Author's notes: Almost three months to update a chapter. I know it has been a long time but I have been on vacations (like a lot of you I guess) and I couldn't work in the fic. To make it worse my beta-reader has been busy and unable to fix the chapter. However I had some help from "Draconic" and while it took him more than it should the results are quite good (We argued a little and decided that the flashback should be changed. So he ended basicalle remaking the 60% of the flashback under my supervision).

Anonymous reviews: None.

And now, without more delay, the chapter! Enjoy!

EPISODE 2: THE JOURNEY OF DEGENERATION

Chapter 26: The Gift of Madness

Hima orphanage ten years ago

"Murderer!"

"Desian lover!"

"Kill him!"

The doors of the orphanage opened and out walked the director with his sons, the mayor right behind them, dragging Decus out of the building by his collar.

"It wasn't me! I didn't do it!" The purple haired boy shouted between tears as he tried to shake off his captors. "You have to believe me!"

One of the orphanage owner's sons punched him in the jaw, shutting him up immediately.

"No one's going to trust the friend of a Desian!"

The crowd cheered excitedly at the show of violence. Encouraged by his audience, the kid kicked in the stomach making Decus bow in pain.

"She's not a Desian…She's a half-elf…there's a big difference," Decus groaned nauseously. "And it wasn't me! You have to…to trust me! He…and his brothers did it!" He shouted desperately, pointing at the director's sons. He choked and coughed up blood, but it apparently didn't warrant sympathy.

The director grabbed Decus and pushed him against the orphanage walls with all his might.

"How-dare-you-to-say-that-about-my-sons!" Each word was punctuated with a slap in the face before tossing him to the ground, still roaring at the top of his lungs, "We, who took you in! We, who fed and clothed you! You'd be dead if it wasn't for us! How dare you slander me and my family!?"

Decus tried to push himself back to his knees, but he could barely manage that. He turned to look the adventuring party. Opening his mouth to speak, he found that all he could do was cough and choke on a mixture of spit and blood. He groaned. Apparently this violently offended one of the director's sons, as he kicked him hard in the mouth, making him choke on his own cough, but otherwise silencing him. He grabbed his throat, forcing his body to tilt toward the wall so that he wouldn't fall over sideways.

A number of people in the crowd cheered at the brutal spectacle of the so-called justice. He managed to find his voice before anyone else started attacking him.

"It wasn't their fault…it was an accident…But I didn't do it."

The adventuring party looked at him skeptically.

"We were attacked and robbed. How was that an accident?" one of them asked.

"They didn't mean to kill him…" this was a lie, he knew. The director was a bad person through and through. So were his kids. It was their intention to kill all of them to keep them quiet. When their plan had failed, they just needed a scapegoat, and who better than an orphan with no friends other than a worthless half-elf. Nevertheless, he continued trying to make them look as innocent as possible –or at least less guilty- to get their favor.

"The orphanage… it's in danger of going under. They couldn't keep it open with the money they had, and they…they really needed the money. It was for us… They would never do anything…like this normally."

"Is this true?" one of the adventurers asked, probably the leader, judging solely by his appearance. "I mean, we can't let you off the hook if that's the case, but we can at least let you off easier. If you needed the money you should have just asked."

"Who are you going to believe?" the director demanded furiously, spittle flying from his mouth, "Us, or this…this… Desian-lover?"

Decus groaned inaudibly. He should have figured that the director would do everything in his power to get him killed. The adventurers had hesitated, and that was all the answer the director and his sons needed. They knocked Decus over onto his back and began beating him to a pulp.

Meanwhile, an eight-year-old Alice stood orphanage cellar, confronted by a familiar apparition, a massive shadow with three empty red eyes. This specter had come to her before, offering gifts in exchange for a simple favor. She never dared accept before, but today.

"I ask you again, young half-elf, as I have three times before," it began in a deep, hollow voice, "Will you find the Book of Niflheim in exchange for the power to live your life as you see fit?"

"No! I already told you, I don't help monsters! Monsters killed my mom and dad!" Alice whimpered.

"So you've said. I needn't hear it again. But I have a question for you: If your mother and father fell to monsters, wouldn't your refusal to accept my offer be a setup for a repeat of the tragedy that befell your parents? Or perhaps, you should ask yourself if the monsters that killed them are even the proper targets of your hatred?"

"Shut up!" Alice cried, "Why shouldn't I hate the things that killed my family?"

The shadow laughed, a deep sound distorted by the basement walls.

"I never said you shouldn't hate them. Hate is good, hate helps us go on, hate makes us powerful. No…" it answered, "perhaps I misspoke. I simply wondered whether the creatures that killed your parents were the only ones to blame for their deaths."

Alice felt a sense of dread begin to grow in the pit of her stomach, "W-What do you mean?"

"Think for a moment: Why were they out in the dangerous wilderness in the first place without any means of defending themselves?"

Alice didn't know why she answered, but she couldn't say that the sudden sense of betrayal, even if it wasn't very strong hadn't shaken her a little, "They were…on a pilgrimage for the Church of Martel…"

"Ah, the Church. Those preachers of false a god and hypocrisy," the shadow began, a trace of malignant amusement present in its voice, "And now I ask you, if they are so good why did they force your parents on a pilgrimage? What sin had they committed? Begin half-elves?"

