Claus woke up slowly, lying in bed looking at the ceiling for a bit before rolling out of it and grabbing his pajama shirt from under the blankets and pulling it over his head. He looked over at his blonde twin's bed, surprised to see him still sleeping. Lucas usually had Claus beat by an hour at least, and oftentimes two. He must have been up late reading Claus thought to himself, tiptoeing out of their shared room and over to the bathroom across from it. He splashed some water on his face before staring at it in the mirror, checking for rogue blackheads. Him and Lucas looked generally like each other besides their hair colours, though Claus's injuries certainly made him stand out. The obvious was his right arm, or rather lack thereof. What was there ended right about where his elbow would have been, and though Claus often wore shirts with sleeves long enough to obscure the scarred stump arm, he was by no means ashamed or embarrassed by it. At a second glance, you'd notice his shoulders, uneven with his left shoulder noticeably lower than his right. A C-shaped scar spanned from the bridge of his nose to just under his right eye, and the trauma had left his right eye a significantly darker hue of blue than his left, which matched Lucas's sky-blue ones. Despite these lingering scars though Claus was an incredibly confident young man, embracing his notoriety rather than pitying himself. He was rather handsome despite his imperfections, and the girls in Tazmily had certainly taken notice. While Lucas was short, lanky and timid, Claus was a bit taller, rather in shape and boisterous to a fault. Claus traced the scar below his eye with a finger, turning his head left and right to get a full view of his face. He saw nothing of note and took to gelling his hair up for the day. He smiled at himself when he'd finished and made his way upstairs, still in his pyjamas. As he'd expected only Duster was upstairs, fixing himself some eggs on the small gas-lit stove. He turned to face Claus, hearing the creaking floorboards.

"Mornin' Claus, how'd ya sleep?" the man asked, his country accent mingling with a high-pitched, yet gravely voice.

"Like a damn rock Duster" Claus replied, grinning.

"Hey, watch your language kid" Duster warned, his message juxtaposed by the casual tone it was said in. "I don't care, but you know good and well your daddy does". Claus scrunched his nose up in dissatisfaction and shuffled into the kitchen to pour himself some cereal for breakfast. "Say, is Lucas still sleeping?" Duster asked, genuine surprise in his voice.

Claus nodded. "Yeah, least he was when I woke up. Not sure what got into him" he chuckled.

"Any plans today?" Duster asked, plating his eggs and walking over to the small wood coffee table in front of the couch.

"Not really" Claus said shaking his head, "though I'll probably kick around town for a while and meet some people before school starts up. Try not to be at a total disadvantage." Duster nodded his head thoughtfully, pouring copious amounts of hot sauce onto his eggs before tucking in. Claus munched his cereal at the kitchen counter, eating quickly so he could out sooner rather than later. Upon finishing he went back downstairs, finding Lucas still asleep in their shared bedroom. Claus changed into jeans and a striped tee-shirt thats' sleeves covered the end of his right arm; and tied a pair of plain black and white tennis shoes. Before leaving he walked over to Lucas's bed, grabbing his twins' meager sideburns between his thumb and pointer finger and yanking lightly, waking Lucas up almost instantly. "Time to get up kiddo" Claus teased, tousling Lucas's hair playfully.

Lucas swatted his brothers hand away, still bitter about having his hair pulled. "Piss off Claus, what time is it?"

Claus smirked. "It's 9:30 dude, you overslept. You have some crazy late night rendezvous last night or what?"

Lucas reddened a bit, glaring. "No, just couldn't sleep, that's all."

Claus nodded, shaking his head. "Anyways, I'm heading out. Should I wait on you or what?"

"No, you're okay. I'll be a while." Claus replied with a thumbs up, closing their bedroom door on his way out. Lucas rubbed his head when Claus had left, a pronounced bump having emerged since last night.

Ness and Jeff walked together to the park not far from both their houses, both laden with gear. Jeff held a radar gun in his arms, wearing a short-sleeved button up shirt with khaki shorts. Ness wore similar shorts, though pairing it with a striped blue and yellow tee-shirt and carrying a bat and a bucket of baseballs, with more equipment in the knapsack on his back. The two reached their destination, a short dark-haired boy in jean shorts and a blue baseball shirt waiting for them there with a baseball glove.

"Hey Ness, Jeff!" the boy yelled to them excitedly, waving both arms happily. Jeff and Ness smiled at this, waving back.

"How's it hanging Ninten?" Ness yelled back.

