Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy X, I'm merely playing with the characters and setting.

Alright, so recently I played through Final Fantasy X again, and a naughty little plot idea came to mind. It refused to go away. Every time I write for Diaspora I feel the need to write this one as well, so I'm going to do it.

-FFZ-

Chapter 1: Awakening

He was cold. He could remembered that feeling. Cold, and wet and the ground beneath him was hard. Hard like stone. Where was he? He was having trouble remembering everything. There was a blitz ball game. He was the star player. The Zanarkand Abes. He was…winning. He'd hit someone so hard they flew right out of the arena and then…and then when he was in the middle of his signature move he saw it.

He opened his eyes with a start and abruptly pushed himself up. Zanarkand! Zanarkand was under attack! Looking around all he could see were stone ruins. In the distance was what looked like a temple that was half submerged. "W-where am I?"

Feeling around he felt the hilt of a sword. A sword…a gift from his father. But his father wasn't the one to gift it to him. No, that had been Auron. Auron! "Auron!" he called out, looking around, hoping against hope that his guardian was nearby. "Anybody? Heey!"

Silence. There wasn't anyone nearby. He was alone."Well first things first I guess I should head to that building, maybe I can find out where I am." He mused as he looked around, slipping the sword that Auron had given him onto his back, glad that the old warrior had given him a sheath as well instead of just the naked blade, and slipped into the water heading towards the temple. He was actually quite glad of his blitz ball training. The magic used in blitz ball made him resistant to the cold water that he found himself in. He bet that if he were just an average citizen he'd have died of hypothermia by now.

He swam towards a small outcropping of rock and stopped in confusion. Was it just him or was there some sort of blue thing there? Curious, he swam towards it and pulled himself out of the water to check it out. Confusion soon came to him as he read the wording, the lettering was the same but the words were incomprehensible. Was it written in some kind of code? There was a chest nearby. Curious, he moved over and checked it out. The chest had no lock, and opening it he found two hundred gil. "Now that's what I'm talking about," he said as he slipped the money into his pocket. At least this way he'd have some money to pay someone for passage off this rock. He doubted that his credit card was going to cut it.

"Okay so I'm either in some sort of abandoned military complex, or somebody really enjoys leaving cryptic clues everywhere," he mused as he slipped back into the water and began making headway towards the temple once more.

"Hey..another blue thing," he blinked and began to swim over. Maybe there might be another chest if he was lucky. Climbing out of the frigid water he shivered, he might be immune to cold water, but the cold air was an entirely different matter. Shaking himself a little, he made his way over to the sphere and picked it up. "What is this?" he said confused as he looked over the object. It was a sphere, that much he knew, so it had to hold some kind of information. Oh wait, there was something on the back. Flipping the sphere over he read it, it was some sort of language composition, but hovering his hand over it, he couldn't find any information imparted within. There were twenty six slots on it though, but all of them were empty.

"It's busted," he said with a frown. Still he put it in his pocket, rather happy he'd had a dimensional pocket installed on his Zanarkand Abes uniform. He'd keep the trinket for now, maybe it went with that coded message nearby, but it probably got damaged or the data was erased or something because it'd been abandoned here and left out in the open instead of in a chest or something. Speaking of chests, "Oh sweet another chest!" he said walking over the worn walkway. "Awesome, potions!" he grinned as he pocketed the concoctions. At least this way if he got hurt he had something to heal himself with.

With that done with, he got back into the water for the third time and began to make his way towards the larger set of ruins. He was careful to keep an eye out for any other chests or spheres, but didn't encounter anything. Glad to have finally made it he pulled himself out of the water and back onto dry land, hopefully, for the final time.

He was thoughtful as he continued to ascend the steps, making his way towards the largest structure of the ruins when his eyes alighted on something. "Oh thank the goddess!" he cried out as he ran towards it grinning like a loon. He'd found a Traveler's sphere! The network of transporters that allowed people to travel from place to place, provided that they'd been there once before. It was also extremely useful in teleporting directly to an airship, provided one was within range and was nearby. If he was lucky he might be able to use it to get back to Zanarkand.

Holding his hand atop the sphere he concentrated on his home, and frowned when the sphere did not light up to engulf him. "Damn," he cursed frowning. There were one of two possible things wrong with the sphere. Either he was out of range, a possibility provided there weren't enough spheres he'd visited before between this place and Zanarkand, or this sphere was not connected to the network, a definite possibility considering how abandoned the place was. There was nothing to do but to check out the rest of the temple. If he was lucky there might be some way out of here.

