Chapter 33: Tower of Salvation II: Zelos Wilder
The group once again lands close to the Tower of Salvation, keeping their Rheairds out of sight before they walk towards the staircase Zelos made for them the last time they were there. Before they climbed too far up though, they happened to see the wings of three angels before the entrance, leading Lloyd to mention "Damn it, they're guarding the entrance!"
"That's not good…We could fight the angels, but that would just lead to more reinforcements…" Raine wisely points out. "…But that's the only way inside, right?" Sheena asks, which leads to the group pausing for a moment before a familiar voice calls to them from behind. "No, there is another way…"
Turning around, the group finds Yuan and Botta standing before them, with Yuan still looking weak despite having more than a day of recovery. The man stepped forward and said to them "Follow us, I'll show you an alternate way inside…" He was quiet enough to avoid alerting the angels above, and he then turned around to head for the eastern side of the Tower of Salvation with Botta following close behind.
After a puzzled pause, the group decided to follow Yuan and Botta, where they eventually find him inside of a secluded cavern that had a single teleportation device inside. Yuan folded his arms against his chest and stated "Taking this will place you near the Eternal Sword's chamber…That is all I plan to say on the matter."
"Now wait a second, why are you helping us now?" Lloyd asks, which causes Yuan to groan in agony before he bothers to explain "Now that the truth about me is known to Yggdrasill, the only way left to save Martel is to work with you. Don't think that I want to be your friend or anything…"
Colette hangs her head in disappointment, which Lloyd picks up on before he glares at Yuan and says "You have a real negative attitude, you know that? Well, whatever. Thanks for helping us again. Come on everyone, it's time we ended this!"
One after the other the group enters the teleportation device, but before Riku heads inside Botta says to him "Riku…I wish you the best of luck." The teenage Overlord turns at him and says "I wish that for all of us. Especially you, Yuan…Trust me, by the time this is over, Martel will finally be free."
Yuan says to the boy as he closes his eyelids and begins to walk off "…For my sake as much as everyone else's, I hope you are not deceiving me this time around, Elemental Overlord." Yuan and Botta then head off to take care of their own business, leaving Riku to enter the teleportation device and follow the group into the Tower of Salvation.
Immediately upon exiting the device, Riku finds that Zelos has already taken initiative of the situation as he stands in front of the rest of the group and says to them "Leave it to me." He was taking on a rather serious tone, which leads to Sheena questioning right away "Leave it to you? What are you gonna do now?"
Zelos smiles brightly and says in response "I figured something like this might happen, so I prepared a little something the last time we were her. Colette, come here for a second." This puzzles the entire group sans Riku, without Colette especially commenting with her eyes blinking "Huh? Oh, okay."
As Colette approaches Zelos, Riku holds his right hand out beside himself and glares at the red-haired Chosen, saying to himself "Don't do it Zelos…" as the two of them walked towards the Eternal Sword. Zelos stood with back to it while Colette was in the center of the room. Suddenly, Zelos cracked a rather creepy looking smile in front of Colette, whispering out to her "Sorry, my dear, sweet Colette…"
As Colette looked at Zelos in confusion, all of a sudden three angels teleported into the room behind her, causing the group to look on in utter shock at what was occurring. At the same time, Pronyma appeared atop the staircase behind the Eternal Sword, smirking down at what was happening as she said to a particular person "Good work, Chosen Zelos. Now, bring her to me."
Riku scowls at Zelos and thinks to himself "Ok Zelos, you've made your decision. Now I will make mine!" He was about ready to draw his sword and cut down Zelos in a single attack for his betrayal, but something made him pause and hesitate. "…No, not yet. I have to see how this plays out. Zelos hasn't fully betrayed us yet…" He thinks to himself while easing his expression.
As he did all this, Colette was bound to a mint-green magic seal and brought up beside Pronyma. The angels flied up beside her, while Zelos remained in front of the Eternal Sword and heard the group react to his betrayal with understandable shock and disbelief. Hearing Sheena exclaim to him "What the hell are you doing?!" hurt him the most, but he merely closes his eyelids and firmly tells his former friends "Oh, shut up. I'm just putting myself on the winning side."
