A/N: Greetings, readers! It took a bit for me to update because I realized it was several pages long- possibly TOO long. Thus I felt it should be split into two parts. Besides I'm not quite finished with the second part. I will be soon though.

Now this part and the next could be considered rather high-octane. Why? Well, I have my reasons... which will be revealed later on in the story.

Here's chapter two of Moonlight on the Mountains!


"Chaca?"

The sound of her name called out roused the young girl from her sleep. She stirred, shivering a bit as a chilly breeze rustled her nightclothes and ponytail. Her bleary eyes drifted up to focus on the silhouette rushing towards her. When she heard her name called again, she instantly recognized the figure as her eight-year-old brother.

"Tipo?" Chaca's voice slurred out, thick with sleep. What was he doing outside? How did he find her out here? What if their mother and father knew–

"Chaca!" Tipo's third call of her name pulled her from her worried thoughts as her brother stopped right in front of her.

For a few brief moments they stared at each other in silence. Then they pointed at each other in unison and shouted, "What are you doing here?"

"I couldn't sleep!" Again they shouted in unison.

"Wait," Chaca cut in, "How long have you been out here?"

"I came out just a minute ago," Tipo answered. "How long have you been out here?"

"Well—" Chaca hesitated; she wasn't sure. Taking a glance up at the sky, she frowned at the clouds that now hid the moon and most of the stars from view. Great, now she couldn't tell.

"You were asleep out here." Tipo's tone wasn't quite accusatory, but Chaca still awkwardly fidgeted a bit. Caught red-handed!

"You're lucky," he went on. "If I hadn't found you, Mom and Dad would've, because you'd have slept outside till morning."

Chaca wrung her hands behind her back. He was right of course. Which reminded her…

"Do they know we're out here now?"

"Nope." Tipo shook his head. "And I won't tell if you won't."

Chaca didn't hesitate. "My lips are sealed."

They both giggled a bit before a slightly awkward silence hushed them once more.

"So…" Tipo sat down, Chaca following suit.

"So…" Chaca echoed, then added, "Bad dream?"

"How'd you know?" Tipo's tone rose in slight surprise.

"I had a nightmare too," Chaca admitted. "And it's almost too scary for me to even think about. Looking at the moon and stars helps me feel better."

"Whoa, really?"

Chaca could see Tipo's frown, her eyes long adjusted to the darkness now.

She nodded silently. It was the truth. That dream scared her for a bunch of reasons, some of which she couldn't put her finger on. It seemed too real…

"Okay, then we'll look at the stars and I'll tell you about my dream," Tipo suggested. "Looking at them makes me feel better too."

Chaca glanced up at the sky, frowning briefly at the blanket of clouds that now covered most of it… except for the far east, where it was slowly clearing. A smile returned to her face.

"Okay. What happened in your dream?"

"Well…" Tipo began. "There were these two big muscle-y guys, kinda like Kronk, but even bigger. And they both had all these tattoos all over them."

"That actually sounds awesome." Chaca lay back on the grass with Tipo, eyes to the mostly cloudy night sky, but with her ears and attention focused mainly on her brother's story.

"But the scary part is they were fighting!" Tipo waved his arms and clenched his fists in a wildly comical mime of a battle. "And they even had magical weapons! The bigger guy had this giant fish-hook that lights up and changes him into different animals, and the other guy had this thick club that could create this crazy whirlwind that changes anything it touches into whatever he wanted!"

"Wow." Chaca sat up, now focused squarely on her brother. "That reminds me of that scary crazy old lady who turned Kuzco into a llama."

Tipo hugged his knees to his chest. "Whenever I saw the guy with the club, I always got a bad feeling. He sounded so evil whenever he laughed, and he even tried to get me!

"But then," he went on, "The bigger guy with the fish-hook saved me! He turned into a giant hawk and the next thing I knew we were flying! He took me high up to the top of a mountain and put me down there. I watched him fly off…and then I woke up."

