The walk to Merrysville was largely boring for Ninten, giving him time to think about what had happened with him at Magicant. He still couldn't believe that he had just traveled to a whole other world, the only evidence being the Onyx Hook and ocarina. Ninten was almost tempted to try the curved item to reconfirm his suspicions but decided against it. Even now his thoughts continued to drift to Queen Mary herself, and how desperate she was for Ninten to find all 8 notes to her song. Well, it was a mission Ninten was happy to receive as he now had a solid quest to do and not a vague 'save the world.' He would still try to accomplish that, of course, but one objective seemed easier than the other.

His thoughts were halted by the appearance of wild skunks. Apparently, the news of animals running wild was true and not just contained to Podunk. They nearly sprayed him with their terrible smelling gas if not for Ninten driving them away with swings of his newly healed bat and aluminum bat. Although a much more effective attacking strategy, he wished he had brought a bag to carry things in as his hands were getting tired and his pockets were getting full. Nonetheless, he soldiered on.

His attacking was needed again as two Lil Saucer, the same from Choucream Zoo, swooped down from the trees to attack the preteen. Arming two melee weapons, Ninten was forced into a difficult spot as the tiny UFOs flew up and around his reach, one zapping him with tiny stinging laser beams while the other emitted a red light that seemed to flash over Ninten. Immediately, he felt his mind was scrambled, and he raised a hand to use Lifeup to take away his pain. Instead, the glow that would come from his hand was nowhere to be found, and his brain continued to feel as if it was pushing against a boulder.

Not wanting to feel this feeling any longer and also wanting to not get another hit from those annoying attacks, Ninten turned and fled, the Lil Saucers flying to catch up. Seemed as if whoever made them didn't make them for chasing, as Ninten outsped them as he passed the 'Welcome to Merrysville!' sign just as the passage in his mind broke and his brain felt fine again.

'Healing: Alpha'.

It seemed to have even given him a new ability! His head now clear, Ninten thought again about his abilities. Great-Grandpa George's diary mentioned PSI and PK, so that must be what his powers were called. But why did he have them? The diary said something about files that housed info, and Great-Grandpa George learning some of it. Could it have been passed down?

"I don't think I'm equipped to be talking about something like that." Ninten chuckled to himself, looking up at the town of Merrysville. Just like Podunk, it was established on a Holiday; Thanksgiving. Every year Merrysville was home to the Merrysville Thanksgiving Day Parade, where balloons of various characters flew through the streets. It attracted crowds of people all over the state, over a thousand as Ninten last recalled when he went last year.

He looked around the town, seeing mostly the same sight of people going on about their day, only something seemed off. Maybe it was his new Psychic powers alerting him, but the town had a gloomy feel to it, and all the people who walked the streets and their heads down and were shuffling to seemingly nowhere as if they were walking simply just to walk.

"E-Excuse me." He asked a passing woman, who looked as glum as anyone could be. "But, um, why is everyone down in the dumps all of a sudden? I mean, the sun is shining and all…" The woman stared at him for a second before a smile cracked her lips, leaning forward to pinch his cheeks.

"Aren't you just a little ray of sunshine…to tell you the truth kid, everyone's looking so sad because we all used to work at Sweet's Little Factory. But then, we started getting layoffs, and pay cuts, until the factory shut down for good. Then, Duncan Industries came along and began buying up the town. It's not like it once was, and we also had to start working at Duncan's Factory so it could keep changing the town." she sighed, wanting to get that off her chest for a while. The frown on Ninten grew wider as he heard the story, rubbing his shoulder.

"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry ma'am…I wish I could help."

"Don't you worry about adult things, kid…speaking of, shouldn't you be at school? It's still pretty early, and this town is pretty hard on kids for skipping school." Ninten opened his mouth to explain he got called out but decided not to.

"I should go, wouldn't want to miss class. Have a nice day ma'am!" he called, hurrying to Twinkle Elementary just in front of the town. Ninten figured that since he had the time, he would at least talk to Harry. He might have been a bit of a jerk, and he realized the rest of the baseball team were majorly lame, and maybe Eileen Hartshom wasn't such a babe as the whole school thought she was, but Harry was still his friend, he would listen to Ninten and understand what he was doing. After all, Ninten had been alone for a few hours on his journey, and he wanted some company.

As he opened the school doors and stepped inside, the bell rung loudly, shocking Ninten as he began to shuffle to his next period before realizing what he was doing.

"I'm no longer a slave to the bell." He muttered to himself, walking diligently through the halls. Kids began to call out to him, asking where he had been and why he was absent, but Ninten just avoided the answers, asking where Harry was. Not everybody knew he was on a mission to save the world.

Getting the news that it was lunchtime and Harry was where the baseball team usually sat, Ninten mentally slapped himself before rushing to the cafeteria, skipping the lunch line and skidding to a stop at the lunch table where the baseball team sat.

