A/N: Ultimate is out and available to the public, and now I'm really jealous because I have to wait until Christmas to get my hands on it! However, we've finally reached the end of this fanfic, and I've enjoyed writing this. I had a bit of trouble executing this chapter, and I'm sure there's a ton more that I could have done, but I hope you enjoy the chapter regardless!

Chapter 21 – The Auditions End, The Battles Begin

Months had passed since the auditions for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and with the start of the battles starting in just over a month, it was now time for orientation. Unlike the auditions, which took place in a small, dilapidated building that was clearly not meant to handle huge crowds, orientation took place in a giant, and very sleek office building. From the exterior, the building is tall and grey, surrounded by cedar and spruce trees. The glass doors to the building had the Smash Bros logo on display in black, and right above those doors was a sign welcoming everyone involved in Super Smash Bros.

Pit and Little Mac walked into the building early on a Monday morning, both clearly tired, but also ready and excited to take on a new iteration of Smash. They both walked up to the front desk, their feet touching the thin navy blue carpet. A toad standing at the front desk smiled and waved at the two and pointed them toward the elevator.

As they both stepped into the elevator, Pit took a deep breath and smiled, "I've been looking forward to this since the auditions have ended. I can't wait to reunite with everyone!"

Little Mac smiled and nodded, "Yeah, but let's be honest, orientation can also pretty boring. I just want to fight."

The elevator reached the fifth floor, and as both Little Mac and Pit walked out and headed toward the hall, they walked into a small theater, with a little under one hundred seats, most of which were empty. After all, it was only eight in the morning, and the orientation didn't start for another hour. The only character in the room was Isabelle, who was sitting front and center in a black cushioned seat with a notebook in her hand. She smiled and waved to Little Mac and Pit, "I'm so excited to see you guys again! I'm ready to take on orientation!"

Little Mac raised his brow, "How long have you been here? You're so early!"

The dog giggled, "I've been here since four in the morning and I'm doing great! I was just so excited that I couldn't wait! Plus, I wanted to make sure I was all prepared so I brought my handy-dandy notebook to make sure I'm prepared for anything and everything you guys throw at me!"

Pit laughed as he and Little Mac took seats in the second row, right behind Isabelle, "It's great that you're so excited, but you don't need to be this over prepared. It's not like we're going to quiz you."

"I know that," Isabelle laughed, "But I just want to make sure that I remember every little detail you guys throw at me, I'm sure there's a lot to remember!"

Little Mac shrugged, "Well if it makes you feel more at ease, go for it. I'm sure Mario will appreciate the dedication."

As the hour passed, a couple of fighters began walking into the room. Peach was the next to walk into the room around 8:24 with Daisy, Luigi, Yoshi, and Mario following her. Mario noticed Isabelle sitting front and center and waved, "So great to see you again, Isabelle!"

Isabelle waved back, "So great to see you, Mario!"

Mario walked up onto the platform in the front of the room and headed toward the computer toward the edge. Peach, Daisy, and Luigi sat toward the left side of the theater. Peach walked over toward Pit, Little Mac, and Isabelle and muttered, "Just warning you guys now, Mario prepared a PowerPoint, and it's...it's going to be really rough. Just wanted to warn you all."

"Ugh, again?" Little Mac whispered back, "Is it at least an interesting PowerPoint? He's not just going to read off the slides, right?"

Peach shook her head, "He made the PowerPoint last night and hasn't practiced it at all, so you can guess how boring it will be."

Isabelle turned her head over toward Peach, "I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure he'll do great!"

Peach giggled, "You're going to be really disappointed, Isabelle." She walked back toward the other side of the room, where Luigi and Daisy were whispering to each other. Peach sat right next to Daisy, "So, I'm not sure if Luigi has warned you, but orientation is really long with a huge list of unnecessary workshops."

Luigi nodded, "It's worth it in the end!"

Daisy took her phone out of her small, yellow purse, "Is there anything that Mario shares that's worth paying attention to?"

Peach sighed, "No, but he always tries to do an icebreaker that just gets worse and worse every time."

