Chapter Text
BEFORE YOU READ ON, THIS FIC HAS THE FOLLOWING:
- Third Person Limited POV (Ness)
- Crude language
- Coming-of-age romance, but more focus on coming-of-age and slice-of-life
- This is a Work In Progress. I like to re-tailor inconsistencies until I'm satisfied with my own quality.
Have fun. :^)
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~Chapter One~
Defying Gravity
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Dream big.
Ness lives by those words. At the age of seven, when Pokey Minch dragged him up the tallest hill in Onett, all the while bragging about how rich the Minch family was and how most of the land in town belonged to his wealthy father, Ness decides to be a race car driver. If he were fast enough, he could do anything he wanted. He could visit his father at work, play baseball with his sister, and still have enough time to return home to hug his mother. Dad was always busy, and never swung by anymore, so Ness decided he could do the traveling for him.
In school, he's pretty average in terms of his grades. He does enough to scrape by, just enough to pass his classes, but school doesn't hold his interest. Half the time, he spends school staring out the window from his seat. The only class he likes is PE, and that's only if the teacher lets them play outside. The only other thing that he likes just as much, aside from fast cars and toy wheels, is baseball.
His mom worries. She worries a lot, after dad got a new job away from home. Ness wants to tell her not to worry, because he'll be a race car driver one day and drive her to see dad, because mom misses dad too, but his mom worries about his future.
It makes sense, Ness supposes. Tracy's the smart one. She gets all As. Ness is lucky if he gets anything above a B in his report card. Usually his report card's got a healthy dab of Cs. Like a salad. He's even overheard one of the older college kids downtown saying, "Cs get degrees," and tries to reassure his mom, but it doesn't make his mom any more relieved.
His grades don't get any better. Halfway through middle school, after watching his favorite team win LIVE on TV, Ness decides he wants to be a famous baseball player instead. A professional athlete.
Mom entertains his ambitious dreams until Ness turns twelve. A year or two before high school, when Ness feels stumped over the bolded Career Choice? question, Mom sits him down at the dinner table, and talks him through it. With their finances and Father's debt to Aloysius Minch, sending Ness to a prestigious sports camp isn't an option, and most athletes start competing at a young age. Ness is young, but not that young, and while Ness knows this deep down, it still stings when his mom tries to crush his dreams.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" Mom asks.
Ness ends up leaving that question blank.
As a kid, he's bored. Nothing changes in Onett. Ness likes the outside, but he's impatient, hungry to explore more, and Onett's a sleepy old hick town. There's got to be something more. Ness sucks at school, but he knows his strengths, and he knows that he can make his mark on the world.
Then under the darkness of night, a meteor crashes into his town in 199X.
And slipping out of bed, Ness knew he was gonna chase after that adventure.
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~oO0Oo~
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Ness gets his wish. In a way.
The adventure isn't what he expects.
He's the Chosen Boy. Buzz Buzz the timetraveler tells Ness of his fate to defeat Giygas.
In bitter tears, Pokey abandons him. Spitting on their friendship, he leaves Ness alone with the memory of Buzz Buzz dying in his hands.
Right off the bat, Ness fights alone. First, it's against stray dogs that growl and threaten to bite off his legs. Then crows that try to peck out his eyes. Ness makes a resolve to leave home for good, to be strong and brave like the cool batters on TV, but quickly, he finds that he visits home more than usual for a boy his age. He's embarrassed, but his mom doesn't seem to mind. She welcomes him back like any ordinary day after school, sets a warm plate of his favorite food on the table, and asks if he wants to talk about anything. She purses her lips when he says no, but doesn't push the matter.
Then Ness starts fighting against people. Delinquents who want to bust his kneecaps. Deranged cultists who want to sacrifice his entrails and paint him blue. After a nasty encounter with the Onett Police, his mom finally puts her foot down. Ness's school has called home about his week-long absence, and Mom asks him to stay home. It's too dangerous, she says.
They have a row.
She calls him a troublemaker.
