True to form, the cactuers that were bobbing about in the sea either gave the chocobo Cloud was riding on a wide berth or simply ignored it outright. Cloud had always wondered about that. Before he could come up with any logical conclusions, however, his chocobo had arrived at Cactus Island. He looked around for his two employees. They were nowhere to be seen.

"Go find your siblings," Cloud told his chocobo softly. The chocobo warked and immediately set off to look for the other chocoboes. Cactus Island was a rather large island that had remained unmarked because of its denizens, although Cloud was rather sure there had to be some way to tame the wild terrain for human inhabitation. He would have to speak to Reeve about that some time.

As the chocobo ran on, he saw less and less cactuers along the sandy stretch of road. The hole in the sky was quite visible now. It was larger than he initially thought it was. If it had been some black hole, it could probably suck in Midgar in its entirety and still have room for Kalm. Cloud could also see that it was really, literally shrinking by the second. No matter how big it looked now, Nanaki was quite right in saying that it might just disappear by the end of the day.

All of a sudden, his chocobo made a funny wark and stopped moving. The force almost threw him off his saddle, but he held on to the reins firmly. "Calm!" he instructed the chocobo while trying to steer it back on course - towards the direction where the large hole was. The chocobo refused to comply, warking again in an agitated manner.

"Stay!" Cloud commanded, when it didn't seem like he could make the chocobo continue towards the hole. Looking up, he saw that they were standing just beneath the fringe edge of the swirling vortex. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he tried to lean nearer towards the area directly below the dark hole. He wondered if he should get off his chocobo to investigate further, but it seemed like the chocobo might just make a run for it without him the moment he hopped off. He didn't relish the thought of being stuck on Cactus Island until Reeve sent someone to rescue him, so he stayed on.

The current situation meant that the boys had to also be treading around the circumference of the hole, like he was. Since the area the hole hovered over was rather big, it might take him some time to find them by slowly going around it. Or he could just wait for the hole to eventually get smaller. Cait Sith was probably looking up at the hole now, so it was mission accomplished for Strife Delivery Service, at any rate.

As he finally came to the decision to wait, the vortex stopped spinning. Cloud looked up at it, trying to see if he could figure anything out. It didn't work. He glanced back on the ground and was immediately taken aback.

A jumbo-sized cactuer sporting a curly moustache had appeared out of nowhere and was giving him a beady stare. The cactuer was almost as tall as the hole in the sky.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that the cactus was dangerous. Cloud very surreptitiously guided his chocobo backwards, inch by inch. As suddenly as it had appeared, however, the cactus went ramrod straight. It trembled like a leaf, then fell forward in Cloud's direction, still in its upright position. Cloud's chocobo warked and immediately ran away, so that the cactus would fall on the sand instead of flattening them.

After getting the chocobo to calm down and stay still again, Cloud turned around to look at the jumbo cactus lying face-flat on the ground. The gargantuan thing was still easily twice his height in that position.

There was a person - a young man - standing on its back, pulling a sword out of the back of the cactus' head. After keeping the sword, he turned around, possibly to survey the terrain. His eyes swept through the area impassively. He looked right past Cloud and his chocobo, as if they weren't there, or he couldn't see them.

Cloud could, though, and for a while, he was busy trying to close his mouth. "Squall?!"

The young man - Squall - snapped his head around to look in Cloud's general direction. He was off by a few inches. "That voice..." he frowned. "Is that Cloud?"

Currently, Cloud was a little confused because he was dealing with a sudden revival of faded memories (which he had not forgotten about, just pushed to the back of his hazy mind for a while, thank you very much), but he knew who Squall was and the circumstances surrounding their acquaintance. "Yes, it's me. What's going on? Are the cycles beginning again?"

"Finally!" was Squall's semi-exasperated, semi-relieved reply. He hopped off the jumbo cactus and looked around himself. Once again, his eyes swept past where Cloud and his chocobo were, eventually landing on a spot somewhere to their right.

"Were you looking for me?" Cloud asked, when it didn't seem like Squall was going to continue the conversation, the latter having descended into thinking-mode after hopping off the cactus.