The crowd of characters continued to grow more and more. Samus and Fox walked in around 8:45 with Snake and Falco, sitting right in front of Peach, Daisy, and Luigi. Samus turned her head to see Peach sitting right behind her and sighed, "Why do I always end up sitting near you during these things, Peach?"

"It's because you just naturally gravitate toward me. I mean, who doesn't honestly?"

"Uh, yeah, that's definitely not right," Samus groaned. She turned her head back over tow Snake, who was sitting right next to her, "Happy to be back?"

Snake stroked his chin, "I guess so. Never thought you guys would even consider inviting me back."

"Yeah, I know, you're pretty annoying," Samus responded, with sarcasm in her voice.

Falco rolled his eyes and whispered to Fox, "Are he and Samus going to be like this all the time? I like Samus more when she's not flirting with Snake."

Fox shrugged, "Don't we all?"

By nine, the seats were all filled by all of the fighters in Ultimate, with a couple of seats on the edges of the room still open. Mario looked out at the room full of characters, all talking amongst themselves. Mario then began to clear his throat, "Alright, everyone, let's begin!"

Unfortunately for Mario, his voice was not heard over the crowd. He cleared his throat again, but to no avail. Finally, Little Mac finally got out of his seat and shouted, "Can everyone just shut the fuck up and let the man speak?"

Everyone's voices began to slowly dissipate as they turned their attention toward Mario, who stood uncomfortably in front of the room. Mario took out the flashcards in his pocket and squinted at his poor handwriting, trying to figure out what he was supposed to say, "Wel...come to Super Sma...sh Brothers Ultimate! We're so ex...cited...to have you...all here!"

The crowd reluctantly clapped as Mario slowly spoke. Fox put his hands on his forehead and looked down toward the ground, "This is going to be painful," he whispered to Falco, who nodded in agreement.

"Let's...uh...let's um...let's start with an icebreaker. Let's all say our name...um...our series, and uh...let's go with a favorite food. How about that? My name is Mario, I'm from Super Mario Bros, and my favorite food is spaghetti! Who's next?"

The room was silent as everyone looked at each other uncomfortably. Fox sighed and immediately got out of his seat, standing next to Mario on the platform, "Mario, I think we can all agree, this is pretty painful. So instead of making everyone spend their Monday morning watching this trainwreck, I'll just...speak from the heart. How about that?"

Mario sighed, "Thank you, I'm so woefully unprepared." He walked off the stage and took his seat. Fox crossed his arms, "It's all good, buddy, we understand you have a lot on your plate."

Fox looked out at the crowd and took a deep breath and continued, "Alright, so hello again everyone. This is day one of our Ultimate orientation! Who's excited?"

The crowd slowly started clapping before breaking out into a small cheer. Fox crossed his arms and nodded his head as the applause died back down, "Let me just say that when Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Kirby, Pikachu, Yoshi and I started this back in 1999, we had no idea it would grow to be this large! It's truly crazy."

As the cheers made their waves again, Fox continued, "So, as I'm sure you all know, I've been on the panel of finding newcomers for each iteration of Smash Brothers, and it's truly a rewarding experience. Actually, can all of our newcomers stand up and introduce themselves? Just so us veterans can put some faces to names maybe?"

Eleven fighters arose from their seats and looked around at the room. Isabelle turned toward the crowd and waved, "It's so nice to meet all of you. I can't wait to become great friends with everyone here!"

King K. Rool, who was sitting toward the back of the room, next to Dark Samus and Ridley bowed, even though nobody was really looking toward him, "Good morning, peasants! I'm King K. Rool, basically, your only rival that truly matters, and frankly, these seats are extremely uncomfortable. I'm frankly disappointed that these seats don't have enough room for my ample rump!"

Fox's smile turned uncomfortable as the introductions continued. Daisy stood from her seat and cheered, "Hi, I'm Daisy! I'm basically the first echo fighter in Smash Bros."

Ken, sitting right behind Daisy chuckled, "Yeah, sure, you're the one who invented the term echo fighter."

Lucina scoffed, "I'm basically the first echo fighter here, I don't know what she's talking about."

"No, I'm the first echo fighter," Dark Pit argued.

Dr. Mario, sitting next to Mario, stood up from his seat, "Actually, I'm the first echo fighter. People loved Mario so much in 64 that they cloned him and created me!"

