Whew, this one's been a long time coming, huh? I promised you this crossover months ago, but then SCHOOL. ARGH.

Well, if you haven't played or at least seen the intro to The Binding of Isaac, please note that the beginning, boss and ending here very much rely on context and events in the game to make sense. Keep this in mind or I'm gonna seem like a bit of a psychopath. More so than usual, anyway… eh, enjoy! ^^

Isaac and his mother lived alone, in a small house on a hill. Life was simple and they were both very happy.

Then that all went to Hell, and that's how we have us a story.

Prologue – But Then One Day…

~THE BASEMENT~

Going into the basement, Isaac soon decided, had really only been a temporary solution to his troubles. Living down here forever would surely be dull, if not life-threatening and unpleasant in several other ways besides.

That should provide sufficient motivation to start heading on out of there.

Strange runes on the floor told Isaac that he ought to press W to move, but as far as he was concerned that made no sense. He used his feet instead.

Isaac had landed in a sparse room offering him an option of three doors, their uneven corners dusted with cobwebs and rough with rotted wood. He noted that they were all much too dark to see through, especially as his vision was a little fuzzy anyway – he couldn't seem to stop crying. Eager to forget why, he reckoned dwelling on it would do him more harm than good, and so on bare feet stepping over the dusty brown floor he plodded to the door on his left.

Hm. Another dim, square room splayed out before him as he passed through. The blank expanse was only interrupted by a flat, greyish-blue platform in the centre, stark and yet still dull in the gloom. With the insatiable curiosity of most kids his age, Isaac made his way over to it inquisitively.

That was certainly interesting – there floated a small, slightly worn card, maybe an inch or two above the ground. Tentatively Isaac reached out and took it, reading the front with giddy keenness. '00 The Morons'. Isaac frowned thoughtfully. Surely, it meant '0 The Fool'?

He didn't know a lot about tarot cards; only that he was not remotely familiar with this one. Nevertheless, he held onto it as he carried on, trotting to the far side of the room where the only other door seemed to be.

Isaac started in fright when he arrived at his destination – he was no longer alone down here. Something he could only describe as a strangely cute, maybe-oversized maggot crawled around the place, soon joined by a couple more. They didn't appear to have any specific task in mind; in fact their wandering looked to be entirely aimless.

For that reason, Isaac took a firm grip on the hope they would leave him alone to pass safely through, and he cautiously tiptoed along.

To start with, he felt pleasantly surprised, letting out a happy murmur as the creatures paid him no mind. He got maybe a third of the way through before realising: one, the doors around him were all closed and, two, he'd gotten a bit too close to the things for comfort.

Suddenly and unexpectedly one of them turned on Isaac, its cute, squishy features morphing into something out of a nightmare. There was no way that a maggot like that had fangs as big as that. In a panic, Isaac abruptly remembered what else he'd seen in the runes on the floor – use the arrow keys to fire. He didn't know what those were, but logically if he could move like the floor said, he could shoot like the floor said.

Isaac actually discovered the trick accidentally in the next heartbeat. The charger, as the maggot was called, scared him to the extent he cried even harder, and found the tear made an oddly good projectile. He hadn't been aware he could do that…

Still, the single hit failed to slow the charger down, and promptly it finished its rush and sank its crazy-huge fangs into Isaac's arm. Yelping in an unwelcome combination of fear and pain, Isaac frantically lofted the tarot card and tersely held on for the second it took to activate.

Well thank you for reading anyhow :p Here's hoping you'll stick around to find out what this very mysterious totally not mentioned in the summary tarot card does! Chapters will be longer than this wee prologue ;)

… Goddammit I just remembered chargers don't appear in the basement…

Hey, was anybody else at Dee Con on Saturday? It was nice seeing some fellow RED mercs! :D