(a/n: *gushes* Thanx for all of the reviews! Hugs for all!)
Chapter Four: Burning an Ace
Quistis continued to scrub the floor, muttering curses on Squall while Selphie was typing up the plan for his Timber mission, meant to be handed in to Cid by 23.00. Seifer was probably out making a fool out of himself; Squall had just recently volunteered Seifer to help out with Balamb's Spring Festival, giving him the job of being the stuffed cat ' Bobo' that all of the kids loved.
" Hey."
The slaves looked up from their computer and floor to see Rinoa standing in the doorway. She was wearing the most beautiful blue sundress and had her hair piled up on the top of her head. " What are you guys doing?"
" Just...helping out..." Selphie said, forcing a smile onto her face.
" Oh, well, you guys better stop. It's time to have fun!"
Fun...they hadn't heard that word for the last week. It was foreign, odd sounding and hurt their ears. Rinoa was perplexed over the expression on the girls' faces but she continued, deciding to add more bounce and cheeriness into her voice. Maybe then they wouldn't look so forlorn.
" We were supposed to go to the fair together! Remember that Irvine is your date Selphie and Zell volunteered to take you, Quisty."
Selphie groaned and Quistis moaned. They had planned to go to the festival a month ago; it was the only highlight in their military filled lives. Now they had to miss it thanks to the evil geezard they called 'Squall'. Quistis sent her apologies to Rinoa, who couldn't believe that they would rather clean and type than go and have fun at the festival. After she had left, Quistis began to rant about how much she hated Squall and Selphie whole-heartedly joined in.
" He's so full of himself!"
" That evil backstabbing geezard!"
" Becoming Commander in just five seconds!"
" Having good looks!"
" Telling me to go talk to a wall!"
" Well his personality is like a wall!"
" No, a wall is livelier then he is!"
" I knew to be weary of the quiet ones!"
" Having his father as the President of Esthar."
" Stupid bastard."
Once they had spilled out their hateful comments, they sadly went back to work.
*&*
" Bobo!" The little girl squealed, holding a death grip on Seifer's leg. Even through the fur he could feel her little fingers digging into his skin. A boy behind his began to pull on his tail while another child was stomping on his foot.
" I want candy!" The foot crusher was crying out. " Caaaandy!"
" Yeah kid, I'll give you candy, just get off of my foot!" Seifer shouted. The boy looked up and began to cry.
" Bobo is meeean!"
This was going just great. He was wearing a giant cat costume, representing Bobo, the star of the famous children's show 'Bobo the Cat Loves You!'. The costume was causing him to sweat half to death due to the ridiculous spring heat wave overtaking the continent, but despite his discomfort, there was no way he was going to take the cat head off and reveal himself.
Deciding to avert his attention and ears away from the screaming children, Seifer scanned the fair grounds. There were couples from Garden and residents of Balamb and in the far corner near the fairis wheel -Squall and Rinoa. Squall waved at Seifer and smiled (Hyne, that man should be forbidden to smile). He then whispered something to Rinoa and pointed in Seifer's direction. The girl's eyes lit up and she gave a big grin.
Oh no, she wouldn't...
But Seifer had forgotten that this was Rinoa Heartilly.
" Hi Seifer!" She called out from half across the fair grounds. Her lungs must have had a huge capacity, for everyone stopped talking and looked in the giant cat's direction. All was silent until the little boy who was crying sniffed and said,
" Will yoo sing the Bobo song?"
His eyes were so wide and pleading. Normally Seifer would have told the child to shove it, but thanks to Rinoa's outburst, everyone on the fair ground was watching him expectantly.
" Yes Seifer. Do sing the Bobo song," Squall said, his expression serious as ever. " Dance as well, I'm sure that the kids would like it."
The children giggled and nodded their head, gazing at Seifer with those stupid doe eyes. Seifer muttered a curse and then cleared his throat.
" Yo yo,
I'm Bobo,
And I'm singing this song for you.
I'm a cat,
Who loves funny hats.
And guess what?
I love you too."
Another dead silence passed over the fair ground until Squall began to laugh. In all of his life, he had never head Squall Leonhart laugh before, and it resembled the cackle of a witch. In a few moments the entire fair ground was roaring, including the children, and Seifer vowed at moment to make Squall pay dearly. No one made fun of Seifer Almasy and got away with it.
*&*
" He's dead," Selphie hissed between gritted teeth. Seifer and Quistis backed away a bit from her for they were certain steam was coming out of her ears. She had just come back from giving Squall the report she spent six days on, and he had rejected it. Quistis wasn't very happy either; her hands were sore from washing Squall's floor and then he had the nerve to walk into his room with muddied boots.
