Chapter 22

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Cid, as nominal leader of the group, headed into the mini-hospital. There was litter strewn everywhere, and a cat mewed forlornly in the corner, licking where its nuts used to be.

"Poor bastard," muttered Cid, "Now if they did that to a person, it would be considered a crime. Your owner would be thrown in jail and shit."

Finally, a nurse noticed Cid standing quietly in the waiting room.

"Can I help you, ya geez?" she questioned acidly.

Cid eyed her from head to toe, "I can think of a few ways...but right now, I just want to see Trent."

"Who?"

"Trent. He quotes poetry and sings bad songs."

"We've got a guy named Alfred who quotes Shakespeare and sings N*Sync"

Cid hesitated, "That technically meets the criteria...but does this guy have funky hair?"

"Oh," replied the nurse, "Now I know who you're talking about, and it's not Bald Alfred. Just let me page the doctor."

"OK," replied Cid.

The nurse spoke into a microphone. "Dr. Kevorkian," she said, "Paging Dr. Kevorkian."

Moments later, a gaunt, apefaced doctor entered the chamber.

"Hello," he said, "I'm Dr. Jack Kevorkian. You may remember me from such films as, 'Hey Shit, There's A Train Coming At Your Head' or 'Look Out, Mama, the Cat's Possessed'. I'll be your doctoring host for this evening. I understand you want to have a look at our star exhibit, Mr. Trent Leonard, the Bearded Boy."

"Trent doesn't have a beard," said Cid.

"Technicality," said the doctor, "Even beardless, he's the best damn bearded boy this circus has ever had."

"I thought this was a hospital," protested Cid.

"It's also a circus," answered Dr. Kevorkian.

"Show me the money!" exclaimed Cid.

"I haven't got any," replied the doctor.

"Don't you get dramatically overpaid?" asked Cid.

"Yes," replied Dr. Kevorkian, "but I blow it all on mad drugs."

"Oh," said Cid, "I can sympathize."

Dr. Kevorkian very slowly lead Cid to the room where Trent and Tifa were waiting.

"I've got some crack!" shouted Tifa.

"Great!" said Cid, "Just let me reach for my pipe."

"Mhehe," said Tifa, "Pipe."

Cid burst out laughing. Between gasps for air, he said, "pipe," triggering a whole new round of laughter.

"PIPE!" bellowed Dr. Kevorkian.

"Pipe," answered Trent.

Ah, yes, it was going to be a good night.



Just when shit couldn't get any better, a tremor struck the earth at Mideel.

"Oh, damn," muttered Dr. Kevorkian, "This happens every damn time I start shouting 'pipe' at the top of my lungs. It must be a magic spell or something."

"Well," said Cid, "It could also be when you shouted, 'mithos luthimon miraval n kakarite sukhos', couldn't it have been?"

"Oh, yeah," replied Dr. Kevorkian, "I do that rather a lot, too...always seems to result in an earthquake as well."

A dropping chunk of mortar brained the nurse.

"Say," suggested Dr. Kevorkian, "do you think we should get out of here?"

"Jolly good idea," said Cid, "I think getting out of here sounds JOLLY good."

Several minutes passed, while chunks of mortar fell from the roof, killing patient after patient.

"Now would be a good time to get out of here, wouldn't it?" suggested Cid.

"Yeah, now sounds pretty good," answered Dr. Kevorkian.

Several minutes passed.

"I can't help but notice that we're still here," said Cid.

"You're right, answered Dr. Kevorkian," Let's get the fuck out of here."

This time, they actually left, leaving Trent and Tifa behind.

Cid hadn't gone far when a giant dragon clawed him upside the head.

"Shit," he said, "It's Ultima Weapon!"

Conveniently, as it usually happens in these adventure stories, help was not far away. Zack and Aeris joined Cid in his battle against Ultima Weapon. A detached observer would have been hard pressed to say whether Zack's sword was a more devastating weapon wielded against the Ultima Weapon, or whether it was Cid's spear. Aeris, on the other hand, just pointed at the Ultima Weapon's penis and giggled.

"It's quite large," she commented.

Finally, however, the enemy Weapon was vanquished. As Cid fled the village, he shouted back to the hospital, "Trent! Tifa! Get the hell out of here!"

"Trent! Tifa! Get the hell out of here!" came the call, and Tifa rose to the occasion. Cid was not the sort to play practical jokes. Well, OK, yes he would, but they usually involved reptiles or loathesome bugs. Tifa grabbed the handlebars of Trent's wheelchair and motored the hell out of there as fast as she could. For dramatic purposes, this wasn't quite fast enough, and she and Trent tumbled into the lifestream.

