Four Feathers by DJ666
Whee. Chapter eight. What will happen? You tell me. In any case, I want more of the sexing. I seem to have said that I'll reference that Passion movie here, so I shall. Anyway, here I sit. Wasting time, trying to think of subject matter for chapter eight.
Woot. Chapter eight.
Um, yeah.
....
Yeah.
Content: Sex. Expletives. Drug use. Violence. And, for Kapen Youth, more 'sossagae'. Dunno what else, so watch out, there.
Disclaimer: I have a humongous penis.
Chapter Eight: Dude, Where's the Plot?
"Man," Yuffie groaned, "I need a vacation."
Vincent stared at her, dumbfounded. "How the hell can you need a vacation? You don't have a job! Do you even go to school?"
The ninja shook her head. "I need a vacation FROM my vacation."
The vampire, in turn, shook his head – this time in disgust. "That line is so overused that the Norwegian word 'forpult' probably qualifies as a legitimate descriptor."
Essay Questions:
Directions: Please answer in one to two paragraphs of five sentences or more. Use complete sentences with correct capitalization and punctuation. Please use cursive and blue or black ink.
Does Norwegian even EXIST on The Planet? Is it just me, or does that name sound like a bad character name rip-off of Kill Bill? If Norwegian does exist on The Planet, when did Vincent learn it? If it doesn't, HOW THE HELL IS VINCENT SPEAKING IT?!?!?! Why is Vincent calling the vacation-from-vacation joke 'overfucked'? Why am I putting quiz questions in the middle of my story?
You have twenty minutes to answer all six questions. You may begin.
Yuffie sat up in her chair. "Let's see a movie!"
Vincent frowned. "Do movies even exist on – The Planet?"
Cid nodded. "They sure as fuck do! 'Member that fucking 'Loveless' thing?"
"But that wasn't a movie, was it?"
"I dun fucking know."
Yuffie was uncomprehending of this entire conversation, engaged as she was in thinking of a good movie to see. "Hey, I got one! Let's go see The Passion of the Christ!"
Cid shook his head. "I dunno, fucker. It got a fucking good review from Gay Bondage Freak Magazine."
Vincent lifted the periodical from the pilot's hands. "Yeah, any movie that gets nine boners up from GBF mag probably wouldn't entertain us. Listen to this: 'GBF critics particularly enjoyed the scene in which a tall bald man in a soldier's uniform strips James Caviezel down to a loincloth, chains him to a short stump and whips him.'"
There was a moment of stunned silence.
"That sounds pretty hot, actually." Yuffie was touching her chest lightly. Then, a second later, she glanced at Cid warily.
"Why are you reading Gay Bondage Freak magazine?"
Suddenly, all six eyes turned on Cid. The pilot himself turned his eyes backwards in order to look at his brain. Vincent had his rifle out and pointed at the foul-mouthed mechanic's head. "Cid..."
He broke down. "The fucking abomination, it fucked me up, AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!! Can't stop fucking thinking – every time I see a fucking bratwurst I go fuckwad – fucking Canadian bacon – FDSJKLFDSAJF!!!!!!!!"
Vincent made to restrain his companion, but the pilot shied away, shouting, "Fucking get the FUCK away from me, fucker! Leave me with my fucking joints. Get a fucking good draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck....."
Thoroughly stoned, Cid sank into a deep stupor. Vincent tried firing Death Penalty off right next to his head; Yuffie tried smacking him with her 'love fruit'. He seemed comatose; at the very least, catatonic.
"Hey," the young ninja said, "we never gave Cid a feather! No one will know he's a part of the team..."
Vincent stroked his chin. "Hrm. He's read an abomination, helped us on our quest, agreed to fight with us, gotten the shit stoned out of him and gone completely insane. How could someone NOT know he's a part of the team?"
In any case, Yuffie pulled an eagle feather out of – I dunno, somewhere – and jammed it into the middle of Cid's scalp. There, protruding higher than any of the horns given him by bass guitar strikes, stood the proud feather, the mark of his fraternity. Satisfied, the Wutaian stepped back and gazed affectionately upon his face.
