Thank you to all the wonderful people who reviewed!
Ashbear: I had always hoped they'd have Irvine and Zell fight more in the game. They're so good at it!
Bembem: Glad you liked it.
Green-eyed Blue Cat: Thank you! (takes bow) I love your fic too!
Ispreno: Thank you kindly!
Happi Froggi: What are you talking about? Oh well, thanks.
Need Sleep.
"Sleep." Zell muttered as he fell out of bed. His alarm was ringing, signaling the day's beginning, but Zell was still tired. He had turned over, trying to turn the alarm off, when he had fallen out of bed. Now he was on the floor, trying to decide the best way to get up.
"Hey Zell! You're late for.Zell?" Selphie had burst in jumping, but stopped in mid jump when she saw him muttering on the floor. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"Fell off bed." he moaned.
"I can see that. Anyway, you need to get ready for the new day. Squall might fire you if you don't get out of bed and down to the cafeteria in fifteen minutes."
"Mxbgrz." Zell muttered, then buried his head in the pillow that had fallen on the floor with him.
"Now, I realized that you were up late last night because you were on a mission, so I told Irvine that he had to come up here and help me drag you down there." she said. She looked back at the doorway, then stuck her head out into the hall. "Hey Irvine, you'd better not be running off!"
Irvine walked in. "Come on, Sefie! Without Zell around I might be able to get a life!"
"Then who are you going to tease? Squall?"
"Trust me, I know better than to try."
"Well then?"
"Okay, okay." he muttered. He walked in, and grabbed Zell's foot.
"Off." he muttered, and grabbed the bed.
"Hey, let go!" Irvine complained as he pulled harder.
"Off." Zell shrieked, and threw a lamp at Irvine.
"Hey, watch it!" Zell just rolled over and grabbed the bed like it was a lifeline away from a dying ship. "Man, you wouldn't think a tired guy would be this strong."
"Just hurry up. We need to get Zell down there!" Selphie said, holding the door open.
"Okay, okay. You pry his fingers off and I'll pull him out the door."
"Sure." Selphie said, then pulled Zell's fingers off the bed as Irvine dragged him toward the door. Zell grumbled and clawed at the floor, but that didn't help, because the floor was made of tile. Irvine dragged him down the hall, across the main area of Balamb Garden and into the cafeteria.
"This is just a thought, but maybe you should have tried hot dogs to get him down here, instead of dragging him around Balamb Garden in this pajamas." Rinoa suggested from where she sat with Quistis.
"Well, we were rushed. We just barely got down here within fifteen minutes." Irvine said. "But we can't let the high and mighty commander know we helped Zell. That might be considered illegal or something."
"Irvine, you sit Zell here, next to my coffee." Quistis said. "The caffeine might wake him up, and at least it will look like Zell was trying to come down here under his own power."
"True." Selphie said, and with some help from Irvine sat him in Quistis' abandoned chair. They barely had time to put a paper in his hands and sit down around him before Squall walked in. Selphie smiled brightly.
"Good morning, Commander!" she said.
"Whatever." he said, and grabbed a cup of coffee. He took a seat at the table where the others were, then looked over at Zell. "Why is he asleep at the table in his pajamas?"
"I guess Zell felt like rebelling." Rinoa said. Squall just shrugged.
"Whatever. Wake him up and tell him to report to the Cid's office in five minutes. He needs to make a report on that mission he was on recently." With that he got up, drained the coffee from his cup, and walked out. The others looked around in dismay.
"We just barely got him out of bed." Selphie complained. "And now he needs to get dressed and report to Cid's office to report on his mission?"
"I guess so." Quistis said. "But doesn't Squall know his mission ran really late last night?"
"Maybe he forgot." Rinoa suggested.
"Maybe he doesn't care." Irvine added.
"Personally, I'm going with the second idea." Selphie said. She looked over at Zell. "Now, how do we wake him up?" She leaned toward him. "HEY ZELL!" she shouted in his ear.
