Kaitlin slammed her pen down on her notepad.

"You have got to stop clicking that thing."

"It's what I do when I'm thinking! I can't help it! It's not my fault we're stuffed right next to each other in this tiny excuse of an office."

"We should both be grateful we even have jobs."

"I did have a job, thank you."

"Kissing up to a now wanted criminal for sports stories is hardly something I would put on a resume."

"Right, I should have just thrown my career upon a sword trying to stop her."

"At least I had a promising career I could die honorably with!"

Adam threw the pen at Kaitlin.

"Who's acting like a child now?" She chucked the pen back at him.

Adam sighed and spread out the list of topics he still had left to write across his undersized desk. "Scrib is going to kill us within a month with this much work. I still have to interview seven more champions this afternoon!"

"I really don't see how that's a problem. If you cared, you'd actually be excited to talk to some of them."

"It's not a matter of whether I'm excited enough to talk to them, it's if I have the time to prepare for every interview properly."

"Why do you need to draft a scientific paper for every interview? Just go talk to them!"

"Once again, you demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of properly doing these things."

"Wow, you sound just like one of my bureaucratically obsessed subordinates. He's a real pain, that one."

"Don't even-. Scrib was clear that we were to be working together. As in side-by-side."

"Really? I specifically remember him saying that you were to be working under me."

"Have you two been like this since you started?"

Samus had just opened the door to their stuffy office that was carved out of some empty space near Scrib's. It was a temporary arrangement until Isabelle, alongside her champion duties, could get the construction company back. Even then, Scrib was quite clear that they wouldn't be getting something much better as he wanted to keep costs down.

"During the few moments we're unlucky enough to be here at the same time, yes," said Kaitlin.

"Sounds exhausting."

"Like you wouldn't believe," Adam moaned.

Kaitlin rolled her eyes. "I'm going to go get started on my interviews now." She left the room and headed for the training grounds.

Samus looked down at Adam fretting over his prep notes for all the interviews he also needed to do. "How have things been for you?"

"Nightmarish, honestly. I'm still debating if leaving Laurissa was worth having Kaitlin in my ear every morning."

"She is rather determined," Samus noted.

"She's deranged. Anyway, is there something you needed? I really should get started on these interviews. Scrib didn't waste time dumping work onto us."

"No, just wanted to stop by and say thanks for your help that night."

Adam shrugged and looked down at his empty notes. "I only agreed to let you go because you cornered me."

Samus folded her arms and leaned against the doorframe. "But you wanted to let me go. I could tell, at the end at least, you were glad to have a good excuse to let me escape."

Adam scratched the back of his head and spun around. He stared at a dark corner on the other side of the room under Kaitlin's equally small desk. Samus tilted her head a little as he searched for an answer to this, but she didn't press.

"Catherine isn't someone I recommend ever working with."

"Glad to know I dodged a bullet," Samus said with a little laugh, and Adam gave a weak smile. "Another thing, about being a loner."

Adam looked uncomfortable about this being brought up. "I apologize. That was out of line-."

Samus wasn't interested in his apology. "You weren't exactly right about that. Remember what I said? I've got my own team here. If Kaitlin ever talks your ear off to the point you can't stand it anymore, come hang out with us."

"I…will keep that in mind. Thanks."

Samus pushed herself off the doorframe. "We won't be able to help you much if you don't get your work done, though. I should go so you can get started on all those. Who do you have today, anyway?"

"Let's see. Ike, Snake, October, Corra, Simon, Incineroar, and Link. Honestly, I'm still pretty new to covering you guys compared to Kaitlin, as much as I hate to admit that. Anything special I should know about those seven?"

"Uh, yeah," started Samus. "Ike can be a complete dunce when it comes to navigating any complex conversation. He's strategically brilliant, but the words don't always quite follow. Snake gets irrationally fidgety if you keep him in one place for too long, so you might want to interview him on the move, or at least where he can do something with his hands like eating. October has a very strict workout and self-care schedule, so you'll have to work around that, although she spends most of her free time taking pictures for social media and trying to chat all the girls up. Corra tries to be serious but put someone like October next to her and she'll be just like them in seconds. Incineroar is…well…you'll know soon enough, and I think you already got to meet Link that one time, but he changes his training regiment like every other day so I have no idea where he'll be at today."

She looked back down at Adam, who was looking at her incredulously. He rubbed his eyes and buried his face in his hands.

"I've joined an asylum," he concluded.

Zelda put an elbow on her office desk and rubbed her eyes as she tried to explain for the dozenth time. "The drones were recertified a year ago. They don't need it for another year…What do you mean that was for the old company?… They're the same drones!… No, we're not paying for another recertification when the old one is still in effect!" She tapped the phone screen and threw it down. "Vultures."

