Chapter Text
Pokey was getting tired of waiting around. He wasn’t even sure how long he had been waiting for Ness to show up, only that it felt like it had been a really long time. Hours, days, weeks, none of it really mattered when it came to the Phase Distorter’s powers of time travel. Pokey could go anywhere in the world, to any time period he wanted to. But he didn’t want just anything; he wanted Ness to come back to him.
Pokey drummed his fingers against the steel interior of the Phase Distorter. This is boring! He thought to himself. When is Ness gonna get here?
When Pokey got fully tired of waiting, he began entering random times and dates into the Phase Distorter. He liked seeing where it would take him; it was a fun new surprise every time. Just as the allure of entering numbers at random into the machine was beginning to wear off, Pokey stumbled upon something very, very interesting. He found himself years far into the future, in the ruins of what appeared to be a large city. He would normally have gotten back into the Phase Distorter and skipped around to the next time and place if it weren’t for the gigantic statue of himself he saw across the horizon.
Is that…me?
He climbed fully out of the Phase Distorter, midday sun beating down hard onto his face. He shielded his eyes from the sun and peered towards the statue, trying to get a closer look at it. It was certainly him, but what was it doing here?
Pokey looked around. A run-down skyscraper was directly to the left, sporting a plaque reading “EMPIRE PORKY BUILDING.” Pokey huffed. This must be some kind of cruel joke. He finally gets a monument of himself made, and it’s titled with that nickname. It was bad enough that his parents had saddled him with the unusual name of Pokey Minch, even worse was the nickname he used to get called in grade school.
Porky, Porky Minch!
He could still hear his classmates’ teasing voices. Nobody who liked him had ever called him Porky. That is to say, a lot of people called him Porky.
Pokey moved onwards towards the building, nevertheless intrigued by whatever was going on. Despite the nickname, surely whoever built a hundred-foot-tall statue of him had to have done so in reverence. He had to know more.
The building’s lobby looked dusty, as if no one had been there in a while, but it didn’t look that ancient. In fact, the power was still on, hallway lights softly flickering as Pokey made his way towards the building’s elevator.
Once inside, Pokey gleefully pressed all the buttons, starting with a button labeled with nothing but a star, and ending with floor one hundred. The elevator lurched downwards, surprising Pokey for a second. It appeared to be taking him to the “star” floor first.
The elevator took a long time getting to the bottom, and when Pokey stepped out, he found himself in a large cave. Tepid air whooshed gently through the area as if there was a breeze coming from somewhere, although Pokey saw no entrances to the surface other than the elevator. For some reason, Pokey shivered.
Pokey stepped out of the elevator, footsteps echoing loudly against the stone flooring. Suddenly, the elevator doors slammed shut behind him. He spun around quickly, startled by the abrupt noise. He frantically jammed his stubby finger into the call button, but alas, the elevator was already on its way back up. Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed all those buttons. It certainly was going to take a while until the elevator was finished going to all one hundred floors.
Grumbling at his lack of foresight, Pokey decided to wander forwards. He might as well explore this cave a little before the elevator returns. The cave was a bit creepy, but Pokey wasn’t scared. After all, it appeared to be fully empty, and Pokey had seen way worse on his travels than an empty cave.
After a while of walking, Pokey came across a strange metal ball in the center of a wide space. Tiptoeing closer, he noticed what appeared to be a window on the top. He gently rolled the ball towards him, trying to peer into the window, when suddenly, a voice cried out.
“Hey! Who’s out there!” barked the voice.
Pokey rolled the strange ball fully over. Both he and the person in the capsule gasped upon seeing each other. In front of Pokey was a man not unlike himself. They were both blue, although the man in the capsule was sporting white hair and a thin, long white mustache. Pokey still was wearing his red-striped suit, the fancy one Mr. Monotoli had bought for him in Fourside, but the man in the ball was wearing his usual attire of denim overalls and a lightly dirt-stained white shirt. His skin was incredibly wrinkled, and he wore a wicked grin.
“Who are you?” asked Pokey.
“I think you already know the answer,” replied the man. “I’m you, Porky Minch.”
“Porky?” Pokey frowned, “That’s not my name.”
“But it’s mine now,” replied the man, Porky Minch. “I’m you, from the future.”
“The future…”
Porky had never stumbled upon another him before. He was immediately interested in whatever this other him, this “Porky” had to say.
“Who put you in there? Are you stuck?” Pokey asked himself.
