fandomtownies | Chilly Boulder, Monday After Classes

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Chilly Boulder, Monday After Classes

Zack certainly couldn't complain about today! There had been swordfighting and digging in the snow in class and it was entirely possible that he was going to have to work on at least pretending to be cold when it resembled an icebox outside. He felt kind of weird being the only one in short sleeves in the terrain class. But hey, that was life, right?

And now it was raining, but he could handle navigating a little more weather, especially for ice cream with a cute bond girl who blushed easily!

"It's never too cold for ice cream," he decided, grinning at her. The bouncing would probably take care of the chill, right? "What do you want, Dinah?"

[For the other bouncy one, but open for anyone who might want rainy day ice cream, of course!]

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"Rocky Road," not Rocky Toad, thanks Tony, "in a sugar cone!" Dinah beamed at him. "So how did your sparring with Arthur go?"

Zack grinned. That sounded good, actually!

"I need work," he replied, shrugging lightly. "But that's nothing I didn't know before. Angeal, my teacher back in Midgar, keeps telling me all the time that I have to learn how to focus."

This would probably come as a surprise to nobody, really. And they were going to have sugar?

"Two Rocky Roads in sugar cones," he told the person behind the counter. "With sprinkles."

Because everything was better with sprinkles.

"Ooo, sprinkles," Dinah said, bouncing up on her toes, then being careful to say, "I could pay for my own, if you want? I know you just got here." She grinned and grabbed some napkins. "Yeah, Arthur's a good teacher." Even if occasionally a male chauvinist to define the term by. "You'll learn a lot from him. I have."

"I've got it, not a problem!" Zack was already plunking money down on the counter for the ice cream. He liked treating people! And it wasn't like he could afford it, considering he'd been working since before getting to Fandom. "You know, it's good having someone to clash swords with around here. I was worried when they sent me to school that I was going to get rusty, especially without Angeal around. Doesn't look like it's going to be so bad, after all!"

He'd fought Deadpool. This place was awesome.

"What's Angeal like?" Dinah asked, curious, then beaming at him as he picked up the tab. "Thank you! And why did you get sent here, if you're already in the military back on Gaia?"

"Oh, Angeal's great! He's serious and down to business and he really knows what he's doing. Makes perfect sense that he's a 1st Class, you know? And he's patient, too, which is good. And he's always got something to say about dreams and honor at just the right moment, when you're ready to give up."

Yeah, Zack kind of hero-worshipped Angeal. A lot.

"I still have a lot of learning to do in other things, too," Zack shared, pocketing his change and then reaching for the cones as the clerk finished up with them. "I mean, I'm still young. I don't have much school behind me. ShinRa likes having well-rounded SOLDIERs, you know?"

He grinned and handed her one of the cones.

"So he's like your patrol leader, or teacher? He sounds pretty awesome," Dinah checked, grinning and doing a little happy dance when he handed over the cone. "Yaaay, ice cream! And what kind of school stuff do they want you to learn?"

"He's like both, I guess," Zack replied, munching thoughtfully at the sprinkles on his cone. "I go on missions with him, too. On the field, I take my orders directly from him, you know?"

And then he was laughing lightly. "If you ask Angeal, I'm here to learn about dreams and honor. That's the most I got out of anybody before I sent here. I was just told that they want me to expand my horizons, or something like that. So I'm kind of just taking whatever, until I find my groove around here. Or whatever looks handy."

Like TeeVee! Totally handy!

Dinah licked the Rocky Road, thinking, then said, "I can see that. Maybe they just think stuff will come up here, with the invasions and all, and the magic, that'll give you new ideas?" Another lick, mmm. "I'm here for the fighting, and the psychic training. Oh, and teamwork, although I'm not supposed to know about that."

"Not supposed to know about teamwork? Why not?"

The psychic stuff, she'd mentioned. And the fighting was something he'd kind of gathered by seeing her around at places like Fight Club and so on. But why would anyone be not supposed to handle teamwork?

It was important!

