Chapter 9

Back to Stupidity

With the danger gone, the Reds went back outside to the Warthog. Emil told his team the tales of his adventures in time, leaving out his attempts to fix everything for his own benefit. Then Lloyd told them the story of their siege of Tenebrae's fortress, finishing off with how he found the swords.

"You found these things where?" Emil asked when he'd finished.

"Right up there." Lloyd replied, pointing with one of the swords to the windmill on the inner wall.

Genis meanwhile was thinking over Emil's story. "So… you went back in time and didn't change anything?"

"Uh, yeah." Emil replied. "I was just like… a passive observer."

"Hmmm." Genis muttered. "I would have tried to save your life… from me!"

"Yeah, I didn't think of that." Emil said hastily before turning to his teal teammate. "Hey dude, I don't think it's a good idea that you're keeping those things."

"You're just pissed because you don't have any." Lloyd snorted.

"No, you must have me confused with Marta." Emil retorted, nodding at the entranced freelancer. "She's been staring at you non-stop this entire conversation."

Marta kept staring at the swords like a cat would watch fish in a bowl for a moment before she responded, "That's not true."

"You haven't taken your eyes off it." Emil stated.

"Yes I have." Marta argued.

"Then why haven't you looked at me the entire time I've been talking?" Emil asked, knowingly folding his arms.

"I'm looking at you right now." Marta retorted, her eyes still on the sword.

"No you're not."

"I've already seen you. Not too impressed."

Genis was still in thought. "I would have tried to save Lualdi too."

"Well, I didn't, Sage." Emil snapped. "I didn't try to save me, I didn't try to save Marta, and I sure as hell didn't make millions of copies of myself trying to keep the bomb from going off!"

"Oh." Genis replied glumly. "Because, that was my next suggestion."

"Leave me alone, dude." Emil scowled. "I didn't wanna mess with the timeline."

"Time… line?" Genis scoffed at this. "Time isn't made out of lines. It is made out of circles; that is why clocks are round."

"Man, those things are really shiny." Marta muttered in a voice like she was hypnotized.

"Yep." Lloyd agreed unknowingly.

"Irving, man, I still think you should be careful." Emil advised his teammate. "The computer told me those things are very important relics for some ancient culture. I wouldn't go swinging them around like that."

"Yeah?" Lloyd replied. "Well I think they're just kickass pieces of bling. And who're you gonna believe, me or some super-smart, stupid, talking computer?"


Meanwhile, outside the complex, Kratos had gathered Sheena and Zelos around the Warthog. "Thank you for meeting on short notice… and so covertly."

"No problem." Zelos replied nonchalantly. "I had to move my lunch with the Pope, but uh, he was cool with it. He owes me… I helped him pick the hat."

"Shut up." Sheena snapped, seeing through Zelos's sarcasm.

Kratos whistled to get his team's attention. "I don't want the Blues finding out about this meeting, so I want us all to agree here and now we're gonna keep this between ourselves."

Zelos glanced at Sheena in confusion. "Uh sir, I don't know if you noticed, but we're not exactly buddy-buddy with those guys anyway."

"Eh, I'm not really in the market for new friends." Sheena agreed with a shrug. "I'm not sure that I'm happy with the current crop."

"No offense, Sarge." Zelos added knowingly.

Kratos nodded slightly. "Wilder, tell us what you discovered on the radio."

Zelos looked puzzled. "Me?"

"Um, actually I'm the one who heard the distress signal." Sheena clarified.

Kratos looked slightly embarrassed. "Uh huh, see I thought-"

"Yeah, I don't use the radio." Zelos added.

"Yeah." Sheena agreed. "I discovered the distress signal. That was me."

"I don't know how I got that mixed up." Kratos muttered, scratching his head in bafflement.

"It's okay, sir." Sheena comforted. "As long as everyone's clear who heard it first."

"Sorry about that." Kratos apologized.

"Why do you care?" Zelos asked.

"No really, sir, it's no problem." Sheena reassured her leader. "I think it's important to get proper credit when some of us are working hard discovering distress signals, while others are hanging out in the back seat, monkeying about!"

Zelos stared at his teammate in puzzlement. "Okay, first off, monkeying about? Secondly, I don't think listening to the radio classifies as working. And thirdly, monkeying about?! Come on."

"It's a real phrase." Sheena scowled.

"Bullshit." Zelos retorted. "That's what you said about horse-doodling."

"People say it all the time."

"What people?"

"Oh lots of people, all the time. But nobody you would know!"

"No need to get upset, fellas." Kratos cut in, pushing the two soldiers apart. "I think we're all clear now. Fujibayashi is the one who heard the distress signal, and Wilder was the one monkeying around."

"About." Sheena corrected.

"Say who now?"

"Monkeying, about." Sheena repeated.