Zell jumped up in the air, looking around wildly, spilling the coffee in front of him all over himself.
"Owww!" he shouted, and started to run around the cafeteria. "Water, water!" he yelled. Rinoa picked up a nearby water pitcher and dumped the contents on him.
"Ahhh." He said, and started to sleep. Selphie rolled her eyes.
"Great. Now what?" she asked. Everyone looked around, confused. Quistis sighed.
"We could always let him teach dressed like that." she said. Irvine grinned.
"Yeah, do that!" he said enthusiastically. Selphie elbowed him in the ribs.
"Stop it! We need to be serious!" she said.
"Okay, okay. But it would be funny, especially if we got a picture of it or something. Actually."
"No Irvine."
He heaved a dramatic sigh. "Okay."
"Let's get back to the Zell problem." Quistis said.
"But we can't solve Zell's hotdog addiction!" Irvine protested. "Ulitmecia couldn't even do that!"
"I meant the issue of Zell running around Garden in his pajamas." Quistis said.
"Oh. I knew that."
"Yeah, right." Selphie said. It was Rinoa's turn to roll her eyes.
"Anyway, moving on." she said, looking at the clock on the cafeteria wall. "We now have ten minutes."
"Great! What are we going to do?!" Selphie asked.
"Oh, let's just drag him back to his room and say he became violently ill." Rinoa said. Because no one could think of anything better, Irvine was once again in charge of dragging Zell to his dorm, while the others went to tell Squall. But just as then entered the center of Garden, the loud speaker clicked on.
"Hello everyone. This is Headmaster Cid. I have recently discovered that there is an Anacondaur lose in Garden. All junior classmen are to be taken to the upper classrooms, and barred in there with all lower cadets. All cadets about to take their tests and the SeeDs are to ready their weapons and start the search for the Anacondaur. No one, repeat no one, is to go anywhere alone. That is all." Irvine, totally ignoring Zell, ran off in the directions the others had taken. Zell, having been suddenly dropped, looked up to see the feet of people rushing around. Having heard nothing of the announcement, he assumed that this was just the before class rush. That's odd, I thought I made it back to my room.oh yeah, Irvine and Selphie attacked me. He slowly pushed himself up, then started to walk back to his room. A passing cadet stopped him.
"Excuse me sir, but are you feeling alright?" the cadet asked.
"Me fine. Tired." he mumbled, then continued his walk.
"Sir, you are aware of the Anacondaur running loose in Garden, right?"
"Yeah.what?!?"
"The Anacondaur, sir."
"No. When this happen?"
"Just a minute ago, sir."
"Thanks." he muttered, then started toward Cid's office. He had just remembered that he needed to report on his mission, plus see if he could get some sort of wake up medicine.
Zell reached the elevator, and started toward it when a shadow loomed in front of him.
+ + +
"Okay, so Quistis and Selphie are going to check the upper level, and Squall and Rinoa will search the lower level." Cid said. "Irvine and Zell will check the MD level when they get here."
"Oh, that's what we came to tell you. Zell isn't feeling so good." Rinoa said.
"He isn't?"
"Well, he was up late on that mission, and he probably ate a ton of hotdogs when he got back." Rinoa said. Squall slapped his forehead.
"Don't do that, Squall, you might get brain trauma." said Selphie. Squall rolled his eyes.
"And if you do that, you might roll your eyes into the back of your head." Rinoa added. Squall looked at the ceiling, obviously fighting the urge to slap his head and roll his eyes.
"Anyway, if Zell can't make it, that's fine. I'll just ask Xu or Nida to go down there with Irvine." Cid said. "Now, all we know about the Anacondaur is that it's loose. A cadet reported seeing the monster five minutes ago. We have no idea how it got in here."
"Hey guys, what did I miss?" Irvine asked as he stepped into the office.
"Irvine, where's Zell?" Selphie asked.
"Around. So what did I miss?"
"Because Zell is ill, you and someone else are going to search the MD level." Cid said.
