2.

His eyes were filled with the purest among terrors as he powerlessly witnessed the unforgiving disembowelment of his own kidneys from his slashed open thigh. A cry of pain found itself locked in his sour throat as a red bloodfall dripped from his mouth, covering his whole soon-to-be dead corpse. His opponent laughed madly at his gory misfortune as he used the aforementioned shredded organs to strangle him… Until his head exploded in a preposterous amount of vital fluid that managed to fill the entire room. For that poor blue ghost, it was game over!

"Pac-Man wins… FATALITY!!!" The voice on the screen stated as the yellow murderer began to feed himself with the ripped rests of his adversary while "I'm Walking on Sunshine" played in the background.

Tails's eyes were as widened as a prostitute's… Mouth, while the grip he had on his controller slowly ceased to be such. His mouth was agape, his features were frozen, blah blah blah… You got the picture, folks! He slowly turned his head over his younger playmate, who by now was performing his own victory dance at the fox's expenses, singing the aforementioned song, which I won't name twice due to the sheer horror it always managed to bring to my fragile mind… Anyway, bottom line is: Klonoa won and Tails got pawned.

"You know… I remembered Pac-Man to be a little different." Tails sorely said to his overjoyed game partner, who just grinned at him in a very sly way.

"Don't make excuses, I beat ya, bud!" Klonoa declared, almost assuming a dramatic pose that somehow disturbed the fox. "Say, wanna play another game?" He added, eyes now filled with genuine childish eagerness… Having a playmate made him as happy as a sugar addicted on a confetti trip.

The older vulpine just shrugged and nodded in response. Ever so quickly, the black furred feline-like boy, took out of the console his prized copy of "Pac-Man Kombat: Ghost buster" and put in it, another classic of his seemingly infinite collection. It was a game Tails never heard of but that, strangely enough, reminded him of something he couldn't quite place in his damaged mind for the time being… "Super Duper Mario Bros."

"Jumping… Plumbers?" He inquired, his head already pulsing in the desperate attempt to understand why was he playing that… And why he hated plumbers so much.

"Yep… Awesome, isn't it?" Klonoa remarked.

"… If you say so." The other's unconvinced reply.

I think it's better now, oh my very patient spectators, if I shall take a moment of your precious time to explain a few holes of this seemingly improvised plot… Which is not! Well… Most of it.

After being attacked by that unnamed beast during his dimensional fall, Tails lost his memory, so he could remember neither who he was nor what he has done (which, dare I say, it's pretty convenient), therefore when he first saw his own image as a reflex on a mirror, he gasped in shock and stupor at his features, especially his twin tails, which, for reasons that went beyond my poor psychological skills, despite his lack of memory, he knew they were not "normal"… As far as normality goes, of course! I personally think that the so-called "normal" individuals are the real weirdoes… But that's just the opinion of a crazy jester, so you may want ignore my rant.

As for Tails and Klonoa, our two heroes had no problem whatsoever in bonding really fast… That is why they were pretty similar, in a certain way: they both were unique and utterly geeky at something… But you already know that, don't you? One could even come as far as to say that the two of them were somehow related, due to a slight resemblance between their facial features. Now, I think it would be swell of me if I reveal you exactly where did Tails end up… That is, if you believe dreams must have a precise location inside the universe, or a name.

This mystic land was known as "Phantomile" and, as local legends stated, it was born from the sweetest dreams of an entity that is considered responsible for the creation of most of the universes and their worlds. Such higher being has been named in so many ways by the whom who believed in him, but over the eons, only one name has outlived everyone's memory, the one name he was mostly referred with… "The Author". According to the myths, the Author is the one that created the first dimensions out of his bewildering dreams and gave them a defined shape and form with the power of his imagination. After that, he then created Life and Death… And, therefore, Chaos. And just like a writer who could not control what would pop out of his mind, he immediately lost control over his dreams, leading them to become their own worlds with their own people… And with their own dreams, which, due to the never ending cycle that time and space are, would create other worlds and other dreams as well. Confusing, isn't it? Well, if legends would have been as clear as the sun goes, they wouldn't have been so fascinating, eh? Just like any religion or creed, there exist several interpretations of the Author's role in the general scheme of things: Some of them, depicted him as a benign entity, always there to vigil and protect his prized children from themselves and their own actions… Others described him as a deceptive and sadistic God who tried to destroy the result of his own dreams, out of pure frustration (the frustration of an ignored father) and that he would occasionally exact his wrath on random unfortunate worlds that, for some reason or another, didn't please his divine eyes. That's where the stories of his feared servants come from… Legends about his most powerful agents, his right and left hands… Literally!

Master Hand, the right one, a cruel and calculative monster who enjoys other people's sorrow, and Crazy Hand, the left one, a loose cannon driven by wanton destruction and incontrollable rage towards everything that has ever lived. Little is known about these two godly appendages other than the atrocious path of Death and Destruction leaved behind their passage…

Thankfully, that is just a legend, isn't it? Eeh eeh eeh eeh, I can see by the look of your faces that my firm grasp over your attention spam is as tight as a minuscule Speedo… Goody then, because now that the back story has reached a rather sharp peak, I shall now interrupt it and resume the regular story… Now, where were we? Oh yes… Jumping plumbers of Doom!

