Four Feathers by DJ666
Never fear. Chapter four is here. My reviews OUTNUMBER my chappies? GASP! The quest has ACTUALLY begun! *dances like a maniac* So, what awaits our heroes? A new computer? Some help from the Turks? A little mishap in the sauna (he he he.)? Why don't you R&R and find out!!
Content: Swearing, violence, drug use, some American Pie-style habits.
Disclaimer: Check the newspaper. There's this story: MASSACRE AT SQUARE HEADQUARTERS LEAVES DJ666 SOLE OWNER OF FINAL FANTASY FRANCHISE.
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Chapter Four:
"I just realized that we have no idea where the hell iluvyuffentines lives," announced Yuffie.
"We don't?" asked Vincent.
"Yeah. Check the author's notes for chapter three, dumbass."
"Touché."
"You're stupid," said The Three.
The Three were the two bus monitors and the driver: Jody, Tony and Gina. Jody was some sort of strange blob-creature in minishorts. Tony was a fifty- year-old man who had been accidentally spliced with frog DNA a la 'The Fly', except now instead of compound eyes he just had gimongous bulging ones and a nasty tendency to eat insects. Gina had appeared normal until she tried to bone Yuffie, Vincent and Tony simultaneously - and, for a terrifying instant, succeeded. In any case, they all spoke at the same time, as one strange super-creature of doom.
"We're stupid?" repeated Vincent. "Then what do you suggest we do, oh knower of the infinite?"
"Talk to the Turks," said The Three.
"Oh." The vampire blinked.
"Damn you. That's the best idea I've heard today." Vincent pulled out a cell phone and popped it open, dialing fourteen digits in one second without glancing at the keypad even once. Yuffie's mouth dropped open as her companion managed to contact as number, bypass the filter, dig under the firewall, bounce around four redirective satellites and erase the caller ID program - without paying attention to what he was doing. The Three nodded, pleased.
"Hello, Reno. How are you? Fine, fine. Well, I need a favor. I need you to locate someone. No, I know EXACTLY where I am, thank you very much. How do you know about that, that was before you were even born! Tseng? Put him on!" Vincent's eyes flashed a brilliant red for the slightest instant. "Tseng? Yeah. You told him about - wh - but - so THAT'S what was in my - is that even possible? Vaseline and engine grease? Well, I'll be damned . . . aherm, uh, Tseng, I need a favor. No, Tseng. If I needed that kind of favor, I could just go cruising around in my Porsche in the Sector 2 Slums. What I need is for you to find me someone - yeah, that's not correct grammar, but seriously, I'm desperate. Whatever. All I have is an email address. Yeah - no - shut UP, would you? It's iluvyuffentines. The host server? I'm not sure - I think fanfiction - .net or .com. Try both. Huh? Fan, f-a-n, fiction. Like a story. It's a long story. Well, I'm not. Can you find him - her - it? Good. Meet you - the - oh, HELL no. Jesus, fine. Bye." BEEP.
Vincent turned to Yuffie. "They're working on it. It's going to take a little time, because Rude just got a new hobby."
"What is it?" inquired the young ninja.
"I'm not sure, but I think I heard the words 'corset' and 'nipple clamps' in the background."
Yuffie drooled like a starved chief of Texas police with a car broken down on a 100 degree day in front of a Dunkin' Donuts shop. Vincent plowed on: "We need to meet them in Midgar. They want to talk at their new headquarters in Sector Two. It would take us about - " The vampire counted off on his fingers. " - eight seconds by air, but since Cid won't help us it's - " Forefinger, middle finger, ring finger, pinkie. " - eight weeks or so."
His companion groaned. The Three glowed a brilliant green. Vincent looked at Gina, the driver.
"Well, STEP ON IT!"
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Tseng slowly replaced the receiver. "Rude, you have the name? Rude?"
"He's busy," supplied Reno helpfully.
"ELENA!"
"She's busy too," said Reno.
"And let me guess - the nipple clamps are busy as well?"
"Remarkably perceptive of you, sir."
"Perhaps you'd be so kind as to turn on the electricity once again?"
"Voltage?"
"Lower than regular torture level - low enough to be nonfatal. But - high enough to sting like a sonuvabitch."
"Aye aye, captain!"
BIZZZIZIIZBIBZIZBIZBIZBIZBZIBZIBZIBZIBZIKZIZBIZIZBIZBZIBZIBZIZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!
"Son of a BITCH!" snarled Rude.
"Stang like a sonuvabitch. Just like you asked, Tseng."
