Chapter 8: Delivering a Thousand Smiles a Day

The party gathered for a council of war at Costa Del Sol. In attendance were Rudy, Jack (and Hanpan), Cecilia, Jane, Elmina, Jill (who had washed the Olestra off), Rufus, Vincent, Barret, Cid, Aerith, Cait Sith, Red XIII, Alucard, Sephiroth, and Wesker. Cloud, Tifa, and Guido were there as well. "Is everybody here?" Wesker asked.

"Yes, it appears so," Alucard replied.

"Could you tell me who your voice actor is?" Cait Sith asked Alucard. "I'd like to give him a nice swift kick in the rear."

"Let's get down to business," Rufus said. "We stopped Umbrella from firing the Sister Ray, but that's just a temporary victory. Umbrella's huge. They'll be back."

"I don't mean to be a party pooper," Guido said, "but there's no way we can win. There's like, what, twenty of us? Umbrella has half a billion employees and a lot of weapons. We've got two planes. There's no way we can win. It's.. it's like a Working Designs game not being delayed. It just ain't gonna happen."

"$%@#*, you just wanna give up?" Cid said. "We're not out of this yet, Mr. Belvedere. Cut off the head, and the body dies. All we gotta do is get rid of this Zenogias guy and the rest will go with him. That's what worked with Shinra. It's like Barret says..."

"There ain't no gettin' offa this train we're on!" all the FF7 characters, even Rufus and Sephiroth, shouted. The others looked at them, a little puzzled.

"Cid does have a point," Cecilia agreed. "But the problem is, we don't even know what planet Zenogias is on right now."

"Not to mention the fact that he can alter his face," Vincent amended.

"Yeah, but the accent..." Jack left the thought hanging.

"I know!" Aerith said suddenly. "I know where I've heard that name before! It was at the Forgotten Capital!"

"You mean with all that ancient writing and stuff?" Tifa said.

"I'll go up there and see what I can find out," Aerith said. She got up and walked out of the villa.

The group broke up and waited for Aerith to return. Red XIII and Hanpan went to play chess, and Cait Sith worked on his fanfic The World Goes to Hell and It's All Rufus's Fault: Can You Guess Who I Don't Like?. "Hey, I thought up a new Jenova World song," Sephiroth said to Rufus. "Want to hear it?"

"No."

Sephiroth ignored him and started singing.

Rufus was forced to hide in a closet until Aerith returned that evening. When she did, the party -- except for Red XIII and Hanpan, who were busy playnig chess -- all gathered to hear what she had learned.

"I left Costa Del Sol for the Forgotten Capital," Aerith reported. "I had a good feeling! This job required a lot of strength. But, I tried my best. As a result, I was able to excavate it! So, this job's a success! I was cleaning up afterwards and I found a chest. I opened it and inside was a treasure I'd never seen before!" Aerith held out the Degeon Materia she'd found.

"Uh, that's very nice, but what did you learn about Zenogias?" Rufus asked.

"Well, nothing, actually," Aerith admitted. "I read the rest of the runes on that pedestal. They said to find out Zenogias, insert the Zodiac Stones into the pedestal."

"I guess we need the Zodiac Stones, then," Cloud said. "Let's mosey."

"@*&$%*$&#$*&@&$*%!" Cid shouted. "What the hell are you talking about? What *^&#$ Zodiac Stones? If you know something, tell us, dammit!"

"I was summoned to other another world once," Cloud said. "You remember that, don't you? They had something called the Zodiac Stones there."

"Let's go get them, then," Jack said.

"Wait," Guido said. "I know the world you're talking about. The FF Tactics world. It's not a normal world."

"Is any world?" Vincent said darkly.

"Stop that," Jill said to Vincent.

"It was created by Umbrella," Guido continued, "using Dr. Nicholas's Deva System. The Deva System creates ideal worlds from the minds of people. In this case, Umbrella kidnapped the developers of Tactics Ogre and used the Deva System on them to build the FF Tactics world. In other words, it's just in their heads. We can't travel there in a spaceship."

