Day 23: Enemies in Friends

I awoke facing Lucas. He was on my bed, not underneath the covers; rather he just had the blanket I gave him wrapped around him. I guess after I fell asleep, he had snuck on my bed. I glared at the kid.

If he pissed on my bed I'm going to kill him!

However I didn't smell any urine. I used aura to see his current state. It was a calm aura; definitely one that didn't occur while one was having a nightmare. I got out of the bed, Lucas was clearly a heavy sleeper, all of the moving I did and he didn't budge.

I went over to the fridge to see if there was anything in it that I could use as a breakfast. There was nothing in there. Just alcohol.

I sighed and went into the washroom, and did my morning routine. Go to the washroom, take a shower, shave, brush teeth, comb hair. I got out of the washroom wearing new clean clothes. I glanced down at Lucas still sleeping.

"I told you were going to regret it." I sighed. I went to lift Lucas up, however I noticed that Chocolate was lying on top of him, glaring at me. He let out a hiss. "I told him he would regret it." My plan was going to be: fill tub full of water, and drop Lucas in tub.

Chocolate began to bat at my hands, I quickly withdrew them, knowing that he would pounce and bite them.

Geeze, I'm being bullied by my cat...

"Look Chocolate, I'm stuck in here until he wakes up." I sighed. "If the other Smashers see me out there with out someone looking after me, they will think I disposed of Lucas, and attack me or something."

"Don't be silly." Lucas said. "They wouldn't do that." I glanced down at the now conscious Lucas. He just seemed to smile. "See, I told you I wouldn't have an accident. Although... I'm a little stuck. Can you help unwrap me from this blanket?"

"You silly kid." I sighed.

I unwrapped Lucas from the blanket and he went into the washroom.

There was a knocking at the door. I went towards it and reluctantly opened it. Standing at the door was Ness and Toon Link. "Is Lucas up yet?" Toon Link asked. "We came to relieve him of his duties."

"So, which of you two were going to watch me next?" I questioned.

"Neither, we're just here for Lucas." Toon Link said.

I slammed the door on their faces. I sat down on my bed and tried to play the Wii for a few minutes. Eventually Lucas came out of the washroom, dressed in his standard yellow and red striped shirt. "I heard the door slam."

"Yeah." I said.

"Why?"

"Ness and Toon Link were there, they just wanted to take you away. And it seemed like they didn't care about who was going to watch over me..." I said.

There was another knocking at the door. Lucas went up to it and opened it; I quickly turned off the Wii. Standing there once again was Ness and Toon Link. "All right Luke!" Ness said, grabbing Lucas' wrist, "You're coming with us!"

"What?" Lucas said. "I'm not going to leave Nugai alone back here."

"He's too dangerous Lucas!"

"Come on, if he was going to kill me he would have done it last night!" Lucas protested. Ness just continued to pull on Lucas' wrist trying to pull him away. "Ness, let go of me!"

"This is for your own good Lucas! Come on Toon, help me out!"

Toon Link also grabbed Lucas' other wrist and began to pull him.

I was paralyzed in shock. Ness and Toon Link were going to rip off Lucas' arm if this continued. I didn't know what to do. Luckily, Chocolate did. He pounced right into Ness, with enough force to knock both him and Toon Link over. Both of them were in shock. With Chocolate on top of the two boys he began to hiss. They began to struggle to get back up. They flailed their arms and legs wildly, out of fear that Chocolate would attack them again. This wasn't good, as they were about to hit Chocolate with their swinging arms, Lucas however jumped in the way grabbing Chocolate, and protecting him. "Are you okay?" Lucas asked.

"Yeah, thanks Lu-" Ness didn't get to finish that sentence, as a stick narrowly missed his head. I was actually quite surprised. I didn't think Lucas had it in him.

"I wasn't talking to you!" Lucas snapped. "Are you okay, Chocolate?"

