"Selphie, I'm completely sympathetic to your feelings on this matter," Cid was saying. "And of course I'd be happy to let you return to Trabia to help out there. But Squall, Quistis and Zell are all valuable SeeDs, and Irvine technically isn't under my jurisdiction to send anywhere. I'm not sure I can justify sending all of you on a fairly light assignment."

"But we're not doing anything anyway!" protested Selphie. "We've just been sitting around Garden for the last six months fixing everything from the Ultimecia mission! Why's it any different now?"

"Selphie, you could be up there for months before the Garden is ready to open again," said Cid. "They're already too late to open for this year, and there's a question as to whether the funding remains to even keep trying. Trabia Garden never turned us a particularly large profit to begin with."

"Nida thinks it's a good idea," Selphie insisted.

"Wha?" asked Nida, a moment before it dawned on him why Selphie had compelled him to attend this meeting. "...Oh. Er..."

"We would be able to stay in touch," said Quistis, whom Selphie had also dragged up to the Headmaster's office. "Since we have radio contact with Trabia Garden now, we should be able to return home within a day should the need arise."

"A Garden transport can travel between Balamb and the Trabia coast in seven hours," Nida detailed, "plus the trip from the harbor to Garden."

Cid nodded. "Which is all fine, but..." Sighing, he turned to the one SeeD in the room who might back him up on the matter. "Squall, what's your opinion on all this?"

"...," Squall answered, predictably. "Whatever." Selphie giggled, and Rinoa, who had also been brought along, elbowed him. "We shouldn't overextend our resources," he clarified, "but Quistis is right; we wouldn't be out of contact."

"Besides!" said Selphie, deeming it was time for her trump card. "When I talked to her yesterday, Jessie said there was something strange going on up there! Maybe it'll be some kind of threat, and they won't be able to defend themselves!"

For a few more seconds, Cid tried to think of a way to argue against the mission; but ultimately he threw up his hands in surrender to Selphie's patchy logic and relentless enthusiasm. "All right, I'll authorize the mission. Selphie, you're free to stay as long as you wish; and Rinoa, you're of course free to do what you like; but I want everyone else back here in three weeks. Is that understood?"

There was a chorus of affirmatives from the SeeDs, shortly proceeding Selphie's "Booyaka!" and impressive vertical leap. "Trabia, here we come!"

Cid held up his hand for silence; and, when he didn't get it, started talking anyway. "Selphie, since Trabia's your home, you'll be the leader for the deployment. Squall will be second-in-command. I don't expect there should be much need for command decisions on this mission, but just in case, make the best use of your SeeD training, and you should be fine. Irvine, I'll contact Galbadia Garden and inform them of your situation; given their present condition, I doubt they'll make any objection."

Irvine nodded, speaking up for the first time in the meeting. "Cool."

Nida raised his hand hesitantly. "Uh, wait, does this mean I have to go, too?"

"Thanks, Headmaster!" Selphie exclaimed, jumping up to give Cid a spontaneous bear hug and effectively eclipsing Nida's more timid inquiry. "Okay, so when do we leave?"

"The next transport to Trabia leaves this afternoon, doesn't it?" asked Quistis.

"1400," Nida agreed. "But really, so am I—"

"Hey, we don't have much time, then!" said Selphie. "Let's get ready!"

And she was off like a shot towards the lift, with the other SeeDs following so as not to be left behind. Quistis came close to pushing a still-confused Nida out the door.

Cid couldn't help a smile. "...Dismissed," he said, pointlessly.

---

"You know, it's funny," said Quistis, frowning at her closet. "I always thought I had enough warm clothing. I guess I was just fooled because I never had to wear any of it."

"You won't need any!" insisted Selphie. "Everybody always thinks Trabia's a lot colder than it really is; you'll be fine!"

"Selphie, I was there back in June, remember?" asked Quistis. "There was snow on the ground; and now it's nearly winter, when it's supposed to get cold."

"You get used to it!" Selphie insisted.