That's the first night Ness spends in the local hotel. A part of him still misses his mom, so Ness calls his dad instead, but Dad is too busy to talk.
Feeling small and alone, Ness pulls the covers over his head and tries to sleep.
Nothing about this trip has been easy to start off with, but sometimes Ness wonders if Buzz Buzz made a mistake and got the wrong boy. Fighting an alien menace seems almost impossible.
But things grow better. For the first time since Buzz Buzz, Ness finds someone else just like him, someone with strange powers and hands that can spark and pop with magic. Paula makes the nights in hotels a bit brighter. A social butterfly himself, Ness forgot what it felt like to have a friend in the journey, and lying in their separate beds cracking stupid jokes with Paula until their laughter fades into whispered 'goodnights," Ness finds sleep easily. Someone in the other bed just feels right.
Soon, Jeff and Poo join the party. The hotel rooms gradually grow more crowded with four of them, but this puts Ness's mind at ease. In stark contrast, Pokey was clingy, often complaining that Ness didn't care about him and demanding Ness to do this, to do that. He had never let Ness have other friends, often hanging his dad's debt over his head if necessary.
But his new friends aren't like that. Ness doesn't have to tread carefully around them. Poo doesn't like pillows, and refuses to sleep on anything except for the floor. Jeff rarely sleeps at all. Paula wakes easily; though she could sleep through a fire alarm, she's surprisingly sensitive to light. They're all different, but Ness feels like he can be himself, and revels in the freedom. He makes sure Poo has enough sheets under him to sleep with, reminds Jeff to nap every break they take from a hike, perfects a silent tip-toe whenever he has to sneak to the bathroom past Paula's bed at night. They all look after each other, like a second family, and Ness doesn't feel too lonely anymore. With time, even his mom warms up to his sudden departure, hearing of his accomplishments on the papers and the like.
"Stay safe," she says, sounding far away. Mom stays cheerful on the phone for his sake, but Ness can still tell she's sad. He wonders if she regrets that last fight with him as well.
Ness misses her too.
Even so, the adventure's not all fun and games. Paula gets kidnapped a second time in the Fourside Department Store. Poo is forced to leave midway to complete his training. Tony gets taken hostage. All of those hit hard, but when Jeff spots Tony's limp body floating in its giant test-tube cell, along with the rest of Giygas's captives, Ness doesn't think he's ever seen Jeff look so distraught before. At least, not since the first time he met Dr. Andonuts, and watched the man say nothing to his son aside from confessing that Jeff wet his bed.
They defeat the Starman Deluxe underneath Stonehenge, and rescue Tony and others. Caught in the moment, Tony confesses to Jeff, and Jeff declines on the spot, saying his mission was priority. Tony leaves. Ness remembers that being an awkward return trip to the surface.
When the whole adventure is over, checking out of his robot form, Ness collapses into the grass worse for wear. None of them escaped the ordeal unscathed. Poo's out cold, having sacrificed himself for a blow meant for Ness. Paula's got a limp, and the last intact lens of Jeff's glasses has been shattered - the other, neglected for days. Despite Jeff's protests, Ness makes a mental note to buy him a new set of glasses. He's not sure if the Hospital sells the right prescription, but Ness has money, and money loosens tongues.
It's over. Giygas is gone.
...Pokey's gone.
There's an ache in his chest. Ness has his regrets, but he's in no state to think, and too mentally exhausted to entertain them.
Ness misses his mom. He misses home.
But glancing at his friends, Ness knows he's not alone. And that this time, it's different. He's got three friends who'll fight with him, three friends he'll fight for. If not anything else, Ness wanted to make a better world for them. For Tracy. For his mom.
This adventure was worth it.
It's this thought above anything else that forces him back onto his aching feet, stumbling over to catch a swaying Paula.
