Chapter 23: Return of the Cucumber and the Hunt for Huge.
“If I throw up here, it won’t stain the floor. Also, I might hit a Shinra goon on the head.”
“You.. uh… keep up the good work, then. Make us proud.”
*urp* “Well, I can’t keep it down, so…. one load of good work coming right up. And literally as well as figuratively.”
“Alrighty, I’ll just leave you to it, then. I have a ship to explore that I apparently own now. The world works in mysterious ways sometimes.”
“Well, sure. I should probably hurry, but what’s time if not for exposition. Take it away, mystery man.”
“Oof, I already blanked out on ‘working under Heidegger’. It… does not bring up any pleasant thoughts. I can’t imagine those being memories would be much of an improvement.”
“Uh…. wait, we’re talking about Cid, right? Cid? Cranky-ass old man? Verbal abuser of assistants? That Cid?”
“Well played, I guess. Fire, huh? I guess there was that giant, laser-spewing Pokeman to contend with, so… good call there.”
“Erm…. no, I mean… it wasn’t a particularly long story, and it did fill me in on some details, so… cool story, bro.”
“What? That don’t make no sense, foo’. I wouldn’a be so stressed if I knew you could fly the damn thing.”
“Yes, and I needed the others to see you panic and fret, so they’d become careless and underestimate us. And for some reason, you panicking makes you much more effective. A loose cannon, as it were.”
“You clever bastard.”
“Well, thank the heavens you aren’t, or you would probably have called my bluff the second I blackmailed you with your daughter as a hostage.”
“…….”
“Wait a sec. You weren’t there when I did that.”
“……”
“Oh dear.”
“YOU DID WHAT?!”
“And I thought you were smart.”
“I’ll say. I heard a story about you being all nice and heartfelt and stuff. I’ve never heard anyone say something so alien and strange, ever.”
“I know, right? My workers do fine work, but they’re all a bunch of idiots.”
“….you know, most people would love to hear their underlings talk about you like that. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I’m a cranky old guy, remember?”
“Representin’, I guess? Keepin’ it real?”
“You’re putting that in a bad way, but…. yes.”
“…..idiot.”
“Trains, huh? I wonder if you saying that will become really ironic at some point, and I hope I’ll be there to see it.”
“Weirdo.”
“I mean… I know I have my damsel dreams and all, but this hits me in a completely different way.”
“Well… Sephiroth sure knew how to push buttons. It takes… time… recouping from that. You know… without going into a mouth-frothing rage.”
“And now you’re weirding me out.”
“Hey, I can be nice when I want to.”
“Then how about you try that with you assistant?!”
“What? Do I look like I’m stupid?”
“….yes. Yes, you do.”
“That sounds kinda gross when I put it like that, huh?”
“Well… let’s go look for some cracks, then.”
“Some crack dens?”
“No, I said…” *sigh* “…never mind.”
“Alrighty. Let’s go find some crack dens.”
“Yaaaaay.”
“NOW!”
“Gah! Wait, now? But land. But uh… OK.”
“Oh, that was so worth it.”
“Yep. Still up there.”
“I wonder if we can fit it up Sephy’s bunghole.”
“Ramming speed?”
“Ramming speed.”
“This is new.”
“We can’t be ramming that.”
“Well, of course not.”
“Who the heck lives here, though? Right smack dab in the middle of a forest?”
“Um….”
“I’ve heard of retirement homes, but this is a retirement town.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about being called a ‘beaut’. I know it’s a compliment, but it’s so old fashioned. At least he’s not staring at my knockers.”
“What they talking ’bout, doggie? You got no big sword at all, much less a pokey head.”
“Um… I don’t think they’re talking about the dog.”
“How did he get all the way over here? Wait, I need to check first. Wait, I need to pet the doggie first. Wait, I need to… I need to….”
“You need to calm down, that’s what you need.”
“Calming down is for quitters. Cloud now!”
“Not SALTZA?!”
“Do you have your bingo card?”
“Yes, and now I can cross out ‘unintentionally meeting up with the main player’.”
“Should we remind her that this guy did the air quote hand sign when he said ‘clinic’? Isn’t that worrisome?”
“Nah. I don’t want to rain on her parade. Her crazy, kooky parade.”
“Well, why don’t we all go to….”
“…….”
“….the ‘clinic’?”
“I like the cut of your jib.”
“Anyway… do we have any sedatives? A sleep spell? Heck, slow would be convenient, too.”
“No, no and heck, no. Slow would just make this creepy.”
