Chapter 32: Big City vs Giant Monster II – The Day the City Fought Back.
“Since when?!”
“Since I decided on it, of course.”
“OK, fair enough, but it’s missing one important step in that decision process: INFORMING THE PERSON IN QUESTION!”
“I expected you to be a bit more proactive than that, Reeves. You disappoint me.”
“I just… do you… how do you….”
“And this is why Heidegger ranks higher than you.”
“Well, much egg in face for me for trying to handle this with some amount of intelligence.”
“Yes. Yes, I… I feel good about my decisions.”
“And you should, Mr. President. We got all this well in hand.”
“We go ahead, full power. Like always.”
“…….”
“Go Go Team Proactive.”
“….oh God…”
“Wasn’t it already called the Sister Ray, though?”
“Yep. Just reminding you all.”
“Well, keep up the good work.”
“Right. Back to the ship asap. We gotta do something about this before…”
“What?!”
“What what?”
“What?”
“That!”
“…someone ought to tell that Weapon… thing… that the ‘big shoulders’ look is out.”
“Yes. It’s important to have priorities.”
“But we’re back on the ship. That is the most important part.”
“But what are we supposed to take from all of this?”
“That the power was inside of us, all along.”
“We needed power converter plugs, but the stores were all out.”
“Seriously?”
“Nah, just kidding. It’s just that the gun is so huge that we had to plug it straight into our power facilities. All of them.”
“Well, it is a big gun.”
“Yep!”
“Here it comes.”
“I was starting to wonder why it took so long.”
“I feel like I’m on a ship of lunatics.”
“…wow, did he just…”
“Yep. He just made the ‘you gotta crack some eggs to make an omelet’ line. More or less.”
“Our heroes.”
“You’re a part of that group, you know.”
“Aw, poopie.”
“Well… actually, I can. I can quit, I guess.”
“And if you do that, you leave all the reigns to Rufus, Scarlet and Heidegger.”
“Good point. I guess I can’t really quit, can I?”
“We’d prefer it if you didn’t, to be honest. You wouldn’t want Barret to have to get back into action, right?”
“H-hey!”
“Thank you for the dilemma of the goddamned century. I stick to my job, and I have to deal with not having Rufus, Scarlet and Heidegger screw things up too much. And if I quit, Barret returns to blow up more stuff. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.”
“You’re welcome.”
“None of this is welcome news, though.”
“Of course we can win. I mean… since when did size matter?”
“That’s what he said.”
“I have… many feelings on the subject, some of which even occurred to me before the ‘that’s what he said’ line.”
“You know, that might be a good idea, especially since the Highwind doesn’t have any weapons! Besides, since when did we drive the ship? You were the one who trained the pilot.”
“Oh. Right. My bad.”
“What is this? A parade?”
“Weapon has a biker vanguard. I… have no words.”
“It’s the weirdest honor parade ever.”
“OK, so…. this might take a while.”
“Yep.”
“I think we might need to head off to the left. It’s veering off course just a little bit.”
“We got time. Say… did anyone bring a deck of cards?”
“Oh, poopie. Well, time to put away the cards. It’s fighting time… in a few minutes.”
*sigh* “Damn queue.”
“There we go. Finally, jeez.”
“Hey, Diamond Weapon. What took you so long?”
“And why do you call yourself ‘Diamond Weapon’?”
“Oh.”
“You fiend. How dare you attack us with lens flare?”
“Yeah. Regular Flare would have been enough.”
“Uh… no. Please, no.”
“Well, I know just what to unleash on this weapon here.”
“Uh….”
“What the hell is that even….?”
“It’s Typhon.”
“De Leon?”
“We should be so lucky.”
“Well… what does it do?”
“Typhon is the master of the ass blaster.”
“Heh. That’s a funny joke, Nanaki.”
“….oh.”
“If its ass has a face, does the assblast count as a fart or a belch?”
“….uh…”
“These are the questions that keep me up at night.”
“I love you!”
“OK, the next step… let’s throw in some regular Bahamut.”
“Didn’t we just get a Bamamut Zero? Why not use that?”
“Whoa, now. Let’s not get too crazy.”
“RIDE THE COMET, CLOUD!”
“WHOOOO! UNLEASH LASER SPEWING SAURON’S EYE, NANAKI!”
“OH YEAH!”
“Yeah, Cloud. Let’s not get too crazy, here.”