"So how are we gonna be gettin' there?" Barret asked.

"We're going to have to go through the Deva System," Guido said.

"And where's dat?"

"In the basement of the Shinra Building," Guido answered.

"I haven't said anything in a long time," Alucard said. "I'm just saying this so you won't forget I'm here."

"Let's get going, then," Sephiroth said.

"There's too many of us," Rufus said. "We'll never be able to all sneak in. Barret, you're familiar with the Shinra Building. You come. Vincent, you too, and Cid, and Sephiroth. Red -- where's Red 13?"

"He's playing chess with Hanpan," Jack answered.

"Somebody go get him," Rufus said.

"Do I get to come too?" Cait Sith asked eagerly.

"No," Rufus said sternly.

Cait Sith grabbed the door from the table, then yanked Jack's sword away and pointed at thte door. "Take me or the door gets it!" he threatened.

"Okay, okay, you can come," Rufus said. "Leave my door alone."

Cloud shrugged. "Since I've been there before, it might be good for me to come along too."

"Does that mean you are coming?" Rufus asked him.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"The Deva System's in the basement, but you'll need the keycard from my office," Guido said. "Good luck."

* * *

"I hope this isn't another really long chapter," Vincent panted as they jogged up the back stairs of the Shinra Building.

"I already had to go up these damn stairs once," Barret grumbled. "Why I gotta do it a second time?"

Rufus paused at a landing to catch his breath. "These things go on forever."

"The hell you complainin' 'bout?" Barret said. "You damn Shinra built these stairs!"

"Why couldn't we just go in the front?" Cait Sith whined. "I knew I should have brought my moogle."

"There's way too many Umbrella people," Red XIII said from above. The agile lion was bounding up the stairs easily, with no sign of exhaustion, and was several floors ahead of the others, much to their annoyance. Sephiroth had already teleported directly to the top.

"Heh, heh, heh," Barret and Rufus both said.

"Stop that," Cloud said.

"This is a $%!&$%*# endless stairway or what?" Cid swore. "Dammit, why couldn't we have gone in through the @#$% front door?"

"They weren't endless the last time," Cloud said.

"First thing I do when I get Shinra back is get rid of these stairs and put in an elevator," Rufus panted.

"Isn't the first thing you're going to do is to put in your door?" Cait Sith inquired.

"Oh yeah, good point."

Eventually, they reached the 59th floor, where Red XIII and Sephiroth were waiting. "Shut up, you @$%* ghost," Cid said to Sephiroth before Seph had a chance to say anything.

"I never wanted to see no more stairs the first time, and I sure don't want to be seein' no more now," Barret said.

They stepped out into the dull, empty, steel-floored, 59th floor of the Shinra Building. Rufus walked to the door and inserted his Shinra keycard. There was a honk. "Shoot," Rufus said. "They must have changed the keycard system."

Some Umbrella guards came running. Cid skewered one with his spear and Vincent shot the other. After they had fallen, Rufus examined their bodies and found some moldy donuts and a new Umbrella keycard. After a moment's reflection, he took the Umbrella flamethrower one of the guard was carrying.

"I'm getting something on my 8 ball," Cait Sith reported, shaking the device. "It says... DITCH THE FLAMETHROWER."

Rufus rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah, I believe that," he said. He inserted the keycard into the elevator. It allowed access up to the 61st floor.

"My 8 ball never lies," Cait Sith said primly as they stepped into the elevator. Rufus set it to the 61st floor. The elevator started to move and some elevator music started playing.

Suddenly, the glass walls of the elvator shattered. Rufus whirled. On an adjacent elevator stood Don Corneo, armed with an uzi. "Is that... Don Corneo?" Cid said. "We killed that little @#$*&!"

Don Corneo appeared alive enough to fire his uzi at the party, however. "You have underestimated the power of soup," he sneered. "Or the G-Virus, rather."

