Nida awoke to the sun glaring on his face again. He rolled over, tried to swing his legs off the edge of the bed, and ended up kicking the wall instead. A second later that he remembered that he'd moved into the single dorms last night, so his bed was on the other side of the room now.

It was too early in the day to be dealing with this. The faculty had meticulously transferred all of Nida's possessions from his old room, which was convenient if a little creepy, but the layout was just different enough that he still had to hunt around to find anything.

He changed into his usual clothes, an olive-green hooded jacket and charcoal-colored cargo pants plus a gray utility vest, and decided to put off taking inventory of the room until the afternoon or sometime. Instead, he headed out to get breakfast.


"Yo, d'ya hear about the field exam?" asked one of the students at the next table over, raising his voice a bit louder than he needed to cut through the general cafeteria chatter.

"Yeah," said another. "I head Seifer basically did what he pleased, again."

"Again?" The first student shook his head. "He never learns…."

"I heard this time, he completely ignored all orders and went berserk," said a third.

"Oh, man. And Squall didn't even get to participate, right? 'Cause Seifer laid him out in a gunblade fight an' he couldn't go to the Fire Cavern?"

"Yeah. So it's kinda Seifer's fault that neither of them graduated this year."

Nida wasn't trying to listen in. He didn't even really want to. But they were sitting near enough, and talking loudly enough, that he couldn't really do anything about it. Except eat quickly.

"Man, I see why he never passes the field exam. He's well qualified to be a SeeD, though!"

The third student laughed. "You should talk! You never pass the written test!"

"And look who got cold feet during the field exam!" The first student was getting angry. "So why don't you just shut up!"

The second student tried to defuse the situation. "Now, now…Calm down, easy…"

It didn't work. "I'm better off than Mr. Paper Test Boy here! Try makin' it to the field exam, why don't ya!"

"When I'm the ruler of Garden, it'll be a capital offense to have a fight this stupid in public." Nida said it just loudly enough that the students might have heard him, if they'd been listening. "We'll have a tribunal of experts, and if you can't explain what your problem is, and why everyone needed to know about it, you're done."

The second student was looking at him a bit oddly. Nida realized that he probably should be keeping his own thoughts to himself, especially since complaining about students who'd failed the exam right after he'd become a SeeD wasn't exactly polite. He finished his breakfast, stood up, and left as though he hadn't said anything.

On his way out, Nida caught sight of Zell standing in the serving line, looking impatient. "Hi, Zell."

"Huh?" It took Zell a second to refocus his attention away from the food. "Oh, 'sup, man! Hey, d'you hear? We're getting our first SeeD mission! We're all s'posed to meet 'by the front gate.'"

Nida hadn't heard. "When?"

"Right away!" Zell said. He was holding up the serving line now, and people were starting to cut past him. "I'm heading over there as soon as I'm done here. I really want to try the hot dogs before we leave. Who knows when we're gonna get back, right?"

"…I guess." Nida was having trouble keeping up. He wasn't sure how long it usually was before SeeDs were sent on their first mission, but he hadn't expected it to happen his very first day.

"Oh, yeah! They said we we're going to 'Timber' on this mission. Isn't that cool?" Practically the entire line had bypassed Zell at this point. "I've heard tons of stories about the place, but I've never actually been. I guess being a SeeD really does let you see the world!"

Nida just nodded. "Guess I'll see you 'by the front gate,' then."

"Right on!" Zell turned back to the serving line, which had just gotten even longer, and started. "Wha…!?"

Nida headed out into the courtyard. The first day after the end of a term always had an especially laid-back energy to it; there weren't as many around than you'd see on a usual weekend, and the ones who were out already didn't really seem to have anywhere to be.

When he got back to the dorms, he picked up his weapons and set out for the entrance. He wondered at the last second if he should have changed into his uniform, but the glare of morning light shining off of Selphie's bright yellow overalls told him that he'd probably be fine.

"Heey!" she called, waving and bouncing up and down as soon as she spotted him. "Isn't this cool? Our first SeeD mission!"

Headmaster Cid was waiting nearby, along with one of the members of the faculty. "I wonder what's keeping Zell," he said. "How long until we're off schedule?"

The faculty member checked his timepiece. "One more minute."

As if on cue, Zell can sailing through the entrance on a blue-and-silver hoverboard, nearly sweeping Nida's legs out from under him as he brought it to a halt. "Made it!" he declared triumphantly.

Selphie giggled. Nida picked himself off the ground after jumping out of the way. Cid actually chuckled a little.

"T-Boards are prohibited within Garden," said the faculty member, glowering at Zell from under his giant hat. "Have you forgotten?"

Apparently, Zell had. "Oops!" he declared, laughing. "Sorry! But hey, it could come in handy on a SeeD mission someday! Y'know, like a Rapid Insertion Vehicle or something!"

Nida wasn't sure if he was joking or not. The faculty member didn't care. "We'll be the judges of that," he said, taking the board and turning to another faculty member who had appeared from somewhere. "Confiscate it."

