Boom! Maxcy Leland is in the house!
I'm sorry this took a while, and it's not as incredible as I wanted it to be. But honestly, these chapters just get too long if I try to fit everything in.
LMK what you think, what you'd like to see in upcoming chapters, etc.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story.
By mid morning, Lucina was exhausted and her stomach was ready to digest itself. Marth fought like a machine, barely pausing between games. They had done Endless Multi-Man brawls for five hours now, with almost no breaks.
"Marth," she gasped. "I need to take a rest."
"Okay," he agreed. "I have two passes for Crazy Orders that I'm going to do. I'll be back in twenty minutes. Why don't you go get yourself something to eat. When you come back, I'll teach how to maximize your Dancing Blade."
"Sounds good. Can I get you anything to eat?"
"No thanks. I fight better on an empty stomach for some reason. I'm weird that way."
Her plan was working quite well so far. Marth was teaching her his best brawling techniques, and then encouraging her to find her own 'sweet spot.' The multi-man brawls were excellent practice, and she noticed that she was improving. Until about two hours ago when her muscles started yelling at her to let up. It had been a struggle to keep up with the more experienced swordsman. But they had garnered quite a large amount of coins, and Lucina had to admit that his goal didn't seem as far-fetched now as when he had first announced it.
"You want to earn how much?!" she had asked in astonishment.
He had repeated the massive figure with some amusement.
"But that's insane. There's no way we can do that in one day."
"We shall see."
And she was seeing. Marth had commented that he was earning thirty percent more than normal with her help. They were a third of the way toward meeting the daily quota.
They reached the goal at 6:30 that evening, with five and a half more hours to go before the stadium closed. Lucina was beat.
"Now what, Marth?"
He looked at her. "You should rest and eat dinner. I'm going to keep on for the rest of the time."
"'Til midnight?" Lucina's eyes widened.
"Sure. That's what I usually do."
"But what about spending time with friends?" It sounded more accusatory than she meant.
His look hardened. "What I'm doing is important, and it's going to take sacrifice. Thanks to your help, I'm going to be able to earn extra today. That'll make it more certain that I can get what I need to by my birthday this September. If this succeeds, everyone will benefit. Especially my friends. You'll see then."
"Okay. Okay." Lucina put up her hands to fend off his angry defense. "I'm just curious. I'm new here. Okay?"
"Yeah. Sorry." He shook his head to clear the stormy emotions that had gathered. "I'm just sick of people getting mad at me for this."
"Can I ask one more question?" She gave him a sideways glance.
He nodded.
"Why does it have to be a secret?"
He shot her a questioning look.
"Ike just seems so upset by this whole thing. I'm wondering why you don't explain to him what's going on."
Marth sighed. "Shall we sit?" He dusted off a place for them on the unused bleachers, turning the back of his glove gray, and they sat down, their sheaths clanging against the long, metal benches.
Lucina watched him finger the handle of his Falchion as he stared at the ground.
"You know that rule about not doing anything out of the ordinary without permission?" he asked quietly.
"Yes," she responded in equally low tones.
"That's because of me. I read in the library about this thing called the internet. I thought it sounded cool, all available knowledge at the touch of a button. With the internet, you can type in almost any question on your computer, and find the answer. I thought we would be able to find out what our other incarnations did in the other worlds." He paused. "And we would have. I started working on setting it up. I told my friends. We were all very excited. Ness and Toon Link especially." He smiled a little bitterly. "They told everyone that we were going to learn everything about our other selves. The Hands found out, and of course they weren't too keen on the idea. They said that what we were kept from knowing was for our good. They tore apart what I'd done so far, took all engineering books out of the library, and grounded me for a month." He turned to look at her. "Don't ever do anything to get you grounded. It's awful. You're not allowed to brawl or talk to anyone. You have to work around the mansion and they only feed you food that you can't stand. For me that was barbecue ribs, pumpernickel bread, and cold broccoli, breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
Lucina whistled softly. "Was it that big of a deal?"
