Author's Note: Wow guys! Thanks for the reviews! I didn't think my story would be that popular... Anyways, I had an absolute blast writing this chapter! I am not kidding. CHAPTER SPOILERS: I had so much fun with writing Tony's personality. After I heard about the interview about him being gay, I just had to work with that. I'll admit, I went a little overboard with him, but he just loves his Jeffy! (Quick note: I don't support Jeff/Tony.) I also had a lot of fun working with Winters. I always loved that place and think it, along with Snow Wood, deserves more credit. Enjoy a very awakward chapter!

(UN)Fun thing: Can you find the hidden Fobbies are Borange reference in here?

Disclaimer: Any Mother fan knows who owns the series.

“Jeff,” Ness said as he got ready to do PK Teleportation Beta. “How come every Sky Runner you drive you crash? Porky’s mom is going to freaking sue us when she sees that mess all over her yard.”

“Better her than you,” Jeff said with an evil grin. “I meant to crash into her house, but I missed.”

The chosen four laughed while Picky stared at his feet awkwardly. Paula noticed him and she said, “Oh? Picky. I’m sorry! I keep forgetting you’re here…”

“It’s fine,” Picky said, blushing like crazy.

Jeff blushed and coughed awkwardly. Poo said nothing.

“Everyone ready?” Ness asked. “To Winters!”

And the five friends began to run around in a circle. They picked up speed. Faster and faster they went until everything went blurry and the next thing they knew they were all in front of Snow Wood Boarding school.

“Did we lose the bird?” Poo asked hopefully.

Eyes squawked angrily at Poo and glared at him from on top of Ness’ head.

“Nope,” Jeff said, casting a quick glance at the bird.

“Where are we?” Picky asked, feeling slightly dumb about being the only one who didn’t know where the five friends were. He hadn’t been outside of the Onett for all thirteen years of his life, after all.

“We’re in Winters,” Paula said, shivering against the always icy air. “There’s not much here besides Snow Wood Boarding School, Lake Tessie, and Jeff’s dad’s lab.”

Picky sniffled and sneezed. “O-oh. I s-s-see.”

“Holy borange it’s colder than normal,” Jeff noticed as he began to shiver along with the rest of his friends.

“Maybe we should--” Ness started, but was cut off by another happy-go-lucky voice that sounded very girlish.

“Jeff! Oooh Jeff!” the voice, who belonged to a young student in Snow Wood by the name of Tony called.

Jeff groaned and turned to the gates of Snow Wood to see Tony on the other side, waving frantically. “Jeff!” he cried, tears of happiness welling up in the corners of his eyes. “Oh me! Oh my! Jeff, you’re back! It’s been forever since I’ve seen you!” Tony blinked at the other four around Jeff and said, “Oh? Who are you guys? I remember Ness… but I’m Tony! I’m Jeff’s bestest friend in the whole wide world!” Looking back to Jeff Tony said, “Jeff… you must be freezing! I’ll ask Maxwell to let you--you guys come in and have some cookies! Be right back!” Tony excitedly turned and ran back inside the Boarding School to get Maxwell.

“There’s no way he’s gay,” Poo couldn’t help but say.

“Shut up,” Jeff snapped bitterly.

Picky bit his tongue very hard to stop himself from bursting into laughter.

Moments later, Tony arrived with Maxwell. The gates were opened and before they knew it, the friends were sitting on light green sofa's in the lobby drinking warm milk and eating chocolate chip cookies. Each one had a blanket wrapped around them, though Jeff’s was ‘extra warm’.

Tony sat next to Jeff while Ness, Paula, and Poo occupied another sofa, leaving Picky with Maxwell.

“So why’d ya come back here, Jeff?” Maxwell asked as he watched Jeff try to scoot away from Tony, which only failed for Tony scooted closer to him. “Weren’t you supposed to study with your dad or something like that?”

“Yeah…” Jeff said, casting Tony an unhappy glance.

“So why’d ya come back?” Maxwell repeated.

“Because I got a call from Paula that Ness got a package from an old friend.”

“I see,” Maxwell said, reaching out for the wooden table in the middle of the three sofa's and taking a cookie.

“I was so worried about you, Jeff!” Tony said, blushing madly. “I didn’t get any letters from you or anything! I missed hearing your voice… Oh me! Oh my! I must sound so silly! I drew something for you, Jeff. I hope you’ll be impressed. It took me forever to finish!” Jumping off the sofa and running upstairs, Tony returned moments later with a little white box with a red ribbon.

Not knowing what else to do, Jeff took the box and opened it. Inside was a picture drawn by Tony. It was Jeff, though he looked a lot more serious and had square glasses rather than round ones. He had shoulder-length brown hair that was very mullet-y looking. It was embarrassing. Very.