Alice certainly didn't trust the creature, who would trust a demon? But she couldn't deny that there was truth in its words.

"Oh," the shadow noted, as though it had just noticed something happening. "It seems to be getting rather close to the line. That nasty director and his vile little boys are about to beat the last vestiges of life from that boy you seem to be so fond of. Decus, was it?"

"What!?" Alice shrieked. No.

They couldn't kill Decus. They just…couldn't…

It didn't even make sense. The thought was so absurd that she almost laughed…but what if…?

"Y-You're lying," she said at last.

"Am I? Perhaps you could go outside and see for yourself?"

The apparition vanished without another word and Alice bolted up the stairs, and ran outside. There he was, bruised and lying in a small pool of his own blood, which was trickling slowly out of a number of cuts and gashes all over his body. And the whole town was watching, some cheering while others turned away in disgust, either of what they perceived as Decus' crime or the show of violence. The party of adventurers just stood by and watched.

Upon hearing a sharp crack as one of Decus' ribs broke, Alice couldn't take it anymore.

Decus held back a scream, he didn't want Alice to have to hear him die even if she wouldn't see it.

"Leave him alone!"

He turned his head in horror to see the girl in question standing just outside the orphanage doors. Whispers erupted throughout the crowd. Neither he, nor Alice was surprised though.

"I don't know why we allow that girl to live in this town!" he heard a middle-aged woman exclaim over some of the other mutterings. "Those monsters killed my husband and took my son to their human ranch. Why do we bother taking care of one of them?" Her voice was filled with hatred. Alice was an outcast from everyone else in Hima. Nobody wanted anything to do with a half-elf. What sane person would? Parents would tell their children to stay away from her. When she needed something, people would often pretend not to hear her, and when they finally acknowledged her they'd do so hesitantly, even fearfully. People would even avoid looking at her when she was in the room, as though they were worried about being guilty by that most trivial association. She wasn't a Desian, but to everyone in the village, 'half-elf' and 'Desian' were synonymous.

She tried to run over to the victimized boy, but the mayor grabbed her. Alice bit his hand making him yelp, but before she could try to go any further, he had grabbed her by her hair and yanked her back, eliciting a pained squeal.

"Why you little–!" the mayor grunted, looking at his hand noticing some blood on his hand where she had bitten him. He smacked her and she lost her balance, landing on her side.

"After all we've done for you, you'd still do this to me? To defend him of all people? A thief and a murderer?"

"He's not a thief or a murderer! He's my friend!" she cried, "He's never done anything wrong!"

"Except making friends with you, perhaps?" came a deep voice, "Look where his kindness has gotten him?" She looked around wildly for the three-eyed shadow, and saw it fading into view between her and the mayor. Strangely, nobody else seemed to notice it, or even hear its voice, "All this hatred and suspicion, just because he befriended a half-elf."

Tears began to well up in her eyes. The spectators who had cheered while Decus was being trampled began giggling. They must have been hoping for some sort of blood sport, and they were getting what they wanted. Most of the other people in the crowd looked away or whispered to each other though.

"Fine, then," the mayor announced, "I'll take no responsibility for what happens to you from now on. But if you're going to defend a murderer, I'm afraid I have no choice other than to say that you must share in his guilt."

Once again, the spectators cheered viciously.

"Yeah!"

"Kill that half-elf twerp!"

"Death to the Desians!"

Alice gulped, her eyes widening in terror. "W-what?!"

"You've heard the town!" He lifted her off the ground by her hair, and held her up before the crowd. "By coming to the defense of this killer, you've betrayed what little trust we had in you. Once we make him pay for his crime, it will be your turn."

"Another hypocrite," the shadow hissed in Alice's ear, "If he really didn't want to take responsibility for you, he would banish you and leave you to fend for yourself. He obviously just wants to kill a half-elf. Clever of him. All the satisfaction of killing an enemy, and none of the guilt over murdering a helpless child."

"Just go away!" she whimpered desperately.

"All you need to do is agree to find the book for me, and I can save you and your friend."

Meanwhile, the sport spectators were still roaring in agreement with the mayor's decision, though for the first time, some people in the crowd began voicing their differing opinions.

"Are you sure about this?" a young man asked.

"Even if she is a half-elf, she's just a little girl! Isn't execution a little harsh?" a woman spoke out.

"Oh, shut up lady!" spat one of the orphanage director's sons, suddenly grinning as an idea came to him. "Unless of course, you were also in on it." If he could get a confession out of her, he might even be able to loot her empty house. Hopefully she wasn't married.

The woman just stepped back into the crowd however.

"Yeah, thought so," the boy said, almost sounding disappointed.

When nothing happened after that, the director picked Decus back up by the collar and tossed him face first at the spectators, all of whom pushed their way to the front of the crowd, excited to get their punches or kicks in. The director's boys also joined in.

"Stop! Please! Stop it!" Alice screamed desperately, "You're going to kill him!" her cries should have broken the hearts of most people in the crowd, and some people just ran back to their homes, no longer wanting to have anything to do with the awful spectacle, but some of the people still attacking the now unconscious Decus looked up.

"That's the plan, you little shit!" one of the directors sons grinned in a gross facsimile of kindness. The malice in his voice was more palpable that the shadow's. The boy approached her with three of the other brutes.

