The Greater Enemy

[11.22.99] » by David Solomon

Call me Cloud. Actually, don't. Because I'm not. I'm the narrator. This is a 3^rd person story.

Eggs have many different uses. One is to eat them by cooking them various different ways. Another is the classic "balance the egg game". And one is to throw large numbers of them at someone. The last option was the way Yuffie decided to use them against Squall Leonhart.

"Hey! Quit that!" Squall commanded. Yuffie ignored the command, giggled, and continued. Squall attempted to dodge them, but it was utterly hopeless. Finally, he brought out his gunblade, and begun mindlessly swinging it around, trying to scare Yuffie away. Finally, she ran out of eggs, and walked away.

Squall was now covered in egg yolk. Ever since they had come along, the FF7 cast had been utterly jealous at the attention they were getting. What each coming Final Fantasy group knew but denied was that they would eventually be kicked out of the spotlight, and replaced by the next bunch. What everybody knew also was that the steadily growing empire of Squaresoft crossed the border separating Nintendo's part of the world, and Sony's part of the world. Sony's part was continually growing. Everyone thought Nintendo was taking all the bad events well. Well, they weren't. But of course they wouldn't admit that. No. They had to plan their revenge with maximum secrecy…

But that wasn't the main concern in the IHFF8 society (I hate Final Fantasy 8). This society basically consisted of the FF7 "clan".

"Okay, everybody, listen up!" Cloud said as he addressed the large number of SD characters. "We have to strike!"

Large cheering and people shouting arose just as Sephiroth stepped in.

"This joke of a society is still here?" Sephiroth asked. "Man, what's with you guys? Can't you give up?" From the beginning, Sephiroth had always been one to avoid conflict, despite his performance. Oh, well. Nobody understood or cared.

Cloud glanced up. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?"
"Only on screen," Sephiroth responded.

Cloud continued on. "We need some sort of thing to really embarrass those big tall idiots. Something, like…blackmail!"

Everyone cheered.

"I've got it!" Cloud stated. "We have some sucker spy on Squall until he does something embarrassing, then we blackmail him for 50,000 G, and then we tell the embarrassing secret to everyone anyway! And to make the plan even better, we can force Sephiroth here to do it!"

"WHAT? Me?" Sephiroth asked, confused that they would make him do it, even though he had no loyalty to the society. "That's the dumbest plan I've ever heard! Wait…no, second. Mortal Kombat Annihilation was the worst."

"They're making a game out of that movie?" A random face in the crowd wondered.

"No, you fool! The movie was the…oh, forget it!"

"Come on, Sephiroth," Cloud urged. "If you do it, there might be something in it for you."
"Oh, yeah? Like what, Cloud?"

"LIKE YOUR CAREER! Trust me, Sephiroth, I can pull a few strings if I want to."

"You…pinhead!" was the best retort Sephiroth could think of that wouldn't scare the little kiddies in the back. "Fine, I'll do it. But only because I'm a greedy slob and all I care about is money. And maybe a little world peace here and there."

Sephiroth waited patiently at the street corner just to the right of the recording studio, where they molded the action figures, hoping that Squall would never come out. But he did, and Sephiroth began to follow Squall. Once he started, however, Sephiroth found it easy and fun. Whenever Squall would look back, Sephiroth would sneak into the crowd. For a minute, Sephiroth would actually think Squall didn't know he was being followed. Then Squall would start walking, and Sephiroth would start following. Everything was going good until they came to the apartment complex.

Squall walked up to the door and pressed all the buttons on the wall. Surely someone was expecting someone else. The door amazingly opened for Squall. Sephiroth, however, didn't see this, and walked to the door, pondering which button Squall had pressed, and swearing he had seen this before in a movie. Suddenly, Squall leaped out from behind, and dragged Sephiroth to an alley near the apartment.

"Why are you following me?" Squall shouted.

"I…don't know what you're talking about," Sephiroth innocently replied.

"Oh, don't give me none of that! I saw you. Boy, are you gonna be sorry when I'm through…"

Sephiroth was saved by the cry of amazement by a little girl.

"Daddy, daddy!" The girl shouted. "Look, it's Squally!"

"That's Squall, dear," the intelligent looking man responded.

"Hey, Mr. Squally! Can I take a picture?"

Squall was confused. Particularly because she wasn't holding a camera. "Uh, sure. But…"

"Click!" the girl yelped. "Click click click click!"

"Midori, please. We have to go." The intelligent man clearly was embarrassed.

Squall gave a deadly glare. "Just don't let me catch you doing anything like this again."

