In Which Our Hero Gets the Power

Ness learned some mind-blowing truths about important people from his past and what he’s up against in his future. Now it’s time to get out of Magicant!

…which is easier said than done. He has to cross a whole plain full of monsters from his nightmares, trek a whole ocean of black mucky slime, and face down his worst nightmare… Only then will he gain the power he needs to protect his friends and withstand the onslaught of the Destroyer of Worlds himself!

Will “Ness an hour from now” be able to count on “Ness an hour ago?” Will his courage, his red cap, and trusty Gutsy bat be enough for the ordeal? Will he finally unlock the secret to wielding psionic power?!

Find out on this week’s episode of… The Podcast Against Giygas!

ROCKIN!!!

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You’re listening to… The Podcast Against Giygas!

Episode twenty: In Which Our Hero Gets the Power

*

The Sea of Eden, the terrible land of black water and jagged rock and thunder and lightning that lied before Ness, couldn’t have been more unlike the world of Magicant if it tried. He loved the brief time he spent in his own mind, imagining the people he knew and loved doing silly little things that he might have imagined them doing in his dreams when he was much younger. But the black realm before him was full of monsters, whether made up in nightmares, seen in movies or video games, or fought in real life on this journey with his friends beside him. There were the blue cultists, lurking behind crags of rock with brushes dripping in blue paint, there were the zombies wandering to and fro, there was that disgusting vomit monster, and there were all the freaky objects warped by Giygas’s malevolent will, all those signposts and cars and gas pumps with teeth. And for good measure, there was Mr. Sirlin, his elementary school gym coach. Ugh, what a jerk!

With all those awful creatures huddled on the narrow rock formation surrounded by the ocean, the last person he ever expected to encounter there was… himself.

Standing at the threshold between the squeaky clean grass of Magicant and that rocky nightmare terrain was none other than Ness Elliott, dressed in his own blue and yellow stripes and shorts and and red sneakers and beloved red baseball cap. Ness waved to himself with a warm smile, and Ness, a little put off by the sight, waved to himself right back.

—Hi there. It’s me, you!

—You mean you’re… me?

—Of course I’m you! Don’t you recognize me?

—Uh…

Ness laughed at Ness, then put his hand on Ness’s shoulder to put Ness at ease.

—Well, actually, I’m you an hour from now.

—Really?

—Yup! Here, you need these.

Ness took off his red cap and put it on Ness’s head, and also gave Ness Ness’s Gutsy bat.

—So… I’ve gotta go all the way out there, then. Are you coming with me?

—Sorry, but I already did that an hour ago. Look, I know you’re feeling scared outta your mind right now, and I won’t lie to you, it’s gonna be hard. But you’ll get there. And then an hour from now… bwahahaha! Oh man, it’s… oh, it’s gonna be so awesome, you don’t even know!

—But until then… I’ll be alone.

—No, you won’t! Think back to when you were really young, like before kindergarten. You liked drawing superheroes, didn’t you? 

—Hehe… yeah. 

—Who was your favorite one? Who did you draw next to your picture of mom and dad and King and put up on the fridge? Who did you ask dad to say goodnight to when he tucked us in?

Who indeed? Ness thought hard, but with the playful Magicant now disappeared it was hard to recall any such whimsy from so long ago. But certain names came back to him. Elephant Ninja? Crocodile Helicopter Man? Tank Head?

—Nah, not those! C’mon, think! Your best friend ever! You didn’t forget, did you?

Ness though harder, really strained himself, and then it hit him. Of course! His best friend! He put up a drawing right by his bed, and had his dad say goodnight to him, to keep him safe from monsters while he slept! He was strong and funny like his Uncle Teddy, and he was smart like Uncle Lloyd, and he was kind like his mother, and he was brave like his father!

—It’s…

—Yes! You got it!

The memory of his dear friend exhilarated Ness, his name was adrenaline pumping through his veins, it was a gust of fresh air clearing his mind. 

—It’s…

He turned around, and there was the ramshackle house he drew in crayon for his superhero friend, now rendered in real life. The front door burst open and out came…

—…FLYING MAN!!!

A big burly bird man in bright red overalls, an eagle with yellow feathers and arms that were sometimes thick tree-stump biceps and fists and sometimes wide wings, flew from the house and landed before Ness with a thud, flexing his huge muscles.

—YES!!! It is I, Flying Man! I am your courage, Ness! Now up and at ‘em, no more tears! Excelsior, forward!

