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“No.”
“But I haven’t even said anything yet!” Ness protested.
“And I said no.”
“Come on, Ninten. Let’s at least hear him out,” Lucas said, giving Ninten a look.
Ninten scowled, but said, “Fine.”
“All right! So, you know how Earthbound is a JRPG series, right?”
“Right,” came the chorus of responses, from every playable character in the series (except for Pippi, Claus, Flint, and Salsa). This meant that Ninten, Loid, Ana, Teddy, Ness, Paula, Jeff, Poo, Lucas, Kumatora, Duster, and Boney were crammed around the table with Ness chairing the meeting.
“Well, what if we extended it to become a turn-based strategy game that’s still an RPG like Fire Emblem?”
Silence followed as all the characters looked at each other, which was broken after a few seconds by them beginning to mutter amongst themselves. Ness slammed his hands onto the table, and everyone fell silent again. “Look, we haven’t had a game since Mother 3, and if we're doing a spin-off, why not a different genre not entirely divorced from JRPGs?”
“Is this an attempt to get more characters into Smash Bros?” Ninten asked.
“What? Noooo. Why would you ever think that???” Ness said, and evidenced by the silence that followed, completely failing at convincing anyone. “…Anyway, moving on," Ness coughed, trying his best to ignore the silence, "the point is we could use a spin-off regardless, so why not?”
“Okay, I’m not against the idea, but how would we translate ourselves over to Fire Emblem?” Lucas asked.
“We’ll vote on the rules, majority rules. We each have ‘yes’ and ‘no’ buttons,” Ness explained, gesturing to the buttons in front of everyone. “Is this acceptable to everyone?”
A little more than half the people present pushed yes, meaning this was acceptable. With that (and an eye roll from Ninten), Ness pressed on. “Okay, so me, Lucas, and Ninten are the main characters of our respective games. Therefore, we should be the three lords.”
“But what are our classes? We can’t exactly go around calling ourselves ‘lords,’” Ninten pointed out.
“Well, one of us has to be the typical sword-wielding lord, minus the blue hair,” Ness said.
“But all of us use baseball bats or sticks, which are basically swords by FE logic.”
“How about Lucas is a Pegasus Knight lord given he’s very good with animals,” Ness suggested. “We can call it… uh…”
“I don’t think we’ll have any other Pegasus units, so Pegasus Knight should be fine. He’d use swords and staves.” Lucas nodded along with Duster’s logic. “Since Ness seems to be the driving force behind this, I guess he can be the main sword-wielding lord, so let’s use Ranger. Which leaves…”
Everyone looked at Ninten. “…You’ll be infantry lances! Soldier class to be exact!” Ness declared.
Ninten shrugged. “Sure, why not?” he said. “Infantry lances as a playable class are sorely underrepresented.”
Ness nodded, pleased things were going so smoothly so far with a series of 'yes' votes backing up their decisions. “All right, now we need a Jeigan (a powerful unit to help us with the early game but gets worse later on), an Est (a weak unit joining late that can be trained up to be powerful), and a dancer (to give units more turns),” Ness said. “Who’s our candidates for each?”
“What about Teddy as our Jeigan?” Ana suggested.
“Teddy joins pretty late in Beginnings, and has way too good of growths to be a Jeigan,” Ninten pointed out. “We don’t want this being Teddy Emblem, do we?”
“Teddy Emblem sounds good to me!” Teddy laughed.
Everyone else mashed the ‘no’ button. Teddy huffed and crossed his arms, offended but not saying anything.
“I think Poo would be a good Jeigan,” Ness suggested.
“Maybe, but he also joins later in Earthbound, so he should join later here too. Like, maybe... Chapter 6?” Lucas suggested.
“Well then, who should we have as our Jeigan then?”
“What about Flint?” Duster said. “He’s the main character of Chapter 1 of Mother 3, and has pretty good stats too. And then he’s not playable for the rest of the game, so who cares if we’re faithful in terms of growths?”
“But we need someone’s dad to die!” Ness protested, with everyone mashing the ‘no’ button in response. “Don’t judge me, it’s a Fire Emblem tradition! Dads can’t survive the game! Shall I list off every dad in FE that died?”
“But it’s not an Earthbound tradition,” Ninten countered. “No, the Earthbound way is to turn dads into phones, except for Flint. So why not have a phone being broken as a way to kill off a dad?”
“Okay, it’s your dad who’s dying.”
“What!? It doesn’t have to be any of our dads! Just break a random telephone. Like this!” Ninten smashed a random telephone that was just lying around, glaring at Ness.
Everyone except Ness voted for the telephone smashing to replace the obligatory dad death. And for Flint to become the Jeigan of the game.
“Fine, well I suppose I’ll get Flint killed at some point so we’ll still have the death,” Ness grumbled.
“And you’ll reset when that happens, right?” Lucas asked, giving Ness the same look he gave Ninten earlier.
“Of course.”
“Moving on, I think it’s pretty clear that Pippi is going to be the Est here,” Paula said. Everyone voted 'yes' because they didn’t want to make the fans upset that Pippi was going to be denied a permanent spot in the party again.
“What about our dancer?” Ana asked.
“It’ll be Salsa. Who else could it be?” Kumatora said. A unanimous ‘yes’ vote followed.
“Great. Also, getting the obvious out of the way, Duster is-”
“The thief, yes,” everyone chimed, voting ‘yes’ before Ness could even finish.