"Marvelous. Remind me to dock your pay again."
"WHAT?"
"Misappropriation of funds. Think of all the money we're wasting on the electricity you just used to shock poor Rude there."
"Bastard."
"Yes, yes, now Rude?"
"Tseng?"
"The address. Iluvyuffentines@fanfiction.net or .com. Understood?"
"Yes, sir." Rude strode purposefully from the room, discreetly massaging his groin. Elena followed him - slightly too close for comfort. Her partner bade her drop back, and she acquiesced to the request mournfully - but stole just the tiniest grope of butt-cheek as she did.
Rude sat down on a pillow in front of his computer, logged on swiftly and double-clicked the 'FidoPlus' icon. He selected the menu, "Yeah, uh-huh, email, iluvyuffentines@fanfiction.com. Beautiful." He had the bastard in his sights. "Yep - and we have . . ."
Bloop.
"Nothing?" Rude was aghast. "We have NOTHING on this guy?"
"Is there a problem, Rude?"
The man jumped around to find Tseng standing over him, thin fingers pressed together malevolently.
"Once again, is there a problem?"
"No, no sir," stumbled Rude.
"You have no information on this person, I see. That would be a problem."
"No, sir - I mean, yes sir."
"Cigar, Rude?"
"Sure. I mean - what?"
"It's just a cigar."
"With you, nothing is 'just' whatever."
"It's just a cigar."
"Fine, then." Rude warily reached for a cigar. Using his knife, he messily removed the end. He placed it in his teeth and asked, tentatively, "Got a light?"
"It's just a cigar."
"I know, I need a match to - "
"It's just a cigar."
"Tseng, are you all right?"
"It's just a cigar."
"Are you stoned?"
"It's just a cigar."
Rude sniffed the death-stick protruding clutched between his mandible and maxilla. "This has hashish in it, doesn't it?"
"It's just a cigar."
"You have no idea what the hell's going on, do you?"
"The mumakil destroy everything in their path! You must stop them before they reach Eowyn and Merry!"
"Tseng?"
"Defeat them all or we are lost!"
"Dude, are you okay?"
"You know their weakness! Use it!"
"Um - uh . . ."
"I have a token I was bidden to show thee."
"You got an advanced copy of Return of the King, didn't you, you pot- puffing, cigar-smoking sadistic son of a BITCH."
Tseng began laughing uncontrollably. "The mists swirl here as well! Return to your master, creatures of shadow!"
"SHUT UP, TSENG!"
"A balrog! A demon of the ancient world! THIS IS A FOE BEYOND ANY OF YOU. RUN!!"
Rude collected his computer in his arms and fled from the room in terror. Tseng shot balls of fire from his staff, cackling with glee and proclaiming that he was a servant of the secret fire and a wielder of the Flame of Anor.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Rude sat down in his room, plugged in the computer, locked the door, and set his life-sized cardboard cutout of Legolas before it. Feeling sufficiently safe, he tried again.
Iluvyuffentines@fanfiction. . . OH, fanfiction.NET. I'm an IDIOT. Punching in the new address, Rude came up with -
Bloop.
"NOTHING?"
"That would be a problem, huh Rude?"
Rude spun about, gun clutched in hand, to find Tseng standing behind him, a flaming brand in one hand and a headless piece of cardboard in the other.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO LEGOLAS??? HOW DID YOU DEFEAT HIM???"
"I am Gandalf the *White*," Tseng explained. "And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide."
***** ***** ***** *****
Vincent's phone rang, breaking the semi-silence on Bus 19 (the Widowmaker). It drowned out the faint humming being emitted from The Three's collective butt. The vampire narrowed his eyes and opened his cell.
"It's me," he said. "Rude? What's going on? The Paths of the Dead? Haradrim? What the hell - oh. Tseng got into the hashish again, didn't he. Thought so. Anyway, what did you find? NOTHING? Well, hell, I'm not going to go defending the gates of Minas Tirith just to find out where some moron lives. What? That's your location? Fine. . . bye." Beep.
"Is there a problem?" asked Yuffie.
"After a manner of speaking. All we know about the Abomination's progenitor is that he/she/it lives in the Sector Three Slums. The Turks are working on narrowing it down, and Rude claims that we should still come to meet them as planned." Vincent checked the action on Death Penalty. "We're going to have to go beneath the Plate to find him/her/it."
"Creepy," muttered Yuffie. "I've been in those Slums once before. They were so weird - neon lights EVERYWHERE. And all the guys talked really weird."
