Prologue

"Dead for a thousand years...

A great terror rose from the deep.

It swept across the world

A long past still lingers.

Destiny cannot be denied

So the burden grows heavier

To the kingdom of the sun

Across the vast sea

To the unknown

The journey home begins..."

- An Unknown Al Bhed Poem

The sun was slowly setting across the forgotten city of the dead. Long forgotten memories floated on irridenscently in the fading light. The moon could already be seen in the opposite end of the sky.

Stars soon blinked their way into the blackening sky. The stars echoed memories. The city echoed memories. This world echoed memories.

She stood in the only remaining building standing. The only memory still alive. She was a memory, too, but not a forgotten one, for the lost and frightened prayed to her at their darkest hours.

She loved their prayers. They were her motivation. They were the sparks that flew inside her mind that kept her dying flame of a soul ablaze. She knew she hadn't been forgotten. She'd never be forgotten.

And so, for hundreds of years she stood inside the lone building with a seductive, almost evil smile upon her unaged face. She was waiting for the day she could use her powers again. "For the good of the people," everyone said. But it wasn't really that way.

Waiting, waiting, waiting, sometimes for eternities she waited. She would stand on the battleground, waiting for the loudest prayer. And then she knew that her time had come.

It was a very long time before she'd heard the prayer, or any prayers for that matter. Not as long as she'd waited ever, but still, it had been quite a while. Little prayers came to her. It was then that she wondered if she finally had been forgotten.

She was still alive when the Night of Doom killed the city. She was one of the few who awoke that morning knowing that by night, all hope would die.

But she hadn't been forgotten. People were just too afraid to remember anymore...

Listen to their story. For this may be their last chance.

Chapter One

Sin Rises

The Night of Doom was such a seemingly peaceful night. The blush-tinted moon could be seen in the sky, for the day was well over. The city was illuminated with lights, for it was a city that never slept. But no one had any idea what was to befall them.

Hiding the city from the rest of the world was a large snow-capped mountain. Very few dared to pass through it into the world beyond. Very few knew what was happening beyond that silent guardian.

The sky was thick with stars and a limited number of clouds. The waves crashed lazily onto the shoreline, cooled down in the dark of night. The streets were packed, even though it should have been the dead of night. It seemed as if almost everyone in the city was awake and alert, out on the streets celebrating.

This modern city held many secrets. Most of the tall, illuminated skyscrapers were created with the heights of all technology, called by few "machina." Machina was first created for the purposed this city, called Zanarkand, used it for, buildings. Then, people started to use it for their own convienience. Soon, most of the labor that humans once broke their backs doing was done by machina. But forces still unknown to this day were plotting to use machina for other purposes, purposes far greater than anyone could have imagined.

Now, because humans now lived a life of luxury, no work, all play, they needed something to keep their minds and spirits occupied. It was they only thing they had to worry about.

And so, a sport like nothing anyone had ever seen before arose from their stimulation. Blitzball, they called it. It was a rather simple game, two teams fought to get the ball into their own goal, which was guarded by the opponents goalkeeper. It was played in a gigantic sphere of seemingly floating water. In reality, magnetic forces in machina were able to suspend the water in mid-air and hold it in the sphere shape.

The sport became insanely popular. The players became instant celebrities, hounded by adoring fans everywhere they went. From the seperate teams arose strong rivalries. The spectators cheered their hearts out as they filled the stadium stands. Their luxurious lives couldn't get any better.

One certain player was one of the most famous of all. He'd only been playing for a year, but already people compared him to some of the best players ever. A living legend, they called him. His name was Tidus, and he'd lived a long life up until he became a star.

On the Night of Doom, Tidus' team, the Zanarkand Abes, were scheduled to play the Duggles. The Duggles were a team with an equal amount of skill, so Tidus knew it would be a fierce game.

He dressed in the yellow vest, dark blue shorts, and yellow sneakers, which was the team's uniform. Finally, he pulled on a pair of black gloves so he could hold onto the ball easier, and set off to the Zanarkand Dome stadium.

There was a slight chill in the air that rustled through his shaggy blonde hair as he stepped out of his house. But, it felt comforting. He hadn't taken much more than four or five steps when he heard a shriek.

About twenty or so adoring fans had gathered nearby his house. Most were young teenage girls and younger kids aspiring to be blitzers themselves. Three young boys ran up to him, each grinning broadly and holding blitzballs.

"Can you sign this?" One of the boys asked, holding out his blitzball and a pen.

Tidus grabbed the pen and smiled. "No prob!" he said cheerfully, taking the pen and quickly scrawling his signature on the surface of the ball.

"Please?" Another boy asked.

"Alrighty." Tidus said, thinking about how he had been just like them when he was their age.

"Me too!" The final boy chirped up.

"Take it easy." Tidus said with a laugh. He signed the ball with a flourish and handed it back to the kid. Then turned to compare signatures while two teenage girls walked up to him.

"Can I have your autograph?" One of the girls asked flirtatiously.

"Of course!" Tidus said, signing the ball.

"Good luck tonight!" The other girl said quickly, handing him her ball.

