Quick note before the story: Most characters will be their proper age, but some will be scaled up or down to fit certain needs. For example, Bartz is 17 in this story instead of 20 like he was in game. Firion's a bit older at 21. Cloud's in his 23-year-old incarnation during Dirge of Cerberus. Warrior of Light is 18, a senior in high school. Prishe is 17. Shantotto is 64, not that she would admit it. Cecil is 35, and Theodore is 41, etc.
Also, everyone is human unless otherwise stated. Oh, and Squall lacks a certain trademark facial feature at the moment… AKA, his scar.
"In this world, where discord and harmony exist equally, I shall start this war anew."
It was the tail end of summer. The cicadas still cried their shrill songs in the muggy heat at the end of August. School recently started back up, and the students had filed into their new classrooms obediently as the shackles of education reapplied themselves. The teachers reviewed information that everyone but the best of students forgot. The cliques redefined themselves. Friends and peers caught up with what they did over the summer. Clubs began to bustle for new members. Teams scrambled for new players since the seniors graduated. It was so typical.
"Speaking of typical…" a brown-haired boy with icy-blue eyes wearing a white, collared shirt and sky-blue, plaid trousers thought to himself. "Those two are in detention again."
Normally, he wouldn't have paid those trouble-making dorks any mind. They were in different cliques, after-all. He was a jock and straight-A student. They were a straight-C delinquent and a class-A clown. He even heard that they had a new, freshman member to their little club of hooligans. The last thing he wanted was to be associated with a band of trouble-makers. However, a certain request made him change his mind…
"What do you mean I gotta tutor those idiots?" the brunette shouted at a man with black hair and sea-foam green eyes wearing a sky blue shirt and brown slacks. "They're not my problem!"
"I know, Squall, I know!" he responded, pleading with the boy. "But, I've tried everything! They won't open up to me at all! Normally, Bartz and Vaan are such chatterboxes, but every time I call them here to talk about what happened, they clam up faster than oyster that got sand in its shell!"
"And what does tutoring got to do with it, Laguna?" asked Squall with an aggravated tone in his voice.
Laguna recoiled when he heard his name. "Uh-oh, he's mad at me… he wouldn't use my name if he wasn't, but…" He cleared his throat to muster up some courage. Sure, he was the adult, the parent, here, but when his son looked at him like that, he could only wonder how they became so different, being a guidance counselor provided him with no answers either. "Squall, they need more than a tutor, they need a friend. Someone who can pry open the shell they've secluded themselves in. I've tried talking to them ever since it happened, even during summer, but they just won't talk to me. They need someone their own age. Squall, please. I'm begging you!"
Squall looked at the man who was, unfortunately, his father. Those sea-foam green eyes started to well and bulge. He was using the puppy-dog eyes on him. Squall pinched his eyebrows and sighed in defeat. "… Fine, I'll do it. But, no one else can know about this."
Laguna, having won their little battle of wits, slapped Squall on the back and began to push him out of his office. "That's the spirit, Squallard!" Squall cringed when he heard that nickname. He hated that nickname. "They should be in study hall. They got detention again, unsurprisingly. Go introduce yourself to them!"
Squall left the office and began the slow and delayed walk toward the study hall in desperate hopes that they'd leave before he made it.
Squall stood outside the classroom door that was deemed study hall. He could hear muffled chatter and music(?) from the other side. Squall guessed they were still in there and still breaking the rules. He sighed. "Some people don't learn…" He knocked on the door before he let himself in to announce his presence.
The room's three occupants paid the door no attention. They were the only ones who dense enough to cause trouble during the first week of school, a thin, fair-skinned brunette, a muscular, tan sandy-blond, and a rather short golden-blond. The three were clustered at a group of desks each holding a different electronic device: the brunette had a blue 3DS out and was playing with the AR cards. The sandy-blond had out a PSP and was playing Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, though he was doing horribly at it considering his various cries of frustration. The golden-blond had his cell-phone out and was updating his Facebook status. Only when the door slid open and heavy footsteps echoed throughout the room that the three took their attention off their devices and onto Squall. The three of them had the same look of confusion on their face and the same thought running through their minds, "What's he doing here?"
Before the question could be asked, Squall answered it, "I'm your new student tutor. Your grades last year were less-than-perfect, so the school assigned me to help you study and review." He had the look of absolute boredom on his face. He wished he was anywhere else but here doing this. He would have even preferred to be downtown protesting the war with that Terra girl than be here.
The brunette was the first to find his voice. "Wait, 'tutor us'? Like, 'come to our house and look over our shoulder to make sure we're doing our work' 'tutor us'?" Well, the brunette caught on fast enough in Squall's opinion. Maybe he wasn't totally helpless. The three shot nervous glances at each other. "N-no thanks! We're good!"
