Selphie's wonderful night had, unfortunately, ended on a bittersweet note. Leaving her date mildly upset, she made her way out to the Quad where, even at this late hour, a few students were still laying out on the grass, enjoying the "after-party".

A few boys lay in the grass playing Triple Triad, some Trepies were throwing a disc around, and a couple of SeeD members made it out here to stargaze. There was the sound of a young couple making out behind the bushes, oblivious to their racket as though the shrubbery was a cloak of invisibility. The cool night air was gently kissing Selphie's face as she walked down amongst the student body. A sudden pang of loneliness hit her: she recognized none of these people.

Back in Trabia, there would be her old squadmates playing their nightly pickup game on the basketball courts. Her girlfriends would be dreaming about the future when they would leave the academy and star in their own rock ensemble. Some evenings Selphie even sheepishly plucked out a few half-rehearsed chords on her electric guitar. Her true musical talent was dancing, but she so rarely had a chance to show it off.

She missed them all. Tabitha would be constantly trying to hook her up with one of the members of the basketball team. Kira was always very patiently trying to tutor her in grammar. Chantelle told the funniest and crassest jokes in her current repertoire. Kayley was the heavily-tattooed rebel who got Selphie involved in the Garden Festival Committee. She only had a handful of guy friends, but she knew a few mostly from events around Trabia. Port and Lank came to mind, two energetic, and rather adorably nerdy young gearheads – the former of whom Joelin, the sketch artist, which was never returned.

It was Port that was freshest in her mind right now. She supposed she should have realized her attraction to the young lieutenant was based upon this longing for a childhood friend. The similarity in their appearance was striking. And when the, admittedly overeager young man suggested they make their way back to his dormitory, she choked. He seemed to take the rejection with the dignity becoming of an officer, but Selphie had not stuck around long enough to be sure. It's not even as though Selphie would have necessarily minded, but it was just too much and too soon.

Right now, all she wanted was her friends.

All these connections that she had were hundreds of miles away across the ocean. And Balamb Garden was a very different school. It was so much more formal than Trabia. Selphie wondered for a brief moment if maybe she had made a mistake in transferring.
But I wanted to be a SeeD... didn't I?

This had been her dream since she was a little girl. Although now she stopped to think about it, she wondered why. It was like she had been compelled to join SeeD through some force she could not define. Whatever the reason, thinking about it right now gave her a headache.

She was about to just call it a night when she saw two familiar faces. Zell and Nida were making their way from the crowd leaving the ball and had stopped to take a seat on a nearby bench.

"Hey, guys!" Selphie called enthusiastically.

"Hey Selphie," Zell nodded, raising his arm awkwardly. There was a story here, and Selphie could tell that she was not going to get it from him.

"What happened?" She asked turning to Nida.

"Colonel Xu offered Zell a dance," Nida smirked.

"Nida, I swear to Hyne," Zell grunted, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.

Selphie rubbed her forehead. "Oh, you poor thing, did you mess up real bad?"

"Not at all. He was actually an excellent dancer. It was what happened after the dance that ruined it," Nida chuckled.

Zell sighed, figuring the story would sound marginally better coming from him. "I thanked the Colonel for the dance. We bowed. I came up, turned around, and knocked over one of those waitresses carrying the champagne. I fell on top of the poor girl and the champagne glasses..."

Zell trailed off, unable to finish his recount of the traumatic experience. Selphie caught the gist of it, however, and patted his arm in an attempt to console him.

"Her uniform will be fine, of course," Nida said. "I think the Colonel was more upset about her hair."

"How'd she take it?" Selphie asked.

"She was painfully stoic about the whole thing, you know her. She simply nodded, helped the waitress up, and then excused herself," Nida laughed. "I think that's what made it worse. Like, if she had yelled at him that would have been one thing."

"I'm getting demoted tomorrow," Zell sighed. "Or maybe they'll just deploy me to the middle of nowhere."

Nida and Selphie broke out into a raucous bit of laughter at the absurdity of the situation, before finally calming down enough to cheer Zell up.

"I can make you feel better," Selphie smiled weakly.

"Oh yeah?" Zell asked.