“O-Okay then. Wow.” Ness cleared his throat. “Up next are Paula, Ana, and Kumatora. Given they tend to have the offensive PSI of the group, mages are the closest class to them.”
“But I can actually throw hands unlike mages!” Kumatora protested.
“Yeah, and mages can only use tomes,” Paula chimed in. “We have other weapons we can use.”
“Okay, guess this won’t be an even one-to-one translation then,” Ness groaned. “Mages can, uh, use daggers. Like thieves. Frying pans will count as daggers I guess.”
“Not good enough!” Kumatora said.
“Okay, okay! We’ll… make Kumatora into a wyvern rider that bonks people with axes. You’ll also gain tomes when you promote. Happy?”
“Yes.” The subsequent vote was unanimous.
“Hold on,” Ninten interrupted. “How exactly are we going to implement PSI? Mages can’t be the only class to use PSI.”
“PSI will work like the Laguz do,” Ness said. Ninten nodded, but everyone else stared blankly as none of them had touched either Path of Radiance or Radiant Dawn by virtue of secondhand market prices and therefore did not know what a Laguz was. “There’s a meter that will charge over time but will deplete every time in combat.”
“Well as long as it's more like Path of Radiance than Radiant Dawn…” Ninten muttered, thanking his lucky stars his father had gotten both games on their release and didn't give them away.
“If we do that, then what makes mages so special?” Poo asked.
“That they charge faster and don’t deplete as much PSI,” Ness answered. “Also, they tend to have harder hitting PSI too.”
“Ah, okay.”
“All right, speaking of Poo, you’ll be a myrmidon joining at, like, Chapter 6 like we mentioned earlier. You’ll be a recruitable enemy, so I have to talk to you,” Ness explained.
“Understood,” Poo said.
“Teddy will be a recruitable late game enemy by Ninten or Ana. So, he’ll have to be a pre-promote. How about Hero?”
“Are you sure you can’t fit me in earlier?” Teddy complained.
“Sorry, we need to be faithful to the source material,” Ninten replied.
“Wait, hold on,” Lucas interrupted. “Which game are we basing this off of? Three Houses?”
“No, do you want Three Houses discourse to infect the Earthbound fanbase?” Ness shuddered. “No, no. We should do entries that are less controversial, with less discourse, and what better than the Tellius duology?”
“…This is because the author’s favorite games in the series are Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, isn’t it?” Ninten deadpanned.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Whatever you say…”
Ness coughed, voting ‘yes’ followed by a cascade of ‘yes’ votes in favor of the Tellius duology despite none of them save Ninten having played either game. “Getting back on track, all that’s left is Loid, Jeff, and Boney. Boney can be his own unique class of ‘dog,’ but Loid and Jeff are trickier… I guess they can be analogs to the archers? Except they can retaliate at close ranges, so they’re automatically better. And, you know what? Let's make it so they have larger inventory slots to make up for lacking PSI and other gimmicks.”
“…You’ve really put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?” Jeff said.
“Well, yeah! It’s gonna be another game in the series after two decades!” Ness grinned. “Now, let’s cut it with the boring exposition and get on with the exciting stuff!”
Everything was peaceful in the peaceful Kingdom of Nowhere. That is, until one day, the Pigmask Empire attacked. Tearing through the defenses, the Empire quickly subdued the kingdom, scattering its forces and forcing its citizens to flee or face subjugation. But not all hope was lost, as at this darkest hour, a group of Heroes was forming from the scattered remnants of the kingdom and making their way to their next-door neighbor, Eagleland. They would go down in history as the Heroes of Nowhere, and this is their story.
“Okay, Lucas, you have weapon triangle advantage on that fighter there, so go attack him and gain some EXP,” Ness ordered, Lucas complying.
“Uh, Ness?” Ninten said as Lucas started advancing. “If Lucas gets hit, he’ll be left with 5 HP.”
“Ah, he’ll live,” Ness replied as Lucas swooped in, whacking the fighter. The wounded fighter, only having a 33% chance of actually hitting Lucas, swung his axe… and actually hit. Lucas, however, was fast enough to double and so finished off the wounded fighter and came close to leveling up.
“See! It’ll all work out just fine!” Ness said.
“Sure, except now he’s in range of a myrmidon who will probably hit and kill him,” Ninten pointed out.
Ness blinked, going “oh.” Before that happened, though, it turned out that Loid was exposed and came under attack from an enemy cavalier. Unfortunately, Loid was already wounded and so died.
Ness simply sighed and said, “Restart,” whipping out the controller before the myrmidon had a chance to kill Lucas and reset back to Battle Preparations.
“Well, consider this a lesson learned in positioning and RNG,” Jeff said as battle was joined once more.
“Hey Duster?” Kumatora whispered. “No offense to gramps over there… but are you sure he’ll be okay?”
“What? Yeah, he’ll be fine,” Duster said, looking over at Wess, who had a green marker indicating he was an allied unit under the control of the AI, not the player.
“But we get a game over if he dies. And we can’t control him. Are you sure he’s, you know, mentally there?”
“Yes, he is,” Duster tersely responded. “He’s a veteran thief; he knows what he’s doing. Look at how many enemies he’s killed this chapter alone!”
Sure enough, Wess was just finishing dispatching another unit foolish enough to attack him. But he was running low on health, so Lucas flew on over to heal him.
“Thanks,” Wess grunted. “Just remember to stop the enemy from reaching that space!” he said, pointing to the glowing green square well in the back.