"What are you going to do? Why don't you pray to the false goddess like you have done all this years in the orphanage? Like you did when your parents were being devoured by monsters?" the shadow demanded, its voice rising steadily until it was booming in her ears, "Accept my offer, or your life is forfeit as is your friend's. Do you want his blood on your hands? Do you want to die just like your parents did!? Helpless!? These things calling themselves people are even baser creatures than whatever predatory wildlife killed your parents! Humans are the true monsters of this world!"

Alice hesitated for a moment, but in the end, there really was only one possible choice.

"Fine…I accept…" she sobbed in resignation.

"Well, that's no fun…" one of the one of the director's sons sneered, "where's the sport in killing a half-elf that admits that they're not worth the clothes on her back?"

"She was not speaking to you, worm," the shadow boomed, suddenly audible to the rest of the mob.

"What was that!?" demanded the director, grabbing Alice by the front of her shirt. "What have you done you little witch?!"

Suddenly, an eerie azure flame flickered to life behind the young half-elf, spreading a strange static flame across the ground in a circle. As soon as it was complete, the flames spread inward, the strange motionless flames drawing intricate glyphs in the ground.

Alice looked at the magic circle in astonishment. She looked around scared and saw the same circles being drawn all over the town. The people still pummeling Decus noticed the sudden commotion, looking around in confusion.

Alice found herself the target of the antagonistic mob's collectively terrified gaze. They were all staring on the half-elf girl who was now surrounded by a dark aura.

"Are you the one doing this?" The mayor demanded, his voice trembling. His attempt to appear in control was undermined by that tremor. It was easy to tell that he was just as unnerved as everyone else still outside. Even the adventurers had taken shelter inside the orphanage, sensing something was wrong.

Alice didn't respond. She seemed to be in some kind of trance.

"S-stop it," he stammered, trying in vain to sound threatening, "I-I m-m-mean it! S-Stop what-whatever this is y-you're doing!" He grabbed Alice by her shoulders and shook her vigorously, but if she had even responded at all, none of the rioters could tell. The inky black aura emanating from her continuing to spread, and more occult blue circles appearing in the vicinity.

"I said stop it!" he screamed.

Finally, the mayor lost his nerve, and began running back to his house.

Still unphased, or maybe assuming that it was all some sort of trick, the orphanage director grabbed Alice and raised his fist to punch her when a pillar of blue flames erupted from the central runic circle.

The circle behind Alice.

When the flames receded, Alice came to. And for the first time, she saw the creature that had cast its shadow before her three times before. There, surrounded by the now flickering azure flames stood a gigantic knight encased completely in a black suit of armor decorated with grizzly skull motifs. It was seven feet tall at the very least.

On its left arm, it carried a large shield with a silver skull in the center, and in its right, it held a massive broadsword almost as long as the knight was tall.

But the most frightening detail was that there was nothing inside the armor but those unearthly blue flames.

The knight walked towards Alice steadily. The director released her, and trembling in fear, began to back away. The half-elven girl just stood there, not phased by the armor's presence in the least.

"Wh-wh-who are you? W-What d-do you want?" one of the few remaining people in the crowd asked. Not even bothering to hide his terror.

"I want," the armor rumbled, "compensation for your transgressions." Alice noticed that its voice was slightly different than it sounded when it was a shadow. While its voice itself was unchanged, it had taken on a metallic and hollow sound, reflecting the emptiness inside its armor.

"What do you mean, p-payment?" one of the boys stammered. He stood bravely behind his father and brothers, so that if the lumbering knight swung its sword it would only kill his family and miss him. By a few inches at least.

The nightmarish infernal knight didn't reply. He just walked forward, getting steadily closer to the orphanage director. The broadsword suddenly ignited with the same azure flames burning inside its armor.

It raised its sword "No! Please no!" the director shrieked in sheer horror, his voice going hoarse as his mouth dried up. "Don't kill me! Please! Please!" he fell to his knees and wept.

The living armor hesitated.

"Very well," it said, lowering its sword, "I won't kill you."

"Thank you! Oh goddess, thank y—"

"Just like you… didn't… kill the richest looking man in that little band of mercenaries," it rumbled, a horrific gleefulness apparent in its tone, "And just like you…didn't…blame his death on an adolescent boy with no family whom you assumed no one would miss."

With a shriek, the director made to turn around, but with unnatural quickness the knight's sword shot out. The director and one off his sons were skewered like morbid kebobs in a single thrust. The sword's fire consumed them from the inside out.

Meanwhile the mayor had reached his front door. When he fumbled for his keys and looked up however, he was back on the cliff outside the orphanage. He turned around in stupefied horror to see the armor approach him. With a single blow of its sword, the knight reduced the mayor to ashes and bones.

The ominous knight raised its weapon, pointed it at Decus' unconscious form, and then swung it back toward the crowd. It spoke in a strange language that no one present could understand. With a hum, the burning runic circles reappeared, and not a moment later, the true terror began. Before anyone could blink, creatures that Alice couldn't have imagined in her worst nightmares poured out of the circles in droves, their infernal eyes burning with the same bloodlust that had been present in those in the mob.

