Chapter Four-Of a Shopping Crisis and Garden Festival Preparations (Hyne save us)

Author's Note: A great big hug and 'thank you' to my awesome fish: kannas-twin and ScarredSweetheart for all the help concerning the shopping crisis. And, to all my reviewers, because this story has gotten the most reviews of any story I've written so far. Superficial, I know, but it makes me happy. So, bypassing all my gushing fluff, on with the story. Enjoi! And yes, this chapter will be presented in the correct order. (ha ha)

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Squall awoke the next morning to, as usual, a beautiful day on the island of Balamb. At least, he thought it was. He opened an eye. It was not a pretty sight by any means. Rinoa lay on her bed, sobbing. Her face was positively scarlet, at least, the bit that wasn't smashed into a pillow was. And every now and then she would give a squeak of frustration and bang her fist into the moogle-covered comforter.

He gave a chocobo sigh, and nudged her hand with his beak. The annoyance he had to face by not having hands was immeasurable. He so missed hands.

Rinoa raised her face from her tear-soaked pillow and sniffled. "Mr. Chocobo, I miss Squall so much! He was going to take me to the Garden Festival tonight. Why'd he have to have that damn mission anyway?" The tears in her eyes welled up again, and she placed her face on the pillow.

Squall fought back the urge to run screaming, or wark-ing really, out of the room. He placed his head delicately on Rinoa's upper arm, and gave another sigh.

It was going to be a very, very long day.

- - -

It was Squall's fifth attempt to gnaw his way off the leash, when Rinoa gave up. Quistis, commanding the Garden in his "absence" had called a meeting. Nine o'clock in the morning was WAY too early to be dealing with unruly chocobos, so Quistis chucked a small silver paperweight at him. Squall could have sworn he heard her whisper, "I've always been a fan of corporal punishment," under her breath before returning to her mission briefing.

"Now, listen up, people!" she said loudly. "We've got a major situation here. The entire Garden is on emergency status. I'm sure you've heard what's going on. The Garden Festival is tonight, and we have no food. No one is brave enough to venture into the…" She glared at Selphie and Seifer. "…haunted store room. And, on top of all other things, every single one of our female SeeDs beauty appointments!" Quistis was now in full blown rant-mode and it was about to get worse.

"We can do it," Irvine said, gesturing to Seifer and himself. Quistis, Selphie, and Rinoa began to giggle.

"What? I bet we could," Seifer spoke up. The giggles turned into full blown laughter.

"Wark wark warkwark wark!" Squall demanded, which no one understood. They all looked at him oddly. He shrank back under the safety of the coffee table.

The girls began to tease them. "You think you could shop for food for an entire Garden, and return with something other than forty cans of chocobo soup?" Selphie asked.

The boys were beginning to lose confidence. "Umm…yeah…"

Quistis was scornful. "Fine then. You two can go, and take that DAMNED CHOCOBO WITH YOU!"

Squall guiltily took the leash from his beak.

As the men left, Rinoa whispered to Quistis, "I hope they come back with something other than forty cans of chocobo soup."

"I just hope they come back," Quistis answered.

- - -

The freezer walls were beginning to close in around Zell, as he stood, desperately trying to thaw another hot dog with his breath. There were discarded icicles around him, testaments to his failed attempts to start a fire in the small dark place.

Unfortunately, his breath froze before reaching the hot dog.

"I will kill you in your sleep," Zell said slowly to the frozen meat-based product.

Only the silence answered him.

- - -

"Um, Rinoa, can I talk to you now about Squall?" Nida the NPC was back again, meekly trying to explain the finer points of Squall's mission to Rinoa.

Rinoa, desperate for any news of her dearly departed boyfriend, jumped at the thought. "Yes? What did he say? Is he coming home? Is he? ANSWER ME!"

Nida, unable to breathe from Rinoa's choke hold, barely managed to squeak out, "He's umm…he's gone missing…"

"MISSING? WHAT DO YOU MEAN MISSING?" Squall was vaguely reminded of his last conversation with Rinoa. At least, his last conversation while wearing pants.

Hyne, he missed pants.

"Well," Nida began, rubbing his hands around where Rinoa had choked him, "He never showed up on the train. We know he left Garden, but he never got to the train."

"Oh, Squally, where are you?" Rinoa's tears fell onto the pink dye on Squall's feathers, and soaked into the super glued bow on his head. The irony of this, I assure you, did not escape him.

- - -

Seifer, driving the rental car, spun a complete 180 and landed perfectly in the last parking place in the lot. "Damn, I'm good," he told himself with satisfaction.

"Stop showing off," Irvine scolded, stepping out of the neon yellow sports car Seifer just HAD to rent for the mission.

Squall didn't say anything, as he was currently trying to hold on to his lunch.

Suddenly, a cacophony (A/N: Five point vocab word. Means noise) of screaming girls reached his ears. Squall wasn't sure, but he thought he could make out, "Irvine! We LOVE you Irvine!"

Apparently, he was right. "Ladies, ladies," Irvine demurred, trying to fight his way through the crowd. "C'mon, I'm on a mission!"

But the rabid fan girls did not listen. If anything, they grew more demanding, and one girl even ripped off Irvine's hat.

"Noooo!" he yelled in anguish. "My hat!"

Seifer, fed up with waiting, started yelling obscenities at random fan girls mobbing Irvine as he attempted to clear them off.