Tidus signed the ball, then twirled it on his fingertip before handing it back to her. "Nothing to worry about!" he said confidently. "Oh, and if I score a goal...I'll do this!" He placed both hands in the air with his index fingers raised. "That'll mean it was for you, okay?" The girls giggled. "What seat?" he added

"East block in the front row." the first girl responded

"Fifth from the right." the other one added.

Tidus winked at the girls. "Got it!" he smiled, causing the girls to erupt in a fit of giggles.

He then noticed the crowd growing by the Zanarkand Dome. It was almost game time. "Well, I gotta go." he said to the fans. "Cheer for me!"

"Wait!" One of the young boys called after him. "Can you teach us how to blitz?"

Tidus smiled at the boys. "Hey," he laughed, "I got a game to play."

"Then," another boy replied, "Teach us after!"

Tidus thought for a moment. "Maybe tonight..."

Suddenly he heard a voice that startled him. He looked over his shoulder and saw someone very strange. It was a boy, younger than the boys who were so eager to be taught blitzball, with dark skin and a long purple hood hiding most of his face. "You can't tonight." the boy said, as if Tidus should have known that.

"...Tomorrow, then." Tidus agreed. That was strange. No one else seemed to notice the strange boy.

"Promise?" One of the boys asked, a pleading look in his eye.

"Promise!" Tidus agreed.

The boys stepped back and raised their arms in the air, then swooped them down into a circular shape in front of their chests and bowed. The blitzball sign for victory.

He strolled down the street leading to the stadium. Before long, he could hear the famous commentator, Zanar's, voice echoing throughout the city: "I was in a coffee shop running away from home when I heard the news. Our hero, Jecht, gone! Vanished into thin air! Oh, my dad must have been his biggest fan. I knew how sad he'd be. Heck, we all were that day. 'Zanar,' I says to myself, 'what're you thinking?' I went running straight back home. We sat up all night just talking about Jecht. My dad and I never talked so much. Woah...didn't mean to reminisce folks!"

Tidus sighed, soaking in what Zanar said. It had been ten years since the greatest blitzer ever, Jecht, his father, vanished. He never showed it, but never really did depress him. He had never liked his father, who was quite in love with himself. He knew he was the best and could brag about it all day long. He knew that no one could ever be better than him. Tidus wondered what he'd do then if he saw his son, who he had told would never be a blitzer, as the star he was. The thought of the anger his father would feel made him smile.

He smiled sadly as he thought of his mother. His mother, she had favored Tidus. She loved him more than anything. Anything but his father. That was the earliest thing that made him hate his father. Whenever his father was around, his mother would ignore him, tell him to go away, to leave his parents alone for a while. He loved his mother and hated that his father would take her away from him.

She fell into a spiral of depression and sadness once Jecht disappeared. She cried all day, sometimes all night, too. A few months after Jecht had been gone a year, his mother just didn't have the will to live any longer. She died shortly after.

But, before his mother had died, they'd met Auron. Tidus scowled as he thought of Auron, because he didn't like him much. He was a mysterious older, raven haired man who just showed up one day. He introduced himself as a friend of Jecht's. But, he never said how he and Jecht knew each other. Every time he saw Auron, from once they had met to the last time he'd seen him, he wore a long, heavy red coat. Even in the hottest of weather. And always a pair of sunglasses. Tidus had noticed a long, thin, red scar over one of his eyes. Maybe that would explain the sunglasses.

Auron always seemed to show up at strange times. Tidus would occasionally see him simply standing atop a building, watching the crowds of people down below. Sometimes he'd see him just slowly saunter down the street. Tidus used to wonder if he was the only one who saw Auron, but then he'd notice people stare at him, with wondering looks upon their faces. He just figured that Auron was just a crazy old man who claimed to know Jecht.

Pushing through another crowd of adoring fans, he made his way towards the sphere pool. He relaxed inside of the water tunnel where the rest of his team were trying to calm themselves nearby, psyching himself up for the big game. He cleared his thoughts of everything but blitzball. 'Come on.' he thought. 'This game isn't any different from the rest.'

He rested his head against the stone wall of the tunnel. Soon, the crowd would begin to cheer, louder and louser, until the arches of machina that held the sphere into form began to resonate their power, causing the knee deep water in that water tunnel and the surrounding others to come flying out and form the floating pool.

Finally, the cheering began. It got louder and louder, until it was all a buzz in his ears. His mind was totally focused. Only memories and knowledge of blitzball surrounded him. Suddenly, Jecht's face appeared in his head! No, not now. He didn't need his father distracting him, breaking his concetration. He tried to shake the vision as the water began to spill out, forming a gigantic ball of energy in the center of the stadium.

The machina's power resonated as the energy ball glowed, then exploded in a blinding flash of light, and the sphere began to fill with water. He walked through the tunnel and stood atop the platform where the captains of each team stood. The crowd cheered and chanted his name. He looked across the way at the captain of the Duggles. Both players nodded to each other, and the game began.

