Authors Notes: Hey all! After reading some of your reviews several times over the past year or so, I decided that maybe I should be nice and write another chapter to my story. Originally I just wanted to keep it a one-chapter story, for the fear that if I wrote another one… it wouldn't be as good as the first. I have a habit of doing that, I get excited about a chapter, I write it, then suddenly I lose the knack and the next one doesn't turn out so good… But I tried again, and if this one isn't as good as the first, don't remember this story for this chapter! Remember it for the first! And don't make me cry in the reviews… Hope you enjoy!

Welcome to your local Balamb Super Center! Where the associates are unbelievably busy, and the customers are even ruder. Have a nice day!

It's been about a year since Squall's last recorded rendezvous with the local Balamb Wal-Mart. Many things have changed over the past year, for better or for worse. Many of our favorite characters have moved to different positions; Zell became a member of the Inventory Control Team, Rinoa became Department Manager of Jewelry, Seifer, Raijin and Fujin became Tire and Lube Express Technicians, and Selphie became a sales associate in Pets. While some characters didn't change; Quistis remained a Customer Service Manager, and Irvine remained working in Sporting Goods.

Squall, however, was thrown hap hazardously into the Snack Bar, which he was thankful for at first, not being on the register improved his mood a great deal, but now he wasn't so sure.

Balamb Wal-Mart had upgraded to a Super Center no more than three months ago, but still the associates scrambled every which way, not exactly knowing what to do, or where everything was. But for the enormous size and lack of help, the Balamb associates were doing quite well.

Squall yawned as he walked through the automatic doors of the Balamb Wal-Mart, he entered through the grocery side doors, as he did every morning, passing his small corner of occupation; the Snack Bar.

A pleasantly plump woman with dirty blonde hair that was slightly graying, glasses, and very happy brown eyes smiled enthusiastically at him, waving so violently it made her front shake from side to side.

Wendy.

Squall gave her an unaccustomed half smile. He liked Wendy, as amazingly cheerful as she was, which totally contradicted his usual likeness of people. Which he really didn't like anyone. Not to say that he was a sour person, and that he's not capable of liking anyone, that wasn't true. He liked Rinoa for the longest time, and he held a certain strange respect for Head Manager Cid. But for the most part, everyone just got on his nerves.

He continued on past the smiling Wendy, and headed for the back. That in it's self took him about 5 minutes due to the sheer size of the store, despite his usual quick pace. He silently cursed the inefficiency of the store, two time clocks located in the back, but only about 100 feet from each other. He found this to be slightly ridiculous, in his personal opinion; there should be one in the front as well.

Sighing to himself, he pulled out his name badge, appropriately labeled "Squall" and slid it through the slot, awaiting his name to appear and his punch approved. Once getting confirmation that he was officially on the clock, he promptly turned on his heel and headed straight back to the front.

He entered the Snack Bar, frowning now as he saw the cotton candy display was running low. This of course meant he had to fill it. Which by no means has he ever enjoyed making cotton candy. EVER. He could never quite get the machine to work properly, for some strange reason the cotton candy never stayed in the giant metal bowl like it was supposed to. No, instead it went everywhere else; the pizza oven, the cookie oven, the floor, the ceiling, the carpet by the entrance to the store, and especially him. All of his white shirts were now permanently stained with the assorted colors of the cotton candy, and for the life of him could he manage to keep it out of his hair. No matter how carefully he stuffed his wild mess of brown hair into his hair net, there was always some defiant tendril that escaped and would therefore get completely coated with the fluffy treat. He hated cotton candy, hated it with a passion.

"Good morning Squall!" Wendy cheered, "It's a great day to make cotton candy!"

Squall groaned openly as he walked past, heading for the door to enter the kitchen area.

Upon habit and obvious requirement he grabbed one of the white hairnets that oddly resembled fabric softener, and shoved it on his head. No longer did he wear the blue vest that he wore before, instead he grabbed a blue apron from the stack, removed his black jacket, and put the apron on. He thought he looked ridiculous, and Seifer made it a point to make fun of him everyday, but there was no point in complaining about it. Plus Seifer is dumb.

"I know you hate making cotton candy," Wendy continued, walking up to him with apology written all over her face, "But it needs to be done, and neither Katie nor Mandy work today."

"Then it looks like I don't have much of a choice." He said as pleasantly as he could muster up, silently wishing that Co-Manager NORG would be hit by lighting for his love of the demonic sugary fluff.

Wendy patted him on the back and handed him a pair of clear gloves and a half-gallon carton of Flossugar to start with. He sighed again and headed for the cotton candy machine.

