The ride back up to civilization was refreshingly quiet. Mother was not with us which caused some of the silence, but Marlene was still with us, unable to speak of the horror that was the C-Deck. When we reached the main hall, we saw the man we had just robbed. I expected him to be broken down at the loss of his products, but he didn't seem distraught in any way. He had already found more useless crap to sell. Our party headed straight for our new room: the buffet. The ship was just about to depart from the shore, so when we reached the buffet, it was completely free of people, food, or employees, so we found a group of small tables in the back to claim for our own.
     "Yo guys," Barret said. "You guys go have fun or somethin'. Me 'n Dyne'll stay here and make signs that say these tables is reserved fo' us so dat nobody'll question us, ya know?"
     I spoke for the group in saying thanks for volunteering and whatnot, seeing as how everybody else was already gone to explore the ship. The only person still with me was Tifa, but by the familiar look in her eyes, I knew I wouldn't be her boyfriend for long. I decided to use this small amount of boyfriend time left to buy her a bikini and take her on deck. We found a shop that sells swimwear, but it wasn't open. This was probably the first time that Mother was not around me but I wished she were. Those small gates that are used to lock stores don't stop Mother from breaking in and taking stuff.
     "Sammy," Tifa said. "What's that smell?"
     That's an introduction if I ever heard one.
     "It's Mother," I said. "Mother, didn't you shower?"
     Aww Sephy. I haven't showered a day in my life. But watch this.
     Mother pulled a small cell phone out from behind her back and showed it to Tifa and I.
     "That's lovely Mother, but we want some swimsuits. Can you get us some?"
     Aww Sephy. It's been so long since you've needed my help. I'll be back in a jiffy.
     Mother left quickly through some heating vents. I looked over at Tifa who was looking at me very strangely.
     "Sephy?" she said. "Sephy... Sephy Roth... Sephiroth! You %#$^ing asshole!"
     "Mother!" I shouted into the vent, "forget the suits."
     I started running from the green glow emanating from Tifa.
     "Stealing a pair of my panties is one thing," she yelled after me, "but this time you've gone too far!" She took a deep breath, then shouted, "Beat Rush-Somersault-Waterkick-Meteodive-Dolphin Blow-Meteor Strike-Final %#$^ing Heaven!"
     I ditched the idea of running and moved directly to sprinting as fast as my legs would take me. We ran all around the shopping level, up the stairs into the club level, and straight into a karaoke bar called The Singing Drunk. Once she had me cornered she moved forward until her face was inches from my own and sniffed the air.
     "Holy God!" she yelled. "What smells?"
     We both looked around and saw several people standing around sniffing the putrid air. The only people that were not sniffing the air were Reno and Rude who were on stage finishing Waiting for Tonight and starting on a Grease duet.
     "It smells like something died," I said.
     "I was going to say rotting shit," Tifa said, "but I guess it could be dead rotting shit."
     I looked above Tifa's head and across the room on the wall I was a small heating vent. "Oh shit," I said. "It's Mother. She smells like shit and she's in a heating duct that runs through the whole ship. This whole ship smells like shit now."
     The room fell silent aside from Reno and Rude's singing.
     "You're the one that I want, you are the one I want, dude, dude dude..."
     "Lemme just get one thing straight," I said to Tifa. "Now, they were drunk before boarding, right? I mean, we've been here all of forty minutes. They can't be this drunk already."
     "I think they're always drunk," she said. "Anyways, we need to find your Mother. After that, then I'll kick your ass."
     "Fair enough," I said.
     We left the karaoke bar and went back to the swimsuit store to find Mother poking her head out of the heating duct.
     Well howdy there. I couldn't find any good swimsuits. Guess you'll just have to swim bare-assed.
     "You don't even know what that means," I said to Mother. "Now can you please get out of there? You're stinking up the whole ship."
     You're right. I've got other things to do. Well, I'll catch up with you later.
     "Ready?" Tifa asked me.
     "Yeah, let's get this over with."
     Tifa stood tall and pulled her arm back, and slapped me hard across the face.
     "Don't pretend to be my boyfriend when I lose my memory ever again, got it?"
     I nodded. We walked out onto the deck together where we found that the pool with the giant slide was already opened up. Many people were on the deck because of the stench Mother left in the ship. We saw Aeris standing by the pool, wet with a towel wrapped around her. She waved to us and walked toward us. She threw off her towel revealing her hot pink bikini underneath.
     "Where'd you get that swimsuit?" Tifa asked, pointing at her bikini.
     "Oh, they're giving suits out over there," Aeris said, pointing to a stand labeled as 'Free Swimsuits.' "You should grab one. That slide rocks."
     "Cool," Tifa said, jogging over to the stand. "You gonna go Seph?" she called back to me. I shook my head. She shrugged and continued on to the stand. Aeris and I waited silently until Tifa had her suit and left to go change.
     "She called you Seph," Aeris said. "She has her memory back then?"
     I nodded.
     Aeris patted me on the back and headed to the bathroom that Tifa had gone to change in. She waited by the door until Tifa came out wearing the same clearance hot pink bikini. They ran anxiously up the stairs to the top of the slide. Tifa was the first to slide down. The slide went around in several turns before finally spitting the person out at the bottom, which in this case was Tifa. She shot underwater and came up facing the wall holding the base of the slide.
     "Tifa! Move out of the way!" Aeris yelled from the top of the slide.
     "I uhh, can't," Tifa replied. "I'm umm... missing something."
     She looked around without moving from facing the wall when finally a hot pink bikini top floated to the water's surface next to her. She immediately snagged it out of the water and went under water to put it back on. Nobody could really see anything through the salty waters, but I noticed that many people were attempting to. Aeris looked over the slide and saw that Tifa was out of the way so she went down the slide. Tifa resurfaced wearing her swimsuit. There was a loud, depressed sigh when she surfaced.
     "Okay Aeris," Tifa yelled to the top of the slide. "Wait for me to get out of the way, then you can go."
     Right as she said this, Aeris shot out the bottom of the slide. Both girls looked extremely frightened and tried to avoid collision as best they could, but their attempts were in vain as Aeris's foot still hit Tifa in the side of the head. Tifa went underwater quickly, but Aeris was immediately after her to help her. They resurfaced with Aeris supporting Tifa until they were out of the pool.
     "Are you okay?" Aeris asked Tifa.
     Tifa looked back at her. "Oh. Yeah. I'm fine. Thank you ma'am."
     "Ma'am?" Aeris said confusedly.
     "I'm sorry," Tifa said. "I can't remember anything. Who're you?"
     "I'm Aeris. Gosh. You really did hit your head bad if you can't remember your girlfriend's name."
     "Aeris," I said quietly to her, "bad idea."
     Just then an alarm on the ship went off, followed by a voice on an intercom.
     Here it comes.
     "Mother? How'd you get here?"
     "Everybody, this is your Captain speaking," the intercom voice said. "Prepare for impact. There's an iceberg straight off the port side that we're heading straight for."
     "Can I just say 'I told ya so' once right here?" I said to Aeris.
     Wait, you're gonna miss the best part.
     The Captain continued, "in addition, over half of the ship's lifeboats have been sabotaged, so after impact, it's first come first serve. In fact, myself and the crew have already taken a couple boats so prepare for total anarchy."
     This is my favorite part of the movie.