At that, Squall looked up, still in a slightly wrong direction. "All of us were. You're the last one." He paused to think again. Cloud waited patiently. "The cycles have nothing to do with it this time, we think," he gave his belated answer to Cloud's initial question. "But something... someone, is causing the worlds to... converge, for the lack of a better word. And... they're succeeding."

The lack of details made it hard for Cloud to gauge what the current situation was. He could decipher a bit of what Squall was talking about, though, so he would start from there. Strife Delivery Service - we decode puzzling messages and instructions when necessary. That would be a catchy new tagline.

"I'm the last, meaning everyone else knows about this already?" asked Cloud. Squall nodded. It was unnerving to see him keep looking in the wrong direction. "You can't see me, can you?"

The teenager (sometimes it was hard to remember that) made a face, then nodded again. "The connection between some of the worlds are still unstable. Some worlds seem more connected than others. Zidane and I can practically cross over to each other's worlds whenever we want, at the moment. Unfortunately... so can the monsters."

Cloud spared the fallen jumbo cactus a glance. As the the hole in the sky grew smaller, parts of the cactus that weren't in the shadow of the hole were cut off from view. It would seem like the dark hole was the media connecting their worlds together. "Hold on, let me try something," he said, as he steeled himself and got down from the chocobo. Holding onto its reins before it could run away, he told it, "Go to a safe distance and wait for me there."

The fidgety bird warked in agreement and set off immediately after Cloud released it.

A few thoughts raced through Cloud's mind as he looked at the shadow of the vortex, which he supposed he should be calling a portal of some sort now. If the half-visible state of the cactus was any indication, the space beneath the portal connected this world to Squall's. He didn't know for sure if Squall couldn't see him because he was outside the portal's shadow. He didn't know for sure if Squall could see him if he stepped right into the shadow. He didn't know for sure if he could even step back into this world after doing something like that. He was going to find out.

He took one purposeful step forward.

Squall immediately turned to look at him in the eye, providing tangible proof that he could see him now. "Looks like our worlds are starting to be connected too," Squall remarked, sounding none too pleased.

"Hmm," Cloud wondered about that. He took one step back, so that he was out of the shadow of the vortex. For a split second, Squall had a panicked look on his face. Then he calmed down and simply blinked in confusion. Cloud stepped back into the shadow, and Squall blinked again. "There's this hole on top of me in my world right now," Cloud explained. "The shadow it casts is apparently the key to the connection between our worlds."

Squall's eyes lit up in recognition. "We have sky holes like that too, but the connection between some aren't that stable. Like I mentioned earlier, Zidane's and my world appear to be completely connected."

"So our worlds aren't all that connected yet," Cloud nodded. He folded his arms across his chest, wondering what all of this meant. For some reason, his thoughts kept going back to his two new employees. "Do you know anyone called Sora or Riku?"

Squall frowned at that question. "Can't say I do, though the names sound familiar."

Exactly the way Cloud felt. So what in the worlds was going on? When he opened his mouth to ask another question, Squall and the fallen giant cactus suddenly flickered like a bad television signal and vanished completely. Quickly looking up, Cloud saw that the vortex was starting to spin again. Did the spinning have something to do with the connection as well? He would have to file that away for future reference.

Seeing no point to standing beneath the hole anymore, Cloud moved out of the shadow, and the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach disappeared. The spinning vortex was beginning to shrink faster. Cloud simply stood where he was and watched it do its thing for a while. Then he turned and went back to his waiting chocobo.

He saddled the chocobo and led it around the hole, taking care to ensure they wouldn't get too close. After a while of slow trekking, he could see the figures of Sora and Riku in the distance. They had stayed on their chocoboes, which was a relief to know. At the moment, they were looking up at the portal with very thoughtful looks on their faces.

Cloud navigated the chocobo to go closer to them. Once they were within earshot, he shouted, "Sora! Riku!"

The boys broke away from observing the hole in the sky to looking at him. Sora immediately beamed and waved. "Cloud!" shouted the boy. "Over here!"

Cloud had reached them by now. "See anything noteworthy?"

Sora shook his head. "Not yet."

They might have been standing too far away to see him conversing with Squall. But surely they saw that giant cactus?

"I'm picking up strange readings from the area around the vortex!" Cait Sith suddenly interjected, from where it was perched on Riku's head, possibly for a bird's eye view. "None of it is seems like good news to me!"

"Anything else?" Cloud asked.

