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Abandon hope all ye who scroll down here. It's the follow-up that is conveniently forgetting things. (Like the fact that Pirate Copy's not done, and that the previous one's not on the site and won't be for some time.)

Final Fantasy 4: The Ninja and The Midget
“If a Moron dreams he’s a Moron, does that mean a normal person dreams he’s a…
...
Bugger, I had a point there, too.”- Plato, after a night out on the tiles

Prologue: Crimson October
Toroia, October the 4th, 9:00AM.
Weather forecast: Sunny with risk of showers of feathers.
Toroia’s Chairwoman of Military Intellegence was on her way to work. As the chief intelligence officer of the world’s most equal country*, she had prestige and power. She sadly had a silly name, and so, for Lady Bertha Bumheadde, life wasn’t 100% perfect. It was about to get far more imperfect.

On the streets of the town was a Poor peoples rights campaigner(1) carrying a stick of Dynamite. He was a little bored today and decided he’d blow up a white chocobo for no apparent reason other than he had a stick of dynamite and that was the end of that.

The day for one other person would get no better, but life would get no worse. That person was Milon of Earth, winner of the ‘most detonated of the year’ award at Baron’s new years honours list, his reward being a nice big bomb from King Cecil. He’d fled to Toroia to try and get away from people who wanted to blow him up, and so, was nervously walking down the street…
...his eye smelt the terrifying noise of explosives, and in his sheer panic, failed to realise his senses were utterly knackered. He turned to his left, and his taste buds felt the terrifying flavour of a dirty great gunpowder shop beside him. He screamed in fear, and ran onto the road, wanting away from the explosive nasty boom-bang quickly...

...the poor rights campaigner snuck up to a handy white chocobo, and patted it gingerly, whilst doing something else the chocobo wasn’t happy about. It trotted off, the rider giving him a funny look...

…Lady Bumheadde wondered why some pedestrian had patted her Chocobo, and why the thing’s bottom appeared to be fizzing, when a screaming tramp leapt onto the road, and then jumped straight at her. She screamed.
“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!” She said, as she landed on the ground.
“Sorry, but I need to get away!!” Milon wailed, and the bird sped off...

...the fuse promptly fizzed down, and, a hundred yards down the road, the dynamite went off.

The poor rights campaigner panicked when he saw the government official was not a part of the now-blossoming cloud of flame, smoke, feather, and eurgh that was down the street. She looked in horror at the exploding mess, the blast echoing all around, making a strange “aaaaaaaargh!” noise as a large piece of debris flew north into the sky, and she stared straight at him…
...quick as a flash, he blamed a foreigner, and pointed at an Eblanian.
“I saw him! He did something to the chocobo! He’s an Eblanian Spy!”
“I’m a woman!” said the Eblanian.
“Ha, just so you can fit in, ASSASSIN!”
“Seize him,” yelled Lady Bumheadde.
“HER!” Wailed the Eblanian woman, still not actually realising that she was accused of being a terrier(2).
She got it when two militiawomen grabbed her.
“Hang on, I never even went near the bird!”
“She used magic then! Planted a magic fizzing bomb on the bird, and the defence minister was only saved by the actions of a selfless heroic ... Tramp,” the poor persons rights person bluffed before sneaking away quickly...

Baron, 3 AM.
”I dreamt I was a moron,” said the moody voice, who was either a philosophical type or simply not in touch with reality.
“ARGRGRGHAFL!” Screamed the King of Baron, King Cecil the 1st. Beside the leaping, screaming, landing , swearing king, his queen, Rosa, stirred, grabbed a mallet from the beside cabinet, and smashed the alarm clock with it.
“Er, It wasn’t the alarm clock, dear, it was me,” Cecil said. She walloped him with the same mallet.
“Why?” Demanded the awoken queen, fluffing her pillow up and dragging the covers further and further from the king’s side of the bed.
“The nightmare again. It’s gotten stupider…”
“Scarface? Stupider? From the way you’ve described these dreams the man's a few pages short of a novel,” she said.

