"Gather around, you whimpering whelps and weary warriors! Shantotto the Great graces you with her presence, and tonight, the curtain rises on a spectacle to shake the very stars!" Her voice, sharp as an enchanted icicle, pierced the still night air. The peaks of Konschtat Highlands shivered in anticipation.

Before her lay a swirling vortex of aether, crackling with raw magic. In her hands, a grimoire pulsed with ancient runes, their whispers promising chaos and power. This was no mere campfire tale – tonight, Shantotto wove a tapestry of oblivion.

"Hearken, denizens of the abyss, where whispers twist and nightmares writhe! From the churning maw of Oblivion, I call upon thee! Rise, mighty Voidsent, avatar of the blackest night! By the ten thousand moons of Mordion, by the onyx heart of Pandæmonium, I bind thee to my will!"

With each word, the vortex churned, spitting shadows that danced with eldritch glee. The ground thrummed, a bass line to the symphony of doom unfolding. Shantotto's fingers flew across the grimoire, painting sigils that bled into pulsating gateways.

"Unleash your fury upon Eorzea! Let your claws rend flesh, your fangs pierce steel! Be the tempest that drowns Vana'diel's foes in an obsidian tide! Rise, I say, and become the harbinger of a hundred battles, Vol Sak Il Megid Shiza Rite Aegis Enkindle, the avatar of chaos unleashed!"

A monstrous limb tore through the vortex, dripping with inky ichor. Then another, and another, until a towering figure clawed its way into existence. But... something was off. Where darkness should swirl, light shimmered. Where horns of bone should protrude, a crown of auburn hair rested.

In place of the monstrous Voidsent stood a Midlander boy. The boy who tumbled from the maelstrom wasn't a fearsome warrior or a monstrous fiend. He was, against all odds, an average Hyur teenager. His dark hair tumbled in messy waves around a face tanned by sun and wind, framing eyes the color of a summer sky after a light rain. Clear skin, rich with a hint of olive, hinted at his lineage, a whisper of distant deserts in his ancestry.

He stood at an unremarkable height, neither a towering Goliath nor a nimble gnome. His clothes, though, told a different story. A pristine white shirt, the kind only nobles dared to wear, clung to his lean frame, its pristine fabric stark against the dark navy of his trousers. The incongruity was further amplified by his footwear – cheap-looking white slippers, molded into an unlikely elegance by some unknown hand, each adorned with a single, vibrant green line that snaked from feet to toe.

His eyes, wide with bewilderment, met Shantotto's. Not the inferno of rage she expected, but the gentle light of confusion.

The Tarutaru tempest faltered, a flicker of disbelief crossing her face. "By the twelve gods in a sack... a Hyur? This wasn't the summon script I ordered!"

The crowd, expecting a monstrous visage, erupted in murmurs. King Tarut, ever the bastion of stoicism, thundered, "Sorceress! Explain this travesty at once!"

But Shantotto, ever the master of chaos, twirled on her heel, cackling. "Mere mortals wouldn't comprehend the intricacies of Arcana, Your Majesty! This... this is a bonus round, an unexpected twist in the grand play! This Hyur, he shall be my instrument, a blank canvas upon which I shall paint the masterpiece of mayhem!"

Tarut, however, saw only an unarmed man and a sorceress who reeked of failed ambition. "Seize him!" he bellowed, guards swarming the bewildered Hyur. Shantotto, for once caught off-guard, could only watch as her unexpected summon was dragged away, the threads of her meticulously planned war unraveling faster than a dropped spool of yarn.

Shantotto's grand spell misfired with the finesse of a goblin juggling anvils. Instead of a monstrous Voidsent to wreak havoc upon Eorzea, she'd conjured... a confused teenager. He stumbled into existence, limbs akimbo, eyes wide as a moonlit saucer. And then, he screamed.

Not a battle cry, mind you, but a startled yelp ripped from his throat in a torrent of unfamiliar syllables. The air crackled with the echo of ancient words, long lost to the windswept sands of time. But Shantotto, far from flustered, felt a thrill course through her like a jolt of pure magitek.

This wasn't some mundane error. This was a cosmic hiccup, a twist of fate so unexpected it felt woven by Chaos itself. The boy, barely more than a stripling with windblown hair and dirt-crusted shoes, had spoken in a language older than mountains, older than spells. A language Shantotto knew, in the dusty corners of her ageless mind, as ancient ones words.

Reaching out with a tendril of Echo, she slithered past the boy's shock, into the frantic storm of his thoughts. "Do you want to live?" she whispered, her voice a calming balm amidst the cacophony.

