Kaitlin stormed out of her boss's office.
"What's your deal?" she called after her. When Kaitlin didn't respond, her boss tailed her into her own office.
Would have been nice to know that was coming! She was seething to herself and barring her teeth at no one. What an absolute idiot, she thought to herself. When she got her hands on him…
"Hey, are you listening to me?"
Kaitlin opened her laptop and checked her email. The contents of Catherine's laptop were sitting right there in a neatly packaged folder from Wolf. Her entire strategy, though, had been scrambled. She was going to carefully pick this information apart and have a nice whistleblower story by the end of the day, but now they were quite literally on borrowed time. She didn't even know what the current leadership structure of the company was anymore. If Catherine had already taken over, then at any moment champions could be shunted off with a flick of her wrist. Did she have a next step available to her?
"Kaitlin!"
Kaitlin looked up at her boss. Her expression was quite severe.
"What?" she asked, exasperated.
"Spill it, now. What are you doing?"
Frustrated and out of patience, she opened up Wolf's attachment and rifled through the information. It took no time. A quick search brought up a huge string of conversations between Catherine and various people such as Adam, some of the board members, and even Hand. Sure enough, the last communication between her and Hand was instructing him to a meeting yesterday evening. Following that meeting time, there was another message sent to Adam informing him of Hand's removal as director.
It wasn't just this one instance either. The messages between her and the other board members were chock-full of fear-mongering and intimidation. She made it abundantly clear that they could either sell and get out of her way or be forced to accept massive losses as the company nose-dived. Conversations with Adam frequently involved how to phrase events and revelations to make them appear as bad as possible. There was even a group of messages relating to the incident with the turnstiles where Catherine had alerted Adam to the problem well before any fans would have arrived at the stadium.
"Look," she spun her laptop towards her boss, "Catherine Barr has been engaging in all kinds of illegal activity to drive down the price of Smash Co so that she can force the other stakeholders and board members to sell and effectively take over the company. She's been working with Adam Sellar over at Laurissa to push sensational articles so that everyone would panic and bail on their holdings. That is how he's been able to drop these bombshells before anyone knew what was going on. He was being fed information from Catherine as things were happening so that he would be the first to everything in exchange for sowing fear." She suddenly remembered her commitment. "Unfortunately, I can't say anything about him because we agreed on it."
"Hold on. You what now?"
"It was a good deal for the information, that's all that matters-."
"How, Kaitlin, did you get this information? Did it just appear on your laptop this morning? Did someone you know just happen to drop the story of the year in your inbox?"
Kaitlin opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She hadn't thought of this. She was so fixated on bringing down Catherine that she hadn't considered that she would, in the end, need her boss's approval to publish a story this huge, regardless of what personal risk she was willing to accept.
Her boss's expression grew more agitated by the second. "I swear if you did something-."
"Some of the champions broke into Catherine's home and copied the information off her laptop and sent it to me." She said it all very fast in some kind of lame desperate attempt to get it past her boss without her comprehending the severity of it, but it was in vain.
Her boss's jaw dropped and she smacked her hand to her forehead and started running her fingers through her hair. "Son of a-."
"It was the only way!" Kaitlin pleaded. "How else was I supposed to stop-?"
"No! You, zip! Now!" Kaitlin's mouth sealed itself shut. Her boss's fury began to flood the room. "I told you not to get involved in this mess, and this is exactly why! For the love of…don't tell me you had any part or knowledge in this heist." When Kaitlin failed to respond, her fury compounded with incredulity. She slid down the wall and buried her face in her hands. She sat there for over a minute in shock while Kaitlin's mouth opened and closed several times without being able to form a single word. This wasn't how she had planned her morning.
"Does she know?" her boss eventually asked. "That you stole it?"
"No."
"Does anyone know?"
"Adam Sellar does," and just before her boss could explode again she added, "but he helped them get out so he's just as involved as the rest of us."
"Well, that gives us a single ray of light in this thunderstorm you've just conjured."
"That I conjured? Hold on-!"
"Yes, Kaitlin, that you conjured!" She got back up from the ground. "We wouldn't be in this mess if you had just done as I asked and not gone poking around! What you did is just as illegal as what Catherine has been doing, but it's not just you that'll be done for, it'll be all of us! Me, your co-workers, Corneria News, everyone! And then they'll go after those champions, but I guess they don't care because they can just screw off to who knows where once the authorities come after them. But we can't, Kaitlin! We're not champions!"
