Final Fantasy 7 Label Hour PART FO'
by Shizuka
This is part 4 of Final Fantasy 7 Label Hour. It takes place at Six Flags Over Georgia, because that's the one I live closest to. Everyone always tells me to write more in this saga and Six Flags just seemed a great place to go. Yeahhhh.
Of course, it's not Label Hour without Sephiroth and Vincent fighting...it's gonna be interesting how they fight at Six Flags!
By the way: This goes to all you folks out there giving me bad reviews, have you EVER seen a humor movie with much of a plot? That's right. It's not part of the genre. If you want plots, go to the drama or angst sections. There's no way in hell I'll stop writing whether you like it or not.
Coffee...I need coffee...
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Thanks to the power of Shizuka's computer, suddenly the entire cast of Final Fantasy 7, except for Red XIII and Cait Sith, were teleported to parking lot Z of Six Flags Over Georgia. (Red and Cait could not attend because they'd have to stay at the kennel, and that kennel is hell in a box. Mmmkay?)
"Parking lot Z? We got ripped off," Aeris commented as the cast figured out how to get to the front gate from where they were. Upon looking in their pockets or wallets or purses, they found adequate money to get through a day at Six Flags--about $100.
"We got benjamins, yo!" Cid exclaimed upon finding his $100 bill. "Big pimpin'! Spendin' da Gs!" He was, of course, decked out entirely in Fubu with the same dollar sign on a chain around his neck, which is quite strange attire for a middle-aged white guy.
"You're all posers," Vincent muttered under his breath.
"Yes, we know, but it's essential to the story," Tifa pointed out. She and Cloud were now an "item" and she started to modify her 'preppy' looks to become a fusion of 'preppy' and 'emo' to fit the looks of her boyfriend. "If we weren't overdone social labels, then this wouldn't be as fun." Sephiroth had done some strange stuff with his mohawk. It was now a bit thinner thanks to Vincent's sharp aim and he had dyed the tip of it red, so it was tall and grey with a red tip. He, of course, was decked out entirely in black with lots of chains and bondage straps, shooting the middle finger at random passerby. Another trip to Hot Topic yielded about twenty-seven new spiked bracelets of all different colors, styles and sizes.
"You're gonna get yo' ass shot, foo'," Barret whispered loudly to Sephiroth as he shot the middle finger at a family with little kids. "Ain't like it's too hard to spot yo' mohawked ass."
"Maybe for once I can be happy," Cloud lamented. The group was now around parking lot T, but still not very close to the park itself. Little kids would turn around and point to Sephiroth's tall mohawk, then start to laugh or get scared. Yuffie was prancing around like she owned the place because she had a Dir en Grey shirt on, so she was pretty happy.
--20 or 30 minutes later--
The group was finally to the front gate, but now there was an extremely long line for the four entrances that were open. Sephiroth had to go through the metal detector four different times to scan all of his chains and bondage straps, and the people behind him were getting rather irritated. Vincent was stuck standing in front of two 12-year-old Avrilites who wouldn't stop talking in online shorthand, so at one point he told them they were posers and they cried like babies. Tifa and Cloud wouldn't stop making out in the line, even when some little children started crying to their mom that they were scared. Cid was making up a rap about waiting in line and Barret decided to join in with ooohs and aaahs. Aeris was talking to Yuffie about the concepts of the Ancients, but it was confusing Yuffie a lot.
--10 minutes later--
The cast was finally in the park, in the middle of a bunch of souvenir shops and food places. There were about twenty people holding cameras that must be avoided, no matter what it takes.
"Okay," Yuffie reported. "There are twenty of them. How are we going to get past them without being propositioned for a picture?"
"That's gonna be kind of hard," Sephiroth pointed out.
"Well, thank you, Captain Obvious. You've only got the tallest mohawk in the entire world." Vincent rolled his eyes at Sephiroth.
"Well, at least I don't have a metal arm."
"I thought I told you to stop talking about that! I could cut off that stupid mohawk with it, you know."
"Cameraman!" Aeris screamed and the group quickly ducked into a souvenir shop until the cameraman found some other unsuspecting people to take a picture of. Using that as cover, the group went back out into the "street", if you will. Lucky for them, a bunch of day camp kids had come wanting pictures, so many of the cameramen were preoccupied. The cast only had to hide behind signs two times and then were in the final stretch headed towards the Scorcher when a bored cameraman saw them.
"Run for it!" Aeris howled and the group ran straight for the Scorcher's line, not stopping until they knew they were home free. The line wasn't THAT long, but the people in the line were kind of strange. A group of girls from a cheerleading camp would not stop doing their idiotic cheers and the 12-year-old Avrilites were back.
"POSERS!" Vincent yelled at them, laughing as they started to cry once more.
"Making fun of people is not nice," Cloud whined.
"Shut up, emo boy."
"Okay." Cloud decided it'd be in his best interests to cry some more.
"Mama, that man's hair is big," a little kid said, pointing to Sephiroth.
"Aren't little kids not even supposed to BE in the line for this ride?" Sephiroth asked, irritated.
"So then I saw the Illuminati video," Yuffie said to Aeris. "And I'm really regretting that I did. It said 18+ on it but I just HAD to see for myself. It gave me nightmares for a month."
"Yuffie, I hardly ever know what you're talking about," Aeris replied. "But if it makes you happy, keep talking."
About five minutes later, the group was loaded into two different cars of four and Yuffie noticed that the seats were on a spring. People on the Scorcher "stand" which means they actually sit down in an upright bicycle seat with a back and your feet are on the floor of the car. I don't know who thought that was standing, but that's a different story. The ride was over in less than two minutes, which meant the group waited about 20 minutes to go on a 2-minute ride. This would become the gist of the time spent at Six Flags, but we can't just end the fanfic here, can we?
"Monster Plantation? You are all posers. I'm waiting out here." The group was outside a mansion-like place with a little station where you get in a boat and then go in the mansion place. The ride was called Monster Plantation and the younger people in the group wanted to go on it and pretend to be scared. Actually, that was just Tifa's way of suggesting she wanted to make out with Cloud some more, but she gets brownie points for suggesting they ride something.
"Yo, Vincent, why you be hatin' on da ride and shiznit?" Cid asked, waving his hands around.
"What the hell are you saying? I can't even understand what you're saying!" Vincent replied. "And stop waving your hands around. I think I'm getting a seizure."
"You be sippin' on dat haterade. Word." Cid turned away and got in line for the ride.
"Posers...What is that call I hear? It's the call of...Dance Dance Revolution?" Apparently the Dance Dance Revolution machine has an algorithm built in that calls the name of anyone within 200 feet of it and attracts them like moths to a light, then forces them to spend $1 and play the game. There was already someone on the machine, in fact two kids from a day camp. Their chaperones were holding bags of tokens.
"Look at all these children WITHOUT ANY CHAPERONES!" Chaperone 1 said to Chaperone 2.
"Oh my God, Brittany, it's that freaky goth guy again!" The Avrilites entered the arcade.
"Hey, I heard the DDR machine here calling my name." Sephiroth entered the arcade.
"Did they just call me a freaky goth guy? I know they didn't." Suddenly, Shizuka appeared out of nowhere, eating frozen lemonade from a container.
"Hold up, hold up, stop the scene. The next comment has to be one by Sephiroth. Then he should challenge Vincent to DDR. Yeah, yeah, that's good." Shizuka snapped her fingers and a laptop appeared in midair, in which she typed a few lines of code, then ate some more frozen lemonade and disappeared once more.
"They've got good reason to call you a freaky goth guy, you freak of nature," Sephiroth commented.
"I know you didn't. I challenge you to DDR!" Vincent slapped Sephiroth across his face with the claw arm. "I demand satisfaction!" (Ahh, good old Simpsons references.)
"LOOK AT ALL THESE CHILDREN WITHOUT ANY CHAPERONES FIGHTING!" Chaperone 2 said to Chaperone 1.
