Final Fantasy Altera IV

**Final Fantasy Altera IV** is a Story Arc of the the Exteria Multiverse. It takes place in Ultyma, in the subplane of Gaia, and follows the perspective of SOLDIER Nissa and Junli Kisaragi and Turk Melyn.

## Main Arc

### Prologue - War of the Beasts

At the command of Darius Shinra, Turk leader Genos asks of Nissa, Junli and Melyn, three employees of the world-leading corporation Shinra Inc., to investigate the whereabouts of Feihong Kisaragi - Junli's older brother, and a powerful elite SOLDIER who has disappeared without a trace. Investigation leads the trio to traditional Wutai island, Junli's homeland.

Despite Wutaians being somewhat hostile to Shinra's influence, the trio manages to find Feihong in the midst of an abandoned pagoda, and defeat him shortly after. However, it turns out to have been merely a clone of him, left by a mysterious cult that studies an ancient poem. While investigating this, the trio instead encounters Kwon Leviathan and after a tumultuous encounter, returns home with Kwon following suit.

When returning home, the group witnesses the real Feihong returning and attempting to assassinate Darius, but being effortlessly stopped by Argentum, a mysterious being under Darius's orders. Feihong narrowly escapes thanks to Kwon's influence, leaving the trio to research the poem's meaning, asking for help from scientist Angela Balthazar.

### Act I - Infinite in Mystery

Soon after, Genos sends the group to investigate Feihong's whereabouts near Banora. Instead, they discover a mysterious cage, where **Genesis Rhapsodos** sought to contact a **Goddess**, as well as a cult formed by the mysterious Alvah, worshiping dark hero **Sephiroth**, and using Feihong clones as its main weaponry and trade money.

After facing Alvah, they then discover Feihong's true allegience: the Aegis of Gaia, a rebel group that strives to undermine the influence of the Shinra to protect the planet. Feihong has been heavily experimented on and is dying, and strives to give up on his remaining life for the planet. This shocks Junli and Nissa and prompts them to return to Midgar.

There, they discover from bartender Reva Strife that both Genos and Balthazar have disappeared, and Reva hints that people's memories of the world are not as they seem - that Reva sometimes remembers a different past, as though it was erased. They also learn at the same time that Melyn is not a Turk, but in fact a hidden Shinra agent - a **Tsviet**, forced into obedience by remote-controlled cranial bombs.

### Act II - Pride is Lost

The group, after developing elementary countermeasures to temporarily protect Melyn, then chooses to evade Shinra's influence and escape through a helicopter, but are forced into the northern continent after it is attacked. Wandering through snow, the group approaches an ancient city, where they meet Balthazar, who reveals herself as an Ancient, member of a powerful precursor race.

Balthazar strives to complete the ancient epic poem Nissa uncovered - one that asks of a ritual to be performed by a Hero, a Prisoner and a Goddess, and which would unlock untold powers. However, her contempt of Junli, whom she believes to be an abomination, causes him to run away instead, and Balthazar herself leaves, leading the group to follow Junli into a crater.

There, after a brief encounter with Alvah, Junli seemingly cocoons himself in dark flesh and dies. Alvah reveals Junli to be a vessel made of **Jenova**'s cells, an imperfect chrysalis built for Sephiroth's return. With Nissa and Melyn's endeavors however, Junli emerges from the cocoon, still alive, having grown from the chrysalis, absorbing part of Sephiroth's memories but retaining his identity, claiming to be the ritual's **Hero**.

### Act III - The Bringer of Life

Junli explains that Darius's true identity is Donquixote Doflamingo, a Planeswalker from a distant realm who used Sephiroth's ties with the world's memories and JENOVA's cells to manipulate the world into believing Sephiroth to be a hero, erasing the world's previous heroes, and making himself the leader of Shinra. Darius also strives to fulfill the ritual, forcing the group to quickly find a Goddess and Prisoner and outspeed him.

To this end, Junli, acknowleding Nissa as the daughter of **Cloud Strife** and **Aerith Gainsborough**, bearer of the blood of the Ancients, asks to bring her to the Temple of the Ancients to fulfill her role as a Goddess. On their way, they visit the Aegis of Gaia, healing Feihong and recruiting Kwon by their side, accessing the depths of the Temple, where Balthazar seeks to obtain the power of the White Materia.

Balthazar seeks to purify the world by erasing humanity from it, but Nissa challenges her. Their battle is interrupted by Genos, who has become an **Arbiter of Fate**, guarding the planet's Timeline. In the process of this three-way battle, Nissa makes contact with the materia and connects to the planet's Lifestream, awaking as a Goddess and having visions of the last steps of their journey.

### Act IV - Your Eternal Slumber

Only the Prisoner remains, and Balthazar acknowledges Melyn as a potential candidate due to his role as a Tsviet, prompting the group to return to Midgar after a brief respite in Costa Del Sol. Back in Midgar, the group allies with Reva and revolutionary member Betty Strife to find a way to investigate Melyn's place of "creation", the wicked Deepground.

There, it is after gaining the attention of Sector 6 crimelord Charlotte Corneo, heiress to the legendary Don, that the group infiltrates Deepground. Melyn awakens his powers to save his companions, fellow Tsviets, Lavender and Forrest, almost succumbing to his own WEAPON-born powers in the process, but manages to stabilize nevertheless.

In the depths of Deepground, the group uncovers a crystal containing the body of Genesis Rhapsodos, who was used alongside the planet's Weapons to reinforce the Tsviets. They also face off Argentum, last of the Tsviets, and manage to defeat them, with the destruction of the crystal and Melyn's absorption of Genesis being enough to awaken him as a Prisoner.

### Act V - This Silent Sacrifice

But as Argentum is defeated, Nissa suddenly turns against the rest of the group, knocks Junli out, then leaves. Melyn is then forced to quickly take the lead and, after a brief moment searching Deepground's databases, is told by a recovering Junli that Nissa has disappeared and that they must return to the altar of the Goddess in Banora, to complete the ritual. However, Doflamingo waits for them there, Nissa's dead body alongside him.

Doflamingo had kidnapped Balthazar during the party's investigation of Deepground, and baited Nissa into attacking him alone, killing her on the spot. Nissa, however, has traveled to another Timeline alongside Balthazar to escape this fate, challenged that world's Darius and managed to escape to this timeline's Banora, where, after defeating Genos, she uses the power of the Goddess to return to the central timeline.

Back there, Junli and Melyn hastily complete the ritual while facing Doflamingo, allowing Nissa to return to their world and help them defeat the Planeswalker once and for all, forcing him into retreating. They are then granted a wish by Charity Virtue, the ritual's vessel, and Nissa chooses for the world to heal from Doflamingo's influence, while preserving the bonds that the group has formed - putting an end to the world's torment.

## Characters

* Nissa Strife
* Junli
* Melyn the Amber
* Kwon Leviathan
* Reva Strife
* Betty Strife
* Feihong Kisaragi
* Angela Balthazar
* Genos
* Alvah
* Charlotte Corneo
* Lavender the Mauve
* Forrest the Teal
* Argentum the Pure
* Donquixote Doflamingo
* Other Final Fantasy Characters

## Trivia

* This is the first installment of the Final Fantasy series to take place in a preexisting Final Fantasy continuity (that of Final Fantasy VII)
	+ At the same time, it is the most distorted of the installment due to Doflamingo's influence.