Disclaimer: I do not own Tales of Symphonia.
Lloyd frowned resignedly as he sorted through his inventory, arranging the various items within for convenience sake. Despite his hopes the gels had cost more than he'd hoped, thus he hadn't been able to buy as many orange gels as he'd wanted. If he wanted to make his way across the desert and through the Ossa trail he'd have to use his techniques scarcely. "Aw man." He huffed, grimacing.
After putting the items back within, he pulled his new armour over his top and sheathed his blades at each side. If he was going to venture alone he'd have to be more cautious; he didn't have a healer on hand and his supplies were limited.
He stepped out of his room and made his way downstairs, thanking the Inn owner for her hospitality and walking out the front door. "To the West..." He murmured, shielding his eyes from the sun as he walked toward the front gate. "Hope I can make it in time."
He trekked through the sand, groaning as he stepped over a particularly high hill and felt the hot, coarse grains enter his boots. "Not enough gald for full supplies, on my own, and now I have sand in my shoes! Great..."
"Your days about to get worse." He rolled his eyes at the unoriginal line and turned to confront the person uttering the words, a bandit dressed the same as the others he had seen and holding the same weapon, standing next to another. "You guys again?" He stared. "Well, you're persistent I'll give you that, especially attacking such a short distance from the village in Triet."
"I don't know what you're talkin' about, brat." One of them sneered. "But hand over your cash!"
"Heh." Lloyd smirked at the two and pulled his swords, holding them at his sides, symmetrical. "Alright, let's play."
Within seconds the two unprepared bandits were on the floor, moaning in pain as they nursed their wounds. "Damn... You...!"
Lloyd sighed, giving them a dull look. "You guys just don't learn, do you?" He asked rhetorically, casually searching their pockets and taking the small amount of gald he found. "Just give it up."He advised before continuing on with his walk to the Ossa trail.
"Excuse me!" He turned from the bandits to see a traveler with long brown hair running towards him. "I saw you take care of those bandits and couldn't help but notice your skill with those blades." He praised.
Lloyd puffed up, prideful of his blade ability. "Thanks, so what's up?"
"Well, I was wondering if you were hunting this bandit gang?"
The lanky red-clad youth tilted his head. "Gang?"
The traveler blinked, deep brown eyes the same shade as his hair swimming with confusion. "The black paw gang? The ones going around terrorizing the locals whenever they leave the village?"
"I didn't know about them..." Lloyd murmured concernedly. "Why are they terrorizing the locals?"
The traveler adjusted his knapsack and shrugged. "Because they can? With the Desians so scarce in this area people like them take advantage of the situation."
"What?" He growled, hands clenching the hilts of his swords so tightly that they were white beneath his gloves with the pressure. "Those bastards...!"
"They have a bounty, back in Triet; If you're interested."
Lloyd was torn. On the one hand, he had to catch up with the others; on the other... "Dwarven vow #2; Never abandon someone in need." He muttered, realizing his choice before he even made the decision. "Where is the bandit camp?" He said louder, drawing the traveler's attention away from where he was chuckling at the shoddy sight of the bandits on the ground, cursing them.
"They're based to the West, past the entrance to Ossa trail and the ruins where Efreet once lay waste." He said innocuously with a small smile. "So you're interested in the bounty?"
"Sure..." He waved off, already on the move. "Thanks for the info!"
"No problem." The other man waved him off, amused at his tenacity.
It took Lloyd nearly three hours walking in the sweltering heat to finally reach the camp. Based on the edge of the ocean in the spot directly between the desert and the sparse greenery edging around the mountains, built with ruggedly cut logs and badly-welded steel, the place didn't even have a door, merely a wide gap in the front of the camp.
"Finally made it. Now what?" He hissed, staring down at the bandits milling about the place.
"HAH!" He turned at the distant yell from the far-end of the camp and saw a badly dressed man, large and stocky with poorly kept hair and a blunt wedge of metal that may have once been a sword. "GET BACK HERE!"
He jolted as he saw a young girl with plain brown hair and pale blue eyes, looking younger than he was, trying to get away from the man, tears running down her cheeks as she crawled along the hard sand, heedless of the red skin of her hands and knees exposed through her tattered dress. "No, please!"
He saw red. "YOU BASTARDS!" He yelled, leaping down from the cliff-side directly into the camp from the side wall.
