Disclaimer: Final Fantasy is copyrighted by Nintendo

Final Fantasy: Origins

By The Mauve Lantern

In the 14th age of man,

The world lies,

shrouded in darkness.

The winds die…

The seas rage…

The earth decays…

But the people believe

in a prophecy, patiently

awaiting its fulfillment.

"When darkness veils the

world, four Warriors of Light

shall come."

After a long journey,

four young travelers

did at last appear…

and in the hand of each

was clutched a crystal…

***

"Admit it, we're lost."

Two male travelers are wandering through the forest, their destination nowhere in sight; since the sun has begun to set, this is not a good thing. They have been wandering for a few weeks now, and they only stop when they can acquire temporary jobs at a village and/or city. Both have their talents that make them useful, but at the same time, they have equally impressive faults.

Leading the pair of vagabonds is Lazarus, a sharp-tongued lad no older than fifteen years. He is small for his age, but he compensates for this with his verbal quips, which have been known to be as venomous as a serpent's bite. For all his bravado, however, Lazarus has a thin build, and lacks in physical strength; the reason he uses knives is because they are the only things he can ably handle. His figure is clothed in a flowing, azure robe, with a black, long-sleeved tunic underneath. The young mage wears a pair of brown, leather shoes on his feet, and there is a yellow, pointed hat that adorns his head. With the combination of an upturned collar and the pulled-down brim on his hat, his face is concealed, save for a pair of golden eyes.

"We are not lost," his companion tells him, "You must have read the directions wrong!"

Orion, a fighter of eighteen years, is the sole companion of Lazarus, though he is not exactly very intelligent. His entire life has been devoted to learning the sword, so it came as no surprise when he failed to master any form of magic. He is clad in a suit of red armor that covers his shoulders and torso, while red gloves protect his hands and crimson boots guard his feet. A sword is strapped to his side, held within its scabbard, ready for battle at a moment's notice. Orion has tanned skin and bushy red hair that falls into his face. A perpetual grin seems plastered onto his face.

"Oh, really? And how do you know that?"

"Well, you're the guy with the map!"

"No, YOU have the map. I am the one who is leading us through the forest, while you give me directions. Why are we even in the forest anyway?"

Orion slaps his friend upon the back. "We're here because this old man in the village we just left said that somewhere in these very woods is a cavern from which no man has ever returned!"

"Yeeeeeeah?"

"Within that cave is the Ares Armor, which grants the user invincibility! I've quested for this very item for five years, and it's so close I can SMELL it!" To prove his point, he sniffs the air with his nose. "Yep, definitely here! Can't you smell it?!"

"All I smell is a damnable baboon that traded our gil for useless and incorrect information! Now, we're getting out of this cursed wood before the sun sets."

"Why?"

"Because when the sun goes down, monsters are bound to come out looking for food; we'll be the perfect targets for some flesh-eating monsters!" As if on cue, the ground begins to shake and tremble. Lazarus holds his hat firmly on his head, while Orion steadies himself and pulls his sword from his scabbard.

"I love being an adventurer!" he shouts as the quaking grows louder and more powerful.

"I hate being an adventurer!" Lazarus screams as he ducks behind Orion.

A giant ogre bursts forth from the grove of trees in front of the boys, a large, menacing club in its hand. It has shaggy, green hair that falls to its muscular shoulders, and has a powerful body that's capable of destroying a building in no time at all. Wrapped around its muscular shape is a dire wolf's pelt, covering it like a toga.

The monster lets out a savage roar, but Orion does not move from his spot. "Stand back, friend!" he shouts to Lazarus, "He shall sample my blade!"

"You do that; I'll be running." With that, Lazarus sprints off in the opposite direction as fast his spindly legs can carry him.

When he has vanished into the woods, Orion lets out a heavy sigh. "Oh well, more experience for me!" The fighter turns back to the ogre. "Prepare to meet your maker!" He charges straight for the beast, his sword ready to deliver a killing blow, but Orion is knocked into a tree by the ogre's club.

"Good…preparation…" he groans as he gets back up, "But it won't…help you now! HAVE AT THEE!"

***

While Lazarus is running through the forest, he fails to notice a pair of gray eyes that are watching him from the trees. Hiding behind one large tree is a handsome young man, perhaps twenty years of age, with long, flowing blue hair. He is garbed in a yellow-brown tunic that reaches his biceps, and he has leather wristbands on his forearms. A pair of loose, forest-green trousers is wrapped around his sinewy legs, and his feet are clad in dirt-colored shoes that would allow him to run off at a moment's notice. The young man skulks behind the foliage, waiting for his target to come closer.

"A lone, defenseless mage running through the forest like a scared, helpless maiden, eh? This looks like my lucky day." He clutches a knife in his hand, ready to leap out and mug poor Lazarus, who is currently at odds with himself.

"Orion will be fine, right? Yeah, he'll be okay; he is, after all, a fighter!" Lazarus is so busy arguing with himself that he does not notice the leg that sticks out from behind a tree. The young mage trips and falls to the ground; when he gets his face out of the dirt, he can feel a knife gently pressing against his back.

"Give me your gil, or I'll take your life." He says this with menace in his voice and a cruel smirk planted on his face.

"This day could not get any worse," Lazarus mumbles as he slowly rises from the ground.

"C'mon, don't make this any harder on yourself. Cough up the gil!"

"Take it easy, no one wants to get hurt here…" Lazarus reaches into the confines of his robes. "Let me just pull out my…knife!" With remarkable swiftness, he draws his knife and goes for a slice across the thief's face. Unfortunately, he is not quick enough, and his weapon is knocked from his hands.

