The Final Fantasy 7/Final Fantasy 8 Showdown

The Final Fantasy Showdown: Let's Begin This

By: ToumaKemp

Chapter 1

Disclaimer! Folks, I own none of the Final Fantasy Series. I do not own Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, or Final Fantasy IX. I also do not own the Yoroiden Samurai Troopers. I just used them to make up a fun story that I feel everyone will like. Please don't try to sue me because I do not have any money to give you.

Author's note: I had to use characters that were not in any (known) role-playing game, so I used the Yoroiden Samurai Troopers (also known as Ronin Warriors. Also, I have decided not to be biased towards anyone, so for anyone who has any kind of disagreements whatsoever, keep them in check for this story. To be honest, it is a slight crossover, but the Troopers do nothing but talk and introduce the fighters, so it's all about the Final Fantasy Characters. Hope you enjoy!

"Hello, and welcome to the showdown of the ages! I'm Hashiba Touma…"

"And I'm Shu Rei Fuan! Oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, this is going to be soooooo cooooooollllll!"

"Shu! Enough of the drawn out words! Get on with it!" Ryo calls out from his director's seat.

"Oh, alright, Ryo. Anyway, for all you people who have wondered which group is stronger, the Final Fantasy 7 crew or the Final Fantasy 8 crew, this is the place for you to be! If you ask me though, we could beat the shi…"

Touma presses the off button on Shu's microphone. "The point is to let each group duke it out in various one-on-one or tag matches to see which group is better. We were recruited to keep things fair. Now, on to Jun with a background on the two competing groups."

"Alright! The Final Fantasy 7 group consists of Cloud, Aeris, Tifa, Yuffie, Barett, Red XIII, Cid, and Sephiroth. The Final Fantasy 8 group consists of Squall, Rinoa, Quistis, Selphie, Irvine, Zell, Laguna, and Seifer."

"Thank you, Jun. Now to Rajura and the first combatants."

"Okay, Squall and Cloud. Man, you guys have weird names."

"…Whatever."

"Let's just get on with it."

"Okay, then. You two will combat first. Let me see the weapons you will be carrying onto the battlefield." Squall holds up Lion Heart. "Cloud?"

Cloud draws the Ultimate Weapon. "Satisfied?"

"You've got armor and an accessory. Let me see them."

"Fine." Cloud pulls out a ribbon and shows Rajura the Mystile.

"Now I'm satisfied. All right, Squall, I'm aware that you use guardian forces in battle. Who are you going to use?"

"Easy. Diablos, Doomtrain, Bahamut, Leviathan, Siren, and Cactuar."

"What magic attacks are you going to use or junction?"

"Ultima, Meteor, Full-Life, Flare, Aura, Tornado, Triple, and Meltdown."

"Cloud, I'm aware that you use materia. What will you take with you?"

"HP Plus, MP Plus, Master Summon linked with Quadra Magic, Master Magic linked with MP Turbo, Counter Attack, Magic Counter with Ultima, Enemy Skill, 4xCut, Final Attack linked with Knights of Round, and Luck Plus."

"That's a complete list. Well, now that we've gotten all the sidebar items out of the way…"

"That's not it," Cloud interjects. I want to know what abilities he's going to use."

"Fine. I'll have Attack, Recover, GF, and Magic." Cloud stares at Squall. "I'll also have Strength times 60, Vitality times 60, Spirit times 60, and Magic times 60." Cloud continues looking at Squall. "You're sneaky, Cloud. You know that?" Cloud just smiles. "I'll have Confuse, Death, Berserk, and Sleep junctioned to Status Defense. I'll have Bio junctioned to Status Attack. Firaga will be junctioned to Elemental Attack. Quake, Blizzaga, Thundaga, and Aero will be junctioned to Elemental Defense. Full-Life will be junctioned to HP, Meteor to Strength, Meltdown to Vitality, Ultima to Magic, Reflect to Spirit, Aura to Hit Percentage, Triple to Speed, Flare to Evade, and Demi to Luck."

"Is that it now?"

"Nope," Squall says. Cloud stares blankly at him. "I want to know the items Cloud is carrying around, since he always has access to his item bag."

