Stop All Yer Glitchin'!
Chapter One: The Darkness
It had all started just outside Bone Village. Cloud had made an 'exciting discovery' and was itching to test it out. Although he had not been detailed in his requests, Cloud had demanded that both Aeris and Tifa would accompany him into the forest in order to 'kick some monster ass'. It was a most unusual request, Tifa thought. Most often Cloud would be making some sort of excuse to avoid battling: "I'm powerful enough!" or "Man, I just did my hair…". Could some new shiny sword have captured his attention enough to sway him into the heat of the battle? This Tifa did not know, but at least his attempt at feebly slashing randomly at monsters should provide a small moment of pleasurable satisfaction.
For Aeris it was different. All throughout the journey with Cloud she felt that she had been shunted into the background, never playing an important part. Rarely did she enter into Cloud's prized party, where he would ask two other members of the group to join him on his globetrotting. There were many tears shed over this 'party selection'; Aeris, Red XII and Tifa were almost never selected, ever since they left from Midgar. Always Cloud would have Barret by his left, his so-called "bodyguard", and Yuffie to his right, just a little in front so he could peer up her mini-skirt now and then. Aeris was witness to many outbursts of frustration and jealousy from Tifa, as she beat up a local stray dog viciously or spontaneously sold her body to older men on the Wall Market to feel some shred of reciprocated love and affection. Aeris was content to lay awake at night alone in the dark, a bottle of gin in one hand and a cigarette in the other, so she could cry herself to sleep in a drunken stupor while humming that song her dead mother used to sing to her.
As Aeris slowly entered into the forest, there she saw Cloud, clutching a moderately-sized Command material in his small fist; it shined brilliantly, and that could have been enough to capture Cloud's attention. Little did Aeris know that this was the fabled W-Item Materia, long-sought after by adventurists, and chanced upon by Cloud as he crawled through the dirt looking for treasure amongst old bones.
"Cloud?" Aeris began; she swayed a little in the breeze as she drew closer to Cloud.
"Huh, you drunk again?" he spat bitterly.
"No.. I promise, Cloud. I said I wouldn't let you down again…" she replied weakly, looking away at a nearby branch.
"Shut it, bitch!" he demanded as he turned and raised his fist. She flinched and drew her arms up to her face. She did not want another black eye. Just then, Tifa entered onto the scene, saving what could have been quite a demonstration from Cloud's fury.
"Cloud!" Tifa called out, "What did you want to see us about?"
Cloud composed himself and once again drew his attention to the W-Item Materia.
"This is a new materia I want to test." He began, slowly. "Let's find a monster. All you got to do is to take the damage the monster dishes out whilst I open up the inventory menu and exploit a repetitive glitch that gives me duplicates of items until your health runs out, that is: you die."
Aeris and Tifa stood in the cold wind of the forest for a moment, silent.
"Let's do it." Tifa said, resolutely, with a small nod of the head. She was so not going to give him a phoenix down when he needed it, she thought, coldly. But inside her she felt wanted, even if she truly knew that was not so.
The battle was a long one, and the monster was pretty tough. It was a huge dinosaur skeleton that could somehow move, much to Aeris' and Tifa's misery: standing well over twenty feet tall, they were no match for the monster. Every few seconds or so it would strike a devastating sweep with its tail and break another two or three of Tifa's bones. At least she was not doing as bad as Aeris, who should now know better about trying to mount a living dinosaur skeleton with just a staff. Beneath the dinosaur she lay in a broken heap, her dress torn, covered in shit as she writhed around in the mud occasionally being trampled upon by the sharp eviscerating claws of the dinosaur.
"How…" Tifa began, having to spit out some blood and teeth. "How much longer, fucker?!" she screamed at Cloud, as he stood there motionless, going through the inventory and duplicating Power Source after Power Source. He was going to be the most whacked-out power fighter, ever.
As Cloud reached the amount limit of items, capped at 99, and Tifa was having her arms chewed off by the dinosaur, something bad happened. As he duplicated the item once more, unaware of the 99 amount limit, everything went black. It was as if they were standing in space, with nothing else there except him, Tifa, the surely dead Aeris and the dinosaur, still battling it out with the party. Immediately exiting the inventory screen, Cloud quickly used the Climhazard ability he had acquired through his limit break and finished with the monster. After the getting-rather-tiring-now victory dance he always partook in at the end of the battle, he quickly ran over to the bodies of Aeris and Tifa, navigating through his menu for a couple of phoenix downs.
Just then, he realised that reviving them could be a bad decision. What if they were not happy with the way he had been treating them? Just before the dinosaur snapped her neck like a twig, Tifa was about rip off Cloud's head; what is to say she won't try to kill him after he has saved her? It was not worth the risk. After all, why would a man with potentially infinite Power Sources need a group of backward lackeys at his behest? It would be more exciting to do it alone, to take all the glory of defeating Sephiroth for himself! To revel in the majesties of the folklore, ever to be recounted as a hero of legend who saved the world all by himself!
"To hell with party members!" Cloud cried out, still in the darkness. Running hastily away from their bodies, Cloud headed in any direction that took his fancy, hoping to get somewhere other than here. Upon reaching the border, Cloud vanished into the darkness. For Aeris and Tifa it was a most lucky day for them, as who should enter onto the scene but Barret? After Barret's discovery of the battered women, he immediately gave them phoenix downs and revived them, careful not to get too close to Aeris who was covered in shit and stank to high hell. As Tifa came back to life, she had only one thing upon her mind, and that was to kill Cloud.