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20 years old
Ironically, this tale begins with death.
It could have been a hunter, or someone from the swordsmanship club. Either way, the man was drunk in broad daylight and had taken to swinging his sword at a man with unruly violet hair, layers of cloth and a mismatching hat.
The victim sidestepped about in an awkward sort of grace, reasoning with the drunk using all the feigned theatrics of a man amusing himself in a play. When the drunkard seemed too inebriated to understand any of his actions, the man in the hat grew bored.
Verstael had watched all of this unfold from the sidelines, lunch on his lap as a break between classes. He nearly dropped his sandwich when the awkward man summoned a lance out of thin air, and with a flash of red power. In a careless flick of the wrist, the drunk swordsman was impaled, held upright for a moment, and crumpled to the floor the moment the weapon vanished like magic.
Verstael really did drop his sandwich this time and ran. But not in the direction one would expect.
"Wow! That was incredible!" The young blonde clapped him on the back in greeting.
“…And you must be?” the man eyed him suspiciously. Anyone who would start a casual conversation in front of a fresh corpse was strange, even in the man’s standards.
“Apologies, I allowed myself to get carried away,” The young man stepped back, now that the excitement had vanished and he realized he was acting far too familiarly to a murderer. He adjusted his glasses. “I’m an engineering student, you see. Verstael Bisithia. What you’ve just performed is exactly what I’ve been researching. If you don’t mind me asking, how exactly did you just do that?"
“Well, Verstael,” the man bowed. “Allow me to introduce myself. Ardyn Izunia, at your service. My unique skillset will take quite a while to explain, if you don’t mind.”
The young blonde shook his head in an effort to convey ‘I don’t mind at all’, and Ardyn began a long rant about magic, gods and forgotten fates. It was all just the tip of the iceberg, but Verstael was already eagerly taking notes.
"This is so much more interesting than learning about Mohr's Circle and phase-shift operations," Verstael said, half to himself. He was wide-eyed with curiosity and it made the older man want to teach him more.
"If I knew what those were," Ardyn mused. "I'd likely agree."
Vertael nodded, and hesitated over his actions. “Class is about to start, so I’ll have to go… Will you tell me more of your magic later?”
“I can’t think of a reason to decline,” Ardyn said after a bit of thought. “I do have quite a lot of free time.”
They spent a lot of their days together after that. Verstael’s thesis was on artificial magic. His prototype was a mid-sized machine that hummed with the exact same shade of vibrant red as Ardyn's powers.
That was a given, since it was Ardyn's magic vaguely recreated with technology. Magic and technology.
He called it Magitek.
30 years old
"You've gone through dozens of these artificial humans," Ardyn noted as he tapped on a glass tube the size of a coffin. A humanoid shadow could be seen in the depths of the cloudy gel. "You should realize now that recreating my power and immortality is impossible."
"You can never be too certain," Verstael hummed from working on what appeared to be the remnants of a humanoid daemon. He added, optimistically: "If the gods can make it so with magic, then I can do the same with technology."
"If you say so," Ardyn replied, placing his attention back to the scientist and taking note of the various documents that were filled with the studies of his abilities. "Rather infatuated with me, aren't you?"
"Just on the specifics of your being," Verstael replied with irritation. Ten years of getting to know the man made him know where this was going.
"I could allow you to get more specific with me, if you'd like," Ardyn teased with a wink.
"If that is an invitation to dissect you, I'll take it," Verstael responded with a hint of disgust. He pointed a scalpel at him in warning. "The fact that you haven't aged a day since we met is the extent of my interest in you."
"...Point taken," Ardyn literally took the point of the scalpel into his hand, letting the dark filth that could be called his blood seep through.
Verstael sighed at the lengths he would go through for a stupid pun. He just rolled his eyes and moved on to grab a new scalpel. "Has anyone ever told you that you're rather extreme?"
40 years old
"You're fortunate that the by-products can be turned into soldiers,” Ardyn said to him.
There were hundreds of them now, lined up robotically as finished products, or stored in the shelves of the Keep as they continued to incubate. Metallic armour encased the failures trapped within—none of these soldiers could even reach the toes of the Chancellor, much less the pinnacle that was the Accursed.
“Else you would not be able to sustain the funding for your research,” Ardyn shrugged. “Don't you tire of all these failures in your Project Deathless? I'm telling you, immortality is not all it's made out to be."
