Heidegger's Big Day
A/N: I don't own any of the guys. This fic was not intended to
harm anyone except the characters.
Heidegger waddled to his office after an exceptionally trying day of paperwork and bossing people around. Heidegger was pissed, which wasn't necessarily unusual only that on this particular day, he was more pissed than customary. He mumbled some incoherent phrase as his pudgy fingers groped for the keys in his breast pocket. "I hate Mondays."
His mouse-like secretary shrunk in her seat as Heidegger thundered passed. She knew that on Mondays Heidegger was likely to fire people at random. He didn't acknowledge her though, and instead proceeded into his office. He'd had such an /awful/ day.
First the filter in the coffee machine broke. Heidegger spent a good half hour trying to get gritty chunks of coffee from out of his teeth. Then he had to go see Scarlet for a weapons order and she bitched him out. He attempted to defend himself and validate the need for the weapons orders, but Scarlet didn't seem to care and eventually made him leave. Then Heidegger had to go get /Sephiroth/, the great and powerful General, to try to talk to Scarlet. Heidegger didn't like Sephiroth because Sephiroth had issues with authority. If Heidegger were to say, "Sephiroth, I need that report on the number five reactor by the end of the day," Sephiroth would come very close to ramming Masamune up Heidegger's ass. If Heidegger were to say, "Great work Sephiroth, why don't you vacation for two months in Costa del Sol," Sephiroth would glare at him then immediately launch a verbal tirade on how 'the duties of a general never end.' Sephiroth was a prick, so naturally, when Heidegger asked him to speak with Scarlet a brief argument ensued before Sephiroth nearly threw him down the stairs and tromped off fuming. So Heidegger had to go see Zack. He hated Zack too. He hated anyone that cheerful. Zack and the General were polar opposites. When asked to deal with Scarlet, Zack spit on his hands, rubbed his palms together, put an arm around Heidegger's shoulders (or at least he tried to but was relatively unsuccessful given Heidegger's substantial bulk), squared his jaw and marched straight into Scarlet's office. Zack was in Scarlet's office for all of two minutes before the order forms were filled completed. Poster boy Zack could manipulate Scarlet almost as good as Rufus ShinRa could. It pissed Heidegger off.
But the worst part of his day was Palmer. Palmer was worse than Scarlet, Sephiroth, and Zack combined. First of all, the Space Dept. was utterly worthless yet consumed funding faster than Zack could consume teriyaki chocobo (this is an incredibly fast pace as decided through an eating contest at an all-you-can-eat Wutainese buffet). Plus Palmer felt that Heidegger might appreciate fat jokes. Palmer either was in denial or so pained by his grotesquely obese body that he felt the need to joke about it incessantly. Heidegger didn't like jokes, especially jokes about /him/. And Palmer always smelled like a fried hot dog. It nearly made Heidegger choke. Palmer simply oozed oil from every orifice and pore in his body. His hair was oily, his skin was oily, his /clothes/ had grease stains. Oily greasiness and friedness. Heidegger felt his arteries clogging just from looking at the man. Today Heidegger had to do a reevaluation of monetary distributions, and Palmer insisted that the Space department needed more money. When Heidegger gruffly informed Palmer that the Space Dept. hadn't achieved anything /ever/, Palmer claimed it was due to lack of funding. After what surely must have been an eternity, Heidegger simply gave up and let Palmer have his fucking funding.
Now it was time for the daily bottle of Vodka. Heidegger flopped heavily into his custom-made behemoth-leather chair and sighed heavily. He wished he hadn't quit smoking. He took out a shot glass, reconsidered, replaced the shot glass and took a large gulp of Vodka straight from the bottle. It was only two o'clock. Heidegger dragged a hairy hand across his enlarged face and guzzled the vodka with fervor not uncommon in the executive administrative branch. In just a few minutes, Heidegger had consumed ¾ of the bottle. He would have finished it were it not for the timid knock on the door.
"Ummm, Heidegger sir?" called a squeaky voice from outside. "President ShinRa wants you in his office immediately for an emergency board meeting."
Heidegger groaned and slammed the nearly empty bottle on his desk with a jaded force. He got up and winced at the pain in his back, after all, it wasn't easy carrying around five hundred pounds of flab all day. He shuffled to his door, glared once at his secretary. "You're fired." He proceeded upstairs to the president's massive office.
