Xenoblade Chronicles 2: The Fourth Driver

Book I: Change

Chapter I

     I woke up, confused. Where am I? A desert? None of this seemed right.... I was simply on my way to work and then remembered hearing a loud crash. Now I am here.... Wait... I've seen this place before! But... can I really be here?

     "Freeze!" a voice behind me said.

     "Oh... hello! Can you people tell me where I am?" I asked. Maybe they would have an idea.

     "Silence scumbag. Return the core crystal you stole and your punishment will be less severe." He told me. I took a good look at him. He was some type of... guard? His helmet had a long point on the top and his armor was overall pretty dirty, no doubt the fault of the sands. He wore goggles and a face mask, this must protect him from the fierce winds. I ignored the core crystal laying by my foot, but I finally knew where I was.

     "This is... Mor Ardain... isn't it?" I asked.

     "Of course it's Mor Ardain you idiot! Now get down on your knees and surrender quietly!" he demanded at me. In any normal circumstance I would cooperate, but I just didn't understand how I could be here. In a video game? This was too weird.

     "Like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Mor Ardain?! How?! This doesn't make sense! And what core crystal did I take?! I literally just woke up here!" I couldn't understand what was happening.

     "Alright, enough talk!" an Ardanian guard appeared behind me and wasted no time in knocking me out with the blunt end of a weapon. I woke up in prison. The trial was a joke, not because of the judicial system but simply because I didn't know any of the laws and I didn't have any money for an attorney so I just ended up in prison for a few months.

     Luckily I made friends with plenty of the guards and prisoners and they helped me learn about the laws of the land, they finally started to believe me when I told them I wasn't from Alrest, so they felt bad and began to help me. I didn't know why I was sent here, but I knew it had to have something to do with Klaus' multidimensional affair. But why was I sent here? Surely there had to be a reason.

     I thought maybe I'd be able to prove my innocence, but before that happened, the Praetor used Mor Ardain and other titans to attack the World Tree. During this chaos it was ordered that all prisoners should be disposed of so that there would be less villains in the chaos. They gave me two options....

     "You put your neck 'ere on da pedestal and we give ya a quick chop to the neck or you can try 'The Black Crystal'," the Ardanian guard told me in a thick accent.

     "The Black Crystal?" I asked. I had never heard of this in any of my play-throughs.

     "Ay, don't tell me you never heard of The Black Crystal!" the guard said, still not clarifying what he was talking about.

     "Obviously I wouldn't have asked it if I had. What is it?" I retorted.

     "Fine, I'll tells ya. It's a crystal that was accidentally paved into one of the prisoner walls. They say if ya touch and it resonates with ya, then you'd be proven innocent of all charges. But if ya fail ta resonate with it, it'll give ya the worst death ya coulda asked for. If it were me I'd just take the axe friend, no one ever resonates with it," he explained, I was still having trouble understanding his accent, but I knew what he was saying.

     "I'll do it," I said without a second thought. I wasn't about to lose my life when I had done nothing wrong. If this crystal searches for innocence then I had nothing to fear.

     "Aight, you're funeral!" I was escorted to a wall with a pure black core crystal embedded in it. Except for the one I was accused of stealing, I hadn't seen a core crystal in person before. It was even darker than Malos' crystal, something didn't feel right with it. It was teardrop shaped and seemed to call me towards it. I touched it, and immediately felt fear rip through my body as what felt like the agony, sin, and greed of all of humanity was forced into my body, tearing my very soul in two, but I didn't die.

     I fell to the ground, and when I looked up, I saw a pretty girl, fair-skinned and clothed in all black, grab me and I blacked out.

     "Thank you" was all I could hear her say before she disappeared.

Readability Level: 11-12th Grade
Time Taken: 2 Hours

Please do not use without permission. All artwork is not mine and credit goes to the artist.