The diabolical creatures weren't much taller than most dogs, but their appearance didn't look like anything that had ever existed on Sylvarant. Their bodies were covered by a red exoskeleton and each had a long tail, ending in a sharp, pointed tip. Their mouths were filled with a multitude of needlelike fangs; their claws were serrated like kitchen knives, and seemed designed for tearing skin, tendons and muscles in the most painful way possible. It wasn't even debatable that these abominations had been specifically created for the sole purpose of butchering and unleashing as much carnage as possible. And though she didn't have any evidence to back it up, Alice somehow knew that their favorite prey were humans.

Screams erupted from the crowd. Though most of the spectators were safely inside their houses, there were still more than enough defenseless people outside for there to be a full-on massacre.

"These…these are…demons…?" Alice asked, her voice trembling.

"Indeed child. Fear not. They will not harm your friend." its voice then took on a tone of sheer malice, "Anyone else however, is to be slaughtered. And don't be surprised that my minions may not be satisfied. Many shall die today. Your tormentors will merely be the first."

Unsurprisingly, the first people to make a run for it were the two remaining sons of the orphanage director. The moment they moved, nine of the creatures pounced. The boys howled in terror and agony as seven of them ripped into their backs with their claws and teeth, but their screams of agony didn't last for long.

They were literally everywhere, with the exception of inside the houses of the people who'd gone inside earlier. At this point, they'd all locked their doors, and hid in their basements if they had any. 'Good for them,' Alice thought feeling oddly detached from the situation.

Panic ensued. People who only minutes earlier had been cheering over the deaths of two children now scattered everywhere, begging for their lives like they deserved mercy. The humans scattered everywhere, pushing and tripping each other to have a better chance of survival. It didn't do them any good. In fact, Alice thought, they would have had better luck standing together and fighting the demons off. But these people were proving themselves to be exactly what the shadow—no, the demonic armor, had said they were. They were monsters. Selfish beasts who would tread down anyone in their way to survive.

They ran for the nearest houses they could find, begging their neighbors to let them inside. None of them answered. They would let their neighbors die if that meant that they would survive.

Everywhere she looked, people were getting torn to shreds by the creatures. Some were being eaten alive. Alice realized with a start, that one of the demons had prowled right up to her, its face not inches way from her own now. Slowly, it opened its mouth. Without any further warning, it unhinged its jaw like a snake, and suddenly its mouth was easily big enough to fit around her whole head.

She knew what the armor had said, but that didn't mean it was true. She just stood there, paralyzed in terror, not even able to scream. Those things had far too many teeth. Some of the long needle shaped fangs didn't even fit in the demon's mouth, and she could see where they had torn through the flesh of their upper or lower jaws. It stood there, its mouth around her head for a moment. Then, without any apparent reason, it backed away, its soulless eyes glaring at her. It was reluctant to let her live.

It noticed another person moving however, a woman, and leaped in front of her, stopping her in her tracks. She didn't have time to scream. The demon grabbed her head in its jaws and dragged her to the roof of one of the buildings. Three other demons swooped over her and began eating her alive.

Alice couldn't see the scene from bellow, but the woman's agonized screams were enough to give her a graphic mental image of what was happening. Unable to take the horrific scene any longer, she fell to her knees and vomited.

She realized that the demonic armor had made its way over to the orphanage. With a heavy swing, it plunged its burning sword into the ground in front of the door, setting the orphanage ablaze.

She wanted to look away, but found that despite her revulsion, she couldn't help but survey the carnage. The screams of the residents—screams of pain, fear, or both—filled the air, accompanied by the unnatural roars of the demons. It was something out of a nightmare. Yet as her eyes passed over ashes that had only minutes earlier had been the orphanage director and one of his sons, she couldn't help but feel something other than disgust and terror.

It was satisfaction.

Inn at Thoda Dock

A redheaded young woman sunk a dagger into Alice's face. It wasn't really Alice's face, just a poster with her picture in it, but there was still some amount of satisfaction to be derived from the small action of vengeance. Her mother and father had been out of town collecting gel ingredients the morning that the orphanage had burned down, and she watched them get killed by the monsters that Alice had summoned when they returned.

The poster showed her smiling cheerfully. You wouldn't have known she was a murderous freak if you just saw in the street.

The poster read: WANTED: Alice. Crimes: Torture, terrorism, murder, attempted murder and regicide. Reward: 235,000 gald (Dead).

Right beside the poster with Alice's bounty on it was another, showing a man with purple hair. The young woman remembered him very well too:

WANTED: Decus. Crimes: Terrorism, espionage, pillaging, murder, and genocide. Reward: 180,000 gald (Dead or alive).

Two days ago in Palmacosta, a blonde woman named Alexia who called herself "General of the Templars," distributed the posters with the rewards for Decus and Alice' heads.

'As if my personal reasons weren't enough for me to want them dead.' she thought angrily, glaring at the bulletin board with the two killers' faces pinned to it. She whipped around and went over to a table where two men were already sitting. Her studded leather armor clinked lightly as she pulled a small folding chair over to the mens' table and sat down.

The first man wore a fairly standard-looking suit of armor, sans helmet. He was a brunet with tough but handsome features.

"Don't worry, Sarah. We'll find them," he told her, reaching across the table and giving her a friendly pat on the shoulder. "We'll make her pay for what she did to you and your family. Don't you agree Vlad?" He asked the second man at the table, at a blonde young man with a patch over his right eye and a scar going from below his chin all the way up his nose and across his patched eye.

