Final Fanatic
Chapter 11: Bathhouse Blues
After the heroic battle against the Great and Mighty Poo, our heroes were once again on their long quest to find the Chaos Emeralds. Well, unfortunately they were going to have to take a slight detour…by slight…they're going to take the entire chapter…
"Guys," Mona asked; her voice sounding strained as she spotted some vegetation turning a rotten brown wherever they passed.
"Yes…?" Chaos-2 groaned, noticing a bunch of wildlife running from them. Some of the smaller animals seemed to be squealing: "RETREAT! RETREAT" or "RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY" with high pitched voices.
"I think we stink," The brunette grumbled as an unlucky flickie fell off its perch on a nearby tree, startling Choco and causing some loose black feathers to get stuck in the girl's hair.
"How much further until the next town," Kris groaned.
"How am I supposed to know?" Sephiroth replied, swatting away some flies that buzzed around him. At this point in time, Sephiroth had a brunette appearance.
"Nobody appeared to be asking you," Mona coughed and swatted at another fly.
"Say Chaos," Kris turned towards the blue creature that had a mixture of brown and green in its watery form. "Can't you do something…?"
"No…unless you want a coat of slime with the…stuff coating you…" Chaos-2 hesitated at saying words relative to "poo". Kris backed away as if to understand what Chaos meant.
"Ohh…key,"
"Well, it's not like a flipping bathhouse is going to appear out of nowhere..." The brunette grimaced as a fog began to kick up until it obscured the view of the travelers. "…oh for Pete's sake, we're smelly and there's a heat-induced FOG kicking in and—Ow! Who stepped on my foot?!"
"Don't look at me!" Sephiroth snapped.
"I can't see you, IDIOT!" Mona retorted.
"Look, all we have to do is keep talking and—AAH!" Kris abruptly yelped and was followed by a splash.
"What, what's wrong?!" Sephiroth's voice could be heard along with a sword unsheathing and a bit of metal slicing through water.
"AACK! Don't unsheathe your sword here!" Chaos yelped.
"Why the heck not?!"
"You just slashed me in the face!"
"Uh…woops…"
"Moron…"
"Wark-wark…"
"HEY! You're lucky I can't use my ultimate attack, or something relatively painful to you, if I can't see anything!"
"That's why…" And a raspberry followed.
"AAAARGH,"
"I just tripped and fell into some water! Nothing to worry about," Kris replied along with a sloshing sound.
"Wait-wait-wait…doesn't the water seem a bit…warm?" Mona asked after a hesitant silence.
"Uhm…it's not supposed to be…is it?" Chaos inquired.
"I feel a breeze…" Sephiroth said out loud as the fog cleared.
"TMI Sephiroth…"
The group stood in a horrible silence as their eyes enlarged to the size of saucers and Mona slapped a hand over her Chocobo's eyes.
"Oh…" Kris and Mona's jaws dropped.
"My…" Sephiroth and Chaos-2 stuttered.
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Needless to day, chaos ensued (no pun intended).
Mona dove underwater, still clutching Choco, leaving only her head above the water "Where are my clothes?!" Mona shrieked,
"Wark wark wark!"
"Is this a sick joke?!" Sephiroth yelled, using his overly long silver hair to cover himself. He looked around wildly and yelled: "Where the heck is my sword?!"
Kris would have made a witty reply, but she had fainted after initially seeing Sephiroth and had sunk underwater.
Chaos dissolved into a puddle and merged with the water from embarrassment before realization kicked in: "Wait…I don't wear clothes…"
"Shh!"
Everyone blinked (Kris had resurfaced by now, only her head above water) and turned to who had shushed them. There on a rock was a SlowBro in a white uniform. The SlowBro drawled, "Please………..be ………… quiet………… the……….. other…………"
"Oh this is gonna take forever!" Sephiroth groaned.
"Oy!" yelled the Shellder on its tail. "What my associate here is trying to say is: Shut up! The other customers are trying to enjoy the hot springs you dolts!"
"Hot springs?" Kris asked.
"Yeah, can't ya read the sign?" the Shellder said.
