The Best Laid Plans-Chapter Two

Sephiroth swung his Masamune blade angrily as he dragged his feet towards Cloud's Costa Del Sol villa. He'd just been enjoying a normal, quiet day, piecing together Mother's dismembered body, when his phone rang. He was ex-directory so no-one EVER phoned. He had picked up the phone, ready to give anyone calling a verbal hammering when he heard who it was - Tifa. After emotionally blackmailing him into killing Aeris - someone he'd already killed once ANYWAY, she demanded that he turn up in an hour's time, just before Baywatch. He'd tried to explain that he couldn't miss an episode but -

Sephiroth's train of thought was interrupted when he heard someone whistling. He looked up and saw Vincent patrolling outside the villa. Remembering Tifa's orders of, "Let anyone see you and I'll rip out your liver with a corkscrew," Sephiroth flattened himself against the wall of the villa and peered around the corner.

Vincent was walking up and down the area in front of the villa, whistling the opening theme to 'Wild ARMS'. He frowned as he once again failed to get the high notes and went back to thinking about how annoying it was to be patrolling outside. It was all because of Cloud. Stupid, paranoid Cloud.

"Patrol outside the villa, Vincent," Vincent whined in a high pitched, nasal, mocking voice, "What if Sephiroth's still alive and summons meteor again, Vincent? Well what am I supposed to do if I spot it up there? Blast it out of the sky with my Peacemaker and a half eaten burrito?" He threw the snack to the floor in anger and just stood there for a few moments. Then, glancing around to make sure no-one was looking, he picked up the burrito, dusted it off and took a bite out of it. Vincent sighed, bored. He decided to try and perfect his Revolver Ocelot routine. Once again glancing around to make sure no-one was looking, he took on his best tough guy stance and growled, "Special operations, foxhound. Revolver Ocelot." He twirled his Peacemaker around his index finger with surprising skill, catching it perfectly when his hand was level with his head. "I've been waiting for you, Solid Sna-"

Vincent stopped, suddenly noticing a figure some distance to his right.

"Who's that - Oops, I mean ..." Vincent caught himself, remembering he wasn't supposed to say anything while other people were around. He pointed his Peacemaker at the nearby shape.

"Hello, Vincent." Sephiroth smiled coldly, stepping out of the shadows. He rushed forward at alarming speed and rammed his Masamune blade through Vincent's chest. Vincent fell to his knees, blood pouring from the wound. "Pleasant dreams," Sephiroth smiled as Vincent slumped to the floor, coughing up blood.

* * * * *

Yuffie skipped joyfully from the Highwind to the Chocobo Sage's house. The plan was simple. She'd just walk in, snatch the hat from the sage's head and race off to the stables to breed a white chocobo. However, as soon as she entered the door she forgot about her plan, and instead stared disbelievingly around the small cottage, which had completely changed since the last time she'd seen it.

The first thing she noticed was there were two chocobos instead of one; a regular yellow one had joined the green chocobo that normally lived there. The room was decorated mainly with pink, and a leopard skin chair sat next to the fireplace, which the sage sat in with his back to Yuffie. But the big difference was the huge sign on the eastern wall that read 'Big Gay Sage's Big Gay Chocobo Sanctuary'. Yuffie looked bewildered, but she shrugged it off and approached the sage. The sage spun round, revealing that he was wearing a pink floral suit with a handkerchief tied around his neck.

"Well hello there little girl, it's so super to see you!" the sage drawled in a faux-gay accent.

"Umm...hi..." Yuffie managed, forcing a smile. Realising that she wanted to get out of there NOW, she took the direct approach. "Er, could I borrow your hat?"

"Well, sure!" the sage smiled, passing her the hat. "I was going to get rid of that old thing anyway. Now, which of these two do you think suits me most? This? - " he pulled on a brimmed hat with a bright pink feather sticking out of it - "or this? - " he pulled on a small sailor's hat.

"Umm - gotta go!" Yuffie said, grabbing the purple hat and dashing for the door.

"Well thanks for dropping by, it was super to see you!" the sage yelled to the rapidly disappearing ninja.

* * * * *

Sephiroth crouched, rather squashed, on top of Aeris's closet, Masamune in hand. He frowned angrily when he thought about why he was there. Tifa had informed him before that he had to stay perched on this wardrobe until Aeris walked in, then he was to leap down and kebab her..again.

"But why can't you just kill her?" he had asked.

"I can't kill her silly, it has to look natural!"

"Natural? I wouldn't call a Masamune blade through the gut natural. Besides, it's not like anyone would notice if you did kill her. Yuffie's sliced up Biggs and Wedge a few dozen times already, and I stuck my sword through Vincent's chest on the way in and they still haven't noti - "

"You killed Vincent!?!" Tifa snapped angrily. "Godammit, he was cute! Why couldn't you kill Cait Sith, or that brat Yuffie?"