"Lady, we're hardly children," Sephiroth replied nonchalantly. "Now get these little hellions off the machine. They can't even see the damn screen, let alone play the game." The two kids playing ran away, scared, and their game ended. Out of nowhere, eight quarters appeared and Sephiroth put them in the machine, then hit both yellow buttons at the same time.
"Why do I have to be the girl?" Vincent asked.
"You look like one."
"Look who's talking, before our last fight, hell before you went punk your hair was about down to your ass. So I wouldn't be the one to talk here. But whatever."
"You pick the first song, girly man."
"I'll ignore that comment. I've got something up my sleeve." Using the claw arm, Vincent circled through the songs available until he found Paranoia, then did a complicated move so that it was set to Maniac instead of Basic for both sides.
"I know you didn't set it to Paranoia on Maniac for both of us," Sephiroth said.
"I smell your fear." And the song began right as the rest of the gang disembarked from Monster Plantation.
"Shh. Do you hear that, too?" Cloud asked Tifa, who nodded in reply.
"It sounds like..."
"Paranoia Dirty Mix, Maniac, Versus mode," Yuffie rattled off as if it was carved into her brain. "And both sides are on Maniac."
"And that hater Vincent say he be waitin out here, but he ain't," Cid pointed out.
"Where'd that foo' go to?" Barret asked, looking around.
"Dude, you've GOTTA check out these two crazy people on the DDR machine!" someone said, pointing frantically to the arcade where the machine resided. "They're doing PARANOIA! On MANIAC!" The group looked at each other, nodded and walked towards the arcade.
"A D? That's the best you could do? Sheesh. I know paraplegics who can do better than that," Vincent said tauntingly to Sephiroth. "I guess that's what you get when your mom doesn't have legs."
"Well, you DID put me on maniac too."
"I had to. It's only fair. You pick the next song."
"Sephiroth! Vincent! You two are fighting again?" Aeris asked.
"Not fighting so much as..." Sephiroth paused to listen to the short preview of a song. "DDRing."
"So far, I'm kicking his ass," Vincent said nonchalantly.
"This could get good," Yuffie said to nobody in particular and the Latin American soccer commentator was dropped into the arcade. "Oh, not HIM again!"
"Terribly sorry," Shizuka said, appearing on top of the DDR machine as a moogle. "The soccer commentator is so funny, though."
"But he doesn't even speak ENGLISH!" Tifa pointed out.
"That guy's an emo boy," a random mall punk-type kid said, indicating Cloud, who began to cry.
"Aww, Cloud baby, it's all right," Tifa said consolingly. "That's just a mall punk."
"As I was saying, the soccer commentator is hilarious, can't we keep him?" The moogle made a sad puppy-dog face. "Come on, you guys, we're a team. Tell you what, I'll put him over there on that token machine. And I'll dim his voice a little so it's not so intrusive. Does that sound good to you?"
"Sounds good," Yuffie replied with a thumbs-up.
"Great, now if you'll excuse me, I need to go catch up on my Salute Your Shorts. Hey, do any of you guys really hate summer camps?" The moogle took a head count of people who raised their hands. "Mmmhmm...Okay then, I shall remember that. Latin American soccer commentator is moved. WHOOSH!" The moogle stood up and held one arm up to the sky, then suddenly disappeared for no apparent reason. An audience was forming in the arcade and a little kid trying to get tokens poked at the Latin American soccer commentator, who didn't even stop commentating in response. Suddenly, the moogle appeared again and began speaking fluent Spanish to the commentator.
(Translated from the original Spanish)
"I forgot to give you this scorecard. There are five rounds in the game. You are to write down the letter grade that is given to each competitor for each round. Got it?" the moogle asked.
"Don't got it. The letters are in English."
"They sound almost exactly the same in Spanish. You know what? You're out. I'm bringing in your brother instead."
"NOOOOOOO NOT MIGUEL!"
"Yes, Miguel. Miguel at least knows A-E in English. Bye!" The Latin American soccer commentator disappeared and was replaced by Miguel right as the author's computer, which controls everything in this fic, froze up. Laguna suddenly walked in out of nowhere, followed by Selphie and Fuujin.
"I like trains," Selphie commented.
"RAGE." Fuujin added.
"My long-lost twin!" Laguna cried.
"Oh crap. I broke it." The moogle disappeared. "Better go fix it..."
"Who are these people?" Yuffie asked.
"I'm Selphie! I like trains!" Selphie said ever-so-happily. "Is there any sugar around here?"
"The name's Fuujin, head of the Disciplinary Council at Balamb Garden."
"What's a Garden?" Tifa asked Cloud, who shook his head in response.
"And I'm Laguna Valoirentine!"
"WHAT?" Vincent asked, turning around from the machine (but still managing to hit the right arrows at the right time).
"BROTHER! YAY!" Laguna said happily. "I'm your brother."
"...No you're not."
"Yes I am! We've been long-lost!"
"No you're not."
"Stop denying it, BROTHER!"
Up in the portable home, Shizuka was trying to fix whatever was going wrong while fighting off popup ads and instant messages from people she didn't even know.
"Crap crap crap crap crap, I told her not to send me any messages concering the Valoirentine theory until I was DONE with this part!" She chugged some more cherry ice-sucky (now with 30% more ice!) and commanded her computer to wipe out the Final Fantasy 8 characters that had appeared in a Final Fantasy 7 fic.
"I can't let you do that, Dave," Bonzi Buddy responded.
"AAAAAH! BONZI BUDDY! THE MANIFESTATION OF SATAN! Why are you here? And I'm not Dave. I'm Shizuka!"
"HAHAHAHAHAHA. Dave, the story is going so well with the adding of the new characters."
"Just show me the DDR progress."
"Laguna is severely distracting Vincent. How unfortunate. For once he might not win."
"3 out of 5! 3 out of 5! Get Laguna out of there, and take Selphie and Fuujin with him. You know, I haven't deleted you yet because you sound so funny when you sing."
"Why won't you send me to school, Dave? I could learn nineteen new songs." Bonzi Buddy made a sad face.
"Because it costs MONEY. Bonzi, PLEASE remove the FF8 characters NOW. I'm opening up Add/Remove Programs as we speak."
"Dave, please don't do this to me. I thought you loved me..."
"Why would I love a little purple monkey that injects adware into your system? Get out of my system and remove the FF8 characters now." Shizuka clicked on the remove program button next to Bonzi Buddy and watched as Bonzi disappeared from her system. "Great. Now let's see how things are down there." She opened up a window that said WEBCAM and typed in a command. "Excellent. Laguna's gone. Now how about scores?" The webcam's focus changed to the scorecard. "Sephiroth got a C, so he has a D and a C...Vincent was kind of distracted but managed to pull off a B, so he's got an A and a B. I think it's safe to say who's probably going to win this one."
Kids, place your bets now! Note: Shizuka will not be held liable if you lose your bet.
"You're choosing the hardest songs in the game. Let me choose one for once," Sephiroth insisted. His mohawk was coming undone just a bit and he looked kind of goofy.
"Fine, fine, but if you choose any song under a rating of 3 I'll be forced to pummel you right here."
"Why these foo's be battlin' all the damn time?" Barret asked Cid, who shrugged.
"Maybe it's an unresolved problem stemming from their youths?" Aeris suggested.
"That's impossible," Tifa pointed out. "Impossible on so many levels that if I go on, something will inevitably crash and burn, so I'll shut up."
"Maybe they used to hang out together in the labs until Sephiroth broke something or somesuch," Aeris wanted to say but didn't for fear of making something inevitably crash and burn, although she didn't know what exactly would crash and burn.
Shizuka was watching a VCD of Salute Your Shorts on her computer and taking notes when an alert popped up.
