A world that was designed like a child's clumsy arts and crafts sort of thing using much the same materials was weird.
Even weirder was the fact that it was filled with life, it's very own eco-system. Arc had woken up in a strange place indeed. Nothing was talking to him, but all the creaturea were very docile. They smiled at him, and some even waved. It almost was haunting. But the strangest was yet to come. As he turned a corner, onto a small grassy field, he was greeted by a wooden puppet, and a paper man. The puppet was very obviously wooden, but there was nothing wrong with his ability to move or do anything Arc himself couldn't do. The paper man was much more interesting. He looked quite feeble, with arms and legs that were single strips of green paper, he was still able to support the bags on his back though. His head was interesting. It looked like an envelope, and was comically bigger than his frame. His facial details were childish, with one eye open, and an x in place of the other. his mouth was nothing too unusual considering he was a sentient paper machè project. He also had a stamp on his forehead, along with a green paper strip wrapped around his envelope head which looked like a sweatband. Arc chose to observe from a distance.
The puppet pointed his scissors at the paper man, who put his hands up in self defence. But the puppet wasn't having any of it. He slashed at the paper man, who barely had time to react.
He curled up into a little ball and rolled backwards, then realized he had to fight.
The Puppet was already trying another slash with his scissors from above, but the paper man anticipated it, and took out a camera from his backpack. One flash later and the Puppet was blinded. Even Arc found himself shielding his eyes from the flash. The puppet lost control of himself and unceremoniously landed in a heap to the side of the paper man. The puppets head rolled off, and seeing it as an opportunity, the paper man picked it up and threw it at the body. That was enough to daze the Puppet. Then the paper man defied logic, using fingers he didn't have whistle. All of a sudden, this dog-like creature, who was made out of paper much like his master, came rushing into battle. As the Puppet saw the dog rushing in, he reached for a a grapling gun of sorts on his back and fired at the dog. The dog was then pulled in by the Puppet and kicked into the air, which was met with a whimper from the dog. The paper man panicked for a second, letting out a distressed noise with a visibly horrified expression on his face, and rushed over to where his dog had landed. He knelt down by his canine companion who looked pained. He had his back turned to Arc at this point, but Arc knew he must have felt bad about letting his friend get hurt. He then turned with an unsual, unsettling glare on his face. He looked at the puppet and charged, curling up into a ball. The Puppet charged with his Scissors too.
They both missed, the scissors being too high, and the paper man being too low. But the Puppet had another trick up his sleeve. He pulled out a cartoonish bomb and tossed it after the paper man. But he had a bomb of his own, which he countered the one thrown at him with. An explosion followed, with confetti flying everywhere and littering the small battlefield. The paper man threw yet another bomb, this time on the offensive, only to have it countered by a massive shield. The bomb was sent flying straight back at the paper man, but he too had one last trick up his sleeve. He pulled out an accordion, which seemed like an idiotic move, but he then squeezed it as hard as he could, to a deafening roar and a blistering wind. The bomb went flying straight back, and with the puppet dazed by the wind and the roar, he had no time to counter it. The bomb hit its mark and exploded with confetti.
The parts of the puppet scattered everywhere, and for once, it appeared the puppet couldn't put himself back together. The dog came rushing back over and tackled his master to the ground, playfully licking his face. He smiled. But then he looked over at the saddened puppet, and began to feel pity and guilt.
So he gathered all the parts of the puppet, brought them to the body, and produced a bottle of glue from his backpack. He then glued the puppet back together, and rolled his head over to ths body. The glue didn't take long to dry, and the puppet was moving his limbs again. Arc just watched on, fascinated. The puppet seemed happy, and realizing that he had rudely attacked the paper man, who clearly wasn't malicious, went over and offered an apology. The paper man seemed very cheery again and gleefuly accepted the apology.
Arc decided now would be a good time to reveal himself. He walked over to the two, who took notice, but were not hostile towards him. Arc didn't say anything, knowin they could not speak.
But someone spoke. "Are you sure these are the All-Stars?" A deep, intimidating voice asked. "I'm only going off what we're told, no questions." Another responded. Arc turned to the source of the voices.
The deep voice belonged to some ungodly creature, with greyish skin, red eyes, and floating above the ground. He wore a robe which suggested he was royalty or something, which was what Arc took notice of. The other voice belonged to a robot. He was purple, and a helmet compeletely covered his face from view. A minigun was protruding out of his shoulder, and starting to whir up.