Everything started out ok, for once in this things sorry existence did it decide to work right for Squall. He was almost pleased with himself as he pulled cotton candy by big handfuls, and stuffing it into the plastic containers. He had gotten about twelve of them done when disaster struck. He had just pulled out another big handful, when suddenly the candy wouldn't stick to the sides of the bowl. One terrifyingly pink piece went flying up into the air, and Squall watched it with the utmost hatred. Watched it as it swirled in the air, caught by an unseen breeze and drifted about. He didn't want to take his eyes off of it; he watched it like hawk, ready to grab it if it came near him. Down and down it fell, closer and closer to him, he just had to figure out when to strike…

"AHH! For the love of SHIVA and all the GF's in the WORLD!" Squall bellowed out, in sheer agony. Wendy, hearing his out right curses came dashing over from washing dishes to see what was the matter.

She too yelled out, but in a panicked voice rather than hurt or angry. "What? What happened!"

"IFRIT, DIABLOS, CERBERUS, DOOOOOM TRAAAAAAIN!"

"WHAT! WHAAAAT!"

Squall turned around to face her holding his right eye, occasionally rubbing it. "It BURNS!"

Wendy looked at him seriously; at least until she figured out what had happened to him. Then of course, she burst out into a violent fit of laughter. "Did you get cotton candy in your eye?" she finally managed to get out after some gasps for air.

Squall frowned. Like it was REALLY that hard to believe. He continued to rub his eye, wincing at the pain.

Wendy's laughter finally died down, and she smiled at him, grabbing him by the arm, and shutting the cotton candy machine off in one swift movement. "Let's go take care of that you silly boy." And she led him over to the sink, where she instructed him to lean over so she could spray his eye out.

Squall poked at his blood shot and watering eye watching it closely in the mirror in the men's bathroom. He grunted, of all the dumbest things in the world he could have possibly done… Cotton candy in his eye, he just KNEW the stuff was the spawn of Satan, he just KNEW it.

The door to the men's bathroom opened and shut, and Squall watched Irvine's reflection as he entered. Irvine nodded to him casually, knowing better than to try to make courteous conversation with the lone wolf. That is, until he saw Squall's eye. "Whoa, Squall, what happened to your eye?" He asked, walking up to the sink next to Squall's.

"Nothing." Was Squall's monotonous reply.

"Looks like a little more than nothing to me." Irvine stated.

Squall glared at him. "I said it's nothing."

Irvine put his hands up in defense. "Okay, okay. It's nothing." And he went off to do his "business".

Sighing for the third time today, Squall left the restroom. Wendy had told him to go and get some frozen pretzels from the ice cream freezer on his way back from lunch, so Squall headed to the back room, on the grocery side, to get the pretzels. Upon seeing Zell's happy face, Squall wished he had chosen a different route.

"Squall! My man! Just in time to see my latest adventure ride! You can try it if you want to, but I wouldn't recommend it!" He started hopping from side to side, thrusting his fists out in a "manly" gesture.

"I have things to do." Squall stated and started to walk away.

"Okay, but you're gonna miss it, it's AWESOME!"

Squall had a hard time believing that anything Zell made could be considered "awesome", but Squall really didn't care. The sooner he got away from this accident-prone individual the closer he would be to safety. He entered the freezer and didn't even flinch at the below zero degree air, and quickly retrieved the box of frozen pretzels. He exited and started to head back toward the Snack Bar, when a load yell and a crashing sound caught his attention. He almost didn't want to find out, but he turned around anyway and headed for the receiving dock.

That's where he found the most interesting thing he's seen in a very long time. Stretching across the whole receiving area was the metal-wheeled line, but that wasn't anything new, that happened all the time. No, the interesting thing was that it was jacked up to a considerably high altitude by a walker-stacker to where it made a slide like shape. Squall cocked his eyebrow. He turned to find one of the shelves in the steal shrink rapped from one side to the other, or at least that's what he assumed it had been, the shrink rap was ripped now and fluttering slightly in the wind. Past that he found Zell, curled up in a little ball, covered in shrink rap and laundry detergent.

From what Squall could tell, Zell's "adventure ride" had been this. Zell must have climbed a ladder up to the top and slid down it, and must have been hoping the shrink rap in the steal would stop him. Obviously he didn't put enough there, because he flew through and hit the chemicals steal on the other side. Squall didn't know if he should be worried for Zell, laugh at Zell or just simply walk away. Watt and Zone were standing there obviously worried for Zell, Seifer, Raijin and Fujin were laughing, so Squall just walked away.