“Ah, the Absolutely Safe Capsule.” Porky tapped his hands on the sides of the sphere from inside its confines. “It’s a long story. Do you really want to hear it?”
Pokey shrugged and nodded. As far as he knew, he had all the time in the world to entertain a story from his future self.
“Then roll me up the elevator. I want to see what has become of my city. We can talk on the way up. Hell, I’ll even show you around, around at least what's left of it!”
Pokey’s eyes grew wide. His city? That would explain the statue, and the name on the building. But the man in front of Pokey seemed…different. Not just in that he looked older, there was something about the way he conducted himself that was different than what Pokey was expecting. Pokey shifted on his feet, uneasy. Nonetheless, he proceeded to roll Porky in the Absolutely Safe Capsule back up the way he came down the cave. He had to hear what Porky had to say.
Rolling along at a moderate pace, Porky began to talk. “I was just like you, once. Young and spry. You remember Giygas, of course?”
Pokey nodded. “I just--he--”
“Ah, I see. Fresh from Giygas’s defeat, are we?” Porky interrupted. “I remember that like it was yesterday.”
“Yes, it was soon after that very fight. I had been waiting for Ness to return to face me, jumping from time period to time period in my boredom. I don’t know how long I spent traveling. It could have been months, could have been years, could have been a thousand years--”
“A thousand years!?”
“Don’t interrupt.” Porky spat curtly. “I will explain this to you in due time.”
Pokey slowed his rolling of the capsule to a stop. He was used to being cruel to others, and experiencing cruelty from others, but experiencing cruelty directly from himself like this was a novel concept, one that made Pokey freeze in his tracks. It was unnerving, to say the least. Not wanting another scolding from himself, Pokey continued rolling the capsule.
“Yes, I have been traveling for perhaps thousands of years before I ended up at this point. The Phase Distorter exacts a terrible toll on the human body. Not that I cared, I had already experienced changes in my body and mind due to my proximity to Giygas himself.”
Pokey glanced down at his blue hands as he rolled the capsule forward. Yes, his skin had started to turn blue once he began meeting up with some of Giygas’s henchmen. It started from the tips of his fingers and toes, spreading blue all the way up his torso, and finally to his head, turning his hair from blonde to a muddy brown. A small price to pay for power, Pokey had reasoned with himself. He figured all it was was him looking funny. He knit his brow. He wondered what other changes he’d experienced that had gone unbeknownst to him until now.
“The human body is not meant to use the Phase Distorter as much as I had been using it. I grew weaker and weaker by the day. Fearing that this degradation would continue, I tried to return home, back to Onett shortly after I had left it.”
Porky paused to cough. “Right then, all I wanted was to go home. I was done with playing games, and I set out to confront Ness directly. But strangely enough, the Phase Distorter would not let me return to that time and place. In fact, it had trapped me here, in the distant future of Nowhere Islands. I tried everything, but I could no longer send myself through time and space.”
“So I settled down here, in what would later become my wondrous city, and tried to make the most of things. It was difficult at first. The Phase Distorter’s effects continued to linger, and I felt as though I was withering away with each passing day. I thought that I needed to try to fix whatever was wrong with the Phase Distorter while I still had my physical strength, so I began building machines. Small ones, at first, capable of only one task at a time, built up from an assortment of supplies I had gathered from my many trips through time and space. But soon, I had created a veritable army of robots to speed up my tasks, and soon, when the time came, to take care of me in my physical infirmity.”
Porky paused again, beset by another coughing fit.
“Are you going to die?” Pokey asked once he had finished. “That doesn’t sound very healthy…”
“No, I’m not going to die. I lost the capability to die countless years ago.” Porky wheezed. His voice darkened, “Believe me, once I realized that I was never going to return home ever again, that I was never going to see Onett…or Ness…or anyone I knew ever again…believe me I tried. I tried to die. None of it ever worked.”
Pokey slowed the rolling of the capsule again. Never see anyone again? Never see Ness…his chest tightened at the thought of that. Something about that concept made him want to squirm.
“But I continued,” Porky said quickly. “I continued building robots until I had exhausted all of my supply, then commanding my robots to harvest and refine more raw materials from the space around us, until one day when I discovered something interesting. I discovered that while I could no longer travel through time and space using the Phase Distorter, my robots could still use it. So the machine still worked, it just would not allow me to use it, for whatever reason. To this day I do not know what caused this, but after I discovered that I could send my robots back through time, going back myself no longer mattered.”
