"What's wrong? You look you got ran over by a chocobo!" Nida greeted Squall as he entered the room. Squall took a small glance at him and looked away not in the mood for his lighthearted sarcasm.

It was the day of the Field exam, and of course Squall had to accompany as a SeeD during the operation but he wanted more than anything to skip these duties. Lately he had not been in the mood for anything, especially anything concerning SeeD.

The routine was that all the top SeeD's chosen for the exam would meet 3 hours prior to it and discuss what was going to happen and what each member needed to look for in candidates' actions.

By the time Squall had made it to the front gate a total of nine students were assembled.

"Where are the rest?" He asked to Nida

"They're all here" Nida said rubbing the back of his neck "I think we made that test a bit harder than we thought!" Squall ignored Nida's laughing and surveyed the students.

There were two girls within the group, both of them talked to each other while the rest seemed to just fool around or stand proudly. Squall took note of the lone boy with brown hair sitting by himself, waiting for instructions.

"Is everyone here?" Xu said walking up to them with a clipboard in her hand, Headmaster Cid, who usually had a word with the students before they went off to take the exam was busy with matters Xu didn't discuss with Squall. Quistis was following her with a smile. She looked over at the students and met Squall's eye, nodded, and listened to what Xu had to say.

"Everyone please listen up, I am now going to address the Squads for today's exam"

All the students stopped their conversations to look at Xu and the other SeeD's that were to come along on the mission. The lone boy stood up and looked at Xu just like the others, only his expression changed from thought to interest.

"Squad A will be the following candidates, Coreena, Ellyn, and Edward. You are the intelligence team" The three students grouped together as they were called and headed towards the main gate where the spare airships were, the Ragnarok was being used for the SeeD mission at Esthar.

Nida followed them, knowing he was the SeeD in charge of the group.

"Squad B, The front line team, are the following candidates: Tucker, Don and Roy" The three called out immediately headed for the front gate, Xu nodded over to Squall indicating that the group was his. Squall nodded as well and proceeded following the students.

Xu looked at them and continued to call out names "Kage, Nicole, and Kain, you three are Squad C, The backup Squad. Don't worry; your job is pretty straightforward." Xu smiled at them, the other two students nodded toward each other and looked at Kain. Kain slowly followed them as Squall had to his Squad, he looked back to see a blonde SeeD talking to Xu as they entered the airship.

"This is Quistis!" Xu said gesturing to the blonde woman, the other two members of Kain's Squad seemed to give a small leap of joy. Kain knew Quistis was a well respected and loved figure in the garden, but he never got the chance to really meet her, in fact he hadn't known what she looked like until just recently. He studied her for a minute, she had a caring face but she looked a lot older than what Kain heard her real age to be.

"She is in charge of your group for this exam, you are to give her your utmost respect. Is that clear?" Kain nodded as if Xu was talking directly to him. He wanted to talk to her now that they had finally met but he knew too well that it was impossible under such circumstances. He would have to try some other time.

"Is that clear?" Xu said again eyeing the three candidates. Automatically Kain put his right hand up to his forehead, doing the garden salute he knew by heart. When Xu had left Kain followed his team into the airship and sat down next to his dark skinned comrade, Nicole. He waited until his squad leader, Kage, talked to Quistis to ask Nicole about their mission. Although Kage was a very strong and straightforward man, asking him for help would only upset him and cause a scene. Nicole seemed to have more a sense of humor and reason.

"Basically we were hired by some lunatic scientist to investigate some ruins down at Centra" She said laughing "all we have to do is help Squad B fight off the Tonberries while Squad A handles the searching"

Once the Airships started to descend from the air Kain's heart started to pound. He hated his last minute emotions. However he pressed onward to catch up to the other Squads. When he reached the area where they were assembled he could hear Nicole next to him trying to keep in a laugh.

A short man stood in front of them, clad in purple with very foreign attire. He had a long pointy beard and a mustache that curled around from under his nose. Kain also tried to suppress an expression at the tiny man. He looked around to see the other students eyeing him as well. The SeeD's however didn't pay any mind to his appearance, except for Squall who held his head with a bit of an attitude. If Kain didn't know any better, he'd say Squall knew the guy.

"Everyone listen up!" Xu said walking towards the tiny man "This is-"

"I can introduce myzelf zank you very much!" The man rudely interrupted Xu and eyed every single person in the gathering closely as if he were having second thoughts about the expedition.

"I am Doctor Odine!"

"Wait!" One student from Squad A yelled out, "You're Odine, the Odine! Maker of all those magic products?"

Odine seemed to smile on the inside before replying "Yez, Zat iz me!"

The student burst out laughing, causing the other students to start as well. Xu laid a hand on the student's shoulder "that's enough Edward, you don't want to lose points now do you?" she asked sternly and nodded over to Nida to give him a warning.