He then glares at Lloyd and tells him "What you're trying to do is hopeless and meaningless. What's the big deal? Colette wanted to be a sacrifice, remember?" Lloyd was understandably pissed off at Zelos and said to him with all of rage "Zelos! You traitor!"
Zelos said to him in response "Aw, give it a rest, Lloyd. Did you forget what I said in Flanoir? I side with the strongest. Besides…It's not like you trusted me in the first place." As Lloyd was left in disbelief, Pronyma laughed and pointed out "Betray you? How amusing. Zelos was our spy from the very beginning. Isn't that right, Zelos?"
"…" Zelos paused for a moment as Lloyd said to him "Is that true?" He wanted to hear another answer besides "Yes", he desperately wanted this to be one terrible joke from the Chosen, but instead Zelos said to Pronyma "Pronyma my dear…Leave the rest to me, you wouldn't want to keep Yggdrasill waiting, right?"
"Hmmm? Very well, Zelos, I wish you luck." Pronyma then takes off with Colette on the teleporter, while Colette reaches her right hand out towards the group and exclaims "Lloyd! Lloyd!" But her voice departs from the area along with her captors, leaving only Zelos to stand before the group as he puts a rather serious look on his face and says to them all "So Lloyd…You want to know whether I was a traitor from the start, right?"
"Damn it Zelos, stop playing around! You're lying, I know you are! I trust you!" Lloyd exclaimed, and with a hearty laugh Zelos responded to his friend's trust with a blunt "Hmph, you really are too damn optimistic, Lloyd…But while you are on the subject of trust and lies…If you want to know whether I was a traitor from the start or not…Why don't you turn around and ask Riku?"
The teenage Overlord visibly flinched after Zelos said this, thinking to himself "No way…He couldn't have figured it out, could he?" Lloyd understandably said to Zelos in confusion "What? What does Riku have to do with any of this?!"
Zelos smiles for a moment before he replies to that with "Because Lloyd, Riku has known the truth about my true allegiance the entire time." It was after that the group turned their heads to face Riku, with Raine and Regal giving him a particularly disapproving glare. Lloyd says to Riku "What? …Riku, is this true?"
Zelos answers for the teenage Overlord, telling Lloyd then and there "Pfft, he's not going to say anything to you Lloyd, just like he didn't say anything about how making pacts with the Summon Spirits would end in failure." Riku then fiercely glares at Zelos, exclaiming to him while trying his hardest to ignore the stares of his comrades "Zelos, don't! There's some things in this world that we are better off not knowing!"
"…" For a moment, Zelos pauses to consider his next course of action, but then he ends up grinning and saying as he hangs one hand near the handle of his sword "It's not just that, Lloyd…He knew Yuan was going to attack us at Altessa's place, that Colette was ill the entire time, where the Rheairds were, the fact that Derris-Kharlan existed…And so much more. He knew all this information from the start, and kept it to himself."
Zelos glances past the rest of the group and looks at Riku's tensing expression, saying to him calmly "So come on Riku, tell your 'friends' just how long I've been working for the Renegades and Cruxis." For a few seconds, the teenage Overlord is met with the pressure of the glares from both his allies and the traitor Zelos. He could only imagine what they were thinking about him, and none of it was good. He hung his head low and didn't say anything.
Zelos scoffs at the boy and says "Figures. I knew you wouldn't have it in you to be honest to your friends." After he says this, Sheena turns to look at him and exclaims with bitter tears trickling down her face "What right do you have to call Riku out on this?! You lied to all of us, sold us out for our enemies! I can't believe you! You were always perverted Zelos, but when it came down to it I never doubted that you were a good person!"
"Indeed. Regardless of what Riku has done, I have no reason to suspect that he has betrayed any of us for either the Renegades or Cruxis. He has always fought alongside us as an ally. You, on the other hand, have likely been giving information to our enemies the entire time." Regal calmly criticizes Zelos for his attempt to divert attention away from his betrayal.
Zelos lets out a tired sigh and scratches the back of his head, pointing out to Regal "You say that now, but you do realize by 'everything' I mean that Riku knew where Vharley was going to be the entire time? And that he knew about the connection between you, Presea, and Alicia? And if that wasn't enough, Riku's had the ability to bring people back from the dead the entire time…Which is exactly the reason why Mithos wanted him in the first place."