"You touch that joint, you lose a hand," said Vincent. Always a step ahead...
Upper Sector Five was a very interesting place. One couldn't take three steps without touching something kosher; the street-lamps were electric menorahs; and everything was written in Yiddish. Or Hebrew. I can never tell which one! Plus, I always get the two confused. Like, do they speak Yiddish, or Hebrew? WHY THE HELL DOESN'T EVERYONE JUST SPEAK ENGLISH???????!!!!!!!!!
In any case, I love Hebrew letters. The little blocky things at the tops and the way the lines get thin at the bottom. The cool thingies that are vowels, but like, not part of the word. I mean, it just kicks ass.
(As a side note, I have a Jewish classmate, and he was talking about Judaism to the religion class. He said that it's possible to write Hebrew without vowels. Another of my classmates was quick enough to boast that 'We could have English without vowels!'. Such is the nature of my existence.)
(As a side note to the side note, it's impossible to have English without vowels. All English words have at least one vowel. Except for 'nth'.)
(As a side note to the side note to the side note, 'nth' is the only English word without a vowel.)
(As long as we're on the topic of linguistic loopholes, 'cleave' is the only English word with two contradictory definitions: 'to bind' and 'to separate'.)
(We're not really giving a crap about the story anymore, so – just in case you forgot, I have a titanic unit.)
Now, back to the story-like collection of words! SWOOSH!
TITANIC, I SAY!
So anyway, the Highwind set down in Upper Sector Five. Because of the intense concentration of Jews in the southern portion of the township, the trio was forced to land in the Russian section. The blimp touched down, crushing a few ghetto shanties and some statues of Saddam Hussein, in docking bay Three-backwards N-Z-backwards R-9-some kind of octopus. As soon as they ventured forth, they were assailed by some guy with a pointy mustache.
"How much money do you have?" he asked them eagerly. They looked at each other. "I got a dollar eighty-nine," Vincent said; "I got a twenty and three ones," Yuffie offered; Cid said he needed to get to a fucking ARM. I mean, ATM.
"Is very bad, yes! All should have same money! Communism saves you from poverty, good for all!" The man laughed. "Look! Chernobyl so rich, we have radiation to spare! Even I have three penis!"
Vincent stared evilly at the stranger. "If communism is so great, why are you all poor, oppressed and scared of being killed at any second by secret police?"
"Scared? Me?" The man laughed nervously. "I am not scared. I am in fact very yes RUNRUNRUN THE SPETZNAZ ARE HERE RUN THE PREMIER IS GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, I AM SHOT! I AM SHOT! FLEE! FLEE! ZN3RK! ZN333333333333333RRRK!"
Vincent laid down some suppressing fire for no reason; Yuffie made like Bruce Lee and screamed weirdly as Cid masterfully got stoned. But then from nowhere razor-sharp Stars of David flew boomerang-style into the trees and sliced eighteen people in half. Looking around, the vampire caught sight of three men in street clothes, bearing an emblem of a hammer and sparking star on their shoulders. The three shuriken flew back at them and were deftly caught.
"That'll teach them to mess with Maccabeus."
They all turned about, but Cid began stonedly yelling at them. "Yo, fuckers! Fuck-ers! Fuck, YO!"
The tallest and mightiest of them spun and swiftly grasped Cid's throat. "What did you call me?" he asked, his voice a low growl. "What did you call me?"
Cid gave him some intense eyebrow action before answering: "FUCKERS!!!"
"I will tell you something," the warrior said, and his death-grip tightened. "I will not kill you. I will maim you. I will make you live a life of misery. And I shall love your woman before your very eyes."
"You don't even know who the fuck my woman IS," Cid pointed out. Maccabeus lifted an eyebrow, considering for a moment.
"I have connections," he insisted.
There was a moment of silence.
"Damn it, I said connections and I MEAN connections. I am JUDAS MACCABEUS."
Yuffie jumped up and down. "You're Judas Maccabeus?!?!?!" she asked fretfully. The warrior eyeballed her warily. "Did I not say, just THREE SECONDS AGO, that I am JUDAS MACCABEUS?"
The ninja stopped hopping. "So, you are?"
