Author's note: Man it's been a long time since I've updated. Sorry about that.

Chapter 3: Test

The Garden official gave a sigh out of sheer tiredness brought about by boredom. It had been 3 weeks since anybody had gone to the Fire Cave. And it was early in the morning, he yawned as he put his mask on. He sat down on the grass and started to snooze. It felt like only 3 minutes later when he woke to find somebody knocking on his golden mask. He got up to at least pretend he had just dozed off.

"Yes who will be taking the Fire Cave Challenge Today?" He said taking off his mask. He saw a very angry woman with her hands on he hips. She had long brown hair that disappeared down her back, she had on a red tank top, and black leather pants topped with steel-tipped black shoes. At her belt buckle rested a pair of nunchakus. Next to her was a girl with similarly styled black hair, with a light blue shirt and blue jeans. She looked rather bemused at how the older and taller woman was acting towards him.

"SHE will be taking the Fire Cave Challenge today! I, Selphie, will be proctoring." The older woman said.

"Um, What's her name?" he asked.

"This is Rinoa Heartilly! Okay, got it? Good!" Selphie exclaimed.

The Official looked passed her and towards Rinoa. "Hey, how long are you going to be in there? You get 10, 20, 30, or 40 minutes to obtain a contract with Ifrit. If you go over your own set time limit you won't get credit, sorry.

"Um, I'm only going to be twen-" Rinoa started.

"She's going to take 40 minutes alright?" Selphie interrupted.

The Official set his stopwatch for forty minutes and said; "When you enter the cave the clock starts," He pressed the start button as soon as both women vanished into the cave. He looked up and noticed that the sun was high really high up in the sky before sitting back down for some sleep. While sleeping he failed to notice that a man went into the Fire Cave shortly after the two women had.

Earlier that day…

Quistis entered the elevator to the third floor. She had gone up to see the headmaster many times in the last month or so. She had been summoned to see him after some developments in the case; basically Zell and Squall had been gone for far too long. When the elevator finally stopped. She entered the dark hallway that was the entrance to his waiting room. She went through the door and sat down.

She noticed that there were various paintings on the walls of the waiting room. One had a man with long flowing white, in only a trench coat and leather pants only, with black bird's wings and black feathers all around him. Another picture had a gigantic beast with numerous eyes swimming through the ocean. In the foreground was a person who had made a contract with Shiva; she knew this because the GF was flying towards the beast. These and several other paintings astonished her. They were like nothing she had seen or imagined before. Then the door to the headmaster's room opened. And it was Seifer marching out of there in a huff.

Quistis smiled, he didn't like being ordered. She got up and went into the room. In the middle of the room, shrouded in shadow was the headmaster.

"Yes, what is it you needed from me, sir?" she asked.

"Quistis I need nothing. This world is so confining, isn't it? All there is to it is what we all know and that's it." Cid said. This kind of babbling, coming from him, troubled Quistis greatly. She had never known for him to say anything out of the ordinary, and yet he was. And did his voice sound different?

"Sir, do you have cold?" she asked. The man gave a giggle.

"I found it, you know? Instead of combining time I'm going to combine the worlds. I've gathered so much knowledge about other worldly things. Those new weapons, they came from a different world." He said.

"What?"

"Those grids, they came from another world," he cackled then embraced Quistis, "So my darling would you like to see a whole new world?" Now it was unmistakable. His voice definitely sounded feminine. And she felt him feeling up her ass.

Someplace Else…

"Now it starts raining! After running for a couple days with no chance of finding any civilization, now it starts raining!" Zell complained. He started punching the rain in frustration. He and Squall still had their grids set to 'Mascot' because it was the warmest clothing they had set into the grids. And it was really cold outside. It was the twilight right after sundown and they were just about to sleep.

"Oh shut up, we both know that," Squall said rather angrily, "It feels like it's only 40 degrees (F) out here. If it gets any colder we might freeze to death,"

"Well, do you have any ideas, captain?" Zell looked up. Despite their being about the same height, Squall was still a little bit taller than him.

"We could always huddle together, and share our body heat, and use the costumes as blankets." He replied.

"Oh, no, I've heard rumors about you and Seifer. And the reason why he's pissed off all the time."

"Listen, those rumors are completely false, sure I enjoyed it but Seifer is a sadist."

"Does Rinoa know?"

"Well…"

"She doesn't does she? That you're not really into girls that much anymore!"

"Hey, what's wrong with you?"

"Hm?" That question surprised Zell. In truth he had had a small attraction to Squall. But he couldn't tell Squall, or anyone for that matter, he was afraid of being teased. He thought it over and shivered from the cold. "Oh alright, we can huddle, only because it's cold but nothing weird okay? I DO have a girlfriend."

"Sure, man" The two men took off their costumes and huddled to share their body heat. Night proper had fallen and they couldn't see each other properly. Even though they were so close, they couldn't see each other blushing.

Back in the Fire Cave…

"Wow, this place is lot colder than I remember it to be," Selphie muttered. It really was. Despite being called the Fire Cave there was no lava to be seen, or monsters for that matter. "This way too strange,"

"Do you think we should head back?" Rinoa asked.

"Silly, we have forty minutes to ourselves, why can't we just enjoy it?"

"Um, okay?"

"Could you tell me about that locket,"

Rinoa smiled, "Why don't we go back into your room? We can just tell them that I contracted Ifrit, and you could back me up," Rinoa got closer to Selphie and embraced her. "We have a lot to talk about, y'know?"

Later that day…

Quistis lied very uncharacteristically lazily on the bench in the Cafeteria. She had a hard time fighting the headmaster off of her, or whoever it was. She pondered over what had happened.

"What did you do with the headmaster?" she had asked.

"You'll find him in the training area, or should I say under it?" he gave another feminine cackle. "I came here for you, why don't you like me?" Then he had taken off his face, like it was a rubber mask. Silky long black hair poured from underneath the mask. And it revealed a woman's face. Quistis hauled ass to get of there. And now she had been barred from her own room because of something that Rinoa and Selphie were doing in there. Somebody setting down next to her brought her back to the present. It was Irvine.

"Where have you been?" she asked.

"Lady, you really don't want to know," he answered. She noticed that he was sweating profusely, and had something clipped to his belt.

To be continued…

Some people don't know how to use bemused, thinking it means amused. From bemuse: To cause to be bewildered; confuse. So bemused means to be bewildered and confused at the same time!