The king, for the past week, had been having a strange set of nightmares. They involved a stupid imbecilic man with an utterly bizarre sword and a scar on his face, and a vocabulary not including “Happy” but having “…Whatever” a vital word. In fact, virtually the only word.
“So, how did it get stupider?” Rosa enquired.
“Well, this time, He dreamt that he was his own father…”
“Wait, If you dream you’re him, and he dreamt he was your father, is it possible he’s your father?”
“Eh? No, my fathers that ghost bloke who lived on mount ordeals or something.”
“What about that bloke in the black with the funny mask on?”
“He was looking for some bloke called Luke, remember? Anyway, the funny thing about this time was, I knew he was dreaming about being his father, but he just thought he was dreaming about being some bloke, which is what I’m doing… I hope… and he thinks he dreamt he was a moron, so, I dreamt I was a moron who dreamt he was a moron, which means a double positive and that means I’m a negative moron!” Cecil said.
“… One, what does that have to do with it, and two, positive one plus positive one equals two, so if dreaming you were a moron who dreams he’s a moron means anything it means you’re either a double moron or utterly mad, and I’m torn between both options.”
“…You never insulted Rydia when she said ‘Am I a woman dreaming she’s a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming she’s a woman?’”
“That’s because If I had, I’d probably have been a woman turned into a frog. Like you were when you insulted her, you fool.”
“Say, it couldn’t be that what’s making me dream these nightmares, could it?”
“No. Rydia says there are no psychological side effects like that, just the usual ones.”
“Ah. So that’s why I kept chasing that fly.”
The royal couple, having settled nothing but the need for a new alarm clock and why the king chased a fly last week, went back to sleep.

*-All the men did the washing up. Or else.
1- He wanted poor people to learn how to write so he wouldn’t have to at university, and instead, pay a poor person to do it for him.
2- Don’t ask. Just don’t.

This post has been edited by Del S on 12th May 2005 16:50

--------------------

"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

.....rrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Anyway, more great stuff from you, Del, and this is the closest yet to grammatically perfect. Just one thing:

- “Scarface? Stupider? From the way you’ve described these dreams the mans a few pages short of a novel,” she said.

should be

“Scarface? Stupider? From the way you’ve described these dreams the man's a few pages short of a novel,” she said.


--------------------

"Fire and steel
follow me through the lands
you will burn hordes of hell
in the deadly raging flames of revenge"

Rhapsody - Flames of Revenge

Ah, good! Thanks for that. Found a few other ones myself: soe I's that were capitalised for some reason for example.


Chapter One: Patriotic Flames
Baron, 6AM
The airships soared into the sky, not gracefully, but at least actually making it. This would have shocked the king, was he not back asleep.

The airships did not have red wings. Instead, they had crimson ones. And whilst it may be a shade of red, the wings were not red as far as the military was concerned, as it was figuratively and possibly literally colour-blind on the matter.
“You know what these five airships mean, squad?” Captain Dragon Plotline-Thrumud said to the other people aboard the airship, a Falcon-class.
“Yes, Kupo, you told us twenty times today… It means the Crimson Wings are a proper regiment now, kupo…” said Chief Master Sergant Rambo T. Moogle.
“Yes indeed!” beamed the Captain
“…except we’re barely a squadron, kupo, and need another three to five to make a wing, and then another wing to make a regiment, and another regiment to make a division, and then…”
“Yes, yes, Rambo, just shut up, there’s a good non-com,” said the Captain.
“And, Kupo, Major Shallot now outranks you, and most of the old squad got properly promoted except you, so, why aren’t you in a murderous rage?” asked Rambo.
“I am in the same permenant state of murderous rage that all Baronians are at all times towards the enemies of my nation, foreigners, or lippy non-commissioned officers,” replied the second-in-command

of the Regiment.

