Chapter 4: First mission

It was a bumpy ride on the rail road tracks, a constant and increasingly rapid sounds of something knocking against wood sounded from bellow as the car's wheels rolled over the planks between the elevated steel lines of the railroad tracks. Seifer drove, being the better driver and one of the only out of the group who could, while Nida sat in the front seat next to him, clinching the arm rest uneasily. Cho was in the back seat, Shadow next to him.

The SUV road quickly along the railroad bridge just outside of Fishermen's Horizon, from here there was a good view of the city, though no one had time to notice it because of how fast Seifer was driving. "Seifer...why don't you slow down." Nida said nervously.

"Why would I?" Seifer said, looking strait ahead with one hand on the wheel and another shifting gears.

"I don't know...maybe because if you hit these rails too hard at this speed, we'll flip over into the ocean."

"Aww calm down, I know what I'm doing." Seifer waved him off discardingly, watching as they came up on the road block at the east end of the bridge, Seifer shifted gears "Alright hold on."

"Hey wait, don't tell me your going to do what I think you are?" Nida quickly buckled up, staring at the two concrete barriers sitting before them, one on each track.

"It's quicker." Seifer turned abruptly, striking the rails and making the car jump to the next track where two long steel rods served to hold this barrier up. "Hold on."

"No way Seifer! This is stupid!" Nida yelled, watching helplessly as Seifer drove the car on two the steel rods, "Are you crazy! Stop!"

"Relax, I've done this tons of times." Seifer said, accelerating as the car elevated higher and higher on the steel rods. "Besides, too late to stop now." He was right.

The car launched off the steel rods, sailing through the air while Nida clinched his eyes shut and waited for what seemed like an eternity until he felt that impact of them finally hitting the ground and him nearly flying out of his seat. Nida immediately let out a breath that had been caught in his throat, relaxing enough to slump in his chair. "Your insane."

Cho laughed from the back seat, causing Seifer to smirk. "I know."

! - ! - !

Zell awakened again to the sound of faint voices, two familiar voices. "Hhmmmm..." He yawned as he opened his eyes, blinking a few time to sharpen his blurry vision. Bahamut was gone now, he'd managed to slip out of bed earlier fairly easy since Zell wasn't exactly a light sleeper. He glanced out the open window, since the sunlight had woken him up anyway, and instead of the expansive ocean that was usually there he could see a city, FH. 'Garden repairs...'

With that thought he decided to get up, it was early enough. 'Bahamut.' he climbed out of bed and gathered a few clothes before he headed out of his room to the shower. Bahamut was sitting on the couch with Carbuncle on his lap, the two voices he'd heard. "That really happened?" Carbuncle asked curiously.

Bahamut nodded "Yes it did."

Zell smirked as he headed into the bathroom, knowing Bahamut had felt horrible about what happened to Carbuncle, and feeling partly responsible since he probably did some damage to Carbuncle mentally when he fought the Shadow during the junction and used MegaFlare. And Carbuncle seemed to be depressed and with out purpose lately, so he made it his personal duty to recount everything that had happened to him, every single detail. Though Zell suspected he wouldn't stop there.

It seemed to help Carbuncle, he was excited to hear Bahamut's stories. He didn't seem so depressed anymore, and Zell was all for it.

! - ! - !
! - ! - !

"Cho, wake up." Shadow nudged the boy lightly with his nose.

Cho noticed that they were no longer moving "...Man that was a long trip." He groaned as he sat up, he found there vehicle surrounded by brick roads and buildings with the sound of trains passing in the distance. "Ready Shadow?"

"Of course." Shadow nodded, going through the process of junctioning himself to Cho. It was similar to the process of possessing, so he was effectively able to do it though he was still new to it.

Cho, Seifer and Nida stepped out of the car, realizing how they just barely made it here since they ran out of gas anyway. "So where is this guy anyway?" Cho asked.

