Episode 8: Early Show

INT. STUDIO

Baralai sat behind his large wooden desk with the oceanic backdrop. Beside his desk was a large golden couch.

BARALAI (to camera): Welcome to the Early Final Fantasy Show! Sad news today. Nooj, finally, took his own life. He will no longer be with us... Naw, I'm just kidding. He was actually promoted to something that makes more money than a cameraman. More money than me, actually. A lot more. But I won't complain. We've replaced him with our old friend, Paine! She'll at least be better company than Nooj!

PAINE (O.S.): Doubt it.

BARALAI: Well...never mind. But speaking of Paine, who was once on the show The Amazing Final Fantasy Race, we have tonight's castoffs from that show's latest season. Please welcome Zone and Watts!

Zone and Watts walked in and sat on the couch beside Baralai's desk. Watts sat closest to Baralai.

BARALAI: Welcome, boys!

WATTS: Thanks. Good to be here. Well, sort of. Being here does mean we lost.

BARALAI: That's true. So let's get right into it. You two lost. Why?

WATTS: We just weren't off the radar like we'd intended. Between Zone's weird, somehow-public alliance with Reina, plus our first place finish in Twilight Town didn't help.

ZONE: We did win by a landslide on that leg, but there was nothing else to do. Can't exactly sit and wait and pretend we got lost.

BARALAI: You two claim to have attempted to stay in the middle to stay off the radar. How do you do that?

WATTS: Depends on the leg. Some legs, it meant racing our hardest. Others it just meant slowing down when running from task to task.

ZONE: And the irony is not lost on us that we aimed to stay in the middle and ended up eliminated in sixth place of twelve teams.

BARALAI: I see. So explain what happened to you this leg. It was a lot of puzzles and things, but you two were still out. Was it the U-Turn? The fatigue from the desert? Anything like that?

ZONE: It was everything. There's so much that I wish we'd done. But we can't change it. I wish I would've chosen for us to do the Invent detour first. We could've finished before Dona and Barthello and avoided a U-Turn.

WATTS: Maybe. We wouldn't have been able to do the engineering Invent, since Fran and Balthier were already there. But we could've possibly beaten them with another type of invention.

ZONE: And that fatigue at the end. It looks kind of pathetic for me to be the only person out of breath in that desert, aside from Fran who presumably fainted in the desert, but you have to remember that we were U-Turned. My legs were killing me and I'd already drank all my water at the U-Turn. Except the water that was in my bag, but I didn't have time to get it out before the walk.

BARALAI: Sounds like a tough day, all in all. So now, everybody out there is dying to know.

PAINE (O.S.): Not everybody.

BARALAI: Dying to know! Zone. You and Reina had something going. Details!

ZONE: I was waiting for this. Reina and I definitely had some odd chemistry. I just wish I understood it. There are a thousand and one things to love about her. She's caring, fun, beautiful, and an absolutely amazing person. Not to mention my thing for princesses. But I had no idea why she seemed to like me. We first really started talking when a risque magazine fell from my backpack. How's that for an ice breaker?

BARALAI: Ever think she was using you? You two were pretty solid racers.

ZONE: I thought about it, but some of the things she said and did were just too genuine. I'm pessimistic and paranoid. My "using you" senses were always on full blast.

BARALAI: Well I know I'm going to miss you two in the race. You're both great racers and I loved all the cute moments you had with Reina.

ZONE: Thanks?

BARALAI: Okay, I can't take it. Tell me. Are you and Reina still an item after the race?

WATTS: He's not allowed to say.

BARALAI: That figures. So tell me. Who are you two rooting for?

ZONE: I think it's obvious. Reina and Faris and Ma and Zell.

WATTS: And Fran. But that's just me, and I'm actually hoping that through some odd race loophole, Fran wins the race alone and offers to share her prize money and vacation with yours truly. But I don't think that'll happen.

BARALAI: I see. Oh, so I've gotta know this, too. Dona and Barthello. What are your thoughts on the two that basically put you out of the competition? Watts, you even caught them exchanging some of Reina and Faris's items.

WATTS: That definitely didn't sit well with me. But by the end of that, I felt really bad. I feel like I kept the truth from Reina and Faris and kept them from leaving as soon as they could have. Plus I feel like if I wouldn't have said anything we wouldn't have been U-Turned. I feel like the U-Turn was my fault.

ZONE: Hardly. They did it because of me and the so-called alliance I had with Reina.

WATTS: Still, I should've kept my mouth shut.

ZONE: Actually, don't worry about it too much. While I was waiting for you in the puzzle area, I talked with other racers. I heard Barthello made the final call in U-Turning us and he said it was because he considered us the stronger of the three teams behind them.

WATTS: I see. Well, hard to blame a man for picking the people he was most afraid of.

ZONE: It's a confidence booster at least.

BARALAI: Well we're going to have to call it a rap. Again, it was great to watch you two on the show. Zone, I hope you can stop by the show again sometime to talk about Reina when it's less hush-hush. And now for a commercial by Paine's favorite sponsor.

PAINE (O.S.): Don't say it.

BARALAI: Dr. Pepper. Or as I like to call it: Dr. P--ACK!

Paine rushed the stage and jumped across Baralai's desk, tackling him to the ground. Zone took a familiar fetal position while Watts ran away, knocking over the camera in the process. It fuzzed out when it hit the ground.