DarkFoxKit: Hi Readers! Oh, what's this? I'm working on another Earthbound fanfiction? And with someone? Who could it be?

Connor the Speling Pro: Hello, people! :) I said that I was going to take a break from updating, but… Well, guess that didn't last long. xD At the least, I won't be updating my main stories for a while. In case nobody remembers me, I was the one who wrote Time Distorter with Fox here. :)

DarkFoxKit: Hey, you're one of the most popular Earthbound writers in this fandom! And anyways, I hope the people would enjoy this as much or more than Time Distorter.

Connor: Yeah, but we're mixing things up a little with this fic. In Time Distorter, we each took different characters and alternated description paragraphs (roughly), which made it difficult to keep things consistent and on point. In this one, we're each taking different scenes. I'm writing a Ness PoV and Fox is writing Lucas. :)

DarkFoxKit: Of course, since we're working more seperately this time around, the characters we control may not interact much with each other, and if they do we would probably keep it brief. But who knows? Plans can change and so do story structures. And I must apologize to Connor, I bugged him to write another Earthbound story with me because I was really inspired to write more Earthbound stories but didn't really want to work alone.

Connor: Hey, I agreed because I'm excited about this too! :) And yeah, you can blame me if you don't like our new style where each person takes their own scenes. That was one of the things that I lobbied hard to Fox (since it's more fun and helps me improve to have complete control over my own scenes).

DarkFoxKit: It's not so bad, it's kind of fun to write my own scene too, but most of the time I'm more worried how compatible our two very different writing styles would be between the two scenes.

Connor: I guess we'll just have to see. Please leave a review telling us what you think about this story! It helps us a lot. :) And while we appreciate criticism, please try to keep it constructive. If you hate the story and have nothing to say that would help us… well, the back button is on the upper left.

DarkFoxKit: Alright Connor, I think we've rambled on long enough. Let's let the readers get on with the story. We hope you guys enjoy our different scenes, characters and writing styles!

A Cold Reality

Prologue: A Friendly Visit and A New Country

Ness shivered as an icy breeze blasted over his face, courtesy of Winters. He sniffled and wiped his nose while at the same time trying to shield his face from the sharp winds. Small bits of snow melted around his ankles as he took a step forward, and near-freezing water leaked into his shoes. It was almost enough to make him turn back.

Okay, Ness told himself. You've been out here for less than a minute. Jeff has spent 14 years of his life in Winters. I think that you can take it.

Ness glanced at the grey lab in front of him that he almost mistook for a futuristic fortress with its cloudy windows and steel walls. Ness walked up and grabbed onto the door handle, promptly recoiling backwards and shaking his hand from the biting cold. He let out a startled cry and stuck his fingers in his mouth to warm them up.

Jeff opened the door from the inside and smiled. Ness took his hand out of his mouth and grinned, feeling the blood rise to his face. He hadn't seen Jeff in months, and this was the first impression that he made? At least he could only go up from here.

"Yeah, I feel for that a couple times myself," Jeff said, the light from inside dancing on his glasses. "I call it a nonverbal IQ test."

"Hah," Ness said, breathing warm air on his hands. "Not funny."

"Why don't you come in?" Jeff said. "We have heating inside."

Ness perked up at the word "heating." He walked inside Dr. Andonuts' lab, his shoes making squelch noises each time he took a step from all the water that leaked in.

"Yeah, you should probably take those off," Jeff said, looking at Ness' feet.

Ness pulled his shoes off without untying his laces and set them carefully next to the door. He looked at his socks and frowned. Then with a sigh, he grabbed onto them and peeled them off his feet, squirming to get them off his skin.

"Geez, Ness," Jeff said. "You make taking socks off look as intense as our battle with that Carbon Dog back at the Fire Spring."

"I hate wet socks," Ness said, putting them inside of his shoes. "And I hate the cold."

"I did not think that anyone was capable of putting so much loathing in their voice when talking about socks," Jeff said, walking back to a lab station and putting a pair of goggles on. "Sorry. I need to deal with this."

