Greetings to my fans!

I am so very sorry for making you wait so long, I have had absolutely no time to do anything, what with the worst possible combination of writer's block, massive school projects, and the flu. Once again, I apologize.

Me: I want to get this over with quickly, so just do the disclaimer fast, Yuan.

Yuan: I have no choice, do I?

Me: (Grinning) Absolutely not.

Yuan: Crap. Zoray Zorial owns nothing of ToS and makes no profit whatsoever on this fanfic.

Me: Thank you for your cooperation.

Yuan: (grumbles) Yeah yeah, stupid author powers…

Last note – Yuan is pretty OOC (in my opinion) but hey…he's so much funnier like that!


TWO WORLDS ONE SOUL

ChapterIV – The Great Lloyd Hunt Begins!

Symphonia

Colette rose bright and early to begin the hunt for the lost friends. Because, however, she didn't have to sleep, it was three o'clock in the morning when her cheerful cry rang through the house.

"Come on everyone! Up and at 'em! We gotta go look for Lloyd!"

As the company slowly staggered into the room, Colette got even more excited.

"Wow, you guys were up all night too?" she asked wonderingly.

"How could we sleep when you were talking in your sleep so loudly?" complained a very grumpy Sheena.

"I talk in my sleep? Neat! What was I saying?" she said.

"Oh Lloyd! Lloyd! Where are you? Why have you left me? Lloyd! Oh please, Lloyd, come back to me!" said Zelos in a surprisingly good imitation of Colette's voice.

Colette stood stock-still, heartily wishing she could slip between the cracks in the floor. Her face flaming red, she tried to stammer out a response.

"Umm…uh, you see, I …Ummm" she was saved when Presea entered, dragging an entire tree behind her.

"Did I miss something?" she asked.

"NO! Um, nothing at all…" Colette said, rather quickly.

"It's kinda suspicious when she denies it so loudly…" said Zelos with an evil grin on his face. Sheena smacked him.

Regal cleared his throat. "Why don't we just begin our journey to Mizuho now? By the time we get there, it will be light enough."

"Good point" said Sheena, "I'll just go now and let them know what we're looking for."

"Wouldn't it be rude to drop in on them at three AM?" asked Colette.

"Isn't it rude to wake us up at three AM?" grumbled Zelos under his breath.

"Nah, shinobi come into the village at all hours to report information, and besides, even the regular villagers are up unreasonably early to begin with,"

"Ah, Alright. See you soon." Said Presea.

Sheena disappeared in a puff of ninja-smoke.

"Shall I prepare breakfast?" asked Regal.

"Sure thing, dude. I'm starving!" said Zelos.

-- A Short Time Later --

The gang sat around at the table enjoying Regal's shortcake and discussing possibilities of their companion's disappearance.

"Well, we've already ruled out kidnapping," said Colette, as cheerful as ever.

"As well as a sudden, involuntary field-trip," said Presea.

"Perhaps they went on some sort of adventure without us?" suggested Regal.

"Pretty unlikely, but we can't say for sure until we talk to Tiga." Said Zelos.

"Speaking of that, shouldn't we be going?" asked Colette.

"Yeah, Lets go." Said Zelos "To the Rheairds!"

They boarded the jet-bikes and took off for Mizuho.

"Let the Great Lloyd Hunt begin!" yelled Colette happily.

"The great Lloyd hunt? Aren't Kratos, Genis, and the Professor missing too? Or don't they count?" asked Zelos as they rose into the sky.

"Umm…Of course they do…I just…ummm," mumbled Colette.

"Give it a rest already, Zelos," said Regal, annoyed at the Chosen's constant teasing.

"Ok, ok, fine!" said Zelos.

Mizuho, ten minutes later

The group descended and landed in the center of the town. Regal had to loop his shackles around Zelos' neck to keep him away from the girls in town and focused on their mission.

Sheena emerged from the Chief's home. "I've got good news and bad news." She said. "Come on inside."

The group entered the house through the secret spinning wall, just because they could. (A/N: I always do this : )

When they were seated, Sheena began.

