Chapter 29: Nice Submarine.
“Well… I only knew him as the rambling madman who lived in a pipe, but he really went places, didn’t he?”
“That’s an ominous way of putting it, yeah, but he was probably already there when Sephiroth screwed us all over.”
“And because he left Nibelheim, he never got to SALTZA!”
“What an empty life: nothing but blind worship and tube TV.”
“Well, either we will win, or Sephiroth will drop a meteor on our heads and laugh all the way to the bank.”
“Seeing Sephiroth gloating is just the most inflammatory thing ever. We have to put a wrench in his face!”
“Um… that’s in his plans.”
“Nope. I’m going to glue a wrench to both my gloves, and ram them right through his teeth.”
“Right. Well… whatever works for you.”
“If I do that, he’s going to look so stupid if he tries to smile.”
“Yyyyes, well, no need to elaborate.”
“Um… isn’t that kind of beside the point?”
“Well, you can’t really depend on SOLDIER, so this guy’s just gonna have to stop farting and get standing.”
“…..”
“Wait, where was I going with this?”
“Don’t ask me! You were the one who started the whole farting/standing dichotomy.”
“You can do both at the same time, you know?”
“And to think I meant for the farting around thing to be an expression that didn’t have anything to do with expelling gas.”
“This day, Cloud, we are all twelve year olds.”
“I’m not.”
“Sssh.”
“…..”
“Too soon?”
“Too soon.”
“And you thought this place would be more cheerful because….?”
“It’s not, but we kind of have to pass through this completely smashed children’s playground to get to the area we need to visit.”
“This better not have anything to do with putting me in a dress again.”
“Not really, but now that you mention it.”
“No!”
“But… but I didn’t get to experience the whole process, and I never got around to having Aeris tell me about it.”
“No!”
“But…. but… would you have done it again if I was captured by Don Cornholio?”
“No!”
“But…. but…..”
“No! And give it a rest already.”
“I am morbidly curious, but I’m also afraid to ask.”
“But…. but….. but…….”
“I swear, Tifa, I will slap you on the ‘but’ if you don’t stop nagging me.”
“That’s sexual harrassment, Cloud, and you can only make it up to me if you…”
“NO!”
“Boooo.”
“Item, the shop. If you buy more than one thing, you get shot.”
“Why are we here, Cloud? Are you going to buy a dress?”
“No, I’m here to buy you a clue. I hope you’ll accept it.”
“Cid, I failed to get Cloud into a dress. You better not try my patience.”
*sigh*
“Hey, if it’s that important to you, I’d put on a dress for ya.”
“As hilarious as that would be, no thanks.”
“Are you sure?”
“……OK, OK, I’ll stop nagging you about the dress. Just… stop.”
“Anyway, what did we get?”
“Premium Heart? That’s… an odd name for a pair of boxing gloves.”
“They’ve got little hearts on the punchy end. I’d prefer wrenches, though.”
“Oh, good. We’re back to that.”
“If only there were some strays around, huh? Like… that can’t be the case after the wholesale destruction we witnessed close by, right?”
“Come to think of it, do cats even exist in this world?”
*cough*
“Uh… I mean… like… more the regular house cat kind that’s… damn it, Nanaki! Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be.”
“Well, I don’t particularly want to be his cat.”
“I just… ever since we returned to this place, it’s been nothing but sad and awkward. And disappointing.”
“Oh, I’m sure Cid would put on that dress in an instant if you asked him.”
“I don’t want to see Cid in a dress.”
“And I don’t want to see myself in a dress. I guess that makes us even, huh?”
“….boooo.”
“Well, we’re done here. And this place almost looks nice from the outside. Well… the close outside, that is.”
“Well, of course. When you look at it from a distance….”
“Are you James Nguyen now?”
“Nah, our birds are better-looking.”
“I’m… respectfully going to bow out of this obvious trap.”
“So, we’re back to this place, huh?”
“The home of Mayor Johnson and the Private Parts.”