“Yes, but hilariously creepy.”
“We’re going to drown in text boxes, aren’t we?”
“Well, he was controlled by Sephiroth, so of course his condition wouldn’t be all that great.”
“Um… well, that would explain things. I think. But….”
“Cloud, why are you lolling your head like that? Why are you in a wheelchair? Why…. why are you drooling all over your jacket?”
“So, this is your man, then?”
“….yes.”
“Well, uh… I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I know mind control by Sephiroth isn’t much fun, but…..”
“He just came gushing out of a huge crack, and now he’s in the mental state of a baby, if even that.”
“Yep, he’s the ‘doctor’, alright.”
“Well, we sorta lost him in the big explosion, so you’re probably right, Doc.”
“You kids sure know how to throw parties.”
“Well.. the entertainment was kind of terrible. Some people just fail at TV programming on the executive level.”
“TV may be the death of me some day, but this is not that day.”
“Yeah, that explanation was ass. Come up with something better. Something more severe-sounding.”
“He’s literally lightyears away from us. Some place at the other end of the universe, where nobody has ever been, not even the eldritch ones. So super duper turbo alone like you have never heard of. Because only the most lonely person could be so utterly cut off from the hearing range of even the heariest of beings.”
“That’s better.”
“…no. No, it’s not.”
“You ruined the moment. Now get the heck outta here.”
“We had that coming.”
“No, we didn’t. We did nothing wrong.”
“And I thought the vegetable formerly known as a guy popping out of the Lifestream was a weird thing to witness.”
“All the memories. I have so much to say, but I can’t speak to myself for that long. Help me, Cloud. Swoop in and help me. And most importantly, please please please stop headbutting your knee.”
“So I reckon his complete recovery will take a whole week.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good.”
“The road to recovery is long and grindy.”
“You’re gay?”
“Erm… no, but… wait, how did we get to that?”
“Well, that’s usually what follows when someone goes ‘Mom? Dad? I have to tell you something’.”
“Well… you’re not my mom and dad.”
“You’re a terrible daughter.”
“Um….”
“You’re… sounding kind of patronizing right now.”
“Well, it’s not like you were nearly executed or anything.”
“And we are certainly not being attacked by gigantic Pokemans. Yeah, I know one sorta saved you, but still…..”
“Yeah, but I need this guy to save me, and I’m going to stick around here until he wakes up from this stupor so that I can make him do so.”
“I’ve heard of ‘desperate’, but this really takes the lifestream-soaked biscuit.”
“We’re friends again.”
“Yep.”
“That we are.”
“Well, that will happen regardless, won’t it?”
“It might take a day. It might take a whole week. It might even take a cataclysmic event. But we WILL get our main character back!”
“…..er, I kinda very much don’t want to hear anything coming out of their mouths, but…. but we might learn about their plans. But I kinda very much don’t want to hear anything coming out of their mouths, but…. we might learn about their plans. But…”
“Barret’s stuck in a loop again. Give him a whack on the back of his stupid head.”
“How were you ever an inspiration for people, you cranky old stodger?”
“Because the things that turned me into a cranky old stodger is what made people admire me. Or did you miss the giant Leaning Tower of Space Rocket when you visited my home town? You know, the whole ‘my dreams’ thing?”
“Well, anyway… Kya ha ha and Gya ha ha?”
“But I don’t wanna. But I have to. But I don’t wanna. But I have to. But…”
“Oh, goddamn it, Barret.”
“Well, at least they’re being proactive.”
“Sure beats out ‘executing people on live TV to make them feel better’.”
“Them who? The people being executed?”
“Well… they would probably have gotten to me too, eventually.”
“And how. Anyway….”
“The! Plan! Is! Already! In! Motion!”
“Yes, I heard. That’s not what I meant.”
“We! Are! Collecting! Huge Materia!”
“I’m going to have you killed now. And that isn’t going to be on TV.”
“So they’re basically going to colonoscopy the meteor to death?”
“….yes. Yes, they are.”
“The comet cornhole is going to receive treatment.”
“This is how we reduce the meteor threat: with lots of butt jokes.”
“Hey, don’t blame me. It’s Shinra’s fault. As usual.”
“Do we have ramming technology?”
“I can probably get something mounted to the airship if you give me some time. Ooooor, come to think of it, we have something in my hometown that can do the job.”
“And now I’m imagining you ramming a rocket into a comet cornhole. Thank you very much.”
“Can we… can we move away from the ramming thing for a bit?”
