An All-Too-Brief Moment of Peace
"Thank the gods we finally got rid of those two idiots!" Zidane said fervently.
"Yeah," Amarant agreed. "And Avatar and Avatara were pretty annoying, too."
"I was TALKING about Avatar and Avatara, dumbass!"
Amarant sighed.
"That's right. Let's just abandon any pretence of characterization. And while we're at it, I think I'll go write a ballet and get Steiner and Quina to dance in it."
"Y'know, Amarant," Zidane began, scratching his head. "You've been talking a lot more since we met up with Avatar and Avatara. What happened to just crossing your arms and leaning against things?"
"I'll have you know, I'm a deep and multi-faceted person, not to be summed up as a pair of crossed arms leaning up against something! Well, Amarant doesn't need this. Amarant's gonna go start his own Real World (tm). And there'll be lots of things to lean up against! And none of you will be invited! None!!! None at all!!!!!!!"
With that, he stomped off with an exclamation of "hmph!"
Zidane stared after him, blinking.
"What did I say?" he wondered aloud. "It was just an observation."
A moment later, someone else walked in.
"Zidane," this mystery person said reproachfully, "what did you say to Amarant? He's in the back, crying bitterly, not to be comforted."
"Uh, Freya, wearing a pair of sunglasses doesn't make you a mystery person, you know."
"Hmph!" she hmphed, tossing her sunglasses off the side of the airship. "Freya doesn't need this. Freya's gonna go start her own Real World (tm)!"
"Sorry, Freya, but Amarant just used that gag, and we can't have it more than once per chapter."
"Fine!" she shot back. "Then I'll just go get my sunglasses and be gone."
"Um...that's probably not such a good..."
He was cut off as she stormed to the railing at the side of the ship and leapt off, realizing a little too late that this had probably a rather ill- thought-out plan, as getting back onto the airship from the ground might prove a rather daunting task.
"...Idea," Zidane finished with a sigh. "Hey, Erin, we've gotta land the airship! Freya jumped off again!"
"Again?!" the angry voice the airship's pilot called back. "Why does she keep doing that?!"
"My guess is, like, a great great great grandmother who was a lemming, or something," Zidane replied with a shrug. "Of course the tendency would leap out eventually...so to speak."
Erin shook her head with a sigh.
"So, land here?"
"Sure."
At this point, we cut away from the airship, to the ground below the airship, where Java Joe stands, striking a dramatic 'evil-villain...guy' pose.
"Ah! Now that I have read ahead in the script, I know that fate shall bring my enemies to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I, the Percolator, shall destroy you all! I know, I know, I said I was Java Joe, and learn that name well, but, well...the name has now changed, 'cause...it sucked. 'Joe' just isn't very ominous. All the other super-villains at the Guild were making fun of me. Me! The Mighty Percolator! Have you ever...?"
He trailed off as a pair of sunglasses bounced off his forehead.
"Ow! That was odd. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. Supervillains. Next time, they'll think twice before mocking the awesome combined powers of coffee and sweatdrop!
Yes...although the entire group of them are my enemies, I suppose I do owe that little cat-girl something of a debt of gratitude. It was her own sweatdrop which bonded with my coffee's coffee molecules, which I then drank, thus gaining my immense super-powers!!! I'm not sure exactly what they are yet, but hey, they've gotta be impressive. For this, I shall kill her last. HAHAHAHAHAAAAA! No, no one really likes dying last...maybe first. No, that can suck too. Perhaps somewhere……………..IN THE MIDDLE!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"
Then he sighed, a lone tear rolling down his cheek.
"I can't believe they all laughed at me...those pompous asses! Even Mu- Man laughed at me! And his only super-power is insanely cute eyes! The by- product of being bitten by a radioactive Mu," he added under his breath. "Well! I showed them! I made them the worst coffee ever! And, let me tell you, they certainly didn't like being coffee!!! Hahaha! Ugh. Some horrible fate will certainly befall me for such a terrible joke, won't it?"
