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Final Fantasy 4: Tides of Midnight
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Authors Note: (forgive me for the long intro….it is a prolog-------it's perfectly fine to skip all this bs and go right to the story)
I've idiotically chosen FF4 to write about, a game that is too old, has too poor graphics for most people, and is relatively unpopular nowadays which is sad; because it really is a classic game. So, basically that means no on will read this AND that those that do (mostly imaginary people) probably won't even care. I'm also aware that half the people who might end up reading this have never played the game and, for those that did, it was a while ago. Soooo, I tried to write in such a way that you really didn't have to play the first game to understand what's going on. Like one of those Hollywood sequels (usually bad) where you don't need to see the first one. Just take it like some kind of fantasy story with some hidden past that will mostly be revealed.
This is done for two reasons pretty much. For one, as much as I love FF4 and its style of game, the lack of cg and cut scenes are somewhat adverse to story depth. Not that I don't think FF4 was a deep game, quite on the contrary, but some of the characters stories require a bit of interpretation on the players part, and this story is in a way just that (plus a new story ark) so I kind of want to go in detail about some of the way the world/characters based on the way my imagination filled in the blanks. And of course, it makes it readable for those that didn't play it, which works for me and be great lack of readers.
Notes on FF4: (you can totally skip this if you've played the game)
Everything that would behoove the reader to know before reading will be filled in within the notes. Here's a quick synapses:
Zeromus (the ultimate evil) was disposed of by 5 heroes: Cecil (dark knight/paladin), Rosa (white mage), Kain(dragoon), Rydia(summoner), and Edge (ninja) (don't worry too much, they all have their introductions in due time)
Several others helped: Yang(monk), Edward (bard)(him not so much…pansy), Cid(engineer), Palom(black mage), Porom(white mage), FuSoYa(black mage), and Tellah(sage) (and the only one that died). Again, don't worry who all these people are, my story pretty much explains all that.
Also last piece of info: Cecil, Rosa, and Kain were all involved in one of those best friends in love with the same woman love triangles, in which Kain ended up the odd man out. This is what made him susceptible to Zeromus's mind control that was used to make him turn evil for a while before, again, fighting alongside his friends. Although as the end of the game and my story shows he isn't exactly a ray of sunshine these days (he didn't show up at the wedding).
Oh and dragoons (like Kain) are spear fighters who use aerial combat. They also often have armor reminiscent of dragons (dragon engraved helmet, ect..).
Story Notes:
It has been 2 or 3 years since Cecil and Rosa are married and Zeromus was defeated. The characters are basically just doing exactly what they seemed like they'd be doing from the games ending. This stories main themes involve the way desire rotates intent, the good and dark side (basically the themes to FF4 continued).
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Prologue: Fading Horizon
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The sheen of glimmering steel flashed with moonlight; the muted blue-black horizon faltered in the smooth darkness of the cold indigo sheen. The moon's falling light slid down the clear, still sky, the stars pulling fast from their etches in the rolling stratosphere, the cries of night falling silent against the raised wall of inky, cosmic dissolution. Flowing from the full crescent, the moon illuminated each fading shadow with the ghost of light, the dying glow of a cold, damp futility. Dark clouds, hanging from the sky, eclipsed the waning moon, falling across the sky like shimmering wraiths briefly floating short of the empty heavens.
Still as the night, and cold as its dying breath, the horizon's reflection in his icy blue eyes found empty depths colder still.
The mirrored horizon rolled across his silhouette as the tall armored figure moved against the moonlight. The unblinking eyes of his helmet's dragon mantle, crowned the rising figure of his body, tall and lean, a shadowy steel blue against the hollow night sky. He stood motionless, his feet poised on the stony precipice leaning upward upon the turbulent mountain range.
His head moved again, this time staring directly against the large waning moon.
His spear flashed.
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Gnelk, a lower chieftain, thought again of food, drool rolling down his wide green mouth. A group of goblins, roasting flesh at a small camp fire down below, ripped meat from the bone with their fanged jaws. The rising smell of cooked skin and drink wafted pleasantly to the goblin chieftain's nose, and the sound of goblin laughter invited another round of brutal pillaging to come. His men were happy, and happy to grow fat off this soft land as much as it could allow.
