Chapter 11: Same problems

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I'm warning you now, this chapter gets kinda long, most of it's talking and it's a really important chapter for later.

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Watts slowly pushed open the strategy room door and slowly peeked down the stairs "Zone?"

Zone leaned backwards in his chair, lifting two legs off of the ground just enough to get a half view of Watts. "Huh?"

"We've arrived sir."

Zone nearly fell when he felt the familiar movement of the train start to decelerate and his fragile balance was almost lost. "Really? Already?" Zone let the chair fall noisily on to all of it's legs and he abruptly stood to his feet, pausing as he heard the subtle sounds of the breaks engaging and the pull of his own body slowing with the train. "How'd you find it?"

"Well..." Watts shifted his hat around nervously, almost in embarrassment. "We were under the assumption that the Garden was changing locations..."

"How did you find it?" Zone repeated.

"It didn't move." Watts told him plainly, he was embarrassed that they'd gone looking around as long as they did for no reason, most of which was his fault . In fact they had wasted a whole day.

"Oh...that might be bad." Zone said un surely. Enix, who'd been sitting on the table, jumped into the air with a few flaps of his unbound wings and glided on to Zone's shoulder. Zone couldn't help but smile when he petted Enix's head lightly, the small bird seemed comfortable there, and he had yet to fall. "Ready to go little guy?"

"Kewk."

"Alright." Zone ascended the stairs where Watts was waiting for him above, the screeching sounds of engaging breaks grew louder and louder until they could feel the train come to a slow stop and the familiar sound of pressure being released emitted from below. Cho and Matthew were already awaiting here, as soon as the train stopped they pushed the door open into the brightness of Balamb's planes outside and jumped out.

"I hope we aren't to late." Nida emerged from the next car with the binder holding the back up's files underneath his arm firmly.

"You worry too much." Seifer was right behind him, Shadow trailing silently at his heels. "You act like they can't take care of themselves."

"I hope your right." Nida grabbed on to a railing near the door and jumped out into the field of soft grass and low winds just out side of the city of Balamb, at the very edge of the rail road tracks. He could see the beach not to far ahead and the calm waters of the ocean that stretched even farther over the horizon .

"I guess we're walking form here." Cho stretched his arms above his head and shifted around a bit before he turned back toward the train and the group that had gathered there.

"What about the monsters?" Watts pulled the door closed and waited until he heard the sound of it locking behind him.

Cho smirked to himself and drew the rod holstered to his back, "I think we can handle that."

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"Oh man..." Nida looked around in a disappointed, horrified amazement and stopped in his tracks as soon as he stepped in to the main hall.

Cho rubbed his head uneasily, looking around at the damages that littered the structure. Burn marks lay sparsely over the marble floor, deep marks, dents and imprints accompanied them. Long fractures and in some places holes plagued the second floor balcony, and blood was everywhere. "We're too late."

"They probably had no idea. " Seifer let go of the handle his gunblade he had been ready to draw as soon as Shadow alerted him to the scent of blood on entry. Things seemed calm enough here except for the noise of machines and the clammer of a lot of people, clean up was in full progression, a great deal of the students were working on repairing all of it.

"From the looks of it this didn't happen that recently." Watts took off his hat and held his head down solemnly. "It looks like it happened yesterday."

"Don't feel too bad Watts." Matthew tried to console him as best he could, "It wasn't your fault, even if we would have found this place yesterday we probably would have already been too late anyway."

It didn't help. "Yeah maybe." Watts rested his hat atop his head again and walked forward toward the elevator, careful not to get in anyone's way. Zone took another sobering look around before shaking his head and going after Watts.

Nida took a small step forward and looked upward towards the second floor, shifting the binder under his arm uneasily. "I can't believe somebody could do all of this. No wonder Galbadia is so afraid of them." With an wondering expression coming to his face he turned his eyes back down to the first floor and began drifting off away from them. "I'd better go find Squall."

That left Seifer, Cho, Matthew, and Shadow alone.

"It's already over." Matthew slowly eased himself down on to a bench, propping his elbows on to his knees and resting his head in to his hands. "What am I suppose to do now?"

"I don't know." Seifer shrugged discardingly, "Go to the library or something."

Matthew looked up at Seifer, then down at the ground. "Might as well..."

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"Ifrit, it's not your fault." Squall climbed behind his desk and fell into his seat with a tired sigh, he was so sleepy he barely made it to his office.

Ifrit slumped weakly against the wall beside Squall's desk and sunk down to the floor, his eyes glaring at the opposing wall with a fire Squall had never seen in the generally calm GF. "If I had only fought harder-"

"Then you'd probably be dead." Squall cut him off.

An abrupt, tense silence fell over the room after that, Ifrit gave a fleeting glance to Squall, not expecting to hear the firmness in his tone that he did, but looked away again, only more angry with himself.

Both of them were still recovering after being beaten so badly the day before, Squall had been unconscious for at 17 hours before he woke up in the infirmary. And by then the bleeding had stopped, he'd been bandaged up, an IV been streaming blood into him, and a host of different types of potions and healing spells had been used on him. By now all of the lacerations in his back and through out the rest of his torso had been healed, but it would still take some time for him to regain his strength.