The boy flinched, eyes darting like trapped birds. He shouted back, a desperate plea lost in the labyrinth of his fear. Shantotto recognized the raw panic, the primal desire to claw back from the precipice of oblivion. It was an echo of her own ancient past, a whisper of a people devoured by time.

With a soft sigh, she reformulated her question. "Can you understand me?" she asked, her voice gentler now, tinged with a curious respect.

The boy froze, then blinked. "Yes," he croaked, the word foreign on his tongue but somehow understood. His eyes, no longer wild with fear, met hers with a flicker of dawning comprehension.

Time was a fickle beast, however, and Tarut's guards were closing in. With a mischievous glint in her eye, Shantotto conjured a swirling rift, a swirling maw of shimmering chaos. "Then hold onto your britches, kid," she cackled, her voice regaining its familiar theatricality.

Scooping the boy up, she conjured a teleport portal and swiftly plunged through it, leaving King Tarut and his men sputtering in the dust. The world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of colors, then resolidified in a hidden grove bathed in the emerald glow of ancient trees.

She effortlessly ignored the king's previous command to seize the boy, as if his authority was a mere illusion in the face of her potent magic. The teleportation had been executed with such swiftness and finesse that not even the king, with all his regal authority, could have intervened or done anything to prevent her escape. The air crackled with the remnants of her powerful incantation, and the sovereign ruler found himself helplessly standing amidst the fading echoes of her departure.

Shantotto set the boy down, his legs wobbling like a fledgling chocobo. He stared at her, his face a canvas of bewilderment. This wasn't just a summon gone wrong; this was a riddle wrapped in an enigma, dipped in a vat of pure, unadulterated chaos. And Shantotto, the storm weaver, reveled in the unraveling.

Or so she thinks :3

Shantotto set Adachi down with a firm but surprisingly gentle hand. As he wobbled on his feet, disoriented by the sudden shift from swirling chaos to verdant grove, her eyes narrowed, studying him with the intensity of a magitek engineer examining a malfunctioning spring. He was, as she'd already observed, an average boy in most respects – average height, average build, average brown hair tangled by the winds of misadventure. Yet, the incongruity of his attire screamed "unremarkable mystery." The pristine white shirt, the dark navy trousers, the curiously elegant slippers – they were far too fine for any "average."

"Right then," she declared, her voice regaining its trademark theatricality, "spill the beans, kid. Name, rank, and last known whereabouts before you became my unexpected party favor."

Adachi blinked, still trying to catch his breath and digest the whirlwind of the past few moments. He looked vaguely like a chocobo chick just discovering its legs, and Shantotto, despite her initial annoyance, found herself suppressing a chuckle.

"I..." he mumbled, his voice barely a whisper. "My name is Adachi."

Shantotto raised an eyebrow, words escaping her lips, "...You speak in the common toungue now?"

Adachi stared at her, bewildered. "Yes?"

The Tarutaru's eyebrows shot up so high they nearly disappeared into her fiery blonde hair. "So, different worlds... ancient languages? News to me! I always assumed everyone in existence babbled in my glorious Mothertongue."

A slow grin spread across Adachi's face. "Not everyone, apparently."

A genuine laugh burst from Shantotto, startling even the rustling leaves of the ancient grove. "Ha! Excellent! See, this chaos business ain't so bad after all, throws up the most delightful surprises! Now, back to the matter at hand – how come you spoke my ancient tongue in that first yell-fest? Or was that just gibberish you picked up somewhere and spat out in fear?"

Adachi faltered. The question caught him off guard, the memory of his frantic cry sending a shiver down his spine. "It... it's my native language. I didn't even know it was ancient."

Shantotto froze. It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck the grove, momentarily silencing the crickets and birds. Her eyes, sharp as enchanted daggers, locked onto Adachi's, searching for any hint of deceit. This wasn't just an unexpected summon; this was a walking riddle, a living paradox wrapped in a mystery cloak.

"Native language?" she echoed, her voice low and dangerous. "You mean to tell me, some random boy from another world just... happens to speak the forgotten tongue of my long-dead ancestors?"

Adachi, sensing her rising tension, squirmed under her gaze. "I... I don't know how to explain it," he stammered. "I grew up speaking it. Everyone in my world does."

The Tarutaru's mind was a tempest, a whirlwind of theories and possibilities. Could this be a descendant of her people, somehow lost to time and space? Was this the long-forgotten key to unlocking the secrets of her past, a whisper of a lost civilization echoing across the aether?

