“It was horrible. Months after I saved all of your butts, I found myself getting thrown all over the place. I woke up...found myself in strange places. Merciless fighters who seemed to exist only to knock me around. Round after round, they sent guys after me one by one. I beat them all. I don’t know how, especially after that last round. Few years later, it all happened all over again. More vicious. More brutal. Tried to get me here in Onett...still here...ready for what comes next. It’ll happen. The violence. The brutality. The carnage.”

Upon hearing the last couple of sentences Ness managed to throw out, the librarian barged in, asking, “What in blue blazes is this?! What are you telling these kids?! You were supposed to show up here today, read Goodnight, Moon to this crowd of kids and maybe handle a Curious George if they wanted an encore!”

Ness looked confused and tired. He brushed his bushy hair back and looked at the horrified and equally confused crowd of kids standing in front of him. “It happened. It will happen again soon.”

“That’s very nice. Just go home. I’ll read them the stupid book.” She pushed him out of the chair and got the book. “I really have to stop these celebrity reading sessions. I’ll just find an impersonator, it’s not like these kids are old enough to tell the difference,” she mumbled as she started flipping through to re-familiarize herself. Within no time, Ness was back in his basement, where he would be bothered by nobody.

Ness poured himself a bowl of Trix and looked at the calendar. It was October 31st. Halloween. He flipped the TV on and immediately saw a Charlie Brown animated special. Within minutes, he had spaced out, thinking about the Smash Bros. experience. It truly was a horrific experience for Ness. It had never been explained to him. He just woke up one morning in the arena. Once that hand saw that he had awoken, Ness was immediately thrown into battle against Princess Peach, with whom he was not familiar at all.

He was mesmerized by her beauty and Peach took advantage of this rare opportunity. She kicked him in the face, nearly knocking a set of teeth out then Ness suffered a set of cracked ribs as Peach leapt, butt-first, into his torso. The unexplainable explosion caused by this collision sent him flying off the castle they were fighting on and Ness landed in another arena with a thud. He quickly realized this was an every-man-for-himself environment and rose to the occasion. He did the same a few years later, when the Melee fights were initiated. The combined ordeal had warped Ness’s mind, sending him into a state where he couldn’t do a thing without looking back at it. Not even enjoy some Charlie Brown.

He snapped out of this daze when he heard a high-pitched screech of joy coming from his front lawn. He listened intently and heard it again. “Pika pika, Pikachu!” Those words sent shivers down Ness’s spine. He rushed to the window and saw the beast itself. It was horrifying. The creature’s yellow face sent a bullet of fear straight into his heart. He had faced this creature, which the Smash Bros. organizers referred to only as “Pikachu”, twice. He thought he was lucky to win both times, using various items to his advantage.

Ness dropped down to the ground, out of the sight of the monster. Pikachu’s furious cries grew louder and Ness knew it was time to pull himself together and take action. He scanned the room for potential weapons. Broom, sword, milk crate, rolled up magazine, and in the corner, his trusty bat. He crawled to the bat then saw that Pikachu had its back turned towards Ness, oblivious to his watchful but paranoid eyes. Ness ran towards his basement window and somehow, he was able to leap through, tackling Pikachu by those stumps it had for legs.

Pikachu went down and tried to make a run for it, but Ness just sent it flying over his roof with a good swing of the bat. A giant gorilla that had been accompanying this pokemon was dumbstruck. “Donkey Kong. You’re going donkey down.” He had been turned too deranged to come up with witty action phrases, but he was still good with the bat. He posed as if the bat were a samurai sword and knocked the ape to his knees. Out of the corner of his eyes, Ness could see one of the fiercest competitors he had faced at the door. Super Mario.

It was go time, so he stuffed the gorilla into a nearby trash can and charged Mario, drop-kicking him a few yards away from his door. Ness’s faithful brother, Luigi, who was jogging slowly across the street was running towards Ness to stop him. Luigi had put on a couple of pounds and a couple of decades. The big green blob was jogging furiously towards him and Ness threw his bat to the ground. He wanted to even the field slightly. When Luigi finally reached him, it was clear he wasn’t going to settle for an apology. Ness grabbed Luigi by his head which had gone bald and pushed him into the ground. Luigi was down for the count. “Nobody goes near my house. We must protect this house!”

And Ness was on a mission to protect. He ran around town with his baseball bat, knocking down armies of unsuspecting Marios, Yoshis and Links. Once the cops showed up, he was finally sedated and given the straightjacket. Ness never did realize that he was judo chopping and baseball batting trick-or-treaters, but he was fine knowing that they were all running from him. The hunters had finally become the hunted. He lived happily ever after, even if it did get uncomfortable in that straightjacket.