“I always thought you’d look good with brown hair!” Tony chimed.

Ness couldn’t help himself, he spat out his milk he was drinking and burst into laughter. Everyone else, even Maxwell joined in. Picky did too, though he half disguised it.

Jeff smacked his head against the framed picture and groaned very loudly.

“I knew you’d like it!” Tony chirped. Turning to Ness the young boy said, “Hey Ness. What’s that thing on your head?”

Maxwell calmed himself down and glanced at Ness’ head to see Eyes perched there. Her death glare focused on Tony. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask that myself,” he said. “What is it?”

Ness calmed himself down as well and said “Her name is Eyes. Fitting, no?”

“Oh Jeff!” Tony chirped. “We should get our own little baby bird like that and we could be its parents! Oh it’d be so fun! Just you and me… me and you...”

“Alright Tony,” Jeff said, his face red with furry. “That’s enough. Thanks for this and all. We have to go. Good bye!” Standing up and turning on his heels, Jeff stormed out of the lobby back into the freezing cold air. Tony following behind.

“Sorry we couldn’t be any help to you,” Maxwell said, giggling some more. “Tony is a little… you know…”

“Yeah,” Poo said, standing up and setting his empty glass of milk on the table. “I think we figured that one out pretty quickly.”

“Thank you for everything, Mr. Maxwell,” Paula said, also setting her glass on the table and bowing politely. “Those cookies were delicious.”

“Thanks!” Maxwell chirped. “They were Tony’s birthday presents!”

The four friends instantly went silent, a shocked expression on their faces.

“We really should go now,” Ness said quickly, almost throwing his glass onto the table.

“Yeah,” Picky agreed.

“But don’t you kids--” Maxwell tried to ask before he was cut off.

“ good bye!” Ness said very quickly, dashing for the entrance. Paula, Picky, and Poo hot on his heels.

“Alrighty then…” Maxwell said with a shrug.

“Jeff! Jeff!” Tony said to Jeff, blushing embarrassingly. “Jeff I--”

Ness grabbed Jeff’s wrist and dragged him down into the woods away from the Boarding School. Ness had caught Jeff so quickly that it not only was Jeff caught off guard, but he dropped his picture. It fell onto a conveniently placed rock on the ground and the frame shattered into pieces. Tony was waving good bye, not evening noticing that Jeff dropped his picture. He was too excited about waiting for the Photo Man to come. He’d taken a bunch of pictures of Tony with Jeff and promised Tony a photo album to arrive soon. That made Tony very happy as he turned and skipped back inside the Boarding School to await his albums arrival. His masterpiece completely forgotten…

-X-X-X-X-

“I hate that kid sometimes…” Jeff mumbled as the five friends stood in a small open area of the Winters forest.

Picky sneezed as Poo said, “But Jeff! He’s been waiting so long to see you”

“Shut up, Poo!” Jeff snapped, his face red.

Poo started teasing Jeff, which lead to a wild cat and mouse chase with Jeff shooting his ray gun like crazy and Poo running around still making fun of him and laughing.

“Guys,” Ness said, “stop. We need to find Lake Tessie. Stupid forest, it’s gotten thicker in the last year…”

Jeff shot a lazar at Ness by mistake because Poo jumped in front of him and made faces and teased in a girly voice. Jeff shot Ness right on his right cheek, which sent him flying into the snow face-first. Eyes was completely undisturbed. In fact, she was asleep. “Oh jeez!” Jeff said, quickly running to Ness’ side to help him up. “Ness… um… I’m SO sorry! Really!”

Ness shakily got to his feet and said, “I-it’s okay… J-Jeff… I might j-just be… a little…”

“PK Life-Up! Alpha!” Paula said, healing Ness completely.

“Thanks Paula,” Ness said, his speech fine and his legs no longer wobbly.

“Let’s j-just try to find Lake Tessie,” Picky suggested. “It’s f-freezing out h-here!”

“Yeah,” Ness agreed. “You’re right, Picky.”

-X-X-X-X-

After at least a good two hours of mindlessly wandering through the thick forest of Winters, the five friends arrived at Lake Tessie’s lakeside. All of them were extremely stiff and numb, especially Paula. The Tessie Watch Club, who after a year and six months was still waiting for Tessie to emerge, welcomed the friends with open arms and warm soup. They all knew Jeff who secretly visited the Watch Club from time to time, so it was obvious they would welcome him.

Sitting by the lakeside, Picky stared out into the lake in absolute wonderment. Snow had started to fall now and the lake was… frozen? Indeed. The beautiful fluffy white flakes gently drifted down from the sky and landed softly onto the frozen ground below. The effects were beautiful, considering it never snowed in the Onett.

