This re-written Prologue is not yet complete, but I feel that it is much more wholesome and has much more value than the old prologue. Please enjoy.

---

The Destinia Saga…

Quest for Destiny!
Where All Worlds Share the Same Sky…

Prologue: (Untitled)

"Faith."

The skies were a sullen shade of gray as somber stratus clouds slowly willed themselves over the horizon, unrelenting. The heavens were on the verge of tears as thunder rolled across the vast plains and the chilling breeze nipped at the soul. The putrid scent of death in the air was ignored as that icy zephyr caressed the battlefield, tingling the spine and tickling the mind. It was in that brief moment that he couldn't hear the terrible screams, the decrepit moans, the clashing of steel and iron, or the hissing of flames. The pungent smell of blood was erased by the clean wind. All he could see, smell, hear or feel was his beloved King, Caelum Kooparius.

"You need to put more faith in the Stars, Kamek," his crisp, bold voice announced sternly, his blazing eyes of sapphire scanning the treacherous landscape of ashen grass and clashing weapons.

"The Stars?" muttered a flabbergasted Kamek. "Faith?" Tossing his arms in furious frustration, the Magikoopa, a loyal vizier to the King, impatiently agonized through Caelum's prattling.

"Indeed," the noble-hearted goliath persisted, drawing a sharp breath through his razor teeth. "If it were not for my faith in the Stars, I would not be here today. I believe in them now just as I did years ago. They have given me everything I could ever want and more. I owe this to them."

"Nonsense!" hissed the magician from within his sky-blue cloak. "You are too humble, My Liege. It was determination and hard work that brought you to where you are."

"Believe what you will," Caelum concluded with frigid resolve. "The Stars are indeed powerless without us; together, however, we can achieve the impossible." The sincere words of the admirable king seeped through the thin cracks in Kamek's mind, trickling into the deepest tributaries of his private thoughts. Caelum's eagle eyes watched over the massive melee before him, his long, dry hair bobbing in waves of prickly orange strands as the cold air swept by.

A voice as soft as velvet shattered the tranquil moment and brought with it the battle cries of the war at hand.

"The time has come." The queen's sullen words shredded through their conversation like a butter knife through a steak, being forced upon them with great effort.

The two scaly men brought their attention to the queen of the Koopa Kingdom, Terra Kooparius. The emerald gems she possessed for eyes burned with a dire doubt.

"Where are the Marios?" bellowed Caelum, his stone stature deteriorating.

"They are here, Caelum," answered the queen as she pointed a quivering finger to two bruised humans that were staggering in their direction. The giant ox of a man helped his tall and slender wife traverse the carcasses of fallen soldiers, escaping the ravaging phalanxes behind them.

"Maria! Antonio!" bellowed the majestic Kooparius king as the human couple clambered up the steep hill he stood upon. "How are our forces holding?"

"Uh, issa no lookin-a so good," reported the big-nosed, brazen man. His Italian accent highlighted his unique nationality, considering that Italy didn't exist on this planet. "Iffa we keep-a goin' like-a dees, we's-a gonna be-a sheet outta luck."

His brunette wife added, "Our soldiers are being destroyed by the Sprite Fighters." Her bruised arm was wrapped around the hairy bicep of her lover in a melancholy attempt to ease him.

There was a pregnant pause as the king contemplated, all eyes upon his insightful expression. His reptilian nose cringed, his furry, orange brows furrowed over his sharp eyes, and his dry, clawed hand scratched at his chin. The vicious clanging of swords, the petrified screams, and the battle cries of the war before them echoed over the bloodstained hills, a constant reminder of the death that squirmed across the meadows like locusts.

"I have a plan."

Caelum's words cut through the thick cloud of apocalyptic dread that clung to every inch of every body. A plan from Caelum Kooparius was as dependable as a ten-foot tall bodyguard that carried around a rocket launcher. It could either prove to be an invincible shield, or it could blow up in one's face.

"What-a we gonna do?" Antonio demanded, his thick, bristly brows hanging over his dull, navy-blue eyes. His demeanor and tone let the king know that whatever the plan was, he was willing to go with it. Antonio scratched at his bushy, almost shimmering mustache as he focused his mind on the task at hand.

"We have to destroy the Hand," the king put it simply, running a set of claws through the orange needles he had for hair with a sigh. "If the Hand is dead, so, too, are his soldiers."

There was a shared disbelief throughout the congregation, and another solemn break in the conversation was the result. Terra shifted her way to her husband, placing a tender, scaly hand upon his shoulder.

"How are we going to do that?" she inquired, her voice soft and quiet enough so only Caelum could hear. She knew just as well as he how dangerous a task this plan of his would be, and how nearly impossible it was.

"In order to kill him, we have to confront him—face to face." Caelum slammed his fist into his palm firmly, nodding his head with unbridled confidence.

After a brief silence littered with trepidation, Antonio interrupted, "Don't-a you mean, hand-a to hand?"

Caelum shook his head slowly and sighed at the intrepid sense of humor his friend possessed. He couldn't stop the tiniest of grins from crawling across his face, even at a time this. Antonio could take a funeral and turn it into a 'going away' party. Somehow, Antonio Mario, a stranger in a strange land, could squeeze a laugh out of anything.