"You too, eh?" Rufus said. "Well, eat this!" He stepped to the edge of the elevator, being careful not to fall off, and pulled the trigger on the flamethrower. Nothing happened at first, then finally some paltry puffs of flames came out, not even reaching halfway to the other elevator.

"I told you shouldn't have taken that," Cait Sith said smugly.

Don Corneo kept firing while the annoying elevator music continued. The elevator suddenly dinged and stopped moving. "We're here," Cloud said, completely ignoring the fight.

"We'd best deal with Corneo first," Red XIII advised. "Otherwise he's going to chase us everywhere."

Acting on Red's advice, Vincent drew his pistol and plugged Corneo in the head. "Hee hee hee!" Corneo exclaimed. "That hurts! Now I'm going to have to play hardball!"

Corneo started to transform -- he hunched forward and his head grew larger, while claws emerged from his fingers, and spikes sprung up all over his back. Then his mouth grew forward and turned into a bill, while a furry tail sprouted from his rear. Six more clawed arms joined his existing pair.

"This is too @#!^ weird," Cid muttered.

"I'm a duck-billed tarantula porcupine!" the mutated Corneo laughed in a semi-human voice.

"You look like some reject from Greek mythology," Cait Sith shouted back through his megaphone.

Corneo -- or whatever he was -- spit a blast of venom at the party, catching Barret in the face. The former AVALANCHE leader returned fire while Rufus fumbled for an antidote. Red XIII cast Comet on Don Corneo. A small meteor dropped down and exploded on the opposite elevator. Corneo, aided by the G-Virus, remained standing.

Corneo crouched and tensed, preparing to leap onto the other elevator. The party backed fearfully away. Casually, Cid reached over and pushed the "down" button. The elevator dropped just as Corneo jumped. With a despairing cry, the mutant Corneo hurtled out into space. "Got that #!^%@," Cid said in a tone of satisfaction.

Rufus chucked the useless flamethrower over the edge as the elevator ascended back to the 61st floor. When the elevator stopped, they stepped through the doors and onto the spacious lounge that was the 61st floor. A large, pretty, tree grew in the center of the floor, and the overall atmosphere was quite pleasant and relaxed -- not even Umbrella had damaged that.

Cait Sith sniffed the air. "Mmm... zesty," he said.

"Shut up, Cait."

Cid wandered off towards the vending machines. "They got cigarettes in these things?" he said. Indeed, there was a Umbrella vending machine that carried cigarettes, but as soon as Cid saw it, he stopped. "Oh yeah," he said. "Those @*&$% put that funky stuff in that mutates people."

"How did you get the keycard here the last time?" Rufus asked Cloud.

"Some guy gave it to us," Cloud said. "We could look around, I suppose..."

"Hey-hey!" someone called. Rufus turned towards the source of the voice. It took him a moment to recognize the short, balding, Umbrella-uniformed janitor ambling towards them as Palmer.

"Hey, it's fatman Palmer," Cid said, returning from his brief excursion.

"Hey-hey, don't say fat," Palmer said.

"What happened to you?" Cloud asked. "Are you the janitor now or what?"

"Hey-hey-hey, yes," Palmer said. "Anybody with ties to Shinra got dumped to the bottom of the corporate ladder, and Umbrella's sawing off the rungs."

"That was an unusually articulate piece of speech for him," Red XIII observed. "Sawing off the rungs."

"If we're lucky, Zenogias will step on that 'This Is Not a Step' step," Cait Sith said.

"What about the Turks?" Rufus asked Palmer.

Palmer scratched his bald spot as he considered this. "Don't know, don't know," he said. "Haven't seen them in a long time."

"Yo' got a keycard, fatman?" Barret asked.

"A keycard?" Palmer said. "Yeah." He pulled his wallet out of his rear pocket, produced a keycard, and handed it to Barret. "Hey-hey, here you go. This'll take up to floor 62."

"Thanks," Rufus said, knowing Barret wouldn't say it.

