I managed to convince Cloud to take us with him as far as the island of Wutai, where he was headed. He dropped us off on the shore of the island and then headed off with his own gang. I was beginning to irrationally dislike him and the rest of the AVALANCHE, but we were stuck on the same side at the moment.
"So what's the plan?" Hart asked.
I considered this for a while. Wutai had been kicked around pretty badly by Shinra in the past. Perhaps it was time to settle the score -- or, that is, surreptitiously help the city to settle the score. "Let's go have a look around in town."
We set off to the north, following a winding trail up and down mountains and across a number of rope bridges. We were on one of those such bridges when Johnny, who was in the lead, stopped. "Do you hear something?" he asked.
I stopped and listened. A scraping noise from behind was growing louder quite rapidly. I turned just in time to see a street luge bearing down on me. "DO THE DEW!" its rider screamed in my face as the luge bore down on me and knocked me to the side. I suddenly realized I was in fact not standing on anything at the moment. When in a situation like this, it is usually best to grab onto something reasonably solid. I heeded this logic and grabbed onto the nearest solid thing -- the rope that held up the bridge. This succeeded only in causing the entire bridge to sway violently to one side, dumping the rest of our party (those that had not already been knocked off by the luge, that is) off.
We landed in a heap at the foot of the mountains. "Ouch," Mukki said succinctly.
A quick look around our landing site revealed a cave in the side of one of the mountains. We decided to take a look inside. Johnny shone a flashlight around, illuminating a wooden door at the end of a rectangular passage. Johnny cracked open the door and poked his head and flashlight through.
The flashlight was completely unnecessary. Johnny was peering onto the set on a game show. He quickly motioned for us to join him. Three unknown Wutaiians were standing behind booths, and at the rear of the set was none other than Yuffie Kisaragi. What attracted my attention, however, was the giant neon sign proclaiming the name of the show: "WIN MAYOR DOMINO'S MONEY!!"
"Hey!" I shouted, running onto the set. "What are you doing?"
Yuffie looked up at me, stared at me for a while, and then realized who I was. "Oh no!" she cried. She scooped up the prizes stashed behind the set and fled from the cave. The three contestants, after several confused glances around, decided to follow her and were joined by the studio audience.
"Win Mayor Domino's money? This is a joke, right?" I said nervously.
"She took my Materia too," Butch mumbled.
We ran through the cave after Yuffie, following a series of winding tunnels. Fortunately, there only seemed to be one path through the catacombs. We turned a curve and suddenly found ourselves bathed in daylight. I skidded to a halt as I realized I was standing precariously on one of the many hands of the Da-chao Statue.
"Hey, we're in Wutai," Mukki said. That comment was rather obvious, so I chose to ignore it.
I looked down over the Da-chao Statue. "We can get down from here, right?" I asked.
"I think so," Hart replied.
"Hold on," Fred said. "I've got a funny idea." He reached into his pocket, produced a piece of Kleenex, proceeded across the arms of the statue to underneath one of the heads, and quite calmly stuffed the Kleenex up the left nostril. Chuckling, he walked back to join our group.
"That's touching," I said. "Congratulations, Fred, you've just defaced a prominent religious monument."
"I try my best," Fred said.
We descended the Da-chao Statue to the town proper. The first thing I did upon arriving in Wutai was to run to the nearest ChocoMart and check my ATM card. Just as I feared, there was no money left on the card. "Lovely," I said under my breath.
I then went to join the rest of the gang at the famous Turtle's Paradise. As soon as I stepped into the bar, however, I knew something was wrong. The Turks' theme music was playing. I quickly scanned the bar. Elena, Rude, and Reno were seated at one of the tables, drinking.
This called for action. I dug into my pocket, grabbed a quarter, tossed it into the jukebox, and hit the button to play the Chocobo theme. The Turks vanished and were replaced with some rather confused-looking Chocobos.
"That was clever," a voice behind me said.
I knew it was somebody important, because voices behind people always are significant characters. So I turned. It was Tseng.
"Yo, Tseng," I greeted him. "You're back, I see. What've you been up to? And were the rest of the Turks doing out here in Wutai?"
"The rest of the Turks?" Tseng repeated. "I don't have the slighest idea. They're on vacation... maybe they decided to come out here. As for me, I'm hunting down Don Corneo. He's been leaking out Shinra secrets. So I've been sent here to find and kill him."
"But you're going to get the secrets from him instead," I surmised.
"That was sort of the idea," Tseng said. "Although I don't have a problem with killing the guy afterwards. The fewer the people that know what we're up to, the better. Corneo's a twerp anyway."
I gathered up the rest of the gang, introduced Tseng to Fred Coates, and then we followed Tseng to the north end of town, where there was a large bell. Tseng rang the bell and a door opened in the side of the bell platform. "This is Corneo's hideout," Tseng said.
