‘Wow, this is my greatest dream come true. I’m a SeeD at Balamb Garden. It figures that after being bounced through time and space for so long I would come to a rest someplace like this. I am actually hanging out with Irvine Kinneas, Squall Leonheart, Seifer Almsay, and their friends. They’ve changed so much, but heck, it’s been three years since the battle against the sorceress that nearly cost us a planet and a future.
     Irvine, sharp shooter extrodinaire, has changed the most. He now wears a dragon print shirt and goes around with his trench coat either draped over his shoulders like a cape or wrapped around his waist. His hair is still way long, but it’s somewhat curled in places, and he wears dark sunglasses at times, except they’re down at the end of his nose instead of up near his eyes.
     Seifer, the once knight of the sorceress, has changed a bit, mostly since I arrived at Garden. He made the mistake of cutting in line on hot dog day. Let’s just say he now treats me with respect. Heck, he treats everyone with respect, and now thinks of Irvine as a little brother. All it took was a tangle with a spell thrower like myself to turn him around. But I wonder.... maybe there is a little more between these two, since I’ve witnessed their brotherly embraces after target practice and such, and I’ve seen Seifer kiss Irvine atop the head.
     Squall. I don’t know what to say about Squall. He’s not nearly as quiet as I heard he used to be, and spends much of his time with Rinoa. I swear those two make the perfect couple. He still has his black leather jacket, but wears it less and less, since he is now a teacher of the gun blade here at garden. I might consider taking his class someday. That is, when I get tired of my weapon, the mighty pole arm.
     As for the others, namely Zell, Selphie, Rinoa, and Professor Quistis Trepe, I don’t really know what to say. Quistis has been my professor for a while, and has helped me to get acquainted with other students and teach me the ways of Garden. Zell and Selphie seem a little more mature than they were during the Sorceress battles, but then again they’re still both quite young.... mainly at heart, which makes me a little crazy at times since I seem to be their favorite target.

     “Whatcha writing?” was spoken softly into his ear by a male voice, the tone being liquid and sensual. The hairs on the back of his neck immediately stood on end. He slowly turned his head and found himself gazing into the eyes of Zell Dincht, who made a face that caused the writer to fall backwards off of his chair and onto the floor at the back of the classroom.
     “Way to go Zell,” Selphie Tilmitt said, giving her accomplice a high 5, “we finally frightened the new guy. That makes us the top pranksters in all of Garden!”
     “I wonder what he was writing,” Zell said as he sat in the chair belonging to the writer. He read a few lines of text before saying, “Geeze Alex, it looks like you have quite the imagination.”
     Alex sighed as he got to his feet, the anger building up inside him. Zell read a few more lines before saying, “Woah.... I didn’t know that Irvine and Seifer were doing that.”
     “Doing what?” Selphie asked as she gazed at the screen. She flushed crimson from indignation a moment later before turning to Alex. “Irvine is NOT like that! He isn’t! He isn’t!”
     “And for writing that you shall have to fight me,” Zell said, leaping over the chair, his fist craned for strike. Alex sidestepped the punch, which crashed into the wall, doing more damage to Zell’s hand than to anything else.
     “If it’s a fight you want, it’s a fight you’ll get,” Alex said, casting a Visfarenk spell, his fists glowing as astral energy surrounded them like kick boxing gloves. He swung, the blow deflected by Zell’s crossed arms. Zell countered with a high kick, which Alex ducked before executing a burning dragon uppercut. Zell flipped backwards, performing a split to avoid any damage whatsoever. In perfect manner he performed a spinning bird kick, which his opponent ducked before executing a spin kick, knocking his hands out from beneath him. Zell went down hard on his shoulders, rolling off to one side before flipping to his feet.
     “Are you going to give up, or do I have to use my full power?” Zell asked, his gloves beginning to glow.
     ‘He’s more powerful than I thought,’ Alex thought as he ducked the wild punches and kicks that Zell was throwing at him, ‘I can feel the power of my limit break building. Only a few more attacks and then I’ll be able to unleash it.’
     Zell unleashed a burning rave combo on his opponent, who backfipped out of the way before back hand springing halfway across the room.
     “Thanks, that just unlocked my limit break,” Alex said, grinning evilly as a ghostly white aura formed around his body. The glow moved from his body to around his right forearm, where it formed a large globe. “Prepare to meet your maker. Giga....”
