Less Bunnies, More Hats



Disclaimer: We don't own anyone in this story, aside from Bezo and Yezo. Oh, and Benny the loser-Shinra. He's ours, too. You can borrow him, if you want.



Author's Notes: Well, we're back. This idea has been percolating for some time, and we were finally unable to keep it in any longer. Not only that, but no one was reading our Final Fantasy 9 version of this. You people are mean! [Yezo pouts]

Anyway, we like Final Fantasy 7. Bezo especially likes Knights of the Round, and Yezo especially likes Puppy-Wuppy and Meowth, but that's another story. Believe us, you'll find out.



And now, oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon with the self-indulgence!





"Poof!" said the temporal vortex as it deposited Bezo LaBleu and Sunny Yezo (but don't call her Sunny!) neatly in this new universe. This shiny new world. A very brave one. This brave new world, we would say, but we don't want to be sued.

"Poof?!" Bezo repeated, a little hurt. "That's gay! That's Kuja-gay!"

"Hey, at least it didn't say 'ptooey,'" Yezo noted comfortingly as the two peeled themselves from the ground.

"Y'know, Yez,'" Bezo began thoughtfully, "it occurs to me now that all this universe-hopping is bad for my career. I'm probably fired by now."

"Yeah, me too," Yezo pouted. "The modelling agency's probably hired someone else by now."

"Dear, you're not a Mary Sue," he reminded her mildly.

"Oh! Right! I bet the lab has found a new test-subject, then."

"You aren't a hideous, misunderstood freak who is destined to finally find romance and happiness with an effeminately lovely fictional man of your particular tastes, either."

"Then what AM I?" she wondered, blinking.

"The most beautiful girl I've ever known."

"Aw!" she squealed happily, snuggling up to him. "Even more beautiful than Dagger?"

"Far more beautiful."

"That's sweet! More beautiful than Freya?"

"Uh, yeah, that was a given," Bezo chuckled.

"More beautiful than Kuja?!"

"You KNOW my feelings on that subject. Yaoi BAD! Yaoi BAD!"

"More beautiful than Beatrix?!"

"Ooh, that's a tough call...she does have that sexy eye-patch...yeah, more beautiful than Beatrix."

She smiled, quite satisfied. Now for the ultimate test.

"More beautiful than Sephiroth?"

"Of course you're more beautiful than Sephiroth! Yaoi BAD! I'm not chasing Sephiroth because I wanna sleep with him! I'm chasing him because I want to train under him - "

Here, he was interrupted by a giggle from Yezo.

"Yeah, you and all the fan-girls."

"Not like that! I want to...be his student! And then turn on him and kill him. Is that so hard to understand? Besides, I've given up on ever meeting Sephiroth," Bezo sighed, a slight pang in his heart for a lost dream.

And at that most appropriate of moments, a young man quite literally tripped over the pair, nearly impaling Yezo with one of his gigantic yellow spikeys. As the little golden chocobos flying around their heads faded, Bezo and Yezo took note of their surroundings for the first time. It seemed that they were in a train station, on the platform.

"Hey, do you mind?" Bezo demanded angrily. "We're trying to have a nice conversation here, and we don't need YOU tripping over - hold on. Yezo, does he look familiar to you?"

"Yeah," Yezo agreed, head cocked to the side. "He's all...yellow, and spiky!"

"Um...that would me my hair, miss," the young man informed her hesitantly, one eyebrow raised.

"Hey! I know who he is!" Yezo chirped. "It's Squall! And that must be his gun-blade! It doesn't have a trigger, though. Your gun-blade sucks, Squall!" she exclaimed, gesturing to his sword.

"It's...Cloud, actually," the golden-haired young man informed her.

"Cloud?" Bezo echoed. "That's a stupid name! A totally gay name! It's, like, Kuja-gay! Heeeeey! We should name him Kuja!"

"We're not naming him Kuja!" Yezo replied, smacking him soundly with her tail, which gladly, had survived the trip. "One Kuja was enough!"

"Yeah, you bet you're not naming me Kuja! Now go away!"

