December 25, 2002
Ness's room

How? How could things have gone so wrong?

Ness lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. His room was pitch black; he'd turned all the lights off and, other than the celebrations faintly going on in the cafeteria, it was dead silent. Perfect for his mood.

He could hear the sounds of the party all the way from his room – laughter, the clinking of wine glasses, Christmas classics both secular and religious playing on the speaker. Those were the sounds of happiness. Of people celebrating the end of Advent, and the beginning of 12 happy days of Christmas. Of gifts, joy, and a brand new year waiting for them.

And they've earned it. They fought well enough to deserve the honor, he thought bitterly. Not like me.

23rd. Twenty-third. The tier list had been out for nearly 3 weeks. Yet he still couldn't come close to making sense of that number.

He remembered the first tournament well. He remembered the way spectators booed him mercilessly whenever he lost a stock. He remembered the overwhelming urge he'd felt to quit Smash and hide away for all eternity. He remembered all those nights he spent losing sleep and crying into his pillow in anguish. He remembered it all. The backlash had been nothing short of devastating.

But this…this was much, much worse.

All of his hard work to become a better Smasher? All of the promises he'd kept to himself that he'd move out of low tier someday? All of the suffering he'd endured that he believed would make him stronger? Useless. Just like him.

And it wouldn't have been so bad had things gone more similarly to how they'd been in the first tournament. His friends were there to support him, and the other Smashers made sure not to make his life any more miserable than it needed to be, allowing him the environment he needed to work hard and reap the rewards. But somehow, all of that had changed this tournament, and for the life of him he couldn't understand why.

It all started the day the tier list was revealed. He'd slept in that morning, having stayed up the previous night beating Event 51 in Super Smash Bros. Melee on the hardest difficulty. He'd gone to bed feeling good about himself, and slept contently with a smile on his face.

He didn't know that would be the last time he'd be happy for quite a while.

As soon as he'd so much as set foot in the cafeteria with Kirby and Pichu, he was met with a pie to the face, courtesy of Ganondorf. Ness and his friends hadn't known their rankings at the time; they'd passed right by the paper in the lobby, hoping to wait until after breakfast to see the results together. But even as the pie hit his face and splattered all over his clothes, he could just sense something was wrong. And behind him, Kirby and Pichu both took pies to their faces as well, these ones thrown by Marth and Falco, respectively.

But that wasn't all, because something else happened right after. Along came Fox and Captain Falcon, who'd been nice enough to him while he was being trashed on during the first tournament. Ness's eyes lit up when he saw them, grateful for their timely intervention…

…until Fox grabbed him roughly and threw him out of the cafeteria along with Kirby and Pichu.

"Sorry, guys. We don't allow low-tiers in here anymore," he said simply, shrugging his shoulders with a deadpan expression on his face.

Then Captain Falcon jumped in, pointing his finger at them with a cross expression on his face. "If you want some food, why don't you get out of here and wait until we're finished?"

It took a while for Ness to register what those words meant. Had they really just…called him a low-tier? In a derogatory tone? And that they didn't want him to have his food? That he wasn't allowed to be in the cafeteria?

Memories of the first tournament came flooding back, and all of sudden the reality of the whole situation came crashing down upon him like a Giga Bowser Bomb.

First of all, it confirmed his fears that he was indeed actually a low-tier. Again. Ness had no delusions that he hadn't done well at all the past year. Every loss had hurt him, made him feel worthless and weak, made all of his hard work from the first tournament feel pointless. Sometimes, at night, when he was all alone and trying to fall asleep, he'd wondered whether he really deserved to be in Smash at all. But with the support of Pikachu, Pichu, Kirby and several other Smashers, he'd been able to overcome the overwhelming sense of inferiority. He surrounded himself with great people, people who didn't see him as a mindless fighter but as a human being, and, in the grand scheme of things, he was happy at Smash. He had the best circle of friends he could ask for, and beyond that, he'd won over many other Smashers and even some of the general public with his kindness and wit. He'd long come to terms with the fact that he was still going to be a low-tier, and he was okay with that.

But for no apparent reason, everything was different this time. All of a sudden, Fox and Falcon had decided that they'd rather make fun of him for being a low-tier rather than let him be like they did the first time. The shock of the situation smashed into Ness as if he'd hit himself with PK Flash, and he just felt…betrayed. What changed? What happened to the Fox and Falcon he knew?