"Yeah, people say it all the time, sir." Zelos agreed sarcastically. "You'll wanna get it right, otherwise you'll sound like a jackass."

"Can we please get back to the purpose of this meeting?" Kratos yelled.

"Yeah." Zelos agreed. "What is the purpose exactly?"

"I wanted Fujibayashi to tell us she heard a distress signal on the radio." Kratos turned to the maroon-clad girl. "Okay, go ahead."

Sheena looked befuddled. "Um… I heard a distress signal, while listening on the radio."

"I know." Zelos replied irritably. "I was in the car with you when we heard it. In fact, why are we even having this meeting? Everyone here already knows you heard a distress signal on the radio!"

"I just wanna make sure everyone is on the same page." Kratos explained.

"Same page? There's only one page!" Zelos yelled out. "You know what the page says? Sheena heard a Goddamn distress call on the radio, the end!"

"Oh look." Sheena added, pointing at an imaginary page. "Down there on the bottom, it also says, 'PS: Zelos Wilder was monkeying about.'"

Zelos let out a frustrated sigh. "Well, I can see why we don't have lots of meetings. The only person who doesn't know is Presea, and she's not even here."

"That's because I asked her to distract the Blues so we could have this secret meeting." Kratos replied.


And at that moment, Presea was just finishing off one of her tall tales to the Blues while Marta was still staring at Lloyd's swords. "…And that's the story of how I saved Christmas!"

"I did not even know the North Pole was on Katz Island." Genis breathed. "This changes everything!"

"Yeah." Lloyd muttered unsurely. "And I don't think Santa's suit is a leather biker's outfit."

"Hey, wait a second." Emil cried out. "Why are we letting this chick distract us?"

"I'm not distracting you." Presea stammered.

"Yeah you are." Emil retorted. "While we're sitting here jabbering, the Reds are over there monkeying about!"

As the Blues set off towards the outer wall, Presea turned round and did a fist pump while hissing, "Yes!"

Sure enough, they saw the Reds gathered around the Warthog, with Presea soon joining them.

"See?" Marta pointed. "They're down there, messing with the radio."

"Oh, so that's what they're doing." Emil said with little surprise.

"Yeah." Marta nodded slowly. "They must be plotting something."

"Or, maybe they're just listening to the radio." Emil argued.

Marta shook her head. "I know plotting when I see it. That's plotting."

"Maybe they're scheming." Lloyd suggested.

"No, scheming looks different." Marta explained. "That's definitely plotting. They're gonna try something."

"Why?" Lloyd asked confused. "I already told them Red and Blue are the same, it's all a conspiracy."

"And I told you that's not true." Emil scolded. "Botta just made it up to confuse us."

"That just means he's part of the conspiracy."

"But he's the one that told you Red and Blue are the same!"

"Exactly." Lloyd replied knowingly.

Emil furrowed his brows in confusion. "Wait, are you talking about a conspiracy that Red and Blue are the same, or a conspiracy that Red and Blue are different?"

"Exactly." Lloyd repeated.

"You just keep saying exactly." Emil scowled. "Do you have a theory or don't you?"

"Look, I don't care about Red or Blue." Marta cut in crossly. "All I know is that those guys are up to something down there."

Lloyd went over to the wall to look. "Maybe they're planning to use the radio to beam secret messages to the fillings in my teeth."

"Secret messages about what?!" Emil yelled.

"Exactly." Lloyd replied and was punched in the shoulder.

"They are probably trying to tune in to the distress signal they heard on the radio." Genis called from the doorway behind them.

Emil turned round to see Genis. "What makes you say that?"

"Oh I know all the details." Genis replied. "They were in their car, the Boss Hogg, when Fujiboyaki heard a distress signal on the radio and Wildboy was in the back seat… with a monkey."

"Hmmm, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume that some of that is wrong." Lloyd muttered.

"How do you know all this, Sage?" Emil asked intrigued.

"Volt told me." Genis said.

"Volt? Who's Volt?" Emil turned back to Lloyd. "Are- Are you Volt?"

"I'm not Volt, I'm Irving." he replied.

"No, I know, what's your first name?"

"Lloyd."

"Lloyd… Well then, who's this Volt g-" Emil stopped and stared at Lloyd again. "Wait a second... that's an Irish name, are you Irish?"

"Me?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I don't know, I'm just curious.

"Does it matter?"

"No."

"Well, if it doesn't matter, then why are you curious?"

"I don't know." Emil muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "I guess that's just something I should have picked up on after all this time."

Lloyd scowled as he folded his arms. "You know what else you should have picked up on? My fucking first name!"


Unaware of the argument above, the Reds watched as Sheena replayed the distress signal on the radio.

"Distress, distress, help." the high-pitched nasal voice called out. "We don't need any more distress. Distress, whoa man, it's a lot of distress."