"Yes." He looked back down at the ground. "No one has been punished that harshly before or since. I mean, I understood why it was such a big deal after the Hands explained it to me. Basically they said that there were things about us that Sakurai didn't want to carry over to this world. They said that for all I knew, I might be an evil King who killed Ike's family. Obviously, that would ruin our friendship. So I understood. The punishment wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that everyone was so disappointed. Some people carried it well, but Ness and Toon Link were crushed. They moped around for days. People said it would have been better if I had just kept my mouth shut instead of raising their hopes. I learned my lesson. Master Hand has approved my plan, and no one else needs to know."
Lucina was quiet, watching Marth stare at the dirt, his fingers on his sword now motionless. She could tell that he was seeing all his friends telling him how unhappy he had made them. But she could also see the unhappiness of Ike and Link and Peach and the others at this present coin madness and the secrets behind it. Who was right?
Marth took a deep breath and got to his feet. "Did that answer your question?"
"Yes. Thank you for sharing." Lucina was in no hurry to get up, she had a lot to think about.
"Are you going to eat?" Something in his tone asked her to wait.
"I've got time. Do you want to do another round?"
"If you're up to it, we can do a round of Classic."
"Classic?"
"You don't know what Classic is?" His blue eyes were sparkling with excitement.
She shook her head.
"It's fun. You fight random avatars, and at the end, you fight a Master Hand avatar, and sometimes a Crazy Hand avatar. It's a great way to practice being prepared for anything."
"What's an avatar?" Lucina knitted her brows.
"Oh. It's a computer simulation of a smasher or some other enemy. It's like the person is actually there, I mean they're solid and all, but they can only perform programmed movesets and can only say the programmed taunts and stuff. They can be creepy if you look them in the eyes, but generally you're too busy fighting to notice."
"I'm already creeped out," Lucina laughed nervously.
"It'll be fine," Marth assured. "Do you want to try it?"
"Okay." Lucina nodded slowly. Freaky eyes weren't on her list of things to see, but if Marth wasn't worried, there was no reason for her to be.
She did alright until she was charged by a Robi avatar with blank eyes, looking at her without really seeing her. She stood rooted to the spot with horror. Just in time, Marth stepped between her and the avatar with a counter. That snapped her out of it, and she fought well for the rest of the team battles that allied her with Marth.
That was the first day of her new life. No longer the talks and activities with Peach and her group; she had a mission. No allowing herself to be caught up in conversation with Link or Shulk or any of the more talkative smashers; she needed to stay on track earning coins. No introducing herself to that new kid, Dark Pit. She learned how to maximize her time so as to spend every spare second in the stadium. She and Marth would start together at first, he teaching her his best moves, and then split up. She grew markedly better in brawls. Good. The faster she finished brawls, the more time she would have to spend in the stadium.
At first this life of stiff regiment was hard, but she thrust Chrom to the front of her thoughts and kept at it. After a week and a half, Marth's life had become her life. His madness and obsession had become her madness and obsession. The self-discipline came as naturally as breathing. She helped Marth carry the gold to his room every evening, and she got to see for herself how steadily they were approaching the goal, and her opportunity to ask for Marth's help. Though Chrom was still the object of her labor, she felt curiosity about Marth's secret growing stronger in her every day.
Lucina knew subconsciously that her friends were upset at this change in her, but she also knew that once they met Chrom, they would see that she had been right. Right now she couldn't worry about them, she needed to do everything in her power to help Marth.
So it was only natural that when Ness pleaded with Marth to play Monopoly with him one evening, Lucina cut in with, "I'll play with you, Ness. Marth needs to be somewhere."
Ness's head drooped a little, but he put on a smile. "Okay. I like the car, but you can be the car if you want."
"I like the thimble," she responded. Ness ran to set up the board, and Lucina exchanged a wink with Marth before heading for the game lounge.
It was quiet in there. Quiet and relaxing. She hadn't realized how long it had been since she had last relaxed. Robi and his gang were playing their eternal game of cards, seated around one end of the pool table. In the corner by the grandfather clock, Ike and Sheik were playing a silent game of chess. Somehow Link had convinced Peach to let him join her group in a game of Uno, and he was now arguing with Zelda about whose turn it was. (Apparently too many 'reverse' cards had been played.) Gannondorf, unable to concentrate on his cards, was shooting murderous looks at the back of Link's head.
