Hi, I'm Relaxing Pikachu and this is my first attempt at a Rocket Power fic. I normally write Digimon fics and I have a few Pokémon ones and an unfinished Sailor Moon one. I also have tried an original work, but I really need to rewrite it, but never mind all of that. I decided to give Rocket Power a try. I just love the show so much now. I'm still trying to figure out why. Lol If you want to know more about me, just check out my bio page here on the site.

I guess I should mention a little something about myself. Let's see, out of the main four, Twister is my favorite character. Next would be Sammy. I don't have anything against Reggie or Otto, I just like Twister and Sammy more. I also don't feel that Lars is as mean as he seems to want everyone to think. I'm also a fan of Twister x Reggie (maybe one day I'll write one, or who knows, this story may become one), but other parings are cool too. I just seem to like Twister x Reggie, even if it's a fic where it may be one-sided from Twister's side.

Normally when writing fics, I write in the normal way, not counting some of my earlier, very badly written fics. I normally use script format for humor fics or for maybe Author's Notes. Oh, and just to let you know, whenever I used single quotes, it means that the character is thinking, unless being used in a grammatically correct fashion. If there's an * then that means there's a note at the end of the chapter.

For this fic, the following ages will be….

Oswald "Otto" Rocket: 15 going on 16 (Grade 10)

Regina "Reggie" Rocket: 16 going on 17 (Grade 11)

Maurice "Twister" Rodriguez: 15 going on 16 (Grade 10)

Sammy "Stonewall" Dullard: 15 going on 16 (Grade 11)

Lars "Whompinator" Rodriguez: 18 going on 19 (Grade 12)

Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's get this story started, or at least a description. Even though Twister is my favorite character, this story is going to be dealing with Otto, mostly. I'm sure all of you have been curious as to why Otto seems to go out of his way to be the best at pretty much anything sports wise. Well, this fic is going to focus on that, so for this story, Otto will have a bit of an attitude problem, which will have an effect on those around him.

Now, as I always say, I do not own anything dealing with the Rocket Power franchise. Klasky-Csupo has that honor.

What it Takes to be the Best!

Chapter 01: Discussions….

"Hey, Otto," called a girl with shoulder-lengthened, thick curly violet hair, "we're going to be late for school if you don't hurry up!"

This girl was Regina Rocket, a 16-year-old high-school junior. Everyone pretty much referred to her as either "Reggie" or "Reg" for short. She never really cared for being called, "Regina". The girl shook her head, and tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for her younger brother, who sometimes didn't seem to have any concept of time what-so-ever whenever it came to going to school. Every morning, she had to make sure Otto woke up on time, especially since their father, Raymundo, had to open up the Shore Shack – a sea-side restaurant run by Ray and his Hawaiian friend Tito - earlier than usual lately. Due to this, it meant that Reggie and Otto had to fend for themselves in the mornings. Ray had no doubt in his mind that the two would do fine by themselves, especially with "Responsible Reggie" around.

"Otto, hurry up, now!" Reggie ordered with a slight growl.

"Okay, okay," Otto grumbled as he made his way down the stairs. Otto still looked the same, for the most part. He still wore his shades with the green lenses. It was his favorite, after all. He also wore a headband to keep his thick hair from out of his eyes. It had definitely grown longer over the . The way he dressed was pretty much the same…plain sneakers, plain t-shirt, and plain shorts. The boy was never into fashion much. The only main difference from when he was younger, was that the boy was slightly taller than his sister now.

Otto wasn't the only one who'd changed over the years; Reggie had too. Just like her brother, she always kept her shades propped up on her head to keep her hair from falling into her face. At the moment, she was wearing a dark-pink tank top, which slightly showed off her midriff, and a pair of baggy, dark-green hip-hugger jeans, which showed off her girlish figure. Reggie had grown to become quite the young lady. The boys at her school were starting to take notice of her this particular year, given her more girlish features. Reggie wasn't your girly girl, as her friends would've pointed out and could still kick ass in street hockey and beach volleyball.

