Chapter Thirty-Seven: Fidalia

Spiritua, Rebecca, and Remiel sat on the edge of a fountain. Pierce was busy haggling over the price of a new water canteen.

"It's a pretty city," Rebecca said.

Spiritua nodded.

"I wonder how many statues there are?" Behind them, a marble statue of Undine stood in the middle of the fountain, water spraying pouring from her upraised hands. "We should count."

"All of them?" Remiel said, looking at her in surprise. "That would be quite a lot."

Spiritua couldn't bring herself to dislike Remiel. She was mad that he replaced Kratos, but he was so earnest and friendly she couldn't help but like him. She hoped he achieved his goal of becoming one of the Four Seraphim someday. She wasn't entirely sure what the Four Seraphim were, but they seemed to be the top ranking members of Cruxis. If so, it was pretty impressive that Kratos was one of them. She assumed that Yuan and Lord Yggdrasill were also members, but she had no idea who the fourth could be.

They were interrupted from their conversation by a pair of city guards, who wandered over and gave Remiel odd looks. "Good afternoon, sir," one of them said to Remiel. "That's a nice pair of wings you've got there."

"Oh, thank you," Remiel said. His feathery wings fluttered a bit.

"How the hell do they stay on?" the other guards said, cocking his head to the side.

The first guard asked, "Is it some Sylph thing?"

"Sylph?" Remiel said, aghast. "Heavens, no! I am a servant of Martel."

Spiritua could pinpoint the exact moment that the guards' curiosity turned to annoyance. "Is that so?" one of them asked. "You spend your time praying to some benevolent sky mommy who's never done a single thing to make herself known?"

Remiel crossed his arms indignantly. "Martel is going to save the world, just you wait. When the world gets regenerated, you won't have Origin to thank for it."

Antagonizing the guards was probably a bad idea, but Spirit was in no position to speak up and tell Remiel to back down. She hoped Rebecca would do so, but she seemed to go along with Remiel.

"Martel doesn't need to show off," Rebecca said. "She doesn't need to create big displays of elemental power to convince people to worship her."

"Oh, great," one guard said. "I didn't know we allowed religious nuts into the city. Especially not ones who glue bird wings to their backs to show their devotion to a fake goddess. How is that supposed to convince people your religion is rational?"

"These are not dead bird wings!" Remiel said, fluttering his wings in agitation. "They were a holy gift bestowed upon me by the goddess!"

"Uh-huh," the guard said. "Sure. How the hell did these nutters get past the gate? Let me see your papers."

Rebecca hesitated. "Our… papers?"

"Yeah," the guard said. "I want to know which guard it was the approved your entry to our city."

"Um…" Remiel and Rebecca exchanged nervous looks.

The guard raised his eyebrows. "You do have entry papers, correct?"

"Excuse me," Pierce said, striding toward them. Spirit felt a bit of relief as he came to sort out the problem. She trusted him to deal with this a lot more professionally than Remiel or Rebecca. "Is there are problem here?"

"Are these your companions?" the guard asked him, gesturing to the other three on the fountain.

Pierce nodded. "They are. What seems to be the problem?"

"Judging by your uniform, you're from Cleopolica, yeah?"

"Correct. I'm Captain Asgard of the City Militia. I believe I've been in correspondence with your commander in the past."

"We aren't trying to cause any trouble for you, Captain," the guard said. "Just a friendly religious debate. We were curious about the entry paper issue, though. Your companions seemed hesitant about the subject."

Pierce's confidence slipped slightly. "Entry papers. Ah. I see."

"I take it you are in possession of them for your party?"

Pierce didn't know what to say. Spirit could tell it was killing him to try and think of a way to lie to the guards. "I… yes…"

The other guard gave him a suspicious look. "May we see them?"

"They're not… on me… as such… um…"

The guards exchanged looks. "Let me guess. What you mean is that you do not, in fact, have papers allowing your entry to this city as foreigners."

Pierce's face fell. "…No."

Spirit was beginning to see why he had done so poorly at poker the other night.

"I see," the guard said. "Well, Captain, I'm going to need you and your companions to come with me. You're under arrest for illegal immigration."

"You can't do that!" Rebecca said, jumping to her feet.

Spirit looked around. There were other city guards in the area, watching them with curiosity. If they tried to fight back, they'd quickly be outnumbered.

"Calm down," Pierce said. "We'll get this sorted out."

