THE CHRONICLES OF FINALGAMER
A Raptor In Radaxian's Court

For a Prince is exposed to two dangers, from within in respect of his subjects, from without in respect of foreign powers. Against the latter he will defend himself with good arms and good allies, and if he have good arms he will always have good allies."
Il Principe, Nicolo Macchiavelli

The first sound that he heard was the sound of a young boy's voice, speaking in a language he could not understand but something akin to Japanese.  The first thing he said upon awakening was:
	"A...Alex?"
The voice replied in a rather curious manner as he opened his eyes, to gaze upwards at a beautiful blue sky.  Clouds scuttled over in picturesque fluffy whiteness, the sounds of a high-rising wind whistling past his ears, feeling as if he were in the mountains.  In his view was the face of a human boy, white-skinned, brown short hair, and huge ears sticking out either side of his head.  He wore a red jumpsuit with a yellow stripe through the middle that coloured his boots fully, with a small blue circular gem on the front of the shirt collar.  The boy spoke again, with no luck in being understood or taken seriously with the voice of an eight year old.
	"Ugh...what is it?"
He sounded young and cheerful, which made James smile a little despite his head feeling woozy, even if he tried to understand him.
	"Hey listen I have no idea what you're saying, so could you maybe-"
Interruptions came from the eager lad as the raptor tried to sit up, looking around to see that his assumption was right.  He found himself high atop the mountains, a few clouds even at his level, the air somewhat thin.  He was finding it a bit of a problem to breathe as he panicked at the height, trying not to fall over in case he fell off the plateau he stood on, wide enough to park four cars on it.
	"AaaaaAAAAAH wh-wha-how high am I!?!"
The boy replied but was cut off by James.
	"I STILL CAN'T UNDERSTAND YOU DAMMIT, THAT'S NOT GONNA HELP KID!"
Soon James was given a stern warning, a very serious-sounding warning.  But the youthfulness in the voice did nothing to bring force to it.
	"Oh what are you gonna do, punch me?"
And then he saw the size of the boy's hands.  Exposed from his sleeves, they suddenly turned huge, like hammers melded into fists which the youth raised up to show in their full glory.
	"...holy fuck...what the hell you been eatin?!?"
Another warning came just as stern, and it made James back down, a little freaked out now.
	"H-h-hey hey now, okay okay, I get it, I'll calm down, I'm not gonna fight you and those freaky-ass hands."
	"Good.  I may look small, but I am a master of Shellcore!"
	"...did you just talk?"
	"I've been talking all my life!  ...hey you can speak Arian!"
	"Uhhh...I can?"
	"Yeah you're speaking it now, stop foolin' around with me like I'm a kid!"
	"Well, you are pretty young-looking."
	"I've been around for hundreds of years!"
	"Suuuure you have."
	"Well if you don't believe me, then that's up to you, but since you're awake now, can you get off my mountain please?  I was in the middle of my training when you appeared all of a sudden."
	"...your mountain?"
	"Yeah."
	"...this is your mountain?"
	"Yeah, I've lived here for years, long as I can remember!"

He always knew kids had overactive imaginations, like he did.  But being in another world where a boy with oversized fists spoke a foreign language to him, that he somehow managed to understand quite quickly, alone on a mountaintop, he was starting to think that maybe it was not so crazy.
	"Ooookay...well, I guess I should introduce myself.  I'm James."
	"And I'm Alex.  Alex Kidd."
He offered a huge hand forwards that at first made the raptor nervous, but for some reason the hands went back down to a normal size, so he took it anyway and the boy shook his gently.  James was rather surprised that he had met two people with the same name in a week, but then again it wasn't an uncommon name so he just took it on the chin.
	"Pleased to meetcha.  So what are you doing alone on a mountain?"
	"I'm training to be a master of Shellcore so I can become stronger.  What about you?  You just fell out of the sky on that other mountain, and all wet for some reason!"
	"Which mountain?"
	"That one!"
He pointed to another mountain peak nearby, somewhat lower in height but still a distance.
	"Uhhh...so why am I on this one?"
	"I carried you back here, to see if you were okay."
	"Well that's nice of you but...wait carried!?!?  Jesus you must be strong."
	"Yep!"
	"Well I might as well ask now but...where the hell am I?"
	"Mount Eternal, of course!"
	"Nice...uhhh but I'm thinking like what planet I'm on?"
	"Why you wanna know that?!"
	"Just answer, please, I'm having a bad week."
	"Oh okay uh...well you're on the planet Aries."
	"Aries?  Huh...so this planet Aries, seems a very nice place."
	"Well yeah, they don't call it Miracle World for nothing!"
	"Hah, Miracle World huh?"
	"Yup!"
	"So what's around here then?"
	"Well uhh...there's the kingdom of Niban, the island of St. Nurari, and the huge kingdom of Radaxian that rules us all."
	"Ohhh so you got a king?"
	"Yep!  King Thunder of Radaxian, he's a good king to us."
	"Cool cool..."
And then the awkward silence came, where James desperately tried to think up something to do or say.  But finding himself unable to say anything, he eventually shrugged and thought to go exploring since he ended up here.
	"Welp, it's been great meeting you Alex, but I'm gonna go check out the world."
	"Oh, sure!"
	"Sorry again for the way I was acting."
	"It's okay, though you still haven't explained to me why you were speaking that weird language before."
	"I...don't know.  I just...kind of learnt what you were saying?"
	"And start speaking it too?"
Alex was suspicious, crossing his arms with an unamused frown.
	"Well hey if I knew I could tell you, but I don't."
The sun was beating down on him on this high peak, and a chill rose up behind him making him rub his neck.  As he did so, he felt a small bump just at the top of his spine, which made him realise exactly why he could understand Alex's language.
Dammit Slippy...can this thing figure out ANY language?
	"What?"

