Mount and Blade (Chocobo)

[Snow]

Hector stood in Lobby 7 to hear the ranting of a long-haired sophomore with a katana. "I will extinguish the power of dreams forever! Mwahaha!" The sophomore -- er, Dark Lord Bishnara -- flung an unimpressive smoke bomb at his feet and ran away, giggling. A more senior member of the MIT Assassins' Guild stepped forward, wearing a straw hat that hid his eyes. He ordered the bold heroes to gather the elemental crystals and defeat Bishnara before his evil plans could succeed and before the spring semester started.

"Is the Guild always like this?" Hector whispered to the junior beside him. So far, Hector had only played the Saturday night dart gun battles in Building 36.

His teammate patted him on the shoulder. "Yes, my noble steed!" Vincent was playing a paladin because he always played paladins in these things. As one of the guys in Hector's suite at Burton-Connor Dormitory, it was hard not to constantly hear from him about the Guild and its endless games.

"Remind me how that works."

Vincent hefted the remarkably realistic breastplate he wore, emblazoned with the sun icon of the non-specific holy god he served. "I have heavy armor, so I can only walk -- unless you're traveling with me. So let's get to questing!"

They picked up a Red Mage with a cool feathered hat, and a girl he recognized from 18.01 (Calculus I) last term. Together their party joined in a group brawl already starting in the Infinite Corridor. Shouts of "10 Ice damage!" and "Cure!" rang out. Students with foam swords and good-guy badges dueled the people playing minions of Bishnara. "Follow me!" said Vincent, and waded in with his own padded rattan lance.

Hector tried to keep up, to justify his friend's ability to run. He felt bewildered already with all the rules behind people hitting each other. The party's Red Mage flung a ping-pong ball at a monster-masked guy and shouted, "Slow!" to make him move in slow motion. Hector shook his head and watched, trying not to trip over anyone or get whacked by anyone's play weapons.

"Heal me!" said Vincent.

Hector saw his paladin dueling with a guy whose black name badge clearly proclaimed "DRAGON". "I can heal?"

"Yes, yes; just say it and tap me!"

Hector poked Vincent and called out, "Heal!"

Vincent had enough hit points now to leap forward and take the dragon down, enthusiastically enough to accidentally knock him to the floor. "Sorry!" he said, and helped the guy up.

The dragon laughed and dusted himself off. "You will never defeat my master! Raaar!" He dropped a scroll and fled into the basement, turning his name badge around to become dead for now.

Hector rolled his eyes. "Sorry. I missed something in my character sheet. I have levels in White Mage or something?"

"You're a white Chocobo," said Vincent, which obviously explained everything.

The girl from 18.01 -- who had a Nerf crossbow and a badge saying "Engineer", grinned and peered at Hector's tag. "Oh, a Chocobo! Say it."

"Say what -- oh. 'Wark!'" He flapped his arms like the wings of the riding bird he was supposed to be.

"I'm Alice. Kupo!" She had a hairband with fuzzy ears and a bouncing red pom-pom, which made her a Moogle. Not just an animal in this setting, but still usually a mascot character rather than anything serious.

The Red Mage made sure the other students were dispersing, then pointed to the scroll. "I have skill points in Lore: Everything, so I can read this. One of the crystals is in the basement of Building 10."

Vincent crowded close. "It says that?"

"No, it says the Dungeon of Seething Organic Reaction, which obviously refers to under classroom 10-250 where they do Organic Chemistry. We don't need more clues."

Hector blinked a few times. "I still don't think I'm fully into the spirit of this thing."

"It's okay," said Alice. "First time, right? You've got a simple role with no subplots, probably. Just use that Choco Cure power and see if you can find the Meteor upgrade. Also you can peck people to death."

Hector shrugged. "Okay. Yeah."

They headed down the huge hallway that crossed half of the main campus, and ventured into the basement. A goblin ambushed them, but the Red Mage blasted him by shouting, "Fire!" (The Guild had an understanding with Campus Police about inappropriate shouting, midnight lightsaber duels and so on.) Soon, they stopped. Alice was holding them back with one arm.

"See there?" she said, and pointed to a tiny note on the wall, two feet from the ground.

Hector crouched to look. "This is Trap #10b-2. Strike to disable."

"Aw, heck," said Alice. "We missed the first one, so it went off. We take --"

"Six points of Earth damage from falling rocks," said the Red Mage, who'd just gone back and found the first note. "I know Cure, anyway."

He and Hector healed everyone up while Alice stood against the far wall and expertly tossed a beanbag to hit the "trap". "Got it. Hurry; we're on a time limit in trap corridors."

They went along spotting traps until they reached a secret door, a closet marked as such. Alice "searched" well enough that it only cost one minute to enter, so they didn't have to start over. "The game masters know we have the dragon's scroll, so they probably have somebody hiding nearby. Ready for a boss fight?" Everyone nodded, and she opened the closet...

