Ripped and Torn
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the FFX characters or places except the ones I make up.
Chapter One: Torn From a World She Loved
A young girl of sixteen fluttered her turquoise eyes open with the warm, calm breeze slipping in through the open window on the west side of the room. She slid the sheets down off of her sleep wracked body and swung her legs over the side of the bed and onto the shag rug. She stood upon her feet and stretched her arms into the sky as another soothing breeze wafted through the window. After stretching, the teen girl walked over to a single door closet and grasped a soft, white towel. She then continued to stroll over to the door to her bathroom to get a relaxing shower.
Her hand gripped the hot water knob and twisted it on half way. The warm water cascaded down her body and through her blonde hair sending a slight tingle throughout her entire being. After washing up, she stood under the temperate spray just unwinding and thinking about nothing in particular. She drew back the show curtain and stepped out onto a well placed floor rug as she wrapped the towel she acquired earlier around her upper body and took another towel and wrapped up her golden hair.
She strode out of her bathroom and unraveled the towel from her blonde hair and dried the golden locks. She went over to her dresser and pulled out a green T-shirt and blue jeans, along with an orange sweatshirt with black sleeves. She dropped her towel and began to slip on her clothes. She glanced over to her alarm clock resting on the mahogany side table next to her bed. 'Oh! It's seven o'clock already. Better get down to the kitchen and get some breakfast.' She hurried over to the door and twisted the knob and hastily ran down the stairs to the kitchen.
"Good morning sweetie." Her mom greeted the sixteen year old from her relaxed position in the chair at the head of the breakfast table.
"Morning mom." The young girl went over to a cabinet and opened the door to pull out a loaf of bread. She untied the twist tie on the end of the bag and pulled out two slices of the white bread. She placed the two slices of bread into the toaster and slid the knob down.
A few moments later the toast popped out of the toaster. She took them out and laid them out on the counter. She got a knife out of the top drawer to her left and whipped out some butter. She spread the butter on the pieces of toast and ate them. As soon as she stuck the last bite into her mouth the doorbell rang. She swung the door wide open to see one of her friends standing there to walk with her to school.
"Hi Rachel!" The girl greeted her friend on the porch.
"Hey Lauren!" Rachel exclaimed.
"Hold on one minute Rachel. I gotta get my school stuff together." Lauren rushed off into the living room to retrieve her backpack. A moment later she emerged from the living room with her backpack draped over her shoulders. "See ya mom!" she called back into the kitchen.
"Have a good day at school dear!" Lauren and Rachel hurried out the door and off onto the sidewalk.
Their walk to school wasn't a long one, maybe only ten minutes tops. They chatted about random things and then began to talk about their school classes. "What did you think about our Bio homework last night?" Rachel wondered how her friend did on the extensive homework.
Lauren let out a large sigh as her shoulders slouched. "That was a pain in butt! I was stuck on number three for like an hour!" She expressed her dislike of biology by shouting. "How did you do on it?"
"Wow! It took you that long?" Rachel inquired with a very surprised look on her face. "It took me all but ten minutes." She boasted.
"You were always better at stuff like that than me." The two friends laughed as they continued on their way to school.
School was the same as any other day. Lauren started her day off in Geometry and then moved onto her next class, Biology. Then there was lunch where she and her friends ate their lunches with chit chat spread throughout lunch. Her next two classes were English and Introduction to Business. Those classes passed over well and soon enough the school day was over.
After school, Lauren, Rachel and two other of their friends went over to Rachel's house to just hang out. They stayed there till about five thirty and then they all separated and went home for dinner. Lauren waved good bye to her friends and walked in the direction of her home as a chill wind washed over the land. The street lights were beginning to flicker to life as the sky became painted with streaks of orange and pink.
Lauren ambled down the sidewalk and was no more than three minutes away from her house when a car came down the road. The car was careening down the evening road towards her. It was swerved uncontrollably from side to side, nearly slamming into a tree. The car continued down the road toward her as it suddenly veered off onto the side walk where she was walking. She endeavored to leap out of the way but it was all in vain. The car smashed into her, flinging her over the hood and up over the windshield and off the top. The car did a hit and run and hastily careened down the road out of sight. She lay in tremendous pain for two minutes before her eyes grew too heavy to keep open.
When Lauren finally awoke after being run down by the swerving car she was surrounded in a pitch black void. White and blue mist began to flood into the black void with what appeared to be ice crystals glistening in an unseen light. A shadow enveloped figure floated towards her ever so slowly. It came to rest only a few feet from her just hovering in the void not doing a thing. "Who are you?" She asked the figure.
"That is not important at this moment. What is important is why I summoned you here." The figure retorted.
Lauren gazed at the figure intensely trying to make out any features at all to tell what or who the figure could be. "What are you talking about?" Her face was pale and had confusion written all over it.
The floating figure seemed to smile. "I have summoned you here to send you to someone that needs your help. It is your destiny." The figure replied with an icy voice.
