"Man, this sucks, ya know?" Raijin groaned, trying to stretch out the crick that kept working into his back every night. "I mean, this is supposed to be a super high-tech prison, ya know? You'd think they could put in a bed or something. Like a mattress…some furniture…anything to pass the time, ya know?"

Fujin was giving him that look that said she wasn't quite annoyed enough to kick him. "PRISON," she said. "DISCOMFORT, INTENTIONAL."

Raijin shrugged. "Yeah, but come on! I mean, the Disciplinary Room is way nicer than this! At least they could add some chairs, ya know?" His legs were starting to ache a little too, so he dropped to a seat against the wall. "Seriously, there must be guys in here who've been locked up for years. In a place like this, with nothing to do…that'll drive you crazy, ya know?"

Fujin just shook her head. "EAT," she said, nodding towards the cell door where a Moomba was waiting with a tray of what looked like gray paste.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Raijin said. "I mean, we gotta keep in shape. Right, little guy?" He flexed a bit for effect. The Moomba looked impressed. "We just gotta wait for the right moment, ya know? Then, WHAM! POW! Bust on outta here, ya know?" Finally accepting the tray, he plopped down to examine the meal, which still didn't seem particularly edible. "Man, but at least the cafeteria food looks like actual food, ya know?"

Fujin didn't answer at all. When he glanced over, she was looking down at her own half-eaten tray with an unusually bummed expression. "Hey, what's up?" he asked.

She grimaced. "…SEIFER."

"Oh, yeah!" Raijin hadn't thought of that. "He'll probably be here to get us in no time! You think we oughtta just wait for him? It'd be too bad if he broke into the place right after we broke out, ya know? And then maybe we'd have to break back in to help him fight off the guards, ya know?"

Now Fujin was frowning at him. "…."

"Yeah, you're right," Raijin said. No way Seifer would put up with gettin' stuck in here. I'm sure he's gonna be fine."

Fujin glanced away and a conflicted expression passed over her face, but a moment later, she smiled. "AFFIRMATIVE," she said.

"This is your fault, Caraway."

Vinzer Deling had been glowering from the corner of their prison cell for days, ever since he'd tired of grilling Caraway for news from the capital. Sometimes he would talk about strategy, of making contact with loyalists in the military and staging a return to power. Often he just wanted to point fingers.

"With respect, President," Caraway said, using Deling's title mostly out of habit, "I didn't invite the Sorceress into the capital. The General Staff was against this plan from the start."

"Hmph." Deling folded his arms, fixing Caraway with one of his trademark icy stares. "The Sorceress was a tool. She presented an opportunity to break 17 years of international stalemate, and cement Galbadia's place as the world's dominant power."

"Cement her own place, perhaps." Caraway shook his head. "Sorceresses don't share power easily. History tells us that. It seems Galbadia may be just another chapter."

Deling stared at him a bit longer. It was the sort of look that routinely terrified the president's more junior officials, but no one ascended to a senior position in government without having learned how to endure the president's glare.

"A calculated risk," he said, after a particularly long pause. "Our situation was untenable. Our people were complacent. Years of silence from Esthar created a whole generation that sees no threat. That is a recipe for stagnation."

It always came back to that. Caraway had known Deling for decades, and the man was never so much in his element as when he was destroying an enemy, either in politics or on the battlefield. Until recently, Caraway had hoped the man had given up on his dreams of global hegemony and learned to be content thwarting his political opponents at home. But then the Sorceress had walked into his office.

"It's a fool's errand," Caraway said. "Conquering the world. Even the Centra couldn't do it. And even if you could, what's the point? Simply to keep finding battles until there's no one left to fight?"

Deling glowered. "What happened to you, Caraway? I know the General Staff wouldn't dare try to depose me without your involvement." The former president shook his head, and Caraway thought he actually did look disappointed. "You were a good soldier, once. You used to know what loyalty meant."

Caraway supposed it was a fair question. He'd devoted his life to serving the Republic, and sacrificed a lot along the way. For the longest time, he hadn't even questioned that decision. It had seemed only natural that he follow through on the commitments he had made.

"Treason from my own general," Deling continued. "Imprisoned in my own facility. Well, so be it. This is my punishment for not acting sooner." He folded his arms. "The point, General, is order. The world is a chaotic and dangerous place that gives rise to all manner of threats. Uncontested power is the means to keep them in check. Thus, we make the world safe for progress."

Caraway smiled. "I remember that speech. You said something similar before the invasion of Timber. Back then, I believed every word." It was strange, thinking back to that time. Until recently, Caraway hadn't done it very often. "I spent my career trying to make your vision a reality. I lost my wife in that struggle. Eventually I lost my daughter too. And what I should have realized sooner is that the struggle never ends. You can't rule a country simply through force, because that power doesn't last. A defeated people might fear you, but…their children just resent you." He sighed. "And your children may as well."

Deling stared at him, but didn't speak again. Eventually they both turned away, retreating into their thoughts. Caraway wondered what havoc the Sorceress and her child knight were causing, and what their vision of the world would be.

Rinoa, he thought. I hope you're somewhere safe.

"Hey, I think I hear something outside, ya know?" Raijin had his ear to the door, trying to hear past the electric hum that seemed to run through the place.

Fujin stood up, frowning at him. "EXPLAIN?"

"Ahh…it's hard to tell, ya know? There's a couple voices, right, but it sounds kind of like something's going on, ya know? They sound kind of like, 'Wha? Blah blah blah, blah blah!' Ya know?"

Fujin kept staring at him.

"Hey, this could be our chance, ya know? If they're distracted, we could take advantage, ya know?"

"HOW?"

