Chapter Nine: On Your Mark, Get Set...

"I have good news."

The cell full of tired soldiers slowly raised their heads, staring at Lieutenant Ferris in confusion as the idea of 'good news' in the ranch was a totally alien concept. Rowan tended to agree with them, since after just one day of work in the ranch he was exhausted. He was used to working long hours, but shovelling was very different from fishing and he was exhausting muscles he wasn't used to using.

"Captain Asgard is alive."

This was met with small cheers from the group, though Rowan didn't share this excitement. He had no reason to care about some captain he'd never even met.

"How do you know?" someone asked.

"Because he's here," Ferris said. "The captain has infiltrated the ranch disguised as a Desian, along with the Chosen of Mana and an angel."

At this Rowan perked up, staring at Ferris with wide eyes. Spirit was in the ranch? This wasn't good. She could get hurt or captured by Desians or killed.

"It gets better," Ferris said. "We now have an escape plan. What we need is for someone to steal the cheat-sheet with passwords from a high-ranking Desian. Unfortunately… I'm not sure how we should do that. Captain Asgard has entrusted us with this mission."

"I could get it," Rowan said. All eyes turned to him and Rowan was annoyed with the dubious looks he was getting. "I robbed a bag of Gald from a pirate without him even noticing. I can get this password thing from a Desian."

"The only Desian we know for sure has the passwords written down is Vale," Ferris said. "You'll have to get close to him."

Rowan nodded. "I know how to do that." He frowned. "It'll probably hurt… but I can do it."


After breakfast, Lloyd, Kratos, and Colette packed up their belongings and started walking again. Kratos said that tomorrow they'd reach the mountains, and today the path they were following was beginning to slope upwards.

"Once we're out of the mountains," Colette asked, "how long will it take to get to Altamira?"

"Another day or so," Kratos said. "And I suppose you two are going to make us stay in Altamira for the night rather than pushing on to the Tower of Salvation."

"Of course," Lloyd said with a grin. "We have to at least have time to visit Regal and Presea."

"Lloyd…" Kratos said, "I hope you realize that you can put it off for as long as you want, but I am going to leave."

Kratos' words stabbed Lloyd in the chest and Colette gave him a nervous look. "I – I know that," he stammered. "I'm not… it's not like I'm…" He sighed. "I know."

Kratos didn't look at him as he said, "I just don't want you to delude yourself and then be disappointed all over again."

Of course Kratos had seen through his clever scheme. But, Lloyd was heartened by the fact that even though Kratos knew Lloyd was purposefully delaying them, he wasn't doing anything to prevent it.


"Are you sure about this?" Ferris asked.

"Yeah." Rowan and Ferris kept their eyes on the ground as they spoke, only risking a glance at the Desians every now and then. If the Desians caught them paying more attention to their surroundings than their job, they wouldn't be frugal with their whips. Rowan felt secure knowing that Spirit and Kratos were watching them from the roof, but they were too exposed out here for them to risk interfering unless it was life-threatening.

"Remember," Ferris said in a low voice while he shovelled, "the only place on the Desian uniform to keep the card is in that pocket on the belt."

"Right." He tossed a shovelful of dirt to the other side of the trench and said, "Let's go." He smacked Ferris' shovel with his own, resulting in a loud clang. "Hey, what do you think you're doing? Stop getting in my way!"

Ferris straightened up and snapped, "You're the one getting in my way!"

Rowan dropped his shovel and shoved Ferris, making him crash into the soldier next to him. "Watch your mouth or I'll put my fist in it!"

"Hey, hey!" said a Desian, marching over with his whip in hand. "You inferior beings settle down!"

He came up next to Rowan and Ferris and was about to crack his whip when Rowan turned and punching him in the face. The Desian stared at him in shock for a second, and then he returned the favour and his fist flew at Rowan. Rowan had been expecting this and dodged to the side, and then brought his arm up to punch him in the gut.

He heard shouts as more Desians noticed the disturbance and came running, but none of them stepped in to interfere. Rowan didn't mind, though. The plan was to get caught, but he was willing to prolong this part of it in order to channel al his anger out on the Desian in front of him.

He turned his body over to auto-pilot as the two of them brawled. The punches that hit him felt like they were happening to someone else, and the blows he landed on the other sent wave after wave of satisfaction coursing through him. The world narrowed to just him in the Desian. The edges of this world were the other Desians standing in a ring around them, cheering their buddy on. The world itself consisted of his heart pounding in his ears and lungs panting for breath. He felt moisture trickling down his face and couldn't spare the attention to see if it was sweat or blood.

And then the world shattered when a new voice broke in. "Cease this immediately!"

The Desian Rowan was fighting froze, shortly followed by Rowan. Both of them stood in the circle, shoulders rising and falling with their heavy panting. Rowan felt satisfaction at the fact that he'd successfully drawn Vale over here.