"My date was totally ready to, uh, 'blow off some steam', and I rejected him because he looked too much like an old friend of mine," Selphie said.

"That's not so bad," Nida shrugged.

"Oh, it's not that I rejected him, it's more… how I did it," Selphie explained. "I sort of squeaked loudly and began to stammer before running away after apologizing. In fact, I think your little scene is the only reason more people weren't looking at me."

Zell tossed her a casual salute and let out a laugh for the first time since he had shown up. "Okay, Selphie, let's call it a draw?"

"Nobody likes draws," Nida teased.

Just then the young couple emerged from behind the bushes. They were both around seventeen and the boy had noticeable lipstick marks on his cheek – and some on his neck. There was about a five-second period where they tried to play it off as if nothing had happened but when a few of the girls let out audible giggles the crowd eventually broke into a sort of strange cheer. The couple blushed in humiliation but still seemed rather pleased with themselves.

The crowd grew closer together, all the latecomers asking to hear both Zell and Selphie's stories. A few of the guys asked Zell what it was like to dance with the highest-ranking member of SeeD. It was a interesting night for Selphie. She reflected on the bittersweet fact that she was just starting to gain back some of what she had lost when she left Trabia. As new friendships were just beginning to blossom, she would have to give it all up for a while.

But for now, she would have this night, a perfect way to say farewell to her student life.

Quistis found Squall waiting for her inside the training center as he promised. She had dried her eyes and there was a certain stony quality to her features. She refused to show weakness like that again to Squall. But, then again, she supposed it did not matter anyway.

"Ready to go, ma'am?" He asked her formally.

"Yes, Captain," she replied, injecting professionally acceptable levels of spite into his rank.

The walk back was one of uncomfortable silence for Quistis. She realized that, to Squall, this was probably a welcome relief, but she could not abide it. She had always been talkative and always wanted to forge the best possible relationship with her students. Of course, this was probably where she had failed as an Instructor; at least Xu implied as much. Her bubbly personality made her popular with the students. She was the only professor to have an unofficial fan club. But nobody respected her as an authority figure, she was just "liked".

Well, that's not a problem anymore, she thought bitterly, her arms folded in front of her.

She chanced a glance over to Squall. One of the only two students she had failed to form a connection with. For Seifer, it was his arrogance that prevented them from forming a bond. He always thought of himself as too good for anybody, especially her. Eventually, Quistis grew tired of trying. Maybe if she had given up sooner and come down on him harder things would be different.

But Squall was a different story. Squall had emotions in there somewhere. The way he acted was clearly driven by some deep personal motivation, but she had never been able to penetrate his mind. He had no interest in small talk, and no amount of personal hardship would lower his defenses, as tonight proved. The boy was an enigma. Perhaps that was the source of her interest in him. And from that interest came...

What was it? Infatuation?

She felt confused, and a little ashamed at herself.

What if something had happened? Do I even want that?

The word "vulnerable" floated around in her mind. Xu had warned her not to do anything impulsive until she had time to process things. And yet, here she was. She had opened herself up to Squall and given him the opportunity to do the same. He had run away, just as Quistis figured he would. The boy could stare down a war machine but ran from his own emotions.

Why? What is he running from?

Suddenly, a piercing scream echoed through the trees. A woman's voice cried out for aid from somewhere nearby. Without a word, Squall and Quistis glanced at each other. He raised his gunblade, and she pulled her whip out of its leather case. Pushing branches out of the way, they charged towards the direction of the screaming. It was pitched somewhere in the middle of the starting thicket of Zone 1, so whatever it was could not be too powerful.

In theory, anyway.

Squall cut down two trees – one real, one plastic – and leapt across a narrow river. He pushed through a small pack of bushes and managed to crush the petal of a sleeping grat with his boot. It spat up some pollen in startled reaction, but Quistis managed to push through the cloud before it could take effect. The surroundings began to screech again as the first Grat gave a warning cry. Quistis pushed that out of her mind for now. They could deal with that when, and if, it became an issue. Pushing through the last bit of shrubs, they arrived at a dusty clearing, pincered by twin streams. And lying in the middle was the source of the screaming.

