A/N: Thanks for all the reviews. Reviewsauthor's incentive to write more. The promised chapter with the ToS cast stuck in a hotel room has been postponed. This chapter is actually an extension of the last and was originally meant to be included in it. Oh, and one last thing-I pick on Zelos and Genis the most, but I don't dislike them. They're just the easiest characters to make fun of, in my opinion.
The next morning, Genis woke up with a headache. No, he wasn't drunk. Maybe it had come from all the junk food he'd eaten at his birthday party, or maybe it was just allergies. Whatever the reason, it prompted him to get out of bed and make his way to the bathroom. His friends were keeping medicine in there, and he was pretty sure there was a bottle of aspirin somewhere to be found. He found the aspirin, popped one or two in his mouth, then went back to bed.
It didn't take long for Genis to realize he couldn't go back to sleep. He felt hyper- very, very hyper, in fact. He felt the sudden, unexplained urge to jump on the bed, so he began bouncing up and down, as hard as he could. All this bouncing was bound to be noticed by someone, though.
"Knock it off, Genis!" a still half-asleep Lloyd muttered, tossing a pillow at him. The impact of the said pillow was enough to send Genis crashing into the wall behind the bed. Of course, this woke everyone else in the room. A few moments later, they heard pounding on the door. Lloyd answered to find the girls staying in the room next door looking very irritated. Genis had resumed jumping on the bed.
"Who was beating on the wall?" Sheena demanded.
"It's Genis's fault!" Lloyd insisted. "He was jumping on the bed and making too much noise."
"So he jumped into the wall?" asked a confused Colette.
"Not exactly. I told him to cut it out and threw a pillow at him. The pillow knocked him into the wall."
Genis was now eating a banana while still bouncing, repeatedly yelling "I'm a monkey! I'm a monkey!"
"Genis, how many cups of coffee have you had this morning?" Raine asked her hyperactive brother.
"None yet. The only thing I've had all morning is the water I took my aspirin with."
"Don't bounce while you're eating. You might choke," Raine warned.
"And that would be a bad thing how?" Zelos asked, receiving nasty glares from everyone else. "What?" he inquired. "Doesn't he drive the rest of you nuts, too?"
Everyone ignored him, and Raine continued interrogating Genis. "Why did you take aspirin?"
"I had a headache," Genis said, as if taking aspirin first thing in the morning was something everyone did on a regular basis. "But now I don't anymore. I feel great!"
Raine silently wondered who had kidnaped her brother and replaced him with this ultra-hyper freak. "Show me what you took." she demanded.
Genis bounced off the bed, nearly falling on his face. He dashed into the bathroom, then came out holding a large pill bottle. "Here you go. This is it. I don't know why you want it; it's just a bottle of....." He paused, reading the label for the first time. "...Energy Tablets."
"That explains everything!" Raine cried. "Those things might restore health when you're slightly injured, but when taken at full health, they, well.....I think Genis's behavior speaks for itself."
"Outlook does not seem favorable," Presea observed. "Is there any way to reverse the effects of the tablets?"
"Besides beating him over the head?" Zelos smirked.
"I could try a nullification spell," Raine answered. "Let me get my staff." When she returned, she concentrated for a moment, her staff glowing. She aimed it at Genis, and a light engulfed him. Then he began yelling in pain.
"OW! Raine, stop! OW! Wrong spell! You used Ray instead of Nullify! OUCH! That's why you don't use magic when you're half asleep! OW!"
"Oops. Sorry, little brother." Raine charged another spell, this time healing her crispy-fried brother. Then finally, she was able to cancel the effects of the Energy Tablets.
"Can we please go back to bed?" Lloyd whined. "It's too early to get up!"
"I concur," Regal said, opening his mouth for the first time all morning. "We may as well be fully rested before we go to the beach."
"We're going to the beach today?" Genis asked. "YAY!" He began bouncing on the bed once more.
"Professor, I thought you'd cured his hyperactivity," Lloyd said, scratching his head.
"There is no cure for Genis's natural personality," Raine responded. "He just gets like this sometimes."
