Ch 11

Kratos sat in a chair beside the bed where Lloyd lay feverish. His head hung down where his face remained hidden and Zelos stood beside him, gazing vacantly down at his 'father'. Raine stood over the bed where Seles murmured in her sleep and sighed, shaking her head.

"I don't know what to do. This is a poison I've never seen before. I have no idea what to do to cure it." she finally admitted. Colette cried and hid her face in her hands.

"It's not fair! Why is this happening?" she wailed.

"Both of my sons... gone..." Kratos suddenly whispered in a dead tone. The group looked at him in concern. Raine hurried around the makeshift beds and placed her hand on his forehead. "One to poison from that murderess, the other to a damnable transformation I helped to bring into creation... will pain for me never end?"

"He's burning with fever, that fall into the ocean must have revived an old illness." Raine remarked seriously and turned to Regal, "Get him into bed, quickly. Genis, get some herbs from Zelos's cabinets. Eucalyptus and willow bark. Cook them into a stew and bring it here." she ordered quickly. Presea watched as the boy blushed at her and then ran off, then walked up to Raine with the ore still in her hands.

"What are we to do with this?" she asked. Lloyd stirred and opened his eyes, watching as Regal struggled to lift Kratos from his chair and put him in another bed.

"What's going on?" he asked, sitting up and wincing in pain. Sheena blinked at him.

"You're awake? You need to rest, Lloyd! You've been poisoned!" she exclaimed. Lloyd looked around, then spotted Zelos staring at him with the cold eyes. His expression was heartbroken.

"It finally happened. Zelos..." he murmured in a trembling voice. Presea walked up to him and held out the ore.

"We have the inhibitor ore. Are you well enough to carve the Key Crest charm into it for now?" she asked. Lloyd winced in pain, then looked over at his father, who lay in a third makeshift bed with an agonized expression on his face.

"Yeah, my tools are in a pack in my room. Check my bedside drawers. They should be there." he answered softly and coughed hard. "Ack, what kind of poison did that crazy angel use on me?" he added in irritation. Sheena shook her head.

"I don't know. But it was golden colored and liquid. Zelos seemed to recognize it, but now we can't ask him about it." she answered as Presea dashed out of the room for the tools and Genis walked in with a bowl of stew.

"So what do we do now?" he asked. Regal helped Kratos sit up and changed the bandage on his head as the seraphim accepted the bowl half-heartedly.

"First, we have to get the makeshift Key Crest done for Zelos and quickly. If Sheena is correct, the only hope we have of making an antidote to that poison is in Zelos's knowledge of herbal concoctions." Raine replied calmly, "Then we must get him to Altessa to process the ore and create a more reliable crest. After that, it's a matter of finding out where Sérno and Nadilene are hiding and stopping them from whatever scheme they are planning before either of them discover that Zelos is now a suitable vessel." Presea scurried in and handed the small black pack she found to Lloyd.

"P-P-Presea! It's good to see you again!" Genis stammered bashfully as he finally had the chance to greet the child-like axe user. She nodded her acknowledgment and watched Lloyd focus on the chunk of ore in his hands, the tiny chisel held tightly in his grasp as he carved into it.

"Bryant... man the wheel..." Kratos managed to gasp out between coughs. Raine looked at him worriedly as she tended to Seles, who began crying out in her sleep for her brother. "Get... to... Ozette Ruins... Run the ship... until..."

"Dad, rest. Don't waste your energy." Lloyd murmured softly as sweat began to form on his forehead. "Almost done. How's Seles?" he went on in short bursts, breath turning shallow.

"I'm more concerned with you, Lloyd. You drank twice as much as she did in poison." Raine answered, rubbing Genis's head as he looked disappointed in Presea's lack of attention towards him. "You may be dying faster than she is, since you took the dose that was meant for Kratos." Lloyd nodded and held out the ore chunk.

"Done. Attach it... to his... bracelet." he whispered and collapsed back into bed during his friends' cries of shock. Sheena quickly scooped up the crude Key Crest and hooked it into the Ex Gem bracelet the redhead wore on one arm. Anxiously, the group watched to see if anything would happen. Kratos watched with them, murmuring a prayer under his breath.

"Zelos, if you can hear me, please help us." Raine spoke at last, hoping words would bring his soul from its cage, "Lloyd and Seles are dying of poison. I can't identify it so I can't cure it. Kratos is very ill. He needs a medicine that will rid him of this illness quickly, before Nadilene comes for you. Will you help us?"

