Chapter 20
-----
The party held a group council on the bridge when Tifa returned from the RRRR.
"We should start with places we haven't been before," Aeris was saying, "It'll take forever to go over the ground we've already covered."
"I can have some of my Knights visit the taverns around there and keep an ear open for gossip," offered Cid, and several of his Knights (Those who were old enough to drink) broke into a rousing cheer.
Thus it was decided. On one crappy, overcast morning, Tifa, Vincent, and Cid stepped off of the Highwind, and...
SPLASH!
"That's not funny, Bare-It!" raged Cid from the frothy sea below. Giggling, Bare-It threw the soaked trio a rope.
"Try setting us down over land this time," commented Tifa acidly when they were back on board the Highwind.
One more time: Tifa, Vincent and Cid prepared to leave the Highwind, and--
"Zack, what are you planning to do with that beehive?" asked Aeris.
Zack hurriedly hid the beehive down the front of his shorts. "Nothing," he squeaked.
This time, the Highwind was over dry land. The trio stepped towards the gates of a nearby town, and--
"Wait!" cried Yuppie.
"Now what?" expostulated Cid, "How many interruptions can we fit in here?"
"You don't want to go in there," said Yuppie, "It's--"
Two Hair Club guards rushed up, "There they are!"
"Betrayed!" said Cid.
"No," Yuppie said, dashing away, "It wasn't me! It was the one-armed man!"
The trio quickly discovered that Yuppie had stolen most of their materia. Thus, it took nearly a full second to dispose of the Hair Club guards, who were weaker than most of the enemies they had faced in Midgar.
The trio found themselves in the town of "Woo-ta-ta-ta-wooo-ta-ta!", as the natives liked to call it. Vincent said that the Turks had called it "Wootai" for short in the days of yore when Dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
They found Yuppie several times, hiding out, and finally she dashed into the mountains to the north. A native confirmed that there was no way out of the Woo-ta-ta-ta-wooo-ta-ta'an picnic area (referred to ebonically as "Da chow" by the natives), so Cid suggested that they take a break at the local tavern.
--Where they discovered Reno and Rude, utterly plastered, passing a flask of whiskey back and forth.
"I'm glad Bare-It's not he--" started Tifa, but Cid and Vincent had already thrown themselves into the sauce with gusto. "Dammit," she concluded.
A Hair Club guard rushed in. "Reno!" he exclaimed, "Rude! Elena's been kidnapped by--Hey, is that Jack Daniels?"
After the flask had gone around several times, the Hair Club guard explained that Elena and another woman had been kidnapped by Don Cornholio and carried off to Da Chow.
"He's gonna eat 'em?" asked Rude.
Reno burst into raucous laughter.
"Reno!" chided Cid, "That was quite rude of you."
"Naw," guffawed Vincent, "That's Rude over there."
All the men burst into laughter. Tifa just rolled her eyes.
When the laughter subsided, Reno squeaked, "Pipe!" and set everybody off again.
"Pipe!"
"Haw, haw, h...pipe."
four days later...
"Pipe!" exclaimed Tifa, taking a long pull from the flask. More laughter ensued.
"Hey," said Vincent, "Has anny'un elsse noticed th' we haven't refilled this flask yet?"
"Har!" crowed Rude, "We've stretched one pint over four days an' I'm still drunker 'anna skunk!"
"Pipe!" shouted Reno.
"Hey," said Cid, "I just had a disturbing thought. You know four days ago, that guard over there said that Don Cornholio had kidnapped two women, right?"
"So?" said Reno.
"You don't suppose he's...reproducing, do you?"
Everybody sobered up instantly.
The group caught up with Don Cornholio on the knife-edged peaks of Da Chow.
"Say," said Tifa appreciatively, "I like the Hello Kitty motif. Too bad Cait Sith's not here."
"You will bow down before my bunghole!" raged Don Cornholio.
"I'll fill in your bunghole," said Reno dryly.
"Nooooooo!" screamed Cornholio.
"Oh, forgot you're sensitive about that, aren't you?"
"Pipe."
Everybody erupted in laughter. The laughter was finally broken by Yuppie's enraged snarl. Cid glanced over to see Yuppie and Elena suspended over a thousand-foot drop in their underwear. His laughter redoubled. "PIPE!" he shouted, "Pipe, pipe, pipe!"
Cornholio laughed so hard he fell off the edge of the cliff.
"Awww," said Rude sympathetically, "That's too bad."
"Yeah. A shame, really," commiserated Reno.