It was a young woman with short brown hair. She carried a green shawl which she clutched out in front of her like a shield at some unseen menace. Spots of dirt flecked her sweaty face, and her leg was bleeding beneath her ripped white skirt. She must have tripped face first into a puddle during her retreat, as her blue blouse was soaked from the waist up.

But most crucially at the moment: She was unarmed.

"Squall!" the girl cried. "Quisty!"

Who is this?

Even bedraggled as it was, the face rang a bell. Yet he could not put his finger on where he had seen her before.

"What is it?" he asked, looking around.

The girl pointed into the dense foliage in front of her. Squall's gaze followed her finger. He saw a single blood-red eye and a scaly snout peeking out through the trees. As Squall met its gaze, the creature revealed itself in full: a massive brown and black striped body with a muscular torso, short arms ending in razor-tipped claws, and a thick tail that was half the creature's length.

"Well, there's one of the archaeosaurs," Quistis said, stretching her arms and raising her whip. "Squall. This shouldn't be here. It's meant to be much deeper in the training area. Do not take it lightly."

Squall did not need to be told that. Just earlier this year, Quistis herself treated him to a lecture on some of the most dangerous monsters ever discovered. The lesson had included mention of a nasty breed of sentient plant known as Malboros and a special breed of lightning-dragon with six enormous eyes. However the most memorable part – in what had been a very captivating hour of study – pertained to an evolutionary biologist who had accidentally stumbled onto an island of these menacing prehistoric monsters. This same scientist gave it the very un-academic name "The Island Closest To Hell".

Archaeosaurs, he found, had changed little over the millennia they had been around. He observed only slight evolution in bone structure and, presumably, some changes in its skin to adapt to the climate. Hence their name, which roughly translated to "fossil lizard". That part was slightly dry, but what Squall took great interest in was the fact that twelve armed mercenaries were almost completely wiped out by just one of these.

"You need to get out of here," Squall ordered, reaching his hand out to the girl. "You'll get in our way. Head to the entrance now."

"I can't," she said, looking down at her ankle. "My leg."

Squall took a glance at the injury. Deep purple bruising, and the unsightly angle. It was almost certainly broken. This would make things more complicated. If she were gone, Squall could fight properly. But now he would have to protect her as well. There was no more time to negotiate as the archaeosaur lunged for the girl, hoping to get an easy meal and flee to its nest. Squall charged the creature from the side, blade first. He managed to knock the beast off course, but his gunblade had only barely pierced its scales.

"It's too tough for weapons," Squall yelled.

He attempted to launch a fireball at the creature, but it proved somehow even less effective than his gunblade. The flames dissipated harmlessly upon contact with the creature's scales.

That was the challenge, of course. Now it was Instructor Faust's teachings that came to mind. The more ancient a being is, the more attuned to the energy of the planet they are. Creatures like dragons were nigh-invulnerable to all but the most powerful of magic. Archaeosaurs, who had barely changed since primordial times, fit the same bill.

The archaeosaur turned to the side slightly. For a moment, Squall entertained the hope that maybe they had managed to scare it off, but a sharp and sudden movement in the opposite direction shattered this hope. It sent its heavy tail crashing across both Squall and Quistis. She hit a nearby tree, and Squall lost his blade.

There was a dizzying moment where Squall could not see anything, had trouble breathing and felt a strange twirling sensation, as though he had been spinning in a circle and come to a sudden stop. Teeth came next, chomping down on his leg. Squall felt one of the razor-sharp talons in his shoulder as he was pinned down by the beast.

Squall let out a scream of agony as he attempted to wrest himself free of the creature's grasp. Crimson streaks ran down his shirt, and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. He felt the fire of Ifrit within him and with a heave, he managed to knock the creature off its balance. Taking a page out of Zell's book, he punched the beast on the snout to stun it, before rolling in the direction of Revolver.

The pain was still fresh, and Squall felt instinct taking over. Quistis had managed to recover and she was busy preparing some spell. The light blue hue was apparent: Ice magic.

Of course.

The ancient herds of archaeosaurs had been nearly wiped out by an ice age that lasted thousands of years. Surely the modern breeds would be stronger, but it was worth a shot.

