Foreword
So, I had a bit of loose imagination that I'm going to release from my mind...
This series, called "March of the STICK" is about a futuristic military force that attempts to conquer other universes after failing to conquer their own. This army is known as the STICK, short for "Stickmen's Territory Initializing and Capturing Kamfe". Now you might think of this army as a Nazi By Another Name, but it is in fact, not. It has a mixture of Western Musketeers and Eastern Samurais within it's forces.
Enough of the foreword, let's go to the story.
Okay, not done with the forewords yet. One more sentence: This series tells how many video game characters will have to repel the aforementioned army. Done...
End of foreword
...
Officer: "General Stickler. It's time to address the forces."
Stickler: "Give me another few minutes."
Officer: "Yes sir."
The officer closes the door and waits outside.
Stickler, the general of the STICK Army, or rather, the new STICK Army, is flipping through the documents regarding all past operations that has been conducted in the universe he and his army had originated from.
The number of failures that has been sustained was up to 12. The ones to blame was a faction known as the RAIDERS, also from the STICK's universe of origin. All 12 operations are thwarted by what Stickler would have named as his rival.
The RAIDERS are somehow always there to kick his army's ass, even during the time he had made sure that the faction was disbanded, which was right before the fifth failure.
But now he had set up base in a different universe, his army will never be bothered by the RAIDERS ever again. He rest assured that his army will take the time to develop better technology, and by now, the technologies developed by the STICK was practically enough to outmatch magic. He told himself to never return to the original universe in case the RAIDERS somehow kicks his army's ass again.
Officer: "Sir, we're 10 minutes late."
Stickler: "..."
With that, Stickler walked out of his office, and proceeds to walk toward what he would have called glory over space and time...
...
Gaia, the Final Fantasy 7 universe
It was another day at the Gold Saucer...
It has been this peaceful ever since the permanent defeat of the One-Winged Angel. Everybody was happy for the entire period of peace.
Excluding the hero: Cloud Strife.
Cloud was never seen smiling except that one time when he finished Sephiroth for good, got blown up by the remaining Remnants in their kamikaze run, and then supposedly resurrected by the Lifestream (how that happened, nobody would want to know) and rematerialized in the Sector 7 Church. Needless to say, the Geostigma plague was over thanks to him.
But he was never seen happy again ever since he learned his true identity from the Shinra Electric Company. There, he learned that he was an artificial humanoid created by the company as part of the super soldier project.
Cloud was just walking around the Gold Saucer, just passed by Dio's Monster Arena not long ago. Dio, the owner of the Arena had gretted him with a "hello", and Cloud simply gave a hand wave as a reply. As he kept walking, the Arena starts to fade from view the farther he went.
It was so suddenly that he was assaulted by a massive headache. He had never experienced something like this before. No, not even the time when Sephiroth tapped into Gaia's core has he ever felt such thing. Even though he had not trusted the sixth sense much, he knew something bad was going to happen, for that he was having a vision of a war that will occur in the future. In this vision, he saw the entirety of Midgar decimated, corpses and debris laid everywhere in the burning streets of the city, the enemy forces, presumed to be something demonic (although he can't make out the enemy's shape) appears to be summoning war machines in their wake, and continued with their massacre.
That was when Cloud can't take it anymore, he collapsed on the ground, and when he opened his eyes again, he was back at Gold Saucer, where he had experienced the massive headache...
If it was something even the Lifestream itself had feared, then it was probably much more powerful than Sephiroth himself...
...
Spira, the Final Fantasy 10 universe
3 years into the Eternal Calm, Spira is still peaceful, after all the endearment of sorrow that has happened for a thousand years.
The sorrow was caused by the creature whose name will be forgotten by nobody: Sin was the creature's name, and with it, came even more sorrow and the monstrous abominations known as Fiends.
With Sin permanently defeated, the first Eternal Calm befalls Spira. However, that Calm could not be called "Eternal" as it was disturbed by an angry Unsent who calls himself Shuyin. With Shuyin came Vegnagun, the Machina weapon that was stashed under Bevelle for a thousand years, the same time Sin was born.
