Standard Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy, Green Lantern, or any of their related characters and concepts. This is a work of fan fiction.
"Courage To Change The Things You Can"
Chapter Four: "Chocobockle Boondoggle"
We departed Kalm early the next morning. As we walked across the plains, Aeris asked "So what's our plan anyway? Where are we going?"
Cloud answered "Sephiroth is headed to the south and west. There's really only one destination he could have in mind on that heading."
"Right. The Mythril Mines west of Choco-Bill's Chocobo Ranch." Barrett confirmed. "The mines have entrances on both sides of the mountain range they're tunneled under, so he could pass all the way through and then head on to Fort Condor or even Port Junon."
"And if he reaches Port Junon, he could board a ship for almost any place in the world." Cloud added.
"And we're a day further behind him thanks to someone here." Barrett said glaring at me.
Tifa slapped him upside the head. "It's not his fault."
"And I may have a way to help you make up the lost time." I said. "Red and I talked about it a little last night… You are aware we've got an obstacle in our way right? The marshes in front of the mine entrance?"
"So? No marsh is gonna stop me." Barrett argued. "And if you're afraid of one it's not too late for you to turn back."
I was about to say something unkind when Red spoke again. "It's not the marsh that Christian is worried about Barrett. It's what lives in it."
"Exactly." I said. "Midgar Zolems. Which, for those who don't know, are snakes. BIG snakes."
Barrett laughed derisively again, but Aeris seemed unsettled. "How big?" she asked.
"About five hundred feet long, twenty feet in diameter..."
Barrett was finally convinced of the problem. "DAMN!" he exclaimed. "How do you deal with something that big?"
"Something tells me that's what Christian was getting ready to tell us when he said he had a plan." Tifa replied, "Before someone interrupted him…"
"Right. Here's the deal: Chocobos are a lot faster than the snakes. We'll need them to cross the marsh safely, which means stopping at the Ranch up ahead. The problem is, I know from prior experience with these kind of ranchers…" (True enough, I thought, though said experience was sitting on my couch playing the game) "…that instead of renting us their own birds they'll want to sell us a Lure Materia to go catch our own."
"Aw man, that could take days…" Barrett grumbled.
"Which is where my plan comes in: I'm going to bribe someone to loan us birds whether the ranch manager likes it or not." I said.
Aeris was aghast. "You can't steal them!"
"We're not." I assured her. "Chocobos have strong homing instincts. They'll go straight home when we get to the mine entrance and set them free. We're just borrowing them for a day or so." I could tell from the look on her face she still didn't like it. "Look, I don't like it either. And I'd never, ever, do anything like this normally. But this is too important, fate of the world maybe."
"I guess so… Alright. But you've got to promise me we'll come back and square things up with the actual owner once all this craziness is over with."
"Done."
"Then we're all set." Cloud said.
"Not entirely. There is still one difficulty." Everyone looked at Red as he spoke. "I seriously doubt a Chocobo would permit a creature such as myself onto it's back…"
"Oh!" Aeris exclaimed. "I guess it's my turn to work out a problem. Don't worry Red, I've got a perfect solution… Now let's keep moving."
As Aeris walked on, Cloud turned to Red and said "Be very afraid. Her last 'perfect solution' involved stuffing me into a dress…"
OOOOOOO
We arrived at the ranch several days later. It was a much larger place than in game, a sprawling complex of barns, silos, and stables holding thousands of birds for both the ranch itself and many other owners who didn't have room for them in town. As expected, Choco-Bill refused to rent out any of them, instead offering a Lure Materia at a grossly inflated price far in excess of what you pay him in the game.
While Barrett, Cloud and Tifa kept the man busy, and Red distracted the children, Aeris and I went in search of a disreputable stable hand. Such was distressingly easy to find. We were barely out of earshot of the offices when a voice came from a storage room. "Pssst! You need some birds quick eh?"
We joined the man in a spare room. "Who are you?" I asked.
"Just call me Jack."
"Choco-Jack?" Aeris joked.
