Chapter 25 - The Legendary Bird
"Hyaa! Come 'ere ya little chicken bastard!"
"Wark!"
Another arrow whizzed through the air, missing the mark by half an inch. It was as if the Chocobo could read her mind, knowing where the shot was going to be 10 seconds in the future at any given time. It expertly zigzagged as it escaped from its predator, leaping from ground to jutting-out rocks, to hollowed out logs and stumps, keeping the chase very real and difficult. She had been chasing it for almost half an hour and was running out of patience.
For 10 years, however, Mickey had never tired out during a chase, nor had she ever lost a target, and refused to give up. She ducked behind a thick cluster of trees, trying to head the Chocobo off at the pass. This one was GOOD... Was it half human? No Chocobo had the ability to reason, or anything close to it. They were just oversized sacks of feathers as far as Mickey was concerned, and this Chocobo in particular was nowhere NEAR worth the effort's worth of work it took to kill, except for the fact that Mickey refused to let the prey get the better of the huntress.
Loading a golden Sidewinder Arrow into her bow, she darted out from the other side of the tree grove, right in front of the fleeing bird. It was startled. "WARK!?"
"Take THIS!!" She let it fly, and the Chocobo amazingly twisted its body to avoid the full brunt of the attack. The arrow nicked its skin, however, and due to the monster-killing potency of a Sidewinder Arrow it sent him rolling to the ground. Mickey's blood heated up as adrenaline filled her from getting the hit in at last. She immediately loaded another one and hit the bird full-on before it could get to its feet. "Die!!"
The heavily injured Chocobo squirmed, trying to get to its feet. Amazing. Any other Chocobo would've given up by now. It managed to get to its feet and took off again, moving slightly slower than before, quite obviously in unimaginable pain.
Mickey loaded a special arrow with a bulb at the tip instead of an arrowhead, and let it fly. It exploded into a net, tangling the Chocobo and pinning it to the ground. The untameable Chocobo kicked in all directions and struggled fruitlessly against this unknown intrusion. "Wark warrrrk!" it cried before settling down at the full mercy of the hunting net.
Mickey had Captured the wild Chocobo with her Hunter tech, and could now do as she pleased with it. Her first and only thought: kill it. It was food.
As she approached the fallen prey with her knife outstretched, the Chocobo cried shrilly like Mickey had never head before. "Kwaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" It seemed desprate, as if it were pleading 'Free me, please free me!'
Mickey had a special harmony with animals... The Chocobo was not afraid to die, she knew. It wanted freedom. It wanted to run. Like her, it was a wilderness-born beast of untamable passion and even agression at times.
"You're... no ordinary Chocobo," she quietly said.
"Wark," the bird responded, as if it actually understood human speech. Did it? Mickey felt like it had.
Mickey reached down and slowly began cutting free the net she had thrown at it with her special hunting knife. The bird started to struggle. "Ssssh, sssh, I'm setting you free," she told it gently. "I won't kill you. Not you." Mickey could easily be gentle-minded while dealing with animals, whereas dealing with people tended to cause her raging temper to display freely.
"Wark..." the Chocobo replied, calming down a little. She finished cutting the last string, and the Chocobo got to its feet, standing to its full height. It was slightly big for a Chocobo, and its shape and feathers were shaped perfectly, as if created by an expert artist.
It looked like the personal charriot of a king, Mickey thought.
"Wark." The Chocobo agreed with her.
"Dammit, stop doing that!" Mickey exclaimed at it, its seemingly mind-reading abilities starting to freak her out.
"Wark!"
She took a step towards the magnificent bird...
"WARK!" It reared up and snapped at her, missing seemingly on purpose. Mickey had been warned.
"Sssh, I'm not gonna hurt you fella..." She was being truthful. This Chocobo was too kingly to kill for food. There was something about it that was almost human... She stepped closer.
"Wark?" There was a look in its eyes. A look of pleading... Mickey knew what it wanted, somehow. Either it was her connection with the wilderness or this Chocobo had psychic powers. Maybe both.
She took out some medicine from her belt, and bent down... A red wound, reminiscent of a scorch mark, was visible on the Chocobo's underside where the Sidewinder Arrow had hit. She took some salve out of the container and reached down to apply some to the wound...