Chocolate just began to let out a purr. I had finally gotten the courage to walk over, and placed my hand on Lucas' shoulder. "Are you hurt?" I asked.

"I'll be fine." He said. "It'll just be a few bruises..."

"What did you do to him!" Ness shouted. "You brainwashed him, didn't you? He's going to turn against the Smashers!"

"You've been watching too many movies." I said. Could someone be this stupid? "Chocolate was just protecting Lucas. And when you freaked out, Lucas protected Chocolate. It's as simple as that."

Ness got up and rushed towards me. I was tackled to the ground and he began to punch me. I knew that I couldn't fight back. If I even threw a single punch, it would end badly. It would just be an engineered public confession about how I pretty much worked with the Reaper, even if it was in self-defense. I couldn't take the risk.

"Ness stop!" Both Toon Link and Lucas shouted. The two of them rushed over and tried to pull Ness off of me, but he put up quite the fight, even winding both of them. Seeing that Ness had hurt his two friends, I finally caught both of his fists.

"Ness, did anyone ever tell you that you hit like a girl?" I asked. "A proper punch requires your whole body, you have to aim past the person. It's no wonder you rely on psychic energy."

Ness broke free of my grip and readied another punch. However a shadow ball sent him flying off of me and into a wall. Mewtwo waved his hand and Ness floated in the air, unable to reach me. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Safe...

"Mewtwo, stop he's brainwashed Lucas!" Ness said.

"I saw the whole thing Ness." Mewtwo replied. "You're just being stupid!"

"Mewtwo!" Ness shouted out. "He's brainwashed you too!"

Mewtwo just let off a heavy sigh. "Ness, Ness, Ness, whatever shall we do with you?" He said. Mewtwo just glanced at me, and walked me into my room. He closed the door and then just faced me.

"Ness will watch over you today." Mewtwo calmly said.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" I questioned. "I mean, he just finished beating me up. What's stopping him from taking that baseball bat of his and smashing my head in?"

"Nothing."

You didn't have to be so blunt...

"But, don't worry, I'll be watching over you. Nothing will happen."

You'll be watching from a distance, after my face is permanently rearranged so that my jaw is above my eyes, you will then intervene...

He opened up the door, and we both walked out.

"Toon Link, take Lucas to see Doctor Mario. We'll see if Ness' paranoia about him being brainwashed is justified." Mewtwo said. Ness seemed to have a smug smile across his face. "Now, Ness, you're going to watch over him for the remainder of the day." That smug smile was punched right off of his face.

"What?" Ness said shocked.

"Did I stutter?" Mewtwo asked.

"No."

"Good, I hope I made myself clear." Mewtwo said. Toon Link, and Lucas began to walk off. Mewtwo just floated there for a few more seconds. "Ness, don't do anything stupid." he said before also walking away.

I walked back into my room. Even if Ness hit like a girl, it still hurt. "Get in here." I said.

He reluctantly followed. I doubted that it was because I said it, and more because he was clearly terrified of Mewtwo. I went into my medicine cabinet and pulled out some children's Tylenol. Every time I tried to swallow a pill, it resulted in me gagging, and in the worse cases, throwing up. I took some, making sure that Ness saw me taking them and threw the container to Ness.

"I know how much Mewtwo's attacks hurt. You're going to need them."

"I don't want your pity." Ness snapped.

"That's good, because I don't want your crap." I snapped back. I reached into the freezer and pulled out some ice packs throwing them at Ness, who caught them. "Now, why don't you tell me something, why do you hate me all of a sudden!"

"It should be obvious!"

"Is it because I was the mastermind behind the Reaper, is it because of Project Fantasia, is it because I was from the same world as the Reaper?" I wondered. "I thought you were one of the few who stood behind me at first."

"Yeah, at first!" Ness replied. "Then the Reaper had to kill the Manager! Then I overheard you talking to Lucas thinking that she was a bitch!"

Well, if someone tortures you with electricity, I'd like to see you thinking them as anything less than a bitch...