"Hey, Cloud," Bezo spoke up. "When you kill Sephiroth...again...can I have Masamune?"

"What do you mean, 'when I kill him again?' I've already killed him! Now, move! I've got a job to do, and I'm getting paid good for it!"

Shaking his head sadly at the state that humanity had come to as of late - really, some days he reflected that it might be best if a gigantic meteor would crash into the earth and wipe out all human life - Cloud stepped past the young couple and started towards the gigantic reactor looming on the horizon.





"Hmm," Bezo noted, frowning, "that didn't work as I'd planned. So, what do you wanna do in the meantime?"

"I don't know," Yezo replied, swiping lazily at a butterfly with one hand. "What do you wanna do?"

"I don't know - what do you wanna do?"

"I don't know - what do YOU wanna do?"





"Good grief," Cloud sighed as he walked away. "I hope I never have to see those two again. Now, where's that guy I was supposed to go meet?"

"Hurry your spiky head, fool!" a voice bellowed from above him.

"Okay, okay," the young man grumbled.

"I'm sick 'a waitin' fer your spiky ass!"

"My ass is not spiky," Cloud informed him a trifle on his dignity, "my head is spiky!"

"You comin' wit' me! But don't you go thinkin' you all hot, jus' 'cause you was in Soldier!"

"I think I'm hot because I have zillions of fan-girls, actually," Cloud explained, jogging toward the chain-link gate.

"Hey, guys!" Biggs called. "We'll break you in!"

"Break you in, we will," added Wedge.

"Hey, stop it, you two!" Barret growled. "Let's jus' get in there."

And so they went.

Seven long corridors, seventy-seven severely annoying random battles, and an annoying Sephiroth flashback later, they were face-to-face with the timer.

"The timer?!" Barret repeated. "What about the damn boss?!"

"Be patient, Barret," Cloud sighed. "If we wanna fight the boss, we have to set the timer."

"Then set the damn timer, fool! I wanna fight this boss!"

"Why?"

"Experience," Barret replied wisely. "When you get to be my age, you'll 'ppreciate experience a little more!"

"Hey, guys!" called a voice from behind them. "I'm the Boss! How ya doin'?"

"Uh...fine, I guess," Cloud replied. After all, one couldn't be rude...wait a second; yes, one could! "Damn, you are the weirdest scorpion guard I've ever seen! Eh, who cares? Let's hit it until it dies, Barret!"

"NOW you talkin' my language! Hit it 'till it dies is my rulebook, foo'!"

With that, a high-energy guitar song started up.

"Where's that coming from?" Cloud mused.

"We ain't got time to talk about that! We gotta battle!" Barret insisted.

"You're right!"

And with that, Cloud attacked, swinging furiously at the creature.

"Ping!" went his sword against the monster. It still did immense damage, though, as it was at an exceptionally low level.

"Good job," Barret admitted. "Now let me show ya how it's done!"

A shower of bullets erupted from his arm...or, at least, from the gun mounted on it.

"Not bad," Cloud smirked. "But watch this!"

"Oh, yeah?!"

"Yeah!"

"Mine's better!"

"Like hell!"

"Shu'up!"

"Hey...how many more times do you think we have to hit it?"

"Dunno."

As Barret gave this reply, the scorpion guard's pointy little tail lifted.

Unwisely, neither man heeded this, and Cloud attacked it.

"Die, stupid boss thingie!"

The scorpion guard raised one scorpion guard eyebrow at them, and chuckled.

"Hah-hah-hah. You should not have done that," it declared tonelessly.

"ZORCH!" said the laser as it effectively fried Cloud and Barret.

"Ow!" said Cloud.

"Ow, fool!" said Barret.

"What did we do wrong?!" Cloud demanded of the universe in general.

Barret scowled at him.

"Recruitin' you was a start."

"Oh, shut up, Barret! Hey, I think I know what happened. Its tail went up, and then we attacked it, so it zapped us with its tail! If we don't attack it when its tail is up, then we can live and run free!"

