Chapter Fifteen: Cloud vs. Hobbes
"Do you think he'll still want to go with us?" Hobbes asked anxiously as they reentered the cave.
"I dunno," Cloud replied unsurely. "After hearing about what his father did for this place, he might want to follow in his father's footsteps. And protect Cosmo Canyon. What about you?"
"Me? I would like to stay here, but the adventure you guys are going on has already become too intense for me to just stop here. I want to see this adventure through to the end. Plus, I can't leave Calvin alone. He needs me."
"You got that right," Cloud replied. "Also, we need you to keep the little monster in line."
Both Cloud and Hobbes laughed at this statement.
"Speaking of which, how do you suppose the others are handling Calvin?" Hobbes grinned.
"I don't know. We'd better hurry back."
"Hold on," Hobbes said instantly, looking at something. "What's that?"
Both Cloud and Hobbes looked at a small, shiny object on the ground. As they walked closer to it, it appeared to be a green orb.
"Magic Materia," Cloud said instantly.
"What kind?"
"I'll let you find out," Cloud said, handing the orb to Hobbes.
Remembering what Cloud taught him in the buggy, Hobbes closed his eyes and waited for the Cetra to speak to him. Soon, he heard the voices.
"Stars…space…gravity…GRAVITY!"
"Gravity materia," Hobbes replied.
"Great! I don't have any of that kind yet," Cloud said eagerly. "I'm adding it to my collection."
"Wait a minute, I found it," Hobbes protested.
"So what? What do you want with it?"
"I want to use it!"
"Please, Hobbes, I can use all five types of materia. You've only used magic materia."
"So what? This IS magic materia."
"But you don't know how to use materia that well yet. Plus, this spell is more advanced."
"I'm sure I can learn it quickly," Hobbes countered. "After all, we tiger's are fast learners."
Cloud thought for a minute and finally said, "Tell you what…why don't we put that to a test? Let's have a contest. While we're going back to the others, let's see who can kill the most monsters. The winner gets to have the gravity materia."
Hobbes thought about this for a minute. This did seem like the logic and fair way to settle this argument. But what was the catch?
After thinking about it for a few minutes, Hobbes finally said, "You've got a deal," and shook his hand.
"Now, let me explain the rules," Cloud began. "Rule Number One: We'll have a ten minute time limit in each of the four rooms, totaling to forty minutes for the contest."
"Fair enough," Hobbes replied.
"Rule Number Two: We can't interfere with each other's battles. We're on our own."
"Of course."
"Rule Number Three: If one of us can no longer fight, then the contest is over and the other person automatically wins the materia."
"I guess that's fair. Any more rules?"
"That's it. May the best man win," Cloud said as he held out his hand one more time.
"Wrong…may the best TIGER win," Hobbes replied and responded to Cloud's hand with a paw shake.
Soon, Cloud and Hobbes had prepared themselves for the challenge. Cloud had selected his strongest sword and had equipped some of his best materia in it. Hobbes readied the tiger claw fists that Tifa had given him and equipped them with all three of his materia: Earth, Ice, and Restore. Cloud just chuckled as he watched Hobbes jog in place, warming up for the challenge.
"This'll be easy," he thought to himself. "Are you ready, Hobbes?"
"As ready as I'll ever be," the tiger responded.
"On your mark…get set…GO!" Cloud shouted as they sprinted into the next room.
Cloud immediately ran to the right as he charged some flying creatures. He prepared his sword and began to destroy the creatures. Meanwhile, Hobbes was conjuring up an ice spell to fire on another giant spider. The spider was stronger than Hobbes had anticipated and it took him five minutes to destroy it. Cloud had already destroyed seven monsters and was working on number eight, nine, and ten. Hobbes had found a pack of beasts like the ones he had stumbled upon in the first room and began to work on eliminating them.
"ICE!" Hobbes shouted as an ice spell struck one of the beasts, eliminating it. He then pounced on the remaining two at the same time, biting and scratching at them.
Cloud had just sliced through a pack of beasts and quickly checked his watch as a spider was advancing on him.
"Still have two minutes," he mumbled to himself. "I can't kill a spider in two minutes…unless…CLIMHAZZARD!"
Cloud was surrounded by the bright aura and dashed forward and stuck his sword right into the spider and jumped up, slicing it in two nice, even pieces.