We descended into the hideout with Tseng in the lead. "All right, Corneo, come out with your hands up!" Tseng shouted.
Nobody paid much attention to us. AVALANCHE was in the process of beating up Corneo's flunkies. Corneo himself was nowhere to be seen. "Sorry, Domino, we beat you to it," Tifa said.
"I keep telling you, Corneo ain't here!" one of the flunkies said before Cid bludgeoned him into unconsciousness with the flat of his halberd.
"Yeah, leave us alone," another flunky said.
"Shut up!" Aerith said, poking him with her rod. "What have you done with Cloud?"
"Never heard of 'im," the flunky said. "All we know is that when we got in here, the furniture was knocked over and the boss was gone."
"Hey, you guys," Hart said to AVALANCHE. "I don't think these guys know what's going on, so maybe you should leave them alone."
AVALANCHE reluctantly lowered their weapons. "Thanks, man," the only conscious flunky said to Hart.
"If you're not responsible, perhaps you could enlighten us as to what is happening," Red XIII said calmly from the rear of AVALANCHE's party.
"Huh?"
"What's going on?" Vincent summarized.
"Larry and I, we was down at the store picking up some Pop-Tarts for the boss, and when we got back, the boss was missing and his chair'd been kicked over. We went to look for him when you guys barged in here and started beatin' the crap out of us. Not fair, it was."
"Well, all we know is that we heard the Don was hiding in this town and then fifteen minutes later, Cloud disappears," Tifa said.
"Maybe whoever's responsible for Cloud's disapperance is also connected to Corneo's, did you ever think of that?" Tseng said.
"Shut up, foo'," Barret said. "That's impossible."
"Why?" Tseng persisted.
"'Cause I said so."
"Oooh, that's a great reason," I said.
"But we don't know anybody in Wutai," Tifa said. "Besides Yuffie, that is."
There was a slight pause. "Yuffie," we all said simultaneously.
"C'mon, let's go find her," Mukki urged. Our party hurried out of Corneo's lair. AVALANCHE lingered behind, probably to victimize the last flunky.
"Okay, guys, Yuffie's probably somewhere in town," Johnny said. "We should split up and find her. I'll check the Turtle's Paradise. Butch, you check the Pagoda."
"But they won't let anybody in there," Butch protested.
"Be creative," Johnny said. "You could climb up the side with plungers or something."
"Hey, that's a good idea."
"I'll take the Da-chao Statue," Fred offered.
"Yeah, you just want to stick more Kleenex up its nose," Johnny said.
"The statue's pretty big," I said. "I'll go with you."
"Hart, Tseng, you take the houses," Johnny said. "Mukki, you get the stores."
We each hurried off to our designated location. Coates and I scaled the Da-chao Statue. "I don't see her," I said, looking down on the statue from the highest head.
"She could be hiding," Fred said. "Let's hide and see if she comes by."
"Like where?" As soon as I asked the question, I knew it was a mistake.
"How about in the nose?"
At Fred's insistence, we climbed out on one of the faces of the statue and crawled into the statue's right nostril -- the left nostril still had Kleenex stuck in it. "Fred, it's pitch black in here," I said. "We're not going to be able to see a thing."
I started to climb back out, but I realized that I had no way of seeing what was down there and thus no way of knowing where to step. I was just as likely to step out onto nothing as onto solid footing. After the incident on the bridge to Wutai, I didn't want to repeat that.
We had no choice but to wait in the statue's nostril and hope we were rescued soon. The rest of the group did know where we were, so maybe they'd come and find us when we didn't show up.
"Whose stupid idea was this anyway?" Fred asked.
"I won't mention any names."
We heard footsteps outside on the statue and some scrabbling on rock, but we had no idea what was going on. That was, we had no idea until we heard Tifa declare, "All right, Yuffie! Give it up! Let Cloud go!"
Something was definitely going on out there. "Fred, I'm going to try to see what's happening. Grab my feet." With Fred holding onto my feet, I managed to inch forward and poke my head out of the Da-chao Statue's nostril.
Below us, Cloud and Don Corneo were tied to the statue, hanging upside down. On the statue's palm, across from them, was Yuffie. Yuffie was being confronted by an angry AVALANCHE.
"I didn't do anything!" Yuffie protested.
"Oh, sure," Aerith said. "Cloud just climbed out there and tied himself to the statue, huh?"
"Right," Yuffie said. "No, I know, it was all because of El Nino. Yeah, that's right -- El Nino."
"Don't listen to her!" Cloud said.
Aerith turned to him. "Are you okay out there, Cloud?"
"I think so," Cloud said. "All the blood's running to my head, though."