“They took our coal away from us. They exploded our town and burned it to the ground. BUT THEY WILL NEVER! TAKE! OUR! HUGE! MATERIA!”
“…..”
“Because we will take it before they do.”
“Our hero.”
“Um… but wouldn’t that imply that all materia would react to each other, and not just the one put into connected slots on our gear?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. But that doesn’t make any sense.”
“No.”
“Oh. Well… what do we do, then?”
“I’m glad you asked.”
“So, you basically want to get the huge materia first just to show off to Cloud.”
“And stuff it in the face of Shinra.”
“Our hero.”
“But mostly prove to Cloud that I don’t really need him before we accept him back into our party.”
“I feel good about my life now.”
“As long as I get to blow stuff up, I’m happy.”
“Maybe I should not have let them listen in on the conversation between Kyah and Gyah.”
“Nope.”
“Pain in the ass, you say? What an interesting choice of words.”
“I couldn’t help it. We’ve been talking about cornholes and ramming and stuff for so long now.”
“The verdict is… not guilty.”
“Yay!”
“Heh heh. Simpleton.”
“You never wanted to be a leader, did you?”
“Nope.”
“And you guys blame Sephiroth for acting like a mad puppet master.”
“And you didn’t want to be a leader. I can hear that quite clearly.”
“I JUST WANT TO EXPLODE SOMETHING! Is that too much to ask?”
“….no.”
“Did you hear that? ‘C’mon, Leader-man, let’s hurry’?! Did you hear that?”
“I’m sorry, because I couldn’t hear anyone over my guts heaving out everything in my stomach. And then, when it was empty, it heaved out my stomach.”
“Well, uh… carry on, then.”
“Noooo. I want to stoooop.”
“The answer to that is yes. Fly, my pretty. Fly us to the moon.”
“Uh… wait, what? Is there anything to blow up there?”
“Didn’t we just agree that we need to blow it up?”
“That was a comet, not the moon. Although I would love to blow up the moon and all, we do have more pressing matters to attend to.”
“Boy, you’re sounding very… not Barret today.”
“Oh, shaddup, foo’!”
“That’s more like it.”
“Well, let’s take a tour of all our failures so far, why don’t we?”
“Hey, don’t look at me. I took no part in this, and when we first met, my main goal was to screw you over as much as possible.”
“……”
“Uh…. I mean….”
“And speaking of failures….”
“Well, I don’t really care about that anymore. Let’s just get to where we need to be, not where we already failed?”
“That’s unusually wise for ya, Barret my lad.”
“Oh, shaddup!”
“Um…. weren’t you listening? Or did you want to get back at me by taking me back to one of my biggest failures?”
“Um… last I heard, all this wasn’t really your fault. Yeah, if Shinra hadn’t been here, and you’d have been allowed to continue the coal industry, the worsening of your enviroment and the general health of your home would be your fault, but….”
“OK, OK, jeez. I get your point.”
“We’re… we’re gonna have to get on a train, aren’t we?”
“Not if we get there in time.”
“Well, let’s make like Sonic the Hedgehog over these rollercoaster-like train tracks, then, and zip over there.”
“Sheesh, when you said rollercoaster-like tracks, you weren’t kidding. Who the hell came up with this?”
“Um… these are not the parts we are talking about.”
“You mean it gets worse than this?”
“Yes. Yes, it does.”
“This train track is just a refurbished rollercoaster, isn’t it?”
“….I plead the fifth.”
“…absolutely mad. That was like the goddamned minecart ride in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, except for the complete lack of lava pits.”
“You make this sound fun.”
“Kids today….”
“…says the man who wants to go to space in a giant rocket.”
“HALT!”
“You shall not pass.”
“Oh, of course. Well, how shall we deal with these distractions?”
“POKE ‘EM IN THE PENIS!”
“Exac-.. wait, what?!”
“Aaaaand there goes the train.”
“You know what that means, right?”
“Is this going to be revenge for the ‘poke ’em in the penis’ comment? He’s going to ‘handle’ it? A honest to God hands-on approach? Am I going to have a stroke?”
“I don’t think you have the equipment for that.”
“I’m not sure that comment brings me any relief.”
“What does Cid have in mind? What kind of solution does the old man have for the situation with the runaway train? How does one simply chase the train?”
“Hop on. We can still catch up with them if we hurry, and I need more coal-shovelers.”
“I got this!”
*sigh* “This is the day when coal saves the world. We’ll never hear the end of this, will we?”