Flying Man pointed toward the mucky world and lifted off, and Ness, with a big smile on his face, ran after him. But when he took his first step past the threshold between the pleasant Magicant and that awful place, he very quickly slowed his pace, and that smile immediately disappeared.

*

If Magicant was the Platonic ideal of stomping grounds for boys in their pajamas, this place was perhaps mathematically the worst place in the entire universe to be barefoot. For miles ahead of him, there was nothing but this narrow track of jagged black rocks, sharp and uneven underfoot, with pebbles in the spaces between to really hurt his soles. The ocean around him bubbled and gargled, an inky black inversion of the fun hot-pink pool from way back in the Saturn Village. The water didn’t just look disgusting, it smelled too, some kind of mix between the time when King found a dead rat in the basement, and the kitchen whenever it was liver and onions for dinner. Garbage washed ashore on the rocks, and now his poor feet had to watch out for rusty tuna cans, spoiled vegetables, already-chewed gum, and stray legos. 

Most of the baddies Ness had seen lingering along the trail did not bother him much. The zombies called him a monster, the puke beast just whined at him, you made me lose my pride, aaaaargh! and went back to slurping down some black stuff that Ness sure hoped was Marmite anyway, and the cultists were arguing among themselves over esoteric heresies, such as whether the Son of Ocean and Sky was of the same essence as the Cerulean Father or merely a creation, and did Robin’s Egg blue proceed from just the Father or from them both. 

What was much more worrying were the monsters up ahead, ones he recognized not from real life, but in his nightmares. He remembered a time at the Onett park when he saw someone chopping down an oak tree, and had a vivid nightmare that the same oak tree was a furious spirit of revenge. There it was now, the Territorial Oak, barreling down right at him. In the dream he always awoke before the screaming tree could touch him, but he knew now what was going to happen, and not even his bat could help him.

—Have no fear, Ness! I’m coming!

Flying Man swooped down and knocked the tree up in the air. Thankfully, it exploded into an inferno well out of reach of either Ness or his friend.

But they weren’t in the clear yet! Ness remembered an especially scary movie where an alien could pretend to be any living thing, a person, a dog, or this time, a sheep. He had a horrible dream that night that he was petting a sheep that grew tentacles and a huge set of jaws out of its head, but woke up crying before the alien could eat him. Well, now the Wooly Shambler had his chance. Luckily, with Flying Man knocking it around with his fists, and with Ness swinging his bat in kind, it was just a little less scary this time. 

—Don’t worry about me, Ness! You shoulda seen the other guy!

Even more horrors swarmed Ness on the way to the windy epicenter of the nightmare ocean. Evil Eyes bouncing on two long legs, whose glare could turn you into stone. Lego blocks and molecule models that assembled into little walking men with pointy heads, that blew themselves up and launched their pointy pieces at you like shrapnel. Birthday presents that weren’t birthday presents at all, but fanged beasts that bit your hands off when you tried to unwrap them. A big worm that was also a gangster, he even wore a fedora and pencil-line mustache and had a Tommy gun and said things like it’s coitans for yeh, ya hear, coitans! All of them made their move against Ness, and all of them, with Ness’s trusty Gutsy Bat and with the great help of Flying Man’s feathery fists, met their end. 

—Haha! Good one, Ness! Right outta the park!

He could see the end of the trail in sight, and to his horror, the rocky trail faded into the black ocean. Between Ness and his destiny, there was a pool of disgusting black water he had no choice but to wade through. 

Ness steeled himself with big breaths, shaking his wrists and tiptoeing nervous little hoppy steps, then closed his eyes and stuck one foot in the muck, and then the other.

Wouldn’t you know it, wading in that water was just as awful as walking around it. The rotten smell was still invading his nose but now he couldn’t see the garbage he stepped on, and worse, it felt tingly and sticky, like old syrup or soda spilled on the floor and left to ferment. It got stuck between his toes, it hampered his steps forward, and it stained his pajamas black. The water only reached up to a little past his knees, but he felt like if he stayed in there any longer the black stuff would seep into his whole body and transform him into the same rotten black licorice slime.

He almost gave up, then and there. He almost turned around, tried to find his way back to Magicant, tried to find Buzz-Buzz and apologize for failing the first time, and ask him maybe could he please go with him, like he did before, with his little laser blasts and force fields against that first Starman. 

And he would have, if he had failed to bring his courage with him.

—Excelsior, forward, Ness! Your friends are counting on you! They believe in you! I believe in you too, buddy!