Ifrit had had far worse damage, and if one of Allen's tentacles had been a few inches over then he wouldn't be alive. A very guilty Bahamut, however, was there to help him, and thanks to a long verity of GF potions he was alright. His wounds were well on their way to healing, the three holes burrowed through his body hadn't completely closed yet and Squall insisted that they be at lest bandaged despite Ifrit's protest that they'd be gone in a day's time anyway. But he was still weak from the blood lost and damage that had been inflicted, with his in-human rate of healing he'd be fine in another day, but now he was too weak to do anything.

"He... He..." Ifrit grimace, narrowing his eyes. "Damnit he shouldn't have had to protect me!"

"Ifrit! There's nothing you could have done!" Squall shouted.

"I-"

"Did you do everything you could to protect me?" Squall asked, seemingly out of the blue.

"...Yes." Ifrit didn't expect that line of questioningly.

"And did you try your absolute hardest to help Griever?" Squall asked again, speaking with a harsh tone.

"Yes."

"Then there was nothing else you could have done."

Ifrit was silent again, his eyes still focused on the wall with a hard look, Squall wouldn't be surprised if it erupted in to flames. "..."

"..." Squall sighed and pushed himself up in his seat. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize to me." Ifrit snorted, he really didn't feel like hearing an apology.

"Look... I know you think it's your fault but there really was nothing else you could have done. Neither of you could have stopped it from happening, it was either going to be you or him."

Ifrit looked at him again, his eyes not losing any of their hardness. "Then it should have been me."

"..." Squall hesitated to speak again, what could he have said to that? "Ifrit."

"He was stronger then me."

"That's not all that matters."

"I couldn't beat that man!" Ifrit growled, "How can you say it didn't matter, if he wasn't protecting me then maybe he could have-"

"Maybe." Squall pointed out. "Maybe this wouldn't have happened if we were all stronger, we'll never know, so there's no use focusing on it. We have more important things to worry about, like finding him."

Ifrit looked away again, saying nothing. "..."...The fire GF's golden eyes looked toward the elevator, then junctioned himself with Squall just as the sounds of the device rising started to echo through the shaft.

The doors rolled swiftly open, and Zone, Watts and Nida to walk on to the office. "Squall?" Nida moved quickly to his desk and looked over Squall worriedly. "Squall are you alright?"

Squall pushed himself upright in his chair again, he didn't expect Nida to be here. "Nida? Zone, Watts? What are guys you doing here?"

"We had come to talk to you but uh..." Nida shifted around nervously at the subject. "Looks like we're too late."

"Yeah, I'm sure you've noticed that we were attacked yesterday." Squall told him. "A group of 48 came at around 9 in the morning and hit us with a surprise attack. We have a lot of injuries but the good news there was no casualties."

"Actually Squall." Watts started. "That's what we came to talk to you about...Well actually we had been coming to warn you but we were clearly too late."

Squall took a little more interest when he heard that, Warn? They knew? "What do you mean warn? How did you know this was coming?"

"The people who attacked you, do you know who they were?" Nida asked.

Knew? How could he forget. "They were called Gcom, some man named Allen told me he was in charge."

Nida had to make sure. He looked over to Zone, who nodded acknowledgingly and continued for him. "We went to Deling and we stole something from Galbadia, a lot of information, and some of that information was got was on Gcom. They're a Galbadian resistance group. " Zone said.

Squall nodded, waiting for him to continue.

"And from what we've learned about them they're a pretty good one, and they're about to go against Galbadia in a big way."

Squall wasn't completely understanding of this right now. "So what does that have to do with the Garden?"

"I'm getting to it." Zone told him. "But really these guys are powerful." Zone held out his hand and Nida handed him the binder, then he quickly opened it to a folded page used for a mark.Making sure it was right he laid it before Squall. "Look at that map, the areas in green represent the places Galbadia knows will be held by Gcom and the blue are places Galbadia are setting out to take control of."

Squall was starting to get an ominous sinking feeling. "...Don't tell me this means what I think it does."

Nida unfortunately nodded. "Yeah, we're about to be in the middle of a war. And if this map is any indication, larger then the last Galbadia-Esther war, and a lot more dominating. And both sides have already started."

"This Gcom group is going after Galbadia, so what does that have to do with this Garden?"

Watts picked up the binder from Squall's desk and began flipping through the pages again. "Gcom has two objectives, one is Matthew, and the other is GFs, they're collecting them."

"GFs?" Squall and Ifrit both painfully recalled Griever. "They took one from me... But why?"

Watts shrugged. "That we don't know, to fight Galbadia with I would presume."

( Squall.) Ifrit called out, an idea forming, (That paper, it holds which locations the people that captured Griever will be going right? We can use it to find him.)

'Ifrit your right...' "Watts, can I see that map again?"

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Cho pushed open the door to the familiar dorm and peeked around cautiously inside "Hey Zell."

