"Wake up, Cait," Aerith said, nudging the cat gently.
Cait Sith sat up and shook his furry head. "Huh? What?"
"We're here," Aerith explained. "Earth."
"Oh," Cait Sith hopped to his feet and bolted out the door in search of Rufus. He found his nemesis standing on a street corner with the others -- Barret, Vincent, Red XIII, Cid, Sephiroth's ghost, and Pongo La Ropa. The corner was in the middle of a huge city, surrounded by tall skyscrapers. Cars zoomed by on the streets, destined for some unknown location. In general, it looked much like the upper side of Midgar.
"I believe this city is called New York," Pongo La Ropa said to Rufus. "Our task is complete. We will now depart. If you ever need our help again, our mothership is located behind Comet Hale-Bopp." The Space Chimp walked back inside his saucer. He and his crew launched the saucers again.
Rufus became acutely aware that a large number of people had paused and were staring at them. All pedestrian movement had halted as heads turned to gaze in astonishment at that newly-arrived group, and a number of cars were stopping as well. Unfortunately, not all the cars did, and a huge 30-car pile-up was initiated.
"Aliens! I seen 'em with my own eyes!" one man exclaimed. "I'm calling the National Enquirer!" The man ran to a phone booth and frantically dialed a number. Another quick-thinking -- and well-prepared -- individual started snapping pictures of the gang with a Polaroid camera.
While the rest of the group was riveted in place by panic and embarassment, Cait Sith was enjoying the sudden attention. He strode to the front of the group, bowed extravangtly, and started making faces in the camera.
"C'mon, let's get out of here," Aerith urged, tugging on Rufus's arm.
"Follow me," Barret said quietly. He strode purposefully into the street. The others hesitated briefly, then trailed after Barret until he stopped in the middle of the street, next to a manhole. Cid grabbed Cait Sith and hauled the cat away from the enterprising photographer.
The crowd continued to watch them, taking little notice of the group's movements. More people, attracted by the eerily-paused crowd, arrived and joined in viewing the spectacle.
Barret nodded towards Rufus, then kicked the manhole cover off. He jumped down through the manhole. The rest of the gang quickly followed him into the sewers. The sewers were grimy, almost pitch-black, and smelly. The group stepped carefully to avoid stepping in the attractive-looking raw sewage.
Barret had already taken off running down the dark passage, and the others hurried to catch up with him. "Learned a few things fightin' you damn Shinra," Barret said.
"Look, it's over and done with, so will you just leave him me alone?" Rufus said. "We got 'the damn Umbrella' to worry about now."
"Where are we headed?" Red XIII spoke up in the gloom.
"Away from those guys, first of all," Barret said. "Then we can pop up on the other side of town. Ain't nobody think we're aliens if they didn't see us land. 'Cept for Cait and Red, that is."
As they progressed further away from the open manhole, the sewers grew even darker. Their only source of light was Cid's lighter, so they frequently stumbled into walls they did not even know were there. Then, however, they rounded a bend and found themselves staring towards a ball of light ahead.
They hurried to investigate it. As they did, the new source of light approached them as well. Then four people appeared from the shadows: three men and one woman. All were wearing police uniforms.
The police stopped when they saw Rufus's party approaching. There was some inaudible whispered comments about the four, then the woman asked, "Are you normal?"
Cid looked at Vincent. "Whaddya think, Vince? Are we normal?" Vincent did not respond.
"Some of us are," Rufus said.
Cait Sith put his hands on his hips and rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah, like you're good one to talk about being normal." C.S. pointed at Rufus's head and faced the police officers. "Look at that hair; do you think that's natural?"
"Shut up!" Rufus snapped. "Nobody makes fun of my hair!"
"I just did, didn't I?"
"I think if they were mutated, they would have attacked us by now," one of the other cops, whose uniform read "R.P.D.". He was carrying a flashlight.
"Right," the woman said. She stepped forward and shook Rufus's hand. "Aya Brea, New York City Police Department." Aya gestured towards the two cops behind her. "Officers Wedge and Vicks."
The main in the R.P.D. uniform then introduced himself. "Leon Kennedy, Raccoon City STARS Team. I'm here on special assignment. We're investigating a series of bizarre mutations."
"Bizarre mutations?" Cait Sith piped up. "You mean like Yuffie?"
"Shut up, cat," Barret said under his breath.
"You wouldn't happen to know anything about them, would you?" Aya asked.
"You mean like this?" Vincent said. He shimmered and flickered out of existence. Seconds later, a huge purple red-winged demon stood in his place.
"Damn," Wedge said. "I knew they were bad guys." He drew his gun and was about to shoot when Vincent transformed back to normal.
"Shinra did that to me," Vincent said bitterly. He gazed vacantly into the darkness, the shadows mirroring the thoughts in his head.
"Who's Shinra?" Aya asked.
"Nothing anymore," Rufus sighed. He held up his thumb and index finger. "We were this close to assimilating our entire world, and then Clod stepped in."
"Your entire world?" Leon asked. "What's going ON in this town?"
"Er..."
The uncomfortable situation was diverted when there was a sudden roar from behind Aya's group. A giant albino alligator leaped out of the sewer muck and bit Wedge cleanly in half.
"Oh my god, it killed Wedge!" Aya shrieked.
"Run!" Barret said. They scrambled down the sewer passage as the massive alligator tromped after them, snapping its jaws and hissing.
Leon stumbled and fell to his knees. As he fell, he could feel the flashlight sliding out of his hands. He tried to hang on to it, but it rolled out of his grasp and slipped into the sewage. Leon quickly got to his feet and kept running, leaving the flashlight behind.
They were now running in complete darkness. "I'll try to make some light," Aerith panted. She cast a fire spell.
"You know, that isn't the greatest idea dow-" Sephiroth started to say. Then his voice was completely blocked out by the sound of a massive explosion. The sewage erupted in flames, blowing a gaping hole in the roof of the tunnel and also blasting the alligator's head off. The party was catapuled out through the newly-made skylight and found themselves lying in the middle of Central Park. Luckily, none of them were seriously injured, not even Vicks.
People were starting to look at them again. "There goes the neighborhood," Aya said, looking down into the hole. There was nothing but rubble down there, but she heard the sound of flame sand guessed a fire had broken out in the sewers.
A police siren sounded in the distance. Moments later, an Eyewitness News van pulled up on the edge of the park. Then another van came driving towards them right through the park, ignoring the sign that read "KEEP OFF THE GRASS". This van was all white, except for the outline of four letters spray-painted on the side: ESRB.
The van stopped in front of them. Four troopers wearing black suits and masks climbed out of the van. On the back of the uniforms was the inscription "Thought Police". "Don't think we didn't see what happened down there in the sewers," one of the troopers said. "First a guy gets bitten in half, and then an alligator's head is blown off. We're going to have to give you an 'M' rating for realistic blood and gore." The Thought Police trooper produced a rubber stamp from his belt and stamped a big 'M' on Rufus's forehead.
"@#%$@%*#!" Cid said. "What the hell's your problem?"