Immediately the bird shrieked. "Kweeeeeeeeeh WARK WARK!" A beak came down at Mickey's face, but she pulled her head back, taking the attack right below the neck. She grunted; at least the bird was holding back... If the peck had been full powered, it would've drawn blood, and a lot of it. "Bird, settle down or I'm gonna hold you down!" The bird wanted the wound treated, maybe, but it could only barely fight its wild instincts. The beak came down again, but harder.
Mickey gripped the part of its ostrich-like neck below the head to stop it. It began to squirm all over the place, almost knocking Mickey over. She pushed outward, rolled and pinned the Chocobo to the ground. "Fine, I'll play your game," she told it in an onery tone. "Now hold still." Holding the Chocobo pinned to the dirt in a position of dominance, she finished applying the salve to the wound and held her hand there. The Chocobo didn't fight back this time, for Mickey had earned its cooperation due to the dominance tackle, just like any wild animal would do in the wild.
While not an X-Potion, the cream was a special medicine found in certain berries on Sierra Gorge, mixed with the nectar from a white flower also found there and ground together gently for 30 minutes with tiny traces of other, more common plant matter. Only Mickey knew the art of making it, and it helped to counteract the grievious effects of a Sidewinder Arrow to a monster. The scorch wound began to fade in little time.
"Wark..." It was the Chocobo saying 'Thank you'.
"You're welcome," Mickey replied. "Here, you're free. Go!" She took her hands off the bird and stood up.
It didn't budge. It looked at Mickey, fire in its eyes. A fighting look. But it didn't want to fight.
Mickey knew what it wanted. She warily approached its side, hesitated, and hoisted herself on its back... The Chocobo stood there and let her, in fact it even shifted its weight to the side a little as she climbed on to make it easier for her to get up.
'Dang, this'll be something,' she thought. 'I ride Panthers more often than these things...'
"Wark!" it said to her. Mickey felt powerful on the back of this Chocobo... She felt like she were on the wings of God. It was definitely no ordinary Chocobo. But she still didn't know what about it was different... 'What does it want?' she thought. "Wark," it said in response.
"Seriously, cut that out!" the huntress exclaimed. "What? Did you want to ride with me? You're the boss."
"Wark wark!"
The Chocobo kicked off and began to run. This was more like it. She held on gently to the sides of its neck, wondering if it could go faster, as this was definitely not its top speed.
In response, the Chocobo kicked off an angular rock, and took to the air. But it wasn't flying; it was more of a boosted jump. The bird flapped its wings for a moment, changing direction in midair and landing without losing any speed. Mickey gasped.
It was headed right for that cliff.
"Wark!!" it exclaimed. Mickey felt the words. 'So you wanna go top speed?' Fire filled her heart again as they approached the cliff, Mickey holding on to the upper part of the bird's belly as it ran right off the edge of that cliff.
But it didn't fall. The Chocobo was running down the 90-grade decline of the main canyon of Sierra Gorge at over 100 MPH. What amazed Mickey was how she didn't fly off the bird's back, but if a Chocobo could speak telepathically just by saying Wark, or at least a similar effect by them reading the expression on each-other's faces, this shouldn't surprise her, she decided. As the bird dashed down the wall-like slope, a yellow, sparkling aura surrounded them and the Chocobo caught fire.
"WHOA!"
This was real fire, too, and it was burning Mickey's arms and legs. But just slightly. They were moving so fast they were leaving the flames behind them in the wind-- the Chocobo had changed direction and was running along the side of the wall instead of down it, defying gravity with its speed.
Mickey watched, shocked. The fire was burning away all the Chocobo's feathers, but it was coming from them as well.
"You're gonna get cooked alive you silly featherbrain!" she called to it, alarmed. It turned its head to look at her.
"Wark!" it said. Mickey heard the words. Not a chance! They took to the air, for real this time, which was interesting, since Chocobos couldn't fly.
Now the bird began to reveal its true form.
Time seemed to slow down as the air around them changed... Mickey lost sight of where they were as golden energy shot through the Chocobo like ripples in a pool. Its color began to change-- the white underbelly darkened, becoming a burnt yellow, and the feathers grew in size and shape, becoming wavy and long, changing color to a yellow-orange that seemed to glow like the sun. The Chocobo's blue eyes faded to a dark orange, shining with power, and the orange beak changed shape from a jagged, beat up model to a smooth, slender form, red instead of orange. The feathers on its head now resembled a crown, similar to an adult phoenix.
Mickey had only read about this supposedly mythical creature, the one she was now riding, in books.
