Leaf left the mansion and was delighted to feel a pleasant breeze for once as opposed to the humidity and heat. It was the first time since she had arrived that they had such a pleasant day. She felt particularly good about this training session with Bowser, even if the first few hadn't been what she expected.

Bowser really hadn't told her much in her first few sessions. He usually just gave her a list of things to do and then watched at a distance. He wasn't distracted by anything, he was intently focused on what she was doing, but he said very little the entire time. It wasn't until the end of the session that he would give her a few minor pointers and leave her to practice on her own. Leaf just kept reminding herself about what Lucina said about marginal increases towards her goals.

With the heat gone, for today at least, and feeling particularly reenergized after a nice lazy weekend which had started with another raucous party by Cap and his crew, she was looking forward to her training today.

Of course, this meant that her hopes had been dashed when Bowser announced they would be training inside the gym today, rather than outside.

"Why?" she couldn't help but blurt out when he had informed her of this out on the practice fields. Pretty much everything he had been working on her with, or at least telling her to work on, involved quite a large amount of space and could easily damage nearby equipment if they were inside.

"You'll see," he said simply.

They walked into the gym, and while it was cool with the air conditioning at full blast, it didn't quite capture the fresh air feeling from outside. The usual suspects were here, including Ganondorf, but he didn't approach Bowser when they arrived. He just gave a short wave and returned to his dumbbells.

"You won't need them today," said Bowser, pointing at the Pokéballs in Leaf's possession. "You can either set them aside or let them outside for a bit if you want."

Leaf, even more confused now, let the three Pokémon outside the gym, leaving the empty Pokéballs on a bench nearby. How were they supposed to train without them?

She continued to follow Bowser through the gym, timidly dodging other champions who were mid workout. She jumped when a huge bang echoed from nearby where Cap had just let go of a deadlift that had to be four times her weight.

Bowser effortlessly picked up an unused bar, dropped it on rack over a nearby bench, and then looked expectantly at Leaf.

"Uh," started Leaf, dumbfounded.

"Let's see what you got," he said.

Leaf didn't move for a few seconds. "You…want me to bench press?" she asked.

"Just the bar," said Bowser. "Don't want to try anything crazy yet. Need to see where you're at."

He patted the bar, indicating it was time for her to get a move on.

Leaf lay down on the bench, not having any clue was she was supposed to do. Bowser poked her around some to get her into the proper position, then told her where to grab the bar. Finally, he helped her lift it directly over her face, staying very close just in case she dropped it on herself. Then, she lowered the bar.

Holy crap this is heavy! was all she could think of. There were a few seconds of panic as she struggled to push the bar anywhere. Even if Bowser was right there, the very real threat of a solid steel bar hovering right above her throat was more than enough to push her through the rep alone.

Bowser grabbed the bar once she had fully extended and slammed it back onto the rack.

"Nicely done," he said. "I was wondering if you'd be able to do that."

Leaf sat up, gasping a little. There was another BANGand she jolted around to see Cap had resumed his deadlifting. She was certain that his bar was bending.

"Why am I doing this?" she asked honestly. "I don't actually physically fight."

Bowser sat down on a neighboring bench. "No, you don't," he said, "but that's no excuse to neglect your body."

Leaf glanced self-consciously at herself. Sure, she wasn't the picture of perfection like Samus was, but she certainly felt like she had kept good care of herself.

"You're right that you don't need to be throwing weights around like they're nothing," added Bowser, waving off her thoughts, "but the better condition you are physically, the better of a fighter you'll be mentally."

Leaf nodded hesitantly. She understood what Bowser was saying, but she wasn't feeling it.

"Alright, let's try that again," he said, standing back up.

"W-wait, what?" stammered Leaf. Her body was still reeling from the last rep.

"It'll be fine, if you fail, I'll just help you pull it back up."

Sure enough, on the next attempt, Leaf got the bar about halfway up before she felt her entire upper body collapse in on itself. Even as she desperately fought against the falling steel, she could do nothing about it. Bowser put a single finger under the bar and applied as little pressure as required to help her lift it all the way back up.

"How," she breathed, sitting back up again, "do you lift all that weight."

Bowser looked down at himself, then at her, "Slight size difference. Alright, that was pretty good. Let's do some pushups now."