"Thirteen," Cloud chuckled to himself as he watched the clock tick down to zero.
Hobbes had just beaten down a flying Gi Warrior when he heard Cloud call to him.
"Time's up slowpoke! How many did you kill?"
"Just five," Hobbes sighed.
"Thirteen! You sure you still want to do this?"
"I've never been surer in my life!" Hobbes called.
"Onto the next room then," Cloud said in a teasing way.
The next room was the one filled with lava. Already, monsters were coming out of their hiding as they heard Cloud and Hobbes speaking.
"Again, ten minutes," Cloud said.
"Don't wait up," Hobbes replied as he went for the creatures and Cloud pursued.
Hobbes was against more beast creatures like in the last room. The cave seemed to be crawling with those monsters.
"ICE! ICE! ICE!" Hobbes shouted as three separate ice spells shot out of his hand and hit each monster, though it didn't quite kill them. Hobbes finished them off with the tiger claw fists.
Meanwhile, Cloud was focusing on a group of Gi Warriors. He had summoned a group of fire spells that struck each target and finished them off with a swing of his sword. He was looking to sneak up on a lone Gi Warrior when an ice spell breezed past him and pierced through the heart of the warrior, killing it on impact. Cloud turned around to see Hobbes smiling.
'What do you have to say to THAT?" Hobbes laughed.
Cloud and Hobbes continued to destroy monsters until the time expired in that room. In the end, Hobbes killed a total of thirteen monsters and Cloud managed to finish off eleven. The overall score was now eighteen to twenty-four.
It was time for the final room. After this room, they would be back in Cosmo Canyon and one of them would have the gravity materia.
"This room decides who wins," Cloud said, looking around for monsters. "You ready for this?"
"You bet!" Hobbes said, looking ready for anything.
"Well then…GO!"
Cloud and Hobbes raced off to search for more monsters. Cloud managed to kill a Gi beast while Hobbes used his ice spell to kill three Gi Warriors.
"You have to do better than that!" Cloud shouted over to Hobbes.
"I'll win that materia! You'll see!" Hobbes shouted, firing an ice spell at another Gi Warrior.
This time, however, the ice spell missed the creature and it hit the wall behind it. The wall gave away to show a hole behind the wall. Seconds after the hole was revealed, Gi beasts and Gi Warriors began to come out of the hole like water through the faucet of a bath tub. Soon, Cloud and Hobbes were outnumbered twenty-five to one, but the beasts kept coming.
"We must have struck their nest!" Cloud shouted as he continued to fight off monsters that were attacking him.
"YOU THINK?" Hobbes shouted sarcastically as he tried to hit a group of beasts with his ice spell, hoping to kill more than one with each time ice was cast.
No matter how many creatures that were killed, more and more continued to come out of the hole. Soon, the room was practically flooded with monsters. Cloud and Hobbes barely had room to move around or fight.
"IT'S HOPELESS!" Cloud shouted as he was bitten by a beast and scratched by the spear of a warrior. Hobbes was starting to suffer greatly to.
Soon, there were no more monsters coming out of the hole, but by now, every square inch of the room was crawling with monsters looking to take the lives of Cloud and Hobbes.
Then, Hobbes felt a familiar surge of energy and anger flow through his veins.
"EYE OF THE TIGER!" he shouted as the laser emerged from his eyes again, eliminating any monster that stood in the ray's path. After the ray had submerged, Hobbes saw he had room to move and time to summon another ice spell, but not a lot as more monsters came for him.
"I could use ice again, but that would only kill a few and by then, they'll be on me again…and I can't take too much more of that," Hobbes thought. "There's no way I'm coming out of this alive…unless…it's risky, but I have no choice."
"BLADE BEAM!" Cloud shouted as his sword unleashed a powerful ray of energy that struck one monster and spread out and hit every other monster in the room, though it only killed the one it first struck. By now, Cloud had suffered three deep cuts by the beasts and his arms had severe bite marks on them. He was loosing strength fast and the monsters almost had him pinned to the ground.
"This is it…" Cloud thought to himself. "I'm gonna die..."
He closed his eyes and waited for it to end as the monsters kept clawing at him. Soon, though, the clawing stopped. He opened his eyes, expecting to be in the afterlife, but instead saw himself surrounded by a strange barrier. This barrier had ancient writings that looked like hieroglyphics and the barrier itself was invisible. The monsters were still trying to get to him, but could not pass through the barrier.