Suddenly they landed from whatever space-time oddity they had been in for however long. The Chocobo had never actually taken flight-- it was another long jump, and they were now racing down the river at almost 100 MPH, somehow not falling in. As the Chocobo ran it lit the air up behind it with a hot, golden shine.
Trees appeared in front of them. "Watch out!" Mickey called. Without skipping a beat the Chocobo leapt up and dashed across the tops of the trees without losing more than a few MPH in speed, leaping from one tree with one foot to another with the other foot. Their movement became a wild zigzag.
Then the glowing Chocobo turned again and raced up the side of the wall, not losing any speed. A Malboro stood in its way. The Chocobo merely leapt over it, reached flat terrain, kept going and ran up another wall. They were at the Waterfall Ridge.
"Where are we going!?" Mickey yelled over the rush of the wind, still holding on tightly.
"Wark!" it replied. Mickey grinned.
They cleared the top of the Waterfall Ridge, going over the other side and were, before they knew it, on a familiar plateau. Then it was up another wall, through some trees and the Chocobo suddenly skidded to a stop, momentarily igniting the ground where it skid.
They were right next to Mickey's cabin.
Mickey half-climbed, half-slid off the Chocobo's back, shaking. She stared at its majesty. "I can't believe it..." she stammered in awe... "After all these years of reading books about you, I finally... get to ride you."
"Wark," replied the Golden Chocobo, the legendary bird that could cross ANY terrain effortlessly, even the very ether itself if it had to. Mickey hadn't even gotten a taste of that. Apparently it could also reach speeds of around 100 MPH, never tired from running, and never died of old age.
"But... why me? ...Is it just luck?"
"Kweh!" the mythic bird answered, rearing its head back. "Kwaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrr!"
"Eaaaaaasy, now," Mickey soothed, petting its mane of feathers down its shimmering neck. She looked deep into its firey, wild eyes. They burned into her soul.
"Wark." The bird longed to be tamed, for its fires to be quenched... It had to ride.
Mickey rested a hand on its back. "I shall name you... Mussashi." She named her animal after a brave fencer she had read about a long time ago.
"Warrrrrrk!" the regal Chocobo cried in agreement.
She pet its beak. "Man, you really are a beast."
"Kweh."
POUND POUND POUND.
It sounded like someone was desperate to beat Mickey's door down.
"God dammit, who could it be at this time of night?" She made herself decent and stormed to the door, uttering profanity under her breath. She swung the door open. Standing there was a middle-aged Viera Elementalist equipped with a Joyeuse and a green scarf. She had perfect, jet-white hair, cute glasses, and seemed alive in the moonlight.
"You're Mickey of Clan Indigo?" she asked politely.
"Please, don't flatter yourself girl. I was never actually a member of that clan." She started to close the door, but the Viera girl propped her foot in the doorway.
"I heard, from my sources," she continued promptly, "that Clan Indigo is off to the Jagds for an important mission."
Mickey frowned. "So... tell me how this concerns me again?"
"It might not... Just thought I'd let you know. In case you wanted to help."
Mickey stared annoyed at the Viera for a good 10 seconds. Then she sighed. "Jagd Ahli is the closest one around here, and it's a good 3 days away at the least."
"If you have the will, you'll find a way." She grinned. "That's something I've learned from the tribe ever since I was two."
"Grr! Get outta my sight!" Mickey slammed the door in the Viera's face, storming back to bed. She lie there awake, unable to fall back to sleep due to sheer peeved-offedness. The moon was shining directly into her pillow.
"Why does that fuckin' bother me so bad?" she asked herself. "Stupid Viera girl from the other side of Sierra Gorge... I told that tribe never to bug me for anything, unless it was poachers... Ever since that incident..." She pulled the covers over her head, closing her eyes, but as she lie still her blood began to boil...
"Gah I can't stand it!" She scrambled out of bed and into one of her black suits and ran outside. She needed to kill something. She hadn't killed the Golden Chocobo, Mussashi, she had met today, and anyway he had run off after she went inside her cabin, refusing to follow her in. She may have never seen it again. Good riddance... She couldn't possibly take care of a legendary beast all her life.
Mickey slid down a small slope, aiming for the trees where she was sure she would find a Jawbreaker or something to hunt.
The air around her changed. She slowed to a stop. "What the..."