"Well, if you are so certain that these are the targets, then we shall commence." The creature raised his hand, causing a vortex to open up in the sky, and minions to pour out. Some flew out, some fell out and landed, but all of them seemed fixated on Arc and the other two.
The creature turned to the robot. "Vile, if you wish to have your fun, I shall leave you be now." With that, he was gone. The minions weren't though. "Alright! Now we get down to business!" Vile revved up his minigun, only for another robot identical to him to arrive. "Don't shoot!" The clone warned. "Why not?!" Vile demanded. "I can't say here, but trust me, you don't want to shoot." Vile shook his head. "No." The minigun fired about three shots before the clone disarmed him. Arc barely had time to get his hands up in some pathetic form of self defence before the bullets hit them. But instead of blood pouring from his hands and then his face, the bullets embedded themselves in Arc's hands, and with a shattering noise, like someone broke a window.
Arc was hurt, but he jumped a little at the sound his hands made. Looking at his hands, he only saw that the bullets fell out and the skin had repaired. No blood. "What the-?" Vile was cut off by his clone. "You fuckwit! That's why! Let's get out of here!" The clone lifted Vile into the air and carried him off. Arc had a lot of questions, but right now, the minions were closing in. They were screeching, snarling, and gnashing their teeth, which frightened the paper man a lot. But anticipating more fighting, he hid his dog in his backpack and took out his accordion. Arc had his sword ready, and the puppet had his scissors ready. The minions began pouring over the hills, ready to overwhelm the three.
But they weren't counting on backup. Neither were the trio, but it was welcome. They fired guns at the minions, making them fall one by one, and greatly reducing their numbers. By the time they reached Arc, he was able to make short work of them.
Taking a second to look at the gunmen, one had dark skin with glowing blue eyes. It looked like whatever made his eyes that way coursed through his veins, as his body too lit up like a neon sign with whatever that stuff was. He wore dirty, western style clothing, minus a ridiculous hat. His partner was equally strange. An elf man with spiky greenish blond hair. He had a companion that looked like an orange weasel. He was shouting words of encouragement at the elf man as he mowed down the minions. "You're the man, Jak!" He cheered. So Jak was the elf's name then? Must've been.
Their gunfire managed to thin the hordes enough to be cut down by the other three. Arc then looked to the gunmen and went to meet them.
"Thanks for that" Arc shook the hand of the man with blue eyes. His hand was ice cold. Arc quickly retracted his hand. "Ah! Your hand, it's-" "Cold, I know. That's rift energy." He answered. "Rift energy?" Arc was confused. "That's right. I don't think now's a good time to explain." The elf man came over. "That's Jak, with the...ottsel, Daxter." Arc shook Jak's hand, which wasn't cold. "And I'm Emmett Graves." The man introduced himself. "I'm Arc, I'm not sure who these two are, and they don't talk either." Arc explained. "I see." Emmett looked over at the paper man and puppet. "Any idea where we might be?" Emmett asked. "No. Unfortunately, I don't really remember much at all. I just remember waking up here a while ago, and that's it."
"So you've lost your memory." Jak spoke up. "Erm, well, I haven't thought about it, but...yes. You could say I have. I don't remember anything at all except for my name and how to use my weapons." Emmett wasn't so convinced. "Absolutely nothing." He said. "You remember absolutely nothing. Not even an image or a sound in your brain. No name of any person you may know, or anything like that." Arc thought for a second, before he apparently remembered something. "Oh yes! Now that you mention it-GAH!" Arc fell to the ground cltuching his head. The other five went to his side immediately. "Are you ok?!" Jak asked. Arc quickly came around. "Ugh, yeah, I think I'm ok." He said, slowly getting to his feet. "You said you remembered something." Jak tried to return Arc to the conversation. "Oh yeah...that. I'm sorry to disappoint, but, it's gone from my head. I don't know how. I'm really sorry." Arc apologized. "That's fine. Probably something to do with that headache is all. For now, I think we should stay together as a team, you and those other two guys can come with us." Emmett suggested. Arc agreed. "Sounds great."