It wasn't a closet. Hector stared into a classroom where rippling blue light shined from a spinning crystal. Somewhere a hidden music player had cued the crystal theme. Hector didn't know all the trivia of the "Final Fantasy" video games that this silly campus thing was based on, but even he instantly recognized the haunting, deceptively simple up-and-down scale of harp notes. He stood silently, imagining that he couldn't see the string that the crystal dangled from. It was just hovering, shining, because it was an artifact of power, not meant to be fully understood.

Alice whistled beside him. "Nice effect."

"I didn't know there were classrooms in the basement," said the Red Mage. "This would be room 10-080." He nodded to himself, glad to have classified it.

Vincent stepped into the room. Hector saw his friend's hand trembling, fingers outstretched, and his mouth slightly open. Hector thought he understood. There are times when even a ruthlessly skeptical man of science wants to see a world of miracles. All four of them had crowded through the door without noticing it, drawn by the light.

Vincent gingerly pulled the crystal out of its harness and held it up. The light rippled brighter, then faded, and the music gave a familiar fanfare.

"Where was that coming from?" said Alice. She searched the classroom for the music player.

The Red Mage looked around at old wooden desks and blank chalkboards. The place couldn't have been renovated in this century. "More relevant, where are our instructions? I don't see a note."

Vincent reluctantly took his gaze off of the crystal and handed it to Hector to put in his belt pouch. He slicked back his hair. "This is... yes. You're right. Nothing laying around about how this gives us a clue to the next crystal, or a combat bonus or something?" No one had found anything.

Alice gave a relieved laugh. "Oh, here. A hidden camera. The GMs know we were here, so they'll make sure the plot keeps going. And the last few minutes will probably make it into the wrapup video." She waved to the little lens wired to one wall.

Hector said, "Fun to see behind the curtain, I guess."

The Red Mage nodded and turned to Vincent. "Lead on, Paladin. Actually, let me see something." He went out to the hall and examined the room left of 10-080, then the one to the right. "I'm not sure how that room even fits in there! Look at the spacing."

Vincent shrugged. "I'd like to look at floor plans later. We've got a quest to finish, and we're becoming major characters already."

#

As strange as the basement room had been, Hector found he was having fun with the regular game mechanics. Fight an endless supply of goblins, dragons, and inexplicable magic robots; seek out reclusive sages who couldn't have been more than thirty years old in reality; shop for better equipment. Hector rolled his eyes as he watched Vincent and the others browsing an illustrated list of weapons as excitedly as if the things were real. "You know buying the Crystal Lance won't really upgrade your padded one, right?"

The Red Mage looked at Hector like he was crazy. "It's a plus three. And it does Holy damage."

Alice swigged soda from a canteen with gears on it. "Where to?"

Vincent handed Hector back the notecard listing their current loot. He led them on toward the Glass Towers of Madness, which had to be the Gates Building. The joke on campus was that someday an earthquake would straighten out the jumbled walls. Hector couldn't help but let reality intrude into his thinking, when the party walked by on the street. Just last year, a terrorist had been in a deadly gunfight with campus police right about here. They were all quiet for a bit.

The massive building and the others it was welded to felt different. Hector had been through here before, but now there were monsters of a sort. And treasure. Alice found the entrance to another trap hallway and began disarming things. Just then, a troll leaped at them from behind, with a battle cry of "Sneak attack! Plus two damage!"

Vincent and the Red Mage drew their weapons and battled. Hector tried to slap them on the shoulder once in a while for healing. The troll had a lot of defense, from what Hector understood, so it was driving them back with that giant (padded) club. "Raar! Kill!"

They were fighting so hard in the hallway that the noise didn't register at first. Hector hopped backward and flailed his arms for balance, which made him glance to one side just in time. The ceiling was falling in! He yelped a warning and flattened himself against one wall, then shoved Alice out of the way. A panel and many pounds of metal pipes crashed down where they'd been standing, spraying cold water everywhere.

The fight stopped instantly. The troll had his club raised and a shocked look on his green-painted face. "Oh, man. Is anyone hurt?"

The Red Mage held up his staff as if trying to mystically freeze the water before shaking his head. Alice looked the crashed pipes up and down while water pooled around her. "We might be able to reattach them."

"It's too dangerous," said Vincent. "Someone call the Physical Plant people."

"No, no, I see a valve. Just let me hop up on you, Hector."

"Me?" Alice was already reaching for him, though, so he reluctantly clasped his hands and helped boost her by the soles of her wet, dirty boots. She was pretty light. A few seconds of fumbling later, she turned a handle and the largest pipe stopped leaking.

"There; that should limit the damage." She hopped down from Hector's hands like a gymnast.

The ogre stared at the jagged edges of the pipes and the cracked tiles where they'd hit. The collapsed panel had landed right next to one of the hidden markers on the wall. "That was close. Look, that's enough traps for one mission. I'm going to run off to get a repairman. Go ahead to the crystal room. I'll tell the GMs afterward to set your party up for the final dungeon."

Hector looked past the damaged area to the big lecture hall. "That room, right?"

"According to my calculations," said the Red Mage, "the crystal should be under one of the chairs in an even-numbered row. We'll have five minutes to search or fail the quest."