"I'm going to get more sweaters in Balamb," Quistis insisted. "...No, they probably don't sell sweaters in Balamb. Maybe Xu has some I can borrow."

"Well, bring your swimsuit too!" Selphie demanded. "There's this spring up in the mountains, and you've gotta check it out while we're there!"

"Getting myself soaking wet is probably the last thing I want to do in the Trabian climate, Selphie," Quistis said.

Selphie put her hands on her hips. "Hey, I used to live there, you know! Are you gonna trust me, or what?"

Quistis placed her hand on Selphie's shoulder. "You're my friend, Selphie, and of course I trust you. But I am going to borrow more warm clothes from Xu."

Selphie blinked as Quistis abandoned her packing for the moment and headed for the door. "Heey!" she exclaimed. "That's not trusting me!"

Beating Quistis to the door, Selphie had meant to place herself between Quistis and the hallway and foil her attempts to procure warm clothing in that way. While she succeeded in this goal, she also managed—thanks to turning her back to the doorway before she had actually stopped moving—to collide with a startled Irvine who had just been walking in.

"Woah!" said Irvine, grabbing Selphie as she tried to spin back around before she had actually regained her balance. "Easy there, kiddo."

"I'll leave you two alone," Quistis said, slipping out the door before Selphie could react.

"—Heeey!" Selphie exclaimed, but was too late to stop her. Putting her hands on her hips, she turned back to Irvine. "So are you all packed?" she asked.

"Yep," said Irvine. "Wasn't hard. Most of my stuff's still back at G-Garden. As far as I know."

"Great!" said Selphie. "This'll be so exciting! I'll finally get to see everybody again, and actually hang around for a while and help rebuild the Garden this time!" She took a moment off to cock her head at Irvine, as a thought occurred to her. "So, do you miss your Garden?" she asked. "I mean, you haven't ben back yet, right?"

Irvine shrugged, shifting his weight a bit uncomfortably. "It's not a big deal. I mean, there's things I miss about it. Mostly the basketball courts and the shooting range, but...well, other stuff too. I guess I just didn't get on too well with the people there."

"That's too bad," said Selphie. "...but hey, we've got a great basketball court at Trabia! ...I mean, maybe not great, and it did get kinda blown up, but maybe we could help fix it! And you've just gotta try hunting in the forests on Kondike Mountain! My friend Casey, he's a sharpshooter, thinks it's gotta be the best range anywhere!"

She had got Irvine smiling by the end of the sentence about the basketball court. "Thanks, Selphie," he said. "I'm sure it'll be great. But, hey – I've gotta ask. Why didn't you try to go back before now? After the fight with Ultimecia, I mean."

"Well, we had to do the Garden Festival!" said Selphie.

"Yeah, but after we first got this Garden flying, you wanted to go almost right away," said Irvine.

"Uh huh," Selphie agreed. "And when we did, and I got to say goodbye to everyone who died, and saw that everyone else was okay. After that, things got so crazy here, with the battle against G-Garden and all, and I thought it was probably this Garden that really needed my help."

Irvine nodded. "That's really noble, Selphie."

"Thanks!" She hesitated for just a second. "...So! Why don't we get our stuff and head to the entrance! It's almost time to get moving!"

"Right away, ma'am," said Irvine, saluting.

With that, they retrieved their travel bags – Selphie's was nearly as big as her person – and made their way to the Garden's main entrance. Squall and Rinoa were already there, and a Garden car that had been brought out for them was waiting at the roadside.

"You guys are ready, right?" Selphie asked. "Squall, where's your stuff?"

Squall shrugged. "It's another Garden, so it'll be fully equipped."

"That's not the point!" said Selphie. "When you're going on a vacation, the packing's half the fun!"

Squall blinked, and looked at Rinoa. "...Is that really true?"

Rinoa smiled. "Squall, have you ever been on vacation?"

"...," Squall said, looking away.