Flying Man was right, he could do it! And he had people on his side, counting on him! So the water was a little gross, big deal. He’d played around in gross muddy water all the time with King, and what’s the worst that ever happened, his mom would say go take a bath! He did it before, he could do it again, he knew he could. 

At least, he was pretty sure he could, before he saw splashing out from the water before him, the Kraken.

That demon of the deep that scared even the saltiest Sea Captain in Summers. It was back! And it remembered its own ignoble end at the hands of this boy’s friend, Prince Poo, and who better to exact its vengeance upon then some pipsqueak boy dumb enough to actually wade in those black waters? Indeed, as it slithered toward him, snapping its jaws and breathing plumes of fire, its body slid back and forth between a fully-attached state and pepperoni slices barely sticking together. 

Flying Man swooped down and faced the monster, pushing Ness out of the way.

—Go on, Ness! I’ll take care of this freak!

Flying Man flew right into the beast’s face and socked it right in the kisser, hard enough to make some of its pepperoni slices slide to and fro, but not enough to kill it. The closer he got, the more punches he landed, the closer the Kraken’s jaws and wicked tail got to the Flying Man.

—Onward, Ness! EXCELSIOR FORWARD!

Before Ness could say anything, the Flying Man wrapped the Kraken in a choke hold, strangling its fire breath within. But the beast also wrapped its tail around him, and sent them both tumbling into the filthy ocean even as it was dying at the Flying Man’s hands. 

They were both gone. But Ness was too far away to go back to that house and get another one, the only way was, like he told him all along, onward. And when he said it to himself, onward! Excelsior forward!, and when he actually did keep going, it almost felt as though his dear friend had never left, that he was still swooping around in circles above him, ready to dive bomb whatever baddie dared to threaten his way.

 But by then, all those nightmares of Ness’s childhood were gone, faded away just as surely as they did when he woke up crying in bed all those years ago. He had reached the center of the ocean, and there was only one more nightmare left to face.

*

The gray mist parted and revealed a golden platform, and some stairs to climb up from the water. He ran though the muck in one last push to get out of it once and for all, and once he ascended to that platform he spent not a small amount of time wiping the sticky black slime off his feet the best he could.

Then, he faced forward and saw his worst nightmare. 

He never really did get a good look at Giygas in his visions, whether from Paula or Buzz-Buzz. If he ever had any contact with his enemy up to this point, it was through its main avatar. That thing now stood before once again.

The golden demon statue.

—You… I thought I destroyed you.

You cannot destroy me. You are the one who forced me into being.

The statue stood on its pedestal, glowing yellow and red in the blackened sky, holding his sword before him. It moved its eyes toward Ness, making the statue crack and fissure.

—…what are you?

I am the evil part of your mind. Everything in you that is selfish, and craven, and cruel. Repressed, ignored, shoved far down into its darkest recesses, never to emerge. Until… now.

The statue grinned from ear to ear, further creating cracks along its golden face. Ness stood his ground and held his bat before him, as the statue creaked to life, moving its limbs, splaying its fingers, slowly, as if waking from a long slumber. 

The demon statue’s laugh filled the air and Ness’s mind, its voice the combined mocking laugh of every bully Ness had ever encountered in his waking life. It stomped the floor and cracked the pedestal beneath them with each slow step it took toward Ness.

You… stupid little boy. Look at you.

It swung the huge sword at Ness, who deflected it with his bat, but the force of it made him buckle to his knees. The statue then wound up his arm and backhand-slapped Ness hard across the face, sending him flying to the floor. 

Ness had never, ever been hit that hard before, not by a bully at school, not even in the worst tussles between him and Minch. 

You think you have power? Why don’t you use it?

Swinging the sword in high arcs to the floor, Ness rolled out of the way each time, but was less successful at dodging the hard kick to his ribs, knocking the wind out of him. He staggered away and clutched his stomach, desperately trying to keep back tears.

You’ve been lied to, that’s why. You have no power. Even with your friends beside you, what hope do you have against me? I command armies more numerous than the grains of sand upon the water’s edge. I have destroyed more worlds than there are hairs upon your head. Can you even fathom it, infinity? Can you even imagine such a thing, you stupid boy?

Ness got to his feet, only to get hit by the flat end of the statue’s sword, sending him to the floor and knocking his bat out of his hands. As he scrambled to pick it up, the nightmare slammed its foot on his chest, squeezing him, crushing him, making him scream.