"Alright, here's what I know. The good news is we know for sure that they have not been kidnapped or killed. None of the bandit groups of thief gangs we know of have even been remotely near Iselia lately."

"And the bad news is…" said Presea.

"We can't find them anywhere. Not a trace of them. It's like they disappeared off the face of the earth." Said Sheena glumly.

"Wait a minute! Don't you have guardian tracers on all of us just in case this sort of thing happens?" asked Colette anxiously.

"We do, but the signal isn't strong enough to detect, wherever it's coming from."

"I may have a solution to that." Said a new voice. They all jumped in surprise as they whirled to face…


(This is for you, Sichugirl)

Earth

Kratos woke first. He stumbled into the kitchen to find something to eat. On the table was a loaf of bread, a container of butter, and instructions on how to use the toaster.

"Might as well…" He grumbled sleepily. He followed the directions, then sat down and waited.

Ten minutes later, Kratos' toast had yet to rise from the toaster. "Perhaps it just needs a little longer. I can wait." And so he did.

Fifteen minutes later, as Aaron was just walking into the room, Kratos finally snapped. "WHERE IS MY TOAST, YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF METAL!" he raged, grasping the toaster and shaking it violently until the toaster mechanism sprung, sending the toast into Kratos' face.

"YAAAAH! HELL PYRE!" He jumped up and blasted toast and toaster alike with a fireball.

Aaron yelped and ran to put out his smoldering tablecloth as Kratos snatched up the lump of charcoal that had been his bread.

"At last." He said, sitting down and munching on the blackened crust, "My toast is done."

Aaron sighed. This was going to be a long day, he could tell already. He looked over at the toasted toaster.

"Well, here's your problem," he said, plugging it in.


I apologize for that little bit of randomness, just a little insight on some of the problems that occur when the symphonians try to adjust to life on earth. More to follow.


Symphonia

…Botta.

The company stared at him with varying degrees of surprise, from Presea's raised eyebrow to Colette's shout of near-terror.

"Hey, aren't you dead?" said Zelos.

"Umm, no, not really." Said a confused Botta.

"But you were locked in that dome in Rodyle's base and it was flooding and…HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?" shouted Colette, getting more and more frantic with each syllable.

She finally couldn't hold herself back. She ran over and engulfed the Renegade in a giant hug. "Oh I was so sad when I thought you died, it was so noble…" she said into his shoulder (A/N: no this will NOT turn into Colette/Botta, thank you very much.)

"Oh, it was soooooo noble…" mocked Zelos in a singsong voice. Smack.

"If you will please get off of me," said a flustered Botta, "I can offer a solution to your problem. Or a partial one, at least."

"Really? And how will you do that?" asked a skeptical Sheena.

"Come with me to the Renegade Base, and I'll show you." He said.

And with that, they took off to what might be their only hope of ever finding their friends.


Earth

Later that morning, Kyle was showing Lloyd and Genis Tales Of Symphonia. They loaded the game disc and started it up, but immediately noticed something was wrong.

"Hey! Where are we?" said Genis. The little half-elf's words were true. Lloyd, Genis, Kratos, and Raine were missing from the game.

"Hmm, now that's odd… Hey! Aaron! Come see this!" Kyle yelled up the stairs.

Aaron poked his head around the corner. He appeared to be struggling with something.

"Kinda busy right now, can I come later?" he said, grunting with the exertion of his burden, whatever it was.

"It's important. Get over here!" said Lloyd. "And what the heck are you doing, anyways?"

"Raine," he said, "Is obsessing over myiPodand will undoubtedly dissect it if I let her go."

"Oh." Said Lloyd, privately wondering what an "iPod" was. And so, with some assistance from Kratos, who had recovered from his encounter from "The Toaster From Hell", dragged Raine into the den to see what was so important.

"Hey! Where did these guys go?" he exclaimed, indicating the people around him.

"They probably disappeared from the game when they came here, and-" Kyle stopped and stared at the TV "Now this is interesting…" they gathered around the screen as a scene definitely not originally programmed into the game unfolded…


Symphonia, the Renegade Base

The companions and Botta landed and entered the base. As they walked to the control room, Colette spoke up, curiosity overwhelming her.