"You wanted the Reaper to kill the managers! And you took joy in it, didn't you?"

"No I didn't." I replied.

"What did you do to Lucas?" Ness asked. "What did you do to brainwash him?" I was getting sick of this. I went over to the TV and turned it on. "You can't ignore me! Answer my question."

Since when was Ness this big of a dick?

I turned on the Wii. "I did nothing." I sighed, as I grabbed a remote and went to the screen for Super Smash Bros Brawl. I started the game. As though it was driven by pure memory, I quickly opened the remote and pulled out one of the batteries to turn it off. I then grabbed a gamecube controller and sat down on my bed.

"Sit down and relax." I said. "It must be uncomfortable standing all day."

"I'm not going to drop my guard!" He snapped.

I just rolled my eyes, and focused my attention on the screen, occasionally glancing over to see that he hadn't readied a baseball bat to smash my head in. "Want to play?" I asked. I could tell he was currently like Lucas, in complete shock, and had about several hundred different thoughts going through his mind right now. I went to Classic mode to play. "This is all I did, I showed Lucas this."

"Where am I?" Ness questioned. "This is clearly a portion of the Smashers, but where am I? In fact, Mewtwo isn't on here either. And neither is Roy. Dr. Mario is absent."

"I haven't unlocked everybody." I replied.

Jeeze... I've had the game for 22 days and I haven't even unlocked a single character. I am the worst gamer ever.

"So, do you want to play, or am I just going to go through Classic mode?"

Ness was confused. He stood there, looking like he wanted to say something. I just tossed him a controller. He caught it and fumbled for several seconds. I moved over and Ness sat on the bed. I went back and selected group instead.

Within a few matches, Ness had gotten hang of playing Smash Bros. He was much faster in learning than Lucas. He was actually surprised when I was challenged by him in the game, and quickly beat him to unlock him.

For the next few rounds he played as himself. Actually finding it a bit difficult. "Jeeze, what's with all of these limitations? My attacks can go farther than that!"

Ness seemed to have lowered his guard around me; it was as though he was suddenly comfortable being around me again. "You probably have a lot of questions right now." I said.

"Yeah, I just don't know what to ask."

"This is how we perceive your world in mine. We play video games, and you're characters in them. Every single one of you. When we were young, the Reaper and I, we discovered the ability to travel through the worlds. At the time, we thought it was just a game, that nothing we did would have any negative consequences. If my memories do return, I'd be shocked if I wasn't just as bad if not worse than him. And now, learning that all of you are alive, and that when we actually traveled into the games we traveled to an alternate universe where we could of killed hundreds, maybe even thousands, I'm terrified. Damn it. What the hell is wrong with me?"

Ness stared at me in shock. I think he wanted to get away from me, and grab his baseball bat. I wouldn't blame him.

"Tell me, have you played my game?" Ness asked. This question shocked me. I mean, I just admitted to killing thousands of people, and he only wants to know if I played his game?

"Yes." I replied.

"What is it like?" Ness wondered.

I ran over to a cupboard and began to rummage through some stuff. I then pulled out a small cartridge and put it in the bottom of the DS. Immediately I started up my copy of Mother 1 & 2. "I apologize that it's in Japanese." I laughed. "I, well, wanted to pay for a copy, and unfortunately, I didn't have an SNES."

"SNES?" Ness said confused.

"It's the system that your game originally came out on, this is a port." I explained. "Unfortunately this version was never released in English."

"English? Japanese?"

I had forgotten that it was actually some deep magic that allowed everyone to communicate in the same language here.

"They are languages back in my world." I replied.

I showed him the game, explaining about how the RPG worked, and then I explained the plot. He was actually rather shocked. "Then this is just a retelling of the time I fought Giygas." Ness said. "But how would someone from your world know about this?"

"I don't know." I said.

"What about Lucas' game?" Ness asked.

