Chapter One
Ragol
"Waaaah!" a voice cut through the peaceful forest of the planet Ragol as a group of hunters finished cleaning up one sector in their quest for clues and treasure. They looked up, startled, then looked at each other briefly before racing off to see what it was that caused the noise.
"Dibs on the monster and its treasure!" Perrinetta, a little Force newman girl dressed all in shades of violet, declared in a loud voice as she pulled ahead, "Come on, Denwark!" The Rukmin she had received as a gift zipped after her.
"Perri! Wait for us!" her partner, Dular, yelled and sighed. "Man, she's just as annoying as a kid sister." A red-headed Hunter with hair tied back in a braid, Dular usually had to keep a close eye on his partner, knowing she would pull on it and play other little pranks in order to get him moving so they could gather treasure. Tagging along behind him was the most recent member of their little group, a young Ranger named Elliot who loved shades of blue.
"If it's blue, can I have it?!" he yelled out and skidded to a stop as the tiny group reached an open meadow. "Whoa, it's a kid?" he remarked in surprise as Perri knelt next to a small figure lying face-down on the grass.
"Perri, how is he?" Dular asked. Perri scratched her head and shrugged. "Did you cast Resta?" She nodded and poked at the figure's back. "Don't do that. Is he alive?"
"Well, yeah. If he wasn't, I'd be screaming, 'Dead body! Dead body!' right now." the girl retorted. Elliot ran his hand through short, spiky blue hair and looked a little pale.
"Um, could he be a survivor of Pioneer 1?" he asked softly, "'Cause, if he is, we have to get him back to Pioneer 2, like, right now." Dular sighed and walked over to pick up the tiny form. He frowned at the strange outfit the boy was wearing.
"Did the people of Pioneer 1 have such weird clothes?" he muttered as Perrinetta lifted her Twinkle Star rod and cast a quick Ryuker spell. As the pipe opened, Elliot picked up a letter that fell from the boy's hand and followed the group back to the ship that orbited the planet.
Pioneer 2
"Oogh, whatta nightmare..." Val groaned as he shifted and opened his eyes. He blinked up in shock at the face of an elfin-looking girl with bright blue eyes and long violet hair. "Waaah!" he cried and jumped up from his hospital bed. He saw the other two people there, a red head in a strange orange jumpsuit and a blue-haired teen in weird armor, and jumped again. "I'm not in Animal Crossing anymore, that's for sure! That wasn't a nightmare; I really did lose all of Periwinkle's stuff!" he wailed, "Where am I?! And who're all of you?!"
"He's jumpy." Perri remarked.
"He's not a Pioneer 1 survivor." Dular muttered, "Who are you? And where did you come from, little guy?" Val rubbed his head and winced.
"My name's Valentine Hart, and don't laugh! My friends call me Val." Val answered with a grumble. "I'm from Animal Crossing, which is basically a town full of animals and only three humans. I'm one of the humans, obviously."
"Is this a town on Ragol?" Perri asked, confused. Val blinked and shook his head. "Well, then, what's up? Where'd you come from? We found you in the forest all knocked out and all."
"It started back at my girlfriend's house. I plugged in and switched on a new game system I got and it somehow ripped open a hole in space or something." Val replied, feeling like a little kid again, "It sucked in all of my girlfriend's things and I jumped in to get them back. If I don't recollect her stuff and get home before she gets back from her trip, I'm a dead man!"
"Telepipe gone haywire, basically. No prob! We'll help you out!" Elliot declared with a grin. Perri glared at him.
"We will? Whoa, there. What do we get out of this?" she growled. Val thought hard.
"I do have my usual gear with me. I suppose I could part with my Golden Shovel for payment, if you want." he replied. Perri blinked and grinned.
"Really?! Strange sounding weapon if you ask me. What's its special?" she asked eagerly.
"Weapon? It's just a shovel. And sometimes I find money with it when I dig around the town." Val replied, an eyebrow raised, "What would I need a weapon for?"
"Perri, don't be so money hungry. This kid needs help, so let's help him out." Dular scolded and cleared his throat, "Well, Val, I'm Dular, a Hunter of the Purplenum class. That's Perrinetta, my partner and our Force user. She's also Purplenum. And this is Elliot, a Ranger in the Oran class."
"Nice to meet ya." Val remarked, "So, you're going to help me get my girlfriend's stuff back? Is there a house we can use to check the items?"
"Yeah, mine. Do you know where your girlfriend's things are, Val?" Dular remarked. The boy shook his head and lifted his hands in despair.
"I don't know! The winds that sucked them into the portal could have scattered them everywhere! Who knows where they could be or who or what might have them?!" he cried.
"Then let's go down to the forest and start our search there!" Elliot exclaimed, "I bet we can get a good start on clues and items if we start there!" Val jumped down from the bed and grabbed his backpack.
