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THE IVALICE ALLIANCE:
FINAL FANTASY: GRIMOIRE WOVEN OF HISTORY
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PROLOGUE:
ANGEL OF BLOODY SIN
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Author's Notes: I dedicate this story to the now Account-Deleted Mirriem, one of the truest friends a person could hope to have, whose friendship and writing are among the largest reasons I'm the person and the writer I am today.
As with my other Fanfiction stories, I highly recommend you, the readers, listen to the same Soundtrack pieces or MP3s that I am as I'm writing each scene, in order for you to get the full mood of each scene.
The composition for the Prologue is 'Banquet of Transmigration,' from the VAGRANT STORY Original Soundtrack, Disc Two. It can be found in KINGDOM HEARTS Insider's MP3 section.
"Had I but… more power…"
Luso's eyes widened as pulses of light blue began to cascade up the contorted platemail flesh of Ultima's Arch Seraph form at the same time as Ramza wrenched his Chaos Blade out of the hole leading to her heart, sending out fountaining arcs of light blue in haphazard directions at differing speeds.
Balthier sprang back to a relatively less scorched section of the airship deck with the practiced adroitness Luso hoped the cascading auracite energies meant he at last had a chance to ask the sky pirate the reason it resembled Vaan's, and Penelo's, Blaster leveled at Ultima's pitted and dented skull, knowing as well as any of them there was no guarantee this was the end of it.
Rapha was sprinting towards Alma, twisting to shield the younger Beoulve with her body as Alma brought her hands up to launch another ordinary Ultima of her own if she believed she needed to, but once more, moving almost as fast as Illua had, Cloud was there, a desperate intermingled horror and determination in his eyes as he spun to assume a defensive position.
Cloud's broken protectiveness of the younger Beoulve, and why he'd begun acting even more out of touch with reality as soon as Alma had woken up and her mannerisms had clearly reminded him of someone, had very quickly gotten almost as high on Luso's list of mysteries to unlock as precisely who Balthier was, and whether he'd known Vaan, or Penelo, or both of them.
Ultima cast her head about as fissures began to open on her platemail skin, and throbbing larger bursts of light blue tore up them.
"Why… is it never enough?
"This much blood… should have been sufficient power… to ensure, this time… I freed Ivalice from its neglect by… the Occuria," something passed through Balthier's eyes Luso couldn't decipher, "And… all… who have sold Ivalice to the sword."
A number of emotions passed over Ramza's face, and he closed his eyes in the same sadly resigned understanding Luso had seen on his face when he'd caught up with the older Beoulve in time to see Belias in his true glory, his Esper anima joined with Wiegraf's through the Aries auracite and able to bring all of his ageless potency and learning to bear by his own choice for the first time since the ancient war Penelo had told him about when the Lucavi had risen against the Occuria and been bound to the Mist in servitude, and then opened them shortly afterwards.
"Yet… even now… I fall short.
"For the third time… my honor… has been yielded up… to the anathema base humes… and their ilk…
"Why?
"Am I truly… just a sissy… who is all talk…?"
All existence, and all of Luso's reality, cleared into oblivion of himself and history.
There was no way.
"He was born in Lesalia, in the city of Bervenia. Moments after his birth, he rose to his feet and approached a well. Upon reaching its base, words of prophecy poured forth from his infant lips: 'A calamity shall soon befall this well. Seal it up at once, that none may drink it.'
"Some days later, the Black Death visited the town of Bervenia, and all those who drank the well's tainted water succumbed to the plague and perished. Only those families who heeded the prophetic words of Saint Ajora were spared from death and malady. After the incident with the well, the people came to revere Saint Ajora as a portent of miracle and child of the Gods."
And Adelle's words to Lezaford, glimpsed through the all blinding and revealing light of the Grimoire of the Rift as he'd returned to his space and time, the Gran Grimoire that had once been discovered by Mister Mewt Randell after it had been cast through the rift and used to erect the peninsula of Delgantua, and had then been left to be passed down to Luso, were still etched into the foundations of his self.
"It was a plague. It swept through the whole village. So many took ill, and nothing could be done for them. They died, one after another. But… I didn't die. I lived on."
Silver hair
Her High Seraph's form when not sworn to an oath was skilled with daggers
No
Please please please please please please pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasenonotthisthisisn'twhytheGrimoirebroughtmetoRamzabecauseMisterRandellconvincedmetoseeheronceagainnononopleaseno
"Back home, in my world, my aunt would always chew me out."
"What if I don't do the right thing, and that rift opens? What will happen to this world?"
"Leave your doubt behind. We won't need it where we're going."