The troopers all gasped. "How dare you say things like that?" a trooper said. "Mr. Lieberman will not be pleased. We're going to have to add a language advisory too."
"#$%$*%&*@!"
"Hey, wait a second," a third Thought Police trooper said. "Look at that little cat guy. These are those aliens that landed down by the Rockefeller Center."
One of the Thought Police rushed inside the back of the van and started fiddling with some communications equipment. Meanwhile, the other troopers were writing their report to Senator Lieberman. "Stop this at once!" Rufus said. "Look what you did to me!"
"We must protect our children from your gory shoot-'em-ups," a trooper replied smugly.
A black helicopter touched down on the grass. Two black-robed and hooded figures hobbled out, carrying large bazooka-like guns. "We are the Cultists in Black," one of them said. "We are from a highly-funded, but unofficial, tobacco industry agency. There appears to be some aliens here."
The Cultists in Black fired their bazookas, blowing out a vast cloud of secondhand-smoke that rendered Cait Sith and Red XIII unconscious. The others stumbled around, coughing. Vicks was standing the furthest away from the helicopter and had managed to avoid the cloud of smoke. He drew his gun and fired at the Cultists, but missed.
One of the Cultists started chanting an incantation. "Lung cancer!" he said, pointing at Vicks. Vicks coughed, keeled over, and died. Again.
The Cultists lifted up the unconscious Cait and Red and tossed them into their helicopter. Then one of them produced a lit cigarette from his robe. "You will have no memory of this event," he said to the coughing party. "Just look into the red flame..."
* * *
Night fell on Central Park. Rufus, Aya, and the others were still lying on the grass, rendered unconscious by the vast cloud of secondhand smoke. Cid, however, had unaffected, and was lounging against a tree, puffing on a cigarette.
Cid's patience was eventually rewarded when the group finally regained consciousness. They groggily got to their feet, clearly disoriented. "Where are we?" Barret asked.
"We're in Sector 7! The Plate's about to collapse! We've got to get out of here now!" Sephiroth shouted urgently.
"Oh no!" Barret cried, falling for the prank. "What about Marlene? ...hey, wait a second. Dammit, that wasn't funny."
"I love playing with people's minds," Sephiroth chuckled.
"I don't mean to be rude, Rufus, but you have a big 'M' stamped on your head," Vincent said politely.
"Oh, you're not Rude," Cid said quickly. "Rude is a human and he's bald."
"Shut up, Cid," Rufus said.
Aerith walked around in circles, looking for some clue as to what had just happened. "I don't remember a thing," she said. "I cast a fire spell and blew up the sewers and we landed in the park. Is that all that happened?"
Leon was examining the group. He had just met them, but even he could tell that something was out of place. Then it hit him. "Hey, what happened to that cat guy?"
"Cait Sith? Good riddance to bad rubble," Rufus muttered. He folded his arms and adopted what he thought was a "cool" pose.
"Red's gone too," Vincent added quietly.
"Look, I don't know what we're doing here, but I don't want to be hanging around Central Park at this time of day," Aya said. "We'll probably get mugged. Where do you guys live?"
Rufus looked up into the night sky, searching for the star around which their homeworld orbited. "Er... it's a long story. We're not from here."
"Oh," Aya said. "Then we'd better find you a hotel."
With Aya and Leon leading, the small band carefully set off from Central Park. Barret had his gun ready in case they were attacked by street thugs. Actually, Barret always had his gun ready, since it was part of his arm, but that was beside the point.
Two figures approaching them, visible only as shadows in the dim glow of the street lights. As they approached, Aya recognized them. It was Wedge and Vicks. "Wedge! Vicks! We've been looking for you!" Aya said. "Wait a second... didn't Wedge get eaten by the alligator?"
"Man, you guys are back quicker than usual," Rufus observed. "Whatever the storyline dictates, huh?"
Wedge jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing down the street. "Our re-spawn point's just down there," he explained.
"They've got Cait Sith and Red XIII," Vicks said.
"Who does?" Rufus asked.
"The Thought Police!" Vicks said, exasperated. "The ESRB! They've hauled them off to Area 51."
"The Thought Police?" Aerith said. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't you remember?" Vicks demanded. "Oh, wait. Maybe they wiped out your memory. Good thing I died when I did. Wow, that's the first time I'm ever glad I died."
"What the hell are you talkin' about?" Barret asked. "This don't make no sense!"
"Oh, never mind," Vicks said. "We'll rescue him on our own. Right, Wedge? Wedge?"
Wedge did not reply. He had just been killed in a drive-by shooting.
* * *
Roswell, New Mexico
Cait Sith awoke to find himself in a smal, square, padded cell. Red XIII was already conscious and was pacing the black-colored pads impatiently. He was reciting pi quietly to calm himself. "Yo, Red," Cait said. "Where are we?"
"I don't know," Red admitted. "The last that I recall was those two cultists guys attacking us. It looks probable that they've detained us in a prison."
"Stop using such big words, you're scaring me," Cait Sith said.
"Sorry."
Cait Sith joined Red in pacing the cell for a few minutes, but grew bored quickly. "Hey, wanna play Guess the Number? I'll think of a number and you try to guess it."
"Any number?"
"Yup."
"Okay, three," Red XIII said, obliging Cait Sith's childish mind.
"Nope, it's 4,328,051!" Cait Sith giggled. "WRONG!"
There was another pause as they continued to pace the room. Then Cait Sith spoke up again. "Can I borrow two hundred gil?" he asked. "But I'll only take one hundred gil. Then you'll owe me one hundred gil and I'll owe you a hundred gil, and we'll be even."
Red XIII sighed. "Cait, could you please just sit still?" he asked calmly.
Disappointed, Cait sat down in a corner and moodily gazed at his feet. An hour or so passed, and Cait was growing increasingly more sulky. Then the door to the cell flew open and Wedge and Vicks ran in.
"Finally! We found you guys!" Vicks exclaimed.
Cait Sith jumped up, excited. His flippant demeanor returned quickly. "No, I found you, and used ESP to tell you where we were."
"Don't be stupid," Wedge said. "Let's make like Al Gore and leaf. The government's planning to dissect you guys to see what you makes you tick."
"I've quite enough of that from Hojo, thank you," Red XIII said wryly, bounding out of the cell and down the hallway.
"I don't tick. I take quite good care of my fur, as a matter of fact." Cait Sith said as he hopped after Red. Wedge and Vicks took the rear.
The four made their way down the dim, metal-lined, corridors of Area 51. "You do remember how we got here, don't you?" Wedge asked Vicks.
Vicks hesitated. "Well, to tell you the truth... I kind of forgot."
"You kind of forgot?" Wedge asked suspiciously.
"Great, we're lost." Red XIII rolled his good eye in contept of the stupidity of humans.
Vicks pointed up at a wide sign hanging from the ceiling. "We haven't even got out of the confinement area," he said. "Or we did, and you led us back here."
"Hey, maybe one of our fellow aliens will know how to get out," Cait Sith said. He knocked on a door. "Hello? Anybody in there?"