"Because they weren't patrolling the villa making morons of themselves," replied Sephiroth.

"Oh well, it's not like it matters. I'd better revive the guy before he starts stinking the place up," sighed Tifa. It wasn't like Vincent's death was anything new anyway. The poor guy died every week since he'd been put on patrol - mostly kids playing pranks. "You know, we'd better cut this dialogue short before it turns into a best selling novel with a TV spin-off."

"I doubt it would be a best seller," frowned Sephiroth. "Anyway, as I was saying, no-one notices if you kill anyone round here, and I though you should know, your boyfriend was eating crayons before when I spied on hi- "

"Enough!" snapped Tifa. "Get into position, she'll be here soon!"

"Yes your PMSness," growled Sephiroth, slinking off to Aeris's room.

The Sephiroth in the present yawned, bored. He could be waiting a while.

* * * * *

"Hey, you guys wanna hear my theory?" Cloud asked brightly, looking up from the book he'd been studying.

"Do we have a @^%*in' choice?" snarled Cid.

"Oh good!" Cloud beamed, either ignoring or not fully understanding, (probably the latter) Cid's comment. "I've been reading up on some stuff, and I've found out that another name for Satan is Old Nick!"

"That's not a @%*Ģin' theory, Clod. And anyway, seeing as we live in a world of universal life-force and magic anyway, and technically there is no afterlife, Satan doesn't exist," Cid said, surprisingly intelligently.

"Oh," said Cloud. "well anyway..did you just call me Clod?"

"Yes," replied Cid.

"Oh. Anyway, as I was saying, another name for Satan is Old Nick, while Santa Claus is old SAINT Nick. Coincidence?"

"Yes," replied Cid, limiting himself to one word answers as he tried to ignore Cloud as best he could.

"Ah, but this will convince you. SANTA and SATAN are anagrams of each other! Isn't that scary? And they both wear red!"

"So you're telling me," Cid muttered, clutching his temples that were rapidly developing a Cloud-induced headache, "that you think the devil and Santa are the same person? That's your theory?"

"That's part of it," Cloud smiled, about to deliver the most earth shattering revelation of all. "I also believe that Santa/Satan isn't aided by happy little elves at all. In fact, the whole of Hell is full of tortured souls, who spend eternity making toys for the good children of the world while being horsewhipped by Satan's dark minions!"

"That's the biggest load of bullcrap I ever heard," growled Cid. "Firstly, this would mean that Marlene's 'Tickle Me Elmo' figure coulda been made by Hitler. Although..." Cid trailed off, thinking about how he'd like to get his hands on the bastard that made those things. All Christmas day all he'd heard was "Eeheeheeheehee! That tickles!" He only got any peace when he ripped out the batteries and chucked them out the window. They landed in a bonfire, exploded and burnt Biggs and Wedge to death with flying battery acid, but that was beside the point. Cid was completely prepared to believe that Tickle Me Elmo was a nazi's work However, that would mean agreeing with Cloud, and he wasn't prepared to do that.

"Secondly, Santa doesn't exist!" Cait Sith chipped in, growing bored of waiting for Cid to tell Cloud point number two. As Cait said this, a fiery pit opened up beneath him and swallowed him up.

"Ho ho ho!" a deep, menacing voice growled as the hole closed.

"Er, anyway," sweat dropped Cid, "surely Satan would award villainy rather than goodness, and Yuffie wouldn't get coal every year. Explain that, Spike!" Cid grinned. He'd got Cloud now.

"Because it's a CONSPIRICY! Satan lures you to the dark side with his tainted gifts and claims your soul when you die!" shouted Cloud. "First it's Tickle Me Elmos and Pikachu plushies, then video games, films and rap music CDs containing violence, sex and depravation! From there on it's only a small step to selling your body and buying smack!" Cloud was becoming delirious now. Cid eyed him, warily.

"Uh, yeah..." he replied. There was a silence. Then finally, "Cloud?" Cid began. "Is it true that you carry such a large sword to compensate for your lack of trouser filler?" Cloud scowled.

"Shut up."

* * * * *

Sephiroth was growing very bored with sitting on the wardrobe. It was cramped and he was bothered by the fact that Aeris's diary was sitting on the bed in front of him, tempting him. He sooo wanted to read it, but he couldn't because it might mess up Tifa's precious plan. Suddenly, he heard a voice. Not a regular voice, but one that came from inside his messed up, egotistical, maniacal, homicidal head.

"Hello," it said.

"Uh, hi," replied Sephiroth.

"I'm your inner voice, a sign of your struggle with insanity n'other stuff."

"Go away," Sephiroth scowled. "I don't need you. I have enough to do with Mother to contend with - at least I will have when I finish sticking her arms back on. Anyway, isn't Cloud the only one with an inner voice?"

"I'm a freelance inner voice," the voice said. "I'm here to tell you to read Aeris's diary.

