LittleBigPlanet: The Last Hope

Sweet Nightmares

A scene of our little group of heroes, unable to figure out how to find their way back to the Pod. As much of a panic as Sackboy was in, he remained calm on the outside. Kai tried hopping as high as he could, as if soaring into the air would help him reach a desired destination. Kouta attempted to open his Popit menu, but to no avail. Charlotte remained deep in thought, resolving the missing puzzle pieces to their dilemma. Our heroes were in a pickle.

"If no prompt is going to appear like it did for us back in the real world, then we'll need to find a way to somehow activate it in order for it to show up," Charlotte said, the most reasonable assumption she could gather in her head.

"But if completing the level didn't do the trick, what's to be our next option?" Sackboy asked. He could have easily paved the way to the next destination via a Level Link like he used to bridge Kouta's world and Craftworld, but he only had one use in his inventory. He would need to visit the Moon for that, much less find the Pod to help them get there.

"I'm not sure, just like the rest of you. Until we figure it out, we'll need to press on beyond the First Steps of The Garden and rediscover our main source of transportation... Would you stop jumping for crying out loud?"

For the last minute, the jumping sound effect filled their ears (or at least they thought they had ears, but Sackfolk didn't have any) due to Kai's prolonged attempt at the thought of returning to the Pod by some magical leap of hope. He paused, just before taking one last leap, and jumped... with the same height and velocity as all his previous attempts. At the very least, he tried.

"Whoop, guess that confirms that, heheh," Kai chuckled to himself while garnering sighs from the other two. Charlotte walked up towards the scoreboard, looking for any flaws in the system. Perhaps it malfunctioned? Maybe there was something that needed to be reprogrammed? All the tools at their disposal couldn't activate in Play Mode, meaning they would need to find another way.

"What's that glowing light on the screen?" Kouta wondered, as a flicker of light beamed on the screen. The rest noticed it too and huddled closer to expect this mysterious light... except that this light was not projecting from the scoreboard itself. Kouta focused a little more and stared harder at the screen. A shadowy figure appeared on it, and Kouta immediately turned around when he noticed this. Kai and Charlotte followed suit, and right before them in the night sky appeared...

"Aha, what have we here?"

A near-mythical being born of chaos and fear arose from the darkness, towering over the Sackfolk and smiled cynically, looking straight at the little group of heroes. His eerie voice sent chills down Charlotte's spine (if Sackfolk even have those), while a perplexed Kai stared at this unknown entity before them. Kouta was more frustrated than anything else to be afraid of big bad bosses now and folded his arms, staring straight back at the huge jester.

"You. You're not supposed to be here," Kouta stated aloud, making it quite clear how fed up he was. He just wanted to find a way back to the Pod as soon as possible. Sackboy however, gently nudged at Kouta with a wide-eyed expression as if to say, "Are you trying to get us killed?!"

"Hmmm, it would seem that not all Sack things know not of the feeling of fear. Perhaps you need some assistance with that, dear friends," the red and navy-blue jester finally uttered from his stitched mouth.

"He's right though, you're not supposed to be here. I don't remember seeing you in Craftworld," Sackboy adds, proving their level of confusion. If even Sackboy had no clue of who this was, then he definitely had no business being here in The Gardens. The jester frowned slightly, his glowing eyes brightening with an ominous yellow.

"Ah, the pain! Don't tell me you don't recognise your old pal Vex! You know... bringer of nightmares, master of the Uproar, life of the party!" the jester introduces himself, his strings-for-arms extended in enthusiasm. All the while, it did not ring any bells for Sackboy.

"You know, I remember my buddies in the village of Loom mentioning something about a Vex. Thought it was just a legend the old folk made up to scare the little ones to make sure they behaved and slept at bedtime," Sackboy recalled, remembering the time he visited this cozy village near The Gardens, filled with wonderful Sackfolk of all kinds. For a while he felt right at home, but he knew one day he would have to leave, his being full of courageousness and adventure too tireless to rest.

"Well well well, would you look at that! At least now you know the old folk weren't cuckoo after all! Funny that you mentioned your old village, because it just so happens to be that it does not exist anymore," Vex slowly announces, a maniacal grin growing upon his face. Sackboy was shocked at this statement, choosing not to believe him until Vex opens up a portal of an image portraying a distant location. The location of the once-peaceful village of Loom, now desolate and rid of any source of life. Abandoned and forgotten, it looked like nothing he remembered from his last visit.

Loom, was gone.

Kouta and his friends have never heard of this village, and assumed this was where Sackboy resided while they were gone from Craftworld for so long. Looking at the way Sackboy reacted to this new information, defeated and hopeless, they understood the importance of this village to him, and decided that this was going to be the first addition to their quest on saving Craftworld.

"I don't know why you're doing all this, but Sackboy here has witnessed this darkness unfold before. You clearly have a connection to all this chaos, and that, 'my dear friend', makes you the number one suspect."

"Oh, bravo! You've put all of the pieces together! You should get an achievement for that! But tell me Sackling, what exactly do you have planned to stop the Topsy Turver, to stop me?"

"Topsy Turver? What the heck is that?" Charlotte asked confusingly, trying not to lose focus on the vast amount of information being presented before them. Vex created another spherical image, displaying a large piece of machinery enveloped in a deadly fog. The grinding of its cogs was unsettling enough to make anyone cringe in its uninviting demeanour, as if its sole purpose was to invite death itself.

"It's a very exciting opportunity! No, you're gonna love it! It's going to bring fun, excitement, terror! All the good stuff!" Vex proclaimed excitedly, the spherical image simultaneously cracking open and exploding in shards of blackness and smoke, ironically portraying the exact opposite of 'good stuff'. The heroes coughed and spluttered from its unwelcome presence, not liking where this is going.

"I'm just missing some materials and the jolly volunteers who can put it together. So what do you say, ready to make history?"  Vex stopped floating and lowered himself to the ground, one arm having shaped into a vacuum, lifting, and aiming it directly towards the heroes. They were right in his line of fire.

"Of course you are."