"Yes, that's the - " The vampire swallowed hard. " - alternative lifestyle slum."
GASP!
The Three hummed loudly in alarm, filling the bus with their glow - their neon-green glow.
"You live in the Slums, don't you!" shouted Yuffie, pointing the Great and Mighty Accusative Finger of Eternal Shame. "You have to help us!"
"We know of the one of which you speak," they announced, "but we know not where it lives. You must seek a very powerful man - a man named 'The Merovingian'."
"Why must we seek the Merovingian?" queried Vincent.
"Because his wife is wicked hot, and the Merovingian will not suffer any other man to touch her. Therefore, she gets off by masturbating to Yuffentines. She commissioned this - thing, to create a Yuffentine so mighty and terrible that she would have the fabled 'multiple orgasm' from just from reading it!"
GASP 2!
"Yes . . . and this was done. This is what you unwittingly partook of. And this is the thing that you must destroy."
The Three looked at Yuffie sadly. "We will help you bear this burden, Yuffie - as long as it is yours to bear."
"Hey, I thought this was Vincent's quest!"
The Three looked at each other, their eyes shifting back and forth. Then Jody looked at Gina and screamed, "She stumbled upon the boundary of knowledge! RUUUUUUUUUN!!!" They fled, Tony clinging to the ceiling with the pads on his feet and crawling out the window.
"Well - that was weird."
"Indeed," agreed Vincent. He sat himself delicately in the driver's seat and stomped on the gas pedal, sending Yuffie slamming into the back of the bus. "YUFFIE!" he screamed.
"YEAH?" she shouted back.
"I'M GONNA GO REALLY FAST NOW!"
"THANKS FOR THE WARNING! Oh, MAN - "
Luckily, they were going too fast for Yuffie's vomit to actually leave her throat. In the end, it just wound up back where it began its journey.
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It was hard going. Vincent drove fast enough for them to cross the entire ocean in four minutes with only a single run-in with Emerald WEAPON (which ended in an extremely intricate and considerably grotesque ritual by which Ruberald WEAPON was created . . . GROSSNESS!!). After that, Yuffie took over and brought them from Neo-Midgar to, by some curious chance of geography, the Northern Crater, from which the two had to hitch a free ride on a tourist plane by claiming that the silent, aloof vampire was in fact suffering from date rape psychosis, at which point he just bloodily smote everyone and stole their jet, using the explosion from Bus 19 (THE WIDOWMAKER!!)'s badly-made Soviet fission reactor as a screen while the pair of vengeful victims escaped the fray. With a vehicle that ran on good ol' diesel fuel, Vinnie and the Yuffster (a nickname the vampire had given the ninja in cold-blooded vengeance for his own alias) made record time to the biggest city on - uh, whatever the hell planet this is. ('The Planet'. Great name, dipscrew. Jeez.)
Soon, the two had found their way to Turks headquarters in Sector 2. It was a fantastic building, one truly magnificent and breathtaking.
Oh, who the fuck am I kidding. It was a goddamn shanty, for shit's sake. It was like a fricking gnome hovel from the game Majesty. Hobos had lived there before the Turks. Then they had been wiped out, and their bones were used to make the shanty mightier and more terrible than ever before. In fact, the door looked the entrance to - the Paths of the Dead?
Yeah, Tseng had gotten high and gone pretty insane one day with the decorations and started carving some skulls into the walls. Some people say that he was insane from being kept away from his fave Goth gunslinger for so long. The Turks would say that he was just really damn high. Nobody knows - not even Tseng. He was just too damn high to remember anything at all. He woke up covered in blood and bones, not knowing where he was or what was burning a hole in his pocket - literally. (Later, he discovered that it was a cigar of hashish. Betcha didn't see THAT one coming, didja!)
Anyway, the shanty of death was inhabited by basically five people: Reno, Rude, Elena, Tseng, and some dude on a perpetual acid trip who was looking for the 'Stone of Erech'. Nobody had the heart to kick him out. Or the guts, considering that he had humongous sword that occasionally shot flaming wraiths at people and glowed redly with the light of the Sun. (Yes, Tolkien said that. No, 'redly' is not a real word. And yes, in the video game Anduril DOES shoot flaming wraiths at people.)
The sauna constituted almost all of the shanty. It was a big hole in the ground, lined with rocks and filled with hot water. Then Tseng just stuck a battery-powered fog machine in the shanty, and voila! It looked like a flooded crapshack filled with pot-smoking hoboes.
