Rokuban Sho

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After being released from the psychiatrist's office after a period of intense therapy after the episode in the train to Sector 5, Greg the Guard requested a transfer to the Upper portion of Midgar, where he felt he could be safe from the nudist Mr. T. In fact, Greg was posted in the Shinra building itself. I mean, where could you be safe from Mr. T. if not in the headquarters of the world famous Shinra Corporation? Greg put his feet up on his desk.

The revolving doors revolved.

"Oh, shit!" said Greg.

As Trent finished tying up the guards from the first floor, he recognized one.

"Hey," he said, "Do you still have my cat?"

"Cat?", Greg replied, "Oh, you must mean Mittens."

"Mittens?" Trent raged, "You call him fucking MITTENS?"

"Her," corrected Greg, "And what were you calling her?"

"I was calling him Raging Ravenous Wind of Death."

"Raging Ravenous Wind of Death, eh?" replied Greg, "Nice, but it just doesn't have the same ring as 'Mittens' does."

"Yeah, I agree. It's got a better ring. Where the hell do you get off, giving Raging Ravenous Wind of Death such a pansy-ass name?"

"I think calling such a cute little pussy-cat as Mittens something as crude as Wind of Death is mean."

"Cute? CUTE? He is a KILLING MACHINE!"

"What do you mean, killing machine? Mittens is cuddly."

"Cuddly?"

"She likes to have her belly rubbed."

Trent burst into tears.

When the Three Amigos reached the 59th floor, they encountered a patrolled hallway. Bare-It managed to sneak through, followed by Tifa, but Trent was caught by a hallway guard.

"Halt!" called the guard, "Nobody's supposed to be in this hallway!"

Thinking quick, Trent replied, "I'm taking a shortcut to the infirmary. This is an emergency!"

"Emergency, eh? You don't seem to be leaking guts or anything."

"Hemorrhoids. Really bad. Wanna see?"

"Er," said the guard, checking his watch, "I just remembered that I have pressing business elsewhere. Stay out of the halls!" With that, he ran away, fast.

Trent continued towards the top of the building.

Several floors up, the Three Amigos learned that a meeting of the top brass of Shinra, Inc. was about to take place.

Tifa scratched her head and said, "Is there any way we can somehow listen in?"

Bare-It squinted at the door, and started scanning the walls.

"I gotta go potty," Trent said.

"Can't it wait?" replied Bare-It, "We're kinda busy right now."

"I gotta go real bad. Like gushing, rushing waterfalls bad."

"Aw, dammit, now I gotta go, too!"

Tifa coyly inquired, "Can I watch?", but Trent and Bare-It were too preoccupied to notice. As a unit, the three of them made a mad dash for the men's restroom.

"Hey, Trent, do you hear something?" asked Tifa.

"Just hang on," called Bare-It's voice, "I'm almost done."

"Besides that, I mean."

"Yeah," replied Trent, "There are these high-pitched voices chanting, 'kill your mother'. But I hear that all the time. I keep telling the voices that she's been dead for five years, but those seem to be the only three words they know. Just, 'kill your mother, kill your mother, kill your mother'. It kinda gets on your nerves after a while."

"I hear President Shinra, too."

"Oh, yeah, that. I think this pipe leads towards the conference room," replied Trent, heading for the door.

"You think we should listen in?"

Trent halted. "Oh, yeah. I forgot."

The three Amigos crawled into a ventilation pipe, which for some odd reason, widened enough for the three of them to comfortably stretch out when it was over the Conference Room. Bare-It placed a finger over his lips in the universal ssh sign.

Trent giggled and said, "Pipe."

Tifa started to laugh. Bare-It glared and tried to silence them, but soon, he was laughing, too.

Below, Scarlet said, "Kya ha ha! Did someone just say pipe?"

"Pipe!" roared Heidegger, "Gya ha ha!"

President Shinra glared at them both, but then a grin cracked his face. A titter escaped from Reeve. With some difficulty, all four composed themselves.