By destroying Vegnagun and convincing Shuyin to surrender, the Unsent spirit is sent to the Farplane, and the true Eternal Calm arrives.
But now, with the constant nightmares of the Fayth and Summoners, it appears that this Eternal Calm is going to be disturbed again...
Fiends are suddenly going berserk, they are attacking everything that moves. Soldiers of the New Yevon has noticed this incident and are currently trying to contain the Fiends, but with no success. The Fiends are increasing in population, and the Summoners and their Guardians are forced to take action.
What makes it so is that even the Farplane is crawling with Fiends. And to top it off, there were reports of sentient human-form Fiends mugging travelling merchants.
"The army of darkness will march from the underworld and claim the life of all those who stands in their way." One such Human-Fiend had muttered this sentence before being killed off by the Grand Summoner.
To this day, the Spiran are terrified by such words. What kind of evil was enough to rival the now-dead abomination that is Sin?
...
Gensokyo, the Touhou universe
If there's an Incident that yields something worse, then no word exists to describe it.
Glimmering under the Red Moon is a .495 "Scarlet Wing" tank that happens to be patrolling the streets of Gensokyo Downtown. The massive rectangle of green, which was quite fast despite the nature of Tanks, is causing everybody near it to remain silent, humans and Youkai alike. Armed with a magically enhanced cannon with a long barrel, the tank was quite effective in performing what the owner wanted: to induce fear.
Of course, as with all military vehicles, the .495 has an insignia that looks intimidating by itself: the Scarlet Devil Army's insignia.
Elsewhere, the Hakurei shrine maiden is still in the Hakurei Shrine, sitting next to the ever-empty donation box, occasionally taking a sip from the cup of green tea she is holding. It was naturally her job to resolve Incidents, but facing the largest Incident ever occurred, there was nothing she could do about the Scarlet Devil Army and their invasions all over Gensokyo. Besides, she was lazy by her nature.
Then she spoke, "Gone Master-Spark-ing another one of Remilla's goons again, did you?"
A certain witch in black-white clothing approaches from the shadows. In response to the Shrine Maiden's words, she dropped on the floor a machine gun that is cut in half. "Close enough. I didn't Master-Spark anyone. Instead I really was stupid enough to fire upon one of her lackey-in-a-metal-box, ze."
The Shrine Maiden is now furious. "Marisa, how many times have I told you NOT to attack the Tanks under any circumstances? You know how tough they are."
Marisa, the witch, is now being sarcastic to herself for the mistake. "Sucks to be me..."
"Know what? This is the first time you realized your mistake by yourself. The shrine maiden added.
Marisa added in something new. "Reimu, I'm not here to realize my mistake. I'm here to report on the Scarlet's advancements, ze."
Reimu, the shrine maiden replied, "Well, what have you got?"
"It seems that they stopped advancing just before the foot of the Youkai Mountain. The Scarlet's didn't go any further beyond that. Seems to be something to do with Fangs herself, ze." Marisa said.
Reimu: "Remilla? What about her?"
Marisa: "I spied on the group, and heard someone talking about receiving a message. They mentioned something about their mistress-and-commander having nightmares about the future. Dunno about the rest, they turned back after that."
Reimu: "Nightmares about the future? I heard from Sanae about a similar nightmare, said something about heli-whatevertheyare attacking Gensokyo..."
Marisa: "I know nothing 'bout nightmares, ze. But I know well enough that two people having the same dream is no coincidence."
Reimu looks worried. "Which means a bigger Incident is about to arrive. One that rivals all previous Incidents."
...
Afterwords
Wow, the STICK sure is causing widespread panic over time and space, huh?
In case you didn't understand the part about the intervals with FF7, FF10 and Touhou, let me say that... Well, you should've figured it out by reading the first line of the Afterwords.
Also, I know I may have made mistakes about Cloud Strife's personality, or Reimu and Marisa's for the matter (along with the "ze" phenomenon)ust that bad at analyzing personalities.
One more thing. Although you only see 3 games being mentioned in this story, there's going to be a lot more game worlds that get's influenced by the plotline of the story, and not just Japanese games for that matter...
"Until then..."