"Huh?" said Leaf. "Aren't you supposed to lift all the heavy weights and whatnot?" She didn't really know what she was saying. She just knew that all the champions that she saw in the gym were moving around these massive weights all the time.

Bowser, however, shook his head and pointed towards a mat nearby. Ganondorf had moved from his dumbbells and was also doing pushups. He didn't make any indication that he noticed Leaf take up a spot right next to him and start doing pushups from her knees. She tried doing them normally, mainly because he was ripping off reps right next to her, but Bowser had explicitly told her to start from her knees, stressing higher reps over difficulty was more important now.

At the end of their session, which only lasted about fifteen minutes, Bowser told Leaf that she should continue to do as many pushups and sit-ups as she could every day that she didn't have a match. First, she should strive to get fifty in a day, then seventy-five, then a hundred. Leaf wasn't sure how she'd ever get through a hundred real pushups, but once again she reminded herself of Lucina's advice.

The summer breeze felt infinitely better on her way back to the mansion. It was incredible how just a few minutes had completely drained her energy for the day. She was thinking longingly of a shower and a nap when she nearly walked straight into Zelda coming out the front door.

"Oh, sorry about that, Leaf," she said, sidestepping around her. "Wow, you look like you had a hell of a workout," she added once she got a good look at Leaf's face.

"Bowser," was all she could say. She was surprised how out of breath she still was.

"Ah, yeah that explains," said Zelda with a nod. "Go get some snacks after you're cleaned up, you deserve it."

Leaf nodded thanks and disappeared inside the mansion.

Zelda turned heel and began marching not towards the training ground, but to the arena. Hand had invited her to meet to talk about their plans with the company. She hopped on one of the nearby stations, rode her way to the stadium, and scaled the rows of seats as fast as she could to the press box. She even had half a mind to teleport her way up them before she remembered the last time she attempted that she nearly broke her ankle on the uneven bleachers after reappearing.

When she broke through the doors, she found Hand as expected, but she also was surprised to see someone else.

"Oh, hi," she breathed, not sure what to say with Hand there, but Hand took over smoothly.

"This is Kaitlin, Zelda, she's the reporter at Corneria news that you messaged about the interviews."

"We've met," said Kaitlin, shaking Zelda's sweaty hand. "Still won't let me write about that little skirmish you had with Incineroar?" she added with a wink.

"Uh," stammered Zelda, not sure how she should answer this in front of Hand. When he raised an eyebrow at her, she continued, "I may have challenged Incineroar to a one-off match so I could kick him in the face."

Hand let out a short laugh through his nose and shook his head, "Alright, then."

"I thought it would be interesting to write about," shrugged Kaitlin.

"Unfortunately, we have more important things to talk about," said Hand rather sternly.

"Unfortunately, indeed," added Kaitlin, matching his tone.

"Is this about-," started Zelda.

"Yes," said Hand.

That morning, their fears finally became mainstream. Laurissa News was the first major news outlet to start reporting on suspected financial troubles for their company. Thankfully, not many of the champions read daily news, and even less would pick out this one article by one source, but the story was like watching the first domino fall.

"How long do you think until this starts becoming the biggest story in town?" Hand asked Kaitlin.

"Days," said Kaitlin. "Maybe a week if they don't print anything else until then. My boss is already on my tail asking why I haven't come up with anything about this. I'm supposed to be her best."

Hand rubbed his face some, then dared another question. "Would you be able to put off a story like that any longer, or maybe play it down some?"

Kaitlin folded her arms. "No," she said flatly. "I'm not trying to sink your ship, but I can't just lie to people. I've got my own career to look after."

Hand awkwardly scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, you're right. Sorry. I shouldn't have even suggested that idea to you."

"It does come off as a bit desperate," sniped Kaitlin.

"How'd the interviews do?" Zelda interjected, tired of bouncing her eyes between the two.

"They certainly weren't bad," said Kaitlin. "I imagine people would like to see and read them in the future, but in terms of a silver bullet, they aren't going to do the trick for you guys."

"Yeah, I kinda figured," conceded Zelda.

"You did?" asked Hand.

Zelda shrugged. "If the solution was that easy, you would've already figured it out by now, right?" she told Hand.

Hand nodded a bit, although not entirely convinced. "I guess you're right."

Zelda continued, "So, we just need to try some more ideas. That last one didn't hurt us at all, so there shouldn't be any issue trying some more."