The sandy-blond chimed in next. "Yeah, we don't need some stinkin' pretty boy as a tutor!"
"V-Vaan! That's not necessary!" scolded the brunette to the sandy-blond.
The golden-haired blond leaned back with a look of disgust on his face. "I say it should've been a pretty girl instead, like that Garnet chick… maybe Yuna… or even Terr-"
"Zidane!" the brunette interjected again.
"Hey! Terra's my girlfriend, and you know it!" Vaan added.
"Relax, Vaan, I'm just messin' with ya. I can admire a hot babe and not touch, you know," he said playfully with a wink.
"Ahem," Squall interrupted with an obnoxious clearing of his throat trying to wrestle their attention back from each other. "Whether you want it or not, I'm your tutor. Now, let's go. We're heading to Bartz's place since he's the only one of your addresses I know."
"Um… Actually…" Bartz sheepishly interjected. "We kinda… live… together…"
Vaan and Zidane were out of their seats and now hugging each other with Bartz sandwiched in the middle with big grins plastered on their collective faces. "Yup!" started Zidane.
"The three of us are 'brothers'!" finished Vaan.
Squall recoiled in shock. "Brothers? They look nothing alike!"
Bartz was waving off their statement in a hurried attempt to explain. "My father adopted the three-er-two of them, so, even though we're not related, we're brothers, see?"
"Three?" Squall would have questioned them more about the little Freudian slip Bartz just had, but that might jeopardize his secret mission and decided to pretend he didn't hear it. "So, wait, all of you live on the chocobo ranch on the edge of town?"
"Yup!" Bartz answered with a big grin on his face. "Neat, huh?"
"Yeah…" Squall stated with as much sarcastic inflection he could muster. "Fantastic."
Instead of taking public transportation home like the three always did, Squall decided to drive them back to their place in his car. It was a beat-up old rustbucket of a thing his dad pulled out of his garage until Squall spent a lot of time and money updating it to bring it back to its 1960's roots. The car drove like a dream, and the three were obviously impressed that Squall fixed this beauty of a car himself.
The car ride didn't take too long once Squall got his bearings in this more rural part of the town (directions from Bartz, who was in the passenger's seat, greatly helped). Squall drove up the dirt path that lead to the house on the ranch passing by a man Bartz said was named Gilgamesh who was their farm-hand. After parking his car next to the house, the occupants piled out. Bartz, Zidane, and Vaan headed toward their house while Squall paced around his car making sure the rocks from the dirt path didn't leave any scratches or dings in his paintjob. After a sufficient inspection, Squall was right behind the three. By the time he made it the steps, they were already inside, but they left the door open for him. He walked in and noticed his new surroundings. The door lead to a straight hallway that had the many rooms branching off of it, and a simple wooden staircase leading to the second floor where he assumed the bedrooms were. The first opening on his left led to the living room where Zidane had thrown off his shoes and backpack to relax on the couch and watch some TV. The room on the right appeared to be the dining room. It was mostly taken up by a large table in the room with a rather nice light fixture hanging over it, but the thin layer of dust over the chairs and plates indicated that the room itself wasn't used that much. He continued to walk down that hall. He noticed a small door on his left. Wondering what was on the other side, he opened it. He was greeted with blackness and a wooden staircase leading down. He gathered this was the entrance into the basement. He closed the door again and continued down the hallway. At the end of the hall was another closed door, but the sound of running water indicated someone was in it. He knocked.
"Yo, I'm in here. Can you wait?" From the voice, it sounded like Vaan was using what Squall assumed was the bathroom. So, he turned to the opening on his right. Looking inside, he could see that it was the kitchen. It was rather well furnished. The appliances were very high-end and in chrome giving the kitchen a very modern and classy feel. Bartz was in refrigerator, apparently rummaging for snacks when he emerged with an armful of fruits and a few cans of soda.
"Oh, hey, Squall," Bartz said acknowledging that he realized Squall was here too. "You like Coke?" he asked as he walked over to the counter to put down his load. "You don't mind fruit, do ya?" Squall didn't really bother answering since Bartz was busy at work cutting up the fruits anyway for snacks while humming to himself a tune Squall never heard before but was strangely… familiar. Squall shook off the feeling of déjà vu and took one of the cans of soda on the counter. He opened it and took a nice gulp. Squall opened his mouth to speak, but Bartz interrupted him before he had the chance. "I know; I'll get to work right when I'm done with this. I can't think on an empty stomach! Besides, sugar helps stimulate the brain!"