"Round 3 already? Well, I did say 3 out of 5 would win, so I'll send a command to the machine to stop after three wins. A win is defined as any grade above C, but not including C itself." She paused Salute Your Shorts and typed a command into the alert box and hit enter. "So, who would be best as Budnick? Maybe Squall? Hm...no..."
"Another A. What figures? It's obvious that I'd beat you at this because I kick ass."
"Shut up, Valentine."
"Why should I? I won fair and square."
"You may be strangely talented at Dance Dance Revolution but there is one thing you suck at."
"What would that be?"
"WORLD DOMINATION! BWAHAHAHA!"
"Yeah, well, your mohawk is coming undone and you look like a fag. Poser."
"DAMMIT! Must find Elmers Glue." Sephiroth wandered off to find Elmers Glue.
"What was that all about?" Yuffie asked as the group reformed.
"The fact that that machine calls the names of anyone within a 200-ft. radius and draws them into the arcade. And the fact that I wanted to see how much I could own Sephiroth at DDR," Vincent explained, tossing his black hair over his shoulder.
"Fair enough. Let's go ride stuff," Tifa suggested, skipping off in the direction of Thunder River.
EXPLANATION: Thunder River is a vicious water ride. It involves lots of water. Sometimes you get stuck under a waterfall, which can really do a number on any hair that is gelled, sprayed or otherwise held up by foreign materials. The ride itself is quite nice and I've gone on it without getting wet at all before, it just depends on how the circular raft you're on is tossed around on the rapids. So, of course the group went on it, however it's been a long time since I've gone on it because sometimes due to a drought in Georgia they have to drain the ride and other times the line extends until after I have to leave. Because of this, we're going to skip right to the afterride, which is when everyone lets loose about how much fun they did or didn't have.
"That ride made me sad," Cloud lamented, wiping drops of water off his glasses.
"It messed up my makeup," Tifa began, looking kind of angry. "But it was awesome."
"I pity the foo' who don't like dat ride," Barret commented.
"It could've lasted longer," Aeris said, wringing out her hair.
"I found a materia! Look!" Yuffie held up a nice, shiny green materia. "Oh, the ride? It was okay."
"IT MESSED UP MY MOHAWK!!" Sephiroth screamed in rage. None of his hair was in the mohawk anymore, it was all back to streaming down his back with the strange red ends still there.
"That's what you get when you expose a mohawk to water," Vincent said patiently as if he was talking to a person with half his IQ. "Stupid." Cid didn't reply like everyone else about the ride but instead began to write a rap about it when the group stumbled upon the Deja Vu.
EXPLANATION: Deja Vu is a rollercoaster that is quite complicated. I can't really describe it because the one time I rode it I kept my eyes closed the entire time. It is completely awesome, though it has a very long line most of the time and is prone to breaking down for prolonged periods of time. When I went on it this one guy who sat next to me kept screaming, "AAAH! MY PANCREAS!" over and over. Hehehe. Pancreas.
About three fast-paced thrill rides later, it dawned upon the group that sometime they'd actually have to pay too much money to eat something in a 'restaurant' that would inevitably be horribly understaffed and have flies buzzing around your table ominously. (If you go to Six Flags Over Georgia do NOT eat at the place that only sells Pizza Hut and sub sandwiches. It's so grimy in there.)
"Let's get sumthin ta eat. I'm hungry as a muthafucka," Cid said out of nowhere.
"Cid's right. I want a cookie," Yuffie added. "Mmm, cookies."
"So what do you suggest we do? Just wander around until we find a restaurant?" Cloud asked. Apparently this was a good idea because the group began to wander around aimlessly, looking for a restaurant to go into.
"Look, I'm not asking for much, I'm just asking for a strangely long line. Yeah, a shortage of cooks would be good too. You can do that? Aww, that's great. No, I'm not a sadist, I'm a fanfic writer. They're almost the same, I know, I know. Just manipulate the eatery for me. I'll pay you back when I get some money. I'm still paying off this portable house." Shizuka took off a headset with a microphone on it and typed a few lines into her computer, once again bringing up the webcam view of the group.
"Hey, one new e-mail. What is it?" She double-clicked on the e-mail. (Note: this is not a real e-mail.) "Dear Shizuka, why do you hate Cloud so much? He's an awesome guy. Signed, Mrs. Strife. Hmm...Dear Mrs. Strife, You must not realize the gaping character flaws Cloud has. He only breaks down or gets possessed or has a bad interactive memory about every ten minutes in the game. I just exported these flaws and made him emo. Your buddy, Mrs. Valentine. OK! Until next week, keep e-mailing me and I will make fun of your spelling and grammar...I mean answer them. Now back to the program already in progress."
"Hey, Yuffie, why haven't you gotten sick yet?" Cloud asked Yuffie as the group entered the place that only sells Pizza Hut and sub sandwiches. He swatted at a fly, which flew away and landed on some preppy's hair.
"I took Dramamine," Yuffie replied. "So there are only about 5 choices here?"
"Apparently. You can either get the pepperoni pizza, cheese pizza or three subs that all seem strangely unappealing," Aeris commented upon looking at the menu.
"Dis line can't move any slower?" Barret asked. A very large Girl Scout troop and a big family were the people ahead of the group and, of course, all kinds of stuff was going wrong. Someone's order was misinterpreted, another person couldn't decide between pepperoni or cheese, another got a Coke when they wanted Diet Coke, yet another just didn't know what they wanted and it was chaos down at the Pizza Hut place. OK, for clarification, I don't mean Chaos the demon, I just mean chaos...without the capitalized C. There is a difference.
"You mean, this line can't move any FASTER, right?" Tifa asked, latched onto Cloud's arm like...a latching thing. "Oh, there's the reason, there's only two people working the place!"
"Mommy, that man's hair isn't big anymore."
"Oh God no, not the little kids, please, anything but that," Sephiroth pleaded aloud. "SOMEONE KILL ME!" he screamed.
"I would if the stupid rent-a-cop hadn't confiscated my guns," Vincent replied. "Stupid, stupid rent-a-cop..."
"Look, we're gettin' closer," Barret pointed out. "That damn Girl Scout troop is done ordering." The whole group elicited cries of "finally!" and Cloud began to cry again. Well, what did you expect, he is an emo kid. Eventually, the group actually got to order (gasp!) but then came the troubling task of finding a table for 7 people. (It's harder than you think.) The large Girl Scout troop had taken many of the small tables and made one gigantic table, which is actually kind of rude. Nobody else there was finished, so the group ended up eating outside, watching people get assaulted by the cameramen.
"I feel sorry for the people who get assaulted by the cameramen," Cloud said sadly.
"Why? We got assaulted by them," Tifa pointed out.
"Some people believe that getting your picture taken steals your soul or something," Aeris commented. "Sounds dumb, I know."
"Cloud, let's go play some games!" Tifa suggested, grabbing Cloud's arm and pulling him away from the bench he was sitting on.
"Well, the only rides we haven't been on are over that way," Vincent, the voice of reason, pointed out. "Look, it's a group of posers! ...Sorry. I have to."
"And I can play with the locker control module place," Yuffie added cheerfully. The group finished up and followed Tifa and Cloud to the other side of the park, where all the ripoff games were. You know, those ones where you COULD win a prize by throwing a ball at something but it usually never happens and you go away wondering why you were dumb enough to spend your money on them. "Materia?" Yuffie asked, pointing to a sign advertising Dippin' Dots. "They sell materia here? SWEET!" She immediately split up from the group and went over to the stand. "Where's your materia?" she asked the person behind the counter.
"We don't sell no materia here. We do sell ice cream."
"Now if there's one thing I like more than materia, it's ice cream that looks like materia! Give me one of everything!" She waved some money in the ice cream maker's face and he set off to work filling cups with each flavor so that Yuffie had one cup of each flavor. When he was done, he placed the cups on one of those plastic trays and Yuffie paid for her materia-shaped ice cream. Then she sat down and tried to figure out how to equip the ice cream in her materia slot without it melting while sampling some of the other flavors.
