Chapter 19 - Blessings From a Damaged Star

CURRENT RANKINGS

(subject to frequent or infrequent change)

VIP STATUS

1. MARIO 2. LUIGI

3. PEACH 4. LINK

PRIMARY STATUS

5. DAISY 6. GANONDORF

7. KIRBY 8. ROSALINA

9. BOWSER 10. SAMUS



"There aren't any performances scheduled today, so I arranged a combat trial for you," Mario announced. "I set aside the entire hour of your shift so that you have plenty of time. I mentioned what combat trials are, right? Either way, it's right in the name. I put you up against your opponent and you fight until the timer goes off, which is unlikely, or a winner is declared."

A little over three weeks had passed since the meeting where Mario bumped me up to phase three. Since then, I relayed the instruction to continue my general training before he would schedule me into a trial. For a while, I was thrust back into the sensation of what my life had looked like back in the first phase, almost as if the race last month hadn't happened at all. Only yesterday did Mario break the news that he had fit me in for a trial, advising me to be prepared for the very next day. Upon arriving today, I changed into my uniform in the solitude of the changing room and accompanied him further and further through halls that I hadn't yet had the chance to visit.

"Performances?" I repeated, then admitted, "I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that."

"Oh, I apologize. I thought I mentioned those as well," Mario confessed. "Most combat trials are attended by an audience. Oh, uh, not a public audience, I should clarify. Although special events are held once a year where it actually is public. Anyway, what I meant by audience is some of the fighters here. If they feel like watching a show, they can take out a time slot away from their usual shift and attend the first of the current hour. Those happen every day and are the most common. The room can also be scheduled out for private training, which is what I've done for you. I figured you'd want a session alone before you try out your skills in front of the audience. So, we're just going to mostly take it easy today."

Mario, as usual, was right. Some of the knots in my stomach released at the idea of avoiding public humiliation. This way, if I embarrassed myself in some way, the only ones who would witness were Mario, whom I was close enough with to be confident in the fact that he would overlook any mistakes, and someone I had never met before, who might not remember the mistake anyway.

"Thank you, Mario," I said.

"Yes, no problem," Mario assured me brightly. "It's pretty much standard procedure, anyway. It'll be just you and your opponent today. Which brings me to the most important topic of discussion. Let me tell you about this opponent you're facing.

"He's a quiet one, doesn't talk much, so don't expect any kind of verbal answer if you speak to him," Mario explained. "I don't think I've ever heard his voice at all, for that matter. He's been training here for about nine or ten months, so maybe half a year longer than you. I recall you were worried about absorbing your combat training at such a young age. This fighter is seventeen years old and one of my best. I think he might have been the only one who advanced quicker than you, and that's saying something, but he also has outside training. Incredible fighter. Very, very talented."

"How well does he fight?" I inquired. "Is there something to compare him to?"

"Eh... Well, that's kind of a difficult thing to do with anyone," Mario told me hesitantly. He seemed to be struggling with the answer, slowly formulating something to fulfill my question. "Everyone is different in their own way. Some are natural leaders. Some hold unquestionable initiative. Some work better in a group or helping others but exceed all the same. He is all three of those. In fact, I've asked him to join the management committee as the main director seven or eight times to work alongside my brother and my wife and me."

"He still won't do it?" I said. To think anyone could turn down such an immense promotion!

"He still won't do it," Mario agreed.

"I don't understand how he'd refuse that after such extensive training," I admitted. "Personally, I would take up that opportunity in a heartbeat. Does he just not want to work at that level of responsibility? And please keep that between us."

"Oh, no, not that one," Mario instantly corrected me. "No. Nobody works as hard as him. I guarantee it. Why he refuses my invitations might be more of a mystery to me as it is to you. Honestly, he'd be perfect for that role. He's got himself a regular spot on the rankings board, and a VIP spot, at that. Anyone within the first four ranked fighters is eligible for VIP reception. He's been there since the very first month of his training here, even in the VIP placement. I've never seen anything like it. I'd say you've finally met your match, Isabelle."

A dimmed room lit by dull scattered lights sat behind a heavy wooden door. The room, considerably smaller than the usual Smash room where calling it twenty square feet might have even been pushing it, was bordered by rocky stone walls that carried shadows in the creases between the rocks. A similar brown darkwood door blocked this space from whatever lay behind it, square-shaped and not a regular door, but what appeared to be a vertical lift door, though what pulled it was not visible from this side. The dim lights pointed down to a stone table in the middle of the room and an object that lay across it: A sword; silver, slim, and painted with a thin glow under the light.

"Now, this," Mario announced, shuffling across the floor to the table and rising himself up onto his tiptoes to wrap his hand around the handle of the sword. "This is for you. For your training, to be exact. When you begin your combat trial, this is what you'll use."

I hadn't fully realized that weapons would have been involved so early on, though now that I heard it, it made more sense than not. I silently watched as Mario plucked the sword from the table and carried it back over to me, his eyes running across the sleek surface of the long blade. Another shimmer flicked across it as he held it out to me, outstretching his hand for me to grab the handle, offering it to me.

"There we go," Mario remarked as I took the handle of the sword in my paw. The sword itself was decently weighted, sinking into my paw with the handle. I gripped the handle, familiarizing myself with the sensation of holding a proper sword. Mario retreated a few steps, carefully minding my sword, likely in case I wanted to try out a few test swings.

"Well, okay, but..." I said, shifting the sword to experiment with different angles. "What if somebody gets hurt? Or, more expectedly, what if I get hurt?"

"Isabelle, if I was concerned about somebody getting hurt to a severe degree, I wouldn't be promoting this company," Mario told me. He turned on his heel, casually strolling for the lift door on the other end of the room. "Besides, that's the sole reason I've signed up you and everybody else here for medical training. I trust you've been paying attention and have learned to treat any small wounds you might receive in combat."

It was true—Both the fact of the recurring lessons in medical training and the statement that I kept a close eye on the information I took in. Every Saturday shift, I had been reserved some time away from training to attend medical classes and important information in various departments. We had already moved on from which injuries needed the most immediate treatment, which could have been treated by the injured individual or those around them, and which needed to be brought in for more professional help. More recently, we had been indulging into how to treat these injuries as quickly and efficiently as possible. I had been making use of a notebook to scribble down every note where it was due and still held onto each fragment of knowledge today, easing the idea of being caught unprepared. Facing the direct possibility and likelihood of receiving in-person experience maybe two minutes from now curdled my stomach.

Mario's face distorted with strain for a moment as he wrenched a lever next to the door, tugging it downward towards the floor instead. With a groan and a clattering like chains rattling together, the door began to slowly rise from the floor, tucking itself away up into the ceiling. Sunlight streamed onto the gray floor where the opening revealed it. A second, considerably larger room gradually came into sight from the lifting door. At first glance, I noticed that it was a circular room, bordered completely by the same rocky wall as the room where I stood. The room was inflated with natural sunlight rather than the artificial lights of the rest of the building, but as for how, I hadn't discovered yet.

When Mario left the lever and shuffled through the now-opened doorway, I followed him, lifting my head to study the room we were walking into. A ceiling of glass—Which explained the sunlight draped across the floor—Covered the room in a somewhat odd sight like a half-heartedly inflated balloon. To my right, rising bench seats of several rows implied the lack of what seemed to be a usually full audience. To my high left, a raised observation section with a table and a microphone was separated from the room with more glass, almost like that of a sports game. That must have been where Mario sat while public combat trials were occurring. Across the way from where my door had been raised was a second wooden lift door, likely to provide space for the second fighter.

"Usually, you wouldn't come out here into the arena until I announce you, but I figured you'd want to get a peek ahead of time," Mario announced, clasping his hands together in a smack that echoed through the room as he raised his head to look at me. "That's the reason why your opponent isn't here waiting for you. He's waiting to be invited into the room right at this moment. With that in mind, you can find me up there while your combat trial is in progress."

Mario swung his hand upward, pointing to the observation section. I raised my head to reach my gaze to where he gestured. An image flashed through my mind of him sitting above me at the table, peering down at me as I pursued my trial—An idea that wasn't fully formed.

"Got your weapon?" Mario turned his focus back to the sword in my hand. "Ah, good. In that case, you need no more introduction. You know exactly what to do. Wait for me as I get myself up there and call up your opponent."

I had never known two minutes to feel so long before. Something about the solitude was worse, even though it meant I was alone. It was worse because I was left alone with my thoughts, feeding myself countless ideas of where the trial would end me. I continued to lift and lower the sword in my paw to test the weight as my mind wandered. It would have been something near a miracle if I left my shift completely unharmed. Realistically, I expected at least a few cuts on my arm, if faced with a sharp weapon, and a pounding headache if a blunt one. Surely I had enough survival instincts to prevent an outright stab, but I hadn't stepped to fight another before. Opposing one of my coworkers was in a completely different universe from opposing a lifeless dummy.

I should have been scared—More scared than I actually was, at least. Only a faint tingle settled in my stomach as I waited for Mario's reappearance in the observation stand. I flitted through the faces in my memory to entertain myself, attempting and struggling to narrow down who my adversary was about to be. I recounted the clues I had received during the walk to the arena. He was a boy of few words. He had been working here for almost a year, but his skills were already immense. He was somehow equally a perfect leader as he was a follower. It wasn't a description that painted a picture in my mind, but then again, the only fighters I was personally acquainted with were Mario, Peach, and Luigi. From my deduction, I either faced a fighter with enough experience to take pity on my lack thereof or, on the flip side, enough experience to take me down.

By the time that Mario's head bobbed into sight above the table as he climbed into his seat, my arm had resorted to the rhythmic slinging of each direction of the sword to busy myself, listening to the woosh as it sliced through the air. I dropped my arm back to my side as he settled in his seat, reaching for the microphone in front of him and bending it towards him as he observed me from above.

"You doing okay, Isabelle?" Mario asked. His voice boomed across the room from the speakers on either sides of the observation stand. "Are you nervous?"

"No, not much," I told him. "Just a little."

"All right," Mario replied. "Well, technically, I'm supposed to begin with the introductions only. That's what leads us into the event. Since you're already here, it doesn't have as much meaning for you, but let's just pretend for a minute, okay? I'm going to rewind it back a bit and re-announce you as if you're first coming into the room so that you can get more acquainted with the brief introduction process."

