Chapter 4

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Author's Notes: We hate Midgar. It is not a rational hate, but it is our own. Thank-you. Now, go read and review! [Bezo shakes fist menacingly]

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   "Hey, guys," Cloud laughed as he reached for the sugar dish and dropped a cube into his teacup. "Do you remember the time we all dressed up and went to Don Corneo's mansion?"

   "Do I!" Barret exclaimed emphatically, happy images of the pretty yellow chiffon number he had gotten to wear dancing through his head.

Tifa snickered.

   "And do you remember when Cloud ripped off his dress because he thought he had his normal clothes underneath, and then we all heard a loud scream and came running to find Cloud running naked through the halls?"

   "Boy, do I!" Aeris proclaimed emphatically, then frowned and turned to Tifa. "How did we get out of those chains?"

   "Acme Chain-Be-Gone," Tifa announced proudly, holding up a brightly labelled can of powder.

   "And do you guys remember when Aeris got kidnapped by the Shinra, and we had to go rescue her, and we met up with Red XIII?" Cloud asked, patting the shaggy red beast on the top of the head fondly.

   "I wish I was dead," Red XIII sighed.

   "And do you guys remember when you met up with us and got out of Midgar?" Yezo chirped excitedly.

Cloud, Barret, and Tifa glared at her.

   "Leave it to you to taint an otherwise blessed event," Cloud sighed with a roll of his eyes.

   "Oh, admit it, Cloud. You love us," Bezo grinned.

   "You're right, you guys. I do love you. I just hide it really well beneath a mask of hostility."

   "You suck, Cloud!" Yezo proclaimed, sticking her tongue out at him childishly.

Then, as a thought occurred to her, she turned to Bezo, tongue still out.

   "Y'know, Bezo," she tried to say. "As long as I've got my tongue out, we might as well take advantage of it."

   "Huh?" he asked, scratching his head at his girlfriend's utterly unintelligible words.

   "As long as I've got my tongue out, let's take advantage of it," she repeated, annoyed.

However, as her tongue was still out, it was still impossible to understand.

   "What are you talking about, Yezo?" Bezo demanded.

Rolling her eyes, she took more direct action, leaping at Bezo and taking him soundly to the ground. From here, the rest of the party – the tea party, that is – delicately averted their eyes, moving the various and sundry breakable items they had accumulated out of the path of the amorous couple.

   "So," Cloud sighed, quite desperate for something to distract him from the fact that a yellow tee shirt had just flown through the air, "what's the plan? Besides you two picking the worst possible place to make out, of course..."

   "Let's go to Kalm," Tifa suggested. "I bet when we get to Kalm, something really important will happen!"

   "I don't want to go to Kalm," Cloud shot back snippily. "I have bad memories of Kalm. It reminds me of Sephiroth!"

   "Sephiroth?" Bezo chirped, removing his mouth from Yezo's.

   "Darn it, not again!" she cried angrily before flouncing over to the campfire where Barret sat motionless, to pout.

The large man turned to give her a comforting glare.

   "What do you want?"

   "Bezo's mean," she informed him tearfully.

   "Great," he said boredly. "I didn't ask fer your life story. An' quit cryin' on me!"
   "Sorry," she sniffled as the hydro-pump tear jets died down to a trickle.

   "Yezo, it was a false alarm," Bezo called placatingly. "He wasn't really talking about Sephiroth. We can go back to making out now."

   "Oh!" Yezo gasped sarcastically. "Can we?"

   "No," Cloud interjected through gritted teeth. "Because right now, we're leaving for Kalm, because right now, the girls want to go do some shopping."

   "Yeah!" Aeris chirped. "I'm all out of chocolate."

   "And I need some facial moisturizer," Tifa added sadly. "That trip through the sewers made my skin all dry. The water's way too hard!"

   "Hey!" Cloud exclaimed, quite annoyed. "I had to fight the new president of Shinra! And his cat-thing!"

Yezo's little cat ears perked up.

   "Kitty?!"

   "No, no kitty," Cloud replied, exasperated. "Just a big black panther that could have ripped your head off if by chance you had been there helping instead of chasing butterflies."

   "Oh," Yezo sighed sadly. "No kitty. And no butterfly. AND no bunny! This world sucks! Puppy Wuppy is the only fwuffy wittle aminal, and he won't let me cuddle him!"

   "Puppy...wuppy?" Red XIII repeated in disgust and horror. "Please, gods, tell me she didn't mean me!"
   "No, she meant me," Barret said sarcastically. "Woof, woof, woof!"

   "Well, that's alright, then," Red XIII shrugged as best he could, quite relieved.

   "Damn, that's a dumb dog," Barret sighed sadly. "Yo, Pointy! Let's get goin'!"

   "My name is Spiky," Cloud shot back, before stopping and considering this a little more carefully. "No! Wait! I'm Cloud!"

   "You're funny, Cloud," Aeris giggled.

   "Let's just go," Cloud groaned, rubbing his forehead wearily.

   "Hey, Spiky," Barret began, tossing a small black object at him.