"Man this place is huge, I wonder what they used it for…I mean it feels like it was important or something," he said as he started walking up the narrow arches which apparently was what was left of the dome. He felt a little silly talking aloud by himself, but he was all alone here and something needed to break the oppressive and solemn atmosphere of the place. That and he was sure that if he stopped to think about Zanarkand he would cry, and crying wasn't something he needed to do right now. He had to stay strong.

"Maybe if I'm really lucky Auron got stuck here too…and then I could sock his face for ditching me." Now that was something that he couldn't wait to do. His damn guardian had just up and ditched him here in the middle of nowhere, though if Auron did get here first, he'd probably left to scout ahead and Tidus should've stayed behind. Well…he knew where Auron would've gone, the big damn building, so he was sure he'd meet up with his absent guardian there.

He continued to walk along the arch, taking note of the two submerged statues underneath him when he saw something darting around in the water. He paused to try and see what the hell it was when all of the sudden the floor underneath him gave way.

He screamed as he went down, though luckily it was a manly scream. When he finally got his bearings he noticed that he was surrounded. There were three fish thingies floating around him, with sharp teeth and fin-claw things. They were looking at him like he was dinner. He was doomed.

The sword! Drawing the red blade, he focused himself. He was a blitzer, he knew how to fight underwater. He could do this. He swam forward, feinting to the right before striking the fish monster on the left hard enough to make it burst into pyreflies. He grunted as a fish tackled him, sending him floating back, but thankfully it didn't draw any blood. Scowling he focused on it and quickly cut it apart.

He smirked as he looked at the last fish monster, prepared to send it to a similar fate when he heard a deep rumbling sound in the water. His eyes widened as a huge monstrous fiend came bursting through a damaged archway and bit into the fish-monster, tearing it in half and sending its bleeding carcass to the far wall where it burst into pyreflies. The massive monster with glowy tentacle things and more tentacles underneath it and two huge stone fins looked at him, well sort of. It didn't have eyes.

"Whoa!" He swam as quick as he could to the surface. He had to figure a way out of here. He didn't want to become weird squid-cage-tentacle-thing's lunch. He looked frantically around and spotted a doorway that was just big enough for him and not large enough for the monster. Perfect!

He swam as fast as he could towards it, the monster just right behind him. Holy crap he wasn't going to make it. It was getting closer closer…it's mouth was starting to surround him. Come on come on. He couldn't die like this, in some goddess forsaken ruin in the middle of nowhere! Damn it, it was sucking him in! Cheating bastard!

BOOM!

The monster thing got caught in the doorway and the rushing water sent Tidus floating far faster than he would've liked, slamming into the wall and losing his breath as the doorway collapsed on the creature. Served it right. Nobody was going to get Tidus the son of Jecht for lunch!

Groaning he pulled himself out of the water and looked at his injuries. It was already starting to bruise and there were scratches from where it's claw had hit him. He didn't have a choice, he'd have to use one of his two potions. He uncorked the bottle and took a moment to fortify himself before he downed the whole foul tasting concoction.

He shuddered as the potion took effect, accelerating his healing and taking care of the damage. If only he knew healing magic, he wouldn't have to depend on a finite potion store. He stood up and looked around, deciding to ascend the stairs and find out just where he ended up.

He frowned when he reached the top of the stairs, it looked like someone had blasted through here, and had let the place collapse behind him. Still it was loose enough that with just a few nudges he made it through.

He blinked as he looked around in what looked like some sort of atrium, filled with statues and at least two stories high. Like the rest of the place, it was a ruin and he shivered. "Cold…need fire," he said as he looked around, eyes widening when he caught sight of something. There was what remained of a camp fire, meaning someone had been here not too long ago, and not just that, the ashes were a little warm. Maybe, if he started up another fire he could wait here for them to come back.

"Auron! Are you here?" he called out, and waited a few seconds for a response. When there wasn't one, he just shrugged and expected the remains of the fire. He could use the logs there to restart it, he just had to get a fire going again. He needed some flint, and some kindling and he'd be set.

He went over to check the plants in the pots nearby and found that they were all wet. This was going to be a lot harder than he thought. Still he couldn't give up, he just had to look farther away. With that thought settled he went through the northern door and started to ascend the steps. As he passed several alcoves with empty pots he found one that still had some dead flowers in it. "Perfect," he said grabbing them and putting them into his dimensional pocket.