Zelos remained frozen where he stood, wings gently fluttering behind him. For a moment, it seemed he remained beyond their words' reach. Then his face seemed to furrow in concentration, his wings trembling more noticeably. Kratos looked hopeful, hand reaching for the redhead.

"Zelos...!" he called out. Zelos's mouth moved silently, then a faint voice trembled from it.

"P-protect... Lloyd... Father... Seles..." he whispered, then suddenly flew back, sending the people standing behind him scattering around the room. Raine hurried after him as the fledgling angel rushed out of the room to his own, wings beating quickly to speed him along. The others followed as fast as they could, Regal staying behind to make sure Kratos didn't climb out of bed.

The half-elven woman reached Zelos's room first and entered to find him hovering before the bookcase of romances, his fingers resting lightly on one of the titles. From the blank expression on his face, Raine could see that he had only briefly returned to reality, sealed away within his body again. She ignored the quiet stares of the others standing behind her as she walked up and pulled the book down, studying the cover.

It appeared to be another romance, titled 'Healing Hearts' or something to that effect, and had a beautiful burned engraving of a richly dressed nobleman kneeling before a glamorous princess with a bouquet of flowers in one hand as an offering. Wrinkling her nose at it, Raine glared up at Zelos, wondering why in Martel's name he had chosen this stupid thing when something on the book drew her attention. The bouquet.

"Those are medicinal herbs." she realized softly, eyes widening, "Why would this man give medicinal herbs as an offering to this woman?" On impulse, she opened the book and flipped through the pages, eyes growing wider with shock.

"Raine? What are you doing? That's one of Zelos's perverted books!" Sheena declared in surprise, "Don't read that trash!"

"It's not a playboy's novel! It's medical text!" Raine exclaimed, "It's disguised as a romance! Marvelous! Additional notes on Boltzman's healing arts... has Tethe'alla uncovered more information in its research?"

"Oh joy. Ruin-mode." Genis muttered under his breath.

"Quiet!" Raine snapped, eyes never moving away from the pages, "This is fantastic! Ah, what is it I'm looking for?" She froze as Zelos's hand moved over the pages and turned it to a specific chapter, then pulled away. "Um... thank you. This is it." she murmured, "The poison Nadilene is using is the extract from Liflower petals blended with the poultice from belladonna. Liflowers grow in the lowest levels of various caves found around the world and were more plentiful during the Ancient Kharlan War."

"So the poison Lloyd and Seles have is made from Liflower? What's the antidote?" Colette asked hopefully. Raine turned the page and read on.

"Liflower is its own counteragent, but it must be prepared carefully and mixed with other herbs. The list and preparation instructions are here, but does Zelos have Liflower at all?" she wondered aloud. Looking over at Zelos, she spoke louder. "Zelos, Lloyd will die first. Where can we get Liflower quickly?" she asked in a commanding voice. The angel remained motionless for a moment, then slowly raised his hand to point at another romance in the top shelf. Raine lifted herself on her toes and grabbed it, bringing it down quickly to look at the title.

"The Rose of Life. That's what Liflower is called in the textbook. This must be it." she remarked and opened the book. Instead of pages, there was a hollow case with a single bottle filled with golden-yellow petals inside. She pulled it out and looked amazed. "There's so much to Zelos we never knew! Where did he get all of these texts? Why are they disguised as playboy novels? How did he get petals from a flower that is incredibly rare to find? Why hide that and how did he know about the poisons and potions that can be made?" she exclaimed in wonder.

"Raine! The medicine! What about Kratos?" Genis yelled. Zelos reacted almost immediately, hand aimed for the piece of parchment pinned to the wall beside the medical cabinet. Genis dashed over, jumped and snatched the paper down. "Zelos's Ultimate Kill the Cold and Flu Stew? That sounds like Zelos's work all right. Hey, Raine, check out the ingredients! He carpet bombs colds with this stuff!" he cried, "It's a miracle he didn't wind up killing off Kratos and Lloyd the first time around!" A slap came down on his head and he yelped in pain, rubbing at the sore spot as he looked up. Zelos glared down at him, the icy eyes making him seem all the more sinister to the little half-elf. "I'll work on it." he said quickly and hurried to the cabinet with his sister as they began to pull out ingredients.

"Zelos, come here. Go to Lloyd and Kratos and wait there." Sheena called out and led the group out of the way, "Raine and Genis will take care of the poison and the illness. We have to get this ship to Ozette Ruins as fast as we can! Man the decks!" Zelos followed them, then diverted and headed for the room where his family lay helpless.

Lloyd's breathing was labored, Seles tossed and turned in her sleep, and Kratos stared hopelessly at the ceiling, glancing aside to watch Zelos enter the room and hover silently before the three beds, then returning his gaze to nothing at all. After a moment, Zelos's mouth moved again, whispering a word so softly, not even the Cruxis seraphim heard it.