Kaitlin got up from her chair and stared down at her boss. "No, we're not champions. Champions are people that actually did something with their lives. They can pull victory from the jaws of defeat, have incredible power that can save lives and topple kingdoms, and can make a difference, whether it's good, bad, or whatever. They've all achieved something remarkable while I spent the last six months doing anything but that as something I loved slowly crumbled away. Thanks for that reminder."
Her boss let out a mirthless laugh. "That's your angle? You want to be like a champion? All this because you want to act like you can pull off this insanity without getting everyone blown up? I didn't give you this position so you could go off acting like a child!"
"Then why did you give me it? Just to say you managed the youngest lead reporter for the champions competition ever?"
"I gave you it because you cared about it and put in more work than anyone else covering it!"
"Then let me care!"
"Kaitlin, this will destroy you! Everything you worked for to get to this point, gone. Poof. Lost to the void. You'll never be able to return."
"If it means I can stop this from happening, fine!"
They stood there for a moment, chests heaving and red in the face. They had never argued like this before, and Kaitlin's boss was starting to see that she wouldn't be so easily dissuaded.
"You're not thinking this through," she said. Her tone had shifted to one that sought to instill reason within Kaitlin rather than beat her down.
"I've been thinking it through for a few months, actually."
"I'm not publishing that story."
"Fine, you don't have to. There are plenty of other ways to get a story trending online." Her tone wasn't wavering.
"If you release that," her boss said slowly, making sure Kaitlin was processing every syllable, "I'll have to fire you."
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Kaitlin had been preparing herself to hear that, but it didn't stop the lump in her throat from forming. Her boss was right. Corneria couldn't hold on to a reporter that stole the contents of someone's laptop and plastered the information online, much less someone with so much status and wealth. She'd be shown the door the moment they saw it trending. On top of that, she'd be blacklisted from every major publication until the end of time. Forget her job at Corneria, her life as a reporter would be over.
She could stop right now. Adam was out of her way, now that his partnership with Catherine would have reached its completion. He'd go on to other, bigger things at Laurissa. The competition would still go on, albeit in a dramatically smaller fashion. She'd still have her dream job. Once all the other champions had left, it'd be like the clock had been turned back a little over a decade.
But then she remembered that gaggle of champions watching gleefully as Zelda pounded Incineroar off the stage in that private mock battle. She could imagine Cap's ridiculous antics in the complex, no doubt amplified by his roommates. She felt the pain of Leaf's absolute drubbing and the exhilaration of her comeback victory.
"Did I ever tell you…what happened to me as a kid, and why I wanted to be a reporter for the champions competition?" Kaitlin asked.
"You briefly mentioned how you idolized them in your interview."
"It's a little different than that. When I was a kid, that aparoid invasion hit Corneria. I still get nightmares about it every now and then. The Defense Force was completely overrun, and those…things were roaming the city streets. My parents both worked, so they were in the city center when it happened. I was all alone. I had just finished my schooling for the day when I heard the explosions. At first, I figured I could just hide in my room until mom or dad got home. Kid logic, you know? Just hide in your room and you'll be safe from the outside."
"Well, then the outside wall of my bedroom got ripped off. After the soldiers on the ground had been overrun, and they set up those jammers so no one could send or call for help, the aparoids started going for the buildings. They just tore through them like paper. They didn't have any self-preservation. If they ate through so much of a skyscraper that it toppled on top of them, killing a thousand of us and a thousand of them, they weren't phased by it. One of them just happened to latch onto my bedroom and started tearing through it. I started screaming, but I couldn't move. At that age, death wasn't even something I could comprehend. All I knew was that I was scared."
"And then something hit it in the back, and it dropped dead. There was a laser burn on its back. When it fell over, and I could see outside, I saw Fox, riding on the wing of Wolf's aircraft. They were shooting them by the hundreds, hitting them so fast it was practically raining dead aparoids at some point. Then a huge one showed up, and they fought it all across the city until it finally came crashing down on the outskirts."
"I found out later that Fox had dropped in, completely unassisted, to march through the city and take out the radar jammers. After he had taken them down, he got cornered on a rooftop, but then Wolf saved him. Even though they were enemies, they worked side-by-side to wipe out the aparoids from the city. It was all an absurd amount of risk for them all to take on, but if they hadn't, I wouldn't be alive."
She glanced up at her boss, who was looking resigned.
