Chapter 6: The new plan

"Well, I'm glad that your happy." Zell threw a punch blindly into the bag before him, followed by a swift round house kick. He was doing some training with a bunching bag hung in his dorm in front of his bedroom, he'd already moved all of the furniture to the wall for more room. "Ready?"

Carbuncle tensed lightly, causing the small jewel on his head to flicker with a red flash and a shield to suddenly appear as if a light had been shined on it. It was made completely out of diamond. "I still know how to do this, hmm."

Zell punched the wall in an attempt to break through, though he knew it wouldn't be done that easily. "So I guess it's my turn to start telling you what happened. I guess Bahamut can only tell so much since he wasn't there the whole time."

Carbuncle became a little more excited "So what are you going to tell me about?"

"Well, everything. I guess the only way to do that is to start from the beginning." Zell paused and looked down at Carbuncle "Are you sure you want to hear this now, because if I stop during a story I always seem to get lost."

Carbuncle nod. "Yeah!"

! - ! - !

"Let me get this strait, you want me to rewrite the existing contract." Squall sat down against the edge of his desk, looking over Zone and Mathew carefully. "And why would that be?"

"Well, we never made it to Timber." Mathew said "The train, kinda blew up."

"How did that happen?"

"We were set up from the start." Mathew said. "All of the passengers were fakes and the guys I need protection against came after me. One thing lead to another and now the train's in Obel lake, just think, if they could do this then what else are they capable of."

"And..." Zone shifted around in his back pocket "We still have the old contract, the one that says we get SeeDs until Timber is liberated."

Squall raised an eyebrow questioningly, "Timber is liberated isn't it?"

Zone and Mathew looked at each other "I forgot, you guys were missing for like 4 years." Zone said with a spark of remembrance. "After the sorceress thing and Galbadia lost control of the Lunatic Pandora, they started putting a tighter hold on places like Timber, there's a guard on every corner. Timber's under complete martial law, it's even worse then before."

Squall looked over that familiar paper, If Timber was still under Galbadian control then Zone was right and the contract was still binding. "Fine, what is it that you want?"

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"Your thinking too hard." Irvine pushed the barrels of the two guns in front of him down. "The key to good aiming is that you have to be relaxed, your fist are clinched really hard."

Nida looked down at his hands, Irvine was right, his knuckles were becoming pail. He took a deep breath and tried to relax to an extent at lest.

"There is no reason to be so tense, you'll only make yourself tired that way." Irvine pointed to Nida's target, a Grat that lay before them in the Garden's training center. "Ok, try it again, you should be able to do it in one round."

Nida lifted the black pistols and fired twice, two bullets stuck the monster in it's stomach and knocked it off it's feet and on to the ground. "That's better." Irvine patted him on shoulder lightly, "Your a fast learner."

Nida rubbed the back of his head modestly "Yeah well."

"Your pretty good with still objects, let's try something moving." Irvine lifted his hand to his chin and looked around, the only suitable thing he could find was a bug bite somewhere nearby. "That, that's perfect. Do you see it?"

"Yes."

"Great, see if you can hit it from where you are."

Nida lifted the guns again and tried to aim, only he found it considerably harder from where he was. It was harder then it seemed. Nida fired while he was still able to stay relaxed, one bullet passed just above the insect's wing and the second flew in front of it's head.

"You have to learn to judge proportion better, try closing one eye."

Nida followed directions obediently, closing his left eye. "Good, now you see that little notch on the edge of your guns, at the very end of the barrel." Irvine asked. Nida nodded again. "Try lining that up to eye level."

Nida elevated the right gun slightly, which was the one he was lining up. "Alright."

"Now aim at the same monster...You got it? Now lifted those guns up just a little bit, good. Now aim at a spot just ahead of it and shoot."

Nida did as he was told, lifting the gun up just a little so that the notch was no longer aligned directly and then shifted his aim to the left so that they were directly in front of the bug bite. Then he quickly opened fire, and the insect abruptly fell from the sky with a bullet in it's thorax and some place relatively centered in it's body. "It worked."

