Final Fantasy was one of those series people would say, it was born to just grip a person's life by the neck.
Especially so when Final Fantasy 7 was first released on the Playstation 1.
Now that, took the west by storm.
Even now, Final Fantasy 14 is still one of the most played MMORPG in the west and in the east. Introductions from friends, or from one of those events, or those pesky ads on the side of a website.
Not to mention the down right roller coaster of nostalgia if you were a fan of the series, and had played majority of the game before, while, and even after going through the story.
They get to you.
They get to all of us.
They got to the poor old soul here too, who was floating in space, filled with darkness and clouds and the stars.
How did he get here?
That was his first questioning.
Did he remember his name?
No, not really.
What about his age? Roughly 20, he guessed.
How many fingers did he have? He looked down at his hands to see.
10. 5 in each hand.
This was a weird experience. He simultaneously felt warmth, cold, and then none of the above.
He was bombarded with a flash in front of his eyes. He clenched his eyes shut, still feeling the light shine through his lids.
And then colours.
Crystals, of vast and bound, all slowly solidifying into figures he recognised.
Warrior of Light,
Cecil,
Onion Knights,
Squall,
Cloud,
Tidus,
Terra,
And more…
All heroes of each of their own stories.
Each of their own adverseries,
Each of their own happiness and comedy,
Tragedy and resolves…
All that they were willing to share with us.
All to whom were willing to lend an ear to their tale.
The soul felt tears well in his eyes and pain build in his nose.
Why, why was he feeling so?
Was it because he now realises what had happened to him?
Does it pain him to feel regret, to feel loss?
To feel envy that unlike the heroes he saw through the monitors, moving at the command of a the D-pad and buttons, his life was gone too quick, too mundane?
No. No, he tried to deny the last bit.
No life is too mundane.
Comparable to tales of the electronic screens, of pixels and polygons, it might feel bland.
But he lived his life to the fullest.
He did not regret his death.
He did not regret saving the child of only 7 from an untimely fate in the hands of a drunk driving truck.
Give him another chance, rewind the time with the knowledge of his possible fate, and he would still walk down the path he walked.
For his role models told him that if what you believe is the truth and justice, then you do not shy away from it even if you do tremble in fear.
Maybe, maybe it wasn't such a bad life after all.
[You, whose soul is lost in the vast expanse.]
A voice rang out in the vast galaxy.
[Your name?]
A cobalt blue window appearing before his eyes.
The secondary window right below had alphabets lined up.
And there he was, a pixelated Caricature of what he once looked like in the small square window to the right.
He could put his old name in, but…
What was the fun in that.
His friends and family would remember what he was.
He'll remember himself as what he is now, what he wants to be.
He punched in the name he chose in nearly all games that allowed a name.
[Somnus Ultima]
The window disappeared.
Now what?
Was he meant to go back to sleep?
Looking out into the vast stars, to forever drift in this darkness?
What was he meant to do now?
Another window appeared in the stead of the old.
This time with a different question.
[The start of your Story?]
This time, it didn't have a keyboard to punch an answer into.
Now, instead it just had two options.
[Yes/No]
He looked around him.
The protagonist of each story, each instalment of the game flying to different directions, each reaching for a star in the distance.
Was this to be his story?
Was this window asking me if the story I would take with them is mine to take?
The soul remembered that the protagonists of Final Fantasy 1 were originally those that were summoned from another world by the power of the crystals.
The first, ironically, popularised case of an isekai plot.
If there were even a plot at all, the bloody first game of the series was nothing more than a glorified dungeon crawling game.
The soul laughed.
Guess this was his last and final fantasy.
The soul punched yes with his index finger.
The familiar jingle was heard for the first time as the window closed itself down and disappeared for good.
Back to viewing the empty universe- for only a few seconds.
The soul felt a pull, like gravity, or an attractive force.
It pulled him, it pulled him down.
And his descent accelerated. No more was he drifting between the stars - the cosmos was becoming a blinding blur as he looked around him.
He saw how his form slowly burnt away to make way for his new flesh,
How quickly he started to see luscious green forests and crystal blue lakes.
One second he was looking at the galaxy.
The next second he was looking at a ceiling made out of wooden planks.
A sharp pain resonating, stinging from the back of his head.
He scratched his head as he lifted himself slowly off the floor, blanket still wrapped around him and coiling across his limbs.
He could've fooled himself that he was dreaming, if it wasn't for the fact that he had absolutely no idea where he was.
He opened the window over the table, looking down to see stone brick roads and stone brick houses.
People in what he would recognise as medieval-like clothes ran about.
He was looking at them from the second floor of a house.
… Where in the hell was he?
He slowly closed his window, looking down at himself.
Black t-shirt and denim pants.
Those were definitely not medieval like.
He looked to whatever was glinting in the corner of his room.
A quite dulled sword and dented shield.
The lost young man could feel his eyes rolling in their sockets in an attempt to gain some form of understanding.
But he soon realised that he would gain absolutely nothing from just standing around here.
He soon gripped the weapons laying in the corner and put his shoes on.
He took note of how light the weapons felt in his arms, like they weighed nothing at all.
He opened his doors and found himself to be in a hallway, several other doors lining the sides, some opening to reveal men and women with weapons and armours walking out. Ready to start their day.
Ah. Cogs started to turn in his head, parts were clicking in place, and slowly he was getting grasp of roughly where he was at.
An inn. For adventurers.
Staple setting.
Like those the dungeon masters in Table top role playing games favoured to use for the first campaign.
He walked down the stairs, following the other adventurers to the tavern built into this place.
"Ah, Somnus! Thank you for taking care of those Goblins on the merchant road! Heard that we managed to get the traded supplies safely thanks to your timely arrival!"
He did not, in fact, remember doing any of such sort.
But he just smiled and replied witha 'no problem'
"Breakfast in on the house for you! Wouldn't have been able to make any profit at all last night and this morning if it wasn't for you anyway!"
The Inn keeper let out a gruff laugh.
Somnus could only awkwardly chuckle.
"You know, by the sound of it- you were able to move like a veteran even without a falna! If an gods or goddesses caught wind of that, they might kidnap you into their familia, you know?"
Somnus's chuckle froze in place.
Hang on, Falna? Familia?
"Though, if you could beat all those monsters with nothing but those thin clothes on your back, I'm sure you'd thrive in Orario."
Wait a minute…
He looked around the tavern.
The more he tried to play spot the odd ones out, the more he found people in contemporary urban clothes.
Somnus eavesdropped in some of their conversations.
"I'm telling you guys, going to Orario is our biggest chance at growing our Familia and making a name for ourselves!"
"Fat load of chances we have, Orario's still occupied by the Zeus and Hera Familia. We'd be better going to Melen."
"Look, I'm begging you! Help me convince that girl over there to join our Familia!"
"We'll try, but it's not like we're any better at persuading her…"
Well that confirms it.
Somnus stared at the table, grabbing the free glass of water offered to him by one of the tavern waitresses and quietly sipping it.
Here he was, practically thrown into the world of Danmachi.
