Zack laughed at Kunsel's dirty joke and heard Angeal sigh from up ahead. He must have only heard part of it - otherwise Zack was sure he and Kunsel would be doing push-ups until their arms fell off. Jogging forward he walked beside his mentor with Kunsel and asked, "So, why are you coming down here again?"
His mentor stopped and lifted an eyebrow, asking, "What? Do you not want me around?" Shaking his head,
Zack hurried to clarify. "No, I mean normally you don't like Chocobo, right? I just thought you were going to skip out with Genesis today."
Continuing walking, Angeal calmly explained, "I don't dislike Chocobo. I just care less about them ever since you had to go through the riding regime. The paperwork your stunts made me do…" The poor man looked near traumatized. "I simply can't let you come down here unsupervised." When Kunsel waved his hand to indicate he was here Angeal's eyes narrowed. "And some people, as I remember, only added to my paper stack." Kunsel sheepishly lowered his hand.
"Secondly, Genesis didn't 'skip out.' He went to…liberate Sephiroth from the labs." They were now crossing the riding track and heading into a greener grass as they approached the ben with the Chocobo inside. Already they could see cadets being launched into the air and hear their screams. It seemed the Chocobo were in a rowdy mood.
Zack moved to walk behind Angeal, remembering how many times he had been head-butted and shot into the air like the present cadets. "Those things just especially disliked me. One even leapt off the fence and chased me all the way back inside the building - even tried to come inside the elevator to get me!"
Angeal resisted pinching the bridge of his nose. "AKA, the paperwork overload. How you managed to piss them all off is beyond me."
Kunsel added his input. "Genesis said after this happened, twice, he did some research and hypothesized that they went into attack mode because of Zack's hair. It looks like he is trying to grow a hedgehog, and Chocobo don't like porcupines. They look really similar. They're also natural enemies."
"W-what!?" Zack sputtered. "You're making that up!"
Kunsel was already shaking his head. "No I'm not. Chocobo usually just eat the greens they're fed but wild ones have been known to snatch up small animals at their feet and eat them. Squirrels, bunnies, rodents, you name it. I guess some mistake hedge porcupines for an easy snack and get the nasty end of the deal when they try to eat the blasted things. Thus a natural enemy to the Chocobo."
Zack, unable to tell if Kunsel was lying, mused over this. "Well…I guess it would explain why that thing tried to tear my hair out of my head…and then my head in particular."
Snorting, Kunsel tried to hide his laughter with a cough. Elbowing him in the gut, Zack nearly ran into Angeal when he stopped.
Curious, he asked, "What's up, 'Geal?"
"Isn't that Sephiroth?"
Looking around the bigger man, Zack felt his eyebrows rise. Sephiroth was outside the fence and Genesis seemed to have him in a headlock with one leg raised and braced against the fence to seemingly keep the silvernette from entering into the Chocobo enclosure.
Kunsel pointed to the inside of the Chocobo ben and muttered, "Now I've seen everything."
All the ill-experienced jockeys were being pushed and chased out of the ben by the quicker males in the flock.
In the middle of the chaos, the rest of the Chocobo seemed to be pushing and shoving against each other in a downy clustered assembly in the center of the giant stable.
The ones chasing the scared shitless cadets were warking angrily, while the ones swarming in the middle seemed to be cooing and smothering something - or wait - was that a hand waving frantically from the center of the flock of Chocobo-?
Jogging over to Sephiroth and Genesis, Angeal asked, "Genesis? What are you doing? What's going on?"
Still struggling with the General, Genesis groused, "The Chocobo were doing their normal tackle, squawk, and all out disobey, but then this little blonde cadet went inside and it was like they became sentinels. The mob rushed his perky ass and carried him into that den of hell you see over there. The others simply won't let anyone else enter - they turn all piss and vinegar with an explosive wrath to even their trained riding partners when they give it a try."
Zack came forward, leaning over the fence and squinting. "Shiva's tits, is it Cloud in there!?"
Sephiroth knocked Genesis off and summoned Masamune. "I'll take care of this!" Angeal leapt forward and restrained him from behind while Genesis latched on to his sword arm and vulgarly refused releasing him. While his best friends tried to talk some reason into him - that being he couldn't go murder the company's Chocobo - Kunsel lifted his visor for a better view.