The second faculty member took the T-board and stated walking back to Garden without a word. The first turned back to face them. "All of you are members of SeeD," he said, "but nevertheless, you're still students at this Garden. Furthermore, because you are SeeDs, you must set an example to all others and abide by the Garden's rules." He gave Zell what would certainly have been a very sharp glare, had his eyes been visible behind the brim of his large yellow hat. "Understood?"

No one said no, so he made a satisfied nod.

Headmaster Cid cleared his throat. "Well, about your first mission. You are to go to Timber. There, you will be supporting a resistance faction. That is your mission."

Nida blinked. He obviously knew about the Timber resistance, but he hadn't heard that any of them were still active. And Timber was occupied by Galbadia; sending SeeDs to help the resistance so soon after helping to fight the invasion of Dollet made him wonder if Garden and Galbadia were seriously at odds.

"A member of the faction will contact you at the Timber Station," Cid continued. Then the faculty member took over the explanation.

"This person will talk to you and say, 'the forests of Timber sure have changed,'" he said. "At this time, you must reply, 'But the owls are still around.' That is the password."

"Oooh," said Selphie. "So we're, like, secret agents?"

"Uh…." Zell was looking around. "Just us 3?"

"Correct," said the faculty member. We have agreed to do this mission for very little money. Normally, we would never accept such requests, but…."

This time, it was Cid who cut off the Faculty member. "Enough talk about that," he said. "Although you'll take your orders directly from the leaders of the faction, one of you will be named the squad leader." He paused, looking from Selphie, to Zell, to Nida. Then he turned to the faculty member. "Did we decide, ah…?"

The two of them had a quick, muttered conversation, and then Cid nodded. "…you, Nida," he said, turning back to face them. "Zell and Selphie, you are to support Nida and give your all to carry out the faction's plans. Everyone, do your best to make the mission a success."

As far as Nida could remember, this was the first time he'd been made the leader of anything. Even during Garden's leadership training courses, when everyone was supposed to get some time in charge of a team, his turn had never actually come up. The whole thing felt so unreal that he barely remembered to salute, and didn't think until later that he should have asked for more information about what sort of mission that lay ahead.


They had to buy their own tickets for the train, so there went most of Nida's first SeeD stipend. Then again, he hadn't been on the Balamb Rail since the first time he came to Garden, so stepping aboard the train was kind of exciting moment.

It seemed like the others agreed. "This train is awesome!" said Selphie.

"A transcontinental railroad, baby!" said Zell. "It even runs through an underwater tunnel to get to Timber. Pretty cool, huh?"

Nida nodded. "Won't be much of a view, though." The others ignored him, which he guessed was fine. Walking over to the door panel, he passed the key card through the reader.

"Confirming," announced the computer. "Access granted." The door slid open, permitting entry into the car; and Selphie immediately bounded past.

"I'm gonna go check out the front!" she announced as she skipped down the hall.

Zell went in as well. "Yeah, man, let's go!"

As Nida followed them into the hall, the train lurched a bit and the scenery outside the window started to move. He could see the station pull away, and soon the train started to rise around them as the train descended into the Undersea Tunnel.

Ahead of him, Zell had reached the door to their room. "Yo, check it out! Looks like this is SeeD's private cabin…!" He opened the door, stepped halfway inside, and then froze. "WHOA!" he exclaimed, charging forward. "OHHH YEAHHH! AWESOME!"

When he saw the room, Nida couldn't really blame him. It was ornate for a rail car, with comfortable-looking bunks that looked larger than Nida's bed in Garden and a large, well-cushioned couch that Zell was already bouncing on.

"Heh-heh, this is so cool! Man, they even have magazines here!" Zell toss Nida a copy of Pet Pals without even breaking his rhythm. "This is pretty damn amazing. It pays to be a member of SeeD!"

"…Yeah," said Nida, sitting down on the bunk.

After another moment, Zell decided that he'd bounced enough. "Hey, man, you know anything about Timber?" he asked, sounding eager.

Nida nodded. "Yeah. It was the biggest commercial center in the world before the Sorceress War, because just about every major rail line ran through there. It got annexed by Galbadia not too long after the end of the Sorceress War, and it's been under occupation ever since. There's been a lot of resistance, and the Galbadians ended up burning down most of Timber's forests because they said rebels were hiding out in them. A lot of people think it was just to punish Timber for resisting, though, because the forests were a big national symbol. Anti-Galbadian sentiment's always been really strong, but most of the resistance factions have been forced underground lately, so…." He noticed that Zell's expression had gotten kind of dazed. "Uh…what?"

Zell shook his head. "Never mind, man. …Hey, can I see that magazine again?"

Nida handed it to him.

A moment later, the doors opened and Selphie stumbled in. "I'm not…feeling well…," she said, swaying next to the couch.

"Uh, what's wrong?" Nida asked.

"I'm really sleepy…," Selphie said, her tone more that of an observation than a response. Then she tipped over, falling flat on the couch next to Zell and, apparently, falling asleep.

Zell barely reacted. He was shaking his head and looking around with a dazed expression of his own. "Hey…? Huh? What the…!?" He stood up, alarmed, but couldn't keep up the enthusiasm. "Somethin's wrong with me, too…I…feel…sleepy…."

And he collapsed to the floor, out cold.

Nida didn't think that his first day as a SeeD was off to a very good start.