"No." He said deadpan. I exchanged an uncertain glance with Aeris, wondering if I really wanted to deal with someone who clearly had no sense of humor whatsoever. "Now, what's it worth to you for an, er… 'unofficial' rental?"
"That will depend a lot on how many birds you can get for us." I answered. "There are six total in our party…"
Jack held up both hands to stop me. "Too many. Bill's pretty obsessive with his attention to detail. Even with all the birds we've got here, he'd notice that many missing. The most I can get you and still shuffle things around enough to keep him from catching on is three."
"They'd need to be really strong." Aeris said. "As in, strong enough to carry two adults and still run full speed…"
"Okay, now that part's not a problem. We've got lots of birds here that are strong enough for that. So, for the three birds, let's say… oh… seventy-five hundred gil. All up front 'o course."
I was surprised. I went in expecting the guy to demand ten times that amount. "Mister, you've got a deal." I said. I dug into my satchel and found the pouch of gil coins Ganthet had included. The bribe took almost all of it, but it had to be done.
Jack counted the money, then said "Alright. Get your friends and meet me just over the hill to the north in one hour."
OOOOOOO
Almost exactly an hour later Jack appeared as promised, leading three strong healthy birds behind him. "Here you go." He said. Looking over the group, Jack said "If I was you, I'd divide up the weight on each bird as evenly as you can. That way none of them will tire out faster than the others, and you'll be able to stay close to each other."
"How long does it take to cross the marsh?" Cloud asked.
"And how many of these snakes are there? Isn't it possible we'll not even see any of them?" Tifa added.
Jack laughed. "The marsh is damned FULL of Zolems. You'll see them the instant you get there. Listen, here's what you wanna do: Ride slowly until you get there, conserve the Choco's strength. Then, as soon as you get to the edge, go all out. Don't stop, don't slow down. Not for anything. At full speed, you'll need around two hours to get across. Luckily, these birds can take that, they're bred for endurance."
Once Jack was gone, we worked out our distribution. Since Barrett was the heaviest and Red was the lightest, they would ride the first bird. That left Cloud with Tifa, and myself with Aeris. Red looked about nervously and asked "Now, what did you have in mind for me?"
"Simple." Aeris answered. She produced an empty spare satchel she had acquired God-knows-where and opened it up. It was very large, more than big enough to accommodate Red's entire body. "In you go." She said.
Head lowered, peering in, Red scoffed. "You cannot be serious."
"I warned you." Cloud said.
"I'm sorry Red, but it's this or nothing." Aeris said apologetically.
Still uncertain, Red took a single step forward and stopped. "Whatever happened to my dignity?" he sighed.
I wished this was happening after the boat ride to Costa Del Sol. If it had been, I could have pointed out that after seeing Barrett in that sailor suit nothing would offend my dignity ever again. Instead I settled for saying "It could be worse dude. At least she didn't haul out a pet taxi."
"Indeed." Red snorted. "Oh well, let's get this over with…" He climbed into the bag and turned around. Aeris pulled the strings snug but not tight, and Barrett climbed aboard his bird, then hefted the satchel over his back. Red had left his head sticking out, and he was now looking over Barrett's left shoulder. "Hmmm… Perhaps this isn't so bad after all."
"See? You like it." Aeris giggled.
"Mount up and head out!" Barrett ordered. He began to move ahead, making it clear he wasn't waiting around for anyone.
Cloud and Tifa mounted their bird, and I carefully climbed aboard my own, then lent a hand to help Aeris up. She climbed in behind me and wrapped both arms around my waist. "Kill me now, I'll go happy." I thought, grateful she couldn't see the ridiculous grin on my face from behind.
Though I had been concerned as to just how well I could actually control a Chocobo, it proved surprisingly easy. The giant birds are not only docile, but also highly intelligent, and the creature clearly knew what was expected of it with very little input on the rider's part. Thus it was that we came to the edge of the marsh in around three hours. Everyone stopped at the top of a high ridge looking down on the marsh, and we saw that Jack hadn't been kidding: There were Zolems everywhere. I counted no less than ten full-grown specimens and countless smaller half-grown ones as well.