"Am I what, royally pissed off and just about ready to chop your head off?"
"No, are you Judas Maccabeus?"
I decided this joke was getting old, so at this point Vincent shoved Yuffie aside and laid out their business easily. "My name is Vincent Valentine."
All the Jewish rebels snickered, 'Valentine'.
"I'm one of the Turks."
All the Jewish rebels snickered, 'Is he from Turkey?'
"And I'm looking for Jim McDonald."
Nobody snickered at that. Maccabeus grimaced and his troops went pale at the mention of the name. And then, with a sweep of his black cloak, Judas turned about and walked out of the hangar. "Go back to wherever you came from!" he shouted. "Stay away from that thing! He's a demon!"
"He wrote about me!" Vincent yelled in return.
At that, the man stopped dead in his tracks; the ends of his cap fluttered forward with inertia. Slowly, gravely, he turned back to face this damned thing, this victim of overactive, hormonally-imbalanced imagination. "You are a doomed man, Turkish Valentine. I pity you, truly, but I cannot help. JM is beyond aid or retribution – the Merovingian grants him impunity."
"We have bypassed that particular barrier," Vincent insisted. "Tell me where he is! I will seek him out."
Maccabeus' face went dead and slack. Then, with a trembling jaw, he looked teary-eyed at our protagonist.
"I will tell you a story," he said. "Jim's real name is not Jim. It was – Eagle."
"It was fifteen years ago. The summer had been a particularly hot one, what with the rumblings of the war that I would soon come to lead. It reminded us of our forty years of wandering in the desert, led by the great pillar of smoke and flame that was our Lord."
Yuffie interrupted: "Hey, in Hindu mythology Shiva becomes a big pillar of fire too, but that's his humongous penis." (It's a true part of the Indian mythology. There was a contest of these two gods to see who was stronger: one became a stork, flying into the heavens; the other became a hippopotamus, diving to the depths of the sea. Shiva got fed up and became a giant flaming penis. The stork couldn't find its top; the hippo couldn't find its bottom; Shiva was the greatest. Because he had a penis like mine.)
"Well, uh, Shiva isn't real and Adonai is.
"Anyway, that year I was a young man, and boisterous. The smell of pork from the Russian district was maddening, and I will admit that I was driven to weakness. I wanted to taste the ham. Its scent was delicious, impossibly sweet, like some – sweet, delicious, hammy thing. And then I saw her; by my Adonai, I did see her.
"Gael.
"She was a thing of Irumea. Hair the color of...sunburnt camel poop; eyes like fire. And papushkas like nothing you've ever seen – I mean, 'melons' does not begin to describe these things. More like..."
"Pink party balloons?" Cid offered.
"Thank you. They were great, and verily were they perfect; and it seemed to me at that instant that this was the greatest ham known to all beings. I had to pork this thing!
"Therefore did I seek to do so. I came up behind her, swift as a shadow that flees the noonday sun. And I said to her, "Let us seek shade in that glade, my fair Irumean maid." And she did come with me.
"It seems to me now that she was indeed an agent of Macedon, but I thought not of that for I was smitten. Certainly she thought to slay my father Mattathias, and my brothers, but I tossed caution to the winds and took her to a spot beside a pond I knew.
"We began the foreplay. I removed my shirt, and she began to stroke my chest as though I was a frightened lamb that needs comfort from a shepherd. I began to feel my erection growing. So I made to remove Gael's shirt, but just then I heard a splash.
"She asked me what it was; "Some fish" said I. But it was not. Nay, it twastn't.
"Twas Eagle.
"He was in a small boat, with his cousin."
Yuffie started at that. "He has a family!"
Vincent caught on quickly enough: "We'll blackmail his bitch ass."
"No – no family anymore. Let me go on.
"Eagle and Beagle were fishing; one had just cast, and now he had a bite. They were both trying to reel it in, for it was mighty, and suddenly – aghast! For Beagle had been tossed for the boat. Eagle was shocked, as were Gael and I – but Beagle did return. Yea, he returned – and in his hand he clutched a thing. A great, terrible thing. For in his clutchety hobbit hand he did hobbitly and handily clutch – Final Fantasy VII.