"Aw, man, I was kind of hoping that because this isn't a major world threatening event I could kind of leave, and finish with my plans."
"What plans?" Selphie asked. Squall had to fight harder to not hit himself or roll his eyes.
"To drive from Dollet to Deling in under two hours."
"You can't do that!" Selphie said.
"Well, I can't now." Squall was starting to loose his mental battle.
"We can discuss this later." Quistis said. "Right now, we need to find the Anacondaur and see where it came from."
"There aren't any Anacondaurs around Balamb. That's what so confusing." Squall said. "But first we need to find and defeat the monster. We can worry about where it came from later."
"It came from Outer Space." Selphie said. They all looked at her. She blushed.
"Sorry, I was just remembering a movie I saw once." she muttered.
"Although she's technically right, what with the Lunar Cry and all." Irvine said.
"Let's discuss this later, okay?" Squall said, really fighting to keep the head slapping and eye rolling under control. Everyone else nodded in agreement, and they started for the elevator.
"Irvine, when you said driving from Dollet to Deling in under two hours, you were aware that speeding is illegal, right?" Selphie said. Squall allowed himself the luxury of a small eye roll, while no one was looking.
"Sure." he said, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. They all got into the elevator, and pressed the 2 button. A few moments later they stopped, and Selphie and Quistis stepped out. Squall pushed the 1 button, and the elevator doors closed. Selphie and Quistis looked around, then Selphie gasped.
"There it is!" she squealed, pointing down to where the Anacondaur was, hovering over Zell.
+ + +
Zell looked up to see a giant snake-like monster looming over him. He gasped, and fell backward. He looked down at his hands. Damn, I forgot my Ehrgeiz in my dorm! he thought. Well, I guess a quick retreat is in order.
He was about to move away when he noticed that there was another cadet there. This cadet was wielding an eight-foot spear, which made the kid's weapon three feet bigger than him. He charged the Anacondaur, stabbing at it with his spear. The Anacondaur merely looked annoyed as it turned to face this new opponent. It quickly retaliated the blow the cadet had caused, and snapped the tip of the spear off. The cadet looked at his spear, looked at the Anacondaur, looked around him, and discovered that he was backed against the small wall surrounding the elevator, with water on all sides. He came to a quick decision, just the elevator chimed and Squall, Rinoa and Irvine exited it.
The cadet took his spear shaft, backed up, and took a running leap at the wall, trying to pole vault across the water. But he misjudged the landing, and fell into the bushes. He was instantly up, and started to race away toward the cafeteria. The Anacondaur whirled around, and started to attack Zell. But a quick bullet from Irvine's Exeter made it realize that it had far more dangerous prey to worry about. Irvine and Rinoa hit it from afar, while Squall came in close with his Lionheart and started to slash furiously at the level 100 beast. The Anacondaur howled in rage, and proceeded to bite Squall painfully on the arm.
"Damn." Squall muttered, dodging yet another bite from the Anacondaur, as he felt the pain of poison in his arm. He pulled out an antidote, and swallowed it. He immediately felt the poisons burn fade away, and he started back in on the creature.
By this time Selphie and Quistis had joined them, and soon the Anacondaur succumbed to the mighty attacks. They all stopped, weary, and looked around. Zell was asleep by the elevator.
"Man, he must be tired." Quistis said. She sat down herself.
"Who was that freak?" Irvine asked. Quistis smiled and shook her head.
"His name is Jordon Cadmus, and he's in my class."
"That guy is just sad." Selphie said. "I mean, who ever heard of pole- vaulting across Balamb Garden?"
"Actually, a couple weeks back, I gave my students an assignment where they had to fill out a form about their personality, and things like that. Cadmus wrote that the thing he wanted to do most in life was to pole-vault over important places in every city."
"That kid has issues." Selphie said.
Rinoa smiled. "Yeah, but hey, don't we all?"
A/N: Wow, another chapter done! I am on a role! Please, keep those reviews coming. Suggestions, ideas, problems, praise, anything. I live off of reviews, so please keep sending them.
