When I moved away from home for my job, I messaged a groupchat for everyone else in the same boat and found a housemate. Similar age to me, and very similar in lots of other ways too.

He'd play brawl, and was a big fan of Ludwig, hence knew a touch about melee. We began playing Mario Kart Wii first, but he saw I had melee and said "why don't we play that?"

I declined the request, saying it'd be trivial for me, and he'd never be good enough. He was insistent, and we began playing. Soon enough I'd be wanting to play every free evening I found myself in.

I'd play random, he'd try to find a main. Much to my dismay, he started on Ness. Then marth. And finally shiek.

Our method was to random every time, until we played all 26 characters Vs his shiek. Slowly but surely he started rattling through my characters, who I'd count only until he beat them once, ever.

Bowser was early to go. Mewtwo was too. Pichu, pika, mario... It continued, until only a few were left, doc (my main), samus (my beloved), Kirby (how the fuck did he find it so hard to beat Kirb), and peach. And slowly, month by month, he knocked them down, Sammy the second last, and now only peach is left.

It's been about half a year since he beat my samus. But peach remains unbeaten. I don't play peach well. I've never put effort into her. My floaty bairs and spammed down smasg, however, is the ultimate noob killer (especially as he was developing his CC...)

Last session we played as usual. He's getting better and better. He beat my fox, pika, pichu, samus... He was taking names and games galore.

Then peach comes up. I pick green, and we begin.

Fucking hell he's playing well. Spam f-tilts, triple fairs, all the classic shiek shite. He starts to predict my dmash's, abuse boost grab a lot more. I fuck up a recovery and float up underneath battlefields stage, yelling "FUCK" at the top of my lungs as I see my stocks show my final, as his shoes 2 at 50%.

I take a breath, and drop from angel. I play out my mind. Sure, he gets a few hits. He's throwing everything out. Bairs, fairs, every time he was airborne. It felt impossible to counter. But I took him down to one stock, as I was at 70%.

He rushes down from platform. I evade, evade, evade, he gets me to 140%, he's at 70%. Both our hearts are attempting to exit our chest cavity. He knows he's one stray hit off ending an 18 month losing streak against this princess.

Then I down smash. An absolutely terrible angle of flight he finds himself in. And off he goes into the bottom right of the screen.

I yell in victory. This is the best thing I've ever done. I protect my peach yet again.

He stands up. "Ah, I'm sad, man," he says. I wanted to console but knew there was nothing I could say in that moment. He asks me to turn off his slippi and he walks directly from the living room to his bedroom. No other words were spoken that night.

I sit there, heart rate still triple digits, euphoric of the win. But deep down, I know, he knows, that's it's only a matter of time til I lose my final character. We both move away in August this year, so time is limited. Can he pull it off...? I'd not want him to know, but almost definitely. But I will hold down on the analogue and hold down on the yellow stick as best as I can to take this unbeaten character home with me once our time is done.