He was stunned at this sudden twist of events, and he just stood there, his brain whirling at a million miles per hour, but his body rooted to the spot. He didn't know what to do, and neither did Kirby. But while the puffball didn't understand what had just been said, he could only cower in fright at the sharp tone that had crept into Falcon's voice. He took a step back and hid behind Ness, clutching the boy's leg with his little arms.

Pichu alone attempted to fight back. Fittingly, he'd recovered from the shock (non-electrical shock, of course) of the situation rather quickly, and he was clearly offended. Bravely taking a step forward, he placed himself between his friends and the hostile Smashers, sparks flying from his cheeks in indignation.

"What do you mean, Cap? We're all Smashers, aren't we? And a Smasher is entitled to their breakfast whenever they want it," he said matter-of-factly.

Captain Falcon crossed his arms, assuming an intimidating pose and towering way over the three low-tiers. "Well, not anymore, low-tiers! From here on out, this place is segregated."

Pichu stood his ground, crossing his arms and daring Captain Falcon to get closer. "A low-tier is still a Smasher!"

Falcon laughed uproariously, as if Pichu had said something totally stupid and amusing, which he definitely hadn't. "Not anymore! From here on out, there's low-tier Smashers, and then there's high-tier Smashers, and those of the former no longer deserve to associate with those of the latter. Ha!"

Ness's fists clenched, and his teeth grinded against each other as the shock began to dissipate, replaced by anger. That wasn't how things worked! It was so unfair! One moment he was getting along so well with everyone, and now that the tier-list was out he was nothing but a low-tier again? This hadn't happened last tournament! Why now? What could've caused such a drastic change in the Smashers' view on low-tiers?

"What's wrong with you, Falcon? I thought we were friends!" Ness shouted, his vision slowly beginning to turn red.

Falcon bent down with his hands on his knees, looking at Ness like a parent scolding their child. "Well, who would want to be friends with a low-tier like you, hmm?" He replied in a sickly sweet voice. The sheer audacity of the gesture could be felt throughout the air, raising the intensity of the dispute to new heights.

"Ness told me you weren't like this during the first tournament! Why now? What changed? What have we done wrong?" said Pichu. "In fact, who are you, and what have you done to Captain Falcon?"

Ness picked up where Pichu left off. "Yeah! What happened to you, Cap? What happened the likable and charming racer I knew?" He turned to Fox. "What happened to the dedicated and determined pilot of Star Fox? What happened to all of you?"

"Poyo!" Kirby chimed in. "Poyo poyo poyo!"

"Was the first tournament but a lie, huh? Was it all a setup to make us vulnerable for this tournament? Was everything you did for me during the first tournament fake?" Ness spat right into their faces.

"Well, you're not helping matters here!" Falcon shouted, his voice towering over all three of them. "You're wrong. Everything I did for you in the first tournament was genuine. I did feel bad for you, and I thought I was helping by letting you be. Wrong! You haven't changed a bit, have you? After everything I did for you, this is how you repay me? Maybe I should make your life miserable on purpose just so you can actually become a likable human being!"

"You barely did anything for him in the first tournament other than leaving him alone! And besides, he wouldn't have shouted at you like this if you had just let him eat his breakfast when he wanted it!" Pichu stated in Ness's defense.

Captain Falcon spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders. "Really? He could've just waited. I was doing him a favor, testing his patience!"

"Poyo! Poyo poyo!" Kirby continued, waving his arms above his head.

Ness couldn't take it anymore. Nothing made sense to him at this point. The betrayal, the unwarranted hostility – it was the first tournament all over again, but worse, and he wanted nothing else but for it to stop. He didn't even register the fact that he'd picked up the ruined pie from the floor and chucked it straight at Falcon, using his psychokinesis to guide the projectile. The pie exploded upon contact with Captain Falcon's face, splattering all over his helmet.

"Hey! What was that for, you little punk?" he complained.

Many of the other Smashers began to congregate at the site of commotion, with Falco, Marth, and Ganondorf slipping in discreetly and joining the crowd as well. The latter had a thin frown on his face. He hadn't expected the low-tiers to fight back with so much earnest.

