Final Fantasy VII and PlayStation are owned by Square Enix and Sony, respectively, meaning they do not belong to me. I am in no way, shape, and/or form claiming to be the owner/creator of these concepts, though I do claim any characters not apart of the original Final Fantasy VII storyline (such as Astrid and Marcus) mine. As such, I would appreciate fellow authors and readers to give credit where credit is due and not steal any of my characters and/or concepts. Thank you, and have a pleasant day.
(The Tale of Unwanted Destiny)
She walked through the front door and fell onto the carpet, making sure that her shoed feet stayed off of the carpet. Her winter jacket crinkled uncomfortably around her throat, but she didn't care enough at the moment to do something about it. She was bone tired.
After lying on the ground for about three and a half minutes, she rolled onto her back and kicked her shoes off, the thick boot-sneakers thudding to the river stone entranceway heavily. She then pushed herself into a sitting position and peeled off her thick winter coat and rose to her feet, leaving said jacket on the floor for a later time. She was just too lazy…
Suddenly, the television volume blared in the living room, a loud militaristic song booming through the house before someone turned the volume down to a level that could no longer be heard by the rest of the neighborhood. Raising a brow, she walked into the living room.
There, she found her little brother sitting on the ground, a game controller in his hands and his eyes fixated on the screen. She watched him silently for a moment, then walked over to the entertainment center and turned off the VCR, changing the screen from the game to some gardening channel.
She turned to find her brother looking at her in horror, his eyes wide and his jaw open so his chin touched his chest. "Wha…wha…wha…wha…"
"You're grounded, aren't you?" She asked with a smug grin, leaning against the TV. "Mom and Dad both agreed that you weren't supposed to be playing any games until you brought up your math grade…"
He snapped his jaw shut and glared at his sister, which was actually rather amusing coming from a ten year old with a pudding bowl haircut and a smudge of dirt on his right eyelid. "You just ruined four hours of solid playing! I'll never be able to get that back!"
"Wah, wah, wah." She mocked, crossing her eyes and making her hand act as a puppet, "My name is Marcus and I can't pass a multiplication test. I cry every night because my Mom makes me eat my vegetables, and no one knows that I still sleep with a stuffed kitten!"
"That is so not true!" Marcus screamed, jumping up and stomping his feet, "I've been eating my broccoli just fine! Even Mom said so!"
"Ah." She smirked, quirking a brow, "So you won't deny the accusation that you're still sleeping with Mr. Whiskers? Sad."
The boy gapped stupidly, making her smirk grow. When he saw this, he stomped his foot again and shouted, "I do not sleep with that stupid cat!" A light glaze came over his eyes. He was about to cry.
Now, all of this may make her out to be a bad person, but she really wasn't that cruel… at least not in that way. She just really wanted to get a rise out of him, was all. And, now she could tell she had gone a bit too far.
Letting her smirk turn into a kinder smile, she walked up to her little brother wrapped her arm around his shoulder, giving him a half hug. "Sorry, Marcus. I was just kidding. Really. I won't tell Mom you were playing the game. And, to make it up to you even more," She reached out and turned the VCR back on, at which the game popped back onto the screen, still at the same place it had been, "There's your game. You'd better get as much fun out of it as you can before Mom and Dad get home. I'll help you on your math later so you can catch up."
He looked up at her with wide eyes and a smile, "Really?"
She nodded, "Really." It was really kind of pathetic how easy it was to make up with him, and it almost made her sick sometimes. But, then again, he was her little brother…
After Marcus had plopped back down in front of the screen and started playing again, she walked over to the sofa and threw herself down on it, laying a hand over her face and sighing. It had been a really long day, and she was really tired from taking all of those…
"So, how did the SAT testing go?" Marcus's voice broke the silence and snapped her out of her quiet resting moment.
She groaned in reply, flipping onto her stomach and burying her face in a pillow. After a few moments of near suffocation, she turned her head to face Marcus and the TV, sighing again, "Same as usual; six hours of mindless testing, broken periodically by mediocre break periods and reinitiated by the droning of the proctors at the beginning of every new section. And that's just the Reasoning. I'm not even going to bother taking the Subject tests."
Marcus shrugged, "If it's so bad, why do you bother taking the SAT, anyway?"