“I think we’ve got this, gramps. For a map where we’re meant to defend, we really pushed them back,” Kumatora remarked, blasting an enemy with lightning as her wyvern roared in triumph.
When it was enemy phase, an enemy ran up to attack Wess and hit him, but Wess killed him on the counterattack. Everyone else held firm, Wess being the only one who’s HP was rather low by the time enemy phase ended.
“Okay, just have to hold out one more turn! We can do it!” Lucas cheered.
And then Wess moved to attack another enemy unit that happened to be in range. “What are you doing!?” Kumatora yelled, pulling her hair as Wess hit the enemy but failed to kill him. Then the enemy counterattacked and killed Wess, triggering a Game Over.
When the game reset to Battle Preparations, everyone glared at Wess who whistled and suddenly found the ceiling rather interesting to stare at.
“Green units,” Kumatora deadpanned.
“Green units,” Duster agreed.
They managed to clear the chapter on their next attempt, making sure Wess stayed well the hell away from any enemy. Not that that improved Wess’s grumpy demeanor any, but hey that meant extra EXP for the rest of the team. Kumatora and Duster both leveled up one more time than they would’ve had Wess not suicided. So… silver linings.
“This seems like a pretty straightforward map,” Ninten observed, scrolling over the view. “To our left is the most defended, but also the route where we can get the most EXP as well as two treasure chests, so we should send most of our team that way. The center-” he pointed at the area with the small house in the center of it, “-has nothing, but if we get stuck, we can send someone charging up this way to end the map quickly as we only need to defeat the boss. Finally, there’s the right which is weakly defended and Fuel and Lighter are recruitable characters. Either Lucas or Flint can recruit them, so let’s send Flint that way since there really isn’t much EXP Lucas will gain. He’ll gain more tagging along with the main force.”
“You’re really getting into this,” Lucas commented.
“Well, we’re here doing this, so why not do the best I can?” Ninten shrugged. No one had any objections to Ninten’s plan, so they deployed and moved out. It more or less went as expected, Flint cutting through the weaklings and recruiting Fuel and Lighter, with all three of them beginning to move towards the boss. The main drive on the left side was very successful, Duster opening one of the treasure chests as the rest of the team gained at least one level each.
There was a brief moment of panic when Teddy and the B.B. Gang spawned in right where they all started, especially since Teddy was a Lv. 10 Hero, a promoted class, meaning Teddy was effectively Lv. 30 while the heroes were all Lv. 10-14. However, it soon became apparent that they had no intention of moving, and so everyone breathed a sigh of relief and continued on with the chapter.
Except remember that house in the center of the map? Well, the door opened and Giegue stepped out, in all his Lv. 20 Promoted Class glory. Everyone froze as Giegue turned north and began walking right towards Flint, Lighter, and Fuel.
“Oh shit,” Ness swore.
“Wretched humans, you are no match for me,” Giegue said as he attacked Flint. Everyone covered their eyes, but began cheering when it was revealed that Flint survived with 3 HP. He counterattacked, but dealt no damage to the alien.
“Oh fuck,” Lucas swore as everyone realized Giegue doubled Flint, meaning the Fire Emblem tradition of killing dads was alive and well even with a different series filling in.
As Flint and his horse faded from existence, Fuel started screaming and wailing as Lighter did his best to comfort him.
Ninten sighed, turning towards Ness as he tried to ignore Fuel's despair. “Restart?” He pointed to the controller in Ness’s hand.
“Wait, go pick a fight with him.”
“…Excuse me, what.”
“Go engage Giegue,” Ness repeated. “I want to see the dialogue you two have!”
“…You want me to get myself killed so you can satisfy your curiosity?”
“Well, no. Throw up a shield and have Ana stand close to you to give you support bonuses and you might live.”
“Flint didn’t live! How am I supposed to survive being doubled???”
“Maybe one of the attacks will miss?” Ness weakly suggested.
“Funny because his attack is high enough to where he oneshots me!”
“Without shields! With shields you might have a chance!”
“Ness, let’s just restart,” Lucas said from three spaces behind the bickering duo. “We can do a second playthrough or watch a video or something.”
“Nope! We’re doing this!” Ness said as he tapped the map screen, ordering Ninten into range of Giegue against his will.
“I fucking hate you,” Ninten snarled as Giegue marched up to him.
“Ah, the descendant of George and Maria,” Giegue said, tail slowly swishing side to side. “If you come with me, I promise to spare you the fate that the rest of humanity-”
“Go fuck yourself,” Ninten answered.
“…That’s not what the script says, but very well.” With that, Giegue activated his skill, Eclipse. Ninten held up both middle fingers at Ness as Giegue hit him with so much damage no one could comprehend it; not even the game which promptly crashed from the sheer amount of mathematical overkill.
“Look, you have to admit that was pretty funny,” Ness awkwardly chuckled as Ninten debated whether or not to strangle their leader.
“…Are you satisfied now?” Ninten growled through gritted teeth.
“Actually, no.” You could hear a pin drop with how attentively everyone listened to Ness’s next words. “Everyone should stand in front of the house. I want to see everyone’s dialogue with Giegue.”
This promptly triggered a coup d’etat. Ninten was temporarily granted control of the game with a roughed-up Ness sheepishly taking Ninten’s old spot. In the end, Ninten led the Heroes of Nowhere to victory, evading Teddy and the B.B. Gang and had Flint, Lighter, and Fuel huddle in the corner as Giegue popped out of the house again but concerned himself more with simply standing there menacingly as he didn’t spawn in range of anyone this time.