"He's thinking right now about how busy his life's been, so of course he never had time for any fun," Rinoa told Selphie conspiratorially. "But of course we know that's an excuse he tells himself."

"H—hey," Squall said, using that tone he used when he realized the super-mysterious cloak of secrecy he threw around himself didn't actually exist.

"Yeah!" Selphie agreed. "And we're gonna make sure you have the time of your life, Squall! This'll be the best vacation ever!"

Squall brought a hand to his forehead.

"Working vacation," Quistis corrected, coming up to join him. Her belongings had been packed into a quite sensible sport backpack that looked just full enough for Selphie not to complain.

"I know!" Selphie said. "...So it looks like we're just waiting for Zell!

"He said he'd meet us in Balamb," said Quistis. "I think he wanted to get something from his house."

Selphie nodded. "All right, then," she said, and pointed theatrically toward the Garden car. "Team, let's move out!"

---

The transport vessel was built neither for speed nor for looks, but as the only regular ferry between Balamb and Trabia it did have some accommodations for passengers. And given the fact that Trabia wasn't really a hot tourist spot in the middle of winter, there was plenty of free room.

"So you're SeeDs?" said the ship's first mate, who doubled as the guy at the pier who checked their tickets. "Why the sudden trip? Something going on up at Garden there, or what?"

"Nah, nothing like that," Selphie said. "We just wanna help out with the rebuilding."

"Yeah?" asked the man, not looking entirely convinced. He leaned in to speak more confidentially. "This isn't some secret assignment or anything, right? I hear things, you know."

"Hm?" Selphie asked. "What kind of things?"

"Monsters," he said dramatically. "Real strange ones. And other weird things in the mountains, too. Whole continent's haunted, you know."

"It is not!" Selphie said, giggling. "Who told you that?"

"Everyone knows about the Ghosts of Trabia," said the man. "But I hear it's got a lot worse since the Sorceress business. ...Though I thought she never made it up that way?" He shrugged. "I dunno. That's just what I hear."

The conversation was interrupted by a form sailing over their heads, bouncing off one of the cargo crates on the transport's deck, and coming to a rest just inside the railing. It was Zell, who expertly flipped his T-Board up and caught it with his hand even as he hopped off it onto the ship's deck.

"Yeah!" he said, pumping his free fist into the air. "You guys see that? You can get so much air jumpin' off the hotel, it's insane!"

Then he was flanked by a pair of burly security guards pointing guns at him. "Surrender the board and your weapons," one commanded. "NOW!"

"Hey, hey, guys!" Selphie called, waving for their attention. "It's okay! He's with us!"

"Yeah, man!" said Zell. "I'm a SeeD, so it's cool."

The first mate looked at Selphie. "You vouch for this man?"

"Yeah!" Selphie said. "That's Zell Dincht. We go way back!"

"If you say so." He nodded to the guards, who backed off. "Sir, I'm going to need your ticket before we can leave," he said to Zell. "The rest of you can go on."

"Thanks!" said Selphie, who bounded up the gangplank to the ship. The others followed more sedately.

"In the future," Quistis told Zell once his papers had been checked, "you might want to show them your ticket before testing out your T-jumps. Sailors can be a bit touchy about unannounced company."

"Yeah, I guess," said Zell, shaking his head. "Man, some folks just need to lighten up."

"We secure yet?" a new voice called. It belonged to an older, bearded man who had emerged from what looked like the ship's bridge.

"All aboard, cap'n," said the first mate, checking his clipboard to be sure.

"Alrighty. Let's cast off!"

Selphie ran up to the ship's bow as the lines connecting them to the pier were released and the engines growled to life, slowly backing them away from the dock. "Good-bye, Balamb!" she called, waving at the town.

One of the dockhands heard her and waved back, looking a bit confused.

---

Seifer dove over the ridge before fully appreciating how steep it was, and soon found himself careening head-over-heels in near freefall. He had reoriented to heels-over-head by the time he landed, rolling down a more gradual but uncomfortably rocky incline until he finally managed to stabilize himself. Fujin and Raijin were following him down in a somewhat more more controlled manner.

