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Chaos bringer. (FF XIV Multi Crossover-SI) (WARNING: Shadowbringers' spoilers)

prologue

Lord Kragan

The one and only Lord of Mutton Chops.
Author
Prologue: Our protagonist.
It trudged through the starless sky.


Forging its way across the void, the Thing glared. Its sight pierced through the veil of its current reality, reaching to a vast array of other worlds, its perception boundless. It saw knights in shining plate charge across the fields, massive and ravenous swarms crawl admist the stars.


With a slight effort it shifted its attention and saw gargantuan zeppelins cruising through giant mountain ranges, sorcerous lords conjuring arcane spells within crystal spires, unknowing of the failure of their obfuscation charms.


The Thing's glare wandered, skipping and hopping through the countless scenes. As it flicked through, a flash, a glint, caught its interest. Familiarity, of a sort.


Familiarity…


The Thing basked in that word. A part of it yearned it, craved it.


It stared into the void, this time focusing on its immediacy of sorts. Across countless miles it gazed, finding nothing in that desolate, cold, interstitial space.

Shrugging, it thought it wouldn't be a bad stroll.


The thing turned, focused its attention on the reality, a word ringing back, long forgotten in ages past.


Amaurot.


Sluggishly, it writhed its way into this new yet known world. Reality screeched in agony for a brief second, as the weave of time and space shattered on its lumbering advance, crushing down the veil between worlds thoughtlessly. Carefully, within an instant it restored their structural integrity.


This couldn't be, it was unbecoming of itself to make such a mess on someone else's home. A different, more palatable form was in order. It needed a vessel.
 
chapter 1: An Old friend.
Chapter 1: An old friend.

Amaurot's radiant streets were filled with uneasy hubbub. The ascians, usually dedicated to rhetorical debates or creative endaovers fretted and wandered to and fro as they tried to seek answers. What was going on? What was the convocation of 14 doing?


Fail miserably thought Emet Selch bitterly.


He clenched his fist, feeling how his fingernails almost pierced through the fabric of the white glove. Emet Selch went by many names. Atraxas, founder in-all-but-name of the Allagan empire. Solus Zos Galvus, father of Garlemald Empire. Even Emet Selch was but an additional title bestowed upon him, an additional title. All layers to hide, to bury his vilified real identity.


His golden eyes scanned through the mesmerizing plaza just as the loop restarted, and his kin came back to start their routines. Amaurot had been lost long ago, this was but a hollow echo, a memorial to the brave and selfless fallen souls, frozen forever in the twilight of their doom.


I failed them. Hammered the depressive voice. Trapped their remnants for an age and counting, to add salt to injury.

Emet grunted, shoving aside his inner demons and ignoring that self-loathing voice. He had failed them, but there was still a hope for his people. The rejoinings' would bring things to their rightful state.


The Ascian lord's attention shifted to the sky as the ground began to shake and lamplights faded away. His fair skin further blanched, his thin lips further pressed as the tail of his regal long coat flapped in the wind.


It was Gargantuan. The city paled against its enormity, a grain of sand against a pitch black ocean ́of endless scale.


"By Zodiark, I'd never thought it would be back!" Muttered a bewildered Emet, his eyes pie plates now.


Emet gulped, his eyes unable to believe what was landing in front of him. The more he thought of it, the more outlandish it seemed.


The ocean lurched onwards, pouring as a deluge and precise as a needle drop at the same time. It crashed against the pavement a few steps from Emet, causing the Ascian to yelp frantically and do a strategic leap backwards. After what seemed an eternity in a brief moment, it emerged.


Emet's first and lasting impression was that he was starting a kid's doodle. A half remembered and understood frame, devoid of almost any detail and simply black and white. The intent seemed to create a male silhouette, but it was contorted and misshapen, barely giving the impression of three-dimensionality on occasion.


And almost devoid of detail, thought Emet again. No hair, no pores, nothing. It was a sketch done with the basics. The lips were barely visible, the hair was barely a black splotch over the scalp. And the eyes…


Emet stared at them, they were black, blurbing pits, gateways to infinity that sank and rose as they revealed countless realities on each shift. Emet saw himself, saw Amaurot, both now and then, and a thousand different things to befell them both. A deluge of data, both of things been and to be, that made his mind burn at the searing overload.


