HEY THIS IS MY FIRST FIC EVER PRETTY MUCH SO IM REALLY EXCITED ABOUT THIS!

I got rid of the broken DeviantArt link. Not sure how that happened.


A new city, a new school, a new life. A family of three had grown tired of their average, boring, uninteresting life in their average, boring, uninteresting house, and decided to move to somewhere more exciting. Much more exciting. Probably the most exciting place on Earth. And yet, you've probably never heard of it!

This place is called the City of Rhythm, more commonly known as Rhythm Heaven, a nickname given by visitors. This city sits at the heart of the largest of the Rhythm Islands. (The least exciting part about these locations are the names. Could the founders have come up with something even a little more interesting?) There are many people that live there, but to have someone move there is quite uncommon. You'd think that it would be a popular place for people to move to, but something almost akin to a dark force seems to drive people away... How creepy. But back to the family…

The family consisted of a smart and ambitious man named Arro, his ambitious but quite unlucky wife named Ella, and their son, Ato. Usually, in stories like these, the parents are uninteresting and their child is quirky and unpredictable. But in this family's case, Ella and Arro were interesting, and Ato was the boring one. But of course he'd be, after all until now the only home Ato knew was the average, boring, uninteresting one he grew up in. Ato didn't really have any talents or friends, and nothing about his appearance would make him stand out. At his old home, at least. Arro feared that his son would grow up to be a nobody, a lifeless husk working a boring office job. So of course, he decided that moving the City of Rhythm would be a great idea.

And here I am now.

Geez, why did I decided to write all that in 3rd person? It looks so stupid written out. I really do have no talent. I might as well put this new notebook to use, though...

3/15/20XX - Ato

A week later, after a lot of unpacking, paperwork, and phone calls, it was finally time for Ato's first day at the City of Rhythm High School. (Again, boring names.) The route there was quite strange: he would walk down his street until he reached the river. Then, he'd follow the river until he got to a small bridge. After that he would follow the path room there to the school. But the path cut straight through a town. A very very small town, with equally small inhabitants, most of which were monkeys. Ato was careful not to step on one by accident, but a man that was as tall as a young child and looked like a spinning top informed him that the monkeys were fast and smart enough to not get squished.

After all that, he finally arrived. Ato looked at the 3-story building in awe, as it was the most colorful, vibrant school building he had ever seen. The main color was a bright purple, a scarlet color more on the orange side was used for a border around each window, and there were random murals. A few were quite high. Ato was about to ask himself how someone could reach that high when-

"Hey, down there! You're the new guy, right?"

-a voice interrupted his train of thought. He looked around, but couldn't find anyone looking at him. Wait, "down there"? Did that mean...

He looked up, and sure enough there was a girl with very, very long legs staring down at him.

"Hehe, it usually takes people a second to find me." She kneeled down to make the conversation a little less awkward. "Most people know me as Tapper Girl, but my name is actually Quinn. This school usually doesn't get people like you."

People like him? Ato was confused. "What do you mean?" He asked.

"Not many people move to the Rhythm Islands, for some reason. No offense but... you're kinda... you know... plain." Quinn explained.

"Oh. Right." He thought back to what he wrote in his journal. His plain-ness would probably make him stick out here instead of make him blend in. Great.

"Hey, don't worry! You'll be fine. By the way... what's your name?" Quinn started to stand back up again.

"I'm Ato... Ato Jump..." He realized that his simple 7-letter name would also probably make him stand out.

"Oh! That means we're in the same homeroom! Let's go!" Quinn was back to her normal height, once again looming over Ato. He didn't say anything as Quinn lead him to where they needed to go, he just observed. He saw some more monkeys, a boy that was half white and half dark gray, a group of girls all wearing similar outfits holding the same book, and a lone blue guy that was reading something about music.

Then, finally, Quinn and Ato arrived at their homeroom.

They were some of the last people to arrive, but they weren't late, as the teacher wasn't there yet either. Most of the seats were occupied already. The room's ceiling was a normal height, so poor Quinn had to walk on her knees to get to her seat. Ato did not know where to sit. Some more of his new classmates walked in, and a few of them gave him a weird look. He didn't know if it was because he was obviously the new kid, or because he was just standing there awkwardly. Finally, he saw one open spot right next to Quinn, but before he could start walking there, the teacher came in.

"Ah, per-fect ti-ming!" The teacher was half white and half dark gray, like one of the students Ato noticed earlier, and his movements were rather robotic and cartoonish. He spoke in a slightly robotic way as well. The teacher rummaged through his bag and took out a notebook. "Let's see... you are A-to, cor-rect?"

Ato was still distracted by his teacher's weirdness, and didn't respond.

"Oh no... you di-dn't for-get your own name, did you?" Was that supposed to be sarcasm? Ato couldn't tell. But that did make him snap back to the present, and he responded, "Oh-uh- sorry- yeah, I'm Ato." Yikes, how embarrassing. A couple others laughed, but most of the class didn't seem to mind. Or care.

"No wor-ries. I am M-r. Aff-en-affe. How a-bout you go sit down? There is an emp-ty desk o-ver there." Mr. Affenaffe pointed to the desk right next to Quinn's. Ato nodded and made his way to the desk. A good portion of the class was staring at him. When he got to his desk, Quinn looked at him and shrugged, as if to say "I told you you'd stand out!"

The rest of the school day was all a blur. Everything was so different than what Ato was used to, after all. Even the school's layout was way different. The entrance to the school was a fancy looking gate that lead to the courtyard. The courtyard was filled with pretty flowers and some trees that Ato had never seen before. The main school building went around the courtyard, and the entrances to the classrooms were outside. There were stairs in the courtyard that led to the second floor, which was similar to the courtyard. It was a neat and organized rooftop garden, but the entrances to the classrooms were still on the outside. On the inside of the first floor, there were classrooms, and then a hallway. The hallway was obviously where the lockers were, but other rooms were connected to the side of the building that wasn't touching the courtyard, so their entrances were in the hallway. Those other rooms were mostly club rooms. The inside of the second floor was pretty much the same, but without the club rooms. The main office was on the second floor, too.

Ato was exhausted. He looked at the map of the island and wondered if there was a quicker way to get home. The dirt path through the monkey town definitely made the walk longer. "If I head straight towards the river without cutting through that town," he thought, "then it'll only take 5 minutes to get home! The map says that there's a bridge there, so I should be fine. But if there's a bridge that close to my house, why do I need to go all the way to that small one?" He kept thinking about that as he followed the shortcut.

A few minutes later, he saw that he was close to the river. He didn't see any sign of a bridge, though. The map wasn't wrong, was it?

And then he realized.

The river was finally in his view, and he still saw no bridge. What he did see, were rocks.

And they were moving.

The rocks did make a clear path across the river, but every few seconds a few rocks would pop under the water, and some would pop over to be a part of the bridge again. "So that's why…" Ato muttered to himself. But he was already there, so he figured he might as well try.

"1… 2… 3!" He jumped onto a rock. He felt it rumble a bit, and panicked. He jumped to another rock, and right as he landed, the one he was just on popped under the surface. He looked down at his feet, then across the river, then to another rock. "If I stand here too long, I might freeze up…" He thought. So what did he do? He stumbled across the rocks, and was almost at the other side when he was about to land on another rock, then-

"Woah woah woah- WAAH-!"

Ato slipped and fell, hitting his head on the grass that was the other side of the river.

"Um… Are you okay?"