Spirits of the Mist

If you're looking for a regular FF XII story with grand plotschemes and XII characters, this is not the fic for you. There are other great fics out there that serve that purpose. This is a fanfic set in the land of Ivalice, more specifically the Nabreus Deadlands and focusses on me and some friends in a somewhat bizarre adventure. If that's your kind of thing, read on!

1. I'm a what?!

I yawned as I lazily started to become awake. I had had a nice pleasant dream about something that I didn't know and had slept well. I felt refreshed and prepared to open my eyes. Yet, I hesitated a bit. Something felt a bit off, but I couldn't place my finger on it. I shrugged and opened my eyes. Bad idea. I yawned again and prepared to sit up. It was then I noticed I was laying on the floor of what appeared to be a swamp. That's… shocking to say the least. When you go upstairs in your house and get in your bed to sleep, you don't expect to wake up in a swamp the next morning.

Thinking I was still dreaming, I brought up my hand to my head to give myself a good smack when I noticed I didn't have hands anymore. That's… more than shocking. When you go bed having a nice pair of hands each with five fingers, you don't expect to wake up with your hands having turned into long, thin, sickle-like blades as long as me in my entire length. And not just any sickle blades, no sir! As I told you, they were as long as an average seventeen-year old boy. They were straight, with both ends curving slightly until both tips of these blades were very sharp. Next, these blade-like hands of me were made out of a metal-like something. And they were white, and spiked, and now and then a stroke of red interrupted the white.

Okay, as you can see, that is not normal. In fact it's far from normal. It doesn't help that after you find out your hands have become blade-like structures, you notice your arms have become a bit shorter, your skin has become metal and is coloured black. I gulped and tried to get on my feet. Only, I didn't have feet anymore. Not normal feet at least. My legs had become much, much shorter until they were just as long as my arms and they had gotten black metallic skin as well. And my feet, feh… I had sickle-like structures for feet. These sickles were only half as long as my 'hands' and were of the same design: white, pointed, spiked and with red here and there. Fantastic.

Struggling, I placed these sickle-like feet of mine on the ground. Not easy. You're so limited in your footing of all you have to stand on is the point of a blade. But with the tips of my bladefeet placed on the ground, I managed to push myself up somewhat until came off the ground a little bit. I stood very wobbly on my legs and arms. It was obvious I could no longer walk on two feet. I tried to stand up a bit higher on my blades. It was so hard to find your balance I almost smacked down on the swampfloor again. Eventually, though, I stood solid on the ground, and straighter. I almost could walk as upright as I could as when I was a normal human, given how long my bladehands were.

Now that I stood, I looked at my body cringed at the sight. As if arms and legs out of metal and hands at feet as blades weren't enough, my body had followed their example! It was longer and thinner. My shoulders were less broad and the further down to my hips you went, the thinner I became. My entire torso was solid and almost one piece, meaning that I couldn't bend a lot no matter how much I wanted to. Not so surprising, if your skin is nothing but one plate of solid black metal. Only my chest and hips differed. My hips had white metal as skin and my chest was extra protected with a thick layer of white metal. I guessed I still had important organs encased in my weird body.

I noticed water nearby and decided I wanted to know how my face looked. I moved slowly towards it, stumbling all the while as I was unused still to walking on these blade-like limbs of mine. As I stood by the water, I realized again my back could not bend enough. Slowly I placed my right bladehand in the water a bit. The ground was solid enough. Then I placed my other in as well and lowered my neck and face closer to the water so I could see. Dreadful didn't even begin to describe it, and yes, that meant my face had changed!

I didn't even recognize myself! It's very hard to describe. My face itself I couldn't see in fact. All I saw were my big glowing red eyes. My face – or head, whatever – was covered by some sort of helmet. One I couldn't remove. It was like a sphere-half, white and metallic. On top of it, there was a long row of spikes that extended far beyond the helmet that was now fused to my face. If it were hair, it would have looked like it was in a ponytail. Ah, very hard to describe or to imagine if you don't have a picture! My neck you probably guessed. It was longer, thinner, black and had metal as skin.

But at that moment, a picture was as far from my mind as anything. I stared disbelieving at my reflection in the murky water. Either I was dreaming, or this was real and I should be screaming. I gave myself a hard slap against the face with the side of one of my hands. It hurt only ever so slightly, but it proved I was awake. Okay, so there was only one option left. I tipped back my head, opened my mouth – wherever it was located now with that strange helmet-face-thingy fused to my head – and screamed. Very loudly.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

--

I sighed and sank down on a rather large rock. Sitting was a very difficult thing now that I could no longer bend my back very much. I had to constantly keep myself from falling with my bladehands. This had to be some sort of sick joke. I had been turned into a monstrous, human-sized, biomechanical insect-like creature, for heaven's sake! And to top it all off, I was in some sort of swamp! Looking around, I realized I had no idea where I was. Mist and murky waters were everywhere. Kinda spooky. Insects would zoom around from time to time. I heard a rustling in the bushes. Startled, I got up, almost tripping over my own bladelimbs as I did so. I turned in the direction of the sound. Luckily, even though my main body could barely bend, my other limbs still bend at the normal places.

