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Chapter Text

Lucas found what Ionia said hard to believe. Power? Coming from him? He wasn’t powerful. He was just a weak little kid. Claus had always been the tough one, and even he…No. Now wasn’t the time to think about that.

“Just endure it for a little bit,” Ionia said. Lucas wasn’t sure what the Magypsy meant until Ionia pushed his head under the water of the hot spring.

Lucas instinctively closed his eyes shut. He struggled, trying to hold what little breath he had. Above the water, Ionia was giving him some words of encouragement, and Boney was barking.

With his eyes closed, there was nothing but darkness. Suddenly, though, he saw something. A figure in the distance. It almost looked like a kid, about his age. He wore a striped shirt, too. But who was he? Lucas didn’t have the chance to investigate further, because as soon as Ionia let go, he burst his head out of the water, opened his eyes, and gasped for air.

He clutched at his heart. He felt…different. As if something that had laid dormant within him had awoken. Ionia explained some of Lucas’ new PSI abilities to him. That didn’t explain the boy he’d seen in his vision, though. Who was he?

Chapter Text

Lucas awoke in a beautiful field of sunflowers. He didn’t know why, but he wanted to cry. He walked around, aimlessly, trying to find a way out. He recalled something from long ago, but it didn’t get him anywhere. Then, he saw him again. That boy.

Now Lucas could finally get a better look at him. The kid wore a hat, a striped shirt, jean shorts, and some generic socks and shoes. His black hair stuck out from under his cap. He grinned warmly at Lucas, and beckoned for him to follow. With nowhere else to go, Lucas did just that.

After some walking, the boy stopped, and faded into nothingness. Lucas tried to reach out to him, but to no avail. Just behind where the boy once stood was Boney, who barked at Lucas in delight. Lucas ran up to his loyal pup, pleased to see ANY familiar face again. Boney turned around, and seemed to be looking at something. Lucas followed the dog’s gaze, and saw…

His mother. She looked strange, ghost-like, but it was unmistakably her. Tears welled up in his eyes. He couldn’t bring himself to speak. Without even thinking, Lucas ran after her, Boney following behind, barking. Eventually, Boney outpaced him.

Lucas made it to the end of the field, Boney nowhere to be found. His mother was waiting for him. Floating on the clouds, smiling. She looked so serene.

With a running start, Lucas jumped off the cliff, and reached for his mother. If he could just get to her, then maybe she’d catch him. They could be together again! He held out his hand, the water in his eyes brushing past him in the air, but…he didn’t make it. He fell, down and down, until he landed gently onto a haystack.

Chapter Text

Walking around in those ridiculous pig-head masks was a pain, but if it got Lucas closer to finding the missing monkeys, then so be it. He hoped that it would provide some protection from the Ultimate Chimera’s massive teeth. Maybe instead of biting his head off, it’d just take the mask? Wishful thinking, but optimism was really all Lucas had at this point.

While wandering around the Chimera Lab, Lucas saw some movement coming from a trash can. Boney growled. Lucas slowly approached, expecting the worst, only to find a shaking old man hiding in there. More surprising was that Lucas recognized the shivering man.

“Dr. Andonuts?” Lucas questioned. He wasn’t sure where the name had come from. Surely, he must’ve heard someone else in the facility mention it?

“Ah!” Andonuts shrieked. “H-hello, young man. Do I know you?”

For a second, Lucas felt sad, almost insulted. But why? They didn’t know each other.

“No, no we don’t,” Lucas said. “What’re you doing here?”

“At the moment, I’m trying to conceal myself, for, er, certain reasons. I’ve been forced into performing all these awful experiments, you see, and…could you please move along? I’d rather not be spotted,” Dr. Andonuts told the boy.

This man must’ve been the one who kickstarted all the research on making Chimeras. It was despicable. Lucas should’ve hated this man. And yet, somehow, he believed it when the doctor claimed he’d done this against his will. He had a strong feeling that Dr. Andonuts was trustworthy.

Lucas left him alone, and went on his way.

Chapter Text

New Pork City was a nightmare. All the flashing lights, tacky displays, and noise was the complete opposite of a place like Tazmily Village. What Tazmily Village used to be like, anyway. To get away from the crowd, Lucas, Boney, Kumatora, and Duster headed into a movie theater. Onscreen, some kind of story starring four kids was playing.

“Huh. What’re they showing?” Kumatora whispered to the rest of the team. “Some kinda kids movie?”

“Looks like it’s about the adventure of those four tykes on the screen,” Duster replied. “Some of those places they’re visiting have skyscrapers, just like here.“

“Somehow, those places seem a lot more pleasant. Right, Lucas?” Kumatora noted.

