Feels good to be back into the thick of things, but for now, let's get the reviews out of the way.

Angry Girl: That IS a reason to be angry. Anyway, I AM going somewhere with the Galbadian assassin, but you'll have to wait a while.

JadeAlmasy: Well, I guess a childhood friendship is the first step towards love.

Hibeki: I try to do that whole "in their shoes" thing whenever I can.

Luis: All I really have to think about is what they would say. Any "true" fan of the game should know what they all look like by now.

RinoaKari16: How could I not add Rinoa to this? I agree, Rinoa catches too much crap than she deserves. BTW, I won't be able to see if you reviewed Children of Destiny unless I check all 310 reviews, something I don't have time for.

Jayliyah85: I had a brainstorm recently and found myself writing a little more each day.

Cerulean Crystal: I'm not a machine! But I admit, I owe everyone quite a bit for being gone so long.

Dragonlover: Ask and you shall receive.

Daydreamer4179: New screen name eh? It'll take some time to get used to.

I just want to say that the timeline of the story will progress pretty rapidly from here on out. In the last two chapters, Squall was only 4, but he has aged here a bit more.

CHAPTER 11: SCHOOL DAZE

About a year and a half had past since Squall met his new friends Irvine, Zell, and Rinoa. All of their parents, with the exception of Rinoa's father, had noticed that any combination of two, three, or at times all four of them made them practically inseparable. Squall saw each of his friends as unique, Irvine was a cowboy at heart, and Zell was the spaceman of the group. Once, Squall had spent the night at Zell's house and the two of them stayed up almost all night watching Star Wars movies. Then there was Rinoa, the lone girl of the group. Spending most of her time with boys made her interests grow in each of their fields of expertise, be it Squall and his interest in his father's war weapons, Irvine and his desire to "wrangle" things, or Zell who just wanted to blast off.

Squall had recently turned six-years-old, and was awaiting his first day of school. Something he really wasn't looking forward to. Raine's efforts to get her son excited about this new ordeal had all failed miserably. Since Squall knew there would be no getting out of it, and his mom wasn't helping the situation, Squall decided to take it up with his father instead. Slowly pushing open the door to the presidential office, he saw his father sitting behind a desk. Normally, Laguna was working hard, but at the moment, he had the TV on.

"Won't mom get mad if she sees you watching TV?" Squall asked.

"Not really." Laguna replied. "I'm on what you call a coffee break."

"Dad, I don't wanna go to school." Squall admitted.

"Why not?" Laguna asked.

"Cause Sis always comes home with a whole bunch of homework." Squall said, "and mom's just making it worse by getting all 'squeaky-voiced.'"

"About that," Laguna began as he plopped his son in his lap, "you're mom's a girl, that's just what they do. Not like us men though. Our thing is stuff like climbin' trees, fishin' rough housin'. But the reason Ellone comes home with all that homework is because she's real smart."

"So that stuff makes her smarter?" Squall asked.

"Exactly!" Laguna said. "What you're about to learn, Ellone already knows."

"So if I go to school, I'll get smart like Sis?" Squall asked.

"You got it." Laguna said.

"Thanks, dad." Squall said.

"No problem." Laguna said. "Hey, why don't you get your mom to go down to the store and get some sodas for us?" With that, Laguna handed his son some gil.

"Thanks dad!" Squall said with more enthusiasm as he left to find his mom. Laguna looked into the mirror, winked, and smiled.

"Yep, father of the year." Laguna said smugly.

The next day, Raine drove down the road while Ellone explained a bunch of things to Squall in the backseat. As she pulled up, Squall saw Zell get out of the car in front of him, and Irvine already out on the play ground.

"OK guys, come back here after school's over." Raine said as Squall and Ellone got out of the car. Ellone headed over to her friends, as Squall headed to his.

"I'm glad you guys are here," Squall said, "this place makes me nervous."

"Yeah, me too." Zell said.

"Is Rinoa here yet?" Squall asked.