Ninten waited for Ness and Jeff to reach him before answering, high fiving both of them. "Just waiting on you bums. Where have you guys been? I've been waiting like twenty minutes."

Jeff looked at Ness, who smiled sheepishly. "Well, we were trying to fast travel here, but couldn't find a good spot. Too many people out today. Eventually decided fuck it and walked."

Ninten shook his head laughing. "That's why you leave early, I didn't have that issue."

"We had a late night last night, swung by Dalaam to check on Poo, hung out there for a while and then Jeff almost killed some kid when we finally came back."

Jeff slugged Ness in the arm spitefully, eliciting a yelp from the raven-haired boy. "You teleported me into him you muttonhead."

Ninten cocked his head curiously. "Who was it? One of the neighborhood guys?"

Ness shook his head. "Nah, it was that new kid you were talking about, Lucas. Really scrawny dude. Even Jeff, weak as he is Borowiecki'd him pretty good."

"Lucas is here already!? That's awesome! We should go see if he wants to join us!"

An unfamiliar voice responded to Ninten, startling the three boys. "He's not much for sports, it'd be a wasted trip." Claus was leaning up against the chain link backstop, hexagon shapes being pressed into his arms. Ness and Jeff's eyes went wide at the sight of the boy, in all his asymmetry and misshapenness, but Ninten seemed relatively unfazed.

"Oh, you must be Claus! Lucas told me a lot about you."

"Did he now? All good things I hope?" Claus walked around the backstop and over to the congregation, Ness and Jeff still looking at Claus's arm, much to his amusement.

Ninten grinned. "Mostly yeah. He said you play baseball?" Ness and Jeff shot looks at Ninten, Ness gesturing non-discreetly at Claus's right arm, trying to silently chastise Ninten for asking. Ninten looked back at him confused."

"Yeah, pretty much all there was to do back where I'm from. I don't hit too good for obvious reasons, but I can pitch as good as anyone."

At this Ness smirked. "Oh yeah? Well I can hit about as well as anyone, so this should be a pretty good matchup."

Claus puffed his chest at the challenge, a grin stretching across his face. "Sounds like a done deal Stripes."

"You can call me Ness, that's Jeff and you've already met Ninten."

Claus thought for a second and shook his head. "Nah, I like Stripes better. Toss me a ball?"

Ness chuckled and tossed a ball underhand to Claus, who snagged it with a calloused hand. The ginger kicked the dirt at the mound a bit, scraping it to his liking before getting set. Ness's batting stance was odd, his feet rather wide and the bat held far higher than most. Claus watched him take a few practice swings as Claus warmed up throwing to Ninten behind the plate, slowly kicking up his speed. After a dozen or so pitches both Ness and Claus were ready and stared each other down for a moment before Claus delivered. Claus put a fair amount of heat on this ball, catching the outside corner of the zone but Ness crushed it easily, lifting it deep into left field. Between the location of the pitch and Ness's abnormal stance he almost looked like he was golfing. The next few pitches went much the same, Ness putting two of them past the outfield fence.

"You're good Claus, but I guess I'm just better!" Ness yelled teasingly, taking a big practice swing.

Claus narrowed his eyes, his competitive nature starting to get the better of him. He took a moment to focus his mind, concentrating on the task at hand. He spun the ball in his hand, feeling the seams. A bit of PSI crackled from his fingertips, eliciting a smirk from the one-armed boy. When both he and Ness were set once more he delivered another pitch, not changing his delivery in any noticeable way, but using a bit of PSI to propel the ball just a bit faster. Ness took a huge cut at the ball but was embarrassingly late, swinging practically as the ball loudly cracked into Ninten's glove.

"God dammit!" Ninten yelled, throwing his glove off and grabbing his hand. "Where did that come from!?" he shook his hand wildly as he asked, trying to get rid of the stinging in his palm.

"Just threw it into second gear I guess" Claus shrugged.

"That's underselling it a bit" Jeff noted, speaking for the first time in quite a while from the dugout. "Your last fastball was 74 miles per hour, that last one was 91."

Both Ness and Ninten's eyes widened at that figure, but Claus silently cursed to himself. Went a little overboard it looks like. Ness dropped the bat and ran over to the mound to high five him, a grin on his face despite just being humiliated.

"That was crazy man, 91 miles per-" As Ness and Claus high fived a crackle of electricity jolted between the two boys fingers, shocking them both, literally and figuratively."