Ashbear: I had always hoped they'd have Irvine and Zell fight more in the game. They're so good at it!
Bembem: Glad you liked it.
Green-eyed Blue Cat: Thank you! (takes bow) I love your fic too!
Ispreno: Thank you kindly!
Happi Froggi: What are you talking about? Oh well, thanks.
Need Sleep.
"Sleep." Zell muttered as he fell out of bed. His alarm was ringing, signaling the day's beginning, but Zell was still tired. He had turned over, trying to turn the alarm off, when he had fallen out of bed. Now he was on the floor, trying to decide the best way to get up.
"Hey Zell! You're late for.Zell?" Selphie had burst in jumping, but stopped in mid jump when she saw him muttering on the floor. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"Fell off bed." he moaned.
"I can see that. Anyway, you need to get ready for the new day. Squall might fire you if you don't get out of bed and down to the cafeteria in fifteen minutes."
"Mxbgrz." Zell muttered, then buried his head in the pillow that had fallen on the floor with him.
"Now, I realized that you were up late last night because you were on a mission, so I told Irvine that he had to come up here and help me drag you down there." she said. She looked back at the doorway, then stuck her head out into the hall. "Hey Irvine, you'd better not be running off!"
Irvine walked in. "Come on, Sefie! Without Zell around I might be able to get a life!"
"Then who are you going to tease? Squall?"
"Trust me, I know better than to try."
"Well then?"
"Okay, okay." he muttered. He walked in, and grabbed Zell's foot.
"Off." he muttered, and grabbed the bed.
"Hey, let go!" Irvine complained as he pulled harder.
"Off." Zell shrieked, and threw a lamp at Irvine.
"Hey, watch it!" Zell just rolled over and grabbed the bed like it was a lifeline away from a dying ship. "Man, you wouldn't think a tired guy would be this strong."
"Just hurry up. We need to get Zell down there!" Selphie said, holding the door open.
"Okay, okay. You pry his fingers off and I'll pull him out the door."
"Sure." Selphie said, then pulled Zell's fingers off the bed as Irvine dragged him toward the door. Zell grumbled and clawed at the floor, but that didn't help, because the floor was made of tile. Irvine dragged him down the hall, across the main area of Balamb Garden and into the cafeteria.
"This is just a thought, but maybe you should have tried hot dogs to get him down here, instead of dragging him around Balamb Garden in this pajamas." Rinoa suggested from where she sat with Quistis.
"Well, we were rushed. We just barely got down here within fifteen minutes." Irvine said. "But we can't let the high and mighty commander know we helped Zell. That might be considered illegal or something."
"Irvine, you sit Zell here, next to my coffee." Quistis said. "The caffeine might wake him up, and at least it will look like Zell was trying to come down here under his own power."
"True." Selphie said, and with some help from Irvine sat him in Quistis' abandoned chair. They barely had time to put a paper in his hands and sit down around him before Squall walked in. Selphie smiled brightly.
"Good morning, Commander!" she said.
"Whatever." he said, and grabbed a cup of coffee. He took a seat at the table where the others were, then looked over at Zell. "Why is he asleep at the table in his pajamas?"
"I guess Zell felt like rebelling." Rinoa said. Squall just shrugged.
"Whatever. Wake him up and tell him to report to the Cid's office in five minutes. He needs to make a report on that mission he was on recently." With that he got up, drained the coffee from his cup, and walked out. The others looked around in dismay.
"We just barely got him out of bed." Selphie complained. "And now he needs to get dressed and report to Cid's office to report on his mission?"
"I guess so." Quistis said. "But doesn't Squall know his mission ran really late last night?"
"Maybe he forgot." Rinoa suggested.
"Maybe he doesn't care." Irvine added.
"Personally, I'm going with the second idea." Selphie said. She looked over at Zell. "Now, how do we wake him up?" She leaned toward him. "HEY ZELL!" she shouted in his ear.
Zell jumped up in the air, looking around wildly, spilling the coffee in front of him all over himself.
