A/N: Final Fantasy meets The Elder Scrolls. I know, I know, long overdue right? Well, I was watching the cinematic trailers last night and (given that my first love will always be final fantasy) was trying to work out who each person would be, what their alliance would be like, etc. etc. Anyway, I spent such a long time thinking about it that before I knew it, I had a really long scenario running with multiple characters in it and well, I just had to write it down.

I hope and pray that you who read this like it, and that those who like it continue to read it because I really love the idea I got going on in my head :)

Anyway, the prologue and first chapter should look pretty familiar to anyone who's watched the cinematic trailers, because they seemed like a bloody good place to start if you ask me. :D

Please enjoy,


Prologue.

Hunting, as everyone knows, is best done in small groups. One such small group had gathered outside the entrance to the dungeons of Highbridge. They were long abandoned, shut up years ago due to the terrible fiends who dwelled therein. The wooden planks used to bar the entrance may have been strong once, but now they were rotten, made sodden and weak by the relentless winters, rain, frost and wind. They fell apart after two half-hearted kicks. A tall Nord with broad shoulders and a scruffy beard peered into the darkness. He was heavily armoured and carried a battle-axe. It wasn't his favourite weapon, but he had lost that some moons back as it was knocked from his grasp by a hagraven's spell and plummeted into the depths of the ravine they fought beside. The battle-axe would have to do. His companions crowded behind him, 4 in total and the nearest, a dark-elven mage, produced a staff. He nodded to him in ascent; some light would certainly be handy.

His spell shot off down the narrow tunnel they faced, illuminating it as it went and revealing nothing. He let out a huff. So they wanted to play games. Fine. He could play. But he wasn't planning on playing nice.

Knowing full well they would have heard him bashing down their front door, he led his band of compatriots into the mouth of the tunnel. They were nervous, and rightly so. They had heard the tales of evil creatures, more dead than alive, but terrifying enough to still dare to walk the night. Werewolves some thought they were, Wendigos, others called them. He didn't care what they were, he certainly didn't believe they were werewolves; werewolves went straight to the hunting-grounds when they died, they never returned and troubled the living. Never. Wendigos though… He'd never fought with a Wendigo before. He was quite looking forward to it.

The tunnel began to widen the further in they went and a narrow shaft of light illuminated their path now. His companions, if anything, felt even more skittish. The light threw shadows and they feared what lurked within them. One such shadow, he knew, housed their prey. He could hear its claws ticking ever so faintly on the stone floor and its breath rattled through its throat. But he ignored it, far too much effort for just one of them. They were in here because there had been reports of dozens. A displeasing smell had met them when they entered the tunnel, but now it was almost unbearable. He wrinkled his nose in discomfort. Damn his overly sensitive nose. It always made the battlefield all the more unbearable, all the more stark in comparison to the woodlands and pretty meadows he so preferred to dwell upon.

Finally, just when he thought his nose could bear it no longer, the tunnel opened out into a cavern. It was a natural hollow in the rock and had been well used for generations as a place to store the less fortunate, the less… Honest. The cage doors were now nowhere to be seen, but the cells themselves – carved into the rock by the hands of many slaves – still housed their prisoners. They were deathly silent and he knew by the sound of their breathing and their carelessly advancing footsteps that his companions had yet to realise that they had arrived at their destination. He held out a hand to stop the closest, the mage and the others stopped also, stock still in their tracks.

The Nord took a few steps forward, the weight of his armour forcing him to swagger, and took a hand-axe from his belt. Better to start small and find out what they were made off.

He glanced around at the cells, trying to work out which one would advance first. Whichever did would be the Alpha Wendigo and if he could take that one out, the others would surely lose heart and the battle would be won before it was over.

The cell directly in front of him answered his question. It began emitting a low, guttural growl and something big shifted within. A pair of eyes dimly reflected the light let in by the cracks in the ceiling, but when the head emerged from the shadows, torn muscles pulling back over the muzzle bearing the bone to his gaze and dribbling pus and blood over the stone floor, the eyes were anything but dim. One was blinded and milky, but the other was golden and glistening. A paw emerged also and the raw, skinless fingers gripped the wall of the dungeon with a slow, grinding screech, the bloody claws gauging scratches into the rock.