"Pipe," squeaked President Shinra, setting them all off again.

The four Shinra executives were roaring with laughter when Hojo entered.

"Who's that?" asked Tifa.

"That's Howard Johnson," replied Trent, "He used to be a wealthy real-estate mogul, but when customers at his hotels asked for Coke, he substituted HoJo Cola, and the Coca-Cola company sued his ass off. He got tossed out of his own company, and was forced to come work for Shinra."

Reeve gestured to Hojo and said, "C'mon, Hojo, join us."

Heidegger proffered a can of Coke to Hojo, who glared balefully at him.

"Why the long face, Hojo?" asked Scarlet, and then snickered, "Pipe." Five voices roared with laughter (eight counting the three in the pipe who were trying to be inconspicuous).

"Hey!" said Reeve, face suddenly grave, "I'm out of drugs. Does anybody have some extra drugs?"

With a look of concern on his face, President Shinra passed a joint over to Reeve.

"Much better," he said. And then: "Pipe!"

The room exploded with laughter.

After the meeting concluded, the Three Amigos tried to follow a still tittering Hojo to his laboratory. Hojo puttered around a little, and then buggered off. The Three Amigos examined his lab.

"Holy shit," called Trent softly, "Do you recognize this?"

Bare-It looked in the capsule Trent was gesturing at, and said, "It's like a headless cadaver, except still breathing."

"That's Jehova!" exclaimed Trent, wide-eyed, "It's Sephy Lee Roth's ma."

"You're a poet and didn't know it!"

Trent drew his sword.

"Sorry."

The sword slid back into its sheath.

Bare-It and Trent noticed that Tifa was giggling and pointing at another specimen tank. Inside was something that looked like a dog, except bright red.

"What's so funny?" asked Bare-It.

Tifa, laughing uncontrollably, gestured violently at the dog. Then Bare-It noticed what the dog was doing.

"I wish I could reach my groin with my tongue," he remarked.

Hojo glared at the lab tech who sat in the Control Center, drinking a can of Coca-Cola. He was still glaring when three people came bursting into the room from the direction of the lab. One of them was--Hojo pushed his glasses up and looked again--yes, one of them was indeed buck naked and had a gun grafted onto his arm. It takes all kinds, he thought.

"We're here for Aeris," said the young man with the sword. And the clothes, let us not forget the clothes.

{Aeris?} thought Hojo, {They must mean this Cetra that Tseng brought me. A pity she can't fly. I really wanted one who could fly.}

Hojo turned to the intruders and said, "Who are you?"

"I'm BATMAN!" shouted the young man with the sw--clothes.

The woman whispered in the young man's ear

"I mean, I'm TRENT!" he said.

"Mountains are nice," replied Hojo.

"This is the life," added the naked man.

The lab tech picked this as the time to finish his goddamn coke and do his job. He hit a button, and an escalator started moving. The red doglike creature from the floor below rose into the chamber. The Cetra lass began pounding on the plexiglass partition in panic.

"Let me out!" she cried, "Help me, Batman!"

Batman drew his sword and threw it one-handed at the partition. It bounced off harmlessly, of course, but for some reason, it caused a massive energy fluxuation (Author's Note: I love saying "massive energy fluxuation").

In a panic, Hojo hit the RELEASE buttton, hoping to save his specimens.

At a rate of speed ordinarily associated with electromagnetic radiation, a ball of red fur impacted Hojo.

This sucks, thought Hojo, and passed out.

The "dog" turned to the others and said, "OK, come on, let's get out of here before the men in white coats come."

"You can talk?" asked Tifa incredulously.

"Nope," replied the dog, "Sorry, can't talk, it must be the voices in your head." He squatted and urinated.

"Er, well, what do we call you?" asked Bare-It

"Call me anything you like."

"Anything?"

"Anything."

"Arsechimp it is. Let's go, Arsechimp!"

