The Band of Seven – Ivalice Adventures

Chapter 1: Invitation to the unknown

I groaned and rubbed my head. Damn, that was nasty. I blinked a bit, cursed and then stood up. I yanked my blankets of the floor and threw them on my bed again. What the hell happened? Well sure, if you want to know… I fell out of my bed. With my head first. And that hurt. I dunno why I fell out of it. I think I had a bad dream or something. Well, whatever. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was eight o'clock in the morning. Usually I'm not even awake at this hour during vacations, but seeing as I'm awake now, I could as well get up.

My name isn't that important, but my nickname is Icarax. I use that name everywhere, with friends, on the internet, everywhere. I use it a lot more than my real name, so that's why I introduce myself to you all with that name. I'm seventeen years old, an average student with no real goal in life. I have no family anymore except for my dad, who spends more time drunk in the local jail than at home, so I'm pretty much on myself. Just now I said I use the name 'Icarax' when I'm with friends huh? Well, if I had friends. I know some people from school, but real friends? Nope.

After washing myself a bit and getting dressed, I head downstairs in this little shoebox that's my home, start up the PC (first thing I do every day) and while that box is starting up, make myself some breakfast. Now, I know you'd think that with no family and a drunk, jailed dad I'd be pretty poor, but I'm a hard working guy so I still get around pretty well.

After gulping down some food, I sit down in front of the PC and first thing I notice is a little textbox in the right-down corner of the screen. "You've got 1 mail!" It reads. Intrigued, for I don't get that much mail, I open it.

After reading it once, I read it again, and again. Why? Because the contents of the mail puzzled me. Here's what it said:

Yo Icarax

I hope you're well mate. Took us a while before we could contact you because none of us really knew how to send an email, but fine, we're over that now!

Now that we finally are able to contact you, I'd like to express first of all, in the name of us all here, how glad we are to have learned of your existence! You're perfect dude. You've got everything it takes to join our little group! Don't ask us how we learned that …

Fine, I'll tell ya! Gorast here's pretty good at dimension-hopping and that's how we learned of you! You're life's pretty boring huh? Well I can understand that, for from what Gorast described us of you're world, it's a pretty dry and boring place.

No worries though, dude! For soon that'll be over! At least, if you want it to be over. If you want to know more, how about you come to that place you call 'park' in your town around let's say…2 o'clock? We'll give you all the info and details you want, for I'm sure this email puzzles you. Don't worry too much, just come and meet us, you won't regret it, we promise!

So, hope to see you this afternoon!

Sincerely, Teridax.

Ehm, okay. I guess none of you can make sense of this either. I never heard or met anyone called 'Teridax' or 'Gorast' (though I have to admit, those names are cool). And 'dimension-hopping'? What the hell? Sounded to me like someone had been reading too much science-fiction. Still, this email was interesting. And the park, a lot of people where there at 2 o'clock, so how dangerous could it be to just go and check it out? It's not like I had anything better to do, it was vacation for me after all. And dad's not gonna complain, is he? He's probably still in jail, sleeping. I closed the email and decided to be in the park this afternoon, at 2 o'clock.

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I walked slowly through the park. Things weren't as they should be. For one, there was no one in the park. Where usually the park was flooded with people at this hour, now, there was nobody. Not even the birds where singing. Weird. There was no sound to be heard, not even from the cars on the road outside the park. This all made me feel uneasy. Just when I was thinking of going back, I noticed some people. At the pond in the distance, six figures had appeared, but I couldn't recognize them from here. They saw me too and waved at me. So this had to be the little group that had sent me the email This was my last chance to walk away… But somehow, I didn't want to walk away. I didn't feel scared either, despite the fact that I was about to go to people I didn't know at all. I shrugged all worries of me and walked over to the little group at the pond ahead of me.

One person waved excitedly at me. "Hey! Icarax!" I blinked. These guys really were excited to meet me huh? The guy who had waved excitedly at me jumped up and landed in front of me, which almost made me jump back in surprise. "Glad you decided to come after all dude!" He said excitedly. A sigh could be heard from behind him.

"Calm down Antroz." A female voice said. "This is all pretty new and confusing for Icarax, let Teridax explain everything first."

