Desperate Times, Desperate Measures
Nobody had really, truly thought that it would happen. Of course other smaller companies had made drastic cuts, fired thousands of people and in the worst cases dissolved into bankruptcy. But everyone had thought that the almighty Shinra Electrical Company was beyond the claws of the recession. I mean who doesn't need electricity?
However one dark Thursday morning, Rufus Shinra was sat at a large table, white suit neatly pressed, blond hair slicked down. Either side of his chair stood Reno and Rude, both in dark suits staring ahead but ready to spring into action should the need arise. The other occupants of the large round table also wore suits of varying shades and styles and were all glaring at the blonde.
"Shinra…" One began, tapping ash from a large cigar into a solid gold ash tray. "The profits from the last quarter have dipped somewhat alarmingly. We're now…what was the phrase the media are using, Anderson?"
"Fucked, sir." A butler behind him offered.
"That's it. Which as you can imagine has somewhat destroyed confidence in the company. Share prices have crashed so much that I'm actually paying for the privilege to hold my six percent of the company." A large fist beat down on the table as his tone rose. "What are you going to do about it?" He once again tapped ash from his cigar, but this time it fell onto the table.
Behind him a removal man in blue overalls bowed apologetically as he stuffed the ash tray into a bin bag.
"I can assure you all, we are most certainly not fucked." Rufus said, eyes narrowing as he stood up so that he could tower over them all. "I have never been fucked in my life!"
To his left Reno didn't even bother to conceal his snigger.
"Gentlemen, times are hard for everyone. We just need to make a few cuts." He insisted, going to sit back down again and falling to the floor.
Bemused, the other business men leaned forwards to see the top of Rufus' hair. Behind Rufus the removal man once again bowed apologetically and wheeled the leather chair out of the room.
"Cuts will be made in every department." Rufus continued, standing up as if nothing amiss had happened. Gentlemen I assure you all that your shares in Shinra Electrical Company will once again make you millions of gil. I have a foolproof strategy. Rude, the PowerPoint presentation!" Rufus barked, as Rude scrambled to set up the projector.
"No no no, yo. You need to set the channel to input." Reno offered, as the two Turks struggled to get the overhead projector to display on the screen. "Sorry Boss-man. Just a second, yo?"
Rufus tapped his foot impatiently as Rude pressed buttons on the projector until the blue screen flashed with the Microsoft opening sequence. Rufus's laptop desktop appeared on the large screen behind him and Rude bypassed the icon labelled 'hard core doujinshi' to find the PowerPoint presentation. Colourful barcharts soon filled the screen.
"As you can see, the blue bar…wait, where's my laser pointer? I can't do a PowerPoint presentation without my laser pointer!" Rufus's voice rose to an alarmingly high pitch, so much so that Reno and Rude rushed to find the object…and noticed the removal man ready to put it in the bin bag.
"Hey, yo! Can you hold off for a second?" Reno asked, glancing nervously over his shoulder to where a small vein was throbbing in Rufus' forehead.
"Sorry, I'm under orders to repossess items to the sum of the unpaid loan."
"Not the laser pointer! I need the laser pointer! How am I supposed to point to things if I don't have it?" Rufus exploded, face flushed with anger.
"You could…point?" The man suggested nervously, involuntarily backing up. "With your finger?"
"So archaic." Rufus muttered, huffing and turning back to the board members. "Gentlemen. As you can see by the blue bar…here." He reluctantly pointed with his finger, which wasn't nearly as impressive as a red dot would have been and garnered a few displeased tut's from the audience. "Our profit margins are set to soar."
"But how?" A voice asked.
"Ahah, that's where my plan comes in!" Clearly pleased with himself, Rufus almost forgot the disappointment of losing his laser pointer. "Change the slide, Reno!"
"…You're nearer, yo."
"Do it!"
"Ugh…fine. Yo." Sauntering over, Reno pushed passed Rufus and clicked the mouse on the laptop.
"Thank you, subordinate. Well gentlemen…do you see?"
Fifteen sets of eyes were transfixed on the screen behind Rufus, their scowls from earlier melted into smiles of pure delight.
"This is ingenious!"