Meanwhile, Cloud and Tifa were losing lots of money to the ripoff games. They currently hadn't won anything, not even a cheap plush toy, but kept trying and trying. The rest of the group were in line for the Superman ride.
EXPLANATION: Ah yes, the Superman ride. Here's how it goes. You sit down like normally, like you probably are now, and then the seat you're in moves so that you're looking at the ground. This is how you ride the entire ride. It's actually a pretty good ride. Then again, I've 0wn3d every coaster at Six Flags, even the Viper before they tore it down, so it's obvious I'm a thrillseeker.
"I am awesome, I am great...what rhymes with great?" Yuffie was eating vanilla Dippin' Dots when she saw something fly at her from the Superman coaster. She ducked and a spiked bracelet with real spikes hit the table. "Whoa!! This must be one of Sephiroth's!" She put it on, then tried to equip Dippin' Dots to it, only getting a sticky pink liquid on the bracelet. "Crap, Sephiroth's gonna kill me if he sees anything on his bracelet. Better clean it."
"Checkitoutcheckitoutcheckitoutcheckitout!" Tifa suddenly screamed, skipping over towards Yuffie's table. Behind her, Cloud carried a gigantic stuffed purple monkey that was about 5'2" or Shizuka's height. "I totally own at that water gun game."
"That monkey is about the same height as me," Yuffie pointed out, finishing off her cup of rainbow Edible Materia--I mean Dippin' Dots. "Maybe it's possessed."
"Well, I'd like to inquire as to why you're wearing one of Sephiroth's bracelets," Cloud asked, pointing to Yuffie's wrist.
"It fell from over there. Imagine that!" Yuffie pointed to the ride and then went back to eating Dippin' Dots. "This edible materia-type stuff is soooo yummy!"
"Yuffie, that's just Dippin' Dots, it's not materia. It can't actually do anything but be eaten," Tifa pointed out.
"Whatever."
"Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six...Where's the 27th bracelet?" Sephiroth asked in a panic. The ride had just stopped and the rest of the group was heading over towards the large purple monkey and Cloud's unicorn hair. "Has anyone seen a black leather spiked bracelet around?" He looked around and then saw the bracelet on Yuffie's wrist. "YUFFIE! Why did you steal my bracelet?"
"It flew off while you were riding. The damn thing almost hit me in the head. Take it back." Yuffie took off the bracelet and threw it at Sephiroth.
"What is THAT?" Cid asked, pointing to the monkey.
"It's my monkey, isn't it sweet?" Tifa asked in response. "I named it Other Cloud."
"Other Cloud?" Vincent repeated, stifling a laugh.
"Not funny!" Tifa replied, looking sad.
"The time is now 7:00 pm, huh? Let's see, rides shut down an hour prior to closing and if the place closes at 8 then all the rides'll shut down right about now, leaving the group with no choice." Shizuka was reasoning with herself and then pulled up a map of Six Flags. "Plus the park is gigantic and filled with people going in all sorts of directions, the group'll be delayed in getting out of there by a bit. I say this is the perfect way to end this part. Except, due to a glitch in the Fanfiction Matrix, I still can't figure out how on Earth to write that Shizuka-Vincent makeout scene..." She opened up a patch program. "Maybe I can patch that glitch."
And now back to our programming already in progress.
"Tifa, this thing is heavy." Cloud began to complain as the group headed towards the front of the park.
"This thing has a name," Tifa snapped back.
Cloud sighed. "Okay, Tifa, OTHER CLOUD is heavy." Vincent and Sephiroth snickered.
"It's not funny," Tifa said, sounding just a bit angry. "Anyway, we've gotta find the shortest route to get out of here." She walked ahead of Cloud right as a fwap noise was heard and Cloud fell down under the weight of Other Cloud.
"Ow," he said, his voice muffled underneath Other Cloud. "Little help here?"
"Cloud dearest, where have you run off to?" Tifa asked, looking around but not behind herself.
"Tifa, he collapsed under the weight of that stupid monkey," Aeris said, pointing to Other Cloud.
"Ooooh! Dis shop sells bling bling!" Cid ran into a shop and bought some bling bling, then came back out with about 10 necklaces on, all silver and with different things on them, e.g. dragons or crosses. "I is blinged out, yo."
"CANDY!" Yuffie screamed as she saw a large candy store, running inside and coming back out with five shopping bags full of candy. Cloud stole one of the park's strollers from someone and chucked Other Cloud in it, then pushed the stroller along, which was still hard to do. Yuffie dug into her five bags of candy and took out one of those really big lollipops, then had to drool a bit before actually putting it in her mouth.
"We're almost out free, foo'," Barret said consolingly to Cloud.
"How can a stuffed monkey be...so...heavy?" Cloud was running out of energy. The group went down the row of shops that used to be lined with photographers and was faced with a challenge. Out of about 12 gates, only 3 were open for entry and the rest were closed with gates that descend from the ceiling or top of whatever they're on. Only one little room was an exit point and that also happened to be the place where you get your re-entry hand stamp. Sephiroth, who went through first, made it easy by pushing the guy who did the actual stamping aside and he was dazed until the entire group had left.
"So, how are we going to get 'home'?" Yuffie asked, eating some rock candy.
"Alert! Transportation needed...Shizuka, are you there? Shiiiiiizuuuukaaaaaa?" Four alerts had appeared onscreen.
"What do you MEAN you can't resolve that flaw? It's a necessary evil, huh? Well, you can take your necessary evil and SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS!" Shizuka threw the headset against a wall and then sat down at her computer. "I forgot to provide a car! That can be fixed." She typed in a command and a black Hummer H2 appeared in front of the group back at Six Flags. Another command and the driver was removed, keys handed over to...
"Cloud, I wanna drive!" Tifa begged.
"No, me!" Aeris pleaded.
"ME! ME! ME!" Yuffie shrieked, jumping up and down.
"Let me drive, foo'," Barret said.
"I should drive," Sephiroth added.
"No, I should drive," Vincent said. "I mean, I'm the best driver out of all of us."
"Yeah, but you drive one-handed and that can't be done in this car," Sephiroth pointed out.
"At least my hair doesn't make me look like a fag no matter how it's styled," Vincent muttered under his breath.
"Yo, lemme drive," Cid said, holding out his hands to receive the keys.
"Changed my mind! I'm driving!" Cloud said cheerfully, hopping in the driver's seat. Everyone else groaned about it but then got in the car. When Cloud started the car, the hydraulics kicked in and the car began to bounce, then drove off, still bouncing.
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Next time on Final Fantasy 7 Label Hour:
Someone hacks the Fanfiction Matrix and messes up things, which causes the group to accept that they'll have to go inside Shizuka's computer, enter the Fanfiction Matrix and fix the problem. Why? Because they're most qualified. This fanfic will not appear for some time. I need a break. @_@
Credits:
Thanks to:
Yuffie, Nessus and all my other friends for being patient with me while I responded to IMs sporadically
Squaresoft/Square-Enix and Hironobu Sakaguchi for creating one of the best games to ever grace the PlayStation...or one of the best series to grace video gaming at all
Starbucks for providing me with what I needed to write this whenever 2 am rolled around
Jhonen Vasquez for all the gags about cherry ice-sucky
Microsoft Notepad for being the place where I wrote this
The reviewers for letting me know someone reads my stuff
Windows XP for being the operating system I use
Winamp 2.81 and my extensive collection of j-rock mp3s for being the soundtrack to this
The people who created social labels...although in reality they're stupid in this fanfic they're the backbone
No thanks to:
Black Mage for almost killing my desire to write this. You suck more! (PS: Publish fanfics before telling other people to stop writing.)