“Do you remember Jeff Andonuts? That dork with the green suit and glasses?” Pokey nodded. He had only encountered Ness’s friends a few times along their journey, but he remembered all of them clearly. Jeff Andonuts--smart, stoic, and a bit awkward. Lacking in PSI but always armed to the teeth with a variety of guns and gadgets; not to be underestimated.
“Well, his father was a scientist, if you can remember that. I decided that I needed more help in building robots, as I was quickly becoming unable to do anything physically demanding, so I sent some of my robots to ‘borrow’ him from you know as present-day Winters.”
“Once there, I commanded him to make for me a special device--a bed that could move me around at will, and something with a hearty defense mechanism in place as well. I was quickly becoming unable to even sit upright, let alone walk. Dr. Andonuts had no choice but to comply with my orders; he was alone in a new time and place and totally reliant on my robots for food and water.”
“I continued to instruct Dr. Andonuts on what to build for me, in exchange for keeping him safe from the elements. I then got another idea--if I could manipulate my robots to harness the powers of nature, why not take it a step further and manipulate nature itself. So I told Dr. Andonuts about my visions of chimeras, hybrid creatures, some half animal, half machine, others an amalgamation of different living creatures.”
Pokey couldn’t see inside the capsule as he was pushing it, but he could clearly hear the smile in Porky’s voice as he continued. “You should have seen it, the things I was able to create! They were unlike even the wildest of Giygas’s allies, and I created them from normal Earth creatures with my imagination alone!”
“By then, I had built up a small foundation for a city, run by my robot servants, supervised by me, of course. I had not forgotten about Ness, but at this point I was satisfied enough to wait patiently for him to appear. It had been years since I first arrived in Nowhere, and even longer since I had sent Ness that letter telling him to come find me. But some days it was hard to remember that I was waiting for anyone at all in light of how much progress I was making in my city. One day, I found that my little city had caught the attention of a rather strange individual. Do you know what the Magi are?”
Pokey shook his head, before realizing that Porky couldn’t see him from his point of view in the Absolutely Safe Capsule. “Um, no,” Pokey responded.
“They’re magical beings, neither male nor female, and they’re extremely powerful PSI users. You see, under this land lies--or used to lie, at least--a Dark Dragon, sealed away under the Earth with the power of seven magical needles. If the needles are pulled, the Dragon will awaken and rebirth the world in the image of whoever pulled the most needles. But only someone with the rare PSI ability PK Love can pull the needles; for the rest of us, they’re unable to be pulled. The Magi can sense when someone is capable of this ability, and they’re tasked with guarding the needles until the time comes when they are to be pulled. Their whole purpose in life is to guard these needles until they’re pulled, upon which they cease to exist.”
“As I was saying, I caught the attention of one of the Magi--Locria. I hardly remember their old name, but that’s what it was. Locria. Anyway, Locria wanted to know what my intentions were, since I was building my city close to her needle. I told her that I wanted to build a grand city, and that caught her attention immediately. As it turns out, Locria had been dissatisfied with his life as a Magi. They didn’t want to wait around complacent, guarding their needle and throwing tea parties, ultimately destined to vanish like their fellow Magi. They wanted to live and experience things. Really, a person after my own heart.”
“Locria told me about the history of this land, about its inhabitants. They were refugees who traveled here after surviving the destruction of the rest of the world, with Nowhere Islands being the last inhabitable place on Earth. They had all agreed to seal away their memories into this magic artifact in order to prevent such destruction from happening again to Nowhere, instead adopting designated roles in order to keep the peace in their new land, Tazmily Village. They were happy, by all means, but they lived in antiquity.”
Porky sighed. He sounded frustrated, but Pokey noticed a tinge of sadness in his voice as he spoke. “This was a pitiful existence, I decided, and I wished to pull the needles to start this over. I asked Locria how I could go about this, and he responded that I would have to wait until ‘the time’ came. Whatever that meant. However, the both of us grew bored with our measly existences. We both wanted more. In due time, Locria approached me again. He had noticed that I didn’t have any PSI abilities and wanted to be my magical counsel, of sorts. She wanted part in my building of the city, and the power and riches that entailed, and helped me devise a plan; we would gather all the villagers of Tazmilly into this city, New Pork City, and they would all serve me until the time came to pull the needles.”