Nida took lead as they entered the train station just ahead of them, climbing the stairwell to the front door. "He should be here." Nida said, looking around the busy front hall. People where everywhere as expected, and the volume grew even larger as two trains arrived. It was hard to see one person from another, "Anyone see him?"

"Over here." Seifer waved his team mates in the direction he spotted someone who fit the description, it was most likely the person since there wasn't anyone else his age here.

Black eyes looked up to meet them as they approached, a smile appeared on his face and he jumped up from the seat where he'd been sitting to meet them "You guys must be Balamb SeeDs." he was just as Squall described him, someone just barely taller then Cho, short brown hair and black eyes.

"Your Mathew?" Nida asked.

"Yes sir."

Nida rubbed his head "No sir, just call me Nida." Nida pointed to Cho "This is Maru, we call him Cho. And he's Seifer."

Mathew nodded "It's nice to met you all, I wasn't sure that Mr. Lionhart was going to do it."

'Mr. Lionhart? This kid's going to be annoying.' Seifer thought to himself.

Cho looked over the boy who seemed his age, he couldn't understand it 'He's nice enough, why would someone like him need bodyguards? Who could be after him?'

Nida figure it was time they found out what they were dealing with. "So why did you need us? What exactly do you need us to protect you from?"

Matthew shook his head "I'll tell you on the train, it's about to leave."

Nida glanced at the clock and the departure board hanging in the center of the room, he was right, the train was leaving in 2 minutes. He pulled out 4 tickets from his inventory, "Alright, let's go then."

Matthew picked up a box sitting on the ground next to the seat he was sitting in "Lead the way." He stood behind Nida, Cho walking at his side and Seifer following from behind as they made their way through the crowds of people towards the loading bay for the trains. Matthew looked as if he'd never been so happy which almost inquired Cho to ask and was about to until he saw his face suddenly drop. "Oh no..."

"What is it?" Cho asked.

Mathew pointed to his left where 5 or so men in Galbadian army uniforms (3 blue and 2 red) were looking around, the on in the back looked directly at him and pointed, alerting the others and sending them hastily toward them. "Oh man, Run!" Mathew shouted.

Nida looked back, "What? Why?"

"Galbadian soldiers at 10 o'clock." Seifer said, drawing his Gunblade.

Nida waved them forward, "We can't fight here, there are too many people. We don't have time anyway, let's just go!" Nida darted off in a full sprint with Cho, Mathew and Seifer behind him, he pushed his way through the people, glancing back at the 5 men coming after them. "Come on!"

Cho stayed by Mathew's side, fast enough to keep up with Nida easily but Mathew wasn't. Cho took the box from the boy and pushed him forward "Go!" He got a nod from Mathew he seemed to be much faster with out the package.

'Cho, behind you.' Shadow called out.

Cho looked back, finding that a Galbadian solider was reaching out to him, but Seifer grabbed him by his neck and pulled him away. "Watch your ass damnit!"

"I could have taken him." Cho waived him off, crouching lightly to avoid a person and pushing his way through more until Nida and Mathew could be seen again. Nida force his way outside into the open area where the train was waiting to depart with little to no time left. Nida abruptly jumped into the last car, Mathew coming in behind, then Cho and Seifer last.

A loud horn sounded and the doors slid closed, forcing the 5 solders to come to a sharp halt. One of the commanders lifted the Glatting guns on his arm toward the window, but the other one forced him to lower them, allowing him to do nothing but watch as the train departed.

Seifer abruptly sat down against the wall in the empty car "Ok kid, start coughing up with some answers." He said demandingly "What the hell was that?"

"I don't know." Mathew shrugged "They've been coming after me since last year, Galbadia and some other people."

"Are you saying people have been coming after you, and you have no idea why?" Nida asked, this was suspicious.

Cho emerged from the next car, "Are you guys going to stay back here? We got a cabin to ourselves. Oh Mathew, I left your box is in there."

Mathew nodded and followed Cho out the door, Nida and Seifer glanced at each other.

