Chapter 15: Cornholio, the Everlasting Number Two.
“Well, that was a slog, no doubt about it.”
“Good thing all the mobs were carrying potions.”
“Just don’t think too hard where they were hiding them.”
“It’s what’s inside that counts.”
“You followed me here? I have to admit I didn’t consider that possibility.”
“Yeah, well, our ‘airship’ doesn’t work at the moment for some absurd reason. If not for that, we’d just continue on and buy new materia.”
“Damn! I knew I shouldn’t have sabotaged your vehicle.”
“Why would… if you didn’t want us to follow you, why did you sabotage our only means to escape?”
“What can I say? Old habits die hard.”
“Are you sure I can’t buy any of those ludicrously large swords on the wall back there? I can trade in my own ludicrously large sword if that’s what it takes.”
“…remind me never to hire you as my driver.”
“My last taxi driver said the exact same thing.”
“It’s like the weirdest Blues Brothers reunion ever.”
“Oh, come on! You’re actually happy to see us, aren’t you?”
“I’m not drunk enough to answer that politely.”
“Uh… a big snake that dispenses water. I couldn’t possibly see how that would create a mental image that might make someone die laughing.”
“Do you have any statues of the Water God here in Wutai?”
“Don’t take a yellow shower.”
“Next, on Wutai Theater….”
“I know they told us this was a tourist spot, but wow, those drapes look fantastic!”
“Sounds to me like someone is taking the piss.”
“OH HA HA HA! The Water God and the Five Mighty Gods. Are they fond of the hands-on approach, too?”
“That’s something you never want to hear from a couple: ‘In the last battle, we didn’t fare so well’.”
“That’s why I started calling him ‘Captain Rocket Man’ from that day forth.”
“Um… are you alright, sir? Lying on an electric bed set to shock you randomly, are you?”
“But more importantly: SALTZA!”
“Are you going to?”
“What the GOOGAH are you talking about. GOGAH!”
“Well, I’ve never GOOGAH’d before. I guess we can learn from each other, then.”
“Well, they sort of hate our guts. And they’re also looking for the same person that we are. So we do have something to do with that… in a very indirect way.”
“That said, we would probably not have travelled here if a girl named Yuffie didn’t steal all our materia.”
“And maybe sabotaged our airship, though the jury is still out on that one, I guess.”
“Well, OK, I hear you.”
“Uh… thank you, but we are not going anywhere without our materia.”
“And well… if we meet any Shinra on our way, you know what we gonna do?”
“We gonna SALTZA!”
“You’re not my real da-..oh, wait, you are.”
“Uh….”
“It’s true. I’m so ashamed.”
“But first, give us back our materia.”
“Sure. Uh… I have it right back here.”
“No, wait….”
“…our materia.”
“How about the next time she stupidly shows up and has a long conversation with someone, we… I dunno, GRAB HER?!”
“The thought has crossed my mind.”
“And if all that fails, let’s just steal all their stuff.”
“Well, that’s an option too. Except we can’t leave and take our boats to sell any of it, and we can’t access the stores here. Our pockets will be full of so much junk.”
“Which begs the question: Why?!”
“You can even buy materia in stores. Just grind some enemies, and you can buy one heck of a materia collection. Why would you just steal it off random people. We didn’t even have any special ones… yet.”
“Aw, poopie. I knew I shoulda waited longer. Stupid Shinra.”
“WHO SAID THAT?!”
“Hilariously different tone in these two deliveries.”
“First one was stupidly pretentious. The second one might be Cid, actually. Are you in there, Cid? Is the tea ready?”
“That’s not Cid.”
“Are you sure? Looks pretty Cid-ish to me.”
“Hey, I’m not that old.”
“And by the way…”
“So how do you connect a mountain god to… uh, pounding noises?”
“Randy, the God of Shagging. He’s pounding out some details for his ten commandments as we speak.”
“Well, I can understand why this shop has no materia when all of them are practically a steal.”
“They literally fly off the shelves, huh?”
“One second they’re there, the next, you hear nothing but Yuffie laughter.”
“I don’t even know where to begin.”
“This is like the worst middle school play ever.”
“And Yuffie is stuck in the invisible box.”
“I’m not a mime!”
“But you can hand over all the invisible materia you stole from us. Reach into your invisible bag and pull them out right now.”
“Don’t make me break out the custard pies.”
“We will drag you to the man on the mountain if we have to.”
“And Dou-chey will not be happy, let me tell you that right now.”
“It’s Da-CHAO!”
“Nobody messed with DA CHAO! HE DA MAN!”
“And you assume Da-Chao is male too?”
“Well, I was, but I guess I stand to be corrected?”