Breaking the noises of the cool wilderness and the goblin's romp of eating, drinking and laughing, blue black lighting struck the camp with cold wrath.
The first strike, as the man's armored body landed, kneeled, atop the wet grass, let loose a gash of blood across the sky, three goblins each clasping their chests and necks as the wounds registered death to their now limp bodies.
The first sound was a goblin's angry scream, caught dead in his throat with the man's second strike.
Gnelk stumbled out of his chair, trying to grasp his mace from the ground, littered with spilt blood and drink.
Another goblin was cut down, too late to draw his weapon, and then another, this one only beginning to attempt an escape. The body fell toward Gnelk, and the scrawny goblin chieftain turned aside and rolled past, seeking cover toward the shade of one of the camp's tents. The tall human made another wide swing of his spear, and he heard the death wails of two more goblins. Making his way in-between the tall grass and camp supplies, half provided from the hoard, and half raided from the houses of farmers on their way here, Gnelk regained his concentration.
They had expected to find a man, tall and proud in the arrogant manner that all men were, hoarding the daylight with their filthy hairless hides. This man may move like the moonlight, but he was still a human, a day dweller who stole the land from all the other beings, casting goblins like himself out to dank caves in bleak hillsides, subjecting his people to disgrace and countless humiliations. Humans reeked of that proud stench, this one even more than others, and Gnelk would die a happy man to wipe that arrogant stain of flesh off this earth.
The massacre continued, now Gnelk could hear several goblins had managed to raise their weapons, although their cries proved it did little good against the deadly precession of the man's spear. But little did the arrogant human know that this was not his ambush. The red cloaked man had paid his troupe handsomely to come to these hills, to murder those farmers, and to provoke the tall spear wielding warrior. Gnelk finally made his way to the largest tent, tied down almost a hundred feet away from the main camp, and ducked inside. Yes, Gnelk thought, the man with the dragon helmet was in for a nasty surprise. Gnelk laughed as he undid the ropes.
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Another goblin littered the ground with his foul corpse, the blood soaking from his body into the cold damp grass. Kain looked up at the destruction with his blue eyes, cold and emotionless, and set his gaze toward the final tent. He walked slowly, feeling no need to hurry. He had found the remains of the farm already, each member slaughtered without even the slightest hint of barbaric compassion. He expected no less from goblins, filthy carrion mostly, often cruel and brutal just for the enjoyment of it. The only real surprise here was that goblins had wondered this far north, away from their troves in the vast Mist Mountains. He could not bring this family back, but he could give them vengeance, if not divine justice. A disgraced dragoon warrior was capable of nothing more.
"You humans….too proud, even for your own flesh," a high pitched, cracking voice yelped from the tent ahead. No mistaking it was the voice of a goblin. "You're all the same, too full of yourselves for your own good."
Kain's face held no response.
"You think you've won? Bet you weren't expecting this!" Something large moved from underneath the tent and a long grey reptilian claws tore through the tent's pale fabric. Kain jumped back as a clawed dragon, almost eight feet long slashed outward toward him. It plunged forward again, this time getting close enough to force Kain to block with his spear, before flipping backwards up into the air, and over a pile of scavenged boxed and supplies.
How would a group of goblin raiders come across a tame dragon? Kain thought as he regained his composure. It wasn't as if they were easy to find in this part of the world, or willing to become just anybodies pet.
"HAhaHA," Gnelk's screeching laugh caught in the night. "Surprised?" he said before squealing again in glee.
The night sky rocked with the reptilian howl of the beast as it held its head high into the air, raised its front legs and slashed tantivy through the supply boxes bursting towards Kain. He dropped backward as the arm length claws ripped through the horizontal air just above his falling body, and used his momentum to spin back, away from the creature, as it attempted to stop, turn, and regain its balance.