“Well, we need to head into that place to grab a huge stone.”
“Uh… yes. This is what you two can team up over, huh?”
“Well, if I can’t have what I want the most, then I’ll take what I can.”
“That being penis jokes?”
“….yes. Don’t judge me.”
“I’m not offended by this, just… confused.”
“Well, then we know what we must do.”
“Shall we blue-text it, just in case?”
“Nah, that’s a bit on the nose.”
“My nose is supposed to be cold, but I still think I’d find myself an open fire if it turns blue.”
“But we’re going for the stones, aren’t we?”
“Let’s not get completely nuts here.”
“This is going to be a long day.”
“As long as the… enhancement are in this town?”
“Let’s not lose our grip of the situation here.”
“You’re in this for the long haul, huh?”
“OK, now we’re just grasping at straws here.”
“It wasn’t exactly a fun ride. When I wasn’t a drooling vegetable, I had to rifle through some pretty embarrassing memories.”
“Uh… vegetable?”
“That’s right, kids. Remember to eat your vegetables.”
“Um… embarrassing memories?”
“That’s right, kids. Remember to eat your embarrassing memories.”
“…..”
“Wait, no, that’s not right.”
“Ya think?!”
“Um……..”
“The audience is now confused.”
“….uh…”
“And we have a super effective counter attack by Priscilla here.”
“And it’s that kind of adorably upfront honesty that makes boys equally adorably flustered too.”
“Ten gil, huh?”
“That guy is going places.”
“Jim, cautiously corrupt guard.”
“Well, it does say ‘caution’ right behind us there. Some kind of subliminal message, I guess?”
“Like… I dunno, man.”
“A huge materia? We’re working on that, Cloud. That’s why we’re here.”
“No, I mean… something deeper. Like… just below the surface.”
“A submarine?”
“No, it’s more like… something deep, like… all surrounded by darkness. The only light in the darkness.”
“The underwater base?”
“….could you please stop sabotaging my efforts at making our grand quest sound a bit more grandiose?”
“Well, excuuuuuuuuse me, Princess.”
“Lingering effects from the lifestream, I should hope.”
“Damn it, did I assemble the tour guide team instead? Shoot! Now I just feel silly.”
“So…. you sure I don’t need to bring some seriousness to this situation?”
“…no, that’s OK. All… all things considered, I’d rather you didn’t.”
“This whole place has been strange. The guard who demanded a whole ten gil to let us enter, and now this business with this Squad Tour Guide.”
“And now we have Team Death Wish.”
“Well… at least that’s somewhat normal soldier behavior.”
“Kind of weird having them being all ‘worst case scenario’ about it, though.”
“Sheesh, who would go to such lengths just for a date?”
*cough*
“Something wrong, Cloud?”
“No, nothing.”
“Hee hee.”
“Well… I actually kind of feel bad about this.”
“Why? We didn’t kill them or anything. They just ran away, crying.”
“Right in front of a girl.”
“….oh. Yeah, that would be kind of embarrassing, wouldn’t it?”
“I guess they won’t be getting anywhere with her now.”
“….oh.”
“Well… now I actually feel good about not penetrating them both with my gigantic sword.”
“Snrk.”
“Uh… I mean….”
“Well, hilarity aside, how about we have this lady take us down.”
“Uh….”
“Don’t jinx us, please. For all we know, she’s a super secret assassin who could take all of us out with nothing but a hairpin.”
“I’m… starting to realize why we found you so far from home the first time we met.”
“I’m rather surprised it took you so long to realize.”
“Well, I never expected someone of the age of 48 to be into bad pulp fiction and hankerin’ for the Big City Life.”
“I’m just full of surprises, aren’t I?”
“Are you going back to work too, doggy?”
“Doggy is at work preventing us from entering that door. And he ain’t doin’ it to impress any ladies.”
“Well, doggy ladies aren’t really known for expecting to be rescued, so I imagine he might find it a waste of time.”