The next few months pass in a blur. Poo leaves for Dalaam because of his father's failing health, but promises to keep in touch. Jeff stays in Saturn Valley in a futile attempt to bury himself into his work and avoid his shame. In turn, Ness tells Poo to call him if he needed extra healing power, and to keep kicking ass, to which Poo agrees to quote-un-quote, "kick many butts." Ness also tells Jeff that he loves him (kind of gay, but whatever- Ness figures that if he could save the world, he could tell both of his best friends that he loves them, and Jeff needs those words anyway), and he tells Jeff he can't hide from Tony forever. Whether Jeff hears the latter, Ness is unsure, because Jeff proceeds to bury his head into the SkyRunner and clangs his tools loudly, the back of his ears red, but Ness thinks he gets the message.
He doesn't tell Paula he loves her though. That would be weird.
So Ness walks Paula home to Twoson. Paula's parents sob over their daughter (Mr. Polestar sobs the loudest, much to Ness's amusement), and when Paula tries to console them, they sob harder and drag Ness into their bone-crushing group hug.
The press calls him a hero. Mayor Pirkle suddenly wants to shake his hand, and hands him the keys to Onett. The school clears Ness's absentee record. Ness privately dreads the thought of returning to school.
But when Ness finally returns home after all the fanfare, and is promptly smothered by his mom and sister at the doorway, he chokes up. Returning home is honestly the best part.
Well, almost the best.
He's an idiot. And it's not until next week he finds out why.
After his thirteenth birthday, Ness invites Paula on another picnic. The third one since the end of their adventure, the... how many timeth meeting? Ness has lost count. Onett and Twoson are within walking distance, and teleporting only closes the gap.
He's just taken the watercress sandwiches out when Paula says, "Are we dating?"
Ness stares at her. Like an idiot. "...if you wanna," he blurts out, before tugging his cap over his flaming face, mortified.
With an embarrassed groan, Paula buries her face into her hands. Her cheeks turn pink.
At the sight, Ness breaks into a snort, then so does she, and then they're laughing against the grass like two kids with nothing better to do.
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~oO0Oo~
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After saving the world from Giygas, Ness is given a free pass for the rest of the year. Secretly, the best part about the impromptu vacation is dating Paula, though having a free pass out of school for a whole year is a close second. Ness still doesn't know what he wants to do with his life, but hey, he frickin saved the world. As far as he's concerned, the world can wait a little while for him.
In the meantime, Ness finds himself in an unexpected predicament.
He doesn't think it's possible to feel more in love.
Ness walks Paula to and from school. He greets her at the end of the day, and they do everything together - flying kites, going to the movies, hopping into the amusement park at Fourside. They forget about the paparazzi though, and eventually have to get more crafty about hiding from them under the public eye. Ness doesn't care much about the fame, doesn't mind signing autographs and helping more people. He doesn't mind flaunting their relationship to the press (because really, he's so happy and so in love like one of those heroes in the movies who gets the girl in the end, except this is way better because Paula is smart and caring and a thousand times better), but Paula takes him aside to warn him about the paparazzi. She's had experience as Twoson's Golden Girl before the Chosen Four became famous after all.
"You've got to be more careful," Paula says, out of breath from an impressive escapade out of the pizza parlor.
"They just follow us," Ness grins. "How bad could it possibly get?"
It gets bad.
Worse.
It starts with Picky arriving with Pokey's last eulogy for Ness. It's as charming as ever. Silently, Ness adds Pokey's name to his growing list of stalkers.
Then the paparazzi dig through Ness's trash. They take unsolicited pictures of his sister. They tent outside his home - his one safe house from the world. Ness finally snaps when one woman pulls his sister back by the hair for his autograph. The headlines are ugly the next day, and a mortified Ness learns firsthand how fickle fame can be.
He and Paula have a good laugh over it after.
But Paula can't always go on dates, and eventually, when school starts piling more work onto the table, Ness ends up keeping Paula company while she does her homework. She works hard; her parents have hopes that she'll take over the family business, but Paula has tasted freedom during the adventure, and has seen a world outside of Twoson. She decides she wants to be a doctor, and wants the grades for it.
"My parents keep asking me if I don't wanna be a nurse instead," she says, and Ness blinks.