Sephiroth was angry for being embarrassed in front of what he recognized to be Citan Uzuki. Even though he tried to avoid conflict, he couldn't avoid saying, "Sure thing, Mr. Leonfart."

"WHAT?!"
"Sure thing, Mr. Leonhart."

"Yeah, that's more like it."

As Squall walked away, Sephiroth was reminded about exactly how much he didn't want to do this in the first place. He had to get out of the situation somehow. The only way he could think of was to get the head honchos of the different games to become friends. Easier said than done. But who could figure it out better than Citan? After all, he solved all the situations in Xenogears. And he wrote the script, to.

"Hey, Citan!" Sephiroth called out after Squall left.

Citan looked up. "Why, hello. You must be Sephiroth."

"That's my name, don't wear it out."

"So, what's the problem?"

"Well, I was forced to carry out a mission from the IHFF8 society, and the mission failed. So now, I'm thinking of peace between the two games. Any ideas?"

"Well, not right off the spot."

"What? That's not the character I remember from Xenogears! That's not the guy that did more damage than either of the two characters that would be in his party combined!"

Citan was not very flattered by the dragged on sentence that attempted to flatter. "Oh, it's not that tough! Just lock one representative from each game in a room, and leave them there for an hour or two!"

Sephiroth misinterpreted the sarcasm. "That's a great idea! Let's get right to work!"

"But…I was only joking…" was all Citan could say before he was dragged off by Sephiroth, with Midori prancing playfully behind them.

Sephiroth knew that Citan hadn't thought this idea up on his own. It had to have come from another source. But that wasn't important. What was important was that Citan and Sephiroth had the whole plan figured out. First they would lock Tifa and Rinoa together, and then they would do the same for Cloud and Squall. With peace made between the two leaders of the "clans", full peace was soon to follow.

Meanwhile, Tifa found it odd that there was an important IHFF8 meeting in a creepy room that wasn't air-conditioned. At the same time, Rinoa was curious what special surprise was to come in the same room. Neither was aware of what was happening. Eventually, they both made it to the room at the same time.

"Tifa?" Rinoa asked.
"Rinoa?" Tifa asked.

SHOVE! Sephiroth and Citan shoved Tifa and Rinoa into the room and locked the door.

"And you're not coming out till you reach an agreement!" Sephiroth shouted.

Citan thought Sephiroth was sending a hidden message. "So, you saw that episode also?"

"What?"

Citan realized Sephiroth wasn't sending any hidden messages after all, and just shrugged. Through the door, Sephiroth and Citan could hear childish name-calling and the occasional hitting of something, followed by a swear word. 3 hours later, this was still going on.

"This isn't working," Citan finally said.

"Well, it was your idea, lamebrain!" Sephiroth retorted.

As a result of the absence of an air-conditioner, Tifa and Rinoa were both sweaty. It was also because they had just been energetically insulting each other for the past 3 hours. Time, heat, and boredom finally caused Tifa to actually start talking.

"So…what stinks in your life?" was all she could think of.

"You," Rinoa responded, stopping the conversation.

A minute later, she continued. "And my agent."

"Who's your agent?"

"Big Joe."

"You're kidding."

"What makes you think I'm kidding?"

"Because that was my agent!"

Behind the door, Sephiroth began to smile, knowing their plan was finally beginning to work.

"No! You're kidding."

"Seriously! Did he make you do the tapes?"

"What tapes?"

"You know…the tapes."

Rinoa was not catching on.

"The 'revealing' tapes."

"You mean he tried to get you to do those too?"

"Hell, I did them. You can pick them up at a store near you."

"Well, there's no way I'm going to be in any one of THOSE movies."

Sephiroth and Citan shook hands on a job well done, and opened the doors. Two down, two to go.

Sephiroth and Citan went through the same routine to get Squall and Cloud under the same room. Oddly enough, it worked. Well, obviously.

But this time, only Cloud was the angry one. Squall instantly tried to make friends, because he didn't have any grudge against Cloud, except for the fact that Cloud was always a jerk to Squall.

"Look, Cloud," Squall began.

"What?"

"You were in a Special Forces army, right?"

"Yeah…"

"You rode chocobos, right?"

"Yeah…"

"And you fought on the good side, right?"

"What's your point?"

"We're the same! There's no point in hating me!"

"What are you talking about? You stole my spotlight."

"It's Square's fault. When FF9 comes along, we can both vandalize the President's mansion."

"Really? Cool!"

Sephiroth and Citan were amazed at how much quicker that problem was solved.