As he said this, he glanced casually upwards.
"Hmm," he mused as the small dragoon-shaped shadow overtook him, "it's raining cats and dogs today...and rats, it would seem."
He continued to gaze up.
"It seems to be getting closer. Nothing good can possibly come of this."
Meanwhile, his brain was frantically screaming at him to move. Unfortunately, all the coffee he had been consuming cut off the subtle connection between brain and body.
Thus, he stared up, quite fascinated, as Freya, who was really beginning to rethink this plan of going after her sunglasses – after all, they had only been ten gil. Was that really worth all this trouble? – quickly approached.
"-OOOOOOOUUUUUUUT!!!" she finished, the first part having obviously been "LOOOOOOOOOOK." But the strange man with the even stranger hat – was that a copper coffee pot? – was completely oblivious. As such, he neither looked, nor got out, and the next moment, found himself in a good deal of pain as eighty-five pounds of rat, travelling at 9.81 meters per second, slammed feet-first into his considerably less-than-mighty forehead (and cool hat).
"...Ow..." the Mighty Percolator intoned weakly, collapsing to the ground. "I...the great...Percolator, shall ever.…regret...this..."
And with these words of wisdom, his soul departed from this world. Yes, the Mighty Percolator had gone to...ANOTHER DIMENSION (tm)!
Freya gazed down at the unmoving heap of super-villain.
"Well...that was...bad. I wonder who he was...perhaps I should give him a decent burial..."
Then, noticing something on the ground, she gave an exclamation of glee.
"Ooh! My sunglasses!"
As she wandered off, cuddling the sunglasses, the pile of supposedly very dead super-villain began to stir. Slowly, painfully, he climbed to his feet and glared menacingly after the retreating Burmecian.
"It will take more than that to slay the Mighty Percolator, you long- eared, long-tailed, pointy-hatted bitch!!!"
Off in the distance, Freya stopped and turned around.
"Oh, you're alright," she observed idly. "That's good."
Then she continued to wander off.
"You will not buy the Percolator's mercy with words of mock-compassion!"
Freya sighed, turning again.
"Didn't your soul leave for Another Dimension (tm)? Someone hasn't been reading the narration closely enough."
"Hmph! The Percolator needs no soul! He has coffee instead! At a young age, the night before a particularly gruelling examination, the Percolator spoke the fatal words, "I would sell my soul for a good cup of coffee!" And so it was. It was the sweetest coffee I had ever tasted! Almost as though someone had put some sort of sweetening agent into it..."
He sighed in blissful remembrance and longing. Freya sighed in something more akin to impatience.
"Can I go now?"
"Oh, you can go..." the Percolator began. "...To HELL!!!"
And with that, he coiled, as if to leap. Then an odd expression crossed his face.
"I...suddenly...feel very...depressed..."
He gazed upwards, apparently not learning from what had transpired the last time.
"Another shadow?" he groaned. "Oh, what now?"
As they landed with a rather squishy thump, Zidane peered over the railing.
"Oh, what now?"
Amarant sauntered over to stand beside him.
"You didn't land on the rat, did you?"
Zidane looked aghast.
"Um...well, we did land on something that kinda went 'squish...'"
"I swear, Zidane," Amarant growled menacingly. "If you did, I'll throw you so far, you'll hit your own shadow! I don't know what that means, but-"
Here, he was interrupted as Freya, who had seen the ship land, and decided to go back aboard to put her sunglasses someplace safe, miscalculated a proper landing place and landed, instead, on him.
"Oh, good," he observed. "You're safe. Now, get off of me before I throw you so far, you hit Zidane's shadow!"
"I don't even know what that means," Zidane commented, shaking his head. Amarant pouted.
"Look, I'm not used to talking. You can't expect me to sound like Shakespeare, or something!"
"Who's Shakespeare?" Freya asked.