"…Zelos, I can't revive people from Exspheres! I need a physical body to perform the process!" Riku points out, and upon saying that Zelos smirks and says "Oh, so you finally talk…Only to confirm everything I've been saying about you. Hmph…" Afterwards Regal says "…Even so, you are trying to divert attention away from yourself again. What could possibly have driven you to betray us?"
"What could have driven me? Are you serious, Regal? What else could it be but my 'title' as the Chosen of Mana?" Zelos says, leading to him turning his back towards the group and explaining "It's because of that accursed title that my life has been a total joke. So in exchange for helping him out, Mithos promised to release me from my fate as a Chosen of Mana. I can't wait for Seles to become the Chosen instead of me."
"And you hated it so much that you would willingly betray your friends?" Regal asks, and Zelos nods his head in response. Lloyd glares at him and exclaims "…You're lying! I still trust you, you hear me?! You're the one that told me I could trust you!"
"…What are you, stupid?" Zelos was blunt once more in his response, which shocked Lloyd into a state of disbelief long enough for Zelos to turn around and comment "Besides Lloyd, you never had a plan in mind to make sure that you'd be able to wield the Eternal Sword, did you? Your plan to save both worlds was always doomed from the start."
"No it's not! We'll find a way, we always have! You know that, you even helped us so many times in the past!" Lloyd swings his right arm out as he replies to Zelos' remark, and the Chosen closes his eyelids and sighs while drawing both his sword and shield. Golden feathers begin to rise around his body as he says "You still believe that I'm your ally, huh? That this is all some incredible ruse I came up with to trick Mithos and his group?"
Zelos points his sword at the group as he summons forth a golden set of angel wings, saying to them calmly "Sorry to disappoint ya Lloyd, I'm just a weak, lazy bum who wants nothing more than a fun, easy life…" After he says this, Lloyd clenches his teeth and fists and begins to shake, and without warning he draws both his swords out and says to Zelos "No you're not! You're Zelos, our friend! I trust you just as much as I trust all of my other friends!"
"…You really need a reality check, Lloyd. But fine, if you really believe that I'm your 'friend' still, then fight me." Zelos says, and Lloyd responds with "That was my plan! I won't believe for a second that you are serious about fighting against us!"
"Keep believing that Lloyd. And hey! If the rest of you get involved, you'll be sorry! This is between Lloyd and me!" Zelos makes his intentions clear, and Sheena begins to draw out one of her seals while saying "Why should we listen to anything you say you trai-" "Sheena, stop! I can handle this on my own!" Lloyd stops her midway through with a confident proclamation.
"Lloyd, you can't be serious! We need to hurry up and save Colette!" Genis points out to his friend, but Lloyd swings his swords out beside himself and says in response "I-I know that Genis…And we will save her. But we're going to save her together…All of us, even Zelos!"
"Come on then Lloyd, it's not nice to keep a girl waiting!" Zelos exclaims to get Lloyd focused back on the battle with him. Lloyd lowers his eyelids and tightens his grip on the handles of his swords before dashing at the Chosen of Tethe'alla. Zelos raises his sword up and brings it down as Lloyd swings both of his at a diagonal cross towards Zelos. The two clash their blades in the center of the room, with sparks flying from the collision of steel as Zelos calmly stares at the vastly determined Lloyd and smirks.
As Lloyd glares into the eyes of his friend, he finds himself thinking back to the night before in Flanoir…
Lloyd is in the hotel in Flanoir, lying on his bed with a worried expression on his face as he stared towards the ceiling and said "…What am I going to do tomorrow? The Eternal Sword…Mithos…Kratos…" As he worried about all this, he found himself feeling pretty tired and began to yawn, but a knock on the door forced him to his feet beside the bed as he murmured out a puzzled "Huh? Who's there?"
The door opens up, and Zelos is seen standing there with a brimming smile on his face as he looks at Lloyd and asks "Hey man, you awake?" Lloyd blinks his eyes a few times and then collapses back first onto the bed, laying his arms out as he said "…I just got sleepy right now. G'night…" Before he dozed off to sleep, Zelos ran over and used his hands to force Lloyd upright. Lloyd groaned, but then Zelos said to him "Whoa whoa whoa! Don't be like that! Come on, let's go talk outside for a bit!"
