Final Fantasy X: Revisited

Disclaimer: Even though this is a story, I still don't own any part of it. Final Fantasy and all its characters are the sole property of Square Enix, formerly Squaresoft. No lawsuits, I only have a old school Game Boy and 20 bucks, anyways. For all the non-lawyers, enjoy!

Chapter 2: Paradox

'….Where am I? Have I died? What is going on with my tv and the light show from hell?' Bruce thought to himself in the void that followed his terrifying ordeal in his den. Still unaware of what was happening, he only had his thoughts to hang on to, as long as he could think, he couldn't be dead. 'Or can I? I've never actually died before... I just want to go home and enjoy sleep again….or at least trying to sleep… jeez, I don't need this now, I got school tomorrow!' Bruce struggled to stay focused on his thoughts. He could not open his eyes, even if he wanted to. 'So cold….So dark…' was all he could think about, contrasting from the apparent heat he felt before his prison swallowed him whole.

All of a sudden, the dark place he felt began to grow lighter. Bruce's eyelids fluttered quickly as he found his motor skills again. 'So hard to move…' Bruce struggled with his eyes for a while longer, but each time they felt like they weighed a ton. After a while, he stopped trying. He vainly tried to move his hands, which were currently stationed on either side of him. Every part of him felt so… heavy. After sighing, which was no more than his chest moving slightly, Bruce gave up on trying to find where he was.

'No pain in heaven my ass…' He thought disdainfully as he waited for anything to change. He slowly tried to regain his strength as he pondered the situation. The sound was gone, and he no longer felt like he was floating, which was accented by one more ineffective attempt to open his eyes. His whole body felt like it was mummified. Even his legs felt confined, as well as the rest of him. 'What a waste…I knew I shouldn't have insulted the British…' Bruce, with the feeling that hope was gone, stopped struggling.

He instead listened to his heart beating. Almost as an afterthought, he noticed that his heart wasn't the only thing making a noise. Straining his ears slightly, Bruce began to hear a soft murmur. It was then that the murmur began to change, becoming more focused and elaborate. Much, much louder, too. Someone, no, many people, were singing. The concert of voices soon was all he could hear, overcoming his senses with an unknown feeling as he took in the haunting melody. It was… beautiful. Bruce felt his heart begin to swell with emotion as he realized what it was. The notes, the rhythm….

It was the hymn of the Fayth.

As soon as he realized that, he slowly felt the crushing pull of his body begin to lessen. Bruce pursed his lips. He had to get out of this prison and get some answers. Wherever he was, he was not having a good time. After a quick prayer, he felt his hands start to twitch occasionally as he fought control. 'At least there's progress…' Bruce was also able to move his legs a couple of inches upwards before meeting some sort of barrier. 'Okay… here goes nothing.' He braced himself, and willed his eyes to open using all of the strength he had. His eyelids fluttered very quickly before shooting open, grayish-blue eyes hitting the sunlight almost immediately.

"Ow…." Bruce quickly shut his eyes in recoil, and then opened them again, this time more slowly. He looked again to the sun, which was now dipping slowly behind the horizon of the ocean, which was heard by the soft murmur of waves coming across the horizon. He looked down at himself, with a small hope that he would find his sofa under him. To his dismay, he found himself in a small bed next to a window, overlooking a harbor. Questions would have to wait until he knew where he was. He glanced around him to see a small opening to his left, opening to a larger circular room, roughly 20 feet in diameter. The walls were a soft red color, mostly due to sparse bits of paint chips still remaining on the now desolate walls, and there was no carpeting, just wood that looked worn out from years of non-use. There were windows on either side, but they were each covered with a soft blue cloth, appearing to have been worn down. There was no other furniture, except for a small foot-high wooden drawer in the corner opposite his room. Bruce could also notice the large of dust that crossed the path of the sunlight. No one has been here for quite a while.

"Too bad, I guess my popularity will be considerably lower here," he murmured with a chuckle. Realizing that there was no point in looking for answers when in a bed, he quickly sat up. It was then he realized that he was inside a heavy comforter, tightly wrapped around him and under the bed. "Explains the mummy theory," Bruce said to no one in particular as he squirmed an arm out from under the blanket, pulling desperately at the edge of the bed to get it out. After a quick curse and the application of both hands, he was able to wrestle enough of the brown comforter in order to shimmy himself, somewhat ungracefully, out of the space and smack onto the floor.

The first thing he noticed was that he was naked.

