Chapter 1: Reminiscence

"Go Zanarkand Abes!" By the sidelines of the blitz ball field, cheerleaders did backward flips and leaped up doing straddle jumps in the air. Forming a pyramid, the flyers had joyous smiles on their faces. They did a great job at getting the crowd fired up as they cheered on.

"Jecht! Jecht! Jecht!" The people in the audience began to chant loudly as they impatiently continued to wait. The bleachers were filled with what seemed to be thousands of people, all of different age range. Adults were squished on the ascending rows of the steel metal seats as they struggled to keep control of their wild children. Kids were all over the place, running and squealing when playing with their little friends. Teenagers were jumping up and down, screaming out cheers that they wrote for their favorite players.

The whole crowd was roaring with excitement. Who wouldn't? They were finally going to see their all time favorite blitz ball player, Jecht, at the world championship tournament. That was enough reason for people to go crazy over, but if that was so, why wasn't he happy about it?

A little boy, of the age of eight, stood by the sidelines of the playing field as he witnessed the audience's happy commotion. There were people who rushed by quickly. Cameramen and reporters were trying to find a decent place to shoot their digital camcorders with. Photographers that were from newspapers and magazine companies came to get a picture that would be worth wild on the front page for their daily paper that would hit the newsstands the next morning. The workers that had a job in the blitz ball arena were on their way to get to their posts before the game was about to start.

The little boy looked up to see an old woman wearing a business suit come by looking busy with her blabbing her mouth on a cell phone while checking her pocket planner at the same time. Hanging up on her caller, she accidentally bumped into him, apologizing quickly when she suddenly realized that it was just a kid in an unauthorized zone. She grabbed him firmly by the arm and led him away from that place to the area that the head coach of the Zanarkand Abes was at.

"Coach, you're going to have to keep this boy on a leash if I keep finding him where he's not suppose to be", the old woman said rudely when shoving him towards one of the benches that stood near a table covered with empty cups and drinks.

"Aw, give him a break, Freya!" Coach said with his whistle dangling around at his chest. "He's Jecht's boy! Let 'em go wherever he wants!"

Looking at the table, the little boy saw that a shy water girl was filling them with Gatorade as she clumsily spilled some of the contents onto the table. He walked over to the girl who had grabbed a fresh towel and was now cleaning up the mess she made while he continued to listen to Coach and the old woman named Freya drown on and on about him.

"Hi. Need some help?" the little boy offered as he saw the little girl look up at him with sparkling eyes. She seemed about a year younger than he was. She appeared harmless, but full of spirit.

"Yeah..." she threw the dirty towel onto the grass-covered ground as she laid out a new set of Styrofoam cups. He took a bottle of Gatorade that was chilling in a tub of ice and started to unscrew the cap when he broke the silence between them.

"So... what's your name?" he asked politely.

"Quistis", she replied. She held down the cups as the little boy began pouring liquid that came in many flavors into them. Looking around, he spotted a big trashcan sitting nearby that had a black plastic bag rounding the edge of the metal rims. Throwing away the empty bottles, he walked back to the little girl that was working on arranging the fully filled cups in a neat arrangement. Opening a few more bottles, Quistis ripped open a new batch of cups when they accidentally fell out of her small hands. "Oh!" she cried.

"Here, let me help you", he said.

"I'm not very good at this..."she sobbed. Getting down on her knees, she picked up the cups that rested atop yellowish grass.

"Nah, don't worry 'bout it. You just need more experience", seeing her nod, he continued, "Anyway, I haven't seen you around before, are you the new water girl Coach was talking about?"

"Yes, the old water boy moved away so I took his place", she got up from the ground and placed the piled cups onto the table. Brushing away the dirt that clumped on to her light colored jeans, she cleaned her hands in a towel as she continued to do her job.

"Hmm... I was wondering where ol' Bob went", he teased even though he already knew that he was gone.

Quistis laughed at his remark for the water boy Bob had been a strange fellow. Everyone knew it and it wasn't hard to see. He had mental problems, which was the reason for his sudden leave. He needed to be hospitalized in a special unit that was far from his home, causing him to quit his job, making the players of the Zanarkand Abes a bit grateful. Of course they felt sorry for the little guy, but he was known for being a major drool machine. He did not have any control over it, making the players feel not so thirsty after their practices. Of course, they were stuck with him, though, for no one had ever wanted to have the job of the team's water person.

"So how did you become a water girl?" he asked curiously. He began filling the new cups with more Gatorade.

"I like blitz ball", she told him. "My mom thinks it's too violent, but my dad loves coming to games to watch the Abes play. My mom didn't like me to watch them too much on TV, so when my dad heard that the old water boy was moving he signed me up to be the new water girl."

Glad to see that Quistis had loosened up a bit, he smiled as he asked, "So you like blitz ball too? Are you gonna be a player when you grow up?"