The crowd silenced and Odine cleared his throat, he turned to Xu.

"Who shall be accompanying me?"

Squad A stepped foreword.

Quistis walked in front of her squad "Squad C, please wait until Squad B has gone through the ruins, then you shall defeat any remaining Tonberries that stand in the way"

Kain's eyes wandered over to Squall again. He seemed to be looking around the place in deep thought. Kain could barely see him mouth the words "Odin…"

Kain remembered the G.F. from his class. He started to make the conclusion that Squall had been here before to obtain him.

Just then Squall turned around and looked at his squad "Follow Me" he said drawing his Gunblade. Squad B quickly took off with Squad A not far behind.

"Well there goes Doctor Insane. What exactly does he want to check out here?" Nicole muttered as they waited for the signal to go in.

"Maybe he's looking for Odin" Kain thought to himself. He knew Odin had the place heavily guarded not only with Tonberries but with his own powers as well. But if Squall really had defeated him, then this would all be a waste of time.

Suddenly a huge flare of fire rose into the sky of the ruin.

"That's our signal, let's move out!" Quistis said

The Squad took their weapons and ran up the stairs into the ruins. Kain gripped his daggers tighter as he looked around, a spot of green made an appearance out of the corner of his eye.

He started off by concentrating and blasting it with an ice spell. The small creature looked over at him with its yellow eyes glowing in wonder. Kain sliced at the Tonberry only to find that its skin was unbelievably tough. It inched closer and Kain tried his best to slice through the skin. The Tonberry pulled back its wide butcher knife, Kain was aware of the attack and jumped back on his heels, the tonberry slowly turned towards him and inched forward again. Summoning another spell Kain used protect on himself, if the Tonberry attacked him he hoped to Hyne it wouldn't be as painful as he had heard from other students at Garden. He ran back in and pummeled it with one of his daggers and a couple of magic spells. When a few scratches had surfaced Kain decided to call a G.F. He needed concentration though, he just hoped that the Tonberry was slow enough. When he had found the G.F. he wanted he opened his eyes to find the Tonberry right in front of him. He needed to stay calm, giving in to fear would make him lose his G.F.

"Hang on kid!" Nicole called from behind him. He tried to concentrate and finally shouted the words "SILENT VOICE!" He saw Nicole disappear in front of his eyes.

Water came out of nowhere and flooded the Tonberry, it winced trying not to fall victim to the current. Kain could hear the serene sound of Siren's lullaby, when he realized he was back in the battlefield he saw the Tonberry was on its knees trying to re-obtain its knife. Kain turned to Nicole who was ready to attack. Together they sliced the tonberry and it finally fell over defeated.

"Thought you might need some help, but you really didn't need it at all. Why aren't you in Squad B?" Nicole exclaimed. Kain shrugged and continued walking, being more cautious he tried not to use too many potions or cures unless extremely necessary for he knew points would be deducted.

Both cadets stopped walking when they found their leader sitting down, eyes focused on the ground.

"What're you doing?" asked Nicole

"I thought I saw something," Kage said solemnly. He got up and immediately made his way up the steps.

"I can hardly see what kind of an exam this is," muttered Squad A's leader, Edward, under his breath. Odine had led them far into the ruins and so far all the candidates had done was climb up ladders and activate passageways. Now Odine was having them examine pieces of rock that everyone believed to be ruble. Odine had not told them exactly why he was making them look at pieces of rock, and no one dared to ask because of Nida's monitoring.

"Doctor, can we go further? I don't think we're going to find anything 'ancient' in these rocks," Edward said as Odine walked around muttering words no one could figure out. Nida was secretly pleaded Odine would say yes.

The short Doctor eyed them all and ran ahead to look at the scenery.

"Very well, we shall move on" he said running off. The students sighed and reluctantly followed him. Nida looked around as they did. Inside he was frightened, he never had to go through something like this before. He looked around and caught a scream in his throat as he saw two piercing red eyes glowing right through him. It was a fierce looking gargoyle statue. Nida looked at the students in front of him; they seemed to be examining the area as well. Odine however paid no mind to it.

They stopped at a staircase leading to the roof of the building. Odine turned around.

"I congratulate all of you vor getting zis far" He said and started up the staircase, "however, zere iz one more zing I must have you all help me do"

The students from Garden looked among themselves, and proceeded slowly up the stairs before coming to the top where Odine had stopped.

"Open!" he said jumping up and down, immediately the candidates went to work deciphering codes while Odine quietly waited. Once the secret passage was opened the doctor rushed inside, everyone looked at each other with a hesitant expression on their face and slowly followed.

"AHA I KNEW EET!" the doctor cried. The students looked around a huge room, in the center was a base that looked like it once held a statue. Around the base were four slots for swords. Odine twirled his mustache as he smirked

"So, eet iz true, Odin vwas killed."