But Lucas wasn’t listening. He couldn’t believe his eyes. One of the kids on the screen, it was him! The boy from the hot spring, and the sunflower field! How was that possible? His thoughts were interrupted by Kumatora elbowing him.

“Yo, Lucas!” she whisper-yelled. “You alright?”

“You spaced out for a second there,” Duster added. Boney concurred with a small whimper.

“I’m fine,” Lucas assured them. “It’s just…that kid in the hat. I’ve seen him before.”

“Whaddya mean?” Kumatora pressed.

“The boy in the hat, in the movie! I’ve seen him before. In some sorta vision. And those other kids, those places, they looks so…familiar,” Lucas explained.

“You sure you’ve never seen this picture before?” Duster reasoned.

“I know I haven’t. I’ve never seen it before in my life.”

Kumatora and Duster gave each other a nervous glance. Was Lucas ok?

“Maybe you’re just tired. Let’s get outta here, and find somewhere to rest, alright?” Duster said.

Lucas sighed, but nodded, and followed Duster and Kumatora out of the theater. He took one last glance at the screen before he left.

Chapter Text

Everyone was pretty sick of the Empire Porky Building right about now, even Boney. The layout made no sense, the rooms were ridiculous…they were grateful to finally reach the end. Just one more floor.

They entered a hallway full of knick-knacks, and hopped aboard a boat. The short ride was peaceful, especially compared to the rest of the wretched building.

“Look at all this junk,” Kumatora said. “Where’d he get all this?”

Lucas was busy taking in the sight of all the “junk.” Names popped into his head. Runaway Five. Tessie. Dungeon Man. Sky Runner. Phase Distorter. Giygas. That last name sent a shiver down his spine, though he didn’t know why. It was just like Dr. Andonuts. He knew the names, but didn’t know how, or why. A feeling he could only describe as nostalgia filled his heart. How could he have such sentimentality for things he’d never seen before?

The boat reached the end of the hall, and the teammates exited. Lucas took a deep breath. This was it. The end of everything. When it was all over, maybe he’d look into it. Right now he had to focus.

Chapter Text

Lucas winced at the sound of coughing and wheezing.

“Come a little closer, so I can see your face better…” Porky’s voice rang out.

Lucas was the first to realize that Porky was behind them. He turned around.

“Oh, is that what you look like? Hm. I like your old look better. You’ve probably figured out that I’m the one who brought you all here. A traveler who’s journeyed between past and future. I’m the most clever, most charming, most trouble-making boy ever… Master Porky Minch!”

Now everyone turned to face Porky.

“I welcome you once again, you weak hangers-on pretending to be the last survivors of this world! Spankety, spankety, spankety!” Porky chortled.

He was brought down from the ceiling to the ground. Despite his youthful demeanor, he looked ancient, and lay in a bed. He continued to cough and wheeze. Lucas couldn’t shake the feeling that Porky was staring right at him.

“Well, Ness? Anything to say?” Porky asked. “Feel free to say sorry for never being my friend, by the way. It won’t do any good.”

“Huh?” Lucas muttered. What on Earth was he talking about?

“Bet you feel pretty stupid right about now! Nobody remembered you. Even after all the good you did.”

“Would you just SHUT UP already?!” Kumatora shouted.

“Hmph! How rude, interrupting me like that! I thought you’d keep better company than this, Ness.”

“Nobody here is even named Ness, you old coot!” Kumatora spat.

“Hah. Hahaha! Ahahahaha! That’s rich. You don’t know, do you? None of you fools know! I shouldn’t have expected any better of these morons. Go on, Ness. Explain.”

The crowd was quiet. Porky’s expression changed from mirthful to angry. Now, Lucas was sure Porky was looking at him.

“Well?! Go on! Tell them, Ness! Tell them how I was once your lowly little neighbor, until I soared to new heights!” Porky demanded.

“A…are you talking to me?” Lucas finally spoke up. Realization dawned on Porky.

“You still don’t remember, do you?” Porky figured out. “After all the effort I put in? Playing your story in every theater? All those souvenirs in the hall? Sending you on a grand adventure to save the world, and defeat some ancient evil? All of that, and you STILL don’t remember?!”

“You’ve got the wrong guy. This is Lucas. None of us know any ‘Ness,’” Duster said.

“SILENCE! Silence, all of you worthless peons!” Porky screeched. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to GO! Why don’t you remember?! You’re NOT Lucas! You’re NESS! NESS, NESS, NESS, NESS, NESS! I did all of this so I could face HIM again! Not some nobody kid from a run-down village!”

“Wait. That’s why you did all this?” Lucas asked. “The Chimeras? My home? My family, my friends? Everything you’ve done, you did because you wanted me to be this ‘Ness’ kid?!” Lucas realized. All the death, the misery…it was all for THAT?!

