Disclaimer: Don't own them, don't own the guest characters. They all belong to their creators, and no money was made from writing this silly fanfic. This is a work of parody and not meant to show disrespect or to insult anybody.
Chapter 11, Not So Grand Finale
The big group of heroes stepped out of the corridor, pausing only to discuss whether to flip a coin about the direction, or just randomly pick left or right. Eventually though, as the sounds of the FFVII battle still could be heard from their left, they took the right path. Which happened to be the right one. Haw haw. I kill myself. Really. Not.
Anyway...
They sneaked down the corridor, setting p-g-bCCAfOS on fire wherever they went.
This, however, gave them some headache.
"Now what the hell is a p-g-bCCAfOS?" Quistis groaned, too tired and irritated by now to care about proper characterization.
The group of SeeDs and wannabe SeeDs paused to regard the burning pile of under-described gray matter on the floor. It didn't move even as it slowly turned to indefined ashes. After some pondering, a lightbulb appeared above Raijin's head. Rinoa quickly zapped it with a well-aimed thunder bolt. Luckily for him, Raijin's name suddenly allowed him to absorb thundermagic for no apparent reason.
"I know, ya know!" he exclaimed, unfazed by the now crisp state of his clothing, "it's short for 'purple-green-blue carnivore cannibalistic aliens from outter space'!"
He got only blank stares for that conclusion, and shrugged.
"I bet the author finally got tired of wri- ow!"
Irvine cut off Seifer's sidekick with ye olde smiting over the head, using the back of his hand. Thus Raijin wasn't rendered unconscious at least, but landed smack on the floor.
"Ow, ya know..."
"Enough with the 'we know we're in a story' gag already!" Irvine snarled and stalked off further into the corridor, "it's not getting funnier! Hyne, if you keep this up you'll make this author a Sue!"
And because he said that, he had to treat himself with ye olde smiting over the head, using the back of his hand. He looked really stupid landing smack on the floor after that.
Collecting themselves, the ragtag team of heroes continued on.
Several hours later, they were becoming more and more certain that they had died somewhere along the way, and were now in Hell. It was the only explanation to all the horrors that faced them.
After a couple more hours, the heroes had however gone so numb that they could no longer feel the pain. This did not stop them from letting others feel it. And so the tunnels echoed with odd and frightening sounds indeed.
"Hail, brave warriors! I have traveled from a faraway past to help-"
Whack.
"I've finally found you, Quisty-siste-"
Snap.
"Hiii! I'm not a Sue! Re-"
Slash.
"I'm a bloodsucking mutant samurai sexgod! Tremble in awe at my fanboy Japa-"
SMASH, CRUNCH, GRIIIIND, RIP, dripp, dripp, dripp...
"Maaan, is there, like, no end to this?" Irvine groaned, trying to reload his Exeter though the shaking of his hands made it almost impossible.
The fatigue was getting the better of him. Apparently their nemesis had spoken true about the plot compression weakening them. Even Selphie was starting to look a little bit tired.
But finally, after wading through an ocean of blood, gore and chopped up p-g-bCCAfOS - their blood was PINK! With white spots! - the troop of heroes crawled towards what looked to be the end of the latest tunnel.
And indeed it came to pass. A great cavern opened up before them, only dimly lit by distant torches, and a spotlight shining down from the middle of the ceiling. The ray of light shed its power of revelation upon Squall, whom appeared to be chained to a table.
No, not cuffed by hands and feet in a highly suggestive position on his back, on top of the table, but instead sitting beside it on a chair, with a long chain going from his right wrist to one of the wooden legs of the bigger furniture. He also wore all his clothes, I might add.
He regarded the exhausted warriors over the brim of his cup of coffee as they dragged themselves over the floor towards him. A pink coffee pot of impressive size stood within his reach on the table top, and by the chair on the opposite side of him stood a matching, abandoned cup.
"What took you so long?" Squall asked.
