Author's Notes: There will be minor Final Fantasy IX spoilers later in the chapter if you haven't gotten at least to the beginning to Disc Four.


Chapter IV: The Town of Crossing Over

Comfortable, warm, soft — it was hardly what Tracy was expecting. His eyes fluttered a few times as he rolled over in bed — who's bed was this? It wasn't the familiar cold sheets and numerous blankets he was used to, but it was still quite cozy and welcoming. It was many moments before he regained enough consciousness to realize that he was not in his own bed. The first instinct that came to mind was that he was in a friend's bed, that he had spent the night somewhere else, but when he heard the mumbling of voices from an adjacent room, he knew for certain that he was not in any familiar setting.

"Whoa!" Tracy exclaimed as he darted to a sitting up position, tossing the sheets covering him into disarray. He gave the room around him a thorough examination, noting the shabby, broken-down environment as he climbed out of the bed. The walls were cracked, and the light, coming from a single lamp on the hole-filled ceiling, was dim, possibly about to burn out. Through the darkness and the shadows, he saw a number of pictures on the walls, but he couldn't make them out. The hard, wooden floor was covered with dust and debris, and it creaked quietly under Tracy's weight. He saw only one exit, a door across from the location of his bed, and when the unintelligible voiced in the other room stopped, he prepared himself for visitors.

Despite preparation, nothing in his lifetime, not even the appearance of the Heartless, could have prepared him for the sight that presented itself as the doorway opened. A lone figure stepped inside the room from the passage, and simply by the style of the stranger's hair, his body build, and his monkey-like tail, Starlight identified him instantly. That... Could that be...?

"Glad to see you're awake, kid," he said to the dumbfounded youth, "I'm Zidane." He held out a hand as he stepped towards Tracy. "Nice to meet ya."

"Umm..." he uttered momentarily before introducing himself, "Tracy Starlight from the town of Madison. Or rather... I was of Madison."

Their hands met, and the two shared a friendly handshake as a hero from Tracy's fantasies put together, "Your world got destroyed, too, huh?"

So many questions and possibilities flew through Tracy's head, it was becoming more and more difficult to think straight. Zidane from FFIX... Is he from Hollow Bastion, too, or is he from the Gaia I know? His world was destroyed, too? Where is this place, anyway? Is anyone else here?

Zidane curiously eyed Tracy before querying, "You okay? We found you out in the street unconscious, so we decided to take you in for the night."

"Street?" Tracy spoke at last, "How long was I...?"

Looking to an inoperable clock, the tail-bearing thief answered, "Anyone's guess, really, but I'd venture to say two hours or so."

Two hours... Then again, it doesn't really matter how long I've been out. The displaced teenager turned away from Zidane, looking to the bed he had rested in previously. Madison's gone like a faded dream, just like so many others.

"Are you okay?" repeated Zidane.

"Hmm? Oh." Starlight finally realized the question that Zidane was asking and formed his shockingly calm reply. "Terrible, really. My town is gone, all my friends are probably dead or turned into Heartless, I'm stuck in—" He paused his list to ask, "Where is this anyway? I don't recognize it."

"This place?" Zidane gestured to the room around him. "Why would you recognize it?"

Stopping himself before he blurted out the truth, at least from his point of view, he told Zidane, "Well, uhmm... Sorry. Just homesick, I guess."

I guess I shouldn't go around telling people that I learned all about them from games I played before my world went to Hell in a hand basket.

"Well, anyway, this place is called... Ummm..."

"Traverse Town," a child's voice finished for Zidane.

"Thanks," he told the unknown kid.

"No problem, Zidane."

Tracy looked to the doorway, where the voice had come from, but he didn't see anyone. Taking a few steps towards the door, he inquired, "Who was what?"

"The kid?" confirmed Zidane swiftly, "Name's Vivi. He's from my world, Gaia."

That answers that question.

"Hey, kid!" an older, tougher-sounding voice called from a distance into the other room, "What's for dinner?"

"Whatever it is," he sent back jokingly, "I bet it needs fire to cook, right?"

Zidane chuckled at the small black mage as he turned to his new friend. "Hungry, Tracy? Vivi's cookin' tonight."

Giving it a split-second of thought, he answered, "Well, at this point, I'd even eat with the Heartless! Sure thing!" When he began to exit the room, Tracy suddenly noticed a missing detail. He instantly checked himself over to see if he was dressed as he was when he left Madison. Everything, even his hair and necklace, was just as it was with the exception of a certain, very noticeable item. "Umm, Zidane," he asked, "did I have a rod with me? It'd be four feet long, about an inch thick, made of plain wood."

"That stick you had in your hands?" Zidane confirmed for Tracy, "Yeah, we have it." Zidane's tone changed to that of confusion as he questioned Tracy, "What is it with that stick, anyway? It doesn't have any magic power whatsoever from what Vivi told me, and it's not that strong anyway. Why keep it?"