"...Protect..."

Nadilene winced as she healed her wounds from the battle, mind racing as she thought back on the Judgment attack that had hit her. That particular spell for any Chosen wasn't supposed to have been gifted until they had lost their souls. So why did this idiot redhead have it so early? What more was to come once his soul was sealed away?

"Husband, he is not what he seems. I can't explain it, but there's something more, something else, there." she reported. Sérno nodded, fingers twitching over his keypad. The floor nearby split cleanly and slid aside, allowing a model of the Mana Cannon to rise from below alongside the mana transfer chamber that stood ready and waiting for use.

"It matters not. The darkness is there and waiting for us to use it. Rest yourself, dear wife, then return to the world and bring my new vessel here. Soon, we shall have control of this world and we will rule the inferior beings that walk the earth." his thoughts spoke into her mind. She nodded and scowled at the world on the projection screen.

"Someone is interfering with the transformation process. Who is it?" she hissed under her breath.

With Genis taking precedence in the kitchen to prepare the stew for Kratos, Raine used the apothecary table in Zelos's room to make the antidote for the poison Nadilene had used. Carefully studying the book where it rested on the table, she added the various herbs and extracts one by one.

"This should counter the fevers, and this for the breathing difficulties." she murmured to herself as she poured ingredients into the small bowl she found in the cabinet drawers. "I almost have it." she went on and closed her eyes, praying she was making it right. It would have been much easier if Zelos was normal, he probably had more experience than she did in making potions and cures from raw materials like this.

Regal sighed as he continued to hold the wheel steady. Presea peered through the telescope she found in Lloyd's room and scanned the horizon for land. Sheena sat in a huddled form against a barrel of water as Colette gazed out in the same direction Presea was looking.

"It looks like we'll be there in another few hours. I can see the Ozette Ruins from here. NeOzette was only a few days travel from it in the Gaoracchi Forest." she remarked and smiled as cheerfully as she could. "We'll have Zelos back to normal in no time!"

"I wish there was more I could have done to help him." Sheena murmured softly. She sighed and turned her cards over in her hands. "I feel like... I didn't put enough effort into helping him. And... that I probably missed out on something wonderful by keeping my anger and hatred towards him in my heart." Sheena stood up and squared her shoulders, heading for the stairs to find the silent angel. "Then I'll start making things right! I'm going to tell him that I forgive him for betraying us long ago at the Tower of Salvation!" she declared to herself and marched on.

Down below was fairly quiet, and the ninja could see Genis walking towards the sick room with a bowl of stew in one hand. He looked up at her and grinned.

"Hey, there. You're just in time to witness if this soup actually does what Zelos claims it does. And you can help me bury Kratos if it doesn't." he joked. Sheena grinned slightly and followed along. The room was well lit with plenty of lanterns and Zelos remained where he was, turning his gaze on them as they entered.

"I'm gonna give this to Kratos, okay?" Genis told the angel cautiously and sighed in relief when the empty eyes turned back to watching Lloyd lying asleep in bed. Sheena sighed and walked up to him, ready to speak when Raine entered the room with the book in one hand.

"We have a problem." she stated and went on when all eyes turned to her. "The antidote to the Liflower poison is almost done but we're missing one last ingredient. 'The blood of a pure maiden, willingly given.' That should be all that is needed to complete the potion."

"Well, where do we get that? Sheena? Colette?" Genis asked. Raine shrugged and looked at the text again.

"It says that the term 'maiden' is used loosely. Basically, anyone with a pure heart and body could give the blood for this. However, they must willingly open the wound to deliver it. And I'm not letting Genis even try it."

"As if I wanted to to begin with." the smaller half-elf answered under his breath.

"I have a pain issue..." Sheena muttered with a blush, "And did you have to bring up qualifications again?" Zelos stepped forward and walked out of the room. "Hey, where's he going?" They dashed out of the room and followed the redhead as he floated to his room and the table where the pot sat waiting. "Zelos, don't mess with that! Everybody knows that you're anything but pure!" Sheena snapped as he lifted one of the small scalpels from the table and sliced swiftly across his arm.

"Ah! He's gonna mess it up!" Genis wailed as the redhead held his arm over the pot and let it drip crimson into the mixture. Raine rushed up to peer into it, then studied her book again.

"It's working? The potion is turning the proper color as indicated by the medical text." the half-elven woman remarked in surprise and blinked at the angel that brought his arm back to bandage silently. "That means Zelos is, in the book's terms, a 'pure maiden'."