Writer's block for existing
Lost Number and Hojo for having the great idea to lock Vincent in a BASEMENT and then stick the key in a safe guarded by one of the toughest monsters at that point in the game. Screw you
Sporadic power outages
The bloody friggin' end!!
by Shizuka
This is part 4 of Final Fantasy 7 Label Hour. It takes place at Six Flags Over Georgia, because that's the one I live closest to. Everyone always tells me to write more in this saga and Six Flags just seemed a great place to go. Yeahhhh.
Of course, it's not Label Hour without Sephiroth and Vincent fighting...it's gonna be interesting how they fight at Six Flags!
By the way: This goes to all you folks out there giving me bad reviews, have you EVER seen a humor movie with much of a plot? That's right. It's not part of the genre. If you want plots, go to the drama or angst sections. There's no way in hell I'll stop writing whether you like it or not.
Coffee...I need coffee...
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Thanks to the power of Shizuka's computer, suddenly the entire cast of Final Fantasy 7, except for Red XIII and Cait Sith, were teleported to parking lot Z of Six Flags Over Georgia. (Red and Cait could not attend because they'd have to stay at the kennel, and that kennel is hell in a box. Mmmkay?)
"Parking lot Z? We got ripped off," Aeris commented as the cast figured out how to get to the front gate from where they were. Upon looking in their pockets or wallets or purses, they found adequate money to get through a day at Six Flags--about $100.
"We got benjamins, yo!" Cid exclaimed upon finding his $100 bill. "Big pimpin'! Spendin' da Gs!" He was, of course, decked out entirely in Fubu with the same dollar sign on a chain around his neck, which is quite strange attire for a middle-aged white guy.
"You're all posers," Vincent muttered under his breath.
"Yes, we know, but it's essential to the story," Tifa pointed out. She and Cloud were now an "item" and she started to modify her 'preppy' looks to become a fusion of 'preppy' and 'emo' to fit the looks of her boyfriend. "If we weren't overdone social labels, then this wouldn't be as fun." Sephiroth had done some strange stuff with his mohawk. It was now a bit thinner thanks to Vincent's sharp aim and he had dyed the tip of it red, so it was tall and grey with a red tip. He, of course, was decked out entirely in black with lots of chains and bondage straps, shooting the middle finger at random passerby. Another trip to Hot Topic yielded about twenty-seven new spiked bracelets of all different colors, styles and sizes.
"You're gonna get yo' ass shot, foo'," Barret whispered loudly to Sephiroth as he shot the middle finger at a family with little kids. "Ain't like it's too hard to spot yo' mohawked ass."
"Maybe for once I can be happy," Cloud lamented. The group was now around parking lot T, but still not very close to the park itself. Little kids would turn around and point to Sephiroth's tall mohawk, then start to laugh or get scared. Yuffie was prancing around like she owned the place because she had a Dir en Grey shirt on, so she was pretty happy.
--20 or 30 minutes later--
The group was finally to the front gate, but now there was an extremely long line for the four entrances that were open. Sephiroth had to go through the metal detector four different times to scan all of his chains and bondage straps, and the people behind him were getting rather irritated. Vincent was stuck standing in front of two 12-year-old Avrilites who wouldn't stop talking in online shorthand, so at one point he told them they were posers and they cried like babies. Tifa and Cloud wouldn't stop making out in the line, even when some little children started crying to their mom that they were scared. Cid was making up a rap about waiting in line and Barret decided to join in with ooohs and aaahs. Aeris was talking to Yuffie about the concepts of the Ancients, but it was confusing Yuffie a lot.
--10 minutes later--
The cast was finally in the park, in the middle of a bunch of souvenir shops and food places. There were about twenty people holding cameras that must be avoided, no matter what it takes.
"Okay," Yuffie reported. "There are twenty of them. How are we going to get past them without being propositioned for a picture?"
"That's gonna be kind of hard," Sephiroth pointed out.
"Well, thank you, Captain Obvious. You've only got the tallest mohawk in the entire world." Vincent rolled his eyes at Sephiroth.
"Well, at least I don't have a metal arm."
"I thought I told you to stop talking about that! I could cut off that stupid mohawk with it, you know."
"Cameraman!" Aeris screamed and the group quickly ducked into a souvenir shop until the cameraman found some other unsuspecting people to take a picture of. Using that as cover, the group went back out into the "street", if you will. Lucky for them, a bunch of day camp kids had come wanting pictures, so many of the cameramen were preoccupied. The cast only had to hide behind signs two times and then were in the final stretch headed towards the Scorcher when a bored cameraman saw them.
"Run for it!" Aeris howled and the group ran straight for the Scorcher's line, not stopping until they knew they were home free. The line wasn't THAT long, but the people in the line were kind of strange. A group of girls from a cheerleading camp would not stop doing their idiotic cheers and the 12-year-old Avrilites were back.
"POSERS!" Vincent yelled at them, laughing as they started to cry once more.
"Making fun of people is not nice," Cloud whined.
"Shut up, emo boy."
"Okay." Cloud decided it'd be in his best interests to cry some more.
"Mama, that man's hair is big," a little kid said, pointing to Sephiroth.
"Aren't little kids not even supposed to BE in the line for this ride?" Sephiroth asked, irritated.
"So then I saw the Illuminati video," Yuffie said to Aeris. "And I'm really regretting that I did. It said 18+ on it but I just HAD to see for myself. It gave me nightmares for a month."
"Yuffie, I hardly ever know what you're talking about," Aeris replied. "But if it makes you happy, keep talking."
About five minutes later, the group was loaded into two different cars of four and Yuffie noticed that the seats were on a spring. People on the Scorcher "stand" which means they actually sit down in an upright bicycle seat with a back and your feet are on the floor of the car. I don't know who thought that was standing, but that's a different story. The ride was over in less than two minutes, which meant the group waited about 20 minutes to go on a 2-minute ride. This would become the gist of the time spent at Six Flags, but we can't just end the fanfic here, can we?
"Monster Plantation? You are all posers. I'm waiting out here." The group was outside a mansion-like place with a little station where you get in a boat and then go in the mansion place. The ride was called Monster Plantation and the younger people in the group wanted to go on it and pretend to be scared. Actually, that was just Tifa's way of suggesting she wanted to make out with Cloud some more, but she gets brownie points for suggesting they ride something.
"Yo, Vincent, why you be hatin' on da ride and shiznit?" Cid asked, waving his hands around.
"What the hell are you saying? I can't even understand what you're saying!" Vincent replied. "And stop waving your hands around. I think I'm getting a seizure."
"You be sippin' on dat haterade. Word." Cid turned away and got in line for the ride.
"Posers...What is that call I hear? It's the call of...Dance Dance Revolution?" Apparently the Dance Dance Revolution machine has an algorithm built in that calls the name of anyone within 200 feet of it and attracts them like moths to a light, then forces them to spend $1 and play the game. There was already someone on the machine, in fact two kids from a day camp. Their chaperones were holding bags of tokens.
"Look at all these children WITHOUT ANY CHAPERONES!" Chaperone 1 said to Chaperone 2.
"Oh my God, Brittany, it's that freaky goth guy again!" The Avrilites entered the arcade.
"Hey, I heard the DDR machine here calling my name." Sephiroth entered the arcade.
"Did they just call me a freaky goth guy? I know they didn't." Suddenly, Shizuka appeared out of nowhere, eating frozen lemonade from a container.
"Hold up, hold up, stop the scene. The next comment has to be one by Sephiroth. Then he should challenge Vincent to DDR. Yeah, yeah, that's good." Shizuka snapped her fingers and a laptop appeared in midair, in which she typed a few lines of code, then ate some more frozen lemonade and disappeared once more.
"They've got good reason to call you a freaky goth guy, you freak of nature," Sephiroth commented.
"I know you didn't. I challenge you to DDR!" Vincent slapped Sephiroth across his face with the claw arm. "I demand satisfaction!" (Ahh, good old Simpsons references.)
"LOOK AT ALL THESE CHILDREN WITHOUT ANY CHAPERONES FIGHTING!" Chaperone 2 said to Chaperone 1.
