Well, here we are. Chapter 3 of my romance/humor ficlet hybrid. Go me.

I don't own this.

Special Message to 8BTFreek: Hi! How's the oneshot coming along?

Tuesday

Pain. That was the explosion he had woken up to. A thousand Dullahans inside his head, all hammering to get out. With a groan, he managed to sit up enough to note that Isaac was sitting on a chair with head slumped over, sunlight streaming in over his head.

Just then, Isaac woke up. Seeing Ivan, a sleepy grin spread over his face. "Oh, you're up."

"What... happened?" Ivan managed to groan out. Man, it even hurt to talk.

Isaac's grin grew wider. "You won."

It took a couple of seconds for Ivan to receive that information. A couple more for him to process and understand it. A couple more for the implications to sink in. "Yes." He finally managed to gasp out, as he let his head fall back and hit the pillow. That was a mistake. The instant his head touched the feathery material, another explosion resounded throughout his brain. It was all he could do not to curl into a ball and start weeping.

After a few more seconds, Ivan cracked open one eye. "What happened yesterday? It all seems so… hazy."

Isaac leaned back in his chair, thinking. "Where to start? Okay, first, you drank beer until you cleaned out the Vale inn's supply of beer. Around that point, you climbed on the table and removed your clothes." Isaac shuddered slightly. "I don't really want to go into that. Anyway, after we removed the… problem, you continued drinking, only this time Picard had to carry in beer from the Vault inn, renowned world wide for their alcoholic concentration."

"Lemma guess… we passed out from that one."

"No, you polished off their entire stock. Speaking of which..." Isaac leaned over and grabbed a newspaper from the ground. Lifting it, he displayed the headline to Ivan.

Riots as Beer Shortage Hits Vault!

Ivan closed his eyes with a sigh. "Then?"

Isaac rolled his eyes, although of course Ivan didn't see it. "Well, after that, I decided to break out a batch of my father's special Sake. It's really aged, and guaranteed to lay a sailor flat in two draughts."

"And?"

"You two managed five crates of bottles each before Felix upped and hurled."

"It shows." Ivan groaned. "How many times did I throw up?"

Isaac frowned, and mentally ticked off on his fingers. "Lessee… I think it was eleven times. Twelve if you count the one where it threw up a second time less than a second after the third time. You have no idea how hard it was to clean up all that gunk from my bed. Multiple times."

Ivan's eyes opened, partly in shock. "You stayed up the whole night looking after me?"

Isaac shrugged uncomfortably. "Hey, what are friends for?"

"Cleaning up barf?"

"One aspect."

"Yeah, yeah." Ivan settled down again, trying to will away the pain of his throbbing head. Presently, he opened one eye again. "How's Felix taking the loss?"

Isaac coughed. "Er, well, you see... it's a funny story..."

"Felix!" Jenna called plaintively. "You're going to have to come out of there sooner or later!"

"Go away." Came the muffled reply.

Jenna rolled her eyes. Her brother could be a total prick at times. "And then what? Are you going to just lie there and mourn the fact that you can't have Sheba all to your lonesome the rest of your life?"

"..."

Jenna sighed. "I take it your silence means you consent to coming out? So what if you can't court Sheba?"

"You don't get it, do you?!" Felix exploded from inside. "I lost in a drinking contest to Ivan! The scrawny wimp of a midget that is technically underage for drinking, and has never let more than half a mug of alcohol pass his lips at any one stretch before last night! That was my one chance to prevent any competition from ever hampering my progress and I blew it! To Ivan! Argghhh!" A loud thump! was heard from the interior.

Jenna plastered a slight smile on her face. "Well, I guess that tells you something about the power of love, huh?"

"..."

Jenna sighed a second time. "Come out, or I'm burning the door down."

There was a derisive snort from behind the door. "Excuse me, I'm living in a house with two Mars Adepts. I think I might have taken some precautions. The door is completely fireproof. Now, leave me alone."

Jenna sighed in frustration a second time before turning around and leaving the house entirely. Why waste her time with unresponsive jerks? Suddenly stopping short, her mouth slowly fell open as an idea entered her head.

Then, with a grin, she turned and ran off to the plaza.

"Just lie back a minute, Ivan." Mia said softly as she kneeled down by Ivan's side. "Your head'll be alright in no time." Raising a hand, she cast Ply, smile widening as she watched the fretful boy stop twisting and turning in the bed and slowly sink into a deep sleep.

"He'll be fine." She laughed as she stood back up. Behind her, Isaac rubbed his head, a slightly rueful smile on his face. "How come you never do for me that after I'm out on a drinking binge?"

Mia cocked an eyebrow. "Because that was your own choice. Poor lil' Ivan here had to do it or, he didn't get the girl. I believe I'm rather justified in curing him and not you."

