Ness sat on a stump in sunny Onett and frowned at the ground. "Dammit, my life sucks!"

Paula huffed and kicked at the dirt. "Pokey wants me."

Poo leaned against a shady tree and aimed a wistful dark-eyed gaze through the leaves. "Every girl wants me." He sighed, smirking when Ness glared hot death needles at him.

"Dammit." Jeff blew his blond bangs away from his forehead, crossed his arms, adjusted his glasses. Shifted a foot on dusty ground. "Just... dammit."

Ness slapped his hands on his bare knees and sat up straight. "I've got a great idea!"

"You sure that's not a neuron misfiring?" Jeff bit his lower lip and grinned.

Ness jabbed a pointer finger at him. "You sure that's not shut up." He stood before his three friends. "Look, we're teenagers miserable over petty little problems, so why don't we commit suicide?"

Paula clapped her hands and beamed. "How incredibly easy!" Jeff's smile vanished.

Poo shrugged. "You go ahead. I'll stay here and drink my deluxe water." He popped the top on a fresh bottle and chugged, one arm akimbo.

While Paula and Jeff rolled their eyes, Ness put a hand to his chin and regarded the posturing prince. "Until you explode?"

Poo cocked an eyebrow at Ness mid-drink and pulled the half-finished bottle away. "I might as well stick around to make sure you don't actually kill yourself."

"But that's the idea, Baldy," Paula said with extra enunciation in all the right places.

Poo spiked the bottle of deluxe water, its remaining contents splattering on the grass. "I am not bald!"

One Teleport later, Ness and the gang arrived at the Lost Underworld.

"So, how do we do ourselves in here?" Paula's tone was breezy despite the humidity.

"Well, you see..." Ness pulled a giant trampoline from his little yellow backpack. "You jump on this, like so..." He grabbed Jeff by the shoulders threw him overarm-style onto the trampoline.

Jeff made an adolescent-sized imprint on the thick black elastic before rocketing upward, springs squeaking in harmony his screams. A thud far above cut him off.

Ness spun around to smile at the remaining two. "And smash your head open on the Underworld's ceiling! Neat, huh?"

Jeff's body landed next to the trampoline with a twice-broken crunch.

Paula's eyes bugged out. "Oh my God, you killed Jeff!"

Ness fist-pumped. "Hell yeah!"

Poo sighed and cast Healing Omega on Jeff. He was going to regret wasting that unfinished bottle of deluxe water back in Onett at some point.

After Jeff revived, he said, "I'm not having fun, guys. Maybe we should do something else."

Ness nodded. "I got a better idea, then." He turned to walk away from the trampoline and the blood stain beside it. "C'mon, Baldy!"

Poo was the last to follow. "You will shut your face."

Their next Teleport, courtesy of Poo, took them to Snow Wood Boarding School. Not two seconds after entering the building, Ness opened his mouth.

"Okay guys, all we have to do is teleport ten miles north of here, skinny-dip in a river, and lie in the snow 'til we die of exposure."

Paula bounced at this. "C'mon Jeff, let's try it out!" She locked elbows with Jeff, and Ness did the same on the kid inventor's other side, preventing escape.

Jeff howled in despair as he was dragged out by the two skipping teens. Poo finished a dixie cup of stolen cocoa and followed.

"Okay Jeff," Ness said after teleporting, "we'll stay in our nice cozy snow gear while you strip down and jump in this half-frozen river."

Poo looked at Ness over his woolen scarf. "What if Paula sees him?"

Ness held up a red-mittened hand and smiled. "Already taken care of."

Something hit a tree several paces behind Poo, and he turned. Paula was walking aimlessly around the forest fringes, arms reaching out in front of her.

Poo turned to look at Ness with deliberate slowness and narrowed eyes. "What did you do?"

"She's snow-flash. I mean blind." Ness shrugged, watching Jeff remove his suit jacket. "It's bright out here. Happened all by itself."

"Do I have to do this?" Jeff's pants joined his jacket on the ground. Ness and Poo were silent. "What?"

Ness didn't look up from the Mr. Saturn underwear nestled in the abandoned trousers. "Nothing."

A shirt and bowtie later, Poo's composure shattered for the second time that day as he failed to hide a snort. That set Ness off into shrieking laughter.

"It's like a polar bear in a snowstorm!" he managed to squeak out between breaths.

"What the hell guys! I said I don't tan!" Jeff sighed. "I thought you were gonna take this whole 'getting dead' thing seriously, but you're just—"

Ness walked up as Jeff spoke and shoved him into the river. With lightning reflexes, Poo snapped a Polaroid right before the splash.

Ness turned to Poo. "Did you get it?" Poo held up the camera, and Ness's grin widened. "Pictures really do bring back the fondest of memories."

They fell into peals of laughter again.

Up to his neck in icy water, Jeff said, "Can I come out? I think I'm good and hypothermic now."

