Secrets of the Playground

Over the past few weeks, more and more alerts of lands completely disappearing into the darkness has broadcast over the radio. Though Lucas’s mother tries to shelter her baby boy from hearing about these, he still knows what is going on in the world. As a result, the neighborhood he lives in has become darkened as well. Many people too afraid to even come out of their homes they’ve lived in for years and years. Yet, here he is, sitting alone on the only swing set that isn’t broken. Only the jungle gym and this swing set are still in tact after a few robots invaded the land. There was no way he could pass this moment up.

A day earlier, Ness had sent him a letter using a form of his PK elements.

Lucas,
I bets your to much of a sissy to meat me at the playgroun. I needs to tell you something very emportant. Meat me at 5:30.
Best friend,
Ness

Here it is, already five fourty-five and Ness still hasn’t shown up. Lucas figures he should be used to the fact that Ness is always late. Ever since they met in kindergarten four years ago, Ness had always been late to everything.

The swing creeks as Lucas slightly rocks back and forth. The air feels a bit chilly and damp. Lucas knows it is going to rain soon.

“Hey fuck-tard!” Ness taunts from behind Lucas.

Lucas turns his head and blinks. “Don’t talk like that, Ness.” His childish voice squeaks.

“I’m ten now. I can talk howevers I wants ta!” Ness replies and crosses his arms in front of his black and white striped shirt. His cap blows up a little in the rough winds.

“It’s rude,” Lucas mutters as he turns his head back around. His hair falls in his eyes. The swing sways a little.

Behind Lucas, Ness does a series of leaps and ends up sitting in the swing next to him.

Lucas digs his toe in the dirt.

“Look at me!” Ness demands.

Lucas complies.

For a long moment, the two boys sit on their swings in silence. There is a faint noise in the distance that raises Lucas’s heartbeat for a second. It sounds like water dripping. But all goes back to quiet. The two boys still are unable to speak.

“What did you need to tell me?” Lucas finally asks. His eyes dart back and forth between Ness and the ground.

Ness jumps off the swing and lands in front of Lucas. He puts his hands on Lucas’s shoulders and picks him up off the swing and puts him on his feet right in front of him.

Unexpectedly, Ness tilts his head to the side and leans into Lucas. Soon, his lips are directly on top of Lucas’s lips. Lucas’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. He pushes Ness back and flails his arms at Ness, slapping him away.

Ness stumbles and looks confused for a second then narrows his eyes. “Whatdija do that fer?”

“The question is, what do you think you’re doing?” Lucas’s muscles are tensing up.

“Trying to tell your sissy-ass that I love you too.” Ness kicks at the dirt.

“But—”

“Awh forget it.” Ness waves a dismissing hand and walks toward home. His voice rumbles in Lucas’s eardrums, banging away at him.

“Wait!” Lucas starts to run after him, but stops at the swing. He touches his lips and watches the boy he loves walk away. He was only nine. In no way was he ready to be kissing. But love was an emotion that kids know and understand, yet forget as they age.

Lucas turns and starts to walk home when black and purple spheres start falling from the sky. They are beautiful and scary to him. He stands frozen until he finds himself surrounded by green guys that he thinks might be heartless. There isn’t time to think on it too much because a big concrete boy appears and starts to chase after him. He runs, wildly trying to escape. He just can’t obtain a speed to get away from this enormous object. Still, he tries, until he trips over a stick. That’s when he hears his savior.

“PK thunder!” A bolt of lightning comes out of Ness. It hits the big boy.

Lucas has a hard time seeing because his hair is in his face again.

One more blast at the big boy and it explodes.

Ness lands behind Lucas as he gets up off the ground. He dusts off the dirt. There is a pain inside of him as he turns toward the boy who just saved him.

“Ness, I—”

“Don’t worry about it, kid.” Ness rubs his hand over Lucas’s blonde hair.

Lucas doesn’t have enough time to get mad about Ness calling him kid—something he had always called him—because on top of Hell’s Cliff a wicked “heh heh heh” sounds.

Both boys turn to see a man with a moustache licking his lips and pointing a gun at them. “I’m gonna get me two of them there boys.” Wario licks his lips again. When he smiles his nasty teeth send a chill down Lucas’s spine, freezing him.

Wario shoots a few times at Ness. All of which Ness dodge.

With each dodge, Ness cries out.

“Ped—”

Dodge.

“—o—”

Dodge.

“—phile.”

Dodge.

The word makes Wario grumble, but stop for a second all the same.

Lucas sees that Wario notices that he is frozen in fear. The gun aims right at him, and he still can’t even move. As the black arrow heads Lucas’s way, Ness jumps right in front of it, saving Lucas. Ness turns into a statue right in front of Lucas and falls to the ground. A fight or flight instinct rages inside of Lucas. However, he can’t even find a spark to send a PK thunder Wario’s way. So, he zooms off.

Running away, Lucas hears Wario curse in the background and jump down on top of Ness’s statue and say, “I think I’ll keep this un for my own person collection.” The last thing Lucas hears is Wario suck in his slobber.

Lucas vomits before he rushes onward to find help.

It starts to rain as Lucas slows down to catch his breath. The rain hides his tears.

All the water fogs his vision, and Lucas runs into something hard but soft at the same time. He falls on his butt. When he gets up, he sees a twelve-year-old boy standing in front of him. The boy slightly smiles at him to show that he’s not angered by the boy running into him.

“Glad you’re not one of them,” the boy says.

“Th-them?” Lucas’s trembles. The rain is cold.

Suddenly the rain stops and more badies come out to play. As if they are connected in some way.

The twelve-year-old pulls out a sphere from his pocket. He throws it, shouting, “go Squirtle!”

A turtle-like thing comes out of the ball. Lucas hides behind the Pokemon Trainer but peeps around him, watching Squirtle pound water attacks at the enemy. The kid in front of Lucas calls out attacks that Lucas doesn’t understand, but knows that it is helping him win.

Once all the enemies are defeated, the Pokemon Trainer starts to walk away, saying, “if that’s where your village is, you might wanna look for something new, kiddo.” He points toward Lucas’s village.

“I’m not a kid!” Lucas protests instead of being sad about the darkness surrounding his village.

“Whatever. Good luck!” The Pokemon Trainer waves dismissively.

Lucas thinks back to Ness trying to kiss him and saving his life. He bites his lip then chases after the Pokemon Trainer.

“Let me go with you,” Lucas pleads.

The taller boy turns toward Lucas. “Listen, kid. I’m on a quest to get a few more Pokemon. Then I’m heading to find this darkness and stop it. Sorry, I don’t have time to baby-sit.”

Lucas’s lip quivered. “But...I have to save my Ness.”

“Ness?” The Pokemon Trainer furrowed his eyebrow.

“The boy I love...” Lucas looked at his feet. His face reddens from his confession.

The other boy sighed and nodded to follow him. “We’ll rescue him together.”

They walked on side by side toward unknown adventures, attempting to be heroes.