There was a muffled reply. Wedge looked at Vicks, shrugged, and then forced the door open. He cautiously poked his head through the doorway and surveyed the room. "Ross Perot?" he said, startled.
"I don't know why they think I'm an alien!" Ross Perot said angrily. "Just because I can pick up alien broadcasts with my ears doesn't mean I am an alien."
"Er... do you know where the front door is?" Wedge asked.
"If I did, do you think I'd still be here?" Perot said. "I don't even know how I ended up here. There was a giant sucking sound and I flew into this cell. Why don't you just go into the staff lounge and ask?"
"Hey, that's a good idea," Wedge said. He turned away from the cell and back to the rest of the group. "Let's go find the staff lounge."
After wandering the surprisingly guard-less building for about an hour, the quartet eventually located a door labeled "Staff Lounge". Without thinking about the fact that Cait Sith and Red XIII were escaped "specimens", they barged in.
The staff lounge was a long, rectangular, blue-carpeted room. Three circular wooden tables stood in the room, and there was a magazine rack in one corner. Various Area 51 scientists were sitting around the room, drinking coffee or eating donuts. On the far side of the room was a stage where a couple of scientists were performing an awful karaoke version of the song from those Ford commercials.
Vicks walked up to two of the scientists. "Excuse me, we're from UPS; we came to deliver some stuff but now we can't find the exit. Could you help us?"
The scientist started drawing Vicks a map on a napkin. Meanwhile, Cait Sith was browsing the magazine rack and came across the National Enquirer. The front page was plastered with the headline "ALIENS LAND IN NEW YORK!", below which was a blurry photo of Rufus, Barret, and Aerith. Cait Sith was in the foreground, stretching his mouth and sticking out his tongue. "Hey, look, guys, I'm on the front page of the National Enquirer!"
"Gonna buy me a Ford truck or two..."
Cait Sith thumbed through the articles. "Elvis' Face Appears on Stonehenge... O.J. Simpson Appointed Director of CIA... Talking Antelope Claims It's the Reincarnation of Paul Revere..."
Vicks walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. C.S. turned. "I got a map," Vicks said, showing C.S. the napkin. "We're leaving."
"Crazy 'bout a Ford truck..."
Vicks led the party of the room. He held the napkin-map up to his face and squinted at it. "Okay, we go down this hall, take a left, jump over a big chasm, go through the second door on the right, and go down that hall to the front door."
Wedge looked over Vicks's shoulder at the napkin. "Um... I think that chasm is actually a coffee stain."
When the four were gone, one of the scientists spoke up. "Weren't those the ones we just caught yesterday?"
* * *
Wedge, Vicks, Cait, and Red emerged from the front gates of Area 51. Red XIII breathed deeply. "Fresh air," he murmured.
Wedge and Vicks hurried over to a large white van parked in the parking lot. Cait Sith and Red followed them, presuming the pair knew where they were going.
The van door open and Crash Bandicoot poked his head out. "Did you find them?" he asked.
"Look, it's Crash Bandicoot!" Cait Sith exclaimed.
"That's me," Crash said. "Hop on in."
Cait Sith shook his head. "I never accept rides from strangers."
Wedge leaned out the door -- he and Vicks had already boarded the van. "He's not a stranger; you just said he's Crash Bandicoot. Now get in here!"
"It could be an Umbrella spy in a Crash Bandicoot suit," Cait protested.
Red XIII hopped into the van. "Look, we're all okay, aren't we?" he said. "C'mon, just get in."
Cait Sith pointed an angry finger at the lion-like creature. "Hey! That's peer pressure and I don't have to take it!"
"Please, Cait..." Red XIII said.
Wordlessly, Wedge jumped out of the van, grabbed Cait Sith by the scruff of his neck, and heaved him inside the van. The cat landed on his stomach in the back of the van. C.S. pulled himself to his feet. His mood brightened instantly when he saw the PlayStations and TVs set up in the back of Crash's van.
"All right!" Cait Sith exclaimed. "Do you have CidFighter?" He reached back under his cape and waved his hand, searching for something, but came up empty. C.S. pulled his cape out to the side and turned back to look at it. It was completely ordinary looking, without nothing concealed within in. "Hey! Those bastards took my memory cards! And I was only one game away from getting Tofu, too."
"That's life," Red XIII said nonchalantly.
Crash started the ignition. "Take us back to New York," Wedge instructed.
"No prob'," Crash said. "You just head north some and then east some."
Wedge and Vicks exchanged dubious glances. "You're joking, right?" Vicks said nervously.
Crash shrugged. "It's the biggest city in the country, how can we miss it?" He backed the van out of the parking lot and onto the road.
Not long after Crash's van left, another white van also left Area 51... but this one was filled with scientists and security personnel.
* * *
"All right, everybody," a National Enquirer manager announced. "This alien story is big. We're sending you all out to New York to cover this -- the whole staff."
"When do we leave?" a writer asked.
"Right now!" the manager said. "Let's get a move on!"
The National Enquirer staff hurriedly packed up to head off to New York. With the manager shouting at them to move faster, they managed to get everything ready to go in about twenty minutes. They left the building and hopped in the waiting trucks.
The truck drivers waited impatiently as two white vans passed on the road, then they drove off. Meanwhile, a car pulled up at the National Enquirer headquarters. Three Square employees hopped out. By a cruel twist of fate, they happened to be named Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
The three Square guys strode determinedly into the Enquirer building, only to find the lights out and building vacated. "Hey, there's nobody here," Huey said.
"I saw a bunch of trucks leaving when we pulled up," Dewey said. "They probably knew we were coming
"Then let's chase 'em," Louie said. "Nobody rips off our characters and gets away with it."
"I've got a better idea," Dewey said. "Let's buy the National Enquirer and have them make tabloids for us!"
"Hey, that's a good idea," Louie cackled. "We still gotta catch them, though."
* * *
"...and so we figured the whole mutations end when the mitochondria incident was over, but now it's starting again," Aya concluded her side of the story. Rufus had already told a highly summarized version of his tale. She, Rufus, Aerith, and Leon were seated in the living room of Aya's apartment.
"You think Umbrella is behind it?" Aerith asked.
"They've done a lot of genetic experiments in the past," Leon said. "I wouldn't be surprised at all if this is their doing."
Over in Aya's kitchen, Barret was helping himself to some Alpha-Bits from the cupboard. Cid and Vincent stood nearby, Cid puffing as always on a cigarette. "Hey, give me those when you're done," Cid said.
Barret finished pouring his bowl of Alpha-Bits and passed the box to Cid. Cid held the box up to pour some up, but there was a sudden fizzing sound from the box. The box slipped out of Cid's hands and skidded across the floor, making strange gurgling sounds. It stopped in the center of the kitchen floor.
Barret, Cid, and Vincent stared down at the box. It sat motionless briefly, then suddenly explosion, spraying pieces of the box all over the kitchen and leaving a pile of Alpha-Bits on the floor.
"@#*%$%!" Cid exclaimed.
"Now that cereal really snaps, crackles, and pops," Vincent said wryly.