"I mean-a, he's-a no gotta face," Antonio rambled on jokingly, palms in the air. He received no chuckles at his effort to crack the seriousness of the situation. He was taking a sledgehammer to a diamond.

"Which means he must be more handsome than you are," Maria, his wife, chuckled, prodding at his bulbous nose playfully. Maria kept her husband on level ground as best she could, as he often lost his mind in clouds. Terra acted as a counter-weight to her husband's similar behavior, and both wives loved their husbands because of their tendency to rocket their mind out of the atmosphere.

"My Lord," Kamek interjected with haste, presenting himself before the king. "I will do whatever can be done to assist you. My life is yours to command." He dipped his body down in a loyal bow, fist pressed into his chest.

Caelum's eyes glowed with appreciation, and he nodded slowly.

"Kamek, you have served us well. If what you say is true, then I have a favor to ask: if something happens to us...—" Kamek's face grew paler as his sentence went on. "—I ask that you, our son's godfather, watch over our beloved Bowser and see to it that he grows into a fine man worthy of the noble Kooparius name."

Kamek, aghast, sputtered out, "Wh-wh-why, of course, My Liege...B-but, surely, y-you don't think—"

"Does it matter what I think?" Caelum responded sternly, his eyes as sharp as spears. An iced silence followed fell over them like snow.

"We are at war, Kamek," Terra reminded him sullenly. "Our safety cannot be guaranteed, and we cannot sit and watch our kingdom fall. As we speak, lives are being lost."

"I'm coming to lend you my aid," Kamek insisted with adamantine resolve.

"You can't," Terra disagreed, appalled at the idea. "We need you in case—"

"If I help, the likelihood of such an outcome will fall."

"Let him come," the king suggested. "But when we tell you to leave, you leave—understood?"

The blue-garbed magician nodded his head quickly and adjusted his silver goggles. Their shimmering surface concealed his eyes from the world.

"All right. It's time to go."

With those words, King Caelum led his four companions down the crimson-spotted hill, the thick and putrid smell of rotting flesh soaring at them, riding upon the undying winds.

Severed, blood-soaked limbs, decapitated bodies...The seemingly endless array of eviscerated soldiers had no pathway for them to follow as they hiked toward the ominous, shifting shadow that loomed over the battlefield, obscuring the remaining sunlight that struggled to descend upon the grassy hills. The metamorphosing darkness was the result of two titanic fists locked in combat in the freezing skies above.

A small eternity of hiking passed, the horrendous images refusing to let up for a single moment. That thirty-minute walk through hell on Stellon would never leave Kamek's mind for all of his days, the mess of bloody, petrified faces engraved into his brain just as firmly as the faces of his own family, who, for all he knew, were amongst them. The thought of his beloved sister being slaughtered in such a brutal fashion was enough to shove him across the line of insanity, though he was too afraid to be budged from his current state of mind as his aching legs continued to push him and push him up one hill after another. Every single sense, including his sixth, was dulled by the never-ending barrage of death.

At last, they reached their final destination.

By now, the epic duel of the Hands had been calmed, at least for the time being. The angelic left Hand of silver had backed off from its opponent, who remained at his post to oversee his soldiers annihilating the combined efforts of many kingdoms, all cooperating to push back the restless destruction that this heartless force of the dark sought to bring upon them.

Though the black Hand had no face nor eyes of any kind, Kamek knew that it was watching their every move, keeping tabs on every breath they took and every step they made. It was waiting for them.

Upon their advent at the final hill's peak, the Hand of shadows eerily drifted downward, his faceless army shredding all that opposed him below. Witnessing the destruction firsthand in the heart of the conflict, Kamek desperately kept his sights fixated on the target above that was quickly descending. He could feel his heart slowing as it morphed into an icy lump at the sight of this supernatural reaper of life. His awed daze was ended quite abruptly, as a voice shot out at him like a bolt of lighting. He didn't know who it was that had shouted it, nor did it matter at that point, as the enormous, fingered shadow was descending upon them, threatening to mash their bodies into the ground without hesitation.

"RUN!"

He could feel his body skip off the ground as his arm was nearly ripped from its socket by a muscular, clawed hand. As soon as his brain booted back up, his feet started to move, and he managed to escape the doom of being driven into the ground like a nail from a sledgehammer. Some of the nearby soldiers did not happen to share Kamek's fortune, and were massacred. Blood splattered into the air like red mud, and Kamek gaped in revulsion as the Hand of darkness slowly rose, flesh, organs, and bones still stuck to its palm. The sight of these substances being slowly absorbed into the ghastly phantom like water to a sponge, combined with the nauseating smells and sounds, was enough to cause Kamek to heave out a good pint of vomit or so.

The violent world around him swarmed his brain like a hurricane, jumbling his thoughts and emotions and chucking them in every direction.

(Incomplete)

---

This Prologue isn't done yet, but please e-mail me with suggestions and criticisms so that I can fix them and make it all the better.