She scowled darkly at the back of his head, "Try the fact that most colleges in the U.S., decent or no, require it as one of their entrance prerequisites. You don't take it, you can't get in."
Forgetting he was in the middle of a particularly difficult-looking battle, Marcus turned and gapped, "Really?!"
"Yes, really." She nodded, "Now, you might want to turn back to the game before Lost Number kills you."
Marcus paled and was jut turning back to the screen when Lost Number used one of its specials and completely annihilated his characters. The room was silent as the screen faded and switched to the 'Game Over' screen, some sad music playing.
"Noooooooo!!" Marcus dropped the controller and doubled over on the floor, clutching his head.
She rolled her eyes and sighed, "That's what you get for leveling up for four hours inside the Shinra mansion and not leaving Nibelheim to save."
Still moaning, Marcus began to rake his fingers across the TV screen. "All of that time… all of that energy… wasted." He flopped onto the ground and shuddered, curling up into a ball.
"Oh, quit being a drama queen!" She growled, standing and walking over to him. Honestly, the time he spent crying over that stupid game…
"But Lost Number is so hard!" He moaned, rolling onto his back to look up at her, "I've been working on trying to beat him for five days!"
She scoffed and rolled her eyes, "Then you must not be doing it right."
"My technique is flawless!" Marcus jumped to his feet and declared, forcing her to back away as he waved his arms foolishly. "It's just an impossible boss! It's like they never want you to get Vincent!"
"Whatever." She sighed. She then looked at the screen for a moment, ignoring her brother as his whining continued. She cut him off by saying, "Let me see the controller."
Marcus scoffed and sat up, looking at his sister with a skeptical eye, "What, you think you can beat it?"
She frowned, "Just give it to me."
He giggled, but handed her the controller, anyway. As she sat down, he pulled back and watched her closely, a smug smirk on his face that she could tell said 'My big sister? Playing a video game? Hah! She doesn't stand a chance.' …Little maggot.
Ignoring her brother's obvious doubt in her gaming abilities, she reloaded the game from the last save and opened to the world map, the little 'Cloud' character standing beside his little car and right in front of the little Nibelheim. She directed the character into the town, across the square, and into the Shinra mansion.
Inside of the mansion, she was faced with almost no monsters and was able to run right up to the safe. "Combination?"
"Right 36, Left 10, Right 59, Right 97." Marcus recited from memory, still grinning.
She rolled her eyes and entered the combination, smirking when she got it right the first time. She looked over to Marcus, grinning. "Ha."
His smirk just grew wider and he pointed to the screen. "Ha."
She looked at the screen just in time to see the Lost Number appear in all of its ugliness and horrible pixel resolution. She frowned when it pounded Tifa and reduced her health to almost zero. "Well… that was unexpected."
"Ready to give up yet?" Marcus teased.
She rolled her eyes, "As if, squirt. I'm just getting started." She got serious and buckled down, ready to take Lost Number down.
Though she hadn't really played the game, she had been watching Marcus play long enough to get the basic idea of how to battle. Fortunately, Marcus had been semi-tactical enough to put all of his summon materia into the slots on the weapons and armor, as well as the 'Restore' materia, which he had managed to level up to 'Cure2'. She frowned, though, when she noticed that he hadn't equipped an 'All' to any of his materia.
"Marcus, where is your 'All' materia?" She asked, forced to heal the characters one by one.
"Uhh," She heard her brother begin to reply, "The 'All' materia? Isn't that stuff… useless?"
She groaned, wincing as the characters took another hard hit, "Marcus, the 'All' materia is something you equipped to joined materia slots to make the magic apply to all of the people on the battle field, either on your side or the enemies. What did you think it was for?!"
"Easy money?"
"Marcus!" She yelled as another one of Lost Number's party-wide attacks hit the group. Turning back to the game, she healed the characters and set them to use summon materia, then turned back to her brother and glared at him, "Marcus, if you don't know what something is for you don't sell it. You research what it's for!"
Marcus laughed nervously, "Hehe, oops…"
She just growled and continued to fight, frowning when the Lost Number turned orange. "What on Earth…" She glanced at Marcus for an explanation.
He just shrugged, "I dunno. I never made it that far."