Mario cleared his throat to begin again, though the sound was fainter as he ducked away from the microphone to readjust in his seat. He tilted the microphone towards him again and raised the other as if to invite me forward.

"Fighter number one," Mario declared with a surge of power in his voice like he was presenting me to an audience. "Isabelle the Shih Tzu. Weapon of choice: The Sword of Smooth Strike."

The raised hand vanished on the other side of the table again. The other extended towards the second door, the one directly across the room from me.

"Fighter number two," Mario announced.

A jab of prickly anticipation tugged at my stomach. With a squeak and a rumble, the lift door on the other side of the room proceeded to roll slowly up into the ceiling. A figure appeared on the other side, ducking into the room and advancing into the room. A face raised up from its bow—The face of a teenage boy that had never passed mine before. Round eyes, as blue as the morning sky and glistening with the shine of what was either determination or anger, met mine. An untidy mass of blond hair casually cloaked his shoulder in a short ponytail. The outfit was like gazing into a mirror, completely identical and almost the same size in my couple-inch height lead, but the sword he gripped in his right hand varied drastically from mine: Instead of my typical silver, the sword he carried was a light, faded blue and was embellished with gold adornments. He was human—But this I assumed only until I noticed his pointed ears and questioned if he was a human at all.

"Link of Hyrule Kingdom," Mario went on. "Weapon of choice: The Master Sword."

Link's steps faltered near the middle of the room, just seven feet from me. I watched as the glimmer of courage in his eyes dissolved, forming into something of a visible confusion. Silently, he turned a glance up at Mario in the observation stand as he sat to watch over us and lifted his free hand in a timid motion to point to me in front of him.

"Yes, Link. I'm aware. Just proceed as usual," Mario instructed. His microphone caught a light brush of movement as he shifted his focus back to me. "I apologize for the confusion, Isabelle. Link is quite fond of dogs."

"Oh, okay," I said, bouncing my voice in an answer of certainty, but the awkwardness was stretching through the already somewhat tight atmosphere and plucking at the nerves in my chest. Why would you say that? That's so weird.

"In case you might have guessed, Link, this is Isabelle's first combat trial," Mario continued in explanation. Link snuck another glance at me while he was speaking, curiously studying me as if he was memorizing every square inch of my face. "That's why I've been giving her the whole rundown."

A throb of relief strummed in my chest, drowning out the awkward feeling. If Mario was prioritizing this amount of explanatory introduction, then I wasn't about to be thrown in the deep end as I had been in Mario Kart. With every sentence towards my knowledge, it seemed more and more like this was more of a practice round that had been put together for me behind the scenes rather than a real trial. As long as my suspicions were correct, I was going to be just fine.

"By the announcements that you both just heard, what I would do on a typical event is introduce the first fighter and their weapon of choice, the second fighter and their weapon of choice, perhaps offer a bit more context if I feel it is needed, and then I set you off to fight," Mario described. When my eyes flicked to look up at him again amidst his description, I saw his hand waving back and forth to aid the description before he dropped it again at the end of his sentence. "With that being said, I've done everything I can here. At last, it is time for an unforgettable trial to begin."

The words seemed to strike Link with familiarity. Even with just the at last, he snuck a brief peek up at Mario before shifting his stance. He planted his feet into the floor, locking in his focus on me and strengthening the clench on the handle of his sword in one abrupt tremor. Clearly, he was ready. I followed the change in movement, rooting my feet in place and shielding myself with my own sword, but my thoughts were busy absorbing the information pooling through the speakers in Mario's accented voice.

"Ready yourselves," Mario declared. "Gather your valor. Rise to your prowess. And fight!"

The next events flashed by in hardly a blink, a fraction of a second in action. A blow was just about to come my way. I jerked backward sharply and out of range for strike. My foot caught on the other. Twisting around each other like a vine. I regained my stance and Link was in front of me. His sword had swiped through the space between us in recoil, stretched across to his shoulder and his elbow narrowly missing my face. It was all I could do to keep shrinking back in retreat. The impact never struck, nor did his arm move to make it. His arm reached across his torso, his elbow pointed towards my nose. He took a few clumsy, staggering steps towards me, almost as if in a trying attempt to penetrate a defensive aura, and he gave up. He withdrew again, hesitant in his failure to pursue an attack, and dropped his arm back to a casual position.

Something wasn't working here. Both of us struggled to move to make an attack. It was probably about to provoke a response from Mario. It was an unspoken fluid motion to reset ourselves, reverting back to our previous stance and outstretching our weapons to begin again.

I caught the uncertainty flicking across Link's young face as he stole another glimpse of Mario above us before he was already rocking his weight between his feet to rebuild the momentum to launch himself forward again. His free hand joined the grip on the handle of his sword, he yanked the weapon back again, and lurched to strike—Only to falter a second time. Bafflement swelled in my mind as he detached from the combat once more, sheepishly receding back to where he had stood before while he lowered his sword back to his side. Was this the same boy that Mario had been telling me about before the trial?

"Okay, stop, stop for a second," Mario cut in through the speakers before we could sink back into our original stance for a second time. I dropped the combat mindset and raised my head to look at him sitting at the table to pay attention to his words. "Link, just a moment of your time, please. I understand this is a little bit hard for you. I do. If you can, I need you to put that aside for right now. As this is her first combat trial, Isabelle needs this training. She hasn't gone head-to-head with another fighter before. In fact, you'd be doing her a favor to show her that violence. That's why I chose you as her competitor. I think you're the best one to teach her. Does that make sense?"

It appeared this was the only convincing Link needed. His head jolted in a firm nod with a soft hum of agreement, then our eyes met again. The same determination from when he had first strode into the room had trickled back into his face again. Here we go, I thought, fidgeting with the handle of my sword to grip it more securely. Now it was time for the real work to begin.

"Just remember everything you've picked up in your training, Isabelle, and you'll be fine," Mario said. "Okay. From the top. Knock yourself out, Link."

The four words were all it took to completely and utterly transform Link before my very eyes. His sword whisked through the air as he twirled into a grip of the opposite side, his clothed feet slapping against the hard floor as he tore off into a sprint towards me. He was actually going to do it this time. I slung myself to the side in a dodging weave with the drop of my head. The blue sword whipped above my head in a clean swipe that had been just moments away from slicing open my cheek. Link's arm clobbered into the side of my head from the missed attack, reeling me backwards onto my heels. The blue sky above the glass ceiling flashed above me. I was still on my feet—Clumsily. I had to get back up and fight back.

My heart was already thumping. My chest screaming with ache. I was fully upright before my surroundings had sunk in again. Link was in front of me again, clasping the handle of his sword with both hands. A thunderous clang snapped me back to my senses. Link had attempted a swing at me that I had blocked. Our weapons had battered together between us, crossing the limited space in a giant X. Link's face, tense with effort, was only an instant of a sight. I hoisted the sword to the side, knocking it out of the way and freeing the space between us. In the spring of a recoil, I jerked my elbow back. For a fraction of a second, I anticipated the blunt impact of my arm ramming into his head, neck, shoulder, anything I could reach. My heart plummeted at the same speed of his own body towards the floor—Before I could have even touched him.

Within the heavy staggering of my feet to steady themselves, he was already on the move again. He had ducked into a tumble amidst my momentary disorientation, moving himself instead to my side at my feet. I wasn't quick enough. A dull force jabbed into a crevice in my ankle and then my front lay flat on the floor. The pads of my paws tingled with the sudden collision with the hard surface. My thoughts fired at a mile a minute as Link swiftly scrambled to his feet next to me. A million words shot through my head in a single heartbeat.

I couldn't fight him with brute force. Any attempt to do so would prolong my status, but not bring me lasting success. He was too smart for that, far too much so for my own good. And he wasn't holding back, either. He was immensely perceptive, picking out my motions before I even took them. He would counter any attack I could have made against him. I had to outsmart him. That was my only option left. How was I supposed to pull that off? What if I wasn't smart enough to do such a thing successfully?

I snagged my sword from the floor, scurrying to my feet next to Link. He was already up, pacing through the direct area to pinpoint the best place to strike. I needed time to think, to come up with a plan. I needed some distance from him to be able to do so. Immediately, I began to retreat, tottering and stumbling back to avoid confrontation. For the moment, my sword was my shield, stretched out in front of me with the flat of the blade as my protection. In the fleeting seconds I granted myself before Link would have been after me again, my thoughts darted at record speed to come up with something.

A spasm of panic wrung out my chest, twisting further by the minute. My training was supposed to teach me what to do in this situation, but instead, everything I had ever learned had been wiped away as if blown by the wind. Maybe... Maybe if I pulled off some kind of athletic tricks, I could catch him off guard. No, he was too fast for that. I could have trapped him into thinking I was doing one thing and then turned around and did something else. No, that wouldn't have worked, either. His anticipation was far too sharp. Everything I could have done, he could have countered.

Link was bounding towards me again from across the room. His sword clenched in his hand, his thick eyebrows arched in determination. A frantic idea clawed the inside of my mind. I tracked his movements. I scrutinized his steps. I timed my move to the very breath. His foot slapped down onto the floor three feet from me and I took the dive. Imitating his same act, I flung myself down onto the floor in the first motion of a roll. My shoulder jammed into the floor. A streak of shattering pain launched up my arm. With the nimble speed of a missile, I was on my feet again in a crouch and slinging my weapon to catch him in the leg.

His reaction time was greatly improved than mine. I turned my eyes after my sword was already zipping through the air. Too late. Link was gone, vanishing in thin air by the time I registered my surroundings. My weapon sliced through nothing but air. Link's feet landed softly behind me. Something blunt belted into my temple. My eyes felt to rattle in my head. My back was flat on the floor, the sunlit ceiling above me. I was down again. Link leaped to stand to his full height again beside me. I wouldn't have had the time to climb up with him before he could pursue an attack. So I didn't try to. I spent my limited energy snatching the handle of my sword from next to me again. My paw latched around the handle, my body lurched forward, a faint rumble shot up my arm as the two swords bashed together with a powerful clatter.

