Preparation

Lucas couldn't believe what he just did. He's agreed to a bet he knows he's going to lose. He runs back to his and Ness' room and starts grabbing his weapons. He grabs his stick, and Rope Snake and heads out to the training room. Ness catches him on his way out and stops him.

"Hey, what's the rush?"

"I..."

Ness sighs. "No need to tell me; I saw everything. You got yourself in a tight spot and you need help out of it. Well, I'm gonna have to enter the tournament with a sprained ankle... I think I'm in a worse place than you right now."

"But if I lose the bet, he's taking me back home."

"It's only for a week, Lucas. Why are you stressing out so much about this?"

Lucas lowers his head and a single tear slides down his face. He walked into Ness' arms and started talking. "Him and I have been competitive ever since we were babies. He'd always win, and I'd cry about it for a while. The one time I had finally won against him, he just said that he was going easy on me. I want to prove that I can do things like him, and be like everyone else here. I want to be strong like Bowser, brave like Link, and smart like Robin. What do I have that they don't... timidity."

"Luigi struggled his first year here. He's still kind of scared of everything, but he's a great fighter," Ness kisses Lucas' forehead. "just like you are."

Lucas blushes in response to Ness' action. "Thanks for trying to make me feel better, but I really need to get going."

Ness releases Lucas from his arms. "Take me with you. I can coach you over some things, and get you ready for next week."

"But what about you?"

"I can take care of myself. I know my away around stuff. Come on!"

Ness and Lucas make their way to the training room and see that there's no one else in line to use it. They happily enter it and Lucas gets started.

The sandbag comes down and Lucas tries to attack it before it hit the ground. He swung a second too soon and tripped over his own feet and landed on his face.

Lucas gets on his knees and rubs his face with his hand. "Ugh, how am I gonna get this timing thing down? It's impossible!"

"No it's not; you're just anticipating it. Relax your muscles, and watch me do it."

Ness throws down his crutches and limps forward. He hits a big button on the wall, which got rid of the initial sandbag and made another one drop from the ceiling. Ness closed his eyes, and took out his bat and held it firm in his hands. When the sandbag was about to hit the floor, he swung at full power, making it fly across the room. Ness lost his footing and fell over; he laughed at himself.

"See Lucas, if you anticipate it, you'll make yourself vulnerable. Different characters fall at various speeds, so watch who you're fighting. Pikachu won't fall as fast as Mario, so keep track of that, OK?"

"I know what you're saying, but I don't know how to put that in play..."

Ness gets to his feet and limps back to his crutches. He props himself up, and starts going to the door. "Hold on, bud."

Ness exits the training room and comes back with Pit. Lucas starts shaking in place.

"I want you to practice on Pit. I'll set the damage meter so that it resets once it hits 200%."

Once the buttons were pressed, a chime echoed throughout the room. Then, an automated voice rung in their ears.

"Damage meter set."

Lucas turned back to Pit, who waved at him. "You want me to fight him?!"

"Eh... more like 'sparring'. He needs the practice too, so it'll work out great for the both of you."

Pit raises his Palutena bow, and splits it in two. "Come on Lucas, stop wasting time and let's get going already!"

Lucas looks back to the sandbag on the other end of the room behind him. It had disappeared when he turned around, so he was going to turn back to face Pit, but Pit already lunged forward and landed the first attack.

"Get up! There's only a week, and I ain't wasting any of it!"

(I could use a break right about now...)

The two kept sparring with each other for a while. Lucas was slowly getting used to the timing and how his attacks launched Pit across the room. He was ready to cast PK Fire when Ness called their fighting to a halt.

"Alright, that's enough. You've both done very well, so I think you deserve a rest..." Ness closes his eyes and smiles. "and some ice cream."

Lucas' eyes light up and Pit almost squeals. Both of them run out of the room and into the dining hall. Ness goes after them, and laughs when he sees them disappointed.

Pit gets up off the ground. "Where's the ice cream?!"

"If you waited for me, I would've shown you. Now, you have to wait..."

Lucas and Pit go to the table and sit. Lucas kicks his feet against his chair while Pit is scratching his name into the wood. Ness comes back six minutes later with three different popsicles. He got a red one for Lucas, a blue one for Pit, and another blue one for himself. Ness unwrapped his popsicle and put the wrapper on the table. Pit got up and took it off the table and put it in the trash can.

"Ness, why do you get one?"

"Because I'm the one who got them." Ness smiled as he licked the tip of his blue popsicle.

They finished up quickly, since Mario had come in to check on them. Lucas' lips were red, and his face turned the same color when he saw Mario. Ness' lips were blue, along with his tongue, and he waved at the red-clad plumber.

"Hi Mario; we just finished up using the training room, so I got us some treats. I'm assuming lots of people are gonna be using it for a while until it's game day."

Mario looked around the room, then gave a thumbs-up. "OK. You're fine, I'm just making sure no one's cheating."

He leaves, but Lucas turns to Ness with a confused look on his face. "Cheating? People have done that here?"

Pit dropped his popsicle stick on the table. "Only a few have tried, but none of them ended up getting far. They were caught eventually, and they were scolded for it as well. The only ones who have attempted cheating were Dark Pit, the Koopa Kids, Wolf, Wario, and surprisingly... Toon Link."

"How were they punished?"

"I don't remember... Let's not get too into this, OK?"

Ness smiles and heads to the stairs. "Let's focus on training for now, Lucas. Your brother is probably getting ready as well, so I want to make sure you're ready for anything."

Lucas gets up from his chair and hugs Ness. Pit walks back to his room, which left the two boys alone. They stared into each other's eyes, then kissed. They only stayed together for a few seconds, to make sure others didn't see them, then Lucas' cheeks turned red.

"Let's not tell anyone else about this, OK?"

Ness lets out a small laugh. "That was the plan."

Ness took Lucas' hand in his, then they walked back to their room. They decided it was best to relax for the rest of the day, so that's what they did. The silence was much enjoyed.