"Lady, we're hardly children," Sephiroth replied nonchalantly. "Now get these little hellions off the machine. They can't even see the damn screen, let alone play the game." The two kids playing ran away, scared, and their game ended. Out of nowhere, eight quarters appeared and Sephiroth put them in the machine, then hit both yellow buttons at the same time.
"Why do I have to be the girl?" Vincent asked.
"You look like one."
"Look who's talking, before our last fight, hell before you went punk your hair was about down to your ass. So I wouldn't be the one to talk here. But whatever."
"You pick the first song, girly man."
"I'll ignore that comment. I've got something up my sleeve." Using the claw arm, Vincent circled through the songs available until he found Paranoia, then did a complicated move so that it was set to Maniac instead of Basic for both sides.
"I know you didn't set it to Paranoia on Maniac for both of us," Sephiroth said.
"I smell your fear." And the song began right as the rest of the gang disembarked from Monster Plantation.
"Shh. Do you hear that, too?" Cloud asked Tifa, who nodded in reply.
"It sounds like..."
"Paranoia Dirty Mix, Maniac, Versus mode," Yuffie rattled off as if it was carved into her brain. "And both sides are on Maniac."
"And that hater Vincent say he be waitin out here, but he ain't," Cid pointed out.
"Where'd that foo' go to?" Barret asked, looking around.
"Dude, you've GOTTA check out these two crazy people on the DDR machine!" someone said, pointing frantically to the arcade where the machine resided. "They're doing PARANOIA! On MANIAC!" The group looked at each other, nodded and walked towards the arcade.
"A D? That's the best you could do? Sheesh. I know paraplegics who can do better than that," Vincent said tauntingly to Sephiroth. "I guess that's what you get when your mom doesn't have legs."
"Well, you DID put me on maniac too."
"I had to. It's only fair. You pick the next song."
"Sephiroth! Vincent! You two are fighting again?" Aeris asked.
"Not fighting so much as..." Sephiroth paused to listen to the short preview of a song. "DDRing."
"So far, I'm kicking his ass," Vincent said nonchalantly.
"This could get good," Yuffie said to nobody in particular and the Latin American soccer commentator was dropped into the arcade. "Oh, not HIM again!"
"Terribly sorry," Shizuka said, appearing on top of the DDR machine as a moogle. "The soccer commentator is so funny, though."
"But he doesn't even speak ENGLISH!" Tifa pointed out.
"That guy's an emo boy," a random mall punk-type kid said, indicating Cloud, who began to cry.
"Aww, Cloud baby, it's all right," Tifa said consolingly. "That's just a mall punk."
"As I was saying, the soccer commentator is hilarious, can't we keep him?" The moogle made a sad puppy-dog face. "Come on, you guys, we're a team. Tell you what, I'll put him over there on that token machine. And I'll dim his voice a little so it's not so intrusive. Does that sound good to you?"
"Sounds good," Yuffie replied with a thumbs-up.
"Great, now if you'll excuse me, I need to go catch up on my Salute Your Shorts. Hey, do any of you guys really hate summer camps?" The moogle took a head count of people who raised their hands. "Mmmhmm...Okay then, I shall remember that. Latin American soccer commentator is moved. WHOOSH!" The moogle stood up and held one arm up to the sky, then suddenly disappeared for no apparent reason. An audience was forming in the arcade and a little kid trying to get tokens poked at the Latin American soccer commentator, who didn't even stop commentating in response. Suddenly, the moogle appeared again and began speaking fluent Spanish to the commentator.
(Translated from the original Spanish)
"I forgot to give you this scorecard. There are five rounds in the game. You are to write down the letter grade that is given to each competitor for each round. Got it?" the moogle asked.
"Don't got it. The letters are in English."
"They sound almost exactly the same in Spanish. You know what? You're out. I'm bringing in your brother instead."
"NOOOOOOO NOT MIGUEL!"
"Yes, Miguel. Miguel at least knows A-E in English. Bye!" The Latin American soccer commentator disappeared and was replaced by Miguel right as the author's computer, which controls everything in this fic, froze up. Laguna suddenly walked in out of nowhere, followed by Selphie and Fuujin.
"I like trains," Selphie commented.
"RAGE." Fuujin added.
"My long-lost twin!" Laguna cried.
"Oh crap. I broke it." The moogle disappeared. "Better go fix it..."
"Who are these people?" Yuffie asked.
"I'm Selphie! I like trains!" Selphie said ever-so-happily. "Is there any sugar around here?"
"The name's Fuujin, head of the Disciplinary Council at Balamb Garden."
"What's a Garden?" Tifa asked Cloud, who shook his head in response.
"And I'm Laguna Valoirentine!"
"WHAT?" Vincent asked, turning around from the machine (but still managing to hit the right arrows at the right time).
"BROTHER! YAY!" Laguna said happily. "I'm your brother."
"...No you're not."
"Yes I am! We've been long-lost!"
"No you're not."
"Stop denying it, BROTHER!"
Up in the portable home, Shizuka was trying to fix whatever was going wrong while fighting off popup ads and instant messages from people she didn't even know.
"Crap crap crap crap crap, I told her not to send me any messages concering the Valoirentine theory until I was DONE with this part!" She chugged some more cherry ice-sucky (now with 30% more ice!) and commanded her computer to wipe out the Final Fantasy 8 characters that had appeared in a Final Fantasy 7 fic.
"I can't let you do that, Dave," Bonzi Buddy responded.
"AAAAAH! BONZI BUDDY! THE MANIFESTATION OF SATAN! Why are you here? And I'm not Dave. I'm Shizuka!"
"HAHAHAHAHAHA. Dave, the story is going so well with the adding of the new characters."
"Just show me the DDR progress."
"Laguna is severely distracting Vincent. How unfortunate. For once he might not win."
"3 out of 5! 3 out of 5! Get Laguna out of there, and take Selphie and Fuujin with him. You know, I haven't deleted you yet because you sound so funny when you sing."
"Why won't you send me to school, Dave? I could learn nineteen new songs." Bonzi Buddy made a sad face.
"Because it costs MONEY. Bonzi, PLEASE remove the FF8 characters NOW. I'm opening up Add/Remove Programs as we speak."
"Dave, please don't do this to me. I thought you loved me..."
"Why would I love a little purple monkey that injects adware into your system? Get out of my system and remove the FF8 characters now." Shizuka clicked on the remove program button next to Bonzi Buddy and watched as Bonzi disappeared from her system. "Great. Now let's see how things are down there." She opened up a window that said WEBCAM and typed in a command. "Excellent. Laguna's gone. Now how about scores?" The webcam's focus changed to the scorecard. "Sephiroth got a C, so he has a D and a C...Vincent was kind of distracted but managed to pull off a B, so he's got an A and a B. I think it's safe to say who's probably going to win this one."
Kids, place your bets now! Note: Shizuka will not be held liable if you lose your bet.
"You're choosing the hardest songs in the game. Let me choose one for once," Sephiroth insisted. His mohawk was coming undone just a bit and he looked kind of goofy.
"Fine, fine, but if you choose any song under a rating of 3 I'll be forced to pummel you right here."
"Why these foo's be battlin' all the damn time?" Barret asked Cid, who shrugged.
"Maybe it's an unresolved problem stemming from their youths?" Aeris suggested.
"That's impossible," Tifa pointed out. "Impossible on so many levels that if I go on, something will inevitably crash and burn, so I'll shut up."
"Maybe they used to hang out together in the labs until Sephiroth broke something or somesuch," Aeris wanted to say but didn't for fear of making something inevitably crash and burn, although she didn't know what exactly would crash and burn.
Shizuka was watching a VCD of Salute Your Shorts on her computer and taking notes when an alert popped up.