But he'd left behind a lot more than that
Luso was barely aware he'd decided to move.
All he knew was he was sprinting forwards, and arcing around Ramza to jump up as light blue columns of incandescent fury washingclearingincineratingwipingscouringcleansing away all began snapping the planks of the airships and bringing the masts of all he knew and all history avalanching down towards a giant face of coldly unfeeling armor distorted in agony that should have been laughing and grinning or mock scowling and mock glaring with vibrant effervescent warmthandthiswasallhisfaulthe'ddonethistoherhisaunthadbeenrightallalongCidhadbeenwrongallhedidwascausepeoplepainbybarrellingintotheunknownallhe'ddonewasabandonAdelleafterhe'dshownherwhatwarmthandkindnessandhopeandbondswerewhenallshe'dknownmostofherlifewasdespairandlossandsolitudeanddeathandadversitybutthenhe'dabandonedherandtakenitallawayandnowallthatshewasnowsheowedtohimhishandsweren'tanycleanerhewastheAngelofBloodhishandsweretheonesthatwerestainedforeternaleverlasting
Luso planted his hands on the shoulders of the forsaken demon that should have been a brightly grinning wonder who gave vitality and energy and verdure and laughter to everyone every instant she was around them
how could anyone concentrate on dreams of forging a better future without her
how could Mister Randell or Adelle or Cid or Hurdy or Vaan or Penelo or Lezaford have seen anything in him
"Adelle, snap out of it!" he was aware he was screaming, so hard it was tearing his throat raw, from somewhere boundlessly distant from for never, almost unable to see her through the desperate tears obfuscating his eyes, and spilling down his face.
"Alma didn't harmonize with you willingly, or when asleep or dead, but if she can separate at all, that means it's possible for people to separate from Espers!
"And you're a Heritor! If anyone can do it, it's you!"
Ultima's mouth warped in a revolted derision that almost brought all of Luso's insides out through his mouth in violent retching that should have lasted until he'd dry heaved long enough, and hard enough, to fall into a coma from which he no longer wanted to awaken into a day from which all dreams had faded for all time and knowledge.
"Yet why… would I… want to do… it you… addle pated infant?"
Luso wasn't sure he hadn't thrown up now, at the entire lack of recognition in the unrestrained and undiluted hate and fury in her voice.
"The… crippled archmagus named… Ghis vowed unto… me.
"The whitesilver magicite that stores Mist… from which Khamja… or Müllenkamp, as it is now known… etched the Grimoires of the Rift is… in trueness… nethicite, manufacted by Lezaford.
"Establish a sect of Kiltia named… Glabados in Jylland… and thus lay the groundwork… for him to provide… the Judges there with a… society… and he would grant me access… to a magicite research facility… named Draklor… and research… enabling… me… to… deifact… nethicite… myself.
"Yet, Ghis had once impugned the standing of… the Imperial Senate of the Empire of Archadia… and they thus… tasked a headhunter named… Germonique to locate us both… discern our dealings… and then see us tried before an… Archadian, or Kiltian… body, or dead."
Luso had a name for the institution that had obliterated Adelle.
If Archadia was an Empire, though, the Emperor, or Empress, whoever he, or she, was, must have been the actual person who had employed Germonique to capture, or murder, Ghis, and Adelle, however.
What did it matter, however, that he knew the title, and rank, of the person who had broken Adelle?
Luso couldn't even hit him, or her, back, whoever he, or she, was.
"All that was then left me… were the miracles of the auracite.
"I need its… power… more than… all the dreams of tomorrow.
"In order to… clasp… my… horizon of… freedom… from all… bystanders… I need to strike my… revenge… on… someone… who gave me… a history… without… a future."
At the awareness of those words, and anything they meant, a different shade of incandescent light blue erupted from the grimoire journal in his satchel, so faint Luso doubted anyone else could see it in the burgeoning storm of brighter light blue intensifying from within Adelle.
Then the blue white fury within Adelle fountained out over all of Luso's perception as death at last claimed Adelle and the emerald of Serpentarius burst out of Ramza's satchel and ripped a hole into Luso's and it impacted with the Grimoire of the Rift inside it and then the golden ethereal sigil that had brought the Neukhia to Zellea Mister Randell had named a blood sin removed any perception in sanguine light.
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Begin
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BOOK ONE: THE NOBLE ENDS OF CHILDREN'S ENDEAVORS
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"Preen and strut as you like! In the end, we are the same. Blood-thirsting carrion birds, h-ll-bent on revenge!"-Judge Magister Noah 'Gabranth' Fon Ronsenburg
FINAL FANTASY XII
