Chapter 25

-----

Trent led Cid and Bare-It into Cosmo Canyon to try to hunt down the elusive Boogergoblin. They found him hovering over a group of tourists, urinating on their heads and laughing.

"Cut that out!" cried the tourists.

"What for?" replied the hovering elder, laughing hysterically.

Eventually, however, even having their heads urinated on couldn't compete with Bare-It for the tourists' attention. His fun spoiled, Boogergoblin floated home, and Trent pursued him, leaving Bare-It to hold the attention of the denizens of Cosmo Canyon.

"Boogergoblin, we have a problem." started Trent.

"Dandruff?"

"N..well, that too, but we've got a slightly bigger one."

"Well, let's take care of the dandruff first, shall we?"

"Um, I really think saving the Planet has priority."

"Nonsense! There's always time to clear up a little dandruff...Here, try this."

Trent accepted a handful of bluish viscous fluid.

"Um...right now?"

"What better time?"

"What about after we deal with the threat of global extermination?"

"Well, where's the fun in that?"

"Neither dandruff nor global annhilation is particularly 'fun', Boogergoblin."

"It's all in your perspective, son...all in your perspective."

"Um, yeah," said Trent, "Look, before we get to that, can I ask you to hold onto this Huge Materia for me? It's getting kind of heavy."

"A big lad like you shouldn't have any trouble carrying around four enormous chunks of crystal the size of a tank!"

"Well, there's also this sword...it's taller than me, and that adds up."

"Oh?"

"Er, it's not that it's heavy...it's just awkward."

"Sure it is."

"Really, if you melted it down or something, I bet I could carry it quite a ways."

"I believe you."

Trent glared at the legless man.

"Look, just take the damn materia."

"OK, but I charge ten gil per hour for babysitting."

"It's not babysitting...it's four inanimate objects."

"OK, five gil."

"Just watch the damn materia!"

"You won't find a better deal than five gil!"

"Boogergoblin!"

"Alright, alright, just get that naked guy out of here."

"Deal."

"That's everything then, is it?"

"Y...No, wait, we have a problem with Sephy."

"What, is it sticking to your fur?"

"I haven't got any fur, Boogergoblin."

"It's sticking to Arsechimp's fur, then?"

"No, we, um...we sorta shaved him."

"Sh...shaved...Arsechimp?"

"We were all pretty drunk at the time, and mad at him for an incident involving a rather large urine stain."

"So...what's Sephy sticking to, if not Arsechimp's fur?"

"It's not a matter of adhesion...I think...Well, Aeris tried to summon the Holy White Magic to combat meteor, but it doesn't seem to be working."

"Was it plugged in?"

"Magic is quite independent of DC voltage."

"Oh, yeah, magic...quite right...Did you check all of the connections?"

"There are no connections."

"Well, I don' t know how the hell I'm supposed to help you, then."

"Well, Aeris tried to invoke the White Materia from a distance, and it didn't seem to work...What we need is to locate the Materia so that we can try it from a shorter distance."

"Where did this summoning take place?"

"In the City of the Ancients."

"What, Camrose?"

"No, no, the city that the Cetra lived in."

"They had lots of cities."

"The capital, numbnuts."

"Yes, well, I guess they only had one of those."

"Why do you want to know where it took place?"

"Just curious, I guess. Want a peanut?"

Trent scattered the peanuts to the floor.

"Well, that was just mean. Why are you being so nasty?"

"I need HELP, Boogergoblin, not a snack."

"Well, why didn't you say so?"

"I did."

"Oh...well, let's go to this Ancient City or whatever."

"You think there'll be a clue there?"

"Well, either a clue or a bar...I don't particularly care which."

***

A thorough investigation of the Forgotten Capital of the Cetra revealed only a very odd-looking crevice that Boogergoblin identified as a keyhole of some sort.

"Yes, yes," said the legless man, "Definitely a keyhole. That or a bee's nest, and I don't see any bees coming out. Find the key to this, and you've found...er...something."

"Unless the White Materia's in there, it really won't do us much good," complained Trent.

"Well, it's all I've got right now."

"Do you have any idea where we could find this key?"

"Well, I always check the pants I wore the previous day...but in this case, it's been missing for quite a long time, and has probably been flushed by now. Check the bottom of the sea."

"The sea bottom has more surface area than the land mass of the planet. We could spend hundreds of years searching and get nowhere."