And there sat Vincent, Yuffie, Tseng, Reno, Rude, and Elena, all dressed in nothing but towels. Vincent, with his super-sharp undead reflexes, realized that there was a hobo somewhere there too, but he would have to wait on that.
There was a sudden snapping of a twig, and Vincent flew threw the air, gun blazing, shouting, "DIE, INTOXICATED MINIONS OF THE DEVIL!" A body slumped to the floor.
Elena turned off the fog machine. Once the whiteness dissipated, the room was considerably loud. Yuffie yelled; Tseng shouted; Reno shouted; Rude shouted; Vincent glared like a banshee; Elena hit a note several octaves higher than falsetto.
"KYLE!" she shrieked.
"Kyle?" asked everyone else.
"He's the muffin man."
Everyone turned to stare at Tseng. "What?" Reno queried.
"You see, I have a certain - desire. A taste. Some people might call it a 'fetish'."
"You fuck with muffins, don't you, you sick son of a bitch." Vincent shook his head. "I'm so disappointed in you. You were supposed to be protégé."
"Well, what was I supposed to do, MUFFIN?"
Everyone's eyes snapped wide open. Tseng has the hots for Vinnie!
GASP!
"Just get on with the muffin man story. I'm ashamed enough for the both of us," said the vampiric gunslinger.
"Well," said Tseng, "I have this - interesting hobby - which involves muffins. So I hire a muffin man to deliver them to me every day."
"Now, Elena . . ." began Rude, his tone irksome, "do you - KNOW, the muffin man?"
"The muffin man?" she asked innocently.
"THE MUFFIN MAN!" exploded the other.
"Yes, I know the muffin man. He lives on Drury Lane."
"And you slept with the muffin man?"
"THE MUFFIN MAN?"
"THE MUFFIN MAN! YOU SLEPT WITH THE MUFFIN MAN AT HIS HOUSE ON DRURY LANE, YOU CHEATING BITCH!" Rude clutched his head in his hands and sobbed. Tseng was lamenting the fact that he now needed to put on clothes to get his muffins. Elena held the corpse of her lover close to her bosom and wept for him.
Let's have a moment of silence for Kyle, the muffin man. Kyle, we hardly knew ye. But, goddamnit man, you screwed with Rude's woman. You shoulda known that some Turk would blast your head off for it. You one stupid foo.
Returning to the meeting, Yuffie and the Turks sat themselves back in the pit and turned the fog machine back on (Setting: Hobo Drug Shanty). Rude had a stack of papers in his hands.
"We ran a search on the name you gave us. We have no idea where this person lives, but we do know its true name - "
Everyone waited with bated breath.
" - the abomination is called JIM."
GASPx2!
"We also know that its latest creation was one written *in memoriam*. The thing is in mourning for its two friends, who were lost several months ago on a long journey to Wutai. Their names were - "
Bob and Steve! Vincent cursed mentally.
"Yes," Rude said. "How did you know?"
"I said that out loud?"
There was one of those long, awkward silences - you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. . . one of THOSE.
"Is that all?" inquired Yuffie, impatient as hell.
"Yes. That's all." Rude threw the file away. "I'm horny. Elena, get your naughty, cheating ass over here."
Tseng sighed. "You two are SO unprofessional." He strode over to Vincent. "You want to go our for some coffee? A doughnut? Maybe a muffin?"
"What happened to your towel?" was the reply.
There was a loud SLAP as Reno caught a handful of Kisaragi rage. Yuffie HMPH'd loudly and said, "Vinnie, we have what we need. Let's GO!" She rushed from the shanty in a big huff.
"That's not your towel!" yelled Reno.
"I said NO, you can't see me naked, so SHUT UP!" the ninja answered.
"Then maybe you should take your clothes!" he suggested.
Yuffie spun about, grabbed her gear (and Reno's, as well), and left just as fast as she'd returned. Vincent followed, sprinting backwards, holding Tseng back with rapid suppressing fire. "RUN!" he shouted. They fled from the shanty of doom and found there bus once again.
"Where to now?" Yuffie asked.
"You remember," Vincent replied.
"We find - the Merovingian."
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In case you didn't catch it, I bought the Return of the King video game - hence both the content of the chapter and the time I took to deliver it. I can't wait for the movie . . .
Shout-out to my home dawgs, Alex, Ross and Tom. We shall always remember the shanty of doom!
Well, now we must seek the Merovingian. I can't wait for Monica Bellucci's entrance - ho, yeah . . .
Didn't I promise our companions a new computer? Oh, well. Soon!
