BWAHAHAHAHA! Not sure why I'm cackling evilly, but it's fun. Anyway, on with the chapter! REVIEW!

"We've been wandering this bloody forest for three days!" Zelos shouted. "Where in the hell is this Martel-forsaken ruin?"

"Zelos!" Sheena snapped. "Shut up!"

"The moron is right though," Lloyd said. "We should have been there by now." Lloyd glanced over at Raine who was standing by a gargantuan tree, repeatedly whacking her head against it. Colette and Genis were trying to console her. Presea was crouched on the forest floor, searching for some kind of trail sign. Regal stood apart from everyone, gazing up at the sky.

"I just can't figure it out!" Raine snapped, banging her head with each word.

"Sis-"

"Professor-"

"QUIET!" Raine barked. Colette and Genis froze before scampering off. Raine marched off through the trees, yet again, determined to find the village. "This has to be the right way…" She wove through the trees, coming to a stop every now and then to check her direction. "I know this is right!"

"Do you?" Yuan said, leaning against a nearby tree. Raine jumped and whipped her staff around to face him. "I was under the impression you had the most experience of them all, particularly in this matter."

"I do," Raine shot back. "What concern is it of yours?"

"My concern is what a jump start of emotions will do to Lloyd…infliction," Yuan remarked. "Surely you have thought of that by now."

Raine stared for a moment. She didn't know Yuan very well. Whenever they had encountered him on the Regeneration journey, he was absorbed in plans and interacted mostly with Lloyd and Kratos. He was the ally who they held with suspicion…But a grudging trust, Raine thought. "I have considered the possibility," Raine said. "But why do you concern yourself with our affairs?"

Yuan raised an eyebrow. "If you thought mithos was dangerous then, do have the slightest idea what he will become when he discovers no amount of Chosens or crystals will bring Martel back this time?" There was a bitter edge to his voice, like it was a thought he had been dwelling upon for the past five years.

"Does it bother you?" Raine found herself asking.

"Does what bother me?" Yuan retorted.

"That Martel can't come back anymore." Raine wasn't sure what had posessed her to ask, but some part of her really wanted to know the answer. "Isn't part of the reason you stayed so long was the hope that you two would be reunited?"

"No," Yuan said shortly. "Martel wouldn't have wanted to live like that, if you can call that mockery of existence living. Mithos was possessed by the same emotion that's driving you to help Lloyd on this journey, nevermind the fact that if his emotions get to intense, the exsphere will react.

Raine bristled at his tone. "What do you mean?"

"Sentimentality…" Yuan muttered.

"Pardon?"

"I know very well that Kratos left his son again," Yuan said. There was the barest hint of emotion in his voice, though what it was, Raine couldn't determine. "As Lloyd's friend, and you as his mentor in a way, you are helping him to deal with his pain by finding out what you can about the life he would have lead with his parents."

Raine raised an eyebrow. "Emotion from the Seraph…interesting."

Yuan scowled. "I am many things; heartless is not one of them."

Raine looked thoroughly shocked, though not as shocked as Yuan did. They stared at each other for a moment, until Yuan looked away. He turned and said, "Come."

"What?"

"I've something to show you."

"And why should I follow?"

"Suit yourself," Yuan shrugged and walked off. Raine hesitated a fraction of a second before following the blue haired angel into the woods.

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Lloyd looked around and scowled. "This is really getting old Mithos!"

"As if I care," the blonde boy remarked, stepping into the light. Something had changed in the once lively soul. His eyes, which had crackled with awareness in the first apparition, were dead and lifeless. Lloyd gulped. He knew that by finally eliminating any chance of Martel Yggdrasill's revival, they had pushed Mithos over the edge.

"I see no point in resisting." Mithos said simply. "Yuan told you there was no hope." Mithos smiled.

"Mithos please…let me help you. What do you want?"

"What do I want?" Mithos said, still smiling. "I want my sister."

"Mithos," Lloyd said gently, "The Great Seed revived. Martel is gone, Mithos. Let her go."

"NO!" Mithos yelled. "If I destroy the tree, Martel will be revived. That is how I saved her in the first place."

Lloyd shook his head and clenched his fist. "Don't you see? Martel's dying wish was fulfilled! Little by little discrimination is fading from our world. Don't let your love for your sister ruin everything, Mithos. She wouldn't want that."

