I'm back! Thanks guys for all the reviews and for checking this thing even when it's a year old! Its cause of those I remembered to start back up, Writer's Block hit me big time for 2 months and then everything seemed to jump in front of me, 3 jobs, getting money for school, but I won't bore you with details of my life.
But hey, I've gotten more reading done in that time, and now I've FINALLY gotten off my lazy ass and gonna start working on this damn thing!
Michael DePalma - Once again, thank you for the post, and Thank you indeed for the Full Review, I'm quite glad to see I'm a possible rising star in this section, hopefully I'll get somewhere, assuming I can actually get off my ass and clear some space for this Fic:p Although those are indeed quite a listing of books you've listed for me, I'm more into both the Harry Flashman series (a Historical Fiction) by George MacDonald Fraser, and also into Fantasy Novels myself, Richard A. Knaak. (WARCRAFT RULES!)
Milk Toast – eh?...hmmmmm Well first things first, I'll post it here and see how it goes.
John, Alec, Drew and Goz – Thanks guys! You all reminded my email about it!
Well, time to get this party started and keep them reviews comin!
Disclaimer I do not own Earthbound, if I did, I wouldn't be writing this; I'd be making Earthbound 3:p
Chapter 3: Onett, a Closer Look at the Town that breeds Heroes.
Ness lazily opened one eye, looking around his room.
'Was it all a Dream?' He thought, hoping the fate of the world was indeed not in his young hands, the small blue stone resting on a towel at his desk told him otherwise.
He then recalled earlier that day. As the sun was rising, Ness recalled what Buzz Buzz said.
'You must free us. Do not let us down.'
He was so confused, what could he do?! He was only 16 for God's sake! The biggest worry he had on his mind was passing his Friday test in Biology, getting a Girlfriend, and what to do Saturday. But, oh no! On top of all that, here comes a mystical talking bug from the future, saying, 'By the way, the World is doomed unless you traverse the globe in time to stop it. Oh, and you're the only hope!' Then, to top it all off, he was exhausted. So he decided to finish the easiest problem first, and get some much needed sleep.
The sleep did him more good than he could have imagined. Since saving the world was not your average thing, he decided the whole 'schoolwork/girlfriend/Saturday plans thing' would defiantly be put on the back burner for awhile.
As Ness got up and went about getting himself ready for the day, he recalled hearing something about the only tourist attraction of Onett, Giant Step, had been giving off strange vibes that gave people headaches or some such other thing. He decided that was the best place to start.
Grabbing his pack and cap, Ness stepped outside towards the fresh afternoon air. Onett was not a small town, but neither was it a big city either, it did have enough of it though to be considered 'Civilization'. Ness's house was a few yards or so out of town, but the walk was always nice and scenic. As he rounded the path into town, he noticed the small rooftop peaking out of a group of trees near the town library. He smiled, recalling earlier that week a group of his younger friends from school told him about their secret 'hideout', and was allowing him the privilege of joining their ever growing group. Billy, Ness's 'Number 1 Fan', at least that's what he called himself, asked him to show up later for a special 'surprise'.
'In a little while. First things first, I need to get a map or two for this adventure. Best check out the Town Library for anything.' thought Ness as he walked towards the large brick building in the distance. On his way there, Ness ran into multiple types of beast, from small, violent Garden snakes to more of those crazed strays that hung around the area of his house. Ness had heard about people's complaints about the animals recently becoming far more violent and aggressive to people, but never imagined it to be like this. It took longer than he figured a simple hike to town would take, but with animals attacking him every step of the way, that tended to slow things down to a crawl.
As he walked through the double doors, Ness surveyed the interior of the Library. The outside had the same look as the inside, that being a modern look, the slow hum of the A/C blowing, keeping the area from being stuffy. As he looked across the grand lobby, he noticed a few doors on his right with the Receptionist's Desk located beside them. In front of him was the stairway up to the second floor. Walking towards the desk, Ness noticed the smiling young lady behind it, waiting to answer whatever came her way.
