The other two characters are not included in this one-shot because they serve as the two 'secret' characters to Mrfipp's story, similar to how Shantotto and Gabranth are not included in the opening of the original game because they serve as the two 'secret' characters to the original game. Technically, the first chapter to Mrfipp's story, Prologue, contains part of the opening scene, however, it does not contain all of it. This one-shot covers the rest of the opening scene to Mrfipp's story from the moment the twenty-six warriors ran off towards each other until the very end of the opening scene (the second chapter to Mrfipp's story, Destiny Odyssey, does not contain any part of the opening scene). Chronologically, this one-shot takes place between these two chapters. There are twelve footnotes in this fanfic that mainly focus on the characters from Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy XII, and Final Fantasy XIII (such as references to their respective attacks and allusions as well).

Special thanks to Mrfipp for writing the fanfic 'Dissidia Redux' and to Square Enix for the game that both this one-shot and Mrfipp's 'Dissidia Redux' are based off of, the characters, etc.

Link to the first chapter of the 'Dissidia Redux' story: s/5962533/1/Dissidia-Redux

Link to the second chapter of the 'Dissidia Redux' story: s/5962533/2/Dissidia-Redux

This is my very first fanfic. I hope you all enjoy it. :)

Dissidia Redux - The Opening Scene

The Chaos warriors jumped off the cliff in front of them, some entering flight whilst others slowly landed. The Cosmos warriors were all running ahead off another cliff, save for Terra who was gliding.

The Warrior of Light and Garland faced off for a moment, until Lightning intervened by quickly running towards Garland whilst firing bullets from her gunblade*(1) and then she clashed her sword against Garland's weapon. Lightning then turned towards the Cloud of Darkness after being flipped aside by Garland, believing that its Particle Beam attack was targeted towards her - but she was wrong; it was targeted for Cecil. Cecil blocked the attack by absorbing it in his Dark Knight form and then converting it to light in his Paladin form. He did not notice however that Garland was about to strike him from behind. Thankfully, Cloud noticed this, shoved Cecil aside for his protection, and swung full force with his heavy sword against Garland's chimeric weapon.

Ultimecia summoned and launched a flurry of arrows towards Terra, who was standing on a cliff. She noticed these and deflected them away from her with a magical force field.

However, these arrows were showering towards the Onion Knight who began to run away from them. He swiftly rolled then leaped over the Cloud of Darkness as it unleashed its Particle Beam attack. However, in front of him, Nag'molada threw three consecutive light javelins*(2); the Onion Knight dodged the first two. The Onion Knight braced for the impact of the last of the three light javelins, knowing that it was too late to dodge it, but thankfully, Cecil blocked the attack in his Paladin form with his lance-like weapon and absorbed its light. Meanwhile, Cloud tried to strike Nag'molada from behind, but Nag'molada noticed this and summoned two swords*(3) in his hands and clashed them against Cloud's heavy sword.

Bartz and Vaan were running*(4) towards Dysley, swiftly dashing and dodging the number of ruin spells*(5) that were being fired towards them by Dysley. Bartz summoned his copy of the Warrior of Light's Braveheart*(6) when he was closer to Dysley, but a second later, it was too late because Dysley had summoned many balls of light*(7) that were about to home on the two of them. At the last moment, Vaan pulled Bartz towards him and then stomped on and punched on the ground as a green crest appeared and summoned a tornado*(8) that protected himself and Bartz from the balls of light homing in on them and launched Bartz into the air. Dysley looked upwards as this was happening, still confident about his own position, strength, and defence as Bartz quickly dived down towards him from the air with his blade pointed at him. Dysley was prepared to move aside and away from the blade and he did so.

Squall's gunblade scrapped across the ground before he lifted it, preparing to duel with Sephiroth. The two clashed their blades again and again until Sephiroth leaped high into the air. Squall took chase, and the process repeated, except this time in midair; they clashed their blades again and again some more. This lasted shorter than the first time, however, because Sephiroth then swung his sword back and sent an energy blade towards Squall. He deflected it with his gunblade, however, the energy blade broke up the fight, which seemed to be somewhat of a stalemate at this point, between Firion and Jecht. Firion and Jecht were forced away from each other, then all of a sudden, Golbez was telekinetically lifting the great mass of rock that the two were on and other rocks surrounding it. He specifically tilted the rock that the two were on in order to give Jecht an advantage; Firion was sliding off the rock and ended up only hanging there by his hands whilst Jecht was charging towards him, smiling and readying a strong punch. Jecht punched Firion right in the chest, causing him to fall from a height off the rock. Firion, though, was thinking quickly and ended up saving himself by tying some rope to his dagger and giving the dagger a strong throw towards the rock that he fell off of. He succeeded in piercing the rock, thus saving him from his fall.

Firion hung onto the rope as it swung him around the rock, whilst nearby, Zidane was twirling with a Mage Masher in each hand away from Kefka in midair, though the clown pursued. Zidane was slashing at and deflecting the fireballs that Kefka had sent towards him moments before whilst Kefka was maintaining control over the fireballs, redirecting the ones that Zidane had deflected back to Zidane.

