Thank you to Tequila Princess for her great review and heads up on that typo! I am going to lord that over my beta reader's head for a while.

Still don't own FFVIII. This was originally chapter five. Some of the chapters will be reordered.

Original Author's notes: Okay! Before this chapter, a few sidenotes. In the game, Diablos is the only GF with encounter none ability. In this story, Zell's Ifrit has it. I'm going with the belief that every GF can learn every ability with the right amount of training. Also, I am aware that caterchipillars did not appear in the training center in the game. However, I wanted to add another monster in there that wasn't a grat. Thanks for reading and please review!

3. SeeD Training Center

Ainsley glanced around her room at the neat charts and tables she had tacked up on every available surface with a satisfied smile. Now, even if she had only stopped into her room to change uniforms, or grab her books, she could have a look around and soak in a bit of knowledge in preparation for her test.

It was times like this that she was glad her roommate had dropped out after the first week, leaving Ainsley with a room to herself. It had meant that Ainsley kept to herself more than the other girls in her class, but at least she had Ryuu and Hayes.

"It's not like I have time to socialize anyway, not with this test to study for," Ainsley murmured.

As she allowed her mind to wander, her eyes fell on a chart, explaining the magic that could be drawn from a bite bug at varying levels.

"This is perfect," she sighed.

The shock had worn off as soon as Ainsley had reached her dormitory room, and she had now begun to realize, in her frenzied wallpapering of charts and articles, that she wasn't sure how she felt about taking the test early. Expecting to receive a dressing-down for her inability to pay attention, she couldn't help but wonder if Instructor Trepe had been influenced by her parents into forcing Ainsley to participate.

Initially, Ainsley had been proud that someone had recognized her for her achievements and not her wealthy family.

Sighing, she lay back on her bed and stared at the ceiling, which was currently covered with more detailed monster charts and weapons diagrams.

"Have I really begun to doubt my own ability?"

She voiced the hypothetical question into the empty air, despite already knowing the answer.

"Gaahh! This sucks!" she exclaimed.

Abruptly, Ainsley shot up from her bed to her dresser and began rummaging through the neatly folded piles of clean clothes. Pulling out a spare clean uniform, she quickly changed, and pulled out a mirror from underneath her bed. Turning around a few times, she tried tugging the jacket and skirt down, to fully cover her body.

"If the Garden wants me to be a slut then fine," she mumbled, finally giving up and allowing the jacket and skirt to ride back up.

"It's not like anyone's going to be there anyway."

Reaching under her bed once more, she pulled out a large, well-sharpened scythe before quickly leaving her room.

The training center late at night was dark and noisy. Over the chirping of crickets and various other insects, Ainsley could hear monsters rustling through the underbrush.

Silently, she made her way to a clearing, wiping the beads of sweat that were already forming in on her brow in the humid air. Ainsley knew that if she established the fact that she was alone and appeared defenseless, the monsters would come quickly.

She was not disappointed. The moment she sat down an ambitious grat jumped out from a nearby pool of shade underneath a palm tree.

Ainsley stood. She breathed out for a moment.

She needed to push all other thoughts out of her mind and focus on the task at hand. She could do it. It was exactly like a dance.

Ainsley smiled. She remembered her childhood dance instructor who had personally assured her parents that their daughter would never be a dancer.

Lengthening her stance, she opened her defenses long enough to encourage the grat to attack. As it began to whip a tendril towards her, Ainsley sprang forward, whirling her scythe and slashing through the advancing appendage.

Often, Zell would come to the training center late at night. When junctioned with Ifrit properly, he could easily limit his number of monster encounters giving himself time to think, or just relax.

Zell had found that the noisiness of the training center was a good background for organizing his thoughts, and lately, he'd had a lot to think about. Exams were quickly approaching and not nearly enough of his students were coming in for regular training.

He was going to have to up the mandatory hours again. In addition to this, Quistis had been looking very drawn and tired lately. Even Zell, with his natural ease and happy-go-lucky nature had noticed the darkness under her eyes and her extraordinarily pale complexion.

