Squall felt as if he'd been from hell and back, and the heat in the outside desert wasn't helping his fragile condition any. At least the prison was cooler. He remembered all of them being detained, and rather quickly by the perusing Galbadian army, then falling under a deep sleep spell they had cast over the group that wasn't already unconscious. Getting out of the prison was easier than he had thought, seeing as thought they beat all the odds of getting re-detained and racing out of there while the submerge system was going full blast. Even though he'd never admit it to them, Squall was so relieved to find his comrades pretty much unharmed. If they had undergone the torture that he'd somehow survived... well, he didn't really want to dwell on the possibilities of that.

Emotionally, he was still trying to get over a lot of things that he didn't have answers for. He half had a reason for Seifer's sudden interest in being the sorceress' lapdog; something about it being his so-called 'romantic' dream. But what kind of dream would make him do horrible things to the people he's known for almost all of his life? Squall knew that Seifer wasn't the most stable person the garden had to offer, but doing all of this was just out of control. Maybe this is why SeeDs are never meant to question anything. It causes too much thinking.

"Maybe you should let him go free, now. It was nice of you to help him escape from the prison with us, but... umm..." Quistis eyeballed Gina, who still had her moomba friend trailing along with her.

"No! Ravi stays with me."

"Ravi?"

"I named him. Isn't that right, Ravi?"

"R-r-r-ravi!"

The instructor bit her lip to keep from giggling, and stole a sideways glance at Squall. "Well, Squall... you're the leader. What do you think of the new addition to our group?"

Honestly, he didn't care any other way. He knew one thing though; if people kept calling him "leader", then he was sure that his head was going to implode. "Whatever. We have other things to worry about, like warning Balamb of a possible missile attack."

"Speak of the devil," Sharon mused, and everyone trained their eyes to the sky to see a stream of freshly fired missiles shoot through the sky towards their destination. "Someone up in that missile base must be more trigger happy than I am, and that's damn scary."

"Hey, weren't they gonna hit Trabia first?" Zell blurted out, then clapped his hand over his mouth and looked apologetically at Selphie, whose face paled at the news flash. Her head slowly sank downward in a muted shock, and she immediately began praying that the missiles wouldn't completely decimate her native garden.

Irvine stepped over and put a reassuring hand on the normally hyper girl's shoulder. "It's okay. Everything's gonna turn out alright, so don't worry." Then his facial expression took on a confused look. "All of this really doesn't make any sense. Just because we just happened to be SeeDs mixed up in all of this doesn't mean that the sorceress should blame every single Garden there is. It's not like we've been trained to defeat her since birth."

Gina and Sharon traded knowing glances at the irony of that statement. Oh, if only they knew. Well, they'll all find out soon enough.

Squall shook his head with a hand to his forehead, knowing that all of the inquiries mentioned had already raced through his mind. "Sitting here trying to figure out exactly what's going on is going to get us nowhere. Right now, the only thing we can do is report back to Headmaster Cid and try to prevent as many casualties as possible."

"We won't have causalities if we can stop the next missile launch!" Selphie spoke up, a determined look in her emerald eyes. "I say that three of us go to the missile base and blow it to smithereens!"

Quistis raised an eyebrow. "How do you plan to go about this? If you get caught, then you'll end up right back in the prison we just narrowly escaped from."

"Well, I got part of it planned out." Selphie pointed back to the yellow truck she previously rode in. "I noticed three Galbadian uniforms stashed away in the back when I got in. If we put those on, then we'll be able to get in no problem! Hopefully." She grinned sheepishly. "It should all come together after we get inside."

"When in doubt, blow shit up! I like that rationale." Sharon clasped her hands together. "So, Mr. Leonhart... who's going where?"

Squall blinked at the group incredulously. Why did everyone always seem to look to him for confirmation in everything? At this rate, he wasn't surprised if a couple of them ran up to him to ask if it was okay to use the bathroom or something. "If everything works out, then I guess it's worth it. Sharon, since you seem so empathic about 'blowing shit up', then I assign you to the missile base team."

"w00t! Can I drive? I'll get us there real quick!" She piped up, holding up a high five to Selphie who slapped it enthusiastically.

"Well, well, I can't have you ladies taking all of the fun, now can I?" Irvine winked, and turned his attention towards Squall. "If it's quite alright, then I volunteer myself to be the third person on the missile base group."

In Sharon's mind, the sound of glass breaking was palpable. "Aw, HELL naw! You can't do that!"

"I just did. Someone needs to watch over you ladies."

"If that's the goddamn case, then I would prefer it not be someone who thinks with his dick instead of his pea-brain!"

Zell clapped a hand over his mouth before he burst out in loud laughter. "There they go again. You sure you want them within three miles of each other? They might get their cover blown if they go in bickering."

Sharon whipped around. "Oh, we'll get the job done. Just don't be too surprised if Mr. Cowboy here accidentally on purpose gets locked in the base while the bombs go off."