“It’s still standing? Man, I’m going to have to unleash the ‘slash-all’ on this one.”
“Um… Weapon is one being. What good do you think ‘slash-all’ is going to do?”
“Yep. One attack, and I’ll nail both Weapon and its shoulders.”
“Right. Of course.”
“Alrighty, I think it’s had enough.”
“Uh…. OK? So… what was the point of us fighting that thing at all?”
“I dunno. I just felt like we couldn’t progress unless we did.”
“Wow, that doesn’t make one bit of sense.”
“It’s sensing mur-… Cloud, we just tried to kill it!”
“Yes.”
“And… well, just look at the size of that thing. How could we even hope to hurt it?”
“I guess we couldn’t?”
“Not even with Belchie Assblaster or Cloud the Comet-surfing Crazypantsman?”
“At this point, we better hope that Diamond Weapon doesn’t know how to use the assblaster.”
“Um… we’ve already established that they put the big gun on Midgar, and we also know that Diamond Weapon is pretty large because we basically fought it!” So…. please tell me, oh wise and compassionate one, what is this ‘REALLY BIG’S’ that’s coming’?”
“Meteor, duh!”
“BUT OF COURSE!”
“Excellent decision, sir.”
“Yes…. yes, I must… fire them. Preferably through the cannon we just installed.”
“Um… let’s not do that.”
“Open all the ports for full power attack!”
“What are you doing? You’re wasting all that energy by just throwing it up in the air?! Focus, you idiots. Redirect all of it into the firing core. Christ, do I have to do everything?!”
“There we go. If the pre-shot energy build doesn’t look like it’s tearing a hole in time and space, you aren’t doing it right.”
“So cool!”
“Well, it was obvious, wasn’t it? I mean… it was headed straight for the city and all, so why are we even surprised?”
“Well, when you put it like that, it’s almost like all of this nonsense with the city cannon and Diamond Weapon was a huge waste of time.”
“Remind me again; why didn’t we just go into Midgar and get Marlene out of there?”
“That’s all well and fine for you, I guess, but let me remind you… I’m also really in Midgar. And you know what? I could just leave if I wanted to. Nobody would stop me from doing that, but I can’t do that! And do you know why?”
“I dunno. Does it have something to do with the giant laser coming out from the city?”
“Uh… no, not directly.”
“I hate to admit it, but that’s… actually a pretty good plan of action.”
“Although that just makes me wonder why Diamond Weapon here is aiming for the city when ol’ Sephy is in the opposite direction, and clearly the planet’s biggest threat.”
“Pfft. I can do that too.”
“I’m not going to ask you where you were planning on shooting that from.”
“From my a-”
“DON’T!”
“OK, I want that second message guy fired. I don’t tolerate no bad news when I’m in the boss seat.”
“Sir, you really, really should stop doing that. Especially when they’re just doing their job.”
“Welp, they ded.”
“Ah-yup.”
“Oh, so this time it’s OK to be a casual jerk about this?”
“Well, sure. It’s Shinra.”
“I… don’t think you can pat yourself too hard on the back about that, Barry.”
“Also, how did… how did you advertize yourself? ‘Wanna blow stuff up and maybe kill a lot of people? JOIN AVALANCE TODAY! No, seriously, I wanna boss people around, so don’t stand around. Sign up right now!’ ”
“What?! I never told no sucka I wanted to be in charge of them like that.”
“Some words were left unspoken, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“…..”
“Wait, no, I meant….”
“Oh, she’s still your ‘beloved woman’, huh? Despite the fact that she was a scientist, she had the brain of a goddamned turnip.”
“HEY! Also, turnips don’t have brains.”
“Exactly.”
“HEY!”
“HEY! HOW ARE YOU?!”
“I’M IN A DARK PLACE!”
“EVERYTHING AS USUAL, THEN?!”
“AH-YUP!”
“….that was new.”
“No more crashing into flying gigantic weapons of war. Got it!”
“Great.”
*urp*
“Wait, what was that?”
“Funny you should ask.”
“Well, at least it’s just hanging there now.”
“THIS IS… THE FINAL BATTLE!”
“Oh, this is the Ultimate Weapon.”
“Well, I have the ultimate attack for that.”
“Hm. Dolphin Blow or Meteor Strike. Which one sounds more badass, I wonder?”