The thief pins Lazarus against a tree and smirks. "Wrong move, mage." He holds his knife to the mage's throat and says, "Give me everything that's in that cloak of yours."

"Or what?" he croaks.

"Or I'll kill you and search your corpse. Your call."

Lazarus groans. "Fine, just don't take the frog's breath; I'm saving that for a recipe."

"Well, now I'm OBLIGED to take it."

"Damnation!"

As the thief begins rummaging through Lazarus's robe, he comes upon a small, golden crystal, no bigger than the palm of his hand. It is smooth and polished, and there is a dull light from within. For some reason, this crystal resonates with the thief. While he muses on the crystal, a warm feeling grows in his breast. He reaches down his tunic and pulls out the jade crystal that he has been carrying close to him for over a year now.

In his mind, he thinks, "What is this? Why is the crystal of Air glowing?" The handsome thief glances at the crystal he has taken from the mage. "Is it because of this? This mage's crystal?"

"Where did you get this?" he solemnly asks Lazarus.

"My village elder gave it to me; he said something about it being important, but I've never-" He is cut off by the light that begins to shine forth from the two crystals.

"What did you do?!" Lazarus asks, his eyes wide in anxiousness.

"ME?! YOU must have done this!"

Then, as suddenly as it started, the light in the crystals goes out. Bewildered, Lazarus and the thief stare at the crystals, then back at the crystals, and then at each other once again. Finally, after a period of silence, the thief brushes the hair away from his face and says, "I don't know why, but I…I feel like that was…supposed to happen; like this was destined to occur."

"You mean the fates wanted you to mug me?"

"Maybe! Look, I'm just a thief: my name is Kozu, I've been living out in the wild for far too long, and I have never actually had to kill someone to get money from them. This is far too much for me to undertake, and I'm not sure that I can explain this but-"

"LAZARUS, RUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!"

Before Kozu can get to his point, Orion appears out of nowhere, running for his life. He is bleeding from a wound on his head, and has a large chunk of armor missing; his sword is nowhere to be found. The terrified fight knocks Kozu away and slings Lazarus over his shoulder like a sack of vegetables before sprinting off into the forest. This leaves Kozu face-down on the ground, with his and Lazarus's crystal in his hands.

"Hey, get back here!" he shouts, but he is knocked out of the way by a rather enraged ogre. "Not to self: watch out for angry ogres. Ow."

***

As Orion runs, Lazarus smirks and quotes his friend, saying, ""Stand back, friend; he shall sample my blade!" huh? How'd that work out for you?"

"Not as well as expected."

"Yeah, that's a surprise."

"Look, do you have any idea how to beat this thing or not?!"

"Let me go, and I'll concoct a magic attack, okay?"

Orion drops his friend onto the ground and readies his sword. "Okay, I'll leave it to you!"

As the fighter proceeds to get another beating, Lazarus begins flipping through his spell book in search of something that could take care of the ogre. Unfortunately for Orion, Lazarus has a terrible attention span, so he stops at every other spell.

"Huh, so this will summon an imp from Hades…interesting…"

"AHHH! OOOOOHHHHHHHHHH!"

"What th- a spell that makes a woman's…woah, that's a keeper!"

"YOU THINK YOU HAVE ME BEAT, BUT YOU ARE- AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

"Oooh, there's a hellfire spell! Definitely pulling this one out for later!"

Finally, Orion is spent, and the ogre picks him up like a rag doll and hurls him into Lazarus, who drops his spells book. The frustrated mage turns back to his half-dead companion and shouts, "Geez, do I have to do everything myself!?"

"Kill…me…" Orion mumbles.

"Not a bad idea, but I still need you as a shield." Lazarus picks himself off the ground and dusts off his cloak. "Let me just grab my book and-"

Before he can grab his spell book, however, the ogre sets upon him and punches him so hard that the wind leaves his lungs. With an oof, he crashes into the ground.

"Rrrrrrrrrr…" the ogre lumbers forward, ready to snap the fallen mage like a dried-up twig. Suddenly, Lazarus shoots up, his eyes glowing red and an orange aura vibrating about his body. A deep chuckle emits from his throat as he holds his hands before him; blue, crackling light is surging from them, and growing larger by the second.

Lazarus points his hands at the ogre and shouts, "FLARAGA!" The dark energy in his palms bursts outward and unleashes a massive inferno that engulfs the ogre and almost the entire forest. The land, the trees, everything is all swallowed up in dark fire, and, without a moment's passing, the entire forest is gone, leaving a smoldering wasteland, along with Orion, who has wound up behind Lazarus.

"Uh, Laz?" asks Orion, "Do you think you overdid it?"

Lazarus blinks once or twice, and the red leaves his eyes. The mage looks at his surroundings and shouts, "What happened here?!"

"You don't remember?"

"No! I remember that ogre hitting me, and then I passed out! What happened to the forest!?"

"You just annihilated it! I've never seen such powerful magic before!"

As Orion goes on talking about how incredible the spell was, Lazarus stares at his hands, which feel cold as ice. "What was that?" he asks himself. "How was I able to cast a spell that could wipe out an entire forest in a mere second?" Before he can think too much on the matter, a wave of nausea passes over him, and he falls to the ground retching.

His friend immediately rushes to his side. "Are you okay?!" he asks in a panic.

"I…I must have used too much magic just now…"

Orion takes the mage's arm and wraps it around his own shoulder. "Well, you're in no condition to walk. We'll just head to Corneria and rest at the inn." Lazarus coughs up a little more, but says nothing. As the two bustle off towards the city of Corneria, they fail to notice the handsome thief watching them from the lone tree left in the forest.

"Hmm…the plot thickens…" With that, Kozu leaps down from the tree and stealthily follows the fighter and black mage, not knowing how right he was…