"Why didn't we think of this before?"
"It's foolproof!"
"We're going to be billionaires!"
Rufus smiled smugly. More so than usual. "So there you have it. Shinra Electrical Company will soar above this recession. You! Poor person!"
The removal man glanced up questioningly.
"Give me back my laser pointer."
xXx
Somewhere, in a canteen inside the Shinra building, Zack shuddered.
"Zackary? What's wrong?" Sephiroth asked over his coffee, a single silver eyebrow lifting.
"I don't know…I just got this terrible foreboding feeling. Didn't you?"
"No, though I am now. I'm not used to you using words as long as 'foreboding'." The elder man said, sipping the scalding hot liquid as if it were lukewarm.
"Puppy, just eat your breakfast and don't overanalyse things. There's nothing to worry about! You're a SOLDIER first class now, remember rule number one about being a first class?"Angeal asked his protégée.
Swallowing a mouthful of toast, Zack sat upright. "If there is a problem just whack it with your ridiculously phallic sword!"
Angeal beamed and nodded. "See Sephiroth? It's worth taking on an apprentice!"
"Mn." Said Sephiroth.
"No really, Seph, how about it? I've got the perfect cadet that would suit you! He's small, quiet, flexible…perfect! I'll go get him!" The whirlwind that was Zack was gone before Sephiroth could utter the words 'forget it' and soon returned much to the bemusement of the two older first class officers.
"…Why have you brought me a chocobo, Zackary?" The vein in Sepiroth's temple was pulsating dangerously as his normally paper thin patience ran out.
"This isn't a chocobo! This is a cadet!"
"No, it's a chocobo."
"No, it's a common mistake! This is actually-"
"Kweh?"
"Oh shit, okay this one IS a chocobo, but seriously the cadet looks just like this! I'll be right back!" Zack rushed off again, leaving the chocobo where he had just been standing.
"Kweh!" It noticed Zack's unfinished toast and helped itself to a mouthful.
"Is it too late to impale myself on my sword?" Sepiroth asked darkly.
Angeal nodded and sipped his tea. "Yes, here he comes. I think he actually has a person this time. Or at least a chocobo in a very convincing disguise."
"Cloud this is Sephiroth, Sephiroth this is Cloud! He can be your new apprentice! Isn't he cute?" Zack asked, pushing a terrified teenager in Sephiroth's direction.
"U-um…I-I'm…pl-pleased t-t-to-"
"Oh for god's sake, Zackary, you've broken him." Sephiroth rolled his eyes and caught the blonde cadet's gaze. "Have you had sword training classes yet? Materia class? I forget, do cadets get mako injections?"
Cloud's gaze had travelled to the sword leaning against the table. He dropped to the floor in a dead faint.
"Angeal? Are apprentices supposed to faint like that?"
"No, I think that's unique to Cloud."
"Oh good. I get the defective apprentice. Thanks for that, Zackary."
"Anytime! Hey, where did my toast go…?" Zack glanced around in case it had fallen on the floor, then looked at the chocobo that was still munching a mouthful of something. "That was my breakfast! Angeal, make him give it back!"
Sephiroth watched Zack attempt to prise the poor golden bird's beak open and then glanced down to the cadet twitching on the floor. Maybe his wasn't as defective as he'd thought. Perhaps they were supposed to be like that.
xXx
"Phase one of our plans begins here." Rufus exclaimed loudly, trying to be heard over the loud helicopter blades as he jumped out a few feet before the craft landed.
"What did you say, yo?" Reno asked, his pilot headset muffling his hearing.
"Plans. They start here." Rufus hated repeating himself, but this was an important point. He waited for the two Turks to get out of the helicopter and waved an arm dramatically behind him.
Reno blinked, then frowned a little. "This is going to save Shinra?" He asked somewhat incredulously. Most things Reno says in relation to Rufus' plans are incredulous, however, so little care was paid to his tone. "These cows? What…do we steal one and trade it for magic beans or something, yo?"
Rude barely managed not to snigger. Which is saying something as Rude is physically incapable of sniggering.
"What are you on?" Rufus asked angrily, turning to his big achievement. And blinked.
