Ya... a while ago, I'd planned on making a FFX story... I wrote two short chapters... then gave up because it was poorly written... guess I'll try writing it again then... as this was based off of Ultra Sonic 007's story, and I got permission from him two years ago... I'm wondering if I'm still allowed to update this thing... well, here goes then eh?
Final Fantasy X: The Hidden Journey
"Heh, too easy man. If you really wanna kick my ass... then learn how to freakin kick!" Toko said with a grin as he knocked the leg of an attacking thug, or rather, wannabee thug out of the way.
He then countered with a punch to the thug's sternum... ya... if you've ever been hit there, you'll realize the fights over.
"And also, the whole entire point of mugging people is making sure you can actually beat them" Toko said, spitting on the thug as he walked off, down the streets of Zanarkand.
The thug could do nothing more but attempt to glare.
He was too busy trying to keep air going through him to worry about glaring right now.
Didn't mean he wasn't pissed off though.
"Sheesh, the street punks these days are so weak it's not even funny. I might as well go back to fighting on the streets, just to set a tempo for it all. Without me in the fight, those morons who always said they were my rivals stopped fighting, and then we just ended up with the bum infested streets of Zanarkand. Seriously, why were the cops getting pissed off at us back then anyways? By fighting, we did more for the citizens of this town than any of those gay ass politicians coulda done anyways." Toko said with a smirk, hands behind his head as he walked through the town.
"So I was a moron now eh Toko?" a familiar voice said from behind him.
"Eh? Heh heh, you heard that?" Toko asked with a laugh as he turned.
"Wasn't meant to you Shintaru" Toko said with a grin, looking towards his old friend.
After the event that had gotten him to stop fighting, he hadn't talked to any of his old friends.
"Well than... I hear you got into a fight today?" Shintaru said to Toko with a small smirk.
To him, Toko was like his little brother, and, even though he didn't want Toko to be hurt fighting, he knew that both of them loved it.
However, Toko still had a family life off of the streets that he couldn't just throw away.
And that family life had been a major part of why Toko had stopped fighting before.
If Toko was getting into fights again, then maybe the whole entire problem was over with.
"Ya... guess I got into a fight... if you could call it that.
The streets filled with pushover's nowadays man" Toko said, shaking his head as he smiled.
"True, but the group just isn't a group without it's little mascot" Shintaru said with a smirk.
"Oh, I'm a mascot now? Well then, let's see how the leader of the group likes getting beat up by a mascot" Toko said with a grin as he launched himself towards Shintaru with a smirk on his face.
"Sorry, not gonna happen" Shintaru said as he jumped to the side, dodging Toko's strike before turning to counter with his own strike.
As he turned to throw his attack however, he noticed something. Toko had new shoes... and he just used those new shoes to pull off a pivot that would have been impossible for him before.
As soon as Shintaru had moved, Toko had slammed his feet to the ground, turned towards Shintaru, and used the rest of his energy to launch off.
He was now about an inch from Shintaru's face. Shintaru, seeing this, quickly leaned his head to the right.
Toko's punch grazed past his face, and, with a few small, but precise movement's of his head, he managed to dodge the whole punch.
He then countered with an uppercut to Toko's stomach.
However, Toko used his other hand to catch that punch before bending his other arm, leaving Shintaru in a neck lock of sorts.
Toko then attempted to send his knee up into Shintaru's stomach.
Seeing this, Shintaru used his other hand to punch Toko's arm that was holding him in the head lock.
This forced Toko to loosen his grip, giving Shintaru a split second of movement, which he quickly used before either Toko could reobtain his grip, or the knee could slam into him.
Around that time, a young boy walked past and saw Toko... who was looking very peculiar right now.
He was currently standing on one foot, had his left arm at a 90 degree angle in front of him, and had his other hand in front of his stomach, clenched up.
"... that guy's funny!" the boy said with a laugh as he walked off.
At about the same time, Toko launched forward, attempting press any advantage he had.
He started off with a roundhouse kick as he neared, leaving Shintaru's best option as to block it.
If he were to move back, he could still easily be hit, and if he were to try to go under it, it would be easy to change directions in a split second... but if he blocked it, he would have to use his right arm, putting down all of his defenses on that side, leaving his face open for a punch.
Unluckily, Toko had been off the streets too long, so he had forgotten about another option. Shintaru did block, but he also moved forward, slamming into Toko as he brought his elbow out, ramming his elbow into Toko's side as hard as he could.
"Damn... I haven't taken a hit in a while" Toko muttered as he countered with an inverted punch to the same area on Shintaru and jumped back.