"Yeah. I also owe her something for what she did to me, and Hawk, when we were in the Vanguard," he said, tracing the scar with his finger. "I couldn't do anything. I shouldn't have been afraid of her just because she was my superior. But that won't matter now anyway… I can't wait to get my hands on her and make her pay for all she did to me and my companions…sick, sadistic bitch…" he cursed closing his fist.

A scream from outside grabbed the attention of the three bounty hunters. They jumped out of their seats and ran outside. There stood a girl with deathly white hair, dressed in a black and red gothic-lolita outfit looking at the body of a man. He lay motionless before her in a pool of blood, presumably his own.

"She looks familiar, but… hmm… who is that girl?" Vlad asked the brunet. "Has she got a price on her head, Robert?"

He ran back inside and made a full pass of the bulletin board, but the girl's picture wasn't on any of the WANTED posters.

Sarah frowned, looking at the girl carefully. It only took her a few moments to figure it out, and when it did, it hit her like a charging bull. Her hair and eyes were different colors and her skin seemed to have taken on a very unhealthy-looking pallor, but there was no doubt that she was the same girl who brought a demonic onslaught to her town.

"Alice…" she spat venomously, just in time for Robert to walk back out and hear her.

"What?" he gaped, "but she's- what the hell happened to her?"

The girl turned her head and looked at her with piercing red eyes.

Vlad began to tremble. There was something about her that made her look even scarier than she already was when she was his superior.

Alice grinned widely and began to walk toward them.

"You know my name… Have we ever met? Or have you just heard about me?"

Vlad gulped. He knew that face. It was the one she wore when she was about to do something particularly awful.

"Why did you kill him?" Sarah asked firmly. She'd known the man that Alice had just killed. A doctor from Asgard.

Alice's smile grew wider.

"Because I could," She answered simply.

Sarah grunted angrily and Robert just glared at her.

"I see you're still the same monster that killed my family back in Hima."

That got Alice's attention.

Hima. The mere mention of the town made her blood boil. Now that she thought about it, the girl did seem a bit familiar

"Aww…" Alice pouted. "Poor little girl. You must have suffered so much without your family," her voice dripping with false sympathy. "It must have been so hard for you. Having to see your parents die must have been awful. I bet they suffered a lot, I feel so bad for them."

"You monster!" the girl shrieked, "Don't you dare to talk about them like that!"

"But look at the bright side…" she said in a disturbingly jovial tone, "I had lots of fun."

The truth was, that it wasn't especially amusing, but enrage this girl was, so…

One of the men at the redhead's side, the one with the armor and brown hair, unsheathed his sword. "I'm done with this! Let's just kill this heartless little psychopath!"

The girl grabbed the brunet's arm and detained him.

Alice pouted sadly puffing her checks.

"Stop! Don't give her the satisfaction of letting her manipulate you."

"Yeah, don't let me do that." Alice agreed, still trying to work the red haired girl up.

Once again, the armored man took a step forward, but Sarah stopped him squeezing his arm.

"Don't." she insisted, trying to seem calm, but barely managing to contain her anger, "We have to keep calm if we want to beat her," She looked over at Vlad who was still trying to recompose himself. "That goes for you too; don't let her influence you."

The other man nodded. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

"You, beating me?" Alice asked, giggling cutely. "Like that could ever happen."

The girl drew her two draggers, spinning them loosely in her hands before gripping them tightly and lowering herself into a battle stance.

"At first I was devastated, but when I finally recovered, I began training. I've been waiting for this day for eight long years. And now, I'm going to make you pay."

The three challengers charged.

"What a lovely story… And quite familiar if I may add," she noted. "But you are forgetting one thing…"

It all happened in a blink of an eye. A huge ice lance materialised behind Alice and impaled the man with the eye patch against the wall of the inn.

"Vlad!" the girl cried. Her eyes widened, dark circles growing apparent beneath them.

'Who is she?… Who is she?' Alice wondered, still trying to figure out the girl's identity and why she recognized her. Deciding that she could think about it when her life wasn't in danger anymore, she sent the girl flying backward in a torrent of icy wind.

The brunet also tried to land a hit on Alice, but she caught his sword on her toy rapier, which she had spontaneously swathed in sturdy ice.

She encased her free hand in a gauntlet of ice with viciously sharp claws. The man tried to jump backwards but found his feet frozen to the ground, stuck in another block of ice.

"Damn… I should have seen this coming." He sighed mentally.

He seemed almost relaxed, letting his sword fall to the ground and closing his eyes tightly. With one swipe of her claws, she opened him up like a present.

"Robert!" the girl sobbed, falling to her knees as he saw his body fall limp on the ground.

"Oh! Don't tell me you had feelings for him!?" Alice began to laugh. "This is so good that it must fatten!"

Alice was about to finish the girl off when she suddenly remembered who the girl was.

"That's right, you're Sarah. You were nice to me back when I still lived at the orphanage," she said apathetically.

"That's right," Sarah shouted, "I never believed what everyone told me about you, that you were a Desian and everything. But you repaid me by murdering my parents! That's what I get for trusting a half-elf!"