Out of instinct, Bruce quickly grabbed a pillow from behind him and covered himself. He felt his cheeks begin to redden at the thought of someone seeing him naked. 'Some way to start my day,' he thought as he frantically scanned the dwelling for his clothes. "I liked those boxers, dammit!" He cursed loudly as he found nothing with the familiar yellow colors on it. "Who the hell stole my clothes?!" After noting that he was still in plain sight from the window, he quickly moved away, fumbling with the cloth over for several moments before watching it fall over the window, with the sun just barely seen behind it.

'Okay, Bruce, deep breaths,' he thought to himself, waiting for his recent state of embarrassment to leave him, only to be replaced with a chill from the windows, echoed with the curtains flapping against it. Must find clothes. Bruce checked under the bed for any sign of cloth. All he found, however, was a dust cloud, kicked up almost immediately by his intrusion and flaring into his nostrils. He fell back with a soft thud, rubbing constantly at his nose to ease the irritation it received. He could feel his eyes blurring as he coughed hard.

After the chokefest, Bruce stood up, still with the pillow held fast to his unmentionables, and searched the small shack for any sign of non-dustiness. 'Where can I find a decent set of pants here?' Bruce said, scanning along the whole room for anything.

And then, he remembered.

The dresser.

Cautiously, he walked over to the lone dresser, unsure of what exactly he would find. As he got closer to it, he noticed a rather large rectangular case leaning casually against it. By the looks of it, it looked in a lot better state than his surroundings. For one thing, it resembled, somewhat ironically, like a bass guitar case. Hard black plastic surrounded its exterior, with four small latches on one of the longer sides and a metal stripe dividing it in half.

"Finally, something familiar," said Bruce as he looked thoughtfully at the case. "But, first things first." He moved his eyes away from the case and down at the dresser. While the case was new, this dresser was old, but still familiar to him. It was not elaborate in any case, but he still remembered he had one just like it at home. It was a dark mahogany dresser, about 2 feet high, and there was just one drawer inside it, with a wooden handle on the outside. Just as he remembered. Bruce grabbed the handle and opened it.

As the door creaked open, Bruce saw his first ray of hope of the day as he revealed a set of clothes, from top to bottom. "Yes!" Bruce exclaimed as he dropped the pillow and began to hurriedly assort himself in the various clothes that were there. He didn't care how they got there, or why. He didn't even care how they fit him so well. All that mattered was that he could be clothed now, and would avoid the embarrassment of walking outside naked, who knew what was out there.

Out there. Where was 'out there,' anyways? Bruce hesitated for a moment as he was struggling to shimmy into the outfit given to him. He glanced out at the now closed window that overlooked the sea. 'That water was too clear to be Seattle water,' he began to rummage through the dresser to find some other things. 'Didn't smell like salt, so it can't be an ocean…' Bruce fished out a pair of boots from the drawer. 'But, how could it be that big and not be an ocean? And for that matter, the sun was far too big to actually be our sun.' Stumbling a bit, he began to get one boot on, hopping a bit to get it on right. 'Where the hell am I? And for that matter, why was Sin on my tv? Why am I not at home? Why did I hear the hymn of the Fayth? Why is my stuff here?' The questions began flinging themselves at him, and for the first time since he woke up, Bruce began to wonder exactly where he was.

With a final thud on the wood, he managed to get into his boots and lace them up. He wriggled his toes on the inside. These felt really, really good. Like he could run a marathon in these. He jumped up and down a couple times, breaking them in a little bit. He then walked back over to the dresser and peered inside, looking for any other articles of clothing that he might have forgotten. He saw a red cloth at the bottom, so he grabbed it and looked at it for a little bit before stuffing it into one of his pockets.

After closing the drawer with a soft thud, Bruce began to look at his new ensemble. His boots were black, and seemed to be made with some sort of heavy leather with soft padding on the insides, so it looked as if they were made to be walked in. Made to be walked in a lot. He had on dark socks made of coarse wool, warming up his feet a little more. His tanned legs were bare up to the knee. From there, they were covered up by baggy, dark red shorts with wide openings. They were supplied with black circular markings all around the bottom rim of them, which resembled, vaguely, the symbols projected all around his den before the light consumed him. As a nostalgic feeling overcame him, he followed up his body to the black t-shirt that hugged him closely. He also had on a loose-fitting red vest, moving down his torso until it connected with a ring of fabric around his waist, with a large pouch resting on his left hip. The soft jingling told him that whoever gave him the pouch didn't leave it empty. As he realized where he has seen this kind of outfit before, he began to feel both confused and anxious as he fished out the red cloth from his pocket, worked it into a bandana and placed it on his head, with various strands of hair peeking out from under it.