Though Lloyd was exhausted by the stress of everything that happened recently, the fact that Zelos seemed so eager to talk to him made Lloyd force himself to wake up long enough to hear what he had to say. "…Ok Zelos, you have my attention." Zelos smiles and snaps his fingers, saying to his buddy "Alright! I know the perfect spot for us to talk at! Follow me!" With the Chosen as his guide, Lloyd ends up outside of the city's Church of Martel, close to a stone perch overlooking the entire city. Zelos stands beside Lloyd and looks towards the sky, and suddenly his happy-go-lucky attitude melts away into a melancholy expression.
"…On that day, Meltokio had a record snowfall. It looked just like this city." Zelos began to tell a tale to Lloyd, but the boy was oblivious to the matter as he asked "What are you talking about all of a sudden?" Zelos says to his friend "Ah, just a story about the past. I suddenly felt like talking about it."
Nodding his head, Lloyd smiles and says in an approving tone of voice "Well then, I'm all ears." Zelos closes his eyelids and feels the cold touch of the snowflakes upon his skin as he reminisces "I was so excited to see snow for the first time, and I made a snowman in the garden with my mother. Then suddenly, the snowman fell apart. Before I knew what was going on, red snow began to fall."
"…Red…Snow?" Lloyd blinks his eyelids a few times as he notes the rather strange words in Zelos' tale. The man turns to face Lloyd and says to him nonchalantly "It was my mother's blood. She was murdered." Lloyd's eyes widen, his face left in blank shock as Zelos continued to explain "As she fell, she grabbed my shoulders and told me, 'You should never have been born.'"…
Back in the battle, Lloyd pulls away from Zelos' sword and leaps backwards, landing a far enough distance away for him to swing his sword against the ground while yelling out "Demon Fang!" A fanged projectile travels across the ground the moment the tip of his blade hits. Zelos also swings his sword against the ground while yelling out the same name of his attack, and both projectiles hit each other and create a slight puff of smoke upon impact.
"Double Demon Fang!" Lloyd and Zelos swing their swords twice over while saying that name, sending two more fanged projectiles at each other that are stopped upon impact. Afterwards Lloyd leaps into the air and swings his swords forward while exclaiming "Rising Falcon!" He descends upon Zelos as the man kicks his body around and flaps his wings forward to send himself underneath Lloyd's body before he lands.
Zelos then lands on the ground and immediately starts casting a spell, which causes a blue magic circle to appear below his feet. He keeps using the same mannerisms for spell casting that he always has, and once he's done gesturing enough he exclaims "Tidal Wave!" A ring of water begins to collapse largely around Lloyd as he turns around, forcing him to leap back onto the staircase before a torrent of water consumes him.
But once he landed on the staircase Zelos kicked off and flew at Lloyd, holding his sword above his sword and waiting until he was a few feet away before he slams the sword down against the ground and breaks it apart, sending a flurry of rocks at Lloyd powerful enough to send him back against the pillar behind him. The pillar crumbles apart on impact, and Lloyd grunts in pain as he lands on the ground.
But while he stood at the edge of the pillar, he looked at Zelos and swung his swords forward to thrust along the ground. Since Zelos planted his sword against the ground, he could only swerve to the right to try and dodge the attack. The two swords cut against his arm and the hit combined with his swerve made him roll along the ground for a few feet before he gets on his legs and waits for Lloyd to charge at him.
Once Lloyd was close enough, Zelos swipes a circle in the ground around his body with his sword and stabs his blade into the ring directly in front of him to summon forth a small pillar of energy that blows Lloyd back and forces him to flip through the air to land safely. Zelos grunts upon recognizing that Lloyd's swords cut deeper into his arm than he thought, but doesn't show weakness long enough for Lloyd to notice.
Lloyd pants slightly and looks at Zelos, saying to him as they both stood on each side of the staircase "See Zelos? Would a lazy bum fight this well?!" Zelos replies with "Or maybe you aren't as good as you thought, Lloyd. You don't understand me as much as you think you do…" These words hurt Lloyd slightly, but caused him to murmur "Zelos…How can you say that?"