"You feel like you owe him this," she concluded.
"It's a far cry from saving his life, but it's the least I could do."
Her boss gave a huge, defeated sigh. "Oh, to hell with it. What do you need?"
"Wha-…you're going to help me?"
"If you so much as breathe a word about my involvement to anyone, I will make sure you spend the rest of your life in a hospital bed. You'll have to figure out how to publish this yourself."
"I…thank you…"
"Don't thank me. You're still totally fired once this is done."
Fox was about to sprint into the dining hall when Zelda stomped out of it. Lucina was in tow, panicked.
"What-?" Fox tried to ask.
"Move."
Zelda didn't shout. She snarled it at him. Fox had never gotten out of her way so quickly before. Her fingers were digging into her palms from how tight her hands were balled up, and there were tiny bits of smoke pouring out of them. She was hunched over a little, her eyes were staring daggers across the hall, and her lips were sealed with her teeth barred underneath. She stomped right past him without sparing a glance. Knowing that he probably wasn't getting another word from her, he looked desperately at Lucina.
She waited until Zelda was far enough before whispering to him, "Wolf stopped by and showed her something just a minute ago. He didn't let anyone in on it, but her face went from shocked to this in seconds. It must have been really bad."
"Should we follow her?" Fox asked, gauging how far her blast radius might be. This wasn't severe annoyance like when she fought Incineroar or blew Cap's room apart. She was radiating unrestrained rage, the likes of which he hadn't seen from her since Ganon first arrived at the complex years ago. Whatever he had in mind coming back here had been erased.
"I think we'll be okay," said Lucina. She began to cautiously tail Zelda.
It was pretty evident where she was going. They were headed straight for Hand's office. Why she felt a raging need to visit there when he had been missing all night, they had no idea. Was she going to tear it up just like she did to Cap's room?
Fox leaned over to Lucina and asked, "Did Wolf really not tell anyone else what he showed her?"
"Yeah, we figured it was just some weird stuff that..you know…his group had done."
Fox shook his head. "He's a very deliberate person. He didn't approach her publically to tell her something like that. He had no problem with everyone else knowing he was letting her in on something."
They were careful not to get too close to Zelda. She was aware they were following her but paid them no mind. It wasn't until she entered Hand's office that they sped up so they could stand next to the door and listen to what she was doing.
That proved to be completely pointless. Two steps inside, Zelda detonated.
"YOU-!" and she unleashed a tirade of verbal abuse laced with so many expletives that it sent Fox and Lucina's jaws crashing into the floorboards. They had never heard such an incredible combination of curses and insults before. Fox looked over his shoulder at Lucina to check that he hadn't just gone insane. The petrified shock on her face was validation enough. For some incredible, unbelievable reason, Zelda had just gone thermonuclear.
Zelda was always known to be a bit of a firecracker when people pushed her buttons. It wasn't that she had any lack of control of her emotions, but more that she had high expectations of people. When champions failed to live up to those expectations, she had no problem telling them off. When it came to people like Cap and his group, she usually had to use physical force to demonstrate her resolve and establish some respect. For champions like Fox, a few sharp words would set him in his place. She always knew what it took to assert herself.
She also knew how to control herself. When she berated Fox after his first doubles match with Lucina, she didn't outright insult him. She just said enough to knock him out of his bad mentality and get back on track. Sure, she beat Incineroar senseless in the arena and blew Cap's unit apart, but the only injury Incineroar received was a damaged ego, and she stopped short of outright obliterating Cap's unit beyond repair or, more importantly, damaging their possessions.
So for Zelda to abandon all restraint and lay someone out with the most brutal yet fantastically cohesive string of curses they had ever heard, something must have shattered her tolerance.
"Who…the hell…" was all Lucina managed to squeak wondering what someone would have to do to push Zelda to this level of rage.
There was a long pause after Zelda finished blasting whoever was in Hand's office with her. They were likely trying to recover from the same shock Fox and Lucina were experiencing. Going by the…colorful verbiage Zelda had just provided, Fox could surmise that she was raging at a woman. Beyond that, he had nothing. Nothing except a stunningly long list of useless adjectives.
The long silence echoed her words inside their heads, at least until the woman in Hand's office finally responded.
"I…excuse me? What…what was that all about?"
Fox's fur stood up a little. "Catherine Barr?" he muttered.