The guy called Antroz shrugged. "Fine, whatever you say Spiriah." He returned to his place. I gave the group of six an observing look. They appeared pretty human, if you ignored the weird hair colours or eyes, or their pale skin. Their clothing was all in the same style, just differed a bit in colour. The six were all of different ages. Another guy stood up, this one with ash-grey, long hair and eyes in the same colour. He appeared to me as eighteen.

"Yo dude, I mean, Icarax." He said. "I know you're probably puzzled, so let me start with introducing ourselves." He pointed at himself. "I'm Teridax, the guy who sent you the email." Next, he pointed at the girl who had spoken earlier. She had dark blue hair that reached to her shoulders. "That's Spiriah."

"How do you do." She greeted with a friendly smile. She looked sixteen to me. Next, Teridax pointed to the guy who had jumped to me earlier.

"Meet Antroz." Teridax said. Antroz smiled widely and waved again. After Antroz, Teridax pointed at a boy whom I guessed was around ten years old.

"That's Gorast." The boy smiled shyly, but said nothing. Only two more people remained. Teridax pointed at the youngest of those two, a boy who looked fourteen. "He's called Chirox."

Chirox raised his hand and smiled just like all the others did. "Pleased to meet ya." He greeted. Teridax then proceeded to introduce the last of the group, another boy, his age around fifteen. "And finally, we have Mutran." Teridax finished and he stood in front of the group.

"We're a group of mercenaries from another world, who have been searching through dimensions for a seventh member of our group, the one who will be our leader." Teridax explained. I blinked in disbelief.

"Right…" I said slowly, taking a step backwards. These guys had obviously lost it. To my surprise, Teridax didn't become angry, he just smiled. "I see you need some proof, well, we expected that, really." He turned to the youngest one of the group. "Gorast, how about you show our new friend a sample of your power?"

"Which one, brother Teridax?" Gorast asked, again with a shy voice. "I have more than twenty to choose from, you know that…"

"Right, I forgot that…" Teridax shrugged. He thought for a while. "How about plant control?"

"Yay!" Gorast cheered. He jumped on his feet, bowed slightly towards me, then walked over to some flowers. I couldn't see what exactly he did, but he pointed his right hand at the flowers, it glowed green for a small while and then all of the sudden the flowers grew ten times in size. Gorast turned towards us with a wide grin on his face. Behind me, the other five applauded for their younger brother. I just stood there, with my jaw on the ground. Teridax patted me on the shoulder. "Proof enough that we're not from around here, Icarax?"

I gave him a confused look. "Well ehm sure, but would you mind explaining why you are here, why you asked me to come and just how the heck you learned about me!"

Teridax chuckled. "Of course my friend, of course." Meanwhile Gorast had reduced the flowers to their former size and he then walked back to us and sat down again.

"Well Icarax, like I said already, we're a group of mercenaries from another world, looking for a good leader for our group." Teridax nodded towards Gorast. "Young Gorast is, like I said in my email, pretty good at dimension-hopping. It was he who found you first and who told us about you. And that's pretty much why we're here: you."

I looked at myself. "Me? But why would you…" Then it hit me. But surely, they could not be serious? I mean, seriously… "Don't tell me that…"

"Exactly!" Chirox smiled. "Gorast told us all about you and you're the perfect guy for the job! We want you to be our leader, isn't that right, brother Teridax?"

Teridax looked at me again and he nodded. "That's pretty much it. We came here in hopes of having you join us."

"But me!" I cried out. "Why me? I'm a plain normal boring person, I have no superpowers like I guess you six do, I know nothing of being a mercenary! How can you pick me! How can you even say I'm perfect for the job!"

"Truth to be told." Mutran grinned. "We can't."

"Then why pick me?" I asked, puzzled.

"Well…" They all paused for a very long time. "You're name is just so damn cool." Antroz finally said. I fell on the ground, anime-style.

"Tell me you're joking." I groaned.

"Rest assured Icarax, they are." Teridax assured me with a grin. "We just have, a peculiar sense of humour." His tone changed to serious. "But as for your question why we picked you, it just feels right. Besides, we have undeniable proof that you are the one to be our leader."

"What kind of proof?" I asked, still confused, shocked and unsure. Teridax once again mentioned to Gorast, who took a small necklace with a shard of something attached to it. As soon as it came near me, the shard started to glow bright red.