Ness shuffled further down the bank and planted a hand atop Jeff's head. "Your lips aren't blue enough." He crammed Jeff underwater. When his mitten was soaked through, Ness lifted his hand, and a rectangular block of ice bobbed halfway out of the river.

Poo looked at Jeff, trapped in the ice like a bug in a lollipop. "How about now?"

"So, are we dying this way?" Paula walked between Ness and Poo, looking directly at the ice block.

Ness glanced at her, then did a double-take. "No, Paula! Don't look—"

The ice block bobbed in the lazy current, turning to give them a full frontal view.

Paula screamed, "I'm blind again!" and fainted.

"Oh god dammit." Ness stomped six-inch-deep footprints away from them.

Poo removed the giant popsicle from the water with a combination of physical and psionic strength, and used Healing Omega to thaw Jeff out.

Jeff stared at the wet and snowy ground around him. "Where'd I put my..."

Ness returned to the group. "Don't ask."

"You hid his clothes, didn't you." Poo made it a statement.

Ness looked off to one side, but didn't bother hiding his smile. "Well, there's plenty of pine needles around. I'm sure you'll think of something."

Jeff put his face in his hands. "Fuck you." He shuffled through the drifts in the direction Ness had come from.

During this exchange, Paula regained her senses and brought a fresh idea to the table. "If you're done being idiots, let's go to Summers next."

"How can we bite it there?" Ness crossed his arms inside his quilted coat. "Drown in the ocean?"

Jeff came back with his clothes on, in the middle of putting his other arm through the suit jacket. "Get beat up by beach bullies?"

Paula rolled her eyes. "No, you dud. They're having a cheap carnival today."

Ness shrugged. "Dunno how we can die there, but let's go!" He walked away from the river to find a clear spot for teleportation.

"Eating the food?" Jeff suggested, following just ahead of Paula.

"Yeah, maybe." Ness bellowed over his shoulder, "C'mon, Baldy-boy!"

Poo made brisk strides to meet Ness face to face. "I'm not bald."

"Then what's with the weird little toupee?"

"That's my hair."

Ness chortled. "Shyeah, right."

Poo put his two-inch height advantage and highborn status into his glare. "At least I don't wear a grody baseball cap every single second of my life."

"What does that have to do with—hey!"

Paula and Poo laughed and Jeff let out an "Oooooh!"

Ness threw up his hands and turned away. "Fine! You can just commit suicide by yourself."

"Why would I wanna do a stupid thing like that?"

"So you can be alone with that animal crap on your head when you die."

"Fine then!" Poo's words echoed off the landscape after he used PSI Goodbye to vanish in a puff of smoke.

Wherever he was, Poo realized the last dig Ness had got on him. Being telepathic, Ness grinned.

Jeff sensed a cue and said, "Oooooh!"

Ness came up with his next idea on the Teleport over.

"Even you can do it, Jeff," Ness said as the three of them stood on the boardwalk.

"Actually, I'd rather stick my head in sh—"

Ness got in Jeff's face. "Actually, you can shut up and listen." He pointed over Jeff's shoulder. "See that bungee-jumping platform?"

Jeff turned to take in a dilapidated, ten-story wooden structure towering above the carnival grounds.

Paula clapped her hands once. "I know! We'll jump off with one of those janky-ass cords strapped to our ankles, then smash our heads open on the pavement, or snap our necks on the way down!"

"Very good! Let's get Jeff up there to test it for us." Ness and Paula joined forces once more in corraling Jeff to his doom.

The mechanical genius screamed for his mommy.

Jeff looked down from atop the bungee-jump platform, strapped in for his demise.

Ness had an iron grip on his left arm, and Paula his right. "Okay, on three, Paula and I will push you."

Jeff's wails echoed over the resort city. "I'm too young to die!"

Ness began the count. "One..."

"I'm too smart to die!"

Paula giggled. "Two..."

Jeff wibbled. "Not to mention good-looking!"

Ness and Paula's grip tightened with the final number on the tips of their tongues, and Poo teleported behind them.

Ness whirled around, still holding Jeff. "Whaddya want, crap head?"

Poo broke character with a spectacular snarl. "That's it!" He wrenched Ness away from Jeff and shoved him off the platform. The wind ripped Ness's ball cap off his head before he splatted on the ground.

Poo pointed at the mess below and said, "That's for calling me a craphead twice, asshole!"

"Hey!" Paula let go of Jeff and rounded on Poo. "You're messing everything up!"

"Too bad!" Poo shoved her off next. Paula screamed all the way down, and made a wide splatter a few feet from Ness.

Poo waved. "Bye! Don't come back!"

Trying to stay steady on his feet, Jeff said, "Will you please, please, please untie me?"

"Oh, why not." Poo made a show of crouching down to untie Jeff from the bungee cord around his ankles.

Jeff blew out a sigh. "Thanks, man."

"No problem." Poo shoved Jeff off the platform.

Jeff flailed his limbs as spastically as possible while screeching like he was summoning demons, and made the biggest mess of all.

Poo wrinkled his nose. "That's gonna leave a stain."