"Y'know, it'd be a whole lot easier to say 'Aerith's diary'. Aerith's, Aeris's - sounds better, doesn't it?"

"It does, doesn't it? But I refuse to call her Aerith. That's only for 'Ooh, I bought the import Japanese version which is in an foreign language and thus I can't understand the plot which is the best element of the game but I'm such a hardcore gamer that I'm prepared to waste 60 dollars on something which makes no sense but has a lot of kewl FMVs and I can boast to my friends who humour me 'cos they're the only friends I can get due to me sitting in my house and playing games that I don't understand instead of going out' jerks."

"That's exactly my view," nodded Sephiroth, impressed by the voice's outburst.

"I know. I am your inner voice after all."

"I thought you were Cloud's inner voice?"

"Anyway," said the voice, annoyed with all this side tracking. "I'm here to tell you to read Aeris's diary."

"Okay."

"What? That's it? No internal struggle as your emotions battle with your sense of right and wrong?"

"Sorry."

"Tch, fine. Go," said the voice, poutily. Sephiroth hopped lightly down from the wardrobe and picked the diary up from the bed. Its light peach pages gave off a flowery scent as he flicked through them, and around the edges of every page were little hearts with arrows through them reading 'Aeris 4 Cloud'.

"Grow up," Sephy muttered as he flicked to the latest entry and began to read:

Aeris's Diary

So anyway, me and Cloud were just in the bedroom, having fun and not bothering anyone when TIFA walked in and started saying Cloud was HER boyfriend. Cloud tried to calm us both down, but Tifa just wouldn't lay off. So I called her a lobotomised Saved By The Bell reject, and she was like, 'Hey, did you just call me fat?' And I was like, "No you retard, you obviously don't understand me 'cos I'm so intelleejunt!' Tifa is an ugly skank. Yuffie called her a man before too. Serves the slut right! And the -

"Sephiroth!" shouted Aeris. "What are you doing in MY room? Reading MY diary?!"

"Rats," Sephiroth growled. "You couldn't have come in when I was arguing with the voice in my head just now, could you?"

"What?"

"Uh, never mind. Hey wait, aren't I supposed to be killing you - " Sephiroth was cut off as Odin leapt through the window, knocking over all the furniture. Odin swung his sword, slicing Sephiroth in two while his six footed horse scraped its mud laden hooves on the carpet. Odin left as dramatically as he had entered, crashing through the wall, sending masonry and debris flying and leaving Aeris with a destroyed room, a bleeding corpse and a huge bill for repairing the wall.

"Thanks for coming!" she shouted innocently after Odin, waving her summon materia aloft.

* * * * *

"Curses," snarled Tifa from a distance. "My evil plan is foiled. But I can't give up, this fic isn't even half over yet! Now, I need someone low enough to kill a sweet, innocent little girl for cash." Tifa though for a while. Then it struck her. "Of course! The Turks!"

* * * * *

Yuffie threw the chocobo sage's spit-covered hat to the floor and jumped up and down on it angrily. She had attempted to feed it to her two chocobos - 'Lucrecia' (named by Vincent) and 'Ding dong the bitch is dead' (named by Tifa just after Aeris's death) - six times, but each time she had failed. The chocobos at first spat it out, then they Chocobuckled her a few times, then they resorted to vomiting on Yuffie's shoes. She was getting SERIOUSLY PISSED OFF.

Thinking back, she remembered the last time they had bred chocobos. Yuffie had been stuck in a team with Cloud and Tifa when they went to breed their first coloured chocobo. Tifa was feeding it a nut when Cloud suddenly piped up,

"Tifa...where do chocobos come from?"

"Oh God," muttered Tifa, holding her head and popping another tranquilliser. "Okay Cloud, it's like this. When a mummy chocobo and a daddy chocobo love each other very much..." Tifa trailed off, unable to think of a plausible story. She made pleading faces at Yuffie. Yuffie smiled, evilly.

"...They apply to like, the Sacred Spirit of Omni so they can attempt the five trials of Da-Chao!" smiled Yuffie. Tifa made neck cutting motions, but Yuffie continued. "They face five gruelling tests of endurance, knowledge and spirit with the final test being a fight to the death with another pair of prospective chocobo parents. And if they beat the tests, they win their baby chocobo, and if they lose, Leviathan rises up from the flames of Da-Chao's fire cave, momentarily extinguishing them and claiming the life of the chicobo."

Tifa groaned and slapped her face with her hand. THAT was even more disturbing than the real story.

"Oh," Cloud said casually. "Why don't they just have sex like everyone else?"

But anyway. During the lengthy and gratuitous flashback sequence, Yuffie had remembered something. The white chocobo in Mideel! Sure it was a scrawny little thing, but it would do. Yuffie skipped gleefully to the Highwind and set a course for Mideel.

End Chapter Two