“Mmmmaybe? Anyway, did you want your materia or what?”
“Oh, we almost forgot.”
“Interesting choice of words, there.”
“Is that a part of your life you would like to revisit?”
“Not really, no.”
“I just regret I wasn’t a part of that.”
“And I get to troll two people for the price of one soul.”
“And whaddya mean ‘my face’. I’m wearing a mask.”
“Yeah, and that’s a sobering thought.”
“Uh… that comment made no sense.”
“Have a few drinks, and it will.”
“Screw that. We’ve got work to do.”
“I guess they weren’t looking for us, then.”
“Well, looks like we can take a drinking break, then.”
“Aren’t we kind of underage, though?”
“We can be sent to war, but we can’t drink? That’s just unfair. And really, really weird.”
“Um… your materia?”
“Oh, right!”
“Do you even realize how many times I coulda given you people the slip by now?”
“We’re easily distracted. What can I say?”
“I have it in my cellar.”
“Well, that’s not ominous or anything.”
“Yeah, you lost something, alright. Now you’re selling huge cutlery.”
“Is that why you’re selling gigantic swords right off the wall? Or rather, not selling them?”
“Like… they were more than willing to sell us materia, because they knew you’d just pop in and steal them right off us again.”
“Uh… sorry about that. We don’t want to fight, but we want to capitalize on the weapons industry. That… doesn’t come across rather well, does it?”
“I don’t care ’bout no feelings, because I’m a MAYUN!”
“He’s got a reputation to keep up. I, on the other hand, plant flowers in churches without roofs.”
“And give other people crap over their chest size.”
“No, she just pretending.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“I see your point.”
“I can’t see the materia for the giant metal cage.”
“I know we haven’t known her for that long, but my God, that was the fakest crying ever.”
“I’m not going to ask you why you know that.”
“We had materia, but someone took all of it, remember?”
“And since we had them put on our arms, I think it’s safe to say that we ‘steeled’ it too.”
“Say, you do know that it’s not going to be a good thing if we raze your apartment for materia, right?”
“For you, that is. We probably won’t care too much.”
“Well, that was an easily escapable trap.”
“Probably because it was set to open after a set time, enough for her to escape.”
“With all our materia.”
“OK, so we ring the bell, and the dog will back away from the door.”
“We need to get to the bottom of this mystery.”
“…on second thought.”
“Why am I getting some seriously bad vibes about the whole situation?”
“AAAAAAAAAARGH!”
“Did he… did he seriously come all the way over here to find a woman?”
“If it wasn’t so amazingly creepy, I’d admire his tenacity.”
“You… don’t remember us, do you?”
“I know we were all dressed up the last time….”
“Or dressed like a woman.”
“Uuuh huuhh oh God….”
“Aeris, tearing up old wounds since sixteen years ago.”
“Yeah, that sounds like something we should do right now.”
“Let’s go save some damsels.”
“Including the clearly underage one.”
“Well… technically, we’re underage too.”
“Yeah, but Cloud isn’t a 40 year old creeper.”
“Whoa, wait, we’re not with him.”
“Excuses. Take them down.”
“No, really. Stop him before he runs off, you idiots!”
“You call us idiots? YOU SHALL PAY!”
“No, no, no. We’re just… urg, let’s just fake them out.”
“Uh… sir, they’re asleep.”
“So they are. What should we do?”
“I dunno. What do you think?”
“Well… I don’t want to be known as the soldier who shot sleeping people. Let’s just leave.”
“I concur.”
“He can even dodge the Turks? I thought I was embarrassed when I wore a dress.”
“The less you know…..”
“You are totally our new best friend.”
“LOVE YYYYOOOUUUUUU!”
“Well, I can understand why you find this more appealing than wearing women’s clothing.”
“Not that you sound bitter about it or anything.”
“Oh, you enjoyed it, just admit it.”
“Well, she stole our materia, so her well-being isn’t at the top of our priority list right now.”
“In fact, maybe we should leave her in Don Corneo’s ‘care’ for a little bit, just to soften her up.”
“I can hear my personal beliefs screaming in terror right now.”
“So….. who’s the worst? Hojo or Corneo?”
“The dilemma of the ages.”
“So, what’s the correct spelling of a bug called Jayjujayme?”
“How do you even say that name?”
“What’s its name in Latin?”
“I’m afraid to even ask.”
“And somehow, the colorless bore in the back is referred to as the ‘Bizarre Bug’. Clearly, it needs to get out more often.”
“And we have Garuda.”
“I call shenanigans. They don’t have boobs.”
“And wouldn’t Aeris love it if that was the case.”
“Whaddya mean ‘new hobby’? Judging by your behavior when we first met, you’ve been doing this all your life.”