Isaac merely rolled his eyes before heading down the stairs. "At the rate Ivan is sleeping, we won't be able to get any more plans ready before Valentine's day!"

Mia shook her head as she followed her husband down the stairs. "I think you people are going about it the wrong way, anyhow. Maybe Ivan should be honest with her and just... open his heart."

"No, bad idea." Isaac said. "The last time that happened, a total catastrophe occurred."

"Really?" Mia questioned. "What catastrophe?"

"I ended up with you." Isaac laughed, and promptly received a whack on the head as a reward.

"Ohhhh, Felix..." Jenna sang out as she stood, once again, outside his door. "Are you coming out, or not?"

There was no response from the locked room.

Jenna sighed. She had expected this. And she most definitely not returned unprepared. Raising her hand, she beckoned to the other figure who had stood there, silent and impassive.

"Remind me why I agreed to this?" Picard asked with good humor as he stood in front of Felix's door.

"Because you owe me." Jenna replied sweetly. Too sweetly. "Or... would you prefer the world knew of your exact age?"

"That'll teach me not to leave my personal artifacts like diaries lying around where anybody can procure them" Picard muttered under his breath. Raising an arm, he focused his Mercury powers on the door. "Frost!" He called out, blasting the door with a wave of cold energy. This caused the wooden door to freeze over, making the solid and tough door extremely brittle. And ripe for the smashing from a certain irate Mars Adept's staff.

In case you were wondering (unlikely), she was more than willing to oblige.

Thwack!

Jenna waved aside the remains of the splintered door, and stepped through. 'Felix?" She called out. No one answered.

"Where on Weyard could he-" Picard's sentence was cut short as he stared at the knotted bedsheets hanging out the window. Rushing over, he and Jenna peered out the window.

"Well, I think it is rather apparent that Felix has decided to leave his room through another means than the door." Picard said.

"Yeah, but why does the bedsheets only reach halfway down?" Jenna questioned.

Felix rubbed his sore head as he continued the journey. Why didn't he ever get more bedsheets? Unfortunately for him, he had realized his error only about halfway down, and in his struggle to climb back up, he had slipped, and... you know the rest.

Good thing he had managed to Cure himself of the alcohol-induced headache . He didn't even want to know what he would be like if he had to add his current bump to the splitting agony of consuming over five dozen crates of alcohol. He was surprised his lungs still functioned. Oh, well. None of that really mattered. Especially now that he had reached his destination. Striding over, he rapped on the door.

A few seconds later, it creaked open, and the smiling face of Weyard's greatest Alchemy scholar appeared behind it. "Ah, Felix! How can I help you?" Kraden asked. "You know, recently, I've been studying the flare patterns on the Golden Sun, and I think-"

"Erm, that seems very, uh, interesting!" Felix blurted out. "But, um, I'm not really here for that. What I came to ask was, well, can I use your chemistry sets for a while?"

Kraden seemed surprised for a second. "Why, but of course!" Moving aside, he gestured to the complicated looking apparatus spread out over the tables in the room. Nodding his thanks, Felix walked over to one of the tables, and immediately began mixing the ingredients he needed. Travelling around the world with a sage had it's benefits, after all.

"You know, the stuff you're mixing reminds me of the day you nearly got killed by that Squirrelfang. You were just walking along, and then..."

Then again, Felix considered, it had it's downsides too.

"Hey, Breath!" Sleet called as he nimbly dodged several rolling girders. "We have a problem."

Breath groaned. "What is it?"

Sleet shook his head. "We've been doing measurements, and the crater is just too small for our requirements."

"Really? A huge orb of tri-elemental power wasn't enough to blast a suitable sized crater into Mt. Aleph?"

"I think you're forgetting, Ms. Breath, that Mt. Aleph was made as a guarding room for the elemental stars. It's only natural that it would be tougher than normal rock."

"Well, I'm not doing that again." Breath grumbled. "After the first time I did that, I could barely stand for an hour."

"What then?" Sleet questioned. "If the crater isn't made larger, we might as well quit, because we won't be able to fit it inside there."

"..." Breath cocked an eyebrow.

"Oh, you're up early!" Garet laughed as he spied Ivan stumbling into Isaac's kitchen.

"Shut. Up." Ivan snarled. Barely managing to reach the chair, he somehow managed to slump onto it, looking like he was about to fall asleep any second. Not that anyone there could fault him. Ply wasn't really made to deal with this kind of afflictions.

"Well, shall we get down to business?" Isaac asked, shooting a slightly worried look at Ivan. The blonde Jupiter adept merely muttered something under his breath before turning to face Isaac. "Well, Garet has a plan that he thinks will work."