The boy had noticed the raptor's expression, who merely said:
	"Uhh nothing I just realised what I have to do now."
	"Oh?  What's that?"
	"Well...I'm trying to find my way home...actually, this is a kind of magical place right?"
	"Course it is, it IS called the Miracle World."
	"So...uhh maybe someone can help me get back home?  Like a wizard or something?"
	"Well...maybe someone in my homeland can help you, they're real masters there!"
	"Yeah?  But you're like training and all, I don't wanna interru-"
	"I'm almost done with my training anyway, I've been doing it for seven years so I've already reached the limits of my Shellcore as good as I can!"
	"Wow, just today?"
	"Nope, about a week ago!"
	"...why didn't you leave this place already?"
	"Well, you gotta make sure yer trained up right?"
	"Alright.  Well if you wanna use me as an excuse to leave this mountain then hey works for me!"
	"Then let's go!"
With Alex in front, James began to traverse down Mt. Eternal, the various grassy ledges offering support for the two to clamber or jump down onto.
At least it's a perfect day for mountain climbing, thought James as he occasionally gazed at the beautiful pure sky and the soothing breeze.
Alex had no problem navigating the ledges, almost as if he memorised them, which surprised the raptor who always saw humans to be rather clumsy, at least compared to him.  But in truth he stumbled more than Alex did, but never dangerously so.
His claws shanked into the rock and dirt to climb down, heading halfway down the mountain and for the most part it was going well, before they heard a malicious squawk from nearby.  A red-eyed grey eagle, flapping its wings gazing at the two.
	"Woah, what's his problem?"
	"Don't worry, I'll handle him!"
And Alex did handle him certainly, when the monstrous bird tried to swoop down towards both of them only to be given a full-on punch to the beak from the boy's massive fist, crushing its head in as if it had just slalomed into a brick wall.  It was soon punched away with a feeble shriek as it went spinning away into the sky.
	"Di-...did you just punch a big bird...with your fist?"
	"Yep!"
	"...I like your style."
	"I've had to deal with them a lot lately, they've been showing up a lot recently for some reason but I wish I knew why."
Chuckling at the fact Alex had had practice on the beasts, he headed further down with his guide, traversing the ledges, occasionally finding rocks in the way that would block them from reaching safer ledges.  But they would be dealt with rather easily by Alex, who punched through them as if they were paper walls.