"Hey!" came Yuppie's enraged shriek, "Are you guys gonna help me, or not?"
"That depends," answered Tifa, "Are you gonna tell us where our Materia is?"
"Why, you...alright," whispered Yuppie brokenly, "It's in a secret compartment behind the Robinett's poster in my house."
"I can't hear you!" taunted Tifa.
"Behind the Robinett's poster!" bawled Yuppie.
"kthxbye." said Cid, and the party strolled away.
"Hey! Hey!" shouted Yuppie, "Somebody get me down!"
"No!" hollered back Tifa, "You annoy the living shit out of us and we don't like you."
(Author's note: Ah, that felt good. Now I have to write an FF8 fic so that I can roast Selphie over a slow fire. Actually, I'd prefer to hang Yuppie by the scrotum, but she doesn't have one.)
Back on the Highwind, they regrouped. "Did you find Trent?" asked Arsechimp.
"No," answered Vincent, "But we did manage to get rid of Yuppie."
"SCORE!" shouted all of Cid's Knights in unison, except RSL, who thouted "THCORE!" inthtead.
Zack chuckled, "Great! Now all we have to do is cross into FF8 so that we can impale Selphie anally!"
A cheer rose on the bridge of the Highwind, and they lifted off to search elsewhere.
As luck would have it, the next place they searched was where they found Trent. Or perhaps I shouldn't say as luck would have it, since there was only one place they hadn't already been to, and that was Mideel Village, near the south pole (and yet for some reason, quite temperate. On any other world, it would have been colder than a polar bear's tonker at that latitude). Trent was sitting in a makeshift infirmary, dead to the world. Tifa nearly burst into tears at the sight of him, strapped to a wheelchair, and producing a really quite impressive volume of slobber.
"Trent!" she cried.
Trent seemed to recognize his own name. "Hoooome, home on the range!" he crowed, "Where the deer and the antelope plaaaaaaaayyyy!"
"Are you sure you want him back?" inquired Arsechimp.
Trent's head swiveled to bear upon the new voice. "I am Ozymandias, king of kings!" he declaimed, "Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
"Damn, Trent," cried Tifa, "What's happened to you?"
"We'll find out soon enough," answered Cid, "Here comes the doctor."
As the doctor stepped into the room, Trent exclaimed, "Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair!"
Cid looked at the bald doctor, then back to Trent, then back to the doctor. {He must be talking about himself,} he concluded.
After consulting with the doctor, Tifa elected to remain with Trent, while the others of the party tried to seek out some way of protecting the Planet from the gigantic Meteor Sephy had summoned.
Back on the Highwind, Cait Sith reported that the Hair Club was up to something: They intended to fire something called "huge materia" into the Meteor in the hope that the collision would destroy it.
"Isn't the Meteor approximately the size of the Earth's moon?" inquired Zack.
Aeris nodded.
"Picture this: A couple chunks of materia the size of a human head collide with the moon. Who do you think is going to win this argument?"
"There's no questioning that the Hair Club is very bright," commented Vincent.
All around the table, heads nodded in sage agreement, except for Arsechimp and Cait Sith, since the former was attempting to eat the latter.
"So where is this Huge Materia?" queried Bare-It. Then: "Cait Sith?"
"HELP!" screamed the cat.
"Oh, blow it all," muttered Bare-It. "Arsechimp! Sit!"
Somehow, Arsechimp managed to flip the bird at Bare-It, which was quite an amazing feat for someone with no hands. However, this brief interruption allowed Cait Sith to clamber back atop his stuffed marshmallow man, where he was temporarily safe.
"I don't know where they all are," admitted Cait Sith," But Fort Condor and Corel Village would make good places to start."
"Corel," murmured Bare-It, "Let's start there."
The Highwind's departure from Mideel airspace did not go unnoticed. Beady eyes glittering with hate, a purplish creature the size of a small village watched from the concealment of the wooded area surrounding Mideel Village. When the beast thought it was safe to pursue without being seen, he lifted off on leathery wings, watching the progress of the airship from below and waiting, waiting...
It would have been a very sinister effect if a sudden crosswind hadn't blown him over and caused him to plummet into a Midgar brothel, sending scantily clad women plunging into the crowded streets below, much to the delight of Japanese tourists armed with state-of-the-art Fuji cameras.
Preview of Chapter 21:
"I'm a dog. I'm supposed to like Alpo. You're nothing but a freak."
"Ah, ah, ah, none of your excuses! Now bugger off, and don't come back until you've found the drugs."
"A passed-out druggie who has soiled himself?"