"Shut up!" Amarant bellowed. "And stop shaking your spear!"
"Sorry." She slid the weapon back into its harness. "I just wanted to see if I could figure out what you were talking about."
"I heard one of..." He shuddered, spitting the next word out as though it were some hideous poison. "...THEM talking about it. Well, her."
"Riiiiiiight," Zidane drawled. "Moving right along. Shall we go outside and explore, see what the hell we landed on, anyway?"
"Nah," Amarant replied. "I don't wanna see what we landed in."
"Hey, guys," Erin called to the group as she approached, "I've gotta move the ship. You can all get off now if you want."
"Uh...why do you have to move?"
"I'm in a handicapped airship parking spot."
"What, that thing?" Zidane pointed at a small object glinting in the sunlight. Erin, glancing in the direction he pointed, nodded.
"That's not a handicapped parking sign. I think it's some sort of metal teapot thingie," Zidane told her. Erin shrugged.
"Yeah. Anyway, you probably want to get out and explore, anyway."
"Uh...not really."
"Yes! Yes you do! You really, really do!"
"No," Zidane mused, "I think I wanna stick around here for a bit. Y'know, get some stuff together, regroup, see what we have to do before we head to...uh...where are we supposed to be going again?"
"Ipsen's Castle," Dagger informed him, walking into the room from...wherever she was before this. [Narrator walks away, whistling innocently.]
[Narrator runs back in.]
Oh, bugger all. I forgot, the story does kind of need me to be here. Sigh. Oh, well. Uh...anyway...
Hey! Watch them! Not me! Theeeeeeeeem! They're the interesting ones! I'm just a keyboard-pusher, as it were.
"Uh...what just happened there?" Dagger demanded. "I was just talking, and then suddenly, everything went black!"
"Sorry," Erin called from the ship's electrical room...or the FF9 equivalent thereof. "I was messing around with the fuses in attempt to make you all BUGGER OFF!!!"
"Geez, Erin, why are you so anxious to get rid of us? You got a hot date or something? Zidane smirked. Erin suddenly resembled a deer staring down a Firaga.
"Uh...no..." she choked out weakly, frantically shooing away the young man approaching the ship with a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine.
Outside the ship, the flower-and-wine-bearing young man rolled his eyes.
"I come all this way, and this is how I get treated? She just shoos me away!! Well, Seifer doesn't need this! Seifer's gonna start his OWN Final Fantasy!!!"
And somewhere, somehow, an entirely different cast of characters in a fantasy before this, screamed out in agony.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"
"Who was that howling in pain?" Freya wondered.
"I don't know," Erin replied, chin cupped in her hands as she slumped forward against the railing of the ship, watching the man's retreating backside, "but I know this: you only get one chance with Seifer [insert last name here]. And I blew it! Or rather, all of you blew it! I hate you people!"
"Okay," Steiner, who had entered the room sometime during this exchange, "it is definitely time for us to leave now. After all, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
"Yeah," Zidane agreed, nodding sagely. "I'd rather face a hundred grand dragons than her right now. FLEEE!"
Erin, Dagger, Freya, and Amrant watched, blinking, as he clinked his swords together and ran away, chanting "run run run" as he went.
"Oh, gods," Freya sighed. "Now it's got him...and they're not even here! What the hell?!"
"Let's not even bring that up. You remember the old maxim, 'Speak of the devil, and he will appear,' do you not? Well, those two showing up again is the last thing we need now," Steiner admonished.
"Alright," Dagger spoke up. "He's going to get hurt out there on his own. I'm going after him."
"I think, Your Highness, that Zidane can take care of himself."
A bloodcurdling scream ripped through the air.
"AAAAAAAAAAAARRGH! GET IT AWAY!!!!"
"Or...maybe not," Steiner amended, grimacing.
"I wonder what fiendish creature is making Zidane react so," Freya mused. Then, as another howl drifted toward them, the entire group sweatdropped.