The boy in question was laying half asleep on the couch, Carbuncle resting in his lap. "Huh?" He lifted his head at the sound of a familiar voice calling his name and saw Cho walking in and closing the door behind him. "Cho? What are you doing here?" He was a little disappointed, if he hoped to see anyone walk in right now it was Bahamut who'd been gone since he passed out yesterday. Ifrit informed him that Bahamut was un captured and un harmed, which left Zell unable to do anything but wait for him to come back.

"Came to warn you guys about something but...I guess you already knew." Cho said, shifting around nervously at the subject. "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine." Zell planted his hands behind him and sat upright, causing Carbuncle to stir in his lap.

"Oh man, I wish I could have helped."

Zell didn't reply at first, he just stared at Cho for a moment with an estranged expression on his face, like he was remembering something.

"Zell? What?" Cho sat down beside Zell on the couch, wondering why he was getting that look. "What is it?"

"Oh, nothing." Zell rested his hand soothingly on Carbuncle's head who woke from the agitation.

Carbuncle's ears peeked and he inanely looked up at Zell, then over to Cho. "Cho, your back?"

"Not for long." Cho smiled and petted the small GF's back. "I was really worried about you, I thought those guys might have got you."

"You know about that huh?" Carbuncle shook his head disappointedly. "They didn't take me...the took my friend though."

"GF?" Cho asked.

Zell shook his head. "Alex, He was the boy Nida was teaching to pilot the Garden."

"Why'd they take him?" Cho didn't understand that, weren't they only after GFs? "I'm sure he's fine. You'll get him back."

"Yeah." That still didn't make Carbuncle feel better.

"Don't worry, If you looking to find those guys, I have very good news."

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"I don't like this place." Shadow announce bluntly, his glowing red eyes shifting around uneasily as he walked down the Quad hall beside Seifer. The hall was empty compared to other parts of the Garden, a few student's lined the halls, cleaning what they could, repairing what they were able to.

The students were uneasy as the pair passed by, giving silent looks which Shadow was quick enough to notice before the person looked away. He could even smell their fear, he'd learned not to be as confident in that scent as he used to be, he'd seen what humans did when they were afraid. Not that he couldn't handle anything they could throw at him.

Seifer rubbed Shadow's head reassuringly. "Take it easy spiky, thinking about it will only make it seem worse." He was use to it by now, and he didn't take it as personally as Shadow did.

Shadow glared up at the human,"Don't call me that."

Seifer smirked in amusement, resting his hands behind his neck. "Don't worry about it, we're going to be gone soon anyway."

The two of them walked in to the Quad and looked around from the top of the stairs. Seifer didn't expect to see what he did. "Whoa..." With a look of awe on his face he walked down the stairs, trying to get a closer look. He stopped beside the stage and stared upward at the thick, black scorch marks surrounding the Quad's balcony.

There were a lot more student's here, repairing what they could.

One of the student's in particular tiredly dragged himself past the two, and managed to step on Shadow's tail by mistake. Shadow immediately looked back at him, half growling. "Watch it." It truly was an improvement, before he would have made a death threat.

"Leave me alone mutt." The boy muttered.

"Mutt?" If there was anything he hated, it was being called a dog, a mutt was even worse. "What'd you say human?"

Seifer looked down at Shadow, then at the boy. "Calm down Shadow, he doesn't know what he's saying." Truthfully the student didn't.

The 17 year old boy with short black hair and sleepy green eyes looked away, still mumbling loudly. "Leave me alone, all of this is probably your fault."He was afraid of Shadow as most were, though he didn't have a quiet fear, he had a resentful one that made him angry. Angry enough to fight a fight he wouldn't win. "You and him."

"Look kid, I don't have the patience to deal with people like you today." Seifer looked back at the boy fully, his hand resting on Shadow's head mainly to keep him from doing something. "So just keep walking."

Apparently he was madder then he looked. "Why don't you leave?"

Seifer sighed in annoyance. "I'm warning you, keep walking."

The dark haired boy had just been beaten and his GF stolen only the previous day, he was feeling particularly horrible. Something in his mind just said to hell with it, maybe he couldn't beat a guy who turned in to a monster, but maybe he could beat Seifer. "Or what?"

Was this kid really picking a fight with him? Seifer was never one to back down from a challenge. "Or I'm gonna kick your ass, this is your last chance."

"I'm sick of you and that monster." The boy shouted, by now some people were starting to notice to confrontation and were watching suspiciously. He clinched his fist tightly at his side, his weapons of choice, and readied himself to fight. "Let's see if you can really kick my ass." The boy held his arms outward promptingly, backing away from the stairs and into the open space of the Quad.

Seifer smirked, if he wanted him to do this then fine, he'd do this. "Just remember you asked for this."

Shadow stepped forward offensively and growled, but Seifer's hand resting on his head immediately pushed him back. "Seifer."

"No way Spikey, you just sit back." Seifer told him, he slipped his jacket off of him and tossed it aside, staring the boy in the face. "Alright, come on!"

The boy looked at Seifer questioningly, then around at the watching students.

Seifer noticed. "What are you looking around at them for? What, you want some help or something." He might as well get it out the way now. "Go ahead, I can take more then one."