Not a werewolf. But not a Wendigo either. It was… Alive… But should have been dead. Ought to have been dead. Forget starting small, he pulled another axe from his belt, bigger than the first but smaller than the one he still had on his back. This was going to need some muscle.

As slow and uneventful as their advance into the dungeons had been, now things were about to get nasty. The alpha creature bellowed forth a horse roar and as one, the pack attacked. The tell-tale scrabble of claws on loose stone alerted the Nord in time for him to turn on the spot, away from the advancing alpha, and deliver a blow to the creature behind him, cracking its jaw with the smaller of his weapons and redirecting its charge into the wall. Turning back to the alpha, who was almost upon him, he made an upper-cut with the bigger weapon, lifting the creature fully off the ground before burying the smaller axe in its skull as it fell to the cavern floor.

A third beast arrived on his left side and he slashed at it with his remaining hand-axe, catching it across the ribs before the first beast, having recovered itself, hit him from behind, spinning him like a top. He threw a leg out to stop his spinning and used the momentum the beast had given him to deliver it another blow to the face before turning swiftly to crack another across the head. The third creature moved to attack him again, but he had anticipated as much and brought his axe above his head before the thing was close enough to touch him, and brought it down with crushing force on the top of its head as soon as the beast was close enough. It fell onto the still bodies of its pack members but before it could recover or move again, the Nord stamped on its head. The already weakened bone was no match for his boot heel and caved in. One dead at least.

His hunting companions didn't seem to be fairing nearly so well, two were dead already and as the mage took out one creature with a fire spell, another moved to attack him from behind. Intercepting it, the Nord tore its throat out with a backhanded swipe of his weapon. It fell in a gurgling mess to the floor. It would probably have bled out before the battle was done.

Another of the creatures made to run past him, obviously intending to escape what was fast becoming its inevitable demise, and he grabbed for it, catching it on the end of its snout and pulling its head back. It was the one whose jaw he had smashed earlier. Slamming the heel of his palm into its gaping mouth, the Nord pulled hard and with a sickening, crunchy-sounding snap, the skinless lower mandible was forever disengaged. It spun away across the floor, now slick with the blood of his enemies and his compatriots alike.

The second to last of his companions – for he was now down to two – was barrelled out of the way by one of the remaining beasts and the Nord caught the thing around the face with his axe. Always go for the head, if you didn't hit the head then you may as well have not hit it at all. With this in mind, the Nord's next kill might have looked a little unorthodox, but it was the creature whose ribs he had cracked earlier. In a last ditch attempt to be rid of their attacker, the beast made a flying leap through the air, claws outstretched, jaws opened wide. The Nord's shoulder slammed into its sternum, knocking it out of the air, before the hand-axe was buried in its chest. It wasn't the head, or the face, but it made good use of the previously inflicted wounds and stopped the heart in a single blow. It was good enough.

Quiet now fell. The battle was apparently over. On one knee, the Nord freed his weapon from his quarry and sniffed. Some fresh air had made its way into the cavern as they fought, most likely encouraged by their movements, pushing the stale air out as they displaced it and sucking the new air in. Not many people realised how sweet fresh air smelled. But he did and good god was he grateful for it.

Somewhere above, a battle horn sounded. He glanced up. This wouldn't be the first time the alliances had fought over Highbridge; it was just unfortunate that it had to happen while he was here. Knowing his luck he would end up in the thick of it.

He looked about for his smaller battle-axe. It lay discarded some meters away; however, the Alpha was nowhere to be seen. He frowned and turned to his remaining companions. Ah. Make that, remaining companion. The mage had just pulled a beast from the third companion to reveal a bloody mess beneath. The weight of the creature had crushed the poor man's body onto several pointed rocks, impaling him upon them and – by the looks of things – snapping his neck. He was most certainly dead. Perhaps he would have consoled himself with the fact that, in its attempt to kill him, the beast had accidentally driven itself onto his sword and the hilt of the weapon was now all that was visible, the rest of it being buried quite firmly in the beast's matted, hairy chest.