"Uh, right. No attackin' when its tail's up. Got it," Barret agreed.

"Right. None at all. If that tail is up, we do NOT attack. ARGH!" Cloud finished, rushing the beast.

"Guard scorpion!" the guard scorpion corrected, annoyed.

"Right, right," the narration amended with a sigh. "The 'guard scorpion.' Geez! What a whiner! I hereby dub you the Cloud Scorpion!"

"Heeey! What are you trying to say? Are you calling me whiny?! I am not whiny!" Cloud whined, quite forgetting his brilliant plan of attacking the Cloud Scorpion - "Hey!" it whined - exactly when he shouldn't have.

During this exchange, the scorpion's tail had lowered, and was now rising, drawing a long string of profanities from Barret.

Cloud reared back and prepared to attack. Barret stopped him with an arm.the one that didn't have the gun on it, much to the relief of everyone who may have wanted Cloud alive for a reason.

"Not with the tail up!" the older man bellowed.

"Oh, right, right," Cloud agreed sheepishly. "DON'T attack with the tail up. DON'T. Got it."

At this point, the guard scorpion rushed forward and delivered a mighty peck to the young man's golden head.

"Ow!" Cloud whimpered. "Hey...I suddenly feel like I'm going beyond my limit. Almost like my limit is...breaking."

"Yeah, man, you look...braver, somehow."

"Do I look braver?" Cloud asked, pleased by this bit of unexpected flattery from Barret.

Barret nodded. Cloud grinned.

"Then I'll just have to ATTACK IT ASS!"

"Why not attack the rest of me, too?" it wondered, amused. "Are you gay, or something?"

"I'm not gay, and I'm not a whiner!" Cloud felt the need to reiterate as he hurled himself at the guard scorpion.

"NOT WHEN THE TAIL'S UP!" Barret howled, foreseeing disaster.

As luck would have it, good luck for once, it chose just that moment to die.

A wide grin stretched across Cloud's face as a very victorious song played in the background. He spun his sword in triumph.

Barret ducked and covered, less triumphantly.

"What the hell you doin', man?! You gonna kill someone!"

"I just did kill someone," he reminded the older man pettishly. "That's why I'm spinning!"

"Y'know, there's somethin' we had to do..." Barret began, scratching his chin.

"Four minutes," the timer said, trying to be subtle.

"I jus' can't put my finger on it," Barret said, leaning against the timer.

"Three minutes and fourty seconds..." the timer urged, getting a bit antsy.

"Did it involve bagels?" Cloud called, shining his sword and stroking it lovingly. "Ow!"

"No, I don't think it involved bagels..." Barret shook his head.

"Three minutes and twenty seconds...dumbass!" the timer ground out.

"Quiet, you," Barret scowled. "We're tryin' to remember what we s'posed to do!"

"RUN, YOU IDIOTS!" the timer howled, quite at the end of its inanimate tether.

"Oh, right!" Cloud laughed sheepishly.

And they ran.



"Hey, look," Cloud noted idly. "It's Jessie! And it looks like she's got her foot stuck."

"Shoul' we go back and rescue her?"

"Yeah. I've always wanted to be a hero," the younger man replied, eyes growing shiny.

And so back they went. And then out they went again, more quickly, at the frantic urging of their friend, the timer.

"Ten seconds, idiots! Go! Go! Go! I don't wanna get sued for this!"

"...Sued?" Biggs repeated, scratching his head as Cloud, then Jessie, then Barret careened past him. "How can a timer get sued?"

This pondering was cut short by a massive explosion. Sadly, the timer was no more...



'Oh, dear, what was that explosion?' Aeris thought to herself. 'And...why does that girl have a tail?'

She started across the street towards the young couple who our readers shall recognize as Bezo and Yezo.

"Excuse me, miss?" Aeris began slowly. "Do you know that you have a tail?"

"Oh, him? He's not a tail - he's my boyfriend!" Yezo chirped, then frowned. Then she grabbed the furry light brownish tail swinging merrily behind her. "Oh, you mean this thing? Of course! What kinda cat-girl would I be without a tail?"

