Chapter 31: It’s All Just Black And White, Isn’t It?
“And thar she goes, and thar she blows.”
“I’m not sure how much we can expect the rocket to… you know, blow up the meteor when we took out its main payload, though.”
“Um… oops?”
“Let’s start up a TV station and blame Shinra for that. Then they can be executed on live TV to boost morale or something. We can start with Scarlet.”
“Yikes! I know we’ve been killing footsoldiers left and right, but that seems weirdly vindictive.”
“And now I’m blind. Well, I was sitting with my face pressed to the window outside, I guess. Still… I regret nothing.”
“That was one heck of a flash, though. I wonder how people on the planet is taking all of this.”
“But more importantly, how did the meteor take a rocket to its face?”
“That… does not look good.”
“I think we just made it mad.”
“Silly Cloud. Meteors can’t be mad.”
“That’s true. Still, I kind of feel weird again, given who just pointed that out.”
“Oh, come on, guys. Don’t say that. I’ll even let you have some lard in your tea when we get back down.”
“Ew.”
“Yep. Those folks are cowering in fear. Whether it is because of meteor or my giant head staring down at them…. well, I guess I’ll never know.”
“I knew we shoulda taken some explosives with us when we went into the rocket. We could’ve exchanged it with the huge materia we took from the rocket, and maybe that would’ve made the meteor go kaboom.”
“Honestly, I should be mad at you for doing that, but putting a huge materia into a rocket and firing it at the meteor just smacks of Shinra just throwing everything at a wall and seeing what sticks. And all that just to come across as doing everything they can, when they’re really making none of the sacrifices.”
“Nope. It’s a whole new Cid.”
“Wait, what?”
“Oh, Barret, you should have seen him in that rocket. It was like a magical transformation of epic proportion.”
“Uh….”
“Yeah, he shed his cranky, old skin like a worm and spread his magical butterfly wing of childish optimism.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to even imagine that?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. Now… do you have any idea how utterly and jaw-stompingly weird it was to actually see it happen?”
“I… think I’ll put that train of thoughts aside. I think my brain will probably fry long before I can figure that out.”
“Yeah, I can see that. Yer gonna haveta forgive my stupefied look while we listen to your explanation.”
“Well, if you look at it that way….”
“I do love how you sort of describe Sephiroth as a ‘festering sickness’, though. I’ll make sure to call him that before I stab him through the chest again.”
“What do you mean ‘again’? Far as I remember, the story was that he stabbed you through the chest, and then you lifted him up by him holding on to that sword and threw him down a reactor core or something. It was so amazingly insane for a story that I don’t really remember the details.”
“Wait, you really told them that?”
“Well… yeah.”
*sigh* “One step forward, two steps back.”
“D’oh!”
“Well, at least he’s thinking about it. That’s already one step ahead of Shinra. You know… since we’re measuring in steps now and stuff.”
“Indeed. So, feel free to catch up, kids.”
“Oooooh, that’s a sick burn.”
“I know. I haven’t thrown away all of my old Cid. You never know when you might meet some whippersnappers who need to be put in their place.”
“Really? It has a mouth, hence it must scream?”
“It’s a whole new world as we know it.”
“At least it can?”
“Erm…. you can like both, you know. Like… do research on how to make machinery and science safe for the world. For people and for nature.”
“Oh. Well… um… OK, then.”
“It’s not a star, it’s a goddamn meteor. Do you think something that close is a star? If it was, we’d all basically be star fuel by now.”
“Yes, that sounds all deep and profound and stuff, but…. it doesn’t really help much on a practical level, does it?”
“You have no sense of romance.”
“Yes, Cloud. You have no sense of romance.”
“Weren’t you the one who said romance was all about timing? Well… NOW IS NOT A GOOD TIME!”
“Let’s have a brainstorming session. We need Yuffie, Cait Sith and… um Cid and Barret.”
“Well… with our powers combined. At least they can’t take anything away from our efforts.”
“I think it was a bit before my time.”
“Uh… you’re not that much younger than me.”
“Well, I didn’t get invited to the big Ancient Lands Excavation Tour, so there.”
“Neither did Cait Sith or Barret, so…. why did we have them brought up here again?”
“Um…. wasn’t me.”
“So, was there a point to all of this?”
“The heck are you talking about?”
“Well, you had to be there.”
“NOPE! I was there, and I’m wondering what the hell you are talking about.”
“I’m reaching deep inside my heart. Shaddup!”
“Yes.”
“Really? Aw.”
