This is my story. Property of vidGAMEinggod. Star Fox and all related characters are property of Nintendo. Krystal is property Rare. All other small references are property of their respective owners.

Chapter I:

Eric Shroud. The very name brought fame and fortune among the local science teachers along with pity at how he somehow came to school every day with at least one new cut, many of which became scars. He himself thought he didn't have that much physical strength, although constant running did something to strengthen his physique.

Literally an intellectual hermit, Eric often suffered for not giving some random answer to a homework problem. Suffer as in physical scars. He had a job hiding them from everyone, and it was no surprise that every single free time he could be found on the highest-quality, most remote computer in the classroom. His brainpower exceeded most of his peers, something which he was not proud of. Stupidity gives friends!

With his chosen exile, each day he slipped deeper and deeper into an inferiority complex that ensnared his senses. Seeing as he had maybe two, three people he could truly count on, almost no one knew truly what he was thinking. If you thought that was good enough for the local street gangs, you were wrong; they found him extraordinarily easy prey, the only work was actually catching him. Which is where Eric found himself at this very moment.

Racing through the down-pouring rain, the impenetrable fog caught Eric's already-bad eyesight and hearing and threw them down the shitter. All Eric saw was a mist, all Eric heard was the off-key percussion of someone spending too much time using all of his force on the drums. The only thing keeping him going was pure adrenaline; otherwise his all-nighter at the local arcade would have felled him long before now.

Put bluntly: The suburbs Eric lived on in his backwater Las Angeles town were criminal-ridden and sucked hell. People with brain cells were in the horrible, oppressed minority, and those with the ability to keep them hidden and blend in were among the unique. Somewhere in Eric's subconscious, there was the urge to become a hero, but in real life - hell, a snowball will survive in hell before a 14-year-old mechanical genius makes it anywhere.

Eric sprinted as fast as his scrawny legs would carry him. Which was pretty fast, seeing as he was a virtual giant in height, a staggering 6'1''. Eric found this to be yet another curse as he could never hide; he was too big. Didn't help that we was freezing his ass off, no coat + lots of rain = one unhappy camper. He could hear the calls of the gangsters, surrounding him like a pack of ravening, intelligent wolves. Rapier wit was little use to people with biceps the size of your head. Maybe rapier wit that comes with a real rapier…

No time… two with lead pipes were blocking the exit in front of him of the street he was at, and the buildings were so close together it was simply mind-boggling. Got to get out of here… Eric's clothes were hopelessly matted down by the pouring rain and his legs were like fortified lead, only with less durability.

Come on, come on… one block to go… The mobsters were gaining… twenty feet distance… fifteen… A mighty lunge and the sound of the back of Eric's shirt ripping signified they were close, thinking they got him they stood back. When blood wasn't flooding the streets they continued the chase like a well-organized band of sharks. A leap and a bound and Eric made it to the safety of his doorstep, locking the door at warp speed. Thank god for reinforced windows. Peering through the curtain, they proceeded to circle the building like vultures for their prey before slipping, one by one, into the night.

Eric stood there panting for a long time before finally gathering the strength to melancholically stumble to the kitchen for the refrigerator. One deep swig from his dad's whiskey bottle instantly both brought him to his senses and caused a large amount of vomit to begin staining the linoleum. Cursing, Eric got a towel and began cleaning it up. Eric had a pretty decent home life, but his parent's jobs (his dad was a neuro-opthamologist, his mom a lawyer specializing in federal law courses), despite bringing paychecks the size of Arkansas. Eric never considered himself spoiled; his social life sucked far too much for that.

Walking upstairs to the attic that, at Eric's request, had been turned into the Video Game Central of the house, Eric sunk into a virtual stupor so high he couldn't leave the chair. It was also his bedroom, and where he felt most comfortable. The Virtual World also seemed to make much more sense than real life- people don't die, or if they do, they come back to life and the words "Game Over" are only a temporary setback. Whereas in real life, death is permanent, pain HURTS and the hero - if you can call the people who plunder and pillage causing widespread misery heroes - never get the girl. Whoever came up with such a cruel reality needs an ass punch.

After exhaustion and a slight drunken high gave Eric's pride another smacketh-down, he comforted himself by staring at the (incredibly) numerous posters of various movies and video games sprawled around the poster. After staring for a good 20 minutes at his StarFox Adventures poster hanging on the ceiling above his bed, and a pathetic Gollum impression later, Eric stumbled to the bathroom to take his contacts out and wonder what the hell he did to deserve all of this.

There was no god! Or if there was one, he certainly must think Eric his piss-boy or something to be wrought with such misfortune. Eric never referred to god; he always was talking about Destiny (a benevolent, intangible being bringing subtle fortune) or Fate (the malevolent counterpart) and Luck (something Eric had a lot of but focused so much on the negative that he didn't realize it). After tripping down the stairs blindly without a visual aid (he realized he hadn't eaten anything) he could still hear the shrieks of the creatures outside, missing a fresh kill.

Downing a glass of eggnog and a tuna-fish sandwich, Eric trotted back to his room. Staring at all of the paraphernalia in the room (every console EVER, a PC hooked up to his parent's PC and even an arcade machine or two, plus enough extension cords to choke someone with) he couldn't help but feel grateful. At least he had a retreat from the cesspit of reality. Unfortunately, he would soon learn to have to hide from more than just reality…