“Locria fully broke from the Magi order, abandoning their people in order to serve me. Isn’t that wonderful? To avoid suspicion, he adopted a new appearance. Magi have a head full of bright pink hair, which needed to be covered. He also instructed me to refer to him only as ‘Fassad’ and ‘he’ from now on. Oddly enough, he still kept some of his mannerisms. He was impeccably orderly when it came to self-grooming. He always was using some kind of oil in his mustache, and while he could no longer use colored lipstick, he always kept a neutral shade of it as well as a razor to shape his facial hair in his possessions. What a strange person!” Porky barked out a laugh at this.
“But wasn’t it spectacular! Me, at the head of my own city, like a king! Except I only had two real subjects besides all the robots and chimeras; Dr. Andonuts and Fassad. This needed to change; you can’t be a king if you don’t have any subjects! So I sent Fassad out on a mission to slowly reintroduce the people of Tazmilly to technology. Once they had become reliant on industrialisation, they would practically fall into my hands. And it slowly began working!”
“But it needed more work. I sent more of my robots back in time to steal away more people from various times and places. It took some…convincing, but they eventually all pledged their loyalty to me. I soon had my very own army, not a robot army, but a real, live human one! They were my loyal pigmasks, and I was their benevolent king, King P. I felt like a new man, you know, so I changed my name. It may not make sense to you, but perhaps one day it will. I wanted to take that horrid nickname and wear it as a symbol of pride, to show my accomplishments and how far I had come. Yes, it was I, little Porky Minch, boy of Onett, who had become the master of this land!”
Porky broke out in more laughter, ending in another coughing fit. Wheezing and panting to catch his breath, Pokey simply said nothing until Porky was ready to speak again. He was in utter awe of his accomplishments.
Porky continued, “One day, I made a remarkable discovery. Some of my pigmasks had stumbled upon a young boy, gravely injured after an apparent fight with one of my chimeras. Not wanting a life to go to waste, they quickly brought him to Dr. Andonuts, who restored him to the best of his ability. Fassad noticed the boy and immediately took interest, saying that he could sense great PSI abilities within him. I immediately wanted this boy to be the commander of my armies; my pigmasks were powerless when it came to magic abilities, and I needed someone on my side other than Fassad who was capable of wielding them.
“So I took this boy into my own custody, as if he were my son. I enhanced his body with robotic upgrades, making him as unstoppable as a machine, and I bent his will to my own. He soon showed no remnants of whatever his past self was; he existed solely to serve me. Fassad began training him in combat, and after a particularly grueling session, he revealed to me that he had unlocked the power of PK Love! I was so happy! Finally, I could do what I set out to do--to pull the needles, and rebirth the world. But there was one problem. Fassad told me that my commander had no desires of his own, therefore he was neither good nor evil. If he were to pull the needles for me, instead of the world being reborn in good or reborn in evil, it would simply destroy itself, leaving me in my immortality alone to wander through whatever was left of it. But let it happen, I thought! Erase this meaningless world from existence, for all I care!”
Pokey shivered. Not wanting to stop moving, he kept the ball rolling.
Destroy the world? Pokey sometimes felt that was what he wanted to do, to wipe out everything and everyone who ever spited or doubted him. But could he actually have gone through with it?
“So I began sending my commander out to pull the needles for me. But after I had pulled the first needle, something peculiar happened. The second needle I had planned to pull was then pulled by somebody else! How terrible! Everything had been going to plan until now, except for some minor disturbances by a few of the town folk. This would later prove to be my greatest undoing. But I’m still here, after all, so it was never a full defeat,” Porky insisted.
“Eventually, I caught up with this boy, and his group of friends. His name was Lucas. What a simple name for a simple little boy.”
Pokey froze. Lucas? He could only think of one Lucas.
I miss my family! You killed them! You killed them! Both of them!
Pokey stopped the ball this time. How could he forget that strange boy who had come to stay with Ness, far before all of their adventures even started. He could still feel Lucas’s cold eyes staring at him, he could still feel those small hands wrapped like a vice around his neck.
“Why have you stopped?” Porky asked.
Pokey froze, his mouth dry. “Lucas?” he repeated.
“Yes, Lucas. The boy’s name was Lucas. Is that all?”
“... The Lucas? The same one?” Pokey whispered.
“What ‘same Lucas?’ We never knew anyone named Lucas.” Porky’s answer seemed to stop Pokey’s heart. What did he mean by that?