"Moo?"
"What the hell? Oh wait, we must have turned as we landed. It's over there." Rufus pointed to a large mansion behind the Turks, and finally he was rewarded with a suitable level of 'ooh-ing' and 'ahh-ing'.
"We're going to sell it and use the money to save the company, yo!"
"No, you idiot! Were you paying attention at all during the board meeting? …Actually don't answer that. We're not selling it. This place makes a great holiday getaway. What we're after is inside."
"And we're going to sell that, yo?"
"…In a way. Rude, do you have the supplies?" Rufus asked, as the tall man nodded and held up rope, handcuffs and a gag. "Good. Follow me."
The mansion seemed even bigger on the inside than it had on the outside, and the large double door entrance made the obligatory haunted-mansion creak. Inside everything was garishly decorated with so many expensive pieces that they all looked out of place. Ornate rugs, hideous oil paintings, ridiculously over priced vases. And everything was liberally coated with-
"Mind the dust." Rufus said absently as behind him Reno and Rude almost chocked to death. Rufus had been brought up to expect luxury, and knew that such luxury often came with dust. Those priceless heirlooms up in attics rarely cleaned themselves after all. "What we want is downstairs in a sub basement. It's said to be a room created by a mad scientist so mad that he- Oh shit, wait that's him…"
"Young master Rufus, what a pleasant surprise. Ah, I see you've come to deliver me some test subjects?" A sickeningly creepy voice asked, as a thin greasy haired man stepped out from where he'd been lurking in the shadows.
"Ah, afraid not Hojo, they're with me."
"Pity…" He said, emotionless black eyes taking in the Turks. Who both stepped backwards and considered bolting.
"We're here to collect Project V." Rufus said darkly, as a flash of understanding passed between the two men.
"Project V, yo?" Reno asked his partner, who simply shrugged.
"Well, follow me. Project V is stored downstairs in my lab." Slowly the man turned and tapped on a wall, and a conveniently place secret passageway appeared. The Turks commented on its convenience. Hojo reluctantly revealed he had many secret doors around the mansion. Apparently it often made it hard to find the bathroom.
"Damn it, yo. Now he's talked about bathrooms I need to go."
"You should have gone before we set out." Rufus snapped as they followed Hojo down a thin winding passageway lit by candles. That smelled faintly of cinnamon. And death.
The lab was your typical torture chamber. Wooden benches were fitted with horrific metal devices smeared with blood that even copious amounts of Cilit Bang couldn't remove. Trays of metal instruments sat out, and syringes full of glowing green liquid were ready to be injected into…something. Tanks of the green stuff lined the walls and every so often they were sure they heard banging…
"I keep Project V in here." Hojo said proudly. There was a long moment of awkward silence.
"That's a coffin, yo." Reno pointed out, in case the other two hadn't quite realised.
"I hate to agree with Reno, but I agree with Reno." Rufus frowned and glared at the professor. "That's a coffin. Are you trying to tell me that Project V is deceased? We've been giving you funding for thirty years!"
"He's not dead!" Hojo protested hotly, glancing down at the wooden coffin. "He's…uh…sleeping!"
"Sleeping. Right. Rude, open up the damn coffin. If I don't find a live person in here I'm not going to be pleased." Rufus explained, stepping back so that Rude could lift the lid.
"NO!" Hojo cried, slamming pale fists down on the coffin. "You can't open it…"
"Because there's nothing inside?" Rufus guessed, rolling his eyes and shoving Hojo aside. "Open the damn lid Rude, I don't have time to play this old man's games."
"No, it's occupied, it's just…Project V has gone terribly wrong. I was supposed to make him a possessed mad man who would be n excellent immortal soldier to ally with Shinra…" Hojo paused as Rude started to creak the lid open.
"Yes, that was the idea." Rufus was clearly losing patience.
"Well, somewhere along the way…he…well he…"
"What the hell is that?" Rufus cried, as light hit the figure inside the coffin.
The casket was satin lined, and a single rose was clasped between a pure white hand and a solid gold claw. Skin was pale as snow, and his hair was much longer than his file photo had indicated. But what was mort striking was the iPod he was listening to. Project V finally realised that his coffin had been opened and he cracked open a deep crimson eye. And reached up with his gold claw and slammed it shut again.