She scratched off another item on the list that trailed off the table. Two weeks in, she was halfway through the initial list of tasks Scrib had given her. She groaned and her head hit the table.

"Don't tell me a veteran champion is being defeated by a to-do list," Scrib teased from nearby.

"I'm not a fan of this," she admitted. "I thought there would be a lot more time for creative freedom."

"Free time is in short supply when managing something as complex as this."

"I didn't even know most of this stuff was a thing." She picked up a paper at random. "Adjusting concession prices to account for a half percent increase in city taxes on food products? That's so specific! Can't they just figure that out themselves?"

"If you're interested in a more hands-off approach to management, that is possible."

She threw the paper back down. "Let me guess, that would require even more work just to set it up. Anyway, I don't want to mess up something like that unless Hand wants to."

"Well, why don't you ask him?"

Zelda's head whipped up to face the doorway. Hand was there, wearing uncharacteristically casual clothes and not meeting either of their eyes.

"Hand!" she jumped out of her chair. "Where have you been?"

"Yes, I think you should share that with her," said Scrib. "Especially her after all the effort she put in recently."

Zelda looked at him. "You knew?"

Scrib wasn't looking at Hand with the same excitement Zelda was. His eyes were narrowed some and had a slight frown. There was an aurora of disappointment coming from him, and it was affecting Hand.

Hand had difficulty focusing on Zelda until he mustered up the courage to face her. The look he was giving her was a little overly formal for her liking. "I ran away," he said.

Zelda didn't know how to respond. She just stared at him with her mouth ajar and said, "Huh?"

"I ran away," he repeated. "After Catherine took control and removed me, I felt like I had let you all down. I didn't want to tell you all what had happened and put that misery on you. Catherine was rather aggressive with it all. She told me I should just take myself off planet for all I was good for."

Zelda let out another vulgar description of Catherine that made Hand flinch.

"You'll have to forgive her," said Scrib. "She had to single-handily stop Catherine after she stormed onto the complex and tried to wreck the place with her ideas. Catherine was less than cooperative, although I believe it wasn't helped by how Zelda started the confrontation."

Zelda went a little red. Lucina made sure the entire complex knew about the curse-filled tirade she had unleashed on Catherine. Cap's crew was treating her like some kind of goddess since, and her roommates kept poking fun at her over it. She usually had such good control over her actions, but something about Catherine just always made her lose her cool.

"Honestly, I didn't do much. Kaitlin was the true savior. I was just stalling for time."

Hand shook his head. "Sorry, but Scrib, you didn't actually tell me what happened."

Scrib looked over at Zelda and gave her a nod. Zelda explained to Hand how she had stormed into the office and called Catherine out on her plan, and then she tried stalling out her plans by injecting herself into the election for the director position. By the end, Hand was looking at her with genuine surprise.

"It was rather impressive," Scrib added. "Even without Kaitlin showing up, it would have stalled Catherine for weeks. In fact, Kaitlin may have had enough time to properly investigate her during that time. But then we wouldn't have gotten her, so don't bring that up to her."

"I…hadn't even thought about doing something like that. I swear if I had thought of it I would have done it."

"You need to learn to think with a little more creativity," said Scrib. "As much as I detest what Catherine did, you did not help yourself with your stubbornness. I know how intelligent you are, but without someone like Zelda there to push your mind, this place would have fallen apart much faster. There are still issues now, and they are going to take creative ideas to fix."

Hand sighed. "Honestly, I feel that Zelda should be the director-."

"Absolutely not."

"Get a grip on yourself."

"I already want to kill half the people that call me."

"It's your creation, take some responsibility."

"Okay, okay," Hand waved aside the onslaught of denial. "Honestly, though, I have no idea what you are all up to now."

Scrib pulled out Fox's proposal. "Time for you to get back to work."

Hand took the proposal. The more he read, the more apprehensive he became.

"This is a huge undertaking! Shouldn't we split this up into pieces?"

"If you keep trying to split things into smaller and smaller pieces you'll end up doing nothing at all. It's time to be bold, for once. Oh, and Zelda?"

"Hm?"

"You're fired."

"Thank goodness." She stuck her hands up and walked away from the desk so Hand to take her place.

"You'll have a new champion's contract in your inbox by tonight. Just sign it and send it back and you'll be able to get in on this event." He leaned back in his chair with a glint in his eye. "I wonder how Cap will interpret you being officially the most recent newbie?"

"Don't you dare-."