In disgust, the mage kicked the creature's body, but the Nord turned away. He had one companion left and one angry, injured alpha Wendigo-wolf to catch and kill. He didn't have time for sentimentalities.


Highbridge. The gateway to Cyrodil; it had been attacked many times over the centuries, most notably by the Aldmeri Dominion, resulting in the current political climate of Tamriel and the ensuing war of attrition with the natives of Skyrim. The gateway had stood proudly for hundreds of years, carved out of the very rock of the mountain's peak, it was the strongest defence the Empire could muster and as such, it was always the last to be breached.

Today's battle looked much the same as many of the others. The first tower had been by-passed, the front door smashed in and the ground-floor burnt out, but the tower itself had been left alone. The less time wasted killing pawns the better. The courtyard between the first and second towers had been wiped clean and the remains of the battle still littered the floor, but the second tall tower that lead to the bridge would have taken far too long to overrun and so the front door, though magic-burnt and peppered with arrows, had been largely left alone. Instead, long climbing ropes attached to harpoons had been fired into the top of the tower and the attacking army of eight now traversed the long, vertical climb to the top like a tiny line of ants.

The first tower catapulted rocks at the army, but they were nothing. The top of the tower dropped stone blocks on them, but they too were easily avoided. The real problems were archers. It was all well and good avoiding arrows when they were on the ground and free to move around, but being pinned to the side of the tower made them into easy pickings. One such occasion of an easy picking came as the foremost soldier bounced out of the way of a falling block, only then to be shot from his rope with two arrows in his chest. The high-elf who was following him danced quickly out of his way, making room for him to fall, her eyes already looking about for the culprits. Two archers on their left were fitting new arrows to their bows. Before they could even sight along them, or even bring them up to draw, the high-elf's magic bore down upon them. A magical whip of green lightning shot from her hand and latched onto them. When she retracted it seconds later, they were already nought but ash.

On top of the tower, an officer shouted out above the din, urging the reinforcements to hurry as they ran up from the barracks at the bottom of the tower. The attackers were already halfway up the tower face and the crush of imperial soldiers who had gathered in anticipation behind the front door, had yet to complete the climb back up to the top.

One imperial soldier – an archer – was rushing to his post with an arrow freshly slotted onto his bow, when movement off to the side of the tower caught his eye. He slowed his jog to a walk, and then eventually a stop. Had he seen movement? Or was it just-

Amidst the clouds that covered the neighbouring peak and cliff-edge, a masked, hooded figure replaced his bow on his back as the archer who might have spotted him disappeared below the lip of Highbridge's battlement, an arrow poking out of his eye. One down, now they had even less time before someone thought a dead body lying at the top of the tower might be suspicious. With a glance to each of the ballistae positioned on either side of him, he dropped his hand in signal; fire.

The ballistae had been specially modified to not only fire a pair of harpoons into the side of the tower, but to also string a bridge between them. They did just that, but the noise of the harpoons thudding into the tower wall was so loud that it rang clearly over the other sounds of battle and attracted more than a few of the imperial soldiers to look their way. Quickly, they began notching arrows into their bows and began to fire upon the two pairs of troops the masked figure ordered across the make-shift bridges.

The masked man drew his bow and arrow again and loosed two arrows in quick succession, both finding their marks. One of the unlucky soldiers took his arrow to the face and toppled over the edge of the battlement and into the clouds below, but his spot was quickly filled by the reinforcements who were by now beginning to trickle out of the stairwell and into the fray.

The two pairs of soldiers were by this point around halfway across the bridges and were running full-tilt behind heavy wooden shields, peppered with arrows. Their luck, however, was fast running out. A heavily armoured imperial wielding a ginormous battle-axe rushed over and began to hack at the ropes attached to the harpoons. Other soldiers caught onto the idea and began to hack as well. It was only a matter of time before they cut through.