Vincent started to regain his enthusiasm. He smacked a fist into his other palm and said, "Right! There's a world to save. And I want to get to Tosci's for a sundae before they close."

Alice walked toward the lecture hall's door and opened it. "Uh, guys..."

Hector tilted his head. "What?"

"Just look."

They all crowded around her and stared into a jungle ruin.

Either Hector had greatly underestimated the Guild's special effects, or they hadn't put this place here. The waterfall could be related to the broken pipes outside, but not the vines and trees stretching impossibly high into a misty ceiling. A green crystal hovered and spun above the cupped hands of a broken statue, which depicted a woman with cat ears and a tail.

Vincent stammered. Alice listened to the jungle's faint music and turned to them, saying, "How?!"

The Red Mage paced around the ruin, his glowing staff burning slightly through the mist. "More or less matches Viera architecture of the Ivalice period," he muttered. "And of course all the statues are female."

Hector tilted his head and looked the ruins over. The ground felt soft. It transitioned smoothly from the linoleum tiles outside to moss and dirt, with just a suggestion of grid lines. Someone had left bird tracks in the ground by the entrance.

Vincent approached the crystal and stared up at it. "Hector? How much are you playing along with this game?"

Hector stepped closer to the statue's hands to admire the shimmering green light. "It's more realistic than I'd expected." Impossible! he thought.

"Something is seriously wrong here," said Alice. Somehow she'd gotten up onto a high tree branch.

"Not wrong," said Vincent. "Haven't you ever wanted to see something like this? A bit of magic in the world?"

Hector looked through the fog at the weathered rocks. Either someone had hauled in tons of masonry, or these were plaster replicas of higher quality than he'd ever seen before. The door back to normal reality showed up as a stone arch with electric light barely visible beyond it. "Yeah, but it's just a game." He scuffed one foot in the dirt, trying to sound nonchalant. He wanted to be someplace where his actions mattered, where he was a hero. Even a mission like "collect magic crystals" seemed less arbitrary than collecting student loans and course credits. The pull, the desire to believe what he was seeing, was intense enough that he even smelled moss and jungle flowers instead of sterile Institute air.

The Red Mage was lecturing to no one about conflicting interpretations of Ivalice culture as seen in various games, when he stopped in mid-word and noticed that his staff was glowing. "Obviously... obviously some impressive concealed lights." He looked nervously up to the invisible ceiling.

"Yeah!" said Hector, too loudly. "You know what? Let's go get that ice cream at Tosci's. Leave the questing until tomorrow when we're a little less rattled."

Vincent said, "You really can't believe your own eyes? Do you even see a string supporting the hovering crystal here? This is special! Somehow it's come here and I just wish --"

Hector's friend grabbed the emerald as he was talking, to hold it out toward the others, to show them that there was more than the Assassins' Guild behind what they were seeing. He never got to finish what he was saying, though. The wave of light that swept across the room made Hector feel as though he were being scoured all over with sandpaper. The noise of it was an angelic choir singing one note unbearably loud. Then, the light and noise were gone, and the four of them lay unconscious on the dirt.

[Snow]

Hector first noticed the shining lance on the floor, pointed toward his face. "Oh, right," he murmured, "you got the crystal one for plus three holy damage."

"Kupo," Alice complained. She pressed one hand to the ground and started to stand, then stared at it, drawing Hector's gaze to the same spot. Her hand was small and fuzzy, ending in claws, and the same white fur covered her bare arm and in fact, all over. A red pom-pom thing bounced above her head on its antenna. "What the hell? Are you seeing this?"

Hector struggled to stand up and felt like he was trying to climb over a pile of pillows. His hands didn't move right, and flopped around in odd ways.

His arms were white-feathered wings. He squawked -- the noise sounded like "Wark!" -- and noticed the curve of a black beak in the middle of his vision.

"Whoa, Hector! You look, uh, regal!" Vincent had a suit of bright plate armor (+2 defense against Shadow damage) with his non-specific sun god crest. Literally, now, and not just on his character sheet. He was grinning.

Hector took a moment to confirm that he was seeing what he thought he was. He couldn't feel his fingers, but could definitely feel wingfeathers against that hard shell-like thing where his nose and mouth should've been.

He had some trouble thinking for a minute or two after that, and at some point the Red Mage whacked him upside the head. "Quit panicking. What has happened is obvious. We just don't know why, or how I'm going to explain this to my officer in ROTC."

Vincent grinned wider. "Are you kidding? This is great! You probably even have a real spellbook now, one that's not made from an old copy of a Nintendo Power strategy guide."

The Red Mage's eyes widened and he fished through his stylish red robe (not much changed from the fancy one he'd already had) to find a gem-encrusted book. "I... think I need some time alone."

Alice steadied him before he could faint. "I'm a moogle, for God's sake! Magic mole-bat critter? Did anyone catch that, kupo?" She paused. "Damn it, I'm saying it already. And if we've just been hit with some kind of reality shift, then that noise over there is probably not special effects by the GMs. On guard!"