Loid secured the kill on the boss, leveling up and beckoning “This way!” to everyone as she and the rest of the Heroes boarded the ship that would let them escape the Kingdom of Nowhere.
Giegue was still standing in front of that house, watching the ship sail away. “I'll look forward to next time,” was all he said.
Ness’s brow furrowed as he examined the map. His eyes weren’t deceiving him, that tile had some sparkles on it! He examined the positions of everyone on the map. Only one enemy was close by… Good. Ness could land on that tile and see what was up! There was no way there would be an enemy that would jump out at them as soon as he landed on the tile, right?
He didn’t dare vocalize it given the Giegue Incident was still fresh in everyone’s minds (especially Ninten’s, who would probably overthrow him again if he stated his intentions), but shiny stuff was good! So, when it was his turn, he moved onto the tile and stood there, looking around and waiting for something to happen.
With a ‘poof!’ a trash can appeared. “What? Where did that come from!?” Jeff exclaimed.
“Who knows? Let’s see what’s in here…” Ness took off the lid.
“Seriously? We’re in the middle of a fight here!” Kumatora growled, though her mood was slightly improved when she brought down her axe on an enemy.
“Ta da!” Ness held up the item for everyone to look at as a short jingle played. Everyone, friend and foe, stopped what they were doing; even the enemy that had nearly died from Kumatora’s axe a moment ago was enthralled by what Ness had just pulled out.
A hamburger.
“You’re kidding me,” Paula deadpanned.
Lucas looked at facepalming Ninten. “…Hamburgers aren’t a thing in Fire Emblem, right?” he hesitantly asked.
“No. No they’re not.”
“Look at that, it still heals me if I eat it!” Ness cheered. “And I get three uses of this too!”
“Ew.” Ana wrinkled her nose, trying not to feel queasy from the implications of what Ness had just said.
“Why was this carried over from Earthbound…?” Ninten groaned, his facepalm now using both hands instead of just one.
Ness opened his mouth, ready to take a bite.
“Nope!” Paula yanked the burger away with telekinesis (which she couldn’t use in regular gameplay) and yeeted the burger at an enemy. It splattered against a Pigmask Captain’s face mask, and for a moment everything was silent as everyone stared at the Captain and the Captain stared back.
Then he started screaming. “AAAAAHHHHHHH! THE GERMS! THE GERMS! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
Paula killed him with a blast of ice, followed by murmurs of what a mercy that was for the poor fellow uttered by friend and foe alike.
“You really couldn’t let me heal…?” Ness grumbled.
“Only if you were willing to risk getting poisoned,” Paula countered as the battle resumed. “I’m not advancing our support chain further if that happens.”
“You don’t get poisoned from food in Fire Emblem…” Ness protested, but what's done was done, so he fought and simply got a hamburger from base camp once the chapter was over.
“Gah! What is this!?” Ness exclaimed, only managing to advance two spaces this turn.
“It doesn’t affect me…” Paula remarked, able to traverse the full five spaces as she so pleased.
“Same here,” Ana added.
“It’s the sand,” Ninten explained. “This is a desert map. Unless you’re a mage, flyer, or thief, your movement is, well, slower than Ness in Earthbound.”
“But we’re psychic! We should be exempt from that rule!”
“It’s a privilege only mages have, unfortunately. Don’t blame me, I don’t make the rules,” Ninten added as Ness glared at him.
“I hate sand,” Ness stated. Ninten just shrugged in reply.
Unfortunately, most of the enemies they were up against were fliers or mages, meaning they could charge in and hit the party while the party had to wait until they attacked before they could retaliate. Lucas and Kumatora flew around picking off weak fliers and mages while Duster assassinated a few mages that attempted to attack the slowed group. Paula and Ana mainly ran around healing or picking off any wyverns or regular infantry that got too close.
It was extremely tedious. The chapter took more than 35 turns (the longest prior was just 14 turns) and everyone was sweaty and grumpy by the end. However, they did not need to reset as their caution paid off and no one died for once. Plus, the mobile units gained a level or two each in the process, which was very welcome.
At least that was the only desert map in the game.
“No! Don’t!”
“You’re too late ‘Heroes!’” Fassad sneered. “There’s nothing you can do to stop me now!” Fassad stomped down, the phone buckling under the force, not helped by Fassad stomping on it more, repeatedly.
Ness wailed in despair as everyone else looked on in horror, like Fassad was killing their own father. After several stomps, Fassad hopped on the phone with both feet before slamming an axe down on it. Then dropped a Starstorm right on top of it for good measure.
By now Ness was on his knees, head titled down with his cap obscuring his eyes. “Fassad… I will never forgive you… ever…”
“…It was just a phone-”
“EVER!!!” Ness bellowed as he rushed Fassad down, heedless of what the stat screen said and stabbed the Magypsy. This was quickly followed by the rest of the party surrounding and wailing on Fassad whose screams echoed across the entire map. Any enemies that had not been defeated suddenly got the urge to drop their weapons and run screaming for the hills.
The phone stomper was very quickly defeated, and as the map was a “Defeat the Boss” map, it ended with Ness cradling the remnants of his phone while any surviving enemies succumbed to their urge to drop their weapons and run screaming for the hills.
“I think there’s a phone you can use at the inn a block away,” Paula said.