Squall shrugged and left the kitchen to head back towards the living room. Bartz stopped chopping long enough to watch him walk out and sighed, shaking his head.
Back in the living room, Zidane and Vaan had booted up the Xbox to play some Call of Duty together on the plasma screen TV mounted on the wall. Squall just glared at them from the hallway. "Well, this would explain why their grades are so poor," he muttered to himself. He walked in and stood in front of the TV with arms crossed blocking Vaan and Zidane's view of the action. They recoiled in shock, and then bowed their heads in shame. Zidane cringed, as if fighting off some unpleasant memory. Bartz merrily entered the room with a bowl full of mixed fruits and placed it on the glass coffee table. The group pulled out their work for the evening. Squall decided that they would start with math since that was collectively their weakest subject. Vaan was slacking off instead of doing his work with a very bored look his face. Zidane pretended to be doing his work with his nose in his book, but in reality, he was just surfing the web on his phone again. Bartz was the only one honestly trying, but he just didn't understand the material. Squall could tell he had a loooong night ahead of him.
Hours passed as Squall tried his damnest to get them to concentrate on this what-he-thought-was-simple subject. The sun was starting to set and the bowl once full of fruit was now bare when the material finally started to sink in. Bartz was the first to catch on, mainly because he was actually trying. Once he understood, he passed the information along to Vaan, who quickly began to work on his own problems with new understanding. Zidane was a year behind in education, but the three were in the same math class, and was soon working on his own homework and catching up to the other two. Once they were finished, Squall decided to review their papers to make sure they did it right. While he worked on that, Bartz was back in the kitchen to prepare everyone dinner after frantically apologizing to Squall for keeping him here for so long. Zidane and Vaan took this as an opportunity to pick up their game where they left off.
"My warriors…"
Squall looked up from their work and looked around in a confused panic. "Who said that? That was a woman's voice! There's no woman here!" For a moment, he thought he was going crazy until he noticed that Vaan and Zidane weren't playing the game and were looking up at the ceiling as if waiting for something. "Did…Did they hear it too?"
"Another has Awakened. You must hurry!"
"'Awakened'? What does that mean?" Before he could wonder any further, Vaan and Zidane were up on their feet and running out of the room. Squall was quickly on their tail. He soon saw that Bartz had joined them as they gathered in front of the door that led to the basement. The three looked down the hall and noticed Squall's face of confused panic. The three looked at each other and nodded.
"Squall, come here. We want to show you something," Bartz implored. Squall wasn't sure what to think. He was either going mad, or they were keeping one mother of a secret. He nervously approached the group and watched waiting for whatever it was they wanted to show him. The three outstretched their arms, opened their palms, and closed their eyes, like they were concentrating on something. Squall then saw light began to form in their hands that exploded into various shaped crystals, and Squall nearly jumped out his socks in surprise. Bartz's crystal was purple and seemingly fused of smaller crystal pieces. Zidane's crystal was orange and somewhat shaped like the Washington Monument except for four little crystal spikes jutting out on the sides. Vaan's crystal was a lighter-color orange and shaped like a shooting star, only soaring towards the heavens rather than plummeting toward the Earth. The door seemed to respond to the presence of the crystals and began to glow in a golden light. The door then changed from its humble white-washed, wooden self to a gleaming white-double door with golden trim and other fancy accents that Squall's brain was unable to properly process from the sheer state of shock he was in. The three began to crack up seeing Squall's face.
"Dude, we were exactly the same way when we first saw this!" Vaan exclaimed between the laughs. Bartz and Zidane opened the doors as Vaan pushed Squall through the shining doorway. When Squall was back in control of his sense, he noticed that he was standing in very shallow water. His socks were now sponges soaking up the water until they were saturated. Now uncomfortable with them on, he pulled them off and turned around to throw them back in the hallway only to see the door that he just walked through was no longer there. He looked around in a panic again to see if he could find the door. While he found no door, he noticed there were random white spires, ballistae, a statue with a crescent moon, and what looked like a simple throne dotting the landscape. He noticed that Bartz, Zidane, and Vaan were walking toward the throne and stopped some distance from it to kneel before the empty chair – or at least then empty. Upon their bowing, a glowing sphere of light formed on the throne and erupted into the form of a beautiful young woman with golden blond hair and a white gown with golden decorations. She was one of the most beautiful women Squall has ever seen.
"My Warriors…" Her voice was soothing and motherly but had this otherworldly grace and power that soon had Squall on his knee bowing in respect as well. She looked over at Squall, and gave a light smile that showed both happiness and concern. "And former Warrior…"
"We have arrived, Cosmos, and we do thy bidding," the three answered in unison.
