Me: Will the non-reviewers be named and shamed? It all depends on if they review while I'm writing this chapter…

Kira: Why don't you just private message them?

Me: That is a possibility, but I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and give them a chance.

Kira: Yeah, nice to everyone but her own muse, that's you.

Me: Fine, I'll give you a ToS character doll for every disclaimer.

Kira: (starts jumping up and down, cartwheels etc.) Yay! I'd do it!

Me: Which one do you want this time?

Kira: Kratos! Mez10000 does not own Tales of Symphonia or Namco. If she did 'Nia' would appear in Tales games, Baten Kaitos and Soul Calibur. OMG! It would be a Nia epidemic! And I'm really hyper 'cause Yuan appears in this chapter. Yay, Yuan!

At first I was afraid that the group would shun Stephen and I, and there wouldn't be any chance of gaining back their trust. However, now I was scared that we wouldn't be able to meet Kratos. The group were watching us closely. We had absolutely no chance of leaving without escaping and completely ruining any trust we could have.

'How are we going to meet Kratos?' I was afraid to speak aloud, as the only time a member of the group didn't have their eyes on me, was when they were on Stephen.

'What do I look like? A genius? How am I supposed to know?'

'Fine, just wondering if you had any idea whatsoever.'

'We could just leave. I can change into a mouse, who'd see me in the dark?'

'But we'd have no way of them trusting us until the whole Altessa scene. You know, "Lloyd, I am your father!" and then there's the "Nooooo!"'

'It didn't go like that! It was more, Yuan saying 'Right, Kratos, release the seal or your son gets it!'

'And what does this have to do with anything? You're supposed to be thinking of ways to get them to trust you that can be done in this one day!' Cyclone interjected.

'Maybe we can save their hides at Mount Fooji?' Izarax suggested.

'But they don't need saving. They'll survive.' I hate finding flaws in otherwise brilliant plans.

'I know that, and you know that, but they don't know that.'

I sighed. 'Fine. I'm not exactly happy with this, but it's the best possible way.'

'So now all we need to do is wait until we get to the mountain.'

I could see the mountain range, not too far into the distance. I turned to face the wind. Instantly five pairs of eyes looked in my direction, reminding me that I was trapped.

'All we need to do is get to the mountain, right? Sure we don't need to end world hunger or something equally impossible?'

Sometime later we had hiked up the mountain in almost complete silence. Zelos had called everyone round to see his 'secret weapon'.

(A/N The wing pack for the Rheairds, in case you'd forgotten)

I was so nervous. What if this raised some awkward questions? What if it changed what was supposed to happen?

'Okay, plan time. When they get trapped, what are we going to do?' I asked.

'I thought you came up with the plan!'

'This was not my idea! Anyway, I suggest we wait for Pronyma to appear and keep it as close as possible to the original script.' All the while I was thinking extremely negative thoughts about the whole plan.

The trap activated, startling me. I fell backwards, away from the trap.

I quickly got up and hid behind one of the large rocks. Stephen just teleported out of the trap. I can always get him back for that later…

Yuan stepped forward. "You've walked right into my trap, fools!"

The whole group just turned towards Zelos.

"He just called you a fool." Lloyd pointed out.

"Zelos…is clumsy." Presea stated.

Conflicting emotions flashed onto Zelos' face, but he hid them from most of the group, who were now focusing on how to get out.

Yuan gave an order to two of his men to retrieve the Rheairds. As these Renegades are more or less faithful to the grave, (Remember Botta…sob) they carried out his order.

After more evil villain talk form Yuan, Pronyma appeared. Now, I've always known that her fashion sense was bad, but honestly, who has green hair, wears far too much purple eye shadow and dresses in red and blue?

"Lord Yuan? What brings you to this place?" If Pronyma's question startled Yuan, he didn't show it.

"I should ask you the same, Pronyma. The role of the you Desians is to wreak havoc on the declining world." Yuan calmly replied.

'Wow, Yuan's really keeping his cool. I mean, if Mithos works out what Yuan's been doing…' I thought to no-one.

I received several quiet murmurs in reply.

"I have come here on Lord Yggdrasil's order to retrieve Colette. Please turn her over to me." Pronyma, I noticed was one of the only people in Cruix to call Colette by her name. Kratos calls her 'Chosen', Mithos calls her Martel's vessel and Yuan…does Yuan even mention her?

Yuan tried his luck bargaining with Pronyma. Basically, 'You have Colette, but I'm keeping Lloyd'. It wasn't until then that I realised how annoying that trap is. It kept making a high-pitched wailing noise.

Pronyma walked over to Colette. "What is this? Why is there such a crude Key Crest upon the Cruix Crystal? I shall remove this ugly thing at once." Pronyma reached for the Key Crest.