"What sign?" Chaos-2 asked and looked around, then saw the huge sign behind them "Oh that sign…"
They all looked at the big white sign behind them that read: Welcome to Slowbro's Traveling Co-Ed Bathhouse and Hot Springs
"Okay, but where did our clothes go?" Mona asked, clamping another hand over her eyes.
"They were taken to be washed." The Shellder grimaced (or as much as a Shellder can grimace anyway), "Believe me; they need industrial-strength washing. I don't even want to know what you've been rolling in."
"You really don't want to know…" Kris replied as the SlowBro attempted to speak before its associate spoke over him.
"Ey! Boys! Ya do realize yer in the GIRLS side of the hot-springs, do ya?" The Shellder commented resulting in the group having comically wide eyes as the steam dissipated even further and…
Several screams and outbursts of: "PEEEERRRRVEEEERRRRTS!!" erupted from the girl's side as Sephiroth (who had somehow grabbed a towel from the Slowbro) and Chaos-2 ran through the door. Sephiroth, unluckily, slipped on a well placed brush, spun in mid air, and knocked into Chaos-2 which resulted in them crash landing in the men's side of the onsen and sending up a geyser of water. The Slowbro only padded through the door and closed it after getting hit in the face by a towel.
"Please…………enjoy…………your—"
"Fer cryin' out loud, take a freaking BATH already! You all smell like POO!" The Shellder snapped. Chaos-2 turned a deep shade of green when he heard the 'P' word being spewed.
And spew he did…
"BLAAAAAARRGH!"
"Oh great job you lummox, now we have to filter the entire bath!"
"Well…the good news is…we're going to get this muck and grime off…" Mona commented, giving herself a power-scrub to remove the crud and gunk coating her. Choco cawed in agreement, floating above the water like a duck. Kris observed the black Chocobo with an odd expression.
"Hey Mona…"
"What?"
"Isn't Choco a male?"
"Uh…" Mona looked at the Chocobo which was minding its own business, not entirely caring that other females were cleaning. "Let's just pretend he's a girl-Chocobo so the others don't punch him skyward…"
"Good point…" Kris nodded before dumping onsen water over her head. Choco only tilted its head to the side with a confused: "Wark?"
Sephiroth and Chaos-2 found themselves placed in another part of the onsen after the spewed substance was power-filtered from the bathwater. Most of the male occupants were a bit peeved that they were coated in a new layer of sludge after getting themselves clean, and they regarded the silver-haired man and the Chaos-Monster as irritations.
"Well…at least the muck's out of my system…" Chaos-2 commented, his watery body a crystalline blue color.
"Good for you." Sephiroth grumbled as he tried to get poo, dung, crap, sludge, and other disgusting things out of his long hair. "At least you don't have long hair that entangles stuff in it!" He retorted after pulling out a Sweet Corn that shrieked in panic before being thrown out of the bath.
"If you're having so much trouble with it, why don't you cut your hair?" The water monster glared.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Both the characters, along with the other male occupants, went rigid when they heard loud female screams from all corners of the (obvious) globe. Chaos blinked and turned towards Sephiroth who slapped a clean hand into his half-mucked face.
"The hell was that?"
"My fan-girls…"
"What's wrong with getting your hair cut?!" Chaos-2 gave him a confused expression. "No offense but sometimes I mistake you for a—"
"Shut. Up…"
Kris went dead silent and she dropped her brush into the water on the girl's side of the onsen.
"…for some odd reason…I want to punch Chaos-2."
Sephiroth, after cleaning off the muck and getting back his silvery-hair sheen, rested in a sitting-down position next to Chaos-2.
"Finally, I'm not dirty like a Chocobo." The silver-haired man commented.
"Speaking of Chocobo…I haven't seen Choco in this side of the bath…" Chaos-2 tapped its nose in thought resulting in Sephiroth sitting upright and twitching at the thought of a Male Chocobo in the Female side of the onsen.
"That little…" Sephiroth fumed, anime veins pulsing as he imagined Choco acting like a pimp around Mona and Kris. With that thought in mind, the silver-haired man stood up in place. "He had better not be—not be doing what I think he's doing!!"
The male occupants stared with wide-eyed and confused and startled expressions as Sephiroth stamped towards the door and grabbed the knob. The other occupants, knowing the dangers, ducked under water as the door was wrenched open.