"Well," Citan began, "it appears women have a larger influence in our society."

"That must be true, or else the women wouldn't have argued for so long. The men seemed more ready to give up their bitter quarrels."

So the problem was solved. The four were hardly friends yet, but their "war" was over. But there remained a bigger problem in need of fixing…

PART 2: THE GREATER ENEMY

Squall woke up in the middle of the night. He had heard a window break or something. He looked to his left. Rinoa was there, fast asleep. She was always a deep sleeper. Squall then looked to the right. Indeed, his window was broken, with a tiny opening in the middle. But what caused that? It wasn't there when he went to bed. Squall got up, being careful not to wake up Rinoa, and walked around. He stepped on a bullet just as another one flew right by him and hitting the wall right next to him. This one woke up Rinoa.

"What's going on?" She asked, barely awake.

Squall knew what was happening. A sniper was shooting at them. The key was to keep Rinoa from panicking. So he told her to get dressed and follow him outside. Not realizing what was happening, she did was she was told. Squall expected this to be easy. Then another bullet was shot.

Rinoa screamed and jumped on Squall. Squall fell down.

"Stay calm, Rinoa! We just have to get out of here."

Rinoa got up and screamed as another bullet flew behind them. But Squall was able to eventually get himself and Rinoa outside and into their car. They sped up to Zell's house and knocked on the door.

"What's up?" A sleepy Zell asked. "It's the middle of the night."

"Can we spend the rest of the night at your house? We've had kind of a rough night. We'll tell you about it in the morning."

"Sure." Squall could tell by Zell's smile that he had developed some sort of perverted hypothesis as to why they were sleeping at his house. He didn't want to spend any more mental energy on the subject.

As soon as Cloud and Tifa got a new swimming pool, Aeris came over, along with Red XIII. God only knows what Red XIII was doing over there, but Aeris came for the pool.

Cloud and Tifa had already gone for a swim earlier that day, so they were inside.

"I spend two and a half months telling you to get a pool, and you finally buy it at the END of summer?" Tifa remarked.

"Hey, the point is, I got it." Cloud responded. "And at least-"

Cloud's sentence was interrupted as Aeris shouted "Yahoo!" and did a running jump on the diving board. Only, as soon as she jumped off the diving board, it exploded. Aeris flew into the pool. Cloud and Tifa ran out.

"Oh, my god!" Cloud shouted. "Aeris! Don't die again!"

"It's alright, Cloud," Aeris muttered as she climbed out of the pool. "I had the fire and elemental materia combination in my hair."

Red XIII looked at the diving board. "It's clear someone booby-trapped it."

"Yeah, but who?" Tifa asked. The now charred diving board was floating in the pool now. It was a very odd site. No one seemed to be hurt, though.

Materia. Is there anything it can't do?

Barret had just dropped Marlene off at school, and was driving home. He was just getting done thinking about how things were getting better when a gun was pointed at the back of his head from behind. Barret froze. It didn't feel like a real gun. It felt more like…a laser gun, or something. Either way, Barret wasn't about to take chances.

"Keep driving," the guy behind him said.

Barret always hated that phrase. "That's what I was going to do, dammit!" The guy instructed him to turn right at the next intersection. Barret was reminded of the two incidents he had just heard about on the radio. So Barret popped the question.

"Are you and the other recent incidents related?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"Because I'll be dead soon, dammit!"

"Fine, I'll tell you everything you need to know. Turn left." Barret turned left. "The organization we belong to is classified, but you deserve to know our motives. It's simple. The organization you belong to betrayed us. And our punishment is to kill the major representatives of their company."

"You mean the IHFF8 society? Irvine, is that you?"
"I'm not Irvine. I am in no way related to that major ^@%!&@$ of a corporation."

"You mean Sony?"

"You catch on, Barret."

"Listen, I'm gonna have to figure out who you are, no matter what."

"I wouldn't tell you who I was even if-" The sentence wasn't finished, because Barret had reached a high enough speed that he could take advantage of the fact that the guy wasn't wearing a seatbelt. He made a very sudden stop at the next stoplight he saw. The figure flew forward and hit his head on the radio. It was Fox McCloud.

"Fox? Man, you really are an idiot. You're the type of guy that always brings a knife into a gunfight. Go on, get the hell out of here!"