"BWAHAHAHAHA!"

Leaf's face turned from excitement to a twisted look of annoyance the instant she saw her opponent.

"This isn't fair," she grumbled.

"You've had a good run, my little student, but you're not getting to the A League through me!"

Bowser was maniacally happy at being paired against Leaf for the battle that would determine who progressed to the top league and who was left in the B League. After making such an incredible run as the tournament's new darling, she had just hit the steel wall of reality.

The announcer, and the crowd, seemed to think she was just going up against any other veteran. "Tournament superstar Leaf is now up against even stiffer competition in the form of Bowser! The winner will start their inaugural career in the new league system in the A League, while the loser will have to settle for a B League placement! While Leaf has already massively outperformed expectations, we all know she wants that top placement just as much as anyone else!"

"Yeah, whatever," she mumbled. She didn't care that she was outmatched on a scale the audience wasn't aware of. There was only one game, first to three. She was going to throw everything she had at Bowser.

That ended up not being nearly enough. Within five minutes, Bowser had cleaned her out. She only managed to take a single point.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

The crowd was booing Bowser heavily after he sent Leaf's Charizard tumbling out-of-bounds for the final time. He was having no problem taking on the villain role. Even the announcer was snappy with how he announced his victory.

Bowser turned to face a defeated Leaf. She had a stone-cold look. "So, what're you going to do now?"

"I'm gonna get to the A League!" she threw back at him. Her voice crashed off the walls of the stadium thanks to the new settings of the onfield mics. She pointed a finger at him. "And then next year, I'll be the one that gets you demoted!" The crowd went crazy at this.

"Ahahahaha yes!" shouted Bowser. "That's what I want to see!"

October glanced across the club room at Cora. While everyone was watching Bowser trounce Leaf, Cora arrived and lay on the ground, staring blankly at the ceiling.

"Not taking the D League placement well, is she?" Robin whispered to her.

"Is she supposed to take it any other way?" said October. "Everyone expected her to at least make C League. That was a brutal match against Simon."

"Yeah, a lot of these newbies got really good, really fast."

"I blame the veterans," Robin said grouchily. "They all got sentimental when they thought the whole place was going to come crashing down and now we have a bunch of supercharged rookies to handle."

"Speaking of those," October checked her phone, "Incineroar is up next, and he's going for an A League spot as well. Ugh, I feel like a joke for getting C League yesterday."

"Top of C League, at least," Robin pointed out. "You'll start out with a nice point advantage."

"Those feel like pity points. Anyway, Incineroar is up against," she traced her finger along the bracket. "Oh. Oh no hahaha."

They looked out on the field. Incineroar had just hopped on. They were progressing through matches at breakneck speed due to how many there were to get through over a few days. Incineroar had none of the bravado he usually carried onto the field. It wasn't hard to tell why. His opponent was Zelda.

"You can take her!" shouted Falco.

"You're way tougher now! You can win this!" followed Sonic.

Cap was making no effort to hide his true feelings on the matter. He was staying in his seat covering his face with his hand. There was a maniacal smirk on his face.

"Of all the veterans he could have run into for this last hurdle, it had to be Zelda," he sighed. "I swear, Hand rigged this bracket somehow."

Zelda had an amused eyebrow raised. Incineroar was giving her a lot more respect compared to the last time they stood on this field together. He was already sizing up where she had positioned herself.

To almost everyone's astonishment, Incineroar took the first point.

Almost everyone.

"Yeah!" shouted Falco. He looked around at Cap. "See? He can totally win this! What're you so freaked out about? Cap?"

Cap looked to be in physical pain. His fellow A League placer, Link, was dissolving into fits of laughter.

"What was that?" Link asked hysterically. "None of that made any sense!"

"She's experimenting with something," Cap mumbled. "And she still almost took the first point."

Zelda landed back on the field, annoyed, but not perturbed at all.

"Yeah, she's done with whatever idea that was," said Link. "That was horrific."

It went just as they said. Zelda swapped back to her usual game plan and flattened Incineroar three times in a row to take her A League spot. Falco and Sonic slumped away from the window.

"That looked a bit more how we expected it to go," said Robin. She nudged October. "See? No newbies in A League. You can relax."

"That is not doing a whole lot for my pride."

As Fox got ready to hop onto the field, he kept recounting Scrib's advice. People like characters, so he needed to go beyond just the same old tactics and make things interesting. After years of reigning as a top-ranked veteran, it was nice to have a new challenge added. But now, after the show with Wario, people expected him to put on some kind of antics. Even if his opponent wasn't one he could freely dance around, there was a sense of style he had to adhere to. This was going to be difficult going forward.