By the time he made it back to the Snack Bar, he heard Watt's unsure voice come over the intercom. "Code White to receiving… sir. Code White to receiving, sir."

It was a good hour until Squall had gotten news of Zell's condition. It was when he needed quarters and Quistis came over to deliver the silver coins.

"Did you hear what happened to Zell?" Quistis asked casually. Normally Squall would have just ignored her and taken the quarters. However, he wasn't in that crabby of a mood, so he replied.

"I was there when he did it."

"Really? Zell is such an idiot. But thankfully he wasn't hurt. A few bruises, and bumps, he's really wishing he hadn't done it, but he's fine. What really surprised me was that Head Manager Cid didn't punish him! I can see maybe if that was an accident, which it obviously wasn't, but it was dangerous and deliberate! I don't understand Cid."

Squall smiled to himself, in his mind of course. Head Manager Cid wouldn't get Zell into trouble, Cid really liked Zell, and in Squall's opinion Cid enjoyed Zell's stupidity. It gave Cid a sort of entertainment.

"It's none of my business." Squall finally states taking the roll of coins and ignoring any further comments from the blonde CSM. She rolled her eyes and left the Snack Bar.

Just then a customer came to his register. So far through out the day he had been lucky to not have to actually serve any of the customers. Wendy had taken care of that. But then again, which was worse; serving customers, or getting cotton candy in his eye. He would have to ponder on that one.

He signed on to the register and awaited the small awkward girl to make her order.

"I think I want a Nacho Chili Pie, but could you put the chili on the side please?"

Nodding Squall rung up the item of her choice, took her money and ran off to make her order.

Six chips placed around a Styrofoam bowl, crush the rest, one scoop of chili—on the side of course—and one scoop of cheese. Done.

He handed her the pie casually, after putting the two bowls on a tray.

"Thank you." And she walked off.

So far so good. A day never went by that some customer didn't yell at him for something. Wendy had always found it somewhat humorous to stand and watch him get yelled at for a while before jumping in to announce that she was the department manager, and then have them yell at her for a while.

One weekend a few weeks back was horrifying. Not an HOUR went past that someone didn't yell at him. But, he supposed, was all right. He wasn't the one at fault in all reality. They were just out of pretzels, however it was a little un-nerving to be cussed out by a Moomba in they're squeaky language.

Ten minutes went by when another girl came up, displeasure written all over her face, holding the Nacho Chili Pie with the chili on the side. Squall was somewhat confused. He remembered selling the pie to a small girl, this one was much bigger and seemed to have an aura of not-so-righteous-anger-look about her not very pretty face.

"I want another one." She stated simply, tossing the pie on the counter.

"What's wrong with it?" Squall asked, he found that people responded better to this question than "So?"

"My chips are crushed." She stated arching her back and bobbing her head.

Again, Squall was confused. The chips were supposed to be crushed. That was a Nacho Chili Pie. He decided to state so. "You, or your friend rather, ordered a Nacho Chili Pie. That's what you got."

"Yeah, but I didn't want my chips crushed. What the hell you guys crush the chips for anyway?"

Squall shrugged. "Some people like it that way."

The woman rolled her eyes. "Yeah well some people are dumb, and I guess you guys here at Wal-Mart are too."

Squall was just a tad offended by that, he just worked here, he wasn't "one of the Wal-Mart guys" he wasn't an executive or anything, he was a peon. Therefore there was really no use in yelling at him, like he could do anything about it.

"I'm sorry for your displeasure with the company, but there is no need to call anyone names." Squall had immediately wished that he hadn't said that as the woman picked up the pie and chucked it at Squall. It hit him on the chest and crashed to the floor. He looked down at the cheese smeared on his apron. Good thing he was wearing one.

"I want another one!" The woman yelled.

Squall untied the back of his apron and began to slip it off over his head. "Ma'am, I'm not allowed to give you another one, unless something is wrong, like a fly is in it, or it wasn't cooked all the way."

"Well, now there is something wrong with it, it's all over you, how am I supposed to eat it now?" The woman stated smugly.

He looked at her for a moment then shrugged. "I don't think that random displays of anger management problems count. What you do with your order after transaction and preparation is up to you. I'm not liable for your personal decisions. It's like you coming up to me demanding another one when you've already eaten it." He paused to take in her look of pure rage. "You decide what to do with it, and just because you decided to hurl your food at me doesn't make me responsible. It was your choice, your food."

This statement of course just made her seething mad and she stomped off, probably to find a manager, but he didn't really care.