"Nope!"

Cloud briefly debated whether to tell them about Squall and the giant cactus, or at least, about the connecting worlds. If what the teen had said was true, when this world became connected with all the others, it would only be a matter of time before Reeve found out, anyway. He decided not to complicated matters too much for his audience just yet. "Reeve, what are our options now?"

Cait Sith ceased moving for a quick second. Then it said, "We should probably try to find a way to stop the hole from shrinking. At least, until I can send a team of researchers over."

"I'm afraid you may be asking for the impossible here."

The cat sighed dramatically. "Don't I know it."

"It's not exactly like we can keep it wedged open with a log or anything," Cloud continued, glancing at the steadily closing vortex. When he looked down again, he saw that Sora, who was somewhere behind Riku and Cait Sith, was discreetly trying to raise his hand. Cloud arched an eyebrow in question. The boy pointed to himself, to the hole in the sky, then tried to make an air drawing of a key.

If Cloud's limited experience with charades was to be trusted, Sora was trying to tell him that he could probably do something about the shrinking hole with his keyblade. Cloud very slowly turned his head from side to side to indicate a firm no. They really didn't have the time to deal with the inevitable questions that would come after a display like that. Sora's face fell slightly, but he complied by doing nothing.

"Hoo boy! Watch out!" Cait Sith suddenly warned, pointing a tiny gloved finger at the shrinking portal. A flurry of colourful blocks suddenly started raining down from the darkness, bouncing across the desert island like land fireworks. Some rolled over to where Cloud and company were, and Sora had to physically cover his mouth to prevent himself from saying something.

Cloud inferred from Sora's overt recognition of the blocks that these were the gummi block things - same as the one that had fallen out of the hole in Midgar.

"My word! They are just like the thing we picked up from Midgar!" Cait Sith cheerily confirmed.

The shrinking hole, having fulfilled its duty of dumping the blocks, zipped up at a much faster pace than usual. In a matter of moments, it had closed up completely.

Cloud was struck by the sudden silence and sunniness. He hadn't noticed the low thrum the vortex had been making when it was present, having trained his ear many years ago to tune out as much background noise as possible or risk going crazier than he already was. "What now, Reeve?"

"I may have to send an aircraft over to pick up all these things," replied Cait Sith, as it looked around at the colourful blocks scattered all over the ground. "That is, if the cactuers don't return by the time the planes arrive."

"I think we can probably carry some back on the chocoboes for now," Cloud suggested. This way, it would be easier for them to hide a few pieces away for their own private examination later, without Reeve knowing. "You can send the aircrafts in later, but if the cactuers are back, then at least you'll have something to work on."

"Good idea, Mr. Cloud!" Cait Sith exclaimed, jumping up and down on Riku's head. The boy didn't seem to mind. Or maybe he was just that good at keeping a straight face. "Immediately, then! To the collection!"

"You heard the cat," Cloud nodded at the two boys. "Go get as many of those things as you can!"

The boys were only all too happy to oblige.

Once they had gathered three saddle-bags full of gummi blocks (those things were surprisingly easy to flatten), Cloud led them back to the western continent. As they rode, they saw that the cactuers were slowly but surely returning to the island they had previously abandoned for reasons unknown. If Cloud was to venture a guess, he thought the giant cactus from Squall's world could have been the reason. Then again, the monsters had excellent inherent instincts that drove them away from anything strange or dangerous. The portal in the sky could have been the reason as well, if that was the case.

Whatever it was, they arrived back at the cove where they'd left their vehicles behind in one piece. The motionless mog perked up when Cait Sith leapt onto it and whispered some instructions. In the meantime, Cloud had managed to get all three chocoboes back into the caravan. Sora and Riku jumped in after that.

"You know what to do with the bags, right?" asked Cloud, watching the two boys very carefully.

"Yes," Riku nodded very gravely. "We'll make sure nothing gets accidentally lost or anything, don't worry."

"That's right, that would be such a pity, after all the hard work you've put in to collecting them," Cloud said, as a corner of his lips quirked upwards. He hopped off the caravan to go back to Fenrir, leaving the boys to their own methods of extracting some gummi blocks without Cait Sith noticing. Speaking of Cait Sith, the cat was scratching its head while atop the mog. "What's wrong?" Cloud called out to it as he walked closer. Time to distract the unknowing spy.