“Ah, but have I made my catches the apples of the eyes of statues that look like people? I think not. And I do like me some apples, if you catch my drift.”
“I stand corrected.”
“And horrified.”
“But I’m still not sure who is worse — you or Hojo.”
“Ouch! That hurts, you know.”
“Well, I can’t blame you for not seeing a weird, perverted blonde guy trussing you up like cattle and hanging you on a stone statue coming. That’s not something that happens every day.”
“Even if Corneo here wants to make it his new hobby.”
“Stop talking and get me down!”
“We’ll consider it.”
“Wait, you’re saying you would have gone with him if he had materia?”
“I would have robbed him blind before he went blind, if you catch my drift.”
“Whaaaat? But I really want to tell you the story about how you wanted to cut, stomp and grind my balls off, only because you wouldn’t approve of how I had women kidnapped and brought to my estate so I could run a popularity contest based around what woman I’d like to sexually assault.”
“Well… yes, you’ve covered that now. So, since I doubt you have any trapdoors on this statue here, shall we commence with the groin-kneeing?”
“Just don’t ask me to bite him. At least not there.”
“Erm… it tried to kill us.”
“Yes. And?”
“We wanted to continue living?”
“Well, that’s awfully selfish of you.”
“Maybe you should have thought about that before you sent it at us. But nooo, you’re dead set on repeating that mistake, huh? Well, let’s just see how that goes, shall we?”
“You really should get the hint that every time you open your goddamned mouth, we’ll hate you even more. And every time we think you’ve reached a threshold, you whip out your limit break on that again and again and again! So please, for the love of DA CHAO! Shut! The! Hell! Up!”
“No, no, no. Everyone loves to hear me talk about whipping it out. It’s an unarguable truth, and women all love me for it.”
“KILL HIM! KILL HIM UNTIL HE’S DEAD!”
“You call that begging? I guess it’s time for Professor Tifa’s Left Foot to teach you the true meaning of begging. It all starts with kneeling, you creepy, weird bastard.”
“You… what did I just tell you?!”
“That you love to hear me win and think I’m the most awesome person ever?”
“NOT! QUITE!”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll be very envious when I take… your girl and the two over there and whatever other women you have hiding into bed with me. It will be a night to remember.”
“Why are you doing this? My body can only contain so much hate. Are you trying to overload me, you contemptious asshole?”
“Reno. I… I want to stab him, but I’m so angry, I can’t even move. I just… hit me with a soft. I’ll take anything. Just make him stoooooop.”
“Sit tight, we got this covered.”
“I’ll say. I can’t even come up with anything sarcastic now, I’m so angry. I don’t really care about the two women — well, one woman and one girl….”
“HEY! Well… actually, I am a girl, aren’t I?”
“And you’re a boy.”
“I… yes. I can’t even be angry about that comment, because all my anger glands are still taken.”
“Well, sit tight, kid, and we’ll get this sorted. And after that, we’ll go for drinks. I know you’re underage, but I think given the situation, you’ve earned it.”
“Hrrrrrgh!”
“Why hasn’t he stopped talking yet. Stoppit talking! STOPPIT!”
“Don’t worry, Cloud. It’ll all be over soon.”
“There we go. Now let’s go back to drinking.”
“My hero.”
“There’s a lesson to be learned from this. Right now, however, my mind is pretty much worn out like it never has before.”
“Wow, that was even more annoying than the time I had to dress in women’s clothing. Or even the last time we had a chat with Mr. Corneo here.”
“And I only got the parts with Corneo in it too. Not sure how I feel about that.”
“Well, clearly, y’all need a drink. Now let’s get barhopping.”
*psst* “Reno, you seriously gonna serve them alcohol?”
“Nah, I’ma serve them the ‘light’ stuff. They just need to unwind more than anything. Can’t really give alcohol to minors, right?”
“Yer a good lad, Reno.”
“Hey, I’m a Turk.”
“And we found him. Fastest job completion ever.”
“Uh… and what were we going to do when we found him?”
“I dunno. They didn’t say.”
“Erm… seriously?”
“Nah, just kidding. They wanted us to kill them, of course. It’s Shinra.”
“Uh….”
“What a pinch! With Cloud and his allies still reeling from Corneo’s Titan-level assault of idiocy, how will they be able to defend themselves from the Turks.”
“WE GO’N DRINKIN’, M’ BOY!”
“I think I’d prefer it when you tried killing us. That said, could you carry me down, please. I’m still cramping myself stiff.”
“That’s what he said. That said, I can’t help but notice that we’re still hanging up here! Upside down!”
“It’s all a part of the job.”
“No, it’s NOT!”