A lumbering beast the size of a horse stomped out from behind a ruined stone column. Armored plates covered its back and its mace-like tail.

"Ankylosaurus?" said the Red Mage.

Vincent picked up his lance. "Let's fight!"

Predictably, the sudden dinosaur charged at them. Vincent set his lance, but the creature dodged and only made the point slide along its tough hide. It whipped around and caught Vincent with its massive tail-club, slamming him to the ground despite his armor.

"Lightning!" shouted the Red Mage, dramatically holding his staff aloft. Nothing happened.

Alice found a sturdy-looking hammer on her toolbelt, and swung it mightily despite being fuzzy and cute. Her blow caught the dinosaur square in the leg and made it stagger. "No visible damage numbers? Aww." She hopped back out of range, making the little wings on her back flutter. "Get 'im, Vincent!"

Vincent struggled to stand. Hector tried to help him up, but found that his wings really weren't good for grabbing things. Instead, Vincent seized Hector's wing and pulled himself up with that, making Hector wince. Vincent said, "Sorry! Busy fighting dinosaurs!" and did a stabbing charge.

Hector hung back while his friend and Alice laid into the dinosaur and the Red Mage tried to figure out how to actually cast spells. He shook his beaky head at the madness. They were in danger, but he couldn't help feel that it was insignificant, equivalent to the dozen mock battles they'd already had.

Vincent grunted and skidded backwards, scraping sparks from his armor against stone. This time he'd gotten bashed in the head, hard enough to bleed. Hector gaped. This was the guy he'd seen doodling dragons in physics class, suddenly knocked out of the world of academics into actual trouble.

"I can't do this!" said the Red Mage, shaking his staff in frustration. "Heal him, Hector!"

"How?!"

"I don't know!" The Red Mage was suddenly busy trying to fight in melee against a multi-ton dinosaur.

Vincent lurched closer to where Vincent had landed and poked him with one wing, saying, "Uh, heal?" To his surprise, his feathers shined with warm, pure white light, and Vincent's wounds closed in seconds. The man sprang right up and returned to the fight as though nothing had happened, cheering himself on.

Hector stepped backward and looked at his wings again, tilting his head to stare with one eye and then the other. "I did that?"

The ankylosaurus roared and thudded to the ground, slain at last. Something metallic clattered against the "ancient" stones and rolled into the moss and vines.

Alice moved in a blur to scoop up the things that'd fallen. "Gold! These have gotta be at least tenth-ounce coins, kupo!"

Vincent twirled his lance around in a victory pose, wearing a look of satisfaction. "I could get used to this." He stepped toward Hector and said, "That was amazing! You saved me back there. And did you see when the 'saurus was like, 'Raar!' and reared up and I jabbed it in the chest?"

The Red Mage crowded close, too. "How did you get your healing to work after all? I don't think I'm a Vancian-style wizard, but I probably need time to study this spellbook. It's never made clear in canon how spell preparation works."

Alice bounced over with an armful of jingling, shiny coins. "Help yourselves. Ben Bernanke is my new nemesis!"

Hector flapped in dismay. "I have no idea. Why are you three taking this, this lunacy so well? Why aren't you asking how the hell this is happening -- and how long before we get into some dumb plot about a guy trying to blow up the multiverse?"

Vincent grinned and took a single coin from Alice. He tried biting the metal and found it was soft enough to leave a tooth mark. "See this? Gold. Freaking gold pieces, dropped for no real reason by a freaking dinosaur in a temple that shouldn't be here. What could be better?"

"Platinum?" said Alice.

Vincent patted Hector's wings. "And look at these. Magic! I think it's working for you because it comes intuitively to your species."

"My species? I'm not a chocobo, despite whatever did this to me. I've got this ridiculous beak and the wings, but..."

"And the feet."

Hector glanced down. Shreds of his shoes hung from great big, yellow, taloned bird feet. One toe of each faced backwards. "When did these happen?"

"Gradually, I bet," said the Red Mage. He was waving the gnarled wooden staff around Hector's feet as though searching him for metal.

"Then is it not over?! I don't want to be a bird!"

Vincent looked the others over. "Hey, mage. How into it are you?"

"Into it? I love the thought of getting spells and everything! I just want to know what the hell is going on."

The paladin took him by the shoulders and smiled. "That's your problem. Overthinking it. You're a wizard; you have mastery of the arcane! Who cares why you have power? Just let it happen, like Hector did!" He looked over his shoulder at Alice. "You don't mind this either, right?"

"Well, no," she said, "but how am I going to explain --"

"Don't bother! You're cute!"

Alice blushed under her fur. "Kupo."

Hector took a few tentative steps on his bird feet and made for the stone arch marking the doorway. He poked one claw beyond the arch and felt it clack against linoleum. "Let's get out of here. Who knows what else is going wrong?"

Vincent tried to chase him, then found that indeed, his armor was slowing him down. He'd gained the dreaded "freshman fifteen" that came from eating Aramark cafeteria food instead of having parental guidance for the first time. "Whoa, Hector."