He really doesn’t know anyone named Lucas! Did I really experience something that Porky doesn’t know about? Pokey wondered.
His mind was swimming in thoughts about that boy named Lucas as his stomach twisted in knots. He didn’t know what it was, but something made him not want to listen to Porky’s story any more.
“Well? Pick up the pace! We have plenty of ground to cover still. I may live forever but I don’t want to be kept waiting forever either!” Porky snapped.
Pokey began rolling the capsule again. “Yes, so anyways, Lucas. The other boy with PK Love. I tried stopping him from pulling the needles several times, sending my armies, sending Fassad, even sending the Commander after him and his friends. None of it seemed to work, and he was pulling needles left and right at the same pace the Commander was. Soon, only one needle remained: Fassad’s needle.”
“By this time, all of Tazmilly had traveled into my great city. I decided on a plan; I would see this Lucas for myself, and best him in combat. So I invited him and his friends to my city, and of course, they immediately went searching for the last needle. They even bested Fassad himself! What a foolish thing to have happened. I thought Fassad was the best there was, but he was defeated. An adolescent boy, a princess hardly of legal age, a half-crippled thief, and a dog defeated a Magi in combat. Imagine my luck, of getting the most incompetent of the Magi as my servant! He must have really been an idiot.” Porky spat. He was obviously still bothered by this.
“So I sent this little Lucas and his friends on a wild goose chase throughout this very tower! They were looking for me? Well, they had to come find me! I wasn’t just going to let them stroll up and take the needle for themselves. They first had to pass through a series of trials and humiliations first. But even that proved to be no challenge to them. They even cheated! Yes, they turned my own loyal band against me and used them to defeat my Porkybots! That wasn’t fair, they were supposed to beat that part all by themselves!”
Porky paused his story. Pokey kept rolling. By this time they had almost gotten back to the entrance to the caves. The elevator was in sight.
“But you should have seen the band, DCMC. Only the finest rock music fit for a king. They even wrote their own song for me! Much better than anything that Runaway Five ever put on.”
He cleared his throat, “But I’m getting off topic here. Where were we? Ah, that’s right, I was finally face-to-face with Lucas and his friends. I then sprung a trap on them, sending them tumbling down here.”
Pokey pushed the elevator button, calling the lift down.
“We had a great face-off, but I was forced to retreat to recover inside my Absolutely Safe Capsule here.” Porky pushed himself around in the capsule, rolling it so that its window was facing Pokey.
“Are you still hiding from Lucas?” Pokey wondered.
“No. Lucas and the others have far left me by now. I’m still in the capsule because I can never leave. It’s absolutely safe, of course, assured to me by Dr. Andonuts himself. Once you enter the capsule, there’s not a machine in the world that can crack it open, not yet at least.”
Pokey paused, about to say that it sounded like a horrific fate, even as content as Porky sounded like he was in there, but as he was about to speak, the elevator arrived. Pokey rolled the Absolutely Safe Capsule inside, stepped in after it. The doors echoed as they slammed shut behind them, leaving Pokey and Porky alone together.
They were alone before, but with the spacious nature of the cave, Pokey felt as if there was enough room between him and his other self. Now inside the confines of the elevator, Pokey found it hard not to notice how close to him Porky was. Porky was turned to face him through the window, and although bangs were still covering both of their eyes, Pokey could still feel Porky’s eyes boring into him, clearly sizing him up.
“Go to the first floor and roll me outside,” Porky commanded. Pokey nodded, pressing the floor button.
“Anyways…” Porky started to say something, but stopped. “Here, this’ll be easier now that we’ve stopped. Touch the glass of the capsule.”
Pokey reached out. The glass was warm, heated by Porky’s breath. Porky put his hands up to the glass as well.
Suddenly, a shock ran through Pokey. His mind felt as if it was being pulled in another direction, as if he were dreaming and being awoken from the dream.
“What are you doing!?” he shouted.
“Just relax,” Pokey said. “I’ve found I can do this with other versions of myself. It makes it easier to share information. I’ll be showing you what I saw in my last encounter with Lucas.”
Pokey pushed through the uncomfortableness, and soon found himself transported back in the caves. He could no longer hear the hum of the elevator, and as he turned his gaze to the right, Porky was no longer beside him. He tried looking down at his hands, but found that he could no longer move his body, and that his body was in fact invisible. He began to hyperventilate.