"Harry! You will not believe the day I have been hav-" he began to say, Harry nearly choking on a french fry as Ninten surprised him.

"God, man. Warn me before you sneak up on me like that! Larson, move, this is my buddy Ninten's spot." Harry said, waving away a left fielder to allow Ninten to sit. Normally he would take a seat without a second thought, but he debated it for a second before accepting the deal, feeling bad for the kid whose spot he'd taken.

"Anyway, where the hell were you, buddy? I thought you had, like, died or something."

"What? N-No, my mom just called me out. Anyway, I have to tell you what happened while I was-"

"Hey, guess what? Eileen was talking about you from yesterday, bro! She's totally into you." the mention of his crush caused ninten to blush before shaking his head.

"R-Really? What did she say?"

"She was just talking about how you looked 'dashing' or whatever when you were up to bat and how much she wants to marry you and have a million babies and smooch all the time." Harry laughed, making a kissy face and moving closer to Ninten. He rolled his eyes and pushed the boy away.

"Get real, Harry."

"Okay that last part I was kidding, but she was talking about you and how she wants to talk to you." at first, Ninten felt his heart race. The girl he and half the school had crushed on for years wanted to talk to him. Him! He could hardly believe his luck…as he remembered what Eileen did to Jesse yesterday. Suddenly she didn't seem so hot and not even cool anymore.

"N-Neat. Cool, yeah…where is she?" he asked, Harry, smiling smugly.

"In the library. She said to let Ninten know she would be there and for you to 'come quick'." Harry noted, wiggling his eyebrows. Ninten nodded dumbly.

'Noted; don't go to the library.' Ninten thought, happy that he was the only one able to use Telepathy. If anyone could read his mind right now, his confusing thoughts would probably make them confused.

"Hey, buddy, you know how yesterday I set off the freak's bottle rocket?"

How could Ninten forget? Lloyd was minding his own business before he got hit with a dose of Harry, and Ninten even helped along. He gulped at the memory.

"Yeah? What about it?"

"Get this, after lunch is science, and it turns out that was that geek's science project! And it fried the principals toupee! Which means he's got detention, AND he's not gonna have a science project later today!" Harry howled with laughter, the other members of the baseball team laughing as well, slapping each other on the back and bumping chests as they laughed and laughed. Ninten was the only one not laughing.

"But…that's…that's-"

"Hilarious, I know! I can't wait to see his face in science class after this, it's gonna be a riot!" Harry giggled, Ninten having a look of shock on his face that nobody noticed.

"...Ll-Lloyd, where is he?" Ninten piped up, standing from the table. Harry blinked at him in confusion, cocking his head.

"...Why do you want to know?" Ninten hadn't thought of that. He needed an excuse, an excuse that wouldn't get him laughed at and get called a Lloyd lover.

"Um…I w-want to, uh…b-beat on him some more…? For f-fun…?" he stammered out, hitting his palm with a fist for emphasis. Harry and the team looked at him blankly, narrowing their eyes so hard he began to sweat.

"...Heh, okay, man. If you wanna know, me and the guys took him up to the rooftop for some 'fresh air'. He should still be enjoying the breeze."

Ninten gave a sigh, glad they fell for the excuse. With a simple thanks, he left the lunchroom, making sure to speedwalk so as to not get called out by a hall monitor. Harry looked at Ninten as he walked away, suddenly feeling not so hungry anymore.

"...Is it just me, guys, or is something off about Ninten…"

Ninten took a breath and blew out. Walking through the halls of his elementary school was normally Ninten's favorite thing to do. All the kids knew him, everybody thought he was cool. But since he get these powers, PSI or whatever they were labeled, he felt changed. The thoughts of everybody at school were now open to him if he so chose, and he decided to listen in.

'Here comes that poser Ninten. He's not even that cool and he still hangs out with Harry.'

'Didn't Ninten get ditched from a baseball game once? I heard it was because Harry was trying to impress the team.'

'Harry took my lunch money, and all Ninten did was watch. What a jerk.'

'Is it just me, or does Ninten kinda look like Luke Skywalker…'

'Eileen is hot and all, but she's never even kissed anyone I don't think. I think she just likes all the attention.'

'There goes Eileen's new target, Ninten. What a shame, poor guy doesn't know what he's in for.'

Ninten decided to stop, clutching his head for a second to collect his thoughts. The use of Telepathy was risky, he knew that. But even still he wanted to use it to catch a glimpse of what people thought of him. He didn't know what he was expecting.

"Harry's still my bud. He's kinda off-putting and hard to get to know, but he's still my best friend." he gulped, climbing the stairs to the next floor.

The second floor of Twinkle Elementary was housed with rows of lockers, one of them being Ninten's, easy to identify by the penguin sticker on it. Ninten had been teased by Harry for weeks for it until he lied that somebody else had put it there, not Ninten.