It made to speak, and the Ascian made a preventive move.


"It's Emet-Selch for you, it's been too long since we last saw each other for such familiarities," he said on a slightly irritated tone as he got used at that madness.


What's going on?


It did not speak with a voice per say, but rather those words were branded inside Emet-Selch's mind, alongside a massive peal that gave him a headache. The Ascian cringed in pain as the overwhelming entity struggled to communicate, drowning his train of thought with a hail of further questions.


Collecting his thoughts, Emet sighed and ran a hand through his forehead, bringing the brunette, and the occasional white,locks of hair into position.


"Well, do you want the short or long story?" He said on a dry, almost acrid tone.


====0====


Emet gazed upon the Amaurotine Capital Museum's entrance mural. The artists of amaurot had mastered their works to such a degree that just moving, shifting and changing radically at the slightest change in perspective. With just a few steps the history of his people unfolded. Their birth, their early stages, the arrival of an outlander whom taught them to truly harness their power over creation and bestowed them the basic ideals of Ascian society. They called that ancestral being Aul Kelet, the mentor. Emet remembered those fateful days, having born 'just' before it departed.


And it sat next to him, observing the plaza. Aul Kelet had gotten a bit more accustomed to its current, less insanity inducing, form. The face, though, still looked like a drawing, flat and bidimensional at times, and the eyes were still oozing black pits that gave Emet visions, though the flow had moderated. It cocked its head towards the Ascian, doing a full 360 degrees.


"Some ten thousand years, give or take a century," stated Emet-Selch, making a vague gesture. Ascians weren't known for their precise record keeping, given their inmortality.


Aul Kelet cocked its head, staring at him blankly.


"Is that long?" it asked, his voice betraying no possible mockery.


Emet flinched, barely restraining himself from an outraged tirad. Pressing his lips so hard that they almost disappeared, the Ascian calmed himself for a moment, knowing full well what could happen should such a being break from its current coil.


As another black tear fell through its cinder cheeks, Emet-Selch saw all the woes that had brought him up to this point.


"You've destroyed seven worlds already," muttered Aul Kelet. "And are fairly close to your stated goal."


It rose, and began trudging towards the exit the museum.


"Wait!" shouted frantically Emet Selch as he scrambled towards the elder entity.

"I want to see those worlds," it stated, his voice almost robotic, not even deigning to turn on.


Emet gave pause to his train of thought, fearful to parse the unspoken sentences, the miriad of thoughts that marched insde its mind. He didn't want him to cause trouble and interfere. Aul Kelet was a fickle thing, and right now he seemed more… outlandish, than his past self. But at the same time, he needed allies. Their ranks had been greatly diminished after Lahabrea's debacle. Surely, if he saw only a blighted land, he could fool him.


The Ascian smiled impishly, the First Reflection was the prime idea for that.


"Of course, old friend."
 
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Chapter 2: Awry
Chapter 2. Awry.



"Behold, the beauties of Eulmore!"

Ahead of the Ascian stood the region of Kholusia, home region of Eulmore, the mightiest of the remnants of the First. To the not so distant horizon line stood the flood, a curtain of solidified light aetherite that loomed over everything. The people of this world tried their best to ignore the fact that such a curtain, such a deadly chokehold that controlled all the world bar Norvrandt, advanced ever so slowly.

Oh, sure, a few meters here this year, a few inches there that year, but advancing nevertheless, thought Emet.

Eulmore was a wretched place. A gargantuan ivory tower from which sprouted a riot of colours in the shape of almost a hundred spires and domes. It was where the wealthiest souls of this dying world hunkered together to wallow in obnoxious debauchery of the worst kind. There was virtually no pleasure, no matter how macabre or unsettling, that the elites of Eulmore couldn't indulge into.

To catter such tastes an entire population of wannabe-slaves crawled and awaited at the walls of the safe haven, hoping at least for the crumbs and scraps of their so called betters' feasts. Emet barely spared a glance to the maze of shacks and ramshackle hovels. This place was filled with misery and abhorrent monstrosities beneath the glimmering patina, disgusting enough to make you wish for the power to leave no stone unturned and shatter all the spires and domes.