"I don't know yet, but that's why I wanted to be the water girl. You know, get pointers and all that. If I like how everything is, I might start training for try outs." He bobbed his head as he went to throw away the other empty bottles into the trashcan. "What about you? Aren't you going to join the team when you're old enough?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"But you should, you're dad's the star player."

Surprised, he looked at her only to see pleading eyes. He was amazed by how many different emotions Quistis could have in her eyes. Puzzled, he asked her, "How'd you know I was...?"

"Tidus, right?" she interrupted. "My dad reads me some of the stuff about blitz ball that he cuts out from the newspapers and magazines since I'm not so good at reading yet. I saw a picture of you and your dad last week. Star blitz ball player Jecht gets hug from son after winning last night's grand tournament! "She said the caption of a picture of one of the front page articles printed just a week before by memory. "You guys looked so happy!"

"Oh, that one..." the boy with the name of Tidus said remembering that picture. He saw it in the paper and had cut it out with scissors. Using small pieces of tape, he stuck it onto the wall of his room where he puts all the articles about blitz ball and his father. "Yeah, we were, weren't we?"

"You should be proud of him, he's my favorite player", Quistis scrunched her nose as she grinned happily at him. She had lost a few of her baby teeth, for there were also two spaces in her front teeth that were missing.

"That's what I thought too..." he mumbled to himself sadly.

"What? You say something?" then her eyes widened as she pointed her index finger to something behind him. "Oh, look!"

Tidus saw the thrilled crowd leaping out of their seats hysterically. Shifting his gaze, he expectantly saw whom they were rooting for. Watching his father run out from the locker rooms and into the field, he flinched at the loudness of the crowd that cheered on their star player.

With his dark hair fluttering in the soft wind, a man, in his early thirties, ran out of the double doors wearing his safety equipment. Even under that exterior, people could still see the strong muscles that he had. It was one of the advantages that he had that helped him to be the best player on the team. With his pearl white teeth and scrunched skin near the corners of his eyes, he smiled at the crowd as they filled the air with echoes of good luck wishes. He walked confidently over to his Coach where the rest of the team had been. After speaking to the chubby man, they jogged off to the entrance water chamber where they were to play their game.

Coach stood by happily when he saw Tidus standing there with a frown. "Hey! What's the matter with you, boy?" he locked his shoulders with his big arm as he spoke to him. "You should be takin' notes. One day, those great blitz ball playin' genes of your father's is gonna get you on the team! So perk up a bit, eh?"

Even though he knew Coach for a majority of the few years of his life, he still couldn't imagine working with a loudmouth like him, even with the fact that he still wasn't sure if he was going to play blitz ball in the future or not. Watching his father get into position in the water chamber, he suddenly remembered why he had been feeling glum; he had caught his so-called perfect father drinking yet another bottle of alcohol. Closing his eyes, he had a flashback at what had happened just hours before in the locker room.

"Dad! What are you doing?" the little boy said earlier when he was walking into the empty room that was filled with rows of scratched blue colored lockers.

"Tidus? Ah son, it's you..." the man said wobbly as he took another gulp of the strong liquid from a clear glass bottle. There was a sticker on it, but the words on the label were too small for him to read from where he was.

"Come on Dad, I'll take you home", Tidus said through worried eyes. Putting one arm over his shoulder, he began to lift his father up from the crooked stool that sat next to a rolling cart filled with clean towels.

"Hey!" he screamed as he pushed him off. Stumbling backwards, he sat on the stool before completely falling over.

"Dad, you're drunk!" he said. "You've got a game today! You can't be drinking now!"

"Don't take that tone with me boy", he warned with a slurred accent. "I'm you're father and you gotta do as I say, not the other way around!"

"But you know how much Mom—"

"What 'bout her?" he said uncaringly. "She's gon worry 'bout me like she'd do ev'ry night? Why do women gotta be so damn nosy, huh?"

"Because you're always out drinking all the time! She's your wife! You could at least take care of her!"

"Since when did you become a saint? Jeez, you're startin' to sound more like your mother ev'ry day", he said taking his finger and pushing Tidus's head away. Taking another gulp of alcohol, Tidus felt his anger reach its peak. He took the bottle from his father and flung it across the locker room, splashing the contents in all directions before it crashed into a row of metal lockers as it broke upon impact and shattered into little pieces. His father, being drunk, was slow and took a few seconds before he was able to comprehend what his son had just done.

"You lil bastard! Who d' you think you are?!" he grabbed Tidus by the arm firmly squeezing it in his strong hands.

"Ow! Dad stop!" he cried. He suddenly felt very scared and did not know what to do. He took his free arm and wiped the tears that were beginning to stream down his face.

"Oh, I see, so you're a wimp now, huh?" his father said loudly, "No son of mine is a wimp!" He raised his hand, as he was about to hit him smack in the face. Being a blitz ball player, Tidus knew that his father could hit really hard and that this was going to hurt badly. He was too weak against him though, no matter how hard he tried he couldn't get free of his father's strong grip.

"No!" he yelled. "Dad! No!"