With both children Berserked, the group was able to maintain a breakneck speed for most of the afternoon. Squall was satisfied – just – with their progress. Nida was concerned that they would exhaust their tiny energy stores, and drop dead. For some reason he found it necessary to share this concern with his companion.

"That doesn't seem likely," Squall comforted Nida.

"It's possible, Squall," Nida replied, "They're just children. We've covered 28 kilometres in two and a half hours."

It was ok progress. Seifer probably couldn't match it, especially if he and Dincht continued to use all their energy and oxygen on fighting each other. If the children needed a few hours of rest in order to recuperate, so they could match this pace the next day, it would probably be acceptable. Squall considered how best to convey his thoughts to Nida, eventually settling on, "Whatever."

Nida quickly released an Esuna to little Billie, who immediately collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath. Eli slumped beside her a moment later.

Squall didn't even attempt to disguise his disgust. Feeling weakness was one thing. Showing it was another. There were a lot of things he could teach these kids, and maybe would if he weren't withstanding this stupid activity just to get a few more credits on his SeeD application.

"They need a tent, Squall," Nida told him. "We've covered nearly two thirds of the trek, no one else could have moved this quickly."

Squall could only pray that Nida was right. If Seifer was ahead of them, and reached base ahead of them, he would never live it down. After another long silence where Squall gathered his thoughts, he nodded his assent. "Fine."

They pitched their tents. Once the upperclassmen were done, Nida helped the fatigued children with theirs. The kids immediately entered their tents and fell asleep. Squall decided to use the time to hunt. Nida offered multiple times to accompany him, even setting off behind him twice, until Squall eventually had to zip him into his tent, and run.

After slaying 18 bite bugs and 12 caterchipillars, Squall finally hit the jackpot. He was returning to camp, dragging his quarry, when he heard the voices of his teammates.

"What is it, though?" The girl was asking.

"It's flatbread," Nida explained, "I made it using just a few items in my pack, and some ingredients from the forest around us!"

"I think it's burned," the boy said dubiously.

"A little on the edges," Nida admitted, "But we can eat around that."

"To where?" The girl demanded, "Those bits are raw. Look how gooey it is!"

"Look, children," Nida snapped, sounding a little testy, "It's edible. It will keep us all going. In a survival situation, where it's life or death, it doesn't pay to be picky."

It was at that moment that Squall broke into the circle, dragging the leg of the T-Rexaur he'd just slain.

They cooked and ate the giant leg. Nida scooped his up with his horrifying bread, which the others all turned down. Once they were finished Squall took the remains away from camp, rather than risk attracting other monsters. On the way there and back he took down probably more bite bugs than he needed to, but as long as he was out here he might as well level up; Forces knew he wasn't going to pick up the "values" instructor Trepe was still trying to hammer in.

When he finally returned, the kids ran to him, worried. "Squall, Squall, Nida's sick!" they told him.

Nida was curled up in the middle of the campsite, holding his abdomen.

"What's the matter with you?" He mixed just the right amount of irritation and concern, to let Nida know that he was being a burden, but also to comfort him.

Nida didn't seem to pick up the comforting aspect of Squall's words, just groaned. "I don't feel well. It must have been the T-Rexaur."

"We all ate the T-Rexaur," the girl informed him.

"Yeah, it was probably your bread," the boy said.

"N-No," Nida shook his head, "It was definitely the T-Rexaur. Definitely."

"The bread looked-" the girl started, but Nida cut him off.

"It doesn't matter. Squall, I'm going to have to take a potion and go to bed. Will you be able to look after the children by yourself, just until the morning?"

Squall frowned. He was one of the top SeeD candidates, he'd taken a T-Rexaur down twenty minutes ago, and had camped in this forest countless times. Besides that, he felt that he and children had developed a rapport, that little… Boy, and Girl, may have started to look up to him as a hero. How hard could it be? He'd get them through the night, and what's more he would have them ready and inspired to set off at the break of dawn the next day. He let Nida know all of these things, expressing his competence, his experience, his confidence – and a little bit of hurt:

"… Whatever."

0o0o0o0o0

Further from base, moving at a speed more manageable by 9-year-olds, Seifer was rethinking things. He had assumed that the boy would naturally be the superior of the little annoyances, being a boy. But the kid had proven himself useful only for spewing an endless stream of noise, much like someone else on the team, whereas the girl had noted a hidden nest of level 20 bitebugs and allowed them to navigate around them, found a nest of delicious fastitocalon eggs by a creek, and stopped Zell from eating poisonous berries six times. The last point Seifer was not particularly grateful for, but he had to admit the kid had a brain.

