A Final Fantasy Story 

A story by a currently unknown submitter, we learn of yound Kris and the beginning of his day at a Tournament in Invalice to win an avyuir sword. Familiar faces are Montblanc and Fran, and many of the races of FFXII.

Chapter 2

There he was, his enemy—a bangaa probably one and a half times his size. His muscles were protruding out of the tightly fit yellow robe that he had on as he cracked his knuckles. His enemy smiled at him across the room, Kris feared the bangaa at most because one punch from them could actually overwhelm his body in half.

“The rule for the first match will be hand to hand combat. There will be no weapons involved in this match except your body. Magic is allowed.” shouts the announcer.

“Great,” Kris says, “A fist match against a bangaa, this is my lucky day.”

As the bell rings, his enemy takes no time to rest and attacks Kris immediately. With his enemy’s fist aimed right at his chest, Kris dodges the attack and jumps backwards, barely avoiding it. Without a moment too soon, Kris was immediately hit by a kick to his right arm. The pain hurt instantly and Kris feels that the attack broke at least one bone in his right arm. The bangaa attacks again and again and all Kris can do is dodge; then suddenly, his enemy smiles and stops attacking. Realizing what this meant, Kris turns back and sees that he was cornered—it was a trap. His enemy lunges with his huge hands forming a clump that seemed like a wrecking ball. Kris moves on instinct and immediately slides forward to where the bangaa was.

“THUNDER!”
Kris shouts as his enemy had his back on him. Then from his left arm he felt the flow of electricity surging pass his body and out into the air towards the large back of the bangaa. It was a direct hit and the impact caused an explosion that filled the air with smoke and dust.

Kris backs off a few steps as the smoke starts to clear. “It was a direct hit,” he thought, “no bangaa could have survived a direct magic attack.” The smoke clears and he sees the body of the bangaa lying on the dusty floor. But before he could celebrate, the body rises up and stands to his surprise.

“AIR RENDER” cries the bangaa pointing his fist directly at Kris.

Suddenly a strong gust of wind, as if an invisible fist, hits Kris in the chest and sends him flying towards the other end of the room.

“I’m wearing a thunder robe, if you hadn’t realizzzed,” says the bangaa. “Thisss allowsss me to absorb all electric attack from my enemiesss. Had there never been an explosion, had you not inaccurately hit me but the wall, I would be fine right now. But I'm glad you did and now I'm ready to take you on ssseriously.”

At the end of the room, Kris could hardly see at all. His impact on the ground after his few seconds of flight caused the dust to dance wildly in the air covering him from his enemy and his enemy from him. He could hardly breathe as the attack on his chest probably collapsed a few of his ribs. He should never have cast thunder on his enemy but he was glad that his enemy is currently underestimating him—he was a bangaa after all. With the last of his strength, he got up and closed his eyes. He couldn’t see anyway, what was the use? He concentrated and filtered the chaotic and endless shouting of the audience.

“KILL HIM!”
“FINISH HIM NOW!”
“LET’S STOP THIS MADNESS AND GET ON WITH THE SECOND ROUND!”
He didn’t need those; he was waiting for one voice. He was waiting for the voice that, unlike the crowd, was calm as he was.
“KILL HIM ALREADY! I WANT TO SEE JULIUS!”
“YEAH! LET’S SEE JULIUS!”
Then out of no where, he heard it like a whisper from a kitten in the rain.

“To your left, 10 o’clock.” Without any hesitation at all, he points his left hand to the air where there was nothing but clouds of dust. He shouts with all his might, as if a prayer spoken out of desperation.

“BLIZZARD!”
And then he feels it. He feels the cold building up from his upper torso into his left arm then into his hand and then finally, like a bullet, shot into thin air. He hears a hit shortly afterwards and a sound, as if something was being frozen really fast came next. He opens his eyes, the dust clears and he sees a large block of ice, a few meters away from him. He walks towards it and examines the block as if there should be something inside. True enough, the bangaa was there, frozen and silent much like the crowd that was before like savage animals on fire. Then he feels the pain once more rushing back to him like a victory surprise party. Kris collapses to the ground, but his face hid a smile that said that he knew that he’s won.

