Toon Link had been there for an hour, but he already hated school.
A few days after him, Lucina, and Dark Pit settled into their new temporary home with Peach and Olimar, the kind florist had brought up the idea of signing Toon Link and Dark Pit up for school.
"Sure, it's important that we find everyone we need to, but have you ever thought about what you're going to do after all this is over?" She had explained. "It's very important for you three to get an education if you want to be successful."
Of course, the trio hadn't thought about what they were going to do after they fixed the timeline. Lucina had objected to the idea at first; while she looked just a little too old to attend public schooling, Dark Pit and Toon Link would have plenty of time to sign up at a later date. But for now, they did not have time to go to school when they could be spending those hours of the day searching for the people they needed to find.
"But there's a chance some of the kids at the school might have powers. You said some of the people who were captured were pretty young, right?" Peach was insistent. Dark Pit managed to weasel his way out of going, but a couple of days after the discussion, Toon Link found himself starting his first day of seventh grade.
The classes themselves were alright, aside from the fact that they expected Toon Link to sit completely still and listen to a teacher talk for a prolonged period of time. The boy had stood up to at least stretch his legs at one point during the lesson, and was promptly scolded by the teacher. It left a bitter taste in Toon Link's mouth, but he didn't dwell on it for long.
It was the fact that his friends were here that made his first day of school simultaneously good and absolutely horrible.
Imagine Toon Link's surprise when he walked into his first class, and Ness was sitting right there! Granted, he looked a bit different, as he was shorter and had a red cap sitting on his fluffy black hair, but that boy was still unmistakably Ness! The blonde had wanted to take a seat right next to his friend, but had to settle for a desk in the back row when all the spots had already been taken.
That was alright though, because at lunch not only was Ness there, but so were Lucas, Nana, and Popo! Toon Link wasted no time in sitting himself down at their table, between a brown-haired boy and another with a metallic blue build that he didn't recognize. It was okay that no one remembered him; Toon Link would just have to make friends with them again, and that wasn't going to be hard.
The group of friends, though confused the new kid had insisted on sitting with them, did not reject Toon Link's presence. They did, however, not know what to say to him. So instead of trying to start a conversation, the friendship circle had continued their lunch as normal, wondering if Toon Link would jump in.
"Did you guys see the new episode of Joey 202 last night?" Ness said, which started a whole discussion among the group that left Toon Link unsure of what to do. No, he had not seen the new episode of Joey 202 last night. In fact, he had never even heard of the show to begin with.
The entire lunch period left Toon Link feeling alienated, and he spent the rest of the day subconsciously brewing over those feelings. Sure, he had expected to be a little distant from his friends when he saw them again. After all, he was in a different time now, a time where nobody was supposed to know who he was yet. But Toon Link just hadn't expected the isolation to hurt so much.
"Good afternoon," Olimar greeted as he stepped back into the flower shop that evening. "How was school today?" An innocent question, but it served as a reminder of what had happened, how his friends had practically rejected him.
The little blonde couldn't help it. He started to cry.
Toon Link made sure to get to school early the next day. Sure, the previous day had been a little rough, but he was not going to give up so easily. They were his friends in their timeline, and he was determined to be friends with them in this one, too.
Only a handful of students were in the class when Toon Link walked in, and he was thankful to see that Ness was there, a plethora of empty desks around him. The blonde strolled up to the seat on Ness' right, tapping on the desk lightly to get his attention.
"Huh? Oh, you can sit there if you want, it's not reserved for anybody or anything." Toon Link gladly took the opportunity, and crawled into the desk. The blonde was feeling better about today already, and didn't quite notice the nasty look one kid shot him right before class began.
Lunch did not fare too much better than the day before, as the conversation topic was yet another thing Toon Link knew nothing about, but the friend group had at least smiled and greeted him when he took a seat. It was progress.
He left school that day feeling pretty confident in himself; Toon Link would have his friends back in no time!
"Hey! Link, right? Can I talk to you for a minute?" The boy almost didn't stop when a student tried to wave him over. Toon Link had had a bit of a hard time adjusting to people calling him just "Link," but "Toon Link" had been determined too weird of a name when they registered him for school. Walking over, he was greeted by a sneer from the kid who called him over.
"Who do you think you are?" He sniffed, looking at Toon Link with distaste. When the blonde didn't respond, too confused as to what was going on, the kid only got angrier. "You just got here and already you're latching onto the popular kids. It's sad, really."
What in the world was this guy talking about? Toon Link just shrugged his shoulders. He didn't really understand what popularity had to do with him trying to make friends, but the kid kept rambling.
"And they keep brushing you off, so haven't you gotten the hint yet? They want nothing to do with you, and you're just embarrassing yourself trying to make friends with them. They're jerks, all of them!"
Toon Link frowned, his fists clenched as he vehemently shook his head in rejection to the kid's words. They may not be the exact same people Toon Link knew, but there was no way that his friends could be jerks in any kind of timeline!
"Fine! Don't listen to me!" The kid snarled back, then took a deep breath to try and control his growing anger. "I'm just trying to warn you because I'm sick of seeing you follow them around like a lost little puppy. But if you want to learn things the hard way, be my guest!" With that, he stormed off, leaving Toon Link alone.