"I tire of death," Verstael said simply. Death is everywhere these days and he’d come to accept it since long ago. "Have I ever told you? My parents died because of this war when I was young. I grew up alone, detached. I need more time to fulfill my goals. If not time for myself, then immortal soldiers will do the world good."
With nothing but an empty apartment room waiting for him outside of the Keep, he dedicated more and more time to his research. These days, his work on the development of Magitek was all that he was worth. If it could stop this war, then so be it.
"Do you curse the gods for such a fate?" Ardyn asked. He knew from the start, the way the scientists eyes sparkled with delight over his magic mere minutes after witnessing a murder that there was something off about him. The explanation was brief, but it was enough for Ardyn to fill the blanks with his centuries of wisdom. Yet another shell-shocked kid that had seen too much death, likely even his own parents’, to think much of the lives he took himself.
"No," Verstael lied. The whites of his knuckles gave away the truth. "There is no such thing as fate. Merely circumstance and phenomena that can be proven with science."
“I see a lot of my younger self in you,” Ardyn smiled tenderly. It was refreshing to see someone who loathed the gods as much as he did. And one who cared so little for humanity all the same. It was a quality he found so endearing, and one of the reasons why he hadn’t discarded this friend after all these years. "Eager for the world in youth, and likely to twist the river of fate in the future.”
"When exactly did your younger years happen?" Verstael asked, inquisitively.
"My dear,” Ardyn chuckled at his interest, and ruffled the man’s blonde hair. The scientist swatted his hand away. “Even the calendars of today have long since forgotten such days existed."
50 years old
He finds one test subject, the exception to all the rest. A failure even by normal standards, to the extent that it would make a subpar Magitek Trooper should he send it for conversion.
There is importance in keeping a variance in a set of data, but the statistics of this subject were just so utterly useless that there wasn’t much use of him in the military. It would be better off being raised in a controlled environment, just to see if the hypothesis Verstael made would come true.
The researcher paused for a moment, reading the results once again. What better place to send this particular subject to than Insomnia; the last place the war would touch? With a little too much money in his account, and not enough to reasons to spend, it would be all too easy to bribe a Lucian couple into raising this child—for several years, if need be.
He turned outside to look at a cringingly gaudy vehicle parked in contrast to all the others in the lot. Oh gods, the new Chancellor of Niflheim finally bought a car. Of course he doesn’t need one to get around—not with his odd magic that allows him to seemingly bend space and time to appear out of nowhere. Verstael still hasn’t been able to recreate that.
Ardyn likely just wanted to pick something Verstael once described as ‘an eyesore of a colour’ (coincidentally, the same shade as the Chancellor’s hair) knowing full well that he’d be parking everyday in full view from the minister’s office. Despite knowing that the action was meant to rile him up, he found himself looking forward to the only man he could ever truly talk to.
60 years old
Verstael came face to face with a daemon within his halls. A pitch-black sclera and gold eyes glowing with hatred stared down at him. The daemon’s skin was pale and reeked of death like a corpse. Darkened filth oozed out of its eyes, dripping down like the tears of the tortured soul it truly was.
“Ardyn,” Verstael greeted.
“My,” Ardyn sighed dejectedly. With a bit of a flourish, his face returned to normal. “Not even so much a bat of an eye, hmm?”
“That trick’s long been outplayed,” Verstael grumbled. He appeared to be in a worse mood than usual. He wasn’t even playing along.
“It seems just like yesterday to me,” Ardyn shrugged. But he could tell the passage of time just by looking at Verstael’s wrinkles and the whites of his hair. He changed the topic. "The Glacean's corpse has now become your plaything. Yet, you don't seem pleased. Will nothing satisfy you?"
"I'll be satisfied once I create the greatest being the world has ever known,” Verstael spat. A new sample of divine flesh was waiting for him in his laboratory. This had to yield results. It had to. “Greater than yourself."
Ardyn grinned. These years of loneliness have driven him mad and the power at his disposal only made it worse. The Chancellor understood it all too well.
"And that, my dear minister, is why I support your work wholeheartedly."
70 years old
"The promised hour has finally arrived," Ardyn sighed. He stared longingly out of the minister's window. Flecks of snow had begun to cascade down.
"...Ardyn,” the minister addressed him wearily. He set down the papers on his desk. “Why have you kept me alive?"
Verstael wasn’t stupid. He already knew that the Emperor was dead or worse, and that those who were wise enough to foresee the consequences of dabbling in forbidden arts had long since fled. The only dignitaries that remained in the military were himself and the Chancellor. A mere fifty years friendship wasn’t something that would hold the Chancellor back from taking his life.