Palmer waved. "Hey, I gotta go," he said. "Got floors to clean." He ambled back to his bucket of janitorial supplies and pushed it off, humming badly.

Suddenly, the wall shattered as the Tyrant-103 punched through. "This guy again?" Rufus whined. Cloud made short of the work Tyrant (for now) with an Omnislash, and it fell down. Rufus searched and procured an always-handy box of shotgun bullets.

They returned to the elevator, scanned in Palmer's keycard, ascended to the 62nd floor, the archives floor, and stepped inside. "How about this floor?" Rufus asked Cloud. "How'd you get the keycard here?"

"The 62nd floor?" Cloud thought for a moment. "Oh, that's easy. We got that one -"

"You'll never get it this time, AVALANCHE!" a voice shouted.

They looked down the hall. Mayor Domino and his assistant Hart were standing outside the door to Domino's office. Domino was holding the keycard aloft. "I learned my lesson," Domino sneered. "Never trust you lamers. Ta-ta!" Domino and Hart ducked inside their office, then rolled out on swivel chairs, with the backs of the chairs in front of them. They took off down the hall, heading in the opposite direction from the party.

"What the hell?" Cid said.

"Come on, we've got to chase them!" Cloud said.

Domino and Hart were already cruising towards the stairs on their swivel chairs. "With what?" Sephiroth asked.

Cloud shrugged. "When in Rome..." He ran inside Domino's office, jumped on his own swivel chair, and chase after Domino and Hart. The others followed his lead, and soon they were rolling down the hall, rapidly picking up speed.

Domino and Hart rolled into the stairwell on their chairs. Just as Cloud's gang was nearing the stairs, Mukki, Butch, and Johnny fanned out behind the group, also on swivel chairs. "What is this, the Swivel Chair Cavalry Ninth Division?" Cait Sith said.

Cloud's swivel chair left the ground as the stairs dropped out below him. He bounced off the wall and spun down onto the stairs, amazingly still balanced and upright. Domino glanced upwards, and seeing Cloud chasing him, drew his Mako Gun and started firing. Cloud and the others ducked down behind the backrests of their chair to avoid the blasts of Mako.

Mukki, wielding a morning star, pulled up alongside Vincent. Cloud slowed his swivel chair and clobberd Mukki with his sword. Mukki's swivel chair spun out, crashed into the wall, and tipped over. Butch's chair hit the fallen Mukki and tipped forward, throwing Butch down the stairs.

"I'm starting to get dizzy," Red XIII complained. The chairs were rocketing down the spiral staircase at over forty miles an hour, spinning around, bumping off walls, and often eschewing the ground entirely.

Domino and Hart kept firing their Mako Guns at the party, and Johnny joined in from above. Far above, Mukki and Butch got their feet, hopped on their chairs, and rejoined the chase.

Rufus was covering his head with his hands. "Somebody do something!" he shouted.

A hint of a smile crossed Vincent's normally impassive face. He stood up slightly and started to rap. "I'm workin' in the flea market so early, been workin' here since my mama was baby..."

"Shut up!" Hart yelled. "Those lyrics made no sense!" He started firing his Mako Gun wildly at Vincent.

Cloud leaned forward to speed up. His swivel chair sailed right off the stairs and made a huge leap directly into the wall. The chair ricocheted off and landed right between Domino and Hart. Cloud turned and smacked Hart with his sword, knocking him off his chair.

"Hey, Clod, think fast," Domino said. He swung his arm and elbowed Cloud in the chest, knocking Cloud off his swivel chair. Cloud's chair continued riderless down the stairs, running even with Domino.

Higher up on the stairs, Johnny was attacking from behind with his Mako Gun. He was cleverly resting his elbows on his chair's tilted backrest, thus stabilizing his arms and improving his accuracy. The party swerved their chairs back and forth to avoid the constant blasts of Mako energy that pinged off their wheels.