"What did you do to the cereal, foo'?" Barret said to Cid.
There was an eerie moan from the cereal. The mound began to rise up from the floor and form into a column. Then the column began to grow a head, arms, and legs. "This is too damn weird," Barret muttered.
With a lurch, the cereal-golem started towards the trio. Vincent drew his gun from inside his cloak and fired at the golem. The bullet cut a clean hole through the center of the golem, taking a few Alpha-Bit letters, out, but the monster continued to shuffle across the floor.
The cereal monster suddenly lunged towards Cid and swiped at him. Cid dodged aside.
Barret fired off some rounds from his gun-arm, chipping off Alpha-Bits from the golem. Disregarding its lost pieces, the monster kept up its slow, inexorable, shuffle.
Aerith ran into the kitchen and cast a Quake spell on the cereal golem. The room shook, sending the Alpha-Bits flying in all directions and effectively dissolving the monster. Something fell out of the storm of Alpha-Bits and landed on the floor.
"Congratulations, Aerith, you're a cereal killer," Sephiroth said, appearing suddenly in the kitchen.
Vincent knelt to search for the red object that had fallen out of the collapsing golem. He eventually found it under the sink and held it up to examine it. It was a decoder ring. "All right!" Vincent said. "This thing left a decoder ring! I always wanted one of these..."
Then Vincent noticed something odd. The Alpha-Bits scattered on the floor near where the ring had been sitting were spelling out something. Vincent noticed the words "IS A". He looked around the mess of letters until he came across a sentence running along the floor. It read, "THE MILKMAN IS A SPY."
"Hey, guys," Vincent said. "The milkman is a spy."
"I don't have a milkman," Aya said. She, Leon, and Rufus had come into the kitchen to see what all the commotion was about.
Vincent shrugged. "That's just what it says here."
"So they're even mutating cereal now," Leon said. "But what it caused to go berserk like that?"
"I don't have a damn clue," Cid said. "Barret just handed me the box and the whole @($*%$% thing just exploded."
This comment reminded Barret of the bowl of Alpha-Bits he had poured himself shortly before the incident began. He looked over at it. "I don't think I'm hungry anymore..."
* * *
The clerk at Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota, had seen a lot of weird things in his time. There had been the time a guy wearing a fern on his hand ran into the building and started spitting out coins, and the time an orangutan tried to rob the place with a zucchini, and of course the infamous Weedwhacker Incident. So it came as no great surprise when a small cat wearing a cape, a red lion, and a bipedal bandicoot strode into the store, accompanied by two seemingly-normal people.
Cait Sith sidled up to the counter where the clerk stood. "Hey, you have free water here, don't you?"
"Of course," the clerk said. He poured the cat a glass of water and handed it to him.
Cait Sith looked smugly at Wedge. "I told you so."
A bell tinkled, indicating that somebody was entering the store. C.S. glanced up briefly, saw it was three ordinary people, and went back to drinking his normal. Then he did a double-take and looked at the three humans again. They were Huey, Dewey, and Louie. "Whoa, here come the suits," Cait said. "What'd we do?"
The three Square employees started upon seeing their characters -- and Crash Bandicoot -- hanging around Wall Drug drinking free water. "Hello," Red XIII greeted them.
"Hey, you given any more thought to giving me that cameo appearance in Brave Fencer Mushashiden?" Cait Sith demanded of the Square guys.
"Won't you take no for an answer?" Huey said. "You're not getting a cameo appearance, so quit asking."
"Yeah, well, then you can tell Sakaguchi I'm on strike," Cait Sith said, folding his arms.
"Oh no," Dewey said sarcastically.
Dewey was suddenly assaulted by Vicks, who grabbed Dewey's tie and tugged at it, pulling Dewey to his knees. Vicks raised his free hand in a fist and stared down at Dewey. "Do you know how many times you've killed us off?" he demanded.
Dewey started counting aloud, his voice shaking. "Let's see, there was Tritoch, and the Plate, and the first battle in FF Tactics, and.."
"That's right!" Vicks said angrily. "And how many times does anybody else get killed? Once!"
"That's not true," Huey said. "Balk, he died twice, first - oof!" Wedge connected with a sharp knee to Huey's stomach, knocking the wind out of him.
Cait Sith, sensing an opportunity, hopped off the counter and walked over to Dewey, who was still on his knees. "Yo!" he said. "Are you going to bring Tobal 2 out here, or are we going to have to get ugly?"
Louie seized Vicks by his shoulder and yanked him away from Dewey. "Excuse me!" the Wall Drug clerk said loudly. "Would you mind taking this outside?"
Grudgingly, Wedge and Vicks left the Square guys alone and tromped out of the building. Cait, Red, and Crash followed them. Just as they were leaving the building, they passed a group of CIA agents entering the building. The agents gave them an odd look, but said nothing.
"Hey, did you see that?" Crash whispered. "I think those guys were from the CIA."
"Let's hope they're not after us," Cait said.
Wedge grimaced. "They've got to be after you guys," he said. "This is the federal government we're talking about, after all. They're going to do everything they can to cover up an alien landing."
Cait changed topics abruptly as they climbed back into Crash's van. "Why did you have to go and beat those guys up?" he demanded of Vicks. "Now I'm never going to get my cameo appearance."
Vicks did not reply. Crash turned the ignition and drove off to the east, heading in what he thought was the general direction of New York. He did not notice the white van of Area 51 personnel following him, nor the National Enquirer trucks tagging along behind that.
Meanwhile, Huey, Dewey, and Louie had recovered from their brief scuffle with Wedge and Vicks and were standing in the parking lot of Wall Drug, looking for their car. It was nowhere to be found. "Oh, man, don't tell me our car got ripped off," Huey said.
Louie walked over to investigate the new car that was parked where their car had car had been. Closer inspection revealed that was in fact actually their car, but the formerly blue car had been painted white, and there was a big Umbrella logo on the side.
Louie noticed a note on the hood and picked it up. It bore an official-looking Umbrella letterhead and read, "We have acquired your feeble excuse for a company. Ha ha ha! - Hojo."
Louie showed the note to Huey and Dewey. "Hey, wait a minute here," Huey said. "Hojo can't buy Square; that doesn't make any sense. Er, can he?"
* * *
"Hey, guys take a look at this," Rufus said, waving the business section of the newspaper and pointing at an article in it.
Leon took the paper and examined the article Rufus was pointing at. "UMBRELLA CORP. TO ACQUIRE SQUARE". "Wow, they're really buying up all the big evil companies, aren't they?"
Vincent was sitting on the other side of the living room, playing with his new decoder ring. "So where is Umbrella located, anyway?" he asked.
"Their headquarters is in Europe," Leon said. "Romania, to be precise."
"Then what are we sitting around here in New York for?" Rufus asked.
There was silence as they considered Rufus's logical proposition. "Wait a second, we still have to rescue Cait Sith and Nanaki," Aerith said.
"Forget the cat," Rufus said. "There's more important things to attend to."
"But what about Red?"
Rufus sighed and threw up his hands in defeat. "Okay, okay, we'll wait and see if Wedge and Vicks can rescue them before they get killed."
