Ballroom Troubles, Part One

"Come on, everyone! We need to get to set up the Garden Festival!" Selphie said, leading the way to the social hall of Balamb Garden. Rinoa, Quistis, Irvine and Zell were following her, albeit unhappily. They had been having a nice dinner in the cafeteria when Selphie had bounced in, telling them to help her put up decorations for the Garden Festival. Irvine, caught off guard, and agreed that all of them could come.

"Way to go, Butterfly boy." complained Zell for the twentieth time, although it was quietly, so that Selphie wouldn't hear.

"Look, Shrimpy, she caught me off guard, okay?" Irvine hissed back, for the twentieth time.

"Be quiet." Rinoa whispered to both of them, tired already of the endless arguments.

"What are you talking about?" asked Selphie, dropping back to where they were walking.

"Umm...how excited we are to help you set up the Garden Festival." Irvine said, saying the first thing that came to mind. The others glared at him. Selphie just smiled brightly.

"You guys must really want to help, from all the whispering I hear. I'll find lots of things for you to do!" she said happily. The headmaster passed by just then, saving Irvine from an untimely death.

"Ah, I'm glad to see you managed to find some helpers, Selphie." Cid said, smiling. "I can tell this will be a great festival."

"It sure will!" Selphie said.

"Keep up the good work." Cid said, just as they reached the social, the same room that held the annual SeeD inauguration. He walked down a side corridor, and Irvine ducked behind a pillar immediately. If looks could kill, he would be as dead as a person attacked by 1000 Ultimecias. And that was pretty dead. Everyone followed him, making sure he didn't leave the room. If they were stuck here, he wasn't allowed to escape. Well, Zell was trying to hit him, but he was at the back of the crowd. Selphie looked at them oddly.

"What's the matter, everyone?" she asked, concerned.

"Nothing. We were...thinking about what to do with this pillar." Irvine said. He immediately slapped his hand to his mouth. Everyone glared at him. Zell started shaking, like he always did when Seifer was taunting him. Irvine tried to become very small.

"You guys must really want to work. I'll just go into the closet and get the decorations I bought. Irvy, come help me get them, would you?" she asked.

"Of course." he said, quickly getting away from the group. Rinoa and Quistis held Zell back. Selphie looked at Irvine as they started to pull the boxes labeled 'Garden Festival' out of the closet.

"What's going on, Irvine?" she asked, passing him a couple boxes. She grabbed the others, and they walked back to where Quistis and Rinoa had just calmed Zell down.

"Nothing." he said, waving his hand dismissively. Selphie just sighed and shook her head.

"Okay, here's how it's going. Irvine is in charge of decorating the tables with flowers, tablecloths and that sort of thing."

"Hey, I want to do the balloons!" complained Irvine.

"No way! I don't trust you with balloons or streamers. Quistis, you get to do the balloons. Rinoa, you get the streamers. Zell is going to help me set up the speakers and electrical equipment on the stage." Everyone nodded, and got to work. About an hour later, Squall wandered in.

"Hello Squall." Rinoa said from her perch on top of the ladder, where she was putting the streamers up. "Why are you here?"

"I came to tell everyone that it's nearly curfew."

"Really?" Selphie said, jumping off the stage. "We'd better start cleaning up. Squall, can you give us a hand? The boxes go in the closet." she said, gesturing toward the closet on the far back wall.

"Fine." he said, and lifted the nearest box. Irvine and Zell also grabbed boxes, and Rinoa began to roll up the streamers from atop the ladder. Selphie walked over to help Quistis, who had just jumped down from her ladder, put away the already blown up balloons into a nearby box.

"Well, well, well. What are we doing out after curfew?" asked a voice from the doorway. Everyone turned around to see Seifer standing there. However, he wasn't flanked by Fujin and Raijin, as he usually was.

"We're putting away the decorations for the Garden Festival." Selphie said, showing him some of the balloons.

"I see." he said, frowning. Then he smirked. "Well then, I guess you might have a right to be here."

"Of course we do!" Selphie said, jumping up and down in annoyance. Seifer just smirked even more broadly.

"Temper, temper." he said.

"Where are Fujin and Raijin?" asked Rinoa. She jumped down from the ladder, and put the streamers in with the balloons.

"They're checking on the secret area. Like it's that secret." He walked further into the room, and looked over at the stage. "I can't believe you're still doing this. It'll just be a mess."

"If you have some ideas you can help!" Selphie said, running over with a clipboard. She shoved it under his nose. "Just sign here!" she said, pointing at a dotted line.

"No way! I do not want to be associated with this...this...this event!"

"Is that the best insult you have?" asked Zell, shadow punching the nearby pillar.