"Of course it did. Just keep practicing doing it that way for a while, because you won't have time in a fight." Irvine sat down on the ground, resting his hands on his metal shotgun. "Wanna keep going?"

"Yes, please."

"Fine then."

! - ! - !

"This place is always empty this time of day." Cho said, standing in the center of the Quad which was empty just as he had said. "It's just me and you, no interruptions."

"How do expect me to do this?" Shadow inquired.

"Just give me a little training, I'm sure someone like you knows lots of stuff." Cho reached behind his back and retrieved the metal rod. "I don't know how to use this thing, teach me something."

"I don't know anything to teach." Shadow snorted.

Cho thought about it, "You have to know something, how did you learn to fight?"

"By fighting."

"Well then, fight me."

"What?"

"I need some training, and you learned how to fight through actually fighting so why can't I?" Cho said confidently, holding the staff in a position he found most comfortable. Which was with double handed. "Just take it easy on me."

"Are you sure about this?" Shadow asked hesitantly, he wasn't sure he knew how to take it easy. "And what do you mean take it easy?"

"Just tone down the attacks a little." Cho told him, take a step back. "Alright, here I come!" He charged forward, turning to the side just as he came upon Shadow and thrusting the end of the staff at him. Shadow crouched a few inches and easily avoided it, watching Cho pull back the rod and thrust it at Shadow again, who opened his mouth and bit down hard on the rod, preventing farther attack.

"Am I going at a good enough pace for you?" Shadow asked.

"Yeah." Cho nodded, kicking Shadow sharply and pulling his weapon back. "This is good." Cho lifted the staff above his head and jumped into the air, swinging it at Shadow on his decent. Shadow merely went under him while Cho was still in the air then kicked him with his hind legs. "Ouuufff!" Cho was knocked forward and hit the ground a few feet later face first with a loud thump. "Wow, I'm still getting my ass kicked."

"Your attacks are too predictable." Shadow told him. "Since your a human, you should use magic first since it seldom misses."

Cho pushed his torso off the ground, the rest of his body following. "I'm not junctioned, I can't use magic."

"Then you need to be quicker."

"That's not going to happen overnight, not with out a haste spell at least."

"If both of those will be a problem for you..." Shadow paused for a moment after studying Cho's form while the boy attacked. A high level monster could easily see what was coming and evade or counter him. "Then you need to change your way of attacking, your too focused on hitting your enemy with all your strength then actually hitting them. Focus on quick attacks that have a better chance of being accurate instead of the powerful ones."

"See, your good at this training thing." Cho complemented.

! - ! - !

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"Seifer." Matthew, who had quite a bit of trouble finding anyone in a place this large, ran after Seifer as soon as he spotted him. He pushed his way through the people in the hallway, apologizing quickly to just about everyone on his way. "Seifer."

'Hmm?' Seifer glanced back, just barely catching a glimpse of the much shorter boy in a crowded place like the Garden between classes. "Oh it's you."

"It took me forever to find any of you guys." Matthew leaned over, holding his hands on his knees and panting heavily. "We got a new contract from Squall, you guys are sticking with us."

"How long?" Seifer asked.

"Until Timber is liberated."

"What? How long is that going to take?" Seifer was needless to say, surprised about this, how was he supposed to know when that was going to happen? Or how? He suspected Squall was just trying to get him out of his hair for a while, apparently a very long while. 'Bastard...' "What the hell are you guys trying to do?"

Mathew expected this reaction "Zone's going to explain it later, when we leave."

"And where is Zone?"

"He's...in the corner of Squall's office."

Seifer rolled his eyes and shook his head, "Might as well get this over with."

! - ! - !

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After 2 more hours of trying to track Nida and Cho down, as well as getting ready and trying to pry Zone away from the Cafeteria hot dogs. They managed to leave the garden and make it the short distance back to the train where Watt's was waiting to go. "Did you have any problems?" Zone climbed up the small stairway from the thick planes in front of the bridge and into the second car.