"There has to be a reason for this." Seifer said "I don't like this, it's too suspicious."

"I'm not sure of this either. But we just have to get him to Timber and we can be done with this." Nida told him.

! - ! - !

Squall opened the emergency door on the second floor, returning from the FH, who weren't particularly fond of the Garden lately. He could still see classes being held, undisrupted by their stop, and among other things something big and red dropping down in front of the open door way. Squall sighed and turned around, seeing Seiphie and Irvine waving to him from the cockpit of the Ragnaork. "What the hell are you two doing!"

He'd drawn some interesting looks from the students in the classroom next to him.

Irvine shrugged and laughed.

! - ! - !

Seifer waited patently in the empty room, glancing over at Mathew occasionally who was clinching the box tightly. The boy just starred down at the ground, kicking circles. Nida seemed a little more relaxed about the situation, laying across the seat with his arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Cho was some place in a car farther ahead doing who knew what, that thought worried Nida a little. "I better go find Cho."

Seifer shrugged and sat back...but quickly sat up again "Wait a minute, do you feel that?"

Matthew looked up "Hey, the train's slowing down!" Matthew climbed up on to his knees on the couch and looked out of the window "We're not even half way yet, where in the middle of nowhere!"

Nida stood up "What...Stay here, I'll go check it out." He called back, opening the door and steeping to the small hallway. Cho bolted in, nearly running into him.

"Nida, something really weird is going on!" He yelled frantically, "The whole train is empty!"

Nida looked around, glancing out of the window at the slowing landscape "What, what are you talking about?"

"One minute everyone was here, and the next everybody was gone, something creepy is going on around here." Cho could see Nida wasn't taken on the idea that everyone on a whole train disappeared before his eyes. "Alright come on, let me show you." Cho turned and ran out the door over the bridge to the other car.

Nida took another look outside, not seeing any sign of anything or anyone else but them. 'Ok, I'll bite.' Nida followed behind Cho, but before he could step foot out side of the cable car the door blew off it's hinges in a rush of flames. It slammed into Nida , knocking him off his feet and surrounding him in fire. "Urhgaa!"

Seifer rushed out of the door, drawing back at the flare of flames that were now starting to die down. "Nida, what happened?"

Nida took Seifer's out stretched hand and climbed to his feet "I don't know...Cho!" Nida ran out of the open doorway toward the other car that was now completely charred over the back side, the moment he stepped on to the small, metal bridge connecting the two his foot went through and it broke off completely. That'd been the only thing remaining to link the last cable car because they started to drift apart. "No!"

"Ok, what now?" Seifer asked. The sound of glass shattering could be heard. "Shit!"

"You go check on Mathew, I'm going to see what that was." Nida took a step back then dived out of open doorway, half of his body landed inside while the other half dragged outward. But he seemed to be alright because he was pulling himself in.

Seifer waited no time heading back into the room with gunblade ready, Matthew ran past him with a man following after him. In a green pilot's uniform with a headset over his ears and mouth and sunglasses over his eyes, a cord was hanging in the broken window, apparently how he'd gotten in. "Remember when I said some other guys beside Galbadia was after me? They're here!"

Seifer allowed Mathew to pass but held his gunblade out to the man "Stop right there."

"Move!" The man pulled a baton from behind him, one that was sparking with electricity. "Now!" The man drew his arm back by his shoulder and slammed it across Seifer's face, Seifer stumbled back and countered a slash across the man's chest.

Seifer lifted his empty hand "Firaga!" flames travailed along the ground and erupted from under the man's feet, knocking him backwards out of the window. He grabbed on to the cord which abruptly pulled him up. Seifer ran over to the window and stuck his head out, "Kid, you must have done something bad for them to come after you like this."

"I didn't do anything!" Mathew called back, clinching the box in his arms. "What do we do now?" The separate car had completely stopped, though the rest of the train wasn't far ahead.