"In the meantime, let's see if we can figure out who's behind these new mutations," Leon said. "I want to know what's going ON in this town."
"I've got an idea," Aya said. She walked to her computer and turned it on. "This should tell us where to go." After the computer had finished booting, she started Netscape and went to Cosmo Canyon. Aya clicked on "Fanfics" and selected Chapter 3 of The Guardian Amulet 2. She scrolled down to the bottom and read what was there. "She scrolled down to the bottom and read what was there. 'She scrolled down to the bottom and read what -"
Barret dived across the room and shot the computer with his gun-arm. The monitor shattered. Barret picked himself from the floor. "Crisis averted," he said. "Thought that was gonna turn into one of them picture-in-a-picture things."
"Any other ideas?" Sephiroth said. He was tossing and catching the Masamune.
"Hey, watch it, you'll put somebody's eye out with that," Aya cautioned.
"Maybe we oughtta go back to Central Park and see if there're any clues," Barret suggested.
* * *
Crash's van passed through the city of Mitchell, South Dakota. It was followed by the Area 51 van, three National Enquirer trucks, the repainted Square car, and two CIA armored cars. "Hey, can we go see the Corn Palace?" Cait Sith asked Crash.
Crash shrugged. "Sure? Why not?" Crash turned off I-90 and navigated the city streets to the Corn Palace. The Corn Palace was a large, square-shaped orange building. Murals made out of corn decorated its sides. Black-and-yellow onion domes topped the building. A red sign over the front entrance proclaimed it to be the Mitchell Corn Palace.
Crash parked his van and they walked up to the front gates of the Corn Palace. There was no sort of ticket person or anything, so they walked on inside. The room inside, an orange-tiled two-story chamber with a balcony overhead, was completely devoid of people. Wedge recalled that there had only been a few other cars in the parking lot, too. "Um... is this place open?" he wondered aloud.
There was a click of a gun being loaded. Wedge and Vicks looked up. A mustached man dressed in camoflague clothes, which accomplished the exact opposite of what they were intended to do by making the man stand out against the orange walls of the Corn Palace, was pointing a sniper rifle directly at Wedge's head. "Damn... I'm going to die again, I just know it," Wedge murmured.
"Don't worry, we don't want to kill you," the man said gruffly. "But don't try anything funny. Now come with me."
"There's only one of them, let's rush him," Crash whispered.
"Yeah, but he's got that gun pointed right at our heads," Wedge whispered back. "Better do as he says."
The five ascended the main stairs to the balcony where the sniper stood. He led them through a door, down a corn-mural-decorated hallway, and into a small room. The room was sparsely decorated -- a few chairs and a window looking out on the city, but that was it.
"Wait here," the man said. "Mr. Withheld will be with you shortly."
"We seem to be captured," Red XIII said mildly.
"I can just spin right through that guy," Crash said. He started to whirl around rapidly until he was just a spinning top of orange and blue.
Crash slid towards the "camoflagued" guard, but then the guard spoke. "Hey, wait a second!" he said. "You're Crash Bandicoot! Can I have your autograph?"
Crash stopped spinning. "Sure," he said. The guard handed him a pad of paper and pen, and Crash signed his messy-looking autograph.
"And Red XIII, too," the guard said. Crash held the pad over Red's hand. Red stood up on his hind legs, picked up the pen in one paw, and scribbled something that resembled "Nanaki".
"Me next," Cait Sith said, taking the pad.
"Who are you?" the guard demanded of him.
Cait Sith gave him an angry look, then raised his megaphone to speak. "The one, the only, Cait Sith the Great, Esquire, that's who I am!" Cait lowered his megaphone. "Maybe you didn't recognize me without my moogle."
The guard squinted in concentration and he stared at Cait Sith, trying to place them. Then recognition finally came to him, and he relaxed. "Oh, you," he said condescendingly. "I don't want your autograph."
"Don't want my autograph, do you?" Cait Sith spoke between clenched teeth. "Well, try this on for size!" C.S. hurled some dice at the guard. Luck was with Cait Sith on this occassion, and he rolled a four and three sixes. The guard reeled backwards, somehow damaged by the flying dice.
Red XIII clobbered him on the head with a paw, knocking him out. "Somebody, when I'm famous and have a cameo appearance in Brave Fencer Mushashiden, you're going to reget not getting my autograph," Cait Sith said to the guard, who, being unconscious, was not paying him any attention.
"This place is creepy; let's go," Vicks said. They walked back down the hall they way they came. As they approached the door, it swung open and some more poorly-camoflagued guys walked in. One of them was wearing sunglasses.
"We told you we weren't going to harm you," the sunglasses-clad man said. "What did you have to go and do that for?"
Crash scratched his head. "Who are you?"
"I'm Name Withheld, head of the local chapter of the Republic of Texas. This is our headquarters."
"If you don't want to tell us your name, why don't you just say so?" Wedge said.
"No, my name is Name Withheld. First name Name, last name Withheld."
"That's weird," Vicks said in an understatement worthy of Cloud.
"Uh... pardon my asking, but why are your headquarters in South Dakota if you're a Texas separationist group?" Red XIII asked.
This question obviously irked Name Withheld. "Because real estate is cheaper here!" he snapped.
"Oh," Red XIII said, apparently satisfied by the response. "That makes sense."
"This is a nice headquarters, isn't it?" Withheld pressed.
"Um, yeah. Real nice," Wedge said. "Now what did you want us for?"
"I know who you are," Name Withheld said confidently. "You're those aliens that landed in New York. I want to use you as proof that the damn commie federal government is up to no good. Them and their black helicopters."
"Hey, there was a black helicopter when we got captured," Cait Sith said.
"Exactly," Withheld said. "Now, all I need you to do is -"
The CIA agents burst through the door, armed with assault rifles and clad in bulletproof vests. "There they are, get 'em!" one of the agents barked.
"Who, the aliens or the militia guys?" another agent asked.
"Who cares? Just get somebody!"
The CIA agents opened fire. Name Withheld avoided the spray of bullets by shoving one of his flunkies at the CIA guys, then he and the other Republic of Texas members ran towards the opposite end of the hall. Meanwhile, Cait's group ducked into the small room where the sniper had taken them.
The militia guys ducked through a door at the end of the hall. In the small room, Wedge was trying to pry open the window. Name Withheld entered the hall again, armed with an AK-47. "Eat this, ya' tree-huggin' liberals!" he shouted, firing at the CIA agents.
The CIA agents ducked and Withheld sprayed fire aimlessly into the wall above them. "Right-wing Nazi fanatic!" one of the agents shouted back.
"Communist!"
"Anarchist!"
"You're stupid!"
"You're ugly!"
In the commotion, nobody noticed that Wedge, Vicks, and the gang had slipped quietly out of the window and were back in the parking lot of the Corn Palace. Crash threw open the door to the van and they hopped inside. "This trip gets weirder every stop," Wedge said as Crash started the van again.
"You know, those CIA agents are going to be trailing us," Red XIII said.