“Touché.”
“Well, anyway, I don’t want to harm a good boy, so I think we’ll just leave this room be.”
“Let’s not let Shinra find out about that, however, or their bases are going to resemble dog pounds from this point forth.”
“Well… this isn’t spooky at all. Are we going to be encountering zombies or demons down here?”
“Dr. Betrüger to science labs, report to Phobos immediately. We have stray demon souls devouring the workers. It’s a Code 666. Scandal ratio is off the charts.”
“I keep trying to imagine what this Dr. Betrüger would look like, and every time, I see Dr. Hojo.”
“Me too.”
“I don’t think a Dr. Betrüger would have Hojo’s interest in… his special porn, however.”
“….true.”
“Oh, my, this is lovely.”
“Indeed. And not one terrible 3D glasses effect shark in sight.”
“This is looking up, isn’t it? Who knew Shinra would have an eye for uplifting surroundings instead of these dreary constructions that seem to suck the life out of everything around them?”
“Right! Never mind.”
“Yeah, this is more like Shinra’s style, alright.”
“Definitely Shinra, alright, down to the recycled base layouts.”
“I’m so tired of the whole ‘steam pipe’ motif, I’m starting to understand why Barret got so hung up on blowing it all to smithereens.”
“Well… ‘Guardian’ I can understand, but ‘Hard Attacker’? That’s… what’s with all the subtext?”
“Pierce them with your big sword, Cloud.”
“That was a bit below the belt, no?”
“And was that a bit subtextual or not? Only BigHuge McJohnson knows for sure.”
“Yep, those are some submarines, alright.”
“Let’s take the red one. It looks so nice.”
“Yes, it’s a nuclear submarine, but sure, let’s take the one that looks nice.”
“Well, it does. It’s like a splash of color amidst all the brown and gray. Kind of like how they put in colored light bulbs here and there to get something for a light source other than ‘clinically bleak’. I mean… I’d prefer a yellow one, given the choice, but this world probably doesn’t have the Beatles, so…”
“Or Pepperland.”
“I was wondering how you could become a senior grunt, but then I remembered that we were invading a Shinra base.”
“Yeah, with people like Scarlet, Heidegger and Hojo on the top floor… Shinra’s promotion system seems rather odd, doesn’t it?”
“You have a heart, you ain’t gettin’ anywhere, foo’.”
“They won’t even let you complete your words.”
“We will get the huge materia.”
“And then we will put the huge materia in a huge bag.”
“We’ll put it in our huge car and ride it to our huge airship.”
“…that we kinda stole from you.”
“Well, yes, but that’s beside the point.”
“The huge point.”
“Well, yes, but… stop that.”
“Hey, don’t blame me. Blame the huge asshole guards.”
“I… like… huge… BUTTS, and I cannot lie….”
“Don’t you mean a huge cut?”
“Wouldn’t that be a long cut?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t include the word ‘huge’.”
“Why does it need to?!”
“I dunno.”
“For fun?”
“I feel like I’m being led into a trap where I say something like ‘What about this is fun?’, and that resets the whole thing to the very beginning.”
“Yes, let’s get Reno some help, because lord knows he’ll need all the help he can get.”
“I’ve been itching to try out my new punching gloves. I was hoping for someone a bit more evil, but you’ll do in a pinch, Mr. ‘Job Is Everything… Except During Happy Hour’.”
“Pfft, we wouldn’t get to become the top of this food chain unless we kept up our level of charisma the way we have.”
“I don’t have time for ‘….or else’. Now, go and play somewhere else, children.”
“Oh yes, I can tell I’m going to enjoy this.”
“I am not going to enjoy this.”
“Punching a robot is no fun at all, especially when it seems to be made up of 90% limbs.”
“Awesome! I guess it’s Nanaki time, then.”
“I came to kick ass and chew off metal limbs.”
“Aw, man, I guess it’s Nanaki’s time to look all cool and stuff.”