"No sir, not a peep out of radar." Watts said with a hint of relief in his voice, he'd spent the whole time on edge thinking that Galbadian soldiers were going to attack again. "It's getting pretty late, we better get going sir."

"Yeah your right." Zone called back, heading into the next car where the control room was to check on his crew. Mathew trailing behind while Watts left in the opposite direction.

Nida reached back and helped Cho up, who wasn't looking as if he was completely alert. "We're still going to Deling aren't we?" Cho asked.

Mathew peaked his head back in to the room from the next car. "You guys wanted to know what we're doing didn't you? We'll meet you in the strategy room."

! - ! - !

Shortly after the 4 of them entered the room, the train departed towards Deling while Zone did something in the control room with his crew. It probably had something to do with their upcoming objectives.

"It's getting pretty late." Nida said "Do you think it would be wise to attempt to do anything in Deling after a day like this?"

"No way, I'm to tired." Cho sat down on the ground and laid his back against Nida's leg 'You really don't no how to take it easy do you Shadow.'

'I warned you that fighting me was unwise.' Shadow said discardingly.

The door opened and Mathew descended the stairs, followed by Zone. Mathew climbed up and sat down on the long table in the center of the room, waiting for Zone to explain things. "Alright guys." Zone sat down on the ground, pressing his back against same table with a small yawn. "Since we're going to be with each other for a while, I should probably start explaining stuff. I'm sure all of you guys know that we got another contract, what else do you want to know?"

"Who were those guys who attacks us?" Nida asked, "And what was with the train, there is no way you can just make all of those people just disappear."

"We're not sure who they are exactly, but we know for sure that they're after him." Zone pointed back at Mathew sitting above from him. "They want all of us dead, especially him. They're strong too. That thing on the train with all the fake people, they can do stuff like that."

"Really? That is really creepy." Cho shuttered. "But how could they know we were getting on that train?"

"I don't know." Mathew shrugged, "The only way that could have happened was if they have somebody...following us around..." His voice trailed off at the realization.. "You think we have somebody spying on us?"

Zone nodded. "You could be right, that would explain lot."

"Hold on, back in Dollet Galbadia was chasing us too." Seifer remembered that clearly, since they were the first people to come after them that day. "And one of the other guys who was chasing us said we were helping Galbadia. Do you know what that was about?"

"As you know, Galbadia are the other people coming after us, they want Mathew too. But they only wanna kill us, they want to capture Mathew alive."

Cho glanced up at Mathew. "Wow, you got a lot of problems."

Mathew nodded. "Yeah I know."

"But why?"

"Well." Zone closed his eyes, he really wanted to just go to sleep. "As you may or not have figured out by now, Mathew is different from everyone else, wanna take a guess at it before I tell you how?"

Nida had pretty good idea "He's a sorcerer."

Cho however had not. "What? Sorcerer?"

"Remember after Galbadia attacked us when I was healing Zone, and you asked me what kind of GF I had, and I told you a didn't junction." Mathew said. "That's why."

"They want him because he's Sorcerer though I don't know what they would do with him if they got him." Zone laid his head back on the table and closed his eyes. "Doesn't matter, we aren't going to let either of them get him."

"It makes sense now." Nida placed his hand on Cho's head and held him in place while he sat down so he wouldn't fall from the loss of support, then let go again after his arm was firmly in place behind the boy. "If you let him fight then it would have been a lot easier for Galbadia to get him."

"I keep telling him that." Zone said, opening his eyes just enough to shoot a look at Mathew.

"Maybe if you would stop treating me like a helpless little kid then you would see that I can do something useful, like fight!"

"I'm not treating you like a little a helpless kid!" Zone shouted "I know you can fight, but sometimes it's smarter not too!"

"When will it be? You never let me do anything." Mathew folded his arms and looked away from Zone angrily.

"Hey, calm down you two." Nida coaxed. "Now why are we going to Deling?"