"Have you got any better ideas?"

"What, like seppuku?"

"Good one...Well, maybe you could just start by searching out the area around here?"

Trent rolled his eyes and departed.

The Highwind rode the skies towards Junon Town, where the stolen Hair Club submarine was moored. Standing on the observation deck were Bare-It and Cid, looking out over the land below.

"Hey, Cid," said Bare-It, "Are you really down here?"

"Yeah, of course," replied Cid, bewildered.

"Well...who's flying the Highwind?"

"Er...The cat thing. Kate Smith?"

"You mean Cait Sith?"

"Yeah, that's the bugger."

"Does he know how to fly it?"

Cid smacked himself on the forehead, "Aw, crap! I knew I was forgetting something! I forgot to teach the daft sod how to actually fly the ship! How'd you figure that out?"

"The ground is getting sorta...close."

"How close?"

"You know how when you're high up and you look at the ground, the people look sort of like ants?"

"Yeah."

"Well, those ARE ants. We're about to hit."

Cid dashed off towards the bridge.

Trent, Zack, Aeris, and Vincent strode purposefully into the Junon Port Area until they were halted by a diminuitive figure in a mask and black cape.

"Halt!" cried the figure, "No admittance!"

"And who are you?" demanded Zack.

"I'm Batman!" replied the figure.

"Hey, score, me too!" answered Trent.

"You're not Batman," scoffed Zack.

"Am too!" shot back Trent and the unidentified figure at the same time.

Zack just rolled his eyes. Growling, Trent burst into song:

Oh zdawg, Oh zdawg, Oh something went wrong!

Your parents were screwing, then you came along!

Your dad took a piss break and went to the bog!

So your mother concluded the task with a dog!

Zack grabbed the figure's mask and ripped it off. "Look!" he said, "It's not Batman, that's just a paper mask!"

"Well, that was rude," replied the diminuitive figure.

"What's your REAL name, kiddo?" demanded Zack condescendingly.

"Well...it's Jackie."

"As in Jackie Chan?" asked Trent

"Well, no, but I do come with Kung-Fu action!"

Zack rolled his eyes again, and Jackie karate-chopped him to the base of the neck, no mean feat, considering that Zack was twice his height.

"Hey, cut that out, you little bugger!" fumed Zack.

Vincent cut in, "Hey, hey, hey, BREAK IT UP, you two!"

Glaring daggers at one another, Jackie and Zackie withdrew.

"And give Zack his wallet back," added Vincent.

The submarine slid gracefully out of port and submerged, headed due north towards the island upon which the Ancient capital resided.

"Waste of time," muttered Trent.

"Trent, I'm picking up some strange echoes on SONAR." said Vincent.

"Probably sea lions mating," grumped Trent, "I guess we'd better investigate...Maybe we can scare them into stopping or something cruel like that."

It wasn't sea lions mating. It was beluga whales. And right behind them was a fissure in the rocks leading underneath the island proper. At the terminus of the cave was a large stone thingy which was the size of Trent.

"Well, maybe we can pass this off as the Key to Boogergoblin," said Zack.

"Yeah, we might as well," said Trent. "All right, pick it up, and reverse course to Junon. I really don't like this sub when there's nothing out there to fire torpedoes at."

Several seconds passed.

"HEY!" exclaimed Trent, "Go back, we can fire torpedoes at those whales!"

When they emerged from the cave, however, the whales were gone. They must have been scared off by the big, green city-sized Weapon that was standing facing the rock wall as though urinating.

Upon closer inspection, it WAS urinating, an activity which seemed quite silly in the light that the Weapon was underwater, and the urine was quickly spreading out, attempting to occupy the entirety of the container in which it resided, which in this case was a rather large intercontinental ocean.

It was the Little Urine That Could.

"I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can BE THE BEST DAMN URINE I CAN BE!" it was thinking.

Instead of prudently buggering off at a rate of speed ordinarily associated with electromagnetic radiation, Trent ordered, "FIRE ALL TORPEDOES!"

That made the Emerald Weapon quite understandably angry. The nerve of Trent...the NERVE of him! He couldn't even wait until the Weapon was finished having a tinkle, NOOOO, he had to launch torpedoes at the poor bugger! How would YOU like it if you were sitting there, minding your own business, eliminating excess bodily waste, when BANG! four torpedoes slam right into your p'toot. Well, I wouldn't like it at all!