Since the conclusion of the combat in Toroia a year ago, the Crimson Wings had became the official ‘Queens Regiment’ and as a result, gained extra manpower and funds. This meant promotions all round, except for Dragon. Bella was now a Corporal, Barry a Lance-Corporal, Cordelia and Ivor Colour Sergeants, and had seen an extra Officer thrown into the mix, Lieutenant Rupert Smithé.

Smithé looked the typical fresh faced pen pusher: pale, tall, weak looking, and with a tendency to mispronounce his r’s. Sadly for the enlisted men, he was a complete and utter psychopath. He also had a distressing tendency to call the heavy cannons ‘our massive ball hurlers’ and the “Organ Gun” volley cannon ‘our mighty organ’.

The new Crimson Wings were currently engaging in their first aerial deployment exercise. Baron’s airborne troops deployed on foot from airships, usually where the enemy didn’t want them most. Today, the “enemy” didn’t want them most in the corn, and would be miffed if they landed on the cows, so instead, they just landed in the meadow, jumped off their airships, and ran into the treeline, where Major Shallot addressed them.
“Deployed the entire regiment in three minutes, good. But what did we do wrong?”
“Er, don’t know, sir,” said a pilot.
“Well, Pilot Parts, you SHOULD have stayed on the airship with the rest of the crew! Why have all twenty infantry and five flight crew got off each boat?!”
“Well, you said ‘everyone into the trees’, John…”
Major Shallot swore, and had the regiment remount to try again…

Eblan, 12 Midnight
King Edge was on his name.

Not only was there a crisis brewing in Toroia, where an Eblanian was accused of attempting to assassinate a government minister, but he had what he’d wish was a domestic crisis on his hands also. But then again, she’d said ‘no’ three times, ‘not for a while’ twice, and ‘bugger off’ once…

Either way, he was up late dealing with an angry Ambassador, and also with an angry friend-he-wished-was-more-than-that.

“Your Majesty, the Peoples Monarchist Free Democratic Hereditary Councilship of The Elder Ladyshipian Republic of Toroia protests at the latest aggressive acts by Eblan against us!” said the Ambassadoress, who seemed to have had garlic bread especially.
“And what might they be?” Edge said wearily.
“Not only have you for some time been SPYING upon Lady Bumheadde, but you decided that her importance in the defence of our nation meant that to invade, you needed to eliminate her!”
“Um, Madam Ambassador, we…”
“AMBASSADORESS!”
“…Ambassadoress, we of the Kingdom of Simply and Non-Contradictorily Na… er, Eblan, have little wish to spy on either a minor government minister of a land we hold no quarrel with, nor do we wish to invade that land.”
“Why? What’s wrong with them?!”
Edge then realised he’d fallen for the ‘are you looking at my bird, no, why not, what’s wrong with her’ excuse used by commoners to start a fight, but in this case, it was the international variant.
“Er, well… having never seen Lady Bumheadde, I personally cannot comment on anything that may be wrong with her other than the obvious stress of the incident, and having been to Toroia, the only thing wrong with an Eblanian attempted invasion is that we’d rather spoil the views: It’s a nice place to live, but I wouldn’t wanna invade it, basically,” Edge said, diplomacy, logic, and making sense all out the window.
“You’d rather invade Baron then?!”
“Er, no. They’d kick our sodding teeth so far down our throat we’d need to chew as we sha-… pooped.”
“Well, in response to Eblan’s threat, we must remind you that we are ready to ensure that Eblan cannot attack us, by removing your leadership!” We know where you live!
“…Such threats are unnecessary, and even empty…” I’ve got another house.
“We would also like to enquire the health of Lady Rydia…” If we can’t get you, we’ll get your woman instead.
“She is fine, but regrettably, remains a Baronian.” Sorry, she’s not my woman actually, and good luck by the way, she’ll rip you apart if you try anything…
“How will she do that?!” the Ambassador…
“AMBASSADORESS!”
…Ambassadoress exclaimed.
“Do what?”
“Rip us apart!”
“Eh? Oh bollocks, did I say what I was thinking and think what I wanted to say?”
“No, but it’s obvious!”
“Is it?”
“YES!”
“Well, er… she’d use magic.”
“Magic?! Pha, we have our own mages who will destroy her in seconds or subject her to an agonisingly long death!”