"It is a tale – a tale of travelers. They must go across the land to save it from a great evil."
Vincent scratched his head. "Wow, it sounds remarkably like every other RPG ever made. What's so great about it?"
"ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! And yet it consumes people. Turns their lives into nothingness. And turned Eagle into a mad thing. It was his birthday, and he said, 'Beagle, my love, give us that. I wants it for my birthday.' And Beagle said, 'Nay, for did I not find it? It is mine.'
"And then, to my horror, Eagle sprang upon his cousin and throttled him. Gael and I watched, horrified by the horrible horror of it, as Beagle turned pink, then red, then purple, then blue, then some kind of multi- faceted fuschia, like some kind of gay extravaganza was playing across his throttled mug. And verily was he smoted.
"But the horror did not end there. This was like the Exorcist movies: there was one really disturbing one, and then a crapload of horrible ones. Here the horror continued.
"Eagle took the thing that had made him kill his cousin. He took it home, and I followed. Verily did he place it within his crappy Playstation one, and he played it. He played it for fifty-five hours straight. Every sidequest was completed, every foe vanquished, every subplot uncovered, ever secret character unlocked, every chocobo bred, every materia found – he was like a machine! 99999999 gil, my friends. I never thought it possible. He maxed his stats like a beast – 9 characters at level 99, all stats at 255...it was madness. He had been driven insane.
"His mother, disgusted by his laziness, cursed him and drove him from the house. He was given a new name – Jim McDonald – that he might find a home away from them. He was set to wandering, but recall that he was not a man, but a boy!
"He became horny.
"Very horny.
"Like a Northeastern reticulated chipmunk in heat.
"And he wrote. Perverted things he wrote, of the characters of the game. And now you see the horror of it, my friend Valentine – for the characters were real.
"They were you."
GASPTASTIC.
"What do you mean?!" Vincent shouted. "What're you getting at?"
"Precisely what I said, Valentine," Maccabeus answered. "The game's characters were real people, stolen from life and made immortal in crappy, low-res pixilated form, devoid of mouths or intestines."
"But who would do something like that?" Yuffie asked, fearful.
"SHINRA."
Cid raised an eyebrow stonedly. "The fuckin' SHINRA? No fuck!"
"Yes. Shinra." And then the brilliance of it all struck him, and Vincent keeled over. "Shinra:
"Square Headquarters In Not-Real Areas."
Yuffie's eyes widened in shock. "'Not-Real Areas'...what is this, the Matrix?"
"Oh, no, my dear," Maccabeus explained. "You see – "
"Okay, you know what, I'm tired of randomized exposition shit," Vincent decided. "I want a house with a number on it, and a high-caliber automatic weapon. I need an address."
Maccabeus rubbed his grizzly chin for a while, and then lifted his head in agreement. "Very well," he said. "My three best men will escort you thither. Malachi. Mordecai. Bob." Three machine-gun-toting, yarmulke- wearing, Sopranos-esque gunmen stepped forward. "Farewell. I hope that you may find luck in your endeavour – by never meeting JM at all. Godspeed."
"I thank you, Judas called Maccabeus. It was an honor to meet you, and I am grateful for your manpower and information." Vincent bowed low; Yuffie followed suit. Cid was already dropping into unconsciousness due to all the pot he'd smoked throughout the narrative. The leader of the Jews bowed in return; and all parted well.
"Follow me," Mordecai bade them. "The Abyss is in waiting."
And thus does chapter eight meet its end.
Judas Maccabeus was a real person. He lived around 160 BC and led a rebellion against the tyrannical government imposed on Israel by Alexander the Great. The holiday of Hanukkah celebrates his cleansing of the temple after it had been ransacked by pagans. I use him here because the book of Maccabees is cool.
So now you know: Final Fantasy VII was created by Shinra, actually an extension of Square (Square-Enix, whatever); they took the lives of real people, animated them badly in a stereotypical RPG environment, and let them run amok. But why, you may ask, why? And I tell you:
42.
Yeah. It'll be explained in chapter forty-two.
Pizzeace. Out.
Oh, and BTW – the gang might be getting back together at some point.