"We've got to get out of here," said Bare-It, "Let's split up. I'll take Aeris and go down via the stairs, and the rest of you use the elevator." Bare-It and Aeris buggered off.

Trent approached the lab assistant and held out his hand. The lab assistant didn't move. Trent drew his sword, and the lab assistant put his keycard in Trent's outstretched hand.

"Better," he said, and headed off.

The three of them walked back down to the 66th floor, and boarded an elevator. A bald man in a Turk uniform followed them in, and said, "Would you kindly press 'up', please?"

"Is this some kind of a bust?" inquired Tifa.

"Yes," replied the Turk, staring. "It's very impressive."

The party was brought before the President of Shinra, who was dressed in a red felt suit and cap, and a long white beard.

{He really DOES think he's Santa Claus,} thought Trent, {That's pathetic. I ought to chuck a Batarang at him.}

"Ho, ho, ho," said President Shinra, "And a merry Christmas to me! I guess you won't be blowing stuff up anymore."

"You gotta admit," said Bare-It, "Blowing stuff up is fun."

Replied President Shinra, "Well, yes, it is that. Ah, where are your manners. I'd like for you to meet Palmer, head of our Comic Relief department."

"Comic relief?" asked Trent, "How do you provide comic relief in a comedic story?"

"Easy," said Palmer, "You refrain from doing anything funny."

"Oh, you mean like Steve Martin?"

"Yes, he's the god of comedy-film comic relief."

"I always wondered why he was so boring."

"Yup, it's all according to the script."

"You mean you know what's in the script?"

Palmer beamed, "Yes, but I won't tell you how the story ends."

"Are there any blatant plugs for the author's website in the script?"

"You mean Bastardly Productions, that site that's more fun than a piƱata filled with bees?"

"Yeah, that's the one. It's at http://gnomes.usuck.com/."

"Nope, sorry, no plugs for http://gnomes.usuck.com/."

"That sucks."

"Yes, but not as much as gnomes do."

With that, the party was led off to separate cells.

Aeris was in a cell to the far left, then Trent and Tifa were in the middle, and Bare-It and Arsechimp on the right.

"Hey Trent," called Tifa.

"Yes, what is it?"

"You want to--"

"Yes."

"Try to escape?" Tifa finished.

"Oh. OK. But it would be a shame not to use this time to--"

"I've got a headache, Trent"

"Damn."

Several minutes passed.

Tifa said, "Well, have you thought of anything yet?"

"Yes," Trent said slowly. "It's a little bit crazy, but it might just work!"

"Oh," asked Tifa, "What did you have in mind?"

"This," responded Trent. He walked towards the door to the cell. Just in front of the door was a mat labelled, WELCOME. Trent lifted the mat, took the key out from underneath it, and unlocked the cell door.

"That was brilliant!" exclaimed Tifa, "What made you think of that?"

Trent pointed at the cell wall, on which a message was written in blood, "Please return the key to its proper place underneath the mat when you have finished escaping."

"Oh," said Tifa, "I guess that might have helped."

"Yes," answered Trent, "And it's a good thing that yon guard is dead, otherwise he would have been poking us full of holes while we talked. Trent let the rest of the group out of their cells, and returned the key to the welcome mat.

Arsechimp bounded out of the cell and sniffed the dead man. "Here," he said, liberating a keycard with his jaws, "Come on, I'll lead the way." He bounded off.

Trent used Tifa's hair to wipe the slaver off of the keycard and pocketed it. They pursued Arsechimp down the hallway. They found him sniffing at a door.

Trent waited a moment, and softly inquired, "What did you find?"

"Piss," replied Arsechimp, "I think there might be another dog in the area."

"Nope," answered Bare-It, "I pissed over there on the way in."

Arsechimp bounded onward, disappointed.

The party burst into the lower section of Howard Johnson's lab.

"Oh shit!" exclaimed Trent.

"Wha?" asked Bare-It.