"Come on!" Seifer grabbed the boy by the hand and jumped out of the empty car through the open door, just before it erupted in a powerful explosion. Seifer and Mathew were knocked off their feet from the force, Seifer landing on the tracks while Mathew rolled down a grassy hill to the side of them and out of sight. 'Damnit!'

From out of nowhere, a large helicopter dropped down from the sky, the same man he'd fought before still hanging down from a single cord. Seifer looked up, hearing the click of the machine trying to fire something that wasn't there, it ran out of ammunition 'Holy crap that was close.' Instead the man on the cord dropped down in front of Seifer while the Helicopter when after the train. "You again."

Seifer forced himself up on to his feet, still feeling the blow he'd just taken. "What are you after the kid for?" He asked, drawing his gunblade back with both hands and charging at the man.

"That kid has to die you idiot!" The man blocked Seifer with the electrified baton "Figures, you would be the one to help them again."

Seifer pulled his sword back and attacked again, this time slashing the man across his stomach "What the hell are you talking about?"

The man lifted the baton up and thrust his other arm forward "Thunder!" Lighting flashed and drove down from the sky, striking the baton. The weapon was literally overflowing electricity, he swung it towards the boy, spinning off a static ball of electricity that launched into Seifer, knocking him backwards. "Why am I telling you, of course your working with Galbadia."

Seifer grunted "I'm not working with them you dumbass! Water!" A large bubble of water surrounded the man and the electrified weapon, which in turn electrocuted him. He fell to the ground...and stopped moving. Seifer was stronger then he himself had anticipated. "Great, he's dead already, and I still don't know what's going on."

! - ! - !

Nida grabbed on to a seat in the back and pulled himself inside completely, "Cho!" Nida coughed and stumbled to his feet. Looking around the chard insides of the car he spotted Cho laying on the ground just a few feet ahead, Nida wasted no time running to him. "Cho!"

'Cho, are you alright?' Shadow inquired.

Cho groaned and opened his eyes "Yeah, I think I'm ok." Cho sat up and looked at Nida "What was that?"

"I don't know." Nida grabbed him by his shoulders and lifted him on to his feet. "But Seifer's still back there and I think a heard another explosion." Which meant Matthew was also in danger.

"Well let's go then!" Cho ran past Nida toward the back door, but was snatched back. "Hey! What are you doing?"

"Your being to hasty, you have to pay attention!" Nida pointed toward the door where an increasingly louder sound of rotators was radiating. The source became known as a cord drifted down and a man in a green uniform came sliding down into the train. Then the sound of a helicopter passed over them.

"SeeDs?" The man looked over the two questioningly "Why in the hell would SeeDs be working for that damn kid?"

"Why are you after him?" Nida asked.

"Don't you get it, that kid has to die or else Galbadia is going to keep coming after him until they get him."

Nida reached into the waistband of his pants and drew two handguns "We can't let you hurt him."

Cho drew a long, steel rod from his inventory, it was about his height "Nida." He whispered, "Do you know how to use those?"

"Not really." Nida replied, "Looks like I'm going to start learning." Nida stood ready as the man drew a sword from his back, he could see the air around it wavering and distort as if heat was rising "Watch out, his weapon has a fire element." Nida lifted the guns and opened fire on the man with a shot from each, the man crossed the blade across his chest and blocked, the charged at Nida, slashing him transversely on his stomach.

Cho pulled the rod back at his side and thrust it into the man's stomach hard enough to make him stumble backwards. 'This isn't too hard.' He thought himself.

'Don't drop your guard.' Shadow told him.

The man lifted the sword over his head and jumped high enough for his head to come dangerously close to the ceiling, then bringing it down on Cho with a rush of flames being thrown outward by the blade. Cho fell backwards, by the time he hit the ground the flames covering his front side had already cleared away though leaving it's share of damage. 'Ok, that hurt...'

'This guy is fast.' Nida opened fire again with the guns, now that the man was in close range he could actually hit him, and with some luck he did, striking him in the arm and shoulder.

