Mognet post to all Heroes of Light, dated April 20th. Also an action prompt on the 17th.

[line_piece]

[Action; Aqures Ixen - 13th District - April 17th]

[Chiaki stands in front of the statue of the Heroes of Light, staring up at it with a curiously blank expression on her face.  She's clearly deep in thought about something, as she eventually bows her head and lifts a clenched fist to place it over her heart.  Anyone passing by may hear her whisper something.]

Father... it took two thousand years, but someone got your message.  You didn't fail.  You didn't fail at all.

[Mognet Post - April 20th]

[A few days later, following Chiaki's trip to Trano Golsaucia to meet a certain doppelganger, she sends out a letter addressed to all of the Heroes of Light.  Each one is hand-copied and delivered personally by her moogle, Mogomi.  And while this means the letters are mostly written in pink crayon and adorned with little cutesy touches like the i's being dotted with tiny hearts, the letter is still intelligibly written.]

Everyone,

By now, some of you may have heard about the dream that some of us had on the night of the 16th.  I had one of those dreams, and the next morning, there was a letter waiting for me from Kalki.  I've filed a detailed report on exactly what I saw in my dream at the guild hall in the observatory, along with the contents of the letter, so anyone who's curious about that can read it there, since that's not what I want to talk about here.  This might be long, but please bear with me.

I'm assuming that Kalki sent the same letter to everyone who had the dream, and if that's true, she either had one herself - or more likely, she was the one responsible for sending us the dream somehow.  She was probably behind the last one too.  And if that's the case, then I know exactly what kind of villain she is.  Kalki knows a lot about this world, its magic, and its history - probably more than anyone else here.  Maybe even more than Jessie.  And because she knows so much, she's convinced that what she's doing is the best thing that can be done for Crystallis.  She's completely sure that her way is the best way to put a stop to the cycle of sorrow and death that this world is trapped in, and that the only way to bring about that outcome and ensure that everything goes according to plan is to stop us.  And if she can't stop us, she'll convince us too.  Make us see things her way.  That's why she keeps revealing information like this.  She's so self-assured that she thinks eventually, we'll come around to her way of thinking.

And I can't speak for anyone else but myself, but I don't agree with her way of thinking at all.  I feel like it's fundamentally flawed.  It's worse than simply killing all the Heroes of Light, or manipulating the crystals to control everything, or working together with Emperor Garland.  Kalki has hope for this world, but that hope has been twisted, and it's caused her to go about things in a way that might make everything even worse.  That's the kind of villain Kalki is.  It's not simply a matter of good and evil, black and white - she's holding onto her own hope, and she's doing what she feels to be right.  If we're going to fight her, we need to fight her on the field of ideals as well as on the field of battle.  The people of this world have hope too, after all, and as Heroes of Light, so should we.  It's important, now more than ever, that we work together for the future of this world - for the future of all of our worlds - and refuse to give into despair.  The truth is sometimes painful, and I imagine there will be even more uncomfortable revelations to come.  But no matter what information we discover, we need to face it head-on, with our eyes wide open, and look to the future.

I know you can do it.  I know we can do it.  Let's believe in this world, and in our power to change it.

-Chiaki Nanami

Comments

[dragonflame]

You mean a video game, or the board game type, right?

[Not that she plays games honestly, what with having to save the world at least yearly. She has some times but never a lot.]

[line_piece]

More like a video game. More recent titles tend to have complicated plots like this.

[dragonflame]

Ah, so you do play those types of things then.

[That somewhat made sense at least as she smiled.]

I wouldn't know about that though... I didn't have time for that kind of thing. So will you explain what kind of complicated plots exist in video games?

[line_piece]

Everything from saving the world through time travel to killing God. And everything in between, too.

[dragonflame]

[Okay time travelling sounded a little odd to her anyway. Games seemed to come up with odd things to say the least. She wasn't sure any of that will turn up here. At least she kind of hoped not.]

Wow, that's... something, I guess. I mean I guess those types of things could happen here considering the dream time travel wouldn't be unusual.