"That's the proof." Teridax said. "That's a shard of the weapon our leader has to be able to wield: The Twin-Bladed Black Fire Sword. It's a very powerful weapon, none of us can wield it. We decided long ago that the one who can wield the Black Fire Sword will be our leader. That shard reacts with the one person who can wield the sword. And that person is you."

"That little lightbulb has you all convinced that I'm the one to be your leader?" I eyed the piece of metal suspiciously. The six nodded eagerly. I sighed deeply. "What have I done to deserve this."

"Common Icarax, you really won't regret it if you decide to come with us." Spiriah smiled.

"Yeah, you'll have the time of your life, we promise!" Antroz added. Gorast walked up to me, his young eyes looking pleading at me.

"Please Icarax? Will you please become our leader? We've been waiting for so long." Damn, this kid was adorably cute! One look at his cute, pleading eyes would be enough to melt any resistance. I sighed in defeat. "Suppose for a moment that I will become your leader, I'd still be a powerless human! And where would we be mercenaries? Not in this world, I suppose. And what would you all expect me to do and to be like?"

"The power issue will be fixed as soon as you agree to be our leader, don't worry about that." Teridax replied. He patted Gorast on the head. "Young Gorast here can take us to any dimension we want, so the 'where' issue is also solved. As for how we expect you to be…" He glanced at his group. "Just make sure to have fun with us and enjoy yourself, and we'll all be happy."

I sighed again and looked at all their expectant faces. I avoided looking at Gorast, out of fear of melting again at the sight of his adorably cute, pleading eyes. "You guys really want me to do this, huh? Even though I barely know a thing about you all, or you about me."

They all nodded eagerly and I rolled my eyes.

"How about this, Icarax." Mutran said excitedly. "You choose a dimension you really want to go to, and in that dimension you'll spend some time with us, trying out how life with us would be. If you don't like it, we'll take you back. If you like it, you'll become our leader and we'll have tons of fun in other dimensions. What do you say?"

Teridax smiled. "Ah, excellent idea Mutran! A test period, so to speak." He looked at me. "What do you say, Icarax?"

Gorast tugged at my arm. "Please?" Damn. Cuteness overkill. I thought about it for a small while. Dad is drunk and in jail, my life is boring and nobody here would really miss me. And these guys didn't look like they were trying to lure me in some kind of trap. What did I have to loose? Besides, dimension hopping and cool powers didn't sound too bad.

"Fine then, I'll do this test period and see how I like it, okay?"

"Yay!" Gorast cheered as he embraced my leg. Gawd, this little guy is too cute for words!

"Choose a world you've always wanted to visit, Icarax." Teridax said to me. "It doesn't matter if you think it doesn't exist for real or not, Gorast can take us there."

I scratched the back of my head, thinking. What world did I want to go to that you could have a lot of fun in? Then I suddenly got an idea.

"How about… Ivalice from Final Fantasy XII. Do you think you can take us there, Gorast?" I asked cautiously. The young kid looked up at me with a big, happy smile on his face.

"No problem, brother Icarax!" He clapped his hands excitedly. "Alright, all of you form a circle around me and Icarax."

They did as the youngest of the group asked and the remaining five members formed a circle around us, holding each others hands. Gorast took my hands and closed his eyes. I looked nervously at him and the others. All of them had an excited look on their face. I felt uneasy, not knowing what was in store for me, but somehow I felt excited too. Gorast began to chant some sort of spell and he started to glow with a bright, green light, which blinded me. Suddenly, my feet no longer touched the ground. Gorast began to glow even brighter and suddenly we were falling. I could not see falling through what or where, for Gorast's light still blinded me. I held the little boy's hands while the seven us fell. Fell towards a big adventure.

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Next chapter: I arrive in Ivalice with the rest of my new group. I soon learn the true nature of my new six friends and discover that I too have changed! After being united with my weapon, I'm quickly thrown into my first battle…

Hope this chapter was decent at least. This is my first fanfic, I hope it'so kay so far. Many thanks to the entire Kel's Guild of Authors for inspiring me to write this story. Humor, adventure and action await in the next chapters of this tale!

PS: Yes, the idea of a band of seven mercenaries does come from InuYasha. Who cares, this band is very different. Just enjoy the story for what it is. p