"I'm a level 17 SeeD, I don't need help to beat you." The boy shouted.

"A SeeD huh?" Seifer smirk grew into a smile, he drew his gunblade and held it up. "Happy now? Either leave me alone or come on and lets get this over with."

Shadow brushed against Seifer's leg and looked him in the eyes. "I'm not going to just stand here like some pet." He growled.

"I told you, this is my fight." Seifer repeated, he was more afraid that Shadow would end up killing someone.

"Then I'll fight with you." The tone of Shadow's voice left no room for discussion, if he couldn't fight by Seifer's side then... The black body started to drip into a dark fluid almost as if melting until he was nothing more then a shadow on the ground. That Shadow stretched out, creeping up Seifer's legs like growing darkness caused by fading light, sliding up his body, streaking across his arms and then on to his sword.

"Shadow?" Seifer looked down at his possessed gunblade, now completely black. "Fine. Just take it easy." Seifer then looked at the SeeD, "Alright kid, what are you waiting for?"

With a twitch of his eye a nod to himself, the boy charged at Seifer with his fist drawn back, at full speed he dawned on Seifer within a few seconds and then threw a punch at him. Seifer tilted the flat edge of his sword towards him defensively and blocked the blow. Then the boy threw another punch, which again was blocked, then with mediocre skill he leapt into the air and sent a sharp kick down at Seifer. Seifer easily stepped backwards and to the side, quick enough to step behind the boy with his sword raised and slash him across the back, making him fall disorientedly to the ground with a pretty long scar left behind.

Seifer was taking it easy on him and he knew it. "Bastard." The boy rolled on to his back and pushed himself, but he didn't get farther then his knees before he felt the tip of Seifer's possessed Hyperon at his throat.

Seifer smirked, pausing for a moment to give a wordless, though victorious look at the glaring student before he extended his free hand outward towards him, 'Flare.' With a burst of red energy the boy was thrown backwards to the ground, hard.

"Alright." Seifer rested the sword on his shoulder and looked around at the crowd of watching students . "Is there anybody else, Let's get this over with now."

A rumbling clamor erupted among the gathered crowd, there voices echoing through the quad.

Seifer was getting sick of just standing there, he held out his sword and looked boredly over the black tainted blade, the metal looked as if it had been this color ever since it was forged. Interesting, he was amazed at how Shadow's possession effected things. "Come on, I know you've all been itchin' to ever since I walked through the door, here's your chance."

The calmer quieted a bit and another student stepped in front of Seifer. "Alright, I'll take you on." He said confidently. He seemed to be just as old as the other boy, with strait brown hair that came down to his ears. He held a spear, a very rare choice of weapon, and from the way he was breathing he'd run all the way back to his dorm room to get it.

Seifer snorted and rolled his eyes. "Oh come on, one? I know there's more people then that." He said, looking around at the Quad. "You guys know you wanna, come on."

At Seifer's prompting 2 more students came to the other boy's side and had been very anxious to do so, one of them was a boy with spiky red hair and a sword who was at the most 16 years old. And the second boy couldn't have been more then 15, with long blond hair tied in a low pony tail and a pair of long knives in his hands.

"Better." Seifer lifted the weapon offensively. "Now what are you guys waiting for?"

The three boy's looked at each other, a smile growing on their faces. The upper classmen bolted towards the Seifer with weapon's ready, their eyes focused on him intently.

"Stop!" Before they could reach him, a frantic voice shouted out and someone pushed their way roughly past all three of them. When the form finally made it through Cho stood in front of Seifer defensively, holding his metal rod with some skill. "Stop! Leave him alone."

"Cho, move." Seifer pressed the flat side of his sword against Cho's face and pushed him aside.

"Get the hell out of the way brat!" The oldest redhead said.

"Leave him alone!" Cho shouted back, ignoring the brat comment.

"Kid, get the hell out of here." Seifer growled.

"No way." Cho shook his head, his eyes shifting uneasily around at the three. "If anything you should leave, why are you fighting these guys."

The oldest student apparently didn't want to wait, for anybody. "Brat! Get the hell out of the way!"

"No!"Cho shook his head stubbornly, despite Seifer's constant attempts to push him out of the way, not to mention the threats of punishments to come being whispered if he didn't leave. "Leave him alone!"

"So now what?" The blond said, "Your gonna let this little kid fight for you? I guess it's fitting because the little bastard is a SeeD-" There was obvious resentment in those words, how someone so young could become a SeeD before him, and at the same rank! "And you can't even become one."

"He's not fighting anything for me" Seifer growled, grabbing Cho by the hair and pulling out of his way again. "If your gonna come on then shut up and come on! Cho, get the hell out of the way!"

"What did you just call me?" Cho pried Seifer's hand off of him with the rod and regained his ground.

"Come on." The youngest member, who was still older then Cho and only a Junior classmen, "The only reason your a SeeD was because Cid felt sorry for you, or got sick of you bothering him or something like that."