Squall stifled another "whatever" that was ready to pass from his lips, and settled for an exasperated roll of the eyes instead. "Let's keep the behavior professional, so we can focus on getting everything done accordingly. Are we all ready to head out?"

As Quistis and Zell gave Squall a nod and headed for the blue vehicle, Gina ran over and huggled her best friend tightly. "Remember, make sure the error ratio for the missiles is set to maximum, and you go to the upload page directly afterwards to get the data into the system," she whispered.

"Yeah, I got it. We'll be fine. And this time, I mean what I say." Sharon gave her friend a final squeeze, and bent down to pet Ravi on the head. "Take care of G-fuu while I'm gone, ya hear?" Ravi responded by letting out a squeal and a little hop, and hurried to catch up with Gina as she got in the car. Sharon watched as they drove off, a cloud of sand left behind in the wake.

Get it together. You'll all make it back safely. She told herself, and she turned to face her other two group members with a smile. "Alrighty then, I guess the first thing we have to do is get into those uniforms. Thankfully, they look big enough to fit over our clothes." Sharon reached into the truck and pulled out a blue Galbadian outfit. "Man, these things are ugly as hell."

"And they're itchy!" Selphie complained before she even completely put half of one on. "I hope we don't have to stay in them for too long."

The infamous light bulb went off above Sharon head again, and she inched over to Selphie. "Psst... here's your chance. Go make Irvine help you into your uniform."

Selphie immediately blushed a deep red. "S-say what? I can't just ask him to do something like that!"

Sharon sighed. I swear, and they call Zell a chicken-wuss. "HEY MR. COWBOY! C'mere and make yourself useful, cause our missile base leader here needs help getting into her disguise!" She ignored the desperate tugging at her arm, and as she had predicted, Irvine brightened at the idea of helping a cute girl in any way that he could. "I can't just leave a lady in distress, now can I?" He said as he made his way over.

Sharon stifled a cackle as she pulled away from the embarrassed Selphie. I get great enjoyment out of putting people together who should be together, especially if they're too embarrassed to do anything about it themselves. She walked over to the other side of the yellow truck to give them their own space. At least this way, I can be distracted from the SLIM possibility that I might not hate him as much as I think I do. I don't know what's wrong with me in the first place to even want to like someone like him, anyway. Pushing her thoughts to the back of her mind, Sharon fitted the helmet over her head. "ALRIGHT, PEEPS! ARE WE READY TO BOOGIE?"

"LAGUNA!" Ravi yelped out excitedly for what seemed like the millionth time, batting at Squall's arm. Squall had no idea why the moomba was calling him Laguna, but he sure as hell wanted it to stop. How was he supposed to drive with that damn thing yelling in his ear every three seconds?

Gina reached over and pulled her new pet back, not wanting Squall to park the car and test out the sharpness of his gunblade on the little rascal. "Umm... Ravi, let's learn a new word. It's called 'Squall'. That's his name, not Laguna."

"It's really funny how Ravi keeps calling him that, though. Especially since Squall is always Laguna in the dream world," Zell said from the backseat, sitting with his arms behind his head. "Hey, I wonder what Ravi'll call me?"

At the mention of his name, Ravi pounced on Zell. "ZELL!"

Quistis didn't bother to stop her giggles this time. "Well, it seems as though Ravi is sure about your identity." She took the time to scratch the moomba behind the ears, now glad that Gina didn't listen to her and leave the poor thing behind.

Meanwhile, without Ravi to keep her occupied, Gina found herself getting the nervous butterflies in her stomach again. It's gonna be hell back at Garden. I most likely won't be seeing Sharii-chan again until we reach Fisherman's Horizon, and that's a long way away... She looked over at Squall, who had his crystal blue eyes trained steadily on the road in front of him. He's probably got so much shit on his mind right now... I just hope that stunt I pulled isn't one of em.

"Squall, uh..." Gina started, not really sure of what she wanted to say. "I know there's a lot of pressure on you right now, but I just wanted to tell you that the stuff I did back in Deling shouldn't be one of your concerns."

He glanced over at her briefly. He'd be lying if he told her that it wasn't, but it was obvious that she didn't want any more stuff to be on his shoulders than there already was. She's the only person so far that seems to not pile more responsibilities on my shoulders. "The Headmaster is going to want to have a full report when we get back." Squall replied.

"Speaking of the headmaster, I wonder if he thinks we're all still in prison," Quistis wondered out loud.

"Probably. I don't think anyone has ever made an escape like we just did." Zell grinned. "Well, we got a kickass story to tell everyone. It's gonna be great! We're gonna be so awesome!"

"RAWR!" Ravi joined in as best he could.

Gina gave them all a smile, but she knew their trials would just keep getting worse and worse as the game carried on. Man, why the hell am I still calling it a game? It's obvious that this is anything but. This is taking RPG to a whole new level.