"I think so," Irvine said as he skimmed the playground. "Yeah! Over there by the swings." Squall looked over and saw Rinoa talking with two other girls. They walked over, and the introductions began.

"Hey guys." Rinoa said as the three of them walked up. "These are some new friends." One of the other two girls was blonde, but not as much as Zell. Also, she was tall as well. The only two taller than her were Squall and Irvine. The other girl was a short brunette, and had to look up at all of them.

"Hi, I'm Quistis." The taller blonde said.

"My name's Selphie." The shorter of them said. The new girls were introduced to the boys before Squall noticed something. Six swings, all next to each other with nobody in them.

"Let's see who can get the highest!" Squall shouted, and the race was on. Each of them tried to get an added advantage by putting their legs forward on the back swing and pushing on the ground with the tips of their feet just before going up on the other side. Squall noticed another boy doing the same next to him. This boy gave a cocky look to Squall before jumping out of the swing at the peak of the forward swing.

"Ha!" The boy said. "Can YOU do that?"

"Yeah, but I'm busy right now." Squall said.

"What's the matter?" The boy said. "You're not chicken, are ya?"

"Go away, Seifer!" Quistis said. "We're having a race."

"I'll take you guys on!" This boy named 'Seifer' declared.

"No way! We're not starting over!" Zell said.

"Why not?" Seifer retorted. "Afraid you'll lose?"

"Fine, start over." Squall said. "There's six of us and one of him. He'll be eating at least one of our dusts."

"We'll see about that." The competitive boy said as they all began. Seifer quickly got higher than Selphie, Rinoa, and Zell. It took some doing, but he eventually got past Quistis too. He and Squall were almost at the same place for quite a while, but soon, Seifer was ahead of him too, leaving only Irvine left. Squall then noticed something, the taller kids seemed to get higher faster, and then Squall sighed in disappointment. Seifer was taller than Irvine. After a good few minutes, Seifer was higher than Irvine too. Seifer then jumped out of the swing, just as he had before.

"Ha! I win!" Seifer said triumphantly. Five of them then used their feet to stop, but Squall jumped out just a Seifer did.

"Don't call me chicken." Squall said as he walked away.

Squall soon found that his class was rather small. However, Zell, Selphie, Quistis, Irvine, and Rinoa were all there with him, but so was Seifer and two other kids Seifer seemed to be partial to, two kids named Raijin and Fujin. After eating lunch, Squall noticed a poster he could not stop staring at. It was an advertisement for a place called Balamb Garden. The line near the bottom is what attracted Squall to it the most.

"Garden trains SeeDs. SeeDs are trained to defeat the Sorceress."

Later that evening, Squall peered into the Presidential Quarters again, and saw his father sitting there doing some last-minute stuff before wrapping it up for the day. Laguna noticed his son open the door, and motioned for him to come in.

"You were right, dad," Squall said, "I learned something new today."

"What's that?" Laguna asked.

"Some people are cool, and some are assholes."

"Squall! Don't use that word!" Laguna scolded.

"But mom calls you that all the time." Squall complained.

"She's just messing around." Laguna said. "Besides, she's old enough to use that word and you're not."

"I'm sorry." Squall said.

"That's okay." Laguna said, "Just don't say that word anymore. So from the sounds of things, there's a kid you don't like."

"Uh-huh." Squall said. "His name's Seifer. He called me a chicken and didn't think I could jump out of the swing."

"So what'd you do?" Laguna asked.

"I jumped out and told him not to call me a chicken." Squall said.

"Well, since you're a boy and we're not known to squeal, I guess what you did was okay by me." Laguna said. "Just don't try to solve things with your fist, okay? Even though it might seem easier, it won't be."

"Ok." Squall said. "Dinner's almost ready, are you coming?"

"In a little bit," Laguna said, "I have to sign a few more things." Squall then took his leave, with his thoughts returning to that poster he saw after eating lunch. He wanted to know more about Balamb Garden.