"Hey, well if it isn't Snake!" Douglas' booming voice resounded through the bar almost as soon as Snake walked in. The man smiled to his friend as he ordered a beer from the bartender, then made his way over to the booth Douglas was situated in, already halfway through a drink of his own.
"It's been a while since we've had the chance to have a drink together," He said while Snake took a seat. "So how's it been going for you?"
"Ah, it's been ok. Just the same old, same old. How about you?" Snake half-lied. Aside from Samus' disappearance and all the mysteries that came with it, Snake was doing just fine. But he did not want to talk about Samus right now, and he knew Douglas probably didn't want to either. So he left his answer vague.
His friend, thankfully, wasn't bothered by the short answer. "Well it's good to hear you haven't been doing any worse!" The man stopped to take a sip of his drink, and then continued. "As for me, we're looking into this ridiculous case at work. These idiots dressed up in these ridiculous costumes and broke into the art museum; their excuse was that they were trying to hunt down a thief, but no one was there besides them."
Snake mirrored Douglas' action of taking a drink. "What the hell?" He scoffed. "If they knew there was a thief, why didn't they just report it? And why wear costumes? The story doesn't add up."
"You're right, it doesn't add up." The seriousness that found its way into Douglas' voice caused the other man to raise his eyebrows in surprise. "We thought they were drunk at first, and interrogated them, but they only said they didn't actually know there was going to be a thief; it was a lucky guess. No one really believes them, but there also just so happened to be an artifact missing from its exhibit when we caught those kids, and one of them just so happened to have a nasty enough wound on his arm that we had to send him to the hospital."
He leaned forward in his seat. "They were also completely sober when we caught them, but the rest of the officers keep thinking that they must have done something sneaky to pass the sobriety tests."
Douglas returned to the more relaxed position he previously had and sighed. "But I just can't get myself to believe that. I mean, maybe it would make sense, and the one guy who had the bleeding arm might have just cut it on accident, but you can't explain away why that artifact is missing."
"Did you search them?"
"Of course we did! I even got the warrant to check out their dorms. We couldn't find it anywhere and I have a very hard time believing those kids were good enough to slip it under our noses."
Snake hummed in thought. "That is weird." He began, downed the rest of his beer, then continued. "Maybe you should keep an eye on them; you could eventually find more information."
"Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Even if the department closes the case, I'll keep 'em in the corner of my eye." Douglas nodded.
Snake looked down at his watch and stood up. "It's getting late," he said. "I should probably hit the road now, so I'll see you around." With a quick goodbye from Douglas, he strolled out of the bar.
Going down the road, the man thought over the information Douglas had given him, resisting the urge to pull out a cigarette. He'd wanted to quit smoking for some time now, but sometimes it was just too difficult to ignore the insistent nagging of his subconscious when it wanted a smoke. "Ah, screw it." He mumbled, putting one of the sticks between his teeth and lighting it. Tonight was going to be a bit different than the others, and Snake constituted that as enough of a reason to splurge.
Turning the corner of a street, he cracked his knuckles in anticipation.
Hopefully this wouldn't take too long.
Lucario knew what was coming before it struck. The pokémon turned around, its paw meeting a fist and stopping it in its tracks. To the naked eye, Lucario was touching nothing, but it knew better. It sensed this person's aura approaching it long before they decided to make a move.
They must have thought they had the advantage of stealth thanks to their invisibility, but Lucario was prepared.
Another fist came swinging, and it promptly ducked to avoid being slugged in the face. The pokémon jumped backwards, trying to put as much distance between it and the attacker, giving it an opening of about three seconds to form an aura sphere. Lucario did just that. But the limited amount of time it had to form the ball of energy made it small, and the person easily sidestepped when Lucario flung it in their direction.
For a moment, Lucario was confused as to why the sphere didn't hit its mark. The pokémon closed its eyes and concentrated, relying less on its normal vision and more on sensing the other's aura. It realized a second too late that the person had snuck up behind it, and a swift kick landed on Lucario's back.
It growled in pain, but was not defeated just yet. This pokémon prided itself on its strength, something it had earned without the help of a trainer. There was no way it was going to be taken down by some stranger, who more than likely just wanted to rob Lucario. That was strange, because Lucario wasn't carrying anything with it.
Whatever the cause was, it was not as important as what was going to happen because of it. The pokémon stepped back, paying more attention to the movements of the stranger before firing a slightly bigger aura sphere in their direction. It caught the person in the side, causing them to stumble backwards. They cursed in a deep voice as Lucario charged forwards, kicking them in the stomach and sending them further backwards.
The pokémon growled, a warning for the stranger to not get any closer, then made its fatal mistake. It turned its back on its attacker and continued down the street, confident that the person would not try to assault it again.
An invisible force wrapped itself around Lucario's neck, putting the pokémon in a chokehold and forcefully dragging it away.
"It feels like he's just been following us around, and it's starting to get a little creepy." Ness' muffled voice reached Toon Link, causing him to stop just outside the classroom door. Was Ness talking about him? "I mean, he never does or says anything, but he always insists on hanging around us when he can. It's weird."
