The Quest for the Holy Vase (Interpolating Squall's Bad Day) by Sky Render and Avenger Squall scratched his head. Damn, he thought, why the heck didn't I just kill that bastard and take my cards back? Silently cursing the CC Card Club, he walked back onto the Ragnarok, Gunblade drawn... He approached Laguna with his Gunblade ready. "What are you looking at, punk?" Squall asked vehemently. "Nothing much," Laguna responded. "...Whatever," Squall replied, and continued onward. He soon encountered the CC Card Club member Jack. "Hey! Gimme your cards or I'll kill you!" Jack looked at Squall for a second, and then burst out laughing. But his chortle was cut short by Squall's Gunblade impaling him. His eyes rolled back as the trigger was pulled, splattering his innards against the rear wall of the room. "Serves you right," Squall said, "You don't have any good cards, anyway!" With that, he left the room, continuing on his quest to kill the CC Card Club. Squall saw Irvine approaching. "Squall, man, you have to stop! They're just card players! We have to focus on the greater threat, or something," Irvine said. "...Whatever." "Don't you see? The CC Club is on OUR side!" Irvine tried to persuade him. "They have my Ifrit card!" Squall yelled, plunging his gunblade into Irvine's face. The studly cowboy fell backward, and Squall stepped over his corpse, continuing his quest. As Squall stepped into the cabin, he was shocked to find Selphie on top of Spade. "This is just too disgusting!" he said, and fired two shots from his bloodied Gunblade. After sifting through their clothes, Squall let out a mild chuckle as he came across a Selphie card. "That one'll be worth a lot now, seeing as she's dead." With that, he headed back down, determined to find the others. Squall made his way to the cargo area, and saw Laguna leaning against some crates. Squall approached him. "Why are you following me around?" he asked. Laguna shrugged. "I have the Squall card, care to challenge me?" Laguna asked. "Challenge this!" Squall yelled. He summoned Eden, and Laguna was sucked into a black hole, and never seen again (until later in the story). Only then did Squall realise that the Squall card was also sucked into the black hole. "Why was I so stupid...?" he muttered. Shaking, he propped his gunblade against his foot, with the blade pointing towards him. With a final resolute frown, he impaled himself. * * * Rinoa, who was above decks, heard a yell from below... Rushing downstairs, she screamed at the sight of her love impaled on his own Gunblade. "Who did this?!" she yelled, and pulled the blade out. Wielding it as best she could, she stormed out of the hold, and ran right into Zell. "Hey, what's up Rinoa?" Zell asked. He noticed then, too late, her frenzied eyes and the Gunblade in her hand. Zell staggered backwards, shot through the head with a bullet from Squall's weapon. Rinoa's rage grew, and she decided to seek out the rest of the crew. It was payback time... As she ran to the bridge, she encountered Quistis. There was a brief pause as both women tried to take in the situation. Quistis was the first to act. "You... you killed him, didn't you!? How could you?" she yelled, tears streaming from her eyes. Rinoa, in her fury, was unphased. She levelled the blade at Quistis. "You can't fool me you slut!" Rinoa screamed, pulling the trigger. Quistis took the Lionheart's blast full in the stomach and reeled backwards, her innards spilling out onto the floor. Rinoa fired again for good measure, putting a bullet through Quistis's neck. Careful not to slip on what used to be inside of Quistis, Rinoa walked the halls, searching... searching for someone else... It was Kiros's poor luck that he'd just happened to decide to be in the hallway that Rinoa was storming down. "What are you...? AUGH!" He never finished, as Rinoa had him impaled through the chest on the Gunblade. Rinoa stopped in her tracks as she heard a low-pitched growl behind her. She turned, just a second too late, and fell to the floor as her dog dug its fangs into her neck. Foaming at the mouth, Angelo sniffed the air, and caught the scent of blood. There were others on this ship still alive. And they had... blood... The dog rushed off in search of the others, half-blind in its rabid rage. Angelo sped off down the hall, following the scent of human flesh. The dog nudged the door of the conference room open with its muzzle and entered, growling. Ward was standing there, looking at it. He smiled and beckoned to the dog with his enormous fist. Angelo went to Ward--went to him at a full run. The rabid beast leapt onto Ward's chest and started snapping at the huge man's face and neck. Ward was unable to cry out. He pulled the dog off of him and threw it to the ground. Angelo recovered quickly, and ran off to find easier prey. I have to stop that dog before it hurts someone else, Ward thought, wiping blood from his face. Grabbing his immense weapon from where it leaned on the wall, he stomped out