When Tifa awoke, she was standing on a hovering platform surrounded by nothingness as far as the eye could see...as well as a number of lifesized replicas of Trent. That number was three. There was also an enormous Trent-image floating overhead, but it was twenty times Trent's size, so Tifa discounted the possibility of him being the real Trent.

"Wow," she said, "That's one big mofo. Even his uvula is bigger than I am."

"I didn't even know guys had uvulas," commented one of the Trent clones.

"What's going on?" inquired Tifa.

The clone replied, "We're Trent's memories...in order to save his life, you must help him to remember who he truly is."

"That sounds pretty corny," commented Tifa.

"Agreed," said the clone, "But Bleys was pretty drunk when he thought up that line."

"Bleys?" questioned Tifa, "The guy who runs Bastardly Productions, the site whose current URL is http://bleys.ihateclowns.com/?"

"Perhaps," answered the clone, "I'm not allowed to shamelessly plug http://bleys.ihateclowns.com/"

"That's a shame," said Tifa, "It's a great site. Now, tell me, what's my task here?"

"You must relive Trent's memories in sequence," answered the clone. Start with the scene at Nibelheim."

Tifa went to the northern edge of the platform, which showed an image of Nibelheim.

"Here we are, Trent," she said, "This is our Nibelheim...the Nibelheim of five years ago."

Sephy Lee Roth strode through the gates. He seemed to address his companions, but Tifa couldn't hear what was being said. Two soldiers entered the town, with Trent standing between them.

"No," said Tifa, "I didn't want to say it, hoping that you would turn out to be OK, but you weren't there...Sephy was accompanied by a young and vibrant soldier."

The three soldiers faded away, replaced by two almost identical Shinra guards...and Zack.

"There it is," said Tifa, "You must have formed your memories by listening to mine."

The scene faded away, to be replaced by an image of Tifa's bedroom.

"That...I recognize that day," said Tifa, "It was the day that Mom slipped on a banana peel and fell into a manure wagon, in a comical yet fatal accident. I was unconsolable."

Several children "faded" into the scene, laughing hysterically. The image-Tifa shouted, "Manure," and the kids burst into uncontrollable laughter again."

"Well," admitted Tifa, "Maybe 'unconsolable' wasn't exactly the right word...but it was close!"

"I remember," said the image-Trent, "I wanted you to like me...I followed you into the mountains, even when everyone else had given up...you fell, and I took the heat. You didn't even speak up for me, you daft bitch."

"I was kind of in a coma at the time," said Tifa defensively.

"Excuses," Trent spat.

The scene faded away again, showing the inside of a Shinra vehicle. This was Sephy's unit on their way to Nibelheim to investigate the reactor. Zack was jumping up and down, doing sit-ups, and practice-punching in the air. One of the regular soldiers took his helmet off, and said, "Must you do that?"

That soldier was Trent.

"So you were just a grunt..." breathed Tifa. She turned her attention back to the dream scene.

"...so you see," Zack was saying, "I actually do have to do this. It's part of my callisth--calli--callith...excercises," he finished lamely.

The dream-Trent just scowled.

The dream faded away, showing the Nibelheim reactor. Tifa watched as Sephy lost his mind...as Zack went after him and got his ass kicked...and finally, as Trent confronted the great Sephy Lee Roth and survived. Impaled by Sephy's great Katana, Trent had grabbed hold of the blade as it lodged in his gut, and used it to hurl Sephy into the Lifestream, killing him. Tifa also watched as the Oath between Tifa and Trent at the Well of Nibelheim repeated itself.

Finally, Trent was himself once again...not a real improvement, but at least he was talking semi-normally.

Tifa awoke on a beach, surrounded by the friends she had met since the destruction of the Sector 7 plate.

"Are you OK?" asked Bare-It, "We just managed to pull you out of the lifestream.

Tifa nodded weakly, and Bare-It and the group carried her and Trent back to the Highwind, where they lifted off.

"I be truly sorry," Trent said later in the RRRR. "'Twas not my intention to deceive any o' thee...I first deceived myself."

There was some grumbling, but finally, the group of old friends accepted Trent back into their midst.

It was Cait Sith who broke the self-congratulatory meeting with a reminder of their true mission.

"I think," he said, "that the only remaining Huge Materia is stored at Junon," he said, "We'd better scope it out."

The Highwind begain to fly towards the Hair Club stronghold of Junon.

Preview of Chapter 23:

"Yeah, but they didn't get a free brassiere with their kilts"

"Oops, I'm on break right now. I guess you'll have to fight this rusty, obsolete mech instead. Toodles!"

"Captain, why did we just jettison the privy? I've got to go pee!"