"But he's a philanderer!" Sheena yelled in exasperation, "How the heck can he be pure if he's the 'man about town' like Regal says?" Raine shrugged and took the antidote back to the sick room.

Kratos had buried himself under the blankets, sleeping soundly as the curative properties of the stew took effect. Seles woke slowly at Genis's prodding and blinked sleepily at him. She smiled as Raine woke Lloyd and gave him a cup of the potion, Zelos fluttering his wings gently as he stood nearby and watched vacantly.

"Oh hello. Aren't you a cutie?" she murmured and ruffled his hair affectionately. Genis turned a bright shade of pink and scurried back quickly. Raine handed her the second cup and waited, watching carefully. "Oh, juice for me? Thank you." Seles whispered and drank it down. Her eyes opened wide, as did Lloyd's, and color flooded into their cheeks. "Whaaaaa!"

The group jumps collectively as the two formerly ill companions smiled and laughed brightly. Raine blinked and studied them both intently, then leaned back with a smile.

"It worked! Hahahaha! I've done it! I've created the antidote to the Liflower poison!" she laughed. Kratos grumbled under his breath and blinked irritably out at the group.

"Can't I get a break around here?" he muttered as he sat up and rubbed at his eyes. Lloyd climbed out of bed and jumped across the room on Seles's bed, then his father's just to leap into his arms for a hug.

"Dad! We're all fine now!" he laughed. Zelos made a sudden sound, lifting his arms slightly as if he'd been stunned. Seles looked around and then stared at her brother.

"Big Brother! What's going on?" she exclaimed. The redhead shut his eyes and lifted his hands to his head, clutching it tightly. "Where am I? What's happening to you?" she went on in a wavering voice.

"Well, whaddya know? It worked! That definitely means that Zelos was pure!" Genis cried in laughter, "Ha ha! All that bragging was just fake!"

"Then everything I hated was never there?" Sheena murmured in quiet shock, "How could this happen? He was supposed to be a pervert, nothing good for the world. And everything I thought I knew about him was a lie? Did I fail to be aware of things again?" Cautiously approaching the pained angel, she tried to speak to him, hoping her words could reach him through the crude Key Crest embedded in his bracelet. "Zelos, if you can hear me, then please forgive my hatred. I didn't mean all the horrible things I've done and said. I forgive you for playing the traitor in the Tower of Salvation; you did it to give us all a better chance at defeating Mithos." she pleaded, "Please forgive me for being so blinded by anger and hate that I never saw who you really are."

The crest on the bracelet flashed suddenly and Zelos shook his head fiercely. He blinked in surprise, then stared at Sheena, his eyes once more the emerald color they were so used to seeing.

"Really? You really forgive me for what I did back then?" he asked and yelped when she threw her arms around his neck in a hug.

"Well, duh, you idiot! Welcome back to us, too! You're all right again!" she exclaimed as the others in the room cheered joyfully. Lloyd waved his hand in the air, happy tears running down his cheeks as Kratos hid his face in the boy's hair, still unwilling to let his emotions show that much. Seles jumped out of bed and dashed up to pull on the pink ribbon tied around Sheena's waist.

"Let go of him, you evil witch! Let go of my big brother! I won't let you seduce him into doing anything nasty!" she declared. Zelos grinned and rubbed her head affectionately, stopping the girl from doing any harm.

"Okay, Seles. That's enough." he told her and looked over at Lloyd, "Hey, Bro. Thanks for the replacement Key Crest. You didn't really have to, but thanks anyway. Is everyone okay? Did the antidote work?"

"Everyone is perfectly fine." Raine answered with a smile, "The final ingredient, though surprising with its source, was poetically perfect." Zelos turned a bright shade of red and then waved it off.

"Ah well, that book is so old, it probably didn't translate right. It probably wanted the blood of the sexiest man alive to work." he stammered quickly, "And everyone knows how much more gorgeous I am compared to Daddy-kins over there... Ow!" The empty bowl crashed against his head and landed with a second on the floor. Kratos grinned almost evilly over Lloyd's head, faint tear stains on his own face.

"I told you I'd get you back when you were normal." he reminded him, "Now, we sail to Ozette Ruins!" Zelos rubbed his head, then smiled and held out a thumb's-up.

"Yeah! To fix my crest permanently and stop Nadilene!" he declared, still worried over what she had meant by his 'all-consuming darkness'.

Trapped here inside,
The darkness within,
Is the rising power
Of sorrows and sin.

A poisonous strength
Flows through my veins,
Yet I feel so sacred
For someone so stained...