Ness watched as Jeff pulled a vial of chemicals down the drain. But didn't Jeff say that all physical objects were made up of chemicals? Well, the yellow liquid in the beaker looked like it belonged in a lab station rather than out in the environment, so Ness thought of it as a chemical in his mind.

"There," Jeff said, taking off his goggles. "Done with chemistry."

"Thankfully," Ness said. "You would be embarrassed by my skills. I spilled more beakers than I can count back in grade school."

"Well, it's not for everyone," Jeff said. "I prefer physics myself. Now, what brings you here?"

"I'm bored," Ness said.

"I'm afraid I can't do much to help you there."

"No, not like that. I mean that I have nothing to do, so I decided to drop by. With my teleportation PSI, it literally takes me less than a minute to get here."

"Ah, so that explains why you look like you're dressed for a summer hike," Jeff said. "You're just too lazy to change before you warp over here."

"If I'm going to be cold for less than a minute, why bother changing?" Ness paused. "I still hate wet socks, though."

"Yes, you never have approached situations delicately when you could instead barrel right through a challenge with your ridiculous stamina," Jeff said. "I got so many callouses on my feet from walking long distances on our adventure, and you still had to slow down your pace so that I could keep up."

Ness shrugged. He didn't really mind waiting up for Jeff. But then again, Jeff was always a little self-conscious about his slender build and lack of strength, so this might have been a personal image issue for him.

"So how have things been going?" Ness asked. "You're keeping busy?"

"Indeed," Jeff said. "But we should probably start with your side of things. I'll rant for days if you let me, and I already know that you're too nice to shut me up. Do you want some cocoa?"

"Yes please," Ness said. "I've been pretty busy as well. I teleported straight from the Nowhere Islands."

"What were you doing there?" Jeff asked, pouring some milk into a pot and sticking it on a stove.

"Surveying the area," Ness said. "The pigmasks have gotten a lot more bold. They basically act as a centralized government for the islands."

"Well, it is about time that those people unified," Jeff said, grabbing a case of cocoa powder. "But the pigmasks, though…"

"Yeah, and it's probably even worse than you've heard. They impose military rule on the towns that they occupy. That means a lot of surveillance and a lot of executions."

"Wow," Jeff said, nearly dropping the cocoa powder. "That sounds like something from medieval times."

"Well, we've had our share of recent organizations that inflict that sort of harm," Ness said. "Remember the global wars in the first half of the century?"

"No. I wasn't around to see them."

"You know what I mean," Ness said, rolling his eyes. "I'm afraid that these pigmasks could set off something big. We came closer than most people think to wiping ourselves out in the second global war. I don't know if the world can survive another large-scale conflict. I hope that I'm just being cynical and silly about this one."

"Well," Jeff said under his breath. "Maybe it's for the best."

"Hmm?" Ness said.

"Oh!" Jeff flinched, nearly spilling the pot of cocoa. "I didn't think that you could hear. Cocoa's ready."

"So soon?" Ness said.

Jeff poured two mugs of rich, chocolately liquid. Ness' mouth watered.

"We have all of the fancy stoves and ovens," Jeff said. "They can heat up milk quite quickly. But as I was saying…" Jeff brought the mugs over and handed one to Ness. "Well, why don't we sit down?"

Ness followed Jeff over to a table and sat down across from his friend. He sipped his cocoa, feeling it burn comfortably as it cascaded down his throat. He savored the sweet aftertaste before taking another sip.

"Don't tell my father that I made cocoa in here, all right?" Jeff said. "He would never let me forget it."

"Why?" Ness said. "Oh, this is where you do lab work, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I haven't worked with anything dangerous in months, so I'm sure it's fine, but my dad's a stickler about lab safety."

"We could have gone upstairs," Ness said. "I wouldn't have minded."

Jeff shrugged.

"Well, we're already here and I still need to explain myself," Jeff said. "Did you hear what I actually said back there?"

"Yeah, that something was for the best. I hope that you don't mean a global conflict."