She looked to Kaitlin, whose arms were still crossed. "Would you be able to lend some?"

Kaitlin's mouth twisted some. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to help out in that regard. I still can't stop writing what I have to, though."

"That's fine," said Zelda.

"In that case, I'd be happy to assist however I can. After all, I became a reporter at this branch so that I could cover the champions. It would definitely hurt to see the competition go." Kaitlin looked back to Hand.

Hand had returned to his deep thinking, wracking his head for anything that might be of help. He was biting one of his knuckles like he usually did when he became obsessed with a particular thought.

"There is something we could try," he said, "something that was brought up as an experimental idea a while ago. The company was doing so well at the time, though, that it was just put on the backburner and never returned to."

"What's that?" they asked in unison.

"Two on two matches."

Kaitlin and Zelda paused to consider the idea.

"I mean, it doesn't really sound all that groundbreaking," Zelda said. "It's still the same fight with the same rules."

"No, there might actually be a benefit to this," said Kaitlin. "It's the same rules, yes, but the dynamics between champions fighting together could provide a lot of interest to viewers. Combine that with our pre- and post-match interviews, and you could get some fresh interest into the scene from people who want to see how certain champions cooperate instead of compete."

Zelda raised her eyebrows slightly, impressed at Kaitlin's quick analysis. Hand seemed positive as well. "That's not too hard of a change, thankfully," he said. "After all, the arena can handle four fighters at once easily. The only minor challenge will be updating the schedules to accommodate for the doubles matches."

"Don't throw too many fights at us," warned Zelda. "Prioritize the doubles matches if you want, but there's no way we'll be able to keep up with more than two fights a week."

"Of course, of course," nodded Hand. "We might even make it a special where we run a week that's only doubles matches in fact. Yeah, that seems like a good idea…then we can mix them in with the singles matches.…" he began to trail off.

"Well, in that case," said Kaitlin, feeling that Hand had fallen too far into his own head to be saved, "if there's nothing else you need, I'm going to head back to work."

"Sorry for dragging you into this," added Zelda hesitantly, but Kaitlin waved her off.

"Again, I don't want to sink you guys. I'm happy to help where I'm able, just don't expect me to cover for you guys when things get really bad."

She left the press box.

Zelda figured that Hand would probably be thinking to himself for quite some time, and she started to make her way back to the mansion with a bit of a pep in her step. Sure, they were far from solving anything, but the fact their first idea had made even a minor impact and hadn't set them back at all was a good omen, she thought. With enough time and good ideas, they could surely pull themselves out of this.

She remembered to skip over the other girls in their unit when she entered and was now savoring the idea of a hot shower.

That's when it sounded like a train plowed through the room directly below them, followed by a great deal of shouting and yelping.

"Oh, hell no!" she shouted, barging back out of her room, and causing the other three to jump off the floor when she stomped through it yelling, "We are not doing this tonight!" The other girls stared at each other; their mouths were half open with excitement at Zelda's temper. They could hear the other doors on the floor open, no doubt the other champions wondering what the huge sound was and hearing Zelda lose her cool. They didn't move an inch, waiting for her wrath to explode on the poor souls below them. After a few seconds they heard three huge bangs on the door, immediately followed by some hesitant muttering within the room. Finally, after Zelda had bashed their door three more times, threatening to break it down, they heard Cap open it slowly.

"Oh, hey Zelda, is there something you ne-WHOA HEY PUT DOWN THE FLAMES YOU DON'T NEED TO-."

The next morning, Hand called a special meeting of all the champions. There weren't any matches today midway through the week, so everyone would be present in the same room for the first time since the newcomer feast. The champions would have been talking about what they thought Hand was calling them for, but the sounds and rumors of the battle that had commenced on the fourth floor yesterday evening overshadowed the morning hours' conversation.

"What."

Fox had just opened the door from his unit with Link and was looking directly across the hall at the open door to party central. It looked like it had been hit by a bomb. There were huge scorch marks slashed across the walls several feet long. Entire sections of the carpet had been torched, and there wasn't a single piece of furniture that wasn't displaced. The couch was turned sideways, the table was upside down on the other end of the room, and it even looked like holes had been punched in some walls.