"I even have to lie about my favorite animal." Ninten grumbled, opening his locker and stashing his wooden bat inside, keeping the aluminum bat with him. He debated putting the ocarina and Onyx Hook inside, but they were too important to get rid of.

"Hey, Ninten! Where were you? I waited in the library forever, I know Harry told you about me!"

Ninten jumped, his locker slamming from a hand that was not his. He turned around coming face-to-face with Eileen Hartshom, her beautiful brown locks getting blown into his face. A blush slowly rose from his cheeks as he backed himself against the locker as far as he could go.

"H-Hey, Eileen. L-Listen, I was going to come see you at the library, I-I just had to…get something first."

Eileen cocked an eyebrow. Usually, boys became a stuttering mess when she talked to them. Heck, Ninten had become one yesterday when she talked to him. But today he seemed flighty and distant, as if he didn't want to talk to her.

"Really? And what was that, 'something?'" she asked, smiling softly. If this was yesterday, Ninten's heart would have jumped out of his chest at that smile. Now he wanted to be miles away from it.

"I, uh, well you see-" he began, trying to duck away from her before a second hand slammed into the lockers, trapping him to face her.

"A-And, I just had things to do, I was sick but not really sick and my mom needed me for something, you know how moms are and…SORRYIHAVETOGO!"

Ninten ducked under Eileen's arms, sprinting away as fast as he can.

"What the-where are you going?" she yelled as he turned a corner.

NInten didn't respond, running and running as fast he could, only stopping when he was sure Eileen wasn't following him. He clutched his chest, breathing hard. It wasn't a case for his inhaler needing to be necessary, but running that much was taxing even for a baseball guy like Ninten.

"Jeez, was she always that scary? It was like I was suffocating under pressure…"

He managed to pick himself up and walk normally, still looking behind his shoulder occasionally in case Eileen was still following him. Thankfully, his walk to the rooftop door wasn't disrupted, but he was blocked by a lock from going up to the school roof.

CRACK!

Or, it would be if not for Ninten destroying the lock with his bat, allowing him to up to the rooftop.

The rooftop of Twinkle Elementary was a known hangout for the kids at school, somewhere to go to listen to music without getting in trouble or to chat about whatever. Nobody was around shockingly, probably because of the lock that once blocked access. Ninten had only been on the rooftop once, but that time it was crowded with other kids. Being alone up here felt great for him to clear his mind and look out over the town.

In fact, he could even see Mt. Itoi in the distance. Yet something was different, and Ninten could nearly sense it. Usually, Mt. Itoi was covered in white clouds that made it look all the more impressive.

Now? Mt. Itoi was covered in dark, murky clouds. So many that you could not see the mountain at all. It even seemed to twist and spiral around the mountain, making Ninten reel back. His brain was almost tugging at the clouds, up where the peak was, where the dark clouds were most prominent.

'That's where…that's where this whole thing is coming from. I just know it. It's all coming from the mountain, then spilling out across the land. If it stayed there for long, it could spread out to the whole world!' he thought, mind racing. He now knew the location of this agent that was causing his home to go mad…and he would have to go there and fight it…alone.

"I'm the only one able to stop it…dad said I was the hero, that I have this power, and I'll have to do it on my own," he mumbled to himself. His breath hitched as he thought about it. He'd have to go find the 8 Melodies, and defeat this enemy…alone. All by himself, wandering the state. Just a kid on his own out to save the world. It made his stomach fill with butterflies.

His mind was so full of worries and thoughts of traveling alone, that Ninten almost didn't hear the soft scrape of metal. He turned to spot a trashcan, slowly making its way towards the door of the rooftop, trying not to alert Ninten.

Ninten slowly walked up to the trashcan, thinking back to what Harry had said.

"Enjoying the breeze…Lloyd? Are you in there." he asked, loud enough for whoever was in the trashcan to hear.

And in fact, the person inside the trashcan did hear, uttering a squeak of shock and jumped, making the trashcan tip over, dumping out a spindly kid only a year younger than Ninten, but probably smarter than him in many ways. His bowl cut had been messed up, now parting in the middle. His glasses had been cracked, his grey hair tussled, and his red T-shirt and black shorts had been stained with whatever gunk was in the trashcan.

"Lloyd! It is you!" Ninten exclaimed, a smile perking his lips as Lloyd looked up.

Lloyd wasn't as happy to see Ninten. He quickly scooted back, raising a hand to protect himself.

"P-Please don't hurt me! Harry already stuffed me in there, he said that was all he was going to do! I even gave him my lunch money, pl-please!" he whimpered, shaking and shivering in fear.

Ninten stepped back, not expecting Lloyd to react like that at all. Ninten had always seen Lloyd scared, and he did his best to look the other way. Now that it was just the two of them alone, and Ninten had nowhere else to look, he felt his stomach drop.