The first plan sprung to my mind at the very moment the sound rang through my ears. If I hit Link's sword hard enough, maybe I could have knocked it right out of his hand. I would have the advantage. I acted immediately. With a wrench of my wrist, I heaved the sword to the side with a second blow. Not enough. The clench of overwhelm in my chest was drowning my senses. Recognizing my failure, I dropped the idea as well as my cover. I swung into a hasty turn onto my front and clawed at the floor to clamber to my feet. The blade of the sword ripped through the air somewhere behind my head with my sudden evasion. My feet mounted the floor and I was up again before I could take a breath.

The second idea arrived in a time no longer than a flicker. An instinct, a survival tactic beyond my command, or maybe my training taught me well. Too short to find the words for it. A glimmer of hope read my next move out to me. I whirled on my heel with my weapon pointed, expecting the strike. Link had already adjusted his sword, crossing it in front of him as a shield. The first swing scraped past the blue sword with an earsplitting screech. I flung a second swing from the angle I was left with, the position where the first swing terminated.

There was no sound when the blade slashed through the fabric of Link's sleeve and into his arm. It was the yelp that escaped from him that raised the result to my attention. The sound was strained, abrupt in the surprise of the impact, and etched into my bones. His free hand clamped over the injury too soon for me to catch sight of it for myself, but the light smear of blood that painted the side of the blade where it had cut him proved what I had done.

Just like that, I shattered. A weakening, bitter surge of shame erupted within my stomach. My paws tingled with a numbness that could in no way swing my weapon for another attack. The firm clamp of overwhelm in my chest had finally ruptured, dropping my mouth open at the sight and tightening the space between my eyes with threatened tears. I hurt someone. I actually, physically hurt someone.

"I can't."

The words escaped me in such a paralyzed way that it seemed that they were not my own. My voice was choked up in the raging ocean of distress that had washed over me. My sword clattered to the hard floor as I chucked it away from me, the evidence of my intended harm, and felt my feet carrying me back to the lift door I had emerged from at the very start. Link's eyes burned through me as I hustled from the room—Link, who had instantly stopped moving and retreated the moment I told him to stop, even though he was hurt. A musty taste had found its way to my tongue as I crossed my arms to guard my curdling stomach.

"I can't do this," I mumbled on my way out of the room. "I don't want to do this anymore. I'm sorry. I can't."

I returned to my senses about fifteen minutes later. By the time my thoughts had begun to shuffle at a normal pace again, the familiar milky walls directing me through the winding path to the lobby closed in on me. At first, I'd had nowhere to go, but minutes into whisking through the halls just to escape from the arena brought me the decision to shut myself away in one of the changing room stalls and enjoy a good, silent cry as the images of the injury would flash through my mind. The bells in my ponytail rattled with every step, though I had slowed into a stroll with the distance I had already put between myself and the room, and the lights gleamed down at me with such a harshness searing my eyes like I was being mocked for my pain.

My paws fidgeted restlessly as I sauntered through the hallway—Oddly deserted for a Friday morning—Gripping each other as reality sunk in. The motions, the movements, and the words replayed themselves again and again and again like a rolling film that was stuck on loop. It wasn't even failure. Failure was something that I could deal with. Failure offered me an opportunity to try again. This wasn't failure. I had given up. That was something I never did. What could that have possibly revealed about my presence and my belonging to this company?

Maybe I just wasn't cut out for something like this after all. I was a lover, not a fighter. One hundred percent and beyond. Even driving a car for the first time in a highly competitive race was easier than standing up to confidently harm another living being. Was I letting Mario down? Was I proving myself to be a bad example for the company after he had personally chosen me to join him? Not only had I formerly assured him that I was completely ready for this next stage of my training, I had disobeyed a direct assignment. Yes, I was fully aware of the medical training I and everyone around me had been receiving as of late, but nothing could have prepared me for when I would lay my first lash.

I could have gotten fired for something like this. Was I about to get fired for this? Should I have turned back when I had the chance? Or ended the trial in a more mature way? Or gulped down the protests entirely? What kind of consequences would I face for this?

The pattering of approaching hurried footsteps removed me from my thoughts. My feet slowed to a halt and I turned around just in time to see Mario emerge from turning the corner of the hall. He was already walking briskly, his little legs hustling to carry him forward, but upon noticing me, he broke off into a speedier walk to reach me.

"Isabelle, wait!" Mario exclaimed, crossing the hallway as promptly as he could manage. "Wait a second. I want to talk to you."

Was this it? Was this where I got fired? I silently watched as Mario approached, reaching me after several seconds of hurrying, and paused by my side to engage in a conversation.

"Are you okay?" Mario asked me, outstretching a hand and setting it on my elbow. His tone was softer, more gentle, rather than his usual cheerful voice that reigned in confidence. He wasn't angry. He was worried. "What happened back there? Why did you stop like that?"

"I couldn't stand the idea of hurting somebody else," I muttered. "I hate that I cut open Link's arm just five minutes after meeting him for the first time. He seems so nice and genuine, too."

"Well, uh, you... You didn't cut open his arm," Mario reminded me. "You just cut him. I'd say it was barely more than a scratch. I told him to go clean it up after you left. He's fine."

"It doesn't matter," I insisted. Oops. That came out more hostile than I had intended. "I'm sorry. It just doesn't change anything for me. The fact that I hurt him is enough. I can't be someone that hurts others. I can't do that."

Mario's answer didn't arrive in haste. His eyes glazed over in thought as he withdrew his hand from my elbow. Absentmindedly, he lightly rubbed his fingers together, wordlessly considering how to attack the problem. I searched his eyes for any ounce of regret, any guilt that could have forewarned me of my dismissal. Instead, I only found the glimmer of the lights above us, decorating the deep blue.

"Walk with me," Mario spoke up at last, dropping his hand back to his side and starting off in a leisurely shuffle the way I had been walking before. I joined him without complaint.

I lost count of the minutes we spent in silence and in the absence of conversation. The bells atop my head had stopped jingling in our considerably slower pace. Not even my feet created a sound as I sauntered alongside my boss and my friend. Mario, however, almost seemed awkward to be here, that or he was still contemplating the best words to use to convince me back out onto the arena. He clasped and unclasped his hands like I had been doing before he had arrived, his eyes flitting around the space as if it were unknown to him. Here and there, I caught the sound of rustling and effort as we passed various training rooms with doors propped open, but for at least five to seven minutes, these were the only sounds that crossed us.

"I want you to know that I'm not upset," Mario finally spoke again, raising his eyes to meet mine. His hands were still casually closed together and even visible concern had begun to creep into his face. "No, that would be awful of me. Expecting you to go out and fight a person for the first time and becoming angry when you struggle with it. Definitely not. I think sometimes I need to step back and consider the situation as a whole before jumping into all these plans. Even with all of the training that you do and have, this is something that is difficult for anyone for the first time. But then again, I ask myself, is there any better way to do it? How else will one learn properly?"

I wasn't entirely certain whether this question was literal or rhetorical. Not that I could have formulated some wise answer on the spot. I kept my mouth shut. Mario sighed softly, reaching up and adjusting his cap for a moment before he raised his head again.

"Tell me this, if you can," he said. "Why did you accept my invitation to come here?"

I considered this, reaching as far back in my memory as four months ago when I had first received the letter in February. The memory was faded now, hardly a whisper, but it wasn't a difficult task to recall the answer of why it had happened. My ambitions never changed. They only blossomed, only grew, only lived. The answer had always been the same.

"To prove myself," I said. "To prove that I'm worth more than I've been treated. And that I'm capable of things that nobody believes in."

"Is that right?" Mario inquired curiously. "How do you intend to do this?"

The question slammed down onto me like running headfirst into a wall. How did I intend to prove myself? There was no clear answer, was there? Were there any incorrect answers? After all, when all was said and done, once I tossed the question through my mind, the solution bubbled up blank. I had worked my way up starting as a shopkeeper's assistant all the way to a valued employee of one of the most famous business owners in the entire world. It didn't sink in completely, laying out as the facts but simply something that was one of the countless features of my life. I didn't know what to do at this point. If I hadn't proven myself already after everything I had accomplished in my life, was I ever going to get there at all?

"I don't know," I admitted. "I suppose I just never considered myself doing so through harming others. It frightens me to think of that becoming my image. Does that make me unfit for this company?"

"No, Isabelle, not at all," Mario assured me, waving his hand to dismiss the idea. Most of the tension lifted from my shoulders. "Nobody here is truly violent, just hard workers. And nobody thinks that you're a violent person. Nobody here, nobody outside of here. Trust me. I've been managing this company probably longer than you've been alive. I know the kind of image we create. What was it that you said about Link? That he was kind and genuine?"

"And nice," I pointed out. "But yes."

"Well, there you go," Mario told me. "There's your example. You can have a deep love for everyone you come across and still be an excellent fighter. Here, think about it this way. If you knew my wife, Peach, outside of work, she's the sweetest person you'd ever meet. An absolute angel. You'd love her in a snap. But have you checked out the ranking board lately? Third place. Even higher than Link. She may be sweet, but she's the best fighter I've ever seen, hands down. I can't even tell you how impressed I am by her. Just flawless. Does that give you some more peace of mind?"

Peach was one of my closest friends. I could have confidently agreed with everything Mario was telling me about her. She was endlessly kind, ceaselessly understanding. Mario was right. I would never have realized that she engages in high-risk combat every single day if I didn't work under her. Peach had perhaps the best reputation at Smash. And still she refused to let anyone take her down. I could have learned a thing or two from her.

"It does," I said.

"Good, good." Mario nodded. "Hey, one more thing. Why do you think I invited you to work at Smash?"

"You thought that I would fit in well," I told him. "You believed in me."

"Well, technically, yes," Mario admitted. "But that's what I was thinking about after the initial decision to bring you here. Why did I choose you?"

"I don't really know," I confessed. "I didn't question it very much. I was just grateful to have the opportunity."

"I chose you because I saw the extent of your diligence," Mario said. "You didn't let any obstacle stand in your way. And don't. You remind me of a young me. But you didn't know yourself. Not from what I could see. You were fighting for your future, not yourself. You didn't look into yourself enough to find something valuable to fight for. Fighting for yourself is the best thing you can fight for. I chose you, Isabelle, so you could learn to be your own warrior along with everyone else's."