Three sets of eyes flew to Hojo.
"Was that Project V?"
"Is he really sixty?"
"Was he listening to My Chemical Romance, yo?"
Hojo fell to his knees and wept. "I tried everything I could! Everything! But I couldn't stop him turning emo. He'd sneak onto my computer when I was asleep and order death metal CD's, and write poetry about how woeful his life is! He even has a Livejournal! I'm so sorry Rufus…I tried so hard but Project V failed…"
"No. No…" Rufus mused, tapping a slender finger on the coffin lid. "I think this works rather well…nail the lid on, Rude, we'll transport him back to Midgar. This might actually be a blessing in disguise."
xXx
"How long do cadets usually take to wake up?" Sephiroth asked, clearly in mental anguish.
"I don't know, it doesn't say in the manual…"
"Cadets don't have manuals." Sephiroth reminded Zack, rubbing fingers against his temple.
Angeal had carried Cloud back to Sephiroth's apartment and had gone off to bake some cookies while Zack and Sephiroth tried to wake the unconscious cadet. They'd managed twice, but every time Cloud saw Sephiroth he'd just faint again.
"I think you need to leave the room. He's scared of you…" Zack explained, nodding to reinforce his own idea.
"You're the one who wanted me to be his mentor, how can I mentor him if I'm never in the same room as him?"
"PHS?"
"No Zack. Just no. Look, maybe we should just toss him out of the window and pretend he committed suicide?" Sephiroth asked hopefully, wanting to get the two ebony haired first class SOLDIER's out of his home.
"No killing him! He's too cute to kill! Look at him, he's like a chocobo!" Zack held up the prone blonde and shook him in the general's direction.
"I hate chocobos."
"You really are a demon, aren't you?" Zack pouted, hugging the still unconscious blonde to his chest, breaking a few of the poor cadet's ribs in the process.
"Zackary, you're killing him." Sephiroth pointed out,
"Oh no! I'm sorry Spiky!" Zack set him back down again, and quickly checked he was still breathing. "This isn't working, maybe we should call Genesis?" Zack asked, flipping open his PHS just as Sephiroth came to life and leaped over to knock the phone from his hand.
"Don't call Genesis, please. I'll train this cadet, I'll do anything you want, just please don't call-"
"Did someone call me?" Genesis asked, hovering outside the bedroom window.
"It's Genesis!" Zack said happily, jumping up and going over to let him in. "Damn I want one of those wings!"
Genesis set his ever present copy of LOVELESS down on the bed and folded his wing. "I was just randomly floating past and heard my name being spoken. Of course, I was only happy to oblige and lend my assistance to whatever predicament it may be that you've found yourself in this time."
"You were bored, weren't you?" Sephiroth could sense his day suddenly becoming a whole lot worse.
"Yes, pretty much. Oooh, do I smell cookies? Is Angeal here?" Completely forgetting that he had just offered to help, Genesis wandered off to find Angeal.
"Well that was pointless." Sephiroth decided, shoving the book off his bed.
"No it wasn't! The excitement has woken Spiky up again!" Zack exclaimed as Cloud started to stir. "Rise and shine chocobo!"
"Chocobo?" Cloud mumbled, sitting himself up and then fixing his gaze on Sephiroth. For a horrible moment the general worried he was just going to faint again but this time beside paling to what Dulux would call 'rice white' (and Sephiroth decided that he'd quite like to redecorate his bathroom in said colour) Cloud remained conscious. "S-s-s-s-sephiroth?"
"It's usually pronounced with a single 's', but at this point I'll take what I can get." Sephiroth was mercifully cut off from having to offer the blonde a training session when his PHS rang once. Irritated his unclipped it from his belt and blinked down at the text message he had received. Beside him Zack's PHS similarly rang out and from the kitchen two more rings could be heard as Angeal and Genesis' PHS' received messages.
Get down to board room three right now. – R. Shinra
"Blunt." Zack mumbled as flipped his PHS closed. "Sorry Spiky, we're going to have to love you and leave you I'm afraid-" Zack's PSH rang again and he checked his new message.