For a pacifist nation that sought only peace, Toroia was spoiling to get invaded. It was rumoured that during the war of the crystals, they had sent a strong letter of protest to the Baronian King at all the invasions, and also said how weak their own border defences were, but neglected to mention the anti-aircraft weapons dotted around the capital city… well, more surrounding, covering, and in many places replacing it. Toroia City was a place where seagulls did not dare to drop business…

After a few more minutes of irrelevant arguing, including for some reason whether or not an Eblanian Badger was better than a Toroian one, The Ambassador…ess retired to her embassy.

“I’m glad that battleaxe is gone…” said Edge.
“Yes sir. It was best, we felt, that it not be there when Lady Rydia entered,” said his retainer, General Catterman.
“…Hellfire, where’s my ribbon? Have you seen my ribbon? Last time I didn’t have it when she was angry I was in the aquarium for a week!”
“Er, sir, it’s on your head. And don’t worry sir, she won’t be able to lock you in anywhere in the castle and hide the keys…”

Whoever said hell hath no fury like a woman scorned clearly forgot, a woman scorned hath no fury like a summoneress who wanted a room with a nice view.

Rydia was currently angry at the fact she was quartered in a room that overlooked the west of the city around the castle, which was boring. She’d rather have overlooked the east, which had a river and everything.

Edge put his helmet on.
“Oh well, send her in, and have a white mage on standby…”
“Very good, sir.”

Silveria
The Silverian Defence Force looked at the defences they had built.
“Perfect!” said General Hogg.

Silveria was a land that had once kept invading everyone. Then the Mysidians had got bored of routinely trouncing them, and cursed the land for all eternity* to have all the children born to the nation be frogs, pigs, midgets, or lawyers. The latter were drowned at birth.

Due to the fact they were pretty much unable to attack anymore, Silvera promptly went on the defensive. And it didn’t do it very well.

The “Perfect” defences were landed on by a small bird.

After the smoke had cleared, the trench and bunker system was gone, replaced by a pile of rubble. General Hogg oinked in anger, and wandered off to the Baronian Embassy… or at least, their postbox.

*- Until they decided to undo it.


--------------------

"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

Chapter Two: The Cardinal and the Gremlin
Eblan Castle
The king awoke. To his surprise, he still had all his limbs, and nothing had been on fire.

To his lack of surprise, it wasn’t his quarters. To his even further lack of surprise, he was alone in the bed.*
To his mild surprise, there was a member of the Royal Guard standing at the foot of the bed.
“Okay, er, whatever rank you are, tell me what’s happened, happening, or will…”
“Lieutenant Colonel Blackehawke, Sah, last night, Lady Rydia and you had a discussion in your chambers, which led to you deciding to be a chivalrous gent and allowing her the use of yours in order for her to get her desired view of the city,” the Officer said.
“And, er, is she angry this morning?” He asked, getting out of the ebd
“No, sah, in fact, she’s not yet awake.”
“What else?” The king said this as he was about o walk out the door
“Right now sah, you’re about to walk out the door naked.”
“Yes, and?”
“Well, sah, some of the chambermaids are still around, sah.”
“…Its my bloody castle, if they didn’t want to see royalty in all it’s glory, they should get off their shifts on time,” the king responded, but in deference to the fact Eblan had it’s fair share of children and half-wits to point out the emperor had no clothes, he decided to put some clothes on.
“So, what else, Blackehawke?”
“Later today, sah, you have a meeting with the Damacstian Religious Envoy.”
“Oh, the bible-bashers,” said Edge. Eblan was dead set against the idea of Monotheism, and Edge knew how much his friend Edward despised the fact he often had to consult people who more often than not knocked him out every Sunday about matters of state.
“They’re supposed to have been here already, sah.” Blackehawke said.
“And they’re meant to be my schedule?”
“Yes, sah. Whole day. They talk a lot, sah.”
“Oh good. Wake me up if they arrive, I’m going back to bed.”