"Did he give you one of his big heroic speeches again?" Peach inquired.

"Huh?" I said as my focus was snatched back to the conversation at hand. My attention had been absorbed in studying the commotion around us before I was reminded of where we were. We were situated off to the side of the first training room, the one decorated with nothing but neon tape stretched across the floor to separate six different squares for personal sparring. Peach had accidentally sliced through the skin on the back of my paw with a dagger, so we paused training to treat the wound. I sat on the floor with my legs bent over one another while she kneeled beside me. Currently, she was working on disinfecting the cut with a cotton ball. It was chilled to the touch, but hardly stung now. A plastic container of other medical equipment such as bandaids and bandages sat beside her hip as well as a crumpled up tissue that had been used to mop up the blood. "Yeah, I'd say it was. How did you know?"

"Well, I heard about your combat trial." Peach's head was bowed, her thick blonde hair tumbling down the sides, as she attentively prodded at the cut. "Congrats on your first one, by the way. We all start somewhere, right? I'm sorry it was hard for you. If I hadn't started off so slowly when I first did it back in the nineties, I probably would have struggled with it, as well. It's a hard thing to get used to, fighting your friends. I feel for you. Truly, I do."

This particular training room was considerably vacant today. Two unfamiliar faces were engaged in interactive training on the far right corner square. Link had just recently arrived as well with his regular blue sword, but didn't get up to any training. Instead, he sat himself down in the far left corner and polished the sword with a sort of cloth. We had met eyes once when he had first entered the room while the blood on my paw was still being collected and shared a friendly wave, but now he was completely lost in his own world, delicately tending to the sword as if it were made of diamond.

"When I heard you ran off, I figured Mario must have gone after you to figure out what was wrong," Peach went on, her eyes flicking up briefly to meet mine before lowering her head again. "And if he went after you, he would have tried to cheer you up. And giving big, heroic speeches is his way of cheering you up. So it was just putting two and two together."

Link raised his sword to the light, studying it for a few seconds before bringing it back down onto his knee and aggressively scrubbing a particular spot on the flat of the blade.

"Is that a weapon that belongs to the company?" I asked, observing his motions from afar. "Why does Link always have it? I'm not judging, of course, I'm just trying to figure it out."

Peach paused from the disinfecting, tossing a glance over her shoulder to where I was looking.

"Oh, no, that's not ours," she explained, turning her gaze back to mine. "Link brought that from his home. One of his requests when coming to work here was that he wanted the sword on his person at every moment, as long as he promised not to use it with ill intent. I don't know if it's a security thing or something to prevent theft of it, but I see nothing wrong with it. He takes very good care of that sword."

Conversation fizzled out. Peach returned her focus to her steady work on my paw, cradling it in her other hand. The sound of landing punches, pacing feet, and strained breaths accompanied us in our silence. Link had begun to polish the side of the blade rather than the flat, his pulled-back untidy blond hair dangling near his shoulder in his concentration. He was unusually calm-mannered for someone who fought others by sword on the daily, so at peace, even though he was just a boy. I wondered what was going through his mind.

"There," Peach said gently, withdrawing the cotton ball from my paw and lightly patting the cut with her fingertips as if to keep the disinfectant in place. Her nails were neat and well-groomed, I noticed. "We're done with that part. Are you in much pain, sweetheart?"

"No, not at all. I can hardly feel it," I admitted.

"You've built up quite a pain tolerance," Peach remarked, offering me a sweet smile as she spared me a brief glance before dropping the cotton ball and reaching her now free hand into the basket for the roll of bandages in the corner. "I'm impressed. Right now, I'm just going to wrap up your little—Ah!"

A small, popping eruption of green fog from the container rattled us both at the same time. At first glance, it appeared as nothing more than a mini smoke bomb that somebody had planted as a joke, but when the mist gradually dematerialized, something lay among the contents of the medical bin in its place. It was some kind of a creature, a small creature barely big enough for the container, perhaps some sort of a rodent that wasn't common in the areas where I grew up or currently lives. It was brown in color, chubby in the belly with stubby little arms and legs that poked out of the torso, and a crisp-looking leaf as if it had been plucked right out of autumn was pasted to where its face should have been. Its arms and legs were wiggling with energetic glee similar to as a young child would and was making a distinct sound—Like a giggle, also like a small child—Or some wavering sound that resembled it.

"Oh, figures," Peach sighed. Her voice was heavy with frustration, but the smile that still picked up the corners of her lips told me it wasn't genuine as she began to unroll the bandages. "They always tend to pop up in the most unusual places. Never mind that, Isabelle. This is becoming more and more of a usual occurrence. They're these cute little pests that originate around the general area where Link lives, but now that he's here more often than not, they're popping up here and popping up there. He seems to have a way with them. Oh, speaking of which."

Sudden movement right beside me caught my attention as a hand shot down near my shoulder in a hasty grab for the pest. After scooping up the critter like it was nothing but a sports ball, Link hardly wasted a moment in hastening to the door. He snuck a glance back at Peach and me, managed a sharp, apologetic exhale that was almost like a nervous chuckle, and was gone with the thud of the door falling shut after him.

Peach continued her treatment. She had fully unrolled the bandages, leaving it sprawled across her lap and the floor like a long ribbon as she still held up my paw in her hand. She gave a polite murmur for me to hold still and proceeded to wrap up my paw, starting at the base of my wrist. For almost half of the wrapping, she didn't utter a single word.

"You know," Peach said at last, almost in a thoughtful murmur as if she was talking to herself. She wasn't looking at me, but instead was studying her work on my paw. The bandages had reached the lower padding of my paw, but every vigilant wrap of the bandage brought me about an inch further along the surface. "I feel like everyone here at Smash is just one big family. Do you ever feel like that? We've all come from so many different places around the world to join together with one main goal. To lift each other up and help each other forward. I think that's beautiful. If you think about it, past all of the fighting, this place truly is a home. That's what a family is, right? I think, because of that, we should all stick together like a family should. We can be each other's safe spaces from the big and scary world. I can be yours, too. That's what family means to me, at least. Do you ever feel like you're a part of a family here?"

The bandage closed gently around the main padding of my paw as it wrapped around the surface. It was a pleasant feeling, like a hug for my paw or a soft squeeze.

"Well, I don't know," I confessed. "I still don't know half of the fighters here. I've got some good friends, though. I've got you and Mario and Link. I don't really know anyone else personally like that."

"You'll get there," Peach assured me. "I promise you will. Sometimes it takes a while. But when you find your people, you just know it."

The next wrap of bandage was the last one, ending around the top padding of the paw. Peach snipped off the end with a pair of silver scissors that had been left in the container as well, pasted it to my paw with such delicacy that I could have been fooled that I was made of something so fragile that I could break at any moment, and dropped the scissors back into the container to finish the treatment. She didn't yet let go of my paw, however, but closed it in with the other as she cradled it between the two.

"All done," Peach said warmly. "That wasn't too bad, right?"

"Not at all," I told her. "Thank you, Peach."

"Why, of course, my darling." Peach's ocean-blue eyes shimmered with contentment as she spoke. A certain warmth settled in the depth of my chest. She really cared so much for me, like a mother. I could trust her with anything. "Family will always come around to help each other when the time is right."


. . .


CURRENT RANKINGS

(subject to frequent or infrequent change)

VIP STATUS

1. MARIO 2. LUIGI

3. PEACH 4. LINK

PRIMARY STATUS

5. GANONDORF 6. DAISY

7. KIRBY 8. BOWSER

9. ROSALINA 10. ZELDA



Mario and I had arrived at a mutual agreement that I wasn't as ready for phase three as I had guessed I was. Without phase three, I was back to phase two for the second time. It sounded like a loss, but it wasn't. Returning to what I knew to gather the knowledge for what I didn't was the best option on the table. Besides, I hadn't spent much time in the second phase at all, so maybe I just hadn't lived it thoroughly enough to properly move on. And between Mario and me, it was decided.

On the early morning of Tuesday, the twelfth of July, rain relentlessly poured down. This wouldn't have been a concern no matter what I was doing, since I was usually inside the building. It was healthy for the greenery, at least. But today would have been the first day in months that I took a shift outside of Smash. The day had been a lingering topic of discussion since somewhere around the end of June, a date marked on my calendar and anticipated with every passing night. Today, I would have been leaving for my second group activity within the second phase.

I had expected the day to begin the exact same way as the day I drove in my first race, but there was a twist in the former routine. Firstly, I was asked to arrive early, four thirty at the latest, just for the one day. The rest of the trip would have been a direct reflection. I arrived at Smash just before four fifteen, clenching a steaming takeaway coffee cup, with a dripping ponytail, and shuffling in a dream. After meeting up with Mario, we set off for the train station—He politely offered to share his umbrella, but even with a fully extended arm, it reached no higher than my neck—And boarded the four thirty four train. The sun hadn't yet risen, creating a dim blue-gray sky outside of the wide train window once the rain had ceased, and we rode the train together for almost twenty five minutes.

We disembarked from the station at five o'clock sharp, exiting the station into a damp world. By this point, I had already finished my coffee, so Mario suggested to hold the empty cup for me. We crossed a sticky sidewalk and stopped at the double doors of an incredibly massive white building, one the size of a crucial resource center, and Mario permitted us through the doors with a keycard. We emerged through the double doors into a very white square room with strips of burning lights hanging above and proceeded down a short hallway directing us to a second set of double doors.

"There will be fighting," Mario warned me as we strolled through the hall side by side to reach the end. "Well, no, I take that back. I suppose there's two ways to go about this. You could rely on combat or stealth. In case you do end up having to fight, I assure you that you won't be fighting any real fighters this time."

"What am I fighting?" I asked.

"They're like... They're like robots, I guess," Mario described. "Machines designed to have the basic design and skills of a fighter, but not real fighters. You were having trouble getting around the fact of fighting against a real person, so hopefully this makes you more comfortable in direct contact."

"Is it just me in there?" I inquired. "Am I with a group?"

"A group," Mario clarified. "This activity always has a group of fifteen explorers. I put Link in there with you. I figured you'd want to see a familiar face. Actually, the entire group is through the doors up here. They're getting ready for the event."