"Sorry, sis. I'll calm down now," Genis said, fearing his sister might smack him.
It didn't take long for everyone to realize that they were wide awake and not going back to sleep any time soon, so within half an hour, everyone was in the hotel lobby, dressed for the beach. When Zelos saw the girls, his eyes grew wide and his mouth dropped open. "Wow! You hunnies look even hotter than usual!"
"Zelos, you're drooling," Sheena observed, choosing to ignore his comment. "I don't think the hotel staff would appreciate you salivating all over their clean floor."
"Are you sure it'll be okay to take him out in public like this?" Raine asked, putting a hand under Zelos's chin to close his gaping jaws.
"With luck, we can pretend we don't know him," Lloyd muttered.
"I'm gonna learn how to surf!" Zelos proclaimed. "Chicks dig surfer guys."
"If they can actually surf," Sheena smirked.
Once Zelos had calmed his fit of horniness, the group managed to make their way to the beach without an incident. Zelos rented a surfboard, Raine and Sheena set up their beach towels under and umbrella, and Regal went to buy food. Colette spotted a volleyball court and ran off to join the game. Lloyd and Genis decided to teach Presea how to swim. It didn't take long for Zelos to find out surfing wasn't as easy as he'd thought. In the first five minutes, he fell off the board eight times. It was funny at first, but eventually the others grew tired of watching him wipe out and went about their own business.
About an hour later, Sheena shrieked, "Is that Zelos?!"
"What, you mean over there?" Raine asked, looking up from her book. "He's been falling off of that surfboard for nearly an hour now. You're just now noticing?"
"No, I mean here," Sheena replied, gesturing toward the magazine she was reading. "Somebody was actually stupid enough to think people would want to read an interview with him."
"Well, he IS the Chosen," Raine pointed out to her. "Why is that strange?"
"Would you just take a look?" Sheena demanded, losing patience.
Raine glanced over Sheena's shoulder. "Oh, I....see w-what you mean," she stammered, apparently in shock. On the page in front of the two women was a large photo of Zelos in a pair of briefs. "How long has he been modeling underwear?"
"I have no idea. You'd think he would have been bragging about it and shoving the article in our faces."
"This may sound sort of odd, but..." Raine paused, wondering if she should continue vocalizing an observation that might disturb Sheena. "Tighty-whities? I would have guessed Zelos is more of a thong type."
"I know what you mean. Look at his choice in swimwear. The problem with men like him is that they're good-looking and know it."
"Better not let him hear you admit you think he's attractive," Raine advised.
"Agreed. He might have a pretty face, but his attitude is, well...."
As if on cue, Zelos yelled, "Hey ladies! Check this out!" He had somehow managed to stand up on the board and was riding a small wave. Unfortunately, he was so distracted by his flirting, he lost his balance. Everyone on the beach watched as he tumbled off his board and was carried to shore by the waves. "You saw nothing," he shouted, spitting sand out of his mouth. Raine and Sheena were red-faced and laughing like maniacs. "What's so funny?" he demanded.
"Oh, n-nothing!" Sheena insisted, trying to keep a straight face. "Go on with whatever you were doing."
As he headed back to the ocean, Raine asked, "Don't you think we should have told him he lost his swimsuit?"
Colette wasn't having much better luck with volleyball than Zelos with surfing. Every time she went after the ball, she tripped and fell on her face. Her teammates were getting sick of it.
"Hey, you klutz! Why not go find something else to do?" asked a particularly large man whom Colette had smacked into.
"I-I'm really sorry," she said softly. "Maybe this isn't the best place for me..." Her voice trailed off and she looked like she was going to cry. Just then, something else caught her attention.
"Lloyd! Presea! What are you doing?"
"Oh, hi Colette!" Lloyd grinned. "We're burying Genis in the sand. Want to help?"
Colette cheered up instantly. "Sure! That looks like fun!"
"Why did I let them talk me into doing this?" Genis grumbled.
"Because Lloyd threatened to tell Raine you put one of Noishe's hairballs in her coffee cup if you didn't," Presea reminded him.