I pulled out the cartridge for Mother 3. "This game was only released in Japanese, so far. Although, people are hoping for an English version... Anyways, it's the sequel to your game."

I started a new game, and quickly named the characters. "So, that's Lucas' family?" Ness asked.

"Yeah." I replied. "His father, his mother, his brother, and his dog."

"They look happy together." Ness said.

I tried to stop myself from tearing up. "Yeah."

"It's such a shame that his mother and brother were killed." Ness said.

"When playing through it again, I wish I could change the events. I wish Lucas could still have his parents at the end of the game. But in many ways, it's because he doesn't have them that he is able to grow stronger, and he is able to grow up."

"This is so weird." Ness said. "People from your world know all the things that we did, but we're just some fictional characters to them."

"Yeah." I guess that would be weird.

"Nugai?"

"What?"

"Lucas seems to like you." Ness said. "Maybe he sees you as a big brother figure or something."

"He needs someone who will probably be more permanent in that job. He shouldn't get attached to me. My time is limited, unless I get back to my world, I will die. You know that right? I don't want him to feel that depression again. You should be his big brother figure..."

"So if you find a way to stay, would you?"

I paused.

Would I?

Part of me said yes. What I remembered about the other world, I didn't necessarily like. This place was much better for many reasons

The other part of me said I didn't belong here. I was just an outsider who could travel here by some chance, and that I was just using this place as a crutch to escape, and that I must return home, some way, some how.

"No, there is a natural order that must be followed. I have to leave." I eventually replied.

"If that's the case, why are you crying?" Ness asked.

I reached up, and there were indeed tears coming down from my eyes. "I guess I don't want to leave."

"I don't want you to leave either." Ness said. "I don't know why, but you seem so familiar. As though we had met before."

A jolt of pain went through my head.

It was about when I was ten, the winter of 1998, if I remember correctly.

It was a strange weekend. We had gone down to see some friends of the family during the Christmas break. They had a girl who was slightly older than me, she was like a cousin. She liked playing videogames, RPG's, and Zelda in particular. They had an SNES. She was currently playing through Super Mario RPG, and was in Nimbus Land.

I don't know how long it had been since I knew about my gift, the ability to travel into games, but here several new worlds had been opened up, ones that I could explore to my hearts content. "What other games do you have?" I asked.

She showed me a bunch of different cartridges. I don't know what drew me to the game. Was it the strategy guide behind it?

"What's this one?" I asked, my hand on EarthBound.

She took the cartridge and put it in the SNES. She quickly started up a new file. "Here, why don't you name them. You will name a boy, a girl, two more boys, a dog, your favorite food, and your favorite thing."

"Okay." I went to name the boy in the hat after myself. However, I felt completely embarrassed about that for some reason. Instead I went down to the 'Don't Care' option for all of them.

Ness, Paula, Jeff, Poo, King, Steak, Rockin.

The game began and she explained it to me. She guided me, and made sure that I was doing everything properly. Eventually, she went to the washroom. I breathed a sigh of releif. FINALLY, I could enter into the game world. I stretched out my hand and touched the TV. I was then sucked into the world.

Due to some experiments that I had done with the Reaper, we had learned a few things. The first, that there was definitely a time difference. Time would go by much faster in the game world, however our watches would continue to stay synchronized to our world, however only analogue watches. Digital watches didn't work for some reason. I looked at the watch. I figured I had about a minute. I explored the town of Onett. Unfortunately, I got too close to the Shark's hide out, the arcade.

They immediately attacked me.

I was afraid, and completely ignorant of the workings of this world. "This is the Shark's hide out!" A skate Punk said shredding towards me, however a baseball bat suddenly went over my head and right into the skate punk, knocking him down to the ground. The skate punk began to get up, "Are you picking a fight?"

I turned around to see Ness, he was certainly older than me, maybe by only a few years, and with that baseball bat holstered on his shoulder he looked so cool.