     Quistis and Squall chose that moment to step into the room, interrupting the epic battle in a most authoritative manner.
     “Zell, Alex, break it up or you’re on probation for the next two weeks with motor pool duty,” Squall said at the top of his lungs. Silence echoed eerily throughout the room as Zell stood down and Alex stared in awe. A moment later the energy around his forearm shrank inward, overloading his system while simultaneously giving him a broken arm. He muttered a long string of obscenities in Common and Elven, stunning the other four people in the room with his vocabulary.
     “Medbay, we have a patient for you,” Quistis said as she punched the intercom, “Come to classroom 2B for pickup. Repeat, Medbay to classroom 2B for patient pickup.”

     ‘How do I manage to get myself into these kinds of messes? I always wind up getting hurt in some way or another, and usually it’s enough to make my life uncomfortable for a while. I must be on the butt end of some great cosmic joke since nothing seems to go right lately.’
     As Alex worked to type up his thoughts with his one good hand a pair of visitors entered the room. One was Irvine, wearing his trench coat for once. The other was Seifer, who smiled pleasantly at the injured SeeD.
     “We heard that you squared off against Zell and that it was a draw,” Seifer said, “I don’t think I’d ever met anybody who took him up on a challenge before and made it out with only a broken arm.”
     Alex sighed, and Irvine nudged Seifer in the ribs for the comment. “It wasn’t the battle that gave me this little inconvenience,” Alex said after a moment, “I still have yet to learn how my limit skill will work here.”
     “What do you mean?” Irvine asked, taking a seat on the corner of Alex’s bed.
     “Where I come from magic doesn’t have to be drawn from an enemy, limit skills are something that happens when you feel your anger reaching its peak, and one doesn’t junction a guardian force to unlock their skills, but simply needs to believe in a cause to unlock their skills and powers.”
     Seifer shifted his weight from his right foot to his left, then back again, before saying, “What exactly are the people from your world like?”
     Alex sighed again and swiveled around in his chair, taking note of the amount of stuff from his room back at the university that had actually made the trip through time and space to be with him. His laptop, for beginners, was one of the first items to be belched out. He had found it being used as a paper weight in Headmaster Cid’s office, and had managed to sweet talk his way into repossessing it. “The people from my world have a variety of skills and powers. Some people are just normal, and live their lives from day to day, content in their ignorance of everything else that happens around them. There are others who have skills and powers, but use them for evil intent. Then there are the people like myself, with skills, powers, and abilities far beyond those of normal people, and far beyond imagination. These people fight for truth and justice against all evil.”
     “We used to do that,” Irvine said as Seifer took a seat next to him, “then we defeated the sorceress and since then it’s been a fairly prosperous time for the SeeDs, Garden, and the rest of the world. Seifer here came to his senses and rejoined the SeeDs, passing his field exam and his written exams with flying colors.”
     “Well, with your help I managed to do that,” Seifer said, draping an arm over Irvine’s shoulders, “you were the one who believed in me.”
     ‘And with the help of a little spell I like to call a Mega Brand,’ Alex thought. He turned back to his laptop and added to his journal entry, ‘Irvine and Seifer are here right now, and I can feel the love in the air and may be ill soon. Either that or my teeth may rot. Wait, I take that back. I want to be a part of...’
     A hand upon his shoulder derailed his train of thought. He turned his head and looked up into Seifer’s smiling face, noting the twinkle in his eye that told him not to be afraid of anything.
     “You can be a part of this love,” Seifer said, turning Alex’s chair around so that they were facing. Alex blushed a deep shade of crimson, unsure of what was happening to him or what to say. Seifer put his hands on Alex’s shoulders, moving his face closer to Alex’s, a warm blush creeping over his face. In the blink of an eye his lips were touching Alex’s in the warmest and most fulfilling kiss ever. A moment later Alex closed his eyes, and was lost in the moment.

     Midnight rolled around, and with that dark hour Alex opened his eyes, blinking the sleep from them as he sat up. The clock across the room glowed that hour, and he muttered a combination of a prayer and a curse before rolling over. Technically he only managed to roll onto his side before he bumped heads with someone. A light spell blinked into existence above his head, unfocused as usual for this hour. When his eyes managed to focus again he found his bed occupied by Irvine, who, on further investigation wore only a pair of black silk boxers.
     “Oh man,” he said to himself, thoughts of what might have been done to him while he was out flooding his mind. “If they did anything to me I swear I’ll send them...”