Lauren's face became red with anger. "What destiny? I don't care about my destiny I just want to go home! I have a good life with friends and family members that love me! I don't want to leave!" She hollered at the top of her lungs but it didn't seem to affect the figure at all.
"If I send you back now you will be dead." Lauren stopped yelling at the figure at hearing those words. "We will need some time to bring you back to life. In the meantime you should go and fulfill your destiny." The figure explained it self.
"What is my destiny that you keep talking about?" Lauren queried the figure.
"You have a great power within you, one that can make or break a world. You must go with the summoner and protect her along her pilgrimage to save a world from destruction." Lauren seemed lost in the figures words.
"But how can I protect someone that I don't even know where they are? And where did this power that you say is within me come from?" Lauren argued.
"We will send you to this summoner. And the power that lies within you has been with you since your birth. You were destined to protect the summoner along her pilgrimage to destroy evil once and for all." The figured elaborated the answers to Lauren's questions.
"Who are these 'we' you're talking about?" Lauren queried the figure.
"The other fayth and my self."
"What are fayth?" The figure smiled from Lauren's question.
"You will find out soon enough." The figure responded. "But for now, what will you do? Will you go and fulfill your destiny or do you wish me to send you back and be dead?"
"What kind of question is that?" She shouted at the figure. "You give me the choice of life or death and think that you do not know what my answer will be! Of course I'll go and fulfill my destiny if I can go back to my old life once this is over!"
"I will send you back in the end...if you reach it." The figure started to fade into the pitch black void.
"Wait! What do you mean if I reach the end?" Lauren tried to take hold of the figure but her attempt was futile. The figure soon disappeared leaving Lauren alone. The black void began to glow with a pallid light causing her to shield her eyes. As the light grew brighter and brighter she felt her eyes grow to heavy to keep open and fell into unconsciousness.
Lauren's eyes flickered open to a scene of a huge stadium looking building that was now in ruins. Water was flowing out of the main entrance to the ruined building and was touching the tips of her chilled fingers. She shifted her gaze to the left and saw two figures. One was a blonde haired young man with a yellow hooded vest like garment with black pants that had a flame orange 'J' imprinted on the right pant leg. The other figure had black hair with streaks of white in the front and on the sides. He had on a red coat with a whiskey like jug lashed to his waist and sun glasses resting upon his face.
Lauren got up onto her feet while rubbing her eyes with her right thumb and index finger. "Where…where am I?" She stumbled to the left a bit before regaining her footing. "And who are you two?" She asked the two men standing a few feet away from her.
"I'm Tidus and this is Auron." The young man answered while gesturing to his friend. "What is your name?" Tidus inquired to Lauren.
"My name's Lauren." Her gaze shot up into the sky and saw a gigantic ball of water levitating in the air with an equally gigantic brownish blur in the center. "What is that?" She screamed.
"We called it "sin" Auron stated bluntly.
Lauren and Tidus stared blankly at each other and then at Auron. "Sin?" They questioned in unison.
A torpedo looking object with tentacles jutting out from the back collided into the side of a building to the left of the road the three were on. Scale like things released themselves off of the torpedo like object and plunged down into the road. The scales unfolded into what looked like a cross between a fish and an insect with wings.
"Take it!" Auron said, tossing a sword over to Tidus. "You." He gestures to Lauren. "Do you know how to use a sword?" He asked the sixteen year old girl.
"No way!" Lauren denied the ability to wield a sword.
Auron then pushed away the left side of his jacket to reveal a katana hanging from his belt. He unsheathed the blade as five of the fish insects rushed towards the group. "Well, it's time you learn." He then tosses it to Lauren, which she catches incredibly skillfully. 'So, this is the one.' He thought while the enemies bore down upon them.
Auron produced his own blade which he rested on his shoulder. He shifted his weight onto his left foot while following through with a downward blade stroke through the flesh of one of the advancing enemies. It was severed clean in half, spilling no blood, but releasing multicolored orbs into the air as its body disintegrated. "What are those colored things?" Lauren was awestruck at the sight of the pyreflies.
"Pyreflies." Auron calmly declared.
A sinscale leapt into the air at Lauren. She lunged her katana at the torso of the oncoming sinscale as it hurtled through the air at her. The katana dug into the fiend's flesh and burst out through its back, shedding no blood much to Lauren's surprise. The thing lay limp on the katana blade for a moment before bursting into pyreflies. "No sword skills huh?" Tidus asked jokingly.
"I don't know what that was. It was like instinct or something." Lauren replied to the blitz ace's joking question.
"No time for chit chat." Auron cut through another of the sinscales, starting to a running pace. "These ones don't matter. We cut through!" Lauren and Tidus followed Auron's command.
They continued down the paved road, cutting down sinscales along the way. Tidus stopped to fend off a small cluster of the sinscales as they surrounded him, impeding his march. Auron decapitated a sinscale with his massive sword and yelled another command at Tidus. "Don't bother going after all of them. Cut the ones that matter, and run!" The blitz ace spun around, his sword flashing into the flesh of each of his surrounding opponents or caused them to leap back to avoid being gutted.