"Who the hell-!" The would-be rapists words were cut off, as was his head. Despite the iron helmet on his head Lloyd had cleaved clean through the straps with such force that he cleanly decapitated the man.
He ignored the feeling that came with his first kill and the yells of the terrified girl and spun, charging into the midst of the shocked bandits.
"Gre-!" The bandit didn't even get the chance to call out his dead allies name as Lloyd ran him through the chest with his knight's sword, already turning to a third man with a wild look in his eyes.
"Curse you!" The man raised his makeshift axe with a yell, not even reaching the apex of his swing as the red blur among them first cut through his hand, causing him to instinctively drop his weapon, and then brought his sword down to stab him through the skull.
Four, five, six, seven, the bandits fell before his wrath like scared rabbits before a starving wolf, not even getting the chance to defend themselves as he ran through them, hacking at them and sparing them no quarter.
He finally stopped, breathing heavily as he rested his blades tip first in the ground. He turned and saw the girl leaning against a crate on the floor, eyes on him, horrified with all the blood-shed yet shining with... something. "Are you okay?" He huffed.
He barely had time to drop his swords as the girl lunged for him, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Thank you!" She cried, burying her head in his shoulder. It said something about the situation that despite having seen him cutting through living people and hacking off limbs she still preferred the sight of a blood-stained killer over the... people that had held her captive.
"It's gonna be okay." He consoled nervously, unsure how to go about comforting someone, especially someone of the female persuasion. "It's all gonna be fine."
Lloyd calmly stoked the fire in front of him, thinking on the day thus far. It had taken him around half an hour to free all the prisoners. Sixty people had been kept in cages like animals, most of them residents of Triet. Shortly thereafter another group of about five bandits had come back to the camp, and after cutting through them, using two apple gels and an orange gel in the process, Lloyd had started rounding the people up, ensuring that they were at least patched up and prepared.
Among the prisoners he had found an old man that apparently used to be a mercenary and had taught him a technique called 'Guardian', something he had immediately taken to after reflecting on a particularly bad wound received in a moment of weakness against the bandits. One of them had begged for his life and when he hesitated took advantage and stabbed him in the stomach, thus the two apple gels.
In addition to the technique and some survival tips the old man had taught him how to utilize his 'Demon fang' tech better, branching out to two new techs, one called 'Double Demon fang' a slightly further powered Demon fang performed twice and 'Fierce Demon fang', a close-range Demon fang that hit in a semi-circle.
"Lloyd!" He turned and yelped when a female form smashed into him, knocking him off balance. "Whoa!"
He chuckled at the girl's enthusiasm and smiled. "Hey Lil."
Lil, the first girl he had saved, looked a lot better now that she was clean and dressed in new clothing found among the bandits loot, along with anything else the bandits could find.
Among his own loot was a pair of large blades the old man had called 'Ogre swords' and a necklace that supposedly prevented poison as well as a holy relic, a small ring that supposedly healed the wearer. The old man had reflected on a pastor in the village, withered and aged that had gone out for a stroll one day and never come back; now they knew why.
"You guys heading back to Triet?" He queried, eyebrows raised at her enthusiasm. It was like she wasn't just an hour ago nearly... Lloyd stopped that train of thought.
"Yeah." She nodded, smiling. "Listen, Lloyd... If you're ever in Triet, come by. 'Kay?" She hinted with a wink.
"S-Sure." He didn't quite get what she was getting at, but he suspected it was something that would get him hit by the professor if he'd said it.
That was around an hour-and-a-half ago, and now if was a dark, cloudless night.
He sighed as he lay on his back and stared up at the stars. 'Wonder how Colette, Genis and the Professor are doing...' He grimaced as his thoughts went to the hired mercenary. "That guy was a jerk!" He growled, narrowing his eyes.
He was distracted by his itching feet. "Damn." He winced, frowning. He'd been walking all day and hadn't realized that until now, it had been around one or twoish when he got to the camp and he'd left around around sevenish.
That was another apple gel down the drain.
Genis walked ahead of the group, head hung low in depression. When they had gone to rescue Lloyd they hadn't been able to find him in the Desian's base, he'd wanted to keep looking, refusing to abandon his best friend, but Kratos had said simply that they had no choice but to continue the Journey of Regeneration and after a short while Raine had agreed.
"Genis, I know how much you want to find Lloyd, I do as well, as does Colette, but he's obviously not here."