And bring that chocobo!cadet with you.
"Oh. Looks like you're coming with us, Cloudy! This will be great, have you ever met Rufus? He's even scarier than Seph if he hasn't had a sugar free low fat double latte. We should bring him one…" Zack mused as the four SOLDIER's and Cloud hurried down to the board room.
xXx
Armed with a sugar free low fat double latte, the quintet entered the board room. Zack made the offering of the drink which Rufus sniffed and nodded his approval of. They all sat around a circular table, though once again poor Reno and Rude had to make do with standing behind Rufus to make the blonde look more imposing.
"You may be wondering why I brought you all here." He began, and got a mixed response of looks ranging from 'couldn't care less' (Sephiroth) to 'oh god please don't kill me' (Cloud). "It has been kept a great secret, and will come as a shock to you all, but even the almighty Shinra Electrical Company has fallen on hard times due to the economic downturn." Rufus paused for effect, hoping to hear five gasps of surprise.
"We know. You only let us have hot water from 5pm to 5:15pm every third Tuesday of the month." Angeal said with a frown.
"And our equipment budged has been slashed so many times it looks like Sephiroth got drunk and went crazy." Genesis explained, frowning as he recalled having to make do with one shield and seven cadets. Fortunately he'd taken the shield. That reminded him that he needed to write seven letters informing families of the deaths of their loved ones.
"And the air conditioning was turned off all through summer. I had to walk around shirtless." Zack exclaimed, as if he didn't use every excuse in the book to strip off anyway.
"And the first class pillow cases have seriously decreased in quality. I only have two lines of frills on my top cases." Sephiroth added, his tone rising slightly at the indignity of it all.
"And you serve slop to the cadets and call it food." Cloud piped up, feeling embarrassed as soon as all eyes looked to him.
"Spiky that's normal. Just close your eyes and pretend that you're actually eating meat." Zack said sympathetically.
"It's not meat?" Cloud asked, turning slightly green.
"Okay, okay. Perhaps it's not such a well kept secret. But I have a plan to turn things around. A very cunning plan. A plan so cunning that you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel."
"You stole that from Blackadder, yo."
"Shut up Reno. The point still stands. My plan is foolproof! All you have to do is strip down-"
"Way ahead of you." Zack said happily, his shirt on the floor and abs on display.
"Yes, thank you. I didn't mean right now, but since you've gone to the trouble anyway. The first order of business was going to be a photoshoot." Rufus explained, and waited for questions. There were none, just five confused stares. "Oh come on, even in a recession do you know how many horny, sexually unfulfilled housewives there are in Midgar? They'd pay hundreds of gil apiece for a 'Shinra Studs' calendar!"
"…Please be kidding." Sephiroth's jaw found its way from its position on the floor to ask.
"That's just the start! We have a wide range of merchandise just waiting to be rolled out to the public. Rude, the trolley!" Rufus snapped his fingers and Rude went off to fetch a small metal trolley. It contained boxes of action figures, keychains, necklaces, replica swords and cosplay outfits. "This is how we are going to rebuild our empire! By preying on the unsuspecting public's desire to idolise pretty boys!"
"Why is there no action figure of you?" Genesis asked, unboxing one of Sephiroth and making it punch itself in the face.
"I'm far too important to embarrass myself like this." Rufus explained.
"Hey…why does Cloud get THREE figures?" Zack asked, slightly peeved that he'd only got one. "He looks hot in this one…" Cloud's face blushed a red so deep that he almost spontaneously combusted.
"In the future once Sephiroth goes crazy and tries to kill everyone Cloud destroys him and saves the planet a few times and becomes a hero. But we're forgetting the important thing here…perfume!"
"Perfume…? Oh no. No no no." Sephiroth's gaze had just fell upon a small bottle with his name on it. Next to a similar one with Cloud's name on it. For once the cadet wasn't terrified to be next to his idol as they shared shocked glances.
