Author's Notes

To answer Vincent Art Musicanova's question…

No. Tooey is not mentally challenged. Just huggable.

Disclaimer: See previous chapter.

End Author's Notes

"Who are you and where the hell is Beatix?" Cid asked Nanaki. "Mistress Beatrix is out at the moment. I believe she was accompanied by a male suitor. I am known as Nanaki, and I am an intern bartender beginning my lessons here in Kalm."

Awkward silence.

"I'm from the Southwest."

"That explains it!" Cid replied.

"Do you see how seriously not drunk I am! Fix it!" Vincent yelled.

They sat down on the bar stools. "So, you're Ted?" Cid said, trying to break the ice before Vincent was too drunk to speak. "No," he replied, "No, no, no, no. I'm Vincent Letterman. I'm engaged to Lucretia Valentine."

"So why's the Thieves Guild after one of their own?"

"No, no. I'm a deep undercover Turk."

"…rouge agent?"

"They docked my pay, and dammit, I'm gonna get revenge."

"Who's your boss?"

"Hojo."

"Don't know him."

"Don't expect you to."

"So what's this with Murk?"

"He's an infamous thief, known all throughout this continent. Probably why you don't know him."

"Probably."
"He is also a renowned cereal killer. You and I are probably the only two who have seen him and lived!"

"Really? How many people has he killed?"

"People? None."

"…you confuse me."

"I do that to a lot of people. No, not a serial killer, a cereal killer. He kills breakfast cereal mascots."

"And we…?"

"Aren't. That's why we stand here today. I'll drink to that." He sipped his martini some more. "Anyway, I followed Murk into a Rare Artifacts Museum a couple of months ago. He came out a couple of hours later with a black canvas bag. I followed him into the woods, keeping into the shadows, and got a glimpse into what was inside…" He coughed. "You know, all this talking is making me thirsty…"

"Nan, a martini and a scotch." Cid shouted 'They always wait 'till the good part…' He thought.

"Put one of those little umbrellas in the martini. Yeah, no… the pink one. Yup, that's it."

'Free is a four letter word!' he thought happily as his martini was served with his pink umbrella. "And I saw a moogle statue. More precisely, a golden moogle statue with a ruby nose and a jade pom-pom that looked like it could hold three orbs. I asked my contacts in the underworld exactly why he would want something like this, because despite it being made out of gold, Jeeves said it held no sentimental value."

"Jeeves?"

"Ask Jeeves? You know, the website?"

"Oh."

"So it took a lot of bribery, threatening, and scantly clad women to get them to talk. Finally, they told me that this artifact was the sacred relic of the Loccha-Meef-Loat tribe, founded and ruled by an undefeatable immortal God we know as Tookie-Tookie. Luckily, he was defeated by another pissed off God who forever became his parole officer. Every ten billion years, Tookie-Tookie has the ability to speak to mortals through shiny surfaces as a part of his parole for one decade. I think Murk is trying to bring back this infallible God, and if he does, life as we know it is…" He gulped the rest of his martini. "SCREWED!"

"I've been tracking Murk down for three years, now. He always strikes when there is some extremely powerful magical device on display."

"The Black Materia."

"Damn straight. I appears this materia is a part of three that, when placed in the correct order on the statue at the right time, Tookie-Tookie come to this physical life bad stuff happens."

"What kinds of bad stuff are we talking about?" Cid replied nervously.

"Well," Vincent replied, "You know how ancient tomes are, always with the metaphors and long, meaningless descriptive passages…"

"You didn't read it!"

"Hey, I looked at the pictures, and people looked reeeeeally not good, what more do you ask! I'm on a double shift, here! Besides, it was happy hour at Seventh Heaven and… umm… I was supposed to put it in my report… but… ahhmm… I… misplaced it."

"The report?"

"No, the tome."

"You $#$$ing MORON!"

A couple of hours later…

Cid sighed and looked at Nanaki. "Your friend seems quite inebriated." Nanaki said. "Yeah," Cid replied, "He was in the middle of telling me something really important when he broke out into sea shanties. It was cute at first… buuut… now he told me to get him some wenches. I'm afraid he might try and go kill some of those whores in the corner if he gets even more drunk then he already is. Besides," he pointed at Vincent, who was trying to talk to a coat rack. "Look at what he's doing now."

"He seems quite smitten with that coat rack, sir." Nanaki replied.

"Har! Cid, meh laddie, Ias found one! She be a skinny ninny, too, arrgh!" Vincent called out as he dragged the coat rack over to Cid. "Cid, me bucko," he said, "Yous got tae meet this lovely young sea maiden Ias found standin' next tae the door, alls alone."

Cid crossed his arms and turned to Vincent. " 'She' is a coat rack."

"Argh, meh laddie, that not be verra nice. Breast size ain't it all. It do help, though." Vincent replied. "Look," Cid began, "I mean she holds peoples coats and hats."

"…" Vincent replied as he thought for awhile. "…"

"Well," he finally said, "Nobody's perfect…"