"What the…" Cloud thought.
He looked over at Hobbes to see if he was surrounded by a barrier and he was, but it looked like Hobbes was chanting something.
"Ramuh, mighty elder of lightning, come forth and strike our foes with your staff and bring them to justice! BOLT FIST!"
At that moment, the earth beneath them began to upheaval until it formed a small mountain that was flowing with lightning. Then, in a flash, an elderly man appeared at the top of that mountain. He was wearing white robes and held a might staff in his hands. It seemed as if that staff was what was producing the lightning.
Ramuh then looked down and saw the monsters that were attacking Cloud and Hobbes. He then conjured all the lightning in the room into his staff. Once it was all collected, he held his staff up high and released the lightning, electrocuting all of the monsters into oblivion. Hobbes and Cloud were safe from this attack due to the ancient barrier that was surrounding them. Once all the monsters were dead, Ramuh vanished along with the barriers.
Cloud just sat there in shock as to what just happened.
"HOBBES USED SUMMON MATERIA!" he shouted. "BUT…BUT…BUT WHERE DID YOU GET IT?"
"Back at the chocobo racing track," Hobbes said, healing himself with a cure spell and drinking ether.
Hobbes was watching the screen, cheering on Calvin despite the fact that Calvin was making a complete fool of himself.
"I knew he should have just let Cloud do it," Hobbes thought to himself. "Hey, as long as I'm up here, I might as well get something to drink. Being tin that desert prison has really made me thirsty."
Hobbes went into the jockey's room, hoping to find someone willing to give him a drink of water or something. Upon entering the room, much to his dismay, there was no one in there, nor was there anything to drink. On top of that, he could not go into the Gold Saucer to get one because he was considered a prisoner.
"Calvin had better win that race or I swear I'm going to bite him hard this time…right on the butt!"
He sat down in a chair, turning his eyes back to the television. Then, something beneath the television caught his eyes. He looked down and saw a bright, red orb on the ground. It looked like a ruby…sort of.
"I'll bet this would make a great necklace," Hobbes thought to himself as he picked it up. "Maybe I'll find another one just like it. Then I can make two necklaces…one for Tifa and another one for Aeris…oh, Hobbes, you are so smart!"
All of a sudden, voices began to rush through Hobbes' head.
"…Elder of lightning…Bolt Fist…Ramuh!"
Hobbes looked around the room, but saw no one. Confused, he looked back at the stone, admiring it.
"Ramuh…RAMUH!"
Hobbes yelped and dropped the stone. The stone immediately stopped glowing as it hit the ground.
Hobbes hesitated, but picked it up again. Once again, the stone began to glow. This time, Hobbes heard something else.
"Take this stone…with it, you will be able to do many great things…"
"What IS this?" Hobbes shivered. "What are these voices? And what do they mean by 'with it, you shall do great things?"
Hobbes' thoughts were interrupted when a prison guard came up to him, saying that he and his friends were now free because Calvin had won the race.
Hobbes quickly hid the stone in his pocket and followed the guard.
"Should I show this to Cloud?" Hobbes thought to himself. "I don't know yet…I'll see in a little bit."
Cloud could not believe it. Hobbes had just joined their adventure and already he could handle summon materia.
"I've never seen anything like this before," Cloud muttered. "It's almost impossible! But how…I mean, how…how…"
"…and how about my gravity materia?" Hobbes asked, holding out his paw.
"What?"
"The contest, remember? I believe that I summoned Ramuh that killed a crap load of those monsters…if not, all of them. I believe that puts me in the lead and the ten minute time limit in this room has passed. That means, I win. Therefore, I get the gravity materia."
Cloud stood still in shock. Hobbes was right. Silently and awing, he gave Hobbes the materia.
"I think I can handle this if I can handle summon materia…right?"
"I…I suppose so," Cloud managed to say. "I underestimated you, Hobbes. Well done." With that, he held out his hand in defeat.
Hobbes, being the good sport he was, shook Cloud's hand in respect. With that, they both made their way back into the dawn of day that was rising over Cosmo Canyon.
A/N: Whew! That was exhausting! Hope you like it. You will see more originality like this throughout the story. Please review! Next chapter, Calvin and Hobbes learn more about Cloud's past with Sephiroth as they come upon a strange sight. Stay tuned.