Fox got out of the car and ran. Barret felt good. He had successfully escaped a tight situation, and had figured out everything. The company that was trying to kill the representatives was Nintendo. They hated Square, because they had left Nintendo. Now Nintendo wanted revenge. It was so easy! Barret was so co-

The sight of James Bond interrupted his train of thought. Right now he belonged to Nintendo. There was no way that Nintendo could have planned it so Barret stopped exactly at the point that Bond would be standing to shoot him! All those thoughts went by in a second, as six bullets went flying into Barret. Barret fired a few of his own, but only succeeded in scaring bond away. Barret drove into an alley, called Cloud on his cell phone, and managed to mutter a few cries for help and where he was before he fell unconscious.

"Barret?" The voice was dim. Barret opened his eyes. It was Cloud. And Tifa, Aeris, Red XIII, Cait Sith, Yuffie, Vincent, Cid, and some of the FF8 guys.

"Cloud…" Barret muttered. He knew he was a goner. No rumored resurrection materia was going to save him now. "It's Nintendo…"

"What?"

"Nintendo…Nintendo…is causing all this…Bond killed me…"

"Why? Why are they doing this?" Cloud was very concerned.

"They…hate Square…for leaving…"

"Barret? Barret!!!"

Barret was dead. Cloud was pissed. This had gone too far. The police were no more a solution. It was time to bring this to the Federation of Video Games.

Thousands of short but wide metal steps filled the enormous room. Forty percent was Nintendo, forty percent was Sony, and the continually shrinking twenty percent was Sega. Four of the pillars were especially tall. One of them held Cloud, Squall, and Crash Bandicoot. The second had Mario and Luigi. The third held Sonic and Tails, but they were irrelevant to the situation. In the middle was the tallest pillar of all. This pillar held the chancellor of video games, and his two assistants. Although the chancellor was a good man, power and bribes from Nintendo had corrupted him. Things were not looking good for Cloud or Squall.

Crash's pillar rose some more, along with the chancellor's, as Crash began to talk. "Ladies and gentlemen, there has been several horrible crimes committed, and one dead! These crimes are a result…of Nintendo!"

"This is an outrage!" Mario broke out as his pillar rose. "We have done nothing of the sort!"

"You will speak when spoken too, Mario!" Cloud shouted.

"I'm in charge!" The chancellor bellowed over his microphone. "Mario, please wait until it is your turn."

"I present to you, Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart." Cloud and Squall stepped up and described the various events that had happened, and what Barret had said. When they were done, Luigi stepped up on his pillar.

"I deny all the charges!" he said. "It would be a ridiculous waste of time to appeal to the courts. They need proof!"

"Proof is in the courts!" Squall yelled. "That is why we must appeal to the Supreme Court of Video Games."

"What's with all these tacky names?" Sonic shouted.

Nobody seemed to care. The chancellor stepped up. "An appeal would be a great embarrassment if the crime turned out to be just another made up story. However-" Just then, one of his assistants whispered in his ear. The real leaders were getting to work. And Cloud, Squall, and Crash knew it. The chancellor then stood up. "True, you do not provide much evidence, and the Supreme Court of Video Games is only for major crimes. Do you, by chance, have any proof?"

That was a ridiculous question, and Cloud had no intention of answering it. "I will not stand here and watch my friends die while you fools discuss this in a committee! If the current chancellor is not able to take action, I suggest we need a new one!"

Thousands from the Sony and Sega sides cheered in agreement.

The chancellor wasn't about to let his title slip away. "W-w-w-wait! Okay. Your appeal is accepted."

The Sony side cheered as the chancellor sat down and wiped the terror sweat off his face. Mario and Luigi gave Cloud and Squall an angry glance. They knew that Cloud and Squall couldn't win. They owned the Federation and the Supreme Court! They would win this if it was the last thing they did.

And the first day of the trial began. Cloud and Squall's side was represented by Crash Bandicoot, having taken some quick courses in law for just such an incident. Representing Mario and Luigi was none other than the might Shigero Miyamota. The jury was all Sega members.

Finally, Nintendo was getting what they deserved. As the days went by, the trial went more in favor of Sony. All the evidence was there, from the bullets and the window, to the witnesses of Barret's shooting. Unfortunately, everything that Barret said was hearsay, so they couldn't press any charges on Bond. Still, they were winning the trial.

But something wasn't right. On the 20^th and last day of the trial, Sony was sure to win. But Cloud noticed something odd about Mario's mood.

"Why is he smiling?"

Squall had no idea. "Maybe he's lost his mind. You know, like those criminals that laugh before they're executed."

"This seems different, though." Cloud was looking around and noticed that Bond had a gun in his pocket. "Aren't you not allowed to have a gun in the court of law?"

"You're right," Squall commented. "Let's get the officer."