"Not like your perfume, I hope?" Mia smirked. She had gotten the rather amusing report from Picard earlier this morning. Isaac settled for shooting her a look, and motioned for Garet to stand, which he did.

" Okay, based on what we know, Sheba follows a rather rigid schedule everyday. On Tuesday's, or, in other words, today, she'll be going grocery shopping. According to our observations, she'll finish in about an hour's time, and head back home. Which is just at the foothills of Mt. Aleph. A rather tiring climb. I should know. Anyways, you are to intercept her at this point-" Garet lifted up a crudely drawn map and pointed to a certain area near the market marked with an 'X'. "And help her carry her stuff back home. During that period of time, you are to confess your love to her, before she reaches her home. Is that understood?"

Ivan nodded wearily, and the three other people in the room stood. "Well then, shall we be off?" Garet asked gamely. "We've got some stuff to set up anyway..."

The Mars Djinn gathered around the entire perimeter of the huge crater. All of them were silent. None made jokes, cracked dumb remarks, or anything. They knew what was at stake here. Behind them, Breath cast a trained eye over the proceedings.

"Alright!" She snapped. "Operation Meltdown, begin!"

Instantly, a storm of Fire-based psynergies raged through the air, searing into the ground outside the crater, melting away the rock and gravel... and torching a certain Venus djinni that had happened to be taking a nap within the crater.

With a scream, Echo catapulted out of the crater, his tail sporting a trailing plume of smoke. Venus djinni were embodiments of the soil and ground, and were thus unable to take flight, but many djinn were prepared to swear that Echo had succeeded that day.

Aside from motioning to Sleet to set Echo out, Breath paid no attention to the Venus Djinni whatsoever, signaling the operation to continue. Once more, Mars psynergy raged through the crater, with the occasional explosions and blasts thrown in for good measure. After around fifteen minutes of fires, the Mercury djinn stepped in to douse the fires, putting them out, and cooling the now reasonably wider crater.

Breath would have grinned if she could. "Alright, lets continue!"

Just then, Gust flew up. "Hate to be a party pooper, but we're missing two Mars djinn."

"What?!" Turning, Breath did a quick head count. Yes, they only had sixteen Mars djinn… and they were missing Fury and Cannon.

"Oh. No." Breath whispered. Fury was the biggest pyromaniac in the entire djinn crew, and Cannon was the youngest out of all the djinn. If the two of them were hooked up... she didn't even want to think about it.

"Everyone!" She yelled. "All work stops! First priority is to find Cannon and Fury! Now!"

"Where we goin'?" Cannon asked innocently as he followed meekly behind Fury. The older Mars djinni merely shook his head before looking around.

"We are going to avoid that slave driver known as Breath giving us more work. And deep within the ruins of Mt. Aleph seems a good enough place." He replied.

"Yes, but shouldn't we help?"

"Whatever for?" Fury growled irritably. It was a well known fact that Fury and Breath had never got along, and they would take any chance to make the other look bad. Cannon, however, still didn't quite get it.

"Well, after all, we're trying to-" Just then, the both of them rounded a corner, and Cannon never managed to finish his sentence. For sitting in front of them, was the biggest pile ever of-

"Explosives." Fury managed to whisper, with his mouth dry.

Cannon glanced around at the vast number of dynamite sticks, gunpowder barrels, and whatnot filling the room. "Big boom-boom?" He asked hopefully.

Fury nodded, still slightly in shock. "Big, big boom-boom."

Ivan whistled to himself as he leaned against a pillar, staring out at the marketplace. According to Garet's observations, Sheba would be finished soon. Eyes staring at the hazy image in front of him, he nearly missed a golden beam of light shooting of from the earth, courtesy of Isaac's Gaia spell. And the signal for Ivan to start walking.

Strolling quickly towards the prearranged meeting point, Ivan broke into a smile when he saw Sheba walking up the path, trying to carry several bags bulging with groceries. And from the looks of things, she wasn't too successful at all. Hurrying over, he smiled to Sheba. "Need a hand with that?"

Sheba's eyes widened for a moment, then she smiled. "Thanks, that would be great." Lifting an arm, she managed to wiggle off a few bags, which Ivan grabbed. "So, where to?" He asked with a tiny grin.

"Up the hill." Sheba replied, and the two of them began walking up, step by step.

Felix slowly stirred in the mixture with a glass rod, smirking with satisfaction. Perfect. It was finished. Now, all he needed was to wait until tonight...

"Hey, Felix! So, what did you make?" Kraden asked in a friendly tone as he stepped up behind the Venus adept. "From the looks of things, it appears to be a carbon-based simple molecular liquid substance, but of course, looks are deceiving! Why don't you let me take a look at that?"