Squall tried to keep the monster focused on him, lunging forward with his blade in hand. Even with a shot from the trigger mechanism, the vibration yielded no additional cutting power. The loud bang did distract it, but with Squall losing blood fast, he knew he couldn't survive a sustained assault. Claws swiped at him once more, knocking Squall down into a puddle on the outer edge of the clearing. He lifted his blade, unwilling to give up, but not sure what he was going to do. He just needed to distract the creature long enough for Quistis to finish her spell.

Suddenly, a surge of electric energy brushed past him, causing his hair to rise with the static. The archaeosaur let out an ear-splitting shriek of agony, stumbling back. Squall's eyes focused and he saw Colonel Xu standing beside the girl, her arm outstretched having just finished her spell. She was missing her jacket for some reason.

The creature roared and turned towards the new attacker, but two blurs of silver flew towards, it, striking each of the creature's narrow eyes. When they stopped, Squall could see that they were small-bladed shurikens, but they had not been thrown by Xu. Squall looked over to their source and saw two men in bright white uniforms wearing gold headbands. The pauldrons and general ornamentation almost looked like a SeeD uniform, but it was not one Squall had ever seen. Like Xu, they had slightly tanned complexions and the rigid facial structure of a person with late-Centran ancestry. They were muscular and kept a tighter posture than even most soldiers. It was as though every action of theirs was considered, with a focus on moving as little as possible. Were they not in the heat of battle, they could be mistaken for statues.

As the creature turned towards its new attackers, blindly stumbling and attempting to sniff them out, Quistis let out a cry. Bitterly cold winds began to whirl about the clearing, centered around the monster. Thin white wisps of snow circled it, growing larger with each pass. Ice crystals, summoned out of the surrounding water and cooled by the gust of arctic chill, encased the creature in an enormous pillar. With a final scream of exertion, Quistis caused it to shatter into shards, freeing the creature to fall over to the ground, its organs pierced, and its features thoroughly frostbitten.

The archaeosaur let out a final growl, a rather pitiful death knell for a creature so fierce.

Xu turned to her fellow combatants. "You're going to take care of Ellone?"

The men in white nodded but said nothing else. Xu did not seem to mind, offering only an open palm pointed towards the girl; a simple gesture of acquiescence. The two men rushed over to her, the larger of the two lifting her up into his arms. Squall glanced over just in time to see her mouth the words "thank you" to him.

Squall lay back against the ground and felt his blood flowing freely onto the ground. His light was fading fast. Xu had turned her attention to him and was busy muttering arcane chants over him as the soothing green light of a healing spell knitted his flesh back together. The pain was slowly easing as his body began to right itself. With the adrenaline fading, he slowly drifted off.

"Once again I find you risking everything to protect somebody," Xu said approvingly to the unconscious Squall. "I can see my faith in you wasn't misplaced."

She turned to Quistis who was already back on her feet. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine all things considered," Quistis shrugged. "Just a little shaken."

"I don't blame you. Who the hell let an archaeosaur down here? And what was that girl doing wandering around?" Xu asked as she continued to mend Squall.

"I wish I knew," Quistis sighed. She looked down at Squall. "He's pretty remarkable, isn't he?"

Xu seemed unable to help herself. A small smile crossed her lips. She turned to her friend. "And what were you two doing here? Strange night for a little extracurricular training, isn't it?"

Quistis wished she could be as coy as Xu and enjoy this rare moment of levity. All she was left with was the same empty feeling as before.

"Nothing really happened," she said flatly.

"I thought I told you to not do anything reckless," Xu replied in a voice that flirted with apologetic without actually committing. "He's remarkable alright. But he's closed off. We can't crack him. It's a good thing he's just naturally obedient or he'd be harder to deal with than Seifer."

"I suppose you're right."

Xu finished her spell and stood up. "Go ahead and take him back to his dormitory when he's up. Shouldn't be long."

"Right," Quistis mumbled, distractedly.

Xu pulled Quistis into a side-hug and patted her shoulder. "And no more trips to the 'secret area' unless I approve your date."