"Hello sir, and welcome to the Onett Public Library, how can I help you?" she asked pleasantly to the 16 year old.
"Yes, I was wondering do you have any maps of the country side of Eagleland? I'll take any you can offer, be it only Onett, Twoson or even Scaraba." asked Ness politely. 'Good lord why I am thinking of going to Scaraba?! I'm getting a little too foolish to think I'm gonna have to travel that far.' thought Ness.
The receptionist looked over Ness for a moment, then replied, "Well Sir we do indeed have maps of every city in Eagleland, however the Country is quite big, and to give you all those would be a bit of a burden, and plus you can't check that all out at once." She stated politely. "Fortunately for you, we've just gotten a CPA in."
Ness looked at the girl blankly, "What would I need an Accountant for? I need a map!"
The receptionist rolled her eyes, "Not that type of CPA you dolt! I'm talking about a Cartographer's Personal Assistant." She produced from beneath the counter a small silver and black hand held computer, in red letters beneath the screen where the words 'Cartographer's Personal Assistant' was written.
"This handy little device has every city map ever done for Eagleland. With the small GPS locator in it, the CPA always knows where you are in terms of cities, and with the stylus on the back, you can zoom in and out of every city, and it will highlight and give details of every shop that is listed. Oh, and should the CLE, that's the Cartographer's League of Eagleland, have missed anything, you also can use the stylus to add your own little marker's and contributions to the CLE. Just click on that area your adding, and write in what you want to add. Since we lend it out to only certain people that request it, its due date isn't like normal books or maps, you can check it out and we don't need it returned until 4 years from now."
"FOUR YEARS!" Ness exclaimed, "Isn't that a bit long for a single item? What if someone decided to steal it?"
"Well sir, as I said, it has a GPS locator in it, but it also has a tracker in it as well. So if someone tried to steal it, we'd know exactly where the CPA was, and could easily track down the thief from there. But also only certain people, such as yourself, ask for multiple maps of Eagleland, so we assume their going on a pretty long journey and will need it for various reasons."
The receptionist then handed Ness the CPA, he thanked her for the handy little item, and left the library. As he turned it over to take the stylus out, Ness noticed on the back of the CPA was scratched a small note with bold letters, '42. Don't Panic.' Puzzled slightly at the weird note, Ness took the stylus out of it's little holder, and clicked on the front monitor, immediately the screen went black, with a minty blue tint around the corners, the words 'Now Loading…' on the bottom right screen. After a few moments, the screen sure enough popped up a map of Onett. Ness also noticed the Drugstore, Restaurants, Hospital and Hotel all had a little box identifying them for him.
'Hmm, the last guy must have set this up for a quick glance.' thought Ness as he continued to fiddle with the different features on the screen. After a few minutes, Ness put the CPA up, and decided to head over to the Drugstore, to get himself properly outfitted for this excursion.
Onett was not a metropolis, in fact most would say it had the look of a small town when you got to City Hall, but it in recent years, more and more people had moved in, and the town was slowly increasing in size, the 2 most recent things that emerged was the Arcade Center, and the just recent construction of the Mach Pizza place. It had a small Hospital, a decent Hotel, with a nice view of the Western Ocean, and the Florblue Drugstore carried everything you needed, from simple Medicine and Food to equipment for the everyday adventurer.
Ness entered the red brick drugstore. The clerk gave him a warm smile and said hello to Ness. As Ness was walking away to check to see what they had in stock, the clerk said, "Hey Ness, we just got in the new HR9 Bat that you asked about a few weeks ago." As he said this, Ness's eyes lit up and he walked back to the counter. "I knew you'd want to know and buy it as soon as possible, so I held one in reserve for you." As he said this, he pulled out a what appeared to be a somewhat sturdy looking bat from beneath the counter, it had the same appearance of his Cracked Bat, the only 2 key differences was that there was a stronger grip holder on the new bat, and also there wasn't a huge frickin crack down the middle of the new one. As Ness inspected the new Bat, he asked the question he was dreading, "How much for it?"