-----
The party held a group council on the bridge when Tifa returned from the RRRR.
"We should start with places we haven't been before," Aeris was saying, "It'll take forever to go over the ground we've already covered."
"I can have some of my Knights visit the taverns around there and keep an ear open for gossip," offered Cid, and several of his Knights (Those who were old enough to drink) broke into a rousing cheer.
Thus it was decided. On one crappy, overcast morning, Tifa, Vincent, and Cid stepped off of the Highwind, and...
SPLASH!
"That's not funny, Bare-It!" raged Cid from the frothy sea below. Giggling, Bare-It threw the soaked trio a rope.
"Try setting us down over land this time," commented Tifa acidly when they were back on board the Highwind.
One more time: Tifa, Vincent and Cid prepared to leave the Highwind, and--
"Zack, what are you planning to do with that beehive?" asked Aeris.
Zack hurriedly hid the beehive down the front of his shorts. "Nothing," he squeaked.
This time, the Highwind was over dry land. The trio stepped towards the gates of a nearby town, and--
"Wait!" cried Yuppie.
"Now what?" expostulated Cid, "How many interruptions can we fit in here?"
"You don't want to go in there," said Yuppie, "It's--"
Two Hair Club guards rushed up, "There they are!"
"Betrayed!" said Cid.
"No," Yuppie said, dashing away, "It wasn't me! It was the one-armed man!"
The trio quickly discovered that Yuppie had stolen most of their materia. Thus, it took nearly a full second to dispose of the Hair Club guards, who were weaker than most of the enemies they had faced in Midgar.
The trio found themselves in the town of "Woo-ta-ta-ta-wooo-ta-ta!", as the natives liked to call it. Vincent said that the Turks had called it "Wootai" for short in the days of yore when Dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
They found Yuppie several times, hiding out, and finally she dashed into the mountains to the north. A native confirmed that there was no way out of the Woo-ta-ta-ta-wooo-ta-ta'an picnic area (referred to ebonically as "Da chow" by the natives), so Cid suggested that they take a break at the local tavern.
--Where they discovered Reno and Rude, utterly plastered, passing a flask of whiskey back and forth.
"I'm glad Bare-It's not he--" started Tifa, but Cid and Vincent had already thrown themselves into the sauce with gusto. "Dammit," she concluded.
A Hair Club guard rushed in. "Reno!" he exclaimed, "Rude! Elena's been kidnapped by--Hey, is that Jack Daniels?"
After the flask had gone around several times, the Hair Club guard explained that Elena and another woman had been kidnapped by Don Cornholio and carried off to Da Chow.
"He's gonna eat 'em?" asked Rude.
Reno burst into raucous laughter.
"Reno!" chided Cid, "That was quite rude of you."
"Naw," guffawed Vincent, "That's Rude over there."
All the men burst into laughter. Tifa just rolled her eyes.
When the laughter subsided, Reno squeaked, "Pipe!" and set everybody off again.
"Pipe!"
"Haw, haw, h...pipe."
four days later...
"Pipe!" exclaimed Tifa, taking a long pull from the flask. More laughter ensued.
"Hey," said Vincent, "Has anny'un elsse noticed th' we haven't refilled this flask yet?"
"Har!" crowed Rude, "We've stretched one pint over four days an' I'm still drunker 'anna skunk!"
"Pipe!" shouted Reno.
"Hey," said Cid, "I just had a disturbing thought. You know four days ago, that guard over there said that Don Cornholio had kidnapped two women, right?"
"So?" said Reno.
"You don't suppose he's...reproducing, do you?"
Everybody sobered up instantly.
The group caught up with Don Cornholio on the knife-edged peaks of Da Chow.
"Say," said Tifa appreciatively, "I like the Hello Kitty motif. Too bad Cait Sith's not here."
"You will bow down before my bunghole!" raged Don Cornholio.
"I'll fill in your bunghole," said Reno dryly.
"Nooooooo!" screamed Cornholio.
"Oh, forgot you're sensitive about that, aren't you?"
"Pipe."
Everybody erupted in laughter. The laughter was finally broken by Yuppie's enraged snarl. Cid glanced over to see Yuppie and Elena suspended over a thousand-foot drop in their underwear. His laughter redoubled. "PIPE!" he shouted, "Pipe, pipe, pipe!"
Cornholio laughed so hard he fell off the edge of the cliff.
"Awww," said Rude sympathetically, "That's too bad."
"Yeah. A shame, really," commiserated Reno.