Never fear. Chapter four is here. My reviews OUTNUMBER my chappies? GASP! The quest has ACTUALLY begun! *dances like a maniac* So, what awaits our heroes? A new computer? Some help from the Turks? A little mishap in the sauna (he he he.)? Why don't you R&R and find out!!
Content: Swearing, violence, drug use, some American Pie-style habits.
Disclaimer: Check the newspaper. There's this story: MASSACRE AT SQUARE HEADQUARTERS LEAVES DJ666 SOLE OWNER OF FINAL FANTASY FRANCHISE.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Chapter Four:
"I just realized that we have no idea where the hell iluvyuffentines lives," announced Yuffie.
"We don't?" asked Vincent.
"Yeah. Check the author's notes for chapter three, dumbass."
"Touché."
"You're stupid," said The Three.
The Three were the two bus monitors and the driver: Jody, Tony and Gina. Jody was some sort of strange blob-creature in minishorts. Tony was a fifty- year-old man who had been accidentally spliced with frog DNA a la 'The Fly', except now instead of compound eyes he just had gimongous bulging ones and a nasty tendency to eat insects. Gina had appeared normal until she tried to bone Yuffie, Vincent and Tony simultaneously - and, for a terrifying instant, succeeded. In any case, they all spoke at the same time, as one strange super-creature of doom.
"We're stupid?" repeated Vincent. "Then what do you suggest we do, oh knower of the infinite?"
"Talk to the Turks," said The Three.
"Oh." The vampire blinked.
"Damn you. That's the best idea I've heard today." Vincent pulled out a cell phone and popped it open, dialing fourteen digits in one second without glancing at the keypad even once. Yuffie's mouth dropped open as her companion managed to contact as number, bypass the filter, dig under the firewall, bounce around four redirective satellites and erase the caller ID program - without paying attention to what he was doing. The Three nodded, pleased.
"Hello, Reno. How are you? Fine, fine. Well, I need a favor. I need you to locate someone. No, I know EXACTLY where I am, thank you very much. How do you know about that, that was before you were even born! Tseng? Put him on!" Vincent's eyes flashed a brilliant red for the slightest instant. "Tseng? Yeah. You told him about - wh - but - so THAT'S what was in my - is that even possible? Vaseline and engine grease? Well, I'll be damned . . . aherm, uh, Tseng, I need a favor. No, Tseng. If I needed that kind of favor, I could just go cruising around in my Porsche in the Sector 2 Slums. What I need is for you to find me someone - yeah, that's not correct grammar, but seriously, I'm desperate. Whatever. All I have is an email address. Yeah - no - shut UP, would you? It's iluvyuffentines. The host server? I'm not sure - I think fanfiction - .net or .com. Try both. Huh? Fan, f-a-n, fiction. Like a story. It's a long story. Well, I'm not. Can you find him - her - it? Good. Meet you - the - oh, HELL no. Jesus, fine. Bye." BEEP.
Vincent turned to Yuffie. "They're working on it. It's going to take a little time, because Rude just got a new hobby."
"What is it?" inquired the young ninja.
"I'm not sure, but I think I heard the words 'corset' and 'nipple clamps' in the background."
Yuffie drooled like a starved chief of Texas police with a car broken down on a 100 degree day in front of a Dunkin' Donuts shop. Vincent plowed on: "We need to meet them in Midgar. They want to talk at their new headquarters in Sector Two. It would take us about - " The vampire counted off on his fingers. " - eight seconds by air, but since Cid won't help us it's - " Forefinger, middle finger, ring finger, pinkie. " - eight weeks or so."
His companion groaned. The Three glowed a brilliant green. Vincent looked at Gina, the driver.
"Well, STEP ON IT!"
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Tseng slowly replaced the receiver. "Rude, you have the name? Rude?"
"He's busy," supplied Reno helpfully.
"ELENA!"
"She's busy too," said Reno.
"And let me guess - the nipple clamps are busy as well?"
"Remarkably perceptive of you, sir."
"Perhaps you'd be so kind as to turn on the electricity once again?"
"Voltage?"
"Lower than regular torture level - low enough to be nonfatal. But - high enough to sting like a sonuvabitch."
"Aye aye, captain!"
BIZZZIZIIZBIBZIZBIZBIZBIZBZIBZIBZIBZIBZIKZIZBIZIZBIZBZIBZIBZIZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!
"Son of a BITCH!" snarled Rude.
"Stang like a sonuvabitch. Just like you asked, Tseng."