The others followed Hector out. Those three looked back with longing at the mysterious ruin. Hector, though, was lost in thought. The hallway had turned dangerous, so maybe the bits of fantasy had leaked out even farther into campus. Worse, they hadn't changed back by leaving. Considering the logic of the games...

Vincent interrupted his train of thought by reaching into the big belt pouches Hector wore and stuffing the new crystal in there. "Hey, Alice, you can keep the gold in here too."

Hector squawked. "Excuse me." He glanced down and saw that the containers had shifted, becoming more like proper saddlebags. At least he still had his jeans and shirt, for now. "I'm not your beast of burden."

"Sure you are!" said Vincent. "Don't worry; I'm not trying to hop up on your back and ride you." Alice snickered.

Hector grumbled at the indignity. "Next quest: contacting the GMs and campus police."

"Yes, actually," said the Red Mage. They all started down the hall back the way they'd come. No monsters, at least yet, and no more traps. Alice did check for little scraps of paper announcing them, though.

They came to Lobby 10, at the center of campus, and found that everything was going wrong. It was evening, yet the sky through the south windows glowed eerie purple. Purple, of course, was the color of evil magic, along with black. The square of campus lawn had become a Gothic tower with sickly thorns and swirling purple runes around it. A dozen other students in costume stood by the windows, gaping, or had actually ventured out to stare at the lawn.

"I think they already know," said Alice.

Hector stepped closer to the crowd. "Are you guys crazy? Get away! There could be --"

Some of the students turned to him and saw his wings and beak, and Alice with her weird fuzzy mole-bat body, and Vincent with his metal armor and crystal lance. "Whoa! What happened to you? Is this thing spreading? Magic!" Hector noticed that they weren't saying, "Nice costume." They'd seen the tower. He felt people poking at his wing feathers.

Vincent grinned and held up one gauntleted hand. "Yep! The fantasy's coming true. Don't worry, everyone! We'll vanquish the evil -- what was his name again?"

"Dark Lord Bishnara," said the Red Mage.

"Him. And bring peace to the Institute!"

Hector slapped his beak with one wing. "Dark Lord Bishnara is that crazy sophomore who pranked the Harvard people into letting him steal back T.I.M. the Beaver's mascot paw, remember? I don't think it'd look good on your transcript if you stabbed him, even while he monologues about blowing up the universe."

"No," said Vincent. "Why are you still thinking in terms of transcripts and campus games? We've made it, Hector! Whatever caused this outbreak of fantasy chose us to be part of it! We belong out there, assaulting the tower and saving the world."

Hector thought back to the normal reality of just a day ago, to the world that he was maybe a little more aware of than the average freshman. "If the world's really in danger, it's from a bunch of boring politicians and their broken-souled followers, not some melodramatic giggling maniac with a katana. If you want to collect magic crystals, fine, but only for the sake of fixing this hole in reality instead of turning the world into your playground."

"Geez. Don't take this so seriously," said Vincent. He hefted his lance and grinned for the crowd, speaking more loudly. "Stay safe, everyone -- and enjoy the show! Onward, friends!"

Reluctantly, Hector followed Vincent along with Alice and the Red Mage. The Lobby 10 doors opened. He felt freezing wind whip through his feathers, a startling sensation, and shut his eyes for a moment. It was a little reassuring to know that other people saw strange things going on; it wasn't just his own brain going haywire. The people back there really might be in danger, though. His own curiosity about the source of this madness was less important than to use what power he had, to make sure any threat was contained.

The evil tower stood ten stories high, making it less impressive than Building 54 but still daunting. Worse yet, creatures made of blurry shadows and claws were crawling from the thorn hedge around it. Hector said, "Alice, do you somehow have anything better than a hammer now?"

The moogle girl patted down the various pouches and pockets she wore. There were probably twice as many as there'd been before that last crystal; she'd been too busy to notice more than the fur and wings. "A fragile jar with 'Bottled Lightning' on the label... Ooh, a ribbon. And this!" She pulled out a crossbow from a too-small holster.

The Red Mage was frantically skimming his spellbook. Hector wondered what he saw in there.

Vincent said, "Charge!" and began running. Two strides later he stumbled and fell.

Hector stepped closer and offered him a wing. "No charging. Monsters plus thorn wall. Retreat." The shadow-things were starting to circle them.

Alice said, "Guys! Over by Building 4!" Off to their left, the usual grey campus buildings dipped into the earth, forming a sinkhole and a tunnel.

Vincent hefted his lance. "We'll fight our way over there. Hector, stay with me this time." He ran without waiting for an answer.

Hector sighed and ran along with him, per the rules of this game. This time Vincent didn't stumble, and Alice and the Red Mage hurried after them. They were headed right for the shadow-beasts! Hector squawked and tried to do... something.

He found himself leaping to kick one of the creatures with his outstretched, taloned foot. The move slammed the shadow-thing to the ground, where he landed expertly and kept on running. He glanced backward and saw it whirling away into the air, apparently slain. Nice! The thorns whipped by on their right and more things were lurching out from under the wall.