Whee. Chapter eight. What will happen? You tell me. In any case, I want more of the sexing. I seem to have said that I'll reference that Passion movie here, so I shall. Anyway, here I sit. Wasting time, trying to think of subject matter for chapter eight.
Woot. Chapter eight.
Um, yeah.
....
Yeah.
Content: Sex. Expletives. Drug use. Violence. And, for Kapen Youth, more 'sossagae'. Dunno what else, so watch out, there.
Disclaimer: I have a humongous penis.
Chapter Eight: Dude, Where's the Plot?
"Man," Yuffie groaned, "I need a vacation."
Vincent stared at her, dumbfounded. "How the hell can you need a vacation? You don't have a job! Do you even go to school?"
The ninja shook her head. "I need a vacation FROM my vacation."
The vampire, in turn, shook his head – this time in disgust. "That line is so overused that the Norwegian word 'forpult' probably qualifies as a legitimate descriptor."
Essay Questions:
Directions: Please answer in one to two paragraphs of five sentences or more. Use complete sentences with correct capitalization and punctuation. Please use cursive and blue or black ink.
Does Norwegian even EXIST on The Planet? Is it just me, or does that name sound like a bad character name rip-off of Kill Bill? If Norwegian does exist on The Planet, when did Vincent learn it? If it doesn't, HOW THE HELL IS VINCENT SPEAKING IT?!?!?! Why is Vincent calling the vacation-from-vacation joke 'overfucked'? Why am I putting quiz questions in the middle of my story?
You have twenty minutes to answer all six questions. You may begin.
Yuffie sat up in her chair. "Let's see a movie!"
Vincent frowned. "Do movies even exist on – The Planet?"
Cid nodded. "They sure as fuck do! 'Member that fucking 'Loveless' thing?"
"But that wasn't a movie, was it?"
"I dun fucking know."
Yuffie was uncomprehending of this entire conversation, engaged as she was in thinking of a good movie to see. "Hey, I got one! Let's go see The Passion of the Christ!"
Cid shook his head. "I dunno, fucker. It got a fucking good review from Gay Bondage Freak Magazine."
Vincent lifted the periodical from the pilot's hands. "Yeah, any movie that gets nine boners up from GBF mag probably wouldn't entertain us. Listen to this: 'GBF critics particularly enjoyed the scene in which a tall bald man in a soldier's uniform strips James Caviezel down to a loincloth, chains him to a short stump and whips him.'"
There was a moment of stunned silence.
"That sounds pretty hot, actually." Yuffie was touching her chest lightly. Then, a second later, she glanced at Cid warily.
"Why are you reading Gay Bondage Freak magazine?"
Suddenly, all six eyes turned on Cid. The pilot himself turned his eyes backwards in order to look at his brain. Vincent had his rifle out and pointed at the foul-mouthed mechanic's head. "Cid..."
He broke down. "The fucking abomination, it fucked me up, AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!! Can't stop fucking thinking – every time I see a fucking bratwurst I go fuckwad – fucking Canadian bacon – FDSJKLFDSAJF!!!!!!!!"
Vincent made to restrain his companion, but the pilot shied away, shouting, "Fucking get the FUCK away from me, fucker! Leave me with my fucking joints. Get a fucking good draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck....."
Thoroughly stoned, Cid sank into a deep stupor. Vincent tried firing Death Penalty off right next to his head; Yuffie tried smacking him with her 'love fruit'. He seemed comatose; at the very least, catatonic.
"Hey," the young ninja said, "we never gave Cid a feather! No one will know he's a part of the team..."
Vincent stroked his chin. "Hrm. He's read an abomination, helped us on our quest, agreed to fight with us, gotten the shit stoned out of him and gone completely insane. How could someone NOT know he's a part of the team?"
In any case, Yuffie pulled an eagle feather out of – I dunno, somewhere – and jammed it into the middle of Cid's scalp. There, protruding higher than any of the horns given him by bass guitar strikes, stood the proud feather, the mark of his fraternity. Satisfied, the Wutaian stepped back and gazed affectionately upon his face.
"You touch that joint, you lose a hand," said Vincent. Always a step ahead...