“Ow ow ow ow ow ow!”
“….or not.”
“The heck was that? Counter attack? That’s unfair!”
“We need more counter materia.”
“Well, I guess it’s my turn to rain on Shinra’s parade, then. As well as a little reminder of what will happen if these idiots don’t stop getting in our way of putting an end to Sephiroth’s plans.”
“You just had to upstage me, didn’t you?”
“Well, I can’t punch it, so I don’t care.”
“So… did we beat it?”
“……”
“Yep, there it goes.”
“Aw, man, we shoulda turned around and walked away from the explosion. That would have been so badass.”
“…….”
“Well… red fadeout. It’d still be cool.”
“Then we swim!”
“You’re… kidding, right?”
“Yes. We take the other submarine, of course. I mean… duh!”
*sigh* “And I fell right into it.”
“The submarine?”
“No, metaphorically. Are you two trying to get on my nerves now?”
“Yes.”
“Battle trumpet? I thought Cait Sith only used megaphones.”
“The only thing missing now is a set of drums, and we’ll have… well, half a band.”
“Well, we’re going to have to make them face the music at some point anyway, so why worry about whatever’s instrumental?”
“Well, we’re still going to go all param pam pam pam on their asses.”
“……”
“Uh… that sounded vastly less homoerotic in my head.”
“I’m sure it did.”
“Oh? Are you sure? Because we’ve got Leviathan Scales and we’re not afraid to use them.”
“And failing that, we will go pam pam pam on your asses.”
“What?! Oh God, rapists! Protect your rears, everyone? The violators have appeared.”
*smirk*
“Tifa, I already realized how it sounded when you first said it, but honestly, this time you were the one to say it while standing there with balled fists.”
“……”
“Wait, please don’t tell me that’s what you intended?”
“OK, I won’t.”
“And she says that while grinning like a maniac.”
“That was the day the expression ‘watch your ass’ takes on a different kind of meaning. A literal meaning.”
“And it all started with three wise men.”
“Or two male and one female wiseass.”
“The woman even threatened to punch us in the ass.”
“What? Have they no morals?”
“She’s terrifying. You should have seen the way she smiled when she said it. She’s a remorseless killer, I tell you.”
“What? Wait a second…”
“Look at her gloves. They’ve got hearts on them, as if to hide the horror they’re being used to inflict.”
“Wow, that went in a direction I didn’t expect.”
“Sir, I… I want you to know that I always…”
“OK, JEEZ, STOP! I’m not going to violate you anally with my gloves. I mean… if you don’t surrender, we’ll beat you to death and all, but don’t make this out to be worse than it really is.”
“Uh… Tifa, that’s….”
“WE SURRENDER!”
*whew*
“And it’s all thanks to param pam pam pam.”
“Uurgh. I just wanted to tease you. Things just… kinda snowballed.”
“We have to stop them from dancing.”
“It’s them. The Param Pam Pam Pam gang.”
“WHAT?!”
“Oh no, I’ll never dance again! My ass will be permanently sore.”
“No no no no. What’s with the Shinra rumor mill? No rumor mills should work this fast.”
“I wonder if we’ll hear about this the next time we face the Turks. Or Scarlet or Heidegger.”
“Why… why is this turning out to be my worst nightmare. You were the one who started it.”
“Well, I didn’t threaten any soldiers with it once I realized how stupid and weird it sounded.”
“Alas, this is how it ends; not with a bang, but with a pam.”
“Look… can we please stop with the butt jokes now?”
“Yes, let’s put an end to this.”
“You’re… not helping.”
“They are apparently ready to put their backs into it.”
“Putting their asses on the line for Shinra.”
“Will you two please stop enjoying this?”
“Yes, ma’am! Posterior haste!”
“It shall be my inspiration to make an album.”
“……”
“These people are weird, aren’t they?”
“I’m not, I promise!”
“I shall make them prisoners of my heart.”
“I said stop!”