Cloud looks sourly at Squall. "99 X-Potions, 99 Turbo Ethers, 99 Hero Drinks, 99 Remedies, 10 Hypers, 10 Tranquilizers, 50 Elixirs, 25 Maiden's Kisses, 25 Softs, 25 Cornucopias, 25 Antidotes, 25 Echo Screens, and 25 Vaccines." Squall crosses his arms. "What now?"

"How many Enemy Skills do you have?"

"I have all of them! All right? I've got Angel Whisper, Aqualung, Bad Breath," at this Squall staggers, "Beta, Big Guard, Chocobuckle, Death Force, Death Sentence, Dragon Force, Flame Thrower, Frog Song, Goblin Punch, Level Four Suicide, Level Five Death, Laser, Magic Breath, Magic Hammer, Matra Magic, Pandora's Box, Roulette, Shadow Flare, Trine, White Wind, and '????'. Does that satisfy your wicked insanity?" Squall just smiles.

"Okay, guys, the fight hasn't begun yet. Calm down until I finish reading off the rules. Okay, you two, this bout will commence much like a battle game in Gold Saucer. At any given moment, I can block any abilities that you have for a given amount of time not to exceed two minutes. I may take any ability away from one of you or both of you, depending on what I want to take. For example, Cloud, I reserve the right to block the use of any color materia or your ribbon. Squall, I can disable your Recover, Magic, or your Status Defense. I can take your limit breaks away from both of you at any time. Do you understand and agree to the rules?" Both nod. "All right, then. Let me get away from the area, then you two can proceed to beat each other to death." Rajura runs to the door of the broadcasting building. "FIGHT!"

Cloud and Squall stare each other down for a minute. Squall prepares to call one of his GFs, but Cloud doesn't realize it. "I don't get it, Squall. How can you work with that weak junctioning system? That thing seems way too confusing. No wonder everybody likes my materia so much."

"Please, boy."

"Boy?" Cloud scoffs at Squall. "I'm older than you are."

"…Whatever."

"WHAT WAS THAT?"

"That materia system can't increase your statistics to 255, can it? The junction system can, along with some preparation from the Island Closest to Heaven and the Island Closest to Hell."

"That may be so, but I can fight on Gelnika and morph the enemies there into sources to raise my statistics to 255. Also, I do have Luck Plus, Speed Plus, and Magic Plus. They help out a lot."

"I doubt it's good enough to save you, though."

"Save me from what?"

"From this! Diablos!"

Cloud smiles. "I've got you now!" He starts to run towards Squall. "Everyone knows that it takes at least twenty seconds to call one of those guys." Squall smiles back, fading from view, as the battleground is turning to darkness. As bats begin to fly up into a ball, Cloud realizes that Squall was standing there calling Diablos while he was bickering about how he was better. "That sucks." Diablos slithers out of the large bat ball. "This is not good. Big Guard!" The magical guard envelopes him just as Diablos sticks his hand into the ball, then begins to pull it down. Cloud cowers when the ball hits the ground. The arena shakes violently as Cloud feels over half of his energy being drained. "At least now my limit meter will go up," he mutters. As the darkness gives way to light, Cloud tries to pull out an X-Potion. When he realizes his item bag was sealed, he quickly glanced at Rajura, who was holding up a sign that said, "Items disabled." Cloud frowns and quickly casts White Wind on himself.

"Like Diablos?" Squall teases. "I guess it's time to give you a piece of Lion Heart." Squall rushes Cloud, hoping that his speed would be enough to stagger Cloud, but Cloud begins to counter each of the attacks with one of his own. The sky suddenly breaks to light. Squall backs up. "Gilgamesh."

"Who?" Cloud looks up as four sword float down towards the earth. A shrouded man stands in the midst of them. In the group of swords, Cloud recognizes Odin's Steel Bladed Sword and a sword that looked strikingly similar to Sephiroth's. "Death Force!" He wasn't taking any chances with instant death yet. Gilgamesh picks up a sword from the group. Cloud notices Squall sigh and wonders what was going on.

"Excalipoor!" Gilgamesh cries out an attack and slices at Cloud.

"What the?" Cloud looks around in disbelief. "That didn't even hurt! What kind of attack was that?"