Upper Sector Five was a very interesting place. One couldn't take three steps without touching something kosher; the street-lamps were electric menorahs; and everything was written in Yiddish. Or Hebrew. I can never tell which one! Plus, I always get the two confused. Like, do they speak Yiddish, or Hebrew? WHY THE HELL DOESN'T EVERYONE JUST SPEAK ENGLISH???????!!!!!!!!!
In any case, I love Hebrew letters. The little blocky things at the tops and the way the lines get thin at the bottom. The cool thingies that are vowels, but like, not part of the word. I mean, it just kicks ass.
(As a side note, I have a Jewish classmate, and he was talking about Judaism to the religion class. He said that it's possible to write Hebrew without vowels. Another of my classmates was quick enough to boast that 'We could have English without vowels!'. Such is the nature of my existence.)
(As a side note to the side note, it's impossible to have English without vowels. All English words have at least one vowel. Except for 'nth'.)
(As a side note to the side note to the side note, 'nth' is the only English word without a vowel.)
(As long as we're on the topic of linguistic loopholes, 'cleave' is the only English word with two contradictory definitions: 'to bind' and 'to separate'.)
(We're not really giving a crap about the story anymore, so – just in case you forgot, I have a titanic unit.)
Now, back to the story-like collection of words! SWOOSH!
TITANIC, I SAY!
So anyway, the Highwind set down in Upper Sector Five. Because of the intense concentration of Jews in the southern portion of the township, the trio was forced to land in the Russian section. The blimp touched down, crushing a few ghetto shanties and some statues of Saddam Hussein, in docking bay Three-backwards N-Z-backwards R-9-some kind of octopus. As soon as they ventured forth, they were assailed by some guy with a pointy mustache.
"How much money do you have?" he asked them eagerly. They looked at each other. "I got a dollar eighty-nine," Vincent said; "I got a twenty and three ones," Yuffie offered; Cid said he needed to get to a fucking ARM. I mean, ATM.
"Is very bad, yes! All should have same money! Communism saves you from poverty, good for all!" The man laughed. "Look! Chernobyl so rich, we have radiation to spare! Even I have three penis!"
Vincent stared evilly at the stranger. "If communism is so great, why are you all poor, oppressed and scared of being killed at any second by secret police?"
"Scared? Me?" The man laughed nervously. "I am not scared. I am in fact very yes RUNRUNRUN THE SPETZNAZ ARE HERE RUN THE PREMIER IS GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, I AM SHOT! I AM SHOT! FLEE! FLEE! ZN3RK! ZN333333333333333RRRK!"
Vincent laid down some suppressing fire for no reason; Yuffie made like Bruce Lee and screamed weirdly as Cid masterfully got stoned. But then from nowhere razor-sharp Stars of David flew boomerang-style into the trees and sliced eighteen people in half. Looking around, the vampire caught sight of three men in street clothes, bearing an emblem of a hammer and sparking star on their shoulders. The three shuriken flew back at them and were deftly caught.
"That'll teach them to mess with Maccabeus."
They all turned about, but Cid began stonedly yelling at them. "Yo, fuckers! Fuck-ers! Fuck, YO!"
The tallest and mightiest of them spun and swiftly grasped Cid's throat. "What did you call me?" he asked, his voice a low growl. "What did you call me?"
Cid gave him some intense eyebrow action before answering: "FUCKERS!!!"
"I will tell you something," the warrior said, and his death-grip tightened. "I will not kill you. I will maim you. I will make you live a life of misery. And I shall love your woman before your very eyes."
"You don't even know who the fuck my woman IS," Cid pointed out. Maccabeus lifted an eyebrow, considering for a moment.
"I have connections," he insisted.
There was a moment of silence.
"Damn it, I said connections and I MEAN connections. I am JUDAS MACCABEUS."
Yuffie jumped up and down. "You're Judas Maccabeus?!?!?!" she asked fretfully. The warrior eyeballed her warily. "Did I not say, just THREE SECONDS AGO, that I am JUDAS MACCABEUS?"
The ninja stopped hopping. "So, you are?"
