Thanks to Glaceon Mage for reviewing and Esper of Tropica for following! This chapter is a whopping 2,000+ words, which is a chapter record for me!

Hope you enjoy!~

"I'm Lucas," replied Lucas shakily, still nervous of the boy in front of him. They awkwardly stood there on the steps, neither one of them daring to move a single step. Finally, Ness extended his hand once more.

"Come in. You're a day early, but that's okay." Lucas froze. He was early? Was he not supposed to come today? That wasn't right. He had received the invitation to the Brawl today. Had there been a mistake? Seeing Lucas' worried look, Ness quickly reassured him. "It's alright, I guess Master Hand thought you might have needed some time to think it over. There's still a bed for you to sleep on and food for you to eat, so don't worry."

Ness led him into the Smash Mansion. Lucas was left gaping at its size. There were probably more people here than the population of Tazmily Village, his hometown. He followed Ness up a set of stairs and down a corridor at rooms. They stopped at a door with the Earth on it. "Mother Earth..." Whispered Lucas to himself.

Ness looked at him. "That's right, we're Earthbound. At least that's one of the names they call us." Lucas looked at him, puzzled. "Everyone from a different 'universe' has a name for their 'universe'. It's weird, but it's used to determine who rooms with who." Ness pointed at a room with three triangles on it. "That's 'the Legend of Zelda'. Link wanted to name it after his precious princess, who is actually competing too." He pointed at a sword. "That one is 'Fire Emblem'. Marth named it after a special item he was given."

Ness turned back to Lucas. "Anyways, the cafeteria is downstairs. We'll go there to have lunch later. There's something I want to show you first." Ness led him to the end of the hallway and turned left. "Not too many people know about this room, and it's password protected."

Ness knocked on the door. "Yes?" Asked a voice from inside.

"No crying until the end," he replied. Lucas frowned. That was an odd password.

"Come in, no one's crying yet." Replied the voice. Ness opened the door.

Two swordsmen were sitting on a couch, close to a stereo. The red haired one stood up, walking over to Lucas. "Hey, are you a newbie?" He asked. At Lucas' nod he smiled. "Nice to meet you, I'm Roy."

"I'm Marth," added the blue haired swordsman politely.

"I'm Lucas," he replied. "Nice to meet you both." He awkwardly glanced over to Ness, not knowing why the other boy had brought him into this room.

Roy seemed to notice Lucas' glance and decided to begin talking. "This is the music room!" He declared, gesturing dramatically to the room around him. "This is where you can come and enjoy music that is used as background music during Melees- I mean Brawls!" Roy grabbed a CD off the shelf and some earphones and handed them to Lucas. "Enjoy!"

Lucas looked at the CD. The title read 'Mother/Earthbound'. There were quite a few tracks on it from what he could see, and some of the names sounded familiar. He handed the CD over to Ness, who put it into the stereo and connected the earphones and gave one to Lucas. Ness picked a track and hit play.

"This one is called Snowman," commented Ness. "It reminds me of a place called Winters back home." Lucas just nodded. The song seemed to evoke his memories of climbing a snowy mountain, with his friends beside him the whole way. Lucas realized that faintly hear the two swordsmen's conversation about the song that they were playing.

"Look at this track! It's called 'Roy's Hope'!" Exclaimed Roy. Roy added something else, unintelligible to Lucas.

"I know, but I don't think it will happen. I'm sorry Roy." Replied Marth.

Lucas stopped listening to the conversation after that. It was clearly something personal, by the sound of it. He focused on the beautiful music instead. When the conversation escalated into an argument, it became hard not to overhear their words.

"Come on! Master Hand said I have a chance!" Yelled Roy.

"So did Leif," retorted Marth. "But he didn't end up in Melee."

"Come on! You know that I can keep up! I can totally be a Brawler!" Exclaimed Roy.

"I know that you can," replied Marth quietly. "But I have a feeling that someone else will come to replace you." Roy and Marth spent a good two minutes just glaring at each other before Roy got annoyed and stomped out. Marth quietly followed him out.

Once they were gone, Ness took the earphones off. "Roy is one of those people that stand to be replaced by a newbie." Lucas couldn't help but feel a little sorry for Roy. He could be forced to leave just because a newbie like himself would be coming. "Marth's right. He shouldn't have been given that false hope of him staying. That newbie is most likely just going to replace him and he'll have to leave with about four others." Lucas raised his eyebrows. Five people would be replaced? "I feel sorry for them, but there's not really anything you can do..."

Ness quickly glanced at the clock and then continued. "Looks like it's lunchtime. Come on, I'll show you to the cafeteria."

~middle~

Lucas followed Ness to the cafeteria and was quite surprised when he walked in. The tables were grouped together to form one huge table and a banner was hanging from the ceiling that read 'Goodbye Roy, Young Link, Dr. Mario, Pichu, and Mewtwo! We'll miss you!' There were a whole bunch of people sitting at the table and Lucas felt slightly nervous when they saw him and walked up to him.

"Are you a newbie?"

"Another youngster, eh?"

"You're a little early don't you think?"

"Alright guys, calm down." Ordered Ness. "This is Lucas and he's new here. He just arrived early, that's all."

"That's right," added another swordsman. "This celebration is for the ones who are leaving." He winked at Lucas and whispered, "I'm Link by the way." Lucas smiled back.