Soundlessly, Trent pointed towards the capsule that had contained Jehova.

"Damn," said Bare-It, "Who would have thought a headless naked chick could escape from a capsule?"

"Jehova's not just any headless naked chick like you might meet on the streets of Midgar, or Calgary. Jehova's Sephy's mom."

"You might meet Sephy's mom on the streets of Calgary?"

"No, I just mean that Calgary's chock full of headless naked chicks."

"Doesn't that raise a few eyebrows?"

"Bare-It, if you think that that's the weirdest thing that you might meet in Calgary, I hope you never have occasion to leave your sheltered society."

"Well, what now?" asked Aeris.

"We're going after Jehova."

Nothing could have prepared Trent for what he saw when he entered President Shinra's office. The fat man was laying facedown on his desk with a big-ass sword through him, and Palmer was blubbering in the middle of the floor.

"This can only mean one thing," said Trent.

"Oh, really?" asked Aeris, "It isn't so obvious to me!"

"That's Sephy Lee Roth's sword. Only he can use it. If he's here, and he broke Jehova free, and killed Santa, it must mean...He's after the Official Bastardly Productions Trousers!"

"Bastardly Productions Trousers?" asked Aeris, "You mind explaining the logic behind that?"

"Yes, I do. Who needs logic? Remember Final Fantasy 1? Those Light Warriors just came out of nowhere! If they don't need logic in Final Fantasy, we don't need logic here. What's important is that we get the Trousers before Sephy does, because there's no telling what he might do with that kind of power."

Finally, Bare-It strode over to Palmer, and said, "What exactly happened here?"

Palmer blubbered, "Sephy Lee Roth came in here, killed Santa, and shouted, 'MINE, MINE, THE PANTS WILL BE MINE', and then buggered off with a headless naked chick. Then some lawyers came in and told me that Shinra, Inc., had been bought out by (sob) the Hair Club for Men!"

A scream of terrible agony worked its way out of Bare-It's throat, "NOOOOOOOOO! Not the HAIR CLUB FOR MEN!" Bare-It collapsed on the floor beside Palmer, weeping.

With an effort, Trent blinked away his tears. "Wh...who's in charge here, now?"

Arsechimp replied, "The president of the Hair Club for Men is named Cyril Rufus. He's a mean motherfucker, and not only is he the president of the Hair Club for Men...he's also a client."

"Bastard!" breathed Tifa.

The sound of a helicopter approached from outside.

"Shit!" exclaimed Trent, "You guys get out of here--Meet me on the ground floor. I'll try to keep this sonofabitch busy!"

Without argument, Arsechimp, Tifa, Aeris, and Bare-It left.

Trent stepped out onto the rooftop. Rufus was just climbing down from the helicopter. He released his grip on the landing gear, and the building thundered with the impact of his cloven hooves. He reached up, tested the sharpness of his horns with one finger, and sucked the blood off. His eyes glowed red, and the odor of sulphur pervaded the entire room.

Rufus glanced at Trent and said, "Hello, little boy. Would you like a lollipop?"

Trent drew his sword and said, "No, I don't think so, baldie. I've got something for you!" He leaped and slashed at Rufus.

Rufus was hurled across the room. He landed on his ass, and tears welled up in his blood-red eyes. "You...you're mean," he blubbered, "You mean, mean, meanie!"

Trent softened. "I'm sorry," he said, "I thought you were, um, evil or something."

"SUCKER!" exclaimed Rufus, and kicked Trent in the nuts.

Tifa looked upwards at the clatter from the stairs. Yes! It was Trent!

"Come on!" she called out, "I've found us transportation!" She gestured at a pickup truck and a motorcycle. Then she said, "Hey, are you OK?"

In a squeaky, high pitched voice, Trent replied, "Um, I did beat Rufus, but...I don't think I can ride that."

What the hell? thought Tifa, What happened to his voice?

"Well, then, I guess we'll have to settle for that station wagon." The party piled in, with Tifa driving.