Ness perked right back up. “Great! Then I can talk to my dad some more!”
Poo slashed at the enemy soldier, seeing that he doubled the enemy and would kill him provided he hit both 80% hits. Unfortunately, the soldier dodged the first, then hit Poo with a 47% chance to actually hit, dealing about half of his HP. Poo did hit the second attack though, ending the combat but with neither dead. Lucas flew over and healed Poo back up to full HP, Poo giving a thumbs up to his friend.
In enemy phase, the soldier attacked Poo again. Poo twirled his sword, ready to finish off the soldier, only for the soldier to score a critical hit off of a 1% chance of actually doing so. “YOU HAVE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!” Ness screamed as Poo faded from existence, cause of death: really really bad RNG.
Lucas just shook his head in disbelief at the turn of events. “This could’ve been prevented in so many different ways…” he muttered.
“Tell me about it,” Jeff groaned as Ness reset the level. Their next time through went well, except Boney ended up being attacked by three enemies and despite only having a 58% chance of being hit each time, he got hit all three times and died (except not really, as the game made it clear Boney retreated. Remember readers, killing dogs is bad), forcing another reset. The third time, Jeff missed an attack against an enemy that went and promptly killed Paula.
“This level isn’t even that hard,” Ness hissed, holding his head with both of his hands as they prepared for the fourth time. “Why is everything going wrong with this level? All it would’ve taken was Poo not being crit…”
Jeff and Paula patted Ness on his back. “We’ll get through it next time,” Paula said.
“Yeah, if it weren’t for RNG, we’d easily be through this already,” Jeff added.
Sure enough, the next time they ran through the level, they cleared it with flying colors with Poo leveling up all his stats no less.
“Okay! Level 17! What’ll you give me?” Kumatora asked as she stared at the stats screen. A second passed, but nothing happened. Then, another second passed. She scowled, tapping the stats screen but it didn’t respond.
“Hey Ness, I think the game’s glitched out on us!” she hollered to their leader five spaces away.
“Oh no, it’s working fine,” Ness said. “It’s rare, but that happens.”
“What do you mean, that happens?” Kumatora began pulling at her hair as she continued. “Seriously, nothing for leveling up?! What kind of shit game design is this?!”
“In their defense, I think Path of Radiance is the only game this can happen in,” Loid said.
Kumatora screamed regardless, making all the enemies quake in their boots as she began tearing them all apart to get to Lv. 18 and get an actually good level up.
As the light faded, Ana had a completely new outfit, complete with flowing robes. Her class changed from Mage to Sage, and her level reset from Lv. 20 to Lv. 1, retaining all of her stats plus gaining even more from the promotion.
“That’s our very first promotion!” Ness cheered, clapping for his friend.
“The first of many, hopefully,” Ninten said, checking their supply for more Master Seals to see how many more promotions they could do. “We only have one more Master Seal, but fortunately this is based on Path of Radiance and everyone can just level up normally to promote. Except for you, Ness.”
“What?! Why not?!”
“Because you’re the main character and your promotion is plot-based,” Ninten explained.
“But… that’s…”
“On the bright side, your promotion is during a very cool moment,” Ninten added, trying to comfort their leader.
“But I’m Level 19 already! How many chapters until I promote?”
“Uh, I think… three.”
“…So, once I level up, I’m basically useless for three chapters.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll still be our fearless leader.” Ana padded him on the shoulder.
“Don’t patronize me!” Ness growled, swatting Ana’s hand away and stalking off, Ninten and Ana looking at each other.
“…Wanna do our B-Support now?” Ana asked.
“Sure,” Ninten replied, triggering a short conversation where their support with each other ranked up from C to B, giving them even more bonus stats when they were in combat close to each other.
During the following three chapters, every character that they were using promoted either by Master Seal or by level up except for Ness, tapping his foot and pouting all the while once he became Lv. 20. That is, until the President of Eagleland granted Ness his promotion, giving him a brand-new outfit plus even more stats.
“Was that worth the wait?” Ninten asked.
Ness nodded, grinning. “Hell yeah,” he answered.
After Ninten was promoted, he spent his entire time tearing apart enemies left and right as a Halberdier and was still doing so, also aided by his B-Support with Ana. This last turn, he killed two enemies and baited a third and fourth safely. Three more enemies spawned nearby as reinforcements. He smirked, readying his lance to tear through some more-
Then he doubled over, falling to his knees and wheezing as he realized that, for some reason, asthma attacks were a mechanic in this game. Despite not being a thing in any Fire Emblem game.
“Come on… really?” he groaned as he fumbled for his inhaler. “Why’d… you have… to carry… that over… from Earthbound?” He started to use his inhaler, but he still lost his turn.
“Oh no! Ninten needs help!” Ana called.
“Wait, no! He’s fine,” Ness said.
Lucas tried to swipe the controller from Ness and failed. “If you’re trying to repeat your stunt at the port chapter-”
“No, look at his defense and HP!” Ness pulled up Ninten’s stats. “And look! The enemy just has one swordmaster and four unpromoted units. Look at their stats!” He pulled up their stat screens to emphasize his point.
“…Oh.”
“Yeah, so he’ll be a-okay!” Ness gave a thumbs up. “He won’t be able to counterattack, but he’ll bait the reinforcements right to us!”
Sure enough, Ninten was swarmed by five enemies. He took 24 damage, but given his HP was at 44 before, he survived safely. Fully recovered, he took vengeance on one of them while the rest of the team picked off the rest, Jeff and Boney each gaining a level in the process.