Mithos was shaking in rage. "No…no…how would you know? Any of you, none of you would understand what she means to me." The air around him shimmered and began to glow. Lloyd backed away as the room began to rumble. "You inferior being!"

"Lloyd!" Colette yelled, shaking him. Lloyd felt his arm pull back, his fingers clench into a fist before striking out. There was a splintering crunch of bone as a sharp pain ripped through his hand. Colette! Lloyd's eyes flew open to see, not Colette, but Regal, clutching his nose with one hand, blood leaking through his fingers. His other hand was clutching Colette's arm, pinning her to the ground away from Lloyd.

"What happened?" Lloyd demanded. "One minute I was talking to you and-"

"You collapsed," Sheena said. "We were finally able to hear EXACTLY what you and Mithos talk about. Then Colette woke you up, you tried to punch her, and Regal pulled her out of the way, taking the blow."

"Nice punch Lloyd!" Zelos said, clapping Lloyd on the back. Everyone glared.

"I'm sorry Regal," Lloyd mumbled. Then he jumped up. "Wait, where's the professor? She should have healed Regal by now!"

Regal just shrugged, wiping blood from his face. His nose was completely crooked and two black eyes were blooming on his face. Lloyd winced.

"To think…" Genis said, shocked. "That could have been Colette."

Lloyd clenched a fist. Damnit! Every second we waste, that's one step closer to Mithos taking my body over. I can't stay here much longer. When Mithos returns, I have to distance myself from them. Especially from Colette.

"WE FOUND IT! WE FOUND IT!" Raine skidded into the clearing, her arms flailing and her eyes glowing again. She froze, catching sight of Regal. "First Aid!" A greenish light swept over Regal's face, leaving a cleanly healed nose in its wake.

"Thank you," Regal said.

"What happened?" Raine asked. "Was it-?"

"Yup!" Zelos said. "He took over Lloyd and delivered a punch to Colette. Had Regal not pulled her out of the way, Colette might have needed your resurrection spell."

"Shut up Zelos!" Lloyd snapped before looking up at Colette. Her blue eyes were wide with fear, not for herself, but for the torture she knew all of it must be for Lloyd. "This is no good. I can't stay if things are going to get worse. I-" Colette walked over and silenced him with a finger on his lips. He looked at her, and she did her famous closed-eye smile, taking his hand.

"You found Jalisa, Professor?" Colette asked, turning to look at Raine.

"What? Oh! Yes!" Raine grinned. "This way!"

"Let's go!" Colette cried, pulling Lloyd off into the woods. Lloyd smiled as he fell into step with his wife.

"Thanks Colette," he whispered.

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"Say Raine," Genis piped up. "How did you find it, finally?"

Raine coughed and scratched her head. "I-uh-read some signs wrong. I was only slightly off the path." Raine blushed and looked at the ground.

"The professors awfully red," Colette remarked.

"Probably embarrassed," Sheena whispered.

Lloyd stopped dead in his tracks, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. His entire body started quiver slightly in something like nervousness and anticipation….maybe even excitement. A warming sensation rose in his chest as he squinted through the trees, his eyesight better than it used to be thanks to his growing angelic abilities.

"Lloyd?" Genis asked. "What's the matter?"

Noishe, who had been sniffing the ground, suddenly barked and trotted happily around Lloyd before dashing off into the trees. Lloyd dropped Colette's hand and tore after the protozoan. He dashed through the trees, leaping over roots and fallen branches…was that light ahead?

Noishe stood on the very edge of the trees. Lloyd skidded to a halt as sunlight shone through the thick green leaves. His heart hammering wildly, he stepped out of the woods, shielding his face with one hand and blinking as the scene came into view.

Before him stood a gigantic log wall wrapping around to disappear into more trees. Along the wall were nicks in the dark wood and in some places, holes from enemy spells, evidence to what had taken place here so many years ago.

"Where's the gate?" Lloyd wondered aloud. Noishe whined and Lloyd saw him standing by the center of the wall, pawing it. Lloyd walked over to examine the spot and found a crack in between two logs. He traced his fingers along the crevice, tracing the outline of a very small door, all but invisible. Breath quicken, Lloyd braced his hands on the wall and pushed with all his strength. There was nothing for a moment, then a great groaning came from the walls as the door slowly opened. Noishe dashed through the door immediately, Lloyd hesitating for a moment before stepping through and gasping.