Seifer reached up, grabbed the edge of the table and managed, with heraculean effort, to pull himself into a kneeling position. Not quite as good as standing, but he lacked the energy to get farther.
"We had a guy equipped with six feet of steel telling us to perform a resurrection for him," the fallen knight said with a weak sneer, "that were some excellent diplomacy skills, I tell you."
"Ah yes, Susan mentioned the Final Fantasy crossover."
Squall reached for the pot and offered it to Seifer in a rare act of human empathy.
"Coffee?"
Seifer fell back onto the floor with the plastic jug in a tight grip, unscrewing the top even as he hit the ground. Not too gracefully he gulped down several mouthfuls of the hot, energizing liquid before passing it on to the person beside him. The jug went several rounds through the group of warriors before it eventually turned out empty, but by then they were starting to feel alive again.
"So," Irvine asked, getting to his feet with support from the table, "where's Sandra, anyway?"
Squall stared at his cup in an attempt to maintain dignity when he replied.
"Little sorcerer's room. Too much coffee."
"Ah... ha."
Zell got up and sat cross-legged as he cracked his neck experimentally.
"Say man," he said, "isn't it time for some revelations, since we're all assembled again?"
"Yes," Quistis said with a wise nod, "and you have spent time with the enemy long enough to learn about him. Do you have any ideas on how we can defeat him?"
Squall leant back and sipped his coffee for a moment, before putting the cup down and crossing his arms.
"As for revelations, we're in some annex of the grottos beneath the underwater research facility and I haven't managed to pry anything useful from Susan. As for plans..."
He held up his chained hand.
"Get this OFF me already!"
The heroes out to save the main hero looked at each other. After a few more moments of non-productivity, Irvine just gave Rinoa a shove forwards. She stumbled and landed both palms on the table.
Feeling everyone's expectant looks she quickly straightened up and grabbed Squall's chain.
"Right, let's..."
"NO SPEECH," Fujin warned.
Rinoa looked around and gave the albino a blank look.
"Pardon?" the raven-haired girl said.
"She means that if you, ya know, starts trying to break the chain with the power of love or somethin', she'll break every bone in your body and make sausages out of your entrails, which she will then serve in the Garden cafeteria, with no extra charge for the mashed potatoes," Raijin helpfully translated.
The silence was a lot heavier this time.
Finally, Rinoa managed to break free from the trancelike state of pure horror, and tried to return to her work. Of course, she only had time to begin summon her powers before another voice rung out.
"Hold it right there, you puny little escapees!"
Sandra slid into existence far above the group, and started its descent. Everyone suddenly found every other possible direction a lot more interesting to look at. Squall however, studied his own palm from a very close proximity, while muttering under his breath about easily distracted morons who couldn't even take a simple order without spending ten minutes staring into space and arguing. He could only be happy that the arguing wasn't musings about love.
Hey, all in all... he should be grateful.
But then again, the story is almost over, and we need to squeeze in a little more angst wherever we can, now don't we?
Susan paused his decent, and looked upwards.
"Whaddaya mean it's almost over? Won't I even get to torture them anymore?" he complained to the darkness above.
You've tortured them quite enough already, if you ask me.
"Cheapskate!"
"What, we're breaking the fourth wall again, man?" Zell shouted.
I'm not a man. And not exactly... see, I had written "author makes a needless appearance in the story" in my notes, and I absolutely refuse to do that "properly". I think this'll be enough of that. Now proceed as if nothing happened. Toddle along. Shoo.
Susan cleared his throat and continued his descent. As he finally touched ground, the heroes also forced themselves to look at him since the drama required it.
"Foolish mortals!" the transsexual - or whatever - sorcerer shouted while waving his arms around dramatically for emphasis - forcing Squall and Rinoa to duck, "you dare to break free-"
"Actually, we were broken out by wildly out of character fellow characters," Quistis informed.
Sandra paused for a moment at this, but then picked up where he had been.