"No, no, not supposed to know I'm sent here to handle teamwork, 'cause it's kind of insulting to my partner back home. Who, well, she kinda sucks at it," Dinah admitted. "They didn't want me picking up all her habits. So, send me to high school with other kids I have to behave with, so I don't go all lone-maverick-save-the-world, and at least one of us will have social skills." Dinah shrugged, making her eyes wide. "Whatcha gonna do."

Ooooooh. Okay!

"Well, that's good to hear, then. I don't think I can imagine you not knowing how to get along with other people. I mean, you're so... Friendly!"

She was!

"And you have great taste in ice cream," Zack added. Because this stuff was goooooood.

"Thanks!" Dinah grinned at him, and took a big slurp of her ice cream cone, nibbling at the edges. "I love this place. Merlin and Tony and I come here off and on to catch up on what we're doing and discuss conspiracy theories." She turned to bounce over to one of the tables near the window, and held a chair out for him with a grin. "Have a seat!"

Aww, she was such a gentle... woman! Zack laughed and made his way over to take that seat.

"Thanks, Dinah!" And into the seat his butt went, and there he was, wiggling a little as he worked on his ice cream cone. "Conspiracy theories, huh? Like aliens and ghosts and how the government is supposedly out to get us all in our sleep?"

"Uh-hunh! Or the squirrels' private lives, or what the Island is really doing with all these invasions, and do any of the teachers know about it?" Dinah sat down, trying to look significant and mysterious. Mostly ending up at dork. The ice cream licking didn't help.

Zack decided then and there that Dinah had to be just about the most mysterious dork he'd ever met!

"And if the teachers do know about it, are they doing anything about it, or are they in cahoots with the island in the first place?"

"See? See?" Dinah demanded, waving a napkin at him. That sugar might be hitting her now. "Although I don't think it's Tyler or Professor Atreides. They had to do a drug lecture with Tyler dressed up as a purple dinosaur. I just can't believe they'd be in on it." Zack was so cool for getting this already.

"Any teacher that gets stuck in a purple dinosaur costume for the sake of a drug lecture has got to have done something to make the other teachers want him out of the picture," Zack laughed. "There's no other explanation for something like that. I say they stood up against the- uh- against the establishment, and now the other teachers are trying to run them off the island!"

Oh yeah. He was totally catching on to this conspiracy theory thing!

"YES!" Dinah wolfed down another couple bites while she tried to think of the next thing, then said in one breath, "Mr. Deadpool said Canada is going to invade and he's going to make the moose in the office secretary of the treasury and while I don't know that he was actually serious I can see him taking advantage of some weird thing he knows about to laugh at the rest of us!"

"That wouldn't surprise me at all," Zack said, blinking. "He started taking his shirt off in his office the other day."

Totally not a conspiracy theory. But really, Zack had to share, because it was really really weird.

"That's a Canada thing too, right?"

"...whaaat?"

Oh look, Zack. Anime' Dinah is appalled.

Zack was really, really good at breaking brains, sometimes. It was a rare talent, wasn't it?

"Yep! I was in there showing him some of the potions and stuff that Angeal sent me from Midgar, and I fumbled one of my elixirs and it emptied into his coffee. And then, when I explained to him what elixirs do, he pulled off his mask and then his shirt and started going on about how he looks like some kid, or something."

A beat. A pause for consideration.

"Maybe he had some kind of reaction to the elixir."

"Whoa, yeah, I'd say so," Dinah said, blinking and then slowly licking her cone again as she thought. "Maybe it made him crazy? Or think he was someone else? A student?" Hmmmm! "What do elixirs do?"

Even the brain-breaky image of Mr. Deadpool stripping was no match for the Power of Sugar.

"Oh, they're awesome! They heal, like, everything. Poison, mortal injuries, curses, depleted magic..." There was a list of things that elixirs could do.

It was a very long list.

"Between you and me, I think he was already a tiny bit crazy before he drank the elixir. He was talking about ham coffee, and stuff."

"Wow. Wow, that sounds way more impressive than the potions I got from Rikku for healing stuff. And well, yeah, Mr. Deadpool always sounds a little crazy. Or a little genius. I can't decide which, um..." She turned red. "He didn't want you to take off your shirt, right?"

Which, she totally was sure Zack would've mentioned that. Mostly.

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