He had clearly come from a back side entrance because before him, a great wooden gate stood wide open revealing the forest beyond. Looking around, Lloyd saw many huts running around the walls in two rows, elevated onto platforms of dirt, making the town square appear to be below everything. In between the huts were gardens, long-since abandoned and full of weeds and pens that had once held animals. Lloyd emerged from behind the row of houses to find himself directly beside the much larger building which had to be headquarters, Next to head quarters were several fenced areas that must have served as training grounds, judging by the archery targets in one. A small shrine to Martel was also attached to headquarters.

"Lloyd!" Colette and the others, having finally caught up, emerged panting through the entrance Lloyd had opened. He grinned as they came up to him and gestured at the village.

"Look at this!" he said, grinning hugely! "Look at this! It really looks like a secret assassin village. So cool!"

The others tried very hard not to roll their eyes at the typicality of Lloyd.

"But why is the gate just standing open?" Regal asked. "Seems risky."

"Well, judging by a lot of the huts, there isn't much left here," Raine said. Sure enough, most of the tinier houses were in ruins from fire. The group fanned out to explore, Lloyd and Colette heading to headquarters.

"Mom…" Lloyd muttered, looking around the downstairs office area. "You grew up here..."

"Lloyd, look at this!" Colette called. She was searching through a desk drawer when she came up with a tightly furled scroll of parchment. She unrolled it on the desk, revealing a map of Sylvarant, dated some thirty years ago. Across the top of the map were the names of Lloyd grandparents. All of the Desian human ranches were marked in red ink on the map. Several of them had multicolored wax seals over them. Colette rummaged through the drawer and came up with more and more maps, each with different dates and wax seals on ranches and towns.

"What do they mean?" Colette wondered, tapping a mark. Lloyd shrugged and looked around. Lining the walls was a gigantic filing cabinet. Upon closer examination, the drawers were marked with names and dates starting with

"Anna and Lloyd Jamison." Lloyd jumped a foot as Raine chuckled. "Sorry. I had no intention of startling you." She looked back at Colette, who continued to pour over maps, Genis searching through the other drawers. Sheena and Zelos were outside, discussing the training grounds. Presea was inspecting the shrine and Regal was looking at the few gardens that hadn't been burned. "If I'm correct, those maps would correspond to the files kept in…" Raine ran her finger along several of the cabinets before tapping at the name "Alexander and Cynthia Jamison" the dates corresponding to the map. Opening the drawer, Lloyd lifting out scroll after scroll after scroll, each marked with a corresponding seal to those on the map. Lloyd selected the purple one and unrolled it. At the top was an assassins name and his date of coronation. Under was a list of operations they had participated in, or in some cases lead. Unfortunately for this guy, there was a date of death some five years after his initiation. Lloyd dug through the scrolls until he found seven that had white wax on them. Each of the seals had a small dash of color on them: green, silver, blue, red, brown, black and purple. These seals were also the most frequent on the map.

"Hey!" Lloyd exclaimed, carrying them over to the desk. "I think these are the scrolls of Mom's family." Raine and Lloyd sat them on the desk and unrolled each. Lloyd's eyes bugged out. "Whoa! Get the others in here. This is amazing!" Genis ran off and fetched the other four into the house where they joined Lloyd in examining the scrolls.

"Green is my granddad," Lloyd said. "Silver is my grandma."

"Blue is Edric," Genis said. "And man was he good. It says here he killed ten Desians single handedly while freeing twenty humans!"

"Denise did tell Kratos the Edric was the best of the best," Lloyd said.

"Samuel is red," Sheena said. "And he destroyed the Iselia ranch using a combination of fire magic and electric magic. Wow."

"Brown, Adam, was responsible for healing people who managed to escape." Raine chimed in. "He brought almost ten people back to life at once! That's amazing! Resurrection is the most difficult spell of all and can kill the caster very easily if used on too many people at the same time."

"Felicity…" Presea read. "Black."

"How fitting," Zelos said, looking over Presea's shoulder. "Black seal for a black sheep-hey! There's hardly anything written there."

"What?" Lloyd said confused.