"It appears Reeve is currently unavailable in mind and soul," quipped the cat. When Cloud gave it a questioning look, it clarified, "Reeve is unconscious."

That was worrying, to say the least. "Do you know what happened?"

"Not quite," Cait shook its head. "Last we connected, he was in HQ, going through the properties of the thing they found in Midgar with the scientists. The fact that I'm still moving means he's not dead yet, though!"

Trust Reeve to program his robot to say something like that. "I'll take your word for it, then," Cloud told the cat. He was pretty sure the resourceful Reeve could take care of himself, and since he was already back in HQ, he wasn't far from help if he needed it. For now, he decided that he would concentrate on doing what he was supposed to do. "Get into the sidecar and hang on tight," he instructed Cait Sith, who saluted and commanded the mog to hop right in. "We'll go back to Costa del Sol first, and if there's still no contact from Reeve by then, we'll contact him from our side."

"Excellent idea, Mr. Cloud," Cait flashed two thumbs up. Which unfortunately meant that it wasn't hanging on tightly when Cloud started Fenrir's engine and zipped off immediately without warning. Fortunately, though, it managed to hang on to the mog's ears in the nick of time. "Why do you keep doing this to meeeeeeeee-"

Once again, the cat's voice was drowned out by the whipping winds and Fenrir's rumbling roars.

ooxxooxxoo

It was nightfall when the entourage made it back to Costa del Sol. Cloud left the caravan unloading to the boys and went into the villa to try to contact Reeve. By that time, however, Reeve had apparently regained consciousness and was well enough to be passing messages through Cait Sith again.

"I'll explain what happened at another time," Reeve was saying with Cait Sith as his mouthpiece. "Please tell the boys that I have already vacated the room. Keep the supplies we brought over from HQ; they're for you. If Cait Sith is being too rowdy, you can toss it out to the streets. I'm pretty sure it can take care of itself. I'll keep you updated on the retrieval status on Cactus Island. Good night for now, and I'll probably be seeing you sooner than you think you're ready."

"Good night, Reeve," was all Cloud could mumble. Cait Sith slowly reverted to its AI.

"And that's that!" the robot cat declared. "Don't worry about me, Mr. Cloud. I'm going to go stand at the corner of the square and entertain the children camping at the beach. I'm sure I'll be as well-received here as I was in the Goldsaucer!"

"Sure," Cloud agreed automatically. He was really tired. Stiffling a yawn, he stood up from the couch where he had been sitting, listening to Reeve's message. "I'll see you in the morning then. Or something."

Without waiting for a reply, he headed out of the sitting room and went down to the basement to finally hit the sack after a long, long day.

But his glorious plan was thwarted when he saw Sora and Riku waiting for him at the basement with the saddle-bags and standard issue WRO swords.

For a moment, Cloud wondered why they were here and not in their room. Then it occurred to him that they might have wanted to talk to him about something important that he had forgotten about. And come to think about it, he wanted to talk to them about something as well.

The soft click of the front door coupled with Cait Sith's gradually disappearing presence told Cloud that the cat had showed himself out of the villa. He breathed a soft sigh of relief. "Cait Sith's gone out to romp the town square," he informed the two boys. "You wanted to talk to me about something, I presume?"

Sora nodded vigorously.

"Sit down, then," Cloud gestured to the few chairs strewn around his basement office in a haphazard manner. He turned on the lights as the boys shuffled into their seats. "All right," Cloud said, as he sat down. "I'm really tired, actually, but I think this needs to be done, so... what do you want to talk about?"

"That sword!" Sora pointed somewhere behind Cloud, throwing the latter off momentarily until he realised he still had his holster on. "It's the first time I've ever seen it without the bandages, actually..."

Cloud unbuckled the holster and moved it to the front, along with the sword that was in it. He drew the sword out and held it upright as he stared at its tip, the way Zack used to do a long time ago. Some time later, having reminisced enough, he lowered his glance to the two boys, who were looking at him almost expectantly. "You've seen this sword before?" he asked Sora.

"It's the one you always carried around in Hollow Bastion!" the boy excitedly furnished. "So you have it here too! That's gotta mean you're the same Cloud I know!"