" Well, this wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for you," Quistis muttered under her breath.
" What is that supposed to mean?" The younger girl snapped. Quistis sighed in return and gave Selphie a cold glare.
" You must have suggested to Squall the idea of blackmailing us. He wouldn't have thought it up on his own," Quistis said. " He's not crafty enough."
" I'm sorry, but wouldn't you have done the same thing in my place?" Selphie asked, throwing her hands above her head as she continued to walk in her pointless circles.
" No, I would have given them their privacy and dignity like a mature person would have done."
" I wonder if a mature person can kick your ass as well as I'm going to?"
" Will you both shut up?" Seifer shouted, sick of hearing their pointless bickering. It was like nails grazing a chalk board, each note high and off pitch, sending shivers down his spine and making his insides turn. How he hated women fighting. " At least Selphie has learned her lesson. And we can't change what has happened. Let's just kill Squall and get it over with."
" How about the Chinese water torture?" Selphie suggested, liking how Seifer was choosing to handle the situation. " Or we could blow him up."
" No death, no violence, no water and no bombs!" Quistis said, her voice exasperated. It was like having to teach the junior class men all over again, except these two lacked more brain cells.
" What then, Instructor?" Seifer asked, his voice mocking as it had always been. " Let him take advantage of us? I'm sure you'd like that."
" Excuse me?" She was about to stand up but Selphie gently pushed her back down on her couch.
" Stop fighting," She said, frowning. " I'm ashamed of both of you! But, while we're on the subject of ,well, you two, how about you guys tell me how you hooked up?"
" Selphie, this is not the time."
" Pleeeease?"
" Quistis can't resist me, she gave into her urges, and bam, here we are," Seifer summarized, winking at Quistis and grinning. She growled at him and Selphie sighed. Men were so conceited.
" Never mind," Selphie said, dismissing the topic. " Let's go back to how we're going to get back at Squall."
" I have a proposition," Quistis offered, leaning back on the couch in her dorm room. " Why don't we beat Squall at his own game?"
" What, you mean blackmail the rat bastard?" Seifer asked, an evil grin swallowing his face. " Keep talking."
Quistis matched his excitement and leaned forward, as did the other two.
" Incriminating evidence is needed...something that Squall would do anything to keep out of the hands of others."
" ...But Squall has no personality. He wouldn't ever do something the least bit interesting..." Selphie said, frowning. " I still think we should beat him up and leave him in the compost."
" What did I tell you about violence?" Quistis scolded, not liking the new glint that over took Seifer's eyes. " How about someone watches over his actions, finding out his weaknesses."
" I know that he's ugly, has no personality, is probably not human, was not raised with human beings, has never kissed a girl since Rinoa doesn't count as a female, has the hots for Chicken wuss, is a--"
" No, no, no!" Quistis cried out, grasping her head. " Seifer, those aren't the weaknesses I'm talking about, and I doubt that any of them are true."
" Oh, then I guess we're screwed. The guy has no weaknesses."
" Yeah, he's perfect," Selphie said, shaking her head vigorously. She reached into her bag and pulled out a small pocket book and shook it as she spoke to add empathises to her words. " It says in here that Squall is a Virgo, which means that he's a perfectionist. No weaknesses whatsoever. Oh, I'm a Cancer! It says that I'm overly emotional. I am not! This book is stupid!" She tossed the book out of the window and began to cry about how she would never find true love.
" Be realistic, he's human after all," Quistis said, although in her own mind she somewhat agreed with the other two. When they were in the orphanage together, Squall was the only one who managed to keep his room clean, eat all of his vegetables and maintain all of his toys in perfect state. In Garden, he was a straight A student, the top of her class who never made a mistake. Never.
Quistis moaned and stretched out on her couch, wishing that she could go to sleep and everything would be put behind her. There was no hope, she was doomed to be at the mercy of someone like Squall. Well, it could always have been worse -Irvine could have found Seifer and her making out.
" Listen Quistis, maybe there is a chance we could catch Squall doing something that we can use against him," Seifer said, also hating it when women were depressed. " Selphie, go place a video camera in Squall's dorm room under his bed. Every five hours we'll go an place a new tape in and watch the old ones to see what he does."
While Selphie grumbled and stalked off to retrieve her video camera and carry out Seifer's orders, Quistis got up and loosely placed her arms around Seifer's neck.
" That was a great idea," She said and kissed him.
" I know."
So conceited.