"Then, I'm coming too! I'm the one who got us into this mess, so I'd better be there to recollect the stuff and carry them. After all, it's my neck on the line." he pointed out.
"You sure you want to do that? It's dangerous down there on the planet." Dular remarked, "Maybe we should get you suited up as a Hunter and a weapon to keep you safe."
"Nah, he'd do better as a Force, like me. Right, Denwark?" Perri grinned at her Mag. The Rukmin laughed and wiggled its feet, seeming to agree with her. "I know! You can use my old Shadow Wand!"
"No way! He'd make a way cool Ranger!" Elliot declared. Val looked at them all and sighed, shaking his head.
"Forget you guys! I'm gonna be me and just get those items back. Can we go now?" he growled. Dular shrugged.
"Fine, but we still need to get you a weapon." he replied.
"If you're that paranoid about me getting hurt down there, I can use my Golden Axe as a weapon, okay?" Val grumbled.
"Right. Well, then. Let's go back to Ragol!" Elliot cheered and ran out of the building. Dular rolled his eyes and followed, with Perri and Val tagging along behind.
Forest 1
"So this is where you found me?" Val remarked as the group touched down on Ragol's surface again. Dular nodded as Elliot fished out the letter and handed it back to the kid. "Okay. Well, how should we go about finding my girl's stuff?"
"We kill whatever moves!" Elliot declared. Val studied the letter and slid it back into his pack, pulling out a gold axe in its place. He gripped it and gave a few swings, then looked up at the group.
"Let's move out then." Dular remarked, "Perri? You know the drill." The Force user grinned and twirled her rod.
"Gather 'round for my famous S and D Hug!" she declared and gathered energy into her body. Using the rod as a channel, she sent the energy into her friends, casting Shifta and Deband to boost their power and defense. The group then headed off in search of the missing items.
They hadn't gone too far when they ran into the first batch of wild beasts. A pair of fat yellow birds dropped down from nowhere and landed on the grass, waddling towards the hunters. Val stepped back behind the group, wary of the birds. A third one dropped behind him and he jumped again.
"Waaaah!" he wailed and scampered aside as the group spun to see what happened.
"Al Rappy!" Elliot whooped and opened fire on the rare blue bird with his rifle as Dular and Perri took care of the normal Rag Rappies that dropped earlier. "Booyah! Drop me a rare!" he yelled as the bird flopped over.
"Are you insane?! That bird was as big as me!" Val shrieked as Dular and Perri joined Elliot in huddling around the blue bird. Confused by their actions, Val only stood by and watched them stare at the creature intently. What were they up to now? It was dead, wasn't it?
"Aw, come on, I ain't got all day, y'know!" Perri growled in a low voice. As if to respond to her irate grumble, the bird twitched and then made a sudden dash for safety. "Ha! Kill it!"
"Blue!" Elliot yelled and fired a shot at it. The Rappy tripped and slid into the underbrush of the forest, leaving behind an item. "Red box!"
"It's mine!" Perri yelled and dove at it as Dular frowned.
"Guys, that wasn't a red box." he pointed out as Elliot jumped after Perri and wrestled with her over the dropped item. They froze and looked up at him in confusion, then at each other. Finally, they looked down at the spot where the item had dropped.
It was a leaf.
"The heck? Hey! That Rappy gypped us!" Perri yelled, jumping up and fuming, "What are we supposed to do with a leaf?!" Val walked up cautiously and brightened upon seeing it.
"That's it! That's one of Periwinkle's furniture pieces!" he cheered and ran up to grab the leaf. Snatching it up by the stem, Val studied it for damage, then slid it into his pack. "That's one down."
"Furniture? Are you saying that we're risking our necks for chairs and tables and stuff like that?!" Perri snapped at him, "Are you some kind of an idiot?! What's wrong with you?!"
"Hey, furniture is extremely important where I'm from, okay?!" Val snapped back, "And my girlfriend will wring my neck if I don't come back with all of those pieces!"
"A promise is a promise. We'll help get back all those furniture pieces. Just a question." Dular remarked, "Why are they in leaf form?"
"It's the easiest way to carry them. I would say, the reason why the furniture is in leaf form is the same as the reason why all of your items come in those colored boxes that the other birds dropped." Val replied, "It's just the way it is, why bother questioning it?"
"You have a point. Well, let's move on. Perri, Elliot, the monsters may have the other furniture pieces. Kill off all the beasts and let Val examine what's left. If we're lucky, the other pieces are here in the forest." Dular ordered.
"If it's a red box, it's mine." Perri grumbled as she walked in the lead again.
"Not if I see it first!" Elliot piped up, "I hit the Al Rappy, remember?!"
Forest One was cleared easily, with none of the beasts dropping anymore of the strange leaves that Val was intent upon finding. Dular and the boy both looked at each other in exasperation when, at one point, a large furry creature called a Booma managed to drop the sought after red box and both Perri and Elliot got into another fight over it.