Zack was already there; his brooding sidekick was noticeably absent. Sephiroth, no doubt, had something more important to do than attend board meetings. And President ShinRa licked the General's ass worse than even the SOLDIER officers did so Sephiroth wasn't even required to attend board meetings. Zack gave Heidegger thumbs up and a lunatic grin, causing Heidegger to sneer inwardly. Palmer was already there; tallow leaking from his pores and mopping his balding forehead with a yellow-stained hanky. Palmer looked more unkempt than usual. His dull, gray suit was rumpled and his comb over was unbefitting, hanging down the side of his face. President ShinRa sat looking gruff and uninspiring with his fruity velveteen crimson suit neatly pressed. ShinRa's lapdog Tseng stood just behind him and to the left, casting suggestive glances towards the President's son Rufus, who pretended not to notice. Hojo was there, looking evil and no doubt devising new ways to alter one's DNA. Heidegger didn't like Hojo either, but then again no one really did. Scarlet was there, fanning her bosom with a manila folder. Scarlet looked rather disheveled as well, with her coat buttoned wrong, her hair tousled, and . . . why was she looking at Palmer as if she wanted to eat him? She waved to him and smiled sweetly (well, as sweet as she could but the effect was less than striking). Palmer giggled and waved back. Sweaty rumpled Palmer. Sweaty rumpled Scarlet. Revelation hit Heidegger like a sack of bricks. Heidegger reeled and hit the floor like revelation.
* * *
"Everyone please sit down, the meeting is about to start." ShinRa had a monotone that rivaled most robots.
"Ummm, shouldn't we do something about Heidi?" Zack asked, raising his hand and looking towards the passed out executive.
ShinRa arched an eyebrow before standing up slowly to eye the fallen executive and remained completely silent for a very long time. "Well . . . DO something!"
Zack jumped to his feet and knelt by Heidegger's side. The man looked like a beached whale. Zack took the other man's wrist between his fingers and felt for a pulse. "Well, at least he's alive."
Hojo crept up behind Zack and examined Heidegger carefully, shaking with silent mirth. Zack edged slowly away, eyes filled with terror and disgust. "Quit it, Hojo. You're scaring us!"
President ShinRa sighed. "Did I not tell you to do something?"
Zack gave him a blank stare. "What am I supposed to do with him?"
ShinRa slapped his forehead and Tseng and Rufus exchanged looks. ShinRa cleared his throat and tried to sound civil. "Pick him up and take him to the infirmary, my dim-witted Lieutenant."
Zack mumbled an apology and grabbed Heidegger by the arm, intending to sling the man over his shoulder. Zack pulled and pulled but couldn't lift the gigantic, unconscious executive more than a foot off the ground. Zack let go of Heidegger's arm panting and circled him, searching for an alternate way to lift him.
ShinRa sat down heavily. "Son of a whore!"
Everyone looked at Rufus, then quickly realizing that ShinRa had only said his words as an exclamation, discreetly turned back towards Heidegger.
"I put millions and trillions of Gil into funding for SOLDIER, and what do I get! Weaklings!" He slammed his fist on the desk.
Hojo looked indignant and was about to say something before Zack interrupted him. "Listen, I've freed trapped SOLDIERS from beneath eight hundred pounds of scrap metal. I had to carry one of your transport vehicles from Ft. Condor to Junon after the tires blew. I am /not/ weak! It's just . . . well he's really heavy and I can't get a good hold on him. It's like trying to lift an eight hundred pound slab of Jell-O."
"Please, allow /me/ to assist you," said Tseng as he stepped away from president ShinRa. Zack grudgingly accepted the assistance, though he disliked Tseng's smug tone and superior attitude.
"Fine. You grab that arm, I'll grab this one." And the two men began to pull on Heidegger's flabby arms. They pulled as hard as they could, trying for all they were worth to overcome the forces of gravity, but to no avail. Zack gasped for air, Tseng got blue in the face before they both gave up. Tseng winced and rubbed his back while Zack tried to work the kinks out of his fingers.
