Hello to all! This is a bit of a sequel to From the Inside, but you don't need to have read it to understand what's going on, as far as I know. If you haven't read From the Inside and there's something you don't understand, feel free to message or review with your question and I'll try to answer it to the best of my ability.

On with the fic XD

Disclaimer:This is a disclaimer for the whole fic. I don't own Final Fantasy. Bummer.

Note: Italics represent the past.

Time travel was an odd thing, as Squall was quickly coming to find out. It was like a vast sea, pushing and pulling, moving and sifting. Dimensions passed by like windows in a hallway, showing the way things were and could have been. If one wasn't careful, it was easy to tread down the wrong path, into a new place, a world that was and wasn't his own.

He was there, then he wasn't. He was whole, then he was fragmented. His being was changing, almost imperceptibly, as he plummeted through time. It was so absurd, how one mistake could cause this. Perhaps it was when Irvine's gun backfired in the practice room, or when Selphie screamed, or when the monster dove for them, teeth flashing and blood dripping from its scaled lips. A break in concentration was all it took.

Squall was also learning how tricky magic really was. Not the simple spells that were drawn from the earth, but real magic. The kind beyond his understanding. What did he know of sorcery? He was only a Knight, capable of touching the elements and the basics of the environment around him. His Time spells were fleeting and weak, sometimes completely ineffective.

This was something else entirely, something large and powerful and frightening. That a human could hold this much power was hard to comprehend.

That his Rinoa held this much power was unthinkable.

It was a basic training operation. Squall wasn't really in the mood for it, but it was necessary for all SeeD teams to undergo a training session once a week unless out in the field. Even the Commander of Garden himself.

So there he was, trudging through the thick foliage of the practice room. It was muggy inside, and all they had battled with so far were grats.

"How long do we have to be here?" Zell whined a distance behind him.

Rinoa giggled at Squall's side, but said nothing. She, as usual, was handling this a lot better than he was.

"Another hour," Quistis announced. "Unless we kill something substantial." Squall suppressed a groan. This was ridiculous. He'd have to do something about that rule…

"What, exactly, constitutes 'substantial'?" Selphie wanted to know.

"Bigger than grats," Irvine informed unhelpfully.

"That's it? We kill one of those bug things and we get to leave?"

"I think the total weight of all kills has to be five hundred pounds," Quistis said.

Who came up with that number? Cid? He could be such an idiot. Squall wouldn't put it past him.

"How are we supposed to know that?" Zell demanded, his voice cross.

"Let's split up," Squall suggested suddenly, stopping in the path they had been treading and turning around to survey his team.

"Why?" Rinoa asked, cocking her head to the side. Her raven hair spilled down her shoulder, shining in the light. He wanted to brush it aside for her.

Squall tried to ignore that desire. "We'll cover more ground and kill more monsters if we split up," he explained. "We'll get out of here faster."

"Good idea," Irvine agreed. Like Squall needed his approval. He was the Commander of Balamb Garden.

"Quistis, take Zell and Selphie. I'll take Irvine and Rinoa. Meet us back at the entrance at thirteen hundred hours."

Quistis nodded, turning and entering the thick brush. Zell and Selphie followed and the three soon disappeared from sight.

Squall scanned the area before leading his team on. He was more than eager to get this inane hunt over with and get back to the pile of paper work that was slowly overtaking his desk.

They spent the next thirty minutes making a sizable dent in the grat population, but nothing much bigger reared its ugly head. Frustrated and annoyed, Squall ordered his team back to the entrance.

That's when he heard a high pitched scream.

Adrenaline poured through his veins as he ran, Rinoa and Irvine on his heels. That was Selphie. Crashing and a guttural roar soon split the air, making Squall run harder. That was a T-Rexaur. A whip cracked.

Squall finally broke through the brush,Lionheart brandished before him and a snarl of his own on his lips.

The beast before them was a fully grown reptile, standing several stories tall. It's scaled skin and long teeth glistened in the light and its talons were coated in fresh blood. Squall didn't know if it came from the carcass of the dead monster on the ground or from one of his team, and the possibility made his blood boil.

The beast turned away from Zell, Selphie and Quistis just in time to meet Squall's sword. Squall dragged the blade over the creature's snout, drawing a thin stream of blood and causing it to cry out with pain. Squall took that moment to survey his team. Quistis was panting and holding a blood-soaked shoulder, but she was standing. Zell was casting a Blizzaga spell, and Selphie was readying her nun chucks. Irvine would be about to fire a shot.

Rinoa already had a Time spell going. He could tell without looking. He knew the feeling of her mind touching his to borrow the spell, and the way her thoughts could shift and use the magicks in the air, drawing strength from the life around her.

He heard the report of Irvine's gun, but the scream that followed didn't come from the monster before him. It was a terrible cry Squall had not ever heard before from the cowboy. His head jerked around in surprise as he witnessed a thick, black cloud of gunpowder and debris backfire into his friend's face.

Behind him, Rinoa screamed.

His world shattered and froze. The color seemed to bleed out from the fragments, making everything look pale and fuzzy. His vision tipped, then dimmed, and he couldn't feel his body any more. He couldn't see anything.

Squall knew he had stopped somewhere. He felt his body again, resting on something hard. He wanted desperately to wake up, to see where he was, but he couldn't even open his eyes.

His mind drifted.

And there's chapter one.

Updates are going to be a little difficult to get up for a few weeks (play practice can be such a pain XP) but thing's should smooth out soon, and they'll come about every week or two. Give or take.

As always, reviews are welcome. Especially those containing constructive criticism, ideas and complements ;) Have a great week!

God Bless,

-RainFlame