But at least today he had a good dance partner.

"Well look at you," he said after he jumped onto the field. "Making it into the A League."

Lucina tilted her head. "I've had some good partner training for the past few months."

"I'm sure it'll be nice to watch the rest of the tournament from the booth knowing you've made it."

She pointed her sword at him. "That's why I told Link to save you a seat."

"Is that so? Because I just so happened to tell Palutena the same thing for you."

"THREE!"

"Sounds like someone's going to have to apologize."

"TWO!"

"Let's be honest, Cap probably already stole mine."

"ONE!"

"Looks like it's the floor for you, then."

"GO!"

A year ago, Lucina probably would have played very defensively against Fox, looking for cracks in his attacks to make a desperate counter. It was the typical strategy for an overmatched opponent. Today, she took the first swing. There was an added level of confidence to her attacks that kept them fluid and safe from Fox's attempt to break them. After taking a few hard knocks he parried her away and forced her to back off.

"Playing it a bit risky, aren't you?" he quipped.

"I'm not afraid of you," she tossed back. "I know you're not immortal."

"Unfortunately for you, I now know you're not a pushover."

Fox kept a close eye on her steps as he advanced. Weeks of closely watching her movements to amplify her abilities meant he knew how to neutralize them as well. Lucina may have made a statement for herself by making A League, but she wasn't a veteran quite yet. He jabbed every time she started moving into an awkward stance, pushing her more and more off balance until he got a good strike in on her face with his foot.

She flew backward toward the edge of the stage and sprung right back up. She didn't look very startled or upset. Instead, that kick had just lit a fire in her eyes.

"I'm not just content with A League," she said. "I want those points."

Fox tried to press the advantage, but Lucina went back at him with another string of overly confident, sometimes downright risky attacks. Fox saw several opportunities to counter, but each time he tried she followed up with an even bolder move that forced him to back away and drew a cheer from the crowd. She was playing a game of attrition with their risk tolerance, and so far, hers was much higher than Fox's. So much so that he got caught being conservative one time too many and got sent flying off the field and out-of-bounds.

Lucina walked around with her hands held out as Fox was carried back to the stage. "You better not be going easy on me!" she called out. She was riling up the crowd with her aggressive confidence.

Fox hopped back onto the field. "I'm not dumb enough to underestimate you, but if you think I can't adapt to some pressure, you're going to be in a lot of pain in a second."

Zelda opened the door to her unit and immediately had to dodge a hairbrush being chucked across the room.

"Sorry! Sorry."

Lucina was waving both her hands at Zelda, who was staring at the attempted murder weapon with apprehension. "Did it tear part of your hair out?" she asked.

"She's still upset," said Palutena.

"You-oh, get over it. You made A League! Why are you mad?"

"I'd be fine if I didn't lose to Fox of all people!"

Zelda rolled her eyes and flipped back onto the couch. "It was the tightest match of the whole day. He got you on the tiniest fault on the last point. It's hardly something to be upset about."

"That just makes it worse. Now he gets to lecture me about how his 'veteran expertise' or whatever led him to find that single flaw in my defense."

"He is absolutely not going to say that, and if he does, all the other veterans will make fun of him. He just has more experience and built-up instinct. It's hard to counter something like that."

"Still…" she continued mumbling about other nonsense.

"Look, if you want to keep distracting yourself with it, I'll have no problem putting you down when we face off. I'll take anything in this gauntlet of a league. Mario, Fox, Link, Bowser, DK, Samus, Ganon, Ike…ugh, it's every member of the Big Eight plus every top veteran after them."

"How do you think I feel?" Lucina whined.

Zelda waved her off. "You were free to throw that comeback upset against Falco if you didn't want A League."

"And let that crew have a shred of satisfaction? No."

Palutena looked over at Zelda upside down on the couch. "How did that meeting with Hand-I mean Scrib. Or is it still Hand? Who even runs what now?"

She shrugged. "Scrib doesn't really talk to us. He's got way bigger things to deal with as the new owner, I guess. Now that we have captains for every unit in the complex, Hand just gathers us like he used to do for the Big Eight in their meeting room to brief us."

"How do the Big Eight feel about that? They're not really the driving leadership force anymore since Scrib told us to use unit captains instead."

"I think they prefer it, honestly. That whole fiasco made them realize that one, fighting experience doesn't translate completely to business leadership, and two, trying to containerize all leadership within those eight, regardless of what they wanted to or not, wasn't efficient. Samus looked relieved when they said she didn't need to come to the meetings anymore."

"Who's taking her unit's spot?"