With the danger now over, Ninten scowled at Ness. “Couldn’t you have at least had Jeff snipe one of them? He would’ve survived.”
Ness shrugged. “More efficient to heal just one person,” he said.
Ninten grumbled, but couldn’t argue with that logic. He had to admit Ness was actually improving as time went on, which considering earlier incidents (*cough*Giegue*cough*) was impressive.
“I thought Jeigans were supposed to fall off,” Loid said.
“They are,” Lucas replied.
“So why is Flint… doing that?” Loid pointed at Flint, who was just finishing killing an enemy sage. After killing an enemy paladin and a swordmaster immediately before.
“Because Flint actually has good growth rates to keep up with the rest of us,” Ninten said. “Some Jeigans are like that. Those that do tend to be pretty overpowered, though they may still fall off at the very end of the game.”
“Oh. So will Flint-”
“Only time will tell.”
A moment passed.
Lucas spoke up again. “So, is there any way Dad could be even better than he is?”
“Yeah, make him a Wyvern Lord. That’ll pretty much break the game in half right there.”
“…Can I tell you something?” Loid asked Ninten.
“Yeah?”
“I’m very glad Ness suicided you into Giegue.”
Duster, Lucas, Kumatora, and Lighter all had to restrain Ninten from stabbing Loid on the spot.
Ness shook his head. “Okay Pippi, you’re our Est, so you’ve joined rather… late. You’re a Level 15 fighter at a time when everyone else is at least Level 5 Promoted. So, you have at least ten levels to make up.”
“Don’t worry! I’ll do my best!” Pippi cheerfully said.
“Oh, I have no doubt about that, but I have a better idea…” Ness pulled up the Bonus EXP menu, left untouched for this very moment. “Time to catch you right up!” he cackled, leveling up Pippi five times before tossing her a Master Seal, which meant that Pippi was now a Level 1 Warrior, and Ness wasn’t done. “Have some more!”
At the end of all that, Pippi walked away as a Level 6 Warrior, beaming that she was going to be included in the permanent team (unlike her origin game) and that her stats were now higher than many of the other party members to boot. As Ness was basking in his foresight in saving all of that BEXP, Kumatora came up to him.
“So Ness.”
“Yeah?”
Kumatora inhaled. “You just used all of that Bonus EXP we acquired throughout the game to train up Pippi, right?”
“Most of it.”
“Right, so don’t you think you should use the rest of it to level up someone else? Or a couple of someone elses?”
“But what if we need it?”
“Dude, everyone else who’ll join is a pre-promote,” Kumatora said. “They don’t need the extra EXP. We could use it ourselves.”
“But Venus is in this game! What if she’s a secret character? Then we’d have two dancers! That’s worth hoarding the BEXP, right?”
Ninten cleared his throat, entering the conversation. “Okay, first, there’s no way we’d be allowed two dancers at once. That’s just ridiculous, even by FE standards. Second, even if she joined… she’s a dancer. She doesn’t need the extra EXP as she’s never gonna see a fight unless we royally screw up.”
“Okay! Okay! Let’s see…” Ness pulled up the BEXP display. “Looks like we have enough for one level up! In that case, let’s use it on Kumatora then.”
“Sweet!” Kumatora pumped her fist as her level up screen popped up.
…Only for no stats to increase. Again.
“AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
“We should’ve used the Radiant Dawn BEXP system,” Ninten said as Kumatora started trying to strangle Ness.
“Aether!” Ness cried as he threw his sword up in the air, doing a little spin before crashing down in a slash, healing in the process. Then did another slash as he jumped back, killing the enemy.
“Uh, Ness?” Jeff waved to get his attention. “Are you… sure it’s okay for you to use that skill?”
“Of course! Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because Aether’s is Ike’s signature skill,” Jeff pointed out. “We could get sued by Intelligent Systems.”
Ness scoffed. “This entire game is a rip-off of Fire Emblem. I don’t think we’ll be sued over us stealing Aether of all things. For crying out loud, I used Ike’s starting class!”
“But Ike is in Smash Bros. And he’s, like, the most popular character in that franchise? And that’s Ike’s up-b too. I don’t think it’s a good idea to steal that. Can’t you rebrand it as a different attack?”
“No.”
Jeff sighed, pushing his glasses up. “Look, if you come up with a different name-”
“No.”
“-you can still use the same attack, same effect.”
“No.”
“But-”
“Drop it Jeff,” Paula sighed. “No way we can talk Ness out of this now that he thinks this will get more Earthbound characters into Smash Bros.”
“No, it isn’t!”
“Guess you’re right,” Jeff sighed. “I’ll go prepare the paperwork.” With that, he turned around to assemble all the documents for a lawsuit that may or may not come. Best to be prepared.
“So, it’s finally time to recruit Teddy,” Ness grinned. “All right! Let’s do it!”
“Ness, wait!” Ninten called. “The only ones who can recruit Teddy are me or Ana! You won’t be able to!”
“I’m the main lord! There’s no one I can’t recruit by talking to!” Ness said, charging forward.
“That’s a trap! Don’t-”
It was too late. Ness had waltzed up to Teddy while no one else was in range and said, “Hey Teddy, time to join us.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“…Okay, why?”
“Because Ninten or Ana have to talk to me. It’s for my character arc, see?”