"No, you don't understand," Remiel said, holding up his hands. "We're on an important mission for the sake of Martel!"

"Sure you are, bird-boy," the guard said. "Unless your sky mommy can conjure up some passports, you might want to reconsider that devotion."

Kratos soared over the ocean, trying to spot their boat. He had tried to estimate where they would be in their journey, and figured they should be somewhere off the coast of the peninsula. From this height, it shouldn't be too hard to see a ship on the vast expanse of flat water.

Noishe flew toward him. They'd split up over the ocean to cover more territory, and by Noishe's excited chirps, he'd found something. Kratos didn't see the boat anywhere, though. He paused, and hovered in the air. Noishe landed on his hand, and he said, "What is it, Noishe?"

Noishe ruffled his feather and flapped his wings. He had certainly found something.

"Show me."

Noishe took off toward the water, with Kratos in pursuit. Kratos scanned the water, wondering what Noishe had found. He spotted some driftwood or something, and wondered if that was what Noishe was so excited about. Wait a second… he looked closer, and with a jolt he realized that the shape in the water wasn't driftwood at all.

He descended upon Rowan and Shea, and hovered with his feet just above the water. They looked up at him with exhausted faces, and Shea was the first to speak.

"So what kind of time do you call this, then?"

"What happened?" he asked.

Rowan grumbled, "Todd tried to kill us."

Of course. He knew he had been right to head back to Sylvarant. "Hand me the rope," Kratos said. "I'll tow you to shore."

It took at least twenty minutes to reach the beach, and when they did, Rowan and Shea collapsed into the sand. Kratos fished around in his bag and pulled out a few Apple Gels. "Here," he said, passing them along.

They ate them gratefully, and they looked at least a bit healthier once the gels kicked in. Still, they made no movement to get up from the warm, dry sand for at least another fifteen minutes. As they rested, Kratos ran everything over in his head. Spirit and the others were probably with the boat farther ahead. Perhaps they'd already docked by now. They would probably have gone to Fidalia to spend the night. He glanced up at the sun. If they started walking now, they could probably reach the city by nightfall and find the others. There was probably nothing to worry about, but he just wasn't comfortable leaving the Chosens alone with Todd.

After a while, Shea felt rested enough to sit up and summon healing magic. She placed her hands on her own chest and then said, "Heal." Green light flashed around her, and she looked visibly more rested when he arms fell. She then did the same for Rowan.

"Are you both alright now?" Kratos asked.

Shea nodded. "Thanks to you. Why did you come back?"

"I heard that Todd was a sociopathic murderer. I was concerned."

"'Concerned,'" Shea said. "Well, at least you weren't losing sleep over the possibility of us being brutally murdered."

"Are you fit to walk to Fidalia?" Kratos asked, ignoring her comment.

"Yes," Shea said. She glanced at Rowan and said, "You're ok, right?"

He nodded, but didn't say anything and didn't meet Kratos' eyes.

"Then let's get going."

They headed up the beach and took off in the direction of Fidalia. As they started walking, Kratos said, "Shea, I have been meaning to ask you about healing magic. Is the ability to heal the same as the ability to cast other types of magic?" A long time ago, when someone in their group got injured, Martel had always jumped in to cast First Aid. Now that she was gone, Kratos was beginning to think that it might be useful to learn healing magic himself. At the very least, Yuan would be grateful when he inevitably shocked himself again.

"Not really," Shea said. "It's a different mentality, like… from what I've learned, when you're casting something like Fireball, you summon up the mana and try to make it powerful and deadly. Healing is the opposite; you have to think about it in a different way and focus on positive energy rather than destructive. If you can do one type of magic, you should also be able to do the other. It's just more difficult to switch between the different mind sets, so most people specialize in one or the other."

Kratos nodded. This made far more sense to him than Yuan's explanations about electricity. "I see," he said. "Thank you." It shouldn't be too difficult. He wasn't terribly comfortable with magic in general, so it wasn't like he was already dead-set in one mode of thinking. He made a mental note to practice magic once he got back to Welgaia.

They were almost ready to go. Lloyd's bag was all packed, and they were just waiting on Genis to find his missing socks. Lloyd wished Genis could accompany him and Colette to the Tower, but he understood that Genis and Raine had important work to do. Still, he'd miss his friend.

"Are you sure they were over here?" Raine asked as Genis crawled under the bed.

"Yes," he said.