"- and break into the heart of my very lair! You shall now learn to know- the hell?"
While his sentence might have sounded somewhat complete despite the sudden question mark, his tone suddenly changed for the last two words. From being loud and high pitched enough to break glass, it became normal and questioning.
Naturally there had to be a reason for that. This would be a distant, uncanny hiss followed by the eerie screech of a p-g-bCCAfOS.
The darkness became silent as the grave.
Silent. Silent.
Something was out there. Something that would not leave anybody to hear you scream.
Remember, friends, that space is vast and mysterious.
"We're not in space! We're beneath the bottom of the ocean!" Squall snarled while taking cover behind Quistis' back.
This joke wasn't funny the first time we did it, commander. I'll feed you to the monster hiding in the dark if you don't stop acting like you can hear me.
The heroes and sorcerer huddled closer together.
For some reason it seemed like everyone concluded that behind the strong, independent and most bookish gal was the safest place to be. Even Susan.
Quistis did not seem to pleased with this.
"Is-is there something out there?" Selphie whispered, nervously reaching for her Strange Vision.
How she got her weapons back was just another plot hole that you shouldn't even bother trying to figure out. I assure you that most of the characters have given up at least three chapters ago.
Luckily, nobody thought to answer her question with "Yes, the TRUTH!", because that would have led to serious bloodshed.
"I think we can conclude that, yes," Squall scowled.
He gave Sandra a stern look.
"Is this a good time for the enemy-switching-sides plot?" the commander asked.
Susan opened his mouth, but another hiss cut off his immediate response. It sounded a lot more close by this time. The sorcerer gave a nervous laugh.
"Uhm, yes," he said and shifted his gaze to the person struggling to be in the middle of the group, "Rinoa dear, give me a hand here."
"R-right," the young sorceress stammered.
The two natural magic users quickly raised there hands, and their eyes glowed faintly.
Bonk!
Something black, smooth and drooling smacked into the pink wall bubble forming around the heroes. It bounced back into obscurity, hissing and spitting acid all the way.
It moved too quickly for any of the characters to get a proper look at it, but they could faintly make out an inhuman outline scouring around just by the border of the blackness. All this gave them were a blurry mental image of something with a big head, skeletal body, huge claws, hungry teeth - and for them, a lot of cold sweat.
The creature, whatever it was, seemed created for this purpose only, to instill fear in anybody happening to lay eyes on it.
No... it was not meant to be seen. It was meant to be heard, felt, smelled... only your sixth sense could possibly protect you from this horror, a horror you could never comprehend.
Susan looked through his notes.
"Uhm," he finally said.
The others expectantly looked at him.
"Uhm."
"What?" Seifer growled.
He did not feel like smirking anymore. Well, he had not felt like it for a long time, but finally the situation completely took away all reason for him to do so, and therefore he could finally relax his sore face muscles.
Sandra licked his lips.
"Crossover," he said in a tiny voice.
Fujin lost her nerve. Finally. See, all these finallyses should really clue you in on how near the end we are.
"We already DID those!" the one-eyed chick snarled, waving at the void surrounding them, "what the hell is that?"
Sighing, Sandra held up the list and pointed at it. It was a long paper, covered with neatly written text in small sentences. Most of them had been crossed out, and Sandra pointed to two of them in a quick succession.
"No, we already did the game crossover with Magus' appearance, and the Final Fantasy one. Both of them from SquareEnix, I would add," he said, "now what we have here is..."
His manicured finger went down to a sentence not yet adorned with a pink line stretched across it.
"... the 'completely illogical crossover', my sweets."
Pause.
"Great! Just great!" Quistis shouted.
She too was at the end of her patience, apparently.
"So what IS that thing?" she continued, waving her arms at the possible position of their adversary.
Sandra rolled up the list and put it away into some kind of magic pocket in thin air. It was obvious from his movements that he was trying to win a little time. While all this happened, the mysterious thing kept moving around and hissing just to make sure that nobody dared to forget about it.