'Okay, freak out factor of 8.75 and steadily increasing…well, can't argue with the fashion, I'm loving it.' He glanced at the windows, still covered up with the blue cloth. He gulped audibly. 'Well, I've avoided it thus far, better see where that blue thing took me.' A couple of steadying breaths later, he flung open the curtains with a loud rustle.

Bruce took one look outside, and quickly turned away, visibly shaking with uneasiness.

No. It just wasn't possible. It just was. not. possible.

Bruce closed his eyes, feeling the fear begin to sink into his body. 'He had to have been dreaming, he had to have. This whole thing is just a dream, because what he just saw was impossible. Really, really not possible. It wasn't what he thought he'd seen. He expected a beach, or even a paradise cruise, but what he saw wasn't anything he could find anywhere. Literally. Bruce began to whimper softly. He was scared, because he knew exactly where he was, and he knew exactly what would happen. Bruce felt his pulse quicken with a small surge of adrenaline. His eyes began to twitch involuntarily as his hands began to sweat, and he brushed them hurriedly across his shorts as more sweat appeared instantly across his whole body.

He turned around again slowly, with his heart beating loudly against his chest, to look out at what he saw once more. His eyes were once again met with the brilliant sight before him. Hundreds of skyscrapers, all large and shooting up very high, surrounded with lights so bright that it let out a hue of light all around it. The buildings were very massive, all of them looking somewhat like hourglasses, with circular layers going up each one. It would have looked like any other city, except for the huge stadium in the center. The stadium was filling up gradually with people, all excited and eager to get inside. There was a dull murmur of noise surrounding the stadium as wave after wave of people were moving towards the massive structure still about a quarter of a mile away.

Bruce looked away from the skyscrapers to the voices he overheard on the road just ahead of him. He saw a group of people, all heading towards the stadium. A small boy of about 8 was riding on a man's back, most likely his father. The boy's presumed mother was riding what looked to be a moped, only there were no wheels, just two glowing circles located at the bottom. She was sitting with a girl on her lap, riding smoothly alongside the other two. They were all chattering lively, full of energy. "I want a front seat, daddy!" "I don't think we got here in time for that." "Blitz is so cool!" "I wanna see Tidus play!" "The Abes will sweep it again!" was all that Bruce could pick up as they continued on to the stadium, now the only source of life in the whole city.

Blitz. Tidus. Abes. It all came together. His breath caught.

He was in Zanarkand.

He shook his head lightly as he attempted to clear his head from the overload his senses were getting. He was in a game. He was in Final Fantasy 10. This was impossible. He stood there, continuing to look at the stadium in the distance. It was all so real. He could feel everything. But this had to be a dream. It had to be. He closed his eyes slowly, feeling the clothes he was wearing move with his breathing. But, man…this was one hell of a dream. One for the recordbooks, right alongside the one he had in 7th grade with those twelve women and the different outfits and the mistletoe under each woman. 'Oh, yeah, that was great,' he thought to himself, opening his eyes with a new found vigor. "Well, if this is gonna be a dream of that 'caliber', I better make it count," he said aloud.

Moving away from the window, he turned to exit the room and out into civilization. He moved his hand towards the knob when he remembered the case, still sitting idly next to the drawer. 'Oh, yeah…." Bruce walked over to it and stood, ready to open what was inside. Maybe it was his bass guitar, but he doubted it. Grabbing it and setting it on the ground before him, he deftly opened the latches on the side before resting on his knees and opening it quickly.

Inside was much like his case at home, same black feathery fabric inside. However, the usual guitar he'd see and the indentation of a guitar were replaced with something else. It was a weapon. His eyes opened fully to take in all of it. Like his clothes, he knew exactly where he'd seen it. Two wide blades, stationed firmly on opposite sides of a single staff made of dense wood, about one and a half inches thick and curved slightly at where it met the blades. The rod stretched about four feet to reach the blades, all together making it about five feet. Bruce looked at the middle, where the rod had split an oval about six inches long in the middle of the rod, with some rough leather grips on either side.

His weapon, the swallow.