"Marvelous. Remind me to dock your pay again."
"WHAT?"
"Misappropriation of funds. Think of all the money we're wasting on the electricity you just used to shock poor Rude there."
"Bastard."
"Yes, yes, now Rude?"
"Tseng?"
"The address. Iluvyuffentines@fanfiction.net or .com. Understood?"
"Yes, sir." Rude strode purposefully from the room, discreetly massaging his groin. Elena followed him - slightly too close for comfort. Her partner bade her drop back, and she acquiesced to the request mournfully - but stole just the tiniest grope of butt-cheek as she did.
Rude sat down on a pillow in front of his computer, logged on swiftly and double-clicked the 'FidoPlus' icon. He selected the menu, "Yeah, uh-huh, email, iluvyuffentines@fanfiction.com. Beautiful." He had the bastard in his sights. "Yep - and we have . . ."
Bloop.
"Nothing?" Rude was aghast. "We have NOTHING on this guy?"
"Is there a problem, Rude?"
The man jumped around to find Tseng standing over him, thin fingers pressed together malevolently.
"Once again, is there a problem?"
"No, no sir," stumbled Rude.
"You have no information on this person, I see. That would be a problem."
"No, sir - I mean, yes sir."
"Cigar, Rude?"
"Sure. I mean - what?"
"It's just a cigar."
"With you, nothing is 'just' whatever."
"It's just a cigar."
"Fine, then." Rude warily reached for a cigar. Using his knife, he messily removed the end. He placed it in his teeth and asked, tentatively, "Got a light?"
"It's just a cigar."
"I know, I need a match to - "
"It's just a cigar."
"Tseng, are you all right?"
"It's just a cigar."
"Are you stoned?"
"It's just a cigar."
Rude sniffed the death-stick protruding clutched between his mandible and maxilla. "This has hashish in it, doesn't it?"
"It's just a cigar."
"You have no idea what the hell's going on, do you?"
"The mumakil destroy everything in their path! You must stop them before they reach Eowyn and Merry!"
"Tseng?"
"Defeat them all or we are lost!"
"Dude, are you okay?"
"You know their weakness! Use it!"
"Um - uh . . ."
"I have a token I was bidden to show thee."
"You got an advanced copy of Return of the King, didn't you, you pot- puffing, cigar-smoking sadistic son of a BITCH."
Tseng began laughing uncontrollably. "The mists swirl here as well! Return to your master, creatures of shadow!"
"SHUT UP, TSENG!"
"A balrog! A demon of the ancient world! THIS IS A FOE BEYOND ANY OF YOU. RUN!!"
Rude collected his computer in his arms and fled from the room in terror. Tseng shot balls of fire from his staff, cackling with glee and proclaiming that he was a servant of the secret fire and a wielder of the Flame of Anor.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Rude sat down in his room, plugged in the computer, locked the door, and set his life-sized cardboard cutout of Legolas before it. Feeling sufficiently safe, he tried again.
Iluvyuffentines@fanfiction. . . OH, fanfiction.NET. I'm an IDIOT. Punching in the new address, Rude came up with -
Bloop.
"NOTHING?"
"That would be a problem, huh Rude?"
Rude spun about, gun clutched in hand, to find Tseng standing behind him, a flaming brand in one hand and a headless piece of cardboard in the other.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO LEGOLAS??? HOW DID YOU DEFEAT HIM???"
"I am Gandalf the *White*," Tseng explained. "And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide."
***** ***** ***** *****
Vincent's phone rang, breaking the semi-silence on Bus 19 (the Widowmaker). It drowned out the faint humming being emitted from The Three's collective butt. The vampire narrowed his eyes and opened his cell.
"It's me," he said. "Rude? What's going on? The Paths of the Dead? Haradrim? What the hell - oh. Tseng got into the hashish again, didn't he. Thought so. Anyway, what did you find? NOTHING? Well, hell, I'm not going to go defending the gates of Minas Tirith just to find out where some moron lives. What? That's your location? Fine. . . bye." Beep.
"Is there a problem?" asked Yuffie.
"After a manner of speaking. All we know about the Abomination's progenitor is that he/she/it lives in the Sector Three Slums. The Turks are working on narrowing it down, and Rude claims that we should still come to meet them as planned." Vincent checked the action on Death Penalty. "We're going to have to go beneath the Plate to find him/her/it."
"Creepy," muttered Yuffie. "I've been in those Slums once before. They were so weird - neon lights EVERYWHERE. And all the guys talked really weird."
