FE2 oneshots, I guess.

[DM] Almost Like I'd Known You Before

If you were to ask Ghostly who they would consider their best friend, two names would be given instantaneously.

"But Ghost," one may ask, "those are two people."

With a giggle, they'd respond, "Does it matter that I have two?"

And really, if they had to choose, they would rather say nothing. The two meant so much to them, excluding one of either would be like removing a piece from a puzzle.

Ghostly was glad to have them.

Every day, as soon as the game shuts down for the night, the three would immediately be together, chatting about the day they had. Of course, it was hard for Ghostly to be with them. With Ghostly being the guide, and Familiar and Beneath being map controllers, they spent the whole work day in separate locations. Even at night, there seemed to be never enough time for them to catch up. Ghostly would, often times, be called away abruptly to help the other NPCs with their problems. Not to mention that they had to break up fights. There were a lot of them.

Yet, despite all this, their friendship only got stronger with time.

Ghostly could recall the time where they were the only NPC in the game. They didn't really have a friend, the closest being their creator. Although, it was rather off to call him their friend. He was more like a father to them, teaching them everything they needed to know, guiding them as they transitioned from the fully technical map controlling job to the much more unpredictable job of being the guide. Of course, with nobody controlling the maps, they soon were introduced to a new NPC that would do that job.

They didn't have a name at first, Crazy having explained that they would be free to choose how they would identify themself, much like how he insisted that Ghostly choose a name for themself when they asked him for one. The NPC, however, needed time to decide.

For a while, that was just how it was. Yet, it was like two magnets being attracted to each other. The two had become close friends from day one, bonded so quickly from their first words to each other. Perhaps this was due to Ghostly's crippling loneliness, and the new NPC's excitement from meeting a living person aside from their creator.

It was rather reasonable, at first.

Over time, the NPC came to identify herself as Familiar Ruins, after the map. Soon, more and more NPCs came to life, much to the joy of Ghostly. Although, they found that they didn't quite bond with the others as quickly, but perhaps it was due to the sudden influx of NPCs coming to stay. Perhaps it was the experience of meeting someone new getting repetitive too quickly. After all, this wasn't the first time anymore.

It was reasonable.

Then, when 15 more NPCs were added, the two felt a familiar excitement rush through them. And one of the NPCs felt the same about them.

They really had no reason to feel this way. After all, the NPC looked the exact same. All 15 of them. Really, they should act the same, too. They were blank slates, spawned in just mere seconds ago. Yet, that NPC in particular noticed the two very quickly, before the 14 others could even process what the excitement on their faces even meant. And to Ghostly, it was almost like meeting an old friend.

They chose not to dwell on it, however. They had a new friend, that was what mattered.

That NPC soon came to identify herself as Beneath The Ruins, and by their logic, it was just instantly accepted that she and Familiar Ruins were sisters now. The group couldn't be happier at this, in fact it just meant that the girls now had an excuse to spend more time together. To Ghostly, this seemed like a rather funny progression. The two acted as if they were siblings, so this should seem like a logical step in the forming of her identity.

That was what they assumed at the time.

It made sense to them.

But as years go on, Ghostly started to catch on on just how odd this development was. Really, if it wasn't for BTR, they really wouldn't bother thinking about it at all.

But BTR just... seemed like an outlier. As more NPCs were added over time, Ghostly never really felt the same way about them as they did when they met Familiar and Beneath. Well, there was a period in time where there were no more NPCs. However, soon more maps would get added. Fallen. Magmatic. Ignis. Soon, the highlight program started. NPCs coming in from Community Maps.

Ghostly couldn't find themself feeling as enthusiastic to meet them as they did when Familiar and Beneath arrived.

So, just why? They were blank slates when they were added, so just why were they so excited to meet them? And why did meeting them feel as if they weren't actually meeting someone new? They had previously chalked it up to just pure excitement, as it made the most sense to them.

But before Ignis and Sandswept came, there was a surprise. A girl came running in at 4 in the morning, and collapsed on the ground. She looked like Fallen. When Fallen came to see the commotion, it became clear that there were two of them. After the initial shock set in, Ghostly found themself trying to communicate with the Fallen that looked like she just dragged herself out of a drainage canal. And they understood then what it felt like to meet an old friend.

Meeting an old friend. That feeling, they found, was comparable to how they felt when meeting Familiar and Beneath.

It didn't make sense. Old friends? Could they have met before? That really wasn't possible, Ghostly met them when they were mere seconds old, or at most an hour or two. And they knew they were alone before. They never really anyone early in their life, considering that they spent all their time in the control room, not even a clue that there were other people aside from themself and their creator.

In the weeks leading up to meeting Familiar, they were trying to help the players, not even aware that they would eventually become the game's guide. They can't exactly call any of those players friends. Sure, they may be friendly, but they just wanted to play the game. They were strangers, acquaintances at most. To them, Ghostly was just a familiar face.

And, as they thought about that, their meeting with Familiar started to stand out to them more. Meeting the players face to face was, by all logic, meant to be a much bigger event to them. Meeting people face to face, who wasn't just Crazyblox. New people.

So just why was it less exciting than meeting Familiar for the first time? Sure, a new NPC was a big event, but realising there were more people than yourself was a bigger event. By the time Familiar was added, Ghostly had already come to terms that there were a lot of people to meet.

As it came to be, nothing about how they met the two made any sense at all. They'd never met before, yet treated one another as if they knew just what the other was like.

Perhaps Crazy had to do with it? Ghostly knew that he had hidden a lot about the world from them. After all, they were only meant to control the maps, so knowledge like that would be useless. Maybe they had their memory wiped? After all, their memory of their time as the controller was... blurry. And it was harder to recall things the further back in time they tried to remember. Perhaps all the NPCs were created at the same time? Memories wiped before they were 'added'?

That didn't make sense, either. Why would Crazy have possibly hundreds, even thousands of blank-slate NPCs waiting for a purpose? They were much, much easier to create than to have lying around. They could go rogue, and freezing them in time wasn't feasible for just how many resources would go into keeping one NPC in that state.

Maybe the answers were in the maps themselves. After all, the maps their two friends took after were based off of a now dead version of this game, right? So it would be logical to assume mote maps had some sort of history to them. Dark Sci Forest and Facility are the best candidates. For crying out loud, there's morse code in Forest's soundtrack! Maybe, Crazy had a lab?

That would be a logical conclusion, perhaps. Maybe themself and Familiar and Beneath were from a sort of lab.

That was the best explanation for now.