| Tales from the Wyvern Westward: Just Another Night
(Includes: Final Fantasy 6, 7, 8 and 9; Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross;
Breath of Fire 3; Vagrant Story; Xenogears)
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| (SCENE: Inside the main room of the Wyvern Westward, a tavern between
the worlds, open to any characters that can reach it. It's late evening,
and the tavern is packed. A solitary figure in a heavy black cloak enters
the tavern and makes his (her?) way through the crowded tables to the long
oaken bar. On the way, we encounter the following:)
(The hooded figure moves past CLOUD and SQUALL, sitting together at a small table out of the way. A mostly empty pitcher of beer sits on their table next to a pair of well-used mugs, and from their flushed faces you gather that that wasn't their first pitcher, either.) CLOUD: I just don't see why you need a sword AND a gun. SQUALL: It's a style thing, okay? You use a big-ass sword, I use a slightly smaller sword with a gun in it. What's the big deal? CLOUD: Geez, you're so sensitive. SQUALL: Yeah, well, your hair has a hard-on. (CLOUD spits out a mouthful of beer onto the table as the figure moves on. Soon he's passing a large table stuffed full of... teenagers? Weird tavern. One of the teenagers, a blonde girl with an elfin face and a really insolent braid, waves to another passing figure and brays.) KID: Yo! Crono! Come on an' join us, hey? Buy you a beer! (CRONO and MARLE both look up, startled at the close proximity of Cross characters.) CRONO: .... MARLE: Uh... no thanks, Kid. I seem to recall that we're mad at you for some reason. KORCHA: Oh, whatCHA mad about now? VAN: Hmpf. They're probably still touchy about the whole 're-dooming the world we worked so hard to save' thing. SERGE: .... KID: Serge! That's bloody rude, that is! CRONO: .... MARLE: Absolutely, Crono. We'll be going now, kids. Try not to destroy any other worlds while we're gone, okay? GLENN: Touchy. POSHUL: How RUDE! Po-shu-shu! (The bartender hollers from across the room.) TIFA: HEY! YOU KIDS! GET THAT MUTT OUT OF HERE! (Grumbling, the Cross kids and Poshul all leave the bar as the hooded figure walks on. CRONO and MARLE steal their table. The hooded figure passes a table where a green-haired woman is sitting, all alone... for the moment. BART FATIMA, ever so slightly drunk, is weaving towards her looking very determined.) BART: Hey! Hey baby! I know what you need! You need a young, handsome, irresponsible, hot-headed young blond king of a small desert country to keep you warm tonight, right? TERRA: No, thank you. I already have one. (EDGAR seems to pop up out of nowhere.) EDGAR: That's right, she's already got one. Shove off, will you? (BART and EDGAR glare at each other for a moment, then BART wheels around and moves off. EDGAR kisses TERRA on the top of the head and joins her at her table. The hooded figure moves on. Now s/he is approaching a large, round table, stuffed full of truly random individuals.) ZIDANE: Why did HE have to come here tonight? I'm so tired of him. (From a nearby table, where he's sitting alone:) KUJA: I heard that, monkey child. ZIDANE: Do you mind?! We're busy hating you over here! KUJA: Well, fine then! Hate me! See if I care! I'm still sexier than all the rest of you put together. GARNET: No, you're just a skank. AMARANT: A male skank. Now I've seen it all. GARNET: In that outfit of his? You'd already seen it all. KUJA: Oh, that's just fine, little miss Skin-Tight Yellow Spandex. Abuse me because I don't like pants. GARNET: I'm not going to abuse you, Kuja. You'd enjoy it too much. QUINA: I like skunks. They tasty! ZIDANE: Not skunks, Quina. Skanks. QUINA: They tasty too? KUJA: Sure are. Why don't you come over here and EAT me? STEINER: Kuja! I don't believe you! There are CHILDREN present! KUJA: You brought children to a TAVERN? What kind of responsible adult ARE you? STEINER (spluttering): That's not the point! You should try to behave like a normal... whatever you are! KUJA: Where's the fun in that? (EIKO pokes her head out from under the table.) EIKO: Hey, keep it down up there! Relm's trying to teach me to play Pokemon! (RELM pops up next to EIKO.) RELM: Yeah, you loony old farts! Pipe down! (The bickering continues. The hooded figure has, by this point, reached the bar and claimed a stool. S/he raises one finger at TIFA, who nods and brings the figure a tall beer. Suddenly, raised voices from across the room:) SQUALL: Well, MY girlfriend is the daughter of an incredibly powerful and well-placed general! CLOUD: And MY girlfriend owns this damn bar! Shut your FACE! (The hooded figure stiffens.) SQUALL: Your ex-girlfriend dresses you in women's clothing! CLOUD: You girlfriend looks just like mine but with smaller TITS! (TIFA throws her bar rag down and vaults over the bar, heading towards the confrontation with a thunderous look on her face. But then:) ZIDANE: Oh yeah? MY girlfriend is the queen of the largest country in the world and she looks just like BOTH your girlfriends! (Silence. CLOUD and SQUALL look at each other.) SQUALL: Gonna kill him. CLOUD: I'll help you. (CLOUD and SQUALL explode from their seats and assault the table where ZIDANE is sitting. A brawl begins. STEINER is bellowing and waving a sword around, AMARANT overturns the table on top of a really surprised RYU