Yuffie paced her cell in the Desert Prison, humming "Camptown Races" to herself. She had to keep her spirits up. But, Gawd, this sucked. Sure, she'd done plenty of time in the past, but they'd never stuck in a place like this before. Usually it was just some quick overnight stay in a county jail, and then they let her go when Dad paid her bail and they couldn't really prove she'd stolen anything.

But now she really seemed to have gotten herself deep in shoopuf manure. She didn't know if they'd let her go back to Balamb Garden. Plus, she was, like, supposed to save the world 'n stuff. And that was kinda hard to do when she was stuck in a maximum-security jail cell. There wasn't a damn thing she could do here besides sleep. Not that she ever minded sleeping, but she could tell she was going to get pretty antsy cooped up in this little room. Were these even four-star facilities?

Yuffie pounded on the door. "Gawd, is anyone out there?"

"What is it?" Wedge said.

"This place sucks."

"It's a prison. What were you expecting?"

"Gawd, don't you talk to me like that. I want to talk to your manager!"

Well, better to let someone else deal with this. Wedge jogged off to retrieve his commanding officer and they returned together. "Do you have a problem?" Biggs asked. He looked into the cell. "Oh, that's that pirate kid."

Wedge frowned. "Pirate, sir? She looks more like a flooring inspector to me."

"Pirates and hackers come in all shapes and sizes, Biggs. You can't trust anyone who uses a computer. They're all up to no good. You never know when they're planning to tap into the phone lines and send out a virus."

"Hey! I wouldn't do that! That's not fair! If you keep ... making stuff up like that about me, I can do that, like, sue you or something!"

"Yes, you do that," Biggs said. He turned to leave.

Well, so much for trying to negotiate with them. "The Camptown ladies sing this song 'n stuff, doo-dah, doo-dah."

A blue rat, carrying a keycard in his mouth, came crawling through a hole in the wall on all fours. He spit the card out on the floor and looked up just in time to see a massive foot descending towards him. "The Camptown racetrack, like, two miles long, doo-dah, doo-" Her foot stopped just inches away from Hanpan. "Ohmigawd! It's Mr. Jingles!"

Hanpan stood up on two feet and stared at her, struggling to comprehend the degree to which he had just been insulted. "Listen," he seethed through clenched teeth. "If you ever call me 'Mr. Jingles' again, I will personally fly down your throat and rip out your tonsils. My name is Hanpan. Han. Pan. Do you read me?"

"Um, I don't have any tonsils. I had them removed when I was a little kid, you know?"

"No," Hanpan said frostily. "I didn't. Now listen to me. I'm from Dunamis; here's the plan. Take the keys, sneak out of your cell, and go down one level. The Moombas have dug a hole in the wall there. It'll work like a rabbit hole; you can jump through there to get back into Dricas. We're having a tea party there; it'll be easy to find."

"Gawd, really? Awesome, thanks! But, um, how do I get down there? I'm locked in this cell."

Did she even listen to a word he said? He gestured with his foot towards the card. "With that little get out of jail free card, stupid. And don't ask me how I got my hands on it."

Yuffie finally noticed the card and picked it up. "Oh! Wow, this is, like, one of the prison keycards. Where did you get it?"

Hanpan took a deep breath to calm himself. "I just told you not to ask me that."

"Uh, right, sorry."

* * *

It did not take Yuffie long to get lost once she had returned to Dricas. She found herself wandering across the same series of hills, past the same trees, over and over.

"Oh, Gawd, I'm lost, aren't I?"

Gawd, how did she always manage to screw up like this? This was why she was better off just staying in bed and sleeping. Nothing she could break or spill Sunny D on there.

Maybe this was one of those repeating forests and she had to go past these landmarks in the right order to get out. But no one in town had given her the secret code and there weren't any mysterious ancient tablets sticking out of the ground. That stupid rat, telling her that it would be easy to find. Didn't he know that she messed up everything she did?

She eventually found her way to Cait Sith's card table, and instantly regretted it. Cait Sith sprung eagerly up on his table. "Ooh! I bet you decided to come back for The Legend of Cait Sith Gets Some. Good choice, my dear fiendishly ugly bitch, good choice."

"NO! I just need directions again."

"Suuure you do. C'mon, you can admit it; I know you want to get your hands on this hot, brand new timeless literary treasure." He waved his book in her face until Yuffie shoved it away.

"Stop that! I don't want your book. All I want to know is if there are any any tea parties around here."

"Party, my left paw. That's the worst excuse I've ever heard."

Yuffie blinked. "What?"

"You? Partying? Did you come from some parallel dimension Bizarro World where Andrew W.K. is a Linux programmer?" Cait Sith waved the book at her. "I know what you're really looking for."

"Look, this is Important. It has to do with stuff with angels in their names 'n stuff. Lucca said so."

"Ohhh, I get it." Cait Sith nodded his head in a gesture of sagacious understanding. It all made sense now. "You want to read something deep and Important; that's why you didn't why you didn't buy my book. Well, don't worry; I can be just as Important too; in fact, I'm even deeper than Lucca. Hold on, I feel a psuedo-philosophical catchphrase coming on."