Emet glared at the void, where his companion should be. His companion was not here. It would most likely had anticipated something like this and fooled Emet. Or simply wanted to wander on its own. Emet's face contorted in a cuasi comical rictus of outrage.

Okay. How did one lose an eldritch entity!?

"How infuriating!"

Emet shouted in frustration as he kicked the sand, causing an explosion of dust as a result. As the cloud of dust, he began calming his temper.

Screw it.

He let his temper boil up again, grunting in frustration and doing stomping the ground in anger.

Kel Aulet couldn't be arsed to follow him.
Lahabrea couldn't be arsed to do his job properly.
His Zodiark-damned grandson couldn't be arsed to follow basic instructions.

And the cherry: he then had to go and clean the blasted mess when things, unsurprisingly, went awry.

Then, as Emet Selch came close to fully vent his frustration, heard the last voice he expected to hear here in the First.


=== 0 ===

"Alphinaud I can see you're being sympathetic, stop that," cut Zalgus abruptly and hastily.

The young Elezen turned towards his Roegadyn companion caught off guard. Zalgus grabbed him by the let shoulder and tugged him a few steps backwards.

"Can you give us a moment Kai-Shirr" asked Zalgus as he made a T shape with his hands.

Alphinaud Leveilleur, member of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, stared at his fellow companion.

Zalgus "the red" Ffinonbrandtt, warrior of light and quite a few other titles. The helsguard's ginger beard seemed to bristle in frustration from how much teeth-gritting Zalgus did.

"Just what are you doing?" Asked the Rogaedyn in a fairly high pitched voice, which belied his heroic build and rugged appearance.

Zalgus instinctively knit his finger, eliciting a small clank from the ebon baroque plate that covered them.

"I am helping him," said Alphinaud impervious to the dour expression of his companion.

"Alphinaud, you always do this and it always either backfires, makes things a mess for you and the other or both!" Complained the Rogaedyn as he shook his head, making his red beret shift position a bit.

"This is a matter of life and death for him, though," pointed out the Elezen. "Plus what I had in mind was a triffling thing to do!"

"You were going to give him our passage to the city" deadpanned Zalgus.

Alphinaud lost composure momentaneously, startled by how quickly had the warrior of light seen through his thoughts and intentions.

"Oh! No no, eeeeh-" mumbled Alphinaud.

"You were going to do that," deadpanned the Rogaedyn. "Fine by me, mind you, but we also need to get inside."

The comment lingered for a few awkward seconds. The young Elezen momentarily tucked a lock of white hair behind his pointy left ear before retorting.

"I will find a way!" Said Alphinaud, now resolute again. "There's always many paths. This one I close may be the swiftest, but not the only one" seeing Zalgus face he added. "Trust me."

For a second, the Rogaedyn's expression was unreadable. Then, a split second afterward, he broke into a sigh of tiredom.

"Why I think you will find a way to get us in a bigger mess?"

Alphinaud beamed radiantly, turning to the cat-boy and ignoring the thoughts that were assailing his companion.

Zalgus stared at the tower of Eulmore, rising proudly, menacingly over them.

"A helluva of a mess."

=== 0 ===

It walked through the sand at a steady pace, using a cane. It stared firmly at the horizon, his direction clear. There were no landmarks, just an endless expanse and assorted rocks but It walked assuredly, as certain as the stars. It knew the way.

Days passed as it walked ceaselessly. Just as its pace the heavens remained the same. Not the night or day, just an eternal state of extreme illumination. How strange, was this work of Emet?

It had seen the basic outline back in Amaurot but the details had eluded him. One needed to get closer, see things firsthand.

After a long march he reached a small oasis, half a dozen palms and a handful of shrubs growing out of its shallow and squalid pool. There a strange feathery beast drank.

It stopped, waited for a second and wondered. It kept waiting a bit more as a trembling blade pressed against its neck. It did not turn, did not need to. She was young, of fairly tanned skin, beaten by the endless deluge of light, and had hair the colour of the dunes. Her blue eyes were filled with nervousness and apprehension.

"Why?"

The question took its assailant of guard, the blade lowered.

"Why are you scared?" Asked innocently again as it turned.

Their eyes met and it soon realized it had been a mistake just as soon as it screamed in abject pain and horror.
 
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