"Just buy new socks," Zelos said, leaning against the wall by the door.

There was a knock on the door. More accurately, the door practically imploded from the sudden furious pounding on its other side. Zelos jumped at the sudden commotion, and Sheena opened the door.

She started to say, "Who-" when she was shoved aside by an angry blue-haired man forcing himself into the room, sword drawn.

In an instant, the group was armed. They'd gone through far too many near-death experiences to not be ready with their weapons and the merest suggestion of danger.

Kratos took the lead. "What are you doing?" he demanded of the man.

Lloyd recognized him as Decus, the companion of the half-elf from the night before.

"You monsters!" he shouted at them. "This is all your fault!"

"What is our fault?" Sheena asked, rubbing her elbow. She'd banged it on the wall when Decus shoved her aside.

"Alice has been arrested and it's all because of you! You'll pay for what you did!"

"Whoa, what?" Lloyd said, lowering his swords slightly. "Why was Alice arrested?"

"A group of police came to our hotel room and arrested her for starting the riot! It's all because of you!"

"Oh, no," Raine said, covering her mouth. "They just exchanged one-half scapegoat for another."

"Dammit!" Lloyd said. "We just can't win, can we?"

Kratos sighed. "You're going to insist we free this girl as well, aren't you?"

"Of course," Lloyd said. "Alice is totally innocent! We can't let her get locked for this."

Colette looked to Decus. "Please calm down, Mr. Decus. We don't want Alice to be in trouble, either. We'll help get her out."

Decus lowered his sword and the anger left his face a bit. "Really? You'll help me?"

Kratos rolled his eyes. "I suppose we won't be leaving today, after all."

The sun was already dipping below the horizon by the time they reached Fidalia. There weren't many people trying to get into the city at this time of day, so they only had to stand in line behind a couple farmers before reaching the gate themselves.

The guard at the gate looked them over and said, "Are you citizens of Fidalia?"

"We are not," Kratos said.

The guard sighed, obviously not keen on doing any actual paperwork at this time in the evening. But, Fidalia hadn't become a powerful city by slacking on security, so he pulled out a booklet. "Alright, names, place of residence, and reason for visiting, please."

"Kratos Aurion," he said. He hesitated when it came to place of residence. Welgaia was unheard of, and while Meltokio was his hometown, that would only garner more odd looks. So instead he said, "From Luin."

"I'm also from Luin," Rowan said. "Rowan Praetor."

"Shea Selket, from Cleopolica."

The guard raised his eyebrow. "Cleopolica? You look like you're from Triet."

Shea rolled her eyes. "People who are ethnically Trietan do not, in fact, burst into flames if we move to different cities."

The guard looked like he was going to say something, but then apparently decided that he wasn't paid enough to debate this so close to the end of his shift. "And what is your purpose for visiting the city?"

"We're here to visit friends," Kratos said. It was technically true.

"What's the point of asking?" Rowan said. "I mean, who are you trying to keep out?"

"Weirdoes and lunatics, mostly," the guard said, scribbling on his paper. "Well, they say we're keeping out Desians, but come on, it's not like I'm gonna ask someone what their purpose is here and they're going to say 'I'm a half-elf bent on undermining the stability of the city to allow a Desian takeover.'" He shook his head. "Pointless. I should have listened to my mom and become a florist."

"Uh…" Rowan said. "Sounds like you had a rough day."

"Well, it's just, there was this weirdo with feathers glued to his back or something and all the higher-ups are cracking down on the gate guards over who let him sneak in. It wasn't me, that's for sure, but even if it was, can you blame me? I've been on duty all day and it's just endless tourists day in and day out and nobody ever thinks that maybe I need a chair over here. And then today I've had my supervisor breathing down my neck and haven't even had a coffee break, do you know what I mean?"

"That's… that's rough, buddy," Rowan said.

Kratos, though, said, "Excuse me, what were you saying about a man with feathers glued on his back?"

The guard waved his hand dismissively. "I don't even know. I guess some guy at another gate must have let some weirdoes in without papers and one of them is going around claiming to be an angel of Martel or some crap. They were already arrested though, so I don't know what my supervisor wants me to do about it." He ripped three sheets of paper out of his book and handed them over. "Here you go. Enjoy your visit."

"Thank you," Kratos said.

As soon as they were through the gate and out of earshot, Shea said, "Our group just can't go anywhere without getting into trouble, can we?" She sighed. "I guess we had better head to the police station."