On top of the warzone condition of the room, there were the inhabitants themselves. Incineroar had been quite literally tied down to what was left of the couch. He was sound asleep despite the uncomfortable position. Sonic was at the edge of the entrance to his room on the floor. It looked like he had made a desperate crawl for it before falling asleep next to a particularly dark blast against the wall. Falco was in the dead center of the floor laying in a contorted position, also asleep. The only conscious member was Captain Falcon, who was somberly scrubbing one of the thousand burn marks off their walls. It looked like Isabelle had brought cleaning supplies to their room and left them with it.

"What the hell?" sputtered Link, peering over Fox's shoulder at the disaster zone. "How did we not hear any of this?"

"Must've happened before we got back from training yesterday evening, and then they just kept their door shut," said Fox, slowly departing their unit and making for the staircase. Cap made no indication that he saw them and continued scrubbing away.

In the dining room, they found their roommates Mario and Donkey Kong and sat next to them.

"Uh," started Fox, "about Cap's room."

"I-a am aware," said Mario nonchalantly. "They'll have to-a clean what they can before the-a repair people can-a come."

Zelda was lounging casually at another table with her roommates. She, at least, looked well rested. Some of the other champions, especially the newer ones, cast nervous glances in her direction when they entered the room. She paid them no mind.

"Newbies getting a taste for what happens when you really tick her off," muttered Link with a low laugh. "I don't think anyone is going to try crossing her again any time soon."

Simon and Richter were particularly obvious with how they stared at Zelda apprehensively when they entered the dining room. Their room was directly below Cap and crew's, so they would've heard the entirety of Zelda's rampage if they had been there at the time. Snake, though, only spared a fleeting glance at her, and Marth didn't even act like anything was out of the ordinary.

Once everyone had gathered in the dining room, aside from the four unfortunate members from the fourth floor, Hand arrived and immediately made for the front of the room where he had given his little speech during the newcomer feast.

"Thanks for showing up, everyone, on your day off," he started. He looked distracted and was ruffling through several unorganized papers. "Uh let's see…yes, this one. Alright, so, as of today, all your fighting schedules have been changed."

There was some mummering in response to this, but nothing drastic. Schedule changes happened, although they weren't frequent and never on this scale.

"And," continued Hand, "if you check them online right now, you'll notice something different about them."

Fox opened his own schedule on his own device and began to read through it. Almost immediately he picked up on the changes. His next four events had four people listed in each one.

"Doubles?" he asked. Some of the others were already looking around for who they had been matched up with. Fox checked his partner for the first fight.

"Ah…" he said, turning towards Zelda's table. A beaming Lucina was waving eagerly at him. Zelda was giving Fox a very smug look as he awkwardly waved back.

"Some of you will be starting as early as tomorrow, so I suggest you start thinking about how you'll work with your teammates," said Hand.

There was immediate movement where people scrambled to meet up with their upcoming teammates, and it was then that Fox realized that these teams had to have been assigned at random, because there were some very strange combinations. Peach and Ganondorf were together, despite having basically nothing in common. Chrom was with Wolf, and they had strongly opposing attitudes. Robin, someone who never used her fists, was making her way through the crowd to find Ken, someone who almost exclusively used his fists. It was a bizarre sight.

"Hey!"

Someone tapped Fox's shoulder and he turned around to see that Lucina had come over. He was certain that Zelda, who had been paired with Ike, was watching him from somewhere, but he put that out of his mind.

"Hey," he replied, trying to think of something positive to say quick. "Well, I'm glad I got someone with a bit of experience at least."

"Ah…?" said Lucina, clearly not sure how to take this.

Fox waved his hands. That was a disastrous start. "Forget I said that," he said, "I'm just happy I got someone I know can work well with."

"Oh, alright. Um, by the way, can I ask you something? Out on the training grounds where we won't be overheard," she said, glancing nervously around some.

"Yeah, sure," said Fox, slightly befuddled. He was used to taking questions from newbies all the time, but Lucina had been around for a little bit now and usually went to Zelda for help.

They made their way out of the mansion along with several other duos, most of whom were in tomorrow's matches. Once out on the expansive training grounds, they could get some distance from everyone else. There was also a fair amount of cool wind coursing through the grounds. Summer was losing its bite.

Instinctively, they both began warming up. While they sat on the ground stretching their legs, Lucina finally asked, "Is there something going on with Hand?"

"Uh, what do you mean?" said Fox, not looking at her. She had been so direct he worried that she might have caught a reaction from him.

"He just seems…I don't know…stressed."