"Do you punch pillars because you can't reach moving targets?" Seifer asked. Zell turned a dark crimson shade, and stalked menacingly toward Seifer. He just smirked. "What are you going to do, hit me?" he asked. Zell was stopped by Squall and Irvine, and he struggled against them.

'Let me go! I swear I won't kill him, just bruise him a bit! I'll let you hit him some too!" he pleaded.

"No fighting." Squall stated.

"This is pathetic." Seifer scoffed. He cast his eye upon the rest of the social hall. "Geez, what a dump. I wouldn't want to be caught dead in here. You shouldn't waste your time on this embarrassment. You're such-OW!"

"Take that, you big bully!" snapped Selphie as she kicked Seifer in the back. "Take back what you said."

"No way! I'm writing you up for this." he said.

"If you can get out of here alive." she said, and hit the back of his head. Seifer threw up his hands to protect himself from the barrage of punches, and ran further into the room. Selphie was close on his heels the entire way. Rinoa scurried back up to the top of her ladder as they rushed by.

"Now that's enough!" Quistis said, as stepped between the two. Selphie stood there, glaring at Seifer, who glared right back. "I want five whole minutes of silence from all of you, and that is an order. I cannot believe your behavior. And in five minutes you must apologize."

"But-" began Selphie and Seifer, but Quistis cut them off.

"Every time you talk the countdown goes back up to five more minutes." she told them. They nodded at her, still glaring at each other. Squall continued to hold Zell back, and Irvine continued to put the boxes away. Suddenly, there was a huge bang from the directions of the doors. Immediately afterward, everyone was engulfed in darkness.

"What the...what happened?" asked a voice. It sounded a lot like Selphie. There was some shuffling, and a smack.

"OW! Watch it, I'm here!" snapped another voice. A voice with that much malice had to be Seifer.

"Sorry." The sarcasm came from either Zell or Irvine, probably Zell as Irvine had been by the closet last.

"Do not move. That will make this worse." And that calm, bored voice had to be Squall.

"Go away, chickenwuss!" Seifer snapped, and there was the sound of a fist meeting with flesh. There was some stumbling, a scream, and a huge crash.

"What was that?" asked Quistis.

"Zell knocked over my ladder." Rinoa said shakily.

"Is anything broken?" asked Squall. There was a short pause.

"No. There're just some bruises, plus my head and ankle really hurt. At least the ladder wasn't up too high."

"Yeah." agreed Selphie. "I'm going to try the door." They heard her walking across the floor, then a muffled bang as she hit the wall. There was some muttering from over there - probably a curse - then silence.

"It's locked!" Selphie gasped, and they heard her banging on the door. "Let us out!" she shrieked.

"So, what do we do now?" asked Irvine. He sounded closer to the rest of the group now. "What happened, anyway?"

"It's after curfew now. The Garden Faculty probably thought there was no one in here, because we were standing behind the stage. They locked us up, and they won't be around until eight to unlock the door. Or possibly later, because the social hall isn't used much."

"We're...stuck in here?! Oh Hyne, that just sucks!"

"Seifer! Watch your language!" Quistis snapped.

"Sorry Instructor, but come on! I don't want to be stuck in here with you people." He shuffled around for a moment, and banged into something.

"Damn stage." he hissed.

"You're making things worse by moving." Rinoa said. "What are you trying to do?"

"Get to the door. I'm sure Fujin or Raijin will come to save me, and until them I can try to escape this living hell."

"Your being here doesn't exactly make this a picnic either." Irvine muttered.

"Of course it does. If I wasn't here with my stunning personality..."

"Enough with the drama, Seifer." Zell said. "Of I could call you a drama queen."

"That has a nice ring to...QUEEN?!?! I am not a queen." Seifer said, realizing what Zell had said.

"You really thought you were a girl?" Zell asked in a singsong voice.

"No! I thought you said king. I am a king."

"You are a queen. I shall now call you Queen Seifer."

"I'm calling you Shrimpy."

"I am not shrimpy!"

"Do you like shrimp?"

"Yes."

"Then you're Shrimpy."

"Hey, just because I'm shorter than you..."

"You can't argue the facts, Shrimpy."

"Whatever, Queen Seifer."

"You're stealing other people's trademarked words."

"What's my trademarked word?"

"Oh yeahhhhhh!"

"Oh yeah, it is."

"You forgot to throw your fist into the air and then pulling it down sharply. That's the trademark hand movement."

"But I wasn't saying my trademarked words, I was just saying the general phrase of oh yeah. Besides, you can't see me in the dark..."

"Okay, enough!" Quistis said. "I've had enough of this conversation. We're going to talk about something else, now."

"Okay then, what are we going to talk about, your most impressive instructorness?"

"You are going to be quiet."