"Oh boy. Dad's not gonna be too happy about this." Death Jr. said to himself as he looked around the new enviroment where he was. It looked synthetic, like a dream world, and was littered with these strange, small creatures with leavs on their heads. They tried traversing the terrain by building to get across it. They had built a bridge over a gap between two hills, and were currently trying to bridge a narrow cardboard river. DJ was confused by this. "Can't you guys just make a boat or something?" He asked them. They payed no heed to him and continued building. Eventually, their bridge was built, and they were across to the other side. But DJ wasn't done with them yet. He wasn't leaving until he found out what they were. "Hey wait!" He called out after them. He stopped when he came to the river. The problem here was that the only way across was the bridge those creatures had built. It was about a foot wide, and didn't really look like it was meant to support his weight. However, it was the only way across, and DJ didn't want to lose sight of the little creatures, and so he walked across. To his surprise, the bridge didn't even creak or show any sign of giving way under his weight. That only heightened his interest in those little guys, who were obviously pretty talented when it came to construction.
Once he crossed the bridge, he looked down a path close by where they probably went. Sure enough, they had all gone there. But they didn't keep walking. Instead, they all gathered to observe a strange creature wearing robes with red eyes and what looked like horns coming from his head. He was staring down an equally strange creature which was a pale blue, had a short tail coming out of his head and wore brown shorts. He also appeared to have his mouth sewn shut, but he didn't seem to mind. He was more concerened about the guy staring him down. "Is this your army?" He asked the weird looking guy. He couldn't really respond very well. All he did was make a few panicked noises and wildly gesticulate. "I suppose there is only one way to find out." The alien guy answered. He spoke in a really raspy voice which always carried an echo, regardless of where he was. All of a sudden, out of thin air, he summoned a dog like creature which stood by his side. "After them." He ordered. "The beast roared and began to chase those little guys around. They were obviously panicked and quickly were completely separated from one another. DJ wasn't quite sure whether or not to run or try his luck against the hellhound. The alien took notice. "A grim reaper I see."
"Uh, I guess." DJ muttered to himself. "Well, let's see how good you are. After him!" He ordered the dog creature. It howled and charged at DJ. Without thinking, he just lunged at the creature and stuck his scythe in. The beast roared again and tried to get him off, but without much success. DJ took out his pistols and began to empty them into the beast. It couldn't take that much punishment. After a final weak roar, it collapsed. Not as big a challenge as it was probably meant to be, but the alien guy didn't seem surprised. "Well done."He said. "That was very good. I think you would make an indispensible ally." DJ seemed suspicious. "Wait a second, I don't even know who you are, why would I want to join you?" The alien was about to say something, when a beam shot down from the sky and hit DJ. He had no time to react, and the blast was freakishly strong. DJ was knocked back several feet, and lay unconcious.
"Another one down." The voice sounded before taking off again. "Hey, no fair! I wanted to kill him!" Black Doom turned around to see Vile shaking hs fist in the air and giving chase to the assassin. He was a strange person though. He never revealed his identity to anyone, and he always took different forms whenever he was around anyone. But even with all his disguises, it was still very easy to tell that it was him. But the only problem was that no one knew who he was. So, it was him, but who was him?
He looked over at the collapsed Death Jr. and deemed his work to be enough.
"I keep telling you, this is the world of LittleBigPlanet!" Toro Inoue explained to Kuro. "But I still don't see how we got here...or how we're going to get home." Kuro tried to reason. But Toro was in his element. He looked around and noticed that there was someone lying unconcious by a river. "Hey! Toro! Over there!" Kuro called out. Toro stopped to see what could be the matter. When he saw the person sprawled out on the ground he rushed over. "Hey, Kuro! This is Death Jr., from the PSP game!" Kuro walked over. "Never mind that! Is he ok?" Kuro checked his pulse. "It seems as though he'll be fine." He heard nothing from Toro. "Toro?" Kuro called out. "Look Kuro! Lemmings! Abe from Oddworld as well!" Kuro sighed. "Toro" Then he realized something. "Hey wait, how come all these characters are in the same place, even though they are from different games?" Toro stopped. "Must be a crossover or something."
"Yeah, but why? Doesn't it strike you as odd?" Toro wasn't listening. "Toro!" Kuro called out. "What?" Toro asked, very nonchalalantly. "Don't you think it's weird that all these characters are in the same place?" Toro thought about it for a second. "I guess you're right. But what do you think happened?" Kuro had no answer. "I don't know"
"Exactly. So why worry? Nothing bad seems to be happening, so let's stay positive for now."