“Oh. Then-”
The turn ended and Enemy Phase began, Teddy whacking Ness with his katana, dealing a third of his health in damage.
“OW! What gives?!” Ness exclaimed, whacking Teddy back for a fourth of his health.
Then, because Ness was as slow as a snail (being faithful to Earthbound) and therefore was doubled, Teddy attacked again. Except this was a critical hit which killed Ness.
“Hey! We’re supposed to recruit you! Why’d you do that!?” Ninten demanded as the stage reset.
Teddy shrugged. “Haven’t had my character development yet,” he said.
“Are we sure we can’t kill him for that?” Ness asked. “We lost all that progress!”
“…I did warn you.”
Despite Ness’s rage, this time Ninten talked to Teddy and successfully recruited him, and Teddy promptly dispatched a group of angry wyverns that came in as surprise reinforcements. This earned him a nod of approval from Ness and his forgiveness for his earlier treachery.
Now it was time for the final push, Ness having taken a hit from the ballista as they approached the boss. Checking his PSI meter, he saw it was close to full… but maybe they would need that Life Up Omega for the boss, so he shouldn’t heal using that. Instead, he whipped out the last remaining third of a hamburger from his bag.
"...How long have you had that?" Ninten warily asked.
"The past five chapters," Ness answered.
"...You've had that burger in your bag, with one use left, for the past five chapters?"
"...Yes."
“Gross."
“Don’t judge! This really is the last use of this thing!” Ness huffed, eating it as Ninten made sure to look at anything other than Ness. Poor Ana felt faint as their leader scarfed it down, averting her gaze and shaking her head to try and fight the queasiness.
Only for a ballista to hit her. Not only that, said hit was a critical hit which killed her.
“They can crit!?” Lucas exclaimed, being very thankful he stayed out of range due to fliers’ vulnerability to arrows.
“All right, then we must avenge her! …After we reset,” Ness chuckled at Ninten’s glare.
“Good, ‘cause I’m not losing my A-Support with her,” Ninten said.
The stage reset, and the cutscene played once more which was essentially the boss going “na-na-na boo-boo!” and everyone was ready to receive their orders.
“Hold on, just a second,” Ninten interrupted. “Can I see your bag, Ness?”
“Sure. What are you looking for?”
“This!” Ninten held up the last third of the burger, back in Ness's bag due to the reset.
“No wait!” Ninten ignored Ness’s protest and hurled the burger over the side of the bridge they were on right into the water with a splash.
“Dude! You just contaminated the river!” Teddy shouted.
“No I didn’t! It was already polluted!” Ninten shouted back.
“My burger…” Ness moaned, slumping against the railing.
Ninten sighed, reaching into his own bag. “Look, just take this.” He held out a fresh hamburger to Ness. “I bought it just now, so it’s fresh unlike that… thing.”
“Food poisoning is not a thing in Fire Emblem,” Ness protested, but accepted the new hamburger anyway.
“Also, here.” Ninten proceeded to thrust three speedwings into Ness’s hands. “You being outrun by snails is becoming a problem. Eat those so you stop getting doubled.”
“No.”
“No!? Why not?”
“You threw my burger away.”
Ninten’s eye twitched. “Okay, that’s it! Coup time everyone!”
“No! Wait!”
The entire enemy army watched in bemusement and horror as the entire party swarmed a screaming Ness, holding him in place as Ninten force-fed him three speedwings one by one. “Are they really the good guys…?” Teddy wondered, all of a sudden thinking that death might be preferable to… whatever this was.
After the third speedwing was downed, Ness was released, coughing and sputtering as the +6 speed took effect. Everyone began returning to their positions except for Ninten, who reached out a hand. “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“I fucking hate you,” Ness growled, refusing the hand and standing up on his own.
“Payback for Giegue,” Ninten smirked. Ness grumbled but decided to just get on with the map and promptly ordered Ninten alone into range of at least seven enemy units. He felt the glare of just about everyone else on him, but given this was Turn 1 he figured a reset here was perfectly fine. After all, if all of them hit, Ninten would take 73 points of damage where he only had 55 HP. Plenty of room for error!
Except Ninten was only hit three times for 35 points of damage. And because he was equipped with a weapon that could hit ranged units like snipers and sages, all seven units that went at him died. He also leveled up twice from this stunt, which meant Ninten now had a max HP of 57.
Ness grit his teeth as he prepared to order Ninten into range of five more enemies, but he felt Lucas's hand on his shoulder and he knew that if he did that again, he would be overthrown a third time. So, he swallowed his rage and got on with the chapter.
Despite Teddy’s newfound doubts, he still joined the party at Ana’s behest. Everything else went right for the heroes, clearing it with no problems and not a single crit from the ballista.
As much as Ness grumbled about… well, the force-feeding, he had to admit it was nice not being doubled by basically every enemy.
Not that he’d ever admit it to Ninten’s smirking face.
“This is it, Heroes. You shall not leave this room alive,” Giegue said, pointing his sword at Ness.
Ness pointed his baseball bat/sword right back. “Too bad for you, we’re good at not listening to others.” With that, the duel between the three lords and their nemesis began.
“Uh, Ness? Isn’t Eclipse going to be a problem?” Ninten asked, wincing at the memory of being completely overkilled.
“It seems as though his skills this time are Renewal and Luna,” Ness observed from the stats screen, disappointed considering he wanted to see the force-feeder get hilariously obliterated again. “Uh, why’d you nerf yourself?” he asked Giegue.