"YOU PERVERTED LITTLE—"
"Sephiroth?!" Kris stared. Sephiroth went silent as he stared straight at the blonde, wide-eyed and a red drip coming down his nose.
"Kris?"
The other females…screamed.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK…!"
"NAKED PERVERT," Mona yelled; diving further under water and grabbing a bucket filled with water from the side of the bath and throwing it at Sephiroth with bone-shattering force.
"…no—"
BASH!
Outside the baths, Slowbro and Shellder listened to the audible commotion coming from inside.
"Good grief…we haven't had THIS MUCH commotion since that perverted toad-sage ninja arrived!" Shellder commented. "And we just had those knotholes in the walls plugged too! The dolt! Who would be stupid enough to walk into the opposite side of the onsen anyway?! Grr…I should have sealed that door!"
Much like what happened back at Ayame's Costume Shop, Sephiroth found objects ranging from any video game being thrown at him along with female screams. The silver haired FF7 character desperately tried to avoid the many sharp objects being thrown before another bucket decked him square in the face resulting in tripping backwards on a well placed soap bar and falling into the water. The females screamed louder and another game bishounen (who was much more chivalrous to the opposite gender) lunged for the door, slamming it shut and avoiding death-by-flying-mallet. Sephiroth floated face-down over towards Chaos-2, sporting a giant bruise on his head. The water-beast regarded his companion with apathy.
"Who's the bigger pervert," He asked, "You or the Chocobo?"
Sephiroth chose this moment to sink underwater.
Mona helped her friend resurface (seeing Sephiroth devoid of clothing, except for a towel, and dripping wet had overloaded Kris's systems causing her to faint) by grabbing a good chunk of her blonde hair.
"OWIE," Kris shrieked. When Mona let go, Kris looks around frantically for her bishie "Where's Sephie-kins?"
Mona growled in frustration, seriously contemplating hitting Kris with a mallet and knocking her out for the remainder of the fanfic. "Who's the bigger pervert, you or the One-Winged-Pansy?"
Kris looked at Mona innocently, and then an evil thought kicked in, "I wonder who else is over there…"
At first Mona didn't fully grasp the intentions in Kris's words until the blonde started sidestepping towards the wall. "What?! Are you crazy?!" Mona practically tackled her friend before she reached the wall but only managed to grab her arm. This received some odd stares from the female occupants.
"Mona! Let go! Don't be a party-pooper!"
On the other side of the wall Chaos-2 faintly heard the word 'poop' and turned slightly green again.
And Sephiroth noticed before clamping a hand over where Chaos-2's mouth was supposed to be. "Don't you dare vomit, you idiot! They just had this water filtered!"
"Mona!" Kris struggled against Mona's steel grip. "Maybe someone else we know is over there, like a naked Shadow the Hedgehog!" Then Kris stopped and thought a moment with a devious smile. "Wait a sec, isn't Shadow always naked?"
That aforementioned thought caused Mona to blush, let go of Kris and dive underwater in a feeble attempt to 'drown out' her current thoughts of the 'always naked' Ultimate Life form.
Giggling, Kris grabbed a towel from the edge of the spring and darted out of the water towards the door. She tried to open the door, but unfortunately the SlowBro had come back and locked it after the 'Naked-Pervert' escapade. Then Kris started scrambling up the wall like Reno in FFVII: AC but was stopped halfway by something tugging at the edge of her towel. "Hey, let go!"
Choco, wanting to help his 'mommy', had grabbed some of the towel in his beak to stop Kris.
"Let go—" but Kris was interrupted by a cracking noise, and it distinctively sounded like it was coming from the wall. "Uh oh…"
"Wark-wark" Choco sweat dropped, for he too heard the sound.
Kris leaped off the wall, the cracking heard again, "Whatever happens, I didn't do it!" and she leaps back into the water along with Choco. The wall continued rumbling for a few moments, unnerving the occupants (except for Mona since she was still under water) before silencing.
Kris spoke up, "Well that was c—"
Rumble…
Everyone held back their starting-to-release breaths as the wall rumbled before halting again.
"…well that was—"
RUMBLE…
"………that was—"
RUMBLE…!
"Never mind…!"