"Yeah, I guess I am!" Ness replied. He quickly knocked the Shark Member unconscious, and then looked at me. "I haven't seen you around here before."

"I'm new. I just moved in!" I replied.

"Ah, I see. You must of heard about the arcade, and approached it, unfortunately, it's the hideout of the Shark gang." Ness said. "Well, unfortunately, this is about to get ugly, so I'm going to have to ask you to stand back."

I watched from a distance, and watched as Ness beat the Sharks out of the arcade. As he came out I rushed towards him. "That was so cool!" I said.

Ness just laughed. "Thanks."

"Well, I hope to see you around! Thank you for everything." I ran off, and quickly exited the world. I don't exactly remember how, but I did it...

"No, it must be your imagination." I laughed.

I wondered, how Ness remained looking the same age, while outside 9 years had passed. Going by some mathematical equation that the Reaper and I had thought up, (or rather, we used a timer on a digital watch while keeping a close eye on an analog watch,) we came to the conclusion that one hour inside was a minute outside. So a day inside would only be 24 minutes outside, ultimately meaning that forty days in here would only be 16 hours outside.

The point is it was a long time ago, and I was too lazy to do all of that math to find out how many hundreds of years had passed.

"I had this dream once." Ness replied. "This dream where I rescued some kid being attacked by the sharks."

"Dream?" I asked.

"Yeah, you know when you fall asleep."

"I know what a dream is you moron!" I snapped.

"I often have dreams, reliving various legs of my journey in the battle against Giygas." Ness laughed. "Sometimes though they are the same leg of the journey but, with small variations. For example, there was another one that I've had more recently, I got in over my head and too many Sharks attacked me at once however someone came in and saved me."

Another jolt of pain went through my head.

There was a time when I had obtained my games through a less than legal means... It was a few summers before I had a real job, and being tight for money, and believing that the original developers wouldn't profit, not to mention some rising amosity towards the used game market from developers, apparently, if you buy used, you're worse than murderers, the game was out of print for a couple of years, not to mention exceedingly rare... and my parent's wouldn't let me use their credit card... Yeah, the point is I emulated... let's move on to the actual point of this flashback.

I wanted to play EarthBound, and actually finish it. Perhaps thinking that I would be able to take on the sharks at a lower level I ran right in to the arcade under leveled. This didn't end well. Fearing for Ness' safety, I did the unthinkable, I reached out for the computer monitor. Normally, the screens I went through I was normally able to fit through, but, the computer monitor was actually really small, like a 10 inch screen. It was 2002! I can't remember if wide screen monitors existed back then! If they did, they were probably ungodly expensive! Once again, I didn't have a job, or a real source of disposable income. And quite frankly, I didn't care!

Somehow, I got through that small monitor. I don't know how, but I did it. I then repaid the favor that Ness did for me 4 years earlier. I reacted fast. Knocking out each of the Sharks, and making sure that they got away from Ness so that he wasn't hospitalized, or killed.

Ness got up off of the ground and immediately began to eat a hamburger that he had taken out of his knapsack. I tried my best to hold back the urge to throw up, since I knew that one came from a garbage can.

"Are you okay kid?" I asked.

"Yeah," Ness replied. "Thanks for saving me. Guess I rushed in here too quickly."

"Think nothing of it kid," I laughed.

"Kid!" Ness said, rather insulted. "I'm 12!"

"So, what?" I asked. "I'm 13. I'm older, you're a kid in my books." For those of you doing the math in your head, and wondering if I just screwed up, my birthday is late in the year.

I looked around the arcade, I recalled the last time I was in Onett, and how I didn't get to play anything. I quickly pulled out a few quarters and went over to a machine. It was a Donkey Kong machine. A quick glance around the arcade showed that all of the games were in fact Nintendo games. I put in the quarters, and tried to play a game. Unfortunately, Ness was staring at me, and it was really distracting.

"You really suck." Ness teased.