He looked at the rest of the ensemble inside the case. Sitting below the weapon was a pair of black faded fingerless leather gloves with extra padding on the palm. 'Probably for my hands' sake,' he thought as he grabbed them and put them on quickly. He then moved up to the other half of the now open case, and saw a black leather strap stretched on two pegs. On the strap, he saw two short leather belts, as well as a longer piece dropping lazily to one side. He took the strap in his hands and noted that it was a lot heavier than it looked. 'Must be a strap for the weapon.' He lifted his left arm and let one side fall to his waist, and letting the right side rest on his shoulder. He then took the longer belt and wrapped it around his waist, being sure to set the two-pronged buckle firmly around him.

Sweet. Quite sweet indeed.

Bruce celebrated his newfound gear with a quick woo-hoo and a raise the roof notion. 'About time good started to happen,' He thought during his ceremony. When he was finished, he leaned back over and grabbed the handle of the swallow. As soon as he touched it, he felt a sudden queasiness. He noticed that he couldn't hear the sea anymore. When he turned to investigate, he noticed that he couldn't move an inch. Just like when he saw Sin on his tv. A sense of urgency overcame him as he wrestled with his unseen bonds, trying to find out what had stopped him from moving. 'Not again, not after good was happening…' Bruce thought just before he heard a voice, ringing loud and clear.

"It is about to start."

He tried to speak, to figure out who was talking to him, but he still couldn't move. The voice continued.

"You will begin your journey soon. This is not your story. However, you are given the chance to follow alongside another's story. You must not interfere with his story, for you already know the outcome of it."

He knew that voice. Childlike in nature, but very wise, and demanding authority. As to who it was, though, he couldn't quite pinpoint it.

"This story, as you know, is long and perilous, and it is very likely that you will not survive. As you know this, it is still your choice to become a part of his story, or to wake up in your bed, and none of this would have happened."

'Wake up? Then, this was a dream, after all?'

As if he heard the thought, the voice continued. "Granted, this is not an ordinary dream you are having. On the other hand, you also know that this is not an ordinary reality, either. You, Bruce, are on the very line between dream and reality. Anything that happens to you in your present state will be permanent, and cannot be reversed. So, death will still bring its consequences, as will injury. Are you ready to begin your journey, Bruce?"

Bruce felt his body be released from its hold. Not his body, no, just his head, but it was progress. Bruce was about to ask him who he was and why he was here, but every time he started speaking, the words stopped in his throat. Before he could think any further, he realized that the unknown assailant asked him a question. Was he truly ready to be a part of the familiar plotlines and enemies, friends and areas? Could he handle it? Would he handle it? Then again, he would be able to fight alongside all those people that made the game such a hit, and he'd be able to do what no other person has been able to do, but wanted to for so long.

Bruce cleared his throat and with a strong tone, said "Yes."

"So be it. However, I will warn you, do not interfere with the young man's story. It will have more consequences than you can imagine. It will rip the very fabric of both worlds, yours and his, into nothingness. I grant you Godspeed, Bruce. Farewell," the voice began to fade away, until it was no longer there. As soon as the last word was uttered, Bruce's body was let go of its prison, and he had to catch himself before he landed on his new weapon. Furrowing his eyebrows, Bruce heaved the swallow upwards, positive that it would be about heavy, to say the least. He pulled so hard that the seemingly heavy swallow flew upwards, the sheer force of it pulling Bruce upwards slightly as well. "Whoa!" he exclaimed somewhat embarrassed as he realized that the swallow weighed only a portion of what he thought it would be.

He stood up with the tool in hand, unsure as to how to use it. 'Oh well, Tidus didn't know either, so I guess there's no way to go but upwards for me, too,' he thought to himself. He took a couple of practice swings, stepping forwards with his right foot and bringing the swallow across him with a diagonal slash, resulting in a bright whir as the blade cut through the air. Before long he realized that the water in the stadium was starting to flow, resulting in a huge cheer from the bleachers. He quickly took sight of the two pieces of leather dangling on either side of him, and maneuvering the swallow behind him looped the upper strap around the rod, tightening and pulling it until it was secure. After setting the buckle, he repeated the process with the other end of the swallow, securing it diagonally across his back. Now, the sun was completely gone from the sky, and the city's lights were dimmed, save for the stadium.

He had to find Auron, fast. Before the chaos began.

Okay, okay, so I need a little work in my writing. But, I can't change anything unless you give me things to change! Please, please leave feedback. Don't worry, the romance will come for all you sap fans out there, but not for a while. The story needs to unfold a little bit, but be patient. Thanks for reading!