It hurts, doesn’t it? Makes you want to cry? Go ahead! You will weep an entire ocean before I’m done with this planet. First I will burn every inch of this world, and kill every living thing, every plant and animal, every man, woman and child upon it.

The statue lifted his foot off Ness and grabbed him by the neck, lifting him off his feet. His legs kicked frantically underneath him as the nightmare strangled him, squeezed his neck tighter and tighter.

Then I will kill your friends, slowly. I will incinerate their insides with the power of a thousand suns before I obliterate them into mere atoms. Then I will do the same to your mommy and daddy. 

Ness tried with all his might to pull the demon statue’s fingers off his neck, to no avail. The monster was too strong, and he was getting weaker and weaker, desperately trying to suck in air.

I will flay the lids from your eyes and make you watch it all. You will be the last living soul on this planet, and when you beg me for death, and I finally grant it to you, you will die knowing that the utter annihilation of your world, was all your fault. 

Ness’s limbs became heavy, and no matter how much he gasped and gagged no air would come. His eyes began to close…

And then… 

He laughed.

He couldn’t believe it. It was in front of his face, staring right back at him, the whole time. The whole entire journey, he never saw it until now, and when he did? It was hilarious!

What the… why are you…

Still dangling off the ground in the nightmare’s grip, Ness laughed and laughed, right in the thing’s face.

—You’re not gonna hurt my parents, you doofus! They already beat you once!

Ness easily pried the fingers off his neck and touched down on the floor. Ignoring the dumbfounded nightmare and laughing all along, he went to his bat and picked it up.

—Man, all this time. I don’t know who’s stupider, you, or me, for ever being afraid of you, for even a second!

You… that’s enough! You don’t talk to me like that!

—Or what? You’ll lose again?

Why you…! How dare you-

—Hey, buddy, you know what I really can’t imagine? The infinite times you lost! And even worse, lost against a bunch of kids, over and over again! You have the worst batting average of all time! If being an evil alien was like baseball, you’d be… the Mets! Man, you’re pathetic. 

SILENCE! You listen to me, you little brat-

—NO!

Grasping his bat, winding up like he was about to hit a grand slam, Ness advanced toward the nightmare, who only now was backing away.

—You’re wrong! I do have a power in me!

He swung the bat into the statue’s stomach, knocking it to its knees.

—I have a family, and I have friends! And I love them with all my heart!

He swung blindly, wailing on the thing, knocking shards away as it crumbled to the floor.

—And I’ll NEVER let you hurt them! 

Ness lifted the bat and brought it down hard on its head, shattering it completely.

—I’ll never let you hurt ANYONE EVER AGAIN!! 

He wound up for what he knew would be the last swing he needed. He imagined himself in the park with his dad, cheering him on, shouting c’mon slugger, right outta the park! Break somebody’s window!

And he swung.

SMAAAAAASH!

The Gutsy Bat met its mark, and the statue exploded into bits, into dust, into very smithereens. Paula would have been proud.

For a long while there was nothing but darkness and dust. But even then, just like how everything else does, even that passed too. Even in the blackened dead realm of the Sea of Eden, the sun came up. And who did he find there waiting for him? None other than… himself!

—YEEEEAH! GOOOOO NESS!!! WOOOOOO!

Ness basked in the adulation that Ness gave him, until finally Ness calmed himself, and gently patted Ness on the back.

—Great job, buddy! I knew you could do it. I ah… I’m gonna need those back now. I have to give them to someone an hour ago. It’s really important.

Ness nodded and gave Ness back his red baseball cap and Gutsy Bat. 

—What do I do now?

—I don’t really have to tell you, do I?

Ness gave Ness a warm smile, and Ness smiled back.

—No. I already know.

—That’s right! Now go on, get outta here! Your friends need you! Ness, wake up!

Ness grabbed Ness by the pajama shirt and shook Ness with all Ness’s might. 

—Ness, wake up!

He was doing a pretty good job, too! It was making him dizzy, the world around him began to spin, the floor wobbly beneath his feet. If he had ever been drunk before, Ness would have said it kinda felt like that. 

—NESS, WAKE UP!

*

And he did.

The Starmen surrounded Ness and his friends on the snowy Winters field beside the Stonehenge monument. Paula kneeled before Ness’s side, shaking him, begging him to wake up. Jeff and Prince Poo did what they could to fend off minor Starmen or lesser Mooks approaching, but it was only a prelude to come. 

The Starman Deluxe emerged from the throng of aliens, his head glowed a bright yellow, preparing another gigantic psionic blast. The children were right in front of it, dead to rights. There was little they could do but brace themselves for the end.