"The board member?" Lucina whispered back. Fox nodded. What could she have done to provoke this kind of response? What had driven Zelda to verbally lambast a sitting board member?
"You know exactly what! What kind of disloyal, backstabbing, animal would throw Hand under the bus like that? Are you seriously that arrogant? Did you think that you were just entitled to this?"
"She is really going at her," Lucina whispered.
"Zelda," said Catherine as if she was trying to dismantle a bomb that was on fire, "I am not sure what kind of impression you have of what's going on, but I am sure I can explain it all to you."
"Oh, do explain!"
"I wouldn't recommend you try to explain," Fox muttered to no one. "If she is this mad, then you have already sealed your fate."
"Too bad she can't hear your sage advice," said Lucina.
Catherine, of course, attempted to explain. "There's been a change in leadership. Hand resigned, and I bought the stake left over by the remaining board members. I will be taking control of operations and hopefully be able to fix all of this-."
"You're the reason we're in this mess to begin with!" Zelda's volume hadn't changed. Fox wondered if they could hear the shouting all the way back in the dining room. It sounded to him and Lucina like she was standing right next to them.
"Zelda, what are you going on about? I'm trying to save this company-!"
"Don't gaslight me, you-!" and she used another choice set of words to describe Catherine. Fox slid down the wall a little.
"Zelda, control yourself!" Catherine's voice was starting to elevate.
"No!" she was borderline shrieking. Control had gone out the window. Fox wondered if he should step in. She might derail at any second, and then things would get really ugly. "You sabotaged us! You incited panic about us and then bullied all the other board members away so you could kick Hand out and take over! All this time I thought we were working together to try and stop this, but you wanted it to happen!"
There was a weighty pause after this. Fox looked back at Lucina again. They were no longer thinking about Zelda's curse-filled tirade anymore. They could feel the temperature of the room inside plummeting as the realization of what Zelda had just said set in. Lucina opened her mouth two or three times, looking more and more perturbed.
"Who told you this?" Catherine demanded icily.
"Why should you care?"
"Because I want to know who's spreading lies about me."
"Hypocrite."
"This is not a request, Zelda. Where did this come from?" Her voice was growing more dangerous by the second.
"I couldn't give a damn what you want."
Catherine sighed. "You are being needlessly stubborn. We already have to cut dozens from this bloated roster this morning. Are you trying to push your name to the top of the list?"
"You're…you're cutting this morning?" Fox didn't like the faltering he heard in her voice.
"Yes, this morning. There will still be sixteen left. You were among the lucky ones unless you're desperate to throw away that spot. I'm sure the last one cut would be happy to take it."
Fox moved.
"What're you-?" Lucina hissed. She tried to pull him away from the door. Fox shrugged her off.
"Did I hear you right?" he announced as his entrance. Zelda turned around, and the rage on her face flickered.
Catherine rolled her eyes at the sight of Fox. "You people are just determined to ruin my morning."
Zelda stepped up to him and said quietly. "You don't have to get involved with this."
"Zelda, remember what I said about leaders?"
"But…we can't just give up because Hand's gone."
"I'm not backing up Hand here."
Zelda's eyes lit up, and for a moment she looked at him with a bit of surprise. She gave a little smirk and turned back to Catherine with her boldness, and a little bit of rage, reignited.
"You can't just cut all those champions like that," said Fox.
"I…can actually," Catherine replied with a note of confusion as if she wondered why Fox would make such a dumb statement. "And I should. We can't afford to have this many champions. Not when our ratings have been stagnant for years now."
"We were turning things around until you broke everything!" Zelda snapped.
"Neither of you is even on the list of proposed cuts." Catherine was becoming exasperated.
"Then give my spot to someone else," Fox said flatly.
"That's very heroic of you, Fox," she replied, unamused.
"It's not all that heroic to not want to work with a liar."
Fox personally had no proof of this accusation, but if there was anything the last few months had taught him, it was that he could trust the others here when needed. He knew Zelda wouldn't have behaved like this unless there was a very, very credible reason to do so.
Zelda pulled out her phone and began typing something.
"I tried working with Hand, you know," said Catherine. "I brought this up to him over a year ago, and what does he do? Does he listen to me or any of my advice? No, he goes on a shopping spree for more champions. At every meeting he promises results, only to deflect from ever providing a concrete solution. It got rather exhausting, you know, being repeatedly told not to worry about things and to let him handle it like I'm some child."