Genis looked away from his sister. "But Raine..."
"Genis," The two half-elves turned to face the hired mercenary. "Lloyd has escaped, that much is obvious."
"What?" He'd asked, eyes wide. "H-How do you know?"
"Their storage rooms and prisoner cells held neither Lloyd nor his equipment, and their technology doesn't look to have been used recently, ergo he must have escaped." Kratos had informed with his usual calm, smooth baritone.
"But-"
"Genis," Raine cut across, a hard expression on her face. "Lloyd isn't here, and we have to go, the Journey of Regeneration can't wait."
The group had camped last night near the first seal and entered in the morning, finally leaving for Triet midday.
"Genis," He turned to look up at his sister. "I'm sorry about earlier, and Lloyd..." She looked away.
"Raine... It's fine, I understand." Despite his words he didn't stop sulking, looking ahead at the gates of small town in the middle of the desert.
"Genis..." She pursed her lips sadly.
The group, led by Kratos, entered the town. And stared.
Despite the sun setting high above them the streets were packed with rejoicing people, happiness etched onto their faces. "What a nice town." Colette said cheerfully behind them, smiling guilelessly around at her surroundings.
"What happened here?" The blue-clad half-elf wondered, watching the people embrace around him, joy in the air.
"Excuse me." Raine wandered over to the stables near the inn and started talking to a traveler tying up his mule. "Do you know what happened here?"
His eyes met hers and he grinned charmingly. "Why, of course fair lady, these people were recently saved by a young adventurer on his way to realize his potential!" He spun with the air of a storyteller.
"Ah." She nodded with an understanding expression, fringe bouncing with the movement. "I see. Did you see him?"
"Yep." He replied honestly. "Kid in red, said something about a vow; 'Never leave someone in need' or something... Nice guy, I'll give him a discount if I meet him again." He nodded resolutely.
She jolted and Genis' attention was pulled to them. "Lloyd!"
The others gathered around as the traveler cheerfully nodded. "Hey, yeah! You know him?"
"Did he say where he was going?" Raine asked without answering his question.
The man shrugged and thought for a moment. "Think he was... Heading for the Ossa trail before I saw him."
"Thank you." The half-elf woman nodded and walked away, forming a square with the others in the town center. "Lloyd's okay; He must be looking for us. Though how he knew we were going to the Ossa trail..."
"Perhaps the townspeople overheard us and he asked around." Kratos speculated. "Either way that's irrelevant. What matters is that he's safe and doing well." He opened an eye and saw them staring at him, stunned. "And as such you won't be distracted from your Journey anymore, Chosen." He covered, nodding to himself when they all sighed at his behaviour.
"Alright." The blonde nodded.
"For now, we'll rest at the inn." Kratos said stoically.
With that the group made their way to the inn.
"You're friends of Lloyd?" The Innkeeper asked upon their arrival.
"Yes." Colette nodded, sky blue eyes bright with the knowledge that their friend was alright.
"Well, any friend of Lloyds is a friend of mine, he saved my daughter," He explained at their inquiring look. "My precious Lil, taken by bandits and nearly killed if it weren't for that brave young man. Has he always been so..."
"He was always tenacious." Raine smiled, reminiscing on the rambunctious dwarven-raised boy, now man, with fond eyes. "If only he were as good at his schoolwork." She chuckled. "And staying awake. I swear, that boy could sleep anywhere."
Behind her Genis grinned and Colette giggled into her hand and, unnoticed to all, Kratos' expression softened. 'Anna...'
"Well, top floor, last three rooms, you can't miss them." He handed them the keys to the rooms. "Just try not to make too much noise. People are with their loved ones and some of them are still tired from the long journey back and their ordeal with the bandits."
The four nodded in understanding and made their way up the stairs.
"Alright," Kratos started just before they entered their rooms. "We'll rest here for tonight and then, first thing in the morning, make our way to the Ossa trail. Hopefully we will meet Lloyd at the trail, perhaps even the entrance. We leave at sunrise, understood?" Everyone in the ground nodded firmly. "Good. Sleep well."
A/N: Well, that escalated quickly... Hoping to make this epic in length. The only pairing thus far decided is LloydXRaine, YuanXMartel, KratosXAnna and, perhaps, GenisXPresea (Though the last one won't be a proper pairing, they're just kids... Sort of.)