"OOOHHH!!! Get Sephiroth in here immediately! I will not have Heidegger /sleep/ during my board meeting!"
Zack ran quickly out the door to retrieve the General, who was by far the strongest man in the army.
Palmer giggled and pointed. "Hey ShinRa! Your leader of company military research development so fat, he plays pool with the planets! Your leader of company military research development so fat, he wears an asteroid belt! Heeeheeheeehee!"
"Oh can it Palmer. If you're gonna tell fat jokes, which, by the way, you don't really have the right to, you should at /least/ leave out your references to space," said Scarlet. She could only take about fifteen minutes of Palmer before she couldn't stand the man (If she had known there was to be a board meeting, she would have conserved her Palmer tolerance. However, as it was, she had already spent fifteen minutes with him in the janitor closet down the hall).
"But . . . I'm in charge of the space department!"
"Oh shut up the hell up, Fatty Fatterson. You don't do anything anyways. Now if you wanna hear fat jokes . . . ShinRa, your leader of company military research development is so fat, his shadow weighs five hundred pounds. Your leader of company military research development is so fat, when his beeper goes off; people think he's backing up!"
Rufus laughed and chimed in with, "Your leader of military development so fat, he's been declared a natural habitat for condors."
Hojo giggled maniacally. "Heidegger is so fat; the process of gluconeogenesis in his body must be dysfunctional!"
President ShinRa was becoming more and more irate. He'd hired a group of morons, complete and utter morons. "Everyone shut up! The General will be arriving soon."
On cue, Sephiroth pushed the doors to the office open and stared at everyone in the room, his green eyes blazing. He propped defiant hands on his hips and turned up his perfect nose at the group of executives. Zack pointed and laughed. "See, I told you the fatty fell down."
Sephiroth sneered and approached the still unconscious Heidegger. "Are you telling me I have to /touch/ him?"
"Yes, Sephiroth, if it's not too much trouble . . . please," ShinRa said with a smile.
The General snarled in distaste and placed his strong hands beneath Heidegger's armpits. He lifted Heidegger's entire body a good three feet off the ground before groaning in pain and dropping him. "Sweet Shiva, I've never lifted anything heavier in my life."
Hojo gaped. "But what about your combat training! I made you strong! You could carry anything. No feat of strength was too great for you!"
Sephiroth tried again, and this time it looked as if he might actually manage to bear Heidegger's weight, but the stress was too much and Sephiroth toppled backwards, Heidegger landing on top of him. Tseng and Zack immediately ran to free The General from beneath his lard-like confines. After a few moments, Sephiroth was freed, but he had nearly suffocated. Everyone was now too afraid to lift Heidegger.
The meeting was started, and the first call to order was what to do with Heidegger.
"We really should take him to the infirmary, he may have had a stroke, or a heart attack, or an aneurism."
"Wouldn't it be wonderful if he were to spontaneously combust? Did you know that a human body can burn internally like a wick until they combust?"
"Perhaps we can revive him?"
Sephiroth cast a Life2 spell, which failed. He then cast a Cure3 spell, which also had little effect. "Maybe some sort of electric shock therapy might revive him."
"Yeah!" shouted Zack who immediately blasted Heidegger with a Bolt3 spell. The room now smelled of singed hair and flesh.
Covering his nose with his sleeve, Rufus announced at once that they should all just leave the room and go out into the city for lunch. Heidegger could kiss his lily-white ass. Everyone seemed to agree.
So they all went out to lunch and ate deluxe cheeseburgers, fries, fried pickles with mustard, and soda (diet soda, of course).
Heidegger came to a few hours later, images of Palmer and Scarlet making out flashed through his mind. He was just barely able to conquer the bile rising in his throat. He shook the thought s from his head and looked around. The first thing he noticed was that he was on the ground. Next, he noticed that his skin was seared and his hair stood on end. He was alone in president ShinRa's office. Heidegger scratched his head and bits of singed hair came off and stuck to his fingers. Had the meeting already taken place? Had they left him there to rot? Had some sort of nuclear blast killed everyone but him? Heidegger smiled. He missed the board meeting. His smile grew wider. He had managed to skip an entire board meeting! Heidegger hated board meetings and nothing was better than finding ways to miss one. He stood, despite his protesting muscles, and wandered back to his own office. He hadn't had such a bad day after all.