Lucina was impressed with how quickly Ness set up Monopoly on a low coffee table. She sat cross-legged on the carpet, and he knelt across the board from her. They rolled to see who would go first and began.
Lucina had never played to lose before. It took a lot of mental effort to make choices that wouldn't give away her intention of finishing as quickly as possible and heading to the stadium. She was doing markedly worse than Ness who was trying to be encouraging, when from behind her Robi said, "Lucina, why are you trying to lose? There's no need to go easy on Ness. Or is there something else you would rather be doing?"
Lucina flushed scarlet and leapt to her feet, whirling to face the tactician. "I don't want to buy Waterworks, Ness never lands on it. I'm saving for Park Place."
"Ness hasn't landed on Park Place yet either," Robi remarked cooly, laying the jack of spades on the table. "Besides, that's only half the consideration. You know that you should buy what you land on frequently, no matter about Ness. Not to mention, you have enough to buy both properties right now."
"Well I won't at the rate I'm going," Lucina replied weakly.
"That's your own fault. If you don't want to play, then don't. But don't fake it." He collected the cards the others had laid. "You're all out of trump, fellows? Then it looks like I've got the rest of this hand." He smiled and revealed the queen, king, and ace of spades.
Lucina slowly turned back to Ness who was staring at her with a trembling lower lip. In a sudden movement he pushed the board off the table and ran from the room.
Lucina jumped over the table and ran after him into the hall. He was fast, but she was faster. "Ness!" she called. He sped up and she also lengthened her strides. She caught his shoulder and spun him around. "Ness. You will talk this through with me."
He tightened his mouth and looked past her shoulder with strangely bright eyes.
"Ness!" She was desperate. "I'm sorry. What I did was wrong. I have a lot going on, and Monopoly just didn't seem that important." She tried to catch his eye and failed. "I guess I factored you out of the equation. You are important, and I missed that. I'm sorry." She let go of his shoulder and waited.
"Robi was right." He kept looking past her shoulder and his voice was tight. "If you don't want to play, then don't. But faking it just makes it hurt worse. Marth doesn't want to play with me anymore, but at least he doesn't lie to me." Twin tears rolled down his cheeks.
"Ness." Lucina started crying too. "Can we start the game over and play it right this time?"
He shook his head. "I don't feel like Monopoly anymore. I don't have friends who like what I like. Fine."
"What about Toon?"
"He doesn't like what I like." Ness turned and walked stiffly away.
Lucina dreaded walking back into the lounge where Robi would silently flaunt his victory. She did it anyway, woodenly picking up the scattered money, Chance and Community Chest cards, dice, and metal pawns. She barely heard when Link and Zelda got into another argument.
How could everything have gone so wrong so fast? Being an enemy of Robi was one thing. Being an enemy of a sweet little kid like Ness... Why had she been fake? She had wanted to hurry and earn coins so that she could ask Marth to help Chrom. That was important. That was good. So why was this happening?
Her thoughts were interrupted by a cry of protest from Link. She glanced over and saw that Gannondorf had snatched away Link's hat. She assumed that the hat was pretty important to Link, because he wore all the time. Even when he had changed out of his brawling outfit and was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, like now.
"What's the big idea, Gannon?" he demanded, springing to his feet.
"Listen, Greenie. For once in your life, admit that Zelda is right."
"Greenie?! I'll have you know that everyone who sees my tunic knows that beneath it beats the heart of the Hero of Hyrule."
"But here you're just one of the lower tiered smashers," Robi noted from across the room.
"Well some of us don't have to rely on magic in order to smash," Link retorted.
"Tsk, tsk." Robi shook his head. "Don't you think it's stooping a little low for you to dis Zelda like that?"
Link blanched. Snatching his hat from Gannondorf, he hurried from the room. Lucina finished putting away Monopoly and left as well. She knew that Marth wouldn't expect her for a while yet. Monopoly was a long game. But she needed some sort of action to take her mind off her troubles. She didn't want Marth to find out what had gone on between her and Ness, so that ruled out the stadium for now. Her wanderings brought her outside into the gardens. It was twilight and a cool breeze was blowing. She walked into one of the mazes and tried to lose herself in the twists and turns. It was going well, and she ran into Dark Pit.