“Winters is the only place it ever snows in this world,” a blonde-haired Watch Club member explained as he sat next to Picky and sipped his soup. “The world is so large, but then again, not really. Everything has been acting weird lately, however. My girlfriend in Summers tells me it has gotten way hotter than usual. It’s weird. Lake Tessie NEVER freezes over. I’ve been with this club for twelve years and never has the lake frozen once…”

“But if it’s frozen then you can just walk across it, right?” Picky asked.

“Not walk,” the Tessie-watcher explained. “You skate. It’s like walking, though fancier and faster.”

“Could I try?” Picky asked shyly with a hint of excitement in his voice.

“Sure,” the Tessie-watcher said, eyeing Picky’s soup that he had stopped eating. “It’s not my lake after all, it’s Tessie’s.”

Setting his soup aside, which the Tessie-watcher quickly took, Picky stood up and inched to the very edge of the lakeside. Nervously staring at the ice that was covered by a thin layer of snow, he took a step forward. Carefully placing one foot on the ice, he tried to slowly get his other foot on to it when he slipped and fell backwards on his back. The ice was so slippery that he skidded a little. The Tessie-watcher watched with amusement when Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo arrived at the lakeside. Each of them all warmed up and no longer numb. Poo laughed at Picky.

“Oh! That’s good!” Ness exclaimed happily, half ignoring Picky who was struggling to stand up. “We’ll just walk across the lake!” Carelessly running forward on to the ice, Ness skidded but somehow managed to maintain his balance. When Paula followed she slipped and was about to fall when Ness caught her.

Eyes did not approve of this. She cawed angrily and stomped on Ness’ head. She had already torn through some of his hat, exposing some of his hair. She dug her talons deep into his hair until she reached the top of his scalp.

Ness suddenly dropped Paula and flinched. His eyes went completely blank for a moment and his skin looked slightly pinkish.

Paula looked up at him and then pushed herself up off the ice. “Ness,” she asked, cocking her head to one side. “Are… are you alright?”

Ness shook his head, “Yeah, I’m fine! Let’s get to the Lab! …”

Poo and Jeff exchanged glances while Picky stared at Eyes from his place on the ice. Paula bit her lower lip and nodded. “Alright,” she said.

Eyes flapped her wings and stomped again.

-X-X-X-X-

“Finally!” Jeff yelled when the children arrived at the front of his father’s laboratory. “What the heck happened to this place!? I don’t remember it being this cold, it was fine earlier today...! And I certainly don’t remember the woods being so thick or Snow Wood expanded, but those are explainable, I guess…”

“Your memory and sense of direction suck, Jeff,” Poo said, brushing snow off his head and shoulders.

“Guys,” Paula said sternly to avoid another argument that would waste more time.

Walking up to the entrance to the lab, Jeff pushed the doors open and said “Hey dad. I’m back.”

No answer.

Jeff took a step inside. Ness was going to go too but Paula placed her hand on his shoulder and shook her head no. Ness nodded and noiselessly waited for Jeff.

“Dad?” Jeff asked, walking inside the lab, which was dark.

“Jeff,” Poo said, “come on. You were here a few hours ago. Don’t ask so surprised.”

Jeff blushed, “Actually… I haven’t been at the lab for years… Dad sent me on various missions to collect data from Summers… I only flew to you with the Sky Runner because I had my own that dad built for me to go to Summers… You shouldn’t jump to conclusions, Poo.”

Poo glared at the ground.

Entering the lab, Jeff noticed it was pitch black. That Cave Boy who used to work for his dad wasn’t around. A cold and lonely wind echoed through the empty place. Running up the stairs and looking around, the others waiting outside could hear Jeff calling “Dad! Dad where are you? This isn’t funny…” Jeff’s tone was suggesting that he was about to cry.

Picky suddenly got a cold feeling like something was watching him. Slowly he turned and saw Eyes glaring down at him. Turning his attention back to the lab entrance, Jeff returned. Even though no one could see his eyes, it was obvious he was about to cry.

“G-guys! I can’t find dad anywhere!”

Paula suddenly got a weird idea. Even though it wasn’t the best of times to ask this, she said, “Jeff… how long have you been away from the lab?”

Rubbing his eyes from behind his glasses, Jeff said shakily, “Around a year and six months. I’ve been gone for a year and six months...”

Paula nodded. “I think I have an idea is to what happened to Mr. Anadounts…”

To Be Continued...

Author's Note: Uh oh. Super Paula alert! Anyways, the plot is getting intense now! What happened to Jeff's daddy!? What was with zomibe-Ness? And most importantly: WHEN WILL TONY'S PHOTO ALBUM ARRIVE!? And also; if you noticed from the first chapter... there is a slight time difference. It will be explained when Super Paula figures it out. xD