DISCLAIMER: I only own my copy of the Dark Chronicle game,

I don't own anything of anything else related to Dark Chronicle including, though not exclusively, the characters, setting, names, terminology or phrases used in Dark Chronicle.

You all know the jumbo.

Prologue - Chapter 00
Truth

"You know, there's something I must confess. I, Monica, have actually been watching Max for a very long time now. In fact, I already knew him far before he had ever seen me, but.if he ever told you that that time on the train, that it was the first time I ever met him,
trust me, he's hiding something.", she scribbled on a page of an old, blank book as the golden linings on her pen twinkled in the moonlight. Shoving the diary in front of her, she rolled back a little on her chair and took a lock from a drawer in the desk, clipping it onto the book.
Leaning back into her chair, flipping her long ponytail over the chair as she did, and stared out the window towards the moon with a bit of a satisfied grin on her face.
Even though it was in the middle of the night, Monica couldn't resist opening the windows and sitting on the roof for a moment. After all, the summer had been just about at it's peak at that time, and it certainly was no less than 82 degrees outside, so the heat inside her bedroom was practically unbearable! She smiled for a moment just then and nodded. "It's decided. I must go see him"

Story - Chapter 01
We meet!

Max scratched the back of his head as he opened up the hoover, "AHA! I see what the problem is,
he exclaimed to himself, took out his wrench and started doing what he did best with broken machinery. He grinned while he was rattling about in the hoover. "Oh, Cedric, guess what! Dad said that when I'm done here, I could go to the circus in town!", he said as he tried to tweak a bolt out of the hoover. Cedric looked up from his newspaper, "Oh? He's actually letting you go this time?" Cedric was surprised by this, because Max's father was usually very strict about things like this. "Yup!", Max groaned, still trying to get a hold of that bolt. With a firm pull he finally got the bolt out, though it also knocked him off of his chair and landed on the wires behind him with a loud clatter. "Ow! Gotcha!", he exclaimed inbetween lines. "I've already got the ticket"
Max picked himself up from the floor and plugged the hoover in, which started to hum quietly.
"There you go! Good as new!", he said. He had already started to gather some things to clean the machine back up, but when Cedric noticed he did he interrupted. "Don't worry about it, Max, really.
I'll clean up here, you go to that circus of yours." Max looked up the stairs at Cedric, "Uh? Are you sure? It's really no problem." He nodded, "Don't worry about it, you go on and have fun"
Max put the cleaner and the wax on the table next to the hoover, "Alright then, thanks a bunch"
He took his wrench from the table and put it back in his belt, rushing back up the stairs towards the exit. Max opened the door, but he couldn't help to check for a last time, "Is it o-", he began but Cedric shook his head, "Just be careful, now." Max flashed him a smile and went outside.
It had already started to get darker now, but it wasn't completely black up high, yet.
"Psst!", he heard, after he had walked a short bit to the town square. "Psst, over here!", he heard it again. He looked around him. Noone at the lamppost... noone near the trashcan... silhouette in the alley... Nothing near the hotel.. "Huh?", he mumbled to himself. The silhouette gestured him to come closer. "C'mon, hurry up!", someone whispered. For a fleeting moment, Max thought of all the bad things that might happen if he did go there, but he had always been a bit adventurous at heart,
so it didn't take him long before he slowly headed towards the alley the silhouette was standing in.
Carefully, Max approached the figure and as he came nearer, the faint light reflecting off of the streets revealed the face of a girl, about his age. Still closing in, the girl gleefully looked at Max coming closer and the light cautiously revealed more of her face. First her round, red eyes.
Then her supple skin, and her long, red hair. Ofcourse, all this time, Max was wondering why she was all excited, the way she was.

(SN: Normally I would just post the prologue and then the first chapter, but because it's so short, I thought I'd just post them both here)