Yu Narukami had no idea how he got here, and no idea where 'here' was. He had at least found someone who was equally as confused as he was. I man named Ico. He wore fairly old style clothes, and seemed to wear a viking hat, but Yu learned that these were actually a part of his anatomy. Weird. The guy didn't speak either. He wrote everything down on pieces of paper Yu gave him and that was as far as communication went. Suffice to say, not very far at all. Until they encountered another party. Two men, one of them looked like he was ready to play in th nba finals, whereas the other looked far more casual in his attire. But he had with him a painting. It was of a tower, surounded by barron wastelands and mountains. But the most unusual thing about it was the sounds coming from it. It sounded like people crying out for help, incredibly disturbingly. But the man, CJ, insisted that he couldn't simply throw it away, and that there was a mystery to the painting that he was going to figure out.
He also had an emerald with him. But not just a shiny piece of eye candy. There was power in it. The other man, Kobe, claimed that there was a guy called Calypso that CJ stole both items from, and that they were somehow connected to him in very important ways. Yu was skeptical about the painting, but he believed everything about the emerald. There was just something about it. Even holding it, gave Yu a feeling of absolute power. So the four continued on for a few days, until they encountered another party, this time with five members.
The leader was a man with dark skin, tattered clothing, and most noticably, what looked like his veins, glowing a bright sky blue on his skin, as a substance coursed through it, and radiated from him. The second was an elf man, with blond spiky hair and an orange weasel thing on his shoulder. The third was a man who looked like he came from medival times, simliar to Ico, minus the horns, fourth was a strange puppet with a giant pair of golden scissors, and fifth was a creature made of paper with an envelope for a head.
Yu stopped. "Who are you?" He asked. "Emmett Graves" The man answered. "This here is Jak, Daxter, Arc, and I'm not entirely sure about those two." So the elf was Jak, the weasel was Daxter, and the other guy was Arc. "What about you?" He asked. "Yu Narukami, and these three are Ico, CJ, and Kobe."
"Do you guys have any idea where we are, or any idea how we got here?" Emmett asked. "I'm afraid not. We're just as lost as you are."
"Hey, Toro! Look over there!" Kuro pointed. There was an orange-yellow marsupial walking around just ahead of them. He wore red and yellow spotted shorts with brown gloves. In each hand, he held a boomerang. "Isn't that Ty, from the Tasmanian Tiger games?" Kuro asked. "It sure is!" Toro confirmed, taking out a pen and notepad and going off for an autograph. "Hey Toro, wait!" Kuro ran off after his eccentric friend. Ty turned his head towards the sound of footsteps. There was a white cat running towards him with a notepad and a pen in his hands. "Hold it right there!" Ty readied his boomerangs. The cat took the hint and stopped several feet in front of Ty. "Who are you?" The cat answered, but in a language Ty didn't understand. "Say again?"
A black cat came rushing up and attempted to explain it better. He took the notepad and pen from the white cat and drew some pictures, there were moonkeys in one of them, something Ty couldn't make out in the second one, and in the third and last one, a crude drawing of him. In all of the pictures, the black cat was dragging the white cat away from the other character in the picture. "Ah, I understand now." And he was on his way. Or at least he tried to get on his way, but a voice stopped them. "Wait a second, you're not going anywhere!" The voice sounded. "Who's there?!" Ty demanded. A human like creature came rushing out in front of Ty. It had a shiny metallic appearance, from a robotic looking face, to shiny metallic grey legs and blades on the soles of his feet. He wore a jacket too, and in his hands was a sword with a massive handle.
"Who are you?!" Ty demanded, readying his boomerangs. "I am Izanagi, your doom!" He quickly slashed at Ty, who barely managed to get out of the way. "So this guy's bad news. Better-Woah!" Ty barely had time to avoid another slash. "Come on Toro, let's-" Kuro noticed a cloud of dust that formed. "Wait for me, Toro!"
But for Ty, he finally got around to attacking. He tried throwing his basic boomerangs, only to have Izanagi slice them perfectly in half. "Right, gonna need something else." Ty took out some thunderangs, and waited for Izanagi to attack. He didn't ahve to wait very long, only a few seconds passed before he dived in with a stab at Ty's feet. Ty saw it coming and jumped into the air as the sword embedded itself in the ground. Then Ty hit Izanagi with the thunderangs. It didn't work. "Bad move." Izanagi said before sending an electrical current through the boomerangs. Ty felt the full blast as he went flying. That was a powerful attack, but Ty couldn't afford to keep lying down. As his vision was obscured by Iyanagi above him, he knew what to do. He took out warparang and tossed it into a nearby tree. Ty warped and fell out of the tree, but was quickly back on his feet.