Tracy chuckled with a smile before telling the thief, "Sentimental value. Besides, any weapon's better than no weapon, right?"

Zidane grinned at the younger kid. "That's a nice way of seeing it."

—————

"Guys," the tiny black mage Vivi gladly announced as he and Zidane, carrying a tray, entered the room from the makeshift kitchen, "Dinner is served."

"Sorry if it's a little burnt, folks," Zidane apologized, "I didn't say 'when' soon enough."

Tracy shook his head and laughed quietly before scanning the other people at the table. He sat at the end of the table, and the two seats on either side of him were vacant, awaiting Zidane and Vivi. The two chairs at the far end were occupied by Freya, a proud Burmecian Dragon Knight, and Amarant, a bounty hunter and uncertain ally of Zidane. Both awaited the meal with differing degrees of eagerness.

As Vivi took his place to the left of Tracy after handing out the silverware, Zidane sat the tray on the table, showing five well-cooked steaks. Though it didn't look as delicious as the steaks his mother used to cook on the grill, the young Starlight realized that he had little choice in the matter. Besides that, he was anxious to finally speak with the people who took him in from the streets of Traverse Town.

The five each picked out their own steaks and began eating as Zidane finally sat down to Tracy's right. "So, kid," he struck up the conversation, "What's that world of yours called again?"

"Madison," he answered Zidane, cutting into the piece of meat slowly. "From what I can tell, there's not much to it, really. Boring as hell, pretty small compared to other cities — not much to do except... Well, I'm not even sure."

Vivi spoke up curiously, "Any friends there?"

"Friends? You bet," he grinned, "Where to start?"

"Girlfriend?" queried Zidane.

Chuckling, he told him as simply as he could, "Nope."

"Hmm... Too bad, I guess."

"Ah, I'm all right," said Tracy, "I had some really great friends, though. Ashlyn, Darian, Tac, Felicity, Kristen, Xander... They're—"

"—gone," Amarant interrupted before stating matter-of-factly, "If they're not in this town, they're probably as good as dead out there."

"Amarant!" Vivi and Zidane both exclaimed.

Freya looked up from her plate to stare at the red-haired thug. "You should show some sympathy. The kid's obviously lost—"

"It's all right, Freya," the child from Madison cut her off. "He is right, after all. If Felicity and the others aren't here, then they're nowhere, and I'll have to accept it."

Zidane couldn't help but give a questioning glare to Tracy. "That's... Well..."

"...surprisingly mature," commented the scarlet-haired Amarant, "And I thought I wasn't gonna like him."

"Amarant," Tracy laughed at him, "I'm more immature than I seem. Take it from me."

"Whatever," he shrugged Tracy off and continued to eat.

"In any case," the youth changed the subject, "What about your world, Zidane? What about Gaia?"

"Oh, Gaia? It's a huge world filled with things that you couldn't imagine!" he pridefully explained. "Or... it was."

"The Heartless," Starlight stated more than asked.

"It was a few things," Vivi replied.

"It's hard to explain, Tracy," stated Zidane. "My friends and I were trying to defeat a powerful enemy named Kuja."

So he's in the picture, too?

"Shortly before the Heartless arrived, we had unsealed a magical gate that led to another world, Terra. Long story short, we returned to Gaia to find it totally covered with Mist. When we went to the Iifa Tree — it made the Mist on our world — there was this colossal ball of energy above it."

"That's when they first appeared," Vivi entered, "The Heartless came from that ball, millions of them!"

Well, that's... different...

"We tried to break into the ball, but the Heartless kept us from laying a finger on it," Zidane went on, "Even with the entire airship fleet of Lindblum backing us up, the Invincible, our vessel, took heavy damage, and we had to land just outside the tree."

"Then," Vivi finished their tale, "we saw this weird outlined shape on the trunk of the tree. It looked like a big keyhole. After that, we got separated, and we all ended up here. Well, almost all of us."

"And that's about it," Zidane summed up. "We're in the same boat, looks like."

Sounds just a bit crazy, Tracy thought, but it looks like Kuja somehow gained control of the Heartless, but if Gaia's gone, then Kuja probably went with it, so it's no use worrying about it.

Without warning, the front door burst open as an unfamiliar boy entered the house. "Zidane! Zidane!" he yelled out, "We found another one!"

"Another one?" Zidane repeated on instinct.

Immediately following the boy, a muscular man in his mid-thirties came in carrying a young teenage girl with long brown hair. She wore simple blue jeans with a dark gray shirt and an equally gray hooded jacket and black shoes. Her build was larger than most, and it appeared that all the muscles of the man were necessary to support her. Around her neck was a black collar and a necklace carrying a few rings. The girl was completely unconscious in the man's arms.

Tracy nearly collapsed when he saw the girl, and a single word left his lips when he recovered from the initial shock. "Felicity?"