Sephiroth and the other males relaxed after the wall stopped rattling and resumed cleaning themselves off. The silver haired bishounen, after getting the remnants of crud out of his hair, relaxed in the bath water. He put two hands behind his head and smiled contently.
"Ah…"
Chaos-2 sank so only his head was above water. "I should have made this place my habitat YEARS ago…"
"That and…aside from being thwacked over the head by that brown-haired twit," Sephiroth grumbled slightly from the pain in his nose, "nothing could possibly go wrong…"
"Oh, I thought I recognized you!"
Sephiroth's eyes widened and he looked around, surprised to find that the male's side of the bath was almost empty, bar himself and Chaos-2. The silver-haired man's mako eyes turned slightly to his left and he caught sight of the last person he wanted to see in a bath-house: Ayame Sohma.
"Oh crap!" He yelped, out of realizing the other silver-haired man was almost six inches from him. Chaos-2 turned a slight green color and tried to hold back his fluids while Sephiroth shot to the other side of the bath.
"Please…don't say that word again…" Chaos-2 shuddered.
"Well Sephiroth, I had no idea that you came to this bathhouse…" Ayame smiled almost seductively. Sephiroth blanched and stared wide-eyed at the Fruits Basket character as though he was Aerith coming back from the grave and demanding his soul.
"S-stay away!" The silver haired man panicked, wishing he had his sword in order to protect himself.
On the other side of the wall, Kris had suddenly noticed the entire bathhouse was empty, save for them. She reached for Mona and pulled the brunette from the water by the hair. The brunette didn't particularly care about the pain in her scalp since her fan-girl mind was still trying to recover from the mental image Kris imprinted and was twitching.
"Kris…"
"What…?"
"Don't put the words 'Naked' and 'Shadow' in the same sentence or subject, got it?"
"I got you…" Kris rolled her eyes, noting that it was the best way to blackmail the brunette in the near future. Both girls and the Chocobo looked up abruptly when a loud yell sounded off from the opposite side of the wall. "Do you hear screaming…?"
"Uh…huh…" Mona nodded shakily. Choco only shrugged it off and began to float along the bath. Both girls followed the bird with their eyes as it floated closer and closer to the wall…
"CHOCO!!!" Both girls yelled and jumped at the Chocobo which lightly tapped against the wall which began shaking. Their combined splashes caused enough force for the wall to tip over.
"Ohh…sugar honey ice tea…" Kris and Mona watched as the wall fell over like a giant domino and landed with a loud slap on the water, giving them full view of Chaos-2, Sephiroth, and Ayame.
Mona screamed and threw another bucket.
Choco squawked.
Kris fainted after seeing Sephiroth and Ayame.
Sephiroth gawked at the sight of both girls and got hit in the face by a bucket.
Ayame giggled from the whole situation.
Chaos-2 only kept his eyes closed and tried not to vomit as he ignored the whole insanity going on.
"Oh great…" Shellder groaned as it heard the commotion. "I knew we should have fixed that wall!"
"That………and………" Slowbro began speaking.
"I know! I know! I should have put a restraining order on that she-male!"
After the second encounter with Ayame Sohma took place, Slowbro returned to repair the wall with a construction crane and restored the wall and reinforced it with concrete this time.
"This is SO going on their bill!" Shellder growled.
Sephiroth was relieved that Ayame was a good distance away now, on they other side of the men's-side of the spring. Although even at this distance Ayame found some ways of being annoying, such waving to him and winking. Ayame even dared blowing a kiss at him, which angered Sephiroth so much that he actually picked up and threw Chaos-2 at him.
"Ouchie…" Ayame whimpered, all swirly-eyed.
"What'd you throw me for?!" Chaos-2 asked when he returned to Sephiroth's side.
"You were in reaching distance." Sephiroth replied.
On the girls' side of the onsen, the girls were trying to rest.
"I thought hot springs were supposed to be relaxing." Mona moaned. "This is almost as stressful as our adventure."
"You think this is stressful? Try fighting a Dual Horn with only a Cerberus handgun and Vincent Valentine on level 1." Kris mumbled.
"What?"
"Never mind…"
Unknown to the girls, on the far end of the onsen, obscured by the fog, a dark figure stood, watching them. Next to the dark figure was a waist-high glass tank. In the glass tank was a Shadow Sharpedo, its eyes were red and it was eager to bite something.