"FOR THE LAST TIME, I DON'T HAVE A FREAKING DIAMOND, MEOW!!!"
"Perhaps you'd best go help him out after all, Dagger," Erin said, bounding to the edge of the ship and waving frantically at the departing Seifer. 'Gods, he's slow!' she thought. "And quickly! And take everyone with you!"
"No, I think that, if all of us go, our group, or 'party,' if you will, will be excessively large. Perhaps some of us had best stay," Steiner suggested.
"A good idea, Steiner," Dagger agreed. "I will go, and I will take Eiko and Vivi with me. That way," she continued brightly, "all of the cute couples will be together!"
"Except me and Seifer," Erin sighed. "Oh, Seifer dear..."
"Hmph!" Amarant hmphed, crossing his arms.
"Hmph!" Freya hmphed in an entirely different octave, crossing her arms. "I'll have you know, there are more cute couples than just you four!
"Like who?" Dagger gazed back in honest bewilderment.
"Well..." Freya floundered slightly. "Like...Erin and that Seifer fellow!"
"Oh. Well, yes, I suppose..." Dagger edged nervously toward the door, motioning for Vivi and Eiko to do the same.
"And...and Steiner and that...what's her name? The Climhazzard chick that wears those pink spandex."
"You...don't remember a name like Beatrix, but you remember Climhazzard, not to mention, the colour of the woman's spandex?" Amarant noted in a tone that indicated that, if we could have seen it, his eyebrow would have been raising.
By now, Dagger was nearly entirely out of the room.
"Oh, never mind that!" Freya huffed. "And what about Quina and his fork? They're awfully cute, aren't they?"
"Adorable," Amarant agreed dryly.
"Well...uh...gotta go!"
With that, a Dagger-shaped dust-cloud, with a Vivi-like shape under one arm and an Eiko-like shape under the other, slowly began to dissipate into the atmosphere.
"Yeah, she and Zidane are meant to be, alright," Amarant commented with a smirk.
"Thank the gods we finally got rid of those two idiots!" Zidane said fervently.
"Yeah," Amarant agreed. "And Avatar and Avatara were pretty annoying, too."
"I was TALKING about Avatar and Avatara, dumbass!"
Amarant sighed.
"That's right. Let's just abandon any pretence of characterization. And while we're at it, I think I'll go write a ballet and get Steiner and Quina to dance in it."
"Y'know, Amarant," Zidane began, scratching his head. "You've been talking a lot more since we met up with Avatar and Avatara. What happened to just crossing your arms and leaning against things?"
"I'll have you know, I'm a deep and multi-faceted person, not to be summed up as a pair of crossed arms leaning up against something! Well, Amarant doesn't need this. Amarant's gonna go start his own Real World (tm). And there'll be lots of things to lean up against! And none of you will be invited! None!!! None at all!!!!!!!"
With that, he stomped off with an exclamation of "hmph!"
Zidane stared after him, blinking.
"What did I say?" he wondered aloud. "It was just an observation."
A moment later, someone else walked in.
"Zidane," this mystery person said reproachfully, "what did you say to Amarant? He's in the back, crying bitterly, not to be comforted."
"Uh, Freya, wearing a pair of sunglasses doesn't make you a mystery person, you know."
"Hmph!" she hmphed, tossing her sunglasses off the side of the airship. "Freya doesn't need this. Freya's gonna go start her own Real World (tm)!"
"Sorry, Freya, but Amarant just used that gag, and we can't have it more than once per chapter."
"Fine!" she shot back. "Then I'll just go get my sunglasses and be gone."
"Um...that's probably not such a good..."
He was cut off as she stormed to the railing at the side of the ship and leapt off, realizing a little too late that this had probably a rather ill- thought-out plan, as getting back onto the airship from the ground might prove a rather daunting task.
"...Idea," Zidane finished with a sigh. "Hey, Erin, we've gotta land the airship! Freya jumped off again!"