"Duck!" said Alice. She fluttered ahead in a sort of gliding leap and fired her crossbow at an inky flapping shadow overhead. The recoil sent her flying backward. Hector reflexively stuck out a wing to catch her. "How does it have that much kick? Oh." Whatever the flapping thing was, it thudded to the ground and died with a bolt all the way through it.

The Red Mage was trying to read even while they ran. "Down those stairs. Just give me a minute."

"We don't have a minute," said Vincent. The fog of ink and darkness was taking shape around them, like a living wall that borrowed mass from the thorns. The paladin started to herd everyone into the jagged stairs that led down into darkness, where there should have been a classroom. The entire building sloped into the sunken ground.

"Fine." The Red Mage flipped his cloak dramatically to one side, raised his staff, and made it shine with blue light that pierced the clouds. "I call forth -- Water!" The sky parted and a very precise rainstorm appeared, more like a wave called sideways from the Atlantic. It slammed down on the nearest mass of shadow-creatures and washed them away as though they hadn't been there, leaving a blob of seaweed and plastic bottles in its wake. The air suddenly smelled of salt.

Alice retreated into the tunnels. Vincent cheered, "You did it! You let it happen!" Hector felt stunned, but didn't let his body show it. He tried to grab the Red Mage, then settled for shoving the elated wizard along with his wings before any of the other critters could eat him.

[Snow]

The fantasy had infected the sunken Building 4. The ordinary dingy hall had merged with its own basement and become a stylized maze of mismatched doors and pipes. The Red Mage fiddled with his staff, grinning at the others while he re-lit it. "Magic!"

"Focus," said Hector. "Whatever's going on ahead, we need to stop it."

"We'll take down Bishnara!" said Vincent, and pushed ahead of Alice to lead with spear in hand.

They explored tunnels and a winding ramp that must have been taking them up through the tower. Inside this place the jumble of campus features had become a surreal scrap-heap of desks, chairs, and blackboards jutting at dangerous angles. Book piles snapped and growled at them; electric lights bobbed through the air on phantom currents.

A thing made of rusty pipes charged at them. It happened while they were climbing the spiral ramp, so there was hardly room to dodge. Vincent set his lance and ushered the others back. The beast shattered on impact, showering them with loose metal.

Alice shrieked. Hector saw a long gash along her chest. He crouched beside her and began to heal the wound by letting some sort of pale energy wash over her, cleansing the blood away and even repairing the clothing and fur.

"Did you see that? One hit!" Vincent turned back to grin at them, then saw Alice. "You okay?"

Alice nodded weakly and leaned against Hector to stand up. Hector took a deep breath and shuddered. He'd just done something that should have taken a hospital visit. If even the random monsters were this dangerous, he had to stick around until the end.

"You look haunted," said Alice.

Hector's beak clacked. He realized he'd been thinking of running away before anything worse happened to him. "Already lost my hands," he murmured.

She patted him on his feathery neck. "We'll get you fixed up. Maybe you can become a White Mage?"

"I don't know. Let's go."

Soon they reached the inevitable huge door, which opened for them to reveal the inevitable hyperspace battlefield. Spinning lights gave Hector vertigo, as though they were caught in a planetarium. Hector's talons clacked on a floor of mercifully ordinary stonework, lit by the shifting walls... and the scarlet glow of Lord Bishnara.

The sophomore hovered, with his features obscured by a creepy mask of light. "Welcome, friends!" He began to rant as he'd done before, something about the inevitable triumph of darkness.

Vincent stepped forward and pointed his lance. "That's where you're wrong! "Dreams will always vanquish the darkness!" A huge grin filled his face. He went on at some length about light and friendship, making up the speech as he went along. The 'argument' was as obligatory as the villain's. "And I have worthy allies at my side!"

Hector tried to ignore the speeches. He paced around the room, getting used to the swaying lights and deciding how he might make himself useful. Then he looked up and saw the tendrils of light descending from the ceiling and onto Bishnara. As he suspected: "He's being controlled."

"And so you will taste the light of justice!" Vincent concluded.

Hector called out, "Vincent, I said something's controlling him. Mask and puppet strings. Break 'em."

"Right!" said Alice and the Red Mage. Vincent looked startled and annoyed at their reaction. Luckily for him, orbs of malevolent starlight swirled into view and gave him something to stab.

Hector fought as well as he could. He caught himself pecking at one of the hovering things, a sort of  headbutt that made it bleed tiny galaxies. Something lashed the Red Mage while he was casting. Hector hopped in front of him as a shield, trusting the man to come up with a useful spell. Alice fired precisely into the brawl, and Vincent called out tactical orders that everyone else was too busy to heed.

Blasts of air like boomerangs slashed overhead at the Red Mage's command. The puppet strings of scarlet energy snapped, one by one.

"Now!" said Vincent. "Over here, Hector!"

Hector hurried closer and raised one wing. "Are you hurt?"

"Charge!" Vincent ran at Bishnara with his lance couched, ready to stab him in the face.

"Idiot!" The man was using him to justify being able to run again. They were too close. All Hector could do was jump into harm's way to keep that stupid plus-three crystal lance from murdering an innocent student.

