I had decided to start another story only after I finished my current fanfic... but I recently finished watching the United World Episodes of the OVA of TOS (it's a really long wait... but I managed to wait till all three episodes to come out before watching them in one go) and suddenly this plot came up in my mind and I just had to write it out.

This fic is actually connected to the other fic I'm currently writing: Fonic Interruption, but you don't have to read it to understand the events in this fic. Fonic Interruption is about Kratos in Auldrant and this fic is about the happenings in Aselia during the duration of Fonic Interruption, so there isn't really a connection for the time being. The real connection will come out very late in this fanfic.

The events in this fic happens 12 years after the events in TOS:KoR and 10 years after the start of Fonic Interruption.

Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Symphonia: Kight of Ratatosk

Prologue

The door opened and a young man who looked to be somewhere near twenty five was pushed roughly into the room. He lost his footing due to the rough push and fell down onto the ground after stumbling for a few steps. The door closed behind him and the room suddenly became very dark. There was no window and the only light source was from a small rectangular hole near the bottom of the metal door, the hole where food was passed into the room, not that the current occupants of the room needed to eat any food.

The young man crawled up from the ground and went to sit against a wall. He had brown eyes, unkempt reddish brown hair that stood up in spikes, though some of them were too long and fell down in front of his face. He wore a tattered dull red, which was actually bright red nearly a month ago, shirt with white buttons, dull red gloves, dark gray pants and a pair of worn red boots. His expression was that of an exhausted man.

The man let out an exhausted sign and said to the empty cell. "Let me rest for ten minutes, okay?"

The moment he finished his question, a translucent figure appeared in front of him while hovering a few inches above the air. The figure was that of a boy with shoulder length blond hair wearing white clothing with blue linings, deep blue pants and a pair of matching white boots.

"Make it half an hour, you need to be on your best for the plan to work." The ghostly figure whispered in such a small voice that if not for the man's advanced hearing, he would have missed it.

"No, ten minutes is fine, I am not that tired." The man protested, eager to carry out their plan.

The spirit arched an eyebrow at the man's stubbornness and knew that if the man was anywhere near as stubborn as his father, which the spirit knew he was, and in fact much more stubborn than his father, he would need another approach to make him give in.

"The battle just now was fiercer than the previous ones. I also need to take a rest."

"But-"

"Lloyd Aurion, that's final. The both of us need to rest. Remember that we only have one chance." The boy narrowed his eyes at the whining man. Seriously, isn't he already thirty one years old? Even I stopped whining when I was twenty or so years old, and I looked even younger than he is now. What would you say if you see your son now, Kratos?

"It's Lloyd Irving Aurion. And stop it."

"Stop what?" The spirit asked innocently.

"I knew that look. Stop whatever you are thinking."

"What look?" He asked again as he continued his innocent act.

"Yuan also had that look when he insulted me in his mind and started thinking about dad." Lloyd said with an expression that could be interpreted as 'what do you think I am, stupid?'

The boy closed his eyes and shrugged. "Could have fooled me."

"I hate it when you read my mind."

"The feeling is mutual, though in your case I think I should say lucky guess instead. Anyway, I will let you know when half an hour is up." The boy said and faded into thin air, leaving Lloyd as the only occupant of the cell.

"I hate it when you do that too." Lloyd said aloud to the now empty cell.

"Go to sleep Lloyd." A voice echoed in the cell even though the boy was nowhere in sight.

"Fine, goodnight dad." Lloyd said before lying down and closed his eyes.

The boy reappeared in the cell once he knew Lloyd's consciousness was starting to drift away and rolled his eyes at the 'dad' comment. It was something like a joke between them, with Lloyd saying the spirit was becoming more and more like Kratos and the spirit refuting that Lloyd was the one that was becoming more and more like his own father, both physically and mentally.

It's good that we are planning to escape today, the attack and beating really are getting more and more vigorous if an angel, albeit young like Lloyd, could be so tired to go into a semi-conscious state in less than a minute. The boy thought and frowned as he saw Lloyd had already gotten into a semi-conscious state, the state that angels, or Cruxis Crystal users, only go into to regain strength when exposed extremely stressful situation.

The spirit then decided to follow Lloyd's example and lied down to rest, though he was still hovering in the air.

Soon we will escape this hell hole. Then... then I will need to face my past... my enemies... and the victims of my crazy plan...