A magnificent golden light flared up in the distance. At first she thought it was the sun rising over the horizon, but the light was getting bigger. Then it dawned on her.
A golden blur raced towards her, skidding to a stop and igniting the ground as it did so. There stood Mussashi, in his full coat of flowing, golden feathers.
"Are you gonna show up every time I go out for a hunt?" she demanded of her animal. "You'll scare away the prey, you winged oaf!"
"Wark!" It looked at her with its eyes of passion and fire, which spoke to her. 'We must go'.
"Go? Where do you want to go? ...Look, I have to go kill something, you can go by yourself."
"WARK!!" it cried angrily.
"What's your deal!?" She started off towards the trees. It followed her, its golden glow sure to scare off anything hiding in the dark underbrush. She kicked at the bird. "Leave me alone, dammit! You heard me, I said--"
"Kweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!" Its bellowing cry almost blew her to her feet. She scrambled back, the bird following in almost a chasing manner.
"Okay! OKAY!!" she screamed, waving her hands, frustrated. "What the hell do you want!?"
"WARK," it cried commandingly. It's eyes glistened. 'Adventure.' And Mickey had an idea of what kind of adventure in particular it was after.
"What, the clan?" she questioned, her anger turning to uncomfortable curiosity. How did Mussashi know about her clan? More mind-reading?
"Wark."
Mickey sighed, thinking about what the tribal Viera had said... Yinns was taking his clan to the Jagds tomorrow. Why would he do that? The Jagds were where Molly's dad had died, according to Molly when they had all talked the previous night while eating Rockbeast... Was it revenge?
There was also the possibility of Alastor hiding there after he had betrayed them by stealing and selling the Mythril caravan... That would've been revenge too. Either way appealed to Mickey... She knew how powerful the feeling of vengefulness was.
Suddenly, Mickey realized how much of a help she could be to Molly. Here at her disposal she had a Golden Chocobo that could cross any terrain in the blink of an eye, or faster. She could go places Molly had longed to go in the tales she had told her... And she knew just where she'd start.
She got on her ride. "Okay, Mussashi. Let's go somewhere." Her eyes told the bird where that somewhere was.
"Wark!!"
Mussashi broke into a sprint, and Mickey held on. They approached a flat that seemed to go on for a while, and the golden bird began to increase in speed. For the first time, Mickey was afraid of falling off.
"Hey, slow down! Dammit, this is nuts!" She knew it could be fast, but this was too much. "Wait, where are we going exactly!?"
The Chocobo didn't slow down. It sped up still, and the air around them changed again. Everything seemed to become blurry around Mickey, as they reached a speed that felt to Mickey as though her soul wouldn't be able to keep up with the speed of her body... that the wind would just rip it right out from her.
Rainbow-colored rays of light shone past them, dissolving the world around them. Mussashi was crossing the ether.
"What the hell is THIS!!" Mickey cried, but her exclamation was absorbed by the infinity around them. They literally flew through hyperspace, crossing hundreds of miles in less than a split second's time, as they were in a realm where time failed to exist... The flashing colors, colors no human had ever seen before, almost sent Mickey into a state of epilipsy. She shut her eyes, still unable to shut the ultimately bright flashes around her from sight, shapes and colors she had never seen in her life...
How much longer would this go on?
Then the air around them shattered like glass, and Mickey was thrown off the bird's back and sent into a forward tumble. She rolled to a stop against a carved, stone wall, thankfully not hitting it fast enough to break anything. But she would be sore for a while. Her body lie faced against the stone ground, smoldering and hot to the touch from the ether-crossing experience.
"Wark," said Mussashi, standing nearby and completely unphased. It was used to this sort of travel. It walked up to its riding companion to see if she was okay. "Wark!"
Mickey came to her senses, feeling as though her head was trying to pound its way out of her skull. She turned her head, eyeing the golden, shining bird. "You're... You're somethin' else." She had read all about Golden Chocobos in the books, knowing of their ability to travel across the ether, where dimensions didn't exist and one point in the plane was the same as being at any point, so they could appear anywhere on the planet without any actual time passing. To the Chocobos, the ether was like any other terrain, and they could of course cross any terrain effortlessly. She never imagined it would've felt like that.
The huntress slowly crawled to her feet, brushing her firey red hair out of her eyes and looking around. She knew where she was.
She was in Sprohm, the capital of the Bangaa people, home to the First Church of Adrammelech and, more importantly, Ivalice Prison.