3


"Irvine?!"

"Hey, Quisty! " The sharpshooter grinned my way and flashed me a wink. "Long time no see, beautiful."

My eyes rolled towards the ceiling but a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. Confident as ever, I could tell. "What are you doing here?"

His eyebrows rose and he gave me a mock salute. "Irvine Kinneas, reporting for duty." At my confused look he again winked at me. "I'm your contact for this mission."

"Huh?" That got my full attention. "You're our contact? But you're only a..." I caught myself before I shoved my foot in my mouth again, but Irvine just waved it off.

"It wouldn't seem so strange if I'd been the one who approached you guys, since I already knew you and all. I would have been reporting to a higher up anyway, although I hadn't been told who it was yet. It was my SeeD exam, being your guys' contact; they don't need any sharpshooters right now, so they gave me this assignment."

"So why are you meeting us here?" I continued, tipping my head in curiosity. "I thought we had to make it to Galbadia garden before our contact...erm, before you revealed yourself. And what's our mission anyway?"

"It was basically going to be a spying mission, but that's changed now. Where's Seifer?"

"What do you mean it's changed?" Something that had been nagging me suddenly clicked. "And why have you been talking about everything in the past tense?"

Irvine winced slightly, the self important look gone. "I'll tell you," he promised, "but I have to know where Seifer is. He may be in danger."

A serious Irvine. I knew such an event meant something was genuinely wrong. "I don't know," I replied slowly, "we had an argument and he walked out without telling me where he was going."

"Well, we've gotta find him. We need to get off this train as soon as possible."

Desperate as I was to know what was going on, I bit my tongue and nodded. Standing up, I crossed the room and went out the door, followed closely by Irvine. "You take the front area of the train, I'll take the rear. If we don't see him we'll backtrack until we meet up with one another. If we still couldn't find him on the second sweep then we'll worry."

"Gotcha. Just keep an eye out for anything suspicious." Before I could ask what he meant by suspicious he took off down the train.

Puzzled, I headed down the other end of the train. The first car held nothing, nor did the next one. The third car was the dining car, filled with tables and chairs and fairly packed with people eating dinner. Along the edges there were a few passengers staring out the windows at the moving scenery, which reminded me of Selphie.

Passing through the next section, one of the passenger cars, I heard a feminine laugh come from behind me. Turning around, I could have sworn I saw the tip of a long white jacket disappear into a cabin, whose door was promptly shut and locked. Breathing out slowly, I walked back to the door and politely knocked. My only reply was another giggle and a lower voice saying something I couldn't make out.

Gritting my teeth, I called out softly, "Seifer, are you in there?"

There was cursing, more murmuring, then the doors slid open to reveal my erstwhile partner. "I'm busy," he snapped, his eyes flashing.

Raising an eyebrow, I peeked around him. A girl our age was seated on this cabin's sofa, smoothing down a rumpled dress. She had long dark hair and her skin had an olive tone to it. It struck me that, while they were obviously not the same person, she had the same features as Rinoa. Eyes narrowing, I looked back at Seifer. "Enjoying yourself?"

"If you hadn't barged in, I would be! Now go away." With that he shut the door in my face.

Fuming, and realizing we were running out of time, I gave the door three hard knocks with my fist. I was gratified to hear more cursing behind it, and again the door whipped open. "What?!"

"Irvine's on board the train, and he's saying we have to get off now," I murmured, glancing behind him to make sure the girl hadn't heard. She was again arranging her dress, her face sporting an annoyed look. "He was going to be our contact in Galbadia Garden, but something went wrong and he came to get us early."

"So what?" Seifer asked belligerently, but I could see him thinking. He glanced back at the girl, then looked at me. "Can't we wait just a few more minutes?"

"Unfortunately you know it doesn't work like that Seif…"

"She doesn't know who I am."

It took a second before the statement made sense, and I stared at him in bewilderment. I had never in my life heard Seifer beg, or seen this look in his eye. His eyes were silently pleading with me over this at a time when we really didn't have any leeway. Irvine's agitation had washed over onto me and I wanted to get the heck off this train, but looking into the those eyes I was tempted to give him those five minutes. Really tempted. Perhaps I couldn't understand fully what he'd been through, and I wanted to make up for what he'd no doubt been going through the past few months...but now wasn't the time. I simply couldn't do it - it went against my grain to bend the rules no matter how good the reason.

Slim arms reached around Seifer's torso, and the girl's head peeked from behind his shoulder. "Are you coming back in, Seifer?"

"In a minute Mina," he replied, eyes still pleading with me.

It tore me up inside, but I made my decision. "Seifer, I'm giving you an order as your commanding officer to step out of that room and come with me."

I knew there was a ninety-nine-point-nine percent chance he'd disobey me. I'd never been able to get him to follow my orders, he just didn't see me as his superior. His eyes lit up just like I'd known they would and I braced myself for what would probably be a rather heated 'No' on his part.

Almost as quickly as it had come, the fire died in his eyes. He let out a weary sigh and nodded without meeting my eyes. I barely managed to keep my jaw from hitting the floor when he turned around to Mina and said, "I'm sorry, but I need to go."

"Are you sure?" she pouted, her body pressing against him.

He did send me a look then, one of pure spite, but nodded his head. "Maybe we'll meet up again?"