“Relax! Geez, do I have to tranquilize you or what,” Porky’s voice seemed to come from inside Pokey’s mind. “This is just my memory, remember?”
Pokey’s shoulders loosened, but he gasped at what was in front of him. It was Lucas, the Lucas. The very same one he had met in Onett. And standing beside him in a row were two people, a young woman and a man, as well as a large dog. These must be Lucas’s friends.
In front of Lucas was a masked man, standing clad in military garb. The Commander? Pokey wondered to himself.
The masked man suddenly raised his sword, and a bolt of lightning shot out at the four heroes. The dog, man, and woman all were sent flying backwards, collapsing in a heap on the stone floor, but Lucas only fell down on one knee. The bolt of lightning that was headed towards Lucas was reflected backward, striking the masked man.
He has a Franklin Badge!
The masked man staggered, dropping down on one knee as well. He stood up. He approached Lucas. Lucas stood up, taking a step forward. The man swung his sword at Lucas, slashing him across the chest, and proceeded to blast him with a beam of energy from his blaster.
Lucas was knocked back by the force, but remained on his feet. For a minute he began to glow a soft turquoise color as he got into a defensive stance, like he was preparing to use a powerful PSI ability. But at the last minute, Pokey saw Lucas’s face twist into an agonized expression. He relaxed his stance and cast a shield around himself instead.
The masked man took this opportunity to slash at Lucas again, hitting him twice. Lucas again stepped forwards to his original position. Lucas healed himself minorly, letting the green glow of PSI Lifeup wash over him.
The masked man continued his assault on Lucas, but every time he continued to heal or defend himself instead of fighting back.
“What is he doing? Why is he not hitting back?” Pokey asked the disembodied voice of Porky.
“Watch,” replied Porky.
Suddenly, the masked man pulled out a device, and Lucas’s glowing shield vanished. Acting with incredible speed, the masked man began a PSI attack against Lucas. It was the famed PK Love, and it directly dealt mortal damage to Lucas, who scrambled to heal himself.
Out of nowhere, Pokey heard a woman’s voice.
Lucas…
It was hardly louder than a whisper, but Pokey heard it clearly.
“What is that !?” Pokey demanded.
Pokey scoffed. “I can’t explain it. It’s probably one of Lucas’s PSI tricks, trying to knock my commander off guard.”
The Commander continued to attack Lucas, who still did nothing to attack back. Suddenly, Pokey heard that voice again.
Claus…
Pokey squirmed in his non-existent shoes. The voice clearly had an effect on Lucas too; his eyes started to fill with tears. But the masked man showed no change in expression.
The masked man prepared another attack, and another, relentlessly shooting Lucas with beams.
Claus…stop this. You aren’t Porky’s robot. You’re our son! The voice whispered. The masked man showed no sign of yielding.
Our son? Claus? The masked man’s name, the commander’s name was Claus. Pokey blinked at this in wonder. A tear rolled slowly down Lucas’s cheek.
The masked man prepared to use PK Love again. From the side, a man’s figure came running into view.
“Lucas! Look out!”
The man threw himself in front of Lucas, taking the full effect of the masked man’’s--no, Claus’s--attack. He hunched over, wounded, and staggered towards Claus.
“Claus, please remember…” the man gasped. “I’ve been looking for you for so long…”
Claus paused, then proceeded to use PK Love again, in its strongest form. The man fell to his knees. He couldn’t stand up. Lucas put a hand to his mouth and gasped down at the man.
Lucas’s head snapped up at Claus. Enraged, he began to use PK Love against Claus. Claus’s shield absorbed some of the damage, but it clearly wounded him greatly regardless. Lucas must have used it in its strongest form too.
Lucas…
The voice gave Pokey shivers. It felt like he wasn’t supposed to be listening to this, but it clearly was being broadcast to all who listened.
Stop fighting…
And Lucas obeyed.
Lucas gritted his teeth and took attack after attack from Claus, doing nothing but desperately healing himself in between his onslaught.
Claus…
The voice turned its attention away from Lucas.
You and Lucas are brothers!
Pokey’s blood turned to ice. That voice was Lucas’s mother, and Claus, Porky’s commander, the masked man, was Lucas’s brother. Pokey could hear Lucas’s voice ringing in his head like a bell.
I miss my family! You killed them! You killed them! Both of them!
Lucas’s family…Lucas’s mother. Something must have happened to her. And it was all Porky’s fault.