"Botta…How come you aren't dead?" she asked.

"Yuan teleported me out at the last possible second." He said.

"But he told us you were dead!" exclaimed Sheena.

"I'm sure he had his reasons." Said Botta. "At any rate, you could ask him yourself now." They came to the Control Room door, andBotta walked right into it.

"Ow! What's going on? That's supposed to open automatically!"

"Perhaps the door is locked?" said Presea.

"Right. Passcode." Said Botta. He took a little metal plate from his pocket and slipped it into a slot in the wall.

"PASSCODE?" said a computerized voice that sounded vaguely familiar.

"Oh, stop playing games, Yuan. You know it's me." Said Botta

"YOU COULD BE ANYONE. SAY THE PASSCODE."

"Fine." He cleared his throat, "Yuan is the most powerful, handsome and the all-around coolest dude on the planet."

The companions all sweatdropped.

Botta glanced back at the companions. "Sorry you had to hear that." He whispered.

"I HEARD THAT." Said Yuan.

The door slid open.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Earth

'Botta was right…I definitely didn't need to hear that." Said Aaron and Kyle together.

"Can't argue with that." Said Raine.

"I think he's gone senile in his old age." Said Kratos, slightly smiling.

There was dead silence in the room.

"Did Kratos do what I think he just did?" asked Genis incredulously.

"Yep. I think Kratos just told a joke." Said Kyle.

"Kratos? Joke? In the same sentence? AAAAUGH! IT'S A SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE!" yelled Lloyd.

Kratos just chuckled and gently cuffed his son.

"Speaking of the apocalypse," said Kyle, "When are your parents coming home? It could be trouble if they saw all of them here."

"Well," said Aaron, looking at the Symphonians, "You guys picked the best possible time to get sucked into our dimension. This happens to be the first week of summer break, so I won't have to go to school for another three months and--"

Lloyd's eyes bugged out, "No school for three months? Why can't we have that back home?"

Raine sighed and smacked him.

"Now, we don't necessarily have those three months completely free. We have big summer projects for most of our classes to do over the summer." Said Kyle.

Lloyd's eyes fell. "Oh." He said simply.

"And also," said Aaron, picking up where he left off, "My parents are off on a transatlantic cruise and won't be back for a week and a half."

"What's a transatlantic cruise?" asked Raine, intrigued.

"A very long journey on a giant boat across one of the planet's major oceans." Said Kyle. Raine blanched at the thought of it. "And people do this willingly?" she said, both horrified and fascinated.

"Yeah, tomost people, it's a great vacation!" said Kyle

"At any rate, if you guys are going to be here for any length of time, you are going to have to get some normal Earth clothes on." Said Aaron.

"Why? I like these clothes. There's nothing wrong with them." Said Kratos.

"You like them so much, you never change them the entire game." Said Aaron. At Kratos' death glare, he continued. "Anyways, those clothes are definitely not what we wear here. As you can see," he said, indicating himself and Kyle, "You would stick out like a sore thumb."

"Not to mention the fact that you would suffer one of the most horrible experiences on the planet." Said Kyle ominously.

"Oh no, don't tell me that there's even worse discrimination against Half-Elves here than in Sylvarant and Tethe'alla!" exclaimed Raine.

"Oh, no. even worse." Said Kyle.

"And what might that be?" said Genis fearfully.

Aaron and Kyle looked at each other, then said with one voice the most dreaded word to all videogame and anime characters alike.

"Fangirls."


Oh no, not fangirls! Ah, but of course! The next chapter, there will be madness as they show themselves to the outside world! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Yuan: (Sweatdrops) this is going to be bad. And when this is done, I'm going to kill you for the humiliation you've put me through.

Zoray: You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Yuan: Gulp!

Zoray: Please read and review, I promise to get the next chapter done quicker! So help me or Yuan will slash me to death with that evil two-bladed thingie of his!

Yuan: For the last time, it's not a—

Zoray: You realize that nothing you say will change anything, right?

Yuan: Harrumph.