"She only went on two missions, one of which took place after the first scourge of this village," Presea said. "She went with a group to spy on a special project being formed in Asgard's ranch." Everyone winced, knowing it was the angelus project. "She almost revealed them when she attacked a lone Desian. She was given three months in the stocks."

"Whoa!" Genis said. "Harsh."

"She also was with the mission that mobbed a Desian caravan and freed humans that were on the way to the ranch," Presea continued. "She got seriously injured trying to take on the leader by herself, despite orders to pick off the henchmen."

"She never thought about the group as a whole," Colette remarked. "She acted alone too much."

"The last thing written is her betrayal," Presea said, rolling up the parchment. "Not much of a file."

Zelos burst out laughing, reading the purple and white sealed parchment.

"What's so funny?" Lloyd demanded.

"It's your mom's!" Zelos said, handing it to Lloyd, who glared ferociously at Zelos for laughing at his mother. Sheena smacked Zelos.

"What was that for?" he asked, looking wounded.

"Have some respect," Regal said coolly. Zelos's eyes widened innocently and he shook his head.

"You've got me wrong!" he cried. "I was laughing because it's ironic that your mother was the purple seal, Lloyd." Everyone looked confused, except Lloyd who also started to laugh.

"Oh!" he said, taking the parchment. "You're right. That's pretty funny!"

"Ummm…." Genis said. "How so?"

"Because who's trademark is purple?" Lloyd and Zelos asked, clearly delighted that they were finally being the intelligent ones…for once.

"Oh!" Colette said, laughing. "Kratos!"

The others exchanged embarrassed looks before cracking grins of their own

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Anna had just reached the gate when a dark figure leapt out of the trees on either side of her. Noishe skidded to a halt, growling at the Desians approaching her. Her hand flew toward her sword but she wasn't quick enough as five more leaped at her, tackling her off of Noishe onto the ground.

She fought viciously, using every punch, kick, flip, turn, and jump that she possessed, but six more joined the fight and she was outnumbered. Noishe dove into the fray, snarling biting and growling. As Anna drove the heel of palm into the skull of one of her captors, there was a flash and Noishe whined, sprawling unconscious on the ground.

"Noishe!" Anna screamed desperately.

"Enough of this foolishness!" said a voice colder than Yuan's. Anna looked and received a blow to the stomach, the mouth and the back of her head at the same time. He vision spun as she was hauled to her feet, bleeding profusely from mouth and nose. She looked up to see who had spoken.

"Damn you, Kvar…"

Noishe whined, pawing at Lloyd's boot. Lloyd opened his eyes, letting the story fade from his mind as the gates creaked in the wind. Before the gate lay several skeletons, clad in Desian armor.

"Oh my," Raine gasped. Colette clutched Lloyd's hand. No one said a word.

"These must be the men she managed to fight off," Lloyd said heavily. "Right before she was captured."

Sheena walked forward and crouched next to one. Gingerly, she reached forward to the dead hand of a Desian skeleton, its fingers still clenched as though holding a sword. Sheena reached between the fingers and pulled something free.

"Ewww…" Zelos shuddered. "Baby, how on earth can you touch those things?"

Sheena ignored him, turning to face Lloyd. "It's a scrap of black cloth."

Lloyd darted forward and examined the small black square in Sheena's palm. "It must be from my mothers clothing," he said. He picked it up and held it up to the sky, examining it. He broke out into a grin. "I bet it was part of her cape. Awesome! Not only could my mom kick ass, but she had the coolest outfit ever. I wish I had gotten one."

Zelos clapped Lloyd on the back, "Don't we all. Then we wouldn't have to look at this gaudy red outfit!"

"Hey!" Lloyd snapped. Zelos dashed off, Lloyd in hot pursuit.

"Guys," Genis said. "Do you ever wonder why Lloyd doesn't just use his wings to get Zelos? Or why Zelos doesn't use his to get away?"

Regal rested a hand on the half-elf's shoulder. "I daresay that's asking for more of their thought process than they can handle."

I am doing something….extremely crazy that I may edit out later. It depends on how it goes. The thing is, I actually like Yuan, and he played a pretty big role in my prequel, so I wanna bring him back. So I ask… Yuan x Raine? Not neccessarily focused on romance, but maybe a common bond that suggests a bit. Let me know what you think!