She stood from her throne, and all four returned to their feet, though Squall was a bit embarrassed that he kneeled in the first place. Cosmos turned to her three warriors. "And, why have you brought Squall here?"
The three bowed their heads in shame, but Bartz was the only one to speak. "Uh, sorry, Cosmos. He heard you too, and he was watching us anyway. Not like we could casually explain this away. It might be easier to convince him this was a dream if we have to repress his memories if he saw this place."
"Or to recruit him to aid in your fight?" Cosmos asked, though already knowing the answer.
Bartz just rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. He really would have liked to have fought along Squall again. They were good friends when they knew each other during the forbidden war, and Squall was also one of the strongest of the fighters. He would have been a great asset, and they all knew it. But, they also didn't want to force this upon him.
After Squall's shock wore off, he marched over toward the group, grabbed Bartz by his shirt, and pulled him close to Squall's face so that Bartz was staring directly into his steely-blue eyes. Bartz gulped. He knew that look. That was the look Squall gave him right before he was Revolver Driven into a wall or forcefully shoved into his own locker. Bartz was thanking his lucky stars that Squall wasn't Awakened, and they weren't in school.
"Bartz! Where the hell am I? Answer me, or so help me-"
"Squall!" Vaan and Zidane shouted while trying to get Squall to let go of their "brother."
"That is enough, Squall," chided Cosmos. "Please release Bartz, and I shall explain everything you want to know. For now, they are needed elsewhere." Squall, still furious, did release his hold on Bartz's shirt. Bartz, after smoothing out the wrinkles on his shirt, again materialized his crystal. Vaan and Zidane soon followed suit. The three lifted their crystal above their head and were enveloped in a golden light. Squall had to shield his eyes from the blinding rays. When he could see again, he noticed that their outfits completely changed. They were no longer wearing the standard school uniform. Instead, Bartz was wearing a sky-blue, low-cut tank top, a white sash around his waist, a blue and yellow sarong with a golden belt, and oddly stripped leggings. Grey boots that were blue at his ankles and yellow at the toes were his footwear. A golden pauldron decorated in jeweles and beads covered his left shoulder and seemed to be attached to a light blue cape extending from his back. Blue, cloth gauntlets also wrapped in beads covered his hands. To top off his outfit, Bartz wore a silver circlet with a violet jewel and beaded earrings. Vaan wore a black, armored vest held together by the pendant he always wore around school over a white shirt with puffy sleeves and a popped up collar. Tied around his waist was a red sash decorated with strange, turquoise jewels and another sort of charm on his right hip. His pants were black, but on the sides were teal with red, x-shaped ties. These pants tucked into segmented armored boots. He also wore large, silver-ish gauntlets overtop black gloves. Zidane was wearing a dark blue vest and a sleeveless shirt underneath and a cravat with a brooch overtop, blue pants with many pockets that seemed to exaggerate his hips and brown and tan boots that came up to his knees. His waist was decorated in an excess of belts with some sort of weapon holster on his left hip. His hands were covered in grey gloves with oversized blue cuffs and… wait, was that a tail? If Squall didn't see the three of them transform right before his very eyes, he would swear they were different people. The air about them was different too. They had this air of purpose… duty… righteousness. Squall simply stared in awe as the three materialized a brown gate with a red crest in its center, and left this serene place without another word.
When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he jumped a bit startled as he was brought back down to reality. He turned to notice the golden-haired woman, the one they called Cosmos, was the owner of the hand. "Are you ready for what I have to say, Squall?"
Aaaaand, Chapter 1 done! So, yeah, not your typical High School AU, right? I wanted it more secret identity, super-sentai-ish. What's this? Yes, Bartz, Zidane, and Vaan are already old pros at this. Squall's just learning of their secret that they wouldn't tell Laguna. So, yeah, I guess since I'm comparing this to Power Rangers, think of Cosmos as Zordon and Order's Sanctuary as the Command Center. No, there will be no Zords though. That would be too Power Rangers-ish.
Before you chew my head off over Vaan having a crystal when he didn't in Dissidia, I realize this, and I will explain in a later chapter. And, yes, Vaan is wearing his TacticsA2 outfit instead of his FF12 one. I will also explain story-why in a later chapter, but really, would you rather have Vaan running around without a shirt or with one when he looks so much more fly when he does wear one? Yeah, I thought so.
And, I hope you guys aren't mad at me for having those three be brothers. I mean, I thought they would make cute family. The three are a lot alike already, and two are adoptees (though Vaan lost his adoptive parents too). I just thought it was kinda natural. Oh, for the thing they don't want to talk about, that will also come at a later chapter. Next chapter will be the fight scene and Cosmos explaining what's going on (Ms. Exposition!).