The dark figure opened the lid of the tank and the Sharpedo leaped out of the tank and into the onsen water. The dark figure grinned and decided to watch. "This is going to be fun."
Mona blinked, she could have sworn she saw a splash in the far off fog and sensed a foreboding doom.
"I sense a foreboding doom." Mona said.
"Yeah well I sense nap-time." Kris yawned. Choco was swimming by when Kris grabbed him and dragged him over to her. "Stay." She told the Chocobo and rested the back of her head on his feather back and was instantly asleep, a large sleep-bubble forming on her nose. Choco looked at her, shrugged, and put his head under his wing.
Mona on the other hand continued to stare at the spot where she had initially seen the splash. Behind her however, a shark fin rose up out of the water and somewhere a reader of this fic is humming the Jaws theme.
Dahh dump… Dahh dump… Dahh dump… Dahh dump—
"Will you stop that?!" Mona yelled, breaking the 4th wall.
Sorry…
The brunette resumed huddling in place before turning around and spotting the shark fin protruding above the water. Mona vaguely heard the Jaws theme playing in her head again as she—
Dahh dump… Dahh dump...
"Knock it off!"
Fine…fine…killjoy…
—she watched it come close to them.
An average person would have decided to remain still out of knowing that any shark is attracted to vibrations in water.
Timid people or those afraid of sharks would jump out of the water, screaming and running/swimming away, attracting the shark and getting close to getting eaten.
In Mona's case…she grabbed a bucket…
The Sharpedo sprang out of the water, jaws open and fangs ready to rend the humans and Chocobo apart. The brunette swung out, catching the shark off guard and sending it flying into the wall. The shadow Pokemon then experienced a pinball effect, bouncing off the cement wall, the side of the onsen, the bottom of the pool, and eventually knocked into Kris. The blonde pitched forwards, startling Chocobo into flying into Mona and throwing the shark at the dark figure…
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGH!!"
Sephiroth and Chaos-2 shot into sitting up positions, wide-eyed.
"What was that…?"
"Hmm…" Ayame hummed before coming to an incredibly accurate explanation. "It sounds as though a Shadow Sharpedo is biting down on someone's head and giving them a painful headache…"
The silver-haired man and the water creature stared at Ayame with bewildered expressions before getting to their feet (Sephiroth with a towel), and somehow climbing atop the concrete wall. Once they got a clear view of the opposite side, both the ex-villains (well, Chaos-2 was just misunderstood due to a bunch of tribal echidnas rubbing him the wrong way a few thousand years ago) froze at the sight of a tall man running around in front of Mona and Kris with a Shadow Sharpedo biting down on his head.
"What…the…hell?" Chaos-2's left eye twitched.
Ayame began giggling. "Tee-hee, such a nice—"
"SHUT UP!" Sephiroth shouted down at the other silver-haired man, almost flushed a red color. He reached for his sword and his hand froze over the spot where it used to be. "Oh right…that Slowbro has it…" Sephiroth fumed before looking at his hand and smirking slightly.
"Well, luckily for me I still have enough MP for this…
"MP for wha—" Chaos-2 halted in mid-sentence and his eyes widened in horror at the deadly energy growing in the silver-haired man's palm. "Sephiroth…wait…don't—"
Too late…Sephiroth promptly jumped into the other onsen (much to the chagrin of the occupants) and forced his palm forwards at the Sharpedo-head-person.
"DESCEND HEARTLESS ANGEL!"
Mona, having long since run out of the onsen with Kris and Choco, barely finished her expletive consisting of: "Oh fu—"
KROOOOOOM!!!
An Olympic-sized swimming pool amount of water jettisoned skywards, throwing the hired assassin, the Shadow Sharpedo, and debris (which was a large portion of the onsen, including the wall) a far distance and over the horizon. The water splattered back down atop the onsen, further covering Sephiroth with water like it came from a rainstorm.
The silver-haired bishounen stood upright and shook his long hair out of his face while keeping the towel straightened. "Well, at least that's over before it started—"
"SEEEEPHIIIIIRROOOOOTTTHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
BONK!