The piercing lights of the room through the second set of doors only enhanced the sensation of night, or more specifically, early morning. Despite the young hour, the room was already buzzing with activity. Two lengthy lightwood tables were stretched across the walls, one on the back wall that we had just entered through and one on the wall to my left. Every participant within the space—Fourteen, apparently—Was lined up along the table, each climbing into a thickset white jumpsuit over their fighting uniform. It must have been the official uniform for this activity. Every face that was bowed around me in focus of dressing themselves I had at least glimpsed at before. They were all fighters that were employed at Smash.

Before I could advance further into the room, Mario pinched the fabric of my sleeve to stop me.

"You see that over there?" Mario asked, withdrawing his hand and instead using it to point across the room.

I followed the direction where he was pointing. At the farthest end of the left table, an untouched jumpsuit lay crumpled on the surface. It didn't seem claimed by anyone, simply sitting in its place.

"The suit?" I said, turning back to Mario.

"Yes, that suit." Mario nodded. "That one's for you. Why don't you go ahead and put that on and I'll begin my introductions to the group."

With everyone's eyes attention somewhere else, crossing the room as the new participant wasn't as awkward as it could have been. I reached the edge of the table where the suit sat in a heap, taking it up by the shoulders and shaking it to view it in its full length. It was just a plain bodysuit, nothing special about it, except for the back where the number 057 was sprawled out in a wide orange text. Interesting.

"If I could have your attention for just a moment." Mario's voice boomed out across the room as I was tucking my first leg into the suit and raised my head to locate him in the room as he spoke. He was still in front of the doors where I had left him and still clenching the top of my old coffee cup in his hand. "I know, I know. I know you just want to get to the place. But I know you know I have to do this every time."

Every pair of eyes in the room had turned to look at Mario to listen. The rustle of dressing hadn't ceased, but the purr of conversation had silenced. What a respectful crowd, I noted.

"Most groups don't come to the end of this activity until about forty-five minutes in," Mario went on in his loud, projecting voice. "So please don't be worried if it takes you a while to make progress. It's meant to be difficult. But each and every one of you is capable of taking on great challenges and that's why you're here today."

I accidentally met eyes with Link at the same moment that he noticed me as well. He was near the middle of the table on the other wall, standing beside the edge as the first participant having fully donned their suit. In respect of Mario, I kept silent as I gave a smile and a wave, and even Link managed a soft smile as he offered a short wave back.

"Also, don't worry," Mario said as I refocused my attention. "Those of you who have been here before aren't complaining about overheating in two layers of clothing because they know that the building has air conditioning."

Somebody in the room chuckled while the rest of the group continued to dress. Having slipped both of my legs into the suit, I proceeded to do the same with my arms.

"Well, that'll be all from me." Mario tried to clasp his hands together, but realized that he was still holding my cup. "I'll be taking no questions, so please don't ask. Anything that you're wondering, I advise you to take it upon yourself to learn as you enter the activity. I'll see you all in about an hour or so."

One by one, the group was starting to finish their dressing. By the time I yanked up the zipper to where it ended at the base of my neck, almost every participant had congregated in the middle of the room, regaining the gentle rumble of conversation in wait for the entirety of the room to be ready to leave. I adjusted the suit to fit comfortably around my shoulders and moved into the crowd, my eyes flitting around each face for my friend and the only participant I knew. Link had left the side of the table to stand close to the back of the crowd, keeping to himself rather than conversing with others as I would have expected, and was fidgeting with a scabbard that had been strapped individually to his own suit to ensure that his sword fit properly.

"Have you been here before?" I inquired after I had joined him.

Link's eyes leaped up to meet mine, instantly dropping his focus from his sword once he was spoken to. Wordlessly, he shook his head, causing his ponytail to slip back to his back after being drooped over his shoulder to lower his head.

"Oh, so it's new for both of us." A collective onset of new movement snatched my gaze back to the group before us. With slow steps, the group had begun to shuffle their way to the door at the other end of the room. It was time to begin the activity, or at least begin to make the journey to where it would take place. I looked back at Link to check that he was aware it was time to go and, upon discovering him still watching me, decided that he knew.

With my attentive lead of the crowd in front of me and Link on my trail, I slowly filed through the door. Once I was actually able to make it there in the sluggish movement, I hadn't known what I would have been expecting, but whatever it was, this wasn't it. The lights were low and weak, setting a notable dimness in the space. There was no clear ceiling, but instead two walls arching to make one smooth surface. A platform met the space outside of the door but soon slanted down into a track, like one for a train. Positioned on the tracks was a mobile cart, tall and wide enough to support the weight of the entire group by flat inbuilt benches, one on either side. Past the cart was the square entrance of a tunnel that we would be traveling through to reach the activity and fixed into the empty space above the tunnel was a broad electronic screen, glistening with neon orange text.


FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH YOUR GROUP

011 NESS 401 ROBIN 719 LINK

039 MARTH 440 RYU 748 TERRY

042 MAC 505 PYRA 821 IKE

057 ISABELLE 506 MIN MIN 955 ROSALINA

197 CLOUD 600 LUCINA 993 SORA


The group had split off two ways. A small cluster of them had unlatched and propped open the gate to enter the cart, boarding it and claiming seats on the bench. Either they knew exactly what to do from the get go or they couldn't have cared less about familiarizing themselves with their group. The other collection, the one that took up the majority of the crowd, had all clumped together to gaze up at the screen.

I looked back at Link to find him examining the screen as well. I noticed that his eyes were squinted slightly in concentration as he read the board but, noticing he was being watched, returned the gaze. He only held it for a second before he was on the move again, weaving past me and every other jumpsuit-wearing participant in front of him to make his way to the cart. I was hesitant to leave the company of the only fighter I knew here, drifting along behind him like a shadow and ducking through the horde of participants. I followed Link to the entrance of the cart, watching him test the balance of the floor by cautious steps one after the other before doing the same. I gripped the edge of the cart as I climbed aboard and as Link plopped into a seat in the middle of the right and currently empty bench. I unsteadily tottered my way into the seat beside him, still clinging to the edge for security as I dropped down onto the bench at his side.

It was a few minutes before the benches had finally filled up. Across the minutes, more and more participants climbed into the cart to flop down into the seats on the bench. By the point where everyone had settled in, we were crammed together in the limited space, all holding onto our little seating spaces like they were the last things we had in this life. I couldn't recall the last time I was this physically close with others, my right arm squished against Link's and my left against the participant numbered 600. I rested my paws in my lap and snuck a glance back at the platform behind the four other participants that sat to my left. It was almost odd to think that I had been there just a moment ago, that I was just about to travel further into the unknown.

I snuck a glance into the darkness of the tunnel to my right, straining to piece out anything to be seen. There was nothing, only the pitch black of an opening. I found myself staring into the dense darkness, easily distracted by its unusual appearance. It might have frightened me if it didn't resonate with the feeling of trying out a rollercoaster ride for the first time. Instead, with the eccentric room we'd just stepped out onto, a literal cart ride to wherever it was that we were headed to, and a shadow so thick that I failed to see through it, it was the most intriguing experience I'd had in a while.

A thunderous mechanical clunk and complete darkness sunk over the room. Even the neon-text screen was no longer lit up. As soon as the lights vanished, I noticed Link's silhouette shift abruptly as he quickly glanced up as if the answers were above him. A soft whisper slithered through the group, but not another sound. My heart had begun to skip a little bit faster with the new sensations, but whether it was out of nerves or anticipation, I couldn't tell. Was this meant to happen?

The question received an answer not five seconds later. The cart rumbled, vibrating beneath my seat, and began to shuffle along the track in a slow and jolting fashion. It was all for the effect, apparently. Link was still looking around, his head moving for his eyes to take in every inch of the darkness. Ever so slowly, my own eyes were adjusting, regaining a sense of the fourteen figures sitting around me. The illuminating of a source further down the tunnel instantly drew my attention to notice that a hanging screen glowed with blazing green text, initially flickering into view to complement the off-putting effects as we shuffled closer within the cart by the moment.


LUIGI'S MANSION


We kept on moving. The sign passed us by, as well as the faint glow it carried. The bells in my ponytail rattled with every lurching roll down the track, though the sound was nearly drowned out by the groaning of the cart as it moved onward. The next sign lit up about ten seconds after the first one, flickering in the same way that the first one had.


SPONSORED BY SMASH ULTIMATE


As the second sign passed over our heads, I reconsidered the clues for the activity that Mario had provided both to me personally and to the entire group. He had specified that he preferred us to go in blind, to throw us in the deep end and figure out what we were meant to do ourselves along the way. Still, anyone else who had been here before would have known what to expect. Or maybe nobody had been here before. Since not even Link had trained here before, it was an impossible task to pick out who was new and who wasn't. Personally, what I understood was that there would have been combat, not against each other but against inanimate machines, there was the possibility of sneaking through the entire thing, it could take as long as forty five minutes to complete, and that there was a fair share of air conditioning. That was important as well. Nobody could have focused to their best potential while they were sweating up a storm.


WARNING

THIS EXERCISE INCLUDES THE USE OF FLASHING

AND STROBING LIGHTS. IF YOU HAVE CONCERNS

OR ARE ADVISED NOT TO BE PRESENT IN SUCH

ENVIRONMENTS, CONTACT YOUR ADVISOR.


A few minutes after the cart had first left its station, we thudded to a halt at the next one. The design of the room was mirrored from the first, leaving a platform to rise onto before only a single door would separate us from our location. Almost immediately after the cart had halted, a sea of movement was birthed around me as the group rose to their feet to depart. The space around me was quickly freed up, eliminating the cramped seats, and the air was a bit easier to breathe. I pushed myself up to stand, following the crowd as it filed through the gate onto the ground once again.

When I dropped down from the cart into the ground, the group had begun to congregate on the platform at the next door again. Link was hopping down from the cart behind me as I ascended the step to the platform, accompanying the group where they gathered. As the final stragglers caught up with the remainder of the group, the sound of the door unlatching on the other side of the cluster of participants told me that we were about to proceed. Suddenly, Link was at my side again, his gaze unmoved towards the door as he waited to take his turn to venture through. Wow, he was quiet. I supposed that was a contributing factor to his major success.