"Again?!" the angry voice the airship's pilot called back. "Why does she keep doing that?!"
"My guess is, like, a great great great grandmother who was a lemming, or something," Zidane replied with a shrug. "Of course the tendency would leap out eventually...so to speak."
Erin shook her head with a sigh.
"So, land here?"
"Sure."
At this point, we cut away from the airship, to the ground below the airship, where Java Joe stands, striking a dramatic 'evil-villain...guy' pose.
"Ah! Now that I have read ahead in the script, I know that fate shall bring my enemies to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I, the Percolator, shall destroy you all! I know, I know, I said I was Java Joe, and learn that name well, but, well...the name has now changed, 'cause...it sucked. 'Joe' just isn't very ominous. All the other super-villains at the Guild were making fun of me. Me! The Mighty Percolator! Have you ever...?"
He trailed off as a pair of sunglasses bounced off his forehead.
"Ow! That was odd. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. Supervillains. Next time, they'll think twice before mocking the awesome combined powers of coffee and sweatdrop!
Yes...although the entire group of them are my enemies, I suppose I do owe that little cat-girl something of a debt of gratitude. It was her own sweatdrop which bonded with my coffee's coffee molecules, which I then drank, thus gaining my immense super-powers!!! I'm not sure exactly what they are yet, but hey, they've gotta be impressive. For this, I shall kill her last. HAHAHAHAHAAAAA! No, no one really likes dying last...maybe first. No, that can suck too. Perhaps somewhere……………..IN THE MIDDLE!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"
Then he sighed, a lone tear rolling down his cheek.
"I can't believe they all laughed at me...those pompous asses! Even Mu- Man laughed at me! And his only super-power is insanely cute eyes! The by- product of being bitten by a radioactive Mu," he added under his breath. "Well! I showed them! I made them the worst coffee ever! And, let me tell you, they certainly didn't like being coffee!!! Hahaha! Ugh. Some horrible fate will certainly befall me for such a terrible joke, won't it?"
As he said this, he glanced casually upwards.
"Hmm," he mused as the small dragoon-shaped shadow overtook him, "it's raining cats and dogs today...and rats, it would seem."
He continued to gaze up.
"It seems to be getting closer. Nothing good can possibly come of this."
Meanwhile, his brain was frantically screaming at him to move. Unfortunately, all the coffee he had been consuming cut off the subtle connection between brain and body.
Thus, he stared up, quite fascinated, as Freya, who was really beginning to rethink this plan of going after her sunglasses – after all, they had only been ten gil. Was that really worth all this trouble? – quickly approached.
"-OOOOOOOUUUUUUUT!!!" she finished, the first part having obviously been "LOOOOOOOOOOK." But the strange man with the even stranger hat – was that a copper coffee pot? – was completely oblivious. As such, he neither looked, nor got out, and the next moment, found himself in a good deal of pain as eighty-five pounds of rat, travelling at 9.81 meters per second, slammed feet-first into his considerably less-than-mighty forehead (and cool hat).
"...Ow..." the Mighty Percolator intoned weakly, collapsing to the ground. "I...the great...Percolator, shall ever.…regret...this..."
And with these words of wisdom, his soul departed from this world. Yes, the Mighty Percolator had gone to...ANOTHER DIMENSION (tm)!
Freya gazed down at the unmoving heap of super-villain.
"Well...that was...bad. I wonder who he was...perhaps I should give him a decent burial..."
Then, noticing something on the ground, she gave an exclamation of glee.
"Ooh! My sunglasses!"
As she wandered off, cuddling the sunglasses, the pile of supposedly very dead super-villain began to stir. Slowly, painfully, he climbed to his feet and glared menacingly after the retreating Burmecian.
"It will take more than that to slay the Mighty Percolator, you long- eared, long-tailed, pointy-hatted bitch!!!"
Off in the distance, Freya stopped and turned around.