Reacting more quickly than Kain had deemed it able, the dragon pulled off on one of its hind legs and slashed diagonally across Kain's body. Blood sprayed and Kain's chest became immersed in a distant pain, as blood began to trickle and poor from where the claws had found their way through the chain mail of his armor. As Kain jumped back in retreat ducking into some surrounding tall grass, he realized that something else was different about this dragon from the ones he had fought on Zot and on the moon, the bone on the hind leg was bent in the wrong direction, like a cat's, and its head was adorned with floppy ears instead of horns. The last thing he realized was the creature had an ugly disfiguring scar along its left side. He had seen someone create things like this before, but he had to be dead. Had to be.
A brief shudder a fearful recognition creeped through Kain, fazing him more than the wound which already continued to spill blood across his chest. If Dr. Lugae was still alive then Kain would hunt down and kill him before he had a chance to impact the world anymore with his cruel abominations of science and madness.
Kain circled the battlefield, keeping his body low and hidden from the dragon, which whipped its head around back and forth, searching.
"Not having fun, human?" The goblin's voice whined. "Once all of the legendary heroes are dead then we rule this land as we deserve. It's only a matter of time before the others fall." He laughed again. "Maybe if I'm lucky then when Baron and its pathetic king and queen are dead we can-" Kain, briefly losing his icy composure, burst forward from the grass, grabbed the goblin from behind, pulling the smaller creature up with one had, almost to eye level with the much taller dragoon.
"Who put you up to this scum?" Kain said, his cold words uncharacteristically lined with fire. The creature's scaled cat shaped ears perked and turned towards Kain.
"I'll never let-"the goblins declaration was interrupted as the monster pounced, its claws ripping across the Gnelk's torso, splattering his blood across the dirt. Kain launched himself in the air above the attack, raising his body toward the moonlit sky.
With a flash of steal the monster cried in the pain as the spear embedded in his tough hide registered, the lighting quick strike coming as Kain had jumped upward, launching his spear outward, and pining it in the creatures think armored hide. The monster wailed, slashing wildly for the human and missing.
Kain, falling upward towards the moonlight, let his body go limp. At this angle, launched high above the ground he could feel the streams of wind, his body bathed in the darkness of endless oblique cosmos, his soul, if but for fleeting seconds, cast free in the night, Kain felt a sensation akin to what once might have been hope. His brief touch with the heavens faltered, lasting only a moment, his form cutting towards the coming fall.
He arching his back, beginning to descend, his body reaching out; arms extended in the cold night sky. Grabbing the spear's shaft, still lodged in the monster, from the air, he pulled it downward with his momentum, causing the crescent shaft blade and spiked end to puncture past and into the armored hide, tearing into the back of the monster's neck and through spinal column.
More blood made its way into the skyline as the creature sprayed the air with crimson, its arms failing in one final blow, and limply falling, its lifeless scaled corpse lurched over on the damp dusk.
Kain stood motionless in the moonlight for several moments, his mind empty and heart cold. He ignored his wounds, ignored the whisper of death which again haunted him, and not for the first time wondered what Cecil would have done. What lives and pain Cecil would have spared. Dr Lugae or not, whatever had caused this was not to be ignored and if he had any luck then he would take care of this himself before any of the others could become involved. Before their lives could become as bleak and desolate as Kain's own. If any life were to be lost on another violent quest, it should be his.
He slowly limped onward, his shadow reaching out across the moonlit horizon, and one cold word fell from his lips, "Rosa."
Notes: Some of that stuff was written pretty lazy, but I'm a crazy perfectionist with these type of things so I felt better just to get it out of my hands as soon as possible before I started deleting entire paragraphs. It was all written, spread over three nights (2 to write, 1 to proofread and aesthetic considerations) all later than 4 in the mourning, so please forgive any errors I missed. Sorry about the lack of dialog also, I wanted it to be like one of those tone setting intros (and I promise it all won't be brooding and depressing, just wait till Palom and Porom get around). Next chapter we get the ball rolling, and find out how Cecil and Rosa are doing, and they of course are in love which means to my poor love writing skills: dialog that's CORNEY AS HELL. Satan may literally make you buttered pop corn while you read it. It'll probably be that bad…….