James was not entirely useless however when he had to sometimes defend Alex from one or several eagles trying to attack him, while he was in the process of punching rocks out of the way, and he performed his defensive task well with furious swipe attacks.
	"What do you practice, James?" asked the young-looking character.
	"Whatcha mean?"
	"Well, you fight rather...well fierce but it seems a li'l...rough.  So what do you practice?"
	"Oh you mean like martial arts?  Well I don't know any."
	"Ahh."
He said this with a nod, realising now.
	"Why you ask?"
	"I was curious.  You ever think of taking up something professionally?"
	"Not really had the patience for it, never really found any places that teach it."
	"Oh, you should, I mean I've been learning Shellcore for seven years."
	"Yeah, you said."
	"It's a great thing to learn!  There's something....good about training yourself to be stronger than other people, so you can help them, and protect them."
	"Sounds nice, I mean, it's not a bad thing to learn and a good reason to learn it too, I suppose a lot of people learn how to fight for that."
	"Of course!  Wouldn't you?"
	"I get along well enough with my claws...though I'm kind of an amateur at boxing if that helps?"
	"Boxing?"
	"Yeah, you dunno what that is?"
	"Nope."
Alex sat on a ledge to take a small rest, James doing the same so he could explain.
	"Well it's kind of like your Shellcore except without making your hands huge, you get two people in a ring or arena, they're only allowed to use their hands.  You got a lot of punches you can do like the straight jab, the cross jab, the uppercut, the haymaker and so on."
As he said each kind of punch, he demonstrated it as such.
	"Only thing you can't do is that you ONLY use punches, and you don't hit below the belt."
	"Sounds a great fighting style!  Do you still practice it?"
	"Nnnno I...kinda had to quit."
	"Aww...why?"
	"There was...an incident, kind of had to close down everything, I couldn't really do it anymore after that, I just remember the basics."
	"Sorry to hear, James."
	"It's okay...so we gonna keep going down?"
	"Yep, we just have to jump now."
	"Oh that's good-wait...jump?"
	"Yep!  See the lake below?"
Sure enough, over the edge of the ledge they sat upon, was a wide lake that seemed to circle the mountain itself like a large moat.  A pure blue circle of water that seemed to reflect the sky perfectly.
	"Oh man...I uh...do we have to swim?"
	"Of course!  We have to swim to the land over there."
	"Um...this might be a bad time to tell you this, but...I've never been swimming, ever."
	"Welp, time to learn it now!"
And without even warning him, Alex grabbed James' arm and jumped into the water below, much to the raptor's panicked surprise as they both fell for several seconds.

	"Wh-WH-HEY-DON'T-AAAAAAAAAAAAA-"
With a tremendous splash they were in the cool clear water, James frantically trying to keep his head above water as he broke the surface with a gasp of disbelief, shivering from the cold water.
	"YOU...YOU...YOU LITTLE-"
	"What?"
Alex popped up behind him, and James did his utmost best to not swear at a child.
	"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT FOR!?!"
	"You had to jump eventually, might as well help!"
	"WARN ME NEXT TIME, OKAY!?!"
	"Okay okay, but you gotta learn to swim!  Just keep your arms and legs moving, let your legs kick around a bit and your arms keep you up."
	"Ah...okay..."
	"Everyone's got a different weight in water.  Sometimes they float real well, sometimes they don't."
	"I...I think I'm doing okay actually!"
James indeed seemed to be doing well on his own in trying to keep his buoyancy, with his arms and legs continuously working to do so, which pleased his guide.
	"See, you CAN swim!  It's pretty hard to know how not to swim!"
	"Ah...I...I guess...but seriously, don't ever do that again, okay?"
	"Okaaaay."
	"So...where do we go now?"
	"We have to swim to land over there, but we need to go underwater a li'l just to get through some rocks that are blocking the way."
	"Alright, no problem, you lead the way Alex."
And so he did, swimming out ahead of the raptor who followed dutifully so, grumbling to himself about his slacks being soaked.  The plastic-looking orange fabric flapping in the water pathetically like garbage around his legs, but soon he got the hang of swimming, taking a natural feeling to it as he worked his arms.  Mimicking Alex to some extent, kicking his legs firmly forwards, the water warmed up to his scales and he was soon enjoying it.  He also didn't realise they were able to speak perfectly well underwater.
	"Hey this is kinda fun!"
	"Course it is!  Swimming's always fun!"
	"I bet."
	"Ready to learn how to dive now?"
	"Dive?"
	"Yeah, we have to go underwater now to get through a few rocks.  Don't worry too much about breathing though."
	"Uhhh why?"
	"The water's filled with magic, nearly everything is here, nobody can drown here, it's even letting the two of us speak underwater!"
	"Huh...good enough for me!"
	"Just keep doing what you're doing but downwards, okay?"

