I'm not usually a fan of pre-chapter comments, but I feel like this needs a bit of an introduction...

First, this is a project written for fun between me and a friend of mine. We were lamenting over the wasted crossover potential of Dissidia and came up with our own combined timelines for our favorite games. This is something we're doing on the side and even though we have the first six chapters written already, they might come out a bit sporadically and I'm not taking it as seriously as I am "Awakening."

Second, we have no idea where this is going and it's almost definitely not going to finish, but I do have a few good chapters already put together and hopefully it'll be worth that at least.

Third, five points for anyone who can correctly identify the pov of this first chapter. Ten points for anyone who can correctly identify the timeline we put together based on the games I listed. Twenty points and a cookie for anyone who can tell me what characters we'll be using.

Time Immemorial

Prologue: A Place Between Time

I have existed since the birth of time and will continue until its end. I am the one behind death, the Destroyer, the truth. Without me there is Nothing, but I exist only to return everything to Nothing again. Such is the way of life. In every living being there is a fear of death, of the Nothing, and yet, everything must live to die. I had waited since the beginning of time for that ultimate truth. I was given my proof and I readied for the end. My purpose. That which I had come to accomplish.

But then I was given doubt.

For with every soul that longs for the nothing – that so fears death that it embraces the end of fear – there is a counter-part. There is one who is so determined for life's preservation that it might sacrifice its own life for the good of others. There is one who does not fear death but embraces the cycle of all things and would fight forces which have existed since the beginning of time to save that fleeting, inconsequential moment of life. This is what gave me pause. This balance. This contradiction.

I laid the issue to rest and gave it time for thought.

With all things realized, I could not fulfill my purpose. I could not bring all to Nothing while some life, even in deep subconscious, did not desire it. As I weighed the possibilities, I came to two options best suited for my ultimate purpose. With the Crystal damaged, I could let it lie and allow its power to slowly, over many eons, fade to death. I could also intervene. So long as the balance of preservation and destruction remained equal, both sides held such equal merit that I could not decide. So long did I spend pondering my choices that they, eventually, came to fruition. Both at once did they split from the source in the river of time, and I was left to observe from the middle.

In one, I did nothing, and the world did slowly die. The eidolons, once great sources of magical power, reverted to their stones, and the cycles condensed into a metaphysical stream of souls and life from which all magic spawned. The cycle further diminished and then there was nothing. Left in the wastelands of life, the world's population devised high technology to exist without magic and to exploit it from the souls of their wildlife. I came to my decision. I, through another's power, attempted to bring the flow of time to a stop and revert all back to the Nothing. And I was confronted. Life had fought me once again.

In the other, I collected the power of the crystal and preserved it in my own energy. All of life and magic now flowed through me, and because I was no suitable replacement, I divided it into easier managed thirds. These three gained sentience and came into conflict and all magic and life was changed forever. But even they, in their struggles, came to the balance that had spawned their existence. They sacrificed their sentience to restore this balance and brought peace until their destruction. Magic permeated the planet's core and, after some time in dormancy, lived there without restriction. The planet recovered from its scars and flourished. Perhaps, as I later saw, it had flourished too much. Greater life had spawned greater death and the balance came into jeopardy. I gathered some of this free-roaming magic, enveloped it in my power, and it too gained sentience. It sought the restoration of balance, and kept the world in a neutral cycle. For every great time of life there then came a time of death. This remained until the powers of life once again defeated me.

I could not understand it.

Confronted by my two failed paths, I realized that I could not compromise the two sides of life and death. One must win out in the human spirit and I must defend the victor. Over the course of my two times, I had seen many champions of preservation and many worshippers of nihilism. I looked between them and came to the five crisis points of this world, the five points where the conflict came to greatest climax and the winner remained debated. I gathered their forces together: the nine who most loved life, the nine who most longed for destruction, and the two who had defied me in the conclusions of their time. I brought them back to the origin – the time of original crisis – and allowed them their free will. With their opposite determinations, one will surely reign victorious over the other, and I will come to my ultimate conclusion.

Some say I spawned from Nothing. They see my entry to this world at its time of crisis, and they relate me to an act of chance. They are so absorbed in their own life and story that they see my actions as something sporadic, a final confrontation which came from nowhere, as though I had been willed into existence by a writer's climactic desperations. But that is not the case. I am death, the bringer of Nothing. I have existed since the beginning of time, and now, I will observe its end.

I invite you to join me.