"Well Ness, I know you're a regular customer, and that baseball equipment is your specialty here, but we just got in a new manager, so I'm only able to give you a small discount this time, and I got to charge $48."
Ness grunted in frustration, "Yeah, just as I thought, I don't enough right this minute, but let me go see how much money I can get my dad to move to my account."
Ness then asked to get some change for the phone, and walked over to call his dad. In recent years, the price of the telephones had reached crazed rates, now it had reached the price of a whole dollar, but no one complained for a simple reason, it was a dollar yes, but you could stay on and talk to the person as long as you wanted, and you could call anywhere. A steep price yes, but a worthy price to pay nonetheless.
Ness put in the money and dialed his dad's office. "Ness is that you? Glad that you've decided to call me, I've wanted to talk and take a break anyway! The Stillman case has been driving me nuts! And I thought the Johnson case was bad… Anyway! So what was it you wanted to talk about?"
"Hey dad, well I'm here at the Drugstore, and…"
"Oh! Before you continue, that reminds me that I went and put another $300 in your account. Your mother said something about how you still hadn't come home, and was getting a little worried, so I thought that was one thing I could do, and that you'd call one of us eventually. You always were the smart boy to call one of us to let us know how things are. But at least call your mother, she's probably worried sick. Oh jeez! Here comes the boss, I got to go son, callmelaterwe'lltalksoonbye!!!"
Ness huffed. He didn't even get the chance to add a single sentence in edgewise during that conversation, but then again, it was his father, and things like this were normal. But on the bright side, he did just receive 300 more dollars. 'Man! I can go all out with that!' Ness smiled as he walked over to the ATM and inserted his card. 'You have $330 in your account now. Which would you like?' said the screen as it popped up 2 options, Withdrawal and Deposit. Ness withdrew 130 dollars, and figured it would be enough to get him by for a little while.
Asking to see the bat again, Ness paid the price for the new bat, and asked what types of arm protection they had. The only thing the clerk could help him get was a small cheap bracelet that covered his wrist and a little of his lower forearm. It was made out of some cheap metal that Ness couldn't quite place, but it must have been made quite nicely nonetheless, cause the price was a steep $98!! 'Get by for a LITTLE while indeed.' thought Ness as he handed the Clerk a hundred. He checked his wallet, and had now a total of 4 dollars.
'Well I'm broke again, but at least I'm properly outfitted. Now let's go check the clubhouse, then on to Giant Step!'
Ness walked outside the Drugstore, and headed back towards the direction of the library, taking a left down the dirt path, he noticed a boy standing near a clump of tree lines, looking from left to right, constantly pacing. Ness knew the boy as Tommy, a member of 'The Ness Fan Club' who sort of prided themselves as the Number One fans of the next Major League Baseball player that would be up there with Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. In truth it was actually just a group of 4 boys who had built themselves a Tree House and wanted to form some sort of cool 'club' and decided a local hero to worship. Ness showed up from time to time to talk to the group, mostly to ask them to please stop giving him hero worship, some people saw him as getting a large ego cause of it. Well actually it was only Pokey who thought it, and he had a bigger Ego than Ness anyway, but nonetheless, he bugged Ness CONSTANTLY about it, and he never freaking shut up about it either.
As he arrived at the entrance, Tommy stood at Attention and saluted him as if he was a 4 Star General ready for inspection. Tommy always took his job of 'Look Out' for the Club seriously, as if some higher authority entrusted him with this highly noble position, even though he appointed it to himself cause he thought it was cool. Ness just walked up, rolled his eyes, but saluted him to humor the boy, and proceeded to head to the Tree House.