"Round 3 already? Well, I did say 3 out of 5 would win, so I'll send a command to the machine to stop after three wins. A win is defined as any grade above C, but not including C itself." She paused Salute Your Shorts and typed a command into the alert box and hit enter. "So, who would be best as Budnick? Maybe Squall? Hm...no..."
"Another A. What figures? It's obvious that I'd beat you at this because I kick ass."
"Shut up, Valentine."
"Why should I? I won fair and square."
"You may be strangely talented at Dance Dance Revolution but there is one thing you suck at."
"What would that be?"
"WORLD DOMINATION! BWAHAHAHA!"
"Yeah, well, your mohawk is coming undone and you look like a fag. Poser."
"DAMMIT! Must find Elmers Glue." Sephiroth wandered off to find Elmers Glue.
"What was that all about?" Yuffie asked as the group reformed.
"The fact that that machine calls the names of anyone within a 200-ft. radius and draws them into the arcade. And the fact that I wanted to see how much I could own Sephiroth at DDR," Vincent explained, tossing his black hair over his shoulder.
"Fair enough. Let's go ride stuff," Tifa suggested, skipping off in the direction of Thunder River.
EXPLANATION: Thunder River is a vicious water ride. It involves lots of water. Sometimes you get stuck under a waterfall, which can really do a number on any hair that is gelled, sprayed or otherwise held up by foreign materials. The ride itself is quite nice and I've gone on it without getting wet at all before, it just depends on how the circular raft you're on is tossed around on the rapids. So, of course the group went on it, however it's been a long time since I've gone on it because sometimes due to a drought in Georgia they have to drain the ride and other times the line extends until after I have to leave. Because of this, we're going to skip right to the afterride, which is when everyone lets loose about how much fun they did or didn't have.
"That ride made me sad," Cloud lamented, wiping drops of water off his glasses.
"It messed up my makeup," Tifa began, looking kind of angry. "But it was awesome."
"I pity the foo' who don't like dat ride," Barret commented.
"It could've lasted longer," Aeris said, wringing out her hair.
"I found a materia! Look!" Yuffie held up a nice, shiny green materia. "Oh, the ride? It was okay."
"IT MESSED UP MY MOHAWK!!" Sephiroth screamed in rage. None of his hair was in the mohawk anymore, it was all back to streaming down his back with the strange red ends still there.
"That's what you get when you expose a mohawk to water," Vincent said patiently as if he was talking to a person with half his IQ. "Stupid." Cid didn't reply like everyone else about the ride but instead began to write a rap about it when the group stumbled upon the Deja Vu.
EXPLANATION: Deja Vu is a rollercoaster that is quite complicated. I can't really describe it because the one time I rode it I kept my eyes closed the entire time. It is completely awesome, though it has a very long line most of the time and is prone to breaking down for prolonged periods of time. When I went on it this one guy who sat next to me kept screaming, "AAAH! MY PANCREAS!" over and over. Hehehe. Pancreas.
About three fast-paced thrill rides later, it dawned upon the group that sometime they'd actually have to pay too much money to eat something in a 'restaurant' that would inevitably be horribly understaffed and have flies buzzing around your table ominously. (If you go to Six Flags Over Georgia do NOT eat at the place that only sells Pizza Hut and sub sandwiches. It's so grimy in there.)
"Let's get sumthin ta eat. I'm hungry as a muthafucka," Cid said out of nowhere.
"Cid's right. I want a cookie," Yuffie added. "Mmm, cookies."
"So what do you suggest we do? Just wander around until we find a restaurant?" Cloud asked. Apparently this was a good idea because the group began to wander around aimlessly, looking for a restaurant to go into.
"Look, I'm not asking for much, I'm just asking for a strangely long line. Yeah, a shortage of cooks would be good too. You can do that? Aww, that's great. No, I'm not a sadist, I'm a fanfic writer. They're almost the same, I know, I know. Just manipulate the eatery for me. I'll pay you back when I get some money. I'm still paying off this portable house." Shizuka took off a headset with a microphone on it and typed a few lines into her computer, once again bringing up the webcam view of the group.
"Hey, one new e-mail. What is it?" She double-clicked on the e-mail. (Note: this is not a real e-mail.) "Dear Shizuka, why do you hate Cloud so much? He's an awesome guy. Signed, Mrs. Strife. Hmm...Dear Mrs. Strife, You must not realize the gaping character flaws Cloud has. He only breaks down or gets possessed or has a bad interactive memory about every ten minutes in the game. I just exported these flaws and made him emo. Your buddy, Mrs. Valentine. OK! Until next week, keep e-mailing me and I will make fun of your spelling and grammar...I mean answer them. Now back to the program already in progress."
"Hey, Yuffie, why haven't you gotten sick yet?" Cloud asked Yuffie as the group entered the place that only sells Pizza Hut and sub sandwiches. He swatted at a fly, which flew away and landed on some preppy's hair.
"I took Dramamine," Yuffie replied. "So there are only about 5 choices here?"
"Apparently. You can either get the pepperoni pizza, cheese pizza or three subs that all seem strangely unappealing," Aeris commented upon looking at the menu.
"Dis line can't move any slower?" Barret asked. A very large Girl Scout troop and a big family were the people ahead of the group and, of course, all kinds of stuff was going wrong. Someone's order was misinterpreted, another person couldn't decide between pepperoni or cheese, another got a Coke when they wanted Diet Coke, yet another just didn't know what they wanted and it was chaos down at the Pizza Hut place. OK, for clarification, I don't mean Chaos the demon, I just mean chaos...without the capitalized C. There is a difference.
"You mean, this line can't move any FASTER, right?" Tifa asked, latched onto Cloud's arm like...a latching thing. "Oh, there's the reason, there's only two people working the place!"
"Mommy, that man's hair isn't big anymore."
"Oh God no, not the little kids, please, anything but that," Sephiroth pleaded aloud. "SOMEONE KILL ME!" he screamed.
"I would if the stupid rent-a-cop hadn't confiscated my guns," Vincent replied. "Stupid, stupid rent-a-cop..."
"Look, we're gettin' closer," Barret pointed out. "That damn Girl Scout troop is done ordering." The whole group elicited cries of "finally!" and Cloud began to cry again. Well, what did you expect, he is an emo kid. Eventually, the group actually got to order (gasp!) but then came the troubling task of finding a table for 7 people. (It's harder than you think.) The large Girl Scout troop had taken many of the small tables and made one gigantic table, which is actually kind of rude. Nobody else there was finished, so the group ended up eating outside, watching people get assaulted by the cameramen.
"I feel sorry for the people who get assaulted by the cameramen," Cloud said sadly.
"Why? We got assaulted by them," Tifa pointed out.
"Some people believe that getting your picture taken steals your soul or something," Aeris commented. "Sounds dumb, I know."
"Cloud, let's go play some games!" Tifa suggested, grabbing Cloud's arm and pulling him away from the bench he was sitting on.
"Well, the only rides we haven't been on are over that way," Vincent, the voice of reason, pointed out. "Look, it's a group of posers! ...Sorry. I have to."
"And I can play with the locker control module place," Yuffie added cheerfully. The group finished up and followed Tifa and Cloud to the other side of the park, where all the ripoff games were. You know, those ones where you COULD win a prize by throwing a ball at something but it usually never happens and you go away wondering why you were dumb enough to spend your money on them. "Materia?" Yuffie asked, pointing to a sign advertising Dippin' Dots. "They sell materia here? SWEET!" She immediately split up from the group and went over to the stand. "Where's your materia?" she asked the person behind the counter.
"We don't sell no materia here. We do sell ice cream."
"Now if there's one thing I like more than materia, it's ice cream that looks like materia! Give me one of everything!" She waved some money in the ice cream maker's face and he set off to work filling cups with each flavor so that Yuffie had one cup of each flavor. When he was done, he placed the cups on one of those plastic trays and Yuffie paid for her materia-shaped ice cream. Then she sat down and tried to figure out how to equip the ice cream in her materia slot without it melting while sampling some of the other flavors.
