Chapter 2—Visions
As I finally regained my bearings after going through the portal, I found myself in a place that was quite the technological city. Zanarkand. In front of the blitzball stadium, to be precise.
'Great. I'm right at the start, I see. That means...oh crap. This is not good!'
I glanced around at the sky, looking for any sign of the large being known as Sin, but I couldn't see much for the buildings.
"Ok. First things first. I've got to find Auron." I said out loud, hoping it would help me think. No luck on that one. I wandered down the walkway, when suddenly I saw something that didn't quite seem right. Namely, water droplets floating up into the sky. And that could only mean one thing at this point.
"Sin." I said to myself, following the trail of water up into the air with my eyes.
I knew that the first thing I had to do right now was find some shelter, cause the whole city was about to come down around me, and there was no way to stop it. Suddenly, an outburst of cheers erupted from the stadium behind me. Apparently, the Abes just scored. Looking up again, I notice that the ball of water that is Sin is getting closer to the stadium by the second. I look around frantically, hoping to find some kind of cover, so that I don't get killed by the onslaught of debris that is to come. Spying a narrow corridor between some trashcans, I dive between them, just as several yellow lasers erupt from the sphere, blasting through the town. I duck and cover my head, as the city explodes around me. Faintly, I hear Tidus screaming, so I guess he must have fallen.
After a minute, the explosions die down, and I walk out from my hiding place. Looking around, I notice for the first time just how extensive the damage is.
The whole city, for the most part, has been damaged in some way, shape, or form. Buildings lay crumbled around, and the stadium is completely ruined. Seeing Tidus out of the corner of my eye, I begin to run over to him, as he stands up and shakes the cobwebs out of his head.
"Are you okay, Tidus?" I say, then curse mentally at myself, noticing my obvious slip.
"Yea, but, how do you know my name? And just who are you?" Tidus inquired.
"Explanations later! Let's just get outta here!" I yell, barely able to hear our conversation over the panic that is ensuing. As we run down the path away from the stadium, Tidus notices Auron, and runs over to him. A grin appears on my face, as I realize that finally, I can get some help.
"Auron! What are you doing here?" Tidus exclaims, staring at the warrior monk intently.
"I was waiting for you." he replies.
"What are you talking about?" he says, confused.
"Ah. Ben. The fayth told me you would come." Auron says, turning to look at me, before spinning on his heel and walking away. I nod, as Tidus takes off after Auron. Shaking my head at his seeming obliviousness to the danger around us, I sprint off after the duo.
Running down the streets, I see that it is no different that the stadium. The streets are cracked and broken, and pandemonium reigns as people rush madly in one direction or another. Suddenly, as we are about a fourth of the way down the street, time just stops. And I mean everything. People frozen in mid-stride, mid-fall, anything and everything they were doing just freezes. Tidus just looks around, stunned and confused at what happened. The fayth then appears, in front of the 2 of us.
"It begins."
"What?" Tidus says, quite lost at where this conversation is going.
"Don't cry." the fayth says, before time suddenly goes back to normal, the fayth vanishing without a trace.
"What the....Hey! Wait!" Tidus exclaims, as the 2 of us continue running down the street, suddenly seeing Auron again as we reach the end.
"Hey, not this way!" Tidus says to Auron. I just look on, knowing that the first fight is about to start. Mentally preparing myself, I listen to the rest of the conversation quietly.
"Look." Tidus glances up, towards the floating ball of water. Gasping, he turns back to Auron.
"We called it Sin."
"Sin?" he says, before another explosion goes off in the distance. A tentacle smashes its way through a nearby building, flailing wildly. Hundreds of little scale type pods fly off of the tentacle, and sail towards us, landing on the ground a few feet away. Unfurling themselves, the pods are revealed to actually be small bug-like creatures with wings. Sinscales.
Several of the creatures surround Tidus in a half-circle, as he trys to fight them off with his hands, losing his balance and falling flat on his rear in the process.
"Take it." Auron suddenly says, handing Tidus a sword as he gets up. Tidus holds it high, before apparently noticing how heavy it is, and dropping it straight down.
"A gift from Jecht."
"My old man?" he says, stunned. Tidus charges forward then, swinging the blade, which causes the Sinscales to back off a few feet.
"I hope you know how to use it." Auron says to Tidus.
"Ben, you have a weapon, I see." Nodding at Auron, I unsheathe the katana that was strapped to my back. It's not a very big sword, maybe barely half the size of Auron's, but it serves the purpose. Silver bladed, with an ivory handle and golden, circular handguard. I drop into a fighting stance alongside Auron, who has drawn his sword as well, and Tidus, who is still adjusting to his own blade.