Returning to the night before, Lloyd reacts to Zelos' remark with an understandably disgusted "That's…That's horrible!" Zelos closes his eyelids and continues on with "My mother probably loved somebody else. But because of the oracle from Cruxis, she had to marry the Chosen at the time-my father. And the old man had another woman as well."
"But none of that was your fault!" Lloyd exclaims, and after pausing quietly in the face of his friend's naivety Zelos tells Lloyd bluntly "…The magic that killed my mother was meant for me. They targeted my because I was the next Chosen. My mother was caught in the crossfire." As more and more of Zelos' tale unfolds, Lloyd could only stare at him blankly in surprise.
"The one who tried to kill me was Seles' mother. They executed her and Seles was placed under house arrest in the abbey." Zelos' next explanation leads to Lloyd thinking back to Seles' living conditions and saying "So that's what happened to her…" Zelos then turns around and points out "I never wanted to be the Chosen. I spent every moment of my life wishing I could just run away…"
"…Chosens lead really difficult lives. I can only imagine what it's like. But I can understand how hard it must be." Lloyd empathetically says to his friend, but Zelos turns around and smiles while saying in an apologetic tone "Sorry. Kinda hard to think of anything to say to a story like that, right? Hehe…"
"Don't worry about it. But why did you suddenly decide to tell me?" Lloyd asks in an intrigued tone of voice. After putting on a rather serious expression, Zelos has no hesitation in his demeanor as he says "I should've never been born." Lloyd freaks out and exclaims "Wh…why do you say that?!"
Zelos turns towards the backside of the perch and looks out towards Flanoir, saying in response to Lloyd's question "I'm not saying I still think that way now. But all my life, I've been rejected by my parents, shunned by the Church, and viewed as a threat by the royal family…I…I just wanted to run away."
"But you're here with us now, right?" Lloyd optimistically points out, leading to Zelos shrugging his shoulders and admitting "I dunno. Even now, to tell the truth, I get tired of all the problems. Sometimes I think it'd be easier if everyone and everything were just destroyed." His completely serious tone of voice leads to Lloyd exclaiming "Zelos! How can you say that?!" In bitter rage.
Zelos glances to the left with a mischievous smirk on his face as he says "…Did I piss you off?" Lloyd clenches his fist and states "Hell yes! Of course! It'd be a huge problem for me if everything was destroyed!" Zelos tries to make his point to Lloyd by saying "But think about it. If everything was destroyed, you'd vanish, too…You'd never have to worry about anything again."
"I refuse to vanish. And so I don't want anyone else to be destroyed…I want you to live too, Zelos." Lloyd was completely honest with the Chosen, leading to a moment where Zelos momentarily flinched, and after a few seconds of trembling he turns to face Lloyd and says to him in a joking tone "…I think I'm gonna cry."
Lloyd doesn't take offense to the response even as he says to him "Don't make fun of what I'm saying. Tomorrow, once we're sure that Altessa is well, I'm going to challenge Mithos to a final battle. But if that's the way you feel, I'll be too worried to bring you along." Zelos raises his eyebrows and asks "You're going to fight? Do you really think you can unite the worlds?"
"I can and I will. I'm not going to run away." A simple and optimistic response from Lloyd was all-too expected from him, and Zelos gestures with his right hand while smiling and saying "All right, all right, I hear ya. I swear, your fervent enthusiasm is enough to melt all the snow in Flanoir…I'm in. I guess I'll give this not running away thing a shot."
"Haha. Once the world is at peace, you can run away all you like." Lloyd says, and after thanking him for that Zelos turns around and whispers "Man, I can't believe I'm joining the weaker side. This isn't like me at all…" Lloyd briefly overhears him, causing him to ask "What are you talking about?"
"Nothing, just talking to myself. Anyways, let's get back. It's way too cold out here." Zelos says after turning back to face his friend. Lloyd smiles and nods his head in agreement, but Lloyd said that he would stick around for a bit to think about something else. Zelos walked off, and Lloyd didn't have any contact with him until the next morning.