Before long, the sound of pursuit came. Looking over her shoulder, Tifa spotted men on motorcycles in the uniform of RAZOR, the enforcement division employed by the Hair Club for Men.

"Drive faster!" urged Bare-It.

"This is as fast as it goes!" exclaimed Tifa.

"Are we there yet?" called Aeris's voice from the back.

"I have to pee!" added Trent in a squeaky voice.

"We're not there yet! Hold it in!" Tifa snarled, throwing a banana peel out the window. One of the RAZOR fellows skidded and collapsed on the banana peel in classic comic fashion.

"I really don't think banana peels should work on motorbikes," commented Bare-It.

"You want to go back and help him up?"

"Are we there yet?" called Aeris.

"She's touching me!" squeaked Trent.

"No, we're not there," said Tifa, "And quit touching him!"

"He did it first!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did not!"

"Did too...HEY!"

"Are we there yet?"

"Nobody touch anybody! And we are NOT BLOODY THERE YET!"

A gloomy silence fell over the vehicle, narrowly missing it and disabling two of the RAZOR security guards. Several silent minutes passed, and then:

"Are we there yet?"

Tifa grated, "We are a long, long way from being there, OK?"

"She's touching me again!"

"Bare-It, reach back there and slap those two!"

"Noooo!" squealed Aeris.

"Then be good!," raged Tifa.

Several more minutes of silence, and then, "Are we there yet?"

"NO! And if you don't shut up, you are never going to get there!"

"I don't have to pee anymore," came Trent's plaintive voice.

"Aw shit!" yelled Tifa.

Trent burst into tears. "Stop yelling at us."

"He's touching me again!"

"Are we there yet?"

Tifa screamed.

After a long drive, Tifa hauled Trent and Aeris bodily out of the back of the station wagon, and Bare-It and Arsechimp pushed it over the edge of a cliff. The RAZOR guards, who were instructed to chase the car, merrily drove over the cliff to their deaths.

"OK," said Bare-It, "So we've got to chase after Sephy Lee Roth and stop him from getting the Official Bastardly Productions Trousers. Clearly, he's not planning on sticking around in Midgar, so we'd better chase him. This group needs a leader, and it's gonna be me! Any questions?"

"I think Trent should be our leader," said Aeris.

"Yeah, me too," added Tifa.

"When in Rome," said Arsechimp quietly, and then "I guess that makes it three for Trent, a simple majority no matter how he votes. Hey Trent! You're our leader now!"

"Wha?" called Trent from the side of the road.

"I said you're our leader!"

"Just hang on a sec! I can't hear you!"

"Wait there! I'll come tell you," called Aeris.

"NO!" exclaimed Trent, "Can't you see I'm doing God's work over here?"

Thirty seconds later, Trent rejoined the group, and confronted Arsechimp, drawing his sword, "What's this I hear about you calling me a beater?"

"I said you were our leader"

"Sure," Trent said sarcastically, rolling his eyes, "I'm sure you would never call me a beater."

"What's a beater?" asked Aeris innocently.

"Never mind," said Bare-It, and turned to Trent, tossing a small black object at him. "This is the Party Hentai System, or PHS for short."

"Really?" asked Trent, "It looks kinda like a cell phone to me."

"Er, it is," said Bare-It, "But it could be used for Hentai."

"How?"

"Shut yo' mouth, foo'!"

"Hey, Bare-It, were were you keeping this thing?"

Bare-It blushed.

"Yuck!" exclaimed Trent, tossing it to the grass, "I ain't touching THAT thing until it's been disinfected!"

The party split into two groups and made their way towards Kalm, in the north. Their departure was not unnoticed, however. A shadowy, dark cloaked figure nodded at the furry white creature with blood-red eyes, and separately, they set off after the party.

Preview of Chapter 7:

"Did you paw through my underwear?"

"Quit humping my leg."

"Uh-oh. Aeris, quick, get a hose!"