"What's with the red ones? Why chase after those? Are they good for Feng Shui or something?" Val asked as Perri stomped her platform shoe on Elliot's hand in an effort to keep him away from the box.
"Reds are rare things, hard to find and worth a lot of meseta sometimes." Dular replied as he walked up and picked up the box. Scanning it quickly with something he wore on his wrist, he sighed. "You two are pathetic." he scolded the Force and the Ranger, "It's another Photon Drop!"
"It's MY Photon Drop! There's a difference!" Perri yelled and ground her foot into Elliot's hand. "Isn't that right, Elliot?!"
"OW! OW! Get offa my hand, woman!" the Ranger shrieked, "Take the stupid thing, just get offa my shootin' hand!"
"Ha! I win! Hand it over, Dular!" Perri declared with a triumphant grin. Dular tossed her the box and sighed as she shoved it into her pack, getting up off of the Ranger who lay, whimpering, on the grass.
"She's like Periwinkle back home." Val muttered, "Took down a crowd of animals at Nookington's just to get the Lovely Bed because it was on sale for a couple thousand Bells."
"Let's go back to the ship real quick so I can put away MY Photon Drop." Perri remarked with a smile and cast another Ryuker pipe.
"It's just a phase. I'm pretty sure it's just a phase." Dular mumbled as the group headed into the pipe to restock on supplies and heal Elliot's hand.
The hunters' home was rather cozy and neat. Perri stowed away her drop as Dular bandaged up Elliot's hand. Seeing it as a good opportunity to check the leaf, Val brought out the furniture piece and tossed it forward. The leaf bloomed and revealed a Lovely Chair, the heart shaped seat achingly familiar to the boy. He sighed and picked it up, watching the chair transform into the leaf again. How long before he could get all the pieces and go home? How would he get home?
"Ready!" Perri cheered and led the group back to the pipe.
Forest Two was a bit more difficult. With wolves and Boomas constantly surrounding and attacking the group, Val found himself actually swinging his axe to fend off some of the beasts himself. He recoiled when the axe smashed into a Booma, slicing off an arm that fell to the ground and popped into the form of a red box.
"IT'S MINE!" Perri shrieked and dove at it, covering it with her body as a Hildebear, a giant ferocious-looking creature, suddenly leaped into the fray.
"Perri!! Barta!!" Dular screamed out and fell back as the beast made a swing at him, "Elliot!! Where are you?!"
"You got the last red one, this one's mine!" Elliot hissed, grabbing Perri's legs and dragging her around on her stomach as she held the box tightly in her hands. Dular rolled backwards and scrambled to avoid the Hildebear's advances.
"Guys?! A little help here?!" he yelled and lifted his hands as a last ditch effort to protect himself when the Hildebear cornered him, "PERRI!" A sudden wet 'Thwack!' sounded and Dular slowly peeked to see what had happened. The creature swayed on its feet, then fell forward just a few inches short of his feet, a Golden Axe buried in the back of its head. Val stood a few feet away, shaking. "Val?"
"What...was...that?" he stammered and swallowed hard, "You okay, Dular?" The Hunter smiled at him in relief, then blinked as Elliot ran by, still dragging Perri by the ankles as she held onto the box tightly.
"It's mine! I saw it first!" she wailed.
"You can't even use it! It's a body part and it gets turned into a claw type weapon that Rangers and Hunters use!" Elliot yelled, "Now, drop it!"
"NO! It's mine!"
Val walked up to the beast and grabbed the Axe, pulling it out and sitting back on the grass as Dular walked up and pat his back reassuringly. The boy looked a bit pale and hiccuped once.
"Thanks for the rescue. Come on. Let's see what this thing dropped for us." he murmured softly and walked to the fallen item. "Hmm, another leaf." Val perked up and scrambled over to pick it up. He inspected it, then slipped it into the pack. "Well, let's keep going. Guys..." Dular started and watched as Elliot raced by with the still screaming Perri, "Guys... GUYS! Knock it off!" he yelled and growled under his breath. He waited for Elliot to run by again, then snatched the box from Perri's grip as she was dragged by, "Give me that!! Man, I can't take you guys anywhere anymore." Dular muttered as he stowed the box away.
"Nice going, Perri, now neither of us get the box." Elliot grumbled and dropped her ankles.
"You shut up." Perri growled and got up, dusting herself off and sticking her tongue out, "You owe me a new outfit!"
"Why not sell your stupid Photon Drop and buy it yourself?" Elliot taunted and ducked, running and screaming as Perri gave chase, swinging the Twinkle Star around and raging at him.
"Ah, Mr. Resetti." Val murmured as he and Dular moved on to a teleporter nearby.