"H-Hey, I'm not gonna hurt you! I just came up here to find you."

Lloyd slowly lowered his hand, reaching up a hand to adjust his glasses.

"Y-You're not?" Ninten smiled and nodded. Lloyd's eyes trailed down further, eyes locked on his bat. He screamed again and backed away.

"T-Then why do you have a bat? Baseball practice isn't until after school! If you're gonna hit me with it, don't break my glasses, They're already broken!" he cried, hugging his torso and shaking again. Glancing down at his bat, Ninten couldn't help but scoff.

"I like baseball! And I'm not gonna hit you with my bat." To prove his point, Ninten dropped the bat, letting it roll to the handrails. Lloyd slowly dropped his arms, sniffing.

"...You're not gonna hit me?"

"No, I'm not. I'm gonna do this." Ninten extended his hand, Lloyd blocking his face expecting a hit. When it didn't come, Lloyd lowered his arms to the outstretched hand, and up to Ninten's smiling face.

Slowly, Lloyd took the hand, letting Ninten help him to his feet.

"W-Wow…thank you."

Lloyd dusted off his clothes, trying to get rid of the trash on his clothes. A banana peel was perched on his head, and Ninten reached up and plucked it off.

"Gross…if you aren't here to pick on me, why are you even up here? You told the principal I set off my bottle rocket and now I have detention for the next week! And that was supposed to be my science project, now I don't have anything!" Lloyd exclaimed, before realizing who he was talking to a shrinking back.

"I know, I know, okay? I want to…"

Ninten struggled to get the words out. He wanted to say what he was thinking, and there was no one up here except him and Lloyd. But all he could think about was how this could hurt him on the social ladder. If anybody found out he had apologized to Lloyd 'The One To Avoid' Yowa, he'll never be let back onto the baseball team, nobody would talk to him. He would be an outcast…alone.

"...I wanted to apologize to you."

Lloyd's eyes widened under his glasses, and he took them off to wipe them before putting them back on.

"Wha-What?"

"I said I want to apologize! Every day, you've been bullied by Harry, and I did nothing to help. I just stood by and watched, and sometimes I even helped! So I'm sorry, I should have said something, or done something to help you. But I didn't, so I'm sorry. That's all I wanted to say." Ninten nearly shouted, sighing after saying all of that. Lloyd looked at him in shock, not knowing how to respond.

"You don't have to accept it." Ninten sighed. He walked over and picked up his bat, walking back to place a hand on the rooftop door.

"All I wanted was to apologize, that's all." he waited for Lloyd to say something, anything. But the bespeckled freckled boy was just looking at Ninten, still seemingly in shock. Sighing, Ninten opened the door to descend into the school.

"W-Wait!" Ninten looked back, Lloyd holding a hand out to stop him. He fumbled with his hands, wondering how to word what he was going to say.

"I-I…don't know if I can forgive you. Every time I saw you, you looked uncomfortable with what was going on. I do believe that you didn't want all that to happen…but you still let it happen, and I got hurt a lot. But, you forgiving me…if anybody heard you say that, you'd become, well, me. A nerd, a geek…a fa-"

"Lloyd, stop." Ninten reached out to lay a hand on Lloyd's shoulder, stopping him from speaking.

"Lloyd, I've seen you give all the correct answers in class. I see you in science class doing everything right. Hell, you made a bottle rocket while everybody else has to buy one! You're not a geek, or a nerd, or that word Harry keeps saying that's really gross. You're smart, everybody else is just jealous of what you do. You're like Doc Brown, I wouldn't be surprised if you made a time machine or something." Ninten exclaimed. Lloyd was slowly blushing, stammering to say something as Ninten complimented him.

"G-Gosh, c'mon, cut it out. Seriously, I'm not that smart."

Lloyd rubbed the back of his head, then blinked as he pulled back a yogurt cup that has been stuck to his head. He groaned as he flicked it away.

"Man, I'm a mess…I have to head home real quick and change." He muttered. Ninten perked up at this, remembering that Lloyd had ended up in a trashcan, from the sounds of it, just for doing nothing.

"I'll come with. I don't want you to get shoved in a locker or anything."

Lloyd's eyebrows rose, as he looked up at Ninten who was slightly taller than him. He was still slightly nervous around him, and he wondered why of all times now he was apologizing. Some part of him even wondered if this was all a trick, and when he walked downstairs everybody would point and laugh. But another part of him outweighed the other, and he felt like he could trust him.

"...S-Sure, if you want." Lloyd shrugged, coming to join Ninten as the pair walked down the steps from the roof to the second floor.

Ninten softly smiled, walking with Lloyd as they descended. He might have to go on the journey alone, but just for right now, he felt happy he could have a temporary companion, just for a little while.