Pokey barely had time to blink, crying out in shock as Claus attacked Lucas yet again. How could he do this to his own brother?
Pokey thought of Picky. The most harm he’d ever done to Picky had been a slap on the hand as he was reaching into the cookie jar before he could get his own hand in there, or a half-hearted shove every now and then, usually when Picky beat him at video games. As much as Pokey found Picky annoying, he couldn’t honestly lay a hand on him. What had Porky done to him?
It was all his fault! It was all my fault!
Pokey began feeling unwell.
Can you hear me? The voice called out.
Yes! Pokey wanted to scream. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
You’re Claus. Your name is Claus! You’re our son!
Claus continued his attack, hitting Lucas over and over.
Please…
The voice was getting desperate. Lucas looked like he was about to burst into tears.
Remember! Lucas…Claus…
Suddenly, Pokey’s gaze was consumed by an entirely different memory. He found himself in the living room of a small house. It was a warm summer day. The window was open, a breeze drifting through. A vase with a single sunflower sat on the windowsill.
And in front of him lay two cribs with two very small babies.
“To think we would be blessed with two children at once…” the voice said, this time as if she were speaking aloud to someone.
“I bet they’ll accomplish things together that they couldn’t alone.” Another voice said. Pokey recognized it as the voice of the man who protected Lucas. His father. A lump formed in Pokey’s throat.
“I’m sure they’ll argue a lot too.” The man continued. Pokey heard the sounds of footsteps on a wooden floor as his vision drew closer to the small babies in the crib. The babies blinked up at their parents inquisitively. They had the same blue eyes, the same face.
Their father continued, “And I can see them helping each other out when they need it.”
“Claus…” their mother said, her smile audible, “...and Lucas.”
“I bet we’ll mix them up a lot until they get bigger.”
“Claus…” their father smiled too, ‘...and Lucas, huh…”
“How do you want them to grow up to be?”
“To be kind, just like you.” His voice was deep and full of love.
“Oh. I was just going to say…” she laughed, “...to be kind just like you.”
“Great. Then it’s decided. Claus. Lucas. Make us proud.”
A blinding white light flashed before Pokey’s eyes. Suddenly, he was back in Porky’s memory, back in that cave.
Lucas looked dazed. Claus attacked again, but the sword was limp in his hand, barely striking Lucas. He struck once, then hesitated, gazing at Lucas strangely.
Lucas froze, not even composed enough to heal himself. He stared at Claus back.
Claus moved to attack again, weakly hitting Lucas. Claus covered his ears. He shut his eyes. Lucas stood still. Claus weakly struck him again.
Claus…
The voice was louder now.
Claus…Claus…
Pokey’s body shook. Lucas began to cry.
Come to your mother. You must be so exhausted. Come here, Claus.
Claus stepped forward. He let his blaster and sword fall to the ground. He removed his helmet. His face looked just like Lucas’s.
Suddenly, Claus fired an intense bolt of lightning.
“What is he doing!?” Screamed Pokey. “No!”
Lucas’s Franklin Badge reflected the lightning back at Claus, striking him straight through the chest. Claus staggered towards Lucas. Claus embraced Lucas. Lucas embraced him back, burying his head into his hair and breathing deeply.
“I’m sorry it turned out like this.” Claus’s voice was weak, said amongst gasps of breath. “I’m really happy you could be with me just before the end…”
Lucas didn’t respond, but tears were streaming down his cheeks as his face crinkled into an almost unrecognizable expression of grief. He stumbled down onto his knees, still holding Claus’s limp body in his arms.
Pokey began to laugh. A sick kind of laugh, a laugh deep in his chest, a laugh that comes when you don’t know what else to do. Pokey laughed and laughed and laughed until tears streamed down his cheeks.
“Thanks.” Claus continued softly, wiping a tear from Lucas’s face with a gloved hand.
Claus turned his head towards the man still collapsed on the ground. Their father. He was trying to crawl towards Claus and Lucas.
“Dad. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”
Their father reached out and took Claus’s other hand. From in the background, Lucas’s other friends began to shuffle. The man of the group limped closer to Lucas, dragging the woman with him, and the dog was not far behind. Everyone was gathered around Claus and Lucas.
“I’m going to where Mom is now.” Claus turned his head back towards Lucas, “Lucas. I hope we meet again someday. Bye.”
Claus’s voice was barely a whisper. “Thank you. I’m sorry. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”
Claus exhaled deeply. Lucas gently lowered Claus to the ground. He brushed a strand of hair from Claus’s face with a shaking hand.