She stood up, her legs shaking, "I had finally found a new family," she whispered, almost too quiet for Alice to hear,"And now you've murdered them too! I'll kill you!" she screamed at the top of her lungs even as her voice cracked. She didn't care who heard; Alice would die today, no matter what! She dashed full speed at Alice and let loose with a flurry of swipes from her daggers. Alice didn't feel compelled to move however. She just closed her eyes in concentration, and began to cast a spell.

"Oh, mistress of pain, embrace those who oppose my will and show them the beauty of agony. Ice garden!"

Grass and vines made entirely of ice seemed to sprout from beneath Alice's feet, growing in all directions. Vines began to 'grow' around Sarah's body, holding her in place. She shook, trying to break the ice vines but it was useless. The ice was as hard as steel. She was utterly helpless.

Alice walked slowly towards Sarah looking at her with a curious gaze.

"Owww… Look at you, trapped and unable to avenge your friends and family," she shook her head in disappointment. "Tch, tch, tch… It must feel so bad to be impotent."

Sarah soon resigned herself to the fact that there was no point in fighting back.

"You bitch… One day you're going to get what's coming to you, but we'll be going to very different places."

"Save your religious prattle for someone who cares." Alice snapped, her mask of cheerfulness vanishing as she leered up at the girl.

Sarah replied by simply looking her in the eye her with a fearless gaze. It enraged the half-elf more than anything. Did she have no fear of death?

'She feels she has nothing left to lose,' whispered the louder voice in her head, 'so she no longer fears death. Of course, everyone fears pain. Even her.'

The white-haired smiled and began to leave.

"Well, I'd really like to stand here and catch up, but I've got a boat to catch. Toodle-oo." She said, getting back into character. She turned back for a moment, "I`ll just leave you to chill out here for a while," she grinned diabolically. "Garden, blossom!"

Razor sharp thorns sprouted from the icy stems. Roses of pure ice flourished across the frozen ground beneath Sarah, growing redder and redder between screams of pain.

Renegade's Base; secret lab.

"So, you think you can just waltz into my laboratory and start making demands!?" Nickolay shouted with a hint of nervousness in his voice.

"Dammit, I don't have time for this!" Lloyd growled, "Decus and Alice are about to shatter the balance of this world's mana. Just give me back Colette, and I'll be merciful. I might even let you go." Lloyd explained trying to be as patient as possible, which was obscenely difficult considering that the scientist was the most offensively annoying and socially awkward person that he had ever met. And with Lloyd, that was saying something; suffice to say, eighty percent of his body was itching to start pounding the infuriating half-elf.

"Insolent inferior being! How dare you to talk to me like that." Nickolay grunted even as he too a step back. "I'll teach you to respect my superiority!"

Lloyd groaned.

"What a letdown…" Lloyd sighed pointing his swords at him, "I'd figured out that you were arrogant, and probably more of an egomaniac than Zelos, but honestly… for a moment I actually thought that you weren't exactly like those racists Desians. I'll be honest, I'm disappointed."

"Racism?" Nickolay asked, looking at him in confusion. After a moment he just burst into a fit of giggling. "Oh, I'm sorry. Forgive me. It seems I've given you the wrong impression. When I called you inferior being, I wasn't referring to the difference between our species." The scientist began clicking the buttons on his bracelet in some complex sequence. "I was merely referring to the immense difference between our intellects!" he shouted cheerfully, lifting up his arms dramatically, as though he expected confetti to start raining down on the two of them.

Twenty seconds went by with absolutely nothing changing. Nickolay remained in the same position. Lloyd began to look around with a confused gaze.

"Uh… right…" the swordsman drawled, "Whatever dude. I just came for my friend so–"

"Hold that thought!" Nickolay halted him with his hand and began clicking the keys on his bracelet frantically.

"Wait a moment, wait a moment, there must be something going wrong with the— Aha! Here it is!" the scientist jolted in excitement as Lloyd watched with complete disinterest. Nickolay pressed one last button looking very satisfied with himself.

—Bzzt— went a buzzer on his watch. Nickolay seemed to lose much of his annoyingly smug demeanor in an instant.

"Critical Error? Interface error #1402? Restart the program?! Dear merciful gods! I don't have time for this!"

A drop of cold sweat slid down Lloyd's forehead as Nickolay started swearing incoherently at the machine on his wrist. The scene before him was so pathetically awkward. He was beginning to feel really embarrassed for the man, despite being the only other person in the room.

"Uh, don't mean to interrupt, but I'm kinda on a schedule here," Lloyd prodded, going completely unnoticed.

Finally after watching the scientist arguing with the inanimate object on his wrist, two floating spherical devices similar to the ones used by the Grand Cardinals appeared at Nickolay's sides.

"Finally!" the pink haired scientist sighed in relief. "Okay, now kill him."

"Figures," Lloyd grumbled, drawing his swords.

The two robots obeyed Nickolay's command and rushed the swordsman.

They opened from the middle, revealing two mana blades that lit up and began rotating like propellers.

Lloyd was able to dodge the first and deflect the second, but the robots turned back quickly and attacked again. The robots repeated this strategy over and over again, attacking Lloyd from all sides with quick attacks followed by quicker retreats.

The simple but effective strategy bore fruit as they eventually began to overwhelm the swordsman.

"That's all you're able to do? How disappointing." Nickolay said, sounding as bored as Lloyd had been only a few minutes earlier. "I was expecting you to give a fight back, but I guess you're all bark and no bite. You're nothing to my masterpieces," the scientist bragged. "Well, may as well finish him off."