"And that justifies you wrecking the place and kicking him out…how, exactly?" said Fox.
"I don't care what you two think I did or didn't do, just know that with or without him this place was headed for destruction."
Fox folded his arms. "That doesn't make it any better. What makes you think anyone is going to want to work with you?"
"I'm sure people will be plenty cooperative when they hear I'm who saved the company from folding. You can thank me after I handle things today, assuming I still feel like keeping you around after this…outburst."
"You don't have the authority to do anything," said Zelda, finally looking up from her phone. Fox side-eyed her curiously.
Catherine finally let out a mirthless laugh. "What part of bought the company are you not getting-?"
"What you bought came with a lot of rules Hand created when he first established it, one of which states that only the director can make the kinds of decisions you're trying to make. You're the owner, but not the director. There's a process for that. You can't make those cuts until you're the director."
"As the owner, Zelda, I can simply appoint myself as director."
"One of the requisites for being a candidate for the director is a recommendation from the owner, yes, but the other is getting at least twenty-five signatures from employees of the company." She held up her phone. "Which, Hand so brilliantly added, includes champions." On the screen was a digital candidacy form with dozens of signatures from all the champions already on it. "After I saw how you treated him that one meeting, I looked up a bunch of the company rules. Hand said I needed to learn how to play your game, so here we are."
For the first time during this whole conversation, not including when Zelda cursed her out, Catherine looked phased. "You can't be the director if you're a champion," she argued.
"Good thing that, as of two minutes ago, I'm not. I quit."
Fox shook his head a little but didn't say anything. If this was what Zelda thought was the best course of action…
Catherine was still backpedaling from Zelda's new angle of attack. "The election has to be conducted by a board that I will appoint. You'll lose."
"Too bad you don't have a board, and I can't imagine the former members will be coming back any time soon. I wonder how long it'll take for you to find some willing members. It probably won't be easy given the apparent imminent collapse of the company and the horror stories its former members are probably telling everyone."
Catherine was left frozen.
"Impressive," Fox said out of the corner of his mouth.
Zelda gave him a small wink back. "A few months ago I also thought I could get what I wanted if I just pushed hard enough. Turns out sometimes I had to take reality for what it was rather than what I thought it should be." She looked back at Catherine. "Consider that a piece of advice from Hand."
"Uh, Catherine, you're running late for the…the announcement…"
Zelda and Fox spun around. Adam Sellar was in the doorframe. He looked very tired, like he hadn't slept all night, and his hair wasn't quite as neat as he usually kept it. When he lumbered into the room, he caught sight of the two champions inside and went mute. Lucina was visible just behind him, peeping around the doorframe into the room with her phone out.
Zelda looked at Adam, surprised, then back to Catherine, then back to Adam. She did this two more times before realization dawned upon her.
"You tool," she said. It was with a rather nonchalant tone, and the bluntness of it flattened Adam. Behind him, Lucina was furiously typing on her phone.
Adam tried to get up from Zelda's bulldozer of a greeting. "Excuse you?" he replied.
"This was how Laurissa was getting all those stories?" She looked back between him and Catherine again. "How long have you two been in bed together?"
"Ignore her, Adam," Catherine interjected, "she's been acting rather deluded this morning. I'll be right down."
"To do what, exactly?" asked Fox. "Because from what Zelda just said, I don't think you have the right to announce anything if you're not the director."
"A minor detail! Oh, forget this, I'm just going to head down now. It wouldn't be the first time I had to wing something this year because people insisted on getting in my way."
"Wait," said Adam, "Catherine, you're not the director?"
"It's just a temporary technicality! It doesn't affect what my plans are!" Catherine stepped around her desk, through Zelda and Fox, and headed for Adam and the door.
"Whoa whoa, I can't publish anything without knowing if you're even going to be able to act on it! You've already burned me once with the turnstiles!"
"You what?" chirped Zelda.
"Move, Adam! Oh for the love of-…what are you doing here? Doesn't this place have any kind of security?"
"Tch, the champions are the security, you toad, and you're in the middle of trying to fire almost all of them."
Fox scrambled to look past Adam and Catherine. "Kaitlin?" he blurted.
"Hi, Fox. Zelda. Erm, Lucina. Why are you hiding back there, anyway?" She looked up at Adam as she walked into the office, "Ugh, of course, you're here." She sat on the back of one of the chairs. "Yeah, I wouldn't be making any public appearances right now. You might get some…uncomfortable questions."
