Pre A/N: This story is made up of theories I made on FFVs13, mixed with fantasies of my own. This is how I envision and interpret FNC itself, with FF13 and Vs13. Hope you guys like it :P. And now, without further ado, here's the 1st chapter. Enjoy~
The Truth Lies Within
Chapter 1: Welcome
"Existence defined itself in two worlds: The Visible World of the Living and the Invisible World of the Dead, with the goddess Mwynn maintaining the balance between them for peace and tranquility to prosper. Both worlds were young and untouched. Mwynn had only one child, a son named Bhunivelze. Once his young body grew strong, groomed with his mother's love and affection and the powers he inherited from her, he defeated her, and thus took control over the mortal haven. He exiled her to the Unseen World, but he soon found reasons to believe that, before her ascend, she placed a curse on the living world that everything in it, even the seen world itself, is bound to be destroyed….including him.
He fell in the deepest abyss of infernal anguish over the fear of losing his life. He sought to destroy her from the Seen World once and for all to rid himself of the her curse and regain his immortality. But he cannot reach the Invisible World without giving up control over the Living. So to find the gate between both worlds, he created Pulse to search for the gate in the entire Living World. To assist him in his task, Bhunivelze created his sister Etro, but when he realized that he unintentionally crafted her in the likeness of his mother, he began to fear her and so gave her no power. To take her place, he created Lindzei and gave him the task to protect him and the world itself. He then went into a deep crystal slumber only to be awakened by Lindzei when they've found the gate. The mindlessly obedient gods set to work.
Etro, distressed over her lack of power and purpose, killed herself in despair by cutting her body. Through this action, without even realizing it, she entered Valhalla. What's more that was unknown to her was that humans were created, from her unintentional sacrifice, who lived only to die. She was saddened over their inevitable fate and became slightly fond of them because like them, she too was destined to die.
Upon her arrival at Valhalla, there she found Mwynn almost consumed by overflowing chaos. With her dying powers, she tasked Etro to protect the balance of the two worlds, for if she failed, the Universe would collapse, the destruction of the world being a fated fact and not a curse. Her son's goal of immortality had caused such disruption. The new goddess did not understand her duties first hand. She became lonely again. Time came when she finally understood the meaning behind the worlds of her predecessor, and conceived a plan to keep the overflowing chaos at bay. She placed a piece of chaos inside each human for them to hold, and they came to call it 'heart' and it was their greatest strength without them even realizing it. Though she opened the gate only in the time of need to make sure it was undetected, when humans died and passed over Valhalla, she greeted them, upon their arrival at the gate, with tears and songs of lament.
So long as people kept being born and dying, the balance was maintained. Meanwhile, Pulse crafted the world as he found fit while Lindzei created his own haven called Cocoon from debris of a land called Grand Pulse, a name the native mortals fashioned from their deity Pulse, and protected the seen world. As for humans, they worshipped Pulse as their Creator, Lindzei as their Protector and Etro as the goddess of death. With only limited knowledge of the ether-world, humans have many contradictory views on her. Some thought her to be a compassionate and powerless goddess, while others portray her as the cruel reincarnation of death.
Bhunivelze remained in slumber for millenniums to come, his existence forever unknown to humans. Blind to mortal eyes, Pulse and Lindzei continued their true biddings. For eons after eons, Lindzei had been harvesting as many souls he could acquire to trigger the gate to open before their eyes, while Pulse rummaged earth and created more realms, dimensions and lands to find the gate. To aid them further in finding the gate and it's key, they created lesser Fal'Cei who, to help themselves, turned humans to L'Cei, mere humans with granted powers, bound to a focus. Etro sometimes sent them her holy messengers in times of their hardship, as she pitied them for being fated to either remaining a crystal for all eternity, or to lose insanity in becoming mindless L'Ceith. Humans knew their gods, Pulse and Lendzei, created those Fal'Cei, but they never knew their purpose behind it. Eons rolled by with no trace of the gate, until one day, Pulse and Lindzei just…..disappeared."
As was carved on the crystalline oracle-tablet, it's transparent hue almost rendering the foreign words unreadable, if not invisible. The oracle-tablet was held up by a marble table, small but tall enough to reach a man's waist. It tells of the legend of the Universe: The Fabula Nova Crystallis. The rigidity of the crystal and the isolated location of this particular oracle helped it to preserve the message it bore. But in other realms with different timeline, the words , written in scriptures or on stones, were long gone, eroded away due to those inferior objects falling victim to natural circumstances. This caused humans residing in different realms to interpret the legend differently, some of them knowing about only Pulse and Lindzei and some only acknowledged the name of Etro. But that was all any human could ever come to know. Was it all real, or was it just another myth? Only the immortals know. But one thing was certain- there was more to the story than what meets the eye. It was not complete…..and probably never will go anywhere near completion.
This particular crystalline oracle-tablet happens to be securely concealed within the walls of an extremely colossal hall, impenetrable by those who would dare to trespass against the will of the Divine. The room seemed to be laid dormant due to lack of full-illumination. Far beyond the marble table was a small flight of steps leading to a singularly gigantic and magnificent statue at the end of the hall. The statue was that of a male, his head almost touching the ceiling. The masculine figure was heavily clothed and armored leaving only the tip of his nose to his upper neck visible. The imperial form had his head held high and had his chest heaved in divine pride, his fingers were intertwined and the junctions of the crossed fingers stabbed down a sword to the heart of the concrete ground. The uniquely designed sword had inscription embedded on them that reads to a foreign language not known to human knowledge for it was never intended for them. Without a doubt, it's whereabouts are concealed for a reason...
PostA/N: First off, I want to be clear that this crystal is not 'the crystal'. This crystal has no powers and is just like crystal like we have in real world. But it's really strong and doesn't weather. Well, that takes care of that. Now, I know it was really short and the FNC was pretty much known to you guys, but this is only the prologue. I still hope you liked and please review and let me know about what you thought about it. For the moment, I don't have a clue to where this leads, but if you DO like it, I'd be MORE than happy to try to keep you guys at the edge of your seats. Feedbacks highly appreciated.
Until next time~