"What is with these guys, anyway?" said Seifer, looking around for where his gunblade would have landed. "You'd think they'd never seen a Flare spell before!"

"I hear they're kinda touchy about that down here, ya know?" Raijin offered. "Like, some superstition thing or something."

Seifer spotted his gunblade, and had retrieved it a second before several dozen figures appeared at the top of the ridge, yelling in some ancient language and hurling tridents down at them. "Let's go!" Seifer said, and started off running again as the angry natives started coming down the ridge.

The terrain was craggy, and rocky, and very hard to navigate. The three of them had to half-run, half-climb across a slightly uphill slope that left them absolutely nowhere to hide. On top of that, a recent rain had left the rocks quite slippery, and more than once Seifer slipped and nearly drove his face into the ground.

"TROUBLE," said Fujin, glancing behind her. She was making better time than Raijin or Seifer, but didn't let herself get too far ahead.

"Uh, I think they're gaining, ya know?" said Raijin.

'Let's go to Centra!' he had said. 'It's the last wilderness on the planet!' he had said. No way the Galbadians would find him down here. It hadn't occurred to him that maybe everyone stayed out of Centra for a really good reason.

A trident plunged itself into a fairly large rock as Seifer was running past it. The rock nearly split in two; part of it fell right in front of Seifer. He tried to jump over it, but too late; his foot caught the edge of the rock, and his forward momentum sent him into a somersault, from which he landed flat on his back.

"Okay, that's it!" he said, struggling to get up. "Hey!" he called back at the approaching mob. "You want to play it like this? Let's go!"

"Man, I dunno about this, ya know?" said Raijin.

"I'm done running from these twerps," said Seifer. Another trident was thrown his way, but he batted it aside with his gunblade. "You want me, you better learn how to fight up close!"

The mob hesitated, its members looking at each other as if in confusion.

"What are you waiting for?" Seifer demanded. "Scared? Can't handle any prey that fights back?" He picked up the trident lying next to him, and drove it into the ground for effect. "Bring it on!"

Then the ground fell out from under him.

He didn't remember hitting the bottom, so he'd probably been knocked out. All he knew was that all of a sudden it was pitch black and his arms, legs and back really hurt. It took him a moment to look up, see the patch of sky through the hole above him and fuly realize what had happened.

"Fujin!" he called to the hole. "Raijin! You guys up there?"

"...down here," said Fujin, sounding dazed. "...OUCH."

"Uhh...no kidding," said Raijin. "Where are we? Like some kinda cave or somethin'?"

Seifer's eyes were starting to adjust. Apart from the debris that had presumably just fallen down with them, the floor was smooth, and he thought it was even in some sort of tile pattern. On top of that, there seemed to be thick beams that ran diagonally from the floor to about a third of the way up the wall, where they met at a ceiling that slanted the rest of the way up towards the hole they had fallen in through.

So, probably not a cave.

"...HALL," said Fujin, looking around as well.

"Man, this is weird, ya know," said Raijin. "...Hey! What's that?"

Seifer saw Raijin pointing at something behind him; moreover, Raijin now seemed to be lit in a pulsing blue light. As was the rest of the room. Seifer turned around, and saw an ornate pedestal reaching about shoulder-high, on top of which stood a wire-frame diamond. Blue light was running up to the diamond's tip.

"...What the hell?" he asked.

"You have come."

Seifer blinked for a second; the voice had seemed to come from all around him, and reverberated through the room. Raijin was the first to speak. "...Did anyone else just hear that?"

"The time is at hand."

There was a blinding flash, and when Seifer's eyes had readjusted to the darkness, he saw the silhouette of a gigantic figure standing between them and the diamond. "Woah!" he said, grabbing for his gunblade before realizing it wasn't at his side; he'd probably dropped it during all the falling.

"Welcome," said the figure, in an only slightly less booming voice. "And well met. We have expected you."