Frowning, she turned back to the TV just in time to see that the 'Shiva' materia wasn't do nearly as much damage as it had when it had been used it earlier. She shook her head and growled, "He's basically impervious to magic attacks, now…" Pinching the bridge of her nose, she and sighed, "Mêlée it is, then."
Though it took a while, as well as a whole lot of MP and Phoenix Downs, she pummeled the Lost Number into the dirt and earned a new summon materia, as well as the key to open the door to Vincent's little coffin room. After Vincent joined the group, she handed the controller back to Marcus and stood, walking out of the room. "I'm off to get some homework done. Good luck."
"Thanks, sis!"
Up the stairs and to the right, two doors down, she entered her room and turned on the lights, shutting the door. Across the bare room with white walls and white sheeted bed in the corner was her work desk. That was where she walked to. In her chair with a pencil in her hand and a blank sheet of paper spread out, she wrote. But not what she told her brother she would be writing. She began another story.
Though the tales were never excessively long or too convoluted, they still flowed and wound, contriving plots and worlds, characters and motives, beginnings and ends. For this particular story, she wrote in a different fashion. Rather than writing a story with a character birthed to greatness and wealth, she wrote of a character born to normalcy and lackluster life.
The character grew up in a world that held no adventure, for there was no adventure to be had other than moving into her own house and making a living with a job at the local grocery store. She was a good student who was bound by nature for great things, though they weren't epic things. But, though she had everything she needed to make herself an excellent member of her society, she didn't want any of it. She wanted adventure… she wanted an epic… she wanted fantasy.
If only something would happen to her. Something magical.
…If only.
About five lengthy pages later, she looked out of her window and blinked in surprise. She had written the rest of the day away. A glance at her clock told her it was eight thirty, and she sighed. Her parents would be home soon, and they would want to know about how she thought she had done on the SAT. It was something she didn't want to deal with.
Figuring that Marcus would come up to her room and ask for help if he really needed it, she took a bath and put on night clothes, crawling into bed.
She was just drifting off to sleep when something woke her and she sat straight up, looking around. It hadn't been a noise… and she hadn't seen anything through the window… so what was it? Frowning, she threw her legs over the side of the bed and stood, looking around. Then, she felt the something that had woken her again. This time, she could tell what it was.
There was a tingling sensation in the back of her head, kind of like what you feel when you lay down on a hard surface and the back of your head falls asleep. But this was slightly different… sharper… deeper… more distinct. She could actually feel where the sensation was located. She raised a hand to the back of her head to scratch whatever it was, but all her fingers met was scalp. The sensation was beneath her skull, in her brain.
Frowning, she shook her head, trying to get rid of it. A car passed her house, filling her window with its bright headlights for a few seconds. Those few seconds were enough for her to see the pages she had left on her desk. It was in that moment she was inspired to read what she had written, which would be interesting seeing as she hadn't really paid complete attention to what she had written; she had just done it.
The clock beside the papers read twelve forty-five, so she knew that her parents were already home and sleeping. Papers in hand, she returned to bed and flicked on her bedside lamp, the white-speckled blue lampshade giving the room the illusion of a bright, moonless sky. After making sure the papers were in order, she held the first page on her lap and began to ready.
This is the story of a girl who was like any other.
She had common brown hair,
common green eyes,
common clothes with tags that all said 'Made in Guatemala', or some other common country that made common clothes.
She may have been a bit paler than most
and she may have been a bit better at taking tests, giving those around her the impression that she was smart.
She blinked.
She wrote that?
…This girl kinda sounded like…her…
They believed she was destined to go places.
She believed she was destined for an average life.
They wanted her to change the world.
She just wanted to live in a different world.
They believed she would grow and die in this world, facing no obstacles that they hadn't.
She wasn't sure what would happen in her future.
They thought she would be there forever.
…They were wrong.
She quirked a brow. "Huh?"
She vaguely smelled something burning, but figured it was just the heater. It always smelled like that when it turned on.
'Dad really needs to fix that…'
This common girl was born under stars that held uncommon powers.
This girl was destined for a journey she wasn't ready for.
…But… then again… are we ever really prepared to face our destinies?
Are we ever ready for our callings?
Are we ever ready for the future?
