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It’s closing time and Aranea is thankful that the store is empty. She doesn't want to be left standing awkwardly behind the counter, glaring at some slow piece of shit as they pick out their midnight snack, holding her up in the fresh hell that is her aching feet. She finishes sorting out the messed up products in aisle three and pulls off her cap, letting her hair fall down around her shoulders with a sigh. She walks up to the door and is about to flip the sign over to "CLOSED" when she notices three beaming faces on the other side of the glass door.
She peeks past the sign and grimaces as she recognises the blonds.
She flips the sign and locks the door.
"Oh come on Aranea!!" Loqi whines, hands sticking to the glass and dragging down in a long, tormenting squeak of dry skin on what was clean glass.
"Aranea! Please open up, it's cold!" Prompto whines, rubbing at his bare arms, gaze flicking out to the darkness of the street behind him as a car passes by.
"Aranea!! We won't hold you up! Please!" Luna cries, shivering as she pulls her thick, knitted scarf tighter around her neck.
"We're nothing without you!!!" Loqi declares dramatically in a strangled voice, sliding down the door and collapsing onto the ground.
Aranea sighs and unlocks the door, the three intruders taking barely a second to get inside. Prompto immediately gravitates towards the heater and sighs happily in relief as Luna joins him, holding out her hands to the heater (which was just about the only part of her uncovered apart from her face...she looked like a freaking marshmallow). Loqi walks up to Aranea and the pair share a fist bump before the dirty blond spreads his hands out grandly and begins to make animated gestures, explaining why they were even there in the first place.
"Aranea, you amazing Highwind you, seeker of the Clouds and Storm-bringer of the East, we have a proposition for you-"
"You!" Prompto cries out indignantly, "You have a proposition for her! This was your evil plan after all you mad-man."
"Fine, you baby." Loqi grumbles before regaining the spark in his eye as the cheap, neon lights overhead hum with electricity, "Aranea. Three words for you."
"Okay." Aranea drags the word out uncertainly, looking over to Luna for some reassurance but the blonde just shrugs and discards her jacket on the stool behind the counter.
"Shopping. Trolley. Race." Loqi says, the words vibrating as the excitement builds up under his skin and he waits for her response. Aranea tilts her head and hums.
"I mean, I guess."
"You GUESS?!" Loqi just about shrieks and Aranea chuckles to herself.
"This is the best idea I've had all freaking day-"
"Oh here we go." Prompto groans, leaning against the counter as his legs warm by the heater. Luna elbows him in warning but the smile on her face betrays her reprimanding actions.
"-an idea of pure GENIUS, one might say!"
"Okay, chill out fluffin." Aranea pats him on the shoulder and looks to Prompto and Luna, "You guys in?"
"Why else would I be here?" Prompto asked and Aranea threw him a judging, quirked eyebrow that he retaliated with a cheeky smile. Luna only nods politely, tugging off her scarf and wrapping it around Prompto's neck which he accepts gratefully.
"YES!!!" Loqi cheers and runs over to the small supply of shopping trolleys Aranea's corner supermarket has in stock. She follows him at a leisurely pace and hears Prompto and Luna do the same.
"Okay, what are the teams?" Prompto asks.
"Me with fluffin over here, and you two." Aranea instructs them and the two nod, grabbing their own trolley as Loqi steers his chosen vehicle towards Aranea.
"Alright. Team names?"
"We're "Kweh'ck Ya Later'!" Prompto declares and Luna snorts, shaking her head as she helps her comrade clamber into the trolley.
"Nice nice. What are we?" Loqi asks Aranea and she pauses.
This is the most monumental decision of her entire life. She has to pick a name that will go down in the pages of history books all over world, one that drips with courage and strength but also must be as clever as her opponent's play on words. She must choose wisely, she must call on her ancestors and seek their guidance. What name would guide them to indisputable victory?
"Cart-thartic Chaos."
Loqi's smile stretches across his face and for a moment Aranea thinks his head is going to split in two.