"And just what in Origin's name is going on here?" Vale asked.

"This human caused a disturbance, sir." The Desian said while the ones watching began to slowly slink away.

"And tell me, Dodgson, is engaging in a fistfight with a human ranch policy?"

The Desian hung his head. "No, sir."

"You're on cleaning detail for a month, Dodgson."

"Yes, sir."

"And the rest of you," Vale said, looking around at the gathered Desians, "if I catch any of you starting fights, you're going to wish you got a month of cleaning detail."

There was a mass mumbling of, "Yes, sir."

"And you…" Vale rounded on Rowan, unable to hide the pleasure on his face that he was about to be able to dish out some punishment. "I should have known it would be you. I remember you from our talk – impudent and pugnacious to the core, eh?"

Rowan didn't know what either of those words meant, but he had a feeling he was being insulted so he crossed his arms and glared at Vale.

"You two," he pointed at a pair of Desians who were trying to inconspicuously return to their posts. "Punish this human. Twenty lashes."

As the Desians approached, Rowan took his chance. He locked his eyes on the pouch on Vale's belt and launched himself at the Desian. Vale was unarmed and taken completely by surprise, so when Rowan crashed into him the Desian was thrown onto his back. With one hand Rowan punched him in the face while with the other his hand reached into the pouch on Vale's waist. He heard Desians shouting and running towards him and knew he had limited time to act. His right hand closed around an index card in the pouch and he clasped his hand around it. Vale was too distracted by trying to throw Rowan off of him to notice the theft, but to Rowan's immense satisfaction, Vale was weaker than him and wasn't very successful.

Someone grabbed him and dragged him off of Vale. He was so caught up in the thrill of beating Vale senseless that he fought back at first in order to continue attacking. The Desian holding him pinned his arms behind his back while Vale wiped blood from his nose and slowly got to his feet. Rowan came to his senses and stopped struggling, clenching his fist around the now-crumpled index card in his hand.

"I think…" Vale panted, "make that fifty lashes."

Rowan clenched his fists even tighter. He had known that this was probably going to happen, but that didn't mean he was looking forward to it. To the side, he saw Ferris watching him with a grim look. Rowan caught his eye and risked giving him a wink, letting him know that no matter what happened, he had accomplished his goal.

Vale glared around at the humans watching, successfully looking threatening despite his slowly swelling eye. "The rest of your group can enjoy three extra hours of labour and half-rations for the rest of the month. Well? What are you all standing around for? Get back to work!"


"Wait."

Kratos stopped and looked down at Lloyd. "What is it?"

Lloyd ignored him and stopped, taking Colette's hand. "Colette, are you ok?"

She nodded glumly. "Yes. It just… it makes me so sad. Desians are cruel."

"I know." Kratos' story had reminded him very strongly of what he'd witnessed happening to Marble way back at the beginning of the journey. Hearing about what happened to Rowan and the Cleopolicans really made it sink in that Desians had been hurting and abusing people for four thousand years. "But they're gone now. We defeated them."

"And I'm glad," Colette said. "But I wish that when we defeated Cruxis now, it would get rid of Desians throughout history too."

"A retroactive defeat?" Kratos said. "Yes, that would be nice…"

"We've got a whole new world in front of us, Colette," Lloyd said. "So now we can do our best to make it a great place to make up for all the suffering Cruxis caused."


When Rowan came to, he was in the cell surrounded by the others. He was lying uncomfortably on his chest, so he pushed himself into an upright position. This caused the dozens of cuts across his back to burn in pain, but he ignored it to the best of his ability and looked around. He sat on his knees, and in his clenched hand was a balled-up index card.

"You're up," Ferris said, walking over and kneeling in front of him. "How do you feel?"

"Like crap. But I got the codes." He unfolded the card and found it covered in neatly penned words. "Here."

Ferris took the paper and his eyes darted across it. "Perfect." He smiled at Rowan. "You did a good job. We'll make good use of this to make sure that wasn't for nothing."

Rowan nodded. "Good. I'm sorry you guys got in trouble too. I didn't think Vale would punish the whole group."

One of the other soldiers spoke up to say, "Don't worry about it. We're soldiers; we can handle a little work!"

"Besides," said another, "we're not going to be here much longer anyways."

Down the hall, the door opened and everyone immediately quieted down. Ferris tucked the index card into the hem of his pants and watched the cell door. Rowan craned his neck to look around, gritting his teeth against the flare up of pain as the movement pulled on his back.

Footsteps approached and a Desian stopped in front of the door. Rowan glared daggers into him until he removed his helmet and the rest of the room perked up.

"Captain," Ferris said, standing up and saluting. "We got the codes."