"Hn, then get back to the streets. You obviously still enjoy it" Shintaru said, holding his side.
"Can't. I still have to worry about my mom... and the whole problem with her started over fighting anyways" Toko said with a sigh.
"Hm... true... well, let's say we call this fight a tie? The sooner you finish gathering that money, the sooner you can come on back right?" Shintaru asked with a smirk.
"Yep... but where am I going to find 10,000,000 zenny anyways?" Toko said with a sigh.
At his current rate, he was getting about 100 zenny a week... meaning it would take him a long time.
"Well... true. Heh, I guess you better get working then eh?" Shintaru said with a grin as he walked off.
"Yep... I better. After all, the reason we don't have the money is because she spent it to get me out of jail" Toko thought as he headed to his house.
"Hey mom. I'm home" Toko said as he walked into the house.
"cough cough. That's great honey" he heard his mom wheeze out.
His mom had come down with a really deadly sickness about a year ago.
And it cost about 10,000,000 to have the operation to cure it.
His mom had worked harder even then in an attempt to gain the money for the operation.
On the very day of the operation though, him and his friends had gotten into a fight with a wannabee gang.
A passerby had called the cops and he had gotten caught.
As he had been involved in about 1,000 other fights, and this was the first time he had been caught, he had been sighted in the fights before, and was easily linked to them, thus, he was set to be in jail for about 20 years.
The cost for bail was 10,000,000.
When his mom had found out about this, she had used the money for the operation to get him out.
It had been on that day that he had found out about the disease.
The next week,, his mom's symptoms increased to the point where his mother could barely move, meaning he now needed to support them.
After that, he had left the streets and got a job, trying to gather money for the operation, and pay for the rent as well. At this point, according to the doctors, his mother had three months to live.
He was only at 5,672 zenny after 8 months of work.
If something didn't change soon, his mother would be dead.
"Don't worry mom. I won't let you die over me" he thought, his fist clenched as he looked towards the ground angrily.
"Why do those doctors charge so much for this stuff? Their job is to save lives! Not send people to their death's because of a lack of money! What gives them the right to decide who lives and dies" he screamed in his head as he punched the wall as hard as he could, leaving a large hole in the wall.
"Shit! Not good" he thought as he heard his mom from the other room.
"Toko? What was that sound?" she said in what was nearly a whisper.
Toko just stared at the ground for a few seconds, hearing the voice and wishing he could do something for her.
Even though he knew there was no way he could get the money in time, deep down. But there was no way in all hell that he wouldn't try his best.
If he didn't he would live the rest of his life wishing he had tried to save her, regardless of the fact that he knew it was impossible.
"Toko?" he heard his mom whisper out again, most likely wondering why Toko hadn't responded to her last sentence.
"Nothing mom. I just dropped something" Toko yelled back to her, trying his best to put on a cheerful tone.
Not something he was used to doing in the least.
"I'm going to make dinner, then after that, I'm heading back to work. Okay mom?" Toko asked as he walked to where his mom was.
"Alright dear, that's fine" she managed to say, still barely moving from her bed.
"Stupid doctors" Toko thought as he walked over to the oven and began cooking.
If any of his old friends could see him now, it would be so embarrassing.
After all, what type of street punk cooks good food? After about thirty minutes of cooking the dinner was finished.
Though cheap, it was still a dinner, and it was needed if they wanted to survive.
The two ate in total silence, though they were both silent for different reasons.
The mother was silent because she was too weak to talk that much.
Toko on the other hand, merely was lost in thought.
He had just thought of a way for him to get the money in time, though it wasn't one he had a real liking for.
His boss at work was involved in some illegal trading, as he had discovered three days ago.
And one of his bosses clients was running tests on human specimens for use as weapons in an underground war.
Currently, they were running short on volunteers, due to the cops having caught wind of their experiments and releasing the result to the world.
Due to a few freak mutations, their chances of getting volunteers was reduced to an incredibly low number.
Whoever volunteered would be given 100,000,000,000 zenny, but, as many died from the experiments, the need for money was low for those who would have volunteered.
But, for him, he only needed the money for his mother's operation, meaning he would still have a use, even if he was dead.
Lost in his thoughts, it took him a few minutes to realize his plate of food was now empty.
Seeing this, he got up and left to head back to work... and to tell his boss to contact his client because he was planning on volunteering.
As he arrived at his work, a run down factory with about ten times as many hidden doors in it than in most of those weird mansions shown in movies, he looked around for his boss before sighing as he clocked in and headed for work.
The one thing he liked about this job was that it didn't require certain times.
There was no worry about being late for work, and there was no time at which he was expected to go back home.