They followed the main road through town. As they walked, Kratos considered the fact that Rowan had barely said a word since he'd found them. It was eerie, like he had suddenly decided to take after his sister and never speak an unnecessary word.

The streets of Fidalia were lit with gas lamps, which cast a soft glow across the cobblestones. The police station was prominently location on Main Street, with more gas lamps illuminating the stone steps leading to the front door. Behind it was a larger building that dwarfed the one-story police office. A now-empty shop with boarded-up windows was nestled between the station and a temple to Efreet. The temple drew most attention on the street, because it was lit up like a firework. Burning torches lined the steps and a massive bowl of fire decorated the entrance.

They walked into the police station and Kratos approached the desk. "Excuse me," he said, "I was made aware that companions of ours have been arrested for illegal immigration. Is there anything I can do to ensure their prompt release?"

The woman behind the desk stared at him with mild irritation. "Oh. So you're with those Martel freaks, then? The two girls and two men?"

"That is correct." Two men? No mention of Todd, then. He must have not been with them at the time. The thought of Todd alone and free in the city did little to comfort him, though.

"Well, there's nothing you can do. Entering our city illegally is a serious crime here. They'll be transferred to prison in the morning for a one year sentence."

Kratos forced himself to keep his cool, but it was difficult. Yelling at the woman, however, would not help. "We are on an important religious pilgrimage," he said. "I'm sure my friends simply made a mistake. Perhaps if we were to pay an adequate amount of bail?"

"No, sir," she said. "We don't do that here."

"There has to be something-"

"There is nothing to be done," she said. "Your friends broke the law and now they have to pay for it. Thank you; have a nice evening."

This conversation was going nowhere. The difficult thing was that they had broken the law, so talking their way out of this would be difficult. "I see," he said. "Thank you."

They left the station, but as soon as they were outside, Rowan spoke up. "We're just leaving?"

They stood off to the side, at the entrance to the narrow alley between the station and the abandoned shop. "Yes," Kratos said. "It does not appear that there is a legal way to get them released, and attempting a break out would be dangerous and risky."

"We can't just leave them," Rowan said. "We don't have time to wait a year for them to be released. If a jailbreak is the only way, then-"

Kratos sighed in frustration. "Think, Rowan. Are you suggesting the three of us attempt to break four people out of jail and then make it out of the largest, most powerful city in the country without getting recaptured, and then likely faced with even harsher penalties?"

Rowan took a breath and opened his mouth, but then faltered. He frowned, and averted his eyes to the ground. "…You're right," he said. "That's probably stupid." He raised his head a bit and said, "So, what do you think we should do?"

Kratos was surprised and pleased at his attitude. "We need to find another-"

"Kratos?" He heard his name being called from further down the alley, and jerked his head around in surprise. Who the hell…?

The voice came again, saying, "Is that actually you?" Kratos saw a flash of movement, and saw a hand grasping the bars of a small window on the side of the station.

"Pierce?"

Rowan and Shea shared surprised expressions, and then followed Kratos down the alley. Through the bars in the window, Kratos could see Pierce and Remiel.

Pierce gaped at Rowan and Shea. "You're alive!"

"No thanks to Todd," Shea said.

"Todd?"

"He tried to kill us," Rowan said.

Pierce wrinkled his brow. "He what? Why?"

"He works for Cruxis," Rowan said. "And I – I, um, I tried to interfere with the journey. So, he stabbed me and threw me overboard."

"That son of a bitch," Pierce said angrily.

"More importantly," Kratos said, "we need to get you out of here." He was just talking to Pierce, because Remiel was lurking in the background and watching him with barely disguised fear. Kratos wondered what he could have possibly done to inspire such terror in Remiel, but pushed those thoughts aside for later. "Where are Spiritua and Rebecca?"

"On the other side of the building," Pierce said. "Do you have any suggestions for getting us out?"

"Hm…" Kratos eyed the building. He might be able to blast it open with a spell, but that could be risky and cause a structural collapse. Additionally, once he blasted open one wall, they'd have to make a quick getaway, leaving the other two on the other side of the building behind.

"Hey!" came a voice at the end of the alley. Kratos looked over, hoping it wasn't a police officer. Instead it was a priest, whose red robes indicated he was from the temple of Efreet. "What are you hooligans doing, lurking back here? Are you the thieves?"