Chaca couldn't help the envious pout that puckered her lips. "Tipo, that dream didn't sound scary at all! It sounded like those bedtime stories with happy endings that Mom and Dad used to tell us."

"Hmph." Tipo scoffed. "Then are you going to tell me about your dream? Is it really that bad?"

"Well..." Chaca hesitated one more moment before giving in. After all, when she'd had bad dreams before, she'd almost always felt better after talking to someone about it, usually one of their parents. How could talking to Tipo be any different? Besides, as silly as it was, it was actually fun to argue about whose dream was scarier or more outlandish.

Chaca took a deep breath. "Okay, here goes. I was running through the jungle. I tried to move as fast as I could but it was so hard because everything was on fire!"

"Whoa." Tipo's voice was unusually soft, then he went quiet.

"Terrifying, isn't it?" Chaca squeezed her arms around herself as her mind dragged up images of burning trees, thick smoke, and flying cinders. Fixing her gaze up to the sky she pressed on. "That wasn't the scariest part. Someone was chasing me the whole time. I didn't know why, or even who they were. I just knew I couldn't let them catch me… or else."

"Or else… what?" Tipo asked, his voice still unusually quiet.

"I don't know." Chaca shuddered at the memory of the threatening presence that had chased her in her dream. "I just knew it'd be unspeakably bad."

"So then what happened?"

"I got stuck at the edge of a cliff. Down below there was nothing but water. Swirling, turbulent, dark water. Like the way the river looks when a storm causes it to flood."

"Whoa."

"And behind me, that fire kept burning everything down. But I still felt like someone was chasing me. I even heard them yell 'Don't let her get away!' There was NO way I was going to let them find me though, so I jumped off."

Silence. Then, "You jumped off a cliff?! Into dangerous water?"

"Shh!" Chaca held a finger to her lips. "Keep it down, or you'll wake the whole village."

"Oops, sorry."

"Anyway, the weirdest part is, after I jumped, I didn't feel scared at all. Somehow, I felt like the water wasn't dangerous—like it was even going to save me. I could swear it was reaching towards me."

A silent beat passed as Tipo stared blankly at Chaca. By now their eyes had long adjusted to the darkness, and Chaca fidgeted under her brother's gaze.

"Yep," Tipo finally responded. "You're right. I keep telling you your dreams are more insane."

"Translation: 'I'm insane.'"

"You said it, not me."

Chaca rolled her eyes. "You can go back to bed, Tipo. I'm feeling much better now."

"Aw, but I want to look at the stars too. Mom and Dad hardly ever let us stay up this late."

"Good luck." Chaca didn't bother to look up, picking at the grass. "You won't see much with these clouds."

"Maybe they'll blow over."

"Maybe." Chaca stifled a yawn, curling back up on the grass as another wave of drowsiness washed over once more. Her eyelids fluttered as she nodded off... only to pop open again the next moment when Tipo shouted.

"Whoa! Look at that!"

"Huh…?" Something urgent in his tone caught Chaca's attention, and she sat up, turning to follow where her brother pointed.

A break in the clouds widened to reveal a few clusters of stars… and only a thin sliver of a crescent moon, the rest hidden by a deep, eerie red shadow.

"What?!" Chaca blinked and rubbed her eyes, shaking her head in disbelief at the sight. "That can't be right!"

"How can the moon go from full to crescent in one night?" Tipo's voice mirrored the confusion in Chaca's mind and the slight anxiety budding in her chest.

"It can't. It's– it's not possible!" Chaca raked a hand through her hair. 'Something's really wrong here.'

The grass rustled as Tipo jumped to his feet. "I'm going to get Mom and Dad!" he called.

"Tipo, wait!" Chaca held a hand up, eyes narrowing as they remained focused skyward. "Look what's happening now! It's—"

"—On fire! The moon's on fire!" Tipo hollered.

Chaca yelped in surprise as she felt Tipo's hands grab hers and haul her to her feet. But she only shot him only a brief glance before turning her eyes back to the sky. 'Am I dreaming again?' she wondered dimly.