"Like all fascinating stories,” Ardyn played with a strand of his own hair. “I'm curious to see how yours will end."
"A story," Verstael scoffed. "What sort of tale am I to you?"
"A fantasy," Ardyn grinned, and scanned the layout of his office. Shelves packed with heavily used textbooks and reports on Project Deathless. This was all futile from the start, even with his guiding hand. ...In addition, he may even have built his own fantasy of the scientist back then. "I've found one of your misplaced works. He looks just like you did, all those years ago."
"That is what I would have expected," Verstael sighed. "All Magitek units share my DNA for good reason."
The reason being that his DNA is the 'control' sample of the experiment. A small variance in the genetic mark up with each batch ensured that whatever changes he made to his little test tube babies would also work on himself should his project succeed.
In a way, he fathered all of his subjects. His children created to make him Deathless, and turned into soldiers should they fail.
"But it seems this little mouse of yours is different from the rest," Ardyn pressed on. "Is there a purpose you've hidden this particular one from me?"
Verstael shook his head.
"Subject 0006-0204," The minister recited. "Is my greatest failure. It couldn't even become a Magitek unit, much less the end goal of Project Deathless."
"I see you've made Lucis your personal trash dump, then?” Ardyn hummed in approval. “Not that I mind, I would personally do the same and I started that country in the first place. It's admirable you'd go through such lengths.”
Verstael couldn't help but croak out a laugh. "Not quite trash, but in your opinion he might as well be. After all, there is nothing different about him from any normal human. That is what makes him special."
Ardyn raised an eyebrow in question.
"He continues to live as any other civilian," Verstael explained. He opened his drawer to pull out a thin folder. "And will likely continue to do so until the end of his days. Yet..."
The minister passed the files over to him, which Ardyn took just as casually. He looked over the report quickly, and stopped once he came to a realization.
For once, the playful smile donned on the Chancellor’s face faltered.
Unknown to them both, a chance encounter occurred years before. Far away, across the border, in the perpetual spring of the Tenebrean Castle, a sixteen-year-old Oracle knelt upon lush grass as she picked up a cream coloured puppy.
“Prompto…?” A young Lunafreya read the name aloud from the handkerchief tied to Pryna’s leg. “But who--”
“Let us find out,” Gentiana said quickly. Her features hardened ever so slightly.
And they did find out. The messenger of gods weren’t one to sit idly by a stranger without reason. Pryna is no exception, and Gentiana moved with all haste. Using Umbra’s powers, Gentiana found out, just exactly who Prompto was: through his present and his past.
First, Gentiana found herself in the streets of Insomnia, peering into the gates of a school. There was no surprise here; Pryna was sent to visit the Chosen King, after all. A chubby blonde boy passed by, silent and forlorn, as he made his way to class. It seemed like he had walked from home.
There was no one in that apartment. Time slipped backwards for an unnervingly long while before a Lucian couple could be seen walking about the house. They had dark hair like most Lucians, in stark contrast to the boy’s vibrant blonde.
The clock rewound until the boy was just a little less than one year of age and the vision of magic placed her in the research labs of Niflheim. Gentiana’s face remained impassive as she walked along the steel walls of the laboratory but the stench of darkness in this place made her want to reel back in disgust.
Sure enough, she found him; floating in a tube the size of an adult where most of the other humans trapped in this facility would spend the entirety of their lives, slowly being corrupted until they were ready to fight.
Upon the child’s wrist was a code, and it didn’t take long to find the file that matched that number. She opened the thin folder, peering through the pages of technical details until she read a hastily scrawled summary of what the numbers meant. Interesting. So this is what humans who dared to attempt to reach the height of gods were capable of.
The messenger opened her eyes to meet the Oracle’s searching look.
“Prompto Argentum. He is the same age as Prince Noctis and goes to the same school,” Gentiana offered the Oracle a brief explanation. There wasn’t a need to go further into details. “He would be useful at the side of the Chosen King.”
Lunafreya nodded, and set to work on writing a letter immediately. Prompto… did Gentiana mean that he was friends with Noctis? The messenger was usually cryptic with her words. But if Gentiana said that he would do good to be by her dear friend’s side, then it must be.
I hope you can continue to be a good friend to him. Lunafreya wrote on the last line of her letter. She sealed the envelope.
For the actions of gods always have purpose and meaning.