Mina sighed. "Damn, now I gotta do this the hard way?"

"Wha..."

Twin knives almost magically appeared in the hands that encircled Seifer's chest. He froze as she fluidly shifted position and settled one knife over his neck, the other moving to the small of his back. "Out, now."

The light, airy voice I'd heard a minute ago was gone; her tone was suddenly no-nonsense. She no longer even looked our age but older, her features set in a decidedly neutral expression that would have rivaled anything Squall had ever worn.

I did as she said, backing away as she slowly led Seifer out into the hallway. She flicked the wrist holding the knife at his throat and stated, "I have him in car seven, but we need a pickup ASAP."

"Affirmative, escort on its way," a disembodied voice replied.

Irvine had been right, apparently, but about what I wasn't sure. What exactly was going on? "Who are you, and what do you want with us?" I asked, keeping my expression neutral.

She just smiled. "In a few minutes it won't really matter."

"How do you think you can capture us without tipping off the whole train?"

"There are ways," she replied simply.

"But why do you want to kill us?" I countered vehemently. "What did we ever do to you?"

"Who said I was going to kill you?" Silence.

Well, so much for getting her to brag the Plan. Apparently it only works in movies.

I heard a muffled shot, and felt a breeze across my cheek even as something wet and warm sprinkled my face. The girl gasped, and that was all the warning Seifer needed; his elbow lashed out and connected with her midsection, and before she even had time to react to that he swung her over and smashed her into the floor of the train car. He ground the hand still holding the knife into the floor until she let go, then kicked it towards Irvine.

"Miss me?" the sharpshooter quipped with a lopsided grin, blowing the smoke off the tip of his rifle.

Wiping blood from my cheek and ignoring the gunman, I approached the girl and picked her head up by the hair. "Who sent you to do this?"

She just smiled at me, a thin stream of blood trickling down her cheek. Irvine's shot had torn through the girl's elbow, which Seifer was even now grinding into the floorboards, but the blow to the floor had split her scalp. Picking up one of the knives, I held it to her throat and repeated, "Who sent you to do this?"

She opened her mouth as if to speak, and I saw something roll across her tongue. Before I could do anything she bit down hard, then almost immediately started convulsing in my grip. Swearing, I rolled her over to try and save her from the poison she'd no doubt been carrying but before I could even get her pinned down she went limp, her eyes staring blankly forward. I checked her neck for a pulse and didn't find one.

"Damn," I muttered, then repeated it a bit louder as I realized we were in a very public area. "Help me get her into the cabin."

Irvine grabbed her arms while I got the legs. We carried her into the room and laid her out on the floor behind a desk, arranging her so she was as hidden as possible. She was so small I could almost forget that she had almost tried to kill us.

Grimacing, Irvine wiped his hands on his pants as if trying to get rid of the essence of the dead. "We need to get off this train, now. On my way here I ran past some-- Seifer!"

Seifer had given the body of the girl a hard kick in the torso, one which had propelled her the few feet to the wall. He gave me a tortured look that Irvine completely missed, then pushed past us back into the hall.

"Geez, what a prick," Irvine stated angrily. "He didn't have to kick her like that."

"It's just a body now Irvine," I answered, rising to Seifer's defense. "A body of someone who betrayed him."

"But she was, well, a she."

Irvine, sexist? Nah. "Give him a break, how would you feel if a girl you'd just been making out with tried to slit your throat?"

That shut him up for a moment, but he still scowled. "I don't trust him, how can you? We may come from the same place, but he's changed and not necessarily for the better..."

"Irvine, shut your mouth before I do it for you." I think I shocked him being so blunt, but we didn't have time for this and it was making me ... uncomfortable. I guess I was feeling guilty, but now wasn't the time to think about that. "We've gotta get off here."

"Yeah, we need to leave NOW. I didn't tell you, but if we get into the tunnel under the water, we're screwed. There's no room to jump; the walls are too close and we'd be sucked under the wheels."

Ouch. "Alright, let's go."

Seifer was waiting just outside the doors. I knew he'd heard our conversation; he couldn't help hearing it from his position. I felt my face heat up slightly, but ignored it and headed towards one end of the train car.

The door there suddenly burst open, and three people leaped through. I stopped, confused, and heard Irvine yelp behind me.

"Quistis, this way!"

"But..."

"Come on!"

Torn by indecision, I followed Irvine's orders just as bullets started whizzing by my head. Cursing, I dodged as best I could, diving behind the door leading to the connecting room between cars. Irvine slammed it shut and locked it behind me, then ducked behind the sturdy metal door as bullets pinged off it.

Seifer unsheathed his gunblade and sliced through the side door to the outside of the train. Everyone in the small compartment was immediately whipped by the howling wind from outside, sucking us towards the opening with amazing power.

"Go, we gotta jump!"

"Irvine, those are SeeDs! What's going on?"

"I'm telling you, they're the bad guys. Now JUMP!"

I felt power being drawn, and looked up just in time to see Seifer form a fireball and hurl it to the door we were hiding behind. It crashed against the door, ripping it off its hinges and back into the compartment, blasting back the soldiers standing on the other side.

I glanced outside. The tunnel was coming up with amazing speed, and with one last glance at Irvine's desperate face I took a flying leap out the door.