Cho narrowed his eyes and held the edge of his rod outward in a ready stance. "You think I'm not a real SeeD! Alright then, I'll show you." He looked back at Seifer with an anger burning in his eyes, and Cho always seemed to find a way to do what he wanted when he was angry enough.

Seifer rolled his eyes, "Alright Cho, but don't blame me if you get hurt." He knew Cho probably wouldn't get far on his own, he had limited fighting experience. So Seifer tapped the blade of his sword, "Shadow, get the hell out of there, go help Cho." He whispered. Black liquid began flooding off of the sword in large sheets and reformed into Shadow's form. With one last look as Seifer he walked toward Cho and faded out of exsistance as he junctioned himself to the boy.

With that matter settled, Seifer remembered how sick he was of standing here. "Alright guys, come and get it."

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"Your doing really well." Irvine walked quietly behind Nida and positioned himself over his left shoulder. The two were in the training area again, fighting monsters for Irvine's demonstrational and instructional purposes.

Nida stood in front of the older boy, holding Irvine's 8 gauge, single barrel shotgun up at about collar bone level, aimed at a Grat. "Make sure it's lined up right. Ready?"

Nida nodded. "Yeah."

"Alright." Irvine took a step back, "Fire."

Nida fired,"!" but was immediately thrown off balance from the feedback. The long barrel of the weapon immediately tilted upward and Nida had to take a step back to catch himself. "Whoa!"

It hit, but not as well as Nida had hoped, most of what connected was spread fire. The formerly unaware Grat took notice of the two and turned around to face them with a loud screech. "Oh, I should have warned you about the recoil, this takes a lot more effort then handguns." Irvine reached over Nida's shoulder and pushed it back down into place, watching the angry Grat charge towards Nida. "You have to be firm, tighten your grip."

Nida cocked the slide, hearing the familiar click as the empty shells were discarded. His fingers clinched the handle and tightened themselves on the bottom of the barrel, then just as soon as he locked the muscles in his arms in place he pulled the trigger. His arms only shook lightly and the barrel stayed relatively strait despite the recoil, though it was obviously a strain for relatively weak Nida's strength. The rounds struck the plant monster directly in the chest and knocked it backwards on to the ground, killing it with the second strike.

"That's really good." Irvine patted him on the shoulder and smiled. "You aim is dead on, and your really quick about it, you were really quick those hands also, you must have had a lot of experience."

"Nope, not at all." Nida shook his head and blushed slightly from the flattery.

"Well keep practicing." Irvine gave him another small pat on the shoulder and turned away, leaving Nida to practice on his own. "Oh, and you can keep the gun."

"Huh?" Nida looked curiously down at the shotgun. "Really?"

"Yeah, I don't need it anymore." Irvine threw a small wave back. "Way I hear it your gonna need it more then me."

"Oh, you heard about by assignment?" Nida looked over the weapon with a new interest, this would be great for him. It was more powerful then the handguns, and it could hit in a much wider area, but it was much slower, and held less ammunition.

Irvine stopped and looked back. "Oh, not that. Seifer's your teammate right?"

"Yeah..." Nida nodded suspiciously.

"Well then you might wanna go down to the Quad, like now."

"W-What?"

! - ! - !

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Nida half jumped down the stairs of the Quad and roughly began pushing his way through the people that had gathered. "Damnit..." Nida uncharacteristicly shoved his way past the last person until he stood front and center in the crowd and could finally see what was happening. "Seifer! Cho!" He saw his two teammates facing off with another pair of Garden students, and if he looked hard enough he could see about 5 other injured classmen and SeeDs resting on the balcony, he could guess what happened

Cho didn't pay attention to Nida at all, maybe he didn't even hear him. Cho leapt into the air spinning the rod around skillfully above his head, and using that gathered momentum as he sung the metal rod into the side of the tall redhead's face. Hard enough to knock the 17year old off of his balance and send him stumbling to the ground. Satisfied with his hit Cho landed and made quick leaps back to Seifer's side.

No one got to make another move before Nida intervened, placing himself directly in between them, and gaining a disappointed chorus of moans and groans from the crowd. "What are you to doing? Why are you fighting each other?"

Seifer dropped his head and let the edge of his Hyperion fall against the ground, "Relax, we're just having a little fun." Seifer sighed, Nida didn't like the way he said that.

"Yeah, just a little fun." Cho repeated, his voice held an impishness to it, and Nida really didn't like the way he said that. A volley of agreeing voices came, either agreeing or shouting for him to move. Either way they didn't want him there.

Nida's eyes narrowed, just barely refraining from glaring at them. "Why don't you just leave them alone? Are you really that angry?"

"Get out of the way Nida." The oldest, dark haired SeeD said, motioning Nida out of the way with a wave of his spear.

"No." Nida said with out hesitation, giving not a second's regard to the object. "Why are you fighting? For Hyne's sake stop messing with them."

'Geez Nida.' Seifer lifted his hand to his head with slight annoyment, he didn't know what to think now. First Cho ran to his defense and now Nida was too, with a shotgun? Should he be thankful or pridefully offended they had to do this in the first place? Who was he kidding, he was both. "Nida, just move, I won't hurt them... too bad."