"No problem," Crash said. "We'll go up into Canada. They can't do anything to us there."
Crash started the van and drove off. Seconds later, another white van zoomed by the Corn Palace. It was followed by three trucks and a freshly-painted white car.
Name Withheld's troops emerged from the Corn Palace, running hard. Gunfire sounded behind them as the CIA pursued them. The Texas separationists hopped into their pickup trucks -- one of which had a "Love my country, fear my government" bumper sticker -- and drove off to pursue Cait Sith and Red and recapture them. The CIA, of course, got in their own armored cars and chased the Republic of Texas, adding to ever-growing column of cars tailing Crash's van.
* * *
Two NYPD squad cars parked near Central Park. Aya, Leon, Rufus, Barret, Vincent, Cid, Aerith, and Sephiroth got out and proceeded into the park. They quickly located the gaping hole leading down to the sewers. "What happened?" Leon demanded. "I just can't remember."
Aya noticed a pack of cigarettes lying in the grass and picked them up. "A pack of cigarettes," she said. "You think this might be a clue?"
"Hey, there's still some left in there," Cid said. "Gimme that." He snatched the pack of cigarettes out of Aya's hands. Cid examined the package. "Hmmm. Umbrella brand."
"Umbrella bought all the tobacco companies," Leon explained. "No big evil corporations are safe from Umbrella. Now there's just Umbrella brand everything."
"What? You mean there's only one brand of cigarettes now?" Cid repeated. "Damn, that's evil. First they take Dukes of Hazzard off the air, then they take away a guy's right to a choice of cigarette brands. Those Umbrella @$%*(&$s are gonna get what's comin' to them when I get my hands on them." In anger, Cid flung the pack of cigarettes against the tree. The pack bounced off the side of the tree and landed in the grass.
There was an odd sound from the tree. The tree started to shake ever so slightly, and the texturing of the bark shifted to make what might be eyes and a mouth. The tree tore its roots up from the ground, and, with a rustling of leaves, started hobbling towards the party.
"Here we go again," Barret muttered. He aimed his gun-arm to fire, but Sephiroth was already casting a Flare spell on the tree. Fireballs pummeled the tree, setting it on fire. The tree halted its movement and struggled as it burned to a pile of ash-toned bark.
The burning tree ignited the cigarettes in the discarded pack. Smoke started to leak out. Seconds later, the grass around the pack turned purple and grew rapidly, emitting an unusual crunching sound.
Leon blasted at the grass with his flamethrower, setting it ablaze. The grass quickly burned down, but set the rest of the grass on fire. "The EPA's going to hate us for this," Aya said as the fire started to spread across Central Park.
Thinking quickly, Aerith summoned Leviathan. A tidal wave crashed down over the park, extinguishing the flames but leaving the party sopping wet. "Thanks," Rufus muttered when the waves had subsided. "My hair is all messed up."
"You only just now figured that out?" Sephiroth said.
"Hey, you heard me," Rufus said angrily. "I said nobody makes fun of my hair and lives to tell about it."
"I'm already dead," Sephiroth said nonchalantly.
"Point for Sephiroth," Aerith said.
"No, you only get points for PaRappa references," Vincent explained.
Cid picked up the charred box of cigarettes. "What the hell happened he ask?"
Aya stared at the cigarettes. "I wonder..." she mused. "Do you suppose Umbrella's put something in those cigarettes that mutates things?"
"Jenova Cells?" Aerith wondered.
"Of course, didn't you know that?" Sephiroth said. "Why did you think all those black-robed tobacco guys hung out with me? They smoked so much that they had enough Jenova cells in their body for me to control them."
"How come you never told us this?" Rufus asked Seph.
"You never asked."
"Those !#$%*@$%," Cid swore. "Puttin' a $%*@%! virus in cigarettes, how low can you get?"
"Actually, I can think of a lot of worse things they could put in there," Aya said. "Of course, most of them already are."
"Shut up," Cid said. He lit one of his own non-Umbrella cigarettes and started smoking.
Moments later, the white ESRB van pulled up again on the grass. The Thought Police troopers got out, one carrying a clipboard and another armed with the stamp. "Don't think you're going to get away with that," the clipboard-carrying trooper said. "We saw that. Now you're going to get a Use of Alcohol and Tobacco too."
The stamp-trooper stamped a "USE OF ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO" advisory on Cid's forehead. "You damn @$%^*$%!" Cid shouted, whirling and socking the trooper in the face.
The other three troopers opened fire with their assault rifles. Aya shot one in the arm with her handgun as they fled to the police cars. "Where are we going?" Rufus yelled as they climbed into the cars.
"I don't know; we just gotta lose those guys," Leon said. Starting the car with one hand, he reached out and took a shot at a pursuing Thought Policeman with his magnum.
"Maybe we can hide at the U.N. Building," Aya said. "It's real close, too."
* * *
Crash's van tore across Ontario towards Niagara Falls. It was pursued by an Area 51 van; three National Enquirer trucks; Huey, Dewey, and Louie's car; the Republic of Texas's pickup trucks; and the CIA's pair of armored cars. Crash remained completely unaware of the attention he had attracted, although he knew the CIA was back there somewhere.
"Hey, we're almost back," Wedge said as they entered the city of Niagara Falls.
Crash noted they were running low on gas and pulled into a gas station to refuel. The attendant tried his best to ignore the fact that the car was being driven by a bandicoot as he filled the tank.
A truck passed by the gas station on the road. No sooner had it vanished from it sight than it backed up and stopped in front of the gas station. Two people got out of the car and started taking picture of Crash's van.
"Hey, some guys are taking pictures of us," Wedge observed.
"Cool," Cait Sith said happily.
"Not cool," Vicks countered. "They're probably from the National Enquirer. Crash, we've got to get out of here now."
Crash slammed the gas pedal down, forgetting that the pump was still attached to his gas tank. The van spun its wheels, straining the hose from the pump. Then, with a great ripping sound, the entire gas pump was torn from the ground. Gasoline erupted out, covering the gas station, the attendants, Crash's van, and the National Enquirer guys.
"I can't see!" Crash shouted, panicking. The entire windshield of the van had been covered in gasoline.
The van sped randomly down the streets of Niagara Falls, driving at weird angles and smashing through yards and even houses. The gas pump bounced up and down on the road, still attached to the van. Crash tried to put the windshield wipers on, but gas had leaked down into the wipers and they failed to function.
The van continued its blind, out-of-control, rampage through Niagara Falls. Over the noise of screeching tires, screaming pedestrians, and various sounds of destruction, Cait Sith thought he heard running water. "Um, guys, I think we're headed for the FALLS!" he exclaimed.
Moments later, there were some loud splashing sounds and the car flipped over forwards. "Thanks for the warning, Cait," Red XII said as he fell out of the back seat and landed on the back -- now the top -- of Vicks's seat. Vicks had fallen forward and was sitting on the dashboard. "A bit late though."
"What are we gonna do?" Wedge screamed. "We're gonna die! Again!"
"Don't say it," Red XIII said to Cait.
"I wasn't going to. Vince isn't here anyways."
