I have succumbed to the need to write Vesperia fanfiction.

In Another Life

.Prologue.

The war lasted for two years. In those two years, half the planet was lost. Plants, animals, people – gone. Only the unlucky survived. The rest scrambled for the remaining resources, furthering the destruction and almost dooming what was left. So very close to extinction and the end of all life on the planet, the government quickly stepped in and intervened, building an empire that rivaled the ancients found in old, battered books. It placed down laws that regulated food and water consumption, birth rate, and even death rate. The populous was cleansed of the weak and useless, punishing the greedy and whipping anyone who hoarded these precious resources. Criminals and all those who opposed the Empire were sent out of sight to carve a living out of rock in the uninhabitable regions – the Badlands. With no way to survive out there, the sentence meant a slow death.

For a time, the harsh regulations brought stability to what remained of the world. People were happy to let it continue. Ten years passed, then twenty, fifty, a hundred… Time crawled forward and little by little the Badlands shrunk by inches with each passing year.

But with this increase in fertile lands came the growth of the population. Realizing that there would be no solution that could solve the situation in time, the Empire gathered the brightest minds that lived and set them in a colony among technologies thought to have been lost during the war.

However, it became fatally apparent that the efforts were not enough. While the Colony of Zaude burnt themselves out working, the population began to decrease. It started slow, but that quickly changed as the people starved. Fights and skirmishes broke out across the lands and storehouses were raided, further reducing the amount of resources that would keep world alive. And as the seasons changed, the situation only became more and more dire.

The world was once more on the brink, the apocalypse around the corner. Hope and faith seemed to have abandoned humanity, until one day, a solution was presented in the form of something they never would have dreamed possible.

A doorway of sorts to a new land, an Alternate Universe.

Parties were sent to gather any and all information they could. It was then that they encountered another problem. As their people crossed through what was quickly named The Rift, they discovered that the act was impossible. All who did returned covered in boils that had bubbled up across their flesh that inflated until the body had no room left to function. After their death, the body would harden and petrify, the skin turning black and shiny.

But time was running out and they raced against it because winter had arrived and without the resources, then there was no chance for the human race to survive to see the land turn green in spring. And once more, hope seemingly abandoned them, the survivors sending more people to their deaths than the starvation had. Just as they decided they had failed and had given up, they discovered a formula that they could create using the technologies that would allow the safe passage between world.

Sending two people at a time, they scouted and gathered information, returning with vital supplies and resources at the same time. The soldiers became known as Knights, held up as heroes for braving the unknown and returning to speak of it. Through several years, the Empire once more began to grow, leeching resources and going as far to expand their cities into the desert that bordered the Badlands. The regulations became more relaxed, allowing castes to form under the reign of the monarchy, the Imperial Empire growing in both size and strength.

As time passed and they gathered information, they found that the other universe was not unlike their own, but held one major difference: there had never been a war. There were other things, like the fact that they ran their lands by groups called guilds, each with a different name and often a different designation, taking on jobs and generally doing what they could to protect their lands and people from the monsters that plagued their regions. There was also other things, smaller things that were different, such as the atmosphere and general livelihood of the civilization.

However, it was the fact that they had not needed to suffer as the Imperial Empire had, that they had no need fight against the beast for their very existence like they had, that sparked jealousy through the populous at how they were able to flourish. They began gathering supplies that they needed to invade this beautiful land. They laughed at the thought of using their own resources against them.

When the time came to invade, though, the laughter ceased. At first, the attack had gone as planned, but without the Great War to halt the progress of development, the alternate universe drove them back to The Rift and their own world. Just as the two forces came to a stalemate, the invaders spread suspicion and distrust amongst their enemies ranks by planting people who were the carbon copy who acted and looked just like the guild members. They struck hard, attacking people who had trusted them.

Catching onto this, the people of the alternate universe weeded out the planted Knights and returned the favor in full, spreading chaos through the orderly ranks. With neither side knowing who they could trust, the cross-universe war ended for a time, though the situation remained volatile, with tensions high and both forces ready to fight at any given moment.

Ten years later, the situation was once more at the breaking point, with everyone prepared for another war and determined to win.

I've already started chapter one. Things might be confusing at first, but bear with me. It'll all make sense later. Complaints and/or flames can be submitted via the review button.