“Please! They’re not your family! They never were. You’ve been brainwashed, or something. Hey. You wanna pull the final needle, right? I’ll tell you where it is. I’ll even let you use my elevator to get there. But you’ll have to go through ME first. It’ll be just like old times!”

Before anyone could protest, the floor beneath Lucas, Kumatora, Duster, Boney, and Flint moved down. They were trapped on an elevator ride.

Chapter Text

The battle with Porky was intense. He kept calling Lucas “Ness” the entire time. Lucas ignored him. He was just messing with his head.

After he locked himself away in his Absolutely Safe Capsule, and Dr. Andonuts explained that Porky was trapped, Lucas was ready to just leave him behind and get to the final needle. But when Porky started banging on the glass, Andonuts turned the capsule’s soundproofing off. He was curious what the little monster had to say.

“Hey, HEY!” Porky shrieked from inside the capsule. He coughed and wheezed some more before continuing: “What’re you doing?! You wouldn’t just leave me here, would you Ness?”

“Perhaps he’s gone senile,” Dr. Andonuts suggested. “Ness comes from the same time that Porky and I originally come from, y’see. They were neighbors. He was a friend of my son’s. A hero.”

“Yeah, a hero! And heroes don’t leave people stuck in capsules forever!” Porky added.

Kumatora and Duster tried to hold Lucas back, but he ignored them, and stared into the window of the Absolutely Safe Capsule. 

“That Ness kid. What did he look like?” Lucas asked, directing his question at Andonuts despite looking at Porky.

“Average young man. Striped shirt, baseball cap…” Andonuts described.

“Like the kid in the movie!” Kumatora realized.

“The kid I saw in my head,” Lucas concurred.

“HAHA! See! I knew Ness was in there! Let him out, you blonde-haired weenie!” Porky demanded.

Lucas continued to stare in silence. His hands balled up into fists.

“I don’t know if I’m Ness, or if he’s me, or whatever,” Lucas said, “but even if I could give him to you, I wouldn’t.”

“WHAT?! I am ORDERING YOU! Nobody disobeys Master Porky Minch!”

“Ok. Let’s make a deal,” Lucas proposed. Kumatora and Duster hadn’t ever heard him sound like this. Every word he spat at Porky came out like venom. “I’ll give you Ness. I dunno how, but I’ll figure it out. I just need you to give me something.”

Porky was desperate. He didn’t want to be stuck in a capsule for all eternity. He wanted out. He wanted to see Ness again. To rub his power in Ness’ stupid face, like he’d planned for years. So, against his better judgement, he nodded.

“I want Claus back.”

Porky stammered as he coughed some more. All the augmentations he’d made…were they reversible? Would there be any way to fix what he’d done to that boy? No, there had to be something. He was Porky Minch! He always got what he wanted. ALWAYS!

“That’s what I thought.”

Lucas kicked the capsule, and it rolled away, Porky screeching the whole time. He and the others left the scientist and the former emperor behind. Boney rubbed up against his leg.

”Lucas, you…you ok?” Kumatora asked. Lucas only nodded. 

It was time to finish this.

Chapter Text

When Lucas pulled the final needle, all of the damage Porky had done to the world had been reversed. No more metal monsters, massive cities, or Chimeras. Everything was as it was before Porky came along, even Tazmily Village. Dr. Andonuts and Porky had disappeared. Maybe they’d gone back to their own time. Who knows?

Kumatora and Duster moved in with Lucas and Boney. Even with the world reborn, Hinawa, Flint, and Claus…it was too late to save them. The most that’d happened was Claus’ metal augmentations disappearing from him. It was tough having to live without them, but at least he had his closest friends by his side.

Some days were good. Some days were bad. But that was ok. Things were peaceful once more. Just like it was meant to be.

Every once in a while, Lucas would have a dream about Ness. He’d always wake up before anything happened. After a few months, he decided to ask Kumatora for advice.

“The Magypsies told me once about a place deep within the mind. Magicant. It is there where one can get in touch with the deepest part of themselves. They mentioned that there’s a certain melody that lets you access it, but it’s been lost to time,” Kumatora told him. “Maybe if you can get there, you’ll figure out the connection between you and that Ness kid.”

He decided to try getting there. First, he tried to go into a hot spring, much like he did when he’d first unlocked his PSI. It didn’t work. Then, he tried sitting under a waterfall. He’d heard somewhere that it was supposed to increase your focus, or something? All that did was give Lucas a cold for a few days.

This time, he decided to do something that would be a little less wet. He crossed his legs and meditated. His first few attempts just got him to fall asleep, but one day, something different happened.

