So far, Tolmar's second day at East Academy wasn't much more impressive than her first. The students had been organized for field exercises, which the base's regular command staff were monitoring. Per her instructions, she should be out monitoring their monitoring, although all evidence she'd seen to date was that the facility was being very capably run.

But as it happened, a thoroughly unnecessary call from her replacement at the Joint Command office was distracting her from her thoroughly unnecessary duties.

"General, the next time you have important information to share," General Sarden was saying, "I would appreciate your warnings to be a bit less cryptic."

"I had no choice in the matter," said Tolmar. "I couldn't seem to reach you directly, and neither of our staffs are currently cleared to handle material with this level of classification."

"Even so," Sarden said. "Had I been given a clearer sense of the nature of the situation, Lord-General Naraka could have been appraised in a much more timely manner."

"I did say the situation was urgent," she told him. "That's not a term I tend to use lightly. And I for one find it bothersome that you didn't treat my warning with corresponding urgency."

Sarden frowned. "Excuse me?"

Tolmar wasn't interested in letting up. "I understand you're miffed over seeming the fool before the Lord-General. But if you think you're going to keep my job, then you'd best focus less on shouldering me out and more on doing the job."

"General..." Sarden sounded even more miffed than he had at the start of the conversation, and was trying to cover it up by sounding threatening. "I would be very careful what you insinuate with me."

"I'm not insinuating a thing, General," said Tolmar. "Address your duties seriously, and don't call me to complain when you fail to."

Sarden didn't seem to be getting the message. "The issue here —"

Tolmar was tremendously relieved when Lieutenant Dolsson hurried into her office, until she saw the expression on his face. "What is it?" she asked, muting the phone.

"Ma'am, our southern perimeter's been breached," he said, as a pair of soldiers stepped in, one immediately closing the blinds. "We have men down."

Frowning, Tolmar nodded and un-muted the phone. "General, I have to go; we're under attack." Hanging up, she followed Dolsson out of the office. "What's happening?"

"Don't know, ma'am," he said. "We thought it was random fire from the exercise at first. We've only confirmed one attacker, maybe two."

"Two?" asked Tolmar. They had reached the main command center, where the tone was becoming palpably frantic. "We have two dozen soldiers in that sector, plus more than a hundred armed cadets with magic. Why is this even a problem?"

"General, we've already lost contact with half our people in the south sector," said the officer-at-station, Major Lant. "We've just now got the cadets redeployed for base defense. These guys hit us fast."

"Sir?" called one of the staffers at a master situation panel. "We've now got a Perimeter One alert."

"What?" Lant demanded. "How the hell did they get inside the Two line?"

"2-B's off radio; we just now caught it." The staffer's eyes jumped from one display to another. "They're moving incredibly fast; we can't even track them."

"This is one hell of a hit," said Lant. "There's no infiltration; they're coming straight in, and taking us to pieces. Who the hell could pull off something like this?"

Dolsson had a scared expression that Tolmar hoped he'd learn to cover up soon. "...SeeD?" he asked.

Then all the monitors went to static, and a screeching noise came out of all the staffer's headsets. The lights flickered, and everyone looked around in confusion.

"No," Tolmar said. "This is worse."

Then there was a tremendous groaning noise, and debris came flying through the door to one of the base conference rooms. "— Defensive positions!" shouted Lant, and the soldiers rushed to cover the room.

"General, we need to move you to the secure command post," said Dolsson.

"No time for that," said Tolmar, drawing her revolver.

"But ma'am—" Dolsson was cut off by what sounded like a lightning strike coming from within the conference room. It was followed by an explosion, aborted gunfire, and a screech that Tolmar wasn't sure she wanted to identify. Then silence.

"Take a position," Tolmar said, raising her pistol towards the conference room door. Dolsson did as he was told.

For another few seconds, there was no sign of motion. Then a shadow appeared at the doorway, and advanced into the hall. Trailing the shadow, walking at a sedate, even trancelike pace, was a single young woman who couldn't be older than eighteen, clad entirely in black.

Indeed, Tolmar knew exactly how old she was — and exactly who she was, having both met her briefly and seen her face on Galbadia's most-wanted list for more than a year running. "Sorceress Rinoa," she muttered.

"Don't move!" called Lant. She looked at him unconcernedly, and raised a hand in his direction. And the soldiers opened fire.

Tolmar herself fired only once, as she saw the bullets glancing off a barrier just in front of the Sorceress' hand. The others kept trying for several more seconds, until they started running out of ammunition. The Sorceress stood perfectly still, arm outstretched with palm outward in a blocking gesture.

The soldiers hesitated a second before reloading, a little dazed by her stolidity. At around that point, she flicked her hand in a simple circular motion, and a sunburst of energy leaped outward, snaking from one of them to the next and burning their bodies straight through. Lant was the only one to get off a shot from his new clip before the magic incinerated him.