"What kind of a threat is that?"
"It's not a threat, it's a fact. I mean, Catherine Barr, a long-time board member of Smash Co., launching a fear and intimidation campaign to aggressively wrest control of it and replace its manager? Every reporter on every planet is going to be after that story."
And before Catherine could go off again about unsubstantiated claims, she pulled out her own phone and tossed it at her. Zelda looked over at Kaitlin, floored. She gave her a slight eyebrow raise and a faint smile back.
Catherine lowered the phone after a minute of scrolling through it. There was a muscle twitching in her jaw. She shoved the phone into Adam's hands and turned on Kaitlin. "Where did you get this?"
"Why should I tell you?"
"Because these are my private messages!"
"Not anymore." Kaitlin was being quite unapologetic. Fox expected a reaction out of Adam, but he was stone-faced while looking at Kaitlin's phone.
"Corniera won't allow you to publish stolen information."
"Corneria has given me a long leash the past few years. Perks of being their little superstar."
"You're bluffing. Your career would be destroyed the instant you sent it."
"Oh, I am very much fired right now, but I'm already past that. As for any legal ramifications, there are enough whistleblower laws to keep me safe. I obviously didn't do this for personal gain. All I have left to do now is watch you burn."
Catherine stared at Kaitlin, mouth agape, and looking like she had just been slapped. Kaitlin stared right back at her, emotionless. The dead look in her eyes was creeping Fox out a little.
The room was still for a while with Kaitlin and Catherine staring each other down, Adam pretending to scroll through Kaitlin's phone, Fox and Zelda watching the showdown unfold, and Lucina nearly breaking her phone from how hard she was typing on it.
Catherine looked at Adam. "Do you believe what she's saying?"
Adam glanced at Kaitlin, who didn't look at him, before turning to her. "This is pretty damning."
Catherine gave a shaky inhale. Fox didn't know what they should do. Kaitlin's bombshell of a story and unremorseful exposure of Catherine's private messages had just turned the entire conversation upside down. Now everyone was looking at her to see how she was going to react. Lucina stopped typing on her phone, and Zelda had forgotten to keep looking angry at her. In seconds, her face went from disbelief to horrific realization to a kind of sick acceptance that made him uneasy.
"I see," she said. She pulled out her phone. Her hands were trembling. "Well, this was a contingency plan I certainly had never planned on using, not after all my hard work at least, but you have all made it abundantly clear that you're not worth saving, even if I did desperately want to turn things around myself." She did something on the phone while barely controlling her temper. When she put it away she added, "You won't last long with all of the shares now offloaded into the market. I doubt you'll make it another month, honestly."
Fox heard Kaitlin swear under her breath and saw the blood drain from Zelda's face. Even Adam was taken aback. "Wait, you didn't just-."
"I'll be going now," Catherine finished shakily. "Good riddance."
"Oh, are you finally selling Catherine?"
Yet another new voice had joined them. The door was so clogged up between Adam, Catherine, and Lucina that Fox couldn't see who had just arrived, but the voice was all he needed to know who it was.
"What are you doing here, Scrib?" he called.
"Quite the party you've got going here now," Kaitlin muttered.
"Hello, Fox," Scrib piped from behind the wall of people. "I thought you might be offering your proposal this morning and wondered if I could sneak in to provide any help. I doubted that I would run into much resistance walking in this morning, and I was right. I didn't imagine I'd overhear the opportunity of a lifetime!"
"You?" Catherine spat. "What're you doing?"
"I had been trying to expand my ownership of the company for some time, especially since so many board members were leaving, but their shares never made it to the open market." Scrib pushed past her into the room. He was also on his phone. "For some odd reason, the board had decided to sell all their shares to you as they left. It was quite frustrating, honestly. But now," he gave a few hard taps on the phone to send something away, "my advisor can purchase everything you just dropped on the market. He's quite thrilled, given the massive commission he'll make on it. He'll be able to buy that engagement ring for his girlfriend, pay for the wedding, book a trip for the honeymoon, and still have plenty left over." He sat down in the executive chair behind the desk looking quite pleased with himself. "Maybe he'll buy some real estate in the city for them to settle down."
If there was a scenario to describe an explosive silence, Scrib had achieved it. The shockwave was ringing through everyone's heads so hard that no one could form a cohesive thought. After months of planning and waiting, everything was moving in unthinkable directions at warp speed.
