Me: Wee! Another fun chapter after an indefinite amount of haitus!
Final Fantasy VII – To Win a Million
Chapter 4 – More Random Shit
(I had this scene and wanted to put it down… :) )
Zetsumei groaned as he opened his eyes. In the background, he could hear helicopter blades.
"Where am I…? Hikaru?" He looked around and saw she was sitting close by.
"The helicopter's on hover… I thought we could spend some alone time," she said seductively drawing nearer.
"H-Hikaru…? What are you doing…?" Zetsumei stammered inching back.
One thing he learned from his experience with Hikaru was that she would never do something like this. There was always something…
"Actually, you CAN spend the night in this GODDAMNED MAZE!" She yelled as she kicked him out the door.
Ahh… there it was… needless violence… With a sigh, Hikaru sat down in the pilot's seat and few back to the mansion. Zetsumei landed with a thud on the damp earth, the chirp of strange creatures drawing near…
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(In the morning…)
Sephiroth came outside to do some light running before breakfast. He stretched, looking at the still rising sun. He walked several steps forward before almost tripping over a semi-dead body. Sephiroth peered at it.
"H…Help… me…" Zetsumei coughed slightly.
It appeared that he have suffered many abrasions, cuts, burns, scratches, and other wounds. Sephiroth shrugged slightly. He was still alive so he would be fine. Thus, Sephiroth went off to jog around the track, leaving the still figure in front of the house.
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Hikaru stood in front of the gathered masses, watching as they yawned slightly, and waiting for her announcement.
"Well. I've got some good news and some normal news for you guys."
"No bad news?" Cait Sith asked.
Hikaru frowned slightly in annoyance.
"Well, I have some bad news too. Your moogle won't come in until next Friday."
"Aw…" Cait Sith whined.
"Anyway. The good news is that, because Cid and Barret are still in critical condition, only one of you will receive zero points today."
The gathered masses stared slightly.
"That's supposed to be good news…?" Yuffie commented slightly.
After yesterdays tense race through the hedge maze, they had returned sore and tired, with a severely poisoned Cid and Barret. However, due to certain circumstances, they didn't receive treatment until a couple hours after they got back to the mansion, when Nanaki sniffed out where the antidote was hidden.
"In other news," Hikaru continued. "The test today is a simple one. No real threat to your lives and completely doable. One of your team will have to swim through an obstacle course in order to get a small key, while the other is locked to a bicycle. That teammate will have to pedal as fast as they can to keep the checkpoints in the obstacle course open. While they are open, the first teammate must swim through, obtain the key, and swim back before the gates shut again. Upon freeing your teammate, you will be declared the winner."
Everyone sighed slightly. This test seemed normal enough. Hikaru continued.
"Now you four, will bike." She pointed at Vincent, Sephiroth, Cait Sith, and Cloud. "I've prepared swimsuits for the ladies and, um… Nanaki here doesn't need one."
"How true indeed," mused the cat, frowning slightly at the water.
Minutes later and the competitors had gathered again. Hikaru locked the bikers to their bikes, Cait Sith being in a smaller bike. She turned to face them.
"Ready?... GO!" The race was on.
Immediately, the bikers noticed that this was no normal challenge. It seemed that, no matter how much they pedaled the gates only opened by a fraction. Even the ones with an unlimited energy source, that being Cait Sith, couldn't seem to open the doors more than two feet.
"This… is incredibly dangerous…" Cloud muttered straining at the pedals.
"Wonder what happens if we stop pedaling…" Cait Sith said, stopping for a brief second.
Almost immediately, the gate Nanaki was swimming through slammed shut with a force that was felt by the bikers a hundred meters away. Nanaki barely made it through, instincts propelling him forward as he sensed movement.
"WHAT THE HELL!" Nanaki roared. "WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?! KILL ME?!"
Everyone was silent, questioning this normally calm feline's abnormally violent response. Nanaki growled slightly and then returned to swimming, clearly pissed off at the situation.
"That's funny…" Hikaru commented. "They should be easy to open…"
As for the swimmers, they too noticed a difference in the course. There were obstacles. Live obstacles. Live obstacles that had teeth and were probably kind of pissed from being cooped up in the tiny space between gates. Large grey obstacles that were quickly noticing the presence of the swimmers trying to get through the gates…
"SHARK!" Yuffie yelped as she barely propelled herself away from the razor sharp teeth that rocketed by.
Of course, the thrashing and screaming merely provoked the sharks into a crazier frenzy.
"You said this was safe!" Cloud shouted as he struggled to work the gates open via a bike that seemed to becoming harder and harder to pedal.
"It was!" Hikaru shouted back. "Someone's tampered with the game!"
The cameraman zoomed in on the struggling swimmers. All around the Planet, people watched in horror as the sharks closed in yet again.
"Wait a minute! Where the hell did that guy come from?! And was it ever mentioned that the last couple matches were being televised?!" Cait Sith shouted.
Hikaru looked at the cameraman.
"This is Hank. He's filming your endeavors. He's been here since the first game."
Hank waved.
"You can't just introduce characters just because you forgot to mention people!" Cait Sith complained, slowing slighting in his pedaling.