Well so much for "so far so good"…

No more than an hour later, Selphie came running up, desperation written all over her small, usually pleasant face. For once Squall was actually alarmed. She looked as if someone had died.

"Squall!" She wailed, and ran up to the counter.

"What's wrong?" He asked, looking her over for injuries.

"It's Irvine! He's dead!" She flung herself onto the counter, so upset that she kept her hands cupped together, he guessed as a type of prayer.

"What!" Squall was really alarmed. If someone could manage to kill the dumb cowboy then who's to stop them from killing more people?

She looked up at him pleadingly. "You have a few life spells, don't you?"

Squall gave her a sympathetic look. "Selphie," he stated softly, "You know I can't bring someone back from the dead. Life spells only bring people back from unconsciousness."

"But Irvine is so small! It would surely work on him!"

Irvine? Small? Since when? Irvine is six inches taller than Squall. By no means was he small…

Squall suddenly got a stern look on his face. "Selphie…"

She put her head down and opened her cupped hands, there sat a dead fish, brown and orange in spots and had surprisingly green eyes. No wonder she named this one Irvine. "Please?" She begged.

Squall shook his head. "I'm not wasting a life spell on a fish. Named Irvine or not."

Her eyes began to well up, so Squall tried to keep her occupied with conversation. "What happened to him?"

Suddenly, she got very shy, her cheeks flushed and she pulled this fish up to her face lovingly. "I went to break with the real Irvine, and he said something that made me angry… So when I got back to work, I accidentally took out my anger on little Irvine."

Selphie is one scary woman when she's pissed. So this act of murderous rage didn't surprise Squall one bit.

"The only thing you can do is learn from this incident, Selphie. And try not to kill the REAL Irvine." He stated simply.

She nodded, sniffed, and said. "Oh boy, little Rinoa's gonna have a fit. She really liked little Irvine."

Squall shuddered.

Squall looked down at his watch. It was almost 5 p.m. almost time for him to go home. Wendy had left around 3 p.m. and Karen couldn't come in until 5 p.m. So as soon as she got here, he was gone, you really can only stand this place for 9 hours a day. Management—who stay for up to 14 hours at a time—were nuts, but then again they get paid a whole lot more, so in the end it was all good.

He looked up, and there was Karen. Hmm, she was a little bit early. Like it mattered, so she's here early, that means he can leave early.

Karen was a large woman, much like Wendy, only much taller and had a look about her that made you afraid of her if you ever got on her bad side. Luckily for Squall he never got on her bad side, it was usually the other way around. Karen liked to hit on Squall, and that bugged the hell out of him.

"Hey hot stuff." Karen greeted. Squall winced. "Has it been busy?" She walked past the counter and headed for the kitchen door. Squall went to meet her.

"Not really, but people are being pissy as usual." Squall stated. Karen laughed. He pulled off his hair net, untied his apron, and felt his butt being pinched. His face flared red, and he spun around.

Karen winked at him, tossed him his coat and all but threw him out of the kitchen door, slamming it in his face before he could even so much as get a word in edgewise. He glared at the older woman through the little rectangle window, but she paid him no mind.

That was the first time she had actually made physical contact with him. It made his skin crawl. But this whole day had been extremely weird, so why not have a freaky older woman grab your butt? It was better than an old creepy man. And with that thought, he headed to the back to clock out.

As he headed out the automatic doors towards his car, he heard a scream. More out of curiosity than alarm, he looked about the parking lot to find the source.

"Fujin! That's just funny, ya know!" Raijin. Squall looked for the large black man. He found him, as he turned the corner of the store, running like a bat out of hell, panic on his face. This of course intrigued Squall, so he continued to watch the TLE technician as he ran towards him. Hot on his tail was Fujin, in the drivers seat of the forklift, which had a pallet of car batteries on it, and she had a wicked grin on her face.

"ROAD-KILL." He could hear her say.

"Road-kill, ya know!" Came Raijin's squeak of horror.

Seifer soon rounded the corner, laughing almost too hard to run. "Get'em Fuj! Take him out!"

Raijin finally passed Squall, and he watched him and Fujin round the other corner of the store, towards the back parking lot. He shook his head, and headed for his car.

Yes, and extremely weird day indeed.

Author's Notes: Welp that's it. XD I hope this one turned out ok, and I tried to make a better ending than the one I had for the first chapter. Sorry it took me so long, I've been a little off with writing recently. (Like 2 years rofl.) I hope you enjoyed them, it's been a pleasure writing them. v