My first FFX fic xD A Tikku, and one I've been dying to write for a while. I'll get back to the others, promise! But I just had to get this one out there. Enjoy!

Bittersweet

Chapter 1: Being Rescued by a Girl

The fire had finally begun to die out. Sleeping soundly next to it, Tidus was dreaming about a warm bed, a nice log fire and possibly some gorgeous girl keeping him warm. Even in his dreams, he was freezing.
He suddenly jerked awake, his body unable to sleep any longer in the sheer cold surrounding him. That was when he noticed his small, pitiful fire was pretty much all but extinguished.

"Hey, wait! Wait! Don't go out on me!" He desperately tried to resuscitate the dying fire by blowing on it. But it didn't really help much.

"Gahh... Just hold on! I'll go get some more wood!" As he stood up to find anything flammable he could throw on the fire, he suddenly realised he wasn't alone. He could sense it, like as though there was something watching him.

Suddenly, he spotted it. A creature near the ceiling, it's eyes glowing at him, with an almost hungry look in them. It had four, spider-like legs, and a long, thin tail, with a protruding head that was glaring at him. It started to run, circling the domed ceiling. He followed it round, making sure not to dizzy himself trying to keep up with its pace.

The creature stopped it's run, suddenly jumping from the wall onto the ground about a metre away from him. Pulling out his sword, Tidus growled angrily. Sod the fire, this would warm him up nicely.

The creature swiped at him. Now that it was closer, Tidus could see that it had sharp talon-like extensions which it used as support. They looked sharp, so if he mistimed a dodge or a block, his head would start to roll.
A block from another talon, dodging another, countering with a well aimed slash, only to be blocked by the monster. It was a stalemate, trading blows until one of them ran out of steam.

Then suddenly, the door behind him exploded in a flash of violent light. The fight stopped momentarily as the shockwave knocked his senses off balance. Through the light, he could see a bunch of armed men wearing goggles. In the centre of the men was a smaller, slightly more petite frame he guessed could be a girl. She had blond hair, tied up in a ponytail that spread the hair from the crown of her head forward towards the fringe. He couldn't make out any other details though, as her face was hidden by goggles and a face guard. She didn't seem to be armed, only wearing a knuckleduster-type weapon with claws on it. Nodding towards him, the girl walked over to him and stood next to him, taking up a fighting stance.

"You on my side? Cool." He turned back to the monster, who seemed to have recovered. He noticed that the other men didn't seem to be helping them, that it was just the two of them up against the big, scary monster. Turning his head slightly, he saw the girl pulling out what looked like a grenade from her belt.

"...hell?" It was all he could say before another explosion rocked the hall they were in. How many girls carry grenades around like that?

As she was pulling out another one, Tidus turned around to the monster. It was wobbling around, making a strange, high-pitched wailing sound. It looked like this fight wouldn't last much longer.

He was definitely not in Zanarkand anymore. The girls in Zanarkand didn't carry around grenades, and monsters the size of small airships didn't attack you. Well, not at least till the last few moments he was in Zanarkand, when it got attacked.

As a second explosion illuminated the grimy walls of the hall, he watched as he saw the girl speed up to the monster, swiping a strange material from it.. Jumping back to her position, she nodded at him as it to say it was his turn to take over. Turning back to the monster, he started running towards it. Somersaulting forwards, he built up momentum with a series of forward somersaults, before finally bringing down his sword with almighty force, slicing right through the body of the weakened monster. Split in half, the monster slowly evaporated away into a small cloud of rainbow-coloured pyreflies.

"And that ones called 'Spiral Cut'." He said with a grin to no one in particular. Looking at the girl, he watched as she pulled off her goggles. Bright green eyes were suddenly revealed, albeit with a spiral in the middle. He didn't know what kind of a world he was in, but the one he came from, the people normally had a circular iris, right?

Putting it aside for a moment, he squatted down to catch his breath.

"Whew... That was close." He heaved a sigh of relief. He might actually have a hope of surviving in this strange, cruel world he had ended up in. However, the hope was crushed moments later, when the men with the goggles accompanying the girl suddenly surrounded him. One of the goons pulled him into a standing position by his hair.

"Hey, lemme go!" He struggled against the grip, but it was useless. Plus, it really hurt on the hair, and the guns staring down at him were telling him to shut up.

"Fryd ec drec?" A guy wearing a blue balaclava and strange goggles like the rest of them spoke in a strange language he had never heard of before. Another guy with bright yellow hair behind Tidus nodded and hoisted his weapon a little higher. "Y veaht! Eh risyh teckieca!"

"Oac! Ed ec cu!" He couldn't understand anything they were saying. And he was seriously starting to freak out. He didn't want to have come all this way to be shot and left to die in this cold, horrible place. He suddenly felt a knife being pushed against his throat. The blade was painful against his skin, and it was beginning to draw some blood.

"Fa gemm ed?" The guy holding the knife sounded like he asked a question.

"Fyed!" The girl had finally spoken up. She sounded not much older than her mid-teens. "Fryd ev ed ec risyh?"

"Drao yna dra cysa eh taydr." The blade was suddenly pointing at the girl, as if to emphasize a point. He was relieved that the blade was no longer on his throat. His heartbeat lowered from 'freaking out' pace, to the slightly less painful 'pretty damn worried' pace. The girl stood firm, even with a blade being pointed at her.