Pierce shook his head to try and fix his helmet-hair, but it was ineffective. "That's good," he said. "I knew I could count on you, Lieutenant,"

"Thank you, sir," Ferris said as he walked across the room to hand the paper through the bars. "But actually, we have this young man to thank for it."

Rowan turned completely around so he wasn't looking over his shoulder, met Pierce's eye and nodded curtly.

Pierce said, "Ah, you would be the Chosen's brother, correct?"

"That's right. How is she?"

"She's fine, other than being terribly worried about you. You should count yourself lucky to have such a devoted sister."

"I'd do the same for her in a heartbeat."

Pierce smiled. "How endearing. But regardless, I can't hang around here much longer. I'm technically not supposed to be here. I'll take these codes to Kratos and we'll enact the escape attempt tomorrow. After Vale's words today, I don't think we can count on the other Desians risking helping us create a distraction. I'll take care of it. If all goes well, we'll be spending tomorrow night in Cleopolica."

A cheer ran up through the cell, though Pierce and Rowan didn't share it. Both of them were a bit too cynical to count their cockatrices before they hatched.

When the group was quiet again, Pierce said, "Alright, I have to go now. I know you won't let me down tomorrow. Goodnight."

The troops chorused "Goodnight, Captain Asgard," as he left.

As everyone started settling down again, Rowan looked to Ferris and said, "Do you really think we'll get out tomorrow?"

Ferris frowned and didn't answer right away. "I don't know," he finally said. "I'd like to hope so, but there are so many things that could go wrong."

Rowan sighed. "Guess we'll just have to hope for the best." It seemed like a lot of their plan relied on hope. This bothered Rowan, who would much prefer to rely on hard work rather than wishful thinking.


Spiritua leaned over the edge of the roof, watching Kratos and Pierce talk down below. She could hear what they were saying perfectly even from up here, as clearly as if they were standing ten feet from her. She was starting to get used to the increased senses that came with becoming an angel, but sometimes certain things stood out to her, such as being able to eavesdrop with this much ease, that highlighted the fact that she wasn't quite human anymore.

Usually she dealt with the changes by appreciating the benefits. While spending all day sitting alone on the roof, she'd had a lot of time to consider the whole weight of her task pressing down on her. To keep from hurtling into depressing when she thought about everything she was expected to do, she thought about how nice it was to be able to see such a stunning landscape with her excellent eyes, or the feeling of security she had now that she had wings to keep her from falling. Her body was changing into a radically different form, but at least they were good changes.

Other times she wished she didn't have these super-perceptive senses. Earlier today, she'd wished she could block out the awful cracks of the whip when Rowan was being punished. She'd wanted so badly to shoot the Desians, but they were in a much too open of an area to get away with it without running everything. And if she and Kratos got caught, Rowan's sacrifice would be for nothing.

Kratos' head appeared over the edge of the roof as he flew back up. After landing, he walked over to Spiritua and sat down next to her. "Your brother successfully acquired the list of passwords. Tomorrow we will carry out the escape plan."

Spiritua nodded. She really hoped everything worked out tomorrow. She hated sitting up here, surrounded by Desians. But tomorrow they'd get out, and all the prisoners would be able to go home. As much as she was looking forward to getting Rowan out, she had to admit that what she was even more excited about was the prospect of seeing her father again. She'd been watching the prisoners in the yard intently all day, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, but so far no luck. Rowan probably knew where he was, though. He would have asked around as soon as he got in to find Dad so once they got him out, they'd get Dad out too.

"Are you prepared?" Kratos said. "This will be our first big battle."

She nodded.

"Another thing, Chosen. While battling, you should try to use artes rather than merely shooting your bow."

Spiritua wrinkled her brow and turned her head to face him. She had never heard the word 'artes' applied to archery before.

"Do you know how to do that? Or even what an arte is?"

She shook her head.

"Artes are special abilities that become open to you once you equip yourself with a Cruxis Crystal or an Exsphere. By drawing on your body's mana, you imbue your weapons with magic and can carry out more powerful attacks. For example, you have seen me use the arte Double Demon Fang. I don't have much experience with archery artes, but I would imagine you would be able to shoot farther, stronger, or perhaps multiple arrows at once."

She nodded slowly, eyeing her bow as it sat innocuously at her feet. It was hard to imagine that such a simple device could become a magic weapon now just because she had a crystal on her chest.

"Unless you're very skilled, you will need to call out the name of an arte in order to use it. Don't worry about learning the names, though. As you gain more power and control over your mana, the names and means to carry out certain artes will come to you."

Spiritua gave no word that she understood, though she thought she got the gist of it. If she could use magic attacks, then she'd be able to kill her enemies faster. Spirit didn't enjoy fighting and would rather get it out of the way as fast as possible, and artes would make that easier.