'Now!' Stephen shouted.

I couldn't move for a second, I was so shocked. I regained myself, and blasted the little mechanism for the trap.

"That shut it up!" I was referring to the high-pitched the trap made.

After that, everything happened at once. Colette regained her soul and drove Pronyma back with her chakrams. Everyone was amazed that Lloyd's Key Crest worked and Colette tripped over the mechanism of the ex-trap.

"Whoops!" It was interesting how Colette's whole personality could be expressed in one word.

As everyone was marvelling at the fact that they had Colette back, only Raine could see Pronyma rushing towards them, preparing for a fight.

(Why does everyone want to fight? I can't write fight scenes!)

"Behind you!" Raine's shout alerted them all.

They each drew their respective weapons. Raine and Zelos stayed behind, both casting spells. Lloyd, Presea, Stephen and I moved into front line position. Pronyma instantly cast Agarazium, which hit Raine into the air. I was within fire hurling distance, so I hurled some fire. Presea slashed with her axe a lot, which should have knocked her out cold, given the size of that thing.

Pronyma used Leonazium, creating a spirit like lion that knocked us all back through the air. I back-flipped in mid-air and landed gracefully on my feet, due to the little power I had over the air. Then I went straight back in for the attack. Pronyma cast Dark Sphere on me, which held me in one place, while magical shards of darkness entered me.

I pulled back and summoned Cyclone. Cyclone stayed in the air and told me to pull everyone back. I shouted the command to get away from her, and Cyclone breathed a pillar of fire onto Pronyma. However, she remained seemingly unhurt.

'What exactly did that do?' I asked.

'Dragon's fire doesn't burn flesh, it burns mana. Pronyma has hardly got any mana left for casting spells.'

'Are you serious?'

I couldn't wait for a reply, as Pronyma had started casting a water spell, by the look of her magic circle.

"Uh-oh." I was desperately trying to think of what water spells Pronyma knows, and how wide spread they are.

"Fools…Aqua Laser." Okay, this wasn't so bad, a wall of water, only about seven foot tall, headed straight for me!

It was getting closer, and more menacing every second. I was frozen in fear. The water changed its direction. Eventually, it hit Stephen, who must have been manipulating it.

Pronyma stopped casting spells, as she sensed her mana was low. With no means of inflicting pain on people, besides her mini-staff, she gave up and flew off.

Lloyd, not realising that everyone was weak from the battle, opened his mouth. "This is the perfect opportunity! Yuan, I'm going to settle our score right now!"

Luckily, Lloyd's guardian angel ran in. At the time, Lloyd didn't really appreciate it though.

"Kratos, what are you doing here?" Yuan asked.

Kratos sounded very bored, "Leave Yuan. Lord Yggdrasil has summoned you." But there seemed to be something in his voice that suggested he meant something more like: 'Leave, Yuan. And if you touch a hair on my son's head, I'll run you through with the Flamburge.'

"Are you taking the Chosen?" Yuan does refer to Colette.

"No, we shall leave her for now. It's the toxicosis." Colette was already beginning to crystallize at this point? Interesting…although not exactly nice for Colette.

Yuan's face betrayed the slightest emotion as he remembered Martel's disease. "I see. Lloyd, our battle will have to wait."

Yuan flew off in the general area of the Tower of Salvation (which has the initials ToS, same as the game title…)

Lloyd was disappointed that he couldn't fight Yuan.

"What are you doing?" Kratos asked.

"What?"

"Why have you come all the way here to Tethe'alla?" Kratos was the slightest little bit annoyed.

"Not that it is your business, but it just…happened." I was trying to sound as hostile as possible.

"Well, no matter." Kratos turned to take flight.

"Wait! Is it true that you spoke to Nia the other night?" Lloyd asked.

"What of it?"

I inspected my fingernails. "Kratos, he asked you a question. A simple yes or no would do."

Without a word, the seraph flew off.

"Charming, isn't he?" I said. As normal, everyone ignored me and turned to Colette.

"Thanks for getting us out of the trap, Colette," Lloyd thanked.

"What!" I was the one who burnt that thing, not Colette!

"Hey!" Everyone just ignored me.

'So much for your brilliant plan, Cyclone. So, how do we get away now?' Stephen asked.

'My suggestion is that we forget any chance of them trusting us and leave them at Meltokio sewer. Are you okay with that?' I asked.

'What choice do we have? One way or another, we're leaving.'

After Colette had been welcomed backwe started to head towards Meltokio.

"Um, Lloyd?" Lloyd looked behind him, in my direction.

"What is it?"