"Who's there?" I called out. The only answer I got was a monstrous big toad leaping at me. I let out a surprised yell and staggered backwards on my bladed hands and feet, almost falling over as I did so. But the toad kept coming. It leaped at me. I let out a yelp of fright as I saw the toad come closer and closer to me. But then, as soon as it touched me, it was somehow repelled, and rather forcefully. The toad sailed through the air and landed somewhere in the swampwaters.

I blinked. "Well, that was odd." I said slowly. Wherever I was, I wasn't at home anymore. No way we had such big toads. Sure nuclear waste did stuff to things, but it still didn't turn toads into godzillas. Or me into a freakish insect-robot-thing. I noticed a small pebble nearby. I decided to try and figure something out. I picked it up. Oh, forgot to say, I had found out I still had some sort of thumb on my bladehands. All the way down at the end of my hands I had another, small blade-like finger that I could use to grab things with. But when I closed my 'hand' the thumb almost completely disappeared under my larger blade. Very hard to image, I know! But this is just weird stuff! So bear with me!

I looked at the pebble in my claws. I focussed on it, like I had focussed on the toad as it had leapt towards me. The pebble was suddenly repelled, yet less forcefully. It landed barely a feet away from me. I picked it up again and then focussed on it a lot harder. This time, the pebble was repelled very forcefully. It sailed through the air and landed somewhere in the swamp, out of sight. I blinked again as I realized that I could apparently repel things from me by focussing on them. I wondered if I had to actually touch things to repel them. I glanced at a nearby plant. I focussed on it, and sure, the plant bent away from me, but it wasn't repelled. It didn't sail through the air. I wondered if that was because it was stuck to the ground. The ground…

Suddenly I got an exciting thought. I focussed on the ground, trying to repel it. Instead of repelling the ground, the ground repelled me! I was launched slightly into the air. Startled, I broke my concentration and landed back on the ground. Excited, I focussed harder on the ground. I was launched higher in the air. Now I was hovering about three metres above it. I increased my focus and soared even higher. This was amazing! I could repel myself of the ground to fly!

I focussed harder on the ground, then on some plants behind me. Both repelled me, causing me to surge forward. I was actually flying! I quickly found out that I had to shift my focus now and then. Constantly I needed to focus on the ground to stay in the air, and from time to time I had to focus on plants closer to me to keep myself going forward. After a bit of practicing I learned I could use my new bladed limbs to steer somewhat, but repulsion was much easier to suddenly change direction. My body was streamlined, my limbs cut through the air. It was amazing! For a moment I forgot about everything and simply enjoyed the fact that I was flying! I soared over the waters of the swamp, through the mist and above it. Oh this was so much easier than walking!

And I now could get a better view of my surroundings. Apparently, I was in a very large swamp-like area. There were chunks of stone, that looked like remains of buildings, sticking out of the swamp here and there. Then I noticed that in the centre of the swamp, there was some sort of ruined city, looking like it had half sunken in the swamp. I gasped and decided to investigate. I repelled myself forward and the closer I came to the ruins, the more familiar they became to me. They looked an awful lot like the destroyed city of Nabudis, now a Necrohol… But that couldn't be! That place existed in a game only! Then I looked at myself and groaned. I remembered I was at that moment an insect-like, biomechanical monstrosity that could repel whatever it focussed on. Being in a game-universe really didn't seem that weird compared to that. I gently landed on the roof of the fallen capital and gazed over the swamp. This swamp… It had to be the Nabreus Deadlands, or whatever they were called.

Great, just great. I seriously began to wonder if I just hadn't become insane and was hallucinating. I mean, no way this could happen, right? As I wondered if I should slap myself again, I noticed something gliding through the mist not too far away. I couldn't see what it was, but it looked a bit like an insect, like I did. A very, very large insect. A very large, biomechanical insect. I didn't waste time. I repelled myself of the roof and flew towards the thing. Perhaps it could explain some things to me!

--

And that's that! I've been transformed into a partly-bio, partly-mechanical, insect-like monster and ended up in a swamp in FF XII. Can you say help?

Next chapter: I meet up with the yellow insect-like thing and am surprised by its identity!