Sephiroth promptly clutched at his forehead after another bucket nailed him and caught sight of Mona fully clothed in the Ash-Ketchum outfit, Choco was hiding behind his imprinted mother's legs, and Kris was dressed in her recently obtained sifuku (the other clothes were still being cleaned). The mako eyes flared at the brunette before she gave him an abrupt motion to look at the wall. As Kris tried not to pass out from seeing a half-naked Sephiroth, the fog dissipated and Sephiroth got a clear image of the damage.
The wall was completely torn apart in the middle leaving a gigantic hole (Chaos-2 had made a quick escape to a far corner), the surrounding walls looked like a nuclear bomb hit them, and the water was filled with debris (and Ayame Sohma was floating face up on the water with anime swirls over his eyes). Sephiroth stood in the middle of the rubble and had a cross between a "holy-crap" and "oops" expression plastered on his face.
"Do you have…any idea…how much…Gil…this is going to cost us?" Mona seethed with her fist clenched and a bright red vein mark visible from Sephiroth's position.
Sephiroth was unable to comment as the travelers caught sight of the Slowbro and the completely irritated Shellder still clamped onto its tail. The water/psychic type walked up to Mona and handed her the bill.
"Here's…the…bill…ma'am…" Slowbro drawled before turning around slowly and walking towards the exit as Mona unfolded the paper and gawked upon seeing the total.
"HOW MUCH?!?!"
"Well, thank your silver-haired pal over there for destroying the hot springs…" Shellder replied as Slowbro was halfway out the door…which was all that was left of the onsen. "And it took almost 3 gallons of detergent to clean your outfits. So don't say we aren't responsible! And if you don't have that much money, I suggest you try mugging a few NPCs and leave us with an IOU. Later Feraligatr…!"
And the door slammed shut…and fell backwards onto the wet soil, giving the travelers a clear view of Slowbro plodding slowly away from the hot springs and into the mist. Kris glanced at Mona with a wince and asked: "how much is it?"
Mona, twitching with silent fury, handed the paper to Kris and stooped down to pick up the bucket which floated back towards her side of the hot-spring. Choco backed up towards Kris and dove behind her legs with full understanding that his mother was going to be inconsolable at this point in time. Kris almost gawked at the price.
"ONE MILLION GIL?!!!"
"Sadly…that's for the wall…the onsen water…the entire building…our clothes…the amount of sludge washed off…" Mona replied with an aggravated tone of voice as she mentally calculated the amount of money they were going to owe. "…deducting how much GIL we have right now…which means we owe almost 798,300 Gil…which would take us several weeks to collect if we go through a whole bunch of random battles or enter in another tournament…"
"So…that means we're flat-broke…" Kris finished the brunette's sentence.
"Yep…" The brunette twitched as Sephiroth had already begun to sneak away.
Mona then startled everyone by yelling a battle cry and leaping at the escaping Sephiroth. Everyone watched with wide eyes as the brunette perched herself on Sephiroth's back and starting bashing him on the head with the bucket, while Sephiroth was running around waving his arms wildly trying to throw the crazed girl off him.
"OW-OW-OW-OW!" Sephiroth cried. "Make her stop!"
"Uh, Mona?" Kris said gently. "I don't think bashing Sephie is going to help the situation."
"Maybe if he runs out of HP we can pay off the bill!" Mona replied, foaming a little at the mouth, still beating Sephiroth on the head with the bucket. "He's gotta be worth something!"
"Uh, no, he's an ending boss." said Kris, "You win the game if you beat him in FFVII, so you don't get any money per se…"
Mona's eye twitched angrily at this revelation and gave Sephiroth one last BONK on the head before leaping off of him and marching back to her friends.
"Feeling better?" Chaos- 2 asked, hoping she wouldn't take her anger out on them next.
"Actually, yes," Mona then threw the bucket over her shoulder and it landed right on Sephiroth's head and he fell over into the water, floating with swirly eyes and a great many painful bruises on his head. "Well, let's get started…"
Over the next few hours our heroes tried numerous money making schemes, including a lemonade stand (Kris: "Lemonade, get your lemonade here, only 798,300 Gil a glass!"), random battles (Mona: "Only 20 Gil?! I battled a Raichu and only get 20 gil?!"), and betting in the Chocobo races ("Go go go go!" Sephiroth yells at the Chocobos that run past him on the track, but the Chocobo he betted on falls behind, "No, no-no-no-NO!")
