For Vaan is...

After: However Vaan is...

Vaan has a dark secret. His past is more painful than the rest of them knew. Even his Best friend was left flatfooted at the revelation. But he fought on, stronger for every obstacle in his life!

This is going to feel absolutely silly:

    "They SWARM in the thousands."

    The others stood there, staring at him with confused and startled expressions. Perhaps that came out a bit dramatically, Vaan would admit, but it was the experience speaking now. The years fulfilling his, as Penelo stated, "volunteer work" burning in the back of his mind every time he lifted his blade. Turning his attention back to the rest of the party, he sees their confused (and some curious) stares aimed at him. Basch looks beside himself with recognition of something he can see, but didn't expect. Fran's overly expressive face (consisting of a raised eyebrow) finally pushed him into speaking again.

    "Come on... I'll explain as we walk." And with that, they continued their way out into the lands surrounding Dalmasca. The screams of the guards and roar of the saurian fading with time. Fran couldn't help the small smirk that flittered over her face at what her little fib had led to. Balthier, the only one to spot the twitch, couldn't stop the shudder that raced down his back. Let it be known that Fran had some odd tastes that she suppressed for the most part. They turn their attention back to the blond boy telling his tale.

    "About two years ago, the district we live in put together a volunteer group to help deal with the rat problem in the sewers. They were coming up into the city every once and a while and causing little bits of havoc for those near the entrances, so they needed to be dealt with. About fifty of us came together in all-"

    "Oh- Wasn't Mister Keele part of the group?" Penelo questioned as she remembered the man from next to the orphanage. He'd been kind to all the children, and quite a happy fellow once his fiancé had said yes. He'd mentioned possibly adopting one of the kids since they seemed to have trouble having one of their own. Vaan's eyes narrow slightly, a flash of pain entering his eyes before he continues.

    "... Yeah, he was. He was actually the one that brought up the idea for me in the first place since the orphans were getting scared by all the rats that kept popping up. So we all armed ourselves to go down- basic swords, spears, and stuff like that. Especially some new boots, in some cases." Here he motions down at his footwear. They were indeed some thick looking greaves, even without any armor. "-and then we went down the access tunnel over by the tavern. At first it was fine: We made our way in for a few minutes, taking out a couple of the pests as we went. until we reached the first fork." Here he raises a hand rub the back of his neck as he grimaces. At this point, both Ashe and Penelo had disgusted looks on their faces. Call them "girly" or "spoiled" (in Ashe's case) if you want, but rats were just nasty all around. After a moment of gathering his thoughts, Vaan continued with a glazed look in his eyes.

    "... We decided to split up into three groups. Two groups of twenty, give or take, to take the branches and a group of ten to make sure nothing got past us on the way out. Me and Mr. Keele were together with two retired soldier in the group taking the left branch. So we split up. We went off into smaller groups deeper into the tunnels." Here he pauses, gritting his teeth and getting a worried look from Penelo. Basch looking vaguely curious as to whether he possibly knew the mentioned soldiers. Vaan's voice brought a chill to most of the group, veterans aside. "We made a horrible mistake." There was another round of confused glances- were there rogues in the sewers or something? 

    "We started getting comfortable. We were just killing a bunch of rats, right?" The last line coming out a bit snarky, as if mocking his past self. Basch winces at the tone, recognizing it for what it is. He'd heard it plenty of times in the military. Ashe, too, grimaces at the turn his voice takes. Penelo's worried expression deepens slightly. "We turned found another stop where the tunnels crossed paths in a crossroad. The moment we stopped to discuss what to do next, I looked out into one of the tunnels... And all I saw was a wall of glowing eyes..." His voice slowly drifts into a haunted rasp, idly stepping over a large rock in his way. Penelo reaches forward to place a hand on his upper arm. the slight twitch of his mouth shows he acknowledges her attempt to help.

    "They came at us in a tsunami of fur and teeth. We tried to retreat back to the entrance, but they were quicker... And they were waiting for us. We had to fight out way out, but they just kept coming. Every rodent we killed, fifteen would take it's place, and they only got bigger the longer we fought." His teeth grind again, eyes narrowing at the memories. "One of the soldiers was the first to fall- getting a pack of the damned things off of his friend." They had gotten to his throat when he was finishing the last of the pack off, his gurgling death throes etched into Vaan's mind. "After that, the other soldier, the one he saved, died under another pack of the beasts... By the time we got back to the group of ten for help, five were lost, and..." He chokes slightly, glancing at Penelo warily. "And Mister Keele was losing too much blood." Her eyes widen, hands flying to her mouth. The others watch the interaction distractedly. Rats... Caused all this? Ashe's face settled further into a pained grimace. Her home had more troubles than she thought. Basch's mind settling in the same direction. "He died before we could get him medical attention. They'd chewed through his wrists and left arm, and he probably would have died of infection if not bloodless..."

    Penelo lets out a pained whimper, before stepping up to him and punching his arm with a moderate amount of force. "Y-you told me he and Sashe moved because of his job, Vaan...!" She buries her face into his shoulder, wrapping her arms around him as she shakes and bringing their travel to a halt. Vaan avoids the others' gazes as he tries to comfort his best friend. "You... Why didn't you say so...!? What about Jin? He went with you guys! He never sai-"

    "Where do you think he got that limp from, Penelo...?! He called it quits after the second raid when he lost a foot to those monsters! He could barely afford the prosthetic, so he had to take up a second job just to keep going!" Jin was another neighbor, and friends with Keele. He'd been devastated when his friend died, and his first attempt at revenge nearly cost him his family's wellbeing. "Thats why we almost never see him any more... Its also why I always refused to take any of the others who wanted to go with us... I went so they don't have to." He turns Penelo slightly, grabbing her shoulders and staring her in the eye with a glare. "I'm not letting any of you go in my place. Not against those. I'm not losing anyone thats even closer to me than Mister Keele! Thats why I stayed quiet. So you wouldn't worry yourself silly and keep taking care of them." He grimaces, backing away to sit on a nearby boulder.