"Tell me about your world," she commanded, her voice a husky growl. "Everything. The land, the people, the customs. Speak, boy, before I turn you into a toad and see if you croak in ancient rhymes."

Adachi hesitated, then took a deep breath. He spoke of his home. His descriptions painted a vivid picture of a world strangely familiar, yet warped under a different sun. One moon!

Machines and electronics, not the stuff of modern textbooks. Yet, there was a sincerity in his voice, a lack of awe or wonder, that hinted at a reality far stranger than any fairytale.

When he finished, the grove held its breath. Even the leaves above seemed to strain to hear Shantotto's response. "So," she finally said, her voice laced with a quiet curiosity, "you're telling me you come from a place where people shoot fireballs from their palms without enchanting, talk to screens, and have tea parties with moon rabbits?"

Adachi chuckled, a nervous tremor that betrayed his growing unease. "Not quite that colorful, ma'am. We have cars, neon lights, and smartphones like everyone else. Magic... well, that's mostly stuff kids write about in comics and play in video games."

Shantotto felt a pang of disappointment, a deflated balloon in her mind. Yet, the puzzle remained. How could his language, the forgotten tongue of her ancestors, still thrive in this modern world?

"And the language?" she pressed, her gaze sharp as a magitek drill. "You say everyone speaks it, this... 'ancient' tongue?"

Adachi nodded. "We call it Nihongo. It's our native language, just like English or Arabic or any other. We have history books, novels, even karaoke bars dedicated to it!"

Shantotto blinked, momentarily stunned. "Karaoke bars, eh? Tell me, young bard, do these... establishments cater to a motley crew of adventurers as well? I'm picturing grizzled warriors crooning tales of wyvern hunts over pints of chocobo ale, while roguish bards pluck lutes and weave spells between ballads."

Adachi, struggling to keep up with Shantotto's imaginative leaps, chuckled. "Not quite that literal, ma'am. But there are definitely people from all walks of life, singing their hearts out to pop tunes."

Shantotto's grin widened, revealing a mischievous glint beneath her fiery bangs. "Pop tunes, you say? And these ancient poems, do they translate well to this... pop format? Imagine, if you will, a ballad of valiant knights transformed into a catchy beat for the masses! The very thought sets my magitek gears singing!"

The image of Shantotto belting out an ancient epic alongside a chorus of karaoke enthusiasts painted itself across Adachi's mind, and he couldn't help but laugh. "I think you'd give the regulars a run for their money, ma'am."

Shantotto's eyes, still sparkling with the fantasy of karaoke epics, turned steely. "Ah, but before we turn this grove into a bard's den," she began, her voice taking on a serious edge, "let me paint a picture of a different kind of song..."

Shantotto's eyes gleamed with a dangerous glint as she explained the impending threat. "Eorzea, that nest of steel and ambition, seeks to ensnare Meracydia in its web of power. Tiamet, the runaway dragon, brought word of the Alagan Empire's insatiable hunger for conquest, their warships churning across the starlit sea like ravenous beasts."

Adachi, still reeling from the whirlwind of his arrival, felt a shiver crawl down his spine. Dragons, empires, invading armies – it was a far cry from the neon lights and pop tunes of his own world. "But why attack Meracydia? What do they want here?"

Shantotto snorted, a puff of smoke escaping her nostrils. "These land-hungry Alagan hounds crave what every tyrant does – power, wealth, and dominion. Meracydia whispers of ancient magicks, lost technologies, and treasures yet to be unearthed. They'll stop at nothing to claim it all."

A fierce determination settled in her eyes. "But Shantotto the Great will not sit idly by and watch her home devoured! My summoning, though flawed, may yet prove fortuitous. You may not be the monstrous harbinger I envisioned, but perhaps... perhaps you are something far more interesting."

Her gaze bored into Adachi, searching for something hidden within his bewildered eyes. "Tell me, boy, what secrets does your world hold? Does it harbor magicks I have never dreamt of, technologies that would shame my finest magitek inventions? Speak, and perhaps you'll earn yourself a place in this grand game, not as a pawn, but as a wildcard."

Adachi hesitated, he squared his shoulders, meeting Shantotto's gaze with newfound resolve. "My world isn't like yours, ma'am. We have advanced tech, sure, but not the kind that shoots fireballs or summon humans.
A slow smile spread across Shantotto's face, as wide and mischievous as a goblin's grin. "Ah, that's it you keep talking gibberish, lad!