"Am I what, royally pissed off and just about ready to chop your head off?"
"No, are you Judas Maccabeus?"
I decided this joke was getting old, so at this point Vincent shoved Yuffie aside and laid out their business easily. "My name is Vincent Valentine."
All the Jewish rebels snickered, 'Valentine'.
"I'm one of the Turks."
All the Jewish rebels snickered, 'Is he from Turkey?'
"And I'm looking for Jim McDonald."
Nobody snickered at that. Maccabeus grimaced and his troops went pale at the mention of the name. And then, with a sweep of his black cloak, Judas turned about and walked out of the hangar. "Go back to wherever you came from!" he shouted. "Stay away from that thing! He's a demon!"
"He wrote about me!" Vincent yelled in return.
At that, the man stopped dead in his tracks; the ends of his cap fluttered forward with inertia. Slowly, gravely, he turned back to face this damned thing, this victim of overactive, hormonally-imbalanced imagination. "You are a doomed man, Turkish Valentine. I pity you, truly, but I cannot help. JM is beyond aid or retribution – the Merovingian grants him impunity."
"We have bypassed that particular barrier," Vincent insisted. "Tell me where he is! I will seek him out."
Maccabeus' face went dead and slack. Then, with a trembling jaw, he looked teary-eyed at our protagonist.
"I will tell you a story," he said. "Jim's real name is not Jim. It was – Eagle."
"It was fifteen years ago. The summer had been a particularly hot one, what with the rumblings of the war that I would soon come to lead. It reminded us of our forty years of wandering in the desert, led by the great pillar of smoke and flame that was our Lord."
Yuffie interrupted: "Hey, in Hindu mythology Shiva becomes a big pillar of fire too, but that's his humongous penis." (It's a true part of the Indian mythology. There was a contest of these two gods to see who was stronger: one became a stork, flying into the heavens; the other became a hippopotamus, diving to the depths of the sea. Shiva got fed up and became a giant flaming penis. The stork couldn't find its top; the hippo couldn't find its bottom; Shiva was the greatest. Because he had a penis like mine.)
"Well, uh, Shiva isn't real and Adonai is.
"Anyway, that year I was a young man, and boisterous. The smell of pork from the Russian district was maddening, and I will admit that I was driven to weakness. I wanted to taste the ham. Its scent was delicious, impossibly sweet, like some – sweet, delicious, hammy thing. And then I saw her; by my Adonai, I did see her.
"Gael.
"She was a thing of Irumea. Hair the color of...sunburnt camel poop; eyes like fire. And papushkas like nothing you've ever seen – I mean, 'melons' does not begin to describe these things. More like..."
"Pink party balloons?" Cid offered.
"Thank you. They were great, and verily were they perfect; and it seemed to me at that instant that this was the greatest ham known to all beings. I had to pork this thing!
"Therefore did I seek to do so. I came up behind her, swift as a shadow that flees the noonday sun. And I said to her, "Let us seek shade in that glade, my fair Irumean maid." And she did come with me.
"It seems to me now that she was indeed an agent of Macedon, but I thought not of that for I was smitten. Certainly she thought to slay my father Mattathias, and my brothers, but I tossed caution to the winds and took her to a spot beside a pond I knew.
"We began the foreplay. I removed my shirt, and she began to stroke my chest as though I was a frightened lamb that needs comfort from a shepherd. I began to feel my erection growing. So I made to remove Gael's shirt, but just then I heard a splash.
"She asked me what it was; "Some fish" said I. But it was not. Nay, it twastn't.
"Twas Eagle.
"He was in a small boat, with his cousin."
Yuffie started at that. "He has a family!"
Vincent caught on quickly enough: "We'll blackmail his bitch ass."
"No – no family anymore. Let me go on.
"Eagle and Beagle were fishing; one had just cast, and now he had a bite. They were both trying to reel it in, for it was mighty, and suddenly – aghast! For Beagle had been tossed for the boat. Eagle was shocked, as were Gael and I – but Beagle did return. Yea, he returned – and in his hand he clutched a thing. A great, terrible thing. For in his clutchety hobbit hand he did hobbitly and handily clutch – Final Fantasy VII.