"Owww!" he shouted, and started to run around the cafeteria. "Water, water!" he yelled. Rinoa picked up a nearby water pitcher and dumped the contents on him.
"Ahhh." He said, and started to sleep. Selphie rolled her eyes.
"Great. Now what?" she asked. Everyone looked around, confused. Quistis sighed.
"We could always let him teach dressed like that." she said. Irvine grinned.
"Yeah, do that!" he said enthusiastically. Selphie elbowed him in the ribs.
"Stop it! We need to be serious!" she said.
"Okay, okay. But it would be funny, especially if we got a picture of it or something. Actually."
"No Irvine."
He heaved a dramatic sigh. "Okay."
"Let's get back to the Zell problem." Quistis said.
"But we can't solve Zell's hotdog addiction!" Irvine protested. "Ulitmecia couldn't even do that!"
"I meant the issue of Zell running around Garden in his pajamas." Quistis said.
"Oh. I knew that."
"Yeah, right." Selphie said. It was Rinoa's turn to roll her eyes.
"Anyway, moving on." she said, looking at the clock on the cafeteria wall. "We now have ten minutes."
"Great! What are we going to do?!" Selphie asked.
"Oh, let's just drag him back to his room and say he became violently ill." Rinoa said. Because no one could think of anything better, Irvine was once again in charge of dragging Zell to his dorm, while the others went to tell Squall. But just as then entered the center of Garden, the loud speaker clicked on.
"Hello everyone. This is Headmaster Cid. I have recently discovered that there is an Anacondaur lose in Garden. All junior classmen are to be taken to the upper classrooms, and barred in there with all lower cadets. All cadets about to take their tests and the SeeDs are to ready their weapons and start the search for the Anacondaur. No one, repeat no one, is to go anywhere alone. That is all." Irvine, totally ignoring Zell, ran off in the directions the others had taken. Zell, having been suddenly dropped, looked up to see the feet of people rushing around. Having heard nothing of the announcement, he assumed that this was just the before class rush. That's odd, I thought I made it back to my room.oh yeah, Irvine and Selphie attacked me. He slowly pushed himself up, then started to walk back to his room. A passing cadet stopped him.
"Excuse me sir, but are you feeling alright?" the cadet asked.
"Me fine. Tired." he mumbled, then continued his walk.
"Sir, you are aware of the Anacondaur running loose in Garden, right?"
"Yeah.what?!?"
"The Anacondaur, sir."
"No. When this happen?"
"Just a minute ago, sir."
"Thanks." he muttered, then started toward Cid's office. He had just remembered that he needed to report on his mission, plus see if he could get some sort of wake up medicine.
Zell reached the elevator, and started toward it when a shadow loomed in front of him.
+ + +
"Okay, so Quistis and Selphie are going to check the upper level, and Squall and Rinoa will search the lower level." Cid said. "Irvine and Zell will check the MD level when they get here."
"Oh, that's what we came to tell you. Zell isn't feeling so good." Rinoa said.
"He isn't?"
"Well, he was up late on that mission, and he probably ate a ton of hotdogs when he got back." Rinoa said. Squall slapped his forehead.
"Don't do that, Squall, you might get brain trauma." said Selphie. Squall rolled his eyes.
"And if you do that, you might roll your eyes into the back of your head." Rinoa added. Squall looked at the ceiling, obviously fighting the urge to slap his head and roll his eyes.
"Anyway, if Zell can't make it, that's fine. I'll just ask Xu or Nida to go down there with Irvine." Cid said. "Now, all we know about the Anacondaur is that it's loose. A cadet reported seeing the monster five minutes ago. We have no idea how it got in here."
"Hey guys, what did I miss?" Irvine asked as he stepped into the office.
"Irvine, where's Zell?" Selphie asked.
"Around. So what did I miss?"
"Because Zell is ill, you and someone else are going to search the MD level." Cid said.