With one mighty slash of Hyperion, the fan girls dodged, leaving Seifer with one clear path to where Irvine lay broken on the floor. He ran quickly and tried to tug Irvine up, but to no avail.

"…can't…go on…without….my hat…" he rasped, "…just…leave me…behind…" Even as Seifer watched, Irvine seemed to grow weaker. "…can't…go on…speaking in….broken…sentences…much…longer…" And then he collapsed.

"I WILL AVENGE YOU!" Seifer cried to the heavens.

- - -

Selphie peeled a cucumber slice off her eye, and told Quistis, in the chair next to her, "As wonderful as this facial is, I can't help thinking something horrible is happening to Irvine."

"It's probably nothing," Rinoa reassured her, from the chair on the other side.

"You're right," Selphie agreed, and settled down to wait for her massage.

- - -

Seifer walked slowly into the Balamb supermarket. He looked around. There sure was a lot to buy, and many women were clamoring to get in the long lines to check out. Most of them resembled Zell's mother. A rather obscene joke came into Seifer's mind about that, and he made a mental note to tell the chicken-wuss later.

One lady walked past, pushing a metal grocery cart.

"Aha!" Seifer said, "I need a food basket-thingy."

He walked out to where the carts were stored in a concrete pen. There was a gate on the wall with directions for getting a cart. Directions that were conveniently covered by a random shrub.

Seifer pulled the handle of the cart. It did not move. Puzzled, he pulled again. And again. Finally, he whipped out his gun blade, and slashed away at the cart. "GIVE ME THE FOOD RECEPTICAL YOU CEMENT DEMON!" he shouted, earning himself the stares of many people.

- - -

Quistis was the next to open her eyes. "You guys don't think Seifer'll do something stupid, do you?"

The other girls found it hard to assuage her fears.

- - -

Squall, mortified for being seen with such idiots like Irvine and Seifer, wandered into the poultry section of the store, remembering that Rinoa enjoyed chocobo fillets very much. He felt very badly for forgetting their anniversary.

He walked right in, forgetting he was himself a chocobo.

A mad butcher was laying out his newest meats, when he saw Squall. "How did this one escape me?" he asked himself, before picking up his bloody knife and collaring Squall.

"Nooooooo! I'm not a chocobo, I'm a human! Don't kill me!" Squall pleaded, to no avail. The butcher raised his knife…

- - -

"You guys," Rinoa said, with sudden realization. "What if Squall was turned into a chocobo because of an unfortunate microwave accident? And I thought he was a real chocobo so I kept him as a pet? And Zell was trapped in the store room, so we thought it was haunted? And I just sent Squall to the store and now some mad butcher is going to chop him up and feed him to someone?"

Quistis raised an eyebrow.

- - -

The mad butcher, whose name tag read, I kid you not, "Crazy Earl" held his knife high in the air and with one mighty swish, it crashed down.

Exactly in the spot Squall last was.

At the very last second, Squall flapped his pink tipped wings, and he flew for about thirteen seconds, breaking the record for longest recorded chocobo flight, just out of harm's way.

- - -

Irvine, lying helpless and hatless on the ground, stayed perfectly still. The rabid fan girls dancing around him got tired of waiting for him to regain consciousness and left, taking his hat with them. He mustered the strength to sit up, and took in the chaos around him.

From his vantage point in front of the supermarket, Irvine could see people running in terror from Seifer. Seifer, it appeared, had a minor disagreement with the cart holder. He was screaming something about concrete demons and way too many curses to mention in a "T" rated story. The cart holder seemed to recognize the attack, and was shooting carts at Seifer, who was too wrathful to take a cart and go. Looking in the window to the grocery store, Irvine saw a black chocobo with pink feathers and a pink bow on it's head being chased by a butcher with a eerily sharp and bloody knife.

He sighed. "Time for some damage control."

- - -

A half an hour later, Irvine, Seifer, and Squall trudged wearily towards the parked sports car.

"Man, it's lucky you knew that butcher," Seifer said.

Irvine shrugged. "He owes me a favor."

"Why?"

Irvine declined to comment.

"Oh, man!" he shouted instead, "We forgot the food!"

The two men and the chocobo dashed back in the store and gazed around, confused and panicked. "What should we get?" Seifer asked.

Irvine, wide eyed at seeing all the different brand names stuttered, "I think Selphie mentioned chocobo soup. Let's get that."

- - -

Seifer, Irvine, and Squall walked triumphantly through the halls of Balamb Garden. The sun behind them just made their aura tangible. Oh yes, they were damn proud.

Until, of course, Quistis appeared right in front of them.

"You. Are. So. Dead," she spat out through clenched teeth.

"But, Quistis," Seifer said, trying to calm down the furious instructor, "We got soup!"

Quistis just exploded. Throwing the many cans at the men she shouted, "WE HAVE NO FRICKIN' CAN OPENER YOU BLOODY IMBECILES!"

Unfortunately, Quistis had very good aim. Squall, Seifer, and Irvine went to bed that night with a great deal of can-shaped bruises.

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Author's Note: -wearing Irvine's hat- Yes, I am the fan girl that stole Irvine's hat. AND I'M NOT SORRY! Anyways, moving on, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry to stereotype guys in that they can't shop. So, in order to stop all lawsuits, I just wanted to say that if any of you guys out there know how to shop well, I am sorry. And if you don't like that, then sue me. Actually, don't. I don't have any money. So, um yeah. Review!