“Nah, just yanking your crank. Honestly, if we can’t bring up the memory from that time, then we’re just gonna have to go there, don’t we?”
“EUREKA! Of course, that was the answer all along: We didn’t know.”
“Oh wow, I see the light.”
“That’s right! We just didn’t know. It’s all so clear now.”
“But if we didn’t know, that leaves us with one option: we must find out.”
“Um… go there? Like… right now? You have an airship, right?”
“Well, we kind of thought you preferred staying in your planet room and staring at people from above.”
“Oh, I do, but not all the time.”
“What? Did something happen?”
“I.. was checking in on Shinra and… there… there was Hojo, and he was…. he was….”
“OK THANK YOU NO NEED TO ELABORATE!”
“C’mon, grandpa Bugen. Let’s go on a relaxing journey. That’ll make you feel better, I’m sure.”
“And we got our second old person acting like a giddy child.”
“I wonder if Barret will become affected by this eventually too.”
“I don’t know if I find that an appealing thought or a scary one.”
“Well, just try to imagine them as the three happy stooges.”
“…..I still don’t know whether I find that fun or scary.”
“I’m sure Shinra will never look for it up there.”
“Well, if they didn’t mind us going around grabbing all this battle materia up until now, I’m sure they won’t mind us having all the huge ones either.”
“I cannot fault your logic, young man. You speak well.”
“Um… what?”
“You know, the soul in the materia.”
“Ah, yes. And the lifestream is alive. And stuff.”
“Bahamut Zero? Does it divide us to infinity as an attack? And how does something glow in a cold way? When something glows, doesn’t that mean it expels energy, hence it should heat up?”
“Well, look at you being all scienc-y and stuff. I can tell that you are a lot of fun at parties.”
“Well, of course. I have a giant sword. I’m a quite valued member of the party.”
“D’oh! Foiled by semantics.”
“Um… well, weird smells are usually a bad sign when it comes to machinery, but I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
“Oh, don’t worry. This is all very new to me, so I’m going to react to all the smells, even the normal ones.”
“Well… why don’t you just go to the bridge and press your face against window for a while?”
“Okeydokey.”
“That’s…. actually a pretty interesting thought there, Yuffie. Granted, Shinra’s mostly been the ones to create actual battle materia, but there have been completely natural battle materia fountains here and there too.”
“Yeah. I know I gave my father crap because he didn’t want to fight, but really, it must be terrible to have to fight all the time.”
“Yes, we should only fight sometimes.”
“Erm… you did apologize. And if she pet you on the nose, I think it’s safe to say she harbored no hard feelings even if you didn’t.”
“Or maybe treating you like a child was her vengeance.”
“Augh!”
“Hey, knock it off. SOLDIER taught me that there was no better way to go than to die in battle.”
“Whoa! Calm down, Spartan. We’re in Sensible Town now. Heck, even the Spartans would say ‘come back with your shield or on it’ instead of just ‘come back on your shield’.”
“Well, this just got really weird. Do you have anything to add, Cid?”
“……”
“Um…..”
“Glorious death it is.”
“I knew you’d see it my way.”
“Computer says nooooooo…”
“Well… we’re here. Again.”
“And the place hasn’t gotten any livelier since the last time we were here.”
“Well… of course not. I don’t think this place has seen as much action for thousands of years outside of when Sephiroth decided to drop in on…. uh, wow, unfortunate choice of words there.”
“….yes.”
“Oh, you’ve been here before?”
“Nah, I scoped out the area on my super planet projector hologram.”
“Yes, of course we have airships and this level of technology. Good thing we’ve moved on from coal energy, I guess. Things run so much better on the blood of the planet. Anyway….”
“Let’s see… OK, it’s plugged in, but I’m not getting a signal. Let’s try restarting the modem.”
“Grandpa Bugen?”
“ONE SEC! OK, so… that didn’t work, but the modem seems OK. Maybe I need to open some ports in the waterwall. Agh, this graphical interface makes no sense.”
“Is it fixed?”
“Hold on to your chocobos! OK, so… uh, connecting to pylons. Bridging the memory gap. Executing the parameters.”
“Um….”
“OK, I’ve tried everything, except…”
“Except?”
“Well, it’s a last resort, and one I hoped I wouldn’t need to rely on, but…. we have no choice. I need to… reverse this thing’s polarity.”
“…right. Well, we’ll leave you to it, then.”
*gasp* “The planet is in a crisis?! Why, I would never have known that… IF NOT FOR THE HUMONGOUS METEOR THAT’S HANGING OVER THE PLANET, GLOWING AN OMINOUS RED!”