“Lucas...” His father finally spoke. “Thank you. Claus was just hasty, that’s all. You’ll forgive your hasty brother, won’t you?”
Lucas nodded through his tears.
“Alright. This is it. The time has come for you to pull the Dragon’s last needle. Are you ready?”
Lucas nodded harder.
“Both Hinawa and Claus have entrusted fate to you. Believe in yourself, and pull that final needle. Nothing needs to be sealed away anymore.”
His father smiled. “Let’s make the Dark Dragon sealed underground our new friend. Pass your heart on to the Dragon! Pray to it from the bottom of your heart. Ask it to protect all life in this world.”
Lucas stood up, eyeing the needle before him.
“Me, and everyone else…” his father’s voice was strong, “We all believe in you. So now you need to believe in yourself. Now go. The Dragon is waiting to wake up.”
Lucas walked resolutely forward. Grasping the needle in both his hands, he hesitated for only a second before flinging it upwards out of the ground. The ground began to shake and rumble. Steam erupted from the hole the needle left, leaving a musty scent in the air. The ground shook harder, and harder, then suddenly---
Then suddenly--
Pokey woke from the illusion in a burst of blinding light. He could once again hear the hum of the elevator as it ascended upwards, clunking to a stop. The lobby doors dinged faintly as they opened. Pokey looked at his hands, taking them off the capsule window. Still blue, but he could see them. He wiggled his toes. Yes, everything was still there.
“Why…why did you show me all of that…?” Pokey asked, voice hoarse and raspy. Porky didn’t say anything at first. Pokey was sweating profusely.
“The door is open.”
“...Porky?”
“I said, the elevator door is open. Roll me out, would ya?”
Pokey rolled the capsule forward. His arms seemed to work on their own, as if powered by a machine. He rolled and rolled silently, neither him nor Porky speaking until they reached the building’s entrance. Pokey stopped shortly before the door.
“...What am I supposed to do?” Pokey finally spoke.
“Hm?”
“How do I fix this?”
“There’s nothing that can be done. I already told you, there’s no way of getting me out of the capsule as of yet--”
“Lucas. Where’s Lucas,” Pokey said, trembling.
“He and the others, as far as I know, have gone back to Tazmilly. Silly thing, isn’t it? They have plenty of tools to rebuild New Pork City but they chose to go back to a simple life instead--”
“No. I don’t want this. I don’t want this!” Pokey shouted. “I don’t want this to happen!”
“That’s a stupid thing to say. First of all, it’s already happened. Secondly, why?”
“Why? Why would you do this? Why pull the needles, knowing that it would just end the world!?”
Porky paused in thought. Pokey could see his eyes through his hair, and they gleamed with a rage that frightened him.
“I don’t care what happens to the world, Pokey. I really don’t. I just want to be left alone. The only one in this world worth keeping around was Ness, and not even he wanted to find me. It just wasn’t worth continuing on like that. So I wanted to be left alone, forever.”
Pokey backed away from the capsule.
“You…you’re nuts!” Pokey laughed again, face twisted into a forced grin. He took another step backwards. “That’s terrifying!”
“Where are you going! Hey, come back here!”
But Pokey was already gone.
He ran out the building as fast as he could, sprinting towards the capsule. He stopped shortly before entering, gasping violently from exertion. He hadn’t felt that many conflicting emotions since he saw Ness fight Giygas, and even then it wasn’t as strong as this was.
Guilt. Admiration. Nausea. Fear. Sadness. It all mixed together in a disgusting slurry, and Pokey felt as if he might throw up. His lungs burned as he continued to suck in more air.
Climbing into the capsule on wobbly legs, Pokey slapped at the buttons and dials like his life depended on it. Onett. Onett. I have to go home.
The machine whirred to life, flying through time and space. He must have miscalculated the coordinates, or the machine might have just malfunctioned, but either way, he found himself high up in the air and quickly plummeting towards the ground. The machine hit the ground hard and exploded into pieces, tossing Pokey out onto the grass.
The grass was wet and dewey. Or was that the blood trickling down his hands? Pokey couldn’t move his body, and he couldn’t feel it either. He hadn’t noticed it before in his panic, but it was nighttime. Still felt like summer. Warm, but with a cool night breeze. As Pokey’s vision faded, he could hear the chirping of crickets and katydids.