"You know Galbadia has been with out a leader for the past few years." Zone scowled when he spoke on this topic, for some reason this got him even more angry. "That's what they wanted it to look like, they're not looking like another leader like everyone thinks, they already have someone. Vinzer Deling, he's still President of Galbadia!"

"I thought he was dead." Seifer said with obvious inquisition.

"He wasn't, the Sorceress just took over. And now he's back and really pissed off. He's planning something" Zone smirked. "You used to be really powerful in the Galbadian government weren't you Seifer? You must know a lot of Galbadian secrets, they'll never see us coming!"

"What are we supposed to do in Deling?" Nida asked.

"Well you probably know that Galbadia has an information network, and there own worldwide network with information. Well Watts found out about that network, and he also found out that things like faxes and memos up to designs for weapons and vehicles are stored on that network. All of that may be very useful but what were really after is Galbadia's latest weapon, Deling maybe using this weapon to gain even more power." Zone stretched his arms above his head with another yawn "Of course, we can't let that happen, we still didn't even liberate Timber yet."

"So what do you expect to do?"

"We know Galbadia is very through, and with good reason since there system is constantly prone to hackers. So just incase someone gets in and messes something important up, Galbadia backs everything up every 2 months, twice. We were able to obtain the first back up, which was what Mathew was carrying when you first met him, now we have to get the second." Zone paused for a moment to think about it. "I'm sure security is going to be hell."

"What is the back up exactly?"

"A hard drive."

! - ! - !

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A shadowy figure walked out into an open field, leaving parked Balamb Garden in his wake. It was already late, and he didn't want to be out here in the first place. "It's really cold out here, come on, let's do this already."

"Fine." Another figure hidden by darkness met him. "Did you get anything new?"

"Would I be out here in the cold if didn't Dad? Brrrrr, I can't stand cold weather."

"It's not that cold your fine... They aren't wondering too close to the base are they?"

"No, I made sure they went in the other direction as soon as I saw where we were, It'll be gone by morning so just make sure your guys lay low until we leave ok?"

"That's not what you came out here to tell me is it? Is it about Mathew?"

"Yeah, Some SeeDs were assigned to him, they're heading for Deling."

"You know why?" The Father asked.

The son shook his head. "Nope, but they're going tonight. And I heard Galbadia attacked the Timber Owls this morning too so they probably wont do anything yet."

"We can't do anything there any way, Galbadia is in complete control. Damn those bastards, if the Timber Owls end up giving Mathew to them--"

"Calm down Dad."

"See if you can get more information by morning, we need to kill Mathew before Galbadia get's him. Those Idiot are going to get caught and I know it. I'll send a team to do it."

"Oh yeah, Seifer is one of the SeeD's working with the Timber Owls. He could be leading them to Galbadia." The son said.

"Hmm...I'll send two teams then..." The father paused for a moment "Did you find any GFs we can use?" He knew a Garden was the perfect place to look, which was what they were looking for, GFs.

"I don't know yet, but I'm going to bed, I'm freezing. See ya Dad."

"Alright then, stay safe."

"Don't worry about me."

! - ! - !

! - ! - !

Zell sat up in is bed upon hearing the sharp sound of...something. 'What the hell was that?' Zell looked over at Bahamut, who was stilling sleeping next to him, and Carbuncle, who had been his lap and of course was awakened by Zell's sharp upstart.

"What the hell!" Carbuncle failed around in surprise after a cover had been thrown over him. "Hey, what's the big Idea?"

"Oh, sorry." Zell pulled the covers off of Carbuncle, releasing the small GF. "Did you hear that?"

Carbuncle rolled off of his back and rubbed his ears slightly "I didn't hear anything. Maybe it was a dream."

"No I definitely heard something." Zell said surely, he was emphasized by the same sound drifting faintly into the room. Still as unidentifiable as the last time. "Did you hear it this time."

"Yeah, what was it?"

"I have no idea...but I'm gonna find out." Zell lightly pushed Carbuncle to the side enough for him to drag himself out of bed and immediately head for his dresser to find a set of clothing, he wasn't going out there in his underwear. "Coming?"