"A very weak one," Squall admits. "But it did buy me some time. Aura!" A yellowish glow begins to surround Squall, but suddenly dissipates. "What the?" Squall looks at Cloud, who is staring at Rajura. Squall notices that the sign says, "All limit breaks blocked except for level one." The aura once again surrounds Squall, and he smiles. "No problems here. Renzokuken!" He gets five good shots on Cloud, but fails to do Rough Divide. Cloud instantly counters with Ultima, but it hardly takes off anything from Squall.

"Try this! Cross Slash!" Cloud returns the attack with four hits.

"Four hits isn't going to…what the? I can't move!"

"Paralysis, fool! This is my match!" Cloud looks over towards Rajura before deciding what to do. Rajura hold up the "Summon Materia Disabled" sign. Cloud curses, then decides on a better move. "Comet 2!"

Squall looks at the oncoming comets. "Hmm. Just like Meteor. Wonder how strong it is?" The four comets hit, but only take off a total of 400 hit points. The paralysis breaks, and Squall immediately comes back on the offensive, performing another Renzokuken and finishing off with Rough Divide. Cloud's Big Guard breaks the attack down to only 5000 hit points, but he is now in critical condition.

"Full-cure!" Cloud instantly heals himself back to full health and begins to attack again. This time, Squall doesn't put up a fight, so Cloud raises his Ultima Weapon into the air with both hands, allowing energy to flow into his sword. "Omnislash!" He then attacks with a flurry of swipes, ending by completely charging his sword with energy and bringing it down upon Squall's head. The fifteen-hit combo lowers Squall's hit points to 800. Cloud is confused. "Man, what are you doing?"

"No handicaps," Squall mutters. He gets up and performs Renzokuken, then steps back. His body begins to glow.

"What the hell?" Cloud steps back.

Squall has an evil, murderous grin on his face. "Lion Heart." He runs forward and uses his gunblade to uppercut Cloud into the air. He then attacks Cloud with his own flurry of swings, finishing by completely charging up his gunblade with energy and swinging it through Cloud's midsection. Squall returns to the ground on his feet, but Cloud lands head first. Squall, satisfied that Cloud is out, turns around to walk away.

"Not yet! I have one more for you!" Squall turns around to find Cloud up on his feet.

"NO! I DEFEATED YOU!"

"Knights of Round! Decimate him!" Cloud slumps back to the ground as Squall falls into a pit.

"Oh shit." Squall is attacked by the twelve Knights of the Round Table and King Arthur. As the scene breaks, Squall sinks to the ground, unconscious.

Rajura walks out to the field and examines both combatants. He shrugs. "It's a tie. No one won."

"And there you have it, folks! The first match ends with a double knockout! Will this kind of irony repeat through the rest of the matches, Touma?"

"I don't know, Shu. We'll just have to wait and see."

Rajura, meanwhile, opens Cloud's item bag and pulls out a phoenix down. "I think this is it." He throws it onto Cloud, who stirs, then sits up.

"Who won?"

"No one. It was a tie."

"That's because the both of you suck!" Cloud looks around for the new speaker. "That's right! You heard me!"

"If you're so tough, why don't you show yourself?"

"Fine, I will!" Zidane steps out of the shadows. "Happy now?"

"You expect me to be afraid of you? Don't make me laugh." Cloud begins to stand up using his Ultima Weapon.

"At least I wouldn't have lost to Squall like that. In fact, I could have beaten the both of you at the same time!"

"Oh, really?" Cloud mocks.

"Yeah, really!"

"Fine." Cloud reaches into his item bag.

"What are you doing?" Zidane starts to worry.

Cloud pulls out a phoenix down and throws it on Squall. "Get up. We've got work to do."

"What kind?"

"Eliminate a monkey."

Squall stands up and smiles. "My pleasure. I never liked him anyway. He broke the trend of lone wolf mercenaries."

Zidane is now wide-eyed. "I…I'm outta here!" He runs off.

"You can run, but you can't hide!" Cloud shouts. He and Squall chase after Zidane.

"What a wonderful turn of events," Touma announces. "Episode 2, Cloud and Squall will get their revenge."

"Yeah, but we still have to finish Episode 1 first," Shu responds. "Stay with us, we'll be right back."

End notes: The first chapter of my first fic! What do you think? Review this!