"We have perfumes? Who the hell came up with this idea? Perfume of fighters? Who would want to smell of sweat and gunpowder?" Cloud asked, picking up his bottle but not daring to spray a sample onto his wrist. He'd only just had a shower, he didn't want to smell dirty again already.
Rufus pushed past everyone to bend down and grab Cloud by the shoulders. "Ah, Cloud! You're going to be the main star of all this. You'll be given magazine interviews this afternoon, and we need you to pose with the Buster Sword-"
"That's my sword…" Angeal said with a pout as he tried to stop Genesis from making the Sephiroth, Zack and Cloud figures do inappropriate things to each other.
"And Zack gets it when you die, and Cloud gets it when Zack dies. It's a cycle, it's poetic. But Cloud is the main focus here, nobody else gets to have a look in. I mean come on, who wouldn't want figures and pictures of this cute guy?"
Cloud blushed again and wished he had never met Zack. His life had only started getting weird from that point onwards.
"Aww, good point." Angeal conceded, not even angry anymore that the puny kid had three action figures (two with pretty damn awesome motorbikes) and he didn't get a single one. Nope, not bitter at all about that…
"Who's that?" Genesis finally asked, when Angeal finally confiscated the figures after he'd started trying to remove their clothes.
Rufus glanced over to the darkest corner of the room. "That's Vincent, just ignore him. It's easy to do. You'll barely even know he's here."
"…" Said Vincent.
"…" Said Cloud.
And thus began a beautiful (and silent) friendship.
"Ah Cloud, before I forget, hand me your PHS." Cloud handed the slightly psychotic blonde president his phone. Rufus stepped on it. "You need the newest model! We're being paid for you to advertise this one, so from now on try to take your calls in front of cameras or in public places. It's a Panasonic FOMA P900iV, pretty sweet, yeah?"
"I liked my old one…" Cloud said mournfully, flipping open the new one and frowning. It didn't make the same 'swish' noise as his old one had.
"I don't care whether you like it, I like the money we'll get from you using it." Rufus explained, pushing Cloud towards the door. "Now go with Rude who can get you undressed from that garish cadet uniform and into that awesome black ensemble from Advent Children!"
"Advent what?" Zack asked, turning from where he had been playing with some of the action figures. He held up the Reno figure towards the actual Reno.
"Hey cool, yo! I'm an action figure!" Suddenly Reno was a lot more interested in the merchandise and started playing, making his figure make out with the Aerith figure.
A few minutes later the figures were all having an orgy thanks to Reno, Zack and Genesis' efforts, just when Cloud stormed in through the door. Gone was the painfully shy cadet and in his place stood a painfully silent (yet still amusingly short) man.
"What have you done with my innocent Cloud?" Zack cried, attempting to give the 'cadet' a noogie and instead being pushed so hard he flew into a wall.
"Actually it's what you and Sephiroth did." Rufus explained, trying to get Cloud to pose in front of a photographer. "Sephiroth attacking him, Hojo experimenting him and you dying on him fucked his brain. He has to stick to short sentences and likes to stab things now."
"I liked the old Cloud." Zack mumbled, rubbing his ribs.
"I prefer this one." Vincent said, suddenly appearing in a very sudden and mysterious way. And then posing beside Cloud.
"Two emos…perfect!" The photographer cried, snapping away.
"Yes…YES!" Rufus cackled, sitting in his large leather chair and scratching behind the ears of Cait Sith as he stared out of the large window overlooking that would have overlooked the city below if the smog caused by Shinra Electrical Power Company hadn't been so thick. "My plan is coming together perfectly…soon I will have more gil than I'll know what to do with! And the planet will be mine!"
"Oh shit, yo." Reno frowned.
"…What have we done?" Rude asked nervously, as they both stepped away from their boss.
Today there were action figures, perfumes and posters…but who knew what Rufus had planned for tomorrow…
Please review.
I tried to keep most people in character, but for Zack and Cloud I purposefully made them rather extreme to make it more amusing.
For those that don't believe how much merchandise there is out there for FFVII, I kid you not about the Sephiroth and Cloud perfume. It costs a hell of a lot of money, too! And there's tonnes of action figures and other rubbish…that us fangirls are powerless to resist…Rufus really is on to something here!