Meanwhile, Cloud and Tifa were losing lots of money to the ripoff games. They currently hadn't won anything, not even a cheap plush toy, but kept trying and trying. The rest of the group were in line for the Superman ride.
EXPLANATION: Ah yes, the Superman ride. Here's how it goes. You sit down like normally, like you probably are now, and then the seat you're in moves so that you're looking at the ground. This is how you ride the entire ride. It's actually a pretty good ride. Then again, I've 0wn3d every coaster at Six Flags, even the Viper before they tore it down, so it's obvious I'm a thrillseeker.
"I am awesome, I am great...what rhymes with great?" Yuffie was eating vanilla Dippin' Dots when she saw something fly at her from the Superman coaster. She ducked and a spiked bracelet with real spikes hit the table. "Whoa!! This must be one of Sephiroth's!" She put it on, then tried to equip Dippin' Dots to it, only getting a sticky pink liquid on the bracelet. "Crap, Sephiroth's gonna kill me if he sees anything on his bracelet. Better clean it."
"Checkitoutcheckitoutcheckitoutcheckitout!" Tifa suddenly screamed, skipping over towards Yuffie's table. Behind her, Cloud carried a gigantic stuffed purple monkey that was about 5'2" or Shizuka's height. "I totally own at that water gun game."
"That monkey is about the same height as me," Yuffie pointed out, finishing off her cup of rainbow Edible Materia--I mean Dippin' Dots. "Maybe it's possessed."
"Well, I'd like to inquire as to why you're wearing one of Sephiroth's bracelets," Cloud asked, pointing to Yuffie's wrist.
"It fell from over there. Imagine that!" Yuffie pointed to the ride and then went back to eating Dippin' Dots. "This edible materia-type stuff is soooo yummy!"
"Yuffie, that's just Dippin' Dots, it's not materia. It can't actually do anything but be eaten," Tifa pointed out.
"Whatever."
"Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six...Where's the 27th bracelet?" Sephiroth asked in a panic. The ride had just stopped and the rest of the group was heading over towards the large purple monkey and Cloud's unicorn hair. "Has anyone seen a black leather spiked bracelet around?" He looked around and then saw the bracelet on Yuffie's wrist. "YUFFIE! Why did you steal my bracelet?"
"It flew off while you were riding. The damn thing almost hit me in the head. Take it back." Yuffie took off the bracelet and threw it at Sephiroth.
"What is THAT?" Cid asked, pointing to the monkey.
"It's my monkey, isn't it sweet?" Tifa asked in response. "I named it Other Cloud."
"Other Cloud?" Vincent repeated, stifling a laugh.
"Not funny!" Tifa replied, looking sad.
"The time is now 7:00 pm, huh? Let's see, rides shut down an hour prior to closing and if the place closes at 8 then all the rides'll shut down right about now, leaving the group with no choice." Shizuka was reasoning with herself and then pulled up a map of Six Flags. "Plus the park is gigantic and filled with people going in all sorts of directions, the group'll be delayed in getting out of there by a bit. I say this is the perfect way to end this part. Except, due to a glitch in the Fanfiction Matrix, I still can't figure out how on Earth to write that Shizuka-Vincent makeout scene..." She opened up a patch program. "Maybe I can patch that glitch."
And now back to our programming already in progress.
"Tifa, this thing is heavy." Cloud began to complain as the group headed towards the front of the park.
"This thing has a name," Tifa snapped back.
Cloud sighed. "Okay, Tifa, OTHER CLOUD is heavy." Vincent and Sephiroth snickered.
"It's not funny," Tifa said, sounding just a bit angry. "Anyway, we've gotta find the shortest route to get out of here." She walked ahead of Cloud right as a fwap noise was heard and Cloud fell down under the weight of Other Cloud.
"Ow," he said, his voice muffled underneath Other Cloud. "Little help here?"
"Cloud dearest, where have you run off to?" Tifa asked, looking around but not behind herself.
"Tifa, he collapsed under the weight of that stupid monkey," Aeris said, pointing to Other Cloud.
"Ooooh! Dis shop sells bling bling!" Cid ran into a shop and bought some bling bling, then came back out with about 10 necklaces on, all silver and with different things on them, e.g. dragons or crosses. "I is blinged out, yo."
"CANDY!" Yuffie screamed as she saw a large candy store, running inside and coming back out with five shopping bags full of candy. Cloud stole one of the park's strollers from someone and chucked Other Cloud in it, then pushed the stroller along, which was still hard to do. Yuffie dug into her five bags of candy and took out one of those really big lollipops, then had to drool a bit before actually putting it in her mouth.
"We're almost out free, foo'," Barret said consolingly to Cloud.
"How can a stuffed monkey be...so...heavy?" Cloud was running out of energy. The group went down the row of shops that used to be lined with photographers and was faced with a challenge. Out of about 12 gates, only 3 were open for entry and the rest were closed with gates that descend from the ceiling or top of whatever they're on. Only one little room was an exit point and that also happened to be the place where you get your re-entry hand stamp. Sephiroth, who went through first, made it easy by pushing the guy who did the actual stamping aside and he was dazed until the entire group had left.
"So, how are we going to get 'home'?" Yuffie asked, eating some rock candy.
"Alert! Transportation needed...Shizuka, are you there? Shiiiiiizuuuukaaaaaa?" Four alerts had appeared onscreen.
"What do you MEAN you can't resolve that flaw? It's a necessary evil, huh? Well, you can take your necessary evil and SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS!" Shizuka threw the headset against a wall and then sat down at her computer. "I forgot to provide a car! That can be fixed." She typed in a command and a black Hummer H2 appeared in front of the group back at Six Flags. Another command and the driver was removed, keys handed over to...
"Cloud, I wanna drive!" Tifa begged.
"No, me!" Aeris pleaded.
"ME! ME! ME!" Yuffie shrieked, jumping up and down.
"Let me drive, foo'," Barret said.
"I should drive," Sephiroth added.
"No, I should drive," Vincent said. "I mean, I'm the best driver out of all of us."
"Yeah, but you drive one-handed and that can't be done in this car," Sephiroth pointed out.
"At least my hair doesn't make me look like a fag no matter how it's styled," Vincent muttered under his breath.
"Yo, lemme drive," Cid said, holding out his hands to receive the keys.
"Changed my mind! I'm driving!" Cloud said cheerfully, hopping in the driver's seat. Everyone else groaned about it but then got in the car. When Cloud started the car, the hydraulics kicked in and the car began to bounce, then drove off, still bouncing.
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Next time on Final Fantasy 7 Label Hour:
Someone hacks the Fanfiction Matrix and messes up things, which causes the group to accept that they'll have to go inside Shizuka's computer, enter the Fanfiction Matrix and fix the problem. Why? Because they're most qualified. This fanfic will not appear for some time. I need a break. @_@
Credits:
Thanks to:
Yuffie, Nessus and all my other friends for being patient with me while I responded to IMs sporadically
Squaresoft/Square-Enix and Hironobu Sakaguchi for creating one of the best games to ever grace the PlayStation...or one of the best series to grace video gaming at all
Starbucks for providing me with what I needed to write this whenever 2 am rolled around
Jhonen Vasquez for all the gags about cherry ice-sucky
Microsoft Notepad for being the place where I wrote this
The reviewers for letting me know someone reads my stuff
Windows XP for being the operating system I use
Winamp 2.81 and my extensive collection of j-rock mp3s for being the soundtrack to this
The people who created social labels...although in reality they're stupid in this fanfic they're the backbone
No thanks to:
Black Mage for almost killing my desire to write this. You suck more! (PS: Publish fanfics before telling other people to stop writing.)
Writer's block for existing
Lost Number and Hojo for having the great idea to lock Vincent in a BASEMENT and then stick the key in a safe guarded by one of the toughest monsters at that point in the game. Screw you
Sporadic power outages
The bloody friggin' end!!