He clutched his head and rocked back and forth, as if in the caught in the throes of some Jenova Cell-induced flashback. "Oh! Oh! Here it comes! 'The absolute value of good and evil is the same.'" He looked up. "Was that Important enough for you, huh? Huh? Will you buy my book?"

Yuffie did not even hear his last words. She as staring completely blankly at him, trying to piece together some sense from what he had sense. "Gawd, that doesn't even make sense," she concluded.

"Duh! That's because it's too deep for you to understand. I told you. I'm friggin' deep, baby. Deeper than the Marianas Trench. I'm so deep and Important I'd even change my name to something faggy like 'Zadkiel' if it means you'll buy my book."

Yuffie rolled her eyes. "I think 'Lucifer' would be more appropriate," she said, sounding exasperated - she had finally hit her limit with Cait's garbage. "Never mind. I'll find the party on my own. Gawd."

* * *

A few hours later...

"Jimma, the Goers have never been beaten while playing on the road on Tuesdays against teams who are currently ranked second in the league and have an even number of losses. What will Kilika have to do to counter this threat?"

"Well, Bobba, they're going to have to find a way to score more goals than Luca if they want to win this game. But we can't count them out until we've seen the last paid advertisements."

"Thank you for that brilliant insight, Jimma," Lucca quipped. She took another sip of tea and lit a new cigarette.

Clustered around one end of a picnic table, Lucca, Hanpan, Kefka, and Vibri continued to drink their tea and watch the Goers-Beasts pre-game show. An extra-special ingredient seemed to have worked its way into Vibri's tea, and each sip was causing him to become progressively less sober. "Marijuana!" he shouted and collapsed into fits of giggles.

Someone came jogging over the hill. "No room! No room!" the quartet shrieked, huddling together at the end of the table. Then Lucca realized who it was. "Oh, wait. It's ~*Angel Princess Aeris Til Heartilly-chan-sama-domo-kun-hime*~. Welcome back."

Yuffie descended the hill and stopped near the picnic tile. "Gawd, it took me forever to find this place. What's up?"

Lucca shrugged. "Watchin' the game, havin' some tea. Oh! I suppose I should you introduce to the rest of the crew. Guys, this is Yuffie Kisaragi, or ~*Angel Princess Aeris Til Heartilly-chan-sama-domo-kun-hime*~. And, Yuffie, this is the rest of Dunamis, sans _prometheus. You've already met xwhiterabbitx; here are d0rmouse and MaD_HaTTer."

"Hey." Yuffie said. "Oh! You're the guy who helped me get out of jail!"

Hanpan nodded. "<=¤m3g@=f£å®ê666=> tells me she thinks you're the one we've been looking for," he said in an almost accusatory fashion. Clearly this was a position that Hanpan was not so sure of. "She says you're the only person who has the skill to beat Mother Brain at her own game. Do you think you have what it takes?"

Yuffie scratched her head. "Well, I scored 50,000 points on Double Dragon..."

"50,000 points!" Hanpan gasped. "You scored 50,000 points on Double Dragon?"

"Time to sing the high score song!" Vibri exclaimed. He warbled an incomprehensible stream of psuedo-Japanese syllables interrupted with occasional insane giggles.

"With the emphasis on 'high,' apparently," Lucca commented.

"I smoke weed!" Vibri doubled over in hysterics.

Yuffie found herself trying to stay as uninvolved as possible here. Gawd, these people were more nuts than Garden at its worst. She hated to admit it, but that dumb cat was probably right when he said everyone was mad here, or at least high. Sure, she had to save the world 'n all, but that didn't prevent her from trying to minimize the contact she had with these weirdos. "Okay ... so I'm good at games 'n stuff. What do you want me to do?"

"Well, each of us in Dunamis has a specific role," Lucca said. "I lead, Robo does machines, Kefka is our muscle, Hanpan does infiltration, and Vibri reconnaissance."

"I SMOKE WEED!"

"Yes, that too," Lucca said. "And I should mention that in addition to leading, my specialties include guns, women, and generally kicking ass. ‘Cause I’m just all that and a bag of chips, y’know."

"Well, if you can do all that, what do you need me for, then?" Yuffie sounded a little annoyed by Lucca's boasting.

"Yuffie, once we pin down Mother Brain's whereabouts, we'll need your skills at operating Dricas to reach and disable her, most likely in mano-a-mano combat. That's your job. You and Tron are the missing keys to stopping Mother Brain."

"Tron? Who's Tron?"

"I don't know; that's just what I discerned from my research."

Hanpan looked upwards. "Looks like you're going to be able to test your skills for yourself, Yuffie. We've got hostiles!"

An airship -- a black-and-white line-art one, of course -- was descending from the sky, with the members of the Bumbling Recurring Minor Villains' Local #203 standing on the deck. As they approached the tea party, Dominia nodded towards the rest of the union, and they burst out in song.