The group was disappearing through the door, pooling out into the next room. Weaving into the crowd, I began to shuffle forward, slipping through the doorway and moving into the space awaiting me. A similar darkness to the tunnel had overtaken this room as well, though as it wasn't as dense, allowing me to monitor the sluggish movements of the group cautiously advancing further into the room. I strained to catch a glimpse of anything around me, even just where the walls ended—I was among the shorter participants taking part in the exercise, so even stretching my neck was hardly enough to thoroughly examine the room. Link, a hint shorter than me at my side, seemed to be having an even more difficult task in looking around.

The door slammed behind us with a thud, concealing us in the dim area. I shared a glance with Link beside me. The expression on his face was invisible in the darkness, but I noticed his hand perched upon the handle of his sword, ready to withdraw it at any given moment. With another thud, blazing glows had illuminated around the room, chasing away the shadows and granting us vision once again. It wasn't a set of full lighting, but with the intensity that sliced through the dimness, it was enough to raise the room back into sight. At the front of the room, a broad set of neon green words set light on the next shut door and spelled out "Welcome". This was the most conspicuous lighting as the rest were only orbs of various colors, sprinkled across the four walls like stars in the sky. The vibrant lights set off a sort of surreality in the air, almost like it was nothing but a hallucination of some sort. By this point, my eyes had been flung open wide in a prying interest, leaping to observe the space in a new light, quite literally. How cool was this!

A voice thundered across the room, provoking a jolt in a couple of the group members.

"Welcome, welcome, my explorers! I'm so happy you decided to join me today," the voice bounced across the walls from speakers fixed into the walls and evidently buried somewhere in the remaining shadows. Instantly and without much thought—Albeit expectedly—I identified the voice as belonging to Mario's brother Luigi. Was he actually speaking to us from somewhere? Was it only a recording? "Don't be afraid—Or perhaps do. After all, you have no idea whatsoever of what's behind this door. There could be monsters, there could be traps, who knows! Who knows what's lurking to take you down the minute you step into the mansion?"

Well, robots, obviously. But other than that, he was right: Everything past the door was completely a mystery to me. A flutter of eager anticipation shimmied down my stomach. As far as I could tell, this whole exercise was something of a haunted house with genuine obstacles and real examples to execute one's fighting training. A genius idea, to be honest. Merge together a game and the opportunity to explore the unknown to one's heart's content and anyone would liven up their combat skills, myself included. Mario truly had the right idea for me.

"Oh, where am I, you ask?" Luigi went on. Although nobody had spoken, select members of the group had begun to quietly look around the room as if searching for where his voice was coming from. "I think the better question is where I'm not.

"I could be over here." The voice had darted to the left side of the room. Several pairs of eyes, including Link's, spun to determine the new source of the sound.

"Or I could be here, too." The sound was projected from the right side of the room now, beckoning the same eyes to its location as if I were witnessing a game of table tennis. And just like that, the voice had centered itself in the room.

"I suppose the message here is that nothing is ever as it seems," Luigi warned. His words might have been unsettling, but his cheerful, welcoming tone unwavered. "Perhaps that's something to remember as you proceed through this door. But have I told you yet what your mission is about to be? No, I don't believe I have. Listen well, because these words will never be repeated."

I snuck a glance at Link. A certain look squirming onto his face told me the unmistakable truth that he wasn't sharing in my charmed experience. While his hand still balanced upon the handle of his sword, his thick eyebrows had begun to inch closer together in concern, his eyes flitting throughout the room as if waiting for something to jump out and catch us off guard. I struggled to pick out anything scary about this entire affair, but evidently he wasn't completely at ease anymore.

"Your goal is to make it to the top of the mansion as quickly as you can," Luigi explained. "There are four levels you need to ascend before you get to that point. Each floor brings a more difficult challenge to overcome. But once you reach the final door, you can't get through without a key. That's right. Somewhere in those four floors, hidden where you'd least expect it, is your key to escaping this place. Without that key, you're not going anywhere. Understood? Perfect. Turn your faces forward and jump right in."

Luigi hadn't even finished his last sentence yet before a lengthy, high-pitched whine of an opening door grabbed my attention. The door at the front of the room was sliding open, revealing the next room ahead. It was clearly more well lit, given the glow that pooled out onto the floor as it glided open. I didn't have the chance to take in the new sight thoroughly before the group had already shuffled into movement again, journeying as a single cluster to file through the opened door. I heard Link remove his hand from his sword as I joined them.

The next room was so dissimilar to the starting space behind me that it was a wonder to think they were connected. The walls and floor were matched of the same bluish, hard marble. Pillars of the same design marked places down the hall, one on either side. The door latched shut behind us as I studied the room. A chorus of discussion had already arisen from the group of explorers, narrowing down a plan as I was absorbed in my discoveries and Link stood next to me in silence.

"I've done this before, but it's been years. We need to look out for traps."

"What do we do? We can't get out of here."

"Is there any way we can split up? One of us will find the key eventually and we'll all meet up at the end doors."

"Are we being watched? Like, on a camera or something? I have some ideas of ways we could cheat but I don't want to get in trouble. I don't even know if they're good ideas."

I hadn't entirely processed the statement of not being able to get out of this place that I had overheard until I realized that there was no door leading out of this room. There were no doors, no windows, nothing. Only flat walls. There was no way to escape this room. Link seemed to make this observation hardly seconds after I did, breaking off into a brisk walk to search the walls. I spotted two more rectangular screens on the start of the left wall, a large one stacked over a smaller one, and by the numbers determined it was the amount of time we'd spent so far in the exercise and the current time in the day.


00:00:24

05:01:57


My thoughts were reeling, putting together the context clues. It was obvious now. Every single area was a puzzle, an individual trial to overcome before we could rise to the next level. Every answer was something I would least expect, whatever was the most difficult to find. It wasn't just a combat exercise, it was an exercise of critical thinking. It was more of a fit for me than I had previously assumed. Even from a puppyhood age while I was still in school, I had trained my mind to pick out the smallest details, to sharpen my perception to be able to look between the lines and discover the answer waiting right before my face. This was exactly where I needed to be.

"I know what we need to do," I declared, turning my focus back to the group.

The discussions diminished as the faces turned, the eyes meeting mine to listen to my plan. Even Link paused in his search, standing alone in the middle of the room and watching me.

"There isn't a door that's going to take us out of this room," I explained. "Not one that we can see. Nor are there any windows we can climb through. The exit is hidden. My guess is that it's somewhere in one of these walls. The goal is to go up, so it won't be in the floor, and the ceiling is too high to reach. If we search the walls, we'll find something that can help us out of here. If not a way out, then at the very least, a clue."

"How do we know if we find it?" A young woman with updone platinum hair asked me—The number 955.

"I don't know yet," I admitted. "I think we'll know when we feel it. We just need to be looking out for something out of the ordinary."

In the blink of an eye, I was pacing along the flat of the wall, hunting down any little breakage in the surface. My paws fumbled across the wall, sliding across the exterior to no clear avail. As I was not the only one in search, the sliding sound sourced from multiple places in the room and not just from my own paws. The timer on the wall ticked further, turning one minute into two and into three. With the longer that the search prevailed, the uncertainty began to slither into my mind that I had been wrong, that I had confidently stated incorrect information that was doing nothing but wasting our time.

And then I found it. About four minutes in, I had begun to try the act of running my paw in circles on the wall in case the latch or the like was bolted closer to the floor. It was a good thing that I did, since it was in a swipe towards the floor that my paw caught a lump in the wall. I had begun to sink into a sort of daze, sensing out the wall with no changes, but this jolted me back to reality. I clawed at the wall again, trying to rediscover what I had touched, and grappled at a slight crack, a hint of an opening. Was that it?

My paws stilled, my breath thin, as I hooked my claws into the opening. I tugged it in my direction, but it wouldn't budge. Only when I lifted it upwards did it finally detach, easing open like a trapdoor a foot above the floor and revealing a passageway. It was a cramped passageway at that, a wooden path only tall and wide enough to crawl through and lit up by tiny, recurring lights along the top. Given that this was the only definite way out of this room, it wasn't there by accident.

"I've got it. Right through here," I announced, holding up the bent wall as I dropped into a crouch and scanned the room. The search was abandoned immediately as every pair of eyes turned back to me from different places across the walls. "There's a tunnel to crawl through. I don't know how far it goes or where it leads, but I think it's our best bet. If anyone is claustrophobic, I would recommend coming through at the end to have that much more space. For now, let's move."

Link was the first to reach my side again, but the group hastily reformed behind me. Only once I had recollected every explorer that we had entered this room with, I ducked into the tunnel to begin the crawl. It took an awkward wriggling, strained pulls from my paws grappling the wood, and the bells in my ponytail rattling with every move, but soon I had fully submerged myself into the tunnel. I began to drag myself through the tunnel, silently appreciating the smoothness of it to prevent splinters from piercing into my paws, and squinted into the distance of the channel to locate the end. Several yards down the tunnel, I located the flat of a dead end—Although I learned my lesson to take dead ends with a grain of salt at this point as it was just as possible to be a subtle exit—But also a handful of openings into left and right turns along the way. This wasn't as simple as it had seemed.

I kept moving. As soon as there was enough space, I caught the sound of Link climbing into the tunnel after me. Within minutes, I was leading a group of fourteen through a tight passageway without the faintest clue where it would lead. I lugged myself to the opening of the first turn, one to the left, only to find the same dead end as what stood at the opposite point from where I lay. It could have been any one of them.

"Stop for a second," I commanded, bringing myself to a halt as well. The walls of the tunnel bordered me closely on every side, encasing me in a slim area. "There's several different turns here. I can't tell which one will take us out of here. I'm going to go to the end and see what that does for us. Everyone else, cover the turns and give a shout if you reach an end."

The turns were simply a distraction point, as it became clear as soon as I had tugged myself to the opposite end of the tunnel. My stomach squeezed with the sensation of being contained in such close quarters and turning myself over onto my side for a stronger strike was a strenuous effort, but when I thrust my paws into the flat wood, a jolt of relief set itself on me as it broke free and clattered to the floor on the other side. I was the one to give the shout, urging the rest of the explorers to join my position, and squirmed my way out onto the floor. It was a silver floor, smeared with the shine of the lights above, and the walls were a pearly white. The solid color wasn't the only notable aspect about the wall, though, which I noticed only as I climbed back to my feet. Along the ten foot square block of a wall casing were eight glossy black doors, each fastened shut with a four-digit code. Another set of wide screens across the back wall informed of the time spent in this building.