[She was pretty sure her sister shouldn't have lived that ling ago after all.]

[line_piece]

Yeah. Though I think what we're dealing with is actually a time loop, which is completely different.

[dragonflame]

Isn't a time loop a thing that repeats over and over with no end in sight?

[She could understand why one would think that but she kept thinking that would mean things would stay the same... yet there were clearly differences between the dream and the now.]

I can agree what is going on here could be something like that, but wouldn't a loop mean that things would repeat themselves unless we do something different? Adding to that the fact that well... people who were part of that last time loop aren't playing the same parts again like one would think would happen in a time loop. But I could be very wrong with what a time loop actually is.

[line_piece]

Not necessarily. A time loop doesn't have to mean the same things happen the same way every time, just that things get reset after a predetermined amount of time or according to a specific trigger. That trigger, in this case, would be the Calamity. Once it destroys the world, everything is reset, with the Heroes who fought against it reborn as part of the new world that takes the place of the old one. And then everything continues on for another two thousand years, a new group of Heroes are summoned to fight the Calamity as it rises again, and it keeps going like that. So far, it looks like that's what's happened every time. There's probably a way to break out of the cycle, but we don't have enough information to know what that way is yet.

[dragonflame]

And that is if this is actually what is going on, but I guess it is the best bet never the less. [Time loop seemed to fit by the sounds of it, but things still didn't make sense, but she put that down to needing to think on it more before actually speaking about it again.]

So... we just need the information that would help. I wonder if there could have been an answer in the dream? I mean it gave us something to think about and answers. [But as she thought about it more, she figured it probably wasn't the case.] Maybe now, but maybe there is a place we haven't been to that might get us one step forward.

[line_piece]

That's true. We haven't explored this whole world yet. There's got to be more to discover. We should have the chance soon, once the airship is fixed. I think the first thing we should use it for is to try to find the Queen.

[dragonflame]

Already on that. A friend of mine is wanting to find her himself so... we're working on doing that right now.

[Though he wants to go by sea, so it's taking it's sweet time.]

Although... How exactly can one find someone who might not want to be found? I mean I didn't hear of her being kidnapped or anything... So I have to assume she either ran away for a reason and is hiding or is hiding and waiting for us to find her. In which case the first thing we should do is fin d that first clue and go from there.

[line_piece]

Good. I've talked with a friend of mine about it before too. I know she would want to go.

That's the problem, though. We don't really know anything about the circumstances. I think she probably left on her own to protect something, but I don't really have any solid basis for that theory.

[dragonflame]

Oh, you have? Then it's not the same friend that I was speaking of.

Usually one does leave for that reason, which is why it would be a good enough jump for it. But without any evidence not even in books, one can't be sure.

[line_piece]

I'm talking about Ib. Who are you talking about?

I know. We'll just have to do our best to look.

[dragonflame]

Luffy. He's the one who wants to go out on the world via the sea.

We will do our best and if we find something we should let the other know. [She pauses for a moment though.]

Though I am curious, do we actually have anything to store the information?

[line_piece]

Oh.

[That's a bit of a flat reaction to Luffy's name.]

Right. Let's do our best. For now, I've just been writing reports and giving them to Zelda to keep at the observatory, and also giving copies to Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge.

[dragonflame]

Well that's helpful.

[She pauses for a moment.]

I might ask her if maybe there is a way to give the information to when any new arrivals come... Unless of course you tell them to go there.

[line_piece]

I don't think it'll be possible for me to tell every new arrival personally, but I'll do what I can. I think Zelda and Ashelia will probably make sure people know what resources are available, too. They're both pretty organized.

[dragonflame]

I wasn't going to suggest just one person telling everyone. Maybe a select group of people could, like a welcoming committee. I might try and find Zelda and suggest it.

[line_piece]

She'll like that idea, I think.

[dragonflame]

Great, then I'll let her know.

[She wondered if she should at least think on it some more first.]

I should get going... I have somewhere I need to be.

[line_piece]

Okay. Take care, Bloom.