melodiesoflife | Intro Log || This Keeps Happening

Intro Log || This Keeps Happening

Characters: All the "Heroes of Light" (only new characters can start threads).
Where: Aqures Ixen.
When: The 5th of January. The new Heroes of Light will awaken early in the morning.
Summary: The new Heroes of Light awaken in Aqures Ixen and are informed by their assigned Moogles of what the situation and what their destinies are. This a log for them to react to the situation, meet each other and be welcomed by the former batches of Heroes of Light.
Warning: Snow. Also some leftover decorations from Christmas.

Where you were or what you were doing— It does not really matter. Not any more. Within an instant, the world around you collapses. Reality twists and shatters... Or maybe you are the one who is collapsing and shattering away from reality as you knew it. No matter what the answer is, it will only take a few seconds for you to find yourself sinking into a void, your world vanishing into the distance. There is nothing but darkness as far as the eye can see. Even you feel different: all the powers you might once have had, are now gone. It is silent, cold and it feels as though life itself is slipping out of you.

At this moment, when it looks as though nothing but a never-ending void awaits you, a red Crystal forms before you. In this void, its warmth compels you to grab it. Upon doing so, you can hear a soft, soothing voice speaking:

"Wake up."

Soon, the void itself vanishes and is replaced by distant noises of engines. Had it all been nothing more than a dream? The soothing voice repeats its call one more time, but is soon replaced with a much less graceful "Wake up Kupo." Hand clutched on your Crystal, the call of the Moogle may finally wake you up. But you are no longer in your world, nor in the void. You are before the Crystal of Fire, in the third district of a city called Aqures Ixen. At this point, you may realize the engine noise actually originates from an Airship flying low over the city and headed to dock beneath the castle. As if it wasn't strange enough, your clothes have changed as well. They are now a reflection of the Jobs you are wielding. Last but not least, you are surrounded by Moogles, small and fluffy creatures who are more than happy to tell you about everything you want to know, about your 'destiny' as a Hero of Light, about what awaits you.

Or at least, they will tell you everything they do know, which isn't much in the end.

The only people around you are like you-- There are quite a few of them, all clothed in their Job garbs and most likely wondering what is happening. If somehow you do not realize it, the Moogle who woke you up will be more than happy to inform you there are others like you around. In fact, there are other Heroes who have arrived in the course of the past year and they will come soon! Like you, they have Jobs and a Crystal.

If asked, the Moogles will mention that the Heroes of Light - that is to say you - are fighting against time to save Crystallis from the Calamity that is about to awaken to devour the entire world. Sounds terrible? Welcome to Crystallis.

The Other Heroes
— Shortly Thereafter —
Thanks to the efficiency of Mognet, it does not take long for the other Heroes to come around: those who arrived in this world within the past year. You may have imagined heroic and charismatic figures when your Moogle told you that there were other Heroes of Light in this city. You may have imagined persons with fearsome powers when they told you about how they managed to push back the Empire and defeat gigantic beasts in the past. And more importantly, you may have imagined them as people who would have all the answers to your, doubtlessly, numerous questions.

If so, you may be up for a tragic disappointment. Still, for the most part they know more than you on the situation and may be more than happy to fill you in, especially if your Moogle didn't tell you much.

The City of Aqures Ixen
— Anytime —
With Christmas being barely over, there are still Christmas Decoration in the streets, and while the reconstruction are nearly over, there are still traces of the attack the Empire led against the city six months ago. A few buildings are being worked on.

And besides the decorations and reconstructions, there are a lot of things to do in the city for newcomers. A few groups of Triple Triad players are playing before Mognet Office in the ninth district, and a Blitzball Match is set to start at 20:00 in the stadium! Characters are also free to visit the city-- Mognet Office just behind the Triple Triad games is filled with Moogles, most of them discussing about the election for the future director of Mognet. They can also visit Airship Port in the twelfth district from where characters can board for free Airships from Shoopuf Airline.

Or maybe you could visit your new house in the 11th District, and get to know your new neighbors and housemate. Hopefully your neighbors are people you will get along with.

The Laboratory
— Anytime —
A location where a lot of Heroes of Light seem to be gathering is Palitutu's Laboratory. It is a place where employed characters can research into various topics. However, most importantly, characters can see a file with their name...

Should your character decide to go there and peek at their file, there are two possibilities. Either the file is corrupted and they cannot access it: too bad for them, but at least their life will remain a mystery. Or should you decide the file isn't corrupted, they will find a summary of their lives up to their canon point, as if written by a third-person omniscient narrator. On the column left to the text, to the top there is a portrait of them, and beneath it there is a 3D model of them. Said portrait and model can be switched to any year of their life. At the bottom there is a percentage, indicating 0%. On the right column, there are various links, most of which are grayed out. The clickable links lead to their Homeworld History and their future post-canon point history (corrupted file for unfinished canons).

At least, they can lock this file away if they don't want anyone to see it.