Fox was the first to break out of the stun lock Scrib had placed on them. "Wait, you bought the whole company?"
"I bought everything that was on the market," he clarified. "An overwhelming majority of the ownership given Catherine just unloaded her position. I'm sure I can negotiate the sale of the remainder once we get a proper board reinstated."
Adam was in disbelief. "But…that's millions of shares! Even with Catherine's generational wealth, she could only buy them in waves! Purchasing those alone would be unimaginably expensive, even after they've fallen so far! Let alone the operating costs you'll incur-!"
"I'm a good writer, Mr. Sellar," Scrib answered. Adam looked at him incredulously.
Fox let out a short laugh, then began laughing outright. No one could look away from Scrib. Everyone was struggling to process the absurdity of what just happened. It all occurred so quickly. Kaitlin's brow was furrowed and her mouth stuck half open. Zelda didn't seem to know what was going on anymore.
"You never let on that you were that rich!" said Fox.
"I don't see a reason why I should have. I told you, as long as I have that bar and can see my favorite champions, I'm quite content."
Fox looked back at Catherine. She hadn't taken her eyes off Scrib since he arrived.
"You, treacherous little-," she started.
But Scrib wasn't having any of it. "I am no traitor, Catherine, I simply refuse to prescribe myself to this ludicrous idea you have of us fortunate people having some kind of unspoken monopolistic alliance. You threatened to destroy the fabric of something I hold very dear, and I fully intend on preventing that from happening since you've given me the opportunity. Now, I'm going to request that you leave my complex, immediately. If you don't, I will have to ask the…ah…security to remove you."
For a second, Catherine looked like she was actually going to resist, but then she bumped into Lucina at the door. Lucina looked down at her with narrow eyes. One quick size-up and she suddenly felt that it was no longer worth it. She stomped out to the hall and departed.
Adam leaned out the door to watch her leave and then turned around to face the room. Lucina also finally entered, pointing weakly in the direction Catherine left.
"Did…did that just happen?" she asked.
Zelda stumbled in place. Fox and Kaitlin scrambled to support her and help her over to one of the chairs.
"I'm fine," she breathed. "Just…really exhausted. That was a lot of emotions just now."
"You've also been running yourself ragged for months," said Fox. He looked up at Scrib. "So…does this mean what I think it means?"
"What are you talking about?"
"We're not going to have to cut everyone?"
"As the owner of the company, I would see cutting all those champions as a huge detriment to its value. I have no intention of making cuts, that would be absurd. There are far more useful things that we can do, as you and I have discussed." He gave them a glowing smile.
Lucina pivoted on the spot and sprinted out the door in the direction of the dining room while screaming, "WOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Zelda looked up at Scrib. "So…it's over?"
"Not by a long shot, no," he replied. "The problems that existed before Catherine's unorthodox actions are still very real, although you have done a very commendable job at trying to handle them."
"I…thanks."
"We will need to continue implementing changes, and I have a few ideas of my own style I would like to add. Kaitlin?"
"Um, yeah?" She looked lost like Scrib's purchase of the company had just turned the office into an alien landscape.
"That was quite the bombshell you dropped earlier this morning. Might have won you a few awards if you hadn't gotten the information the way you did."
"Yeah, I know." She looked away from him. Fox felt a huge pang of guilt now that he remembered what she had said about her job. She crashed her whole dream career to send them a lifeline. What was she going to do now?
"I'm guessing they don't want you at Corneria anymore."
"Funnily enough, blowing up one of the most powerful people on the planet using dirty tactics isn't something that sits well with corporate, regardless if it was the right thing to do."
Adam made a noise.
"Something funny?" Kaitlin sniped.
"No," said Adam. "I'm just…really impressed that you did that." He didn't make eye contact with her.
Kaitlin was caught off guard by the compliment. "Did that woman really mess with your head that badly?" she joked awkwardly.
"I can imagine Corneria wasn't comfortable," continued Scrib, "but you're not in any actual legal trouble, right?"
"No. I mean, Catherine will probably try something, but like I said, whistleblower laws, public interest, etcetera. I'm completely protected."
"Well, in that case, I would like to create an in-house journalist role here. As much as I respected Hand, I felt he was missing out on a great number of opportunities by not having someone on site to tell the stories of those who live here. If you're willing, I'd like for you to take that on. If it proves successful, we could hire some extra talent and you could become our own Director of Brand Journalism. I've been a big fan of your writing for some time now."