"Oh, you're alright," she observed idly. "That's good."
Then she continued to wander off.
"You will not buy the Percolator's mercy with words of mock-compassion!"
Freya sighed, turning again.
"Didn't your soul leave for Another Dimension (tm)? Someone hasn't been reading the narration closely enough."
"Hmph! The Percolator needs no soul! He has coffee instead! At a young age, the night before a particularly gruelling examination, the Percolator spoke the fatal words, "I would sell my soul for a good cup of coffee!" And so it was. It was the sweetest coffee I had ever tasted! Almost as though someone had put some sort of sweetening agent into it..."
He sighed in blissful remembrance and longing. Freya sighed in something more akin to impatience.
"Can I go now?"
"Oh, you can go..." the Percolator began. "...To HELL!!!"
And with that, he coiled, as if to leap. Then an odd expression crossed his face.
"I...suddenly...feel very...depressed..."
He gazed upwards, apparently not learning from what had transpired the last time.
"Another shadow?" he groaned. "Oh, what now?"
As they landed with a rather squishy thump, Zidane peered over the railing.
"Oh, what now?"
Amarant sauntered over to stand beside him.
"You didn't land on the rat, did you?"
Zidane looked aghast.
"Um...well, we did land on something that kinda went 'squish...'"
"I swear, Zidane," Amarant growled menacingly. "If you did, I'll throw you so far, you'll hit your own shadow! I don't know what that means, but-"
Here, he was interrupted as Freya, who had seen the ship land, and decided to go back aboard to put her sunglasses someplace safe, miscalculated a proper landing place and landed, instead, on him.
"Oh, good," he observed. "You're safe. Now, get off of me before I throw you so far, you hit Zidane's shadow!"
"I don't even know what that means," Zidane commented, shaking his head. Amarant pouted.
"Look, I'm not used to talking. You can't expect me to sound like Shakespeare, or something!"
"Who's Shakespeare?" Freya asked.
"Shut up!" Amarant bellowed. "And stop shaking your spear!"
"Sorry." She slid the weapon back into its harness. "I just wanted to see if I could figure out what you were talking about."
"I heard one of..." He shuddered, spitting the next word out as though it were some hideous poison. "...THEM talking about it. Well, her."
"Riiiiiiight," Zidane drawled. "Moving right along. Shall we go outside and explore, see what the hell we landed on, anyway?"
"Nah," Amarant replied. "I don't wanna see what we landed in."
"Hey, guys," Erin called to the group as she approached, "I've gotta move the ship. You can all get off now if you want."
"Uh...why do you have to move?"
"I'm in a handicapped airship parking spot."
"What, that thing?" Zidane pointed at a small object glinting in the sunlight. Erin, glancing in the direction he pointed, nodded.
"That's not a handicapped parking sign. I think it's some sort of metal teapot thingie," Zidane told her. Erin shrugged.
"Yeah. Anyway, you probably want to get out and explore, anyway."
"Uh...not really."
"Yes! Yes you do! You really, really do!"
"No," Zidane mused, "I think I wanna stick around here for a bit. Y'know, get some stuff together, regroup, see what we have to do before we head to...uh...where are we supposed to be going again?"
"Ipsen's Castle," Dagger informed him, walking into the room from...wherever she was before this. [Narrator walks away, whistling innocently.]
[Narrator runs back in.]
Oh, bugger all. I forgot, the story does kind of need me to be here. Sigh. Oh, well. Uh...anyway...
Hey! Watch them! Not me! Theeeeeeeeem! They're the interesting ones! I'm just a keyboard-pusher, as it were.
"Uh...what just happened there?" Dagger demanded. "I was just talking, and then suddenly, everything went black!"
"Sorry," Erin called from the ship's electrical room...or the FF9 equivalent thereof. "I was messing around with the fuses in attempt to make you all BUGGER OFF!!!"