"—Protect the General!" shouted Dolsson, drawing his saber. Most of the soldiers were already dead; the technicians bore only sidearms. He and the two remaining infantrymen charged the Sorceress, and a bolt of magic struck one soldier down before he could even reach her. Dolsson brought his saber down hard, aiming at the Sorceress' forehead, but the weapon stopped above by her right hand, which moved more quickly than the eye could follow. Suddenly the blade was wobbling in the air, and then went flying from his hand. As the second soldier attempted to run the Sorceress through, Dolsson's blade spun around and embedded itself in his chest, with no mind for the armor.

A horrified Dolsson grabbed for his sidearm, but the Sorceress thrust out her hand and he flew backwards to bang his head against a doorframe some six meters away. Tolmar heard a wet crack, saw him land with his neck at an unnatural angle, and knew he wouldn't be getting back up.

Hiding, she gathered, wouldn't do her much good, so she stood and fired her pistol straight at the Sorceress' head. The handful of remaining staffers began shooting as well. It didn't matter.

There was a flash of light, and a massive concussion emanated from Tolmar and the staffers' midst. Some of them were slammed hard against nearby consoles or chairs; Tolmar had the honor of being thrown over an entire bank of consoles, landing on a desk behind it and rolling off to the floor. She didn't know exactly when she lost her gun, and when she came to rest it was the most she could do merely to keep her eyes focused.

She saw a blurry form rounding the console bank, and kneeling down over her. "You'll pay," the Sorceress said; as she spoke, her entire calm demeanor seemed to fracture, and she drew back from Tolmar with a surprised expression.

It didn't last long, though. She raised her hand, and Tolmar was thrown backward again. She felt herself slam against the wall, her vision blurred even further, and her eyes were drifting closed despite themselves.

She thought she saw the Sorceress advancing on her again, arm outstretched — holding her, choking her despite not touching her. Then she thought she saw another figure appearing behind the Sorceress, and heard a male voice shouting a name.

Then she didn't think about anything.

–

"Rinoa!" Squall shouted, skidding to a halt behind her. He'd been running flat-out for what felt like the last hour trying to catch up with her, stopping only to fight his way past the two or three guards who weren't already lying lifeless on the ground. Now he couldn't quite believe he'd managed to catch up.

Rinoa had the Galbadian general pinned to a wall, with her hand hovering at the general's throat as if ready to rip it out. Squall couldn't tell if the Galbadian was unconscious or dead. Rinoa, for her part, looked completely unharmed, though this didn't stop Squall's heart from pounding.

"Rinoa, what are you doing?" he asked. "What's the meaning of all this?"

She seemed still to be ignoring him, staring at the general as if he wasn't there. But Squall had a feeling she was listening, just by not doing anything else.

Then she looked back at him. Her expression was distant, but quizzical and very familiar. "Isn't it obvious?" she asked. "I'm fighting back. For everyone who can't."

"Fighting back?" Squall repeated. He knew the Forest Owls had been her entire life for at least the past year, but East Academy barely had anything to do with the occupation. "Rinoa, if this is about liberating Timber—"

"It's not just about that," she said. "Don't you see? I can do so much more, now. Squall..." She looked as determined as he had ever seen her, but there was something else in her eyes. "Galbadia is evil. What they're doing has caused so much suffering — but I have the power to stop it." She looked back at the general, and her hand crept a hair closer to the other woman's neck. "I can stop them all."

"Rinoa, this isn't right," said Squall. "This is a massacre. A slaughter."

She looked back at him, narrowing her eyes. "They've done much worse to people."

"Galbadia has done much worse," said Squall.

"And these people fight for Galbadia," said Rinoa. She lowered her arm, and the general slumped to the floor. "You've killed plenty of Galbadians to stop them from doing harm. Is it wrong for me to do it, too?"

"Rinoa—" Squall shook his head. "This is a training base! Most of the people here are cadets! They're just kids, like—" He cut himself off as he realized where that line of thought would go.

"Like what?" asked Rinoa. "Like us, you mean? Like me?" Squall looked away. "Besides, they all wanted to be soldiers. What kind of person wants to fight for something like Galbadia?"

This conversation was starting to seem eerily familiar, but Squall didn't want to dig deep enough to make the connection. "Rinoa, I know you don't really want this," he said. "This isn't you. You're angry over what they did to you. So am I. But this isn't the way."

That look in Rinoa's eyes was back. If he didn't know better, he'd think it made her seem almost pleading, despite the determination in the rest of her features. "Then what are you gonna do, Squall?" she asked. She glanced down at the gunblade Squall had forgotten he was holding. "Are you gonna kill the big, bad Sorceress before she goes any further? You probably could, if you tried hard enough. And I don't think I could bring myself to stop you."

"Rinoa, this is crazy," said Squall. "I'd never do anything to hurt you." He sheathed the gunblade, and held out his hand to her. "Please, just stop this. We can go away from here. I'll go anywhere so long as it's with you."

Rinoa raised her eyebrows; she looked at once disappointed and almost hurt. Because he wanted to take her away from her mission? Squall didn't understand at all.

"That's too bad," she said. "I kinda hoped you'd be stronger."

Squall was thrown sideways, crashing into the divider that separated the command center from the hall and banging his head against the bulletproof glass. He managed to remain conscious a little longer this time, and saw Rinoa unconcernedly walk past him on her way back towards the exit.