"E vunpet ed! Fa pnehk ed fedr ic." At the girls words, the grip on him was released. Suddenly, he found himself being embraced by the girl. The strong smell of machina oil and flowery shampoo suddenly hit his nose, and it smelt nice. He was about to return the embrace, silently praising his luck, when he heard the girl say something softly into his ear.

"Cunno."

It wasn't a very strong punch by any means. But getting hit from that close, right in the solar plexus would be a one hit KO for anyone. As he crumpled to the floor, he saw the girl look at him sorrowfully, before turning tail and walking out of the destroyed entrance. A few of her goons followed her, and a few stayed behind, standing in front of him. As he slowly let the darkness fill his vision, his last conscious thought was enough to make him smile.

"She smelled pretty awesome..."

~Salvage Ship~

He could hear the sea. And through his closed eyelids, he could vaguely tell there was a bright light somewhere above him. Maybe he was back in Zanarkand?
With that thought in mind, he gently opened his eyes.

Above him was some sort of halogen light tower, with searchlights moving constantly. Slightly below that was an entrance way. Looking around a bit more, he realised that he was on a ship of some kind, in the middle of the ocean.

Zanarkand was nowhere in sight.

He noticed there were two more of the goggled goons standing guard around him. Sitting up, he shook his head a little. Five seconds later he was back on the ground again, one of the guards hitting him with the butt of their rifle.

"Ced, lybdeja!"

"Hey, that hurts!" Tidus growled at them. But it was useless, they couldn't understand a word he was saying. One of the goons turned his gun on him.

"Hu sujehk, rayn?" The goon said firmly in his strange language. Getting the point, Tidus gave in, not wanting to get shot.

"Woah... Okay." He mumbled, trying to sound like he was cooperating. He didn't want to make them mad. Behind the guard with the gun, the entrance suddenly opened up with a mechanical heave. Behind it was another goggled goon, this time with a small, blond Mohawk and crazy tattoos all over his body. He looked positively wild. And behind him was the girl who'd punched him out earlier.

The guards closest to him bowed respectfully. Tidus glared at the girl who had punched him, but she just looked at him with a strange curiosity. The blond Mohawk goon lifted up a hand lazily.

"Caynir res."

The girl walked behind Tidus, and pulled him to his feet. Acting rebellious, he tried to act as though he didn't care. He wasn't really in the mood to be bossed around, so he glared at the blond Mohawk guy, who he assumed must be the boss of the outfit. As he watched the boss, the guy started making strange gestures. First, pointing at Tidus. Then he looked as though he was trying to mimic a dive into the ocean. Then a slightly pathetic looking doggy paddle of a swim, and finishing off looking as though he was trying to type on some sort of keypad.

"Right, whatever." Tidus said, not really caring what the guy was trying to tell him. His bad mood was slowly getting worse. He was pretty hungry, his abdomen still hurt like hell from when the idiot behind had punched him, and now he was watching a wild-looking mime trying to communicate with him, badly. If he wasn't so annoyed, he might actually start to laugh from the crazy situation he was in.

"The hell did I get into this mess?" He thought despondently.

"Tu oui hud cbayg?" The boss sounded slightly exasperated as he reached into his pocket for something. Tidus flinched slightly, expecting some sort of weapon. But instead, he pulled out a pair of goggles. Repeating his same weird gesture again, but with an added few gestures for putting on the goggles and then diving into the water, Tidus finally lost his patience with the clown act.

"I said I don't understand..." He said angrily. It was a bad move though, as suddenly a gun was cocked and pointed at his chest, this time with a slightly intimidating looking bayonet attachment. The dude holding it shook his head.

"Ehcumahia!"

"Fyed!" The girl behind him came to his rescue again. He assumed 'Fyed!' meant something like 'Wait!'. But the meaning of the strange word was driven out of his mind when the girl suddenly started speaking to him directly, in his own language.

"He said you can stay if you make yourself useful." Turning around faster then he thought possible, he stared at the girl.

"You... You understand me!" A notable amount of relief crept into his voice. He had been convinced he was in a world where the humanoid looking people spoke their own language, and he was trapped with nobody to talk to. All the anger he had felt towards her up until this point instantly vanished. The moment was ruined though by one of the goggled guards elbowing him in the back of the head. He was starting to get real sick of that.

"All right... I'll work!" He sounded pretty pissed off, and he didn't normally get this mad outside of a Blitzball arena.

A little while later, as the crew were getting ready to make what looked like a dive underneath the ship, the girl explained the oncoming situation to him.

"We found some ancient ruins right beneath us. It's not active now, but there should still be some power left. We're gonna go down there and activate it, and then we should be able to... salvage the big prize!" She sounded pretty cheerful, although it was slightly lost on the sulking Tidus. He grunted in agreement, with his arms folded.

"Okay, lets get to work!"

"Roger." He tried to sound a little motivated, so as not to get beaten up again. He took a light run towards the railing of the ship, and jumped on it with one leg. Turning around mid-jump to give the thumbs up to the girl, he turned around again to show them how diving was done by a Blitzball pro from the Zanarkand Abes.

Moments later, he felt the water rush behind him as the girl jumped in too. A few more of the goggle-guards jumped in after her. Opening his eyes underwater, he could see soft red emergency lights dotted slightly ahead of him. Holding in his breath like he had been trained to do at Blitzball, he began swimming towards the lights. He was actually sort of curious as to what were in the ruins they were after.