'Ok, here goes nothing.' Cho took a deep breath and clinched his fist tightly around the rod, trying to Draw for the first time. It seemed to work, purple lights shot out of their enemy carrying ice magic with it 'Hey it worked!' "Ice!" Cho shouted, creating cold winds that formed an icicle above the man, then it crashed down on his head and shattered.

"You must be Galbadian SeeDs." The man said with distaste, swinging the sword with seemingly no target, but spewing a thin wave of flames outward on to Cho and Nida.

Cho fell backwards while Nida took the blow of the flaming winds and stayed standing "No, Balamb." Nida fired another pair of shots with the gun, unable to do much else since he didn't have a junction. "What does Galbadia have to do with this?"

"You Balamb SeeDs are the ones that got rid of the sorceress before, why would you do something like help this kid now?" The man asked.

Now Nida was confused? "What does one have to do with another?"

"Humph, traitors." The man reached into his back pocket and pulled out a grenade "If Balamb Garden is working with Galbadia..." the man pulled the clip on the grenade and tossed it in the center of the car, then ran backwards and dived out of the train, managing to grab on to the cord hanging out of the door way.

"Oh man! Run!" Cho and Nida ran towards the door on the opposite side, "It's locked!" Cho pounded against the door, trying to force his way inside.

"Look out." Nida pressed both guns against the lock and fired two bullets in too it, the door immediately slid open, allowing them passage into the next car just as the previous one exploded. The shockwave and out reaching flames knocked Cho's lighter body off of his feet, but Nida caught him and set him back down "Come on, we have to keep going."

"Go where?" Cho asked, following behind Nida.

Nida had been keenly aware that the train had speeding up again, to the point where it was almost out of control. "To stop this train!"

The sound of the previous helicopter could be heard again above them, followed by the windows shattering. The previous man from before was now standing behind him, along with another one who'd entered by the same method. "We don't have time for this! Come on Cho." Nida grabbed Cho by the arm and pushed past him through the next door and into the next car. "We have to stop this train now." He was right, something was really off, so much so that the whole train was shaking violently.

The two men chased after them, though it was becoming increasingly harder to keep their footing since the locomotive felt like it was rocking from side to side, but being quicker, Nida and Cho made it to the head of the train where the operator should have resided. Neither found it surprising when no one was there. "Nida? You know how to stop this thing?" Cho asked, grabbing on to the wall to keep from falling.

"Yes, but we don't have that much time." Nida looked back at the two men that had stopped just outside the door, being slowed down by the shaking.

'Cho.' Shadow said promptingly. 'You can't handle this.'

"Right!" Cho smirked as he attempted his first summon. He'd learned briefly in class, but he'd gained much more knowledge of Junctioning and summoning from Carbuncle to make him confident in the whole process. It went just as it was supposed too, he and Nida faded away, dropping in to the sub-dimension.

At first nothing happened, or it seemed that way. But the shadows surrounding them started to elongate and stretched into the center of the room, rising upward and taking shape until Shadow's body was formed. The wolf growled and rose on to his heals, knowing he had little time since Cho could barely junction let alone hold a summon. Spikes rose from his body and drove forward through the doorway and into the two men. More and more stretched outward, stabbing them about 10 times each before he faded away again.

Nida and Cho returned to reality, alone in the train with the two men dead before them. As soon as his feet became solid again, Cho tumbled to the ground from the unstable shaking. "Nida, What's wrong with this thing!"

Nida stumbled over to the control panel, pressing a few buttons "Manual override...come on, switch to manual override!" He had to restrain himself from pounding on the console, but he kept working, looking back every so often to make sure he was alright. "Got it, Cho, pull that lever over there."

Cho glanced at the large switch right next to him, with out hesitating he reached up and pulled it down the switch, causing a loud screech to sound under them. The sudden engaging of the breaks seemed to make the train more unstable, the sudden attempt at stopping only made it worse and worse until finally it started to tip over on it's left side too much to recover from. "N-Nida! What's going on!"