In fact, the Bible-Bashers were too busy to consider speaking to a mere king just now. They were walking to a fellow believers home. And looking down their noses at the godless scum on the streets who were thinking: “Who the hell are these idiots?
The Envoy and his escort, Bishop Dimmy Latiba, from Damcyan, and the Reverend Asskick, of Fabul, were going to see the Reverend Hu Flung Knives.
“Look at the godless heathens, Asskick,” said the Bishop.
“Very poor, your excellency.”
“And why are they poor?”
“They oppress our way, which is the truth, or else.”
“Correct! I cannot wait to meet Reverend Knives, and hear what tales of being oppressed he has for us to throw at King Hedge!”
“I have heard rumours he killed his own parents, your excellency.”
“Really?! Bastard!” said the clergyman, ignorant of the fact that to have parents to kill, Edge by default probably could not have been a bastard. Luckily, Asskick was a yes-man.
They neared the house, and an officer of the Militia Police Force was leaning on the wall for a crafty break. He wasn’t expecting two angry nutters to waltz up with diplomatic immunity and a larger vocabulary.
“HAH! See this, Asskick, already, evidence this godless state should be converted with fire and … well, fire! This soldier stands outside the Reverend’s home, to watch the people going in, and then have his comrades spy on them further! Also, they tail the reverend, and ensure he does no harm to the state, isn’t that true, oppressive pig?!” Latiba screamed.
“Um, pardon me, sir? I‘m just a copper…”
“Just a copper, my foot! You’re a spy of the government, the jealous master that does not want anyone else worshipped in this godless nation!”
“Er, your, um, reverence, is it… we have over 200 gods in 54 recognised religions, including your own. Admittedly, your religion is one of the smaller ones here, though. No fault of the government, it’s just the other ones give you cake,” the policeman explained, gently.
“Hah! I spit on your lies! Reverend, spit on his lies.”
Asskick then spat on the ground in front of the policeman. The officer looked down, and back up.
“Well, I’m afraid I must get on with my duties,” and the man left.
“HAH! That’s it, run away, heathen! You won’t be able to run forever, and come Judgement Day, let us see you outrun the good lord Kefkaa!”

The two clergymen stood at the door.
“Knock on the door, Asskick.”
“Yes, your reverence.”
The door opened, to reveal a small Eblanian gentleman.
“Ah, Bishop Latiba and Reverend Asskick, please, come in,” he said.


Meanwhile, somewhere in the background, there was a man. The man was driving along a road in a blue Ford Galaxy. He suddenly, faced with the two clergyman entering the home of the other, was suddenly faced with a fork in the road of the future. This man was Lord Fate, and in his surprise, went down Junction 3 to ‘All hell breaking loose’. Lady Fate screamed at him and said he’d just wasted half an hour until they got onto the right road, and the younger Fates began to ask to stop at McDonalds. The result was a few hours were then wasted…
So next time you see a blue Galaxy, don’t ram it off the road to see what happens, please. You might just destroy everything that can be predicted, including yourself.

All hell broke loose with a woman going into labour early. The woman was a member of the Revered Knives parish.
Her husband, knowing full well what would happen, ran to the reverend’s house to get the help of their spiritual guide.