"It is a tale – a tale of travelers. They must go across the land to save it from a great evil."
Vincent scratched his head. "Wow, it sounds remarkably like every other RPG ever made. What's so great about it?"
"ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! And yet it consumes people. Turns their lives into nothingness. And turned Eagle into a mad thing. It was his birthday, and he said, 'Beagle, my love, give us that. I wants it for my birthday.' And Beagle said, 'Nay, for did I not find it? It is mine.'
"And then, to my horror, Eagle sprang upon his cousin and throttled him. Gael and I watched, horrified by the horrible horror of it, as Beagle turned pink, then red, then purple, then blue, then some kind of multi- faceted fuschia, like some kind of gay extravaganza was playing across his throttled mug. And verily was he smoted.
"But the horror did not end there. This was like the Exorcist movies: there was one really disturbing one, and then a crapload of horrible ones. Here the horror continued.
"Eagle took the thing that had made him kill his cousin. He took it home, and I followed. Verily did he place it within his crappy Playstation one, and he played it. He played it for fifty-five hours straight. Every sidequest was completed, every foe vanquished, every subplot uncovered, ever secret character unlocked, every chocobo bred, every materia found – he was like a machine! 99999999 gil, my friends. I never thought it possible. He maxed his stats like a beast – 9 characters at level 99, all stats at 255...it was madness. He had been driven insane.
"His mother, disgusted by his laziness, cursed him and drove him from the house. He was given a new name – Jim McDonald – that he might find a home away from them. He was set to wandering, but recall that he was not a man, but a boy!
"He became horny.
"Very horny.
"Like a Northeastern reticulated chipmunk in heat.
"And he wrote. Perverted things he wrote, of the characters of the game. And now you see the horror of it, my friend Valentine – for the characters were real.
"They were you."
GASPTASTIC.
"What do you mean?!" Vincent shouted. "What're you getting at?"
"Precisely what I said, Valentine," Maccabeus answered. "The game's characters were real people, stolen from life and made immortal in crappy, low-res pixilated form, devoid of mouths or intestines."
"But who would do something like that?" Yuffie asked, fearful.
"SHINRA."
Cid raised an eyebrow stonedly. "The fuckin' SHINRA? No fuck!"
"Yes. Shinra." And then the brilliance of it all struck him, and Vincent keeled over. "Shinra:
"Square Headquarters In Not-Real Areas."
Yuffie's eyes widened in shock. "'Not-Real Areas'...what is this, the Matrix?"
"Oh, no, my dear," Maccabeus explained. "You see – "
"Okay, you know what, I'm tired of randomized exposition shit," Vincent decided. "I want a house with a number on it, and a high-caliber automatic weapon. I need an address."
Maccabeus rubbed his grizzly chin for a while, and then lifted his head in agreement. "Very well," he said. "My three best men will escort you thither. Malachi. Mordecai. Bob." Three machine-gun-toting, yarmulke- wearing, Sopranos-esque gunmen stepped forward. "Farewell. I hope that you may find luck in your endeavour – by never meeting JM at all. Godspeed."
"I thank you, Judas called Maccabeus. It was an honor to meet you, and I am grateful for your manpower and information." Vincent bowed low; Yuffie followed suit. Cid was already dropping into unconsciousness due to all the pot he'd smoked throughout the narrative. The leader of the Jews bowed in return; and all parted well.
"Follow me," Mordecai bade them. "The Abyss is in waiting."
And thus does chapter eight meet its end.
Judas Maccabeus was a real person. He lived around 160 BC and led a rebellion against the tyrannical government imposed on Israel by Alexander the Great. The holiday of Hanukkah celebrates his cleansing of the temple after it had been ransacked by pagans. I use him here because the book of Maccabees is cool.
So now you know: Final Fantasy VII was created by Shinra, actually an extension of Square (Square-Enix, whatever); they took the lives of real people, animated them badly in a stereotypical RPG environment, and let them run amok. But why, you may ask, why? And I tell you:
42.
Yeah. It'll be explained in chapter forty-two.
Pizzeace. Out.
Oh, and BTW – the gang might be getting back together at some point.
