Why did we help?

General Calloway ruined the all rule, and he didn't even tell me.

Selphie, Zell, and Irvine ride their military APC into the Galbadian missile base to disrupt the attack on Garden. The guard is fooled by the uniforms they found in the car, so it's an easy entrance. From here, the team has several options about how to stop the attacks. We can sneak our way through, which is surprisingly fast and easy. Or we can storm everyone. I went incognito because there's no reason to fight in this game. Walk by holding down circle past guard one, and talk to the lazy maintenance guys in the left room near the save point. This'll let us into the room guard one blocked. I don't know if it matters here, but I selected the bottom options to have Selphie interact with the console and kill the base's power. Select "we were about to call for you" when confronted. Help push the missile launcher into the bay, then fulfill the mission. This feels like the opposite of what we were supposed to do, but okay. Inspect the console outside the room to adjust the missiles' trajectory. From here, inform the base commander that everyone is a go. I don't remember how different any of this would have been had we choose violence from the start, but it won't matter. Regardless of how we got here, everyone does the wrong salute, and our cover is blown. We get to kill knock off Biggs, Wedge, and Wedge's brother, Bedge. From here, we do something with one computer before finding the self destruct one in the next room. I set it to ten minutes. As we leave, Bedge will activate something on the computer.

We'll run outside and see all the soldiers fleeing the base. We regain control and see a giant mech blocking us. This is a boss. It's weak to water and lightning. It's also vulnerable to physical attacks backed up by Tornado, Quake, and Demi. Apparently, you'll need to remove the last twenty percent in three character turns or lose the rewards. Defeat the soldiers to be done with this.

The team will run around the courtyard only to see they're locked in. What's worse, the missiles we tried to prevent are launched beside us. The party laments that they failed and think Squall knew they would. The self destruct sequence goes off, and we see them blow up. Why did this military base even have a self destruct mechanism?

We're back to Squall, Rinoa, and Q. Everything seems fine, so they think Selphie succeeded. But the missiles could be on their way, so let's prepare a backup plan. There's one problem, though, everyone is panicking. The faculty members want Cid dead, so all the students have taken sides. Seeds are with Cid, while everyone else is with someone named Norg. We're on Cid's side, so we're attacked. None of the monsters are too bad, but watch out for the tyrannosaurus rex. From here, we'll need to liberate each wing from the Norgians. We'll be rewarded with items from happy SeeDs. After hitting every offshoot, we'll see Xu running towards the elevator. Follow her to the second floor hallway, and she'll tell us Cid is in his office. Why didn't the Norgians check there first?

Anyway, he's there, and we inform him of the attack. He wants us to evacuate everyone but says he'll stay there. Squall asks why, and Cid says he's going down with the ship. He also has a plan! Cid stumbles, which makes our MC offer to help. Cid asks why Squall would do something like that, and Squall struggles to answer. He thinks a lot, though. Cid and Q laugh at him, but we learn the plan. Cid hands us a key to the nether regions of Garden. This used to be a vault, so maybe there's something down there to defend against missiles? Cid is now a save point, so we'll check out the base of Garden...

...tomorrow!

I remember the missile base being worse than that. Regardless, I did it so well my SeeD rank went up two levels!