Cid turned in his chair and jabbed at Johnny's chair with his spear. The spear hit the top half of the backrest and pushed it back vertical. Johnny's balance was thrown off and he fell backwards off the chair. His vacated chair collided with Vincent's, nearly causing Vincent to crash.

The party's armada of chairs rolled by the fallen Cloud. Barret reached down and yanked Cloud up, placing him in Johnny's now-empty chair. "You lucky I saved yo' spikey-headed ass," Barret said.

The only one of Domino's gang left now was Domino himself. However, he has far enough ahead that it was almost to get a clear shot on him or his chair, since the staircase kept turning. Domino, however, was shooting his Mako Gun behind him, hoping to nail one of the party as they turned the corner.

"I've got an idea," Cait Sith said. He produced a handful of marbles from his cloak. As they rolled onto a straightway, C.S. chucked the marbles ahead as far as he could. They rolled by Domino, but the mayor of Midgar swerved out of the way, leaving the marbles lying on the stairs. "Shoot," Cait Sith said. "Missed. And now I've lost my marbles."

"You lost them a long time ago," Rufus said. Cait Sith flashed him a dirty look, but said nothing.

Red XIII's chair hit the marbles and spun out. Red XIII jumped off just as the chair crashed into the wall and broke in two. Thinking quickly, Red charged down the stairs ahead of the chairs, propelled by his powerful legs. They rounded a bend, sending Barret's chair into the air. Red XIII ran and slid under the flying chair, then resumed his running.

Red started to catch up with Domino. Bouncing around near Domino was the empty chair that Cloud had originally been in. Red XIII bounded onto it. Domino turned and looked at him, startled, but before Domino could do anything, Red XIII batted him off his chair with his powerful paws.

Unheeded by Domino's gang now, the party's chairs ran freely down the stairs. By now, they had nearly reached the ground floor. The sounds above them indicated that Domino's gang was back on their chairs and giving chase, but they were too far behind to cause trouble.

Red XIII's chair was still ahead of the others. "You'd best stop," he shouted back to the others. Following his advise, they straightened up and put their feet to slow their chairs down. The swivel chairs skidded to a stop just in front of a large pair of steel double-doors that led into the basement.

"'We'd best stop?'" Rufus said questioningly. "How about we have to stop or we go splat?"

The wheeling sounds from above grew louder. "Quick, get to the sides," Vincent said. The group moved their swivel chairs to the sides of the stairwell, leaving an aisle down the center.

Domino's gang came shooting down the stairs on their swivel chairs. Domino's eyes opened wide when he saw the door, but he was unable to stop himself in time. He and his friends crashed right through the doors, knocking them out of the wall.

"That's gotta hurt," Cid said. He looked through the smashed doors into the room beyond. The room was rectangular and tileed with blue marble. On rows of tables in the room lay the entire Quest development team. Each member had wires attached to a helmet on their heads, and all the wires led to a black, triangular, machine at the far end of the room -- the Deva System. In front of the machine was a shimmering blue portal to the FF Tactics world.

Domino was headed directly towards the portal. He tried to slow down by dragging his feet on the ground, but his swivel chair was completely out of control. Domino, Hart, Mukki, Butch, and Johnny all rocketed directly into the portal and vanished.

Rufus's party dismounted from their chairs and walked into the basement. "We made to the basement after all," Cloud observed. "Funny thing."

"Well, no sense in wasting time here," Rufus said. He approached the portal and hopped through, shouting "Let's a-go!"

"What did he say?" Cait Sith asked Red XIII.

"I think he said 'a pickle'," Red XIII replied.

The others lined up to hop through the portal -- Sephiroth first, then Barret, and Vincent, and the two cats, and Cid. Cloud was off looking around the room.

Cid was the last to jump through the portal. "Hey, Cloud, get your ass in gear," he said, before hopping through into the FF Tactics world. Cloud wandered over the portal and jumped through, but his mind was on what he had seen on the room.

Sitting on a table behind the Deva System was the body of Sephiroth.