Dismissing the first bridges for lost, the masked man stowed his bow and arrow and waved two more ballistae forward, shouting above the wind and the din "Take these up!"

They were fired as he ordered and the original two were finally pried loose, falling away from the feet of the men still running furiously along them and they let out cries of anguish as they fell, presumably to their deaths. The original bridges beat themselves to splinters on the mountain's face as the next two sets of harpoons thudded into the tower wall, above the heads of the imperials and thoroughly out of reach. By the time the levers to begin the wind on the bridge part of the contraptions was released, the masked figure was already running along them. If you wanted something doing, do it yourself. He leapt to the front of the bridge and hung there while it raced across the gap, swinging out of the way of arrows and throwing knives until he was barely a hundred yards from the tower's face. Then he dropped.

Thankfully, his lackeys were a lot smarter than they looked and had used his distraction as an opportunity to fire another set of ballistae at the tower, at the appropriate level this time and it was this that he dropped onto. Still, it wasn't as far along as he had hoped and he had to resort to grabbing the ropes instead, fisting both of them in one hand before their tension sprung him upwards and the wooden slats of the bridge caught up with him. He landed squarely on his feet and took off running again, conducting a flying leap through the air as he loosed two throwing knives into the throats of the archers who were waiting to take him down. Another two found their marks in the throats of another pair of archers, these two a tad behind the first, and already he found need of two more, launching them at the swordsmen who rushed to apprehend him.

Drawing his sword, he countered the blow of one and spun to slash across the chest of another. He turned and repeated the motion with another two imperials, countering the blow of an axe man, cutting open the chest of a swordsman – an arc of blood flew through the air from the tip of the masked man's sword – and turning again to thrust his sword point straight into the exposed slither of neck between the axe man's cuirass and the chin strap of his helmet. Another swordsman, approaching from behind received the same treatment and his head dropped to stare dumbly at the steel protruding from his chest.

By this point there were few soldiers left on the top of the tower, just three lone axe men, but they would make short work for the masked man. He tossed his sword up in the air to free his hands and loosed three of his four remaining throwing knives into them. The first two found the gap between cuirass and helmet, but the third soldier was a lot taller and although the knife stopped him where he stood, it was just a wound, not a fatality. It had wedged itself in the uppermost rim of his breastplate, stuck between two rivets and had not managed to make the dive to the artery. It was of little consequence however, because as the masked man approached the stunned axe man – who could probably not believe his luck that such a thing as height had saved him from his plight – the sword which had been tossed up so carelessly into the air, fell neatly back into its master's grip.

With a savage pull, the masked man pulled the throwing knife from the breastplate. The sword stroke followed swiftly after, rendering the imperial's steel cuirass asunder and the axe man's life inert.

The battle was not over yet though, and as he sheathed his weapons, noise from the floor below signalled the high-elf's arrival. Carefully, the masked man approached the edge of the stairwell and peered over it. Sure enough, a flash of green lightning illuminated the scene as an imperial soldier – one of the last by the looks of things – met his end in a blaze of molten metal. The stench of cooking flesh drifted up on the suddenly hot air and the masked man wrinkled his nose.

The high-elf seemed to be the one doing most of the fighting, she was clearly the commander of this small troop. And why wouldn't she be? The high-elves had long believed that they were the be-all and end-all and if there should be anyone in charge then it should be them. They had proven their strength above others time and time again, but it didn't make him hate them any less just because they were right. If anything it only fuelled his distaste for them.

The imperials stood no chance against her magic, coupled with her elven armour and the quick virility and grace that so defined the lives of her people and, as she impaled the last soldier on her sword, it was never more apparent. She stood from the scene of the deed, turned and began to walk calmly away, hardly a hair out of place, not a speck of her own blood on her, as lovely looking now as she had been deadly mere seconds earlier. He scoffed and turned away. He wouldn't let her get away with it. Besides, this was his take-over as much as it was hers and he needed to make a point.