“They call her Flipper, Flipper, punches of liiiightning. Kicks that are friiiightening, and boobs that are laaa-”
“HEY! Also, since when did you start caring about human boobs anyway?”
“Um… it’s leaving.”
“Good. Just… tell him not to ram into giant…. anything, please.”
*sigh* “Fine.”
“Are you trying to say you don’t care about the President?”
“Yeah. I mean… weren’t you talking to him just before the big explosion?”
“Well, yes, but… I kinda left the room in a hurry before he decided to have me killed for talking back to him.”
“Erm… I guess that makes sense?”
“Wait, it’s got a three hour reload time? How is that in any way helpful if you miss your first shot?”
“Well, first you pick really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really….”
“…….”
“….really slow targets.”
“But how is it already ready to fire again, then? Don’t we have to… you know, get more energy ready to fire?”
“And I can’t really do anything about you being slow on the uptake. Someone is in the mainframe, they are taking control of the cannon and possibly dooming us all here, and we need to find out who.”
“Yeah, but you don’t get to give me orders, so we’re not going to.”
“Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”
“Oh, Dr. Hojo. Of course. That explains everything.”
“Hey, why are you contacting the mainframe yourself? I did not authorize it.”
“I know you’re right about this, but I can’t allow you to upstage us.”
“I’ll take us all to our doom if I have to, if I can only get some answers… before I die.”
“…..”
“Boy, even I’m conflicted now.”
“Who’s the smartypants now?”
“Reeve is.”
“Reeve.”
“Reeve, definitely.”
“Reeve, by a solid margin.”
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you from MY OWN PERSONAL DARKNESS!”
“Oh, come on. How can Reeve be smart when he’s now captured.”
“Yes. By STUPID PEOPLE!”
“Um… didn’t I just establish that I can’t because Hojo took complete control, and Heidegger and Scarlet are being… big surprise; A BUNCH OF MORONS ABOUT IT!”
“And I just told you why.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
OK, then.”
“I feel stupider from having watched this.”
“Tell me about it.”
“……”
“And by that, I mean don’t really tell me about it. It’s just an expression and stuff.”
“I know, Cid. I know.”
“Uh… yeah, that’s an ominous sentence-starter.”
“You know, that explosion you caused that killed a lot of people? This will be… a pretty big omelet, if you catch my drift. Like… city-wide big, not just a single-plate one.”
“Well, what’s the downside?”
“So many people will die.”
“Yes, but what’s the downside?”
*sigh* “…including your daughter.”
“OH NO, WE NEED TO STOP THIS ASAP!”
“Private matter? I’ll show you private matter.”
“Now, enjoy me showing you from your jail cell.”
“The prison cells don’t have any windows, you stupid asshole.”
“Not my problem.”
*siiiiiigh*
“Oh, so now we’re back to this. Don’t we have more important things to do?”
“Damn it! Pilot, could you please stop headbutting the flying demon with the ship?”
“Most depressing place on the planet in sight.”
“And you know what that means, right?”
“To get shot down by the giant cannon with the three-hour reload time?”
“Well… it is going to fire soon, but not at us, because since when did Hojo care about consequences other than the ones he done?”
“Parachutes are cool!”
“Um….”
“Yeah, I’m sure Yuffie will just love that. She’s taken so well to this ship, after all.”
“We’re doing WHAT?!”
“See?”
“Guys, do we really have to do this?”
“Well, you can stay on the ship if you want to.”
“Urgh! If there ever was a ‘damned if I do, damned if I don’t’ situation…..”
“GERONIMOOOOOOOO!”
“PONTIAAAAAAAAAC!”
“CRAZY HOOOOOOOOOORSE!”
“Kids today….”
“WHY DID I THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEEEEAAAAAAA?!”
“Don’t worry. It’ll all be over soon.”
“You… Did you learn your comforting skills from
“When you have to save the world, sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and hope things work out for the best. Because what else are you going to find at the end of the rainbow if not a pot of gold?”
“Boy, skydiving is awesome and all, but the view could have been so much better.”
“Why don’t I improve it by throwing up all over it?”
“Sure, go hog wild.”
“Wow, really?” *urp*
“Yeah, Cloud. Really?”
“Why not? It’s not like we’re coming back here again or anything.”
“You mean aside from right now?!”
“Well, sure. I mean… don’t vomit on the landing spot, Yuffie. That’s all I ask.”
“Can’t make any promises, but…. HERE GOES!”