Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy X or any brand names mentioned.

FINAL FANTASY X: SPIRA HIGH

C H A P T E R O N E

The Millennium Boy

October 2050.

He would remember this day for tens, hundreds, a thousand years to come.

He remembered the clothes he wore – his blitzball uniform, yellow and blue sleeves strapped under black buckles, jingling chains on uneven shorts, bright sneakers that squeaked every quick skip across the pavement to the stage.

He remembered the song that played that night – a rock n' roll tune with a heavy guitar riff, screamed by some one-hit-wonder band that had been playing all week over radio stations, now declared from speakers that surrounded the stadium, shaking the floors beneath them.

He remembered how many times he signed his name – ten times, the first carefully drawn out, i's dotted and t's crossed; four, five, six more times, the loops of d's a stick, the last curve of the s a backwards coil; nine, ten times, until sharpies drew chicken scratches and letters were distorted by dimples of the blue and white ball.

But his grin would make it all better, make any boy laugh and give a thumbs up and shout 'good luck', any girl sigh and forgive the captain for rushing off to his big game, and when they looked back at their ball held by the hands of the rising star player, they knew, through the scuffs and the smears, only that autograph could have been signed by Tidus.

His blonde hair leaped as his sneakers did running across the campus as Tidus idly listened to the announcer's voice echoing through the speakers.

"Can anyone believe we were only six, seven, eight years old when this happened? The older teachers told me all about it. When Jecht, Zanarkand High's star athlete, just vanished into thin air! Boy, I heard the teachers hated him in class, but even they could admit he was a hero out there. A legend…"

Tidus wrinkled his nose, as if a tiny bug had smacked at his cheek as he was running. He passed by classmates whose ears were filled with iPod earplugs and cell phones and bluetooths, calling all their friends to come over, see the biggest game there'll ever be in high school history, yet even they stopped themselves to wave at the athlete and cheer him on.

"And that makes today even more exciting, doesn't it? Ten years later, the Jecht memorial homecoming game is tonight, and I know what we're all here for! See the star of the Zanarkand Abes, the new hope in blitzball, the legendary junior who already made it in varsity as a freshman – he's Jecht's only son, Jecht's own blood!"

The boy stopped at a corner, struck frozen from a glimpse of a poster on the classroom wall. A man stared back at him, muscled arms folded, red headband wrapped around his forehead. Shaggy brown hair he never bothered to cut, stubble twisted from the smirk on his lips. Even on paper he taunted the boy, and for once he did it silently, letting the announcer take all the jabs.

"Will teachers see the old Jecht they used to see in him?"

"Will he show us his father's own legendary shot?"

"Will he be a greater legend than his dad?"

Tidus's lips twisted and he snatched the poster, ripped the tape off the concrete wall.

"Tonight, I'll finally beat you, old man," he muttered under his breath, staring at a stranger who could only be related by blood and name to him.

He tore the poster apart and left the pieces scattered on the ground before continuing his way into the stadium.

Unbeknownst to him, a small, hooded boy had stepped out of the corner of the pathway, gazing after.

"You can't tonight," he murmured.

~*~

In Zanarkand, the city never slept. Tall buildings loomed to touch the clouds, windows lit brighter than stars in the night. Television ads streamed across the streets, cars were almost always jammed in traffic. After the game, Tidus had planned to go to a party. Every Friday night there was a party, thrown by some classmate he barely even knew whose parents were out for the weekend, and every night he was invited. And why not? He was one of the most popular students in school, the star athlete, the prodigy.

He supposed it might be a surprise that he didn't have a date for the homecoming dance next week yet. His teammates already had girlfriends – athletes were almost like celebrities in his school. His friends teased him about never having a date often, which used to irritate the boy back in freshman year, but now Tidus was fine with it. Mostly because…

"Hey! Tidus!"

He snapped his head up, looked at a random group of sophomore girls clung together who were waving.

"We're cheering for you!" A bold redhead shouted, the other two shyly fidgeting with their miniskirts, blushing as they met his blue eyes.

Tidus grinned. "Thanks! Hey, where do you girls sit?"

"East block in the front row! Fifth from the right!"