"Whoa whoa whoa, hey! What's going on here?" Mario jumped in between the high-tiers and low-tiers, throwing his arms up to keep both parties at a safe distance from each other.

Pichu crossed his arms and spoke evenly. "The high-tiers won't let us in to the cafeteria because we happen to be low-tiers."

"Yeah! They said that we weren't allowed to eat until they finished eating, even though there was totally no need for them to delay us!" said Ness.

"Poyo! Poyo!" Kirby agreed.

Mario frowned, turning to face the high-tiers. "Fox? Falcon? Anything to say?"

The pie dropped from Falcon's face at that exact moment, and he shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "Hey, we were actually going to go back inside, shut the door, then open it again just as they're about to leave and tell them it was all a joke. Right, Fox?" he added, clapping a hand on the vulpine's shoulder.

Taken aback slightly, Fox hesitated for moment before nodding. "Right, right. Of course. That was the plan."

"Hey! He's lying!" Ness protested, but if Mario and Falcon had heard him, they didn't show it.

And then Falcon turned to the low-tiers, his face set in a dead serious expression. He pointed a finger at the low-tiers, as if they were the offenders here. "I thought those guys knew us well enough by now to realize it was a joke, but they just had to get the wrong message and start an argument with us! They're ruining everything! And look at what happened to me! Poor little Ness couldn't control his anger and threw a pie at my face. Do you have any idea how long it's going to take to clean my helmet of this mess?"

Pichu was having none of it. "Hey, if they had just let us in without argument, none of this would've happened! They started it, by the way! They threw the pies at us first!"

Ness was about to add more, but Mario held up a hand to stop him. "Why don't we settle this dispute with Master Hand instead? The five of you come with me, right now. And you three, would you like anything to eat?"

"Tomato, poyo!" exclaimed Kirby jollily, everything else forgotten at the mention of food.

"Get me a bowl of corn flakes with three sugar packets, please," Ness muttered quietly, the adrenaline from the argument dying down and leaving him drained and tired.

"And I'll take a chocolate donut," finished Pichu.

"Got it." Mario nodded. "Hey, Luigi! Get a Maxim Tomato, a bowl of corn flakes with three sugar packets, and a chocolate donut for these guys and bring them up to Master Hand's office, alright?"

"Okay!" came Luigi's reply, scampering off into the cafeteria…

where he immediately slipped on one of the stray pies and fell onto his bottom.

"Ow."

Thankfully, justice was served in the end. Despite Fox and Falcon's best attempts at twisting the events of the incident in their favor, Master Hand simply pulled up the security footage and bore witness firsthand to what had happened. However, the actual punishment was underwhelming: the high-tiers were simply forced to say sorry to the low-tiers, and, in Master Hand's eyes, all was forgiven.

It wasn't.

The high-tiers had learned one thing from their punishment; but it certainly wasn't to stop harassing the low-tiers. Oh no.

Fox and Falcon had walked away from Master Hand's office with their pride severely damaged. There was hatred brewing. They – along with Marth, Falco, and Ganondorf – felt that the low-tiers had done a right injustice by patronizing them and humiliating them so badly. And in their opinion, such a slanderous crime could not go unpunished.

All they knew was that they needed revenge; not just against the three innocent children, but against all low-tiers in general. And they also knew that they had to keep their pranks and antics more discreet from now on, so that Master Hand wouldn't catch wind of the true situation.

They got to work right away. The same night as the pie incident, Marth managed to sneak a centipede into Zelda's bowl of soup. They'd hoped that she'd at least see it and maybe scream in a very undignified way, but it ended up working a lot better than they could have ever hoped. Whilst in conversation with Young Link, Zelda didn't see the centipede in her spoon and ate it. Upon registering the disgusting critter in her mouth, she freaked out and sprang backwards out of her chair, spilling her bowl of hot soup on herself while simultaneously spitting out the soup in her mouth in an unsuccessful attempt to get the centipede out. Then she struggled amusingly for several minutes trying to get the centipede out of her mouth, before making a mad dash to the bathrooms to wash the filthy taste away. In her haste, however, she slipped on a banana peel that Ganondorf had dropped in her path and fell hard, hitting her head on the floor and badly dazing herself. Nearly everyone in the cafeteria had laughed uproariously at the spectacle, even Link and Young Link, neither of whom made any movement to help their princess. In fact, Zelda struggled on the ground for over two minutes before a guilty Jigglypuff finally jumped down from her chair and sang her to sleep. The high-tiers high-fived each other on a job well done. The first step in the plan had succeeded with flying colors.