Unfortunately, for some godforsaken reason she wasn't using it, and was sucking up to Zell instead of grovelling to the obviously superior SeeD candidate of the group.

As it got darker, the children began to slow. The boy had obviously been trying to cover his fatigue from Seifer, since the upperclassman had seen him wince slightly with every step, and he kept dropping back until Seifer shot him a suspicious glance or feigned interest in one of his stupid stories. Up ahead the girl seemed to easily match Zell's pace, chatting to him intermittently through the day but also remaining blissfully silent much of the time. Seifer couldn't help feeling, yet again, that he'd gotten the raw end of the deal.

Several times as the day wore on Seifer saw the girl glance back at Robbie, who was now clearly dragging behind. Finally, she tugged on Zell's arm.

"I'm getting kind of tired," she told him, "Do you think we could stop soon?"

Zell, too, looked back. Robbie was at least ten paces behind, scuffing his feet as he walked. Zell's eyes briefly met Seifer's before he turned to agree with the girl. Seifer's sense of injustice deepened.

They pitched their tents. Seifer's was almost up, well before the others', when Robbie stumbled over – tripping on one of Seifer's pegs and collapsing half the tent – asking for help. Seifer noted that the kid's tent was a mess of fabric, with poles jutting out at random angles. Pegs were scattered all over the ground.

With a grunt of frustration, Seifer barged past the kid, to where Zell and the girl were quietly, competently assembling their own dwellings.

"A word, chicken-wuss," he grunted, storming past the martial-artist into the forest, presuming his team-mate would follow.

After a few moments, there was the crunch of twigs and dry leaves underfoot as Zell appeared, quizzical and wary. He said nothing, waiting for Seifer to start.

"Ok, Cry-baby, we can both see this isn't going to work," he lead.

Zell frowned. "It's been three hours since you last acted like a stupid jerk to me. That's longer than you ever usually go, even at Garden."

Seifer couldn't deny that it had been an unusually long time without the two of them fighting, but he didn't let it stop him. "Yeah yeah, whatever. I think the best way for us to win this competition-"

"It's not a competition," Zell interjected, but Seifer had a policy of ignoring stupid comments.

"- is to split up. Take a kid each."

Zell stared at him, dumbfounded. The chicken-wuss didn't have many thoughts at the best of times, clearly this elaborately thought-out plan was too much for him.

"Ok," Zell finally responded. "Not that the idea of getting the hell away from you for the rest of the trip doesn't sound good, but… we're meant to show teamwork. How does that show teamwork?"

"Uh, it shows that we can think on our feet, make sacrifices where we have to and come up with a mutually beneficial plan. Chicken-wuss, even if we did make it over that finish line together, in last place obviously, they would know that something is up. Hell, they probably put us together so that we would fight to the death, and I would put you out of the endless misery that is your pitiful existence, and they wouldn't have to deal with you clogging up the hallways anymore, punching walls and rambling nonsense around a mouth full of hotdog-"

"OK FINE WE'LL DO YOUR STUPID PLAN!" Zell interjected, "Just SHUT YOUR BIG, JERKHEAD MOUTH-"

"Good choice," Seifer smiled, "The other thing is I call the girl."

"No." Zell told him immediately, "I'm with Xanthe. She likes me better and besides, that boy worships you."

"Exactly," Seifer replied, "I think it will demonstrate all those values, you know. Learning, responsibility. If we swap them and we all get out of our comfort zones."

Zell didn't look convinced.

"Or we could fight for it." Seifer was well known for initiating "practice battles," and fights to settle stupid bets that spiralled horribly out of control. He was still looking for an opportunity to goad Squall into one away from the eyes of Garden, and then he was going to "accidentally" blind him. That was a long-term plan, one that was still far off. But he figured he could use basically the same approach to settle this strategy. And he was right.

Zell twitched with rage, trying to hold himself back from hitting Seifer with those ham-fists of his. Seifer could see his eyes jumping between Hyperion, Seifer's face, the trees and the children behind them. The tiny little cogs Dincht called a brain must be going into overdrive.

"No," the chicken-wuss finally squeaked out, "It's fine. Fine, Seifer, you can have Xanthe because even with both your brains combined, there'll only be one on your team. I can take you even with a kid stupid enough to think you're a hero, we WILL beat you back, and when we get there-"

"Alright, settled." Seifer cut him off chirpily. He turned his back on the raging Zell, returning to the clearing. The girl had her tent assembled, and a fire crackling cosily. The boy was now trapped inside his canvas monstrosity, his leg tangled in a bunch of ropes and his feeble cries unanswered. Well, that was Zell's problem now. Seifer planted himself across from the girl, and filled her in on the change of plan.