"Do you?"
"I've shadowed a few in town - but I really want to be a doctor."
"You'll be the best doctor ever, in the world," Ness agrees, and when Paula playfully squishes his cheeks, he laughs.
But Paula's plans for the future have forced Ness to painfully think over his own. No one taught him what saviors did after saving the world. According to the action movies he's watched, all the heroes swoop in to save the day, then live happily ever after, roll credits.
Ness still suffers from nightmares of Giygas. He has supportive friends and family, but feels like he's trapped in Onett again. He's stuck where he first started, with no idea where to go next. Stagnant. All the dates with Paula have sped up time, and while he wishes to live in the moment forever, the end of his yearlong break is fast approaching.
Ness knows he has to start high school soon. He wants to drop out.
So he applies his heart out to several sports firms, even a couple professional athlete tournaments in the hopes that his world-saving streak would give him a leg up, but receives only rejection letters in response. Though we would be honored to take you in, at this time, we regret to inform you that our cutoff age for our Sports Program is 10, they say. More flood in, the same week. "We regret to inform you that you have not been selected for the Youth League. Although your application met our qualifications, we had no choice but to reject you on grounds of your psychic powers, as they could classify as "performance-enhancement drugs" and would be considered unethical by the Institutional Board of Baseball..." If not disqualified by the age cutoff or his psychic powers: "We regret to inform you that you have not been chosen for the Little League. Our pool this year was especially competitive-"
Ness tears them into the trash and cries into his pillow.
Paula helps him study over his summer homework, tries to be supportive, but in the end, Ness procrastinates, stubbornly in denial. He's got a week left before school. Plenty of time to do all this homework then.
Instead, Ness checks on Jeff and Poo. He can travel fast, faster than a race car driver now with PK Teleport, but both his trips end in vain. Dalaam's Festival of Silence means that Poo has locked himself up in some cellar with nothing but water for a week, and when Ness arrives at Saturn Valley in a puff of smoke, he finds Jeff gone and a note hastily scribbled in his place. Something about taking care of unfinished business in Winters. Ness hopes Jeff's made amends with Tony.
Two days before the start of school, Ness steadfastly tries to ignore the mountain of homework on his desk. He knows his mom's been giving him the side eye since yesterday, and Paula's refused to go on any dates this week until he finished his summer assignments. I can cheer you on, I can stay up with you together, but at the end of the day, I can't do the homework for you. It's for your own sake, she says.
With a silent apology to Paula (and with no small sense of guilt), Ness ends up lying in bed until he's tired enough to sleep. He gets nightmares that wake him up in cold sweat.
Then his saving grace arrives in the form of a letter in the mail. Too sleep-deprived to pay attention, Ness doesn't realize what he's pulled out of the mailbox until he almost throws the letter away.
His last application letter. All white, stamped with a fancy red seal.
From Master Hand,
Smash Mansion,
1999 Nintendo Court, Center of the Universe, Universe No. 42
Unlike the other rejection letters, this envelope feels heavy and solid in his hands. Like a golden medallion.
Hardly daring to believe, Ness rips the seal open.
It's an invitation to a fighting tourney. And not just any fighting tourney - an interdimensional one. A new one, from the looks of it, but the salary listed on the letter is generous, and the roster, prestigious. Only Twelve of the very best. And though the Host of the tournament is a new face, Master Hand himself is backed by a well-branded video game company.
It's a dream come true.
Ness is ecstatic at the opportunity. Almost tearing the letter from unbridled excitement, he reads through the invitation with his mom. Mom takes some convincing - she's unsure about the legitimacy of the startup tournament, and almost refuses to let Ness go - but when she calls Master Hand, who seems to satisfy all her questions, she relents and gives Ness the okey.
"Don't be afraid to return home if it's not what you expected," she says, and unable to hide his grin, Ness whoops and runs circles in the living room in celebration.
The choice is obvious.
Clutching the signed letter in hand, Ness teleports to Twoson to deliver the good news.