The two spheres stopped attacking Lloyd and changed their strategy. One of them flew away and the other lunged on him. Lloyd parried the attack, crossing his swords.

While one robot kept trying to chop Lloyd down the intentions of the other became clear when it turned back and rushed on Lloyd who jumped aside. The blades of the two machines ripped through one another. They both fell to the floor and exploding pathetically.

"You might want to postpone your victory party." Lloyd said with a grin. However Nickolay was nowhere to be seen. "What? Did he escape?"

"On the contrary. Everything went exactly as planned," the scientist whispered at his ear.

"What the hell!? How did he move so fast!?"

The swordsman spun around in an attack that would have sliced the scientist in half, but when the sword was barely inches away, the scientist vanished and reappeared on the other side of the room.

"Did he just teleport?" Lloyd thought surprised. Only his father, Yuan, Mithos, Richter and a very short list of others had shown such a skill. The scientist couldn't possibly be at their level by any stretch of the imagination. So what was he doing?

"Impressed?" Nickolay asked, passing a familiar looking exphere from hand to hand. Lloyd looked at his hand immediately. His mother's exphere wasn't attached to the key crest.

The pink haired scientist put the exphere into one of his lab coat pockets.

"How—?"

"Yes! I can teleport!" Nickolay answered before Lloyd was able to ask. "Impressive, no?" he ignited his mana saber and began warping around the room, seemingly at random. "Can you see it now? Can you see the difference between our levels?"

Nickolay teleported right behind him and tried to strike Lloyd who barely reacted fast enough to dodge the blow. The scientist repeated the same tactic and this time landed a slash to the swordsman's shoulder.

Lloyd turned and tried to counterattack but the scientist teleported away before his sword was even got close.

"Damn!" Lloyd spat. 'He's moving way too fast. How am I supposed to get past him like this?'

"I can't wait to do some research on you. Project Number 46. Yes, that should still be available."

Lloyd grunted angrily.

How could he warp like that? Not even his father or Mithos could do it in such quick succession without expending their energy! This joker shouldn't be able to do anything even close. Unless… this was just like those pointless machines. Another trick…

Nickolay turned off his sword and smiled arrogantly.

"I have an idea, Number 46! I can call you that, right?" he asked, seeming genuinely concerned. "Why don't you surrender so I can run tests on you while your body is in almost perfect condition?"

Lloyd rolled his eyes. This guy was really pissing him off.

"I'll make you a deal. If you surrender now, I promise I won't conduct any potentially lethal tests on your little blonde friend. Think about it, you'll be able to stay with her," he explained cheerfully, "Of course if you become an exbeula I'll have to keep you away from her since I can't risk the bodies of my precious specimens. Either way, I'm going to run tests on the two of you, but if you agree now, you can at the very least spend your time together as my test subjects. Think about it, Number 46! I think it's very a good deal."

"Okay, first of all, don't call me Number 46. It's not nearly as offensive as it is annoying," Lloyd groaned, "And second, I've come here to get Colette out of here. Neither of us is staying. I'm not leaving without her, and honestly, if you valued your own well-being at all, you'd have gone and let her go by now." Lloyd smiled and took his swordsman position. "If you're really better than me, let me see your best technique."

Nickolay took a step back, surprised by the subjects response. How could he be so obstinate to challenge him? Wasn't he aware of his situation?

"For someone in your position, you have an awfully big mouth, Number 46. What are you going to do against my overwhelming superiority in both intellect and skill without your exphere?"

Lloyd dug something out of his pocket.

"Well… here's the thing," Lloyd said with a grin, "Almost everything about what you just said is completely wrong."

"Uh–?"

"Fist of all, see that exphere you've got in your hand there?"

"You mean this one?" The scientist answered, showing the exphere with a triumphant smile.

"Yep, that one. Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but, well… why don't you try dropping it?"

Nickolay stared flatly at him for a moment.

"You really think I'll fall for that? You really are inferior."

"It's a fake," Lloyd insisted, "Just take a close look at it."

"You–you're kidding," the scientist took the exphere and examined it attentively, "If it was a fake I would…I would…have…" noticed that the exphere had small air bubbles inside. It was made of glass. It was about as valuable as a child's marble.

Nickolay raised his arm and shattered the fake exphere against the ground furiously. He didn't know what made him angrier; the fact that the exphere was a fake, or the fact he'd been tricked by a boy who thought that a square root was a square part of a tree.

"I always keep the real one with me." Lloyd told him as he dug another exphere out of his pocket, placing it into the key crest on his left hand. "I figured that that certain people might try to take my exphere, so I made that glass copy. I was raised by a dwarf, so I'm great at all sorts of crafts."

Seeing his chance, Nickolay warped back over to Lloyd's sideand snatched the exphere right out of Lloyd's key crest before teleporting back to a safe distance.

Lloyd smiled, 'Just like I thought.'

"Ha! You fool!" the pink haired scientist laughed hysterically, "How pathetically careless! You've just lost your only chance of beating me! Now that I have the real one you're finished!"

"Well… no," Lloyd smiled sympathetically. "That one you have there is a fake too." He reached into another pocket and pulled out six more and juggled them for a moment before pocketing them again.