Ness had to admit, for a bunch of 8 year olds, these boys certainly knew their way around 2 x 4s. The tree house may have had simple living conditions, but the construction was remarkable, every piece fit perfectly, the wood was lacquered, and finely polished. A Table sat in the center of the single room, used for practically every purpose the boys could think of. 2 of them, Wally and Nigel were standing at the side talking about some unknown thing, and in front of Ness stood Billy Huntingsworth, tested number one fan of the greatest baseball batter to come out of Onett, maybe even the world by Billy's standards. The small boy stood at only 4'6 currently, but he'd be sprouting up like a tree in no time, and the large hat nearly covering his head did nothing to help denote his short stature by making him look the part even more. Turning around, Billy noticed finally his idol, and nearly jumped with excitement.
"Ness! YOU CAME BY! I knew you'd show up soon, and I can give you the surprise we got set up for our Hero, it's this!" Billy then turned around and grabbed from a box next to the makeshift table they had, and pulled out a baseball cap, although at a glance it seemed worn and old, it was merely acid washed with an insignia on the front and a signature on the side. As Ness grasped it, he looked at the cap and noticed the signature was of Mr. Baseball himself, the Onett Major League Team Mascot. "It's what we consider an extremely lucky baseball cap since it was the only one he signed on the field and threw into the crowd last year…Tommy got it and said it would help you a whole bunch during your adventures, and Nigel here had this dream you'd be going on a big one soon, so we had to get it to you FAST." Rambled Billy as Ness continued to give the cap a good inspection and then set it to his head size.
"Your right Billy, this is lucky, and I'll be sure to wear it so you all will be with me in spirit on this journey. This is indeed going to be a long one and I'm gonna need all the luck I can get." Ness said as he removed his old cap and put on the new one. 'Not much in difference, but at least the fabric is newer and a bit more resilient' he thought as he waved goodbye to the guys and climbed back down the tree house, hearing their cries of good luck.
Stepping out of the Forest, Ness looked around, to his left and southward was Onett, and to his right was a Northern path to the old shack in the Mountain. The mountain was the former area of a Mining operation, back when a small Silver Mine was found and helped make the town of Onett into a true city, when the mine ran dry, Onett nearly died out, however they found on the top of the mountain an interesting sight, huge chunks of Earth had seemed to be pushed down and around, forming a giant footprint into the Earth, causing a major incident and had multiple Archeologists appear at the site to study it, pushed off as a Hoax, it nonetheless remained a tourist attraction big enough to keep the town's outside sources to save it. Ness himself had never visited it, figuring the vast amount of people too much of a hassle and not 'adventurous' enough for his taste, however with the recent outbreak of headaches near the site, tourism had nearly died out, and Ness saw this as a chance to check the place out. So he took the northern route to the old Shack.
As he reached it, 2 things stood out of place for him, one, the huge glaring 'DO NOT ENTER' sign posted next to the shack, and 2 guys wandering about looking thru the holes in the fence near the shack and trying the door multiple times to open it, but to no avail. They appeared to be some form of clowns, what with the puffy red pants, red hats and white makeup they had on, however they themselves weren't following the old adage to 'Laugh Clown Laugh.'
Ness walked closer to one of the two Clowns and asked him what was wrong and why the shack door was locked.
"Why's it locked? You got me on that kid! I checked with the Mayor of this town and lo and behold some punk gang leader apparently tore up the Traveler's Shack, and what with that and Giant Step causing Financial problems for the city, he decided to lock it up and close off the entire place until the problems are fixed! Now my brother and I have to sleep out in the grass at night freezing our butts off!"
'Hmmm, so Frank tore up the Traveler's Shack….wonder what for, probably just for kicks for his own sense of humor.' Thought Ness, Frank was the leader of the Sharks, a local gang of thugs who had claimed the Arcade for their own, picking on anyone who either wasn't one of their gang, was IN the arcade or near it period, and also just for kicks whenever they felt like it. Although not a superman by any standard, Frank was considered the toughest of the gang and one of the toughest people in Onett, thus he went were he wanted to go and ruled the Sharks with an Iron Fist.
'But what is this about financial problems and fixing it? Sounds like I better do some snooping around City Hall and the Arcade it seems…'
Thanking the man for his time and explanation, Ness turned around and headed back to town, set determination in his eyes to solve this problem, and relief that he had found his first step in walking the path to save the world.