Ethan (Brawler)

So, another training day had passed. Once I had spent a number of hours on the simulator, repeatedly destroying my clone and picking up new techniques for shielding, Sakurai shut down the simulator and told me that training was over.

He also gave me a piece of paper detailing the next event. Turns out, the next event was not training, but rather, an actual fight. All it detailed was where and when to meet; there was no mention of who my opponent would be.

Regardless, it left me with a lot more time on my hands, and just like before, I didn't much know what to do.

After sitting on the couch for an hour, staring at the wall, I decided to actually do something. I jumped up and marched over to my bedroom. I shoved aside the box of items I had dug out of the dumpster earlier that morning, promising myself that I would get around to looking at them eventually.

I sat down at my desk and pulled out the items that I had found before the last training session to take a closer look. I first looked at the lamp. I pulled out a lightbulb I had purchased yesterday and screwed it into the lamp. I then plugged it in and flicked the switch on, and sure enough, the lamp lit up, as bright as if it were new. With the light on, I saw much more clearly that the lamp needed paint; it was worn to bare metal in many spots. I made a mental note to pick up some paint later and pushed the lamp off to the side, keeping it turned on.

I then picked up the fedora. I was still baffled as to why someone would throw out a hat, of all things. Regardless, it was mine now, and it was in decent shape. I first tended to the stain; I rubbed some cleaner on it and let it sit there. As far as the worn part of the brim was concerned, I knew I would need some thread and a needle to fix it. I shuddered at the thought of pricking myself repeatedly with the needle, like the last time I tried to sew clothing. I set the fedora aside for now.

Then there was the cellphone. I pulled it out of the drawer in my desk and stared at it. I turned it on again and stared at the lock screen. Whoever owned the phone had set the background on the lock screen to a sunset. It was a beautiful photo, but it gave me no clues as to who owned the phone.

Suddenly, Ganondorf burst into my room. I quickly threw the phone back into the drawer and slammed it shut; he didn't appear to notice.

"Hey, Ethan," he said. "What are you up to?"

"Oh, just sitting at my desk," I replied, trying to not look suspicious. "You doing something?"

"Yes, and I need you to come with me."

"What? Why would you need me?"

"It'll make sense once we get there. Follow me."

I hesitated for a moment, asking myself if it was a good idea, but ultimately decided that he hadn't given me any reason to refuse, so I followed him.

We hiked over to the elevator and took it to the ground floor. Ganondorf turned to the right and grabbed the handle of the door to the right. I looked at the door and noticed it was a door to the basement. I froze for a moment; this didn't seem like a place we should be going.

Ganondorf looked over at me and grunted. "Don't worry about it," he said, seeming to read my mind. "It's just the basement. If he didn't want us going here, he would lock the door."

His explanation made sense, so I decided to continue following him. We descended down the stairs and arrived in the basement. It was just as new as every other part of the building, and yet it had a different atmosphere from the rest of the place; it almost felt like the air itself was crushing me. I had no way of knowing why I felt this way.

Ganondorf approached a door near the stairs and opened it. He entered the room, with me following close behind. I looked around the room. It appeared to be unfinished, the walls still made of exposed cinder blocks. A large rectangular table occupied the center of the room, a number of lights hanging over it. A large corkboard and a large whiteboard were bolted to each half of the opposite wall. Bowser and Wario were both sitting around the table already, and looked up at us when we entered the room.

There was one other figure in the room I had never seen before. He was rather large, similar in shape to Wario, but considerably larger. He wore a toque and robe, and yet was not sweating at all. His most striking feature was his face; it was blue, with a yellow... bill?

"'Dorf!" the blue one shouted.

"What took you so long?" Bowser asked. "We've been sitting down here for half an hour waiting for you!"

"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" Ganondorf said, smirking with his hands in the air. "I'm the boss! The boss is never late."

"Whatever," Wario remarked. "Just tell us what we're doing next."

"Hold on a moment," I interjected. "Before we get to whatever we're supposed to be doing, is someone going to tell me who the blue guy is?"

"Hey, show some respect to the king!" the blue one shouted, sounding faintly offended. "The name's King Dedede, and you better not forget it!"

"Yeah, that's King Dedede," Ganondorf added. "I let him be part of our little group here."

"So is he a penguin, or..."

"Yeah, he's a penguin."

"Is someone going to fill me in on what we're doing?"