"It's about time Rocket Boy! What took you so long anyway? We don't want to be late again!"

The 15-year-old sophomore didn't answer as he headed towards the front door grumpily. He picked up his backpack and blades and headed out. Reggie blinked as she stared after him. Lately, Otto had been acting rather strangely. Reggie, and her other friends, Sam and Twister, also found Otto's mood swings and actions a bit peculiar. It seemed as if Otto had slight spite towards Reggie and when it came to Sam and Twist, maybe a bit of envy. Either way, his attitude towards the three of them was totally unacceptable.

Reggie sighed, her Jansport backpack draped over her right shoulder. She headed out and locked up. She looked ahead to see Otto long gone. He had slipped on his blades and taken off. Not too surprised that he didn't wait for her, Sam, or Twister, she headed down her driveway dejectedly, wishing her brother would open up to her. His bad attitude and constant silence was driving her crazy, and Raymundo was much too occupied with work to really notice Otto's recent and sudden change.

Once reaching the end of her driveway, she saw two boys waving to her. Reggie forced on a smile, and gave the two boys a simple, "Hi."

"Hiya, Reg," a husky, blonde-haired boy greeted. It was Sammy "Stonewall" Dullard. He was still the shortest boy of the group. He was about Reggie's height. He was also still one of the best goalies his age around Ocean Shores. He'd earned the nickname "Stonewall" due to the fact that he could block pretty much everything thrown at him. Outside of street hockey, Sam showed to be a true whiz with computers and was also pretty smart (every teacher's dream). The boy was so smart, that he was skipped up a grade back when he first moved to Ocean Shores from Kansas nearly six years earlier.

"Hey, we saw Otto skate by," a slim, tall long-haired boy pointed out, "but he didn't even turn around to say hi or anything to us! What's up with that?"

This boy, who was now the tallest of the four, was Maurice Rodriguez, who went by the nickname "Twister". He never liked being called Maurice and would always threaten to whomp anyone, outside of adults and family, who dared to address him as such. Normally "whomping" wasn't even necessary as he would calmly ask people to call him "Twister".

Just like the other kids of Ocean Shore, he really enjoyed playing sports, but not as much as he enjoyed filming them. With Twister, you would never see him without a camera in hand, making videos of Otto performing his moves so that Otto could study them later, or even just putting together small movies in general, like documentaries. The redheaded boy usually wore his signature red and yellow cap, which he loved, so it was rare that anyone saw his long hair. Despite being older, the boy could still show to be quite naïve, but he was still pretty nice to everyone, not counting his brother, who seemed to enjoy teasing him. Either way, because of Twister's personality, it was rare for people to get mad or angry with him legitimately and he had outgrown some of his childish antics just as they all had, really.

"Hey Reg, what's up with Otto anyway?" Sam asked as the three made their way towards Ocean Shores High.

"I wish I knew, Sammy."

"He's just not acting like himself," mumbled Twister.

"We should've come up with something by now. Twist, you're his best bro, don't you have any ideas as to why he's acting this way?" Reggie asked, hopefully.

"Some best bro," Twister grumbled bitterly. "Something's bothering him and he's keeping it from me. I've been asking him for, like, forever, 'What's wrong, bro?', but the last time I did,he told me to 'bug off' and to 'stop being a nuisance' and some other things. He even told me to 'stay out of' his 'life'! Would a normal best friend tell you something like that?"

"My brother said that? He actually told you to stay out of his life?"

"Yeah, but I know that's not really like him."

"You know, whenever I try talking with Otto, he does pretty much the same thing, only he calls me a 'nerd' and then tells me to leave him alone and to stop bothering him, that 'nothing's wrong'."

"Dude, he told you that too?"

Sam nodded. "He went all aggro on me that day, especially after I asked him why. He then told me, 'Squid, you're smart; try to figure it out your damn self!' and took off."