It got Hector instead, through the wing and side. He flopped to the ground, flicking blood into the air and squawking. He vaguely saw Vincent draw back in shock. The Red Mage seemed to approach in slow motion. Hector flailed and tried to see if he could use his healing powers on himself. It felt like it was working, but he was too dizzy to be sure.

"Heal him!" said the Red Mage, crouching over him. "You can 'lay on hands' or something, right? I haven't had the chance to read the White Magic section yet and it's probably intuitive for you."

Alice fired endless rounds from her semi-auto crossbow. "More orb-things incoming."

Hector felt the world spin a little less horribly, and realized much of the dizziness was just from the room's planetarium styling. He still had trouble standing. "Give me a second. Can you yank the mask off him? Or get the other 'strings'?"

The Red Mage was busy staving off the will-o-wisps that were circling in. "I need someone to cover me while I cast again. Vincent?"

The paladin's eyes were wide and his hand trembled, pointing. "We need that!" Hector followed his gaze to a hovering, spinning red crystal. Their battle had exposed it, knocking it to a lower position. Almost within reach, if Bishnara didn't defend it well.

Hector managed to stand up, still slightly bloody and aching. "Stick to the plan, Vincent. Help me cover the caster."

"No, look! If we can just touch it, we'll be -- complete! We need the power to finish this. Help me get up there."

Already, Bishnara was starting to regenerate, and his wispy minions grew more numerous. The sham villain's laugh chilled Hector. Maybe the man really was trying to kill them.

Alice kept close by, shooting and hammering away. She poked the Red Mage, saying, "Forget about him. Get started!"

Complete. Hector shuddered. The first crystal's effects had been subtle, the second's overt. What did it mean to be some silly giant bird with healing magic? It meant being the paladin's noble steed, and who knew just how much that role would change him? He stepped toward Vincent and pointed one wing at him. "I don't want to be your damn bird-horse, Vincent."

Alice said, "You're cute like this."

"That's beside the point!"

The Red Mage chanted, making runes spiral up from his staff and open spellbook. A wisp slammed into him and sent tiny tornadoes flying. He grunted and started again, though surrounded more and more by the villain's minions.

"You'll see," said Vincent. "Magic, destiny, a quest -- it can all be ours! It'll be great; I'll show you."

Hector cursed. He started to leap toward Vincent to tackle him and keep him away from the magic ruby. The monsters were too close to the caster, though. Damn. "Alice, can you handle --"

"No!" She'd lost the crossbow and gained a frantic look, slamming her hammer back and forth. Something had gashed her leg. Hector couldn't even spare his attention for that; the mage needed him right here.

Fine, then. If getting screwed over worse by this fantasy was what it took to save the day, he'd deal with it. He made himself ignore Vincent and whip around to flap and kick at anything that threatened the Red Mage. Come on, come on! he was thinking.

Blades of wind shot out from the air above the Red Mage and spun unerringly toward Bishnara, interrupting his cackling. They clipped through the threads of light holding him above the floor and sliced half a dozen of his battle-wisps. The sophomore overlord crashed onto the starlit floor. Somewhere, Hector heard a triumphant cry from Vincent turn into one of shock and disappointment. Their enemies were gone, but Vincent apparently hadn't gotten what he wanted.

"The crystal's gone!" Vincent shouted. "Help me find it."

Hector went cautiously over to Bishnara and poked him with a healing wingtip. "Done ranting about the apocalypse?"

The Dark Lord coughed and sputtered. Chunks of the etheral mask he'd been wearing fell to the floor and faded away. "That was... fun."

"We must apologize again," said an angelic voice. Hector and everyone else turned to find a vaguely humanoid mass of fog shot through with starlight. "Bishnara, thank you for playing this role for Us. You will be rewarded once We clean up this mess."

The Red Mage said, "You! What are you?"

The angel had no clear facial features, but its leathery, misty wings stood in a proud pose. "We must introduce Ourselves. You may call us Esper, so long as We're using terms from your games. We mean you no harm and will undo the harm We've caused to your city. As for your world's new knowledge that something beyond their known reality exists, We have only confirmed old suspicions and offered some actual evidence for them."

Esper swam, more than walked, through the room of stars, looking at each of them in turn. "We are here to recruit potential heroes. The world We represent is not the same as the silly rules of this game, but you would find it comprehensible. With the right mindset, a human could thrive there." It pointed toward the Red Mage and said, "We chose your party. Arranged your meeting. You chose the roles you would play."

Vincent's gauntleted hands still held the lance as though he feared another battle. "But the last crystal -- what about that?"

"It wasn't necessary in the end. Your friends won."

"I'm at your service, then, if there's a quest to go on. Another world to see. Please."

Esper's wings suddenly furled, sending cold mist across the room. "No. You failed, paladin. Were you even listening to your 'steed', here?"

"I almost had the crystal. Then we would've been able --"

"To do what? To transform him into your mount so that he'd be under your control forever? Did you care that he didn't want that? From where We watched it didn't seem that way."