Heidegger waddled to his office after an exceptionally trying day of paperwork and bossing people around. Heidegger was pissed, which wasn't necessarily unusual only that on this particular day, he was more pissed than customary. He mumbled some incoherent phrase as his pudgy fingers groped for the keys in his breast pocket. "I hate Mondays."
His mouse-like secretary shrunk in her seat as Heidegger thundered passed. She knew that on Mondays Heidegger was likely to fire people at random. He didn't acknowledge her though, and instead proceeded into his office. He'd had such an /awful/ day.
First the filter in the coffee machine broke. Heidegger spent a good half hour trying to get gritty chunks of coffee from out of his teeth. Then he had to go see Scarlet for a weapons order and she bitched him out. He attempted to defend himself and validate the need for the weapons orders, but Scarlet didn't seem to care and eventually made him leave. Then Heidegger had to go get /Sephiroth/, the great and powerful General, to try to talk to Scarlet. Heidegger didn't like Sephiroth because Sephiroth had issues with authority. If Heidegger were to say, "Sephiroth, I need that report on the number five reactor by the end of the day," Sephiroth would come very close to ramming Masamune up Heidegger's ass. If Heidegger were to say, "Great work Sephiroth, why don't you vacation for two months in Costa del Sol," Sephiroth would glare at him then immediately launch a verbal tirade on how 'the duties of a general never end.' Sephiroth was a prick, so naturally, when Heidegger asked him to speak with Scarlet a brief argument ensued before Sephiroth nearly threw him down the stairs and tromped off fuming. So Heidegger had to go see Zack. He hated Zack too. He hated anyone that cheerful. Zack and the General were polar opposites. When asked to deal with Scarlet, Zack spit on his hands, rubbed his palms together, put an arm around Heidegger's shoulders (or at least he tried to but was relatively unsuccessful given Heidegger's substantial bulk), squared his jaw and marched straight into Scarlet's office. Zack was in Scarlet's office for all of two minutes before the order forms were filled completed. Poster boy Zack could manipulate Scarlet almost as good as Rufus ShinRa could. It pissed Heidegger off.
But the worst part of his day was Palmer. Palmer was worse than Scarlet, Sephiroth, and Zack combined. First of all, the Space Dept. was utterly worthless yet consumed funding faster than Zack could consume teriyaki chocobo (this is an incredibly fast pace as decided through an eating contest at an all-you-can-eat Wutainese buffet). Plus Palmer felt that Heidegger might appreciate fat jokes. Palmer either was in denial or so pained by his grotesquely obese body that he felt the need to joke about it incessantly. Heidegger didn't like jokes, especially jokes about /him/. And Palmer always smelled like a fried hot dog. It nearly made Heidegger choke. Palmer simply oozed oil from every orifice and pore in his body. His hair was oily, his skin was oily, his /clothes/ had grease stains. Oily greasiness and friedness. Heidegger felt his arteries clogging just from looking at the man. Today Heidegger had to do a reevaluation of monetary distributions, and Palmer insisted that the Space department needed more money. When Heidegger gruffly informed Palmer that the Space Dept. hadn't achieved anything /ever/, Palmer claimed it was due to lack of funding. After what surely must have been an eternity, Heidegger simply gave up and let Palmer have his fucking funding.
Now it was time for the daily bottle of Vodka. Heidegger flopped heavily into his custom-made behemoth-leather chair and sighed heavily. He wished he hadn't quit smoking. He took out a shot glass, reconsidered, replaced the shot glass and took a large gulp of Vodka straight from the bottle. It was only two o'clock. Heidegger dragged a hairy hand across his enlarged face and guzzled the vodka with fervor not uncommon in the executive administrative branch. In just a few minutes, Heidegger had consumed ¾ of the bottle. He would have finished it were it not for the timid knock on the door.
"Ummm, Heidegger sir?" called a squeaky voice from outside. "President ShinRa wants you in his office immediately for an emergency board meeting."
Heidegger groaned and slammed the nearly empty bottle on his desk with a jaded force. He got up and winced at the pain in his back, after all, it wasn't easy carrying around five hundred pounds of flab all day. He shuffled to his door, glared once at his secretary. "You're fired." He proceeded upstairs to the president's massive office.
