Author's Notes: Hello, and welcome to my first fic. I began writing this in April 2021, and as you can probably tell by the date of publishing, it took me absolutely forever to finish, mostly because I lost interest in Smash about halfway through its completion. But thankfully, it's finally done now, and I reckon I have a decent enough work for a first story. It's not a fic that I'm all that happy with, but I'm glad that it's a mostly finished product and that I can finally move on to other projects that I'll have more passion for.

Also, of course, I am legally and morally obligated to declare that I own nothing about Smash or any of its featured franchises.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the story. I will see you at the end.

July 27, 2004
Mewtwo's room

"Come on, Kirby! Get 'em!" cried Ness.

"Bowser, you're not really going to let him four-stock you, right?" Roy chimed in. "He's so light and at 120%, he's dead if you just sneeze on him!"

"You're doing great, Kirby!" that was Zelda.

"Don't let him get you off stage, Bowser!" said Pichu teasingly.

Kirby's stubby little hands fiercely darted around his GameCube controller, mashing buttons left and right as he approached his opponent with several rolls. Beside him, sporting a focused yet somewhat hopeless expression, Bowser fought back with a perfectly timed jump to break out of Kirby's back throw.

The two were playing a best-of-5 set on Super Smash Bros. Melee, the video game based on the real-life interdimensional fighting tournament that they participated in. Having split the first four games two apiece, Kirby had taken to absolutely dominating Bowser on the last game on Poké Floats, where he had abused his versatile recovery while edgeguarding Bowser to death multiple times. He now commanded a massive lead, still on his first stock, albeit at 126%, while Bowser was on his fresh final stock. As customary, they sat on the ground in front of Mewtwo's TV, while everyone else seated themselves on the various pieces of furniture: Roy on the recliner, tilted backwards slightly with the leg rest raised to be parallel with the ground; Zelda on the couch, seated upright with her hands clasped in her lap; Mewtwo floating in an upright fetal position above his bed, tail tucked in between his legs and his arms crossed; Ness on the edge of the bed, playing with his yo-yo; and Pichu planted to the ceiling, using his fur like Velcro to keep himself from falling.

These were the seven members of the Low-Tier Clique.

Finally, Bowser managed to land a killing blow on Kirby, catching him off-guard with an emphatic forward smash. In the real world, he pumped his fist in triumph, forgetting that he was still down three stocks to one. Kirby ran up to him and finished him off with a back air, before jumping up from his controller and waving his arms in the air.

"Poyo!" he screamed jollily.

"Yeah Kirby!" Ness screamed back, high-fiving the ball of fluff and helping Kirby up onto the bed, where he immediately rolled onto his back and dozed off.

Bowser shook his head rather disgustedly at his own performance. "Bah. The puff really knew what he was doing, picking Poké Floats as the stage. Any other stage in the game, and I would've won that match!"

He got up from the controller, taking care not to grab it and slam it into the ground, and trudged to the bathroom, content on, er, taking care of business whilst mulling his pathetic loss. Meanwhile, Mewtwo and Roy got up (or got down) from their respective spots and took their places at the controllers.

"Let's go, Mewster. You and me, best of 5."

"I hope you're ready to get your ass creamed, Roy."

"Not this time. I'm not making the same mistake as last time, trying to edgeguard you."

"You realize that doesn't make a difference, right?"

"Oh yes it does!"

"Whatever. Think what you want. I'm still going to win."

"Try me!"

As expected, Roy's relentless approach and combo game was no match for Mewtwo's frame-perfect telekinetic inputs. He wavedashed around Battlefield like a champ, perfectly utilizing double-jump cancelling and his chaingrab combo on Roy. He even managed to cheese Roy – twice – with the Confusion-through-Battlefield glitch. The second game didn't go much better for Roy, who picked Fourside as the stage and got four-stocked after Mewtwo took all of his stocks by getting him off stage and edgeguarding him. The last game was perhaps the most humiliating, as Roy chose Flat Zone as the stage and proceeded to suffer a crushing JV5 defeat, with Mewtwo taking all four of his stocks with back throws near the side blast zones. Mewtwo couldn't resist a witty remark or two about Roy's final game.

"You know, with how easily you fell for my trap again and again, I'd almost have thought you were a level 9 CPU Fox on Jungle Japes."

This, of course, prompted an adverse reaction from Roy, who turned to the side and landed a solid right hook on Mewtwo's cheek, causing the Pokémon to double over. Provoked and rather annoyed, he stood up abruptly and grabbed Roy with his psychokinesis, before proceeding to spin him around wildly.

"Ah! Ah! Hey! I get dizzy easily! Stop! Let me down!"

Mewtwo chuckled and obliged, letting the redhead fall unceremoniously to the ground with a thud. Roy, face the color of Link's tunic, immediately got up and made a beeline for the bathroom.

And then…

"HEY! What are you doing in here, Roy? Can't you see this bathroom's occupied? What do you think you are, a pervert? I'm in the middle of serious business and you just think it a good idea to walk in on me! Oh, boy, you are going to pay for this, you no-good, sword-swinging bastard!"

Forgetting that someone was in the bathroom, Roy immediately jumped back at the sound of Bowser's booming voice, smacking his head on the door frame and getting knocked unconscious by the impact. His eyes rolled back into his head and he fell, knees first, faceplanting on the tiled floor of Mewtwo's bathroom. Suddenly embarrassed, Bowser immediately finished relieving himself as soon as he could, before dragging Roy back into Mewtwo's room and throwing him onto the bed, nearly crushing Kirby in the process.

Pichu and Ness burst into laughter at the sight. Bowser was a complete mess, eyes shrunk to the size of peas, and Roy was out cold with a giant welt on his head.

Zelda giggled lightly, as genuine of a laugh as she could have ever managed. Mewtwo chuckled genially – not a very fitting word to describe him – and Kirby even laughed in his sleep.

This was the typical day for the Low-Tier Clique during the tournament after their Melees and dinner. A gathering in Mewtwo's room, lots of Melee, maybe some card and board games, jokes, plenty of drama, and, most importantly, a sense of safety and camaraderie.

But it hadn't always been this way. In truth, the clique hadn't formed from any shared interests at first. Indeed, it would be quite odd for a group of friends to get together in the interest of safety; but should we look only a little further back in time, we will find that there was a reason why that was.

The Low-Tier Clique was a product of danger. Of scorn, and harassment, and persecution for what? Being bad at fighting? Not having a good moveset? Perhaps being weak-minded or soft-hearted? We might never know why they came about. We only know from where they came.

As all debate and drama in Smash seemingly begins with, so too did the Low-Tier Clique originate…from the tier list.

This is their story.