The scientist looked at it, saw the imperfections and hurled it at the opposite wall, where it shattered like the glass object it was. "Are you toying with me!?"

"Not at all, I wanted to test something."

That took Nickolay by surprise and only served to irritate him even more. The moron? Doing tests on him!? He was the scientist!

"What do you mean?!"

"When you started teleporting like an angel on drugs, I began to wonder how you were doing it so fast. I've only met a few people who can do it at all, and all of them couldn't do it more than once or twice. So I asked myself: How was a powerless loon like you doing it? I'll admit that you had me fooled for a minute, but then it hit me: You were doing the same thing you did when you first attacked me with those drones: You're just using more machines." The scientist went stiff. Did he notice? "So just to make sure, I had you to teleport one more time to prove my suspicions. This whole room must be rigged with teleport devices under the floor, and that bracelet you're wearing allows you to use them at will."

Nickolay couldn't believe that the kid had figured out how his whole system worked.

"You were right when you said that you were more intelligent than me. My own best friend won't let me forget that he's twice as smart as I am. But when it comes to fighting, a weakling like you couldn't hope to trick me." Lloyd concluded.

'That brat! How dare he make a fool of me like this!' Nickolay fumed silently before losing his temper completely.

"So what!" The scientist shouted. "This changes nothing! I still can teleport, and you can't! And there's nothing you can do about it!" he shouted, glaring at Lloyd.

"Oh! About that, before I forget! You remember the Angelus Project? The thing that you thought you just stole from me twice?" Lloyd showed Nickolay the back of his hand and smiled. "This is the real one. I actually used this conversation to distract you while I put it back on."

Without a moment's hesitation, Nickolay warped over to Lloyd's position again. Before his feet even touched the ground, he felt a fist connect with his jaw and found himself staring at the ceiling. He picked himself up haltingly, shaking as he got to his feet only to see Lloyd glaring at him, his demeanor having already made the transition from smug to serious.

"You really think I'd just let you take it? You're smart, and you have the advantage of having access to Desian research, so you know what it is." Lloyd asked, not waiting for an answer, "This is all that was left of my mom after she died. This is my mom's soul, and the day you take it from me is the day that you pry it out of my cold, dead hands. And you can be sure that'll never happen."

"Shut up!" The scientist demanded, tightening his grip on his mana saber in rage, reigniting it. Not even bothering to teleport this time, he charged at the swordsman. Lloyd just parried the attack and sent Nickolay sprawling to the floor with a well-placed kick. Lloyd raised his swords, preparing to strike a second time.

The mad scientist was fast enough to teleport far from the swordsman before he could land another blow on him, but despite having dodged the second attack, he'd taken some painful hits. He realized that his nose was bleeding and he had several cuts on his face, all of which were still bleeding.

"You have no right to mock me! I am Doctor Nickolay Madlalov, the greatest mind Aselia has ever seen! You–" he pointed at the brunet. "You're nothing but a test subject! How dare you humiliate me like this!" the scientist wheezed. "I won't forgive you for this! Forget about the experiments! I'm going to kill you!"

Lloyd ignored the scientist's ranting and concentrated on his swords, summoning the powers of Kratos' Flamberge and Dirk's Vorpal Sword. His right sword was engulfed by incandescent flames and his left was surrounded by a cold blue mist.

"That's it! I didn't expect to be put into a position in which I'd need to rely on him, but you've forced my hand!" the scientist continued his tirade.

Nickolay took off his labcoat and to Lloyd's dismay, also removed his shirt. He would have been tempted to make a snarky comment except that the scientist's upper body was a rather disturbing sight: His left arm, shoulder and part of his chest were covered by a gray-green, similar to Rodyle's after he had improperly equipped Colette's Cruxis crystal. Unsurprisingly, it appeared as though there was just such a crystal glowing from its place inside a key crest on Nickolay's chest.

"You've already met Dr. Nickolay, but there's something you don't know about me." The scientist put his hand on the key crest and tore it violently off his body, tossing it aside like trash. "Allow me to introduce you…to my other self…"

The wounds on his face regenerated almost instantly, but that wasn't the most noticible change. Nickolay's muscles began to swell, and his whole body began to turn the same sickly grey-green hue. Claws sprouted from his fingertips, his teeth seemed to extend until they were all frighteningly sharp, and his eyes turned a murky shade of bloody red. Lloyd thought he might have actually grown a few inches during his transformation, but he couldn't be completely certain. In any case, the creature that Nickolay had become didn't give him the time to think about it.

With a primal roar, the now monstrous scientist stomped over to Lloyd, who barely dodged as a heavy fist slammed into the floor creating a spiderweb of cracks in the tiles.

"It's useless." Lloyd concentrated, leaping into the air in preparation to perform his Rising Falcon technique. "This is over Nickolay." He dived forward swords-first, completing his attack, but surprisingly, the bulked-up scientist dodged the blow and delivered a powerful kick to his stomach, sending him rolling across the floor all the way to the other side of the room.

"Eheheheh," the creature chuckled, his voice deeper and slightly distorted, "Nickolay? I'm afraid you've just missed him. I am Mr. Madlalov. Allow me to show you my…hospitality."

And he charged.

Well, I hope you liked it. Don't worry, it won't take me again 3 months to update.

As always reviews and critiare apreciated. See you in the next chapter!