Zack was already there; his brooding sidekick was noticeably absent. Sephiroth, no doubt, had something more important to do than attend board meetings. And President ShinRa licked the General's ass worse than even the SOLDIER officers did so Sephiroth wasn't even required to attend board meetings. Zack gave Heidegger thumbs up and a lunatic grin, causing Heidegger to sneer inwardly. Palmer was already there; tallow leaking from his pores and mopping his balding forehead with a yellow-stained hanky. Palmer looked more unkempt than usual. His dull, gray suit was rumpled and his comb over was unbefitting, hanging down the side of his face. President ShinRa sat looking gruff and uninspiring with his fruity velveteen crimson suit neatly pressed. ShinRa's lapdog Tseng stood just behind him and to the left, casting suggestive glances towards the President's son Rufus, who pretended not to notice. Hojo was there, looking evil and no doubt devising new ways to alter one's DNA. Heidegger didn't like Hojo either, but then again no one really did. Scarlet was there, fanning her bosom with a manila folder. Scarlet looked rather disheveled as well, with her coat buttoned wrong, her hair tousled, and . . . why was she looking at Palmer as if she wanted to eat him? She waved to him and smiled sweetly (well, as sweet as she could but the effect was less than striking). Palmer giggled and waved back. Sweaty rumpled Palmer. Sweaty rumpled Scarlet. Revelation hit Heidegger like a sack of bricks. Heidegger reeled and hit the floor like revelation.
* * *
"Everyone please sit down, the meeting is about to start." ShinRa had a monotone that rivaled most robots.
"Ummm, shouldn't we do something about Heidi?" Zack asked, raising his hand and looking towards the passed out executive.
ShinRa arched an eyebrow before standing up slowly to eye the fallen executive and remained completely silent for a very long time. "Well . . . DO something!"
Zack jumped to his feet and knelt by Heidegger's side. The man looked like a beached whale. Zack took the other man's wrist between his fingers and felt for a pulse. "Well, at least he's alive."
Hojo crept up behind Zack and examined Heidegger carefully, shaking with silent mirth. Zack edged slowly away, eyes filled with terror and disgust. "Quit it, Hojo. You're scaring us!"
President ShinRa sighed. "Did I not tell you to do something?"
Zack gave him a blank stare. "What am I supposed to do with him?"
ShinRa slapped his forehead and Tseng and Rufus exchanged looks. ShinRa cleared his throat and tried to sound civil. "Pick him up and take him to the infirmary, my dim-witted Lieutenant."
Zack mumbled an apology and grabbed Heidegger by the arm, intending to sling the man over his shoulder. Zack pulled and pulled but couldn't lift the gigantic, unconscious executive more than a foot off the ground. Zack let go of Heidegger's arm panting and circled him, searching for an alternate way to lift him.
ShinRa sat down heavily. "Son of a whore!"
Everyone looked at Rufus, then quickly realizing that ShinRa had only said his words as an exclamation, discreetly turned back towards Heidegger.
"I put millions and trillions of Gil into funding for SOLDIER, and what do I get! Weaklings!" He slammed his fist on the desk.
Hojo looked indignant and was about to say something before Zack interrupted him. "Listen, I've freed trapped SOLDIERS from beneath eight hundred pounds of scrap metal. I had to carry one of your transport vehicles from Ft. Condor to Junon after the tires blew. I am /not/ weak! It's just . . . well he's really heavy and I can't get a good hold on him. It's like trying to lift an eight hundred pound slab of Jell-O."
"Please, allow /me/ to assist you," said Tseng as he stepped away from president ShinRa. Zack grudgingly accepted the assistance, though he disliked Tseng's smug tone and superior attitude.
"Fine. You grab that arm, I'll grab this one." And the two men began to pull on Heidegger's flabby arms. They pulled as hard as they could, trying for all they were worth to overcome the forces of gravity, but to no avail. Zack gasped for air, Tseng got blue in the face before they both gave up. Tseng winced and rubbed his back while Zack tried to work the kinks out of his fingers.
"OOOHHH!!! Get Sephiroth in here immediately! I will not have Heidegger /sleep/ during my board meeting!"
