Disclaimatudinator:

This fic, whatever it may end up containing, is an amalgamation of my own ideas and the creations and intellectual properties of the respective companies. In short I'm covering my butt because I don't have any money as it is, let alone after Squeenix/EA/Sony/Microsoft sue me . Please don't sue? THIS MEANS YOU BILL GATES!

Meet Mortimer Mactavish. Fear the alliteration. Quite the respectable name, don't you think? And indeed it befits Mactavish, for he is a respectable man. A proper English gentleman, by all accounts. Not quite the character you might expect to be thrust into a bizarre, amalgamation of Final Fantasy, Command and Conquer, Halo and whatever else I happen to think of whilst writing it, but there we are – the unfathomable and frankly odd world of Montague Dominicus Djugashvili… yah, it's a great pen name, eh? Anyway, back to Mactavish. It all began one day with an experiment.

A dark experiment. The kind of scientific endeavour that would have Viktor Frankenstein recoiling in horror. Tesla coils stretched to the roof of the workshop, crackling with electricity. Jars containing mysterious, unnatural mutations from across the globe sat on rows, dusty. Watching. Their labels bore such unholy names as 'Iznogoud 2: Iztillnogoud', 'Command and Negotiate' and 'Marvel vs. Paul McCartney'. Mactavish laughed. He pulled a switch, the coils flashed with power… and it was born.

"It's alive! Or at least, somewhat powered." He stood back. Static plagued the air. The lights were all out. Except for one – a blue light. A single light. A light symbolising every evil known to man. Evils that could not be conceived by any sane or compassionate mind.

"I have done it! I have created it! I shall see those fools red-faced now! They said it couldn't be done, but here it sits. The perfect combination. The holy grail… a PlayBox." Lightning would normally have crashed dramatically here, setting Mactavish's silhouette against the black sky through the window behind him, but we're a little light on the special effects budget after that fight with all the lasers and stuff later on, so we'll have to do without. Just… smack your head off something really hard. You'll get the loud crash and, if you're lucky, your vision will be a little like seeing lightning. And if so, congratulations! You've successfully installed brain damage! Or at least the freeware version – concussion.

"This device… the perfect combination of Sony and Microsoft. Their two powers in one machine. Capable of a billion processes per second more than any other computer built, able to play any Playstation (And PS2) or Xbox game ever made, able to play two at once!" He cackled again. A proper English mad professor, of whom Dr. Jekyll would have been proud. Well, Jekyll was Scottish, but you get the idea. And then the nightmare truly began – he found the CDs. Final Fantasy X, the perfect mind enslavement program, and Halo, the most potent of all devices. Inserting them into the twin, gaping CD trays, he noted they looked like gates. Gates as he had only seen in his darkest nightmares… the gates of Nintendo! (Look, this is a personal piece; I'm allowed to be disproportionately and unfairly critical of whatever I want.) He shuddered, but pressed on. Literally. It's a terrible pun, I know, but as I said my budget is really tight. It's worth bearing with it though, it gets a lot flashier later on! Please? I need to establish my credentials… ok, everyone who is still reading, thanks. And if not, you suck and what's worse, because you didn't read it you'll never know you suck! MUAHAHAHAHAA!

The power button flicked. In tandem the CDs retraced into the drives. Mactavish turned on the television, checked the connections and picked up the controller. It jarred, having been granted thrice the rumble power of any predecessor. It almost fell from his hand but stopped after a moment and he regained his grip. He watched the screen in anticipation. Nothing. His palms began to sweat, he feared some error, some uncalculated mistake, a cord not connected or a board not soldered. One more minute, he thought. And not a second before he was crushed with massive disappointment and a desire to blame the French, he found himself floating somewhere. Everything was white – he could see nothing.

"I say, what's this now? I don't believe this was supposed to happen. Perhaps there was a power surge? I shall have to take more precautions in future."

Time passed.

"I say, where am I? I don't recall this background or title screen…" He gazed around. Slowly, almost as though at his whim, a background faded into view. "Perhaps I've found the legendary Abyss of the 32-X? That was supposed to only be a rumour though… I do wish I had my notebook with me. Accursed trans-dimensional relocation devices, depriving me of my note taking equipment. I'll be the laughing stock of E3! Not even Daikatana elicited such amusement as this surely shall! I… wait. What's this now?" Words appeared.

- The Final Fantasy Thirteen

He stared. For a long time, he stared. Then,

"LETTERS?!" Outraged. "They spelt the number of the game with LETTERS?!?" Mactavish's face was bright red and his moustache bristled. This was the greatest travesty he had ever encountered! Letters! What ill place was this that spelt numbers with letters? "A mockery! But regardless, I must persist in the interests of science."

Press start. Mactavish attempted to press start numerous times.

"Confounded device, why aren't you working?" He struggled and cursed and wrangled and schemed, before it occurred to him. Press start. Of course! He swam, as it were, over to the word 'start' floating in the sky and pushed it in.

Boink!

"Scientific progress goes Boink?" (DUDE! Uber reference to Calvin and Hobbes!) " That didn't sound quite right. Hmmm, this is most intriguing." It was, in essence, an intro sequence. Except that Mactavish was the star of the intro, and the events leading up to him being where he was now (Which is to say, 'somewhere'.). And then he found himself standing alone in a forest. "Accursed Square-Enix! Another forest? Whatever happened to originality? Massive cities? Ruined towns? Some sort of war? I don't want to be another Tidus! Anything but another Tidus!"

(Side note - If Mactavish's speech patterns and dialect/accent change, it's because I'm lazy. K? Quit whining.)