After a few more battles, she seemed to get the pattern. The monsters appeared in order that she had witnessed their deaths on Earth. After each defeat, one of the fallen monster's magics was returned. Hyne seemed to prefer taking away healing and support magics over offensive ones. As a result, Acma's magic stats remained quite strong, but her defense weakened and she became more concerned about what was happening on Earth.

She kept moving on to the next section right after the returning of magic finished. By the tenth battle, her body started to feel exhausted, as hours had passed since she had struck the Bite Bug. The monsters became stronger and stronger, and it took her longer to finish them. She deliberately did not use her GFs, knowing that she needed to conserve her magic stock before they would all be gone anyway. She did not dare to think of what monsters would greet her by the end of this hallway, when her GFs would likely become the main source of damage.

A new illusion arrived. Her cadet uniform remained the same, but the familiar Trabia Garden was no longer in sight, replaced by the dimly lit training center of her other home.

She held her breath, recalling what happened during her first day at Balamb.

"Are you ready to fight your first Grat? They can be tricky if you're alone and see them in pairs."

Her partner's smile was as kind and warm as always.

"Really? Let me see! Thundaga!"

"Oh... Not bad..."

"Thundaga! Heehee, are we done here?"

"Oh... Where do you get that much Thundaga?"

"I was researching magic extraction for a while. I got plenty of Thundaga. By the way, do you want some? I can sell it to you at half price. Balamb is so much more expensive than Trabia..."

"Eh... I'd love to help, but I'll just stick with Thunder for now. Wanna grab lunch? My treat to welcome you to Balamb!"

"Aw, you're so sweet, Raddie. Let me find Timeth! Wait here!"

"Oh... Haha... Um, okay, sure..."

After a few whips, the Grat was defeated, and Sleep was taken.

Acma braced herself for what she was certain would come next.

Winhill.

"Thunder! Oh not again! You did that on purpose this time, I'm sure of it. You won't let me land the final hit on any monster. How am I supposed to gain EXP and level up?"

"Sorry, kid. You just need to cast faster. How can you call yourself a prodigy if you can't cast faster than a physical attack?"

"I'm not a prodigy. Also, both roles are necessary within a team."

"Yes, and you know which other role is also important? Healing. Well I'm no healer, so get back and cast Cures."

"Okay… When you were mentored by Miss Xu, what did you do?"

"Huh? What do you know?"

"Nothing. You're my first mentor. Did I… do something wrong?"

"Ha… Okay... So you genuinely want to learn from me?"

"Of course, I want to learn from you, Zyma the Great. I won't be top of my class without being a serious learner. Please enlighten me, sensei."

"Very well, pupil, I like your attitude. Show me your lasso attack. Give me all of your Cures. Trabia's top student can handle three Caterchipillars without healing, yeah?"

Later…

"Um… I'm low in HP. Can I get my Cures back?"

"No. Use my Potions."

"Um… thanks."

"That'd be 600 Gils."

"What?"

"You heard me. Hey, no return, you've opened the bottles already."

"You're kidding, right? That's twice the normal price."

"Economics 101. Take it or die by Caterchipillars. Ha… that's quite a funny eulogy."

"You're… Urgh… Fine. Please fill in my report. How did I do?"

"Just as I expected."

"Yeah? Thanks! Wait… F? You give me a F?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Isn't it short for Fantastic?"

"Um…"

"How about 'U'? You know, 'Untrainable.'"

"But I am the top of…"

"No, no, no. Listen carefully. Forget about your fancy grades. You could barely hit a slow chubby worm. Now get back to training until your Str is up by at least 4. You're wasting my time."

"But…"

"We're leaving. You pay for the train tickets, kid. Keep the receipts for Mommy Xu."

"Oh for Hyne's sake!"

Acma saw his figure lost with the illusion. After the giant Caterchipillar was defeated. Slow was taken.

Balamb's training center.

"Sensei! What the..."

"Lay down! Shit! I said lay down!"

Zyma jumped towards Acma and pulled her down, causing her face to hit the floor off-balance. As she turned back, Zyma was pressing a scythe against a T-rex. He applied sleep powder to the creature before scolding her.

"Are you blind or deaf? How did you not realize it was coming?"

"I... I ran into a bigger one on my way. I cast Blind and ran away. This one..."

"It's a mutant, faster than the usual ones."

"I... I didn't know that. Thank you."

"Geez, I knew you're bad at fighting, but I thought you'd better at running. Okay, your new assignment: run 2 arounds around Garden before seeing me."

"Sensei?"

"What? You can't handle 2 rounds? And you call yourself…"

"It's moving!"

"What?"

"The T-rex!"

"Bah! Is it immune to Sleep now? Run!"

"Ahhh… Help! Are you sure that you used Sleep Powder and not something else?"

"Oh… Freaking Hyne! I must have mixed 9 flour and 1 Sleep powder by mistake…"

"What?"

"Keep running, pupil! I can kill it with one hit!"

"Can I stop now?"

"Or two…"

"For Hyne's sake!"

"Three! There. What a perfect blow! See, two rounds doesn't sound bad at all, huh? Hey, what are you doing? Ouch! What the… Bad pupil! How dare you hit me? Ouch! Garden Council, over here! Help!"

She bid farewell to their past.

A giant T-Rex appeared. This time, she couldn't let her guard down, as most of her support magics effective against the fearsome creature, including Sleep, Blind, Death, and Poison, had been taken away. This T-Rex was at a high level. She wouldn't risk taking even a single bite from it.

During one of its attacks, she couldn't leap away because her previously broken left leg couldn't take the impact, causing her off-balance. Fortunately, she managed to place her staff horizontally into its mouth before its powerful bite. In return, the T-Rex snapped her staff in half.

In another attack where it whipped its thorny tail toward her, the tip made contact with her spacesuit helmet, leaving a crack. No air seemed to be escaping as far as she could tell, but the helmet was one hit away from being smashed.

It took her almost an hour and a lot of bruises to take down the T-Rex. Quake was taken, but her Thunder spells remained. Luck seemed to be on her side.

She caught her breath, waiting until Hyne started urging her to continue, but Hyne seemed to take it easy on her this time.

She tried to remember the next monster with magics she had seen dying next.

The T-Rex was the last one at Balamb. How could that be? This memory seemed so far away.

Oh, that's right. She and Timeth had completed the simulation room that year. They had cleared out monsters from the training center, and even the Fire Cavern was installed with Ifrit's replicas. Her SeeD mission had been dealing with humans. She had stayed in Quistis' research lab after that, unaware that Zyma had made a deal with Xu to keep her from field missions. In S21's SeeD exam, she slain a bunch of Galbadia's X-90s, but she was certain they held no magics. The same went for the flying monsters back in Trabia that held no magic despite their grotesque appearance.

She was certain she hadn't killed any monsters until...

Suddenly, she felt someone's presence in the hallway. In front of her, a person in a spacesuit emerged from the dark. Holding up her Red Scorpion and lasso, she confirmed that this was not another illusion and assumed a defensive stance.

"Babe?"