00:09:02

05:11:16


Link's head bobbed out from the tunnel behind me as I was testing the locks on the doors, leaping from handle to the other and jiggling it to ensure that the suspicions were true. I turned back to him as he crawled out onto the silver-tinted floor.

"Only one of these doors will take us to the right place," I told him. He quietly rose back to his feet as the next explorer, number 197, emerged from the tunnel on his hands and knees. "It doesn't sit right with me to think that this is all just a guessing game. Not only would we have to take a stab in the dark of which door would take us where we need to go, we still need the code to even get through it."

A faint squeak cut into my sentence. Link's back was to me as he studied the first door to the right of the tunnel. He had lifted what had first appeared as a set-in golden plate to reveal it was not in fact set-in, but a hanging cover for something behind it. I was at his side in a heartbeat, peering over his shoulder to witness for myself his discovery.


2142


That couldn't have been it. The code wouldn't have just been out in the open like that. I spun my gaze around the room, taking a second glance at the other doors. The golden plate appeared on each and every one of them. Whether the same number appeared behind each plate determined whether it was a trap or yet another puzzle. I brought myself to each of the doors a second time, uncovering the plates to take note of the number it concealed.

1224. 4212. 2412. 4221. 2124. 2214. 4122.

"Okay," I mumbled, allowing myself to piece through my thoughts aloud as I dropped the last plate again. The remainder of the explorers had arrived into the room, straying together in the center of the room as they carefully watched my movements. "Each one of the doors holds a different code. I would assume that the codes are all true for the door they're displayed upon. In the name of the challenge, it's likely that no matter which door we choose, it'll automatically lock behind us when we travel through it. There's multiple ways we can go about this. The most obvious way to go about this to me is to thoroughly examine each number pad and find the one that's the most worn down. The most worn down is the most used and that means the one that others have taken."

Heads bowed down, two or three at each door as they studied the number pads and the four-digit codes behind the plates. I hadn't joined them but instead lingered near the middle of the room where I had been offering instructions to set aside some time to think for myself. There must have been some sort of pattern here. If there was no pattern, there was nothing to put together. I could only hope that my theory in the codes matching the codes of their doors was right, otherwise I didn't have the faintest clue where to begin. At the very least, the code was compiled of a single certainty: One four, one one, and two twos. Besides that, they could have been in any undefined order. If only there was another way to—

Wait. Wait a second. My feet sprung into action again as an idea surfaced in my mind. Was it true? I snuck brief glances over my peers' shoulders, re-checking the numbers under the lifted plates until I had read them all once again. I was right. Seven of the doors began their arrangement with a 2 or a 4, but only one of them began with 1. One—The first door. The right door.

"Excuse me." I sent the mutter to the two explorers bowed over the number pad of the door labeled 1224, numbers 993 and 600. I ducked past them as they withdrew, hurriedly punching in the numbers and hearing the door unlatch.

"Wait, but how do you—" The number of 993 began in protest, but the sight behind the door as I heaved it open silenced him. On the other side of the door were no more pieces of a puzzle, no more trials, only a rising set of marble steps that shone beneath the lights. The steps to the second floor.

"This way," I directed to the group, tossing a glance over my shoulder in wait to be followed before I promptly swept through the open door. "Let's get to the next floor."

The pattering of several feet ascending the marble steps accompanied the silence. I reigned the lead, hustling onward to the top of the stairs as the rest of the group of explorers followed on my trail. I surfaced the steps to find a hall, completely empty and in the same bluish marble scheme as the steps. The hall rounded into a left turn at the end, but this was all there was to notice about the path. I was just a few steps in advance into the hall before the sight was abruptly snatched from me, blinking out of existence in a single moment as the lights went out and abandoned us all in the darkness. My feet came to a halt, my paw instantly jerking outward to stop the rest of the group as well.

"Wait," I hissed.

The scuffling of feet had ceased. Something else was there, a different sound, one that was clearly not being made by myself or one of the explorers. It was a sort of rattling... Maybe a clinking... What was that sound? My breath lodged in the pit of my chest, leaving myself and everyone around me without a hint of a sound as the sound kept on in an arrhythmic pattern, and then it struck me. It was the robots.

"What am I fighting?" I asked.

"They're like... They're like robots, I guess," Mario described. "Machines designed to have the basic design and skills of a fighter, but not real fighters. You were having trouble getting around the fact of fighting against a real person, so hopefully this makes you more comfortable in direct contact."

"Stay behind me," I whispered in instruction, my eyes flicking back to the silhouettes of the explorers behind me. Some of them nodded, including Link as the closest in my lead. "I know what's ahead. If we can make it through without a sound, we'll be able to reach the next floor. At least the next segment. Just follow my guidance and I'll let you know what to do."

I found my way to the wall after an awkward tottering through the dark with my paws outstretched. I navigated myself with the flat of the wall, easing across while the rest of the group clung to the wall behind me. As silent as shadows in the deepest night, we slinked past an arched threshold into what I could tell as, after a shift in the air, a broader room. My eyes were gradually adjusting to the dense darkness. Rows and rows of barricades, almost like a labyrinth, split the room into winding paths. The rattling of the wandering robots still lurked somewhere, but due to the volume, it wasn't in the immediate vicinity. Not yet.

A sudden glare of red light nearly blinded me, drowning my senses for the brief second that it passed in front of my face. I lurched back by first instinct, flinging my back and the pads of my paws against the wall behind me before the light had passed. A revolving light was slowly spinning to cover the space in the room, a sight that wrenched my stomach with panic to think that it could have been a motion sensor—But this panic ceased once I remembered that it had just flashed over me and did nothing. It was simply a warning light.

I took a risk, removing myself from the wall and hastened across the space to the first barricade with soundless feet. The group was on my trail with a faint shuffle, joining me at the wall by my lead. It was just as I hugged the next wall again that the sound registered in my ears again. It was closer now, maybe not in danger of turning the corner and spotting us but definitely somewhere nearby.

"What is that?" A whisper spat through the darkness as the rest of the group stilled against the wall behind me. "That noise."

"Robots." The hushed word escaped me before I could manage to think twice. I hadn't been planning to tell them that before they knew. They might have been upset thinking I had been favored and let in on the secrets beforehand. Fortunately, not a single reaction stirred through the group as they listened. "I'm assuming that they either have a tremendous hearing range or can't hear at all and considering we haven't attracted anything by our whispers and movements, I think it's the latter. Whether they have better sight in the dark is still up for discovery. Here's my plan. Hopefully, we can use the darkness to our advantage. We'll use these barricades to shelter us and make our way to the other end of the room. Is everyone doing okay?"

Whispers of confirmation slithered through the group, all except from Link right beside me against the wall, as expected. I looked at him, though my eyes didn't need to pry very hard through the dark anymore. Even through the shred of sight my eyes allowed, I noticed the expression on his face. He might have been a little uncomfortable when we had first entered the mansion, but now his face contorted with unease as he listened to me. He must have thought that nobody could see it, although his shallow breaths were enough to prove his anxiety. I might have needed him here, but this was no place for him.

I found his hand through the dark, giving it a firm squeeze to remind him that I was there and it was okay. This quickly caught his attention, turning a pair of wide eyes of surprise toward me. His absence of words made his nonverbal expressions that much more apparent. I managed a halfhearted reassuring smile and withdrew again, turning my focus back to the rattling sound of the scouting robots. The sound was just as distant as it had been before I had spoken at all. I was probably safe to move on to the next row.

I invited the group forward with a short gesture of my paw. As one, we hustled to the next wall under the cover of darkness—Although it didn't seem as thick now that we had been in it for a while. By the next barricade, the wandering sound was considerably nearer. With the mechanical clicking, something was right on the other side. I needed to narrow down on the caution. The regular flick of the red light across my face disoriented my sight for only a second as I glanced around the next corner, gripping the edge of the wall with one paw to yank myself back to avoid being caught if needed. It was my first glimpse of the robots in question patrolling the dark area. They held a strangely similar look to one of those posed art dummies, even if only in shape, but in a smoother material. They almost seemed like something that shouldn't have been likely to move at all. Nevertheless, they were something to be avoided. One step too slow or too loud and a whole different problem would have been tossed into our laps.

Luckily, the robot had been on its way away from where I concealed myself behind the wall and failed to notice my head poke around the corner. I perched at the wall to wait as the machine shuffled further away, anticipating the right moment to make a move across to the next wall. It was a good thing that I did, because it was merely seconds after I had first caught sight of it before the range of exploration came to an end before it swayed back around. As my back pressed against the wall, listening to the gradual approach on the other side, only my thumping heartbeat convinced me that I hadn't entered a realm of slow motion. Once the sound began to recede and I confirmed that we were no longer in the line of sight, I took action and ushered the group further on.

The strategy was enough to clear the first area of the second floor. Six or seven barricades were left to cross after the first two, although only one more robot remained to be avoided. We departed the section through a set of sliding double doors that swept apart as we approached, sensing and monitoring our arrival, but my mind wasn't completely eased. The new area, as before, was remarkably different from the first. The floor was a barred metal that sent a clatter through it with every step, a yellowy light beaming down on us, and short, winding halls of what looked like strips of thick iron strapped together to make what was almost an underground base. Still, I didn't feel the relief of moving on. I doubted that we were moving on. Mario wouldn't have gone out of his way to warn me about the robots if there were only two and if they were so simple to sneak past. There were more somewhere ahead.

"There's nothing left here." Disagreement stirred from the group as the explorer with the number 401 slapped onto his back spoke up at last somewhere behind me. Every pair of feet clanked across the floor as we rounded more and more corners, searching for the end—Or in my case, more adversaries. "It's just the same hallway again and again and again. It's gotta be a labyrinth of some kind."

"Maybe," I replied, tossing a brief glance over my shoulder to make sure that I was still being followed. In a strung out clump rather than a single file line, the group of explorers was still on my trail. "And maybe not. While yes, this does look like a labyrinth, I'm not so sure that we're alone. You can't put two little obstacles in your path and call it a challenge."