The hylian's heart sank. They were talking about him. Toon Link had never thought it was weird that he never said anything, but apparently it was the reason he was now having such a hard time getting his friends back.
Instead of entering the classroom, he turned around and went the other way. The thought of going to class suddenly made Toon Link sick.
"I'm not saying that I want him to go away," Ness continued, but Toon Link was already too far away to hear him. "I just wish we could understand him better. I think it'd be nice if we were friends."
With nowhere else to go, Toon Link found himself hiding in a bathroom stall. The teachers would surely catch him if he lingered in the halls or cafeteria, and the nurse would not send him home without any physical ailments, but no one could force him out of here. However, that also meant he had nothing to do but sit on the toilet, and stare at the wall.
Hours passed. He tried to entertain himself by making up games in his head, but for the most part he spent his time contemplating what Ness had said.
Had Toon Link accidently been pushing away the very people he'd been trying to make friends with, all because he didn't like to talk? Sure, he was physically capable of doing so, but that didn't mean he was comfortable with it. Anxiousness twisted his stomach at the thought of choosing between his friends and his comfort zone.
The door opened, two pairs of footsteps clicking against the tiles. "I wish everyone else would see how awful they are," a voice sounded, and Toon Link recognized it as the kid who pulled him aside the other day. Two separate stalls clicked shut, then reopened after a few moments.
"I know, right?" A different voice, presumably the guy's friend, commented over the sound of the sinks running. "The only reason they're popular is because they show off all their dumb powers and people think it's just so cool. Well, I think they're freaks!"
"Exactly! I bet they brag so much because they're afraid of being bullied. It's pretty sad they're not confident enough to be themselves without putting other people down first."
Toon Link was so confused. In the past few days he'd spent around the others, none of them seemed as how those two described them. He had hardly heard talk of superpowers in casual conversation, and he could not recall there ever being a time in which one of them had put down another kid. Did people really think they were bullies?
Ness' words from that morning came back to haunt Toon Link. Were those kids wrong, and just jealous, or was Toon Link wrong, too oblivious to notice anything awful going on?
A bell rang, and he jumped both in surprise and at an idea he regretted not thinking of earlier. Perhaps he could use the passing period crowd as camouflage and sneak out the door? The hylian stood up, stretching his sore legs, and exited the stall. As he did, another person came into the bathroom.
"Huh? Link?" Lucas said. "We were wondering where you went, you weren't at lunch today and Ness said you weren't in class either. Are you feeling sick or something?"
Toon Link froze. Lucas was one of the last people he wanted to be caught by. He almost shook his head, but stopped himself. Ness had said it was weird that he didn't speak. Perhaps if he tried to, he could prove that he wasn't trying to be creepy. "No." The hylian forced the word out of his mouth, and Lucas' eyes widened in surprise.
"You can talk?" Toon Link nodded, still not completely comfortable with using words. "Then, if you don't mind me asking, why haven't you said anything until now?"
He shrugged. It was a vague gesture, and he felt like he should have explained himself, but just saying that one word already felt like more than enough for him. Thankfully, Lucas got the message.
"So, do you just not like to?" He guessed. Toon Link gave him another nod. "That's alright then, you don't have to talk if you don't want to." Relief washed over the hylian, but with it came more confusion.
"I heard Ness say that I was creepy and weird." Once more, he spoke up. It left him feeling very unsettled, but Toon Link didn't quite know how else to get his message across. "Because I don't say anything and follow you guys around." His voice was starting to shake from the nervousness. The boy took deep breaths after his speech, hoping that was the last thing he'd have to say for a long time.
"Oh." Realization hit Lucas like a truck. He looked down, suddenly very interested in the tiled floor. A light blush of embarrassment covered his cheeks. "Did he really say that? Geez," Lucas stumbled over the words, trying to find the right ones to say. "You're not creepy, and you're not weird. It's just, I think it's our fault. We haven't really tried very hard to get to know you better, so when you come up to us, we don't really know what to do or what to say to you. I'm sorry, Link."
The hylian's eyebrows rose. He had assumed he was the one who wasn't trying very hard to communicate, but now Lucas was placing the blame on himself and his friends? The nervousness that had been eating at Toon Link withered away. Perhaps no one had been trying very hard to communicate; but now that both sides recognized the problem, they could fix it.
Lucas continued. "I think it'd be really nice if we could be friends, and I'm sure the others feel the same way, too." A pause. "Hey, do you have anything to do after school? We were gonna go get some ice cream, would you like to come with us?" Toon Link was beaming as he accepted the offer, leaving the bathroom to let Lucas do his business in peace. Having to sit through his last period of the day would be a drag, but the hylian was now too excited to care.
Shout out to all those popular kids who were genuinely nice but I hated them in middle school anyways because I was so focused on stereotypes and being "not like the other girls," lol. Also double shout out to Twilight Joltik for informing me that Ike does, in fact, have a coat of arms. I guess I didn't do my Fire Emblem research right, because I could not find that darned symbol by the time I published Chapter 2. No need to worry though, it's not vital to the story or anything. Thank you for reading!