"Of course not! I was talking about my research. Well, mostly my father's work, but I help too. You know about nuclear reactors, yes?"

"We learned about them in school," Ness said. "Matter is converted into energy and we can use that energy to power our homes. It seems pretty wild to me."

"Yeah. Our current method involves taking a large atom and knocking a little bit of it off, basically. That little bit turns into energy with the whole E = MC^2 equation that Einstein discovered. Its discovery changed the way that we see energy itself."

And it also allowed us to make bombs, Ness thought. Bombs capable of ravaging entire cities.

"Thank goodness for the Fourside Convention, though," Ness said. "All of the nuclear reactors are in some remote area and nobody's allowed to know how to make weapons out of Uranium. Otherwise, I don't know how I would sleep at night."

"Thanks, Mr. History Textbook," Jeff said, cracking a smirk. "Although I'm not convinced that the world powers would really give up the nuclear bomb so easily. Either way…" Jeff hesitated.

"What is it?" Ness asked.

"There is a better way to harness nuclear energy," Jeff said. "If you mash small molecules together and create bigger ones, there is some leftover matter left that is converted into energy."

"Really," Ness said. "We never learned about that."

"It's information that the world governments doesn't like sharing," Jeff said, "Because of how dangerous it is. That process is how the sun gets its energy, by the way."

Ness blinked. He had never really thought about how the sun gave off heat before. It just… did.

"Think about it, Ness," Jeff said, his eyes twinkling. "My father and I are planning to unlock the powers of the stars."

"But it could also be used to create even bigger bombs," Ness said. "Is that what you meant when you said that it was for the best?"

"I did not mean for you to hear," Jeff said. '...But yes."

"How can you say that?" Ness demanded. "That it's for the best to unlock the key to creating even larger weapons and holding them over the pigmasks' heads?"

"Fear is the ultimate motivator, for better or for worse," Jeff said, sipping his cocoa. "People are still scared of powerful weapons, Ness. Why do you think we had two global wars and then little to no conflict for the next 50 years?"

"I see a lot of conflict on the Nowhere Islands," Ness said, looking Jeff in the eye.

"Right. Fear is starting to lose its edge. Maybe it's time..." Jeff shook his head, looking down at the ground. "I don't really believe in holding powerful weapons over people either, Ness. It was just a musing from someone who often considers the hypothetical."

"Your fancy words won't make this any better," Ness said.

"All right!" Jeff said. "I'm sorry, Ness. I shouldn't have said it, but I'm still glad that I worked it out in my mind. It's something I had to consider before shooting down."

"You have to promise me," Ness said, "That if it looks like someone's going to make a bomb using your research, you'll stop."

"I would need my father's approval…"

"Promise me, Jeff."

Jeff sighed, setting his mug of cocoa down on the table. He extended his hand outward.

"All right," Jeff said. "I promise."

"It's a deal then," Ness said, grabbing Jeff's hand and shaking it.

So this is the adult world, Ness thought. Who knew that it would be so messy?

One year later

A ferry was going in-between an island and a content. The ferry was being used to carry people across, and those who want to leave and start over in a new life. A young adolescent boy with blue eyes, blond hair in a cowlick style, wears a yellow and red striped shirt and blue shorts along with a middle aged man wearing a cowboy-like style clothing, a red handkerchief scarf around his neck and a cowboy hat obscuring most of his upper face, were looking out to sea on the edge of the ferry.

"Once we reach America, Lucas, we'll have to find a suitable job right away," The man said to the adolescent boy. "We barely had enough money to afford this ride all the way to America."

"I know…" Lucas sighed softly. "I'm going to miss Nowhere Island and Tazmily Village, but it's good that we're finally moving away from the Pigmask's control. I don't think I could stand another day living like that."

The man tilted his hat. "You know, Lucas… you've changed since what happened to your mother, Hinawa and your twin brother three years ago… You used to be so much more timid."

"I had to. After what happened to them, the Pigmasks just took over and… well… they didn't really give us a choice, did they?" Lucas said bitterly.