"Shut up." I snapped back. "I'm not used to having people watch me when I play videogames."

"Are you new here?" Ness wondered. "I haven't seen you around the town."

"It's a rather big town, I'm sure you wouldn't be able to recognize everyone." I said.

"You'd be surprised." Ness laughed.

"But, yeah, I'm new." I said.

"And you like video games, if I was sticking around Onett, I'm sure we could of been great friends."

"Why, where are you going?" I asked, trying to play dumb. Unfortunately, my acting was horrible. Fortunately, Ness didn't seem to notice.

"Well, I have to go save the world."

How would one normally react to that comment? I would normally assume that they would be shocked, or since it was just a kid who said it, brush it off as some sort of game they were playing. I think my reaction was appropriate. Laughter left my mouth.

"I'm telling the truth!" Ness said.

"Sure, I believe you." I laughed. I guess it was the way he said it that made it funny. I mean after all, I all ready knew he was the protagonist of the game, and that he would have to save the world. Maybe I didn't actually expect him to admit that he was going to save the world. "In fact, I'm going to go with you!"

Ness stared blankly at me. "You just laughed, you clearly don't believe me!" He pointed out. "And now you're saying that you want to come with me to save the world? Why would you do that?"

"Because, it might be fun." I replied.

"I nearly got hospitalized right now!" Ness protested.

"And I saved you, I can hold my own."

"Fine, what's your name?" Ness asked.

"********" I don't know why, but it was as though my mind did an automatic censorship beep.

"Well, *******, welcome to the group."

"Nugai, is something wrong?" Ness asked.

"I think so."

I didn't know if it was because of the amnesia that caused the censorship beep, but it was weird. Just hearing it suddenly coming out of your mouth.

Ness just sighed. He resumed playing the games. In the end, I think maybe this was a good thing. I too resumed and some more memories came back to me.

"So, Ness, what do you think will be next for video games?"

"Virtual Reality!" Ness replied.

I burst out laughing. I guess I always used to laugh when people talked about Virtual reality. Here they were, thinking that it would be something far out in the future, but here I was, experiencing it right now.

"What? Come on! It's possible!"

"It's a far way to go with our current technology, unless we steal it from Giygas." I pointed out. "I mean it's only what year?"

"199X" Ness replied.

199X? What kind of screwed up date was that. Its 2002 outside... or maybe this takes place in an alternate reality where Y2K actually destroyed everything, strangely including the Gregorian calendar?

"Fine, if you think you're so smart, what do you think will be next for videogames?"

"Motion controls." I replied.

"That will never catch on." Ness laughed. "Imagine how stupid you would look!"

Compared to sitting down and playing a video game...

"This game's winner is: Ness." The announcer said. I didn't recall the majority of that battle. What I could, I was being trashed.

"What's wrong?" Ness asked.

I could no longer hide it. "Some of my memories are coming back."

"Anything interesting?"

"I had a deep philosophical conversation about the future of the video game industry." I replied with a small exaggeration. "And I need to remember to tell an old friend that he was wrong and that motion controls were the next big thing in the video game industry."

"You need to have a more interesting flashback." Ness sighed. "What else does this machine do?"

I went to the menu. "Well, let's find out."

We went into the Mii Plaza. I went to a digital Mii which looked identical to me. I put the pointer on it, however, there seemed to be something strange. Suddenly part of the screen was pixilated. It was as though it was censoring something. I went to several other Mii's, each of them also had the strange pixilation. However there was a rather goofy looking one, a person in a yellow shirt with gray dreadlocks. Where the other Mii's were pixilated, this one had a name. "Mr. Kitten?" Ness asked.

I sincerely hope that I was drinking heavily when I made that Mii.

"Sure?" I said a bit confused.

We switched up several video games through out the day. Until we finally got sick and tired of them.

I turned off the Wii.

"So what else do you have here in this room?" Ness asked.