All he had to do was clock in and work.
He would then be paid by how long he had worked.
After a few hours of working, he saw his boss, a man by the name of Larka.
"Hm? Toko? Didn't you head home a while ago?" Larka asked as Toko, one of his workers, who was currently employee of the month by far, walked up to him.
"Sir" Toko said with a sigh, his body tense.
After all, he was pretty much sentencing himself to death right here and now.
"This is concerning your client from three days ago... the one who did the human experiments. I would like to volunteer for his tests" Toko said, holding his head high, in a confident manner, though he didn't feel confident in the least.
"What!? Why would you want to do that? Didn't you hear? All of his test subjects have ended up dead!" Larka exclaimed, surprised at Toko's request.
"I know, but I need the money" Toko said with a sigh.
"Money ain't gonna help you if you go and die boy!" Larka pointed out, wondering why such a request had been made.
This boy was his best worker, and, since this person had joined, the amount of items purchased from this factory had increased... mostly because of an increase in items from the production line, but still, that was due to Toko's hard work in a way anyways.
"I know I can't use the money if I'm dead, but I can get the money and have it used to save my mother" Toko snapped back to his boss, getting a bit annoyed.
It was hard enough to make this decision as it was, let alone with someone telling him to reconsider.
"Alright boy, so be it. I'll go contact him if that's what you really want but once I do, there won't be no changing your mind, alright?" Larka asked as he looked at the boy with a sad look before heading into his office to make the call.
Picking up his phone, he dialed the number of his client and waited for someone to answer.
About twenty miles away, a middle aged man jumped as his phone began to ring.
His phone number wasn't known to many, and, as he had just changed it last week, there were only a few who knew it, meaning this likely had to do with business.
Jumping to his feet, the man rushed to his phone, picking it up after the third ring.
"Hello, this is Genta Holmes speaking" he muttered in an excited breath.
This may mean a test volunteer had been found.
"Yes, this is Larka... I found a volunteer." Larka's voice said from the other end.
"Is that right? Tell me more" Genta said with a smile on his face.
Someone had actually volunteered. And from what he knew, the formula was finished, meaning the ultimate life form would be easy to make.
Once this volunteer's test was finished, he would be able to show off the power and thus, gain many more volunteers.
Things were beginning to look up for him and his company.
Three days passed with Toko continuing his work as if the deal had never been made.
He had told his mother that he had found a new job, and would be gone a while for the interview.
He had told her that if he got the job, he would get enough to pay for the operation and then some.
And it was true, but what he refused to tell her was that if he did get the job, which he obviously would, he would end up dead.
After those pain staking days in which Toko wished time and again that he could find some other way to do this, Toko headed to work to be picked up by Genta.
On the way there, he found a lottery ticket, picked it up as a joke and sighed.
"Well, let's see, 30,000,000 zenny if you're the winning ticket eh?" he muttered with a sigh as he walked through the town, looking at the numbers.
"Bingo style huh? If I've got three of the number of the month's lined up, I win huh?" he thought with a sigh, begging that he would win, so that he wouldn't have to go through with this.
It's surprising at times how a resolve so strong can break into begging to get away after only three days.
Not noticing it, he had arrived at the factory.
There also seemed to be a radio nearby. " and the winning numbers are...666.
That's right, if you have those numbers, than you win 30,000,000 zenny!" the radio announced happily, regardless of the fate that Toko now had.
Not even noticing it for that matter.
"So, you ready to go boy?" Larka said, trying to put a grin on.
Even if he was just a businessman, and even if he would have happily given away some of his other employees, this was, as his thoughts had reminded him, time after time before, his greatest employee.
"Yep" Toko said with a sigh as he tossed the ticket on the ground and entered the truck.
The driver of the truck grunted and then sped off with him.
As the wind picked up from the trucks movement, the ticket was sent flying into the air with three numbers across it.
The numbers were 666.
"So, you are the one who volunteered for my tests?" Genta Holmes said as Toko was brought into the room.
"Yep, what of it asshole?" Toko said with a smirk, trying to act like he wasn't actually about ready to pee his pants and run for it.
"Heh. Well than, I guess it's about time to begin" Genta said as he pointed towards a door.
"Not so fast. I want the money that would have gone to me to go towards my mothers operation. Alright?" Toko asked with a confused look as he saw the hysterical look on Genta's face.
"My dear boy..." Genta said, trying to hold back a laugh.
"You were never going to get any money in the first place. That was merely a con to gain a volunteer" Genta said with a laugh before falling to the ground as Toko's fist connected with his face.
