I Never Let Her Die! (Aerith x Male Gamer Reader)

Disk 01: Chapter 04: Chocobockle Boondoggle

Head lowered, peering in, Red scoffed. "You cannot be serious."

"I warned you." Cloud said.

"I'm sorry Red, but it's this or nothing." Aerith said apologetically.

Still uncertain, Red took a single step forward and stopped. "Whatever happened to my dignity?" he sighed.

I wished this was happening after the boat ride to Costa Del Sol. If it had been, I could have pointed out that after seeing Barrett in that sailor suit nothing would offend my dignity ever again. Instead I settled for saying "It could be worse dude. At least she didn't haul out a pet taxi."

"Indeed." Red snorted. "Oh well, let's get this over with..." He climbed into the bag and turned around. Aerith pulled the strings snug but not tight, and Barrett climbed aboard his bird, then hefted the satchel over his back. Red had left his head sticking out, and he was now looking over Barrett's left shoulder. "Hmmm... Perhaps this isn't so bad after all."

"See? You like it." Aerith giggled.

"Mount up and head out!" Barrett ordered. He began to move ahead, making it clear he wasn't waiting around for anyone.

Cloud and Tifa mounted their bird, and I carefully climbed aboard my own, then lent a hand to help Aerith up. She climbed in behind me and wrapped both arms around my waist. "Kill me now, I'll go happy." I thought, grateful she couldn't see the ridiculous grin on my face from behind.

Though I had been concerned as to just how well I could actually control a Chocobo, it proved surprisingly easy. The giant birds are not only docile, but also highly intelligent, and the creature clearly knew what was expected of it with very little input on the rider's part. Thus it was that we came to the edge of the marsh in around three hours. Everyone stopped at the top of a high ridge looking down on the marsh, and we saw that Jack hadn't been kidding: There were Zolems everywhere. I counted no less than ten full-grown specimens and countless smaller half-grown ones as well.

"Holy..." Tifa whispered. "This might get ugly even with the birds."

"We'll have to time our run just right." Cloud said. He pointed out the two adults closest to our position. "If those two move apart, we'll have a clear shot down the middle. Once the Chocobos hit full speed we should be fine."

"Does this seem strange to anyone else?" Red asked peaking out from behind Barrett. "Snakes are predators. They need prey animals to survive... What could this many of them possibly be eating?"

"Well, they're probably cold-blooded like other reptiles." I offered. "If so, they'd only need to eat their own body weight in a year, as opposed to the ten times that or more a warm-blooded predator would need. That helps some."

Red nodded. "Yes. It would also mean they can go months between meals. It's still not enough though..."

"Probably the bigger Zolems eat the littler ones." Cloud said.

Everyone stared at him. "What? They're snakes. Snakes do that kind of thing." He argued.

"It's still horrid." Aerith replied.

"Horrid or not, it's probably a valid observation." Red said. "Look! The big adults are moving the way we need them to."

Sure enough, the adult Zolems Cloud had indicated were now moving away from each other, opening the path we needed. Cloud waited until they were nearly three hundred feet away from each other then said. "Okay everyone... On my signal... Two... One... NOW!" He cracked the reins of his Chocobo, which was instantly in motion, accelerating faster than I ever would have thought any animal could. The rest of us followed close behind.

The next couple of hours were nerve-racking. While the snakes had absolutely no chance of catching up to us after we were past them, that still left a large number of them that we had to get past before we were safe. Anytime we came anywhere near a Zolem that was more than half-grown, it tried to grab one or more of us as we passed by. Twice, I caught sight of evidence that Cloud's Zolem-cannibal theory was correct. I was glad that Aerith happened to be looking the other way on both occasions, and I said nothing.

Finally, we reached the far side of the marsh, and safety. Back on solid ground we turned the Chocobos loose after feeding them. They loitered, apparently wanting to rest up before their trip back home. I couldn't blame them.

It was near dusk, and in the glare of the setting sun we almost didn't see it. Impaled upon a stripped tree-trunk was the body of a full-grown Zolem. Enormous slashes covered it's body and the ground was stained with hundreds of gallons of blood. "What happened?" Aerith asked in shock.

"Sephiroth happened." Cloud answered. "It made the mistake of messing with him and paid the price."

"Now hold on! How the damn hell are we supposed to deal with someone strong enough to do this?" Barrett demanded.

"I'm not sure yet." Cloud admitted. "We need to get stronger ourselves I guess."

As Cloud was speaking, real clouds began to move in, rapidly blotting out the sun. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled. "Looks like a storm brewing." I said. "C'mon, let's get to the mine entrance before we get soaked."

"Yeah." Barrett agreed. He took one last look at the carcass then said "It's late. We'll camp at the mine entrance tonight and go through tomorrow..."

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We reached the mine just in time. A ferocious downpour began less than five minutes after we were inside. Everyone worked to start a fire and set up camp. As I finished rolling out my bag, I noticed that Aerith had already finished her own work and was standing right at the entrance, watching the storm. I joined her and said "Good thing we made it here. Quite a storm."

She nodded. There was an expression of excitement on her face as she answered. "It's beautiful! I've never seen rain before... Not really anyway. I don't think drips from leaking pipes up on the plate count."

"No, I'd say not."

"It's too bad there's so much lightning." She said wistfully. "If it was just a calm rain I'd be out there in it. Getting the full experience, you know?"

"Well, don't get too caught up in the idea. With all this lightning, the 'full experience' would be your last experience."

Aerith laughed. "True, true..." She yawned deeply. "We're not that far from the swamp... Are you sure those snakes can't come up on dry land and follow us here?"

"Pretty sure." I answered. "And even if they did, they'd be too big to fit in the front door."

"Good enough for me. I'm gonna lay down." She started to walk back to her sleeping bag, then turned and said "Y/N?"

"Hmm?"

"You couldn't tell, being in front, but I was smiling the whole time too..."