Zack ran quickly out the door to retrieve the General, who was by far the strongest man in the army.
Palmer giggled and pointed. "Hey ShinRa! Your leader of company military research development so fat, he plays pool with the planets! Your leader of company military research development so fat, he wears an asteroid belt! Heeeheeheeehee!"
"Oh can it Palmer. If you're gonna tell fat jokes, which, by the way, you don't really have the right to, you should at /least/ leave out your references to space," said Scarlet. She could only take about fifteen minutes of Palmer before she couldn't stand the man (If she had known there was to be a board meeting, she would have conserved her Palmer tolerance. However, as it was, she had already spent fifteen minutes with him in the janitor closet down the hall).
"But . . . I'm in charge of the space department!"
"Oh shut up the hell up, Fatty Fatterson. You don't do anything anyways. Now if you wanna hear fat jokes . . . ShinRa, your leader of company military research development is so fat, his shadow weighs five hundred pounds. Your leader of company military research development is so fat, when his beeper goes off; people think he's backing up!"
Rufus laughed and chimed in with, "Your leader of military development so fat, he's been declared a natural habitat for condors."
Hojo giggled maniacally. "Heidegger is so fat; the process of gluconeogenesis in his body must be dysfunctional!"
President ShinRa was becoming more and more irate. He'd hired a group of morons, complete and utter morons. "Everyone shut up! The General will be arriving soon."
On cue, Sephiroth pushed the doors to the office open and stared at everyone in the room, his green eyes blazing. He propped defiant hands on his hips and turned up his perfect nose at the group of executives. Zack pointed and laughed. "See, I told you the fatty fell down."
Sephiroth sneered and approached the still unconscious Heidegger. "Are you telling me I have to /touch/ him?"
"Yes, Sephiroth, if it's not too much trouble . . . please," ShinRa said with a smile.
The General snarled in distaste and placed his strong hands beneath Heidegger's armpits. He lifted Heidegger's entire body a good three feet off the ground before groaning in pain and dropping him. "Sweet Shiva, I've never lifted anything heavier in my life."
Hojo gaped. "But what about your combat training! I made you strong! You could carry anything. No feat of strength was too great for you!"
Sephiroth tried again, and this time it looked as if he might actually manage to bear Heidegger's weight, but the stress was too much and Sephiroth toppled backwards, Heidegger landing on top of him. Tseng and Zack immediately ran to free The General from beneath his lard-like confines. After a few moments, Sephiroth was freed, but he had nearly suffocated. Everyone was now too afraid to lift Heidegger.
The meeting was started, and the first call to order was what to do with Heidegger.
"We really should take him to the infirmary, he may have had a stroke, or a heart attack, or an aneurism."
"Wouldn't it be wonderful if he were to spontaneously combust? Did you know that a human body can burn internally like a wick until they combust?"
"Perhaps we can revive him?"
Sephiroth cast a Life2 spell, which failed. He then cast a Cure3 spell, which also had little effect. "Maybe some sort of electric shock therapy might revive him."
"Yeah!" shouted Zack who immediately blasted Heidegger with a Bolt3 spell. The room now smelled of singed hair and flesh.
Covering his nose with his sleeve, Rufus announced at once that they should all just leave the room and go out into the city for lunch. Heidegger could kiss his lily-white ass. Everyone seemed to agree.
So they all went out to lunch and ate deluxe cheeseburgers, fries, fried pickles with mustard, and soda (diet soda, of course).
Heidegger came to a few hours later, images of Palmer and Scarlet making out flashed through his mind. He was just barely able to conquer the bile rising in his throat. He shook the thought s from his head and looked around. The first thing he noticed was that he was on the ground. Next, he noticed that his skin was seared and his hair stood on end. He was alone in president ShinRa's office. Heidegger scratched his head and bits of singed hair came off and stuck to his fingers. Had the meeting already taken place? Had they left him there to rot? Had some sort of nuclear blast killed everyone but him? Heidegger smiled. He missed the board meeting. His smile grew wider. He had managed to skip an entire board meeting! Heidegger hated board meetings and nothing was better than finding ways to miss one. He stood, despite his protesting muscles, and wandered back to his own office. He hadn't had such a bad day after all.