"That's all it says." Sheena said as the message switched off. "It doesn't even say where or who."

"We know who it is." Kratos replied. "It's on the Red Army open channel; that means the Reds have survived to the future! Don't you see what this means?"

Zelos gave a heavy sigh and shook his head. "That we have absolutely no hope of ever getting out of this army…"

"No." Kratos retorted. "It means we must have beaten the Blues otherwise there wouldn't be any Reds left! Finally, victory is ours!" Then he realized something. "Wait a minute, this means I missed the entire war! Aw, dammit!"

"Yeah, everything must be great." Zelos pointed out with sarcastic tones. "That's why they sent out a distress signal."

"Maybe it's not a distress signal." Presea suggested. "Maybe it's a distress signal. Maybe it's an open invitation to some formal ball!"

"Ok, let's go with Sarge's version." Zelos decided.

Kratos nodded and turned back to his favorite private. "Fujibayashi, have you tracked the source?"

"Well, all I can tell is the direction." Sheena replied. "I have no idea how far it is."

"Why not?" Kratos cried out. "I thought you were our Unofficial Science Officer."

"That just means I'm smart." Sheena clarified. "If you want me to multiply two big numbers in my head, that I can do. But I can't measure radio signals with no equipment!"

Zelos scratched his head in thought. "What's 32 times 56?"

"31,452." Sheena replied without pause.

"Is that right?" Kratos asked.

"Yes."

"That's pretty impressive."

Sheena shrugged modestly. "Eh, you know, it's a gift."


Meanwhile, inside the complex, Genis led Lloyd and Marta to where the unexploded bomb was lying. "This is Volt." the dim Blue introduced, nodding at the bomb. "Volt, this is Irving and Lualdi. Uh, Lualdi is the black one and the blue one is Irving."

Marta and Lloyd glanced at each other worryingly before the teal soldier asked, "Volt's the bomb?"

"Uh, Volt prefers the term 'Explosive-American'." Genis replied, making air-quotes around the last word.

"Are you making fun of me?" Lloyd scowled.

Genis turned back towards the bomb. "He told me all about what the Reds were up to, didn't you Volt?"

The bomb just sat there silently.

"Yes." Genis said simply. "And then we talked about all our adventures. Did you know that he used to know Luna? Isn't that right, Volt?"

Again, the bomb didn't reply.

Lloyd took a few steps back as he asked, "Um, Sage, are you hearing the bomb talk right now?"

"Say something, Volt!" Genis yelled at the bomb through gritted teeth. "You are embarrassing me in front of my friends!"

Marta shook her head in concern. "Genis…" she said calling him by first name for the first time since they met, "I think you're losing it."

"Also, I wouldn't really call us 'friends'." Lloyd added. "We're more like acquaintances or people who work with other people they hate."


Meanwhile, Emil went into the computer room to have a talk with the hologram. "Aqua, I need you to tell me some more about the angelic race that needs Irving's sword."

"Sorry, but I don't know a thing about them." Aqua replied.

Emil was flabbergasted. "You don't know anything about the angels that programmed you?"

"Yeah." Aqua nodded. "They filled all my memories banks with just info on the Great Destroyer and his race."

"You mean Humans."

"Well that's not what they call you, but yes."

"Why, what do they call us?"

Aqua gave an uncomfortable look before she answered. "…Shisno."

Emil looked chagrined. "That's an insult, isn't it?"

"Maybe I can explain it better with a knock-knock joke."

Emil sighed but decided to humor her.

"Knock knock."

"Who's there?"

"You are."

"You are who?"

"You are a dirty, dirty shisno." she laughed.

"Alright." Emil scowled. "What does it mean?"

Aqua thought for a moment. "Umm... Ok what's the most foul-smelling animal you know?"

"Um, a skunk." Emil replied then he frowned. "Wait, so Shisno means skunk?"

"Not exactly. Ok, does a skunk defecate?"

"Well, yes."

"Now does the skunk's defecation in turn make it's own excrement?"

"Ew, no!"

"Then there's no equivalent for Shisno in your language."

Emil pulled a disgusted face. "That's disgusting…"

"Like you would not believe." Aqua agreed.

Emil remembered the conversation he'd heard between Genis and the others. "Hey, does that bomb ever talk to you?"

"The bomb? No."

"Yeah, I didn't think so." Emil chuckled.

"Volt and I aren't exactly on speaking terms right now."

"Yeah…" Then Emil's face fell. "Wait, Volt?"

"Yeah." Aqua replied. "He's kind of a jerk."

"I'm not a jerk." a new irritated voice called out. "You're just a bitch, bitch!"

As Emil whirled round at the voice, Aqua scowled. "You know that's really rude!"

"Ah, shut up, ya Shisno!" the voice retorted.