Bishop Latiba had made a half-hour rant about the poverty enforced upon the Reverend Knives by the government, and was now drinking the cold tea (which he blamed the coldness of upon the oppressive heathen king ledge) when the man started to hit the door.
“Goodness me, Takalin, why are you hitting my door?”
“…It’s open?”
“Yes. We forgot to close it when we came in,” Asskick explained. But the reverend had begun to speak to his parishioner in Eblanian.
“It seems Takalin here’s wife is about to give birth.”
“Ah, good news! Another of the faithful!” Asskick beamed
“Actually, since the child is early, it will be born by Cecilian Section.”
“…What’s that?” enquired Latiba, and Knives explained…

…In a nearby Maternity ward, Doctor Dea The lined up the tools on his current Cecilian patient. He was already three over par…
“FORE!”

… the horrified Bishop’s eye began to twitch.
“Good lord! How barbaric! How can any government allow such a practice to continue?” asked Asskick.
“It’s simple, Reverend. Most of them were born via that method.”
“AHA! That explains so much!” The bishop exclaimed.
“Come, brothers! Let us make a stand against this barbarism!”

The Bishop and the two reverends then marched out the door, marching as to war. Which was what they were actually doing. The husband stood in the doorway for a few minutes before remember it was his wife, and running after them.

Down the street, Latiba said “Asskick, go close the door.”

At the Hospital, the three men of the Damacstian faith marched in past a stunned nurse, who thought them for some sort of insane religious nuts come to find human sacrifices (She’d grown up with some rather nutty uncles…
…she ran outside and found three policemen.

The Doctor was just about ready for the surgery, and was assessing the situation.
“Hmm, looks like a nine iron…” he said to himself, and received the club from his caddy. Er, assistant.

He swung the club, just as the three men entered. The startled doctor’s swing went totally awry, and the head of the club flew off. By a freak accident, it smashed into the wall, bounced off the floor, and into the face of the Bishop, blasting his brains out his ears. The sudden shock of all this caused the woman in labour to suddenly give a contraction that threw the child out rather unceremoniously into the arms of a nurse who happened to be passing by.
“WOW! A Hole in one, and I didn’t even hit it!”

But the two surviving clergy were lying beside their dying brother.
“The child… it lives?” Asked the Bishop.
“Yes… Yes, your reverence.”
“Poor little bugger… he’s just been born into a nation of oppressive priest murders,” he said, and died.

At this point he pleased doctor noticed the dead man.
“Oh dear god, this man’s head has exploded!”
“Yes! Thanks to you, you murdering doctor!” Said Knives, waving a scalpel
“What?! Hey, I don’t clean in here, if he caught MRSA or something , it’s not my fault!”
Sadly, for Reverend Knives, the blade in his hand was two plus the two of a dead man on the floor that the rookie Policeman who came in the door saw. He fired his crossbow into the man.

A few minutes later, the husband arrived to find the arguing Asskick, a shouting doctor, some panicking nurses, an angry police sergeant yelling about verifying targets to a rookie who was cringing and trying to retract his head into his torso, and his wife and new child.
“Er, Hello dear, what did I miss?”
“Oh, pretty much everything. I say, this was easier than the book said.”
“Hrm, yes, didn’t it say around twenty dead?”
“No dear, that was the newspaper.”
“Oh, right, yes, the ‘giving birth’ booklet. Er, is it a boy or a girl?”
“I haven’t checked, actually. It’s in a green blanket, so that means…”
“Drat it, dear, we’ll have to check ourselves. Ah, it’s a girl!”
“…No dear, it’s a boy. Girls have certain parts missing that our son most defiantly has.”
“Oh, right, sorry, all the stress I expect. Tch, you’d think these people would stop shouting… Er, excuse me, there’s a baby asleep over here!” he said, and the angry yelling quietened down, and made their way out the door.
“Murderers!” Whispered Asskick, as the arguing group left.

About half an hour later, Edge was told, and swore. Loudly.

*Edge/Rydia relationship fans will be angry to know I was thinking ‘Let Edge get lucky?’ then I decided… nah, it’s funnier to have him kicked out his bedroom in his own country.

--------------------

"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.