"Uh, no." Felix said hastily. With a few discreet movements, he tried to slip the vial of liquid out of Kraden's grasp. No dice. Kraden had reached forward, surprisingly nimble for such an old man, and grabbed ahold of the bottle.

"Oh, come on! It won't be long! I just want to analyze it's atomic structure!"

"No!" Felix shot back as he tried to wrest the bottle away. Of course, he was a lot younger and stronger than the far older man, and succeeded in that task. Unfortunately, the law of inertia was not to be denied. The sudden release of opposition caused Felix to stumble back, knocking over several glass jars, which tipped and spilled their contents into a huge puddle on the floor.

A puddle that was starting to bubble and hiss.

Uh oh. Felix thought.

"Hey, remember the time when Felix almost got killed by that Squirrelfang?" Sheba laughed and nodded. "He was so embarrassed he didn't speak to us for a week!"

Ivan shifted the weight of the bags, silently casting Impact on himself to make the job easier. "Remember when we first met?"

"You mean in Tolbi?" Sheba asked, a slight frown appearing on her face. Ivan noticed this almost immediately. Ah, shit.

"Uh, if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine." Ivan hastily said. Sheba shook her head.

"No... it's all right. Anyway, that was what sparked off the entire chain reaction of me ending up helping save the world, right?" Sheba smiled.

"Uh-huh." Ivan grinned. "I was wondering what a pretty girl like you was doing cooped up in the palace during Colosso. I figured that you were the anti-social sort."

"When in reality I was held there against my will." Sheba said almost to herself as she recalled the events that had led up to that date. "But, hey, the company there was superb."

Ivan blushed slightly. " If you're talking about when I read to you before you went to sleep, thanks. But frankly, Isaac was pooped, Mia had crashed next to him, and Garet was trying to haggle off some food in the marketplace. You were the only person there I could have company with."

"Awww…" Sheba laughed. "Do you not like being alone?"

"No." Ivan said. "No, I don't." "Now." He thought mentally. "Y'know, Sheba..."

"Mm?" She asked as she lifted her head.

Ivan cleared his throat nervously. It felt like it had sawdust inside it. "I... uh, I…"

KA-BOOM!!!

A tremendous explosion resounded throughout the village, distracting Sheba. "What was that?" Without bothering for an answer, she raced off for the source of the blast, leaving a defeated Ivan to slump his head and follow slowly after her.

Felix coughed, waving away the smoke from the totaled cottage. Glancing around, he noted a sprawled form on the floor. Waling over, he saw the unconscious but very much alive form of Kraden. Breathing a sigh of relief, he was about to leave through the front door when he spotted Sheba and Ivan close behind walking towards the cottage.

"Ah, shit." Felix muttered to himself. Turning, he pulled out the Cloak Ball, and leapt through one of the by-now numerous cracks in the walls, into the trees. Concentrating, he disappeared into the shade under the trees, and sneaked away into the forest.

"So, Kraden's cottage blew up?" Garet asked incredulously.

"Yes." Ivan growled. "And just as I was about to tell Sheba too! Now, will you get off my case?" Yanking off his tunic, he grabbed a loose-fitting pair of pyjamas before retreating into Isaac's room and yanking the door shut.

Garet shrugged to himself and sighed. "Back to the drawing board then..."

Moonlight shone down on Vale, and all it's inhabitants were sound asleep.

Well, almost all...

Slowly, Felix slid the window open, slipping into the room. Slowly, he crept over to the bed, where it's inhabitant-

Was sitting up? Quickly, Felix ducked behind a chair, holding his breath.

"Ugh." Ivan muttered under his breath. "What did Isaac stuff this pillow with? Rocks?" Yanking it open, he reached inside and drew out a handful of dried seeds.

"Bwuh?" Ivan said. "Must be a Venus thing." With a flick off his wrist, he tossed the pillow away, hitting Felix square in the face.

As Felix massaged his sore nose, Ivan sank back onto the bed, and in seconds was sound asleep.

Slowly, Felix crept out of the bed, sneaking closer to Ivan, and drawing a tiny bottle from his pocket…

Gust paced around the crater, looking over the sleepy village. Yup. Everything was normal.

Well, except for that weird figure sneaking out of Isaac's bedroom. Gust narrowed his eyes as he stared at the figure, as he slid the window close, preparing to slide down. Gust raised an eyebrow as that someone lost his footing and fell to the bushes below.

Shrugging, the Jupiter djinni hopped into a tiny alcove and went to sleep. He could worry about all that tomorrow…

Well, another chapter done! But, my exams are coming up, so you won't get any updates for about two weeks. Oh, well…

Oh, and I think I'm the only person so far who hasn't made Garet a complete dunce in a humor fic...

Ciao! Review!