But before he met up with the group in the morning, Lloyd was met with am odd looking orb near his bed with a letter attached to it. Checking the letter out, Lloyd noticed that it was written by Zelos. "This is a symbol of my trust. Hang on to it for me, okay? I don't have the right to ask for your forgiveness, but I still want you to forgive me. P.S. Don't tell the others…"
At the time, Lloyd couldn't hope to understand just what Zelos was saying to him in that letter, but now that they stood face-to-face in battle Lloyd knew with the utmost confidence that no matter what harsh things Zelos said to him, no matter what actions the man took against him and his friends, Lloyd would never stop believing that Zelos was his friend and trusted ally. "Zelos…We're going to unite this world, together!"
Lloyd stands upright and crosses his arms in front of his body, pointing one blade to the right while the other was pointed straight up. "Dwarven Vow #1: Let's all work together for a peaceful world!" As Lloyd exclaimed this vow with all the confidence he could muster, his Exsphere suddenly started glowing. For a brief moment, Zelos could see elongated angel wings emerge behind Lloyd's back, which caused him to mutter out "No way…Lloyd…Is your Exsphere really…"
Zelos laughs and then spreads his angel wings, waving at Lloyd with his left hand to come at him as an angelic seal of magic begins to form around his feet and the sky darkens around the area. Lloyd incorrectly assumed that Zelos was planning to use Judgment on him, and quickly ran at the man to stop him. As light collapses around Zelos' body in the form of a pillar, Lloyd finds that his swords cannot penetrated the barrier as he swings at them.
"I'll show you how serious I am! Take this!" Zelos throws his arms out beside his body and rises into the sky slowly, taking all of the energy built up into the seal and unleashing it in the form of an all-encompassing rising burst of light as he exclaims "Shining Bind!" Lloyd is consumed into the blast, but he instinctively activates the Over Limit on his Exsphere before he is too damaged by it. He then throws both of his swords behind his body and drags them along the ground as he tries to approach Zelos in the center of the attack.
Drawing on all of his strength, Lloyd breaks into a run through the Shining Bind and lets out a battle cry as he leaps into the air at Zelos, swinging both swords out beside his body as the Chosen has left himself incredibly vulnerable to attack. Both swords are swung out, with Lloyd taking great care as to not cut straight through his body and instead nick the skin just past his clothes. The force of his blow carries enough weight to send Zelos out of the center of his Shining Bind and crashing on his side against the ground in front of the Eternal Sword.
Lloyd swings his swords out and lands on the ground, looking down at Zelos as the man's wings disappear from existence for a moment. And after leaping down in front of the Chosen, Lloyd turns around to face the man as he slowly gets back onto his knees, where Zelos finds that the pain in his arms has increased due to the way he landed, making it harder for him to raise his sword against Lloyd. "Heh…That Angelus Project Exsphere really wasn't a failure…" Zelos comments in a weak tone of voice.
"…Zelos?" Lloyd was puzzled by the words coming from the Chosen's mouth as he held his swords beside his body. "Well Lloyd, you won…Heh, I guess I was stupid to think that I could stop ya…Well, now that this is over with, you better kill the traitor standing in front of you." Zelos commented.
"Damn it, are you for real Zelos?! I'm not going to kill you! You're our friend!" Lloyd exclaims, and Zelos hangs his head low while commenting "Friend? Come on Lloyd, why the hell would you ever want a friend like me? I'm lazy…a fool…and I never should have existed in the first place…You know who you really should be friends with? Seles…She's really a sweet girl deep down, and a much better person than I'll ever hope to be…Lloyd, please make sure she's happy once I'm gone and you have stopped Mithos for good…"
Zelos closes his eyelids to accept the death handed before him, and after gripping his right sword tightly Lloyd prepares to raise it into the air to finish the Chosen off for good. As his final moments approach him, Zelos thinks back to the aftermath of his conversation with Lloyd in Flanoir…
As the snowfall began to subside slightly, Zelos slowly walked back to the hotel for a good's night rest. But as he moved towards the building he hung his head slightly and smirked while commenting "Heh, tomorrow's the big day…Will I really have it in me to go through with this?"
Zelos lifts his head up and looks on ahead, and is stopped upon seeing Kratos walking towards him in his regular clothing. "Well, if it isn't the 'Traitor of the Heavens'. What are you doing in Flanoir?" Zelos spoke to the man in a completely casual tone of voice, and Kratos does the same as he stops and says "Chosen Zelos, I am surprised to see you here as well."