As this was happening, somewhere else, Vayne looked up and then swung his arms down whilst simultaneously looking forward again, causing himself to be surrounded by a burning orange glow*(9) and for his right fist to be enflamed. On the other end, Prishe put her legs together and put both her arms in a position perpendicular to the rest of her body whilst looking forward at her current opponent, causing herself to emit a circular shockwave of light from her body*(10) and for her right fist to be illuminated with light energy. The two then charged at one another and they each readied a blow directed for their respective opponent. Ultimately, Vayne's enflamed fist collided head-on with Prishe's illuminated fist and vice versa.

As for Zidane, he then swung his tail around Kefka and slingshotted himself off of him when he noticed that his ally, Bartz, was trapped in a maelstrom that was being caused by Exdeath, with only his copy of the Onion Knight's Onion Sword*(11) cutting through and protecting him from being crushed by the maelstrom. Tidus, running, looked to the right and noticed Bartz trapped in the maelstrom, however, he couldn't aid him just yet because Kuja spun around in the air, sending ten balls of light energy raining down towards Tidus. Tidus hopped and flipped and continued to run and even leaped over Kuja to avoid these orbs. At a point in his run, he noticed that Zidane was flipping towards him. Realizing that Zidane wants to attack Exdeath in order to save Bartz, Tidus leaped into the air and put himself in a dive position. Tidus spun around in midair in order to gain momentum for Zidane for when he wrapped his tail around one or both of his legs in order to slingshot towards Exdeath.

That is what happened. Zidane flipped in midair a few more times, wrapped his tail around Tidus' right leg, spun Tidus around a few more times, slingshotted off of him towards Exdeath, and finally got one of his Mage Mashers ready in order to slash at Exdeath. Exdeath noticed this, however, and stopped his attack on Bartz in order to block Zidane's slash with his own sword. This is what he did, and despite how Zidane did not strike Exdeath, Zidane did succeed in his objective to interrupt the maelstrom created by Exdeath that Bartz was caught in.

Ultimecia continued to fire arrows at Terra, who jumped backwards and then slowly landed on her feet as she launched a fire spell in order to destroy the arrows that were being launched at her. When the arrows seemed to have stopped firing, new arrows all of a sudden came from Terra's left. Terra quickly noticed this fact, gasped, and turned towards her left to see Ultimecia fly downwards towards Terra as she launched another round of arrows towards her. Terra dodged these arrows by performing two quick, high, but graceful backflips consecutively. When Terra landed after her second backflip, the Emperor looked down at her knowing that she was standing so close to a trap that he had set for her. She took one step backwards, and like the Emperor had known, the aforementioned trap was set off, causing many landmines completely surrounding Terra to appear. Despite how Terra was looking for one, there was no escape to this trap, and the landmines exploded in quick succession.

Behind the remaining smoke, the Emperor expected to see Terra dead, but he was surprised to see that she had survived that, with Cloud to her left blocking the attack and Lightning to her right doing the same*(12). The Onion Knight rose up from below, shielding Terra from further harm whilst Firion and Cecil in his Dark Knight form leaped down from above to Cloud's left and Lightning's right, respectively. The latter two warriors dashed towards their foes. On the other end, the Chaos warriors have all regathered and prepared to face the Cosmos warriors head on. They dashed towards them, some running and some gliding, whilst the Cosmos warriors all ran towards their opponents.

The Warrior of Light, Garland, Firion, the Emperor, the Onion Knight, the Cloud of Darkness, Cecil, Golbez, Bartz, Exdeath, Terra, Kefka, Cloud, Sephiroth, Squall, Ultimecia, Zidane, Kuja, Tidus, Jecht, Prishe, Nag'molada, Vaan, Vayne, Lightning, Dysley - twenty-six warriors - two factions - one conflict: Dissidia Redux.

The skies were calm once again and under them, the Warrior of Light lay near Cosmos' throne, knocked out.

Footnotes:

(1) Alludes to the scene in Final Fantasy XIII in Palumpolum in which Lightning was running towards a group of PSICOM officers whilst simultaneously firing at them and holding on to Hope's hand.

(2) I never played Final Fantasy XI, but according to the eighth chapter of 'Dissidia Redux' (link: s/5962533/8/Dissidia-Redux), Nag'molada is able to summon spears/javelins made entirely of light.

(3) I never played Final Fantasy XI, but according to the eighth chapter of 'Dissidia Redux' (link in footnote #2), Nag'molada is able to summon large swords into his hands.

(4) Alludes to the scene in which Vaan and Penelo were escaping from the collapsing Glabados Ruins in Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings.

(5) Based off of the attack 'Baptism in Ruin' used by Dysley when fighting him in his first form as Barthandelus in Final Fantasy XIII.

(6) The Warrior of Light's weapon of choice. It usually appears alongside his Shield of Light, which is (as the name implies) his shield of choice.

(7) Based off of the attack 'Destrudo' used by Dysley when fighting him in his first form as Barthandelus in Final Fantasy XIII. However, this version of the attack is much shorter in charging time than the original version of the attack.

(8) Based off of the 'Windburst' concurrence in Final Fantasy XII.

(9) The glow surrounding Vayne is the same as the glow surrounding him in his Vayne Novus form in Final Fantasy XII.

(10) Based off of the HP attack 'Banishga' used by Prishe in Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy.

(11) The Onion Knight's weapon of choice.

(12) Lightning's guard position alludes both to the pose she used when she said to Dysley "if they only knew a l'Cie was the one filling their glasses" in Final Fantasy XIII and to the pose she used at the end of the opening of Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy.

Thank you for reading this fanfic. Please review. :)