“I never thought the ancients were huge fans of sarcasm. You learn something new every day.”
“Does it end with ‘great job ruining it, assholes’?”
“….no.”
“Oh.”
“…why do you sound so disappointed?”
“Did… did you almost say holy sh-.”
“NO! Pay attention. I was talking about the magic spell Holy.”
“Sh-”
“DON’T…. say it.”
“But… but everything will disappear.”
“Well, I think we should put it to a vote.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think you’d lose against the trees and the plants, even if Shinra has done its best to even the odds there.”
“Oh, snap, son.”
“Get the white materia, drug the planet to like us. Problem solved.”
“Well…. yes, but that was an offputting way to…. put it.”
“Now, now. Let’s be optimistic here.”
“Oh? Well, then…”
“Yes, you make your wish to the planet, it’ll laugh at you, and then the end comes.”
“Aw, man!”
“It says ‘don’t any of you assholes know how to swim’?”
“Swim? Yeah, I know how to swim. Swam the lifestream, bitches! And I survived it too.”
“Mostly intact.”
“Well, then, please explain to me where this ‘Greek’ is? What’s the name of the country where everyone who speaks ‘Greek’ lives.”
“Um… Spain?”
“LET’S ALL GO CHECK THE MAGIC EARTH BALL!”
“That’ll cost ya.”
“It was his last interpretation.”
“Analyzing language to the end.”
“That’s the way I wanna go.”
“Y-… really?”
“Nah, just kidding. I think I’ll follow in my father’s footsteps.”
“…that turned awkward right out of the blue.”
“Well, we found this ridiculous item while diving underwater in our submarines. It used to be bigger than the submarine itself, but let me just dig it out of my pocket, and we can use it to… do whatever.”
“This’ll be good.”
“What will be?”
“HRRRGLBRBLLBRBLRBL!”
“Ohoho, I wish I could see your faces. Oh, the ancients were such kidders.”
“…..”
“Oh, come on. Crack a smile now.”
“Well, we’re all soaked now.”
“Liquid-based television programming. I bet you wish you had something like that in your planet hologram room.”
“Nah, that’s old hat.”
“Well… yeah, maybe, but it’s still amazing to hear you say that. Then again, you’re kind of all over the place.”
“Which, given that you’ve been cooped up in your room since the day we met you, sounds like kind of a weird thing to say.”
“Because you’ve been part of his entire life for so long that you have that perspective?”
“Well, of course. I mean… it’s not like most of my life has been a lie or anything.”
“…well, I can already tell this will be a very enjoyable watch.”
“At least they’re getting straight to the… uh, point.”
“…….”
“I didn’t do that on purpose, I promise.”
“I never thought I’d be happy about cropping in a video, but now…..”
“Jeez, how did Sephiroth miss that?! But more importantly, how did we not see it?”
“I’m guessing Sephiroth was too busy gloating, and as for us…. well, I think we can be excused. We were…. a bit upset at the time.”
“Meaning if she hadn’t prepared Holy for us, we couldn’t have stopped him. So… she was right, I guess?”
“Aeris, kill-stealer.”
“Even though you got all weird before you suddenly disappeared, and I really shoulda seen that coming.”
“Um… she can’t hear you.”
“Ssssh. Don’t ruin our tender moment.”
“So…. Holy isn’t getting through because someone is plugging up the planet.”
“Oh dear lord….”
“Don’t say it.”
“Sephiroth, planet buttplug.”
“AAAAAAARGH!”
“Well, that makes two of us; I didn’t expect you to be here.”
“But I was on the ship too.”
“Well, you are considerably brainier than Barret and Cid.”
“Well, neither of them are rocket scientists.”
“….”
“Wait, Cid is one, isn’t he?”
“Well, I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t been to space with the guy.”
“I’m not sure I would have believed it even if I had.”
“Uh… aheh. Yeah, about that…”
“Yeah, I know you took the materia. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter. It was a dumb and fruitless attempt, but that’s not the problem at hand right now.”
“Wait, they seriously didn’t….”
“Yep. They sure did.”
“When we started out our long journey, we found ourselves in maybe one of the most depressingly dark and grotesque cities imaginable; a beacon of everything that is wrong with big city life. But trust Shinra to make things even worse.”
“Alrighty, the Sister Ray mk2 is ready to phallic the heck out of this sprawling metropolis of the future. For the glory of my amazing naming talents.”
“Gwa ha ha ha ha ha ha.”
“….I need to get a new crew.”