   "Oops," Cloud grinned as he completely missed the throw and the object crashed to the ground and consequently into hundreds of pieces.

   "Damn," Barret sighed again. "That was the PHS! A key item, you spiky fool! Ah, damn," he grumbled. "Les' jus' use these cell-phones."
   "Great!" Cloud chirped. "Toss one this way, Barret!"

   "Hell, no!" Barret said emphatically, walking over and carefully handing it to the younger man. "Look, here's what we do: Cloud, Tifa, you two comin' wit' me. The rest of you, go away."

   "We should meet you in Kalm, right?" Aeris asked expectantly.

   "Yeah. Right," Barret agreed, eyes shifting nervously about. "If we ain't there, jus'...go back to Midgar, an'...live there. Forever."

   "But what if you need the super-smashing might of my rod?!" Aeris exclaimed, horrified.

Barret took a deep breath, putting an arm around her.

   "Look, Aeris, there's no nice way to say this, but...you're as effective in combat as a noodle. Not a strong noodle, mind you. Not a wet noodle, either. They can sometimes do some damage if you know how to swing one. Jus'...a dry, brittle, weak noodle that can be broken by...like, Bezo."

   "I am NOT that weak!" Aeris exclaimed tearfully.

   "Oh, fine. By Yezo, then," Barret amended.

   "Hmph!" Aeris hmphed, flouncing away.

   "Wait, Aeris!" Yezo called, hurrying after her.

Red XIII gave an irritated grumble and reluctantly followed the two at a slow jog.

   "Hey...everyone?" Bezo called, scratching his head in confusion as he glanced around at where there had previously been people.

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   "Oh, no!" Cloud exclaimed. "It's a guy on a motorcycle, and he's headed this way!"

   "Dammit!" Barret exclaimed. "After dealin' with those idiots, last thing we need's a damn biker gang!"

   "I don't think that's a biker gang," Tifa said, peering closely at the madly gibbering creatures approaching. "There aren't enough tattoos, and I don't smell beer. At least, from their direction, Barret," she finished, glaring reproachfully at him.

    "I needed somethin' to deal wit' Midgar! I been there for years, an' I'm sick of it!"

    "Uh, guys?" Cloud interjected rather frantically while being repeatedly smacked across the back of the head. "I'm being attacked by strange motorcycular creatures, and I can barely lift my sword! Can one of you help me?!"

   "No one told you to steal the side of some guy's van and make a sword outta it!" Barret reminded him severely, wondering for the first time...that minute...if taking a little extra beer for the road mightn't have been a good idea.

   "Is this a good time?" Cloud demanded painfully, sailing directly into the air and back down again with increasing speed.

   "Well, you know, Cloud," Tifa began thoughtfully, "Barret is right."

   "This. Is. A. Bad. Time!" Cloud exclaimed jerkily, the enemy's blows punctuating his words as he flew once again into the air, once again quite against his will.

   "Well...okay," Barret sighed reluctantly. "I guess we can't let you die. Yet."

   "Thanks, Barret," Cloud's weak, wavery voice drifted, both weakly and waveringly from the Cloud-shaped indentation, reaching down at least six feet, give or take. "Ow, by the way..."

   "I think it might be a little late," Tifa noted, watching curiously as pack of Devil Rides turned and headed in the opposite direction, pausing to throw a derisive laugh and a raspberry over what passed for their shoulders.

Barret sighed.

   "[Random noises of many bullets being fired]," said his arm, which was strange, as it wasn't normally such a conversationalist, although it did have quite a talent for exhausting one topic completely – that of killing everything in the nearby vicinity – before moving on. We are still waiting for this to occur.

   "Well said," Tifa congratulated him enthusiastically. "Let's go!"

And so the two long-time friends sauntered past first Cloud-shaped indentation in the ground, and then past the charred remains of several members of the Devil Rides Motorcycle Enthusiasts Club's local chapter 24601. Things were not going well for their annual meeting.

It is possible, however, that they were going even worse for the young pointy-headed lad lying, battered and broken in a him-shaped indentation in the not particularly soft or forgiving earth.

   "Ow..." he whimpered again, promptly losing consciousness.

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    "La la la la la la la," Aeris sang merrily, skipping through the dew-wet grasses, which were oddly placed in the scorching heat of late afternoon.

   "La la la la la," Yezo replied, skipping along beside her.

   "La la la la LA," corrected Aeris.

   "La la la la la?" Yezo attempted again, glancing sideways hopefully at the flower girl.

   "La la la," Aeris said with a shrug. Far from perfect, but it would have to do.

   "La la la la la la la!" Yezo sang merrily.

   "La! La la la!" Aeris corrected, more firmly than before.

   "La la? La la la!" Yezo said, quite wounded.

   "La la la. La la la la la!" Aeris informed her, beginning to get rather annoyed.

  "La," Yezo whimpered sadly, cat-ears and tail drooping dejected, her sweatdrop making a reappearance.

   "La la la," Aeris noted curiously, eyeing this new, very soggy visitor.

   "La la la la la!" Yezo informed her proudly.

   "La la la la la la la," Aeris agreed.