"You've got PSI too?!" they asked at the same time, incredulous.

"Well that explains what you did right there" snickered Ness, feeling a little better about having just whiffed hard.

"Yeah" the redhead replied sheepishly.

"That's awesome dude, Ninten here's got it too, it runs in his family. Crazy right?"

Claus looked at Ninten in surprise. Look's certainly weren't everything (he would know) but he never would have taken Ninten as someone with such extraordinary abilities. He was even shorter than Lucas, though much less wiry in frame. Speaking of Lucas Claus thought to himself, spotting his twin walking down the street that ran by the baseball diamond. "Hey bro!" he yelled, startling a far-off-in-thought Lucas, who waved when he spotted his brother and the other boys. As Lucas walked towards him he noticed that Ness and Jeff from the night previous made up half the party, but the other boy looked like..

"Lucas!" Ninten yelled, waving excitedly.

Ah, that's Ninten alright. Lucas waved back, much less exuberantly. He made his way to the group, standing instinctively next to his brother.

"What's up Luke?" Ness asked, "Long time no see"

Claus was confused. "Huh? How do you know these guys Lucas?" he asked.

"I, er, ran into them yesterday, and got acquainted."

Ness laughed, "Yeah, it was a pretty interesting way to meet someone. I certainly don't recommend trying it, but it wasn't altogether unpleasant, right Luke?"

Speak for yourself Lucas thought to himself, rubbing the back of his head.

"You trying to play some baseball little bro?" Claus asked, putting a teasing lilt in his voice at little bro.

Lucas shot him a look, but said nothing to the teasing. "I'm good for right now, I'll sit and watch though."

"Sweet, back to where we were Stripes?"

"Sounds good to me Clausy."

Claus frowned at this, narrowing his eyes. "You call me that, I bean you." Ness stuck his tongue out and knocked the dirt off his shoes with his bat before stepping back into the batters box. On the bench Lucas sat absent-mindedly, watching a bird hopping around on an oak branch until the loud CRACK of a bat broke the silence. Ness held the pose for a moment, admiring his handiwork. That ball had been killed, and Ness and Claus both knew it. The two boys resumed, their battles being split somewhat evenly now that Claus was using PSI to gain an edge. The whole time though Lucas was watching Ness. He hadn't noticed it last night, largely on account of it being dark, but Ness was incredibly muscular for their age, and though his clothes and hair were a bit disheveled, he largely looked very clean cut. Lucas had never really noticed a guy this way before, and was a bit confused with himself. Still, he could scarcely break his gaze away from the handsome teen.

Though Claus and Ness were too transfixed with their duel, and Jeff was busy clocking pitch speed and exit velocities, Ninten noticed how Lucas's gaze had barely broken from Ness and was puzzled. Is he just spacing out, or is he checking Ness out? Ninten thought to himself, another Claus fastball ringing into his glove. Ness stepped out of the box for a moment to breath, and the instant he did Lucas's eyes snapped away, quickly wandering back to the three he'd been looking at before. Oh yeah, he was checking him out Ninten smiled to himself. Do I tell him Ness doesn't swing that way, or let him figure it out? Ninten was so lost in his own thoughts he hadn't noticed play resume, and caught a baseball square to the sternum, knocking him over.

"Shit dude! Are you good?" Claus yelled worriedly.

"Yeah" Ninten wheezed, coughing a bit as he regained his breath.

"Were you off in dreamland or something man?" Ness teased, kicking Ninten's shoe lightly."

"Er, something like that." Ninten's gaze returned to Claus and the game, stealing one last look to Lucas, who had resumed his fixation.

Finally, a longer chapter. This Chapter and the next were initially going to be combined into one big one, but I decided since the main ideas of both were different, the next is quite kind and I didn't want to have the chapter feel too segmented, I decide to just make it two chapters. Also, this let me upload a bit sooner to keep the upload frequency at least somewhat normal. As always, thanks for reading. Ciao!

PS: adding a note like this one to the authors note isn't ordinarily my style, and it likely won't happen with any regularity. However, I wanted to put this out: I have too much free time, and too few ideas. As much as I'd love to sit down and crank out this entire story in one sitting, my brain won't let me work like that. So, as fun writing practice exercises and also to keep my brain sharp, if anyone of you have requests for relatively simple, T or lower rated Earthbound oneshots, please shoot them to me via PM! Can never go wrong with more Earthbound fanfiction!