"We're planning what we're going to do next. Take a seat and we can begin."

I took a seat across from Bowser. Ganondorf sat in the large cushy seat at the head of the table. He leaned in. "All right, let's begin."

We all sat back a little and began to listen to what Ganondorf had to say.

Huh, this is actually pretty cool...

Arthur (Swordfighter)

I stood out on the balcony of the apartment, looking out on the massive courtyard in between the dorm buildings and marveling at how nice it all looked.

Today was yet another day with no actual fighting going on. Robin had been up late last night again and was out cold at his desk. I had tried to wake him, but he didn't even stir when I shook him. I decided to just let him sleep, but not before putting a blanket over his shoulders.

Regardless, I was now staring out into the distance, enjoying the scenery and the wind blowing on my face. It was actually rather nice, if not a bit dull.

This dull peace was rapidly shattered by a knock at the door. I looked over at the door before righting myself, as I had been leaning on the railing. I strolled over to the door and opened it. Robyn was standing at the door, a smile on her face.

"Hey, Arthur!" she said, seeming incredibly bubbly. "How ya doing?"

"I'm surviving," I replied. "What's new?"

"I was just wondering if you were busy."

"Not particularly. Why?"

"Well, we found something cool in the university-"

"Wait, we?"

"Yeah, Marth and I were just looking around."

"Should I go get Robin?"

"My brother? Nah, let him sleep."

"How did you know he was sleeping?"

"He sleeps in even more often than I do. If he doesn't answer the door, then he's probably asleep."

"Fair enough. Now back to the matter at hand. What is this thing you found?"

"Follow me; I'll show you the way."

We left the apartment and went to the main floor. We then turned from the elevator and went downstairs. The stairwell felt a little stuffy, as though no one had used it in years.

Thankfully, we left the stairwell quickly and entered the basement. The basement was well lit and significantly less stuffy.

"Okay, we're in the basement now," I said, stating the obvious. "Where in this place are we going?"

"The room we're going to is behind those double doors," Robyn replied, pointing to the double doors right across from the stairwell. "Follow me."

She walked over to the double doors and opened them, revealing a rec room. Marth was already standing at the opposite side of the room. He turned to us and waved. "Robyn, you're back!" he exclaimed. "And you brought Arthur with you!"

"Nice to see you again, Marth," I said. "So what are we going to do here?"

"We're going to play a game," Marth explained. "We decided on playing shuffleboard."

"...Can I assume that you don't know how to play this, either?"

"You assume correctly. Do you know how to play this?"

"No."

"You don't?"

"Just because I know how one game works doesn't mean I know how they all work!"

"So what should we do?"

"Maybe I can help you," a voice said behind us. We turned to see Sakurai standing behind us, smiling.

"What are you doing here?" Robyn asked.

"You don't think I spend all my time working, do you? I come down here sometimes to relax."

"So you know how to play shuffleboard?" I asked.

"Sure do," Sakurai replied. "That's why I put the shuffleboard courts in this room."

"Great. Let's get started, then."

We walked over to one end of the court. Sakurai picked up one of the sticks and put one of the discs on the court.

"The rules are relatively simple," Sakurai began. "You divide yourselves into two teams. Each team takes the discs and cues of their color. I'll team up with Robyn, so Marth and Arthur will be the opposing team."

Sakurai had chosen the black discs and cues, and he was lining up his shot. He shoved the disc forward toward the triangle at the other end of the court. His disc stopped short of the triangle.

"Okay, it's your turn," Sakurai stated, gesturing towards Marth and me. "Try to get the yellow disc completely in one of the areas while also trying to keep the black discs out."

I stepped up and grabbed the yellow cue. Sakurai had placed a yellow disc on the floor already.

"Stand in the rectangle and shove the disc from there," Sakurai said.

I stood in the rectangle, located behind the triangle on our side. I braced myself before shoving the disc at the triangle. It slid past Sakurai's disc and landed in between the 8 and 10. I cheered, and Sakurai chuckled a little.

Robyn stepped in with a black cue, setting down a black disc. She shoved it and smacked my disc backwards, landing her disc in the 10.

Marth took his turn and knocked Sakurai's disc backwards off the court. Marth and I fist bumped after that.

The round continued in a similar manner, with us taking turns shoving the discs, until each of us had gone twice. By the end of the match, the black discs totalled 18 and the yellow discs totalled 15. We lost, but given that we just learned how to play today, I figured we did all right.