"Sure, but what about Bahamut?" Carbuncle jumped off the bed and looked over at the clock, it was 3 in the morning, what could possibly be going on?

"No point in waking him up, it could be nothing." Zell pulled on his shorts quickly and threw his shirt on loosely and unbuttoned, before slipping in to his shoes. Carbuncle followed Zell as he walked out of his room and into the dormitory hallway where they paused again. Zell listened out, just barely picking up a soft shuffling sound, right before he heard the other sound he couldn't identify again. "It's...coming from the main hall."

"Let's go then." Carbuncle ran ahead of Zell with a mild curiosity. "What do you think it is?"

Zell easily caught up with him, "I don't know..." Zell's eyes flash a quick look of remembrance, something he'd heard earlier. "Hey, I heard there was a monster in the Garden, but it only comes out at night. You think that's it?"

"I don't know." Carbuncle ran ahead out of the dormitory wing and into the main hall where he stopped abruptly. "Whoa, Zell do you see that?"

Zell looked ahead past the fountain surrounding the elevator to the higher levels, on the side carrying the infirmary, cafeteria, and quad a large shadow projected itself on the wall. They could see what looked like horns and some other things waving with a tentacle like shape. "That's it! Come on we can't let it get away." Zell darted after it, running as fast as he could along the lengthy, curved hallway, Carbuncle following.

"Where is it?" Carbuncle stopped in front of the directory map that sat before the path leading to the closed off front door. "It was just here."

'Hmm.' After looking over every possible direction, Zell instinctively looked down just in case. Finding nothing bellow he turned his gaze upward just in time to spot a long, red tentacle being reeled over the second floor balcony followed by that same noise that had awakened him. It sounded like a screech and a hiss, now that he was closer to it he could hear it better. "It's upstairs."

"Uh...How do we get up there?" Carbuncle asked, trying to remember..."Oh yeah the elevator!"

"It's locked." Zell shook his head, knowing that they were always locked at nighttime to either prohibit misconduct in all of the classrooms or to keep Squall from being bothered while he was sleeping.

"Then throw me up there." Carbuncle suggested, "Hurry, we're gonna lose it."

"Are you sure about that?" Zell picked up the small GF with both hands and lifted him over his head, pausing just to make sure Carbuncle was sure about his plan.

"Yeah," Carbuncle said with a small nod, Zell shrugged and drew the small body back behind his head before lunching him upward with a moderate amount of strength. Carbuncle sailed through the air, above the second floor railing and right into the wall. 'Too much strength Zell!' Carbuncle was forced to curl into a ball and create a shield around himself to absorb the impact, after that he fell safely to the ground with out incident.

He was right in front of the only second floor hallway on the right side of the elevator, 'Where is it?' Carbuncle slowly walked forward in an attempt to be inconspicuous, crouched down low in a sly manner. 'Gotta be around here somewhere...' Carbuncle was soon to find it...'!' That's when he heard the sound of a lock being released and a door being opened, Carbuncle ran towards the source of the sound as fast as he could.

He passed the still closed classroom and stopped right in front of the emergency exit that just slammed in his face. He just barely stopped himself from running into it by a few inches. 'Uh...?'

"Carbuncle." Zell called up from the previous level "Do you see anything?"

"What ever it was, it just went out of this door." Carbuncle jumped on to the railing, holding on with his paws while half of his body hung off the other side. "Whatever it was, it just went out of this door."

"What door?"

"It says 'Emergency exit' on it, it's really big and made of metal."

"It looks like we lost it...Unless!" Zell just got a useful idea, what other place in the Garden was open to the outside? Go there and they might just be able to catch it. "Come on, we might still have a chance."

Carbuncle climbed over the railing and jumped fearlessly down on the first floor and into the hands of an awaiting Zell, then climbed on to his shoulder while Zell turned around and ran back the way they'd just come from. He made a rather sharp turn around the second corner into another hallway leading to the Quad, only to be blocked by metal shutters. "First thing in the morning, I'm getting a master key from Squall."