"Um..." Luigi began, "Some may argue that I'm the first echo fighter. I basically borrow all of my big brother's moves."

"Okay, you know what?" Fox started, "This isn't really a competition. Can you all sit down and shut up?"

Simon and Richter stood up, "We're the Belmont twins," Simon began. He pointed over to Richter, "That's Richter, I'm Simon. He's my echo fighter!"

"Though, some may argue that I'm the original fighter, and Simon's the echo fighter. Who knows who's echoing whom," Richter answered.

"Who knows if anyone really cares?" Fox asked. "Anyone else need to introduce themselves or are we just going to move on?"

Inkling jumped out of her seat, "What's up? I'm Inkling, and I can't wait to beat ya'll up in the battlefield."

"Charming, really," Fox smiled, crossing his arms a little tighter, "Who else?"

Ridley began to roar from the back of the room, and Dark Samus joined in with a deep, evil laugh. Fox nodded, "Yes, that is Ridley and Dark Samus, everyone. They are also here."

Chrom stood from his seat and timidly bowed to the crowd. "Good morning. My name is Chrom from Fire Emblem, and I'm happy to be here."

That left just Incineroar, who sat near the other Pokémon, and stood up, shared a cheeky smile, and made vague grunts. Fox gestured over toward Incineroar, "That's our new Pokémon rep, Incineroar. We're looking forward to seeing him, and the rest of you newcomers on the battlefield. Additionally, we have some DLC fighters who will be joining us in due time. We have a Piranha Plant who will be joining us in December, and also just got word recently that the Joker from Persona 5 will also be joining eventually."

"I'm sorry," a light voice interrupted. The interruption came from Rosalina, who quietly sat behind Mario, her yellow Luma sitting on her lap. "Did you say a Piranha Plant is going to be joining the fight?"

Fox looked Rosalina dead in the eye, standing completely still, "Uh, yeah. Why? Is that a problem?"

"Just wanted to make sure my ears were working."

Fox gave a thumbs up as he continued slowly moving around the stage, "Great, so we can move on now, right?"

The crowd didn't object as Fox began to continue, "So, basically, I'm just going to make this short and sweet, because I wasn't expecting to be up here speaking and am not actually sure what needs to be covered, but welcome everyone! We're here to represent the history of Super Smash Bros. This is going to be the biggest and best one yet, and we're not pulling out any punches."

Peach interrupted, her teeth slightly clenched, "Yeah, well except for online, we could probably do that a little better."

"Well, besides that," Fox responded, "We're going to get you all ready whether this is your first Smash Bros, or your sixth one. We're going to train everyone to make sure you're all ready in December. Got it?"

The crowd cheered once again and Fox smiled, "Well then, what are we waiting for? Let's get started!"

The crowd of characters got out of their seat and fumbled towards the door. Fox stayed behind to avoid the giant bottleneck ahead. He gestured for Pit, Peach, Little Mac, and Samus to stick around. The five remained in the small theater-like room, as Fox took a seat at the edge of the stage. "I just wanted to say that I actually really appreciated working with you all on the auditions, and that all of our hard work really paid off. Looking forward to beating you all up on the battlefield again."

Little Mac laughed obnoxiously loud, "Well, I'd like to see you try."

Samus crossed her arms and smiled, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I appreciate you guys. You all still annoy me a little bit though."

"Okay, I'm over the sentimentality. It's getting really cheesy, can we go already?" Peach asked, turning toward the door. "See you all out there."

The others raced after Peach, but Fox stayed behind and stared at the small room. He glanced over at the noise-cancelling dark walls, and looked up at the spotlight on the platform that one might call a stage. The room was now empty again, and Fox's worthy opponents were all getting ready to fight. The auditions were long over, but the battle was just about to begin.

A/N: One last author's note just to once again thank you all for reading and following over the past few months! I definitely wasn't expecting the following that I received while working on this. I started this mainly due to an excitement for Ultimate back in June and a severe writer's block that made it hard for me to come up with new ideas to write about. I never thought that I would actually finish writing this, and it's all thanks to the people that have followed! This is the first fanfic I've written in years and the first one that I've ever finished. So thank you, and I hope you're all enjoying the new game!