Izanagi was confused as his target disappeared, giving Ty a window of opportunity. He needed this attack to be perfect. Thunderangs were no good, neither were ordinary boomerangs. He had plenty of failsafes though. He took out his kaboomerangs and threw them. Izanagi jumped up as he saw them cross paths, but couldn't avoid them as they came back and hit eachother. The resulting balst knocked Izanagi back, but he too was quickly back on his feet, seemingly unfazed by the blast. Ty switched things up again, throwing a flamerang. It hit Izanagi perfectly and left a burn mark. Now he haad another chance. He started to run circles around Izangai and fire multirangs. The rapidfire tactic seemed to be working as Izanagi was having trouble prepare any attacks. Then he surrounded himself with electricity. All the boomerangs that hit him afterwards were burnt to a crisp.
Ty tried a frostarang, only for the same thing to happen. He was then zapped with electricity. "It appears that electricty may be your weak point." Ty wasn't done yet though. He threw a lavarang at the ground with just enough force for it to embed itself. Then it erupted. Izanagai was caught in the eruption, evident from a "GAH!" from him. When the eruption subsided, Izanagi was still left standing, but he was noticably more red. "You..." He snarled. He jumped into the air ready to end the tasmanian tiger, only to be knocked off course by a shot from a gun. Izanagi turned around and noticed two men standing there. "Nice shot Jak!" Daxter congratulated his friend. "More All-Stars. Confound it!" Izanagi took off. None of the All-Stars gave pursuit, they were all more concerned about Ty. Toro and Kuro ran into the group running away from Izanagi and led them back here. "He's alive. Someone needs to carry him though, he needs help." Emmett instructed. "Hey wait a minute! Up there!" Emmett looked up to see a massive ariship coming to land near them. "Maybe they'll be able to help. Let's go!" Emmett ordered, and the All-Stars took off.
The All-Stars continued until they came across another unconcious thing, surounded by monkey-creatures and a weird amphibian looking creature. They expressed concern for the person who looked like a grim reaper lying there. He was still alive too. Emmett explained to them the situation they were in, which they obviously understood. The monkey creatures carried the grim reaper and Ty as well to the airship. There was a set of stairs leading up to the landing deck. "Do you think maybe they're expecting us or something?" Jak asked Emmett. "Maybe. But I guess we'll know for certain when we meet the crew. When the rag-tag team made it's way up to the landing deck, they were greeted by a soldier. "Our commander wishes to speak with you, if you'll follow-" "Just a second." Emmett interrupted him. "We've got two unconcious...people with us, and we're wondering if you could maybe see to them." The soldier looked at Ty and the grim reaper. "Yes the-" He stopped. "Wait a minute." He took out a checklist, and looking at them one by one, he checked off things on the list. "This means...this is excellent! Please, leave the two there, and come with me. Hey, you two! See to those All-Stars there and make sure they're healed!" He called out to two soldiers.
The remaining All Stars followed him to a room with a large enough set of stairs. Once up the stairs, they were greeted by an incredibly long oblong table that stretched across the room with a man at the other side. He was glowing blue, and appeared to be a hologram of sorts. He turned around. "Sir, we have them all. The last two are being treated for injuries, but the others are all here!" The man laughed and clapped his hands together. "This is indeed excellent news! Tell the All-Stars we shall have a meeting in two hours' time." He told the soldier. "Yes sir!" The soldier went off. "Gentlemen. Forgive me for not introducing myself. My name is Kenneth Kutaragi." He explained. "and this is the PS Airship 1994. You also needn't introduce yourselves, as I am well acquainted with you already." The All-Stars looked around. It was pretty impressive, to say the least. It was currently taking off from the arts and crafts planet. "Wait, how do you already know us? I've never seen you before." Emmett asked. "I understand that. Come back in two hours time, and I shall explain to you about the Playstation All-Stars."
Author's Note
Around two years ago, I started writing Playstation All Stars Battle Royale 2. For me, a lot has happened in that time frame, and writing that story carries a lot of memories for me, so it was pretty surpising to find that 1,579 people across 45 countries have read it. It might not seem like a lot, but thanks to anyone who read, it means a lot to me.
Until Next Time!