"Hey!" came Yuppie's enraged shriek, "Are you guys gonna help me, or not?"
"That depends," answered Tifa, "Are you gonna tell us where our Materia is?"
"Why, you...alright," whispered Yuppie brokenly, "It's in a secret compartment behind the Robinett's poster in my house."
"I can't hear you!" taunted Tifa.
"Behind the Robinett's poster!" bawled Yuppie.
"kthxbye." said Cid, and the party strolled away.
"Hey! Hey!" shouted Yuppie, "Somebody get me down!"
"No!" hollered back Tifa, "You annoy the living shit out of us and we don't like you."
(Author's note: Ah, that felt good. Now I have to write an FF8 fic so that I can roast Selphie over a slow fire. Actually, I'd prefer to hang Yuppie by the scrotum, but she doesn't have one.)
Back on the Highwind, they regrouped. "Did you find Trent?" asked Arsechimp.
"No," answered Vincent, "But we did manage to get rid of Yuppie."
"SCORE!" shouted all of Cid's Knights in unison, except RSL, who thouted "THCORE!" inthtead.
Zack chuckled, "Great! Now all we have to do is cross into FF8 so that we can impale Selphie anally!"
A cheer rose on the bridge of the Highwind, and they lifted off to search elsewhere.
As luck would have it, the next place they searched was where they found Trent. Or perhaps I shouldn't say as luck would have it, since there was only one place they hadn't already been to, and that was Mideel Village, near the south pole (and yet for some reason, quite temperate. On any other world, it would have been colder than a polar bear's tonker at that latitude). Trent was sitting in a makeshift infirmary, dead to the world. Tifa nearly burst into tears at the sight of him, strapped to a wheelchair, and producing a really quite impressive volume of slobber.
"Trent!" she cried.
Trent seemed to recognize his own name. "Hoooome, home on the range!" he crowed, "Where the deer and the antelope plaaaaaaaayyyy!"
"Are you sure you want him back?" inquired Arsechimp.
Trent's head swiveled to bear upon the new voice. "I am Ozymandias, king of kings!" he declaimed, "Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
"Damn, Trent," cried Tifa, "What's happened to you?"
"We'll find out soon enough," answered Cid, "Here comes the doctor."
As the doctor stepped into the room, Trent exclaimed, "Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair!"
Cid looked at the bald doctor, then back to Trent, then back to the doctor. {He must be talking about himself,} he concluded.
After consulting with the doctor, Tifa elected to remain with Trent, while the others of the party tried to seek out some way of protecting the Planet from the gigantic Meteor Sephy had summoned.
Back on the Highwind, Cait Sith reported that the Hair Club was up to something: They intended to fire something called "huge materia" into the Meteor in the hope that the collision would destroy it.
"Isn't the Meteor approximately the size of the Earth's moon?" inquired Zack.
Aeris nodded.
"Picture this: A couple chunks of materia the size of a human head collide with the moon. Who do you think is going to win this argument?"
"There's no questioning that the Hair Club is very bright," commented Vincent.
All around the table, heads nodded in sage agreement, except for Arsechimp and Cait Sith, since the former was attempting to eat the latter.
"So where is this Huge Materia?" queried Bare-It. Then: "Cait Sith?"
"HELP!" screamed the cat.
"Oh, blow it all," muttered Bare-It. "Arsechimp! Sit!"
Somehow, Arsechimp managed to flip the bird at Bare-It, which was quite an amazing feat for someone with no hands. However, this brief interruption allowed Cait Sith to clamber back atop his stuffed marshmallow man, where he was temporarily safe.
"I don't know where they all are," admitted Cait Sith," But Fort Condor and Corel Village would make good places to start."
"Corel," murmured Bare-It, "Let's start there."
The Highwind's departure from Mideel airspace did not go unnoticed. Beady eyes glittering with hate, a purplish creature the size of a small village watched from the concealment of the wooded area surrounding Mideel Village. When the beast thought it was safe to pursue without being seen, he lifted off on leathery wings, watching the progress of the airship from below and waiting, waiting...
It would have been a very sinister effect if a sudden crosswind hadn't blown him over and caused him to plummet into a Midgar brothel, sending scantily clad women plunging into the crowded streets below, much to the delight of Japanese tourists armed with state-of-the-art Fuji cameras.
Preview of Chapter 21:
"I'm a dog. I'm supposed to like Alpo. You're nothing but a freak."
"Ah, ah, ah, none of your excuses! Now bugger off, and don't come back until you've found the drugs."
"A passed-out druggie who has soiled himself?"