This caused the gates that Nanaki was attempting to get through, to get away from the shark, to close on him. This forced him to continue dancing around with the shark as it tried to get its lunch. Nanaki seemed to snap.
"CAIT! IF YOU DON'T KEEP PEDALING I WILL RIP YOUR PUNY LITTLE BODY APART IF I EVER GET OUT OF THIS PLACE ALIVE!"
Hank zoomed in on the drenched, pissed off Nanaki.
"Hmm…" Hikaru mused. "Don't suppose he likes water too much…"
"How true…" Hank said as he continued to film.
"Fua hahahahaaa!" A voice came from the opposite side of the pool. "Enjoying your swim?!"
A completely insane Zetsumei stood laughing in glee at the struggling contestants. Little twigs and bits of dirt scattered as he flailed his arms. He seemed to have run through the maze again in order to get to the pool.
"This is MY mansion! MY RULES!" He shouted happily. "Careful bikers! Biking slower makes the resistance increase! In fact, so does biking normally! And these are live sharks! You can't kill them cuz PETA will come after us if you do!"
Hikaru turned to the camera.
"We apologize for the temporary setback we've just encountered in this game. The station holds no responsibility for the hiring of this staff member, he was hired merely for the use of this mansion. We will deal with him promptly. Thank you and please, enjoy watching To Win a Million."
The bikers had begun to tire, the swimmers were beginning to move more sluggishly as the adrenaline began to take its toll. The sharks circled hungrily, noticing their various targets were tiring.
"Eat up my pretties!" Zetsumei smiled crazily at the closest shark, which, in turn lunged to attack the closer prey.
A gun sounded and a small feathery dark intercepted the shark seconds before it tore off Zetsumei's head. It landed with a splash in the water. Three more shots rang out as the other sharks were hit. Zetsumei flipped out.
"Hey! Who did that?! Who dares mess with the Great Zetsumei's plans?! Who has the nerve to mess with me?!"
A tall, dark skinned man strode up to him, fiddling with a small device in one hand, the other holding a slightly smoking gun.
"Uno! What… You… Guh… PETA WILL GET YOU FOR THIS!!!!!" Zetsumei shouted, for lack of anything else to say to his friend.
Uno looked towards the bikers, clicking a button on the device.
"I've tranquilized the sharks and restored the bike functions." He shouted at Hikaru.
"Good!" She shouted back. "Contestants, please continue while we deal with certain nuisances."
The game continued as it was originally created to be played.
"Hey! Listen to me!" Zetsumei shouted at Uno. "You can't just shoot the sharks! PETA will torch your house!"
Uno looked over at Zetsumei, peering intently through dark sunglasses.
"Speaking of PETA. They wanted a word with you. They're on line one. Something about protection revoked…"
Zetsumei turned pale and began running for the house. A sudden explosion marked the death of a particular blue car sitting in the driveway of the mansion. Zetsumei fell to his knees.
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! DAMN YOU PETA!!!!!" He shouted at the sky.
Off to the side, Hank had stopped filming the swimmers remaining efforts in order to film the more interesting drama of the crazy owner of the mansion. Uno checked his gun and then fired at Zetsumei. A small feathery dark hit him in the butt and he collapsed on the pavement. He strode back over to Hikaru as the swimmers began to retrace their steps through the obstacle course.
It was now a race of stamina, as all the contestants had been exhausted by the random difficulty increase. Nanaki, with his loathing of the water, sped through the obstacle course in an attempt to get out as soon as possible. However, as he was trying to get out of the pool, he slipped, splashing noisily back in with a yelp. This allowed Tifa, who was a good deal more fit than the others to pull ahead and rush over to release Vincent. Nanaki scrambled out of the water t unlock Cait. As he unlocked Cait's chain, Hikaru mused at the amazing dexterity Nanaki had in opening the lock. Perhaps it was out of a desperation to dry off, or, more likely, it was in a rage to kill Cait. Yuffie clambered out of the pool third and opened Sephiroth's chain, leaving Aeris and Cloud fourth, or last depending on how you decided to look at the contestants. Thoroughly exhausted, they trudged back to the mansion for a warm meal and bed, most seriously reconsidering their decision to join this game.
Following them was Hikaru and Uno. They lifted Zetsumei and tossed him onto a small board in the pool. They pushed it gently and it drifted slowly into the midst of the unconscious sharks.
"Five bucks says they wake first." Hikaru said.
"You're on." Uno smirked. "I say he'll wake at the same time they do."
The laughed slightly as they walked back towards the mansion, with Hank leaving viewers with one last look at the sleeping Zetsumei on a board in the middle of the pool surrounded by sharks.
"What took you so long to get here?" Hikaru asked Uno.
"Apparently this game started on the 19th."
Cloud/Aeris: 1
Vincent/Tifa: 9
Barret/Cid: None (Could not participate).
Nanaki/Cait Sith: 8
Yuffie/Sephiroth: 9
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Me: And that's that! I'm surprised I managed to write yet another chapter… to any of my stories really. Hope you liked this chapter. More to come if I feel weird enough to write another chapter. Review and Wait!
Side Note: Next Chapter of Exile is almost done… then… I'll probably go on another indefinite hiatus for lack of inspiration… well have fun :P