Welcome to Onett

Paula, The Only Thing In His Way

Ness knocks on the door and it opens after a few moments.

"Hello Ness," says a childish voice "Paula is in her room if you're looking for her."

"Thanks, Alex." Ness responds, walking inside. I smile towards Alex before following Ness.

"He's the kid who says he has the mind of an adult." Ness whispers as we walk into a room with desks, chairs and children strewn everywhere. He walks into an open doorway after greeting all of the children, me following behind.

Ness greets a man and walks up the stairs. I follow him as he knocks on a door. The knock is quickly answered by a bright eyed girl in a pink dress. She looks around our age.

"Hi Nessie!" She says, smiling. I'm guessing she's Paula. She throws her arms around him and he hugs back. I just kinda stand awkwardly beside them.

"Hey, Paula, " Ness says, breaking away from the hug and kissing her forehead. I cringe inwardly. "How're you?"

"I'm as great as ever. How are you?"

"I'm good too. I brought Lucas with me!" Ness says, stepping aside and holding his hands out, presenting me. I wave awkwardly.

"H-Hi..." I say quietly.

"Hi Lucas! I'm Paula, as you probably know. How are you?" She sounds cheery. Ness looks at me and nods me on.

"I-I'm good." I say. I'm good? God, you can do better than that. Oh well, too late. I decide to take my mind off of... Well, my mind and focus on something else. How about Paula? Sure.

She has a pink dress that goes down to her shins and blonde hair that bounces as she moves. In her hair, she has a large red bow. Her dress has a dark piece around the waist that seems to tie up at the back. She also wears white underneath her dress. Her eyes are a friendly shade of blue.

I shrug and shuffle my feet. Paula gives me a patient smile. She's probably going to be easy to warm up to.

"Lucas also knows PSI!" Ness says giddily.

"Really?" Paula says.

"Do you have PK Fire?" She says, clapping, little flames coming from her hands.

"Or what about PK Freeze?" She asks, pointing to the ceiling, a light blue hexagon imprinting itself on the roof.

"How about PK Thunder?" She asks, shooting the cold looking hexagon with a quick blast of PSI. It smashes and turns into snowflakes that drift softly to the ground, disappearing after a few seconds.

"Uh, n-no... I have something c-called PK Love." I tell her. Ness is waiting for me to show off the PSI move giddily. I don't in fear of breaking something.

"We should probably go outside to sh-show this one off." I warn. Ness shrugs and heads outside, us following behind.

Ness takes us to a tree. He steps back and stands with Paula, whom is watching curiously. I take a deep breath and place my hand over my heart. I hold out my other hand in the direction of the tree.

"PK Love!" I call towards the tree. Small light teal hexagons once again float from the tips of my fingers, coming together to form a larger hexagon. It's different this time, though. It begins spinning and the inside of it begins to turn into smaller hexagons. They launch into the tree, snapping some branches and leaving imprints in the wood. The outline of the hexagon becomes thicker and grows, launches itself into the tree. The trees leaves dissipate and the tree nearly gets pushed over. The hexagon explodes and the tree snaps.

I stagger backwards and hold my hand to my head. The energy I had before is practically gone and my knees are now weak. I sit down so I don't fall and Paula sits next to me, Ness quickly following suit.

"It's a good thing we went outside." Paula says.

"Dude, Lucas," Ness says, seemingly having an idea. He turns towards me. "There's these eight places that I'm going to take you to. PK Love will be fucking awesome by the end of it."

"U-Uh, thanks?" I say with a shrug. He smiles.

"No problem." He says. With a last glance of awe at the toppled tree, we head back inside.

-

Paula and I talk and get to know each other better. She talks about certain parts of her adventures. I don't have a story to tell, so I just sit idly by, asking questions every so often.

"Wh-What were the blue guys c-called again?" I asked.

"Happy-Happy cultists." She responded almost instantly.

"It's pretty ironic." Ness commented.

-

"That must have been terrifying. Praying for something that might not have come." I said.

"Oh my goodness, I was scared of of my mind." She remarked.

"Giygas is fucking terrifying. I still have nightmares about it sometimes." Ness said coolly, taking a sip of water.

-

"So you've got Ness with a bat, you with a pan, Jeff with a gun and Poo with a... A sword, was it? That's amazing. Thanks for saving the world." I said.

"It's my pleasure." She responded.

"Pffft, it was easy. Just smack smack, some hope and a little bit of lifeup omega. It's the perfect save the world cake." Ness said, twirling his hat around on his finger.

-

It was around 3 in the afternoon when we got back. I'm getting a bit better with times, Ness has been teaching me.

"Okay, so there's eight places with some strange shit going on. I can show you one here in Onett, actually." Ness says, smiling and running off. I sigh and chase after him.