Over the next few weeks, the so-called High-Tier Clique really let the low-tiers have it, pulling pranks on each and every one of them and making them suffer whenever possible. They showboated and taunted all the time when matched up against low-tiers, routinely threw food and other messy items at them for fun, and even began to physically abuse them. Kirby, for one, suddenly became the official soccer ball of the High-Tier Clique, which meant that every time the High-Tier Clique wanted to play soccer, one of them would go find Kirby and drag him to the field, before they kicked him around with no regard for his safety. They continually snuck outrageous amounts of alcohol into Zelda's drinks, making her lose all control in her speech and alienating her from everyone, especially the two Links, whom began to believe that she had lost her mind. And Mewtwo – he suffered the worst of them all. When the high-tiers found out that Mewtwo's life force from Mew's DNA allowed him to heal wounds almost instantly, they decided to start amputating Mewtwo's tail whenever he wasn't looking, then use their collection of tails to craft a couch. It was an agonizing experience for the legendary Pokémon, and the high-tiers took sadistic pleasure in pinning him down and making him yell in pain as they slowly and torturously chopped his tail off. They even got him to cry one time when they decided to amputate the tail with a rusty handsaw instead of Marth's Falchion. It was a shame none of them brought a camera to record such a momentous moment: big bad Mewtwo crying like a little baby. The low-tiers all tried their best to fight back, but the high-tiers were high-tiers for a reason, and they easily crushed the resistance thanks to a whole lot of forward smashes, Shield Breakers, and Falcon Punches.

For the low-tiers, it was as if their lives at Smash had turned into a living hell overnight. Each and every day became a desperate struggle to elude the abuse of the High-Tier Clique. They walked the halls of Smash Mansion in fear, and every time they turned corner they braced for a flying kick to their midsection or a baseball bat in their face. The physical damage was bad; the emotional damage was devastating. Within days, most of the low-tiers were already beginning to sink into the waters of depression. By the end of the first week, they started putting up walls, withdrawing from society and reining in their abundance of negative emotions with an iron grip. By the end of the second week, they had all locked themselves in their rooms permanently, isolated from everyone else in Smash and deathly scared to even peek out the door anymore. More than anything, it was a testament to how thorough a job the high-tiers had done that they could completely destroy seven bright and content souls in the span of a fortnight.

The audiences during Melees weren't much better. Many of the low-tiers were, at one point, some of the most popular Smashers amongst the crowd, but after the tier list came out, attendance for their matches slipped to the very bottom of the barrel. When people did come to watch their matches, it was probably because they were matched against a top-tier, and even then they were booed and heckled off the stage. And it wasn't even the harsh words that hurt the low-tiers. It was the fact that they'd been dropped so callously by the people they thought loved them, all because of some dumb number.

Some of the other Smashers tried their best to help, but none of them succeeded. They were all just so ignorant about how terrible the high-tiers' treatment of the low-tiers had become. They approached the low-tiers armed with mindless condolences and half-baked prayers, none of which could make a dent in the nightmarish emotional landscape said victims were slogging through. The low-tiers appreciated the intent, of course, but they took the words themselves as insults, as a sign of shallowness and them not being worthy of others' efforts. It was just another validation of their failure. And as for everyone else? They just kind of ignored the whole situation like it didn't matter. Samus. Donkey Kong. Link. Luigi. They were all low-tiers in the first tournament. They knew how it felt to be knocked down like this, and they should've been empathetic to the low-tiers during their time of crisis. But they weren't. They just kept their distance, not wanting to get involved in the emotional turmoil of tier lists a second time. Some Smashers didn't even know the whole operation existed. But a lot of them did. They just didn't care to do anything about it because, well…it wasn't their problem. They were happy at Smash, and they saw no reason to get their hands dirty by having to deal with the mighty High-Tier Clique just for the sake of helping the low-tiers.