By this point most of the clouds had cleared from the sky which fully revealed a bizarre and surreal sight. Both children stared, transfixed, at the coppery burnt-orange glow that now enshrouded the moon, chasing away the shadow and contrasting sharply with the silvery blue-white crescent that still lit up its edge.

"I've never seen the moon look like this before," Tipo murmured.

"Me neither." Suddenly Chaca frowned as a thought entered her mind. "Tipo, do you remember those old legends we used to hear at the Storyteller's Summit? Some of them said that if the moon turned red, it meant the gods were really mad, and when the gods were mad, bad things would happen!"

"But— you don't think—?" Tipo hesitated, a note of fear entering his voice. "They're just stories, right? Like Mom's and Dad's bedtime stories?"

"Maybe—" Chaca cut off when a white streak of light zipped across the sky, passing the red moon before vanishing as quick as it came.

"Did you see that?" Tipo pointed up in the direction the streak had passed.

"A shooting star!" Chaca didn't dare tear her gaze away from the sky for a moment. She focused back on the moon, which now had darkened from burnt orange to nearly crimson. At the same time, she tried to keep a lookout for more shooting stars from the corner of her eye.

"Whoa!" The children cried out together in awe as sure enough, moments later two more streaks, both a bright orange, zipped by on similar paths to the first.

Tipo flopped back down on the grass, accidentally tugging Chaca down beside him. Chaca didn't mind, sharing the same idea: neither wanted to miss any part of the spectacle taking place above them. What happened next completely stunned the children into a frozen silence.

Suddenly, a frenzied wave of shooting stars erupted throughout the sky. Some were brighter, others dimmer, leaving glowing trails of many colors. Red, blue, purple, yellow, orange, even a few green ones zoomed out in all directions. All the while the steady blood-red glow of the moon created a striking and ominous contrast to the chaotic light show around it.

Chaca's mind whirled as fast as the shooting stars above, and she still almost couldn't believe her own eyes. Quickly glancing at Tipo, she dimly noted his slack jaw, and figured her own had dropped to the ground somewhere.

"This is—it's—" Tipo couldn't seem to find the words.

"Beautiful." Chaca felt a smile spread over her face right after the word left her mouth. It was the truth: as wild and strange and even scary as it all seemed, it was also amazing and wondrous.

"I don't want it to end—it's that awesome."

Chaca couldn't have said it better. "Me neither."

Just minutes later they'd wish they could eat those words.

"We got to wake up Mom and Dad now," Tipo insisted. "We can't let them or Yupi miss this." Jumping to his feet, he took off.

Chaca didn't stop him this time as he ran uphill, hollering for their parents. She slowly got up to follow, keeping her eyes on the sky where the shooting stars continued to fall like rain and the moon held its deep rusty red hue. She could now hear the shouts of more voices uphill, signaling that the rest of her family was awake. At the same time, another burst of voices shouted from below, meaning that more villagers were waking up to view nature's freak light show. Whether Tipo's hollering had woken them or if others had trouble sleeping and just happened to see what was going on, Chaca wasn't sure. In any case, eventually the yelling would wake the whole village, for which she was now glad. She couldn't help the wild giggle that bubbled from her lips. "And now everybody will see— OOF!"

In her distraction, she wasn't watching where she was going, causing her to trip over a loose rock and fall to her knees. Pushing herself back up, she shook some loose hair from her face just in time to catch sight of a brilliant light above.

Chaca quickly realized that this was no regular shooting star. It outshined all the others by far as it rapidly hurtled across the sky, leaving a long yellow trail in its wake. Instead of fizzling out, the fireball only grew bigger and brighter… so bright that Chaca winced and briefly shielded her eyes with one hand. The sight she'd witness next would etch itself deep into her memory forever.

For several harrowing moments the entire landscape lit up in white-gold as the fireball plunged its way downwards… down… down… down… until it finally crashed into the northwestern mountains with tremendous force!