The legend of Zelda was a long and almost unending tale. Every generation, a new hero and princess stood up against a new evil. Although the evils they faced oftentimes changed, the names of the hero and princess never changed.
Princess Zelda: a denizen, princess, queen, and leader of Hyrule respectively across every generation.
Link: the Hero of the Skies, the Twilight, and Time, and so on forth.
Some preferred to call Link the Hero of Time due to how every Link felt timeless. Others preferred to call the heroes by the generations they hailed from. Some things may change among each hero, but there were certain aspects of them that never changed.
Like how annoyingly popular he was.
Zelda watched Link through the television, facing Lucario in a Smash Brothers fight. It was technically a rematch, as so many of the audience clamored for an encore after a recent friendly match. The two knew about each other's fighting styles.
As the princess of Hyrule, Zelda learned how to minimize influence from her own opinions through her thoughts and actions. Yet, it was tempting to openly root on for Link.
Too tempting.
His opponent is playing the waiting game too well, she thought as she unconsciously took a deep breath.
Lucario was a smart fighter who held a dangerously double-edged power, but fortunately, Link knew all too well about those kinds of powers. The only thing that could flip the pace of the match was the first fighter to catch the other's mistakes and capitalizing on them optimally.
With the amount of damage Lucario had racked up, either him or Link could get blown off the stage at any moment.
Throwing out his boomerang, Link threw it at an upward angle as he took out a bomb, making sure that Lucario was not in the position to throw an Aura Sphere while his shield was down. He leapt and tossed the bomb, sword in hand as soon as he landed and began to charge towards the Pokemon.
Lucario quickly recognized the presence of both the boomerang and the bomb. Refusing to jump, he rolled away from where the bomb would have landed and remained wary of the boomerang's path. With the bomb and boomerang no longer posing a threat to him, Lucario's glowing form shined intensely as he gathered his hands together.
Bringing up his shield, Link let a fully charged Aura Sphere clash against the Hylian Shield. He looked as if the Sphere almost tore his arm off, but he went through enough to block such attacks without leaving his guard open.
The swordsman ran just enough to get at a close enough distance to swing his sword at his foe. Lucario dodged Link's light, diagonal attacks with ease, and he soon caught Link's sword hand in the middle of the swarm of attacks.
A single punch to the chest sent Link flying off the stage. Taking out his Clawshot, Link aimed and fired as quickly as possible before he got too far from the ledge, latching onto it abruptly from his flight. As he got back on Final Destination, Lucario fired another charged Aura Sphere, forcing Link to jump over it.
Zelda unconsciously held her breath as she watched the hero approach his opponent yet again.
Link swung his blade in a similar fashion as he did earlier, but rather than continue to throw out the coordinated set of attacks, he suddenly pulled the Master Sword away from Lucario as his grip on it tightened. The Pokemon's eyes widened as he unknowingly moved to the side, quickly realizing that Link wanted him to do just that.
With a powerful spin, the hero of Hyrule finally connected the decisive attack that ended the match as the Master Sword hit Lucario.
Meanwhile, Zelda unknowingly jumped a bit from her seat as her hands clasped each other, a silent cheer emitting from her. Her joy quickly went pale when she realized she was just sitting at the lobby, watching through indestructible television installed by Master Hand himself.
Mario and Sonic blinked in confusion. They had been sitting next to her at one of the couches, watching the match while chatting about their favorite places to eat at.
And here she was, almost squealing at Link's victory in front of them.
The inadequacy of her actions!
"W-Wasn't that a good match?" Zelda spoke up, awkwardly trying to divert the two's attentions to something else. "That had my heart skipping here and there."
Sonic raised an eyebrow as he glanced at the TV before telling Zelda, "The match literally lasted for twenty minutes."
"…Did it?"
The hedgehog nodded. "Master Hand didn't set up a time limit for the match because there wasn't supposed to be an additional friendly match today. Man, if Mario had a chessboard, we probably would've finished faster than Link and Lucario!"
Zelda turned to Mario, who scratched the back of his head with a grin. "Well, Link was always the more patient out of all of us! That's been the case even back when there were only twelve people contending in the Smash Brothers tournaments."
The princess nodded idly, though her heart warmed at Mario's compliment for Link. It was Link's patience that did end up being the key behind saving Hyrule.
As the camera showed both fighters going outside of the arena, an uproar arose as Link glanced at his fans' direction. Confused on what to do, he awkwardly raised a hand, only to receive ear-shattering screeches of joy in return.
Some things never changed.
Little Mac threw his punches at the punching bag in front of him, all alone in the mansion's gym.
Every set of attacks he held were almost always coordinated before the fights he contended in. Rarely did he ever put himself in a situation where he had to force himself to come up with some inventive way of throwing his opponent off-guard. Anything he lost to, it was either because of him jumping into something out of his expertise or getting outplayed by his opponent.
He wasn't invincible or anything. He just trained enough to lose less than his younger boxing days.
For Mac, training for the Smash Brothers tournaments wasn't about honing more skills. It was all about learning when to use them against the roster. Boxing came with tools meant to beat his opponents, and if his fists were enough for it, then he certainly had very little room to blame something else for his mistakes.
Of course, that did not necessarily justify his opponents wearing manhole lids, drinking vodka, and shoving horseshoes inside boxing gloves. He still somehow managed to get past that.
A few more minutes flew for what felt like a few seconds for Little Mac. Slamming his fist against the bag, he took in deep breaths as he paused his training.
He did enough for the day.
As Little Mac adjusted his pink jumpsuit to make sure he didn't look like a mess, he saw Link approaching him from a distance.
The Hylian gave him a brief nod. Mac returned it quietly.
They were both not the most talkative, though Link was more frequently seen speaking compared to Mac.
"Your advice helped," Link spoke with a respectful smile. "Focusing on using the right attacks at the best moments was more effective than focusing on making myself feel unpredictable to read."
Mac nodded.
He had no idea his advice would actually help a swordsman, but perhaps common fighting knowledge carried over smoothly regardless of fighting styles.
Link looked around the gym, somewhat not surprised that nobody else aside from Mac was around. Mac usually hung around the gym when most of the other fighters rested at that time.
"I should treat you to something," Link suggested. "I'm interested in learning more about you."
Without much hesitance, Mac nodded. If a contestant wanted to get along with him, so be it. The WVBA had no room for friendliness despite how wacky the matches sometimes became. Getting along with others was still unnatural on Mac's part, so accustoming himself with others was a good idea.
"How does ramen sound?"
Readjusting the sleeve of his pink jumpsuit, Little Mac looked up to Link as he nodded.
"Ye."
That night, Little Mac learned that Link was pretty lonely due to eating alone for the most part. Mac just happened to be quiet enough for Link to have him around as a good dinner buddy.
Author's Notes:
Next chapter- "Bounty Date!"