He signalled his men to descend the staircase and pick off any stragglers, then took off again along the make-shift bridges. He loosed his second to last throwing knife and cut one of the ropes of the neighbouring bridge. It began to fall past him, but, diving, he caught a hold of it and swung it out, away from the tower and around where it would eventually carry him to the back, to where he needed to be and where he would encounter her.

He could see her already through the clouds, strutting purposefully across the courtyard, beneath the huge stone beam that rested upon the shoulders of the gigantic stone imperial, the gap between whose legs signalled the entrance to Cyrodil. Almost there, he let the rope slip through his fingers and plummeted the last dozen meters to the courtyard floor where he hit with a grunt, but rolled to minimise the damage caused by the landing. When finally he rolled to a crouch, the high-elf was stopped in her tracks, looking upon him with the air of someone who had only moments ago considered themselves to be home-free, only to be proven wrong. Good, he liked her like that. Disappointed. He aimed to keep it that way.

He stood and, with a small self-satisfied smile, pulled down his mask. The look on her face this time said it all. She knew who he was. Everyone knew who he was, so why shouldn't she? She was disappointed again because this time, she knew he was going to be a hard man to fight. Everyone knew he was a hard man to fight. That was why he had single-handedly taken on the top of Highbridge Tower and won where so many others had failed. He drew his sword from his back and her eyebrow rose. Yes. It was going to be like that and no, he wasn't going to give her a choice.

Suddenly, before the battle could even start, they were interrupted by a beast, only half-alive, beaten, bloody and terrifying in its nature as it burst through the courtyard floor. Both he and the high-elf turned suddenly to look at it, set on edge immediately by its rasping roar, but the thing only made it a few steps out of the hole before whatever it had been running from caught up to it and dragged it back in, claws dug in and scrabbling for purchase on the courtyard floor. Its terrified roars were cut abruptly short however, by the next creature to emerge from the floor. This one however, was most decidedly human. And not an imperial. He was a Nord, if the armour said anything. And if that armour did say anything, it said that this was perhaps the worst addition to the day yet. Seifer Almasy. Monster Hunter.


The Nord, Seifer Almasy, dragged himself up from the hole. His armour was heavy and it made climbing difficult, but he was working on adrenalin now and the stagger it produced was outweighed heavily by the importance his mind put on the moment. And at that moment he was stood in the cold spring breeze of the Cyrodil Mountains, staring at a high-elf and a native. He grunted as he rearranged his shoulders, rolling them back. The high-elf he didn't know and it was clear from the way she glanced over at the imperial, that she didn't know him. The native imperial however, he did know. Squall Leonhart. Professional Grouch and Sneaky Bastard of the Year award winner 6 years running. His day just got better.

Apparently deciding he would need a bit more than that toothpick he called a weapon, Leonhart took out a throwing knife. Smart move. The way that guy flung those things around, Seifer would find them hard to dodge and it might just give the guy a handle. Seeing the obvious animosity between the two men, the high-elf turned to face Seifer as well, marking him as her preferred target. He grunted in appreciation, while he wasn't a big fan of elves in general, it was nice to know she considered him to be more of a threat than Leonhart, the little pip-squeak.

For his part, Seifer focused on Leonhart. It wasn't that he wouldn't attack the high-elf, because he would, but he would get to her later, right now his bigger priority was the imperial. He began towards him and, in turn, Leonhart took steps towards the high-elf, who advanced on Seifer. They were circling each other, watching each other's eyes, glancing back and forth between each other, gauging who would make the first move.


A/N: And there we have it... Quite long for a prologue, I grant you, but if you've watched the cinematic, you'll know there was no way I could miss anything out :D

I think I got it all, but if there are any details I missed and you think I should add them in, tell me and I'll do my best to do you proud :)

Thanks for reading, drop me a review, the next chapter is on its way...

-Lapin