"Nida why are you protecting this traitor?" The same dark haired SeeD asked.And now it was finally out in the open. "Besides it just a harmless fight."

"Yeah Nida, why are you sticking up for this traitor?" The slightly younger red headed SeeD chimed in.

"We'll see if you keep talking like that after Nida moves." Seifer threatened, lifting his sword again.

"He's my friend, so leave him alone." Nida told them, he didn't think twice about using that term for Seifer.

"Nida get out of the way, this doesn't involve you!" The older one prompted angrily. "This is between us, the traitor, that monstrosity and the shrimp."

"I am not a shrimp!" Cho shouted angrily, "I am so gonna kick your ass."

Nida looked back at Cho questioningly, and when the boy said monstrosity he could only assume they meant Shadow, but why was Cho involved in this? Nida knelt down beside Cho, keeping his eye on the opposing three, "Cho, what are you doing?" He whispered chastisingly.

"You told me I'd have to prove myself." Cho whispered back, "They don't think I'm a real SeeD, so I'll just have to show them."

"This is not the way to do it!"

"Well I'm not just doing it for myself." Cho shot back. "I'm doing it for Seifer and Shadow, Shadow doesn't deserve this."

"I know he doesn't. But you can't fight a battle for him, and this isn't the way to get people to change their minds about him." Nida could practically hear Shadow growling about the fighting a battle for him part. "And Besides, these guys are higher ranking and stronger then you, jumping in a fight like this is a perfect way to get hurt with out a reason."

Cho scowled and looked away, unfortunately Nida was right and he knew it. Then a surprised look came to his face when Shadow unjunctioned himself from the boy, appearing in front of Nida. "Shadow-" Nida didn't even get to finish his sentence before Shadow cut him off.

"Don't even say it." Shadow barked. "No one is fighting anything for me. I don't need you Humans to protect me."

"Uh...I think you misunderstood. " Nida shook his head. "I'm not talking about physically, something completely different."

"You humans." Shadow narrowed his eyes and snorted. "You never say what you really mean, it's so foolish." Nida smiled and rubbed Shadow's head, but the growling dog leaned away. "No one's fighting anything for me."

"Just bare with me. Take it easy." Nida stood up and gave him one last pat on the head, pushing down his hears a bit as he ruffled the black fur. Shadow didn't protest this time. "Seifer-"

"No." Seifer said plainly, "We might as well get this over with now." From the sounds of the crowd they agreed, but when else would they get this kind of opportunity?

"Seifer, come on, stop this." Nida half pleaded. "There's no point to this."

"Really?" Seifer lifted his sword up and rested it against his shoulder. "It'll make me feel a hell of a lot better."

Nida shook his head, "Maybe it will, but it'll only make things worse, plus this is really stupid, stop it"

"I've dealt with this for a really long time, I've earned this." Seifer shot back in a condescending manner.

"You'll get over it, Stop it."

Seifer smirked. "Is that an order, o fearless leader?"

He knew it was pointless to even answer, Seifer would do what he wanted either way. "Yes, it is." Nida said, he was going to stand his ground.

Seifer's smirk grew into an amused smile. "Too bad. So get out of the way."

"Yeah Nida, I'm sick of standing here!" The oldest and most impatient dark haired SeeD shouted. "Get out of the way before I have to go through you!"

Nida gave one last harsh look to Seifer before he turned around to face the other boy. "No."

"I guess I'm fighting you too then!" The boy held the spear downward at his side and charged toward him, confident that Nida, the obvious non fighting type, would move.

Nida how ever wouldn't let the fight between Seifer, Cho, and the three student's persist any longer. He lifted the shotgun, locking his muscles in place to brace for feedback.

"Stop this right now."

A very different voice caused everyone to freeze and the clamor among the students to die down to silence. Nervous students moved out of the way as Squall walked through the crowd and directly in the center of the halted fight. "What the hell are all of you doing?"

The second oldest red haired SeeD rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Uh..we were just messing around...sir."

Squall felt a headache coming already. "Well if you have time for that then you have time to help clean up...All of you." Everyone immediately disbanded and began drifting off away from each other. Seeing the crowd starting to leave in nervous droves, Squall turned back towards the 4 standing behind him. "Seifer, why are you starting a fight at a time like this?"

"Lionhart, of course you got it all wrong as usual."Seifer snorted, and the accusation was the thing he did take personally. "I didn't start anything, they did."

"I sure it was too much to ask you to just walk away." Squall said, half sarcastically. "How could I expect that, you don't even listen to your team leader." Of course Squall had seen Seifer completely ignore Nida.

"Don't take it personal." Seifer said dismissatively, brushing right past Squall and walking away. "If you really want to talk to someone, talk to those student's of yours."

Nida dropped his head and sighed. "That's Seifer for you."

"I didn't think he'd listen to you." Squall folded his arms and tilted his head back, he had too much to deal with to focus on Seifer. "Can you-"

"Don't worry about me, I can handle it." Nida reassured him. "Seifer doesn't listen but he wouldn't do anything really rash out in the field." 'I hope.'