"Shut up!" Tifa said to Aerith while Cloud was talking. "That's my line!"
"Well, then how come you didn't say it, chump?"
"I couldn't see anything through all that hair of yours!"
"Oh yeah? Well, take this!" Aerith smacked Tifa with her rod.
"Oh, so you want to fight, huh?" Tifa grabbed Aerith's arm and twisted it behind her back.
"Hey, hey, break it up," Barret said as the conflict quickly escalated.
"I don't mean to interrupt, but Fred and I are stuck up in the nostril here," I said. Nobody paid me any attention.
"All right, let's settle this the old-fashioned way," Yuffie said. "Draw your weapons!"
"No can do," Cid said. "I'm terrible at art."
I suddenly heard the click of a gun being loaded and looked around. Then I saw that Corneo was pointing a gun at Yuffie. "Let me go now, you stupid brat," he said.
"Corneo!" Cid said. "@#$%$! I forgot about him!"
This called for action. "Geronimo!" I cried, shaking loose of Fred's grip and diving from the nostril. As I fell, I swung my hand and knocked the gun out of Corneo's hand. It was a perfect move. Now there was the only the problem of my falling to deal with.
I flailed my legs to try to find something to stand on and meanwhile seized Cloud's left arm. Cloud (who was still hanging upside down) reached down with his other arm and grabbed my left arm. I was now hanging right side up, being held by an upside-down Cloud, who was tied to the Da-chao Statue. This was a slight improvement over falling, but not much.
"Tortellini!" Tseng's familiar voice shouted up from below. "Don't worry, we've got you covered!"
I risked a glance down. At the bottom of the statue were Tseng and Hart, who were holding a large mattress. This made me feel slightly better, but that was offset by the experience of looking down all the way to the ground. I lost my lunch. Luckily I missed Tseng and Hart.
"Uh, I could untie you, and then we could fall down on the mattress," I offered to Cloud.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Cloud asked.
"It's no problem!" Fred shouted from up in the nostril. "Watch!" He crawled forward out of the nostril and slid feetfirst into the air. After a long fall, he landed on the mattress and bounced off, unharmed.
"What about Corneo?" I shouted down to them.
"We'll make a conscious effort to avoid catching him," Hart replied. "A tragic accident, you understand."
"Ha!" Corneo said. "You'll never get me! RAPPS!" At his call, a large blue wyvern-type creature swooped down. AVALANCHE rushed to fight it.
Corneo himself reached over and hit Cloud hard on the arm. "Domino, do something!" Cloud shouted. "If he keeps hitting me I'm not sure I can hold on!"
With a mischievous grin, I reached over and gave Corneo a wedgie. With him hanging upside down, it was able to give him an extra-good one too. "Why do you think I just did that to you?" I asked him. "1. Because I'm ready to die. 2. Because I'm sure of victory. 3. Because I'm clueless."
"Two... number two?" Corneo guessed.
"Nope, it's number four, because you suck," I replied. With an extravagant gesture I pulled loose the rope tying him to the statue. He instantly plummeted towards the ground. As they had promised, Hart and Tseng made a conscious effort to avoid catching him. They were quite succesful.
"Okay, now let me go," Cloud said.
With one hand (the other hand holding tight to Cloud's), I pulled out the rope binding Cloud. We fell down to the ground, where Hart and Tseng caught us on the mattress. Meanwhile, having defeated Corneo's Rapps monster, AVALANCHE descended from the statue.
Cloud stumbled off the mattress, a little dazed. "Are you okay?" Yuffie asked. "Do you need mouth-to-mouth or something?"
"NO!" Cloud said quickly. "No, uh, I'm fine, thanks."
"You sure?" Tifa asked. "You look a little woozy."
"Well, now that you mention it..."
Yuffie was attempting to slink away, but Cid stopped her. "Where's our Materia, you little @#$*($%?" he said.
"Yeah, and my money," I added.
Yuffie looked around and saw she had no chance of escape. She sat down to think. "Well," she eventually concluded. "You guys did save me from that Corneo guy. I guess it would be fair to help you out a little. Besides, I know how much you guys need my help."
"Why are you thanking AVALANCHE?" Fred demanded. "We're the ones who did all the work. They just stood there and acted tough." Fred had picked up the gist of the situation quickly, I noted.
"Oh, you were very heroic," Yuffie said, and kissed Fred on the cheek.
Fred screamed, held his cheek, and fell to the ground, where he lay writhing in the dirt. "Quick!" Hart shouted. "Get some disinfectant! Call an ambulance! This is an emergency!"
I ran to the phone and dialed 911. "Help! We need an ambulance at the Da-chao Statue, now! My friend's been kissed by Yuffie!"
"I hope we won't have to amputate his cheek," Hart said.