"Yes, that's the - " The vampire swallowed hard. " - alternative lifestyle slum."
GASP!
The Three hummed loudly in alarm, filling the bus with their glow - their neon-green glow.
"You live in the Slums, don't you!" shouted Yuffie, pointing the Great and Mighty Accusative Finger of Eternal Shame. "You have to help us!"
"We know of the one of which you speak," they announced, "but we know not where it lives. You must seek a very powerful man - a man named 'The Merovingian'."
"Why must we seek the Merovingian?" queried Vincent.
"Because his wife is wicked hot, and the Merovingian will not suffer any other man to touch her. Therefore, she gets off by masturbating to Yuffentines. She commissioned this - thing, to create a Yuffentine so mighty and terrible that she would have the fabled 'multiple orgasm' from just from reading it!"
GASP 2!
"Yes . . . and this was done. This is what you unwittingly partook of. And this is the thing that you must destroy."
The Three looked at Yuffie sadly. "We will help you bear this burden, Yuffie - as long as it is yours to bear."
"Hey, I thought this was Vincent's quest!"
The Three looked at each other, their eyes shifting back and forth. Then Jody looked at Gina and screamed, "She stumbled upon the boundary of knowledge! RUUUUUUUUUN!!!" They fled, Tony clinging to the ceiling with the pads on his feet and crawling out the window.
"Well - that was weird."
"Indeed," agreed Vincent. He sat himself delicately in the driver's seat and stomped on the gas pedal, sending Yuffie slamming into the back of the bus. "YUFFIE!" he screamed.
"YEAH?" she shouted back.
"I'M GONNA GO REALLY FAST NOW!"
"THANKS FOR THE WARNING! Oh, MAN - "
Luckily, they were going too fast for Yuffie's vomit to actually leave her throat. In the end, it just wound up back where it began its journey.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
It was hard going. Vincent drove fast enough for them to cross the entire ocean in four minutes with only a single run-in with Emerald WEAPON (which ended in an extremely intricate and considerably grotesque ritual by which Ruberald WEAPON was created . . . GROSSNESS!!). After that, Yuffie took over and brought them from Neo-Midgar to, by some curious chance of geography, the Northern Crater, from which the two had to hitch a free ride on a tourist plane by claiming that the silent, aloof vampire was in fact suffering from date rape psychosis, at which point he just bloodily smote everyone and stole their jet, using the explosion from Bus 19 (THE WIDOWMAKER!!)'s badly-made Soviet fission reactor as a screen while the pair of vengeful victims escaped the fray. With a vehicle that ran on good ol' diesel fuel, Vinnie and the Yuffster (a nickname the vampire had given the ninja in cold-blooded vengeance for his own alias) made record time to the biggest city on - uh, whatever the hell planet this is. ('The Planet'. Great name, dipscrew. Jeez.)
Soon, the two had found their way to Turks headquarters in Sector 2. It was a fantastic building, one truly magnificent and breathtaking.
Oh, who the fuck am I kidding. It was a goddamn shanty, for shit's sake. It was like a fricking gnome hovel from the game Majesty. Hobos had lived there before the Turks. Then they had been wiped out, and their bones were used to make the shanty mightier and more terrible than ever before. In fact, the door looked the entrance to - the Paths of the Dead?
Yeah, Tseng had gotten high and gone pretty insane one day with the decorations and started carving some skulls into the walls. Some people say that he was insane from being kept away from his fave Goth gunslinger for so long. The Turks would say that he was just really damn high. Nobody knows - not even Tseng. He was just too damn high to remember anything at all. He woke up covered in blood and bones, not knowing where he was or what was burning a hole in his pocket - literally. (Later, he discovered that it was a cigar of hashish. Betcha didn't see THAT one coming, didja!)
Anyway, the shanty of death was inhabited by basically five people: Reno, Rude, Elena, Tseng, and some dude on a perpetual acid trip who was looking for the 'Stone of Erech'. Nobody had the heart to kick him out. Or the guts, considering that he had humongous sword that occasionally shot flaming wraiths at people and glowed redly with the light of the Sun. (Yes, Tolkien said that. No, 'redly' is not a real word. And yes, in the video game Anduril DOES shoot flaming wraiths at people.)
The sauna constituted almost all of the shanty. It was a big hole in the ground, lined with rocks and filled with hot water. Then Tseng just stuck a battery-powered fog machine in the shanty, and voila! It looked like a flooded crapshack filled with pot-smoking hoboes.