"What about Cho." Squall narrowed his eyes reprimandingly at Cho, who smiled uneasily and rubbed the back of his head at the harsh gaze.

"Uh...I always listen to Nida..." Cho nodded. "...most of the time."

"Cho is no problem at all." Nida told him. "So Squall, what are you going to do next?"

That part was a little unclear. "Well, I guess the only thing I can do is start checking the places on that map Gcom might show up, it's the only lead I have to go on. What about you."

"It's really up to Zone, but I'm sure we'll do the same ." Nida rested the new weapon on his shoulder and looked up thoughtfully. "I'm sure we'll find some way to go against Galbadia."

"Good luck." Squall, knowing he needed to figure out what he had to do next, and nothing else was happening, for Griever's sake he decided the best thing to do was to get back to work. So with a quick glance around at the remaining students in the Quad, he headed towards the exit. But curiously he paused when he saw Zell running his way, Carbuncle mounted faithfully on his shoulder. "The fight is over." He announced, just in case thats what he was here for.

It wasn't "That's not what I'm here for." Zell grabbed Squall by the arm and pulled him back in the opposite direction, stopping in front of Nida, Cho, and Shadow. "Remember that guy from yesterday?" He said abruptly, panting slightly from his haste to get here.

"You thought I'd forget?"

"And remember how he looked really familiar?"

Nida looked between the two questioningly "Wait? What are you guys talking about?"

"That man who said he was the head of Gcom." Zell explained. "His name was Allen Maru, and I've been trying to remember where I've seen him before."

Squall's face grew with an expression of realization, he seem to understand what Zell did, and harbored the same idea. "Cho, isn't your name Maru?"

Cho nodded."Yeah."

"First or last?"

"Last."

That wasn't something Nida was aware of. "Wait? That's your last name? I didn't know that..." Thats when things, ideas, hunches started to come to his mind. "What are you trying to say?"

"I know where I saw that man before." Zell said, walking even closer to Nida and Cho, then he knelt down and pointed almost accusingly at Cho. "You."

"Me?" Now Cho was confused, "What are you talking about."

"Yeah." Carbuncle nodded, leaning forward to examine the boy's face carefully. "He's right, that guy looked just like you. Like you guys were family or something."

Cho's confusion turned to nervousness. "What? Where did all of this come from?"

"Cho, what is the earliest thing you can remember?" Squall asked.

Cho shifted his eyes around uneasily, "Uh...I remember my parents...kinda, I can't remember there faces or anything like that so... And I remember ending up in a forest, after that, nothing...I-I don't understand this."

"But you remembered your name?" Nida really was starting to understand this, but he needed to see the man in question, he really needed to see this person. "How?"

"Things like that tend to stick with people." Cho replied sarcastically, "What is this, what are you guys trying to say here?"

"All of this can't mean nothing, I think this guy is related to you, and if I had to take a guess, I'd he looks like he could be your father." Squall said.

If Cho didn't get it before, he got it now. "M-my...Father?" He stared at Squall for a moment, he didn't know what to say, his mind didn't even seem to grasp the concept. "R-Really?"

"This man is the head of Gcom?" Nida scratched his head lightly and let his eyes settle on Cho, wondering why Cho didn't seem to interested it this. "If they're after Matthew then I'm sure we'll see him again...

Cho looked around at everyone, the looked thoughtfully down at the ground. "Allen Maru, I can't believe it this."

"Well nothing is for sure." Squall told him, "You'll have to figure it out for yourself if you do see him."

! - ! - !

! - ! - !

"Seifer."

Seifer stopped when he heard the familiar voice of his client calling out for him. He took a quick look around the back of the half empty training center before glancing over his shoulder and seeing Zone running towards him, and his eyes focused inanely on Enix mounted on his shoulder. "Man, that bird hasn't fallen yet?"

"Nah, he's got a really good grip." Zone said, giving a quick look to Enix, a small queue forming in his mind that the injured bird might actually fall. '...oh man...what if he falls?' "I was looking for you, I heard you got in a fight."

"Yeah, so what." Seifer shrugged and began moving on, Hyperion resting on his shoulder.

"I wanted to see if you were alright." Zone said, following him. "Well are you?"

"Do I look hurt?" Seifer snorted. Tiring of looking for monsters, he trudged tiredly into the secret area at the very rear of the room. It wasn't so secret anymore, A really large hole had been blow in it during yesterday's attack. Besides the front gate and Quad, this was the third opening the men had come through.

Zone of course went after him, looking around in awe at the gaping void left behind. "I guess if they could blow up a train then they could easily rip a hole in the garden."

Seifer leaned against the balcony and closed his eyes, a faint idea, a question echoing in his mind. With slight interest he looked at Zone again. "What would you have done if you found me and I was still in the fight?"

:"I don't know." Zone scratched his head lightly, disrupting the short, blue strands. "I probably would have tried to break it up or something."

Seifer sighed again and looked away. 'Damnit Cho, Nida...' "So when are we getting out of here?"

"Today I guess, there's not really any other need for us to stay here."

! - ! - !

! - ! - !