"Yeah well Lloyd was really concerned about Altessa's condition, so we made a detour to grab a doctor for him. Now we're just spending the night here. Tomorrow's the day we attack Cruxis head-on, apparently." Zelos gives out this information casually to the man, and Kratos smirks and comments "So Lloyd is going to take initiative tomorrow…I'm glad to hear that. And what of you, Chosen of Mana?"
"Me? Well…Let's just say that by the time tomorrow ends, you and I probably won't be talking to each other again." Zelos says, and Kratos paused for a moment before murmuring out a simple "I see…" He then walks beside Zelos to say to him closely "Are you sure about this?"
"Heh, your stupid son has got me doubting myself a bit…But no, I really think it's for the best if I do things this way. Besides, you've been picking up a lot of my slack Kratos, so everything should turn out ok in the end without me." Zelos comments, and Kratos replies to him "Hmm…And you think Lloyd will just let you go through with that?"
"Of course not…At first. But I know how he is. So hey, you gonna tell me why you're in Flanoir?" Zelos asks. Kratos replies to him quietly "I have come to speak to Lloyd…There is something important I want him to know, especially now that he knows I am his father."
"Heh, good luck with that man. Anyways, it was nice to work with you, Kratos Aurion." Zelos stated, leading to Kratos walking away from him while quietly saying "As it was with you, Zelos. Farewell…" Kratos then walks off to go meet with Lloyd, while Zelos heads to the hotel for the night.
Back in the present, Zelos could tell that Lloyd was still hesitating to bring his blade down to finish him off, but as a smile crept along his face he thought "Heh…I'm glad you still trusted me Lloyd. But you know what, that's fine…After all, you were the only person I could trust to end my life for good…"
Lloyd's arm comes down upon Zelos, and after relaxing himself to accept death the Chosen is instead surprised to hearing a "Shink!" in the ground in front of him. Feeling nothing across his entire body, Zelos decides to open his eyes up and looks up to see that Lloyd has extended his right hand out, with a rather familiar orb held in the palm. His right sword had been planted in the ground beside him, surprising Zelos greatly.
Before the Chosen can say a word, Lloyd says to him calmly "When you gave this to me with that letter Zelos, you told me to forgive you, even though you claimed you didn't have the right to do so. That's why I can't believe for even a second that you are a traitor…Zelos, you aren't a coward, I know you aren't. You may have said you wanted to run away from everything, but you stuck with us this entire time. If you really wanted to betray us, you could have done it much sooner than now."
"…Heh, that's being really optimistic, Lloyd…" Zelos points out, and Lloyd shakes his head while saying "You can't fool me Zelos. I think I finally get what you wanted from this…You wanted me to kill you. But I can't do that. Zelos, you can still exist without being weighed down by the title of the Chosen. Just trust in us, and we'll put an end to Mithos' plans. And then your sister can also be happy, because her older brother will be there for her. Come on Zelos, take my hand, and we'll go save Colette together."
"…" Zelos was completely flabbergasted by Lloyd's words, and in all honesty his mind had worn thin of juggling both his deception and the optimistic words Lloyd threw his way. Letting out a quiet laugh, Zelos shook his head and said in a jovial tone of voice "Hahaha…Man, I really am an idiot. Alright Lloyd, you win…Maybe I'll give this 'living' thing another chance."
Dropping his sword temporarily, Zelos slowly raises his right hand up to Lloyd's own to pick himself up and accept his friendship. But before he gets a chance to finish the gesture, a beam of light suddenly appears from the top of the staircase and streaks right through Lloyd's chest, piercing him so swiftly that no one had the time to react to the maneuver.
Lloyd's eyes suddenly go blank, his body losing all feeling as he drops Zelos' orb onto the ground along with his other sword, while the weight of his body drags him backwards towards the floor. Zelos stared in disbelief at what he had just seen, while the group let out a cumulative gasp of horror. Riku in particular trembled at what had occurred while murmuring out "N-No way…"
As Lloyd's body collapses onto his back and his arms and legs are sprawled out in the puddle of blood forming from his rather gruesome chest wound, everyone looked up towards the top of the staircase, and floating there with his right hand extended from the center of his body was Yggdrasill. With a grin slowly crawling along his face, he callously said to the group "This miserable folly of yours…Has come to an end."
Next Time: The Decider of Fate