"Alright. If I score a goal, I'll do this!" He held both arms, pumped his hands in the air. "That will mean it was for you, okay?"

They giggled as he sprinted towards the stadium and squeezed his way through mobs of people who swarmed around him.

Tidus wasn't bothered about not having a date because, after all, that could change any day. He had dated girls before, but the relationships never lasted long. It might have been because of his cocky attitude, or because he was a little too reckless at times, but really, the only thing he ever took seriously was blitzball.

Tidus was rather simple-minded. He didn't think of the future much, and if he did he could only see himself as a professional blitzball athlete. When a player got in the game, they had to focus on one thing and one thing only.

The seventeen-year-old sat against the wall, eyes closed and darkness all around him. Shouts, thundering stomps on the bleachers faded. Water that caressed his ankles evaporated to thin air. Music reduced to a white noise. The girls were gone. His father was gone. All was gone, but the pounding in his chest, the beating of his heart, the same that almost lunged out the second the ball blared and he popped his eyes wide open. His body suspended and shot out to the stadium in the air, gently crashing through the liquid barrier, a colossal sphere up above made entirely of water.

He paid no attention to the screaming heavy metal blaring out the speakers, the cheerleaders dancing and flipping, the cannons underneath shaking and spitting, and that somewhere, in the distance, a monster was growing in the city.

He gripped his fingers fitting inside the dimples of the ball, sent it hurdling, the spinning sphere barely grazing the tip of the others' fingers, and the ball slammed against the goal point. A buzzer blared, a number changed. Tidus smirked. Score one.

Players tackled, threw down, grappled, collided. Blitzball was more intense than the kind normal high school students were used to playing in video games. The real deal, when someone was swimming in the middle of the field, staring face to face with the enemy, was more severe. X and O buttons from a Playstation 6 couldn't cripple someone, paralyze their arm and make their veins burn from the impact. Shaking a Wii 5 remote couldn't knock them unconscious altogether, have their eyes slit in a daze and head propped against the wall.

Tidus smashed a persistent player and broke him through the sphere. Shards of water fell like glass and the player tumbled backwards, knocking into each row of the bleachers, exciting nearby students. The strong blow was recorded on the big screen, with a signature grin of the blonde boy as the last panel.

The Zanarkand Abes dominated all their school tournaments, and everyone knew why.

But for the first time that night, he lost grasp of the ball by mere inches. For several seconds the blue and white stripes floated in front of him, then spun in a blur by a swift kick from the other team, blasting it away to the top. By instinct Tidus followed.

He dug his hands through ripples, emerged from the sphere, gasping in air, the rush of wind sweeping his feet higher. He spotted the ball now, a little speck in the night, gravity pulling it closer down his way. He felt time slowing down, thundering claps one beat per minute, echoing, his foot pulled up above him, twisting. The cheers they screamed, the breaths they held, people anticipated, waited, for this moment, the legendary shot, Jecht's famous trademark, about to come to life before them. He tried to drown their questions, would he do it, would he do it, could he do it, tried to repress the shadow that always followed every move he made, repressed it with the whistle of the wind, but the wind was silent, everything was silent, the only things existing in the world were him and the ball.

Except.

For one second, he looked away. For one second, he took his eyes off the ball and forgot. He did the worst thing an athlete could do, got distracted, widened his eyes and realized a building not too many miles away, consumed, windows and satellite dishes and broken glass devoured by a creature that tore up the night.

But the creature was shrouded in water, and how was that possible, he thought, for water the boy would always drink and bathe and swim in, to churn into looming shadows, bubbling like a million of screaming, drowning people?

And then the missiles came.

They flashed before his eyes, cut through buildings and statues and monuments, and Tidus watched the ball he had lost a long time ago shred into pieces by the blow. A large explosion rumbled the city, cracked through concrete, the smoke tore off ligaments of every skyscraper touched.

He could feel himself blinded by smoke and chaos, yelling and waving his arms anywhere, anywhere, until his fingers luckily caught the ledge of the school gymnasium. He hung, thrashed around by wind, fire, pieces of the building falling apart. He watched in horror as the blitzball sphere fractured below, pouring gallons and gallons of water, sweeping and sinking students who trampled and screamed. Bleachers split steel into broken parts. The school flag crumbled to ashes. A hideous, screeching noise boomed from the speakers, and darting students made silhouettes upon red flashing walls.