"Holy…" Tifa whispered. "This might get ugly even with the birds."
"We'll have to time our run just right." Cloud said. He pointed out the two adults closest to our position. "If those two move apart, we'll have a clear shot down the middle. Once the Chocobos hit full speed we should be fine."
"Does this seem strange to anyone else?" Red asked peaking out from behind Barrett. "Snakes are predators. They need prey animals to survive… What could this many of them possibly be eating?"
"Well, they're probably cold-blooded like other reptiles." I offered. "If so, they'd only need to eat their own body weight in a year, as opposed to the ten times that or more a warm-blooded predator would need. That helps some."
Red nodded. "Yes. It would also mean they can go months between meals. It's still not enough though…"
"Probably the bigger Zolems eat the littler ones." Cloud said.
Everyone stared at him. "What? They're snakes. Snakes do that kind of thing." He argued.
"It's still horrid." Aeris replied.
"Horrid or not, it's probably a valid observation." Red said. "Look! The big adults are moving the way we need them to."
Sure enough, the adult Zolems Cloud had indicated were now moving away from each other, opening the path we needed. Cloud waited until they were nearly three hundred feet away from each other then said. "Okay everyone… On my signal… Two… One… NOW!" He cracked the reins of his Chocobo, which was instantly in motion, accelerating faster than I ever would have thought any animal could. The rest of us followed close behind.
The next couple of hours were nerve-racking. While the snakes had absolutely no chance of catching up to us after we were past them, that still left a large number of them that we had to get past before we were safe. Anytime we came anywhere near a Zolem that was more than half-grown, it tried to grab one or more of us as we passed by. Twice, I caught sight of evidence that Cloud's Zolem-cannibal theory was correct. I was glad that Aeris happened to be looking the other way on both occasions, and I said nothing.
Finally, we reached the far side of the marsh, and safety. Back on solid ground we turned the Chocobos loose after feeding them. They loitered, apparently wanting to rest up before their trip back home. I couldn't blame them.
It was near dusk, and in the glare of the setting sun we almost didn't see it. Impaled upon a stripped tree-trunk was the body of a full-grown Zolem. Enormous slashes covered it's body and the ground was stained with hundreds of gallons of blood. "What happened?" Aeris asked in shock.
"Sephiroth happened." Cloud answered. "It made the mistake of messing with him and paid the price."
"Now hold on! How the damn hell are we supposed to deal with someone strong enough to do this?" Barrett demanded.
"I'm not sure yet." Cloud admitted. "We need to get stronger ourselves I guess."
As Cloud was speaking, real clouds began to move in, rapidly blotting out the sun. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled. "Looks like a storm brewing." I said. "C'mon, let's get to the mine entrance before we get soaked."
"Yeah." Barrett agreed. He took one last look at the carcass then said "It's late. We'll camp at the mine entrance tonight and go through tomorrow…"
OOOOOOO
We reached the mine just in time. A ferocious downpour began less than five minutes after we were inside. Everyone worked to start a fire and set up camp. As I finished rolling out my bag, I noticed that Aeris had already finished her own work and was standing right at the entrance, watching the storm. I joined her and said "Good thing we made it here. Quite a storm."
She nodded. There was an expression of excitement on her face as she answered. "It's beautiful! I've never seen rain before… Not really anyway. I don't think drips from leaking pipes up on the plate count."
"No, I'd say not."
"It's too bad there's so much lightning." She said wistfully. "If it was just a calm rain I'd be out there in it. Getting the full experience, you know?"
"Well, don't get too caught up in the idea. With all this lightning, the 'full experience' would be your last experience."
Aeris laughed. "True, true…" She yawned deeply. "We're not that far from the swamp… Are you sure those snakes can't come up on dry land and follow us here?"
"Pretty sure." I answered. "And even if they did, they'd be too big to fit in the front door."
"Good enough for me. I'm gonna lay down." She started to walk back to her sleeping bag, then turned and said "Christian?"
"Hmm?"
"You couldn't tell, being in front, but I was smiling the whole time too…"