"So… You used to live in this village named 'Breezegale', uh?" Tails asked while cursing under his breath to the stupid green plumber who just couldn't make that freaking jump.

"Mmm-hmm." Klonoa sort of answered, while beating his record for the umpteenth time.

"Then what happened?"

"My grandpa died and I was left alone, since I've never grew fond of the others, I decided to move on this isolated spot in the middle of our gorgeous forest… So I could live in peace." He replied while pretending to be entirely focused on the game but, as Tails could say, his seemingly innocent eyes were telling a different story… A sadder one. "Luckily, my unc comes often to see me, he is the one who gave me all these awesome games, he is the coolest person in the world!" His face suddenly brightened. At least he had an uncle who could take care of him… That managed to relief the fox about the kid's life status, which, as his instinct suggested him, wasn't the most cheerful. "Do you remember anything yet, Fox?" Klonoa abruptly asked to his interlocutor, catching him off guard.

"Fox… Is that the best nickname you could come out with? I get that I suffer of Amnesia but that's just lame!" Tails complained, Klonoa gave him a odd, almost offended, look.

"Ehi, I gave you the name of Fox McCloud, the vulpine hero of space from the game "Star Fox Wars", you should be honored!" He complained back, crossing his arms in a very childlike manner. The two-tailed namesake just sighed, he would have to live with that name for the time being…

"Nope. My mind is still as blank as a discounted piece of paper." Ehi, that's my line! Errr, I mean: said Fox in response of a previous question.

"And… What about that creature?" At this, he froze.

"T-the creature?"

"Yeah… The one you've been dreaming about, last night." The boy said with a tone so casual and unaware that sounded as scary as a Jehovah's convention.

Then, his guest fell on the floor, clutching his bandaged head in agonizing pain, and dramatically losing his senses within a loud thud. Klonoa freaked out.


He ran.

He ran with all his might.

The forest became an indefinable blur as he darted through its suffocating green, as quick as he could. He was rather fast on his feet, more than he was on his flying ears… Yet, he needed to be faster. He needed help. He needed some professional medical help. He needed the village's doctor. The deadweight of his burden was pressing on his small shoulders like a haunting devil on a quest for his soul… Ehi, that's a good one! Note to self: use this line more often. Anyway, as you may have already apprehended, young Klonoa was frantically heading to the Breezegale village in order to get a doctor for his foxy guest, who was lying unconscious of the kid's bed with a dangerously high fever… Therefore, the long eared boy had to run…

Run with all his might.

I now shall take this moment of impending tragedy to focus our thoughts on the sheer beauty of the natural paradise Phantomile used to be…

So peaceful and tranquil...

So calm and lively...

So smoky and burnt...

So suddenly deadly and full of cadavers...

So hellish and destroyed...

So perfect… Perfectly demised!

As Klonoa reached the once simple village of Breezegale, he was welcomed by a rather gory and dreadful scenario that awfully sang out of his land's tune. His face was simply priceless… In a bad way. The simple act of trying to describe his feelings and emotions to you, is simply impossible and ludicrous, for far than great was his shock and justified divine fear.

His feline eyes widened 3 times more than their original size as they witnessed the total and definitive annihilation of his hometown by the hands of a… giant floating white hand.

And there it was, ominous and unforgiving, laughing at its victims' death, while squashing them with its whole fist-like body… The Master Hand was having the time of its immortal life. After threading on the last villager alive with calculated sadism, the now blood filled fingers that were its arms turned to Klonoa's direction, who was still frozen on the spot, unable to utter a move (which was rather predictable due to the situation he was in), and a hair-raising diabolical laughter came out of those very appendages. The godly hand laughed hardly and loudly, pure maliciousness could be caught in such ear-drumming sound. Slowly but menacingly, the Author's right hand flew towards the young cat/dog/rabbit-like kid, who found himself disappearing into its huge shadow.

A shadow had engulfed him… And another one, came to his aid.

Before either Master Hand of Klonoa could notice, a fistful of golden beams hit the not anymore laughing handheld divinity, who quickly backed away from his would have been next victim, until it eventually chose to disappear into a convenient inter-dimensional portal that vanished right after it crossed it. Awareness shot into the kid's brain with the sheer force of a bum-bum bullet, letting him realizing what just happened, letting him understand the situation he has gotten in, with unforgiving terror. His head slowly turned to his back, letting his eyes fix on the image of his last minute savior, letting him to immediately recognize his unmistakable shape.

He stood proud and cool, totally unfazed by the hostile scenario, with a strange glowing azure gem held in his gloved hand, his peculiar eyes stared at it with hinted glee shown on them.

"A Chaos Emerald… It's been a while since the last time I held one in my grasp. How refreshing." He whispered with his cold voice as a louder one managed to interrupt his contemplation.

"Uncle Shadow!!!" Yelled the now tearful kit as he gazed at the black furred, red striped and smiling form of his "uncle", right before darting towards him and crying his trauma right on his white muzzling chest.

A new playable character has been unlocked: Shadow the Hedgehog has joined our company!


A/N: Read "Peripeteia: Tintinnabulae"