She got to her feet, the gravel on the roof crunching under her feet.

"Where are you going?" Kratos asked, looking up at her.

"A walk." She couldn't stand just sitting here anymore. Just sitting and waiting for tomorrow was making her antsy.

"Don't wander too far," Kratos said. "And be careful not to be seen."

She bobbed her head once before heading off, feeling slightly insulted that Kratos felt the need to remind her not to be seen.


As the sun rose over the yard the next day, Rowan could feel the eyes of Vale watching the yard from the control room up above. You could control the entire ranch from that room alone, and as long as Vale was perched up there, no escape attempt would get off the ground without him shooting it down immediately. Therefore, they had to get him out of the way.

As they worked and got ready for action, it occurred to Rowan that they hadn't even considered Dagen himself. They had just assumed that Dagen wouldn't be making an appearance since he hadn't so far. Looking back, Rowan decided that that was kind of rude. It was, after all, his ranch, so it was impolite not to greet your guests.

Wow. He must be really stressed if he was wasting time thinking about stupid stuff like that.

"That's Captain Asgard over there," Ferris whispered to Rowan, gesturing with his elbow and trying not to draw attention.

Rowan followed his gaze, and now that Ferris had pointed it out he could recognize the captain walking amongst the Desians. He was doing a good job of blending in, but once you already knew who he was, the way he avoided contact with other Desians and spent moments just a bit too long gazing forlornly at the prisoners it was clear. Rowan didn't have the same devotion and loyalty to him the way the others did, but it was still comforting to know that at least one of the Desians was on their side.

"You know," Rowan said as he dumped a shovelful of dirt, "I could help you fight."

Ferris didn't even look up when he replied. "No offense, but no, you couldn't."

Rowan bristled in indignation. What bothered him the most was the very casual matter-of-fact way in which Ferris had said it. While Rowan scowled, he ignored his aching back, aching muscles, and aching, well, everything that was heartily agreeing with Ferris.

Seeing his look, Ferris said, "You're used to working on your own, but while you're with us, you're part of our team. And the first rule of working on a team is that not everybody gets to be the hero. You need to know your strengths and limitations, and for you right now, that leads to you being better suited as bait than as a soldier."

Rowan glared at his shovel with distaste. The worst part was that he couldn't think of a witty retort, and a sneaking suspicion told him that this was because Ferris was right. Besides, he couldn't even call Ferris a hypocrite because Ferris was offering himself up as bait in much the same way Rowan planned to.

Rowan looked up again at Pierce, who had met Ferris' gaze. Then he looked up at the roof, and when Rowan followed his faze he caught the smallest flash of movement as Spirit gave the signal. It was time to begin.

"Hey!" Ferris shouted, standing up straight and resting the head of his shovel on the ground. Rowan tried to look like he was working while still glancing over his shoulder as much as he dared to watch the confrontation.

The nearest Desian paused long enough to crack his whip at Ferris. Rowan flinched on instinct, while Ferris ducked to the side just in time. "Get back to work you maggot!"

"I'd like to speak to Commander Vale," Ferris said, undaunted.

The Desian, realizing that this couldn't be taken care of so easily, stomped over towards them. "You don't get to make requests, human." It was kind of fascinating how Desians all seemed to have the ability to say the word 'human' and make it sound exactly like 'disgusting scum of the earth'.

"I am Lieutenant Ferris, commanding officer of these troops, and I have information Vale has expressed interest in. He wants me to talk to him."

The Desian wavered, looking between Ferris and the window of the control room. He had the difficult choice of either succumbing to a human's demands, or defying the wishes of Commander Vale. In the end, he decided he was more afraid of Vale than he was too proud to listen to a human, and said, "Just… stay here. And get back to work until I get back!" He ran off, and Ferris grinned as he turned back to digging.

Rowan said, "When you're talking to Vale, make sure you keep him distracted for as long as possible."

Ferris rolled his eyes. "You don't need to remind me what my job is, Rowan."

"Just checking."

About ten minutes later, the Desian returned. He was trailing behind Commander Vale, who bore a satisfied smirk on his face. He marched right up to Ferris, who paused and stood straight again when Vale arrived.

"So, M001, you've decided to cooperate?"

"I'll give you the information you requested if you relinquish the penalties you imposed upon my men."

Vale raised an eyebrow. "I don't think you're in the position to make an offer."

"It's the only way you're ever going to get information out of me."

"Hm…" Vale rubbed his chin, and then addressed the Desian behind him and said, "Bring him inside. We'll see if we can work something out."

Ferris followed the Desians away, and every single Cleopolican soldier watched them disappear. Now that Vale was out of the way, they could almost begin. They clutched their shovels and prepared for a fight.