~~~Origins of Mother~~~

		                                                      By CarbonTiger414 (Caleb Ledbetter)

	Disclaimer - I do not own the MOTHER/EarthBound franchise, for they belong to Shigesato Itoi and Nintendo respectively.

            Warning - Mild language, but hopefully nothing to worry over.

(This fanfic was inspired by theoretical discussions deep within the abyss of the forum, and of course finally finishing EarthBound Zero for the first time just recently, and here's my take on what might have occured based on the vague introduction to the game along with the few references to the XX stone, Magicant, the Eight Melodies, and Giegue himself. If I'm incorrect or inaccurate, please don't hate or flame, but rather enjoy for what it is, my first fanfic ever. Happy reading fellow Starmen!)

					
	George sighed lightly to himself after he paused in front of his typewriter, hit with the dreaded writer's block once again. Yet unfortunately this moment in particular wouldn't pass as it normally does, for he feels bombarded with a stagnating sense of dread  from within, even misplaced. Soft creaks and footfalls are heard as a beautiful blond young woman decends into the basement, his wife Maria peers over to her husband before quietly approaching him, "George..? Are you alright dearest?" As if coming to from a brief daze, George looks to his wife with a deep inhale before responding, "Yes, I must not be feeling well today. Sorry if I'm worrying you so, love." Maria shakes her head with a tender smile to dismiss it before offering a hand to her husband, "Not at all, but come upstairs for some light and fresh air. I also finished a new painting you should come see." With a nod, George stands from his chair and takes her hand, following her up the steps. 

	Moments later as they enter the living room, Maria points to the painting on the easel and George moves closer to it, examining the details of his wife's finished work, "Hmm.. Wow, it looks rather surreal, like another world. Are those..seashells?" Maria couldn't refrain from giggling as she wraps her slender arms around his torso from behind and resting her cheek against the side of his arm, "I suppose so. I had a strange dream a few nights ago and thought of something like this. A town or a village with water. The dream itself was vague, but I did the best I could from what I recollect." With a nod of appreciation and a soft smile, George raises a hand, pointing to the top part of the painting, "I like it, beloved. Even this castle here, it seems the most detailed of the picture. Perhaps that part of the dream you had stands out the most?" George felt Maria's shoulders shrug softly against him before she responds quietly, "Mm. Likely so, now that you mention it." George takes a soft and deep breath as he continues to examine the remainder of the painting, "Overall, it seems better than the first painting you did of the white carnations years ago." His wife playfully slaps George's shoulder before nuzzling against his back, "You only married me from that one painting alone, it won't do us any good to get married again. Besides, I remember you said I would never make a better painting than the white carnations." George chuckles quietly while raising his hand to scratch the top of his head, "Heh, you're right. I remember as well, but all the same, this is honestly really good." Maria pats her husband's shoulder lightly once more with a giggle, "Oh, you! Get back downstairs and finish that newspaper for the townspeople." Slowly, George turns in his wife's arms and embraces her with his own before leaning in to kiss her gently, "As you wish. I do feel better from seeing you during this brief break of my work. Thank you dearest." They soon part ways and George heads down into the basement, just as his fingertips position themselves on the typewriter, he pauses upon hearing Maria briefly sing a heartfelt and melodic song from above. He takes a deep breath and smiles, feeling a comforting emotion swell from within before he resumes typing.

	The following morning, George abruptly wakes up by a scream from his wife before she clings to him and sobs quietly. Blinking sleep out of his eyes, he wraps an arm around her, "Was it the same nightmare, love..?" He felt her nod before she buried her face deep into his shoulder. George couldn't help but sigh, knowing that he couldn't think of anything to say to comfort her, only that this nightmare of hers has been growing frequent as of late. A giant craft of a strange shape, followed by flashing lights, then finally inexplicable pain...