We passed another elongated screen stretched across the wall, reading out our time and the morning's time.


00:28:33

05:30:01


"We've been walking through here for at least five minutes, though. There's nothing here," he protested.

"I don't know." I stuck to my intuition. "I have a bad feeling about this."

As we proceeded through the halls, his point was clearly presented right in front of our faces—Each and every hall looked exactly the same. There was nothing to convince me that we weren't going around and around in circles. Well, almost nothing. The only trait separating us from adventuring a labyrinth was that there were no wrong turns, just one single path. Wherever it was leading us to, there was no possible way we would fail to reach it unless we got turned around somehow. I began to sink into a mindless daze. I submerged myself into the clattering sound of fifteen pairs of feet shuffling across the metal floor. I was absorbed instead in the swing of each step and the dusty lights above us rather than the path I was absentmindedly taking. I only awoke, and quite jarringly at that, when I turned a corner into the first hall that varied from all of the others.

The path had split into a four-way stop, meeting together with a square center. I didn't have the time to worry over which way was correct as the double doors directly across the way sat beneath a set of glowing letters spelling PROCEED. At least Luigi had given us that after wandering through the same area for several minutes.

"It's this way," I announced, stalking across the square centerpiece of the fork in the path. "This should be the end of the section. I believe that—"

An odd, strangled sort of sound escaped from my throat as a hand grabbed at the fabric over my shoulder, wrenching me abruptly back into the closed path before the center plate. It was Link, tugging me to the side after having withdrawn his sword with his right hand. His eyes were cast down the hallway rounding right, fixed onto a point somewhere along. I hadn't even yet turned my head before the piercing sound of rhythmic, high-pitched beeping struck the air. I whipped around, my eyes darting to locate the source of the sound. Heavy, mechanical clomping across the metal floor accompanied the flurry of a robot's approach from the back of the right hallway. I had stepped out in front of it to plainly see me, tossing stealth right out the window in the act. Whoops.

"I knew it," I declared. My head was swiveling, taking in my surroundings in hurried glances. The remaining three hallways were empty of approaching robots, but that could have changed at any moment. I turned a swift eye back to the group, who now stood tense and at the ready. "Keep this area guarded," I insisted. "I'll take this one."

The tension in the room had swelled, feeding into even the dull yellow lights that marked our way. Per command, the group of explorers began to swarm the center square as I broke off into a haste to meet the machine halfway. My heart was thumping again, somewhere higher in my chest where it should have been but not quite up in my throat. My paws almost tingled, anticipating the impact of the first punch. My first move stirred up my thoughts like a tsunami. I would have tried to land the first punch, if I took the first move in time, somewhere on the chin to knock it back. If the robot took the first move, I would have knocked the arm away with my elbow. Either way, I wasn't about to be struck.

I hadn't reached close-combat range before the machine recoiled in attack. It was a simple punch, withdrawing its arm with an elbow held high and a clenched fist with humanlike fingers. It called for even a beginner-level block, but I needed to finish this as quickly as possible. The wait for the fist to swing my way was hardly a beat. I locked my paw around the wrist. A nerve somewhere in my shoulder pinched as I flung the machine into the wall with the momentum the block had provided. The robot slammed face-first into the wall and staggered in a clumsy way. A short-timed window for action. My claws pointed as my paw shot up. I gripped the back of the neck, sinking my claws into the mechanical works. With another wrenching tug, I had chucked the machine down onto the metallic floor.

The machine had barely crumpled to the floor before an arm bolted closed around my neck from behind, clenching me in place. The smooth surface squeezing into my throat implied the presence of a second robot. I squirmed in the grip, trying to break free. Movement was so restrained that my neck didn't budge a single inch. I jerked my head back to knock the robot backwards. My neck, once again, failed to move. I wasn't yet out of options. My breath capacity was soon to say different. I lurched forward, doubling over. Weight was lifted suddenly from my shoulders as the machine tumbled over my shoulder to reach the floor. A band of strain snapped across my knees as the sound of impact rang through my ears. Both were down.

I sprung back to my feet, the bells in my ponytail rattling as my head spun back and forth to study the hall. In the fork of the halls, the entire group still remained, spread throughout the square. Several of the participants had sensed that the fight had finished and turned their eyes back to me. At the other end of the hall, no more robots pushed through the door for a joint attack. That was sure to not last long.

"Let's go while we still have the chance," I decided, starting off in a brisk walk back to the group. Hearing my voice while I hastily neared, the rest of the heads turned to look at me. "We're alone, but only for now. That first robot set off an alarm when it spotted me to attract the others to this location. That's how the second one got in. If we move quickly, we'll be gone before they even arrive."

At my lead, we advanced through the sliding double doors and deeper into the course. I had hoped it would have meant the opening to the stairs to the third floor, although I would have been satisfied with just moving on to the next section, but it was neither of the two, leading us into further metallic halls as we proceeded. I accidentally set off the alarm of a second robot along the way, having my attention yanked to it by its screechy beeping. With a fist to the side of the head and a sweeping kick to the ankles, it was already sprawled out across the floor and our feet were moving again.

The stairs were well concealed—Though intentionally or otherwise I wasn't quite sure—And caused us to search the immediate area three times over once the path ended and the next double doors led us not to the steps but another plain marble room before we found it. The flight of steps was tucked behind the wall and out of direct sight of the doors, inviting us to descend from the left side. Our group of fifteen climbed up the stairs as a budding sense spread through me that this entire exercise would soon be over. All that was left to be done was to get through the final obstacles and locate the key.

The third floor initially introduced us to a harshly lit space rather than the dim rooms I had grown accustomed to, almost like the lights of standing atop a stage. Across several minutes, we crossed a puzzle where the floor had been stripped into different segments across and each of them rolled by like a tumbling wheel. Link, naturally, arrived at the other end of the room first while I lost count of how many times my back struck one of the walls from being caught on a rushing piece of wood and was one after four or five explorers.

The lights were none the dimmer as we emerged into what was almost a comically long marble hallway, but squares opened up the walls in places to project unmoved, striking red lasers through various angles. A wrong step or a simple brush over the laser light, I assumed, and either a trap would capture us or alarms would blare across the mansion to alert more robots to our location. We cleared the hallway with solid caution and with bated breath. After investigating a thin drawer disguised into the wall, Link had taken hold of a small silver key. The eruption of relief spilling out into my stomach at laying eyes on it for the first time was nearly indescribable. Link gestured in an offer to hold onto it until we would reach the ending door, but my mind was already locked on the thought of the joys waiting for us at the end of the exercise.

The same feeling washed over me again for the second time when we all stood before the last door. We had just spent more than ten minutes venturing the empty marble halls of the fourth floor, launching into what was no puzzle but more of a labyrinth than what we had called the metallic section as such, and catching sight of a wide door sporting the etched word EXIT was nothing short of numbing in anticipation. My stomach was squirming with thrill as I stood at Link's side with the remaining group at our backs, unblinkingly watching him jiggle the key through the lock. And just like that, we were free.

The early morning pale blue sky was never more of an exhilarating sight as when we clambered through the door. We exited out onto what appeared to be a vast smooth-stone platform, which was unusually odd considering we had exited from the fourth floor up, but I didn't bother to question it. My eyes had been flung open to admire the broad sky above me, cloudless and endless, and a soft breeze tickled my fur as it brushed past. We had done it. We were through.

Just as I processed where I was, a sea of movement caught my eye. The other members of the group had begun to dash forward as a clumsy unity, the spring in their step letting me know that they had spotted something. And then I saw it: Fifty or sixty feet down the platform, a fixed gray table supported a tall trophy, shimmering under the sunlight in its golden exterior. The ending prize.

My feet broke off into a run, sprinting across the surface to accompany my peers. They pounded across the flat platform with weighted thumps as heavy as my own heartbeat, my ponytail bouncing and jingling with every strike. We were only halfway down the platform before a thunderous boom crackled through the sky. Fireworks of blue, red, yellow, orange, and more decorated the sky with bursting, flickering lights. They weren't quite as vibrant as they would have been against the night sky instead, but I didn't care. Every single boom that rattled the floor was enough to fling another jab of tingly elation through my insides.

Some of the group had already reached the trophy before I had skidded to a halt at the end of the platform, hoisting it by the sides and raising it to the sky. Whooping cheers filled the space, having blossomed by the action of lifting the trophy to mark the end of the game. A shuddering sound that set itself apart from the clapping fireworks directed my focus to a black helicopter that soared through the air, pivoting around at a leisurely pace to supervise the ending moment. Mario was probably in there, sitting fastened into a seat and beaming down at us from the tinted window. Luigi might have even been there with him. I must have made them proud today.

Link appeared at my side, his blond ponytail swinging back and forth as his head swiveled abruptly to take in all of the sights. Suddenly, my arms were flinging around him, squeezing him close to my side by the shoulders before I could have processed what I was doing. I didn't catch his expression in reaction to this, as my eyes crammed shut at the first crushing grip, but his arms found their way around my back as my eyes fluttered open. With the crackling fireworks above us, the hooting yells of celebration that surrounded me, and my cheek pressed against that of one of my closest friends, there was nothing that could have been better than this.

"You'll get there," Peach assured me. "I promise you will. Sometimes it takes a while. But when you find your people, you just know it."

As Peach's words revisited my thoughts for the first time since the conversation we had shared on the floor of the training room, only now could I see that she was right. These were not just my coworkers, nor were they just my friends. They were family. Because that was what family was. A tight-knit, unbroken connection that you couldn't find anywhere else, even if you had to choose it for yourself. Peach, both lovely and loving, was the mother. Mario, encouraging and loyal, the father. And Link, though I had known him for less than a month and our closeness majorly shifted through this event alone, silent yet affectionate in his own subtle ways, was the best little brother I could have asked for.

It was as though the light had chased away all of the shadows in the corners of my mind, clearing any doubt or uncertainty. I can do this. I can do this and so, so much more. Even if I involved myself in a fight with someone around me, I wouldn't ever truly harm them. At Smash, nobody pushed each other down. We lifted each other up, even and especially by means of combat, to help each other grow and thrive. Fighting them wasn't harming them. It was feeding into their strength. As the Smash family, that was what we did. That was what I was going to do.

I was ready to return to phase three.

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