“Alright, alright. Fun’s over.”
“Um…..”
“They’re being weird again, aren’t they?”
“Well… as long as we live to dance another day.”
“OK, what does this button do?”
“OH GOD THAT’S THE SELF-DESTRUCT BUTTON DON’T PUSH IT!”
“Why would you even have that in the open with no security measures preventing accidental… well, self-destruction?”
“Well… Shinra.”
“That explains it.”
“Man, Barret wasted so much money on explosives when he could just have pressed buttons.”
“This is the weirdest underwater submarine base raid I’ve ever been on.”
“……”
“Well, it’s also the only underwater submarine base raid I’ve ever been on, but I’d like to see things get weirder in the future.”
“I don’t, so please refrain from jinxing us.”
“…that’s it? Just direction controls and three buttons? That’s easy!”
“Uh…. no, that’s not…”
“SPEED UP! TRIANGLE BUTTON!”
“The mines inflict great damage, it says. That’s what makes it so exciting for spelunkers, no?”
“Sounds like a ‘read the fine print’ thing.”
“Please read the fine print, Cloud. We don’t want another pam situation on our hand.”
“That would be a pain in the ass, wouldn’t it?”
“…yes. Yes, it would.”
“OH NO, ONE MORE BUTTON! WE’RE SCREWED!”
“CONCENTRATE, CLOUD! YOU CAN DO THIS!”
“I… I am afraid, commander. I don’t know where this journey will take us.”
“So am I.”
“Oh! I can see everything. Wait, isn’t that the red submarine right in front of us?”
“Seems so.”
“Well, then… FIRE ALL GUNS!”
“Erm… torpedoes.”
“OH! YES! FIRE ALL TORPEDOES!”
“What was that about mines and spelunkers and whatnot? We seem to be fighting against diamonds in Bar Graph Gorge. This is just silly.”
“Yes, but warning!”
“Get me close enough, and I’ll punch that submarine in the… uh….”
“OK, joke’s over.”
“NO! You dragged this thing out until it became unbearable, so now that it has finally become fun again, you are going to laugh with me all the way to the ass bank!”
“Maybe we can ask them if they’ll let us swim to shore.”
“From here?”
“….yes.”
“And we are done. In less than a minute at that, too. Am I good, or am I good?”
“I spent years and years in school and in the field learning to drive a submarine properly, and this asshat comes along and makes it look so easy. Where did we all go wrong?”
“Oh, it’s no problem. Just treat it like a videogame, and you can’t go wrong.”
“THAT’S WRONG! THIS IS SO WRONG! NOTHING IS RIGHT ABOUT THIS!”
“Eh, who cares? I got my huge materia, and that’s all I care about.”
“Oh hey, we got a sub. Let’s put it in our stash.”
“NO NO NO! IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT! STOP MAKING MY STRUGGLES SEEM SO STUPID BY COMPARISON!”
“Dude, just kidding. If I’m not in it, I have to leave it in a harbor with the keys still in.”
“IT DOESN’T EVEN USE KEYS! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!”
“Nah, I’m sure it’s a trap. It’s a test by the resistance to see who will answer.”
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Sarcastic Elephantastic.”
“An elephant never forgets.”
“Yes, we are fine. Everything’s OK here, submarine working at nominal… uh, effect. All the lights are blinking and all the levers are operational. And the self-destruct button has definitely not been pushed yet.”
“Oh dear lord…..”
“They’re definitely going to realize something is up here.”
“Uh… or not? Why didn’t they… that was the worst reporting back ever?!”
*siiiigh* “I was told in office school that… that effort meant nothing. I could work myself raw and I’d just be wasting my time, as the fastest way to the top was knowing whose ass to kiss. But I was gonna show ’em! I was gonna show them all how hard work trumped everything, how talent would show up anyone, and as it turned out… they were right. Most of the time, you’ll deal with someone who just caught the upper staff’s eye, or had a daddy who paid his way. And here I am, no further along, and upstaged by a little kid whose idea of controlling a submarine is like playing a game. I… I just… I quit! Oh, man, I quit. I param pam pam quit!”