And as the Arian did just that, the raptor followed, pushing himself down into the lake, the bubbling looming sounds of the water around his ears.  His eyes blurred as it gently streamed past his vision, making out the clearest of colours, one of which thankfully was Alex's red jumpsuit which he followed like a beacon.  He instinctively held his breath before realising, keeping up with him good enough as they swam through a long rocky tunnel that barely required any effort to withstand.
Despite Alex's assurance of not needing to breathe in the water, James kept holding his breath as long as he could before he could no longer hold it around 20 seconds later, gasping with his mouth against the water and finding it oddly easy to breathe in the oxygen, as if he were above the water anyway.  He had been in water before, he knew what it was like to have one's head underwater and forced to not hold your breath, but this was strange to him.  He felt like a fish.
With this knowledge, he swam faster to catch up to Alex who hadn't even tried to hold his breath since submerging himself, navigating through the almost luminescently green coral  before they reached the other side of the tunnel to breathe in the air above the surface.  Even though he had been breathing perfectly fine, his bodily instinct made him go:
	"HUUuuuu!  Wow!"
	"Not bad for yer first swim huh?"
	"That felt pretty good!  I can't believe I can breathe underwater, this is awesome!"
	"Now we just gotta swim to shore!"
Within a few minutes of paddling away, barely any hassle to the two, they soon reached the shore and clambered up onto it, soaking wet and a little tired, but refreshed immensely.
	"Whooh..."
	"Hmmmf...well, first time swimming, I gotta say wasn't as bad as I thought."
	"I told ya!"
	"So what now?"
	"We can wait a li'l to dry off."
	"Sure...don't suppose there's a nearby town or something?  I'm a li'l hungry."
	"I got a few baums, we can grab some food at the village of Namui."
	"Thanks."

They relaxed for a good while, letting the sun bear down upon them warmly so with their clothes drying on themselves, neither of them really inclined to take them off.  But they were soon interrupted by the sounds of a gasping plea.
	"H-help...heeeeeeelp!"
	"What the-"
	"Help me...A-alex..."
	"Who's there?"
Alex got up and headed immediately towards the sound of the plea from a nearby tree, only to find an old man resting against it weakly, facing towards them.  James went over to investigate in turn out of curiosity.
	"Are you alright, sir?!?"
	"N-no...oh...I'm wounded."
	"Lemme see, maybe I can-...oh dear."
Indeed, there was a rather nasty patch of darkness coming deep from the old man's stomach, who panted shakily up at the two as he focused weakly on Alex.
	"Alex...I've been...looking for you."
	"How do you know who I am, sir?"
	"I bring...terrible news...Radaxian...the whole kingdom...in grave...danger!"
	"Wh-what!?!?  Danger?!  From what!?!
	"P-please!  Take...these."
The old man brought from his pocket an old scroll and a medallion with a shining circular centre, like that of a sun.
	"But...why?"
Sadly there would be no reply, as the old man died in Alex's arms, sighing a last painful breath.  James was bewildered just as much as Alex was.
	"Wow...that was...strange."
	"Yeah..."
	"Well he said that kingdom Radaxian was in danger right?  So he must have been asking you for help."
	"But, why me?"
	"Well you are pretty strong, right?"
	"But I'm not that famous, I'm not one of the legendary heroes!  But...I have to do this."
	"We are going to Radaxian after all, we're just gonna have a less pleasant journey right?"
	"Yeah...let's see what this map says."
Alex unrolled the map to see that a pathway had been planned out on it.  A line drawn from a castle in the south snaked all the way around to a lake, a large city, a cave, a forest, a village, an island upon a large lake and a mountain.  Alex pointed to the mountain with eyes widening.
	"This...this is Mt. Eternal, where we are now!"
	"So..wait, this was made for you?"
	"The old man must have had this done so he could go from this castle in the Kingdom of Nibana, all the way around to here!"
	"...why the long way around?"
	"The mountains of Nibana are impossible to climb, the only way you can get there is through this path south of the Kingdom of Radaxian."
	"Ohhh.  Should we go?"
	"Well of course!"
Alex was almost insulted by such a question.
	"I mean, if the Kingdom of Radaxian is in danger, what if my hometown is in danger too!?"
	"Where's that on the map?"
	"Here, the village of Namui other side of Lake Fathom.  We can meet my father on the island to ask what's going on, he knows everything!"
	"Alright then, lead the way Alex!"
	"Wait!  Before we go...let's give this old man a proper burial."
	"...oh...yeah that'd be a good idea."
And so they did, carefully burying the recently deceased mysterious man underneath the very tree he had died beside.  Alex easily teared the ground up with his fists in order to make a grave.  A little tired, he walked onwards, with James following suit.
First time I dug a grave, he thought to himself.  Hell the first time I even seen one for real.  Poor guy.  The kid's handling it pretty well, I mean what is he, eight or something?  What's with this Miracle World?