     “Screaming into the afterlife?” Seifer said from behind, scaring the crap out of him. He whipped around to see Seifer standing in the outline of his doorway, his coat slid down to his elbows. “No need to worry about anything. We tried to make you as comfortable as possible after you, well, lost consciousness. The only odd thing was the number of cute pet names you called Irvine and me as we laid you out on the bed.”
     As he talked he finished sliding his coat off, followed by his shirt and boots. Alex felt a warm blush creeping across his face once again as he watched. Seifer sat down next to his bed, and he noticed a sleeping bag had been unrolled there, and into that Seifer was now climbing.
     “Oh, and something else came out of subspace while I was out,” Seifer added, taking something from the right hip pocket of his pants. Into the light came a red stone with some strange writing marked upon it. “I don’t know what it is, but it vibrates with power.”
     “Materia,” Alex said as he took the stone from Seifer’s hand. The surface was still warm from the touch of Seifer’s skin, and the stone glowed and pulsed with life. After an awkward moment of silence he added, “Thank you. You found my summons, my esper, my guardian force if you will.”
     “Don’t mention it,” Seifer said. Alex surprised him by leaning down and resting his forehead atop his own. He was even more surprised when the young mage turned his face towards his own and kissed him deeply and passionately upon the lips. A moment later he broke the kiss, leaving a stunned and blushing Seifer to touch his fingers to his lip and wonder what the hell had just happened.
     “I’ll tell you about Ridley tomorrow,” Alex said before rolling over to curl up with Irvine, the light spell vanishing with an audible POOF.

     In a remote part of Esthar, someplace past Lunatic Pandora and the badlands, something that had long been dormant began to stir. From beneath the land and several layers of debris and monster remains came a grotesque arm with clawed fingers. Attached to that arm was Ultimecia herself, or at least what remained of her after the epic battle with Squall and his group of SeeDs.
     “How dare they go and leave me here. I shall get my revenge on them,” she said, “I shall find a young woman who possesses extraordinary powers and use her to get at the source of my frustration, namely that traitor Seifer Almsey or that Squall Leonheart!”
     A surge in the cosmic balance brought her attention to another world, the one which was home to Lina Inverse and her friends. Ultimecia smiled evilly, or smiled the best she could with the half of a face that remained.
     “Yes, yes, yes, she’ll be perfect.... only she is protected by a greater power,” she said, a globe with the image of Lina appearing before her. The image shifted to Amelia a moment later. “She would be perfect, only she has her devotions set elsewhere.” The image shifted to Sylphiel and Ultimecia’s eyes glowed coldly. “She is the one. She is perfect. She is clueless and devoted to protecting those she loves. She also holds great powers and great possibilities. Come to me my pretty,” she cackled, waving at the globe, “come to me and be my new vessel. Lend me your powers and I shall give you mine.”

     Across the stream of time and space that seems more like an ocean than anything else, a group of people in medieval costume stood outside of a certain mini dorm, capes billowing in the wind. One possessed flaming red hair and a very petite female figure.
     “Who the hell are you calling petite, buster?!” Lina snarled at the narrator.
     “Miss Lina, don’t kill the narrator. If you do then we’re stuck with all of this wonderful writing and no ending or middle to a story.” Amelia said.
     “Oooooh, all right, all right! We need to figure out how that portal opened in Alex’s room and where in the nine hells he wound up!”
     As Lina cursed the luck of everyone in the group as well as the narrator, Sylphiel’s eyes went glassy as a psychic connection was made. She mumbled something and walked into the building to a certain door with yellow ‘caution’ tape plastered all around it and across it. She clicked the combination into the lock and stepped through, into the brink of chaos. Time bent and warped for a few moments before the vortex closed, shattering the glass in a fifty meter radius from the source. Sylphiel was now in Ultimecia’s clutches and was set to become the newest menace of the SeeDs and Gardens of the world.

     Dawn. The hours when the world slowly wakes up, when the birds begin to sing their songs; when the flowers begin to blossom; when Professor Quistis Trepe and Laguna Loire pressed the emergency alarm in the quarters for students and SeeDs alike.
     In Alex’s room the young mage was the first one awake, bounding over Seifer’s sleeping form as he grabbed a pair of wind pants, a T-shirt, and his boots on his way out the door. A moment later Seifer sat up, tripping up Irvine as he slid out of bed. The two wound up in a pile of bodies on the floor, and upon realizing they had no time to fool around, grabbed their clothes and made an attempt to throw them on as they charged out the door.