"Well, as long as you know..." the lovely young flower girl replied hesitantly, shifting her weight from foot to foot uncomfortably. "Do you guys want to buy a flower? They're only a gil!"

"Actually, we don't have a gil. Well, we have about four hundred thousand gil from...somewhere else, but I don't know if they're transferable," Bezo said, holding out a shiny gold coin.

Aeris accepted it, and a frown wrinkled her forehead as she read the inscription on the back.

"Um...who is 'Garnet Til Alexandros?' I-I'm sorry, but I don't think I can accept this."

She returned the coin to the young man.

"Hey, you look familiar," Yezo spoke up, staring intently at Aeris. "You're...Beldandy, right?"

"Well, she's a belle, and she sure is dandy," Cloud chuckled, popping onto the scene for a split second before leaving again, to retain no knowledge of what had just transpired.

"Actually," Aeris replied, scritching her head in confusion of exactly who that young man had been, and where he had come from. He sure was cute, though. She reflected for a moment that he would sure make a cute-looking girl! These were the sorts of thoughts that made Aeris one of the weird ones. "My name is Aeris."

"Isn't it Aerith?" Bezo asked, scritching his own head. "That's what Kingdom Hearts told me..."

"Yeah, Kingdom Hearts also told you that Sephiroth sounds like Lance Bass," Yezo added, shuddering.

"Y'know, Donald Duck could easily kick Cloud's ass," Bezo announced proudly.

"Um...that's wonderful," Aeris giggled, rather enjoying the mental image of a duck beating up on a fluffy white cloud. "Why don't you take a flower for free?"

"Aw, thanks!" Yezo chirped. "It's so pretty!"

"And how would you like a giant bag of useless money?" Bezo grinned, handing her a large brown burlap sack.

Aeris bent to pick up the sack.

"Oh, thank-you! Oof!" she intoned sadly as the weight of the coins dragged her to the ground. Little did she know that the exercise of lugging the bag of coins home so as not to hurt the feelings of these nice people was raising her strength stats to the point that she could actually do damage in battle. Instead of her regular one point of damage, Aeris could now do...three!

"Well, see yuh, Aerith," Bezo called, sauntering away.

"Yeah! Bye, Aeris!" Yezo added, following. "So, whaddaya wanna do when we get on the train?"

"We could join the mile-high club" Bezo suggested eagerly.

"Men," Yezo sighed.



"Well, fool, we betta get outta here!" Barret called over his shoulder to Cloud, sprinting past the lovely pink-clad brunette, but taking no notice of her.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm comin'" Cloud sighed. Then, as something caught his eye, he stopped. "Hey, miss, do you need some help with that?"

"Oh, thank-you," the brunette replied gratefully, "but I'll handle it, because if I don't, I'll never be able to do more than one damage with a physical attack! But you could buy a flower," she suggested hopefully.

"How much?"

"One gil."

"Um...do you think you could...lower that a little? One gil seems pretty steep..."

"One gil?!" Barret exclaimed, jogging back. "How cheap are you, boy?! Here. There's a gil. Buy the damn flower!"

"Thanks, Barret!" Cloud called after him as he ran ahead again.

"Don't thank me; it's comin' outta your pay!"

"Right, right, of course it is," Cloud sighed, reaching for the flower.

For a moment, both stood there, silent, awkwardly avoiding one another's eyes.

"Well, bye," Cloud said finally. "I guess I'd better go. Y'know, I've got a bunch of Shinra guys wanting to kick my ass."

"Yeah, I know how that is," the young woman replied sympathetically. Then she blushed slightly. "Do you think we'll ever meet again?"

"Well, here's hopin'," Cloud grinned, crossing his fingers.

"Bye."

"Bye."

With that, Cloud jogged toward the bridge.

"Halt!" a voice that tried to be imperious but failed miserable bellowed from behind him.

"Let's get him, guys!" another voice, that of Benny, the loser-Shinra, exclaimed jubilantly.

"Oh, brother..." Cloud sighed, drawing his sword and preparing to fight.