The van continued to spin as it tumbled down Niagara Falls. "Wait, I saw a commercial about this!" Crash said. "It said what to do. Um, first, we remain calm."
"I think we're too late there," Red XIII said. He, of course, was as calm as always, but Wedge and Vicks were screaming and Cait was scrambling around the van.
"Then, we push on the windows," Crash continued. "Or something. When the water has equalized the pressure, they should open."
"Should open?" Vicks yelled, near incohorently. "And what if they don't?"
Crash was mystified by this question. He stared up at the passenger's-side door, which was currently the ceiling, and said nothing. There was a huge splashing sound as the van landed in the base of the falls. The vehicle stopped spinning and started to sink.
Crash, following the instructions he had seen in the commercial, started pushing on the windows. He braced his feet against the steering wheel and shoved on the windows, but nothing happened. Then, with a pop, the whole pane dropped out into the water. Water started rushing into the car. Crash swam out the window, followed by the others.
They quickly rose to the surface and swam to the shore. A number of people had gathered around the falls to watch the spectacle. Crash pushed his way through them and the group ran to a nearby hill to catch their breath. Red XIII shook himself dry, spraying the others with water.
"I can't believe we didn't die," Vicks said.
"Well, we're back in New York," Wedge said. "'Course, that means the CIA's gonna be after us again. And our van's totalled, too."
"I have an idea!" Cait Sith said. "Okay, you know those National Guard buildings?"
"Um... yeah," Wedge said.
"Those places are like not guarded at all," C.S. explained eagerly. "What we do is go in there and steal a tank. Nobody's gonna bother us with a tank."
* * *
An Eyewitness News van drove through Manhattan en route to Yankee Stadium. It approached an intersection. Suddenly, two police cars, sirens blaring, tore through the intersection, running a red light. The cars were followed closely by a white van labeled "ESRB", and a bus full of EPA protesters angry about the conflagaration in Central Park.
"I wonder what that was all about," the Eyewitness News cameraman said.
"I don't know, but it's got to be more interesting than our story," the van driver said. "Let's check it out." The Eyewitness van turned and joined the chase.
* * *
Cait Sith poked his head out of their tank as it rumbled through New Jersey. "Hey, we're in Weehawken!" he exclaimed. "I love that name! Weehawken! Weehawken! Weehawken!" He turned his furry head to look back down the road at the white van followig them. "I think those guys are gaining on us. Sure don't look like the National Guard though."
"Maybe it's the CIA," Crash shrugged.
Cait Sith dropped back into the tank. "Let's blow 'em up!" he said eagerly.
"How many times have I told you; there's no ammo in this thing?" Wedge repeated.
The tank continued through Weehawken and arrived at the Lincoln Tunnel, where a toll booth waited them. Cait Sith, grinned mischievously, poked his head out of the tank again. "We don't have to pay no stinkin' toll!" he shouted, then dropped back in the tank again. The toll-taker fled out of the booth screaming as the tank plowed through it and crushed it to rubble.
The tank chugged into the Lincoln Tunnel. The destruction of the toll booth provided a free ride for its pursuers, now including the Area 51 van, three National Enquirer trucks (one covered in gasoline), the Square employees' car, some Republic of Texas pickups, two CIA armored cars, some Canadian Mounted Police chasing Crash for destroying half of Niagara Falls, and three National Guard jeeps.
"Where are we going now?" Crash asked the others.
"Let's go to the U.N. Building," Wedge suggested. "That's international land, so the National Guard can't get us there."
"Hey, maybe we'll see Boutros Boutros-Ghali," Cait Sith said hopefully.
"Boutros Boutros-Ghali isn't the Secretary-General anymore, Cait," Wedge said.
"Actually, I knew that," Cait said. "But I wanted to work his name in here somehow, because it's so funny." C.S. then started singing.
"SHUT UP!" the others all yelled.
* * *
Aya and Leon's police cars tore down the streets of Manhattan on the way to the United Nations Building. As they turned a corner, they found themselves at the rear of a long column of vehicles, starting with jeeps and armored cars and stretching all the way up to what appeared to be a tank.
The ESRB van, the EPA bus, and the Eyewitness News van pulled up behind the cars. Barret looked nervously back at the ESRB van. "What we gonna do now?" he asked.
Aya tapped her fingers on the steering wheel impatiently. "Wait," she said. "What else?"
* * *
A U.N. employee raced down the halls of the U.N. Building. "There's a tank parked outside!" he blurted, bursting into the General Assembly.
"We know," Secteray-General Kofi Annan said solemnly.
"And what are we gonna do about?" the employee said urgently.
"We've already locked the doors," Kofi Annan said. "And the security personnel have been alerted."
* * *
Wedge pulled futilely on the front doors of the U.N. Building, but could not force them open. Back by the tank, Crash Bandicoot was setting up some TVs and PlayStations on the front steps. "Don't worry," Crash said as he plugged them into a portable generator. "Now they will see the power of a fully armed and operational PlayStation. They'll let us in for sure." Crash turned on one of the PlayStations. The memory card screen came up.
"Oh yeah, that's exciting," Vicks said sarcastically.
"Hey, what happened to Parasite Eve?" Crash said, looking inside the PlayStation. It was empty. The bandicoot looked around. Cait Sith was sitting on the steps, whistling and trying to look inconspicous. "All right, hand 'em over," Crash said.
C.S. sighed, reached into his cloak, and produced his pilfered copies of Parasite Eve and Metal Gear Solid. Crash took them and put them in the PlayStations.
Kofi Annan appeared at a tenth-story window of the building, holding a megaphone. He opened the window, leaned out, and raised the megaphone. "Get off our lawn, you freak!" he bellowed.
Cait Sith raised his own megaphone and shouted back, "So's your mother!"
Just then, the van of Area 51 scientists pulled up to the front of the U.N. Building. The front of the van collided with Crash's PlayStation display, knocking it over. One of the PSXs went flying across the steps and smashed in the front doors of the U.N. Building.
Crash stared at the collapsed doors with a surprised expression. "Wow," he said. "Never underestimate the power of PlayStation."
The Area 51 scientists hopped out of their van. Red XIII took one look at them and bounded through the now-open doorway. Cait, Wedge, Vicks, and Crash quickly followed. The scientists gave chase.
* * *
Cait Sith looked around the lobby of the U.N. Building. Suddenly, a pickup truck came crashing through the front window and skidded across the floor. Three Republic of Texas guys -- Name Withheld not among them -- got out and looked around. "All right, let's get those bleedin' heart bastards," one of them said gruffly.
The Area 51 scientists came running in the door and found the Texas separationists pointing their guns at them. One of the scientists raised a futuristic-looking gun and fired it at one of the Republic of Texas guys. A laser flashed and the militia man fell dead.
The other Republic of Texas guys started firing. Cait's group scrambled to the side to get out of the crossfire. Then the CIA came and opened fire randomly. "We're on your side, you idiot!" one of the scientists shouted. A bullet struck him in the chest, but bounced off his diamond-plated pocket protector.