	Later that day, around noon, the postman raps on the front door of the house around his usual time, and George answers to receive more than the daily mail. "Thank you sir, have a good day." After shutting the door, he flips through the envelopes, looking for his work on probable topics to investigate and edit for tomorrow's newspaper. One in particular catches his attention, "Hmm? Loud noises, black smoke, and children disappear for a day on Mount Itoi..?" Maria peered around the wall separating the kitchen to the living room where she was washing dishes from breakfast, "What is it, dear?" George glanced to his wife briefly before looking down to the synopsis of witness accounts,  

	“ 'Two days ago, reports from the town of Ellay claim that the nearby mountain, famed for a gorgeous swimming resort at the lake near the summit, claim of crashing sounds echoing from the mountain last night, followed by dirt and rock hurled into the air and suspended by thermal currents, forming a ring to surround the summit of Mount Itoi. Also, the local school field trip near the mountain yesterday ended up with more than a dozen children mysteriously vanishing overnight. Today, they have all returned to their homes, smiling consistently and oblivious to their own disappearance.' 

	That's all it says.." George took a deep breath, soon shaking his head as he felt that sinking feeling as he did yesterday before he whispers, "Somethings not right about this.." Maria dries her hands with a towel to take a break from washing the dishes before moving closer to her husband in the living room, just as concerned as he, "Yesterday, Victoria mentioned that her husband vanished for only a day. And when she asked him where he was this morning, he swore he couldn't remember for the life of him." George listened intently, but was left to sigh quietly, confused, "I don't understand. I must find out about this. I'm off to town and I'll ask around." With that, he moves to the coat rack by the front door and puts on his long tan overcoat, Maria nodding softly before speaking in a concerned tone, "Be careful, and be home before sunset, I'll make sure steak is ready." George nods to his wife in return with a tender smile, "I will dearest, and I shall be looking forward to dinner tonight." Soon after, he opens the door and steps outside, little does he know his life will change forever.

	The orange sky and the setting sun forces George to return home, not getting any good leads on this investigation of the strange occurrences as of today, yet he went ahead and posted an article for tomorrow's paper. Making sure to add a warning of sorts to report any further incidences to help with the investigation, he still felt disappointed that this was going nowhere. As he ventures down the path and rounds the corner northward to his home, he narrows his eyes upon streams of lights flashing out of his house from within, soon followed by distant muffled screams of his wife and children in distress, "Maria..! Maria!!" George dashes toward his home and opens the door with haste, but only blinding white light fills his vision, "Ahhh!! Where are you guys?!" Soon whirrs and clicks are heard amidst the screams and cries before George blacks out suddenly.

	His eyes open abruptly, seeing nothing but green about him, and he feels submerged in water, George begins to panic as if he's drowning, but soon feels a breathing apparatus in his mouth which allows him to breathe, yet he couldn't take this sensation of being surrounded in this green water. He feels to be encased in a tube of glass pounds hard on the casing with a tightly closed fist, managing to crack the glass gradually. Determination to escape swells from within, desperate to find out what happened to his wife and children along with where he is now. Upon finally breaking the glass, water spills out along with George, slamming onto the hard floor of rock. The breathing apparatus pulls away from his mouth, leaving the soaked man to cough and groan until he lays still for a moment, waiting for his vision to clear while he looks around in the name of steadfast curiosity. Despite his blurry and watery eyes, he could see other green tubes standing upright and figures of the townspeople inside them individually, "W-What..?! No..W..Who is responsible for this madness?!" George coughs once more before scrambling to his feet and dashing out to the opening of what seemed like a well lit cave. He hears familiar sounds in the distance of a path across the way, whirrs and clicks, and George feels compelled to approach toward the source of the sounds. He soon realizes where he is after emerging from the narrow tunnel, amazed to himself, "Mount Itoi? I'm at the summit?!" "Mm-hmm..Where everything will begin..and end.." George quickly turns around from the familiar voice and notices Maria kneeling on the rocky ground just as his vision clears up, "Wha--Maria?! How did you..Why are we...What is that..?" He narrows his vision while he approaches his wife, seemingly noticing that she's holding something like a baby, but it's pure white, and has a wagging tail. Maria looks up to her husband with a soft smile, "Mm..This is the one who sailed the cosmos and ended up lost.." Confused, George shakes his head, "What? I..I don't understand dearest.." Maria slowly stands and opens her arms slightly so he may see for himself, "Giegue is his name..He crash landed here a year ago.." "A..A year..? You mean I've been out for a year? What of our children?!" Maria looks to her husband and quirks a brow, "Our children..? Giegue is our only child, and you've been working all this time.." George blinks, dumbfounded by his wife's claim, "T-That's not true! We lived in a house..We were abducted..They brainwashed you.." The white creature in Maria's arms looks up to George with a glare of sudden malice, leaving George to grunt abruptly from a sharp pain within his chest. Soon afterwards, whirrs and clicks are heard from behind him, leaving George to turn around to see several odd suited figures approach him to grab his arms, "No! No!! Damn it!!! I will not yield! Maria!!!" He looks with shock to his smiling wife wave to him, hearing her in a soft sing-song voice to Giegue in her arms, "Say bye-bye to George.." His jaw drops, outraged and confused, but only for a moment before his vision fades once more and blacks out.

