Tantalus

Chapter 1: The Heir's Thief

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This is a fan-fiction prequel to Final Fantasy IX owned by Square Enix. The author does not own the characters, names, and settings that already exists in the original Final Fantasy IX except for the additional characters the author added.

I do not own the cover image.
Credits to Alegria (http://www.zerochan.net/564534)
Solid FFIX fan.

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"Ahh-ahh-AH-CHOO!"

The first sound you'll hear from Baku's hideout as the big kid wakes up. He has a violet-pink hair same to his normally scrunched up nose. For a 16 year old, he's pretty big a almost 6 feet tall. And He's stout. I mean really, really fat.

Abnormal it may seem, obviously he's not totally human. Most of us aren't.

"Time to wash up and get ready for today's hunt." Baku said lively with his rough-guy accent as he ignored everything he said and goes straight out of his cave house.
The place is a dark cave, lit with a few candles and boxes filled with all kinds of stuff. Mostly weapons, gems and some animal hide.

Baku turns around to his cave and says, "Wait for me, my sweet treasures. Papa is gonna grab some more friends for you."

Grab.

Yes, grab. Baku grabs and nabs. He stole everything he had hidden in that isolated place.

Sure he's a thief, just like most of the people in the great castle city of Lindblum. But not the typical need-driven common thief that you'd usually meet. Baku treats this one as a job.



"Baku!!!" Get back here and give me back my precious stuff!" screamed by a guy in a brown coat as Baku ran with his trunk-like legs. Baku jumps, tumbles, rolls and staggers just to get away.

"Huff huff. This is some tiring work", Baku pants as he catches his breath in a small alley.

"Way to go, fatso", whispered by a man about a few years older than him. Baku almost jumped in surprise, but he recognizes a familiar face so he calmed down.

"I told you not to scare me like that man!" Baku said furiously with a bit of delight. "How did you find me anyway?"

"Well I've known you since we're young", the man said. "I know how you think."

"So the wimpy kid speaks about being smart, yet again", Baku said as he tries to cover up his laughter. "Gwahaha! Very funny."

"When will you ever show me some respect?"

"My kind of people does not respect anyone."

"Oh please. You saw a girl in a pub once and all that 'no respect' talk went down the pipes."

"Don't go to this matter, Cid. Just..." Baku sighed, "Just tell me why you wanted me to steal this? You made me steal from another bandit like me."

Cid's face went from a smirk to almost dead serious. "The future reagent of Lindblum, Cid Fabool IX, cannot speak of this in public. Let's go somewhere with solitude. Your cave, perhaps?"

"Whatever, Cid." Baku answered. "Oh well, come along now, future king, lord, regeant whatever."