     In the command center of Balamb Garden stood Laguna and Quistis, along with Squall, Rinoa, and Headmaster Cid. SeeDs were running about to get to their action stations, several large computer screens sliding down from the ceiling to list stats and status’ of Garden and the surrounding areas. The doors to the elevator slid open, and from the elevator floated Alex, his hair a dripping mess since he had used a water spell in the elevator to get his hair under control.
     “What’s the emergency, and what time IS it exactly?” he asked as he used a low level heat wave spell to dry his hair.
     “It’s quarter past six,” Squall said, eyeing Alex, “and it looks like you got dressed in the dark.”
     “It’s sort of difficult to get properly dressed when the alarm is blaring and there are two other people sharing a room meant for one,” he said, yawning, several audible pops coming from various parts of his body. As he was bending backwards for a back over bridge the elevator opened again and out stepped Seifer and Irvine, both better dressed than Alex, but shouldering their coats rather than wearing them. Alex flipped into a handstand, which he turned around before coming back up facing them. “Good morning gentlemen, sleep well?”
     “What in blazes is all the noise about?” Seifer asked, covering a yawn with an ungloved hand, “one minute we’re sleeping peacefully, the next minute the alarm’s going off and our little spell caster here beat us out the door by a long shot.”
     Alex blushed as he felt five pairs of eyes burning into him. He turned to face the people in authority before saying, “It’s not what you think. Honestly. They stopped by last night to see how I was doing and I sort of lost consciousness.”
     “Speaking of how you are doing,” Squall said, “how’s the arm?”
     Alex flexed his right arm, the cast shattering as a surge of energy regenerated the broken bones to stronger than they were to begin with. “It’s doing good,” he said after a moment, “best it’s felt in a while.”
     “So you’re Balamb Garden’s newest member,” Laguna said, approaching Alex, “I’m Laguna Loire, co-headmaster of this wonderful facility.” He extended his hand in formal greeting a moment later.
     “You wrote for Timber Maniacs, didn’t you?” Alex said, extending his own hand to clasp Laguna’s, “I’m a writer as well, though my articles are a lot different from yours. I prefer to write fantasy and the like.”
     “Can we have the warm fuzzy moment a little later?” Seifer asked as he slid into his coat, “What’s with the alarms at the unbelievably early hour?!”
     “I was about to get to that,” Quistis said, adjusting her glasses, “about fifteen minutes ago there was a surge in the cosmic balance someplace near Esthar, out in the badlands and incredibly close to Lunatic Pandora, or what remains of it. The early warning systems in that area captured these images of the person who came out of the rift.”
     On the bank of computer screens several images of Sylphiel were displayed, each one at a different angle. Alex arched an eyebrow when he saw how she looked, and muttered a curse in Elven when he noticed the blank looks in her eyes.
     “I know that girl,” he said, startling everyone. He stepped up to the bank of computer consols and began to punch buttons rapidly. “Her name’s Sylphiel Nels Raada, and she’s from my world,” he said as he punched up Sylphiel’s character data and profile, “she specializes in white magic, the type for healing and protection. Her elemental magic needs a LOT of work, and she knows only one black magic spell - the Dragon Slave. She is a complete flake, and would rather pine after Gourry Gabriev than fight, but if forced to she’ll kick some butt.”
     “But why is she here?” Squall asked, “If she’s from your world why is she out in the badlands?”
     “She’s been chosen to be Ultimecia’s new host,” Rinoa said, breaking her icy silence. “The sorceress from the future has chosen her to be her new host, her new source of power. With the untapped powers in that girl’s mind and body, Ultimecia could easily take over the world and destroy the SeeDs and Gardens alike...”
     “And exact her revenge upon all of us,” Seifer, Squall, and Irvine said in unison.
     “We’re in deep trouble if Sylphiel’s materia is corrupted,” Alex said as he punched a few more keys, images and data for Angemon appearing on the screens, “he’s a holy elemental, a light elemental if you will, with a powerful holy attack, the Hand of Fate. If he is corrupted in any way then we can bend over and kiss our butts good-bye.”
     “What is this materia you speak of?” Rinoa asked.
