They met Barret downstairs who was pacing up and down the room like a bored child. As the group chatted amongst themselves about their next move, Cloud noticed that he was holding something in his hand – a gleaming plastic object of some sort that looked similar to a phone.
"Yo, Cloud," Barret said, beckoning him over. "Here."
He passed the device to Cloud. It was light as a feather with intermittent lights flashing on its left-hand side.
"The PHS will put us in constant contact with each other," Red piped up, answering for Barret.
"Awright then, we're outta here," Barret declared, cutting off the canine before he could go into great detail about their newest piece of equipment.
They left Kalm and began trekking through the twisting valleys, steep hills and vast plains of the continent. The verdant landscape stretched out in front of them as a refreshing sea breeze from the nearby ocean cooled their skin from the hot sun above them.
There was a small farm directly in front of them. A mountain range sat at its right-hand side with a boggy marsh spreading out beneath it. Cloud insisted to the group that they had no need to visit the farm so they bypassed it, deciding instead to head towards the mountains.
The peaks were high, stretching up towards the sky, and the range seemed to span for miles, as if forming the continent's backbone. If memory served him correctly, there should be a way through the mountains. That's when they saw the cave. The only problem was that the cave opened up behind the marshland. Traversing through boggy grass wasn't a problem in itself; it was what lurked within the murky waters that was the problem.
Tifa spotted it first.
"Look, Cloud!" she gasped, pointing to the huge snake-like shadow darting beneath the water. Whatever the creature was, it looked ferocious, deadly and extremely fast, cutting through the water with ease.
They decided to rethink their plans and made their way to the farm instead. They would rest there and possibly find answers on what to do about getting to the other side of the mountain.
The farm was idyllic and quaint filled with small, grassy paddocks full of chirpy Chocobo's who seemed very excited to see new faces, and old-fashioned buildings and barns with weathered brick roofs and faded wooden walls. The farmhouse sat at the left-hand side and that's where the group decided to head first.
An elderly man was standing in the kitchen. He saw the guests and smiled warmly, introducing himself as Choco Bill. Good old-fashioned hospitality. It was a rarity back in Midgar.
"Thinking of crossing the marshes?"
"Yeah," replied Cloud.
"Hmm, then it'll probably be safer for you to get a Chocobo. That way you can zip through the marshes with the Chocobo. It's the only way to avoid being attacked by the Midgar Zolom."
"Midgar Zolom?" asked Cloud. So that's what it was called. It sounded terrifying.
"It's a serpent-like creature over 30 feet tall!" exclaimed Choco Bill. "It picks up on footsteps that enter the marshes… and then, BAM! It attacks!" He gesticulated wildly with his arms. His eyes grew wider the more he talked. If Choco Bill's intentions were to scare the group into buying his Chocobo's then it was working. "To avoid that, buy a Chocobo at the Choco Bill and Choco Billy Chocobo Farm."
Ah, thought Cloud. A sales pitch. Everyone had to make a living though, he guessed.
"To purchase a Chocobo," he continued, please talk to my grandson. He's in the Chocobo stables at the far right end of the farm."
The group left the farmhouse and entered the stables. It smelled of hay and Chocobo poop yet it wasn't unpleasant. In fact, Cloud liked how natural it smelled. You never got natural smells back in Midgar. Everything was tinged with the synthetic smell of metal and machinery because essentially that's what Midgar was; a huge metal structure full of decay and despair – unless you were living on the top of the plate that was. Still, Cloud thought with a smile, it didn't beat breathing in the natural, full-bodied smell of Chocobo poop. He shook his head. Was he losing his mind? He must have been.
"Do you want a Chocobo?" asked a teenaged boy called Choco Billy.
This must be Choco Bill's grandson, thought Cloud, feeling amused at the closeness of their names.
"Yeah," Cloud replied. "Will you give us one?"
"You old folks are out of luck!"
"Old folks…?" Cloud muttered, shaking his head. He must have only been a few years older than the little punk.
"We're all out of Chocobos. I'm taking care of the ones out there for someone else," the teenager explained. "You know, if you really want a Chocobo, you should go out and catch one. Want to know how to catch a Chocobo?"
"Where are they?"