Kratos stepped away from the window and said, "Thieves? I'm sorry, sir, you must have us mistaken for someone else. I don't know what you're talking about."

The priest's anger died down. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm just really frustrated. Someone has stolen our collection of fireworks that we were going to set off tomorrow night in honour of Efreet. I don't know how we're going to have our celebration without them."

"Do you have any idea who took them?" Shea asked.

The priest shook his head. "No. We only noticed they went missing half an hour ago, so I thought maybe it was you, since you're hanging around here. We're missing a canister of gasoline, as well. I just don't know who would have done this… Sorry for bothering you." The priest slumped his shoulders and walked away.

Missing fireworks and gasoline, huh? You could probably cause a pretty big explosion with enough of that. And where was Todd in all this? If he really was devoted to Cruxis, obviously he'd be intent on releasing Spirit and Rebecca. He would probably be far less concerned about structural collapse and rescuing all four of the companions from the jail. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"Todd?" Rowan asked.

Kratos nodded. "Possibly." He looked to Pierce and said, "You might be in trouble. I think Todd might be planning to cause an explosion to release Spiritua and Rebecca."

"I see," Pierce said. "And you say release those two, because Remiel and I will likely be killed in the explosion."

Kratos nodded again. "Probably."

"Well then," Pierce said, "I guess you had better go find a way to stop this explosion from happening." Behind him, Remiel had a panicked expression and didn't seem nearly as composed about their imminent explosion as Pierce did.

Kratos, Rowan, and Shea left the alley and stood on the street. "The fireworks were stolen over half an hour ago," Kratos said. "Whatever Todd is up to, it's going to happen soon. There's no reason for him to wait around." He scanned the street, and his eyes fell on the abandoned shop between the temple and the police station. An explosion launched from there would destroy that side of the police office, conveniently the opposite side to where the Chosens were. He'd bet anything Todd was in there.

"What should we do?" Rowan asked.

"We might not be able to stop him in time," Shea said. "We need to get people out of the surrounding buildings."

Kratos nodded. "Right. I'm going after Todd. Shea, evacuate the police station if you can. Rowan, tell the priests in the temple to evacuate as well."

They both nodded, and then took off in opposite directions. Kratos turned his attention on the boarded-up windows of the shop.

Shea ran up the steps and back into the police stations. The woman at the desk looked up in annoyance. "Oh," she said. "You're back. Look, you're not going to convince me to let your friends go."

"This isn't about that," Shea said. "Everyone here is in danger. You need to evacuate the building."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "We're in danger?"

"Yes," Shea said. "An explosion is likely going to go off and kill a lot of people."

"Are you threatening us?" she asked.

"What? No!"

"You're not even a Fidalian citizen, are you?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Let me see your entry paper."

With an exasperated growl, Shea reached into her pocket and pulled out the crumpled sheet of paper. "Here. See? I entered this city legally."

The woman looked at the paper, and then fumbled in drawer at her desk to find a pair of glasses. Shea tapped her foot impatiently as this was going on. Every second took them closer to a possible explosion.

She peered at the paper, searching for any sign of forgery. "It says you gave your place of residence as Cleopolica," she said. "And yet you are clearly Trietan."

"I know," Shea said. This was starting to get really annoying, and she could only imagine how much more annoyed she'd be if she actually had been born in Cleopolica. "I moved to Cleopolica later in life. But that's not important!"

"I'll decide for myself what's important, young lady," the woman said, peering at her over her glasses. "Your whole story is very fishy. You're Trietan, but Cleopolican, trying to help people who claim to be from the Church of Martel – and Triet isn't a Martelist city so I don't know why someone like you would be affiliated with their church. And now you think you can get us to let your friends go by giving us bomb threats!"

"I'm not threatening you!" Shea said. "I'm just warning you that someone else is! Why is this so hard to understand? You are in danger, but I'm not the one who's going to do it." At least not for now; if this woman kept up this act, Shea had no guarantee she wouldn't get slapped across the face.

"Don't use that tone with me, girl," the woman said. "Isn't this a mighty coincidence? You want to get your friends out, and now suddenly there's a bomb threat and we need to get everyone out?"

"Yes," Shea said. "I'm sorry, I know it sounds fishy, but I'm telling the truth. My friend went to try and stop the explosion, but just in case he fails, we need to get everyone out." They were running out of time. She had no idea when Todd's bomb was going to go off and she'd rather not be in the police station when it did. This stupid woman was wasting their time.