Paula grabbed Ness by the shirt and shook it with all her might.

—NESS, WAKE UP!!!

The Starman Deluxe fired.

The ground where the children stood was a mushroom flash of yellow and white hot atomic energy, in which nothing could survive.

The light faded, and the dust cleared.

There was only a crater where they once were, but in the middle of it, amazingly, there stood the Chosen Four!

Paula, Jeff, and Prince Poo padded themselves, making doubly sure they were still alive. Yup, they were!

They stood underneath a force field, a mesh-web of red, yellow, and blue hexagons, crackling with electric energy. And holding up that life-saving force field was none other than their dear friend, Ness Elliott.

He woke up indeed, and now stood face to face against the invading alien scum, his eyes flat white. Energy coursed through his body, his heart pumped raw electric power through his veins. Countless times on his journey, Ness’s friends saved his life, and now it was his turn to repay the favor, now that he finally, at long last, discovered the secret locked inside his mind all along. Now that he finally had psionic power.

Ness retracted the force field, looked at his glowing hands, and smiled.

—Rockin!

A ray of destructive energy in red yellow and blue neon shapes exploded from Ness’s hands right into the Starman Deluxe. Though his target deflected the blast, it was powerful enough to disintegrate a few stray Starmen beside him. So they had death rays, huh? Well, now Ness had a death ray of his own!

He ran toward his alien foe and attacked, infusing his bat with neon-glowing psionic power. Using his left hand to create force fields, he locked himself in a sword-and-shield battle against the strongest general the Starmen could muster. Ness had rarely been in any real fights before, but seeing him now you could have guessed he had been training for years, as much as even Prince Poo. 

Only one thing was on Ness’s mind during the brawl, and it was those words he said when he finally faced down his nightmare. I love them with all my heart, and I’ll never let you hurt them. It was an unconscious mantra he repeated again and again, truly taking Buzz-Buzz’s lesson to heart, that the awesome power coursing through him was a privilege. That he couldn’t abuse it even if he wanted to, that it wouldn’t even work unless he had a great need of it, to defend those he loved when they couldn’t defend themselves.

The Starman Deluxe raised his liquid-silver hands, and a giant force field surrounded him. Ness, like a chained dog chomping at a tempting slice of meat, shot blasts of energy at the field, trying his luck to breach it, but seeing he wasn’t getting anywhere, backed down. It seemed the alien had something to say, and so Ness let him speak into his mind. So fearful of the Starmen’s telepathic voice before, he now found it merely unpleasant, like a pebble in your shoe.

You are much stronger than our intelligence indicated. We were not prepared for that eventuality. We will not make that mistake again. 

The Starman Deluxe tapped his temple with his arm. The next moment, the mothership hovering above them exploded. 

 The Apple of Enlightenment may be right. So be it. The next time you face me, one of us will die. 

The throng of Starmen retreated, floating up and away into the night sky. Only then did Ness allow the energy in his body to power down, to let the irises of his eyes back in. He ran back to the crater where his friends stood.

—Okay, we’re safe now. Is everyone alright?

When no one answered him, he looked up to see his friends staring back at him. Utterly astonished. Jaws wide open. Any longer and drool might have dripped out.

—Heh… well, I mean… oh, that’s alright, guys. You woulda done the same for me…

Nothing seemed to snap them out of stupor, until Prince Poo finally got to the point.

—THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!

Like the flu, Prince Poo infected the other two with his joy. They cheered and shouted in Ness’s ears until they lost their voices and he went deaf. 

Ness for just a second realized he saw this moment before, at the end of his vision in the Lumine Hall. But just for a second, before Ness also starting cheering and laughing and shouting himself hoarse, and let Prince Poo and Jeff carry him up on their shoulders. In all the to-do, they didn’t even notice the photographer man come down and ask them to look at the camera and say fuzzy pickles, but he took a snapshot of them anyway.

*

You’ve been listening to “The Podcast Against Giygas!” The Podcast Against Giygas is an audiobook written and performed by me, Garrett McMahon, based on Earthbound, the Super Nintendo game directed by Shigesato Itoi. With production by William Pawlowski, and thumbnail design and art direction by David Peters.

This podcast stinks! It is also a fan-made project affiliated in no way whatsoever with the Nintendo Corporation or Mr. Itoi. This podcast is free to listen to, ad-free, and always will be. I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode, and I’ll see you back next Monday, till next time!