A/N: Welcome to this new EarthBound story! Not like we see a lot of those XD.

Anyways, this story is supposed to be a more "serious" story but after reading this you probably won't believe that XD. I mean, it's a freaking EARTHBOUND story. Gotta put that crazy humor in no matter how serious it is XD. I've been told this story is "beautifully fricking hilarious".

This story will be updated every other Wednesday (WedNESSday).

Anyways, hope you enjoy the story! Hopefully I'm just a fast reader and its not rushed xD

Also I don't know why I chose the person who's the protagonist to be it. I don't think many people use him as it so... Yeah I'm weird xD

Prologue:

Once the final needle was pulled, the world went dark.

Nobody knew what would happen next. Nobody would ever know.

Because the world doesn't last forever: like water, it evaporates, disappears. Like rain, it pours down again, restarting a cycle, over and over again.

Albeit, the resetting of the world wasn't exactly a reset.

It was also like cell division: multiplying, making another copy of the same world at the end of its life. The same to be repeated of the copy's life.

But cell division wasn't perfect. Mistakes were always made; an imperfect way of replication effecting a repeated world.

So an imperfect world's timeline was becoming imperfect.

Chapter 1:

The future wasn't good.

Who knew it was the future, anyways? The boy had just randomly decided by himself that it must be the future, because it hadn't happened in the past. Plus, it felt so real.

Still, he knew that wasn't a very good reason to assume something that out of the ordinary.

All he saw was the world corrupted and falling apart, lives taken, the whole universe ceasing to exist...

0o0o0o0

"Hey, are you awake yet? Or did I stumble upon a dead person in a forest?"

The voice felt muffled in the boy's head. Why was a stranger talking to him?

"Open your eyes, for goodness sake. I know you're awake now."

There was no time for mental debating as a light started flashing in his eyes, waking him up fully. He slowly opened his heavy eyes and saw another person crouching down in front of him, a flashlight in their hand.

"Confused?" The other person interrupted before he could say anything. "I am too. Luckily, I am your savior and I'm going to save you from dying a slow and painful death in the middle of nowhere. Even though you're five minutes away from a town."

"What?"

"Yeah."

Silence.

"It's a stupid question," he started, "but do you know how I got here?"

"What? You don't? To be honest, I was hoping you'd tell me, because I just randomly came across you in this forest."

"Oh... Well, do you at least know where Podunk is?"

"You mean the town, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well... Bad news, but it doesn't exist anymore."

"Are you..."

"Lying? No. I just walked down there today and it had disappeared like nothing happened. Did you live there or something?"

"Of course I did... so did my family... Were there any people left? Which way there?"

"One, I don't know, two, it was to the right of here-"

"It still is." He didn't know who this person was or what kind of thing they were trying to pull on him, but Podunk had to still be there. How does a town just disappear into thin air?

But, only adding to the absurdity of the situation, that stranger was right.

All that was there was a blank field of grass, swaying gently in the breeze, leaving no signs of anybody ever living there.

He had to be in the wrong spot. What seemed to be happening was completely impossible. He turned to look somewhere else but was only met with the voice of the same stranger again.

"Look, its gone. I don't know what happened to it but there's obviously something much greater than just that going on."

"How could a town just disappear like that? Why am I still alive?" The realization sank in. His home was gone. His family... Was now gone too.

And for a moment, he thought it might've been better if had just died with them.

He quickly shook the thought from his head. That just... wasn't right. In any way.

"I don't know, but it's important." The other person once again interfered with his thoughts. "I mean, the last time I remember this happening was... Oh, never."

"... What should I do, then?" He whispered. "We don't know each other, and everyone that I've ever known is gone. I know it weak to be complaining about it, but..."

"I can't change the second thing, sorry, but I can change the first one. We can find out what's happening to this world. I'm Ness."

He hesitated for a second: if he complied, what would happen? He just met a random person that thought they could solve this mystery AND didn't care if he knew their identity.

But that, combined with the fact his whole life was basically lost, he had no choice but to agree. At least, in his mind.

So he took a breath, telling himself that no harm would come out of this, and finally said his name.

"I'm Ninten." The instant he said that he regretted it- giving your name, your identity, to a stranger probably wasn't the brightest idea. He was probably too caught up in the moment, even if his home town had just disappeared.

But if the other person had told him who they were, that meant they trusted him.

Such a thing to do when you just met someone. Then again, he could be over thinking it. Making friends was good, especially after you're town disappeared, right?

"Well, Ninten," The other person started: he kept forgetting their name was Ness, kind of a strange name (although, who was he to judge? His own name was Ninten: what kind of name was that either? And Ness wasn't really a 'they' anymore, was he?). "I think the first 'course of action' would be to find out what happened to this place. Agree?"

Ninten could only nod. He found it strange how someone could just meet a random person in a forest and then just act like they were friends. Or become one in five minutes; he didn't really know what they were, he kind of gave it the label of 'some crazy stuff happened so now I guess I know this person?'.

"Got it!" Ness shouted.

"What is it?" Ninten asked.

"Well I found the clue! And it's you!"

"W-What?"

"I mean, you're the only remaining thing from Podunk: there has to be a reason!"

"What can I do, though? I have no clue about what happened, where answers might be-"

Suddenly a crash reverberated through the field, interrupting what apparently was going to be their normal conversations from now on. A shield of what seemed like light(?) protected the two of them until the debris cleared and showed what had probably just crash landed.

A rock sat in the middle of the field, a crater created upon impact. The rock itself was about as big as Ninten, if not slightly bigger. How did a meteor just land on Earth without any warning? It was probably just another reason to be confused.

When was this day going to stop being strange? Ninten was almost convinced that he was either hallucinating or dreaming.

A second later he was fully convinced as the rock had started glowing.

Glowing? Since when did meteors do that? Maybe he was wrong since he had never seen one himself, but he fairly certain that, by the laws of science, that was NOT possible.

And, just to confuse him even more, it seemed like a voice in his head was calling out to him, to tell him to touch that meteor.

He really had to learn to ignore the laws of science from now on.

He told himself internally that he was seriously having a strange dream right now and that this wasn't real, but yet he couldn't dispel the urge to go over to the meteor and see what this voice was telling him. But after a few minutes, he finally gave in, albeit walking up awkwardly to the glowing rock and putting his hand on it.

Instantly his vision want dark. The same voice retained in his head, still speaking to him, but now much more clearly.

'You've been through a lot in the past minutes, haven't you?' The voice echoed in his head, seeming to sympathize with him. 'That's the way the world works, isn't it?

'But enough rambling about it. You've been called to save the world from destruction. Don't worry. Don't fear, either. You, with the power of others, will save this world from catastrophe. It's destiny.

'Go to Onett. You'll find what you're looking for there. Goodbye, Ninten.'

The voice faded away, along with the black cover on the world. He felt... empowered. Like he gained some kind of new power. Maybe like the shield of light that protected them when the meteor crashed. Was that what he got? Did he even gain anything at all?

Those questions would be answered eventually, he told himself. For now, he decided he should go to Onett.

Because even if the voice wasn't real, it was the only lead he had.

He turned around to see that Ness was still there, by the edge of the forest. He would come too. Mainly because Ninten didn't have anyone else at this point in his life.

"We need to go to Onett," Ninten announced. Ness seemed to think that the fact that Ninten just got a message from a freaking meteor was normal, which was fine by Ninten because he needed someone to think he wasn't crazy.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Ness asked rhetorically. "We gotta look for creepy stuff in Onett! Let's go!"