The door to the station opened and a man entered. "Evening," he said. He saw Shea's furious expression and said, "What's going on?"

"The whole building is in danger," Shea said. "But she won't listen to me!"

"In danger?" he asked. "From what?"

"There's going to be an explosion," Shea said. "At least, there will be if my friend doesn't diffuse it first. The station needs to be evacuated."

"She won't shut up about this," the woman said. "She's just trying to get us to release her friends."

"Hold on," the man said. "A bunch of priests from the temple were standing around outside."

"Yes!" Shea said. "My friend went to the temple to tell them to evacuate." She was relieved knowing that at least Rowan had gotten the priests out. "A bunch of fireworks were stolen earlier. They're going to be used to cause an explosion to release a couple girls you've arrested. Everyone on the opposite side of the building will probably be killed, though."

"Hm…" the man said. "Evacuating everyone is a bit of a risk… luckily we don't have too many prisoners at the moment… we could go to the library behind the building, though."

Shea's ears perked up at the mention of the library. She'd been so concerned about rescuing the others she hadn't even thought about the library since they'd arrived. She desperately needed a chance to look through it, though. It could be her only chance.

The man nodded. "Alright. We'll take the prisoners we have now and everyone in the building and evacuate to the library. It's a secure enough government building, so the risk of prisoners escaping will be minimal."

"Thank Origin," Shea said. She didn't know what she would have done if the woman remained so antagonistic.

Kratos paced through the dusty, empty shelves. The room was dark and still, but he tread softly and kept his ears peeled for any sign of Todd. Where would a stash of fireworks be hidden? He reached the counter. He was beginning to wonder if maybe he'd guessed wrong about the shop when he noticed a streak in the dust. Someone had been in here. He'd be willing to bet it had been Todd.

He looked around. The tall shelves lining the room made it impossible to get a good view. Todd could easily be hiding in another aisle. But, Kratos wasn't here for Todd. His priority was to find the fireworks before they exploded. Behind the counter was a door. He looked closely at the handle, and noticed no dust on the knob. Either it had for some reason repelled dust, or someone had recently opened it. With his sword in hand, he slowly opened the door.

It was dark behind the door – even darker than the main room, which at least had light from the streetlamps filtering through the dirty windows. He could tell there was a staircase right in front of him that led down into a basement. It wasn't all dark down there, though; a small flame flickered on the floor. Taking this is a sign of activity, he walked down the stairs with all senses on high alert. He was ready for Todd to jump out from anywhere, but it seemed the boy was smart enough not to try. Todd seemed the type to prefer fighting in backhanded, sneaky ways, and would be easily overcome in a physical confrontation.

The basement was smaller than the room above, and shifted slightly to the left, so that the far edge of it was below the alley. Stacked up against the wall was a pile of fireworks, and in the dim light, a liquid glinted on the floor. He followed the trail of liquid with his eyes until he found the flame, which was from a flicking match sticking out of a match book. The little flame travelled slowly down the wooden stick, but from the smell in the room it wasn't hard to figure out that the liquid was gasoline. As soon as that little flame hit the match book, it would set the gasoline trail on fire and the bundle of fireworks would ignite not long after that. He had less than a minute to act.

Bang!

He almost jumped at the sudden sound, but it wasn't an impromptu explosion – it was the door slamming shut. Kratos didn't have to think too hard to come to the conclusion that Todd had indeed been lurking in the shop.

Damn, damn, damn. It only took him a split second to analyze the situation. The flame would reach the matchbook before he could reach the match. Todd would surely have locked the door out of the basement, and he didn't have time to bust it down before the whole room exploded. He was about to be in the middle of a very nasty explosion.

He started summoning magic. Maybe he could use water magic to put out the flame before it reached the fireworks. Blue light shot up around his feet, casting flickering shadows on the ominous pile of explosives.

He was just about ready to cast when the matchbook burst into flame. The trail of gasoline lit up immediately after. Fire raced along the floor, and Kratos yelled, "Aqua Edge!"

The bolt of water struck the gasoline trail, but rather than extinguishing the flame, it only succeeded in splattering fiery gasoline across the room. Kratos took a second to curse Origin-damned Todd for this whole debacle, and then the fire hit the large pool under the fireworks.

The room exploded into deafening sound, blinding light, and raging heat.