Hector felt he had to defend this man, someone he'd stayed up late with to work on homework, and who'd introduced him to the Assassins' Guild games. "He just got carried away."

"A paladin doesn't allow himself to 'get carried away'. The power he holds is dangerous without uncommon restraint."

What's chivalry? asked an old joke Hector had read somewhere. Answer: It's the difference between knights, and the bad guys in slasher movies.

Vincent trembled, not sorry but defiant. "You, whatever you are. You gave us this adventure and a villain to slay. I just wanted to help us all."

"And who risked their own future to protect others and prevent pointless bloodshed? The party's true paladin is your friend Hector."

Hector squawked. "Me?"

Alice had put her hammer away. "You could make it work. Though it'd be a shame to lose the feathers."

"I want to know all about this!" said the Red Mage. "How does your magic work with our physics? Are you from our own space-time or some other plane or dimension, if that's the right term?"

The angel's pose had the suggestion of a smile. "Your reward will be knowledge. Keep that spellbook of yours; you won't have the magic itself but the contents will help you discover many things." It turned to Alice and said, "You should confer with the mage, there, and win a few awards for your discoveries. Do you like the fuzzy 'moogle' body you ended up with? Keep it, then."

Alice grinned. "Cool! Er, Kupo!"

Hector raised a wing. "Can I have my hands back?"

"Of course! You'll need them to handle a weapon where you're going -- if you wish to come with Us."

Hector leaned forward, beak clacking faintly. "To your world. To an adventure."

"Yes."

"Not if I can't tell my family, if I can't ever see them again."

"Oh, you'll be in contact, and We can arrange visits once in a while. A paladin doesn't abandon his own."

Vincent shut his eyes for a moment. After all this adventuring he'd wondered if it would all go away, if the fantasy had to end. "What about my friends? Vincent is the one who really wants this." He'd been willing to do anything for a life of heroism -- which was his problem.

"We can't take more than two of you," said Esper. It looked at Vincent in his fancy armor and added, "A paladin needs a helpful, intelligent steed. The role can be honorable if there's mutual trust, respect and willingness. What do you say?"

Vincent threw down his lance. "What? You want me to be his chocobo steed and sleep in the stables while he gets the glory?!"

Hector boggled. "Don't take this the wrong way, Vincent, but it could be fun."

"But it's not fair! I want this armor, this lance, this life. It belongs to me!"

"Yes, your life belongs to you," Esper said. "Your friend's life does not." It raised one wispy arm, and he vanished. A pile of armor clattered to the floor.

Hector suddenly felt his hands flexing. They were back! He gave a happy squawk and found he'd kept the beak and taloned feet, with a chest full of white feathers. His arms ended in three-fingered talon-hands. More dignified; more suited for a knight than an incompletely transformed mount.

Alice whistled at him. "Nice bird-man look!"

"I kind of like it," he said. "What about Vincent?"

"He will wake up at home, and hopefully learn from the experience. He's no longer your problem."

The Red Mage had a huge grin. "As long as you're changing people, may I request moogle?" A moment later, he'd changed to match Alice, who laughed and hugged him. He said, "Nobel prizes in physics ahead. You can borrow my book anytime!"

"And Bishnara?" said Hector. He looked back at the sophomore, who stood now and dusted himself off. He was dressed in his silly villain costume, unadorned by actual magic now.

"Don't worry about me. Esper asked nicely before doing this to me, and I'm getting something nice out of it." His grin was a little unnerving. "You'll see. By the way, Hector: thanks."

"You asked if he'd volunteer to be a cackling maniac shooting magic at us?"

"We wouldn't have forced him into something so dangerous. That's... part of why and how We're recruiting from your world to fight for Ours." Esper reached toward Vincent and said, "Are you ready to see it?"

Vincent looked back and forth around the room, tilting his head like a bird's. "You guys -- there's a spot free."

"We're good," said the Red Mage. "Bring back data when you visit! Maybe some healing potions too."

Alice was already flipping through the spellbook and smacking her forehead. "Look at this. It's just a hint, but it looks like Alcubierre missed something..."

The Red Mage paled. "We're going to be a little busy, Hector. Have fun."

Hector nodded, and let Esper pull him away, to another world. It was, of course, only the beginning.

[Raf_Cian]

That was an unexpectedly enjoyable read. Not that I wasn't expecting your work to be of poor quality. I just didn't expect a chocobo TF to be enjoyable one way or the other to me. You managed to make this extremely deep though. It's nice when a story has a deeper purpose.

Small editing critique, you called Hector Vincent twice near the end: in the sixth and fifth to last paragraph. I'm not someone you should look towards for editing advice, but it just sort of jumped out at me that Vincent had already left the building.

In any event, thank you for sharing.

[Virmir]

Really enjoyed this. I was wondering how you'd make the story unexpected, considering we pretty much know what's going to happen from the start, but the plot with the not getting completely immersed in the game and forgetting what you're doing was very nicely done! I love the part at the end: "Can I be a moogle too?" "Sure!" *poof*

Thanks for sharing!