“Oh, I only get Eclipse in the sequel. I only used it because Ninten went off script,” Giegue answered. “Come on, it was funny, wasn’t it?” he added as Ninten glared at him.
In a rage, Ninten activated his own Luna and hit Giegue, taking out about a third of his health as the skill cut Giegue’s defense in half.
“You were lucky,” Giegue said as he counterattacked, Ninten suffering a little less than half damage. “But this battle is far from over. Think you can activate it again before I kill someone?”
“He doesn’t have to,” Ness said as he activated Aether, taking out another third of Giegue’s health.
Giegue, getting sick of RNG going the Heroes’ way, activated Luna to hit Ness for just over half his health. Fortunately, all those speedwings that got stuffed down Ness’s throat prevented Giegue from doubling him, much to the relief of his two comrades (and to Ness himself whose anger at Ninten faded a bit more). “Now then,” he turned to Lucas. “I can kill either of them if I activate Luna again. Which, thanks to my higher skill stat, I have a higher chance of doing than either of them using their own skills again. Choose now who you will save-”
Lucas cast PK Life Up Omega, using up pretty much his entire PSI Meter in the process.
Giegue stared. “…Or you could do that,” he sighed as Renewal healed Giegue by a measly 6 health. He then attacked Ness given he could do slightly more damage to him, dealing more than a third of Ness’s health while Ness erased everything that Renewal healed Giegue for and a little bit more than that. It was now the Heroes turn again, Giegue bracing himself. He figured with them activating their skills last turn, he’d be able to make it through this next-
Ninten activated Luna again.
“Oh, come on!” Giegue groaned as his health hit zero. “Enjoy this moment… because I will get Nihil in the sequel… to stop your skills from activating like this!” With that, he teleported away in a flash of light.
The three protagonists looked at each other. “That was… rather anticlimactic,” Ninten remarked.
“Yeah, but now we don’t have to be afraid of him ever again!” Ness cheered.
“…Until the sequel,” Lucas said.
Ness cackled. “We are just one chapter away from the end and we just got EVE! How kind of them to give us this ultra-powerful robot right at the finish line! Porky won’t know what hit him!”
Unfortunately, the game had other plans as one look at the map preparations screen had everyone groaning.
“Oh fiddlesticks, she’s a green unit!” Paula groaned.
Sure enough, they could not command EVE. Sure, her stats were high enough that she would probably avoid the pitfall known as Wess’s suicide, but they couldn’t really rely on her help as the whims of AI were mysterious and left the entire cast mystified.
Also, as a green unit, she was an EXP thief so they had to make sure they couldn’t rely on her. At all.
“For the sake of our final level ups, charge!” Ness bellowed, rushing ahead into the gauntlet of enemies and killing five on counterattacks alone, but failing to level up. Everyone else followed suit and formed a wall to stop EVE from advancing forward and stealing their precious EXP. EVE tried to get through, but the sheer mass of bodies clamoring for every level up they could slowed her progress, not that her AI would allow her to give up. But it was no match for the desire for EXP as well as the fact that just about everyone was a juggernaut that ripped through enemies like no tomorrow.
In the chaos, Ness, Ninten, and Pippi finally hit Lv. 20 promoted while Lucas was sitting at Lv. 19. Everyone else was in a range of Lv. 15 to Lv. 19 promoted except for Flint and Kumatora, who were both already maxed out at Lv. 20 prior to the map.
“You brats! You dare defy the will of King Porky?” Porky shouted as his mech was smoking from all the damage it had sustained from the Heroes.
“Yeah! We do!” came the unified reply.
“Well then, there is only one thing left to do…”
“What’s that? Flee into the Absolutely Safe Capsule?” Kumatora sneered.
Porky chuckled. “No, no. You see, this is a bit of a Fire Emblem tradition too!” With that, his machine started glowing and it leaped into the wall, plugging into it. “Now you’ll witness true power!” he cackled, as the castle walls started shifting around, coalescing around the mech into…
“A dragon!?” Lucas exclaimed.
Sure enough, it was the stereotypical final boss of a Fire Emblem game: a dragon, towering over them but still somehow only taking up one grid space on the map. Porky’s cackle echoed through the mouth of the dragon.
“How are we supposed to defeat that?!” Teddy asked, putting the common sentiment of the army out in full view. It was so massive and so… seemingly impervious to their weapons.
Ness, now rather nervous, pulled up a stat screen. He blinked, then pulled up another, and when he pulled up a third, he seemed noticeably relaxed.
“This thing’s speed is absolute trash. It can’t oneshot any of us and just about all of us double it in return. Just kill it.”
With that, the Pork Dragon was no match for the combined might of the Heroes and was destroyed in short order, a rather anticlimactic end to all the adventures that led up to this point.
And so, the war ended with the Heroes of Nowhere victorious over the Mad King Porky. The Pigmask Empire was extinguished and the Kingdom of Nowhere was restored, with nary a death thanks to all of their resetting. After some celebrating, the Heroes all went their separate ways… until the sequel came out. Then they all reunited, older, wiser, and even snarkier than before. Except for Flint’s horse, who Flint retired out of respect for her service and replaced her with a wyvern, reclassing from Paladin into Wyvern Lord in the process. This meant that now Flint was by far the best character in the game and Earthbound Emblem: Radiant Flint jokes were a constant throughout the sequel.
And Earthbound did not get any new representation in the Super Smash Bros. series despite Ness's best efforts.