I went over to where I stored the gameboy advance cartridges, a small basket. I pulled out a Rubik's cube, and threw it at Ness. The pieces were all scrambled. I was absolutely horrible at those. I'd try to solve it, but I never could get anywhere. "What's the point of this?" Ness wondered.

"It's a puzzle, an evil puzzle, that you have to get all the sides matching." Ness just began to move the puzzle around. His attention was fully on the Rubik's cube. I just looked around the room a bit more.

"And done!" Ness said.

I looked back and stared in shock. I couldn't believe it. I just stared at the completed Rubik's cube. What Ness just did seriously pissed me off! "How did you do it?"

"I visualized it." Ness replied. "It was actually rather easy."

How? Easy?

I guess, being psychic required one to be able to solve Rubik's cubes easily.

"Well, since your stuck with me for the day, want to play some chess?"

Ness had a smile across his face. "Sure." He laughed. "And when I win, what are you going to bet?"

"Bet?" I questioned.

"Yeah, it's rather boring if you don't bet something." Ness said.

I glanced at the chessboard. I was rather confident in my abilities. Although I had no idea how good Ness was. "No idea." I replied. "How about, if I lose, I'll make you some food."

"Okay." Ness said. "And if you win, I'll do the same."

I made a mental note to watch no matter what Ness did so he couldn't poison it. I wasn't sure if he was still suspicious of me, and this whole thing was an act, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try…

The game began, and Ness was actually quite good. I began to think that maybe betting with him was a bad idea however…

Ness just glared at me rather frustrated. "Why can't I read your mind?"

I just smiled. "Mewtwo said that it's degraded, so you can't read it." I replied. "Sorry, but you're not going to win this game by cheating."

Yes, I think there was an actual way to win this! He didn't stand a chance!

Ness just looked even more frustrated than before. Being unable to tell what my next move was, I was quickly able to fight against him and beat him.

"And Checkmate." I said.

He just looked at the chessboard. "Play me again." He said.

"Maybe after some food." I said.

Ness just nodded. We walked down the kitchen. A few Smashers saw us coming but didn't say anything. When we got to the kitchen it was empty. Ness just looked in the fridge. "No leftovers." He sighed. "Well, okay then… Hmm… Actual food."

He began to go through the cupboards and eventually just got some instant noodles from them. I couldn't help but cringe. Here I was hoping that it would be a decent meal, but nope… Instant Noodles, the food of champions.

"I thought you said actual food." I said. This just earned a glare from him.

"And what do you suggest?" He wondered.

"I don't know, something that actually takes time and effort to make?" I said.

Ness just let off a big sigh. "Sorry, not from me today." Ness said.

And so I had to suffer through instant noodles. In no time at all we were back at my room playing more rounds of chess. This time, Ness was much stronger. It seemed like now that he knew that he couldn't read my mind, he was putting forth actual effort. He beat me in the second game.

"Interesting." I said. "Okay, let's go again!"

We spent the majority of the afternoon just playing chess. Constantly going back and forth. As far as I could tell we were both practically equal, sadly no other memories seemed to resurface for me.

Soon it was getting late. "Well, I guess I'm staying here." Ness sighed. "Where do I sleep?"

"The floor." I replied.

He just looked at the floor. He glanced back up at me. "You can-"

"I am serious." I replied. "Deal with it. Next problem?"

He just looked at me in disbelief. "But your bed is a queen sized."

"And it's all mine, I'm selfish, and I'm keeping the bed to myself." I said. "Now, shut up, and go to sleep on the ground."

"Do I at least get a blanket?"

I tossed the top cover to him. He just grabbed it and put it on the ground. "And a pillow?" he wondered.

I threw a spare pillow at him. Soon he went on the ground, and I fell asleep on the bed. Hopefully the message got through to him better than it did to Lucas.

And… 3 days of updates in a row… geeze… must be the rapture or something…

And I now do own a copy of EarthBound, it's only the cartridge though… It was basically my Christmas gift to myself this year.