He was sitting on the ground in one of the side niches, his knees pulled up to his chin, encircled by his arms. He got quickly to his feet when he saw her and offered a nervous smile. "You're Lucina, right? The one who likes to bake?"
"That's me," she agreed, smiling warmly. "I'm surprised you actually read the bios. I've never gotten around to it."
"Oh. Yeah, well, I wanted to see if there was anyone who wanted to try being friends with a nerd. I struck out on the guy I thought would click with me for sure."
Lucina recalled seeing Pit yell at this new guy and stalk off. "Pit?"
He nodded. "He said that if I thought I could worm my way in and replace him, I was wrong. So I read everyone's bios to see if anything looked promising. I've struck out several more times since then. They all seem suspicious of me for some reason."
Lucina laughed. "You have to admit, you do look like an evil Pit."
He laughed too. "Hey. That rhymed."
She giggled. "So what do you like to do for fun?"
"I like sports. Soccer's my favorite. What do you do in your spare time?"
"Spare time?" she repeated blankly. "It's been like two weeks since I had any spare time. I've been helping Marth save up coins for a plan that may or may not work. It takes every spare moment."
He raised his eyebrows. "Sounds intense."
"It is. He's only letting me help because I convinced him that he should take the money in return for teaching me how to brawl better."
"Why are you doing it? Are you and Marth together?"
Lucina blushed. "N-no. Not at all. I just have a problem that I need his help with, and if I can get him what he wants, then he can give his undivided attention to my issue."
"He didn't sound like the type of person that has to be bribed to help. In his bio, I mean."
"No. He's nice. I just want to make sure that he isn't distracted when he's trying to help me. It's a tricky problem that needs a dedicated brain. Besides, we're only a little over a month away from reaching goal. We'll be ahead of schedule too."
Dark Pit shrugged. "Sounds good then. Are stadium games fun?"
"Uh-huh," Lucina nodded. "Check them out if you're bored. You can nearly always find me or Marth there. I should actually be heading there now," she noted.
"Then I won't keep you," he responded pleasantly.
"Thanks. See you around." She turned to go, then remembered something and turned back. "Do you have a nickname? Dark Pit is kinda long."
"Friends give nicknames." The unsaid "And I don't have any friends" hung in the air.
"How about Dip?"
"Fine by me." It was too dark to see his face now, but she could tell by his voice that he was smiling.
A friend lost and a friend made, she thought. I'm at zero, but it's better than negative one.
She ran into Link on the way to the stadium. He smiled in greeting, but he looked miserable.
"Robi?" she asked.
"I forgot, you were there," he answered tonelessly.
"He got me too, you know."
"You don't dream about Ness at night."
"Zelda?"
He nodded mutely. "I'm always nice to her, but she never seems to get the hint. Or maybe she just doesn't want to. Maybe I'm too argumentative for her. Or maybe I do too many card tricks. Whenever she's upset, Peach and Samus give me these fierce looks and then gesture at her with their heads. I'm like, 'Okay. I get it. I'm the reason she's upset and I'd better stay away.'"
Lucina burst out laughing. "Link, you are the most clueless guy I have ever met."
He glared at her. "I wasn't asking for more mockery."
"I was wondering what your problem was, cuz I've noticed those looks they give you too. They're signaling to you to go talk to her and comfort her, you moron. I'll bet she's liked you back this whole time, she's just waiting for you to make the first move and pursue her."
"Are you serious?!" He stared at her, wide-eyed. "And all this time... I've got some planning to do." He started backing away in the direction of the male quarters. "I will think of the perfect way to ask her on the perfect date." He turned and started to run down the hall. "Thank you for your help!"
Lost a friend. Gained a friend. Helped a friend. Lucina smiled.
Again, sorry that it's not incredible, but I just couldn't fit it all in one chapter. I tried to give some stuff to look forward too, and I dropped a hint about what Marth is saving for.
Please review! I love hearing what y'all think. :)