The Smashers went introducing themselves in the order they were sitting in, with the ones who were leaving last as they were sitting at the end of the table. Then Ness and Lucas sat down next to the Ice Climbers, Popo and Nana.

"Nice to meet you Lucas," greeted Nana, elbowing her brother.

"Yeah... Um... Nice to meet you," added Popo while chewing on a piece of eggplant. The rest of lunch was an obnoxiously loud conversation that Lucas didn't really participate in as it was about Melees.

As soon as lunch was over, he found himself wandering the halls of the Smash Mansion. Realizing he had arrived at the music room, he decided to knock on the door to see if anyone was inside. When no response came, he opened the door and slid inside. Lucas pulled out the 'Earthbound' CD and slid it into the stereo, connecting the earphones before hitting play.

He was met with a track called 'Mother 3 Love Theme'.

Lucas didn't even realize he was crying until he felt the tears dripping on to his legs.

"Claus," he murmured, thinking of his twin brother.

Spotting some sunflowers in the room, he felt his tears fall faster. "Mother," he sobbed, remembering his now dead mother Hinawa. Absorbed in memories, he failed to notice the knock at the door and the sound of someone walking in.

"Oh," he heard someone mutter. "I didn't know you were inside, Lucas." Lucas sniffed, wiping at his tears before turning around to look at the person. It was Roy. "Are you okay?" He asked.

Lucas shook his head no, wiping the constant stream of tears flowing down his face. Roy took a seat beside him, rubbing his back. "You know," he started, taking the headphones out of Lucas' ears. "I'm pretty sad about leaving. I got to forget about the whole world and all my responsibilities back home in Elibe. Sure, I'm only fifteen but I'm the son of Eliwood, the Marquis of Pherae." Roy turned to face Lucas. "How old are you?" He questioned.

"Twelve," whispered Lucas back.

"Right," muttered Roy before continuing his monologue. "You're only twelve! Don't carry the weight of the dead on your shoulders! Tons of my father's friends are dead... That came out wrong. Anyways, my dad strives to make them feel proud of the sacrifice they made. So that if they can see all the work he's done, they'll be proud. I'm sure that if your..."

"Mom," supplied Lucas.

"Right, if your mom saw all the hard work that you've done she'd feel so proud of you. She'd probably make you your favourite food-" Lucas instantly thought of the omelettes his mother used to make for him and Claus. "- and ruffle your hair in that way parents do when they're proud of you. And she'd look you in the eyes and smile, saying 'I'm so proud of you, Lucas'." Lucas smiled at the mental image of his mom.

Roy smiled and got up. "I guess my work here is done," he declared, ruffling Lucas' hair. "Don't forget me," he said before strutting out the door, closing it behind him.

With a smile, Lucas decided to look through the rest of the tracks on the CD. He smiled, reminiscing tough battles he won with his friends during 'Unfounded Revenge/Smashing Song of Praise'. He managed to skip over 'Porky's Theme' before he could be reminded if the bad memories that came with it. He didn't skip over 'You call this a utopia?!' though, deciding to remember about exploring New Pork City with his friends. He shivered, remembering the Ultimate Chimera. All of a sudden a catchy little tune called 'Humoresque of a little dog appeared. Lucas found himself humming it while at the same time wondering why it sounded familiar. He snapped his fingers, remembering that he had heard it on a jukebox.

"Lucas," called Ness as he entered the room. "I brought you some dinner." When Ness heard the song that was playing, his eyes widened. Handing Lucas some omelettes, Ness smiled. "So have you ever been in a drugstore Lucas?" At Lucas' confused look he realized his mistake. "Ah, when are you from?"

Confused at the question, Lucas frowned deeply before realizing his answer. "The year is 2XXX," he said, not mentioning the last three digits because he thought they were non-important.

Ness looked at him with wide eyes. "No wonder. I'm from 199X." Lucas' eyes widened and a piece of omelette almost fell out of his mouth. He was talking with someone from the past?! Ness most likely wasn't even alive during his time. "You shouldn't tell me anything about the future then," declared Ness. "For the future's safety and ours."

~middle~

Ness and Lucas finally retired to their room. Lucas was quite tired. It had been a long day for him and he found himself slightly nervous about tomorrow, when the rest of the newbies would arrive.

"Hey," exclaimed Ness, interrupting his thoughts. "Let's take a photo!" Lucas inwardly groaned. "Don't worry, the pictures are taken instantaneously! I'm a photographic genius, if I do say so myself!" Ness pulled out a camera. "Okay, get ready for an instant memory! Look at the camera..." Ness pointed at the camera. "Ready..." Lucas just stood there, not really sure what to do. "Say... fuzzy pickles!" Lucas laughed as he tried saying fuzzy pickles. Ness smiled as he put his arm around Lucas and pointed the camera at both of them. "Ready... Say fuzzy pickles!" The two boys yelled fuzzy pickles while Ness made a peace sign.

The two boys got into pyjamas and climbed into bed. Lucas almost fell asleep instantly, tuckered out from the long day.

"Good night, Lucas."

"Good night, Ness."

And Lucas fell asleep.

-.-

La la la la la...

What is this, thought Lucas. Is it someone singing?

La la la la la...

Maybe it's a telepath, pondered Lucas. The song was calm and soothing, like a lullaby. Before he could think anymore, Lucas fell into a deep sleep.