"You did WHAT? Ew, Genis, that's gross!" Colette exclaimed.
The conversation was halted as Regal walked by with two large bags of what was obviously food. "This should be a nice finishing touch," he chuckled, sticking an apple in Genis's mouth. "Now he looks like a roast boar."
The others howled with laughter. Genis tried to protest, but his mouth was full and his hands were buried under tightly packed sand, so he couldn't do anything about it. "Let me get my camera!" Colette cried. She ran toward Sheena and Raine, who were keeping everyone's beach bags under their umbrella. "Sheena! Professor! Come look at this! It's so funny!"
"I think Raine's asleep," Sheena told her. "Do you really want to risk waking her up and facing her anger?"
"I'm awake now," Raine mumbled. "What is it you need?"
"I need my camera from my bag. Lloyd and Presea and I did something so funny to Genis, you have to see it!"
"All right, I'm coming," Raine agreed, attempting to bring herself to a standing position. However, she hadn't noticed before someone had used the strings of her bathing suit top to tie her to the umbrella. "Wha-ARGH!" she cried. As she stood up, the umbrella was pulled out of the sand. It whacked her in the head, sending her face-first onto the ground.
As Sheena and Colette attempted to free Raine from the beach umbrella of doom, Zelos (now thankfully wearing a towel) sauntered toward them. "Need some help, ladies?"
"Not from you," Sheena snapped. "You'll probably snatch off her top the moment we get her untied."
"Now are you sorry you 'forgot' to tell me my bathing suit was gone?" he sneered.
"You did this? How could you?" Colette squeaked.
"Does it matter? Don't you think Raine and umbrellas are meant for each other anyway? Get it-Raine, umbrella?" He snickered at his own bad pun.
"Shut up and get this thing off of me!" Raine shrieked.
Lloyd, Regal, and Presea had noticed the commotion and joined in the effort to separate Raine and the beach umbrella. It wasn't until she was freed that they realized they had left Genis in all the excitement.
"Genis is still up to his neck in sand!" Presea reminded them.
"Let me take a picture before you dig him out of there," Colette begged once they had returned to an extremely annoyed Genis. "Say 'cheese,' Genis!" She took several shots before joining the others in unearthing/un-sanding him. For once, he was silent and merely glared at everyone.
That night, everything had settled down, or at least settled down enough to where no one was planning to strangle anyone else in his/her sleep. Zelos thought it might be a good time to continue his panty raids, but his plans were disrupted when he discovered Raine had evidently returned to her room early. She didn't seem to hear him though, as her back was to the door and she was absorbed in the book she was reading. It didn't take Zelos's perverted mind long to realize he was alone with a woman in a bedroom. "Time to have a little fun." he whispered to himself.
Somehow, Raine did not hear Zelos's comment to himself or his footsteps. He placed his hands on her shoulders and began massaging them.
Raine let out a small cry of surprise, then realized who it was. "Get lost, Zelos."
"But my sweet hunny," he breathed, wrapping his arms around her and placing his mouth to her ear, "I want you."
Raine was now infuriated. "And I want YOU to stay the hell away from me!" She leapt off the bed and grabbed her staff, which she swung wildly at him.
"Help! Crazy woman!" Zelos screamed, sounding a bit like a little girl. He dashed out the door, Raine chasing him.
"Come back here, you sick-minded pervert!"
"YAAAH! She's gonna kill meeee!" Zelos yelled. He flung open the door to the boys' room, rushed inside, and dove under the nearest bed. His companions looked up from their poker game, confused.
"Zelos Wilder! When I get hold of you, I'm going to castrate you!" Raine hollered, trying to drag him out by his leg.
"Professor, what's 'castrate' mean? Isn't that what you're doing now- you know, to scold someone?" Lloyd asked.
Raine gave him an irritated look. "That's 'castigate.'"
"So what does that other word mean?"
Raine sighed. "'Castrate' means to (whisper, whisper)." Lloyd's eyes grew wide.
"RUN, ZELOS!" he yelled. "RUN FOR YOUR LIFE AND YOUR MANHOOD!"