   "La la la la la la la!" Yezo sang blithely, resuming her skipping.

Aeris stopped short. Somewhere, somehow, something cracked.

   "LA LA LA LA LA!" she howled in a blind fury no one believed she was capable of.

   "La!" Yezo whimpered in a punctuated staccato, dodging behind a conveniently placed tree and huddling there, terrified.

   "La la la," Aeris called after her, feeling slightly guilty over yelling at her new...acquaintance, but feeling that she had been quite justified. After all, such a thing was inexcusable! Not understanding the melody of her tune! It was quite simple and very tonal! Who did this infuriating cat-girl think she was? John Cage?

   "La la la la la?" a wary voice asked from behind the tree.

   "La la la," Aeris replied.

   "La la la," Yezo sang back.

   "La la la la la la la!" Aeris finished, quite delighted that Yezo seemed to have caught on at last.

   "La!" Yezo exclaimed joyfully, bounding out from behind the tree, sensing that she had been, for now, forgiven.

Aeris furrowed her brow, then softened. That could have been a minor ornamentation, quite suitable to the melody at hand.

Yes, for now, the cat-girl could stay.

From several feet behind the merry duo, Red XIII shook his shaggy...red mane.

   "What...in the hell are they talking about?"

Bezo, however, was quite anxious to play, too.

   "Loo!" he sang strongly and clearly.

Both girl halted in their tracks, turned around slowly, and fixed the offender with two steely glares of utter and sudden death. Or at least, a whole lot of distinct unpleasantness, with just a dab of menace. Mostly run-off from the scary creatures lurking about, as it certainly didn't come from Aeris or, God forbid, Yezo. 

   "Sorry," Bezo whimpered sadly. "No loo."

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   "Awright, Spiky, getup here!" Barret laughed, hauling Cloud bodily from the Cloud-shaped hole in the ground.

   "Yeah, thanks for coming back for me, you two," he grumbled. "It only took you two HOURS!"

Tifa rolled her eyes.

   "Geez, Cloud, bitter?"

   "Hey, YOU weren't stuck in a hole for two hours!"

   "An hour and fifty-eight minutes!" she corrected sternly.

   "Fine!" Cloud exclaimed. "An hour and fifty-eight minutes!"

   "Well, it doesn't matter anymore," she reminded him huffily. "You're out now."

However, it seemed that this small turning of events in Cloud's favour was to be short-lived, for the instant he stood up straight at the edge of the hole, pausing to brush the dust from his front, the earth gave such a decided rumble that he fell back in.

   "Dammit!" the Cloud-shaped hole howled, or rather, the Cloud within it howled, since, of course, holes don't ordinarily talk, unless they are mouths.

However, as the first rumble was not exclusive, but rather quickly followed by more, Tifa and Barret decided that their attention would serve its best purposes elsewhere.

A massive purple shape, the purpleness of whom has been much debated, as indeed he was not purple at all, but grey everywhere except his gaping maw, which glowed a dangerous red, and his chest, shaped like an exceedingly valuable diamond of approximately one billion carats, loomed ominously on the horizon.

  "What the fuck?!" Barret exclaimed.

Tifa gaped at him.

   "You've never said that before, Barret," she noted in awe.

Barret gibbered incoherently for a moment.

   "Yeah, I also ain't never seen THAT before!"

   "What is that, anyway?" Tifa wondered. "You think this is karma for complaining about all those motorcycle thingies back there?"

   "No," Barret replied emphatically. "I think that thing ate karma for lunch, and had hope for dessert!"

   "And a side-order of fries," the creature itself added in a surprisingly high-pitched voice, grinning a surprisingly charming grin. Or at least, as much of one as its demonically glowing mouth would allow.

   "Hold on," Cloud called, dragging himself from the hole, flipping as he did through a thin volume, proudly bearing on the front the words, 'Official Final Fantasy VII Strategy Guide.' "If I'm not mistaken – and let's face it, when has that ever happened? – that thing looks an awful lot like Diamond Weapon!"

   "You've heard of me?" the massive creature chirped.

   "Well, you're right here on Page 161 in the strategy guide!"

   "I'm famous!" it squealed giddily.

   "Sure are," Cloud agreed. "Unfortunately, you're famous a little early. See, we're only on Page 65. You're almost a hundred pages early!"

   "Oh," Diamond Weapon said, quite sobered by this news. "That's embarrassing. Hey, can I kill you anyway?"

   "No!" Tifa and Barret exclaimed together in unsettlingly similar pitch.

Diamond Weapon pouted, his massive shoulders slumping.

   "Are you sure? I hate to make another trip...the missus gets upset when I go out. Maybe you've heard of her? Ruby Weapon? She's always blasting things with Ultima when she gets mad, sucking people into vortexes, generally not a pleasant person. But I love her! It just gets worrisome when you cross her. Why, I remember this one time – "

At this point, Diamond Weapon noticed the strangely...sneaky sound to the background music, and took a moment to wonder at its origin. This led him to look down – way down – at which point he noticed something odd.

   "Why, they've buggered off!" He pouted again. "Eh, well, I'll just have to come back and kill them later."