"Easy! All we gotta do is get the guard in here! What if you pretend you've got food poisoning or something, ya know? Like, roll around on the floor and make noises like, 'Ohhh…oohhhhhh…oooooohhhhhhhhhhhh…."

Fujin stepped toward him, with the expression she had when she was about to kick him in the shins.

"Hey, hey! It was just an idea, ya know? Anyway, once we get the guard in here, we knock him out, take his key, and BAM! Then we can sneak out, find where they stashed our weapons, and—"

The cell door slid open, and a dazed-looking guard stumbled in. He made it one and a half steps into the room before collapsing right onto the floor.

"See?" said Raijin. "I knew it would work! That was even easier than I thought, ya know?"

"There you guys are." The voice came from out in the hall, behind the fallen guard. Seifer was standing there, arms folded, along with Instructor Trepe. "This place is huge. Were you gonna make us search the whole thing?"

"SEIFER!" Fujin stepped forward before Raijin could make an exclamation. "SAFE?"

Seifer sighed. "Long story." He produced a pair of weapons from somewhere in his trenchcoat, and tossed them over. "Looks like you dropped these in the guard's office."

"All right!" The weight of the quarterstaff in his hand was a feeling Raijin had been missing more than he'd realized. "Time to get serious, ya know?"

"NEXT?" Fujin asked.

"What else?" Seifer pointed out the door with his gunblade. "We bust on out of here."

Instructor Trepe looked at another kid who was standing off to the side. Had he been there the whole time? "Nida?" she asked.

He blinked at her for a second, as if he hadn't realized that he was standing there either. "Ah…Zell's team should have reached Caraway and the president by now."

Instructor Trepe nodded. "Let's get to the exit. If we're lucky, we can all escape before the guards notice any —"

That was when the alarm went off.

"Warning!" the tinny speaker voice declared, as a deep rumble started running through the floor. "Intruder alert! Monsters will be set loose on each floor. If intruders refuse to surrender, you have permission to kill. The anti-magic field will be lifted."

"…Oh, dear," Trepe said.

"W-W-What the hell is this!?" Zell skidded to a halt just short of the building's exit. What had been a fenced-in prison yard when they entered the facility had vanished, along with the ground itself. Instead, the team was standing on a small metal catwalk that reached out across thin air, above a giant of cloud of dust.

"Did we take a wrong turn?" Selphie asked, leaning precariously over the guardrail.

"They must have elevated the prison after the intruder alert," said Caraway. They had found him in a cell about halfway down the prison's giant pit, which was apparently now a giant tower. "The only way out is through the emergency exit on the lower level."

"Oh, man." Just the thought of running down all those stairs again made Zell's legs kind of weak. "There's gotta be a faster way."

"Fools." President Deling, along with Caraway, had come along without putting up a fight, but Zell still kind of wished they'd brought a box to stuff him in. "This prison was designed to be the most secure facility in the Republic. "You can't possibly hope to—"

"What if we just jump?" asked Selphie. "The ground's gotta be somewhere down there, right?"

"You saw how deep that hole was, right?" Irvine asked.

"Stop right there!" The voice came from somewhere behind them, where a man in a prison guard's uniform was keeping a safe distance.

"Aw, man," Zell groaned. "More of these guys?"

"We'll teach you to make a mockery of this facility!" The man turned, shouting to someone out of view. "We've found the intruders! Lieutenant Biggs, Private Wedge!"

Zell frowned. "Biggs? …Wedge?"

At about the exact second that he placed the names, two very familiar-looking Galbadian soldiers came around the corner, and promptly skidded to a halt.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" they all said.

Biggs recovered first. "S-So we meet again! Now we'll teach you the lesson we should have taught you earlier!"

Wedge hesitated. "Uh…I think we're outnumbered, sir."

"Shut up, Wedge!" Biggs was visibly shaking now. "I got demoted because of these twerps! Now it's time for my revenge!"

"Man," said Zell. "That guy really needs to get it under control."

"I bet you think you're pretty tough, just because you got lucky last time!" Biggs pulled out a control unit, and started tapping furiously. "Well, let's see how you handle this!"

A metallic thud rang through the room, followed by a regular clanking that was steadily closing in.

"Should we, like run?" asked Irvine.

"No way!" said Selphie. "I wanna see what it is!"

What walked around the corner looked most like a giant version of the Ultimate Boxing Robots! toys that Zell had owned as a kid. It was about twice Selphie's height, with a giant metal head that itself was as tall as she was and a pair of metal fists that were only slightly smaller. It even had the boxing stance down.

"It's time for a beating!" said Biggs, tapping the controls again. "Get them!"

Zell straightened his gloves.

When Biggs regained consciousness, he was lying pinned under what was left of his combat unit, and his head was ringing.

He groaned, trying to crawl out from under the broken mech. When he'd first run into SeeD a month ago, he'd been a major in Galbadia's front-line army unit, with an entire squad under his command and access to some of the country's most advanced armored weaponry. Now he'd been stuck in military purgatory with a piece of junk that was probably left over from the Sorceress War, and still those kids wouldn't leave him alone.

"D…did they get away, sir?" asked Wedge, from somewhere outside Biggs' field of vision.

"…Ugh," said Biggs. By grabbing on to one of the gaps in the floor plates, he managed to twist and pull himself out from under the mech, stumble to his feet, and get his first look at the exit. Someone must have switched the submerge system back on, as freshly settled sand filled the space between the towers and spilled into the doorway.

The SeeDs were nowhere to be seen.

Quickly after he'd established all that, Biggs' legs gave out again, and he fell face-first into one of the new mounds of sand. He didn't even bother to roll over.

"What's below lieutenant…?" he moaned.