And there sat Vincent, Yuffie, Tseng, Reno, Rude, and Elena, all dressed in nothing but towels. Vincent, with his super-sharp undead reflexes, realized that there was a hobo somewhere there too, but he would have to wait on that.
There was a sudden snapping of a twig, and Vincent flew threw the air, gun blazing, shouting, "DIE, INTOXICATED MINIONS OF THE DEVIL!" A body slumped to the floor.
Elena turned off the fog machine. Once the whiteness dissipated, the room was considerably loud. Yuffie yelled; Tseng shouted; Reno shouted; Rude shouted; Vincent glared like a banshee; Elena hit a note several octaves higher than falsetto.
"KYLE!" she shrieked.
"Kyle?" asked everyone else.
"He's the muffin man."
Everyone turned to stare at Tseng. "What?" Reno queried.
"You see, I have a certain - desire. A taste. Some people might call it a 'fetish'."
"You fuck with muffins, don't you, you sick son of a bitch." Vincent shook his head. "I'm so disappointed in you. You were supposed to be protégé."
"Well, what was I supposed to do, MUFFIN?"
Everyone's eyes snapped wide open. Tseng has the hots for Vinnie!
GASP!
"Just get on with the muffin man story. I'm ashamed enough for the both of us," said the vampiric gunslinger.
"Well," said Tseng, "I have this - interesting hobby - which involves muffins. So I hire a muffin man to deliver them to me every day."
"Now, Elena . . ." began Rude, his tone irksome, "do you - KNOW, the muffin man?"
"The muffin man?" she asked innocently.
"THE MUFFIN MAN!" exploded the other.
"Yes, I know the muffin man. He lives on Drury Lane."
"And you slept with the muffin man?"
"THE MUFFIN MAN?"
"THE MUFFIN MAN! YOU SLEPT WITH THE MUFFIN MAN AT HIS HOUSE ON DRURY LANE, YOU CHEATING BITCH!" Rude clutched his head in his hands and sobbed. Tseng was lamenting the fact that he now needed to put on clothes to get his muffins. Elena held the corpse of her lover close to her bosom and wept for him.
Let's have a moment of silence for Kyle, the muffin man. Kyle, we hardly knew ye. But, goddamnit man, you screwed with Rude's woman. You shoulda known that some Turk would blast your head off for it. You one stupid foo.
Returning to the meeting, Yuffie and the Turks sat themselves back in the pit and turned the fog machine back on (Setting: Hobo Drug Shanty). Rude had a stack of papers in his hands.
"We ran a search on the name you gave us. We have no idea where this person lives, but we do know its true name - "
Everyone waited with bated breath.
" - the abomination is called JIM."
GASPx2!
"We also know that its latest creation was one written *in memoriam*. The thing is in mourning for its two friends, who were lost several months ago on a long journey to Wutai. Their names were - "
Bob and Steve! Vincent cursed mentally.
"Yes," Rude said. "How did you know?"
"I said that out loud?"
There was one of those long, awkward silences - you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. . . one of THOSE.
"Is that all?" inquired Yuffie, impatient as hell.
"Yes. That's all." Rude threw the file away. "I'm horny. Elena, get your naughty, cheating ass over here."
Tseng sighed. "You two are SO unprofessional." He strode over to Vincent. "You want to go our for some coffee? A doughnut? Maybe a muffin?"
"What happened to your towel?" was the reply.
There was a loud SLAP as Reno caught a handful of Kisaragi rage. Yuffie HMPH'd loudly and said, "Vinnie, we have what we need. Let's GO!" She rushed from the shanty in a big huff.
"That's not your towel!" yelled Reno.
"I said NO, you can't see me naked, so SHUT UP!" the ninja answered.
"Then maybe you should take your clothes!" he suggested.
Yuffie spun about, grabbed her gear (and Reno's, as well), and left just as fast as she'd returned. Vincent followed, sprinting backwards, holding Tseng back with rapid suppressing fire. "RUN!" he shouted. They fled from the shanty of doom and found there bus once again.
"Where to now?" Yuffie asked.
"You remember," Vincent replied.
"We find - the Merovingian."
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
In case you didn't catch it, I bought the Return of the King video game - hence both the content of the chapter and the time I took to deliver it. I can't wait for the movie . . .
Shout-out to my home dawgs, Alex, Ross and Tom. We shall always remember the shanty of doom!
Well, now we must seek the Merovingian. I can't wait for Monica Bellucci's entrance - ho, yeah . . .
Didn't I promise our companions a new computer? Oh, well. Soon!