The Hospital
— Anytime —
Characters who have already been in Crystallis before do not wake up by the Crystal of Fire like everyone else. Instead, they will wake up in the Hospital of Aqures Ixen, in a room where there are over a hundred of other Heroes of Light like them-- Maybe even some familiar faces... Except they're all in Crystal Stasis.

A couple Moogles and a few nurses will be waiting by the room, and they will welcome all characters waking up. Upon exiting the room, they will also meet a lot of guards, and they all have for order to shoot anyone that comes out of this room without a Moogle. Hopefully you won't try running out without waiting for your Moogle. As for why the guards are so on edge, it might be a good idea to ask the other Heroes of Light about what happened a couple months ago.

Close Encounters of the Third(?) Kind
— 15:00 —
Characters venturing by between the city's outskirts and the Chocobo Farm at this specific time will be able to see a most peculiar sight: a flying saucer seemingly abducting a Chocobo before flying away and disappearing into the sky without leaving any traces of its presence. If your character do see it, hopefully there will be someone with them. Otherwise, nobody will believe their story.

Was it an UFO or just a hallucination? Previous sightings of such a thing have happened. It might be a good idea to investigate this sometimes...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Kinda. Back home I'm the former leader of Team Baron, a dance group. We've all merged into one group now, but back in the day we danced for fame and competition before dancing for real reasons."

Those were the days, when Zack danced with the others. He was still a good dancer, but he had been in recovery for months since the end of the Helheim fighting.

"Real reasons?" Nanami asked. She assumed most people who were professional dancers did it for fame and competition. And for money.

Of course, people danced at parties, but that was more for showing off or fun.

"To make the city proud of its dance groups, and protect their people," said Zack with a smile. "The unified Beat Riders did their best to help our city out when it was in a crisis."

"Oh... so it's like a morale thing," Nanami said. Sure Crystallis had magic dances and songs, but that couldn't be normal.

"Partly that, but when our city was under siege, we rallied together to protect it." Zawame was big news and his efforts didn't go unnoticed by the general public.

"Some of us obtained power to fight the monsters that were invading our town."

"What kind of power? Like the Job Crystals here?" That was the thing; Nanami knew a lot of people were from worlds as weird as this one, but Zack seemed like he could be from Japan, which... well, besides whatever was up with the Chairman and the Rose Duels, had seemed normal.

Certainly no monsters invaded towns. She was mostly certain that didn't happen in Japan. Unless people just didn't tell her about it because it didn't happen at Ohtori Academy.

"Somewhat." Reaching into the folds of his outfit, Zack withdrew a black buckle, the metal finish gleaming in the light. "Sengoku Drivers. They're meant to transform the user into an Armored Rider. We plug these into the front."

He held up a small lock adorned with a stylized plate on the front. "Lockseeds. They're the source of the power, and the belts are used in tandem. Doesn't work unfortunately."

Well... that was something. What kind of something, Nanami had no idea. "What's an Armored Rider ride, anyway?" she said, before realizing that might be a very stupid question to ask.

"Motorcycles," said Zack automatically. "We're pretty good drivers. We can even fight while riding them."

"Seriously?" Nanami said. "You don't look like the type to have a motorcycle... I mean..."

Somehow 'dancer' and 'fights while riding a motorcycle' was a fundamental disconnect in Nanami's brain.

Zack laughed. "It's surprising isn't it? But yeah, we Armored Riders use Lock Vehicles to get around."

Oh, good. He hadn't taken it badly. "Maybe you can get a motorcycle here. It would probably run on crystals or something, but there's some Heroes who like building things."

And Nanami remembered Chiaki was working on a way to make technology from home work here.

"I should, though if I get a lock vehicle it might actually work out in my favor. It doesn't require fuel after all."

Chiaki might be a good person to talk to anyhow.

"How does it go, then?" Nanami asked.

Magic. Probably magic.

"Well it's powered by the..." Evil Fruit. "The substance it was made of before. Lock Vehicles have a infinite amount of energy for the most part."

"That's convenient."

Also, magic.

"Yeah. I've never really used the Lock Vehicles much, only know how they're used from videos and such," said Zack.

"What, they just hand it over when you get powers or something? No lessons?"

"Not quite. We had to haggle for them, and unfortunately the group who made it previously was quite dangerous."

"Haggle who? The group that had it before?"

"A corporation called Yggdrasil. We needed Lock Vehicles from their dealers."

A analogy for a more terrible kind of dealing, but it was how Zawame used to be.

"Like buying a used car?" Nanami was a pretty sheltered girl in many respects.

"Kind of. To play in the inves games we had to buy lockseeds. After a while, the dealers just stopped coming around." No doubt due to the fact that Yggdrasil was supplying Jounouchi with them.

Nanami stared at him. "That really does sound like something out of a comic."

"It sort of does. My life was very odd, and that's just the tip of it." said Zack.

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