Much later…
"So how much do we have?" Mona, who was beat after 8 hours of battling random trainers and monsters, asked.
After calculating their pooled earnings, Sephiroth said, "We made about 1000 Gil," Sephiroth prepared himself for death-by-bucket but thankfully none came.
"There's got to be a faster way…" Mona moaned; Choco tried to comfort her.
"Wookie woo…"
Then Kris had an idea.
"I have an idea!" Kris sprung up. "Duh, I should have thought of it hours ago." She grabbed Sephiroth's arm and dragged him away, "Be right back."
Later, a few miles outside the onsen Kris and Sephiroth were standing on a barren wasteland-like area. "What are we doing here again?" Sephiroth asked Kris.
"Shh, wait for it…" Kris said as she scanned the landscape, waiting for a certain creature to pop out… at least, hoping it would.
Then their patience was rewarded when a tiny cactus creature jumped out of a bush and skittered about. It resembled a little Togemon except without boxing gloves. It was a Cacturn from FFVII.
"There it is!" Kris yelled and snatched Sephiroth's sword and chased after the Cacturn. Sephiroth didn't even bother to protest Kris taking his sword as he watched her running around chasing a little cactus, he didn't want to risk anymore female-bashing. After ducking and diving and being hit with a barrage of needles ("OWIE!") Kris finally managed to bonk the Cacturn on the head with the blunt side of the sword, knocking it out cold. After hitting it several more times and its HP hit 0 and it faded out of existence, leaving behind 1,000,000 Gil.
"Whoo-hoo! Ow…" Kris cheered painfully.
After plucking all the needles out of Kris, she and Sephiroth went back with their winnings and gave what was needed to the Slowbro, "Here you go!" Mona cheerfully dumped the sack of money into the stubby arms of the Slowbro, who collapsed under its weight.
"Thank……..you……." The Slowbro's voice was muffled under the money sack.
"And don't come back!" Shellder growled from under the Slowbro.
"Phew, I'm glad that's over," Chaos-2 said as they walked out of the onsen, which disappeared into mist.
"Yeah, we relaxed at a hot spring and we made a profit." Kris grinned.
"Barely, on both accounts," Mona said as she walked beside Choco. Choco chirped as he walked beside his 'mommy' but he stopped when he heard noises in the bushes. Choco stopped and cocked his head to the side, looking at the bushes with curiosity. He may have been young, but even a baby Chocobo knew bushes don't laugh. He would have investigated further, but Sephiroth nearly tripped over him.
"Ah!" Sephiroth stumbled, but caught himself. "Stupid bird." He mumbled, but the comment earned him a bucket in the face, "OW! Where did that one come from?!"
Mona smiled and lifted another bucket that had the logo for Slowbro's Traveling Co-Ed Bathhouse and Hot Springs.
"Souvenir," Mona then turned her attention to Choco, "Come on Choco." Choco then left the bush and trotted up to his 'mommy'.
In the said bush, the harsh giggles came again. A pair of goblin heads popped out of the bush and watched our heroes walking down the road. This very same image was also being viewed by someone else…
Not too far away, sitting on his throne, a certain king was watching our heroes as they drew closer to his kingdom as it was reflected to him in a crystal ball in his hand.
"Well, well, well, look who's coming to dinner." In the other hand he held a sparkling jewel, a Chaos Emerald. "Is this what you are looking for?" he asked the images mockingly as he spun the Chaos Emerald in his hand, he then threw his head back and laughed. When he realized he was the only one laughing he stopped and looked around his court, where more goblins sat and stared stupidly at him.
"Well? Laugh!" He ordered, and they immediately obeyed, mimicking his laugh. The king sighed and continued to gaze into the crystal ball at our heroes in one hand while twirling the Chaos Emerald in the other.
To be continued…
November 2, 2007
Authoress Commentary:
Imperfection07: Another chapter complete! I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as Queen of the Sacred Flames and I have enjoyed writing it! ♥ Cookies to anyone who can guess who "The King" is!
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