"Awww, you guys are so mean," Yuffie pouted.
After the ambulance had carted Fred off, we got down to the business of getting our Materia back. Yuffie had returned all the stolen Materia and money to AVALANCHE in a big heap, and none one of us could sort them all out to their original owners.
"How about we divide it half-and-half at random?" Mukki suggested. Mukki and Johnny had turned up around the time Fred was being taken to the hospital.
"No way," Cloud said. "We had a lot more Materia than you did."
"Out of the goodness of your heart, can't you see it fit to donate some Materia to our worthy cause?" Hart asked.
"No," Yuffie said. "Now shut up."
"Well, then what are we going to do?" Tseng asked.
"How about we take all the Materia?" Cait Sith suggested.
Red XIII walked behind our two parties. "May I make a suggestion?" he said. "Since there's no way to sort out the Materia, why don't we award them to the winner of some type of contest?"
"Sounds good," I agreed. "How about swivel chair racing?"
"I was thinking more along the lines of cricket," Red XIII said.
"Cricket?" I repeated.
"Cricket?" AVALANCHE echoed.
I'm not sure how we got talked into agreeing, but it came down to a cricket match with Hart, Johnny, Tseng, and I playing against Cloud, Cid, Aerith, and Vincent. Right at the start, Cloud whacked the ball with his sword and sent it sailing off into the forest. He then proceeded to rack up several hundred runs (or whatever it is that you score in cricket) while we rooted around in the forest for the ball. After he got to about 340, we conceded defeat. Cricket. Why did it have to be cricket?
Oh well.
When Fred got out of the emergency room the next day, we decided to leave Wutai and try to track down Sephiroth on the mainland. AVALANCHE was hanging around in town (now with all our Materia and money, except for the Summon Materia Hart had stuffed in his pocket), so we were on our own.
"I can't help but feel we're forgetting something," Mukki commented as we left town.
"Butch!" I suddenly cried. "We forgot Butch!"
We raced back into town and proceeded to the Pagoda, where Johnny had sent Butch during the hunt for Yuffie. At first I saw nothing of note, but then I noticed the figure clinging to the fifth-story window. After climbing up the pagoda with plungers (as Johnny had suggested), Butch had been unable to climb back down because there was no way to get under the tiered roofs of the pagoda short of jumping all the way down.
With the aid of several ladders, we managed to rescue Butch, who collapsed on the ground, worn out from his overnight ordeal. "I got stuck up there!" he howled. "I couldn't climb back down!"
"If it's any consolation to you, I was stuck in a giant stone nostril for an hour or so," I said.
"Yeah, but I spent the whole NIGHT up there!" Butch wailed. "I did overhear something interesting this morning, though."
"What's that?" Hart asked.
"It's the start of the day, you fool."
"No, what did you overhear?"
"That Yucky twit who stole my Materia was talking with her father," Butch said. "At first they were just planning on how to bring lots of Materia to Wutai. But then Yuffie said something about getting a special pair of Black and White Materia."
"There aren't any black or white Materia," Johnny said.
"Not quite," Butch said. "Not regular Materia, no. But there is one Black Materia and one White Materia. The Black Materia holds the power of the ultimate Black Magic, Meteor; the White Materia the ultimate White Magic. The Black Materia was sealed away by the Ancients in a temple far to the south. The White Materia was passed down by the Ancients; I don't know where it is now."
We'd never heard any of this, but Butch was a Materia dealer, so we weren't going to argue with him. "We can't let Yuffie get her hands on a Materia like that," Butch continued. "We can't let anyone get their hands on a Materia like that. It could wipe out the whole planet."
"Have you suddenly turned into one of those wise old sage guys?" I asked.
"Trust me," Butch said.
"I hate it when people say that," I said.
"So what are we going to do about it?" Mukki asked. "Get down to the temple and get the Materia before anybody does?"
"It's not quite that simple," Butch said. "You see, the temple is protected by an elaborate trap. And we need the proper Keystone to get in."
Butch was doubtlessly about to explain it to us, but a nearby pay phone rang. I raced to it and grabbed the phone. "Hello? You may have already won 10 million gil... if you can answer this simple trivia question. What is the first name of the mayor of Midgar?"
"Holzoff, is that you again?" I asked.
"Hey, Tortellini," Holzoff said.
"I still haven't forgiven you for the last time, you know."
"Look, it was the only way I could think of to identify you. Can I talk to Hart?"
Hart got on the phone and had a lengthy conversation with Holzoff. When he hung up, he turned to us with a smile on his face. "Zangan's found out where Reeve's keeping the controls for Cait Sith."
"Are they going to get it back?" Johnny asked.
I cut in. "I'm starting to come up with a plan here..."
| Next chapter: In Which A Tragic Death Occurs |