This time, the smell of burning was stronger. She dropped the pages and jumped to her feet, looking over at the door. Smoke was rising up from the cracks, curling around in thick tendrils. She ran over and grabbed the door handle, letting it go the second she touched it and cursing loudly. It was blistering hot.
This girl, born in a common world yet holding an uncommon destiny, would never be able to fulfill her calling in the world in which she had grown.
She was needed elsewhere.
She pressed her hands against the wood of the door, sinking to her knees in shock. The door was only marginally cooler than the doorknob. If she tried to open it… the flames would pour inside and incinerate her in moments.
To fulfill her destiny, the girl would have to traverse time and space, going from her world to the world where she was needed.
To fulfill her destiny, she would have to leave behind everyone she loved and everything she had ever worked for.
Panicking, she ran over to the window and looked out of it. Fire trucks had already arrived and her Mom and Dad were standing outside with them, looking up at their burning house in fear. They saw her and waved their arms wildly. One of the firefighters noticed and looked up at her window, shouting orders and pointing to her when he saw her.
She stepped back from the window and picked up the desk chair, bashing it against the window.
Shards of glass fell and glittered like droplets of flaming rain.
But, the girl would not journey alone. With her, she would bring the most unexpected of company, and it would be for this company that she would risk her life and make important decisions.
She leaned out the window, ignoring the biting cold as the winter night nipped her skin and summoned goose pimples.
"Where's Marcus?!"
The journey would be hard.
Her parents shook their heads and she felt her heart stopped. Her father shouted up, "They haven't gotten to his room yet! They've been trying, but the stairs collapsed!"
There would be times when she would wish to quit.
A firefighter ran up to her window, reaching in to grab her. His walkie-talkie buzzed.
"It's no use! Get the girl and get out!"
"What about my brother?!" She screamed at the walkie-talkie, as if it could give her an answer.
But, no matter what, she would have to push on.
"We'll do everything we can!" The firefighter shouted back, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Right now, we need to get you out!"
"Like hell I'm leaving my brother!" She screamed, kicking back out of the man's grasp. She turned and ran.
For, if she quits, the lives of herself and those around her would end, and the world she was meant to help save would be destroyed.
She ran into her bathroom, grabbing a bathrobe and as many towels as she could carry out of the cupboard, thanking whoever there was to thank that she had left water in the bathtub from her bath. After she ripped the bathrobe sash from the loops, she threw the clothes into the tub and soaked them.
And if that world died…
When the clothes were thoroughly soaked, she pulled them out and wrapped the towels around her waist, tying them with the robe sash before throwing the actual bathrobe over her shoulders. As a last minute thought, she jumped into the bathtub and sloshed around, making sure her body was soaked. She jumped back out and ran into her room.
The firefighter was still struggling to crawl through the window when she pressed a cold washcloth over her nose and opened the door.
He was still calling to her as she stepped into the inferno.
Then her world…
She ran through the hall, looking behind her to see if the firefighter was coming. Just as she stopped to look, there was an explosion. She covered her head, looking up only when the explosion had ended. The way back to her room was gone… She turned and ran on, throwing herself at Marcus's door when she got there, doing her best to ignore the flames that had already licked her legs dry.
Would perish.
Just as she stumbled through Marcus's door, she was met with a sight that shocked her and stopped her dead. There was a tall man in the center of the room, with long silver hair and a long black cloak.
Marcus was unconscious and draped over the man's arm.
…This is the story of a girl.
"Marcus!!"
A girl with a destiny.
The man looked at her, green cat eyes flashing in the flames.
She shuddered in fear.
He smiled.
A girl who would have greatness shoved upon her in the most violent of ways.
"Let him go!"
The man's smile only widened.
A girl who was destined either to change the world… or perish in the throes that destiny forced upon her.
She watched in horror as the man reached into his coat. He pulled out a green, pulsating orb and held it above him.
She wanted to run at him, but his eyes froze her.
She could only watch as the light surrounded him.
A girl who would face pain, anger, joy, success, love, failure, life, and death to complete her quest.
When the man started to disappear, she ran forward.
"MARCUS!!"
Marcus awoke with a jerk and looked at her, his eyes wide and fearful.
And the name of that girl is…
"ASTRID!!"
She jumped into the light as they disappeared…
Everything around her faded to white…
Everything was so warm…
She closed her eyes and fell into the abyss…
And thus my journey began.