What was going on?! He panicked, gripped his fingers so tightly on the ledge to not fall off, not let the code red alarm shriek and startle his hold. But Tidus's mind spun as he struggled to climb over, tried to understand what was happening. A school shooting? A terrorist attack? A nuclear war?!

Then the smoke turned still, gray clouds stuck on the streets. Students froze in their tracks, mid-jog, arms upright, one leg pulled up, the other behind. But even so, Tidus could feel his arms weakening, his fingers loosening, his knuckles whitening. Over the gym his body swung like the pendulum of a clock, ticking until he would fall, the toes of his shoes scraping against paint and concrete.

"It begins now."

He snapped his head up to see a young boy staring down at him. Tanned, he wore a purple hood that shielded his eyes away from the blitzball player.

"Wha—?!" Tidus sputtered.

"Don't cry."

The boy disappeared and time went back into place.

The destruction continued. His friends, teachers, classmates were gone, and the looming creature began hovering his way, bigger than before. Sweat slicked Tidus's hands. One arm left. Five fingers. Three.

A red sleeve fluttered from the night sky. Tidus recognized the man stepping over the rooftop, the familiar tinted glasses and rough stubble, the half of his coat flapping against the wind.

"Auron!" the blonde cried out, waving his free arm, desperately reaching towards the older man. "Auron!!!"

He lost his grasp, felt him lose his body and let gravity take over him, before Auron snatched the collar of the boy's shirt just in time. Tidus dangled, his feet kicking up air to the monster below, one that grew bigger, wider, nearing closer.

"Auron, what—!"

"We called it 'Sin'," was the mysterious man's reply.

The sky tore apart, clouds splitting, stars exploding, the light burning the boy's eyes. The sky rumbled like thunder, and he felt his legs lifted backwards this time, something tugging against his body. Auron looked up.

"You are sure?" he asked. 'Sin' roared, sucking up broken fixtures and debris. He nodded, then hoisted Tidus higher, and the blonde winced his eyes at the bright light from above, struggling. Those eyes squinted open to see his own terrified face, reflected in Auron's glasses.

"This is it. This is your story." Tidus couldn't understand. "It all begins here."

The tips of their hairs barely touched the sky. Their feet lost ground and they lifted up in the air, and no matter how much Tidus thrashed and resisted and tried to kick back, Auron would not let go. Tidus watched the older man's face distort, stretch to the infinite heavens, heavens he believed were hell. The man's hand disappeared and yet his shirt did not loosen. He could no longer see anything but a blinding flash of light. He could no longer feel Auron, or gravity, or his own weight, his body, himself. His head felt light, then sleepy, then finally nothing, nothing in entirety.

But the most terrifying part of it all, was that he was alone.

To be continued.

Author's Note: Yes, I am now jumping on the bandwagon of the old, overused, tedious, repetitive, etc. etc. premise of 'video game characters going to high school'. Because clichés are fun! And after playing FFX and writing my own original novel for the past two months, I've been itching to write some fan-fiction in third person.

This chapter was more like a retelling of the game and I apologize for that. I wanted to keep the basic plot original to the video game, but once Tidus reaches Spira High I promise there'll be some deviations, alterations, new things and such. I've developed the school system and classes (both education and hierarchy), so I hope that'll be interesting enough to read. How Tidus knew Auron, and how Auron kept an eye on Tidus in Zanarkand, will be altered too.

For now, the differences in this chapter are really just the setting. I'm setting the story to the year 2050 (next chapter he'll go to 3050, whoo!) and his world closely resembles ours, with the iPods, bluetooths, Wii 4, etc. It's more like an alternate universe because I didn't want to get too complex into the geography later on, though I imagine Zanarkand to be a cross between Las Vegas and Tokyo. Yeah, cool stuff.

But before I get too ahead of myself – FFX-turned-to-high-school fanfic: Yay or nay? Is anyone actually going to read this? Sigh, I guess I'll see with the reviews. *tumbleweed rolls*