    "The second group of twenty never returned from their tunnel after holding the entrance for another hour. Of everyone who walked into those sewers the first day, only about half of us went home. The next time we readied ourselves for another attempt to purge The Scourge from the tunnels, only twenty of us were willing to join. We were better prepared, this time. We figured we could handle the situation better without the element of surprise against us..." He bows his head slightly. "We continued for months, slowly clearing out pack after pack every day, and eventually we found some of the... Remains-" He looks away from a couple sounds of unease, "-of the other group. But soon one of us would slip up, and we'd lose another. After the first year, we were down to fourteen. The Scourge never seemed to dwindle, and if anything, they seemed to be getting stronger and more organized. But, we'd found something that cost the last man his life: There was a hierarchy." His eyes narrow, teeth grit again. "The damn things had a leader further in the cess pools. So we made a plan-"

    "Cut off the head...?" Vaan looked up at Basch's voice, before nodding at him sharply.

    "-and hope for the best." He finished with a dark mutter. "We went down and decided on two different teams: One with ten of us, would create a distraction, taking on the vast majority of the horde. The rest of us, me and three others, would handle the "king" of The Scourge... So we fought our way down to th-" Here he pauses, before looking at Ashe with a raised brow. "By the way, why are the tunnels down there so ridiculously complex and deep...? I can't see any purpose for most of the stuff we saw down there... I'm talking about everything below where we were getting out of there after we found you..." At this, she blinks owlishly at him, before shrugging lightly. It never came up in her royal education, so it was just as curious to her. "Ah well... Once we got there, we split up after last wishes for luck, and went about finding the best places to do our business. The first down we got, the larger the monsters got. I'm not sure what they were eating, but... Some of those things were as large as a full grown chocobo on their hind legs..." Aside from Basch and Fran, the group shuddered at the image. What the hell were these things doing under their city, and who gave rats the right to grow that big!?

    "And then the other team started their distraction... We could hear the fighting echoing from nearly half a mile away through the tunnels, and so we made our way to where we thought the King was. As it turns out, that particular monster not only had two huge guards, but the King itself was as wide around as Fran is tall..." He glances over, looking her up and down once. "- ears included." This brought around another round of grimaces. That was a... Big rodent. "So two of us took on the guards and me and a man named Hinee, also an old soldier apparently, took on the King. We thought we'd figured out the attack patterns of the rats by now, but... One of the others still went down, and our third member ended up finishing it off before falling to a really bad cut on his arm. He'd lost too much blood while fighting..." He bows his head slightly in remembrance, accompanied by several of the others. "Hinee decided to 'do his part,' as he said, and took the King's attention... While I was to find a way to flank the thing without falling to it's tail. By the time we finished, Hinee was exhausted, and bloody all over from scrapes. I'd ended it with a sword to the spine, but... But we couldn't hear the other ten fighting any more. On our way out, me and Hinee didn't find any sign of the others, but all the rats were going crazy." He grimaced, although it wasn't from past hatred, but from general disgust.

    "They were chewing and fighting between packs, instead of cooperating, so we were able to get out relatively fine, but... But Hinee had taken too much abuse, and just about everything was infected from being in the sewers for too long. He barely made it to see the sun, again, before he fell into a coma..." A sad look crosses his face, before a small smile slowly appears. "He went to sleep with a smile on his face, he mentioned his family and seeing the sun for once, before he didn't wake up... He's still in the hospital, from what I can remember. His family rushed over as soon as I was able to find them. They've been looking after him since, even if he hasn't woken up..." He glances at Basch, before turning back to comforting Penelo. "He wanted to make his home safer for his family when he entered the military, he said. Even after twenty years of retirement, he still found it in himself to keep fighting for it..." The others stay quiet, even Balthier who'd normally not particularly enjoy quiet moments, paying respects to those who, apparently, gave their lives to fight an legitimate home-bred enemy. Vaan's eyes, after several long minutes of remembrance returned from their dazed look, the memories going back to where they should be.

    "After that the rats started killing each other off by the drove, until they were all back into their separate packs and hordes down there. While they were still in large groups, its more along the lines of the hundreds instead of the thousands with each group. As Penelo can attest, I still went down on a weekly basis and cleared out what I could. The locals near the entrance started giving me some stupid title." He frowns lightly, more out of embarrassment than shame. "They were rather thankful for all the help we put in, although I'm th-... The only one left active. During the first year, they'd started calling our group Scourgebane, for whatever reason." He shakes his head, an embarrassed blush still on his face. "But, about two months after I killed the King, and people had asked about what happened too much... They started calling me th-..." He pauses, planting his face in his hands as Penelo nudged his shoulder to get him to spit it out. "They called me t-The Cleanser."
 

FOR VAAN TRULY IS: THE CLEANSER (aka "Vaan Ratsbane")
*cheesy theme song*

Final Fantasy © Squareenix

Ah~ I wrote so much bullshit there... But I honestly think Vaan performed some sorta sewer-cleanup in canon. Thats where he starts, after all. I just added a little.. pizzazz to it~