I do not claim to own Final Fantasy. If I did, VI would've been remade and the Compilation wouldn't exist.


The Temple of the Ancients began shrinking almost as soon as the party left. Cait Sith had done it; The Black Materia was theirs. Cloud waited until the temple stopped shrinking, and slid down into the rectangular pit that was created in the process. At the center was the ultimate magical weapon, the Black Materia.

Cloud picked it up and Aerith, Cid, and Vincent following him to the bottom. "So, this is what Sephiroth's after?" Vincent asked.

Aerith nodded. "Yes, the Black Materia. As long as we hold on to it, Sephiroth can't summon Meteor."

"Guess it's a good thing we got to it before Sephiroth could," Cloud said to the party. "We just need to hold on to it for as long as we need to, and make sure that he never-" At that moment, Cloud had a realization,

"Say, Aerith…" Cloud tossed the Materia up and down. "Does this thing do anything other than summon Meteor?"

"Does it?" Aerith pondered for a moment. "No, I don't suppose it does. We'd have known if it did, and even if it does have another use, Meteor's the main thing. But Cloud, I don't see what that has to do-"

Before she could finish her sentence, Cloud set the Black Materia onto the ground, took out his Buster Sword, and brought it down onto the Materia as hard as he could. He continued smashing it until it was in tiny, tiny pieces that were indistinguishable from the dirt.

The whole process took about half a minute, and Cloud was panting after it was over. The rest of the party stared at him, with gaping mouths. Cid's cigarette had fallen out of his mouth.

Cait Sith #2 had arrived halfway through the smashing, and as such was the first to speak. "Crikey, lad, what was THAT about?!"

Cloud turned towards the robotic moogle thing. "…Oh, hey, I didn't see you there. I don't really understand the question."

Cid picked up his cigarette, and replied, "He asked, why the #$% did you do that?!"

Cloud holstered the Buster Sword on his back. "Why did I do it? I think the question is, why WOULDN'T I do that? I mean, the Black Materia is only useful for summoning a giant asteroid to kill everything. Why would something like that even exist?"

"Oooooh," the party said in unison.

"So I decided," Cloud finished, "That it had no reason to exist, so I just smashed the entire thing."

Vincent nodded in understanding. "That makes logical sense, actually."

"Yeah!" Barret exclaimed. "Without that white-haired momma's boy to worry about, the Shinra won't be as much of a threat!"

Yuffie laughed out loud. "Could you imagine what would happen if we just held onto the thing?"

Cloud chuckled. "Yeah, Sephiroth might've waltzed up to us, used Jenova to take it from us, and go on his merry way blowing up the planet."

"And you know what else?" Aerith added, "One of us might've died!"

The whole party shared a giant laugh at their prior idiocy.