"You guys coming, or do you want to stay here and watch the teleporter?!" Dular yelled out. The two hunters immediately skidded to a halt and raced to join them in the machine. "Kids." Dular sighed as the teleporter took them into the building that was the Central Dome.
The group stepped cautiously along, not trusting the cave-like interior of the dome. Val was muttering to himself, clutching the axe in his hands and shaking.
"I don't like it here. I wanna go home. But I can't go home without the furniture. And I don't know how to go home!" he murmured in a frightened voice. "That's the last time I buy anything from Redd!"
"Hey! Keep it down back there!" Perri hissed over her shoulder, "You don't want to wake up the...!"
"Where's the stupid dragon that you said was down here, Dular?!" Elliot shouted. The group jumped as a huge roar sounded, echoing off the walls around them. Perri immediately whirled around and whacked her rod into Elliot's chest, yelling angrily.
"You idiot! Now it knows we're here!" she raged and brought the rod down on him again when the ranger doubled over, breathless. "If I die here, I'm going to kill you!"
"Perri, stop flirting with your boyfriend and run!" Dular yelled and raced to avoid the huge winged lizard that landed before them and blasted the area with plumes of flame from it's mouth. Val jumped again and scampered aside, screaming in terror. Perri beat the ranger down a few times, then turned to lash at the dragon's leg with the rod's special ability.
"Stupid lousy dragon!" she raved as she continued whacking away at it, not bothering with her usual techs, "You burned up my favorite rod the last time we duked it out! Now drop me a freaking red to trade in for a new one!" The dragon roared in pain and took flight to escape the blasts of lightning from the Twinkle Star rod. It had been rudely awakened and wanted to feed on the creatures that had roused it from its slumber. But this creature stung and bit with a familiar attack. It looked around for easier prey and spotted one of the creatures huddled in a crouch on the far side of the dome. It was frozen with terror.
Dular watched in shock as the dragon flapped its wings and made for Val, who stood rooted to his spot, wide eyes taking in the creature that closed in on him. The hunter immediately pulled out a small handgun and began firing desperately, hitting the dragon's wings, tail, feet, anything that was within range.
"Val! Run! For the love of heavens, run!" he shouted. The boy stared up at the dragon, too scared to move. Perri ran by Dular, throwing her rod aside as she reached out her hands for Val.
"Move it, kid!" she declared and grabbed him, darting aside as the huge lizard dove at the spot where they had been moments before. "Elliot! Make yourself useful and shoot the stupid thing!" she yelled out.
"You stepped on my shootin' hand again, woman!" the ranger yelled, waving the bandaged hand and holding his rifle with the other, "After that beating you gave me, defend your own ungrateful tail!" Perrinetta frowned and glanced up at her Mag. Denwark winked and lifted one sleeved hand.
"Denwark, you precious little Rukmin, I could kiss you!" she cooed at him, "Go right on ahead!" Denwark nodded and focused, eyes becoming dark and lidded.
Meantime, the dragon resurfaced and roared in a fury. The irritating creature had stolen away its food! It landed again and took a deep breath, ready to flood the area with flames once more.
"Now!" Perri declared, throwing her hand out at the dragon while her other arm held Valentine close. "Estlla!"
"Meru!" Denwark cried out his pet name for his former master and unleashed a huge multi-colored dolphin that shot straight into the beast. The energy from the summon overwhelmed the dragon and it fell aside, battered and lifeless.
"Perri! How's Val holding up?" Dular cried, running up to them with her rod in hand as the Rukmin sat on her shoulder, resting.
"Not too great and not too bad. I'm surprised he didn't wet his shorts." Perri remarked, setting Val down.
"Big...big...big..." the boy stammered, pointing a shaky finger at the dragon. The Forcer rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, big and stupid. Now, where's that red?" she muttered, walking off to the body for a closer look.
"Not fair! You got one already! It's mine!" Elliot wailed, struggling with his rifle and injured hand. Perri snooped around, spotted the item and frowned. She stood back and scratched at the tip of her nose.
"Yo, Val! It's another leaf thing! Come here and get it!" she called out. Val didn't stop shaking as he very cautiously walked over to her. "It's dead, don't worry about it." the newman remarked in exasperation.
"I'm more worried about it falling on us." Val managed to mutter as he picked up the leaf and studied it. He packed it away and sighed. "I never thought that I'd be in a place like this; fighting monsters to get pieces of furniture. Where could the rest of the pieces be?" Dular packed his gun away and walked up to them.
"Probably scattered in the caves below this complex." he replied and pointed at the hole the dragon had punched into the ground. "We can use that to get down there." Val blinked tiredly at the hole. The world began to spin around him. "Val? Are you okay? You look like you're about to..." Dular went on worriedly.
Val didn't hear the rest, only fell back to the ground and welcomed the blissful darkness that suddenly washed over him.