Note: Am I the only one gutsy enough to write something like this? I've looked through the entire NiGHTS archive and seen nothing of this. Come on, folks, I'll start the trend!

I don't own NiGHTS, Reala, or the franchise of NiGHTS. And, just for this story, my first NiGHTS story, I will just be typing it as Nights, because it gets a bit irritating after a while to just lowercase the "i" when I could just type it as a normal name. This may be my only NiGHTS story, but if it's not, all my other NiGHTS stories will be written as NiGHTS. Or maybe not. We'll see, 'cause I'm nuts and change my ideas so often. Plus, I DON'T CARE WHAT SEGA SAYS! NiGHTS WILL ALWAYS BE MALE TO ME. I DON'T CARE WHAT HIS NEW VOICE SOUNDS LIKE. HE'S A DUDE! -cough- Okay.

Chapter One: Um... Chapter One. WhOoO!!! I'm original!

Reala quietly slipped the window open and slid outside, quietly closing the window behind him. He got his pointy jester hat caught at one point but yanked it free before he hurt himself. He sputtered a bit over the sky like a broken airplane before flying off into the night sky. His black and red form was nearly invisible against the morphing sky.

Reala came to a stop in Nightopia. He rattled the bars of a familiar-looking golden cage.

"Reala? What the... What the hell are you doing here?! Get away from me!" Nights exclaimed, having been woken up by the rattling. He scuttled, crab-like, over to the corner of the cage farthest away from Reala. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Nights' vision began to clear. Only then did he see how haggard and run-down Reala really looked. The black-and-red jester's eye makeup was smeared down his face, and he had a large kink in the left horn of his hat from when he caught it in the window. His right eye was black and swollen shut. He rattled the cage again, as if trying to say something.

"Wow, Reala... What happened to-- whoa!" Nights exclaimed as Reala suddenly passed out, falling flat on his face in front of the door of the cage. "Damn." Nights said to himself. "I can't get him in here." He began a mental dilemma with himself.

"Do I try to squeeze him through the bars or wait for some misguided kid to stumble upon the flamboyantly purple jester in the shiny cage? Hmm..." He alternatively moved his hands up and down like a scale, as if weighing the options in his hands. Finally he sighed and grabbed Reala's leg, trying to yank him through the bars. He got as far as getting one leg totally in before getting stuck. After all, Reala had two legs and Nights couldn't drag him in properly without splitting him in half in the process.

So now there was an unconscious dark jester and a mentally-struggling purple jester in a rural junction of Nightopia, and Nights did not like it.

He stood up (knocking his head on the uncomfortably low cage ceiling) and shouted, "COME ON YOU DAMN KIDS! UNLOCK THE CAGE!"

The next day, Reala awoke to find his leg stuck in a cage and an overly-concerned androgynous purple clown staring at him. "What happened...?" He asked woozily. "You flew at me, shook my cage, and passed out. I tried to pull you inside but as you can see, that didn't work so well." Nights replied, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the cage, bored and with his head tilted in his left hand.

"Clearly." Reala replied, trying to pull his leg free.

"So what happened to you?" Nights asked. Reala gasped as if he were afraid.

"Oh my God, don't make me re-live it...!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, take a chill pill and calm down. What happened?" Reala began to hyperventilate and sweat, causing his makeup to run even more and make him look like some sort of demonic freak. Nights reached out and slapped him upside the head.

"Thanks. Do it again." Nights complied gleefully, slapping Reala once again.

"Thanks. I needed that."

"Now are you going to tell me what's wrong or do I have to slap you again? 'Cause, honestly, I could do this all day. I'm stuck in a cage and I need to take my anger out on something."

"Wow, and I thought you were this justice-loving, tree-hugging, flamingly gay peacenik."

"Only when there's a small, impressionable child around. Gotta keep up the sweet, girly little facade, you know?"

"True."

"Sooo..."

"-sigh- Listen, Wizeman's getting... awful. It used to not be so bad working for him but I think he's gotten really cocky lately and he's gotten awful to live with. He beats me and Jackle up everyday over the stupidest things and it's like we're slaves rather than employees. But you know Jackle, he just thinks it's 'molding us into better henchmen' or some B-S that no one cares about. I want out. No, I need out. If I have to see one more eyeballed hand, I'm gonna puke."

Nights nodded.

"Ohhhh, I see. Come on."

"What, come on? You're in a cage."

"Yeah, and you're gonna join me."

"What? I don't wanna go in there."

"You think I like being in here any better? But once you're in here, you'll be officially in the 'I-Hate-Wizeman' club. Come on, join in, we've got jackets."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Just get your ass in the cage and we'll talk."

End of Chapter One