"Cho!" Nida reached up and wrapped his arms around the boy as the train's left side lifted farther and farther until it fell over completely and slid off the tracks in a rush of igniting sparks. It slammed down in to the grass going full speed, then it burst into flames, but they were quickly extinguished as the train crashed into Obel Lake.

Nida's back slammed against the glass of the window with a loud thud, creating a web of cracks to span outward. Water rushed in from the door way and the broken window above, "Cho, Hold your breath." Nida shouted, holding on to a chair to climb to his feet get his head above water. Cho was already over his head in Nida's arms, just waiting for the boy to let go.

The glass window beneath them shattered, dropping both Nida and Cho down out of the train and into deeper waters at the bottom of the Lake. Nida finally released his grip on Cho.

'Cho!' Shadow called out worriedly.

'I'm ok, I'm ok.' Cho called out hastily in his head, trying to swim against and undertow created by the descending train. He watched as the slowly falling locomotive slammed head first into the lake bed, driving a cloud of dust outward... 'Shadow...do you see that?' Cho drifted almost lifelessly as he stared strait ahead at the oncoming cloud, he saw something, something black and shrouded in the darkness. 'What--what is that?'

'Cho, humans need air don't they?' Shadow asked.

'Yeah but-'Cho was suddenly reminded how much his lungs needed air, '!' he immediately clinched his throat and made a mad dash for the surface, but he found for some reason he wasn't going anywhere. Before he had time to even try and see why, he felt two arms wrapping around his waist and pulling him upward, Nida.

As soon as he felt air, Cho opened his mouth wide and gasped. "There is something down there!"

Nida reached upward and pushed a wet strand of hair out of his face "You can't be serious."

! - ! - !

Seifer was relatively unworried about his teammates as he followed the railroad tracks, Matthew walking behind him with his head down, looking down at his box sadly. Unfortunately it had been flattened on his fall down the hill, and he was particularly depressed about it, it seemed important. Seifer wasn't worried about it, he found this whole situation too suspicious to be worried about it.

"What the hell?" Seifer looked ahead curiously when he saw the train just ahead, derailed and laying on it's side. He immediately charged forward, running along the 5 cars with Matthew following until he reached the point where the train ended up, with half of it in a lake.

"Seifer." Nida called down, sitting on top of the overturned cars with Shadow laying next to him. "I'm glad to see you two are alright."

Shadow jumped down, landing at Seifer's side "What happened?"

"Nothing much, just got stranded." Seifer said, obviously down playing what happened. "Where's Cho?"

Shadow nudged toward the lake "Underwater."

"Why?"

"Looking for something."

Cho silently rose from the depths, using the train as a ladder to climb out of the water.

"Find anything?" Nida asked.

Cho shook his head "No, but I heard something. I think the radio is still working."

Nida seemed more interested now "So, what did they say?"

Cho shrugged "It was all garbled, I couldn't understand a word."

Nida sighed, "Well, I guess we're walking then." The prospect of walking to Timber from here wasn't so inviting.

Nida and Cho began to climb down while Matthew sat down, figuring a small break was in order. Shadow just laid down indifferently, waiting for them...he lifted his head an twitched his ears. "Something's coming our way."

Seifer looked over towards him "Huh?"

"Something's coming from this way." He indicated something farther down the track "...It sounds like..." Shadow thought about it for a moment, trying to place the sound he was hearing. "Like that did." He nudged his head toward the wrecked train.

"It sounds like a train?" Seifer asked skeptically, he looked along the track. "I can't see anything, What about you guys?"

Nida, being taller, stood up strait and lifted his hand over his eyes to block out the sun's glare. "I don't know...something is on the tracks defiantly coming our way. It probably is a train...but--" Nida looked closer, just now barely hearing the sounds of a train approaching. "It doesn't look like a commercial train. What do you guys make of it?"

"You said you heard the radio receiving something, right Cho?" Matthew asked. Cho nodded "Then I think this train is here to help us."