Cloud had to admit he made a rather convincing argument. After all, his combination sword was unique as far as this world was concerned, having been custom-made to order. The chances of pseudo-him having the exact same sword in a parallel world completely unrelated with this one was rather slim. "So... going by that line of thought, how will that information help you in your current quest?"

This was where Sora suddenly stopped bouncing. Cloud could literally see the gears in his head start spinning overtime. For a while, the boy was dumbfounded.

Thankfully for him, it was Riku to the rescue. "For now, it just means that we definitely have to stick with you. If it wasn't a coincidence that we were sent to this world, then the chances of you being involved in some way is very high indeed."

"That makes sense," Cloud accepted the explanation. He leaned back into his seat and wondered about the strange happenings of the day, from shrinking portal to the giant cactus to Squall. Then it struck him. "Did you get a good look at the blocks that fell from the sky?" he asked. "Are those gummi blocks?"

Both Sora and Riku looked at the saddle bags they had in their possessions. It was Sora who answered this time. "They sure are," he said, but didn't sound as happy as Cloud thought he should have been. "That's not good news, though it isn't necessarily bad news, I suppose, if there aren't any Heartlesses showing up along with it..."

Cloud raked through his memories about the story the boys had told them for more details about the gummi blocks. "If you gather enough of them, you'll be able to build a ship that can take you back home, right?"

At this, Sora's head snapped up. He gave Cloud a queer, unreadable look. Something of an oddity, as the teen was usually like an open book. All Cloud could tell was that he was torn about something.

"I'm not going to just... go back home and leave this world in the lurch," Sora finally said. "That hole in the sky... I'm sure of it. We can close it with our keyblades," he gave Riku a knowing look as he said this. Riku nodded in agreement. Returning his attention to Cloud, Sora continued, "Maybe we were sent here to close all the holes. If that's the case, we don't even need a gummi ship. The keyblade'll probably open up a door for us to go back once we're done."

"We can't know for sure where and when the holes will show up," Cloud pointed out. "Besides, most of them close up immediately anyway, so what's the problem?"

Sora scratched his head. "But they're not really closed up, are they? They might just reappear at another time, right? Only the keyblade can fully seal it up. I'm pretty sure it has to be it! And as for the locating of the holes..." He turned to Riku. "Any ideas?"

"How about that place you got the time-shift video from?" Riku suggested to Cloud.

Cloud thought about Nanaki. "I suppose I could get him to call me once he spots a hole somewhere," he began, "but it's really hit-and-miss. If the hole appears above the Northern Crater or something, there's no way we can get there without an airship..." he paused. "Wait... where are the chocoboes?"

The boys looked at each other. "They looked quite comfortable in the side yard, so we just left them there."

"Excellent," Cloud sighed in relief and a bit of weariness. "All right, so here's the plan: If the next sky hole is in the western continent, we'll take Fenrir and the caravan. If they're anywhere else, we'll take the chocoboes. That should put us ahead of the chase. We don't know for sure if the holes will reappear, but if your keyblades can seal them up immediately, all the better, before they start connecting us with random other worlds..." He remembered Squall again, and wondered how everybody else was doing.

"Sounds like a fair plan," Riku remarked. A short pause later, he asked, "Can I get confirmation that you really weren't purposely hiding your abilities from us for some nefarious means?"

Cloud was drowsy and feeling rather honest. "I guess I was trying to hide my abilities," he said, not noticing the boys tense up ever so slightly. "I really didn't want to scare you guys off before you were even broken in to the business, you know? Sometimes it's better to be just a normal guy." He gave up stifling his yawn and just yawned, thus failing to see the tension ease out of the boys into something like relief and appreciation. "But now I really need to get to bed, and you guys probably should be too. In case you've forgotten, your main role in this world is still to help me deliver items."

"Of course!" Sora grinned as he stood up. "We'll talk more tomorrow, right? Right?"

"Later today, more like it," Cloud said as he looked at the clock hanging on the wall. "Bedtime boys. Don't let me see you until the sun's at least directly above us in the sky!"

The boys laughed and scampered off obediently, leaving Cloud (finally) to his long-awaited rest after a dig or two about the old man needing his sleep.

Thankfully for them, Cloud was a terrible thrower of projectiles. Especially when half asleep.

24 May 2013