.

"Damn this heat," she gasped. She had just gone on a run, and the stifling heat baked her the whole way. She imagined her face was red as a ruby about now. What clothing she did have on was drenched with sweat caused by the humidity.

While she'd like nothing more than to run into the kitchen, stuff her head in the freezer, and proceed to eat all the ice cream in it, she controlled her impulses and ran to the dorms and up to her unit to take a shower.

Bursting into the unit, she almost tripped over Rosalina and Palutena, who were doing yoga.

"Sorry!" they cried as Zelda dove over them and somersaulted to the other side of the room. She hopped up at the end of the roll.

"S'okay," she said a little stunned and her eyes wide. Had she not been looking she probably would've broken Palutena's nose with her foot.

Still moving swiftly, she went to her room and took a shower. When she exited with a fresh set of clothes on and her hair pinned up, she made sure to jump the two yoga girls as she left the unit. She ran two floors down and banged on the door of another unit.

"Hello?" a voice Zelda didn't recognize said gruffly.

"It's Zelda," she called back.

The door swung open. A muscular man with long dirty blond hair looked down at her from the doorway.

"Hi, uh, Simon, right?" said Zelda uncertainly. Simon nodded back. "Is Marth here?" Simon nodded again and stepped aside to let her in.

Marth was sitting on the couch reading a book. He was wearing a white, short-sleeve button-up shirt and a rather nice pair of khakis. He didn't have any shoes on and looked quite relaxed with one leg folded up on the other. The room around was also quite neat. For a unit of four boys, she thought, it was in pretty clean condition.

"Hello, Zelda," he said when she entered the room. "Did you need me?"

"Yeah, uh, I was actually wanting to ask for your help on a big project," she said. Marth raised an eyebrow.

"A project?" he asked. "Of what kind?"

"Something Hand and I came up with," she said. "Well, actually we came up with a handful of things. There are some ideas we want to try out and I think that you'd be the best at helping us out with them."

Marth closed his book and placed it on the table. "And what would that be?"

"Well," started Zelda. "First, we wanted to start doing pre- and post-fight interviews. We'll need someone to handle the logistics of all of that and figured you'd be the best person. You'd need to organize a schedule around the fights and make sure people are getting from their interviews to their fights and back to their post-game interviews."

Marth folded his arms and looked down for a moment, thinking. His face was quite neutral, and Zelda was having a hard time reading him at all.

"You said Mr. Hand wanted to do this?" he asked.

"Yes," said Zelda, "but don't feel like you have-."

"If Mr. Hand wants it done then, of course, I'll help," he said. "I'm not sure what has been going on, but he seems to be quite uneasy as of late. I'd be happy to assist him. Just so long as I don't have to be in any of it…" he trailed off.

Zelda eyed him suspiciously. "You do know you'll also have to do your own interviews, right?"

Marth paused; his expression still unchanging as Zelda's stare burned into his eyes.

"Fine," he said finally, "but only because I'm helping out Mr. Hand. You know how much I dislike talking to the press…"

"Yes, I know, but you'll only have to do it whenever you have fights. Most of the time you'll be backstage getting everyone where they need to be."

"Where do you plan on doing these?" asked Marth. "We don't exactly have a conference room. Whenever we have events in the press, we usually set up chairs and stages outside and hope the weather is well. I don't expect we'll have that kind of luxury if we're going to be holding these multiple times per week."

"Yeah, that was something we were going over as well," said Zelda. "I was going to talk to Isabelle about it. I mean, after the craziness she pulled with redesigning the dorms so quickly, something like this couldn't be too difficult."

Marth stood up and began pacing. This was what Zelda was hoping for. Whenever Marth began to pace, that was when the gears in his head were really turning and she could expect some good ideas.

"I'd advise you build it within the stadium," he said, still pacing and not looking at her. "The infrastructure is already there, and it'll be easier on everyone's schedules if the interviews are right next to where they'll need to be in a short time. That way we don't have to be too worried about time constraints or being late."

"That's a great idea!" said Zelda. "I'm sure Isabelle would have no problem getting that set up then."

"You'll also need to alert the press of these things," said Marth. "They'll need ample time to prepare for these things, and the next fight is only a few days away."

Zelda's eyes narrowed. "Hmmm."

"Whoa! Hey! Chill!"

Fox had nearly fallen out of his chair. He had been enjoying his dinner with Link when Zelda had slammed both her hands on the table next to him, tossing his bowl of food into the air.

"Can I help you?" he asked in an aggravated tone.

"Who's that reporter you were flirting with at the media day last week?" she asked quickly and directly.

Link inhaled some of his water. Zelda pounded him with her fist on his back as he coughed, not breaking eye contact with Fox. Fox looked at her in disbelief as she mauled a choking Link.

"We were not flirting," he said defensively. "What are you on about?"

"Little aggressive today, aren't we?" Link gasped. Zelda hit him even harder on the back, making him wince.

"Right where Ike's sword got me," he whimpered.

"What has gotten into you?" said Fox, recoiling from her. "Man, you need to calm down-," he flinched as Zelda was now holding a fireball over Link's head.

"Why am I the one getting beat up over this?" he cried. "What is happening? Just let me eat my food, dammit!"

"Kaitlin!" said Fox as Zelda's stare burned into his soul. "Kaitlin, she works at that big news company in the city! Sheesh!"

Zelda straightened up, dispelled the fireball, and smiled. "Thanks!"

Fox stared at her incredulously as she walked gracefully from the dining hall towards Hand's office.

"What the hell…?" he said, staring at the point where she had disappeared.

"That was like being interrogated by Samus," said Link. "What's got her all fired up?"