Kaitlin's face lit up like a beacon. "I-are you sure? Yes! Of course! That would be a dream job! When could I start?"
"Well, immediately, hopefully, we are on a pressing schedule. As for you, Mr. Sellar."
Adam was uncomfortable with the whole room turning to look at him, especially with the expressions Zelda and Kaitlin were giving. "I should probably just head out now," he mumbled.
"Laurissa still runs a pretty tight ship over there, don't they?"
Adam paused and turned around. "Yes, sir. Expectations are always high." Kaitlin scoffed. He ignored her.
"Not a whole lot of room for upward mobility, if I remember correctly."
"Well, it's not easy-. Wait. If you remember correctly?"
"I worked there myself, a long time ago. Sad to see the culture hasn't changed much. It was the main reason I left. How about you come to work with us?"
"What?" said Kaitlin, whipping around to face Scrib.
"I…um…" Fox could see the battle that just opened up inside Adam's head through his eyes.
"There could be plenty of opportunities here, but only if you're willing to put in the effort. Once we recover, we'll need a Chief Communications Officer. That might be within your range if you apply yourself properly."
The mention of this prestigious title seemed to end the battle in Adam's head prematurely. "CCO?" he clarified. "Really?"
"You'll have to earn it, but right now," he gestured around, "we're rather short on executives."
Adam nodded a few times. "Okay. Yeah, I could take you up on that."
"Excellent, you can start by working under Kaitlin and helping her get that department set up.
"Oh hell no!" Kaitlin took an unnecessary step away from Adam. "You want us to work together?"
"Can't say that sweetened the deal," Adam conceded.
Scrib leaned forward in his new executive chair. "Kaitlin, I'm offering you the job of your dreams after you just crashed your career trying to save this company from Catherine. Furthermore, no major news branch with deep pockets is going to want to take you on after you just obliterated an established socialite figure in the city. Adam, you're seeking validation and mobility at a company notorious for lacking both, and I'm offering you a path to a position higher than you could have ever dreamed of reaching before. As far as I'm concerned, I am offering you both something you can't and don't want to refuse. Also, in my humble opinion, you could stand to learn something from each other."
Fox watched Kaitlin and Adam stare each other down. He felt that he was intruding on something personal with the disgusted looks they were giving each other.
Adam gave up. "Fine."
"Whatever."
"Excellent." Scrib clapped his hands together. "I wanted to get that taken care of before you two could get away. There's a more pressing issue though."
"What's that?" asked Fox.
"Hand."
Zelda snapped back to attention. "What happened to him? Where is he?"
"I've been very interested in that myself, actually," added Adam. "I don't know what Catherine did or said exactly, but I heard Hand went off planet very quickly."
"Yes, it may be a while before we can get him back. In the meantime, Zelda, would you mind taking over as director?"
"Me?" she asked.
"Yes. I hate to ask this after all the effort you've gone through, but you would likely be the best prepared to handle this for the next few days. There will be other things that I will want to focus on, not least of which will involve retrieving Hand. Some we'll need to do real quick to get you officially into the position, company rules and all. Owner recommendations still need approval. Maybe we can convince a few board members to return in some capacity…"
"Well, she just resigned as champion and got the required number of signatures on a candidacy form for the director position, if that helps," said Fox. Zelda started poking the floor with her toe.
Even Scrib looked unprepared for this. "Say what now?"
Zelda began rambling. "Catherine was about to make those cuts, so I quit my role as champion so I could run for the director position and make her have to reassemble the board in order to elect herself over me before she could do anything."
Kaitlin let out a short laugh.
Adam shook his head. "You people are crazy."
Scrib looked very impressed. "Well, that makes that much easier. Since there is no longer an opposing candidate, we can make you the director by the end of today. I'll let you handle announcing to the champions what happened while I talk to the press. We'll get you reinstated as a champion after we drag Hand back."
Zelda nodded.
"And last, but certainly not least, Fox?"
"Hm? Oh, right. Scrib and I came up with an idea. I was running here on the slim chance I could tell Hand about it, but I guess that means I need to tell you now," he looked to Zelda. A little caught off guard, she straightened up in her chair.
"Well, go on," she said.
Kaitlin brought out a pen and notepad and turned over a fresh new page, Adam reluctantly parked himself in the other chair to listen, and Scrib leaned back in his chair as Fox explained their huge plan.