     Alex reached down his shirt and pulled out a chain with the red stone attached to it. He held this to the sky and shouted, “Dragon of Darkness who sleeps in the inferno, come forth and burn my enemy to ashes. RIDLEY!”
     A beam of light shot from the stone, passing through the skylight above them and piercing the clouds above. The sky instantly darkened, clouds swirling around the pinpoint of light. From the darkness came a mighty dragon bird, its screeches filling the air and sending shivers down the spines of everyone in the room.
     “What IS that thing?!” Zell asked as he and Selphie entered, several moments late as usual.
     “That’s Ridley,” Alex said, his voice full of pride, “that’s my esper, my personal guardian force, my summons if you will. The red stone is called materia, and it allows me to summon him.”
     “Action stations, action stations!” a female voice called from the command bridge, “Incoming threat to the Garden, point bearing 36 by 42. Brace for impact!”
     “What’s going on Xu?” Squall asked as the Garden shook.
     “Someone is using high power magic,” Xu said, her image appearing on several computer terminals, “it’s like no spell I’ve ever seen.”
     “Secondary blast incoming,” Alex said, grasping a nearby console for support. The spell curved away from Garden at the last possible moment. Unfortunately Ridley seemed to be the intended target, and the blast appeared to erase the dragon bird from the skyway. Tears filled his eyes as a piercing cry escaped his lips. “RIDLEY!!”
     “I’m sure he’s O.K.,” Irvine said, putting a comforting hand on Alex’s shoulder. Alex broke from the grasp, running for a nearby window at top speed, an energy barrier forming around his body as he crashed through. Glass was everywhere as he cast a Ray Wing, the spell taking immediate effect to send him higher in the air.
     “We have a third blast coming our way,” Xu said, disbelief in her voice, “it’s larger than the first two by several gigatons.”
     “The defense screens won’t hold up against a blast like that,” Quistis said, “we need a miracle to keep from being erased like that poor GF.”
     Outside the garden they could see Alex sailing loops through the cloud where Ridley had been moments earlier. They could tell he noticed the incoming blast, and were amazed at the sheer power of the protection spell he cast between Garden and the spell.
     “That has got to be an enhanced Dragon Slave,” he said over the radio, “but I thought only Lina and myself were the only ones who could...”
     The spell struck the barrier with more force than any of them had anticipated, and they could tell the exact amount by the distance in which Alex sailed backward. He recovered quickly, reversing the polarity of the barrier to send the energy back at the caster, only to have his barrier canceled out.
     “What the hell is going on?!” Zell exclaimed, “Why isn’t he doing anything?!”
     “New image data coming at you,” Xu said as the images on the screens shifted. A woman with long, straight, black - violet hair filled the screens. She looked young and beautiful, yet she wore a black body suit with black sequins, black sequined gloves, black leather boots, and a black cape with gold and silver shoulder guards and trim. She stood atop the head of a black dragon, and around her was an army of demi-humans, all clad in black armor.
     “Isn’t that.... that Sylphiel girl?” Selphie asked, her eyes glued to the images on the screen.
     “Damn her,” Alex coughed as he came in for a crash landing. Seifer and Irvine helped him to his feet and supported him as he walked to the bank of computer screens. When he saw who the spell caster was he became as limp as a wet noodle and crumpled to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. “Damn Ultimecia... for corrupting... her pure heart.”
     “Alex, it’s going to be fine,” Seifer said, crouching next to the sobbing mage, “we’ll help her. We’ll help you. We’ll kick Ultimecia’s sorry but into the afterlife once and for all.” he added as he put a hand consolingly on Alex’s shoulder. Alex looked up at him with tear filled eyes a moment later. “Trust me on this. We’ll show them what SeeDs are made of. Now, dry your eyes and let us prepare for this battle that lies ahead.”
     “Defense shields are deployed,” Xu said, relief flooding her voice, “with the guardian drive engaged we’ll be able to absorb the force of the blasts and channel them through the foundations.”
     “Thank goodness,” Quistis said, “Seifer, Irvine, take Alex back to his room and comfort him. We’ll begin preparations.”
     “I’ll go with them,” Laguna said, “I want to get to know our spell caster a little better.”
     Seifer slipped his arms under Alex’s, and a moment later he was pinned to the floor with Alex wrapped around his chest, sobbing into the front of his shirt. He could feel the damp spots from the tears increasing in size every second, but paid no heed to them as he ran his fingers through Alex’s hair. “It’s O.K.. Just cry it all out. It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”