"Aw, man, I was kind of hoping that because this isn't a major world threatening event I could kind of leave, and finish with my plans."
"What plans?" Selphie asked. Squall had to fight harder to not hit himself or roll his eyes.
"To drive from Dollet to Deling in under two hours."
"You can't do that!" Selphie said.
"Well, I can't now." Squall was starting to loose his mental battle.
"We can discuss this later." Quistis said. "Right now, we need to find the Anacondaur and see where it came from."
"There aren't any Anacondaurs around Balamb. That's what so confusing." Squall said. "But first we need to find and defeat the monster. We can worry about where it came from later."
"It came from Outer Space." Selphie said. They all looked at her. She blushed.
"Sorry, I was just remembering a movie I saw once." she muttered.
"Although she's technically right, what with the Lunar Cry and all." Irvine said.
"Let's discuss this later, okay?" Squall said, really fighting to keep the head slapping and eye rolling under control. Everyone else nodded in agreement, and they started for the elevator.
"Irvine, when you said driving from Dollet to Deling in under two hours, you were aware that speeding is illegal, right?" Selphie said. Squall allowed himself the luxury of a small eye roll, while no one was looking.
"Sure." he said, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. They all got into the elevator, and pressed the 2 button. A few moments later they stopped, and Selphie and Quistis stepped out. Squall pushed the 1 button, and the elevator doors closed. Selphie and Quistis looked around, then Selphie gasped.
"There it is!" she squealed, pointing down to where the Anacondaur was, hovering over Zell.
+ + +
Zell looked up to see a giant snake-like monster looming over him. He gasped, and fell backward. He looked down at his hands. Damn, I forgot my Ehrgeiz in my dorm! he thought. Well, I guess a quick retreat is in order.
He was about to move away when he noticed that there was another cadet there. This cadet was wielding an eight-foot spear, which made the kid's weapon three feet bigger than him. He charged the Anacondaur, stabbing at it with his spear. The Anacondaur merely looked annoyed as it turned to face this new opponent. It quickly retaliated the blow the cadet had caused, and snapped the tip of the spear off. The cadet looked at his spear, looked at the Anacondaur, looked around him, and discovered that he was backed against the small wall surrounding the elevator, with water on all sides. He came to a quick decision, just the elevator chimed and Squall, Rinoa and Irvine exited it.
The cadet took his spear shaft, backed up, and took a running leap at the wall, trying to pole vault across the water. But he misjudged the landing, and fell into the bushes. He was instantly up, and started to race away toward the cafeteria. The Anacondaur whirled around, and started to attack Zell. But a quick bullet from Irvine's Exeter made it realize that it had far more dangerous prey to worry about. Irvine and Rinoa hit it from afar, while Squall came in close with his Lionheart and started to slash furiously at the level 100 beast. The Anacondaur howled in rage, and proceeded to bite Squall painfully on the arm.
"Damn." Squall muttered, dodging yet another bite from the Anacondaur, as he felt the pain of poison in his arm. He pulled out an antidote, and swallowed it. He immediately felt the poisons burn fade away, and he started back in on the creature.
By this time Selphie and Quistis had joined them, and soon the Anacondaur succumbed to the mighty attacks. They all stopped, weary, and looked around. Zell was asleep by the elevator.
"Man, he must be tired." Quistis said. She sat down herself.
"Who was that freak?" Irvine asked. Quistis smiled and shook her head.
"His name is Jordon Cadmus, and he's in my class."
"That guy is just sad." Selphie said. "I mean, who ever heard of pole- vaulting across Balamb Garden?"
"Actually, a couple weeks back, I gave my students an assignment where they had to fill out a form about their personality, and things like that. Cadmus wrote that the thing he wanted to do most in life was to pole-vault over important places in every city."
"That kid has issues." Selphie said.
Rinoa smiled. "Yeah, but hey, don't we all?"
A/N: Wow, another chapter done! I am on a role! Please, keep those reviews coming. Suggestions, ideas, problems, praise, anything. I live off of reviews, so please keep sending them.