There were many ways that he could trick Quistis into going on vacation, and Zell began to run through the list in his mind. His concentration was easily interrupted by a sharp noise that rang clear in the humid air.

Attuned to the noises of the training center, Zell quickly realized that someone was being attacked. Springing up, he ran in the direction of the noise.

Zell reached the small clearing with ease, but paused at the edge of it to tighten his dragon skin Ehrgeiz over his fingers before jumping into the fray.

Ainsley had blocked out all other sounds but the sweeping swoosh of her scythe as it moved gracefully through the air. Her once-clean uniform was now covered in grat blood and gastric juice.

Luckily she had thought to bring a large supply of antidotes, and had remained unpoisoned. The first grat had given way to several others, and she was almost sure that there had been a few caterchipillar attacks as well.

As she whirled around to give another grat a swift death, she saw a flash of a person in her way and brought her body to a complete stop. Her scythe landed softly on the leaves where she had thrown it to avoid hitting the man.

"Hiya!" Zell Dincht said.

He followed up this enthusiastic greeting by flashing his trademark grin and his thumbs-up pose.

Ainsley blushed profusely.

"Thought you were in trouble," he said, running a gloved hand through his hair. He paused and glanced at the bleeding corpses of dead grats that surrounded the girl.

"…but I guess you were doing great. Sorry for the interruption and all."

Ainsley could only nod as she wordlessly retrieved her scythe, never once taking her eyes off of Zell.

"Well…uh…you looked really great in there," Zell continued when Ainsley failed to pick up the conversation. "Just blowin' off some steam?"

Ainsley shook her head.

"Just training," she managed to say.

Zell laughed good-naturedly.

"Wish other students were like you. You're not even taking the test next week, and you're still here."

Zell followed this statement with a friendly sigh. When Ainsley didn't respond, Zell cleared his throat and continued talking.

"I'm gonna head out, ok? I'm junctioned for no encounters, so if you want to get out quick you're welcome to follow." Ainsley mutely nodded and followed Zell out of the training center.

"Wonder how that works really," Zell mused to himself as well as his student.

"Encounter-none?" Ainsley squeaked.

Zell looked slightly surprised that she was talking, and grinned again.

"Yeah. I'm sure I learned it sometime but," Zell shrugged and grinned at her.

"I guess I just don't remember."

"It's a Guardian Force ability," she responded as if reciting a textbook.

"The GF sends out a signal to all monsters in an area. The size of the area depends on the strength of the signal."

"Cool! Like psychic powers?"

Zell said this excitedly, wiggling his eyebrows at Ainsley to let her know that he was just kidding. Ainsley blushed and continued.

"No one really knows exactly. It could be a sort of pheremone that deters things instead of attracting them, or some sort of weak, subliminal brain wave," she said.

Zell grinned again.

"I was just kidding," he said.

"You're pretty smart. Too bad you're not up for the test. I bet you'd pass."

"I…uh…am, actually," she nervously said.

"Instructor Trepe thought it might be a good idea."

Zell's eyebrows raised as Ainsley mentioned Quistis Trepe.

"So Quis is your Instructor? What's she like?" he asked.

"She's really strict," Ainsley began.

Zell burst out laughing before she could continue.

"Yeah, that's bossy old Quisty for you. I bet she's even worse than she was when Squall was her student," Zell chuckled.

Ainsley didn't reply. Zell waited a few moments before prodding her.

"So…what else?" he said.

"Um…she's very fair. And she notices things quickly," Ainsley responded.

Zell nodded, and his eyes became dreamy.

"Yeah, she was always was like that," he said quietly, before snapping back to the present.

"Well, here's the dorm. See ya soon, Ainsley!"

"You know my name?"

Ainsley tried her best to not look incredulous as she spoke.

"I know all my students names," Zell replied simply.

"See ya!"

As Zell walked off, he couldn't help but chuckle once more at Ainsley's description of his former teammate. However, his expression sobered when he thought of the drained and pallid Quistis he had seen the day before in a staff meeting.

He punched his right fist into his left palm. There had to be something he could do to cheer up his friend.