"Yes, I know," The man sighed. "I just hope once we get to America things can get better for us."

"Me too," Lucas said, looking out to the endless blue sea.

"Excuse me, Mr. Flint?" A young, lanky man spoke up. "You're heading to America, correct?"

The man called Flint nodded, "Yes, is there a problem, sir?"

"There's just some protocols you should be aware of before we get there, sir," the man said. "Things have become a bit hectic over there. Crime rate is low but the laws are strict, so you better watch yourself while you're there. And I am supposed to ask this to anyone under the age 50… would you two like to join the cause?"

"What cause?" Flint asked.

Lucas frowned, having a bad feeling at the pit of his stomach.

"A cause for a higher future," the man said.

Lucas and Flint looked at each other, neither of them had heard about this before. And the last time someone talked about a 'better future' was when Nowhere Island was filled with brainwashing Happy Boxes and the Pigmask took over.

"Thanks, but we just want to live a peaceful life," Flint said. "Nothing more."

"They won't force you to join, sirs," the man said. "Okay, that is all I needed to say. Good day to you both."

"I thought America was a free country kind of place… I had hoped there weren't any Pigmask influences there," Flint sighed. "But I guess Nowhere Islanders like us would be the last to hear about it."

"We just couldn't find a place to live in peace, could we?" Lucas sighed. "America will probably just turn into what Nowhere Islands turned into when this so-called 'better future' comes to play."

"We'll just have to make do with what we can. We've already escaped from the Pigmask's reign, we can't regret that decision now. Maybe this cause may not be the same as the Pigmask's," Flint said. "Let's find a nice place to settle in, get nice paying jobs and just try to live in peace."

Lucas frowned, but nodded. He looked back out to sea and sighed, "I wish Mom and Claus were here…"

"Me too… but hopefully wherever they are, they're at peace," Flint said quietly.

"And I hope Fuel will forgive me for leaving him…"

"I'm sure Fuel understand," Flint tipped his hat. "He and the rest of Tazmily would've jumped at the chance to leave as well. Maybe we'll see him again someday in the future."

Yeah, someday in the future… you said the same thing about Claus three years ago… Lucas thought to himself bitterly, but decided not to say that to his father. Flint was only trying to help after all, losing Hinawa and Claus had been hard on both of them.

The content of America was finally coming into view. The ferry was going to dock at the harbor soon, and Lucas can finally have a new life with his father. No more Pigmasks, no more mourning of their past, no more barely making enough to live off of, and no more expectations of using his PSI.

Lucas had just about had it with some of the people on Tazmily Village, especially the ones who knew about his ability to use PSI, specifically PK Love. These specific people had too much expectations of him, they wanted him to release some big dragon to end the world or some other nonsense. Lucas refused to do that, and tried to pretend his PSI didn't exist. Now that they've moved to a whole new country they can start a whole new life.

Once the ferry had docked, Lucas and Flint picked up their bags and head down the drawbridge to step into a new land.

"Well, this is it, son. Welcome to America," Flint said with a small smile on his face.

Lucas nodded as he read the sign of the town they're in. "Looks like we're in a town called Ellay. Whoa, this place is much bigger than Tazmily."

"It certainly is," Flint said as the two of them walked into the city. "Hopefully that means there's more jobs for us to find here."

"But we should find a place to settle in first," Lucas said. "Maybe away from the city so we don't get caught up whatever 'better future' the high and mighty people have planned?"

"But we can't go far, not with the low amount of money we have right now," Flint said. "Let's just find a temporary apartment to rent until we can make enough money to move out of here and into someplace quieter."

"Okay… I Just hope we don't get caught up in this crap," Lucas said. "The last thing we need is more oppressors in our lives."

Flint tilted his hat before he said, "Then we better make this fast."

Lucas knew his dad was a strong and dependable man, however that may not be enough to get hired in a big city like this. The boy can only hope they'll find peace in their new homes, but that was just wishful thinking.