"Oh, come on. Who gave you authority here?"

"Headmaster Cid."

"Oh yeah? Well...well...damn him!" Seifer said, struggling for an appropriate comeback, and not finding one.

"Guys, this is just a suggestion, but we really should to try and escape from here." Selphie said, breaking into their arguing. Everyone was quiet for a few moments, either digesting the fact someone wasn't yelling or that is was Selphie.

"Wow, good one." Zell said.

"You guys always think I'm so slow. But I'm not." Selphie said. "And I don't want you people to act as though I don't know what is going on, because I do. I go along because I don't want to separate the group."

"Okay Seffie, we won't make fun of you anymore. And to prove it, you can help formulate the plan to help us escape." Irvine said.

"Woo-hoo!" Selphie said.

"That is also a trademark word." Seifer said.

"I get the point. I passed English."

"Prove it."

"Stop it." Squall said. "We do need to get out of here, and before sunrise. There is no guarantee that this door will be opened again tomorrow."

"Won't they notice us gone, especially Squall and Quistis?" asked Rinoa.

"Yes, they will. But only after a while will they come here." said Quistis. "And I'd rather not leave my students without instruction for so long, plus I don't want the whole Garden to know that we were stuck in a room without escape. That will create so many unwanted rumors."

"Good point." Rinoa said. "What's the plan, Selphie? You know this room better than all of us."

"Well, there is the crawl space under the floor. And we can, if worse comes to worse, try to scale down Garden from the balcony."

"Let's try to avoid that. I'm not fond of my own death." Seifer said.

"I vote the crawl space first." said Squall.

"I second the motion." Quistis said.

"Let's do it!" Zell added enthusiastically.

"Go ahead, darlin'." Irvine said, and he was probably tipping his hat.

"Let's get this over with." Seifer snarled.

"Sounds good." Rinoa said, casting her vote.

"Woo-hoo! Okay, everyone try to feel around to where everyone else is. Go slowly, so that there is less pain. Oh, and there is an over turned ladder somewhere." Now, by now their vision had adjusted, so they weren't totally blind. Soon they had assembled. No one was uncovered in bruises, but no one was wounded, except for Rinoa's ankle and head.

"Okay, I'm going to locate the crawl space. You guys follow behind me slowly, careful not to hit anything. The entrance is under the stage, and there is a lot of equipment under there, so be careful. Everyone ready?" Everyone murmured affirmative, and Selphie started toward the stage at a slow, sedated pace. But still they kept bumping into each other. Thankfully, it wasn't far to the crawl space, where Selphie halted them.

"Has anyone actually been in the crawl space before?" she asked.

There was silence.

"Well then, because no one-"

"Wait a moment!" said Zell. "I have! The time I was running away from Seifer for dumping that cake on him." There was a sigh of annoyance at the mention of the cake, and everyone knew it was from Squall.

"You didn't say anything." Rinoa said.

"I was raising my hand!"

"In the dark? Great one." Seifer muttered.

"Well, I forgot!"

"Forgot about the blackness surrounding you?"

"Well...well..." Zell tried desperately to come up with an answer that didn't have him pegged as a total moron.

"Just for that, Seifer, you're going into the crawl space too."

"What?! I've never been in the crawl space."

"Yes you have."

"Shh!"

"When?" asked Squall curiously.

"When we were kids. It was during dancing class, and Seifer didn't want to participate in it. The Garden Faculty dragged him in from the Training Center, then asked our instructor to step outside for a moment. While they were out, everyone was milling around, but I noticed Seifer sneaking into the crawl space. He thought that he could escape through there. What he forgot about, however, was that the entrance under the stage goes two ways, up and down. Our instructor came back, and asked where Seifer was. There was a loud noise above us, and a chandelier crashed down, with Seifer holding on for dear life."

Everyone had to laugh at the mental image of Seifer riding down on a chandelier.

"It's set then." Selphie said. "Seifer and Zell will go through the crawl space, and open the door on the other side." Selphie said.

"Why both of us?" asked Seifer.

"Because I think you'll leave us in here, and Zell can watch you. Your going with Zell because that way he won't go at a snail's pace through the crawl space. Now get going."

After much grumbling, and lots of pushing, Seifer and Zell were in the crawl space.

A/N: Wow...another chapter is finally up. Now, on to the shout outs.

Ashbear: Yeah, well, some of this is kind of based on several of my experiences. Like the car ride, for instance. We were told to turn at a red churchexcept they meant a brick church, not a painted one. Plus the bricks were more black than red Oh well. And thanks for reviewing the poem I wrote.

Happi Froggi: Yeah, the cheerios. And it's kind of a tie between who is worse. Thanks for the reviews!

Verdanii: Thank you.