"Isn't he always stressed?"

"More than normal."

Fox still didn't look at her. Hand had been letting some information slip to the Big Eight about the company having some dire financial situations, and apparently Zelda was in the know as well. He knew the interviews they started recently had been an attempt to combat this, and these new doubles matches were probably the next step.

"Well, he is managing the largest batch of champions ever," said Fox, standing up.

Lucina followed him saying, "I don't think Hand would have much of a problem handling that."

"Who are we facing off against?" asked Fox, hoping to change the subject.

Lucina opened the schedule on her phone. "Uh, about that. It's Mario and Roy."

"What?" yelped Fox, snatching her own phone rather than bringing out his own. He had completely missed that part of the schedule.

"Hey!" she snapped, trying to grab it back. Fox tossed it right back at her face after he had confirmed his fears.

"Why is our opponent the only combination that makes sense!" he griped. "Two close range fighters with fire abilities!"

"We're both close range fighters," mumbled Lucina.

"Do you have a gun?"

"Do you have a sword?" quipped Lucina right back, folding her arms. "When did you become such a coward?"

Fox felt his fur stand up in a way that wasn't because of the wind. He stopped halfway through his rant with his mouth hanging open. "Sorry, what did you say?" he asked. Despite her hair whipping around her, Lucina was staring directly at Fox.

"I said, when did you become so scared?" she said. "You really are that scared of those two?"

Fox also folded his arms, "You aren't?"

"Can you take on Mario?" asked Lucina.

"Can you take on Mario?" he fired back.

This time Lucina opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

"Uh huh," said Fox, now seeing what was going on. He watched Lucina open her mouth fail to say something three times before finally interjecting, "Look, the best way to approach this fight is understanding that our opponents are going to have better chemistry than us given we only have, what was it, two days to practice."

Lucina nodded but didn't say anything. Fearing that he may have shattered her confidence a little, he added, "I overreacted some. We're a good team, just because we're not going to be favored in this fight doesn't mean we can't ruin Bowser's day by pulling off the upset." Lucina gave a snort at this.

As part of his preparation for their match, Fox took up residence in the quiet hidden bar to watch the first round of doubles matches unfold. There he could see how people were reacting to having to work together, what they could take advantage of, and what they could avoid.

Right off the bat he noticed that communication was going to be a challenge. Robin and Ken, both fairly new champions on the same team, had an incident where Robin tried to throw a fireball at Simon, who Ken was advancing on, and hit his teammate in the back and set him on fire. Aside from being aware of each other's actions, there was also dealing with knowing how to compliment each other's moves. Hit someone too far away and your teammate might not be able to reach them for a follow up, or worse, hit someone into a teammate when they're not ready and send them flying off the stage with your opponent.

"Quite the shakeup today!" Fox heard a familiar voice behind him.

"Hey, Scrib," said Fox as the writer took his seat next to him and ordered a beer.

"Can't say I've seen anything like this before!" Scrib noted, looking up at the television.

"We didn't even know about it until yesterday," said Fox. "They just gave us random partners and told us to get training."

"And who did they give you?" asked Scrib, taking a drink from his beer.

"Lucina, and we're going up against Mario and Roy."

Scrib coughed and sputtered a little before barely containing a laugh.

"I see," Scrib gasped. "Good luck to you, then."

"Oh c'mon," said Fox, rolling his eyes, "you're acting like we're going to our funeral or something. We're just as strong of a team."

Scrib was nodding along, but with a very unconvinced expression.

"You should've gone into acting instead of writing with all that drama," grumbled Fox.

"Writing has more than enough drama for me as it is," said Scrib.

Fox shrugged, "You know me. I could never see it."

"Still not interested in my books? I've got a copy with me." Scrib pulled out a novel from the leather satchel he usually carried with him.

Fox stared at the cute fantasy illustration on the cover. "You're still trying to push that on me?"

"I'd push any book on you if it got you into reading, honestly," said Scrib.

Fox looked back up at the screen. "I just can't see myself sitting still and getting involved with a bunch of words on a page. It doesn't seem real."

"Ah, maybe another time then," said Scrib, putting the book away. "As for your match…"

"We'll be fine," said Fox. "Honestly, it's like you forget that I'm one of the Big Eight as well."

Scrib laughed. "I sometimes forget that you're such a superstar with how much time you bother to spend with me here."