The Weapon took a mighty swipe, sending the submarine sprawling.

"No help for it," said Vincent grimly, "We'll have to go out there and fight it. We can't do any serious damage from here."

The four of them swam out of the cockpit and arrayed themselves in front of the massive beast. Zack produced a purple "Underwater" Materia orb and invoked it, providing a bubble of air in which to fight.

Trent was first up. Knowing he was in for the fight of his life, he equipped X-Magic, Quadra Magic, and MP Turbo materia, linking it to multiple Knights of the Round materia he had obtained by mastering the original. He drew his massive broadsword, aimed it at the Weapon, and uttered his harsh battle cry, "In Purus Naturalibus!"

With all his might, he released all of his magic power through his materia wristband. Eight times the portal between worlds opened, and each time, thirteen mighty warriors struck the massive beast blows which would have slain any other creature on the Earth.

Emerald Weapon didn't show any effect. it would have smiled if it had had teeth.

MP exhausted, Trent slumped to the ground.

Vincent and Zack nodded at one another and split up to charge the beast simultaneously from opposite directions. They charged and slashed, both mighty attacks having no perceptible effect upon the beast.

"Damn," breathed Trent, leaning on his sword, "If only I had a Batarang..."

The Emerald Weapon loomed over Trent, readying itself for a killing blow. A massive claw plunged at Trent--

--And was deflected by the unmistakeable black shape of a Batarang.

"Nobody impales my friend Trent," came the voice of Jackie from the hatch of the submarine.

"The little bugger must have stowed away," growled Zack.

The Caped Crusader leaped at the Emerald Weapon, striking again and again...but alas, his attacks had no more effect on the beast than had Trent's or Zack's or Vincent's.

Aeris rolled her eyes. "You guys are doing this all wrong." She dashed at the massive beast, and brought her staff sharply upwards in between the Emerald Weapon's legs. There was a sickening crack, and the beast collapsed.

"That's not fair," complained Trent, "That's just not done!"

Back upon the Highwind, Aeris offered to fry up the Emerald Weapon's balls for dinner, but most of the predominantly male crew demmurred, claiming that their doctors had asked them to decrease their intake of balls. Zack looked frankly sick at the notion.

"Could you please not discuss what you did to that poor animal in front of me?" he asked plaintively.

"What, you don't like hearing about crushed and fried balls?" asked Aeris sweetly.

Zack groaned.

"Balls, balls, balls!" Aeris chanted, and then began to sing as Zack turned from a healthy pink into a sickly green and dashed away.

"That was fun." she remarked to nobody in particular.

Aeris went alone into the Ancient Capital with the presumptive key to see Boogergoblin.

"Ho, ho, ho!" remarked Boogergoblin.

Aeris snapped, "Stop that! You're not Santa Claus!"

"Awww," complained Boogergoblin.

Aeris just glared.

"Alright, let's try this so-called 'key' of your'n."

Boogergoblin floated over to the "keyhole" and attempted to insert the piece of scud Trent had scalvaged from the muck at the bottom of the sea. To his amazement and Aeris's both, the bugger actually worked! A compartment in the eastern wall opened, and apparently a valve somewhere opened as well, because water came gushing down over the platform in the center of the room, washing over the edge of the platform into the boundless depths below. Boogergoblin rushed directly over to the niche in the western wall.

"Hmm," he said, "Very interesting."

"What is it?" demanded Aeris.

"Porn," answered Boogergoblin, grinning, "Lots and lots of porn."

"Boogergoblin, those women have probably been dead for thousands of years."

"That's fiiine by me," leered the legless man.

Exasperated, Aeris whirled around--

--and saw an image being played in the waterfall, rather like a projection TV, except quite distorted, because the cascading water isn't precisely all that flat. That was OK with Aeris. She wasn't precisely all that flat herself.

"Ah," said Boogergoblin, "That must be the White Materia."

"But it's light green!" protested Aeris.

"That means it's working!"

"You're thinking of Denorex. It tingles when it's working."

"Oh, yeah...So what does the White Materia turning green mean?"

"Probably the same thing."

"So where does that leave us?"

"Holy's not coming, so it must mean it's being blocked. There's only one force strong enough to block primeval magic such as this: The Bastardly Productions Trousers."

"So we've still got to handle Sephy on our own."

"Yeah."

"So it leaves us right back where we started."