into the hallway, following the trail of his own blood in search of Rinoa's mad dog. Meanwhile, Angelo had caught the scent of Club, and was homing in on him. The avid card player, smelling the blood in the air for the first time, looked up from his deck of cards. He was shocked to see the fangs of a ravenous dog about to kill him, and barely managed to duck in time. Shaking, he ran out of the room, the dog on his tail. Turning the corner, he was stopped, having impaled himself on Ward's harpoon. Ward was definitely not looking well, as his eyes seemed red, and his mouth almost foaming. But Club didn't have a chance to figure it out, as he was dying fast. Ward, frustrated at the stupid man who had died on his weapon, pushed the corpse off, and threw his harpoon into Angelo. Angelo cried out loudly in pain, and died a second later. Ward grabbed his harpoon, mentally unaware of what he was doing, and decided to continue this... eradication... He rushed off, seeking out other living humans... Ward, compelled by some strange force that urged him to kill, ran to the cockpit. Sitting down at the pilot's chair, he gave the control panels a quick once-over. Having located the controls for the Ragnarok's weapons systems, he smiled and flew the ship to Winhill. When Ward finally reached the small peaceful village, he began firing at random, obliterating the quaint village. When his work was complete, and the population of the city was dead, he landed the Ragnarok and entered the ruins. His thirst for death quenched (for now), Ward wanted but one thing. The vase. That one infamous vase whose pieces Squall had collected not a week earlier. As he was walking into the village, though, he was surprised to see the two ex-Garden students who had been hired by the village. They were both standing, shaken, frightened, and breeches thoroughly unrinated in, but resolute. Whoever this madman was, they would stop him. Ward, prepared to attack the two students, hardly expected the attack from hehind, as 200 razor-sharp cards impaled in his back. The Card Queen crossed her arms as she watched him fall to the earth, dead. The students raised their eyebrows at this, but said nothing. The Card Queen motioned to Diamond, and they headed into the thrashed town. She, too, wanted that vase. But her reasons were very different... A townsperson with a pitchfork approached her, but he quickly fell to an Iron Giant Card to the head. At last, she reached the mansion, and kicked open the now-cracked doors. The master of the house, shocked at the sudden intrusion, fell to the ground as he was hit by several hundred cards of all types. The Card Queen retrieved some of them, and then grabbed the vase. At last, she had it... Turning around, she let out a gasp of terror, as Diamond threw a Shuriken into her chest, and took the vase. He wanted it, too... Rushing back to the Ragnarok, Diamond was chuckling in a maniacal manner. He had won... ...at least he thought he had. The problem that now impeded him was that he did not know how to operate the Ragnarok, and there was no one else around (that he knew of) who could. He sat at the pilot's chair, looking over the controls, trying to make sense of the technical information. Sighing, he leaned back and looked at the vase. "Finally. With this great vase, I won't be ashamed to have a girl come to my living room. I will set it beside my turn-table and Zamfir vinyl record collection!" Diamond cackled. It was at that moment that a chicobo jumped out from the reconstructed vase and pecked Diamond's eyes out. Screaming, the card player tossed the vase to the floor, and with it, the chicobo. The precious decoration shattered, shattering Diamond's dreams of the perfect living room. All this death... for nothing. With tears in what used to be his eyes, Diamond resigned himself to pressing random buttons on the console. *Bleep! Self Destruct Sequence Initiated* the ship's onboard computer pronounced. Diamond settled back into the large chair. Finally... peace would come... A hole opened in time and space, and Laguna reappeared on the Ragnarok. "What a trip!" he said. Then he finally noticed the piles of dead bodies, and became a bit suspicious. "What the feck's going on here, anyway?" he asked the air. Taking the elevator, he found the most frightful sight of his life awaiting him there: masses of dead people, all whom he knew, and one of the CC Card Club members sitting in the pilot's seat, his eyes pecked out. A chicobo ran past Laguna as he rushed over to the control panel. The display read, "Self Destruct Sequence Complete - Have a Nice Day!" Laguna shouted out, "SHIIIIIT!" as the ship exploded. Several miles away, Seifer smiled. Everything had worked out for him. Satisfied, he headed out to the local fishing spot, and accidentally fell into the lake, at which point he discovered that he'd never learned to swim. And thus, the final member of the FF8 cast of any importance died, and we can end this bloody fic. T H E E N D