"You see those claw prints out there? Wild Chocobo's will appear in those areas. But, if you don't have Chocobo Lure they won't come out. They are very cautious animals by nature."
"Chocobo Lure?" asked Cloud.
"Chocobo Lure is a type of materia which attracts Chocobo's," Choco Billy explained. "If you equip this, they'll come to you. But, without it, they won't appear. Want to know how to catch a Chocobo?"
Cloud had never ridden a Chocobo in his life. He was clueless. Even though he needed all the information he could get, Cloud was growing bored of the conversation already. This boy really liked to talk.
"How do I catch one?" asked Cloud, bracing himself for the in-depth tutorial that was sure to follow.
"A wild Chocobo always appear with other monsters. But, you won't be able to catch it because of the monsters. That is why you must defeat the monsters first before you catch the Chocobo."
That all you can talk about? Thought Cloud before composing himself.
"And then?" he said as he tried to keep his face neutral.
"Also, wild Chocobo's are really cautious. They'll run away from the slightest things. But, if you use Greens they'll focus on that, and won't run away."
Cloud was just about to ask what Greens were (he guessed some kind of plant) but he was cut off by the talkative teen.
"Whatever you do, don't make Chocobos angry. They're usually calm, but if you get them angry, you'll get hurt. Oh, and remember, once you get off a Chocobo, it'll escape."
Escape. Kind of like what Cloud wanted to do now. He was literally being talked to death. He noticed that the others had all abandoned him. He caught Tifa and Aeris checking out some Chocobo's at the back of stables. Barret was stood just outside the stable doors staring up at the sky and whistling a funny tune. He didn't know where Red was or what he was doing. He was an enigma, that one.
"Well then, shall we get down to business?" asked the chirpy teen rubbing his hands together. "I'll sell you the Chocobo Lure for 2000 gil, right now. You want it?"
"Yeah, okay," replied Cloud.
He was usually quite frugal but he figured that they'd need to hand over more than a few coins on this journey, especially if meant finding Sephiroth faster. He had to do what needed to be done. At least his pockets were a bit lighter now.
"Thanks!" he said as Cloud handed the bag of gil to him. "It wouldn't hurt to buy some Greens either. Oh, and how fast a Chocobo'll finish eating depends on what type of Greens you feed them."
So that's what Greens were, Cloud thought.
Choco Billy signalled for Cloud to wait right there while he walked over to a small desk and started rummaging through the drawers. He came back carrying a small box that was filled with little bunches of Greens in all different shapes, sizes and various shades of green; hence the name.
The prices were startlingly different. He noticed that two types were considerably more expensive than the others – Mimett Greens and Curiel Greens, and at over 1000 gil per bunch, Cloud figured they would be the best ones to buy, so he bought as many as he could comfortably afford. After all, they would need to catch a few Chocobo's if they were all hoping to get across the marshes.
Cloud gathered the team and they set off to the nearest set of Chocobo tracks. It didn't take long to spot their first one. It was grazing on the grass as two monsters trailed behind it. Tifa threw a Curiel Green its way. Its interest was piqued and it scoffed the Greens like it had never tasted anything so delicious in all of its life.
Cloud and Barret dispatched the two monsters. As they fell, the Chocobo looked up and cried out, before pecking at the remnants of the Greens. This was Cloud's opportunity. He flung himself onto the Chocobo's back. It kicked and thrashed about, but soon calmed down when it realised that Cloud was no threat.
"Hey there, big fella," cooed Cloud, feeling his cheeks flush. He had never spoken to anyone like that before, let alone a Chocobo. Still, he'd rather sweet-talk a bird than get killed by a giant serpent. Sometimes you had to throw all your dignity out the window if you wanted to succeed at something, and this was one of those moments.
It was a tense few moments, and kind of weird, too, but soon they had each mounted their own Chocobo. Tifa and Aeris shared, whilst Barret and Red mounted their own. Cloud had to chuckle. Barret's Chocobo must have been built like steel for being able to stand up tall, let alone run, with the strain of carrying a brute like Barret. He had also never seen a canine riding a bird before. What other strange surprises would this journey bring, he wondered?
They rode off in the direction of the marshland, towards the next step of their journey.
To be continued…
