It all started on that fateful night. A meteorite had just crashed into the Earth…
knock knock knock
"Ugh," groaned Tracy, stumbling out of her room. "What an annoying knock. Ness, will you go see who that is?"
My friend Pokey had been to see the meteorite, but seemed to have left his younger brother Picky there…
"Ya gotta help me, Ness!" Pokey pleaded. "My parents will be back any time, and if we're not back I'm really gonna get it."
When we got to the meteorite, however…
"A bee I am…not," said the small bee-like thing that had flown out of the meteorite. "I am called Buzz Buzz. I come from ten years in the future, where all is devastation. Giygas, the Universal Cosmic Destroyer, has sent all to the horror of eternal darkness.
It was then that I learned who I really am…
"There is a prophecy," continued Buzz Buzz. "That proclaims that three boys and a girl shall defeat Giygas."
Who we all really are…
"And one of those boys…"
We are the Chosen Four…
"…Is you, Ness!"
We are the earthbound ones.
A breeze blew across Ness's face as his hometown of Onett faded behind the trees of the southern forest. He glanced back at it longingly. The past two days had been like something out of a dream. He had single-handedly defeated the Sharks, the local ruffians. Not only that, but he had accomplished the first goal on his mission: claiming the Giant Step as his own.
Ness sighed and reached into his backpack. He pulled out a small, blue stone and held it to his forehead. Concentrating on it, he heard nine notes of a melody resonate in his head. This was what he needed to remind himself that this was real. He had already done that three more times this morning.
In an unfortunate misunderstanding, Buzz Buzz had been swatted out of the air like a common housefly. And as Ness stepped into Downtown Onett, it was easy to pretend that the whole thing had been a bad dream. Forcing the Sharks to reform and making the police calm down had been a bit different. Sort of like a movie, where a local boy solves the threats facing the town and becomes a hero.
Ness looked at a distant hill that towered over the trees towards his unseen home. "Home…" he thought. "Isn't this the part of the movie where the hero goes home and lives happily ever after?" Ness longed more than anything to return home and live a normal life with the added benefit of his peers' admiration. But there was one thing standing in his way.
He looked down at a healed bruise on his leg. It was a rapidly fading souvenir of his time with Buzz Buzz. A horrid robot, calling itself Starman Jr., had attacked them. Though mechanical, it sent a barrage of PSI to destroy him and his friends. Only Buzz Buzz's protective PSI had saved them. No matter how hard he tried, Ness would never be able to forget that. Whenever his will failed, an image of the Starman's expressionless face prompted him to action.
But that wasn't the only thing that motivated him. "That dream…". Only last night, his dreams had been pervaded by a surreal voice. A girl, calling him for assistance from a distant place. Most of him thought it was just a dream brought on by stress. But part of him knew that he could never ignore a plea for help, imagined or otherwise.
"Paula…" he said aloud, letting the name roll off his tongue. That was the name the girl had given herself. "I wonder if she's the girl who's supposed to join me? In any case, that's the only lead I have, so…"
Ness turned his back on Onett and began walking forward. His journey was a more or less silent one. He thought he saw a few mushrooms moving, but decided it was his imagination. In only a half an hour, he found himself standing on the outskirts of the city of Twoson.
"Well…" he began, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. "Here goes nothing!"