He moved to the second floor looking for flint, but all he found was more debris, that and a chest containing a hi-potion. It was nice to know that if he got badly hurt, he could heal himself, that is if he didn't get knocked out. He went back to the main chamber and began moving to the other doorway, though he spotted a Traveler's sphere nearby. Checking it out, he found it connected to the one outside, but couldn't extend its range any further, meaning this area was remote enough that he wasn't going to get to Zanarkand anytime soon.

He went into the room, which was flooding just a little bit, and noticed a desk lying on one side. He checked the drawers and couldn't believe his luck. He found some flint! Grinning he collected the flint and headed back to the campfire, quite happy to start a nice roaring fire.

Now that he was warm, he noticed something else. He was starving. "I need food," he complained as he lay back, wishing that the person or people who had used this camp before had left food behind. His exhaustion eventually caught up with him and he drifted off to sleep.

-FFZ-

Strong arms held him firmly, making him feel warm and safe. It was nice, being able to lay on a couch like this, with a man whom he was greatly starting to adore at his back. "Now come on, tell me the real reason why you're here," he said a smile on his face as he idly played with the man's fingers.

"Well you'll think it's silly," the redheaded man said with a sheepish smile.

"Come on, I swear I won't laugh."

"Auron said that you'd need me today," he admitted.

"Huh?"

"It's been ten years, he thought you'd be crying."

Tidus smiled at the man and cuddled closer. "How can I? With you to cheer me up?" he asked.

A figure of a small boy covered in pyreflies and somewhat transparent stepped forward and interjected. "You cried." Tidus scowled. He really didn't like that boy.

-FFZ-

He felt the chill in the air when he awoke, sitting up he was momentarily confused. Who had that redheaded man been? He knew that the man was somehow very important to him, but for some reason he couldn't recall his face correctly, or even his name.

Then his eyes widened as he realized why he felt so chilled. His fire was dying out! "No please, don't go out on me! I'll get you more wood I promise!" he said as he hastily got up to fetch more wood for his dying fire when he saw it.

There was some sort of creature up in the rafters. It roared at him and made a stunning display of running along the walls on its bladed feet before it jumped down to confront him.

This thing was intense, it moved so fast, striking at him with its claws and he barely blocked them in time with his sword. He danced around the beast, jumping in to attack it, and quickly moving out of the way, trying to keep it at the center of the ruin, rather than letting it run all over the place. It moved so fast!

Then when he and the beast where in a stalemate, he holding up his blade to stop the beast's claws from rending him to pieces, and the beast putting its full weight to bear on his sword, it happened. One of the nearby doorways, one that he hadn't tried earlier, exploded.

There were people there, four men in weird attire, dressed more like armored scuba divers or something and then there was a girl. The way she stood before the men meant that she was the leader or something. Their guns were trained on the enemy, two of the men had rifles and two others carried flame throwers. The girl strapped some sort of claw onto her wrist and moved forward in surprising speed, punching the creature so that it retreated and took on an offensive stance beside him.

"So you're here to help me? Great!" he said as he readied his sword.

The girl nodded to him and pulled something out of the pouch at her side, a grin spreading across her features. When the creature righted itself and made to move against them, she tossed it and he soon realized what it was she threw. It was a grenade!

The creature was badly burned by the attack and he moved in quickly to strike at it once more and made it out of dodge as she tossed a second grenade at the beast, the damage dealt was enough to finally put it down.

Exhausted, Tidus fell to his knees panting. "That was…good work guys," he said with a smile when one of the men came over, the man grasped his hair tightly and pulled him to his feet.

"Fryd syhhan uv lnaydina ec drec?" What? Where they speaking in code?

"Ed'c y veaht eh dra kieca uv y risyh!" A blade was pressed against his throat, he gulped. This wasn't looking good at all.

"Fyed! Ra ec hud y veaht!" The girl interjected, and the man holding the blade turned it towards her as if explaining something.

"Drao yna dra cysa eh taydr" the man with the blade said before putting it at Tidus' throat once more. He hoped to the goddess that the girl could convince them not to do what they were threatening to do.

"Cdub! E vunpet ed." The girl said with more force and the man with the blade put it away.

"Drah fryd crymm fa tu fedr res?" the man asked.

"Fa'ss dyga res fedr ic," she stated and the others looked at her dubiously before she stepped toward Tidus. He thought she looked rather apologetic and then she spoke softly. "Cunno," she said softly before slamming her armored gauntlet into his solar plexus. Tidus gasped for a moment before everything went black.

-FFZ-

Whomever translates the following word gets kudos, also ask questions people. I love answering them either in PM or in the next chapter.

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