"You wouldn't be angry if me and Stephen left, would you?" It took a lot of courage to ask that question.

"Why would I be? You've proven yourself time and time again as our friend. We know that you'd never try to hurt us."

"Thanks, Lloyd." I gave the swordsman a big hug.

Lloyd just blushed and Zelos cried, "Why does he have all the luck?"

Sheena hit Zelos over the head, hard.

"Oww, Shee-na." Zelos whinged.

It hit me how much I'd miss these guys if I went. But I knew from experience that I'd just draw Naois to them and make their lives much more difficult, if not shorter.

"Why did you ask all of a sudden?" Lloyd asked after he'd recovered from the hug.

"I need to keep you safe, all of you. If I stay, Naois will tear you apart. She manipulates people, and if that doesn't work, she uses a kind of magic, which is really painful. I know from experience."

"We'd protect you and Stephen. Please, don't go."

"I promised. I always keep my promises."

"Who did you promise? Why do they want to protect me?"

"I'm sorry." I refused to say any more.

"Why can't you tell me?" Lloyd raised his voice and the groups attention was firmly on me and Lloyd.

I griped myself mentally, to force me not to shout. "I don't trust myself to speak. A word, one word, that slips out of my mouth could destroy everything. I cannot answer your questions."

He was shocked. "One word? How? Why? Who are you?"

"Stephen?" I asked. He knew exactly what I meant.

"Don't you dare! We've got to leave, right now. You have got so close, you might as well have kissed Symphonia goodbye."

"Goodbye." I whispered.

I changed into a sparrow, mainly for quick take off, and manoeuvrability. Stephen had turned into a wolf, knowing that he could out run anybody in pure speed, and could keep going for hours.

I took off, flapping like my life depended on it. The further I got away from them, the more it felt like I was yanking out a piece of my heart. I heard the steady thud of paws beneath me, Stephen trotting along. I landed on a nearby branch to change from a sparrow to an eagle. I always felt vulnerable as a smaller bird.

It wasn't long before we got to Meltokio. I saw Kratos long before he saw me. I landed on a tree and changed back into human.

"Kratos, we should have listened to you. We should have left that night without telling them." Stephen had teleported next to me, as a human (half-elf, whatever) as I finished speaking.

"What happened?" It wasn't a curious request, more of an order.

"Naois told them that we'd spoken to you. Now, they don't trust us." Stephen glumly said.

"I see. I-" Kratos was cut of by a series of electronic chimes from his belt.

"Wait a minute." He unhooked the device from his belt and flipped it open. I could make out Yuan's face on the screen.

'Cool it's a video phone!' Stephen thought.

"What precisely did Yggdrasil summon me for?" Yuan's face looked a little angry.

"If you really believed that-"

"It was a lie to get me away from Lloyd? I though he really did need me!" Yuan shouted. There was some slight distortion from the speaker.

"Is that all? I have some urgent matters that need attending to."

"Not too busy for Yggdrasil I hope." Yuan smirked. "Apparently, he wants to see you. Now. I checked."

"Fine." Kratos pressed a button on the communicator to hang up.

"It would be best not to keep Yggdrasil waiting. I plan on leaving as soon as possible."

I made out a group of black dots on the horizon. "What a coincidence, so do we."

"We do?" Stephen asked.

"The group, they're on the horizon."

While we were talking, Kratos had already pulled out his wings. "If you're coming, I'd suggest today as a leaving time."

"We're flying, right?"

"Teleporting." Kratos didn't really seem in a good mood. (When does he ever?)

Stephen and I got within striking distance of Kratos and Mr. Moody teleported us all to Derris-Kharlan. It was only halfway through the teleport that I remembered to take a bird form. I quickly changed into the first, 'pet' bird I could think of.

I was small; I could perch on someone's finger easily. I had white feathers and an orange-red bill. For some reason I had turned into a zebra finch.(Honestly, that was the first bird I thought of!) The bright white light subsided and I had my first glimpse of Derris-Kharlan.

I'm ending there! For the regular readers: I really wish that I'd made things easier for myself. They don't trust Nia, then they do and now they don't again. To the invisible reviewers…meh, I'll PM you. Or not. (Probably not!)

This space is dedicated to three people.

First, laras daughter. Without her this wouldn't be up on the Internet right now, so thank you, Mazzy.

Second (and third), TWS and Co. Thanks for reading this, even when you have absolutely no idea who the characters are. Thank you for the feedback. (and you will review sometime this week, right?)

If you enjoyed this chapter, (heck, if you enjoyed this whole fic) please review. If you hated it…at least tell me what's so bad about it. And I'm probably going to mention more reviewers, because they are what keep me writing when I'm stuck for ideas.