	One year has passed since George has seen his wife last, and this past year, George has learned countless new things for his curious mind while performing his 'work' for the aliens as of late. Dastardly and regretful he has felt, mostly working on maintenance for Giegue's ship, and occasionally on the prison tubes that have kept people for biological experiments. Yet the aliens conclude humankind weak and unfit for any form of advancement, and upon hearing the grim news, George plans to take Maria with him and escape, only waiting for the perfect opportunity. He happens to catch Maria strolling around the summit of Mount Itoi and holding the baby alien in her arms as he remembered from before. “Oh George, hello dear. How was work?” George simply approaches her and reaches out to grab her arm, “We're leaving, Maria.” Giegue glares up to George and the man's reach is halted abruptly by a sudden force, “Agh! No..! I will not..give up!” A sudden thought comes to George, and figures it's his last chance, “Remember..The carnation! The paintings! The..The song!! Take a melody..Simple as can be..AHHH!!” A terrible high pitch sound rings in George's ears followed by a loud deafening thud as Giegue continues to glare at him. Maria tilts her head to the side, her gaze adrift as if gradually remembering before she picks up where George left off, “Give it some words and..Sweet harmony..” Giegue shrieks and forces himself away from Maria's arms, “No! Not you as well! I will end this. This singing of accursed love! That's why you humans are weak! And I will prove it as such!!” A sudden violet void of a portal appears behind Maria, and with a psychic shove, she's forced into it, screaming with a hand reaching out to George. “No!! Maria!!!” George feels his hands shake, his heart sink, as he has lost his better half before his very eyes upon witnessing the portal seal itself up quickly. He turns to Giegue and with a hateful roar, he swings a tightly clenched fist toward the floating alien, but to no avail as it's halted by a psychic wall, “Damn you..Damn you, Giegue!!!” He feels his fist inching ever closer toward Giegue, gradually slipping through the unseen barrier, the alien looks rather shocked, “It..It cannot be..You cannot possess our power! NO!!” George reached passed the barrier and grabs a hold of the alien's tail, pulling hard, ending up ripping the tip off, leaving Giegue to shriek in pain. An inexplicable force immediately shoves George away, leaving the man's hair to immediately turn white as he hits the ground hard, but George stands quickly and feels this is a battle that he can't win. Reluctantly, but for the sake of his life, he decides to flee, as far away and as fast as his tired legs can carry him. Whirrs and clicks of the biological robots build behind him, but George dares not to look back even for a moment.  

	George descends the mountain and the pursuit of the Starmen cease, leaving George to turn around to be certain as such while he catches his breath. Despite the pain of nearly tripping over rocks during his descent, he continues onward, through the long trek to his home. His mind and heart feels cluttered and torn respectively after all that has happened. Upon braving the venture across half of the Yucca Desert, he falls to his knees in the sand, feeling parched and sunstroke from the unforgiving sun, and considering his final resting place here and now, as he's sure to have lost Maria forever. “I...I'm sorry, my dearest..I failed you, now loneliness will fill my being forevermore.” Just then he could have sworn to have heard the familiar melody from somewhere, but only a segment. His gaze looks around desperately hoping to see anything, even a mirage of his love, but only cacti and the haze of heat billowing upward from the sand. With a sigh, George somehow felt a stirred sense of vigor, that he had to press on regardless of what he's lost, and so after rising to his feet, he continues. Remembering he ripped Giegue's tail off and examines it periodically on the way home, not yet able to understand the meaning of why he did this, but somehow knows it will be of some importance.