“Oh, please don’t, sir. If you do, who’s gonna command us next?”
“Yeah, they’ll send some doofus around, and he’s just gonna mess everything up, and we’ll never get to do that victory dance we have developed through months of training.”
“I…. um… OK, I… I’ll stay. For you guys. You’re the best crew I ever had. I’ll endure all the idiocy for you, so you won’t have to suffer the idiocy for people who thinks downsizing is removing everyone else’s legs and giving them half pay after the fact.”
“….and you thought we were weird?”
“Well… this adds a new dimension to the whole ‘getting off’ thing.”
“Hellooo sailor.”
“Aren’t we glad we picked up the ‘Submarines for idiots’ handbook?”
“Glory to the pushbutton days.”
*sigh*
“Well, anyway, let’s actually grab that huge materia. And man, isn’t it good they took the red submarine. It’s really easy to see down here, which… kind of defeats the purpose of a submarine in the first place, right?”
“You can blame Scarlet for that. She thought it could use her touch because it was so important and stuff.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. She really was an idiot who seemed to prefer flash over sensibility.”
“Well, at least we could still refer to it as a submarine.”
“Yeah, this was before she started picking up the habit of giving things really stupid names.”
“You… kinda sounded like Barret there for a second.”
“Well, that’s mildly unsettling. But still kind of hilarious, come to think of it.”
“I thought the whole ‘I HATE EVERYTHING’ was more Dyne’s thing.”
“Well, it was, but… how did you know about Dyne? You weren’t with us at the time.”
“No, but… Barret had many stories to tell back when you and the girls were traipsing around in the ancient ruins. Many, many things.”
“Oh. Yikes! Uh… sorry about that, I guess, but we really needed Aeris for that particular part.”
“Well, anyway, we have the huge materia, so… what’s next?”
“Good question. Hmmm, let’s see….”
“Oh, I know. Let’s search the deep blue sea. Well… dark black sea, but you get my drift.”
“And here’s a sunken airplane. With loot, I’m sure.”
“So… how do we enter it?”
“We… enter it.”
“Yes, but how?! We can’t just…”
“….walk into it how the hell did you even do that?!”
“There was a door on the side of the plane. I don’t need to tell you how to operate doors, right? I know you have paws and all, but….”
“No, I mean… how did you… you can’t just open the submarine like that. You have to take into account things like water pressure and… you know, not flooding the submarine. Never mind this plane. I can maybe buy the submarine having a double-gate entrance to prevent flooding, but this plane doesn’t!”
“Now you know how I feel.”
“Heaven’s Cloud… what?!”
“Some of the weapon names in this world seem rather… odd.”
“I wonder if Scarlet named this one. In which case, brrrr, Cloud.”
“Eugh! I mean… I doubt that’s the case, but still… the image of that… eugh!”
“At least this one is kinda logical. You would find clouds in heaven, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah, but…. it’s a sword.”
“What mysteries does the depths hold? What treasures are to be found in what once belonged to man, but now the sea? Who or what could you expect to meet in the darker corners of the world, even when they are illuminated by years of neglect and leftover power?”
“You know…. here, at least, in a hard-to-find sunken plane at the bottom of the ocean; far, far away from civilization, I had hoped there would be at least one place where I wouldn’t have to deal with you meddling kids and your meddling ways and your Scooby snacks.”
“Well, we’re kind of short one stoner and his dog, so… we can’t help you there, I’m afraid.”
“Finally some fleshy things to punch. The robot was boring and the soldiers all surrendered without a fight. So, rejoice, gentlemen, because you’re about to get a large serving of Premium Heart.”
“Well… better let her work that stress off, huh? Which one of you liked her again?”
“…..”
“Wow! Sorry, man. This is really gonna hurt twice over, isn’t it?”