*&*
Selphie yawned as she popped the tape into her VCR and struggled to find the play button. It was so late at night, she had spent her entire day typing out the new SeeD Exam that raised levels of SeeD cadets. Of course Squall would receive all of the recognition. Cid has gushed to her about how wonderful Squall's layout of the Timber mission was and she had to control herself from screaming and telling him that it was her layout, that she should have been the one being praised.
You'll get your revenge, she told herself.
But it was sure taking a lot of effort. Every five hours she had to sneak away from the library where she was working and walk all the way to the dorms and into Squall's room to change the tapes. Luckily, since she was so small she was unnoticeable so no one suspected her in the least of any wrong doings and if Squall was in the room, she would simply pretend to 'drop' the papers she was holding and 'rearrange' them while kneeling on the floor a.k.a. replacing the tapes, That was probably why Seifer assigned her the job. That part was easy enough, but watching the tapes were so boring that she almost fell asleep at some parts.
In a sense she deserved it. It had been her genius idea to blackmail her friends and in the end, it had all backfired on her. Poetic justice. Well, Squall would get his as well.
On the black and white screen she watched Squall enter his room, leave his room, enter his room, look at his gunblade, leave his room, enter his room, change (one of the more interesting parts), leave his room, then Quistis entered, scrubbed the floor, poured itching powder over Squall's bed, left and so forth. Selphie was beginning to doze off when her phone began to ring shrilly. She fumbled for it and held it upside down for a few moments before changing it right side up.
" H-hello?"
" Selphie, did you find anything?" Quistis asked from the other line.
" No...not yet. But I do know that Squall has wonderfully chiselled abs. Man, even though he's blackmailing us and all, he is Hyne damn hot!"
" Selphie..."
" Sorry. I'm tired, I tend to ramble off crazy things. I'll call when I see something important."
" Alright...hey, did you see the--"
" Yeah." She knew that Quistis was referring to the itching powder. " Great job."
" Thanks. You should have seen him in the Quad after he had his nap." She hung up and Selphie went reluctantly back to watching the tapes. After two hours, Squall had returned to his room and was digging through his closet. He pulled out a CD player and popped in a disc. Then he took off his jacket and pulled on a tight black button down shirt. That was weird enough, but what he did next caused Selphie to scream and fall off of her chair.
*&*
(a/n: Bwahahaha, I love cliff hangers, don't you? And hey, I have a lil' treat for all of you guys! It's a pic of Squall from 'Kingdom Hearts' and he's 25 years old! My gosh, is he hot! He looks like Laguna kinda. Well, like father like son, right? Check it out! Hee, this is just for all the nice reviews! )
Big pic illustrated of Squall *hee, he still has the belts-but more this time! Can you say, total hottie?*- "http://64.4.20.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=361d20c774bf8105d3b97f3fcd8c7f95&lat=1020537264&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2eallrpg%2ecom%2fgames%2fkingdomhearts%2findex%2ephp3%3fi%3d4%26amp%3bpage%3dartwork%26amp%3btype%3d1%26amp%3bu%3d1%26amp%3btotalimages%3d40"
Screen Shot 1- "http://64.4.20.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=ca10b50b1f01bd2326747014b83340ae&lat=1020537264&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2erpgamer%2ecom%2fgames%2fother%2fps2%2fkinghearts%2fscreens%2fkh038%2ejpg"
Screen Shot 2-"http://64.4.20.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=cb7a130d1322738c86c33da35f1ffd80&lat=1020537264&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2erpgamer%2ecom%2fgames%2fother%2fps2%2fkinghearts%2fscreens%2fkh013%2ejpg"
Squall with Yuffie *she's his 16 year old partner- yes, I AM jealous!* - "http://64.4.20.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=efcb1eefc7ed80405dfedb311ea7dd2a&lat=1020537264&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2eallrpg%2ecom%2fgames%2fkingdomhearts%2findex%2ephp3%3fi%3d28%26amp%3bpage%3dartwork%26amp%3btype%3d1%26amp%3bu%3d2%26amp%3btotalimages%3d40"
Okay, so yeah. If you guys don't know much about the game, it's a Disney/Square collaboration. Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie are also in it...but they're only 13 years old. *sweatdrops* Anyway, it's an everyone game, so yay for the kiddies! Go here for more info *points to the URL underneath*. There's a small summary for Squall's character too, so double yay!
"http://64.4.20.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=be1266dee81ab7686a75552588392df4&lat=1020537264&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2epsxnation%2ecom%2fpreviews%2fpreviews%3fidnumber%3d128"
Major thanks to my best friend Nas for getting these URL's for me. Hey, if you weren't in OSA on Friday, you probably never would have found those hot pics of Squall from KH!!!!! j/k!!!!!!!! ^_^