The three of them ran down the paved, suspended road, only cutting down the sinscales that stood in their direct path. Another of the torpedo like things plummeted down into the road in front of them. Lauren freaked out and leapt back at the sudden collision in front of her. The scales on its sides freed themselves from their carrier and fell down to form a skirmish line in front of it. "How many of these are there?" Lauren muttered under her breath. Auron took up the front of the charge against the sinscales with a running velocity. He leapt into the air as he neared the enemies. He fell back down to the road a few seconds later, his sword sliding easily through the concrete road. The road beneath each of the sinscales sent a blast of energy at them. The sinscales were blown away by Auron's attack and soon ruptured into pyreflies.
Tidus charged froth but as he got close to the torpedo like thing it sprouted more scales upon the road. He leapt back as the scales dug into the road, each one getting closer and closer to him, forcing him back. After the thing released the second wave of scales Tidus countered them with an all out charge. "Spiral cut!" He jumped into the air and spun around a few times before crashing back to earth with a devastating blow to the torpedo like thing.
Tidus' attack only made the thing shed more of the scales onto its surroundings. Three of the sinscales landed in front of Lauren and unfolded. She took up her katana and attempted to cleave one of the scales in half. The sinscale sidestepped her blow and just stood there staring at her. Its small wings began to glitter with a blue and purple radiance and started to make a shaking sound. Auron shot a look over to Lauren and saw the sinscale charging up its attack. "Move!" He commanded to the young girl. She obeyed and did a front roll to the side just as the sinscale released a barrage of small spikes from within the depths of its wings.
Auron proceeded over to Lauren after the sinscale unleashed its wave of spikes. He came from behind it and cleaved it in two on a downward diagonal slash that dug into the concrete road. The other two sinscales in the area pounced upon the skillful warrior and toppled him over. He quickly knocked them off of himself and rose to his feet. Both of the sinscales' wings began to glow with the same blue and purple radiance when the other launched the spikes as Lauren. Auron realized that he could not evade the barrages of spikes that was about to come and braced himself.
He was surprised to see Lauren standing behind the scale on the left with her katana blade rammed through its chest. The other sinscale turned its focus on her as she withdrew her blade from its deceased ally. Its wings began to make the shaking sound that indicated an attack but turning its back to Auron was a big mistake. He brought his massive sword upon the scale in a right to left horizontal motion, separating the scale's body in two.
Tidus was off fighting the torpedo like thing, while also cutting down any of the sinscales that dropped free from it. He impaled the thing with the red hooked sword Auron had given him and ripped upwards. The thing convulsed and waved its tentacles wildly around in the air. He then brought his blade around his head and sliced it deep with a left to right horizontal slash, severing the thing in half. It plopped to the ground and convulsed for a moment before beginning to leak into pyreflies.
"Auron! Let's get out of here!" Tidus shouted seeing a batch of sinscales charging up the road.
"We're expected." Auron moves on in leisurely walk.
"Huh?" Tidus and Lauren both question, taking off after Auron.
The three of them move on down the road till a group of seemingly never ending sinscales bar their path. The group of scales that had taken up chase after them were soon upon them. They cut their way through the tides of sinscales, but there were just too many of them. Auron looked off to the right side of the road and spotted a tanker like thing hanging over the side of the road. "That-knock it down!" He points the tanker out to Tidus.
Tidus rushed over to the tanker, mowing down several sinscales in his way, while his friends battled the remainder of the scales. He took his first swing at the tanker, loosening the bond between the two parts of the tanker. A sinscale popped up behind him, wings glowing for an attack, and fired a bombardment of spikes. Tidus ducked under the wave of spikes allowing them to smash into the tanker. He spun around and took out the scale and followed through with a stroke to smash the tanker.
The bond between the two parts of the tanker broke free from one another, sending the piece hanging over the edge completely over. There was a deafening explosion as it struck the ground beneath them, ripping up the road as it ascended into the sky. "Go!" Auron hollered over the sound of the road being snapped and ripped a sunder. Lauren followed closely behind Auron but Tidus wasn't that lucky. He leapt off a piece of the road as it plummeted to the ground and barely grasped the edge of the road where Auron and Lauren stood.
"Auron! Auron!" Tidus yelled out as Sin hovered overhead, sucking in all the debris from the road along with the three of them.
Auron takes a look back at Sin. "You are sure?" He shifts his gazed back to Tidus, who is desperately clawing at the edge of the road trying to get a grip, and lifts him up by his shirt. "This is it. This is your story. It all begins here." Lauren watches in horror as Auron, Tidus and herself are sucked into the opening beneath Sin. The entire scene changes from the chaotic ruins of Zanarkand to pure nothingness right before her eyes.
A/N: Well there's chap one. Hope it wasn't too generic for ya. Anyway tell me what you think of it and if I should continue with it or not. And don't forget to review.