"Weeell," he eventually said and looked upwards, "remember that when it first showed up, there was something in the narrative about space and stuff?"
"Yes?" the youngsters snapped, like a practiced choir.
Another nervous laughter.
"Well, you know..." Susan said and turned to look at the darkness, "they say that 'In space, no one can hear you scream'."
It only took a moment for the SeeD's and SeeD wannabes to come to a logical conclusion and make a proper comment.
It was, however, not fit for print.
"Whatever the case," Squall finally snarled and glared at Susan, "you explicably told me that we were done with crossovers!"
"YEAH!" Fujin agreed.
This despite that she had not been there. But again, stuff like that were becoming very minor details.
Sandra snorted and plonked down on the floor, folding his arms across his chest.
"Well, what do you expect? I had to play my parts too, you know. That was 'dirty deceiving of cornered hero'."
"Bah!"
One by one the others sat down, huddling together in smaller groups based on pairings. Zell looked very miserable, even if he was energetically scooting away from Sandra. Fujin and Raijin watched each other suspiciously.
A sour silence ruled for a short while.
"So like... how are we going to get out of here?" Irvine asked.
Rinoa fidgeted with the rings hanging in the chain around her neck, crawling deeper into Squall's tired embrace. The sorceress and Sandra exchanged glances.
"Our powers won't be able to keep the shield up forever," Rinoa said.
At that, Susan perked up.
"Which to the plot means that something will save us just when the magic is about to give in!" he said.
Pause.
"... probably," he added.
"Probably? "
"Considering what that thing is, the probability of only one of us making it out of here alive is great, I fear."
Sandra's fingertips rapped against each other and he smiled nervously. In the darkness, the creature kept hissing.
"So... want to make bets?" the sorcerer said.
"Maaan..." Raijin sighed and flopped onto his back, "I hate dying, ya know!"
Sympathetic glances were offered to the Token Strong Black Man aka Zombie/Monster/Vampire/Rabid Pigeon Fodder.
"No way!" Selphie suddenly shrieked.
She smacked her small hands into the ground and stared at Sandra with big, watery eyes.
"Plot hole us out of here, you big meanie!" she said.
For a few moments the sorcerer just blinked like an owl at the girl, but as the puppy-eyes steadily increased their ferocity the bishie finally cleared his throat.
"Let me check my notes..."
He pulled out the List from hyper-space and skimmed through it. The fine eyebrows knitted, jumped, twitched, looped and danced with each other for the silent minutes that passed.
"A-HA!"
A finger bore down on the paper, and the pink nail cut through it. Sandra didn't care. The teenagers leant forwards without thinking, careful hope springing into their eyes.
"The crossover... yesss..."
Sandra put the list away and gave his prisoners/allies a bright smile.
"Everyone, put your weapons away and look helpless."
This was met with blank stares.
"... what?" Squall finally asked.
A new sound came from the darkness. A clatter of a heavy boot hitting hard floor. The hissing increased, but at the same time started moving further away.
"NOW!" Sandra shrieked.
There was no fighting that shrill sound. Quickly the warriors pocketed their weapons and curled up on the floor, trying to recall how it felt to be frightened children. Susan remained where he was, glaring into the blackness through the pink-tinted wall.
A stray ray of light flashed across the edges of a metallic armor and the footsteps ceased. Sandra looked up and smiled at the towering giant.
Metal covered the huge creature, even the face hidden behind a cold, emotionless mask. Hair set in thick dreadlocks- no, not hair. Tentacles spilled out from below the helmet. The armor still lacked any little dents and blemishes from earlier fights, but this did not lower the frightening rate of the appearance.
Susan gave a dainty little wave with his hand, while the teenagers remained where they were. Despite the lack of proper eye contact and the hidden face, the creature turned away with an air of disgust. The nasty spear hefted onto its back was visible just for a moment before the darkness swallowed it and the heavy steps toned away into obscurity. A spear. As if the claws had not been enough. Ah well. It WAS going up against something equally terrifying.
