Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Why Forwarding is Not Recommended ❯ Chapter 1

Why Forwarding is Not Recommended

By True Darem

A wave of causality rippled through reality, dragging someone behind it. It was Cloud Strife, who had taken the rather unpleasant chance of poking his head into a hole in space/time and was playing somewhat dearly for it.

The tunnel created by the "Forwarding Device", as it was called in its home dimension, was weaving through various realities in search of its source. Cloud had given up screaming and was just going along for the ride. He wondered if he'd get out alive, but that bit of fear had gone out of his head after the third time his molecules divided into two groups.

The tunnel was about an hour from its origin when the ride stopped and Cloud was pitched onto a hard substance. His first words upon smacking into what felt like softened concrete was, "Am I dead now?"

A voice like ice being high-batted said, "Of course you're not dead. If you were, I wouldn't have stopped the tunnel, now would I?"

Cloud managed to remember the sequence of movements for raising his head and did so. What he saw was a neat little man sitting at a long desk. The man continued, "I stopped the tunnel because I needed to get some things cleared with you. Please sit down." The man pressed a button on his desk, and Cloud was suddenly sitting upright in a leather desk chair. Unfortunately, it lacked ball casters.

"Okay…" Cloud tried to reactivate the vocal portion of his brain stem. "What do you want from me?"

The man (who was identified by a nametag as Mr. Contorte) pulled a number of sheets of paper out of his top drawer and dropped them on his desk. Yanking a pen from his pocket and placing it in Cloud's hand, Mr. Contorte said, "Do you agree not to engage in any action which will lead to damage to the environment of the world you are heading to?"

Cloud managed to nod.

Mr. Contorte pointed to the top form on the pile. "Please sign here, and print your name here."

Remembering the procedure for moving his arms, Cloud signed the form.

Taking the form, Mr. Contorte put it in a manila envelope. Writing "Strife, Cloud" on the name portion, the man then asked, "Do you agree not to engage in any action which will irreversibly change the history of the world you are heading to?"

Again, Cloud nodded.

Mr. Contorte pointed to the next form. "Then sign here, put your initials here, and write your last name on this line."

Cloud signed the new form. His consciousness was coming back online, and he asked, "What is this for?"

Mr. Contorte took the form as he explained, "This is all legal procedure. We can't have people zapping back and forth between dimensions without some way of keeping track of them, you know. Otherwise, reality will take too much damage. Now then…" He pulled out a new form. "Do you agree not to engage in activities that will lead to the establishment of new governments in the world you are heading to?"

Cloud nodded once more.

By now you know what came next…

Cloud lost what was left of his patience somewhere around the ninth form. He stood up, drew his Buster Sword, and shouted, "This is enough! I want to get out of here!"

Mr. Contorte, with a somewhat understanding look, drew a tall stack of forms from his middle drawer and placed them on his desk. "Well then, fill out these forms and we can send you back to the tunnel. And then you won't need to fill out forms on any other trip through dimensions."

Cloud stared at the stack. "This will take months!"

Mr. Contorte's response was, "Time doesn't exist here. I suggest you start writing." With another button press, a new table rose on the corner of the concrete.

Sighing, Cloud put his sword away and took the forms to the table, where he started writing.

After what felt like months, he signed the last form and took the stack back to Mr. Contorte. His arms felt dislocated. "There. It's all finished. Can I go now?"

Mr. Contorte looked at the forms, shook his head, and pulled out two more stacks as large as the first. "Oh, I'm sorry. You need to fill the forms out in triplicate. I should have told you…"

With a war cry, Cloud drew his sword, cut Mr. Contorte in half, slammed the "Tunnel On" button, and dove into the tunnel again.

Quietly, Mr. Contorte pulled himself back together, got out of his chair, and started melting back into his real shape. "Blast. I thought he would fall for that. It's so much easier to feed when they're exasperated…"

With a chortle, the Zodiac Monster Queklain the Impure King wobbled away.