"Hey, not bad," Sakurai said approvingly. "You'll get even better with time."

"Thanks, Mr. Sakurai!" Marth replied. "Do you want to play another round?"

"Sure, why not? Let's go gather the discs and go again."

We began to walk over to the other end of the court. I smiled as we walked over.

This is actually pretty fun!

Melanie (Gunner)

Another day had begun at the university. With no training today, I didn't know what to do, eerily reminiscent of last week. So here I was, lounging around again. Samus was still in her bedroom, and I didn't want to interrupt her sleeping or whatever she was doing in there.

Suddenly, I got an idea. I thought that maybe I should take things into my own hands. I needed to make my own entertainment instead of waiting for someone to drag me along.

I grabbed a hoodie from my closet and left the apartment, entering the elevator. I was just about to push a button when I realized I had no idea where I wanted to go. I looked over the buttons, hoping I would get an idea. As I looked over them, I noticed a button for the basement. This seemed odd, as I hadn't known there was a basement in this place. Regardless, I decided to push it and check it out.

I stood in the elevator until it arrived at the basement. The doors opened and I stepped into the basement, the air weighing a little heavier on me than before. I searched around in the immediate area, and noticed a set of double doors. I looked closer and noticed a plaque next to the right door, reading 'Rec Room'. Huh, this looks pretty interesting, I thought.

I entered the room. There were already a few students here, as well as Sakurai himself! They didn't appear to notice me. They were playing... some game I had never seen before. I made a mental note to research it later and looked around some more.

On the side with the door, I noticed a few dartboards. Upon closer inspection, I found that the darts were actually stuck on the right side of the dartboard faces. I pulled out the red darts; it took a bit of effort, as the darts were deeply embedded in the board.

I stepped back behind the line on the floor a short ways from the board. I took a dart in my right hand and tried throwing it like a baseball. Sure, that sounds weird, but in my defense, I had never played darts before, so I didn't know the proper technique. The throw was absolutely terrible, missing the dartboard entirely and leaving a hole in the wall.

"Your technique is horrible," a gravelly voice said to the left of me.

I jumped a little at the unexpected quip and turned to see who had spoken it. Turns out, the voice belonged to Wolf. He looked mildly annoyed instead of legitimately angry.

"Oh, Wolf," I said flatly. "It's you."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Wolf growled. "Look, you clearly have no idea how to throw a dart."

"Well, seeing as I've never thrown a dart before, that's not surprising."

"Hold on. You're a marksman and you can't throw a dart?"

"...No?"

Wolf grunted. "...You know what? I'll show you how to throw a dart, if only to save the small amount of sanity I still have."

"Okay, then, how is it done?"

Wolf grabbed the yellow darts and stepped next to me. "Now look here," he said. "You hold the dart with your fingertips and throw by flicking your wrist." He did just that and landed a dart in the 20 between the inner ring and the bullseye. "See, it's that easy."

Wow, I thought. It's incredible how accurate he is with his lack of depth perception. "How did you get so good at darts?" I asked.

"When one has tons of time on their hands, one must find something to fill the hours," Wolf explained.

"When did you have that much time?" I asked.

"That's something only I need to know. For now, let's see if you can throw a dart just like I did."

I placed another dart in my right hand, this time placing my fingertips together to hold the dart. I concentrated on the target and flicked my wrist, throwing the dart and... missing the target.

"Hmph,"" Wolf grunted. "Your technique is better, but your aim is garbage. You need help."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, suspicious.

"Your fighting style revolves around shooting at a target from a distance, right?" Wolf asked.

"Sure it does, but what does that have to do with needing help?"

"What are you, thick? If you need to hit a target from a distance, hitting it consistently is kind of important!"

"Huh... You have a point there."

"Of course I do!" Wolf turned away and started to leave. He turned his head toward me for a moment. "You'd best do some more practicing now... while you still can..." He smirked, turned back and left the room.

A chill ran up my spine. Something about his tone made me feel uneasy, but he was right; I needed to train more. I grabbed the darts and continued to throw them for the next while.

I need to be more accurate!

A/N: Yep, here's another chapter! I do hope someone (besides me) is reading this book still. If you are not me and you are reading this book, feel free to leave a comment and tell me if it's any good. I'll keep writing it regardless.