At the moment, a man stood on a platform which stuck out of a tall building and hung over the water. You could see the horizon clearly at that point. The water seemed calm, but suddenly, a wave could be seen in the distance. The wave grew closer, and larger, until you could see that it wasn't really a wave at all, but a sphere of water, much larger than the one that the blitzers were playing in. The sphere flew up from the water, blocking out the moonlight and making the night much darker.

The man smiled softly and reached into his long, heavy red coat and pulled out a small white jug. Raising it toward the sphere, Auron said softly, "Good to see you...once again."

At the blitzball game, no one seemed to be aware of what was going on. Tidus intercepted the ball from one of the Duggles' forewards. He passed it to a teammate, she threw it hard, the Duggles' goalkeeper couldn't stop it, the score was now 1-0. The Duggles' goalkeeper tossed the ball to one of his teammates. Some of the Abes tackled him hard. The force blew him out of the water and into the stands, where he was caught by a gaggle of teenage girls, giggling madly.

Tidus smirked, and saw one of his teammates nod. Time for Tidus' signature shot. He swam forcefully towards the top of the sphere, knowing that the Duggles' were staring after him, confused and bewildered. His teamate tossed the ball forcefully, so it burst out of the sphere pool. Tidus jumped for it, flipping out of the sphere pool, preparing to kick it back in and wow the crowd.

Suddenly, he saw something that caught his attention away from the game. It was a gigantic sphere floating slowly towards the stadium. He wasn't the only one who noticed it. The fans cheers turned to screams and they panicked and tried to flee the stadium. Tidus tried to save himself and grabbed onto one of the machina arches. But he couldn't hold on for very long. The sphere pool collapsed into the stadium, soaking everything below him. With a shout, he fell into the dust of the wrecked building below

He was amazed that he survived the fall. He opened his eyes and was lying in some wreckage outside of the Zanarkand Dome. He was shocked to see buildings falling and being sucked up into the still floating sphere. He stood up and began to run, but somethign stopped him.

"Auron? What are you doing here?" He saw Auron standing calmly as people dodged him as they fled.

"Waiting for you." Auron said lazily.

"What are you talking about?" Tidus shouted, but Auron had walked away.

Tidus followed him, even though Auron was leisurely strolling along. He bagan to panic at the sight of the frantic mess that was happening all around him. And just when he was about to scream with fear and frustration, time stopped.

Everything was still. The people froze in running stances. The sphere hung lazily in the air. A half-destroyed building was stuck in a falling pose.

"It begins." Tidus turned around to where he'd heard the voice. It was from the small boy with the purple hood who had told him he couldn't teach the young boys blitzball that night.

Tidus looked at him with confusion, but the boy just nodded and said, "Don't cry." And then, as if nothing had happened, time began again.

He noticed Auron heading towards the gigantic sphere. "Hey! Tidus called, "Not this way!"

Auron stopped to look up at the gigantic sphere. "Look. We called it 'Sin'."

"Sin?" Tidus repeated, trying to understand. Abruptly, a tentacle smashed to the ground, dozens of small pods sprung from it, turning into strange blue insect like creatures. Tidus slowly backed away from the crowd of them that just kept forming. Then Auron shoved something in his face.

"Take it." He said slowly. It was a sword. Tidus slowly took it and examined it. "A gift from Jecht." Auron added.

"My old man?" Tidus questioned. The creatures seemed to notice the sword and backed away.

"I hope you know how to use it." Auron said impatiently. He reached behind him and pulled out a sword that had probably been strapped to his back. He raised it threateningly. "These ones don't matter, we cut through!" He shouted, swinging at a creature. It exploded into blue dust. He ran foreward, cutting a path through the crowd of creatures. Tidus followed, slashing at anything that attacked him.

They ran through, more insects just fell behind them. "Auron, let's get out of here!" Tidus pleaded.

Auron stopped. "We're expected." He began to run.

"Gimme a break!" Tidus shouted impatiently. He followed Auron and they were both quickly surrounded by insects.

"This could be bad..." Auron said, with a hint of worry in his normally always calm voice. Suddenly, he caught sight of a peice of machinery hanging off a ledge. "That," he pointed to it, "Knock it down!"

Tidus heeded the order and shoved it off the ledge. It caused an explosion, knocking a nearby wall down. The wall slowly began to crumble onto the bridge where they stood. "Run!" Auron ordered.

Tidus ran, not paying any attention to where Auron was. The bridge was exploding behind him. He jumped for a nearby ledge, and just barely hung on. He watched in horror as the bridge collapsed into the water, leaving him hanging above the ocean.

Auron already stood on the ledge. The gigantic sphere was above him. "Auron!" Tidus called. The sphere now had a giant hole in it, and it was picking up the remains of buildings into it. "Auron!" He called again. Auron just stared at him.

Finally, he looked at the sphere, and then down at Tidus. "You are sure?" He asked. He didn't give Tidus time to answer. He grabbed hold of the collar of his uniform and pulled him up.

"This is it." He said softly. "This is your story. It all begins here." Then Auron was sucked into the sphere. Tidus shouted, and with a rush of light and noise, he too was trapped inside of the sphere.