“CURE!”
There was a loud shout from somewhere near by but Kris could barely open his eyes. Where is he now, exactly? He doesn’t know at all. It’s as if he was between two worlds again. Once more he is back in his dream and he sees, again, the huge army of different races attacking furiously at the unseen enemy on the other side. As he opened his left eye keeping his right eye closed, he could make out a faint picture of Fran and a few nu-mou looking back at him. Which one was reality, he no longer knew but he opened both his eyes nonetheless. And he found himself lying in a bed with Fran beside him, crying her eyes out.

“I thought you were a goner,” Fran said as she wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“I thought I was too,” he replied and both of them laughed incessantly. “Help me up, I need to see the fight,” he said. And Fran helped him up and they exited the room out into an empty hallway. Slowly, as they walked towards the door opposite of where they came, they could hear, once more, the loud and wild noises of the crowd. As they got out into the bleachers of the arena, a huge deafening roar came from the crowd as the nu-mou was able to clobber the moogle with his battle mace. The helmet that was worn by the moogle went flying into the air. And then he saw it; the face of Julius. It was as if the rumors had captured him perfectly: a face hung with multiple battle scars and the largest of them all, a cut that run from his right eyebrow down to his upper lip, was from his supposed battle with Soma, the wielder of Ultima. Julius was the scariest moogle he’d ever seen and this brought his spirits back to the ground. At some point during the battle their eyes met and Kris felt an unwanted feeling deep inside him that stunk like a rotting corpse. Julius’ eyes, Kris thought, were so dark and so frightening that he felt the urgent need to run away. Yet in a split second, Julius was back on his feet, lunging immediately at the helpless nu-mou who thought that he’d already won. Julius was merciless and he attacked with such force that even though the first blow was more than enough for him to win, he kept on attacking and attacking the helpless nu-mou. It took four bangaa templars, each probably four times his size to finally seize him and stop him from going berserk.

Then there was only dust and a bloody body in the arena and only silence in the audience that seemed flabbergasted after the whole ordeal. Not even Fran or Kris could muster a word.

As Kris and Fran walked back into the hallway they saw, ahead of them, the body of the helpless nu-mou being attended to by the different medical staff of the arena. Kris and Fran then decided to go back into the waiting room but as they walked towards the door, they heard a sudden commotion coming from inside.

“We’re all quitting the tournament and you can’t blame us for leaving,” says a voice from inside the room.
“Our lives are more precious than any of your avyuirs!” says another.
“We understand what must be going into your heads right now but if you leave, then all of you will be disqualified and Julius will be named the winner,” said the voice of the announcer.

“Well what about that bloke who won the firssst round? He’ll stay for sure,” says the voice of a bangaa. Kris’ eyes widened at this comment and he makes a run for the door. Breathless, he gets out of the building and into the runner and speeds it towards the outskirts of the city. He doesn’t want to fight Julius. He knows he can’t win but why is it that a part of him still wants to go back into the arena and fight?

He stops near a cliff overlooking the city. There were no trees around him, the city was in the center of a great desert and the lands beyond, as far as his eye could see seem arid and scorched by the large sun. He needed to think this through; he wanted to know what he needed to do. He sat down against a rock as he swept his hands over his black sweaty hair. No human in Ivalice had black hair like he does. Everyone there had hair of different colors: green, red, blue and mostly blonde. But not like him, he thought, he was special. But the more he compared his abilities to others the more he thought how ordinary he was. His magic was average, he was taught by Fran who could summon even level three magic. His swordsmanship was only a little above average, this was his reward for the countless of months training to become a stronger swordsman—only a little above average.

He hated the fact that he was not special at all and most of all, he hated the fact that he was human—the most balanced race in Ivalice. He adored the bangaa who was physically strongest or the nu-mou who was magically strongest or the viera who was the fastest and most finely honed. He even adored the moogles who can make great armor, weapons and gadgets that they can use to their advantage. He envied them because someone like Julian can be that strong. But deep inside his heart, he knew that he wanted to be nothing like Julian. He’d rather be the weakest, he thought, than be as evil as that.

He waited more for a few minutes then he sat up and rode his runner back into town as he headed straight for home. When he arrived, he saw another runner nearby; someone must've paid him a visit.