"That's harsh you two. You never mentioned it before. With me, he just doesn't talk. He doesn't even talk about himself anymore or of any upcoming competitions. I tried talking with him last night about the upcoming surf competition this weekend and he just said, 'That's nice', and, 'I have to get in some practice to be the best'. He then gave me sort of an annoyed look and went to his room." Reggie lowered her head as they continued their walk, while some of her curly, wavy hair fell forward into her face. "As much as I hate to admit it, I miss Otto's bragging and over confidence. At least then I'd know that everything's alright with him."

Twister looked over at Reggie, noticing the sad and distant look on her face. He hated to see any of his friends upset, but not as much as he hated seeing Reggie in that state, which he actually found a bit confusing. He seemed more concerned for her than Otto, and even he realized that it probably should've been the other way around since Otto was supposed to be his "best bro". When younger, he probably never would've noticed if something was bothering or upsetting the older girl, like the time she was annoyed over the fact that Breezy was getting all of the attention instead of her from him and the others, but now he was a little bit more in-tune with that kind of thing, if it was blatantly obvious, anyway.

Realizing that he was staring at the girl, he broke away and focused on looking straight ahead. "I-I'll talk with Ottoman again today, Reg. We both have Spanish II, Biology I, and English 10 together. I could probably try talking to him after Spanish since we both have our lunch breaks then."

"Thanks, Twist," Reggie told him with another one of her forced smiles, but her voice had a slight happiness and hopefulness to it. "I'm sure enough pestering from his best bro'll get whatever's bothering him out in the open."

"Yeah, sure," the boy replied quietly.

"What does Raymundo have to say about Otto's behavior? It just hit me that you've never mentioned it."

"He doesn't know about it. He's been way too busy to notice anything, and he gets in late. Usually he's tired and goes straight to bed."

"Shouldn't you tell him about how Otto's acting? He's been nothing but a lame-o bastard lately!" Twister complained.

"I don't want to. Whatever's upsetting Otto has something to do with the three of us. We must've upset him in some way because I haven't noticed him being cold towards anyone else."

Sam took off his square-framed glasses, and cleaned them with his shirt tail. "Seeing as how we pretty much act the same way we always have around him, I just don't see how that's even a possibility."

"Yeah, the Squid's right. We still treat Otto the same; why's he acting so mean to us?"

Reggie stopped walking abruptly which caused Sam and Twister to follow suit. "I don't know, you guys, but this has gone on long enough! We're going to figure out what's wrong with him. Since he took his blades with him, he's probably going to head over to Madtown after school! We can catch up with him there and make him tell us what's wrong. I've known the pipsqueak all of my life, and he's never once acted this way towards me. Sure we've had our arguments and disagreements and maybe gone without talking, but even then, it's never been for long. The longest we've probably gone without speaking civilly was probably about a day."

Twister nodded and gave Reggie a high-five, which was high for Reggie since he did tower her now. Sam looked down at his watch. "If we want to go to Madtown after school, then I suggest that we hurry ourselves along so that we don't end up with detentions."

"Yeah, can you believe that Vice Principal Healey became our Principal at OSH?!" Twister groaned. "I thought I was rid of him after graduating from elementary school. My mom said that if I get one more detention, that I'm grounded for the rest of the month, which means no Madtown, no Pier, no Boardwalk, and no surfing!"

Sam gave off a small laugh. "Well, you probably won't since Otto's not around to get you in trouble."

Twister nodded slowly, realizing that Sam was partially right. Normally whenever he did get into trouble at school, it was usually partly Otto's fault. Otto would come up with some kind of a crazy idea, and he would willingly go along with him on it, and then both would get caught and punished. Of course, other times Twister may have come up with something, but Otto would only occasionally go along with him on them.

The three ran the rest of the way to school and arrived just as the warning bell rang. Once they entered the big, brick building, Twister told Sam and Reggie, "Bye" and headed left. Reggie went right, and Sam ran straight ahead up to the second floor. All three of them made it to the their homerooms just as the bell rang…

x x x

Author's Note

I hope this first chapter is okay. I don't really think this is very good so far, but hopefully I'll write something better as the story continues. Now, please don't forget to leave those comments and reviews as well as suggestions as to how I can make this story a bit better.