Boogergoblin snapped his porn mag shut irritably and growled, "I wish YOU'D leave me back where we started. I'm trying to read here!"

"I wouldn't precisely call that reading."

"Well, you know how reading is an intellectually stimulating activity?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, this is stimulating, too, just in a different way."

Aeris left Boogergoblin in a huff.

When Aeris returned to the Highwind, she found the ship on full alert status.

"What's going on?" she demanded.

"Cait Sith reports that one of these Weapon thingies is attacking Midgar!" shouted Arsechimp, his eyes wide with panic, "That's where Alpo, Inc. is located!"

"DAMN!" shouted Skanker, "Not Alpo, Inc.!"

"It's got to be saved," growled Arsechimp determinedly.

Bare-It poked his head through the door. "Everybody get to the bridge," he bawled, "We're taking off!"

Cid wasn't willing to risk the Highwind in a head-on collision with the great white Diamond Weapon, so Trent, Skanker, and Arsechimp disembarked and stood on the beach, eagerly awaiting the beast's arrival.

When the Diamond Weapon beached, Skanker attacked in a rage, his long-handled battle-axe expressing his extreme disapproval of the threat to the world's supply of Alpo. Unlike the Emerald Weapon, the Diamond Weapon wasn't heavily armored, so each time Skanker's axe struck, it bit deeply into the beast's flesh, leaving a bloody gash.

The Weapon focused it's attention on Skanker, preparing a laser blast that would suffice to wipe the Knight off of the face of the Planet. In order to prevent this, Trent attacked from the opposite side, slashing and stabbing with his great sword.

The Diamond Weapon looked annoyed, but not greatly pained, as it planned a way to kill the little nuisances slicing at its legs.

Arsechimp solved the problem. Leaping mightily, he crashed headlong into the Weapon and bit its nuts off.

Howling in pain and fury, the beast fled in the direction of Midgar. Skanker and Arsechimp set off in pursuit, but they were halted by the distant sound of a massive explosion.

The Weapon looked puzzled, and let off a barrage of energy in the direction of Midgar. Moments later, a Mako-powered shell hit the Weapon directly in the chest, and tore clear through it, launching the now-inert beast into the sea.

"What's going on?" inquired Trent over the PHS.

"It's the Junon Cannon," answered Cait Sith, "It wasn't destroyed--They dismounted it and brought it to Midgar so that it could be enhanced by firing Mako powered shells instead of conventional ordinance. It appears to have been a most effective tactic.

Trent rushed back to the Highwind and went straight to the bridge, wondering where to go next.

"Trent!" called Cid, as soon as Trent came through the double-doors leading into the Bridge area. "You've got to see this...It appears that the Weapon wasn't the cannon's only target." He pointed at a viewscreen. "This is a satellite image we have of the northern crater. Look right here."

Trent squinted at the area Cid indicated. It appeared to be a point of light in the distance, getting closer and closer.

After a moment, the point of light slammed into the energy dome surrounding the Northern Crater, obliterating it in a show of light and fury.

"Here," indicated Vincent, "This was recording at the same time." He showed a video showing an aerial view of Midgar. Energy pulses fired by the Diamond Weapon slammed into the uppermost tower of the Hair Club building.

Cait Sith said, "That's where Rufus would have been. Poor bastard...But I've got worse news. I tried to take control of the Company in Rufus's absence, but was overthrown by Heidegger and Scarlett...I'm locked in Detention right now."

"Can you brief us on the situation?" inquired Bare-It.

"It's ironic that you should say that," snickered Trent, "Since you're not wearing any briefs."

Cait Sith rolled his beady little kitty eyes and said, "The blast of the Mako Cannon may have eliminated the barrier surrounding the Northern Crater, but it seems to have strengthened Sephy in some way. Hojo's gone completely mad...He's locked off several key valves on the Cannon, preventing power from being choked off from it. He wants to send Sephy MORE energy, for some reason. A bigger problem is that his method's going to cause all of the reactors in Midgar to go critical--The explosion will kill EVERYONE in the city!"

Bare-It groaned, "Wait, let me guess who it's up to to stop him."

Preview of Chapter 26:

"I faht in yer general direction! Yer mather was a 'amster, and yer father smelt of elderberries!"

"That stuff smells worse than Bare-It's meatloaf."

"And I suppose now you're an expert on what makes enormous clods of excrement feel good, now are you?"