	Taking the path around the outskirts of Podunk, George knew he couldn't see anyone, nor be seen in such a state as this. Luckily enough, he made it home without encountering any of the townspeople, but upon stumbling to the front door, he notices a heaping pile of mail before him. With a sigh, George simply brushes the envelopes away with his foot before stepping in the front door, coming home to a silent and dusty house. Thankful that all in the house was left just as he remembered, he retrieves a nearby candelabra and a match, lighting the four candles on it, he does notice one thing out of place. George approaches the living room table and peers down at a dust covered letter of great importance, reading to himself, 

	“To George and Maria, the townsfolk grow most worried of your absence as of late, but should you return home and receive this letter separate from the rest of your mail, know in comfort that your children are being taken care of with food, shelter, and accommodations. We hope you both are well and wish you the best along with returning to the safety and security of the town. Best wishes, Mayor East of Podunk.”

	Sighing heavily, George simply crumples the letter in his hand before whispering to himself, “Well, at least the children will be alright I'm sure..” That said, he makes his way down to the basement, candelabra still in hand. He peers over to the dust covered typewriter at the desk and with a forceful shove of his other hand, the typewriter slides off of the desk and hits the floor hard with a 'ding!'. Paying no mind to simply destroying part of his cherished work for so long, he sits at the chair and opens drawers, looking intently for something. Upon finding his diary, he opens the book to the first few pages written on it, skimming through once happy moments now gone and passed. George immediately rips those pages from his book and holds the corner over the candle's fire, waiting until the papers catch aflame before tossing them behind him, leaving them to burn into ash. Afterwards, he grabs a nearby pen sitting on the desk and begins writing with verve and haste into his diary, his mind trying to capture into words everything from the technology he has come across, to these strange abilities he has dubbed as “PSI” 

	Over the course of a few months, people began to notice George's return and go to his house and inquire out of heartfelt concern, such as a couple who knew them rather well before the disappearance, “Hey George, everyone has been so worried and—whoa..Your hair, what happened?” George stoically shakes his head while he stands there at the open front door, “I don't want to talk about it..” The couple blinks and looks to one another before returning their gaze to George, “What do you mean? Maybe Maria will want to talk about it, where is she?” George took a deep breath and felt anger rise and build quickly from within, responding in a hateful manner, “I said I don't want to talk about it, damn it!! Did you not understand?! Get out, and don't come back! Tell everyone in town the same thing, to leave me alone!!” Shocked and appalled by George's behavior, the couple turns to leave hastily, and those were the last visitors upon George's front porch. 

	Another couple months pass and George scarcely leaves his house for anything. A few kids make the mistake of daring one another to go peek in at George's house to see what the old recluse has been up to. What they see through the living room window, they couldn't explain for the life of them. George works with a blowtorch, welding something of a steel monstrosity in a deep red color, but it wasn't long until George sensed the children spying on them, “Hey!! Get away from here you damn scheming juveniles!!” The screaming kids scramble and dash for home as fast as possible, leaving George to sigh and mutter under his breath, “I can't be found out about this. I must go somewhere more secluded..” With that, he luckily finishes his robot “EVE” and moves under the cover of night's darkness to traverse across the land back to Mount Itoi, figuring out a way to construct a hidden laboratory beneath the mountain lake to conceal his work from both humans and aliens alike. George carefully planned all of this out, but despite fearing for his aging life, he coordinated a probable victory against Giegue, though it would take time and effort. He had foreseen with his abilities of a young boy in his legacy forced into finding the root of the problem and ending up facing Giegue himself, therefore George made sure to have it all begin with leaving his diary back at his house. Fortunately, the diary itself withstands the test of time and remains undisturbed in the basement despite renovations and remodeling of the house itself, leaving subtle but important entries to help the grandson he would never meet until far into the afterlife..

	“My mark will be the symbol “XX”...You should know what to do upon seeing them....Who has lost his tail? The forgotten one of the ship that sails the cosmos... Melodies of earth and love are scattered about the land and you must seek them out, for the sake of humanity...End these strange occurrences, but most importantly, no matter what happens...No crying until the end...”