The chaos was amplified when the National Enquirer photographers started taking pictures of the conflict. One of the CIA agents shot one of the photographers. Huey, Dewey, and Louie ran into the building. Louie tackled one of the photographers and narrowly missed a laser that zipped over his head. Louie held up the Enquirer photographer for protection, but the photographer clubbed him on the way with his camera and knocked him out.
Dewey produced a can of bear Mace from his pocket and started spraying it around the room. He was not watching the door, and was caught completely unaware when a Canadian Mounted Policeman charged through the door. Dewey was trampled by the horse, but then one of the Republic of Texas guys shot the horse. The horse threw its rider off, who landed on top of an Area 51 scientist.
Aya, Rufus, Barret, Vincent, Aerith, Sephiroth, Leon, and Cid entered the lobby, pursued by the EPA and the ESRB. "What the @!$*%$ is all this?" Cid shouted, then ducked as a National Enquirier photograph tried to punch him for no apparent reason.
Meanwhile, Cait Sith, Crash, Red XIII, Wedge, and Vicks were running aimlessly through the U.N. Building, being chased by the building's security. They rounded a corner and found two guards waiting for them. Red XIII leaped and tackled one of them.
Name Withheld and another Republic of Texas guy charged towards them. "Hey, those aliens are sidin' with the U.N. commies," Name Withheld said angrily.
"Wait a second," the other Texas separationist said. "If they're aliens, doesn't that make them illegal immigrants?"
"Damn, I should have thought of that!" Name Withheld said. He charged around the corner, yelling, "Remember the Alamo!" Withheld started pumping bullets into the two guards. Vicks was shot in the heart and died in a spray of blood.
"Oh my God, they killed Vicks!" Cait Sith exclaimed.
"You bastards!" Crash yelled.
Two of the Thought Police rushed into the room. "Hey! We thought you were going to be a K-A game!" one of the Policemen said to Crash. "Now we're bumping you up to T for saying that."
The Thought Policeman raised his T stamp, but was shot by Name Withheld. "You damn government types stop telling us what to do!" he shouted. The other Thought Policeman fled, with Name Withheld chasing him.
Some EPA activists came out of a nearby door, brandishing picket signs. Spotting some of the "criminals" behind the Central Park incident, they attacked. One of the activists clobbered Red on the head with a picket sign. He was stunned, but mostly all right.
Seeing the EPA people, Name Withheld and the other Texas separationist doubled back and attacked. The EPA protestors sicced their spotted owls on the pair. The owls swooped at Withheld's buddy and tore him to shreds. Name Withheld gunned down two activists before the spotted owls chased him off.
During the battle, Cait Sith, Red, Crash, and Wedge had taken off in the opposite direction. "We've got to find those ESRB guys!" Cait Sith said. "They're the ones behind all this!"
* * *
On the other side of the U.N. Building, Aya's group was chasing the other Thought Police members. Their progress was impeded by the constant harassment from the National Enquirer and Eyewitness News, who had formed a temporary truce.
The group passed a pair Area 51 scientists on the stairs. "Are you on our side?" one of them asked the Eyewitness News cameraman.
The other scientist answered the question. "They're not even supposed to know we exist." The two scientists zapped the cameraman with their lasers, killing him.
Rufus shot one of the scientists with his shotgun, and Cid ran another the other through his spear. "Thanks," an Enquirer photographer said. "I guess you're on our side right now."
Barret turned and shoved the photographer down the stairs. "No we ain't," he said. "Now beat it."
The Enquirer and Eyewitness News people, however, continued to plague Aya's party as they ascended the stairs. At they top, they opened a door and found themselves face-to-face with a large band of CIA agents and Canadian Mounted Police. The Mounted Police galloped down the stairs on their horses, but somebody had set a trip wire on the steps. The horses whinnied as they went sprawling and threw their riders into the media.
The trigger-happy CIA agents started firing. Aya's party took cover, except for Sephiroth, who stood still and cast spells on the CIA agents. The agents turned and fled, but ran into the National Guard people. "Get out of our way, you idiots!" one of the CIA agents shouted. "Let us handle this!"
Then yet more Texas separationist appeared, fighting through the ranks of the National Enquirer and Eyewitness News people. "Liberal media!" one of the milita guys yelled.
The CIA turned its attention towards the Republic of Texas. "Communists!" one of the CIA agents shouted at the Texas separationists, at the same time that one of them shouted "Communists!" as well.
"Hey, wait a second, we can't both be communist," a Republic of Texas guy said.
"It's all the National Guard's fault!" a CIA agent said. The CIA and the Republic of Texas chased the National Guard down the hall, ignoring Aya's group.
"We lost the ESRB," Vincent muttered.
Rufus looked into the hall at the top of the stairs. It was a long hall with a lot of doors. "Pick a door, any door," he said.
"Let's go with the first door," Leon said, opening it. The group entered the room, weapons at the ready, leaving the National Enquirer and the Eyewitness News crew on the stairs by themselves (the Mounted Police having hobbled off in pursuit of the Area 51 scientists). The two factions looked at each other, and then, citing journalistic integrity, the Eyewitness News team started attacking the National Enquirer.
The room Aya's party was in was a generic office room, with a door on the far end of the room. From beyond that door, a high-pitched voice was yelling, "I'd start thinking real hard about that cameo appearance!"
"Cait Sith!" Cid exclaimed. He kicked open the door, although it just have easily been opened conventionally.
Cait Sith, Crash Bandicoot, Red XIII, and Wedge were squaring off (no pun intended) against Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Dewey was armed with his seemingly-limitless supply of bear Mace.
The wall of the room suddenly collapsed and the Thought Police entered. "All right, you," a Thought Policeman said, pointing his gun at Huey. "We'd like to have a word with you about that 'Xenogears' game."
Dewey sprayed the Policeman with a liberal dose of bear Mace. The other two ESRB guys started firing their uzis. Huey, Dewey, and Louie then ran out of the room, Huey commanding Rufus's party to "Get them!"
Aya took a few shot at one of the Thought Police, but they were equipped with bulletproof vests. Wedge took a shot in his head and was killed instantly. Aerith casts Break on one of the Thought Police and turned him to stone. The last Policeman chucked a grenade towards the party. Leon batted it back with his shotgun and it exploded just in front of the Thought Policeman's chest, killing him.
Rufus collapsed against the back wall, exhausted. Suddenly, the image of a black-cloaked figure appeared in the room. It was one of the tobacco industry cultists. "You haven't won yet," the cultist said. "If you really want to challenge us, come to our headquarters in Romania." Then it vanished.
"I guess we're off to Romania, then," Red XIII said. "No rest for the weary."
"Leon and I'll stay here and take care of this business," Aya volunteered.
Crash raised a hand. "Uh, me too," he said. "I don't really belong in this story."
"All right, all right, now let's get out of here," Cait Sith said impatiently. "We need to get this damn chapter finished. I've seen whole fanfics shorter than this one."
An ominous, disembodied, voice spoke. I'LL MAKE THE NEXT ONE SHORTER, it promised.
| Next chapter: Honey Shrunk the Kids |