and NINA, and EIKO and RELM dash for cover.) ZIDANE: Come on, you losers! You're yesterday's news! I've got a dagger for EACH of you! (The brawl escalates quickly. TIFA wades into the brawl and starts throwing people around, until AMARANT gets her in a headlock. TIFA starts to turn purple. A whip curls out of nowhere and knocks STEINER's helm off as a drunken BART decides to enjoy a nice fray. STEINER's chain-mail hood falls off, revealing a head shaped like an egg and just as bald and shiny. EIKO falls into fits of laughter in the corner. Suddenly:) RYU'S VOICE: THAT HURT! (Explosion. The table that had fallen on top of RYU and NINA is hurled across the room at devastating speeds. The hooded figure only barely manages to duck in time before the table crashes into the mirror behind the bar. Glass flies everywhere as an enormous pink dragon rears up in the middle of the room. People go flying everywhere, only some of them under their own steam. EDGAR tosses TERRA through an open window and crawls out after her; CRONO and MARLE have taken prudent refuge behind the bar and are sharing a stolen bottle of icewine.) CRONO: .... MARLE: You said it. I'm not stupid enough to fight that thing either. (The dragon flails around until it's the only thing left standing. People are scattered everywhere, either unconscious or hiding. The dragon looks around, snorting pink smoke out of its nostrils, looking for another target; its gaze focuses on the hooded figure who is still seated at the bar, calmly drinking and brushing glass from its cloak. Bellowing its rage, the dragon charges, trampling STEINER in the process.) STEINER: Oooof... (The hooded figure doesn't even turn around. Instead, as the dragon closes, it pulls a small gray plastic box from its cloak and holds it up. The instant that the dragon spots the box, it screeches to a stop, panics, and races the other way as fast as it can. Just before the dragon crashes into the opposite wall, the figure pushes a large round button on the gray device, and the dragon instantly vanishes in a flash of light.) AMARANT: What the? KUJA: Hold me, Amarant! I'm scared! AMARANT: Hey! Get your hands off me, you lech! (KUJA continues to cling to AMARANT and gibber in fear, as the rest of the bar patrons begin to pick themselves up off the floor. Everyone seems to be more or less fine, but a variety of healing potions and herbs trade hands. Absolutely no one pays any attention to the hooded figure.) TIFA: Okay, folks, listen up! I'm calling closing time early tonight! All of you get your things together and go HOME! (No one argues. Within an amazingly short time, the bar has emptied out, every single person having walked, run, trotted, or limped out. The only two people left are TIFA and the hooded figure. TIFA walks behind the bar, digs out an unbroken bottle of something very expensive, and pours small shots of black liqueur for both of them.) TIFA (sarcastically): Have I ever properly thanked you for giving me this job? FIGURE (feminine voice): Heh. What can I say? I hope he saved his game. (Both women turn to peer at the save point, quietly revolving near the door like a disco ball. It changes its appearance every few seconds: a column of light, a large letter 'C', a pentacle, a collection of diamond-shaped forms, a rainbow-colored pyramid... then they turn back and face each other.) TIFA: I'm not looking forward to cleaning this mess up. (The hooded figure responds by pulling out the small gray box again, and pushing the same large round button. RYU and NINA both appear in flashes of light just underneath the save point, looking confused.) RYU: What happened? Where'd everybody go? TIFA: Good, you did save your game. RYU: Well, of course, it's second nature... you see a save point, you use it... FIGURE: You two, grab brooms. You're cleaning staff tonight. NINA: But... but why? I'm a princess, I don't clean bars! (The hooded figure responds by showing them both the gray box. RYU and NINA both gulp.) RYU: ... so where do you keep the brooms? (TIFA gets both RYU and NINA to work in very short order. The figure tosses back the shot of liqueur and stands up, pulling her cloak closely around herself.) TIFA: Goodnight, Moon. FIGURE: Heh. Goodnight Moon, goodnight room, goodnight clown with the red balloon... (TIFA laughs as the hooded figure walks out the door.) TIFA (to herself): Night night, sleep tight... (And then TIFA joins RYU and NINA in cleaning up the bar as the night draws to a quiet end...) (CURTAIN.) |
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===== COMMENTS: Well, that was mostly random... okay, for those of you who didn't get it, the hooded figure is me, and the gray box is my PlayStation. Get it, ha ha ha? Okay, so it's really lame, but oh well. The hooded figure also has a larger black box with a neat blue light on the front now, but I'll be damned if I'm carrying that into violent bars with me, even in fiction! This parody had a two-fold purpose: first, it was a way to use up all those bits and pieces of dialogue that I couldn't fit into other parodies, and second, it served to illustrate what a typical night in the Wyvern Westward is like. Aren't I just so TERRIBLY efficient? Honestly, I couldn't remember the REAL text from 'Goodnight Moon', but it was something like that. I used to love that book when I was four... |