A Long Way To Go

The doors to the training room slide shut as the sandbag falls from the ceiling. Claus goes to attack it, but Lucas runs after him and tackles him to the ground.

Ness steps forward and shakes his head. "Claus, come on. You can't attack it yet. You have to learn to use my moves first, then you can have your fun."

"But it's right there!"

(Impatient much...) "Just follow my lead, as I've said before."

Ness drops his crutches and takes out his bat. Claus takes a few steps back, but then takes out his stick in response.

"First, I'm gonna have to teach you to swing like me."

"Doesn't Lucas swing practically the same way?"

"Well, sort of... I guess you don't have to do much about the swinging, but it's the damage that you have to adapt to. I'm the slower of the two of us, but I'm the bruiser; I deal more damage than he does. Not to say that he's a bad character, but if he dealt more damage, he'd probably do better."

Lucas doesn't take the insult lightly. "Lots of people like the way I play, Ness. God, after all these years, you still don't accept me for who I am..."

"I do, it's just that I wish I was faster as well. I tend to lag behind the rest of you, and my injury just makes things worse for me."

Claus butts into their conversation. "OK, we need to focus on training. I wanna be ready in time. If I don't know everything, I'm just gonna screw it all up."

"Yeah, sorry about that Claus." Ness brings up a keyboard and presses a few buttons on it. The sandbag teleports in front of him, and Ness prepares to swing.

"Watch the damage meter."

Claus shifts his eyes to the damage meter. Ness swings at full force, and the sandbag goes flying. The damage racks up to 15%.

"Well, I think I did OK..."

"That was impressive, dude, but I can do better!"

Ness laughs it off, then brings the sandbag back over. Claus prepares to swing, but loses his focus when Lucas sneezes. He spun around a few times, then fell to the floor, missing the sandbag. The sandbag fell over anyways.

"Damnit Lucas, you made me mess up my shot!"

"I didn't mean to, Claus."

"Alright you two, break it up. Claus, you can still swing; everyone messes up from time to time. It happens a lot during the tournament. The less experienced players make lots of mistakes, and that's why you learn from them. You take your misfortunes and turn them into something better. Go again."

Claus plants his feet firm, and swings again. The damage didn't go as high as Ness', but it was good enough to pass.

"Good job, bud. Once you learn all my smash attacks, the fun part kicks in; learning everything else."

"I have to learn everything?!"

"Mario did say that learning a new move set takes a long time. Lucas' first appearance was tough on him, since he had never done anything more than follow what the player made him do. There was no animation for him attacking, so doing something new was a bit startling. Once he got the hang of it, he was excited to play again."

Claus rolls his eyes. "Can we keep going?!"

"Calm down, dude. Why are you so impatient, besides the fact that you want to learn the moves..."

"I'm hungry; I haven't eaten since this morning."

"It's only, like, 12:30. We can get stuff."

Lucas leaves to get some food. He comes back with pizza rolls, but they're frozen. Kirby comes in after Lucas and sits down next to Claus.

"Lucas, these aren't cooked."

"Hold on, I'm getting to it."

He brings out paper plates, and gives one to everyone except Kirby. Lucas knows Kirby will just eat the rest of them, so he tells Kirby where there's more food. He leaves, and Lucas takes several out of the bag and places them on everyone's plates. He uses PK Fire, but the plates burn up. The pizza rolls are burnt, and some are on fire.

"Nice going, Lucas, now we have nothing to eat."

"Claus, stop being such a baby. We live in a mansion, of course we have more food to eat... as long as Kirby hasn't eaten it yet..."

Ness takes off his backpack and starts searching through it.

"Ness, what're you doing?"

"I may have some food leftover from my time in Earthbound." He digs his hand deeper into it. "Come on, where is it?"

"How big is your backpack?!"

"I dunno, but it can hold a lot of things. It holds my bat, my yo-yo, and it held a lot of things back then."

Ness smiles once he found the thing he was looking for. He pulled his hand out of his backpack and brought out a pizza. It was missing a few slices, but is otherwise in good shape.

"How the hell did you have a pizza in there?!"

"I needed it at one point, but we only used it once. We can eat it now; it's still warm."

"I've suddenly lost my appetite."

Ness grabs Claus' collar and yanks him close to his face. "Just because it was in my backpack doesn't mean it's dirty. I tend to keep things tidy, and I'm very organized. Either you eat it, or starve."

Ness releases Claus, and the orange-haired boy is deeply disturbed. "I didn't know you were insane... OK, I'll eat the pizza, I just wanted to get a reaction out of you. You didn't have to do that, you know..."

Lucas smiles and grabs the first slice. He is about to take a bite out of it, when he decides to give it to Claus.

"What, you're giving it to me?"

"You said you were hungry, and this is a pretty big slice. I'm letting you have it, since I know how much you love pizza."

Lucas gives a beaming smile to his brother while Claus looks back at the slice, then takes a bite. It's very flavorful, and the mellow warmth makes him feel better. Lucas grabs a smaller slice and begins eating. Ness takes a larger one and wolfs it down.

"Ness, I think you've had enough."

"What?"

Ness has already finished his second slice and goes for a third, but there's only one slice left.

"Let Lucas have it. He's only had one, and he still looks hungry."

"Claus, I'm fine..."

"See, this is your problem! You're not assertive enough; stand up for yourself!"

"But I don't need anymore..."

Ness smiles. "Well, if he doesn't want it, then I'll take it."

He grabs it and it's gone in a flash.

Claus gets to his feet and looks to the sandbag. "I'm gonna get started again."

Lucas lays on the floor. "I'm just gonna lay here. I'm tired."

"You haven't even done anything today, bro."

"Neither have you."

"I've done more than you, though..."

Pit enters the room, and sits down next to Ness. "Tough day, right?"

"You could say that again..."

I barely got through my training with Lady Palutena when all of a sudden, the lights went out at the Battlefield."

"You were training up there?"

"Yeah, but who cut the lights?"

"Someone may be trying to sabotage us... They may be trying to make sure than others have as little time to train as possible."

"That sound rough. I really need time as well..."

"We all do, Pit, but I'm really worried about Claus... He's rushing things too much." Ness sees Lucas and Claus at the other end of the room. Lucas is behind the sandbag and Claus readies to punch. "and Lucas is too afraid to stand up for himself. I fear that both of them are gonna have a hard time in the tournament, but the big question is who is gonna stay in longer?"

Pit gets up and starts leaving. "Well, I just wanted to check on ya, bud. See ya."

"See ya later, Pit." Pit leaves and Ness turns back to them. He puts his hands on the sides of his head and stares at them as Claus punches the sandbag. "What am I gonna do with you guys?"