"October."

Their faces screwed up a little. "Weird," said Lucina.

"The alternatives were Bayo and Daisy."

Their eyes widened and they all nodded in silent understanding.

"Anyway," continued Palutena, "meeting details?"

"Oh, right, something is happening in the dining hall tonight. We all need to be there."

"Any time someone says that I still get anxious," said Lucina.

"Hand looked pretty excited, so I don't think it's anything bad. Still, Hand being excited only makes me worry about what he's up to. He's still new to this whole 'creative boldness' mentality Scrib is trying to force on him."

That evening, they gathered in the dining room for the first time since Zelda had them there to explain what had happened with Catherine. The wave of relief crashed over them and sent some into meltdowns when she said it was all over for now and no one would be cut. There would likely never be a more emotional gathering.

Still, this was also the first time they had all gotten together after their huge, multi-day festival to determine league placements for the upcoming, year-long season. With so much more at stake in terms of rankings and ego, the place was chirpier than ever. Kaitlin and Adam were meandering around, taking notes on all the interactions.

"Hey, Falco!" Robin shouted from across the whole room. "What happened to that 'Easy A League' claim? I take mobile payments whenever you're ready to cough up!"

Falco refused to acknowledge her.

Cora was still numb at her abysmal D League placement, putting her with a flood of newbies along with anyone else who had underperformed. Corinth and Robbie had tried to lift her spirits with some training, but she still looked soulless.

Samus was given a round of applause when she entered. She had defeated Mario in the final to secure the biggest point advantage going into the season. Wolf, Ganon, and Bowser were among her most vocal supporters.

"Am I crazy, or has she been unusually friendly with them recently?" Link muttered to Fox.

"She definitely talks more with them than she ever did with us."

Hand arrived and strutted up to the front of the room. "Alright, everyone, this will be quick. I know you all need to recover after this past event. Now that we're all settled into our league placements, you all have a clear idea of what you need to do. Unfortunately, the doubles matches will be suspended for a time while we focus on this new format."

There was a general groan at this. Most doubles partners had really started to gel with each other by now. Well, except Robin and Wario, the former of which nearly fell out of her chair with excitement at this announcement. Fox glanced at Lucina, who gave him a "What can you do?" kind of look. It was unfortunate, but they would still be training together a lot in the coming months.

"I know, I know, but this is a huge scheduling operation we're trying to run, and you all would be run into the ground trying to do it on top of doubles. There are some ideas already on how we might incorporate them into the current system. We will see. Anyway, the main point of this is to let you know we're launching a new program within the company." Everyone sat up a little. "We have a well-known history of launching newcomers into the fire as soon as they join. In the early days, newcomers could be paired against veterans in their first game. Then, once that became a little unreasonable, we tried to schedule newcomers against each other more. With our last batch, we had a large number of newcomers join during a tumultuous time, and due to the huge number of fights we have to handle each week, they didn't get much field time. Thankfully, our veterans took up this responsibility without anyone asking and helped train them into quite possibly the strongest batch of newcomers we've ever had, and for that, I think we should thank them." There was a smattering of applause. Fox noticed Lucina give him the tiniest nod and raise her applause a little when he looked at her. Bowser got the most attention, with Leaf looking at him smugly as he tried to ignore it.

"Still, this new system means veterans are going to be much more preoccupied with fighting far more difficult fights at a faster rate."

"That's putting it lightly," Zelda grumbled.

"So, we're starting this new program where newcomers will be brought in slowly and they won't join our leagues right away. Instead, they'll be staying in the complex and training with you until they can join next season. That way they can be well-prepared for the intensity of our system. And we already have our first one."

There was an outbreak of muttering and everyone looked at each other excitedly.

Hand looked back at the entrance to the dining room. "You can come in and introduce yourself!"

Fox spun around, excited to see who the newbie was and whether anyone knew them. To his surprise, no one reacted as if they recognized them. At first, Fox thought it might have been another one of Marth and Lucina's people, but this human was way smaller than them. He also was already dressed like most people from the city nearby instead of in some strange attire. He had black hair and glasses, and he when he walked up to stand next to Hand, Fox could hardly hear his footsteps. Whoever this guy was, he was very light on his feet.

"He's kinda cute," said Zelda. Palutena had to put her head on the table to prevent herself from spitting out her water.

"You can't just-," she gasped.

"It's not like I'm hitting on him, it's just a fact." Zelda didn't seem remotely fazed by her roommates' reactions.

After the newcomer adjusted himself to having every single champion gawking up at him, he gave a short little wave.

"Hey, everyone. You can call me Joker."