The two told a policeman what they saw and the three escorted Bond out of the room.

"You stay here," Cloud said to Squall.

"Okay," Squall said, even though he was a little disappointed.

Cloud and the police officer walked out of the courtroom with Bond. As soon as the doors were closed, Cloud grabbed Bond by the shirt and pulled out the gun.

"Why was this in there?" Cloud gestured to the courtroom.

"Well, I'm Bond. James Bond. I always carry a gun."

"The law is the law," the officer said.

"I AM ABOVE THE LAW!" Bond said as his hair got frizzled up. He took out a squeeze tube of hair gel and mashed it all over his hair. Then, without warning, he took his gun back from Cloud and held it up against both of them.

"Careful, don't try to shoot him," Cloud tried to warn the officer. The officer ignored Cloud and pulled out his gun, only to be shot. Bond then started to run up the stairs leading to the top of the building. Cloud ran after him. After several flights, Bond ignorantly reached the top (a.k.a. dead end), while Cloud ignorantly followed him (Bond had a gun; Cloud only had a sword).

"And now, Mr. Strife, I take care of you." Bond would probably have killed Cloud if Cloud hadn't cast Shield on his way up the stairs. But with temporary invulernability, Cloud leaped at bond, stole the gun, and threw it off the top of the ten-story building. Then he held his big sword to Bond's neck.

"I ought to kill you right now," Cloud threatened.

"Two things. Would you really sink down to my level? And besides, nobody knows I shot Barret. You'd only be making things worse for yourself."

Cloud put his sword down. Bond had a point. Just as Cloud began escorting him down stairs, Bond said "I enjoyed killing your friend, though."

Cloud stopped.

"It would be fun if I could do it again. Perhaps…with that giant cat? Or maybe your wife?"

That was it. Cloud had had enough. "Alright, let's just get downstairs."

Bond thought he was home free until he noticed that Cloud was leading him to the edge of the building. That was an awful high fall. "Wait! What about the 'Tomorrow Never Dies' Playstation game?"

"You'll always be one of Nintendo's, you pond scum. You probably never were even really working on that game anyway. It was probably all just a hoax."

Bond would have said something, but Cloud was right. Instead, he just screamed as Cloud pushed him off the building. Cloud watched Bond go down until he met the pavement. Several people crowded around him. Meanwhile, Cloud went back down to the trial.

Mario was concerned when Bond didn't come back down, but since there was no blood on Cloud, and a shot police officer outside, he didn't bring it up. Instead, he began to talk with his lawyer.

"Look, do I pay you to just sit there and pretend you're working?"

Shigero was shocked at what his creation had just said. "Hey, what am I supposed to do? It's not like you're innocent or anything. You should thank me for taking part in this whole nonsense."

"Thank you? No, my friend. You don't deserve to be a part of Nintendo."

That was the last straw. Shigero was the hardest working guy there. He wasn't going to take this from some character he created. He stood up. "Your honor, we change our plea from not guilty, to guilty."

"WHAT?" Mario screamed, and punched Shigero in the face. He was then grabbed by two officers, while two other officers grabbed Luigi. Cloud and Squall rushed up.

"You're finished, Mario. You'll never work in video games again."

"We shall see, Cloud." Mario responded. "We shall see."

Mario and Luigi were dragged off out of the room.

Clearly, there were other meetings at the Federation of Video Games about the deaths of Bond and the officer, but they were dismissed. The main crime was solved. But life would never be the same without Barret. Still things went on, as Cloud and Squall became friends, as well as Rinoa and Tifa. They all visited Barret's grave once a week, along with Marlene. Marlene now stayed with Aeris's mom.

Yep, the worst was over and all was well. Even though Cloud was no longer in the spotlight, he would always exist as a part of Square, and he held no grudge against Squall. But he couldn't wait to see his reaction when FF9 came along…

Well, this was my first fanfic. I hope you liked it. Because that's why I wrote it.

Oh, and in case you didn't notice all those instances the story was starting to sound similar to a movie, book, or T.V. show, here they all are…

The call me Cloud beginning (Moby Dick, the book)

The pushing all the buttons on the apartment wall to get in (The Maltese Falcon)

Locking the two people in the room until they reached an agreement (The Simpsons)

The sniper part (Lethal Weapon 2)

The exploding diving board (Lethal Weapon 2)

The knife into gun fight metaphor (The Untouchables)

The Federation of Video Games (The Phantom Menace)

The Trial (The Untouchables)

I AM ABOVE THE LAW! (South Park)