"Geez, Erin, why are you so anxious to get rid of us? You got a hot date or something? Zidane smirked. Erin suddenly resembled a deer staring down a Firaga.
"Uh...no..." she choked out weakly, frantically shooing away the young man approaching the ship with a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine.
Outside the ship, the flower-and-wine-bearing young man rolled his eyes.
"I come all this way, and this is how I get treated? She just shoos me away!! Well, Seifer doesn't need this! Seifer's gonna start his OWN Final Fantasy!!!"
And somewhere, somehow, an entirely different cast of characters in a fantasy before this, screamed out in agony.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"
"Who was that howling in pain?" Freya wondered.
"I don't know," Erin replied, chin cupped in her hands as she slumped forward against the railing of the ship, watching the man's retreating backside, "but I know this: you only get one chance with Seifer [insert last name here]. And I blew it! Or rather, all of you blew it! I hate you people!"
"Okay," Steiner, who had entered the room sometime during this exchange, "it is definitely time for us to leave now. After all, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
"Yeah," Zidane agreed, nodding sagely. "I'd rather face a hundred grand dragons than her right now. FLEEE!"
Erin, Dagger, Freya, and Amrant watched, blinking, as he clinked his swords together and ran away, chanting "run run run" as he went.
"Oh, gods," Freya sighed. "Now it's got him...and they're not even here! What the hell?!"
"Let's not even bring that up. You remember the old maxim, 'Speak of the devil, and he will appear,' do you not? Well, those two showing up again is the last thing we need now," Steiner admonished.
"Alright," Dagger spoke up. "He's going to get hurt out there on his own. I'm going after him."
"I think, Your Highness, that Zidane can take care of himself."
A bloodcurdling scream ripped through the air.
"AAAAAAAAAAAARRGH! GET IT AWAY!!!!"
"Or...maybe not," Steiner amended, grimacing.
"I wonder what fiendish creature is making Zidane react so," Freya mused. Then, as another howl drifted toward them, the entire group sweatdropped.
"FOR THE LAST TIME, I DON'T HAVE A FREAKING DIAMOND, MEOW!!!"
"Perhaps you'd best go help him out after all, Dagger," Erin said, bounding to the edge of the ship and waving frantically at the departing Seifer. 'Gods, he's slow!' she thought. "And quickly! And take everyone with you!"
"No, I think that, if all of us go, our group, or 'party,' if you will, will be excessively large. Perhaps some of us had best stay," Steiner suggested.
"A good idea, Steiner," Dagger agreed. "I will go, and I will take Eiko and Vivi with me. That way," she continued brightly, "all of the cute couples will be together!"
"Except me and Seifer," Erin sighed. "Oh, Seifer dear..."
"Hmph!" Amarant hmphed, crossing his arms.
"Hmph!" Freya hmphed in an entirely different octave, crossing her arms. "I'll have you know, there are more cute couples than just you four!
"Like who?" Dagger gazed back in honest bewilderment.
"Well..." Freya floundered slightly. "Like...Erin and that Seifer fellow!"
"Oh. Well, yes, I suppose..." Dagger edged nervously toward the door, motioning for Vivi and Eiko to do the same.
"And...and Steiner and that...what's her name? The Climhazzard chick that wears those pink spandex."
"You...don't remember a name like Beatrix, but you remember Climhazzard, not to mention, the colour of the woman's spandex?" Amarant noted in a tone that indicated that, if we could have seen it, his eyebrow would have been raising.
By now, Dagger was nearly entirely out of the room.
"Oh, never mind that!" Freya huffed. "And what about Quina and his fork? They're awfully cute, aren't they?"
"Adorable," Amarant agreed dryly.
"Well...uh...gotta go!"
With that, a Dagger-shaped dust-cloud, with a Vivi-like shape under one arm and an Eiko-like shape under the other, slowly began to dissipate into the atmosphere.
"Yeah, she and Zidane are meant to be, alright," Amarant commented with a smirk.