"Happy hunting..." Susan whispered.
Only moments later he smirked at the sound of violent hissing and metal against natural panzer. From the sounds of it, it would be a fierce battle indeed.
In a fluid motion Sandra got to his feet and waved at his fellows.
"I think we should head out, like, NOW," the sorcerer declared with great urgency.
Just to be on the safe side Sandra hurriedly cast Haste on the whole troop. In the magical glow they all dared to look a little hopeful.
"Ready?" Susan asked, glancing at the darkness.
"Who died and made you leader you bloody wet-dream self-ins-" Seifer started, but didn't get farther.
Quistis grabbing him from behind and muffling him with her hand served as an excellent "shut the hell up" message.
"I don't care if he's your and Squall's long-lost-clone-sister-brother!" the instructor hissed. Just to make things clear, y'know. "I want OUT OF HERE!"
Seifer gave a tiny little nod. It was all he was allowed.
But Susan looked a little disturbed by what he had heard, and turned to Squall.
"If you would, commander?" the sorcerer kindly offered.
Squall shrugged and looked around.
"On the count of 'whatever'," he declared. "One..."
Quistis let go of Seifer.
"... two..."
They all got down on their fingertips and toes, drawing one knee up to their chests.
"... three..."
Butts UP and...
"WHATEVER!" they all chorused in perfect harmony.
The shield shattered in a thousand pink shards and the heroes and the bishie took off like streaks of color. They dashed through the tunnels and corridors of the secret lab, breaking into Omega Weapon's cavern. Selphie, using her amazing bubbly water-boiling skills led the way, dashing across the expanse of water and leaving a streak of dry undersea lake bottom behind.
Nobody seemed to recall all the, y'know, nasty ruby dragons and stuff that normally inhabited the cavern.
The stairs through the abandoned research lab was passed at a minimum of three steps at the time.
And behind them, the Predator(tm) kept the Alien(tm) busy.
Despite the mad flight, it seemed like hours passed from their starting point until they broke into the sun.
Gasping, stumbling and praising all the powers they could think of, the ragged group tumbled into the fresh air and the shadow of the conveniently waiting Ragnarok.
"Are we... done?" Zell finally gasped, leaning heavily against the cliff.
"Yup!"
They all looked up at the cheerful voice, glaring daggers. Susan laid in a disturbingly sexy pose on one of the rocks, seemingly at ease - save the sweat that was wreaking havoc on his makeup. From the look on his face, he was trying to ignore the problem out of existence.
He held up the list of clichés towards the sky, and it caught fire. Within a few seconds the last ashes fluttered from the sorcerer's fingers, brought out into the ocean by the salty winds.
"I must congratulate you for breaking through my spell!" Susan sighed.
He smiled and stretched.
"Oh well, now that I'm reformed and all, I need a new career."
Sitting up, he took on a thoughtful expression for a moment. Sudden fear clutched the heroes' hearts and they tried to back away, but exhaustion bound them to the spot like chains made from the heaviest metal.
Finally Sandra clapped his hands.
"Oh, I know! I'll be a teacher at Garden! Won't that be ma-rve-lous?"
He beamed at the canon characters. They exchanged glances, then looked at Squall. He slumped.
"No more conspiracies?" he said.
"I can't make promises, darling."
Sandra even looked honestly concerned this time.
"I'm afraid I can only work within this fic, unless my contract is given to another author," he said.
Yeah, right.
Squall groaned and turned his face skywards, staring helplessly at the heavens. The blue sky spread out endlessly, promising new dawns and thousands of adventures ahead.
And with that thought in mind, he did the only thing he could think of doing.
"... whatever."
The End.
'
Author's note: Wow, this was placed in the backburner for forever. But it's finally over. Hooray!