He heard a song, deep within his mind. He focused on it as hard as he could. The tune began to fill his ears, and suddenly the world around him began to change. The floor, the walls, they all turned…pink. He hopped up, and took it all in. He saw that to the side, some sunflowers were growing. 

“Is this Magicant?” Lucas wondered aloud. He heard some footsteps behind him, and instantly turned around. There stood Ness.

“Hi,” the boy greeted.

“Uh…hi.”

“I’m glad I finally got you here. We should really thank Kumatora, she was the one who reminded me about the eight melodies. You’d made it here before, once, after we fell from that helicopter, but it’s a lot safer using the song,” Ness explained.

“The sunflower field…” Lucas remembered. “Wait, ‘we?’ What do you mean, ‘we?’”

“Oh, right. Pokey probably mixed you all up, with all that crazy talk. It’s sorta hard to explain? You and me, we’re the same, but you’re not ‘Ness,’ like I’m not ‘Lucas.’”

The explanation only served to further confuse Lucas. So, he and Ness were the same, but they weren’t? What sense did that make? Ness scratched at his head in embarrassment when he saw Lucas’ clueless expression.

“Looks like I just mixed you up more. Oops,” Ness said. “Eh, it’s not important. That’s not why I wanted to talk with you.”

“You wanted to talk with me?”

“Mhm. I…well, I guess I wanted to apologize.”

Lucas was surprised. Dr. Andonuts had called Ness a hero, and Porky had agreed. What apology would a hero need to make? Ness took notice.

“I wanted to apologize about Pokey, and all that he did,” Ness elaborated.

“Do you mean Porky?”

“Yeah. Porky was some stupid nickname some of the other kids in Onett used to call him. His real name’s Pokey. I guess he started using the nickname too, I dunno, take it back? Anyway, it’s like he said. He did all this just to get at me. That means everything he did was my fault. What happened to Tazmily, and the Chimeras, and Claus…it’s all because of me.”

“But-”

“I know my apology can never make up for what he’s done to us. To you. But I couldn’t let things go on without telling you that I’m sorry.”

Lucas didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone look as guilty as Ness did.

“Hey, it’s not your fault,” Lucas disagreed. “You didn’t make Porky do all this. You didn’t make him hurt my brother, or make the Chimeras. He chose to do it. Y’know, when all this started, I was really scared of him. But after everything I’ve seen, I’m not scared anymore. He was just some snot-nosed brat.”

“Maybe I could’ve fixed all that, if I’d gotten closer with him. Sure, we were neighbors, but we weren’t really friends. Maybe if I’d asked him to come along, he wouldn’t have teamed up with Giygas. He would’ve just been another kid,” Ness mourned.

“We offered him friendship, and he turned us down, back in Fourside! And…why do I know that?” Lucas asked.

“The same way you recognized me and Dr. Andonuts,” Ness answered. “I bet now that we’re actually talking, plenty of things I know are coming easier to you now.”

He was right. Lucas recalled more about the objects he’d seen in the hall in the Empire Pork Building. He remembered Dr. Andonuts. The three other kids in the movie, he knew their names.

“Jeff, Paula, and Poo,” Lucas whispered. “They were…”

“Our friends. Kumatora, Duster, and Boney remind me of them. Always by our side, ready to take on anything,” Ness finished.

Lucas had an inkling of understanding of what Ness had meant when he said they were the same. He could recall Ness’ life, his friends and family, as if the memories were his own. But he still knew they belonged to Ness, just as he knew his own memories belonged to him.

“If I’d known all this when I met Porky…would he have stopped?” Lucas questioned. “Could I have stopped all of this?”

“Nah,” denied Ness. “Pokey only wanted to see me again so he could show off. That’s all he ever wanted to do. Prove he was better than me.”

Now that Lucas remembered growing up alongside Porky, he could see what Ness meant.

“Will I remember all this when I leave? I don’t want to forget.”

“You probably won’t remember all of it. But I’m sure some of it’ll stick around,” Ness assured. “It’s probably better if you don’t know it all. This is your life to live, not mine.”

“Yeah. I think I know what you mean.”

Ness pat Lucas on the back, a gesture Lucas recalled Ness reserved for only his closest friends.

“You should probably go. Don’t wanna leave everyone waiting, right?”

Before Lucas could say anything more, he found himself in his bed, tucked under the covers. How long had he been there? A note had been left beside him.

Found you asleep on the floor. The bed’s probably a lot more comfortable. Tell me how you’re feeling once you wake up. I’ll take Boney out for you.

-Duster

Lucas could only vaguely recall his time in Magicant. But as Ness had guessed, some details were still there. He got up out of bed, and went off to find Duster.

Wasn’t that how it all started? Waking up in bed, and going to talk to family?