"Genius."
"I know." She shrugs and hops into the cart.
"Wha-hey!" He cries out and she casts an impressive, Highwind branded bitch face at his disgruntled frown.
"Whose feet are aching from working all day?" He's silent for a moment before dropping the childish pout and pushing her to where Luna and Prompto wait patiently at the apparent starting line.
"Fair enough."
The two teams lined themselves up evenly at the starting line between cereals and rice crackers. They've trained for this moment. All their prior years of gaining knowledge and meditating under waterfalls has built up to this evening at 12:00am on a Friday at the local Moogle Mart. Cart-thartic Chaos side-eyes their opponents who wipe their noses and readjust their hair. They're trying to reduce the wind resistance. Smart. Clever. But they will never be able to catch up to the inside knowledge that Cart-thartic Chaos has on the Moogle Mart. The member inside the vehicle having just recently cleaned aisle four and the member steering having worked at this same Moogle Mart two months before. They were the true Dark Horse.
"You ready to get your asses handed to you?" Prompto grins smugly.
"Look in a mirror shortcake." Aranea smirks.
"ON YOUR MARK!" Loqi calls out. Feet are placed on the ground, poised and ready to sprint off down the aisle.
"GET SET!" Prompto glances at Aranea who calmly pops a piece of chewing gum in her mouth, the very image of intimidation.
"GO!!"
The two teams begin with a mad dash, Cart-thartic Chaos comes up along the inside lane but Kweh'ck Ya Later cleverly creates a diversion, snatching a box of two-minute noodles off the shelf and throwing them at the other team with practised aim. The distraction buys them a moment of precious time. They step into the lead, rounding the corner with a victorious whoop that set a raging fire underneath Cart-thartic Chaos' skin. They pick up the pace, chasing after the other team at a violent speed, managing to swing past them as they dash through lanes only to come into aisle four and it's here that they make it. It's here that they win. When historians look back on aisle four they will viciously debate its importance to the race but the truth is that without aisle four, Cart-thartic Chaos would be nothing.
The teams valiantly start on aisle four but only Cart-thartic Chaos knows that the floor had recently been cleaned, making it treacherous territory to cross without this inside knowledge. Cart-thartic Chaos expertly avoids the wet patches thanks to its keen guidance from the masterful and forever incredible, Aranea Highwind, however Kweh'ck Ya Later slips dangerously into the first puddle and fails to recover, instead spiralling out of control and crashing into the chip stand. The various coloured packets flying, some bursting open under impact and thankfully cushioning the blow with salty kindness.
"Shit." Loqi breathed as he forced the trolley's momentum to a stop.
He abandons Aranea and dashes over to where Prompto and Luna's corpses lay under the unhealthy rubble. He looks back to Aranea who frowns, concerned. He's about to try kicking one of the bodies when Prompto groans.
"Fuuuuccckkkkk that hurt."
Loqi snorts.
"You guys completely wiped out." He comments and Luna flips him the bird.
"You cheated, you sabotaged the map." She protested weakly as Loqi crouched down next to her, pursing his lips playfully as he poked her cheek. She rolled over and glared at him.
"No need to be so salty 'cause you lost, buttercup."
"One, stop with the puns, and two," Luna grumbled as she batted his hand away, managing to pull herself into an upright sitting position, "never call me 'buttercup' ever again."
"Deal."
"You guys okay?" Aranea called out, voice only borderline worried and Prompto waved a hand from underneath the piles of chip packets that covered him.
"Oh I'm swell Aranea, in fact, one might even say I'm revelling in this carbonated goodness that is currently drowning me, head to toe, in deliciously salty and crispy crunchiness."
"Good, 'cause you're paying for them."
Prompto groaned, dragging his hands down his face in anguish as Luna giggled next to him. Loqi reached out and snatched one of the packets that had burst open under the impact of the crash, digging into the chicken flavoured chips as Aranea sunk into the trolley, legs hanging over the end and groaning.
She'd just cleaned that aisle up too.