Master Hand also did nothing to help them. He was supposed to be a fair and impartial judge in these sort of matters, and perhaps he was in the sense that he never accused the wrong person. And yet, every time one of the low-tiers burst into his office to report another horrifying incident, the punishments rarely exceeded a simple "sorry" and "I won't do it again". At best, Mewtwo was able to steal one of his amputated tails back from the high-tiers and presented it to Master Hand as evidence, which resulted in Marth being grounded for the rest of the day. Yeah. Grounded. The thing that parents do to their children when they do forget to do their chores. And at worst, Kirby was able to sneak a camera onto the soccer field and film the high-tiers' usage of him as the ball, but Master Hand simply dismissed him, stating that more severe punishments would only be doled out in the case of irreversible damage. That was just one of many times when Master Hand shrugged off the low-tiers' complaints as if they were preschoolers tattling on one another in class, and the all-powerful appendage quickly grew tired of the constant complaints and sanctions he had to deal with, to the point that he locked his door whenever he was working and only allowed the other Smashers in. It became pretty obvious to the low-tiers that the justice system at Smash was about as effective as the tip of Roy's sword. They were trapped.

And on top of that, even the low-tiers' close friends began to distance themselves, hesitant to go down with a clearly burning ship. When the low-tiers did show their face outside their rooms for whatever reason, the same people who would've stood up for them weeks before simply sighed and left them alone. When they did talk, the conversations were always short and professional, and often laced with dark and venomous undertones. In turn, the low-tiers themselves began to push away the other Smashers too, growing more aloof and hateful with each passing day as the High-Tier Clique continued butchering them. Even Pikachu found it increasingly hard to protect Pichu from the hate he was receiving, because every time he tried to talk to his brother, he was more or less warded off or even just ignored entirely. The older rat had no idea what his friends were truly going through – the high-tiers were smart enough to keep everything discreet – and it seemed no one was willing to tell him what actually transpired in those interactions.

He kept trying anyway, doing whatever he could think of to help his little brother and the other low-tiers, but despite his efforts, the results were disheartening. He tried talking to Master Hand about it, but as soon as he brought the topic up, Master Hand changed the subject almost immediately, then dismissed him from the office when he kept pushing the issue. He then decided to give a piece of his mind to the High-Tier Clique at dinner one night, warning them that they couldn't hide their acts for long. Unsurprisingly, the high-tiers looked as though they couldn't have cared less, and Pikachu walked away helpless and exhausted.

The next morning, he went to check up on Kirby, only to find him eating the last of twenty-two baked sweet potatoes that the high-tiers had anonymously put in his room. The resulting hiccups were so violent that Kirby passed out from asphyxiation, and Pikachu had to rush him to the hospital wing so that he wouldn't suffer brain damage from such a severe allergic reaction. An hour later, he had to remove a smoke bomb from in front of Pichu's door that would have activated if he even took a step outside his room.

It was really all he could do at this point. His friends weren't willing to talk to him, the high-tiers weren't willing to listen to him, the other Smashers weren't willing to help him, and Master Hand wasn't willing to do anything about it. For the first time in his life at Smash, he felt useless. He'd taken on some of the multiverse's greatest fighters and defeated them all. He'd won the Best Smasher Award for the first tournament. He'd become one of the most popular Smashers thanks to his spunk and energy. But he couldn't protect his best friends from such widespread hatred. No one could. He knew that. He just couldn't stop himself from feeling guilty. Not when the physical and mental health of those dearest to him were hinged entirely on him succeeding.

Pikachu started hating himself because he couldn't do more. He could hug his friends and tell them that things were going to be okay, but he couldn't force them to open up on their struggles or face the High-Tier Clique for them. He had no one to help him; even Mario, Jigglypuff and Peach had given up on helping the low-tiers, and it angered him that they would so easily hang their friends out to dry like that. Nobody else even bothered to stand up for the low-tiers against the High-Tier Clique, allowing them to torment the low-tiers as they pleased. It was a completely hopeless situation as it stood.

Sometimes, when Pikachu made the long and weary trek back to his room at night, he would hear the muffled sobs of his friends through the walls. He'd always knock twice on each of their doors, knowing full well that there was no way they were letting him in. Then he'd stand quietly and wait for a minute or two anyway – more for his own sake than theirs – before finally turning and leaving, hanging his head in shame. And when he finally hopped into bed and turned the lights off, he would start crying just like them.

Before the month was up, the constant harassment of the low-tiers had already became a routine part of life at Smash.