Auron makes the first move, charging at the first Sinscale and cleaving it square in two, before Tidus darts in, cutting the next one in half diagonally from the right shoulder, if you could say that, to the left side of its body. I take the third, cleaving it straight in half from the bottom to the top.
"These ones don't matter! We cut through!" Auron says, slicing another Sinscale down, as more move to take their place.
I growl, before running and kicking another Sinscale away, stabbing into it with my sword while it's disoriented. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Tidus nearly decapitate another one, before the duo runs past the rest of them. Knocking another Sinscale out of my way, I follow the two down the road as more of the scales fall behind us. Suddenly, a loud noise sounds over the chaos. Auron pauses for a second, before running in the direction of the noise. I just sigh, as Tidus and I follow Auron down the winding road. Turning a corner, the first thing we notice is the huge tentacle from before, that was in a building, is now sprouting out of the center of the road. It's also surrounded by 3 more Sinscales. Tidus just stares at the large creature, as Auron and myself get into a fighting stance once more.
"Stand back. I'll handle this." he says, before he thrusts his left hand forward, pulling his sword back as he did so. Jumping high into the air, he spins his sword around, before falling back down and planting it into the ground. Explosions erupt over each of the scales, and the Sinspawn, killing the 3 scales instantly.
'Dragon Fang...' I think to myself. The Sinspawn takes that moment to attack.
Demi. There's only one way to describe this. It's like someone inflated your guts to about 3 times the normal size, then crushed them to the size of a baseball, then popped them back out to normal again. Painful. So it's no surprise it left all 3 of us hunched over for a minute. Tidus looks pretty ticked now, and he clenches his fists, before charging the Sinspawn, doing a series of acrobatic backflips and twists before slamming the sword down on the Sinspawn, finally killing it.
'Spiral Cut...' I think to myself again, recognizing both Overdrive moves.
The Sinspawn flops over to the side slightly, going limp, before it explodes in a flash of light, causing all 3 of us to shield our eyes. Again, Auron runs ahead, leaving us two behind.
"How many more times is he going to do that?" I ask Tidus.
"Beats me." he says, shrugging, before following the warrior. As we run, Tidus notices a billboard on a nearby building, that is showing a picture of his father. Glaring at it, he stops for a moment.
"What are you laughing at, old man?" he says, before turning to Auron. "Auron! Let's get out of here!"
"We're expected." he replies, before running ahead once more.
"Huh? Gimme a break, man!" Tidus exclaims, as the two of us have no choice but to follow Auron again.
Suddenly, we are completely surrounded by a group of falling Sinscales. Noticing that there's too many for us to take on by ourselves, we look around for some sort of plan. Auron notices something, yelling to the rest of us.
"That—knock it down!" he yells, pointing at a piece of machinery hanging over the side of the slightly destroyed bridge. Tidus nods, and begins to swipe at the metal with his sword.
Unfortunately, that leaves just me and Auron to hold off the Sinscales. In case you haven't noticed, 20 or so on 2 isn't very good odds. Auron slices through 2 scales, only to be caught in the chest with a set of spines from the third. I turn around to attack the other 3 behind us, and get caught with a tackling blow from one, knocking me down. I stand back up, and charge the scales again, dodging a spine barrage to cut one clean in two, before getting hit with another set of spines from the third. Falling back for a moment, I notice Auron is still fighting, but Tidus has almost cut through the piece of metal. I gulp down a potion, and run back to Auron, standing back to back with him.
"Got it!" we hear Tidus yell, as the machine finally topples off the side of the bridge.
The good news is, the resulting explosion took out the rest of the Sinscales for us. The bad news, well, it also got the bridge we were on. So, we ran for our lives down the bridge, as the whole thing crashed down behind us, no more than a few steps away. I run a little faster than Tidus, and follow Auron's jump, landing safely on the other side. Tidus, however, isn't so lucky, as the explosion finally catches up with him, forcing him to make a desperate leap for the other side. He barely makes it, too, grabbing on to the side of a piece of road that, now, is pointing diagonally up.
"Auron! Auron!" he yells, as the monk turns around, staring up at what looks to be a whirlpool of some sort above us, sucking in everything nearby.
"You are sure?" he says, apparently talking to the thing, before looking back down at Tidus. "This is it." he says, grabbing him by his shirt collar. "This is your story. It all begins here." he says, right before he and I are sucked into the whirlpool. Tidus follows a moment after, screaming the whole way. And so it begins....
Any good? As always, read, review, and let me know what you think!