'I wonder what kinda books they have in here.' Watts shoved his hands in his pocket and looked around at the books that comprised the Balamb Garden library. Trudging curiously through the rows, his eyes glancing over a few titles, none of which caught his interest.

It was quiet here, not even holding the smallest noises, it was silent. No one appeared to be here, everyone was other places, doing other things in relation to what happened yesterday. It was peaceful here, a far cry from the noise outside.

Watts shifted his hat slightly as he finally came to the back of the library, and there Matthew was, a book in front of him with one elbow resting on a table and his head leaning against his hand. Who he'd been looking for. "Matthew?"

Matthew didn't look back, he just continued to stare down at the pages, not responding for a considerable amount of time. "..."

Something was wrong, Watts knew it immediately, but yet he still stood there, waiting in case Matthew decided to speak. A full moment passed by and no words came, so Watts pulled a chair beside the boy and sat down next to him, leaning over a little. "Matt?"

"I wonder..." Matthew lifted his other hand on to the table and turned the page. "Maybe if I had come here instead..." His paused again, his voice holding a forlorn tent to it, and he spoke almost as if he didn't even hear Watts. "Maybe if I had come to Balamb things would have been different then they were at Galbadia."

"..." Watts didn't say anything, he just watched the boy and wondered what brought this line of thought on. What could he really say to him, he didn't want to tell him the truth of the matter.

Matthew sat up strait and closed the book. "Nah, who am I kidding, I still would have been stupid enough to tell them." And that was the truth of the matter Watts avoided.

Watts rubbed his back consolingly. "Don't think that way, there's no point"

"Yeah I guess, I just wonder what would have happened if I actually got to stay in my old Garden..."

"Well there's nothing I can do about that, but just think about how hard it would have been not being able to tell anyone." Watts reasoned. "Your bound to slip up sometimes, did you really wanna go around hiding it all your life?"

"Yes." Matthew nodded without hesitation. "None of this wouldn't be happening if I would have. Galbadia or those other guys wouldn't have been after me if I had just kept my mouth shut."

"..." Watts sighed to himself, he wish he knew what to say, what could he say, Matthew was probably right. "I know this is really hard for you, having to go through all of this. But it's not all bad... is it?"

"..." Matthew's black eyes slowly drifted to Watts, anger and sadness were driving him to say yes, he could have easily said yes. But... he did have Watts and Zone, and they were great, the only thing he had of a family, the only people he had. And they did everything they could to make him happy, despite the complaining and fighting, Zone would do anything Matthew asked him too. "No... I'm sorry Watts, I didn't mean you guys."

Watts smiled and ruffled Matthew's hair, which always brought the same reaction out of him, an annoyed expression came on to Matthew face and he pushed Watts' hand away. "Stop doing that."

"I can't help it, a kid like you-"

"I'm not a kid." Matthew pouted in a child like manner, it didn't help his argument.

"Your only 13, your not even a teenager yet." Watts pushed himself up on to his feet and stretched his arms above his head. "We're leaving, you ready?"

Matthew stared down at the at book sitting in front of him, his expression dropping again and his demeanor growing quiet. "I wonder...maybe if I just started over and enrolled here, maybe I could..."Matthew gremanced and shook his head. "No, I couldn't...Galbadia and those Gcom guys..." His voice trailed off and his expression hardened, his eyes narrowing angrily. "Why can't I just be normal? How come I have to be like this?"

"Matthew..."Watts sat down beside the boy again, he knew that look, he knew that loss for words... "Don't worry, all of this will be over with soon... I promise, I won't let either of them lay a finger on you."

"No." Matthew shook his head. "I'm sick of this, I don't want to sit back and watch you guys get hurt for me, I wanna fight them."

"I thought you wanted to be normal."

"I...I can't have that!" Matthew shouted and abruptly stood up, the clattering sound of his chair loudly falling to the ground and his voice echoing through out the empty library. "At lest let me have this one thing! I don't want to be helpless!"

Watts stared at him, his mouth stalling open slightly with words he wanted to say but couldn't. He just sat there, stuttering blankly until a response could form in his mind. "I understand that, but you have to be patient."

"Patient! Galbadia isn't going to be patient, Gcom isn't going to be patient! This is my life! Don't I at lest..." Matthew stopped when he realized that he was screaming at Watts, Zone he could shout at with out a problem, but Watts...His head dropped and he felt tears forming in his downcast eyes at the thoughts he was having, his fist clinched at his side so tightly that they were trembling. "Don't I at lest..."

Watts laid a hand on his shoulder, feeling the boy wince under his touch and the first of his tears start to fall. "I know... I know what it's like for your life to be in someone else's hands, not to be able to even be allowed to fight for it. But you have to understand it's for the best, it really is."

Matthew clinched his eyes shut and threw his arms around Watts, quiet sobs forcing their way through his mouth as he burred his face in Watts' shoulder. "..." Watts rested his hand on Matthew's back and tred his best to calm the boy down, but there wasn't much he could really say to him, if anyone was allowed to cry it was him, if anyone had a right to be angry. "It'll be over soon, don't worry..."

! - ! - !