"You fucking bastard! I'll kill you!" Toko yelled, punching the one known as Genta into the ground.
At that point in time, the guards entered and blasted him with an electric gun, stunning him.
They then grabbed him and dragged him off.
"That piece of shit brat! He dirtied my clothing!" Genta said as he dusted off his clothing, barely even noticing the blood stains.
"And what if he survives this?" a voice asked from the shadowy corners of the room.
"What are the odds of that?" Genta said, continuing to dust himself off.
"Decent enough. You yourself was able to survive the flawed version, and it's made you nearly immortal" the one in the shadows said.
"True. But if that does happen, I have a plan already. He mentioned a sick mother... find information on her. If he begins to act up, take her hostage" Genta said with a cruel smirk.
"Yes sir" the man said as he slipped out of the shadows.
"And what's with the shadow deal? It seems pointless to me Tang" Genta said with a sigh.
"... please don't use my real name" Tang muttered as he slipped off.
"Hmph. It's been over 2000 years and that man still goes by the same rules that his family laid out all that time ago. What is the use of a ninja in this day and age anyways?" Genta muttered.
"I sometimes wish my family was not bound to that mans clan. His family has become corrupt beyond belief" Tang muttered as he left.
"Damn it to hell!" Toko yelled out, trying to break away from the guards, even though his body was paralyzed from the shock.
"If we cared what other people thought of us, we wouldn't have these jobs" one of the guards muttered with a smirk.
"Besides, it's not that much of a burden on my conscious if an obnoxious brat ends up dead for the tests. I actually enjoy the whole clean up deal. Tossing mutated freaks into the sewer and then watching as the news make it into this gigantic deal. It makes me laugh so much" the other guard said with a happy look on his face.
"Okay... you're insane" Toko muttered with a sweat drop as he was dragged further into the lab.
"Well than, kid, don't waste time saying your prayers.
Even if there was a god, there's no way he could save you now" one of the guards said as he was put inside a strange capsule.
"Let me out!" Toko yelled, trying to jump out as the stun began to finally leave.
Unluckily, a door suddenly came down in front of him and locked him inside the capsule.
"Damn it! Let me out!" Toko yelled angrily.
Everything was a waste.
Here he was, getting ready to die, and his reason for doing this was never even going to be.
"Well... I did everything I could so that I wouldn't regret not trying it all for my mom's life... but I'm definitely regretting this" Toko thought angrily as gas filled the tank, making it very difficult for him to stay conscious.
"Damn it" Toko muttered as his vision blurred.
He then fell unconscious and slumped to the bottom of the cage.
This would be the last time he would ever see this world.
Two weeks passed with him stuck in the chamber, still unconscious.
The chamber had recently been filled up with water, and there were strange wires attached to Toko. Energy seemed to be transported through the wires and into Toko every few seconds as the wires glowed, and the stats on Toko's body increased.
"So... are you sure this will work? Increasing the body's physical limits can only go so far without damaging the body to an irreparable extent.
"One of the scientists muttered as him and a few others watched the bag.
"That's why we used a week and a half rearranging his genes and DNA" another scientist said, annoyed.
He had chosen to become a scientist so that he could get somewhere with his life, not so that he would end up experimenting with little kids.
Around that time, the lab began to shake.
"Huh? What's happening? I don't understand this?!" a scientist yelled, surprised.
If this was an earthquake, the metal that the walls were made of would have stopped the tremors from reaching them, meaning, it either originated from their room, or something of incredible power was currently attacking.
At that point, someone ran into the room.
"Something is attacking the city! Half the city has been destroyed by a strange gray and brown whale!" the man said in an ecstatic tone.
"That's outrageous!" one of the scientists said with a laugh before another man came down.
One they recognized quite well.
"It's true..." the man said as he entered the lab.
"Tang... I mean Shadow! That's impossible!" the scientist tried to reason.
At that point, the whale, known to all of Spira, though completely unknown to the ones here, Sin, crashed through the building, shooting off a time altering energy as he went through.
At that happening, Shadow attempted to use a move that had been in his family for 1000's of years. Teleportation.
At the same time, the energy from the machine shot one last burst into Toko.
The three different types of energy all connected at that second, causing a chain reaction that caused the entire building to fall apart as Toko, and Shadow as well, disappeared from existence.
Everyone else in that world met their death on that day, never to be seen again... except for one. On the other side of town, a teenage boy in his dying breath was caught in the chain of energy.
And there's chapter one of the remake... I think it's a lot better than the earlier version. Twice the length at the least, and half the information was used this chapter from the other... meaning those two chapters will be four, of considerable length. yay... 23 pages