Zack gave a low whistle. "I think they hate him more than they do me!"
Kunsel asked, "Do you think it's because of his hair? Do they see him as a rival male or something?"
Zack shrugged, still watching the group push and shove each other, trying to get into the middle of the flock. "Hmm, actually, besides being loud and pushy, they don't seem to be attacking. Unless we can't see them pecking and scratching Cloud to smithereens, anyway."
"ZACK! Help. Or. Shut. It."
Wincing at how his outburst upset Sephiroth further, he thought of going to assist Angeal and Genesis but Kunsel suddenly looked at him with wide eyes.
"Wait! Zack you can save him!"
"Excuse me? Those things don't just attack me, they follow and destroy."
Kunsel looked excited. "Exactly!"
Sephiroth stopped moving very suddenly, still staring towards the cluster of feathers and warks.
Genesis leisurely looked at Zack, the flock, then back again twice. Then pronouncing his words slowly and clearly he said to Angeal, "I believe…you will have a lot of paperwork coming your way, my friend."
That tip seemed to clue his mentor into what Sephiroth was thinking because Angeal's face seemed to lose most of its color. "Sephiroth…he's my student…you wouldn't dare…" His grip seemed to be tightening around Sephiroth at every word. "That cadet…he'll be fine."
Sephiroth's head slowly turned until his gaze rested on Angeal's protégé. Monotonously, he asked, "Zack…
You want to be a hero, don't you?"
Zack screamed like a little diaper wearing girl as he was launched like a football thirty feet into the air, flailing wildly as he headed straight for the group of unsuspecting birds below. Angeal was reaching an arm out over the fence, as if he could somehow stop what was about to happen.
Genesis was on his arse, cursing. Kunsel was slowly backing away, trying to stay out of Angeal's line of sight. Sephiroth himself was calmly crossing his arms, one foot resting on the bottom fence railing.
Zack collided with feathers, screeches, and talons. They all scattered in confusion, warking and smacking the shit out of him with unforgiving wings. Cloud seemed to have been knocked down during the muddle too, because he was sitting beside Zack covering his face for protection.
He tried to reach for the his friend, but a Chocobo near him gave the most horrifying bombardment of angry cries he had ever heard and started trying to tear his hair out from his head. Hollering, he wind-milled his arms wildly and cursed noisily.
Then suddenly there was black and silver next to him, kneeling and scooping up Cloud's battered form in a mere moment before serpentine eyes regarded him with finality.
"Don't leave me here, you jackass!"
Sephiroth ducked a resentful wing and closed his eyes briefly. "You will be remembered as a great hero of your time Zack Fair, and we will visit your grave often. Your story of bravery will be passed down through the generations." Then his General was gone and he was now in the hell house of beaks and talons. Zack could be heard yelling the most vulgar Gongaga curse words at Sephiroth as the Chocobo swarmed and decimated him.
"**** you, SEPHIROTH!"
As Sephiroth carried Cloud out of the ben before a Chocobo could charge them, he glanced back. Angeal had leapt over the fence and had his Buster Sword out - trying to ward off a wayward Chocobo. His 'friend' glanced back at him and with a scowl that would have put Bahamut to shame, dangerously barking, "Sleep with one eye open, General."
Replying evenly, he said, "I always do. Have a good day."
Then he promptly walked past Genesis and carried a now rousing Cloud from the riding grounds back to his office while Genesis brought out his Fire Materia and began powering it up in his palm. He could make out Kunsel sprinting inside the building, no doubt to make hasty arrangements to visit Costal De Sol for the next month.
Genesis sighed as he watched Angeal heroically trying to storm the enemy center for his pupil's safety.
The auburn headed man could already imagine the paperwork that would be assaulting them all later…and decided maybe he should go on vacation as well. He shouldn't have to suffer through this, after all. Wasn't even his student.
Mind made up, he ended the Fire in his palm and strolled away from the Chocobo enclosure leaving his best friend and friend's student to their certain demise like the backstabber he tended to be.
Zack was still hollering for help from inside the ben, screeching in agony and demented anger.
The Chocobo squawked back.
